ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH

WILL not be found so amusing as Paul Clifford, nor so interest- ing as Eu,s,roze Aram, but it is equally able; and, in the moral crisis at which this country has arrived, will be more useful than any work of imagination could be,—albeit Mr. Bur.wha's works of' imagination, so called, abound in acute observations of real character, and shrewd deductions from a close watching of the operations of real life. We hope that it will have as wide a cir- culation as those more entertaining writings to which we have al- luded. Let the devourers of new works for once take up a book with a firm determination to perform the process of deglutition in a deliberate and student-like fashion ; they will find their account in it. Let them read, not with a view of being put into a charm- ing flurry and agitation of spirits, but in order to gather some of the honey of wiAdom, to be laid up for times which are coming, when, unless we are very much mistaken, a cranium-full of the right kind of knowledge will be worth a desk-full of Exchequer bills or a huge cantle of arable land. If ever it were desi- rable that Englishmen should know what they are morally made of it is now. The old materials have long been collect- ing and crusting together : what if the heat of political circum- stances should soon put them into the melting-pot ? Is it not desirable to know which is likely to be the composition result- ing ? What is to be the description of the new Britannia metal ? We are a great nation—nobody will dispute that : if we are, and are also morally great, it will be pleasant to know how our great- ness comes. No country in the world ever so much required self-knowledge : our darkness on this point is "above proof; " and it is not one book alone that can sufficiently enlighten us. Here are, however, the principal elements of our social condition explained, and illustrated, and illuminated, only as a popular and practised writer could do, accustomed to invest abstractions with all the charms of bright individuality. We do not pretend to agree on every point with the author, but we have a sufficiently modest opinion of our infallibility to think there is something to be said on both sides; although we fancy that we could on more than one occasion point out the rock on which the author has split. In truth, it may be said in one word, that there is a confusion of systems in the author's writings—a want of unifor- mity of principle, which leads him into erroneous positions on some great matters ; whence, however, little harm is to ensue. We wish that the great body of his ordinary readers would only grapple with the various questions he broaches, and we would compound for the error they might fall into,—first, persuaded of the balance of good ; and next, certain that the mental discipline required would prepare them for the reception of truth on any disputed points.

Of the amazing quantity of ground gone over in this work, our readers may judge from a mere enumeration of the great subjects of each book, each subject being afterwards divided into its capi- tal parts. The first book is a View of the English Character; the second on Society and Manners ; the third is a Survey of the State of Education and the Morality and Religion of England; the fourth is a View of the Intellectual Spirit of the Time; the fifth is occupied by an elaborate View of our Political State, in- scribed to the English People. There are three appendices, exhi- biting much research, and a highly philosophical temper of mind, —A, on the great and essential subject of Popular Education ; B, on Mr. BENTHAM'S Philosophy ; c, on Mr. MILL, his Mind and Writings. Few works that have been lately issued from the press have been so multifarious as this. Here it partakes of the freedom of our older writers, who put into a book all they thought on a subject, in a thousand forms,—story, anecdote, allegory, essay, fact, fiction, and philosophy. Like BURTON'S Anatomy of Melancholy, Mr. BilL- WER'S Anatomy of Society is a various feast, consisting of many courses, and each course of many dishes ; but the sole object of which is the harmony and hilarity of the guests. Here the dishes are numerous, various, and well-flavoured ; the systems of cookery are also a combination of different methods ; but the upshot of the whole is the instruction of the party that sits down to the enter- tainment. It is impossible for us to do justice publicly to the whole of the fare; though we confess there is not a plat that we have not discussed, and, as we have said, the culinary preparation of some of them in point of fact "disagrees" with us. We will just rechauffer a few passages, which at the same time we recom- mend the reader to procure from the moral restaurateur himself. We consider, by way of example, that the following passages go to the root of a vast deal of our abominable unsociality.

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 angry suspicions against the king, it was not to that branch of thir tore that the growing power of corruption was justly to be attributed. prom the date of the aristocratic Revolution in 1688, the influence of the aristocracy has spread its unseen monopoly over the affairs of state. The king, we bear at • said, has the privilege to choose his ministers l Ecadlest 'delusion ! The

tocracy 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 king choose a cabinet out of men unknown to the aristocracy—persons belonging neither to Whig nor Tory ? Assuredly not ; the aristocratic party in the two Houses would be in arms. Heavens, what a commotion there would be! Ima- gine the haughty indignation of my Lords Grey and Harrowby ! What a " pre- lection " we should receive from Lord Brougham, ." deeply meditating these things! " Alas! the king's ministry would be out the next day, and the aris- tocracy'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 of seeing two parties fight in the lists, and of crowning the victor. Need I cite ex- amples of this truth? Lord Chatham is the dread and disgust of George the Third—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 he pressed upon George the Fourth. To the irritability of that monarch no more is conceded than was granted to the obstinacy of his royal

father, and the Catholic Relief Bill is passed amidst all the notoriety of his re- pugnance. In fact, your excellency; who knows so well the juggling with

which one party in politics fastens its sins upon another, may readily perceive 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. 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 respect ; they consult him if they should go to war, or proclaim Reece; but it is an understood thing, that be is to be made acquainted with their determination beforehand. His consent is merely the ratification of their decree. But the chiefs, always speaking of his power, conceal their own ; and while the popular jealousy 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 relations between the English king and the English aristocracy ; 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 mare responsible aristocracy. The supposed total of constitutional power has always consisted of three divi- sions; the king; the aristocracy, and the commons : but the aristocracy (until the passing of the Reform Bill), 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 they 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 government of the country has been purely that of an aristo- cracy:. 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 distinguished their influence from that of other aristocracies. With- out the odium Of separate Privileges, without the demarcation of feudal rights, the absence of those very prerogatives has been the case of the long establish- ment of their power. Their authority has not been visible : held tinder popu- lar names, it has deceived the popular eye; and, deluded by the notion of a halinceOf 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 distinctions; instead of demanding half a hundred quarter- ings with their wives and galling their inferiors hy eteenally dwelling on the in- feriority, they may be said to mix more largely, and with more seenung equality, with all classes, than any other aristocracy in the savage or civilized world. Drawing their revenues from land; they have also drawn much of their more Jegitimatet 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 than anyaristoeracy in a monarchical state is accustomed to do. Their hospitality, their field sports, the agricultural and county meetings they attend, in order "to keep sup the family interest," mix them with all classes; and, pos- sessing 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 popu. larity, 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 alllevellers, and the highest of the English nobles wil-

lingly 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 alliance of nobles; and he loves, as well as re- spects, those honotus to which himself or his children May aspire. The long- established custom of purchasing titles, either by hard money or the more cir- .cuitous influence of boroughs, has tended also to mix aristocratic 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. Thus by not preserving a strict demarcation, as the German nobles, round their order, the English aristocracy extended their moral influence throughout

the whole of society, and their state might thus be said, like the city of the Lacedenionians, to be the safer in internal force, from rejecting all vulgar ford- rfieitions.

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 country 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 know why? His connexions are much higher! Nor are connexions alone the dispensers of an ideal but acknow- ledged consequence. Acquaintanceship confers also its honours: next to being related to the great, 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 fortune, is not so diligent a worshipper of birth and fortune in others; in fact, this lady has but her own respectable rank to display—but that lady reflects the exalted rank of every dutchess that shines upon her* card-rack.

• The nation had begun to perceive this truth, when Burke thought fit once more to blind it. "' One of the principal topics," saith lie, in his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. .• which was then, and has been since much employed by that po- litical 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. Ile goes on to argue. that the influence of the crown is a danger more imminent than that of the Peerage. Although, muse same work, that brilliant writer declares himself "no friend to the aristocracy." his whole love for liberty was that of an aristocrat. His mind was evi- dently feudal in its vast and stately mould, and the patrician plausibilities dazzled and attracted him tar more than the monarchical. lie could -haveteen a rebel easier Than a republican. t And yet the power that has been most frequently inveighed against, merely be- cause it was the most evident.

• It may be observed that the power of fashion has increased in proportion as the

These mystic, shifting, alid various shades le graduation—these shot-silk colours of society produce this effect : that people -have no exact and fixed pa. sition—that by acquaintance alone they may rise to look down on their superiors —that while the rank gained by intellect, or by interest, is open to but few, the rank that may be obtained by fashion seems delusively to be open to all. Hence, in the first place, that eternal vying with each other ; that spirit of show; that lust of imitation which characterize our countrymen and countrywomen. TliesO qualities so invariably observed by foreigners have never yet bees ascribed to their true origin. I think 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 bide:, 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 dig- nity, which is the displeasure, the amazement, and the proverb of our Conti- nental visitors. Nobody being really Sited in society, except the very great (in whom, for the most part, the characteristics vanish), in any advance you make to a seeming equal, you may either lower 'yourself by an acquaintance utterly devoid of the fictitious advantages which are cousidered respectable ; 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 Bruiere observes, that the rank of single men being less settfed than that of the married, since they may exalt themselves by an alliance, they are usually placed by society in one grade higher than their legitimate claim. Another French writer, commenting on this passage has ob- served, 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 own, and act up to the dignity of this visionary Barataria. The ingenious au- thor of the Opium Eater has said, that the family of a bishop are, for the most part, remarkable for their pride. It is because 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 family to the gentry. Again, natu- ral sons are proverbial for arrogance

rogance and assumption : it s from the same cause. In fact, let us consult ourselves. Are we not all modest when we feel ourselves estimated at what we consider our just value, and all inclined to presume in proportion as we fear we are slighted .?

In all other countries where an aristocracy is or has been exceedingly powerful, the distinctions they have drawn between themselves and society have been marked and stern; they have chiefly lived, married, 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 circumvallation : fashion in Germany is, therefore, com- parativelyimitation. in its influence; there is no object in vying, and no re- ward in 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 nicknames, and so, liberal in opinions, wished to assail Mr. Sadler, he found no epithet so suitable to his views or sentiments as the disdainful appellation of "linendroper " 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 fossilized incrus- tations of national character are formed.

The following extract embraces a subject of great importance to the, press, but in its results is of much greater consequence to the public at large. With this passage we must conclude our notice of a work which we will describe as one having set us more actively thinking on immediately important subjects than any other that has left the press since the commencement of our critical career.

I have elsewhere, but more cursorily, put forth my opinions with regard

i

the customary use of the anonymous n periodicals : they have met with but little favour from periodical writers, who have continued to reiterate the old arguments which I had already answered rather than attacked my replies. In fact, journalists, misled by some vague notions of the convenience of a plan so long adopted and so seldom questioned, contend against a change which would be of the most incalculable advantage to themselves and their profession It is in vain to hope that you can make the press so noble a profession as it ought to be in the eyes of men, as long as it can be associated in the public mind with. every species of political apostacy and personal slander; it is in vain to hope that the many honourable exceptions will do more than win favour for them- selves; they cannot exalt the character of the class. Interested as the aristo- cracy are agabist the moral authority of the press, and jealous as they are of its power, they at present endeavour to render odious the general effects of the ma- chine, by sneering down, far below their legithnate grade, the station and re- spectability of the operatives. It is in vain to deny that a newspaper-writer, who, by his talents and the channel to which they are applied, exerts a far greater influence on public affairs than almost any peer in the realm, is only of importance so long as he is in the back parlour of the printing-house; in society be not only runs the risk of being confounded with all the misdemeanors past and present, of the journal he has contributed to purify or exalt, but he is asso- ciated with the general fear of espoinnage and feeling of insecurity which the cus- tom of anonymous writing necessarily produces: men cannot avoid looking upon him as one who has the power of stabbing them in the dark ; and the libels, the lies, the base and filthy turpitude of certain of the Sunday papers, have an effect of casting upon all newspaper-writers a suspicion, from which not only the ho- nourable, but the able' among them are utterly free—as at Venice, every mem- ber of the secret council, however humane and noble, received sonic porLion of the odium and the fear which attached to the practice of unwitnessed punish- ment and mysterious assassination. In short, the unhappy practice of the ano- nymous is the only reason why the man of political power is not also the man of social' rank. It is a practice which favours the ignorant at the expense of the wise, and screens the malignant by confounding them with the honest; a prac- tice by which talent is made obscure, that folly may not be detected, and the dis- grace of vice may be hidden beneath the customs which degrade honour,

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 emir servile obsequiousness to fashion.

• For to the honour of literature be it said, that the libellous Sunday papers are rarely supported by any literary men ; they are conducted chiefly by broken down. sharpers, ci.devant markers at gambling houses, and the very worst description of un- educated blackguards. The only way, by the by, to check these gentlemen in their career of slander, is to be found in the first convenient opportunity'of inflicting upon them that personal chastisement which is the perquisite of bullies. Pooh I you say, they are not worthy the punishment. Pardon me, they are not worth the denying our- selves the luxury of inflicting it You should wait, but never miss, the convenient op- portunity. his the spirit of Dr. Johnson's criticism on the Hebrides. "they are worthe seeing." said he, 'but not worth going to see," these gentlemen are worth kicking, but- not worth going to kick.