Part 25 (1/2)

Various reasons may be given for this great difference between the Press of the two countries. Many are disposed to attribute it, very naturally, to the Government stamp, and the securities which are required; some, to the machinery of Government of this country being necessarily so complicated by ancient rights and privileges, and the difficulties of raising a revenue, whereof the item of interest on the national debt alone amounts to nearly 30,000,000l.; while others, again planting one foot of the Press compa.s.s in London, show that a half circle with a radius of five hundred miles brings nearly the whole community within twenty-four hours' post of the metropolis, in which the best information and the most able writers are to be found, thereby rendering it questionable if local papers, in any numbers, would obtain sufficient circulation to enable the editors to retain the services of men of talent, or to procure valuable general information, without wholesale plagiarism from their giant metropolitan rivals. Besides, it must he remembered that in America, each State, being independent, requires a separate press of its own, while the union of all the States renders it necessary that the proceedings in each of the others should be known, in order that the const.i.tutional limits within which they are permitted to exercise their independence, may be constantly and jealously watched; from which cause it will be seen that there is a very simple reason for the Republic requiring comparatively far more papers than this country, though by no means accounting for the very great disproportion existing.

While, however, I readily admit that the newspapers of Great Britain are greatly inferior in numbers, I am bound in justice to add, that they are decidedly superior in tone and character. I am not defending the wholesale manner in which, when it suits their purpose, they drag an unfortunate individual before the public, and crucify him on the anonymous editorial WE, which is at one and the same time their deadliest weapon and their surest s.h.i.+eld. Such acts all honest men must alike deplore and condemn; but it must be admitted that the language they employ is more in accordance with the courtesies of civilized life, than that used by the Press of the Republic under similar circ.u.mstances; and if, in a time of excitement and hope, they do sometimes cater for the vanity of John Bull, they more generally employ their powers to ”take him down a peg;” and every newspaper which has sought for popularity in the muddy waters of scurrility, has--to use an Oriental proverb--”eaten its own dirt, and died a putrid death.”

Let me now turn from the Press to the literature of the United States.

Of the higher order of publications, it is needless to say anything in these pages. Irving, Prescott, Ticknor, Stephens, Longfellow, Hawthorne, and writers of that stamp, are an honour to any country, and are as well known in England as they are in America, consequently any encomium from my pen is as unnecessary as it would be presumptuous.

The literature on which I propose to comment, is that which I may reasonably presume to be the popular literature of the ma.s.ses, because it is the staple commodity for sale on all railways and steamboats. I need not refer again to the most objectionable works, inasmuch as the very fact of their being sold by stealth proves that, however numerous their purchasers, they are at all events an outrage on public opinion. I made a point of always purchasing whatever books appeared to me to be selling most freely among my fellow-travellers, and I am sorry to say that the ma.s.s of trash I thus became possessed of was perfectly inconceivable, and the most vulgar abuse of this country was decidedly at a premium. But their language was of itself so penny-a-liny, that they might have lain for weeks on the book-shelf at an ordinary railway-station in England--price, _gratis_--and n.o.body but a trunkmaker or a grocer would have been at the trouble of removing them.

Not content, however, with writing trash, they do not scruple to deceive the public in the most barefaced way by deliberate falsehood. I have in my possession two of these specimens of honesty, purchased solely from seeing my brother's name as the author, which of course I knew perfectly well to be false, and which they doubtless put there because the American public had received favourably the volumes he really had written. Of the contents of these works attributed to him I will only say, the rubbish was worthy of the robber. I would not convey the idea that all the books offered for sale are of this calibre; there are also magazines and other works, some of which are both interesting and well-written. If I found no quick sale going on, I generally selected some work treating of either England or the English, so as to ascertain the popular shape in which my countrymen were represented.

One work which I got hold of, called _Northwood_, amused me much: I there found the Englishman living under a belief that the Americans were little better than savages and Pagans, and quite overcome at the extraordinary scene of a household meeting together for domestic wors.h.i.+p, which of course was never heard of in England. This little scene affords a charming opportunity for ”b.u.t.tering up” New England piety at the cheap expense of a libel upon the old country. He then is taken to hear a sermon, where for his special benefit, I suppose, the preacher expatiates on the glorious field of Bunker's Hill, foretells England's decline, and generously promises our countrymen a home in America when they are quite ”used up.” The Englishman is quite overcome with the eloquence and sympathy of the Church militant preacher, whose discourse being composed by the auth.o.r.ess, I may fairly conclude is given as a model of New England oratory in her estimation. Justice requires I should add, that the sermons I heard during my stay in those States were on religious topics, and not on revolutionary war.

Perhaps it may be said that _Northwood_ was written some years ago, I will therefore pa.s.s from it to what at the present day appears to be considered a _chef d'oeuvre_ among the popular style of works of which I have been speaking. I ground my opinion of the high estimation in which it is held from the flattering encomiums pa.s.sed upon it by the Press throughout the whole Republic from Boston to New Orleans. Boston styles it a ”_vigorous volume;”_ Philadelphia, a ”_delightful treat;”_ New York, ”_interesting and instructive;”_ Albany admires the Author's ”_keen discriminating powers;”_ Detroit, ”a _lively and racy style;” The Christian Advocate_ styles it ”_a skinning operation”_ and then adds, it is a ”_retort courteous”_ to Uncle Tommyism; Rochester honours the author with the appellation of ”_the most chivalrous American that ever crossed the Atlantic.”_ New Orleans winds up a long paragraph with the following magnificent burst of editorial eloquence:--”_The work is essentially American. It is the type, the representative,_ THE AGGREGATE OUTBURST OF THE GREAT AMERICAN HEART, _so well expressed, so admirably revealing the sentiment of our whole people_--_with the exception of some puling lovers he speaks of-_--_that it will find sympathy in the mind of every true son of the soil.”_ The work thus heralded over the Republic with such perfect _e pluribus unum_ concord is ent.i.tled _English Items;_ and the embodiment of the ”_aggregate outburst of the great American heart”_ is a Mr. Matthew F. Ward, whose work is sent forth to the public from one of the most respectable publishers in New York--D. Appleton and Co., Broadway.

Before I present the reader specimens of ore from this valuable mine I must make a few observations. The author is the son of one of the wealthiest families in Kentucky, a man of education and travel, and has appeared before the public in a work ent.i.tled _The Three Continents:_ I have given extracts from the opinions of the Press at greater length than I otherwise should have done, because I think after the reader has followed me through a short review of _English Items,_ he will see what strong internal testimony they bear to the truth of my previous observations. I would also remark that I am not at all thin-skinned as to travellers giving vent to their true feelings with regard to my own country. All countries have their weaknesses, their follies, and their wickednesses. Public opinion in England, taken as a whole, is decidedly good, and therefore the more the wrong is laid bare the more hope for its correction; but, while admitting this right in its fullest extent, it is under two conditions: one that the author speak the truth, the other that his language be not an outrage on decency or good manners.

Now then, come forth, _thou aggregate outburst of the great American heart_![BJ] Speak for thyself--let the public be thy judge.

The following extracts are from the chapter on ”Our Individual Relations with England,” the chaste style whereof must gratify the reader:--”I am sorry to observe that it is becoming more and more the fas.h.i.+on, especially among travelled Americans, to pet the British beast; ...

instead of treating him like other refractory brutes, they pusillanimously strive to soothe him by a forbearance he cannot appreciate; ... beasts are ruled through fear, not kindness: they submissively lick the hand that wields the lash.” Then follow instructions for his treatment, so terrible as to make future tourists to America tremble:--”Seize him fearlessly by the throat, and once strangle him into involuntary silence, and the British lion will hereafter be as fawning as he has been hitherto spiteful.” He then informs his countrymen that the English ”cannot appreciate the retiring nature of true gentility ... nor can they realize how a nation can fail to be bl.u.s.tering except from cowardice.” Towards the conclusion of the chapter he explains that ”hard blows are the only logic the English understand;” and then, lest the important fact should be forgotten, he clothes the sentiment in the following burst of genuine _American_ eloquence:--”To affect their understandings, we must punch their heads.”

So much for the chapter on ”Our Individual Relations with England,”

which promise to be of so friendly a nature that future travellers had better take with them a supply of bandages, lint, and diachylon plaster, so as to be ready for the new _genuine American_ process of intellectual expansion.

Another chapter is dedicated to ”Sixpenny Miracles in England,” which is chiefly composed of _rechauffees_ from our own press, and with which the reader is probably familiar; but there are some pa.s.sages sufficiently amusing for quotation:--”English officials are invariably impertinent, from the policeman at the corner to the minister in Downing-street ...

a stranger might suppose them paid to insult, rather than to oblige ...

from the clerk at the railway depot to the secretary of the office where a man is compelled to go about pa.s.sports, the same laconic rudeness is observable.” How the _American mind_ must have been galled, when a cabinet minister said, ”not at home” to a free and enlightened citizen, who, on a levee day at the White House, can follow his own hackney-coachman into the august presence of the President elect.

Conceive him strolling up Charing Cross, then suddenly stopping in the middle of the pavement, wrapt in thought as to whether he should cowhide the insulting minister, or give him a chance at twenty yards with a revolving carbine. Ere the knotty point is settled in his mind, a voice from beneath a hat with an oilskin top sounds in his ear, ”Move on, sir, don't stop the pathway!” Imagine the sensations of a sovereign citizen of a sovereign state, being subject to such indignities from stipendiary ministers and paid police. Who can wonder that he conceives it the duty of government so to regulate public offices, &c., ”as to protect not only its own subjects, but strangers, from the insults of these impertinent hirelings.” The bile of the author rises with his subject, and a few pages further on he throws it off in the following beautiful sentence:--”Better would it be for the honour of the English nation if they had been born in the degradation, as they are endued with the propensities, of the modern Egyptians.”

At last, among other ”sixpenny miracles,” he arrives at the Zoological Gardens,--the beauty of arrangement, the grandness of the scale, &c., strike him forcibly; but his keen inquiring mind, and his accurately recording pen, have enabled him to afford his countrymen information which most of my co-members in the said Society were previously unconscious of. He tells them, ”It is under control of the English Government, and subject to the same degradation as Westminster, St.

Paul's, &c.”--Starting from this basis, which only wants truth to make it solid, he complains of ”the meanness of reducing the nation to the condition of a common showman;” the trifling mistake of confounding public and private property moves his democratic _chivalry_, and he takes up the cudgels for the ma.s.ses. I almost fear to give the sentence publicity, lest it should shake the Ministry, and be a rallying-point for Filibustero Chartists. My antic.i.p.ation of but a moderate circulation for this work must plead my excuse for not withholding it. ”The Government basely use, without permission, the authority of the people's name, to make them sharers in a disgrace for which they alone are responsible. A stranger, in paying his s.h.i.+lling for admission into an exhibition, which has been dubbed nation (by whom?) in contradistinction from another in the Surrey Gardens, very naturally suspects that the people are partners in this contemptible transaction.... The English people are compelled to pay for the ignominy with which their despotic rulers have loaded them.” Having got his foot into this mare's nest, he finds an egg a little further on, which he thus hatches for the American public: ”Englishmen not only regard eating as the most inestimable blessing of life, when they enjoy it themselves, but they are always intensely delighted to see it going on. The Government charge an extra s.h.i.+lling at the Zoological Gardens on the days that the animals are fed in public; but, as much as an Englishman dislikes spending money, the extraordinary attraction never fails to draw,” &c.

From the Gardens he visits Chelsea Hospital, where his _keen discriminating powers_ having been sharpened by the demand for a s.h.i.+lling--the chief object of which demand is to protect the pensioners from perpetual intrusion--he bursts forth in a sublime magnifico Kentuckyo flight of eloquence: ”Sordid barbarians might degrade the wonderful monuments of their more civilized ancestors by charging visitors to see them; but to drag from their lowly retreat these maimed and shattered victims of national ambition, to be stared at, and wondered at, like caged beasts, is an outrage against humanity that even savages would shrink from.” And then, a little further on, he makes the following profound reflection, which no doubt appears to the _American mind_ peculiarly appropriate to Chelsea Hospital: ”Cringing to the great, obsequious to the high, the dwarfed souls of Englishmen have no wide extending sympathy for the humble, no soothing pity for the lowly,”

&c. It would probably astonish some of the readers who have been gulled by his book, could they but know that the sum paid by Great Britain for the support and pension of her veterans by sea and land costs annually nearly enough to buy, equip, and pay the whole army and navy of the United States.[BK]

The next ”sixpenny miracle” he visits is Chatsworth, which calls forth the following _vigorous_ attack on sundry gentlemen, clothed in the author's peculiarly _lively and racy_ language: ”The showy magnificence of Chatsworth, Blenheim, and the gloomy grandeur of Warwick and Alnwick Castles, serve to remind us, like the glittering sh.e.l.l of the tortoise, what worthless and insignificant animals often inhabit the most splendid mansions.” He follows up this general castigation of the owners of the above properties with the infliction of a special cowhiding upon the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, who, he says, ”would, no doubt, be very reluctant frankly to confess to the world, that although he had the vanity to affect liberality, he was too penurious to bear the expense of it. Like the ostrich, he sticks his head in the sand, and imagines himself in the profoundest concealment.” He then begs the reader to understand, that he does not mean to intimate ”that any portion of the large amounts collected at the doors of Chatsworth actually goes into the pocket of His Grace, but they are, nevertheless, remarkably convenient in defraying the expense of a large household of servants.... The idea of a private gentleman of wealth and rank deriving a profit from the exhibition of his grounds must be equally revolting to all cla.s.ses.”

These truthful observations are followed by a description of the gardens; and the whole is wound up in the following _chivalrous and genuine American_ reflection: ”Does it not appear extraordinary that a man dwelling in a spot of such fairy loveliness should retain and indulge the most grovelling instincts of human nature's lowest grade?”

What a _delightful treat_ these pa.s.sages must be to the rowdy Americans, and how the Duke must writhe under--what _The Christian Advocate_ lauds as--the _skinning operation _of the renowned American champion![BL]

The Press-bespattered author then proceeds to make some observations on various subjects, in a similar vein of chaste language, lighting at last upon the system of the sale of army commissions. His vigour is so great upon this point, that had he only been in the House of Commons when the subject was under consideration, his eloquence must have hurled the ”hireling ministers” headlong from the government. I can fancy them sitting pale and trembling as the giant orator thus addressed the House: ”She speculates in glory as a petty hucksterer does in rancid cheese; but the many who hate, and the few who despise England, cannot exult over her baseness in selling commissions in her own army. There is a degree of degradation which changes scorn into pity, and makes us sincerely sympathize with those whom we most heartily despise.” The annexed extract from his observations on English writers on America is an equally elegant specimen of _genuine American feeling:_--”When the ability to calumniate is the only power which has survived the gradual encroachment of bowels upon intellect in Great Britain, it would be a pity to rob the English even of this miserable evidence of mind ... she gloats over us with that sort of appetizing tenderness which might be supposed to have animated a sow that had eaten her nine farrow.” The subjoined sentiment, if it rested with the author to verify, would doubtless be true; and I suppose it is the paragraph which earned for his work the laudations of _The Christian Advocate:_--”Mutual enmity is the only feeling which can ever exist between the two nations.... She gave us no a.s.sistance in our rise.... She must expect none from us in her decline.” How frightful is the contemplation of this omnipotent and _Christian_ threat! It is worthy of the consideration of my countrymen whether they had not better try and bribe the great Matt. Ward to use his influence in obtaining them recognition as American territory. The honour of being admitted as a sovereign state is too great to be hoped for. He has already discovered signs of our decay, and therefore informs the reader that ”the weaker rival ever nurses the bitterest hate.” This information is followed by extracts from various English writers commenting upon America, at one of whom he gets so indignant, that he suggests as an appropriate _American_ translation of the F.R.S. which is added to the author's name, ”First Royal Scavenger.”

He then gets into a fever about the remarks made by travellers upon what they conceive to be the filthy practice of indiscriminate spitting. He becomes quite furious because he has never found any work in which ”an upstart inlander has ever preached a crusade against the Turks because they did not introduce knives and forks at their tables,” &c. Even Scripture--and this, be it remembered, by the sanction of _The Christian Advocate_--is blasphemously quoted to extenuate the American practice of expectoration. ”What, after all, is there so unbearably revolting about spitting? Our Saviour, in one of his early miracles, 'spat upon the ground and made clay of the spittle, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And he said unto him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam.

He went his way therefore and washed, and came seeing.' I have with a crowd of pilgrims gone down to drink from this very pool, for the water had borrowed new virtue from the miracle.” He then states his strong inclination to learn to chew tobacco in order to show his contempt for the opinions of travellers. What a beautiful picture to contemplate--a popular author with a quid of Virginia before him; Nausea drawing it back with one hand, and Vengeance bringing it forward with the other!

Suddenly a bright idea strikes him: others may do what he dare not; so he makes the following stirring appeal to his countrymen: ”Let us spit out courageously before the whole world ... let us spit fearlessly and profusely. Spitting on ordinary occasions may be regarded by a portion of my countrymen as a luxury: it becomes a duty in the presence of an Englishman. Let us spit around him--above him--beneath him--everywhere but on him, that he may become perfectly familiar with the habit in all its phases. I would make it the first law of hospitality to an Englishman, that every tobacco-twist should be called into requisition, and every spittoon be flooded, in order thoroughly to initiate him into the mysteries of chewing. Leave no room for imagination to work. Only spit him once into a state of friendly familiarity with the barbarous custom,” &c. What a splendid conception!--the population of a whole continent organized under the expectorating banner of the ill.u.s.trious Matt. Ward: field-days twice a week; ammunition supplied _gratis;_ liberal prizes to the best marksmen. The imagination is perfectly bewildered in the contemplation of so majestic an _aggregate outburst of the great American_ mouth. I would only suggest that they should gather round the margin of Lake Superior, lest in their hospitable entertainment of the ”upstart islanders” they destroyed the vegetation of the whole continent.

In another chapter he informs his countrymen that the four hundred and thirty n.o.bles in England speak and act for the nation; his knowledge of history, or his love of truth, ignoring that little community called the House of Commons. Bankers and wealthy men come under the ban of his condemnation, as having no time for ”enlightened amus.e.m.e.nts;” he then, with that truthfulness which makes him so safe a guide to his readers, adds that ”they were never known to manifest a friends.h.i.+p, except for the warehouse cat; they have no time to talk, and never write except on business; all hours are office-hours to them, except those they devote to dinner and sleep; they know nothing, they love nothing, and hope for nothing beyond the four walls of their counting-room; n.o.body knows them, n.o.body loves them; they are too mean to make friends, and too silent to make acquaintances,” &c. What very interesting information this must be for Messrs. Baring and their co-fraternity!

In another part of this volume, the author becomes suddenly impressed with deep reverence for the holy localities of the East, and he falls foul of Dr. Clarke for his scepticism on these points, winding up his remarks in the following beautiful Kentucky vein:--”A monster so atrocious could only have been a Goth or an Englishman.” How fortunate for his countryman, Dr. Robinson, that he had never heard of his three learned tomes on the same subject! though, perhaps, scepticism in an American, in his discriminating mind, would have been deep erudition correcting the upstart islanders. The great interest which he evinces for holy localities--accompanied as it is by an expression of horror at some English traveller, who, he a.s.serts, thought that David picked up his pebbles in a brook between Jordan and the Dead Sea, whereas he knew it was in an opposite direction--doubtless earned for him the patronage of _The Christian Advocate_; and the pious indignation he expresses at an Englishman telling him he would get a good dinner at Mount Carmel, is a beautiful ill.u.s.tration of his religious feelings.