In our last April number--on the appropriate Day of Fools--we laid
before our readers a few stray flowers of speech, culled with little
labour in that rich garden of oratorical delight--the Congress of the
United States. Sweets to the sweet!--We confess that we designed that
salutary exposure less for the benefit of our readers and subscribers in
the Old World, than of those who are our readers, but not our
subscribers, in the New. For, in the absence of an international
copyright law, Maga is extensively pirated in the United States,
extensively read, and we fear very imperfectly digested. This
arrangement appears to us to work badly for all the parties concerned.
It robs the British publisher, and impoverishes the native author. As to
the American public, if our precepts had exercised any influence upon
their practice, they would have learned long ago that ill-gotten goods
never prosper, and that they who make booty of other men's wits, are not
excepted from the general condemnation of wrong-doers. Some day,
perhaps, they will consent to profit by what they prig, and thus, like
the fat knight, turn their diseases to commodity--the national disease
of _appropriation_ to the commodity of self-knowledge and self-rebuke.
An American journalist, however, has put the matter in quite a new
light, so far as we are concerned. Lord Demus, it appears, like other
despots, is a hard master, and exacts from his most oppressed slaves a
tribute of constant adulation. We, too, are invited to applaud his
felonious favours, and assured that the honour and glory of being read
by him on his own free and easy terms, is enough for the like of us.
"So long," says the editor of the _New York Gazette_ and _Times_ "as our
National Legislature refuses to give the Republic an International
Copyright Law, so that American periodicals of a higher class may be
supported among us, the English reviews will do the thinking of our
people upon a great variety of subjects. They make no money, indeed,
directly, by their circulation here; but their conductors cannot but
feel the importance, and value the influence of having the whole
American literary area to themselves. _Blackwood_, whose circulation on
this side of the Atlantic is, on account of its cheapness, double
perhaps that which it can claim in the British islands, is more and more
turning its attention to American subjects, which it handles generally
with its wonted humorous point, and witty spitefulness."
This is very fine; but we can assure our friendly critic, that we feel
no call whatever to undertake the gratuitous direction of the American
conscience. Our ambition to "do the thinking" of our Yankee cousins is
materially damped by the unpleasant necessity which it involves, of
being "done" ourselves. They seem, however, to claim a prescriptive
right to the works of the British press, as well as to the funds of the
British public. They read our books, on the same principle as they
borrow our money, and abuse their benefactors into the bargain with more
than Hibernian asperity. After all, however, we believe that the candour
of Maga has as much to do with their larcenous admiration of her pages,
as the "cheapness" to which our New York editor alludes. To use their
own phrase, "they go in for excitement considerable;" and, to be told of
their faults, is an excitement which they seldom enjoy at the hands of
their own authors. Now, we are accustomed to treat our own public as a
rational, but extremely fallible personage, and to think that we best
deserve his support, by administering to his failings the language of
unpalatable truth. And we greatly mistake the character of Demus, and
even of that conceited monster the American Demus,--
[Greek: agroikos orgen, kuamotrox, akracholos upokophos--]
if this be not the direction in which the interest, as well as the duty,
of the public writer lies. Certain it is, that even in the United States
those books circulate most freely, which lash most vigorously the vices
of the Republic. Honest Von Raumer's dull encomium fell almost
still-born from the press, while the far more superficial pages of
Dickens and Trollope were eagerly devoured by a people who are daily
given to understand, by their own authors, that they are the greatest,
the wisest, the most virtuous nation under the sun. Let a European
author be never so well disposed towards them, his partial applause
contributes but little to their full-blown complacency. But, when they
hear that the Republic has been traduced by a foreign, and especially a
British pen, their vanity is piqued, their curiosity excited, and their
conscience smitten. Every one denounces the libel in public, and every
one admits its truth to himself--"What!" say they, "does the Old World
in truth judge us thus harshly? Is it really scandalised by such trifles
as the repudiation of our debts, and the enslavement of our fellow
creatures? Must we give up our playful duels, and our convenient
spittoons, before we can hope to pass muster as Christians and gentlemen
beyond our own borders? O free Demus! O wise Demus! O virtuous Demus!
Will you betake yourself to cleanly, and well-ordered ways at the
bidding of this scribbler?" Thus "they eat, and eke they swear;" vowing
all the time that they "will horribly revenge." No doubt, however, the
bitter pill of foreign animadversion, though distasteful to the palate,
relieves the inflation of their stomachs, and leaves them better and
lighter than before. But when will a native Aristophanes arise to purge
the effeminacy of the American press, and show up the sausage-venders
and Cleons of the Republic in their true light? How long will the
richest field of national folly in the world remain unreaped, save by
the crotchety sickles of dull moralists and didactic pamphleteers?
Not that moral courage is entirely wanting in the United States; but it
is a kind of courage altogether too moral, and sadly deficient in animal
spirits. The New Englanders especially, set up, in their solemn way, to
admonish the vices of the Republic, and to inoculate them with the
virulent virtues of the Puritanical school. The good city of Boston
alone teems with transcendental schemes for the total and immediate
regeneration of mankind. There we find Peace Societies, and New Moral
World Societies, and Teetotal Societies, and Anti-Slavery Societies, all
"in full blast," each opposing to its respective bane the most sweeping
and exaggerated remedies. The Americans never do things by halves; their
vices and their virtues are alike in extremes, and the principles of the
second book of the Ethics of Aristotle[5] are altogether unknown to
their philosophy. At one moment they are all for "brandy and bitters,"
at the next, tea and turn-out is the order of the day, Here, you must
"liquor or fight"--there, a little wine for the stomach's sake is
sternly denied to a fit of colic, or an emergency of gripes. The moral
soul of Boston thrills with imaginings of perpetual peace, while St
Louis and New Orleans are volcanoes of war. Listen to the voice of New
England, and you would think that negro slavery was the only crime of
which a nation ever was, or could by possibility be guilty; go to South
Carolina, and you are instructed that "the Domestic Institution" is the
basis of democratic virtue, the cornerstone of the Republican edifice.
Cant, indeed, in one form or other, is the innate vice of the "earnest"
Anglo-Saxon mind, on both sides of the Atlantic, and ridicule is the
weapon which the gods have appointed for its mitigation. You must lay on
the rod with a will, and throw "moral suasion" to the dogs. Above all,
your demagogue dreads satire as vermin the avenging thumb--'Any thing
but that,' squeaks he, 'an you love me. Liken me to Lucifer, or Caius
Gracchus; charge me with ambition, and glorious vices; let me be the
evil genius of the commonwealth, the tinsel villain of the political
melodrama; but don't threaten me with the fool's cap, or write me down
with Dogberry; above all, don't quote me in cold blood, that the foolish
people may see, after the fever heat has subsided, what trash I have
palmed upon them in the name of liberty!' Yet this is the way, Jonathan,
to deal with demagogues. You make too much of yours, man. You are not
the blockhead we take you for after all; but you delight to see your
public men in motley, and the rogues will fool you to the top of your
bent, till it is your pleasure to put down the show. So now that the
piper has to be paid, and a lucid interval appears to be dawning upon
you, to the pillory at once with these "stump" orators, and pot-house
politicians, who have led you into such silly scrapes; turn them about,
and look at them well in the rough, that you may know them again when
you see them, and learn to avoid for the future their foolish and
mischievous counsels.
It is remarkable that while a perception of the ridiculous, perhaps to
excess, is characteristic of the British mind, and is at the bottom of
many defects in the national manners, commonly attributed to less venial
feelings, our Transatlantic descendants err in just the opposite
direction. The Americans seldom laugh at any body, or any thing--never
at themselves; and this, next to an unfortunate trick of insolvency, and
a preternatural abhorrence of niggers, is perhaps the besetting sin of
an otherwise "smart" people. As individuals, their peculiarities are not
very marked; in truth there is a marvellous uniformity of bad habits
amongst them; but when viewed in their collective capacity, whenever two
or three of them are gathered together, shades of Democritus! commend us
to a seven-fold pocket-handkerchief. The humours of most nations expend
themselves on carnivals and feast-days, at the theatre, the ball-room,
or the public garden; but the fun of the United States is to be looked
for at public meetings, and philanthropical gatherings, in the halls of
lyceums, female academies, and legislative bodies. There they spout,
there they swell, and cover themselves with adulation as with a garment.
From the inauguration of a President, to the anniversary of the fair
graduates of the Slickville female Institute, no event is allowed to
pass without a grand palaver, in which things in general are extensively
discussed, and their own things in particular extensively praised. They
got the trick no doubt from us, whose performances in this line are
quite unrivalled in the Old World, but they have added to our platform
common-places a variety and "damnable iteration" entirely their own.
Besides, when Bull is called upon to make an ass of himself on such
occasions, he seems for the most part to have a due appreciation of the
fact, while Jonathan's imperturbability and apparent good faith are
quite sublime. The things that we have been compelled to hear of that
"star-spangled banner!"--and all as if they were spoken in real earnest,
and meant to be so understood. We look back upon those side-rending
moments with a kind of Lucretian pleasure, and indemnify ourselves for
past constraint by a hearty guffaw. All this magniloquence and bad
taste, however, is intelligible enough. It springs partly from a want of
discipline in their society, and partly from the absence of those
studies which purify the taste, enlighten the judgment, and make, even
dulness respectable. American audiences are not critical--not merely
because they are not learned, but because they all take it in turns to
be orators, as they do to be colonels of militia and justices of the
peace. Thus they learn to bear each other's burdens, and Dulness is
fully justified of her children. In a country where all men, at least in
theory, are equal, and where every man does in fact exercise a certain
influence on public affairs, it is not surprising that a large number of
persons should possess a certain facility of public speaking, which even
in England is far from universal, and is elsewhere possessed by very
few. No man in the United States is deterred from offering his views
upon matters of state, by the feeling that neither his education nor his
position justify his interference. It is difficult in England to realise
the practical equality which obtains as a fundamental principle in the
Republic. There every man feels himself to be, and in fact is, or at
least may be, a potential unit in the community. As a man, he is a
citizen--as a citizen, a sovereign, whose caprices are to be humoured,
and whose displeasure is to be deprecated. Judge Peddle, for instance,
from the backwoods, is not perhaps as eloquent as Webster, nor as
subtile as Calhoun, but he has just as good a right to be heard when he
goes up to Congress for all that. Is he not accounted an exemplary
citizen "and a pretty tall talker" in his own neighbourhood, and where
on "the univarsal airth" would you find a more enlightened public
opinion? It would never do to put Peddle down; that would be
_leze-majeste_ against his constituents, the sovereign people who dwell
in Babylon, which is in the county of Lafayette, on the banks of the
Chattawichee. Thus endorsed, Peddle soon lays aside his native
bashfulness, and makes the walls of Congress vocal to that bewitching
eloquence which heretofore captivated the Babylonish mind. He was
"raised a leettle too far to the west of sun-down" to be snubbed by
Down-easters, any how; he's a cock of the woods, he is; an "etarnal
screamer," "and that's a fact"--with a bowie knife under his waistcoat,
and a patent revolver in his coat pocket, both very much at the service
of any gentleman who may dispute his claims to popular or personal
consideration.
To meet the case of these volcanic statesmen,
"Aw'd by no shame, by no respect controll'd,"
and in order that the noble army of dunces (a potent majority, of
course) may have no reason to complain that the principles of equality
are violated in their persons, the House of Representatives has adopted
a regulation, commonly called "the one-hour rule." Upon this principle,
whenever a question of great interest comes up, each member is allotted
one hour by the Speaker's watch--as much less as he pleases, but no more
on any consideration. Of course it occasionally happens that a man who
has something to say, is not able to say it effectively within the hour;
but then, for one such, there are at least a dozen who would otherwise
talk for a week without saying any thing at all. Upon the whole,
therefore, this same one-hour rule is deserving of all praise--the time
of the country is saved by it, the sufferings of the more sensible
members are abbreviated, while the dunces, to do them justice, make the
most of their limited opportunities. Who knows, but that the peace of
the world may be owing to it? For as there are about 230
representatives, we should have had, but for it, just as many masterly
demonstrations of the title of the Republic to the whole of Oregon--and
something more. In such a cause, they would make nothing of beginning
with the creation of the world, and ending with the last protocol of Mr
Buchanan! Decidedly, but for "the one-hour rule" we Britishers should
have been "everlastingly used up--and no two ways about it." Poor old
Adams actually did begin his Oregon speech with the first chapter of
Genesis. The title-deeds of the Republic, he said, were to be found in
the words, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth!" Happily,
the fatal hammer of the Speaker put down the venerable antediluvian,
before he got to the end of the chapter.
In the Senate, on the other hand, which is a less numerous, and somewhat
more select body, things still go on in the old-fashioned way. There,
when a member has once caught the Speaker's eye, his fortune is made for
the day--perhaps for the week. Accordingly, he takes things easy from
the very first--kicks his spittoon to a convenient angle, offers a
libation of cold water to his parched entrails, and begins. When he
leaves off, is another matter altogether--but not generally till he has
gone through the round of human knowledge, explored the past, touched
lightly upon the present, and cast a piercing glance into the darkness
of the future. Soon after three, the Senate adjourns for dinner, and the
orator of the day goes to his pudding with the rest, happy in the
reflection that he has done his duty by his country, and will do it
again on the morrow. We have somewhere read of a paradise of fools.
Undoubtedly, Congress is that place. There they enjoy a perfect
impunity, and revel in the full gratification of their instincts. Nobody
thinks of coughing them down, or swamping them with ironical cheers.
There--
"Dulness, with transport, eyes each lively dunce,
Remembering she herself was Pertness once,
And tinsel'd o'er in robes of varying hues,
With self-applause her wild creation views.
Sees momentary monsters rise and fall,
And with her own fool's colours gilds them all."
Indeed, all the arrangements of Congress favour the influence of the
sable goddess. In the first place, the members are paid by the
day--eight dollars each. Permit us to observe, Jonathan, that you
scarcely display your usual "smartness" here. It would be much better to
contract with them by the _scrape_. As for instance--To involving the
country in a war with Mexico, so much--To ditto with Great Britain, so
much more. One year you might lay down a lumping sum for a protective
tariff, with an understanding, that it was to be repealed the next at a
moderate advance. You would thus insure the greatest possible variety of
political catastrophes, with the least possible friction and expense.
Again, the furniture of the Capitol is altogether too luxurious. Each
member is provided with a private desk, stationery _ad lib._, a stuffed
arm-chair, and a particular spittoon. No wonder, then, that your Simmses
and Chipmans are listened to with complacency. It's all in the day's
work--it's considered in the wages. While these worthies hold forth for
the benefit of distant Missouri and Michigan, their colleagues write
their letters, read the newspapers, chew tobacco, as little boys do
toffy in England, and expectorate at leisure. No one cheers, no one
groans, no one cries Oh! Oh!--all the noise that is made is on private
account, and not at all personal to the gentleman on his legs. Yet, such
is the deceitfulness of the human heart, that the Americans are much
given to boast of the dignity and decorum of their Legislature, and to
thank God that it is not a bear-garden like another place of the kind
that they wot of. We must have been asked at least six times a-day
during our visit at Washington, "How Congress compared with the British
Parliament?" To which we used to reply, "That they did not compare at
all," an answer which fully met the truth of the case, without in the
least wounding the self-love of the querist.
When these malignant pages arrive in New York, every inhabitant of that
good city will abuse us heartily, except our publisher. But great will
be the joy of that furacious individual, as he speculates in secret on
the increased demand of his agonised public. Immediately he will put
forth an advertisement, notifying the men of "Gotham," that he has on
hand a fresh sample of BRITISH INSOLENCE, and hinting that, although he
knows they care nothing about such things, the forthcoming piracy of
Maga will be on the most extensive scale. Then, all the little
newspapers will take us in hand, and bully us in their little way. It is
perhaps a shame to forestall the acerbities of these ingenious
gentlemen, but we know they will call us "anonymous scribbler," and
"bagman," amongst the rest. They called us "bagman" for our last
article, and we were sure they would. The fact is, that since Lord
Morpeth's visit to the United States, the Americans have taken a very
high tone indeed. Their gratitude to that amiable nobleman for not
writing a book about them, is unbounded, and they put him down (why, it
is difficult to say) as the aristocratic, and therefore impartial
champion of Demus. Whenever we fell into the bilious moods to which our
plebeian nature is addicted, we were gravely admonished of his bright
example, and assured that to speak evil of the Republic was the
infirmity of vulgar minds. There is, it would appear, a sympathy betwixt
"great ones;" a kind of free-masonry betwixt the sovereign people and
the British peerage, which neither party suspected previously, but which
is confessed on the slightest acquaintance.
As generally happens in such cases, the conceit of the Americans takes
the most perverse direction. It is certain that they do many things
better than any people under the sun. Their merchant navy is the finest
in the world--their river steamers are miracles of ingenuity,--at
felling timber and packing pork they are unrivalled; and their smartness
in the way of trade is acknowledged by those who know them best. All
this, and much more to the same effect, may be admitted without demur,
but all these admissions will avail the traveller nothing. He will be
expected to congratulate them on the elegance of their manners, the
copiousness of their literature, and the refinement of their tastes. He
will be confidentially informed that "Lord Morpeth's manners were much
improved by mixing with our first circles, sir;" and what is worse, he
will be expected to believe it, and to carry himself accordingly. "Ripe
scholars" who make awful false quantities, second-rate demagogues
passing for "distinguished statesmen," literary empirics, under the name
of "men of power," will claim his suffrages at every turn; and in vain
will he draw upon his politeness to the utmost, in vain assent,
ejaculate, and admire--no amount of positive praise will suffice, till
America Felix is admitted to be the chosen home of every grace and every
muse. "Did Mr Bull meet with any of _our_ literary characters at
Boston?" Mr Bull had that happiness. "Well, he was very much pleased of
course?" Bull hastens to lay his hand upon his heart, and to reply with
truth that he _was_ pleased. "Yes, sir, we do expect that our Boston
literature is about first-rate. We are a young people, sir, but we are a
great people, and we are bound to be greater still. There is a moral
power, sir, an elevation about the New England mind, which
Europeans can scarcely realise. Did you hear Snooks lecture, sir?
the Rev. Amos Snooks of Pisgah? Well, sir, you ought to have heard
Snooks. All Europeans calculate to hear Snooks--he's a fine man,
sir, a man of power--one of the greatest men, sir, in this, or perhaps
any other country."
"Semper ego auditor tantum, nunquam ne reponam,
Vexatus toties."----
You leave Boston somewhat snubbed and subdued, and betake yourself to
the more cosmopolitan regions of New York. Here, too, "men of power" are
to be found in great numbers--but "our first circles" divide the
attention and abuse the patience of the traveller. Boston writes the
books, but New York sets the fashions of the Republic, and is the
Elysium of mantua-makers and upholders. We doubt whether any city in the
world of its size can boast so many smart drawing rooms and so many
pretty young women. Indeed, from the age of fifteen to that of
five-and-twenty, female beauty is the rule rather than the exception in
the United States, and neither cost nor pains are spared to set it forth
to the best advantage. The American women dress well, dance well, and in
all that relates to what may be called the mechanical part of social
intercourse, they appear to great advantage. Nothing can exceed the
self-possession of these pretty creatures, whose confidence is never
checked by the discipline of society, or the restraints of an education
which is terminated almost as soon as it is begun. There is no childhood
in America--no youth--no freshness. We look in vain for the
"Ingenui vultus puer, ingenuique pudoris."
or
"The modest maid deck'd with a blush of honour,
Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love."