Of the Mercantile class, Mr. Smith, in his drawing-room after dinner, p. 222, vol. 80.
And of the Noblesse, the first five gentlemen on the right (spectator's right) of the line, in the ball at Stilton House, (July 3d, 1880).
136. Of the manner or state of lout, to which our manufacturing prosperity has reduced its artisan, as represented in the first of these frescoes, I do not think it needful to speak here; neither of the level of sublime temperament and unselfish heroism to which the dangers of commercial enterprise have exalted Mr. Smith. But the five consecutive heads in the third fresco are a very notable piece of English history, representing the polished and more or less lustrous type of lout; which is indeed a kind of rolled shingle of former English noblesse capable of nothing now in the way of resistance to Atlantic liberalism, except of getting itself swept up into ugly harbor bars, and troublesome shoals in the tideway.
And observe also, that of the three types of lout, whose combined chorus and tripudiation leads the present British Constitution its devil's dance, this last and smoothest type is also the dullest. Your operative lout cannot indeed hold his cup of coffee with a grace, or possess himself of a biscuit from Lady Clara's salver without embarrassment; but, in his own mill, he can at least make a needle without an eye, or a nail without a head, or a knife that won't cut, or something of that sort, with dexterity. Also, the middle class, or Smithian lout, at least manages his stockbroking or marketing with decision and cunning; knows something by eye or touch of his wares, and something of the characters of the men he has to deal with. But the Ducal or Marquisian lout has no knowledge of anything under the sun, except what sort of horse's quarters will carry his own, farther weighted with that smooth block or pebble of a pow; and no faculty under the sun of doing anything, except cutting down the trees his fathers planted for him, and selling the lands his fathers won.
137. That is indeed the final result of hunting and horse-racing on the British landlord. Of its result on the British soldier, perhaps the figures of Lord George Sackville at the battle of Minden, and of Lord Raglan at the battle of Alma, (who in the first part of the battle did not know where he was, and in the second plumed himself on being where he had no business to be,) are as illustrative as any I could name; but the darkest of all, to my own thinking, are the various personages, civil and military, who have conducted the Caffre war to its last successes, of blowing women and children to death with dynamite, and harrying the lands of entirely innocent peasantry, because they would not betray their defeated king.
138. Of the due and noble relations between man and his companion creatures, the horse, dog, and falcon, enough has been said in my former writings—unintelligible enough to a chivalry which passes six months of its annual life in Rotten Row, and spends the rents of its Cumberland Hills in building furnaces round Furness Abbey; but which careful students either of past knighthood, or of future Christianity, will find securely and always true. For the relations between man and his beast of burden, whether the burden be himself or his goods, become beautiful and honorable, just in the degree that both creatures are useful to the rest of mankind, whether in war or peace. The Greeks gave the highest symbol of them in the bridling of Pegasus for Bellerophon by Athena; and from that myth you may go down to modern times—understanding, according to your own sense and dignity, what all prophecy, poetry, history, have told you—of the horse whose neck is clothed with thunder, or the ox who treadeth out the corn—of Joseph's chariot, or of Elijah's—of Achilles and Xanthus—Herminius and Black Auster—down to Scott and Brown Adam—or Dandie Dinmont and Dumple. That pastoral one is, of all, the most enduring. I hear the proudest tribe of Arabia Felix is now reduced by poverty and civilization to sell its last well-bred horse; and that we send out our cavalry regiments to repetitions of the charge at Balaclava, without horses at all; those that they can pick up wherever they land being good enough for such military operations. But the cart-horse will remain, when the charger and hunter are no more; and with a wiser master.
"I'll buy him, for the dogs shall never
Set tooth upon a friend so true;
He'll not live long; but I forever
Shall know I gave the beast his due.