371 



ACTUAL VALUE OF ENGLISH NOBILITY. 



" Nee nihil neque omnia haec sunt." 



OUR first political maxim is " The greatest good of the greatest 

 number;" therefore we are in principle republicans. This does not 

 imply, however, a wish to see the American system forced upon our 

 country. We are not shocked at the Americans by Mrs. Trollope's 

 exaggerations. We admire the entire responsibility of American 

 governors to their fellow-countrymen ; we covet the transfusion of an 

 equal responsibility into our own government. But we so dearly love 

 good manners, and feel them to be so great an addition, nay, so essen- 

 tial to the happiness of life, that we eschew any such imitation of our 

 transatlantic brethren as might tend to deteriorate our national manners, 

 already far from being sufficiently refined. Instead of falling back to 

 the American level in this respect, we deem it to behove us to aim at 

 the standard of urbanity established on the continent of Europe. 



Let not our brother radicals misunderstand us. We do not assign to 

 national manners the first place in importance. We aim first at national 

 morality ; and, though we entertain the most sanguine hopes of our own 

 rapid improvement, we regard the Americans, as at present, in this 

 respect far superior to us. By national morality, we mean national 

 provisions for the maintenance of truth, integrity, justice, and patriotism, 

 in the conduct of national affairs, and habitual application of those 

 provisions by public men. When we are convinced that the present 

 forms, and fashions, and temper, of American society, are essential to 

 the existence of this national morality, no one shall shout out so lustily 

 as we will for a formal as well as virtual republic. Away will we then 

 fling our attachment to refined manners. We'll be surly and insolent, 

 instead of polite and respectful ; nor shall taste interfere to prevent our 

 spitting on our neighbour's shoes, or helping him with a fork we have 

 just picked our teeth with. Public virtue shall not want a partizan in 

 us, for the sake of any or all the conventional proprieties, in which 

 we at present delight to indulge. We will, at last, if we find that 

 the real responsibility of the American government cannot be grafted 

 on the stock of our own constitution, cheerfully lend a hand to root up 

 that stock; we will not then be content with less, than the entire 

 republican plant, from root and fibre to branch and bud. But, under 

 our present very deliberate and strong convictions, we do not feel 

 ourselves disposed, nor inclined to encourage others, to affront and snub 

 lords, nor even baronets and knights and men of fortune, by giving 

 them to understand we are as good flesh and blood as they, and will 

 not allow them to be in any respect our betters. We are quite deter- 

 mined not to let these men manage our affairs just as they please, nor, 

 indeed, otherwise than as we please ; we will not let them pay them- 

 selves, for any trouble they may take on our account, just according 

 to their own estimate of their services ; but we are desirous to afford 

 men of family and rank in our country, the preference to appointments 

 of public service, upon due qualification, and to pay them honour, as 

 well as allow them liberal emolument. 



As we have just hinted, we are not be-Basil-Halled nor be-Trolloped. 

 We cannot lend ourselves to the impressions made on gentlemen and 



2C2 



