more than all the institutions, great or small, which man has devised. In truth, just as far this is improved, as its duties are performed, and its blessings prized, all artificial institutions are superseded. Here then is the sphere for the agency of the wise and good. Improve the family, strengthen and purify the relations of domestic life, and more is done for the happiness and progress of the race than by the most splendid charities." It is of such materials that English society is formed, and from such proceeds its compact, indissoluble power in all its relations. We have endeavoured to go to the foundations of national character, before we commence our inquiry into the changes, whether for good or for evil, visibly taking place. In a late article * we considered the real influences of the aristocracy, rightly so called, upon our institutions, manners, and habits; we are now to examine the reciprocating powers of the democracy of our constitution. Of what is that portion of our State composed?- -as we define it, of all below the Crown and the families of the House of Peers. Though not equally distinct as before the growth of a population so increased in numbers that almost every village is a town, every town a city, before distances were reduced, and intercourse so infinitely facilitated by modern wealth and invention, the inhabitants of the rural districts are still a separate race from those of larger places. Agricultural and manufacturing are still the generic titles, but, though still distinct, the characters are every day blending more and more. The simplicity of rustic manners is gone;-the pure morality is gone. We are not now inquiring into causes, they have been already explained at length in our pages†,—we have to do only with the fact. The villager retains much of the dulness without the honesty of his nature and employment. It is a practical observation that, if you would have zeal and activity, you must engage youth in the service; if sobriety, judgment, and discretion, you must seek age and experience. But even these characteristics are obliterated, for there is little zeal where there is no natural tie but money-payment, and especially where even that reward is confessedly insufficient not only for the work, but inadequate to support the workman. Cunning, and evasion and idleness, indifference, and dishonesty and disrespect have supplanted the natural affection, unwearied industry, the sober content, and dignified humility which once bound to each other the farmer and his workman. The rural population is, therefore, reckless and ripe for change; not daring enough to begin a general revolt, (their late partial experiment failed,) but ready and eager to join in any contest which might promise to better their own condition, by intimidation or plunder of their superiors. Moral restraint the impalpable monitor which subdues evil dispositions and teaches the great lesson" to do unto all men as you would they should do unto you," that homely and domestic, but wholesome code of practical honour which might truly have been called the unbought grace of life, and the cheap defence of person and property, is gone. All the pride of industry and virtue is extinct, and the vices of the country are * On the Aristocracy of England.-New Monthly Magazine for May, 1834. See the article on the Rural Population.-New Monthly Magazine for March, 1832. only of less dangerous dimensions than those of the city, in so far as they are less combined, active, and daring, directed to frauds of low and petty amount, while perhaps they are far more corrupting and constant, and scarcely less irritating in the manner, or important in the aggregate. The one great exception, incendiarism, the evidence as much of universal as of individual poverty, exasperation, and vengeance, exalts rural crime, by the terrors attending its infliction of positive loss, to a height not yet reached even by the bank-robber and the wholesale burglar of the metropolis. But what are the political indications? how do these bear upon the nature of " the democracy" (of which we shall soon show the labourers in husbandry are, indeed, no portion) as part and parcel of the Constitution of England? Why thus;-they are ripe for revolution, by which single word they understand any change to be effected by violence, and holding out the lure of an improved condition, by the plunder of property. Released alike from the bonds of natural affection and moral regulation, they present a fearfully unconnected mass, the subjects of continual legal terror and compulsion, to be kept under by scarcely any other restraint. Is not this strange? Is it not still more strange that, while the disorder and its consequences are so palpable, the Government should be about to apply the multifarious agency of the complicated machinery (for torture) of the Poor Laws Amendment Bill, instead of the simple lenitive-employment? For poverty, the most abject poverty, the inseparable attendant of idleness produced by the too severe competition of superabundant numbers, has been, and must continue to be, the destruction, while it has also been, and still remains, the universal misery of the rural population. And if it be argued, and instances adduced to prove that crime is not always committed through the immediate temptations of indigence, it ought never to be forgotten that the demoralization may be only a secondary cause, springing out of poverty. Crime is, indeed, the offspring of a reckless immorality; but that state of mind in the rural population has been gradually, but certainly brought on by the pressure of extreme necessity, working this enormous evil through the perverted agency of the Poor Laws*. It presents a curious anomaly in the practice of the British Constitution, that the hind, the labourer in husbandry, enjoys no share in the representation, while the operative in every other branch has an opening to a participation of the franchise by birth or servitude. Even the new Magna Charta of Reform has left him in his original state of villeinage. Nor does this vast proportion of the people of England, although standing in the ratio of about seven to eleven compared with those employed in other callings, possess the slightest political influence. This privation and weakness may, in some degree, account for the neglect of their superiors, and, what is worse, the tendency of legislation to abase, rather than to exalt them. Denied all share of power, and abandoned by their natural protectors, the distance which separates these living atoms and "Of all popular suppositions, the most common among our philanthropical philosophers is, to believe that in England poverty is the parent of crime. This is not exactly the case. Pauperism is the parent of crime; but pauperism is not poverty. The distinction is delicate and important."-England and the English, vol. i., p. 211. Mr. Bulwer has here again removed the cause a step: poverty is the first cause of pauperism-the abuse of the poor-laws a secondary agent. prevents their cohesion robs them at once of all gravity and impulsion in the state. Next in degree amongst the rural peopling stands "the bold yeoman," the native oak in the English forest of power. He, too, is changed, and alas that he is so! But what has altered him? The sudden growth to affluence, and the not less sudden decline. He, too, is individualized, but less, perhaps, than any other class*. "Sir Thomas Smith, Knight, Doctoure of both Lawes, and one of the principall Secretaries unto two most worthy Princes, King Edward, and Queene Elizabeth," thus quaintly describes this class in his time:-"Those whom we call Yeomen, next unto the Nobilitie, Knights, and Squires, have the greatest charge and doings in the Commonwealth, or rather are more travelled to serve in it than all the rest, as shall (appeare hereafter. I call him a yeoman whom our Lawes doe call legatum hominem, a word familiar in Writs and Enquests, which is a freeman borne English, and may dispend of his owne free Land in yeerely revenue to the summe of fortie shillings sterling. This maketh (if the just value were taken now to the proportion of monies) sixe pound of our currant money at this present. This sort of people confesse themselves to be no Gentlemen, but give the honour to all which be or take upon them to be Gentlemen, and yet they have a certain preheminence, and more estimation than Labourers and Artificers, and commonly live wealthily, keepe good houses, and doe their businesse and travell to acquire riches: these be (for the most part) Farmours unto Gentlemen, which with grazing, frequenting of markets, and keeping servants not idlely as the gentleman doth, but such as get both their own living and part of their masters, and by these means doe come to such wealth, that they are able and daily doe buy the lands of unthriftie gentlemen, and after setting their sonnes to the school at the Universities, to the Lawes of the Realme, or otherwise leaving them sufficient lands whereon they may live without labour, doe make their said sonnes by those means Gentlemen: these bee not called Masters, for that (as I said) pertaineth to gentlemen only. But to their sirnames men adde Goodman as if the sirname be Luter, Finch, White, Browne, they are called Goodman Luter, Goodman Finch, Goodman White, Goodman Browne, amongst their neighbours. I meane not in matters of importance, or in Law. But in matters of Law, and for distinction, if one were a Knight, they would write him (for example's sake) Sir John Finch, Knight; so if he be an Esquire, John Finch, Esquire or Gentleman; if he bee no Gentleman, John Finch, Yeoman. For amongst the Gentlemen they which claime no higher degree, and yet bee to bee exempted out of the number of the lowest sort thereof, bee written Esquires. So amongst the Husbandmen, Labourers, the lowest and rascall sort of the people, such as bee exempted out of the number of the rascabilitie of the popular, bee called and written Yeomen, as in the degree next unto Gentlemen. These are they which old Cato calleth aratores and optimos cives in Republica, and such as of whom the writers of Commonwealths praise to have many in it. Aristotle, namely, reciteth molanas μrontíapa: these tend their own businesse, come not to meddle in publike matters and judgements, but when they are called, and glad when they are delivered thereof, are obedient to the Gentlemen and Rulers, and in warre can abide travaile and labour; as men used to fight for their Lords of whom they holde their Lands, for their wives and children, for their country and nation, for praise and honour against they come home, and to have the love of their Lord and his children, to be continued towards them and their children, which have adventured their lives for and with him and his. These are they which in the old world gate that honour to England, not that either for wit, conduction, or for power, they are or were to be compared to the Gentlemen, but because they be so many in number, so obedient at the Lord's call, so strong of body, so hard to endure paine, so couragious to adventure with their Lords or Captaine, going with, or before them, for else they be not hastie nor never were, as making no profession of knowledge of warre. "These were the good Archers in times past, and the stable troupe of Footmen that affraid all France, that would rather die all than once abandon the Knight or Gentleman their Captaine; who at those days commonly was their Lord, and whose tenants they were, ready (besides perpetuall shame) to be in danger of undoing themselves, and all theirs, if they should shew any signe of cowardise, or abandon the Lord, Knight, or Gentleman, of whom they held their living. And this they The period of agricultural prosperity seemed to be highly favourable to the independence of this class, for while but too many spent the chief portion of their inordinate profits nearly as soon as they got them, the more provident vested them in land. The growth of small freeholders was perhaps greater from 1800 to 1813 than during any preceding similar cycle. Nor was this the only stimulus to the improvement of the body of the tenantry. During the excitement of the war they learned to take an interest in the public affairs, and, almost for the first time, to know that they had one. Hitherto they had been (what they are very much now) the followers of the landlord or of some county political chieftain. But the events of that justling period roused their curiosity and excited their feelings. A few were republicanized, but the million enlisted under Mr. Pitt's banner: they joined the yeomanry corps, and imbibed, not a natural, but a furious spirit of loyalty. The advantages of his system, as it was called, were most powerfully experienced by the agricultural body; their passions were gratified and their pockets filled by the same process; and to this coincidence probably was owing in no slight degree the stream of popularity which bore that minister so irresistibly forward. But with the peace came a total revulsion. It should almost appear that this crisis had never been anticipated, and when the fall was at hand every exertion was essayed to perpetuate high prices. The reports of agricultural committees †, and the legislation upon them, declare the madness. But the consequences upon the property of the landed interest are well known. Our search is addressed to political results, and these have been, first, to make the body more inquiring and less inert, ultimately more dissatisfied. Dependent though the occupiers still are upon the large proprietors, it has become infinitely more difficult, and in many instances impossible, for landlords to command the votes of their tenants with the same absolute autocracy they did in the olden days. The non-residence of the clergy and the bickerings concerning tithes have turned many away from the Church, and dissolved much of the power of that influential body, hitherto, with few exceptions, always working with the Government. The multiplication of small landholders has coincided with the dissolution of the influences of personal regard produced by the known embarrassment and absenteeism of country gentlemen from their estatest and their own districts, wherein the yeomanry -literally the yeomanry-have not only the power, but the will to have amongst them from their forefathers, told one to another."-The Commonwealth of England, and the Manner and Government thereof, p. 62. war * During the latter years of the contest with France, "Buonaparte and a long was drunk at a public dinner of farmers in one of the eastern counties, and the sentiment was universal amongst them. "What are the opinions of the farmers?" asked a nobleman of his agent, after the dissolution of the last Parliament. "That." my lord, "depends upon the price of barley," replied the steward. + The first fixed the protecting-duty at 120s. a quarter!!!! the second at 80s.!!! the third at 60s. !! and the last by a graduated scale! It needs not be argued that none have afforded protection, adequate protection; for the agriculturist is only just above the verge of ruin-landlord, tenant, and labourer. It is marvellous that country gentlemen should not perceive that if they turn their backs on their tenants, their tenants will gradually cease to know, regard, or respect them. Almost every landlord, whose fortune will allow him, quits his place from the end to the beginning of the shooting season-thus practically declaring that partridges and pheasants have a deeper interest for him than the cultivation of his estate, the prosperity of his tenantry, and the well-being of the peasantry. nominate and bring in their own candidate in absolute opposition to the Such are the results of the individualization induced out of circumstances, and augmented by knowledge, upon an order of men hitherto the most sound and stable, the most careful, prudent, and unirritable of any in the commonwealth. They now stand alone; divided from the classes on which they used to depend not less than from those which depended on them. If not dangerous to Government, they must, nevertheless, be the objects of a far more anxious solicitude, and of a far different treatment than when they could be counted by the head like cattle, to be led or driven to the hustings or the Common Hall, by those under whom, in the language of feudality, they held. They are even now formidable, and were it not for their separation by local distance—a reduction of power they are endeavouring to remedy by district associations-they would be no less the subjects of ministerial watchfulness and surveillance than the Trade Unions of London, Manchester, and Birmingham. The political sentiments, relations, and weight of the class of the larger landed proprietors (below the real aristocracy) is not less altered ! |