ART. IX.-1. Thoughts upon the Aristocracy of England. By Isaac Tomkins, Gent. London: Henry Hooper, 13, Pall-Mall

East.

1835.

2. A Letter to Isaac Tomkins, Gent., Author of Thoughts upon the Aristocracy: from Mr. Peter Jenkins. London: Henry Hooper, 13, Pall-Mall East. 1835.

THE pamphlet upon the Aristocracy of England' is announced

as the first of a series ;—the name of Isaac Tomkins, Gentleman,' may well be called a nom de GUERRE; and the publisher is one of the regular agents for that system of societies-of which the eldest assumed the title of The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge-and the latest has not feared to proclaim itself The Society for the Diffusion of Political Knowedge.' The founder and president of all these ultra-philanthropic societies is Henry Lord Brougham and Vaux; and common report has ascribed to his lordship's versatile pen the pages which his lordship's agent, Mr. Hooper, has just published as the production of Isaac Tomkins, Gentleman.'

We have, from internal evidence, no sort of doubt that public report is in this instance correct. Any one who is acquainted with the noble and learned lord's style, and has carefully watched his conduct during the last two or three years, will, we think, either arrive at the same conclusion with ourselves, or, at the least, consider himself as fully entitled to assume that these Thoughts on the Aristocracy of England' have been revised, and sanctioned, and promulgated by his high authority. The Right Honourable Schoolmaster has, we know, a legion of pupils about his footstool, and it is possible that he may have caused one of these to hold the pen on this occasion; but there are allusions, some of them meant to be very sly, in every paragraph, which reveal internal feelings not likely to have found a place in any breast in England -save one and, in short, we have no more doubt about the real parentage of this bantling than the reader of the preceding Article can have as to the case of Niggerful John.'

We shall not offer any commentaries on Mr. Tomkins's views and opinions. We merely think it our duty, by a very few extracts, to introduce this Gentleman' to the acquaintance of our country readers. The indefatigable Diffuser of Useful, and Entertaining, and Political Knowledge, writing three weeks after the opening of this session of Parliament, thus opens his argument :

The happy audacity which has tempted the naturally cautious Tories to take office, and make one of the most desperate experiments on record (next to that of the Charleses and Polignacs in 1830), will advance reform by ten years, and hasten the improvement and

re-moulding

re-moulding of our aristocratic institutions in Church and State. This consideration points out the expediency of attending a little in detail to the aristocratic principle (and practice also) among us. The moment is favourable; and we must not lose sight of justice and of moderation merely because our triumph approaches.

The nobility of England, though it forms the basis and the bulk, forms not the whole of our aristocratic body. To all practical purposes we must include under that name all their immediate connexions, and even all who live in the same circles have the same objects, and from time to time attain the same privileges. The law of the constitution is, that only a peer's eldest son succeeds to his father's honours, and therefore we constantly hear it said that all the rest of the family belong to the body of the people. Nothing can be more true as regards legal rights-nothing more false as regards political and social bias. It is certain that the eldest son alone is deemed by our institutions to be born a lawgiver, a senator, and a judge; that he alone, be he ever so ignorant, stupid, and vicious, is allowed to decide upon the great questions of policy and of jurisprudence, and to sit in appeal upon the decisions of all the legal tribunals of the country, and to judge without review all his fellow-citizens for property, liberty, limb, and life. These high functions are so essentially inherent in him, that no bankruptcy, no idiotcy (short of being found lunatic by commission), no criminality, can deprive him of his judicial and legislative attributes. He may have committed felony, and been transported-or perjury, and been pilloried-or fraud, and been upon the tread-mill yet, the day after his sentence expires, he may take his seat next the Lord Chancellor or the Archbishop of Canterbury, and turn by his vote the fate of a great measure for dif fusing universally the justice which he has contemned and outraged; as indeed one voice threw out the Local Courts' Bill. [Eheu !]

That all these high, precious, grievous, absurd, and revolting privileges are confined to the eldest sons of peers is certain; it is equally certain that a more gross mistake never was committed than theirs who for this reason affect to consider all the younger branches of noble families as equal with the rest of the people. Equal they are in law they can only sue and be sued like their neighbours; they pay taxes like them; they cannot ride down the peasants or the shopkeepers with impunity; but so neither can the peers themselves. And yet who shall say that, except privilege of arrest from debt, and the power of sitting in parliament and as judges, there is any real difference existing by law between the eldest son and his brothers, further than there is between a rich man and a poor? All belong to the same caste; all are alike a favoured race in the government and in society; all have advantages unknown to us of the common people; and therefore all constitute the body of the aristocracy in fact, be the law ever so plain in the eldest son's favour.

'The same remark applies to all persons who, from their fortune

and

and education, live with the noble families habitually. They are admitted to the same familiarities; they receive the same respect from those who foolishly look up to rank and yet more foolishly gaze at fashion; they find the avenues to power as well as distinction open to them; they are born even to a political supremacy which others earn by working for it and deserving it. What difference in society is there between a lord's second son, or indeed his eldest, and the son of a rich squire, especially if he be of old family, that is, if his father and grandfather have been squires before him?

The aristocracy, then, as at present constituted, consists of all the classes to which we have been referring. That hereditary privileges are at the bottom of the whole, is not denied; that those privileges being destroyed all the worst parts of the other evils would cease, is admitted. But we are now to see the consequences of that very artificial state of society which now exists-of those unnatural, those forced, and factitious differences of level into which the flood of society is driven, and closed, and dammed up-in order to ascertain how far it would be expedient to reduce the banks and restore the natural level-the natural equality—that equality which alone is wholesome.”— pp. 3-8.

Mr. Tomkins proceeds to sketch a detailed picture, which he says is not agreeable, but like,' of the miseries to which the sons of reputable shopkeepers, &c.' are subjected, in consequence of the high, precious, grievous, and revolting' privileges of the aristocracy. And one of the worst of these miseries turns out to be-what? Neither more nor less than the comparative difficulty of access to the circles of what is called high life,'-the social intercourse of the dukes and marquisses, their wives, their mistresses, their girls, and their lads —p. 19—' which circles are drawn round THE VERY FOCUS of all hatred and contempt for the people!'-p. 11. Yet from the distinguished author's account of these contemptuous circles, drawn round this hateful focus of St. James's Palace, we cannot suppose that he seriously commiserates the disappointment of those reputable shopkeepers, &c.,' who would fain find a gap in their barriers.

The want of sense and reason which prevails in these circles is wholly inconceivable. An ignorance of all that the more refined of the middle or even of the lower classes well know, is accompanied by an insulting contempt for any one who does not know any of the silly and worthless trifles which form the staple of their only knowledge. An entire incapacity of reasoning is twin sister to a ready and flippant and authoritative denial of all that reason has taught others. An utter impossibility of understanding what men of learning and experience have become familiar with, stalks hand in hand, insolent and exulting, with a stupid denial of truths which are all but self-evident, and are of extreme importance.'—p. 13.

'The

The respectable journals are no favourite reading of theirs. The newspaper that fearlessly defends the right; that refuses to pander for the headlong passions of the multitude, or cater for the vicious appetites of the selecter circles; that does its duty alike regardless of the hustings and the boudoir; has little chance of lying on the satinwood table, of being blotted with ungrammatical ill-spelt notes, half bad English half worse French, or of being fondled by fingers that have just broken a gold-wax seal on a grass-green paper. But more especially will it be excluded, possibly extruded, from those sacred haunts of the Corinthian order, if it convey any solid instruction upon a useful or important subject, interesting to the species which the writers adorn, and the patricians do their best to degrade. Even wit the most refined finds no echo in such minds; and if it be used in illustrating an argument or in pressing home the demonstration (which it often may be), the author is charged with treating a serious subject lightly, and of jesting where he should reason. Broad humour, descending to farce, is the utmost reach of their capacity; and that is of no value in their eyes unless it raises a laugh at a friend's expense. Some who have lived at court, and are capable of better things, say they carefully eschew all jests; for princes take such things as a personal affront-as raising the joker to their own level, by calling on them to laugh with him. One kind of jest, indeed, never fails to find favour in those high latitudes where the author [qu. Mr. Tomkins?] is himself the subject of the merriment.

From a contemplation of the aristocracy, the result of sorrowful observation, not of irritable displeasure [!!!], we naturally turn to its lamentable but inevitable consequence. Can society long remain in this most unnatural state? Can the whole faculties and accomplishments of a great people be severed with impunity from the wealth, the rank, the privileges, and the personal and individual interests that exist in the state? The middle, not the upper class, are the part of the nation which is entitled to command respect, and enabled to win esteem, or challenge admiration. They read, they reflect, they reason, they think for themselves; they will neither let a pope, nor a prince, nor a minister, nor a newspaper, form their opinions for them; and they will neither from views of interest nor motives of fear be made the dupe or tool of others. They are the nation-the people-in every rational or correct sense of the word. By them, through them, for them, the fabric of the government is reared, continued, designed. How long are they likely to suffer a few persons of overgrown wealth, laughable folly, and considerable profligacy, to usurp, and exclusively to hold, all consideration, all individual importance? Can the scales of society be kept steadily adjusted when the unnatural force, violently exerted in favour of the feather, makes the unaided gold kick the beam?'-pp. 16-18.

Only see how the aristocracy and the Upper House of Parliament oppress the country and cause the mismanagement of its concerns!

First, the aristocracy as a body is essentially the enemy of all reform. Exceptions there are. Excellent sense in one; in another, good education for about the worst-educated country in Europe; in a third, party-zeal; in a fourth, personal spleen,-may alienate members of the body from their natural connexions, and enlist them in the cause of the people. For the aid of these men the country can never be too grateful. Far from repelling them by insult, and damping their generous efforts in our behalf by a cold and sullen reception, it is our duty and our interest to hail their arrival among us with open arms. They are of infinite use to us. Their motives should not be too narrowly scrutinized. They are worthy of all acceptation; and, if we know either what becomes us, or what serves us, we shall affectionately and gratefully receive them. The body at large is our foe; that is incapable of conversion. Mr. O'Connell may threaten, and MR. BROUGHAM [Mister Brougham!-H. B.!] may educate for ages; that body is beyond all the fears which the former can excite, and all the improvement which the latter can produce. All their habits-all their connexions-all their interests-oppose any conversion short of what a miracle could work.

The abuses of the system are not merely the protection of their order, but its direct presiding genius. For them sinecures exist; for them jobs are done. They it is that profit by the over-payment of public functionaries. They it is that amass wealth by the tax imposed upon the bread consumed, and alone consumed, by the people. For their sons, an overgrown army provides commissions and staff-appointments. For their sons, a bloated church establishment displays deaneries, and prebends, and bishoprics. To teach their children Tory principles, the public schools (the best education in England, and one ulterly below contempt) train the patrician infant to lisp in slavish accents. To confirm the lessons of Eton and Winchester, Oxford opens her conservative arms, and eradicates whatever feelings of humanity, whatever reasonable opinions, the expanding faculties of the mind may have engrafted upon the barren stocks of Henry the Sixth and William of Wickham. In truth, the universities are the very forcing beds of Tory aristocracy; and hence the peculiar jealousy with which the House of Lords, as if instinctively, regards whatever can by any possibility touch those haunts of bigotry and intolerance. The fact is, that go where you will, in these times, even in liberal circles, you find the youth-the fashionable youth-all embodied with the mothers and the tutors against liberal principles, and bent on resisting all improvement.

That the result of the whole system should give us the kind of Upper House which now assumes to govern the country, who can wonder? Upon its character and propensities there need few words be wasted. The habitual enemies of all reform-the steady supporters of intolerant measures-the determined opposers of liberal principles-what but the apprehension of mischief has prevented them

from