1827.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



421 



cians, <fec. the old standard books, excursive 

 as they are, and alluding as they do to a 

 hundred thousand matters, not for her pur- 

 pose essential, must be cut down to some 

 amount of mental property, tangible, under- 

 standable, measurable, both by teacher and 

 pupil, and food for vanity. For that same 

 science or subject, so easy in the epitome, so 

 untroubled with difficulties, should the go- 

 verness ambitiously pursue it by dipping into 

 origftml master-minds, becomes quite ano- 

 ther sort of thing perplexing, humiliating, 

 vague, stuffed with a million of unintelli- 

 gible allusions, and throwing her into an 

 agitation, which her pupils will be but too 

 apt to detect and ponder on till the truth 

 flashes across their brains. 



Some parents there are, and some teachers, 

 who would fain let nature have something to 

 do in the guidance of their children, but are 

 driven into the common vortex by prudential 

 considerations. For instance, your children 

 might benefit by your deviation from custo- 

 mary modes, and yet grow up ungrateful, 

 and thank you not at all for rendering them 

 singular among their cotemporaries. And 

 after you have, for conscience sake, gone 

 through your parental task, in defiance of the 

 triumph?, sneers, remonstrances, and hints of 

 chancery interference on the part of uncles, 

 aunts, and sisters, you may yet be reserved 

 to undergo the bitter vexation of seeing your 

 grown-up and emancipated child labouring 

 with all her might to become like her com- 

 peers, with far more zeal than you could 

 ever excite in your own direction. 



The truth is, that those who imitate the 

 serpent in wisdom, regard their children as 

 a portion of the external world, yet living 

 in abeyance indeed, but hereafter to be ar- 

 rayed among the judges of their character 

 and conduct. The world will impress its 

 form and fashion upon those children, and 

 sooner or later fix upon them the character- 

 istics of the period in which they live too 

 effectually for your individual efforts to 

 counteract with any permanency or cer- 

 tainty; and you will, as parents, be judged, 

 not according to any exclusive system of our 

 own, but by the common and prevailing 

 sense of existing society. You must, there- 

 fore, in some measure, pursue your own 

 good by accommodating to the ways and 

 spirit of the day ; and if a wide extent of 

 superficial knowledge be in demand in your 

 particular station, your nursery and school- 

 room must not be without the books which 

 other nurseries and school-rooms possess. 



But as to the Conversations before us, 

 which we had almost forgotten if we can 

 no longer afford to gather up the subject 

 drop by drop, from its original springs, we 

 must even have recourse to them ; and these, 

 the work of a lady of ability and acquire- 

 ment, appear to us to be most unexcep- 

 tionable. 



Hyde Nugent ; 3 vols. I2mo. 1827. This, 

 for commoners, a novice might suppose, could 

 scarcely be a readable book. For our own 



parts we get heartily weary of dukes and 

 marquises, aud Lord Henrys, and Lady 

 Georginas ; and wonder sometimes where 

 the de'el they all corns from, and who they 

 are, who suppose the conversations, and in- 

 trigues, and modes of life, of such persons, 

 can b matters of general interest, and much 

 more of amusement. Or is it that nobody 

 reads these fashionable novels, but ihe 

 'order'? Not so ; it is rather the worthless 

 aspirings of the canaille, who resort to these 

 wretched sources to discover the fine words, 

 and fine ways, which, coupled with fine 

 clothes, will, they trust, confound and mingle 

 them with the mighty and think they find 

 them; it is these worthless aspirers who 

 give rise to these thronging publications. To 

 gratify the paltry desires of these paltry- 

 persons, it is that the airs, and graces, and 

 manners, and manoeuvres, and phrases, of no- 

 bility and fashion, are ferreted out by some, 

 and fabricated by others, or even, perhaps, 

 partially furnished by a few ; and are held up 

 to the imitation and admiration of the gaping 

 vulgar below. Weil; but is there any real 

 harm in all this ? Real harm ! Yes ; if to 

 generate a mass of foppery and affectation 

 be any harm if to banish simplicity, and 

 with at all frankness and sincerity, and with 

 them humanity and fellow-feeling with the 

 poor and miserable if this be any harm, 

 here is harm enough. The love of shew and 

 splendour thus spreads to the ruin of thou- 

 sands ; and real solid comfort content at 

 home, and no debts abroad sacrificed at the 

 shrine of caprice, frippery, and foolery. The 

 charm of fashionable intercourse is all in the 

 external glitter ; and the external glitter is 

 all we arc talked to about. The nearer you 

 approach the interior of the chateau, not only 

 is the dazzle the less, but the more offensive 

 its deformity becomes : insolence reigns 

 throughout. For the little to hope to asso- 

 ciate with the great on terms of equality and 

 freedom, is one of the idlest of human 

 thoughts. The feeling of the upper classes 

 in all countries and in our's, the most aris- 

 tocratic country in the world, above all 

 others is one of stern exclusiveness, and of 

 deep contempt for all below. They are con- 

 stantly and vigilantly on the watch to repel 

 the encroachment of inferiors; as the one 

 advances, the other recedes, as the one 

 apes, the other renounces, and the strength 

 of the human intellect is thus spent, by the 

 one in pushing pretensions, and by the other 

 in baffling pretenders. The one \ve care not 

 to condemn ; but the last deserve all the 

 mortification they are sure to meet with. 



To return to Hyde Nugent. The book 

 is made up completely of the gossip of draw- 

 ing rooms, hotels, dinners, and balls. As to 

 the hero, if any one has a grain of curiosity 

 about him gratify it. Hyde is the son of a 

 man of family and fortune ; be goes to Ox- 

 ford, fights a duel and is expelled prevails 

 upon a marquis to break the matter to the 

 father falls in love with the marquis's 

 daughter goes large and loose about town 



