Millions, however, seem to think otherwise, by their servile adoration of people whom, without rank, wealth, and fine clothes, they would consider infamous; but whom, possessed of rank, wealth, and glittering habiliments, they seem to admire all the more for their profligacy and crimes. Does not a blood-spot or a lust-spot on the clothes of a blooming emperor give a kind of zest to the genteel young god? Do not the pride, superciliousness, and selfishness of a certain aristocracy make it all the more regarded by its worshippers? And do not the clownish and gutter-blood admirers of Mr. Flamson like him all the more because they are conscious that he is a knave? If such is the case—and, alas! is it not the case?—they cannot be too frequently told that fine clothes, wealth, and titles adorn a person in proportion as he adorns them; that if worn by the magnanimous and good they are ornaments indeed, but if by the vile and profligate they are merely san benitos, and only serve to make their infamy doubly apparent; and that a person in seedy raiment and tattered hat, possessed of courage, kindness, and virtue, is entitled to more respect from those to whom his virtues are manifested than any cruel profligate emperor, selfish aristocrat, or knavish millionaire in the world.
The writer has no intention of saying that all in England are affected with the absurd mania for gentility; nor is such a statement made in the book; it is shown therein that individuals of various classes can prize a gentleman, notwithstanding seedy raiment, dusty shoes, or tattered hat—for example, the young Irishman, the rich genius, the postillion, and his employer. Again, when the life of the hero is given to the world, amidst the howl about its lowness and vulgarity, raised by the servile crew whom its independence of sentiment has stung, more than one powerful voice has been heard testifying approbation of its learning and the purity of its morality. That there is some salt in England—minds not swayed by mere externals—he is fully convinced; if he were not, he would spare himself the trouble of writing; but to the fact that the generality of his countrymen are basely grovelling before the shrine of what they are pleased to call gentility he cannot shut his eyes.
Oh! what a clever person that Cockney was, who, travelling in the Aberdeen railroad carriage, after edifying the company with his remarks on various subjects, gave it as his opinion that Lieutenant P--- [337] would, in future, be shunned by all respectable society! And what a simple person that elderly gentleman was, who, abruptly starting, asked, in rather an authoritative voice, ‘And why should Lieutenant P--- be shunned by respectable society?’ and who, after entering into what was said to be a masterly analysis of the entire evidence of the case, concluded by stating, ‘that having been accustomed to all kinds of evidence all his life, he had never known a case in which the accused had obtained a more complete and triumphant justification than Lieutenant P--- had done in the late trial.’
Now, the Cockney, who is said to have been a very foppish Cockney, was perfectly right in what he said, and therein manifested a knowledge of the English mind and character, and likewise of the modern English language, to which his catechist, who, it seems, was a distinguished member of the Scottish Bar, could lay no pretensions. The Cockney knew what the Lord of Session knew not—that the British public is gentility crazy—and he knew, moreover, that gentility and respectability are synonymous. No one in England is genteel or respectable that is ‘looked at,’ who is the victim of oppression. He may be pitied for a time, but when did not pity terminate in contempt? A poor, harmless young officer!—but why enter into the details of the infamous case? They are but too well known, and if ever, cruelty, pride, and cowardice, and things much worse than even cruelty, cowardice, and pride, were brought to light, and at the same time countenanced, they were in that case. What availed the triumphant justification of the poor victim? There was at first a roar of indignation against his oppressors, but how
long did it last? He had been turned out of the service, they remained in it with their red coats and epaulets; he was merely the son of a man who had rendered good service to his country, they were, for the most part, highly connected; they were in the extremest degree genteel, he quite the reverse. So the nation wavered, considered, thought the genteel side was the safest after all, and then, with the cry of, ‘Oh, there is nothing like gentility,’ ratted bodily. Newspaper and public turned against the victim, scouted him, apologized for the—what should they be called?—who were not only admitted into the most respectable society, but courted to come, the spots, not merely of wine, on their military clothes giving them a kind of poignancy. But there is a God in heaven; the British glories are tarnished—Providence has never smiled on British arms since that case—oh, Balaklava! thy name interpreted is net of fishes, and well dost thou deserve that name. How many a scarlet golden fish has of late perished in the mud amidst thee, cursing the genteel service and the genteel leader which brought him to such a doom!
Whether the rage for gentility is most prevalent amongst the upper, middle, or lower classes it is difficult to say; the priest, in the text, seems to think that it is exhibited in the most decided manner in the middle class; it is the writer’s opinion, however, that in no class is it more strongly developed than in the lower; what they call being well born goes a great way amongst them, but the possession of money much farther, whence Mr. Flamson’s influence over them. Their rage against, and scorn for, any person who by his courage and talents has advanced himself in life, and still remains poor, are indescribable: ‘He is no better than ourselves,’ they say; ‘why should he be above us?’ For they have no conception that anybody has a right to ascendancy over themselves except by birth or money. This feeling amongst the vulgar has been, to a certain extent, the bane of the two services, naval and military. The writer does not make this assertion rashly; he observed this feeling at work in the army when a child, and he has good reason for believing that it was as strongly at work in the navy at the same time, and is still as prevalent in both. Why are not brave men raised from the ranks? is frequently the cry; why are not brave sailors promoted? The Lord help brave soldiers and sailors who are promoted! They have less to undergo from the high airs of their brother-officers, and those are hard enough to endure, than from the insolence of the men. Soldiers and sailors promoted to command are said to be in general tyrants; in nine cases out of ten, when they are tyrants, they have been obliged to have recourse to extreme severity in order to protect themselves from the insolence and mutinous spirit of the men: ‘He is no better than ourselves; shoot him, bayonet him, or fling him overboard!’
they say of some obnoxious individual raised above them by his merit. Soldiers and sailors, in general, will bear any amount of tyranny from a lordly sot, or the son of a man who has ‘plenty of brass’—their own term—but will mutiny against the just orders of a skilful and brave officer who ‘is no better than themselves.’ There was the affair of the Bounty, for example: Bligh was one of the best seamen that ever trod deck, and one of the bravest of men; proofs of his seamanship he gave by steering, amidst dreadful weather, a deeply-laden boat for nearly four thousand miles over an almost unknown ocean; of his bravery at the fight of Copenhagen, one of the most desperate ever fought, of which, after Nelson, he was the hero; he was, moreover, not an unkind man; but the crew of the Bounty mutinied against him, and set him, half-naked, in an open boat, with certain of his men who remained faithful to him, and ran away with the ship. Their principal motive for doing so was an idea, whether true or groundless the writer cannot say, that Bligh was ‘no better than themselves’; he was certainly neither a lord’s illegitimate, nor possessed of twenty thousand pounds. The writer knows what he is writing about, having been acquainted in his early years with an individual who was turned adrift with Bligh, and who died about the year ’22, a lieutenant in the navy, in a provincial town in which the writer was brought up. The ringleaders in the mutiny were two scoundrels, Christian and Young, who had great influence with the crew, because they were genteelly connected. Bligh, after leaving the Bounty, had considerable difficulty in managing the men who had shared his fate, because they considered themselves ‘as good men as he,’ notwithstanding that to his conduct and seamanship they had alone to look, under heaven, for salvation from the ghastly perils that surrounded them. Bligh himself, in his journal, alludes to this feeling. Once, when he and his companions landed on a desert island, one of them said, with a mutinous look, that he considered himself ‘as good a man as he’; Bligh, seizing a cutlass, called upon him to take another and defend himself, whereupon the man said that Bligh was going to kill him, and made all manner of concessions. Now, why did this fellow consider himself as good a man as Bligh? Was he as good a seaman? No, nor a tenth part as good. As brave a man? No, nor a tenth part as brave; and of these facts he was perfectly well aware, but bravery and seamanship stood for nothing with him, as they still stand with thousands of his class. Bligh was not genteel by birth or money, therefore Bligh was no better than himself. Had Bligh, before he sailed, got a twenty thousand pound prize in the lottery, he would have experienced no insolence from this fellow, for there would have been no mutiny in the Bounty. ‘He is our betters,’ the crew would have said, ‘and it is our duty to obey him.’
The wonderful power of gentility in England is exemplified in nothing more than in what it is producing amongst Jews, gypsies, and Quakers. It is breaking up their venerable communities. All the better, someone will say. Alas! alas! It is making the wealthy Jews forsake the synagogue for the opera-house, or the gentility chapel, in which a disciple of Mr. Platitude, in a white surplice, preaches a sermon at noon-day from a desk, on each side of which is a flaming taper. It is making them abandon their ancient literature, their ‘Mischna,’ their ‘Gemara,’ their ‘Zohar,’ for gentility novels, ‘The Young Duke,’ the most unexceptionably genteel book ever written, being the principal favourite. It makes the young Jew ashamed of the young Jewess; it makes her ashamed of the young Jew. The young Jew marries an opera dancer, or if the dancer will not have him, as is frequently the case, the cast-off Miss of the Honourable Spencer So-and-so. It makes the young Jewess accept the honourable offer of a cashiered lieutenant of the Bengal Native Infantry; or if such a person does not come forward, the dishonourable offer of a cornet of a regiment of crack hussars. It makes poor Jews, male and female, forsake the synagogue for the sixpenny theatre or penny hop; the Jew to take up with an Irish female of loose character, and the Jewess with a musician of the Guards, or the Tipperary servant of Captain Mulligan. With respect to the gypsies, it is making the women what they never were before—harlots; and the men what they never were before—careless fathers and husbands. It has made the daughter of Ursula the chaste take up with the base-drummer of a wild-beast show. It makes Gorgiko Brown, [340] the gypsy man, leave his tent and his old wife of an evening, and thrust himself into society which could well dispense with him. ‘Brother,’ said Mr. Petulengro the other day to the Romany Rye, after telling him many things connected with the decadence of gypsyism, ‘there is one Gorgiko Brown, who, with a face as black as a tea-kettle, wishes to be mistaken for a Christian tradesman; he goes into the parlour of a third-rate inn of an evening, calls for rum-and-water, and attempts to enter into conversation with the company about politics and business. The company flout him or give him the cold shoulder, or perhaps complain to the landlord, who comes and asks him what business he has in the parlour, telling him if he wants to drink to go into the tap-room, and perhaps collars him and kicks him out, provided he refuses to move.’ With respect to the Quakers, it makes the young people, like the young Jews, crazy after gentility diversions, worship, marriages, or connections, and makes old Pease do what it makes Gorgiko Brown do—thrust himself into society which could well dispense with him, and out of which he is not kicked, because, unlike the gypsy, he is
not poor. The writer would say much more on these points, but want of room prevents him; he must therefore request the reader to have patience until he can lay before the world a pamphlet, which he has been long meditating, to be entitled ‘Remarks on the strikingly similar Effects which a Love for Gentility has produced, and is producing, amongst Jews, Gypsies, and Quakers.’
The Priest in the book has much to say on the subject of this gentility nonsense; no person can possibly despise it more thoroughly than that very remarkable individual seems to do, yet he hails its prevalence with pleasure, knowing the benefits which will result from it to the church of which he is the sneering slave. ‘The English are mad after gentility,’ says he; ‘well, all the better for us. Their religion for a long time past has been a plain and simple one, and consequently by no means genteel; they’ll quit it for ours, which is the perfection of what they admire; with which Templars, Hospitalers, mitred abbots, Gothic abbeys, long-drawn aisles, golden censers, incense, et cetera, are connected; nothing, or next to nothing, of Christ, it is true, but weighed in the balance against gentility, where will Christianity be? why, kicking against the beam—ho! ho!’ And in connection with the gentility nonsense he expatiates largely, and with much contempt, on a species of literature by which the interests of his church in England have been very much advanced—all genuine priests have a thorough contempt for everything which tends to advance the interests of their church—this literature is made up of pseudo-Jacobitism, Charlie o’er the waterism, or nonsense about Charlie o’er the water. And the writer will now take the liberty of saying a few words about it on his own account.