X. OUR ARISTOCRACY. A Mixture, as in all other Sorts and Conditions of Men - Injustice of Sweeping Condemnations - Noblesse oblige-"Drunk as a Lord"- Rebuke of an Unjust Steward. I HAVE referred, chiefly for illustrations of the subjects on which I have been permitted to speak to you, to the class to which I myself belong; and I would speak now of those who, in conventional phrase, are above and below me. We are divided into three classes, speaking generally — the nobles and landlords, men engaged in the professions and in business, and men under their employment. This classification is, of course, inexact, in some instances only nominal. An aristocrat may be ignoble, an ecclesiastic may be of the earth earthy, a master or an officer incapable, a working man may be idle. It is with them, as with all other sorts and conditions of men, give them what names you please, dress them in soft raiment or coarse common stuff, put their feet in patent leather or wooden clogs, and their skulls in coronets or paper caps, you will have an intermixture of good and bad, heroes and humbugs, knaves and honest men. And so there is always injustice in sweeping condemnations of large divisions of society, and this error is made signally manifest by those who, in England or elsewhere, denounce our nobility as bloated aristocrats, brigands, vultures, hyænas, leeches, "glutted, gorged, and full," who are ever quoting Burns's lines, beginning, "Ye see yon birkee call'd a lord," and seeking to abolish his order. I am not arguing the question, whether or no it is expedient for a country to bestow titles upon its most distinguished benefactors, and to secure those titles to their descendants, whether they may be worthy or not, but I desire to affirm, and there are many American gentlemen who will corroborate my statement, that the large majority of our titled folks realize the obligation that noblesse oblige, that the rank is but the guinea's stamp, that kind hearts are more than coronets, and that so far from deserving the satire of the poet,1 "Men should press forward in Fame's glorious chase, they are rather of his mind, who was one of themselves, and wrote, "Not to the past, but to the future, looks true nobility, And finds its blazon in posterity." Once, it is true, the words "as drunk as a lord" were commonly used in England, but now they are almost obsolete, and it is long since, on a memorable occasion, I last heard their utterance. A large party were seated at luncheon in the house of their noble host, when the loud voice of a man, shouting and singing in a state of wild excitement, came from the 2 Lord Lytton. 1 Young. adjoining park. A footman was sent out to make inquiries, and communicated on his return the results to his master. "The man is as drunk as a lord, my lord!" I shall never forget the expression of remorse and perplexity which fell upon the countenance of the messenger almost before the words were spoken, "volat irrevocabile verbum" nor the discomfiture of his exit, when, solvuntur risu tabulæ, the laughter could not be restrained. I need hardly remind you that this severe allusion to the inebriety of the peerage originated at a time when alcohol, as represented by Old Port, had special fascinations for our upper classes. In those days of my boyhood, when, at the time of a dinner-party, we descended from our nurseries with silent, stealthy, very stealthy, steps, like young brigands from the mountains, to help ourselves from dishes in anterooms, which were going to or coming from the banquet, I remember, after we had retired loaded, at times somewhat overloaded, with spoils to our lair, that "There was a sound of revelry by night," a loud and frequent use of the word "Tally-ho," as indicating, though etymologists do not tell us why, the appearance of a fox, followed by resonant announcements that he was "gone away," vehement exhortations to “hark forward," and finally by such a frenzied scream of "who-op!" as suggested a sudden retrograde movement of the highly educated gentleman to "the poor savage of untutored mind." Only one class of men in the higher walks of life seem to have maintained on all occasions a steady gait, and while the intemperate man was denounced to be drunk as a lord, the temperate man was declared, with respectful admirations, to be "as sober as a judge." This does not mean that the high officers of the law were rigid total abstainers, or Thomas Hood would never have told us that "Good Judges in the Law are they, They seem in Court of Common Please." There was a time, I have intimated, when there was a considerable amount of hauteur, reserve, and dignity, in the reception by certain aristocrats of the other lords of the creation. It was a time when the population was comparatively small, and owing to the expense and tardiness of locomotion men saw little of each other. There were thousands who never saw a lord, thousands who only saw him now and then. So that he became in his neighbourhood an Alexander Selkirk, "monarch of all he surveyed, whose right there was none to dispute," and the people loved to have it so. They uncovered their heads, and bowed them low, and spoke with bated breath, and my lord was constrained to patronize and bless his worshippers, whether he liked it or not, and, being a man, as a rule he liked it. Even then, with all these provocations to pride and selfishness, he was a generous landlord to tenants, who had held the same farms for generations, and a kind, thoughtful master to servants, whose forefathers also had been affectionately attached to his house. Let me quote an example. Many years ago the new steward of one of our Nottinghamshire earls was more anxious to ingratiate himself with his master than to promote the welfare of his neighbours, and accordingly proposed to make a reduction in the wages of the servants and work-people employed on the estate. The payments, he declared, were greatly in excess of the necessary expenses of those who received them. My lord heard him patiently, and replied, “You make a very great mistake in supposing that I would prevent an honest man from laying by a few pounds to comfort him when he wants them most, and I advise you not to repeat it. You may depend upon it, that if ever I make reductions, I shall begin with you. There are, of course, exceptions, dismal degradations. The greater the height, the more visible and disastrous the fall, and of all men are they most despicable who bring dishonour upon a noble name and tarnish a splendid reputation, who squander and cumber fair estates for the selfish gratification of evil passions, and impoverish and embarrass their children for generations. What sight was ever so sad as the young prodigal, who had wasted his substance in riotous living, in his soiled finery feeding the swine? Where will you find me a sermon upon the text, "Be sure your sin will find you out," so im |