EMERSON'S ENGLISH TRAITS. *
THESE essays on England and the English, for au& the "Traits" really are originated in two visits to this country : the first a passing Call so long ago as 1833, at the end of a Continental tour; the second took place in consequence of an engagement to deliver a series of lectures in the North during 1847 and 1848. This last furnished Mr. Emerson with a wider range of general observation, and much better opportunities of studying the national characteristics as well as the external forms of things, than could be obtained by a flying tourist without any specific object beyond doing all the sights he could in a short space of time.
A few personal incidents and the particular remarks they sug- gest will be found ; but the subjects of the essays are generalized into broad topics—as Land, involving a description of the climate, soil, cultivation and the results of labour as affecting the appear- ance of the country. Wealth in England is handled not only in the effects of accumulation, but in the industry, enterprise, and character of the people that has produced so much, as well as the good and evil consequences. Aristocracy is considered shrewdly, fairly, and broadly—with perfect freedom from any- thing like democratic prejudice or undue admiration. In Uni- versities and Literature Mr. Emerson favourably contrasts the results in scholarship and writing which the severer training of England produces, compared with America, even in the case of men who are not remarkable for study. And so he goes on through some fifteen chapters out of nineteen ; four taking a narrative cast—as the Voyage, or being more limited to himself—as the one headed Personal.
With the author's wonted characteristics of penetrating ob- servation, striking illustration, and copious accumulation of ideas, there is we think, more of mellowness in style, and less imita- tion of is, peculiarities of Carlyle' than appeared in Mr. Emer- son's earlier productions. English Traits is the work of an ori- ginal-minded man, looking favourably upon a country and a people with whom he has so much in common as to prevent the foreign element from interfering with his judgment, yet suffi- ciently removed, from customs, habits, and native character, to have everything come freshly to him. Even the reader accus- tomed to reflect on his countrymen will find many things pre- sented which he has overlooked, and mostly in a complimentary, never in a carping way. On the other hand, there are several matters that indicate a disposition to rely on popular errors, or conventional notions of the English character, or that touch upon defects which seem passing away. He tells us "the right of the husband to sell the wife has been retained down to our times." No such right ever existed as derived from the character of husband ; it is now an indictable offence. In his pictures of the sturdy opinion-despising Englishman, bravely following his own "hu- mours," or resisting being "put upon" by rank or wealth even to the risk of ruin, we fear he is painting a traditional class. The equally traditional idea as to the almost sullen reserve of Englishmen with strangers, is as a fact passing away with the extended locomotion, and the more varied intercourse consequent upon travelling facilities. Englishmen may not talk so much as foreigners in promiscuous company, because it is not their custom to "ring the changes" on topics that are settled or exhausted ; nor is fluency a national gift. There is certainly less stiffness or reserve than formerly: we question if there is any reserve in any class where immediately useful information can be given. Von Itaumer, when in England a good many years ago noticed the ready civility with which even men of the lower dims furnished Min with directions, and took trouble in doing so. These essays have this English characteristic--they are wanting in the broad generalization of the Frenchman, who from a very slender obser- vation and very few facts will oracularly settle anything.
The most attractive parts of Mr. Emerson's essays are those which refer to obvious things, yet require some freshness of vision to bring out in their full force, and suggest some under-current
* :English Traits. By R. iT. Emerson, Author of "Representative Hen," ite. (Printed by arrangement with the Author.) Published by Routledge, of comparison with matters in America. In this sense, "Wealth" is one of the best papers. These remarks well show the results of eight hundred years of security front foreign devastation, though not exactly from foreign invasion.
"A hundred thousand palaces adorn the island. All that can feed the senses and passions, all that can succour the talent—or arm the hands of the intelligent middle-class, who never spare in what they buy for their own consumption —all that eau aid science, gratify taste—or soothe comfort, is in open market. Whatever is excellent and beautiful in civil, rural, or ecclesiastic architecture—in fountain, garden, or grounds—the English noble crosses sea and land to see and to copy at home. The taste and science of thirty peaceful generations—the gardens which Evelyn planted—the temples and pleasure-houses which Inigo Tones and Christopher Wren built—the wood that Gibbons carved—the taste of foreign and domestic artists, Shenstone, Pope, Brown, Loudon, Paxton—are in the vast auction, and the hereditary principal heaps on the owner of today the benefit of ages of owners. The present possessors arc to the full as absolute as any of their fathers in choosing and procuring what they like. This comfort and splendour—the breadth of lake and niountain, tillage, pasture, and park, sumptuous castle and niodem villa—all consist with perfect order. They have no revolutions ; no Horse-Guards dictating to the Crown ; no Parisian poissardes and barricades ; no mob; but drowsy habitude, daily dress-dinners, wine, and ale, and beer, and gin, and sleep.
"With this power of creation, and this passion for independence, property has reached an ideal perfection. It is felt and treated as thenational life-blood. The laws are framed to give property the securest possible basis, and the provisions to lock and transmit it have exercised the eunningest heads in a profession which never admits a fool. The rights of property nothing but felony and treason can override. The house is a castle which the King cannot enter. The bank is a strong box to which the King has no key. Whatever surly sweetness possession can give is tested in England to the dregs. Vested rights are awful things, and absolute possession gives the smallest freeholder identity of interest with the duke.
"But the proudest result of this creation has been the great and refined forces it has put at the disposal of the private citizen. In the social world an Englishman today has the best lot. He is a king in a plain coat. He goes with the most powerful protection, keeps the best company, is armed by the best education, is seconded by wealth ; and his English name and accidents are like a flourish of trumpets announcing him. This, with his quiet style of manners, gives him the power of a sovereign, without the inconveniences which belong to that rank. I much prefer the condition of an English gentleman, of the better class, to that of any potentate in Europe—whether for travel or for opportunity of society, or for access to means of science or study, or for mere comfort and easy healthy relation to people at home."
The following observations on the real advantages possessed by nobility and on manners are good.
"If one asks, in the critical spirit of the day, what service this class have rendered ?—uses appear, or they would have perished long ago. Some of these are easily enumerated, others more subtile make a part of unconscious history. Their institution IS one step in the progress of society. For a race yields a nobility in some form, however we name the lords, as surely as it yields women. "The English nobles are high-spirited, active, educated men, born to wealth and power, who have run through every country, and kept in every country the best company, have seen every secret of art and nature, and, when men of any ability or ambition, have been consulted in the conduct otevery important action. You cannot wield great agencies without lending yourself to them; and when it happens that the spirit of the earl meets his rank and duties, we have the best examples of behaviour. Power of any kind readily appears in the manners ; and beneficent power, le talent (le Nen faire, gives a majesty which cannot be concealed or resisted. "These people seem to gain as much as they lose by their position. They survey society, as from the top of St. Paul's ; and, if they never hear plain truth from men, they see the best of everything in every kind, and they see things so grouped and amassed as to infer easily the sum and genius, instead of tedious particularities. Their good behaviour deserves all its fame - and they have that simplicity, and that air of repose, which are the finest' ornament of greatness. "The upper classes have only birth, say the people here, and not thoughts. Yes, but they have manners, and it is wonderful how much talent runs into manners—nowhere and never so much as in England. They have the sense of superiority, the absence of all the ambitious effort which disgusts in the aspiring classes, a pure tone of thought and feeling, and the power to command, among their other luxuries, the presence of the most accomplished men in their festive meetings."
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