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builds its supercilious and fantastic conceit on | for the untutored rustic, she would herself the the wretchedness and wants of others. Violent next day be delighted with the very same antipathies are always suspicious, and betray shaped bonnet if brought her by a French a secret affinity. The difference between the milliner and told it was all the fashion, and in "Great Vulgar and the Small" is mostly in a week's time will become quite familiar with outward circumstances. The coxcomb criticizes the maid, and chatter with her (upon equal the dress of the clown, as the pedant cavils at terms) about caps and ribbons and lace by the the bad grammar of the illiterate, or the prude is hour together. There is no difference between shocked at the backslidings of her frail acquaint- them but that of situation in the kitchen or in ance. Those who have the fewest resources the parlour: let circumstances bring them in themselves, naturally seek the food of their together, and they fit like hand and glove. It self-love elsewhere. The most ignorant people is like mistress, like maid. Their talk, their find most to laugh at in strangers: scandal and thoughts, their dreams, their likings and dissatire prevail most in country-places; and a likes, are the same. The mistress' head runs propensity to ridicule every the slightest or continually on dress and finery, so does the most palpable deviation from what we happen maid's: the young lady longs to ride in a coach to approve, ceases with the progress of common- and six, so does the maid if she could: miss sense and decency.1 True worth does not forms a beau-ideal of a lover with black eyes exult in the faults and deficiencies of others; and rosy cheeks, which does not differ from as true refinement turns away from grossness that of her attendant: both like a smart man, and deformity, instead of being tempted to in- the one the footman and the other his master, dulge in an unmanly triumph over it. Raphael for the same reason: both like handsome furwould not faint away at the daubing of a sign- niture and fine houses: both apply the terms post, nor Homer hold his head the higher for shocking and disagreeable to the same things being in the company of a Grub Street bard. and persons: both have a great notion of balls, Real power, real excellence, does not seek for plays, treats, song-books and love-tales: both a foil in inferiority; nor fear contamination like a wedding or a christening, and both from coming in contact with that which is would give their little fingers to see a coronacoarse and homely. It reposes on itself, and tion, with this difference, that the one has a is equally free from spleen and affectation. chance of getting a seat at it, and the other is But the spirit of gentility is the mere essence dying with envy that she has not. of spleen and affectation;-of affected delight in its own would-be qualifications, and of ineffable disdain poured out upon the involuntary blunders or accidental disadvantages of those whom it chooses to treat as its inferiors.

Thus a fashionable miss titters till she is ready to burst her sides at the uncouth shape of a bonnet, or the abrupt drop of a courtesy (such as Jeanie Deans would make) in a countrygirl who comes to be hired by her mamma as a servant:-yet to show how little foundation there is for this hysterical expression of her extreme good opinion of herself and contempt

"If a European, when he has cut off his beard and put false hair on his head, or bound up his own natural hair in regular hard knots, as unlike nature as he can possibly make it; and after having rendered them immovable by the help of the fat of hogs, has covered the whole with flour, laid on by a machine with the utmost regularity; if when thus attired he issues forth, and meets a Cherokee Indian, who has bestowed as much time at his toilet, and laid on with equal care and attention his yellow and red ochre on particular parts of his forehead or cheeks, as he judges most becoming; whoever of these two despises the other for this attention to the fashion of his country, whichever first feels himself provoked to laugh, is the barbarian."-Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses, vol. i. p. 231-32.

Indeed, this last is a ceremony that delights equally the greatest monarch and the meanest of his subjects-the vilest of the rabble. Yet this which is the height of gentility and the consummation of external distinction and splendour, is, I should say, a vulgar ceremony. For what degree of refinement, of capacity, of virtue is required in the individual who is so distinguished, or is necessary to his enjoying this idle and imposing parade of his person? Is he delighted with the state-coach and gilded panels? So is the poorest wretch that gazes at it. Is he struck with the spirit, the beauty and symmetry of the eight cream-coloured horses? There is not one of the immense multitude, who flock to see the sight from town or country, St. Giles's or Whitechapel, young or old, rich or poor, gentle or simple, who does not agree to admire the same object. Is he delighted with the yeomen of the guard, the military escort, the groups of ladies, the badges of sovereign power, the kingly crown, the marshal's truncheon and the judge's robe, the array that precedes and follows him, the crowded streets, the windows hung with eager looks? So are the mob, for they "have eyes and see them!" There is no one faculty of

mind or body, natural or acquired, essential to the principal figure in this procession more than is common to the meanest and most despised attendant on it. A wax-work figure would answer the same purpose: a lord-mayor of London has as much tinsel to be proud of. I would rather have a king do something that no one else has the power or magnanimity to do, or say something that no one else has the wisdom to say, or look more handsome, more thoughtful, or benign than any one else in his dominions. But I see nothing to raise one's idea of him in his being made a show of: if the pageant would do as well without the man, the man would do as well without the pageant! | Kings have been declared to be "lovers of low company:" and this maxim, besides the reason sometimes assigned for it, viz., that they meet with less opposition to their wills from such persons, will I suspect be found to turn at last on the consideration I am here stating, that they also meet with more sympathy in their tastes. The most ignorant and thoughtless have the greatest admiration of the baubles, the outward symbols of pomp and power, the sound and show, which are the habitual delight and mighty prerogative of kings. The stupidest slave worships the gaudiest tyrant. The same gross motives appeal to the same gross capacities, flatter the pride of the superior and excite the servility of the dependant: whereas a higher reach of moral and intellectual refinement might seek in vain for higher proofs of internal worth and inherent majesty in the object of its idolatry, and not finding the divinity lodged within, the unreasonable expectation raised would probably end in mortification on both sides!-There is little to distinguish a king from his subjects but the rabble's shout -if he loses that and is reduced to the forlorn hope of gaining the suffrages of the wise and good, he is of all men the most miserable. But enough of this.

The essence of vulgarity, I imagine, consists in taking manners, actions, words, opinions on trust from others, without examining one's own feelings or weighing the merits of the case. It is coarseness or shallowness of taste arising from want of individual refinement, together with the confidence and presumption inspired by example and numbers. It may be defined to be a prostitution of the mind or body to ape the more or less obvious defects of others, because by so doing we shall secure the suff rages of those we associate with. To affect a gesture, an opinion, a phrase, because it is the rage with a large number of persons, or to hold it in abhorrence because another set of persons

very little, if at all, better informed, cry it down to distinguish themselves from the former, is in either case equal vulgarity and absurdity. -A thing is not vulgar merely because it is common. 'Tis common to breathe, to see, to feel, to live. Nothing is vulgar that is natural, spontaneous, unavoidable. Grossness is not vulgarity, ignorance is not vulgarity, awkwardness is not vulgarity: but all these become vulgar when they are affected and shown off on the authority of others, or to fall in with the fashion or the company we keep. Caliban is coarse enough, but surely he is not vulgar. We might as well spurn the clod under our feet, and call it vulgar. Cobbett is coarse enough, but he is not vulgar. He does not belong to the herd. Nothing real, nothing original can be vulgar: but I should think an imitator of Cobbett a vulgar man. Emery's Yorkshireman is vulgar, because he is a Yorkshireman. It is the cant and gibberish, the cunning and low life of a particular district; it has "a stamp exclusive and provincial." He might "gabble most brutishly" and yet not fall under the letter of the definition: but "his speech bewrayeth him," his dialect (like the jargon of a Bond Street lounger) is the damning circumstance. If he were a mere blockhead, it would not signify: but he thinks himself a knowing hand, according to the notions and practices of those with whom he was brought up, and which he thinks the go everywhere. In a word, this character is not the offspring of untutored nature but of bad habits; it is made up of ignorance and conceit. It has a mixture of slang in it. All slang phrases are for the same reason vulgar; but there is nothing vulgar in the common English idiom. Simplicity is not vulgarity; but the looking to affectation of any sort for distinction is. A cockney is a vulgar character, whose imagination cannot wander beyond the suburbs of the metropolis: so is a fellow who is always thinking of the High Street, Edinburgh. want a name for this last character. An opinion is vulgar that is stewed in the rank breath of the rabble: nor is it a bit purer or more refined for having passed through the well-cleansed teeth of a whole court. inherent vulgarity is in having no other feeling on any subject than the crude, blind, headlong, gregarious notion acquired by sympathy with the mixed multitude or with a fastidious minority, who are just as insensible to the real truth and as indifferent to everything but their own frivolous and vexatious pretensions. The upper are not wiser than the lower orders, because they resolve to differ from them. The

We

The

fashionable have the advantage of the unfashion- | last shilling out of their pockets and the last able in nothing but the fashion. The true drop of blood out of their veins. If the headvulgar are the servum pecus imitatorum-the strong self-will and unruly turbulence of a herd of pretenders to what they do not feel and common ale-house are shocking, what shall we to what is not natural to them, whether in say to the studied insincerity, the insipid want high or low life. To belong to any class, to of common-sense, the callous insensibility of move in any rank or sphere of life, is not a the drawing-room and boudoir? I would very exclusive distinction or test of refinement. rather see the feelings of our common nature Refinement will in all classes be the exception, (for they are the same at bottom) expressed in not the rule; and the exception may fall out the most naked and unqualified way, than see in one class as well as another. A king is but every feeling of our nature suppressed, stifled, an hereditary title. A nobleman is only one hermetically sealed under the smooth, cold, of the House of Peers. To be a knight or glittering varnish of pretended refinement and alderman is confessedly a vulgar thing. The conventional politeness. The one may be corking the other day made Sir Walter Scott a rected by being better informed; the other is baronet, but not all the power of the three incorrigible, wilful, heartless depravity. I estates could make another author of Waverley. cannot describe the contempt and disgust I Princes, heroes are often common-place people: have felt at the tone of what would be thought Hamlet was not a vulgar character, neither good company, when I have witnessed the was Don Quixote. sleek, smiling, glossy, gratuitous assumption There is a well-dressed and an ill-dressed of superiority to every feeling of humanity, mob, both which I hate. Odi profanum honesty, or principle, as a part of the etiquette, vulgus, et arceo. The vapid affectation of the the mental and moral costume of the table, and one is to me even more intolerable than the every profession of toleration or favour for the gross insolence and brutality of the other. If lower orders, that is, for the great mass of our a set of low-lived fellows are noisy, rude, and fellow-creatures, treated as an indecorum and boisterous to show their disregard of the com- breach of the harmony of well-regulated society. pany, a set of fashionable coxcombs are, to a In short, I prefer a bear-garden to the adder's nauseous degree, finical and effeminate to show den. Or to put this case in its extremest point their thorough breeding. The one are governed of view, I have more patience with men in a by their feelings, however coarse and misguided, rude state of nature outraging the human form, which is something: the others consult only than I have with apes "making mops and appearances, which are nothing, either as a mows" at the extravagances they have first test of happiness or virtue. Hogarth in his provoked. I can endure the brutality (as it is prints has trimmed the balance of pretension termed) of mobs better than the inhumanity of between the downright blackguard and the courts. The violence of the one rages like a soi-disant fine gentleman unanswerably. It fire; the insidious policy of the other strikes does not appear in his moral demonstrations like a pestilence, and is more fatal and inevit(whatever it may do in the genteel letter-writing able. The slow poison of despotism is worse of Lord Chesterfield, or the chivalrous rhap- than the convulsive struggles of anarchy. "Of sodies of Burke), that vice by losing all its all evils," says Hume, "anarchy is the shortest grossness loses half its evil. It becomes more lived." The one may "break out like a wild contemptible, not less disgusting. What is overthrow;" but the other from its secret, there in common, for instance, between his sacred stand, operates unseen, and undermines beaux and belles, his rakes and his coquets, the happiness of kingdoms for ages, lurks in and the men and women, the true heroic and the hollow cheek and stares you in the face in ideal characters in Raphael? But his people the ghastly eye of want, and agony, and woe. of fashion and quality are just upon a par with It is dreadful to hear the noise and uproar of the low, the selfish, the unideal characters in an infuriated multitude stung by the sense of the contrasted view of human life, and are wrong, and maddened by sympathy: it is more often the very same characters, only changing appalling to think of the smile answered by places. If the lower ranks are actuated by other gracious smiles, of the whisper echoed envy and uncharitableness towards the upper, by other assenting whispers, which doom them the latter have scarcely any feelings but of first to despair and then to destruction. Popupride, contempt, and aversion to the lower. If lar fury finds its counterpart in courtly servility. the poor would pull down the rich to get at If every outrage is to be apprehended from the their good things, the rich would tread down one, every iniquity is deliberately sanctioned the poor as in a vine-press, and squeeze the by the other, without regard to justice or

decency. If there are watchwords for the rabble, have not the polite and fashionable their hackneyed phrases, their fulsome unmeaning jargon as well? Both are to me anathema!

HAZLITT.

THE JESTER CONDEMNED TO

DEATH.

One of the kings of Scanderoon,
A royal jester

Had in his train, a gross buffoon,
Who used to pester

The court with tricks inopportune,
Venting on the highest folks his
Scurvy pleasantries and hoaxes.

It needs some sense to play the fool,
Which wholesome rule
Occurr'd not to our jackanapes,

Who consequently found his freaks Lead to innumerable scrapes,

And quite as many kicks and tweaks, Which only seem'd to make him faster Try the patience of his master.

Some sin, at last, beyond all measure
Incurr'd the desperate displeasure

Of his serene and raging highness;
Whether he twitch'd his most revered
And sacred beard,

Or had intruded on the shyness Of the seraglio, or let fly

An epigram at royalty,

None knows;-his sin was an occult one;
But records tell us that the sultan,
Meaning to terrify the knave,

Exclaim'd-"Tis time to stop that breath; Thy doom is seal'd, presumptuous slave! Thou stand'st condemn'd to certain death. Silence, base rebel!-no replying!

But such is my indulgence still Out of my own free grace and will I leave to thee the mode of dying."

"Thy royal will be done-'tis just," Replied the wretch, and kiss'd the dust;

"Since, my last moments to assuage,

Your majesty's humane decree
Has deign'd to leave the choice to me,
I'll die, so please you, of old age!"

HORACE SMITH.

THE SUMMER MORNING.

[John Clare, born in Helpstone, near Peterborough, Northamptonshire, 13th July, 1793; died 20th May, 1864. He was the son of a farm-labourer, and when a mere child was sent to work in the fields. Despite many privations he managed to educate himself, and in 1819 he was fortunate enough to secure a publisher for his first work, Poems of Rural Life. The Quarterly Review, which had used Keats so harshly only a little time before, spoke of Clare in the highest terms of praise. The rustic poet was invited to London: for a season he was the lion of the town, and a subscription was raised which provided him with an income of about £45 a year. About fifteen years afterwards he became insane; for some time his wife nobly struggled to man. age him at home; but at last he had to be conveyed to the Northampton County Asylum, where the remainder of his life was passed. Previous to that calamity be had added to his first book, The Village Minstrel, The Shepherd's Calendar, 1827; and the Rural Muse, 1835 His widow died in the spring of 1871.]

The cocks have now the morn foretold,
The sun again begins to peep,
The shepherd whistling to his fold,
Unpens and frees the captive sheep.
O'er pathless plains at early hours

The sleepy rustic gloomy goes;
The dews, brush'd off from grass and flowers.
Bemoistening, sop his hardened shoes.

While every leaf that forms a shade,

And every floweret's silken top, And every shivering bent and blade,

Stoops, bowing with a diamond top. But soon shall fly their diamond drops, The red round sun advances higher, And stretching o'er the mountain tops Is gilding sweet the village spire.

"Tis sweet to meet the morning breeze,
Or list the gurgling of the brook;
Or, stretched beneath the shade of trees,
Peruse and pause on nature's book,
When nature every sweet prepares

To entertain our wish'd delay,-
The images which morning wears,
The wakening charms of early day.

Now let me tread the meadow paths

While glittering dew the ground illumes, As sprinkled o'er the withering swaths, Their moisture shrinks in sweet perfumes; And hear the beetle sound his horn,

And hear the skylark whistling nigh,
Sprung from his bed of tufted corn,
A hailing minstrel of the sky.

THE HORN-BOOK.

Learned gentlemen, who drive the trade of authorship, will undoubtedly be surprised to see a common weaver busy himself in their matters. But without paying any attention to them I shall begin, gaily and cheerfully, the history of my life. One of the first things I remember is, that I was seized, when about seven years old, with a sore disease, which I afterwards learned was the small-pox. It marked my visage very deeply, and left behind | the seeds of a disorder which cost me and other people much trouble to cure. My head was rendered so weak that I fell asleep when anybody attempted to talk to me of books and learning. Reading was a sore trouble to me; and without carrying my modesty too far, I may say, that at my twelfth year I still found it necessary to spell a few words. I will not raise suspicions of my fitness for authorship by referring to the period when my letters first became legible. For the rest, however, I am healthy as a roach, and enjoy a happiness that does not need to be increased, but only continued. People even assure me that the marks of the small-pox do not distort my features, but only serve to give me a sounder appearance at some little distance. I regard this, however, as good-natured flattery, and am convinced that a smooth red face would add to my beauty. On the last page of my horn-book stood a red cock, which I could not look at without reverencing, notwithstanding, as a work of art, it was one of the rudest productions of wood-engraving. If I brought from school a testimony of good behaviour during the day, I was sure to find, on the following morning, a small piece of money on the cock, which my mother told me was a gift from him to reward my good conduct and encourage me to persevere. Such friendly means could not fail. I opposed with all my might when any of my mischievous schoolfellows sought to entice me away; and continued to spell with such perseverance, that the veins of my head sometimes swelled. I became by this means the favourite of my teacher, Mr. Ezekiel Quartz. Some quarrelsome envious fellows named me the Walking Horn-book; but I did not mind this, for I enjoyed, among the orderly and well-behaved, the reputation of being the best boy in the village. With the presents I obtained so honourably from the red cock, I always ran straight to the nearest shop and bought a new, and sometimes warm, cake of

VOL. I.

gingerbread, which I usually shared with Lina, who generally took care to wait for me at the garden gate when she saw me returning. She was the only child of our neighbour, a poor widow, who earned her daily bread by running on errands, and was never off her feet from morning till night. While she was tramping from village to village, Lina sat at the spinningwheel, and laboured as constantly as I did at my book, though without being so well rewarded. She was at that time, as she still is, the ornament of the village. Her good nature, and the dimple on her chin, pleased everybody. On my return from the pastry-cook's, such a friendly smile spread over her whole face that I was sometimes obliged forcibly to turn away my eyes, in order not to give the cake unbroken into her hands. "Godfred," said she, as we sat near one another devouring our gingerbread, "when we are bigger we will be married, and then we will live as if we were in heavennothing but gingerbread and seed-cake!" This pleased me, and I resolved to keep friends with the red cock; and thought to myself that with time would come the means of fulfilling our wishes.

In my thirteenth year I was taken from school and placed apprentice to a weaver, who was a relation and friend, and who promised to remember my weak state of health in appointing me my task. As I was to leave my mother's house I thought of nothing so much as how to give Lina something in place of the gingerbread she would no longer receive. A red cock, like the one in my horn-book, might be as good a friend to her as to me. I copied the picture, therefore, carefully on another piece of paper, by holding it up to the window, and afterwards coloured it red. When the work was ended I could scarcely wonder enough at the resemblance. Towards evening I went to the garden gate and threw a handful of sand against Lina's window to inform her of my presence. I already enjoyed, in imagination, her astonishment at my dexterity, and her joy at my kindness. When she appeared, as I told her of my intended departure, and that I had brought her a present of not a little value, she looked eagerly towards it; but when she saw the picture I was mortally disappointed: instead of the praise I expected she shook her head and turned up her nose, almost as if she despised me and my work. She scarcely looked at it; and wrapping it up again in paper, expressed plainly enough that she would rather have had a substantial cake of gingerbread than all the painted cocks in the world. I was vexed at this contempt for my labours;

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