PART II. IMPROVEMENT OF RESIDENCES. 68f 



the country of an incumbrance ; the stately hearse enters the 

 church-yard, — he is deposited, and for ever forgotten : — there 

 is a secret rejoicing in the village, from the hopeful qualities 

 of the young heir. 



An occasional or annual visit and stay in town, may with 

 some have a good effect, by way of contrast to the coun- 

 try*, and is perhaps essential to the promotion of that com- 

 merce which is so advantageous to this kingdom. But let me 

 not be thought meddling/ with matters foreign to this work, 

 when I mention that the major part of a yearly income squan- 

 dered there, on modern entertainments, is pernicious both to 

 those who indulge in them, and to the community. With re- 

 spect to those who indulge in them, it must have one of these 

 two effects upon their minds — either these things prove cum- 

 bersome and disagreeable — or produce happiness. If the 

 latter, then it must follow, that when in the country they 

 receive pleasure from it only as variety of company makes it 

 approach to the nature of a city life. But the variety of the 

 country can never equal the diversity of city amusements : on 

 the contrary, it has a continual tendency to produce an oppo- 



* " It is the privilege of the man who has opened to his mind, by observation 

 and study, all the springs of pleasant association, to delight by turns in the rudeness 

 of solitary woods, in the cheerfulness of spreading plains, in the decorations of re- 

 fined art, in the magnificence of luxurious wealth, in the activity of crowded ports,, 

 the industry of cities, the pomp of spectacles, the pageantry of festivals." 



Edinburgh Review, No. XIV. page 315. 



