or military arrogance. A German clergyman is
not, in that emphatic sense which makes itself felt
amongst ourselves, a gentleman. The rural pastor
of Germany is too often, in effectual weight of character,
little more than the “Amen” clerk of our
English establishment. If he is treated courteously,
as amongst very elevated persons he is, this concession
he owes to their high bred refinement, and
not to any dignity which clothes himself. There
we speak of the reformed churches, whether Calvinist,
Lutheran, or the new syncratistic church, manufactured
by the present government of Prussia. But in
Popish countries, the same tendency is seen on a larger
scale: the whole ecclesiastical body, parochial
or monastic, retires from the contests of life; and
fails, therefore, to contribute any part of the civil
resistance needed for making head against the military
profession. On the other hand, in England, through
the great schools of Eton, Harrow, &c., children even
of ducal families are introduced to public life, and
to popular sympathies, through the discipline of what
may be called miniature republics. No country
on earth, it is rightly observed by foreigners, shows
so much of aristocratic feeling as England. It
cannot, therefore, be denied—that a British
duke or earl at Eton, and more especially in his latter
stages when approaching the period of his majority,
is the object of much deference. Entering upon
the time when practically he becomes sui juris,
he has far too much power and influence to be treated
with levity. But it is equally true, that a spirit
of republican justice regulates his childish intercourse
with his fellow alumni: he fights battles
on equal terms with any of them, when he gives or
receives offence. He plays at cricket, he sails
or rows his boat, according to known general
regulations. True, that his private tutor more
often withdraws a patrician boy from the public sports:
but, so long as he is a party of them, he neither
is, nor, from the nature of such amusements, could
be indulged with any special immunities. The
Condes and Ducas of Spain, meantime,
have been uniformly reared at home: for this
we have the authority of Spanish economists, as also
of many travellers. The auspicious conductor
of the young grandee’s education are usually
his mother’s confessor and his mother’s
waiting-women. Thence comes the possibility that
a Spanish prince should have degraded himself in the
eyes of Europe as a sempster and embroiderer of petticoats.
Accordingly, the highest order of the Spanish nobility
is said to be physically below the standard of their
countrymen, in a degree too apparent to escape general
notice; whilst in the same relations our own nobility
has been generally pronounced the finest animal
race amongst us.