Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843

Perhaps, however, the one capital force, operating for good upon the British aristocracy, is—the paramount reference of all accomplishments, of ambition through all its modes, and of party connexions, to the public service. This, again, which constitutes a fourth head amongst the characteristics of English society, may be viewed as both cause and effect with reference to our civil institutions. Here we regard it as a cause. It is a startling assertion to make, but we have good reason to think it true, that, in the last great war with Jacobinism, stretching through very nearly one whole quarter of a century, beyond all doubt the nobility was that order amongst us who shed their blood in the largest proportion for the commonwealth. Let not the reader believe that for a moment we are capable of undervaluing the pretensions of any class, whether high or low. All furnished martyrs to that noblest of causes. And it is not possible that this should be otherwise; because amongst us society is so exquisitely fused, so delicate are the nuances by which our ranks play out and in to each other, that no man can imagine the possibility of an arrest being communicated at any point to the free circulation of any one national feeling whatsoever. Great chasms must exist between social ranks, where it is possible for a sentiment of nationality to be suddenly frozen up as it approaches one particular class; as a corollary from which doctrine, we have always treated with derision the scurrilous notion that our rural body of landowners, our country squires, could, by possibility, differ essentially from the rest of us. Bred amongst us, educated amongst us, intermarrying with us indiscriminately, how by any means apparent to common sense should it be possible for them to maintain an inheritance of separate ignorance, separate prejudices, or separate purposes, such as interested manufacturers and trivial satirists assume? On the same principle, it is not possible that, in questions of elementary patriotism, any palsy should check the electric movement of the national feelings through every organ of its social life—except only in the one case where its organization is imperfect. Let there be a haughty nobility, void of popular sympathies, such as the haute noblesse of Russia or Hungary is sometimes said to be, and it will be possible that jealousy on behalf of privileges should operate so noxiously as to place such a body in opposition to the people for the sake of what it holds separately, rather than in sympathy with the people for the sake of what both hold in common. With us, this is otherwise; the very highest and most feudal amongst our nobles are associated by common rights, interests, and subjection to the laws, with the general body of the people. Make an exception for the right of demanding an audience from the sovereign, for the right of entrée at St James's, for the right of driving through the Horse Guards, or for Lord Kinsale's right of wearing his hat in the royal presence—reckon off the petty discount for privileges so purely ceremonial, and absolute nothing remains to distinguish the nobility. For as to the practice of entails, the legal benefit of primogeniture, &c., these have no more essential connexion with the nobility, than the possession of land or manorial rights. They are privileges attached to a known situation, which is open equally to every man not disqualified as an alien. Consequently, we infer that, the fusion and continuity of our ranks being perfect, it is not possible to suppose, with respect to a great patriotic interest, any abrupt pause in the fluent circulation of our national sympathies. We, therefore, cannot be supposed to arrogate for the nobility any separate privilege of patriotism. But still we venture to affirm, that, if the total numbers of our nobility and their nearest connexions were summed; and if from that sum were subtracted all officers, being brothers, sons, nephews, of British peers, who laid down their lives, or suffered incurable wounds in the naval or military service of their country, the proportion will be found greater than that upon the aggregate remainder belonging to the rest of the nation. Life is the same blessing for all ranks alike. But certainly, though for all it is intrinsically the same priceless jewel, there is in the setting of this jewel something more radiantly brilliant to him who inherits a place amongst the British nobility, than to him whose prospects have been clouded originally by the doubts and fears of poverty. And, at all events, the libation of blood in the course of the last war was, we must repeat, on the part of the high aristocracy, disproportionately large.

In that proportion are those men unprincipled who speak of the English nobility as an indolent class—detached from public employments, and taking neither share nor interest in the public service. Such representations, where they are not deliberate falsehoods, point to a fact which is not uncommon; from the limited number of our nobility, and consequently the rare opportunities for really studying their habits, it is easy to see that in sketches of this order, (whether libellous amongst mob-orators, or serious in novels,) the pretended portrait has been founded on a vague romantic abstraction of what may be supposed peculiar to the condition of a patrician order under all political circumstances. Haughtiness, exclusiveness, indolence, and luxury, compose the romantic type which the delineator figures to his mind; and at length it becomes evident to any man, who has an experimental knowledge of this order, that probably the ancient Persian satraps, or the omrahs of Hindostan, have much more truly been operatively present to the describers than any thing ancient or modern amongst the realities of England. A candid person, who wishes to estimate the true, and not the imaginary nobles of England, will perceive one fact through the public journals, viz. that no class takes a more active share in that sort of the public business which naturally commends itself to their support. At least one-half of the deliberative meetings connected with the innumerable charities of London, very many of the public dinners by which such charities are promoted or commemorated, obtain the benevolent aid of noblemen as chairmen and presidents. Provincial assemblies for the same purposes, and, still more frequently, assemblies growing out of the endless political questions incident to a nation in our circumstances, receive the same influential countenance. These labours, by no means slight, added to the evening Parliamentary attendance through half the year, and the morning attendance on Parliamentary committees, together with the magisterial duties of many lords-lieutenant, sufficiently attest that in this point of public duties, (exercised without fee or compensation,) our own nobility is the only one in Europe having almost any connexion at all with the national service, except through the army. Some of this small body are pretty constantly attached to the cabinet; others act as ambassadors, as under-secretaries, or as colonial governors. And so far are they from wishing, apparently, to limit the field for their own exertions, that the late Dukes of Manchester and Richmond spontaneously extended it, by giving the countenances of their high stations to the governments of Canada, and even of Jamaica. A marquis of ancient family has lately accepted the government of Madras; and gradually, as our splendid colonies expand their proportions, it is probable that many more of them will benefit at intervals, (in their charities and public works,) from the vast revenues of our leading nobles acting as their governors. Add to these the many cases of junior nobles who sit in the House of Commons; of those who keep alive the public spirit of great provinces by standing costly contested elections; of those professionally pursuing the career of arms in the naval or land service; and then, collating all this activity with the very limited extent of our peerage taken even with their families, not the very bigotry of democracy will deny that the characteristic energy of our nation is faithfully reflected from its highest order.

Is there a feature in foreign circles odious beyond all others? It is the air of pretence, the craving after effect, the swell, the system of coquetting with accomplishments, the tumid character of bravura, which characterises the principle, and (to borrow an affected word from connoisseurs of art) the motivo of their social intercourse. Is there a feature of manners in the English nobility, absolutely inimitable by art, and renewing for ever the impressions of simplicity and truth? It lies in that winning retirement from the artificial, the studied, the theatrical, from all jealousy of design or collusive deplay, which good sense and chastity of taste have suggested to them, as the sole style of demeanour on a level with their dignified station. Continental society is bad by its ideals. In the execution, there may be frequent differences, moderating what is offensive in the conception. But the essential and informing principle of foreign society is the scenical, and the nisus after display. It is a state of perpetual tension; while, on the other hand, the usual state of English society, in the highest classes, is one of dignified repose. There is the same difference in this point between the two systems of manners, as between the English and French tone of national intercourse, in the matter of foreign relations. In France, when the popular blood is up, nothing is to be heard but bounce, menace, and defiance; for England, all the hurricanes of foreign wrath that ever blew, could not disturb her lion port of majestic tranquillity. But when we distinguish between what is English and what is foreign, it becomes proper that we should say more specifically what it is that we mean by the term "foreign;" what compass we allow to that idea. It is too palpable, and for many reasons, that the French standard of taste has vitiated the general taste of the Continent. How has this arisen? In part from the central position of France; in part from the arrogance of France in every age, as pretending to the precedency amongst the kingdoms of Christendom; in part from the magnificence of the French kings since the time of Louis XII.—that is, beginning with Francis I.; and in part, since the period 1660-80, from the noisy pretensions of the French literature, at the time creating itself, followed by that natural consequence of corresponding pretensions for the French language. Literature it was that first opened to the language a European career; but inversely the language it was that subsequently clenched and riveted the diffusion of the literature. Two accidents of European society favoured the change. Up to the restoration of our Charles II., diplomacy had been generally conducted in Latin. Efforts had been made, indeed, as early as Cardinal Richelieu's time, to substitute French. His pupil, Mazarine, had repeated the attempt; and Cromwell had resolutely resisted it. But how? Because, at that period, the resistance was easy. Historians are apt to forget that, in 1653, there was no French literature. Corneille, it is true, was already known; but the impression which he had as yet made, even upon Paris, did not merit the name of a popular impression—and for this decisive reason, that, as yet, Louis XIV. was a boy. Not until seven years later, did he virtually begin to reign; whilst, as France was then constituted, nothing could be popular which did not bear the countersign and imprimatur of a king and his court. The notion, therefore, adopted by all historians of English literature, (not excluding the arrogant Schlegel,) that Charles II., on his restoration, laid the foundation of a "French school," being already nonsense by the very tenor of the doctrine, happens also to be chronologically impossible. English writers could not take for a model what as yet had no collective existence. Now, until the death of Charles II., no French literature could be said to have gathered or established itself; and as yet no ostentation of a French literature began to stir the air of Europe. By the time, however, that Racine, La Fontaine, Boileau, Bossuet, and Fontenelle, had begun to fix the attention of foreign courts upon the French language, a necessity, no longer to be disguised, for some modern language as the common organ of diplomacy, had made itself universally acknowledged. Not only were able negotiations continually neutralized by ignorance or unfamiliar command of the Latin; but at last, as the field of diplomacy was daily expanding, and as commerce kept ahead of all other interests, it became simply impossible, by any dexterity of evasions and compromises, to make a dead language do the offices of negotiation without barbarism and reciprocal misunderstanding. Now was commencing the era of congresses. The Westphalian congress, in 1648, had put up with Latin; for the interests which it settled, and the boundaries which it counterbalanced, were political and general. The details of tariffs were but little concerned. But those times were passing away. A modern language must be selected for international treating, and for the growing necessities of travellers. French probably would, by this time, have gained the distinction at any rate; for the same causes which carried strangers in disproportionate numbers to Paris—viz. the newly-created splendour of that capital, and the extensive patronage of the French kings—must have commensurately diffused the knowledge of the French language. At such a critical moment, however, we cannot doubt that the French literature would give a determining impulse to the choice. For besides that the literature adapts itself beyond all others to the classes of society having little time for reflection, and whose sensibilities are scattered by dissipation, it offers even to the meditative the high quality of self-consistency. Springing from a low key of passion, it still justifies its own pretensions to good taste, (that is, to harmony with itself and its own principles.) Fifty years later, or about the middle of the eighteenth century, we see a second impulse given to the same literature, and therefore to the same language. A new race of writers were at that time seasoning the shallowest of all philosophies with systematic rancour against thrones and Christianity. To a military (and therefore in those days ignorant) aristocracy, such as all continental states were cursed with, equally the food and the condiment were attractive beyond any other. And thus, viz. through such accidents of luck operating upon so shallow a body of estimators as the courtiers and the little adventurers of the Continent, did the French literature and language attain the preponderance which once they had. It is true, that the literature has since lost that advantage. Germany, the other great centre of the Continent, has now a literature of her own, far more extensive, and better fitted for her peculiar strength and weakness. But the French language, though also drooping, still holds its ground as the convenient resource of lazy travellers and lazy diplomatists. This language, acting through that literature, has been the engine for fusing the people of the Continent into a monotonous conformity to one standard of feeling.

In this sense, and with a reference to this deduction, we ascribe unity to the foreign system of manners and social intercourse. Had every state in Europe been resigned to her own native temper and habits, there could have been no propriety in talking of "foreign" manners, as existing by way of antithesis to English. There must have been as many varieties of what might be called "foreign," as there happen to be considerable kingdoms, or considerable territories insulated by strong natural boundaries, or capital cities composing separate jurisdictions for the world of manners, by means of local differences continually ripening into habits. But this tendency in Europe to break up and subdivide her spirit of manners, was withered and annihilated by the unity of a French taste. The ambition of a French refinement had so thoroughly seized upon Germany, and even upon the Vandalism of arctic Sweden, by the year 1740, that in the literature of both countries, a ridiculous hybrid dialect prevailed, of which you could not say whether it were a superstructure of Teutonic upon a basis of French, or of French upon a basis of Teutonic.9 The justification of "foreign," or "continental," used as an adequate antithesis to English, is therefore but too complete.

Having thus explained our use of the word "foreign," we put it to any considerate man, how it should have been possible that any select tone of society could grow up amongst a body so comprehensive and so miscellaneous as the soi-disant nobility of continental states? Could it be expected that 130,000 French "nobles" of 1788, needy and squalid in their habits as many of them were, should be high-bred gentlemen? In Germany, we know that all the watering-places are infested with black-leg gamblers, fortune-hunters, chevaliers d'industrie, through all varieties of this category. Most of these bear titles of baron, compte, &c. Are they spurious titles? Nobody knows. Such is the obscurity and extent of an aristocracy multiplying their numbers in every generation, and resting upon no basis of property, that it is equally possible for the true "baron" to lie under suspicion as a pretender, and for the false one to prosper by imposture. On the other hand, who could hope to pass himself off for six weeks as an English earl? Yet it is evident, that where counterfeit claims are so easy, the intrusion of persons unqualified, or doubtfully qualified, must be so numerous and constant that long ago every pure standard of what is noble or gentlemanly, must have perished in so keen a struggle and so vast a mob. Merely by its outrageous excess numerically, every continental "noblesse" is already lowered and vitiated in its tone. For in vast bodies, fluctuating eternally, no unity of tone can be maintained, except exactly in those cases where some vulgar prejudice carries away all alike by its strength of current.

Such a current we have already noticed in the style of scenical effort manifested by most foreigners. To be a "conteur," to figure in "proverbs," to attitudinize, to produce a "sensation"—all these are purposes of ambition in foreign circles. Such a current we have noticed in the general determination of the Continent towards French tastes; and that is a worse tendency even than it used to be, for the true aristocracy of France is gone for ever as it formerly existed in the haute noblesse; and the court of a democratic king is no more equal to the task of diffusing good manners, than that of the American or Haytian president. Personally, the king and his family might be models of high breeding; but the insolence of democracy would refuse the example, and untrained vulgarity would fail even in trying to adopt it.

Besides these false impulses given to the continental tone of society, we have noticed a third, and that is the preposterous value given amongst foreigners to what is military. This tendency is at once a cause of vulgarity and an exponent of vulgarity. Thence comes the embroidery of collars, the betasseling, the befrogging, the flaunting attempts at "costuming." It is not that the military character is less fitted to a gentlemanly refinement than any other; but the truth is, that no professional character whatsoever, when pushed into exclusive esteem, can continue to sustain itself on the difficult eminence of pure natural high breeding. All professions alike have their besetting vices, pedantries, and infirmities. In some degree they correct each other when thrown together on terms of equality. But on the Continent, the lawyer and the clergyman is every where degraded; the senator has usually no existence; and the authentic landed proprietor, liberated from all duties but the splendid and non-technical duties of patriotism, comes forward at foreign courts only in thee character of a military officer. At some courts this is carried so far, that no man can be presented out of uniform. Has the military profession, on the other hand, benefited by such partiality? So far from it, that, were the continental armies liable to that sort of surveillance which our own Horse Guards exercises over the social morals of the officers, we do not believe that one of those armies could exist for five years. The facts placed beyond denial by the capture of foreign officers' baggage, by the violated parole of honour, and by many other incidents of the late war, combine to prove the low tone of gentlemanly honour and probity in the ill-paid armies of the Continent.

Our purpose has been, to insist on the capital patriotic uses to which so splendid an aristocracy as ours has been applied, and will be applied, so long as it is suffered to exist undisturbed by the growing democracy (and, worse than that, by the anarchy) of the times. These uses are principally four, which we shall but indicate in a few words.

First, it is in the nobility of Great Britain that the Conservative principle—which cannot but be a momentous agency wheresoever there is any thing good to protect from violence, or any thing venerable to uphold in sanctity—is chiefly lodged. Primogeniture and the church are the two corner-stones upon which our civil constitution ultimately reposes; and neither of these, from the monumental character of our noble houses, held together through centuries by the peculiar settlements of their landed properties, has any power to survive the destruction of a distinct patrician order.

Secondly, though not per se, or, in a professional sense, military as a body, (Heaven forbid that they should be so!) yet, as always furnishing a disproportionate number from their order to the martial service of the country, they diffuse a standard of high honour through our army and navy, which would languish in a degree not suspected whenever a democratic influence should thoroughly pervade either. It is less for what they do in this way, than for what they prevent, that our gratitude is due to the nobility. However, even the positive services of the nobility are greater in this field than a democrat is aware of. Are not all our satirical novels, &c., daily describing it as the infirmity of English society, that so much stress is laid upon aristocratic connexions? Be it so: but do not run away from your own doctrine, O democrat! as soon as the consequences become startling. One of these consequences, which cannot be refused, is the depth of influence and the extent of influence which waits upon the example of our nobles. Were the present number of our professional nobles decimated, they would still retain a most salutary influence. We have spoken sufficiently of the ruin which follows where a nation has no natural and authentic leaders for her armies. And we venture to add our suspicion—that even France, at this moment, owes much of the courage which marks her gentry, though a mere wreck from her old aristocracy, to the chivalrous feeling inherited from her ancestral remembrances. Good officers are not made such by simple constitutional courage; honour, and something of a pure gentlemanly temper, must be added.

Thirdly, for all populous and highly civilized nations, it is an indirect necessity made known in a thousand ways, that some adequate control should preside over their spirit of manners. This can be effected only through a court and a body of nobles. And thence it arises, that, in our English public intercourse, through every class, (even the lowest of the commercial,) so much of respectful gravity and mutual consideration is found. Now, therefore, as the means of maintaining in strength this aristocratic influence, we request every thoughtful man to meditate upon the following proposition. The class even of our gentry breeds a body of high and chivalrous feeling; and very much so by unconscious sympathy with an order above themselves. But why is it that the amenity and perfect polish of the nobility are rarely found in strength amongst the mass of ordinary gentlemen? It is because, in order to qualify a man for the higher functions of courtesy, he ought to be separated from the strife of the world. The fretful collision with rivalship and angry tempers, insensibly modifies the demeanour of every man. But the British nobleman, intrenched in wealth, enjoys an immunity from this irritating discipline. He is able to act by proxy: and all services of unpleasant contest he devolves upon agents. To have a class in both sexes who toil not, neither do they spin—is the one conditio sine qua non for a real nobility.