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ENGLISH TKAITS.

ENGLISH TRAITS.

EMERSON.

BOSTON: JAMES l-ate

OSGOOD AND COMPANY,

Ticknor

Fields,

and

Fields,

1872.

Osgood,

Co.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

PiHST Visit to Enolaitd,

CHAPTER

II.

Voyage to Enolans,

CHAPTER

III.

Land

CHAPTER

IV.

Race

CHAPTER

....79

Abii>itt

CHAPTER

VI.

Mannebs,

106

(5)

CONTENTS.

^ CHAPTER

VII.

Tbuih

CHAPTER

VIII. ^^^

CHAaiCTEE,

CHAPTER

IX. 1*Â°

COCKATNE,

CHAPTER

X. 15^

Wealth

CHAPTER

XI. 174

Aeistoceact,

CHAPTER

XII. 200

TJniveesities

CHAPTER Belioion

XIII.

21S

CHAPTER XIV. 232

LiTEBATUBE

CHAPTER XV. The " Times,"

260

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XVI. Stonesenoe

272

CHAPTER

XVII. 290

Feesoitai,

CHAPTER

XVIII. 296

Resitlt,

CHAPTER XIX. 8PBBCH AT MaITCHERTEB,

â&#x20AC;¢

107

;

ENGLISH TRAITS.

CHAPTER

FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND. 1

HAVE been

twice in England.

In 1833, on

return from a short tour in Sicily, Italy, and

France, I crossed from Boulogne, and landed in

London

at the

Tower

stairs.

was

a dark

day morning ; there were few people in the

and I remember the pleasure of English ground, with artist,

that first

Sun-

streets

walk on

companion, an American

from the Tower up through Cheapside and

the Strand, to a house in Russell Square, whither

we had been recommended to good chambers. For the first time for many months we were forced to check the saucy habit of travellers' criticism, as we could no longer speak aloud in the streets without being understood.

guage

;

The

shop-signs spoke our lan-

our country names were on the door-plates (9)

;

ENGLISH TRAITS.

and the public and private buildings wore a more native and

wonted

front.

men at that time, I was much men of Edinburgh, and of the

Like most young indebted to the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

to Jeffrey, Mackintosh, HalEdinburgh Review, lam, and to Scott, Playfair, and De Quincey ; and my narrow and desultory reading had inspired the

wish to see the faces of three or four writers, Coleridge,

Wordsworth, Landor,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Quincey, and

the latest and strongest contributor to the critical journals, Caxlyle

;

and I suppose

the reasons that led

and was advised to

had

sifted

Europe, when I was

travel, it

was mainly the

ill

attrac-

If Goethe had been

still

might have wandered into Germany

also.

tion of these living, I

if I

persons.

Besides those I have named, (for Scott was dead,)

was not in Britain the

-ihere I

Wellington, ster

Abbey,

young

whom

at the funeral

scholar fancies

with people

man

living

whom

were the Duke of I afterwards saw at "Westmin-

cared to behold, unless

who can

of Wilberforce.

The

happiness enough to live

give an inside to the world

without reflecting that they are prisoners, too, of their

own thought, and cannot apply themselves to The conditions of literary success are al-

yours.

most destructive of the best social power, as they do not leave that frolic liberty which only can

FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND.

encounter a companion on the best terms. probable

you

tavern, or in

and equality to play

some

left

the

to life,

when you

crossed sea and land scribes.

however, found writers superior will dispose fast

It i8

farms, with right mother-wit,

bo-peep with celebrated

and I cling

comrade

obscure

first

I have,

their books,

belief, that a strong

head

enough of these impediments, and

give one the satisfaction of reality, the sense of

having been met, and a larger horizon.

looking over the diary of

my journey in my memoran-

1833, I find nothing to publish in

da of

visits

places.

few notes I made of

But

have copied the

visits to persons, as

they re-

spect parties quite too good and too transparent to

the whole world to

make

needful to

affect

any

prudery of suppression about a few hints of those bright personalities.

At ratio

Florence, chief

among

artists

Greenough, the American

I found

sculptor.

Ho-

His face

was so handsome, and his person so well formed, that he might be pardoned, if, as was alleged, the â&#x20AC;˘

face of his

Medora, and the figure of a

colossal

Achilles in clay, were idealizations of his own.

Greenough was a superior man, ardent and eloquent, and all his opinions had elevation and Vnagnanimity.

believed that the Greeks had

ENGLISH TKAITS.

wrought in schools or

fraternities,

—

the genius of

the master imparting his design to his friends, and"

them with it, and when his strength was spent, a new hand, with eq^ual heat, continued the work ; and so by relays, until it was finished

inflaming

in every part

with equal

This was necessary

fire.

in so refractory a material as stone

and he thought

;

would never prosper until we left our shy jealAll his ous ways, and worked in society as they. He was thoughts breathed the same generosity. an accurate and a deep man. He was a votary of art

the Greeks, and impatient of Gothic

art.

His pa-

per on Architecture, published in 1843, announced in advance the leading thoughts of

Mr. Ruskin on

the morality in architecture, notwithstanding the

antagonism in their views of the history of I have a private letter from him, specting the same period,

sketches his structure

own

theory.

scientific

—

later,

art.

but re-

in which he roughly " Here is my theory of

arrangement of spaces and

forms to functions and to

site

;

an emphasis of

fea-

tures proportioned to their gradated importance in

function

;

color and

ornament

ranged and varied by

strictly

to be decided

a distinct reason for each decision

immediate banishment of believe."

all

and

ar-

organic laws, having ;

the entire and

make-shift and make-

FIEST VISIT TO ENGLAND.

Greenough brought

me, tlirough a common from Mr. Landor, -who lived

friend, an invitation at

San Domenica

di Fiesole.

I dined with Mr.

Landor.

him noble

and courteous, living in a cloud of pictures Villa

Gherardesca,

beautiful

had

at his

house commanding a

fine

landscape.

May

the 15th

I found

from

inferred

his

books, or magnified from some anecdotes, an impression of Achillean wrath, lance.

I do

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an untamable

know whether

not

petu-

the imputation

this May day haughty mind, and he was

were just or not, but certainly on his courtesy veiled that

the most patient and gentle of hosts. the

beautiful

Florence

cyclamen which

grows

he admired Washington

;

praised

about

all

talked

;

Wordsworth, Byron, Massinger, Beaumont and

Fletcher.

sure,

opinions, likes to surprise, and

is is

impress, if possible, his English

immutable

past.

son, if Philip

and Philip he prefers

man

his

well content to

whim upon

the

ever had a great

and Alexander be not an exception ; In art, he calls the greater man.

loves the Greeks,

great

decided

the

and in sculpture, them

Venus

every thing

else,

only.

and,

after that, the head of Alexander, in the gallery

here.

Angelo

He ;

prefers

John of Bologna Eaffaelle ; and

in painting,

Michael

shares the

;

ENGLISH TKAITS.

Perugino and the early masters. The Greek histories he thought the only good;

growing

and

after

taste for

praise Mackintosh, nor

make him more recent friends and Charron also,

I could not

them, Voltaire's.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Montaigne very cordially, He thought which seemed undiscriminating. " Degerando indebted to " Lucas on Happiness " He pestered me and " Lucas on Holiness !

with Southey

invited

half a

citing

Caesar's

Lord

fail

Southey

to go,

on Friday.

and

this

hexameter

Donatus, he

lines

of Julius

said.

glorified

more than was necessary, and

Chesterfield

undervalued Burke, and

undervalued Socrates

designated as three of the greatest of men, ington,

time with

entertained us at once with re-

dozen

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; from

breakfast

Friday I did not

Greenough.

who

but

;

and

Phocion,

pomologists, in their

Timoleon; much

lists,

Washas

our

select the three or the

six best pears

" for

even omit

remark the similar termination of " A great man," he said, " should

their names.

a small orchard

;

" and did not

make

great sacrifices, and kill his hundred oxen, without knowing whether they would be con-

sumed by gods and heroes, or whether the flies would eat them." I had visited Professor Amici, who had shown me his microscopes, magnifying

(it

was

said)

two

thousand

di-

FIRST TISIT TO ENGLAND.

ameters ; and I spoke of the uses to -whicli they were applied. Landor despised entomology, yet, in the same breath, said, "the sublime was in a grain of dust."

him about

I suppose I teased

recent writers, but

he professed never to have

One room

heard of Herschel, not even by name.

was

which he

full of pictures,

likes to show, es-

pecially one piece, standing before which,

"he would

give

would swear

guineas

fifty

was a Domenichino."

the guests, told his books,

I was

curious to see his library, but Mr.

he said

man

the

that

one of

Mr. Landor gives away

that

and has never more than a dozen

at a

time in his house.

Mr. Landor carries to its height the love of which the English delight to indulge, as if

freak

commanding freedom.

to signalize their

a wonderful haustible,

meant

converted to

nor a

tint

brain,

not

despotic,

soldier,

known

said about

sentence, a step forward,

the censures.

Landor

not a style

The it.

thing done

original

worth more than

all

strangely undervalued in

England ; usually ignored ly attacked in the

has

him, yet with an English

and heroes.

and not what

and inex-

by what chance

which there

letters, in

appetite for action avails,

for

violent,

;

and sometimes savage-

Reviews.

The

criticism

may

ENGLISH TRAITS.

be right, or -wrong, and

quickly forgotten

year after year the scholar must

still

;

but

go back

Landor for a multitude of elegant sentences

—

to for

wisdom, wit, and indignation that are unforgetable.

From London, on the 5th August, I went to Highgate,

and wrote a note

leave to pay

Mr. Coleridge, requesting It was near noon.

respects to him.

Mr. Coleridge sent a verbal message, that he was in bed, but if I would call after one o'clock, he would I returned at one,

see me.

short, thick old fine clear

and he appeared,

man, with bright blue eyes and

complexion, leaning on his cane.

took snuff freely, which presently soiled his cravat

and neat black

suit.

asked whether I knew

warmly of his merits and dowhen he knew him in Rome ; what a master

Allston, and spoke

ings

of the Titianesque he was, &c., &c.

spoke of

was an unspeakable misfortune that he should have turned out a Unitarian after Dr. Chauning.

all.

he burst into a declamation on the

this,

and ignorance of Unitarianism,

—

its high unand taking up Bish >p Waterland's book, which lay on the table, he read with vehemence two or three pages written by himself in

folly

reasonableness

the fly-leaves,

;

—

passages, too, which, I believe, are

FIBST ViSIT TO ENGLAND.

printed in the "Aids to Eeflection." When he stopped to take breath, I interposed, that, " whilst

bound

I highly valued all his explanations, I was to tell

him

that I

" Yes," he

said,

as before.

•

was born and bred a Unitarian." " I supposed so ; " and continued

was a wonder, that

after so

many

ages of unquestioning acquiescence in the doc-

trine of St. Paul,

which was

also,

— the

doctrine of the Trinity,

according to Philo Judaeus, the

Jews before

—

handful

doctrine of the

of Priestleians should take on themselves to deny

• it, '

&c., &c.

ning,

—

man

Christ,

was very sorry that Dr. Chan-

whom

he looked up,

him would be

•

say that he looked

falsely

•

interest,

saw Dr. Channing, he had hinted

;

this

—

no, to

speak

but a man whom he looked at with so much

— should embrace such

When

views. to

him

that he

was afraid he loved Christianity for what was lovely

•

and

the true

excellent,

— he loved the good

and I

;

'ten persons

'who loved

tell

you,

who loved

the true

;

it,

that I have

sir,

and not

known

the good, for one person

but

it is

a far greater virtue

'to love the true for itself alone, than to love the

'good • '

for itself alone.

(Coleridge)

knew

all

about Unitarianism perfectly well, because he had

once been a Unitarian, and knew what quackery it

was.

had been o *

called

" the

rising star of

;

EWGLISH TRAITS.

He went

on defining, or rathet refining The Trinitarian doctrine was realism ; 'the idea of God was not essential, but super; ' essential talked of trinism and tetralcism, and Unitarianism."

much more, *

of which I only caught this, 'that

the will was that by which a person

'because, if one should '

push

a person

in the street,

and so I should force the man next me into the kennel, I should at once exclaim, " I did not do it,

sir,"

also,

meaning

was not

And

will.'

you should insist on your faith here on mine, mine would be the

that if

in England, and I

hotter side of the fagot.' I took advantage of a pause to say, that he

many

this

had

readers of all religious opinions in America,

and I proceeded

to inquire if the

" extract " from

the Independent's pamphlet, in the third volume

of the Friend, were a veritable quotation. plied, that

was

really taken

his possession, entitled

re-

from a pamphlet in

Protest of one of the

Independents," or something to that

him how

excellent I thought

it,

effect.

I told

and how much I

" Yes," he said, " the man was a chaos of truths, but lacked the knowledge that God was a God of order. Yet the passage would no douDt strike you more in the wished to see the entire work.

q^uotation than

m the original, for I

have

filtered it."

FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND.

When. I rose to go, he said, " I do not kno\r whether you care about poetry, but I will repeat some verses I sary," and he

lately

made on

my baptismal anniver-

recited with strong emphasis, stand-

ing, ten or twelve lines, beginning, " Born unto God in Chiist

He inquired where I had been travelling ; and on learning that I had been in Malta and Sicily, he compared one island with the other, * repeating what he had said to the Bishop of London when he returned from that country, that Sicily was an excellent school of political economy ; for, in any ' town there, it only needed to ask what the govern' ment enacted, and reverse that to know what ought â&#x20AC;˘ to be done ; it was the most felicitously opposite â&#x20AC;˘ legislation to any thing good and wise. There which government were only three things the had * '

brought into that garden of delights, namely,

pox, and famine.

law and mind was seen, in making that barren rock

of semi-Saracen inhabitants the seat of population

â&#x20AC;˘

and plenty.'

itch,

Whereas, in Malta, the force of

Going

out,

he showed

in the next

apartment a picture of AUston's, and told

that

Montague, a picture-dealer, once came to see him, * and, glancing towards this, said, " Well, you have ' got a picture " thinking it the work of an old

ENGLISH TRAITS.

20 '

master

afterwards,

;

Montague,

still

talking with

•his back to the canvas, put up his hand and ' touched exclaimed, " By Heaven this it, and '

picture

•

skilful

not ten years old

—

so delicate and

was that man's touch.'

I was in his company for about an find

hour, but

impossible to recall the largest part of his

which was often

discourse,

paragraphs in his book, readily did

many

like so

— perhaps

fall into certain

printed

the same,

commonplaces.

—

I might have foreseen, the visit was rather a spectacle

than a conversation, of no use beyond the

satisfaction of

curiosity.

was old and pre-

occupied, and could not bend to a

new companion

and think with him.

I went to the Highlands. On came from Glasgow to Dumfries, and being intent on delivering a letter which I had brought from Rome, inquired for Craigenputtock.

From Edinburgh

return, I

was a farm

in Nithsdale, in the parish of

score, sixteen

passed near the inn. hills,

heart.

it,

miles

distant.

public

Duncoach

so I took a private carriage from

I found the house amid desolate heathery

where the lonely scholar nourished Carlyle was a

man from

his

mighty

his youth, an au-

FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND. thor

who

did not need to hide from his readers, and

as absolute a

man

unknown and exiled on his own terms

of the world,

on that

hill-farm, as if holding

what

best in London.

with a

cliif-like

was

tall

and gaunt,

brow, self-possessed, and holding his

extraordinary powers of conversation in easy com-

mand

;

clinging to his northern accent with evident

relish

;

full of lively anecdote,

and with a stream-

ing humor, which floated every thing he looked

His talk playfully exalting the familial

upon.

objects, put the

companion

once into an acquaint-

ance with his Lars and Lemurs, and pleasant to learn

mythology.

what was predestined

Few were

man, "not a person

was very

be a pretty

the objects and lonely the

speak to within sixteen " so that ;

miles except the minister of Dunscore

books inevitably made his

had names of

his

familiar to his discourse.

" sand magazine

topics.

own

for all the matters

" Blackwood's " was the

" " Eraser's " nearer approach to

;

was the " mud magazine j " a piece of road near by that marked some failed enterprise was the "grave of the last sixpence." When too much praise of any genius annoyed him, possibility of

life

he professed hugely to admire the talent shown by his pig.

had spent much time and contrivance

in confining the poor beast to one enclosure

his

ENGLISH TRAITS.

pen, but pig, by great strokes of judgment, had

found out

For

him.

how all

to let a that,

board down, and had foiled

thought

still

man

the most

plastic little fellow in the planet, and he liked Nero's death, " Qualis artifex pereo ! " better than

most fest

history.

any truth

man

worships a

him.

that will mani-

At one time he had

quired and read a good deal about America. dor's

principle

was mere

rebellion,

he knew of that country was, that in have meat for his book, that

when he

for the Boots,

best thing

man

inquired in a

Mungo

can

had read in Stewart's

New York

he had been shown across the

and had found

labor.

and that he

The

feared was the American principle.

in-

Lan-

in his

own house

hotel street

dining

roast turkey.

talked of books.

Plato he does not read,

and he disparaged Socrates

;

and,

when

pressed,

making Mirabeau a hero. Gibbon he called the splendid bridge from the old world to the new. His own reading had been multifarious. Tristram Shandy was one of his first books after Robinson Crusoe, and Robertson's America an persisted in

early favorite.

Rousseau's Confessions had dis-

covered to him that he was not a dunce

and it ; was now ten years since he had learned German, by the advice of a man who told him he would find in that language

what he wanted.

FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND.

He ture

took despairing or at

this

sums paid

moment

views of

satirical

litera-

recounted the incredible

by the great booksellers for comes that no newspaper is

in one year

Hence

puffing.

;

trusted now, no books are bought, and the booksellers are

on the eve of bankruptcy. returned to English pauperism, the

still

crowded country, the

men ' '

by public

selfish abdication

that public

all

persons should perform.

Government should direct poor men what to do. Poor Irish folk come wandering over these moors. My dame makes it a rule to give to eveiy son of

Adam

eat, and supplies his wants to the But here are thousands of acres which might give them all meat, and nobody to * bid these poor Irish go to the moor and till it. * They burned the stacks, and so found a way to *

bread to

'next house. '

force the rich people

We went at

Criffel,

to attend to them.'

out to walk over long

hills,

then without his cap, and

"Wordsworth's country.

There we

sat

talked of the immortality of the soul. Carlyle's fault that

down

into

down, and It

was not

talked on that topic, for he

had the natural disinclination of spirit

and looked

every nimble

bruise itself against walls, and did not

like to place

himself where no step can be taken.

But he was honest and

true,

and cognizant of the

ENGLISH TRAITS.

subtile links that bind ages together,

and saw how

every event

affects all

on the

â&#x20AC;˘

brought you and

relative existence.'

tree

that built

the future.

Dunscore kirk yonder together.

was already turning

don with a

Christ died

Time

that

has only a

his eyes towards Lon-

scholar's appreciation.

London

the

heart of the world, he said, wonderful only from the mass of

human

beings.

liked the huge

Each keeps its own round. The baboy brings muffins to the window at a fixed hour every day, and that is all the Londoner knows or wishes to know on the subject. But it turned out good men. He named certain individuals, machine.

ker's

especially one

mind he knew,

man

of letters, his friend, the best

whom London

had well served.

the 28th August, I went to Rydal Mount,

my respects to Mr. Wordsworth. His daughters called in their father, a plain, elderly, white-haired man, not prepossessing, and disfigured to

pay

by green goggles. great simplicity.

He sat He had

down, and talked with

just returned from a His health was good, but he had broken a tooth by a fall, when walking with two lawyers, and had said, that he was glad it did not happen

journey.

FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND. forty years ago

whereupon they had praised

;

his

philosophy.

He had much gave occasion

to say of

America, the more that

for his favorite topic,

—

that society

being enlightened by a superficial tuition, out

all

proportion to

culture.

education.

its

Schools

thinks

being restrained by moral

good.

Tuition

not

more of the education of

circumstances than of tuition.

'Tis not question

whether there are offences of which the law takes cognizance, but whether there are offences of which the law does not take cognizance. Sin is what he fears, and how society is to escape with-

out gravest mischiefs from

this

source

—

has even said, what seemed a paradox, that they

needed a

war

civil

in America, to teach the ne' There America some vulgarity in not important. That comes of

cessity of knitting the social ties stronger.

may

said,

manner, but

that's

the pioneer state of things.

too

ondly, to politics

be,'

much given

—

But I fear they are the making of money and sec-

to ;

;

that they

men

of leisure,

to give a tone of

make

and not the means.

tion the end,

lack a class of

'tlemen,

—

political distinc-

And

I fear they

in short, of gen-

honor

to the

commu-

told that things are boasted of in the

nity.

second class of society there, which, in England,

ENGLISH TEAITS.

26 '

— God knows,

are done in

England every day, — of. In America I wish

but would never be spoken

what newspapers

at the foot of the hill,

assures

accuse

members of Congress of

know

not

how many ?

churches or schools, but

My friend.

Colonel Hamilton,

who was

a year in America,

that the newspapers are atrocious, and stealing spoons

lie was against taking off the tax on newspapers in

England, which the reformers represent

upon knowledge,

as a tax

for this reason, that they

be inundated with base prints.

said,

would

he talked

he wished to impress on good Americans to cultivate the moral,

political aspects, for

and

all

the conservative, &c., &c., and never to

call into

action the physical strength of the people, as had just Bill,

now been done

—

a thing prophesied

England

in the Reform

He alluded

by Delolme.

once or twice to his conversation with Dr. Chan-

who had

ning,

hand on a

recently visited him, (laying his

particular chair in

which the Doctor had

sat.)

The

conversation turned on books.

he esteems a his system,

with

and

higher poet than Virgil is

Faith

illustration.

thing,

far

which

evil.

not in

nothing, but in his power of is

necessary

to reconcile the

human

Lucretius

explain

any

foreknowledge of God

Of Cousin, (whose

lectures

FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND.

had

all

been reading

Boston,) he

knew

only

the Same. I inquired if he

had read Carlyle's critical artiand translations. He said, he thought him

cles

He proceeded

sometimes insane.

Wilhelm Meister

heartily.

ner of fornication.

in the air. first

part

;

was

and said what I could ;

full of all

man-

like the crossing of flies

had never gone farther than the

so disgusted

was he

book across the room. book

to abuse Goethe's

was

that he threw the

I deprecated this wrath, for the better parts of the

and he courteously promised

to look at it

Carlyle, he said, wrote most obscurely. was clever and deep, but he defied the sympaEven Mr. Coleridge wrote thies of every body. again.

clearly,

though he had always wished Cole-

ridge would write more to be understood.

out into his garden, and showed

walk in which thousands of posed.

His eyes are

much

his lines

inflamed.

led

the gravel

were comThis

loss, except for reading, because he never writes

prose, and of poetry he carries even hundreds of

head before writing them. He had returned from a visit to Stafla, and within

lines in his just

three days had

made

three sonnets on Fingal's

Cave, and was composing a fourth, palled in to see me.

said,

when he was

" If you are

inter-

ENGLISH TRAITS.

28 ested in

these lines."

verses, perhaps

will like to heal

you

I gladly assented

;

and he recollected

himself for a few moments, and then stood forth and repeated, one after the other, the three entire I fancied the second

sonnets with great animation.

and third more

The

to be.

beautiful than his

third

poems

are

wont

addressed to the flowers, which,

oxeye daisy, are very abunThe second alludes dant on the top of the rock. to the name of the cave, which is " Cave of Music ; " the first to the circumstance of its being

said, especially the

visited

by the promiscuous company of the steam-

boat.

This recitation was so unlocked for and surprising,

and

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

he, the old "Wordsworth, standing apart,

reciting to

boy declaiming, laugh

;

in a garden-walk, like a school-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

that

first

was near

but recollecting myself, that I had come

thus far to see a poet, and he was chanting poems

me, I saw that he was right and I was wrong, and gladly gave myself up to hear. I told him to

how much

the few printed extracts had quickened

the desire to possess his unpublished poems. replied,

he never was in haste

to publish

;

partly,

because he corrected a good deal, and every ation

ungraciously received after printing

alter;

but

what he had written would be printed, whether he

;

FIEST VISIT TO ENGLAND. lived or died.

I said,

to be the favorite

contemplative

" Tintern Abbey " appeared the public, but more

poem with

readers

preferred

the

first

of the " Excursion," and the Sonnets.

books said_,

" Yes, they are better." He preferred such of poems as touched the affections, to any others ; whatever so on,

didactic,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; might

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; what

his for

theories of society, and

perish quickly

but whatever com-

bined a truth with an affection was

xTrifj.a.

aei,

good to-day and good forever. He cited the sonnet " On the feelings of a high-minded Spaniard,"

which he preferred to any other, (I so understood him,) and the " Two Voices ; " and quoted, with evident pleasure, the verses addressed

Skylark."

this

connection,

" To the

he said of the

Newtonian theory, that it might yet be superseded and forgotten ; and Dalton's atomic theory. When I prepared to depart, he said he wished to show me what a common person in England could do, and he led

into the enclosure of his

young man, to whom he had given this of ground, which was laid out, or its natural

clerk, a slip

capabilities

shown, with much

taste.

then said

he would show me a better way towards the inn jmd he walked a good part of a mile, talking, and ever and anon stopping short to impress the word

;

ENGLISH TEAITS.

or the verse, and finally parted from

kindness, and returned across the

with great

fields.

Wordsworth honored himself by

his simple ad-

herence to truth, and was very willing not

to shine

but he surprised by the hard limits of his thought.

To judge from

a single conversation, he made the

impression of a narrow and very English mind; of one

who

paid for his rare elevation by general

tameness and conformity. opinions were of no value. find persons loving ate their departure tion,

Off his

sympathy and

&om

the

own

beat, his

It is not veiy rare to ease,

common,

who

expi-

in one direc-

their conformity in every other.

CHAPTEE

II.

VOYAGE TO ENGLAND.

The occasion of my second visit to England was an invitation from some Mechanics' Institutes and Yorkshire, which separately in the same way as our New England Lyceums, but, in 1847, had been linked into a " Union," which embraced twenty or thirty in

Lancashire

are organized

towns and

much

and presently extended into the middle counties, and northward into Scotland. I was invited, on liberal terms, to read a series of lectures in

cities,

them

all.

The request was urged with

every kind suggestion, and every assurance of aid

and comfort, by friendliest parties in Manchester, who, in the sequel, amply redeemed their word. The remuneration was equivalent to the fees at that time paid in this country for the like services. all

events,

was sufficient to cover any travelling

expenses, and the proposal offered an excellent opportunity of seeing the interior of England and (31)

ENGLISH TKAITS.

â&#x20AC;˘

Scotland,

by means of a home, and a committee of

intelligent friends, awaiting

in every town.

I did not go very willingly.

not a good

traveller, nor have I found that long journeys yield

fair

But the

share of reasonable hours.

a moment

invita-

more was repeated and pressed at leisure, and when I was a little spent by some unusual studies. I wanted a change and a tonic, and England was proposed to me. Besides, there were, at least, the dread attraction and salutary influences tion

of the

So I took

sea.

Washington Irving, and

berth in the packet-ship sailed

from Boston on

Tuesday, 5th October, 1847.

On dred

Friday

and

noon,

thirty-four

we had miles.

only made one hun-

nimble Indian

would have swum as far ; but the captain affirmed that the ship would show us in time all her paces, and we crept along through the floating drift of boards, logs, and chips, which the rivers of Maine and New Brunswick pour into the sea after a freshet. At last, on Sunday night, after doing one day's

work in four, the storm came, the winds blew, and we flew before a north-wester, which strained every rope and sail. The good ship darts through the water

all

day, all night, like a fish, quivering with

speed, gliding through liquid leagues, sliding from

horizon to horizon.

She has passed Cape Sable

;

TOTAGE TO ENGLAND. she has reached the Banks left

;

the land-birds are

;

swim, dive, and

gulls, haglets, ducks, petrels,

hover around

Banks

no fishermen

;

left five sail

;

she has passed the

behind her,

on the edge of

far

the west at sundown, which were far east of us at

morn,

— though

long race, shortest

they say

— and

still

from

sea-line

at sea

a stern chase

our

fly for

Boston

Liverpool

2850 miles. 150 miles.

shorter

than 3000, and usually

This a steamer keeps, and saves

line

sailing

ship

can never go in a

Our good master keeps

longer.

The

lives.

his kites

much up

the last moment, studding-sails alow and aloft, and,

by incessant way.

straight steering, never loses a rod of

"Watchfulness

watch on watch,

the law of the ship,

for advantage

the ship was built,

and

for

many

Since

life.

seems, the master never slept

" There

but in his day-clothes whilst on board. are

—

advantages," says Saadi, " in sea-voyag-

ing, but security

not one of them."

Yet

rying over these abysses, whatever dangers

in hur-

are

are certainly running out of the

running

into,

risks of

hundreds of miles every day, which have

their

own

chances of

piracy, cold,

on a steamboat or,

sq^uall, collision,

Hour

and thunder. is

greater

;

sea-stroke,

for hour, the risk

but the speed

is safety,

twelve days of danger, instead of twenty-four.

;

ENGLISH TRAITS.

Our

ship was registered

perhaps, with

750

all her freight,

tons,

and weiglied

1500

The

tons.

mainmast, from the deck to the top-button, measured 115 feet; the length of the deck, from

stem to stern, 155. ify a ship

say

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

It is impossible

every body does, in every thing they

;

she behaves well ; she minds her rudder

she swims like a duck

water

;

not to person-

;

she runs her nose into the

she looks into a port.

self-love

Then

that wonder-

by which we adopt every thing we touch, makes us

ful esprit

corps,

into our

cham-

all

pions of her sailing qualities.

The conscious ship hears all the praise. week she has made 1467 miles, and now,

In one at night,

â&#x20AC;˘seems to hear the steamer behind her, which

left

mended her speed, and is flying before the gray south wind eleven and a half The sea-fire shines in her wake, knots the hour. around wherever and far a wave breaks. I read the hour, 9h. 45', on my watch by this light. Near Boston to-day

at two, has

the equator, you can read small print by

mate describes the phosphoric

insects,

;

and the

when

taken

in a pail, as shaped like a Carolina potato.

I find the sea-life an acquired taste, like that

tomatoes and olives. tion, noise,

The

foi

confinement, cold, mo-

and odor are not to be dispensed with your room is sloped at an angle of

floor of

;

VOYAGE TO ENGLAND.

twenty or thirty degrees, and I waked every morning with the belief that some one was tipping up

Nobody

berth.

likes to

be treated ignomin-

iously, upsetj shoved against the side of the house,

rolled over, suffocated with bilge, mephitis, and

stewing at last,

The

oil.

get used to these annoyances

but the dread of the sea remains longer.

sea

masculine, the type of active strength.

Look, what egg-shells are

drifting all over

one, like ours, filled with

men

ror, alternating

eternal cemetery

but

this

this aggressive

geologist,

the land

blown up

the

sad-colored circle an

In our graveyards we scoop a water opens mile-wide pits

and chasms, and makes a mouthful of the

each

with cockney conceit, as the sea

rough or smooth. pit,

it,

in ecstasies of ter-

sea

the

in perpetual flux

like a tumor,

a fleet.

only firmament

and change, now

now sunk

in a chasm,

hundred years find it in a perpetual tilt, rising and falling. The sea keeps its old level ; and 'tis no wonder that and the registered observations of a few

the history of our race the ocean

so recent, if the roar of

silencing our traditions.

the-sea, such as has

A rising

been observed, say an inch in

a century, from east to west on the land, will bury idl

the towns,

monuments, bones, and knowledge

of mankind, steadily and insensibly.

it is

capa

ENGLISH TRAITS.

and secular mischiefs, it is q[uita as ready at private and local damage ; and of this no landsman seems' so fearful as the seaman. Such ble of these great

discomfort and such danger as the narratives of the captain and mate disclose are bad costly fee

wonder is

;

And

or.

enough

little

boy in

his shirt-sleeves,

had hid himself, whilst the ship was bread-closet, having no

The

England.

Guernsey

here, on the second day of our voyage,

stepped out a

as the

we pay for entrance to Europe but the always new that any sane man can be a sailwho

in port, in the

money, and wishing

to go

have dressed him in

sailors

frock, with a knife in his belt,

and he

climbing nimbly about after them, " likes the work Erst-rate, and, if the captain will take

dew

come back again

Rvers that this

out of ten are

them pride.

are

the history of

runaway boys

Jack has a

mate, and not very

hundred

dollars a

The mate

all sailors

;

and adds, that

;

sick of the sea, but stay in

and the worst pay.

him, means

in the ship."

nine

all

out of

of risks, incessant abuse,

life

It is

much

little

better with the

better with the captain.

month

reckoned high pay.

If sailors were contented, if they had not resolved

again and again not to go to sea any more, I should respect them.

course, the inconveniences and terrors of the

;

VOYAGE TO ENGLAND. sea are not of any account to those

are preoccupied.

The

whose minds

water-laws, arctic frost, the

mountain, the mine, only shatter cockneyism noble activity makes room for itself.

;

every great

mind

sea

not slow in disclosing inestimable secrets to

good

sailor, as a

great heart

is.

And

the

naturalist.

a good rule in every journey to provide some piece of liberal study to rescue the hours which bad weather, bad company, and taverns steal from the best economist. Classics which at home are drowsily read have a strange charm in a coun'Tis

try inn, or in the transom of a merchant brig.

remember

some of the happiest and most valuable hours I have owed to books, passed, many years ago, on shipboard. The worst impediment I have found at sea is the want of light in the cabin. We found on board the usual cabin library Basil Hall, Dumas, Dickens, Bulwer, Balzac, and Sand were our sea-gods. Among the passengers, there was some variety of talent and profession we exchanged our experiences, and all learned The busiest talk with leisure and consomething. that

venience at sea, and sometimes a memorable fact turns up, for,

and

which you have long had a vacant niche seize

with the joy of a

collector.

under the best conditions, a voyage

But,

one of the

;

ENGLISH TEAIT8.

severest tests to try a man. tion is nothing to

Sea-days are long,

it.

lack-lustre, joyless days

but they were few,

when we

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; only left

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

these

which whistled over

fifteen, as the captain

counted, sixteen according to me. the time

college examina-

Beckoned from

soundings, our speed was

such that the captain drew the line of

his course

in red ink on his chart, for the encouragement or

envy of future navigators. It has

been said that the King of England would

consult his dignity

by giving audience

to foreign

And

ambassadors in the cabin of a man-of-war.

I think the white path of an Atlantic ship the right

avenue to the palace front of

who

for

this seafaring people,

hundreds of years claimed the

strict sov-

ereignty of the sea, and exacted toll and the

ing

sail

from the ships of

their privilege

strik-

When

other peoples.

all

was disputed by the Dutch and

other junior marines, on the plea that you could

never anchor on the same wave, or hold property in

what was always flowing, the English did

stick to claim the channel, or

main.

" As

if," said they,

" we contended

drops of the sea, and not for of those waters. ty's

The

sea

bottom of

its

not

all the

for the

situation, or the bed

bounded by

its

genius was

his majes-

empire."

As we neared

the land

felt.

This

VOYAGE TO ENGLAND. Was inevitably the British thought

arises

now

new

ments, English loves and

and

In every man's

side.

system, English sentifears,

English history

modes. Yesterday, every passenger had measured the speed of the ship by watching the social

bubbles over the ship's bulwarks. of bubbles, ford,

we measure by

and Ardmore.

To-day, instead

Kinsale, Cork, Water-

There lay the green shore "We could

of Ireland, like some coast of plenty. see towns, towers,

churches, harvests

curse of eight hundred years

but the

could not discern.

CHAPTEK

III.

LAND. AiiFiEUi thought Italy and England the only countries worth living in

;

the former, because there

nature vindicates her rights, and triumphs over the evils inflicted

by the governments

;

the latter, be-

cause art conquers nature, and transforms a rude,

ungenial land into a paradise of comfort and plenty.

England

Under an ash-colored sky, combed and rolled tiU they

a garden.

the fields have been

appear to have been finished with a pencil instead of a plough.

The

solidity of the structures that

compose the towns speaks the industry of

Nothing

is left as it

was made.

leys, the sea itself feel the

ages.

Rivers, hiUs, val-

hand of a master.

The

long habitation of a powerful and ingenious race has turned every rood of land to

found

all

its

the capabilities, the arable

riable rock, the highways, the

the navigable waters

;

the quar-

byways, the fords,

and the new

course meet you every where

best use, has soil,

arts of inter-

so that

England (40)

LAND. a huge phalanstery, where

all that

provided within the precinct.

man wants

Cushioned and

comforted in every manner, the traveller rides as on a cannon-ball, high and low, over rivers and towns, through mountains, in tunnels of three or four miles, at near twice the speed of our trains

;

and reads quietly the Times newspaper, which, by its immense correspondence and reporting, seems to have machinized the rest of the world for hia occasion.

The problem of the is, "Why England

pool

traveller landing at Liveris

England

What

are the

elements of that power which the English hold over other nations tional genius

and

if there

If there be one test of na-

universally accepted,

success

be one successful country in the uni-

verse for the last millennium, that country

Eng-

land.

A wise traveller will naturally choose to visit the best of actual nations

;

and an American has more

reasons than another to draw

him

to Britain.

done or begun by the Americans towards right thinking or practice, we are met by a The civilization already settled and overpowering. culture of the day, the thoughts and aims of men, all

that

are English thoughts and aims.

A nation

able for a thousand years since Egbert,

consider-

has, in the

ENGLISH TRAITS.

42 last centuries,

obtained the ascendant, and stamped

the knowledge, activity, and power of mankind with its impress. Those who resist it do not feel

The Russian in his snows is The Turk and Chinese also are making awkward efforts to be English, The practical common-sense of modern society, it

or obey

aiming

less.

be English.

the utilitarian direction which labor, laws, opinion, religion take,

the natural genius of the British

The influence of France is a constituent of modern civility, but not enough opposed to the English for the most wholesome effect. The mind.

American

genius into

only the continuation of the English

new

conditions,

See what books

fill

our

or less propitious.

libraries.

Every book

read, every biography, play, romance, in what-

ever form,

still

English history and manners.

So that a sensible Englishman once said

long as you do not grant us copyright,

me, "As

shall

have the teaching of you."

But we have the same

difficulty in

making

social or

moral estimate of England, as the

finds in

drawing a jury

to try

sheriff

some cause which

has agitated the whole community, and on which

every body finds himself an interested party. ficers, jurors,

judges have

land has inoculated

all

taken

sides.

Of-

Eng-

nations with her civilization,

LAND.

and tastes ; and, to resist the tyranny and prepossession of the British element, a serious intelligencej

man must

aid himself,

by comparing with it the and west, the old

civilizations of the farthest east

Greek, the Oriental, and,

much more,

the

ideal

by means of the very impatience which English forms are sure to awaken in indestandard, if only

pendent minds.

Besides, if

time

will visit

has reached

its

highest point.

the English interest us a years

;

London, the present

the best time, as some signs portend that It is

little

and hence the impression

power has culminated,

observed that

less

within a few

that the British

in solstice, or already de-

clining.

As soon as you enter England, which, with Wales, no larger than the State of Georgia,*

this little

land stretches by an illusion to the dimensions of

The innumerable

an empire.

succession of towns,

details, the

great and decorated estates, the of the trades

crowded

cities, cathedrals, castles,

and

number and power

and guilds, the military strength and

splendor, the multitudes of rich and of remarkable people, the

servants

and equipages,

catching the eye, and never allowing *

Add South

Carolina, and

the area of Scotland.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; it

all

these

to pause,

you have more than an equiTalent

foi

ENGLISH THAITS.

44 hide

all

boundaries, by the impression of magnifi-

cence and endless wealth. I reply to all the urgencies that refer me to this Yes, and that object indispensably to be seen,

—

to see England well needs a hundred years ; for, what they told me was the merit of Sir John Soane's

Museum, and well

saved-,

—

stuffed full, in all

towers,

churches,

charity-houses.

way from

—

was well packed it is is the merit of England ; corners and crevices, with towns,

London,

that it

villas,

a cromlech to

may

art, it is

York minster still

and

hospitals,

palaces,

In the history of

intermediate steps

—

;

yet

be traced in

a long all

the

this all-

preserving island.

The

a singular perfection. The warmer by many degrees than it is entitled to by latitude. Neither hot nor cold, there is no hour in the whole year when one cannot work. Here is no winter, but such days as we have in Massachusetts in November, a temperature

climate

territory has is

which makes no exhausting demand on human strength, but allows the attainment of the largest stature.

Charles the Second said, "

invited

men

abroad more days in the year and more hours in Then England has the day than another country." all

the materials of a working country except wood. a rain with every tide,in some constant rain,

The

—

LAND. parts of the island, foil,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; keeps

its

multitude of rivers

and brings agricultural production up

highest point.

to the

has plenty of water, of stone,

of potter's clay, of coal, of

salt,

and of

iron.

The

land naturally abounds with game, immense heaths

and downs are paved with

quails, grouse,

and wood-

cock, and the shores are animated by water birds.

The fish

rivers ;

and the surrounding sea spawn with

there are salmon for the rich, and sprats and

herrings for the poor.

In the northern lochs, the

herring are in innumerable shoals

;

one season,

the country people say, the lakes contain one part

water and two parts

fish.

The only drawback on iency,

the darkness of

day are too nearly of a read and to write.

this industrial

its

sky.

conven-

The night and

color.

It strains the

eyes

Add

the coal smoke.

the manufacturing towns, the fine soot or blacks

darken the day, give white sheep the color of black sheep, discolor the air,

human

saliva,

contaminate the

poison many plants, and corrode the

monuments

and buildings.

The London fog

aggravates the distempers of

the sky, and sometimes justifies the epigram on the

by an English wit, " in a fine day, looking up a chimney ; in a foul day, looking down one." A. gentleman in Liverpool told me that he found climate

ENGLISH TEAITS.

he could do without a

fire in

his parlor about one

day in the year. It is however pretended, that the enormous consumption of coal in the island is also in modifying the general climate.

felt

Tactitious climate, factitious position.

resembles a ship in its

its

England were one,

worked it, or anmore judicious or effective position. John Herschel said, " London was the centre

best admiral could not have

chored Sir

in a

of the terrene globe." to

shape, and, if

The shopkeeping

use d shop word, has a good stand.

Venetians pleased themselves with the

nation,

The

old

flattery, that

Venice was in 45Â°, midway between the poles and the line

Long

;

were an imperial

as if that

centrality.

of old, the Greeks fancied Delphi the navel

mode of fabling the The Jews believed Jerusa-

of the earth, in their favorite earth to be an animal.

lem

be the centre.

I have seen a kratometric

show that the city of Philadelphia was in the same thermic belt, and, by inference, in the same belt of empire, as the cities of Athens, Eome, and London. It was drawn by a patriotic Philadelphian, and was examined with pleasure, under his showing, by the inhabitants chart designed to

of Chestnut Street. ton, to failed

New to

But,

Orleans, and

when

carried to Charles-

to Boston, it

convince the ingenious

those capitals.

somehow

scholars

alj

LAND.

But England is anchored at th(! side of Europe, and right in the heart of the modern world. The Bea,

which, according to Virgil's famous

line, di-

vided the poor Britons utterly from the world,

proved

be the ring of marriage with

down

It is not

in the books,

the geologic strata,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

it is

all nations.

written only in

that fortunate

day when a

wave of the German Ocean burst the old isthmus which joined Kent and Cornwall to France, and gave to this fragment of Europe its impregnable sea wall, cutting off an island of eight hundred miles in length, with an irregular breadth reaching to three

hundred miles

;

a territory large

enough

for inde-

pendence enriched with every seed of national power, so near, that

can see the harvests of the

; and so far, that who would cross the must be an expert mariner, ready for temAs America, Europe, and Asia lie, these

continent strait

pests.

Britons have precisely the best commercial position in

the

whole planet, and are sure of a market

for all the

make

goods they can manufacture.

these advantages avail, the

must dig

its

And

Eiver Thames

spacious outlet to the sea from the

heart of the kingdom, giving road and landing

innumerable ships, and that a people so skilful

ing water-front

all

the conveniency to trade,

and

sufficient in

economiz-

by docks, warehouses, and

lighters

ENGLISH TRAITS.

When

required.

James the

declared his

First

purpose of punishing London by removing his Court, the Lord Mayor replied, " that, in removing his royal presence

from his

lieges,

would leave them the Thames." In the variety of surface, Britain of Europe, having shore

;

Derbyshire

a miniature sea-

caves in Matlock and

delicious landscape in Dovedale, de-

;

licious sea-view at

Snowdon

;

marsh, river,

plain, forest,

mines in Cornwall

they hoped he

Tor Bay, Highlands in Scotland, and, in Westmoreland and

Wales

;

Cumberland, a pocket Switzerland, in which the lakes and mountains are on a suiBcient scale to

the eye and touch the imagination.

fill

It is a nation

conveniently small. Fontenelle thought, that nature

had sometimes a an

bigger

Birmingham.

counsel with herself, and said,

gone.

rude race, will

not

males.

and there

such

artificers,

were a design from the beginning

as if there

elaborate

little affectation;

completeness in this nation of

artificial

my new

build all

Nature held

Eomans

are

empire, I will choose a

masculine, with brutish strength.

grudge a competition of the roughest Let buffalo gore buffalo, and the pasture

For I have work that requires Sharp and temperate northern breezes shall blow, to keep that will aliva

the strongest

the best will and sinew.

LAND.

and

alert.

The

aea shall disjoin the people from

and knit them

others,

to a

fierce nationality.

give them markets on every side.

shall

time I will keep them on their

feet,

Long

by poverty,

border-wars, seafaring, sea-risks, and the stimulus of gain.

ple not so

many

island,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but not

so large, the peo-

as to glut the great

markets and

depress one another, but proportioned to the size

of Europe and the continents.'

With

its fruits,

and wares, and money, must

civil influence radiate.

to this ty,

geographic centrality, the spiritual centrali-

which Emanuel Swedenborg

people.

them

its

It is a singular coincidence

"Eor

ascribes

the

the English nation, the best

are in the centre of all Christians, because

they have interior intellectual light.

This ap-

pears conspicuously in the spiritual world. light they derive

writing,

This

from the liberty of speaking and

and thereby of thinking."

;

CHAPTEE

IV.

RACE.

ingenious anatomist has written a book

* to

prove that races are imperishable, but nations are pliant

changed or de-

political constructions, easily

stroyed.

But

found

this writer did not

his

assumed

races on any necessary law, disclosing their ideal or

metaphysical necessity

nor did he, on the other

;

hand, count with precision the existing races, and settle the true

bounds

;

a point of nicety, and the

popular test of the theory.

The

individuals at the

extremes of divergence in one race of

ety shades

down imperceptibly

men

are as

Yet each

unlike as the wolf to the lapdog.

vari-

into the next, and

you cannot draw the line where a race begins or ends. Hence every writer makes a different count. Bluraenbach reckons

and Mr. Pickering,

five races

who

Expedition, thinks he saw

;

Humboldt

lately, in all

three

our Exploring

the kinds of

men

that

can be on the planet, makes eleven. â&#x20AC;˘

The Races,

a Fragment.

By Robert Knox.

London

1860.

(50)

RACE.

The

British

000,000

souls,

of the globe

000 square

Empire

and

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; perhaps

miles.

reckoned to contain 222, a fifth of the population

comprise a territory of 5,000,-

far

have British people pre-

Perhaps forty of these millions are of

dominated.

Add the United States of America, which reckon, exclusive of slaves, 20,000,000 of people, on a territory of 3,000,000 square miles, and in which the foreign element, however considerBritish stock.

able, is rapidly assimilated,

tion of English descent

and you have a popula-

and language, of 60,000,000,

and governing a population of 245,000,000

The

and a half millions in the home countries.

makes

census important

this

units that

compose

in a country

where

greatest value.

age

and

it.

They

among them

are free forcible

life is safe,

soil,

men,

and has reached the

They give the bias to the current by chance or by mass, but by and by the number of individuals

of personal ability.

It has

nied that the English have genius.

men

What

the quality of the

that, not

their character,

may,

souls.

British census proper reckons twenty-seven

been de-

as it

of vast intellect have been born on their

and they have made or applied the principal They have sound bodies, and supreme

inventions.

endurance in war and in labor. force

The spawning

of the race has sufficed to the colonization

ENGLISH TRAITS.

of great parts of the world

;

yet

remains to be

seen whether they can make good the exodus of millions from Great Britain, amounting, in 1852, They have assimto more than a thousand a day. ilating force, since they are imitated

subjects

;

and they are

gandist, enlarging the

still

their foreign

dominion of their

arts

and

Their laws are hospitable, and slavery

liberty.

What

not exist under them.

does

aggressive and propa-

exists is incidental

oppression

and temporary ; their success

not sudden or fortunate, but they have maintained constancy and self-equality for

power due

Is this

cause

Men

likes to

know

tages cannot be attributed to air, local wealth, as

and as

traditions,

soil, sea,

mines and quarries, nor

or to

laws

nor to fortune, but to superior brain, to him.

anticipate in the doctrine of race something

like that

law of physiology,

muscle, or essential organ individual, the

that,

we look

to find

whatever bone,

found in one healthy

same part or organ may be found

in or near the same place in

its

congener

in the son every mental

property that existed in the ancestor. is

some other

that his advan-

makes the praise more personal

"We

ages.

hear gladly of the power of blood

Every body

or race.

many

to their race, or to

;

and

and moral In

race,

not the broad shoulders, or litheness, or stature

53"

RACE.

symmetry that reaches renown to examine the pedigree,

that give advantage, but a

Then

as far as to the wit.

Then

begin.

first

care

the miracle and

and copy heedfully the training, ate,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

what food they what nursing, school, and exercises they had,

which resulted in

this

mother-wit, delicacy of

thought, and robust wisdom.

men

King

How

came such

Alfred, and Eoger Bacon, "William

"Wykeham, Walter Raleigh, Philip Sidney, Newton, William Shakspeare, George Chapman, Francis Bacon, George Herbert, Henry Vane, to exist here ? What made these delicate natures ? was it the air ? was it the sea ? was it the parentage ? For it is certain that these men are samples of

Isaac

of their contemporaries.

found close

The

to the speaking

hearing ear

tongue

;

can long or often utter any thing which invited

always

and no genius

and gladly entertained by

not

men around

him. It is race, is it lions

not? that puts the hundred mil-

of India under the dominion of a remote

island in the north of Europe. if that

be true, which

Catholics,

and

all

Race

avails

much,

alleged, that all Celts are

Saxons are Protestants

;

that

Celts love unity of power, and Saxons the repre-

sentative principle. in the

Race

a controlling influence

Jew, who, for two millenniums, under every

ENGLISH TRAITS.

same character and em-

climate, has preserved the

in the negro

appalling

ployments.

Race

importance.

The French in Canada, cut

all

off

from

intercourse with the parent people, have held

their national

" on

traits.

chanced to read Tacitus

Germans," not long since, Illinois, and I found abundant points of resemblance between the Germans of the Hercynian forest, and our Hoosiers, Suckers, and Badgers of the American woods. the

Manners

in Missouri,

of the

and the heart of

But whilst race works immortally to keep its own, it is resisted by other forces. Civilization is a re-agent, and eats away the old traits. The Arabs but the Britof to-day are the Arabs of Pharaoh on of to-day is a very different person from CasEach religious sect has its sibelaunus or Ossian. ;

The Methodists have

physiognomy. face

;

the Quakers, a face

Englishman ners.

face

;

acquired a

the nuns, a face.

will pick out a dissenter

his

Trades and professions carve their own

and form.

;

manlines

Certain circumstances of Eng-

lish life are not less effective

plenty of food

good

ale

;

as,

personal liberty ;

and mutton

;

open mar-

good wages for every kind of labor ; high bribes to talent and skill ; the island life, or the million opportunities and outlets for expanding ket, or

and misplaced

talent

;

readiness of combination

RACK.

Rmong themselves strikes

for

of victory in labor and in war for superiority It is

business

and the appetite

grows by feeding.

easy to add to the counteracting forces to

Credence

race.

or for

politics

and sense of superiority founded on habit

;

main element.

'Tis said, that

by any people determine Whatever influences add to

the views of nature held all their institutions.

mental or moral faculty, take

national

men

out of nation-

out of other conditions, and

ality, as

life

make

the

a culpable compromise.

These limitations of the formidable doctrine of race suggest others it,

as not

which threaten to undermine

sufficiently based.

vertibleness of races as

argument

The

fixity or incon-

see them, is a

weak

for the eternity of these frail boundaries

since all our historical period is a point to the duration least

and

which nature has wrought. solitariest fact in

Any

the

our natural history, such

and of animal stocks, power in the opportunity of geologic periods. Moreover, though we flatter the self-love of men and nations by the legend of pure as the melioration of fruits

has the worth of a

races, all

us every where. lay

is of the gradation and and strange resemblances meet

our experience

resolution of races,

need not puzzle us that Ma-

and Pap'aan, Celt and Koman, Saxon and Tar^

ENGLISH TBAITS.

5(S

tar should mix, when we see the rudiments of tigei and baboon in oar human form, and know that

barriers of

the

races are

not

firm, but

that

some spray sprinkles us from the antediluvian seas. The low organizations are simplest ; a mere As the scale mouth, a jelly, or a straight worm. mounts, the organizations become complex. We piqued with pure descent, but nature loves

are

child blends in his face the faces

of both parents,

and some feature from every an-

inoculation.

whose

cestor

nations

face hangs

effecting a

igation, as

The

on the wall.

are those most widely related

;

best

and nav-

world-wide mixture,

the

most potent advancer of nations.

The English composite

character betrays a

Every thing English

origin.

mixed

a fusion of dis-

and antagonistic elements. The language is mixed ; the names of men are of different nations, tant

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

three languages, three or four

nations

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

the

currents of thought are counter : contemplation and practical skill

tism

wont

;

active intellect

and dead conserva-

world-wide enterprises and devoted use and

; ;

aggressive freedom and hospitable law, with

bitter class-legislation

wars and

affairs

and homesick dukes

and

;

a people scattered

their

over the face of the whole earth,

to a

man

chartists.

;

a country of extremes,

Bishops

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;^

Durham and

EACE.

—

naked heathen colliers ; nothing can be praised in it without damning exceptions, and nothing denounced without salvos of cordial praise. Neither do this people appear to be of one stem

;

but collectively a better race than any from which

Nor

they are derived.

what races are in Britain historically ically, or

Who

easy to trace

is it

Who

to its original seats.

can

Who

home

names can trace them

call

right

can discriminate them anatom-

metaphysically

In the impossibility of arriving

at satisfaction

the historical question of race, and,

— come

whatever disputable ancestry,

indisputable

— the be found, —

Englishman before me, himself very well marked, and nowhere else to

I fancied I could

leave quite aside the choice of a tribe as his lineal progenitors.

Defoe said in his wrath, " the Eng-

lishman was the

mud

all

the belief, that, as water,

races."

lime,

mortar, so certain temperaments

I incline to

and sand make marry well, and,

by well-managed contrarieties, develop a character as the English.

not so

much

drastic

the whole,

a history of one or of certain tribes of

Saxons, Jutes, or Frisians, coming from one place,

and genetically identical, as

temperaments out of them ments suit the sky and

soil

it all.

an anthology of Certain tempera-

of England, say eight

;

ENGLISH TRAITS.

hundred

or ten or twenty varieties, as, out of a pear-trees, eight or ten suit the soil of

and

thrive, whilst all the

an orchard,

unadapted temperaments

die out.

The English

derive their pedigree from such a

range of nationalities, that there needs

sea-room

and land-room to unfold the varieties of talent and Perhaps the ocean serves as a galvanic

character.

battery to distribute acids at one pole, and alkalies at the other. liberals in

So England tends

accumulate her

America, and her conservatives

Lon-

The Scandinavians in her race still hear in every age the murmurs of their mother, the ocean don.

the Briton in the blood hugs the homestead

Again, as

if to intensate the

not of race, what

English trict.

narrows

when we

itself to a

talk of

small dis-

excludes Ireland, and Scotland, and Wales,

and reduces those

we think

traits really

still.

influences that are

itself at

last

who come and go

London, that

is,

The portraits that Academy Exhibition at

thither.

hang on the walls in the London, the figures in Punch's drawings of the public men, or of the club-houses, the prints in the shop-windows, are distinctive English, and not American, no, nor Scotch, nor Irish but 'tis a very restricted nationality. As you go north into â&#x20AC;˘VxÂŤ manufacturing and agricultural districts, and to :

;

BACE.

the population that never travels, as

you go

into

Yorkshire, as you enter Scotland, the world's Eng-

lishman

no longer found.

a rapid loss of all

a provincial eagerness

poverty of the

In Scotland, there

and acuteness appear; the

country makes

and a coarseness of manners

;

same climate and

soil as in

remarked,

itself

and,

among

tellectual, is the insanity of dialectics.

are the

grandeur of mien and manners

the in-

In Ireland,

England, but

less

food, no right relation to the land, political de-

pendence, small tenantry, and an inferior or mis placed race.

These queries concerning ancestry and blood

may be

well allowed, for there

that seems

no prosperity

depend on the kind of man

than British prosperity.

Only a hardy and wise

made

this small territory great.

people could have

We say, are

in a regatta or yacht-race, that if the boats

anywhere nearly matched,

wins.

Put the best

the

man

that

sailing master into either boat,

and he will win.

Yet

fine for

us to speculate in face of

unbroken traditions, though vague, and losing themselves in fable. The traditions have got footing, and refuse to be disturbed.

The

kitchen-clock

more convenient than sidereal time. We must use the popular category, as we do by the Linnaean

ENGLISH TKAIT8.

classification, for

convenience, and not as exact and

Otherwise,

final.

when

are presently confounded,

the best settled traits of one race are claimed

by some new ethnologist

as precisely characteristic

of the rival tribe.

I found plenty of well-marked English types, the

ruddy complexion

fair

and plump, robust men,

with faces cut like a die, and a strong island speech

and accent

;

that belongs

Norman that

type, with the complacency constitution.

who

Others,

might be Americans, for any thing that appeared in their complexion or form and their speech was much less marked, and their thought much :

less

the

bound.

man

will call

them Saxons.

Then

has implanted his dark complexion in

the trinity or quaternity of bloods.

The

sources from which tradition derives their

stock are mainly three.

And,

the oldest blood of the world,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

first,

peoples are deciduous or transitory.

Greeks

they are of

the Celtic.

Some

Where

are

where the Etrurians ? where the Romans ? But the Celts or Sidonides are an old family, of whose beginning there is no memory, and their end is likely to be still more remote in the

the future

;

for they

have endurance and produc-

EACE.

They planted Britain, and gave to the and mountains names which are poems, and imitate the pure voices of nature. They are favortiveness. seas

remembered in th? oldest records of Europe. They had no violent feudal tenure, but the husbandman owned the land. They had an alphabet, ably

astronomy, priestly culture,, and a sublime creed.

They have a hidden and precarious genius. They made the best popular literature of the middle ages in the songs of Merlin, and the tender and delicious mythology of Arthur.

The EngHsh come mainly from the Germans, the Romans found hard to conquer in two hundred and ten years, ^- say, impossible to con^ quer, when one remembers the long sequel ; a people about whom, in the old empire, the rumor ran, there was never any that meddled with them 2.

whom

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

that repented 3.

not.

Charlemagne, halting one day in a town of

Narbonnese Gaul, looked out of a window, and saw a

fleet

Northmen

cruising in the Mediterranean.

They even entered the port of the town where he was, causing no small alarm and sudden manning and ajrming of his galleys. As they put out to sea again, the

emperor gazed long after them, his " I am tormented with sor-

eyes bathed in tears.

row," he said, "

when

I foresee the evils they will

ENGLISH TRAITS.

bring on

Xerxes'

these

posterity."

There was reason

The men who have

tears.

a ship and invented the rig,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

cordage,

Now

than a at their

ship.

mercy.

sail

a mile or two

Bonaparte's art of war, namely of con-

it.

centrating force on the point of attack,

be theirs

com-

they have not numerical superiority where

they anchor, they have only to to find

sail,

and out of

the working in

have acq^uired much more arm them, and every shore is

port,

For,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

and pump,

pass,

for

built

who have

course they

must always

the choice of the battle-ground.

come

into the fight

from a higher

ground of power than the land-nations ; and can engage them on shore with a victorious advantage in the retreat. ly peopled to

same

skill

As soon as the make piracy a

shores are sufficientlosing business, the

and courage are ready

for the service of

trade.

The HeimsJcringla* Norway,

collected

and Odyssey of English like

Kings of

or Sagas of the

by Snorro Sturleson, history.

Its

the Iliad portraits,

The

Homer's, are strongly individualized.

Sagas describe a monarchical republic like Sparta.

The government of citizens.

disappears before the importance

In Norway, no Persian masses

* Heimskringla. 1M4.

Translated by Samuel Laing, Esq.

fight

London

RACE.

ti3

and perish to aggrandize a king, but the actors are bonders

named

one of -whom

landholders, every

and

patronymically

de-

scribed, as the king's friend

and companion.

personally

sparse population gives this high worth to every man.

Individuals are often noticed as very handsome persons,

which

trait

only brings the story nearer to the

Then

English race.

the solid material interest

predominates, so dear to English understanding,

wherein the association

The

and land.

logical,

knights of South Europe.

vaporing of France

and Spain has corrupted them. tial

farmers,

between merit

heroes of the Sagas are not the

whom

They

are substan-

the rough times have forced to

defend their properties.

They have weapons which

they use in a determined manner, by no means for chivalry, but

for their acres.

They

are people

considerably advanced in rural arts, living amphibiously on a rough coast, and drawing half their

food firom the sea, and half from the land.

They

have herds of cows, and malt, wheat, bacon, butter,

They fish in the fiord, and hunt the king among these farmers has a varying

and cheese. deer.

power, sometimes not exceeding the authority of a sheriff.

king was maintained

some of our country ter is

quartered, a

districts, a

week

much

as,

winter-schoolmas-

here, a

week

there,

and

ENGLISH TRAITS.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

on all the farmon the next farm, This the king calls going into ers in rotation. guest-quarters ; and it was the only way in which, a fortnight

in a poor country, a poor king, with

could be kept alive,

when he

many

leaves his

retainers,

own

farm

dues through the kingdom. These Norsemen are excellent persons in the

to collect his

main, with good sense, steadiness, wise speech, and

prompt

homicide to

But they have a singular turn for chief end of man is to murder, or

action. ;

their

be murdered

;

peatknives,

and

them

all

the

assassinations.

divert

oars, scythes, harpoons, crowbars,

hayforks, for their

are

tools

valued by

charming aptitude

themselves by thrusting each his

through the other's body, as did

Another

for

pair of kings, after dinner, will

sword

Yngve and

Alf.

on a morning for a frolic, weapon near, will take the bits out

pair ride out

and, finding no

of their horses' mouths, and crush each other's

heads with them, as did Alric and Eric.

The

sight

of a tent-cord or a cloak-string puts them on hang-

ing somebody, a wife, or a husband, or, best of a king.

much

If a farmer has so

all,

a hayfork,

King Dag. King Ingiald finds it vastly amusing to burn up half a dozen kings in a hall, after getting them drunk. Never was poor

sticks it into a

gentleman so surfeited with

life,

so furious

to be

;;

KACE. of

rid

it,

the Northman.

If he cannot pick

any other quarrel, he will get himself comfortably gored by a bull's horns, like Egil, or slain by a land-slide, like the agricultural

died in his bed, in of

ill

Hake as

Sweden

;

King Onund.

but

condition, to die the death of old age.

Sweden

cuts

and

Odin

was a proverb

King

slashes in battle, as long

he can stand, then orders his war-ship, loaded

with his dead

men and

out to sea, the

tiller

being lies

left

alone, he sets fire to

down contented on

the

their weapons, to be taken

shipped, and the

land, the

ship

deck.

spread

sails

some tar-wood, and The wind blew oif

flew burning in clear

flame,

out between the islets into the ocean, and there

was the right end of King Hake.

The the

early Sagas

later

are

sanguinary and piratical

are of a noble

strain.

History rarely

yields us better passages than the conversation be-

tween King Sigurd the Crusader, and King Eystein, his brother, soldier,

their respective merits,

and the other, a lover of the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

one, the

arts of peace.

But the reader of the Norman history must himself by holding fast the remote compen-

steel

sations

which result from animal vigor.

the

old fossil world shows that the first steps of reduc-

ing the chaos

were confided

huge and horrible

to saurians

and othei

anima,ls, so the foundations of

ENGLISH TRAITS.

66 the

new

civility

were

be laid by the most savage

men.

The Normans came out

of France into England

worse men than they went into it, one hundred and They had lost their own lansixty years before.

Eomance

guage, and learned the of the Gauls all

the vices

or barbarous Latin

and had acquired, with the language,

;

had names

for.

tained in the chronicles, the

The conquest has obname of the " memory

Twenty thousand

of sorrow."

thieves landed at

These founders of the House of Lords were greedy and ferocious dragoons, sons of greedy Hastings.

and ferocious

They were

pirates.

all

alike, they

took every thing they could carry, they burned, harried, violated, tortured,

and

killed, until every

thing English was brought to the verge of ruin.

Such, however,

the

illusion

of antiquity and

wealth, that decent and dignified

men now

exist-

ing boast their descent from these filthy thieves,

who showed merits,

a far juster conviction of their

by assuming

their

for

goat, jackal, leopard, wolf,

types

the

own

swine,

and snake, which they

severally resembled.

England yielded

to the

Danes and Northmen in

the tenth and eleventh centuries, and was the receptacle into

which

all

population was poured.

the mettle of that strenuous

The continued draught

EACE.

men

the best

Norway, Sweden, and Denmark,

these piratical expeditions, exhausted those coun-

which bears much

a tree

tries,

fruit

when

young, and these have been second-rate powers

The power of the race migrated, and Norway void. King Olaf said, " When King

ever since. left

Harold,

chosen

men

way was

father,

went westward

Norway

England, the

followed him

so emptied then, that such

but Nor-

men have

not

since been to find in the country, nor especially

such a leader

King Harold was

for

wisdom and

bravery."

was a tardy

recoil of these invasions,

when,

in 1801, the British government sent Nelson to

bombard the Danish

forts

in the

Sound ; and,

1807, Lord Cathcart, at Copenhagen, took the entire

Danish

fleet, as it

lay in the basins, and all the

equipments from the Arsenal, and carried them to

Konghelle, the town where the kings Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were wont to

England. of

meet, for a It

now

rented to a private English gentleman

hunting ground. took

many

generations to trim, and comb, and

first

boat-load of Norse pirates into

royal highnesses

and most noble Knights of the

perfume the

Garter to the

but every sparkle of ornament dates back

Norse

boat.

There

will be time

enough

ENGLISH TRAITS.

mellow is

this strength into civility

and

religion,

a medical fact, that the children of the blind s

the children of felons

Many

have a healthy consciei is^ at the age of

mean, dastardly boy

berty, transformed into

and gener

serious

youth.

The mildness

of the following ages has not qi

effaced these traits of

Odin

as the

;

structure matured in the tiger

rudiment

said to be

unabsorbed in the Caucasian man.

The

still fo)

nation

tough, acrid, animal nature, which centuries

churching and civilizing have not been able sweeten. Alfieri said, " the crimes of Italy w the proof of the superiority of the stock ; " and

may say of England, that this watch moves on a sp ter of adamant. The English uncultured are a bri nation. The crimes recorded in their calendars le nothing to be desired in the way of cold maligni Dear

to the

The

brutality of the

English heart

a fair stand-up

manners in the lower

fi^ c'

appears in the boxing, bear-baiting, cock-fighti love of executions, and in the readiness for a in

the

streets,

classes.

delightful to

The costermongers

hold cowardice in loathing fists

wellj

are all

sei

the English of of

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " we

London str( must work

handy with our

fists."

public schools are charged with being bear-gard

KACE.

6SÂť

and are liked by the people

of brutal strength,

foi

The fagging is a trait of the same qualMedwin, in the Life of Shelley, relates, that, ity. at a military school, they rolled up a young man in a snowball, and left him so in his room, while the - and crippled him other cadets went to church ; They have retained impressment, deckfor life. that cause.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

flogging, army-flogging, is

Such

and school-flogging.

the ferocity of the array discipline, that a soldier

sentenced to sentence

flogging, sometimes

may be commuted

prays that his

Flogging

death.

banished from the armies of Western Europe, re-

Duke

mains here by the sanction of the

The

lington.

right of the

down

has been retained

husband

Wel-

to sell the wife

The Jews

our times.

have been the favorite victims of royal and popular

persecution.

Jews

Henry

kingdom

III.

mortgaged

the

all

his brother, the Earl of

Cornwall, as security for

money which he borrowed.

The

in the

torture of criminals,

and the rack

ing evidence, were slowly disused. inal statutes. Sir

Samuel Eomilly

examined the codes of worst,

all nations,

for extort-

Of the crimsaid,

and ours

have is

and worthy of the Anthropophagi."

the last session, the

House

ing to details of flogging the jails.

Commons was

the

listen-

and torture practised

ENGLISH TEAITS.

As soon

as this land, thus geographically posted,

got a hardy people into

becoming the

From

it,

and

sailors

they could not help of the

factors

globe.

swum

childhood, they dabbled in water, they

were

like fishes, their playthings

In the

boats.

case of the ship-money, the judges delivered

" England being an

law, that

island, the

for

very mid-

land shires therein are all to be accounted maritime " and Fuller adds, " the genius even of :

landlocked

driving

counties

maritime dexterity." is

remarked

land, that

the natives with a

early as the conquest,

in explanation of the wealth of

merchants trade to

its

The English,

Eng-

all countries.

have great

the present day,

Other countrymen

vigor of body and endurance.

look slight and undersized beside them, and inva-

They

lids.

I suppose a

are bigger

men

than the Americans.

hundred English taken

random

out

of the street, would weigh a fourth more, than so

many Americans. Yet, I am told, the skeleton is They are round, ruddy, and handnot larger. some

;

least,

and there frames.

landing

the whole

Liverpool

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;what

figures,

bust

formed

well

;

tendency to stout and powerful

I remarked

man, guard, fatherly

the ;

stoutness,

porter,

drayman,

first

coach-

substantial, respectable, grand-

with costume and manners

RACE.

suit. The American has arrived at the old mansion-house, and finds himself among uncles,

aunts,

and grandsires.

ney-tiles

of these

are in the identical costumes

the fault of their forms that they grow and the women have that disadvantage,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

stocky,

few

pictures on the chim-

which so took him.

air,

The

nursery were pictures

Here they

people.

and

of his

slender

tall,

figures

of flowing shape, but

stunted and thickset persons.

The French say, Englishwomen have two left hands. But, in all ages, they are a handsome race. The bronze monuments of crusaders lying cross-legged, in the Temple Church at London, and those in "Worcesthat the

ter

and in Salisbury Cathedrals, which are seven

hundred years

old, are of the

youthful heads of

men now

by beauty of the same

same type

England

character, an

as the best ;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

please

expression

blending goodnature, valor, and refinement, and, mainly,

that uncorrupt

hood, which

youth in the face of man-

daily seen in the streets of London.

Both branches of the Scandinavian race are tinguished for beauty.

The anecdote

some captives which Saint Gregory found A. D. 600,

Norman dered at

dis-

of the handat

Rome,

matched by the testimony of the

chroniclers, five centuries later,

who won-

the beauty and long flowing hair of the

ENGLISH TRAITS.

young English

Meantime, the Heims-

captives.

kringla has frequent occasion to speak of the personal beauty of

its

When

heroes.

it is

considered

what humanity, what resources of mental and moral power, the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

its

of the blonde race betoken,

traits

accession to empire

marks a new and

finer

epoch, wherein the old mineral force shall he sub-

jugated its

at last

by humanity, and

furrow henceforward.

shall

plough in

It is not a final race,

once a crab always crab, but a race with a future.

the English face are combined decision and

nerve, with the fair complexion, blue eyes, and

Hence

open and

florid aspect.

hence the

sensibility, the fine perception,

construction.

The

fair

the love of truth,

and poetic

Saxon man, with open front,

and honest meaning, domestic, affectionate, is not the wood out of which cannibal, or inquisitor, or assassin is

made, but he

moulded

for law, law-

ful trade, civility, marriage, the nurture

chil-

dren, for colleges, churches, charities, and colonies.

They

are rather

manly than

warlike.

When the

war is over, the mask falls from the affectionate and domestic tastes, which make them women in kindness.

This

union of qualities

fabled

Beauty and the Beast, or, long before, in the Greek legend of Hermaphroiite. The two sexes are co-present in the Eng-

their national legend of

RACE. lish

mind.

I apply to Britannia, queen of seas

and colonieSj the words in which her portrays his heroine

game, and as game

" she

latest novelist

mild

delight in the antagonism

as she is

The English

as she is mild."

which combines in one

person the extremes of courage and tenderness

Nelson, dying at Trafalgar, sends his love to Lord

Collingwood, and, like an innocent schoolboy that goes to bed, says, " Kiss me, Hardy," and turns to

Lord Collingwood, his comrade, was of a most affectionate and domestic. Ad-

sleep.

lature the

miral Rodney's figure approached to delicacy and effeminacy, to

and he declared himself very sensible

which he surmounted only by consideraof honor and public duty. Clarendon

fear,

tions

says, the

Duke

Buckingham was

modest and

gentle, that some courtiers attempted to put afironts

on him,

until

they found that this modesty and

effeminacy was only a

And

determination. other day, of Sir

mask Sir

John Franklin,

that,

Wellington Sound open, he explored a

man who never turned

most

for the

Edward Parry

his

it j.

terrible said, the

he found

for

he was

back on a danger, yet

would not brush away highwaymen the Hood comes and Robin claimed, same virtue is described to us as mitissimus pradonum, the genof that tenderness, that he

a mosquito."

Even

for

their

ENGLISH TRAITS.

74 tlest thief.

But they know where

their

war-

Cromwell, Blake, Marlborough, Chatham, Nelson, and Wellington, are not to be trifled dogs

lie.

with, and the brutal strength

bottom of

society, the

which

lies

at the

animal ferocity of the quays

and cockpits, the bullies of the costarmongers of Shoreditch, Seven Dials, and Spitalfields, they

know how to wake up. They have a vigorous health, and middle and old age. The old men roses,

and

handsome.

still

bloom complexion, and good over the island. tious diet. cresses.

The Beef,

They use

last

well into

are as red as

clear skin, a peach-

teeth, are

found

all

a plentiful and nutri-

operative cannot subsist on water-

mutton,

wheatbread, and

malt-

among the first-class laborers. Good feeding is a chief point of national pride among the vulgar, and, in their caricatures, they represent the Frenchman as a poor, starved body. liquors, are universal

It is curious that Tacitus

already in use

among

the

found the English beer " they make Germans :

from barley or wheat a drink corrupted into some resemblance to wine."

Lord Chief Justice For-

Henry VI.'s time, says, " The inhabitants of England drink no water, unless at certain times, on a religious score, and by way f penance." The extremes of poverty and ascetii psuance, it tescue in

;

RACE.

would

seenij

Wood,

never reach cold water in England.

the antiquary, in describing the poverty

and maceration of Father Lacey, an English Jesuit, does not deny him beer. He says, "his bed -was under a thatching, and the way to it up a ladder his fare

was coarse

his drink, of a

;

penny a gawn,

or gallon."

They have more constitutional energy than any people. They think, with Henri Quatre, that manly exercises are the foundation of that elevation of mind which gives one nature ascendant other

over another

;

or, .with the

Arabs, that the days

spent in the chase are not counted in the length of

life.

They box,

from pole

run, shoot, ride, row, and

They

to pole.

jolly in the

open

and drink, and

They walk and

ride as fast

they can, their head bent forward, as

on some pressing

live

putting a bar of solid sleep

air,

between day and day. as

eat,

sail

affair.

The French

urged

say, that

Englishmen in the street always walk straight beMen and women walk fore them like mad dogs. with infatuation.

hunting

condition.

the fine

They

soon as he can handle a gun, art of every

Englishman of

are the most voracious people of

Every season turns out the shoot and fish. The more vigorous run out of the island to Eu-

prey that ever existed. aristocracy into

the

country, to

ENGLISH TKAITS.

76 rope,

America,

Asia, to Africa, and Aus-

hunt with fury by gun, by trap, by harpoon, by lasso, with dog, with horse, with ele-

tralia, to

phant, or with dromedary,

all

the

game

that

These men have written the game-books countries, as Hawker, Scrope, Murray, Her-

nature.

all

bert,

Maxwell, Gumming, and a host of

The people

home

travellers.

are addicted to boxing, run-

ning, leaping, and rowing matches. I suppose, the dogs and horses for the fact, that the

tough and supple cient

man, there

men have

as their

is first

lish race it is of

must be thanked

muscles almost

own.

If in every

a fine animal, in the

effi-

Eng-

the best breed, a wealthy, juicy,

broad-chested creature, steeped in ale and good cheer, and a

little

overloaded by his

flesh.

Men

of animal nature rely, like animals, on their instincts.

The

Englishman

dogs and horses. arises

associates

well with

His attachment to the horse

from the courage and address required

manage it. The horse finds out who is afraid of Their and does not disguise its opinion. it, young boiling clerks and lusty collegians like the company of horses better than the company of professors.

pany

I suppose, the horses are better com-

for them.

BufFon noted.

The horse

has

more uses

than

If you go into the streets, every

;

RACE. driver in bus or dray

a bully, and, if I wanted a

good troop of

soldiers, I

Add

a certain

stables.

the vivacity of these precise quality

should recruit

among

the

degree of refinement to

and you obtain the

riders,

which makes the men and women

of polite society formidable.

They come honestly by Hengst and Horsa

other branch of their race

The horse was fed

their horsemanship, with

for their

all their

Saxon founders.

wealth.

on mares' milk.

The

had been Tartar nomads.

The

children were

pastures

of Tartary

remembered by the tenacious practice of the Norsemen to eat horseflesh at religious feasts. In the Danish invasions, the marauders seized upon horses where they landed, and were at once converted into a body of expert cavalry. At one time, this skill seems to have declined. were

still

Two

centuries ago, the English horse never per^

any eminent service beyond the seas

formed

and the reason assigned, was, that the genius of the English hath always service, as

more inclined them

to foot-

pure and proper manhood, without any

mixture; whilst, in a victory on horseback, the credit

ought

his horse.

But

tas taken place.

derstand

horses

be divided betwixt the in two

Now, better

hundred

man and

years, a change

they boast that they unthan

any other

people

ENGLISH TRAITS.

78 in

the world, and that their horses are become

their second selves.

" William the Conq^ueror being," says Camden, men, imposed

better affected to beasts than to

heavy

fines

and punishments on those that should

meddle with his game." The Saxon Chronicle says, " he loved the tall deer as if he were their And rich Englishmen have followed his father." example, according

their ability, ever since, in

encroaching on the tillage and game-preserves. that

it is

safer to shoot a

commons with

their

England,

proverb in

man, than a hare.

The

severity of the game-laws certainly indicates an ex-

tiavagant sympathy of the nation with horses and hunters.

The gentlemen

and have brought horses the English racer or two

are always to

on horseback,

an ideal perfection,

a factitious breed.

score

mounted gentlemen may frequently

be seen running like centaurs down a lined with pictures of races

hill nearly

Every inn-room

as steep as the roof of a house. is

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

;

telegraphs com-

municate, every hour, tidings of the heats from

Newmarket and Ascot and the House mous adjourns over the ' Derby Day.' :

Com-

CHAPTER

ABILITY.

The Saxon and limits

the

accuracy

;

powerful

fix

the

but from the residence of a portion of

soil

and from some

effect of that

on their blood and manners, the Nor-

has come popularly to represent in England

the aristocratic, principle.

And

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

the Saxon the democratic

though, I doubt not, the nobles

are of both tribes,

are both Soandi

of the application of these names with any

these people in France,

man

Northman

History does not allow us

navians.

and the workers of both, yet names a little mythically,

are forced to use the

one to represent the worker, and the other the enjoyer.

The

island

was a prize

for the best race.

of the dominant races tried

its

Each

fortune in turn.

The Phoenician, the Celt, and the Goth, had already got in. The Roman came, but in the very day when his fortune culminated. He looked in the 3yes of a new people that was to supplant his own. (79)

ENGLISH TUAITS.

disembarked his legions, erected his camps and

towers,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

presently he heard bad news from Italy,

at last, he made ; handsome compliment of roads and walls, and departed. But the Saxon seriously settled in the land, builded, tilled, fished, and traded, with German truth and adhesiveness. The Dane came, and Last of all, the Norman, or divided with him. French-Dane, arrived, and formally conquered,

and worse and worse, every year

harried and ruled the kingdom.

century

later,

came out, that the Saxon had the most bottom and longevity, had managed to make the victor speak the language and accept the law and usage of the victim forced the baron to dictate Saxon it

;

terms to

Norman

kings

;

and, step by step, got

all

the essential securities of civil liberty invented and confirmed.

The genius

of the race and the genius

of the place conspired to this is

eflfect.

The

island

lucrative to free labor, but not worth possession

on other terms.

The

race was so intellectual, that

a feudal or military tenure could not last longer

than the war.

The power

of the Saxon-Danes, so

thoroughly beaten in the war, that the name of

English and

villein

were synonymous, yet so viva-

cious as to extort charters from the kings, stood

on the strong personality of these people. Sense and economy must rule in a world which is made

81 of sense

and economy, and the banker, with

seven per cent, drives the earl out of his

nobility of soldiers cannot

monalty of signifies

shrewd

hia

castle.

keep down a com-

What

persons.

scientific

a pedigree of a hundred links, against a

cotton-spinner with steam in his mill

;

or, against a

company of broad-shouldered Liverpool merchants, for whom Stephenson and Brunei are contriving locomotives and a tubular bridge

These Saxons are the hands of mankind. have the

They

taste for toil, a distaste for pleasure or re-

and the telescopic appreciation of distant gain.

pose,

They

are the wealth-makers,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

by dint of

mental faculty, which has

its

own

Saxon works

or,

only for himself; and

to set

him

after

Hking,

work, and to begin

conditions.

draw

his

The mon-

strous values out of barren Britain, all dishonor, fret,

and barrier must be removed, and then his

energies begin to play.

The Scandinavian by Trolls,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

a kind

power of work and

fancied himself surrounded

goblin

skilful

men, with vast

production,

stevedores, carpenters, reapers, smiths, swift to gifts

this

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

divine

and masons,

reward every kindness done them, with

of gold and silver.

dream comes

to pass.

ing brains, under the

all

English history

Certain Trolls or work

names of Alfred, Bede, Cax

ENGLISH TEAITS.

Camden, Drake, Selden, Dugdale, Newton, Gibbon, Brindley, Watt, Wedgwood, dwell in the troll-mounts of Britain, and turn the

ton, Bracton,

sweat of their face to power and renown. If the race

good, so

Nobody

the place.

landed on this spellbound island with impunity.

The enchantments

of barren shingle and rough

weather, transformed every adventurer into a

Each

borer. to the

yoke of gain, or found the

him.

The

air too tense for

strong survived, the weaker went to

Even

the ground. of

la-

vagabond that arrived bent his neck

England

the pleasure-hunters and sots

are of a tougher

texture.

hard

temperament had been formedby Saxon and SaxonDane, and such of these French or Normans could reach

it,

were naturalized in every

sense.

All the admirable expedients or means hit upon in England,

must be looked

sistible offshoots of the

man

growths or

irre-

expanding mind of the

race.

at as

of that brain thinks and acts thus

neighbor, being afflicted with the brain,

duke,

though he thinks

the

;

and

his

same kind of

rich, and called a baron, or a same thing, and is ready to

allow the justice of the thought and act in his retainer or tenant,

though sorely against

his baronial

or ducal will.

The

island was

renowned in antiquity

for

its

ABILITY.

breed of mastiffs, so fierce, that,

were

you must cut

set,

The man was

when

like his dog.

The

people have that

nervous bilious temperament, which

men

medical

their teeth

their heads off to part them.

to resist every

known by

means employed

make its possessor subservient to the will of others. The English game is main force to main force, the planting of foot to foot, fair play and open field, a rough tug without trick or dodging,

language of his race, said,

'he would do one of two

They

hate

neither poison, nor

way-

things, or there live, or there craft

lay,

and

They

subtlety.

nor assassinate

;

one or

King Ethelwald spoke the when he planted himself at

both come to pieces.

Wimborne, and

till

lie.'

and,, when they

have pounded

each other to a poultice, they will shake hands and

be friends for the remainder of their

You at

country

fairs, at

artifice,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not

lives.

Gothic touches

at school,

the hustings, and in parliament.

no breach of truth and plain dealing,

much

as secret ballot, is suffered in the

In parliament, the tactics of the opposition

island. is

shall trace these

to resist

pitiless

every step of the government, by a

attack

advantage

and

in a bargain,

no prospect of

so dear to the merchant, as the thought

of being tricked is mortifying. Sir

Kenelm Digby,

courtier of Charles and

ENGLISH TKAITS.

James,

who won

the sea-fight of Scanderoon, was

model Englishman in his day. " His person was handsome and gigantic, he had so graceful elocution and noble address, that, had he been dropt out of the clouds in any part of the world, he would have made himself respected: he was skilled in Sir six tongues, and master of arts and arms."* Kenelm wrote a book, " Of Bodies and of Souls," in which he propounds, that " syllogisms do breed a

or rather are all the variety of man's are the steps nesses.

by which we walk in

Man,

weave such chains. from

this

ture of

They

life.

all

our busi-

man, doth nothing

else but

Whatsoever he doth, swarving

work, he doth as deficient from the na-

man

and,

he do aught beyond

this,

breaking out into divers sorts of exterior actions,

he findeth, nevertheless, in this linked sequel of simple discourses, the

art,

bounds, and the model of

the cause, the rule, the it."

f There spoke the genius of the English people.

There is a necessity on them to be logical. They would hardly greet the good that did not logically fall,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

as if

excluded their

their understandings. that

have much

facility

They

merit, or shook

of association, from an in-

Btinctive fear that the seeing â&#x20AC;˘ Antony Wood.

own

are jealous of minds

many relations

f Man's Soule,

p. 29.

to their

;

ABILITY.

thought might impair this lucrative

concentration.

genius, or of

85 serial

They

minds addicted

continuity and

are impatient

to contemplation,

and

cannot conceal their contempt for sallies of thought,

however lawful, whose steps they cannot count by their

wonted

Neither do they reckon better

rule.

For they -have

a syllogism that ends in syllogism. a supreme eye to

facts,

brings salt to soup,

and

theirs is a logic that

hammer

to nail, oar to boat,

the logic of cooks, carpenters, and chemists, fol-

lowing the sequence of nature, and one on which

words make no impression. dazzled

its

own means,

They

to results.

Their mind

his syllogism the instant his

would jump out of

major proposition was

in danger, to save that, at all hazards.

vision is spacious,

Their prac-

and they can hold many

threads without entangling them.

they orderly take

not

love men, who, like Samuel John-

son, a doctor in the schools,

tical

but locked and bolted

All the steps

but with the high logic of never

;

minor and major proposition

confounding the

keeping their eye on their aim, in

all

the complicity

and delay incident to the several series of means they employ. this

and

that,

courts, the

There

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

room

science of

in their

degrees.

minds

for

In the

independence of the judges and

the

are equally excellent.

loyalty of the

suitors

ENGLISH TRAITS.

Parliament, they have hit on that capital inven-

And

tion of freedom, a constitutional opposition.

when

courts

and parliament are both deaf, the Calm, patient, his weapon

plaintiff is not silenced.

of defence from year to year

the obstinate repro-

duction of the grievance, with calculations and

But, meantime, he

timates.

and money fails,

his

charter-box.

measure

rem-

to his opinion, resolved that if all

edy

right of revolution

They and

carried,

bound

are

bottom of

at the

stick to

es-

drawing numbers

see their

through ages of

defeat.

Into this English logic, however, an infusion

of justice enters, not so apparent in other races,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a belief in resolution

question,

the existence of two sides, and the

There

see fair play.

on every

an appeal from the assertion of

parties, to

the proof of what

the

They

asserted.

are impious in their scepticism of a theory, but kiss the dust before a fact.

a charter, is

a boxer in the ring,

on the hustings,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

will suspend their

had.

They are not

a machine, is it

and

a candidate

the universe of Englishmen

judgment, until the to

trial

can be

be led by a phrase, they want

a working plan, a working machine, constitution,

will sit out the trial,

working

and abide by

the isiue, and reject all preconceived theories.

ABILITY.

they put blunt questions, which must be

politics

answered ;

who

do for trade

is to

what

pay the taxes

for corn

what

This singular fairness and

what will you

for the spinner ?

results strike the

its

French with surprise. Philip de Commines says, " Now, in my opinion, among all the sovereignties

know

I is

in the world, that in

cised on the people,

without security '

equality,'

and

freest

and what

freedom,

;

whilst, in France,

many enemies

would happen

is '

fraternity,'

names for " England is the

indivisible unity,' are said,

country in the world.

exerLife

Montesquieu

assassination.

had

least violence

that of England."

and personal rights

safe,

which the public good

and the

best attended to,

as hairs

If a

man

England

on his head, no harm

him."

Their self-respect, their faith in causation, and their realistic logic or

coupling of means to ends, have

modern world " No people have true common

given them the leadership of the

Montesquieu

said,

sense but those

common

sense

who

are born in England."

a perception of

all

This

the conditions

of our earthly existence, of laws that can be stated,

and of laws that cannot be stated, or that are learned only

practice, in

which allowance

for friction

made.

They

theory,

and in high departments they are cramped

are impious in their scepticism of

ENGLISH TRAITS.

But the unconditional surrender to facts, and the choice of means to reach their ends, are as admirable as with ants and bees. and

sterile.

The bias of the nation They love the lever, the

a passion for Utility.

screw, and pulley, the

Flanders draught-horse, the waterfall, wind-mills, tide-mills ; the sea and the wind to bear their

More than

freight ships.

the diamond Koh-i-noor,

which glitters among their crown jewels, they prize that dull pebble which is wiser than a man,

whose poles turn themselves to the poles of the world, and whose axis is parallel to the axis of Now, their toys are steam and galvanthe world.

They

ism.

at the coarse

are heavy at the fine arts, but adroit

not good in jewelry or mosaics, but

;

the best iron-masters, colliers, wool-combers, and

They apply themselves

tanners, in Europe.

agriculture, to draining, to resisting encroachments

of sea, wind, travelling sands, cold and wet subsoil

;

staples,

tery,

fishery, to

—

salt,

and brick,

their

manufacture of indispensable

plumbago, leather, wool,

—

to bees

steady combinations

manufacturer

sits

down

glass, pot-

and silkworms

;

— and A

they succeed.

to dinner in a suit of clothes

which was wool on a sheep's back

at sunrise.

You

dine with a gentleman on venison, pheasant, quail, pigeons, poultry, mushrooms, and pine-apples,

al]

ABILITY. the

growth of

for

ordering

They

his estate.

are neat husbands

pertaining to house and

all their tools

There

All are well kept.

field.

They study use and

no waste.

no want and in their

fitness

building, in the order of their dwellings,

the

and in

The Frenchman invented the rufile, shirt. The Englishman

their dress.

Englishman added the

wears a sensible coat buttoned to the chin, of rough but solid and lasting texture. a

dresses

little

If he

a lord, he

worse than a commoner.

They

have difiused the taste for plain substantial hats, shoes,

that

man, whose dress

its

workmen.

fit

for his use

to describe

it.

essentials in their diet, in their

and manufactures.

shows, in of

you cannot notice or remember

They secure the arts,

They think him

and coats through Europe.

the best dressed

Every

article of cutlery

shape, thought and long experience

They put

the expense in the right

place, as, in their sea-steamers, in the solidity of

the

machinery and the strength of the boat.

The

admirable equipment of their arctic ships carries

London

to the pole.

warm and

They build

ventilate houses.

pressed their directness

and

roads, aqueducts,

And

they have im-

practical habit

on mod-

ern civilization.

In trade, the Englishman believes that nobody breaks

who ought 8*

not to break

;

and, that,

ENGLISH TRAITS.

do not make trade every thing, nothing

;

and

acts

this

make him The spirit of

will

belief.

system, attention to details, and the subordination of details, or, the not driving things too finely,

(which

charged on the Germans,) constitute that

despatch of business, which makes the mercantile

power of England. In war, the Englishman looks is

whom

to his means.

of the opinion of Civilis, his

German

ancestor,

Tacitus reports as holding " that the gods

are on the side of the strongest

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

a sentence

which Bonaparte unconsciously translated, when he

said,

had noticed,

that he

that Providence

always favored the heaviest battalion." itary science

propounds that

advancing column

greater than that of the resist-

ing, the latter is destroyed.

when he came every man weighed,

ton,

then without

;

individual

the

first

believing

army depended on

Their mil-

the weight of the

Therefore Welling-

army

in Spain, had

with accoutrements, and that

the

force

the weight and power of the

soldiers,

spite

Lord

cannon.

Palmerston told the House of Commons, that more care

taken of the health and comfort of English

troops than of any other troops in the world that,

hence the English can put more

men

;

and

into the

rank, on the day of action, on the field of battle.

ABILITY.

than any other tirmy. of the

Danish

Before the bombardment

forts in the Baltic,

Nelson spent day

after day,

himself in the boats, on the exhausting

service of

sounding the channel.

Clerk of Eldin's

celebrated manoeuvre of breaking the line of seabattle,

and Nelson's

his ships

feat

of doubling, or stationing

one on the outer bow, and another on the

outer quarter of each of the enemy's were only translations into naval tactics of Bonaparte's rule of

tell his

con-

Lord Collingwood was accustomed

centration.

men,

that, if they

could fire three well-direct-

ed broadsides in five minutes, no vessel could resist

them

;

in three minutes

and, from constant practice, they

But conscious

that

and a

no race of better

they rely most on the simplest means like

ponderous and

bring the affair

difficult tactics,

hand

came

half.

to hand,

;

men

exists,

and do not

but delight to

where the victory

lies

with the strength, courage, and endurance of the individual combatants.

ment in

rig, in

They adopt every improve-

motor, in weapons, but they fun-

damentally believe that the best stratagem in naval war,

is to

lay your ship close alongside of the ene-

my's ship, and bring

all

your guns to bear on him,

you or he go to the bottom. This is the old feshion, which never goes out of fashion, neither until

nor out of England.

ENGLISH TRAITS. It

not usually a point of honor, nor a

whim

gious sentiment, and never any

shed their blood for right measured

;

but usually property, and

by property,

They have no Indian

tion.

reli-

that they will

that breeds revolutaste for a

tomahawk-

dance, no French taste for a badge or a proclama-

The Englishman

tion.

business,

and earning

offer to lay

hand on

or his right in

beas-corpus,

But

his day's wages.

his day's wages,

common,

the Judgment.

peaceably minding his

his

you

cow,

or his shop, he will fight

Magna-charta, jury-trial, ha-

ship-money.

star-chamber,

Popery,

Plymouth-colony, American Revolution, are

all

questions involving a yeoman's right to his dinner,

and, except as touching that, would not have lashed

the British nation to rage and revolt.

Whilst they are thus instinct with a order,

and of

calculation,

are capable of larger views

it ;

must be owned they but the indulgence

expensive to them, costs great lations of

mental power.

works best with line

blinders.

crises, or

Nothing

Connecticut question, " Pray, at

Heavy

in the

our unvarnished

sir, how do you get home ? " The ques-

tions of freedom, of taxation, of privilege, are

questions.

accumu-

In common, the horse

of English thought, than

your living when you are

spirit of

fellows, steeped

money

in beer and

ABILITY. fleshpots, they are

hard of hearing and dim of sight

Their drowsy minds need to be flagellated by wai

and trade and

They

and persecution.

politics

cannot well read a principle, except by the light of fagots

and of burning towns.

Tacitus says of the Germans, " powerful only in

sudden

efforts,

they are impatient of

This highly- destined race,

if it

added the chamber of patience to not have built London.

know

toil

and labor."

had not somewhere its

brain,

would

not from which

of the tribes and temperaments that

went

to the

composition of the people this tenacity was supplied, but

they clinch every nail they drive.

They

have no running for luck, and no immoderate speed.

They spend

largely on their fabric,

Their leather

await the slow return.

seven years in the

vat.

lies

and

tanning

Rogers's mills, in

where I was shown the process of making a razor and a penknife, I was told there is no luck in making good steel ; that they make no mistakes, every blade in the hundred and in the thousand is good. And that is characteristic of all their work, Sheffield,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; no more

attempted than

When Thor and his he

told that

done.

"nobody

Utgard,

permitted to remain

he understand some art, and excel in The same question is still put other men."

here, unless it all

companions arrive

ENGLISH TEAITS.

every

man

of Thor.

posterity

to the

trained to

nation of laborers,

some one

aims at perfection in that

art or detail,

and

not content unless he

;

has something in which he thinks he surpasses

He would

other men. all,

than not do

well.

such thoroughness lowest, every

;

all

rather not do any thing at

I suppose no people have

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; from

man meaning

the highest to

the

to be master of his art.

" To show capacity," a Frenchman described as " no," said an speech in debate

the end of a

wheel,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

" but

Englishman,

set

your shoulder

advance the business."

Romilly refused

the

Sir Samuel

speak in popular assemblies,

House of Commons, where The busia measure can be carried by a speech. ness of the House of Commons is conducted by a confining himself to the

few persons, but these are hard-worked. ert

Peel "

knew

Sir Rob-

the Blue Books by heart."

His

colleagues and rivals carry Hansard in their heads.

The high

civil

and legal

offices are

not beds of

ease,

but posts which exact frightful amounts of mental labor.

Many

of the great leaders, like Pitt, Can-

ning, Castlereagh, Romilly, are soon worked death.

They

are excellent judges in

England of a

good .worker, and when they find one,

like Claren-

don, Sir Philip Warwick, Sir William Coventry,

Ashley, Burke, Thurlow, Mansfield, Pitt, Eldon,

ABILITY. Peelj or Russell^ there

nothing too good or too

high for him.

They have public aim.

a wonderful heat in the pursuit of a Private persons exhibit, in scientific

and antiquarian researches, the same pertinacity as the nation showed in the coalitions in which it yoked Europe against the empire of Bonaparte, one after the other defeated, and

hurled him from his Sir

of his

still

renewed, until the sixth

seat.

John Herschel, in completion of the work father, who had made the catalogue of the

stars of the

northern hemisphere, expatriated him-

self for years at the

Cape of Good Hope,

his inventory of the southern heaven,

and redacted

in eight years

finished

came home, ;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

work

whose value does not begin until thirty years have elapsed,

and thenceforward a record

the highest import.

to all ages of

The Admiralty

sent out the

Arctic expeditions year after year, in search of Sir

John Franklin, their

until, at

way through

last,

they have threaded

polar pack and Behring's Straits,

and solved the geographical problem. at

Lord Elgin,

Athens, saw the imminent ruin of the Greek

remains, set

his

scaffoldings, in spite of epi-

grams, and, after five years' labor to collect them, got his marbles

on shipboard.

rock, and went to the bottom.

The lie

ship struck a

had them

all

ENGLISH TRAITS.

96 fished up,

divers, at a vast expense,

knowing and Canova, and all good heads to

London

that

not

;

and brought

Haydon,

Fuseli,

in all the world,

were to be his applauders. In the same spirit, were the excavation and research by Sir Charles Fellowes, for the Xanthian monument; and of Layard, for his Nineveh sculptures. sits in the immense city they have London extended into every man's mind, though he live in Van Dieman's Land or Capetown.

The

nation

builded, a

Faithful performance of what

undertaken

to be

performed, they honor in themselves, and exact

others, as certificate of equality with themselves.

The modern world is theirs. They have made and make it day by day. The commercial relations of the world are so intimately drawn to London, that every dollar on earth contributes to the strength of

And

the English government. in the planet

if all

the wealth

should perish by war or deluge, they

know themselves competent to replace it. They have approved their Saxon blood, by sea-going smiths, iron

their

qualities

their

hereditary

descent skill

their

from Odin's

working

by husbandry and imand justified their occu-

British birth,

mense wheat harvests ; pancy of the centre of habitable land, by their supreme ability and cosmopolitan spirit. Thej

;

ABILITY.

have

builded,

tilled,

forged,

spun, and woven.

They have made the island a thoroughfare j and London a shop, a law-court, a record-ofSce, and bureau, inviting to strangers; a sanctuary

scientific

to refugees

of every political and religious opinion

and such a

city, that

almost every active man, in

any nation, finds himself, forced to visit

one time or other,

it.

In every path of practical gone even with the

There

best.

they have

activity,

no secret of

The

war, in which they have not shown mastery.

steam-chamber of Watt, the locomotive of Stephenson, the cotton-mule of Roberts, perform the labor of the world. literature,

There

they have not produced a

England, whose opinion of a

new

no department of

of science, or of useful

which

book.

It in

art,

first-rate

waited for on the merit

the complications of the trade vast empire, they

and

their

appears

is it

politics of their

have been equal

gency, with counsel and with conduct. luck, or

And

invention, an improved science.

every exiIs

in the chambers of their brain,

their

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

commercial advantage, that whatever light in

better

method

breaks out in their race.

happy invention,

They

are a family to

which a destiny attaches, and the Banshee has sworn that a male heir shall never be wanting. 9

ENGLISH TRAITS.

They have and the

a wealth of

selection of a

A proof the highly

The

men

important posts,

fill

vigilance of party criticism insures the

competent person.

of the energy of the British people, artificial

construction of the whole fabric.

climate and geography, I said, were factitious,

as if the

hands of

The same Bacon

man had

arranged the conditions.

character pervades the whole kingdom.

said,

Rome was

a state not subject to para-

doxes ; " but England subsists by antagonisms and contradictions.

The

are the rolling

waves

museum

foundations of ;

and, from

the world with

Its short rivers

observations.

greatness last, it is

This foggy and rainy

of anomalies.

country furnishes

its

first to

astronomical

do not afford water-

power, but the land shakes under the thunder

There

importance, but there

of the

than in

mills.

all

no gold mine of any more gold in England

other countries.

It is too far north for

the culture of the vine, but the wines of tries are in

docks.

its

raguais said, " no fruit ripens in

baked apple "

;

all

coun-

The French Comte de LauEngland but

but oranges and pine-apples are

cheap in London as in the Mediterranean.

Mark-Lane Express,

or the

The Custom House Returns

bear out to the letter thÂŤ 'aunt of Pope,

FACTITIOUS. **

Let India boast her palms, nor envy we The weeping amber, nor the spicy tree, While, by our oaks, those precious loads are borne, And realms commanded which those trees adorn.*'

I'he native cattle are extinct, but the island is full

artificial

The

breeds.

agriculturist

Bakewell,

created sheep and cows and horses to order, and

breeds in which every thing was omitted but what

The cow

economical.

to his surloin.

sacrificed to

Stall-feeding

her bag, the

makes sperm-mills

of the cattle, and converts the stable to a chemical

The

factory.

filled

rivers,

lakes and ponds, too

much

obstructed by factories, are artificially

fished, or

with the eggs of salmon, turbot and herring.

Chat Moss and the fens of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire are unhealthy and too barren to pay

rent.

cylindrical tiles,

and guttapercha tubes,

five millions of acres

of bad land have been drained

and put on

with the best, for rape-culture

and

grass.

eq[uality

The

believed to have

climate too, which was already

become milder and

enormous consumption of

this

new

disappear.

coal, is

action, that fogs

In due course,

by the

drier

so far reached

and storms are all

England

said to

will be

drained, and rise a second time out of the waters.

The

was to call in the aid of steam to Steam is almost an Englishman. I do

latest step

agriculture.

ENGLISH TRAITS.

100

know but they will send him to Parliament^ next, to make laws. He weaves, forges, saws, pounds, fans, and now he must pump, grind, dig, and plough for the farmer. The markets created not

by the manufacturing population have erected agriculture into a great thriving and spending industry.

The value

of the houses in Britain

to the value of the soil.

No man

are cheaper than the natural resources.

can aiford to walk, carries

him

when

penny a

for a

equal

Artificial aids of all kinds

the parliamentary-train

Gas-burners are

mile.

cheaper than daylight in numberless floors in the All the houses in London buy their water.

cities.

The English

trade does not exist for the exporta-

tion of native products, but

its

manufactures, or

the making well every thing which

where.

They make ponchos

is ill

for the

made

else-

Mexican, ban-

dannas for the Hindoo, ginseng for the Chinese, beads for the Indian, laces for the Flemings,

tele-

scopes for astronomers, cannons for kings.

The Board of Trade caused Greece and Italy

the best models of

be placed within the reach of

every manufacturing population.

They caused

be translated from foreign languages and

illustrat-

ed by elaborate drawings, the most approved works of Munich, Berlin, and Paris. Italj

to find

new

forms, to

They have ransacked add a grace

to the

;

FACTITIOUS.

101

products of their looms, their potteries, and their foundries. *

The

nearer

loot, the

Their law

social system.

Their property, a scrip or interest

on money that no

social classes are

made by

more artificial a network of certificate

man

of right to

Their

ever saw.

statute.

their

fictions.

Their

ratios of

power and representation are historical and legal, The last Reform-bill took away political power from a mound, a ruin, and a stone-wall, whilst Birmingham and Manchester, whose mills paid for Puthe wars of Europe, had no representative. rity in the elective

armed colonies army of police. free

laborer

Parliament

seats. f

purchase of

;

secured by the

Foreign power

power

kept by

home, by a standing

The pauper

lives better

than the

the thief better than the pauper

and the transported felon better than the one under imprisonment. as

smuggling,

and treason.

man

The crimes

are factitious,

poaching, non-conformity, heresy Better, they say in England, kill a

than a hare.

The

sovereignty of the seas

maintained by the impressment of seamen. â&#x20AC;˘ See Memorial of H. Greenough, p. 66,

New

" The

York, 1853.

English patriots, decided that thÂŤ only independent mode of entering Parliament was to buy a seat, tnd he bought Horsham.

t Sir

S. Bomilly, purest of

102

ENGLISH TRAITS.

impressment of seamen," said Lord Eldon, " is the life of our navy." Solvency is maintained by

means of a national debt, on the principle, "if you will not lend me the money, how can I pay

you?"

For the administration of

Samuel

Komilly's

expedient

for

justice.

clearing

Sir

the

arrears of business in Chancery, was, the Chan-

away

staying

cellor's

Their church

life.

artificial.

and customs of society are

men is

with made up manners

Birminghamized, and

existence

arctic isle,

his

court.

The Uni-

is factitious.

dead languages into a semblance

versities galvanize

from

entirely

Their system of education

work of

art

— and

;

we have ;

The manners made up

artificial;

—

thus the whole

a nation whose

a cold, barren, almost

being made the most

fruitful, luxuri-

ous and imperial land in the whole earth.

Man litical

England submits

economy.

a banking-house

be a product of po-

a bleak moor, a mill

water in a sluice-way, and towns and

Man

made

as a

Birmingham

is built,

men come

opened, and

button.

in, as

cities

rise.

The

rapid

doubling of the population dates from Watt's steam-

A landlord,

engine.

the

tenantry

sheep."

are

who owns

a province, says,

unprofitable

unroofs

population to America.

;

let

have

the houses, and ships the

The

nation

accustomed

SOLIDARITT. to

103

the instantaneous creation of wealth.

It is the

of their economists, " that the greater part

maxim

in value of the

now existing in England, human hands within the last

wealth

has been produced by

twelve months."

Meantime, three or four days'

rain will reduce

hundreds to starving in London.

One

secret of their

power

their

mutual good

Not only good minds

understanding.

are born

among them, but all the people have good minds. Every nation has yielded some good wit, if, as has chanced to many tribes, only one. But the intellectual organization of the

nicableness of

English admits a

commu-

knowledge and ideas among them

touch by any of their national them into one family, and brings the hoards of power which their individuality is always Is it the smallhiving, into use and play for all. all.

electric

ideas, melts

ness of the country, or

of race,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; they have

is it

the pride and affection

solidarity, or responsibleness,

and trust in each other. Their minds, like wool, admit of a dye which

They embrace their Though cause with more tenacity than their life. the poll subject by common every yet not military, reserved private These of. is fit to make a soldier more

lasting than the cloth.

ENGLISH TRAITS.

104

mute family-men can adopt a public end with all their heat, and this strength of affection makes the

The

romance of their heroes.

Danish poet

In Germany, there

said,

hundred

readers.

one speech for the learned,

for the masses, to that extent, that,

no sentiment or phrase from the works

of any great

German

the lower classes.

of the noble

writer is ever heard among But in England, the language

the language of the poor.

liament, in pulpits, in theatres, rise to

The

Ohlenschlager complains, that whtf

writes in Danish, writes to two

and another

difference of

the national heart.

rank does not divide

when

In Par-

the speakers

thought and passion, the language becomes

idiomatic

;

the people in the street best understand

the best words.

And

their language seems

drawn

from the Bible, the common law, and the works of Shakspeare, Bacon, Milton, Pope, Young, Cowper, Burns,

and

Scott.

The

island has produced

two or three of the greatest men

that ever existed,

own time. Men Newton found out, in

but they were not solitary in their quickly embodied what

Greenwich observatories, and

The boys know

practical navigation.

Hutton knew of strata, oi Dalton of atoms, or Harvey of blood-vessels ; and all that

these studies, once dangerous, are in fashion.

what

invented or

known

in agriculture, or in

SOLIDARITY. trade, ov

in war, or in art, or in literature, and

A great ability,

antiquities.

giants,

each of them could ;

a pinch stand in the shoes

and they are more bound in char-

The

a possible lord.

lord

his bi'ain,

and does therein the best he can.

England on

The

chancellor

mace, the midshipman

his

the point of his dirk, the smith on his

cook in the bowl of his spoon his

a possible

Every man carries the English sysknows what is confided to him,

basket-maker.

carries

The

than differenced in ability or in rank.

laborer

tem in

not amassed on a few

but poured into the general mind, so that

of the other acter,

10b

;

hammer, the

the postilion cracks

whip for England, and the sailor times his oars " God save the Ej.ng " The very felons have !

politics

hooks of is,

other's English

in each

their pride

stanchness.

and in war, they hold together steel.

The charm

the unselfish greatness

;

whom

"Whilst they are

he supsome ages

ahead of the rest of the world in the art of ing

;

sent

the assurance of being

supported to the uttermost by those ports to the uttermost.

in Nelson's history,

liv-

whilst in some directions they do not repre-

the

modern

vanguard of

spirit,

civility

but constitute

it,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

this

and power they coldly hold,

marching in phalanx, lockstep, foot after after file of heroes, ten thousand deep.

foot, file

;

CHAPTER

VI.

MANNERS.

him of all men They have in

I FIND the Englishman to be

who

stands firmest in his shoes.

themselves what they value in their horses, mettle

and bottom.

the day of

pool, a gentleman, in

arrival at Liver-

describing to

the Lord

Lieutenant of Ireland, happened to say, " Lord

Clarendon has pluck like a cock, and will

fight

he dies ; " and, what I heard

last,

first

I heard

the one thing the English value,

cabmen have

have

women have

;

the

;

the merchants have it

;

is it

The

pluck. ;

till

and

the bishops

the journals have

Times newspaper, they say, is the pluckiest thing in England, and Sydney Smith had made it a proverb, that little Lord John Russell, the minister, would take the command of the Channel the

fleet

to-morrow.

They

require

you

dare to be of your own

opinion, and they hate the practical cowards

cannot in

afiairs

answer directly yes or no. (106)

who

They

MANNERS.

107

let you break all commandments, if you do it natively, and with spirit. You must be somebody ; then you may do this or that, as you will. Machinery has been applied to all work, and

dare to displease, nay, they will

the

carried to such perfection, that little

men but

mind the engines and

But the machines require punctual as

they never

tenders.

tire,

left for

the

feed the furnaces.

they prove too

service, and,

much

for their

Mines, forges, mills, breweries, railroads,

steampump, steamplough,

of regiments,

drill

of police, rule of court, and shop-rule,

drill

have op-

erated to give a mechanical regularity to all the habit

and action of men.

terrible

possessed itself of the ground, the

machine has air,

the

men

and women, and hardly even thought is free. The mechanical might and organization requires in the people constitution

and answering

spirits

and he ^ho goes among them must have some At last, you take your hint

weight of metal.

from the fury of

life

you

find,

and say, one thing

no country for fainthearted people don't creep about diffidently; make up your mind; take your own course, and you shall find respect

plain, this is

and furtherance. It requires,

Spaiu

men say, a good

constitution to travel

I say as reurli of Fugland, for othei

ENGLISH TEAITS.

108

on account of the vigor and brawn Nothing but the most serious

cause, simply

of the

people.

business,

any counterweight

could give one

these Baresarks, though they

were only

eggs and muffins for their breakfast.

lishman speaks with is

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

stomachic,

Englishman

all his

as the

body.

American's

order

The Eng-

His elocution is

The

labial.

very petulant and precise about his

accommodation

and on the roads

at inns,

die about his toast

and

;

and every

his chop,

a quidspecies

of convenience, and loud and pungent in

his ex-

pressions of impatience at any neglect.

His

vacity betrays

itself, at all

vi-

points, in his manners,

his respiration, and the inarticulate noises he makes in clearing the throat ; all significant of

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

burly strength. initiative

which al

has stamina

in emergencies.

results

;

he can take the

has that aplomb,

from a good adjustment of the mor-

and physical nature, and the obedience of

the powers to the will

Were united

to his

;

all

as if the axes of his eyes

backbone, and only moved with

the trunk.

This vigor appears in the incuriosity, and stony neglect, each of every other.

Each man walks,

drinks, shaves, dresses, gesticulates, and, in

manner,

acts,

and

Btanders, in his

suffers

own

eats,

every

without reference to the by'

fashion, only careful not to inter

MANNERS. fere

109

with them, or annoy them ; not that he

to neglect the eyes of his neighbors,

own

occupied with his

them.

Every man

affair,

Wisconsin.

know

tricity is so freely

self

trained

is reallj

and does not think of

poHshed country consults

in this

only his convenience, as

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he

much

as a solitary pioneer in

not where any personal eccen-

man gives himEnglishman walks in

allowed, and no

any concern with

it.

a pouring rain, swinging his closed umbrella like a

walking-stick

And

wears a wig, or a shawl, or a sad-

;

dle, or stands

his head,

he has been doing

tions, it is

now

and no remark

company of his eyes

paper.

strangers,

an island

you would think him deaf;

never wander from his table and news-

never betrayed into any curiosity or

They have

unbecoming emotion. in one

incommunicable.

tranquil,

safe,

made.

in the blood.

In short, every one of these islanders himself,

this for several genera-

all

been trained

severe school of manners, and never put

off the harness.

does not let

affront to look

introduced.

does not give his hand.

ypu meet a

man

his eye.

in the face, without being

In mixed or in

do not introduce persons

;

select

companies they

so that a presentation is

a circumstance as valid as a nontract. tions are sicraments.

almost an

Introduc-

withholds his name.

ENGLISH TRAITS.

110 the hotel, he

hardly willing to whisper

address on a card, ship

and

;

studying It

how he

his bearing,

even though he is

out for

its

to the

an avowal of friendis

cold,

seeking your acquaintance, and shall serve you. this

impressive energy,

lectures, I hesitated to read

impertinence

many

which I had been accustomed unable mortals

thin,

his private

on being introduced,

was an odd proof of

that, in

you

If he give

clerk at the book-office.

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

and threw

a disparaging phrase, to spin, about poor,

much had

physique and the personal vigor of

the fine

this robust race

worked on my imagination. I happened to arrive in England, at the moment of a commercial crisis. But it was evident, that, let who will fail, England will not. These people have

sat

tinue to

here a thousand years, and here will consit.

They

will not break up, or arrive at

any desperate revolution,

much

like their neighbors

;

for

much continence of character as they ever had. The power and possession which surround them are their own creathey have as

tion,

energy, as

and they exert the same commanding industry moment.

at this

They

are positive, methodical, cleanly, and for-

mal, loving routine, and conventional ways

;

loving

truth and religion, to be sure, but inexorable on

MANNERS.

Al] the world praises the comfort

points of form.

and private appointments of an English inn, and

You

of English households.

are sure of neatness

and of personal decorum. possibly be clean

ly clean. is

;

Frenchman may

an Englishman

certain order

conscicTitious-

and complete propriety

found in his dress and in his belongings.

Born in a harsh and wet climate, which keeps him in doors whenever he is at rest, and being of an affectionate and loyal temper, he dearly loves If he is rich, he buys a demesne, and his house. builds a hall spares

;

planted

within,

hung with

and improve and

costly,

it is

pictures,

'Tis a passion

fast in

it.

in middle condition,

his house.

Without,

it is all

wainscoted, carved, curtained,

and

filled

with good furniture.

which survives

all

Hither he brings

others, to deck all that is rare .

and with the national tendency

sit

many generations, it comes of time, a museum of heirlooms,

the same spot for

to be, in the course gifts,

no expense on

and trophies of the adventures and exploits He is very fond of silver plate,

of the family.

and, though he have no gallery of portraits of his

he has of their punch-bowls and porrinIncredible amounts of plate are found in

ancestors, gers.

good houses, and the poorest have some spoon or saucepan, gift of a godmother, saved out of bettei times.

ENGLISH TRAITS.

112

English family consists of a few persons^ to age, are found revolving with-

who, from youth

by some inwhich we have seen attaching the two Siamese. England in a

few

feet of

each other,

visible ligature, tense

as if tied

as that cartilage

produces under favorable conditions of ease and culture the finest as the

men

women

the world.

And,

are affectionate and true-hearted, the

inspire

and

Nothing can

them.

refine

be more delicate without being fantastical, nothing

more firm and based in nature and sentiment, than the courtship and mutual carriage of the sexes. The song of 1696 says, " The wife of every Englishman

counted blest."

ogen in Cymbeline

and not

less the Portia of

and the Desdemona.

The sentiment

Lady

The romance

does not exceed

Lucy Hutch-

Russell, or even as one discerns

through the plain prose of Pepys's Diary, the cred habit of an English wife.

Sir

its

sa-

Samuel Eomilly

could not bear the death of his wife. has

;

Brutus, the Kate Percy,

the height of noble passion in Mrs. inson, or in

of Im-

copied from English nature

Every

class

noble and tender examples.

Domesticity

the taproot which enables the

nation to branch wide and high.

end of their trade and empire

The motive and

guard the independence and privacy of their homes. Nothing is

MANNERS.

much marks

tion

manners

their

on their household

carried

the concentra-

This domesticity

ties.

and

court

into

113

camp.

governed India and Spain and his

and fought his

debts,

battles like a

This

has of course

troops,

good family-man, paid

and, though general of an

army

taste for

house and parish merits

Mr.

doting and foolish side.

its

abroad for fear of public

Spain, could not stir creditors.

"Wellington

own

Cobbett attributes the huge popularity of Perceval,

prime minister in 1810,

to the fact that

was wont to go to church, every Sunday, with a large quarto gilt prayer-book

under one arm,

wife hanging on the other, and followed

his

by a long

brood of children.

They keep

their

old

customs, costumes, and

pomps, their wig and mace, sceptre and crown.

The middle ages don.

still

lurk in the streets of Lon-

The Knights of the Bath take oath

defend injured ladies

;

They repeated the ceremonies

survives.

the gold-stick-in-waiting

of the

eleventh century in the coronation of the present

Queen.

hereditary tenure

OiSces, farms, trades,

Their leases run for years.

Terms of

10*

natural to them.

and partnership are liffe " Holdship has been with

service

'ong, or are inherited.

and traditions descend so. a hundred and a thousand

114

ENGLISH TRAITS.

me,"

Lord Eldon, " eight-and-twenty

said

knows

all

of usage

and books."

business

Wordsworth says " Many

sanction enough.

years,

Antiquity

of the small freeholders of Westmoreland,

of these

humble sons of the

ness that the land

hills

which they

had a conscious-

tilled

had

for

than five hundred years been possessed by

name and

the same

in the public yards,

blood."

The

men

ship-carpenter

lord's gardener

and

porter,

have been there for more than a hundred years, grandfather, father, and son.

The English power resides also in their dislike They have difficulty in bringing their reason to act, and on all occasions use their memory first. As soon as they have rid themselves of of change.

some grievance, and

settled the

they

make

wish

to hear of alteration

haste to fix

better practice,

as a finality,

and never

more.

Every Englishman is an embryonic chancellor His instinct is to search for a precedent. The favorite phrase of their law, is, " a custom whereof the

memory

trary."

man runneth

The barons

the cockneys

stifle

say,

not back to the con-

" JSolumus mutari ; " and

the curiosity of the foreigner on

the reason of any practice, with

always so."

They

" Lord, sir, it was Bacon told

hate innovation.

them, Time was the right reformer;

Chatham,

MANNEES.

lla

confidence was a plant of slow growth ; " Canning, to " advance with the times ; " and Wei that

hngton, that " habit was ten times nature."

All

statesmen learn the irresistibility of the tide

their

of custom, and have invented

many

fine phrases to

cover this slowness of perception, and prehensility of

tail.

seashell

only because

should be the crest of England, not it

represents a power built on the

The

waves, but also the hard finish of the men.

Englishman

After the spire

and the spines are formed,

the formation, a juice exudes,

varnishes every part. ties is as

cowry or a murex.

finished like a

The keeping

the want of

sometimes stands in lieu of taste," is the

with

of the proprie-

indispensable as clean linen.

quite countervails

or,

and a hard enamel merit

this, whilst

all.

'Tis

this

bad

most formidable word an Englishman

can pronounce.

But

this

japan costs them dear.

which exwooden deadness all rivalry with other countrymen. There is a knell in the conceit and externality of their voice, which seems to say, There

a prose in certain Englishmen,

ceeds in

this Gibraltar of pro-

Leave

all

priety,

mediocrity gets intrenched, and consolidat-

ed,

hope behind.

and founded in adamant.

fashion

Englishman of bound in

like one of those souvenirs,

ENGLISH TRAITS.

116

engravings

gold vellum, enriched with delicate

on thick hot-pressed paper, fit for the hands of ladies and princes, but with nothing in it worth reading or remembering.

severe

decorum

When

tage.

rules the court

and the

cot-

Thalberg, the pianist, was one even-

ing performing before the Queen, at Windsor, in

Queen accompanied him with The circumstance took air, and all England shuddered from sea to sea. The indecorum was never repeated. Cold, repressive man-

a private party, the

her voice.

ners prevail.

the opera.

They

enthusiasm

permitted except

They avoid every thing marked.

require a tone of voice that excites no atten-

tion in the room.

Sir Philip

patron saints of England, of

Sydney is one of the whom Wotton said,

" His wit was the measure of congruity." Pretension and vaporing are once for all

They keep

ful.

in dress

to the other

and manners.

go right to the

distaste-

extreme of low tone

They avoid

pretension and

heart of the thing.

They

hate

nonsense, sentimentalism, and highflown expres-

they use a studied plainness.

sion

;

mel

their fop

in dress.

Even Brum-

was marked by the severest

They value themselves on

simplicity

the absence of

every thing theatrical in the public business, and on conciseness and going to the point, in private

affairs.

MANNERS.

In an the Trial

117

England, not

aristocratical country, like

by Jury, but the dinner It is

the

stranger, to invite

him

institution.

many hundred

the capital

mode of doing honor to eat,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

"And

years.

to a

has been for

they think," says

" no greater honor

the Venetian traveller of 1500,

can be conferred or received, than to invite others to eat

they

with them, or to be invited themselves, and

would sooner give

five or six ducats to pro-

vide an entertainment for a person, than a groat to assist

the

in any distress." *

It is

reserved to

end of the day, the family-hour being generally

six, in

him

London, and, if any company is expected, one

two hours

in his

own

Every one

later.

dresses for dinner,

house, or in another man's.

are expected to arrive within half an

time fixed

by card of

death or mutilation

The English dinner which our cities.

own

guests

and nothing but

permitted to detain them. is

precisely the

model on

are constructed in the Atlantic

The company

the ladies

invitation,

The

hour of the

sit

one or two hours, before

leave the table.

The gentlemen

re-

main over their wine an hour longer, and rejoin the ladies in the drawing-room,

and take

cofiee.

The dress-dinner generates a talent of table-talk

" Eelation of England..'

Printed by the

Camden

Society

ENGLISH TKAITS.

118

which reaches great perfection one

good, that

popular

all

manner of clever

laneous

humor

railroads,

;

English

literary,

horses,

diamonds,

and the

bon-mots,

stories,

agriculture,

and wine.

good

table-talk of their wits, are as

French.

and personal

political,

horticulture, pisciculture,

the

projects, bits of

science, of practical invention, of miscel-

news

;

are

stories

such happy turns.

often told before, to have got

Hither come

the

sure they must have been

recorded

as the best of

In America, we are apt

scholars,

but have not yet attained the same perfection for

the

range of

nations

from which London

draws, and the steep contrasts of condition create the picturesque in society, as broken country makes

picturesque landscape, whilst our prevaiHng equality

makes a

cause

prairie tameness

the usage

and secondly,

be-

of a dress-dinner every day

dark, has a tendency to hive and produce to ad-

vantage

every thing good.

worn every sentence

now and then with

Much

attrition

has

into a bullet.

Also one meets

polished men,

who know every

thing, have tried every thing, can do every thing,

and are quite superior could they not,

to letters

and

only they would

science. ?

What

CHAPTEE

VII.

TRUTH.

The Teutonic heart,

German name has to

it.

The

races.

a proverbial significance of sin-

and honest meaning.

cerity

mony

have a national singleness of

tribes

which contrasts with the Latin

faces

The

arts bear testi-

of clergy and laity in old

sculptures and illuminated missals are charged with earnest belief.

the punctuality

Add

to this hereditary rectitude,

and precise dealing which com-

and you have the English truth and The government strictly performs its engagements. The subjects do not understand trimerce

creates,

credit.

fling

its

part.

occurred, in the resented

When

any breach of promise

old days of prerogative,

by the people

was

an intolerable grievance.

And, in modern times, any slipperiness in the government in

political faith, or

any repudiation or

crookedness in matters of finance, would bring the

whole nation to a committee of inquiry and reform. Private

men keep

their promises, never so trivial C119)

ENGLISH TRAITS.

120

Down

goes the flying word on the tablets, and

indelible as

Domesday Book.

Their practical power

rests

on their national

sin-

Veracity derives from instinct, and marks

cerity.

superiority in organization.

Nature has endowed

some animals with cunning,

as a

strength withheld

;

but

compensation

for

has provoked the maUce

of all others, as if avengers of public wrong.

the nobler kinds, where strength could be afforded,

her races are loyal to truth, as truth tion of the social state.

said, that

digging,

his is

who makes a fellows with him

not found,

to the spot,

if,

They

instantly and unresist-

result on a sounder animal it.

'Tis

cache of his prey,

English veracity seems

ingly torn in pieces.

could afford

truce

with each other.

faith

the wolf,

and brings

the founda-

make no

Beasts that

with man, do not break

structure, as if they

in saying what

are blunt

they think, sparing of promises, and they require plaindealing of otheis. a

man

in a

mask.

straight line, hit

whom

We will not have to do with

Let us know the

whom

and where

the affection of the nation

of their race,

called

by a writer

Draw

truth.

will.

makes the type at the Norman

Conquest, the truth-speaker ; Alueredus

veridicus.

Geoffrey of Monmouth says of King AureHus, of Arthur, that

" above

all

Alfred,

luicle

things he hated a

lie."

TBDTH.

12]

The Northman Guttorm said to King Olaf, " it is royal work to fulfil royal words." The mottoes of their families are monitory proverbs, as. Fare Say, do, of the Fairfaxes Say and seal, fac,

—

,•

of the house of Fiennes

Vero

;

nil verius, of the

DeVeres.

To be king of their word, is their pride. they unmask cant, they say, " the English

When

of this is," &c.

;

and

The phrase

insult.

" honor-bright,"

word

good

to give the lie is the

and as his

vulgar

their

bond."

praise,

They hate

and equivocation, and the cause public opinion,

extreme

of the lowest of the people

his

shufiling

damaged

in the

on which any paltering can be

fixed.

Even Lord Chesterfield, with his French breeding, when he came to define a gentleman, declared that truth made his distinction and nothing ever spoken by him would find so hearty a suffrage from his nation. The Duke of Wellington, who :

had the best right to say

so, advises

General Kellermann, that he of an English officer.

The English,

value themselves on this

the French

may rely on

trait,

the parole all classes,

as distinguishing

them from the French, who, in the popular are

states,

polite than true.

avoids the

belief,

An Englishman under-

superlative,

checks himself in

compliments, alleging, that in the French language,

one cannot speak without lying.

ENGLISH TKAITS.

122

They

love reality in wealth, power, hospitality,

and do not

the world as

ments, and

They

make a show, and take They are not fond of orna-

easily learn to

goes.

they wear them, they must be genis.

read gladly in old Fuller, that a lady, in the

reign of Elizabeth, " would have as patiently digest-

ed a

lie, as

the wearing of false stones or pendants

of counterfeit pearl."

They have

the earth-hunger,

or preference for property in land,

mark the Teutonic

They

nations.

which

said to

build of stone

public and private buildings are massive and durable

In comparing their ships' houses, and public

with the American,

offices

that they

commonly

pound, where we spend a

spend a

said,

dollar.

Plain rich clothes, plain rich equipage, plain rich finish

throughout their house and belongings, mark

the English truth.

They

confide in each other,

in English. this probity.

trap for his admiration, but business.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; English

The French feel The Englishman

The Frenchman

Stael says, that

believes

the superiority of is

not springing a

honestly minding his

vain.

Madame

the English irritated Napoleon,

mainly, because they have found out success with honesty.

how

to unite

She was not aware how

wide an application her foreign readers would give to the

remark.

Wellington discovered the ruin

TRUTH. of Bonaparte's affairs,

augured it

ill

123

his

own

probity.

of the empire, as soon as he saw that

was mendacious, and lived by war.

not bring in

its

sequel

new

If war do

trade, better agricuL

ture and manufactures, but only games, fireworks,

and spectacles,

much

less, a

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; no

prosperity could support

;

nation decimated for conscripts, and

out of pocket, like France.

So he drudged for years

on his military works at Lisbon, and from this base at

extended

last

believing in his

above

gigantic lines to Waterloo,

his

countrymen and

their syllogisms

the rhodomontade of Europe.

all

a St. George's festival, in Montreal,

happened

be a guest, since

where I

return home, I

observed that the chairman complimented his com-

by saying, " they confided that wherever

patriots,

they met an Englishman, they found a

would speak the truth." festival fruitless,

of April,

if,

all

And one

man who

cannot think this

over the world, on the 23d

wherever two or three English are found,

they meet to encourage each other in the nationality of veracity.

In the power of saying rude truth, sometimes in the lion's

mouth, no

king's birthday, to offer

men

surpass them.

the

when each bishop was expected

the king a purse of gold, Latimer gave

Henry VIII. a copy of the Vulgate, with a mark

ENGLISH TKAITS.

124 the

God

"Whoremongers and

passage,

will

judge

;

each other, that the king passed are

tenacious of their

change

adulterers

" and they so honor stoutness in

belief,

They

over.

and cannot

easily

They are come quickly

their opinions to suit the hour.

like ships

much head on

with too

about, nor will prosperity or even adversity be

allowed to shake their habitual view of conduct.

Whilst I was in London, M. Guizot arrived there

on his escape from Paris,

Many

in February,

private friends called on him.

was immediately proposed of the Athenaeum. Certainly, they

knew

1848.

His name

member

as an honorary

M. Guizot was blackballed. the distinction of his name.

But the Englishman is not fickle. He had really made up his mind, now for years as he read his newspaper, to hate and despise M. Guizot and the ;

altered position of the

man as an illustrious exile, and

a guest in the country, makes no difference to him,

would instantly to an American. They require the same adherence, thorough con-

as it

viction

and

reality in

public men.

It is the

want

of character which makes the low reputation of the Irish

members.

" See them," they

hundred and twenty-seven

all

never proposing any thing, and the income tax,"

said,

" one

voting like sheep, all

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which was an

but four voting

ill-judged conces*

TRUTH. Bion of the

123

Government, relieving Irish property

from the burdens charged on English.

They have

a horror of adventurers in or out of

The

Parliament. these days,

is,

i-uling passion of

Englishmen, in

humbug.

In the same

a terror of

proportion, they value honesty, stoutness, and ad-

They

herence to your own. to his objects.

They

like a

they hate the Irish, as aimless

mans, said.

professors.

man committed

hate the French, as frivolous ;

In February, 1848, they

Look, the French king and his party

want of a shot so entirely

;

they hate the Ger-

fell for

they had not conscience to shoot,

was the pith and heart of monarchy

eaten out.

They attack their own politicians every day, on same grounds, as adventurers. They love stoutness in standing for your right, in declining money or promotion that costs any concession. the

The

barrister

Counsel,

refuses the silk

his

junior have

gown

of Queen's

one day

earlier.

Lord CoUingwood would not accept his medal victory

14th February, 1797,

receive one for victory

1st June,

1794

long withholden medal was accorded. llereagh dissuaded

for

he did not ;

and tha

When

Cas-

Lord Wellington from going

the king's levee, until the unpopular Cintra busi-

ness

had been explained, he replied, "

11*

You

furnish

ENGLISH TKA3TS.

126

I will go to this, or I will

a reason for going-

The

never go to a king's levee."

radical

mob

Oxford cried after the tory lord Eldon, " There's old Eldon ; cheer him he never ratted." They have given the parliamentary- nickname of Trimmers to ;

the timeservers,

whom

English character does not

love.*

They

are very liable in their politics to extra-

ordinary delusions, thus, to believe what stands

recorded in the gravest books, that the movement of 10 April, 1848, was urged or assisted by eigners

which, to be sure,

paralleled

for-

by the

democratic whimsy in this country, which I have noticed to be shared

by men sane on other

points,

that the English are at the bottom of the agitation

of slavery, in American politics

and then again

French popular legends on the subject of But suspicion will make fools perfidious Albion. to the

of nations as of citizens.

* It

an unlucky moment

remember these sparkles of solitary England to the Emam sure that no Englishman Tvhom I had to

virtue in the face of the honors lately paid in

peror Louis Napoleon.

the happiness to know, consented,

commons

when

the aristocracy and the

of .London cringed like a Neapolitan rabble, before a sue*

cessful thief.

But

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; how

to resist

linked series of state necessities

one

step,

too late, that the use of dishonest agents as for single

men.

though odious,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Governments must always is

in a

learn

as ruinous for natioDi

TRUTH.

127

slow temperament makes them

less

rapid and

ready than other countrymen, and has giveii occato

sion

the observation, that English wit comes

afterwards,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which

the French denote as espri,

This dulness makes their attachment

d'escalier.

home, and their adherence in

tries to

home

habits.

all

foreign coun-

The Englishman who

visits

Mount Etna, will carry his teakettle to the top. The old Italian author of the " Eelation of England " (in 1500), says, " I have it on the best information, that,

when

the war

actually raging

most furiously, they will seek for good eating, and all

their other

harm might to

comforts, without thinking

what

Then

seem

befall

them."

be set at the bottom of a tunnel, and they affirm

the one small fact they in

know, with the best

the world that nothing else exists.

their

their eyes

own

all

final.

belief in guineas

faith

And,

perfect, they readily,

occasions, apply the pecuniary argument Thus when the Rochester rappings began

be heard of in England, a

man deposited ÂŁ100

as to

in a

box in the Dublin Bank, and then advertised in the newspapers to all somnambulists, mesmerizers, and others, that whoever could tell him the sealed

number of let

lie

should have the money.

there six months, the newspapers

now

his note,

and then, at his instance, stimulating the attention

ENGLISH TRAITS.

128 of the adepts

said,

with

this

but none could ever

;

" now

let

proven

tell

him

and

;

never be bothered more

lie."

told

of a good Sir

John, that he heard a case stated by counsel, and

made up

his

mind

;

then the counsel

for the other

taking their turn to speak, he found himself

liide

and perplexed, that he exclaimed, " So

so unsettled

me God I will never listen to evidence Any number of delightful examples of

help

again."

English stolidity are the anecdotes of Europe.

this

knew

lieve

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

a very worthy man,

a magistrate, I be-

he was, in the town of Derby,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; who went

In one scene, the

opera, to see Malibran.

to the

heroine was to rush across a ruined bridge.

Mr.

B. arose, and mildly yet firmly called the attention of the audience and the performers to the that,

judgment, the bridge was

his

fact,

unsafe

This English stolidity contrasts with French wit

and

tact.

greatly

What

The French,

more influence

influence the English have

of wealth and power ity

is commonly said, have Europe than the English.

and

talent.

treacherous

The

;

by brute

force

that of the French by

affin-

Italian

tortures,

subtle, the Spaniard

was

said,

could never

wrest from an Egyptian the confession of a cret.

None

lishman.

of these

traits

se-

belong to the Eng-

His choler and conceit force every

thing

;

TRUTH. out.

Defoe,

who knew

his

12S

countrymen well, says

of them, " In

close intrigue, their faculty's but weak, For generally whate'er they know, they speak, And often their own counsels undermine By mere infirmity without design

From whence,

the learned say,

doth proceed.

That English treasons never can succeed For they're so open-hearted, you may know Their own most secret thoughts, and others' ;

too.

CHAPTEE

VIII.

CHAKACTER.

The

English race are reputed morose.

know

not

that they haye sadder

brows than

They

neighbors of northern climates.

I do their

are sad by

comparison with the singing and dancing nations

not sadder, but slow and staid, as finding their joys at home. is

They,

no enjoyment of

art in

your merry heart

that

the way, your sad one tires in a mile.

all

This

trait

French

where there

there can be no vigor and

speech or thought

goes

too, believe that

life,

of gloom has been fixed on them by

travellers,

who, from

Sage, Mirabeau,

down

Eroissart, Voltaire,

to the lively

joumaUsts

of the feuilletons, have spent their wit on the so-

lemnity of their neighbors. conversation

Englishman

finds

in reflection.

goes to work. fever.

unknown no

When His

relief

The French in their

from

he wishes

say,

island.

gay

The

reflection, except

for

amusement, he

hilarity is like

an attack of

Religion, the theatre, and the reading the (130)

CHARACTER. books of his country,

bound in duty

the pleasures and rare gayety of this in-

consolable nation is

police does not interfere with

It thinks itself

public diversions. to resjiect

feed and increase his nat-

all

The

ural melancholy.

131

;

and

their

well-known courage

entirely attributable to theii disgust of

I suppose, their gravity of

life.

demeanor and

their

As com-

few words have obtained this reputation.

pared with the Americans, I think them cheerful

and contented. are

Young

much more prone

people, in this

to melancholy.

countryj

The English

have a mild aspect, and a ringing cheerful voice.

They

are large-natured,

and not so

as the

southerners, and are

people

among

easily

among them

amused grown

children, req^uiring war, or trade, or

engineering, or science, instead of frivolous games.

They

are

proud and private, and, even

to recreation, will

sported sadly

;

disposed

avoid an open garden.

They

Us s'amusaient tristement, selon

coutume de leur pays, said Froissart

;

and, I suppose,

never nation built their party-walls so thick, or their garden-fences so high.

duce no effect on them quiet,

and composed,

Meat and wine pro-

they are just as cold,

at the end, as at the begin-

ning of dinner.

The reputation of taciturnity they have enjoyed or seven hundred years ; and a kind of

for six

ENGLISH TEAITS.

132

pride in bad public speaking

Commons,

as if

noted in the House

they -were wilHng to show that

they did not live by their tongues, or thought they

spoke well enough

they had the tone of gentle-

In mixed company, they shut their mouths Yorkshire mill-owner told me, he had ridden

men.

more than once

all

the

way from London

in the first-class carriage, with the

The

and no word exchanged.

to Leeds,

same persons,

club-houses were

established to cultivate social habits, and that

more than two

Was

eats alone.

serious

and

eat together,

rare

it is

oftenest one

then a stroke of humor in the

Swedenborg, or was

only his

pitiless

made him shut up the English souls in a heaven by themselves ? They are contradictorily described as sour, splenlogic, that

etic,

and stubborn,

The

sensible.

variety

truth

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and is,

character.

multitudes

diflferent

Welshman, the the East or

mild, sweet, and

they have great range and

Commerce

sends abroad

The

classes.

West

Indies, are wide of the perfect

behavior of the educated and dignified family. 'squire,

inn,

ellers,'

the burly farmer

;

man

life.

In every

Commercial-Eoom, in which

bagmen who

so is the country

with his narrow and violent the

choleric

fervid Scot, the bilious resident in

trav-

carry patterns, and sohcit

CHAKACTEE.

T-

'.orders, for

wont

the manufacturers, are It easily

tertained.

133

happens that

England them on the road, and characterize

to be en-

this class

should

who meets

to the foreigner,

every public house, whilst

the gentry avoid the taverns, or seclude themselves whilst in them.

But these and may

classes are the right

show the

fairly

yet art and education are

have dealt with them.

They

good lovers, good haters, slow but obstinate

admirers, and, in

all

things, very

temperament, like

their

men

They

instincts cleave to nature.

earthy

and of the

;

to it for

what

ment.

They

sea, as

yields them,

much

steeped in

hardly awaked from

deep sleep, which they enjoy.

cise,

English stock,

national qualities, before

Their habits and are of the earth,

the sea-kinds, attached

and not from any

senti-

are full of coarse strength, rude exer-

butcher's meat, and sound sleep

;

and suspect

any poetic insinuation or any hint for the conduct of life

which

reflects

this

somebody were fumbling â&#x20AC;˘

animal existence, as

at the umbilical

cord and

They doubt

a man's

might stop their supplies.

and shake their

he does not eat with appetite, heads if he is particularly chaste.

Take them

they come, you shall find in the

sound judgment,

common people gruffness

and

ill

a surly indifference,

temper

;

sometimes

and, in minds of more

134

ENGLISH TKAITS.

power,

magazines

war,

inexhaustible

clial*

lenging " The ruggedest hour that time and spite dare bring To frown upon the enraged Northumberland."

They

are headstrong believers

their opinion, their

and not

whim and

and defenders

less resolute in

perversity.

maintaining

Hezekiah "Woodward

wrote a book against the Lord's Prayer.

And

one can believe that Burton the Anatomist of Melancholy, having predicted from the stars the hour of his death, slipped the knot himself round his

own

neck, not to falsify his horoscope.

Their looks bespeak an invincible stoutness they have extreme difficulty to run away, and wiW

Wellington said of the young coxcombs " but " the puppies fight well ; and Nelson said of his die game.

of the Life-Guards delicately brought up,

sailors,

" they

peas."

really

mind

no more than

shot

absolute stoutness no nation has more

or better examples.

They

are

good

storming

redoubts, at boarding frigates, at dying in the ditch, or

last

any desperate service which has daylight

and honor in

;

but not, I think,

rack, or any passive obedience, like castle-'-ocf

rascular and

the

word of

a czar.

enduring the

jumping off a Being both

highly organized, so as to be very

;

CHABACTEB. sensible of pain

and

,â&#x20AC;˘

135

intellectual,

so as to

see

reason and glory in a matter.

that

which yields the more than enough, courage on fortitude, gen-

constitutional force,

supplies of the day, they have the

the excess which creates ius

poetry, invention in mechanics, enterprise

in trade, magnificence in wealth, splendor in cer-

emonies, petulance and projects in youth. The young men have a rude health which runs into peccant humors. They drink brandy like water, cannot expend their quantities of waste strength

on riding, hunting, swimming, and fencing, and run into absurd Eumenides.

frolics

They

with the gravity of the

stoutly carry into every

nook

and corner of the earth their turbulent sense leaving no lie uncontradicted

examined.

with poisoned creases

;

rius's

no pretension un-

secret

;

cut themselves

;

taste

every poison

Naples, they put

blood in an alembic -

;

swing their hammock in the

boughs of the Bohon Upas

buy every

;

They chew hasheesh

;

St.

;

Janua-

they saw a hole into

the head of the " winking Virgin,"

know why

she winks ; measure with an English footrule every cell of the Inquisition, every Turkish caaba, every Holy of holies ; translate and send to Bentley the

arcanum bribed and bullied away from shuddering Bramins ; and measure their own strength by tha

ENGLISH TRAITS.

136

These

they cause.

Li-rror

class,

the best and the worst

are of every

travellers ;

and

may

easily hap-

pen that those of rudest behavior are taken notice of and remembered. The Saxon melancholy in the vulgar rich and poor appears as gushes of ill-humor,

which every check exasperates into sarcasm and

vi-

There are multitudes of rude young English who have the self-suiEciency and bluntness tuperation.

of their nation, and who, with their disdain of the rest of

mankind, and with

this indigestion

and choler,

have made the English traveller a proverb comfortable and offensive manners. description of

for un-

was no bad

the Briton generically, what was

two hundred years ago, of one particular Ox" He was a very bold man, uttered ford scholar said

any thing that came into his mind, not only among his

companions, but in public coffee-houses, and

would often speak

his

mind

of particular persons

then accidentally present, without examining the

company he was

;

for

which he was often

manded, and several times threatened

repri-

to be kicked

and beaten."

The common Englishman

prone to forget a

cardinal article in the bill of social rights, that

every

man

has a right to his

own

ears.

No man

can claim to usurp more than a few cubic feet of the audibilities of a public room, or to put upoo

;

CHAEACTEK. the

1S7

company with the loud statement of

his crotch-

ets or personalities.

But

it is

in the deep traits of race that the for-

tunes of nations are written, and however derived,

whether a happier tribe or mixture of air,

what circumstance,

golden

mean of temperament,

stock

best

mixed

that

world,

the

tribes, the

for

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; here

them the

exists the

broad-

broad-fronted,

bottomed, best for depth, range, and equability,

men

aplomb and

reserves, great range

and many

moods, strong instincts, yet apt for culture

;

war-

and tradesmen

;

wise

class as

well as clerks

;

earls

minority, as well as foolish majority

;

abysmal tem-

perament, hiding wells of wrath, and glooms on

which no sunshine

mon

settles

;

comthem fast to making this tem-

alternated with a

sense and humanity which hold

every piece of cheerful duty

perament a sea to which a race to

which

all

;

storms are superficial

their fortunes flow, as

they

had the elastic organization at once fine and robust enough for dominion ; as if the burly inexpressive, now mute and contumacious, now fierce and sharp-tongued dragon, which once made the island light with his fiery breath, had bequeathed alone

his ferocity to his

conqueror.

They hide

virtues

under vices, or the semblance of them. It is the misshapen hairy Scandinavian troll again, who

12*

ENGLISH TRAITS.

138 the

lifts

out of the mire, or "threshes the

cart

corn that ten day-laborers could not end," but is

done in the dark, and with muttered maledic-

tions.

a churl with a soft place in his heart,

whose speech

a brash of bitter waters, but

who

you at a pinch. He says no, and Here serves you, and your thanks disgust him. was lately a cross-grained miser, odd and ugly, resembling in countenance the portrait of Punch, loves to help

with the laugh

out

left

rich

;

sulking in a lonely house to

his

own

industry;

who never gave

;

any man, and disdained

all courtesies

;

a dinner

yet as true

a worshipper of beauty in form and color as ever existed,

and profusely pouring over the cold mind

of his countrymen creations of grace and truth, re-

moving the reproach of

sterility

from English

art,

catching from their savage climate every fine hint,

and importing into their of sunnier

ing ; and,

cities

when he saw in the

his pictures

that

hung next

galleries every tint

and skies

it,

;

making an

and

trait

era in paint-

that the splendor of one of

Exhibition

dimmed

secretly took a

his rival's

brush and black-

ened his own.

They do daws

ness,

which

men,"

not wear their heart in their sleeve for

peck

at.

it is

They have

that

phlegm

a compliment to disturb.

said Aristotle,

are

or staid-

" Great

always of a nature

CHAEACTEE. originally melancholy."

which attaches

with a passion which

They dare to They

displease, they

do not speak to expectation. of

No,

express

They

There

all

the

becomes him

that

it differs

from yours.

This gravity

Italian, or the

brought to the

strife

with

richer material possession,

metaphysical grounds.

to the

Greek. fate,

sacrifices

there with his

which he

On deliberate choice, and from grounds he has elected his part

French,

When

and on more purely

consent, face to face with fortune,

with grandeur.

minds of great resources.

an English hero superior

the German, the

Each of

feels it

are meditating opposition.

inseparable from

like the sayers

better than the sayers of Yes.

them has an opinion which he to

mind

'Tis the habit of a

to abstractions

gives vast results.

13?

to live

and die

This race has added

own

defies.

of character, for,

and dies

new elements

humanity, and has a deeper root in the world.

They have exquisite

great range of scale, from ferocity to

refinement.

With

have great retrieving power.

larger

scale,

they

After running each

tendency to an extreme, they try another tack with equal heat. More intellectual than other races, when they live with other races, they do not take their They subsidize

language, but bestow their own. Âťther nations,

and are not subsidized.

They

pros-

ENGLISH TRAITS.

140

They

and are not proselyted.

elyte,

assimilate

other races to themselves, and are not assimilated.

The English did not the Indies.

fell

calculate the

conquest of

their character.

So they

administer in different parts of the world, the codes of every empire and race

law

;

in the Mauritius, the

;

West

French

in Canada, old

Code Napoleon

;

in the

Indies, the edicts of the Spanish Cortes

;

Laws of Menu ; in the Isle of Man, of the Scandinavian Thing at the Cape of Good Hope, of the old Netherlands ; and in the

the East Indies, the

;

Ionian Islands, the Pandects of Justinian.

They

are very conscious of their advantageous

position in history.

England

patron, the instructor, the ally.

French and of the English press

of the first

the lawgiver, the

Compare the tone :

the

querulous, captious, sensitive about English

opinion

the English press

;

never timorous about

French opinion, but arrogant and contemptuous.

They

are testy

and headstrong through an ex-

churlish as men sometimes who do not forget a debt, who ask no favors, and who will do what they like with their own. With education and intercourse, these aspercess of will

and bias

;

please to be

ities

wear

anatomy cies, I

off,

and leave the good will pure.

reformed according to national tenden-

suppose, the spleen will hereafter be found

CHARACTER in the

143

Englishman, not found in the Americanj and

difFeienting the one from the other.

I anticipate

another anatomical discovery, that this organ will

be found to be cortical and caducous, that they are superficially

morose, but at

herein differing from

last

Rome and

tender-hearted,

the Latin nations.

Nothing savage, nothing mean resides in the Eng-

They

lish heart.

are subject to panics of credulity

and of rage, but the temper of the nation, however disturbed, settles itself soon and easily, as, in this

temperate zone, the sky after whatever storms

clears again,

A saving

and serenity

stupidity

curtain

ception as the

swifter Americans, lish,

is its

people

strength.

ance that

when they

first

their finest

Newton, or in the

Our Engdo them

deal with

but, later,

;

who wear

well,

understand the in

protects their per-

of the eagle's eye.

pronounce them stupid

justice

normal condition.

masks and

or hide their

power of perform

wits, in

the

patient

versatile transcendent poets, or

Dugdales, Gibbons, Hallams, Eldons, and Peels, one should see how English day-laborers High and low, they are of an unctuous hold out.

in the

There is an adipocere in their constitution, as if they had oil also for their mental wheels, and could perform vast amounts of work without texture.

damaging themselves.

;

ENGLISH TKAITS.

142

the scale of expense on

Even and

which scholars and

fornij

which people

professional

proves the tension of their muscle,

live,

men conwhen vast

numbers are found who can each lift this enormous load. I might even add, their daily feasts argue a savage vigor of body.

nation was ever so rich in able

tlemen," as Charles

men

said of Strafford,

might make a prince rather

abilities

ashamed in the greatest

affairs

of state

;

" gen-

" whose

afraid than ;

men

Baron Vere, " had one seen him returning from a victory, he would by his silence have suspected that he had lost the day and, had he beheld him in a retreat, he would have such temper,

collected

that, like

him

by the

a conqueror

cheerfulness of

his spirit." *

The

following passage from the Heimskringla

might almost stand ern Englishman

strong, and remarkably

handsome

King Harold gave him among all his men, cared ;

of the mod-

very stout and in appearances.

this

testimony, that he,

least

about doubtful

whether they betokened danger

cumstances, pleasure

portrait

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " Haldor was

for,

cir-

whatever turned up, he was never in

higher nor in lower

spirits,

never slept

more on account of them, nor * Fuller.

ate

less

nor

nor drank but

Worthies of England.

CHARACTER.

143

Haldor was not a man of

Recording to his custom.

many words, but short in conversation,

told his opin-

ion bluntly, and was obstinate and hard

could not please the king,

and

who had many

people about him, zealous in his service.

this

clever

Haldor

remained a short time with the king, and then came to Iceland,

aholt,

where he took up

and dwelt in that farm

his abode in Hiardto a

very advanced

age." *

The

national temper, in the civil history,

The

flashy or whiffling.

which

smoulders with

fire,

ders in flame.

The wrath

wrath, but has a long heat, a register

and

at last sets all its bor

London is not French memory, and, in its hottest

rule.

They

forth.

are capable of a sublime resolution,

war of

not

Half their strength they put not after the

slow, deep English mass

and

races, often predicted,

if here-

and making

itself a war of opinions also (a question of des-

potism and liberty coming from Eastern Europe),

should menace the English civilization, these seakings may take once again to their floating castles, and find a new home and a second millennium of

power in their colonies.

The

stability of

modern world.

England

the security of the

If the English race were as

â&#x20AC;˘ Heimskringla, Laing's translation,

vol.

iii.

p. 37.

mu-

ENGLISH TRAITS.

144

table as the French, lish

what

reliance

The

stand for liberty.

But the Engmoney-

conservative,

loving, lord-loving English are yet liberty-loving

and so freedom

safe

sonal force than any other people.

always

The

nation

the immoral action of their govern-

resist

They think humanely on the

ment.

;

have more per-

for they

affairs

France, of Turkey, of Poland, of Hungary, of

Schleswig Holstein, though overborne by the

state-

craft of the rulers at last.

Does the masked,

the tribe spreads

onies,

commerce, codes,

history

shows

it,

the

which, though not less potent,

bias,

show

early history of each tribe

permanent

as the

its

activity into col-

arts, letters ?

The

musician plays the

he proceeds to conceal in a tempest of

air

early

which

variations.

In Alfred, in the Northmen, one may read the genius of the English society, namely, that private life

the place of honor.

Glory, a career, and

ambition, words familiar to the longitude of Paris, are seldom heard in English speech.

from

their hearts his

expects every

For actual

man

Nelson wrote homely telegraph, " England

do his duty."

service, for the dignity of a profes-

sion, or to appease diseased or inflamed talent, the

army and navy may be entered doing well in the navy)

;

and the

(the worst boys civil

service, in

CHARACTER.

145

departments where serious official work is done ; and they hold in esteem the barrister engaged in the severer studies of the law.

But the calm, sound, and most British Briton shrinks from pub-

lic life, as charlatanism, and respects an economy founded on agriculture, coal-mines, manufactures,

or trade,

which secures an independence through

the creation of real values.

They wish tual

command or houses. They

neither to

be kings in their

own

and deeply enjoy literature

have the world served up models, and every

mode

though not creators in

They their own

obey, but to are intellec-

they like well

;

them

in books, maps,

of exact information, and, art,

they value

its

refine-

ment.

are ready for leisure, can direct and

fill

day, nor need so

constraint of a necessity.

much

But

as others the

the history of the

nation discloses, at every turn, this original predilection

may have been

which

bribes with

warped

independence, and, however

private

for

this inclination

men

power has

out of orbit, the inclination endures,

and forms and reforms the laws,

and occupations. is

disturbed by the

their vast colonial

They choose

letters,

manners,

that welfare

which

compatible with the commonwealth, knowing that

such alone

is stable

;

as wise

merchants prefer

vestments in the three per cents.

in-

CHAPTER

IX.

COCKAYNE.

The

English are a nation of humorists.

vidual right

pushed

to the uttermost

patible with puhlic order. that

seems the

elsewhere.

craft

Property

Indi<

hound com-

so perfect,

of that race, and not to exist

The king cannot

the peasant refuses to

sell.

step on an acre which

testator

endows

dog o^a rookery, and Europe cannot

interfere with

Every individual has

his particular

his absurdity.

way

of living, which he pushes to folly, and the

decided sympathy of his compatriots

engaged

back up Mr. Crump's whim by statutes, and chancellors, and horse-guards. There is no freak so ridiculous but some Englishman has attempted to immortalize by money and law. British citizenship is as omnipotent as Roman was. Mr. Cockayne is very sensible of

The pursy man means

this.

by freedom the right to do as he pleases, and does wrong in order to feel his freedom, and makes a conscience of persisting in

it.

(146)

COCKAYNE.

He small.

147

iptensely patriotic, for his country

His confidence in the power and perform-

ance of his nation makes him provokingly incurious about other nations.

dislikes foreigners.

Swedenborg, who lived much in England, notes " the similitude of minds among the English, in of which they contract

consecLuence

who

with friends

are

familiarity

of that nation, and seldom

and they r^ard foreigners, as one looking through a telescope from the top of a palace regards those who dwell or wander about out witholhers

of the city." tian

who wrote

1500, says

much

Vene-

older traveller, the

the " Relation of England," * in

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " The English

are great lovers of

themselves, and of every thing belonging to them.

They think selves,

that there are

no other

men than them-

and no other world but England

;

and,

whenever they see a handsome foreigner, they say he looks like an Englishman, and it is a great pity he should not be an Englishman ; and whenever they partake of any delicacy with a foreigner,

that

him whether such a thing is made in his "When he adds epithets of praise, his cli* English ; " and when he wishes to pay so max'is you the highest compliment, he says, I should not they ask

country."

â&#x20AC;˘ Printed by the Camden Society.

EKGLISH TRAITS.

148

know you from an Englishman. France is, by its natural contrast, a

kind of blackboard on which English

character draws

its

own

traits in chalk.

gance habitually exhibits

I suppose that all

French. in

men

a secret feeling

of joy that they are not French natives. is

said to

to the

of English blood

America, Europe, or Asia, have

ridge

This arro-

itself in allusions

Mr. Cole-

have given public thanks to God,

of a lecture, that he had defended him

at the close

from being able

to utter a single sentence in the

French language.

I have found that Englishmen

have such a good opinion of England, that the ordinary phrases, in disparaging one's

all

good

own

society, of postponing or

things in talking with a

by them for an inhomage to the merits of their nation and the New Yorker or Pennsylvanian who modstranger, are seriously mistaken

suppressible

estly laments the disadvantage of a

log-huts,

and savages,

new

country,

surprised by the instant

and unfeigned commiseration of the whole company,

who

plainly account all the world out of

England a heap of rubbish. The same insular limitation pinches politics.

and, so help

laws

down

sticks to his

him God

traditions

his foreign

and usages,

he will force his island by-

the throat of great countries, like India,

China, Canada, Australia, and not only

so,

but

COCKAYNE.

14S

impose "Wapping on the Congress of Vienna, and trample

down

all nationalities

Lord Chatham goes

for

without representation

;

with his taxed boots.

liberty,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

and no taxation law

for that is British

;

but not a hobnail shall they dare make in America, but buy their nails in England,

law

British

and the

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

for that also is

fact that British

commerce

be re-created by the independence of Amer-

was

ica,

took them

In short, I

all

surprise.

afraid that English nature is so

rank and aggressive as to be a

The world

with every other.

little

incompatible

not wide enough

must be admitted,

for two.

But, beyond this nationality,

the island offers a daily worship to the old Norse

god Brage, celebrated among our Scandinavian forefathers,

for

his

The English have a

eloquence and majestic steady courage, that

and endurance

for great attempts

lights in showing himself for what he

doing what he each of

can

them has

to imitate

;

too

any body.

air.

them

they have also

through which every

a petty courage,

fits

man is,

de-

and

so that, in all companies,

good an opinion of himself He hides no defect of his

form, features, dress, connection, or birthplace, for

he thinks every circumstance belonging to him

13*

ENGLISH TRAITS.

150

If one of

comes recommended to you.

a bald, or a red, or a green head, or scar, or

them have

bow

legs, or a

mark, or a paunch, or a squeaking or a

raven voice, he has persuaded himself that there is

something modish and becoming in

it sits

it,

and that

well on him.

But nature makes nothing

in vain, and this

little

superfluity of self-regard in the English brain,

one of the secrets of their power and history. For,

sets

he really

man on being and doing what

every

and

can.

skulking, secondary

It takes

air,

away

a dodging,

and encourages a frank

and manly bearing, so that each man makes the

most of himself, and

of pushing.

loses

no opportunity

for

want

man's personal defects will com-

monly have with the rest of the world, precisely which they have to himself. If he makes light of them, so will other men. "We that importance

all find in

these a convenient meter of character,

since a little

remember

western

man would be

ruined by the vexation.

a shrewd politician, in one of

cities,

told

our

me, " that he had known sev-

made by

eral

successful statesmen

And

another, an ex-governor of Illinois, said to

their foible."

me, " If a man knew any thing, he would corner and be modest

but he

sit

in a

such an ignorant

COCKAYNE.

151

peacock, that he goes bustling up and down, and hits

on extraordinary discoveries."

There er

also this benefit in brag, that the speak-

unconsciously expressing his

own

Hu-

ideal.

mor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it. Their culture generally enables the travelled English to avoid any ridiculous extremes

of this self-pleasing, and to give

Then

air.

the natural disposition

the respect which they find

world for English

XIV.,

that his gait

in so great a

ability.

and

air

an agreeable is

was

fostered

entertained

the

said of Louis

were becoming enough

monarch, yet would have been ridicu-

lous in another

man

name warrants which a Frenchman At all events, they lish

;

so the prestige of the

Eng-

a certain confident bearing, or Belgian could not carry. feel

themselves at liberty to

assume the most extraordinary tone on the subject of English merits.

English lady on the Rhine hearing a Ger-

man speaking of her party as foreigners, exclaimed, " No, we are not foreigners ; we are English it They tell you daily, is you that are foreigners." ;

London, the story of the Frenchman and Engwho quarrelled. Both were unwilling to

lishman

but their companions put them up to it it was agreed, that they should fight alone,

fight, last,

ENGLISH TRAITS.

152

the dark, and with pistols

the candles were put

and the Englishman, to make sure not to hit any body, fired up the chimney, and brought down They have no curiosity about the Frenchman. out,

and answer any information you may volunteer with " Oh, Oh " until the informant foreigners,

makes up

his

mind, that they

shall

ignorance, for any help he will offer. really

no limits

to this conceit,

die in their

There

are

though brighter men

among them make painful efforts to be candid. The habit of brag runs through all classes, from the Times newspaper through politicians and poets,

through Wordsworth, Carlyle, Mill, and Sydney Smith,

down

treatise

boys of Eton.

to the

political

In the gravest

economy, in a philosophical

essay, in books of science, one

surprised by the

most innocent exhibition of unflinching In a

tract

plished gentleman writes thus ain,

nationality.

on Corn, a most amiable and accom:

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " Though

Brit-

Bishop Berkeley's idea, were

according to

surrounded by a wall of brass ten thousand cubits in height,

still

she would as far excel the rest of

the globe in riches, as she

now

does, both in this

secondary quality, and in the more important ones of freedom, virtue,

and science." *

â&#x20AC;˘ William Spence.

;

COCKAYNE.

The English

dislike the

Bociety, whilst yet

153

American structure of

trade, mills, public education,

and chartism are doing what they can to create in England the same social condition. America is the paradise of the economists

;

the favorable

exception invariably quoted to the rules of ruin

when he speaks

but

directly of the Americans,

the islander forgets his philosophy,

and remembers

his disparaging anecdotes.

But all

this childish patriotism costs

something, like

The English sway of their colono root of kindness. They govern by

narrowness.

nies has

and

their arts

kind

;

is felt,

which

ability

;

they are more just than

and, whenever an abatement of their power

they have not conciliated the affection on to rely.

Coarse local distinctions, as those of nation, province, or town, are useful in the absence of real

ones

dental

;

but

we must

umphing over

not insist on these acci-

Individual

lines.

traits

national ones.

in metaphysics discriminating

or Spanish science.

vantes,

are

There

always is

Greek, or English,

jEsop, and Montaigne, Cer-

and Saadi are men of the world

wave our own University,

is to

tri-

no fence

flag at the dinner

;

and

table or in the

carry the boisterous dulness of a

4re-club into a polite circle.

Nature and destiny

ENGLISH TRAITS.

154

on the watch

Rre always trips

us up

when we

for

strut

examples in history on

this

our

Nature

follies.

and there are curious very point of national

pride.

George of Cappadocia, born at Epiphania in was a low parasite, who got a lucrative

Cilicia,

contract to supply the

army with bacon.

and informer, he got

rich,

from

justice.

A rogue

and was forced

saved his money,

run

embraced

Arianism, collected a library, and got promoted

by a faction

When

dria.

Alexan-

the episcopal throne of

Julian came, A. D. 361, George was

dragged to prison

;

the prison was burst open by

the mob, and George was lynched, as he deserved.

And

this

precious knave became, in good time.

Saint George of England, patron of chivalry, em-

blem of victory and civility, and the pride of best blood of the modern world. Strange, that the solid truth-speaking

should derive from an impostor.

New World

Briton

Strange, that the

should have no better luck,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

broad America must wear the name of a

Amerigo Vespucci, the pickledealer

who went and whose this

that

thief.

Seville,

out, in 1499, a subaltern with Hojeda,

highest

naval rank was boatswain's

mate in an expedition that never in

the

lying world

sailed,

managed

supplant Columbus, and

COCKAYNE. baptize half the earth with his

Thus nobody can throw badly

oflF

dealer

155

own

stones.

dishonest name.

are equally

in our founders; and the false pickle-

offset to

the false bacon-seller.

CHAPTER

WEALTH.

There is no age

country in which so absolute a hom-

In America, there

paid to wealth.

touch of shame when a

man

of large property, as

after all, it

if,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

logic

you have by your good clothes,

rules throughout all English souls it

in his wealth,

A coarse

a final certificate.

merit, can you not show and coach, and horses ?

needed apology.

But the Englishman has pure pride and esteems

exhibits the evidences

How

;

can a

man

be a

gentleman without a pipe of wine ? Haydon says, " there is a fierce resolution to make every man live according to the is

means he possesses."

a mixture of religion in

They

it.

There

are under the

Jewish law, and read with sonorous emphasis that their days shall be long in the land,

they shall

have sons and daughters, flocks and herds, ;vine

and

oil.

poverty.

In exact proportion,

They do not wish

except by opulent men.

the reproach of

be represented

Englishman who has (156)

WEALTH. lost his fortune, is said to

The

heart.

last

157

have died of a broken

term of insult

is,

beggar."

" the want of fortune is a crime which I can never get over." Sydney Smith said, " poverty is infamous in England." And one of their Nelson

said,

recent writers speaks, in reference to a private

and tion

scholastic life, of

" the grave moral

deteriora-

which follows an empty exchequer."

You

shall find this sentiment, if not so frankly put, yet

deeply implied, in the novels and romances of the present century, and not only in these, but in biog-

raphy, and in the votes of public assemblies, in the tone of the preaching, and in the table-talk. I

was

onienses,

lately turning over

Wood's Athena Ox-

and looking naturally for another stand-

ard in a chronicle of the scholars of Oxford for

But I found the two

two hundred years.

graces in that, as in most English books, are,

disfirst,

Church and State, and, second, to be born poor, or to come to poverty. A natural fruit of England is the brutal political economy. disloyalty to

Malthus finds no cover laid the laborer's son.

at nature's

table for

In 1809, the majority in Par-

liament expressed itself by the language of Mr. Fuller in the

House of Commons, "if you do damn you, you can leave it."

not like the country,

When

Sir S.

Romilly proposed his 14

bill

forbidding

ENGLISH TEAITS.

158

parish officers to bind children apprentices at a

home.

greater distance than forty miles from their

Peel opposed, and Mr. "Wortley

said,

"though, in

the higher ranks, to cultivate family affections was a

good thing, 'twas not so among the lower orders. Better take them away from those who might deprave them. And it was highly injurious to trade to stop binding to manufacturers, as it must raise the price of labor, and of manufactured goods."

The

respect for truth of facts in England,

equalled only by the respect for wealth.

once the pride of

Saxon, as he

art of the

It is at is

wealth-maker, and his passion for independence.

The Englishman care of himself,

not

mend

believes that every

and has himself

his condition.

national point of honor.

the East India

House

man must

to thank, if

To pay their debts is their From the Exchequer and

to the huckster's shop,

thing prospers, because

take

he do

solvent.

The

every

British

armies are solvent, and pay for what they take.

The

British empire is solvent

;

for, in spite

of the

huge national debt, the valuation mounts. During the war from 1789 to 1815, whilst they complained that they were taxed within an inch of their lives, and, by dint of enormous taxes, were subsidizing all

the continent against France, the English were

growing rich every year

faster

than any people

WEALTH. eyer grew before.

159

their

maxim, that the

weight of taxes must be calculated not by what

by what is left. Solvency is in the and mechanism of an Englishman. The

taken, but ideas

Crystal Palace

pays

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; no

or eclat,

matter

not considered honest until

how much

must be

convenience, beauty,

They

self-supporting.

are

contented with slower steamers, as long as they

know

that swifter boats lose

ceed logically

money.

They

by the double method of

pro-

labor and

Every household exhibits an exact economy, and nothing of that uncalculated headlong If expenditure which families use in America. thrift.

they cannot pay, they do not buy

;

for they

have

no presumption of better fortunes next year, as our people have afford

;

and they say without shame, I cannot

Gentlemen do not

hesitate

ride

in the second-class cars, or in the second cabin.

economist, or a

means and

man who

can proportion his

his ambition, or bring the year

round

with expenditure which expresses his character, without embarrassing one day of his future, already a master of

Burleigh writes to his to devote

and a freeman. Lord son, " that one ought never

life,

more than two

the ordinary expenses of

thirds of his life,

income to

since the extraordi-

nary will be certain to absorb the other third."

ENGLISH TRAITS.

160

The ambition

to create value

evokes every kind

of ability, government becomes a manufacturing corporation, and every house a mill.

The headlong

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

if no talent lie in a napkin, possible, will teach spiders to weave silk stockings. An Englishman, while he eats and drinks no more,

bias to utility will let

much more than another man, labors three times as many hours in the course of a year, as any other European or, his life as a workman is or not

;

three lives.

land

quick pace.

at a

own

their

works

Every thing

fast.

productivity,

They have

Eng-

reinforced

by the creation of

that

marvellous machinery which differences this age

from any other age. 'Tis a curious chapter in

growth of the machine-shop. ago,

modern history, the Six hundred years

Roger Bacon explained the precession of the

equinoxes, the consequent necessity of the reform of the calendar

;

measured the length of the

invented gunpowder ing from his lofty ours,)

ships

;

and announced,

cell,

year,

(as if look-

over five centuries, into

that machines can be constructed to drive

more rapidly than a whole galley of rowers ; nor would they need any thing but a to steer them. Carriages also might be con-

could do pilot

structed to

move with an

the aid of any animal.

incredible speed, without

Finally,

would not be

161

impossible to

make machines, which, by means

a suit of wings, should fly in the air in the

of birds."

But the

Two

fulfilled his

words.

centuries ago, the sawing of timber was done

by hand

;

wooden axles ; by wooden ploughs. And it

the carriage wheels ran on

the land was tilled

was

The

with Bacon.

secret slept

hundred years have not yet

six

manner

to little purpose, that they

had

pit-coal, or that

looms were improved, unless Watt and Stephenson

had taught them

work force-pumps and powerThe great strides were all taken within the last hundred years. The Life of Sir Eobert Peel, who died, the other day, the model to

looms, by steam.

Englishman, very properly has, for a frontispiece, a drawing of the spinning-jenny,

web

which wove the

Hargreaves invented the

of his fortunes.

spinning-jenny, and died in a workhouse.

wright improved the invention

;

men that much work as one hunThe loom was improved

dispensed with the work of ninety-nine is,

one spinner could do

dred had done before.

But the men would sometimes

further.

Ark-

and the machine

strike for

wages, and combine against the masters, and, about

1829-30,

much

fear

was

felt, lest

the trade

would

be drawn away by these interruptions, and

the

emigration of the spinners, to Belgium and

the-

United

States.

Iron and steel are very obedient

14*

ENaLISH TRAITS.

162

Whether

would not for

were not possible to make a spinner that nor strike

rebel, nor mutter, nor scowl,

wages, nor emigrate ?

mob and

the solicitation of the

riot at Staley

Bridge, Mr.

Roberts of Manchester undertook to

create this

masters, after a

peaceful fellow, instead of the quarrelsome fellow

God had made.

After a few

trials,

he succeeded,

and, in 1830, procured a patent for his self-acting

mule ; a creation, the delight of mill-owners, and " destined," they said, " to restore order among the industrious classes "

hand

child's

a machine requiring only a

;

to piece

the broken yarns.

As Ark-

wright had destroyed domestic spinning, so Roberts destroyed the factory spinner.

The power

of ma-

chinery in Great Britain, in mills, has been com-

puted

be equal to 600,000,000 men, one

man

being able by the aid of steam to do the work

which required two hundred and accomplish

fifty

been commensurate.

fifty

men

The production

has

England already had

this

years ago.

laborious race, rich soil, water, wood, coal, iron,

and favorable climate.

Eight hundred years ago,

commerce had made it rich, and it was recorded, " England is the richest of all the northern nations."

The Norman

historians recite, that

"in

1067, William carried with him into Normandy,

from England, more gold and silver than had ever

WEALTH. before been seen in Gaul."

163

But when, to

this labor

and trade, and these native resources was added this

goblin of steam, with his myriad arms, never

tired,

working night and day everlastingly, the

amassing of property has run out of

all

figures.

makes the motor of the last ninety years. The steampipe has added to her population and

wealth the equivalent of four or five Englands.

Forty thousand ships are entered in Lloyd's

The

lists.

yield of wheat has gone on from 2,000,000

quarters in the time of the Stuarts, to 13,000,000 in 1854.

A thousand

million of pounds sterling

are said to compose the floating

merce.

money of com-

In 1848, Lord John Eussell stated that the

people of this country had laid out ÂŁ300,000,000 of capital in railways, in the last four years.

a better measure than these sounding the estimate, that there

But

figures, is

wealth enough in Eng-

land to support the entire population in idleness for one. year.

The

wise, versatile, all-giving machinery

chisels, roads, locomotives, telegraphs.

makes

"Whitworth

divides a bar to a millionth of an inch.

Steam

twines huge cannon into wreaths, as easily as it braids straw, and vies with the volcanic forces

which twisted the

strata.

It can clothe

shingle

mountains with ship-oaks, make sword-blades that

ENGLISH TRAITS.

164

will cut gun-barrels in two. forests,

and bring rain

Already

after

In Egypt,

can plwit

three thousand years.

ruddering the balloon, and the next

But another machine air. more potent in England than steam, is the Bank. wax will be fought in the It votes

and

an issue of

cities

rise

;

empties the country out

;

bills,

population

trade sinks

;

kings are dethroned.

our social system

moulded.

;

stimulated,

and emigration

refuses loans,

revolutions break

By these new agents By dint of steam and

of money, war and commerce are changed. tions tie

have

lost their old

does not hold.

omnipotence j the

Na-

patriotic

Nations are getting obsolete,

we go and live where we will. Steam has enabled men to choose what law they will live under. Money makes place for them. The telegraph is a limp-band that will hold the Eenris-wolf of war.

For now, that a telegraph and

Europe,

line runs

London,

from

through France

every niessage

makes stronger by one thread, the band which war will have to cut. transmits

The

introduction of these elements gives

resources to existing proprietors.

may

new

A sporting duke

fancy that the state depends on the House

of Lords, but the engineer sees, that every stroke

of the steam-piston gives value to the duke's land, fills

with tenants

;

doubles,

quadruples, can-

WEALTH. tuples the duke's capital,

163

and creates new measures

and new necessities for the culture of his children.

course,

tion as

draws the nobility into the competi-

stockholders in the mine, the canal, the

railway, in the application of steam to agriculture,

and sometimes into

But

trade.

large classes into the

energy of the Norse race arms magnificent powers for the

also introduces

same competition; the old with these

itself

new men prove an overmatch

;

land-owner, and the mill buys out the

who once

Scandinavian Thor, icy Hecla,

and

built galleys

castle.

forged his bolts in

by lonely

fiords

;

England, has advanced with the times, has shorn his beard, enters Parliament, sits

down

at a

desk in

the India House, and lends Miollnir to Birming-

ham for a steam-hammer. The creation of wealth ninety years,

main

in fact

England in

The wealth of London determines the

All things precious,

globe.

in the last

modern

history.

prices all over

useful,

amusing, or intoxicating, are sucked into this com-

merce and floated

vate fortunes reach, dollars a year.

the island.

London.

Some English

and some exceed

A hundred

pri-

a million of

thousand palaces adorn

All that can feed the senses and pas-

sions, all that

can succor the talent, or arm the

hands of the intelligent middle

class,

who

never

166

ENGLISH TRAITS.

spare in what they

buy

for their

comfort,

tecture

Whatever

open market.

and beautiful in

civil,

fountain,

own consumption

gratify taste, or sootlie

that can aid science,

all

excellent

rural, or ecclesiastic archi-

garden,

grounds

;

the

English noble crosses sea and land to see and to

copy

The

home.

peaceful generations

planted

;

taste

;

Gibbons carved

mestic

thirty

the temples and pleasure-houses which

Inigo Jones and Christopher that

and science of

the gardens which Evelyn

artists,

Wren

built

;

the

wood

the taste of foreign and do-

;

Shenstone, Pope, Brown, Loudon,

Paxton, are in the vast auction, and the hereditary principle heaps on the

owner of to-day the

The

of ages of owners.

benefit

present possessors are to

the full as absolute as any of their fathers, in choos-

ing and procuring what they like.

This comfort

and splendor, the breadth of lake and mountain, pasture, and park,

tillage,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

sumptuous

castle

all consist with perfect modern villa, They have no revolutions ; no horse-guards

ing to the crown ricades

;

dress-dinners, wine,

and

order. dictat-

no Parisian poissardes and bar-

;

mob

and

but

and

drowsy habitude, ale,

and beer, and

daily gin,

sleep.

With

this

power of

creation,

and

this passion for

independence, property has reached an ideal per-

â&#x20AC;˘WEALTH. It

fection.

life-blood.

the to

felt

The laws

securest

and treated are framed

possible

lock and transmit

ningest heads

The

mits a fool.

basis,

as the

national

to give property

and the provisions

have exercised the cun-

a profession

which never ad-

rights of property nothing but

The house is a The Bank is king has na key. What-

felony and treason can override. ciistle

which the king cannot

a strong

box

which the

enter.

ever surly sweetness possession can give, in

England

tasted

Vested rights are awful

to the dregs.

things, and absolute possession gives the smallest

freeholder

High

identity

stone fences,

interest

with the duke.

and padlocked garden-gates an-

nounce the absolute will of the owner to be alone.

Every whim of exaggerated egotism stone and iron, into silver and deliberation

and

put into

gold, with costly

detail.

Englishman hears that the Queen Dowager wishes to establish some claim to put her park paling a rod forward into his grounds, so as to get a coachway, and save her a mile to the avenue. Instantly he transforms his paling into stone-ma-

sonry, solid as the walls of

cannot prevail on inch of the land.

him They

Cuma, and all Europe compound for an

to sell or

delight in a fieak as the

proof of their sovereign freedom.

Sir

Edward

ENGLISH TRAITS.

168

Boynton,

Spic Park, at Cadenham, on a preci-

pice of incomparable prospect, built a

house like a

window on

the prospect

long barn, which had not a

Strawberry Hill of Horace "Walpole, Font-

side.

Abbey of Mr. Beckford, were freaks and Xewstead Abbey became one in the hands of Lord hill

;

Byron.

But the proudest

result of this creation has

the great and refined forces

In the

posal of the private citizen.

Englishman to-day has the best

in a plain coat.

social world,

lot.

the best education,

a king

goes with the most powerful

the best company,

protection, keeps

been

has put at the dis-

seconded by wealth

armed by ;

and his

English name and accidents are like a flourish of trumpets announcing him. style of

This, with his quiet

manners, gives him the power of a sov-

ereign, without the inconveniences to that rank.

much

which belong

prefer the condition of an

English gentleman of the better

any potentate in Europe,

class, to that of

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whether

for travel, or

for opportunity of society, or for access to

means mere comfort and easy people at home.

of science or study, or for

healthy relation to

Such

we have seen

a mighty mass, and

care to explore.

the wealth of England,

made good in whatever details The cause and spring of it is

WEALTH.

169

the wealth of temperament in the people.

wonder of Britain

is this

plenteous nature.

worthies are ever surrounded by as good

themselves

;

each

power

and seem

to spare.

and

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

he has waste

that

The English

are so rich,

have established a tap-root in the bow-

els of the planet, fertile

represented again in the

faculty of each individual,

strength,

men

hundred strong,

a captain a

and that wealth of men

The Her

because they are constitutionally

creative.

But a man must keep an eye on his servants, he would not have them rule him. Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the world. But it is found that the machine unmans the user. What he gains in making cloth, if

he loses in general power.

There should be tem-

perance in making cloth, as well as in eating.

man

should not be a

tent of caterpillars.

silk-

The

worm

;

nor a nation a

robust rural Saxon de-

generates in the mills to the Leicester stockinger, to the imbecile

way

etition

robs

Manchester spinner,

to be spiders

and needles.

The

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

far

on the

incessant rep-

of the same hand-work dwarfs the man,

him

of his strength, wit, and versatility, to

ENGLISH TRAITS.

170

a pin-polisher, a buckle-maker, or any other

make

specialty

and presently, in a change of industry,

;

whole towns are

sacrificed like ant-hills,

when the when

fashion of shoe-strings supersedes buckles,

cotton takes the place of linen, or railways of turnpikes, or

Then

when commons

society

division of labor,

are inclosed

landlords.

admonished of the mischief of the and that the best

care and culture of

men

political econo-

for, in these crises,

;

are ruined except such as are proper individuals,

all

capable of thought, and of plication of their talent to

come

new

calamities.

new choice and the apnew labor. Then again

England

aghast at the

disclosure of her fraud in the adulteration of food,

of drugs, and of almost every fabric in her mills

and shops

;

finding that milk will not nourish, nor

sugar sweeten, nor bread tongue, nor glue stick. false

satisfy,

In true England

This too

and forged.

nor pepper bite the

all

the reaction of ma-

chinery, but of the larger machinery of commerce. 'Tis not, I suppose,

want of probity, so much

the tyranny of trade, which necessitates a perpet''al

competition of underselling, and that again a

j)erpetual deterioration of the fabric.

The machinery manageable, and

Steam, from the

has proved, like the balloon, unflies

first,

away with the

ae) >naut.

hissed and screamed

warn

WEALTH.

him ;

was dreadful with

171

its ej.pljsioiij ?.nd

The machinist

the engineer.

tfiuched

has wrought and

watched, engineers and firjmen without number

have been sacrificed in learning to tame and guide the monster.

But harder

still

has proved to

and rule the dragon Money, with

resist

wings.

his paper

Chancellors and Boards of Trade, Pitt, Peel,

and Robinson, and

their

and their

Parliaments,

whole generation, adopted false

principles,

to their graves in the belief that they

and went

were enriching

the country which they were impoverishing.

congratulated each other on ruinous rare to find

It is crisis

a merchant

occurs in trade,

who knows

why

They

expedients

who knows why

prices rise or

fall,

the mischief of paper money.

In the

culmination of natioi.al prosperity, in the annexation of countries

;

bvilding of ships, depots, towns

in the influx of tons of gold and silver

chuckle of chancellors and financiers,

;

was found

that bread rose to famine prices, that the

was forced

to sell

his acre of landj

the

poor-rates

The

poor-rate

his

cow and

;

amid the

yeoman

pig, his tools,

and

and the dreadful barometer of

was touching the point of

ruin.

was sucking in the solvent classes, an exodus of farmers and mechanics. and forcing What befals from the violence of financial crises, befuls daily in the violence of artificial legislation.

ENGLISH TKAITS.

172

Such a

"wealth has

England earned, ever new, But the question re-

bounteous, and augmenting.

curs, does she take the step beyond, namely, to the

wise use, in view of the supreme wealth of nations

estimate the

wisdom of

nations

seeing what they did with their surplus capital.

And,

in view of these injuries,

some compensation

has been attempted in England.

money earned

part of the

buy schools, libraries, bishops, astronomers, chemists, and artists with ; and a part to repair the wrongs of this intemperate weaving, by hospitals, savings-banks. Mechanics' Institutes, public grounds, and other charities and amenities. But the antidotes are frightfully inadequate, and the evil, requires a deeper cure, which time and a simpler social organization must supply. At present, she does not rule her wealth. She is simply a good England, but no divinity, or wise and instructed soul. She too is returns to the brain to

in the stream of fate,

one victim more in a

common

catastrophe.

But being

in the fault, she has the misfortune

of greatness to be held as the chief offender.

Eng-

land must be held responsible for the despotism of expense.

Her

prosperity, the splendor

which

173

touch manhood and talent and perseverance has

thrown upon vulgar aims,

Her

materialism.

Who

of base wealth.

the very argument of

can propose to youth pov-

when mean

erty and wisdom,

the

success strengthens the hands

gain has arrived

conquest of letters and arts

success has

grown out of

principles,

and the dedication

civility

trifles,

;

when English

the very renunciation of to

outsides

money and expense, an

A eru-

dition of sensation takes place, and the putting as as we can, between the man Hardly the bravest among them

many impediments and

his objects.

have the manliness it

to resist

successfully.

has come, that not the aims of a manly

Hence, life,

but

means of meeting a certain ponderous expense, that which is to be considered by a youth in is England, emerging from his minority. A large the

family

reckoned a misfortune.

solation in the death of the

of expense

closed.

15*

And

it is

a con-

young, that a source

CHAPTEE

XI.

AHISTOCRACT.

The that

trast

feudal character of the English state, is

getting obsolete, glares a

with the democratic tendencies.

ity of

little,

The

now

in con-

inequal-

power and property shocks republican nerves. all over Eng-

Palaces, halls, villas, walled parks,

]and, rival the splendor of royal seats.

the halls, like

Haddon,

The

desolations.

proprietor never

never lived in them.

sumptuous

JSIany of

or Kedleston, are beautiful

saw them, or

Primogeniture built these

piles, and, I

suppose,

the

senti-

ment of every traveller, as it was mine, 'Twas well to come ere these were gone. Primogeniture is a cardinal rule of English property and institutions.

and

Laws, customs, manners, the very persons

faces, affirm

The frame of

the

it.

of society

people

loyal.

aristocratic,

The

the taste

estates,

names,

and manners of the nobles flatter the fancy of the people, and conciliate the necessary support (174)

ARISTOCRACY.

broken

spite

175

and

charters,

stolen

faith,

the devastation of society by the profligacy of the court,

take sides as

King

land and

his Cavaliers,

is,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; knowing

and what

fair

Eng-

what

a heartless trifler

knew

of England

idea of a settled

much.

government connect-

with heraldic names, with the written

ing

itself

and

oral history of

Hebrew

read for the loyal

crew of God-forsaken robbers

The people

they are.

But the

Charles's " return to his right " with

religion,

Europe, and,

and the oldest

last,

with the

traditions of the

world, was too pleasing a vision to be shattered by a few offensive realities,

and the

politics

of shoe-

makers and costermongers. The hopes of the commoners take the same direction with the inter-

Every man who becomes rich buys land, and does what he can to fortify the The Anglinobility, into which he hopes to rise. est

of the patricians.

can clergy are

identified

Time and law have made

with the

ing perfect in every part.

The

Cathedrals, the

Universities, the national music, the

mances, conspire to the

aristocracy.

the joining and mould-

popular ro-

uphold the heraldry, which

current politics of the day are sapping.

taste of the people

proud of the

castles,

bol of chivalry.

They

conservative.

The are

and of the language and sym-

Even

the

word

lord

the luck-

ENGLISH TRAITS.

176 iest style that is

used in any language

a patrician.

of the nobles

The recommend them

The Norwegian held

for

who was

designate

superior education and manners

his

to the country.

got what he could, and

pirate

The Norman

eldest son.

noble,

Norwegian pirate baptized, did likewise. There was this advantage of western over oriental nobility, that this was recruited from bethe

low.

English history

open.

Who

in.

aristocracy with the doors

has courage and faculty,

let

him come

course, the terms of admission to this club

are hard

The

and high.

selfishness

of the nobles

comes in aid of the interest of the nation to require signal merit. trade, politics,

lord

;

and

Piracy and war gave place to

letters

;

the war-lord to the law-

the law-lord to the merchant and the mill-

owner ; but the privilege was kept, whilst the means of obtaining it were changed.

The

foundations of these families

Norwegian on land. body's

exploits

sea,

All nobility in natural

its

lie deep in and Saxon sturdiness

beginnings was some-

superiority.

The

things

these

English have done were not done without peril of life, nor without wisdom and conduct ; and the first

hands,

may be presumed, were

often chal-

lenged to show their right to their honors, or yield

them

to better

men.

" He

that will be a head,

ARISTOCRACY. let

him be

a bridge," said the

gridran,

when he

his back.

177

Welsh

carried all his

" He

chief Bene-

men

over the

have the book," " said the mother of Alfred, " who can read it ; river

and Alfred won

shall

that title

and I make no

doubt that feudal tenure was no sinecure, but baron, knight, and tenant, often had their ries refreshed, in

memo-

regard to the service by which

The De Veres, Bohuns. Mowbrays, and Plantagenets were not addicted to they held their lands.

The middle age adorned itself Of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of "Warwick, the Emperor told Henry V. that no Christian king had such contemplation.

with proofs of manhood and devotion.

another knight for wisdom, nurture, and manhood,

named, " Father of curtesie." in France," says the historian, " lived

and caused him

" Our success

to be

and died with him." *

The war-lord earned

his honors,

of land was large, as long as of protecting

it,

and no donation

brought the duty

hour by hour, against a

terrible

In France and in England, the nobles were, down to a late day, born and bred to war

enemy.

and the duel, which in peace risks

still

held them to the

of war, diminished the envy that, in trading

* Fuller's Worthies.

II. p. 472.

ENGLISH TRAITS.

178

and studious nations, would else have pried into their

title.

They were looked on

men who

played high for a great stake. Great estates are not sinecures,

they are to be

economy is the fuel of In the same line of Warwick, the magnificence. successor next but one to Beauchamp, was the stout earl of Henry VI. and Edward IV. Few esteemed themselves in the mode, whose heads were not adorned with the black ragged staff, his At his house in London, six oxen were badge. daily eaten at a breakfast ; and every tavern was full of his meat ; and who had any acquaintance kept great.

in his

creative

The new age

brings

new

qualities into request,

way

to those of plant-

merchants, senators, and scholars.

social talent,

and

their part also. toriette,

fine

Comity,

manners, no doubt, have had

I have

met somewhere with a

which, whether more or less true in

particulars, carries a general truth.

the

boiled and

on a long dagger.

the virtues of pirates gave ers,

much

family, should have as

roast as he could carry

Duke

How

hisits

came

of Bedford by his great landed estates

His ancestor having travelled on the continent, a lively, pleasant man, became the companion of a foreign prince

wrecked on the Dorsetshire

where Mr. Russell

lived.

The

coast,

prince recommend-

AEISTOCEACT.

179

ed him to Henry VIIL, who, liking his company,

gave him a large share of the plundered church lands."

The

pretence

that the noble

of unbroken

Norman, and has never worked for eight hundred years. But the fact is otherwise. Where is Bohun ? where is De Vere ? The lawyer, the farmer, the silkmercer lies perdu under descent from the

the

coronet, and

nothing

who

winks

the antiquary to say

especially skilful lawyers, nobody's sons,

;

did some piece of

work

at a nice

moment

for

government, and were rewarded with ermine.

The national tastes of the English do not lead them to the life of the courtier, but to secure the comfort and independence of their homes. The aristocracy are marked by their predilection for country-life. They are called the county-families. They have often no residence in London, and only go thither a short time, during the season, the opera

many

;

see

generations on the building, planting and

decoration of are too

but they concentrate the love and labor

Some

their homesteads.

old and too proud to wear

Sheridan said of Coke, " disdain

them

titles, or, as

hide their head

in a

coronet;" and some curious examples are

cited

show the

Their proverb

is,

stability

of English families.

that, fifty miles

from London,

ENGLISH TRAITS.

180

at a hundred ; on ; but I doubt

family will last a hundred years

two hundred years

miles,

enemy

that steam, the

and

;

of time, as well as of space, Sir

will disturb these ancient rules.

ton says of the

was born

his ancestors

first

Henry Wot-

of Buckingham, "

Duke

Brookeby in Leicestershire, where had

chiefly continued about the space

of four hundred years, rather without obscurity,

than with any great lustre." * in

Wraxall

1781, Lord Surrey, afterwards

folk, told

arrive,

says, that,

Duke

of Nor-

him, that when the year 1783 should

he meant

to give a

grand

festival to all the

descendants of the body of Jockey of Norfolk, to

mark

the day

when

the

dukedom should have

mained three hundred years creation

by Richard

III.

re-

in their house, since its

Pepys

tells us, in

writing

of an Earl Oxford, in 1666, that the honor had

now

remained in that name and blood six hundred years. This long descent of families and this cleaving

through ages to the same spot of ground captivates the imagination.

It has too a connection

names of the towns and

The names

districts of the

are excellent,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an

with the

country.

atmosphere of

legendary melody spread over the land. than

all epics

and

histories,

which clothe a

* Reliquiae Wottonianae,

p. 208.

Older nation,

;

ARISTOCKACT.

181

What

this undershirt sits close to the body.

his-

tory too, and what stores of primitive and savage

observation of the

Cam

infolds

Leicester the castra or

(now Soar)

Cambridge

the bridge

Sheffield the field of the river Sheaf

;

camp of the Lear

Rochdale, of the Eoch

Excester, the castra of the

;

or Leir

Exeter or

Exmouth, Dart-

mouth, Sidmouth, Teignmouth, the mouths of the

Ex, Dart, Sid, and Teign rivers. Waltham is strong town ; Radcliffe is red cliflF ; and so on a sincerity and use in naming very striking to an American, whose country is whitewashed all over by unmeaning names, the cast-off clothes of the country from which its emigrants came ; or, named at a pinch from a psalm-tune. But the English are those " barbarians " of Jamblichus, who " are stable in their manners, and firmly con :

tinue to

employ the same words, which

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

also are

dear to the gods." 'Tis

an old sneer, that the Irish peerage drew

The English lords own names, but as if the man call themselves after their lands him they country that bred the represented ; and their

names from playbooks.

do not

call their lands after their

;

rightly wear the token of the glebe that gave birth

;

suggesting that the

there in London,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

tie

them

not cut, but that

the crags of Argyle, the kail

ENGLISH TRAITS.

182

downs of Devon, the iron of

of Cornwall, the

Wales, the clays of Stafford, are neither forgetting nor forgotten, but know the man who was born by them, and who, like the long line of his thers, fen, or

crag,

that

carried

has

that

shore,

woodland, in his blood and manners. advantage

has, too, the

bleness.

name which

of suggesting

susceptible

man could

fa-

dale, It

responsi-

not wear a

represented in a strict sense a city or

a county of England, without hearing in

a chal-

lenge to duty and honor.

The

predilection of the patricians for residence

in the country, combined with the degree of liberty possessed by the peasant,

makes the

safety of

Mirabeau wrote prophetically

the English hall.

from England, in 1784, " If revolution break out in France, I tremble

for

the aristocracy

their

chateaux will be reduced to ashes, and their blood spilt in

torrents.

fend his lord

go to their at court,

economy.

and

tenant

extremity."

estates for grandeur.

would

de-

The English

The French

live

exile themselves to their estates for

tenants, they

they do not

mean

to live

with their

do not conciliate them, but wring

from them the Blois, in

The English

to the last

last

sous.

Evelyn writes from

1644, " The wolves are here in such

numbers, that they often come and take children

AEISTOCEACT. out of the streets

183

Duke, who

yet will not the

Bovereign here, permit them to be destroyed."

In evidence of the wealth amassed by ancient families, the traveller is

downe House

down

shown the

palaces in Pic-

Burlington House, Devonshire House, Lans-

cadilly,

Berkshire

Square, and, lower

in the city, a few noble houses which

withstand in

all their

of streets.

The Duke

still

amplitude the encroachment of Bedford includes or in-

cluded a mile square in the heart of London,

where the British Museum, once Montague House, stands, and the land occupied by Woburn Square, Bedford Square, Russell Square. The

now

Marquis of Westminster built within the

few years

of squares called Belgravia.

Stafford

the noblest palace in London.

North-

series

House

umberland House holds Chesterfield

House

its

place by Charing Cross.

remains in Audley

Street.

Sion House and Holland House are in the suburbs.

But most of the lost in

the

historical houses are

modem

masked or

uses to which trade or charity

has converted them.

multitude of town pal-

aces contain inestimable galleries of

In the country, the

size

art.

of private estates

more impressive. From Barnard Castle I rode on the highway twenty-three miles from High Force, a

fall

of the Tees, towards Darlington, past

ENGLISH TRAITS.

184

Raby

Castle,

Cleveland.

through the

The Marquis

of his house a

hundred miles

own

the sea, on his

Duke

estate of the

of Breadalbane rides out in a straight line to

The Duke

property.

Sutherland owns the county of Sutherland, stretch-

The Duke

ing across Scotland from sea to sea. of

Devonshire, besides

other

his

estates,

owns

The Richmond has 40,000 acres at Goodwood, and 300,000 at Gordon Castle. The 96,000 acres

Duke

Duke in

the

County of Derby.

of Norfolk's park in Sussex

circuit.

agriculturist

fifteen miles

bought

lately

island of Lewes, in Hebrides, containing

the

500,000

The possessions of the Earl of Lonsdale gave him eight seats in Parliament. This is the acres.

Heptarchy again

and before the Reform of 1832, one hundred and fifty-four persons sent three hun:

dred and seven

members

Parliament.

The

borough-mongers governed England.

These large domains are growing great estates are absorbing the

larger.

small

The

freeholds.

England was owned by 250,000 corporations and proprietors and, in These broad estates find room 1822, by 32,000. in this narrow island. All over England, scattered In 1786, the

soil

;

short intervals

among

ship-yards, mills, mines,

and forges, are the paradises of the nobles, where

AKISTOCHACT.

185

the livelong repose and refinement are heightened hj the contrast with the roar of industry and necessity, out

of which you have stepped aside.

was surprised

observe the very small at-

tendance usually in the House of Lords. of

573

peers, on

Where

thirty.

their

are they

estates,

Out

ordinary days, only twenty or I asked.

" At home

devoured by ennui, or in the

Alps, or up the Rhine, in the Harz Mountains, or in Egypt, or in India, on the Ghauts."

with such interests

stake,

how

can these

But,

men

them ? " 0," replied my friend, " why should they work for themselves, when every man in England works for them, and will suffer before they come to harm ? " The hardest afibrd to neglect

radical instantly uncovers,

a lord. (the

and changes

his tone to

was remarked, on the 10th April, 1848,

day of the Chartist demonstration,) that the

upper

classes were, for the first time, actively inter-

esting themselves in their

own

defence, and

men

of rank were sworn special constables, with the rest.

" Besides, not the proxies,

why need they sit out the debate ? Has Duke of Wellington, at this moment, their

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

to vote for

the proxies of

them,

if there

16*

fifty

peers in his pocket

be an emergency

ENGLISH TEAITS.

186 It

however

House of Peers entitles

them

true, that the

existence of the

a branch of the government

as fill

half the Cabinet

and

;

their

weight of property and station give them a virtual

nomination of the other half; whilst they have their share in the subordinate offices, as

This monopoly of

of training.

a school

power has

political

given them their intellectual and social eminence in

Europe

few law lords and a few

political

In the

lords take the brunt of public business.

army, the nobility

a large part

fill

of the high

commissions, and give to these a tone of expense

and splendor, and have borne their

also

of exclusiveness.

full share

They

of duty and danger in

and there are few noble famiUes which have not paid in some of their members, this

service

the debt of

;

life

Russian war.

or limb, in the sacrifices of the

For the

rest,

the nobility have the

lead in matters of state, and of expense tions

;

in ques-

of taste, in social usages, in convivial and

domestic hospitalities.

quired of them

In general, sit

all

that

re-

securely, to preside at

public meetings, to countenance charities, and to give the example of that decorum so dear to the British heart.

If one asks, in the critical spirit of the day,

what service

this class

have rendered

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

uses ap-

ARISTOCKACT.

would

they

have

187

pear,

Some

of these are easily enumerated, others more

subtle

make

perished

long ago,

Their

a part of unconscious history.

institution is one step in the progress of society.

For a race

yields a nobility in

we name women. The English ever

some form, how-

the lords, as surely as

nobles are

high-spirited,

yields

active,

educated men, born to wealth and power,

have run through

who

every country, and kept in

every country the best company, have seen every

and nature, and, when men of any

secret

ability

or ambition, have

art.

been consulted in the

conduct of every important action.

You

cannot

wield great agencies without lending yourself to

them, and, when earl

happens that the

meets his rank and duties,

appears in the manners

;

of the

the best

Power of any kind

examples of behavior.

talent

spirit

we have

readily

and beneficent power,

de bien faire, gives a majesty which cannot

be concealed or resisted. to gain as much as they lose They survey society, as from

These people seem by their position.

the top of St. Paul's, and, if they never hear plain

truth from men, they see the best of every thing, in every kind,

amassed

and they see things infer

easily the

grouped and

sum and

genius,

ENGLISH TRAITS.

188

instead of tedious particularities.

havior deserves simplicity, finest

all

of repose, which are the

air

ornament of greatness.

The upper

have only birth, say the peo-

classes

ple here, and not thoughts.

manners, and,

'tis

runs into manners

ity,

how much

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; nowhere and never

the absence of

disgusts

Yes, but they have

wonderful,

They have

England.

as in

be-

fame, and they have that

its

and that

Their good

talent

much

the sense of superior-

the ambitious effort which

all

the aspiring classes, a pure tone of

thought and feeling, and the power to command,

among

their

other luxuries, the presence of the

most accomplished men Loyalty

in their festive meetings.

in the English a sub-religion.

wear the laws

They

ornaments, and walk by their

among the The economist of 1855 who asks, forms of gods. of what use are the lords ? may learn of Franklin to ask, of what use is a baby ? They have been a their painted

faith in

social

church proper

May-Fair, as

to inspire sentiments

honoring the lover and the loved.

mutually

Politeness

the ritual of society, as prayers are of the church; a school of manners, iige

which

English

life

and

grew.

a gentle blessing to the 'Tis a

romance adorning

with a larger horizon

;

midway

heaven, fulfilling to their sense their fairy tales

AEISTOCKACr.

and poetry. the

189

This, just as far as the breeding of

nobleman

made him

really

braye, handsome^

accomplished, and great-hearted.

general grounds, whatever

tends

manners, or to finish men, has

Every one who has

great value.

tasted the delight of friend-

respect every social

ship, 'will

manners can

form

guard which our

establish, tending to secure

from the

The

intrusion of frivolous and distasteful people.

jealousy of every class

guard

itself, is

mony to the reality they have found a man once knows that he has done him

self, let

a testi-

When

life.

justice to

him-

dismiss all terrors of aristocracy as

superstitions, so far as

concerned.

He who

keeps the door of a mine, whether of cobalt, or

mercury, or nickel, or plumbago, securely knows that the

world cannot do without him.

body who is

real is

open and ready

Every which

also real.

Besides, these are they

strongbox protect cities

and museum

works of

art,

who make England that it is who gather and ;

dragged from amidst burning

and revolutionary countries, and brought

hither out of all the world. at

for that

houses

six, seven, eight

I look with respect

hundred,

wick Castle, nine hundred years high park-fences,

when

old.

or, like

War-

pardoned

saw, that, besides doe*

ENGLISH TRAITS.

190

these

pheasants,

aiid

have

preserved

Arundel

Howard and Spenserian

marblesj

Townley

libraries,

Warwick and Portland vases, Saxon manu-

scripts,

galleries,

monastic architectures, millennial trees, and

breeds of cattle elsewhere extinct.

In these manors,

war and destruction subsides

after

the frenzy of

little,

the antiquary finds the frailest

Roman

jar, or

crumbling Egyptian mummy-case, without so much as a

new

layer of dust, keeping the series of history

unbroken, and waiting for sure to arrive. librarians of

its

interpreter,

who

These lords are the treasurers and

mankind, engaged by

their pride

and

wealth to this function.

Yet there were other works for British dukes George Loudon, Quintinye, Evelyn, had taught them to make gardens. Arthur Young, Bakewell, and Mechi, have made them agricultural, Scotland was a camp until the day of Culloden. The Dukes of Athol, Sutherland, Buccleugh, and to do.

the Marquis of Breadalbane have introduced the rape-culture, the sheep-farm, wheat, drainage, the plantation of forests, the artificial replenishment of lakes and ponds with fish, the renting of game-piisserves.

Against the cry of the old tenantry, and the

sympathetic cry of the English press, they have rooted out and planted anew, and of people live, and live better that fed three millions.

now

six millions

on the same land

ARISTOCKACT.

The English

191

harons, in every period, have heen

brave and great, after the estimate and opinion of their times.

down

The grand old halls scattered up and dumb vouchers to the state

England, are

and broad hospitality of speare's portraits of

their ancient lords.

Shak-

good duke Humphrey, of War-

wick, of Northumberland, of Talbot, were drawn in strict consonance

Queen

with the

A sketch

traditions.

Earl of Shrewsbury, from the pen

of the

Elizabeth's archbishop Parker

bert of Cherbury's autobiography

essays of Sir Philip

Sidney

;

the letters and

;

the anecdotes pre-

served by the antiquaries Fuller and Collins

glimpses at the interiors

Lord Her-

of noble houses,

some which which

;

we owe to Pepys and Evelyn the details Ben Jonson's masques (performed at Kenilworth, ;

Althorpe, Belvoir, and other noble houses,) record or suggest

;

down

Aubrey's passages of the

life

of Hobbes in the house of the Earl of Devon, are favorable pictures of a romantic style of manners.

Penshurst

still

shines for us,

and

its

Christmas

At " " amidst was written, Arcadia Wilton House, the conversations with Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, a man of no vulgar mind, as his own poems declare revels,

him.

"where

must

logs not burn, but

hold Ludlow Castle

â&#x20AC;˘ Dibdin's Literary Keminiscences,

men."

vol. 1, xiL

honest

ENGLISH TRAITS.

192

house, for which Milton's "

Comus " was

written,

and the company nobly bred which peformed it In the roll of with knowledge and sympathy. nobles,

are found poets,

astronomers, also

sentiments

men

philosophers,

chemists,

of solid virtues and of lofty

often they have been the friends and

patrons of genius and learning, and especially of the fine arts

and

;

great house has

'tis

this

moment, almost every

sumptuous picture-gallery.

course, there

another side to this gorgeous

Every victory was the

show. only

its

less

worthy.

safest to

defeat of a party

proud

history.

things, but

"War

be outside of them.

game, and yet war cratic

Castles are

a foul

not the worst part of

aristo-

when

later times,

the baron,

educated only for war, with his brains paralyzed by his stomach, fat

found himself idle

home, he grew

Grammont,

and wanton, and a sorry brute.

Pepys, and Evelyn, show the kennels to which the

king and court went in quest of pleasure. titutes

Pros-

taken from the theatres, were made duch-

esses, their bastards

dukes and

earls.

men sat uppermost, the old serious

" The young

lords

were out of

The discourse that the king's companions had with him was " poor and frothy." No man who valued his head might do what these pot-comfavor."

panions familiarly did with the king.

logical

AKISTOCKACT.

193

aequence of these dignified revels, Pepys can

tell

the beggarly shifts to which the king was reduced,

who

and " and but three bands to his neck," and the linen-draper and the stationer were out of pocket, and refusing to could not find paper

" no handkerchers " in

trust him,

and the baker

at his council table,

his wardrobe,

will not bring bread any

longer. Meantime, the English Channel was swept, and London threatened by the Dutch fleet, manned

too

by English

their

pay

sailors,

who, having been cheated of

by the king,

for years

enlisted with the

enemy.

The Selwyn correspondence George

which threatened sycophancy and

and

the

reign of

III., discloses a rottenness in the aristocracy,

title

;

decompose the

sale of votes

;

the sneer at the childish indiscretion

of quarrelling with ten thousand a year ;

for place

lewdness, gaming, smuggling, bribery,

and cheating of ideas

The

state.

and honor,

the splendor of the

titles,

;

the want

and the apa-

thy of the nation, are instructive, and make the reader pause and explore the firm bounds which confined these vices to a handful of rich men.

the reign of the Fourth George, things do not seem to

have mended, and the rotten debauchee

from a window by an inclined plane into to take the air,

was a scandal 17

let

down

his coach

Europe which the

ENGLISH TRAITS.

194 ill

fame of

his

queen and of

his family did nothing

to retrieve.

Under the present the Court

decorum of

reign, the perfect

thought to have put a check on the

gross vices of the aristocracy

;

yet gaming, racing,

drinking, and mistresses, bring them down, and the democrat can

gather scandals,

still

will.

Dismal anecdotes abound, verifying the gossip of the last generation of dukes served all their plate in

showing of

pawn;

their houses

in his chair

bailiffs,

of great lords living ;

from room

with

by the

and of an old man wheeled to

room, whilst his cham-

bers are exhibited to the visitor for

money; of The

ruined dukes and earls living in exile for debt.

names of the Buckinghams, Beauforts, Marlboroughs, and Hertfords, have gained no new lustre, and now and then darker scandals break out, ominous as the new chapters added under the Orleans dynasty to the " Causes Celebres " in historic

France. public

Even spirit,

peers,

are

their vast expense.

who

are

men

The

respectable

onshire, willing to be the Mecaenas his island, live

of worth and

overtaken and embarrassed by

Duke

of Dev-

and LucuUus of

reported to have said, that he cannot

Chatsworth but one month in the year.

Their many houses eat them up. ihem, because they are entailed.

They cannot sell They will not let

ARISTOCRACY.

19.1

them, for pride's sake, but keep tliem empty, aired,

and the grounds

mown

and dressed,

four or five thousand pounds a year. is

a great part in servants, in

for

at a cost

The spending many houses

exceeding a hundred.

Most of them which, because

are only chargeable with idleness, it

squanders such vast power of

benefit, has the mischief of crime.

little

" They might

Providences on earth," said

" and they

Campbell

most

are, for the

keep up.

ness, dressing,

It requires a life of idle-

and attendance on their parties."

I suppose, too, that a feeling of self-respect

ing cultivated

friend,

and fops."

"acquaintance with the nobility,

says,

I could never

part, jockeys

men

driv-

out of this society, as if the

noble were slow to receive the lessons of the times,

and had not learned to disguise his pride of place.

A man

of wit,

who

also

one of the celebrities

of wealth and fashion, confessed to his friend, that

he could not enter their houses without being made to feel that

plebeian.

they were great lords, and he a low

With

the tribe of artistes, including the

musical tribe, the patrician

but excludes them.

sang

at the

morgue keeps no

When

houses of the

Julia Grisi and

Duke

te]:ms,

Mario

of Wellington and

other grandees, a cord was stretched between the singer

and the company.

ENGLISH TKAITS.

196

When

every noble was a soldier, they were careThe educa-

fully bred to great personal prowess.

tion of a soldier

a simpler affair than that of an

And

earl in the nineteenth century.

seriously pursued

;

cies of equitation, to the

and

this

Orange.

down

thought

most dangerous

But graver men appear to

;

have trained

Elizabeth extended her

aflfairs.

the future

his letter to his

practices,

the accession of William of

their sons for civil

was very

this

they were expert in every spe-

and

Sir Philip Sidney in

brother, and Milton and Evelyn,

gave plain and hearty counsel.

Already

too, the

English noble and squire were preparing for the career of the country-gentleman, and his peaceable

expense. ceipts to

They went from city to city, learning remake perfumes, sweet powders, pomanders,

antidotes, gathering seeds, curiosities,

gems,

preparing for a private

and divers

coins,

life thereafter, in

which they should take pleasure in these

recreations.

All advantages given to absolve the young

patri-

cian from intellectual labor are of course mistaken.

" In the

university,

noblemen are exempted from

the public exercises for the degree, &c., by which

they attain a degree called honorary.

the same

time, the fees they have to pay for matriculation,

and on

all

other occasions, are

* Huber.

much

higher."*

Historj' of English Uniyersities.

AKISTOCEACT.

197

"the observation of foreigners that Englishmen, by making their children gentlemen, before they are men, cause they are so seldom wise men." This cockering justifies Dr. Johnson's bitter apology for primogeniture, " that it makes Fuller

records

but one fool in a family."

The revolution The great powers sion of name or

in society has reached this class.

of industrial art have no exclu

The

blood.

of our time,

tools

namely, steam, ships, printing, money, and pop-

who

ular education, belong to those

them

and

can handle

their effect has been, that advantages

once confined to

men

now open

of family, are

The road

the whole middle class.

that grandeur

levels for his coach, toil can travel in his cart.

This is

more manifest every day, but

true throughout English history.

I think

English his-

tory, wisely read, is the vindication of the brain of

Here,

that people.

at last,

will

work and

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

which

should make the law trative talent

This

;

and

now

the charter,

and

rains force

seas,

that industry and adminis-

know

pretended.

17*

and personal

should administer

Nfear the crown.

thing else

fogs,

intellect

that

Who

faculty.

dare, shall rule.

or the chartism,

proclaimed,

were climate and condi-

working

tion friendly to the

;

that

work should

that not this, but some-

The

fiction

with which

ENGLISH TKAITS.

198

the noble and the bystander equally please themselves

is,

that the former

of unbroken descent

from the Norman, and so has never worked for All the families are new, eight hundred years. but the name

old,

and they have made a cove-

nant with their memories not to disturb the analysis

the

But

it.

and gentry shows

peerage

the rapid decay and extinction of old families, the

continual

recruiting

The doors, though

these

from new blood.

ostentatiously guarded, are really

open, and hence the power of the bribe.

All the

whet the thirst, and enhance " Now," said Nelson, when clearing " a peerage, or Westminster Abbey

barriers to rank only

the prize. for battle,

" I have no

illusion left," said

Sydney Smith, " but

the Archbishop of Canterbury." said

Burke,

"The

lawyers,"

" are only birds of passage in

House of Commons," and then added, with a " they have

figure,

their best

bower anchor

this

new

in the

House of Lords." Another

stride

that has

been taken, appears

the perishing of heraldry.

of nobility are passing to the middle

badge

discredited,

and the

Whilst the privileges titles

class, the

of lordship are

musty and cumbersome. I wonder that sensible men have not been already impatient of

getting

them.

They belong, with

wigs,

powder, and

AEISTOCRAC ?: ricarlet coats, to

199

an earlier age, and

may

be advan-

tageously consigned, -with paint and tattoo^ to the dignitaries of Australia

and Polynesia.

multitude of English, educated

sities,

at the univer-

bred into their society with manners,

and the

gifts of fortune, are

ability,

every day confronting

the peers on a footing of equality, and outstripping

them, as often, in the race of honor and influence.

That cultivated It is

computed

large and ever enlarging.

class is

that,

with

titles

and without, there

coming and

are seventy thousand of these people

going in London, society.

that

who make up what

They cannot

called

high

shut their eyes to the fact

an untitled nobility possess

all

the

power

without the inconveniences that belong to rank,

and the rich Englishman goes over the world the present day, drawing

which the command. tages

more than

strongest

his

all

the advan-

kings could

CHAPTER

XII.

UNIVERSITIES.

British unirersities,

illustrious too,

names on

Cambridge has the most

its list.

the present day,

has the advantage of Oxford, counting in

its

alumni a greater number of distinguished scholars. I regret that I had but a single day wherein to see

King's College Chapel, the beautiful lawns and gardens of the colleges, and a few of

But

I availed myself of

tions to Oxford,

where

its

gownsmen.

some repeated

invita-

had introductions

Daubeny, Professor of Botany, and

to the

to Dr.

Regius

Professor of Divinity, as well as to a valued friend, a

Fellow of Oriel, and went thither on the

of March, 1848. Oriel,

was housed

I was the guest of close

upon

last

day

friend in

that college,

and

lived on college hospitalities.

showed me their cloisters, the Bodleian Library, the Randolph Gallery, Merton Hall, and the rest. I saw several faithful, highminded young men, some of them in the mood of

new

friends

(200)

UNIVERSITIES.

making

sacrifices

for peace of

201

mind,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

a topic, of

on which I had no counsel to offer. Their affectionate and gregarious ways reminded me at course,

once of the habits of our Cambridge men, though I

imputed to these English an advantage in their secure

and polished manners.

The

oaken wainscoting and

ceiling.

halls are rich

the founders hang from the walls ter

with

table,

plate.

The ;

with

pictures of

the tables glit-

A youth came forward

to the

upper

and pronounced the ancient form of grace

before meals, which, I suppose, has been in use

here for ages, Benedictus benedicat ; benedicitur, benedicatur. It is

a curious proof of the English use and

wont, or of their good nature, that these young

men

are locked

up every night

the porter at each hall

of any belated student

hour.

nine o'clock, and

required to give the

who

name

admitted after that

more descriptive is the fact, that out hundred young men, comprising the

Still

of twelve

most spirited of the aristocracy, a duel has never occurred.

Oxford tive.

old,

even in England, and conserva-

Its foundations date

from Arthur,

if,

as is

from Alfred, and even

alleged, the Pheryllt of the

Druids had a seminary here.

ward

I., it is

In the reign of Ed-

pretended, here were thirty thousand

ENGLISH TRAITS.

e02

and nineteen most noble foundations were then established. Chaucer found it as firm as if it had always stood ; and it is, in British story, students

;

rich with great names, the school of the island,

and the link of England to the learned of Europe. Hither came Erasmus, with delight, in 149Y. Albericus Gentilis, in 1580, was relieved and maintained by the university.

Albert Alaskie, a noble

who

England to admire the wisdom of Queen Elizabeth, was enterPolonian, Prince of Sirad,

visited

tained with stage-plays in the Refectory of Christ-

church, in 1583.

Isaac Casaubon,

coming from

Henri Quatre of France, by invitation of James I.,

was admitted

I saw the

to Christ's College, in July, 1613.

Ashmolean Museum, whither

Elias Ash-

mole, in 1682, sent twelve cart-loads of

rarities.

Here indeed was the Olympia of all Antony Wood's and Aubrey's games and heroes, and every inch of ground has its lustre. For Wood's Athence Oxonienses, or calendar of the writers of

two hundred years,

manners and merits, and

ument ter.

Oxford

for

a lively record of English as

much

a national

mon-

Purchas's Pilgrims or Hansard's Regis-

every side, Oxford

authority.

Its

gates

modern innovation. statutes of

redolent of age and

shut of themselves against It is still

Archbishop Laud.

governed by the

The books

Mer

UNIVERSITIES.

ton Library are

203

chained to the wall.

still

Here,

on August 27, 1660, John Milton's Pro Populo

Anglicano Defensio, and Iconoclastes were committed to the flames.

saw the school-court or quad-

rangle, where, in 1683, the Convocation caused the

Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes to be publicly

know whether

biirnt.

body have yet heard of the Declaration of American IndependI do not

this learned

ence, or whether the Ptolemaic astronomy does not still

hold

its

ground against the novelties of Co-

pernicus.

As many is

sons, almost so

many

benefactors.

usual for a nobleman, or indeed for almost every

wealthy student, on quitting college, to leave behind him some values,

down

from a

article of plate

;

and

gifts

all

hall, or a fellowship, or a library,

to a picture or a spoon, are continually accru-

ing, in the course of a century.

tor J.,

gave

friend Doc-

the following anecdote.

Thomas Lawrence's

collection at

In Sir

London, were the

cartoons of Eaphael and Michel Angelo.

inestimable prize was offered

This

Oxford Univer-

The

offer

was

accepted, and the committee charged with the

affair

sity

for

seven thousand pounds.

had collected three thousand pounds, when among Instead other friends, they called on Lord Eldon. of a hundred pounds, he surprised

them hy putting

ENGLISH TRAITS.

204

down

name

his

for three

told him, they should

"No," he

remainder.

They

thousand pounds.

now very

"your men have

said,

probably already contributed

easily raise the

all

they can spare

;

and he withdrew his cheque for three thousand, and wrote four thousand pounds. I saw the whole collection in April, 1848. In the Bodleian Library, Dr. Bandinel showed can as well give the rest "

the manuscript Plato, of the date of A. D.

896, brought by Dr. Clarke from Egypt Virgil,

uscript

the same

century

;

man-

the

Bible printed at Mentz, (I believe in 1450)

first ;

and

a duplicate of the same, which had been deficient

But, one day,

in about twenty leaves at the end.

being in Venice, he bought a room full of books

and manuscripts, for four

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

every scrap and fragment,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

thousand louis d'ors, and had the doors

locked and sealed by the consul.

proceeding,

afterwards, to examine his purchase, he found the

twenty deficient pages of his Mentz Bible, in perfect

order

;

brought them

of his purchase, and placed

but has too

much awe

Oxford, with the rest

them

for the

the

volume

;

Providence that ap-

pears in bibliography also, to suffer the reunited parts to be re-bound.

The

oldest building here

two hundred years younger than the script

frail

manu-

brought by Dr. Clarke from Egypt.

203

TTNIVEESITIES.

candle or

fire is

catalogue

ever lighted in the Bodleian.

Its

the standard catalogue on the desk of

every library in Oxford.

In each several college,

they underscore in red ink on this catalogue the titles

lege,

of books contained in the library of that col-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

books.

the theory being that the Bodleian has

This rich library spent during the

all

year

last

(1847) for the purchase of books ÂŁ1668.

The

logical English train a scholar as they train

an engineer.

Oxford

Greek

factory, as

Wil-

ton mills weave carpet, and Sheffield grinds steel.

They know the use of a horse

;

use of a tutor, as they

know

the

and they draw the greatest amount

of benefit out of both.

The reading men

are kept

by hard walking, hard riding, and measured eating and drinking, at the top of their condition, and two days before the examination, do no work, but lounge, ride, or run, to be fresh on the college Seven years' residence

doomsday.

period for a master's degree.

the theoretic

In point of

fact, it

has long been three years' residence, and four years

more of standing. This " three years " is about twenty-one months in all.* " The whole expense," says Professor Sewel,

"of ordinary

college tuition at Oxford,

* Huber,

u. p. 304.

about

;

ENGLISH TRAITS.

206

But this plausible statement may deceive a reader unacquainted with the fact, that the principal teaching relied on is private sixteen guineas a year."

And

tuition.

reckoned

the expenses of private tuition are

from ÂŁ50

ÂŁ70

whole course of three years and a

for the

Cambridge $750 a year

$1000 At

a year, or,

half.

economical, and $1500

not extravagant.*

The number

of students and of residents, the

dignity of the authorities, the value of the foun-

the

dations,

history

known sympathy

and

the

architecture,

of entire Britain in what

there, justify a dedication to

the

done

study in the under-

graduate, such as cannot easily be in America,

where

man and

his college is half suspected

politics.

Oxford

numerous and estates in the

little

aristocracy in

itself,

enough to rank with other and where fame and secular

dignified

realm

promotion are tion

by the Fresh-

be insignificant in the scale beside trade

;

be had for study, and in a direc-

which has the unanimous respect of

all

culti-

vated nations.

This aristocracy, of course, repairs fills

places, as they fall vacant,

Btu dents.

The number of

* Bristed.

its

own

losses

from the body of

fellowships at Oxford

Five Years at an English University,

UNIVEESITIES.

207

540, averaging ÂŁ200 a year, with lodging and

diet at the college.

learning,

home, a

If a

young American, loving

and hindered by poverty, were table, the walks,

and the

oflfered

one

library, :n

of these academical palaces, and a thousand dol-

year as long as he chose to remain a bach-

lars a

elor,

he would dance

men

Yet these young

for joy.

thus happily placed, and paid to read, are

impatient of their few checks, and

preparing to resign their fellowships.

dered

prospect of dying a Fellow, and they

at the

pointed out to

a paralytic old

sisted into the hall.

uates at Oxford

many

many of them They shud-

man, who was

as-

number of undergradonly about 1200 or 1300, and the

of these are never competitors, the chance of

a fellowship

teen colleges

very great.

The income

of the nine-

conjectured at ÂŁ150,000 a year.

The

effect of this drill is the radical knowledge Greek and Latin, and of mathematics, and the solidity and taste of English criticism. What-

ever luck there

Eton

may be

in this or that award, an

captain can write Latin longs and shorts, can

turn the Court-Guide into hexameters, and

certain that a Senior Classic can quote correctly

from the Corpus Poetarum, and in all the humanities.

the Isis

is critically

Greek erudition

and Cam, whether the

learned

exists

Maud man

or the

ENGLISH TRAITS.

208

man be

Brazen Nose atmosphere

properly ranked or not

loaded with Greek

learning

;

the

;

the

whole river has reached a certain height^ and kills all that growth of weeds, which this Castalian The English nature takes culture water kills. So Milton thought.

kindly.

Access to the Greek mind

man. of

It refines the

taste.

lifts

Norse-

his standard

has enough to think of, and, unless

of an impulsive nature,

indisposed from writing

or speaking, by the fulness of his mind, and the

new

severity of his taste.

The

great silent crowd

of thorough-bred Grecians always

known

around him, the English writer cannot ignore.

They prune

his orations,

and point

Hence,

his pen.

The

the style and tone of English journalism.

men have logic,

learned accuracy and comprehension,

constitutions, they mills,

They have "When born with good

and pace, or speed of working.

bottom, endurance, wind.

the

make those eupeptic studyingmen, the dura ilia, whose

cast-iron

powers of performance compare with ours,

steam-hammer with the music-box ; fields,

Seldens, and Bentleys, and

as the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Cokes, Mans-

when

happens

that a superior brain puts a rider on this admirable horse,

obtain those masters of the world

combine the highest energy in Eulture.

affairs,

who

with a supreme

UNIVERSITIES.

contended by those

It is

20s

who have been bred

Eton, Harrow, Eugby, and Westminster, that the public sentiment within each of those schools

high-toned and manly

courage

;

that, in their

universally admired, meanness despised,

manly

feelings

aged

that an unwritten code of honor

playgrounds,

and generous conduct are encourdeals to

the spoiled child of rank, and to the child of upstart

wealth an even-handed justice, purges their

nonsense out of both, and does to

all that

can be done

make them gentlemen. Again,

at the

universities,

urged, that

all

goes to form what England values as the flower of

its

national

life,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

a well-educated gentleman.

The German Huber, in describing to his countrymen the attributes of an English gentleman, frankly admits, that, "in Germany, we have nothing of the kind.

ical character,

an independent and public position,

or, at

least,

gentleman must possess a

the right of assuming

it.

polit-

He must

have average opulence, either of his own, or in his

family.

strength,

public

should also have bodily activity and

unattainable

The

offices.

by our sedentary

race of

presents an appearance of

life

English gentlemen

manly vigor and form, among an equal num-

not elsewhere to be found ber

of persons.

18*

other nation produces the

ENGLISH TEAITS.

210

And,

Btock.

The

university

man's favor.

England,

has

deteriorated.

a decided presumption in any

And

eminent are the members

show that in all company than Oxford or Cam-

that a glance at the calendars will

the world one cannot be in better

on the books of one of the larger bridge colleges." *

These seminaries are finishing schools upper

classes,

exploded.

and not for the poor.

The

for the

The

useful

definition of a public school

" a school which excludes

all

that could

fit

man

behind a counter." f doubt, the foundations have been perverted.

for standing

Oxford, which equals in wealth several of the smaller European states, shuts up the lectureships which were made " public for all men thereunto

have concourse ; " mis-spends the revenues bestowed for such youths " as should be most meet for towardness, poverty, and painfulness ; " there to

gross favoritism

;

many

chairs

lowships are made beds of ease that the university will

make

inoperative

â&#x20AC;˘ Huber

the

;

and many

and

know how terrors

History of the English Universities.

'tis

fel-

likely

to resist and

parliamentary Newman's Trans-

lation.

t See 1852.

Bristed.

Five Years in an English University.

New York

UNITEESITIES.

inquiry

;

obsolete

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but

found here

I ity

doubt,

21i

learning

their

Oxford also has also

its

grown

merits, and

proof of the national

and thoroughness.

Such knowledge

prize they possess and impart.

fidel-

they

Whether in course cramming tutor or

or by indirection, whether by a by examiners with prizes and foundation

scholar-

ships, education according to the English notion

it is

arrived

at.

I looked over

the

Examin-

Papers of the year 1848, for the various

ation

scholarships and fellowships, the Lusby, the Hertford, the Dean-Ireland,

and the University, (copies

of which were kindly given fessor,) containing the tasks

me by a Greek prowhich many compet-

had victoriously performed, and I believed

itors

they would prove too severe

tests

for the candi-

dates for a Bachelor's degree in Yale or Harvard.

And, ing

in general, here

study in

tl.e

knowledge pretinded veyed.

was proof of

more searchand the be conveyed was con-

appointed to

directions,

Oxford sends out yearly twenty or thirty

very able

and three or four hundred well-

^p'in,

educated rja.

The

diet av

amount of

'J.<'

rough exercise secure a certain Norse power. A fop will fight,

and, in esigeni circumstances, will play the manly part.

r/f

ag these youths, I believed i saw

ENGLISH TRAITS.

212

already an advantage in vigor and color and gen eral habit, over their contemporaries in the

can colleges.

much

reading-men

brilliancy of the tional

doubt

With

hygienic.

merely constitu

a hardier habit and

resolute gymnastics, with five miles

or five

Ameri

of the power and

more walking,

ounces less eating, or with a saddle and

gallop of twenty miles a day, with skating and

rowing-matches, the American would arrive at as robust exegesis, and cheery and hilarious tone.

should readily concede these advantages, which

would be easy

did not find alsp

to acquire, if I

that they read better than we,

I it

and write

better.

English wealth falling on their school and university training, best authors,

makes

and

to the

a systematic reading of the

end of

knowledge how

the things whereof they treat really stand: whilst

pamphleteer or journalist reading for an argument for a party, or reading to write, or, at all events, for

some by-end imposed on them, must read

meanly and fragmentarily.

Charles

I. said,

that he

understood English law as well as a gentleman

ought

understand

Then they have ries

it.

access to books

collected at every one of

;

the rich libra-

many thousands

houses, give an advantage not to be attained by a

youth in

this

country,

when one

thinks

how much

215

UNIVEBSITIES.

more and better may be learned by a

scholar, â&#x20AC;˘wh.o,

immediately on hearing of a book, can consult

who

than by one

on the quest,

for years,

it,

and

reads inferior books, because he cannot find the best.

Again, the great number of cultivated

men keep

The

habit of

each other up to a high standard.

meeting well-read and knowing art of

men

teaches the

omission and selection.

Universities are, of course, hostile to geniuses,

which seeing and using ways of their own, discredit the routine as churches and monasteries :

Yet we

persecute youthful saints.

send our

all

sons to college, and, though he be a genius, he

must take the vanes

Oxford

ty.

The

his chance.

The

retrospective.

all

its

gale

university

must be

direction

that gives

towers blows out of antiqui-

a library, and the professors must

And

be librarians.

I should as soon think

quarrelling with the janitor for not magnifying his office

hostile sallies into the street, like the

Governor of Kertch or Kinburn, ling

of quarrel-

with the professors for not admiring the

young neologists who pluck the beards of Euclid and Aristotle, or fill

for not attempting themselves to

their vacant shelves as original writers.

It is easy to carp at colleges,

will wait for

it,

will have

its

and the

own

college, if

turn.

Genius

ENGLISH TRAITS.

214

exists there also, but will not

committee of the

House

precarious, eccentric,

answer a

Commons.

and darkling.

England

the land of mixture and surprise, and

have settled

of a

call

It is rare, is

when you

that the universities are moribund,

out comes a poetic influence from the heart of

Oxford, to mould the opinions of

cities, to

build

their houses as simply as birds their nests, to give

veracity to art,

and charm mankind,

moral order always must. rative

But

genius, the best poetry of

age, in the old forms,

of Cambridge.

as an appeal to

besides this resto-

England of

this

comes from two graduates

CHAPTEE

XIII.

RELIGION.

people, at the present day, can be explained

They do not

by their national religion. sponsible for

it ;

it lies far outside of

loyalty to truth, rest

And

them.

English

and not on a national

life, it is

evident, does not

grow out of the Athanasian creed, or the or the Eucharist. riage.

his life,

opened

afterwards,

when

much

relations of the sexes

say,'

he might reply,

the question were open, but I have a wife and

children,

the

;

to the reason of the conduct of

and of the right

'I should have if

Articles,

with religion as with mar-

asked, what he thinks of the institution

of marriage,

It is

A youth marries in haste

mind

Their

and their labor and expenditure

real foundations,

church.

feel re-

and

all

question

closed for me.'

barbarous days of a nation, some cultus

formed or imported ; priests ordained.

In is

altars are built, tithes are paid,

The education and expenditure of when wealth,

the country take that direction, and

(215)

ENGLISH TRAITS.

216 refinement, great

vene, or

its

lift

ous

prudent

men, and

ties to

men

why

say,

these absurdities

which

the world, super-

fight against Fate,

now

are

mountain-

Better find some niche or crevice in this

mountain of stone which religious ages have quarried and carved, wherein to bestow yourself, than attempt any thing

ridiculously and dangerously

above your strength, like removing

In seeing old

castles

say, as to-day, in front of

which

it.

and cathedrals, I sometimes

Dundee Church

eight hundred years old,

this

tower,

was

built

by another and a better race than any that now look on it.' And, plainly, there has been great power of sentiment at work in this island, of which these buildings are the proofs as volcanic basalts show :

work of fire which has been extinguished for ages. England felt the full heat of the Christianity which fermented Europe, and drew, Uke the chemthe

istry of fire, a firm

line

between barbarism and

The power of the religious sentiment put an end to human sacrifices, checked appetite, inculture.

spired the crusades, inspired resistance to tyrants, inspired self-respect, slavery,

founded

set

bounds

liberty, created

serfdom and

the religious

ar-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;York, Newstead, Westminster, FounAbbey, Ripon, Beverley, and Dundee, â&#x20AC;&#x201D;works

chitecture, tains to

which' the key

is lost,

with the sentiment which

RELIGION. created

them

;

217

inspired the English Bible, the

lit-

urgy, the monkish histories, the chronicle of Richard of Devizes. The priest translated the Vulgate,

and translated the

sanctities of old hagiology into

English virtues on English ground.

was a

cer-

tain aiErmative or aggressive state of the Cauca-

Man awoke

sian races.

The

ages.

refreshed by the sleep of

violence of the northern savages exas-

perated Christianity into power. love of the people.

two hundred and tached to the

by the

Bishop Wilfrid manumitted

fifty serfs,

soil.

It lived

The

whom

he found

at-

clergy obtained respite

from labor for the boor on the Sabbath, and on " The lord who compelled his church festivals. boor to labor between sunset on Saturday and sunset

on Sunday, forfeited him altogether."

The

came out of the people, and sympathized with his class. The church was the mediator, check, and democratic principle, in Europe. Latimer, Wicliffe, Arundel, Cobham, Antony Parsons, priest

Sir

Harry Vane, George Eox, Penn, Bunyan are

the democrats, as well as the saints of their times.

The

Catholic church, thrown on this toiling, seri-

ous people,

has

made

massive system, close genius stately.

the

fitted

fourteen to

centuries

country, at once domestical

In the long time, 19

the manners and

and

has blended with

ENGLISH TRAITS.

218

every thing in heaven above and the earth beneath. It

moves through a zodiac of

and

feasts

fasts,

names

every day of the year, every town and market and

headland and monument, and has coupled

itself

with the almanac, that no court can be held, no ploughed, no horse shod, without some leave

field

All maxims of prudence or shop

from the church. or its

farm are fixed and dated by the church. strength in the agricultural

districts.

Hence,

The

dis-

tribution of land into parishes enforces a church

sanction to every civil privilege

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with

for the poor,

" the

and the gradation

link

and curates

the fact that a classical edu-

been secured

cation has

them

;

prelates for the rich,

of the clergy,

clergyman, makes

to the

which unites the seq^uestered

peasantry with the

intellectual

advancement of

the age."*

The English church has many certificates of

humble

and educating. ture

;

show,

humanizing the peomen, feeding, healing,

effective service in

ple, in cheering

confessors

;

and

refining

It has

the seal of martyrs and

the noblest books

a ritual

;

a sublime architec

marked by the same

secular merits,

nothing cheap or purchasable.

From

this

slow-grown church important * Wordsworth.

reac-

KELIGION.

proceed

tions

;

much

a direction to the

for culture,

much

for giying

and will

nation's affection

The carved and

day.

21C

pictured chapel,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

to-

its

entire

surface animated with image

and emblem,

the parish-church a sort of

book and Bible

to the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; made

people's eye.

Then, when the Saxon instinct had secured a service in the vernacular tongue,

and university of the people.

was the tutor

In York minster, on

the day of the enthronization of the

new

arch-

bishop, I heard the service of evening prayer read

and chanted in the choir.

was strange

hear

the pretty pastoral of the betrothal of Rebecca and Isaac, in the

morning of the world, read with

cumstantiality in ary,

York

minster,

cir-

on the 13th Janu-

1848, to the decorous English audience, just

from the Times newspaper and their wine

fresh

and listening with pride.

purpose.

all

;

the devotion of national

That was binding old and new

The reverence

some

for the Scriptures is

element of civilization, for thus has the history of the world been preserved, and

preserved.

Here

in England every day a chapter of Genesis, and a

leader in the Times.

Another part of the same service on sion

was not

anthem,

God

insignificant.

Handel's

this occa-

coronation

save the King, was played

by Dr

ENGLISH TKAITS.

220

Camidge on the organ,

with,

minster and the music were It

sublime

made

effect.

was a hint of the part the church plays

man

From

engine.

litical

accustomed

The

for each other. as a po-

his infancy, every English-

to hear daily prayers for the

queen, for the royal family and the Parliament,

by name

;

personages

and

lifelong consecration of these

this

be without influence

cannot

his

opinions.

The

universities, also, are parcel of the ecclesi-

system, and their

astical

Thus

clergy.

first

design

form the

the clergy for a thousand years have

been the scholars of the nation.

The

national

temperament deeply enjoys the un-

broken order and tradition of its church ; the ceremony, architecture

;

liturgy,

the sober grace, the good

company, the connection with the throne, and with history, itself

which adorn

thus to

men

stability of the

And

it.

English nation

listed to its support,

from

its

whilst

taste is

than

endears

activity, the

passionately en-

inextricable connection

with the cause of public order, with

politics

and

with the funds.

Good churches least,

are not

built

by bad men

;

there must be probity and enthusiasm some-

RELIGION.

where in the

22;i

These minsters were neither

society.

No church has had more learned, industrious or devoted men plenty of " clerks and bishops, who, out of their gowns, built

nor

filled

atheists.

;

would turn architecture

man."*

backs on no

their still

glows with

Heats and genial periods arrive in history,

say, plenitudes of

or, shall

Divine Presence, by which

high tides are caused in the

human

and talents appear,

virtues

Their

faith in immortality.

spirit,

and great

in the eleventh,

and again in the sixteenth and when the nation was full of

twelfth, thirteenth,

seventeenth centuries, genius and piety.

But the age of the Beckets

;

WiclifFes,

Cobhams, Arundels,

of the Latimers, Mores, Cranmers

;

the Taylors, Leightons, Herberts ; of the Sherlocks,

and Butlers, ion have

made

gone. it

Silent revolutions in opin-

impossible that

men

like these

should return, or find a place in their once sacred

The

stalls.

that dwelt in this church has

spirit

away to animate other activities ; and they who come to the old shrines find apes and players glided

rustling the old garments.

The ing.

religion of

When

you

England is part of good-breedon the continent the well-

see

* Fuller.

19*

;

ENGLISH TRAITS.

222

dressed Englishman

come

into

his

ambassador's

chapel, and put his face for silent prayer into his

smooth-brushed hat, one cannot help feeling how much national pride prays with him, and the reliSo

gion of a gentleman.

far is

he from attaching

any meaning to the words, that he believes himself to have done almost the generous thing, and that very condescending in him to pfay to God.

great

duke said, on the occasion of a victory, in House of Lords, that he thought the Almighty God had not been well used by them, and that it would become their magnanimity, after so great

the

successes, to take order that a proper acknowledg-

ment be made. but

tives

do not

in the

the church of the gentry

It is

not the church of the poor.

House

never saw a

The

opera-

own it, and gentlemen lately testified of Commons that in their lives they poor man in a ragged coat inside a

church.

The

torpidity

on the

side of religion of the vigor-

ous English understanding, shows

and

folly can agree in

quotation ination

;

their

one brain.

church

how much

Their religion

a doll

;

fanaticism of the vulgar are the vulgar.

;

and any exam-

interdicted with screams of terror.

good company, you expect them

wit

laugh

but they do not

at the :

they

RELIGION.

22^

The English, in common perhaps with Christendom in the nineteenth century, do not respect power, but only performance

;

value ideas only for

an economic result. only as far as BriscoU,

Wellington esteems a saint " Mr. he can be an army chaplain :

his admirable conduct

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

and good sense,

got the better of Methodism, whicb had appeared

among the soldiers, and once among the officers." They value a philosopher as they value an apothecary is

who

brings bark or a drench

;

and inspiration

only some blowpipe, or a finer mechanical aid. I suspect that there

in an Englishman's brain

a valve that can be closed at pleasure, as an engi-

neer shuts off steam.

The most

sensible and wellpower of thinking just so far as the bishop in religious matters, and as the chancellor of the exchequer in politics. They talk with courage and logic, and show you magnificent results, but the same men who have brought

informed

free

men

possess the

trade or geology to their present standing,

look grave and lofty, and shut as

down

their valve,

soon as the conversation approaches the English

church.

The

After that, you talk with a box-turtle. action of the university, both in

taught, and in the spirit of the place,

what

more on producing an English gentleman, than Baint or a psychologist.

directed a

ripens a bishop, aud

ENGLISH TRAITS.

224

know

I do not

extrudes a philosopher.

that there

in the Anglican, than in other

more cabalism

churches, but the Anglican clergy are identified

with the aristocracy. They say, here, that, if you talk with a clergyman, you are sure to find him

well-bred, informed, and candid.

entertains

your thought or your project with sympathy and

But

praise.

sympathy

if a

second clergyman come

an end

two together are

ble to your thought, and,

whenever

comes

clergyman invariably sides with his

the

action,

in, the

inaccessi-

church.

The Anglican church and good sense of of

its

The gospel

clergy.

are ye saved.'

marked by the grace

forms, by the manly grace

its

preaches,

is,

money

pair,

spends a world of

ing

and in buying Pugin, and architectural

;

It has a general

ture.

mildness.

church is

;

it is

alone.

music and build-

good name

litera-

for amenity

and

not inquisitorial, not even inquisitive,

But

and can shut

If you let

proper occasions.

in politics,

not in ordinary a persecuting

perfectly well-bred,

you

taste

keeps the old structures in re-

its

instinct

eyes on

its

alone,

all

will let

hostile to all change

The church London University,

literature, or social arts.

has not been the founder of the

of the Mechanics' Institutes, of the Free School, or

RELIGION.

whatever aims Platonists of esy, as

The

as bitter against this her-

Taylor.

doctrine of the Old Testament

The

of England. it

The

diffusion of knowledge.

Oxford are

Thomas

229

does not open.

first

leaf of the

It believes in a

the religion

New

Testament

Providence which

does not treat with levity a pound sterling. are neither transcendentalists nor christians.

put up no Socratic prayer, prayer for the queen's

much

mind

less

They They

any saintly

ask neither for light

;

nor right, but say bluntly, " grant her in health

And

and wealth long

live."

Jewish prayer in

all

English private history, firom

the prayers of zes'

Chronicle,

King Richard, to

those

Samuel Romilly, and

one traces this

in Richard of Devi-

the

diaries

Haydon

the

Sir

painter

"Abroad with my

wife," writes Pepys piously, " the first time that ever I rode in my own coach which do make my heart rejoice and praise God, and pray him to bless it to me, and continue it." The bill for the naturalization of the Jews (in 1753) ;

was resisted by petitions from

all

parts

the

kingdom, and by petition from the city of London, reprobating this bill, as " tending extremely to the dishonor of the Christian religion, and extremely injurious

kingdom

the interests and commerce of the

in general, and of the city of

particular."

London

ENGLISH TRAITS.

226

But they have not been able to congeal humanity " The heavens journey still act of Parliament.

and sojourn not," and opinion, go onward

new

age has

charities,

The the

desires,

and reads

chatter of

hum

arts,

wars, discoveries, and

own

The new new new trades, new the Scriptures with new eyes. at

pace.

enemies,

French

of the mill,

their

the steam-whistle,

politics,

and the noise of embarking

emigrants, had quite put most of the old legends so that when you came to read the modern congregation, it was almost abunfitness, and suggested a masquerade

out of mind liturgy to a

surd in

its

;

of old costumes.

chemist has prospered in the

crystallize a religion.

skin,

and other

every day.

It is

vital

attempt to

endogenous, like the

organs.

The prophet and

new

apostle

statement

knew

this,

and the nonconformist confutes the conformists, by quoting the texts they must allow.

It is the con-

dition of a religion, to require religion for its expositor.

Prophet and apostle can only be rightly

understood by prophet and apostle.

man knows

any more than the supply of but ize

it is

its

states-

fibrine

fail,

and chyle

;

nature constructive, and will organ-

surh a church as

ndll 9]-<5nd

The

that the religious element will not

wants.

on temples, schools,

The wise

legislator

libraries, colleges

RELIGION.

227

but will shun the enriching of priests.

in any

If,

manner, he can leave the election and paying of the priest to the people, he will do well.

Quakers, he

the class

may

separation of

the

resist

of priests, and create opportunity and expec-

tation in the society, to

ment, in this kind.

run

meet natural endow-

when wealth

But,

a chaplaincy, a bishopric, or rectorship,

moneyed men

for

its

stewards,

who

accrues to requires

will give

another direction than to the mystics of their day.

course,

steadily

money

work

people to

whom

certain to be religious, is

will do after

to unspiritualize it

its

kind, and will

and unchurch the

was bequeathed.

excluded from

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and driven

all

to other

The

class

preferment are the churches

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which

nature's vis medicatrix.

The

curates are

overpaid.

ill

paid,

and the prelates are

This abuse draws into the church the

children of the nobility, and other unfit persons,

who have

Thus a bishop is Through his lawn, I can

a taste for expense.

jnly a surpliced merchant.

see the bright buttons of the ter.

wealth like that of

shopman's coat

Durham makes

glit-

almost

premium on felony. Brougham, in a speech in the House of Commons on the Irish elective franchise, said, " How will the reverend bishops a

of the other house be able to express their

due ab-

ENGLISH TRAITS.

228

who solemnly God, that when they

horrence of the crime of perjury, declare in the presence of

upon

called

are

ÂŁ4000

accept a living, perhaps of

moved

a year, at that very instant, they are

by the Holy Ghost to accept the office and administration thereof, and for no other reason whatever ? " The modes of initiation are more damaging than custom-house oaths. elected by the

The Queen

Dean and Prebends

sends these gentlemen a conge

or leave to elect

of the person

;

after

these

they are to

to assist

d'elire,

They go

elect.

and pray, and beseech the

them

invocations,

dictates of the

but also sends them the name

whom

into the cathedral, chant

Holy Ghost

The Bishop

of the cathedral.

in their choice

invariably find

Holy Ghost agree with

;

that

and, the

the recom-

mendations of the Queen.

But you must pay for conformity. All goes But well as long as you run with conformists. you,

who

that there

are honest is

alive

man

in other particulars,

know,

somewhere a man whose honesty

reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and,

you sink this

on the day when you meet him,

into the class of counterfeits.

succumbing has grave

in a lie,

you must take

England accepts

this

penalties.

Besides,

you

take

in all that belongs to

it.

ornamented national church.

RELIGION.

and

239

glazes the eyes, bloats the flesh, gives the

voice a stertorous clang, and clouds the

under-

standing of the receivers.

The English church, undermined by German criticism,

had nothing

but tradition, and was

left

Romanism.

led logically back to

But

that

was an

element which only hot heads could breathe

view of the educated fact to front the

men from

sun

class, generally, ;

was not

and the alienation of such

the church became complete.

Nature, to be sure, had her remedy.

Religious

Church and hold

persons are driven out of the Established into sects,

which instantly

rise to credit,

Nature has sharper

the Establishment in check.

remedies, also. all

The English, abhorring change

things, abhorring

cling to the last rag of form,

given to cant.

The

and are dreadfully

English, (and I wish

confined to them, but

most in matters of religion,

were

in the Anglo-

a taint

'tis

Saxon blood in both hemispheres,) the English and the Americans cant beyond

The French relinquish

What

all

so odious as the

our books and newspapers flagitious in the exact

all

other nations.

that industry to them.

polite ?

bows

measure of

and the religion of the day

The popular is

its

God,

press

sanctimony,

a theatrical Sinai,

where the thunders are supplied by the property-

ENGLISH TKAITS.

230

man.

Punch

The

fanaticism and hypocrisy create

finds

satire.

Dickens

an inexhaustible material.

on Exeter-Hall humanity. ThackNature reeray exposes the heartless high life. venges herself more summarily by the heathenism Lord Shaftesbury calls the of the lower classes. poor thieves together, and reads sermons to them, and they call it * gas.' George Borrow summons writes novels

the Gypsies to hear his discourse on the Hebrews in Egypt, and reads to

them the Apostles' Creed

Rommany. " When

I had concluded," he says,

I looked around me.

The

features of the as-

sembly were twisted, and the eyes of

upon me with

a frightful squint

present but squinted

;

all

turned

not an individual

the genteel Pepa, the good-

humored Chicharona, the Cosdami, all squinted the Gypsy jockey squinted worst of all." The church at this moment is much to be pitied. She has nothing left but possession. If a bishop :

meets an intelligent gentleman, and reads

fatal in-

terrogations in his eyes, he has no resource but to

take wine with him. cant, perjury, simony,

mind and

False position introduces

and ever a lower

character into the clergy

the hierarchy

afraid

which

nothing

no lonacr one.

and,

when

of science and education,

afraid of piety, afraid of tradition,

theology, there

class

left

and

afraid of

but to quit a church

RELIGION.

23J

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

But the religion of England, is it the EstabChurch ? no ; is it the sects ? no ; they are only perpetuations of some private man's dissent, and are to the Established Church as cabs are to a coach, cheaper and more convenient, but lished

Tell

Where

same thing.

really the

first

where dwells

or thought or gesture.

dwells the religion

electricity, or

They do not dwell or stay made fast, mortared London Monument, or the

Electricity cannot be

at all.

up and ended, like Tower, so that you and keep

shall

fixed, as

things, forevermore

;

know where

to find

passing, glancing, ges-

a traveller, a newness, a surprise, a

;

secret,

which perplexes them, and puts them

its

it is

it,

the English do with their

ticular

Yet,

motion,

if religion

be the doing of

sake the sufiering of

all

out.

good, and for

all evil, souffrir

de tout

monde et nefaire souffrir personne, that divine secret has existed in those of

England from the days of Alfred to and of Elorenca

B-omilly, of Clarkson,

Nightingale, and in thousands

who have no

fame.

CHAPTER

XIV.

LITERATtTBE.

A STKONG common

?ense, wliicli

it is

unseat or disturb, marks the English

thought, as

for a

newly applied to sailors and soldiers who had lately of read. They have no fancy, and never

thousand years

learned to

not easy to

mind

a rude strength

are surprised into a covert or witty word, such as

pleased the Athenians and Italians, and was convertible into a fable not long after

;

but they de-

light in strong earthy expression, not mistakable,

coarsely true to

the

human body,

spoken among princes, equally the

mob.

style, latest.

fit

and, though

and welcome

This homeliness, veracity, and plain

appear in the earliest extant works, and in the It imports into songs

and ballads the smell

of the earth, the breath of cattle, and, like a Dutch painter, seeks a household charm,

and pans. verse.

The

They ask

The kail and herrings poet

though by

pails

their constitutional utility in

are never out of sight.

nimbly recovers himself from every (238)

LITBEATURE. Bally of the imagination.

235

The English muse

lovea

the farmyard, the lane,

and market. She says, with De Stael, " I tramp in the mire with wooden shoes, whenever they would force me into the For, the Englishman has accurate per-

clouds," ceptions

takes hold of things by the right end,

;

and there

steampipe is

slipperiness in his

aSe, the

loves the :

spade, the

grasp.

the gun, the

oar,

he has built the engine he

uses.

He must

materialist, economical, mercantile.

be treated with aincerity and reality, with muifins,

and not th« p.wmf se of mufiins

and prefers

;

his

hot chop, with peifect security and convenience in the eating of

the chances of the amplest and

it, (:o

Frenchiest bill of fare, engraved on embossed paper.

When

philosopher,

intellectual,

and a poet or a

same hard truth and

carries the

the same keen machiaery into the mental sphere.

His mind must

fitand

baffled, or catch

st,

on a

fact.

clouds, but the

will not be

mind must have

What

a symbol palpable and resisting.

in Dante, is the ^icf -like tenacity

he relishes

with which he

holds a mental ima^e before vhe ejes, as if a scutcheon painted on a

something craggy to b1^^ak taste for plain

cal style,

strong

ripc««;h,

marks the EnjHsh.

20*

were

Byron " liked mwd upon " A

shield. h.i».

what I*

is •«

cabled s bibliu* Vlfved,

and

ENGLISH TEAITS.

234

Saxon Chronicle, and in the Sagas of the Latimer was homely. Hobbes was Donne, perfect in the "noble vulgar speech." the

Northmen.

Bunyan, Milton, Taylor, Evelyn, Pepys, Hooker, How realCotton, and the translators, wrote it. istic

or materialistic in treatment of his subject,

Swift.

describes his fictitious persons, as if

Defoe has no insecurity or

for the police.

Hudibras has the same hard mentality,

choice.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; keeping

the truth at once to the senses, and to the intellect.

seen in poetry.

It is not less

Chaucer's hard

painting of his Canterbury pilgrims senses.

the

satisfies

Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton, in their

loftiest ascents,

have

this national grip

and exacti-

This mental materialism makes

tude of mind.

the value of English transcendental genius

;

Henry More, Donne, The Saxon materialism

these writers, and in Herbert,

and

Sir

Thomas Browne.

and narrowness, exalted lect,

into the sphere of intel-

makes the very genius of Shakspeare and

Milton.

When

reaches the pure element,

Even common

treads the clouds as securely as the adamant. in

its

elevations, materialistic,

sense inspired

;

The marriage speech.

its

poetry

or iron raised to white heat.

of the two qualities

It is a tacit rule of the

in their

language to make

the frame or skeleton, of Saxon words, and,

when

LITERATURE. elevation

ornament

235

interweave

sought, to

Roman ; but sparingly j nor is a sentence made of Roman words alone, without loss of strength. The children and laborers use the Saxon unmixed. The Latin unmixed is abandoned to the colleges and Parliament. Mixture is a secret of the English island

and, in their dialect, the male principle

;

Saxon ; the female, the Latin ; and they are combined in every discourse. A good writer, if

the

he has indulged in

Roman

roundness, makes

haste to chasten and nerve his period

by English

monosyllables.

When

the Gothic nations came into Europe,

they found

Hebrew and their

lighted with the sun and

brain, long kept in the

sensible to the double glory. this

The

Greek genius.

moon

tablets

dark, were finely

the images from

art), the mind by the incubation of the Holy

twin source (of Christianity and

became

fruitful as

Ghost.

The English mind flowered in every facThe common-sense was surprised and in-

ulty.

spired. ic,

For two

centuries,

religious, poetic.

of larger scale

;

the

storehouse of the rains of study

;

England was philosoph-

The mental furniture seemed memory capacious like the ;

the ardor and endurance

the boldness and facility of their mental

consitruction

;

their

fancy, and imagination, and

ENGLISH XEAITS.

236

easy spanning of vast distances of thought enterprise or accosting of erally, the

the

new

subjects

;

the

and, gen-

easy exertion of power, astonish, like

Guy

legendary feats of

of "Warwick.

The

union of Saxon precision and oriental soaring, of

which Shakspeare in

less

the perfect example,

shared

degree by the writers of two centuries.

find not only the great masters out of all rivalry

and reach, but the whole writing of the time charged with a masculine force and freedom.

There

a hygienic simpleness, rough vigor, and

closeness to the matter in hand, even in the second

and third

common

class

of writers

;

and, I think, in the

style of the people, as

citation of wills, letters,

one finds

in the

and public documents, in

The more

proverbs, and forms of speech.

hearty

and sturdy expression may indicate that the savageness of the

Norseman was not

all

dynamic brains hurled

off their

volving stone hurls

scraps of grit.

ofi'

gone.

Their

words, as the reI could cite

from the seventeenth cent ary sentences and phrases of edge not

mat-he's

in the nineteenth.

Their poets by simple Ijrce of mind equalized themselves with the accumulated science of ours.

The country gentlemen had called October

knew how

a posset or drink they

and the poets,

;

distil

as if

this hint,

the whole season into theif

LITEBATURB.

autumnal verses

237

and, as nature, to pique the morcj

sometimes works up deformities into beauty,

some rare Aspasia, art wrought many

or Cleopatra; and, as the a vase or

Greek

column, in which too

long, or too lithe, or nodes, or pits and flaws, are

made a beauty that they

•

of j so these were so quick and vital,

could charm and enrich by mean and

vulgar objects.

man must

think that age well taught and

thoughtful, by which masques and poems, like those of

Ben Jonson,

full of heroic

sentiment in a

manly style, were received with favor. fact

The unique

in literary history, the unsurprised reception

Shakspearej

making

—

absence of

all

the

reception

proved

his

and the apathy proved by the seems to contemporary panegyric,

his fortune

;

—

demonstrate an elevation in the mind of the people.

Judge of the splendor of a

insignificance

nation,

individuals

great

it.

by the

The

manner in which they learned Greek and Latin, before our modern facilities were yet ready, without dictionaries, grammars, or indexes, by lectures

by their own searchings, more robust memory, and cooperaand their scholars, Camthe faculties

of a professor, followed

— required lion of all

;

den, Usher, Selden, Mede, Gataker, Hooker, Taylor, Burton, Bentley, Brian Walton, acquired the solidity

and method of engineers.

ENGLISH TBAITS.

238

The

influence of Plato tinges

tlie

British genius

were cognisant of

Their minds loved analogy;

resemblances, and climbers on the staircase of unity. 'Tis a very old

see identity, ces

and

;

between those who

strife

and those who renews

;

men

the

;

— More,

Hooker,

Bacon,

poets,

of the world,

But Britain had many

of the other. Plato

The

itself in Britain.

of course, are of one part

elect to

elect to see discrepan-

disciples of

Lord

Sidney,

Brooke, Herbert, Browue, Donne, Spenser, Chap-

man, Milton, Crashaw, Norris, Cudworth, Berke-

Jeremy Taylor. Lord Bacon has the En^ lish

ley,

turies of observations,

His cen-

duality.

on useful

science,

and his

One

experiments, I suppose, were worth nothing.

hint of Franklin, or Watt, or Dalton, or Davy, or

any one who had a talent worth

all his lifetime

for

experiment, was

of exquisite

trifles.

But he

drinks of a diviner stream, and marks the influx of idealism into England. poetry,

genesis or

edge,

Where The

health, and progress. its

that goes,

rules

it,

known. That knowlwould supersede all that we call seems an

of meta-chemistry

the vital point being,

;

—

affair

of race, oi

—

ho'w

the sense of unity, or instinct of seeking

semblances,

is its

diffusion are not

we had

science of the mind.

for

predominated.

re-

For, wherever tht

LITEKATUKE.

mind takes

a step, it is, to

larger class, discerned

which and

all

put

233

one with a

itself at

beyond the

lesser class

Hence,

has been conversant.

all

with

poetry,

aiErmative action comes.

Bacon, in the striicture of his mind, held of the analogists, of the idealists, or (as

naming from the best example)

popularly say,

Platonists.

Who-

ever discredits analogy, and requires heaps of facts, before any theories can be attempted, has no poetic

power, and nothing original or beautiful will be

Locke

produced by him.

The

Platonists, of growth.

tendency

;

as surely the influx

and of prose,

of decomposition

the so-called scientific

and poisonous.

Bacon and the

Platonic is

the poetic

the negative

'Tis quite certain, that

Spenser,

Burns, Byron, and Wordsworth will be Platonists

and that the dull tics

men

and commerce

class

men

Then

will be Lockists.

will absorb

of talents

poli-

from the educated

without genius,

precisely

because such have no resistance.

Bacon, capable of ideas, yet devoted to ends, required in his

map

of the mind,

first

all,

uni-

versality, or prima philosopMa, the receptacle for all such profitable observations and axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special parts

of philosophy,

higher stage.

but are more common, and of a

held

this

element essential

ENGLISH TRAITS.

240 is

never out of mind

such as neglect

;

he never spares rebukes

foi

believing that no perfect dis-

covery can be made in a

flat

ascend to a higher science.

you must " If any man thiuketh

or level, but

philosophy and universality to be idle studies, he

doth not consider that

from

are

professions

all

thence served and supplied, and this I take to be a great cause that has hindered the progression of

because

learning,

these fundamental knowledges

have been studied but in passage."

explained

himself by giving various quaint examples of the

summary has

own

its

common

laws, of which each science

illustration.

finds this part of learning

complains, that

founder sort of wits drawing a bucket then for their ited.

own

" he

very deficient, the pro-

now and

use, but the spring-head unvis-

This was the dry light which did scorch

and offend most men's watery natures." signified the

same sense, when he

said,

Plato had " All the

great arts require a subtle and speculative research into the

law of nature, since

loftiness of

thought

and perfect mastery over every subject seem derived from

some such source

this.

to be

This

Pericles had, in addition to a great natural genius.

For, meeting with Anaxagoras, of this

kind, he

nourished

attached

who was

himself to

a person

him, and

himself with sublime speculations on

LITEKATUKE. the

absolute

into the

intelligence;

241

and imported thence

whatever could be useful

oratorical art,

to it."

few generalizations always

world, whose authors

we do

which astonish, and appear

circulate in the

not rightly know,

to be avenues to vast

kingdoms of thought, and these are in the world constan:s, like the

Copernican and Newtonian the-

ories in physics.

In England, these

may be

traced

usually to Shakspeare, Bacon, Milton, or Hooker,

even

Van Helmont and Behmen, and

have a kind of Greeks. that

filial

this

" nature

all

retrospect to Plato and the

kind

Lord Bacon's

sentence,

commanded by obeying her " ;

which " accommodates the the desires of the mind," or

his doctrine of poetry,

shows of things to

the Zoroastrian definition of poetry, mystical, yet exact,

" apparent pictures of unapparent natures ; "

Spenser's creed, that " soul is form, and doth the body make ; " the theory of Berkeley, that we have

no certain assurance of the existence of matter ; Doc-

Samuel Clarke's argument for theism from the Harrington's political nature of space and time a rule which rule, that power must rest on land, tor

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

requires to be liberally interpreted

Swedenborg,

man makes

so cosmically applied

his

heaven and hell 21

;

the theory of

by him,

that the

Hegel's study of

ENGLISH TRAITS.

^42 civil

history, as the conflict of ideas

tory of the deeper thought

phy " all

;

and the

vic-

the identity-philoso-

of Schelling, couched in the statement that difference

quantitative."

So the very an-

nouncement of the theory of gravitation, of Kepler's

three harmonic laws,

doctrine of

and even of Dalton'a

proportions,

definite

finds

a sudden

response in the mind, which remains a superior

evidence to empirical demonstrations. generalizations,

merely

some of which

Not

to indicate a class.

are

I cite these

recent,

these particulars,

but the mental plane or the atmosphere from which they emanate, was the writers and readers in

Elizabethan

age,

home and element of what we loosely call

(say,

literary

history,

the the the

period from 1575 to 1625,) yet a period almost short enough to justify Ben Jonson's remark on Lord Bacon ; " about his time, and within his view, were born all the wits that could honor a nation, or help study."

Such richness of genius had not existed more These heights could not be

than once before. maintained.

As we

our exhausted

soils,

find

stumps of vast

and have received

trees in

traditions

of their ancient fertility to tillage, so history reck-

ons epochs in which the intellect of famed races

became

effete.

fared with English genius.

LITEKATUEE.

243

These heights were followed by a meanness^ and a descent of the

wings

;

mind

into lower levels

no high speculation.

;

the loss of

Locke, to

whom

the

meaning of ideas was unknown, became the type of philosophy, and his " understanding " the measure, in all nations, of the

English

tiymen forsook the

lofty sides

His coun-

intellect.

of Parnassus, on

which they had once walked with echoing disused the studies once so beloved

thought

fell into neglect.

the faculty

men

The

steps,

and

the powers of

later

English want

of Plato and Aristotle, of grouping

by an insight of general deduced with equal

in natural classes

laws, so deep, that the rule is

precision

from few subjects or from one, as from Shakspeare

multitudes of lives. that, as

supreme in

in all the great mental energies.

Germans generalize

The

the English cannot interpret

German mind. German science comprehends the English. The absence of the faculty in England is shown by the timidity which accumulates the

mountains of of

men and

facts, as a

bad general wants myriads

miles of redoubts, to compensate the

inspirations of courage

and conduct.

The English shrink from

a generalization.

" They

do not look abroad into universality, or they draw only a bucket-full

the fountain of the First Phi-

losophy for their occasion, and do not go to thÂŤ

ENGLISH TRAITS.

244

Bacon,

spring-head."

who

said

this,

almost

Unique among his countrymen in that faculty, at Milton, who was least among the prose-writers. the stair or high table-land to let

down

the English

genius from the summits of Shakspeare, used this privilege sometimes in poetry, more rarely in prose.

For a long interval afterwards, it is not found. Burke was addicted to generalizing, but his was a shorter line

have

;

as his thoughts

compass.

less

have

Hume's

less depth, they

abstractions are not

deep or wise.

servation, that

no copula had been detected be-

owes his fame

one keen ob-

tween any cause and

effect, either

in thought

term cause and

;

that the

loosely or gratuitously applied to

only

as consecutive,

not at

all as

in physics or

was

Doctor

causal.

Johnson's written abstractions have the

effect

what we know little

value

tone of feeling in them makes their chief

worth.

Mr. Hallam, a learned and elegant scholar, has European literature for three

â&#x20AC;˘written the history of

centuries,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a performance

of great ambition, in-

judgment was

be attempted on every

asmuch

as a

book.

But

standards

his eye does not reach to the ideal

the verdicts are all dated from

new thought must be cast The expansive element which all

London

into the old moulds.

creates literature

LITEEATUEE. iteadily denied.

Hallam

;

resisted,

and his school

uniformly polite, but with

sympathy

Plato

245

unconscious of the deep worth which

and which often outvalues

mystics,

power and writers

deficient

writes with resolute generosity, but lies in

the

as a seed of

a source of revolution all the correct

and shining reputations of

their day.

passes in silence, or dismisses with a kind of con-

tempt, the profounder masters

a lover of ideas

Hallam inspires respect by his knowledge and fidelity, by his manifest love of good books, and he lifts himself to own better than almost any the greatness of Shakspeare, and better than Johnson he appreciBut in Hallam, or in the firmer ates Milton. not only uncongenial, but unintelligible.

intellectual

nerve of Mackintosh, one

same type of English genius. but

lives

How can

its

capital.

discern and hail the

looming up on the horizon,

still

It is wise

finds the

and

rich,

retrospective.

new forms

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; new

that are

.and gigantic

thoughts which cannot dress themselves out of any old wardrobe of the past

The

essays, the fiction,

and the poetry of the day

Dickens, with have the like municipal limits. preternatural apprehension of the language of manners,

and the

varieties of street life,

and laughter, with patriotic and

21*

with pathos

still

enlarging

ENGLISH TRAITS.

246

generosity, writes

London

tracts.

a paintei

of English details, like Hogarth ; local and temporary in his tints and style, and local in his aims.

Bulwer, an industrious writer, with occasional as a temporality,

and appeals

bition of the student.

these

abil-

distinguished for his reverence of intellect

ity, is

low

Their novelists despair of the

flames.

Thackeray

heart.

the worldly am-

His romances tend to fan

finds that

God

made no

has

lowance for the poor thing in his universe more's the pity, he thinks

be wiser

;

— but

we must renounce

'tis

;

al-

—

not for us to

ideals,

and accept

London.

The

brilliant

Macaulay, who expresses the tone

of the English governing classes of the day, ex-

good means good to eat, good commodity ; that the glory of modern philosophy is its direction on " fruit ; " to yield economical inventions ; and that its merit is He thinks it to avoid ideas, and avoid morals plicitly teaches, that

to wear, material

the distinctive merit of the Baconian philosophy, in its

triumph over the old Platonic,

its

disen-

tangling the intellect from theories of the all-Fair

and all-Good, and pinning

down

a better sick chair and a better invalid

—

;

that,

— "

this not ironically,

solid advantage," as

to the making wine-whey for an

but in good

calls it,

faith

;

meaning

LITERATURE. always sensual

benefit,

home cer.

the better nav-

creates to enable the fruit-ships to bring

lemons and wine

their It

The

the only good.

eminer.t benefit of astronomy igation

247

was a curious

London

to the

which the

result, in

gro-

civility

and religion of England for a thousand years, ends, in denying morals,

The

8auce-pan.

and reducing the

critic

the English cant of practical. reason, to touch the conscience,

The

sion.

intellect to a

hides his skepticism under

fine arts fall to the

convince the

romantic preten-

Beauty,

ground.

except as luxurious commodity, does not exist. is

very certain, I

may

say in passing, that if

Bacon had been only the sensualist tends,

now

Lord

his critic pre-

he would never have acqLuired the fame which

entitles

him

to this patronage.

It is

he had imagination, the leisures of the

because

spirit,

basked in an element of contemplation out of

and all

modern English atmospheric gauges, that he is impressive to the imaginations of men, and has become a potentate not to be ignored. Sir David Brewster sees the high place of Bacon, without

Newton indebted

finding

mistake. levity,

Bacon occupies

him, and thinks

specific gravity or

not by any feat he did, or by any tutoring

more or

less of

Newton

&c., but an effect of the

ENGLISH TRAIT8.

248

same cause which showed itself more pronounced afterwards iu Hooke, Boyle, and Halley. Coleridge, a catholic mind, with a hunger for ideas,

with eyes looking before and

highest bards and sages, aad

who

wrote and spoke

the only high criticism in his time,

those

who

after to the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

one of

save England from the reproach of no

longer possessing the capacity to appreciate what

Yet the

rarest wit the island has yielded.

fortune of his

life,

mis-

attempts but most

his vast

inadequate performings, failing to accomplish any

one masterpiece, seems to mark the closing of an era.

Even

in him, the traditional

Englishman was

too strong for the philosopher, and

accommodations

and, as

Burke had

idealize the English State, so Coleridge

his

mind

rule and

nal ideas.

fell

into

striven to '

narrowed

in the attempt to reconcile the gothic

dogma But

of the Anglican Church, with eterfor Coleridge,

and a lurking

taci-

turn minority, uttering itself in occasional criticism, oftener in private discourse, one in

Germany and

England rightly of national decay,

in America, i-espected.

when

would

the best

say, that

mind

It is the surest sign

the Bramins can no longer

read or understand the Braminical philosophy.

In the decomposition and asphyxia that followed

LITEEATUEE. all this

249

materialism, Carlyle was driren

his dis-

gust at the pettiness and the cant, into the preaching

In comparison with

of Fate.

desirable

and

beautiful.

the gladiators, or the

combated

;

rottenness,

all this

any check, any cleansing, though by

saw

little

" causes "

for

fire,

seemed

difierence in

which they

the one comfort was, that they were

going speedily into the abyss together

And

all

his

imagination, finding no nutriment in any creation,

avenged

itself

by celebrating the majestic beauty

of the laws of decay. structure force all

The

necessities of mental

minds into

where impatience of the

few

tricks of

categories,

and

men makes Nem-

amiable, and builds altars to the negative Deity,

esis

the inevitable recoil

to heroism or the gallantry

which decks its immolation with glory, in the uneq^ual combat of will against of the private heart,

fate.

Wilkinson, the editor of Swedenborg, the annotator of Fourier,

and the champion of Hahnemann,

has brought to metaphysics

and

physiology

native vigor, with a catholic perception of relations,

equal to the highest attempts, and a rhetoric like the is

armory of the invincible knights of

in the action of his

not

known except

lacking what ought to

mind

old.

There

a long Atlantic roll

deepest waters, and only accompany such powers, a

250

ENGLISH TEAITS.

manifest centrality.

immovable the return

biases,

If his

not yet

mind does not

perhaps the orbit :

rest in

and

is larger,

but a master should inspire

a confidence that he will adhere to his convictions,

and give his present studies always the same high place.

would be easy

add exceptions

ary tone of English thought, and

to the limit-

much more

easy

adduce examples of excellence in particulai

veins

and

if,

going out of the region of dogma,

pass into that of general culture, there

end

to the graces

and amenities,

and erudition, of the learned ficial

succor which marks

appears in letters also

duction

literary reputations

men, whose dental, but

class.

But the

much

of their aesthetic pro-

and manufactured,

relation to literature

who were

and

have been achieved by forcible

was purely

acci-

driven by tastes and modes

moment, every ambitious young man

geology

arti-

English performance,

they found in vogue into their several careers. at this

all

antiquarian

wit, sensibility

members of Parliament

So,

studies

are made, and

churchmen.

The

bias of

Englishmen

to practical skill has re-

acted on the national mind.

They

are incapable

of an inutility, and respect the five mechanic ers

even in their song.

The

voice of their

pow-

modern

LITERATTTKE.

muse has a

poem

the

251

slight hint of the steam-whistle,

and

created as an ornament and finish

ot"

monarchy, and by no means as the bird of a new morning which forgets the past world in the their

full

enjoyment of that which

They

forming.

with difficulty ideal; they are the most con-

are

ditioned

men,

if,

having the best conditions, they

Every

could not bring themselves to forfeit them.

one of them

memory

his it

a thousand years old, and lives by

is :

and when you say

this,

they accept

as praise.

Nothing comes

to the book-shops but politics,

travels, statistics, tabulation,

even what

chanical in

its

ceased, as if of joy,

and engineering, and

called philosophy

structure,

and

mehad

letters is

inspiration

no vast hope, no religion, no song

no wisdom, no analogy, existed any more.

The tone of

colleges,

and of scholars and of

>rary society has this mortal air.

seem

lit-

walk

where nothing will grow. They ixert every variety of talent on a lower ground, and may be said to live and act in a sub-mind. )n

a marble

They have philosophy,

floor,

lost all

and

commanding views science.

in literature,

good Englishman mind,

shuts himself out of three fourths of his

and confines himself to one fourth. ing,

good sense, power of

labor,

has learn-

and logic

but

ENGLISH TRAITS.

252

laws of the

faith in the

medes that

;

mind

like that of Archi-

a belief like that of Euler and Kepler,

experience must

laws of the

mind ;

I fear the

they have

modern English mind same

complaint

more than naturalist

flies

lead the

theory of

repudiates.

fault lies in their science, since

known how

bereave nature of

not

Hooker, and Milton, and Har-

politics, like that of

rington, the

and

a devotion to the

its

charm

make ;

repulsive, and

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; though perhaps

many

wider, and the vice attaches to British physicists.

must have a scope

The eye

the

of the

like nature itself, a

susceptibility to all impressions, alive to the heart as well as to the logic of creation.

But English

science puts humanity to the door.

connection which

ence

is false

reptile

reptile or tion.

by not being

moUusk

poetic.

The poet only

assumes to explain

sees

in the path of the Creator.

and

The

dies

fact,

;

whilst rela-

an inevitable step

But, in England, one

and another

ignorant of

great exceptions, of

sci-

It isolates the

mollusk only exists in system, in

hermit finds this lives

wants the

the test of genius.

its

finds that,

value.

and

There are

John Hunter, a man of ideas

perhaps of Eobert Brown, the botanist

;

and of

Richard Owen, who has imported into Britain the Geiman homologies, and enriched science with

LITERATUEE.

25S

own, adding sometimes the

contributions of his

power But for the most part, the natural science in England is out of its loyal alliance with morals, and is as void of imagination and free play of thought, as conveyancing. divination of the old masters to the unbroken of labor in the English mind.

It stands in

strong contrast with the genius of the

Germans, those semi-Greeks, who love analogy,

means of their height of view, preserve their enthusiasm, and think for Europe. No hope, no sublime augury cheers the student, no secure striding from experiment onward to a foreseen law, but only a casual dipping here and there, like diggers in California " prospecting for a

and, by

placer " that will pay.

horizon of brass of the

diameter of his umbrella shuts down around his senses. tire at

chial

Squalid contentment with conventions, sathe names of philosophy and religion, paro-

and

shop-till politics,

betray the ebb of life

and

on nationalities to reproduce in

Europe and Asia,

and idolatry of usage,

As they trample London and Londoners

spirit.

so they fear the hostility of

ideas, of poetry, of religion,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

ghosts which they

and, having attempted to domesticate cannot lay; and dress the Blessed Soul itself in English broadcloth and gaiters, they are tormented with fear that

herein lurks a force that will sweep

theii

ENGLISH TRAITS.

254

The artists say, " Nature puts them system away. " They out ; the scholars have become un-ideal. parry earnest speech with banter and levity

laugh you

" The

down, or they change the

fact is," say

they over their wine, "

about liberty, and so forth,

gone by

;

they

subject. all that

won't do

The practical and comfortable opthem with inexorable claims, and the smallest fraction of power remains for heroism and poetry.

any longer." press

poet

dares

murmur

precinct of his rhymes.

of beauty

out

of the

priest dares hint at

a Providence which does not respect English

The

island

values, of

utility.

a roaring volcano of fate, of material

tariffs,

and laws of repression, glutted

markets and low prices.

In the absence of the highest aims, of the pure love of knowledge, and the surrender to nature, there

the suppression of the imagination, the pri-

apism of the senses and the understanding ;

have

the factitious instead of the natural; tasteless expense, arts of comfort, and the rewarding as an illustrious

inventor whosoever will contrive one

impediment more

to interpose

between the man and

his objects.

Thus poetry is degraded, and made ornamental. Pope and his school wrote poetry fit to put round What did Walter Scott write with frosted cake.

riTEEATUEE. out stint

And

rhymed

255

traveller's guide to Scotland.

the libraries of yerses they print have this

How many

Birraingham character. well-bred metre

we must

we can be

taught, renewed

miraculous

filled, ;

volumes of

gingle through, before

the beauty which

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; can

want the

can manufacture

give no account of j the beauty which Chaucer and Chapman had the secret. The poetry of course is low and prosaic ; only now at

no mill,

and then, as in Wordsworth, conscientious Byron, passional if

;

I should count the poets

tiie

;

or in

or in Tennyson, factitious.

who have

But

contributed to

England sentences of guidance still glowing and effec-

bible of existing

and consolation which are tive,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; how few

Shall I find

in the reigning poets

modern English poetry?

heavenly bread

Where is great design in The English have lost

sight of the fact that poetry exists spiritual law,

and

that

speak the

no wealth of description or

of fancy is yet essentially

new, and out of the

of prose, until this condition is reached.

the grave old poets, like the

Greek

limits

Therefore

artists,

heeded

their designs, and less considered the finish.

was their office to lead to the divine sources, out of

which

all

this,

and much more, readily springs,

and, if this religion

in the poetry,

raises us to

some purpose, and we can well afford some or hardness, or

staidness,

want of popular tune in the verses

ENGLISH TKAITS.

256

The

exceptional fact of the period

He had " He wrote

the genius

of Wordsworth.

no master but nature

and

solitude.

" without the

poem," says Landor, His verse

aid of war."

the voice

of sanity in a worldly and ambitious age. I

egrets that his

One

temperament was not more liquid

He has written longer than he was But for the rest, he has no competitor. inspired. Tennyson is endowed precisely in points where Wordsworth wanted. There is no finer ear, nor and musical.

more command of the keys of language. Color, like the dawn, flows over the horizon from his waves so rich that we do not miss the

pencil, in

central form.

Through

his refinements, too,

all

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

he has reached the public,

a certificate of good

sense and general power, since he

who

aspires to

be the English poet must be as large as London, not in the same kind as London, but in his

But he wants a

kind.

mount of

subject,

vision to bring

own

and climbs no

secrets to the people.

its

He contents himself with describing the Englishman There are

all

degrees in poetry, and

we must

be thankful

for

every beautiful talent.

But

only a

cess,

is,

and proposes no

when

the ear

better.

first

suc-

The best office of show how low and un-

gained.

the best poets has been to

inspired was their general

style,

and that onlj

once or twice they have struck the high chord.

LITERATURE.

257

That expansiveness which is the essence of the have not. It was no Oxonian, but Hafiz, who said, "Let us be crowned with roses, let us drink wine, and break up the tiresome old poetic element, they

roof of heaven into

new

forms."

stanza of the

song of nature the Oxonian has no ear

for,

and

he does not value the salient and curative influence of intellectual action, studious of truth, without a by-end.

the law of contraries, I look for an irresisti-

ble taste for Orientalism in Britain.

conceited modish to a corporeal

life,

made up of

civilization,

no remedy like

trifles,

clinging

and disconcerts English decorum.

once there

saw, and

power which

never heard, light trifles

That

largeness.

astonishes

thunder

self-

hating ideas, there

Oriental

the

For a

For never

with time and space.

Englishman like Warren Hastings, who had been struck with the

not surprised, then, to find an

grand style of thinking in the Indian writings, deprecating

the

while oflering

"Might scribe

prejudices

them

his

countrymen,

a translation of the Bhagvat.

an unlettered man, venture

bounds

to the latitude of criticism, I

pre-

should

exclude, in estimating the merit of such a production, all

rules

literature of

drawn from the ancient or modern

Europe,

23*

all

references to such senti-

EKGLISH TRAITS.

258

mencs or manners

become the standards

as are

propriety for opinion and action in our

and, equally,

all

own modes,

our revealed tenets

appeals to

of religion and moral duty." *

goes on to be-

speak indulgence to " ornaments of fancy unsuited to our taste,

and passages elevated

to a tract of

sublimity into which our habits of judgment will find

it difficult

pursue them."

Meantime, I know that a retrieving power in the English race, recoil

possible

;

which seems

in other words,

lies

make any

there

all

times a minority of profound minds existing in the nation, capable of appreciating every soaring of intellect

While the

and every hint of tendency.

constructive talent seems dwarfed and superficial,

the criticism

and sug-

often in the noblest tone,

gests the presence of the invisible gods.

I can

well believe what I have often heard, that there are

two nations in England

;

the Rich

Normans and Saxons

;

nor

is it

the

but

the Celt and the Goth.

becoming the other ;

for

it is

not the Poor and

Robert

Owen

exaggerate the power of circumstance.

two complexions, or two

;

nor

These are each always

styles

does not

But

mind, —

perceptive class, and the practical finality class,

• Preface to Wilkins's Translation of the Bhagvat Geeta.

the the

—

LITERATUEE. ever in

are

counterpoise,

259

interacting

mutually

huge

one, in

hopeless minorities

masses

one studious, contemplative, experiment-

ing

;

the

other,

the

,â&#x20AC;˘

the other, in

ungrateful

pupil,

scornful

of the source, whilst availing itself of the

edge for gain

;

animal force, though the souls,

knowl-

these two nations, of genius and of first consist

of only a dozen

and the second of twenty millions, forever

by their discord and their accord yield the power of the English State.

CHAPTER XV. THE "TIMES."

The power

of the

newspaper

tem.

In England,

familiar in

America, and in accordance with our

sys-

political

stands in antagonism with

the feudal institutions, and

it is all

the

benefi-

cent succor against the secretive tendencies of a

The

monarchy.

celebrated Lord Somers "

knew

of no good law proposed and passed in his time, to

which the public papers had not directed There is no corner and no night.

attention."

his

relentless inquisition drags every secret to the day,

turns the glare of this solar microscope on every malfaisance, so as to ble spy than

make

any foreigner

the public a ,â&#x20AC;˘

terri-

and no weakness can

be taken advantage of by an enemy,

whole people are already forewarned.

since the

Thus Eng-

land rids herself of those incrustations which have

been the ruin of old

states.

course, this in-

antique privilege, no com-

spection

fortable

monopoly, but sees surely that

feared.

its

(260)^

days

THE "times."

261

are counted ; the people are familiarized with the reason of reform, and, one by one, take away every

" So your grace

argument of the obstructives. comfort

the

likes

of reading

newspapers,"

the

Lord Mansfield to the Duke of Northumberland; " mark my words ; you and I shall not live to see it, but this young gentleman (Lord Eldon) said

may, or

may be

little later

;

but a

sooner

little

or later, these newspapers will

most assuredly write the dukes of Northumberland out of their titles and possessions, and the country out of

The tendency

ical institutions

ble,

and the

England towards

social

America,

like those of

ability of its journals

king."

its

and is

polit-

inevita-

the driving

force.

England

who

is full

of manly, clever, well-bred

men

possess the talent of writing off-hand pungent

paragraphs, expressing with clearness and courage their opinion

uable or not,

on any person or performance. it is

a skiU that

the English journals.

Va,l-

rarely found, out of

The English do

this, as

they

and box, by being educated to it. Hundreds of clever Praeds, and Freres, and Froudes, and Hoods, and Hooks, and Maginns, and Mills, and Macaulays, make poems, or short

write poetry, as they ride

essays for a journal, as they

liament and on the hustings,

make speeches or, as

in Par-

they shoot and

ENGLISH TEAIT3.

262

and arbitrary

It is a quite accidental

ride.

tion of their general spirits,

ability.

Kude

direc-

health and

an Oxford education, and the habits of so-

ciety are implied,

but not a ray of genius.

comes of the crowded violent interest facility of

state of the professions, the

which

all

men

take in politics, the

experimenting in the journals, and high

pay.

The most conspicuous result of this talent is the " Times " newspaper. No power in England

What is more felt, more feared, or more obeyed. you read in the morning in that journal, you shall hear in the evening in

every where, and pletest,

and

victory

its

;

" these

are

present

its

now

palmiest days."

com-

year, and

authority.

old contributors, whether

once been abler than said

is earliest,

It has risen, year

victory, to

asked one of

It has ears

society.

information

its

surest.

all

had

" Never," he It has shown

those qualities which are dear to Englishmen, unflinching adherence to tual ability,

its

objects, prodigal intellec-

and a towering assurance, backed by

the perfect organization in its

its

printing-house, and

world-wide net-work of correspondence and

ports.

It has its

own

re-

history and famous trophies.

In 1820, it adopted the cause of Queen Caroline, and carried it against the king. It adopted a noor-

THE "times." law system, and almost alone

When Lord Brougham against him,

263 lifted

and pulled him down.

through.

was in power,

decided

It declared

war against Ireland, and conquered it. It adopted League against the Corn Laws, and, when Cobden had begun to despair, it announced his

the

triumph.

denounced and discredited the French

Republic of 1848, and checked every sympathy with

in England, until

special constables to

had enrolled 200,000 watch the Chartists, and make it

them ridiculous on the 10th April.

It first

de-

nounced and then adopted the new French Empire, and urged the French Alliance and

its results.

has entered into each municipal, literary, and social

question, almost with a controlling voice.

has done bold and seasonable service in exposing frauds which threatened the commercial

Meantime,

ty. its

by perfecting drive them out of

attacks its rivals

printing machinery, and will

circulation

communi-

for the only limit to the circulation

of the " Times "

the impossibility of printing

enough ; since a daily paper can only It will be new and seasonable for a few hours. kiU all but that paper which is diametrically in since many papers, first and last, have opposition copies fast

;

lived

on the leading journal. Mr. Walter was printer of the " Times,"

their attacks

The late

ENGLISH TRAITS.

264

and had gradually arranged the whole materiel of It is told, that when he deit in perfect system.

manded

a small share in the proprietary,

refused, he said,

" As you

and was

gentlemen

please,

;

and

you may take away the ' Times from this ofEce, when you will ; I shall publish the ' New The proprietors, Times,' next Monday morning." who had already complained that his charges for '

printing were excessive, found that they were in his

power, and gave him whatever he wished.

I went one day with a office,

good friend to the " Times "

which was entered through a pretty gardenWe walked with

yard, in Printing-House Square.

some circumspection, powder-mill old

;

woman, and, by

cards,

we were

entering a

but the door was opened by a mild

we were

dint of

at last

some transmission of

conducted into the parlor of

Mr. Morris, a very gentle person, with no appearances. date, but I

hostile

The statistics are now quite out of remember he told us that the daily

printing was then 35,000 copies

;

that

on the

1st

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

March, 1848, the greatest number ever printed, that, since February, the 54,000 were issued ;

had increased by 8000 copies. The old press they were then using printed five or six thousand sheets per hour ; the new machine, daily circulation

for

which they were then building an engine,

;

THE "TIMES."

265

would print twelve thousand per hour.

Our

enter-

tainer confided us to a courteous assistant to

show

us the establishment, in which, I think, they em-

ployed a hundred and twenty men. I

I- remember, saw the reporters' room, in which they redact

their hasty stenographs,

who

but the editor's room, and

though I shared the curimankind respecting it. The staff of the " Times " has always been made up of able men. Old Walter, Sterling, Bacon, is

it,

I did not see,

osity of

Barnes, Alsiger, Horace Twiss, Jones Loyd,

John

Oxenford, Mr. Mosely, Mr. Bailey, have contributed to

its

renown

Its private

assistance.

and

recalls the

omniscience

stories

made

first

and

its

pens for occasional

information

inexplicable,

of Fouche's police,

correspondents

It has mercantile

One

hears anecdotes of the rise of

servants, as of the functionaries of the India

was told of the dexterity of one of

its

who, finding himself, on one occasion, magistrates his

and

every foreign city

expresses outrun the despatches of the gov-

ernment.

whose

believed that the Empress Jo-

sephine must be in his pay. political

But

in their special departments.

has never wanted the

had

strictly

its

House.

reporters,

where the

forbidden reporters, put

hands into his coat-pocket, and with pencil in

one hand, and tablet in the other, did his work.

ENGLISH TRAITS.

266

The

influence of this journal

power

recognized

Europe, and, of course, none

conscious of its articles

from the

than

its

conductors.

The

has often been the occasion of

tone of

comment

organs of the continental courts,

official

and sometimes the ground of diplomatic complaint. What would the " Times " say ? is a terror in Paris, in

Berlin, in Vienna, in Copenhagen, and in Ne-

paul.

Its

paper

perhaps

men

discretion

and success ex-

combination.

skill of

many

the -work of

of young

Hence

consummate

English

hibit the

hands, chiefly,

The it is

daily-

said,

recently from the University, and

law in chambers in

reading

London.

the academic elegance, and classic allusion,

which adorn its columns. Hence, too, the heat and gallantry of its onset. But the steadiness of the aim suggests the belief that this fire is directed and fed by older engineers

;

as if persons of exact in-

formation, and with settled views of policy, supplied the writers with the basis of fact, and the object to

be attained, and availed themselves of their younger

energy and eloquence to plead the cause.

Both

the council and the executive departments gain by this

division.

Of two men

of equal ability, the

one who does not write, but keeps his eye on the course of public cial

wisdom.

affairs,

But

will

have the higher judi-

the parts are kept in concert

THE "times."

267

the articles appear to proceed from a single will.

all

The " Times " never disapproves of what said, or cripples

of the editor, or the

what

has

him who held

and bold, and

sticks

draws from any number of

says.

itself

for the absence

indiscretion of

It speaks out bluff

the pen. to

by apology

itself

learned and skilful contributors

;

but a more learned

and skilful person supervises, corrects, and coordi-

Of this

nates.

writer

any paper ter,

;

the secret does not transpire.

closet,

suffered to claim the authorship of

every thing good, from whatever quar-

comes out editorially

ing, the character

The English

and thus, by making

;

and those who write

noth-

and the awe of the journal

gain.

the paper every thing,

for its

complete information.

" Times " is as reliable Then, they like its as a citation from Hansard. independence ; they do not know, when they take

statement of fact in the

up, what their paper

all,

for

going to say

thinks for

them

all

;

every

its

determined. assault.

British.

its

When I see

columns, they seem to

moment more

courage, not rash

its

but, above tone.

their understanding

and day's ideal daguerreotyped. reading

the nationality and confidence of

them

me becoming

It has the national

and petulant, but considerate and dignity or wealth is a shield from

It attacks a

duke

as readily as a police-

ENGLISH TRAITS.

268

man, and with the most provoking airs of condescension. It makes rude work with the Board of

The Bench

Admiralty.

One bishop

safe.

of Bishops

less

still

badly for his rapacity, and

fares

another for his bigotry, and a third for his courtIt

liness.

esty

itself,

There

addresses occasionally a hint to Maj-

and sometimes a hint which

taken.

freedom even in their advertis-

air of

ing columns, which speaks well for England to a foreigner.

On the

days

when

in 1847, I read

among

one

reward of

offering

I arrived in

London

the daily announcements, fifty

pounds

any

who would put a nobleman, described by name and title, late a member of Parliament, into person

any county

Was who

money under

false pretences.

never such arrogancy as the tone of

Every

paper.

England, he having been con-

jail in

victed of obtaining

writes his

first

this

an Oxonian or Cantabrigian

slip of

leader, assumes that

sub-

dued the earth before we sat down to write this particular " Times." One would think, the world was on its knees to the " Times " Ofifice, for its daily breakfast.

Who

would

" dared

;

this

for

to confess," or

it is so,

The

But

care

and

it,

arrogance if

" ventured

calculated.

" surmised,"

to predict," &c.,

shall be.

morality and patriotism of the " Times

THE "times."

26S

claims only to be representative, and by It gives the

ideal.

commanding

but of the

class.

Its

editors

know

than to defend Russia, or Austria, or Eng-

better

on abstract grounds.

lish vested rights,

give a voice to the class the lead

;

its

who,

and they have an

where the power now ing

no meana

argument, not of the majority,

banks.

lies,

But they

the moment, take

instinct

which

for

finding

eternally shift

Syihpathizing with, and speaking

for the class that rules

the hour, yet, being apprised

of every ground-swell, every Chartist resolution,

Church

every

sq^uabble, every strike in the m.ills,

they detect the

tremblings of change.

first

They

watch the hard and bitter struggles of the authors

ing

them only

at last,

them,

to taunt

when they

their fact, that

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; they whom

and obstruct

see that these

power

strike in,

arch, astonish those

those

until,

have established

on the point of passing

mon much as

with the voice of a

whom

they succor, as

they desert, and

make

Of course, the aspirants see that the " of the

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; watchthem, â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

movement, year by year,

of each liberal

victory sure.

Times "

goods of fortune, not to be

one

won but by

winning their cause.

"Punch"

equally an expression of English

good sense, as the " London Times." version of the

same

23*

sense.

Many

It is the its

comic

carica^uret

ENGLISH TRAITS.

270

are equal to the best pamphlets, '.o

and will convey

the eye in an instant the popular view which

wa.s

taken

each

turn

public

Its

affairs.

sketches are usually made by masterly hands, and

sometimes with genius

the delight of every class,

;

because uniformly guided by that taste which tyrannical in England.

new

nineteenth century, that the wit and

England,

as in

know

who

all

Hood, have taken the

like every important institution,

a better.

It is

the colossal British power.

humor

humanity and freedom.

The " Times," shows the way to the people

of the

Punch, so in the humorists, Jer-

rold, Dickens, Thackeray,

direction of

trait

a living index of

Its existence

dare to print

all

honors

they know, dare

the facts, and do not wish to be

flat-

tered by hiding the extent of the public disaster.

There

always safety in valor.

I wish I could

add, that this journal aspired to deserve the power it

wields, by guidance of the public sentiment to

the right.

It is usually

pretended, in Parliament

and elsewhere, that the English press has a high tone,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which

as of a

has not.

It has

an imperial tone,

powerful and independent nation.

with other empires,

and even limitations

officinal.

prone to be The " Times " shares

its

tone

But

official,

all

the

of the governing classes, and wishes

THE

" TIMES."

never to be in a minority. cleave to the right, to

27.1

If only

show the right

only expedient, and feed

its

central heart of humanity,

many men of rank among

dared to to be the

batteries from the might not have so

its

contributorSj but

would be its cordial and invincible ally ; it might now and then bear the brunt of formidable combinations, but no journal is ruined by wise genius

courage.

reform

It its

;

would be the natural leader of

British

proud function, that of being the voice

and patriot would be more effectually discharged it would have the authority which is claimed for that dream of good men not yet come to pass, an International Congress ; and the least of its victories would be to give to England a new

of Europe, the defender of the exile against

despots,

;

millennium of beneficent power.

CHAPTER

XVI.

STONEHENGE. It had been agreed between

and me, that before I

make an excursion

friend

IVIr.

England, we should

left

together to Stonehenge, which

neither of us had seen; and the project pleased

monu-

fancy with the double attraction of the

ment and the companion.

It seemed a bringing

together of extreme points, to visit the oldest reli-

monument

company with her whose influence may be I was glad to traced in every contemporary book. sum up a little my experiences, and to exchange a few reasonable words on the aspects of England, with a man on whose genius I set a very high

gious

latest

in Britain, in

thinker, and one

value, and

who had

much

penetration, and as

severe a theory of duty, as any person in

Friday, 7th July,

we took

Railway through Hampshire

the

it.

South Western

to Salisbury,

where

we found a carriage to convey us to Amesbury. The fine weather and my friend's local knowledge (272)

STONEHENftE. of

Hampshire, in which he

every summer, made the

way

much

273

wont

to say, too, of the travelling

their usual objects in

spend a part

There was

short.

London.

Americans, and

I thought

natu-

some time to works of which they cannot find at home^

ral, that they should give

art collected

and a at

to scientific clubs and museums, which, moment, make London very attractive.

little

this

But

here,

philosopher was not contented.

high art

Kunst

a favorite target for his wit.

Art and " Yes,

and Goethe and

Schiller

a great delusion,

wasted a great deal of good time on thinks he discovers that old

and, in his later writings,

men

soon as

antiquities, to

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and he

Goethe found

changed

begin to talk of

this out,

his tone.

art, architecture,

nothing good comes of

go through the British

Museum

it.

As and

wishes

in silence, and

and say would be-

thinks a sincere mail will see something,

In these days, he thought,

nothing.

come an architect to consult only the grim necessity,

and say,

you

I can build

a coffin for such

dead persons as you are, and for such dead purposes as

you have, but you

For the science, he had, erance,

House

many

and compared to

the

shall

have no ornament.'

if possible,

the

savans

even

less tol-

Somerset

boy who asked Confucius

stars in the

sky

"how

Confucius replied, " h*

ENGLISH TEAITS.

274

mmded

" how many Confucius Still

near

things

him " then :

hairs are there in

boy

the

said

your eyebrows

" ?

" he didn't know and didn't care."

saidj

speaking of the Americans, C. complained

and exclusiveness of away to France, and go with their countrymen, and are amused, instead of manfully staying in London, and confronting Englishmen, and acquiring their culture, who really have that they dislike the coldness

the English, and run

much

to teach

them.

I told C. that I

customed

man would proofs sort

are

was

easily dazzled,

concede readily

ask

and was

ac-

that an English-

all

I saw everywhere in the country

;

of sense and spirit, and success of every I like the people

handsome

everything

;

they are

good

they

they have everything, and can do

but meantime, I surely know, that, as

soon as I return to Massachusetts, I shall lapse

once into the feeling, which the geography of

America inevitably

inspires, that

with immense advantage is

;

that there

play the

the seat and centre of the British race skill or activity

game

and not here ;

and that

can long compete with the pro-

digious natural advantages of that country, in the

hands of the same race

and exhausted

island,

like other parents, to

;

and that England, an old

must one day be contented, be strong only in her

chil-

STONEHENGE.

But

dren,

275

was a proposition which no Eng-

this

lishman of whatever condition can easily entertain.

the train at Salisbury, and took a carAmesbury, passing by Old Sarum, a bare, treeless hill, once containing the town which sent two members to Parliament, now, not a hut ; and, arriving at Amesbury, stopped at the George After dinner, we walked to Salisbury Plain. Inn. On the broad downs, under the gray sky, not a left

riage to

—

house was visible, nothing but Stonehenge, which

looked like a group of brown dwarfs in the wide expanse,

— Stonehenge and

the barrows,

rose like green bosses about the plain,

hayricks.

the top

— which

and a few

mountain, the old

temple would not be more impressive.

Far and

wide a few shepherds with their flocks sprinkled the It

plain,

and a bagman drove along the road.

looked as

crowded

the wide margin

isle to this

given in this

primeval temple were accorded

by the veneration of the British race to the old

egg out of which

all their ecclesiastical structures

and history had proceeded.

Stonehenge

a cir-

with a diameter of a hundred feet, and enclosing a second and a third colonnade within. "We walked round the stones, and clambered cular colonnade

wont ourselves with their strange aspect and groupings, and found a nook sheltered from the wind among them, where C. lighted his over them, to

ENGLISH TRAITS.

476 Cigar.

was pleasant

to see, that, just this

plest of all simple structures,

and a

lintel laid

later churches, is

across,

and

all

— two upright

— had

long outstood

and were

history,

are a

— mere mounds,

(of

hundred and sixty within a

circle of three

mound on

makes good

still

these,

which there

miles about Stonehenge,) like the same the plain of Troy, which

all

what

most permanent on the face of the planet

and the barrows,

sim-

stones

to the

Homer and the fame of Achilles. Within the enclosure, grow buttercups, nettles, and, all around,

passing mariner on Hellespont, the vaunt of

wild thyme, daisy, meadowsweet, goldenrod, tle,

and the carpeting

soaring and singing,

grass.

—

Over

us, larks

friend

said,

this-

were " the

which were hatched last year, and the wind which was hatched many thousand years ago." We counted and measured by paces the biggest stones, and soon knew as much as any man can larks

suddenly

know

There

of the inscrutable temple.

are ninety-four stones, and there were once prob-

ably one hundred and sixty. lar,

The temple

circu-

and uncovered, and the situation fixed astro-

—

the grand entrances here, and at Abury, being placed exactly northeast, " as all the

nomically,

How

gates of the old cavern temples are."

the

stones here

for

these sarsens

came

Druidical

STONEHENGE. BandstoneSj are

The

not

found in

sacrificial stone, as

it is

in all these blocks, that fire,

and

neighborhood.

this

called^

the only one

can resist the action of

as I read in the books,

brought one hundred and

277

must have been

fifty miles.

we found the marks of hammer and chisel. The nine-

almost every stone

the mineralogist's

teen smaller stones of the inner circle are of granite.

wick's

who had just come from Professor SedgCambridge Museum of megatheria and

mastodons, was ready to maintain that some clev-

mylodonta had borne

off and laid Only the good beasts must have known how to cut a well- wrought tenon and mortise, and to smooth the surface of some of the stones. The chief mystery is, that any mys-

erer elephants or

these rocks one on another.

tery should

have been allowed to

settle

on so

markable a monument, in a country on which the

muses have kept their eyes now

hundred

years.

much more than

We is

all

for eighteen

are not yet too late to learn

known

of this structure.

Some

diligent Fellowes or Layard will arrive, stone stone, at

re-

the whole history, by that exhaustive

British sense

and perseverance, so whimsical in its which leaves its own Stonehenge

choice of objects,

Choir Gaur to the rabbits, whilst it opens pyrStonehenge, in amids, and uncovers Nineveh. or

ENGLISH TEAITS.

278

virtue of the simplicity of

preservation,

sand years hence, accurate history in and out,

plan, and

its

;

will yet eliminate.

for the

We walked

The

stones.

old sphinx put our

petty differences of nationality out of sight.

we two

these conscious stones

known and

good

a thou-

and took again and again a fresh look

uncanny

at the

its

new and recent and, men will thank this age

is as if

near.

could equally well revere

their old British meaning.

subdued and gentle. tiny, he happened to ever I go, and

The

go wrong."

pilgrims were alike

philosopher was

In this quiet house of dessay,

plant cypresses wher-

in search of pain, I cannot

gray blocks, and their

spot, the

rude order, which refuses to be disposed

of,

sug-

gested to him

the flight of ages, and the succession

cf religions.

The

much

old times of England impress

he reads

he says, in these

little,

last

but " Acta Sanctorum," the fifty-three vol-

years,,

umes of which finds all

he reads, the old writing,

show God, and

man

saint

can see, as

men

The Acta Sanctorum of those times believed

in the immortality of the soul, as their

abbeys and cathedrals is all

Library.

of lona sitting there, and

men.

plainly that the

tanism

London

are in the

English history therein.

gone.

testify

London

now, even the puripagan.

fancie'd

STONEHENGE. that greater

men had

279

lived in England, than any

of her writers

;

those writers

appeared, the

and, in

fact,

about the time last

when

of these were al-

ready gone.

"We

left

the

mound

in the twilight, with the de-

sign to return the next morning, and

coming back

we were met by little was, men and women were

two miles to our inn, showers, and late as

out attempting to protect their spread wind-rows.

The

grass

England.

cup of

grows rank and dark in the showery

tea.

the inn, there was only milk for one

When we

brought us three drops.

who still

called for

more, the girl

friend

was annoyed and

stood for the credit of an English inn,

more, the next morning, by the dog-cart, sole

procurable vehicle, in which

we were

be sent

I engaged the local antiquary, Mr. to Wilton. Brown, to go with us to Stonehenge, on our way, and show us what he knew of the " astronomical

and "

sacrificial

" stones.

I stood on the last,

and

he pointed to the upright, or rather, inclined stone, called the " astronomical," and bade me notice that its

top ranged with the sky-line.

well.

Now,

at the

summer

" Yes." Very sun rises and, at the Dru-

solstice, the

exactly over the top of that stone, also an astronomiidical temple at Abury, there is sal stone, in

the same relative positions.

;

ENGLISH TKAITS.

280

In the silence of

one relation to

tradition, this

science becomes an important clue

content to

"Was

leave

but

we were

" Giants' Dance " which Merlin Uther

the

this

;

problem, with the rocks.

the

brought from Killaraus, in Ireland, to be

Pendragon's monument to the British nobles

Hengist slaughtered here,

mouth

Roman work,

relates

was

Geoffrey of

Jones explained to King James

;

whom Mon-

as Inigo

or identical in

design and style with the East Indian temples of the sun tains

The

;

Davies in the Celtic Eesearches mainthe writers, Stukeley

all

heroic antiquary,

perfections of his ruin, connects

monuments and courage of his

who made henge."

the

the best.

with the oldest

religion of the world,

tribe, does

He finds

charmed with the geometric and with the

not stick to say, " the Deity

world by the scheme of that the cursus *

stretches across the

Stone-

on Salisbury Plain

downs, like a line of latitude

upon the globe, and the meridian

line of Stone-

* Connected with Stonehenge are an avenue and a mrsus.

The avenue

a narrow road of raised earth, extending 594

yards in a straight line from the grand entrance, then dividing

two branches, which lead, severally, to a row of barrows an artificially formed flat tract of ground. This is half a mile northeast from Stonehenge, bounded bj banks and ditches, 3036 yards long, by HO broad.

into

and

to the cursus,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

; :

STONEHENGE.

28i

henge passes exactly through, the middle of

But here

iursus.

the

this

the high point of the theory

Druids had the magnet

their cardinal points in

;

laid their courses

by it

Stonehenge, Ambresbury,

and elsewhere, which vary a

little

from true

east

and west, followed the variations of the compass.

The Druids were Phoenicians. magnet

lapis Heracleus,

god of the Phoenicians.

drew a

his

bow

The name

of the

and Hercules was the

Hercules, in the legend,

the sun, and the sun-god gave

him

golden cup, with which he sailed over the ocean.

What was

this,

but a compass-box

This cup or

little boat, in which the magnet was made to float on water, and so show the north, was probably its But first form, before it was suspended on a pin.

was an arcanum, and,

science

Britain was a

Phoenician secret, so they kept their compass a secret,

and

The golden

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

was

lost

with the Tyrian commerce.

fleece, again, of Jason,

was the com-

pass, a bit of loadstone, easily supposed to be the only one in the world, and therefore naturally

awakening the cupidity and ambition of the young heroes of a maritime nation to join in an expediHence stone. tion to obtain possession of this wise

Argo was loq^uacious and some curious coincidence There oracular. m the names. ApoUodorus makes Maggies the son the fable that the

ship

is also

24*

ENGLISH TKAITS.

282 of

On hints

^olus, who married Nais.

like these,

Stukeley builds again the grand colonnade into historic

harmony, and computing backward by the

known variations

of the compass, bravely assigns the

year 406 before Christ, for the date of the temple.

For the

of this size, the like

stones

and carrying

handling

difficulty

done in

all

cities,

every day, with no other aid than horse power.

chanced to see a year ago structure of a house in

men

work on the subBowdoin Square, in Bosat

ton, swinging a block of granite of the size of the largest of the

derrick.

Stonehenge columns with an ordinary-

The men were common masons, with

paddies to help, nor did they think they were doing

anything I'emarkable.

I suppose, there were as

good men a thousand years ago. how Stonehenge was built and

And we wonder forgotten.

spending half an hour on the spot, we

downs not suppressing some threats and in our dog-cart

over the

for

set

After forth

Wilton, C.

evil

omens on

the proprietors, for keeping these broad plains a

wretched sheep-walk, when so many thousands of English

men were hungry and wanted

I heard afterwards that cultivate this land,

came

labor.

But

not an economy to

which only yields one crop on

being broken up and

then spoiled.

Wilton and

Wilton Hall,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

the

STONEHENGE.

renowned

seat of the Earls of

28iJ

Pembroke,

a house

known to Shakspeare and Massinger, the frequent home of Sir Philip Sidney where he wrote the Arcadia ; where he conversed with Lord Brooke, a man of deep thought, and a poet, who caused to be engraved on his tombstone, " Here lies Pulke Greville Lord Brooke, the friend of Sir Philip Sidney."

now

It is

the property of the Earl of

Pembroke, and the residence of his brother, Sidney Herbert, Esq., and

esteemed a noble speci-

men of the English manor-hall. a letter

friend had

from Mr. Herbert to his housekeeper, and

The

drawing-room

the house

was shown.

a double

cube, 30 feet high, by 30 feet wide, by

feet

long

the adjoining

state

room

a single cube,

Although these apartments and the long library were full of good family portraits, Vandykes and other ; and though there of

feet

every way.

were some good pictures, and a quadrangle cloister full

of antique and

modern

statuary,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

much

which

justice,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

catalogue in hand, did all too to a yet the eye was still drawn to the windows, cedars finest magnificent lawn, on which grew the

had not seen more charming We went out, and walked over the grounds. We crossed a bridge built by Inlgo Jones estate.

England.

over a stream, of

which the gardener did not know

ENGLISH TEAITS.

284 the name, (Qu.

Alph

watched the deer

;

climbed

summer house, on a hill came down into the Italian

to the lonely sculptured

backed by a wood

;

garden, and into a French pavilion, garnished with

French busts

we found

;

and so again,

a table

where

the house,

laid for us with bread, meats,

peaches, grapes, and wine.

leaving Wilton House,

we took

the coach for

Salisbury. The Cathedral, which was finished 600 years ago, has even a spruce and modern air, and spire is the highest in

its

England.

know

not

why, but I had been more struck with one of no fame at Coventry, which rises 300 feet from the ground, with the lightness of a mullein-plant, and not at is

all

implicated with the church.

now esteemed

Salisbury

the culmination of the Gothic art

England, as the buttresses are fully unmasked, and honestly detailed from the sides of the pile. in

The

interior of the Cathedral is obstructed

organ in the middle, acting like a screen. not

why

in real architecture the

that a colonnade is

longer

it is,

of a church

The

rule

more beautiful the

and that ad infinitum. is

know

hunger of the eye

for length of line is so rarely gratified.

of art

by the I

seldom so long that

And it

the nave

need be

diÂŤ

vided by a screen.

loitered in

the church, outside the choir

STONEHENGE. whilst service

organ,

was

285

Whilst we listened

said.

friend remarked, the music

yet not quite religious, but

somewhat

were panting to some

Queen

fine

shown

us, but

returned to

to the

good, and

as if a

monk

of Heaven.

was unwilling, and we did not ask choir

have the

our inn, after

church of the place. We passed in the train Clarendon Park, but could see

seeing

little

another old

but the edge of a wood, though C. had wished

pay closer attention to the birthplace of the

Decrees of Clarendon.

and found Mr. H.,

At Bishopstoke we

who

and took us to his house

On Sunday, we had much day.

Americans

friends asked, ?

stopped,

received us in his carriage,

— any with

Bishops Waltham. discourse on a very rainy

whether there were any an American idea,

theory of the right future of that country

— any Thus

challenged, I bethought myself neither of caucuses

nor congress, neither of presidents nor of cabinetministers, nor of such as

another Europe.

and purest minds

I ;

would make of America

thought only of the simplest I said,

Certainly yes

;

— but

of a dream which I

who hold it are fanatics should hardly care to relate to your English ears, and yet it to which it might be only ridiculous, those

—

So I opened the dogma of nothe only true.' government and non-resistance, and anticipated the IS

ENGLISH TEAITS.

286 objections

hearing for

and the fun, and procured a kind of I said, it is true that I have nevei it.

man

seen in any country a

and yet

stand for this truth,

no I

less valor

than this can

can easily see

worshippers

gun

;

the

— and

plain to me, that

command my

respect.

banki-uptcy of the vulgar

— though

musket-worship,

of sufficient valor it

'tis

great

men be musketGod liveth, the

certain, as

need another gun, the law of

that does not

love and justice alone, can effect a clean revolution,

two of some impression on C, and manifest absurdity of the view I fancied that one or

ity

could

make no

my I to

difference to a

made

anecdotes

insisted, that

English

the

feasibil-

gentleman

;

that

our secure tenure of our mutton-chop and

London

spinage in

or in Boston, the soul

quote Talleyrand, " Monsieur, je n'en necessiie." *

vols

might

pas

had thus taken in the conversa-

tion the saint's part,

when dinner was announced,

C. refused to go out before me,

— " he was

gether too wicked."

I planted

alto-

back against

the wall, and our host wittily rescued us from the

dilemma, by saying, he was the wickedest, and

would walk out

first,

then C. followed, and I went

last.

the

way

Winchester, whither our host

• " Mais, Monseiffneur, ilfaut que j'existe."

STONEHENGE.

287

accompanied us in the afternoon,

many

questions houses,

forests,

friends asked

respecting American

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; my

house,

for

landscape,

example.

not easy to answer these queries well.

thought, in America,

lies

nature sleeping, over-

growing, almost conscious, too

man

in the picture,

the rank vegetation of

and

;

and on

impression. in

much by

half for

so giving a certain tristesse,

swamps and forests rains, which it man seems not able to make much

seen at night, steeped in loves

It is

There I

dews and

There, in that great sloven continent,

high Alleghany pastures, in the sea-wide, sky-

skirted prairie,

still

sleeps

and murmurs and hides

the great mother, long since driven

trim

England. ble of this.

And, in England, I am quite too sensiEvery one is on his good behavior,

and must be dressed for dinner off

away from the

hedge-rows and over-cultivated garden

at six.

So I put

friends with very inadequate details, as best

I could.

Just before entering Winchester,

we stopped

Church of Saint Cross, and, after looking through the quaint antiquity, we demanded a piece of bread and a draught of beer, which the founder, the

1136, commanded should be every one who should ask it at the gate.

Henry de given to

Blois, in

had both, from the old couple who take

cara

ENGLISH TRAITS.

288

Some twenty people, every day, cf the church. This hospitalthey said, make the same demand. ity of seven hundred years' standing did not hinder

from pronouncing a malediction on the receives ÂŁ2000 a year, that were meant

priest

who

for the poor,

and spends a pittance on

this small

beer and crumbs.

In the Cathedral, I was

gratified, at least

The length

ample dimensions.

that of any other English church

by 250

to all I

being 556 feet

I think I prefer

in breadth of transept.

church

this

line exceeds

of ;

by the

have seen, except Westminster

Here was Canute buried, and here

and York.

Alfred the Great was crowned and buried, and and, later, in his own Wykeham. It is very old part of the crypt into which we went down and saw the Saxon and Norman arches of the old

here

the

Saxon kings

church, William of

church on which the present stands, was built fourteen

Turner the

hundred years ago. Sharon " Alfred was buried at Winchester, in

or fifteen

says,

Abbey he had founded

were removed by Henry the

meadows

there, but his remains

the

new Abbey

Hyde, on the northern quarter of

the city, and laid under the high altar.

The

build-

ing was destroyed at the Reformation, and what is left

of Alfred's body

now

lies

covered by mod-

STONEHENGE.

buildings,

289

buried in the ruins

the

William of Wykeham's shrine tomb was unlocked for us, and C. took hold of the recumbent statue's marble hands, and patted them affectionold." *

ately,

built

here,

for

he rightly values the brave man who

Windsor, and and

growing

New

this Cathedral,

College

and the School

late in the afternoon.

London. â&#x20AC;˘ History of the Anglo-Saxons,

ÂŤ5

we left we took

Slowly

old house, and parting with our host, train for

But

Oxford.

I. 699.

was the

the

CHAPTER

XVII.

PERSONAL.

In these comments on an old journey now revised after seven busy years have much changed men and things in England, I have abstained from reference to persons, except in the last chapter,

and in one or two cases where the fame of the parties

seemed

have given the public a property

in all that concerned them.

myself

few notices,

must further allow

only as an acknowledg-

ment of debts that cannot be paid. My journeys were cheered by so much kindness from new friends, that

impression of the island

with agreeable memories both of public

and of households

and, what

bright

societies

nowhere better

found than in England, a cultivated person

fitly

surrounded by a happy home, " with honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,"

At the lauding

of all institutions

in Liverpool, I

found Manchester correspondent awaiting me, a gen

the best.

lleman whose kind reception was followed by (290)

PERSONAL. train

of friendly and

291

effective

attentions

which

never rested whilst I remained in the country.

man

of sense and of letters, the editor of a power-

ful local journalj nite sweetness

honey about

pool of all his

he added to

solid virtues

infi-

his

speech and action with fine jets of mead.

eq^ual

dents of

good fortune attended many

later acci-

journey, until the sincerity of English

kindness ceased to surprise. fortunate days

can

There seemed a heart which lubricated

and bonhommie.

Minister

visit fell in

when Mr. Bancroft was in

through his good cellent persons

London, and offices,

and

the

the Ameri-

his

house, or

I had easy access to ex-

to privileged- places.

At the

house of Mr. Carlyle, I met persons eminent in The privileges of the society and in letters.

Athenaeum and of the Reform Clubs were hosp^'tably opened to me, and I found much advantage in the circles of the " Geologic," the " Antiquarian,"

and the " Eoyal Societies."

Every day

London gave me new opportunities of meeting men and women who give splendor to society. I saw Eogers, Hallara, Macaulay, Milnes, Milman, â&#x20AC;˘Barry Cornwall, Dickens, Thackeray, Tennfkon, Leigh Hunt, D'Israeli, Helps, Wilkinson, Bailey and Eorster the younger poets, Clough,

Kenyon,

Arnold, and Patmore

;

and,

among

the

men

ENGLISH TRAITS.

292

Robert Brown, Owen, Sedgwick, Faraday,

science,

Buckland, Lyell,

Beche, Hooker, Carpenter,

Babbage, and Edward Forbes. lege also to converse with Miss

was

Baillie,

privi-

with Lady

Morgan, with Mrs. Jameson, and Mrs. Somerville.

A finer less

hospitality

known and

circles that

made many

private houses not

It is not in

dear.

wisdom and elevated

distinguished characters are

usually found, or, if found, not confined thereto

and

recollections of the best hours

go back

;

private conversations in different parts of the king-

dom, with persons

little

sible to the courtesy

some noble mansions, with their names.

Nor am

known.

I insen-

which frankly opened if

I do not adorn

Among

page

the privileges of Lon-

don, I recall with pleasure two or three signal at Kew, where Sir William Hooker showed me all the riches of the vast botanic garden j one at the Museum, where Sir Charles Fel-

days, one

lowes explained in detail the history of his Ionic

trophy-monument

and ; Mr. Owen accompanied

another,

still

on which

countryman Mr. H.

and myself through the Hunterian Museum. 8?he like frank hospitality, bent on real service, I found I

went

;

among in

the great and the humble, wherever Birmingham, in Oxford, in Leicester,

Nottingham, in

Sheifield,

Manchester,

PERSONAL.

293

At Edinburgh, through the kindness I made the acquaintance of

Liverpool.

Samuel Brown, De Quincey, of Lord of Dr.

Jeffrey, of Wilson, of Mrs. Crowe, of the Messrs. Chambers, and of a man of high character and genius, the short lived painter,

David

Scott.

At Ambleside

March, 1848, I was

for a

pouple of days the guest of Miss Martineau, then

newly returned from her Egyptian

tour.

On Sun-

day afternoon, I accompanied her to Eydal Mount.

And many

I have recorded a visit to "Wordsworth,

years before, I

interview.

the sofa.

nap

news. bitter

was

at first silent

man suddenly waked,

an old his

must not forget

this

second

found Mr. Wordsworth asleep on and indisposed,

before he had ended

but soon became full of talk on the French

;

was nationally

on Scotchmen,

can write English.

too.

on the French

Scotchman, he

detailed the

one or the other of which historian

bitter

all

said,

two models, on

the sentences of the

Eobertson are framed.

Nor could

Jef-

nor the Edinburgh Eeviewers write English, nor can * * ÂŤ, who is a pest to the English tongue. Incidentally he added. Gibbon cannot write Engfirey,

The Edinburgh Eeview wrote what would It had however changed tell and what would sell. from the time when criticism the tone of its literary

lish.

25*

ENGLISH TRAITS.

294

a certain letter -was written to the editor by Coleridge

Mrs. W. had the Editor's answer in her possession. Tennyson he thinks a right poetic genius, though with some affectation. He had thought an elder brother of Tennyson at

the better poet, but

first

...

In must now reckon Alfred the true one. speaking of I know not what style, he said, " to be sure, it was the manner, but then you know the matter always comes out of the manner."

thought Eio Janeiro the best place in the world

for a

great capital city.

English national character.

talked of

I told him,

creditable that no one in all the country

thing of

Thomas Taylor,

was not

knew any-

the Platonist, whilst in

every American library his translations are found. I

said,

Plato's

Republic

were published in

England as a new book to-day, do you think it would find any readers ? he confessed, it would " and yet," he added after a pause, with that not complacency which never deserts a true-born Eng-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

lishman,

"and

yet

His opinions

we have embodied

it all."

of French, English, Irish,

Scotch, seemed rashly formulized from

little

dotes of what had befallen himself and

members

of his family, in a diligence or stage-coach. face

and anec-

His

sometimes lighted up, but his conversation

was not marked by special force or elevation.

Yet

PERSONAL. perhaps

it is

a high compliment to the cultivation

of the English

man

295

generally,

when we

He had

not distinguished.

find

such a

a healthy look,

with a weather-beaten face, his face corrugated, especially the large nose.

Miss Martineau, who lived near him, praised

him to me not for his poetry, but for thrift and economy; for having aflforded to his countryneighbors an example of a modest household, where comfort and culture were secured without any display. She said, that, in his early housekeeping at the cottage where he first lived, he was accustomed to offer his friends bread and plainest fare if they wanted any thing more, they must It was the rule of the pay him for their board. :

house.

I replied, that

evinced English pluck

more than any anecdote I knew.

gentleman in

the neighborhood told the story of "Walter Scott's staying

once for a week with Wordsworth, and day under pretence of a walk,

slipping out every to the

Swan Inn,

for a cold cut

and porter

;

and

one day passing with Wordsworth the inn, he was betrayed by the landlord's asking him if he had come for his porter. Of course, this trait would

have another look in London, and there you will

Wordsworth hear from different literary men, that amiable, had no personal friend, that he was not

ENGLISH TRAITS.

29G

Lander, alwaya

he was parsimonious, &c.

that

generous, says, that he never praised any hody

gentleman in London showed

that once

engraved on

its

face.

whose

to Milton,

belonged

said,

watch

initials

are

he once showed

Wordsworth, who took it in one hand, then drew out his own watch, and held it up with the other, before the company, but no one making the

this to

own in silence. much importance to the disparWordsworth among London scholars.

expected remark, he put back his I do not attach

agement of

Who

reads

him well

will

know,

that in following

the strong bent of his genius, he was the

many,

careless

careless of

of the few, self-assured

also

he should " create the

by which he is to enough to witness the revolution he had wrought, and " to see what he foresaw." There are torpid places in his mind,

that

be enjoyed."

there

something hard and

want of grace and

variety,

and cosmopolitan scope English

politics

;

but

let

sterile in his poetry,

want of due catholicity he had conformities to

and traditions

puerilities in the choice jects

taste

lived long

;

he had egotistic

and treatment of his sub-

us say of him, that, alone in his time

he treated the human mind well, and with an absolute

trust.

His adherence

to his

poetic

crend

PERSONAL. rested

real inspirations.

tality is the

the muse,

The Ode on Immor-

high-water-mark which the

has reached in this age. ployed, and

i297

New

new realms added

by his courage

intellect

means were emto the

empire of

CHAPTEH XVIIl. RESULT.

England ideal

the best of actual nations.

framework,

it is

It is

an old pile built in different

and makeshifts ; but you have got. London is the epitome of our times, and the Rome of to-day. ages, with repairs, additions,

you

see the poor best

Broad-fronted broad-bottomed Teutons, they stand in solid

pass

;

phalanx foursquare to the points of com-

they constitute the modern world, they have

earned their vantage-ground, and held ages of adverse possession.

and is

differing

from other leading

Rome was

tender-hearted.

not so public in

honor.

They

its

bias

;

private

Truth in private

life,

internal intrigues

marked England England is

races.

not.

life is its

place of

Their political

not decided by general views, but by

They cannot history

through

untruth in public,

marks these home-loving men. conduct

are well

and personal and family

interest.

readily see beyond England.

Rome and

Greece,

when

The

written by (298)

KESULT.

299

their scholars, degenerates into English party lets.

They cannot

see

pamphbeyond England, nor in

England can they transcend the interests of the " English principles " mean a governing classes. primary regard to the interests of property.

and Ireland combine England and Scotland

land, Scotland, colonies.

check Irish

manufactures

home

and

Eng-

check the

combine

England

trade.

check Scotland.

In England,

the strong classes check the weaker.

In the home

rallies

population of near thirty millions, there are but

The Church punishes

one million voters. punishes

education.

Down

riages

performed by dissenters were

bitter

class-legislation

gives

dissent,

mar-

to a late day,

power

illegal.

those

A who

buy a law. The game-laws Pauperism incrusts are a proverb of oppression. and clogs the state, and in hard times becomes hideous. In bad seasons, the porridge was diluted. Multitudes lived miserably by shell-fish and seaare rich

ware.

enough

cities,

the children are trained to beg,

Men and be old enough to rob. were convicted of poisoning scores of chil-

until they shall

women

dren for burial-fees. riorated

in size

and

In Irish

districts,

shape, the

nose

men

dete-

sunk, the

gums were exposed, with diminished brain and During the Australian emigration, brutal form.

ENGLISH TRAITS.

300

multitudes were rejected by the commissioners as

During

being too emaciated for useful colonists.

the Russian war, few of those that offered as recruits

were found up

to the

medical standard, though

had been reduced.

The tious

foreign policy of England, though ambi-

and lavish of money, has not often been genIt has a principal

erous or just.

regard to the in-

checked however by the

terest of trade,

aristocratic

which usually puts him in

bias of the ambassador,

sympathy with the continental Courts. tioned the partition of Poland,

It sanc-

betrayed Genoa,

Greece, Turkey, Eome, and

Sicily, Parga,

Hun-

gary.

Some

public

end

human

they have.

regards

West

abolished slavery in the

Indies,

They have and put an

in the East.

sacrifices

they have a certain statute hospitality.

keeps open doors, nations.

England

country must, to

as a trading

all

one of their fixed ideas, and wrath-

It is

fully supported for a

At home

their laws in

thousand years.

unbroken sequence

Magna

Charta

was

" merchants

shall

have safe and

secure conduct to go out and

come

into England,

ordained, that

and

all

stay there,

by water,

and

buy and

to sell

customs, without any evil

pass as well

by land

by the ancient allowed toll,

except in time of

HESULT. war, or

when

with us."

301

they shall be of any nation

It is a statute

and peremptorily maintained.

had one magnificent

war

and obliged hospitality,

But

this shop-rule

extends

effect.

its

cold

unalterable courtesy to political exiles of every opinion, and

a fact

which might give additional from the

light to that portion of the planet seen farthest star.

But

this perfunctory hospitality puts

no sweetness into their unaccommodating manners, no check on that puissant nationality which makes with

their existence incompatible

that

all

not

English.

What we must cial

say about a nation

dealing with symptoms.

enough

a superfi-

cannot go deep

into the biography of the spirit

who never

throws himself entire into one hero, but delegates his

energy in parts or spasms

to vicious

But the wealth

tive individuals.

and defec-

of the source

seen in the plenitude of English nature. variety of

teousness

power and

talent

;

what

facility

What

and plen-

of knighthood, lordship, ladyship, roy-

what a proud chivalry is indicated in ; " Collins's Peerage," through eight hundred years What dignity resting on what reality and stoutness

alty, loyalty

[

What

courage in war, what sinew in labor, what

cunning workmen, what inventors and engineers, what seamen and pilots, what clerks and scholars

ENGLISH TRAITS.

302

one

It is a

man and no few men

headedness

owing

of the middle class, letters

to the

who

and science.

aesthetic

production.

so they are

nexes

can represent them.

people of myriad personalities.

are always the source of

Hence the

vast plenty of their

they are many-headed,

many-nationed

archipelagoes

Their many-

advantageous position

and

their colonization an-

continents,

and

their

speech seems destined to be the universal language of men.

never is

have noted the reserve of power in

English temperament.

the

let

out

all

In the island, they

the length of all the reins, there

no Berserkir rage, no abandonment or ecstasy of

will or intellect, like that of the

of in

Arabs in the time

Mahomet, or like that which intoxicated France 1789. But who would see the uncoiling of

that

tremendous spring, the explosion of their

well-husbanded forces, must follow the swarms

which pouring now the

British

islands,

for

two hundred years from

have

sailed,

and rode, and

traded, and planted, through all climates, mainly

following the belt of empire, the temperate zones, carrying the Saxon seed, with

its

instinct for lib-

erty and law, for arts and for thought,

under some skies a more native air allows,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

electric

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

accLuiring

energy than the

to the conquest of the globe.

Their colonial policy, obeying the necessities of

RESULT. a Tast

305

empire, has become

liberal. Canada and have been contented with substantial independence. They are expiating the wrongs of

Australia

India,

benefits;

in works for the irrigaand roads and telegraphs ;

first,

tion of the peninsula,

and secondly, in the instruction of the people, to qualify

power

them

shall

Their

opment,

savant like

the British

be finally called home.

mind

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

when

for self-government,

state

of arrested devel-

a divine cripple like

Vulcan

Huber and Sanderson.

a blind

;

They do not

occupy themselves on matters of general and ing import, but on a

corporeal

last-

civilization,

But they read

goods that perish in the using.

with good intent, and what they learn they incarnate. it

The English mind

turns every abstraction

can receive into a portable utensil, or a working

institution.

Such

their tenacity,

and such their

practical turn, that they hold all they gain.

say, that only the

with freedom,

and dangerous

The English

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; freedom to

which

double-edged

any but the wise and robust.

designate the kingdoms emulous of

free institutions, as the sentimental nations.

culture

not an outside varnish, but

and secular

Hence

English race can be trusted

families

and the

race.

Their

thorough

They

are

oppressive with their temperament, and all the more that they are refined. I have sometimes

ENGLISH TRAITS.

804

them

'een

-walk with

countrymen when

them every advantage, and

forced to allow

was

their

companions seemed bags of bones.

There

cramp limitation in their habit of

thought, sleepy routine, and a tortoise's instinct

hard

to hold

ground with

to the

inertia

which

resists

his claws, lest

There

should be thrown on his back.

reform in every shape

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

emancipation,

Catholic

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

the

law-

Jewish

reform, army-reform, extension of suffrage, franchise.

a drag of

abolition

of slavery, of impressment, penal code, and en-

They

tails.

mula,

that

praise

constitution, that

opinion.

excellence

tortoises

Yet somewhat divine warms waits a happier hour.

" Will,"

Quid

ter,

common

vult

will.

for

their shoulders.

their

heart,

and

hides in their sturdy

old philosophy,

said the

do they do with a their success

for-

British

must hold hard,

measure of power," and personality of this race.

the

of the

no law can anticipate the public

These poor

they feel no wings sprouting

will.

under

drag,

this

the

valde vult.

You

" is the

the token

What

they

cannot account for

their Christianity,

commerce, char-

law. Parliament, or letters, but by

the contumacious sharptongued energy of English naturel, with a poise impossible to disturb,

makes and

all

these

reticent,

its

instruments.

and are

They

dull

which

are slow

good

horse

SOS

EESTJLT. wliich. lets

every nag pass him, but with whip and

down every

spur will run

racer in the field.

are right in their feeling,

though wrong in

They their

speculation.

The

feudal

system survives in the steep in-

equality of property and privilege, in the lirnited franchise, in the social barriers

tronage and promotion

which confine paand still more in

to a caste,

the submissive ideas pervading these people.

fagging of the schools classes.

Englishman shows no mercy

below him in the

social scale, as

from those above him superiors surprises him,

The

repeated in the social to those

he looks for none

any forbearance from his and they

sufier in his

good

But the feudal system can be seen with It was pain on large historical grounds.

opinion. less

pleaded in mitigation of the rotten borough, that it

worked

well, that substantial justice

Fox, Burke,

was done.

Pitt, Erskine, Wilberforce, Sheridan,

Eomilly, or whatever national man, were by this to Parliament, when their return by

means sent

would have been doubtful. So measures of England are that it has yielded more able men

large constituencies

now we the

men

say, that the right it

bred

;

hundred years than any other nation ; and, though we must not play Providence, and balance

in five

the chances of producing ten great

26*

men

against the

ENGLISH TKAITS.

306

comfort of ten thousand tively

we may

mean men, yet

strike the

balance,

retrospec-

and prefer one

Alfred, one Shakspeare, one Milton, one Sidney,

one Ealeigh, one Wellington,

to a million foolish

democrats.

The American system is more democratic, more humane; yet the American people do not yield more able men, or more inventions or

better or

Congress

books or benefits, than the English.

abolished

its

France has

not wiser or better than Parliament. suffocating old regime, but

not re-

marked by any more wisdom or virtue. The power of performance has not been ex-

cently

ceeded,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

creation

the

value.

The English

have given importance to individuals, a principal

Every man is allowed and encouraged to be what he is, and k " Magna guarded in the indulgence of his whim. " is such a fellow that he Charta," said Rushworth, end and

fruit

of every society.

will have no sovereign."

and by

this general activity,

this sacredness of individuals,

they have in

seven hundred years evolved the principles of free-

dom.

It is the land of patriots, martyrs, sages,

should wash

away,

will

and

emerged be remembered as an

bards, and if the ocean out of

which

island famous for immortal laws, for the announce-

ments of original right which make the stone tables of liberty.

CHAPTEE

XIX.

SPEKCH AT MANCHESTEK.

A FEW days after my arrival at Manchester,

iii

vember, 1847, the Manchester Athenaeum gave annual Banquet in the Free-Trade Hall. guests, I

was invited

the company.

per-report of as fitly

and

to address

In looking over recently a newspa-

remarks, I incline to reprint

it,

expressing the feeling with which I en-

tered England, and the

to be present,

its

With other

which agrees well enough with

deliberate results of better acquaintance

recorded in the foregoing pages.

Sir Archibald

Alison, the historian, presided, and

meeting with a speech.

opened the

was followed by Mr.

Cobden, Lord Brackley, and others, among whom was Mr. Cruikshank, one of the contributors to " Punch." Mr. Dickens's letter of apology for his absence

was read.

Mr. Jerrold, who had been

announced, did not appear. to the meeting I said,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

being introduced

(307)

ENGLISH TRAITS.

308

It is pleasant Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen me to meet this great and brilliant company, :

to see the

and doubly pleasant

on this

persons

distinguished

have known

But

When

platform.

these persons already.

all

many

of so

faces

home, they were as near to me as they are The arguments of the League and its you.

was to

leader are

known

The gayeties and parietal wit of to every Sir,

to sea, I

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

there

where

New

his landing here.

property

no land where paper exists to print on,

it is

not found

does not read

it,

no man who can read, that

;

and,

he cannot, he

charitable pair of eyes that can,

But

table, the

programme or play-bill Englander what he shall And as for Dombey, sir,

a sort of

to tell the seafaring

find

New York. found the " History of

Boston and

girl in

on the ship's cabin

of the captain

of free trade.

" Punch " go duly every fortnight

came

friends

genius, the political, the social, the

boy and

when

Europe "

to all the

these things are not for

finds

and hears

some

it.

say

;

these

compliments, though true, would better come from

one

who

not here to exchange

felt

and understood these merits more.

rather to speak of that

â&#x20AC;˘ By

civilities

which I am sure

Sir

A. Alison.

with you, but interests

;

SPEECH AT MANCHESTEK.

30^

these gentlemen

more than their own praises ; of which is good in holidays and working-days the same in one century and in another century That which lures a solitary American in the woods that

with the wish to see England, liarity

of the Saxon race,

of right and wrong, that,

—

the moral pecu-

commanding sense

the love and devotion to

this is the imperial trait,

with the sceptre of the globe. lies at

its

which arms them It is this which

the foundation of that aristocratic character,

which certainly wanders

into strange vagaries, so

that its origin is often lost sight of, but which, if it

should lose

would

this,

find itself paralyzed

and in trade, and in the mechanic's shop, gives that honesty in performance, that thoroughness solidity of

work, which

This conscience

and

a national characteristic.

one element, and the other

that loyal adhesion, that habit of friendship, that

homage of man classes,

—

man, running

through

all

the electing of worthy persons to a cer-

tain fraternity, to acts of kindness

and warm and

staunch support, from year to year, from youth to age,

— which

alike lovely

who render and

those

and honorable

who

receive

;

to those

— which

stands in strong contrast with the superficial

at-

tachments of other races, their excessive courtesy

and short-lived connection.

ENGLISH TRAITS.

310

You

will think

but holiday though terest in

very pedantic, gentlemen,,

be, I

have not the smallest

any holidayj except

not pretended joys

as it celebrates real

and I think

;

just, in

time of gloom and commercial disaster, of

and beggary in these

tion

districts, that,

in-

and this

afflic-

on these

you should not fail to keep your literary anniversary. I seem to hear you say, that, for all that is come and gone yet, we very accounts I speak

will not reduce

braveries

of,

by one chaplet or one oak leaf the

of our annual

For I must

feast.

you, I was given to understand in that the British island

from which

my my

tell

childhood, forefathers

came, was no lotus-garden, no paradise of serene

sky and roses and

music and merriment

all

the

year round, no, but a cold foggy mournful country,

where nothing grew well in the open air, but men and virtuous women, and these of a

robust

wonderful parts

fibre

and endurance

were slowly revealed

come out

until

time

twelve the

haters,

and you could know

first

they did not

good

;

little

you had seen them long, and

;

lovers,

not true,

till

good of them

that in prosperity

moody and dumpish, but

they were grand.

good

about them

little

you had seen them in action

they were

their best

their virtues did not

;

they quarrelled

strike

till

that

;

sir,

in adversity that the wise

SPEECH AT MANtjHESTER.

311

ancients did not praise the ship parting with flying

from the port, but only that brave sailer which came back with torn sheets and battered

colors

sides, stript of

the storm

her banners, but having ridden out

And

so,

gentlemen, I feel in regard

aged England, with the possessions, honors

to this

and trophies, and also with the infirmities of a thousand years gathering around her, irretrievably committed

as she

now

is to

many

cannot be suddenly changed transitions of trade,

modes,

and new and

fabrics, arts, machines,

ulations,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

old customs which

pressed upon by the

;

all

incalculable

and competing pop-

I see her not dispirited, not

weak, but

well remembering that she has seen dark days before

;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; indeed with

a kind

of instinct that she

better in a cloudy day, and that in

sees a little

storm of battle and calamity, she has a secret vigor

and a pulse

a cannon.

I see her in her old

age, not decrepit, but young, and

believe in her

Seeing

this,

still

daring to

power of endurance and expansion. I say. All hail! mother of nations,

mother of heroes, with strength still equal to the time ; still wise to entertain and swift to execute the policy which the mind and heart of mankind requires in the present hour, and thus only hospitable

the foreigner, and truly a

thoughtful and generous

who

home

to the

are born in the

soil.

ENGLISH TRAITS.

312

So be

so let

age of England mercial

and

be not

so, if the courÂŤ

goes with the chances of a com-

crisis, I will

sachusetts,

go back

my own

to the capes of

Mas-

Indian stream, and say to

countrymen, the old race are

all gone, and the and hope of mankind must henceforth remain on the Alleghany ranges, or nowhere.

elasticity

,111

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