12. CHAPTER XII
OF TITLES
The case of mere titles is so absurd that it would deserve to be treated
only with ridicule were it not for the serious mischiefs they impose on mankind.
The feudal system was a ferocious monster, devouring, wherever it came, all
that the friend of humanity regards with attachment and love. The system
of titles appears under a different form. The monster is at length destroyed,
and they who followed in his train, and fattened upon the carcases of those
he slew, have stuffed his skin, and, by exhibiting it, hope still to terrify
mankind into patience and pusillanimity. The system of the Northern invaders,
however odious, escaped the ridicule of the system of titles. When the feudal
chieftains assumed a geographical appellation, it was from some place really
subject to their authority; and there was no more absurdity in the style
they assumed than in our calling a man, at present, the governor of Tangiers
or the governor of Gibraltar. The commander in chief, or the sovereign, did
not then give an empty name; he conferred an earldom or a barony, a substantial
tract of land, with houses and men, and producing a real revenue. He now
grants nothing but a privilege, equivalent to that of calling yourself Tom,
who were beforetime called Will; and, to add to the absurdity, your new appellation
is borrowed from some place perhaps you never saw, or some country you never
visited. The style however is the same; we are still earls and barons, governors
of provinces and commanders of forts, and that with the same evident propriety
as the elector of Hanover, and arch treasurer of the empire, styles himself
king of France.
Can there be anything more ludicrous than that the man who was yesterday
Mr St John, the most eloquent speaker of the British house of commons, the
most penetrating thinker, the umpire of maddening parties, the restorer of
peace to bleeding and exhausted Europe, should be to-day lord Bolingbroke?[1]
In what is he become greater and more venerable than he was? In the pretended
favour of a stupid and besotted woman, who always hated him, as she uniformly
hated talents and virtue, though, for her own interest, she was obliged to
endure him.
The friends of a man upon whom a title has recently been conferred must
either be wholly blinded by the partiality of friendship, not to feel the
ridicule of his situation; or completely debased by the parasitical spirit
of dependence, not to betray their feelings. Every time they essay to speak,
they are in danger of blundering upon the inglorious appellations of Mr and
Sir.[1] Every time their tongue falters with unconfirmed practice, the question
rushes upon them with irresistible force. 'What change has my old friend
undergone; in what is he wiser or better, happier or more honourable?' The
first week of a new title is a perpetual war of the feelings in every spectator;
the genuine dictates of common sense, against the arbitrary institutions
of society. To make the farce more perfect, these titles are subject to perpetual
fluctuations, and the man who is to-day earl of Kensington will tomorrow
resign, with unblushing effrontery, all appearance of character and honour,
to be called marquis of Kew. History labours under the Gothic and unintelligible
burden; no mortal patience can connect the different stories, of him who
is to-day lord Kimbolton, and to-morrow earl of Manchester; to-day earl of
Mulgrave, and to-morrow marquis of Normanby and duke of Buckinghamshire.
The absurdity of these titles strikes us the more, because they are usually
the reward of intrigue and corruption. But, were it otherwise, still they
would be unworthy of the adherents of reason and justice. When we speak of
Mr St John, as of the man who by his eloquence swayed contending parties,
who withdrew the conquering sword from suffering France, and gave thirty
years of peace and calm pursuit of the arts of life and wisdom to mankind,
we speak of something eminently great. Can any title express these merits?
Is not truth the consecrated and single vehicle of justice? Is not the plain
and simple truth worth all the cunning substitutions in the world? Could
an oaken garland, or a gilded coronet, have added one atom to his real greatness?
Garlands and coronets may be bestowed on the unworthy, and prostituted to
the intriguing. Till mankind be satisfied with the naked statement of what
they really perceive, till they confess virtue to be then most illustrious,
when she most disdains the aid of ornament, they will never arrive at that
manly justice of sentiment at which they seem destined one day to arrive.
By this scheme of naked truth, virtue will be every day a gainer; every succeeding
observer will more fully do her justice, while vice, deprived of that varnish
with which she delighted to gloss her actions, of that gaudy exhibition which
may be made alike by every pretender, will speedily sink into unheeded contempt.
[ [1]]
Footnote 34 from Book V
[ [2]]
In reality these appellations are little less absurd than those by
which they are superseded.