University of Virginia Library

LETTER XX.
Strictures upon the decorous in public
bodies.

YOU charge me with fastidiousness in
my remarks upon the merriment of the
British house of commons. Perhaps the
fervour of writing, the consciousness of
addressing “the friendly eye alone,” and
a certain lens of unequal surface, through
which I am too apt to view the wise ones
of this world in grotesque attitudes, may
have misled me, but I never can be driven
from the opinion that gravity is as natural
an attendant on wisdom, and as often
found in her company, as the laughing

loves beside the car of Venus, or frisking
fawns in the train of Bacchus and Ariadne.
It is true, the wits have often ridiculed
gravity, but what is there so sacred as not
to have been, at times, the butt of wit?
Rochefoucauld defines gravity to be a
mysterious carriage of the body, calculated
to cover the defects of the mind.
Laurence Sterne, without defining, boldly
calls it an “arrant scoundrel,” and yet
wise men in all ages have been grave men;
and, if there are some exceptions, it will
be acknowledged, even by the jocose,
that they would have been much wiser if
they had been much graver. The sportiveness
of great and learned men is not
reckoned among their excellences, but
their weaknesses; and this is the general
opinion of people either merry or wise.
Among the ancients, who I confess are
my standards of human perfection, we
find but one laughing philosopher. I remember
a print of that merry sage hung
in my father's parlour, with that of the
crying philosopher as a companion; and
my good mother used to tell me, when I
was a small boy, that Mr. Heraclitus was
a sensible old gentleman, always weeping
at observing what a fool the other was to
be always laughing. I know there have
been authors of even learned works who
have been facetious men—but this resulted
from their wit, not their wisdom,
and wits are the cicada of literature, who
chirp away the summer and starve in the
winter of life. But modern or ancient
times have not produced any great writers,
statesmen, or heroes, who have been
noted for jocularity. I do not recollect
but one pun in all Cicero's works, and not
one tolerable joke in Cæsar's Commentaries.
Cardinal Richelieu, although he attempted,
could never be facetious. The
great Duke of Marlborough and Prince
Eugene were never considered as merry
blades: and, in our country, Washington
and Adams were no jokers. I do not
contend that a wise man may not be facetious,
or even merry, but no wise man was
ever facetious or merry on great and solemn
occasions. It is true, Ludlow, in
his memoirs, informs us that Oliver Cromwell
and his officers smutted each other
with coals, and played barrack tricks at
the horse-guards, the night before the
execution of Charles the First—but remember
there were no repartees, jokes,
and Joe Miller jests, in the high commission
court: no—there all was solemn;—
if the thing done was wrong, the manner
of doing it was august. If that unfortunate
monarch had had to contend with
such men as are now found in the British
house of commons—if Pym and Haslerig
had betted on Sweeper and Sky-Scraper,
and Hampden laughed and joked, and
drolled about ship-money, and the members
had tittered at his ribaldry, English
liberty had now been a mere name, and
British greatness unknown.

I do not believe there was ever convened
a more dignified body of men than

that which composed the American Congress
who promulgated the declaration of
our independence. The hall of congress
was not then a club-room of merry fellows,
but a cabinet for the consultation of
wise men: the members did not joke, but
consulted—they did not laugh, but acted:
and under the conduct of such wise, and
let me add grave, men, from dependent
colonies we became an independent nation.
And, however great men may indulge
in sportive sallies of social mirth, I
still insist it is indecorous on great occasions;
and whenever I see a great national
council, engaged on momentous
concerns, as merry as grigs, I shall adopt
the language of the wise and grave Jewish
preacher, and say “of laughter, it is mad;
“and of mirth, what doeth it?”—I had
read the English relations of the frivolity
of the French national assembly—I thought
the reprehension of their travellers just,
and their epithet of “French monkeys”
well applied; but let me no more see
Englishmen sneer at French frivolity,
since I have seen the British house of
commons as merry as gossips at a junkcting.

That a certain decorum, and even gravity
of deportment, is proper, and meets
the sense of all who are decorous themselves,
is one of those truisms which need
merely to be stated to be universally acceded
to; and that the reverse will, at all
times, be odious to those who are unaccustomed
to it, is equally true.

Lord Chesterfield charges his son (then
minister plenipotentiary at Madrid) to be
at all times scrupulously attentive to his
personal demeanour: many persons, he
observes, will visit you from motives of
curiosity, and when they are interrogated
“what was his excellency the English
“ambassador doing?” let them not
reply, “his excellency the ambassador
“was picking his nose.”—In France, or
Germany, I may be asked, “did you visit
“that august assembly, the British house

“of commons?” “Yes; I was in the
“gallery on a most important occasion—
“the state of the nation, which involved
“the state of Europe, was the order of the
“day.” “Ah, my good sir, you interest
“me deeply; pray, what was done by
“those great men?” “Oh, sir—a more
“pleasant, facetious, jolly, comical, set of
“fellows you never saw, than these same
“British senators: they quirped, they
“cranked, and they joked until the
“spectators and their clerks were almost
“suffocated with fun—and I verily thought
“the speaker would have burst his sides
“with laughter.”

Let any candid Englishman be requested
to consider what would have been his
feeling at such a recital, and he may have
some idea of mine, who am the descendant
of an Englishman.

Whether we are merry or grave, my
friend, let us endeavour to be wise—wise
for time, and wise for eternity.