MARTIN VAN BUREN.
President of the United States.
London. Published by Richard Bentley. 1839.

ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA.

FROM THE
SKETCH-BOOK OF A GERMAN NOBLEMAN.

EDITED BY
FRANCIS J. GRUND.
AUTHOR OF “THE AMERICANS IN THEIR MORAL, SOCIAL,
AND POLITICAL RELATIONS.”

“Why should the poor be flattered?
No: let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning.”
Shakspeare’s Hamlet, Act iii. Scene 2.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.

1839.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,
Bangor House, Shoe Lane.

CONTENTS
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME.

PART II.
CONTAINING A SHORT STAY IN BOSTON AND PHILADELPHIA.

CHAPTER I.

Arrival in Boston.—The Tremont House.—The Boston Common.—Aristocratic Exclusiveness of the Higher Classes.—The Massachusetts State-House.—Pathetic Elegy of a Boston Lawyer.—An Independent Gentleman, not a Speculator.—American Aristocracy contrasted with that of England.—The Aristocracy of America continually in contact with the Lower Orders.—Anecdote illustrating the opposition of the Lower Classes to Aristocracy.—An Aristocratic Patron.—Economy of the American Aristocracy.—Northern and Southern Aristocracy contrasted.

“If there’s a hole in a’ your coats,
I rede you tent it;
A chiel’s amang ye takin’ notes,
And faith he’ll prent it.”

Burns.

The city of Boston, as may be known to many of my readers, is only approachable by water and a long narrow isthmus, called “the neck.” For this reason it is said to be “the head of New England;” but the people in the country, who are extremely jealous of the prerogatives of “the townsfolks,” merely call it “the great metropolis.” When it was first settled, which is more than two hundred years ago,—for which reason it is termed “an ancient and honourable city,” and the families descended from those settlers “ancient and honourable families,”—it contained, somewhere in the neighbourhood of what is now called “Beacon-street,” three large promising bumps, which however, entirely disappeared as the baby grew older, and are now smoothed down almost to a flat.

The neck forms a large well-paved causeway, lined chiefly with wooden houses, (in the principal streets the buildings are of stone or brick,) and connects the city with the borough of Roxbury, which contains alone above ten thousand inhabitants. Coming from New York, this is the regular entrance to the town; and through it therefore I arrived, driving straight up to the Tremont House. This is a large, massive building with a granite front and a brick back, situated in the most eligible part of the city, and considered as the crack house of the place.

I found the interior very comfortable, and could have procured a parlour and chamber for the modicum of thirty-six dollars (about seven guineas) a week, if an acquaintance of mine, whom I accidentally met at the bar, had not advised me to content myself with a bedchamber, and dine at the ordinary; which, he said, would reduce my expenses to about one-third, without diminishing very materially my respectability. “Our first people,” said he, “are satisfied with similar accommodations: they little care how and where they sleep, provided they live in a fashionable quarter; and prefer dining at an ordinary, because at a public table they get more to eat for less money. We are republicans,” added he, “especially in this city, which is called the cradle of liberty.”

Not knowing whether he meant this as a satire, I proposed to take a walk with him before dinner, in order that I might have a cicerone to direct my first impressions of so classical a place; and accordingly we sallied forth, taking the direction down Tremont-street towards the Common.

“You see here at once the finest place in the whole city,” said my cicerone; “one which might be enjoyed by all classes, if we had not already outgrown the cradle. The people who live in these houses, and who, with very few exceptions, have all been to England, do not like to be seen in public. They hate the arrogance of our grocers and mechanics, who would be apt to stare them out of countenance if they were to show themselves at a public walk. ‘Humility,’ they say, ‘is not the besetting sin of the American people: on the contrary, the lower classes think themselves just as good as we are; and, what is worse, they know that they are our political masters.’ This, they argue, is absolute madness, as a man may learn by a single trip to Europe. ‘There must be a heaven’s aristocracy of talent and knowledge, ‘as one of our great men[1] used to say,’ and consequently also a h—ll’s democracy of ignorance and prejudice. The latter must not be encouraged in any way, and, least of all, by suffering ourselves to be confounded with it in private or public.’

“It was with the greatest difficulty,” continued he, “that our aristocratic inhabitants of Beacon and Park streets[2] could be prevailed upon to suffer benches to be placed in the Mall. They had two reasons for opposing this popular measure: first, because it encouraged idleness, inducing people who ought to be at work or at home to come here and bask themselves in the sun; and, secondly, because it was possible from those benches either to see the people at the windows of the houses, which would be inconvenient,—or from the windows of those houses to see the people on the benches, which, as the sight of poverty and idleness does not particularly enhance the beauty of a landscape, would be ‘shocking.’ Malicious persons say that there are yet other reasons for opposing the benches; but I could never bring myself to believe them.”

As we were ascending the little eminence on which stands the State-house, we were met by a lawyer, who, learning that I was a stranger come on purpose to see the capital of New England,—the ideal capital, namely, because New England is divided into six States, each of which has its own metropolis,—accompanied us, in order probably to become acquainted with my opinions, and in the evening report them to his friends.

For the information of my readers I must observe, that the Boston State-house is a heavy, clumsy piece of architecture, the style and arrangement of which are neither striking nor convenient. I was told that the building was originally intended to be erected on a much larger scale; but that, from motives of republican economy, its wings were afterwards clipped to their present dimensions,—the main body, for which there were sufficient funds on hand, remaining full as large as in the first design. The whole is crowned by a wooden cupola, of such enormous height as not even to leave the possibility of an illusion of its being made of stone, as in this case the walls would not be strong enough to support it. These are confessions which, in Boston, would not only render me unpopular, but actually expose me to being mobbed; but, at a distance of two hundred miles, (I write this in the city of New York,) one does feel less afraid of expressing one’s opinions and sentiments. The interior of the house contains a statue of Washington, by Chantrey; a broad staircase; a large hall of representatives; and a number of smaller rooms for committees, and the several offices of the departments of state.

“This house,” said the lawyer, after heaving a deep sigh, “once the receptacle of a noble body of men, is now open to every gingerbread man from the country; or you would see it built in a different style, worthy of the legislative assembly hall of a powerful republic, like that of Massachusetts! But the fact is, instead of great men, our house of representatives is now composed of members who advocate ‘mackerel inspection,’ cider-presses, fences, raising potatoes, and brewing small beer. Having no general ticket, each town or village must send its quota of advocates of its own particular industry; who, moreover, come here for no other purpose than to oppose the more elevated measures proposed by the more enlightened members for Boston.”

“That is a fact,” observed my cicerone; “our city representatives wish them all to ‘where they don’t rake up fire o’ nights.’ They have so far degraded their station, that it is now a disgrace, and not an honour, to be delegated by the people.”

“And what have they done to disgrace themselves?” demanded I.

“That is soon told,” replied the lawyer; “every country member comes here with the determined purpose of opposing us, and, above all things, to let the Bostonians contribute largely to the expenses of the State. We pay nearly one-third of all the taxes; and yet we call this a republican government!”

“One of equal justice, you ought to have said,” interrupted the cicerone.

“As if justice could co-exist with universal suffrage!” ejaculated the lawyer.

“I would pardon all,” resumed the cicerone, with a sarcastic smile, “if our country members were to spend the money, which we pay them for lounging about town, in a liberal and gentlemanly manner: but, instead of that, they select the worst boarding-houses, from which they expel our journeymen mechanics, in order to live cheap; and, instead of wine and other liquors, which our merchants and grocers could make a profit of, consume immense quantities of that dreadful stuff which, under the name of ‘New England cider,’ is sometimes placed on our tables, and for which even our sharpest landlords dare not make a charge.”

“The positive fact is,” exclaimed the lawyer, “that few of our representatives are gentlemen.”

“And that very few gentlemen will now-a-days consent to become representatives,” added my cicerone, “except it be for Congress; and even that will not last long, if things go on much longer in the way they have for the last seven or eight years.”

As the disposition of the higher classes of Bostonians to ridicule the institutions of their country were known to me, I paid no particular attention to their remarks, which were made as we were gazing on the statue “of the hero of the revolution.” I only remember that the lawyer went on in a strain of uninterrupted eloquence, abusing the trial by jury, the vote by ballot, and, à fortiori, universal suffrage. “We just wanted that,” he said, “to complete our misery! As if our mob had not enough power without it! Our democracy is of the worst kind; it does not strive for equality, but for supremacy. It becomes at once our jury, judge, legislator, and governor. You dare not act as you please in your own house; you dare not educate your children in your own way; you dare not express a wish of your own but what you have to dread to be exposed in public, and have your name paraded in the newspapers. Every man in this city is a spy on his neighbour, a voluntary, unpaid police-agent of the rabble, that pries into all your actions and motives, and is always ready to attribute them to the worst source. And yet we talk of personal liberty, as if such a thing could exist in a republic!”

“But is the description you give of your townsmen not applicable to all classes?” demanded I; “is it only the labouring classes, or ‘the mob,’ as you call them, which act as spies to the community?”

“We are all naturally a curious, inquisitive people,” replied he; “and a cunning one too, because we hardly ever answer one question except by asking another; but all these faults are increased by the tendencies of our institutions.”

“Have you been less curious or inquisitive before the revolution?”

“Not exactly that; but the inquisitiveness of the lower classes was less troublesome. Our gentlemen were not obliged to notice it; they were not directly responsible to the people; in short, we were in every respect more independent than we now are.”

I thought it best not to continue this sort of conversation; so, quitting the house, and walking down Beacon-street, I pointed to a new building which struck me as remarkably tasteful. “Here,” said I, “is quite a stylish mansion! I did not expect to find so much neatness and comfort in this city!”

“It is the mansion of Mr. ***,” replied my cicerone. “Don’t you think it a fine building? And in the Italian style, too! The owner is one of our richest men,—the son of Mr. ***, who came to Boston in the year ——. He made all his money in the —— business, and must now be worth upwards of a million of dollars. He has a very nice family too. His wife was a Miss ***, daughter to Mr. ***, one of our most respectable merchants; quite an intellectual girl, with plenty of money. I believe she brought him three hundred thousand dollars. Her sister married a Mr. ***, one of the most influential men in this city. They have been a good deal abroad, and furnished their house in the best style——”

Fearing that I should be condemned to listen to a long description of the various articles of furniture brought home from London or Paris, and at last to the statistics of the gentleman’s property,—a thing which is by no means unfrequent in Boston,—I abruptly changed the conversation by directing my cicerone’s attention to an unfinished building, whose enormous height was entirely disproportionate to the small surface it covered on the ground.

“This house,” I said, “seems to be perfectly new; how did it happen that so eligible a site for building remained so long a time unimproved?”

“It was a fine garden,” replied my cicerone, “belonging to Mr. ***, living in the house adjoining it; but he sold it as a house-lot for the neat little sum of twelve thousand dollars. It’s only a small piece of ground, just large enough for two parlours on a floor; but our houses are all three or four stories high, none of us wishing to be overlooked by his neighbour.”

“Did he keep the ground on speculation?” demanded I.

“Bless your soul, sir!” exclaimed he; “do you think Mr. *** is a speculator? He is a rich man, sir! he does not care for the money; ‘it’s only for the conven’ance of it,’ as the New Hampshire farmer said, when he dunned the gentleman for a bushel of potatoes. Who the deuce would not take twelve thousand dollars for a little garden, scarcely large enough to raise cabbage for the family?”

“Especially in a town where no man possesses anything he would not sell, provided a proper price be offered him,” added the lawyer.

While we were thus talking, we had reached the mill-dam which leads over to Brooklyne, and from which we enjoyed a truly magnificent view of the panorama of Boston. I observed to my companions that their city was one of the finest in the Union; and that, as far as I might be allowed to judge, it could be made a most delightful residence.

“It was a delightful place,” replied the lawyer; “but our old families are gradually losing their influence. Most of the fine houses you see here are inhabited by roturiers; our society is getting worse and worse every day; and, while we expend thousands for our public schools, we lose our manners.”

“That is a fact,” exclaimed my cicerone; “our young men are not half so polite as the old ones; and, what is worse, the influence of family is entirely lost. Our young ladies, for instance, do not value birth and good breeding half so much as money. They would rather marry a woodcutter, if he had shown himself ‘clever’ in making money, than the son of our oldest gentleman.”

“But pray, gentlemen,” interrupted I, half impatiently, “why cannot you enjoy the many blessings Heaven has bestowed on you, without being continually afraid of losing your dignity? I have heard more talk about aristocracy and family in the United States than during my whole previous life in Europe. You embitter your enjoyments and pleasures by endeavouring to exclude from them all that come after you; and, in doing so, wound the feelings of many an honest man, who, but for a little more urbanity on your part, would be your friend instead of your enemy. A question of interest which is now agitating the country[3] may for a moment unite you; but the union is an unnatural one, and on that account cannot last. Your state of society is such, that, in the ordinary intercourse with your fellow-citizens, you must necessarily offend more than you can gratify; and the mortifications which two-thirds of the whole population are constantly suffering from the small portion distinguished from the rest by nothing but success in business, must add to the natural jealousies felt by the labouring classes of all countries with regard to the rich. The distinction between the different orders of society may be more apparent in England,—as they are, from historical reasons, with all people of Saxon origin; but they are, nevertheless, far less offensive than yours.

“In all countries in which there exists an hereditary, wealthy nobility, there exists a sort of good-will towards the inferior classes which leads to the relation of patron and client, and through which many an apparent injustice is smoothed over by liberality and kindness; but the mere moneyed aristocracy which is establishing itself in this country, however you may disguise the fact by cunning and soft speeches, or an hyperbolical affectation of republicanism, hates the industrious masses over whom it strives to elevate itself.

“The exclusiveness of your wealthy brokers, that hoard money without spending it, offends the people without benefiting the artisan or the tradesman; and the meanness with which your first people bargain for every trifle to save a penny, renders their custom scarcely desirable to respectable tradespeople. You are extravagantly fond of splendour, and yet are afraid of displaying it. You must understand me right: I speak of the rich, calculating Bostonians, who really live on their property; not of your wealthy men in New York, who live on nine months’ credit. Besides, you yourself will allow that your aristocracy is far from being generally well educated, and I do not see how this fault is to be remedied as long as wealth constitutes the chief title to good society.

“Your aristocracy, therefore, has not the power of dazzling the lower classes with that air of self-possession and dignity by which gentlemen of rank are at once recognised in Europe. On the contrary, the manners of your rich people in their intercourse with less successful aspirants to fortune are markedly coarse and vulgar, in order, I believe, to give the latter to understand that they are sufficiently independent—that, I think, is the word,—not to care for their opinion.”

Here the lawyer pleaded a pressing engagement; and left us, without shaking of hands, or expressing a desire of seeing me again.

“You have made an enemy of that man,” observed my cicerone, “who will make you a hundred more enemies if you should ever think of settling in this city.”

“He did not seem to be offended,” replied I; “or I should have checked my tongue before he left us.”

“You can never tell when these people are offended,” he rejoined; “but you may rely upon one thing,—they will never forgive you. They lock their wrath up, until a favourable opportunity presents itself for taking summary vengeance. If I were in your place, I would make myself scarce.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, I would not show myself too much in public, or in society; or perhaps engage my passage to New York.”

“And you call this a free country!” exclaimed I, “and the manners of your people those of high-minded gentlemen! Good manners in other countries consist in putting every one at ease, which may be done without being in the least degree familiar; but here the higher classes seem to be determined upon making every one that is poorer than themselves feel his inferiority, in order to make him as uncomfortable as possible. And all this is done with an affectation of republican simplicity, which makes every species of arrogance only the more offensive as coming from an equal. The Southern people, whom you pronounce much more aristocratic, and who perhaps are so in the English sense of the word, are infinitely more amiable in their manners, merely because their exclusiveness relates to family and education, and because they are not continually in contact with the labouring classes.

“In order to make any kind of aristocracy tolerable, it is necessary that it should, in some shape or other, either protect the lower classes, or never come in contact with them. The aristocracy of the Atlantic cities is unfortunately neither a protector of the lower orders, with whom it is continually wrestling for power; nor is it, from its political position and mode of life, capable of avoiding incessant contact with them. Hence arises a continual jarring: the rich claiming a rank which the poor are unwilling to grant; and the poor provoked by the unprofitable arrogance of the rich, opposing to them a species of insolence which a labouring man in Europe would hardly dare to offer his equals.

“I recollect some time ago having travelled on board of a canal-boat from Harrisburg to Pittsburg. The accommodations on board of these boats, the most bigoted American—and I know I address myself to none such—could not but call miserable; and yet, the majority being satisfied, none dared to murmur. Our meals were shocking; cooked in the worst manner, and served as no man in England would place a piece of bread before a day labourer. During the night we were put on shelves, of which three were placed one above the other at a distance of not more than from sixteen to twenty inches, and so close together that the feet of one person touched the head of his neighbour, and vice versâ. To complete our misery, the cabin was not ventilated, the door being kept closed in order to prevent those who lay next to it from taking cold; and we slept without sheets, the same unwashed and uncleaned blankets having perhaps served in turn to a hundred different pedlars and emigrants. But the ne plus ultra was one of the captains,[4] a New-Englander by birth; a puny, pale, consumptive fellow with sharp grey eyes, thin pointed nose, long deeply-indented chin, and a dash across his face marking the opening of the mouth in the absence of lips. His voice, something between a growl and a grunt, seemed to proceed from a subterraneous cavern; while his hands, carefully concealed in his pockets, indicated, by their position, the usual current of his thoughts.

“This fellow, whom no man of correct judgment would have made keeper of a pack of hounds, used to look upon the whole company with an air of conscious superiority; strutting the deck as if he were commander of a frigate, and scarcely deigning to address a word to any of the passengers. You will excuse me for this digression, which you will readily forgive when you reflect that I but agree with you in the opinion that, much as the New-Englanders are to be esteemed at home,—and there is none more ready to pay homage to their public and private virtue than myself,—they are nevertheless among the dullest, driest, and most disagreeable adventurers one meets abroad. This man had the impudence to serve the same meat three times to his passengers: first, with tea and coffee in the morning; then, with pure water at noon; and lastly, though there was scarcely enough left to feed a dog, the remainder of the dinner was once more brought upon the table in the shape of a supper. Previous to that, we had been kept, as they call it, by a fat round-faced German, who gave us at least plenty to eat, and a friendly face in the bargain; but our Yankee captain seemed to be determined to make the most of our cash, without contracting the irregular polygon of his face into anything approaching a smile.

“Under these circumstances, a German gentleman, who, to judge from his merry voice, and two large bumps of alimentiveness gracing his circular forehead, was fond of humour and good cheer, was amusing the company in tolerable good English with a few unequivocal innuendoes in reference to their English comforts; which were no sooner uttered than the captain, probably thinking that the foreigner was an aristocrat not admiring the institutions of the country, told him that his conversation was ‘most perfectly disgusting,’ and that, if he did not ‘hold his tongue,’ he should be obliged to put him ashore. These, as far as I can recollect, were the very words of the ill-humoured blackguard; and such an effect did they produce on the company that none dared to demonstrate against his insulting conduct, though they whispered to one another that it was not altogether gentlemanly or just.

“Now, this man would not have been half so insolent if the gentleman whom he reprobated had not been decently dressed, so as to lead him to suppose that he wanted to play the aristocrat. It was a species of revenge against what he imagined to be the taunts and sneers of ‘a vulgar upstart,’ who, in spite of his money, resorted to this mode of travelling for the sake of saving expenses.

“If the higher classes claim superior respect, it is but just they should pay for it, as the higher classes do in Europe, where a man is charged according to his rank; but how few of your fashionable people are willing to lay out an additional groat for the distinction they so ardently covet. They want to be esteemed merely because they are rich, though their wealth does not benefit any of their fellow-citizens.”

“I remember a young Bostonian,” observed my cicerone, “who employed a second-rate barber to cut his hair. The task not being performed to his satisfaction, he indignantly rose from the chair, placed a piece of twelve and a half cents (the usual price being twenty-five) on the table, and, opening the door with great fury, told the affrighted little Frenchman that he should never patronise him again.

“Such instances of the liberality of our first people,” he continued, “occur every day; as you may yourself witness by frequenting our market. Every one of our gentlemen purchases his own provisions, so as to render the collusion of the servants with the tradespeople, which you know exists to a lamentable extent in England, wholly impossible. Our aristocracy, I can assure you, are a shrewd people; but unfortunately for the comforts of domestic life, their servants are equally shrewd, and stay with their calculating masters no longer than they can help it.

“This state of things,” added he, after a pause, “does not exist at the South. There the veriest fault of the people is generosity. The slaves, who enable them to be aristocratic without being mean, stand to them in the relation of vassals to their lords; and the planters, not fearing the power and political influence of their slaves, but, on the contrary, having an interest in their physical well-being, treat them generally with humanity and kindness. There never was a great moral evil, without producing also some good; and thus it is that the very relation between master and slave engenders ties and affections which no one can understand without having witnessed their effect. I have seen the wives of planters watch at the sick-bed of their slaves, and perform acts of charity which the misconstrued self-esteem of our Northern people would have deemed menial, merely because the feelings of kindness and gratitude, which are strongest in the Southern States, are, with us, construed into obligation and payment; two things which effectually destroy all poetry of life, even in the relation of parents to their children. I am not here disposed to underrate the miseries of slavery, as they will always appear to the mind of an European; but I cannot entirely overlook some of the advantages which result from it to the moral and social relations of the country.”

And I could not but agree with my cicerone. If the tendency of wealth in the Northern States is towards an aristocracy of money, the aristocracy of the Southern States, founded on birth and education, is a sort of offset to it,—a means of preventing the degeneration of the high-minded democracy which once swayed the country, into a vulgar oligarchy of calculating machines without poetry, without arts, and without generosity.

“After all, the greatest benefactors of the American people were Southerners, from the great father of the country, down to its last chivalrous defender. Southern orators are yet the most eloquent; Southern statesmen the most disinterested in their views of national politics. Genius requires a heart as well as a head, or the seed lacks the warmth necessary for its germination. Give me the man whose blood flows quickly through his veins, with his ready perception and his high sense of honour! If aristocracy, the original sin of society, must be entailed upon man in every climate, then let me at once have that of the South. Give me an aristocracy above the cares and toils of ordinary life, which has the means and the leisure to devote itself to higher pursuits than mere pecuniary gain and profit,—an aristocracy to whom national honour and glory are not words without meaning, and whose estimation of a people’s happiness is not deduced merely from its statistics of commerce and manufactures!

“I have always hoped, and still hope, that the democratic principle will, in America, prevail over all the others: but if this hope should prove delusive; if, in the phraseology of one of the ablest senators in the United States, ‘the multiplied wants of the country’ should beget an universal worship of Mammon as the means of satisfying them; then I would rather live surrounded by negroes, and, in the society of their aristocratic but high-minded and generous masters, seek some feeble consolation in the reflection that Rome and Greece were likewise cursed with slavery. I would prefer the aristocracy of the Southern States to that of the North, for precisely the same reason that I prefer, generally, a nobleman to a roturier.”

“You are not very singular in your notions,” observed my cicerone. “I do not remember a single European that came here but what expressed the same opinion; but this singular coincidence has not in the least changed the opinion of our people, who are perfectly satisfied that their city stands unrivalled in the world for virtue, wisdom, and patriotism.”

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Edward Everett, the present governor of Massachusetts.

[2] The two streets which face the Common.

[3] The United States Bank and the Sub-treasury system.

[4] These change at the different stopping-places of the boat.

CHAPTER II.

Cross-examination of Foreigners in the United States.—Definition of Common Sense—Its high value in America.—Aversion to Genius.—Sensible reply of a Boston Aristocrat with regard to a Parvenu from the country.—Ladies buying themselves a Professor.—Boys at school learning for Money.—A Boston fashionable Concert—Description of the Musicians and the Audience.—High value of Morality in a Cantatrice.—Dangers of differing in matters of taste from the leading Coteries.—Secret Police in Boston.—Reflections.

“Unhappy he, who from the first of joys—
Society—cut off, is left alone
Amid this world of death. Day after day
Sad on the jetting eminence he sits,
And views the main that ever toils below.”

Thomson’s Seasons.

The day after my arrival in Boston I delivered my letters of introduction. Some I merely sent with my card; others I carried in person, according to the custom of the country. My reception could not, of course, be equal to that of a well-recommended Englishman; the word “de” having, by my request, been suppressed in all my letters, and it not being known at that time that I was about to commit my impressions to paper. Yet was I received with politeness; subject, however, to a sort of cross-examination, of which, for the benefit of travellers, I will here furnish a short extract.

Question.—“How do you like this country?”

Answer (of course).—“Extremely well.” (It will do no harm to show a little enthusiasm; the Bostonians, having little of that article themselves, like to see it in others.)

Question.—“How does this country appear to you compared with England?”

(This is a question never asked by the labouring class, who seem to care little or nothing about it; and proves at once your being in good society. You must answer it with great circumspection; as, if you give America the preference, they either think you a hypocrite, or a person not used to society and the world; and, if you show yourself too great a partisan for England, their vanity will never forgive you.)

Question.—“Do you intend to settle here?”

(This question is best answered in the negative.)

Question.—“Are you married or single.”

(If the stranger be a man of moderate fortune, it will be best for him to call himself a married man; the fashionable society of Boston having a great dread of poor bachelors.)

Question.—“Do you not think we enjoy a very bad climate?”

(This they really believe; but it is prudent in Europeans stoutly to deny it. The fact is, it is really not half so bad as generally represented; there being more sunny days in America than, perhaps with the exception of Italy or Spain, in any part of Europe.)

Question.—“Don’t you think the transition from heat to cold very sudden?”

(Deny it by all means, even if there should have been a change of twenty degrees that very day.)

Then comes the praise of the American “falls,” in which any one may join conscientiously; an American landscape in the month of October being, on account of the infinite variety in the colour of the woods, and the extreme serenity of the sky, the most beautiful thing in the world.

National vanity—a feeling which is totally distinct from patriotism—exists in no part of the United States to such an extent as in New England, and especially in Boston, whose inhabitants think themselves not only vastly superior to any people in Europe, but also infinitely more enlightened, especially as regards politics, than the rest of their countrymen. Thus the question has been seriously proposed to me, whether I had not been struck with the superior intelligence of the Bostonians, compared with the inhabitants of other cities in the United States and in Europe? and whether, on the whole, I had found any people in the world superior to those of New England?

These faults apart, I found the Bostonians quite an entertaining, I could not conscientiously say an hospitable people, because one does not feel at home amongst them, even after a residence of many years. The fact is, that though they boast of an unusual degree of “common sense” in their common transactions of life, very little of it is seen in their society. Society is the only sea with the navigation of which the New-Englanders are as yet unacquainted, in spite of the English, French, and Italian charts they study for that purpose. The moment their ladies and gentlemen sit in state, they are affected and awkward; et quand le bon ton parait, le bon sens se retire.

What the wealthy Bostonians generally understand by common sense, and the influence which the latter exercises on society, I soon had an opportunity of learning, at the house of a fashionable gentleman, a president of a bank, with whom I had the pleasure of dining a few days after my arrival in the city.

The individual in question was between forty-five and fifty years of age; apparently of a high bilious temper, with a livid complexion, grey piercing eyes, straight hair, compressed lips, thin nose and chin,—in short, a figure which in any part of the world I should have at once recognised as belonging to a matter-of-fact man from New England. There were but two more gentlemen to dine with us, and no ladies besides the wife and daughters of our entertainer; so that conversation soon began to flag, until, the dessert being put on the table, the restraint was taken off from the gentlemen by the good-natured retiring of the ladies.

Mine host was the first person who broke in upon the monotony of the entertainment, by introducing a topic which at once commanded the attention of his friends.

“Common sense,” he said, after having drunk the first glass of madeira and passed the bottle, “is the genius, or, as I do not like that word, the essence of society and good government; and I think,” added he with a self-complacent smile, “no people in the world have inherited a larger share of this most invaluable commodity than our cool, calm, calculating, money-making Yankees. Did you” (addressing himself to me) “ever see a more intelligent people than our Bostonians? Did you ever see a city more quiet, more prosperous, more orderly than Boston?”

“The appearance of Boston,” responded I, “certainly warrants all you say of it.”

“Yes, sir,” he rejoined; “and I can point out to you at least one hundred persons in that city worth upwards of a hundred thousand dollars.”

“That certainly argues in favour of the industry and perseverance of its inhabitants.”

“Say rather it argues in favour of their common sense,” said he, “in which industry and perseverance are necessarily included. We are a common sense, matter-of-fact people,” added he exultingly; “we leave genius and enthusiasm to Europeans.”

“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed his neighbour on the left, “I have no genius in my family; my children are all brought up to be industrious.”

“You may thank the Lord for that,” replied our entertainer; “I never saw a genius yet who was either himself happy or capable of making others so. I have brought up my sons to become merchants and manufacturers; only Sam, the poor boy who is a little hard of hearing, and rather slow of comprehension, shall go to college. Our merchants, sir, are the most respectable part of the community.”

“What college do you mean to send him to?” demanded I, in order to ascertain whether he had been serious.

“I shall send him to Harvard University,” he replied; “the oldest literary institution in the country. Have you not yet been to see it?”

I told him that I had been but a few days in Boston, but that I should certainly take an early opportunity of visiting the institution.

“Do so,” he said; “you will find it well worth your while; it will convince you that, while we have been making money, we have not altogether neglected arts and sciences.”

“Which are your cleverest men in the various departments of science?” demanded I.

“Why, they are none of them very clever in our sense of the word. We consider professors as secondary men. Our practice is to give the different professorships away to young men, in order to induce them to devote themselves to the branch they are to teach. Our country is as yet too young for old professors; and, besides, they are too poorly paid to induce first-rate men to devote themselves to the business of lecturing.”

“In this manner,” rejoined I, “you will never have eminent men in the higher departments of philosophy.”

“We have as yet no time to devote to abstract learning,” he observed; “we are too young for that. Our principal acquirement consists in common sense; all the rest we consider as moonshine. You must know,” he said, with a countenance in which superiority of knowledge was mingled with condescension of manners, “that a young man learns as much in six months in a counting-room as in four years at college. My friends do not entirely agree with me; but I often told them that our colleges only made poor gentlemen, and spoiled clever tradesmen.”

He then counted over the names of most of the rich men in Boston, who, he said, were all self-taught country boys, possessed of no other learning than the art of making dollars in a neat, handsome, clean manner. “This,” he added, “has given them a higher standing in society than they could have acquired by all the philosophy in the world, and enabled them to marry into the oldest and most aristocratic families of the place.

“Take, for instance, the case of our friend ***. What does he know except making money? What has he ever learned except negociating, or rather shaving notes? What college did he ever go to, except that of our brokers in State-street? And has he not married the daughter of one of our richest men? Has he not got one of the largest fortunes with her? And is he not now connected with some of our first people—with the real back-bone of our Boston aristocracy? And do you know the answer his father-in-law gave to one of his old friends, who remonstrated with him for giving his daughter away to a parvenu from the country? ‘I give my daughter to any man,’ said he, ‘who will come to Boston and have wit enough to make a hundred thousand dollars in six years.’ There’s common sense for you, I trust: that’s what we call practical philosophy.”

“It is certainly a melancholy fact,” sighed the gentleman next to me, who now for the first time opened his lips, “that a great number of our young men, who have gone to college, have afterwards been unsuccessful in business. I think our education is not sufficiently practical;—we are still attached to the European system.”

“Not only that,” replied our entertainer, “but most of our students contract habits of idleness, which will never answer in this country. They want to imitate your English gentleman, when their patrimony—I mean their share in their father’s fortune—is scarcely sufficient to keep them alive. Do you remember Mr. ***’s reply to a young gentleman who had asked him his advice as to what he ought to do in order to succeed in business? ‘Take off your kid gloves,’ said he, ‘and go to work.’ There’s philosophy for you, equal to your Kants and Leibnitz! Mr. ***, you know, is a plain-spoken man, who came to Boston without a cent in his pocket, and is now one of our most respectable citizens.”

“But if this be the prevailing taste of your townsmen,” said I, “why do you call Boston the Athens of the United States?”

“That appellation,” replied he, “refers to our women, not to our gentlemen. Our ladies read a great deal. And why should they not? What else have they to do? And we have, besides, a lot of literary twaddles, manufactured by the wholesale at Cambridge, who attempt to turn the heads of our young girls with the nonsense they call ‘poetry,’ which fills nearly all our papers, instead of clever editorials. If we have one poet among us, we have at least fifty, the joint earnings of whom would not be sufficient to keep a dog. But then poets don’t turn our heads, you see; we are too much occupied with business.”

“But how do your literary men manage to get on?” demanded I: “I know several of them quite in easy circumstances.”

“They marry rich women, who can afford paying for being entertained. They show their common sense in that. It’s quite the fashion for our rich girls to buy themselves a professor, previous to taking a trip to Europe.”

“And then,” added my neighbour on the right, “literary reputations are in this city not acquired, as in other places, through the medium of public opinion; but by the aid of a small coterie, composed of a few ‘leading citizens,’ who have the power of setting a man up, or putting him down, just as they please;[5] the process being this. Mr. A. or Mr. B., wealthy gentlemen in Beacon-street, declare Mr. Smith a fine scholar; and immediately half a dozen of their clique will repeat the same assertion. The individual in question is thus made fashionable, so that any one speaking against him is considered unacquainted with the usages of society. Those, therefore, whose opinion—if they dare to have one—is different from Mr. A.’s and Mr. B.’s, are most likely to keep it to themselves; while every person aspiring to rank and fashion publicly swears to his scholarship: for our people, you must know, are accustomed to do everything from fear; nothing from love. If you want to succeed in anything,—if you want to carry any particular measure,—enlist half a dozen influential citizens in your behalf, and the rest will not dare to back out. That’s the way things are done in this city.

“And the worst of it is,” he continued, “that our coteries are small, and, for the most part, led by one or two prominent members of society, who, on all similar occasions, act as dictators. Add to this, that our fashionable men have not the advantages of education and leisure enjoyed by the higher classes in Europe, and that their manners are generally stiff, uncouth, and overbearing; and you will easily understand why our society, so far from resembling that of Athens, must necessarily counteract the independent developement of mind and character.

“This habit of conforming to each other’s opinion, and the penalty set upon every transgression of that kind, are sufficient to prevent a man from wearing a coat cut in a different fashion, or a shirt-collar no longer à la mode, or, in fact, to do, say, or appear anything which could render him unpopular among a certain set. In no other place, I believe, is there such a stress laid upon ‘saving appearances.’ I once asked a relation of mine for what sum of money he might be prevailed upon to suffer his mustachoes to grow? He demanded twenty-four hours ‘to figure it out,’ and then told me the next day that he could not do it for one cent less than ten thousand dollars. He reasoned thus: ‘I am a man of moderate property, the interest of my patrimony being barely sufficient to pay for my board, I am therefore obliged to work, in part, for my living; but, my wants being few, an additional six hundred dollars would cover all my expenses. These I hope to earn by practising law, to which profession I was bred, and, for which I feel a natural predilection. Now, if I wear mustachoes, I must resign my practice as a lawyer; for with mustachoes I can neither go to court, nor obtain a respectable chamber practice. Six hundred dollars are the interest, at six per cent. per annum, of ten thousand dollars, which, therefore, would be sufficient to make up for my loss; for I can manage to live without society.”

“A few singularities of that sort may be charged to every people,” observed the gentleman of the house; “and, besides, I really do not see what business a young man has to wear mustachoes: I would certainly not employ him in a counting-room. We are a young people; and, as such, must endeavour to get on by hard work, not by dandyism. Some of our instructors have the good sense to inculcate this doctrine even into our children; and I do not see why grown persons should be permitted to set up a different rule for themselves.”

“And pray, sir,” demanded I, “in what manner do your instructors teach children the necessity of working?”

“In the best manner,” replied he, “common sense could dictate. They make them study for money. They distribute annually a certain sum,—say, from eighty to a hundred dollars,—in the shape of prize-money, among those who obtain the highest marks at the different recitations, for which the pupils are numbered as high as plus seven, and as low as minus seven; a certain number of positive marks entitling the child to one cent prize-money. At the end of the school-term accounts are made out, when each child receives a check on a bookseller or stationer for the amount due to him; for which he may now select a book, a pen-knife, or some other trifling article, according to his own pleasure; on which, moreover, the instructor himself enjoys a liberal discount.”

“But does not this practice,” I said, “introduce sordid habits at an age in which the mind is most susceptible of receiving impressions, and in which it is of the greatest importance to instil into children more elevated notions of honour and justice?”

“You are entirely mistaken,” replied he; “and one can at once see from your remarks that you are a little dyed in the speculative philosophy of your country. No stimulus to learning can be half as great as when a boy can figure it out on his slate how many dollars and cents his geography, grammar, spelling, reading, and good conduct come to per annum.”

This common sense of the Bostonians, thought I, as I was walking home, is, after all, very narrowly circumscribed; referring in most cases merely to immediate wants, and the means of satisfying them. But it is in referring actions to ultimate principles that men rise above common-place, in proportion, perhaps, as they render themselves liable to error. Common sense is a sort of instinct sufficient to guide men through the lower spheres of life; but of itself incapable of raising them to a high moral elevation. Common sense, in fact, is the genius of mediocrity. It does not expand or liberalize the mind, or communicate to it any great and generous impulse. It refers to a sort of intérêt bien entendu; and is, on that account, not in very high repute among a large portion of the Southern people. I remember what a Southern Jacksonian once told me with regard to the politics of Massachusetts. “We do not want that State,” he said, “to come over to our side, because it would prejudice the rest of the Union. People would immediately ask what concession has Government made to the particular interests of that State?” This is the idea which the Americans themselves entertain of the common sense of the leading citizens of Boston.—Point d’argent, point de Suisses!

In the evening I saw again my cicerone, who proposed going to the concert, which he promised me would be one of the most fashionable ones of the season. We accordingly shaped our course towards Masonic Hall,—a building in style slightly approaching the Gothic, but in size not much larger than an ordinary dwelling-house,—which, ever since freemasonry became unpopular in Boston, has been changed into a temple of the Muses.

On looking over the bill, I found that the performers had a peculiar way of recommending themselves to the notice of the higher classes of Americans. In the first place, all of them were professors, members of different philharmonic societies in Europe, whose favourite airs, duettos, concerts, &c. had met with universal applause in London, Paris, and St. Petersburg. Then they were all composers; the bill expressly announcing a favourite air from “La Gazza Ladra,” arranged by Professor ***; duetto from “Gli Italiani in Algieri,” with variations by Mr. ***, Professor of the Royal Conservatory of ***; &c. A Spaniard even went so far as to give notice that a grand rondo, originally composed for the violin by Mayseder, would be performed with variations by Professor ***, late first flute-player to his Majesty the ex-Emperor of Brazil.

I communicated to my friend my astonishment at the fashionable people of America being so easily duped by high-sounding titles, which in Europe would at once stamp a man as a charlatan or a village performer; but was assured that this was the regular way of proceeding in all the Atlantic cities, the judgment of the higher classes in matters of taste confirming, without a single exception, the verdict pronounced by the connoisseurs of Europe.

“You will,” he said, “to-night hear the voice of a woman who in England would at best be considered a tolerable good ballad-singer for a provincial theatre, but you will witness the storm of applause with which she will be received here. It is such a fine opportunity for all who have taste, to show their superiority over those who have not had an opportunity of improving themselves in Europe. This songstress, moreover, is introduced to some of our first people, who will collect here to-night, and by their significant nods and half-subdued ‘bravos’ induce the multitude to the clapping of hands. Our leading citizens think themselves bound by hospitality to applaud an English cantatrice: for which reason the second, third, and fourth rows of benches are occupied by tout ce qu’il y a de mieux,—that is by tout ce qui a de cent à cinq cents mille écus; the first benches being declined by all, either from modesty, or from fear of making themselves too conspicuous before the public.

“An American aristocrat, you must know,” continued my cicerone, “is a gentleman of very nice feelings, who, while he is most anxious to avoid notoriety among the people, in order to avoid public censure, is at the same time particularly solicitous to push himself forward in his coterie, in order by his social standing to make up for the injustice of politics.”

“I presume,” said I, “most of the gentlemen on the forward benches are merchants?”

“Let me see,” he said, standing on tiptoe. “They are mostly merchants; but I also discover two lawyers, and a fashionable clergyman. There is, however, not a man amongst them worth less than one hundred thousand dollars.”

“Pray, is a rich man here supposed to understand something about music?” demanded I.

“Most assuredly he is,” replied he. “You will always find the richest men give the first sign of approbation, after which the minor fortunes venture to signalize theirs. Our society is so small that every man in it is known; so that no individual can be guilty of a breach of etiquette without having at once the whole clique against him. There is more social tyranny in this place than you could find anywhere in Europe. Every principle of morals, politics, or religion is set up as an article of faith; our infallible moneyed men proclaiming in their counting-rooms, and on ’change, the Popish doctrine Nulla salus extra ecclesiam Catholicam.”

While we were thus discussing la haute société of Boston, Mrs. ***, from London, made her appearance, and—her morality being endorsed by three responsible merchants—was received with thundering applause; the Honourable Mr. *** giving, as drum-major, the signal with a beautiful cane, which was immediately answered by “the middling interests” in the centre, and at last echoed by the mechanics, perched up in the rear. Mrs. *** courtesied. Renewed applause; during which she, at last, opened her cherub lips, and, with a great deal of common sense,—that is, without any of the coquetry of a French actress, or the agaceries of an Italian prima donna,—sang off two or three verses of one of those English ballads which sound so prettily in a private parlour, and so badly in a large concert-room. The worst of it was, that instead of the simple melody, which in most English or German compositions is exceedingly touching, she endeavoured to show her school, and the scope of her voice, by introducing variations, which were duly acknowledged by the people to whom she had been recommended. The ladies, especially, seemed not so much to admire her voice, as her modesty in not looking once from the music on the fashionable young men whose eyes were fastened upon her.

English women, being fine and tall, charm sufficiently by their placid beauty, and a certain laisser aller which they carry off admirably. French and Italian women, on the contrary, are, as a race, far less handsome, but considerably more piquantes. Ces sont des femmes caressantes. An English woman is made to be wooed; a French one entices you by a thousand little trifles, which it is the study of her life to practise with success. One is, perhaps, truly amiable; the other interests you by her very peevishness. The fair songstress seemed to be amiable in the English fashion, for she was all good nature—the usual concomitant of a certain embonpoint and smiled continually—on her music-book.

“But how is it possible,” said I to my cicerone, “to applaud such singing as this? There is neither simplicity nor taste, neither feeling nor execution in her performance, and yet the storm of applause is not abating.”

“For the Lord’s sake!” exclaimed he, “do not say that loud enough for other people to hear you. It would deprive you of many an innocent pleasure you would perhaps otherwise enjoy during your stay in this city. Our élite never forgive such a difference of opinion to one of their own clique; how much more, then, must a foreigner be on his guard! And in this case, too, where Mr. and Mrs. *** have taken the songstress under their protection! It would be sufficient to exclude you at once from society. This is free country, sir! every man may do or think what he pleases, only he must not let other people know it. You might just as well attack one of our fashionable preachers as Mrs. ***.”

“If this is what you call freedom in Boston,” said I, “I will not go to another concert, if Paganini himself were to perform here.”

“And yet, if you heard an oratorio performed by our ‘Handel and Haydn Society’, you would, perhaps, change your opinion. That society is almost wholly composed of mechanics, who cultivate music from taste, and pay their German leader, a good scientific musician, a very handsome salary.”

“Singular city this!” exclaimed I, “in which the labouring classes cultivate music from taste, and in which the rich people listen to it from obligation. I shall be obliged to leave the room. Will you not accompany me?”

“I should like to do so,” whispered he; “but it would be observed. I am obliged to live with these people; and you know the proverb, ‘Among Romans do as Romans do.’ A propos; if any one should ask you about the concert, and especially about Mrs. ***, say you were ‘delighted;’ that’s the word now. There is no use in making yourself enemies; delighted, sir! Don’t forget your cue.”

What an extraordinary phenomenon, thought I as I went home, this state of society must be to an European! And is it a wonder if, under such circumstances, the most paltry scribbler thinks himself justified in caricaturing it? Here is a free people voluntarily reducing itself to a state of the most odious social bondage, for no other object but to maintain an imaginary superiority over those classes in whom, according to the constitution of their country, all real power is vested; and here are the labouring classes, probably for the first time permitted to legislate for themselves, worshipping wealth in its most hideous colours! Here, then, is a society formed as nearly as possible on the abstract theory of equality; and this is the state to which it has become reduced by the aspirings of a few wealthy families in less than a century! If such is the tendency towards decay in all human institutions, how jealous ought the people to be of the most trifling privileges, arrogated exclusively by certain classes.

And what species of tyranny is worse than that which attempts to control a man’s private actions, his worship, his domestic arrangements, and his pleasures? What can be more absurd than for a certain class, for the most part not a whit better educated than the rest, to assume the dictatorship in all matters relating to politics, religion, or the arts? And how can it be reconciled with the spirit of independence, manifested more or less by every American, to see so large a portion of their countrymen governed by the tinsel logic of such a coterie? Nothing can excite the contempt of an educated European more than the continual fears and apprehensions in which even the “most enlightened citizens” of the United States seem to live with regard to their next neighbours, lest their actions, principles, opinions, and beliefs should be condemned by their fellow creatures!

I have heard it seriously asserted in America, that there are no better policemen than the ordinary run of Bostonians; and that, as long as their natural inquisitiveness remained, there was no need of a secret tribunal; every citizen taking upon himself the several offices of spy, juryman, justice, and—vide Lynch law—executioner. This is by some called the wholesome restraint of public opinion: but, in order that public opinion may be just, it must not be biased by the particular faith of a coterie; and there are transactions in private life of which the public ought never to be made the judge.

There is scarcely a degree of political freedom which can compensate a man for the loss of independence in his private transactions, and the want of a generous liberality in the community at large. There are individuals whose tastes and dispositions are not likely to involve them in any political or religious controversy, and who therefore can be comparatively free, even under a despotic government; but, in a community like Boston, no abstract rule of conduct can be laid down, capable of protecting a man against censure and retaliation. This peculiarity in the composition of its society I do not, however, like so many others, ascribe to the political institutions of the country, which, on the contrary, are constantly counteracting its effects; but to the aristocracy of money, unmitigated as it is by superior education, and unlimited in its influence either by the existence of a real nobility or a powerful sovereign.

The moveable, moneyed aristocracy of our times I consider as the greatest enemy of mankind, in comparison to which all the terrors of the feudal system are as nothing. The nobility of the middle ages offered to the people protection for vassalage, and set them the example of chivalry and valour. A mere moneyed aristocracy, on the contrary, enslaves the people without giving them an equivalent, introducing everywhere the most sordid principles of selfishness, to the exclusion of every noble and disinterested sentiment. A mere moneyed preponderance of one class of citizens over the other, does not form an historical link between the present and the past; neither does it, like the masses, represent the interests of mankind in general. All its tendencies are downwards, reducing a people gradually to a degree of moral degradation, from which perhaps they might have been saved by the presence of a powerful nobility of family.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Public opinion sways the country in all respects except in matters of taste, which are entirely settled by the higher orders.

CHAPTER III.

Maternal Affections of American Ladies—their Cause.—Want of Romance in the Lives of American Gentlemen.—Moral and Religious Cant.—Daniel Webster’s Principle of resisting arrogant Innovation.—Reflections on the Democratic, Aristocratic, and Monarchical Forms of Government.—The Bunker Hill Monument.—Want of Patriotism in the Higher Classes of Americans.—The English Feeling in Boston.—Americans passing for Englishmen in Europe.—Anecdotes.—The American Aristocracy take the House of Lords under their Protection.—Their Contempt for the Western Settlers.—The American Character not understood in Europe.

“And as for Heaven ‘being love,’ why not say ‘honey
Is wax?’ Heaven is not love, ’tis matrimony.”

Byron.

“When I again saw my cicerone, I communicated to him my surprise at seeing so few women frequenting theatres, concerts, and other places of amusement. To one lady seen at the theatre there are at least three or four gentlemen; whereas at church the relation is the reverse, proving the ladies to be much more piously inclined than the men.

“Our women,” he said, “are too much confined at home, attending on their children; and yet this, and going to church, constitute their only pleasures in this world. Ours is yet a country in which preachers are better paid than actors and musicians; and a seat in a pew of one of our fashionable ‘meeting-houses’ is offered you with the same ceremonious politeness, as, in Italy, a box at the opera.”

“I have always heard that American women made the best mothers,” said I.

“As regards the maternal affections of our women,” replied he, “I can easily conceive why they should be strong. It is nearly all the romance (!) they enjoy; the duties they assume in marrying overbalancing infinitely the caresses and attentions bestowed upon them by their husbands. Our young men are an industrious, steady, persevering, but not an amiable race of beings. They have a high respect for ladies in general; but they are not devoted to them beyond the forms and usages of society. Money-making is the principal pursuit to which they are devoted; and which so completely absorbs their time, that, between business and politics, they hardly find time for the cultivation of affections.

“And our rich people,” he continued, “are, in this respect, more to be pitied than the poor. The latter spend their few leisure hours, or rather minutes, at home, in the circle of their families; while the former are compelled to waste them in society. And what society is that? It does not consist of a few friends whom accident assembles round the fireside, to pass away an evening in agreeable chit-chat. Our fashionable people are not fond of this cheap, unostentatious sort of amusement; and, besides, it does not suit the taste of our boys and girls, who are only satisfied with a dance. For this reason our parties are expensive, and afford little or no relaxation to men of sense. I once heard a diplomatist say, that a young man, in order to form his manners and judgment, ought to choose his female society from among ladies not under thirty, and his male companions from gentlemen not under forty years of age; but certainly, if manners and judgment are to be acquired only on such terms, our state of society is such that our young men must for ever remain deficient in them.

“If our married women were to be compensated for the loss they sustain in society by increased attention from their husbands, they might perhaps profit by the exchange. But our business men have no time for cooing. Their first object is trade; everything else is surbordinate. There is a great deal of domestic comfort in the United States, resulting from sound principles of morality and religion, especially on the part of the women; but I have hardly ever seen that tender affection—that union of souls, in which two persons require nothing but each other’s consent for the completion of their happiness. That state, I am aware, requires either absolute poverty, or a degree of wealth and refinement which, from the vain attempt to satisfy the heart with the gratification of artificial wants, returns once more to the legitimate source of all human happiness. Both cases are as yet unknown in America; labour securing a competency to every industrious man, and the laws and institutions of the country preventing the accumulation of property.

“These circumstances make us a practical and active, but not an enthusiastic or imaginative people. We choose our fair companions according to the dictates of good sense, not after ‘some fanciful creation of the mind.’ Our country is not yet a land of beaux idéals.”

“On this account,” proceeded my travelled cicerone, “we are not subject to disappointment when the dreams of our youth are not realized; and the organization of society prevents us even from perceiving our error. Suppose one of our young men to marry a woman whose tastes, disposition, and character are essentially different from his own: it would not necessarily follow that the union must, on this account, prove an unhappy one. The points of contact are so few, the sphere of action of each party so well defined by custom and law, and the occupation of the man out of the house so constant, that he may become the father of a large family, and even die without finding out his mistake. This assertion seems to be absurd, and yet it is true to the very letter. And it is this sort of passiveness in all matters not relating to business or politics, which, though it may not constitute the most amiable or interesting feature of our character, is nevertheless the principal cause of the universal content which pervades our community.

“A similar match in Europe would be the source of endless misery. The comparative leisure enjoyed even by the labouring classes would prove a source of pain to two minds not perfectly tuned in unison. Nothing creates so many artificial wants,—nothing is, in itself, such exquisite luxury as leisure.[6] Our rich, industrious population may pity the poor lazzarone, who is badly fed, scarcely covered, and who has no other couch to lay his limbs upon but the marble steps of a palace or a church; and yet how many such vagabonds would be willing to exchange their position with that of our most opulent citizens? Such is the difference in men’s ideas of happiness.

“An European computes his time, or rather his leisure moments, better than his money; in America the case is reversed. In Europe, wealth is comparatively within the reach of few; but every one has his little share of leisure, from the day-labourer who has his hour at noon and his vesper, to the rentier who lives in idleness. Under these circumstances, the choice of a companion determines a man’s happiness for life. Great and many are the calls on each other’s sympathy in pleasure and in affliction, and a single discord destroys the harmony for ever. A man may live with a woman of different tastes,—he may eat and drink with her,—he may see her at specified hours of the day,—he may share his fortune or anything else with her without being unhappy; but who can describe the feelings of an enthusiast whose wife remains motionless at one of Shakspeare’s plays?—at the sight of the ocean or the Alps?

“These inequalities of taste and disposition become a true source of misery in proportion as we have leisure to give scope to our imagination. In active life, in the pursuits of agriculture, commerce, or manufactures, they are hardly noticed. What time, I would ask you, has one of our young men to be unhappy?—when in the morning he rises, to read the papers; then takes his breakfast, at which his fair partner presents him with her own white hands two cups of hyson or pekoe, with the trifling addition of a steak or a chop; then goes to his counting-room, where he remains until one; then passes the hour from one till two on ’change; then returns home to eat his beef and pudding, which he accomplishes in about ten minutes; then returns once more to his counting-room, where he remains till sunset; then comes home to swallow his two or three cups of tea; after which, if there be no political caucas, no evening lecture, or late arrival of the mail, he is heartily glad to go to rest, in order to gather strength for the work of the next day? What can it matter to him whether his wife be sentimental? whether she have imagination or taste? whether she be an admirer of the drama?

“‘What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?’

“Our fashionable men,” continued he, with a sarcastic contraction of his lips, which was his usual substitute for a smile, “are less fortunate. They are not permitted to go to bed when they are tired. Society has claims upon them; they must contribute their share to the entertainment of the evening. Accordingly, they are obliged to wash and dress, put on kid gloves, and prepare, in every other respect, for the sacrifice, to which they are led by their wives like so many sheep to the slaughter-house. Being, as married people, excluded from dancing, and cards being abolished among us, they are obliged to amuse themselves with taking refreshments, which I believe they always do, until, towards ten, a regular supper rewards their patience; after which the majority of the company get into their hacks, swearing that it was a capital entertainment, at which there was plenty to eat, and a great profusion of choice and exquisite wines.

“As regards our women, they are, with the exception of the time consumed at meals, the whole day left to themselves; a circumstance which is not calculated to render their existence a happy one, unless they are blessed with children to break in upon its monotony, and afford fresh scope for their affections. Hence our women love their offspring passionately; while for their husbands they feel a sort of half-distant respect, wholly opposed to that tender familiarity without which it is impossible to penetrate into a woman’s heart.

“In this manner our men are cheated—or rather cheat themselves—out of the poetical part of matrimony; but are also saved from a vast deal of mortification. At any rate, our hard-featured, industrious Yankees, who are accustomed to act from principle, not from impulse,—from conviction, not from inclination,—have shown themselves worthy of living under free institutions, which seem to compensate them for the absence of those pleasures which a higher degree of refinement and an abundance of leisure secure to the higher classes of Europe; and the remark of a celebrated European statesman was, perhaps, a wise one, when he said ‘that a people is fit for liberal institutions in exactly the same proportion as its whole time is employed in satisfying its physical wants.’”

“But how is it possible,” demanded I, “that with all this political liberty, and the constant occupation of all classes of society, you should have become reduced to a degree of social bondage, of which no city in Europe, and scarcely one in Asia, furnishes an example? Remember, I have not yet forgotten the advice you gave me at the concert.”

“All this,” replied he, “is owing to the excessive prudence which pervades our higher society, and which, in reality, makes them believe that no European can fathom them. Our gentlemen are, indeed, not endowed with the faculty of second sight; but they have what they call ‘second thoughts,’ a sort of arrière pensée, which it is not always easy to decipher, and is frequently the whole substitute for profundity or research. Thus they have always two motives for one and the same act,—a public and a private one; and, as many Europeans who come here to study our character are ingenuous enough to consider one motive quite sufficient for each act, it is an even chance they are mistaken, whether they have a view to our private or public motives. If you stay long enough among us, you will hear morality, politics, and even religion advocated from more than one prudent motive. High, exalted views, or enthusiasm for one or the other of these all-important subjects, you will, indeed, meet with occasionally; but, in general, we look upon all such sentiments as unhealthy, feverish, unbecoming a ‘calm,’ ‘sober,’ ‘calculating’ people. We delight in prose, though we frequently talk poetry. Poetry with us is a public consideration, for which reason its place is usually the newspapers. It is food for the multitude; our private motives seldom rise beyond a clear view of our own immediate interests. In the inimitable language of one of our most fashionable young ladies, we admire roast beef, and dote on oyster pies.

“This is in some degree the origin of our cant in morality and religion, which our politicians, when there is no other absorbing topic, such as manufactures, commerce, fisheries, &c. employ for the purpose of ‘making a hit.’ In the absence of enthusiasm, which would inspire them with natural eloquence, they seek to maintain themselves at a certain elevation by pressing hard on lofty topics; having no wings, they endeavour to support themselves in the air by a parachute. Thus the words ‘virtue,’ ‘patriotism,’ ‘morality,’ ‘religion,’ ‘piety,’ are in every one’s mouth. All these terms had originally a distinct meaning attached to them, and to the mass of the people they are still full of import; but, being thus used on the most trifling occasion, they must sooner or later become degraded to mere figures of speech.

“The same holds of our republican manners. You will see many of our public characters wear the garb of humility in the presence of their meanest fellow-citizens; they carry their own portemanteaux when landing from a steam-boat, shake hands with everybody on election day, and, like Hildebrand, assume, when walking or standing, an inclined posture; but let them once be elected, and you will see them draw themselves up to their full height, exclaiming ‘Ego sum papa!’ With all our democratic machinery, our Atlantic cities contain more lingering, pining, ‘aspirants to honourable distinction,’ than perhaps could be found in any equal number of men in Europe.

“Besides,” continued he, “our rich people, who, in the absence of a law of primogeniture, preserve their wealth by marrying cousins,[7] and our young merchants, who become rich by successful speculations, are somewhat tired of their monotonous state of existence. Many of them have been in Europe, where their property has enabled them, occasionally, to associate with the higher orders. They have witnessed the importance attached in civilized countries to rank and fortune, and are therefore, out of pure philanthropy, anxious to introduce the same high degree of civilization in America. ‘Do we not see the world prosper around us?’ asks Mr. Daniel Webster, the great Massachusetts statesman and orator;[8] ‘do we not see OTHER GOVERNMENTS, and OTHER NATIONS, enlightened by experience, and rejecting ARROGANT INNOVATIONS and THEORETIC DREAMS, accomplishing the great ends of society?’

“Now is not this Conservatism with a vengeance! Would an English Tory have dared to make such an avowal before a British parliament? Where would England be, if her born or chosen legislators had looked round for precedents among other nations? What would have become of the United States, if the representatives of the people, in 1776, had held the same language? What better argument can be made in favour of absolute despotism in any country, than that ‘other nations, and other governments, reject arrogant innovations and theoretic dreams? The decree of the Emperor of China against the introduction of Christianity is not more profound in its argument; and yet Mr. Webster is, in this respect, nothing but a plagiary! Arrogant innovations were resisted in China long before the birth of the honourable senator for Massachusetts.

“Such doctrines as these will explain to you, at the same time, the views of our Whigs. Compare them to the principles of Toryism in England, and the conviction will irresistibly be forced upon you that the latter are a thousand times more liberal, and compatible with the freedom of the people. How many measures for the welfare of the English people have emanated from the nobility! But these Whigs, who are just one or two steps removed from the masses, think themselves beset by dogs, and are continually kicking for fear of being bitten.

“These sentiments will not surprise any one who has heard ‘the most influential citizens’ assert that the republic has secured no great and signal benefit to the United States; that they were just as free, and certain classes even freer, under the British Government; that there can be nothing worse than the present mob-government, &c. These sentiments, I say, had ceased to astonish me; they only served to convince me of the necessity of trusting to institutions, not to men, the welfare of the state.”

In the present struggle for power, ambitious men may yet hope to arrive at honourable distinction through legitimate means—through the suffrages of the people; and hence the decision of every great question is still referred to the latter, although in a manner so distorted by cunning and sophistry that the people can scarcely see the true point at issue. For this reason the United States are, as yet, free from secret societies, private meetings and assemblies for political purposes, and leagues of powerful families for the furtherance of treasonable objects. Neither of the two parties, the would-be-aristocratic or the democratic, is as yet firmly established in power, or can hope to acquire and retain it for any length of time; but it is even this unsettled state which, by some, is taken for a surety of the continuance of the republican government.

Every institution, democratic, aristocratic, or monarchical, was originally good, and remained so as long as it answered the purpose for which it was first established. For this reason it is absurd to praise or censure, in the abstract, either of these forms of society. The elements of each of them probably co-existed at all times, even under governments the most republican or despotic: all calamities which ever befel mankind arose from their misapplication, or from the disproportion between the progress of society (no matter in what direction) and the relative preponderance of one or the other of these three principles.

If any of the two great parties which divide the United States, as they do the rest of the world, should ever succeed in breaking up and destroying the other; if any one of them were to establish itself so firmly in power, as to make its political antagonists wholly despair of overthrowing it by constitutional means; then one of two great evils would necessarily ensue,—political indifference on the part of a great number of industrious and wealthy citizens; or a lawless opposition, not to the party in power, but to the institutions under which they hold it. Something of the kind—at least the former of the two cases—actually occurred during the latter part of the administration of General Jackson; at which time a large portion of wealthy, and formerly influential citizens, believing it in vain to make any farther resistance to the sway of democracy, entirely withdrew from politics, and frankly expressed, at home and abroad, in conversation and in public prints, their contempt for the government and institutions of America. Now that, by a series of changes which it is not here the place to explain, political influence and power seem to be once more within their reach, they begin again to take an active part in public affairs, recommencing their opposition to democracy with renewed vigour.

The government of the United States requires, more than any other, a strong opposition, in order to prevent a powerful faction from assuming a monarchical sway through one or more of its leaders. Democracies and aristocracies may eventually terminate in monarchies; their most critical moment being always that in which one of two great parties has gained some signal victory over the other. The power obtained by the conquerors is necessarily concentrated in the hands of a few political champions; who, being on such occasions, for a time at least, independent of public opinion, or having that opinion in their favour, may dictate law. Such a moment is fraught with dangers, even if the democratic party be the conqueror; the transition from democracy to monarchy being far more easy than that from aristocracy to the government of a single individual. The latter is, indeed, impossible until the aristocracy is completely absorbed by the democratic element, and by degrees spoliated of its prerogatives.

For this reason a powerful aristocracy of family has always been the strongest bulwark against arbitrary power, and the preserver of liberty in the middle ages. But, in order that the aristocratic element shall fulfil its high destination, it must have an historical basis;—it must date from the origin of the country, and, like the aristocracy of England, have contributed to the foundation of the state. A mere mushroom aristocracy of money, taken yesterday from behind the counter, possesses none of these essential qualities; and is on that account neither capable of protecting the lower classes, nor of forming by itself a powerful political party. What a commercial aristocracy may do for the happiness of a people, even when reflecting on its historical grandeur, we have seen in the example of Venice, from the time the signory elected the chief magistrate, in 1173, to that in which she stooped

“—————————— to be
A province for an empire, petty town
In lieu of capital, with slaves for senates,
Beggars for nobles, panders for a people.”

The establishment of a purely democratic government—that is, of one in which the democratic prevails over the aristocratic and monarchical principles,—is an historical problem which, under the most favourable circumstances ever combined, was intrusted to the American people. These circumstances will continue to act for centuries in their favour; and suppose the government finally to become modified, could such an event disprove the fact that, as long as the republic did last, the people were prosperous and happy, the nation respected abroad, and its domestic affairs managed with skill and integrity? Is it an argument against democratic institutions that they cannot last for ever? Might you not just as well despise youth and vigour, because they are doomed to old age and decrepitude? If it be true that all republics finally changed into aristocracies or monarchies, it ought to make the Americans only the more jealous of preserving the purity of their institutions, in order that, if an aristocracy must come, it may not be one of mere wealthy stock-jobbers.

“Come,” said my cicerone, “let us take a walk over to Charlestown, ‘the mob quarter,’ as our enlightened citizens call that independent suburb of Boston. We shall have a fine view of the city and the harbour from Bunker’s Hill monument, the most classical object in this neighbourhood.”

“How far is it now completed?” demanded I. “I was told they did not go on with it from want of funds.”

“That monument,” replied he, “of which no one can tell when it will be finished, is a sad proof of the preference given by the Bostonians to realities, rather than to fictions of honour and glory. Our people are not fond of the poetry of history. They seem to have fought for liberty because it was a thing worth fighting for, without being fired with that enthusiasm for a great and noble cause with which we have seen millions of Europeans rush into battle as into a banquet-room.

“We Yankees are not like the heroes of antiquity; we are not ambitious, and do not even think it worth our while to leave traces of our virtues and achievements to posterity. We are not easily moved by historical recollections, and therefore think it a useless vanity to erect monuments for our children, in order to stimulate them to great and generous actions. This is a new illustration of our common sense. Being less exposed to invasions from a foreign enemy, and less dreading the aspirings of a powerful faction within, we do not see our institutions surrounded by those dangers, in the struggle against which love of liberty and of country become the absorbing passions of a people. Liberty, with us, constitutes a quiet possession, which we hope to retain rather by prudence and economy than by enthusiasm and courage.”

“I have heard a number of Bostonians,” observed I, “animadvert seriously against the celebration of the 4th of July, the anniversary of the declaration of independence; and especially against the reading of that instrument from the pulpit, because it contains expressions offensive to a power with which the Americans are now living in peace and amity.”

“We do not wish our children to imbibe that tender affection for liberty,” replied he, “which a lover cherishes for his mistress; we want them to be wedded to it in the good old Puritan fashion, without going through the tedium of a sentimental courtship. Our liberal institutions are, with us, a sort of household furniture intended for common use, well kept and guarded from injury, but no object of ardent attachment or devotion.”

The total absence of enthusiasm among the higher classes of Americans, I found, indeed, one of the most remarkable features of their character. They consider the democratic institutions of their country opposed to national grandeur; and feel, therefore, little inclined to commemorate events which could either flatter the vanity, or excite the emulation, of the lower classes. They seem to be of opinion that the people of the United States have full as much liberty as they can bear, and that a little more would unavoidably upset the whole. This will be considered as a gross slander on the patriotism of the aristocracy; but it is nevertheless a conclusion I have deliberately come to, after a long series of observation. Love of liberty and of country I found infinitely stronger among the labouring classes, who do not enjoy the advantage of finishing their education in Europe; absolute contempt, and sometimes hatred of the institutions of their country, among those who have had the means of spending several years abroad. What is the world to argue from it?

The monument at Bunker’s, or rather Breed’s Hill,—for the Americans mistook their position in the night, and fortified Breed’s Hill instead of Bunker’s Hill,—was intended, I believe, for a plain obelisk, which, if it were completed, would command a most superb view of the city and the harbour; as it now stands, it is nothing but a modern ruin,—a lasting reproach to the want of nationality of the Bostonians. Want of public spirit it cannot be; because the Bostonians have given a thousand proofs of their readiness to make large pecuniary sacrifices in order to further the establishment of institutions calculated to benefit the community. The establishment of the Athenæum, principally through the munificence of a merchant; the Asylum for the Blind, towards which Mr. Perkins contributed alone ten thousand pounds sterling; the great liberality of all classes whenever an appeal is made to their charity; and lastly, the large sums paid annually for the support of common schools and public lectures, do not allow me to entertain the least doubt on the subject.

But, in the case of the monument at Bunker’s Hill, “the English feeling,” for which the higher classes of Boston were always distinguished, seems to have acted as a counterpoise; and to have, if not absolutely prevented its completion, at least withheld those sums which would have been readily contributed for another object. The Boston ladies, who, it is said, have a good deal of public spirit, made an attempt to revive the national pride of the gentlemen, but without effect; the outward respect paid by the Americans “to the sex” being essentially different from that species of gallantry which makes men delight in anticipating the wishes of women without being regularly pressed into the service. The “appeal of the ladies,” therefore, remained without effect, and a few of the forward ones barely escaped being ridiculed in the public prints. “This is a sad state of society,” say the disciples of Miss Martineau; “but all this will be changed when the ladies will vote, and hold public meetings for the propagation of patriotism.”

“If the English feeling of our aristocracy,” observed my cicerone, “were to manifest itself only by the omission of expensive monuments, it would, perhaps, less expose us to the censure of our patriots, or the just ridicule of Europeans. But I have known gentlemen whose highest glory consisted in not being recognised as Americans while in England, and whose delight it was to pass on the Continent pour des Mylords Anglais. One of them, a youngster of not more than twenty-one years of age, was, on his stay in Paris, particularly afraid of being taken for an American savage. He spoke on all occasions of England as his native country—(our fashionable young men, you know, talk of going home to England,)—and commenced and finished his sentences with ‘Nous autres en Angleterre,’ ‘nous autres à Londres,’ &c. In the travellers’ books he signed himself Mr. ***; ‘Rentier de Londres;’ his clothes were made by a London tailor, his hat was English; and he even imitated the bad English accent when speaking French, though he could speak the language tolerably well when he wanted to shine before Americans.

“A year or two ago,” he continued, “I met, on the Rhine, with a still more extraordinary phenomenon. It was nearly in the middle of the month of August, when I went in a steamer from Mayence to Coblentz. There were a number of Englishmen on board, who, according to their custom, avoided as much as possible every kind of contact with the rest of the company. They were seated on one side of the boat, gazing on the moving panorama of the river; occasionally ejaculating ‘fine!’ ‘pretty!’ ‘very fine!’ ‘too much at once!’ At a little distance from them, towards the stern of the vessel, sat, ‘solitary and alone,’ as a celebrated senator has it, a gentleman in a macintosh, buttoned up to the chin, supporting his body, which was bent forward, by a huge cane, and keeping his eyes fixed on the ground in the deepest meditation.

“This Pythagorean attitude and silence, which were admirably becoming a thinking Englishman, excited the mirth of all the passengers, and especially of the Germans, who ironically remarked ‘that the English had a very philosophical way of travelling, always reasoning and reflecting when other people are satisfied with the mere looks of things.’

“After the lapse of I should think an hour, the supposed Englishman, whose back must have ached considerably, drew himself up to his full height, enabling me to recognise in him a young gentleman of my acquaintance, who had gone to Europe for his health, and was at the same time carefully improving his manners. ‘How long is it since you left ***?’ demanded I, rushing up to him in order to shake him by the hand. ‘Hush!’ whispered he; ‘I have been coming down all the way from Strasbourg with these Englishmen here, and none of them has recognised me as an American.’

“The fact is,” continued my cicerone, “our higher classes, in spite of their continual croaking, have no other standard to go by but the English. They pique themselves on dressing like the English, talking like the English, thinking like the English, and behaving like the English, and on having English sentiments with regard to politics and religion. Some of ‘the aristocracy’ are even more orthodox than the English themselves; especially with regard to the Irish, who, since their emancipation, are much more unpopular with certain classes of Americans than O’Connell can possibly be in a British assembly of Tories.

“For the same reason have our aristocracy taken the House of Lords under their protection; ‘because the English nobility is such a glorious institution!’ ‘it contributes so much to the national splendour!’ and there are so many high families in America connected with the first people in England! They probably think that, as long as aristocracy finds a stronghold in the old institutions of Britain, there remains at least a hope of introducing something similar to them in the United States; but they forget that, from the historical aristocracy of England, to the nameless money-dealers of America, there is a greater transition than from the substance to the shadow of a thing. Incorporated companies and banks are as yet the only armories that furnish weapons to the chivalrous knights composing the nobility of the New World; and there is scarcely an American squire that would not be willing to sell horse and lance provided a proper price be offered him.

“Another generic feature which marks our wealthy parvenus, while, at the same time, it furnishes a curious index to the human heart, is the little sympathy felt or expressed with regard to the enterprising Western settlers, and the contemptuous language held by our ‘respectable editors’ when speaking of those unfortunate exiles from the refinement of ‘the Old States.’ Mrs. Trollope’s caricatures of the ‘half-horse and half-alligator race make the reader laugh; those drawn in our own papers are calculated to make one despise them. They use precisely the same language formerly employed by British writers with regard to the early settlers of the American colonies:—‘lawless adventurers,’ ‘fugitives from justice,’ ‘outcasts from society,’ ‘dregs of humanity,’ ‘candidates for the state’s prison or the gallows.’

“By these gentle appellations do the mushroom aristocracy of a few trading places stigmatise the steady, laborious, enterprising race of men that fertilize the Western wilderness, and create new markets for manufactures and commerce. Scarcely a couple of generations removed from the original settlers, they already play the old families, without having in their ephemeral existence done one thing deserving to be recorded in history; for we cannot disguise the fact, that all we have thus far accomplished, all that distinguishes our people from the idle and vicious population of Europe, all that has contributed to our boundless national prosperity, is owing to the virtue, enterprise, and perseverance of the labouring classes, and in no small proportion to those very ‘adventurers’ whom our Atlantic satraps affect to despise.

“Our higher classes,” added my cicerone, “seldom get angry at foreigners for abusing their government in the abstract; but let any one attempt to prove that there are no elements for a different administration to be found amongst them, and they will raise a hue and cry against the audacious slanderer. Tell them that they are ‘no republicans,’ and they will feel themselves flattered, though they may pout like some affected prude with whom a man takes some pleasing liberty. But attack their aristocracy; say that it is a noisy, shapeless monster, with many tails and no head,—or, what is worse, say that you discover no aristocracy in the country,—and you will set them raving.

“I remember a poor, little, innocent woman who nearly fainted at a duke’s telling her that he had understood there was no noblesse in America; but merely an educated (?) wealthy bourgeoisie. Poor thing! she little expected such a mortification; and from such a quarter too! And yet she was a great stickler for human rights; just like some fashionable reformer, who can see no reason for the extraordinary prerogatives of the nobility, but is wide awake to the chasm which separates him from the multitude.

“We may safely call ourselves the vainest people on earth,” concluded my cicerone, “and yet we dare not have an opinion which is not sanctioned abroad. We constantly refer each other’s manners, doctrines, and principles to those which are current in Europe; but, when an European ventures to imitate our example, we cannot contain our wrath at his impertinence. We do not object to the standard of comparison, but to the comparison itself; because we claim for ourselves the exclusive faculty of arriving at just conclusions. Our best society is but a sorry caricature of that of Europe, and yet we get angry when an European attempts to depict it. Our fate is indeed the most singular. No one can understand us; and yet we are constantly talking about ourselves, and throwing out hints as to where observers may look for an explanation of our manners. The good people of England especially seem, in reference to us, to be in precisely the same predicament as Dr. Johnson was with regard to the Scotch,—the more we talk, the less they know about us.”

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Those of my readers who are disposed to doubt the possibility of such sentiments proceeding from an American, must be informed that my cicerone, being the son of a government envoy of high rank, was born and educated in Europe.

[7] Against this practice, Dr. Spurzheim, the lecturer on phrenology, strongly remonstrated while in Boston, pointing to the pernicious consequences on the health and vigour of the rising generation.

[8] Daniel Webster’s second speech on the Sub-treasury System proposed by the present administration.

CHAPTER IV.

A party of English Gentlemen at Dinner—their Patriotism.—Character of John Bull in America.—The Englishman’s Speech.—The American Answer.—Modesty of British Commercial Agents in the United States.—Anecdote characteristic of the Second Society.

“Peace, I say! hear mine host of the Garter! Am I politic? Am I subtile? Am I a Machiavel? Shall I lose my doctor? No; he gives me the potions, and the motions. Shall I lose my parson? My priest? My Sir Hugh? No; he gives me the proverbs and the no-verbs.”

Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii. Scene 1.

To-day I dined with an English gentleman, who had been settled a great number of years in the country, and was married to an American lady of very good family.

The company was composed principally of merchants and manufacturers, with an admixture of a few travelling; agents of British commercial houses, whom it was not difficult to recognise as the lions of the party. They were not, properly speaking, members of the first society, because foreigners who are once married and settled in the country seldom belong to it, unless they are immensely rich; but they thought themselves nevertheless considerably above the second, not one of them having accepted an invitation to the latter for the last six months,—preferring infinitely no society at all to the degradation of mixing with inferior persons. Besides, one of them, having of late moved into “a more respectable neighbourhood,” was preparing to entertain his new fashionable acquaintance with a large, sumptuous party, which he hoped would at once open to his sons and daughters—“the old man and woman” are not so easily promoted—the road to the highest circles.

Dinner, which was one of the plainest I ever made in the United States, was served in the usual manner; only that the gentleman of the house piqued himself on having everything cooked in the true English fashion. I believe he had a beef-steak brought upon the table for the sole purpose of showing the difference between the English and American ways of dressing it. “This is an English steak,” said he; “at least you do not see it besmeared with rancid butter, and N.B. cooked with Liverpool coal.” The roast beef was recommended in the same manner, as being “roasted in the true English style;” and the same was said of the parboiled vegetables, and at last of the fire-proof pudding.

“I hope,” said one of the gentlemen, who was an American at the head of a large manufacturing establishment, “none of our friends is troubled with dyspepsia.”

“I like the English kitchen better than any other,” replied our entertainer, “whatever preference my friends may give to the French or Italian.”

“At any rate it is preferable to the American,” observed another Englishman.

“And if not that, we at least know how to eat,” remarked another.

“That,” said our host, “no one will deny. The custom of eating against time exists only in America.”

“Why,” observed the manufacturer peevishly, “I have seen many an Englishman, sitting down at our public tables, play as good a knife and fork, and as quickly too, as one of our ‘natives.’”

“That was done in self-defence,” cried the Englishman, “if it was done at all.”

“If the custom of dining at tables d’hôte existed in England,” rejoined the manufacturer, “your people would soon learn speed and ingenuity in eating.”

“I hope, sir, such a custom will never be introduced.”

“And then you forget that at a public table in America you frequently meet with people who, in England, would be content to make their dinner at a beef-shop.”

“I often suspected something of the kind.”

“Why, sir, this is a republican country; we have no public distinction of classes.”

“So much the worse for you.”

“But is it not very strange,” observed the manufacturer, somewhat angrily, “that you Englishmen, who come here for no other purpose in the world but to make money, who ‘underwork and undersell’ us wherever you can, should be constantly railing against this country? I have seen Scotchmen, Irishmen, Frenchmen, and Germans who were all satisfied to live amongst us and acquire property; but I do not remember a single Englishman that was not constantly talking of the superiority of England over America. The English are the only foreigners that never become bonâ fide citizens. They always have a leaning towards their own country, however they may have forsworn their sovereign, and pledged fidelity and allegiance to the United States.”

“I consider all you have said as highly in our favour,” said our host.

“But I do not,” remarked the manufacturer. “I consider it downright perjury to come and settle amongst us,—to apply for the privileges of citizenship,—to go through the requisite formalities,—to pledge an oath of allegiance to the country,—to renounce publicly one’s former sovereign,—to exercise all the rights of native Americans conferred by these acts,—and then, after all, to remain a foreigner at heart, and to abuse this country whenever an opportunity presents itself of doing so with impunity. If you dislike this country so much, why do you stay in it?”

“Because I cannot do better,” replied the Englishman.

“That’s an old, but nevertheless a good one,” remarked one of the company.

“Oh!” exclaimed the manufacturer, “we know your principles well enough. Your John-Bullism is past redemption.’”

“I trust it is,” said the gentleman, colouring to his ears. “Nothing, God willing, shall transform me into a Yankee!”

“But you are married in this country; you have children born in America;—what countrymen shall they be? They cannot be called Englishmen, I am sure.”

“I am sorry for it; but that is not my fault. I will, at least, give them an English education.”

“Pray, are you a naturalized citizen?”

“I have never perjured myself,” replied the sturdy representative of John Bull.

“But did I not see you the other day at the polls?”

“I did not vote, I merely distributed tickets.”

“What a nice distinction this is; you did not vote, you merely electioneered!”

“That was done from principle.”

“What principle can that be? What interest can you take in our politics without being a citizen?”

“I have no interest at all in it. I merely do my duty by exerting myself to the utmost of my power to insure the election of the worst candidates, in order that you may the sooner be cured of your republican notions.”

“If this is really your object, you ought to have been lynched long ago.”

“I tell this merely to my friends.”

“Pray, do not quarrel with him,” interrupted one of the guests, addressing himself to the manufacturer; “our friend has always exerted himself on your side of the question.”

“That is a fact,” observed another. “Though you start from apparently very different premises, and appear to have very different motives, there is really no great difference between you in the end; so I think you had better shake hands, and drink to England and the United States!”

“England and the United States!” echoed the company.

“England and the United States!” repeated our host; “and may the latter never forget what they owe to the former!”

“John Bull to the back-bone!” cried the manufacturer. “All in his own house too!”

“But is it true,” demanded another Englishman, who, I was told, was an ironmonger, “that Mr. *** is not yet naturalized?”

“I am,” said he, “to all intents and purposes a British subject.”

“That’s no answer to my question,” replied the ironmonger; “a man may be a British subject, and still for all purposes in this country a naturalized American. I am a citizen of both countries. I hold real estate in Nova Scotia and in the United States.”

“Then you do not hold it according to law.”

“Pshaw!” ejaculated the ironmonger, “who cares for that? Millions of acres of land in this country belong to foreigners.”

“But you cannot be a bonâ fide holder of real estate in the United States without being a citizen, and you cannot become a citizen without renouncing all allegiance to foreign countries. You must have perjured yourself with regard to England or America.”

“Poh! poh! Talk of perjury in such matters! It’s a sort of custom-house oath which binds a person no farther than his word. I would not be such a fool as to give up my rights as a British subject. Times may change;—would you have me put all my eggs into one basket?”

“A nice creed this!” cried the manufacturer; “and such are the men that govern our elections! And you vote just like the rest of us?”

“And why should I not?”

“Pray, don’t quarrel,” said the same mediator that had before reconciled the manufacturer with our host; “he, too, votes on your side. Why do you scrutinize his motives if his acts coincide with your own? England and the United States! I say,—their interests are one and the same; may they never be divided by party spirit!”

This toast was drunk with all the honours; after which the gentleman of the house rose, and made, as far as I can recollect, the following speech:—

“Gentlemen,

“I am glad to see that you are by degrees coming to your senses. You cannot but agree with me, that it is the best policy of the United States to cultivate the friendship of Great Britain. It is, I am sure, the wisest thing you can do, after having been so foolish as to separate from us. As for us, we do not care three straws for that separation; we can get along without you.”

“That’s an Americanism,” remarked one of the company: “he is a stickler for Old England, and talks of going along!”

“I plead guilty to the charge,” replied the host. “The fact is, I have been so long in the United States that I have almost forgotten the English language.”

“Go on, sir! Go on!” cried the company; “never mind the language.”

“Well, gentlemen, I said we did not care three straws for that separation; neither do we, for our annual commercial balances against you are now greater than they ever were before the revolution. I only wish we could get rid of Canada in the same way. As for your independence, it’s all my eye and Betty Martin, as the saying goes, as long as you borrow money, and we are the ones that lend it you. A man in debt has lost his freedom, and the same holds of a nation.

“As regards the good understanding which exists between England and the United States, it is based, I am sure, on the most rational basis: the creditor likes to see his debtor prosper, in order that he may have a chance of being paid; and the debtor does not wish to break with his creditor, in order that the latter may not be too hard upon him, and, perhaps, trust him again. This, I believe, is all the sympathy which exists between the two countries at present; the antagonistical principles of their respective governments admitting of none other. With regard to myself, gentlemen, I can only say that, as the partner of an English house, I have always found the Americans an honest, clever, enterprising people; a little too enterprising by the by, especially with regard to manufactures” (here he cast a side glance at the representative of ‘the American system’); “but, as this has done them more harm than us, I am not disposed to quarrel with them. The Americans are, no doubt, our best customers; for which reason we like to see them in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, &c. in precisely the same manner as we Englishmen meet with more civility in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, than in any other part of the Union. This is all natural enough; and, in proportion as trade increases, our friendship must increase with it: and as I, for one, am really disposed to promote the latter as far as lies in my power, I will give you ‘The trade between England and America!’”

The trade between England and America was then drunk in a bumper; when, after sundry coughs and expectorations, the manufacturer rose and delivered himself in these terms:—

“Gentlemen,

“I am a manufacturer,—I presume you all know what that means; and I am proud to be one.” (To the host.) “I think, sir, that without manufactures this country would be entirely dependent on Great Britain. Our manufactures, sir, make us independent; without manufactures we should still be the slaves of the old country.” (“Oh, oh!” and cries of “Go on, go on!”) “But, sir, I will go further; I will come to the point; I will go beyond it! What, sir, would become of this country without manufactures in case of a war with England?”—(Several gentlemen, “We don’t want war; we want peace.”)—“Gentlemen, if you interrupt me, I will sit down.”

(“No, no! go on! Let us have it in true style.”)

“Well, gentlemen, I have asked the gentleman what would become of us without manufactures in case of a war? Here is a question! will you answer me that? Can you deny that our manufactures are destined at some future day not only to compete with those of England, but to beat them? And as to the insinuation, sir, that the establishment of manufactures has hurt this country, I look upon it with scorn; and what is worse than scorn, with pity,—nay, with perfect contempt.”

(Cries of, “That is personal;” “that won’t do, Mr. ***; you are out of order.”)

“If I was out of order, I am sorry for it; I did not mean to be personal; I only wished to state the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The gentleman hinted that we have not enough capital or perseverance to carry on that branch of industry; at least, I understood him to say so; but I guess he will find himself mistaken. If we have not enough perseverance, we have at least ‘an awful sight of hang-on.’” (Shouts of “That’s right: give it to him!” and laughter.) “But, sir, I gladly reciprocate; nay, I feel absolutely obliged to you for the kind sentiments you expressed in reference to this country. I hope the friendship between England and this country will be eternal; I mean to say, I trust it will last for ever. England cannot but profit by it, and so must we. Why then should we be eternally quarrelling with one another. I can see no good arising from it in any shape; so far from it, on the contrary, a pretty considerable deal of evil.

“It has been the custom of a few ignorant Englishmen to underrate the American character; but I calculate the English nation had nothing to do with it, and must, since Lord Brougham’s establishment of common schools, have learnt the true character of our people. But, as I always say, gentlemen, there is not the least cause of enmity between us. We both speak the same language, and were originally one and the same people; we intermarry and trade with one another; and, in short, do all things which mark us as civilized nations. On this account, gentlemen, and because it does not behove a Christian people (as one of our orators said), even in time of war, to harbour any ill will towards one another,[9] I give you, gentlemen, and I trust it may be a sentiment to which you will all cordially respond,—‘Success to the enterprise of both countries; and may they never forget their common stock!’”

“A fine stump speaker[10] this!” observed one of the Americans.

“Rather too Kentuckical, though,” remarked another; “but the fact is, there are so many nice shades of our meaning, that we cannot express them in any other language.”

I again saw my cicerone in the evening, and related to him the conversation I had listened to, expressing my surprise at the continual feuds between the English and Americans.

“This ought not to astonish you,” observed he: “most of the commercial agents, who come here either to settle or to reside, find themselves, for the first time in their lives, in what is called ‘the first society,’ apparently on a par with our most influential, i. e. moneyed citizens. This, of course, strikes them as extraordinary, and leads them to the conclusion that the first society in America must be essentially different from the society called ‘the first’ in England or Europe in general; to which they could not, possibly, procure themselves an introduction. This, as you may perceive, must be the natural effect of their modesty, for which you ought not to blame them, and for which I, for one, am rather disposed to give them credit; especially as I have seen the same persons, who in America flourished in the most fashionable circles, on their return to England not even admitted to the society of a London club, but content with a place in the counting-room of their employers, and a table in a city coffee-room. Though occasionally thrown into the company of our statesmen, they never approached, by chance, a member of parliament in their own country; and, although here considered as men of ability, they were satisfied with living in obscurity at home.

“As regards their political opinions,” he continued, “few of them, I believe, have received a liberal education, so as to be able to view our institutions with an enlarged, impartial mind, or to separate an accidental evil from the general good of which they may be productive to the great mass of the people. Instead of seeing in our government a practical illustration of the political doctrines abstracted from the experience of all countries and of every age, they view in it only a modification of the government of England, and apply to it the scale of their own country.