82 Non Sum Qualis Eram, 



which these pretenders to refinement have lately clad the interchange 

 of their extravagant and disingenuous rancour. 



With the utmost energy of earnestness we beseech our fellow country- 

 men not to lose the impression of the unworthiness, the intrinsic meanness, 

 and vulgarity of mere nobility, which late occurrences must have made 

 upon their minds : let this impression produce its natural effect of rendering 

 us less lavish of those outward signs of profound respect with which nobility 

 has always been treated in society, to the frustration of the benefit of our 

 constitutional principles of freedom. It is quite certain, that nothing will 

 so directly tend to obviate the necessity of violence in gaining all which, 

 within the ensuing few years, we must strive to gain from the upper classes, 

 as the giving them to understand, by our looks and general behaviour, that 

 we do not think so much of them as we used to do. Consideration enough 

 for mortal man, " whose breath is in his nostrils," they will always continue 

 to possess ; for property and distinction of all degrees never yet failed of 

 gaining its full deserts from organized society, But it will, henceforth, be 

 far more disgraceful than it has been, in liberally educated Englishmen, to 

 pamper and delude lords by an irrational, unconstitutional subservience in 

 the intercourse of common life. We would have the respectful, chastened 

 smile of approval of lordly commonness in speech and action discontinued. 

 The pas and the parole should still be lordly privileges ; but these should 

 be conceded in a society of Englishmen with the calm demeanour of a 

 consciousness of intrinsic equality. Nothing is so mortifying to lords as 

 behaviour, in men without rank or fortune, indicating entire self-possession 

 in their presence. We have certified ourselves, by repeated observation 

 and experiment, that our nobility and their clique, virtually, exact of such 

 associates that sort of prostration of spirit which the assumed presence of 

 the Deity within holy precincts inflicts on the soul of an heathen. No one 

 is so unacceptable to them as one who, without disputing their right to 

 precedence, by the unrestrained play of his features and movement of his 

 limbs, betrays an unconsciousness of the present deity. To coarse rude- 

 ness in a blackguard they have no objection ; but to witness an easiness 

 and self-possession like their own, within their own circle, is gall and 

 wormwood to them. They never believe this to be natural in one of in- 

 ferior rank ; their self-love shuts out all suspicion that the man's manners 

 can be genuine. But it is offensive enough to them to see themselves suc- 

 cessfully imitated, where the imitation is not, as on the stage, confessed ; 

 so offensive, indeed, that nothing can reconcile them to the offender. 



To this vulnerable point of our nobility we would then direct the covert 

 attacks of our intelligent fellow countrymen in general. In our represen- 

 tatives in a reformed parliament, consists of course our main and regular 

 force for carrying on the war. But these will stand in need of all the 

 support a guerilla and partizan spirit can furnish from amongst ourselves. 

 We know that we must overcome at last ; but the pride of the enemy is 

 high still ; his resources of supply for this powerful arm of his warfare are 

 r,ot yet materially exhausted. Let us, who are enlightened enough to 

 know the real value and use of nobility, employ ourselves in cutting off 

 its future supplies of pride in private life. Thus shall we expedite the 

 labours of our public defenders, and, by mortifying and humbling the 

 aristocratic spirit in detail, prepare it for yielding with a readier and better 

 grace to those retrenchments of its luxury which the interests of humanity 

 demand, and which Englishmen must and will, whatever be the conse- 

 quences, obtain. 



