to each passenger according to his claims. Indeed, in calculating the
length of time requisite for arriving at a certain point, the inhabitant
of a country town should make due allowance for the necessary gossip
which must take place on the road, and for the frequent interchange of
bulletins of health, which is sure to occur; and after a residence of
any length in these sociable places, a sensation of solitude and
desertion is felt in those crowded streets of our metropolis, where the
full tide of population may roll past us for hours without bringing with
it a single glance of recognition or kindness. Here round games and
Casino still find refuge and support amidst a steady band of faithful
partizans; here old maids escape ridicule from being numerous, and old
bachelors acquire importance from being scarce. It is, indeed, to this
latter description of persons that I would especially recommend a
residence in a country town; and, as Dr. Johnson said, that "wherever he
might dine, he would wish to breakfast in Scotland;" so, wherever I may
pass my youth, let my days of old bachelorship, if to such I am doomed,
be spent in a country town. There the genteel male population forsake
their birthplace at an early age; and since war no longer exists to
supply their place with the irresistible military, the importance of a
single man, however small his attractions, however advanced his age, is
considerable; while a tolerably agreeable bachelor under sixty is the
object of universal attention, the cynosure of every lady's eye. In the
cathedral city, where I visited a friend some years since, there were
forty-five single women, from sixteen to fifty, and only three
marriageable men. Let any one imagine the delight of receiving the most
flattering attentions from fifteen women at once, some of them extremely
pretty and agreeable; or, I should rather say, from forty-five, since
the three bachelors, politically avoiding all appearance of preference,
were courted equally by nearly the whole phalanx of the sisterhood. One
of the enviable men, being only just of age, was indeed too young to