a" to the "March of Enlightenment," that, out of
that very spirit of contradiction natural to all rational animals,
one is tempted to stop one's ears, and say, "Gently, gently; LIGHT is
noiseless: how comes 'Enlightenment' to make such a clatter? Meanwhile,
if it be not impertinent, pray, where is Enlightenment marching to?" Ask
that question of any six of the loudest bawlers in the procession, and
I'll wager tenpence to California that you get six very unsatisfactory
answers. One respectable gentleman, who, to our great astonishment,
insists upon calling himself "a slave," but has a remarkably free way of
expressing his opinions, will reply, "Enlightenment is marching towards
the seven points of the Charter." Another, with his hair a la jeune
France, who has taken a fancy to his friend's wife, and is rather
embarrassed with his own, asserts that Enlightenment is proceeding
towards the Rights of Women, the reign of Social Love, and the
annihilation of Tyrannical Prejudice. A third, who has the air of a man
well-to-do in the middle class, more modest in his hopes, because he
neither wishes to have his head broken by his errand-boy, nor his
wife carried off to an Agapemone by his apprentice, does not take
Enlightenment a step farther than a siege on Debrett, and a cannonade
on the Budget. Illiberal man! the march that he swells will soon trample
him under foot. No one fares so ill in a crowd as the man who is wedged
in the middle. A fourth, looking wild and dreamy, as if he had come out
of the cave of Trophonius, and who is a mesmerizer and a mystic, thinks
Enlightenment is in full career towards the good old days of alchemists
and necromancers. A fifth, whom one might take for a Quaker, asserts
that the march of Enlightenment is a crusade for universal philanthropy,
vegetable diet, and the perpetuation of peace by means of speeches,
which certainly do produce a very contrary effect from the Philippics of
Demosthenes! The sixth--good fellow without a rag on his back--does not
care a straw where the march goes. He can't be worse off than he is; and
it is quite immaterial to him whether he goes to the dog-star above,
or the bottomless pit below. I say nothing, however, against the march,
while we take it altogether. Whatever happens, one is in good company;
and though I am somewhat indolent by nature, and would rather stay at
home with Locke and Burke (dull dogs though they were) than have my
thoughts set off helter-skelter w