A Weekly Journal for the Instruction and Entertainment of the People. OVER CIVILITY. Jus The best of things are rendered bad by excess. must be sold, and a shrewd fellow like M'Culloch "I should not be surprised if M'Culloch were to make money after all." "I have not the least doubt he will." There is nothing new under the sun; had there been, Shakspere would have picked it up; as it is, he has anticipated our portrait of the over-civil man. Witness Hamlet and Polonius. Hamlet. Do you see that cloud that's almost in shape like a camel? Polonius. By the mass, 'tis like a camel indeed. Now, the over-civil man may think that he is playing an amiable part; and having few, if any quarrels, he regards himself as a most useful member of society. But what is his real position. He either agrees with his friends or he disagrees with them, while in words he uniformly accords with them. If he really changes his opinions every time that his friends do so he is a fool; if he does not change them, and yet says that he does, he is a rogue. Neither of these dilemina horns may suit him, and he will try to escape by saying that he speaks without thinking. Let this be granted, is he greatly benefitted by the concession? The clapper of a bell never moves until it is put in motion, is his tongue to become a similar mechanical contrivance for the purpose of wagging precisely as other people wish it ? Let him not mistake his facile weakness for courtesy, for as he contradicts nobody he must needs often contradict himself, and so prove in the end a dissembler. In morality there should be no mincing of matters, and this is the plain upshot of the system of everything to all men. The accommodation of St Paul was quite of a different character, he yielded minor points that he might gain important objects; but the over-civil man yields everything; or what is worse, pretends to yield everything, and for what? a morbid lack-adaisical idea that it is best to be civil. Weak men may be imposed on by toadyism, but the world at large will not, and hence those sweet people never "There's a great deal of scrip in the market which obtain situations of public importance. They "That he will not." "He'll ruin himself to a certainty." "He's a gone man, what a pity for his wife and family." "You may say that; but still, notwithstanding all that has happened something may yet be made of that business." "There might as you say." do very well for third or fourth fiddle, but they are never asked to conduct the orchestra. In Scotland they are called mealy mou'd, signifying that they are so habitually given to smoothness of speech, that their very lips are bespattered with the national aliment. Go thy ways then sugar-tongue. People who do not like an odd number of guests at dinner may ask thee to ply the vacant spoon, and thou mayest carve potatoes as well as a better man, but unstable as water thou shalt not prevail, and thy mind and all about thee is unsavoury. No intercourse that is entitled to be called rational can be held with the over-civil, for if a man is to have his thoughts echoed every time he speaks, he had as well construct a whispering gallery in his own house, or go forth to the rocks where nature furnishes acoustical mysteries ready made. Advice cannot be asked of these india rubber gentry, for their first care is to find out your own views, which in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases of pretended advice-asking may be done without difficulty, and then they take care that the wish be father to the thought, and that the course recommended be the one which the party had previously resolved on following. If the steel of your own mind strikes flint, sparks will be produced, and the same result will follow when steel meeting steel, the Greek tug of war ensues; and this shows that in the intercourse of life mental improvement may be accomplished not only by associating with your superiors and your equals in intellectual attainment, but also by coming in contact with your inferiors in education and mental training. The doubts, prejudices, and ignorance of your less favoured brother, should act as a whetstone to you; and collision with him so far from deteriorating, should invigorate and strengthen your ideas. What a man understands best he explains best, and as granite itself can be cut through, no one should ever hesitate to adventure a rough contest with the most mechanical mind that he ever comes in contact with. Steel is never lost when expended on flint, but it is lost when exercised on a piece of cork, and this is what is done when one converses with an over-civil man. If you are rich, or an invalid, over-civil men will as certainly spoil you, as a sluggish water course which accumulates filth and corruption from want of speedy locomotion, will poison the inhabitants who live on its banks. Surrounded by these locusts you will hear and see nothing but your own views and crotchets; and shut out from the purifying influence of indiscriminate intercourse with society, your mind will become stagnant and contracted. How many men are there of the discreet age of sixty and upwards, who literally have degenerated into a state of dotage from the palliative treatment of smooth tongues. They get frightened at every wind that blows, a sneeze throws them into hysterics, the mending of a street is coming revolution, an election is the knell of the constitution, the world at large is composed of fanatics and pickpockets, and every thing seen through green spectacles becomes grim and ghastly as an ascending spectre. Good King Canute was troubled with these civil people, and he heard them quietly for a time; but he put their logic completely to the test at last when he went to the sea side and wet their feet as well as his own. None of your modern honey merchants will go so far as to say that old Ocean should recede at the bidding either of Queen Victoria or King Hudson, but as we live in times when it is the fashion to benefit the people and advance civilization, a great many persons half believe that they are the men who are bearing up the pillars of society, and provided they can give good dinners, they will soon be talked into the idea that they really are the leaders of the age. This class, somewhat different from the other parties, whom we have been describing, are movement not stationary men ; but then they move upon rails, and consequently they contract only one set of ideas, and beyond those ideas they cannot go. They have written some scraps of poetry, and poetry humanises; they have proposed certain alterations on a police wheelbarrow, and prison discipline is a humane thing; they have given an old globe to an infant school, and education is the fulcrum of the world; they have caused gimblet holes to be bored in the floor of a sale room, and the Carlisle bills of mortality will therefore require to be altered. In fact they have been man improvers all their days, and how the earth is to go round or the sun to rise when they go the way of all flesh, nobody knows. Falstaff belonged to this order. "Go thy ways old Jack," apostrophized he, “die when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgotten upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old." To undeceive such people many experiments might be tried. If they are so great and good as their worshippers asseverate, they should not hesitate to offer their services as the representative in parliament of a county or a district of burghs, and then the number of votes recorded in their favour would probably open their eyes as to their real status. Nay, we have an idea that some lower platform in real life would correct the illusions of their vision. Let them try to get into a town council or even a police commission; and supposing they get into either of these institutes, let them further try to be re-elected, and before they do all this, they will find themselves changed men. But even granting them some little credit for expertness at their own hobby, do they not fall short of the advance made by others in the same path; or even further supposing that they actually have advanced far in that path, is it the only and sole avenue to glory? Clearly not; it is only one of many, and perhaps a footpath and not a turnpike after all. Byron had a silly lad for secretary who asked the bard what he could do which he (said secretary) could not do also. "Three things," said Byron: "I have swam across the Hellespont, snuffed out a candle with a pistol bullet at six paces, and have written a poem of which ten thousand copies were sold in one day." The Cockney great should try either of the three exploits, they might also attempt to speak for an hour at a public meeting, or write for a quarterly review, and if none of all these things will convince them that they are little, we hesitate not to say that the following recipe, will, in the language of Professor Holloway, "infallibly' produce the desired result. Invest your whole property in shares of a railway line which has not complied with the Standing Parliamentary orders, go penniless to your overcivil friends and they will draw your portrait with all the fidelity of the daguerrotype. A DAY WITH A DOUBLE "TIMES." A WET day at an inn, has been done such ample justice to by the inimitable Geoffrey Crayon, that it would be very great presumption for an inferior pen to attempt to improve the picture. Although I had not long ago the misfortune, as I at the moment deemed it, to be overtaken by a severe storm which confined me for an entire day to a road-side public house in puff with an ease and boldness, that go far to take the reader by storm. Puffs of a similar nature which appear in our papers, are generally the production of strangers; when Sawney ventures upon anything of this sort, he sets about it with a timidity that half defeats his purpose. He does not like the thing, and is desperately afraid that he shall get laughed at by his neighbours for his pains. "TO CAPTAINS OF VESSELS and others going out to sea. -A child's Caul to be disposed of, immediately, for L.12." I have no catalogue of miseries | to display in consequence, and am therefore absolved from all intention of having the hardihood to try a fall with the author of the Sketch Book. The rain continued to descend, after I got housed, as if it proceeded from a fully manned fire-engine, and I made up my mind to be truly miserable. I felt satisfied that to find a book that would interest, under such circumstances, was out of the question; and as to What an amount of materials for writing a social enlivening conversation with any of the weather- history of the Great Metropolis, is contained in these bound inmates, that was not to be thought of. A frequently recurring forty columns of advertisements man may now and again throw himself upon the which the Times presents! Let us glance hastily at a resources of his own mind, and take to busy medita- few of those which came under my notice during tion, or indefatigable day-dreaming, but these efforts my temporary imprisonment at There are only occasional and for fair weather indulgence; are many people in the present day so satisfied that he can no more compel himself to think comfortably we have fairly distanced the ancients-left them hull or dream happily when he is ill at ease with himself down as the sailors say that they have their mouths and all around him, than he could swallow swords, continually filled with such phrases as "in the nineor disgorge miles of ribbon without the necessary teenth century," "in this enlightened age," and so appliances. I say, therefore, that I had made up forth; here is a nut for them to crack from the very my mind to be as miserable" as the circumstances first column :would permit," when my eye chanced to fall upon a packet resembling a newspaper made up in an envelope. I naturally concluded that it was a copy of the county paper, left here, probably, for the purpose of being forwarded to some address in the neighbourhood. I was well pleased to meet with this waif, although, to my shame I confess it, I never could bring myself to admire the overgrown cabbages, precocious pigs, or wonderful eggs, which form the staple of such productions, nevertheless, when compelled to it, I have always managed to draw some amusement from even the dullest county paper. The presentation of a pair of bands to the minister, or of a horn snuff-box to the precentor of a rural parish, is chronicled with all becoming gravity, and the speeches on the occasion, from the opening, wish that the duty "had fallen into abler hands," down to "want of words to express my feelings," and "happiest day of my life," are given at full length, and possess a raciness and an earnestness highly amusing, and proving the speakers, at all events to have been fully impressed with the overwhelming importance of their tasks. Occasionally too, there is an amusing incident" given among the local news, under the pretence that it" occurred the other day to Mr Watt of Auchterflap," which turns out to be a venerable Joe Miller, so worn out by repeated hashing and dishing up, as to have become quite pointless enough to pass for an original. Notwithstanding these attractions, I seldom take to this species of polite literature except from necessity, and the reader therefore will judge of my satisfaction when, on stripping off the cover, I found that my prize was a mammoth from Printing-House Square-a veritable double "Times," not quite a week old. To my taste, the advertisements in a newspaper, and more especially in the Times, are really the most interesting portion of the contents. I do not care to read of the everlasting changes of ministry in Spain-the sickening iteration of the speeches concerning the Corn Laws, or the harrowing minuteness with which the details of a fresh murder, or other enormity is narrated. In the advertisements there is a constant succession of novelties, with much to amuse and instruct, and nothing to disgust. The advertisements of the Times differ widely from those usually to be met with in Scottish papers, both in subjects and manner of handling. In England, many things are offered to the public through this medium, that would never be thought of with us, and then again as to style, the Englishman dashes off his Happily this, we believe, will be unintelligible to many of our readers, and we have therefore to inform them that the caul is a little membrane found on some children encompassing the head when born. We are told that these cauls were eagerly purchased by the Roman advocates, as it was believed that he who had one on his person carried with him a force of persuasion which no judge could resist. It was also supposed that a caul on board of a vessel would preserve it from shipwreck. The lawyers have long ago rid themselves of this superstition, and now rely solely for success upon their native brass; but with sailors and others "who go down to the sea in ships," we see that it is still considered to be as potent a charm as it was hundreds of years ago. Verily, when people can yet be found-and people of some station, too,-who will pay a large price for such a trumpery relic of superstition, and pin their faith to it, I am very much inclined to think that this boasted nineteenth century-this "enlightened" age—ħas really no intellect to spare. Two columns from this, we met with the following advertisement, which, no doubt through the stupidity of the compositor, is made to occupy a place amongst those referring to "bakers' shops, doing ten sacks per week;" and "eligible beer shops." "CHAPEL WANTED.-A large or middle-sized chapel is wanted to rent, either in the metropolis or in any populous town in the country. The person for whom the advertiser wishes it is highly respectable," &c. This "highly respectable" gentleman's mission, it will be observed, is not to a rural district, no matter how great its destitution; there is something in his breeches pocket, or elsewhere, that tells him that his scene of labour is not amongst the scattered and poverty-stricken peasants, but in that thrice-honoured "populous" locality which shall chance to possess a vacant "large or middle-sized" chapel. Were we to believe common report, we would be led to think that the metropolis swarmed with money-lending Jews and equally usurious Gentiles, ever ready to take advantage of the necessitous. That this is a popular error will be sufficiently proved by the advertisements we subjoin : "WANTED, to borrow 27 guineas, on an emergency, for 21 days. Security ample and satisfactory will be transferred to ensure repayment, together with a satisfactory rate of interest. Apply," &c. “MONEY WANTED.—The loan of L.100 for six months. Goods to double the amount will be handed over as security, and L.10 will be given for the accommodation. Address," &c. A foreign gentleman, who travelled through this country, and published the result of his observations on his return home, mentions in his work that thieves are so scarce in England, that rewards are occasionally offered for their discovery, and I think that usurers must be equally scarce in London, else there had been no need of these advertisements. I was at first puzzled to account for the following being placed amongst advertisements referring to education, but a second glance cleared up the mystery. "TO COAL and WINE MERCHANTS. The proprietor of a first-class school, towards the west end of town, will be happy to receive as pupil, on terms of mutual advantage, the son of either a coal or wine merchant. Address," &c. There is something very satisfactory in this arrangement-exchanging Greek for double-screened Wallsend or best Newcastle, and Mathematics for Madeira. It would be desirable, however, to carry out this exchange principle more generally, so that a parent who felt desirous of giving his children a first-rate education, but who chanced to have more bricks than sovereigns, or furniture than funds, might find himself accommodated. The promise of a douceur for a situation or government appointment, is a very common subject of advertisement. The promised gifts vary exceedingly, ranging from L.3000 to L.20; here is one of the latter. "A DOUCEUR from L.20 to L.60, or as many pounds as the situation be worth shillings per week, will be presented to any person who can procure for the advertiser, a highly respectable young man, a permanent Government Situation." There is something terribly rotten in this state of things in thus making money the all-in-all. It is said to be the god of our idolatry, and we must also make its possession the criterion of ability. By and bye at this rate, to be eligible for any situation a man must first become possessed of a certain amount of money, honestly, of course, if he can, but at all events he must have the money. But we must hurry onward, passing "Hall and Allan's Dissolution," which, however, merely refers to their partnership" Plain Footmen's Suits," which to our surprise are exceedingly cheap, I always fancied that a plain footmen required rather a superior dress to make him passable" Sir Robert Peel and Free Trade," which proves to be an advertisement of carriages an interesting notice headed "To pig-feeders and others," and many besides, to arrive at those important columns with the heading "Wanted." If I can be said to have a preference at all in my advertisement studies, it is for this corner. Although I am possessed of no particular commodity that is ever likely to be coveted, and although I am without a hope that I shall ever stumble upon an advertisement, the perusal of which shall cause me mentally to exclaim" Yorke you're wanted!" Nevertheless, I cannot rest contented until I have spelled through the entire list," Wet Nurses," and "Small Steam Engines" inclusive. It is no easy task to paint one's own portrait satisfactorily in pen and ink-to touch it off so delicately that we shall have no cause to blush, when we acknowledge ourselves to be the artist. In like giving a just enumeration of our own qualifications, manner, there are great difficulties in the way of so as neither to exaggerate nor under-rate. I never tried either operation, but, as I am quite satisfied that I would fail were I to attempt it, I feel a great respect for those who can handle the thing successfully. Here, for example, is a fairish specimen— "As COACHMAN and GROOM, a respectable married man, age 30, height 5 feet 8 inches, with four years' character, and has no objection to wait at table and make himself useful, or go to the country. He understands gardening, and knows town well." What a treasure this individual would be to a genteel family of limited income! Why, in his own person, he is a complete establishment-groom, coachman, butler, footman, and gardener! Not to speak of the additional characters that may be included under the head of making himself useful. Butlers, it would appear, like recruits, must be up to a certain standard. "AS BUTLER, in a gentleman's family, a respectable single man, age 34, height 5 feet 10 inches, who perfectly understands his business, and brewing, if required. He has lived four years in the situation he is about to leave, and has no objection to the country." Now, in my opinion, the precise height of a butler to half an inch, is not the only thing regarding his personal appearance that requires to be known. It is quite as important to know the colour of his hair, or the shape of his nose, and more especially whether the latter be a genuine Roman, or an unmistakeable pug. It is worthy of remark, that, " if necessary," Should it not be considered desirable that his accomthis gentleman "perfectly understands" brewing. plishments should include this acquirement, he will be as ignorant of it as a Hottentot. The following requires no preface : "TO THE BENEVOLENT.-A youth, age 19, the son of a farmer deceased, is in great distress he having been robbed of all he possessed, by a man whom he befriended. He is left a friendless, as well as penniless, stranger, and is compelled to solicit pecuniary aid. He is in search of a situation as valet or general servant, or to the sick or insane, understanding shaving and waiting at table, also cooking, making bread, and pastry. He has travelled twice round the globe. Temporary employment will be acceptable. Gentlemen requiring a confidential servant, at home or abroad, will find him a faithful one. Salary not an object. Address," &c. This is the very admirable Crichton of domestic life. Travelled twice round the globe, and only nineteen years of age! Oh! benighted Bentley. Oh! careless Colburn! How has this prodigy escaped your meshes? Surely he would have been good for at least a brace of volumes; and this very advertisement alone would have sold the book, and saved you not less than a cool hundred for paid puffs. But perhaps, after all, this is only one of these gentlemens' sly dodges, a sort of preliminary announcement to excite the curiosity, which they are fully prepared to gratify. If such be the fact, as is quite probable, it increases my veneration for these benevolent men who furnish the public gratis with specimens of romance even in their advertisements. But I must draw to a close, although I could go on for a week stringing together gem after gem from this one broad sheet. With the two following, I shall for the present conclude. "RAILWAY.-Wanted, by a young man, a situation as guard, fireman, messenger, or any other situation, on any line. Respectable references to character, competency, sobriety, &c. A liberal douceur will be given, if required, and the utmost secrecy maintained." 66 This person, I take it, is an exceedingly modest individual, albeit he is fully aware of the extent of his own abilities. Although perfectly qualified to act as manager on any line," he has no objection to accept the post of stoker; and, though equal to the accomplishment of all the duties required from a secretary, he will not turn up his nose at a portership. Surely such a meritorious individual will not be permitted to remain long without a situation, the more especially that he is able and willing to pay for it. Somehow or other, I do not like to read those advertisements issued by ladies in search of situations as governesses. They always make me melancholy. Even under the most favourable circumstances, their lot is not an enviable one; and, in too many cases, it must be almost unbearable. Required to possess accomplishments of no common kind, and to be unexceptionable in character and manners, they are frequently treated more contemptuously than the veriest flunky. The governess is even looked down upon by the menials, who, seeing that she receives less remuneration than they do, naturally conclude that she is treated according to her deserts, and is consequently their inferior. Here is rather a favourable specimen of these advertisements: "MORNING GOVERNESS.-8s. per week.-A lady, accustomed to tuition for the last seven years, having a portion of her time unoccupied, is desirous of obtaining a situation as morning governess to young ladies under twelve, to instruct in the usual routine of a thorough English education, with the accomplishments. References unexceptionable." Think of an educated woman, of keen sensibilities, toiling at this harrassing task for a grudgingly bestowed pittance of 8s. per week. Think of it, and blush for the nineteenth century-this enlightened age! THE AUTHORS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. No. IV.-DR ARNOLD. THE LABOURERS OF BRITAIN. WHEN I call the great evil of England the unhappy situation in which the poor and the rich stand towards each other, I wish to show that the evil is in our feelings quite as much or more than in our outward condition. Much greater states of actual suffering have often existed in different parts of the world. War, pestilence, and actual famine have raged in former times through this very land of ours, with a destruction which we now can hardly so much as fancy. In many parts of the world at this moment, even allowing for difference of climate, the poor are quite as ill fed as in England, and far worse clothed and lodged. But the great evil in us is, that there is so much suffering and so much enjoyment close alongside of each other: that although the poor in other countries may be as poor, yet the rich are nowhere so rich as in England; that if the one has elsewhere as much to suffer, yet the other has nowhere on the face of the earth any thing like as much to enjoy. I have never had any patience at hearing persons in the rank of gentlemen in England complain of the burden of taxation. Undoubtedly our taxes are heavy, but they are but a cheap purchase-money for the unequalled civilization which we enjoy. Perfect freedom, perfect security, unrivalled means of communication, unequalled excellence in every article which can minister to the comfort of life, and the most abundant means of acquiring knowledge, and of gratifying our taste and curiosity,-these are the blessings enjoyed in this country by all the higher and middle classes; and the lighter taxation of other countries would be but a poor exchange for the infinite superiority of civilization and comfort which the richer classes can command in England. Together with this enjoyment-together with the extraordinary state of refinement which has flowed from it -there exists in the daily sight of it, and feeling the contrast of it at every turn, an enormous mass of poverty ignorance proudly or reproachfully! In fact, it is a matter and ignorance. God forbid that I should speak of this of the deepest shame and humiliation to those who have knowledge that so many of their fellow-creatures should be left thus destitute of it. Nor by ignorance do I mean only an ignorance of what is called book-learning, but an ignorance of mankind and of many of those pleasures which men under happier circumstances can enjoy. They are ignorant of mankind, as all people must be who neither read, nor travel, nor see a great variety of persons of painting, of natural scenery, and of a knowledge of the at their own homes. The pleasures of poetry and music, common objects which we see every day around us, and of those laws by which they are governed, are either wholly unknown to many of the poor, or are at least most imperfectly enjoyed. And the consequence is, that while rich and poor all are born with one common nature, yet the tastes and faculties of each are so differently cultivated, that many things which the one most delights in, are not at all understood by the other, and are therefore ridiculed and despised. Here, then, are two classes of people in the same country constantly coming in each other's way, yet with very little sympathy in each other's feelings, or views, or pleasures. They cannot understand each other, but yet they can see that the one class abounds, while the other is in want; that is, there are strong causes why one should, according to the well-known nature of man, envy existing to draw them cordially together. And this is an and dislike the other, and there are very few motives evil which continually increases itself; for it is the natural effect of wealth to get more wealth, and of poverty to become still poorer, and the wider the distance is between the outward condition of the rich and poor, the wider also will be the difference between their notions of things and their feelings. Thus goes on for a long while a daily increase of wickedness and misery, till the end is at last so dreadful, that I gladly turn away my mind from the thought of it. I lay a particular stress upon this separation of tastes and feelings between the rich and the poor in England, because I am sure it is the peculiar curse of our state of society. The most hurried viewer of the state of things on the continent must at once be struck with the great difference in this respect between the rest of Europe and ourselves. Abroad, the rich and the poor approach one another much more nearly in their habits, manners, and in many of their favourite amusements. The richer classes live more simply; the poor have opportunities afforded them of gaining a taste for the more refined pleasures. Nothing has given me more delight than to see the crowds of persons of every condition who frequent the great botanical garden at Paris. It is open freely to every body, with all its walks, plantations, museums, and menagerie; and the consequence is, that the poor take a pleasure and a pride in it; and, instead of disliking such things as the mere amusements of the rich, they enjoy them as much as the rich do; and common feeling prevents all that wanton mischief which is so complained of in England, and which is made the excuse for shutting up all our collections of pictures and other curiosities, and confining them to the rich alone. After what I had seen |