investing with one uniting halo, first the scenery, then the music itself, and lastly the human thoughts and feelings which remind him that
'Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever:'
embodying, in the oneness of the sensuous framework, the spiritual harmony of the whole inward and outward impression, the luscious languor, the stately splendor, the thoughts which follow into infinity the dying echoes of the air." This is true criticism, and is confirmatory of an impression which we have long entertained, that it requires something more than laborious pains-taking, something different, and better, than a mere careful selection of melodious or sounding words, and a felicitous collocation of them, to give a man a poetical reputation that is worth possessing.
The western lawyers, who "hire out their words and anger," are somewhat amenable to the charge brought against them by transatlantic writers, of looseness and bombast in their arguments and oratory. In a recent case of capital crime, before a far-western jury, the lawyer addressed to them, among other similar arguments, the following: "The Bible says, 'Thou shalt not kill!' Now do you know, gentlemen, that if you go to hang my client, the prisoner at the bar, that you commit murder? You do, and 'no mistake;' for murder is murder, whether it is committed by twelve men in what is called a box—and a 'bad box' you'll find it if you don't give a righteous verdict—or a humble individual, like my client. S'posing my client had killed a man; I say, s'posing he had; is that any reason why you should kill a man?—twelve of you on one! No, gentlemen of the jury, you may bring the prisoner at the bar, my client, in guilty; the hangman may do his duty, but will that exonerate you? No such thing! You will all, individually and collectively, you will all of you be murderers!" This profound argument had its effect. The verdict of the jury was: "Not guilty if he'll quit the State!"
Our neighbors across the water indulge themselves in occasional comments upon the personal ostentation and desire for external display, which they regard as the besetting folly of our people. There is an old adage of "Look at home," which it seems to us it would not be amiss for "honest John" to bear in mind. One of his own writers recently said, "An Englishman will forego a horse and cabriolet that will serve to convey him comfortably to his friends, and give him air, pleasure, and variety, if he can not do it in an expensive style and manner, mounting a lackey behind, bedaubed with gold lace. Pride, purse-pride, is the besetting sin of England; and like most other sins, brings its own punishment, by converting existence into a struggle, and environing it with gloom and despondency." This is a criticism, be it understood, of an Englishman upon Englishmen, in the present state of English society. Now to show how it was aforetime, and that what Bull charges us with, is a besetting sin and folly of his own, hear the quaint Thomas Nashe, who wrote in 1593:
"Englaund, the players' stage of gorgeous attyre, the ape of all nations' superfluities, the continuall masquer in outlandish habilements, great plenty-scanting calamities art thou to await, for wanton disguising thyself against kind, and digressing from the plainnesse of thine Auncesters; scandalous and shamefull is it, that not anie in thee (Fishermen and husbandmen set aside) but lyve above their ability and birth; that the outward habite (which in other countries is the only distinction of honour), shoulde yeelde in thee no difference of persons: that all thy auncient Nobilitie, (almost,) with this gorgeous prodigalitie, should be devoured and eaten uppe, and up-starts inhabite their stately Pallaces, who from farre have fetcht in this vanitie of pride to entrappe and to spoyle them. Those of thy people that in all other things are miserable, on their apparaile will be prodigal. No Lande can so unfallibly experience this proverbe, The hoode makes not the Moncke as thou: for Tailers, serving-men, Make-shifts, and Gentlemen in thee are confounded. For the compassment of bravery we hear theye will robbe, steale, cozen, cheate, betray their owne Fathers, sweare and forsweare, or doe any thing. Take away braverie, you kill the hart of lust and incontinencie. Wherefore doe men make themselves brave, but to riot and to revell? Looke after what state theyr apparaile is, that state they take to them and carry, and after a little accustoming to that carriage, persuade themselves they are such indeede."
There is that in the following brief social homily which renders it worthy of a better preservation than an inscription upon an unappropriated slip of paper in the "Drawer:" "There is no better evidence of ill-breeding than the practice of interrupting another in conversation while speaking, or commencing a remark before another has fully closed. No well-bred person ever does it, nor continues conversation long with a person who does do it. The latter often finds an interesting conversation abruptly waived, closed, or declined by the former, without even suspecting the cause. A well-bred person will not even interrupt one who is in all respects greatly his inferior. If you wish to judge the good-breeding of a person with whom you are but little acquainted, observe him, or her, strictly in this respect, and you will not be deceived. However intelligent, fluent, or easy one may appear, this practice proves the absence of true politeness. It is often amusing to see persons, priding themselves on the gentility of their manners, and putting forth all their efforts to appear to advantage in many other respects, so readily betray all in this particular."