Cobbett's Opinion.
"I, who have seen so many towns, think this the prettiest and most happy looking I ever saw in my life." There's praise for you! But, then, he had never seen Dunfermline. Here is a characteristic touch of that rare, horse-sense kind of a man. He is enraptured over the vale of Chilworth.
"Here, in this tranquil spot, where the nightingales are to be heard earlier and later in the year than in any other part of England, where the first budding of the trees is seen in the spring, where no rigor of seasons can ever be felt, where everything seems framed for precluding the very thought of wickedness—this has the devil fixed on as one of his seats of his grand manufactory, and perverse and even ungrateful man not only lends his aid, but lends it cheerfully."
Since those days, friend Cobbett, the devil has much enlarged his business in gunpowder and bank notes, of which you complain. He was only making a start when you wrote. The development of manufactures in America (under a judicious tariff, be it reverently spoken), amazing as it has been, and carried on as a rule by the saints, is slow work compared with what his satanic majesty has been doing in these two departments. We must bestir ourselves betimes.
You remember Artemus Ward's encounter with the colporteur. After a long, dusty day's journey, arriving at the hotel, he applied to the barkeeper for a mint-julep, and just as Artemus was raising the tempting draught to his lips, a hand was laid upon his arm and the operation arrested. The missionary in embryo said in a kind of sepulchral tone, for he was only a beginner and had not yet reached that true professional voice which comes only after years of exhortation: "My friend, look not upon the wine when it is red. It stingeth like a serpent and it biteth as an adder." "Guess not, stranger," replied Artemus, "not if you put sugar in it."
It is just so with bank-notes, friend Cobbett. They don't bite worth a cent, neither do they sting, if you have government bonds behind them. But this was not understood in your day. The Republic had not then shown to the world the model system of banking. The objection made to it by others, viz., that founded as it is upon the obligations of the nation, its discredit involves the fall of private credit, counts for little to a republican. We would not give much for the man who is not willing to stake "his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor" upon the solvency of the Republic. Pitiable is the man who could think of his petty private means when his country was in peril. When the Republic falls, let us also fall.
There is a funny thing in this guide-book. "There also resides Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper, the author of 'Proverbial Philosophy,' etc. He has eulogized the scene around as follows." Then come two pages of Tupper. I naturally looked to see the name of the author of the book, but none was given. Such modesty! But the case is a clear one, for who but Tupper would quote Tupper! "Sir," said Johnson to Bossy, "Sir, I never did the man an injury in my life, and yet he would persist in reading his tragedy to me." Here's the concluding quotation from the guide-book of Guildford, and the Scribe promises not to quote much more from any similar source. Cobbett says that in Albury Park he saw some plants of the "American cranberry, which not only grow here, but bear fruit, and therefore it is clear that they may be cultivated with great ease in this country."
American Blessings.
Potatoes, tomatoes, and cranberries—look at the great blessings America has bestowed upon the "author of her being;" and what won't grow in the rain and fog of the old home, doesn't she grow for her and send over by every steamer, from canvas-back ducks to Newtown pippins! Thackeray was right in saying one night, when some friends were disposed to criticise America, "Ah! well, gentlemen, much can be pardoned to a country which produces the canvas-back duck." At dinner-tables in England, nowadays, to the usual grace, "O Lord! for what we are about to receive make us truly thankful," should be added, "and render us truly grateful to our big son Jonathan, God bless him!"
One could settle down at the White Lion in Guildford, and spend a month, at least, visiting every day fresh objects of interest, and I have no doubt becoming day by day more charmed with the life he was leading. In every direction historical scenes, crowded full of instructive stories of the past, invite us: and yet to-morrow morning the horn will sound, and we shall be off, reluctantly saying to ourselves, we must return some day when we have leisure, and wander in and around, absorb and moralize. This rapid survey is only to show us what we can do hereafter. A summer to each county would not be too much, and here are eight hundred miles from sea to firth to be rushed over in seven weeks. Guildford, farewell!—on "to fresh woods and pastures new."