all matters of this tender nature, on hearing of the reconciliation of
the lovers, undertook the critical task of breaking the matter to
Ready-Money Jack. She thought there was no time like the present, and
attacked the sturdy old yeoman that very evening in the park, while
his heart was yet lifted up with the Squire's good cheer. Jack was a
little surprised at being drawn aside by her ladyship, but was not to
be flurried by such an honour: he was still more surprised by the
nature of her communication, and by this first intelligence of an
affair which had been passing under his eye. He listened, however,
with his usual gravity, as her ladyship represented the advantages of
the match, the good qualities of the girl, and the distress which she
had lately suffered: at length his eye began to kindle, and his hand
to play with the head of his cudgel. Lady Lillycraft saw that
something in the narrative had gone wrong, and hastened to mollify his
rising ire by reiterating the soft-hearted Phoebe's merit and
fidelity, and her great unhappiness; when old Ready-Money suddenly
interrupted her by exclaiming, that if Jack did not marry the wench,
he'd break every bone in his body! The match, therefore, is considered
a settled thing: Dame Tibbets and the housekeeper have made friends,
and drank tea together; and Phoebe has again recovered her good looks
and good spirits, and is carolling from morning till night like a
lark.
But the most whimsical caprice of Cupid is one that I should be almost
afraid to mention, did I not know that I was writing for readers well
experienced in the waywardness of this most mischievous deity. The
morning after the wedding, therefore, while Lady Lillycraft was making
preparations for her departure, an audience was requested by her
immaculate hand-maid, Mrs. Hannah, who, with much primming of the
mouth, and many maidenly hesitations, requested leave to stay behind,
and that Lady Lillycraft would supply her place with some other
servant. Her ladyship was astonished: "What! Hannah going to quit her,
that had lived with her so long!"
"Why, one could not help it; one must settle in life some time or
other."
The good lady was still lost in amazement; at length, the secret was
gasped from the dry lips of the maiden gentlewoman: "She had been some
time thinking of changing her condition, and at length had given her
word, last evening, to Mr. Christy, the huntsman."
How, or when, or where this singular courtship had been carried on, I
have not been able to learn; nor how she has been able, with the
vinegar of her disposition, to soften the stony heart of old Nimrod:
so, however, it is, and it has astonished every one. With all her
ladyship's love of match-making, this last fume of Hymen's torch has
been too much for her. She has endeavoured to reason with Mrs. Hannah,
but all in vain; her mind was made up, and she grew tart on the least
contradiction. Lady Lillycraft applied to the Squire for his
interference. "She did not know what she should do without Mrs.
Hannah, she had been used to have her about her so long a time."
The Squire, on the contrary, rejoiced in the match, as relieving the
good lady from a kind of toilet-tyrant, under whose sway she had
suffered for years. Instead of thwarting the affair, therefore, he has
given it his full countenance; and declares that he will set up the
young couple in one of the best cottages on his estate. The
approbation of the Squire has been followed by that of the whole
household; they all declare, that if ever matches are really made in
heaven, this must have been; for that old Christy and Mrs. Hannah were
as evidently formed to be linked together, as ever were pepper-box and
vinegar-cruet.
As soon as this matter was arranged, Lady Lillycraft took her leave of
the family at the Hall; taking with her the captain and his blushing
bride, who are to pass the honeymoon with her. Master Simon
accompanied them on horseback, and indeed means to ride on ahead to
make preparations. The general, who was fishing in vain for an
invitation to her seat, handed her ladyship into the carriage with a
heavy sigh; upon which his bosom friend, Master Simon, who was just
mounting his horse, gave me a knowing wink, made an abominably wry
face, and, leaning from his saddle, whispered loudly in my ear, "It
won't do!" Then, putting spurs to his horse, away he cantered off. The
general stood for some time waving his hat after the carriage as it
rolled down the avenue, until he was seized with a fit of sneezing,
from exposing his head to the cool breeze. I observed that he returned
rather thoughtfully to the house; whistling softly to himself, with
his hands behind his back, and an exceedingly dubious air.
The company have now almost all taken their departure; I have
determined to do the same to-morrow morning; and I hope my reader may
not think that I have already lingered too long at the Hall. I have
been tempted to do so, however, because I thought I had lit upon one
of the retired places where there are yet some traces to be met with
of old English character. A little while hence, and all these will
probably have passed away. Ready-Money Jack will sleep with his
fathers: the good Squire, and all his peculiarities, will be buried in
the neighbouring church. The old Hall will be modernized into a
fashionable country-seat, or, peradventure, a manufactory. The park
will be cut up into petty farms and kitchen-gardens. A daily coach
will run through the village; it will become, like all other
commonplace villages, thronged with coachmen, post-boys, tipplers, and
politicians: and Christmas, May-day, and all the other hearty
merry-makings of the "good old times," will be forgotten.
THE AUTHOR'S FAREWELL.
And so without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part.
--_Hamlet_.
Having taken leave of the Hall and its inmates, and brought the
history of my visit to something like a close, there seems to remain
nothing further than to make my bow, and exit. It is my foible,
however, to get on such companionable terms with my reader in the
course of a work, that it really costs me some pain to part with him;
and I am apt to keep him by the hand, and have a few farewell wards at
the end of my last volume.
When I cast an eye back upon the work I am just concluding, I cannot
but be sensible how full it must be of errors and imperfections:
indeed, how should it be otherwise, writing as I do about subjects and
scenes with which, as a stranger, I am but partially acquainted? Many
will doubtless find cause to smile at very obvious blunders which I
may have made; and many may, perhaps, be offended at what they may
conceive prejudiced representations. Some will think I might have said
much more on such subjects as may suit their peculiar tastes; whilst
others will think I had done wiser to have left those subjects
entirely alone.
It will probably be said, too, by some, that I view England with a
partial eye. Perhaps I do; for I can never forget that it is my
"father land." And yet, the circumstances under which I have viewed it
have by no means been such as were calculated to produce favourable
impressions. For the greater part of the time that I have resided in
it, I have lived almost unknowing and unknown; seeking no favours, and
receiving none: "a stranger and a sojourner in the land," and subject
to all the chills and neglects that are the common lot of the
stranger.
When I consider these circumstances, and recollect how often I have
taken up my pen, with a mind ill at ease, and spirits much dejected
and cast down, I cannot but think I was not likely to err on the
favourable side of the picture. The opinions I have given of English
character have been the result of much quiet, dispassionate, and
varied observation. It is a character not to be hastily studied, for
it always puts on a repulsive and ungracious aspect to a stranger. Let
those, then, who condemn my representations as too favourable, observe
this people as closely and deliberately as I have done, and they will,
probably, change their opinion. Of one thing, at any rate, I am
certain, that I have spoken honestly and sincerely, from the
convictions of my mind, and the dictates of my heart. When I first
published my former writings, it was with no hope of gaining favour in
English eyes, for I little thought they were to become current out of
my own country: and had I merely sought popularity among my own
countrymen, I should have taken a more direct and obvious way, by
gratifying rather than rebuking the angry feelings that were then
prevalent against England.
And here let me acknowledge my warm, my thankful feelings, at the
effect produced by one of my trivial lucubrations. I allude to the
essay in the Sketch-Book, on the subject of the literary feuds between
England and America. I cannot express the heartfelt delight I have
experienced, at the unexpected sympathy and approbation with which
those remarks have been received on both sides of the Atlantic. I
speak this not from any paltry feelings of gratified vanity; for I
attribute the effect to no merit of my pen. The paper in question was
brief and casual, and the ideas it conveyed were simple and obvious.
"It was the cause: it was the cause" alone. There Vras a
predisposition on the part of my readers to be favourably affected. My
countrymen responded in heart to the filial feelings I had avowed in
their name towards the parent country: and there was a generous
sympathy in every English bosom towards a solitary individual, lifting
up his voice in a strange land, to vindicate the injured character of
his nation. There are some causes sosacred as to carry with them an
irresistible appeal to every virtuous bosom; and he needs but little
power of eloquence, who defends the honour of his wife, his mother, or
his country.
I hail, therefore, the success of that brief paper, as showing how
much good may be done by a kind word, however feeble, when spoken in
season--as showing how much dormant good-feeling actually exists in
each country, towards the other, which only wants the slightest spark
to kindle it into a genial flame--as showing, in fact, what I have all
along believed and asserted, that the two nations would grow together
in esteem and amity, if meddling and malignant spirits would but throw
by their mischievous pens, and leave kindred hearts to the kindly
impulses of nature.
I once more assert, and I assert it with increased conviction of its
truth, that there exists, among the great majority of my countrymen, a
favourable feeling toward England. I repeat this assertion, because I
think it a truth that cannot too often be reiterated, and because it
has met with some contradiction. Among all the liberal and enlightened
minds of my countrymen, among all those which eventually give a tone
to national opinion, there exists a cordial desire to be on terms of
courtesy and friendship. But at the same time, there exists in those
very minds a distrust of reciprocal good-will on the part of England.
They have been rendered morbidly sensitive by the attacks made upon
their country by the English press; and their occasional irritability
on this subject has been misinterpreted into a settled and unnatural
hostility.
For my part, I consider this jealous sensibility as belonging to
generous natures. I should look upon my countrymen as fallen indeed
from that independence of spirit which is their birth-gift; as fallen
indeed from that pride of character which they inherit from the proud
nation from which they sprung, could they tamely sit down under the
infliction of contumely and insult. Indeed, the very impatience which
they show as to the misrepresentations of the press, proves their
respect for English opinion, and their desire for English amity; for
there is never jealousy where there is not strong regard.
It is easy to say, that these attacks are all the effusions of
worthless scribblers, and treated with silent contempt by the nation;
but, alas! the slanders of the scribbler travel abroad, and the silent
contempt of the nation is only known at home. With England, then, it
remains, as I have formerly asserted, to promote a mutual spirit of
conciliation; she has but to hold the language of friendship and
respect, and she is secure of the good-will of every American bosom.
In expressing these sentiments, I would utter nothing that should
commit the proper spirit of my countrymen. We seek no boon at
England's hands: we ask nothing as a favour. Her friendship is not
necessary, nor would her hostility be dangerous to our well-being. We
ask nothing from abroad that we cannot reciprocate. But with respect
to England, we have a warm feeling of the heart, the glow of
consanguinity that still lingers in our blood. Interest apart--past
differences forgotten--we extend the hand of old relationship. We
merely ask, do not estrange us from you; do not destroy the ancient
tie of blood; do not let scoffers and slanderers drive a kindred
nation from your side; we would fain be friends; do not compel us to
be enemies.
There needs no better rallying-ground for international amity, than
that furnished by an eminent English writer: "There is," say she, "a
sacred bond between us of blood and of language, which no
circumstances can break. Our literature must always be theirs; and
though their laws are no longer the same as ours, we have the same
Bible, and we address our common Father in the same prayer. Nations
are too ready to admit that they have natural enemies; why should they
be less willing to believe that they have natural friends?"[18]
[Footnote 18: From an article (said to be by Robert Southey, Esq.)
published in the Quarterly Review. It is to be lamented that that
publication should so often forget the generous text here given!]
To the magnanimous spirits of both countries must we trust to carry
such a natural alliance of affection into full effect. To pens more
powerful than mine, I leave the noble task of promoting the cause of
national amity. To the intelligent and enlightened of my own country,
I address my parting voice, entreating them to show themselves
superior to the petty attacks of the ignorant and the worthless, and
still to look with dispassionate and philosophic eye to the moral
character of England, as the intellectual source of our rising
greatness; while I appeal to every generous-minded Englishman from the
slanders which disgrace the press, insult the understanding, and belie
the magnanimity of his country: and I invite him to look to America,
as to a kindred nation, worthy of its origin; giving, in the healthy
vigour of its growth, the best of comments on its parent stock; and
reflecting, in the dawning brightness of its fame, the moral
effulgence of British glory.
I am sure that such an appeal will not be made in vain. Indeed, I have
noticed, for some time past, an essential change in English sentiment
with regard to Amerioar. In parliament, that fountain-head of public
opinion, there seems to be an emulation, on both sides of the house,
in holding the language of courtesy and friendship. The same spirit is
daily becoming more and more prevalent in good society. There is a
growing curiosity concerning my country; a craving desire for correct
information, that cannot fail to lead to a favourable understanding.
The scoffer, I trust, has had his day; the time of the slanderer is
gone by; the ribald jokes, the stale commonplaces, which have so long
passed current when America was the theme, are now banished to the
ignorant and the vulgar, or only perpetuated by the hireling
scribblers and traditional jesters of the press. The intelligent and
high-minded now pride themselves upon making America a study.
But however my feelings may be understood or reciprocated on either
side of the Atlantic, I utter them without reserve, for I have ever
found that to speak frankly is to speak safely. I am not so sanguine
as to believe that the two nations are ever to be bound together by
any romantic ties of feeling; but I believe that much may be done
towards keeping alive cordial sentiments, were every well-disposed
mind occasionally to throw in a simple word of kindness. If I have,
indeed, produced any such effect by my writings, it will be a soothing
reflection to me, that for once, in the course of a rather negligent
life, I have been useful; that for once, by the casual exercise of a
pen which has been in general but too unprofitably employed, I have
awakened a cord of sympathy between the land of my fathers and the
dear land that gave me birth.
In the spirit of these sentiments, I now take my farewell of the
paternal soil. With anxious eye do I behold the clouds of doubt and
difficulty that are lowering over it, and earnestly do I hope that
they may all clear up into serene and settled sunshine. In bidding
this last adieu, my heart is filled with fond, yet melancholy
emotions; and still I linger, and still, like a child leaving the
venerable abodes of his forefathers, I turn to breathe forth a filial
benediction: Peace be within thy walls, O England! and plenteousness
within thy palaces; for my brethren and my companions' sake I will now
say, Peace be within thee!