nation brought before the European world that the chances are, as one
hundred to one, he would attract no notice here; but, we will imagine
him in possession of the ear of Europe, and able to bring his matter
before its bar. If England were opposed in either her prejudices,
or interests, he would as a matter of course, be vituperated; for
whom did the English press ever spare, under such circumstances?
No doubt, a thousand honest and generous pens would be ready to be
their countrymen’s vindicator; no doubt the government would throw
its broad mantle around its friend, and manifest to the world its
sense of its own dignity and interests? No such thing; the abuse of
the English press would produce even more effect in America than in
England; its tales, however idle or improbable, would be swallowed
with avidity, as tales from the capital circulate in the provinces,
and, as for the government, it already has a character here for
confiding in those who openly repudiate its principles! Well may it
be said, that we have reason to be thankful to God for our blessings,
for if God did not take especial care of us, we should be without
protection at all.
I have been much struck, here, with the little impression that is
made by the reviews. Exceptions certainly exist, but the critical
remarks that, written here, produce no visible effect, would give
a work its character with us. Every body, that is at all above the
vulgar, appears to understand that reviewing “is the great standing
mystification of the age.”
In making all these comparisons, however, we are too apt to overlook
the statistical facts of America. A short digression will explain my
meaning. If we speak of the civilization of England in the abstract,
it is not easy to employ exaggerated terms, for it challenges high
praise; but when we come to compare it to our own, we are to take
the whole subject in connection. Were the entire population of
the United States compressed into the single state of New York,
we should get something like the proportions between surface and
people, that exist in England. In reflecting on such a fact, one of
the first things that strike the mind, is connected with the immense
physical results that are dependent on such a circumstance. The mean
of the population of New York for the last thirty years, has been
considerably below a million; but had it been fourteen millions
during the same period, leaving the difference in wealth out of
the question, how little would even England have to boast over us!
Losing sight entirely of the primary changes that are dependent on
a settlement, and which perhaps seem to be more than they really
are, we have actually done as much in the same time as England, in
canals, rail-roads, bridges, steam-boats, and all those higher modes
of improvement, that mark an advanced state of society. These are the
things of which we may justly be proud, and they are allied to the
great principle on which the future power and glory of the nation are
to be based. They are strictly the offspring of the institutions.
We offer our weak side when we lay claim to the refinements, tastes,
and elegancies of an older, or, in our case, it would be better
to say, a more _compact_ condition of society. The class to which
these exclusively belong is every where relatively small. I firmly
believe it is larger with us, than among the same number of people,
in any other country, though this opinion is liable to a good deal
of qualification. We know little or nothing of music, or painting,
or statuary, or any of those arts whose fruits must be studied to
be felt and understood; but, in more essential things, we have even
sometimes the advantage; while in others, again, owing to our
colonial habits of thought, we have still less reason to be proud.
To apply these facts to our present subject, you will easily
understand the manner in which a nation so situated will feel the
influence of opinions of an inferior quality. In all communities
men will defer to actual superiority, when it acts steadily and in
sufficient force to create a standard. Unluckily manners, tastes,
knowledge, and tone are all too much diffused in America to make head
against the sturdy advances of an overwhelming mediocrity. As a basis
of national greatness, this mediocrity commands our respect, but it
is a little premature to set it up as a standard for the imitation
of others. It even over-shadows, more particularly in the towns, the
qualities that might better be its substitute. Its influence on the
whole is genial, for so broad a foundation will, sooner or later,
receive an appropriate superstructure, but, _ad interim_, it places a
great deal too much at the disposal of empirics and pretenders. This
is the reason (coupled with the deference that the provinces always
show to the capital) why reviews and newspaper strictures produce an
effect in America, of which they entirely fail in England. Here the
highest intellectual classes give reputation, while in America it is
derived from the mediocrity I have mentioned, through the agency,
half the time, of as impudent a set of literary quacks as probably a
civilized country ever tolerated. There are as flagrant things of
the sort perpetrated here, as in America, but their influence is
limited to the milliners and shop-men. A national _prejudice_ may
take any shape, in England, for no one is exempt from the feeling,
from the king on his throne to the groom in his stable; but, keeping
this influence out of sight, the standard of taste and knowledge is
too high, to be easily imposed on.
Some one has said, with more smartness than truth perhaps, so far as
one’s own contemporaries are concerned at least, “that no author was
ever written down except by himself.” Many an author however, has
been temporarily written _up_ by others. I have just had a proof of
this truth.
A work has lately appeared here, of rather more pretension than
common. This book is deemed a failure in the literary circles of
London. Of its merits I know nothing, not having read it, but in the
fact, I cannot be mistaken, for I have heard it spoken of, by every
literary man of my acquaintance, from Sir Walter Scott down; and
but one among them all, has spoken well of it, and he, notoriously
a friend of the author, “damned it with faint praise” more than
any thing else. The bookseller paid too much for the manuscript,
however, to put up with a loss, and a concerted and combined effort
has been made to write the book up. In England these puffs, which are
elaborate and suited to a grave subject, have had no visible effect,
while I see, by the journals at home, that the work in question is
deemed established, on this authority!
I am told that the practice of writers reviewing themselves, is
much more prevalent here than one would be apt to suspect. One can
tolerate such a thing as a joke, but it is ticklish ground, and
liable to misconstruction. But man loves mystification. The very
being who would bristle up and resent a frank, manly vindication of
a writer that should appear under his own name, would permit his
judgment to be guided by the same opinions when produced covertly,
nor would the modesty of the author, who glorifies himself in this
sneaking manner, be half as much called in question, as that of him
who, disdaining deceit, and met his enemies openly!
There is less of simulated public opinion in the English press
than in our own, I presume; owing to the simple fact, that public
opinion is neither so overwhelming nor so easily influenced. The
constant practice of appealing to the public, in America, has given
rise to the vilest frauds of this character, that are of constant
occurrence. When it is wished to induce the public to think in a
particular way, the first step is to affect that such is already the
common sentiment, in the expectation that deference to the general
impression will bring about the desired end. I have known frauds
of this nature, connected with personal malice, which, if exposed,
would draw down the indignation of every honest man in the nation,
on those who practised them; some of whom now pass for men of fair
characters. It is scarcely necessary to say that such fellows are
thieves in principle.
There is another all-important point on which, in the spirit of
imitation, we have permitted the English press to mislead us.
Nothing can be more apparent, in a healthful and natural state of
the public mind, that a lie told to influence an election, or to
mislead on a matter of general policy, ought to be just so much the
more reprobated than a lie that affects an individual merely, as
the concerns of a nation are more engrossing and important than the
concerns of a private citizen. In America, an election ought to be,
and in the main it is, an expression of the popular will for great
national objects; in England, it is merely a struggle for personal
power, between the owners of property. The voter with us, is one of
a body which controls the results; in England, he is one of a body
controlled by direct personal influence. No greater, ordinary crime,
against good morals and the public safety, can be committed, than to
mislead the public in matters of facts connected with an election;
and yet an “electioneering lie,” is almost deemed a venial offence
in America, because they are so deemed here, where, as a rule, every
thing is settled by direct personal influence and bribery.
Some very false notions exist in America, on the subject of the
liberty of the press. We give it by far too much latitude, perhaps
not so much in the law itself, as by opinion and in the construction
of the law. The leaning is in favour of publication; firstly,
because man is inherently selfish, and he cares little what private
wrongs are committed in feeding the morbid appetites of the majority;
and, secondly, by confounding a remedy with diet. When power is to be
overturned, the press becomes a sure engine, and its abuses may be
tolerated, in order to secure the inestimable advantages of liberty;
but liberty attained, it should not be forgotten, that while arsenic
may cure a disease, taken as daily food it is certain death. Every
honest man appears to admit that the press, in America, is fast
getting to be intolerable. In escaping from the tyranny of foreign
aristocrats, we have created in our bosom a tyranny of a character
so unsupportable, that a change of some sort is getting to be
indispensable to peace. Truth appears to be no longer expected. Nor
is this all. An evident dishonesty of sentiment pervades the public
itself, which is beginning to regard acts of private delinquency
with a dangerous indifference; and acts, too, that are inseparably
connected with the character, security, and a right administration
of the state; political jockeyship being now regarded very much as
jockeyship of another order is notoriously esteemed by those who
engage in it. In this respect, England has the advantage of us, for
here the arts of politics are exercised with greater _ménagement_,
being confined to the few; whereas, in America, acting on the
public, they require public demoralization to be tolerated.
In ferocity and brutality I think the English press, under high
excitement, much worse than our own; in general tone and manliness,
greatly its superior. In both cases the better part of the community
is exposed to the rudest assaults from men who belong to the worst.
In England, the public is generally spared the impertinence of
personal, editorial controversies, a failing of rusticity, and the
press is but little used for the purposes of individual malice; while
in America, it is a machine, half the time, which, under the pretence
of serving the public, in addition to pecuniary profit, is made to
serve the ambition, or to gratify the antipathies, of the editor, who
obtains, through its use, an importance and power he could, probably,
never obtain in any other manner. This distinction is a consequence
of presses being stock-property in England, which is not owned by
the editors; while in America, the man who writes is master of the
limited establishment. It is his machine of personal advancement.
There is one point connected with this subject, on which we admit
a degradation unknown to all other countries. Every community is
obliged to submit to the existence of its own impurities, but
we imbibe those which are generated in the most factitious and
high-wrought, and, consequently, the most corrupt state of society,
in christendom. This is another of the evils arising from a want
of pride and national character, the people which is thrown into
convulsions by the worthless strictures of any foreign traveller, on
their elegance and tastes, permitting the very putridity of foreign
corruption to fester in and pollute its bosom!
LETTER XX.
TO JAMES STEVENSON, ESQ., ALBANY, N. Y.
All this time, the business of eating and drinking goes on. There is,
indeed, too much of it for me; the late hours, and the small, heated,
and crowded rooms of London, compelling me to decline a good deal
more than half the civilities that are offered. One thing has struck
me, as at least odd. Coming, as I did, into this country, without
letters, (those sent by Mr. Spenser, excepted,) I had no right to
complain, certainly, had I been permitted to go away entirely without
a visit; but I have been noticed by more than I had the smallest
right to expect; and yet, among all those who have knocked at my
door, I am by no means certain there is a single tory! I except the
case of Sir Walter Scott, for we were previously acquainted. As we
met first in society, the attention was, perhaps, necessary on his
part, though I am far from supposing he would have thought himself
bound to cut me because I am an American, although I have some reason
for thinking that even he does not view us with very friendly
eyes.[6] I do not know the political opinions of Mr. Sotheby, though
he is evidently too mild a man to feel strong antipathies on this
account; but, I believe, these two excepted, not only every man
who has visited me, or asked me to his house, and nearly every man
whom I have met at dinners and breakfasts, has been a whig! Is this
accident, or is it really the result of feeling?
I have dined in the last month, among other places, twice at
Lansdowne-house, and once with Lady ——, who lives in good style here,
and keeps a better sort of table, though a widow. Her house was very
much like all the second class houses here, with a dining-room below,
and the drawing-rooms on the first floor, being a little larger than
a second class American town residence!
At table, we had two or three members of the lower house, a
Frenchman, and myself. The conversation turned, after the mistress of
the house had retired, on the French revolution, which was discussed,
with all the usual allusions to national character, ferocity, levity,
and jacobinism, just as cooly as if a Frenchman did not make one of
the company. The poor fellow sat on thorns the whole time, keenly
alive to the awkwardness of his situation, and looking hard at me,
the only one who did not join in the discourse, and the only one who
appeared to remember his existence.
This indifference to the feelings of others, is a dark spot on the
national manners of England. The only way to put it down, is to
become belligerent yourself, by introducing pauperism, radicalism,
Ireland, the Indies, or some other sore point. Like all who make
butts of others, they do not manifest the proper forbearance, when
the tables are turned. Of this, I have had abundance of proof, in my
own experience. Sometimes, these remarks are absolutely rude, and
personally offensive, as a disregard of one’s national character, is
a disrespect to his principles, but as personal quarrels on such
grounds, are to be avoided, I have uniformly retorted in kind, if
there was the smallest opening for such retaliation. Sometimes, the
remarks are the result of kind feelings, and a misapprehension of
facts, when I have always endeavoured to set the matter right. All
foreigners complain of the English, in this respect; though so far
as my little experience goes, I think, in general, the very highest
classes do not merit the opprobrium they receive on this account,
although extraordinary things of the sort are told of even them.
Down as low in the social scale, as the third or fourth sets, the
commercial classes in particular, the failing amounts almost to
intolerance.
We, that is to say, the men, were still at Lady ——’s table, when the
raps at the front door, announced evening company. It is necessary
to understand the eloquence of a London knocker, to appreciate the
melody that followed. Two or three messages were sent to the guest
most at home, to summon us to the drawing-room, but the French
revolution was in the way. At length, we got rid of the bloody
tragedy, and mounting to the first floor, found a room already full
of company.
I had the honour of being introduced to Lady ——, who came nearer to
a dandy in petticoats in her manner, than any woman I ever met with.
I can only liken her apparent affectations of speech, to those one
sometimes hears on the stage; a lisping, drawling superciliousness,
that may be understood, but cannot be described. She is the only
instance I have yet met with, of an English woman of rank, who had
not an unpretending, simple manner of utterance, for most of them
speak the language, not only well, but with a quiet dignity, that is
very agreeable. Indeed, I should say, the women of this country, as a
rule, speak with great precision and beauty, though they often appear
cold and repulsive.
A countrywoman of ours, at ——, was always talking of this Lady ——.
Of course, I supposed they were intimate, the official characters of
their husband’s bringing them necessarily much together. I alluded,
therefore, to Mrs. ——, as one of her acquaintances. “——” “——,” she
repeated, with that exquisite lisp of hers, “I do not think I know
them.” I wish I could impart to paper, the consummate affectation
of her manner, as she said this, for it was quite as admirable in
its way, as the coolness with which she denied an acquaintance, that
I was certain, in the nature of things, she could not readily have
forgotten. I was soon tired of this, and stole away at the first
opportunity.
There was at table to-day, Mr. —— ——, the —— —— ——. He is a
distinguished commoner, a member of parliament, and a rich
landholder. I was surprised to find, this person speaking very much
in the worst _drawing-room_ manner, of our New England dialect. I
do not mean, that he said “dooze” and “ben,” and “nawthin,” for his
pronunciation was not amiss, but he had the mean intonation, and
sing-song utterance, that we so well understand in America. I should
have pronounced him one of us, in a minute, had I not known who he
was. This is the second instance of the kind, I have met with here.
_Au reste_, he was a benevolent, sensible, modest man, and, as I
thought, without prejudice against America. I love such Englishmen.
I have breakfasted, lately, with Sir James Macintosh, Mr. Sharp, Mr.
—— ——; and two or three others. At the house of the first, I met Mr.
Winn, a prominent whig; and at the latter’s, we were the host, Lord
S——, Sir —— ——, and myself. Mr. Rogers was also present, on most of
these occasions. At Mr. Sharp’s, were Lord ——, a young tory for a
novelty, and Lord ——, a lad, who is the heir of Lord L——. I had seen
the former in Paris.
You will be amused with one of my discoveries. I was offered an egg,
with the recommendation, that it was “a country laid egg.” I had
thought myself, until that moment, deeply versed in the mystery of
cooking and eating eggs, whether _à la coq_, or, in _omelettes_.
Never before, had I heard, that an egg laid in the country, was
better than one laid in a town! I was once told, (it was when a
boy,) that the fashion in cooking eggs, like every thing else, was
running from one extreme to the other, provincial ignorance having
been suddenly enlightened, and from boiling them as hard as bullets,
we had exaggerated the new mode by barely warming them through. An
egg should be cooked, _à la coq_, just enough to allow the centre of
the yolk to run while warm, and to become hard when cold. It should
always be eaten from the shell, both because it is better taken in
that way, and because it is not gentlemanly to be making messes,
and more especially unsightly messes, at tables The wine glass or
egg-glass, is an abomination, and altogether a most vulgar substitute
for the egg-cup, and one quite unfit to be seen any where but in a
steamboat, or a tavern frequented by _gulpers_. All men accustomed
to polite life will agree to this, but how many know the difference
between a “town-laid” and “a country-laid egg?” You see by these
little incidents how far a new country may be from an advanced state
of civilization, notwithstanding it possesses gallowses.
The conversation at Mr. L——’s, whom I had known in America, turned
on the begging mission of Bishop Chase of Ohio. One of the gentlemen
gave an account of this prelate’s church statistics that startled me
a little. The population of the state was set down at pretty near a
million, and the clergy at less than a dozen! I ventured to say that
this must be a mistake, unless clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal
Church were exclusively meant. There is always a period in the first
settlement of a region where there is a deficiency in the spiritual
ministrations, but the accounts should not go forth unaccompanied by
the explanations, for they tend to mislead. The statements relative
to drunkenness, got up for effect by the Temperance Societies at
home, are giving us an undeserved reputation for that vice, of which
I feel convinced we have, relatively, _among the native population_,
as little as any other nation I have visited, and much less than
most of them. I feel persuaded there is a party in America that
wishes to see these misstatements propagated, in order to bring free
institutions into disrepute, a party that embraces a large portion
of the trading foreigners, and verily they achieve their object,
for democracy and drunkenness are closely associated in the minds
of millions of the well-intentioned in this hemisphere. If free
principles do prevail, it will be under the providence of God, and
through their own energies; for those who spout loudest in their
praise at home, and even carry out their doctrines to untenable
extremes, take the least heed of any thing that does not immediately
affect their own personal interests, and as for the government it
actually throws its weight into the hostile scale on this side of the
Atlantic, opposing its own friends and rewarding its enemies. This is
a singular state of things, but such is the result not only of my
own observations, but of those of various intelligent countrymen of
ours, who have seen much more of Europe than myself. Were I an office
seeker, I would at once resort to the meannesses that obtain for an
American the outward favours of the aristocracies of Europe, whatever
may be their secret opinions, as the most certain method of being
deemed worthy of the confidence of the government at Washington, and
of obtaining a reputation in the circles at home.
I have lately had an extraordinary proof of what I now tell you. At
one of the dinner’s at Lansdowne-house, Mr. Brougham was present.
He came late, and took his seat at the table opposite to the end at
which I sat. Of course we had no conversation during dinner. As we
were retiring to the drawing-room, Lord Lansdowne did me the favour
to present me to this distinguished man. The introduction took
place at the dining-room door, and we walked across an ante-chamber
together, when the usual compliments and civilities passed. We had no
sooner reached the ladies and made our bows, than Mr. Brougham turned
to me, and abruptly demanded—“What is the reason so many of your
people desert the distinctive principles of your government, when
they come to Europe?”
I have been thus particular in relating the circumstances under which
this extraordinary question was put, for I think they prove what was
uppermost in the mind of Mr. Brougham, and the strong impression
that had been left by the circumstance to which he alluded. It is
quite evident that this impression must have been unfavourable either
to the institutions, or to the candour of the national character.