YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

'f.l ii^

Harper's Stereotype Edition.

ENGLAND AND THE] ENGLISH.

BY THE ADTHOR Of

"PELHAM," "DEVEREUX," "EUGENE AIUM," &c.;

" Ordine gentis
Mores, et studia, et populoS] et pnelia &ic3in."-.yirgil.
" EveiT now Mid ttiea we stiotild examii^e ouiselves ; self-amendment is the offspring of self*
knowledge. But foreigners do not examine our condition; tliey only glance at its surface.
Why sliould we print volumes upon otiier countries, and be silent upon our own? Why traTene
the world, and neglect the phenomena around us ? Why should the spirit of our researches be a
lynx io jLfrica ana a mole in England ? Why, in one woiH, should a nation be never oriticised
by a native ? ^—Montasu .

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. L

NEW-YORK:
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. & J. HARPER,
NO. 82 CLIPF-STKEET,
AND SOLD BY THE PKINOIPAL BOOKSELLEES THROtJ SHOUT THB
UNITED STATES.
183 3.

PREFACE.

This work is intended as a criticism. It will inquire
into the existent character of the English people, and
the. construction and bearings of their social system :
it will examine the present state of their religion, their
morals, their education, and their literature ; and from
thence it will proceed to a brief survey of the political
position in which they are now placed. A work of this
description, written by an Englishman, has long seemed
to me a desideratum — it is, perhaps, more than ever a
desideratum at a time when old and new principles are
at war. At such a time we cannot too diligently ex
amine the nature of the vast questions on which we are
called upon to decide : we ought to ascertain dispas
sionately what of the old influences and institutions, so
boldly and universally challenged, we ought to reject,
and what to retain. In order to ascertain what is best
for us, let us endeavour to know ourselve.'f.
A work of this character, if written by a native, must
necessarily, however, be somewhat serious, and to the
ordinary reader somewhat dull. A foreigner cannot
fail to be a more amusing writer on the characteristics
of a people than one of themselves. The piquant
foibles — the humorous peculiarities which he finds on
the surface of society, he transfers to his pages with all
the freshness of first impressions. We are pleased
to see in his book every thing most familiar to our
selves treated with the vivacity of a new observer.
Even his little njistakes entertaia us. His freedom

6 PREFACE.
from the social ties which trammel ourselves enables
him to intersperse his pages with descriptions of indi
viduals, and to enliven general remarks by pointed per
sonalities : he unites, in one word, the adventure, spirit,
and enterprise of travel, with the drier disquisitions of
critical observation. But, on the other hand, he sports
only with effects ; he has rarely lived long enough in
the country of which he treats to penetrate to the
causes of what he perceives. That which makes hira
usually amusing makes him also usually superficial.
Neither does he, in general, write sufficieiiily in earnest:
he seldom cares very greatly to improve a people in
whose improvement he has no interest ; lie writes to
describe, not to ameliorate ; he neither knows nor asks
what may be the subjects most unportant to a particular
people, at particular seasons to examine, — what delu
sions it will be most useful to dispel, — what principles
may be the most salutary to establish. Nor can he
detect thoroughly the influences which pervadgj and
perhaps create, the spirit and character of a nation : he
does not mix intimately with all classes ; he is neces
sarily thrown into sects and coteries : he picks up indi
vidual opinions, and adapts them to superficial impres
sions or previous prejudice. In addition to these defi-
ciencies, looking only to external customs, and the osten-
sibilities of manner, he runs the risk of being either too
much in love with a people or too much revolted by
them. Whatever is new seems to all of us either ex
cessively delightful or utterly unpleasing, — Custom in
all things is the best cure to Passion. Hence, strange
as it may seem, travellers and tourists are nearly always
the writers of a party, — where you would expect the
most impartiality you find the least. But a native
having every disadvantage in writing an amusing book,
has every advantage in writing a true one, — provided
only that he has mixed largely with all classes, and, by
^ constitutional coolness, or loneliness of mind, has

PREFACE. 7
maintained himself aloof from the prejudices of secta
rianism and the interests of faction. I advance a claim
to no other merits ; may I venture to pretend to these,
humble in themselves, but suited to the present purpose.
As a literary man, and as a Member of Parliament,
connected by birth with the agricultural interest, and by
public principles brought into contact with the com
mercial ; above all, too, as a writer in a peculiar class
of literature, wliich cannot be cultivated without a mis
cellaneous experience of mankind ; it has been my lot
to mix with men of all grades, interests, and opinions.
I know not that party among them to which I can be
said to belong. I am an advocate for a strong govern
ment, yet I am not a Tory. I love the people, yet I
am not a Radical. I am for a rational compromise
between the Past and the Present, yet I am not a Whig.
By fortune, which satisfies my desires, by nature, which
inclines neither my ambition nor the habits of my mind
to the objects of political advancement, I am made (as
by accident) independent of all the hopes and fears
of party emulation ; and I care not, therefore, to write
a book which may be inimical to the views of all parties,
because espousing the interests of none. He who
advocates the institutions of a Monarchy and an estab-
lished Church can scarcely in these times please the
popular passion. He who traces the evil influences of
aristocratic power, can scarcely please the two great aris
tocratic factions. But though he fail in these point."?,
perhaps he may speak the truth ! And if he do attain
that (the great object in such compositions), it is not
to England alone that the truth may be useful. For
an analysis of the general influences and tendency of
an Aristocratic Government in a Commercial Country,
must have an interest for the speculators on legislature,
and the inquirers into the nature of true freedom, to
what people soever they belong. It may be, indeed,
that ftbroad, where my writings have usually beep hop-

8 PREFACE.
oured with some slight attention, this work may be
more dispassionately considered than at home ; and
that the criticism upon one country may find its best
judges in another.
In fact, I have, in this work, written for the most pai't
rather on causes, as in my fictions I have written rather
on effects. I consider my present book to be the key
and glossary to the tendencies and the moral of those
which have preceded it. As the last volume of some
tedious work may contain the clavis to the rest, I have
printed off my dulness, and I now add its explanation.
Henceforth, if I attempt fictions again, I shall probably
start with a new series, and seek the sources of amuse
ment in a wider range of imagination.
I think an author who deliberately writes a drier work
than he has done before is bound to prepare iiis readers
for it ; he is bound to say, " Gentlemen, compose
yourselves, estabhsPi your seat firmly in your arm-chairs.
I am going to be very didactic, and you, therefore, must
be very attentive, unless you prefer going to sleep."
He is bound also to state beforehand what parts of his
work will be the dullest ; and I therefore warn the
reader against the end of the first volume, containing
remarks on our Education and our Morals, and the
first chapter of the second volume, comprising a view
of the Influence of the Press, as being those portions
in which the nature ofthe subject allowed of less relief
than the rest. If, reader, you dislike those passages,
pass over them to the next. I implore you only not to
throw down the book. For your sake as wgU as my
own, I ask of you this favour, because from my very
heart I am convinced that honesty of purpose has sup
plied the want of skill in execution, and that you will
not glance through this work v/ithout occasionally find
ing a little of novelty and something of truth.
I have now to express my thanks to certain kind
correspondents for the assistance they have afforded

PREPACK. 9
me. To one gentleman of tlie highest scientific attain
ments and reputation I am indebted for many sugges
tions, of which I have availed myself in my brief view
of the " State of Science." To another gentleman,
quaUfied, perhaps before all men living, to judge pro
foundly of tlie philosophy of Bentham, I am also in
debted for considerable aid in the sketch of that re
markable writer's moral and legislative codes which will
be found in the Appendix to the second volume ; and
to the taste and critical knowledge of a third gentleman
I owe many obligations in the chapter devoted to thc
survey " of the State of the Arts" among us at this
time. To the last my aclmowledgments are perhaps
the greater, because he has suffered me, in his general
approbation of my theories, to apply a part of his know
ledge to sotne conclusions with which he does not wholly
agree. My dear reader, one more word with you : as, on
the one hand, this book is written for no faction, so it is
probable that all the factions will abuse it ; and as, on
the other hand, in these turbulent and unquiet times, it
is yet more probable that silence will supplant abuse ;
so the pebble now cast upon the waters may sink at
once without a visible circle in the stream. These are
the common chances of authorship, — abuse on the one
hand, neglect on the other ; and, therefore, it has long
seemed to me, that he who seeks only for reputation
lives the life of trouble, and eats the bread of care, — he
is the worst of dependants, — he is the slave of eveiy
man, — in his anxiety to please, he gives away the lib
erty of his own soul. But he who is less a seeker for
reputation than for truth finds a reward in his pursuit
itself. The PubUc vanish from his eyes, — his own
breast is his tribunal, — and certain serene convictions
beyond the power of others to challenge or disturb
become to him the substitute of Fame.
A3

BOOK THE FmST.

VIEW OF THE ENGLISH CHARACTER,
INSCRIBED
TO HIS EXCELLENCY
THE PRINCE TALLEYRAND.

" Before you can rectify the disorders of a state, you must ex
amine the character of the people." — Voltaire.
 " I am he
Have measured all the shires of England over,
For to these savages I was addicted
To search their natures and make odd discoveries.
The New Inn, Ben Jonson. Act 5, Scene 5.

VIEW OF THE ENGLISH CHARACTER.

CHAPTER I.

Apology for Freedom with a great Name — National Prejudices illus
trated — Distinctions between the Vanity of the French and Eng-
bsh — The Root of our Notions is the Sentiment of Property — An
ecdote of the French Patriot and the English one — The sense of
Independence— Its Nature with us defined—Freedom 7u>t the cause
of Unsociabihty — Eifects of Commerce upon the Disposition to
Gayety — Story of the Dutchman and the English Merchant.
I AM about, in this portion of my work, to treat of
the character of my countrymen : for when a diplo
matist like your Excellency is among them, they may
well be put upon their guard.
I shall endeavour to tell my countrymen the causes
that have stamped with certain impressions the Na
tional Character, in the belief that the knowledge of
self is a better precaution against deceit than even the
suspicion of others. I inscribe this portion of my
work to your Excellency on the same principle as that
on which the Scythian brought to Darius a mouse, a
bird, a fish, and a bundle of arrows : they were the
symbols of his nation, and given as instructions to its
foe. I make up also my bundle of national symbols,
and I offer them to the representative of that gallant
people with whom for eight centuries we have been
making great wars, occasioned by small mistakes.
Perhaps if the symbols had been rightly construed
a little earlier, even a mouse and a fish might have
taught us better. A quarrel is, nine times out of ten,
merely the fermentatien of a misunderstanding.
I have another reason for inscribing these prelimi-

14 APOLOGY FOR FREEDOM
nary chapters to Prince Talleyrand : this is not the
flrst time he has been among us--great changes have
been over the world during the wide interval between
his first and his present visit to England. Those
changes which have wrought such convulsions in
states have begun by revolutions in the character of
nations — every change in a constitution is occasioned
by some change in the people. The English of the
present day are not the English of twenty years ago.
To whom can I dedicate my observations on the
causes that influence character so fittingly as to the
man who can read character at a glance. The con
sciousness that I set over my testimony so penetrating
a judge must make me doubly scrupulous as to its ac
curacy : and my presumption in appealing to such an
arbiter is an evidence, indeed, of temerity ; but it is
also a proof of my honesty, and a guarantee for my
caution. I remember to have read in ah ancient writer* of a
certain district in Africa remarkable for a fearful phe
nomenon. " In that climate," says our authority,
" the air seemed filled with gigantic figures of strange
and uncouth monsters fighting (or in pursuit of) each
other. These apparitions were necessarily a little
alarming to foreigners, but the natives looked upon
them with the utmost indifference." Is not this story
an emblem of national prejudices ? The shadowy
monsters that appal the stranger seem ordinary enough
to us ; we have no notion of a different atmosphere,
and that which is a marvel to others is but a common
place to ourselves. Yet if the native is unobservant,
your Excellency will allow that the traveller is credu
lous ; and if sometimes the monsters are miremarked
by the one, sometimes also they are invented by the
other. Your Excellency remembers the story of the
French Jesuit, who was astonished to find priestcraft
in China ; the man who practised it in the name of
the Virgin thought it a monstrous piece of impudence
* Oioclorut Siculus,

with a great name. is
to practise it m the name of Fo ! In the same spirit
of travel you read of an Englishwoman complaining
of rudeness in America, and a Gernian prince affect
ing ^ republican horror at an aristocracy in England.
His Excellency Prince TaUeyralid knows better
than the whole corps of diplomatists how small a dif
ference there is really between man and man — the
stature and limbs vary little in proportions — it is the
costume that makes all the distinction. Travellers do
not sufficiently analyze their surprise at the novelties
they see, and they often proclaim that to be a differ
ence in the several characters *of nations, which is but
a difterence in their manners. One of the oldest
illustrations of national prejudice is to be found in He
rodotus. The Greeks, in the habit of burning their
parents, were wonderfully indignant at the barbarity of
the CaUatii, who were accustomed to eat them. The
Persian king summons the CaUatii before him in the
presence of the Greeks : " You eat your fathers and
mothers — a most excellent practice — pray, for what
sum wiU you bum them V The CaUatii were ex
ceedingly disgusted at the question. Burn their
parents ! They uttered yells of horror at so inhuman
a suggestion! The Callatian and the Greek expe
rienced filial affection in an equal degree, but the man
who made a diimer of his father woidd have consid
ered it the height of atrocity to have made a bonfire
of him.
The passions are universally the same — the expres
sion of them as universally varying. Your Excel
lency wiU aUow that the French and the English are
both eminently v in of country — so far they are alike
— yet if there be any difference between the two na
tions more strong than another, it is the manner in
which that vanity is shown. The vanity of the
Frenchman consists (as I have somewhere read) in
belonging to so great a country : but the vanity of the
Englishman exults in the thought that so great a coun
try belongs to himself The root of all our notions,
as of all our laws, is to be found in the sentiment of

16 NATIONAL PREJUDICES.
property. It is »iy wife whom you shall not insult;
it is my house that you shall not enter ; it is my coun
tiy that you shall not traduce ; and, by a species of
ultra-mundane appropriation, it is my God whom you
shaU not blaspheme !
We may observe the different form of the national
vanity in the inhabitant of either comitrj^by compar
ing the eulogia whicli the Frenchman lavishes on
France, with the sarcastic despondency with which the
Englishman touches upon England.
A few months ago I paid a visit to Paris : I fell in
with a French marquis of the Bourbonite politics : he
spoke to me of the present state of Paris with tears
in his eyes. I thought it best to sympathize and agree
with him ; my complaisance was displeasing : he
wiped his eyes with the air of a man beginning to take
offence. " Nevertheless, sir," quoth he, " our public
buildings are superb !" I allowed the fact. " We
have made great advances in civilization." There was
no disputing the proposition. " Our writers are the
greatest in the world." I was silent. " Enjin —
what a devil of a climate yours is, in comparison to
ours !"
I returned to England in company with a French
man who had visited us twenty years since, and who
was delighted with the improvements he witnessed
in London. I introdiiced him to one of our patriots.
"What a superb street is Regent-street," cried the
FreHchman. " Pooh, sir, mere lath and plaster !" replied the
patriot. " I wish to hear your debates," said the Frenchman.
" Not worth the trouble, sir," groaned the patriot.
" I shall do homage to your public men."
" Mere twaddlers, I assure you — nothing gi-eat now-
a-days." " Well, I am surprised ; but, at least, I shall see your
authors and men of science."
" Really, sir," answered the patriot, very gravely,
" I don't remember that we have any."

NATIONAL PREJUDICES. 17
The polished Frenchman was at a loss for a mo
ment ; but, recovering himself — " Ah !" said he, talcing
a pinch of snuff, " but you're a very great nation —
very !"
" That is quite true," said the Englishman, di-awing
himself up.
The Englishman, then, is vain of his country!
Wherefore ? Because of the j5ubUc buOdings ? — he
never enters them. The laws? — he abuses them
eternally. The public men ? — they are quacks. The
writers ? — he knows nothing about them. He is vain
of his country for an exceUent reason — it produced
HIM. In his own mind, the Englishman is the pivot of all
things — the centre of the solar system. Like Virtue
herself, he " Stands as the sun,
And all that rolls around him
Drinks light, and life, and glory from his aspect."
It is an old maxim enough among us, that we pos
sess the sturdy sense of independence ; we value our
selves on it : yet the sense of independence is often
but the want of sympathy with others.
There was a certain merchant sojourning at an mn,
whom the boots, by mistake, called betimes in the
morning. " Sir," quoth the boots, " the day's breaking." The
merchant turned round with a grim look — "Let it
break," growled he ; "it owes me nothing !" This
anecdote is rather characteristic : it shows the con
nexion between selfishness and independence. The
trait in our character of which I speak has been often
remarked ; none, however, have, to my mind, very
clearly accounted for it. Your Excellency knows,
to be sure, that all the Frenchmen who ever wrote a
syllable about us have declared it the result of our
haughty consciousness of liberty. But we are better
aware now-a-days than formerly what the real effects
of liberty are. The feeling I describe is entirely self-

18 ENGLISH CHARACTERISTICS.
ish ; the feelings produced by the consciousness of lib
erty rather run into the wildest extremes of universal
philanthropy. Union and fraternity are the favourite
cant words of popular power ; and unsociability may
be the accompaniment, but is certainly not the charac
teristic, of freedom.
A Frenchman-, indeed, has long enjoyed the same
secitrity of property, and the same consciousness of
liberty, which are the boast of the Englishman ; but
this advantage has rather tended to widen than concen
trate the circle of his affections. In becoming a citi
zen, he has not ceased to mingle with his kind ; per
haps he thinks that to be at once free and unsocial would
be a union less characteristic of a civilized than a sav
age condition. But your Excellency has observed that
all among us, save those of the highest ranks, live very
much alone. Our crowded parties are not society ; we
assemble all our acquaintance for the pleasure of say
ing nothing to them. " Les Anglais," says one of your
countrymen, " les Anglais ont une infinite de ces pitites
usages de convention, pour se dispenser de purler." Our
main element is home ; and if you believe oiu- senti
mentalists, we consider it a wonderful virtue to be
unhappy and disagreeable everywhere else. Thus
(thj consequence is notable) we acquire that habit of
attaching an undue importance to our own circle, and
viewing with indifference all the sphere beyond,
which proverbially distinguishes the recluse, or the
member of a confined coterie. Your Excellency' has,
perhaps, conversed with Mr. Owen. That benevolent
!ian usually visits every foreigner whom he conceives
worthy of conversion to parallelogrammatisation ; and,
since I remember the time when he considered the
Duke of Wellington and the Archbishop of Canterbury
among the likeliest of his proselyfes, it is not out of
the range of possibilities that he should imagine he
may make an Owenite of th ^x-Bishop of Autun.
If, by any accident, Mr. O wf . wrong upon that point,
he is certainly right in a- r ; he is right when, in
order to render philanthr ^ ^ ....iversal, he proposes that

ILLUSTRATIONS OF NATIONAL CHARACTER. 19
individuals of every community shoidd live in public
together — the tmsocial life is scarcely prolific of the
social virtues. v
But if it be not the consciousness of liberty, what
causes are they that produce among us that passion
for the Unsocial, which we dignify with the milder
epithet of tlie Domestic ? I apprehend that the main
causes are two : the first may be fomid in our habits
of trade ; the second, in the long-established influence
of a very peculiar form of aristocracy.
With respect to the first, I think we may grant, with
out much difiiculty, that it is evidently the nature of
commerce to detach the mind from the pursuit of amuse
ment ; fatigued with promiscuous intercourse during
the day, its votaries concentrate their desires of relaxa
tion within their home ; at night they want rest rather
than amusement : hence we usually find a certain apa
thy to amusement, perfectly distinct from mere gi-avity
of disposition, is the characteristic of commercial na
tions. It is not less observable among the Americans
and the Dutch than it is among the English ; which last
have, in their social state, groat counterbalances to the
commercial spirit. I had the honour of being intro
duced the other day to a young travellfer from Amster
dam. " Have you been to the play since your arrival
in London ?" was a natural question.
" No, sir ; those amusements are very expensive."
" True ; but a man so enviably rich as yourself can
afford them."
" No, sir," was the austere and philosophic reply ;
" I can afford the amusement, but not ihe habit of amuse
ment." A witty countryman of your ExceUency's told me
that he could win over any Englishman I pleased to
select to accompany him to a masquerade that was to
be given at the Opera House. I selected for the ex
periment a remarkably quiet and decorous father of a
family — a merchant. The Frenchman accosted him ;
" Monsieur never goes to masquerades, I believe V
•' Never."

20 CAUSES OF UNSOCIABILITY.
"So I thought. It would be impossible for you
to go."
" Not quite impossible," said the merchant, smiling ;
" but I am too busy for such entertainments ; besides,
I have a moral scruple."
" Exactly so. I have just bet my friend here three
to one that he could not induce you to go to the mas
querade given to-morrow night at the Opera House."
" Three to one !" said the merchant, " those are
long odds."
" I will offer you the same bet," rejoined the French
man, gayly, " in guineas, if you please."
" Three to one ! — done," cried the Englishman,
and he went to the Opera House in order to win his
wager : the masquerade in this case had ceased to be
an amusement — it had become a commercial specula
tion !*
But the same class that are indifferent to amusement
are yet fond of show. A spirit of general unsociability
is not incompatible with the love of festivals on great,
occasions, with splendid entertainments, and a luxu
rious hospitality. Ostentation and unsociability are
often effects ofthe same cause ; for the spirit of com
merce, disdaining to indulge amusement, is proud
of displaying wealth ; and is even more favourable to.
the Luxuries than it is to the Arts.
The second cause of our unsociability is more latent
than the first : so far from springing out of our liberty,
it arises from the restraints on it ; and is the result,
not of the haughtiness of a democracy, but the peculiar
influences of aristocratic power. This part of my in
quiry, which is very important, deserves a chapter to
itself. * So, in the United States, a traveller tells us that he observed
in the pit of the theatre two lads of about fifteen years of age, con
versing very intently between the acts. Curiosity prompted him to
listen to the dialogue. Were they discussing the merits of the play
--the genius of the actpr— the splendour of the scene t No such
thing ; they were attempting to calculate the number of spectators,
and the consequent proiits to the manager.

KLIOIBaiTY TO OFFICK AND HONOURS. 21

CHAPTER n.
The Eflf^ct of the Openness of Public Honours to tho Plebeian
counteracted by the Patrician Influences — ^Mr. Hunt's Bim Mot —
Character of Lord Lachrymal — Mistake of the People in their
Jealousy of the Crown — Causes that distinguish the Influence
of the English from that of any other Aristocracy — The numerous
Grades of Society — How created — Spirit of Imitation and Vying—
The Reserve and Orgueil of the English traced to their Causes —
The Aristocracy operate on Character; Character on Laws —
Want of Amusements among the Poor.
The proverbial penetration of your Excellency has
doubtless remarked that England has long possessed
this singular constitution of society, — the spirit of de
mocracy in the power of obtaining honours, and the
genius of an aristocracy in the method by which they
are acquired. '1 he highest offices have been open by
law to any man, no matter what his pedigree or his
quarterings ; but influences, stronger than laws, have
determined that it is only through the aid of one por
tion or the other of the aristocracy that those offices
can be obtained. Hence we see daily in high ad
vancement men sprung from the people who yet never
use the power they have acquired in the people's be
half. Nay, it may be observed, even among the law
yers, who owe at least the first steps of promotion to
their own talents or perseverance, though for the
crowning honours they must look to oligarchical favour,
that, as in the case of a Scott or a Sugden, the lowest
plebeian by birth has only to be of importance to be- .
come the bitterest aristocrat in policy. The road to
honours is apparently popular ; but each person rising
from the herd has endeavoured to restrain the veiy
principle of popularity by which he has risen. So
that, while the power of attaining eminent station has
been open to all ranks, yet in proportion as that power
bore any individual aloft, you might see it purifying

22 MISTAKE OF THE PEOPLE
itself of all democratic properties, and beautifully
melting into that aristocratic atmosphere which it was
permitted to attain. Mr. Himt, whom your Excellency
may perhaps have heard of as a doctrinaire in a school
once familiar to yourself, had a peculiar faculty of
uttering hard truths. "You speak," quoth he one
evening in the House of Commons, " of the mob of
demagogues whom the Reform Bill wiU send to par
liament : be not afraid, you have one sure method of
curing the wildest of them; choose. your man, catch
him, place him on the Treasury bench, and be assured
you will never hear him accused of being a dema
gogue again."
Lord Lachrymal (it is classical, and dramatic into
the bargain, to speak of the living under feigned
names) is a man of plebeian extraction. He has risen
through the various grades of the law, and has obtained
possession of the highest. No man calls him parvenu
— he has confounded himself with the haute noblesse:
if you were to menace the peers' right of voting by
proxy he would burst into tears. " Good old man,"
cry the Lords, " how he loves the institutions of his
country!" Am I asked why Lord Lachrymal is so
much respected by his peers — am I asked why they
boast of his virtues, and think it wrong to remember
his origin ? I would answer that question by another ;
Why is the swallow considered by the vulgar a bird
that should be sacred from injury ? — Because it builds
under their own eaves! There is a certain- class
of politicians, and Lord Lachrymal is one of them, who
build their fortunes in the roofs of the aristocracy, and
obtain, by about an equal merit, an equal sanctity with
the swallow.
In nearly all states it is by being the tool of the
great that the lowly rise. People point to the new
Sejanus, and cry to their children, " See the' effect
of merit!" — Alas! it is the effect of servility. In des
potic states the plebeian has even a greater chance
of rising than in free. In the East, a common water-
carrier to-day is grand vizier to-morrow. In the

IN THEm JEALOUSY OF THE CROWN. 23
Roman Republic the low born were less frequently ex
alted than they Avere in the Roman Despotism. So
with us, — it was the Tories who brought forward the
man of low or mediocre birth ; the Whigs, when they
came into power, had only their grands seigneurs to
put into office. The old maxim of the political adven
turer was invariably this, — To rise from the people,
take every opportunity to abuse them ! What mat
tered it, tlien, to the plebeians, that one of their number
was exalted to the Cabinet ? He had risen by op
posing their wishes ; his very characteristic was that
of contempt for his brethren. A nobleman's valet is
always supereminently bitter against the canaille ; a
plebeian in liigh station is usually valet to the whole
peerage !
The time has long passed when the English people
had any occasion for jealousy against the power of
the crown. Even at the period in which they directed
their angi-y suspicions against the king, it was not to
that branch of the legislature that the growing power
of corruption was justly to be attributed. From the
date of the aristocratic revolution of 1688, the influ
ence of the aristocracy has spread its tmseen monop
oly over the affairs of state. The king, we hear it
said, has the privilege to choose his ministers ! Ex
cellent delusion ! The aristocracy choose them !
the heads of that aristocratic party which is the most
powerful must come into office, whether the king like
it or not. Could the Icing choose a cabinet out of men
unknown to the aristocracy — ^persons belonging neither
to Whig nor Tory 1 Assuredly not ; the aristocratic
party in the two Houses would be in arms. Heavens,
what a commotion there would be ! • Imagine the
haughty indignation of my Lords Grey and Harrowby !
What a " prelection" we should receive from Lord
Brougham, " deeply meditating these things !" Alas !
the king's ministry would be out the next day, and the
aristocracy's ministry, with all due apology, replaced.
The power of the king is but the ceremonial to the
power of the magnates. He enjoys the prerogative

24 THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN
of seeing two parties fight in the lists, and of crown
ing the victor. Need I cite examples of this truth 1
Lord Chatham is the dread and disgust of George III.
— the stronger of the two factions for the time being
force his majesty into receiving that minister. The
Catholic question was the most unpalatable measure
that could be pressed upon George IV. — to the irrita
bility of that monarch no more is conceded than was
graiited to the obstinacy of his royal father, and the
Catholic Relief Bill is passed amid all the notoriety^
of his repugnance. In fact, your Excellency, who
knows so well the juggling with which one party in
politics fastens its sins upon another, may readily per
ceive that the monarch has only been roasting the
chestnuts of the aristocracy ;* and the aristocracy,
cunning creature, has lately affected to look quite
shocked at the quantity of chestnuts roasted. I
In a certain savage country that I have read of,
there is a chief supposed to be descended from the
gods ; all the other chiefs pay him the greatest re
spect ; they consult him if they should go to war, or
proclaim peace ; but it is an imderstood thing that he
is to be made acquainted with their determination be
forehand. His consent is merely the ratification of
their decree. But the chiefs, always speaking of his
power, conceal their own ; and while the popiilar jea
lousy is directed to the seeming authority, they are
enabled quietly to cement and extend the foundations
of the real. Of a similar nature have been the rela-
* The nation had begun to perceive this truth, when Burke
thought fit once more to blind it. " One of the principal topics,"
saith he, in his Thoughts of the Cause of the present Discontentti
" which was then, and nas been since, much employed by that poli
tical school, is an effectual terror of the growth of an aristocratic
power, prejudicial to the rights of the crown, and the balance of the
constitution," &c. He goes on to argue, that the influence of the
crown is adanger more imminent than that of the peerage. Although
in the same work that brilliant writer declares himself " no friend
to the aristocracy," his whole love for liberty was that of an aristo
crat. His mind was eminently feudal in its vast and stately mould,
wd the patrician plausibilities dazzled and attracted him fat nioN
Vam tha monsucniciil. H« could hav« been a rebel eaner than a
r^iblicsn.

JEALOUS OF THE ARISTOCRACY. 25
tions between the English king and the English aris
tocracy ; the often odious policy of the last has been
craftily fastened on the first ; and the sanctity of a
king has been too frequently but the conductor of
popular lightning from the more responsible aris
tocracy. The supposed total of constitutional power has
always consisted of three divisions ; the king, the
aristocracy, and the commons : but the aristocracy
(until the passing of the Reform BUI) by boroughs in
the one House, as by hereditary seats in the other,
monopolized the whole of the three divisions. They
ousted the people from the Commons by a majority of
their own delegates ; and th^y forced the king into
their measures by the maxim, that his consent to a
bill passed through both Houses could not with safety
be withheld. Thus, then, in state affairs, the govern
ment of the country has been purely an aristocracy. ,
Let us now examine the influence which they have
exercised in social relations. It is to this, I apprehend,
that we must look for those qualities which have dis
tinguished their influence from that of other aristocra
cies. Without the odium of separate privileges, with
out the demarkation of feudal rights, the absence of
those very prerogatives has been the cause of the long
establishment of their power. Their authority has
not been visible ; held under popular names, it has
deceived the popular eye ; and, deluded by the notion
of a Balance of Power, the people did not see that it
was one of the proprietors of the power who held the
scales and regulated the weights.
The social influence of the aristocracy has been
exactly of a character to strengthen their legislative.
Instead of keeping themselves aloof from the other
classes, and " hedging their state" round with the
thorny, but unsubstantial, barriers of heraldic distinc
tions : instead of demanding half a hundred quarter
ings with their wives, and galling their inferiors by
eternally dwelling on the inferiority, they may be said
to mix more largely, and with more aeeming equality,
Vol, I.-B

26 THEIR SOCIAL INTLUENCE.
with aU classes, than any other aristocracy in the
savage or civilized world. Drawing their revenues
from land, they have also dravra much of their more
legitimate* power from the influence it gave them in
elections. To increase this influence they have been
in the habit of visiting the provinces much more often
tl'.an any aristocracy in a monarchical state are accus
tomed to do. Their hospitality, their field sports, the
agricultural and county meetings they attend, in order
" to keep up the family interest," mix them with aU
classes ; and, possessing the usual urbanity of a court,
they have not unfrequently added to the weight of
property, and the glitter of station, the influence of a
personal popularity, acquired less, perhaps, by the
evidence of virtues, than the exercise of politeness.
In most other countries the middle classes, rarely
possessing the riches of the nobility, have offered to
the latter no incentive for seeking their alliance. But
wealth is the greatest of all levellers, and the highest
of the English nobles willingly repair the fortunes of
hereditary extravagance by intermarriage with the
families of the banker, the lawyer, and the merchant :
this, be it observed, tends to extend the roots of their
influence among the middle classes, who, in other
countries, are the natural barrier of the aristocracy.
It is the ambition of the rich trader to obtain the alli
ance of nobles ; and he loves, as weU as respects,
those honours to which himself or his children may
aspire. The long-established custom of purchasing
titles, either by hard money or the more circuitous
influence of boroughs, has tended also to mix aristo
cratic feelings with the views of the trader ; and the
apparent openness of honours to all men makes even
the humblest shopkeeper, grown rich, think of sending
his son to college, not that he may become a wiser
man or a better man, but that he may perhaps become
my lord bishop" or my lord chancellor.

* And yet the power that has been most frequently inveighed
against, merely because it was the most evident.

THEm SOCIAL INFLUENCE. 27
Thus, by not preserving a strict demarkation, as the
German nobles, round their order, the English aiistoc-
racy extended their moral influence throughout the
whole of society, and their state might thus be said, like
the city of the Lacedaemonians, to be the safer in inter
nal force, from rejecting aU viflgar fortifications. V
By this intermixture of the highest aristocracy
with the more subaltern ranks of society, there are
far finer and more numerous grades of dignity in this
coimtry than in any other. You see two gentlemen
of the same birth, fortune, and estates — ^they are not
of the same rank, — by no means !— one looks down
on the other as confessedly his inferior. Would you
knoAV why 1 His connexions are much higher ! Nor
are comiexions alone the dispensers of an ideal, but
acknowledged consequence. Acquaintanceship con
fers also its honours : next to being related to the
gi'eaf , is the happiness of knowing the great : and the
wife even of a bourgeois, who has her house filled with
fine people, considers herself, and is tacitly allowed
to be, of greater rank than one who, of far better
birth and fortmie, is not so dUigent a worshipper of
bii-th and fortune in others ; in fact, this lady has but
her own respectable rank to display, but that lady re
flects the exalted rank of every duchess that shines
upon her* cardrack.
These mystic, shifting, and various shades of grad
uation, these shot-silk colom-s of society produce this
effect ; that people have no exact and fixed position —
that by acquaintance alone they may rise to look
down on their superiors — that whUe the rank gained
by intellect, or by interest, is open but to few, the rank
that may be obtained by fashion seems delusively to
be open to aU. Hence, in the first place, that eternal
* It may be observed that the power of fashion has increased in
proportion as the aristocracy have blended themselves more with
the gentry and merchants. There was a time when the English
were as remarkable among foreigners for their independence and
indifference to the mode, as they are now noted for their servile ob
sequiousness to fashion.
B2

28 GRADES OF SOCIETY.
vying with each other, that spirit of show, that^ lust
of imitation which characterize our countrymen and
countrywomen. These qualities, so invariably ob
served by foreigners, have never yet been ascribed to
their true origin. I thiok I have succeeded in tracing
their cause as national characteristics to the peculiar
nature of our aristocratical influences. As wealth
procures the alliance and respect of nobles, wealth is
affected even where not possessed ; and as fashion,
which is the creature of an aristocracy, can only be
obtained by resembling the fashionable ; hence, each
person imitates his fellow, and hopes to purchase the
respectful opinion of others by renouncing the inde
pendence of opinion for himself.
And hence, also, proceeds the most noticeable trait
in our national character, our reserve, and that orgueil,
so much more expressive of discontent than of dignity,
which is the displeasure, the amazement, and the pro
verb of our continental visiters. Nobody being really
fixed in society, except the very great (in whom, for
the most part, the characteristics vanish), in any ad
vance you make to a seeming equal, you may either
lower yourself by an acquaintance utterly devoid of
the fictitious advantages which are considered respect
able ; or, on the other hand, you may subject your
pride to the mortification of a rebut from one who,
for reasons impossible for you to discover, considers
his station far more unequivocal than your own. La
Bruyere observes, that the raiik of single men being
less settled than that of the married, since they map
exalt themselves by an alliance ; they are usually
placed by society in one grade higher than their legiti
mate claim. Another French writer, commenting on
this passage, has observed, that hence one reason why
there is usually less real dignity and more factitious
assumption in the single men of polished society than
in the married ; — they affect an imaginary situation.
With us all classes are the same, as the bachelors of
La Bruyere : all aim at some ideal situation a grade
above their ovni, and act up to the dignity of this vision-

IMrORTAXCE ATTACHED TO WEALTH. 29
aiy Barataria. The ingenious author of Tlie Opium
Eater has remarked, that the family ol" a bishop are,
for the most part, remarkable for their pride. It is be
cause the family of a bishop hold an equivocal station,
and are for ever fearful that they are not thought
enough of : a bishop belongs to the aristocracy, but his
i'aniily to the gentry. Again, natm-al sons are prover
bial for arrogance and assumption — it is from the same
cause. In fact, let us consult ourselves. Are we not
all modest when we feel ourselves estimated at what
we consider om- just value, and all inclined to presume
iu proportion as we fear we are slighted ?
In all other countries where an aristocracy is or
has been exceedingly powerful, the distinctions they
have cbavni between themselves and society have
been mai'ked and stern ; they have chiefly lived, mar
ried, and visited among their own appointed circle.
In Germany, the count of eighty quarterings does not
fear a rivalry with the baron of six ; nor does the
baron of six quarterings dread the aspiring equality of
the merchant or the trader ; each rank is settled in its
own stubborn circumvaUation : fashion in Germany is,
therefore, comparatively nugatory in its influence ;
there is no object in vying, and no reward in imita
tion. With us the fusion of all classes, each with
the other, is so general, that the aristocratic contagion
extends from the highest towards the verge of the
lowest. The tradesmen in every country town have
a fashion of their own, and the wife of the mercer
will stigmatize the lady of the grocer as " ungenteel."
When Mr. Cobbett, so felicitous in nicluiamcs, and so
liberal in opinions, wished to stigmatize Mr. Sadler,
he foimd no epithet so suitable to his views or senti
ments as the disdainful appellation of " a linen-dra
per." The same pride and the same reserve will be
found everywhere ; and thus slowly and surely, from
the petty droppings of the well of manners, the fos-
silizei incnistations of national character are formed.
To the importance which wealth receives from
the aristocracy we must add the importance it receives

30 WEALTH USURPS THE PLACE OF VIRTUE.
from trade. What men are taught to respect gra
dually acquires the distinction of a virtue — to be rich
becomes a merit ; to be poor, an offence. A foreign
writer has thus justly observed, that we may judge
of the moral influence of this country by the simple
phrase, that a man is worth so much; or, as he
translates the expression, digne tant.
In a work upon England, published at Paris in
1816, which has stolen much from the more import
ant one of M. Ferri de St Constant, — but which, whUe
often vsTong in its facts, is, when right in them,
usuaUy profound in its deductions, — the writer, after
observing that in England, Vargent decide en tout, phi
losophically remarks, — " De cette maniere, guoique les
richesses augmentent d certains egards la puissance d'un
etat, il arrive qu'elles ne servent qu'd le detruire siidt
qu'elles influent sur le cJipix de ceux qui sont a la tite
du gouvernement."
in other countries poverty is a misfortune, — ^with
us it is a crime.
The familiar meaning of a word often betrays the
character of a people : with the ancient Romans vir
tue signified valour : with the modem, a virtuoso is a
collector. The inhabitants of the Tonga Islands,
with whom all morals are in a state of extraordinary
confusion, have no expression for virtue in a man
which is not equally applicable to an axe : they recog
nise virtue only in what does them an evident ^rvice.
An axe or a man may be the instrument of murder,
but each continues to be a good axe or a good man.
With us the word virtue is seldom heard, out of a
moral essay ; I am not sure whether it does not excite
a suspicion of some unorthodox signification, some
thing heathen and in ' contradistinction to religion.
The favourite word is " respectability" — and the cur
rent meaning of " respectability" may certainly ex
clude virtue, but never a decent sufficiency of wealth ;
no wonder then that every man strives to be rich—
" Bt propter vitam vivendi perdere causa?,"

WANT OF AMUSEMENT AMONG THE POOR. 31
Through the effects they thus produce on the na
tional character, the aiistocracy have insensibly been
able to react upon the laws. Poverty being asso
ciated in men's minds with something disreputable,
they have had little scruple in making laws unfa- '
vourable to the poor ! they have clung without shame
to the severities of a barbarous criminal code — to an
unequal system of civil law, which almost proscribes
justice but to the wealthy — to impressment for sea
men — to taxes upon knowledge — and to impris n-
ment by mesne process. Such consequences may
be traced to such levities. The laws of a nation are
often the terrible punishment of their foibles.
Hence also arises one of the causes for the notice
able want of amusement for the poorer classes.
Where are the cheap guinguettes and gardens for" the
labourer, which make the boast of France ? Where
the consecrated green-sward, formerly the theme of
our own poets,
" Where all the village train, from labour free,
Lead up their sports beneath the hawthorn tree ?"*
We are told that the Arcadians, as their climate was
peculiarly chill and gloomy (in modem phrase " Eng
lish"), sought to counteract its influence by assem
blies, music, and a gay and cheerful education. Thus
did legislation conquer nature ; nor with unhappy
effects, for the Arcadians were no less remarkable
for their benevolence and piety than for their pas
sion for music and for their gayety of disposition.!
It is reserved for us to counteract the gloomiest cli
mate by the dullest customs !
I do not say, however, that direct legislation should
* One of the causes. Another is in the growth of rehgious sec
tarianism ; but I am apt to believe, that if amusements were within
the reach of the poor, there would be far less of the gloom of fana
ticism. Excitement of one sort or the other must be sought for, as
a counterpoise to toil ; at present the poor find it only in two sources
»-the conventicle or the alehotise.
t Tolybius,

32 WANT OF AMUSEMENT AMONG THE POOR.
provide amusement for the poor— but at least it should
never forbid it. The very essence of our laws has
been against the social meetings of the humble,
which have been caUed idleness, and against the
amusements of the poor, v/hich have been stigmatized
as disorder.* But what direct legislation itself cannot
effect, could be effected by the spirit by which legis
lation is formed. That prejudice of respect for the
wealthy, and contempt for the poor, which belongs to
us, would probably soon close any institutions for
popular amusements, if established to-morrow ; if
they were cheap they would be considered disrepu
table. In France the humbler shopkeepers mix in
festivity with the peasantry ; the aristocratic spirit
would forbid this condescension in England (unless
an election were going on), and the relaxation, being
thus ungraced by the presence of those a little their
superiors, would perhaps be despised by the labourers
themselves.f It were to be wished, on many accounts, that this
were otherwise ; amusement keeps men cheerful and
contented — it engenders a spirit of urbanity — it recon
ciles the poor to the pleasures of their superiors which
are of the same sort, though in another sphere ; it re
moves the sense of hardship — it brings men together in
those genial moments when the heart opens and care is
forgotten. Deprived of more gentle relaxations, men
are driven to the alehouse, they talk over their supe
riors — and who ever talks of others in order to praise
them ? they read the only cheap papers permitted
them, not usually the most considerate and mild in
* A few half-sighted politicians, like Windham, have indeed ad
vocated popular amusements ; but of what nature ? ¦ Bull-baiting
and boxing ; amusements that brutalize. These are they who turn
the people into swine, and then boast of their kindness in teaching
them to be savage. Admirable philanthropists ! the object of recre
ation is to soften and refine men, not to render them more ferocious.
t They might be Ucentious from the same cause. In France the
amusements of the peasantry are so decently conducted, because
the presence of some of the middle class produces an unconscious,
but most falutary restraint.

STORY OF A CHINESE EMPEROR. 83
spirit : their minds in one respect are benefited ; for
they advance, even by this intercourse, in their pro
gress to better government ; but they clog this benefit
by a rancour to all its obstacles, which is at once
natural and to be lamented.* Wo to the legislator
who succeeds by vexatious laws and petty tyrannies,
in interdicting enjoyment to those who labour ! above
aU, in an age when they have discovered what is due
to themselves ; hewUl indeed expedite reform — if that
to legislators be an agreeable contemplation — but it
wiU be by souring and exacerbating the spirit which
extorts it.

CHAPTER m.
Story of a Chinese Emperor — Applied to this work — DisUke to For-
eignerSj how caused — Abatement of the dislike — One cause, how
ever, still continues — Anecdote of a Russian, and his two visits to
England — National Honesty and national Honour — Enghsh Gen
erosity — Rather a characteristic of the People than the Nobles —
Chivalry, the attribute more of the former than the latter — Illustra
tive Anecdotes — Regard for Character — Its consequences overrated,
wherefore ? — Common Sense, not a characteristic of the highest
and lowest Classes — Causes and Effects of that common sense
among the middle class — The accusation of the Ferocity of the
English refuted — Propensity to Suicide not a distinction of the
English — The vitality of Absurdities illustrated by the story of
Archimedes — National Spirit of Industry — The last Adventure of
Micromegas. There is a tale (yom- Excellency may have read it,
it is to be found in the writings of a French mission
ary — a species of literature that must have manifold
attractions for one who was once Bishop of Autun)
* All passion blinds even the best-founded opinions. A passion
ate indignation against the aristocracy would, if once put into
action, frustrate the good objects it sought to effect. The great
Marius saw all the vices of the aristocracy with the wrath of a
wronged plebeian. Marius was the incarnation of popular passion
— he scourged the patricians for their disorders, by committing mote
tumultuous and deadly disorders liimself.
B3

34 CHANGE IN THE FEELING OF
—there is a tale of a certain Chinese emperor, who
conceived great displeasure at the grand historian of
the Celestial Empire, for havmg, with too accurate
and simple a fidelity, narrated in his chronicle all the
errors and foibles of the prince. " I admire your effron
tery," said the emperor frowning; " you dare then to
keep a diary of my offences for the benefit of pos
terity ?"
" Yes !" said the historian bolcUy ; " I put down
faithfully all that can convey to a later age a just im
pression of your character ; accordingly, the instaiit
your majesty dismisses me, I shall hasten to insert in
my chronicle the threats and the complaints that you
have made me for telling the truth."
The emperor was startled, but the Chinese have
long been in the habit of enjoying very sensible mon
archs — " Go," said he, after a short pause, and with
a frank smile, — " go, write down all you please ; hence
forth I will strive at least that posterity shall have
little to blame in me."
Upon the principle on which the historian wrote of
the sovereign, I now write of the people. WUl they be
indignant at my honesty in painting their foibles I No,
they will not be less generous nor less wise than the
Emperor of China ; if they are, I shall avenge my
self like my model, by a supplement containing their
reproaches ! I do not, like the herd of fault-finders,
declaim vaguely on the faults of the people ; I attempt
in honesty, if in error, to trace their causes." This is
the first time in which, in a detailed and connected
shape, the attempt has been made ; the best way to
find remedies for a disease is to begin by ascertaining
its origin.
I thinlc your Excellency must have perceived, since
your first visit to England, there has been a great
change from what formerly was a strong national char
acteristic — We no longer hate the French. We have
a gi'eater sympathy with, than an aversion to, foreign
ers in general. We have enlarged the boundaries of
patriotism, and are becoming Citizens of the World.

TUE ENGLISH TOWARDS THE PRENCH. 36
Our ancient dislike to foreigners was not a vague and
ignorant prejudice alone, nor was it solely the growth
of an insular situation in the map of the globe ; it was
a legacy which was bequeathed to us by our history.
The ancient record of our empire is a series of for
eign conquests over the natives. The Roman, the
Saxon, the Dane, the Norman, successively taught to
the indigenous inhabitant a tolerably well-founded an-
tipatiiy to foreigners. When the soreness of a con
quered people wore off, the feeling was kept alive by
the jealousy of a commercial one. Foreigners set
tled among us as traders ; and the industry of the
Flemish monopolized, for centuries, to the gTeat dis
gust of the natives, a considerable portion of our do
mestic manufactures. National dislikes, once formed,
are slow of conversion ; and a jealousy of foreigners,
conceived with some cause by our forefathers, was
easily retained, when the cause had ceased to exist.
Our warlike aristocracy found it indeed expedient to
keep alive so pugnacious a characteristic ; and Nelson
thought the best mode of conquering the French was
seriously to inculcate, as a virtue, the necessity of
detesting them. This settled hatred to our neigh
bours began to break up from its solid surface at the
close of the last century. The beginning of the
French re\ olution — an event which your Excellency
has probably forgotten — taught the more liberal of our
populace that the French had no inherent desire to be
slaves ; they began to feel a union with their neigh
bours, from the common sentiment of liberty. The
excesses of the revolution checked the nascent char
ity, or at least confined it to the few ; and a horror of
the crimes of the French superseded a sympathy with
their straggles. Still the surface of national antipa
thy was broken up ; a party was formed to praise your
countrymen, in opposition to the party that reviled
them. By degrees the general principles of the first
party came more into vogue than those of the last ;
and among those principles a better estimation of the
characters of foreign nations. The peace, of course,

38 RESPECT PAID TO FOREIGNERS
bringing us into more actual connexion with the Con
tinent, has strengthened the kindly sentiment : and,
finally, your last revolution has removed aU trace of
the fearful impression left upon us by the first. On
the whole, therefore, a hatred of foreigners has ceased
to distinguish us ; and, of the two extremes, we must
guard rather against a desire of imitating our neigh
bours, than a horror of resembling.
To be sure, however, our toleration of foreigners is
more catholic than individual. We suspect them a
little when some half a dozen of them in braided
coats and mustachios pay us a midsummer visit ; a
respectable lodging-house keeper would rather be ex
cused letting them apartments. They are driven, like
the Jews of old, to a settled quarter, abandoned by
the rest of the world ; they domicil together in a
dingy spot, surroimded by alleys and courts ; you may
see them matutinally emerging frorti the desolate
gloom of Leicester-square, which is a sort of petty
France in itself, and where they have established a
colony of hostels. But assuredly the unoffending fri
gidity, evinced to them in less familiar regions, is the
result of no mihandsome prejudice . We do not think
them, as we once did, inherently, but unfortunately,
guilty ! — in a word, we suspect them of being poor.
They strike us with the unprepossessing air of the
shabby genteel. Mrs. Smith is sorry her first floor
is engaged — not because she thinks the foreign gen
tleman may cut her throat, but because she fears
he may forget to pay his rent. She apprehends that
he can scarcely give the " respectable reference" that
she demands, for the use of her goods and chattels.
Foreigners remark this suspicion, and not guessing the
cause, do us injustice by supposing it is solely directed
against them. No such thing ; it is directed against
poverty ubiquitously; it is the abstract quality, not
the material man, that excites in the Smithian breast
the sentiment of distrust. Our hostess would be equally
lukewarm to any Englishman she considered equivo
cally poor : in short, it is a commercial not a national

ACCORDING TO THEIR APPEARANCE. 87
apprehension. A rich foreigner, as your Excellency
well knows, with huge arms on his carriage, half a
dozen valets, and a fur great-coat, is sure to bo obse
quiously enough treated. Hence the wealthy visiter
from the Continent usually avors that we are a most
civil people to foreigners ; and the needy one declares
that we are exactly the reverse. I hope that what I
have said on this point will right us with our neigh
bours ; and assure them that the only stories which
we now believe to the practical inconvenience of Mon
sieur, are those wliich accuse him of living on a hun
dred Napoleons a year, pocketing the sugar at his
coffee, and giving the waiter something mider a penny
halfpenny !
A Russian of my acquaintance visited England,
with a small portmanteau, about two years ago.
Good heavens ! how he abused us !— never was so
rude, cruel, suspicious, barbaric a people ! I saw
him a few months since, having just paid us a second
visit : he was in raptures with all he saw ; never was
a people so improved ; his table was crowded with
cards — how hospitable we were ! The master of the
hotel had displaced an English family to accommo
date him ; what a refined consideration for a stranger !
Whence rose this difference in the Russian's estimate
of us ¦? His uncle was dead, he had come into a
great property. In neither case had our good people
looked at the foreigner ; they had looked the first
time at the small portmanteau, and the second time
at the three carriages and four !
But if the commercial spirit makes us attach undue
importance to wealth, it keeps alive also a spirit of
honesty as the best means to acquire it. Thus the
same causes that produce our defects conspire to
produce many of our merits. The effect of com
merce, is to make men tmstworthy in their ordinary
dealings and their social relations. It does this, not
by the sense of virtue, but that of self-interest. A
trader soon discovers that honesty is the best policy.
If you travel through Italy, and your carriage breaks

38 NATIONAL HONESTY AND HONOUR.
dovm, there is perhaps but one smith in the place ;
he repairs your carriage at ten times the value of the
labour ; he takes advantage of your condition and his
own monopoly of the trade. Whoever has had the
misfortune to make the tour of the Netherlands in a
crazy caliche, can speak from ample experience of
the similar extortion practised also in that country,
where the standard of morality is much higher than
in Italy. This would rarely, if ever, be the case in
England. There might be no other smith in the vil
lage for you to apply to, but there would be a public i
spirit, a common conscience in. the village, which'
would insensibly deter the monopolist from acting j
towards you dishonestly. To this we must, to be j
sure, add the consideration, that population being
more dense, the monopoly is more rare, and the
temptation less frequent.
It is the property of an enlightened aristocracy —
I mean one that is comparatively enlightened — to fos
ter the sentiments of honour. Honour is their creed ;
they sacrifice even virtues to a single one of its pre
judices. Thus, in our relations with foreign states,
we have been rarely wise, but invariably honourable : '¦.
and we have sustained our national character by pay
ing with rigid punctuality the national loans.
Rogues among traders, and swindlers among gen
tlemen, there are in this, as in all countries ; but they
do not suffice to stamp the character of the people.
There is no systematic mockery of principle with us
— nor that sort of maison de jeu morality, which you
find among the philosophical eUgans of Paris and of
Vienna. A fine gentleman in London is a formidable
person to young heirs ; but of these fine gentlemen
there are, thank Heaven, not above a dozen or two.
In private character, as in the national, an English
patrician is rather the dupe than the deceiver •: at
least, he keeps his deceits for his parliamentary
career. The English are also an eminently generous peo
ple, I do not mean the vulgar signification of the

ENGLISH GENEROSITY.

39

epithet, though that they would deserve, if but from
the ostentatious and artificial spirit I have already de
scribed — but the loftier and more moral one. Their
sympathies are generous ; they feel for the perse
cuted, and their love is for the fallen.
But it is mainly tlie people (properly so speaking),
the mass, thc majority, that generosity characterizes ,
nor do I trace this virtue to the aristocratic influences ;
among the aristocracy it is not commonly foiuid. As
little, perhaps, is it to be traced to the influences of
trade ; it is rather coimected with our history and oiu-
writers, and may be considered a reimiant of the chiv-
alric spirit which departed from the nobles ere it
decreased among the people. It is the multitude
who preserve longest the spirit oF antiquity — the aris
tocracy preserve only the forms.
Let us recall for a moment the trial of Queen
Caroline : in my own mind, and in the minds of the
majority of the public, she was guilty of the crime
imputed to her. Be it so ; but the people sym
pathized, not with the crime, but the persecution.
They saw a man pampered in every species of indul
gence, and, repudiating his wife in the first instance
without assignable cause ; allowing her full license
for conduct if she consented to remain abroad, and
forbore to cross the line of his imperial Sybaritism of
existence ; but arming against her all the humiliations
aud all the terrors of law, the instant she appeared in
England, and interfered with the jealous monopoly of
royal solemnities. They saw at once that this was
the course of conduct natural rather to a man of pas
sion than one of honour : to a man of honour disgrace
to his name would have seemed equally punishable
whether perpetrated in Italy or iu England. The
queen ceased to be the defendant in a court of law,
and seemed to the public the victim of a system of
oppression. The zeal with which the lower orders
supported her was tho zeal of chivalry ; the spirit
which Burke invoked in vain from a debased nobility,
leaped at once into life among a generous people.

40 GENEROSITY CHARACTERISTIC' OF THE PEOPLE
Compare the subservient and smothered disgust of the
aristocracy with the loud indignation of the people ;
—which was the more indicative of the nobler emo
tions, or which preserved in the higher shape our na
tional characteristic of generosity 1 Who are they
that feel the most deeply for the negro slave— the
people or the nobles l The people. Who attend the
meetings in behalf of Poland ? the aristocracy 1—
some two or three of them, indeed, for the vanity of
uttering orations ; but it is the people who fill the
assembly. The people may be right, or they may be
wrong, in their zeal for either cause ; but it is at least
the zeal of generosity.
Poverty, — crime itself, — does not blunt this noble
characteristic. In some of the workhouses the over
seers devised a method to punish the refractory paupers,
by taking away from them the comforts permitted to the
rest ; the rest, out of their own slender pittance, sup
plied their companions ! In his work upon prisons,
Mr. Buxton informs us, that in the jail of Bristol the
allowance of bread to criminals was below the ordinary
modicum necessary for subsistence ; to the debtor, no
allowance, however, was made ; their friends, or the
charity of strangers,, supported them : there have been
times when these resources have failed, and some of
the debtors would have literally perished for want, but
that they were delivered — how ? by the generosity
of the criminals themselves, who voluntarily shared
with them at once the food and the distress I
In the last election I remember to have heard a Tory
orator, opposed to the emancipation of the West Indian
slaves, take advantage of the popular cry for economy,
and impatience under taxation, and assure his audience,
all composed of the labouring part of the population, that
to attempt to release the slaves would be to increase
the army, and, consequently, the national burdens : the
orator on the other side ofthe question, instead of refut
ing this assertion, was contented to grant it. " Be it so,"
he said ; " suppose that your burdens are augmented —
suppose that another shilling is monthly, or even

RATHER THAN OP THE NODLliS. 41
weekl}', wrung from your hard earnings — suppose all
this, and I yet put it to you whether, crippled and
bowed down as you are by taxation, you would not
cheerfully contribute your mite to the overllirow of
slavery, though in so distant a clime — though borne
by men of a chflereut colour from yourselves, rather
than even escape your burdens, griex'ous though they
be, and know that that human suffering stUl exists,
^\'hich you, by a self-sacrifice of your own, had the
power to prevent V' The meeting rang with ap
plause ; the appeal was to generoiis emotions : had the
generosity not been there, the appeal would have been
unavailing. It is, indeed, in popular elections that a foreigner
can alone fully learn the generous character of the
English people — what threats they brave, what cus
tom they lose, what profits they surrender, in order to
act up to a motive of conscience, or a principle of
honour. Could you be made aware of the frequent
moral exaltation of the constituent, your Excellency
would be astonished to see the representative so often
an apostate.
Thus, then, generosity is the character of the na
tion ; but the character rather of the people than the
nobles ; and while a certain school of theorists main
tain that the chief good of an aristocracy is to foster
that noble quality, they advance an argument which
is so easily refuted as to endanger the cause it would
support. Your Excellency is, if I mistake not, tolerably well
acquainted with the weaker side of Madame de Stael
and have, doubtless, in your experience of the courtly
circles of England, seen whether their " moral air'
be entitled to all the panegyiics it received from tha
ingenious architect on hypotheses. A regard for char
acter is a quality on which we value ourselves justly
yet it scarcely, perhaps, produces those eXcellen
effects on morality which ought to be its offspring
The reason is possibly this : we defer, it is true, ti
what we consider to be a good character j but it ver^

42 REGARD FOR CHARACTER.
often happens that our notions of the elements of a
good character are any thing but just. We sometimes
venerate a saint where your Excellency would recog
nize a Mawworm. In the first place, as regards pub
lic character, that character has usually been consid
ered the best which adopts the principles most a
la mode. Now the aristocracy influence the mode,
and the best character, therefore, has been usually
given to the strongest supporter of the aristocrats : the
people, not being educated, at least politically, and
judging not for themselves, have formed their opinion
from the very classes interested against them, ma
ligned their friends, and wept tears of gratitude for the
consistency of their foes. Mr. Thelwall advocated
reform ; and Mr. Canning informs us that he was pelted
as he went.*
Another fault in our judgment of public men has been,
that we have confounded too often a private sobriety
of life with political respectability. If a gentleman
walked betimes in the park with his seven children
and a very ugly wife, the regularity of such . conduct
would have stamped him as an unexceptionable poli
tician. Your Excellency remembers Lord Mediocre
So-so — he was a cabinet minister. He passed a vast
number of taxes, and never passed one popular law ;
but then he was very domestic, and the same coldness
of constitution that denied him genius preserved him
front vice. He v/as a most pernicious statesman ; but
he bore the very highest of characters. His very fri
gidity made him considered " a safe politician ;" for
we often seem to imagine that the property of the mind
resembles the property of sea-w:ater, and loses all its
deleterious particles when once it is fairly frozen.
Sometimes ' in those visions of public virtue wBich
your Excellency knows all men now and then con
ceive — in their closet — I have fancied that public char
acter should be proportioned only to public benefits ;
that the statesman should be weighed in a balance,
« Thelwall and ye, that lecture as ye go,
And for your pains get pelted, &c.

REGARD FOR CHARACTER. 43
where the laws he has assisted to frame should be
thrown into the opposite scale ; aud that the light of
his private amiabilities should, instead of casting into
shade his public character, be lost to the general eyo
in the wide blaze of universal utility.
At present, or at least imtil very lately,
Whene'er of statesmen we complain,
They crv, " Vv by raise this vulgar strife so ?
'Tis true, lliat tax too hard may strain ;
But then — his lordship loves his wife so \
That law, indeed, may gall ye rather ;
But then — liis lordship's such a father !"
I have observed in a former chapter, that the undue
regard for wealth produces a false moral standard ;
that respectability is the favourite word of eulogium
with us, as virtue was with the ancients ; and that a
man may be respectable ¦without being entitled from
his virtues to respect. Hence it follows, that a regard
for character may often be nothing but the regard of
popular prejudices ; and that, though a virtue in itself,
it may neither be directed to, nor productive of, virtues
in others. StiU this characteristic is a great and
noble superstiTicture fo build upon : it is those nations
who are indifferent to moral distinctions of whom Im
provement may despair : a people who respect what
they consider good sooner or later discover in what
good really consists. Indifference to moral character
is a vice ; a misunderstanding of its tme components
is but an error. Fortunately, the attention, of our
countrymen is now turned towards themselves ; the
spirit of .yeZ/'-examination is aroused ; they laugh at
the hyperbolical egotisms in which they formerly in
dulged ; they do not take their opinions of their own
excellence from ballad-singers, any more than their
sentiments on the goodness of their constitution from
the commonplaces of tories. / " Impostors," said the
acute Shaftesbury, " naturally speak the best of human
nature, that they may the easier abuse it." The im
perial tyrant of the Roman senate always talked of
the virtues of the senators.

44 THE PEOPLE NOW THINK FOR THEMSELVES.
But men now think for themselves. That blind
submission to teachers, which belongs to the youth of
Opinion, is substituted for bold examination in its ma
turity ; and the task of the latter period is too often to
unlearn the prejudices acquired in the first. When
men begin to think for themselves, they will soon
purify ill the process of thought the errors they im
bibed from others. To the boldness of the once
abused and persecuted Paulicians, in judging them
selves of the gospel, we owe that spirit wliich, though
it suffered with Huss and Wickliffe, triumphed with
Zuinglius and Luther. The scanty congTegations of
Armenia and Cappadocia were characterized by the
desire, to think freely — they have been the unacknow-
'ledged authors of this very era when men begin to
think rightly. The agitation of Thought is the be
ginning of Truth.
If the effect of our regard for character has been a
little overrated, so I apprehend that the diplomatist of
a thousand cabinets must sometimes have smiled at the
exaggerated estimate which we form of our common
sense. It is that property upon which we the most
value ourselves ; and every statesman, whether he
propose to pass a biU for English reform or for Irish
coercion, always trusts the consequences " to the
known good sense of the British community." Let
us put on our spectacles, and examine this attribute
The " common sense" of the ancient stoics was the
sense of the common interest ; the common sense of
the modern schools is the sense of one's own ! AU
traders are very much alive to this peculiar faculty—^
the Dutch, the Americans, as well as the English ; it
is, indeed, an inevitable consequence of the habit of
making bargains ; but, I think, on inquiry, we shall see
that it belongs not so much to the whole nation as to
the trading part of it.
That common sense, the practice of which is a
sober and providei^t conduct, is, I fear, only visible
among our middle classes in their domestic relations.
It is possessed neither by the aristocracy nor the i)ot- i

NOBILITY DEFICIENT IN COMMON .'(ENSE. 45
least of all ixi fore ^^n relations has it hitherto been our
characteristic. Like the nobility of civilized countries, our own are
more remarkable for an extravagant recklessness of
money, for an impatient ardour for frivolities, for a
headlong passion for tho caprices, the debaucheries,
the absurdities of thc day, than for any of those pi?u-
dent and considerate \irtucs which are the offsjmng
of common sense. How few estates that, are not
deeply mortgaged ! The Jews and the merchants
have their grasp on more than three parts of the prop
erty of the peerage. Does this look ^ike common
sense ? But these excetses have beefi carried to a
gi-eater height with our aristocracy than with any
other, partly because of their larger command of
wealth, principally because they, being brought like
the rest of the world under the control of fashion,
have not, like the ancient sieurs of France, or the
great names of Germany, drawn sufficient consequence
from their o^vn birth to require no further distinctions.
Our nobles have had ambitioJKiat last infirmity of
noble minds, and they have I'^B accordingly accus
tomed to vie with each other iii those singular phan
tasies of daring vulgarity with which a head without
culture amuses an idleness without dignity. Hence,
whUe we have boasted of our common sense, we have
sent our young noblemen over the world to keep up
that enviable reputation by the mo.st elaborate eccen
tricities : and valuing ourselves on our prudence, we
have onljr been luiown to the Continent by our extrava
gance. I'for is this all : those who might have been
pardonable as stray specimens of erratic imbecility,
we have formally enrolled as the diplomatic represent
atives of the nation ; the oligarchical system of choos
ing all men to high office, not according to their fitness
for the place, but according to their coimexion with
the party uppermost, has made our very ambassadors
frequently seem the delegates from our maisons des
fous ; and the envoy of the British nation at the im-

46 COMMON SENSE NOT CHARACTERISTIC
perial court of Metternich and craft was no less a
person than the present Marquis of Londonderry.*
If in society, if abroad, if in our diplomatic rela
tions, our common sense, our exquisite shrewdness,
our sterling solidity are not visibly represented by our
aristocracy, they are still less represented in political
relations. If we look to the progress of the Reform
BiU through the aristocracy, we shall see the most
lamentable want of discretion, the most singular ab
sence of common sense. The peers did not think the
Reform Bill necessary ; accordingly they rejected it.
Sensible men never do a bold thing without being pre
pared for its consequences. Were the peers prepared ?
No ! — they expressed the greatest astonishment at
Lord Grey's going out of office, after his declaring
repeatedly that he would do so if they rejected his
proposition ; and the greatest consternation at the
resolution of the people to get the Bill, after their ex
pressing that resolution uninterruptedly for nearly two
years. Taken by surprise, they therefore received
the Bill again, and^^'ter refusing to conciliate the
people, voluntarily pjreed themselves in the condition
of being beat by the people. Sensible men make a
virtue of necessity. The peers put themselves in the
condition of granting the necessity, and losing all
virtue in the grant. They paraded their weakness up
and down, placed it in the most ostentatious situation,
and with all the evils] of concession, insisted on malt
ing all the odium of resistance. This might be very
fine, but your Excellency need not think twice to
. allow that it was not very sensible.
Let us now look at our Poor. Where is their com
mon sense. Alas, what imprudence ! — Early mar
riages ; many children ; poor-rates, and the work
house — see the history of the agi'icultural labourers !

* This noble" lord is only worse because more noisy than his
brethren of the corps diplomatique. Look over the whole list : how
rarely you can by an extraordinary accident discover a man not
below par. Sir Frederic L^mb is a superficial man of pleasure, and
yet he is the cleverest of all.

OF TIIE HIGIITIST AND LOWEST CLASSES. 47
Of them, indeed, it maybe said, in those words in
which an Eastern writer asserts that the chronicle of
the whole Human Race is found — " 'I'liey are born ;
they are wretched ; they die." In no foreign country,
even of far less civilization than England, is there the
same impro\idence : in France, where there is a much
greater inclination to pleasure, there is yet a much
more vigorous disposition to save. The French
peasants never incur the loiclied, because voluntary,
calamity of bringing children into the world whom
they cannot feed : the youngest a new robber of the
pittance of the eldest ; brother the worst foe to brother,
and each addition to the natural ties bringing nearer
and more near the short and ghastly interval between
Penury and Famine, Despair aud Crime : nor do they
— no, nor the peasants of Spain, of Germany, of Italy,
of Holland — squander in the selfish vices of an hour
the produce of a weeli's toil. The Continental peasant
is not selfish in his pleasure ; he shares his holyday
with his family, and not being selfish, he is not im
provident : his family make ^Mfif prudent — the same i
cause often makes the Englishman desperate.
In an accoimt of Manchester, lately published,
what a picture of the improvidence of the ^working
classes !
" Instructed in the fatal secret of subsisting on what
is barely necessary to life — yielding partly to neces
sity, and partly to example — ^the labouring classes
have ceased to entertain a laudable pride in furnishing
their houses, and in multiplying the decent comforts
which minister to happiness. What is superfluous to
them ere exigences of nature, is too often expended
at the tavern ; and for the provision of old age and
infirmity they too frequently trust either to charity, to
the support of their children, or to the protection of
the poor-laws."
" The artisan too seldom possesses sufficient moral
dignity or intellectual or organic strength to resist the
seductions of appetite. His wife and children, sub
jected to the same process, have little power to cheer

48 COMMON SENSE
his remaining moments of leisure. Domestic economy
is neglected, domestic comforts are too frequently un
known. A meal of coarse food is hastily prepared,
and devoured with precipitation. Home has little
other relation to him than that of shelter — few plea
sures are there — it chiefly presents to him a scene of
physical exhaustion, from which he Is glad to escape.
His house is ill-furnished, uncleanly, often ill-venti
lated — perhaps damp ; his food, from want of fore
thought an4 domestic economy, is meager and innutri-
tious ; he generally becomes debilitated and hypo
chondriacal, and unless supported by principle falls
the victim of dissipation."
" Some idea may be formed of the influence of
these establishments (gin-shops, &c.) on the health
and morals of the people, from the following state
ment ; for which we are indebted to Mr. Braidley, the
boroughreeve of Manchester. He observed the num
ber of persons entering a gin-shop in five minutes,
during eight successijife Saturday evenings, an^ at
various periods from seven o'clock imtil ten. The
average result was, 112 men and 163 women, or 275
in forty minutes, whichis equal to 412 per hour."*
Whenever a class of the people are inclined to habit
ual inebriety, it is evidently absurd to attribute to them
the characteristic of that clear aud unclouded faculty
which we call common sense. It may be enough,
therefore, of proof that the English poor are not dis
tinguished above their equals on the Continent for their
claim to common sense, to point to the notorious fact
that they are so distinguished for their addiction to
inebriety. But if this faculty does not 'characterize the two
extremes of society, it certainly characterizes the
medium ? Granted : — but, even here, I suspect our
interested panegyrists have been "praising us that
they niight the easier impose." In fact, what they
meant by common sense was, our general indifference
* Kay's Mancheetfr.

AMONO THE MIDDLE CLAS.-J. 49
to political theories ; our quiet and respectable adher
ence to the things thst are. I fear in the eyes of
these our flatterers we are somewhat fallen of late.
But yet this propensity has for centuries assuredly dis-
tinguiished us : we have been very little alive to all
speculative innovations in morals and in politics.
Those Continental writings that have set the rest of
the world in a blaze have never been widely popular
with us. Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, have been re
ceived with suspicion, and dismissed without examina
tion : they were known to be iimovators, and that was
enSugh to revolt Our sober certainty of waking bliss.
Even Paine, the most plausible and attractive of all
popular theorists, was scarcely known to any classes
but the lowest, at the moment when the government
suddenly thought fit to toss him into celebrity on the
horns of .a prosecution. Godwin, Harrington, Sidney,
how little we Imow of their writings I A political
speculator presents nothing interesting to us, mfless
we behead him ; even then he travels down to pos
terity, merely on the festive brevity of a toast. We
¦ would fight for the cause for which Sidney bled on the
scaffold ; but we would not for the life and soul of us
read a single chapter of the book in which he infoims
us what the cause v:<ys. Through a long life the great
Benlham struggled against the neglect of the British
piublic — in vain he was consulted by foreign states —
in vain he was extolled by philosophers, and pillaged
by lawyers. He was an innovator, who wrote against
received customs of thinking, and that was sufficient
to prevent his being read. Even now, when so many
quote his name as if they had his works by heart,
how few have ever opened them. The limited sale
of the wittiest of all his books is a melancholy proof
of our indifference to theories : and the " Popular Fal
lacies" are a proof of the unpopularity of truths.
The indifference to theory is certainly a proof of
Vol. 1.-C

50 'PRACTICAL MEN.
what is ordinarily termed common sense ; but it ob
viously has its disadvantages. It is customary for
writers of a certain school to say that aU truths ouglit
to make their way slowly : this is praising mankind
for their greatest fault, and Elevating apathy into virtue/)
Hence, in this country, that absurd deference to whaE^
is caUed " practical men," that is to say, men who,
belonging to some particular calling, are imbued with
all the narrow views and selfish interests that belong
to it. If you want a reform on the stage, you would
be told that the best performers are" the most prac
tical men, they have all an interest in the monopoly
they enjoy ; poor Kean, accordingly, said before the
committee of the House of Commons, that he hoard
the Voice, and saw the play of countenance, as well
at the back of the centre boxes at Covent Garden, as
in the side boxes of the Haymarket. Mr. Kean's
answer is the type of most answers, on whatsoever
point, that you extort from practical men in opposition
to thinking men ; they reason according to their inter
ests ; practical men are prejudiced men ; usually
knowing the details of their own business well, they
are astonished at the presumption of men who thinlc
to improve the principle. These are like the man who
would not believe Newton was a great mathematician
— " He ! — pooh ! — ^he is an hour over a sum in the rule
of three !" This unbeliever was a practical man, who
could not understand the theory that mastered worlds
and hesitated over the multiplication table.
The Emperor Julian, whose mind was peculiarly
adapted to the notions of the present age in all things
but his levity in religion, and his solemnity in sloven
liness, says very well upon this head, " that a man
who derives experience from his own habits, rather
than the principles of some great theory, is like an
empiric, who, by practice, may cure one or two
diseases with which he is familiar, but having no sys
tem, or theory of art, must necessarily be .ignorant
of all the innumerable complaints which have not
fallen under his personal observation." '

EFFECTS OF THE SYSTKM OF CREDIT. 51
The practical man is one who should give you all
his facts, and ne\er reason upon them ; luifortunately
the English take his reasonings oven more willingly
than his facts, and thus, according to Julian, under
the notion^of avoiding quackery, they have, in all their
legislative changes, been peculiarly the victims of
quacks.* I think we shall discover a principal cause of our
indifference to violent political specidation, and our
content with " the ills that are" — which qualities are
tenned common sense — in that pecuniary system of
credit, which is so universally carried on among the
middle classes of England. People are afraid of
every shock of opinion, because it is a shock on their
credit. Quiet times are good for all trade, but agi
tated times are death to a man with a host of alarmed
creditors. This makes the middle class, especially
in London, a solid and compact body against such
changes as seem only experiment, and they are gene
rally pushed on by the working classes, before they
stir much themselves in the question of even neces
sary reforms. It is from the fear of a concussion
with persons without property, that people with prop
erty hazard voluntarily a change.
' The habits of a commercial life, also, drain off the
enterprise of the mind by the speculations which
belong to commerce ; and the first thing a trader asks
himself in a change is, " How will this affect my
returns ?" He is therefore always zealous for a re
duction of taxes, but he is not very eager about law
taxes, unless he has a suit ; and he is more warm in
cuttmg down the pension list than in ameliorating the
criminal code.
I The great legislative good of admitting the poor to
vote is this : It is from the poorer classes that the
¦ * Those were practical men who resisted the theory of Mr. Ark-
wright's machine, under pretence of throwing the poor out of em
ploy ; — those were practical men who, being wig-makers, petitioned
George III. to cut off his hair and wear a peruke, in order to set the
fashion of wigs. Imagine the contemptuous scorn with which tho
honest wig-makers must have regarded a theorist opposed to wigs.
C 2

53 CHARGE OF CRUELTY
evUs and the dangers of a state arise ; their crimes
are our pimishments ; therefore it is weU, even on
selfish principles of government, that they, sensible
to their own giievances, should choose those who will
work for their redress : as they carry an election in
a populous to^vn, so they force their opinions relating
to iheir own condition on the middle class, and the
middle class on the representative. Thus the same
vote which relieves the poor protects the state, and
the refoiTH which removes abuses, prevents the revo
lution that avenges them.
The favourite accusation with foreigners against
the English is their cruelty, and the crowd round a
gibbet is the supposed proof of the justice of .the
charge. It is' astonishing how few men deem it ne
cessary to thinli a little when they are writing much.
The English are by no means a cruel people, and
their avidity to see an execution is no evidence what
soever against them. The one fact, that while our
laws are the severest in the world, we have not for
centm'ies been able to accustom oiu-selves to the seve
rity, and our administration of them has been singu
larly relaxed and gentle ; — the one fact, that public
opinion has snatched the sword from the hand of law,
and that the unaltered barbarism of a code of ages has
not sufiiced to harden our sympathies, is alone a suffi
cient proof that the English are not a cruel, but a mild
and hiimarte* people.
Ill his Thoughts upon Secondary Punishments (p.
30), the distinguished Archbishop of Dublin is pleased
to express himself with severity against that " mis
placed compassion'' for offenders, especiaUy juvenile
delinquents, which is a characteristic of the public.
This remark is shallow and inconsiderate ; the feeling
that the punishment is disproportioned to the offence
* Another proof of this fact is in the unwillingness of persons to
prosecute when they consider the punishment may be too severe.
The deamess of a prosecution, to be sure, goes some way towards
this forbearance : but in civil causes we readily brave expense for
revenge ; it is only in criminal causes that we shudder, and draw
back from the urging of the passions.

AGAINST THE ENGLISH REFUTED. 63
is, generally, the cause of the public sympathy with
thc offender, especially if young ; and this very com
passion, misplaced, as Dr. Whately deems it, is a
proof of the humanity of the people. In elections,
during all the riot and excess which formerly dis
graced those septennial saturnalia, when men were
heated with druilc, passion, and party animosities, it is
astonishing how little cruelty or outrage mingled with
iho uproar and bludgeon-fights which were considered
necessary to the deliberate exercise of the reasoning
facidty, on one of the most important occasions in
which it could be exerted. In no Continental people
could the passions have been so inflamed and instances
of ferocity so miraculously rare. Our armies lay an ac
knowledged claim to the same character for humanity,
which has so imjustly been denied to our people ; and
neither the French, Prussian, Spaniard, nor any Eu
ropean army can compare with the humanity with
which an English soldiery sack a town and traverse
a country ; our military outrages are conducted with
the mildness of a Duval, and we never commit rape,
arson, or murder, — unless it is absolutely necessary !
The superficial jest against our partiality to a news
paper tale of murder, or our passion for the spectacle
of the gibbet, proves exactly the reverse of what it
asserts. It is the tender who are the most suscepti
ble to the excitation of terror. It is the women who
hang with the deepest interest over a tale or a play
of gloomy and tragic interest. RobespieiTe liked
only stories of love. Nero was partial to the mildest
airs of music. Ali Pacha abhorred all accounts of
atrocity. The treacherous and bloody tribes of the
.South Sea islands prefer the calm strains of descrip
tive poetry, even to those of victory and war. If you
observe a ballad-vender hawking his wares, it is the
bloodiest murders that the women purchase. It is
exactly frora our miacquaintance with crime, viz. from
the restless and mysterious curiosity it excites, that
we feel a dread pleasure in marvelling at its details.
This principle will suffice to prove that the avidity
with which we purchase accounts of atrocity jg the

54 SUICmE NOT A DISTINCTION
reverse of a proof of our own cruelty of disposition,
and retorts upon the heads of our shaUow assaUants.
What is true- in books is true in sights. What is
true on the mimic stage is true on the real ; and if
that which I have just said be a legitimate vindication
of our love for narratives of terror, it is also a vindica
tion of our tendency to crowd round an execution.
But as regards the last, I believe that the vulgar of all
nations would be equally disposed to gaze at that
dread solemnization of death, ever an event so fraught
with dark interest to the race that is bom to die, if
among all nations the gloomy ceremonial were as
public as it is with us, and the criminal were rendered
as notorious by the comments of journals, and the
minute details of the session-court and the prison-
house. Another absurd and ancient accusation against us
ought, by this time, to be laiovra by our accusers, the
French, to be unfounded on fact, viz. our ¦unequalled
propensity to suicide. That offence is far more fre
quent among the French themselves than it is with
us. In the year 1816 the number of suicides com
mitted in London amounted to seventy-two ; in the
same year, at Paris, they amounted to one himdred
and eighty-eight ; the population of Paris being some
400,000 less than that of London !* But suicides, if
not unequalled in number by those of other countries,
are indeed frequent with us, and so they always will bo
in countries where men can be reduced in a day from
affluence to beggary. The loss of fortune is the general
cause of the voluntary loss of life. Wounded pride,
— disappointment, — the schemes of an existence laid
in the dust, — the insulting pity of friends, — the hum
bled despair of all our dearest connexions for whom
perhaps we toiled and wrought, — the height from
which we have fallen, — the impossibility of regaining
* Not taking into account the number of those unforturiates ex
posed at the Morgue, one-half at least of whom were probably
fHiddea,

OF THE ENGLISH. 55
what we have lost, — the searching curiosity of the
public, — the petty aimoyance added to the gi-eat wo,
— all rushing upon a man's mind in the sudden con
vulsion and turbulence of its elements, what wonder
that he welcomes the only escape from the abyss into
which he has been hurled !
If tlie Spaniards rarely commit suicide, it is because
they, neither a commercial nor gambling people, are
not subject to such reverses. With the French it is
mostly the hazard of dice, with the English the
chances of trade, that are tho causes of this melan
choly crime ; melancholy ! for it really deserves that
epithet with us. We do not set about it with the
mirthful gusto which characterizes the felo de se in
your ExceUency's native land. We have not yet,
among our numerous clubs, instituted a club of sui
cides, aU sworn to be the happiest dogs possible, and
not to outlive the year ! These gentlemen ask you to
see them " go off," as if Death were a place in the
malle poste. '' Vi''ill you dine with rae to-morrow, my
dear Dubois ?"
" With the greatest pleasure ; yet, now I think of
it, I am particularly engaged to shoot myself; I am
reaUy au desespoir ! — but one can't get off such an
engagement, you know."
" I would not ask such a thing, my dear fellow.
Adieu ! — By-the-way, if you should ever come back
to Paris again, I have changed ray lodgings, au phi-
sir .'"
Exeunt the two friends ; the one twirling his mus
tachios, the other humming an opera tune.
This gayety of suicidalism is not the death a la
mode with us ; neither are we so sentimental in these
delicate matters as our neighbours over the water.
We do not shoot each other by way of being romantic.
Ladies and gentlemen forced " to part company" do
not betake themselves " to a retired spot," and tempt
the dread unknown, by a brace of pistols, tied up with
cheny-colonred ribands.
In a word, when we shoot ourselves, we consider

156 VITALITY OF ABSURDITIES
it no joke ; we come to the resolution in sober sad
ness ; we have no inherent predUection for the act ;
no " hereditary imperfection in the nervous juices" (as
Montesquieu, with aU the impudence of a philosopher,
has gravely asserted) forcing us on to the "funis, am-
^lis," — the gates out of this world into the next. No
people destroy themselves with a less lively inclina
tion ; and so generally are sudden reverses of fortune
the propellers to the deed, that with us not one suicide
in ten would cease to live, if it were not that he has
nothing to live upon. In fact, he does not relinquish
life — life relinquishes him.
But if it be true, then, that we are so far from being
a suicidal people that the French have, by strict cal
culations, been computed to kill their fve to our one ;
if among no comraercial people has the crime of sui
cide, perhaps, been not only less frequent, but com
mitted with less levity, — the abhorrent offspring of the
most intolerable reverses ; if this be true, what be
comes of all those admirable books, witty and pro
found, which your Excellency's fellow-countrymen
have written about our acknowledged propensity to
ropes and razors, our inclination to kill ourselvefe from
the slightest causes, and out of a principle of ennui 1
What becomes of the ingenious systems that have
been built upon that " fact ;" eiflivened by the gayety
of Voltaire ; rendered touching by the sentimentality
of De Stael — one writer accounting for it one way, one
another ; but all sure to account for what they had for
gotten to prove % Your Excellency may perceive by
their theories, which I think I have now for ever de
molished, how necessary it is for an Englishman some
times to write about England. I say, their theories I
have forever demolishecl ; yet Heaven knows if I have
— there is a wonderful vigour of constitution in a pop
ular fallacy. When the world has once got hold of a
lie, it is astonishing how hard it is to get it out of the
world, You beat it about the head till it seems to
have given up the ghost ; and, lo ! the next day it is
.fig healthy as ever again, The best exainple of tbe

EXEMPLIFIED IN THE STOHY OF ARCHIMEDES. 57
vitality of a fine saykig which has the advantage of
being a fallacy is in the ever-hacltneycd piece pfriqur
sense attributed to Archimedes ; viz. " that he could
move the earth, if he had any pL'vce at a distance Ironi
it to fix a prop for his lever." Your Excellency knows
that this is one of the standard allusions, one of the
necessary stock in trade for all orators, poets, and
newspaper- writ ers ; and persons, whenever they meet
with it, take Archimedes for an extraordinary gi-eat
man, and cry, " Lord, how wonderful !" Now, i/ Ar
chimedes had found his place, hi« prop, and his lever,
and if he could have moved with the swiftness' of a
cannon-ball, 480 miles every hour, it would ha.ve taken
him just 44,963,540,000,000 years to have raised the
earth one inch !* And yet people will go on quoting
absurdity as gospel, ^yondering at the wisdom of Ar
chimedes, and accomitiug for the imparalleled suicidal
ism of the English, till we. grow tired of contradiction ;
for, when you caimpt convince the Squire Thornhills
of the world, you must incur the mortification of Moses,
and be contented to let tliem out-talk you.
I think, ho^yever, that I need take no pains to prove
the next characteristic of the .English people, — a char
acteristic, ttst.l shall .jjut just touch upon; viz. their
wonderfuJiSjliritof liidustry. ^This has been the sav
ing priftsiple.tof- the nation, gounteracting the errors
of our lav-'s-ji-and the' ifjiperfM-tions of our constitution.
We have be^^.ajgTeatrpeopfe, because we have been
always ^c{iy,e.; and;a3iioj^;p.eople, because we have
not left- ourselVes*frimej,to i* vicious. Industry is, in a
W^^, ih6 distinguishing quahty of our nation, the per
vading genius of om* riches, our grandeur, and our
power.
J -'- Every great people has its main principle of great-
-ness, some one quality, the developing, and tracing,
fftnd feeding, and watching of which has made it great.
Your Excellency remembers how finely Montesquieu
'" * Ferguson. Critics have said, " 'What a fine idea of Archimedes ! "
but how much finer is the fact thatreftites it. One of the subUmest
things in the world is plain truth ! '
C3

58 LAST ADVENTURE
has proved this most important truth, in the Grandeur
et Decadence des Remains. With France, that princi
ple is the love of glory ; with America, it is the love
of liberty ; with England, it is the love of action — ^the
safest and most comprehensive principle of the three ;
for it gains glory without seeking it too madly, and it
requires liberty in order to exist.
Now^ I think that your Excellency (than whom, if
no man sees more the folly in a statesman of over-
refining, no raan also, I apprehend, sees more clearly
the necessity of his piercing beyond the surface, and
seizing, from the confused History of the Past, some
one broad though metaphysical principle by which to
guide and work out his policy) — I think, I say, that
your Excellency will perceive that when we have
once discovered the national quality which has chiefly
made a nation great, we caiuiot too warnfly foster and
too largely encourage it ; we should break down all
barriers that oppose it ; foresee, and betimes destroy,
all principles that are likely to check or prevent it. It
is the Vestal Fire whicli daily and nightly we must
keep alive ; and we should consider all our prosperity
to be coupled with its existence. Thus, then, if in
dustry be the principle of our power, we cannot too
zealously guard it from all obstacle, or too extensively
widen the sphere for its exertions ; a truth which our
statesmen have, to be sure, diligently cultivated, by
poor-laws that encourage idleness ; and bounties, pro
hibitions, and monopolies, that amputate the sinews
of action.
From this it would seem that a policy that would
be bad with other countries has been pre-eminently
bad with us.
The last tune Micromegas paid us a visit, he was
struck by a singular spectacle. He saw an enor
mous giant, laid at full length upon the ground, in the
midst of a raighty orchard laden with fruit — chains
were on his limbs, and weights upon his breast. The
giant kicked most lustily against these restraints, and
his struggles so con-vulsed the grojimd that every now

OF MICROMEGAS. 59
and then they shook plenty of fruit from the neighbour
ing trees ; the natives stood round, and seized the fruit
as it fell. Nevertheless, there was far from being
enough for the whole crowd, aud the more hungry
among them growled \'ery audibly at the more fortunate
and better fed. The compassionate Micromegas ap
proached the throng : '• And who art thou, most un
happy giant ?" he asked.
" Alas !" said the giant, " my name is Industry, and
I am the parent of these ungrateful children, who have
tied me down, in order that my struggles to get free
may shake a few fruits to the gTound."
" Bless me," said Micromeg-as, " what a singular
device ! — but do you not see, my good friends," turn
ing to the crowd, " that your father, if he were free
from these shackles, could reach with his mighfy arms
the boughs of the trees, and give you as much fruit as
you wanted 1 Take this chain, for instance, from one
arm and try."
" That chain !" shouted some hundreds of the
crowd ; " impious wretch — it is Tithes !"
" Well then, these cords."
" Idiot ! — those cords are Bounties : we should be
undone if they were destroyed."
At this instant up came a whole gang of elderly
ladies, with a huge bowl of opium, which they began
thrusting down the throat of the miserable giant.
" And what the devil is that for ?" said Microraegas.
" We don't like to see our good father raake such
violent struggles," replied the pious matrons ; " we are
giving him opium to lie still."
" But that is a drug to induce, hira to shake down no
fruit, and then you would be starved, — spare him the
opium at least."
"Barbarous monster!" cried tho ladies, with horror,
" would you do away with the Poor-laws ?"
" My children," said the poor giant, wellnigh at his
last gasp, " I have done my best to maintain you all,
there is food enough in the orchard for fifty times your
number, but you undo yourselves by the injustice of

60 COURAGE OF THE ENGLISH.
crippling your father. You mean well by me— you
compassionate my struggles— but, instead of giving
me liberty, these good ladies would set me to sleep.
Trust to nature and comraon sense, and we shall all
live happUy together, and if these orchards ever fail
you I will plant new."
" Nature and common sense, dear father !" cried the
children ; " oh ! beware of these new-fangled names ! —
Let us trast to experience, not to theory and specula
tion." Here a vast rush was made upon those eating the
fruit they had got by those who in the late scrambles
had got no fruit to eat ; and Micromegas made away
as fast as he could, seeing too plainly that, if the giant
were crippled much longer, those who had laid by the
most fruit would stand some chance of being robbed
- by the hunger and jealousy of the rest.

CHAPTER IV.
Courage of the English — Description of English Duelhng— 'Valour
of the English Army — Question of Flogging in the Army dispas
sionately considered— Its AboUtion, to be safe, must be coupled
with other Reforms in the Code.
I HAVE reserved for a separate chapter a few
remarks upon one of our national attributes, — viz.
Courage ; because they will naturally involve the con
sideration of a certain question that has lately attracted
much attention among us, — viz. corporal punishments
in the army. Your own incomparable La Bniyfere
has remarked, " that in France a soldier is brave and a
lawyer is learned : but in Rome," says he, " the soldier
was learned and the lawyer was brave — every man
was brave." Now I think that wdth us every man is
brave. Courage is more universally spread through
the raw material of England than it is among tha^

DESCRIPTION OF ENGLISH DUELLING. 61
of any other people ; but I do not think the manufac
ture is quite so highly wrought up in individual speci
mens as it is in France. I think that an English gen
tleman, from the fear of a duel, would eat his words
sooner than a Frenchman. You see a proof of this
every day in our newspaper accomits of these " little
affairs." The following is a very fair specimen of a
duelling con-espondence :
To the Editor of " TheTimec."
Sie,
You will oblige us by inserting the following account of the late
affair between ilr. Hum and Lord Haw.
Your obedient servants,
Lionel Vjienish.
Peter Smoothawav, Col. of the — Regt.
" In the late election for the borough of Spoutit, Mr.
Hum, being the candidate on the Whig side, was re
ported in the Spoutit and Froth Chronicle to have made
use of the following expressions relative to Lord Haw,
who is supposed to have some interest in the borough :
' As for a certain noble lord, who lives not very far
from Haw Castle, I confess that I cannot sufficiently
express my contempt for his unworthy conduct (great
applause), — it is mean, base, treacherous, and deroga
tory in the highest degree for any nobleman to act in
the manner that nobleman has thought proper to do.' "
On reading this extract, purporting to be from a
speech by Mr. Hum, Colonel Sraoothaway was de
puted to wait on that gentleman by Lord Haw. Mr.
Hum appointed Sir Lionel Varnish to meet Colonel
Smoothaway upon the matter : the result was the fol
lowing memorandum :
In applying the words " mean, base, treacherous, and derogatory"
to Lord Haw, Mr. Hum did not in the smallest degree mean to
reflect upon his lordship's character, or to wound his feelings. 'With
this explanation Colonel Smoothaway declares, on the part of Lord
Haw, that Lord H. is perfectly satisfied.
(Signed) Lionel 'Vaenish.
Petek Smooihawat,

62 ENGLISH DUELLING.
But this epeapophogy, or word-swallowing, is only
on one side in this specimen of con-espondence. It is
usually on both sides, and may be cun-ently supposed
to run thus :
"Mr. Hum having declared that in calling Lord
Haw 'a rascal' he meant nothing personal to that
nobleman. Lord Haw has no hesitation in saying that
he did not mean to offend Mr. Hum when he called
him ' a rogue' in reply."
Now this sort of shuffling with one's honour, as your
Excellency very well knows, is never practised in
France : the affront given, out at once go affronter
and affrontee ; they fight first, and retract afterward.
But the difference in the bilboa appetite of the gentry
of the two nations depends, I suspect, rather on the
advantage the French possess over the English in
animal spirits than in' real courage. With your comi-
trymen duelling, as well as suicide, is a mere jest —
an ebullition of mettlesome huraour : with us it is an
affair of serious will-making and religious scruples.
Your courage is an impulse ; ours must be made a
principle. When once our blood is up it does not
descend in the thermometer very readily. The
easy lubricity with which our gentlemen glide out
of a duel is an understood thing with us ; and neither
party considers it a disgrace to another. But if an
Englishman has an affair with a foreigner the case is
very different : he is much more tenacious of apology,
and ready for the field. A countryraan of mine asked
me once to officiate for him as second in a quarrel he
had with a Parisian roue : the cause was trifling, and
the Englishman to blame. I recommended a com
promise. "No," said my hero, throwing his chest
open, "if my antagonist were an Englishman I
should be too happy to retract a hasty expression ;
but these d — d French fellows don't understand gene
rosity." I remmded my friend of Iris religious scruples.
«' True," said he ; " but how can I think of religion
when I know De ^  is an atheist ?"

nRITlSIl AND FRENCir SOLDIER*. 63
There is a doggedness in English courage which
makes it raore stubborn against adversity than that of
any other people : it has in it more of the spirit of re
sistance, if less of the spirit of assaidt.
When wo look to the army under Napoleon, and
that under the Duke of Wellington, we are astonished
at the difference of the system : in the one the utmost
conceiwible encouragement is given to the soldier to
distinguish himself; in the other the least. To rise
from the ranlis was, in the French army, an occur
rence of every day. The commonest soldier could
not obey a field-mm'shal, scarcely his emperor, with
out seeing the widest scope for personal ambition in
the obedience that he rendered ; — if the risks were im
mense, so also were the rewards. But in England, a
wall, rarely to be surmounted, divides the soldier from
aU promotion beyond that of the halberd. He is al
together of a different metal, of a different estimate
from the Frenchman. He has equal punishments to
deter, not equal rewards to encourage : he cannot be
a captain, but he can be terribly flogged. The two
principles of conduct, hope and teiTor, ought to be
united. The question of flogging in the army; however, is
far raore important to England, more complicated in
itself, than appears at first sight. Whenever it be
abolished, the abolition, to be safe, should work an en
tire revolution in the service. I confess I think won
derful ignorance has been shown, both in the popular
cry and in the parliaraentary debates on that subject.
People have not, in the least, perceived the conse
quences to which the abolition of corporal chastise
ment must lead. The heads of the army are perfectly
right ! — If it were abolished, as a single alteration in
the martial code, one of two consequences would in
fallibly ensue, viz. the loss of discipline, or the sub
stitute of the pmiishment of death. You hear men
and legislators say, in the plenitude of their ignorance,
" Look at the French army, and the Prussian army ;
you see no flogging there ; why have flogging in the

64 QUESTION OF FLOGGING
British army V The answer to those who have studied
the question is easy : in the fiirst place, if there is
not flogging in the French army, there is the penalty
of death. For all the offences for which we flog a sol
dier, the French shoot him. Nay, they award death to
an incalculably greater number of offences than meet
corporal punishment with us : there are not above four
offences for which flogging is inflicted in the greater
part of our regiments ; and certainly not eight in any :
there are thirteen capital offences. With the French
there are above forty offences punishable with death !
Besides these, what a long catalogue in France of mili
tary faults to which are appended the tewible awards,
" Fers 5, 6, 10 ans." Boulet, Travaux Publiques, for
the same periods ! The French code does not em
brace flogging, but it embraces punishments much more
severe, and much more lightly incurred. But the
Prussian army ? In the first place, the Prussian code
does sanction corporal pmiishment to the amount of
one hundred lashes, forty of which only can be re
ceived at a time, so that the criminal may be brought
twice or thrice to complete his sentence. In the next
place, what a superior rank of moral being does a
Prussian soldier hold above an English one ! How,
in that military nation, is he schooled, and trained, and
selected from the herd ! Before he is a soldier how
necessarily is he a man of honour ! Now this last
consideration brings us to the true view of a question
far too vitally important to be intrusted to hustings.
oratory and school-boy declamation. In no nation in
the world is the army so thoroughly selected from the
dregs and refuse of the people as it is in England : this
is the real reason why flogging has been retained by us
so long, and why, as a single measure of military reform,
it would be dangerous to the last degree to take the
power of inflicting it out of the hands of a court-mar
tial. In France the conscription raises the army from
respectable classes : in Prussia the military system
is even still more productive than in France of a su
perior moral soldiery: but in England we have no

IN THE AK.liY CO.NSmERF.D. 65.
conscription, no mihlary schools ; the soldier is culled
from tho sink of the pea.suntry ; a man who runs
away from a \\'ife for whom he is too lazy to labour,
who has had the inislbrtune of an illegitimate child ;
who has taken to poaching- instead of to work, and
fears the tread-null ; this is the hero you put into the
British army, and about whom the eloquent Daniel
O'ConneU t;ilks of chivalry and honour !* — " Oh !"
cries one of our inconsiderate philanthropists, " if you
take away flogging, you will, in the first place, have
a higher class of men willing to enlist; and, inthe
second place, )-ou will instil a more dignified sense of
moral feeling into those already enlisted." Stay a bit ;
let us consider these arguments. Certainly you will
gain these advantages if the abolition of flogging be
made a part of a general reform (hereafter to be spe
cified) ; but, as certainly, you will not gain either of
these advantages by that abolition alone. Let us look
to the constitution of the army. Suppose a soldier
commits theft, he is given up to the civil authority, he
is transported for seven years ; he returns a most ac
complished rascal ; where then does he go ? Why
back into the array again. Let a soldier be ever such
a rogue, it is exceeding difficult for the officer to pro
cure his discharge from the War Office. For what
reason ? Why, because to discharge a soldier would
be considered a premium to a man to behave ill. An
exceUeut reason ; but what does it prove ? It proves
that the service is felt to be such a hardship, even by
the depraved and imbruted, who at present belong to
it, that a discharge is a blessing, which men would
(if encouraged by any hope of success) behave as ill
as possible, in order to procure. Is it flogging alone
that makes it a hardship ? Pooh, no — scarcely one
man in a whole regiment is flogged in a year. He
who knows any thing of the constitution of Human
Nature knows that it is not the remote chance of
punishment, it is actual and constant desagrimens
* Two-thirds of the army, too, are Irish, and the lowest of them;
the dregs of. an Irish populace ! "What a reflection !

66 MILITARY REFORM.
that make men discontented with their situation.*
Now, how then can one rationally suppose that if you
abolished corporal punishment, " a better class of per
sons" would voluntarily consent to herd with returned
convicts, and rush open-armed into a state of existence
which even returned convicts woidd be too happy to
get discharged from 1 — Still less, how can one hope to
institute a high sense of honour among men already
selected from classes where honour is unknown. Talk
of Prussia, indeed ! there a soldier considers it not the
greatest blessing, but the heaviest misfortune, to be
discharged : he was trained to think so before he went
into the army. They raake the feeling of honour ^f*t,
and then they appeal to it.j To deprive a Prussian
soldier of his cockade is a grievous humiliation. A
certain English colonel, desirous of imitating the
Prussians, took away the cockade frora a soldier whom
he thought seeraed more alive to honour than the rest
of his comrades ; the soldier was exceedingly grate
ful ; it saved him the trouble of keepmg it clean !
But, in some regiments, floggmg has been done away
with ? Ay, and how has it succeeded ? I venture to
affirm that those regiments are the most insubordinate
in the army.| In some the punishment was abolished,
and the commanding officer has been compelled to
* Thus, among the offences of an English soldier are these in
stances of " disgraceful conduct :"
" In vriUuUy maiming or injuring himself or another soldier, even
at the instance of such soldier, with intent to render himself, or such
soldier unfit for the service.
" In tampering with his eyes.
" In absenting himself from hospital while under medical care, or
other gross violation of the rules of any hospital, thereby wilfully
producing or aggravating disease or iniii-mity, or wilfully delaying
his own cure." A pretty alluring sort of condition, in which a man
is forbidden to contract diseases and to court blindness for the pur
pose of getting out of it !
¦f Even in the civil schools of Prussia there is a law, " That
no punishment shall be inflicted which wounds the sentiment of
honour." t Mr. Hume declares that in those regiments discipline is equally
preserved. He has a right to his opinion ; but just ask miUtary men, —
nay the oflScers of those regiments themselves, in which the experi
ment was tried : its fruitlessness is notorious in the army.

MILITARY REFORM. 67
restore it. But am I then the advocate for this horri
ble punishment ? — certamly not ; only, when we begin
to reform the army let us begin at the right end — let
us begin with the system of Recruiting. If flogging
be continued, we may continue to have a courageous
and disciplined array under the present system — if it
is to be removed, we must alter the system altogether.
As we diminish the motive of fear we must increase
the moti\e of hope ; as we diminish the severity of
punishment, we must incidcate the sentiment of shame.
In the first place, we should institute Militaiy Schools
for privates, where the principle of honour can be
early instilled : in the second place, we ought, as in
Prussia, to introduce into the army the system of de
grading. By this system every man first enlisting
enters into a certain class, and is entitled to certain
distinctions of dress ; if found, in that class, incorri
gible by its ordinary" punishments, then he is degraded
to another class, the distinctions are taken away from
him, and he is liable to severer penalties. It is only
when thus degraded that a Prussian soldier can re
ceive corporal pimishment. Amendment restores him
to his former ranli. In the third place, as the soldier
ought, at these mUitary schools, to receive a much
better degree of education than at present, so he ought
to be much more capable of rising from the ranks,
even to the highest stations.* In the fourth place, no
soldier should be enlisted without the recommendation
of a good character.f In the fifth place, the system
of adequate pensions after a certain service should be
firmly established ; nothing can be more injudicious
than the recent alterations on that head ;% but the pen-

* Nor ought promotion to be amatter of purchase. 'What custom
more discouraging to all worth save that of wealth !
t A principal cause of the unwilUngness of soldiers to serve is, that
the profligate dislike restraint, and the orderly dislilte companionship
with tlie profligate ; you remove both these causes by refusing to
receive the profligate.
X It would be a great source of consolation to a soldier to be sure
to receive hie discharge after a certain number of years, accom
panied with a competence for his old age ; by this hope, you would

68 MILITARY REFORM,
sion should not depend solely on the date of the ser
vice — good conduct should abbreviate, bad conduct
prolong it. No soldier once given up to the civU law
should be aUowed to return to the army. If it be
practicable under the present passion for petty econ
omies* and niggling reforms to do all this, the power
of corporal punishment may be safely denied to court-
martials, and the abolition of flogging, coupled with
such ameliorations, would indeed contribute to produce
a higher sense of honour and a more generous spirit
of discipline ; but if that punishment be abolished, as
a .lingle and unaccompanied act of reform, I confess
that I tremble for the consequences. I see before me
an uneducated and reckless soldiery, proverbially ad
dicted before that of all other armies to the temporary
insanity of drunkenness, from whom you suddenly
take one strong governing motive of fear, without sub
stituting another of hope — from whom you remove
restraint, but in whom the whole spirit of your re
maining laws forbids you to instil honour. I see that
there may be times, as on a march, when all the pun
ishments you would substitute are not at hand ; and I
know that with a soldier, above all men, punishment,
to be effectual, must be immediate.f I fear that, dis
cipline once weakened, not only insubordination, but
rapine and licentiousness, the absence of which has
hitherto so distinguished our army, would creep ui
among men to whom a moral education is unknown ; I
fear yet more, that in any collision with the people of
manufacturing towns, who at present are ever incens-
indeed attract a better class of men. The small economists cried
out on this system ; they complain that there is too much fear in
the military code, and yet they nave taken away its most agreeable
and reasonable incitement of hope !
* For such alterations would be evidently attended with expense.
t Thus, on -board sliip, where, for want of the necessary court-
martial, a delinquent cannot be immediately punished, all sorts of
insubordination frequently prevail. The offender knows that he may
be punished when ire gets on shore, but in the mean while he has
three or four weeks of impunity. The Duke of 'VVellington was
right if he said, as he is reported to have done, " The English sol
dier is always a bpy."

ARISTOCRATIC INFLUENCE. 69
ing, by their own animosity, that of the soldiers, the
check upon armed retaliation would bo foimd insuffi
cient and feeble : inhuman restraints on soldiers are
a great evil — an unruly soldiery would be a far greater
one. Let us hope, that if such an evil should arise, it
M'iU find its cure : it can do so either in the reforms I
have sketched, but which I fear the aristocracy will
not propose and the people \viU not pay for, or in the
substitution of tho terror of death for that of corporal
punishment'* — this last is the more probable, and
though the military code would be thus rendered se
verer by the abolition of flogging, I doubt if it would
not be a more wise and a raore honourable severity.
It is said by very competent authorities, that if you
were to poll the privates, you would find a majority
against the entire abolition of the power of inflicting
corporal punishment. This for two reasons : first,
that when it is removed, all sorts of small and vex
atious restraints, to which the soldiers are unaccus
tomed, are often resorted to by the officer, who, fearing
that if insubordination rose to a certain point, he
should lose the power to repress it, is for ever, even to
frivolity, guarding against its fancied beginnings ;
but the second and more powerful reason is, that many
of the soldiers have the sagacity to fear that the re
moval of the power to flog them would be followed by
a more facile prerogative to shoot.
Observe, in conclusion, that it is to the aristocratic
spirit which pervades the organization of our army, a
spirit which commands order by suppressing the facul
ties, not by inciting the ambition, and which has sub
stituted for a proper system of recruiting and of mili
taiy schools, the barbarous but effective terror of the
scourge — observe, I say, that it is to that spirit we
owe the low moral standard of our army, and the con-
* There are several offences not punishable at present, either with
death or transportation, but which I fear must become so, if the
power of corporal punishment be altogether forbidden. For in-
Btance: persuading to desert — drunkenness on duty — spreading
false reports in the field — seizing supplies for the army, &c,

70 SIR HARRY HAEGRAVE.
sequent difficulty of abolishing corporal punishment.
To one good end our aristocracy have proceeded by
the worst of means, and the nobleness of discipline
has been wrought by the meamiess of fear.

CHAPTER V.
SUPPLEMENTARY ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHARACTER.
The Sir Hany Hargrave of One Party— The Tom Wliitehead of
another — 'William Muscle, of the Old School of Radical — Samuel
Square, a Pseudo-philosopher of the new — My Lord Mute, the
Dandy Harmless — Sir Paul Snarl, the Dandy Venomous^-Mr.
¦Warm, the respectable Man — Mr. Cavendish Fitzroy, a corollary
from the theorem of Mr. 'Warm — The English Thief— The prac
tical Man. ,
Sir Harry Hargrave is an excellent gentleman ;
his conscience is scrupulous to the value of a pin's
head ; he is benevolent, hospitable, and generous.
Sir Harry Hargrave is never dishonest nor inhumane,
except for the best possible reasons. He has, for in
stance, a very worthless younger son ; by dint of in
terest with the Bishop of  , he got the scapegrace
a most beautiful living : the new rector has twenty
thousand souls to take care of; and Sir Harry weU
loiows, that so long as pointers and billiard-tables are
to be met with, young Hopeful will never bestow even
a thought on his own. Sir Harry Hargrave, you say,
is an excellent gentleman ; yet he moves heaven and
earth to get his son a most responsible situation, for
which he knows the rogue to be wholly unfit. Exactly
so ; Sir Harry Hargrave applauds himself for it : he
calls it — taking care of his family. Sir Hany Har
grave gives away one hundred and two loaves every
winter to thc poor ; it is well to let the labourer have
a loaf of bread now and then for nothing : would it
not be as Avell, Sir Hany, to let him have the power

TOM WHITEHEAD. 71
always to have bread cheap ? Bread cheap ! what
are you .saying ? Sir Harry thinks of his rents, and
considers you a revolutionist for the question. But
Sir Harry Hargrave, you answer, is a humane man,
and charitable to the poor. Is this conscientious 1
My dear sir, to be sure ; he considers it his first duty
— to take care of the landed interest. Sir Harry Har-
grave's butler has robbed him ; the good gentleman
has not the heart to proceed against the rascal ; he
merely discharges him. What an excellent heart he
must have ! So he has ; yet last year he committed
fifteen poachers to jail. Strange inconsistency I not
at aU : — wliat becomes of the country gentleman if his
game is not properly protected ? Sir Harry Hargrave
is a man of the strictest integrity ; his word is his
bond — ^he might say with one of the Fathers, " that
he would not tell you a lie to gain heaven by it ;" yet
Sir Harry Hargrave has six times in his life paid five
thousand pounds to three hundred electors in Cornwall,
whom he knew would all take the bribery oath that
they had not received a shilling from him. He would
not tell a lie, you say ; yet he makes three hundred
men forsv/ear themselves ! Precisely so ; and when
you attempt to touch this system of perjury, he would
oppose you to his last gasp ; but he is not to be blamed
for this — he is only attached to the venerable constitution
of his forefathers ! Sir Harry Hargrave is an accom
plished man, and an excellent scholar ; yet he is one
of the most ignorant persons you ever met with. His
mind is full of the most obsolete errors ; a very Mon-
mouth-street of threadbare prejudices : if a truth gleam
for a moraent upon hira, it discomposes all his habits
of thought, like a stray sunbeam on a cave full of
bats. He enjoys the highest possible character among
his friends for wisdom and virtue : he is considered
the raost consistent of human beings : consistent !—
yes, to his party !
Tom Whitehead is a very different person ; he is
clever, sharp, shrewd, and has lived a great deal at
Paris, He laughs at antiquity ; he has no poetry in

72 WILLIAM MUSCLE.
his nature ; he does not believe in virtue ; with him
" all men are liars." He has been a gi-eat gambler in
his youth ; he professes the most profligate notions
about women ; he has run through half his fortune ;
he is a liberal politician, and swears by Lord Grey.
His father was a Whig before him ; and for the last
twenty years he has talked about " the spirit of im
provement." He is a favourite at the clubs ; an honest
fellow, because he laughs so openly at the honesty of
other people. He is half an atheist, because he thinks
it cant to be more than half a believer. But religion
is a good thmg for the people ; whom, while he talks
of enlightenment, he thinks it the part of a statesman
to blind to every thing beyond the Reform Bill. He
is for advancement to a certain point — till his party
come in ; he then becomes a conservative — ^lest his
party go out. Having had the shrewdness to dismiss
old prejudices from his mind, he has never taken the
trouble to supply their place with new principles : Tie
fancies himself very enlightened, because he sees the
deficiencies of other people ; he is very ignorant, be
cause he has never reflected on his own. He is a
sort of patriot ; but it is for " people of property ;"
he has a gi-eat horror of the canaille. As Robert Hall
said of Bishop Watson, " he married Public Virtue in
his youth, and has quarrelled with his wife ever since."
His party think him the most straightforward fellow in
the world ; for he never voted against them, and
never will.
William Muscle is a powerful man ; he is one of
the people, radical to the backbone : of the old school
of radicals ; he hates the philosophers like poison.
He thinks Thistlewood a glorious fellow ; and no
words can express his hatred of William Pitt. He
has got at last into parliament, which he always de
clared he could convince in a fortnight that he was
the sole person in the universe fit to govern England ;
whenever he speaks, he says one word about England
to fifty about America. Presidents with five thousand
a year are the visions that float for ever in his braiu j

WILLUM MUSCLE. 73
he seeth not why the Speaker of the House of Com
mons should have more than a hundred a year ; he
knoweth many an honest man among his constituents
who would be Speaker for less. He accuses the aris
tocracy of an absolute and understood combination to
cheat the good citizens of his borough. He thinketh
that Lord Grey and Sir Robert Peel meet in private,
to consult how they may most tax the working-classes.
He hateth the Jews because they don't plough. He
has no desire that the poor man should be instructed.
He considereth the cry against taxes on knowledge as
sheer cant. He hath a mortal hatred to museums,
and asketh the utility of insects. His whole thought
for the poor is how they shall get bread and bacon :
he despiseth the man who preferreth tea to ale. He
is thoroughly English ; no other land could have pro
duced the bones and gristle of his mind. He writeth
a plain, strong style, and uttereth the most monstrous
incredibUities, as if they were indisputable. He
thinks fine words and good periods utter abomination.
He esteemeth himself before all men. He believes
that the ministers have consulted several times on the
necessity of poisoning him. He is indignant if others
pretend to serve the people ; they are his property.
He is the Incarnation of popular prejudices and natu
ral sense. He is changeable as a weathercock, be
cause he is aU passion. He is the living representa
tion of the old John Bull : when he dies, he will leave
no like : it was the work of centuries to amalgamate
so much talent, nonsense, strength, and foibles, into
one man of five feet eight : he is the Old Radical —
the great Aboriginal of annual parliamentarilism : he
is the landmark of Reform fifty years ago : you may
whitewash and put new characters on him, but he
sticketh still in the same place : he is not to be moved
to suit the whims of the philosophers. He hath done
his work : a machine excellent at its day — coarse,
huge, massive, and uncouth ; not being easily put out
of order, but never perfectly going right. People
have invented new machines, aU the better for being

74 SAMUEL SaUARE.
.less rude, and regulated by a wiser principle, though
wrought from a less strong material.
! Samuel Square is of a new school of Radicals ;
he alsb is a Republican. He is not a philosopher,
but he philosophizes eternally. He liveth upon " first
principles." He cannot move a step beyond them.
He hath" put the feet of his mind into boxes, in order
that they may not grow larger, and thinks it a beauty
that they are unfit for every-day walking. Whatever
may be said by any man against his logic, he has but
one answer — a first principle. He hath no supple
ness in him. He camiot refute an error. He stateth
a truism in reply, that hath no evident coimexion with
the matter in dispute. He thinketh men have no
passions ; he considereth them mere clockwork, and
he taketh out his eternal first principle, as the only
instrument to wind them up by. He is assured that
all men of all classes, trades, and intellects act by
self-interest, and if he telleth them that their interest
is so-and-so, so-and-so will they necessarily act. In
vain you show hira that he never yet hath convinced
any man ; he replieth by a first principle, to prove, in
spite of your senses, that he hath. He has satisfied
himself, and demands no further proof He is of no
earthly utility, though he hath walled himself with a
supposed utilitarianism. He cannot write so as to be
read, because he conceives that all agreeable writuig
is full of danger. He cannot speak so as to be under
stood, precisely because he never speaks but in syllo
gisms. He hath no pith and succiflence in him:
he is as dry as a bone. He liveth by system; he
never was in love in his life. He refuseth a cheerftil
glass ; nay, perhaps, he dieteth only upon vegetable
food. He hath no human sympathies with you, but
is a great philanthropist for the people to be born a
thousand years hence. He never relieveth any one ;
he never caresseth any one : he never feeleth for any
one — he only reasoneth with every one — and that on
the very smaUest inch he can find of mutual agree
ment. If be was evey married, I should suspect him

LORD MUTE. 76
to be the father who, advertising the other day for a
runaway daughter, begged her, " if she -would not
return to her disconsolate parents, to send them back
the key of the tea-chest." Wliat is most strange
about hira is, that while he thinks all the rest of the
M'orld exceedingly tbolish, he yet believes they are
only to be governed by reason. You will find him
visiting a Imiatic asylum, and assuring the madman
that it is not rational to be insane. He luioweth not
one man from another ; they seem to him as sheep or
babies seem to us — exactly alike. He thinketh that
he ought to have a hand in public affairs — the Al
mighty forbid ! This is a scion from the tree of the
new radicals : he hath few brethren : he calleth him
self a Philosopher, or sometimes a Benthamite. He
resembleth the one or the other, as the barber's block
resembleth a man. He is a block.
The spirit of coxcombry, as you find it on the Con
tinent, would seem to be a perversion of the spirit of
benevolence ; it is the desire to please, fantastically
expressed. With us it is just the reverse, it seems
a perversion of the spirit of malignity, — it is the de
sire to (?;jplease : there is, however, one species of
coxcombry which I shall first describe ; passive and
harmless, it consists in no desire at all.
Lord Mute is an English elegante — a dandy. You
know not what he has been. He seeras as if he could
never have been a boy : all appearance of nature has
departed from him. He is six feet of inanity envel
oped in cloth ! You cannot believe God made him
— Stultz must have been liis Frankenstein. He
dresseth beautifully — let us allow it — there is nothing
outre about him ; you see not in him the slovenly
magnificence of other nations. His characteristic
is neatness. His linen — ^how white ! His shirt-but
tons — how jegularly set in ! His colours — how well
chosen ! His boots are the only things splendid in
his whole costume. Lord Mute has certainly excel
lent taste ; it appears in his horses, his livery, his
cabriolet. He is great in a school of faultless sim-
Da

76 sra PAUL SNARL.
pUcity. There can be no doubt that in equipage and
dress Englishmen excel aU other Europeans. But
Lord Mute never converses. When he is dressed
there is an end of him. The clock don't tick as it
goes. He and his brethren are quiet as the stars —
In solemn silence, all
Move round this dark terrestrial balL
Lord Mute speaks indeed, but not coxwerses. He
has a set of phrases, which he repeats every day : —
" he can hum thrice, and buzz as often." fle knows
nothing of Politics, Literature, Science. He reads
the paper — but mechanically ; the letters present to
him nothing to be remembered. He is a true phi
losopher : the world is agitated — he luiows it not : the
roar of the fierce democracy, the changes of states,
the crash of thrones, never affect him. He does hot
even condescend to speak of such trifles. He riseth
to his labour, dresseth, goeth out, clubbeth, dineth,
speaketh his verbal roimd, and is at the Opera bril
liant and composed as ever,
' The cahn of heaven reflected on liis face.'
He never putteth himself into passions. He laughs
not loudly. His brow wrinkles not till extreme old
age. He is a spectator of life frora one of the dress
boxes. Were a coup-de-soleil to consurae his whole
family, he would say, with Major Longbow, " Bring
clean glasses and sweep your mistress away." That
would be a long speech for hira. Lord Mute is not
an unpopular man : he is one of the inoffensive dan
dies. Lord Mute, indeed, is not ! — it is his cabriolet
and his coat that are. How can the most implacable
person hate a coat and a cabriolet?
But Sir Paul Snarl is of the offending species — the
wasp dandy to the drone dandy. He is a clever»>ft
man : he has read books, and can quote dates, if need
be, to spoil a good joke by proving an anachronism.
He drawls when he speaks, and raises his eyebrows

sm PAUL SNARL. 77
superciliously. Sir Paul is a man of second-rate
family, and moderate fortune. He has had fo make
his way in the world — by studying to be amiable ? —
no : by studying to be disagreeable. Always doubt
ful of his own position, he has endeavoured to impose
upon you by pretending not to care a farthing about
you. He has wished to rise by depreciating others,
and to becorae a great man, by showing you that ho
thinks you an exceedingly small one. Strange to
say, he has succeeded. He is one, indeed, of the
most numerous class of successful dandies ; a speci
men of a common character. People suppose a man
who seems to think so little of them must be thought
a great deal of himself. The honourable mistresses
say to their husbands, " We must have that odious
Sir Paid to dinner ; it is well to conciliate him, he
says such ill-natured things ; besides, as he is so very
fine, he wiU meet, you l-uiow, my dear, the Dulce of
Haut-ton ; and we must ha^'e Crack to dress the din
ner !" Thus, Sir Paid — cleverdog ! — is not only asked
everywhere, but absolutely petted and courted, be
cause he is so intolerably mipleasant !
Sir Paul Snarl is one of the dandies, but — mistake
not the meaning of the word — dandy does not only
signify a man who dresses well ; a man may be a
sloven, and yet a dandy. A man is called a dandy
who lives much with persons a la mode, is intimate
with the dandy clique, and being decently well-born
and rich, entertains certain conect general notions
about that indefinable thing, " good taste."* Sir Paul
Snarl dresses like other people. Among very good
dressers, he would be called rather ill-dressed ; among
the oi polloi, he would be considered a model. At all
events, he is not thorough-bred in his appearance ; he
* Good taste is a very favourite phrase with the English aristoc
racy ; they carry it to the pulpit and the House of Commons^ —
*' Such a man preached in very good taste," or " in what excellent
taste So-and-so's speech was." Good taste applied to legislation
and salvation — what does the phrase mean? Heaven knows what
it means in the pulpit ; in the House of Commons it always means
flattering the old members, and betraying impudence modestly.

78 SIR PAUL SNARL.
lacks the senatorius decor ; you might take him for a
duke's valet, without being much to blame for inexpe
rience. Sir Paul and his class are the cutters in so
ciety. Lord Mute rarely cuts, unless you are very ill-
dressed indeed ; he knows his own station by instinct ;
he is not to be destroyed by " Who's your stout friend V
But Sir Paul is on a very different footing; Aw whole
position is false — ^he can't afford to throw away an
acquaintance — ^he knows no " odd people ;" if he the
least doubts your being comme ilfaut, he cuts you im
mediately. He is in perpetual fear of people finding
out what he is ; his existence depends on being thought
something better than he is — a policy effected by
knowing everybody higher and nobody lower than
himself ; that is exactly the definition of Sir Paul's
consequence ! Sir Paul's vanity is to throw a damp
on the self-love of everybody else. If you tell a
good story, he takes snuff, and turns to his neighbour
with a remark about Almack's ; if you fancy you have
made a conquest of Miss Blank, he takes an opportu
nity of telling you, par parenthcse, that she says she
can't bear you : if you have made a speech in the
House of Lords, he accosts you with an exulting
laugh, and a " Well, never mind, you'll, do better next
time :" if you have bought a new horse at an extrava
gant price, and are evidently vain of it, he smiles lan
guidly, and informs you that it was offered to him for
half what you gave for it, but he woidd not have it for
nothing : when you speak, he listens with a vacant
eye ; when you walk, he watches you with a curled
lip : if he dines with you, he sends away your best
hock with a wry face. His sole aim is to wound you
in the sorest place. He is a coxcomb of this age and
nation peculiarly ; and does that from foppery which
others do frora malice. There are plenty of Sir Paul
Snarls in the London world ; men of sense are both
their fear and antipathy. They are animals easily
slain — by a dose of their own insolence. Their sole
rank being fictitious, they have nothing to fall back
upon, if you show in public that you despise them,

MR. WARM — MR. CAVENDISH FITZROY.
But who is this elderly gentleman, with a poi
figure ? Hush ! it is Mr. Warm, " a most respi
able man." His most intimate friend I'ailed in tra
and went to prison. Mr. Warm forswore his
quaintance ; it was not respectable. Mr. Warm
early life seduced a yoiuig lady ; she lived with h
three years ; he married, and turned her off wither
shilling — the connexion, for a married man, was not
spectable. Mr. Warm is a most respectable man ;
pays his biUs regularly — he subscribes to six pul
charities — he goes to church with all his family oi
Sunday — he is in bed at twelve o'clock. Well, w
all that's very proper ; but is Mr. Warm a good fatli
a good friend, an active citizen? or is he not av!
cious, does he not love scandal, is not his heart cold
he not vindictive, is he not unjust, is he not unfeelir
Lord, sir, I believe he may be all that ; but what the
everybody allows Mr. Warm is a most respectable m
Such a character and such a reputation are pro
of our regard for appearances. Aware of thatrega
behold a real imitating the metaphorical swindl
See that gentleman, " fashionably dressed," with
military air," and " a prepossessing exterior;" he c;
eth himself " Mr. Cavendish Fitzroy" — he tak
lodgings in " a genteel situation" — he ordereth jew
and silks of divers colours to be sent home to hiir
he elopeth with them by the back way. Mighty i
manifold are the cheats he hath thus committed, ;
great the waUing and gnashing of teeth in Marylebc
and St. James's. But, you say, surely by this ti
tradesmen with a grain of sense would be put on th
guard. No, my dear sir, no ; in England we i
never on our guard against " such respectable appe
ances." In vain are there warnings in the papers s
examples in the police court. Let a man style hi
self Mr. Cavendish Fitzroy, and have a prepossessi
exterior, and he sets suspicion at once to sleep. W
not ? is it more foolish to be deceived by respecta'
appearances in Mr. Fitzroy, than by the respecta
appearance of Mr, Warm.

80 THE ENGLISH THIEF.
But gi-andeur, in roguery, at least, has its draw
backs in happiness ; the fashionable swindler with us
is not half so merry a dog as your regular thief.
There is something melancholy and gentlemanlike
about the Fitzroy set, in their fur coats and gold
chains ; they live alone, not gregariously. I should
not be surprised if they read Lord Byron. They are
haunted with the fear of the tread-mill, and cannot
bear low company ; if they come to be hanged, they
die moodily, — and often attempt prussic acid ; in short,
there is nothing to envy about them, except their good
looks ; but your regular thief, ah, he is, indeed, a
happy fellow ! Take him all in all, I doubt if in the
present state of English society he is not the lightest
hearted personage in it. Taxes afflict him not ; he
fears no scarcity of work. "Rents may go down ;
labour be dirt cheap ; what cares he ? — A fall in the
funds affects not his gay good-humour ; and as to the
little mortifications of life, —
If money grow scarce, and his Susan look cold,
Ah, the false hearts that we find on the shore !
— ^why, he changes his quarters, and MoUy replaces
Susan !
But, above all, he has this great happiness — ^he can
never fall in society ; that terror of descending, which,
in our complication of grades, haunts all other men,
never affects him ; he is equally at home in the tread
mill, the hulks, Hobart's town, as he is when playing
at dominoes at the Cock and Hen, or leading the
dance in St. Giles's. You must know, by-the-way,
that the English thief has many more amusements
than any other class, save the aristocracy ; he has
balls, hot suppers, theatres, and affaires du cxur, aU
at his command ; and he is eminently social — a jolly
fellow to the core ; if he is hanged, he does not take
it to heart like the Fitzroys ; he has lived merrily, and
he dies game. I apprehend, therefore, that if your
Excellency would look for whatever gayety mayexi§t

MR. BLUFF. 81
among the English, you must drop the " Travellers"
for a short time, and go among the thieves. You
might almost fancy yourself in France, they are so
happy. This is perfectly true, and no caricature, as
any policeman will bear witness. I Imow not if the
superior hilarity and cheerfulness of thieves be pecu
liar to England ; but possibly the over-tatxation (from
which our thieves are exerapted) may produce the
effect of lowermg the animal spirits of the rest of the
community. Mr. Bluft" is the last character I shall describe in
this chapter. He is the sensible, practical man. He
despises all speculations, but those in which he has a
share. He is very intolerant to other people's hobby
horses ; he hates both poets and philosophers. He has
a great love of facts ; if you could speak to him out of
the multiplication table, he would think you a great
orator. He does not observe how the facts are applied
to the theory; he only wants the facts themselves.
If you were to say to him thus, " "When abuses arise
to a certain pitch, they must be remedied," he would
think you a shallow fellow — a theorist ; but if you
were to say to him, " One thousand pauper children
are bom in London; in 1823, wheat was forty-nine
shillings ; hop-gi-ounds let from teU' to twelve shillings
an acre, and you must, therefore, confess that, when
abuses arise to a certain pitch, they must be reme
died ;" Mr. Bluff would nod his wise head, and say
of 3'ou to his next neighbour, " That's the man for ray
money, you see what a quantity of facts he puts into
his speech !"
.' Facts, like stones, are nothing in themselves, their
value consists in the manner they are put together,
and the purpose to which they are applied.
Accordingly, Mr. Bluff is always taken in. Look
ing only at a fact, he does not see an inch beyond it,
and you raight draw him into any imprudence, if you
were constantly telling him " two and two made four."
Mr. Bluff is wonderfully English. It is by " practical
men," that we have ever been seduced into the wildest
D3

83 THE PRACTICAL MAN.
speculations ; and the most preposterous of living the
orists always begins his harangues with — " Now, my
friends, let us look to the facts."*
* The reader will perceive, I trust, the spirit of these remarks.
Of course every true theory must be founded on facts ; but there is
a tendency in the country to suppose, that a man who knows how
gloves are made must necessarily know best by what laws glove-
making should be protected ; the two species of knowledge are per
fectly distinct. A mind habituated to principles can stoop to details,
because it seizes aild classifies them at a glance : but a mind habitu
ated to detail is rarely capable of extending its grasp to a principle.
"When a man says he is no orator, he is going to make an oration.
When a man says he is a plain practical man, I know he is going,
by the fact that one and one make two, to prove the theory that two
and two make seven !

END OF BOOK I.

BOOK THE SECOND.

SOCIETY AND MANNERS.

TO F  , Es«.

" Voila cs que je sais par une experience de toutea Bortea de.llvrefl et do
personnes."— JPcTwe'es de Pascal.

CHAPTER I.
SOCIETY AND MANNERS.
Eespect paid to Wealth — Fable from Quevedo — Fashion — Distinc
tion between Fasliion and Opinion — Contention between the
Great and the Rich-^The Love of Display — Anecdote of Lucien
Bonaparte — First Blow to Parade given by a Despot — Custom of
Matchmaking — Marriages for Love not very common — Quin's Bon
Mot apphcable to the Herd of EUgans — Open Matchmakmg is
prejudicial to Sincerity, and contributes to Dulness — So poor an
Ambition blights thc Sympathy with public Virtue — Story of the
Thurstons — A clever Woman's Excuse for the Radicahsm of her
Nephew — Political Sentiment stronger among Females of the
Middle and Lower Glasses — Anecdote of a Scot and Lot Voter, and
his affianced — Power of Ridicule stronger with us than the French
— More dangerous in its Influence over a grave than a frivolous
People — ^Influence of Cliques — Society in the Provinces more
natural and courteous than in London — Character of the Longue-
villes — Clubs ; their salutary Effect — They contain the Germ of a
great social Revolution.
I INSCRIBE to you, my dear  , this part of my
work, which consists of sketches from the various as
pects of our social system ; for I know no man who
can more readily judge if the likeness be correct.
Your large experience of mankind, and the shrewd
ness of your natural faculties of observation, have
fm-nished you with a store of facts, which the phUoso-
phy you have gleaned from no shallow meditation and
no ordinary learning enables you most felicitously to
apply. Many of the remarks in this part of my work
are the result of observations we have made together ;
and if-now and then some deduction more accurate
than the rest should please the reader, I might perhaps
say, in recoUecting how much my experience has pro
fited by yours, ce n'est pas moi qui parle, c'est Marc
Aurele. As the first impression the foreigner receives on

86 FABLE FROM QWEVEDO.
entering England is that of the evidence of wealth, so
the first thing that strikes the moral inquirer into our
social system is the respect in which wealth is held :
in some countries Pleasure is the idol ; in others,
Glory, and the prouder desires of the world ; but with
us. Money is the mightiest of all deities.
In one of those beautiful visions of Quevedo, that
mingle so singularly the grand with the grotesque.
Death (very differently habited and painted from the
ordinary method of portraying her efiigies) conducts
the poet through an allegorical journey, in which he
beholds three spectres, armed, and of human shape,
" so like one another," says the author, " that I could
not say which was which ; they^ were engaged in
fierce contest with a fearful and misshapen mon
ster : —
" ' Knowest thou these ?' quoth Death, halting
abruptly, and facing me.
> " ' No, indeed,' said I ; ' and I shall insert in my
Litany to be for ever delivered from the honour of
their acquaintance.'
" ' Fool,' answered Death, ' these are already thy
old acquaintance ; nay, thou hast luiown scarcely any
other since thy birth. They are the capital enemies
of thy soul — the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.
So much do they resemble each other, that in effect
he who hath one hath all. The ambitious man clasps
the World to his heart, and lo ! it is the Devil ! The
lecher embraces the Flesh, and the Devil is in his
arms !'
" ' But who,' said I, ' is this enemy against whom
they fight V
" ' It is the Fiend of Money,' answered Death ; ' a
boastful demon, who maintains that he alone is equal
to all the three ; and that where he comes, there is no
need of them.'
" 'Ah !' said I, 'the Fiend of Money hath the better
end of the staff.' "
This fable illustrates our social system. Tho
World, the Flesh, and the Devil are formidable per-

FASHION. 87
sonages ; but Lucre is a match for them all. The
Fiend of Money has the better end of the staff.
The word Society is an aristocratic term ; and it is
the more aristocratic bearings of its spirit which we
will first consider. Let us begin with Fashion.
The middle classes interest theraselves in grave
matters : the aggregate of their sentiments is called
Opinion. The great interest themselves in frivolities,
and the aggregate of their sentiments is termed Fash
ion. The first is the moral representative of the
popular mind, the last of the aristocratic.
But the legislative constitutions of a people give a
colouring even to their levities : and fashion is a
shadow of the national character itself In France,
fashion w^as gallant under Louis XIV., and severe
under the Trimnvirate of the Revolution : in Venice
it was mercantile : in Prussia it is military : in Eng
land its coin has opposite effigies, — on one side you
see the respect for wealth — on the other side the dis
dain ! The man of titles has generally either sprung
from the men of wealth (acknowledging the founder
of his rank in the rich merchant, or the successful
lawyer), or else he has maintained his station by in
termarriages with their order ; on the one hand, there
fore, he is driven to respect and to seek coimexion
with the wealthy ; but, on the other hand, the natural
exclusiveness of titular pride makes him (or rather his
wife) desire to preserve some circle of acquaintance
ship sacred from the aspirations even of that class
from which he derives either his origin or the amount
of his rent-roll. We allow the opulent to possess
power, but we deny them fashion : the wheel turns
round, and, in the next generation, behold the rich
roturier has become the titled exclusive ! This sus
tains, at once, the spirit of a ridiculous rivalry among
the low-bom rich, and that of an inconsistent arro
gance araong the hereditary great. The merchant's
family give splendid entertainments in order to prove
that they are entitled to match with the nobleman's :
the nobleman is unwilling to be outdone by the banker,

88 CUSTOM OF MATCH-MAKING.
and ostentation becomes the order of the day. We
do not strive, as should be the ofcject of a court, to
banish dulness from society. No ! we strive to render
dulness magnificent, and the genius of this miserable
emulation spreading from one grade to another, each
person impoverishes himself fVom the anxiety not to be
considered as poor.
Wlien Lucien Bonaparte was residing in England
some years ago, he formed to himself the chimerical
hope of retrenchment ; he was grievously mistaken !
the brother of Napoleon, who, as ambassador in
Spain, as rainister in France, and as prince in Italy,
never maintained any further show than that which
belongs to elegance, found himself in England, for
the first time, corapelled to ostentation. " It was not
respectable for a raan of his rank to be so plain !"
Singularly enough, the first blow to the systera of
pomp was given by a despot. The Emperor of Rus
sia went about London in a hackney-coach, and fami
liarized the London grands seigneurs with the dignity
of simplicity.
Fashion in this country, then, is a compound of
opposite qualities ; it respects the rich, and affects to
despise them ; to-day you wonder at its servility, to
morrow at its arrogance.
A notorious characteristic of English society is the
universal marketing of our unmarried women ; a
marketing peculiar to ourselves in Em-ope, and only
rivalled by the slave merchants of the East. We are
a match-making nation ; the lively novels of Mrs.
Gore have given a just and unexaggerated picture of
the intrigues, the manoeuvres, the plotting, and the
counterplotting that make the staple of matronly am
bition. We boast that in our comitry, young people
not being alRanced to each other by their parents,
there are more marriages in which the heart is en
gaged than there are abroad. Very possibly ; but in
; good society, the heart is remarkably prudent, and
seldom falls violently in love without a sufficient set
tlement : where the heart is, there will the treasure be

crSTOM OF MATCH-MAKING. 89
also ! Our yoimg men, possessing rather passion than
sentiment, form those liaisons, which are the substi
tute of love : they may say with Quin to the fair
glovemaker, " jMadam. I never make l?)ve, I always
bu}' it ready made." Vie never go into a ball-room
without feeling that we breatlie the air of diplomacy.
How mmiy of those gentle chaperons would shame
even the wisdom of a-TallejTand. What open faces
and secret hearts ! What schemes and ambushes in
e\erv" word. If we look back to that early period
in the historj' of our mamiers, when with us, as it is
StiU in France, parents betrothed their children, and,
instead of bringing them to public sale, eflected a
private compact of exchange, we shall be surprised
to find that marriages were not less happy nor women
less domestic than at present. The custom of open
match-making is productive of many consequences
not sufficiently noticed ; in the first place, it encou
rages the spirit of insincerity among all women,
" Jlothers and Daughters," — a spirit that consists in
perpetual scheming, and perpetual hjrpocrisy ; it
lowers the chivalric estimate of women, and damps
with eternal suspicion the y^outhful tendency to lofty
and honest love. In the next place, it assists to ren
der the tone of society dull, low, and iminteUectual ;
it is not talent, it is not virtue, it is not even the
graces and fascination of maimer that are sought by
the fair dispensers of social reputation : no, it is the
title and the rent-roU. You do not lavish your invi
tations on the most agreeable meraber of a family,
but on the richest. The elder son is the great attrac
tion. Nay, the more agreeable the man be, if poor
and unmarried, the more dangerous he is considered :
you may admit him to acquaintanceship, but you
jealously bar him from intimacy. Thus society is
crowded with the insipid and beset with the insincere.
The women that give the tone to society take the
tone from their favourites. The rich young man is
to be flattered in order that he may be won ; to flatter
^im, you seem to approve his pursuits ; you talk t9

90 STORY OP THE THURSTONS.
him of- balls and races ; you fear to alarm him by ap
pearing his intellectual superior ; you dread lest he
should think you a blue ; you trust to beauty and a
graceful folly to allure him, and you harmonize your
mind into " gentle dulness," that it may not jar upon
his own.
The ambition of women absorbed in these petty
intrigues, and debased to this paltry level, possesses
but little sympathy with the great objecis of a mascu
line and noble intellect. They have, in general, a
frigid conception of public virtue : they affect not to
understand politics, and measure a man's genius by
his success in getting on. With the women of an
cient times; a patriot was an object of admiration ;
with the women of ours, he is an object of horror.
Speak against, pensions, and they almost deem you
disreputable, — becorae a placeman, and you are a per
son of consideration. Thus our women seldom exalt
'' the ambition of public life. They are inimitable,
however, in their consolation under its reverses.
Mr. Thurston is a man of talent and ambition ; he
entered parliament some years since, through the
medium of a patron and a close borough. He is what
you call a political adventurer. He got on tolerably
well, and managed to provide at least for his family.
He professed liberal opinions, and was, perhaps, not
insincere in them, as men go. He had advocated
always something like Parliamentary Reform: The
Bill carae — he was startled ; but half-inclined to vote
for it. Mrs. Thurston was alarmed out of her senses ;
she besought, she wheedled, she begged her spouse to
remember that by Parliamentary Reform would fall
Government Patronage ; she would say nothing of
their other children, but he had a little boy two years
old ; what was to become of him ? It was in vain to
hope any thing from the Whigs ; they had too many
friends of their own to provide for. This bill, too,
could never be passed : the Tories would — must
come hack again, and then what gratitude for his vote '.
So argued Mrs. Thurston; and like a very sensible

STORY OF THE THURSTONS. 91
woman ; but as one who used no earthly argTiments
but those addressed to self-interest, not a word as to
what woidd be best lor tlie nation ; it was only, what
was best for the family. Mr. Thurston wavered —
was seduced — voted against reform, and is out of par
liament for the rest of his life. What makes matters
still worse is, that his lather, a merchant of moderate
fortune, whose heir he ^vas, failed almost immediately
after this imfortmiate vote. Thurston, with a large
family, has become a poor raan ; he has retired into
the country ; he can have nothing of course to expect
frora Government. Public life is for oyer closed for
him in the prime of his intellect, and just as he had
begun to rise. All this may, perhaps, be borne cheer
fully enough by a man who has acted according to
his conscience ; but the raisfortune is, that Thurston
was persuaded to vote against it.
But now, however, we must take another view of
the picture. If Mrs. Thurston icas the imdoer, she
is the consoler. In prosperity, vain, extravagant, and
somewhat vehement in temper ; in adversity she has
become a veiy pattern of prudence and affectionate
forbearance. Go down into the coimtry, and see the
contrast in her present and her past manner ; she is
not the same woman. All this araendment on her
part is very beautiful, and very English. But has she
been able really to console TTiurston ? No, he is a
gone man ; his spirit is broken ; he has turned gene
rally peevish ; and if you speak to him on politics,
be sure of your own personal safety. Mrs. Thurston,
however, is far from thinking she was the least in
the wrong; all that she can possibly understand
about the whole question is, " that it turned out un
lucky." A gentleman of good birth and much political prom
ise had been voting in several divisions with the
Independent Party. A man of authority, and one of
the elders, who had been a minister in his day, ex
pressed his regret at the bad company Mr.  had
been keeping, to the aunt of that gentleman, a lady

93 A CLEVER woman's excuse.
of remarkable talents and of great social influence.
The aimt repeated the complaint to the member —
" And what said you, dear madara, in reply ?"
" Oh ! I exculpated you most cleverly," replied the
aunt. " Leave  alone," said I ; " nobody plays
his cards better ; you may be sure that his votes
against the Irish Coercion Bill, &c. won't tell against
him one of these days. No, no ;  is not a rash,
giddy young man, to be talked over ; be sure he has
calculated that it will be best for hira in the end."
" Good heavens !" cried the member, "what you —
you say this ? you insinuate that I am actuated by my
ovim interest ! why not have said at once the truth, that
I voted according to my conscience V
The lady looked at her nephew with mingled as
tonishment and contempt: "Because — because," re
plied she, hesitating, " / really did not think you such
a fool" Yet this innocent unconsciousness of public virtue
is to be found only among the women of the metropo
lis brought iu contact with the aristocracy ; in the
provincial towns, and in humbler life, it is just the re
verse. Any raan who has gone through a popular
election knows that there it is often by the honesty of
the women that that of the men is preserved. There:
the conjugal advice is always, " Never go back from
your word, John." — " Stick true to your colours." — "AU
the gold in the world should not make you change your
coat." How many poor men have we known who
would have taken a bribe but for their wives. There
is nothing, then, in Englishwomen that should prevent
their comprehension of the nobleness of political hon
esty ; it is only the great ladies, and their imitators,
who think self-interest the sole principle of public con
duct. Wliy is this ? because all women are proud ;
station incites their pride. Tho great man rats, andis
greater than ever ; but the poor elector who turns his
coat loses his station altogether. The higher classes,,
do not imagine there is a public opinion among the
poor. In many boroughs a man may be bribed, and i^o

POWER OF RIDICULE. 93
disgrace to him; but if, after being bribed, he break
his word, he is cut by his friends for over.
A very handsome girl had refused many better offers.
for the sake of a young man, a scot and lot voter in a
certain borough. Her lover, having promised in her
hearing to vote one way, voted the other. She refused
to marry hira. Could this have happened in the higher
classes ? Fancy, my dear  , how the great would
laugh ; and what a good story it vifould be at the clubs,
if a young lady just going to be mamed were to say
to her suitor one bright morning, " No, sir, excuse
me ; the connexion must be broken off. Your vote in
the House of Commons last night was decidedly
against your professions to your constituents."
It is a remarkable fact, that with us, a gi-ave and ,
meditative people, ridicule is more dangerous and pow- '
erful in its efi'ects, than it is with our lighter neigh
bours, the French. With them, at no period has it
been the fashion to sneer at lofty and noble motives ;
they have an instantaneous perception of the exalted
— they carry their sense of it even to bombast — and
they only worship the Natural when it appears with a
stage effect. The lively demireps of Paris were
charmed with the adoration of virtue professed by
Rousseau ; and at an earlier period even a Dangeau
could venerate a Fenelon. At this moment, how
ridiculous in our country would be the gallant enthu
siasm of Chateaubriand ; his ardour, his chivalry, his
quixotism, would make him the laughing-stock of the
whole nation : in France these very qualities are the
sole source of his power. Ridicule, in Paris, attaches
itself to the manners ; in London, to the emotions : it
sneers with us less at a vulgar tone, a bad address, an
ill-chosen equipage, than at some mental enthusiasm.
A man professing very exalted motives is a very ridic
ulous animal with us. We do not laugh at vulgar
lords half so much as at the generosity of patriots, or
the devotion of philosophers. Bentham was thought
exceedingly ludicrous because he was a philanthro
pist ; and Byron fell from the admiration of fine ladies

94 INFLUENCE OF CLIQUES.
when he set out for Greece. It is the great in mind
whom a fine moral sense never suffers to be the object
of a paltry wit. Francis I. forbade his courtiers to
jest at Ariosto ; and Louis XIV. declared a certain gen
eral unfit for high office, because he had evinced the
mental littleness of laughing at Racine.
. Ridicule is always a more dangerous goddess with
a sober and earnest than with a frivolous people. Per
sons of the former class can be more easily made
ashamed of emotion ; hence the reason why they con
ceal the sentiments which lighter minds betray. We
see this truth every day in actual life — the serious are
more deeply raoved by ridicule than the gay. A satirist
laughed the Spaniards out of chivalry ; the French
have never to this day been laughed out of any thing
more valuable than a wig or a boimet.
One characteristic of English society is the influ
ence of CLIQUES. Some half a dozen little persons
have, God luiows how, got into a certain eminence —
in some certain line : they pretend to the power of
dispensing all kinds of reputation. Some few years
ago, there was the Authors' clique of Albemarle Street,
a circle of gentlemen who professed to weigh out to
each man his modicum of fame ; they .praised each
Other — -were the literary class, and thought Stewart
Rose a greater man than Wordsworth ; peace be with
them — they are no more — and fame no longer hangs
irora the nostrils of Samuel Rogers.*
The clique of fine ladies and the clique of dandies
still, however, exist; and these are the donors of

* This clique, wliile it lasted, made a vast number of small reputa
tions, upon which the owners have lived very comfortably ever
since. Theirs was the day of Uterary jobbing ; they created sine
cures for the worthless, and time makes them a kind of property,
which it seems wrong to take away ; yet, whenever we meet any of
the surviving possessors of these " unmerited pensions," such as
**** and ****, we cannot help thinking with Gibbon, how
often Chance is the dispenser of Reputation ; and that the tutelary
saint of England, the pattern doubtless of these gentlemen, is called
the noble Saint George, though, in reaUty, he was the worthless
George of Cappadocia. 0 Literature, how many Georges of Cap
padocia have you converted into Saint Georges of England !

The longuevilles. 95
social reputation : we may say of them as the Irish
man said of the thieves, " they are mighty generous
with what does not belong to them," — being without
character themselves, we may judge of the merits
wliich induce them to give a character to others.
/ It is rather strange, till we consider the cause, that
society in the Provinces is often more polished, intel
lectual, and urbane than society in the Metropolis ;
when some great landed proprietor fills his country
halls with a numerous circle of his friends, you see
perhaps the most agreeable and charming society which
England can afford. You remember, dear  , Sir
Frederick LongueviUe and his family : you luiow how
disagreeable we used to thinli them ; always so afraid
they were not fine enough. Sir Frederick, with his
ponipous air, asking you whon you had last seen your
uncle the earl, and her ladyship dying to be good-
natm-ed, but resolved to ke^p up her dignity ; the
girls out at every ball, and telling you invariably as a
first remark, that they did not see you at Almack's last
Wednesday ; so ashamed if you caught them at a
party the wrong side of Oxford-street, and whispering,
" Papa's country comiexions, you know !" — You re
member, in short, that the Longuevilles impressed
every one with tho idea of being fussy, conceited,
second-rate, and wretchedly educated; they are all
this in town. Will you believe it — they are quite the
contrary if )^ou ^isit them in Sussex? There Sir
Frederick is no longer pompous ; frank and good-
humoured, he rides with you over his farm, speaks to
every poor man he meets, forgets that you have an
uncle an earl, and is the very pattern of a great coim
try gentleman — hospitable and easy, dignified and
natm-al. Lady LongueviUe you will fancy you have
known all your life — so friendly is her nature, and so
cordial her manner; and as for the girls, to your great
surprise, you find them well read and accomplished,
affectionate, simple, with a charming spice of romance
in them : upon my word I do not exaggerate. What is
the cause of the change ? Solely this ; in London

96 the true COUNTRY GENTLEMAN.
they know not their own station ; here it is fixed ; at
cine place they are trying to be something they are
not; here they try at nothing ; they are contented with
what they are."^
What an enviable station is that of a great country
gentleman in this beautiful garden of England; he
may unite all the happiest opposites — indolence and
occupation, healthful exercise and literary studies. In
London, and in public life, we may improve the world
— we may benefit our kind, but we never see the
effects we produce ; we get no gratitude for them ;
others • step in and snatch the rewards ; but, in the
country, if you exert equal industry and skill, you can
not walk out of your hall but what you see the evidence
of your labours : Nature smiles in your face and
thanks you ! yon trees you planted ; yon corn-fields
were a common — your capital called them into exist
ence ; they feed a thousand mouths, where, ten years
ago, they scarce maintained some half a dozen starve
ling cows. But, above all, as you ride through your
village, what satisfaction creeps around your heart.
By half that attention to the administration of the poor
laws avhich, in London, you gave to your clubs,* you
have made industry replace sloth, and comfort dethrone
pauperism. You, a single individual^ have done more
for yoiir fellow-creatures than the whole legislature
has done in- centuries. This is tme power; it ap
proaches men to God : but the comitry gentleman
often refuses to acknowledge this power ; he thinks
much more of a certificate for killing partridges !
* See thqrecent Evidence on the Poor Laws in proof of the possi
bility of tills fact. Even in the present wretched system, a vigor
ous and wise management has sufiiced to put down pauperism. In
Stanford Rivers, Essex, one man, Andrews, a farmer, with the con
currence of the rest of the parishioners, resolved to put down pau
perism ; in 1825 the money expended on the poor was 834i. ; by man
agement and energy, in 1828, it was only 196i. " All capable of
work were employed ; the labourers improved in their habits and
comforts during the four years this system was in progress ; there
was not a single commitment for theft, or any other offence." Oh,
if the country gentleman wmU awake to a sense of what bs
might be !

CLUBS. 97
Clubs form a main feature of the social system of
the richer classes of the metropolis. Formerly they
were merely the resort of gamblers, politicians, or
hons vivans — now they have assumed a more intel
lectual character ; every calling has its peculiar club,
from the soldier's to the scholar's. The effect which
this multiplicity of clubs has produced is salutary in
the extreme ; it has begun already to counteract the
solitaiy disposition of the nati\'es ; it opens a ready
intercourse with our foreign guests, who are usually
admitted as honorary members ; prejudices are rubbed
off"; and, by an easy and unexpenaive process, the
most domestic or the most professional learn the views
of the citizen of the world. At these resorts the af
fairs of the public form the common and natural topic
of conversation ; and nothing furthers the growth of
public principle like the discussion of public matters.
It is said that clubs render men less domestic. No,
they only render them less imsocial ; they form a
cheap and iiiteUectual relaxation, and (since in most
of the recent clubs the custom turns to neither gam
bling nor inebriety) they unbend the mind even while
imprcsTng it. But these are the least advantages of
clubs ; they contain the germ of a mighty improve
ment in the condition of the humbler classes. I fore
see that those classes will, sooner or later, adopt
institutions so peculiarly favourable to the poor. By
this species of co-operation, the raan of 200/. a year
can, at present, command the nobler luxuries of a man
of 5000/. ; airy and capacious apartraents, the decent
comforts of the table,* lights, fires, books, and intel
lectual society. The same principle on an humbler
scale would procure the sarae advantages for the shop
keeper or the artisan, and the man of 50/. a year might
obtain the same comforts as the man of 500/. If the
experiment were made by the middle and lower classes
* At the Athenaeum, for instance, the dinner, which at an hotel
would cost 7i. or 8s., costs about 3s. : viz. a joint, vegetables, bread,
butter, cheese, &c., and half a pint of wine. I believe in some clubs
the price is even less.
Vot. I.— E

CLUB Si

in a provincial town it could not fail of success ; and
among its advantages would be the check to early and
imprudent marriages, and the growth of that sense of
moral dignity whicTi is ever produced by a perception
of the higher comforts of life.
Probably, from the success of this experiment, yet
newer and more comprehensive results would arise.
A gentleman of the name of Morgan, in a letter to
the Bishop of London, proposes the scheme of clubs,
not for individuals only, but families — a plan which
might include education for children and attendance in
sickness. Managed by a committee, such clubs would
remove the possibility of improvidence and unskilful
management in individuals. For professional and
literary men, for artists, and the poorer gentry, such a
scheme would present the greatest advantages. But
the time for its adoption is not come : two great moral
checks still exist in our social habits — the aristocratic
pride not of being as well off as our neighbours, but of
seeming better off, and that commercial jealousy of ap
propriation which makes us so proverbially like to
have a home of our own. If ever these feelings decrease
among us, I have little doubt that, from the institution
of clubs will be dated a vast social Revolution. But
France, rather than England, is the proper arena for
the first experiment of Mr. Morgan's system.

mELEGANCK OF CONVERSATION. 99

CHAPTER II.

CONVERSATION AND LITERARY MEN.
Inelegance of Conversation — With us the Court does not cultivate
the Graces of Language — Samples of Dialogue — Literary Men ;
their Want of a fixed Position with us — They do not mix enough
in Society to refine its Tone — Effect of Night Sittings in .Parlia
ment in diminishing the intellectual Attractions of Society — Men
of Letters fall into three Classes — Characters of Nettleton, Nokes,
and Lofty.
Among the characteristics of English society, there
is one, my dear  , wliich cannot but have seemed
to you as worthy of notice, and that is "the curious
felicity" which distinguishes the tone of conversation.
In most countries, people of the higher stations, if
they do not express their ideas with all the accuracy
and formality of a treatise on logic, preserve, at least,
with a certain degi-ee of jealousy, the habit of a clear
and easy elegance in conversation. In France, to talk
the language well is still the indispensable accom
plishment of a gentleman. Society preserves the happy
diction, and the gTaceful phrase, which literature has
stamped with its authority : and the Court may be
considered as the Master of the Ceremonies to the
Muses.* But in England, people even in the best
and most fastidious society are not remarkable for
cultivating the more pure or brilliant order of conver
sation, as the evidence of ton, and the attribute of rank.
They reject, it is true, certain vulgarities of accent,
provincial phrases, and glaring violations of grammar ;
nay, over certain words they now and then exercise
the caprices of fashion : James to-day may be Jeemes
"¦ * Nay, to catch the expressions of the court is, in France, to
acgwre elegance of style. '
E2

100 SAMPLES OF DULOGUE.
to-moiTOW ; Rome may be softened into Room ; and
cucumber may receive its final exactness of pronuncia
tion from the prosodiacal fiat of my Lord Hertford.
But these are trifles : the regular and polished smooth
ness of conversation, the unpedantic and transparent
preciseness of meaning, the happy choice, unpremedi
tated, because habitual, of the most graceful phrases
and polished idioms which the language affords —
these, the natural care and province of a lettered
court, are -.tterly unheeded by the circles of the Eng
lish aristocracy. Nor is there any other circle, since
literary men with us are so little gregarious, that re
pairs their inattention ; and our rational conversation
is for the most part earned on in a series of the most
extraordinary and rugged abbreviations — a species of
talking shorthand. Hesitating, Humming, and Drawl
ing are the three Graces of our conversation.
We are at dinner : a gentleraan — " a man about
town" — is informing us of a misfortune that has be
fallen his friend : " No — I assure you — now — err —
err — that — er — it was the raost shocking accident
possible — er — poor Chester was riding in the Park —
er — you know that gray — er — (substantive dropped,
hand a little flourished instead) — of his — splendid
creature ! — er — well, sir, and by Jove — er — the — er —
(no substantive, flourish again) — took fright, and — e —
er" — ^here the gentleman throws up his chin and eyes,
sinks back exhausted into his chair, and after a
pause adds, " Well, they took him into — the shop —
there — ^you know — with the mahogany sashes — just'
by the Park — er — and the — er — man there — set his —
what d'ye call it — er — collar-bone ; but he was — er —
ter-ri-bly — terribly" — a full stop. The gentleman
shakes his head, and the sentence is suspended to
eternity. Another gentleman takes up the wondrous tale
thus logically : " Ah ! shocking, shocking ! — but poor
Chester was a very agreeable — er" — full stop.
" Oh ! devilish gentlemanlike fellow ! — quite shock
ing ! — quite — 4id you go into the — er — to-day ?"

SA.IirLKS OF DIALOOUE. 101
" No, indeed ; the diiy was so un — may I take
some wine with you '."
The ladies usually resort to some pet phrases that,
after the fashion of shorthand, express as much as
possible in a word: "What do you think of Lady
 's last novel ?"
" Oh ! they say 'tis not \ cry natural. The char
acters, to be sure, are a little overdrawn : and then
the style — so — so — I don't know what — you under
stand me — but it's a dear book altogether ! Do you
know Lady  ?"
" Oh dear yes ; nice creature she is !''
" ^'eiy nice person indeed."
"What a dear little horse that isofpoorLord  's!"
" He is very vicious."
" Is he really ? — nice little thing !"
" Ah ! you must not abuse poor Mrs.  ; to be
sure, she is veiy iU-natured, and they say she's so
stingy ! — but then she really is such a dear — "
Nice and dear are the great To Prepon and To
Kalon of feminnie conversational moralities.
But, perhaps, the genius of our conversation is most
shown in the art of explaining.
" Were you in the House last night?
" Yes — er — Sir Robert Peel made a splendid
speech !"
" Ah ! and how did he justify his vote 1 I've not
seen the papers."
" Oh, I can tell you exactly — ehem — he said, you
see, that he disliked the ministers, and so forth — you
understand — but that — er — in these times, and so forth
— and with this river of blood — oh ! he was very fine
there ! — you must read it — well, sir ; and then he was
very good against O'ConneU — capital — and all this
agitation going ow-^and raurdtjr, and so forth — and
then, sir, he told a capital story about a man and his
wife being murdered, and putting a child in the fire
place — ^you see — I forget now — ^but it was capital:

103 LITERARY MEN.
and then he wound up with — a — with — a — in his usual
way, in short. Oh ! he quite justified himself — you
understand — in short, you see, he could not do other
wise." Caricatured as this may seem to others, I need not
assure you that it is to the life : the explainer, too, is
reckoned a very sensible man ; and the listeneir saw
nothing inconclusive in the elucidation.
Women usually form the tone of conversation, hav
ing first taken the tone of mind from the men. With
us, women associate with the idler portion of society
— the dandies, the hangers-on ; they are afraid of
being thought blue, because then these gentlemen
would be afraid of them. They connect literature
and wisdom with " odd persons not in society ;" sena
tors and geniuses are little seen among them. It is
their bore of an uncle who makes those long speeches
about the malt-tax. The best matches are the young
men of Melton and Crockford's ; they must please the
best matches ; they borrow the tone most pleasing to
them ; the mothers for the sake of the daughters, the
daughters for their own sake — thus, to a slang of
mind, they mould a fitting jargon of conversation.
Our aristocracy does not even preserve elegance to
ton, and, with all the affectations, fosters none of the
graces, of a court. France owes the hereditary re-
fineraent and airiness of conversation that distin
guishes her higher orders, less, however, to the cour
tiers than to those whom the courtiers have always
sought. Men of letters and men of genius have been
at Paris invariably drawn towards the upper circles,
and consumed their own dignity of character in
brightening the pleasures of the great ; but, in Lon
don, raen of intellectual distinctions are not frequently
found in that society which is termed the best ; the
few who do haunt that gloomy region are but the
scattered witlings of an ancient clique, who have sur
vived even the faculty of premeditating good things ;
they do not belong to this day, but to the past, when
Pevonshire House and Melbourne House were for a

LITERARY MEN. 103
short time and from fortuitous circumstances made
the resort of genius, as well as rank ; the fashion thus
set was brief and evanescent, and expired with the
brilliant persons who, seeking to enliven the great
world, only mterrupted its dulness. They have
played off the fireworks, and all is once more dark.
The modern practice of Parliament to hold its dis
cussions at night has a considerable influence in di
minishing the intellectual character of general society.
The House of Commons naturaUy drains off many of
the ablest and best informed of the English gentle
men : the same cause has its action upon men of let
ters, whom statesmen usually desire to collect around
them ; the absence of one conspires to effect the ab
sence of tho other : our saloons are left solely to the
micultivated and the idle, and you seek in vain for
those nightly reunions of wits and senators which dis
tinguished the reign of Amie, and stiU give so noble a
charm to the assemblies of Paris.
The respect we pay to wealth absorbs the respect
we should pay to genius. Literary raen have not
with us any fixed and settled position as men of let
ters. In the great game of honours, none fall to
their share. We may say truly with a certain politi
cal economist, " We pay best, 1st, those who destroy
us, generals ; 2d, those who cheat us, politicians and
quacks ; 3d, those who arause us, singers and rausi-
cians ; and, least of aU, those who instruct us." It is
an important truth, noted by Helvetius, that the degree
of public virtue in a state depends exactly on the
proper distribution of public rewards. " I am nothing
here," said one of the most eminent raen of science
this country ever produced; "I am forced to go
abroad sometimes to preserve my self-esteem."
Our English authors, thus holding no fixed position
in society, and from their very nature being covetous
of reputation, often fall into one of three classes ; the
one class seek the fashion they cannot command, and
are proud to know the great ; another become irrita-
'ple and suspicious, afraid that they are never sufliciently

104 CHARACTER OF NETTLETON.
esteemed, and painfully vain out of a sense of bash-
fulness ; the third, of a more lofty nature, stand aloof
and disdainful, and never consummate their capacities,
because they will not mix with a world to which they
know themselves superior.
A literary man with us is often forced to be proud
of something else than talent — proud of fortune, of
connexion, or of birth — in order not to be looked
down upon. Byron would never have set a coronet
over his bed if he had not written poetry;* nor the fas
tidious Walpole have affected to disdain the author if
he had not known that with certain circles, authorship
was thought to lower the gentleman. Every one
knows the anecdote of a certain professor of chym-
istry, who, eulogizing Boyle, thus concluded his pan
egyric : " He was a great man, a very great man ; he
was father of chyraistry, and — brother to the Earl of
Cork !"
You laugh at the simplicity of the professor : after
all, it was no bathos in practice ; depend upon it, the
majority of the world thought quite as much of the
brother of Lord Cork as they did of the father of
ch)rmistiy. The Professor was only the unconscious
echo of the vulgar voice of esteem.
Observe Mr. Nettleton ; he is a poet of celebrity ;
is that all ? marry come up ! he is a much greater
man than that comes to — Ae is on the best possible
terms at Holland House. He values himself much on
writing smooth verses ; he values himself more on talk
ing with a certain tone of good breeding. He is a wit
— a veiy rare character ; yes, but he does not take so
* We blame Lord Byron for this absurd vanity too hastily, and
without considering that he often intended it rather as a reminis
cence to his equals than as an assumption over his inferiors. He
was compelled to struggle against the vulgar feehng of England,
that only low people are authors. Everybody knows what you are
when you are merely a gentleman, they begin to doubt it when you
become a man of letters. In standing for Lincoln, a small second-rate
country squire was my opponent. The gentleman who proposed
him extolled his pedigree, as if to depreciate mine. " Do you not
know that Mr. B.'s family is twice as old as Col. S.'s, if that be
any distinction?" was asked of this gentleman. "Impossible," k^
phed he i " why Mr, B. is an mthor !"

CHARACTER OF NOICES. 105
much pride in being merely a wit, — he is a wit at the
best houses ! Mr. Nettleton is one of the vainest of
men ; but it would not please him much to hear you
admired him, if he thought you a nobody. He is sin
gularly jealous ; but you might make Europe ring
with your uame, and he would not envy you, unless
the grands seigneurs ran after you. " Mr.  has
written a beautiful book ; have you seen it, Nettleton ?"
" No ; who says it is beautiful ?"'
" Oh ! aU the worid, I faiay."
'• There you are mistaken. We talked over all the
new works at Aliss Berry's last night, and all the
world said nothing about your Mr. What's-his-name,
and his book."
" A^'ell, you are a judge of these matters ; all I
luiow is, that the Duke of Devonshire is mad to be
introduced to him."
Nettleton, turning quite pale, " The Duke of Devon
shire introduced to him .'"
A smaller man than Mr. Nettleton in the literary
world is Mr. Nokes. Mr. Nokes is a prototype of
the small gear ; not exactly a poet, nor a novelist, nor
an historian, but a little of all three ; a literary man,
in short — homme des letlres. In France he would en
joy a very agreeable station, n;ix with other hommes
des Icttres, have no doubt of his own merit, and be
perfectly persuaded of his o^Yn consequence. Very
different from all this is Mr. Nokes : he has the most
singular distrust of himself; he liveth in perpetual
suspicion that you mean to affront him. If you are
sallying out on the most urgent business, — your friend
dying, — your motion in the House of Commons just
ready to come on, — ^your mistress waiting to see you
for the last time before she returns your letters, and
hopes you may be happy, though she would hate you
if you were not miserable to your dying day — if, I say,
on some such business you should be hurrying forth,
wo to you if you meet Nokes. You pass him with a
hasty nod, and a " How are you, dear sir ?" Nokes
never forgives you ; you have hurt his feelings indeli-
E3

106 CHARACTER OF NOKES.
bly. He sayeth to himself, " Why was that raan so
eager to avoid me 1" He ruminateth, he museth, he
cheweth the cud upon your unmannerly accost. He
would have had you stop and speak to hira, and ask
hira after the birth of his new poera, and hope his tale
in the Annual was doing as well as could be expected ;
he is sorely galled at your omission ; he pondereth
the reason ; he looketh at his hat, he looketh at his
garments, he is persuaded it is because his habili
ments were not new, and you were ashamed to be
seen with him in the street. He never hits on the right
cause ; he never thinketh you may have pressing busi
ness ; Nokes dreameth of no business save that
which to Nokes appertaineth. Nokes is the iinhap-
piest of men ; he for e\'er looks out for cantharides to
rub into his sores. If you meet him in a literary
party, you must devote the Avhole evening to him and
his projects, or he considers you the most insolent and
the most frivolous of mankind ; he forgetteth that there
are fifty other Nokeses in the roora. He boweth to
you always with a proud huraility, as if f o say, " I am
a great man, though you don't think so." Nokes is,
at once, the most modest and the most impudent of
our species. He imagines j'Oii despise liim ; 3'et he
is chafed because you do not adore. He knoweth you
to be oppressed with incalculable business ; a lawyer,
perhaps, in full practice ; the editor of a daily news
paper; the member of a Reformed Parliament en
gaged in thirteen committees ; yet, on the strength of
a bare introduction, he sendeth you in manuscript, the
next day — three plays, two novels, and thirty poems,
which he bashfully requesteth you, first, to read ; sec
ondly, to correct ; and, thirdly, to interest yourself to
get published. Two days after you receive the fol
lowing letter :
" Sib,
" When, on Wednesday last, I sent to your house my
humble attempts, soliciting your attention in the most
respectful language ; I certainly did expect, in com-

CHARACTER OF LOFTY. 107
luon courtesy, to have received ere this a reply. I
am conscious that you have many engagements that
you doubtless think of superior consequence to the
task of reading my compositions ; but there are others,
sir, who have thought highly of what you apparently
despise. But enough — I beg you will immediately
send back, by the bearer, all the papers which,
trusting to your reported sympathy with men of letters,
I had the folly to trouble you with. To me at least
they are of importance. " I am, sir,
" Your obedient servant,
" John Samuel Nokes."
Send back the papers, by all means : Nokes would
be still raore offended by any apology for delay, or any
excuse for not ultimately prevailing on some book
seller to ruin hiraself by their publication. Nokes is a
vindictive man — -though he knoweth it not — nay, he
esteemeth himself a very reservoir of the lacteal hu
manities. You may have served him essentially to
day — to-morrow you may have " wounded his feel
ings ;" and, by next Saturday, be sure of a most viru
lent anonymous attack on you. But Nokes is to be
more pitied than blamed : he is unfit for the world,
only because he has no definite position in it.
Look uow at a third species of literaiy man. Per
haps, dear  , you recollect Mr. Lofty : what a fine
creature he is — how full of deep learning, of pure
sentiment, of generous romance ; how you would like
him, if you could but know him — but that may never
be ! — He builds a wall between himself and other
men. In the streets he walketh alone ; he sitteth
alone in the large arm-chai:- at the Athenaeum ; he re
fuseth to converse ; he is a ruminative, but not a gre
garious animal. His books are admirable ; but, some
how or other, they are not popular — he writeth for
himself,'iiot manlcind : he is not at his ease in society,
even with literary men ; he will not let out, — ^his mind
is far away. He is tenderiy benevolent, but frigidly

108 the feeling of melancholy.
tmsocial : he would rather give you his fortune th^n
take a walk with you. Hence, with all his genius,
not knowing how to address mankind, and disdainful
of the knowledge, he does not a tithe of the benefit
that he niight : could he learn to oo-operate with
others, he might reform a world, but he saith with
Milton, " The worid that I regard is myself" Yet
blame affects him sensibly — a hostile review wounds
him to the quick : he telleth not his complaint, but it
preys within : he knows himself to be undervalued :
he is not jealous of lesser men's success, but he chafes
at it — it is a proof of injustice to him : he is melancholic
and despondent : he pines for the ideal : he feels so
ciety is not made for the nobler aims, and sickens at
the littleness of daily life : he has in him all the ele
ments of gi'catness, but not of triumph : he wiU die
with his best qualities unknown.
These are three specimens of the Literaiy Man,
essentially different in raost things, but having some
thing in common, and formed alike by peculiarities in
our social system. All three are the growth of Eng
land, and I apprehend that they can scarcely be met
with elsewhere.

CHAPTER m.
The Feeling of Melancholy and Weariness; how engendered— We
grow out of it with Age— The Philosophy ofldleness; its Sadness
— Ii. Reason why we are a Religious People,
From the tone of Society which I have attempted
to describe arises one of the most profoimd of our
national feelings ; that listless and vague melancholy
¦which partakes both of the Philosophical and the
Poetic ; that sad and deep sentiment which is found
only in the Enghsh and the German character and is

reason why we are religious. 109
produced in each nation by the same causes ; it is the
result in both of an eager mind placed in a dull and
insipid circle. (For in the small towns of Germany,
society, if it possesses more wisdom than in England,
does not proffer more charms.) A weariness of spirit
creeps over us, and the flatness of the World produces
somewhat the same moral result as the vanity of
Ivnowledge. Hence, with the more intellectual of our
gentry that roving and desultory thirst of travel. Un
satisfied desire, which they do not analyze, urges
them on to escape from the " stale and unprofitable
usages" of their native world. And among the rich
of no other people do you so constantly find examples
of the discontented. This habit of mind, so unfor
tunate to the possessor, is not unfavourable to poetry ;
and though derived from the pettiest causes, often;
gives something of interest and nobleness to the char
acter. But it is chiefly confined to the young ; after a;
certain age we grow out of it ; the soul becomes accus
tomed to the mill, and follows the track mechanically,
which it commenced in disgust.
But if there be one sentiment more mournful thaia
another while it lasts, it is that conviction that AU is.
Vanity which springs from the philosophy of Idleness;;
that craving for a sympathy which we never find, that
restlessness of checked affection and crippled intel
lect, which belong to a circle in which neither can b«
exerted. The little desires of petty circles irritate,
but cannot absorb, the larger capacity of mind. One
reason why we, above other nations, cling to the con
solations of Religion is, that we have ciUtivated soi
sparingly the fascinations of the World.
As mankind only learned the science of Navigatioia
in proportion as they acquired the knowledge of tfeg
stars, — so, in order to steer our course wisely through i
the Seas of Life, we have fixed our hearts upon tb.a
more sublime and distant objects of Heaven.-

110 PORTRAIT OF M-

CHAPTER IV.
, Portrait of M  , an Exclusive reformed — Causes of his Ameliora
tion — Fashion has received a Shock — Opinions travel upward,
Manners downward— View of Society in a Manufacturing Tovra
— The Manufacturers and the Operatives — Cause in Customs for
a Movement in Pohtics — Pohtical Unions injurious to the Popu
lar Cause. I
I BREAKFASTED the Other day with M  ; you
recollect that two years ago he was one of the super-
eminent of the Dandies ; silent, constrained, and inso
lent : very scrupulous as to the unblemished character
of his friends — for ton ; affecting to call every thing
" a bore," and, indeed, afraid to laugh, for fear of
cracking himself in two. M  is noiu the last man
in the world one could thus describe. He talks, rattles,
rubs his hands, affects a certain jollity of manner ;
wants you to thinlc him a devilish goodfellow ; dresses,
to be sure, as the young and the handsome are prone
to dress — selon les regies; but you may evidently see
that he does so mechanically — his soul is no longer in
his clothes. He startled me, too, by quoting Bacon.
You know we never suspected he had so much learn
ing ; but, between you and me, I think the quotation is
a motto to one of the newspapers. However that be,
M  is evidently no longer indifferent as to whether
you think he has information or not : he is anxious for
your good esteem : he is overwhelmingly courteous
and complimentary ; he, who once extended the tip of
his finger to you, now shakes you by both hands ; it is
not any longer M  's fault if he is not agreeable ;
he strives to be so with might and main ; and, in fact,
he succeeds ; it is impossible not to like such a gen
tlemanlike, good-looking, high-spirited fellow, when he
once condescends to wish for your good opinion. His

CAUSE OF M  'S ALTERATION. Ill
only fault is, that he is too elaborately ofl-hand, too
stupendously courteous ; he has not yet learned, like
Will Honeycomb, " to laugh easily ;" it will take him
some little time to be good-natiu-ed spontaneously;
howbeit, M  is marvellously improved. After
brealifast we walked down St. James's street ; M 
has lost his old walk entirely ; you recollect that he
used to carry his eyes and nose in the air, never look
ing on either side of him, and seeming to drop upon
j-our existence by accident. Now he looks round him
with a cordial air, casts a frequent glance to the oppo
site side of the street, and seems mortally afraid lest
he should by chance overlook some passing acquaint
ance. We met two or three plain-dressed, respectable-
looking persons, the last people in the world whom
M  (you would say) could by possibility have
luiown ; M  stops short, his face beaming with
gratulation, shakes them by the hand, pulls them by
the button, whispers them in the ear, and tears him
self away at last with a "Recollect, my dear sir, I'm
entirely at your service."
All this is very strange ! what can possibly have
wrought such a miracle in M  ! I will tell you ;
M—  has NOW GOT CONSTITUENTS.
It is a profoimd observation in an Italian historian,
that the courtesy of nobles is in proportion to the occa
sions imposed on them by the' constitution, of mixing
among the people. We do not want to be told that
the Roman nobles were polished and urbane; that they
practised all the seductions of manners ; we ought to
know this at once, by reading the method of their
elections. M  was in parliament two years ago,
when you recollect him ; but he had never in his life
seen the keeper, the butler, and the steward who re
turned him to parliament. For the last twelve months
M  has been practising the familiar and the friendly
to some three thousand electors in  shire. The
effort to please, at first necessary to him, has grown
agreeable. He is getting into the habit of it. He is
ire for a large commercial town; heis the youngest,

112 SHOCK TO FASHION.
that is, the active, member ; he is compelled to mix
with men of all classes ; how on earth can he continue
to be an exclusive ? Do you not perceive, therefore,
dear  , how much the operations of the Reform
Bill will ultimately bear upon the tone of manners ?
Do you not perceive how much they have done so
already? M  is still the glass of fashion. Sliding,
as he has done, into the temper of the times, his set
imitate him now as they used to imitate him two years
ago. Changed himself, he has inoculated a whole
coterie. Thus laws and manners react upon each
other. We may perceive every-where, indeed, that
" Fashion" has received a material shock. If there
is less fine gentlemanship than formerly, so also fine
ladies are not quite so powerful as they were ; they no
longer fill the mouth of the gaping world with tales of
triumphant insolence and abashed servility.
A graver aspect settles on the face of society.
The great events that have taken place have shaken
the surface of the Aristocratic Sentiment too roughly,
to allow it easily to resume its former state. Fashion
cannot for many years be what it has been. In
political quiet, the aristocracy are the natural dic
tators of society, and their sentiments are the most
listened to. Now, the sum of their sentiments, as
we have seen, is Fashion; in agitated times, the
people rise into importance, and their sentiments be
come the loudest and most obtnisive ; the aggregate
of their sentiments, as we have seen, is Opinion. It
is then that, unable to lead, the aristocracy uncon
sciously follow the impidse, and it becomes the fashion
to be popular. Hence may we date, if we descend to
the philosophy of trifles, the innovations even in cos
tume : and the spirit of the French Revolution, which
breathed vainly through the massive eloquence of Fox,
succeeded at least in sweeping away from our saloons
the brocaded waistcoat and the diamond buckles. At
the time of the discussions on Reform, our drawing-
room gossips affected the tone of Birmingham liberal-

A MANUFACTURING TOWN. 113
ism ; and the elegans of parliament lisped forth sturdy
dogmas on the "Rights of the People." Tlius, while
social habits are spread from the upper to the lowest
clags, political principles, on the contrary, are rever
berations of opinion travelling from the base to tho
apex of society. The Aristocracy form the Manners
of Life, and the People produce the Revolutions of
Thought. This reflection leads us deeper into the subject
before us. Let us transport ourselves from the me
tropolis to a manufacturing town, and see from what
cause in the habits of social life the political senti
ments of one class are forced on the acceptance of
another. There is this germ of truth in the Owenite princi
ple of co-operation. — Co-operation is power ; in pro
portion as people combine, they know their strength;
civilization itself is but the effect of combining. If,
then, there are two classes, supposed to be antagonists
to each other, and the members of the one class com
bine more than those of another, the former class will
be the more powerful : keep this truth in view — we
shall apply it presently.
We are now at a manufacturing town ; observe
those respectable tradesmen — they are the master
manufacturers — ^the aristocracy of the town. Look
in that di-awing-room, betraying the evidence of a deco
rous and honourable opulence ; there is a little coterie
assembled : yon short gentleman iu blue is a retired
captain in the navy : that portly personage, with the
large- bunch of seals, is the mayor of the -town : yon
der is a small proprietor, who has purchased a white
house, and a few acres, and become a squire : that
knot of confabulators is composed of the richest man
ufacturers of the place : at the other end of the room
are the ladies, wives and daughters of the gentlemen.
Enter a visiter in the town — a stray legislator, per
haps, who has come to see the manufactories ; or,
perhaps, like us, to know the men who work them ;

114 DIVISION AMONG MASTER MANUFACTURERS.
the gentlemen gather round him — a conversation en
sues — he is anxious for general information — he
speaks of the good sense and practical knowledge of
a certain manufacturer he has visited that day.
" Ah, a good sort of a man, I believe," says the
mayor, " and very clever at elections ; but We seldom
meet, except at a canvass — our wives don't visit  ."
There is a patronising air about the magistrate as
he says this — our stranger is siirprised-;-he turns to
the rest — he perceives that he is praising somebody
whom the corapany decidedly consider low and iin-
genteel ; not one of their set. He finds, as conversa
tion proceeds, that he is as ranch araong exclusives as
if he were at St. Jaraes's. The next day he dines
with the manufacturer he praised — the household ap
purtenances are less elegant than those he witnessed
the day before — the man-servant at the one house is
a footboy at the other. He turns the conversation on
his entertainer of the preceding day.
" Ay, a good sort of man," says his host, " but, set
up, full of prejudice and purse-pride."
" Yes," adds the hostess ; " yet I recollect his
wife's father kept a stall. She now has more airs
than the member's lady, who is an earl's daughter."
Our stranger now speaks of a manufacturer of still
less wealth and consequence than his entertainer.
" Oh," says his host, " a sharp fellow, but of coarse
habits, and his opinions are so violent. He behaved
very ill to Mr.  at the last election."
" And his wife," adds the lady, " is very angry
with us ; she wanted to go with us to the town-balls :
now you know, Mr.  , that we must draw some
distinction." The conversation at each of these places turns
little upon theories of politics ; the ministers are dis
cussed ; perhaps also the history of the last election ;
the ladies discuss small scandals, the same as if they
were at Almack's ; our stranger goes away ; he finds
these two houses a type of the general divisions of

UNION AMONO THE OPERATIVES. 115
one class ; yet, mark — ^this is one class — the Manu
facturers, to which another class, the Operatives,
suppose they have an antagonist interest.
Our visiter now resolves to see something more
of the other class — he attends a festive meeting of
the Operatives, at the Blue Bear. It is a long room,
crowded to suflbcation. His health is drunk — he
makes a vague liberal speech — it is received with
applause. An Operative is next called upon ; he ad
dresses the meeting — he begins with many apologies
for his own incapacity, but gi-adually becoming as
sured, he reconciles himself and his audience to the
task, by the recollection, that whatever his own defi
ciencies he is one of them : he is strengthened by
the unanimity of their cause. " We, Operatives," he
says (and the audience shout forth their sympathy and
approbation), "roe are oppressed with taxes and un
just laws, but let us only be fum to each other, and
we shaU get redress at last. The people must help
themselves — our rulers won't help us — Union is our
watchword." Such are the materials with which the orator works
upon the sympathy of the audience ; and as he pro
gresses, he applies himself less to the small points
than to the startling theories of politics. He touches
little on party politics ; much upon abstract princi
ples ; the necessity of knowledge, and the effects of
education. What is the conclusion forced upon our
stranger's mind ? This : that where the one class
was divided by small jealousies into a hundred cote
ries, the other class is consolidated into a powerful
union : that where one class think little of the theories
of politics, such speculations are ever present to the
other — the staple matter of their meetings — the motive
and the end of their association. Thus, fastening our
attention to things below the surface, we perceive the
true reason why Democratic Opinion must become
more and more prevalent ; its espousers are united —
at each ensuing election they form a sturdy body, not

116 CORRUPTION  TAXL'S.
to he detached frora each other by isolated appeals —
they must be gained by addressing the whole. If the
manufacturers, therefore, desire to return a representa
tive, they must choose a candidate professing such
sentiments as are generally pleasing to this powerful
body, viz. the class below them. Thus, unconsciously
to themselves, they adopt the principles of their infe
riors, whom they dread ; and in returning what they
call " their own member," return in reality the sup
porter of the doctrines of the Operatives.*
Two causes militate against the compact solidity
of this democratic body ; corruption is the first. But
I apprehend that (even if the ballot be not obtained,
which sooner or later it probably will be) with every
succeeding election this cause will grow less and less
powerful, in proportion as the truth forces itself on the
mass, that each individual will gain more by the per
manent reduction of taxes than by the temporary
emoluraent of a bribe. By indisputable calculation,
it can be shown that every working raan is now taxed
to the amount of one-third of his weekly wages ; sup
posing the Operative to obtain twelve shillings a week,
he is taxed, therefore, to the amount of four shillings
a week ; at the end of six years (the supposed dura
tion of Parliament) he will, therefore, have contrib
uted to the revenue, from his poor earnings, the
almost incredible sum of 63Z. 8s. What is any bribe
that can be offered to him, in comparison to the hope
of materially diminishing this mighty and constant
expenditure ? You may say the hope is vain — per-
* It is absurd to suppose (yet it is the commonest of suppositions)
that if you keep only gentlemen and noblemen's sons in Parliament,
ParUament is therefore less democratic than if alloyed with plebeians.
It is the laws which are made, not the men who make them, that
advance the democratic movement. If an earl's son pledge himself
to certain measures, which act as a blow to the aristocracy, what
could a mechanic do more ? Does it signify whether you break
down a wall by a plain pickaxe, or one with a coronet carved on the
handle ? The Romans obtained the power to choose plebeians, they
chose patricians i but the patricians they chose destroyed the arisi
tpcracy,

POLITICAL UNIONS. IH
haps it is so— but he will always cherish and endea-
vour to realize it. Credula vita^n
Spesfovet, etfore eras seniper ait metiut.
Thus, the distress of the lower orders, hitherto the
source of corruption, may becorae its preventive.
Another cause of division among the Operatives,
may be that which superficial politicians have consid
ered the most dangerous cementer of their power;
viz. " the establishment of Political Unions." If we
look to the generality of towns, we shall find that it
is a very small proportion* of even the ultra-liberal
party that have enrolled themselves in these associa
tions. In fact, the Unions are regarded with jealousy ;
the men who originate them, the boldest and most
officious of their class, are often considered by their
equals as arrogant pretenders, assumuig a dictator
ship, which the vanity of the body at large is unwill
ing to allow. Hence, instead of uniting the mass,
they tend to introduce divisions. Another effect they
produce is, from their paucity of numbers, to weaken
the influence of the Operatives, by showing a front of
weakness, as weU as an evidence of schism. The
other classes are apt to judge of the strength of the
party by these its assumed host and army ; and to
estimate the numbers of persons professing the same
opinions as Political Unions, by counting the names
that these combinations have enrolled. A party, to be
strong, should always appear strong ; the show often
wins the battle ; as the sultans of the East, in order to
defeat rebellion, have often found it suflicient merely
to levy an army. I conceive, therefore, however ex
cusable or useful such associations may be in a con
flux of fierce and agitated events, they are, in a state
of ordinary peace, as prejudicial to the real power
* Of course I do not here refer to the Unions in Birmingham and
one or two other towns. There they are indeed powerful in numbers,
but I expect they will fall by divisions among themselves.

118 PHYSICAL STATE
and solidity of the more popular party, as they are
arrogant interferers with the proper functions of the
government.*, There is only one just, natural, and
efficacious Political Union— and that is the State ! —
a State that shall at once rule and content the people —
never yielding to their wUl, because always providing
for their wants.

CHAPTER V.

the SOCIAL HABITS OF THE POPULATION.
The Physical State of the Inhabitants of Manufacturing Towns —
Proportion of Deaths in a Manufacturing and Agricultural District
no Standard of the Proportion of Disease — The Childhood of the
Poor — Extract from Elia — Evidence on the Factory BUI — Pro
gress to Manhood — ^Artificial Stimuli — Noble Traits of the Opera
tives ; Desires better than their Condition — Immorality, two
Causes, Physical and Moral — Excess of early Labour should be
restricted — National Education promoted — Poor-laws are the
History of the Poor — Indisposition towork, not Want of it, is the
Cause of Pauperism — Evidence of the Truth of that Proposition
— Fable of Eriel and Mephistopheles — The Aged worse off than
the Able-bodied — Relief considered a Right — Pernicious Influence
of the Aristocracy — The Clergy vindicated — PubUc Charities,
how prejudicial — Present Poor-laws deaden natural Affections
of Parent and Child — Cause of Licentiousness — Inundations of
the Irish — Remedies, Difficulty of them exaggerated — Govern
ments should be really executive, not merely exemtional — Outline
of a proposed Reform m the Poor-laws — Concluding Remarks.
" Man is born to walk erect, and look upon the
heavens." So says the poet. Man does not always
fulfil the object of his birth ; he goeth forth to his
labour with a bending and despondent frame, and he
* Besides these consequences, their natural effect, if successful,
would be the estabUshment of an oUgarchy in every town. Two or
three, not ofthe vrisest men, but of the most active, and the most ora
torical (the last quaUty is, m all popular assembUes, more dangerous
than salutary — it has ever been so in ParUament) will gain posses
sion ofthe assembly. In fact, these assembhes would operate by
mjjting in every town a machine fox taking away the power ofthe

OF THIi MBCHANICS. 119
lifts not his eyes from the soil whose mire hath en
tered into his soul. The physical condition of the
Working Classes in Manufacturing Towns is more
wretched dian we can bear to consider. It is not that
the average of deaths in manufacturing towns is greater
than that in the agricultural districts. The labourers
inthe latter are subject to violent and sudden diseases,
proceeding from acute mflammation ; medical assist
ance is remote, and negligently administered; their
robust frames feed the disease that attacks them ;
they are stricken down in the summer of their days,
and die in the zenith of vigorous health. Not so with
the Mechanic ; he has medical aid at hand ; acute
disorders fall light on the yielding relaxation of his
frame ; it is not that he dies sooner than the labourer ;
he lives more painfully ; he knows not what health is ;
his whole life is that of a man nourished on slow poi
sons ; disease sits at his heart, and gnaws at its cruel
leisure. Dum vivat, moritur. The close and me-
phitic air, the incessant labour — in some manufacto
ries the small deleterious particles that float upon the
atmosphere,* engender painful and imbittering mala
dies, and afilict with curses, even more dread than
are the heritage of literary application, the Student
of the Loom. But it is not only the diseases that he
entails upon himself to which the Operative is sub
ject ; he bears in the fibre of his nerves and the mar
row of his bones the terrible bequeathments of here
ditary affliction. His parents married mider age,
unfit for the cares, inadequate to the labours which a
rash and hasty connexion has forced upon them ;
each, perhaps, having resort to ardent spirits in the

many, and gratifying the ambition of the few. The greatest fear in
an aristocratic country is, that the opposition of one aristocracy
should be but the commencement of another. My principles are
so generally known to be in favour of the people, that what I have
said on this point will possibly have more weight than if I were a
higher authority, but of a different party.
* IJiave held correspondence on this point with some inhabitant
or other in most of our manufacturing towns,'and it seems that nearly
all manufactories engender their peculiar disease,

120 SLOftUENT PASSAGE
short intervals of rest, — the mother engaged in the
toil of a factory at the most advanced period of her
pregnancy ; — every hour she so employs adding the
seeds of a new infirmity to her unborn offspring !
Observe the young mother, how wan and worn her
cheek ; how squalid her attire ; how mean her home ;
yet her wages and those of her partner are amply
sufficient, perhaps, to smooth with decorous comforts
the hora's of rest, and to provide for aU the sudden
necessities of toiling life. A thriftless and slattern
waste converts what ought to be competence into pov
erty, and amid cheerless and unloving aspects, the
young victim is ushered into light. The eaiiy years
of the Poor have been drawn by the hand of a master.
I quote the description, not only as being whoUy faith
ful to truth, but as one of the most touching (yet least
generally known) examples of the highest order of
pathetic eloquence which Modem Literature has pro
duced. " The innocent prattle of his children takes out the
sting of a man's poverty. But the children of the
very poor do not prattle ! It is none of the least fright
ful features in that condition, that there is no chUdish-
ness in its dwellings. Poor people, said a sensible
old nurse to us once, do not bring up their children ;
they drag them up. The little careless darling of the
wealthier nursery, in their hovel is transformed be
times into a prematm-e reflecting person. No one
has time to dandle it, no one thinks it worth while to
coax it, to sooth it, to toss it up and down, to humour
it. There is none to kiss away its tears. If it cries,
it can only be beaten. It has been prettily said that
' a babe is fed with milk and praise.' But the ali
ment of this poor babe was thin, umiom'ishing ; the
return to its little baby-tricks, and efforts to engage at
tention, bitter ceaseless objurgation. It never had a
toy, or knew what a coral meant. It grew up with
out the lullaby of nurses ; it was a stranger to the pa
tient fondle, the hushing caress, the attracting novelty,
the costlier plaything, or the cheaper off-hand contri-

IN ELIA. 121
vance to divert the child ; the prattled nonsense (best
sense to it), the wise impertinences, the wholesome
lies, the apt story interposed, that puts a stop to present
sufferings, and awakens the passion of young won
der. It was never sung to — no one ever told to it a
tale of nursery. It was dragged up, to live or to die
as it happened. It had no young dreams. It broke
at once into the iron realities of life. A child exists
not for the very poor as any object of dalliance ; it is
only another mouth to be fed, a pair of little hands to
be betimes inured to laboiu-. It is the rival, till it can
be the co-operator, for the food with the parent. It is
never his mirth, his diversion, his solace ; it never
makes him yomig again, with recalling his young
times. The children of the very poor have no young
times. It makes the very heart to bleed to overhear
the casual street-talk between a poor woman and her
little girl, a woman of the better sort of poor, in a
condition rather above the squalid beings which we
have been contemplating. It is not of toys, of nur
sery books, of summer holydays (fitting that age) ; of
the promised sight, or play ; of praised sufficiency at
school. It is of mangling and clear-starching, of the
price of coals, or of potatoes. The questions of the
child, that should be-the very outpourings of curiosity
in idleness, are marked with forecast and melancholy
providence. It has come to be a woman, before it
was a child. It has learned to go to market; it chaf
fers, it haggles, it envies, it murmurs ; it is knowing,
acute, sharpened ; it never prattles. Had we not rea
son to say, that the home of the very poor is no
home ?"*
Wliat homely and passionate pathos ! I can do
no homage to that critic who will not allow that I have
quoted one of the most masterly masterpieces of Eng
lish composition.
But if this be the ordinary state of the children'of
the poor, how doubly aggi-avated in the case of the
* The Last Essays of Elia. Moxon, 1833,
Voi.L-F

123 EVIDENCE ON THE
manufacturing poor. What a dark and terrible his
tory of early suffering is developed in the evidence
on the Factory Bill. Let us state an instance :
EVIDENCE OF DAVID BYWATER.
Were you afterward taken to the steaming department t — Yes.
At what age ? — I beUeve I was turned thirteen then.
Is that a laborious employment 1 — Yes ; we stood on one side and
turned the cloth over, and then we had to go to the other side and
turn the cloth over.
Were you there some time before you worked long hours ? — Yes ;
but there was so much work beforehand that we were obliged to
start night-work.
At what age were you when you entered upon that night-work ? —
I was nearly fourteen.
Will yoii state to this committee the labour which you endured
when you were put upon long hours, and the night-work was added ?
— I started at one o'clock on Monday morning, and went on till
twelve o'clock on Tuesday night.
What intervals had you for food and rest ? — We started at one
o'clock on Monday morning, and then we went on till five, and
stopped for half an hour for refreshment ; then we went on again till
eight o'clock, at brealdast-time ; then we had half an hour, and then
we went on tiU twelve o'clock, and had an hour for dinner ; and then
we went on again till five o'clock, and had half an hour for drink
ing ; and then we started at flalf-past five, and if we had a mind
we could stop at nine and have half an hour then-; but we thought it
would be best to have an hour and a half together, which we might
have at half-past eleven ; so we went on from half-past five, and
stopped at half-past eleven for refreshment for an hour and a half at
midnight ; then we went, on from one till five again, and then we
stopped for half an hour ; then we went on again till breakfast-time,
when we had half an hour ; and then we went on again till twelve
o'clock, at dinner-time, and then we had an hour ; and then we
stopped at five o'clock again on Tuesday afternoon, for half an hour
for drinking ; then we went on till half-past eleven, and then we gave
, over till five o'clock on Wednesday morning.
*¦«¦** -j^ *
You say you were taken to he a steamer ; are not very stout
and healthy youths usually selected for that purpose ? — Yes, the
overlooker said he thought 1 should be the strongest.
When did you commence on Wednesday morning? — At five
o'clock, and then we worked till eight o'clock, and then we had
half an hour again ; then we went on to dinner-time, and had an
hour at twelve o'clock ; and then at one o'clock we went en again
till five, and then we had half an hour, and then we went on till half-
past eleven again; and then we started again at one o'clock on
Thursday morning, and went on till five o'clock ; them- we had
half an hour, and then we went on till eight o'clock ; we had
half an hour for breakfast, and then we went on till twelve, and got
our dinner ; then at one o'clock we went on till five o'clock, and
then we hadhalfanhoui-; then we went on till half-past eleven, and
then we gave over till, five o'clock on Friday morning ; then we
Started again at five o'clock, and went on till eight ; then we went

FACTORY ETIX. 123
on till dinner-time at twelve o'clock; then at one o'clock we went
on till five ; then we had half an hour, and then we went on till half-
past eleven ; then we started again at one o'clock on Saturday
morning, and went on till five ; then we had half an hour and went
on till eight ; then we had half an hour for breakfast, and went on
till twelve ; then wo had an hour for dinner, and then went on from
one o'clock till seven, or eight, or nine o'clock : we had no drinking-
time on Saturday afternoon ; we could seldom get to give over on
tlie Saturday atlernoon as the other people did.
* * * *. * ? ' # '
y'oii said that you was select td as a steamer by the overlooker^ on
accoMut of y&iir being a stoat and heallJiy boy ? Yes, he said he thought
I was the strongest, attd so I should go.
^Vere you perfect in your limbs when you undertook that long and ex
cessive labour 7 — Yes, Twos.
What effect did it produce upon you ? — It brought a weakness on me ;
I felt my knees quite ache.
Had you pain i7i ymir limbs and all over your body ? — Yes.
Shoiuwhat effect it had upon your liTJibs. — It made me very crooked. —
[Here the vdtness showed liis knees and legs.] i
Are your thiglis also bent ? — Yes, the bone is quite bent.
How long was it after you had to endure this long labour before
your limbs felt in that way ?— I was very soon told of it, before I found
It out myself.
What did they tell you ? — They told me I was getting very crooked
in my knees : my mother found it first.
Wliat did she say about it ''. — She said I should kill myself with
working this long time.
If you had refused to work those long hours, and have wished to have
worked a moderate length of time only, should you have been retained in
your situation? — / shoidd have had to go home; I should have been
turned off directly.

EVIDENCE OF ELDEN HARGRAVE.
In attending to this machine, are you not always upon the stretch
and upon the move ? — Yes, always.
Do you not use your hand a good deal in stretching it out ? — Yes.
What effect had this long labour upon you ? — I had a pain across
my knee, and I got crooked.
Was it the back of your knee, or the side of your knee ? — All
round. . Will you show your li7nbs ? — [Here the witness exposed his legs
and knees.]
' Were your knees ever straight at any time ? — They were straight before
J went to Mr. Brovm^s mill.
¦* ¦ * * * * *
You say that you worked for seventeen hours a day all the year rmmd ;
4id\you do that without interruption ? — Yes,
Could you attend any day or night school ? — No.
Can you write ? — No.
Can you read ? — I can read a little in a spelling-book.
Where did you leam that ; did you go to a Sunday-school? — No,
I had not clothes to go in.
* * * * » *
F2 ,

124 EVIDENCE ON THE FACTORY BILL.
EVIDENCE OF MR. THOMAS DANIEL,
Relative to the Boys called Scavengers.
You have stated that there is considerable difference in the ages
ofthe children employed ; are the yoimger or older of the children
employed those that have to undergo the greatest degree of labour
and exertion ? — The younger.
"JThose you call scavengers ? — ^Yes, scavengers and middle-piecers.
Will you state their average age ? — The average age of scavengers
will not be more than ten years.
Describe to the committee the employment of those scavengers. —
Their work is to keep the machines, while they are going, clean
from all kinds of dust and dirt that may be flying about, and they
are in all sorts of positions to come at them ; I think that their
bodily exertion is more than they are able to bear, for they are con
stantly kept in a state of activity.
Have they not to clean the machines, and to creep under, and run
round them, and to change and accommodate their position in eveiy
possible manner, in order to keep those machines in proper order '? —
They are in all sorts of postures that the human body is capable of
being put into, to come at the machines.
Are they not pecuUarly liable to accidents, thfen? — ^In many in
stances they are ; but not so much now as they formerly were ; "
spinners take more care and more notice of the children than they
fonnerly did.
Do you thmk that they are capable of performing that work for
the length of time that you have described ? — Not without doing
them a serious injury with respect to their health and their bodily
strength. State the effect that it has upon them, according to your own observation
and experience. — Those children, every moment that they have to spare,
will be stretched all their length upon the fioor in a state of perspiration,
and we are obliged to keep them up to the work by using either a strap or
some harsh language, and they are kept continually in a state of agitation ;
I consider them to be constantly in a state of grief, though some of them
cannot shed tears ; their condition greatly depresses their spirits.
They live in a state of constant apprehension, and often in one of
terror ? — They are always in terror ; and I consider that that does
them as much injury as their labour, their minds being in a constant
state of agitation and fear.
You consider, then, upon the whole, their state as one of extreme
hardship and misery? — So much so that I have made up my mind
that my children shall never go into a factory, more especially as
scavengers and piecers.
What do you mean by saying that those children are always in a
state of terror and fear? — The reason of their being in a state of terror
and fear is, that we are obliged to have our work done, and we are com-
Eelled therefore to use the strap, or some harsh language, which it
urts my feelings often to do, for I think it is heart-breaking to the
poor child.
Do not you thipk that their labour is more aggi'avating to them at
the end of the day ? — I do ; for we have to be more harsh with them at
the latter part of the day than in the middle part of it. The greatest
difficulty that we have to contend with, in point of makiflg them do
their labour, is in the morning and after four o'clock in the after-

W.M0RALIZAT10N. 135
noon ; the long hours that they have laboured thc day before, in my
opinion, cause tliem to be very stupid in the morning.
Hove you observed, them to be drowsy towards the aftei- part of the day !
—Very much so. ^

I could go on multiplying these examples* at ran
dom, from every page of this huge calendar of child
ish suffermgs ; but enough has been said to convmce
the reader's understanding, and, I would fain trust, to
open his heart.
Thus prepared and seasoned for the miseries of life,
the boy enters upon manhood — aged whUe yet youth-
fid — and compelled, by premature exhaustion, to the
dread relief of artificial stimulus. Gin, not even the
pure spirit, but its dire adulteration — opium — narcotic
drugs ; these are the horrible cements with which he
repairs the rents and chasms of a shattered and mace
rated frame. He marries ; and becomes in his turn
the reproducer of new sufferers. In after life he gets
a smattering of political knowledge ; legislative theo
ries invite and lull him from himself ; and with all the
bitter experience of the present system, how can you
wonder that he yearns for imiovation ?
In manufacturing towns the intercourse between the
sexes is usually depraved and gross. Tbe number of
iUegitimate children is, I allow, proportionally less in
a manufacturing than in an agricultural district, but a
most fallacious inference has been drawn from this
fact ; it has been asserted by some political econo
mists, that sexual licentiousness is therefore less com
mon among the population of the latter than that of
the former — a mischievous error — the unchaste are
' * But, then, cry some pseudo-economists, on the Factoiy Bill we
want further inquiry. We have instituted farther inquiry — for what \
•To prove that children can be properly worked above ten hours a
day ? — No, but to prove that the master manufacturers are slandered.
Very well; that is quite another affair. Let us /irf do justice to
those whom you allmi to be overworked, and we will then do justice
to those whom you suppose to be maUgned. The great mistake of
modern liberalism is, to suppose that a government is never to inter
fere, except through the medium of the tax-gatherer, A govern
ment should represent a parent ; with us it only represents a dun,
with the bailiff at his heels !

136 EXCEPTIONS AMONO THE OPERATIVES.
not fruitful. The causes why illegitimate children
are less numerous in manufacturing towns are mani
fold ; of these I shall allude but to>itwo (to the Quar|
terly Reviewers, so severe on Miss Martineau, a third
may occur)— the inferior health of the women, and
the desperate remedy of destroying the burden prema
turely in the womb. The existence of these facts-
will be acknowledged by any one who has seen, with
inquiring eyes, the actual state of the Manufacturing
Population. The great evil of licentiousness is
almost less in its influence on the Principles than the
Affections. When the passions are jaded and ex
hausted, the kindly feelings, which are their offspring,
lie supine. The social charities, the household ties,
the fond and endearing relations of wife and husband,
mother and child, are not blessings compatible with a
life of impure excitement. The Ancients tell us of a
Nation of Harlots, who exposed their children : the
story may be false, but he who invented it, and
showed how profligacy banished the natural affections,
had studied with accuracy the constitution of the
human mind.
Amid these gloomier portraitures of our mechanic
population there are bright reliefs. Many ofthe Oper
atives have been warned, and not seduced, by the
contagion of example ; and of these I could select
some who, for liberal knowledge, somid thought,
kindly feeling, and true virtue, may rank among the
proudest ornaments of the comitry. It has been my
good fortune to correspond with many of the Opera
tive Class, not only as a member of Parliament, upon
political affairs, but in my prouder capacity as a lite
rary man, upon various schemes, which in letters and •
in science had occniTed to their ingenuity. I have
not only corresponded with these men, but I have also
mixed personally with others of their tribe, and I
have ever found that an acuteness of observation was
even less the distinction of their character, than a
certain noble and disinterested humanity of disposi
tion. Among such persons I would seek, without a

CHARACTERISTIC OF THE OPERATIVES. 137
lantern, forthe true philanthropist. Deeply acquainted
with the iUs of their race, their main public thought
is to alleviate and relieve them : they have not the
jealousy coramon to men who have risen a little above
their kind ; they desire more " to raise the wretched
than to rise ;" their plots and their schemings are not
for themselves, but for their class. Their ambition
is godlike, for it is the desire to enlighten and to bless.
There is a divine and sacred species of ambition
which is but another word for benevolence. These
are they who endeavour to establish Mechanics' In-
stitulies, and Plans of National Education; who
clamour against Taxes upon Knowledge ; who desire
Virtue to be the foimdation of Happiness. I know
not, indeed, an order of men more than that of which
I speak, interesting our higher sympathies ; nor one
that addresses more forcibly our sadder emotions,
than that wider class which they desire to relieve.
The common characteristic of the Operatives, even
amid all the miseries and excesses frequent among
them, is that of desires better than their condition.
They all have the wish for knowledge. They go to
the gin-shop, and yet there ihey discuss the elements
of virtue ! Apprenticed to the austerest trials of life,
they acquire a universal sympathy with oppression.
" Their country is the world." You see this tendency
in all their political theories ; it is from the darkness
of their distress, that they send forth the loud shouts
which terrify injustice. It is their voice which is
heard the earliest, and dies the latest, against Wrong
in every corner of the Globe ; they make to them
selves common cause with spoliated Poland — with
Ireland, dragooned into silence — with the slaves of
Jamaica — with the human victims of Hindostan : wher
ever there is suffering, their experience unites them
to it; and their efforts, imavailirtg for themselves,
often contribute to adjust the balance of the World.
As (in the touching Arabian proverb) the barber learns
his art on the orphan's face, so Legislation sometimes
acquires its wisdom by experiments on Distress,

138 NECESSITY OF EDUCATION.
For the demoralized social state which I have
ascribed to the large portion of the Operatives there
are two cures, — the one physical, the other moral. If
you bow down the frame by the excess of early
labour, the sufferers must have premature recourse to
the artificial remedies of infirmity. Opium and gin
are the cheapest drugs ;* these corrupt the mind, and
take reward from labour. Of what use are high
wages, if they are spent in a single night ? Children,
therefore, should not be worked at too early an age,
nor to too great an extreme. Women in the latter
stages of childbearing should not be permitjlied to
attend the toil of manufactories — they have no right
to entail a curse on the Unborn. Legislation must
not, it is true, ouer-interfere ; but she is a guardian,
as well as an executioner ; she may interfere to pre
vent, if she interferes to punish.
So much for the physjcal cure : the moral cure is
Education. National Schools, on a wide and com
prehensive plan, embrace more than the elements of
knowledge (I shall enlarge upon this point in the next
section of my work) ; they ought to teach social as
well as individual morals ; they ought to be adapted
to the class to which they are dedicated ; they should
teach, not so much labour, as habits of labour ; and
bring up the young mind, especially the female mind,
to the necessities of domestic economy. Labour
schools should be united to Intellectual. So far the
Government can provide a cure. Individuals may
assist it. The sexes should be, in all manufactories,
even at the earliest age, carefully separated ; and a
master should demand a good moral character with
those he employs. This last is too generally neg
lected ; a drunken, disorderly character is no barrier
to the obtaining work ; it is therefore no misfortune— -
if no misfortmie, it is no disgrace. The best cure for
demoralization is to establish a moral standard of
* See the account of the number of visiters to a gin-shop, Book
I. p,48. -

POOR-LAWS. 129
opinion. To these remedies, add a revision of the
Poor-laws for both classes, the manufacturing and the
agricultural. After all, the remedies are less difficult
than they appear to the superficial. But to a Govern
ment, now-a-days, every thing has grown difficvdt —
even the art of taxation.
The mention of the Poor-laws now links my inquiry
into the social state of the manufacturing, with that
of the agricultural, population. The operation of the
Poor-laws is the Histoiy of the Poor. It is a singu
lar cm-se in the records of our race, that the destruc
tion of one evil is often the generation of a thousand
others.' The Poor-laws were intended to prevent
mendicants ; they have made mendicancy a legal pro
fession:* they were established in the spirit of a
noble and sublime provision, which contained all the
theory of Virtue ; they have produced all the conse
quences of Vice. Nothing differs so much from the
end of institutions as their origin. Rome, the mother
of warriors, was founded on a day consecrated to the
goddess of shepherds. The Poor-laws, fornied to
relieve the distressed, have been the arch-creator of
distress. Of all popular suppositions, the most common
among philanthropical philosophers is, to believe that
Poverty is the parent of Crime. This is not exactly
the case. Pauperism is the parent of crime ; but
pauperism is not poverty. The distinction is delicate
and important.
In the extracts from the information received by his
Majesty's Commissioners as to the administration and
* The shallow politicians ofthe Senate teU you, with a pompous
air, that the abolition of the monasteries was the only cause of
Elizabeth's Poor-law. Why, did they ever read the old writers,
poets, and chroniclers, before Ehzabeth ? Did they ever read Bar
clay's Eclogues, descriptive of the state of the poor ? No, to be sure
not; Did they ever read, then, the Acts of Parliament prior to
EU'zaheth ? One Act in Henry the Eighth's time, years before the
monasteries were abolished, contains the germ of a Poor-law, by
confining the poor to their parishes, on the plea of the great increase
of vagabonds and rogues. Did they ever read this ? Not they.
Their province is to vote, not read.
F3

130 LATE EVIDENCE ON THE POOR LAWS.
operation of the Poor-laws, just published, appears
the following evidence, from Mr. Wontner, the governor
of Newgate ; Mr. Chesterton, the governor of the
House of Correction for Middlesex ; and Mr. Gregory,
the treasurer of Spitalfields parish.
Mr. Wontner — " Of the criminals who come under your care,
what proportion, so far as your experience will enable you to state,
were by the immediate pressure of want impelled to the commission
of crime? by want is meant, the absence of the means of subsist
ence, and not the want arising from indolence and an impatience of
steady labour. — According to tlie best of my observation, scarcely one-
eighth. This is my conclusion, not only from my oliservatjons in
the office of governor of this jail, where we see more than can be
seen in court of the state of each case, but from six years' expe
rience as one of the marshals of the city, having the direction of
a large body of police, and seeing more than can be seen by the
governor of a prison.
" Of the criminals thus impelled to the commission of crime by
the immediate pressure of want, what proportion, according to the
best of your experience, xvere previously reduced to want by heed
lessness, indolence, and not by causes beyond the reach of common
plTidence to avert ? — When we inquire into the class of cases to
which the last answer refers, we generally find that the criminals
have had situations and profitable labour, but have lost them in con
sequence of indolence, inattention, or dissipation, or habitual drunk-
ermess, or association with bad females. If we could thoroughly ex
amine the whole of this class of cases, J feel confident that we should find
thatnot one-thirtieth ofthe whole class of cases brought here are free from
imputation of ¦misconduct, or can be said to result entirely from blameless
want. The cases of juvenile offenders from nine to thirteen years
of age arise partly from the difficulty of obtaining employment for
children of those ages, partly from the want of the power of super
intendence of parents, who, being in employment themselves, have
not the power to look after their children ; and in a far greater pro
portion from the criminal neglect and example of parents." '
Mr. Chesterton states, "I directed a veiy intelligent yards-man,
and one who had never, I beheve, wilfully misled me to inquire into
the habits and circumstances of all in the yard (sixty prisoners), and
the result was that he could not point out one who appeared to have been
urged by want to commit theft. It appears, that in the House of Cor
rection, the proportion of prisoners who have been paupers is more
numerous than in the other jails."
Mr. Richard Gregory, the treasurer of Spitalfields parish, who
for several years distinguished himself by his successful exertions
for the prevention of crime within that district, was asked —
" We understand you have paid great attention to the state and
prevention of crime ; can you give us any information as to the con
nexion of crime with pauperism ? — I can state, firom experience, that
they, invariably go together.
" But do poverty — meaning unavoidable and irreproachable poverty —
and crime invariably go together ? That is the material distinction. — In
the whole course of my experience, which is of twenty-five years, in

FABLE OF THE ANSEL ERIEL. 131
a very poor neighbourhood, liable to changes subjecting tho indus
trious to very great privations, I remember but one solitarj' instance
of a poor but industrious man out of employment stealing any thing.
I detected a working man stealing a small piece of bacon ; he burst
into tears, and said it was his poverty, and not his inclination, which
prompted him to do this, for he vras out of work, and in a state of
starvation. " Then are we to understand, as the residt of your experience, that the
great mass of crime in your neighbourhood has always arisen from idle-
rj'ss and ¦vice, rather than from the want of employment ? — Yes, and this
idleness and vioious habits are increased and fostered by pauperism, and
by the readiness with which the able-bodied can obtain from parishes al
lowances and food without labour."
The w;hole of this valuable document on the Poor-
laws gencsrally bears out the evidence adduced above.
Idleness and vice, then, are the chief parents of crime
and distress ; viz. indisposition to work, not the want
of work. This is a gTeat truth never to be lost sight
of; for, upon a deduction to be dra^vn from it depends
the only safe principle of Parochial Reform. But
how, in so industrious a country, arises the indifference
to toil ? The answer is obvious — wherever idleness is
better remimerated than labour, idleness becomes con
tagious, and labour hateful. Is this the fact with us ?
Let us see ; the following fable shall instruct us : —
The most benevolent of the angels was Eriel.
Accustomed to regard with a pitying eye the condi
tion of Mankind, and knowing (in the generous spirit
of angelic philosophy) how much circumstance is con
nected with crime, he had ever wept over even the suf
ferings of the felon, and attempted to interfere with
the Arch Disposer of events for their mitigation. One
day, in walking over the earjh, as was his frequent
wont, he perceived a poor woman with a child in her
arms, making her way through a tattered and squalid
crowd that thronged around the threshold of a certain
house in the "centre of a large town. Something in
the aspect of the woman intere^ed the benevolent
angel. He entered the house. with her, and heardher
apply to the overseers of the parish for relief; she
stated her case as one of great hardship ; to add to
her distress, the infant in her arms was suffering

132 FABLE OF '
under the fearful visitation of the small-pox. The over
seers seemed ready enough to relieve her — all the
overseers, save one ; he sturdily stood out, and de
clared the woman an impostor.
"This is the fourth child," quoth he, "that has been
brought to us this day as suffering under the small
pox; there is not, I am sure, so much disease in the
•village. Come hither, my good woman, and let us
look at your infant." ¦'
The mother seemed evidently reluctant to expose
the seamed and scarred features of the child — "It is
maternal vanity, poor creature !" whispered the kind
heart of the angel.
She showed the arm and the leg, and the stamp of
the disease was evidently there, hut the face ! — it
would disturb the little sufferer — it would shock the
good gentleman — it might spread the disease. What
was the good of it ? The hard overseer was inex
orable ; he lifted -the handkerchief from the child's
face — " I thought so !" quoth he, in triumph, " go,
my good woman — the child is not your own .'"
The woman quailed at the overseer's look; she
would have spoken, but she ' only cried ; she slunk
into the crowd and disappeared. The fact came out,
the child was a borrowed commodity ! it had been slyfted
from matron to matron : uow its face had been shown,
now only its hand; it^ little pustules had been an
India to the paupers. The h||d overseer was a very
Solomon in his suspicion.
Now, in witnessing this scene, one remarkable oc
currence had excited the astonishment of the angel ;
he perceived standing behind the. Parochial Authori
ties no less a personage than the celebrated demon
Mephistopheles ; and, instead of steeling the hearts
of the official judges, he perceived that the Fiend
whispered charity and humanity to them, whenever
any doubt.as to the^appropriate exercise of those divine
virtues arose within their breasts. Struck by this in
consistency in demoniacal traits, when the assembly
broke up, Briel accosted the Fiend,' and intimated his

THE ANGEL ERIEL. 133
surprise and joy at his apparent conversion to the prin
ciples of benevolence. Every one knows that Me
phistopheles is a devil, so fond of his sneer that he
will even go out of his way to indulge it. He pro
posed to the angel to take a walk and chat over the
sentiments of harmony; Eriol agreed : they walked on,
arguing and debating, till they came to a cottage, which
stiiick the ramblers as unusually neat in its appear
ance ; they assumed their spiritual prerogative of in
visibility, and crossing the threshold, they perceived
a woman of about thirty years of age, busying her
self in household matters, while her husband, a sturdy
labourer was partaking with tvi^o chikhen a frugal
meal of coarse bread and mouldy cheese. About the
cottage and its imnates was a mingled air of respect
ability and discontent. "My poor boy," quoth the
labourer to his son, " you can have no more ; we must
set the rest by for supper."
" It is very hard, father," grumbled the boy ; " we
work all day, and are half-starved ; and Joe Higgins,
who is supplied by the parish, works little and is well
fed." " Yes, boy, but thank God we are not on the parish
yet," said the mother, turning round with a flush of
honest pride.
The father sighed, and said nothing.
When the meal was done the peasant lingered be
hind to speak to his wife.
" It is very true, Jane," said he, " that we have been
brought up in a spirit of independence, and do not like
to go to the parish, but where's the good of it ? Jack's
perfectly right. There's Higgins does not do half
what we do, and see how comfortable he is : and, you
know, we are rate-payers, and absolutely pay for his
indolence. This is very discouraging, Jane ; I see it
is spoiling my boys for work ; depend on't we can't
be better than our neighbours ; we must come on the
parish, as all of them do."
So saying, the father shook his head and walked
out.

134 FABLE OF THE ANOEL ERIEL.
The poor wife sat do'wn and wept bitterly.
"This is a very, very sad case !" said Eriel ; Me
phistopheles grinned.
Our wanderers left the cottage and proceeded on
their walk ; they came to another cottage of a slat
ternly and dirty appearance ; the inmates also were at
dinner, but they were much better off in point of food,
though not in point of cleanliness. " I say, Joe Hig
gins," quoth the dame of the cottage, "this bacon is
not half so good as they get at the workhouse. There's
my sister and her two brats does not do no work, and
they has beef every Sunday."
" And all the men," interrupted Joe, " has three
pints of beer a day ; spose we makes a push to get in."
" With all my heart," said the wife, " and the over
seers be mighty kind gemmen."
The immortal Visiters listened no more ; they re
sumed their journey, and they came to the Poor-house :
here all was sleek indolence and lazy comfort ; the
parochial authorities prided themselves on buying the
best of every thing. The Paupers had vegetables, and
beer, and bread ; and the children were educated at
the parish pauper-school. Nevertheless, as our vis
iters listened and looked on, they found that Discon
tent could enter into even this asylum of untasked
felicity. They overheard a gi-im and stalwart pauper
whispering to some three or four young and eager listen
ers, " Arter aU, you sees we be not so well off as my
brother Tom, what is a convict in the hulks yonder.
And you sees, if we do do that ere job what I spoke
to you about, we should only be sent to the hulks,
and be then as well fed and as easy as brother Tom
himself" The three lads looked at each other, and the Im
mortals perceived by the glance that the "job" would
be soon done.
"Perhaps now, Mr. Eriel," said Mephistopheles
with a sneer, " you see why I strove to soften the
hearts of the overseers."
»' Alas ! yes," replied the angel sorrowfully, " and I

COMPARATIVE SCALE OF FOOD. 135
see also that there is no fiend like a mistaken princi
ple of Charity."
This fable is but the illustration of stem fact.
The following table, dia^vn chiefly from official re«
turns, will show clearly, and at a glance, the compara
tive condition of each class, as to food, from the hon
est and independent labourer, to the convicted and
transported felon. For better comparison, the whole
of the meat is calculated as cooked.
THE SCALE.
I. The Indepenoent Agriccltoeal Labourek —
According to the returns of Labourers'
Expenditure, they are unable to get
in the shape of soUd food more than
an average allowance of
Bread (daily) 17 oz.=per week . 119 oz.
Bacon, per week . . . . 4 oz.
Loss in CQokuig . 1 " Solid Food.
— 3—122 oz.
II. The Soldier —
Bread (daily) 16 oz.=per week . 112 oz.
Meat . . 12 . . . . 84 oz.
Loss in cooking . . 28 " Sohd Food.
— 5&— 168
m. The Able-bodied Paupek —
Bread .... per week . 98 oz.
Meat  31 oz.
Loss in cookuig . . 10 "
— 21
Cheese ... . . 16
Pudding  16—151
In addition to the above, which is an
average allowance, the inmates of
most workhouses have.
Vegetables . . 48 oz.
Soup ... .3 quarts.
Milk Porridge . . 3 "
Table Beer ... 7 "
and many other comforts.
IV. The Sdspeoted Thief —
(See the Jail Returns from Lancaster.)
IBread  per week . 112 oz.
Meat  24 oz.
Loss in cooking . . 8 "
— 16
Oatmeal  40
Rice  5

136 HONESTY WORSE OFF THAN CRIME.
Pease  4
Cheese  4—181
Winchester. Bread  per week . 192
Meat  16 oz.
Loss in cooking . . 5 "
— , 11—203
v. The Convicted Thief —
Bread  per week . - 140
Meat  56 oz.
Loss in cooking . . 18 "
— 38
Scotch Barley  28
Oatmeal  21
Cheese .,  12—239
VI. The Transported Thief —
lOJ lbs. meat per week = 168 oz.
Loss in cooking . . 56 "
— 112
lOJ lbs. flour, wliich will increase ) „.„  ^sa
¦when made into bread . . }
I
So that the industrious labourer has less than the
pauper, the pauper less than the suspected thief, the
suspected thief less than the convicted, the convicted
less than the transported, and by the time you reach
the end of the gradation, you find that the transported
thief has nearly three times the allowance of the
honest labourer.
What effect then must those laws produce upon our
social system, which make the labourer rise by his
own degradation, which bid him be ambitious to be a
pauper and aspire to be a convict !
Perhaps, however, you console yourself with the
notion, that at all events our Poor-laws provide well
and comfortably for the decline of life ; that whatever
we throw away upon the sturdy and robust pauper we
afford at least, in the spirit of the original law, a much
better provision for the aged and infirm. Alas ! it is
just the reverse ; it is the aged and infirm who are the
worst off. Here is one parallel, among many, between
the two classes : Joseph Coster, aged thirty-four, and
Anne Chapman, a widow, aged seventy-five, are of the
same parish. Joseph Coster, in the prime of life,

RELIEF CONSIDERliD A RIGHT. 137
receives from the parish no less than 43/. is. 8d. per
year, or 16*'. 8d. per week ; Anne Chapman, tho
decrepit tcidow. Is. 6d. a week, or 31. I8s. a year!
So much for the assistance really afforded to the
aged. And why does the sturdy young man obtain more
than the aged and helpless 1 1st, Because he may be
violent ; he can clamour, he can threaten, he can
break machines, and he can burn ricks. The magis
trates are afraid of him ; but the old and helpless are
past fearing. '2d, Because he has been reckless and
improvident, he has brought children into the world
without the means of maintaining them, and it is well
to encourage private improvidence by public pay.
3dly, Because he is paid his wages out of the poor-
rates, — the consequence of which, vitiating his indus
try itself, takes from labour its independence, and de
grades all poverty into pauperism. It often happens
that employment is given rather to the pauper than
the independent labourer, because it eases the parish ;
and labourers have absolutely reduced themselves to
pauperism in order to be employed.
Do not let us flatter ourselves with the notion that
these laws bind the poor to the rich ; that the poor
consider parish relief as charity. — No, they consider
it as a right, — a right which they can obtain, not by
desert, but worthlessness ; not by thrift, but extrava
gance ; not by real distress, but by plausible false
hood. A shoemaker at Lambeth swore he could only
eam thirteen shUlings a week, — he applied for parish
relief, — an overseer discovered that he made thirty
shillings a week, and the supply was refused. " It is
a d — d hard case," quoth the shoemaker ; " it was as
good to me as a freehold — I've had it these seven
years !"
And now it is my duty to point out to the reader
one important truth. How far may it safely be left to
individuals to administer and provide individual reme
dies 1 If ever — you woidd imagine at first — if ever
there was an aristocracy, which by its position ought

138 INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS.
to remedy the evils among the poorer population in
the provinces, it is ours : unlike the noblesse of other
countries, they are not congregated only at the capital,
ithey live much in the provinces ; their grades of rank
are numerous, from the peer to the squire ; they
spread throughout the whole state ; they come in con
tact with aU classes ; they are involved in all country
business ; they have great wealth ; they can easily
obtain practical experience, — would you not say they
are the very men who would most naturally, and could
most successfully, struggle against the abuses that,
¦while they demoralize the poor, menace the rich 1
Alas ! it is exactly the reverse : the influence of the
aristocracy in respect to the poor has only been not
pernicious, where it has been supine and negative.
Among the great gentry, it is mostly the latter — their
influence is neglect ; among the smaller gentry, it is
the former — their influence has been destruction !
I take an instance of this fact in the parish of
Calne. Its neighbour and main proprietor is the Mar
quis of Lansdowne, a man rich to excess ; intelligent,
able — a political economist — his example, activity, and
influence might have done much — his interest was to
do much — to correct the pauperism of his neighbour
hood, and to enlighten the surrounding magistrates and
overseers. Well, the parish of Calne is most wretch
edly, most ignorantly administered ; it is one of the
strongest instances of abuse and mental darlmess in
the Evidence of the Poor-law Commissioners.
So much for the influence of your great noble.
Now see, in the same borough, the far more pernicious
influence of your magistrate. The magistrates have
established the scale system ; viz. have insisted on
paying the wages of labour out of the parish ; the
evil effects of this we have already seen. The
assistant overseer, and the other parish officers of
Calne, allowed that no attention whatever was paid to
character ; to the most notorious drunkards, swearers,
and thieves the magistrates equally insisted on the
application of their blessed scale : the demands on

MAGISTRATES. 139
the parish were made with insolence and threats. The
commissioner inquires if the parish officers never took
these men to the bench for punishment. " Yes, they
had, but had been so often reprimanded and triumphed
over, that they had given it up."
" Thus," adds the coimnissioner, " with the appear
ance of no appeal to the magistrates, the magisterial
(viz. the aristocratic) influence is unbounded, com
plete, and, by tacit consent, always in exercise, and ever
producing evils of the greatest magnitude, and the worst
description."* Wlierever the magistrates interfere, the interference
is always fatal ; they support, out of an ungenerous
fear, or a foolish pride of authority, or at best a weak
and ignorant charity, the worst and most vicious char
acters, in opposition to the remonstrances of the paro
chial officers ; they appoint the scale of allowance by
which they pauperize whole districts ; afraid of the
vengeance of the rickbumer, they dare not refuse
(even if they wish it) allowance to the pauper.
Wherever they interfere rates rise as by a miracle,
and the parish falls into decay. It was they who, to
aid a temporary policy in Pitt's time, persuaded the
poor that it was no disgrace to apply to the parish ; it
is they who engendered and supported the payment of
wages from rates ; the allowance of relief to the
able-bodied ; in other words, it is they who, in these
two abuses, have produced the disease we are now
called upon to cure. Wherever they do not interfere
affairs are infinitely better.
Stratford-upon-Avon, says Mr. Villiers, is the only
place in the division not subject to the jurisdiction of
the county magistrates, and the only one where it is
said the rate-payers are not dissatisfied. In Poole, a
large and populous town, magisterial influence is
* " The district of Sturminster Newton is the worst regulated as
to poor concerns, with the highest proportionate rates, in the county ;
in no district is there so much magisterial interference." — Mr. Oke-
dm's Report. I. might accumulate a thousand instances in support
of this general fact, but it is notorious.

14t) PUBLIC CHARITIES.
unknown ; all that relates to the government of the poor
is exceUent.* Moore CritcheU, Devizes, Marlbro', are
similar examples.
Enough of these facts. — I have made out my case.
The individual and local influence of the landed aris
tocracy has been usually psrnicious ; and it follows,
therefore, that in any reform of the Poor-laws, the first
principle will be to leave nothing to the discretion of
that Influence.
Before I pass on to another view of my subject, let
me pause one moment to do justice to a body of men
whom, in these days of party spirit, it requires some
courage in a legislator professing liberal opinions to
vindicate, and whom, in the progress of this work, it
will be again my duty and my pleasure to vindicate
from many ignorant aspersions — -I mean the Clergy of
the Establishment. I exempt them, in general, from
the censure to be passed on the magistrates. A cer
tain jealousy between the parson and the squire has
often prevented the latter from profiting by the expe
rience of the former, and led to combinations on the
bench to thwart the superior enlightenment of the
clerical Lnfluence. We shall find various instances in
which an active and intelligent minister has been the
main refonner of his parish, and the chief corrector
of the obstinacy of the magistrate and the sloth of the
overseer. But in very few of these instances shall
we find the clergymftn a scion of the Aristocracy.
A book lies open before me, which ascribes to our
Aristocracy many of our Public Charities. What im
pudence ! — most of them have been founded by per
sons sprung from the people. The author rejoices
over the fine names in the list of patrons to such insti
tutions. Let him ! — One thing is perfectly clear, — that
* Some faint, though unsuccessful, attempt has been made to
throw suspicion upon the report of these commissioners. It may be
possible, however, that the commissioners have been mistaken in
one or two details or calculations, — that, if possible, is immaterial, —
those principles they have established would be still untouched. In
truth, the commissioners have not made a single discovery ; they have
only classified and enforced the discoveries we had already made.,

PUBLIC CHARITIES. J41
Public Chai'ities maybe administered and regulated
with greater sagacity than they are. Let us take a
survey of these Institutions — it will perhaps interest,
and certainly instruct us.
The system of Public Charities, however honour
able to tlie humanity of a nation, requires the wisest
legislative provisions not to conspire with the Poor-
laws to be destructive to its morals. Nothing so nur
tures virtue as the spirit of independence. The poor
should be assisted undoubtedly — -but in what — in pro
viding for themselves. Hence the wisdom of the in
stitution of Savings Banks. Taught to lean upon
others, thev are only a burthen upon industry. The
Reverend Mr. Stone has illustrated this principle in a
vein of just and felicitous humour. He supposes a
young weaver of twenty-two marrying a servant-girl •
of nineteen. Are they provident against the prospects
of a family — do they economize — toil — retrench ? —
No : they live in Spitalfields, and rely upon tlie Chari
table Institutions. The wife gets a ticket for the
" Royal Maternity Society," — she is delivered for
nothing ; she wants baby-linen — the Benevolent So
ciety supplies her. The child must be vaccinated ; he
goes to the Hospital for Vaccination. He is eighteen
months old, " he must be got out of the way ;" he goes
to the Infant School ; from thence he proceeds, being
" distressed," to the Educational ^Clothing Society,
and the Sunday-schools. Thence he attains to the
Clothing Charity Schools. He remains five years ;
he is apprenticed gratis to a weaver ; he becomes a
journeyman ; the example of his parents is before his
eyes ; he marries a girl of his own age ; his child
passes the ancestral round of charities ; his own work
becomes precarious, but his father's family was for
years in the same circumstances, and was always
saved by charity ; to charity, then, he again has re
course. Parish gifts of coals and parish gifts of
bread are at his disposal. Spitalfields Associations,
Soup Societies, Benevolent Societies, Pension Socie
ties, — all fostering the comfortable Itixuiy of living

142 PUBLIC CHARITIES.
gratuitously, — he comes at length to the more fixed
income of parish relief ; " he begs an extract from the
parish register, proves his settlement by the charity-
school indenture of apprenticeship, and quarters his
family on the parish, with an allowance of five shil
lings a week. In this uniform alternation of volun
tary and compulsory relief he draws towards the close
of his mendicant existence. Before leaving the
world, he might, perhaps, return thanks to the public.
He has been born for nothing ; he has been nursed for
nothing; he has been clothed for nothing ; he has been
educated for nothing ; he has heerxput out in the world
for nothing ; he has had medicine a?id medical attend
ance for nothing ; and he has had his children also
born, nursed, clothed, fed, educated, established, and
physicked for nothing.
" There is but one good office more for which he can
stand indebted to society, and that is his Burial ! He
dies a parish pauper, and, at the expense of the parish,
he is provided with shroud, coffin, pall, and burial-
ground ; a party of paupers from the workhouse bear
his body to the grave, and a party of paupers are his
moimiers."* Thus we find that Public Charities are too often
merely a bonus to public indolence and vice. What a
dark lesson of the fallacy of human wisdom does this
knowledge strike into the heart ! What a waste of the
materials of kindly sympathies ! What a perversion in
dividual mistakes can cause, even in the virtues of a na
tion ! Charity is a feeling dear to the pride of the human
heart— it is an aristocratic emotion ! Mahomet testi
fied his deep knowledge of his kind when he allowed
the vice hardest to control, sexual licentiousness, and
¦* "I wish it to be particularly understood," Mr. Stone then adds,
" that in thus describing the operation of charity in my district, I
have been giving an ordinary, and not an e:c(raordmary, instance. I
might have included many other details ; some of them of afar more
aggravated and offensive nature. Ihave contentedrayself, however,
With describing the state of the district as regards charitable relief,
and the extent to wliich that reUef maj/ be, and actually is, made to
numstei to improvidence and dependence."

EFFECTS OF THE POOR-LAWS. 143
encoiu'aged the virtue easiest to practise, charity. The
effect of the last is, in the East, productive of most of
the worst legislative evils in that quarter of the globe ;
it encourages the dependent self-reconciliation to
slavery, and fosters the most withering of theological
fallacies — predestination.
The effects of the Poor-laws on the social system '
are then briefly these ; they encourage improvidence,
for they provide for its wants ; they engender sexual
intemperance, for they rear its offspring. By a ne
cessaiy reaction, the benefits conferred on the vicious
pauper become a curse on the honest labourer.*
They widen the breach between the wealthy and the
poor, for compulsory benevolence is received with
discontent ; they deaden the social affections of the
labourer, for his children become to him a matter of
mercantile speculation. " An instance," says Mr.
ViUiers, speaking from his experience in the county
of Gloucester, " was mentioned, of a man who had
lately lost all his children, saying publicly, that it was
a sad thing for him, for he had lost his [parish pay,
and that had his children lived he should have been well
to do."
Another instance of their operation, not on paternal,
but filial aftectiou, is recorded by Dr. Chalmers, in his
work on Civic Economy. "At Bury, in Lancashire,"
saith he, " some very old out-pensioners, who had
been admitted as inmates to the poor-house, with the
families of their own children, often preferred the
work-house, because, on purpose to get altogether jta'i
of them, their children made them uncomfortable."
" I have been frequently at vestiy-meetings," said
Mr. Clarkson, some years ago, " where I have told
the father, ' Your children are yours.'' The answer
has always been, ' No, they belong to the parish.' No
one can beat it into their heads that their ovm chil-
^ * Charities,asat present administered, must be partially included
in the same censure. The merit of the origin of Public Hospitals
has been inconsiderately ascribed to Christianity, It was the
Diui(Js.who founded hospitals— they also sacrifice^ Jiumai^ flesh !

144 THE IRISH PAUPER.
dren belong to them, not to the parish." The parish
is mightily obliged to them !
If the Poor-laws operate thus on the social' ties,
they are equally prejudicial to the sexual moralities.
In the rural districts, a peasant girl has a child first,
and a husband afterward. One woman in Swaffham,
Norfolk, had seven illegitimate children ; she received
2s. a head for each : had she been a widow, with seven
legitimate children, she would have received 4s. or
5s. less. An illegitimate child is thus 25 per cent.
more valuable to a parent than a legitimate one. It
is considered a very good speculation to marry a lady
with a fortune of one or two pledges of love.* i
" I requested," says Mr. Brereton, of Norfolk, in an
excellent pamphlet, published some time ago, on the
Administration of the Poor-laws — " I- requested the
governor of a neighbouring hundred house to furnish
me with the number of children born within a certain
period, distinguishing the legitimate from the illegiti
mate. The account was 77 children born : 23 legiti
mate, 54 illegitimate."
The Poor-laws, administered as at present through
the southern parts of the island, poison morality, inde
pendence, and exertion ; the encouragers, the propa
gators, and the rewarders of pauperism. To these
evils we must add those incurred by the Laws of Set
tlement. At present, if there is no labour in one par
ish, instead of transferring the labourer to another,
you chain him to the soil as a pauper. Nor must we
forget the mischievous and contagious example of the
itinerant vagabonds frora Ireland. These Hibernian
adventurers, worthy successors of the fierce colonizers
of old, are transported in myriads, by the blessed con
trivance of steam, into a country where " to relieve
the wretched is our pride :" with much greater capa
cities for oimiipossession than the English labourer,
whom the laws of settlement chain to his parish,
they spread themselves over the whole country ; and
« Mr. Cowell's Report on the Poor-laws Commission.

WHAT ARE THE REMEDIES ! 145
wherever they are settled at last, they establish a
dread example of thriftless, riotous, unimprovable
habits of pauperism. They remind one of the story
of a runaway couple, who were married at Gretna
Green. The smitli demanded five guineas for his
services. " How is this ?" said the bridegi'oom ; " the
gentleman you last married assured me that he only
gave you a guinea."
" True," said the smith, " but he was an Irishman-
1 have married him six times. He is a customer. Yon
I may never see again."
The parish overseers adopt the principle of tte
smith, and are mighty lenient to the Irishman, wfo>
Avalks the world at his pleasure, and laughs at tJi®
parish labourer. He goes to a thousand parishes ; h&
is relieved in all ; he is a customer.
But what are the remedies for these growing evils ?
Every one allows the mischief of the present Poor-
laws ; puts his hands in his pockets, and says, " But
what are we to do ?" This is ever the case ; men
suffer evUs to surround them, and then quarrel with
every cure. There is an impatient cowardice in the
spirit of Modern Legislation, which, seeing difficulties
on aU sides, thinks only of the difficulty of removing-
them. But, in fact, by a vigorous and speedy reform,
the worst consequences of the Poor-laws may be
aiTested ; the remedies are not so difficult as tjiey
seem. This truth is evident, from numerous instances
in which the energy of select vestries, or even the
skilful exertions of an individual, by sturdily refusing
relief to able-bodied labourers, without work ; by a
severely-regulated workhouse, which no inmate ixdghf
leave without an order ; and by a general rejection of
out-of-door rehef; have succeeded in redeeming whole
parishes from pauperism ; in reducing the rates, in an
incredibly short time, to a third of their former^-
amount ; and in raising the prostrate character of ti le
pauper to the moral standard of the industrious, "and
independent labourer. This is an undeniable p; ;oof
then, that remedies are neither very diiEcuIt nav even
Yoi» I.— G

146 OUTLINE OF A
very slow in their operation. But — mark this— the
remedies depended on the rare qualities of great
judgment, gi-eat firmness, and great ability of indi
viduals. No wise government will trust remedies so impe
riously demanded to the rare qualities of individuals.
There is a general inertness in all parochial bodies, I
may add, in all communities, that share an evil dis
guised under plausible names. In some places the
magistrate will not part with power, in other places
the farmer deems it a convenience to pay wages from
the poor-rates ; m some districts the sturdy insolence
and overgrown number of paupers intimidate reform,
in others the well-meant charity of Lady Bountifuls
perpetuates immorality under the title of benevolence.
Were the evil to be left to parishes to cure, it would
go on for half a century longer, and we should be
startled from it at last by the fierce cries of a Servile
War.* The principle of legislation in this country
has long been that merely of punishing ; the proper
principle is prevention. , A good government is a
directive government. It should be in advance of the
people ; it should pass laws/o/- them, not receive all
law /rom them. . At present we go on in abuses until
a clamour is made against them, and the government
gives way ; a fatal policy, which makes a weak legis
lature and a turbulent people. A government should
-never give way, — it should never place itself in a con
dition to give way,t — it should provide for changes ere
they are fiercely demanded, and by timely diversions
^ * The slow growth of each individual and unassisted reform is
visible by comparing the instances mentioned by Dr. Chalmers seven
years ago, with the recent ones specified in the Report of the Poor-
law Commissioners ; the proportion of reforms appear even to have
decreased. A curious proof of general supineness may be found in
Cooliham parish. By a change of system, that parish has most
materially improved its condition. It is surrounded by other parishes
^ suffering all the agonies ofthe old system ; yet not one of them has followed
^0 near and unequivocal an example !
t " Nothing destroyeth authority so much as the unequal and un-
tinvply interchange of power pressed too far and relaxed too much.*
w-i oxon m Empire,

REFORM FOR THE POOR-LAWS. 147
of the channels of opinion prevent tho possibility of
an overflow. When a government acts thus, it is ever
strong, — it never comes in contact with the people, —
it is a directive government, not a conceding one, and
procures the blessings of a free constitution by the
vigour of a despotic one.
The government, then, should now take the sole
management of the poor into its own hands. That the
present laws of settlement must be simplified and re
duced every one grants ; the next step should be the
already much canvassed appointment of a Board in
trusted with great discretionary powers, for in every
parish has been adopted, perhaps, a different system,
requiring a different treatment ; the same laws cannot
be applicable to every parish. The number of com
missioners cannot be too smaU, because the less the
number the less the expense, and the gTeater the re
sponsibility ; the greater the responsibility the more
vigorous the energy.*
These commissioners should of course be paid ;
gratuitous work is bad work, and the smallness of
their number would make the whole expense of so
simple a machinery extremely small.
Those parishes too limited in size to provide work
for all the able-bodied, and in which consequently pau
perism is flagrant and advancing, should be merged into
larger districts. For my own part, unless (which I
do not believe) a violent opposition were made to the
proposal, I should incline to a general enlargement
and consolidation of the parishes throughout the king
dom. The principal machinery of reform should lie in
the discipline of the workhouse. It is a fact at pres
ent, that where the comforts at a workhouse exceed

* They might have power to obtain assistant commissioners sub
ordinate to them, if necessary. In a conversation I have had with
an eminent authority on this head, it was suggested that these
assistant commissioners should be itinerant. They would thus
be freed from the local prejudices of the magistrates, and enabled to
compare the various modes of management in each district.
G2

148 OUTLEJE OF A REFORM, ETC.
those ofthe independent labourer, pauperism increases ;
but where the comforts at the workhouse have been
reduced below those of the independent labourer, pau
perism has invariably and most rapidly diminished.
On this principle all reform must mainly rest. A work
house must he a house of work, requiring severer labour
and giving less remuneraiiorf. than can be obtained by
honest competition elsewhere.
The asylums for the aged and the infirm should, on the
contrary, be rendered sufficiently commodious to con
tent, though not so luxurious as to tempt, the poor.
There may well be a distinction between the house
for labour to the idle, and that of rest for the exhausted.
The Board shall make and publish an Annual Re
port ; this Report will be the best min-or of the con
dition of the Poor we can obtain, and the publication
of their proceedings will prevent abuse and stimulate
improvement. The Board, by the aid of its assistant
commissioners, would supersede the expensive neces
sity of many special Parliament commissioners, and
would be always at hand to afford to the Government
or to Parliament any information relative to the labour
ing classes.
That such a Board may finally be made subser
vient to more general purposes is evident.* Its ap-
* I mention Recruiting as one. At present, as we have before
seen, nothing in the army requires so much reform as the system of
recruiting it. A Central Board, with its branch commissioners, with
its command overthe able-bodied apphcants for work, might be avery
simple and eflicacious machine for supplying our army — not, as now,
from the dregs of the people — but from men of honesty and charac
ter. The expense of our present system of recruiting is enormous — it
might in a great measure be saved by a central Board. Emigration
is, of course, another purpose to which it might be applied. Is it
true that population presses on capital ? In this country it assuredly
does ; the area of support is undeniably confined — meanwhile the
population increases. Very well, we know exactly how many to
remove. Mr. Wakefield has settled tliis point in an admirable pam
phlet. He takes the British population at twenty milhons ; he sup
poses that their utmost power of increase would move at the rate
of four per cent, per annum, the constant yearly removal of the per
centage, viz. 800,000, would prevent any domestic increase. But
of these 800,000 you need select only those young couples from whom
thie increase of population will proceed — these amount to 400,000

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 149
pointmcnt would be popular with all classes, save per
haps the Paupers themselves — it would save the coun
try immense sums — it would raise once more in Eng
land the pride of honest toil.
It is time that a Government so largely paid by the
people should do something in their behalf " The
Poor shaU be with yon ahvays," are the pathetic words
of the Messiah ; and that some men must be poor and
some rich is a dispensation with which, according to
the lights of our present experience, no human wisdom
can interfere. But if legislation can prevent not the
inequalities of poverty and wealth, it is bound to pre
vent the legislative abuse of each : the abuse of
riches is tyranny ; the corruption of poverty is reck
lessness. Wherever -either of these largely exists
talk not of the blessings of free Institutions, there is
the veiy principle that makes servitude a curse. Some
thing is, indeed, wrong in that system in which we see
" Age going to the workhouse, and Youth to the gal
lows." But with us the evil hath arisen, not from the
malice of Oppression, but the mistake of Charity.
Occupied with the struggles of a splendid ambition,
our rulers have legislated for the Poor in the genius,
not of a desire to oppress, but of an impatience to ex
amine. At length there has dawned forth from the dark
apathy of Ages a light, which has revealed to the two
ranks of our social world the elements and the nature
of their several conditions. That light has the prop
erties of a more fiery material. Prudence may make
it the most useful of our servants ; neglect may suffer
it to become the most ruthless of our destroyers. It
is difficult, however, to arouse the great to a full con
ception of the times in which we live : the higher
classes are the last to hear the note of danger. Tho

individuals — the expense of removing them at 1!. a head, is four mil
lions a year. "We now therefore k'now exactly what it will cost to prevent
too great a pressure of the population on the nuans of subsistence ! But
what individual emigration companies can either preserve the bal-
ance or persuade the people to accede to it ? Is not this clearly tha
affair ofthe state, as in all ancient poUty it invariably was ?

150 CONCLUDING} REMARKS.
same principle pervades the inequalities of Social
Life, as that so remarkable in the laws of Physical
Science : they who stand on the lofty eminence, — the
high places of the world, — are deafened by the atmo
sphere itself, and can scarcely hear the sound of the
explosion which alarms the quiet of the plains !

END OF BOOK II.

BOOK THE THIRD.

SURVEY OF THE STATE OF EDUCATION,
ARISTOCRATIC AND POPULAR,
AND OF THE GENERAL INFLUENCES OF
MORALITY AND RELIGION.

inscribed to

THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D.,
PHOFESSOB OP MOKAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
ST, Andrew's.

" Men generally need knowledge to overpower their passions and
master their prejudice ; and therefore to see your brother in igno
rance is to see him unfurnished to all good works : and every master
is to cause his family to be instructed ; every governor is to instruct
his charge, every man his brother, by all possible and just provisions.
For if the people die for want of knowledge, they who are set over
them shall also die for want of charity." — Bishop Jeremy Taylor.
" 0 Curvs in terras animae et celestium inanes ?" — Pebsius.

THE EDUCATION OF THE HIGHER
CLASSES.

CHAPTER L

Rehgion and Education, Subjects legitimately combined — Quinctil-
ian's Remark against learning too hastily — We learn too slowly
— Reason why Parents submit to a deficient Education for their
Children — Supposition that Connexions ai-e acquired at Schools
considered and confuted — Supposition that Distractions at a Pub
lic School are of permanent Advantage to the after Man — Its Fal
lacy — Abolition of Close Boroughs likely to affect the Number
sent to Public Schools — What is taught at a Public School ? the
Classics only, and the Classics badly — The Abuses of Endow
ments thus shown — The Principle of Endowments defended —
In vain would we defend them unless their Guardians will reform
— The Higher Classes necessitated, for Self-preservation, to
establish a sounder System of Education for themselves.
Sir,
No MAN, ill these days of trite materialism, and the
discordant jealousies of rival sects, has been more
deeply imbued than yourself with the desire of extend
ing knowledge, and the spirit of a large and generous
Christianity. It is to you that I most respectfully,
and with aU the reverence of political gratitude, dedi
cate this Sm-vey of the present state of our Educa
tion, coupled with that of our Religion. In Prussia,
that country in which, throughout the whole world,
education is the most admirably administered, the
authority over the Public Worship of the State is
united with that over the Public Instruction. The
minister of the one is minister also of the other.
In the Duchy of Saxe Wieiriar, which has seemed as
the focus of a brilliant and religious philosophy to the
G3

154 religion and education combined.
eyes of abashed Europe, in which liberty of thought
and piety of conduct have gone hahd-in-hand, the
whole administration of the instruction of the people
may be said to be intrusted to the clergy,* and the
light which has beamed over men has been kindled at
the altars of their God. A noble example for our
own clergy, and which may be considered a proof
that as virtue is the sole end both of true religion and
of true knowledge — so, to unite the means is only to
facilitate the object.
I shall consider, then, in one and the same section
of my work, as subjects legitimately conjoined, the
state of Education in England, and the state of Religion.
And, first, I shall treat of the general education
given to the higher classes. In this. Sir, I must be
seech your indulgence while I wrestle with the social
prejudices which constitute our chief obstacle in ob
taining, for the youth of the wealthier orders, a more
practicable and a nobler system of education than
exists at present. If my argument at first seems to
militate against those venerable Endowments which
you so eloquently have defended, you will discover, I
think, before I have completed it, that I am exactly
friendly to their principle, because I am hostile to their
abuses. Be it their task to reform themselves ; it is
for us to point out the necessity of that reform.
" Pour water hastily into a vessel of a narrow neck,
little enters ; pour it gradually, and by small quanti
ties — it is filled !" Such is the simile employed by
Quinctilian to show the folly of teaching children too
much at a time. But Quinctilian did not mean that
we should pour ^the water into the vase drop by drop,
and cease suddenly and for ever the moment the
liquid begins to conceal the surface of the bottom.
Such, however, is the mode in which we affect to fill
the human vessel at the present day. It can be only
* A member of the Laity has, indeed, been added to the Ecclesi
astical Commissioners of Saxe Weimar ; but he unites entirely with
them in the ecclesiastical spirit. That ecclesiastical spirit in Saxe
Weimar is benevolence.

WE LEARN TOO SLOWLY. 156
that people have never seriously reflected on the
present academical association for the prevention of
knowledge, that the association stiU exists. The un
prejudiced reasoning of a moment is sufficient to
prove the monstrous absurdities incorporated in the
orthodox education of a gentleman.
Let us suppose an honest tradesman about to bind
his son apprentice to some calling — that, for instance,
of a jeweller, or a glove-maker. Would not two
questions be instantly suggested by common sense to
his mind ? — 1st, Will it be useful for my son to know
only jewelry or glove-making ? 2d, And if so, will
he learn how to set jewels, or make gloves, by being
bound an apprentice to Neighbour So-and-so, since it is
liliely that if Neighbour So-and-so does not teach him
that, he wiU teach him nothing else ?
Why do not these plain questions force themselves
into the mind of a gentleman sending his son to Eton?
Why does he not ask himself — 1st, Will it be useful
for my son to know only Latin and Greek ? and,
secondly, If it be, will he learn Latin and Greek by
bemg sent to Dr. K  , for it is not likely that Dr.
K  will teach him any thing else ?
If every gentleman asked himself those two ques
tions previous to sending his sons to Eton, one might
suspect that the head-mastership would soon be a sine
cure. But before I come to examine the answers to
be returned to these questions, let us dispose of some
subtle and unacknowledged reasons in favour of the
public school, which actuate the parent in consenting
to sacrifice the intellectual improvement of his son.
Writers in favour of an academical reform have not
sufficiently touched upon the points I am about to
refer to, for they have taken it for granted that men
would allow education alone was to be the end of
scholastic discipline ; but a great proportion of those
who send their children to school secretly meditate
other advantages besides those of intellectual improve
ment. In the first place, the larger portion of the boys at

156 CONNEXIONS AT SCHOOLS CONSIDERED.
a public school are the sons of what may be termed
the minor aristocracy, — of country gentlemen — of rich
merchants^-of opulent lawyers — of men belonging to
the " untitled property" of the country : the smaller
portion are the sons of statesmen and of nobles. Now
each parent of the former class thinlts in his heart
of the advantages of acquaintance and connexion that
his son will obtain by mixing with the children of the
latter class. He looks beyond the benefits of educa
tion — to the chances of getting on in the world.
" Young Howard's father has ten livings — ^young
Johnson may become intimate with young Howard,
and obtain one of the ten livings." So thinks old
Johnson when he pays for the Greek which his son
will never know. " Young Cavendish is the son of a
minister — if young Smith distinguishes himself, what
a connexion he may form !" So says old Smith when
he finds his son making excellent Latin verses,
although incapable of translating Lucan without a dic
tionary ! Less confined, but equally aristocratic, are
the views of the mother. " My son is very intimate
with little Lord John : he will get, when of age, into
the best society ! Who linows but that one of these
days he may marry little Lady Mary ?"
It is these notions with which shrewd and worldly
parents combat their conviction that their sons are
better cricketers than scholars ; and so long as such
advantages allure them it is in vain that we reason
and philosophize on education, — we are proving only
what with them is the minor part of the question, nay,
which they may be willing to allow. We speak of
educating the boy, they think already of advancing the
man : we speak of the necessity of knowledge, but the
Smiths and the Johnsons think of the necessity of con
nexions. Now here I pause for one moment, that the reader
may mark a fresh proof of the universal influence
which our aristocracy obtain over every institution —
every grade of our social life — from the cradle to the
grave. Thus insensibly they act on the wheels of

CONNEXIONS AT SCHOOLS CONSIDERED. 157
that mighty machine — the education of our youth — by
which the knowledge, the morals, and the welfare of a
State are wrought; and it becomes, as it were, of less
consequence to be wise than to form a comiexion
with the gi'eat.
But, calmly considered, we shaU find that even this
ad\'antage of connexion is not obtained by the educa
tion of a public school. And knowing that this pre
vailing notion must be answered, before the generality
of parents wUl dispassionately take a larger view of
this important subject, I shaU proceed to its brief ex
amination. Boys at a public school are on an equality. Lotus
suppose any boy, plebeian or patrician, — those of his
contemporarieswhose pursuits are most congenial to
his become naturaUy his closest friends. Boarders,
perhaps, at the same house, custom and accident bring
such as wish to be intimate constantly together, and a
similarity of habits produces a stronger alliance than
even a similarity of dispositions.
Howard, the peer's eldest, and Johnson, the com
moner's younger son, leave school at the same age
— they are intimate friends — we will suppose them
even going up to the same University. But Howard is
entered as a nobleman at Trinity, and Johnson goes a
pensioner to Emanuel: their sets of acquaintance
become instantly and widely different. Howard niay
now and then take mUk-punch with Johnson, and
Johnson may now and then " wine" with Howard, but
they have no circle in common — they are not com
monly brought together. Custom no longer favours
their intercourse ; a similarity of pursuits no longer
persuades them that they have a similarity of dispo
sitions. For the first time, too, the difference of rank
becomes markedly visible. At no place are the de-
markations of birth and fortune so faintly traced as at
a school ; nowhere are they so broad and deep as at
a University. The young noble is suddenly removed
from the side of the young commoner ; when he
walks he is indued in a distinguishing costume : when

158 CONNEXIONS AT SCHOOLS CONSIDERED.
he dines he is placed at a higher table along with thte
heads of his college : at chapel he addresses his
Maker, or reads the Racing Calendar, in a privileged
pew. At most colleges* the discipline to which he is
subjected is, comparatively speaking, relaxed and
lenient. Punctuality in lectures and prayers is of no
vital importance to a " yomig man of such expecta
tions." As regards the first, hereditary legislators
have no necessity for instruction ; and as to the last,
the religion of a college has no damnation for a lord.
Nay, at Cambridge, to such an extent are the demarka-
tions of ranks observed, that the eldest son of one
baronet assumes a peculiarity in costume to distin
guish him from the younger son of another, and is
probably a greater man at college than he ever is dur
ing the rest of his life. Nor does this superstitious
observance of the social grades bound itself to titular
rank : it is at college that an eldest son suddenly
leaps into that consequence, that elevation above his
brothers, which he afterward retains through life.
It usually happens that the eldest son of a gentleman
of some five thousands a year, goes up as a Fellow\
Commoner, and his brothers as Pensioners. A marked
distinction in dress, dinners, luxuries, and, in some
colleges, discipline, shows betimes the value attached
to wealth, and wealth only ; and the younger son
learns, to the full extent of the lesson, that he is worth
so many thousands less than his elder brother. It is
obvious that these distinctions, so sudden- and so
marked, must occasion an embarrassment and cold
ness, in the continuance at college, of friendships
formed at school. The young are commonly both
shy and proud — our pensioner, Johnson, chiUed and
strack by the new position of our nobleman Howard,
is a little diffident in pressing his acquaintance on
him ; and our nobleman Howard — though not desirous,
* Chiefly, however, at the smaller colleges ; and less at Oxford
than at Cambridge.
t Fellow Commoners at Cambridge ; Gentlemen Commoners at
Oxford.

CONNEXIONS AT SCHOOLS CONSIDERED. 159
we will suppose, to cut his old friend — yet amid
new occupations and new faces — amid all the schemes
and amusements of the incipient man, and the self-
engrossed complacency of the budding lord for the
first time awaltened to his station, naturally and
excusably reconciles himself to the chances that
so seldom bring him in contact with his early ally,
and by insensible but not slow degrees he passes
from the first stage of missing his friendship, to the
last of forgetting it. This is the common history of
scholastic " coimexions" where there is a disparity
in station. It is the vulgar subject of wonder at the
University, that " fellows the best friends in the
world at Eton are never brought together at college."
And thus vanish into smoke all the hopes of the pa
rental Johnsons ! — all " the advantages of early friend
ship !" — all the dreams for whioh the shrewd father
consented to sacrifice, for " little Latin and no Greek,"
the precious, the iiTevocable season, of " the sowing
of good seed," of pliant memories and ductile dispo
sitions — the lost, the golden opportunity of instilling
into his son the eleijients of real wisdom and true
morality — the knowledge that adorns life, and the
principles that should guide it !
But suppose this friendship does pass the ordeal ;
suppose that Howard and Johnson do preserve the
desired coimexion ; suppose that together they have
broken lamps and passed the " little go," together they
have " crammed'' Euclid and visited Barnwell ; sup
pose that their pursuits still remain congenial, and
they enter the great world "mutuis animis amanter" —
how little likely is it that the " connexion" will con
tinue through the different scenes in which the lot of
each will probably be cast. Ball-rooms and hells,
Newmarket and Crockford's, are the natural element
of the one, but scarcely so of the other. We wiU
not suppose our young noble plunging into excesses,
but merely mingling in the habitual pleasures belong
ing to his station ; we imagine him, not depraved, but
dissipated; not wicked, but extravagant; not mad,
but thoughtless. Now mark — does he continue his

160 CONNEXIONS AT SCHOOLS CONSIDERED,
connexion with Johnson or not ? the answer is plain
— if Johnson's pursuits remain congenial — yes ! if
otherwise — not ! How can he be intimate with one
whom he never meets ? How can he associate with
one whom society does not throw in his way 1 If, then,
Johnson continue to share his friendship, he must con
tinue to share his occupations ; the same ball-rooms
and the same hells must bring them into contact, and
the common love of pleasure cement their sympathy
for each other. But is this exactly what the prudent
father contemplated in the advantages of connexion ?
was it to be a connexion in profusion and in vice ?
-Was it to impair the fortunes of his son, and not to
improve them 1 This question points to no exagge
rated or uncommon picture. Look round the gay
world, and say if loss, and not gain, be not the ordi
nary result of such friendships, between the peer's
elder son and the gentlemen's younger one as survive
the trials of school and college — the latter was to
pi'ofit by the former ; but the temptations of society
thwart the scheme : the poor man follows the example
of the rich ; dresses — himts — intrigues' — games —
runs in debt, and is beggared through the very con
nexion which the father desired, and by the very cir
cles of society which the mother sighed that he
should enter. I do not deny that there are some
young adventurers more wary and more prudent, who
contrive to get from their early friend the schemed-
for living or the dreamed-of place, but these instances
are singularly rare, and to speculate upon such a
hazard as a probable good, is incalculably more mad
than to have bought your son a ticket in the lottery,
by way of providing for his fortune.
The idea then of acquiring at public schools a
profitable connexion, or an advantageous friendship, is
utterly vain. 1st, Because few school connexions
continue through college ; 2d, Because, if so contin
ued, few college connexions continue through the
world ; 3d, Because, even if they do, experience
proves that a friendship between the richer man and
the poorer is more likely to ruin the last by the per-

DISTINCTIONS AT SCHOOL NO ADVANTAGE. 161
petual example of extravagance, than to enrich him
by the uncommon accident of generosity. Add to
these all the usual casualties of "Avorldly life, the
chances of a quarrel and a nipture, the chances
that the expected living must be sold to pay a debt,
the promised office transfen-ed to keep a vote, the
delays, the humiliations, the mischances, the uncer
tainties, and ask yourself if, whatever be the advan
tages of public education, a comiexion with the great
is not the ^ery last to be counted upon 1
" But, perhaps, my boy may distinguish himself,"
says the ambitious father ; " he is very clever. Dis
tinction at Eton lasts through life ; he may get into
Parliament ; he may be a great man ; why not a
second C aiming ?"
Alas ! — granted that your son be clever, and granted
that he distinguish himself, how few of those who are
remarkable at Eton are ever heard of in the world ;
their reputation " dies, and makes no sign." And this
for two reasons : first, because the distinctions of a
public school are no evidence of real talent ; learning
by heart and the composition of Latin or Greek verse
are the usual proofs to which the boy's intellect is
put ; the one is a mere exertion of memory — the other,
a mere felicity of imitation ; and I doubt if the school
boy's comprehensive expression of " knack" be not
the one to be applied to the faculty both of repeating
other men's words, and stringing imitations of other
men's verses. Knack ! an ingenious faculty indeed,
but no indisputable test of genius, and affording no
undeniable promise of a brilliant career ! But suc
cess in these studies is not only no sign of future
superiority of mind ; the studies themselves scarcely
tend to adapt the mind to those solid pursuits by
which distinction is ordinarily won. Look at the
arenas for the author or the senator — the spheres for
active or for literary distinction ; is there any thing
in the half idle, and desultory, and superficial course
of education pursued at public schools which tends
to secure future eminence in either ? It is a great

162 DISTINCTIONS AT SCHOOL
benefit if boys learn something solid, but it is a faT
greater benefit if they contract the desire and the habit
of acquiring solid information. But how few ever
leave school with the intention and the energies to
continue intellectual studies. We are not to be told
of the few great men who have been distinguished as
senators, or as authors, and who have been educated
at public schools. The intention of general educa
tion is to form the many, and not the few; if the
many are ignorant, ¦ it is in vain you assert that
the few are wise ; we have — even supposing their
wisdom originated in your system — a right to consider
them exceptions, and not as examples. But how
much vainer is it to recite the names of these honoured
few, when it is far more than doubtful even whether
they owed any thing to your scholastic instruction ;
when it is more than doubtful whether their talents
did not rise in spite of your education, and not because
of it ; whether their manhood was illustrious, not be
cause their genius was formed by the studies of youth,
but because it could not be crushed by them. All
professions and all ranks have their Shakspeare and
their Burns, men who are superior to the adverse in
fluences by which inferior intellects are chilled into
inaction. And this supposition is rendered far more
probable when we find how few of these few were
noted at school for any portion of the mental power
they afterward developed ; or, in other words, when
we observe how much the academical process stifled
and repressed their genius, so that if their future life
had been (as more or less ought to be the aim of
scholars) a continuation of the same pursuits and ob
jects as those which were presented to their youth,
they would, actually have lived without developing
their genius, and died without obtaining a name. But
Chance is more merciful than men's systems, and the .
eternal tasli of Nature is that of counteracting our
efforts to deteriorate ourselves.
! But you think that your son shall be distinguished
at Eton, and that the distinction shall continue through
life ; we see then that the chances are against him-r

NO ADVANTAGE. 163
they are rendered every day more difficult — because
formerly the higher classes only were educated. Bad
as the public schools might be, nothing better perhaps
existed ; superficial knowledge was pardoned, because
it was more useful than no knowledge.
But now tlie people are awakened ; education, not
yet general, is at least extended ; a desire for the
Solid and the UsefiU circulates throughout mankind.
Grant that yom- son obtains all the academical hon
ours ; grant, even, that he enters Parliament through
the distmction he has obtaine^J, — have those honours
taught him the prmciples of jm-isprudence, the busi
ness of legislation, the details of finance, the magni
ficent mysteries of commerce 1 — perhaps, even, they
have not taught him the mere and vulgar art of public
speakmg ! How few of the young men thus brought
forward ever rise into fame !
A mediocre man, trained to the habits of discerning
what is true knowledge, and the application to pm-sue
it, wiU rise in any public capacity to far higher celeb
rity than the genius of a public school, who has
learned nothing it is necessaiy to the public utility to
knov/. As, then, the hope of acquiring coimexions
was a chimera, so that of obtaining pennanent dis
tinction for your son, in the usual process of public
education, is a dream. What millions of " promising
men," unknown, midone, have counterbalanced the suc
cess of a single Canning.
I may here observe, that the abolition of close bor
oughs is likely to produce a very powerful effect upon
the numbers sent to a public school. As speculation is
the darling passion of mankind, many doubtless were
the embryo adventurers sent to Eton, in the hope that
Eton honours would unlock the gates of a Gatton or
Old Sarum. Thus, in one of Miss Edgeworth's
tales, the clever Westminster boy without fortune
receives even at school the intimation of a future
political career as an encouragement to his ambi
tion, and the Rotten Borough closes the vista of Aca
demical Rewards. This hope is over ; men who
would cheer on their narrow fortune by the hope of

164 WHAT IS TAUGHT AT A PUBLIC SCHOOL?
parliamentary advancement must now appeal to the
peoplcj who have little sympathy with the successful
imitator of Alcaean measures, or the honoured adept in
"longs and shorts." And consequently, to those pa
rents who choose the pub-lic school as a possible open
ing to public life, one great inducement is no more,
and a new course of study will appear necessary to
obtain the new goals of political advancement.
I have thus sought to remove the current impression
that public schools are desirable, as affording oppor
tunities for advantageous comiexion and permanent
distinction. And the ambitious father (what father is
not ambitious for his son ?) may therefore look dis
passionately at the true ends of education, and ask
himself if, at a public school, those ends are accom
plished ? This part of the question has been so fre
quently and fully examined, and the faults of our aca
demical system are so generally allowed, that a very
few words will suffice to dispose of it. The only
branches of learning really attempted to be taught at
our public schools are the dead languages.* Assur
edly there are other items in the bills — French and
"arithmetic, geography and the use of the globes. But
these, it is well known, are merely nominal instruc
tions : the utmost acquired in geography is the art of
colouring a few maps ; and geography itself is only a
noble and practical science when associated with the
history, the commerce, and the productions of the
country or the cities whose mere position it indicates.
1 What matters it that a boy can tell us that Povoa
is on one side the river Douro, and Pivasende on
the other; that the dusky inhabitant of Benguela
looks over the South Atlantic, or that the waters of
Terek exhaust themselves in the Caspian Sea ? Use
ful, indeed, is this knowledge, combined with other

* Formerly a nobleman, or rich gentleman, in sending his son to
school, sent with him a private tutor, whose individual tuition was in
tended to supply the dehciencies of the pubUc course of study. This
custom has almost expired, and aristocratic education, therefore, jn-
etead of improving, is still more superficial than it was.

THE CLASSICS ONLY. 165
branches of statistics ; useless by ilself, — another
specimen of the waste of memory and the frivolity of
imitation. But even this how few learn, and how few
of the learners remember !
Arithmetic and its pretended acquisitions, is, of all
scholastic delusions, the most remarkable. AVhat
sixth-form ornament of HaiTow or Eton has any know
ledge of figures 1 Of aU parts of education, this, the
most useful, is at aristocratic schools the most neg
lected. As to French, at the end of eight years the
pupil leaves Eaton, and does not know so much as his
sister has acquired from her governess in three months.
Latin and Greek, then, alone remain as the branches
of human wisdom to which serious attention has been
paid. I am not one of those who attach but trifling im
portance to the study of the Classics ; myself a de
voted, though an humble student, I have not so long car
ried the thyrsus but that I must believe in the god.
And he would indeed be the sorriest of pedants who
should affect to despise the Icnowledge of those great
works, which, at their first appearance, enlightened one
age, and in their after restoration broke the darkness of
another ! Surely one part of the long -season of youth
can scarcely be more profitably employed than in ex
amining the claims of those who have exercised so
vast and durable an influence over the human mind.
But it is obvious that even thoroughly to master the
Greek and Latin tongues would be but to comprehend
a very small part of a practical education. Formerly
it was obviously wise to pay more exclusive attention
to their acquisition than at present, for formerly they
contained all the literary treasures of the world, and
iiow they contain only a part. The literature of
France, Germany, England, are at least as necessary
for a man bom in the nineteenth century, as that of
Rome and Athens.
But, it is said, the season of childhood is more
requisite for inastering a skill in the dead languages than
it is for the living. Even if this assertion were true.

166 THE ABUSES OF ENDOWMENTS SHOWN.
there would be no reason why the dead languages alone
should be learned ; if the early youth of the mind be
necessary for' the acquisition of the one, it is at least
a desirable period for the acquisition of the other.
But the fact is, that the season of youth is at least as
essential for the learning the living languages as it is
for acquiring the dead ; because it is necessary to
speak the one, and it is not necessary to speak the
other : and the facile and pliant organs of childhood
are indeed almost requisite for the masteiy of the
tones and accents in a spoken language, although the
more mature understanding of future years is equally
able to grasp the roots and construction of a written
one. As the sole business of life is not literature, so
education ought not to be only literaiy. Yet what
can you, the father of the boy you are about to send
to a public school, what, I ask, can you think of a
system which, devoting the whole period of youth to
literature, not only excludes from consideration the
luiowledge of all continental languages — the languages
of Montesquieu -and Schiller, but also totally neglects
any knowledge of the authors of your own country,
and even the element of that native tongue in which
all the business of life must be carried on. Not in
Latin, nor in Greek, but in his Eitglish tongue your
son must write ; in that tongue, if you desire him to
become great, he is to be an orator, an historian, a
poet, or a philosopher. And this language is, above
all others, the most utterly neglected, its authors never
studied, even its grammar never taught. To know
Latin and Greek is a great intellectual luxury ; but to
know one's own language is almost an intellectual
necessity. But literature alone does not suffice for education ;
the aim of that grave and noble process is large and
catholic ; it woiild not be enough to make a man
learned ; a pedant is proverbially a useless fool. The
'aim of education is to make a man wise and good.
Ask yourself what there is in modem education that

TIIE ABUSES OF ENDOWMENTS SHOWN. 167
will fulfil this end. Not a single moral science is
taught ; not a single moral principle hicidcated.*
Even in the dead languages it is the poets and the
more poetical of the historians the pupil mostly learns,
rarely the philosopher and the moralist. It was
justly, I think, objected to the London University, that
religion was not to be taught in its schools ; but is
religion taught at any of our public institutions ? pre
vious, at least, to a course of Paley at the University.
Attendance at church or chapel is not religion ! the
life, the guidance, the strength of religion, where are
these 1 Look romid eveiy corner of the fabric of
education, still Latin and Greek, and Greek and Latin
are all that you can descry,
Mixtaque ridenti fundet colocasia acantho.
But the father hesitates. I see, sir, you yet think
Greek and Latin are excellent things, are worth the
sacrifice of all else. Well, then, on this ground let
* The only moral principle at a pubhc school is that which the
boys themselves tacitly mculcate and acknowledge ; it is impossible
to tum a large numbei; of human beings loose upon each other, but
what one of the first consequences will be the formation of a public
opinion, and pubhc opinion instantly creates a silent but omnipotent
code of laws. Thus, among boys there is always a vague sense of
honour and of justice, which is the only ¦morality that belongs to
schools. It is this vague and conventional sense to which the master
trusts, and with wliich he seldom interferes. But how vague it is,
how confused, how erring ! What cnielty, tyranny, duphcity are
compatible with it ! it is no disgrace to insult the weak and to lie to
the strong, to torment the fag and to deceive the master. These
principles grow up v/ith the boy, insensibly they form the matured
man. Look abroad m the world, what is the most common charac
ter ? — that which is at once arrogant and servile. It is this early
initiation into the vices of men which with some parents is an
inducement to send their son to a public school. How often you
hear the careful father say, " Tom goes to Eton to leam the world."
One word on this argiiment : your boy does not accomplish your
object, he learns the vices of the world, it is true, but not the caution
which should accompany them. Who so extravagant or so thought
less as the young man escaped from a public school ; who so easily
duped ; who so fair a prey to the trading sharper and the sharping
tradesman ; who runs up such bills with tailors and horsedealers ;
who so notoriously the gi-eenhom and the bubble ? Is this his boasted
knowledge of the world? You may have made your boy vicious,
but you will find that that is not making him wise. - -

168 THE AEtrSES OP ENDOWMENTS SHOWN.
us meet you. Your boy will go to Eton to learn
Greek and Latin ; he will stay there eight years (hav
ing previously spent four at a preparatory school), he
will come away, at the end of his probation, but what
Latin or Greek will he bring with him ? Are you a
scholar yourself? examine then the average of young
men of eighteen ; open a page of some author they
have not read, — have not, parrot-like, got by heart; open
a page in the dialogues of Lucian, in the Thebaid of
Statius. Ask the youth you have selected from the
herd to construe it, as you would ask your daughter
to construe a page of some French author she has
never seen before, — a poem of Regnier, or an exposition
in the Esprit des Lois. Does he not pause, does he
not blush, does he not hesitate, does not his eye wan
der abroad in search of the accustomed " Crib," does
he not falter out something about lexicons and gram
mars, and at last throw dovm the book and tell you
he has never learned that, but as for Virgil or Hero
dotus, there he is your man ? At the end, then, of
eight years, without counting the previous four, your
son has not learned Greek and Latin, and he has
learned nothing else to- atone for it. Here, then, we
come to the result of our two inquiries. 1st, Is it
necessary to leam something else besides Latin and
Greek ? — It is ! But even if not necessary, are Greek
and Latin well taught at a public school ?-^They are
not. With these conclusions I end this part of my
inquiry. Mr. Bentham, in his Chrestomathia, has drawn up a
programme of what he considered might be fairly
taught and easily acquired in the process of a com
plete education. There is sornething formidable in
the list of studies ; it is so vast and various, that it
seems almost visionary ; the leap from the " learn
nothing" to the " learn all" is too wide and startling.
But without going to an extent which would leave no
branch of human knowledge excluded, it is perfectly
clear that the education of our youth may be conve.

THE ABUSES OF ENDOWMENTS SHOWN. 169
niently widened to a circle immeasurably more com
prehensive than any which has yet been drawn.
It is probable th^t the System of Hamilton may be
wrong ; probable that there is a certain quackery in
the System of Pestalozzi ; possible that the Lancas-
terian Sj'stem may be overrated ; but let any dispas
sionate man compare the progress of a pupil under an
able tutor in any one of these systems, with the ad
vances made at an ordinary public school.* What I
complain of, and what jou, sir, to whom I address
these pages, must complain of also, is this : that at
these schools, — in which our hereditary legislators
are brought up, — ^in which those who are born to frame
and remodel the mighty Mechanism of Law, and
wield the Moral Powers of Custom, receive the in
effaceable impressions of youth, — at these schools, I
say. Religion is not taught ; Morals are not taught ;
Philosophy is not taught ; the light of the purer and
less material Sciences never breaks upon the gaze.
The intellect of the men so formed is to guide our
world, and that intellect is imcultured.
In various parts of the Continent there are admir-
* The Monitorial System was appHed with eminent success by
Mr. Pillans, at the High School, Edinburgh, to the teaching of
Latin, Greek, and Ancient Geography. He applied it for several
years to a class of boys, not less in number than 230 (ages varying
from twelve to sixteen), without any assistance in the teaching of
the above branches of learning, save what he derived from the boys
themselves. Of this most important experiment of applying to the
higher branches of learning a principle hitherto Hmited to the lower,
Mr. Pillans speaks thus, in an able letter with which he was kind
enough to honour me : " When I compare the effect of the Monito
rial System with my own experience of that class, both when I was
a pupil of it myself under Dr. Adam, and during the first two years
after I succeeded him, I have no hesitation in saying, that it multi-
phed incalculably the means and resources of the teacher, both as
regarded the progress of the pupils in good learning, and the forming
of their minds, manners, and moral habits." Not long after he be
came Professor of Humanity, Mr, Pillans adopted the Monitorial
System, first in his junior, next in his senior class. He thus speaks
of its success ; "I beUeve this is the only instance ofthe Momtorial
principle being acted on within the walls of a college. In the limited
application I make of it there, it has succeeded even beyond the
expectations I had formed. Of this I may be tempted to say mora
hereafter."
Vol. I.— H

170 THE rMIf CIPLE DEFENDED.
able schools for teachers, on the principle that those
who teach should themselves be taught. Still nfiore
important is it in an aristocratic constitution, that those
who are to govern us should be at least enlightened.
Are you who now read thesp. pages a parent 1 Come,
note the following sentence ; ages have rolled since
it was written, but they have not dimmed the bright
ness of the maxim : " Intellect is more excellent than
science, and a life according to intellect preferable to
a life according to science." So said that ancient
philosopher whose spirit approached the nearest to
the genius of Christianity. What then is that prepa
ration to life which professes to teach learning and
neglects the intellect, which loads the memory, which
forgets the soul. Beautifully proceedeth Plato : " A
life .according to intellect is alone free from the vulgar
errors of our race ; it is that mystic part of the soul,
that sacred Ithaca, into which Homer conducts Ulysses
after the education of life." But far different is the
port into which the modem education conducts her
votaries, and the Haven of Prejudice is the only recep
tacle to the Ship of Fools.*
It is the errors that have thus grafted 'themselves on
the system of our educational endowments which have
led the recent philosophy to attack, with no measured
violence, the -principle of endowments themselves
— an attack pregnant with much mischief, and which,
if successful, would be nearly fatal to all the loftier
and abstruser sciences in England. I desire to see
preserved — I desire to see strengthened — I desire to
see beloved and regenerated the literary endowments
of Public Schools, and of our two great Universities ;
for that very reason I desire to see them reform them-
* If I have dwelt only on PubUc Schools, it is because the private
schools ars for the most part modelled on the same plan. Home
tuition is rare. The private tutor, viz. the gentleman who takes some
five or six pupils' to prepare for the University, is often the best
teacher our youth receive. Whatever they learn thoroughly, they
learn with him ; but unlmppily this knowledge stints itself to the
classics and the physical sciences required at college; they pre
pare the pupil for college, and not for wisdom. At many of fliese,
however, religious instruction is, for tl^e first time ii the pupil's life,
a Uttle insisted upn,

THE PRINCIPLE DEFENDED. 171
selves. You yourself, sir, have placed the necessity of
endowments in a right imd unanswerable point of view.
Mankind must be invited to knowledge — the public are
not sufficient patrons ofthe abstruse sciences — no dogma
has been more popular, none more fallacious ; there
is no appetence in a commercial and bustling country
to a learning which does not make money — to a phi
losophy which does not rise to the Woolsack, or sway
the Mansion-house. The herd must be courted to
knowledge. You found colleges and professorships,
and you place knowledge before their eyes — then they
are aUm-ed to it. You clothe it with dignity, you gift
it with rewai'ds — then they are miconsciously dis
posed to venerate it. Public opinion follows what is
honoured; honour knowledge, and you chain to it that
opinion. Endowments at a University beget emula
tion in subordinate institutions ; if they are nobly filled,
they produce in the latter the desire of rivalry ; if in
adequately, the ambition to excel. They present amid
the shifts and caprices of misettled learning a con
stant landmark and a steadfast example. The public
wiU not patronise the higher sciences. Lacroixj as
stated, sir, in your work, gave lessons in the higher
mathematics, — ^to eight pupils ! But the higher sci
ences ought to be cultivated, hence another necessity
for endowments. Wherever endowments are the most
flourishing, thither learning is the I'nost attracted.
Thus, you have rightly observed, and Adam Smith
before you, that in whatever country the colleges
are more affluent than the church, colleges exhibit
the most brilliant exTamples of learnilig. Wher
ever, on the other hand, the church is more richly en
dowed than the college, the pulpit absorbs the learn
ing of the chair. Hence, in England, the learning of
the clergy; and in Scotland, that of the'professors.*
Let me add to this, the example of Germany, where
there is scarce a professor who does not enjoy a well-
earned celebrity — the example of France, where, in
* " Half the distinguished authorship of Scotland has been pro
fessional," — Chalmers on Endowments.
H2

173 THE PRINCIPLE DEFENDED.
Voltaire's time, when the church was so wealthy, he
could only find one professor of any Uterary merit
(and he but of mediocre claims), and where in the
present time, when the church is impoverished, the
most remarkable efforts of Christian phUosophy have
emanated from the chairs of the professional lecturer.*
I have said that the public will not so reward the
professor of the higher ^sciences as to sanction the
idea that we may safely leave him to their mercy.
I^et us suppose, however, that the public are more
covetous of lofty knowledge than we imagine. Let
us suppose that the professor of philosophy can ob
tain sufficient pupils to maintain him, but that by pu-
pils alone he is maintained, what would be the proba-.
ble result ? Why, that he would naturally seek to en
large the circle of his pupils — that in order to enlarge
it, he would stoop from the starred and abstruse sphere
of his research — that he would dwell on the more fa
miliar and less toilsome elements of science — that he
would fear to lose his pupils by soaring beyond the
average capacity — that he would be, in one word, a
teacher of the rudiments of science, not an investi
gator of its difficult results. Thus we should have,
wherever we turned, nothing but elementary know
ledge and facts made easy — thus we should contract
the eagle wing of philosophy to a circle of male Mrs.
Marcets — ever dwelling on the threshold of Know
ledge, and trembling to penetrate the temple.
Endowments raise (as the philosopher should be
raised), the lofty and investigating scholar above the;
necessity of humbling his intellect in order to earn
his bread — they give him iip to the serene meditation
from which he distils the essence of the diviner — nay,
even the more useful, but hitherto undiscovered — wis
dom. If from their shade has emanated the vast phi-

* If in the meditated reform of the church the average revenues
of the clergy be more equalized, the Professorships would gaiu
something in learning, while the Church would still be so affluent as
to lose nothing. The chair and the pulpit should be tolerably equal
ized in endowments, in order to prevent the one subtracting from tli§
intdlectual acquirements of th^e other.

TIIE FKIM'IPLi; DrFENPKD. 173
losopliy of Kant, w liicli dwavl's into littleness the eon-
fined materialism of preceding schools, so also from
amid the shelter they afford broke forth the first great
regenerator of praciical politics, and the origin of the
" Wealth of Nations," was founded in thc industrious
tranquillity of a professorship at Glasgow.*
Let us then eschew all that false and mercantile
liberalism of the day which would destroy the high
seats and shelters of Learning, and would leave what
is above the public comprehension to the chances of the
public sympathy. It is possible that endowments fa
vour many drones — granted — but if they produce one
great philosopher, whose mind would otherwise have
been bowed to lower spheres, that advantage counter
balances a thousand drones. How many sluggards
will coimterpoise an Adam Smith ! " If you form but
a handful of wise men," said the great Julian, " yoii
do more for the world than many kings can do." And
if it be true that he who has planted a blade of corn
in the spot which was barren before is a benefactor to
his species ; what shall we not pardon to a system by
which a nobler labourer is enabled to plant in the hu
man mind an idea which was unknown to it till then ?
But if ever endowments for the cultivators of the
higher letters were required, it is now. As education
is popularized, its tone grows more familiar, but its
research less deep— the demand for the elements of
knowledge vulgarizes scholarship to the necessity of
the times — there is an impatience of that austere and
vigorous toil by which alone men can extend the
knowledge already in the world. As you diffuse the
stream, guard well the fountains. But it is in vain for
us — ;it is in vain, sir, even for you, how influential so
ever your virtues and your genius, to exert yourself in
behalf of our Education Endov^ients, if they them
selves very long continue tmadapted to the growing
knowledge of the world. Even tho superior classes are
* Dr. Chalmers eloquently complains, that they made Dr. Smith
a commissioner of customs, and thereby lost to the public his pro
jected work on Jurisprudence.

174 NECESSITY OF A BETTER SVSTEM OF
awakened to a sense of the insufficiency of fashionable
education — of the vast expense and the little profit of
the system pursued at existing schools and univer
sities. One great advantage of diffusing knowledge among
the lower classes is the necessity thus imposed on tho
higher of increasing Icnowledge among themselves. I
suspect that the new modes and systems of education
which succeed the most among the people will ul
timately be adopted by the gentry. Seeing around them
the mighty cities of a new Education — the education of
the nineteenth century — they will no longer be con
tented to give their children the education of three
himdred years ago. One of two consequences will hap
pen: either public schools will embrace improved
modes and additional branches of learning, or it will
cease to be the fashion to support them. The more ar
istocratic families who have no interest in their founda
tions will desert them, and they will gradually be left
as monastic reservoirs to college institutions.*
Let us hope to avert this misfortune while we may,
and, by exciting among the teachers of education a
wholesome and legitimate spirit of alarm, arouse in
them the consequent spirit of reform. Let us inter
est the higher classes in the preservation of their
own power : let them, while encouraging schools for
the children ofthe poor, improve, by their natural influ
ence, the schools adapted for their own ; the same
* For one source of advantage in the public schools will reniain
nnchoked — they wiU continue to be the foundation on which certain
University Emoluments are built College scholarships, coUege
fellowships, and college livings will still present to the poorer gentry
and clergy an honourable inducement to send their sons to the public
schools ; and there will, therefore, still remain a desirable mode of
disposing of children, despite of their incapacities to improve them.
If we could reform the conditions on which University Endowments
are bestowed on individuals, a proportionate reform in the scholais
ambitious to obtain them would be a necessary consequence. This
may be difficult to do with the old endowments, ana the readiest
mode would be to found new endowments on a better principle and
under better .patronage, as a counterpoise to the abuses of the old.
Thus, not bydBstroyingold endowments, but by creating new, sjali
we best serve the puiposes of the loftier toiowledf e,

EDUCATION OF THE HIGHER CLASSES. 176
influence that now supports a superficial education
would as easily expedite the progTcss of a sound one,
and it would become the fashion to be educated weU,
as it is now the fashion to be educated ill. Will they
refuse or dally with this necessity ? — they cannot
know its importance to themselves. If the aristocracy
would remain the most powerful class, they must con
tinue to be the most inteUigent. The art of printing
was explained to a savage king, the Napoleon of his
tribes. " A magnificent conception," said he, after a
pause ; " but it can never be introduced into my do
minions : it would make knowledge equal, and I should
faU. How can I govern my subjects, except by being
wiser than they ?" — Profound reflection, which con
tains the germ of all legislative control ! When
knowledge was confined to the cloister, the monks
were the most powerful part of the community ; gi-adu-
ally it extended to the nobles, and graduaUy the nobles
supplanted the priests : the shadow of the orb has
advanced — it is resting over the people — it is for you
who, for centuries, have drunk vigour from the beams
— it is for you to say if the light shall merely extend
to a more distant circle, or if it shall darken from your
own. It is only by diverting the bed of the, Mighty
River that your city can be taken, and your, kingdoni
can pass away !

176 RELIGION IN THE MIDDLE CLASSES.

CHAPTER n.
STATE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE MIDDLE CLASSES.
In the Middle Classes Religion is more taught, but not the Science
pf Morals — View of the Present State of King's College and the
London University.
A VERY few words will dismiss this part of my sub
ject. The middle classes, by Which I mean chiefly
shopkeepers and others engaged in trade, naturally
enjoy a more average and even education than either
those above or below them ; it continues a shorter
time than the education of the aristocracy — it embraces
fewer objects — its discipline is usually more strict :
it includes Latin, but not too much of it ; and arith
metic and caligraphy, merely nominal with the aris
tocratic teachers, are the main matters considered,
where the pupils are inteiided for trade. English
themes usually make a part of their education, instead
of Latin sapphics ; but as critical lectures do not en
lighten and elevate the lesson, the utmost acquired is
a style tolerably grammatic. Religion is more at
tended to ; and explanations of the Bible are some
times a weekly lesson. Different schools give, of
course, more or less into religious knowledge ; but,
generally speaking, all schools intended to form the
trader pay more attention to religion than those that
rear the gentleman. Religion may not be minutely
explained, but it is much that its spirit is attended to ;
and the pupil carries a reverence for it in the abstract
throughout life, even though, in the hurry of commer
cial pursuits, he may neglect its principles. Hence
the middle classes, with us, have a greater veneration,
than others for religion ; hence their disposition, often

PHILOSOPHY OF MORALS NEGLECTED. 177
erroneous, to charity, in their situation of overseers
and parochial officers ; hence the desire (weak in the
other classes), with them so strong, of keeping holy
the Sabbath-day ; hence their enthusiasm for diffusing
religious knowledge among the negroes ; hence their
easy proselytism to the stricter creeds of- Dissenting
Sects. But if the spuit of religion is more maintained in
their education, the science of morals, in its larger or
abstruser principles, is equally neglected. Moral
works, by which I mean the philosophy of morals,
make no part of their general instruction : they are
not taught, like the youth of Germany, to think — to
reflect — so that goodness may sink, as it were,- into
their minds and pervade their actions, as well as com
mand their vague respect. Hence they are often
narrow and insulated in their moral views, and fall
easily, in after-life, into their great characteristic
error, of considering appearances as the substance of
Virtues. »*, The great experiment of the day for the promotion of Educa
tion among the middle classes has been the foundation of the Lon
don University and King's College. The first is intended for all
reUgions, and therefore all religion is banished from it ! — a main
cause of the difficulties with which it has had to contend, and of the
jealousy with which it has been regarded. Its real capital was
158,882i. 10s., but this vast sum has not sufficed to set the Univer
sity clear from the most grievous embarrassment. In its February
report of this year, it gives a view of its financial state, by which it
calculates, that in October next there will be a total balance against it
of 3,71 51. The Council are charmed vrith every thing in the progress
of the Universitj' — except the finances ; they call on the proprietors
to advance a further sum, or else, they dryly declare, they may be
" under the necessity of giving notice that the Institution cannot
be re-opened upon ^s present footing." And what is the sum they
require ? — what sum will preserve the University ? — ^what sum will
establish this Great Fountain of Intelligence, in the heart of the
richest and vastest Metropohs in the world, and for the benefit of
the most respectable bodies of dissent in the Christian community ?
One addirional thousand a year ! — It is for this paltry pittance that
the Council are disquieted, and proprietors are appealed to. — See
now the want of a paternal and providing State ! In aiiy other
country, the Government would at once supply the deficiency.
King's College, with a more lordly and extensive patronage, is equally
mpumfiil, when it turns to the pounds and pence part of the pros
pect ; it has a necessity of completing " the Eiver Front ;" it calls
H3

178 LONDON UNIVERSITY
upon the proprietors for an additional loan of ten per cent., and for
their ir;fluence to obtain new subscriptions — the sum required i.s
about 8000/. As they demand it merely as a loan, and promise
speedy repayment, a State that watched over Education woifld be
no less serviceable to King's College than to the London University.
At botli these Universities the Medicine Class is the most nu
merous. At King's College the proportions are as follows (April,
1833) ;— Regular Students for the prescribed
Course of Education  109
Occasional ditto in various depart
ments of Science and Literature 196
305'
Medical' Department.
Regular Students for the whole
Course of Medical Education . 77
Occasional ditto in various branches
of Medical Science  233
310— Total 615.
I am informed, too, that of the general Lectures, those upon Chym-
istry are the most numerously attended.
At the London University, February, 1833, the proportions are in
favour of Medical Science.
Faculties of Arts and Law . . 148
Faculty of Medicine . . . . '283 431
The Medical Students have increased in number progressively ;
the other Students have decreased.
At the London University there is a just complaint of the indiffer
ence to that class of sciences, the knowledge of which is not profit
able to the possessor in a pecuniary point of view, but which exert
a great influence on the " well-being of society," viz. Moral Phi
losophy — Political Economy and Jurisprudence. " It was in order,"
say the Council, " to afford opportunities for the study of these
sciences, and to confer on this country the facihties given by
foreign universities, that this university was mainly founded and
supported. The advantage of these studies, being rather felt by
their gradual operation upon society, than by any speciflc .benefit to
the possessor, the taste for them must be crecMd, by pointing out the
nature of these advantages to the public and to the student : in other
words, the study must be produced by teaching them."
Tliis, sir, is in the spirit of your own incontrovertible argument
for endowments — viz. that the higher and less worldly studies must
be obtruded upon men — they will not seek them of themselves.
' This obtrusion ought not to be left to individuals — it is the proper
province of the State.
At King's College there is no professorship of Moral Philosophy ;
that study is held to be synonymous with Divinity. In my survey
of th* State of Morality, I think I shall be able clearly to prove, that

AND king's college. 179
no doctrine can be more miscliievous to accurate morals and to
uncorrupted religion.
To both these Universities schools arc attached, and these I
apprehend will prove much more immediately successful than the
Colleges. At the school attached to King's College, there are already (April,
1833) 319 pupils.
At that tielonging to the London University (February, 1833) 249,
Viz. at the latter a number about equal to the number of boys at
the ancient estabhshment of W^estminster.
At King's College School, the business of each day commenceg
with prayers and the reading of the Scriptures ; the ordinary educa
tional system ofthe great public schools is adopted.
At the London University School there is a great, though perhaps
a prudent, timidity hi trying new educational systems ; but there is
less learning by heart than at other schools, and the wise and common
result of all new systems, viz. the plan of a close and freqjient ques
tioning is carefully adopted.
At both schools (and this is a marked feature in their system)
there is strict abstinence from coqioreal punishment.
In both these Universities the Schools aifswer better than the
Collegos, and have immeasurably outstripped the latter in numeral
progression, because the majority of pupils are intended for commer
cial pursuits, and their education ceases at sixteen ; viz. the age at
which the instruction of the College commences. If this should
continue, and the progressing school supplant the decaying College,
the larger experiment in both Universities will have failed, and the
two Colleges be merely additional cheap schools ; pursuing the old
system, and speedily falhng into the old vices of tuition.
Be it observed, that the terms at neither of these Universities (or
rather at the schools attached to them, for Universities nowa
days can scarcely be intended for the poor, viz. the working poor)*
are low enough to admit the humble, and are, therefore, solely cal
culated to comprehend the children of the middling orders.

* The school tuition, at King's College, is for boys nominated
by a proprietor 15/. 15*. per annum. To boys not so nominated,
18/. lis. per annum. The school tuition for those at the London
Univer.sity is 15/. a year.

180 BENIRAL EDUCATION.

CHAPTER III.
POPULAR EDUCATION.
Governments require Strength in order to dispense with Violence —
State of our popular Education — Report on Lord Brougham's
Committee — "The Poor defrauded of some Schools — Ousted from
others — Ancient popular Education in England — How corrupted
—Progress made by Sunday and Lancasterian Schools — Bene
ficial Zeal of the. Clergy — Religion necessary to the Poor — A
greater Proportion of our People educated than is supposed ; but
how educated! — Evidence on this Subject — TheXilass-books in
the Schools at Saxe Weimar — Comparative Survey of popular
Education in Prussia, &c.
I SHALL not enter into any general proofs of the
advantage of general education ; 1 shall take that ad
vantage for granted. In my mind, the necessity of
instruction was settled by one aphorism centuries ago ;
" Vice we can leam of ourselves ; but virtue and wis
dom require a tutor."* If this principle be disputed,
the question yet rests upon another : " We are not
debating now whether or not the people shaU be
instructed — that has been determined long ago — but
whether they shall be well or ill taught."t
With these two sentences I shall rest this part of
my case, anxious to avoid aU superfluous exordium,
and to come at once to the pith and marrow of the
subject.^ * Seneca. f Lord Brougham.
} Persons who contend that individuals may not be the better for
Education, as an argument against general Instruction, forget that,
like Christianity and civilization, it is upon the wholesale character
of large masses, that it is its nature to act. Thus Livingston, the
American statesman, informs us, such success has attended the
Schools at Boston, " that though thqy have been in operation more
than ten years, and on an average more than 3000 have been educated
at them every year, rwt one of those educated there has been ever
committed for a crime. In New-York, a similar effect has been
observed. Of the thousands educated in the pubhc schools of that
city, taken generally from the poorest classes, but one, it has been

STRONG GOVERNMENT. 181
If ever, sir — a hope which I will not too sanguinely
form^if ever the people of this country shaU bo con
vinced that a go\ eniraent should be strong, not feeble
— that it should be a providing goveniment, and not a
yielding one — that it should foresee distant emer
gencies, and not remedy sudden evils (sudden ! a word
that ought not to exist for a great legislator — for no
thing in the slow development of events is sudden —
all incidents are tho efi'ects of causes, and the causes
should be regidated, not the efi'ects repaired) — if ever
we should establish, as our political creed, that a
STATE should never be taken by surprise, nor the minds
of its administrators be occupied in hasty shifts, in
temporary expedients, in the petty policies and bolster-
ings up and empirical alteratives of the hour ; if ever
we should learn to legislate afar off", and upon a great
system — preparing the Public Mind, and not obeying — ¦
masters of the vast machine, and not its tools ; if ever
that day should arrive, I apprehend that oue of the first
axioms we shall establish will be this : Whatever is
meant for the benefit of the people shall not be left to
chance operation, but shall be administered by the
guardians of the nation. Then, sir, we shall have
indeed, as Prussia and Holland already enjoy — as
France is about to possess — ^a national education.
Without incessant watchfulness — without one unsleep
ing eye for ever over Public Institutions — they become
like wastes and commons, open apparently to all, pro
ductive of benefit to none.
Never was this triith more clearly displayed than in
the state of our popular education. Behold our num
berless charities, sown throughout the land. — Where
asserted, has ever been committed, and that for a trifling offence." —
Livingston's Introductory Report to the Code of Prison Discipline for
Louisiana. Now, just as a curiosity, read the following account of
a certain people many years ago : *' At country-weddings, markets,
burials, and other the hke pubhc occasions, both men and women are
to be seen perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting to
gether." What people is it, thus described? — The Scotch! The
moral, sober, orderly Scotch people— such as they were-in the time
of Fletcher of Saltoun, whose words these are ! Is this a picture of
existing Scotland ? No ! Existing Scotland is educated !

1^3 THE POOR DEEItAUDED.
is their fruit? — What better meant, or what more
abused ? In no country has the education of the poor
been more largely endowed by individuals — it fails —
and why ? Because in no country has it been less
regarded by the government. Look at those volumi
nous Reports, the result of Lord Brougham's inquiry
into Charities, some thirteen years ago. What a pro
fusion of endowments ! What a mass of iniquities !
Let me once more evoke from the ill-merited oblivion
into which it hath fallen, the desolate and spectral
instance of Pocklington School ! Instance inuch can
vassed, but never controverted ! This school is largely
endowed ; it has passed into decay ; its master pos
sessed an income of 9001. a year ! How many boys
do you think were taught upon that stipend 1 — One !
positively one ! Where is the school itself? — The
school, sir ! it is a saw-pit ! Where is the school
master ? — Lord bless you, sir, he is hiding himself
from his creditors ! Good heavens ! and is there no
one to see to these crying abuses ? — To be sure, sir,
the Visiters of the school are the Master and Fellows
of St. John's, Cambridge.* Now then, just take a
drive to Berkhamstead ; that school is very richly
endowed ; the schoolmaster teaches one pupil, and
the usher resides in Hampshire !
These are but two out of a mass of facts that prove
how idle are endowments where the nation does not
appoint one general system of vigilant .'surveillance —
how easily they are abused — with what lubricity they
glide from neglect into decay !
But if the poor have been thus cheated of one class
of schools, they have been ousted from another. Our
* It seems, however, by a letter (imputed to Dr. Ireland, Vicar of
Croydon) to Sir William Scott, that the omission of the worthy
Master and Fellows of St. John's in exercisuig their visitorial pow
ers originated in the uncertainty of their right rather than any
neglect of duty. But uncertainty of a right, where such revenues,
such public benefits were concerned ! Can there he a greater evi
dence of abuse ? What long neglect must have produced that un
certainty 1 Is not this a proof that educational endowments cannot
be left to the inspection of distant visiters, however respectable aud
honest ae indiviauak?

SCHOOLS FORMERLY. 183
ancestors founded certain great schools (that now rear
the nobles, the gentry, and the merchants) for the
benefit of the poor. The Chai'ter-house — Winchester
— King's College, were all founded " pro pauperes et
mdigcntes scholares," for poor and indigent scholars.
In 1562, 141 sons of the iidiabitants of Shrewsbury
were at that ancient school, 125 of whom were below
the ranks of squires or bailifi's. From the neighbour
ing district there came 148 boys, of whom 123 were
below the rank of squires, so that out of 2S9 boys, 248
tcere of the loivcr or middle class ¦' Our age has no
conception of the manner in which education spread
and wavered ; now advancing, now receding, among
the people of the former age. And, reverently be it
said, the novels of Scott have helped to foster the most
erroneous notions ofthe ignorance of our ancestors —
a tolerable antiquarian in ballads, the great author was
a most incon-ect one in fact.* At that crisis of our
history, a crisis, indeed, of the history of Europe,
which never yet has been profoundly analyzed, — I mean
the reign of Richard II., — the nobles wished to enact a
law to repress the desire of luiowledge that had begun
to diffuse itself throughout the lower orders. The
statute of Henry VIII. prohibits reading the Bible pri
vately — to whom ? To lords and squires ? — No ! — to
husbandmen and labourers, artificers or servants of
yeomen. A law that could scarcely have occurred to
the legislators of the day, if husbandmen, labourers,
artificers, or servants of yeomen had been unable to
read at all ! The common investigator ponders over
the history of our great Church Reform ; he marvels
at the readiness, of the people to assist the king in the
destruction of those charitable superstitions ; he is
amazed at the power of the king — at the rapidity of
the revolution. He does not see how little it was the
I * " Equally distinguished," said Lord Sahsbury of Sir Walter
Scott, at a meeting at the Mansion-house in aid of the Abbotsford
subscription — " equally distinguished as a poet, an historian, and an
antiquarian." — That was not saying much for him as a poet ! Gqd
defend our great men in future fiom the panegyrics of a marquis !

184 SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.
work of the king, and how much the work of the peo
ple ; he does not see that the growth of popular edu
cation had as much to do with that Reform as the will
of the grasping Tudor. Let me whisper to him a fact :
within thirty years prior to that Reformation, more
grammar-schools had been established than had been
known for 200 years before ! Who, ignorant of that
fact, shall profess to instruct us in the history of that
day ? • The blaze is in Reform, but the train was laid
in Education. " As the nobles grew less warlike, they
felt more the necessity of intelligence for themselves,*
the court of the schoolmaster replaced that of the
baron ; their sons went to the schools originally in
tended for the humbler classes, the gentry followed
their example, and as the school was fed from a dis
tance, the abashed and humiliated pupils of the town
diminished. Another proof how Custom weans insti
tutions from their original purpose ; how, if. left to
the mercy of eveiits, the rich, by a necessaiy law of
social nature, encroach upon the poor ; hov/ neces
sary it is for the education of the people, that a govern
ment should watch over its endowments, and compel
their adherence to their original object.
A great progress in popular education was made
fifty years ago, by the establishment of Sunday-
schools, and the efforts of the benevolent Raikes, of
Gloucestershire ; a still greater by the Bell and Lan
caster Systems in 1797 and 1798. The last gave an
im.petus to education throughout tho country. And
here, sir, let us do justice to the clergy of our estab
lished church. No men have been more honourably
zealous in their endeavours to educate the poor.
They have not, perhaps, been sufliciently eager to
enlighten the poor man; but they have cheerfully
subscribed to educate the poor hoy. I find them sup-
* Latimer complains with great bitterness, " that there are none
now but great men^s sons at college ;" and that " the devil hath got
himself to the University, and causeth gi-eat mon and esquires to
eetid their sons thither, and put out pooir scholars that should ba
divines,"

ZEAL OP THE CLERGY. 185
porters of the Sunday and Infant Schools, of the
School Societies, &c. ; but I never see them the en
couragers of Mechanics' Institutes, nor the petitioners
against the Taxes upon lOiowledge. Why is this ?
the object in both is the same. Education closes not
with the boy, — education is the work of a life. Let
us, however, be slow to blame them ; it may be that,
accused by indiscriminate champions of knowledge,
they have not considered the natural efi'ects of the
diffusion of knowledge itself They may imagine,
that knowledge, unless chained solely to religious in
struction, is hostile to religion. But for the poor, reli
gion must be always ; they want its consolations ; they
solace themselves witli its balm. Revelation is their
MiUeimium, — their great Emancipation. Thus in
America,* knowledge is the most diffused, and religion
is the most fondly and enthusiastically beloved. There
you may often complain of its excess, but rarely of
its absence. To America I add the instances of Hol
land, of Germany, and of Scotland.
I take pleasure in rendering due homage to the zeal
of our country's clergy. One-third part of all the
children educated in England are educated under their
care ; and in vindicating them, let us vindicate, from
a vulgar and ignorant aspersion, a great truth : the
Cliristian clergy throughout the world have been the
* In an oration delivered at Philadelphia by Mr. Ingersoll, in 1832,
the foUowing fine passage occurs. Speaking of the religious spirit
so rife throughout the States^ the orator insists on rehgion as a
necessary result of popular power. " Even Robespierre," saith he,
" in his remarkable discourse on the restoration of pubhc worship,
denounced atheism as inconsistent with equality, and a crime of the
aristocracy ; and asserted the existence of a Supreme Being, \yha
protects the poor and rewards the just, as a popular consolation,
without which the people would despair. ' // there were no God,'
said he, ' we should be obliged to invent one.' This fine sentiment be
speaks truly the sympathies of republican governments with that
faith which the Author of Christianity brought into the world ; lay-.
ing its foundations on the comer-stones of equality, peace, good--
wlU, — it would contradict all philosophy if this country were irreligious.''
But Mr. Ingersoll errs in attributing that noble sentiment to KobeEt-
pierre — it is a quotation from Voltaire ; the thought runs thus, and
IS perhaps thefmest Voltaire ever put into words : " Si Dieun'ejdel*
oil pas ij faudioit I'inventer."

186 MANNER OF INSTRUCTION.
great aovancers and apostles of education. And even
in the darker ages, when priestcraft was to be over
thrown, it received its first assaults from the courage
ous enlightenment of priests.
A far greater proportion of the English- population
are now sent to school than is usually supposed, and
currently stated. I see before me at this moment a
statistical work, which declares the proportion to be
only one in seventeen for England, one in tweijty for
Wales. What is the fact? Why, that our population
for England and Wales amounts nearly to fourteen
miUions, and that the number of children receiving
elementary education in 1828 are, by the returns,
1,500,000. An additional 500,000 being supposed,
not without reason, to be educated at independent
schools, not calculated in the return. Thus, out of a
population of fourteen millions, we have no less than
two millions of children receiving elementary educa
tion at schools.
In the number of schools and of pupils, our ac
count, on the whole, is extremely satisfactory. Where
then do we fail ? Not in the schools, but in the in
struction that is given there : a great proportion of
the poorer children attend only the Sunday-schools,
and the education of once a week is not very valuable ;
but generally throughout the primary schools, nothing
is taught but a little sjJWling, a very little reading,
still less writing, the Catechism, the Lord's Prayer,
and an unexplained, imelucidated chapter or two in
the Bible ; add to these the nasal masteiy of a hymn,
and an ii'ndecided conquest over the rule of Addition,
and you behold a veiy finished education for the poor.
The schoolmaster and the schoolmistress, in these
academies, know little themselves beyond the bald
and meager knowledge that they teach ; and arc much
more fit to go to school than to give instnictions.
Now the object of education is to make a reflective,
moral, prudent, loyal, and healthy people. A little
reading and writing of themselves contribute very
doubtfully to that end. Look to Ireland: does not

SAXE-WEIMAR SCHOOL CLASS-BOOKS. 187
the Archbishop of Cashel tell us, that a greater pro
portion of the peasantry in Ireland, yes, oven in Tip
perary, can read and write, than can be found'amid a
similar amount of population in England. 1 have
been favoured with some unpublished portions of the
recent evidence on the Poor-laws. Just hear what
Mr. Hickson, a most intelligent witness, says on this
head :
Query. " Are you of opinion that an efiicient system
of National Education would materially improve the
condition of the labouring classes ?"
Answer. " Undoubtedly ; but 1 must beg leave to
observe, that something more than the mere teaching
to read and write is necessary for the poorer classes.
Where books and newspapers* are inaccessible, the
knowledge of the art of reading avails nothing; I
have met with adults who, after having been taught to
read and write when young, have almost entirely for
gotten those arts for want of opportunities to exercise
them." "At the Sunday-schools," observes Mr. Hickson,
afterward, " of most Dissenters, nothing is taught
generally — I except rare instances — but reading the
Bible and repeating hymns."
While we have so many schools organized, and
while so little is taught there, just let me lead your
attention to the four common class-books taught at all
the popular schools of Saxe Weimar.
The first class-book is destined for the youngest
* I am happy to find in this witness a practical evidence of the
advantage'of repeaUng the stamp duty on newspapers ; an object
whioh I have so zealously laboured to effect. " I believe," says he,
in his answer to the commissioners, " that the Penny Magazines
win work usefuUy, but cheap newspapers would do much more
good. I have found it difBcult to create an interest in the mind of
an ignorant man on matters of mere general Uterature ; but his
attention is easily enUsted by a narrative of the stirring events of
the day, or local inteUigence  The deamess of newspapers in
this country is an insurmountable obstacle to the education of the
poor. I could name twenty villages within a circuit of a few miles,
in which a newspaper is never seen from one year's ead to the other."
•—Evidence of Mr. Hickson (unpubUshed).

188 CLASS-BOOKS.
children ; it contains, in regvflar gradations, the alpha
bet, the composition of syllables, pimctuation, ele
mentary formation of language, slight stories, sen
tences or proverbs of one verse upwards, divers
selections, sketches, &c. "The sentences," says
Mr. Cousin, " struck me particularly ; they con
tain, in the most agreeable shapes, the most valuable
lessons, which the author classes under systematic
titles, — such as our duties to ourselves, our duties to
men, our duties to God ; and the knowledge of His
divine attributes, — so that in the germ of Literature,
the infant receives also the germ of Morals, and of
Religion !"
The second book, for the use of children from eight
to ten, is not only composed of amusing sketches, —
the author touches upon matters of general utility.
He proceeds on the just idea that the knowledge of
the faculties of the soul ought a little to precede the
more profound explanations of religion : under the
head of dialogue between a father and his children,
the book treats, first, of man and his physical qualities ;
secondly, of the nature of the soul and of its facul
ties, with some notions of our powers of progressive
improvement and our heritage of immortality ; and,
thirdly, it contains the earliest and simplest elements
of natural history, botany, mineralogy, &c.
The third work contains two parts, each divided
into two chapters : the first part is an examination of
man as arational animal, — it resolves these questions :
What am I ? What am I able to do ? What ought I
to do ? It teaches the distinction between men and
brutes ; instinct and reason ; it endeavours to render
the great moral foundations of truth clear and simple
by familiar images and the most intelligible terms.
As the first chapter of this portion exercises the
more refiective faculties, so the second does not neg
lect the more acute, and comprises songs, enigmas,
fables, aphorisms, &c.
The second part of tho third work contains, first,
the elements of natural history in aU its subdivisions ;

SCHOOLS OF PRUSSIA. 189
notions of geography ; of the 'natural .rights of man ;
of his civil rights ; with some lessons of general his
tory. An Appendix comprises the geography and
especial histoiy of Saxe AVeimar. The fourth book,
not adapted solely for Saxe Weimar, is in gi'eat re
quest throughout all Germany ; it addresses itself to
the more advanced pupils ; it resembles a little the
work last described, but is more extensive on some
points ; it is equally various, but it treats in especial
more minutely on the rights and diitier of subjects ; it
proceeds to conduct the boy, already made rational as
a being, to his duties as a citizen. Such are the fou't
class-books in the popular schools of Saxe Weimar ;
such are the foundation of that united, intellectual,
and lofty spirit which marks the subjects of that prin
cipality.* Pardon me if I detain you, sir, somewhat longer on
the important comparison of England with other
states. Pardon me if, from the petty duchy of Saxe
Weimar, which to the captious may seem so easy to
regulate, I turn to the kingdom of Prussia, containing
a population almost similar to our own ; and, like our
own, also broken up into a variety of religious sects.
There, universal education is made a necessary, per
vading, paramount principle of the state. Let us see
what is there taught at the popular schools, estab
lished in every district, town, and village throughout
the kingdom.
The Prussian law, established in 1819, distinguishes
two degrees in popular education, — les ecoles elemcn-
taires, et les ecoles bourgeoises.
What is the object of these two schools — the law
thus nobly explains : " To develop the faculties of the
soul, the reason, the senses, and the physical frame.
* I know-nothing we more want in this country than good class-
books for the use of popular schools ; books that shall exercise the
judgment and teach children to reflect. Such works should be
written by a person of philosophical mind, practised in education,
and linked to no exclusive system, — ^the curse of knowledge in this
country,

190 SCHOOLS OF PllUSSIA.
It shaU embrace religion and morals, the knowledge
of size and numbers, of nature and of man, the exer
cises of the body, vocal music, drawing, and writing."
" Every elementar/ school includes necessarUy the
following objects :
" Religious instruction for the formation of Morality,
according to the positive truths of Christianity
" The Language of the Country.
" The Elements of Geometry^ and the general prin
ciples of Drawing.
" Practical Arithmetic.
" The elements of Physical PhUosophy, of Geogi-a-
phy, of general History ; but especially of the histoiy
of the pupil's own country. These branches of luiow
ledge (to be sparingly and dryly taught ? No ! the
law adds) to be taught and retaught as often as possi
ble, by the opportunities afforded in learning to read
and write, independently of the particular and special
lessons given upon those subjects.
" The Art of Song — to develop'the voice of children
— to elevate their minds — to improve and ennoble both
popular and sacred melodies.
" Writing, and the gymnastic exercises, which fortify
all our senses, especially that of sight.
" The more simple of the manual arts, and some
instructions upon agricultural labour."
Such- is the programme of the education of ele
mentary schools in Prussia ; an education that exer
cises the reason, enlightens the morals, fortifies the
body, and founds the disposition to labour and inde
pendence . Compare with that programme our Sunday-
schools, our dame-schools, all our thrifty and meager
reservoirs of miserly education ! But what, sir, you
will admire in the Prussian system is not the laws of
education only, but the spirit that framed and pervades
the laws — the full appreciation of the dignity and ob
jects of men — ofthe duties of citizens — of the powers,
and equality, and inheritance of the human soul. And
yet in that country the people are said to be less free

POPULAR EDUCATION IN PRUSSU. 191
than in oius 1 — how immeasurably more the people are
regarded! At the more advanced school — {VEcolo Bourgeoise)
— are taught,
" Religion and Morals.
" The National tongue ; Reading, Composition, ex
ercises of style and of the invention ; the study of the
National Classics.
" liatin is taught to all children, under certain lim
itation, in order to exercise their understanding ;*
even whether or not they are destined to advance to
the higher schools, or to proceed at once to their pro
fessions or trades.
" The Elements of Mathematics, and an accurate
and searching study of practical Arithmetic.
" Physical Philosophy, so far as the more important
phenomena of Nature are concerned.
" Geography and Histoiy combined ; so as tO give
the pupil a knowledge of the divisions of the Earth,
and the History of. the world. Prussia, its History,
Laws, Constitution, shaU be the object of especial
study. " The principles of Drawing, at all occasions.
" Writing, Singing, and Gymnastic Exercises."
This is the education given by Prussia to all her
children. Observe, here is no theory — no programme
of untried experiments : this is the actual education,
actually given, and actually received. It is computed
that thirteen out of fifteen children from the age of
seven to that of fourteen are at the public schools ; the
remaining two are probably at the private schools, or
educated at home ; so that the whole are educated —
and thus educated ! Observe, this is no small and
petty state easily managed and controlled — it is a

* This is the great object of other studies, that may seem at first
superfluous ; such as the elements of geography or mathematics. It
is not for themselves that they are useful — it is for the manner in
which they task and exercise the faculties ; the knowledge, com
paratively speakmg, is notliing — the process oi acquiring it is eveiy
thing.

192 POPULAR EDUCATION IN PRUSSU,
country that spreads over large tracks — various tribes
— different languages — multiform religions : the en
ergy of good government has conquered all these diffi
culties. Observe, the account I give is taken from no
old — no doubtful — no incompetent authority : it is from
the work just published — not of a native, but a foreigner;
not of a credulous tourist — not of a shallow book
maker, but of an eyewitness-- of an investigator ; of
a man accustomed to observe, to reflect, to educate
others ; in a word — of one of the profoundest and most
eminent men in France — of a counsellor of state — of
a professor of philosophy — of a Member of the Royal
Council of Public Instruction — of a man who brings
to examination the acutest sagacity — who pledges to
its accuracy the authority of the highest, name — it is
the report of Victor Cousin !, He undertakes the in
vestigation — he publishes the account — at the request
of a French minister, and to assist in the formation of
a similar system in France. I have introduced some
part of his evidence, for the first time, to the notice of
English readers, that they may know what can be done
by seeing what is done — that they may resent and
arouse the languor of their own government by a com
parison with the vivifying energy of government else
where. I know that in so doing I have already kindled
a spark that shall not die. In the phrase of Cousin
himself, with the exception of one word, " It is of
Prussia that I write, but it is of England that I think !"
As this subject is of immense importance, but some
what dry, perhaps, for the ordinary reader, I have
pursued it further in detail, and those interested in the
question will find in the Appendix (A) the result of
my observations. I have therein suggested the out
line of a practical system of Universal Education — ^I
have advocated the necessity of making religion a vital
component of instruction-^I have shown in what man
ner (by adopting, the wise example of Prussia) we can
obviate the obstacles of hostile sects, and unite them
in a plan of education which shall comprehend religion,
yet respect all religious differences. In giving the

SYSTEjr or EDUCATION SHOULD EE T:iill,\L. 193
heads of a national etlucation, 1 have sho\\'n also in
what manner tho expenses may be defrayed.
Before I conclude, 1 must make one reflection.
Avhatever education be established, the peace and
tranquillity of social order require that in its main
principles it should be tolerably equal, and (hat it should
penetrate everyivhere. We may observe (and this is
a most important and startling truth) that nearly all
social excesses arise, not from intelligence, but from
inequalities of intelligence. When Civilization makes
her efforts by starts and convulsions, her progress may
be great, but it is marked by terror and disaster ;
when some men possess a far better education than
others of the same rank, the first are necessarily im
pelled to an unquiet Ambition, and the last easily
misled into becoming its instruments and tools : then
vagTie discontents and dangerous rivalries prevail —
then is the moment when demagogues are dangerous,
and visionaries have power. Such is the Spirit of
Revolutions, in which mankind only pass to wisdom
through a terrible interval of disorder. But where In
telligence is equalized — and flows harmonious and
harmonizing throughout all society — then one man can
possess no blinding and dangerous power over the
mind of another — then demagogues are harmless and
theories safe. It is' this equality of knowledge, pro
ducing unity of feeling, which, if we look around,
characterizes whatever nations seem to us the most
safe in the present ferment of the world — no matter
what their more material form of constitution — whether
absolute Monarchy or unqualified Republicanism. If
you see safety, patriotism, and order in the loud
democracy of America, you behold it equally in the
despotism of Denmark, and in the subordination of
Prussia. Denmark has even refused a free constitu
tion, because in the freedom of a common knowledge
she hath found content. It is with the streams that
refresh and vivify the Moral World as with those in
the Material Earth— <Aey tend and struggle to their
level ! Interrupt or tamper with this gi-eat law, and
Y0L.I.-I

194 NATIONAL CHARACTERS;
city and cottage, tower and temple, may be swept
away. Preserve unchecked its vast but simple opera
tion, and the waters wiU glide on in fertilizing and
majestic serenity, to the illimitable ocean of Human
Perfectibility.

CHAPTER IV.
VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION.
National Character evinced in the varying Modes of Christianity—
Rehgion must not be separated from the Emotions, and made solely
a matter of Reason — A Semi-liberaUsm common to every Noblesse
— Its debasing Eifects — Coldness in the Pulpit — Its Cause — The
Influence of the Higher Classes on Religion — Church Patronage
— Description of Country Clergymen — Evidence of the Bishop of
London upon New Churches — Another (a Pohtical) Cause of
Weakness ui the Established Church — But the Established
Church should (if reformed) be preserved — Reasons in favour of
it — But if a State Religion, it should become more a Portion of
the State.
It is an acute, though fanciful, observation of Gib
bon's, that " in the profession of Christianity, the va
riety of national characters may be clearly distin
guished. The natives of Syria and Egypt abandoned
their lives to lazy and contemplative devotion : Rome
again aspired to the dominion of the world ; and the
wit of the lively and loquacious Greeks was consumed
in the disputes of metaphysical theology." If we
apply the notion to existing times, we may suppose
also that we trace in the religion of the Germans their
contemplative repose, and household tenderness of
sentiment ; in that of the Americans, their impatience
of control, and passion 'for novel speculations ; that
the vain and warlike French stamp on their rites their
passion for the solemnities of show, and the gTaces of
stage effect ; while the commercial and decorous in
habitants of England manifest, in their rehgion, theii

RELIGION AND REASON. 195
attacluneut to the decency of forms, and the respect
ability of appearances. Assuredly, at least among
us, the outward and visible sign is esteemed the best,
perhaps the only, token of the inward and spiritual
grace. We extend the speculations of this world
to our faith in another, and give credit to our neigh
bour in proportion to his external respectabilities.
There is, sir, in this country, and in this age, a certain
spirit of rationalism, the result of that material philoso
phy which I shall hereafter contend we have too blindly
worshipped ; a certain desire to be logical in all things ;
to define the illimitable, and demonstrate the unde-
monstrable, that is at variance with the glowing and
ardent devotion which Religion, demanding eternal
sacrifice of self-interests and human passions, must
appear to a larger wisdom necessarily to demand. A
light and depreciating habit of wit taught the people
of France the desire of moderating belief by reason,
till with them belief, deprived of its very essence, has
almost ceased to exist at all. In England, that sober-
izing love of what is termed common sense, that com
mercial aversion from the Poetical and Imaginative,
save in the fictitious alone, which characterizes this
nation, tends greatly to the same result. The one
people would make religion the subject of wit ; the
other, more reverent, but not more wise, would reduce
it to a matter of business. But, if we profess religion
at all, if we once convince ourselves of its nobler and
more exalting uses, of its powers to elevate the vir
tues, as well as to check the crimes, of our kind, we
must be careful how we tear it from the support ofthe
emotions, and divorce from its allegiance the empire
of the heart.
To comprehend the effects, to sustain the penalties,
to be imbued with the ardour of religion, we must call
up far more trustful and enterprising faculties than
reason alone ; we must enlist in its cause all the sen
timent and all the poetry of our natiire. To the great
work of God we must apply the same order of criti
cism we apply to the masterpieces of men. We do
12 '

196 RELIGION AND REASON.
not examine the designs of RaffaeUe, or the soaring
genius of MUton, with mathematical analogies. We
do not eternally ask, with the small intellect of the
logician, " What do they prove ?" We endeavour to
scan them by the same imagining powers from which
they themselves were wrought. We imbue our no
tions with the grandeur of what we survey, and we
derive from, not bring to, that examination alone, the
large faith of that ideal and immaterial philosophy
which we reject alone when we examine what still
more demand its exercise — the works of God.
Ambition — Glor}' — Love — exercise so vast an influ
ence over the affairs of earth, because they do not
rest upon the calculations of reason alone ; because
they are supported by all that constitutes the Ideal of
Life, and drink their youth and vigour from the in
spiring Fountains of the Heart. If Religion is to be
equally powerful in its effects — if it is to be a fair
competitor with more worldly rivals — if its office is
indeed to combat and counterbalance the Titan pas
sions which, for ever touching earth, for ever take from
earth new and gigantic life — if it is to
Allure to brighter worlds, and lead the way, —
it must call around itself all the powers we can raise ;
to defeat the passions, the passions must feed it ; it
can be no lukewarm and dormant principle, hedged jn
and crippled by that reason which, in our actions, fet
ters nothing else. It has nothing to do with rational
ism ; it must be a sentiment, an emotion, for ever
present with us — pervading, colouring, and exalting
all. Sensible of this, the elder propagators of all
creeds endeavour to connect them, equally as love and
glory, with the poetry of life. Religion wanes from a
nation as poetry vanishes from Religion. The creeds
of states, like their constitutions, to renew their youth,
must return to their first principles. It is necessary
for us at this time to consider deeply on these truths ;
for many among us, most anxious, perhaps, to preserve

SEMI-LIBERALISM OF ARISTOCRACIES. 197
religion, are for ever attempting to attenuate its pow
ers. Rationality and Religion are as much contradic
tions in terms as Rationality and Love. Religion is
but love ^^'ith a sacred name, and for a sacred object
— it is the love of God. Philosophy has no middle
choice ; it can decide only between skepticism and
ardent faith.
There is a sort of semi-liberalism, common to the
aristocracies of all nations, and remarkable in the
AVhig portion of the aristocracy in this, which is fa
vourable neither to pure religion nor to high morality ;
it is the result of a confined knowledge of the world,
the knowledge of circles and coteries. Men who run
a course of indolence and pleasure acquire, in the ca
reer, an experience of the smaller and move debasing
motives of their kind : they apply that experience uni
versally. They imagine that all professions are hol
low, from their conviction of the hypocrisies common
with the great. With them, indeed, virtue is but a
name ; they believe, in sober earnest, the truth of
Fielding's ironical definitions :
" Patriot — A candidate for place.
" Politics — The art of getting one.
" Knowledge — Itnowledge of the Town.
" Love — A word properly applied to our delight in
particular kinds of food ; sometimes meta
phorically spoken of the favourite objects
of our appetites.
" V C ^'^^jects of discourse.
" Worth — Power, rank, wealth.
" Wisdom — The art of acquiring all three."*
This code they propagate through the means of the
infiuence which we call Fashion ; and morality be
comes undermined by a disbelief in its existence.
Mignet has observed profoundly, that " in revolutions a
man soon becomes what he is believed." In ordinary
Jimes, a whole people may become what they are
* Covent Garden Journal, No. 3,

198 WANT OF ELOQUENCE
constantly asserted to be. The Romans preserved a
species of rtide and gigantic virtue, so long as they
were told it was natural to Romans. The patrician
roues preceding Caesar's time set the fashion of as
serting the corruptibility of all men, till what was de
clared to be common ceased to be a disgrace.
When we once ridicule the high and the generous,
the effect extends to our legislation and our religion.
In Parliament, the tone is boiTowed from the profli
gates of a club. Few venture ever to address the
nobler opinions, or appeal to the purer sentiments ;
and the favourite cast of oratory settles into attacks
upon persons, and insinuations against the purity of
parties. A fellow-member of the present House of Com
mons, — a man of great luiowledge, and imbued with all
the high philosophy we acquire in our closets, from
deep meditation over settled principles, and a convic
tion that law-making ought to be the science of hap
piness, — expressed to me very eloquently the disgust
ful surprise with which he found that the great char
acteristic of that assembly was the constant appeal to
the lowest passions, and the incredulous ridicule that
attached to all who professed the higher ones. It is
not so with other popular assemblies ; but it is so with
the members of the National one : meeting every
morning at clubs, and knowing intimately the motives
of each other — they catch the sort of cleverness that
characterized the friends of the Regent Orleans — a
cleverness that depreciates and suspects — they write
upon their mind the motto, " No cant !" and what they
do not comprehend they believe to be insincere, — as
if there were a species of honesty which consisted in
denying honesty itself !
This habit of mind vulgarizes the tone of eloquence,
and we may trace its effect from the senate to the pulpit.
Aleve for decencies, and decencies alone — a conclusion
that all is vice which dispenses with them, and all hy
pocrisy which would step beyond them — damps the zeal
of the established clergy : it is something disreputable

IN THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 199
to be too eloquent ; the aristocratic world does not like
either clergjrmen or women to make too much noise.
A very popular preacher, who should, in the pulpit, be
carried away by his fervour for the souls of his flock,
who shoidd use an extemporaneous figure of speech,
or too vehement a gesticulation, would be considered
as betraying the dignity of his profession. — Bossuet
would have lost his character with us, and St. Paul
have run the danger of being laughed at as a momite-
bank. Walk into that sacred and well-filled edifice, — it is
a fashionable church : you observe how well cleaned
and well painted it is ; how fresh the brass nails and
the red-cloth seem in the gentlefolks' pews ; how re
spectable the clerk looks — the curate, too, is consid
ered a very gentlemanlike young man. — The rector is
going to begin the sermon : he is a very learned man,
people say he will be a bishop one of these days, for
he edited a Greek play, and was private tutor to Lord
Glitter. — Now observe him — his voice, how monoto
nous ! — his manner, how cold !— his face how com
posed ! yet what are his words — " Fly the wrath that
is to come. — Think, of your immortal souls. Re
member, oh, remember ! how terrible is the responsi
bility of life ! — how strict the account ! — how sud
denly it may be demanded !" Are these his words ?
they are certainly of passionate import, and they are
doled forth in the tone of a lazy man saying, " John,
how long is it to dinner ?" Why, if the calmest man
in the world were to ask a gamekeeper not to shoot
his favourite dog, he would speak with a thousand times
more energy ; and yet this preacher is endeavouring
to save the souls of a whole parish — of all his ac
quaintance — all his friends — all his relations — his wife
(the lady in the purple bonnet, whose sins no man
doubtless knows better) and his six children, whose
immortal welfare must be still dearer to him than their
temporal advancement; and. yet what a wonderful
command over his emotions ! I never saw a man so
cool in my Ufe ) " But, my dear sir," says the fash-

200 WANT OF ELOQUENCE.
ionable purist, " that coolness is decorum ; it is the
proper characteristic of a clergyman of the Established
Church." Alas ! Dr. Young did not think so, when finding he
could not impress his audience sufficiently, he stopped
short, and burst into tears.
Sir, Dr. Young was a great poet; but he was very
well known not to be entirely orthodox.
This singular coldness — this absence of eloquence,
almost of the appearance of human sympathy, which
characterize the addresses of the Established Church,
are the result of the Aristocratic Influences, which,
setting up Ridicule as the criminal code, produce what
is termed good taste as the rale of conduct. The
members of the Aristocracy naturally give the tone to
the members of the Established Church, and thus the
regard for the conventional quiet of good-breeding
destroys the enthusiasm that should belong to the
Preacher of Religion. A certain bishop, a prelate of
remarkable sense and power of mind, is so sensible
of the evils that may result to religion itself from this
almost ludicrous lukewarmness of manner in its pas
tor, that he is actually accustomed to send such young
clergymen as he is acquainted with to take lessons in
delivery from Mr. Jones, the celebrated actor, in order
that they may learn to be warm and study to be in
earnest. The critical axiom " to make me feel, you must
seem yourself to feel," is as applicable to the pulpit
as to the rostrum — to the sermon as the drama.
The eloquent Channing has insisted forcibly upon
this point. He proposes, even in his discourse on
'¦'¦Increasing the Means of Theological Education," a
professorship that shall embrace for its object sacred
eloquence and instruction in pastoral duty. " It should
be designed," saith he, "to instruct candidates for the
ministiy in the composition and delivery of sermons,
and in the best methods of impressing the human
mind, and to awaken an enlightened zeal and ardour
in the performance of all the offices of ministerial

CHURCH PATRONAClE. 201
life. What serious and reflective man is not often
reminded on the Sabbath, of the painful (ruth, that
some institution is needed to train our ministers for the
impressive and effectual discharge of their duty."
It often happens, when we compare the largeness
of the living with the apathy of the preacher, that we
cannot but exclaim with the Prince of Conti, " Alas !
our good God is but very iU seiTed for his money."
The influence of the higher classes upon religion is
frequently pernicious in this — the livings of the Church
are chiefly the property of the Aristocracy ; and the
patron of a benefice, naturally and pardonably perhaps,
bestows it in general on his own relations or intimate
acquaintances. Thus the preaching of salvation
reaUy becomes a family ofiice, and the wildest rakes of
a college are often especiaUy devoted to the heredi
tary cme of souls. Any one who has received a uni
versity education knows well how common it is to see
among the noisiest and wildest students (student a non-
studendo) the futiue possessor of the most tempting spe
cimens of preferment. Let me be just, however, and
confess that the consequences are not so flagrantly
bad as they would seem to a mere theoretical observer
— the rake once made a clergyman usually alters pro
digiously in external seeming — you see very few cler
gymen in the English Church of known licentious
habits, or notoriously prone to excesses. The deco-
ram which numbs the generous fervour of virtue re
strains the irregular tendencies to vice — the moral air
chills and controls the young pastor suddenly trans
planted to it, and he puts on with his snowy surplico
a correspondent external of decent life. But though
the neophyte ceases to be a bad man, I doubt exceed
ingly if he can be said to become a good one.* He
*• Burnet observes, that "in his time, our clergy had less author
ity, and were under more contempt, than those of any other church
in Europe, for they were much the most remiss in their labours, and-
the least severe m their hves — it was nxtt that their lives were scandal
ous ; he entirely acquitted them of any such imputation, but they were not
as exemplary as it became them to be." — Southey's Wesley, p. 324.
13

202 WANT OF SYMPATHY.
enters into the common moralities of social existence ;
visits, feasts, plays a rubber, and reads the John Ball,
according to the appointed orbit of hebdomadary pur
suits. But where that continued self-sacrifice — where
that exalted charity — where that intimate familiarity
with the poor — ^that unwearied exertion for their com
fort, their education, their improvement — that house
hold sympathy with their wants — that tender control
over their conduct, which Goldsmith might paint, but
which Oberlin practised 1 — you find these virtues in
many of our clergy, but not in that class to which I
now refer. There is a wide chasm between the flock
and the shepherd — the orbit of the preacher may be
regular, but it throws little light or warmth upon the
habitations of the poor.
It will be easily seen that this separation between
the clergyman and the humbler portion of his charge,
and which is so peculiar to England, is the result of
the same influence, visible thiKiughout the whole work
ings of the social system. The aristocratic doctrine
Mr. Southey Jiimself allows the cause for the past complaint,
though he would start fi-om conceding it in the present, viz, that
the ecclesiastics, owing to individual lay patronage, are not enough
taken from the people, and too Aiuch from the gentry. Just observe
the truth and logical soundness of the foUowing passage : — " Under
the. Reformed as well as under the Romish establishment, the cleri
cal profession offered an easy and honourable provision for the
younger sons of the gentry ; but the Church of Rome had provided
stations for them, where, if they were not qualified for active service,
their sins of omission would be of a very tri-rial kind. The Monas
teries had always a large proportion of such persons — they went
through the ceremonies of their respective rules, &c. — ^their lack of
ability or learning brought ho- disgrace to themselves, for they
were not in a situation where either was required, and their ineffi
ciency was not injurious to the great estabhshment, of which, though
an inert, they were in nowise an inconvenient body. But when such
persons, instead of entering the convents which their ancestors had
endowed, were settled upon family livings as parochial clergy, then indeed
a serious evil was done to the character of ihe church, and to the religious
feelings of the nation — their want of aptitude or inclination for the
important office into which they had been thrust then became a fearful
thing for themselves, and a miserable calamity for the people committed to
their charge."
The evil cause still exists. Believe me, Mr. Southey, that the
emulation to which "Wesley excited the estabhshment produced hut
a momentary cure of the evil effect,

CAUSE OF WEAKNESS Df THE CHURCH. 203
which makes it so imperiously necessaiy for clergy
men to be " gentlemen" — which malces the pastor a
member of an aristocratic profession — renders him
subject to all the notions of the aristocracy : it makes
him passionless iu the piilpit, but decorous in his
habits, and it fits him rather not to shock the prejudices
of the drawing-room than to win the sympathies of the
cottage. Grant him the best intentions, his situation
scarcely allows liim to excuse them ; if he be rich, or
well endowed, he must keep up his dignity, or his
parish is too large to go all over it himself. He gives
soup and coals, and ministers to public charities, but
he does not make himself a household naiue in every
poor man's hearth.'* He is respected, not influential
from the veiy distance at which he is respected. He
is a good man, but he is too great a man. You may
say of his tribe, as Bacon says of the philosophers,
" They are as the stars, which give little light because
they are so high." Now, take the poor curate ; these
are not the dignified difiiculties of situation which sur
round him, but he has his own. He is poor, but he
is a gentleman ; he is proud, he knows his birth and
station, he camiot let himself down. He has his very
poverty to keep up. He can preach to the boor, he can
pity him, nay, he will pinch himself to relieve, but he
can scarcely visit him very often. Thus a certain
pride attends the established preachers of humility,
and feudal distinctions exist in religion while they
vanish from politics. Charity ceases to be sympathy,
and becomes condescension. In order to see this more
closely, let me here (fii'St reminding the reader that
we have remarked how much the aristocratic influ
ences must pervade the clergy who on the aristocracy
depend) state a fact which may be found in the Evi
dence in the Parliamentary Committee on the better
* The Bishop of London says truly, in his evidence before Sir A.
Agnew's Committee, that '^ Mere sermons from the pulpit, with refer
ence to the lower classes, will seldom effectually inculcate any religions duty
if the clej'gyman does not follow up his instruction by private conversa.
tions." How rare are such conversations !

2.04 CAUSE OF WEAKNESS
Observance of the Sabbath. My Lord Bishop of
London, permit me to address you, — you whose clear
judgment and wise piety adorn, and v/iR, I trust, con
tribute to reform, the Establishment. You assert, in
your evidence before the Committee, that you are
frustrated in your benevolent desire that in the new
churches the seats of the poor should be distributed
among those of the rich, in order that the former might
be so enabled to hear better the common Word of
God. You assert that you are frustrated by what ? — •
The refusal of the rich, whose contributions sustain ihe
churches, to allow so undignified an admixture ! What
an exemplification of the religion of the aristocracy !
— They subscribe to build churches, but on condi
tion of retaining there the distinctions .which out of
church separate them from the poor ! This principle
undermines the safety of the Establishment, and ope
rates on the clergymen who are their yoimger sons,
or were brought up at college with themselves. We
unhappily direct that " the gorgeous palaces and the
solemn temples" shaU stand in the same street, be li-
by the same larnps, and guarded by the same watch
men !
But while many of tlie established preachers are
thus apart from the poor, the dissenters are among
them — are of them : vehement in the pulpit, they
address the passions of their flock, — familiar at their
hearths, they secure their sympathies. Thus the
poor choose some dissenting instead of the estab
lished sect, much on the same principle as in the
Tonga Islands it is customary for the inhabitants to
choose a foster-mother even, during the life of their
natural parent, "with a view," says Mariner, " of being
better provided with all necessaries and comforts."
The mother church is indolent in dispensing spiritual
consolation, in visiting intimately, in comforting, in
cheering the poor ; the foster-mother is sedulous and
unwearied in these duties, for without such care she
would receive no attachment in return. And she thus

IN THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. SdS
gradually weans from the first parent the love that she
attracts towards herself.
There is another cause of wealmess in the Estab
lished Church, proceeding from that aristocratic com
position which appears a part of its very strengtli.
Its members never harmonize with the people in
political opinion ; they often take a severe and active
course in direct opposition to the wishes of the Popular
Heart. As a body they are, and profess themselves
to be, wound up with the anti-popular and patrician
party ; whereas the greater part of the dissenting sects
are, more or less, favourers of the popular side : the
latter thus acquire power by consulting opinion, and
become the rulers of the poor, by affecting to be their
friends. Even where in the case of the loyal and
subordinate Wesleyan, the politics generally may in
cline to the powers that be, some individual point,
some isolated but stirring question — to-day the Slavery
Question, to-morrow the Factory Bill — occurs, on
which the Wesleyan, no less than the bold aad
generous "• Independent," is united with the most
popular opinions. For 1 know not how it is, sir, bat
it seems to me, that wherever a man is very active
on some point of humanity, he always finds hims»lf
suddenly surrounded by the great body of the English
People. Let me not, however, be misconceived: I would
not desire the preachers of a serene and passionless
Religion to mix themselves ostentatiously with the
politics of the day, or to be seen amid the roar and
tumult of democratic action ; but surely, if they ought
not to be active in support of the people, it is like
laying a mine of gtmpowder beneath their spiritual '
efficiency and their temporal power, to be distin- -
guished in activity against them. Every unpopula ,r
vote of the bishops is a blow on the foundation of th e
church. Religion is the empire over the human hear L;
alienate the heart, the empire necessarily depart s.
But if, sir, the composition of the church establishme: tit
were less exclusively aristocratic, — if its membq s,

206 RELIGION AND POLITICS;
as in its days of power and of purity, sprang more
generally from the midst of the great multitudes they
are to rale,* — I apprehend that, while they would be
equally on the side of order and of strong government,
their principles would be less exposed than at present
to suspicion, and would seem to the people dictated
rather by the sacred spirit of peace than by the.
oligarchical and worldly influence of temporal con
nexions. And thus, sir, by a far-sighted and prophetic
sagacity, thought the early patriarchs and mighty men
of the Reformation. It is they who complained that
general zeal and diffused learning would cease to be
the characteristics of the clergy exactly in proportion
as the church should become more an established pro
vision for the younger sons of the great. It is they
"who predicted that when the people saw none of their
own order officiating in the ministry, the divine sym
pathy between flock and preacher would decay, and
ihe multitude would seek that sympathy elsewhere
in schisms and sects. The lethargy of the Estab
lished Church is the life of Dissent.

* The vulgar notion that " clergymen must be gentlemen born,"
is both an upstart and an insular opinion. Not so have thought the
great founders of all powerful sects ; not in so poor and small a
poUcy has experience taught us that ecclesiastical influence is
created. Look over the history of the world. Look how the mighty
Papacy grew and spread. Her great men were chosen from the
people, and so they connected and mingled themselves with the
people's prejudices and love. Look (to take a lesser view of the
question) at the great di-vines who are the light and galaxy of
our own church. From what descent came the bold virtue of Lati
mer? What hereditary blood animated that unfaltering tongue
which preached chastity to the Eighth Hemy, and was eloquent
-with courage at the stake. Latimer was a yeoman's son ! From
"Whom came the studious thought, and the serene charity, and the
copious verve of Barrow ? Barrow was the son of a London trader.
"What progenitor claimed the subtile mind of Clarke, the champion
<i f God himself? — a plain citizen of Norwich. To the middle class
bt 'longed the origin of the sturdy Warburton ; of the venerable
H ooker; of the gentle Tillotson, once the standard of all pulpit per-
so asion. From among the ranks of the people rose Taylor, the
M ilton of the church, whose power and pathos, and "purple gran-
de ur" of eloquence, beautified even piety itself. In fact, the births
of our great divines may be said to illustrate the principle of every
po werful church, which draws its vigour from the multitude and
l^ iguishes only when qonfiningits social influences to a court.

RELIGION AND POLITICS. 207
But if the true benefit and natural influence of our
Establishment be thus thwarted and diminished, let us
seek to remedy, and not destroy it. It is a singular
circumstance, that the two ablest defenders of an ec
clesiastical Establishment have been a Dissenter and
a Deist ; the fu-st, yourself ; the second, David Hiinie ;
— a fact that may induce the philosophers of the day
to be less intolerant in their accusations of those who
support the expediency of an endowed church. Hume's
aphorism, that where the support of the ecclesiastic
depends wholly upon the people, he stimulates their
zeal by all the quackeries of fanaticism, is, to my
mind, amply borne out by experience ; it is not
that religion is lost for want of an Establishment,
but that it splits into a thousand forms, each vying
with the other in heated and perverting extravagance.
For the people never abandon a faith that flatters
and consoles them ; they are too apt, on the con
trary, to carry it to excess. A mild and tolerant
Establishment presents to the eye a certain standard
of sober sense ; and sectarianism thus rather forsakes
the old abuses than wanders with any wide success
into new. I hold, that an abolition of our ecclesi
astical establishment would, in this country, Jje fol
lowed up by a darkening and gloomy austerity. For
nearly all sectarianism with us is indisposed to the
arts, and the amusements that grace and brighten
existence ; and were the cliiuch no more, one sect
vying with the other in religious zeal, the result would
be an emulation of severities, and of mutual interfer
ence with the sunny pleasures of life. So that ex
actly the disposition we ought the most to discourage
(in England especially, too prone to it already), we
should the most strengthen and unite. The Church,
with all the failings it inherits from a too violent, and
therefore incomplete. Reform at first, and a too rigid
resistance to Reform subsequently, has still, in Eng
land, been a gentle, yet unceasing, counterpoise to any
imdue spirit of fanatical hypochondria. With all its
aristocratic faults, too, we may observe, that in the

208 RELIGION AND POLITICS.
rural districts it has often helped to resist the aristo
cratic ignorance of the country gentry. More en
lightened than the mere squire, you wUl find the
clerical magistrate possessing a far clearer notion of
the duties of his office than the lay one ; aad nine
times out of ten, wherever the Poor-laws have been
Well administered by a neighbouring magistrate, that
magistrate is a clergyman. I leave, sir, your admira
ble argument untouched. I leave the reader to recall
how wisely you have defended the establishment of
churches, upon the same broad principle as that on
which we defend the establishment of schools, viz.
that mankind do not feel the necessity of religion and
of loiowledge so pressingiy as they feel that of clo
thing and food ; and the laws that regulate the physical
supply and demand are not, therefore, applicable to
those that regulate the moral ; that we ought to leave
men to seek the one, but we ought to obtrude upon
them the other. What 1 insist upon is this — that an
established church and sectarianism operate bene
ficially on each other ; that a tolerated, instructed sect
incites the zeal of the establishment ; and where that
lies oppressed beneath abuses, it directs the Christian
publi8»to those abuses themselves : that, on the other
hand, the sober and quiet dignity of an establishment
operates as a pressure upon the ebullitions of sectarian
extravagance. Every man sees the errors of our
Establishment, but few calculate the advantage of an
Establishment itself Few perceive how it carries
through the heart of the nation, not only the light of,
the Gospel, but a certain light also of education — how
it operates in founding schools for the poor, and ex
citing dissenters to a rivalry in the same noble benevo
lence — ^how, by emulation, it urges on the sectarian
to instruct himself as well as others — how, by an
habitual decorum of life in its members, it holds forth
to all dissenters a steadfast example, from which they
rarely swerve — and how a perpetual competition in
good works tends to a perpetual action of energy and
life in their execution. If this be the principle of an

RELIGION AND POLITICS. 209
ecclesiastical establishment, we have only to preserve,
by purifying, the principle. And if 1 have rightly
ai'gued, that it is to too unmixed an aristocratic com
position, owing 10 individual patronage, that most of
the present failings of the Establishment arise, we
have onl_Y to transfer, as far as we safely and prudently
can, the patronage of the Establishment from individ
uals to the state. In a free state, ever amenable to
publicit)', the patronage of the state, rightly adminis
tered, will become the patronage of the people i^ but
free from the danger that would exist were it depend
ent on the people alone. Public opinion would watch
over the appointments ; they would cease to be family
concerns : they would cease to be exclusively aris
tocratic. A more wise and harmonious mixture of all
classes, from the higher to the lower, would ensue ;
and the greater openness of general honour to merit
would encourage zeal, but not the zeal of fanaticism.
Pastors would cease to be brought in wrangling and
hostile collision with their flock. Dissenters, exoner
ated from tithes, would cease to mingle temporal hos
tility, and the strong sense of injustice, with differences
merely of doctrine ; and, with a more rooted sympathy
with the people, the clergy would combine thc_sway
of a serener dignity. In the church, as with education,
and with the Poor-laws, the most eflicacious adminis
tration of a complicated machinery is the energy of a
Free State.

210 ERROR OF THE PURITANS.

CHAPTER V.
THE SABBATH.
Theological Error of the Puritans — Over-restraint produces Over-
looseness — The Preservation of the Sabbath regarded in a legis
lative point of view — Two Causes of Demoralization connected
vrith its Infringement — How amended — Amusement better than
Idleness ; the French Boor and the EngUsh — Instruction better
than Amusement — Rope-dancer and PhUosopher — Ridiculous
Questions of the Sabbath Committee — Two Deductions to be
drawn from it — The Evidence before it — Corroboration of the
Principle of this Work.
The keeping holy the Sabbath-day is a question
which does not seem to me to have been placed upon
fair and legislative grounds of consideration. That
the Sunday of the Christian is not the Sabbath of the
Jews is perfectly clear ; that in the early ages of the
church it was set apart as a day of recreation, as well
as of rest, is equally indisputable ; the first reformers
of our English church continued to regard it in this
light, and upon that cheerful day games were per
mitted to the poor, and tournaments to the rich. The
spirit of puritanism, distinguished from that of the Es
tablished Church, was mainly this—the former drew its
tenets and character principally from the Old Testament,
the latter from the New. The puritans, therefore, by
a gross theological error, adopted the rigid ceremonial
of the Hebrew Sabbath, which our Saviour in fact had
abolished, and for which all His earlier followers had
substituted a milder institution. The consequence of
overstraining the ceremonial has, in England, invaria
bly been this — as one order of persons became more
rigid, another class became more relaxed in their ob
servance of church rites and worship. When it was
a matter of general understanding that the fore part of
the day was set apart for worship, and the latter part

ERROR OF THE PURITANS. 211
for recreation, if everybody indulged in the latter,
everybody also observed the former. But when one
class devoted the whole day to ritual exaction and
formal restraint, and this too with an ostentatious
pedantry of sanctiflcation — by a necessary reaction,
and from an unavoidable result of ridicule, the other
class fell into an opposite extreme. Political animosi
ties favom-ed the sectarian difference, and to this day
there are two classes of reasoners on the Sabbath, — one
asking for too much, and the other conceding too little.
Perhaps nothing has more marred the proper respect
that all classes should pay to the Sabbath than the
absurd and monstrous propositions of Sir Andrew
Agnew. But, putting aside the religious views of the ques
tion, the spirit of good legislation requires that if any
gross and evident cause of demoralization exists, we
should attempt to remove it.
It appears (and this is highly satisfactory) by the
evidence on Sir A. Agnew's committee, that the Sab
bath is generally observed by all orders except the
poorest,* that churches are filled as soon as built, and
that even those seats reserved for the working classes
are usually thronged. The poorer part of the work
ing classes are in large towns alone lax in their at
tendance — we inquire the cause, and we find it nearly
always in the effects of habitual intemperance. Now
having got to the root of the evil, for that only ought
we to legislate. There are two causes that favour
intoxication on the Sunday ; these we may endeavour
to remedy, not only because they injure the holiness
of the Sabbath, but because they taint the morality
ofthe state.

* The greater part of the more " respectable" metropolitan trades
men are anxious for an effectual prohibition of Sunday trading by
law, but I suspect not so much from piety as from a jealousy of the
smaller shopkeepers, who, by serving customers on Sunday, either
lure away the customers on Monday also (supposing the greater
tradesmen rigidly decUne " to oblige" on the Sabbath), or, by com
pelling the " raore respectable" to do business also, prevent their
jimning down to their country vUlas, and driving their own gigs,

212 CAUSES OF DEMORALIZATION.
There are two causes : the first is the custom of
paying wages on a Saturday night ; a day of entire
idleness ensuing, the idler and more dissipated me
chanic, especially in the metropolis, goes at once to
the gin-shop on the Saturday night, returns there on
the Sunday morning, forgets his wife and his family,
and spends on his own vices the week's earnings that
should have supported his famUy. Now if he were
paid on Friday night, and went to work on Saturday
morning, he would have an imperious inducement not
to disable himself from work ; the temptation of
money just received would not be strengthened by
a prospect of being drank with impunity, because
he would have the indolent next day to recover the
effects. The money would probably come into the
hands of his wife, and be properly spent in the main
tenance of the family. He who knows any thing of
the mind of the luieducated poor man knows that it
is only in the first moment of receiving money that he
Is tempted to spend it indiscreetly — and if he received
it on Friday, by Sunday morning the novelty would
be a little worn off. This alteration would be attended,
I am convinced, with the most beneficial results, and
where it has been tried already it has met with very
general success.
The law, indeed, ought to legislate for Saturday
rather than Sunday ; for all the police agree (and this
is a singular fact) that there are more excesses com
mitted on a Saturday night than any night in the week,
and fewer excesses of a Sunday night !
The second course that favours intemperance, as
connected with the Sabbath, is the opening of gin-
shops to a late hour on Saturday, and till eleven on
Sunday morning : not only the temptation to excess,
but the abandoned characters that throng the resort,
make the gin-shop the most fatal and certain curse
that can befall the poor. The husband goes to drink,
the wife goes to bring him out, and the result is that
she takes a glass to keep him company, or to console
herself for his faults. Thus the vice spreads to both

FRENCH BOOR AND ENGLISH. 213
sexes, and falls betimes on their children. These
resorts niight, especially in the metropolis, bo impera
tively shut up on Smiday, and at an early hour on
Saturday. Beyond these two attempts to remedy the
main causes of demoralization on the Sabbath 1 do
not think that it would be possible to legislate with
success. But so far from shutting up whatever places of
amusement are now open, it is clear that all those
wluch do not favour drimkenness are so many tempta
tions to a poor man not to get driinlc. Thus, tea-gar
dens a little removed from towns (if not licensed on
Sunday to sell any Idnd of spirits, for here the law
might go to the verge of severitj) would be highly
beneficial to the morals of the working orders. They
are so even now. We have the evidence of the po
lice, that instances of excess or disorder at these places
of recreation cire very rare ; and the great advantage
of them is this, — a poor man can take his wife and
daughters to the tea-garden, though he cannot to the
gin-shop ; selfishness (the drimkard's vice) is counter
acted, the domestic ties and affections are strength
ened, and the presence of his family imposes an in
visible and agreeable restraint upon himself. I con
sider that it is to the prevalence of amusements in
France which the peasant or artisan can share with
his family that we are to ascribe the fact, that he does
not seek amusement alone, and the innocent attractions
of the guinguette triumph over the imbruting excesses
of the cabaret.
Riding through Normandy one beautiful Sunday
evening, I overheard a French peasant decline the
convivial invitation of his companion. " Why — no,
thank you," said he, " I must go to the guingette, for
the sake of my wife and the young people, dear
souls !"
The next Sunday I was in Sussex, and as my horse
ambled by a cottage, I heard a sturdy boor, who had
apparently just left it, grumble forth to a big boy swing
ing on a gate, " You sees to the sow, Jim, there's a

214 ROPE-DANCER AND PHILOSOPHER.
good un ; I he's jist a gooing to the Blue Lion, to get
rid o' my missus and the brats, rot ''em !"
We see, by a comparison with continental nations,
that it is by making the Sabbath dull that we make it
dangerous. Idleness must have amusement, or it falls
at once into vice ; and the absence of entertainments
produces the necessity of excess. So few are the
harmless pleasures with us on the Sabbath, that a
French writer, puzzled to discover any, has called the
English Sunday, with a most felicitous naivete, "jour
qu'on distingue par un pouding !" Save a pudding, he
can find no pleasurable distinction for the Holy Day
of the week !
But while, sir, I think that innocent and social pleas
ures are the first step towards an amelioration of the
consequences produced by a day of idleness to the
poor, I am perfectly prepared to concede a more lofty
view of the moral reform that we may effect in the
maintenance of that day. Serious contemplation and
instructive reading improve the mind even more than
the gentle cheerfulness of recreation. Man has ,high
aims and immortal destinies before him ; it is well
that he should sometimes ponder upon them, " com
mune with his own heart, and be still." But this we
camiot enforce by law ; we can promote it, however,
by education. In proportion as the poor are enlight
ened, they will have higher and purer resources than
mere amusement to preserve them from drmikenness
and vice ; and even in pursuing amusement, they will
not fall readily into its occasional temptations. Give
opportunities of innocence to the idle, and give oppor
tunities of preventing idleness itself, by the resources
of instruction.
In short, with the lower orders, as education ad
vances, it will be as with the higher, — the more intel
lectual of whom do not indulge generally in frivolous
amusements, solely because it amuses them less than
intellectual pursuits.
" Why do you never amuse yourself?" said the rope-
dancer to the philosopher. — "That is exactly the

SABBATH COMMITTEE. 213
question," answered the philosopher, astonished, " that
I was going to ask you."
But, sir, there is one veiy remarkable deduction to
which nearly all the witnesses on the evidence for a
Sabbath refonn have arrived, and which, as nobody
yet has remarked, 1 cannot conclude this chapter with
out touching upon. 1 pass over the extraordinary in
terrogatories which the legislative wisdom deemed
advisable to institute, of which two may be considered
a sufficient sample. Some sapient investigator asks
what class of persons were in the habit of attending
the beer-shops ; to which the unlooked-for answer is,
" The lower classes." This seems to surprise the
interrogator, for he asks immediately afterward, if the
better classes don't resort there as well 1
Again, the committee summons before it a Mr.
M'Kechney, agent to a flour-factor ; and, on the prin
ciple, I suppose, that you should question a man on
those points with which his previous habits have made
him acquainted, some gentlemen appear to have dis
covered a mysterious comiexion between a knowledge
of flour and a knowledge of beards. This witness is
accordingly examined, touching the expediency of
Saturday shaving. His answer is bluff, and decided :
" It IS MY OWN OPINION," quoth he, " that a poor
man can get shaved on a Satttfday night ; and that he
would have as good an appearance on Sunday morning .'"
— a startling affirmation, it must be allowed, and one
evincing a deep knowledge of the chins of the poor !
I pass over, however, these specimens of Phil-Ag-
newian acuteness, tempting and numerous as they are,
and I come to the deduction I referred to. The whole
of the e'.'idence, then, is a most powerful attack upon
the influence of thc aristocracy — to their example is
imputed all the crime of England : for, first, all crime
is traced to Sabbath-breaking ; and, secondly, Sabbath-
breaking is imputed to the aristocratic influences of
evil. Mr. Rowland, of Liverpool, affirms that divers
reports of metropolitan evil-doings on the Sabbath, per
petrated by the great, travel down to that distant town j

216 CORROBORATION OF THE
and are the common excuse to the poor for Sabhath-
breaking. Mr. RueU, chaplain of the Clerkenwell
prison, after deposing that he did not know " a single
case of capital offence, where the party has not been
a Sabbath-breaker," is asked, whether the prisoners of
the different prisons he has known, when reproved
for their misdemeanors, have made any observations
on the habits of the higher classes of society. Mark
his answer — it is very amusing. " Frequently," saith
he ; " and it would be difficult for me to describe the
shrewdness with which their remarks are often made.
Some have been so pointed in reference to persons in
the higher ranks, as to call forth my reproof." — Wick
edly proceedeth Mr. Ruell to observe, that " they take
a particular pleasure in referring to any remarkable
departure from the principles of religion or morality
among the great, as affording a sort of sanction to
their own evil conduct." This he calls "the great
barrier he has found in his ministry to impressing the
minds of the lower orders with a sense of religion
and moral order." But more anti-aristocratic than
all is the evidence of the philosophical and enlight
ened Bishop of London. "It is difficult," says he,
with deliberate authoritativeness, " to estimate the de
gree in which the labours of the Christian ministry
are impeded, especially in towns, by the evil example
of the rich !" That most able prelate, insisting after
ward on the necessity of " legislating Very tenderly
for the poor" on offences shared with impunity by
their betters, contends that " the influence of the
higher classes, were their example generally exem
plary, would prevent the necessity of an}'' religious legis
lation for the poor." He confesses, however, " that
he entertains no hope of such a state of things being
speedily brought to pass."
Now, sir, observe, first, that while all the evidence
thus summoned imputes the fault to the great, all the
legislative enactments we have been and shall be
called upon to pass are to impose coercion solely upon
the poor ; and observe, secondly, I pray you, the great

PRINCIPLE OF THIS WORK. 217
vindication I here adduce in favour of certain tenets
which 1 have boldly advanced. If it be true that the
negligent or evil example of the ai'istocracy be thus
powerfuUy pernicious (not, we wiU acknowledge, from
a design on their part, but — we wiU take the mildest
supposition — from a want of attention — from a want of
being thoroughly aroused to the natm'e and extent of
their own influence), — if this be trae, how necessar)-,
how called for have been the expositions of this work,
how successfully have I followed out the bearings of
Truth in proving that whatever moral evil has flowed
downward among the people has, not according to the
disciples of a rash and inconsiderate radicalism, em
anated from the vices of a Monarchy or of an Estab
lished Church, but from the peculiar form ancl fashion
of our aristocratic combinations, from the moral tone
they have engendered, and the all-penetrating influ
ence they have acquired ! In so doing, without ad
vancing a single violent doctrine, without p.nsisting on
a single levelling innovation, but rather, in the teeth
of the vulgar policy, advocating an energetic State
and a providing Government; I have helped to correct
the mischief of a peculiar power, by summoning it to
the bar of that Public Opinion by whose verdict power
exists. This is the true legislative benefit of an in
vestigating research. Exhibit the faults of any de
scription of moral influence, and it is impossible to
calculate how far you have iinpaired its capacities of
mischief.
Vol. I.— K

218 ORIGINS OF MORALITY,

CHAPTER VI

STATE OF MORALITY.
Apopular Error confuted, by tracing the origins of Morality, Religion
and Philosophy — Importance of studying Morality as a Science-
Invariable Injury both to Religion and Morals, where Ecclesiastics
alone have taught Morality — Advantage to Religion in the cultiva
tion of Moral Science — The English bjackward in the Science,
hence Faults in their Morahty — En-oneous Laws — Distinction
between pubhc and private Virtue — Regard to Appearances-
Anecdote of the Opera-dancer — ^Abstract Science necessary to
practical Results — Rehgious Rules misapplied — Bishop, the Mur
derer — Public Charities — Too much Influence assigned to Fear —
"Want of Morality sho-wn in Taxes — Gin-drinking — Progress of
Intemperance — Singular Evidence on that Point — Too exclusive
a regard for Sexual Decorum baffles itself^State of Licentious
ness .in this Country — All our Notions vague and vacillating —
Want of Moral Science leaves the Influences to the World, hence '
exaggerated respect to Wealth and Station.
There are many persons who desire that we should
never learn Morality as a separate science — ^they
would confine it solely to theological expositions, and
make ecclesiastics its only lecturers and professors —
this is a common error in English opinion, it proceeds
from the best intentions — it produces very dangerous
consequences both to morality, and to religion itself.
These reasoners imagine and contend that religion and
morality have the same origin, that they are insepar
able. Right notions on this head are very important :
let us see the origin of the two, I fancy we shall find
by one minute's inquiry that nothing can be more dis
tinctly separate — we shall see the mode by which
they became connected, and the inquiry will prove the
vital expedience of cultivating morality as a science
in itself.
When men first witness the greater or the less ac
customed phenomena of Nature, they tremble, they
admire, they feel the workings of a superior power,

RELIGION AND PHILANTHROPY. 219
and they acknowledge a God ! Behold tho origin of
all Religion save that of Revelation !
When men herd together, when they appoint a chief,
or build a hut, or individualize property in a bow or a
canoe, they feel the necessity of obUgation and re
straint — they form laws — they term it a duty to obey
them.* In that duty (the result of utility) behold tho
origin of Morality if
But the Deity whom they have bodied forth from
their wonder and their awe, men are naturally desir
ous to propitiate ; they seek to guess what will the
most please or the most offend their unknown Divinity.
They mvest Him with their own human attributes,
carried only to a gi-eater extent ; by those attributes
they judge him : naturally, therefore, they imagine
that such violations of morality as internipt the
harmony of their own state must be displeasing to
the Deity who presides over them. To the terror of
the Law they add that of the anger of God. Hence
the origin of the connexion between Religion and
Morality. These two gi'eat principles of social order were
originally distinct, the result of utterly different ope
rations of mind. Man, alone in the desert, would
have equally conceived religion ; it is only when he
mixes with others that he conceives Morality.;):
But men anxious to please the Deity, — to compre
hend the laws by which He acts upon the physical
and the mental nature, — beginning first to adore, pro
ceed shortly to examine. Behold the origin of Phi
losophy! — Survey the early tribes of the world. " Phi-
* If we adopt the metaphysics of certain schools, we may suppose
the origin both of religion and of morahty to be in inherent principles
of the mind ; but even so, it might be easily shown that they are the
result either of different principles or of utterly distinct operations of
the same principle.
t Thus, the origin of law and morals is simultaneous, but not
exactly similar, 'The necessity ai framing a law originates law, the
utility of obeying law originates morahty.
t A flash of lightning may strike upon the mind the sense of a
Superior Being : but man must be in fear of man before he learns
the utility of moral restraint.
K2

220 IMPORTANCE OP STUDYING
losophy is invariably the offspring of Religion* From
the Theocracy of the East came the young Sciences,
and Reason commenced her progress amid the clouds
and darkness gathered round the mystic creeds of
Egypt, of- Persia, and of Ind. But inquiring into the
nature of the Creator, and the consequent duties of
man. Philosophy, if the result of religion, becomes
necessarily the science of morals. Examining the
first, it elucidated the last ; and as human wisdom is
more felicitous in its dealings with the Known and
Seen than with the Unexperienced and the Invisible,
so the only redeemer of the ancient extravagance in
religioil has been the ancient exposition of morals.
The creeds are dead, — the morals survive, — and to
this very day make the main part of our own princi
ples, and (kneaded" up with the Christian code) are
the irnperishable heritage that we must transmit (but
that we ought also to augment) to our posterity.
Thus then have I briefly shown the distinctive ori
gin of Religion and of Morals ; how Philosophy, natu
rally born from the flrst, enlightens the last, and hovv
fortunate it hath been for the world that philosophy,
not confining its speculations to theology, has culti
vated also morality as a science.
How, in an artificial society, is it possible to look
to religion alone for our entire comprehension of all
morals 1 Religion is founded in one age, and one
country ; it is transmitted, with its body of laws, to
another age and countiy, in which vast and compli
cated relations have grown up with time, which those
laws are no longer sufficient to embrace. As society
has augmented its machinery, it is more than ever
necessary to preserve Morality, as the science that is
to guide its innumerable wheels. Hence the necessity
of not taking pur moral knowledge only from the
ecclesiastics ; or, in pondering over truths which the
religion of a different age and clime transmits to us,
disdain the traths which religion has necessarily
omitted ; for religion could not be embraced by every
tribe, if it had prescribed the minutise necessary only

MORALITY AS A SCIENCE.

221

to one. Consequently, wc find in history, that in
those ages have existed the most flagrant abuses and
misconceptions in morality, wherein Religious Tuition
has been tlie only elucidator of its code. AVhy refer
you to the more distant periods of the world,— to those
of Eg)'ptian and Indian, and Celtic and Gothic priest
crafts,— take only the earlier papacy and the Middle
Ages, — PhUosophy banished to the puerilities gralled
upon an emasculated Aristotelism, inquiring " whether
stars were animals ; and, in that case, whether they
were blessed with an appetite, and enjoyed the luxuries
of the table," left Morality the sole appanage and
monopoly of the priests. Hence, as the priests were
but human, they prostituted the science to hmnan
purposes ; they made religious wars and donations to
the church the great Shibboleth of Virtue ; and
the monopoly of Morality became the corruption of
Religion. It is right, therefore, that the science of moral
philosophy should be pursued and cultivated in all its
freedom and boldness, as the means, not to supplant,
but to corroborate — to furnish and follow out — to
purify^nd to enlarge the sphere of — religious instruc
tion. Even such of its expomiders as have militated
against revealed religion, and have wandered into the
Material and the Skeptical, have only tended in a two
fold degree to support the life and energies of religion.
For, in the first place, arousing the ability, and stimu
lating the learnilig of the Church, they have called
forth that great army of its defenders which constitute
' its pride ; and without its maligners and its foes, we
should not have been enabled at this day to boast of
the high names which are its ornaments and its bul
wark. In the second place, the vigilance of philoso
phy operates as a guardian over the purity of religion,
and preserves it free from its two corruptions, — the
ferocity of fanaticism, and the lethargy of superstition.
So that as Rome was said to preserve its virtue by tho
constant energy and exercise to which it was coni-
peUed hj the active power of Carthage, the vigour of

222 IMPORTANCE OF STtJDVlNe
religion is preserved by the free and perpetual ^energy
of philosophical science.*
It is, sir, I think, partly owing to some unconsidered
prejudices in regard to this truth, some ignorant fear
for religion if morality should be elucidated as a dis
tinct and individual science, that we see a fatal supine
ness in this country towards the exercise of metaphy
sical pursuits, that we feel an obstacle to the correc
tion of public errors in the apathy of public opinion,
and that at this moment we are so immeasurably
behind either Germany or France m the progress of
ethical science. Not so in that country which your
birth and labours have adornedi While, for more than
a century we have remained cabined and confined in
the unennobling materialism of Locke, Scotland has
at least advanced some steps towards a larger and
brighter principle of science ; the effect of the study
of phUosophy has been visible in the maintenance of
religion. I firmly believe that Scotland would not at
this moment be so religious and reverent a community,
but for the thousand invisible and latent channels
which have diffused through its heart the passion for
moral investigation. And the love for arialyti(Bil dis
cussion that commenced with Hutcheson has produced
the dematerializing philosophy of Reid.
Wherever I look around on the state of morality in
this country, I see the want of the cultivation of moral
science. A thousand of the most shallow and jejune
observations upon every point of morality that occurs
are put forth by the press, and listened to by the legis
lature. Laws are made, and opinions formed, and
institutions recommended upon the most erroneous
views of human nature, and the necessary operations
of the mind. A chasm has taken place between pri
vate and public virtue ; they are supposed to be sepa-
* Dr. Reid has said, with great beauty of language, " I consider
the skeptical writers to be a set of men whose business it is to pick
holes in the fabric of knowledge wherever It is weak and faulty, and
when those places are properly repaired the whole building becomes
Wore wm and solid than it vrae forinwly,"

MORALITY AS A SCIENCE. 223
rable qualities ; and a man may be called a most ras
cally poUtician, with an assurance from his asperser
" that he does not mean the smallest disrespect to his
private character .'" Propping morality merely on de
corums, we suffer a low and vulgar standard of opin
ion to establish itself among us; and the levelling
habits of a commercial life are wholly imrelieved and
unelevated by the more spiritual and lofty notions that
a weU-cultivated phUosophy ever diffuses throughout
a people. I have heard an anecdote of a gentleman advertising
for a governess for his daughter, — an opera-dancer
applied for the situation ; the father demurred at the
offer : " What !" cries the lady, " am I not fit for the
office ? Can I not teach dancing, and music, and
French, and manners 1" — " Very possibly — but stUl —
an opera-dancer — just consider !" — " Oh ! if that be
aU," said the would-be governess, " I can change my
name .'" I admire the ndiveti of the dancer less than
her sagacity ; she knew that nine times out of ten,
when the English ask for virtues, they look only to
the name !
By a blind and narrow folly, we suppose in Eng
land that the abstract and the practical knowledge are
at variance. Yet just consider : every new law that
will not apply itself to the people, — that faUs, — that
becomes a dead letter, — is a proOf that the legislature
were ignorant either of the spirit of law, or the mind
of the people upon whom it was to operate, — is a
proof that the law was not practical from the defi
ciency of its framers in abstract experience. In no
comitry are so many ineffectual laws passed ; and we
might ask for no other proof to show that in no coun
try is there greater ignorance of the science of moral
legislation, — a branch of moral philosophy.
From this want of cultivating ethical investigation,
we judge of morals by inapplicable rehgious rules.
Bishop the murderer was considered by the news
papers to have made his peace with God, and to be
entitled to a cheerful slumber, because he did— what?

224 FALSE MORALITY OF FEAR.
Why, because he confessed to the ordinary of New
gate .the method in which he had murdered his victim !
Public Charities, as we have seen, so fatal in their
results upon the morality of a people unless most
carefully administered, are considered admirable in
themselves ; the turbulence and riot, and brib.ery and
vice of elections, are deemed necessary components
of liberty. Some men adhere to the past without
comprehending its moral ; others rush forward to ex
periments in the future, without a single principle for
their guide. Would-be improvers Imow not what they
desire, and popular principles become the mere pander
to popular delusions.
When religion is unaided by moral science there is
ever a danger, that too much shall be left to the prin
ciple oifear. " To preach long and loud damnation,"
says the shrewd Selden, "is the- way to be cried up.
We love a man who damns us, and we run after him
again to save us." This common principle in theology
is • transferred to education and laws. We train our
children* b)^ the rod. We govern om- poor by coer
cion. We perpetually strive to debase our kind by
terror, instead of regulating them by reason. Yet not
thus would the grand soul of Bossuet have instructed
us, when in that noble sermon, " Pour la Profession
de Madame de la Vatliere" the great preacher seeks to
elevate the soul to heaven. He speaks not then of
terror and of punishment, but of celestial tenderness,
of the absence of all dread mider the Almighty wings.
" What," he cries, " is the sole way by which we
approach God and are made perfect ? — It is by love
alone." A profoimd truth, which in teaching us a
nobler spirit of religion, instructs us also in the three
principles of education, of morals, and of laws. But
Bossuet's address is not of the fashion established
among us !
* So Wesley, who often concluded his sermon with " I ara about
to put on the condemning cap — I am about to pass sentence upon
you : ' Depart from me, ye accursed, into everlasting fire,' " advises
also the repeated flogging of children, and insists upon the necessity
of " breaking their spirit." /See Southey's Life of 'Wesley,

PROf4RKS.q OF INTEMPERANCE, 225
I trace the same want of moral knowledge iii our
fiscal impositions. Some taxes are laid on which
must necessarily engender vice ; sorae taken off as if
necessarily to increase it. We have taxed the diffu
sion of knowledge just a liiuidi:6d per cent. ; tho con
sequence is, the prevention of legal knowledge, and
the diffusion of smuggled instruction by the most per
nicious teachers. AVe have taken off the duty upon
gin, and from that day commenced a most terrible epoch
of natural demoralization. " Formerly," says the wise
prelate I have so often quoted, " when I first came to
London, I never saw a female coming out of a gin-
shop; 1 have since repeatedly seen females with
infants in their arms, to whom they appear to be giving
some part of their Uquor."
Our greatest national stain is the intemperance of
the poor ; to that intemperance our legislators give the
greatest encouragement : they forbid knowledge ; they
interfere with amusement ; they are favourable only
to intoxication.
For want, too, of extending our researches into
morality, the light breaks only the darkness immedi
ately round us, and embraces no ample and catholic
circumference. Thus, next to our general regard for
appearance, we consider morality only as operating on
the connexions between the sexes. Morality, strictly
translated with us, means the absence of licentious
ness — it is another word for one of its properties — •
chastity ; as the word profligacy bears only the con
struction of sexual intemperance. I do not deny that
this virtue is one of immense importance. Wherever
it is disregarded, a general looseness of aU other prin
ciples usuaUy ensues. Men rise by the prostitution
of their dearest ties, and indifference to marriage
becomes a means of the corruption of the state. But
as the strongest eyes cannot look perpetually to one
object without squinting at last, so to regard but one
point of morals, however valuable, distorts our general
vision for the rest. And, what is very remarkable
among us, out of the exclusiveness of our regard
* K3

226 STATE OF LICENTIOUSNESS.
to chastity arises the fearful amount of prostitution
which exists throughout England, and for which no
remedy is ever contemplated. Our extreme regard
for the chaste induces a contemptuous apathy to the
unchaste. We care not how many there are, what
they suffer, or how far they descend into the lower
abysses of crime. Thus, in many of the agricultural
districts, nothing can equal the shameless abandon
ment ofthe female peasantiy . Laws favom'ing bastardy
promote licentiousness — and, as I have before shown,
the pauper marries the mother of illegitimate children,
in order to have a better claim on the parish. In our
large towns an equally systematic contempt of the
imfortunate victims, less, perhaps, of sin than of igno
rance and of poverty, produces consequences equally
prejudicial. No regard, as in other countries, by a
rigid police order, is paid to their health, or condition ;
the average of their career on earth is limited to four
years. Their houses are iinvisited — their haunts
imwatched — and thus is engendered a fearful mass of
disease, of intemperance, and of theft. Too great a
contempt for one vice rots it, as it were, into a hundred
other vices yet more abandoned. And thus, by a false
or partial notion of morality, we have defeated our
own object, and the exclusive intolerance to the un
chaste has cursed us with an imtended and unmedicated
leprosy of prostitution.
To the want, too, of a cultivation of morality as a
science, all its rules are with us vague, vacillating, aud
uncertain : they partake of the nature of personal par
tiality, or of personal persecution. One person is
proscribed by society for some offence which another
person commits with impunity. One woman elopes,
and is " the abandoned creature ;" another does the
same, and is only "the unfortunate lady." — Miss 
is received with respect by the same audience that
drove Kean to America. Lady.  is an object of
interest, for the same crime as that which makes Lady
¦ an object of hatred. Lord  iU uses and
separates from his wife — nobody blames him. Lord

INFLUENCE OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 327
Byron is discarded by his wife, and is cut by society,
#*** is a notorious gambler, and takes in all his
acquaintance — everybody courts him — he is a man of
fashion. Mr.  imitates him, and is shunned like
a pestilence — he is a pitiful knave. In vain would \vc
attempt to discoxer any clew to these distinctions — all
is arbitrary and capricious; often the result of a vague
and unmerited personal popidarity — often a sudden
and fortuitous reaction in the public mind that, feeling
it has been too harsh to its last victim, is too lenient
to its next. Hence, from a lack of that continuous
stream of ethical meditation and instruction, ^\•hich,
though pursued but by a few, and on high and solitary
places, flows downward, and, through invisible crevices
and channels, saturates the moral soil, — Morality with
us has no vigour and no fertile and organized system.
It acts by starts and fits — it adheres to mere forms
andnames — now to a respect for appearances — now to a
respect for jproperty : — clinging solely with any endur
ing strength to one material and worldly belief which
the commercial and aristocratic spirits have engen
dered, viz. in the value of station and the worth of
wealth.

CHAPTER VII.

WHAT OUGHT TO BE THE AIM OF ENGLISH MORALISTS
IN THIS AGE.
Influence of Moral Philosophy upon the World— Evils of our exclu
sive Attention to Locke — Philosophy the Voice of a certain Intel
lectual W.int — What is that Want in our Day — What should be
our true Moral to inculcate, and a Picture of a Moralist.
It seems, then, that owing to the natural tendencies
of trade and of an imperfected and unelevating de
scription of aristocracy, the low and the mercantile
creep over the national character, and the more spirit

228 Evas OF our exclusive
ual and noble faculties are little encouraged and lightly
esteemed. It is the property of moral philosophy to
keep alive the refining and unworldly springs of thought
and action ; a counter attraction to the mire and clay
of earth, and drawing us insensibly upward to a higher
and purer air of Intellectual Being. Civilized life
with its bustle and action, the momentary and minute
objects in which it engages and frets the soul, requires
a perpetual stimulus to larger views and higher emo
tions ; and where, these are scant and feeble, the stand
ard of opinion settles down to a petty and sordid level.
In metaphysical knowledge, England has not ad
vanced since Locke. A few among us may have
migrated to the Scotch school — a few more may have
followed forth the principles of Locke into the theo
ries of Helvetius — a very few indeed, adventuring into
the mighty and mooned sea, of the Kantian Philoso
phy, may steer their solitary and mmoticed barks along
its majestic deeps; but these are. mere stragglers
from the great and congregated herd.* "The philoso
phy of Locke is stiU the system of the English, and
all their new additions to his morality are saturated with
his spirit. The beauty, and daring, and integrity of
his character — the association of his name with a
great epoch in the Liberties of Thought, contribute to
maintain his ascendency in the English heart ; and
his kno-vvn belief in our immortality has blinded us to
the materialism of his doctrines.
Few, sir, know or conjecture the influence which
one mighty mind insensibly wields over those masses
of men, and that succession of time which appear to
the superflcial altogether out of the circle of his con
trol. I think it is to our exclusive attention to Locke
that I can trace inuch of the unspiritual and material
form which our phUosophy has since rigidly preserved,
and which, so far from counteracting the levelling in
fluences of a worldly cast, has strengthened them and
* Kant, too, has been only introduced to its just as Germany has
{[Ot beyond him.

attention to LOCKE. 229
consolidated. Locke, doubtless, was not aware of the
results to be drawn from his theories, but the man
^\ho has declai'ed that the soul ma\' be material* —
that by revelation only can we be certain that it is not
so — who leax es the Spiritual and the Immortal unde
fended by philosophy, and protected solely by tlie-
olog}", may well, you must allow, be the founder of a
school of Materialists, and the ready oracle of those
who refuse ;ui appeal to Theology and are skeptical
of Revelation : and therefore it seem* to me a most
remarkable error in the educational system of Cam
bridge, that Locke should be the sole metaphysician
professedly studied — and that whUe we are obliged to
pore over, and digest, and nourish ourselves with the
arguments that have led schools so powerful and
scholai-s so numerous to pure materialism, we study
none of those writings which have replied to his er
rors and elevated his system.
It is eveji yet more remarkable, that while Locke
¦should be the great metaphysician of a clerical Uni
versity, so Paley should be its tutelary moralist. Of
aU the systems of mialloyed and unveiled selfishness
which human ingenuity ever devised, Paley's is, per
haps, the grossest and most sordid. Well did Mack
intosh observe that his definition of Virtue alone is an
unanswerable illustration of the debasing vulgarity of
his code. " Virtue is the doing good to mankind, in
obedience to the will of God, andyoT- the sake of ever
lasting happiness." So that any act of good to man
in obedience to God, if it arise from any motive but
a desire of the reward which he vnll bestow — if it
spring from pure gratitude for past mercies, from affec
tionate veneration to a protectingBeing — does not come
under the head of virtue ; nay, if, infiuenced solely by
such purer motives, if the miud altogether escape from
the mercenary desire of rewards — its act would vio
late the definition of virtue, and, according to Paley,
* Essay on the Human Understanding, Book iv. chap. 3,

230 PHILOSOPHY THE VOICE
would become a vice !* Alas for a university that
adopts materialism for its metaphysical code, and sel
fishness for its moral !
Philosophy ought to be the voice of a certain intel
lectual want in every age. Men, in one period, require
toleration and liberty ; their common thoughts demand
an expounder and enforcer. Such was the want which
Locke satisfied — such his service to manlrind ! In
our time we require but few new theories on these
points alreadj* established. Our intellectual want is
to enlarge and spiritualize the liberty of thought we
have acquired — the philosophy of one age advances
by incorporating the good, but correcting the eiTOr of
the last. This new want no great philosopher has
appeared among us to fulfiLf
But there are those who feel the want they cannot
supply ; if the lesser Spirits and Powers of the age
are unable to furnish forth that philosophy, they can
expedite its appearance : and this by endeavouring to
dematerialize and exalt the standard of opinion — tO
purify the physical and worldly influences — to decrust
from the wings of Contemplation the dust that, sully
ing her plumes, impedes her fiight — to labour in ele
vating the genius of action, as exhibited in the more
practical world of politics and laws — to refine the
coarse, and to ennoble the low ; this, sir, it seems to
me, is the trae moral which the infirmities of this
* See Mackintosh's Dissertation in the Supplement to the
Encychptedia Britannica.
t What I principally mean to insist upon is this ; — Philosophy
ought to counteract whatever may be the prevalent error of the
Popular opinion of the time ; if the error were that of a fanatical and
stilted excess of the chivalric principle. Philosophy might do most
good by insisting on the counteracting principles of sobriety and
common sense — ^but if the error be that of a prevalent disposition to
the sordid and worldly influences, Philosophy may be most beneficial
by going even to extremes in establishing .the more generous and
unselfish motives of action. Hence one reason why no individual
School of Philosophy can be permanent. Each age requires a new
representative of its character, and a new corrector of its opinions. A
material and cold philosophy may be most excellent at one period,
and the very extravagance of an idealizing philosophy may be most
useful at another.

ul- tXTELLECTUAL WANT. 231
present time the most demand, and which the English
writer and the English legislator, studying to benefit
his coimtry, ought to place unceasingly belbre him.
Rejecting the petty and isolated points, the saws and
maxims, which a vulgar comprehension would deem
to be morals where they are only truisms, his great
aim for England sliaU be to exalt and purify the cur
rent chaimels of her opinion. To effect this for others,
he shall watch narrowly over himself, discarding, as
far as the contaminations of custom and the draw
backs of human feebleness will allow, the selfish and
grosser motives that he sees operatuig around him ;
weaning himself, as a politician, from the ambition of
the adventurer, and the low . desire of wealth and
power ; seeking, as a writer, m despite, now of the
popular, now of the lordly clamour, to inculcate a ven
erating enthusiasm for the trae and ethereal springs
of Greatness and of Virtue ; and breathing thus
through the physical action and outward form of Free
dom, the noble aspirations that belong in states as in
men to the diviner excitation of the sold !
Such seems to me the spirit of that moral teaching
which we now require, and such the end and destiny
that the moraUsts of our age and nation should deem
their own.

APPENDIX. (A)
POPULAR EDUCATION.
Necessityof aJIinistcrand Board of Instruction — Education hasbeen
retarded by the Indiscretion of its Defenders — Necessity of making
Religion its groundwork — Tbe DiiKculties of Differing Sects how
obviated — Reference to Prussia — The Expediency of incorpp-
rating Labour Schools with all Intellectual Schools^— Heads of a
proposed National Education — Schools for Teachers — Evidence
adduced of their Necessity and Advantage — How shall the Schools
be supported as to Funds.
In my remarks upon Popular Education, I endeavoured to
show that it was not enough to found schools without pre
scribing also the outline of a real education — that a constant
vigilance was necessary to preserve schools to the object of
their endowment — to protect them from the abusive influences
of Time, and to raise the tone and quality of education to that
level on which alone it can be considered the producer of know
ledge and of virtue. By the parallel of Prussia I attempted to
convey a notion of the immense difference of education in that
country, which makes education a state affair, and this country,
in which, with equal zeal, and larger capital, it is Jeft to the
mercy of individuals. If then w.e are to have a general, a uni
versal education, let it be an education over which the govern
ment shall preside. I demand a Minister of Public Instruction,
who shall be at the head of the department ; I demand this,
1st, Because such an appointment will give a moraljweight and
dignity to education itself; 2dly, Because we require to con
centre the responsibility in one person, who shall be amenable
to Parliament and the Public. He shall have a Council to
assist him, and his and their constant vigilance and attention shall
be devoted to the system over which they preside.
It is indeed true that we cannot transfer to this country the
wholesale education of Prussia ; in the latter it is compulsory
on parents to send their children to school, or to prove that they
educate them at home. A compulsory obUgation of that nature
would, perhaps, at this time, be too stern for England ; we muut
truit rather to moral than legislative compulsion. Fortunately
BO great a detire for education is springing up araong all classes,
that the government has only to prepare the machme in order to
procure the supply. Everywhere the feeling is in favour of

234 APPPENDIX A.
education, and only two apprehensions are enlisted against it ;
both of these apprehensions we must conciliate. The first is,
lest in general instruction religion should be neglected; the
second, lest in teaching the poor to think we should forget that
they are bom to labour. I say we ought to conciliate both these
classes of the timid.
I am perfectly persuaded that nothing has been more unfor
tunate for popular education in this country than the pertinacity
with which one class have insisted on coupling 'it solely with the
Established religion, and the alarming expedient of the other
class in excluding religion altogether. With respect to the last,
I shall not here pause to enter into a theological discussion ; I
shall not speal( of the advantage or the disadvantage of strength
ening moral ties by religious hopes ; or of establishing one fixed
and certain standard of morals, which, containing all the broader
principles, need not forbid the more complicated principles : a
standard which shall keep us from wandering very far into the
multiform theories and schisms in which the vagaries of mere
speculative moralists haye so often misled morality. On these
advantages, if such they be, I will not now descant. I am writ
ing as a legislator, desirous of obtaining a pertain end, and I am
searching for the means to obtain it. I wish then to establish a
Universal Education. I look round ; I see the desire for it ;
I see also the materials, bnt so scattered, so disorganized are
those materials, so many difficulties of action are in the way
ofthe desire, that I am naturally covetous of all the assistance
I can obtain.* I see a vast, wealthy, and munificent clergy, not
* I am happy in this opinion to fortify myself by the expression
of a similar sentiment in M. Cousin, in which it is difficult to say
whether we should admire most the eloquence, or the sagacity, or
the common sense, I subjoin some extracts :
" The popular schods of a nation," he says, in recommending the
outUne of a general education in France to M, Montalivet, " ought
to be penetr^ed with the rehgious spirit of that nation. Is Chris
tianity, or is it not, the religion of the people of France ? We must
allow that it is. .Then, I ask, shall we respect the religion of the
people, or shall we destroy it ? If we undertake the destruction of
Christianity, then, I own, we must take care not to teach it. But if
we do not propose to ourselves that end, we must teach our children
the faith which has civilized their parents, and the hberal spirit of
which has prepared and sustains our great modern institutions. * * *
Religion, in ray eyes, is the best base of popular instruction, I know
a httle of Europe ; nowhere have I seen good schools for the people
where the Christian charity was not. * * * In human societies there
are some things for the accomplishment of which Virtue is neces
sary ; or, when speaking of the great masses. Religion ! Were you
to lavish the treasures of the state, to tax parish and district, still
you could not dispense with Christian charity ; or with that spirit of
tiumbleness and self-restrauit, of courageous resignation and modest
(jignity, whioh Christianity, well wjdw4«<?d and well taug^, caft

POPULAR EDUCATION. 235
bent against education, but already uixious to difTuse, it, already
founding scRools, already educating nearly 800,000 pupils ; I
look not only to them, but to the influence they command among
their friends and flock ; I consider and balance tho weight of
their names and wenlth,,and the grave sanction of their evsn-
gelical authority. Shall I have these mon and this power with
me or against me 1 That is the question. On the one hand, if I
can enlist them, I obtain a most efficient alliance ; on the other
hand, if I enlist them, what are the disadvantages 1 If indeed
they tell me that they will teach religion only, and that but by the
mere mechanical learning of certain lessons in the Bible — if they
refuse to extend and strengthen a more general knowledge ap
plicable to the daily purposes of life — such as I have described in
the popular education of Prussia — then, indeed, I might be con
tented to dispense with their assistance. But is this the case ?
I do not believe it. I have conversed, I have corresponded with
many of the clergy, who are attached to the course of religious
education, and no men have expressed themselves more anxious
to combine with it all the secular and citizen instruction that we
can desire. What is it then that they demand ? What is the
sacrifice I must make in order to obtain their assistance ? They
demand that the Christian religion be constituted the foundation
of instruction in a Christian country. You, the Philosopher,
say, " I do not wish to prevent rehgion being taught ; but to
prevent the jar, and discord, and hinderance of religious differ
ences, I wish to embrace all sects in one general plan of civil
instruction ; let religious instruction be given by the parents or
guardians ofthe children according to their several persuasions."
I believe nothing can be more honest than the intentions of
the philosopher ; I know many most excellent Christians of the
same way of thinking. But how, sir, — I address the philoso
pher again, — how can you for a moment accuse the clergy of
the Established Church of intolerance in refusing to listen to
your suggestion 1 How, in common duty, and common con
science, can they act otherwise 1 Reverse tfie case. Suppose
the churchmen said, " We will found a system for the education
of the whole people, we will teach nothing but religion in it,
not one word of man's civil duties ; not that we wish lo prevent
the pupil acquiring civil knowledge, but because we wish to
avoid meddling with the jarring opinions as to what form of it
shall be taught. Whatever civil knowledge the children shall
alone give to the instruction of the poor. * * * It would be necessary
to call Religion to our aid, were it only a matter of finance,"
If M, Cousin, a philosopher, once persecuted by the priesthood,
thus feels the praciical necessity of enhsting religion on the side of
education in France ; the necessity, is far greater in England. For
here Christianity is far more deeply rooted in the land ; here the
church is a more wealthy friend or a more powerful foe ; here, too,
the ^hurch is ready to befriend education—there, to resist it.

236 APPENDIX A.
possess, let their parents and guardians teach them oat of
school, according to their several theories."
Would the philosopher agree to this 1 No, indeed, nor I
neither. Why then should we ask a greater complaisance from
the ecclesiastic ; he cannot think, unless he be indeed a merce
nary and a hypocrite, the very Swiss of religion, that religious
knowledge is less necessary than civil instruction. He cannot
believe that the understanding alone should be cultivated, and
the soul forgotten. But, in fact, if we were to attempt to found
a wholesale national education, in which religious instruction
were not a necessary and pervading principle, I doubt very much
if public opinion would allow it to be established ;' and I am
perfectly persuaded that it could not be rendered permanent
and complete. In the first place, the clergy would be justly
alarmed ; they would redouble their own eflforts to diffuse their
own education. In a highly Christian country, they would
obtain a marked preference for their establishments ; a certain
taint and disrepute ¦would he cast on the national system ; people
would be afraid to send their children to the national schools ;
the ecclesiastical schools would draw to themselves a vast pro
portion — I believe a vast majority — of children ; and thus in
>6ffect the philosopher, by trying to sow unity would reap divi
sion ; by trying to establish his own plan, he would weaken its
best principle ; and the care of education, instead of being
shared by the clergy, would fall almost entirely into their hands.
An education purely ecclesiastical would be in all probability
bigoted, and deficient in civil and general instruction ; the two
orders ought to harmonize with,, and watch over, and blend
into, each other. Another consequence of the separation in
schools which would be eflfected by banishing Christian instruc
tion from some, in order to give a monopoly of ecclesiastical
instruction to others, would probably be not only to throw a
taint upon the former schools, but also upon whatever improve-
ments in education they might introduce. Civil instruction
would be confused with irreligious instruction, and amended
systems be regarded with fear 'and suspicion. For all these
reasons, even on the ground and for the reasons of the philoso
pher, I insist on the necessity of making instraction in religion
the harmonizing and uniting principle of all scholastic education.
But how are we to escape from the great difficulty in the unity
of education produced by differing sects ? In answerto this ques
tion, just observe how the government of Prussia, under similar
circumstances, emancipates itself from the dilemma. " The dif
ference of religion," says the Prussian law, " is not to be an
obstacle in the form of a school society ; but in forming such a
society, you must have regard to the numerical proportion ofthe
tahabitimts of each faith ; and, as far as it can possibly be done,
you shall oonjoin with the principal master professing thereligion
of tbe majority— a second master of the faith of the minority,".

POPULAR EDUCATION. 237
Again : " The difference of religion in Christian schools
necessarily produces diflerences in religious instruction. That
instruction should be always appropriate to the doctrines and
spirit of the creed for which the schools shall be ordained. But
as in every school of a Christian state, the dominant spirit, and
the one common to all sects, is a pious and deep veneration for
God ; so every school may be allowed to receive children of
every Christian sect. The masters shall watch with tha
greatest care that no constraint and no undue proselytism be
exercised. Private and especial masters, of whatever sect the
fupil belongs to, shall bo charged with his religious education.
f, indeed, there be some places where it is impossible for the
School Committee to procure an especial instructor for every
sect ; llien, parents, if they are unwilling their children shall
adopt the lessons of the prevailing creed of the school, are en
treated themselves to undertake the task of affording them
lessons in their own persuasion."
Such is the method by which the Prussian state harmonizes
her system of universal education among various sects. That
which Prussia can effect in this respect, why should not Eng
land ! Let us accomplish our great task of common instruction,
not by banishing all religion, but by procuring for every pupil
instruction in his own'. And in this large and catholic harmony
of toleration, I do believe the great proportion of our divines
and of our dissenters might, by a prudent government,* be
induced cheerfully to concur. For both are persuaded of the
necessity of education, both are willing to sacrifice a few minor
considerations to a common end, and under the wide canopy of
Christian faith to secure, each to each, the maintenance of
individual doctrines. I propose, then, that^^e state shall estab-
Ush universal education. 1 propose that it shall be founded on,
and combined with, religious instruction. I remove, by the
suggestion I have made, the apprehension of contending sects ;
I proceed now to remove the apprehension of those who think
that the children of the poor, if taught to be rational, may not
be disposed to be industrious. I propose that to all popular
schools for intellectual instruction, labour or industry schools
should be appended, or rather that each school should unite
both objects. I propose, that at the schools for girls (for in
the system I recommend, both sexes shall be instructed), the
various branches and arts of female employment shall make a
principal part of instruction ; above all, that those habits -of
domestic management and activity in wliich (by all our Parlia-
* One of the greatest benefits we derive from an intelligent and
discreet government is in its power of conciUating opposing inter
ests upon matters of detail, or of secondary principles. 'Where a
government cannot do this, depend upon it the ministers are bun
glers.

538 APPENDIX A.
mentaty Reports) the poorer females of the manufacturing
towns are grossly deficient, shall be carefully formed and in
culcated.* I propose (and this also is the case in Prussia) that every boy
educated at the popular schools shall learn the simple elements
of agricultural and manual science ; that he shall acquire the
habit, the love, and the aptitude of work ; that the first lesson
in his moral code shall be that which teaches him to prize inde
pendence, and that he shall. practically obey the rule of his cate
chism, and learn to get his own living.
Thus, then, briefly to sum up, the heads of the National
Education I would propose for England are these ;
1st. It shall be the business of the State, confided to a Min
ister and a subcjrdinate Board, who shall form, in our various
counties and parishes, committees, with whom they shall cor
respond, who shall keep a vigilant eye on the general working,
who shall not interfere vexatiously with peculiar details. ' The
different circumstances in different localities must be consulted,
and local committees are the best judges as to the mode. I
propose that the education be founded on religion ; that one or
mole ministers of the Gospel be in every committee ; that every
sectarian pupil shall receive religious instruction from a priest
of his own persuasion.
I propose that at every school for the poor the art and habit
of an industrious calling make a necessar'y part of education.
A ^report of the working, numbers, progress, &c. of the
various schools in each county should be yearly published : so
emulation is excited, and abuse prevented.
If the State prescribe a certain form of education, it need not
prescribe the books or the systera by which it shall be acquired.
To avoid alike the rashness of theories, and the unimprovable
and lethargic adherence to blind custom, each schoolmaster de
sirous of teaching certain books, or of following peculiar sys
tems, such as those of Hamilton, Pestalozzi, &c., shall state his
wish to the committee of the county, and obtain their consent
to the experiment : they shall visit the school, and observe its
success ; if it fail they can have the right to prohibit, if it work
well they can have the power to recommend it. So will time,
publicity, and experience have fair and wide scope in tlieir
natural result, — viz. the progress to perfection.
But, above all things, to obtain a full and complete plan of
education, there should be schools for teachers. The success
¦' Schools for girls in the poorer classes are equally important as
those for boys. Note in Kay's account of Manchester the slovenly
improvidence of females in a manufacturing town ; note in the evi
dence on the Poor-laws the idleness, the open want of chastity, the
vicious ignorance of a vast class of females everywhere. Mothers
hav^ often a greater moral effect upon children than the fathers ; ifi
the child is to be moral, provide for the^oials of the mother.

POPULAR EDUCATION. 239
of a school depends upon the talent of tlio master : the best sys
tem is lifeless if the soul of the precqptor fail. Each county,
therefore, should establish its school for preceptors to tho pupils ;
D preference shall be given to the preceptors chosen from them
at any vacancies that occur in tho popular scliools for children.
Here they shall not only learn to know, but also learn to teach,
— two very distinct branches of instruction. Nothing so raro
at present as competent teachers. Seminaries of this nature
have been founded in most countries where the education ofthe
people has become of importance.* In America, in Switzer
land, lately in France, and especially in Germany, their success
has everywhere been eminent and rapid. In Prussia, M.
Cousin devoted to the principal schools of this character the
most minute personal attention. He gives of them a detailed
and highly interesting description. He depicts the rigid and
high moralityt of conduct which makes a necessary and funda
mental part of the education of those who are designed to edu
cate others ; and the elaborate manner in which they are taught
the practical science of teaching. On quitting the school they
undergo an examination both on religious and general know
ledge : tho examination is conducted by two clergymen of the
faith of the pupil, and two laymen. If he pass the c-^eal, the
pupil receives a certificate, not only vouching for thc capabilities
and character of the destined teacher, and his skill in practical
tuition, but annexing also an account of the exact course of
studies he has undergone.
An institution of this nature cannot be too strongly insisted
upon.t In vain shall we build schools if we lack competent
tutors. Let me summon Mr. Crook, the clerk of St. Clement's,
in a portion of the evidence on the Poor-laws, which, as yet, is
unpublished. It gives an admirable picture of a schoolmaster
for the poor.
* In England, also, certain private associations have tasitly con
fessed the expediency of such institutions.
t The law even enjoins careful selection as to the town or neigh
bourhood in which the seminaries for teachers shall be placed ; so
that the pupils may not easily acquire from the inhabitants any
habits contrary to the spirit of the moral and simple life for which
they are intended.
X Insisted upon for the sake of religion as well as of knowledge.
Hear the enhghtened Cousin again ; " The destined teachers of
popular schools, without being at all Theologians, ought to have a
clear and precise knowledge of Christianity, its history, its doctrines,
and, above all, its morals ; without tliis, they might enter on their
mission without being able to give any other rehgious instruction
than the recitation ofthe catechism, a most insufieieiU lecture;" perhaps
the only, certainly the best one our poor children receive. People
seem, with us, to consider the catechism every thing ! they might as
well say,the accidence was every thing ! the catechism is at mos(
the accidence of rehgion !

240 APPENDIX A.
" One master was employed in keeping an account of the beer, and
it was found that he had not only got liquors supplied to himself by
various publicans, and charged an equivalent amount of beer to the
parish, but had received mmiey regularly, and charged it under the
head of beer. It was believed that his scholars Imd been made agents m
the negotiation of these matters !"
So, in fact, the only thing the Pupils learned from this excel
lent pedagogue was the rudiments of swindling !
The order of schools established should be :
1 . Infant Schools. These are already niimerous in England,
but immeasurably below the number required. In Westminster
alone there are nearly 9000 children, from two to six years old,
fit for infant schools, — there are only about 1000 provided with
these institutions. Their advantage is not so much in actual
education (vulgarly so called) as in withdrawing the children
of the poor from bad example, obscene language, the neglect
of parents who are busy, the contamination of those who are
idle : lastly, in economy.*
3. Primary or Universal Schools, to which Labour Schools
should be attached, or which should rather combine the principle
of both.
These schools might, as in Prussia, be divided into two
classes, of a higher and lower grade of education ; but at the
onset, I think one compendious and common class of school
would be amply sufficient, and more easily organized throughout
the country.
* On this head, read fhe following extract frora the unpublished
evidence of Mr. Smart of Bishopsgate ; — " Do you findthe Infant
Schools serviceable in enabling the mothers of the working class to
work more, and maintain tliemselves better?
"That is my opinion. They are enabled to go out and worl{,
when, if there were no such schools, they would be corapelled to
attend to their children, and would more frequently apply to the
parish. I conclude this to be the case from the constant declara
tions of those mothers who have children, and are not abje to send
them to school. They say they must have assistance from the
parish, on account of ha'ving to attend to thejr children. There are
many of the families who reside out of the parish, at too great a
distancd for their infant children to come to their parish school.
" From the whole of your observations, do you consider the gene
ral establishment of infant and other schools a matter of economy,
•viewing their operation only with relation to the parish rules, and
the progress of pauperism ?
" I have no doubt whatever of it, viz. that their effects are imme
diately economical merely in a pounds, shillings, and pence point of
view, for I ara convinced, that great as the account of pauperism
now is, the claims upon the parish funds would be much greater, but
.for the operation of these schools. " Ultimately their effects will be
more considerable in preventing the extension of pauperism."

POPULAR EDUCATION. 341
3. Sunday Schools. Of these almost a sufficient number
are already established.
And, 4'. Schools for teachers.
But how are such schools to be paid and supported ? That
difiiculty seems to be obviated much more easily than our states
men are pleased to suppose. In the first place, there are 450
endowed grammar-schools throughout England and Wales.
The greater part of these, with large funds, are utterly useless
lo the public. I say at once and openly, that these schools,
intended for the education of the people, ought to be applied to
the education of tho people, — they are the moral property of
the Slate, according to the broad intention of the founders.
Some have endeavoured to create embarrassments in adapting
these schools to use, by insisting on a strict adherence to the
exact line and mode of instruction specified by the endowers.
A right and sound argument if the ¦principle of the endower had
been preserved. But t* the principle preserved 1 — is knowledge
taught ? — If not, shall we suffer the principle to be lost, because
we insist on rigidly preserving the details I Wherever time has
introduced such abuses as have eat and rusted away the use
itself of the establishment, we have before us this option :
Shall we preserve, or shall we disregard, tbe main intention of
the donor — Education ? If it be our duly to regard that before
all things, it is avery minor consideration whether we shall pre
serve the exact details by which he desired his principle to be
acted upon. Wherever these details are inapplicable, we are
called upon to remodel them ;* if this be our duty to the mem
ory of the individual, what is our duty to the Stale ! Are we to
EnJETer the want of an omniscient providence io founders of
institutions two or three hundred years Old, to bind generation
after generation to abused and vitiated systems 1 Is the laud
able desire of a remote ancestor to perpetuate knowledge, to be
made subservient to continuing ignorance 1 Supposing the
Inquisition had existed in this country, if a man, bsheving in
* The absurd injustice of those who insist on an exact adherence
to the origmal form and stipulation of endowments when they pre
judice the poor, is grossly apparent in their defence of a departure
from, not only the form and detail, but even the spirit and principle
of an endowment, where the rich are made the gainers. Those gen
tlemen are they who defend the departure from the express law of
achools that, like the Wmchester and Charter-house foundations,
were originated solely for the benefit of " poor and indigent scholars,"
a law so obviously clear in some foundations, tliat it imposes upon
the scholar an actual oath that he does not possess in the world more
than some petty sum — I forget the exact amount — ^but it is under six
pounds. "The scholar thus limited, probably now enjoys at least
some two or three hundred a year ! If we insisted upon preservuig
the exact spirit of this law, — the original intention of the founders, — >
these gentlemen would be the &st to raise a clamour at our
injustice !
Vofc. I.-I<

342 APPENDIX A.
the necessity of supporting religion, had left an endowment td
the Inquisition, oucrht we rigidly to continue endowments to the
Inquisition, by which religion itself in the after age suffered
instead of prospering 1 the answer is clear.^-Are there not In
quisitions in knowledge as in religion — are we to be chained to
the errors of the middle ages 1 No ; both to the state and to
the endowment, our first duty is to preserve the end — ^knowledge.
Our second duty, the result of the first, is, on the evidence of
flagrant abuse, to adapt the means to the end.
The greater part of these grammar-schools may then be con
solidated into the state system of education, and their funds,
which I believe the vigilance of the state would double, appro
priated to that end. Here is one source of revenue, and one
great store of materials. In the next place, I believe that if
religion were made a necessary part of education, the managers
of the various schools now established by the zeal and piety of
individuals would cheerfully consent to co-operate with tha
general spirit and system of the State Board of Education. In
the third place, the impetus, and fashion, and moral principle of
education once made general, it would not lack individual dona
tions and endowments. M. Cousin complains that in France
the clergy are hostile to popular education ; happily with us we
have no such ground of complaint. Fourthly, no schools should
be entirely gratuitous, — the spirit of independence cannot be
too largely fostered throughout the country, — ^the best charity is
that which puts blessings within thc reach of labour ; the worst
is that which affects to grant them without the necessity of
labour at all. The rate of education should be as low as possi
ble, but, as a general system, something should be paid by tha
parents.* Whatever deficit might remain, it seems to me per
fectly clear that the sources of revenue I have just specified
would be more than amply sufficient to cover. Look at the
schools already established in England, — upon what a founda
tion we commence I
The only schools which it might be found necessary to main
tain at the public charge, either by a small county rate, or hy
a parliamentary grant ¦yearly afforded, t would be those for
teachers : the expense would be exceedingly trifling. One word
more : the expense of education well administered is wonder-
fully^small in comparison to ils objects.
About 1,500,000 children are educated at the Sunday-schools
in Great Britain at an expense of 'Zs. each, per annum. In the
•* The systera in the case of actual paupers might be departed
fram, but with great caution ; and masters should be charged to take
especial care that the children of paupers should be taught the haiita
and customs of industry, as well as the advantages of independence,
I t This might be advisable, for the sake of maintaining parliament
ary vigilance, and attracting public opinion.

POPULAR EDUCATION. 243
lancasterian syslom, — tho cheapest of all — (but if the experi
ment of applying it to the higher branches of education bo suc
cessful, it may come to be the most general) — it is calculated
that 1000 boys are educated al .in expense not exceeding 300/.
a year. Now suppose there are four millions of children in
England and Wales to be educated (which, I apprehend, is
about the proportion), the whole expense on that system would
be only l,200,000i. a year. I strongly suspect that if the funds
of the various endowed grammar-schools were inquired into,
they alone would exceed that sum : to say nothing of the funds
of all our other schools, — lo say nothing of the sums paid by
the parents lo the schools.
So much for the state of popular education, — for its improve
ment, — for the outline of a general plan, — for the removal of
sectarian obstacles, — for the provision of the necessary ex
penses. I do not apologize to the public for thc length lo
which I have gone on this vast and important subject, — the
most solemn, the most interesting that can occupy the mind
of the patriot, the legislator, and the Christian. In the facts
which I have been the instrument of adducing from the tried
and practical system of Prussia, I think I do not flatter myself
in hoping that I have added some of the most useful and instruct
ive data to our present desire, and our present experience, of
Practical Education.

END OF VOL. I.

I 3 9002 00956 7117

yn

i

^^
,rf,iif,i',