eligion maintained occasionally, even the
whole length of the lane, at point of constable's staff; but, at other
times, placed under the custody of the beadle, within certain black and
unstately iron railings of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Among the
wheelbarrows and over the vegetables, no perceptible dominance of
religion; in the narrow, disquieted streets, none; in the tongues,
deeds, daily ways of Maiden Lane, little. Some honesty, indeed, and
English industry, and kindness of heart, and general idea of justice;
but faith, of any national kind, shut up from one Sunday to the next,
not artistically beautiful even in those Sabbatical exhibitions; its
paraphernalia being chiefly of high pews, heavy elocution, and cold
grimness of behaviour.

What chiaroscuro belongs to it--(dependent mostly on candlelight),--we
will, however, draw considerately; no goodliness of escutcheon, nor
other respectability being omitted, and the best of their results
confessed, a meek old woman and a child being let into a pew, for whom
the reading by candlelight will be beneficial.[126]

For the rest, this religion seems to him
discreditable--discredited--not believing in itself; putting forth its
authority in a cowardly way, watching how far it might be tolerated,
continually shrinking, disclaiming, fencing, finessing; divided against
itself, not by stormy rents, but by thin fissures, and splittings of
plaster from the walls. Not to be either obeyed, or combated, by an
ignorant, yet clear-sighted youth: only to be scorned. And scorned not
one whit the less, though also the dome dedicated to it looms high over
distant winding of the Thames; as St. Mark's campanile rose, for goodly
landmark, over mirage of lagoon. For St. Mark ruled over life; the
Saint of London over death; St. Mark over St. Mark's Place, but St.
Paul over St. Paul's Churchyard.

Under these influences pass away the first reflective hours of life,
with such conclusion as they can reach. In consequence of a fit of
illness, he was taken--I cannot ascertain in what year[127]--to live with
an aunt, at Brentford; and here, I believe, received some schooling,
which he seems to have snatched vigorously; getting knowledge, at least
by translation, of the more picturesque classical authors, which he
turned presently to use, as we shall see. Hence also, walks about
Putney and Twickenham in the summer time acquainted him with the look
of English meadow-ground in its restricted states o