YOUNG ENGLAND.
IT is easy to sneer at " white waistcoats and neckcloths" • and they are fair game for the sneerer when there is nothing hetter beneath them. Even on this assumption, it might be said of Young England, that its demeanour showed better taste, was more unob- trusive, and more gentlemanlike in the true and high sense of the word, ;inn Young France, Young Germany, or any other "young " of the age.
But there is something better beneath these white waistcoats and neckcloths. All can see that their wearers are punctual in their attendance in the House of Commons, and attentive to what is going on there. Their fastidiously elegant though quiet style of dress has a spice of refined Quakerism in it. There lies at the bottom of it the same conviction which animates the Quaker, that a man irreproachably neat in his attire will generally attempt to make his conduct correspond ; and the dress of Young England is in better taste than the Quakers'.
Young England is suspected of fanaticism—of a leaning at the least to Puseyism. Nay, there can be little doubt that Young England thinks itself what others call intolerant. But its intolerance is of a rather peculiar character. It is not an unconscious but a voluntarily-assumed intolerance. It has been taken up for a purpose and upon argument. Young England is fastidious, and seeks re- fuge from pert, presumptuous dogmatism, in submission to the judgment of a church. Young England is logical, and sees that there is no medium between free thought and this implicit sub- mission. Young England thinks the imposition of the strong yoke of faith necessary to keep frail human nature steady. Young Eng- land has a touch of devotional enthusiasm, and really feels the religious impressions it gives utterance to. Young England is imaginative, and has read history, and is aware of the great effects that have been produced by imaginative religion in the persons of ATECKETT, LOYOLA, and others; and Young England is therefore,
convinced that religion is the surest engine for making society work well together. Young England's frame of mind, in short, is to be respected, in amiable, accomplished, and intellige t young gentlemen. But Young England deceives itself in think 'g that it is essentially and exclusively Christian and English. 3re is more of German metaphysics in it than either of HOOKER or JEREMY TAYLOR, and more of the sesthetical dandyism of Gorriaz than any thing else.
Young England is unconsciously promoting the cause of Liberal- ism at present ; and none need be astonished to find many of its members avowing a very liberal creed at no distant period. It is not of Tory or High Church principles the party is enamoured, but of their own ideas of what High Church and Toryism ought to be. They have looked at them on the picturesque side, and are not prepared to act their intolerance. They have reasoned them- selves into a belief that they are bigots; but true bigotry is un- reasoning. Bigotry is the growth of ignorance, and can no more be assumed by cultivated intellects than men can take childhood upon them again. The thoroughgoing Churchman and Tory of the old school is impatient of the philanthropy and scruples of Young England ; and Young England will in time get equally tired of his plodding, prosaic, reckless partisanship. There is one prOminently excellent feature in the character of Young England—its sincere benevolence and kindly disposition to- wards the poorer classes. It is anxious to raise them in the scale of comfort, intelligence, and moral worth ; and though some of its plans for doing so may appear fanciful, it is also a strenuous advocate of some that are practical—of a high moral education, of the protection of children alike from the cupidity of employers and parents, of holydays and manly sports for the poor, and (we be- lieve) of systematic colonization. It is doing good service on the Church question : its gentlemanly turn of mind leads it to treat all really religious men with respect ; its imaginative Protest- antism approaches pretty near to rational Romani= ; its tone in the Irish debates is a new and pleasing feature in these discussions. Nor can we believe that men so benevolent can really be, or at least long remain, champions (3 toutrance of the Corn-laws.
There has been no appearance yet of any commanding intel- lect in Young England. If there be, he will necessarily break through the mere formalisms of the school; but he will be all his life the better for having at one time dallied with them. And if there be not, the whole body will still remain what it is—a knot of fine-minded gentlemen, respectable members of the Legislature.
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