And now a few words with respect to the motives of the writer for expressing a hatred for Rome.
This expressed abhorrence of the author for Rome might be ent.i.tled to little regard, provided it were possible to attribute it to any self-interested motive. There have been professed enemies of Rome, or of this or that system; but their professed enmity may frequently be traced to some cause which does them little credit; but the writer of these lines has no motive, and can have no motive, for his enmity to Rome, save the abhorrence of an honest heart for what is false, base, and cruel. A certain clergyman wrote with much heat against the Papists in the time of--who was known to favour the Papists, but was not expected to continue long in office, and whose supposed successor, the person, indeed, who did succeed him, was thought to be hostile to the Papists. This divine, who obtained a rich benefice from the successor of--who during ---"s time had always opposed him in everything he proposed to do, and who, of course, during that time affected to be very inimical to Popery--this divine might well be suspected of having a motive equally creditable for writing against the Papists, as that which induced him to write for them, as soon as his patron, who eventually did something more for him, had espoused their cause; but what motive, save an honest one, can the present writer have, for expressing an abhorrence of Popery? He is no clergyman, and consequently can expect neither benefices nor bishoprics, supposing it were the fashion of the present, or likely to be the fashion of any future administration, to reward clergymen with benefices or bishoprics, who, in the defence of the religion of their country write, or shall write, against Popery, and not to reward those who write, or shall write, in favour of it, and all its nonsense and abominations.
"But if not a clergyman, he is the servant of a certain society, which has the overthrow of Popery in view, and therefore," etc. This a.s.sertion, which has been frequently made, is incorrect, even as those who have made it probably knew it to be. He is the servant of no society whatever. He eats his own bread, and is one of the very few men in England who are independent in every sense of the word.
It is true he went to Spain with the colours of that society on his hat--oh! the blood glows in his veins! oh! the marrow awakes in his old bones when he thinks of what he accomplished in Spain in the cause of religion and civilization with the colours of that society in his hat, and its weapon in his hand, even the sword of the word of G.o.d; how with that weapon he hewed left and right, making the priests fly before him, and run away squeaking: "Vaya! que demonio es este!" Ay, and when he thinks of the plenty of Bible swords which he left behind him, destined to prove, and which have already proved, pretty calthrops in the heels of Popery. "Halloo! Batuschca," he exclaimed the other night, on reading an article in a newspaper; "what do you think of the present doings in Spain? Your old friend the zingaro, the gitano who rode about Spain, to say nothing of Galicia, with the Greek Buchini behind him as his squire, had a hand in bringing them about; there are many brave Spaniards connected with the present movement who took Bibles from his hands, and read them and profited by them, learning from the inspired page the duties of one man towards another, and the real value of a priesthood and their head, who set at nought the word of G.o.d, and think only of their own temporal interests; ay, and who learned Gitano--their own Gitano--from the lips of the London Caloro, and also songs in the said Gitano, very fit to dumbfounder your semi-Buddhist priests when they attempt to bewilder people"s minds with their school-logic and pseudo-ecclesiastical nonsense, songs such as--
"Un Erajai Sinaba chibando un sermon--."
- But with that society he has long since ceased to have any connection; he bade it adieu with feelings of love and admiration more than fourteen years ago; so, in continuing to a.s.sault Popery, no hopes of interest founded on that society can sway his mind--interest! who, with worldly interest in view, would ever have anything to do with that society? It is poor and supported, like its founder Christ, by poor people; and so far from having political influence, it is in such disfavour, and has ever been, with the dastardly great, to whom the government of England has for many years past been confided, that they having borne its colours only for a month would be sufficient to exclude any man, whatever his talents, his learning, or his courage may be, from the slightest chance of being permitted to serve his country either for fee, or without. A fellow who unites in himself the bankrupt trader, the broken author, or rather book-maker, and the laughed-down single speech spouter of the House of Commons, may look forward, always supposing that at one time he has been a foaming radical, to the government of an important colony. Ay, an ancient fox who has lost his tail may, provided he has a score of radical friends, who will swear that he can bark Chinese, though Chinese is not barked but sung, be forced upon a Chinese colony, though it is well known that to have lost one"s tail is considered by the Chinese in general as an irreparable infamy, whilst to have been once connected with a certain society, to which, to its honour be it said, all the radical party are vehemently hostile, would be quite sufficient to keep any one not only from a government, but something much less, even though he could translate the rhymed "Sessions of Hariri," and were versed, still retaining his tail, in the two languages in which Kien-Loung wrote his Eulogium on Moukden, that piece which, translated by Amyot, the learned Jesuit, won the applause of the celebrated Voltaire.
No! were the author influenced by hopes of fee or reward, he would, instead of writing against Popery, write for it; all the trumpery t.i.tled--he will not call them great again--would then be for him, and their masters the radicals, with their hosts of newspapers, would be for him, more especially if he would commence maligning the society whose colours he had once on his hat--a society which, as the priest says in the text, is one of the very few Protestant inst.i.tutions for which the Popish Church entertains any fear, and consequently respect, as it respects nothing which it does not fear. The writer said that certain "rulers" would never forgive him for having been connected with that society; he went perhaps too far in saying "never." It is probable that they would take him into favour on one condition, which is, that he should turn his pen and his voice against that society; such a mark "of a better way of thinking" would perhaps induce them to give him a government, nearly as good as that which they gave to a certain ancient radical fox at the intercession of his radical friends (who were bound to keep him from the pauper"s kennel), after he had promised to foam, bark, and snarl at corruption no more; he might even entertain hopes of succeeding, nay, of superseding, the ancient creature in his government; but even were he as badly off as he is well off, he would do no such thing. He would rather exist on crusts and water; he has often done so, and been happy; nay, he would rather starve than be a rogue--for even the feeling of starvation is happiness compared with what he feels who knows himself to be a rogue, provided he has any feeling at all. What is the use of a mitre or knighthood to a man who has betrayed his principles?
What is the use of a gilt collar, nay, even of a pair of scarlet breeches, to a fox who has lost his tail? Oh! the horror which haunts the mind of a fox who has lost his tail; and with reason, for his very mate loathes him, and more especially if, like himself, she has lost her brush. Oh! the horror which haunts the mind of the two-legged rogue who has parted with his principles, or those which he professed--for what?
We"ll suppose a government. What"s the use of a government, if the next day after you have received it, you are obliged for very shame to scurry off to it with the hoot of every honest man sounding in your ears?
"Lightly liar leaped and away ran."
PIERS PLOWMAN.
But bigotry, it has been said, makes the author write against Popery; and thorough-going bigotry, indeed, will make a person say or do anything.
But the writer is a very pretty bigot truly! Where will the public find traces of bigotry in anything he has written? He has written against Rome with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his soul, and with all his strength; but as a person may be quite honest, and speak and write against Rome, in like manner he may speak and write against her, and be quite free from bigotry; though it is impossible for any one but a bigot or a bad man to write or speak in her praise; her doctrines, actions, and machinations being what they are.
Bigotry! The author was born, and has always continued in the wrong church for bigotry, the quiet, unpretending Church of England; a church which, had it been a bigoted church, and not long suffering almost to a fault, might with its opportunities, as the priest says in the text, have stood in a very different position from that which it occupies at present. No! let those who are in search of bigotry, seek for it in a church very different from the inoffensive Church of England, which never encourages cruelty or calumny. Let them seek for it amongst the members of the Church of Rome, and more especially amongst those who have renegaded to it. There is nothing, however false and horrible, which a pervert to Rome will not say for his church, and which his priests will not encourage him in saying; and there is nothing, however horrible--the more horrible indeed and revolting to human nature, the more eager he would be to do it--which he will not do for it, and which his priests will not encourage him in doing.
Of the readiness which converts to Popery exhibit to sacrifice all the ties of blood and affection on the shrine of their newly-adopted religion, there is a curious ill.u.s.tration in the work of Luigi Pulci.
This man, who was born at Florence in the year 1432, and who was deeply versed in the Bible, composed a poem, called the "Morgante Maggiore,"
which he recited at the table of Lorenzo de Medici, the great patron of Italian genius. It is a mock-heroic and religious poem, in which the legends of knight-errantry, and of the Popish Church, are turned to unbounded ridicule. The pretended hero of it is a converted giant, called Morgante; though his adventures do not occupy the twentieth part of the poem, the princ.i.p.al personages being Charlemagne, Orlando, and his cousin Rinaldo of Montalban. Morgante has two brothers, both of them giants, and in the first canto of the poem, Morgante is represented with his brothers as carrying on a feud with the abbot and monks of a certain convent, built upon the confines of heathenesse; the giants being in the habit of flinging down stones, or rather huge rocks, on the convent.
Orlando, however, who is banished from the court of Charlemagne, arriving at the convent, undertakes to destroy them, and, accordingly, kills Pa.s.samonte and Alabastro, and converts Morgante, whose mind had been previously softened by a vision, in which the "Blessed Virgin" figures.
No sooner is he converted than, as a sign of his penitence, what does he do, but hastens and cuts off the hands of his two brothers, saying--
"Io vo" tagliar le mani a tutti quanti E porterolle a que" monaci santi."
And he does cut off the hands of his brethren, and carries them to the abbot, who blesses him for so doing. Pulci here is holding up to ridicule and execration the horrid butchery or betrayal of friends by popish converts, and the encouragement they receive from the priest. No sooner is a person converted to Popery, than his princ.i.p.al thought is how he can bring the hands and feet of his brethren, however harmless they may be, and different from the giants, to the "holy priests," who, if he manages to do so, never fail to praise him, saying to the miserable wretch, as the abbot said to Morgante:--
"Tu sarai or perfetto e vero amico A Cristo, quanto tu gli eri nemico."
Can the English public deny the justice of Pulci"s ill.u.s.tration, after something which it has lately witnessed? Has it not seen equivalents for the hands and feet of brothers carried by popish perverts to the "holy priests," and has it not seen the manner in which the offering has been received? Let those who are in quest of bigotry seek for it among the perverts to Rome, and not amongst those who, born in the pale of the Church of England, have always continued in it.
CHAPTER III--On Foreign Nonsense.
With respect to the third point, various lessons which the book reads to the nation at large, and which it would be well for the nation to ponder and profit by.
There are many species of nonsense to which the nation is much addicted, and of which the perusal of Lavengro ought to give them a wholesome shame. First of all, with respect to the foreign nonsense so prevalent now in England. The hero is a scholar; but, though possessed of a great many tongues, he affects to be neither Frenchman, nor German, nor this or that foreigner; he is one who loves his country, and the language and literature of his country, and speaks up for each and all when there is occasion to do so. Now what is the case with nine out of ten amongst those of the English who study foreign languages? No sooner have they picked up a smattering of this or that speech than they begin to abuse their own country, and everything connected with it, more especially its language. This is particularly the case with those who call themselves German students. It is said, and the writer believes with truth, that when a woman falls in love with a particularly ugly fellow, she squeezes him with ten times more zest than she would a handsome one, if captivated by him. So it is with these German students; no sooner have they taken German in hand than there is nothing like German. Oh, the dear delightful German! How proud I am that it is now my own, and that its divine literature is within my reach! And all this whilst mumbling the most uncouth speech, and crunching the most crabbed literature in Europe.
The writer is not an exclusive admirer of everything English; he does not advise his country people never to go abroad, never to study foreign languages, and he does not wish to persuade them that there is nothing beautiful or valuable in foreign literature; he only wishes that they would not make themselves fools with respect to foreign people, foreign languages or reading; that if they chance to have been in Spain, and have picked up a little Spanish, they would not affect the airs of Spaniards; that if males they would not make Tomfools of themselves by sticking cigars into their mouths, dressing themselves in zamarras, and saying, carajo! {2} and if females that they would not make zanies of themselves by sticking cigars into their mouths, flinging mantillas over their heads, and by saying carai, and perhaps carajo too; or if they have been in France or Italy, and have picked up a little French or Italian, they would not affect to be French or Italians; and particularly, after having been a month or two in Germany, or picked up a little German in England, they would not make themselves foolish about everything German, as the Anglo-German in the book does--a real character, the founder of the Anglo- German school in England, and the cleverest Englishman who ever talked or wrote encomiastic nonsense about Germany and the Germans. Of all infatuations connected with what is foreign, the infatuation about everything that is German, to a certain extent prevalent in England, is a.s.suredly the most ridiculous. One can find something like a palliation for people making themselves somewhat foolish about particular languages, literatures, and people. The Spanish certainly is a n.o.ble language, and there is something wild and captivating in the Spanish character, and its literature contains the grand book of the world. French is a manly language. The French are the great martial people in the world; and French literature is admirable in many respects. Italian is a sweet language, and of beautiful simplicity--its literature perhaps the first in the world. The Italians!--wonderful men have sprung up in Italy.
Italy is not merely famous for painters, poets, musicians, singers, and linguists--the greatest linguist the world ever saw, the late Cardinal Mezzofanti, was an Italian; but it is celebrated for men--men emphatically speaking: Columbus was an Italian, Alexander Farnese was an Italian, so was the mightiest of the mighty, Napoleon Bonaparte;--but the German language, German literature, and the Germans! The writer has already stated his opinion with respect to German; he does not speak from ignorance or prejudice; he has heard German spoken, and many other languages. German literature! He does not speak from ignorance, he has read that and many a literature, and he repeats-- However, he acknowledges that there is one fine poem in the German language, that poem is the "Oberon;" a poem, by the bye, ignored by the Germans--a speaking fact--and of course, by the Anglo-Germanists. The Germans! he has been amongst them, and amongst many other nations, and confesses that his opinion of the Germans, as men, is a very low one. Germany, it is true, has produced one very great man, the monk who fought the Pope, and nearly knocked him down; but this man his countrymen--a telling fact--affect to despise, and, of course, the Anglo-Germanists: the father of Anglo-Germanism was very fond of inveighing against Luther.
The madness, or rather foolery, of the English for foreign customs, dresses, and languages, is not an affair of to-day, or yesterday--it is of very ancient date, and was very properly exposed nearly three centuries ago by one Andrew Borde, who under the picture of a "Naked man, with a pair of shears in one hand, and a roll of cloth in the other," {3} inserted the following lines along with others:--
"I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here, Musing in my mind what garment I shall weare; For now I will weare this, and now I will weare that, Now I will weare, I cannot tell what.
All new fashions be pleasant to mee, I will have them, whether I thrive or thee; What do I care if all the world me fail?
I will have a garment reach to my taile; Then am I a minion, for I wear the new guise.
The next yeare after I hope to be wise, Not only in wearing my gorgeous array, For I will go to learning a whole summer"s day; I will learn Latine, Hebrew, Greek, and French, And I will learn Dutch, sitting on my bench.
I had no peere if to myself I were true, Because I am not so, divers times do I rue.
Yet I lacke nothing, I have all things at will If I were wise and would hold myself still, And meddle with no matters but to me pertaining, But ever to be true to G.o.d and my king.
But I have such matters rowling in my pate, That I will and do--I cannot tell what," etc.
CHAPTER IV--On Gentility Nonsense--Ill.u.s.trations of Gentility.
What is gentility? People in different stations in England--entertain different ideas of what is genteel, {4} but it must be something gorgeous, glittering, or tawdry, to be considered genteel by any of them.
The beau-ideal of the English aristocracy, of course with some exceptions, is some young fellow with an imperial t.i.tle, a military personage of course, for what is military is so particularly genteel, with flaming epaulets, a c.o.c.ked hat and plume, a prancing charger, and a band of fellows called generals and colonels, with flaming epaulets, c.o.c.ked hats and plumes, and prancing chargers vapouring behind him. It was but lately that the daughter of an English marquis was heard to say, that the sole remaining wish of her heart--she had known misfortunes, and was not far from fifty--was to be introduced to--whom? The Emperor of Austria! The sole remaining wish of the heart of one who ought to have been thinking of the grave and judgment, was to be introduced to the miscreant who had caused the blood of n.o.ble Hungarian females to be whipped out of their shoulders, for no other crime than devotion to their country, and its tall and heroic sons. The middle cla.s.ses--of course there are some exceptions--admire the aristocracy, and consider them pinks, the aristocracy who admire the Emperor of Austria, and adored the Emperor of Russia, till he became old, ugly, and unfortunate, when their adoration instantly terminated; for what is more ungenteel than age, ugliness, and misfortune! The beau-ideal with those of the lower cla.s.ses, with peasants and mechanics, is some flourishing railroad contractor: look, for example, how they worship Mr. Flamson. This person makes his grand debut in the year "thirty-nine, at a public meeting in the princ.i.p.al room of a country inn. He has come into the neighbourhood with the character of a man worth a million pounds, who is to make everybody"s fortune; at this time, however, he is not worth a shilling of his own, though he flashes about dexterously three or four thousand pounds, part of which sum he has obtained by specious pretences, and part from certain individuals who are his confederates. But in the year "forty-nine, he is really in possession of the fortune which he and his agents pretended to be worth ten years before--he is worth a million pounds. By what means has he come by them? By railroad contracts, for which he takes care to be paid in hard cash before he attempts to perform them, and to carry out which he makes use of the sweat and blood of wretches who, since their organization, have introduced crimes and language into England to which it was previously almost a stranger--by purchasing, with paper, shares by hundreds in the schemes to execute which he contracts, and which are his own devising; which shares he sells as soon as they are at a high premium, to which they are speedily forced by means of paragraphs, inserted by himself and agents, in newspapers devoted to his interest, utterly reckless of the terrible depreciation to which they are almost instantly subjected. But he is worth a million pounds, there can be no doubt of the fact--he has not made people"s fortunes, at least those whose fortunes it was said he would make; he has made them away; but his own he has made, emphatically made it; he is worth a million pounds. Hurrah for the millionnaire! The clown who views the pandemonium of red brick which he has built on the estate which he has purchased in the neighbourhood of the place of his grand debut, in which every species of architecture, Greek, Indian, and Chinese, is employed in caricature--who hears of the grand entertainment he gives at Christmas in the princ.i.p.al dining-room, the hundred wax-candles, the waggon-load of plate, and the ocean of wine which form parts of it, and above all the two ostrich poults, one at the head, and the other at the foot of the table, exclaims, "Well! if he a"n"t bang up, I don"t know who be; why he beats my lord hollow!" The mechanic of the borough town, who sees him dashing through the streets in an open landau, drawn by four milk-white horses, amidst his attendant out-riders; his wife, a monster of a woman, by his side, stout as the wife of Tamerlane, who weighed twenty stone, and bedizened out like her whose person shone with the jewels of plundered Persia, stares with silent wonder, and at last exclaims "That"s the man for my vote!" You tell the clown that the man of the mansion has contributed enormously to corrupt the rural innocence of England; you point to an incipient branch railroad, from around which the accents of Gomorrah are sounding, and beg him to listen for a moment, and then close his ears. Hodge scratches his head and says, "Well, I have nothing to say to that; all I know is, that he is bang up, and I wish I were he;" perhaps he will add--a Hodge has been known to add--"He has been kind enough to put my son on that very railroad; "tis true the company is somewhat queer, and the work rather killing, but he gets there half-a-crown a day, whereas from the farmers he would only get eighteen- pence." You remind the mechanic that the man in the landau has been the ruin of thousands and you mention people whom he himself knows, people in various grades of life, widows and orphans amongst them, whose little all has been dissipated, and whom he has reduced to beggary by inducing them to become sharers in his delusive schemes. But the mechanic says, "Well, the more fools they to let themselves be robbed. But I don"t call that kind of thing robbery, I merely call it out-witting; and everybody in this free country has a right to outwit others if he can. What a turn- out he has!" One was once heard to add, "I never saw a more genteel-looking man in all my life except one, and that was a gentleman"s walley, who was much like him. It is true that he is rather under-sized, but then madam, you know, makes up for all."
CHAPTER V--Subject of Gentility continued.
In the last chapter have been exhibited specimens of gentility, so considered by different cla.s.ses; by one cla.s.s power, youth, and epaulets are considered the ne plus ultra of gentility; by another cla.s.s pride, stateliness, and t.i.tle; by another, wealth and flaming tawdriness. But what const.i.tutes a gentleman? It is easy to say at once what const.i.tutes a gentleman, and there are no distinctions in what is gentlemanly, {5} as there are in what is genteel. The characteristics of a gentleman are high feeling--a determination never to take a cowardly advantage of another--a liberal education--absence of narrow views--generosity and courage, propriety of behaviour. Now a person may be genteel according to one or another of the three standards described above, and not possess one of the characteristics of a gentleman. Is the emperor a gentleman, with spatters of blood on his clothes, scourged from the backs of n.o.ble Hungarian women? Are the aristocracy gentlefolks, who admire him? Is Mr. Flamson a gentleman, although he has a million pounds? No! cowardly miscreants, admirers of cowardly miscreants, and people who make a million pounds by means compared with which those employed to make fortunes by the getters up of the South Sea Bubble might be called honest dealing, are decidedly not gentlefolks. Now as it is clearly demonstrable that a person may be perfectly genteel according to some standard or other, and yet be no gentleman, so it is demonstrable that a person may have no pretensions to gentility, and yet be a gentleman. For example, there is Lavengro! Would the admirers of the emperor, or the admirers of those who admire the emperor, or the admirers of Mr. Flamson, call him genteel? and gentility with them is everything! a.s.suredly they would not; and a.s.suredly they would consider him respectively as a being to be shunned, despised, or hooted. Genteel! Why at one time he is a hack author--writes reviewals for eighteenpence a page--edits a Newgate chronicle. At another he wanders the country with a face grimy from occasionally mending kettles; and there is no evidence that his clothes are not seedy and torn, and his shoes down at the heel; but by what process of reasoning will they prove that he is no gentleman? Is he not learned? Has he not generosity and courage? Whilst a hack author, does he p.a.w.n the books entrusted to him to review? Does he break his word to his publisher? Does he write begging letters? Does he get clothes or lodgings without paying for them? Again, whilst a wanderer, does he insult helpless women on the road with loose proposals or ribald discourse? Does he take what is not his own from the hedges? Does he play on the fiddle, or make faces in public-houses, in order to obtain pence or beer? or does he call for liquor, swallow it, and then say to a widowed landlady, "Mistress, I have no bra.s.s?" In a word, what vice and crime does he perpetrate--what low acts does he commit? Therefore, with his endowments, who will venture to say that he is no gentleman?--unless it be an admirer of Mr. Flamson--a clown--who will, perhaps, shout--"I say he is no gentleman; for who can be a gentleman who keeps no gig?"
The indifference exhibited by Lavengro for what is merely genteel, compared with his solicitude never to infringe the strict laws of honour, should read a salutary lesson. The generality of his countrymen are far more careful not to transgress the customs of what they call gentility, than to violate the laws of honour or morality. They will shrink from carrying their own carpet-bag, and from speaking to a person in seedy raiment, whilst to matters of much higher importance they are shamelessly indifferent. Not so Lavengro; he will do anything that he deems convenient, or which strikes his fancy, provided it does not outrage decency, or is unallied to profligacy; is not ashamed to speak to a beggar in rags, and will a.s.sociate with anybody, provided he can gratify a laudable curiosity. He has no abstract love for what is low, or what the world calls low. He sees that many things which the world looks down upon are valuable, so he prizes much which the world condemns; he sees that many things which the world admires are contemptible, so he despises much which the world does not; but when the world prizes what is really excellent, he does not contemn it, because the world regards it. If he learns Irish, which all the world scoffs at, he likewise learns Italian, which all the world melts at. If he learns Gypsy, the language of the tattered tent, he likewise learns Greek, the language of the college-hall. If he learns smithery, he also learns--ah! what does he learn to set against smithery?--the law? No; he does not learn the law, which, by the way, is not very genteel. Swimming? Yes, he learns to swim. Swimming, however, is not genteel; and the world--at least the genteel part of it--acts very wisely in setting its face against it; for to swim you must be naked, and how would many a genteel person look without his clothes? Come, he learns horsemanship; a very genteel accomplishment, which every genteel person would gladly possess, though not all genteel people do.
Again as to a.s.sociates: if he holds communion when a boy with Murtagh, the scarecrow of an Irish academy, he a.s.sociates in after life with Francis Ardry, a rich and talented young Irish gentleman about town. If he accepts an invitation from Mr. Petulengro to his tent, he has no objection to go home with a rich genius to dinner; who then will say that he prizes a thing or a person because they are ungenteel? That he is not ready to take up with everything that is ungenteel he gives a proof, when he refuses, though on the brink of starvation, to become bonnet to the thimble-man, an office, which, though profitable, is positively ungenteel. Ah! but some sticker-up for gentility will exclaim, "The hero did not refuse this office from an insurmountable dislike to its ungentility, but merely from a feeling of principle." Well! the writer is not fond of argument, and he will admit that such was the case; he admits that it was a love of principle, rather than an over-regard for gentility, which prevented the hero from accepting, when on the brink of starvation, an ungenteel though lucrative office, an office which, the writer begs leave to observe, many a person with a great regard for gentility, and no particular regard for principle, would in a similar strait have accepted; for when did a mere love for gentility keep a person from being a dirty scoundrel, when the alternatives were "either be a dirty scoundrel or starve?" One thing, however, is certain, which is, that Lavengro did not accept the office, which if a love for what is low had been his ruling pa.s.sion he certainly would have done; consequently, he refuses to do one thing which no genteel person would willingly do, even as he does many things which every genteel person would gladly do, for example, speaks Italian, rides on horseback, a.s.sociates with a fashionable young man, dines with a rich genius, et cetera. Yet--and it cannot be minced--he and gentility with regard to many things are at strange divergency; he shrinks from many things at which gentility placidly hums a tune, or approvingly simpers, and does some things at which gentility positively shrinks. He will not run into debt for clothes or lodgings, which he might do without any scandal to gentility; he will not receive money from Francis Ardry, and go to Brighton with the sister of Annette Le Noir, though there is nothing ungenteel in borrowing money from a friend, even when you never intend to repay him, and something poignantly genteel in going to a watering-place with a gay young Frenchwoman; but he has no objection, after raising twenty pounds by the sale of that extraordinary work "Joseph Sell," to set off into the country, mend kettles under hedge-rows, and make pony and donkey shoes in a dingle. Here, perhaps, some plain, well-meaning person will cry--and with much apparent justice--how can the writer justify him in this act? What motive, save a love for what is low, could induce him to do such a thing? Would the writer have everybody who is in need of recreation go into the country, mend kettles under hedges, and make pony shoes in dingles? To such an observation the writer would answer, that Lavengro had an excellent motive in doing what he did, but that the writer is not so unreasonable as to wish everybody to do the same. It is not everybody who can mend kettles. It is not everybody who is in similar circ.u.mstances to those in which Lavengro was. Lavengro flies from London and hack authorship, and takes to the roads from fear of consumption; it is expensive to put up at inns, and even at public- houses, and Lavengro has not much money; so he buys a tinker"s cart and apparatus, and sets up as tinker, and subsequently as blacksmith; a person living in a tent, or in anything else, must do something or go mad; Lavengro had a mind, as he himself well knew, with some slight tendency to madness, and had he not employed himself, he must have gone wild; so to employ himself he drew upon one of his resources, the only one available at the time. Authorship had nearly killed him, he was sick of reading, and had besides no books; but he possessed the rudiments of an art akin to tinkering; he knew something of smithery, having served a kind of apprenticeship in Ireland to a fairy smith; so he draws upon his smithery to enable him to acquire tinkering, he speedily acquires that craft, even as he had speedily acquired Welsh, owing to its connection with Irish, which language he possessed; and with tinkering he amuses himself until he lays it aside to resume smithery. A man who has an innocent resource, has quite as much right to draw upon it in need, as he has upon a banker in whose hands he has placed a sum; Lavengro turns to advantage, under particular circ.u.mstances, a certain resource which he has, but people who are not so forlorn as Lavengro, and have not served the same apprenticeship which he had, are not advised to follow his example. Surely he was better employed in plying the trades of tinker and smith than in having recourse to vice, in running after milk-maids, for example. Running after milk-maids is by no means an ungenteel rural diversion; but let any one ask some respectable casuist (the Bishop of London for example), whether Lavengro was not far better employed, when in the country, at tinkering and smithery than he would have been in running after all the milk-maids in Cheshire, though tinkering is in general considered a very ungenteel employment, and smithery little better, notwithstanding that an Orcadian poet, who wrote in Norse about eight hundred years ago, reckons the latter among nine n.o.ble arts which he possessed, naming it along with playing at chess, on the harp, and ravelling runes, or as the original has it, "treading runes"--that is, compressing them into a small compa.s.s by mingling one letter with another, even as the Turkish caligraphists ravel the Arabic letters, more especially those who write talismans.
"Nine arts have I, all n.o.ble; I play at chess so free, At ravelling runes I"m ready, At books and smithery; I"m skilled o"er ice at skimming On skates, I shoot and row, And few at harping match me, Or minstrelsy, I trow."
But though Lavengro takes up smithery, which, though the Orcadian ranks it with chess-playing and harping, is certainly somewhat of a grimy art, there can be no doubt that, had he been wealthy and not so forlorn as he was, he would have turned to many things, honourable, of course, in preference. He has no objection to ride a fine horse when he has the opportunity: he has his day-dream of making a fortune of two hundred thousand pounds by becoming a merchant and doing business after the Armenian fashion; and there can be no doubt that he would have been glad to wear fine clothes, provided he had had sufficient funds to authorize him in wearing them. For the sake of wandering the country and plying the hammer and tongs, he would not have refused a commission in the service of that ill.u.s.trious monarch George the Fourth, provided he had thought that he could live on his pay, and not be forced to run in debt to tradesmen, without any hope of paying them, for clothes and luxuries, as many highly genteel officers in that honourable service were in the habit of doing. For the sake of tinkering, he would certainly not have refused a secretaryship of an emba.s.sy to Persia, in which he might have turned his acquaintance with Persian, Arabic, and the Lord only knows what other languages, to account. He took to tinkering and smithery, because no better employments were at his command. No war is waged in the book against rank, wealth, fine clothes, or dignified employments; it is shown, however, that a person may be a gentleman and a scholar without them. Rank, wealth, fine clothes, and dignified employments, are no doubt very fine things, but they are merely externals, they do not make a gentleman, they add external grace and dignity to the gentleman and scholar, but they make neither; and is it not better to be a gentleman without them than not a gentleman with them? Is not Lavengro, when he leaves London on foot with twenty pounds in his pocket, ent.i.tled to more respect than Mr. Flamson flaming in his coach with a million? And is not even the honest jockey at Horncastle, who offers a fair price to Lavengro for his horse, ent.i.tled to more than the scoundrel lord, who attempts to cheat him of one-fourth of its value?
Millions, however, seem to think otherwise, by their servile adoration of people whom without rank, wealth, and fine clothes they would consider infamous, but whom possessed of rank, wealth, and glittering habiliments they seem to admire all the more for their profligacy and crimes. Does not a blood-spot, or a l.u.s.t-spot, on the clothes of a blooming emperor, give a kind of zest to the genteel young G.o.d? Do not the pride, superciliousness, and selfishness of a certain aristocracy make it all the more regarded by its worshippers? and do not the clownish and gutter- blood admirers of Mr. Flamson like him all the more because they are conscious that he is a knave? If such is the case --and, alas! is it not the case?--they cannot be too frequently told that fine clothes, wealth, and t.i.tles adorn a person in proportion as he adorns them; that if worn by the magnanimous and good they are ornaments indeed, but if by the vile and profligate they are merely san benitos, and only serve to make their infamy doubly apparent; and that a person in seedy raiment and tattered hat, possessed of courage, kindness, and virtue, is ent.i.tled to more respect from those to whom his virtues are manifested than any cruel profligate emperor, selfish aristocrat, or knavish millionaire in the world.
The writer has no intention of saying that all in England are affected with the absurd mania for gentility; nor is such a statement made in the book; it is shown therein that individuals of certain cla.s.ses can prize a gentleman, notwithstanding seedy raiment, dusty shoes or tattered hat,--for example, the young Irishman, the rich genius, the postillion, and his employer. Again, when the life of the hero is given to the world, amidst the howl about its lowness and vulgarity, raised by the servile crew whom its independence of sentiment has stung, more than one powerful voice has been heard testifying approbation of its learning and the purity of its morality. That there is some salt in England, minds not swayed by mere externals, he is fully convinced; if he were not, he would spare himself the trouble of writing; but to the fact that the generality of his countrymen are basely grovelling before the shrine of what they are pleased to call gentility, he cannot shut his eyes.
Oh! what a clever person that c.o.c.kney was, who, travelling in the Aberdeen railroad carriage, after edifying the company with his remarks on various subjects, gave it as his opinion that Lieutenant P--- would, in future, be shunned by all respectable society! And what a simple person that elderly gentleman was, who, abruptly starting, asked in rather an authoritative voice, "and why should Lieutenant P--- be shunned by respectable society?" and who, after entering into what was said to be a masterly a.n.a.lysis of the entire evidence of the case, concluded by stating, "that having been accustomed to all kinds of evidence all his life, he had never known a case in which the accused had obtained a more complete and triumphant justification than Lieutenant P--- had done in the late trial."
Now the c.o.c.kney, who is said to have been a very foppish c.o.c.kney, was perfectly right in what he said, and therein manifested a knowledge of the English mind and character, and likewise of the modern English language, to which his catechist, who, it seems, was a distinguished member of the Scottish bar, could lay no pretensions. The c.o.c.kney knew what the Lord of Session knew not, that the British public is gentility crazy, and he knew, moreover, that gentility and respectability are synonymous. No one in England is genteel or respectable that is "looked at," who is the victim of oppression; he may be pitied for a time, but when did not pity terminate in contempt? A poor, harmless young officer--but why enter into the details of the infamous case? they are but too well known, and if ever cruelty, pride, and cowardice, and things much worse than even cruelty, cowardice, and pride were brought to light, and, at the same time, countenanced, they were in that case. What availed the triumphant justification of the poor victim? There was at first a roar of indignation against his oppressors, but how long did it last? He had been turned out of the service, they remained in it with their red coats and epaulets; he was merely the son of a man who had rendered good service to his country, they were, for the most part, highly connected--they were in the extremest degree genteel, he quite the reverse; so the nation wavered, considered, thought the genteel side was the safest after all, and then with the cry of, "Oh! there is nothing like gentility," ratted bodily. Newspaper and public turned against the victim, scouted him, apologized for the--what should they be called?--who were not only admitted into the most respectable society, but courted to come, the spots not merely of wine on their military clothes, giving them a kind of poignancy. But there is a G.o.d in heaven; the British glories are tarnished--Providence has never smiled on British arms since that case--oh! Balaklava! thy name interpreted is net of fishes, and well dost thou deserve that name. How many a scarlet golden fish has of late perished in the mud amidst thee, cursing the genteel service, and the genteel leader which brought him to such a doom.
Whether the rage for gentility is most prevalent amongst the upper, middle, or lower cla.s.ses it is difficult to say; the priest in the text seems to think that it is exhibited in the most decided manner in the middle cla.s.s; it is the writer"s opinion, however, that in no cla.s.s is it more strongly developed than in the lower: what they call being well-born goes a great way amongst them, but the possession of money much farther, whence Mr. Flamson"s influence over them. Their rage against, and scorn for, any person who by his courage and talents has advanced himself in life, and still remains poor, are indescribable; "he is no better than ourselves," they say, "why should he be above us?"--for they have no conception that anybody has a right to ascendency over themselves except by birth or money. This feeling amongst the vulgar has been, to a certain extent, the bane of two services, naval and military. The writer does not make this a.s.sertion rashly; he observed this feeling at work in the army when a child, and he has good reason for believing that it was as strongly at work in the navy at the same time, and is still as prevalent in both. Why are not brave men raised from the ranks? is frequently the cry; why are not brave sailors promoted? The Lord help brave soldiers and sailors who are promoted; they have less to undergo from the high airs of their brother officers, and those are hard enough to endure, than from the insolence of the men. Soldiers and sailors promoted to command are said to be in general tyrants; in nine cases out of ten, when they are tyrants, they have been obliged to have recourse to extreme severity in order to protect themselves from the insolence and mutinous spirit of the men,--"He is no better than ourselves: shoot him, bayonet him, or fling him overboard!" they say of some obnoxious individual raised above them by his merit. Soldiers and sailors, in general, will bear any amount of tyranny from a lordly sot, or the son of a man who has "plenty of bra.s.s"--their own term--but will mutiny against the just orders of a skilful and brave officer who "is no better than themselves." There was the affair of the "Bounty," for example: Bligh was one of the best seamen that ever trod deck, and one of the bravest of men; proofs of his seamanship he gave by steering, amidst dreadful weather, a deeply-laden boat for nearly four thousand miles over an almost unknown ocean--of his bravery, at the fight of Copenhagen, one of the most desperate ever fought, of which after Nelson he was the hero: he was, moreover, not an unkind man; but the crew of the "Bounty" mutinied against him, and set him half naked in an open boat, with certain of his men who remained faithful to him, and ran away with the ship. Their princ.i.p.al motive for doing so was an idea, whether true or groundless the writer cannot say, that Bligh was "no better than themselves;" he was certainly neither a lord"s illegitimate, nor possessed of twenty thousand pounds. The writer knows what he is writing about, having been acquainted in his early years with an individual who was turned adrift with Bligh, and who died about the year "22, a lieutenant in the navy, in a provincial town in which the writer was brought up. The ringleaders in the mutiny were two scoundrels, Christian and Young, who had great influence with the crew, because they were genteelly connected. Bligh, after leaving the "Bounty," had considerable difficulty in managing the men who had shared his fate, because they considered themselves "as good men as he," notwithstanding, that to his conduct and seamanship they had alone to look, under Heaven, for salvation from the ghastly perils that surrounded them. Bligh himself, in his journal, alludes to this feeling.
Once, when he and his companions landed on a desert island, one of them said, with a mutinous look, that he considered himself "as good a man as he;" Bligh, seizing a cutla.s.s, called upon him to take another and defend himself, whereupon the man said that Bligh was going to kill him, and made all manner of concessions; now why did this fellow consider himself as good a man as Bligh? Was he as good a seaman? no, nor a tenth part as good. As brave a man? no, nor a tenth part as brave; and of these facts he was perfectly well aware, but bravery and seamanship stood for nothing with him, as they still stand with thousands of his cla.s.s; Bligh was not genteel by birth or money, therefore Bligh was no better than himself.
Had Bligh, before he sailed, got a twenty-thousand pound prize in the lottery, he would have experienced no insolence from this fellow, for there would have been no mutiny in the "Bounty." "He is our betters,"
the crew would have said, "and it is our duty to obey him."
The wonderful power of gentility in England is exemplified in nothing more than in what it is producing amongst Jews, Gypsies, and Quakers. It is breaking up their venerable communities. All the better, some one will say. Alas! alas! It is making the wealthy Jews forsake the synagogue for the opera-house, or the gentility chapel, in which a disciple of Mr. Plat.i.tude, in a white surplice, preaches a sermon at noon- day from a desk, on each side of which is a flaming taper. It is making them abandon their ancient literature, their "Mischna," their "Gemara,"
their "Zohar," for gentility novels, "The Young Duke," the most unexceptionably genteel book ever written, being the princ.i.p.al favourite.
It makes the young Jew ashamed of the young Jewess, it makes her ashamed of the young Jew. The young Jew marries an opera-dancer, or if the dancer will not have him, as is frequently the case, the cast-off Miss of the Honourable Spencer So-and-so. It makes the young Jewess accept the honourable offer of a cashiered lieutenant of the Bengal Native Infantry; or, if such a person does not come forward, the dishonourable offer of a cornet of a regiment of crack hussars. It makes poor Jews, male and female, forsake the synagogue for the sixpenny theatre or penny hop; the Jew to take up with an Irish female of loose character, and the Jewess with a musician of the Guards, or the Tipperary servant of Captain Mulligan. With respect to the gypsies, it is making the women what they never were before--harlots; and the men what they never were before--careless fathers and husbands. It has made the daughter of Ursula the chaste take up with the base drummer of a wild-beast show. It makes Gorgiko Brown, the gypsy man, leave his tent and his old wife, of an evening, and thrust himself into society which could well dispense with him. "Brother," said Mr. Petulengro to the Romany Rye, after telling him many things connected with the decadence of gypsyism, "there is one Gorgiko Brown, who, with a face as black as a tea-kettle, wishes to be mistaken for a Christian tradesman; he goes into the parlour of a third-rate inn of an evening, calls for rum and water, and attempts to enter into conversation with the company about politics and business; the company flout him and give him the cold shoulder, or perhaps complain to the landlord, who comes and asks him what business he has in the parlour, telling him if he wants to drink to go into the tap-room, and perhaps collars him and kicks him out, provided he refuses to move." With respect to the Quakers, it makes the young people like the young Jews, crazy after gentility diversions, worship, marriages, or connections, and makes old Pease do what it makes Gorgiko Brown do, thrust himself into society which could well dispense with him, and out of which he is not kicked, because unlike the gypsy he is not poor. The writer would say much more on these points, but want of room prevents him; he must therefore request the reader to have patience until he can lay before the world a pamphlet, which he has been long meditating, to be ent.i.tled "Remarks on the strikingly similar Effects which a Love for Gentility has produced, and is producing, amongst Jews, Gypsies, and Quakers."