ACTUAL VALUE OF ENGLISH NOBILITY. 



the great blessing of a general refinement of manners. Our present 

 objection to the American constitution as a pattern for us to imitate, 

 lies not against any of its positive enactments, much less against its 

 suitableness to the present, and perhaps, for a long time to come, 

 future condition of America ; but against its incompleteness ; its insuf- 

 ficiency, in its present state, to insure the highest social happiness, 

 which we believe the best government can confer on a people for many 

 centuries established in national importance. 



Absolving American republicanism, then, from the charge of generat- 

 ing ill manners, at present, (which we attribute rather to a very natural 

 excitement against every thing European; the various circumstances 

 obstructive of refinement attending the early years of national settle- 

 ment ; and perhaps, more than all, the rudeness of the English sires 

 from whom the Americans are descended,) we still believe, that in ages 

 to come, when the accumulations of superior talent and industry shall 

 have become so much larger and more general, that a numerous body of 

 the citizens shall be virtually distinguished amongst their countrymen, 

 it will mar the social amiability and general happiness of the nation, 

 from the richest to the poorest, to grudge and refuse these men titles of 

 honour, to transmit with their gains to their posterity. We will now 

 endeavour to argue our radical friends into our opinion, that at a certain 

 and inevitable juncture in national advancement, a large body of men 

 will feel themselves and families entitled to honorary distinctions ; that 

 it is inexpedient to refuse indulgence to this feeling ; and that it is most 

 conducive to the common good to gratify it by the institution of here- 

 ditary nobility. 



" There are few men," says Addison, " who are not ambitious of dis- 

 tinguishing themselves in the nation or country where they live, and of 

 growing considerable among those with whom they converse. There is 

 a kind of grandeur and respect which the meanest and most insignificant 

 part of mankind endeavour to procure, in the little circle of their friends 

 and acquaintance. The poorest mechanic, nay, the man who lives upon 

 common alms, gets his set of admirers, and delights in that superiority 

 which he enjoys over those who are in some respects beneath him." 

 Now, we are far from affirming that this appetite for distinction belongs 

 to the highest dignity attainable by human nature ; we are well aware, 

 that the more really worthy a man is of estimation, the less careful is 

 he for mere external signs of it. But in arguing for the institution of 

 nobility, we are not providing for a nation of philosophers, of men bent 

 upon the moral elevation of character to the high standard of self- 

 respect, the attainment of which, in conjunction with the regards of an 

 intellectual and moral circle of associates, might afford sufficient encou- 

 ragement to the utmost exertion of human energies. We have in view, 

 on the contrary, a laborious, and busy, and accumulating society ; intel- 

 ligent, and capable of mental refinement to a certain extent, as the 

 average wisdom of the world increases, but not adequately for the 

 attainment of a real indifference to the admiration of the undiscerning 

 multitude. The vulgar appetite for distinction, which Addison has, we 

 think, well described, is surely too prevalent in human nature to be 

 subdued by any but the purest and severest discipline of philosophy. 

 And can any man contemplate a period at which the world will afford 

 such a discipline to the mass of any nation ? We will yield to no one in 

 ardent and sanguine expectations of the very great advancement of the 



