99.66

regulated with the greatest precision. "Never turn your back on royalty," never contradict it," are rules intelligible by the most obtuse; and "kneel and kiss the king's hand" is caught in a single lesson, even by sheriffs and common-councilmen. Not so, in the affairs of aristocratic high life. There, as the reader must, after following us thus far, be aware,

all is nuance, the poco meno and the poco piu-distinctions that may be

caught, but cannot be defined. How, for instance, can we explain by words the exact pitch of voice which is employed in good company? how regulate the exact intervals at which it is necessary to give a nobleman his title, or set down the exact circumstances that make it impertinent in one man to drop the distinctive title altogether? or what it is that renders it priggish in another to abstain from so doing? The general tendency of etiquette is to simplify the forms of society, and to render them as little demonstrable as possible; yet who will presume to determine beforehand the precise degree of deference which is still required in addressing each individual, or to lay down the law ex cathedra as to where a nod of recognition will suffice, and where a reverence more formal is required?

Having said thus much, it is needless to add that the books of etiquette, the printed instructions for good behaviour, are not, and cannot be, other than downright traps; and that the very best of them are of no use to anybody but the bookseller. Even Lord Chesterfield's letters failed altogether in making a fine gentleman of the person to whom they were addressed. For the most part, such a synopsis of polite carriage turns upon the most simple facts-as the not spitting upon a carpet, the not poking a neighbour's fork down his throat with your elbow; or it retails matters picked up at second-hand, and, therefore, misapplied. In a society, for instance, where every man's grade is distinctly marked by a title, and where all the parties are known to each other, what is more simple than the arrangement of precedence? every man knows his own place and takes it. Whereas in a society of a less defined grade, what an awkward and troublesome thing is it for the mistress of the house to stand upon the order of her friends' going, meting out precedence, and making distinctions without differences, where all are essentially equal: and how absurd is it for two fools to stand bowing to each other while the meat cools, bandying humilities, such as "not before you, Sir," "by no means," "I insist," "quite impossible," &c. &c.; till, at last, both bolt at once, and succeed in tumbling together from the top to the bottom of the staircase. For those who stand in need of instructions to avoid such coarse errors, no books would mend their native boorishness; and, for keener observers, it is safer to trust their own impressions, than to fly to authorities which are no authorities whatever. Good nature, good feeling, and good sense, backed with a quick eye, will in a short space carry a man of sense through the very best society, so as to avoid ridicule-especially if he be not too much alive to his own self-importance, to be natural and at his ease. It is false and unfounded pretension alone, with its concomitant vanity and presumption, that makes itself absurdly conspicuous; and for those who seek to displace themselves, and run after associations for which their previous habits unfit them, no tuition will suffice for their protection. With every aid, that the best code of politeness can afford, they will never rise above the elegance of a master of the ceremonies, nor acquire more of the tone of good society, than a groom of the chambers.

μα

THE AMERICAN BOBADIL.

BY T. C. GRATTAN, ESQ., Author of

HIGH-WAYS AND BYE-WAYS."

It is with unaffected diffidence, not however amounting quite to reluctance, that I am about to sketch the character of an American. For it is not that I am myself at all sensitive on the subject, but I know that the Americans are so. There is an impetuous jealousy about them as to their own merits, a keenness of anxiety as to what is said and thought of them by other nations, strangely incompatible with their high sense of self-respect, and their just conviction of their own importance. They can ill bear a joke on any peculiarities of national or provincial dialect or custom. No people relish a jest at their own expense on these matters so much as the Irish-none tolerate it so badly as the Americans. I speak of them as they are to be met in Europe. I should much rather know them at home, for here they almost always appear to be acting. They are as though on the stage, and they generally either underdo or overdo their parts, in their uneasiness to be at their ease, in their efforts to show themselves, at least equal to Europeans in all the graces of civilisation, and the nonchalance of fashion. It is rarely that we meet a Transatlantic gentleman according to our notions of the word, and that simply because they are not content to let us see a specimen of one according to their own. Nature is the true gentility; vulgarity is an art. It is the attempt to graft the insipid air of English ton on the plain stem of American independence that causes the failures I have observed so often. What a painful thing it is to see a free-born republican quail at the very look of a lord! To see American talent and station-and I have heard of such displays-crouch low before the morgue of European nobility! There are few things more odious than a plebeian aristocrat. The sickly fragrance of highbred dandyism does not revolt us half so much. The emasculate refinement of a hot-house plant is pleasing because it is in its place. But the rough-coated children of the open air are forced and unnatural under glass, and such is too frequently the aspect of the most cultivated American in a London or Paris saloon. But exceptions there are-and many glorious exceptions-which show Americans in their fitting character, and man in his true dignity. And it would be well if it was universally felt, that that consists simply in having a proper pride in one's own station. What else is it that gives to noblemen in general so fine a tone of easy elegance? What else that makes many well-bred commoners quite equal in manners to the noble? What else that throws an inconceivable charm over many individuals born and brought up far out of the circles of high life? What else that gives force of thought, gracefulness of mien, and true nobility of mind? Is it mere title that can do this; or a servile prostration to rank that can supply its want; or the contortions of mimicry, or the meanness of adulation? Every idolater is a slave, and none so base as the worshipper of rank. Did tuft-hunters and toad-eaters but know their own littleness, and how thoroughly they are despised by those who greedily accept their homage! But an American tuft-hunter! What scale could shrink small enough to measure that most diminutive of beings?

This is my greatest cause of quarrel with the American character, as it is sometimes exhibited in retail specimens in Europe; and, therefore, my great longing to know the Americans on their own soil, in wholesale masses, where they have fair play and moral elbow-room, and are not "cribbed and cabined" in the narrow bounds of artificial life. No people can be thoroughly known by shreds and patches. Isolated individuals are not fair specimens. A brick is not enough to convey a just notion of a house, nor one man of a whole nation, nor a hundred bricks, nor a hundred men seen singly. No one removed from the associations of home, from the old habits and every-day sympathies of his natural circle, is a fair specimen of his kind. It is, moreover, an old and just observation, that nothing should be deemed as characteristic of a species but what is to be found among the best and most perfect individuals of it. Therefore we should be cautious not to form a hasty judgment from imperfect materials; and, therefore, my Bobadil is by no means to be considered as an exemplar of American character in general. He was, in fact, a being sui generis

"None but himself could be his parallel."

But I have not come to him yet, nor can I, in justice to myself or my subject, suppress a few observations which rise up on the narrow prejudices propagated so broadly against the Americans by those who have seen them, as I have not, chez eux.

A traveller, if he possess expansion as well as acuteness of mind, will, instead of raising an outcry against national errors which annoy or revolt, endeavour philosophically to account for what he condemns, and see if they are not essential attributes of the nation and its well-being. The study of a people is not to be done by steam. Masses, even like individuals, may, from temporary causes, present an aspect totally different to their real character. Small groups, in hours of social intercourse particularly, are sure to display that wide variety of manners which makes up, in fact, the chief charm of society. Travellers are scarcely aware of their influence in producing those changes, or how very much their own peculiar bent in conversation and habits affects the domestic circles of a foreign country into which they are admitted. When a stranger of any note is invited to a party, a great deal of deference is almost sure to be accorded to him from the general politeness common to all civilised nations: he is most likely to give the tone to the conversation. If he be of a social turn, it is pretty sure that all will flow pleasantly and smoothly, that those around him will chat familiarly, and that he will find his entertainers amiable, cheerful, and without pretension. If, on the contrary, the disposition of the guest be arrogant and assuming, either on the merits of his country or of himself, if he turn everything into discussion, and embitter the general wells of conversation by everlasting argument, he is sure to impart his own harsh, disagreeable tone to those about him. He puts them on their metal: -they dispute the ground inch by inch-they meet his querulousness with retorts-his questioning by boasts. The presumption and petulance which he sees at every turn are in reality nothing but the reflection of his own. Is it not then unfair, or at best peurile, in English travellers to be surprised or angry with the Americans for their extreme displays of national vanity? Have they not a right to consider them

selves one of the greatest nations existing? and that point conceded, is it wonderful they should consider themselves the greatest? Why, then, those expressions of annoyance and disgust at this strongly-developed failing of Transatlantic character? Let it be remembered that the United States of America have made for themselves a distinguished position in the scale of national greatness-they have fought for and gained their liberty from one of the most powerful people of Europe. In a later contest, they maintained gallantly what they at first so gloriously won. They see their population and their power every day increasing with almost incredible progression. Their greatness is all visible, while their remoteness from other countries leaves them without contrasts to show them their inferiority on minor points. They hear from one end of the Union to the other but the language of reciprocal praise. The voice of sarcasm or blame comes faintly across the Atlantic deeps; and, when heard in feeble echoes, it sounds like envious whisperings rather than full-toned reproof. A blustering self-sufficiency is the inevitable consequence of all this internal combination; and a perpetual accession is given to it from outward sources. Every ship load of emigrants that reaches the American shores brings a fund of practical eulogy to increase the stock of American pride. Each new settler is a living tribute to the worth of the land; and all who come predisposed to admire and flatter, soon become an integral part of the vanity they feed. The good opinion they at first formed for the country is not likely to decrease when it is converted into pride of themselves. Thus every additional settler abets the general disease, and few of the few travellers that Europe sends out to make a temporary sojourn, can have the ill-bred candour to combat the prevalent weakness of selfsatisfied millions: civilization alone can cure it. But is America likely ever to become a truly civilized nation, if civilization be taken to imply expansion of mind and refinement in manners and habits of thought? It is the constant contact with other countries that alone can rub off the asperities of national prejudice--the great bar to true refinement. Such a remedy America can never have until the days when her overgrown empire shall break into fragments of territorial separation. Then every rival State will discover faults in its neighbour which it never saw when their interest and feelings were in common, and jealousy will see defects in the very qualities that self-love considers as perfections. Northerns, southerns, monarchies and republics despots and oligarchs, will then, by opposing efforts, disperse the very prejudice they had while united upheld; and every separate branch lopped from the great national tree will lessen the mass of congregated vanity which overshadows the land. But, until then, we must bear with the Americans, and even excuse them, while they say, and write, and believe their country to be The wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best!

But no one ever carried this extravagance so far as the Yankee Bobadil. When or where I fell in with this great original is of small moment. The locality or the epoch had nothing to do with the man: like the Exile in Moore's Melody, he might say (to himself)—

"Wherever thou art is my country to me;"

for nobody ever knew so well how to make himself at home. He car

ried his shell (morally) on his back, or rather he found one ready made wherever he showed his front. And what a brazen front it was!

I first met my present hero in a large and mixed society it was in a sea-port in the South of Europe. It was summer-hot and fiery summer. The sirocco had stolen across the Mediterranean beyond its usual limits, and it stifled the sweet breath of the orange groves, and almost parched and choked the words in the throats of common talkers. But it seemed to give additional freedom to my hero's tongue, and to double the force of his utterance. When he caught my eye he was holding forth to a small group of gaping listeners, among whom were several of his own countrymen, in an olive-grove, close to the tasteful villa where I was invited for the evening. His gesticulations were violent: he defied the heat, and sawed the sirocco with his arms. He spoke English-but not of England. His own "great, free, and independent country," its "elegant and accomplished ladies" (women was a word too vulgar for his national vocabulary), were the general subjects of his discourse-the particular illustration of it was himself. His quarrels with the one sex, and his conquests among the other (like the oaths of Gresset's vert vert)

- Voltigerient sur son bec.

He mentioned no names-I must do that justice to his discretion; but delicacy had nothing to do with his reserve. He might, even at that distance from the scenes of his pretended exploits, have been caught in a false boast and contradicted. I saw through his character with a glance it was, indeed, most transparent. I first thought him intoxicated; and so he was, but not with wine. His excesses did not take that direction but a vanity of the most strongly pronounced Transatlantic hue tainted his whole character, and turned even his good qualities into corruption.

I approached the set of which he was the centre. His sharp eye caught a new-comer, and he was resolved to make an impression.

"Sir," said he, in reply to a question from one of his youthful interlocutors, who had swallowed his rhodomontade by wholesale, "Sir, I split him in two with my sabre!"

"And then ?"

"And then I insisted on each half being buried in a separate grave. That's my way of serving an Englander!"

As the latter words were pointedly addressed to me, I bowed low, and said, with great gravity—

"Sir, I wish I could cut myself across, that I might have the honour of serving you in a double capacity."

"Sir, you are infinitely accommodating," said he, with rather a confused air; but he soon recovered his applomb, and continued :-" But do not mistake me, Sir. I hate an aristocrat, I confess; and it was one of those I thus put to death, in a desperate duel one cold morning on the Canadian frontier. Lords are my aversion-from the Lord Lieutenant to the Lord Mayor. I once seized a Lord, Sir, by the waistband of his breeches, and shook him out of a window till he kicked himself into convulsions."

And what did you do then, Sir ?"

Why then I kicked him down stairs !"