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Untitled Article
have proceeded by the worst of means , and the nobleness of discipline has been wrought by the meanness of fear . '—vol . i . p . 105 . And now having disposed of the qualities which are so often put in antithetical opposition to common sense , let us look at the positive indications of its presence . We must pass over the proceedings on the Reform Bill , which were about as prudential as they were dig nified , and take only the more general observations .
* Like the nobility of other civilized countries , our own are more remarkable for an extravagant recklessness of money , for an impatient ardour for frivolities , for a headlong passion for the caprices , the debaucheries , the absurdities of the day , than for any of those prudent
and considerate virtues which are the offspring of common sense . How few estates that are not deeply mortgaged ! The Jews and the merchants have their grasp on more than three parts of the property of the peerage . Does this look like common sense ? But these excesses have been carried to a greater height with our aristocracy than with any other , partly because of their larger command of wealth , principally because they , being brought like the rest of the world under the
control of fashion , have not , like the ancient sieurs of France , or the great names of Germany , drawn sufficient consequence from their own birth to require no further distinctions . Our nobles have had ambition , that last infirmity of noble minds , and they have been accordingly accustomed to vie with each other in those singular phantasies of daring vulgarity with which a head without culture amuses an idleness without dignity . Hence , while we have boasted of our common sense ,
we have sent our young noblemen over the world to keep up that enviable reputation by the most elaborate eccentricities : and valuingourselves on our prudence , we have only been known to the continent by our extravagance . Nor is this all : those who might have been pardonable as stray specimens of erratic imbecility , we have formally enrolled as the diplomatic representatives of the nation : the oligarchical system of choosing all men to high office not according to their fitness for the place , but , according to their connexion with the party
uppermost , has made our very ambassadors frequently seem the delegates from our maisons des fous ; and the envoy of the British nation at the imperial court of Metternich and craft , was no less a person than the present Marquis of Londonderry . '—vol . i . p . 60—62 . In the Monthly Repository for March , we inserted an article from the spirited pen of Junius Redivivus on the condition of Women in England , which was thought by many to be
overcharged in its details . Our author however gives an account of this matter , which is not very different . He speaks ( vol . i . p . 137 . ) of * the universal marketing of our unmarried women ; a marketing peculiar to ourselves in Europe , and only rivalled by the slave merchant of the east . ' He says that our young men possess passion rather than sentiment , and may say with Quin to the fair glove-maker , < Madam , L never make love , 1 always buy it ready made . *
Untitled Article
594 Characteristics of English Aristocracy .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1833, page 594, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2622/page/10/
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