No More Learning

Mrs. Flirt, the keeper of a Virginia
ordinary, calls herself the daughter of a baronet, 'undone in the late
rebellion,'--her father having in truth been a tailor,--and three of the
Council, assuming to themselves an equal splendor of origin, are shown
to have been, one 'a broken exciseman who came over a poor servant,'
another a tinker transported for theft, and the third 'a common
pickpocket often flogged at the cart's tail. ' The ancestry of South
Carolina will as little pass muster at the Herald's Visitation, though I
hold them to have been more reputable, inasmuch as many of them were
honest tradesmen and artisans, in some measure exiles for conscience'
sake, who would have smiled at the high-flying nonsense of their
descendants. Some of the more respectable were Jews. The absurdity of
supposing a population of eight millions all sprung from gentle loins in
the course of a century and a half is too manifest for confutation. But
of what use to discuss the matter? An expert genealogist will provide
any solvent man with a _genus et pro avos_ to order. My Lord Burleigh
used to say, with Aristotle and the Emperor Frederick II. to back him,
that 'nobility was ancient riches,' whence also the Spanish were wont to
call their nobles _ricos hombres_, and the aristocracy of America are
the descendants of those who first became wealthy, by whatever means.
Petroleum will in this wise be the source of much good blood among our
posterity. The aristocracy of the South, such as it is, has the
shallowest of all foundations, for it is only skin-deep,--the most
odious of all, for, while affecting to despise trade, it traces its
origin to a successful traffick in men, women, and children, and still
draws its chief revenues thence. And though, as Doctor Chamberlayne
consolingly says in his 'Present State of England,' 'to become a
Merchant of Foreign Commerce, without serving any Apprentisage, hath
been allowed no disparagement to a Gentleman born, especially to a
younger Brother,' yet I conceive that he would hardly have made a like
exception in favour of the particular trade in question. Oddly enough
this trade reverses the ordinary standards of social respectability no
less than of morals, for the retail and domestick is as creditable as
the wholesale and foreign is degrading to him who follows it. Are our
morals, then, no better than _mores_ after all? I do not believe that
such aristocracy as exists at the South (for I hold with Marius,
_fortissimum quemque generosissimum_) will be found an element of
anything like persistent strength in war,--thinking the saying of Lord
Bacon (whom one quaintly called _inductionis dominus et Verulamii_) as
true as it is pithy, that 'the more gentlemen, ever the lower books of
subsidies.
' It is odd enough as an historical precedent, that, while the
fathers of New England were laying deep in religion, education, and
freedom the basis of a polity which has substantially outlasted any then
existing, the first work of the founders of Virginia, as may be seen in
Wingfield's 'Memorial,' was conspiracy and rebellion,--odder yet, as
showing the changes which are wrought by circumstance, that the first
insurrection, in South Carolina was against the aristocratical scheme of
the Proprietary Government. I do not find that the cuticular aristocracy
of the South has added anything to the refinements of civilization
except the carrying of bowie-knives and the chewing of tobacco,--a
high-toned Southern gentleman being commonly not only _quadrumanous_ but
_quidruminant_.

I confess that the present letter of Mr. Sawin increases my doubts as to
the sincerity of the convictions which he professes, and I am inclined
to think that the triumph, of the legitimate Government, sure sooner or
later to take place, will find him and a large majority of his newly
adopted fellow-citizens (who hold with Daedalus, the primal
sitter-on-the-fence, that _medium tenere tutissimum_) original Union
men. The criticisms towards the close of his letter on certain of our
failings are worthy to be seriously perpended; for he is not, as I
think, without a spice of vulgar shrewdness. _Fas est et ab hoste
doceri_: there is no reckoning without your host. As to the good-nature
in us which he seems to gird at, while I would not consecrate a chapel,
as they have not scrupled to do in France, to _Notre Dame de la Haine_
(Our Lady of Hate), yet I cannot forget that the corruption of
good-nature is the generation of laxity of principle. Good-nature is our
national characteristick; and though it be, perhaps, nothing more than a
culpable weakness or cowardice, when it leads us to put up tamely with
manifold impositions and breaches of implied contracts (as too
frequently in our publick conveyances) it becomes a positive crime when
it leads us to look unresentfully on peculation, and to regard treason
to the best Government that ever existed as something with which a
gentleman may shake hands without soiling his fingers. I do not think
the gallows-tree the most profitable member of our _Sylva;_ but, since
it continues to be planted, I would fain see a Northern limb ingrafted
on it, that it may bear some other fruit than loyal Tennesseeans.

A relick has recently been discovered on the east bank of Bushy Brook in
North Jaalam, which I conceive to be an inscription in Runick characters
relating to the early expedition of the Northmen to this continent. I
shall make fuller investigations, and communicate the result in due
season.

Respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

HOMER WILBUR, A. M.

P. S. --I inclose a year's subscription from Deacon Tinkham.