cut the city, and the counting-house, that your wife may become
enamoured of dress, and your daughter of a dancing-master--that your
son may learn to play roulette and smoke cigars, and that you yourself
may ramble some thousand miles over paved roads, without an object to
amuse, without an incident to attract you. While this is a gloomy
picture enough, there is another side to the medal still worse. John
Bull goes home generally sick of what he has seen, and much more
ignorant of the Continent than when he set out. His tour, however, has
laid in its stock of foreign affectation, that renders his home
uncomfortable; his daughters pine after the flattering familiarities
of their whiskered acquaintances at Ems, or Wiesbaden; and his sons
lose all zest for the slow pursuit of competence, by reflecting on the
more decisive changes of fortune, that await on _rouge et noir_. Yet
even this is not the worst. What I deplore most of all, is the false
and erroneous notions continental nations procure of our country, and
its habits, from such specimens as these. The Englishman who, seen at
home, at the head of his counting-house, or in the management of his
farm, presents a fine example of those national traits we are so
justly proud of--honest, frank, straightforward in all his dealings,
kind and charitable in his affections; yet see him abroad, the sphere
of his occupations exists no longer--there is no exercise for the
manly habits of his nature: his honesty but exposes him to be duped;
his frankness degenerates into credulity; the unsuspecting openness of
his character makes him the butt of every artful knave he meets with;
and he is laughed at from Rotterdam to Rome for qualities which,
exercised in their fitting sphere, have made England the greatest
country of the universe. Hence we have the tone of disparagement now
so universally maintained about England, and Englishmen, from one end
of the Continent to the other. It is not that our country does not
send forth a number of men well qualified to induce different
impressions of their nation; but unfortunately, such persons move only
in that rank of foreign society where these prejudices do not exist;
and it is among a different class, and unhappily a more numerous one
also, that these undervaluing opinions find currency and belief.
There is nothing more offensive than the continual appeal made by
Frenchmen, Germans, and others, to English habits, as seen among this
class of our countrymen. It is in vain that you explain to them that
these people are neither among the more educated nor the better ranks
of our country. They cannot comprehend your distinction. The habits of
the Continent have produced a kind of table-land of good-breeding,
upon which all men are equals. Thus, if you rarely meet a foreigner
ignorant of the every-day _convenances_ of the world, you still more
rarely meet with one unexceptionably well-bred. The _table d'hote_,
like the mess in our army, has the effect of introducing a certain
amount of decorum that is felt through every relation of life; and,
although the count abroad is immeasurably beneath the gentleman at
home, here, I must confess, that the foreign cobbler is a more
civilized person than his type in England. This is easily understood:
foreign breeding is not the outward exhibition of an inward
principle--it is not the manifestation of a sense of mingled kindness,
good taste, and self-respect--it is merely the rigid observance of a
certain code of behaviour that has no reference whatever to any thing
felt within; it is the mere popery of politeness, with its
saint-worship, its penances, and its privations. An Englishman makes
way for you to accommodate your passage; a foreigner--a Frenchman I
should say--does so for an opportunity to flourish his hat or to
exhibit an attitude. The same spirit pervades every act of both; duty
in one case, display in the other, are the ruling principles of life;
and, where persons are so diametrically different, there is little
likelihood of much mutual understanding or mutual esteem. To come
back, however, the great evil of this universal passion for travelling
lies in the opportunity afforded to foreigners, of sneering at our
country, and ridiculing our habits. It is in vain that our
institutions are models of imitation for the world--in vain that our
national character stands pre-eminent for good-faith and fidelity--in
vain the boast that the sun never sets upon a territory that girths
the very globe itself, so long as we send annually our tens of
thousands out upon the Continent, with no other failing than mere
unfitness for foreign travel, to bring down upon us the sneer, and the
ridicule, of every ignorant and unlettered Frenchman, or Belgian, they
meet with.
[Illustration]
A NUT FOR DOMESTIC HAPPINESS.
Our law code would, were its injunctions only carried out in private
life, effect most extraordinary reformations in our customs and
habits. The most singular innovations in our tastes and opinions would
spring out of the statutes. It was only a few days ago where a man
sought reparation for the greatest injury one could inflict on
another, the great argument of the defendant's counsel was based on
the circumstance that the plaintiff and his wife had not been proved
to have lived happily together, except on the testimony of their
servants. Great stress was laid upon this fact by the advocate; and
such an impression did it make on the minds of the jury, that the
damages awarded were a mere trifle. Now, only reflect for a moment on
the absurdity of such a plea, and think how many persons there are
whose quiet and unobtrusive lives are unnoticed beyond the precincts
of their own door--nay, how many estimable and excellent people who
live less for the world than for themselves, and although, probably
for this very reason, but little exposed to the casualty in question,
would yet deem the injustice great that placed them beyond the pale of
reparation because they had been homely and domestic.
Civilisation and the march of mind are fine things, and doubtless it
is a great improvement that the criminal is better lodged, and fed, in
the prison, than the hungry labourer in the workhouse. It is an
admirable code that makes the debt of honour, the perhaps swindled
losses of the card-table, an imperative obligation, while the money
due to toiling, working industry, may be evaded or escaped from.
Still, it is a bold step to invade the privacy of domestic life, to
subvert the happiness we deem most national, and to suggest that the
world has no respect for, nor the law no belief in, that peaceful
course in life, which, content with its own blessings, seeks neither
the gaze of the crowd, nor the stare of fashion. Under the present
system, a man must appear in society like a candidate on the
hustings--profuse in protestations of his happiness and redolent of
smiles; he must lead forth his wife like a blooming _debutante_, and,
while he presents her to his friends, must display, by every endeavour
in his power, the angelic happiness of their state. The _coram
publico_ endearments, so much sneered at by certain fastidious people,
are now imperative; and, however secluded your habits, however
retiring your tastes, it is absolutely necessary you should appear a
certain number of times every year before the world, to assure that
kind-hearted and considerate thing, how much conjugal felicity you are
possessed of.
It is to no purpose that your man-servant and your maid-servant, and
even the stranger within your gates, have seen you in the apparent
enjoyment of domestic happiness: it is the crowd of a ball-room must
testify in your favour--it is the pit of a theatre--it is the company
of a steam-boat, or the party on a railroad, you must adduce in
evidence. They are the best--they are the only judges of what you, in
the ignorance of your heart, have believed a secret for your own
bosom.
Your conduct within-doors is of little moment, so that your bearing
without satisfy the world. What a delightful picture of universal
happiness will England then present to the foreigner who visits our
salons! With what ecstasy will he contemplate the angelic felicity of
conjugal life! Instead of the indignant coldness of a husband,
offended by some casual levity of his wife, he will now redouble his
attentions, and take an opportunity of calling the company to witness
that they live together like turtle-doves. He knows not how soon, if
he mix much in fashionable life, their testimony may avail him; and
the loving smile he throws his spouse across the supper-table is
worth three thousand pounds before any jury in Middlesex.
Romance writers will now lose one stronghold of sentiment. Love in a
cottage will possess as little respect as it ever did attraction for
the world. The pier at Brighton, a Gravesend steamer, Hyde Park on a
Sunday, will be the appropriate spheres for the interchange of
conjugal vows. No absurd notions of solitude will then hold sway.
Alas! how little prophetic spirit is there in poetry! But a few years
ago, and one of our sirens of song said,
"When should lovers breathe their vows?
When should ladies hear them?
When the dew is on the boughs--
When none else is near them."
Not a word of it! The appropriate place is amid the glitter of jewels,
the glare of lamps, the crush of fashion, and the din of conversation.
The private boxes of the opera are even too secluded, and your
happiness is no more genuine, until recognised by society, than is an
exchequer bill with the mere signature of Lord Monteagle.
The benefits of this system will be great. No longer will men be
reduced to the cultivation of those meeker virtues that grace and
adorn life; no more will they study those accomplishments that make
home happy and their hearth cheerful. A winter at Paris and a box at
the Varietes will be more to the purpose. Scribe's farces will teach
them more important lessons, and they will obtain an instructive
example in the last line of a vaudeville, where an injured husband
presents himself at the fall of the curtain, and, as he bows to the
audience, embraces both his wife and her lover, exclaiming,
"_Maintenant je suis heureux--ma femme--mon meilleur ami!_" He then
may snap his fingers at Charles Phillips and Adolphus: he has not only
proved his affection to his wife, but his confidence in his friend.
Let him lay the damages at ten thousand, and, with a counsel that can
cry, he'll get every shilling of the money.
[Illustration]
A NUT FOR LADIES BOUNTIFUL.
Jean Jacques tells us, that when his wife died every farmer in the
neighbourhood offered to console him by one of their daughters; but
that a few weeks afterwards his cow having shared the same fate, no
one ever thought of replacing his loss by the offer of another;
thereby proving the different value people set upon their cows and
children--this seems absurd enough, but is it a bit more so, than what
is every day taking place in professional life? How many parsons are
there who would not lend you five pounds, would willingly lend you
their pulpit, and the commonest courtesy from a hospital surgeon is,
to present his visitor with a knife and entreat him to carve a
patient. He has never seen the individual before, he doesn't know
whether he be short-sighted, or nervous, or ignorant, or rash, all he
thinks of, is doing the honours of the institution; and although like
a hostess, who sees the best dish at her table mangled by an unskilful
carver, he suffers in secret, yet is she far too well-bred to evince
her displeasure, but blandly smiles at her friend, and says "No
matter, pray go on." This, doubtless, is highly conducive to science;
and as medicine is declared to be a science of experiment, great
results occasionally arise from the practice. Now that I am talking of
doctors--what a strange set they are, and what a singular position do
they hold in society; admitted to the fullest confidence of the world,
yet by a strange perversion, while they are the depositaries of
secrets that hold together the whole fabric of society, their
influence is neither fully recognised, nor their power acknowledged.
The doctor is now what the monk once was, with this additional
advantage, that from the nature of his studies and the research of his
art, he reads more deeply in the human heart, and penetrates into its
most inmost recesses. For him, life has little romance; the grosser
agency of the body re-acting ever on the operations of the mind,
destroy many a poetic daydream and many a high-wrought illusion. To
him alone does a man speak "_son dernier mot_:" while to the lawyer
the leanings of self-respect will make him always impart a favourable
view of his case. To the physician he will be candid, and even more
than candid--yes, these are the men who, watching the secret workings
of human passion, can trace the progress of mankind in virtue and in
vice; while ministering to the body they are exploring the mind, and
yet, scarcely is the hour of danger passed, scarcely the shadow of
fear dissipated, when they fall back to their humble position in life,
bearing with them but little gratitude, and, strange to say, no fear!
The world expects them to be learned, well-bred, kind, considerate,
and attentive, patient to their querulousness, and enduring under
their caprice; and, after all this, the humbug of homoeopathy, the
preposterous absurdity of the water cure, or the more reprehensible
mischief of Mesmerism, will find more favour in their sight than the
highest order of ability accompanied by great natural advantages.
Every man--and still more, every woman--imagine themselves to be
doctors. The taste for physic, like that for politics, is born with
us, and nothing seems easier than to repair the injuries of the
constitution, whether of the state or the individual. Who has not
seen, over and over again, physicians of the first eminence put aside,
that the nostrum of some ignorant pretender, or the suggestion of some
twaddling old woman, should be, as it is termed, tried? No one is too
stupid, no one too old, no one too ignorant, too obstinate, or too
silly, not to be superior to Brodie and Chambers, Crampton and Marsh;
and where science, with anxious eye and cautious hand, would scarcely
venture to interfere, heroic ignorance would dash boldly forward and
cut the Gordian difficulty by snapping the thread of life. How comes
it that these old ladies, of either sex, never meddle with the law? Is
the game beneath them, where the stake is only property, and not life?
or is there less difficulty in the knowledge of an art whose
principles rest on so many branches of science, than in a study
founded on the basis of precedent? Would to heaven the "Ladies
Bountiful" would take to the quarter-sessions and the assizes, in lieu
of the infirmaries and dispensaries, and make Blackstone their
aid-de-camp--_vice_ Buchan retired.
[Illustration]
A NUT FOR THE PRIESTS.
[Illustration]
There would be no going through this world if one had not an
India-rubber conscience, and one could no more exist in life without
what watch-makers call accommodation, in the machinery of one's heart,
than a blue-bottle fly could grow fat in the shop of an apothecary.
Every man's conscience has, like Janus, two faces--one looks most
plausibly to the world, with a smile of courteous benevolence, the
other with a droll leer seems to say, I think we are doing them. In
fact, not only would the world be impossible, and its business
impracticable, but society itself would be a bear-garden without
hypocrisy.
Now, the professional classes have a kind of licence on this subject;
just as a poet is permitted to invent sunsets, and a painter to
improvise clouds and cataracts, so a lawyer dilates upon the virtues
or attractions of his client, and a physician will weep you good round
substantial tears, at a guinea a drop, for the woes of his patient;
but the church, I certainly thought, was exempt from this practice. A
paragraph in a morning paper, however, disabused my ignorance in the
most remarkable manner. The Roman Catholic hierarchy have unanimously
decided that all persons following the profession of the stage, are
to be considered without the pale of the church, they are neither to
be baptized nor confirmed, married nor buried; they may get a name in
the streets, and a wife there also, but the church will neither bless
the one, nor confirm the other; in fact, the sock and the buskin are
proclaimed in opposition to Christianity, and Madame Lafarge is not a
bit more culpable than Robert Macaire. A few days since, one of the
most fashionable churches in Paris was crowded to suffocation by the
attraction of high mass, celebrated with the assistance of the whole
opera choir, with Duprez at their head. The sum contributed by the
faithful was enormous, and the music of Mozart was heard to great
effect through the vaulted aisles of Notre Dame, yet the very morning
after, not an individual of the choir could receive the benediction of
the church--the _rationale_ of all which is, that the Dean of Notre
Dame, like the Director of the Odeon, likes a good house and a heavy
benefit. He gets the most attractive company he can secure, and
although he makes no scruple to say they are the most disreputable
acquaintances, still they fill the benches, and it will be time enough
to damn them when the performance is over!
Whenever the respectable Whigs are attacked for their alliance with
O'Connell, they make the same reply the priest would probably do in
this circumstance--How can we help it? We want a mob; if he sings, we
have it--we know his character as well as you; so only let us fill our
pockets, and then ---- I do not blame them in the least, if the popery
of their politics has palled upon the appetite; if they can work no
more miracles of reform and revolution, I do not see how they can help
calling in aid from without.
Dan, however, will not consent, like Duprez, to be damned when he is
done with; he insists on a share of the profits, and, moreover, to be
treated with some respect too. He knows he is the star of the company,
and can make his own terms; and, even now, when the house is broken
up, and the manager beggared, and the actors dismissed, like Matthews,
he can get up a representation all to himself, and make a handsome
thing of it besides.
If one could see it brought about something in the fashion of Sancho's
government of Barrataria, I should certainly like to see O'Connell on
the throne of Ireland for about twenty-four hours, and to salute King
Dan, _par la grace de diable_, king of Erin, just for the joke's sake!
A NUT FOR LEARNED SOCIETIES.
[Illustration]
We laugh at the middle ages for their trials by ordeal, their jousts,
their tournaments, their fat monasteries, and their meagre people; but
I am strongly disposed to think, that before a century pass over,
posterity will give us as broad a grin for our learned societies. Of
all the features that characterise the age, I know of none so
pre-eminently ridiculous, as nine-tenths of these associations would
prove; supported by great names, aided by large sums, with a fine
house, a library and a librarian, they do the honours of science
pretty much as the yeomen of the guard do those of a court on a levee
day, and they bear about the same relation to literature and art, that
do the excellent functionaries I have mentioned, to the proceedings
around the throne.
An old gentleman, hipped by celibacy, and too sour for society, has
contracted a habit of looking out of his window every morning, to
observe the weather: he sees a cloud very like a whale, or he fancies
that when the wind blows in a particular direction, and it happens to
rain at the same time, that the drops fall in a peculiarly slanting
manner. He notes down the facts for a month or two, and then
establishes a meteorological society, of which he is the perpetual
president, with a grant from Parliament to extend its utility. Another
takes to old volumes on a book-stall; and becoming, as most men are
who have little knowledge of life, fascinated with his own
discoveries, thinks he has ascertained some curious details of ancient
history, and communicating his results to others as stupid and old as
himself, they dub themselves antiquarians, or archaeologists, and
obtain a grant also.
Now, one half of these societies are neither more nor less than most
impertinent sarcasms on the land we live in. The man who sets himself
down deliberately to chronicle the clouds in our atmosphere, and jot
down the rainy days in our calendar, is, to my thinking, performing
about as grateful a task, as though he were to count the carbuncles on
his friend's nose. We have, it is true, a most abominable climate: the
sun rarely shows himself, and, when he does, it is through a tattered
garment of clouds, dim and disagreeable; but why throw it in our
teeth? and, still more, why pay a body of men to publish the slander?
Then again, as to history, all the world knows that since the Flood
the Irish have never done any thing else than make love, illicit
whiskey, and beat each other. What nonsense, then, to talk about the
ancient cultivation of the land, of its high rank in literature, and
its excellence in art. A stone bishop, with a nose like a negro, and a
crosier like a garden-rake, are the only evidences of our ancestors'
taste in sculpture; and some doggrel verses in Irish, explaining how
King Phelim O'Toole cheated a brother monarch out of his
small-clothes, are about the extent of our historic treasures. But,
for argument's sake, suppose it otherwise; imagine for a moment that
our ancestors were all that Sir William Betham and Mr. Petrie would
make them--I do not know how other people may feel, but I myself deem
it no pleasant reflection to think of _their_ times and look at _our
own_. What! we were poets and painters, architects, historians, and
musicians! What have we now among us to represent these great and
mighty gifts? I am afraid, except our Big Beggarman, we have not a
single living celebrity; and is this a comfortable reflection, is this
a pleasing thought, that while, fourteen hundred years ago, some Irish
Raphael and some Galway Grisi were the delight of our illustrious
ancestors--that while the splendour of King Malachi, with his collar
of gold, astonished the ladies in the neighbourhood of Trim--we have
nothing to boast of, save Dan for Lord Mayor, and Burton Bindon's
oysters? Once more, I say, if what these people tell us be facts, they
are the most unpalatable facts could be told to a nation; and I see no
manner of propriety or good-breeding in replying to a gipsy who begs
for a penny, by the information, that "his ancestors built the
Pyramids."
Again, if our days are dark, our nights are worse; and what, in
Heaven's name, have we to do with an observatory and a telescope as
long as the _Great Western_? The planets are the most expensive
vagabonds to the Budget, and the fixed stars are a fixed imposition.
Were I Chancellor of the Exchequer, I'd pension the Moon, and give the
Great Bear a sum of money as compensation. Do not tell me of the
distresses of the people, arising from cotton, or corn, China, or
Chartists--it is our scientific institutions are eating into the
national resources. There is not an egg-saucepan of antiquity that
does not cost the country a plum, and every wag of a comet's tail may
be set down at half-a-million. I warrant me the people in the Moon
take us a deuced deal more easily, and give themselves very little
trouble to make out the size of Ireland's eye or the height of
Croaghpatrick. No, no; let the Chancellor of the Exchequer come down
with a slapping measure of retrenchment, and make a clear stage of all
of them. Every man with money to buy a cotton umbrella is his own
meteorologist; and a pocket telescope, price eight-and-fourpence, is
long enough, in all conscience, for any man in a climate like ours;
or, if such a course seem too peremptory, call on these people for
their bill, and let there be a stated sum for each item. At Dolly's
chop-house, you know to the exact farthing how much your beefsteak and
glass of ale will cost you; and if you wish, in addition, a slice of
Stilton with your XX, you consult your pocket before you speak. Let
not the nation be treated worse than the individual: let us first look
about us, and see if a year of prosperity and cheap potatoes will
permit us the indulgence of obtaining a new luminary or an old
chronicle; then, when we know the cost, we may calculate with safety.
Suppose a fixed star, for instance, be set down at ten pounds; a
planet at five; Saturn has so many belts, I would not give more than
half-a-crown for a new one; and, as for an eclipse of the sun, I had
rather propose a reward for the man who could tell us when we could
see him palpably.
For the present I merely throw out these suggestions in a brief,
incomplete manner, intending, however, to return to the subject on
another occasion.
[Illustration]
A NUT FOR THE LAWYERS.
[Illustration]