exaggerations that prevail concerning the incomes of the gentry of
the country. He has adopted a very simple and a very accurate mode
to prove his case, which, it strikes me, he has done completely.
“Vulgar” rumour gives Lord A—— thirty thousand a-year, he says, at
starting. “Now we all know that the estates of Lord A—— consist of
such and such manors, in such a county, and of so many more manors,
all of which he names, in some other county.” These manors he shows
to contain so many acres of land. The rental in each county is pretty
well known, and, taking it at two pounds the acre, he calculates
that nine thousand acres give but eighteen thousand a-year, _gross_
income. This diminishes the popular rental nearly one-half. In this
manner he goes on to show, in a great many real cases, (mine being
suppositious), how enormously fame has exaggerated the truth in
these matters. In estimating the struggle between the wealth that is
in possession of power, and that which is excluded by the present
political system of England, you are, therefore, to discard from your
mind fully one-half of what is popularly said about the former, as
sheer exaggeration.
Still the aristocracy of this country is very powerful. It has
enlisted in its favour a strong national feeling, a portion of which
is well founded, a part of which is fraudulent, and even wicked, and
some of which is dependent on one of the most abject conditions of
the mind to which man is liable. By aristocracy I do not now mean
merely the peers and their heirs, but that class which is identified
by blood, intermarriages, possessions, and authority in the
government, for you are never to forget, though the House of Commons
does contain a few members who are exceptions, that the controlling
majority of that body is, to all intents and purposes, no more than
another section of the interests represented by the peers. The two
bodies may occasionally disagree, but it is as partners discuss
their common concerns, and as the lords frequently disagree among
themselves.
The English gentlemen have the merits of courage, manliness,
intelligence, and manners.—Their morals are overrated, except as to
the vices which are connected with meanness. Perhaps there is less
of the latter than is commonly found in countries where the upper
classes are more directly under the influence of courts, but even
of this there is much, very much, more than it is common to believe
in America. As between the English and ourselves, I honestly think
we have the advantage of them on this point. They are our superiors
in manners and in intelligence; they are our superiors in all that
manliness which is dependent on opinion, but certainly I have known
things practised, and that pretty openly, in connexion with interest,
by men of condition here, which could not well be done by a gentleman
with us, without losing _caste_. In the northern states we have
very few families whose sons would now hesitate about embarking in
commerce, at need, and this, of itself, is a great outlet (as well as
inlet) for the vices of a pecuniary nature. The prejudices connected
with this one subject are the cause of half the meannesses of Europe.
The man who would hesitate about suffering his name to appear in a
commercial firm would pass his life in a commission of meannesses,
not to say crimes, that should put him to the ban of society. This
feeling is daily becoming weaker in England, but it is still strong.
Men of family scarcely ever engage _openly_ in commerce, though
they often do things _covertly_, which, besides possessing the
taint of trade, have not the redeeming merit of even its equivocal
ethics. To them the army, navy, church and government patronage are
almost the only resources. The latter facts have given rise to two
of the most odious of the practical abuses of the present system. A
few occasionally appear at the bar, but more as criminals than as
advocates. The profession is admitted within the pale of society, as
it opens the way to the peerage and to parliament, but it requires
too much labour and talents to be in favour. A physician in England
ranks higher, professionally, than almost any where else, but he is
scarcely considered an equal in the higher set. The younger sons of
peers enter all the professions but that of medicine, but I never
heard of one who chose to be a doctor. A curate may become Archbishop
of Canterbury, but a physician can merely hope to reach a baronetcy,
a dignity little coveted. Like our “Honourables,” and “Colonels,” it
is not in vogue with the higher classes. I cannot better illustrate
the state of feeling here, in relation to these minor titles, than
by our own in relation to the appellations named, which are of much
account in certain sets, but which it is thought bad taste to bandy
among gentlemen.
The masculine properties of the English aristocracy (I include the
gentry, you will remember) have deservedly given them favour with
the nation. They owe something of this to the climate, which is
favourable to field sports, and something, I think, to the nature
of their empire which has fostered enterprise. Physically they
are neither larger, nor stronger, nor more active than ourselves,
but I think they attend more to manly exercises. The army has
been exclusively their property, for it is necessary, in such a
government, to keep it in the hands of those who rule. The purchase
of commissions is strictly in unison with the spirit of the system.
Then the insulated situation of the kingdom, coupled with its wealth,
induce travelling. The influence of the latter can scarcely be
overrated, and no nation has so many motives for quitting home. The
English go abroad for the sake of economy, for while their actual
expenses are less, their incomes are increased from five to twenty
per cent., by the usual courses of exchange. Formerly none but men of
rank went abroad, and they were distinguished from the rest of the
nation by their taste and liberality, but now all the genteel classes
(and some below them even) travel. It is true the English character
on the Continent has suffered by the change, but the English nation
is greatly the gainer.
The English gentlemen are not sparing of their persons in war,
or in civil troubles. They would not have abandoned Paris to a
mob, in 1792.[20] These are qualities to captivate the mass, who
greatly prize daring and physical excellencies. Although there is a
considerable and certainly an increasing hostility to the exclusive
classes of England, there is also a deep feeling of respect and
even of attachment for them, in a portion of the nation. Perhaps
no aristocracy was ever less enervated or thrown off its guard, by
the enjoyment of its advantages, than this, a fact that must be
attributed, too, to the circumstance that the public, by possessing
so many more franchises than usual, have kept them constantly on
the alert. In the event of any struggle between the aristocrats and
the mass, I should say that much may be expected from the manliness
and spirit of the former, enough, perhaps, aided as these qualities
would be by their habits of control and combination, to secure the
victory, were it not that the very affluence of intelligence in this
portion of the nation, would always put at the command of the people
sufficient men of minds and authority to direct them. Although a wide
reform, wide enough to admit themselves, would be apt to be sustained
by the _novi homines_, revolution would not; for the new rich, as a
body, are always found on the side opposed to popular rights; and the
aristocracy would have most to apprehend from seceders from their
own body, as leaders, unless events, as probably would be the case,
should raise up some man of native fitness for the station, from the
ranks of the people themselves.
That part of the present influence of the aristocracy which is
fraudulent and even wicked, is connected with a wide-spread system
of studied misrepresentation, and with abuses connected with the
church. As I shall probably have occasion to write a short letter
on the subject of the latter, I will touch on the former alone,
at present. While the aristocracy itself is so well mannered and
less apt to betray illiberal sentiments than the classes beneath
it, I cannot think it free from the imputation of having conspired
to circulate the atrocious misrepresentations which have been so
industriously promulgated against ourselves, for instance, during
the last half century. They may despise the traitors, but they
love the treason. The whole code of prejudices and false political
maxims which pervade society here, is the offspring of a system of
which they are the head. They have differed from the other nations
of Europe, in which power is exclusive, in the circumstance of the
franchises of the nation. A franchise is not power of itself, but it
is an exemption from the abuses of power. As it was not possible to
muzzle the press, it has become necessary to make it the instrument
of circulating falsehood. No means of effecting such an end are so
certain as that of creating prejudice, which instantly becomes an
active and efficient agent in attaining the end. The United States,
her system, national character, historical facts, people, habits,
manners, and morals, for obvious reasons, have been one principal
object for these assaults, but as I may have occasion to speak of
the Anglo-American question hereafter, I will now allude only to the
internal action of the system.
Thirty-six years ago, you and I were school-fellows and class-mates,
in the house of a clergyman of the true English school. This man
was an epitome of the national prejudices, and, in some respects,
of the national character. He was the son of a beneficed clergyman
in England; had been regularly graduated at Oxford and admitted to
orders; entertained a most profound reverence for the king and the
nobility; was not backward in expressing his contempt for all classes
of dissenters and all ungentlemanly sects; was particularly severe
on the immoralities of the French revolution, and, though eating our
bread, was not especially lenient to our own; compelled you and me
to begin Virgil with the Eclogues, and Cicero with the knotty phrase
that opens the oration in favour of the poet Archias, “because their
writers would not have had placed them first in the books if they did
not intend people to read them first;” spent his money freely, and
sometimes that of other people; was particularly tenacious of the
ritual, and of all the decencies of the church, detested a democrat
as he did the devil; cracked his jokes daily about Mr. Jefferson and
Black Sal, never failing to place his libertinism in strong relief
against the approved morals of George III., of several passages in
whose history, it is charity to suppose he was ignorant; prayed
fervently of Sundays; decried all morals, institutions, churches,
manners and laws but those of England, Mondays and Saturdays; and, as
it subsequently became known, was living every day in the week, _in
vinculo matrimonii_, with another man’s wife!
You know this sketch to be true. Now, I do not mean to tell you
that all the stronger features of this case are at all national,
but I think the prejudices, the pretending condemnation of the
moral defects of those who did not think exactly as he did, and the
blindness to his own faults, are. In this particular, that church of
which our old master was a member, in doing the state good service,
has done itself a grave injury. The popular mind has been so acted
on, by a parade of religious influences, that millions of Englishmen
attach a sense of criminality to the efforts of those who would
reform the government. I think you must have observed how seldom one
has found an active English reformer left in possession of a fair
moral character. The course has usually been to commence by assailing
the liberals with sneers, in connection with their origin, their
pursuits, and their motives. These attacks have been addressed to the
abject feeling which the establishment of an aristocracy has formed
in the minds of the mass, and which has created a sort of impression
that birth and fortune are necessary to the civic virtues. He who
should make it matter of reproach against a public man in France,
that he came of the people, would lose more than he would gain by
his argument, and yet it is a constant weapon of the English party
tactics. Failing of success, by these means, the next assault is
against the character.
The English themselves are apt to attribute the latter expedient to a
creditable feeling in the nation, which invites, by its moral sense,
exposures of this nature. The reasoning may be true in part, or it
is true up to the level of the dogmas of the decency-and-seemliness
school which the system has created, but it is flagrantly false when
viewed on pure Christian principles. Coupled with the grossness of
language, the personalities, the vindictiveness and the obvious
deformities of hostility and art, with which these attacks are
usually made, nothing can be more inherently offensive to the
feelings of those, of whom the “chiefest virtue” is charity. But we
need no better proof that the whole is the result of a factitious
state of things, in which a parade of morals is made to serve an end,
than the fact, that, while every man who shows a generous mind is
peculiarly obnoxious to be accused of vice, they who are notorious
for their misdeeds are not only overlooked, but spoken of in terms
of reverence, if they happen to belong to the dominant party. You
will understand me; I am not now speaking of the common party
abuse, which varies with events, but of a deliberate and systematic
method of vituperation, by means of which the idea of liberalism in
politics has become associated in the public mind, with irreligion,
libertinism, pecuniary dishonesty, and, in short, with a general
want of moral principle. As a consequence, men habitually, think of
Mr. A——, or Sir George B——, or Lord C——, as persons to be condemned
for their sins, though the very vices of which they are accused are
openly practised by half the favourites and leaders of the other
side, with impunity as regards the public. I can quote to you the
instance of Washington, who was accused of being an unprincipled
adventurer, at the commencement of the revolution, as a case in
point; and I dare say your own scrupulous and pious father, passed
for a fellow no better than he should be, with a majority of the
well-intentioned English of that day.
It seems to me that there is a singular conformity between English
opinion and the English institutions. The liberty of the country
consists in franchises, which secures a certain amount of personal
rights, and not in a broad system, which shall insure the control of
numbers. As individuals, I am inclined to think the English (meaning
those who are easy in their circumstances) do more as they please
than any other people on earth; while the moment they begin to think
and act collectively, I know no nation in which the public mind is so
much influenced by factitious and arbitrary rules. Something like
the very converse of this exists with us.
I have little to say about the influence which the aristocracy
possess through the deference of their inferiors. Strange as it
may seem, the subordinate classes take a sort of pride in them.
Such a feeling can only have arisen from the depression of the less
fortunate, and it is quite plain has gathered no small part of its
intensity from any thing but that knowledge which leaves “no man a
hero with his _valet-de-chambre_.” It exists to a singular degree, in
despite of all the bluster about liberty, and I can safely say that I
never yet knew an Englishman, I care not of what degree of talents,
who did not appreciate the merits of a nobleman, to a certain extent,
by his rank, unless he lived in free and constant communion with
men of rank himself. I have found the nobles of England, certainly,
as I have already told you, but it has often puzzled me to discover
the aristocratic mien, the aristocratic ears, aristocratic fingers,
aristocratic nails, and aristocratic feet that these people talk and
write so much about. I have been often led to think of that _jeu
d’esprit_ of Hopkinson, where he says
“The _rebel_ vales, the _rebel_ dales,
With _rebel_ trees surrounded,
The distant woods, the hills and floods,
With _rebel_ echoes sounded,”
in reading of these marvels. I need scarcely tell you that an
English nobleman is morally much as the highest gentleman of a
great and polished empire might be supposed to be, and in physical
formation very like other men. His ears may, occasionally, be a
little more obvious than common, but he possesses no immunity by
which they can be made smaller than those of all around him.
I think this feeling of deference, however, is so interwoven with
all the habits of thought and reasoning of the nation, that its
_prestige_ will long confer an advantage on the nobles of England,
unless the torrent of change, by being unnaturally and unwisely
dammed, gain so much head as to sweep all before it.
There is no great princely nobility in England, like that which
exists on the continent of Europe, and which, royal personages in
fact curtailed of their power by the events of this and of past ages,
is still deemed worthy of forming royal alliances. In blood, modern
alliances, and antiquity, the English nobles, as a class, rank among
the lowest of Europe, their importance being owing to the peculiarity
of their political connexion with one of the first, if not the very
first state of Christendom. I do not know that their private wealth
at all surpasses that of the great nobles of the continent, those
of France excepted; although there is no inferior nobility here, as
there, the younger sons sinking at once into the class of commoners.
When the Howards of the fifteenth century were just emerging from
obscurity, the Guzmans, the Radziuils, the Arembergs, and hundreds
of other houses were sinking from the rank of princes into that of
their present condition. The ancestors of Talleyrand were deprived
of their possessions as sovereign counts, a century before the first
Howard was ennobled. As to the ancient baronies that figure among
the titles of the English, they are derived from a class of men who
would have been followers, and not the equals, of the Guzmans and
Perigords, five centuries since. There appear to me to be two errors
prevalent on this subject; that of overrating the relative importance
and antiquity of the nobility of England, (except when viewed as a
political aristocracy, or since the revolution of 1688) and that of
underrating the true condition of the English gentry. All this is not
of much importance, though I was lately told of a German princess who
spoke of a marriage with the House of Hanover, as a _mésalliance_!
END OF VOL. I.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This was in 1828; at the return of the writer to England, in
1833, there was a gallery in the House of Lords, and it is hardly
necessary to say, that, since that time, both houses have been burnt.
[2] Esquires were formerly created by patent.
[3] A little of this feeling is getting up in Paris, under the new
order of things, which favour the pretensions of money, but France is
in the transition state, and it is too soon to predict the result.
[4] In consequence of the delay in publishing these “gleanings,” the
writer is often doubtful whether he ought to indulge such prophecies.
These words, however, were actually written in 1828.
[5] This lady is just dead, in her ninety-ninth year.
[6] George III. was born in this house. See Wraxall.
[7] Now Sutherland-house; the Marquis of Stafford having been raised
to the rank of Duke of Sutherland.
[8] Mr. Washington Alston was once asked, “what is a scirocco?” The
celebrated painter pithily described it, as a “Boston east-wind
BOILED.” It is a great advantage to be able to take the spring
weather of London _raw_; and raw enough it is, of a verity.
[9] Sir Nicholas Wraxall, in his Posthumous Memoirs of his Own Times,
has probably given the true version of this tale. A person of the
name of Philipps was denied a request to have a carriage-road from
the park to his door, and to soften the refusal, Mr. Pitt offered him
an Irish peerage, which he accepted. One hears of many grounds for an
_illustration_, but this is the queerest on record; that of ennobling
a man “because a carriage-sweep may not be made between St. James’s
Park and his door!—_Comme vous violà bâti!_”
[10] Jack was shortly after made Chancellor of the Exchequer.
[11] “Decoration” is the proper word, I believe, for the badges of an
order; the French, however, frequently term them _crachats_, or _le
crachat du roi_, the king’s spittle!
[12] _Je la revois enfin, et rien n’y est changé, si ce n’est qu’il
s’y trouve un Français de plus._
[13] 1828.
[14] Coupling this conversation with subsequent knowledge, the writer
has been induced to think that Sir Walter Scott, at that time, was
not aware of the extent of his own liabilities. He mentioned a sum
that was greatly short of that reported to be due, soon after his
death, and which held an equitable lien on the estate of Abbotsford.
[15] A man who has since filled one of the highest offices under the
French government.
[16] The writer had a ludicrous specimen of this feeling, at a
later day, in Italy. An English minister’s wife gave a great ball,
and applications were constantly made for tickets. As the town was
small, this ball made a great sensation, and every one was talking
of it. It was no great sacrifice for the family of the writer to
preserve their self-respect on this occasion, as they lived retired
from choice. Hints began to be thrown out, and questions asked if
they had yet _procured_ tickets. At eight o’clock of the very night
of the entertainment, these important tickets arrived _unasked_! Of
course, no notice was taken of them. It will be remembered that all
this dog-in-the-manger_ism_ had nothing to do with the customs of the
country in which the parties were, it being usual for the natives to
give their guests more than two hours’ notice, when they wished to
see them at balls. This social _convoitise_ on one side, and coquetry
on the other, distinguish the English circles all over Europe.
[17] This arrangement was subsequently changed.
[18] Even in the parliament of 1832, I find no less than seventy-four
of the _eldest_ sons and _heirs_ of peers, sitting as commoners.
Among them are Lords Surrey, Tavistock, Worcester, Douro, Graham,
Mandeville, and Chandos. All of whom are the eldest sons of Dukes.
In the parliament of 1830, were also Lords Seymour, Euston, and
Blandford, of the same rank.
[19] Just before the writer left England, the Lords threw out the
bill for the repeal of the Test Laws. Shortly after, the matter
was brought up anew, and the authorities of orthodox Oxford were
assembled to petition _against_ the measure. On the day of meeting,
however, to the astonishment of every body, speeches were made in
_favour_ of the repeal by several prominent men. Of course the
petition was for repeal, for party is just as well drilled in Europe
as it is with us.
A few months later, I had the whole secret explained. A leading
dissenter, now a member of parliament, told me that he and his
friends gave the government to understand distinctly, that if
the Test Laws were not repealed, the dissenters of England would
make common cause with the Catholics of Ireland, and overturn the
establishment.
The following anecdote is also derived from the best authority. About
the time nullification was rife in America, a gentleman, also in
parliament, went from London to a dinner in the country. He found
the Right Rev. Lord Bishop of ——, among the company. “What news do
you bring us from town, Mr. ——?” asked the consecrated christian.
“No news, my Lord.” “No news! We were told there was _good_ news.”
“To what do you allude, my Lord?” “Why, we were told there is every
reason to expect a speedy dissolution of the American Union.”
[20] In 1830-31, when England was menaced with revolution, the
English travellers on the Continent of Europe, hurried back to their
own country, to be at their posts.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.