A gentleman!
What o’ the woolpack? or the sugar-chest?
Or lists of velvet? which is ‘t, pound, or yard,
You vend your gentry by?
BEGGAR’S BUSH.
THERE are few places more favorable to the study of character than an
English country church. I was once passing a few weeks at the seat of
a friend who resided in, the vicinity of one the appearance of which
particularly struck my fancy. It was one of those rich morsels of quaint
antiquity, which gives such a peculiar charm to English landscape.
It stood in the midst of a country filled with ancient families, and
contained within its cold and silent aisles the congregated dust of many
noble generations. The interior walls were encrusted with monuments
of every age and style. The light streamed through windows dimmed with
armorial bearings, richly emblazoned in stained glass. In various parts
of the church were tombs of knights, and highborn dames, of gorgeous
workmanship, with their effigies in colored marble. On every side, the
eye was struck with some instance of aspiring mortality, some haughty
memorial which human pride had erected over its kindred dust in this
temple of the most humble of all religions.
The congregation was composed of the neighboring people of rank, who sat
in pews sumptuously lined and cushioned, furnished with richly-gilded
prayer-books, and decorated with their arms upon the pew doors; of the
villagers and peasantry, who filled the back seats and a small gallery
beside the organ; and of the poor of the parish, who were ranged on
benches in the aisles.
The service was performed by a snuffling, well-fed vicar, who had a snug
dwelling near the church. He was a privileged guest at all the tables
of the neighborhood, and had been the keenest fox-hunter in the country,
until age and good living had disabled him from doing anything more than
ride to see the hounds throw off, and make one at the hunting dinner.
Under the ministry of such a pastor, I found it impossible to get into
the train of thought suitable to the time and place; so, having, like
many other feeble Christians, compromised with my conscience, by laying
the sin of my own delinquency at another person’s threshold, I occupied
myself by making observations on my neighbors.
I was as yet a stranger in England, and curious to notice the manners
of its fashionable classes. I found, as usual, that there was the least
pretension where there was the most acknowledged title to respect. I was
particularly struck, for instance, with the family of a nobleman of high
rank, consisting of several sons and daughters. Nothing could be more
simple and unassuming than their appearance. They generally came to
church in the plainest equipage, and often on foot. The young ladies
would stop and converse in the kindest manner with the peasantry, caress
the children, and listen to the stories of the humble cottagers. Their
countenances were open and beautifully fair, with an expression of
high refinement, but at the same time a frank cheerfulness and engaging
affability. Their brothers were tall, and elegantly formed. They were
dressed fashionably, but simply--with strict neatness and propriety, but
without any mannerism or foppishness. Their whole demeanor was easy
and natural, with that lofty grace and noble frankness which bespeak
free-born souls that have never been checked in their growth by feelings
of inferiority. There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity, that
never dreads contact and communion with others, however humble. It is
only spurious pride that is morbid and sensitive, and shrinks from every
touch. I was pleased to see the manner in which they would converse with
the peasantry about those rural concerns and field-sports in which the
gentlemen of the country so much delight. In these conversations there
was neither haughtiness on the one part, nor servility on the other, and
you were only reminded of the difference of rank by the habitual respect
of the peasant.
In contrast to these was the family of a wealthy citizen, who had
amassed a vast fortune, and, having purchased the estate and mansion of
a ruined nobleman in the neighborhood, was endeavoring to assume all the
style and dignity of an hereditary lord of the soil. The family always
came to church en prince. They were rolled majestically along in a
carriage emblazoned with arms. The crest glittered in silver radiance
from every part of the harness where a crest could possibly be placed.
A fat coachman, in a three-cornered hat richly laced and a flaxen wig,
curling close round his rosy face, was seated on the box, with a sleek
Danish dog beside him. Two footmen in gorgeous liveries, with huge
bouquets, and gold-headed canes, lolled behind. The carriage rose and
sunk on its long springs with a peculiar stateliness of motion. The very
horses champed their bits, arched their necks, and glanced their eyes
more proudly than common horses; either because they had caught a little
of the family feeling, or were reined up more tightly than ordinary.
I could not but admire the style with which this splendid pageant
was brought up to the gate of the churchyard. There was a vast effect
produced at the turning of an angle of the wall--a great smacking of the
whip, straining and scrambling of the horses, glistening of harness, and
flashing of wheels through gravel. This was the moment of triumph and
vainglory to the coachman. The horses were urged and checked, until they
were fretted into a foam. They threw out their feet in a prancing trot,
dashing about pebbles at every step. The crowd of villagers sauntering
quietly to church opened precipitately to the right and left, gaping in
vacant admiration. On reaching the gate, the horses were pulled up with
a suddenness that produced an immediate stop, and almost threw them on
their haunches.
There was an extraordinary hurry of the footmen to alight, pull down the
steps, and prepare everything for the descent on earth of this august
family. The old citizen first emerged his round red face from out the
door, looking about him with the pompous air of a man accustomed to rule
on ‘Change, and shake the Stock Market with a nod. His consort, a fine,
fleshy, comfortable dame, followed him. There seemed, I must confess,
but little pride in her composition. She was the picture of broad,
honest, vulgar enjoyment. The world went well with her; and she liked
the world. She had fine clothes, a fine house, a fine carriage, fine
children--everything was fine about her: it was nothing but driving
about and visiting and feasting. Life was to her a perpetual revel; it
was one long Lord Mayor’s Day.
Two daughters succeeded to this goodly couple. They certainly were
handsome, but had a supercilious air that chilled admiration and
disposed the spectator to be critical. They were ultrafashionable in
dress, and, though no one could deny the richness of their decorations,
yet their appropriateness might be questioned amidst the simplicity of
a country church. They descended loftily from the carriage, and moved up
the line of peasantry with a step that seemed dainty of the soil it trod
on. They cast an excursive glance around, that passed coldly over the
burly faces of the peasantry, until they met the eyes of the nobleman’s
family, when their countenances immediately brightened into smiles, and
they made the most profound and elegant courtesies, which were returned
in a manner that showed they were but slight acquaintances.
I must not forget the two sons of this inspiring citizen, who came to
church in a dashing curricle with outriders. They were arrayed in the
extremity of the mode, with all that pedantry of dress which marks
the man of questionable pretensions to style. They kept entirely by
themselves, eying every one askance that came near them, as if measuring
his claims to respectability; yet they were without conversation, except
the exchange of an occasional cant phrase. They even moved artificially,
for their bodies, in compliance with the caprice of the day, had been
disciplined into the absence of all ease and freedom. Art had done
everything to accomplish them as men of fashion, but Nature had denied
them the nameless grace. They were vulgarly shaped, like men formed for
the common purposes of life, and had that air of supercilious assumption
which is never seen in the true gentleman.
I have been rather minute in drawing the pictures of these two families,
because I considered them specimens of what is often to be met with in
this country--the unpretending great, and the arrogant little. I have no
respect for titled rank, unless it be accompanied with true nobility
of soul; but I have remarked, in all countries where artificial
distinctions exist, that the very highest classes are always the most
courteous and unassuming. Those who are well assured of their own
standing are least apt to trespass on that of others; whereas, nothing
is so offensive as the aspirings of vulgarity, which thinks to elevate
itself by humiliating its neighbor.
As I have brought these families into contrast, I must notice their
behavior in church. That of the nobleman’s family was quiet, serious,
and attentive. Not that they appeared to have any fervor of devotion,
but rather a respect for sacred things, and sacred places, inseparable
from good-breeding. The others, on the contrary, were in a perpetual
flutter and whisper; they betrayed a continual consciousness of finery,
and the sorry ambition of being the wonders of a rural congregation.
The old gentleman was the only one really attentive to the service. He
took the whole burden of family devotion upon himself; standing bolt
upright, and uttering the responses with a loud voice that might be
heard all over the church. It was evident that he was one of these
thorough Church-and-king men, who connect the idea of devotion and
loyalty; who consider the Deity, somehow or other, of the government
party, and religion “a very excellent sort of thing, that ought to be
countenanced and kept up.”
When he joined so loudly in the service, it seemed more by way of
example to the lower orders, to show them that, though so great and
wealthy, he was not above being religious; as I have seen a turtle-fed
alderman swallow publicly a basin of charity soup, smacking his lips at
every mouthful and pronouncing it “excellent food for the poor.”
When the service was at an end, I was curious to witness the several
exits of my groups. The young noblemen and their sisters, as the day
was fine, preferred strolling home across the fields, chatting with the
country people as they went. The others departed as they came, in grand
parade. Again were the equipages wheeled up to the gate. There was again
the smacking of whips, the clattering of hoofs, and the glittering of
harness. The horses started off almost at a bound; the villagers again
hurried to right and left; the wheels threw up a cloud of dust, and the
aspirin family was rapt out of sight in a whirlwind.