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to blend and operate favourably upon each other. The distinctions between them do not appear to be so marked and impassable as in the cities. The manner in which property has been distributed into small estates and farms, has established a regular gradation from the nobleman, through the classes of gentry, small landed proprietors, and substantial farmers, down to the labouring peasantry 34; and while it has thus banded the extremes of society together, has infused into each intermediate rank a spirit of independence. This, it must be confessed, is not so universally the case at present as it was formerly: the larger estates having 35, in late years of distress, absorbed the smaller, and, in some parts of the country, almost annihilated the sturdy race of small farmers. These, however, I believe, are but casual breaks in the general system I have mentioned.

In rural occupation there is nothing mean and debasing. It leads a man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and beauty; it leaves him to the workings of his own mind, operated upon 36 by the purest and most elevating of external influences.

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34) Der englische Adel (nobility) umfasst absteigend die folgenden Stufen: Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount, Baron. Lord ist = Peer of the Realm, Mitglied des Oberhauses; ist also gemeinschaftlicher Titel der nobility, speciell eines Baron. Die Baronets gehören nicht zur eigentlichen nobility, sondern zur sogenannten pseudo-nobility; doch ist der Titel noch erblich. Knight dagegen ist nicht erblich. Sowol der Baronet wie der Knight haben die Berechtigung, Sir vor den Vornamen zu setzen, die Baronets fügen dem vollen Namen den Zusatz Bart. hinzu, z. B. Sir Walter Scott, Bart. Jeder Engländer, der nicht im Oberhause sitzt, ist Commoner. Die Gentry ist kein abgeschlossener Stand. Ihre Macht beruht auf Besitzthum und höherer Bildung. Die grossen Landeigenthümer, die Gelehrten, Juristen, grossen Kaufleute, Offiziere, Geistlichen bilden die Gentry, aus der sich die Nobility recrutiert. Unter labouring peasantry ist der ländliche Arbeiter, Bauer (im weitern Sinne) zu verstehen, der nicht allein seine eigene Wirthschaft bestellt, sondern auch gegen Lohn für Andere gelegentlich oder vertragsmässig arbeitet.

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35) the larger estates having absorbed... Absolutes Particip (the case absolute), im Deutschen zu übersetzen durch einen Nebensatz mit da.

36) óperated upon which are óperated upon, deutsch besser aktiv: auf welche (näml. Seele mind) die reinsten und erhabensten äusseren Einflüsse einwirken. Man beachte die passive Form des Intransitivums to operate upon, welche dem jüngern englischen Sprachgebrauche eigen ist, der gestattet, das mit einer Präposition an das Verb geknüpfte Object zum Subject des Passiv zu machen, wobei die Präposition nach dem Zeitwort als Bestimmung desselben, und gleichsam zu einer Einheit mit demselben verschmolzen, eintritt; z. B. I must not be laughed at; I must not be trifled with (Sheridan). So kann denn auch das Particip des Perfekts mit der Präposition attributiv und prädicativ

Such a man may be simple and rough, but he cannot be vulgar. The man of refinement 87, therefore, finds nothing revolting in an intercourse with the lower orders of rural life, as he does when he casually mingles with the lower orders of cities. He lays aside his distance and reserve, and is glad to waive the distinctions of rank, and to enter into the honest, heartfelt enjoyments of common life. Indeed the very amusements of the country bring men more and more together; and the sound of hound and horn blend all feelings into harmony. I believe this is one great reason why the nobility and gentry are more popular among the inferior orders in England than they are in any other country; and why the latter have endured so many excessive pressures and extremities, without repining more generally at the unequal distribution of fortune and privilege.

38

To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society may also be attributed the rural feeling that runs through British literature; the frequent use of illustrations from rural life; those incomparable descriptions of nature that abound in the British poets that have continued down from ,,The Flower and the Leaf" of Chaucer 39, and have brought into our closets all the freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape. The pastoral writers of other countries appear as if they had paid nature an occasional visit, and become acquainted with her general charms; but the British poets have lived and revelled with her, they have wooed her in her most secret haunts, they have watched her minutest caprices. A spray could not tremble in the breeze a leaf could not rustle to the ground a diamond drop could not patter in the stream a fragrance could not exhale from the humble violet, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the morning; but 40 it has been noticed by these impassioned and delicate observers, and wrought up into some beautiful morality 41.

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verbunden werden, wobei die Präposition selbst, als mit dem Particip zusammengesetzt, öfter durch ein Hyphen verbunden wird. Vergl. Mätzner, Engl. Gr. II, p. 65. 66. 67.

37) the man of refinement
38) vergl. S. 75, Anm. 34.

=

der Mann von Bildung, der Gebildete.

39) Dies Gedicht, so wie the Court of Love, Chaucer's Dream, the Romaunt of the Rose werden von neueren Kritikern (Prof. Ten Brink in Strassburg, den Engländern Bradshaw und Furnival) dem Dichter abgesprochen, weil sie den in den unbestritten echten Gedichten beobachteten Reimgesetzen widersprechen.

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40) but
41) morality =

that not, which not; vergl. S. 4, Anm. 24.
sittliche Betrachtung; vergl. den Ausdruck Morality

=

43

The effect of this devotion of elegant minds 12 to rural occupations has been wonderful on the face of the country 48. A great part of the island is level, and would be monotonous, were it not for the charms of culture; but it is studded and gemmed, as it were 45, with castles and palaces, and embroidered with parks and gardens. It does not abound in grand and sublime prospects, but rather in little home-scenes of rural repose 46 and sheltered 47 quiet. Every antique farm-house and moss-grown cottage is a picture: and as the roads are continually winding, and the view is shut in by groves and hedges, the eye is delighted by a continual succession of small landscapes of captivating loveliness.

The great charm, however, of English scenery is the moral feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in the mind with ideas of order, of quiet, of sober, well-established principles, of hoary usage and reverend custom. Every thing seems to be the growth of ages of regular and peaceful existence. The old church of remote architecture, with its low massive portal; its Gothic tower; its windows rich with tracery and painted glass; its stately monuments of warriors and worthies 48 of the olden time, ancestors of the present lords of the soil; its tombstones, recording successive generations of sturdy yeomanry 49,

= a kind of allegorical play, so termed because it consisted of discourses in praise of morality between actors representing such characters as Charity, Faith, Death etc. Such plays were occasionally exhibited as late as the reign of Henry VIII.

42) élégant minds

=

gebildete Gemüther.

48) on the face of the country ist abhängig von the effect Wirkung auf m. d. Accus.

= die

44) Der mit for verbundene kausal gefasste Gegenstand kann als hindernd oder hemmend anzusehen sein, z. B.: For one restraint, lords of the world besides (Milton, Par. Lost I, 32); er erhält namentlich einen exceptionellen Charakter durch die Voranstellung von were it not, but oder save; deutsch durch einen hypothetischen Satz oder durch ohne zu übersetzen.

45) as it were = gleichsam.

46) repose

=

Erholung

=

a mode of resting which gives relief and refreshment after toil and labour. 47) sheltered

= umfriedet.

48) Das Substantiv worthy (a wörthy or éminent person) hat etwas Altväterisches (vergl. das dazu gefügte of the olden time), wird aber auch in neueren Zeiten auf dem Titel von Büchern gebraucht, welche Lebensbeschreibungen verdienstvoller Männer enthalten, vergl. Lives of Northern Worthies, by Hartley Coleridge (gest. 1849). Es kommt am häufigsten im Plural vor, als: the worthies of the Church; political worthies; military worthies.

49) the yeomanry entspricht unserm deutschen freien Bauernstande.

whose progeny still plough the same fields, and kneel at the same altar. The parsonage, a quaint irregular pile, partly antiquated, but repaired and altered in the tastes of various ages and occupants the stile and footpath leading from the churchyard, across pleasant fields, and along shady hedgerows, according to an immemorable right of way the neighbouring village, with its venerable cottages, its public green sheltered by trees, under which the forefathers of the present race have sported the antique family mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a protecting air on the surrounding scene; all these common features of English landscape evince a calm and settled security, an hereditary transmission of home-bred virtues and local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character of the nation.

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It is a pleasing sight on a Sunday morning, when the bell is sending its sober 50 melody across the quiet fields, to behold the peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces and modest cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to church; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the evenings, gathering about their cottage doors, and appearing to exult in the humble comforts and embellishments which their own hands have spread around them.

It is this sweet home-feeling, this settled repose of affection 51 in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the parent of the steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments; and I cannot close these desultory 52 remarks better, than by quoting the words of a modern English poet, who has depicted it with remarkable felicity:

Through each gradation, from the castled hall,
The city dome, the villa crown'd with shade,
But chief from modest mansions numberless,
In town or hamlet, shelt'ring middle life,
Down to the cottaged vale, and straw-roof'd shed,
This western isle hath long been famed for scenes

50) sober (v. lat. sobrius aus se u. ebrius, wie socors aus se u. cor) nüchtern, ernst. Smart gibt die Begriffsentwickelung in folgender Weise: temperate, particularly in liquors; not drunk; not mad; right in understanding; regular, calm; serious, grave.

51) repose of affection

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das liebevolle Ruhen in, die liebevolle Hingabe an; in the domestic scene gehört zu repose; deutsch etwa diese tiefgewurzelte liebevolle Hingabe an die Häuslichkeit.

52) désultory mit scharf. s v. lat. desultorius zu desilire abspringen = flüchtig.

Where bliss domestic finds a dwelling-place:
Domestic bliss, that, like a harmless dove,
(Honour and sweet endearment keeping guard,)
Can centre in a little quiet nest

All that desire would fly for 53 through the earth;
That can, the world eluding 54, be itself

A world enjoy'd; that wants no witnesses
But its own sharers, and approving heaven;
That like a flower deep hid in rocky cleft,
Smiles, though 't is looking only at the sky 55.

THE BROKEN HEART.

I never heard

Of any true affection, but1 't was nipt 2

With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats

The leaves of the spring's sweetest book, the rose.

MIDDLETON 3.

It is a common practice with those who have outlived the susceptibility of early feeling, or have been brought up in the gay heartlessness of dissipated life, to laugh at all love stories, and to treat the tales of romantic passion as mere fictions of novelists and poets. My observations on human nature have induced me to think otherwise. They have convinced me, that however the surface of the character may be chilled and frozen by the cares of the world, or cultivated into mere smiles by the arts of society, still there are dormant fires lurking in the depths of the coldest bosom, which, when once enkindled, become impetuous, and are sometimes desolating in their effects. Indeed, I am a true believer in the blind deity*, and go to the full extent of his doctrines 5. Shall I confess it? I believe in broken hearts, and the possibility of dying of disappointed love. I do not, however, consider it a malady often

53) Man beachte die bei dem als Relativ gebrauchten that nothwendige Nachstellung der Präposition.

54) the world ist Object zu eluding.

55) From a Poem on the Death of the Princess Charlotte, by the Reverend Rann Kennedy, A. M. (Note of W. Irving.)

1) but that not, which not, vergl. S. 4, Anm. 24.

2) Ueber die Form nipt vergl. S. 64, Anm. 25.

3) vergl. S. 24, Anm. 4.

4) Amor.

5) deutsch etwa: ich nehme seine Lehren in ihrem vollen Umfange an.

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