in ordinary conversations with sovereigns and princes, any more than
one is always saying “your Excellency” and “your Honour” in talking
with the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts; the
only two functionaries in America, I believe, who have legal styles
of address. In France it is usual to say “_sire_,” “_oui sire_,”
and “_non sire_;” but, here, I am told, for I never have had any
personal communication with an English prince, it is the practice
to say, “sir.” The English have rather an affectation of saying
that “one uses ‘sir,’ only to the king and to servants.” This word
is much less used by the English than with us, as it is much less
used by people of the world in America, than by those who, either
from living retired, or from not having access to society, are not
people of the world. It is, however, a good word, and can be thrown
in, occasionally, into American conversation with singular grace and
point, though, like other good things it may be overdone. The coxcomb
who refrains altogether from using it, with us, in deference to the
cockney pandects of the Brummel school, shows neither “blood nor
bottom.”
I can remember when our old staid ladies used to address the
servants as “sir;” but then a servant, being a negro, had something
respectable and genteel about him, for it was before he had lost
both by too much intercourse with the European peasants who are
superceding him. One might indeed say “sirrah,” to the new set, but
“sir” would be apt to stick in his throat. The philosophy of the
practice is obvious enough. In the mouth of one who uses this little
word understandingly, it marks distance mingled with respect: used to
a superior, the respect is for him; used to an inferior, the respect
is for one’s self.
It has been cleverly and wittily said that, in America, we have a
tolerably numerous class, who deem “nothing too high to be aspired
to, and nothing too low to be done.” In making my comparisons with
any thing and every thing on this side of the Atlantic, I keep these
pliant persons entirely out of view. They can be justly compared to
nothing else in human annals. They are the monstrous offspring of
peculiar circumstances, and owe their existence to an unparalleled
freedom of exertion, acting on the maxims of a government that is
better understood in practice than in theory, and, which, among its
thousand advantages, is obnoxious to the charge of giving birth to a
species of gentry perfectly _sui generis_. I compare the gentlemen of
no country to these philosophers.
On the continent of Europe, it is rather a distinction to be
undecorated in society. Stars and ribbands are really so very common,
that one gets to be glad to see a fine coat without them. As mere
matters of show, they are but indifferent appendages of dress, unless
belonging to the highest class of such ornaments, when indeed their
characters change; for there is always something respectable in
diamonds. Here it is quite the reverse. You probably may not know
that birth, of itself, entitles no one to wear a decoration.[11]
A king, as king, wears his crown and royal robes, but he wears no
star, or ribband, or collar. A peer has his coronet, and his robes
as a peer, but nothing else. The star and ribband are deemed the
peculiar badges of orders of chivalry, and they vary according to
the institution. The ribband is worn across the breast, like a sword
belt, though usually it is placed under the coat. It is broad,
and blue appears to be the honourable colour. At least the “blue
ribband,” and the “_cordon bleu_,” are in most request in France and
England, belonging to the orders of the Garter and of the Holy Ghost.
The _Legion d’Honneur_ and the Bath both use red ribbands. There
are gorgeous collars and mantles to all the orders, for occasions
of ceremony, but in society one seldom sees more than the ribband
and the star, and not often the former. The garter at the knee is
sometimes used also.
Lord Grey has no decoration; neither has Lord Lansdowne, nor Lord
Holland. Lord Lauderdale, the day I dined in his company in Berkeley
Square, wore a star, being a knight of the Thistle; Lord Spencer wore
that of the Garter. These two are almost the only instances in which
I have seen Englishmen in society, appearing with decorations, in
London, though I have frequently seen them in Paris. The difference,
in this respect, is striking on coming from the continent. The
ribband at the button-hole, is very rarely, if ever, used here.
The star, of course, only when dressed for dinners and evening
entertainments, or on state occasions. It was formerly the practice,
I believe, to appear in parliament with stars, but it is now very
rarely done.
I tell you these things, since, as they do exist, it may be well
enough to have some tolerably distinct notions as to the manner. With
the exception of the Bath, the orders of this country are commonly
conferred on personal favourites, or are the price of political
friendships. There appear to be orders that are pretty exclusively
confined to men of ancient and illustrious families, while others,
again, have the profession of distinguishing merit. In England, the
Garter, the Thistle, and St. Patrick’s, belong to the former class,
and the Bath to the latter. You will, at once, imagine that the last
stands highest in the public estimation, and that it is far more
honourable to be a knight of the Bath, than to be a knight of the
Garter. This would be the case were reason stronger than prejudice,
but as it is not, I leave you to infer which has the advantage.
I had a little aside with one of the guests at Lord Grey’s, in the
course of the evening, on the subject of the characters of the
reigning family. It is true my informant was a whig, and the whigs
look upon George IV. as a recreant from their principles; but this
gentleman I know to be one worthy of credit, and singularly moderate,
or I should not repeat his opinions.
Speaking of the king, he described him as a man more than commonly
destitute of good faith. A sovereign must be of a singularly upright
mind, not to be guilty of more or less duplicity, and of this my
acquaintance seemed perfectly aware; but George IV., he thought,
lent himself with more than common aptitude to this part of the royal
_rôle_. He mentioned an anecdote as illustrative of the treachery of
his character.
Some forty years since the debts of the Prince of Wales became so
pressing as to render an application to parliament necessary for
relief. By way of obtaining the desired end, it was promised that
‘like Falstaff’ he would “repent, and that suddenly,” and take
himself a wife, to insure an heir to the throne. There was a report,
however, that he was already privately married to Mrs. Fitz-Herbert.
Although such a marriage was civilly illegal, by the laws of the
kingdom, many well meaning, and all right-thinking people believed
it to be binding in a moral and religious point of view, and as
parliament was not absolutely destitute of such men, it became
necessary to pacify their scruples. With this view Mr. Fox is said
to have demanded authority of the Prince to contradict the rumour,
if it might be done with truth. This authority he is understood to
have received in the fullest terms, and it is certain Mr. Fox pledged
himself to that effect, in his place in the house. After all, it is
now confidently affirmed, the Prince was actually married to Mrs.
Fitz-Herbert, and I was told Mr. Fox never forgave the gross act of
duplicity by which he had been made a dupe.
The Duke of York was spoken of, as a well meaning and an honest
man, but as one scarcely on a level with the ordinary scale of
human intellect. Neither he nor his brother, however, had any proper
knowledge of _meum_ and _tuum_, a fault that was probably as much
owing to the flatterers that surrounded them, and to defective
educations, as to natural tendencies.
My informant added, that, George III. and the Duke of York excepted,
all the men of the family possessed a faculty of expressing their
thoughts, that was quite out of keeping, with the value of the
thoughts themselves. The Duke of Kent he said formed an exception
to the latter part of the rule, being clever; as, though in a
less degree, was the Duke of Sussex. Having so good a source of
information, I was curious to know how far the vulgar rumours which
we had heard of the classical attainments of the present king were
to be relied on. To this question my companion answered pithily, “he
may be able to write good Latin, but he cannot write intelligible
English.” I have seen a letter or two, myself, which sufficiently
corroborate the latter opinion, for if one were to search for rare
specimens of the rigmarole, he might be satisfied with these. George
III. did little better.
As the conversation naturally turned on the tendency to adulation
and flattery in a court, and their blighting influence on the moral
qualities of both parties, my companion related an instance so much
in point, that it is worth repeating. A Scotch officer, of no very
extraordinary merit, but who had risen to high employments by
personal assiduity and the arts of a courtier, was in the presence
of George III., at Windsor, in company with one or two others,
at a moment when ceremony was banished. That simple-minded and
well-meaning monarch was a little apt to admit of tangents in the
discourse, and he suddenly exclaimed “D——, it appears to me that you
and I are just of a height—let’s measure, let’s measure.” The general
placed his back to that of the king, but instead of submitting to the
process of measurement, he kept moving his head in a way to prevent
it. Another tangent drew the king off, and he left the room. “Why
didn’t you stand still, and let him measure, D——,” asked a looker-on.
“You kept bobbing your head so, he could do nothing.” “Well, I
did’n’t know whether he wanted to be taller, or shorter.”
George III. has got great credit, in America, for his celebrated
speech to Mr. Adams, whom he told “that he had been the last man in
his kingdom to consent to the independence of America, and he should
be the last man to call it in question, now it was admitted.” If he
ever made such a declaration, it was a truly regal speech, and of
a character with those that are often made by sovereigns, who, if
wanting in tact themselves, draw on those around them for a supply.
It is now generally understood that the answer of Charles X., when he
appeared at the gates of Paris in 1814, as Lieutenant-General of the
kingdom, where he is made to say, “that nothing is changed, except
in the presence of another Frenchman,” was invented for him, by a
clever subordinate, at the suggestion of M. de Talleyrand.[12] The
dying speech of Dessaix, was put into his mouth by the First Consul,
in his despatches I believe, for the Duc de ——, who stood at his side
when he fell, assured me that the ball passed through his head, and
that he died without uttering a syllable.
“_Is not the truth, the truth?_”
It would seem not.
LETTER X.
TO WILLIAM JAY, ESQ., BEDFORD, N. Y.
I remember that some five and twenty years ago, you and I had a
discussion on the supposed comparative merits of parliament and
congress, considering both strictly as legislative bodies. I say
supposed, for it was pretty much supposition, since you had never
been out of your own country, and although I had actually been twice
in England, and even in London at that time, it was at an age so
young, and under circumstances so little favourable to obtaining
the knowledge necessary to such a subject, that I was no better off
than yourself, as to facts. It is true we had both read speeches
attributed to Lord Chatham and Mr. Burke, and Fox and Pitt, and
sundry other orators, and which were written by Dr. Johnson and his
successors in the grinding line, but this was a very different thing
from having looked, and listened, and judged for oneself. In short,
we did, what most young men of our age would probably have done,
under the same circumstances; we uttered valueless opinions in an
oracular manner, convincing no one but ourselves, and positively
edifying nobody.
I thought of this discussion, which was longer even than a speech in
congress, occupying no small portion of the Christmas holidays in the
country, as I first put foot in the room in which were assembled the
Commons of England.
I went down to St. Stephen’s about six o’clock, and, passing through
divers intricate ways, I finally reached a place where a man stood
in a sort of box, like the box-office keeper in a theatre, with the
difference that the retailer of places in the gallery of the House
of Commons carried on his business in an open and manly manner,
there being no necessity for peeping through a hole to get a sight
of his face. I am not quite certain that this is not the only thing
connected with parliament, that is not more or less mystified.
Having paid my half crown, I was permitted to go at large in a small
room with a high ceiling. Out of this room ascended some flights
of narrow steps, mounting which, I reached a narrow lobby, that
communicated by two doors in front with the gallery of the House,
and by two doors at its ends, with little pent-up rooms, which I
afterwards found answered as a sort of reporters’ guard rooms. There
was also a little door in front, between the two principal entrances,
by which the reporters alone went in and out of the gallery.
I found the chapel badly lighted, at least so it seemed from above.
There might have been fifty or sixty members present, more than
half of whom belonged to the ministerial side of the house, and
not a few of whom were coming and going pretty assiduously between
Bellamy’s and their seats. Bellamy’s is the name of the legislative
coffee-house, and it is in the building.
The speaker sat buried in a high chair, a sort of open pulpit, under
a canopy, with an enormous wig covering his head and shoulders. He
looked, by the dim light, like a feeble attenuated old man, or old
woman, for really it was not easy to say which; but his “_order_,
ORDER,” was uttered in a potent bass voice, and in a sort of octave
manner, that I have attempted to describe in writing. Whether this
ominous mode of calling to order was peculiar to the office, or to
the man, I cannot tell you, but quite likely the former, for there is
an hereditary deference for such a thing here, as well as for a wig.
The members sat with their hats on, but the speaker was uncovered,
if a man can be said to be uncovered who is buried in tow. They sit
on benches with backs of the ordinary height, and I counted six
members with one foot on the backs of the benches before them, and
three with both feet. The latter were very interesting attitudes, a
good deal resembling those which your country buck is apt to take
in an American bar-room, and which I have seen in a church. I do
not mention these trifles to draw any great moral, or political
consequences from them, but simply because similar things have been
commented on in connection with congress, and ascribed to democracy.
I am of opinion political systems have little to do with these _tours
de forces_, but that there is rather a tendency in the Anglo-Saxon
race to put the heels higher than the head.
Behind the speaker’s chair, two members were stretched at full
length, asleep. I presume the benches they occupied were softer
than common, for two or three others seemed anxiously watching the
blissful moment of their waking, with an evident intention to succeed
them. One did arise, and a successor was in his place in less than a
minute. That I may dispose of this part of the subject, once for all,
I will add that, during the evening, three young men came into the
side gallery within fifteen feet of me, and stretched themselves on
the benches, where they were not visible to those in the body of the
house. Two were disposed to sleep, rationally, but one of them kept
pulling their coats and legs in a way to render it no easy matter,
when all three retired together laughing, as if it were a bad job. I
should think neither of the three was five and twenty.
I have now given you an exact account of the antics of the House of
Commons on my first visit, and as I made a note of them on the spot,
or rather in the lobby, to which we were driven once, in the course
of the evening; and shall merely add that, so far as my experience
goes, and it extends to a great many subsequent visits, they rather
characterize its meetings. I leave you to say whether they render the
legislature of England any worse or any better, though, for my own
part, I think it a matter of perfect moonshine. The only times when I
have seen this body in more regulated attitudes, have been occasions
when the house was so crowded as to compel the members to keep their
legs to themselves.
As respects the cries, so much spoken of, some of them are droll
enough. Of the “Hear, hear, hear,” I shall say nothing, unless it
be to tell you that they are so modulated as to express different
emotions. There is a member or two, just now, that are rather expert
in crowing like a cock, and I have known an attempt to bleat like a
lamb, but I think it was a failure. I was quite unprepared for one
species of interruption, which is a new invention, and seems likely
to carry all before it, for a time. Something that was said excited
a most pronounced dissatisfaction among the whigs, and they set up a
noise that was laughably like the qua-a-cking of a flock of ducks.
For some time I did not know what to make of it—then I thought the
cry was “Bar, bar, bar,” and fancied that they wished a delinquent
to be put at their bar: but I believe, after all, it was no more
than the introduction of the common French interjection “bah!” which
signifies dissent. The word is so sonorous, that twenty or thirty
men can make a very pretty uproar, by a diligent use of it.
You will ask what the speaker says to these interruptions? He says
“_order_ ORDER,”—and there the matter ends. I shall say nothing
against these practices, for I do not believe they essentially affect
the interests of the country, and, as Fuseli used to tell his wife,
when she got in a pet—“_Schwear_, my dear—do; _schwear_ a little,
it will do you good,” it may be a relief to a man to break out
occasionally in these vocal expressions of feeling, especially to
those who cannot, very conveniently to themselves, say any thing else.
No business of importance was done the night I paid my first visit,
although some discussion took place on one or two financial points.
Lord Althorp spoke for a few minutes, and in a manner so hesitating
and painful, that I was surprised at the respectful attention of the
House. But I was told he has its ear, from the circumstance of its
having faith in his intentions, and from a conviction that, although
he has hard work to get at it, he has really a fund of useful and
precise information. He is one of the most laboured and perplexed
speakers I have ever heard attempt to address a deliberative body.
Mr. Peel said a few words in reply, sufficient to give me an idea
of his manner, though I have since frequently heard him on more
important occasions.
The voice of Mr. Peel is pleasant and well modulated; he speaks with
facility, though in a slightly formal manner, and with a measured
accentuation that sometimes betrays him into false prosody, a fault
that is very common with all but the gifted few, in elocution. He
called “opinion,” for instance, this evening, “_o_-pinion,” and
“occasion” “_o_-casion.” If there were a word between persuasive and
coaxing, I should select it as the one that best describes the manner
of Mr. Peel. The latter would do him great injustice, as it wants his
dignity, and argument, and force; and the former would, I think, do
injustice to truth, as there is too evident an effort to insinuate
himself into the good opinion of the listener, to render it quite
applicable. One rather resists than yields to a persuasion so very
obvious. It strikes me his manner savours more of _New_ than of _Old_
England, and I consider it a tribute to his reasoning powers and
knowledge, that he is listened to with so much respect, for whatever
may be the political and religious mystifications of the English,
(and it would not be easy to surpass either), there is a homely
honesty in the public mind, that greatly indisposes it to receive
_visible_ management with favour.
The voice of Mr. Peel is not unlike that of Mr. Wirt, though not as
melodious, while his elocution is less perfect, and he has not the
same sincerity. Still I know no American speaker to whom he can so
well be compared. There is something about him between our eastern
and southern modes of speaking. Some of his soft sounds, those
of the _u_ for instance, were exaggerated, like those of one who
had studied Walker instead of obtaining his pronunciation in the
usual way, while others, again, came out naturally, and were rather
startling to a nice ear.
Sir Francis Burdett spoke, for a few minutes, in the course of
the evening. By the way, the English do not pronounce this name
Bur_dett_, but _Bur_dit He is tall and thin, more than ultra in
height as in opinions, with a singularly long neck. In personal
appearance, though rather handsome than otherwise, he is almost as
much out of the common way as John Randolph of Roanoke. He had much
less fluency and parliamentary neatness than I should have expected
in one of so much practice, though he was quite self-possessed. I
do not know whether you ever heard our old friend, Mr. James Morris
of Morrisania, speak in public, but if you have, you will at once
get an idea of the manner of Sir Francis Burdett. They have the same
gentlemanlike deliberation—the same quiet, measured utterance—the
same good drawing-room, or dinner-table tone, and a similarity in
voice and enunciation that to me was quite startling.
Sir Francis Burdett, whose name once filled all mouths in England,
no longer attracts much political attention. He probably struck his
first notes on too high a key, not to fall into an octave below,
before the air was finished. Your true and lasting melody steals
slowly on the ear, commencing with more modulated strains, and rising
gradually with the feelings that the sounds awaken. Luther, who has
left a steadily increasing impression on the world, would probably
have shrunk with horror, at first, from the degree of reformation to
which he finally arrived by slower and more certain means. It may
also be questioned if Sir Francis Burdett had a mind sufficiently
original, or a reason logical enough, either to conceive or to
maintain the reform that England needs, and, sooner or later, will
have, or take revolution in its stead.
Mr. Hume had something to say, too, during that portion of the debate
which referred to some of the minor expenses of the government He
was respectfully heard, and had a business-like and matter-of-fact
manner, that was adapted to catch the attention of those who wished
for practical details. He seemed earnest and honest, and has as
little of the demagogue in externals, as any man in the house; far
less than Mr. Peel, who sat on the treasury bench. He has not the
smallest pretension to eloquence, but speaks like a man who is
indifferent to every thing but his facts, with which he seems to have
made himself sufficiently acquainted by plodding investigation. A
course like this may certainly be overdone, but in such a government
it may also be eminently useful. There is a Scottish industry and
perseverance about this member that are respectable, while they are
not without amusement to the observer of personal and national
traits.
When the principal business of the night was disposed of, there came
up a question that was admirably suited to draw out the true and
prevailing character of the British parliament. It was a law relating
to the servants of the country, and one which, of course, affected
the interests and comforts of all who kept them. The legislature of
this country controls the mightiest interests, it is true, but it is
under the direction of a very few minds, the _oi polloi_ of the two
houses merely echoing the sentiments of their leaders, in all such
matters; but, when a question arises touching the pantry, or the
chase, or the preserves, a chord is struck that vibrates through the
legislative multitude, coming home to the knowledge and practice of
every man who has a seat. Accordingly, this question called up a set
of orators who are usually content to be silent.