Page images
PDF
EPUB

opinion, in regard to the conversational powers of modern aristocrats, is quoted by our author in the following words :

"Whoever, after passing an evening in this (aristocratic) society, shall attempt to recollect the substance of the conversation, will find himself engaged in a hopeless task. It would be easier to record the changes of colour in a pigeon's neck, or the series of sounds made by an Æolian harp, or the forms and hues of an aurora-borealis. All is pleasing--all is pretty -all serviceable in passing the time; but all unsubstantial. If man had nothing to do here below, but to spend, without pain or uneasiness, the hours not devoted to sleep, certainly there would be no reason to complain of these coteries. But if he is accountable for his time, then surely he has no right to pass it thus. Compared with this, chess becomes a science; draughts and backgammon are highly respectable ;-compared with this, dancing is exercise, and every game of romps a rational mode of passing the hours;-compared with this, it is worthy of a rational being to read the most frivolous romance that was ever penned, or gaze upon the poorest mimic that ever strutted on the stage." pp. 256-7.

While we admit the force of the foregoing, we contend that frivolous conversation is peculiar to no class of society. Wherever men and women are collected together, merely to pass away the time agreeably, no matter what their rank or fortune, they will indulge in much light talk. To be sure, the nobility, on account of their greater advantages, are supposed to receive a more polished education than commoners; more, therefore, is expected from them. We think the author's specimens of vulgar talking among aristocratic ladies must be caricatures.

We shall mention only one other item in the category-the charge that the society of foreigners is so much courted, especially by the female part of the nobility. It is a charge, applicable, in all its extent, to American fashionable society, and with the view of thus applying it, we notice it here. Foreigners landing in this country, and pretending to respectability, are instantly, without any vouchers of their claim being required, admitted into the first circles. A Frenchman, a Spaniard, but above all, an Italian, especially if he has had the sense to annex a title to his sonorous name, wherewith to astonish us plain republicans, is received almost as an angel visitant from another sphere. There may be some excuse in the fact that all who can speak a foreign language are usually glad of an opportunity to exercise their powers therein. But this is not a sufficient reason for the national characteristic. Besides, we ape foreign manners and customs to a ridiculous extent. those who do not understand a word of the language, nor a note, are clamorous in declaring their preference of Italian music. On this head we need not enlarge. All who frequent fashionable society must be aware of the justice of the above remarks, and can extend them, each for himself.

Even

The middle classes of every country are its bone and sinew. They are more moral, and more enterprising, than either of the other classes. From them spring, in most instances, those who distinguish themselves in the literary world. The arts and sciences flourish best where fortune smiles, without being lavish of her gifts. Such the author represents the middle classes of London. They contain the best citizens, the sincerest friends, the most sympathizing philanthropists. Still they are not perfect. Mr. Grant finds some ground of reproof; principally their insincerity, and their imitating the style and courting the acquaintance of their superiors in rank.

Last of all, and worst of all, come the lower classes. Of these, the author draws a melancholy picture, exhibiting them in their multitude, their vices, and their destitution. He describes them as still more licentious than the rich, entirely regardless of conjugal fidelity, and addicted to beastly drunkenness. All our readers have heard of the gin palaces of London, those gilded sepulchres of foul corruption. The statistics here given of the numbers frequenting these establishments, and the amount annually expended by the lower classes for gin alone, are truly frightful. He says,

"Little creatures, before they can well talk or walk, can quaff their glass of 'blue ruin' without making a wry face. When they get a little older, and chance to earn a trifle in any way, it is no uncommon thing to see a father and son clubbing their few half-pence together to get a quartern of gin."

Of such a scene the author gives a graphic sketch :

"Charlie, my boy," said an old haggard-looking man, the other day, to his son, as he stood opposite to one of the bacchanalian temples in Drury Lane," Charlie, my boy, have you arned any blunt to-day ?' "Yes, father, three-pence,' said the little urchin, who was apparently about eight years of age.

"Bless your little heart; come, let's have a join; give me the browns, and we'll have a quartern of the right sort.'

"The very best, then, father,' said Charlie, transferring the threepence to his dad.'

6

66 6 Holloa, Jim!' said the father, to a tippling-looking character on the opposite side of the street, with his clothes hanging in rags about him, and rejoicing in a brimless and crownless hat,-holloa, Jim! won't you come and have a little drop with us?'

"Oh, father!' exclaimed the little rascal, as if he had been a tippler of fifty years' standing,-' oh, father, don't ask him. That's a quartern among three of us.' pp. 301-2.

The remarks that Mr. Grant makes in regard to city missions, which he thinks ought to engage the attention of the friends of religion and morality before missions to foreign lands, do not agree with our creed. The history of the church and of the world will show that every effort made, in a right spirit, VOL. XXI.—NO. 41.

32

to carry the blessings of civilization and Christianity to the heathen has had a vast reflex influence upon domestic benevolence. That expansive philanthropy which is nurtured by the contemplation and relief of a suffering world is, in every sphere, the most active.

The higher classes were described as heartless among themselves, and wanting sympathy for the woes of their inferiors. The bas peuple are represented as equally wanting in sensibility. The author remarks, "Eight or ten families may live in the same house, though in different apartments, and yet no two of these families entertain the slightest friendship towards each other. Hence, though one family be contending with all the horrors of want, none of the others, though in passably good circumstances, will afford that family the slightest relief." This characteristic, common to the two classes, arises in each from a different cause; the rich are wanting in sympathy for distress, because they never knew, and cannot, therefore, properly estimate, the pangs of suffering humanity: the poor, on the other hand, are too much engrossed by their own woes, to look round them for objects of compassion.

Before closing this volume, we may remark, that Mr. Grant's views of London society, as here given, are by no means profound or comprehensive. His division, too, of the people into classes, is not complete. They may perhaps be sufficiently numerous, but each class is not made to embrace all who naturally fall under it. The space between the nobility and those whom he describes as the middle classes, is too great, and cannot be unoccupied. Then, from the middle classes, he stoops directly to the licentious, drunken, suffering dregs of the community, as the next grade of metropolitan society. He notices the two extremities and the middle of an extended chain, regardless of the connecting links.

AMERICAN QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. XLII.

JUNE, 1837.

ART. I.-POEMS BY MRS. FELICIA HEMANS. A new collection. Boston: 1828. Songs of the Affections, with other Poems. 12mo. Edinburgh: 1830. Scenes and Hymns of Life, with other Religious Poems. 12mo. Edinburgh; 1834. The Poetical Works of Mrs. Felicia Hemans. Complete. 8vo. Philadelphia: 1835.

Did we deem it necessary, at this time of day, to offer an apology for admiration of the great and gifted in song, we should refer ourselves at once to the tribute that has been paid to poetic genius from the earliest times to our own. The high rank held by poets, in almost every country, during the infancy of its civilization, or of its letters, has been retained, with those modifications, to be sure, which might be expected in the progress of society, so that we find it essentially unchanged and undisputed even among ourselves. The ancient superstition that invested the bard with a character of divinity, and his song with all the authority and sacredness of the oracles, was the natural result of the frequent exhibition of lofty and enthusiastic spirits, in powerful struggle with their strong conceptions, before a people comparatively simple and uncultivated. It is not astonishing that the flight of birds, the responses of the Sybil, or even the propitiatory thunders of Jove-the intonuit lævum-should be deemed less infallible tokens of a present inspiration, than the kindling strains of the poet, when he appealed, in glowing numbers, to the feelings or the patriotism of his auditory; or when he sang of deeds that touched their memories with an electric interest; or, more than all, when he bore them with him into the shadowy future, and there unveiled to his followers visions of glory and greatness, which by the contrivance of his wizard power, were transformed from the mere pageantry of imagination into splendid realities. It is matter familiar with our classic VOL. XXI.-No. 42.

33

associations, that bards, as well as conquerors, were followed, and courted, and crowned. It is not an easy thing to decide, whether Eschylus was less honoured than Miltiades; or whether he might not have borne additional renown from Marathon, while he was gazed at as the father of tragedy.

Indeed the triumphs of kings and consuls sink to the level of common spectacles beside the classical ovations that were awarded to successful poets. There was every thing intellectual in those early tributes to mental power returned from mental victory. There is an ever-during recollection that attaches itself to honours so won and so rendered. Considered as offerings to genius, they reflect glory alike on those who brought and those who received them. A dawn of moral light seems to be coincident with the morning of social life which such homage serves to indicate; and, though the tribute is purely mental, there comes with it a hope that the heart may awaken to truth, where there is such a stirring and pressing towards the shrine of mind. Certain it is that such exertions of powerful men, demanding such honours as they proceeded, were the first causes as well as the first proofs of improvement among the people from whom they stood distinguished: and it is to the poets of Greece and Italy, triumphing in laurel-wreath, or the plaudits of their countrymen, that we are to look, we had almost said, as the solitary men who first kindled that spark, which eventually caused an illumination of their age, and has continued to transmit its light to the world.

The influence of poetry, in the hands of the masters of antiquity, was carried to an extent that may seem almost incredible. They may be said to have formed and trained the virtues of those who heard them. They shaped the national sentiment, and moulded the opinions and wielded the sympathies of their listeners, to a degree that cannot be surpassed. They interwove public events with the drama. They excited an ambition to excel in wisdom and valour; and, by force of genius and skill, they generated among the aspiring and young the sentiments of glory that fell from the lips of their heroes. Euripides was the idol of his time. By promoting a more effectual union than had yet subsisted between moral philosophy and tragic representation, he became an object of praise and admiration with his contemporaries. His verses were on the lips of all who answered to the name of Greek. History relates, with an air of romance, that the appropriate introduction of some of his stanzas released the soldiers of Nicias from the slavery which they incurred in the expedition of that general to Syracuse; and, as if to carry the magic of his name beyond all rivalry, it has been pleasantly said, that, of old, the prisoner always found freedom by drafting his plea in the language of Euripides.

« PreviousContinue »