University of Virginia Library

ENGLISH
COUNTRY GENTLEMEN.

Phineas Fletcher.

I take great pleasure in accompanying the
Squire in his perambulations about his estate,
in which he is often attended by a kind of cabinet
council. His prime minister, the steward, is a
very worthy and honest old man, and one of those
veteran retainers that assume a right of way;
that is to say, a right to have his own way, from
having lived time out of mind on the place. He
loves the estate even better than he does the

Squire, and thwarts the latter sadly in many of
his projects of improvement and alteration. Indeed,
the old man is a little apt to oppose every
plan that does not originate with himself, and
will hold long arguments about it, over a stile,
or on a rise of ground, until the Squire, who has
a high opinion of his ability and integrity, is fain
to give up the point. Such concession immediately
mollifies the old steward; and it often happens,
that after walking a field or two in silence
with his hands behind his back, chewing the cud
of reflection, he will suddenly observe, that “he
has been turning the matter over in his mind,
and, upon the whole, he thinks he will take his
honour's advice.”

Christy, the huntsman, is another of the Squire's
frequent attendants to whom he continually refers,
in matters of local history, as to a chronicle
of the estate, having been in a manner acquainted
with many of the trees from the very
time that they were acorns. Old Nimrod, as I
have already shown, is rather pragmatical on all
these points of knowledge upon which he values

himself; but the Squire never contradicts him;
and is certainly one of the most indulgent potentates
that was ever hen-pecked by his ministers.
He often laughs about it himself, and evidently
yields to these old men in compliance
with the bent of his own humour; he likes this
honest independence of old age, for with all his
aristocratical feelings there is nothing that disgusts
him sooner than any appearance of fawning
or servility.

I really have seen no display of royal state
that could compare with one of the Squire's
progresses about his paternal fields, and through
his hereditary woodlands, with several of these
faithful adherents about him, and followed by a
body guard of dogs. He encourages a frankness
and manliness of deportment among his
dependants, and is the personal friend of his
tenants; inquiring into their concerns, and assisting
them in times of difficulty and hardship.
This has rendered him one of the most popular,
and, of course, one of the happiest of landlords.

Indeed, I do not know a more enviable condition
of life than that of an English gentleman
of sound judgment and good feelings, who passes
the greater part of his time on an hereditary estate
in the country. From the excellence of the
roads, and the rapidity and exactness of the public
conveyances, he is enabled to command all
the comforts and conveniences, all the intelligence
and novelties of the capital; while he is
removed from its hurry and distractions. He
has ample means of occupation and amusement
within his own domains; he may diversify his
time by rural occupations; by rural sports; by
study, and by the delights of friendly society
collected within his own hospitable halls.

Or if his views and feelings are of a more extensive
and liberal nature, he has it greatly in his
power to do good, and to have that good immediately
reflected back upon himself. He can
render essential service to his country, by assisting
in the disinterested administration of the
laws; by watching over the opinions and principles
of the lower orders around him; by diffusing

among them those lights which may be
important to their welfare; by mingling frankly
among them; gaining their confidence; becoming
the immediate auditor of their complaints;
informing himself of their wants; making
himself a channel through which their grievances
may be quietly communicated to the proper
sources of mitigation and relief; or by
becoming, if need be, the intrepid and incorruptible
guardian of their liberties, the enlightened
champion of their rights.

All this, it appears to me, can be done without
any sacrifice of personal dignity; without any
degrading arts of popularity; without any truckling
to vulgar prejudices, or concurrence in vulgar
clamour; but by the steady influence of sincere
and friendly council; of fair, upright, and
generous deportment. Whatever may be said of
English mobs and English demagogues, I have
never met with a people more open to reason;
more considerate in their tempers; more tractable
by argument in the roughest times, than the
English. They are remarkably quick at discerning

and appreciating whatever is manly and
honourable. They are by nature and habit methodical
and orderly, and feel the value of all
that is regular and respectable. They may occasionally
be deceived by sophistry, and excited
into turbulence by public distresses and the misrepresentations
of designing men; but open their
eyes, and they will eventually rally round the
landmarks of steady truth and deliberate good
sense. They are fond of established customs;
they are fond of long established names; and
that love of order and quiet which characterizes
the nation, gives a vast influence to the descendants
of the old families, whose forefathers have
been lords of the soil from time immemorial.

It is when the rich, and well educated, and
highly privileged classes neglect their duties;
when they neglect to study the interests, and
conciliate the affections, and instruct the opinions,
and champion the rights of the people,
that the latter become discontented and turbulent,
and fall into the hands of demagogues.
The demagogue always steps in where the patriot

is wanting. There is a common high
handed cant, among high feeding, and, as they
fancy themselves, high minded men, about putting
down the mob—but all true physicians
know that it is better to sweeten the blood than
to attack the tumour; to apply the emollient
rather than the cautery.

It is absurd in a country like England, where
there is so much freedom, and such a jealousy
of right, for any man to assume an aristocratical
tone, and to talk superciliously of the common
people. There is no rank that makes him
independent of the opinion and affections of his
fellow men; there is no rank nor distinction
that severs him from his fellow subject; and if
by any gradual neglect or assumption on the
one side, and discontent and jealousy on the
other, the orders of society should really separate,
let those that stand on the eminence beware
that the chasm is not mining at their feet.
The orders of society in all well constituted
governments are mutually bound together, and
important to each other; there can be no such

thing in a free government as a vacuum; and
wherever one is likely to take place by the
drawing off of the rich and intelligent from the
poor, the bad passions of society will rush in,
to fill up the space, and rend the whole asunder.

Though born and brought up in a republic,
and more and more confirmed in republican
principles by every year's observation and experience,
yet I am not insensible to the excellence
that may exist in other forms of government;
nor to the fact that they may be more
suitable to the situation and circumstances of
the countries in which they exist. I have endeavoured
rather to look at them as they are,
and to observe how they are calculated to effect
the end which they propose. Considering,
therefore, the mixed nature of the government
of this country, and its representative form, I
have looked with admiration at the manner in
which the wealth, and influence, and intelligence,
were spread over its whole surface; not,
as in some monarchies, drained from the country,
and collected in towns and cities. I have

considered the great rural establishments of the
nobility, and the lesser establishments of the
gentry, as so many reservoirs of wealth and intelligence
distributed about the kingdom, apart
from the towns, to irrigate, freshen, and fertilize
the surrounding country. I have looked
upon them, too, as the august retreats of patriots
and statesmen, where, in the enjoyment of
honourable independence and elegant leisure,
they might train up their minds to appear in
those legislative assemblies, whose debates and
decisions form the study and precedents of
other nations, and involve the interests of the
world.

I have been both surprised and disappointed,
therefore, at finding that on this subject I was
often indulging in a Utopian dream rather than
a well grounded opinion. I have been concerned
at finding that these fine estates were too
often involved, and mortgaged or placed in the
hands of creditors, and the owners exiled from
their paternal lands. There is an extravagance,
I am told, that runs parallel with wealth; a lavish

expenditure among the great; a senseless competition
among the aspiring; a heedless, joyless
dissipation among all the upper ranks, that often
beggars even these splendid establishments,
breaks down the pride and principles of their
possessors, and makes too many of them mere
place hunters, or shifting absentees. It is thus
that so many are thrown into the hands of government;
and a court, which ought to be the
most pure and honourable in Europe, is so often
degraded by noble but importunate time-servers.
It is thus, too, that so many become exiles from
their native land; crowding the hotels of foreign
nations, and expending upon thankless strangers
the wealth so hardly drained from their laborious
peasantry. Having, as it were, their roots in their
own country, but spreading forth their branches
and bearing their fruits in another. I have looked
upon these latter with a mixture of censure
and concern. Knowing the almost bigotted
fondness of an Englishman for his native home,
I can conceive what must be their compunction
and regret, when they call to mind, amidst the
sun-burnt plains of France, the green fields of
England; the hereditary groves which they have
abandoned; the hospitable roof of their fathers,
which they have left desolate, or to be inhabited
by strangers. But retrenchment is no plea for
an abandonment of country. They have risen
with the prosperity of the land—let them abide its
fluctuations, and conform to its fortunes. It is
not for the rich to draw off from the country because
it is suffering. Let them share, in their
relative proportion, the common lot; they owe
it to the land that has elevated them to honour
and affluence. When the poor have to diminish
their scanty morsel of bread; when they have
to compound with the cravings of nature, and
study with how little they can do, and not be
starved; it is not then for the rich to fly, and
diminish still farther the resources of the poor,
that they themselves may live in splendour in a
cheaper country. Let them rather retire to their
estates, and there practise retrenchment. Let
them return to that noble simplicity, that practical
good sense, that honest pride, which form the
foundation of true English character, and from
them they may again rear the edifice of fair and
honourable prosperity.

On the rural habits of the English nobility
and gentry—on the manner in which they discharge
their duties on their patrimonial possessions—depend
greatly the virtue and welfare of
the nation. So long as they pass the greater
part of their time in the quiet and purity of the
country; surrounded by the monuments of their
illustrious ancestors; surrounded by every thing
that can inspire generous pride, noble emulation,
and amiable and magnanimous sentiment,
so long they are safe, and in them the nation
may repose its interests and its honour. But
the moment that they become the servile throngers
of court avenues, and give themselves up to
the political intrigues and heartless dissipations
of the metropolis, that moment they lose the
real nobility of their natures, and become the
mere leeches of the country.

That the great majority of nobility and gentry
in England are endowed with high notions

of honour and independence I thoroughly believe.
They have evidenced it lately, on very
important questions; and have given an example
of adherence to principle in preference to
party and power, that must have astonished
many of the venal and obsequious courts of
Europe. Such are the glorious effects of freedom,
even when infused into a constitution. But
it seems to me that they are apt to forget the positive
nature of their duties; and to fancy that
their eminent privileges are only so many means
of self indulgence. They should recollect that
in a constitution like that of England, the titled
orders are intended to be as useful as they are
ornamental; and it is their virtues alone that
can render them both. Their duties are divided
between the sovereign and the subject; surrounding
and giving lustre and dignity to the throne,
and at the same time tempering and mitigating
its rays, until they are transmitted in mild and
genial radiance to the people. Born to leisure
and opulence, they owe the exercise of their
talents and the expenditure of their wealth, to
their native country. They may be compared
to the clouds, which being drawn up by the
sun and elevated in the heavens, reflect and
magnify his splendour; while they repay the
earth from which they derive their sustenance,
by returning their treasures to its bosom in fertilizing
showers.