l remains, epitaphs, civic registers, national
music, or any other of the thousand manifestations of the common mind
which may be found among every people, afford more information on Morals
in a day than converse with individuals in a year. Thus also must
Manners be judged of, since there never was a society yet, not even a
nunnery or a Moravian settlement, which did not include a variety of
manners. General indications must be looked for, instead of
generalizations being framed from the manners of individuals. In cities,
do social meetings abound? and what are their purposes and character?
Are they most religious, political, or festive? If religious, have they
more the character of Passion Week at Rome, or of a camp-meeting in
Ohio? If political, do the people meet on wide plains to worship the Sun
of the Celestial Empire, as in China; or in town-halls, to remonstrate
with their representatives, as in England; or in secret places, to
spring mines under the thrones of their rulers, as in Spain? If
festive, are they most like an Italian carnival, where everybody laughs;
or an Egyptian holiday, when all eyes are solemnly fixed on the whirling
Dervishes? Are women there? In what proportions, and under what law of
liberty? What are the public amusements? There is an intelligible
difference between the opera at Milan, and the theatre at Paris, and a
bull-fight at Madrid, and a fair at Leipzig, and a review at St.
Petersburg.--In country towns, how is the imitation of the metropolis
carried on? Do the provincials emulate most in show, in science, or in
the fine arts?--In the villages, what are the popular amusements? Do the
people meet to drink or to read, to discuss, or play games, or dance?
What are the public houses like? Do the people eat fruit and tell
stories? or drink ale and talk politics or call for tea and saunter
about? or coffee and play dominoes? or lemonade and laugh at Punch? Do
they crowd within four walls, or gather under the elm, or spread
themselves abroad over the cricket-field or the yellow sands?--There is
as wide a difference among the humbler classes of various countries as
among their superiors in rank. A Scotch burial is wholly unlike the
ceremonies of the funeral pile among the Cingalese; and an interment in
the Greek church little resembles either. A conclave of White Boys in
Mayo, assembled in a mud hovel on a heath, to pledge one another to
their dreadful oath, is widely different from a similar co