 | ENGLISH GRAVITY. Bracebridge Hall, or, The humorists |  |
ENGLISH GRAVITY.
Merrie England!
Ancient Phrase.
There is nothing so rare as for a man to
ride his hobby without molestation. I find the
Squire has been repeatedly thwarted in his humours,
and has suffered a kind of well meaning
persecution of late, by a Mr. Faddy, an old gentleman
of some weight, at least of purse, who
has moved into the neighbourhood. He is a
worthy manufacturer, who having accumulated
a large fortune by steam and spinning jennies,
has retired from business, and buried himself in
the shades of the country.
He has taken an old country seat, and refitted
it and painted it, until it looks not unlike his
own manufactory. He has been particularly
putting up notices of spring guns and men traps
in every part of his premises. Indeed, he shows
great jealousy in asserting his territorial rights,
having stopped up a foot path that led across
one of his fields, and given notice, in staring
letters, that “whoever was found trespassing
on these grounds would be prosecuted with
the utmost rigour of the law.” He has brought
into the country with him all his trite maxims
and practical habits of business; and is
one of those intolerably prosing, sensible, useful,
troublesome old gentlemen, that go about
wearying and worrying society with plans of
public utility.
He is very much disposed to be on good
terms with the Squire, and is every now and
then calling upon him with some excellent measure
for the good of the neighbourhood; which
happens to run diametrically opposite to some
one or other of the Squire's peculiar notions;
but which is “too sensible a measure” to be
openly opposed.
Thus he has annoyed him excessively by enforcing
the vagrant laws, expelling the gypsies,
punishing poachers, and endeavouring to suppress
country wakes and rustic games, which
he considers great nuisances, and causes of the
deadly sin of idleness. I have observed, however,
that the manufacturer is gradually swelling
into the aristocrat; he is losing sight of his
origin, or fancying that others have lost sight of
it, and is attempting, in a casual way, to shuffle
himself into the pack of gentility. He has a
great deal to say about the “common people;”
talks of his park, his gamekeeper, and the necessity
of keeping up the game laws; and
makes frequent use of the phrase, “the gentry
of the neighbourhood.”
He came to the Hall lately with a face full of
business, to consult with the Squire about some
mode of putting a stop to the frolicking at the village
on the approaching May-day, as it drew idle
people together from all parts of the neighbourhood,
who spent the day fiddling, and drinking,
for their families. As the Squire is at the bottom
of these May-day revels, it may be supposed
that the suggestions of the matter-of-fact,
Mr. Faddy were not received with the best grace
in the world. After he was gone the Squire could
not contain his indignation at having his poetical
cobwebs invaded by this buzzing blue bottle
fly of traffick.
In the warmth of his feelings he made a
whimsical tirade at the whole race of manufacturers,
whom he accused of being the marrers
of the face of the country, and the destroyers of
rural manners. “Sir,” said he with emotion,
“it makes my heart bleed to see all our fine
streams dammed up and bestrode by cotton
mills; our valleys smoking with steam engines;
to hear the din of the hammer and the loom
scaring away all our rural delights; to see our
sturdy peasantry metamorphosed into pin makers
and stocking weavers; and merry Sherwood,
and all the green wood haunts of Robin
Hood, covered with manufacturing towns.
“Sir, I have stood on the tottering ruins of
Dudley Castle, and looked round with an aching
heart, on what were once beautiful vales and
fertile hills, now turned into a mere Campus
Phlegræ. The whole country reeking with
coal pits; a region of fire, where furnaces and
smelting houses were vomiting forth flames and
smoke. The people, pale and ghastly, looked
more like demons than human beings, as they
toiled among these noxious exhalations; and the
clanking wheels and engines seen through the
murky atmosphere, looked like instruments of
torture in this terrestrial pandemonium! What
is to become of the country with these evils rankling
in its very core? Sir, these manufacturers
will be the ruin of the national character! They
will not leave materials for a line of poetry!”
There was something in this lamentation
over public improvements and national industry
that amused me exceedingly; but I find that the
Squire really grieves over the growing spirit of
trade as destroying the charm of life. He considers
every new short-hand mode of doing things
that this will soon become a mere matter-of-fact
world, where life will be reduced to a mathematical
calculation of conveniences, and every
thing will be done by steam.
He maintains, also, that the nation has declined
in its free and joyous spirit, in proportion
as it has turned its attention to commerce and
manufactures; and that in old times, when England
was an idler, it was also a merrier little
island.
Indeed, the old gentleman adduces a number
of authorities, that in some measure bear him
out in his notions. If we may judge from the
frequency and extravagance of ancient festivals
and merry-makings, and the hearty spirit with
which they were kept up by all classes of people,
the English were a much gayer people than
at present.
Stow, in his survey of London, gives us many
animating pictures of the revels on holydays, at
the inns of court, and the mummeries, masquings,
and bonfires about the streets. London then
and amusements.
The court used to dance after dinner on public
occasions. After the coronation dinner of
Richard II. the king, the prelates, the nobles,
the knights, and the rest of the company, danced
in Westminster Hall to the music of the minstrels.
The example of the court was followed by
the middling classes, who spent much of the
time in dancing.
Stow gives us a gay city picture, that resembles
the lively groups one may often see in Paris;
for he tells us, that on holydays, after
evening prayers, the maidens used to assemble
before the door, in sight of their masters and
dames, and while one played on a timbrel, the
others would dance for garlands hanged athwart
the street.
Of the gayety that prevailed in dress throughout
all ranks of society, we have abundant testimony
in the rich and fanciful costumes preserved
in books and paintings. “I have myself,” says
in his silk stockins, garters deepe fringed with
gold lace, the rest of his apparell suitable, with
cloake lined with velvet.” Nashe, too, who
wrote in 1593, exclaims at the folly and finery
of the nation. “England, the players' stage of
gorgeous attyre, the ape of all nations' superfluities,
the continual masquer in outlandish habiliments.”
These and many such authorities are quoted
by the Squire, by way of contrasting the former
spirit and vivacity of the nation with its present
monotonous habits and appearance. “John
Bull,” he will say, “was then a gay cavalier,
with a feather in his cap and a sword by his side;
but he is now a plodding citizen, in snuff coloured
coat and gaiters.”
But what in fact has caused such a decline
of gayety in the national character, that the
country has almost lost all right to its favourite
old title of “Merry England?” It may be attributed
in part to the growing hardships of the
times, and the necessity of turning the whole attention
gayest customs prevailed at times when
her common people enjoyed comparatively few
of the comforts and conveniences that they do
at present. It may be still more attributed to
the universal spirit of gain, and the calculating
habits of business that commerce has introduced;
but I am inclined to attribute it chiefly to the
gradual increase of the liberty of the subject,
and the general freedom and activity of opinion.
A free people are apt to be grave and thoughtful.
They have high and important matters to
occupy their thoughts. They feel it is their
right, their interest, and their duty, to mingle in
public concerns, and to watch over the general
welfare.
The continual exercise of the mind on political
topics gives intenser habits of thinking, and
a more serious and earnest demeanour. A nation
becomes less gay, but more intellectually
active and vigorous. It evinces less play of
the fancy, but more power of the imagination;
less taste and elegance, but more grandeur of
It is when men are shut out of the regions of
manly thought, by a despotic government; when
every grave and lofty theme is rendered perilous to
discussion and almost to reflection; it is then that
they turn to the safer occupations of taste and
amusement, trifles rise to importance, and occupy
the craving activity of intellect.
No being is more void of care and reflection
than the slave; none dances more gayly in his
intervals of labour; but make him free, give
him rights and interests to guard, and he becomes
thoughtful and laborious.
The French are a gayer people than the English.
Why? Partly from temperament perhaps;
but greatly because they have been accustomed
to governments which surrounded the free exercise
of thought with danger, and where he only
was safe who shut his eyes and ears to public
events, and enjoyed the passing pleasure of the
day. Within late years they have had more opportunities
of exercising their minds, and within
changed. Never did the French enjoy such a
degree of freedom as they do at this moment;
and at this moment the French are comparatively
a grave people.
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