LETTER XIII.
Hitherto, as I have proceeded on my travels, I have been purposely very particular in my descriptions of the towns through which I passed on my way to India, in order to give your mind a disposition to inquiry, and point out to you an overflowing source of improvement and delight. Having so far shewn you how amply you will be rewarded, even in amusement, by the trouble of searching into books, for the accurate topographical descriptions of towns, cities, building, &c. &c. I think I may spare myself that labour for the future, and confine myself to those points that more immediately apply to the enlargement of the mind——I mean, the government, laws, manners and character of the People of each Country; and only use the former as subservient to the latter purpose, at least until I come to those places where, the ground being but little trodden by British feet, more precise description may become necessary.
But, before I leave the Netherlands, I must make a few remarks upon the Country and People, which it would be unpardonable in me to omit, after having been already so minutely particular in things of inferior merit to the scope of my plan.
Although personal appearance be, in the eye of Moral Philosophy, a very inferior consideration, and mind the proper study of Man; yet, in describing a People, I cannot think it altogether unnecessary to include their personal appearance, as it will be found that there exists a greater analogy between the person and the mind of Man than is generally perceived. Thus the lively hilarity, the restless activity, the levity and fantastic character of the French, are strongly pourtrayed in the national person. In like manner, the lusty, fat, clumsy and misshapen person of the People of the Netherlands, is strongly illustrative of the temper and habit of their mind, intellects and spirits: industrious and heavy; dull of understanding, but not defective in judgment; flow in work——but, persevering in effort, and unerring in the process, they are generally successful in the end: in war, cold and backward at offensive operations, but inflexible and terrible in resistance; like the boar of the forest, they seek not the combat with any, but will not go out of their way to decline it with the most powerful: their appetites and desires cooler than other Nations, but less subject to change or caprice: never violently in love, but rationally attached to their wives; and both men and women faithful to their conjugal vow, as well from natural temperament, as from a principle of virtue.
Thus constituted by Nature, the effects of their industry are wonderful in every thing; but chiefly in their canals and sluices, which serve not only for the support of their commerce, and the facility of intercourse, but for their defence against enemies: this was in other times; but, alas! the former of these uses, commerce, has so entirely absorbed all their intellect, and possessed their very souls, that they seem almost entirely negligent of the latter; and from being, of all People, the most wise and vigilant in determining and ascertaining their rights, the most zealous asserters and defenders of their independence, the most ardent friends to Liberty, and the most determined enemies to Slavery, they are become a sort of strange, inconsistent, hotch-potch politicians, whom ingenuity itself would find a difficulty in describing. They retain so much of their ancient and noble vigilance as serves to make them suspicious——so much of their independence as disposes them to change——so much of their jealousy as stimulates them to resistance——but not one particle of their former wisdom, to instruct them where they should attach themselves, where resist, or where resolve to act——nor of their courage to carry any resolution they might form into effect.
In the year 1781, the Emperor Joseph the Second came to Brussels, in order to indulge his paternal feelings as a Monarch with the contemplation and view of his Subjects, and also to be inaugurated; and perhaps upon no occasion that has ever occurred in the most volatile Nation, was there greater joy more universally expressed. For some time before his arrival, the whole Country was in motion; and, even with them, domestic industry stopped its usual persevering pace, suspended in the eager, anxious expectation of his arrival. Every thing in the birth, education, natural disposition and person of the young Emperor, united to impress his Subjects with the most exalted opinion of his goodness, and to inspire all ranks of people with the most fortunate presages of a wise and beneficent government. Nor did he disappoint them: his conduct, when among them, is handed over to remembrance, by a variety of acts of benevolence and condescension, which shewed that the grandeur of the Monarch had not made him forget the nature of the Man, and that his heart was better fitted for the mild, domestic enjoyments of a Subject, than the stern and unbending hardihood fit for a King: for I am perfectly of opinion with the celebrated Junius, that there are virtues in a private Man which are vices in a King; and that the Monarch of a Country, in order to preserve respect, should avoid familiarity, and keep his person sacred from too general observation. Shakspeare has put into the mouth of his Henry the Fourth, a beautiful expression on this subject, well worth the attention of Kings——
Had I so lavish of my presence been,
So common hackney’d in the eyes of men,
Opinion, that did help me to the Crown,
Had still kept loyal to possession,
And left me in reputeless banishment,
A fellow of no mark, nor likelihood.
By being seldom seen, I could not stir,
But, like a comet, I was wonder’d at:
That men would tell their children, This is he.”
Of the number I have heard, I will mention one anecdote only, and one remarkable expression of Joseph’s, which will serve to shew in its true light what his disposition was; and when you consider them as the act and sentiment of a young man nursed in the lap of despotism and pride, you cannot but consider them as marvellous.
In his journey to the Low Countries, he visited Wurtzaurg; and, in his perambulating alone and incog. stopped at a little public-house, where the people were busily employed in entertaining themselves: he went in, and inquired why they were so merry——“Sir,” said one of the country people, “we are celebrating a marriage.” “May I be permitted to join the company?” said the disguised Emperor. The host obtained that permission for him. When he entered the room, the married couple were presented to him, and he received them with great gaiety, sat down, drank their health, and, having informed himself of their situation, took leave of the company: but what was their astonishment, when, on lifting up a bottle of wine, they found a draft for six hundred florins, signed Joseph, and payable for the use of the married couple!
At Luxembourg, when the People called aloud on Heaven to shower down blessings on him for his affability, he made use of this remarkable expression, while his feelings moistened his eyes: “I wish I could make you as happy in my care, as I am in your affection!”
The affability of Monarchs has often been magnified by the foolish, and often blamed by the wise: But, if all the instances of condescension practised by Kings were like that I have recited of Joseph; if they arose from a sound, unquestionable spirit of philanthropy, not from gaping curiosity, broad folly, or a puerile inquisitive habit; and if, instead of conceiving those they visit paid for their intrusion with the honour of having conversed with Majesty, and leaving them churlishly, they would generously pay them with hard cash, as the good Emperor Joseph did; then, indeed, their affability might defy the exaggeration of fools, and must certainly command the applause of the wise.
On the 13th of July, the ceremony of Inauguration took place at Brussels. Nothing could equal the splendour of the place but the general joy of the People: the crowds were beyond all conception immense, and every thing was carried on with regularity till evening, when, in playing off some fire-works, that noble building the town-house took fire, and was burnt: six unfortunate persons lost their lives, and twenty were dangerously hurted: those who perished were absolutely roasted, and their cries were beyond description piercing. To such a temper as Joseph’s, you will readily conclude that this must be a most afflicting circumstance——it was so; and he left Brussels under the pressure of very different feelings from those with which he entered it, and was followed by the prayers and blessing of all the People.
But now we are to view the reverse of the medal. The sound of their prayers for his welfare, and praises of his goodness, had hardly died away upon their lips, ere their minds turned to revolt and rebellion. I will not say that they were not right in one or other, or which of those two extremes: certainly they could not be right in both; much less can their subsequent conduct be justified, or accounted for, in any principle of human nature, but that of the most abject meanness, dastardly feebleness, and gross folly. They returned to their allegiance, and besought forgiveness: that forgiveness was granted. How they have behaved since, I have already informed you, (See Letter IV.); and I have now to add, that, pillaged by the French, and likely to be left unprotected, they have again held their necks out, soliciting the protection and the yoke of Austria, and have actually offered to raise 100,000 men for the Emperor, if he will again drive the French out of their territories——An excellent word that IF!
How a People, once formed for manly pith and love of Freedom, could bend so low, is unaccountable. It is a question hard to be determined, whether an obstinate adherence even to a bad cause, is not more respectable, than a fickle, alternate dereliction, and adoption of right and wrong, as it suits the caprice or convenience of the moment? Of two things so very contemptible, I think the former the least odious and least unmanly.
At the same time, my observations on the Country led me to conceive, that under the name of Freedom, they groaned under the yoke of Tyranny; for, though the Country was, as I have described it, charming, its fecundity unsurpassed, its face decorated with the best gifts of Providence——I mean, smiling fields and bleating plains——though Ceres profusely repaid the labours of the husbandman, though every field had the appearance of a garden, and though, upon inquiry, I found that land which would bring in England five pounds an acre, rented at eight, nine and ten shillings of our money at most——yet, in spite of all this, the farmers were rather poor in general——not even one of them to be found rich or substantial, like the middle rank of that class of men in England. They wanted the great stimulus to industry——security of their property: they were liable to be turned out by their landlords at pleasure, and to be plundered when it should please some Monarch to make war.
The first of these, however, you will observe, is not the oppression of the Emperor: it is the tyranny of that worst of all constituent parts of a State, an Aristocracy——a vile Aristocracy!——that universal, that every-day despotism, under which all places groan, more or less——which is exercised in all the various gradations of life that chequer society, from the great man who, under the name of Minister, domineers over the Peer, to the country fox-hunting savage, who puts a poor wretch in jail to pine for years, (his family, the while, supported by the parish charity), only for doing that which makes the enjoyment of his own life, killing a partridge or a hare!——that Aristocratic tyranny which is seen scowling on the brows of a swaggering fellow in power, adopted by his secretary with increase, by him handed down to an upstart set of fellows in office, dependent on his smile, and by them displayed in all the nauseous, despicable forms which awkwardness and ignorance, lifted above their station, never fail to assume——the cold reserve, the affected stare, the listless nod, the feigned deafness, blindness, absence, and other fashionable perfections, which serve as vents for upstart arrogance, and indemnify the sycophant for the vile homage and submission which he has before paid some wretch mean and arrogant as himself!——I tell you, my dear Frederick, it is this Aristocratic usurpation of power, where power exists not, nor is necessary——this insulting assumption of superiority, this hidden petty oppression which rears its head in every manor, nay, almost every town and village in the Kingdom, that puts the Nations out of tune, mars the harmony of social arrangement, and renders power in the aggregate obnoxious. Why, our very women have their saucy, Aristocratic, supercilious front, their haughty stare, their contemptuous titter; and barter the winning softness of the sex, the dimples where the loves should dwell, for the haughty toss of the head, the ill-natured sneer, and the insulting Hector’s frown——And thus the spirit of Aristocracy, like a poisonous weed, grows and expands from one to the other with baleful luxuriance, gradually overspreading the whole face of humanity, stopping the wholesome current of the social atmosphere, and choaking up the less rank but more useful plants——Thus it goes round in shameful traffic; and, as the Poet says,
“The wh—re she kicks her cully,
Court-waiters are kick’d at call;
We are all kick’d, yet bully
While int’rest kicks the ball.”
I am persuaded, that if the grievances of the most despotic States were fairly estimated, and assigned to their real authors, the Princes of such States would be found responsible for a very small share indeed, when compared with the Aristocracy: and by Aristocracy, I mean not merely Lords, but all men who convert the wealth which Providence has bestowed upon them to the purposes of Tyranny, Exactions, Imposition, and Oppression——under which four heads we will again find, not only imprisonment for begging alms, imprisonment for shooting a partridge, but often seduction, adultery, and persecution for resisting or resorting to law for punishment of that seduction or adultery. Of all those things, the proofs, I fear, in all Nations, are abundant: I am sure they are so in the best governed State in Europe——I mean, England——-
“Qui capit, ille facit.”
I have thrown up a fool’s cap: how many are there who will privately put it on!