There is no term in political philosophy more ambiguous and lax in its
meaning than Luxury. In Ireland, salt with a potato is, by the
peasant, placed in this category. Among the Cossacks, a clean shirt is
more than a luxury--it is an effeminacy; and a Scotch nobleman is
reported to have declared, that the act of scratching one's self is a
luxury too great for any thing under royalty. The Russians (there is
no disputing on tastes) hold train-oil to be a prime luxury; and I
remember seeing a group of them following an exciseman on the quays at
Dover to plunder the oil casks, as they were successively opened for
his operations. A poor Finland woman, who for her sins had married an
Englishman and followed him to this country, was very glad to avail
herself of her husband's death to leave a land where the people were
so unhappy as to be without a regular supply of seal's flesh for their
dinner. While the good man lived, her affection for him somewhat
balanced her hankering after this native luxury; but no sooner was the
husband dead, than her lawyer-like propensity re-assumed its full
force, and, like Proteus released from his chains, she abandoned
civilized life to get back to her favourite shores, to liberty, and
the animals of her predilection. "If I were rich," said a poor
farmer's boy, "I would eat fat pudding, and ride all day on a gate;"
which was evidently his highest idea of human luxury. But it is less
with the quality of our indulgences, than their extent, that I have
now to treat. Diogenes, who prided himself on cutting his coat
according to his cloth, and thought himself a greater man, in
proportion as he diminished his wants, placed his luxuries in idleness
and sunshine, and seems to have relished these enjoyments with as much
sensuality as Plato did his fine house and delicate fare. Even he was
more reasonable than those sectarians, who have prevailed in almost
all religions, and who, believing that the Deity created man for the
express purpose of inflicting upon him every species of torture, have
inveighed against the most innocent gratifications, and have erected
luxury into a deadly sin. These theologians will not allow a man to
eat his breakfast with a relish; and impute it as a vice if he smacks
his lips, though it be but after a draught of water. Nay, there have
been some who have thought good roots and Adam's ale too great
luxuries for a Christian lawfully to indulge in; and they have
purposely ill-cooked their vegetables, and mixed them with ashes, and
even more disgusting things, to mortify the flesh, as they called
it--i.e. to offer a sacrifice of their natural feelings to the demon
of which they have made a god.
Of late years, more especially, our ideas on this subject have much
enlarged; and all ranks of Englishmen hold an infinity of objects as
prime necessaries, which their more modest ancestors ranked as
luxuries, fit only for their betters to enjoy. This should be a matter
of sincere rejoicing to all true patriots; because it affords
indubitable evidence of the progress of civilization. A civilized
gentleman differs from a savage, principally in the multiplicity of
his wants; and Mandeville, in his fable of the bees, has proved to
demonstration that extravagance is the mother of commerce. What,
indeed, are steam-engines, macadamized roads, man-traps that break no
bones, patent cork-screws, and detonating fowling-pieces, safety
coaches and cork legs, but luxuries, at which a cynic would scoff; yet
how could a modern Englishman get on without them? It is perfectly
true that our Henries and Edwards contrived to beat their enemies
unassisted by these inventions. Books, likewise, which were a luxury
scarcely known to the wisdom of our ancestors, are a luxury now so
indispensable, that there is hardly a mechanic who has not his little
library: while a piano forte also has become as necessary to a
farm-house as a mangle or a frying-pan; and there are actually more
copies printed of "Cherry ripe," than of Tull's husbandry. Is not a
silver fork, moreover, an acknowledged necessary in every decent
establishment? while the barbarous Mussulman dispenses with knives and
forks altogether, and eats his meal, like a savage as he is, with his
fingers. Nor can it be deemed an objection to this hypothesis, that
the Turk, who rejects all the refinements of European civilization,
excepting only gunpowder, esteems four wives to be necessary to a
decent establishment; while the most clear-sighted Englishmen think
one more than enough for enjoyment. The difference is more formal than
real.
Henry the fourth of France had but one coach between himself and his
queen; whereas no respectable person can now dispense at the least
with a travelling chariot, a barouche, a cab, and a dennet.
Civilization, which received a temporary check during the
revolutionary war, has resumed its march in double-quick time since
the Continent has been opened. Champaigne and ices have now become
absolute necessaries at tables where a bottle of humble port and a
supernumerary pudding were esteemed luxuries, fit only for honouring
the more solemn rites of hospitality. I say nothing of heads of hair,
and false (I beg pardon--artificial) teeth; without which, at a
certain age, there is no appearing. A bald head, at the present day,
is as great an indecency as Humphrey Clinker's unmentionables; and a
dismantled mouth is an outrage on well-bred society. Then, again, how
necessary is a cigar and a meerschaum to a well-appointed man of
fashion, and how can a gentleman possibly show at Melton without at
least a dozen hunters, and two or three hacks, to ride to cover! Yet
no one in his senses would tax these things as luxuries; or would
blame his friend for getting into the King's Bench for their
indulgence. Even the most austere judges of the land, and the most
jealous juries of tradesmen, have borne ample testimony to the
reasonableness of this modern extension of the wants of life, by the
liberal allowance of necessaries which they have sanctioned in the
tailors' bills of litigating minors. This liberality, indeed, follows,
as consequence follows cause. Some one has found, or invented, a story
of a shipwrecked traveller's hailing the gallows as the sure token of
a civilized community. But the jest is by no means a _ben trovato_;
the member of gibbets being inversely as the perfection of social
institutions; and if any one object, that England, while it is the
best-governed country in Europe--its envy and admiration--is also a
hanging community _par excellence_, I must beg to remind him of the
intense interest which an English public feels in the victims of
capital punishment, in the Thurtells and the Fauntleroys; as also of
the universal conviction prevailing in England, that the gallows is a
short and sure cut to everlasting happiness. From all this, if there
is any force in logic, we must conclude, that hanging, in this
country, is only applied _honoris causâ_, as an ovation, in
consideration of the great and magnanimous daring of the Alexanders
and Caesars on a small scale, to whom the law adjudges the "palmam qui
meruit ferat." The real and true test of a refined polity is not the
gallows; but is to be found rather in such well-imagined insolvent
laws, as discharge a maximum of debt with a minimum of assets; and rid
a gentleman annually of his duns, with the smallest possible quantity
of corporeal inconvenience. When luxuries become necessaries,
insolvency is the best safety-valve to discharge the surplus
dishonesty of the people, which, if pent up, would explode in
dangerous overt acts of crime and violence; and it should be
encouraged accordingly.
(_To be concluded in our next_.)
* * * * *
Notes of a Reader.
* * * * *