378 BULWER AND HIS BOOI. 



sense of virtue, but by that of self-interest. A trader soon discovers that 

 honesty is the best policy. If you travel through Italy, and your carriage 

 break down, there is, perhaps, but one smith in the place ; he repairs your 

 carriage at ten times the value of the labour ; he takes advantage of your condi- 

 tion, and his own monopoly of the trade. Whoever has had the misfortune 

 to make the tour of the Netherlands in a crazy caleche, can speak from ample 

 experience of the similar extortion practiced also in that country, where the 

 standard of morality is much higher than in in Italy. This would rarely, 

 if ever, be the case in England." 



In his review of the poor laws, however, he remarks. 



" But how, in so industrious a country, arises the indifference to toil ? 

 The answer is obvious wherever idlenes is better remunerated than labour, 

 idleness becomes contagious, and labour hateful." 



" In no foreign country even of far less civilization than England, is there 

 the same improvidence : in France where there is a much greater inclination 

 to pleasure, there is yet a much more vigorous disposition to save. The 

 French peasants never incur the wicked, because voluntary, calamity of bring- 

 ing children into the world which they cannot feed, the youngest a rew 

 robber of the pittance of the eldest ; brother the worse foe to brother, and 

 each addition to the natural ties bringing nearer and more near the short and 

 ghastly interval between Penury and Famine, Despair and Crime : nor do 

 they no, nor the peasants fof Spain, of Germany, of Italy, of Holland, 

 squander in the selfish vices of an hour, the produce of a week's toil. The 

 peasant is not selfish in his pleasure ; he shares his holiday with his family, 

 and not being selfish, he is not improvident : his family made him prudent, 

 the same cause often makes the Englishman desperate." 



" I think, however, that I need take no pains to prove the next character- 

 istic of the English people a characteristic that I shall just touch upon, viz. 

 their wonderful Spirit of Industry. This has been the saving principle of the 

 nation, counteracting the errors of our laws and the imperfections of our con- 

 stitution. We have been a great people, because we have been always 

 active ; and a moral people, because we have not left ourselves time to be 

 vicious. Industry is, in a word, the distinguishing quality of our nation the 

 pervading genius of our riches, our grandeur and our power." 



" Rogues among traders, and swindlers among gentlemen, there are in 

 this, as in all countries ; but they do not suffice to stamp the character of the 

 people. There is no systematic mockery of principle with us, nor that sort 

 of maison de jeu morality, which you find jamong the philosophical elsyans 

 of Paris and Vienna. A fine gentleman in London is a formidable person to 

 young heirs ; but of these fine jgentlemen there are thank Heaven, not above 

 a dozen or two. In private character, as in the national, an English patri- 

 cian is rather the dupe than the receiver : at least he keeps his deceits for 

 his parliamentary career." 



Wherever I look around on the state of morality in this country, I see 

 the want of the cultivation of moral science. A thousand of the most shal- 

 low jejune observations upon every point of morality that occurs, are put 

 forth by the press, and listened to by the legislature. Laws are made, and 

 opinions formed, and institutions recommended, upon the most erroneous 

 views of human nature and the necessary operations of the mind. A chasm 

 has taken place between private and public virtue they are supposed to be 

 separable qualities ; and a man may be called a most rascally politician, 

 with an assurance from his asperser " that he does not mean the smallest 

 disrespect to his priuate character!" Propping morality merely on de- 

 corums, we suffer a low and vulgar standard of opinion to establish itself 

 amongst us ; and the levelling habits of a commercial life are wholly unre- 



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