The days of romantic eloquence are fled—­the great constitutional questions that called forth “thoughts that breathe, and words that burn,” from men like Erskine, are determined.  Would you have men oratorical over a bottomry bond, Demosthenic about an action of trespass on the case, or a rule to compute?

To be sure, when Follett practised before committees of the House of Commons, and, by chance, any question involving points of interest and difficulty in Parliamentary law and practice came before the Court, there was something worth hearing:  the opportunity drew out the man, and the orator stepped before the advocate.  Even now, sometimes, it is quite refreshing to get a topic in these Courts worthy of Austin, and Austin working at it.  But no man need go to look for orators in our ordinary courts of law; judgment, patience, reading, and that rare compound of qualities known and appreciated by the name of tact, tell with judges, and influence juries; the days of palaver are gone, and the talking heroes extinguished for ever.

All this is well known in London; but the three or four millions (it may be five) of great men, philosophers, poets, orators, patriots, and the like, in the rural districts, require to be informed of this our declension from the heroics, in order to appreciate, or at least to understand, the modesty, sobriety, business-like character, and division of labour, in the vast amount of talent abounding in every department of life in London.

London overflows with talent.  You may compare it, for the purpose of illustration, to one of George Robins’ patent filters, into which pours turbid torrents of Thames water, its sediment, mud, dirt, weeds, and rottenness; straining through the various strata, its grosser particles are arrested in their course, and nothing that is not pure, transparent, and limpid is transmitted.  In the great filter of London life, conceit, pretension, small provincial abilities, pseudo-talent, soi-disant intellect, are tried, rejected, and flung out again.  True genius is tested by judgment, fastidiousness, emulation, difficulty, privation; and, passing through many ordeals, persevering, makes its way through all; and at length, in the fulness of time, flows forth, in acknowledged purity and refinement, upon the town.

There is a perpetual onward, upward tendency in the talent, both high and low, mechanical and intellectual, that abounds in London: 

     “Emulation hath a thousand sons,”

who are ever and always following fast upon your heels.  There is no time to dawdle or linger on the road, no “stop and go on again:”  if you but step aside to fasten your shoe-tie, your place is occupied—­you are edged off, pushed out of the main current, and condemned to circle slowly in the lazy eddy of some complimenting clique.  Thousands are to be found, anxious and able to take your place; while hardly one misses you, or turns his head to look after you should you lose your own:  you live but while you labour, and are no longer remembered than while you are reluctant to repose.