to be forgotten. The brilliancy of Mr. Dickens's colouring may sometimes go beyond the sobriety of Nature; but his honesty is undoubted, and his insight into character such that, upon a point like this, his single testimony must outweigh thousands of disclaimers. Other travellers have described the prevalence of bankruptcy to be so great, as to cause it to be considered not in good taste to allude to the subject in general society. The pilgrim fathers, and that noble old colonial society which lives again in the pages of Mr. Bancroft, would hardly have understood this new variety of moral sentiment. As for the pursuit of gain, it is admitted that the passion rages with growing violence from year to year; and now, the Californian discoveries, by opening new visions of sudden wealth, have given it a fresh and fearful intensity. Looking at the American community as a whole, then, the signs of moral progress appear much less prominent than those of moral deterioration'.

1

Here are the weighty conclusions to which the mind of De Tocqueville was led by his survey of America, during which, indeed, while he had American society before his eyes, he was, as he said, thinking of France, and more or less of every European country:

"Les peuples chrétiens me paraissent offrir de nos jours un EFFRAYANT SPECTACLE; le mouvement qui les emporte est déjà assez fort pour qu'on ne puisse le suspendre, et il n'est pas encore assez rapide pour qu'on désespère de la diriger: leur sort est entre leurs mains; mais bientôt il leur échappe.

"Instruire la démocratie-ranimer s'il se peut ses croyances-purifier ses mœurs— régler ses mouvemens-substituer peu à peu la science des affaires à son inexpérience, la connaissance de ses vrais intérêts à ses aveugles instincts-adapter son gouvernement aux temps et aux lieux-le modifier suivant les circonstances et les hommes— tel est le premier des devoirs imposé de nos jours à ceux qui dirigent la société. "Il faut une science politique nouvelle à un monde tout nouveau."

CHAPTER III.

GROUNDS OF FEAR AND HOPE IN ENGLAND.

"England, with all thy faults I love thee still."-CowPER.

Evil Signs in England.

COMING back to England after this survey of foreign countries, it is impossible not to begin with the suspicion, that from the evil influences which have been at work elsewhere she cannot have escaped. She certainly has not. Decay has attacked, and is weakening, some of the foundations of her moral strength; but the more the position and character of England are studied, the more the conviction will grow, that an unparalleled conjunction of happy influences has as yet preserved her from any fatal taint. The moral condition of society in England, however, is a subject infinitely too large for treatment here; but two characteristics may be noted, as showing the working of exactly the same tendencies which appear in North America.

First, increased eagerness in the pursuit of wealth, accompanied by relaxation in the tone of commercial morality. Secondly, a decline of moral courage and frankness, as appearing in public life.

Upon the increased eagerness in the pursuit of wealth, enough has been said in the earlier pages of the present work. It may be added, however, that the prominence of a portion of the aristocracy during the last speculative fever was greater and more conspicuous and discreditable than on any previous occasion. One striking moral effect of intense competition may also be noted, as set forth in an article on Civilization, which

appeared in the London and Westminster Review for April, 1836, and which was attributed to Mr. Mill.

"There has been much complaint of late years of the growth, both in the world of trade and in that of intellect, of quackery, and especially of puffing; but nobody seems to have remarked, that these are the inevitable outgrowth of immense competition -of a state of society where any voice, not pitched in an exaggerated key, is lost in the hubbub. Success, in so crowded a field, depends not upon what a person is, but upon what he seems: mere marketable qualities become the object instead of substantial ones, and a man's labour and capital are expended less in doing anything than in persuading other people that he has done it. Our own age has seen this evil brought to its consummation. Quackery there always was, but it once was a test of the absence of sterling qualities; there was a proverb that good wine needed no bush. It is our own age which has seen the honest dealer driven to quackery, by hard necessity, and the certainty of being undersold by the dishonest. For the first time, arts for attracting public attention form a necessary part of the qualifications even of the deserving; and skill in these goes farther than any other quality towards ensuring success. The same intensity of competition drives the trading public more and more to play high for success, to throw for all or nothing; and this, together with the difficulty of sure calculations in a field of commerce so widely extended, renders bankruptcy no longer disgraceful, because no longer a presumption either of dishonesty or imprudence: the discredit which it still incurs belongs to it, alas! mainly as an indication of poverty."

The evils here adverted to are real and obvious. The statement respecting bankruptcy, however, must be taken as one of those rhetorical exaggerations, into which an earnest writer may often fall from his desire to enforce some important conclusion. By the majority of mercantile men in England, bankruptcy is still looked upon as disgraceful; and if this were not the case, there would be little use in moralizing on the subject. It is true, however, that the failures of 1847 did lead to revelations

which, as a whole, were felt to be more discreditable to the mercantile character of England than anything that had previously occurred. For the first time, probably, since that early period when Flemish or Italian capital was first advanced upon English good faith, the credit of English merchants generally came under suspicion in foreign countries. Nearly at the same period occurred the scandalous abuses in the management of various railway boards, decidedly worse than anything of the kind that had been known before, and evincing too plainly a growing relaxation in the moral practice of mercantile men. If those events could be taken as fair indications of the morality either of the nation or of the mercantile classes as a whole, the case would be, indeed, past all surgery. But they cannot be regarded in that light, when we call to mind the clear and emphatic reprobation which those transactions received from mercantile men, from statesmen, and from the public press. Whatever progress the disease had made, that general and indignant condemnation was a proof that there was still moral vitality enough to effect its cure, and that the community was sound at heart.

Decline of Moral Courage.

The decay of moral courage amongst public men appears to me to be in many respects a more serious evil, because the tendencies which lead to it seem less capable of counteraction. It has unquestionably increased since the Reform Bill, and threatens to be progressive under the continued working of popular representation. Exactly the same phenomena which De Tocqueville and others have noticed as resulting from the working of democracy in America, are becoming from day to day more prominent in England. Public opinion is growing tyrannical, and those who in any way depend upon its favour have strong temptations to become subservient and parasitical. It is more agreeable to exemplify what is going on by cases of bold and honourable resistance to the evil, than by

those of an opposite description. The separation of Mr. Roebuck from the constituency of Bath was, I think, an evil omen. If he had been more flexible, and less honest, he need not have sought a seat elsewhere. I am not insensible to Mr. Roebuck's faults; but his moral courage, his honesty, and his great power in parliamentary debate, cannot be questioned. Those high qualities, however, were all insufficient to induce a liberal majority to agree in allowing freedom of thought and action to its representative. My own faith in the Reform Bill received a still greater shock from the rejection of Mr. Macaulay by the constituency of Edinburgh in 1847; but before remarking upon this case, it will be well to make one or two general observations.

Permanent Seats for Tried Men.

It is clearly the interest of a popular constituency, when it has once really secured a good man, to keep him, and adhere to him through good report and evil report. They may, in the first instance, scrutinize to the utmost into character and capacity; but, those points once ascertained, it is preposterous that one who is qualified to legislate should be expected to veer about with every breath of popular feeling. At all events, it is certain that the best men will not do so; and if constituencies are determined to establish this slavish relation with their members, they must expect to find in the latter the vices of a slavish spirit. The principle of giving men, once approved of, something like a permanent seat, is a conservative principle, which would now be of immense value, because it is perfectly in harmony with the most advanced ideas of the present age. Lord Mahon has shown, in a very striking manner, how family seats contributed to give steadiness to the working of the old English constitution; the list of the House of Commons in the reign of Queen Anne exhibiting many of the same names, in connection with the same seats, which appeared in that assembly more than a hundred years later. That old principle, however, could not and cannot do otherwise than