adjoining to every town, a public
gravelled, or paved, Walk, provided with covered and open seats, to
which, from spring to autumn, the inhabitants might resort, and
promenade between the hours of six and eight or nine. Might not such
walk be rendered attractive, during those hours, by being provided
with two, three, or four Musicians to play marches and lively airs,
and increase the hilarity of the scene? A district would thus become
social, and the inhabitants would know each other; though the proud
need not mix with the humble more than would be agreeable. Such an
arrangement would render less necessary those costly and vitiating
excursions to watering-places, which are made in quest of similar
gratifications; and they would render two hours of every twenty-four a
period of enjoyment to tens of thousands, who now enjoy no relief from
gloomy cares, except at the public-house, the card-table, or the
backgammon-board. It would, moreover, be a cheap pleasure, supported
by a rate of half-a-guinea per house per annum, while it would afford
at least 1000 hours of innocent and healthful gratification to their
families. To enumerate all the direct and collateral advantages must
be unnecessary, because it would be difficult to imagine a single
objection that could weigh against the obvious benefits. Society would
then become a social state; and it would no longer be problematical,
whether a man in a wilderness, separated from the bad passions of his
fellow-men, were not happier than he who is surrounded by them, but
who has no counterpoise in their intercourse and affections? May these
considerations sink deep into the minds of "Men of Ross," wherever
they are to be found; and, if acted upon as they merit, I may perhaps
live to form one of many happy groupes of village or parish
promenades, which owe their origin to these observations.

As an infallible test of the intellectual cultivation and social
dispositions of any town, I enquired of two dealers in books, whether
there existed any Book-club, but was answered in the negative. A small
collection of those beguilers of time, or cordials for _ennui_, called
Novels constitute a circulating library; and, judging from the
condition of the volumes, this degree of literary taste is general
among the females of this village. Far be it from me to depreciate the
negative merits of novel-reading, because the majority tend to improve
the heart, to direct the sensibilities and sympathie