University of Virginia Library

LETTER III.
Prominent traits in the English character.

ACCEPT my warmest thanks for the
letters of introduction you presented me
at parting, and for those transmitted me
by the ship Union; and suffer me, through
you, to make my grateful acknowledgments
to Mr. G. for his very friendly
proffer of making me known to some
“excellent English friends.”—I do assure
you, very few of our countrymen have
left in London such favourable impressions
of the American character as that

gentleman. Indeed, all our United States'
agents have done honour to our national
diplomacy: among them Mr. K. and Mr.
G. will be long distinguished; the former
for the classical elegance of his bureau
address, the latter for his commercial
science—and both for that dignified, polished
demeanour which European gentlemen
will hardly admit can be attained
without the tour of that continent. I
ought, in justice, to observe, that our present
envoy is a gentleman highly esteemed
for the suavity of his manners, and respected
for his adherence to the commercial
rights of his nation.

I have not yet delivered Judge C.'s
letter to him: it is under a flying seal,
and merely recommendatory. A man of
letters, whose notice I am solicitous to
retain, mentioned my name to him yesterday,
and was surprised to find he did not
know me; and, as this gentleman lives
within the purlieus of court and etiquette,
I shall suffer in his opinion if, as an

American, I am not known to our minister.
I must therefore deliver my letter,
although, I assure you, with reluctance.—
Of forty-three letters of introduction, I
have as yet delivered but three, and two
of them related to pecuniary arrangements.—I
crossed the Atlantic to obtain
health, and, now I am in London, I wish
to form a correct opinion of this people.
If I had delivered my letters and been
introduced to people of rank, my observations
would have been confined to
them; for there is a wonderful and striking
similarity in people of the same
condition. By the aid of letters I might
probably have gone the rounds of diplomatic
dinners, or, possibly, been in company
with ladies and lords, but it was not
ladies and lords I wished to see. A man
would form a very erroneous opinion of
English diet, should he feast entirely on
ortolans; no—he should eat the roast-beef,
the mutton from the Downs, and the
rump-steak. I wished to see Englishmen,
and to form some correct estimate of their
manners, habits, and character, and this
can be better attained by mingling, unnoticed
in the crowd. I wish to be considered,
and to consider myself, as Addison
humorously describes himself in his
spectatorial character, “as the dumb gen
“tleman whom nobody minds.” O, that
I possessed the inky cloak of Fortunatus,
that I might pass invisibly through this
vast metropolis, and note, unobserved,
this immense crowd, as various in character
as in their motleyed ancestry. Besides,
I had another reason for omitting to deliver
my letters, which, perhaps, you will
say is a weak, and I am sure you may
say is a vain one. I found I could acquire,
if not friends, very valuable acquaintance,
without them, and an acquaintance acquired
by accidental converse with persons
of merit, flatters our self-love. We
think we cannot be greatly mistaken, in
estimating our own worth, when we break
over all those outworks of etiquette with
which the European fortifies himself
against imposition, or when we can overcome
that national reserve and hauteur
in which every Englishman is deeply entrenched.
I assure you I have acquired,
without the formality of introduction,
some very valuable, some learned, and
some opulent acquaintance.

The English will tell you, and tell you
truly, that no man obtains admission into
what is called good company, without a
proper recommendation. It is manifest,
the English are very shy of strangers,
especially foreigners, whom the middle
and lower classes hold in contempt, and
the higher ranks are hardly willing to acknowledge
as their equals, let their talents
or rank be what they may. An Englishman,
in his own country, shrinks from
familiarity with a stranger, and, if offered
abruptly, will consider it an insult: unless
he be well recommended, he will not introduce
the stranger to his wife, daughters,
or domestic circles. But, if a man once

gets into good company, (which every
Englishman applies to persons of his own
rank, or employment,) and is noticed by
certain people, the Englishman will not,
perhaps, inquire very critically how he got
there, but will accept it as a letter of recommendation,
and the stranger passes
current into his intimacy.

The difference between the English
and their American descendants, in this
particular, is—the Englishman is shy and
suspicious, grows more suspicious, and is
surly. The New-England man is suspicious
and inquisitive, grows more suspicious,
and is familiar and troublesome.
When once the Englishman's suspicions
are dissipated (no matter how) he is unbounded
in his confidence; while the
Yankey shews very little distrust, is never
silent or surly to the stranger, but his suspicions
never leave him. Now, in London,
there are various modes of getting into
good company, and being noticed by certain
people, and the process is not so formidable

as you may imagine. But you must
first decide what is good company; for
what one class calls good another will
esteem mean, and a severe moralist might
style all the associations of fashionable life
very bad companies. If you call the
high-ranked jockies of Newmarket good
company, and your purse will permit, you
have merely to purchase a few race-horses
and fillies, bet high, pay your bets and
your grooms punctually, and you will
soon be noticed by certain people—your
gold will quickly amalgamate with their
mercury.

Do you wish to have an honourable seat
with honourable ladies, and no less honourable
gentlemen, at the card-table,
dress well, have your pockets well lined
with gold, be polite enough never to detect
the ladies in renouncing, or to dun either
lady or gentleman for a debt of honour,
and you may keep very good company,
and be noticed by certain people, until
your money is gone. If you go to the

stock exchange—but you will say “pho,
“pho, there is no mystery in all this—
“I naturally supposed in London, as in
“Boston, money can effect every thing—
“make a clown a gentleman, and a fool
“a bank director.” Well, then, I will
shew you how, if you was as poor as the
shabbiest author that ever
in the loftiest garret of the ancient grubstreet,
you may get into good company,
and be noticed by certain people.

You know—all the world knows, the
English are fond of national glory, but
you are yet to be informed that every
Englishman pants for individual glory.
His great object is personal distinction;
not merely the distinction of birth or
riches—these are common in this old and
commercial government, but by some
quality which shall distinguish him from
all others; for this self-ambition aims

rather at singularity than exaltation: and
it is curious to observe what a variety of
modes are adopted, even by those of rank
and opulence, to obtain distinction by
singularity. One man will let his beard
grow, live on roots, and affect the anchorite:
another is circumcised: a third,
with the eyes of a lynx, will wear temple-spectacles
in the open street, at noon-day;
a fourth will affect to be deprived of all
his senses, and, in a social circle, enlivened
by beauty, wit, and mirth, neither see,
hear, observe or remark, any more than
his kindred poker by the grate side. But
of all those animated by this noble ambition
and affectation of singularity, there
are two who, in my very humble opinion,
bear the palm from all competitors:—one
cut off the skirts of his coat, close to his
waistband, and set the fashion you now
have in Boston, called the spencer—and
the other eat a live cat!

I believe there never was a time in
England when this affectation of singularity

did not prevail. It may, perhaps, be
fairly traced to the painted skins of their
Pictish ancestors. Formerly, in this country,
a man might make himself distinguished
by profound learning, but, alas!
the era of the profound and original in
English literature terminated with the life
of the last regal Stuart. In these costermonger
days, learning (like every thing
else in England) is submitted to counting-house
calculation; and the making of
books becomes as much a trade as the
binding of them: an occupation which
does not require seven years' apprenticeship
to set up the business, but in which
all may labour without infringement of
city privileges. Learning, however, keeps
no wholesale warehouse; but what the
modern English imagine to be literature
is retailed in a thousand toy-shops: here,
playthings for these nursery children of
learning are vended—here, they purchase
squeaking sonnets, lullaby odes, dub a dub
verse, and tinselled prose. Where it is
so easy to be learned and so many are
learned, those who affect literature must
also affect singularity to make themselves
distinguished. To be distinguished from
the common machinists of verse is “worth
“ambition;” therefore, on this principle,
a number of literary clubs have been
formed, where the members, by clubbing
their talents, and the appellation they give
to their club, (which is generally quaint or
grotesque,) attempt to singularize themselves
into notice, and if they fail in obtaining
it they are sure to console their
vanity by the flatteries they very liberally
bestow on each other at their stated
meetings.

These societies have increased amazingly
since the literary club, founded by
Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, and
others, became known, by their attendance
at the funeral of David Garrick, the celebrated
actor, who was a member. In such
clubs the national distinction of rank is
levelled, which, if they were associations

of genius and learning, would be perfectly
correct.

The ladies, it seems, have their clubs
and the Roman orgies of the bona Dea are
revived with this variation, that the man
are initiated into their mysteries. Mrs.
Montagu, a very respectable lady, was the
foundress of a club of this sort, known by
the quaint name of the blue-stocking club.
Whether this anti-genteel epithet originated
in the fancy or the feet of the fair, as
it is a subject of rather delicate research
I had not the effrontery to peer into. Now
as a friend to the fair, and a lover of the
muses, you must allow a blue-stocking club
to consist of the very best of good company.
Then, my dear Chum, if you wish an
introduction, carry with you no letter of
civility, but hasten to your ink-pot, tag
me a hundred lines to some languishing
Anna Matilda, or dying Dorinda; spangle
them well with bland metaphors and love
lorn similies; drop a word or two in
some lines, and insert others in capital

letters, so as to render the meaning unintelligible,
and then, of course, you know
it must be sublime: or write a lugubrious
sonnet to some captive mouse, or pretty
pathetic ode to a sportive mouser,
select some sweet fanciful name, which
will “run trippingly o'er the tongue,”
such as Valentina Orsona, Assenella
Crusca, or Idiotilla, or any other name
more significant of the attributes of your
muse; carry the soft effusions of your
melancholy muse to the editors of the
most fashionable magazine; and, after you
have love-lorned enough to make a little
volume of verse, publish your works,
boldly, under your own name: make
your personal appearance in the frontispiece,
with your temples bound with
laurel, a brace of simpering muses by your
side, a basket of iris and crocus and daffodowndilly
at your feet, a strong plump-cheeked
fame with his brazen trumpet at
your back—(N. B. for a certain reason it
is absolutely necessary the trumpet should
be brass—) and then inscribe your volume
to the honourable, or right honourable,
Mrs. —, the patroness of some blue-stocking
club, beginning your dedication
thus:—“Madam, your exalted genius,
“correct taste, and elegant knowledge of
“ancient and modern learning, so richly
“displayed in that incomparable poem,
“your divine ode to the sleeping Cicada,”
&c. &c. &c. being careful to be equally
delicate in your adulation throughout.
Then, if you are not the most unfortunate
wight of a poet who ever attempted
the temple of fame, you will be invited to
the club, be enrolled as a member, and,
perhaps, have your name immortalized in
the next Ladies' Diary.

It is true, the reviewers, those crusty
critics, may ridicule you, but the bold
sons and daughters of genius never regard

them; be assured, they are fellows of no
mark or likelihood; what little they know
has been acquired from Longinus, Aristotle,
and Horace, or some such outlandish
creatures. A very pretty lady observed
to me, that the monthly reviewers
were the most petrifying creatures imaginable
in matters of taste; and she was
an excellent judge, as she had published a
novel which contained an immense black
forest of twenty aged trees; two crazy
castles; three murderers; a trap-door
with rusty bolts; a bloody key, ditto dagger;
two pair of broken stairs; a sheeted
ghost; a ghostly monk, and a marriage.
She assured me, 'pon honour, that in the
critique upon her work (which had passed
the ordeal of taste in all the circulating
libraries, and was actually the last book the
great Burke ever read, indeed, some said
he expired with it in his hand) the reviewers
were so stupid they could not
comprehend the elegant expressions
“pleasing anguish,” “delightful despair,”
and “heart-rending felicity;” nay, they
had the audacity to sneer at the phrase
“subterraneous matter in the clouds,”
which she had introduced into a thunder-storm,
and which the whole blue-stocking
club pronounced immensely sublime.

Which of the above routes I took to
good company, or what other path I selected,
I leave you to conjecture until
some future letter or conversation shall
enlighten you.