Part 11

I can remember when our old staid ladies used to address the servants as “sir;” but then a servant, being a negro, had something respectable and genteel about him, for it was before he had lost both by too much intercourse with the European peasants who are superceding him. One might indeed say “sirrah,” to the new set, but “sir” would be apt to stick in his throat. The philosophy of the practice is obvious enough. In the mouth of one who uses this little word understandingly, it marks distance mingled with respect: used to a superior, the respect is for him; used to an inferior, the respect is for one’s self.

It has been cleverly and wittily said that, in America, we have a tolerably numerous class, who deem “nothing too high to be aspired to, and nothing too low to be done.” In making my comparisons with any thing and every thing on this side of the Atlantic, I keep these pliant persons entirely out of view. They can be justly compared to nothing else in human annals. They are the monstrous offspring of peculiar circumstances, and owe their existence to an unparalleled freedom of exertion, acting on the maxims of a government that is better understood in practice than in theory, and, which, among its thousand advantages, is obnoxious to the charge of giving birth to a species of gentry perfectly _sui generis_. I compare the gentlemen of no country to these philosophers.

On the continent of Europe, it is rather a distinction to be undecorated in society. Stars and ribbands are really so very common, that one gets to be glad to see a fine coat without them. As mere matters of show, they are but indifferent appendages of dress, unless belonging to the highest class of such ornaments, when indeed their characters change; for there is always something respectable in diamonds. Here it is quite the reverse. You probably may not know that birth, of itself, entitles no one to wear a decoration.[11] A king, as king, wears his crown and royal robes, but he wears no star, or ribband, or collar. A peer has his coronet, and his robes as a peer, but nothing else. The star and ribband are deemed the peculiar badges of orders of chivalry, and they vary according to the institution. The ribband is worn across the breast, like a sword belt, though usually it is placed under the coat. It is broad, and blue appears to be the honourable colour. At least the “blue ribband,” and the “_cordon bleu_,” are in most request in France and England, belonging to the orders of the Garter and of the Holy Ghost. The _Legion d’Honneur_ and the Bath both use red ribbands. There are gorgeous collars and mantles to all the orders, for occasions of ceremony, but in society one seldom sees more than the ribband and the star, and not often the former. The garter at the knee is sometimes used also.

Lord Grey has no decoration; neither has Lord Lansdowne, nor Lord Holland. Lord Lauderdale, the day I dined in his company in Berkeley Square, wore a star, being a knight of the Thistle; Lord Spencer wore that of the Garter. These two are almost the only instances in which I have seen Englishmen in society, appearing with decorations, in London, though I have frequently seen them in Paris. The difference, in this respect, is striking on coming from the continent. The ribband at the button-hole, is very rarely, if ever, used here. The star, of course, only when dressed for dinners and evening entertainments, or on state occasions. It was formerly the practice, I believe, to appear in parliament with stars, but it is now very rarely done.

I tell you these things, since, as they do exist, it may be well enough to have some tolerably distinct notions as to the manner. With the exception of the Bath, the orders of this country are commonly conferred on personal favourites, or are the price of political friendships. There appear to be orders that are pretty exclusively confined to men of ancient and illustrious families, while others, again, have the profession of distinguishing merit. In England, the Garter, the Thistle, and St. Patrick’s, belong to the former class, and the Bath to the latter. You will, at once, imagine that the last stands highest in the public estimation, and that it is far more honourable to be a knight of the Bath, than to be a knight of the Garter. This would be the case were reason stronger than prejudice, but as it is not, I leave you to infer which has the advantage.

I had a little aside with one of the guests at Lord Grey’s, in the course of the evening, on the subject of the characters of the reigning family. It is true my informant was a whig, and the whigs look upon George IV. as a recreant from their principles; but this gentleman I know to be one worthy of credit, and singularly moderate, or I should not repeat his opinions.

Speaking of the king, he described him as a man more than commonly destitute of good faith. A sovereign must be of a singularly upright mind, not to be guilty of more or less duplicity, and of this my acquaintance seemed perfectly aware; but George IV., he thought, lent himself with more than common aptitude to this part of the royal _rôle_. He mentioned an anecdote as illustrative of the treachery of his character.

Some forty years since the debts of the Prince of Wales became so pressing as to render an application to parliament necessary for relief. By way of obtaining the desired end, it was promised that ‘like Falstaff’ he would “repent, and that suddenly,” and take himself a wife, to insure an heir to the throne. There was a report, however, that he was already privately married to Mrs. Fitz-Herbert. Although such a marriage was civilly illegal, by the laws of the kingdom, many well meaning, and all right-thinking people believed it to be binding in a moral and religious point of view, and as parliament was not absolutely destitute of such men, it became necessary to pacify their scruples. With this view Mr. Fox is said to have demanded authority of the Prince to contradict the rumour, if it might be done with truth. This authority he is understood to have received in the fullest terms, and it is certain Mr. Fox pledged himself to that effect, in his place in the house. After all, it is now confidently affirmed, the Prince was actually married to Mrs. Fitz-Herbert, and I was told Mr. Fox never forgave the gross act of duplicity by which he had been made a dupe.

The Duke of York was spoken of, as a well meaning and an honest man, but as one scarcely on a level with the ordinary scale of human intellect. Neither he nor his brother, however, had any proper knowledge of _meum_ and _tuum_, a fault that was probably as much owing to the flatterers that surrounded them, and to defective educations, as to natural tendencies.

My informant added, that, George III. and the Duke of York excepted, all the men of the family possessed a faculty of expressing their thoughts, that was quite out of keeping, with the value of the thoughts themselves. The Duke of Kent he said formed an exception to the latter part of the rule, being clever; as, though in a less degree, was the Duke of Sussex. Having so good a source of information, I was curious to know how far the vulgar rumours which we had heard of the classical attainments of the present king were to be relied on. To this question my companion answered pithily, “he may be able to write good Latin, but he cannot write intelligible English.” I have seen a letter or two, myself, which sufficiently corroborate the latter opinion, for if one were to search for rare specimens of the rigmarole, he might be satisfied with these. George III. did little better.

As the conversation naturally turned on the tendency to adulation and flattery in a court, and their blighting influence on the moral qualities of both parties, my companion related an instance so much in point, that it is worth repeating. A Scotch officer, of no very extraordinary merit, but who had risen to high employments by personal assiduity and the arts of a courtier, was in the presence of George III., at Windsor, in company with one or two others, at a moment when ceremony was banished. That simple-minded and well-meaning monarch was a little apt to admit of tangents in the discourse, and he suddenly exclaimed “D——, it appears to me that you and I are just of a height—let’s measure, let’s measure.” The general placed his back to that of the king, but instead of submitting to the process of measurement, he kept moving his head in a way to prevent it. Another tangent drew the king off, and he left the room. “Why didn’t you stand still, and let him measure, D——,” asked a looker-on. “You kept bobbing your head so, he could do nothing.” “Well, I did’n’t know whether he wanted to be taller, or shorter.”

George III. has got great credit, in America, for his celebrated speech to Mr. Adams, whom he told “that he had been the last man in his kingdom to consent to the independence of America, and he should be the last man to call it in question, now it was admitted.” If he ever made such a declaration, it was a truly regal speech, and of a character with those that are often made by sovereigns, who, if wanting in tact themselves, draw on those around them for a supply. It is now generally understood that the answer of Charles X., when he appeared at the gates of Paris in 1814, as Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, where he is made to say, “that nothing is changed, except in the presence of another Frenchman,” was invented for him, by a clever subordinate, at the suggestion of M. de Talleyrand.[12] The dying speech of Dessaix, was put into his mouth by the First Consul, in his despatches I believe, for the Duc de ——, who stood at his side when he fell, assured me that the ball passed through his head, and that he died without uttering a syllable.

“_Is not the truth, the truth?_”

It would seem not.

LETTER X.

TO WILLIAM JAY, ESQ., BEDFORD, N. Y.

I remember that some five and twenty years ago, you and I had a discussion on the supposed comparative merits of parliament and congress, considering both strictly as legislative bodies. I say supposed, for it was pretty much supposition, since you had never been out of your own country, and although I had actually been twice in England, and even in London at that time, it was at an age so young, and under circumstances so little favourable to obtaining the knowledge necessary to such a subject, that I was no better off than yourself, as to facts. It is true we had both read speeches attributed to Lord Chatham and Mr. Burke, and Fox and Pitt, and sundry other orators, and which were written by Dr. Johnson and his successors in the grinding line, but this was a very different thing from having looked, and listened, and judged for oneself. In short, we did, what most young men of our age would probably have done, under the same circumstances; we uttered valueless opinions in an oracular manner, convincing no one but ourselves, and positively edifying nobody.

I thought of this discussion, which was longer even than a speech in congress, occupying no small portion of the Christmas holidays in the country, as I first put foot in the room in which were assembled the Commons of England.

I went down to St. Stephen’s about six o’clock, and, passing through divers intricate ways, I finally reached a place where a man stood in a sort of box, like the box-office keeper in a theatre, with the difference that the retailer of places in the gallery of the House of Commons carried on his business in an open and manly manner, there being no necessity for peeping through a hole to get a sight of his face. I am not quite certain that this is not the only thing connected with parliament, that is not more or less mystified.

Having paid my half crown, I was permitted to go at large in a small room with a high ceiling. Out of this room ascended some flights of narrow steps, mounting which, I reached a narrow lobby, that communicated by two doors in front with the gallery of the House, and by two doors at its ends, with little pent-up rooms, which I afterwards found answered as a sort of reporters’ guard rooms. There was also a little door in front, between the two principal entrances, by which the reporters alone went in and out of the gallery.

I found the chapel badly lighted, at least so it seemed from above. There might have been fifty or sixty members present, more than half of whom belonged to the ministerial side of the house, and not a few of whom were coming and going pretty assiduously between Bellamy’s and their seats. Bellamy’s is the name of the legislative coffee-house, and it is in the building.

The speaker sat buried in a high chair, a sort of open pulpit, under a canopy, with an enormous wig covering his head and shoulders. He looked, by the dim light, like a feeble attenuated old man, or old woman, for really it was not easy to say which; but his “_order_, ORDER,” was uttered in a potent bass voice, and in a sort of octave manner, that I have attempted to describe in writing. Whether this ominous mode of calling to order was peculiar to the office, or to the man, I cannot tell you, but quite likely the former, for there is an hereditary deference for such a thing here, as well as for a wig.

The members sat with their hats on, but the speaker was uncovered, if a man can be said to be uncovered who is buried in tow. They sit on benches with backs of the ordinary height, and I counted six members with one foot on the backs of the benches before them, and three with both feet. The latter were very interesting attitudes, a good deal resembling those which your country buck is apt to take in an American bar-room, and which I have seen in a church. I do not mention these trifles to draw any great moral, or political consequences from them, but simply because similar things have been commented on in connection with congress, and ascribed to democracy. I am of opinion political systems have little to do with these _tours de forces_, but that there is rather a tendency in the Anglo-Saxon race to put the heels higher than the head.

Behind the speaker’s chair, two members were stretched at full length, asleep. I presume the benches they occupied were softer than common, for two or three others seemed anxiously watching the blissful moment of their waking, with an evident intention to succeed them. One did arise, and a successor was in his place in less than a minute. That I may dispose of this part of the subject, once for all, I will add that, during the evening, three young men came into the side gallery within fifteen feet of me, and stretched themselves on the benches, where they were not visible to those in the body of the house. Two were disposed to sleep, rationally, but one of them kept pulling their coats and legs in a way to render it no easy matter, when all three retired together laughing, as if it were a bad job. I should think neither of the three was five and twenty.

I have now given you an exact account of the antics of the House of Commons on my first visit, and as I made a note of them on the spot, or rather in the lobby, to which we were driven once, in the course of the evening; and shall merely add that, so far as my experience goes, and it extends to a great many subsequent visits, they rather characterize its meetings. I leave you to say whether they render the legislature of England any worse or any better, though, for my own part, I think it a matter of perfect moonshine. The only times when I have seen this body in more regulated attitudes, have been occasions when the house was so crowded as to compel the members to keep their legs to themselves.

As respects the cries, so much spoken of, some of them are droll enough. Of the “Hear, hear, hear,” I shall say nothing, unless it be to tell you that they are so modulated as to express different emotions. There is a member or two, just now, that are rather expert in crowing like a cock, and I have known an attempt to bleat like a lamb, but I think it was a failure. I was quite unprepared for one species of interruption, which is a new invention, and seems likely to carry all before it, for a time. Something that was said excited a most pronounced dissatisfaction among the whigs, and they set up a noise that was laughably like the qua-a-cking of a flock of ducks. For some time I did not know what to make of it—then I thought the cry was “Bar, bar, bar,” and fancied that they wished a delinquent to be put at their bar: but I believe, after all, it was no more than the introduction of the common French interjection “bah!” which signifies dissent. The word is so sonorous, that twenty or thirty men can make a very pretty uproar, by a diligent use of it.

You will ask what the speaker says to these interruptions? He says “_order_ ORDER,”—and there the matter ends. I shall say nothing against these practices, for I do not believe they essentially affect the interests of the country, and, as Fuseli used to tell his wife, when she got in a pet—“_Schwear_, my dear—do; _schwear_ a little, it will do you good,” it may be a relief to a man to break out occasionally in these vocal expressions of feeling, especially to those who cannot, very conveniently to themselves, say any thing else.

No business of importance was done the night I paid my first visit, although some discussion took place on one or two financial points. Lord Althorp spoke for a few minutes, and in a manner so hesitating and painful, that I was surprised at the respectful attention of the House. But I was told he has its ear, from the circumstance of its having faith in his intentions, and from a conviction that, although he has hard work to get at it, he has really a fund of useful and precise information. He is one of the most laboured and perplexed speakers I have ever heard attempt to address a deliberative body. Mr. Peel said a few words in reply, sufficient to give me an idea of his manner, though I have since frequently heard him on more important occasions.

The voice of Mr. Peel is pleasant and well modulated; he speaks with facility, though in a slightly formal manner, and with a measured accentuation that sometimes betrays him into false prosody, a fault that is very common with all but the gifted few, in elocution. He called “opinion,” for instance, this evening, “_o_-pinion,” and “occasion” “_o_-casion.” If there were a word between persuasive and coaxing, I should select it as the one that best describes the manner of Mr. Peel. The latter would do him great injustice, as it wants his dignity, and argument, and force; and the former would, I think, do injustice to truth, as there is too evident an effort to insinuate himself into the good opinion of the listener, to render it quite applicable. One rather resists than yields to a persuasion so very obvious. It strikes me his manner savours more of _New_ than of _Old_ England, and I consider it a tribute to his reasoning powers and knowledge, that he is listened to with so much respect, for whatever may be the political and religious mystifications of the English, (and it would not be easy to surpass either), there is a homely honesty in the public mind, that greatly indisposes it to receive _visible_ management with favour.

The voice of Mr. Peel is not unlike that of Mr. Wirt, though not as melodious, while his elocution is less perfect, and he has not the same sincerity. Still I know no American speaker to whom he can so well be compared. There is something about him between our eastern and southern modes of speaking. Some of his soft sounds, those of the _u_ for instance, were exaggerated, like those of one who had studied Walker instead of obtaining his pronunciation in the usual way, while others, again, came out naturally, and were rather startling to a nice ear.

Sir Francis Burdett spoke, for a few minutes, in the course of the evening. By the way, the English do not pronounce this name Bur_dett_, but _Bur_dit He is tall and thin, more than ultra in height as in opinions, with a singularly long neck. In personal appearance, though rather handsome than otherwise, he is almost as much out of the common way as John Randolph of Roanoke. He had much less fluency and parliamentary neatness than I should have expected in one of so much practice, though he was quite self-possessed. I do not know whether you ever heard our old friend, Mr. James Morris of Morrisania, speak in public, but if you have, you will at once get an idea of the manner of Sir Francis Burdett. They have the same gentlemanlike deliberation—the same quiet, measured utterance—the same good drawing-room, or dinner-table tone, and a similarity in voice and enunciation that to me was quite startling.

Sir Francis Burdett, whose name once filled all mouths in England, no longer attracts much political attention. He probably struck his first notes on too high a key, not to fall into an octave below, before the air was finished. Your true and lasting melody steals slowly on the ear, commencing with more modulated strains, and rising gradually with the feelings that the sounds awaken. Luther, who has left a steadily increasing impression on the world, would probably have shrunk with horror, at first, from the degree of reformation to which he finally arrived by slower and more certain means. It may also be questioned if Sir Francis Burdett had a mind sufficiently original, or a reason logical enough, either to conceive or to maintain the reform that England needs, and, sooner or later, will have, or take revolution in its stead.