Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

ANNOTATIONS.

'We will speak of nobility first as a portion of an estate.'

In reference to nobility as an institution, it is important to remark how great a difference it makes whether the order of nobles shall include-as in Germany and most other countries -all the descendants of noble families, or, as in ours, only the eldest; the rest sinking down into commoners. The former system is very bad, dividing society into distinct castes, almost like those of the Hindus. Our system, through the numerous younger branches of noble families, shades off, as it were, the distinction between noble and not-noble, and keeps up the continuity of the whole frame.

'As for nobility in particular persons.'

In reference to nobility in individuals, nothing was ever better said than by Bishop Warburton-as is reported-in the House of Lords, on the occasion of some angry dispute which had arisen between a peer of noble family and one of a new creation. He said that, 'high birth was a thing which he never knew any one disparage, except those who had it not; and he never knew any one make a boast of it who had anything else to be proud of. This is worthy of a place among Bacon's' Pros and Cons,' though standing half-way between the two: 'Nobilitatem nemo contemnit, nisi cui abest; nemo jactitat, nisi cui nihil aliud est quo glorietur.'

It is curious to observe, however, that a man of high family will often look down on an upstart who is exactly such a person in point of merit and achievements as the very founder of his own family; the one from whom his nobility is derived: as if it were more creditable to be the remote descendant of an eminent man, than to be that very man oneself.

It is also a remarkable circumstance that noble birth is regarded very much according to the etymology of the word, from 'nosco:' for, a man's descent from any one who was much known, is much more thought of than the moral worth of his

ancestors. And it is curious that a person of so exceptionable a character that no one would like to have had him for a father, may confer a kind of dignity on his great-great-great-grandchildren. An instance has been known of persons, who were the descendants of a celebrated and prominent character in the Civil War, and who was one of the Regicides, being themselves zealous royalists, and professing to be ashamed of their ancestor. And it is likely that if he were now living, they would renounce all intercourse with him. Yet it may be doubted whether they would not feel mortified if any one should prove to them that they had been under a mistake, and that they were in reality descended from another person, a respectable but obscure individual, not at all akin to the celebrated regicide.

It was a remark by a celebrated man, himself a gentleman born, but with nothing of nobility, that the difference between a man with a long line of noble ancestors, and an upstart, is that the one knows for certain, what the other only conjectures as highly probable, that several of his forefathers deserved hanging.' Yet it is certain, though strange, that, generally speaking, the supposed upstart would rather have this very thing a certainty-provided there were some great and celebrated exploit in question-than left to conjecture. If he were to discover that he could trace up his descent distinctly to a man who had deserved hanging, for robbing-not a traveller of his purse, but a king of his empire, or a neighbouring State of a province, he would be likely to make no secret of it, and even to be better pleased, inwardly, than if he had made out a long line of ancestors who had been very honest farmers.

The happiest lot for a man, as far as birth is concerned, is that it should be such as to give him but little occasion ever to think much about it; which will be the case, if it be neither too high nor too low for his existing situation. Those who have sunk much below, or risen much above, what suits their birth, are apt to be uneasy, and consequently touchy. The one feels ashamed of his situation; the other, of his ancestors and other relatives. A nobleman's or gentleman's son, or grandson, feels degraded by waiting at table, or behind a counter; and a member of a liberal profession is apt to be ashamed of his father's having done so; and both are apt to take offence readily, unless they are of a truly magnanimous character.

It was

remarked by a celebrated person, a man of a gentleman's family, and himself a gentleman by station, 'I have often thought that if I had risen like A. B., from the very lowest of the people, by my own honourable exertions, I should have rather felt proud of so great a feat, than, like him, sore and touchy; but I suppose I must be mistaken; for I observe that the far greater part of those who are so circumstanced, have just the opposite feeling.'

The characters, however, of true inward nobility are ashamed of nothing but base conduct, and are not ready to take offence at supposed affronts; because they keep clear of whatever deserves contempt, and consider what is undeserved as beneath. their notice.

ESSAY XV. OF SEDITIONS AND TROUBLES.

SHE

HEPHERDS of people had need know the calendars of tempests in State, which are commonly greatest when things grow to equality, as natural tempests about the equinoctia ;' and as there are certain hollow blasts of wind and secret swellings of seas before a tempest, so are there in States :

'Ille etiam cæcos instare tumultus

Sæpe monet, fraudesque et operta tumescere bella.' 2

Libels and licentious discourses against the State, when they are frequent and open; and in like sort, false news often running up and down to the disadvantage of the State, and hastily embraced, are amongst the signs of troubles. Virgil, giving the pedigree of fame, saith, she was sister to the giants :

'Illam terra parens, ira irritata deorum,

Extremam (ut perhibent) Cao Enceladoque sororem

Progenuit.'3

As if fames were the relics of seditions past; but they are no less indeed the preludes of seditions to come. Howsoever, he noted it right, that seditious tumults and seditious fames differ no more but as brother and sister, masculine and feminineespecially if it come to that, that the best actions of a State, and the most plausible, and which ought to give greatest contentment, are taken in ill sense, and traduced; for that shows the envy great, as Tacitus saith, 'Conflata magna invidia, seu bene, seu male, gesta premunt." Neither doth it follow, that because these fames are a sign of troubles, that the suppressing of them with too much severity should be a remedy

[blocks in formation]

2 He often warns of dark fast-coming tumults, hidden fraud, and open warfare, swelling proud.'-Virgil, Georg. i. 465.

3 Virg. En. iv. 179.

4 Fames.

'Enraged against the Gods, revengeful Earth

Produced her, last of the Titanian birth.'-Dryden.

Reports; rumours. The fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh's

house, saying, Joseph's brethren are come.'-Genesis xlv. 16.

5 Plausible. Laudable; deserving of applause. See page 95.

6 Great envy being excited, they condemn acts, whether good or bad.' (Quoted probably from memory.)—Tac. Hist. i. 7.

of troubles; for the despising of them many times checks them best, and the going about to stop them doth but make a wonder long-lived. Also that kind of obedience, which Tacitus speaketh of, is to be held suspected: Errant in officio, sed tamen qui mallent mandata imperantium interpretari, quam exequi; disputing, excusing, cavilling upon mandates and directions, is a kind of shaking off the yoke, and assay of disobedience: especially if in those disputings they which are for the direction speak fearfully and tenderly, and those that are against it, audaciously.

Also, as Machiavel noteth well, when princes, that ought to be common' parents, make themselves as a party, and lean to a side, that is, as a boat that is overthrown by uneven weight on the one side as was well seen in the time of Henry III. of France; for, first himself entered league for the extirpation of the Protestants, and presently after the same league was turned upon himself; for when the authority of princes is made but an accessory to a cause, and that there be other bands that tie faster than the band of sovereignty, kings begin to be put almost out of possession.

Also, when discords, and quarrels, and factions, are carried openly and audaciously; it is a sign the reverence of government is lost; for the motions of the greatest persons in a government ought to be as the motions of the planets under primum mobile (according to the old opinion), which is, that every of them is carried swiftly by the highest motion, and softly in their own motion; and, therefore, when great ones in their own particular motion move violently, and, as Tacitus expresseth it well, 'Liberius quam ut imperantium meminissent"—

[ocr errors]

1 There is a law in our Statute Book against Slanderous Reports and Tales to cause Discord between King and People.'-Anno 5 Edward I., Westminster Primer, c. xxxi.

2 They were in attendance on their duties, yet preferred putting their own construction on the commands of their rulers to executing them.'—Tacit. Hist. i. 39. 3 Assay. The first attempt, or taste, by way of trial.

For well he weened that so glorious bait

Would tempt his guest to make thereof assay.'-Spenser.

* Common. Serving for all. The Book of Common Prayer.'

5 Primum mobile, in the astronomical language of Bacon's time, meant a body drawing all others into its own sphere.

"Every of them. Each of them; every one of them. And it came to pass in every of them.'-Apocrypha, 2 Esdras iii. 10.

7 More freely than is consistent with remembering the rulers.'

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »