646 On the Natural Depreciation of English Nobility. [JUNE, 



so many well educated men were ever collected into small a compass, as 

 were to be met with in the Charleston theatre during the term of Kean's 

 engagement; and I am informed, that that great actor himself was struck 

 by the judgment, good taste, and thorough knowledge of Shakespeare 

 which the audience displayed. I have mentioned these particulars, 

 because I wish to do justice to the refinement and acquirements of a 

 remarkable intelligent body of men, and because I consider a correct 

 discriminating admiration of good plays and good acting, as better evi- 

 dence of those qualities which I have attributed to the society of Charles- 

 ton, than any vague and general encomiums and assertions. 



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4i[ r > 



ON THE NATURAL DEPRECIATION OF ENGLISH NOBILITY. 



" Non sum qualis eram." 



WHEN the nobleman fed his retainers in his hall, and was the rallying 

 point for mutual protection against the tyrant of the neighbourhood, it 

 was worth the while of rude and helpless society to foster his wealth and 

 power. The power of the super-eminent chieftain or king, first, and 

 next the laws, in some degree diminished the importance of the nobleman 

 to general society. Neither of these were, however, enough materially 

 to impair the sense of his grandeur and power, handed down from times, 

 when sustenance and liberty depended on him. Thus the importance of 

 the nobleman had, along with other sentiments and impressions of 

 romantic history and tradition, rooted itself in the imagination and 

 affections of the multitude : and thus, in spite of the gradual dispersion 

 of wealth, and the progressive efficiency of legal and conventional, over 

 arbitrary and individual power, the impressions of preceding ages main- 

 tained the nobleman's reputation for importance, when he had ceased tq 

 possess any other real power than that with which society voluntarily 

 invested him : when the thriving merchant or tradesman was in fact of 

 more consequence than he, in proportion as the former did more towards 

 increasing the wealth of his country, and spreading that wealth into 

 various channels of industrious and independent support. 



Great is the power of imagination, and prone are most of the sons of 

 men to imagine vain things ! Were it not for the few wise, and discern- 

 ing, and benevolent spirits of successive ages, who know truth and teach 

 it, there is no ground to believe that information, attainable only by 

 the understanding, would ever prevail so generally as to influence the 

 mass of a nation. Had not books, and newspapers, and speeches, com- 

 municated to ordinary men the views of wiser men than themselves, 

 amongst other such fictions as divine right, witchcraft, &c., we should 

 at this day, as a nation, be firm believers in an exclusively inherent virtue 

 of nobility to wield the power and direct the energies of our country. 



We have, thank heaven, at last generally attained the conviction, that 

 nobility has no intrinsic value, no inherent rights ; and that whatever 

 importance may attach to it in the present day, that importance is very 

 different from the consequence of nobles in past ages -, when, with all 

 their failings, they constituted the only class possessed of energy and 

 intelligence enough to manage the national affairs. 



It does not appear though, that our nobles have kept pace with our- 



