Coelebs In Search of a Wife

by Hannah More

Before she had time to answer, Mr. Flam said: "Let me tell you, Miss Sparkes, that as to triumphs, our heroes are so used to them at sea, that they would laugh at them at home. Those who obtain triumphs as often as they meet their enemies, would despise such holiday play among their friends. We don't to be sure reward them as your ancients did. We don't banish them, nor put them to death for saving their country like your Athenians. We don't pay them with a trumpery wreath like your Romans. We English don't put our conquerors off with leaves; we give them fruits, as cheerfully bestowed as they are fairly earned. God bless them! I would reduce my table to one dish, my hall to one servant, my stable to one saddle-horse, and my kennel to one pointer, rather than abridge the preservers of old England of a feather."

"Signal exploits, if nationally beneficial," said Sir John, "deserve substantial remuneration; and I am inclined to think that public honors are valuable, not only as rewards but incitements. They are as politic as they are just. When Miltiades and his illustrious ten thousand gained their immortal victory, would not a Blenheim erected on the plains of Marathon, have stimulated unborn soldiers more than the little transitory columns which barely recorded the names of the victors?"

"What warrior," said Mr. Carlton, "will hereafter visit the future palace of Trafalgar without reverence? A reverence, the purity of which will be in no degree impaired by contemplating such an additional motive to emulation."

In answer to some further observations of Miss Sparkes, on the superiority of the ancient to British patriotism, Mr. Flam, whose indignation now provoked him to display his whole stock of erudition, eagerly exclaimed: "Do you call that patriotism in your favorite Athenians, to be so fond of raree-shows, as not only to devote the money of the state to the play-house, but to make it capital to divert a little of it to the wants of the gallant soldiers who were fighting their battles? I hate to hear fellows called patriots who preferred their diversions to their country."

Then erecting himself as if he felt the taller for being an Englishman, he added—"What, Madam Sparkes, would your Greeks have said to a Patriotic Fund by private contribution, of nearly half a million, in the midst of heavy taxes and a tedious war, voluntarily raised and cheerfully given to the orphans, widows, and mothers of their brave countrymen, who fell in their defense? Were the poor soldiers who fought under your Cimons, and your ——, I forget their names, ever so kindly remembered? Make it out that they were—show me such a spirit among your ancients, and I'll turn republican to-morrow."

Miss Sparkes having again said something which he thought tended to exalt the ancient states at the expense of our own country, Mr. Flam indignantly replied—"Tell me, madam, did your Athens, or your Sparta, or your Rome, ever take in seven thousand starving priests driven from a country with which they were at war; a country they had reason to hate, of a religion they detested? Did they ever receive them, I say, maintain them like gentlemen, and caress them like friends? If you can bring me one such instance, I will give up Old England, and turn Greek, or Roman, or—any thing but Frenchman."

"I should be inclined," said Mr. Stanley, "to set down that noble deed to the account of our national religion, as well as of our national generosity."

Miss Sparkes said, "In one respect, however, Mr. Flam imitates the French whom he is abusing. He is very apt to triumph where he has gained no victory. If you hear his account of a defeat, you would take it, like theirs, for a conquest." She added, however, that there were illustrious men in other countries beside our own, as their successes testified. For her part, she was a citizen of the world, and honored heroes wherever they were found, in Macedon, in Sweden, or even in France.

"True enough," rejoined Mr. Flam, "the rulers of other countries have gone about and delivered kingdoms as we are doing; but there is this difference: they free them from mild masters, to make them their own slaves; we neither get them for ourselves or our minions, our brothers, or cousins, our Jeromes, or Josephs. We raise the weak, they pull down the prosperous. If we redeem kingdoms, 'tis to bestow them on their own lawful kings. If we help this nation, 'tis to recall one sovereign from banishment, if we assist that, 'tis to deliver him from captivity."

"What a scene for Spain," said Sir John, "to behold in us their own national Quixotism soberly exemplified, and rationally realized! The generous theory of their romantic knight-errant brought into actual practice. The fervor without the absurdity; the sound principle of justice without the extravagance of fancy! Wrongs redressed and rights restored, and upon the grandest scale! Deliverance wrought, not for imaginary princesses, but for deposed and imprisoned monarchs! Injuries avenged—not the ideal injuries of ridiculous individuals, but the substantial wrongs of plundered empires!"