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EDUCATION AND LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE 

 CLASSES OF ENGLAND. 



From the MSS. Letters of a Distinguished Foreigner. 



IN the remarkable country in which I have been sojourning, a 

 ' character ' is a certain passport to the best society. It does not 

 seem to signify much of what materials such a character is composed 

 to be notorious and the general theme of conversation are its most 

 essential, and, I believe, only necessary qualifications. With these 

 requisites, a man is unreservedly admitted into the bosom of families, 

 and worshipped as a sort of demi-god ; whatever he says or does is 

 looked upon as extraordinary if he is brutal, his brutality passes for 

 amiable singularity if profligate, for good nature if drunken, for 

 good-fellowship if ignorant, for wisdom if a pedant, for learning. 

 Wherever he goes he is received with open arms corporate 

 authorities present him with the freedom of their boroughs the 

 respectable inhabitants get up balls, dinners, breakfasts, or suppers 

 private and wealthy individuals load him with caresses, and, in short, 

 he is sought for universally, because he is a ' character.' 



Being a plain man, on leaving the metropolis I had determined on 

 travelling incog. ; for though not an insignificant person in my own 

 country, I was a ' lion ' here of the first quality, and my presence 

 created a greater sensation than would have been excited by the 

 report of foreign invasion. This distinction, though flattering to a 

 man's self-love, and pleasurable for a time as no Stoicism can 

 resist the glancing of bright eyes and the pressure of welcome from 

 the hand of rank, wealth, or talent had become irksome to me. As 

 a cosmopolitan I was equally anxious to see as to be seen, and 

 the exclusivism of the higher classes in town had screened from 

 my observation the next order of society for this was as religiously 

 shut out from mingling with the former, as if its touch would have 

 been contamination. The few who by dint of superior wealth, 

 political influence, or warlike achievement, managed to elevate 

 themselves to aristocratic rank, underwent an instantaneous metamor- 

 phosis, and cast off* their plebeian slough, and seemed to forget at 

 once the whole of their previous life as effectually as if they had 

 been dipped in Lethe at least they took great pains to make it 

 appear that such was the case. I had therefore been unable to learn 

 any thing to the purpose respecting the middle class of society from 

 the higher. As this class is, however, by far the most important 

 constituent in the population of all old countries, I was anxious to 

 see with my own eyes, and hear with my own ears, what was its 

 present state of education, and to examine if the reports I had 

 received from the metropolitan publishers, as to the literature of the 

 day, were borne out by facts. 



In leaving the circles of gaiety and fashion, I determined, as \ 

 said before, to leave my name behind me, and to escape from 



