CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. ON THE CONSTITUTION, GOVERNMENT AND LAWS, NATIONAL INDUSTRY, LITERATURE, SCIENCE, FINE ARTS, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.
WE feel that the length of the above heading to this, the concluding chapter of the volume, will be sufficient to provoke the legal reader into making a charge for "perusing title and examining same," but we promise to make our clauses as pertinent as the magnet to the loadstone. Having already, in the course of preceding chapters, touched upon most of the subjects noticed in the abstract of title to which we allude, it will be unnecessary to hold the reader very long by the button; but perceiving him getting ready to run away, as the curtain falls upon George the Second, we cannot help exclaiming, "Stop a minute or two, we've got just half a dozen more words to say to you!"
The constitution is the first topic on which we have still to touch, and that is a theme which every true patriot loves to dwell upon. We have no hesitation in saying that our beloved country must have the constitution of a horse, to have gone through one-half the severe trials it has experienced. It is apparently peculiar to the soil; for, though the prescription for making it up has been given to other nations, and has been accurately prepared by some of the ablest political druggists, it has never been swallowed abroad, or, if rammed down the throats of rulers or people, it does not seem to have agreed very well with either one or the other. The British constitution is a thing sui generis, like the delicious bun of Chelsea, the acknowledged brick of Bath, and the recognised toffy of Everton. It is vain for other nations to hope that they may have their own materials made up into the pattern they so much admire; for the attempt would be quite as abortive, and almost as unwise, as the effort to make a genuine Romford stove away from Romford, Epsom salts half a mile out of Epsom, Windsor Soap beyond the walls of Windsor, and the genuine Brighton rock anywhere in the world but in the very heart of Brighton. The British constitution must be like home-brewed beer, and even more than that, it must be enjoyed where it is brewed; or, in other words—to draw off one more figure from the cask—it must be "drunk on the premises." The most eloquent of foreign nations cannot come and fetch it, as it were, in their own jugs, however they may foam and froth about it in their own mugs when they carry it in their mouths by making it the subject of their speeches.
The durability of the British constitution, its fitness for wear and tear, has been exemplified in the wonderful manner in which it has survived the rubs that from the hands of party it has experienced. This reflection naturally brings into our mind the terms Whig and Tory, into which politicians were divided, until modern statesmanship introduced us to a new class of principles, that may be called, concisely and comprehensively, the Conservative-Whig-Radical.
The words Whig and Tory came into use, and into abuse also, about the year 1679, and their own origin has been traced with wonderful ingenuity, for the derivation has nothing to do with the derivative, according to these ingenious speculations; and if we may trust Roger North—a little too far north for us, by-the-bye—Tory is allied to Tantivy, without the smallest apparent reason for the relationship. It would, perhaps, save a great deal of trouble to keep a register of philological next-of-kin; and we are sure that if something a little nearer than Tantivy could come forward to claim affinity with Tory, the noun, verb, or any other part of speech it might chance to be, would "hear of something to its advantage." The word Whig seems to be utterly without orthographical heirs-at-law, for no attempt has been made to get at its pedigree.
National Industry advanced materially during the period we have just described, and among other things, the glass, which had been hitherto imported chiefly from France, began to be seen through by the English manufacturer.
Literature and the Arts flourished in the reigns we have lately gone through; and Architecture took very high ground, or indeed any ground it could get, for the execution of its projects.
Periodical Literature rose in great brilliancy at about the time we have described, and the union of such writers as Steele, Addison, and Swift, in one little paper, must have formed a combination that should have been kept back until the days of advertising vans and gigantic posting-bills, enabling the parties interested to make the most of the "concentration of talent," which might have been the cry of every dead wall in the metropolis.
The manners and customs of the period were not particularly attractive, being, under the two Georges at least, far more German than Germane to our English notions of refinement. In dress, there was somewhat of an approach to the costume of our own days; and the scarcity of hair on the head began to be supplied by that friend of man, the horse, from whom the Barrister had since prayed a tales to furnish the wig, which is considered essential to his forensic dignity.
The military costume of the time of George the Second is chiefly remarkable for the hats worn by the soldiers, which were something in appearance between the fool's cap and the bishop's mitre, as we find from one of Hogarth's drawings.
The condition of the people was not very enviable in the seventeenth or even the eighteenth centuries; and indeed all classes were very ill-conditioned; for morality was lax, education was limited, poverty was abundant, extravagance was very common, and wealth extremely insolent.
Such being the state of the people and the country at this period, we cannot be sorry to get out of their company, though it is not without some regret that we bid farewell for a time to our History. In the course of this work we have rowed in the same galley with Cæsar, stood up to our ankles in sea-water with Canute, run after the Mussulman's daughter with Gilbert à Beckett, wielded a battle-axe with Richard on the field of Bosworth, smoked a pipe and eaten a potato with Sir Walter Raleigh, danced with Sir Christopher Hatton on Clerkenwell Green, and sailed round the bay that bears his name with honest Bill Baffin: all these adventures have we enjoyed in imagination, that beau ideal of a railway, with nothing to pay and no fear of accidents.
We have at length arrived at a station, where we stop for the purpose of refreshment; but we hope to resume our journey, and proceed in the ordinary train, touching by the way at all stations, high and low, to the terminus we have set our eye upon.