HONOUR AND RICHES.
IT has been discovered that Sir Harry Smith, the chivalrous con- queror of Aliwal, on whom honours have been showered with not too lavish hand, is denied "substantial" rewards for his services, and remains comparatively a poor man. Sir Harry has won his position by his sword ; he has not spent his time in the pursuit of wealth, but of victory and honour; and if victory and honour are his without wealth, the end only answers to the means. But it is remembered that he cannot support the "dignity of his station" without that wealth which is the essential attribute of rank.
What a bitter sarcasm on the feeling of the English people, and most especially on those classes which claim to be the most cultivated and refined! In this matter we are far behind other peoples and other times which we undertake to look down upon. In no country that has attained to a high pitch of intel- lectual cultivation do personal worth and genius so totally fail the possessor in surmounting the distinctions of society. The lion of a day, indeed, be he military or literary, is sought to grace the reunions of the "distinguished" classes; but he is tolerated rather than companioned by his boats. In spirit he is still sent, like Parson Adams, into the kitchen. The greatest professors of the most lovely of arts are treated as hirelings on a footing with waiters. If an audacious and spoiled man of genius is so far made to forget the distinction as to play the familiar with his lordly companions, they goodnaturedly remember, that whereas their ancestors kept fools, they themselves now invite authors to dine with them. The country has to pay for this barbaric spirit in two ways,—in the social degradation which it entails ; and in the necessity of finding fortunes for those very eminent person- ages whom it is in conscience bound to honour.
Nor is the blame for this rude state of feeling imputable only to one class; those which most seem to be the victims must share the censure. It is not caused solely by the vulgarity and igto- ranee of "the great," who cannot believe in dignity or merit without at least four places in the cipher representing a man's annual income, but also in the servility of the professional classes, who are always trying to be taken not for themselves, but for the rich and fashionable.
The result is, that as a community the English people are in- capacitated from duly honouring such a man as Sir Harry Smith until they have made him rich. What a confession ! While the feeling lasts, it is incumbent on the Government fto see that the honours which it distributes are supported on a sub- stantial basis. Sir Harry Smith will of course be "provided for." It is a very humiliating necessity, but it would be idle to begin a reformation by withholding from him his earnings; that would be to begin at the wrong end. Poverty may be respectable and dignified ; but before we force dignity to keep company with poverty, we must school ourselves into the habit of respecting worth and genius for their own sakes, without the qualification of the purse.
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