<h2> THE COUNTRY CHURCH. </h2>
<p>A gentleman!<br/>
What o’ the woolpack? or the sugar-chest?<br/>
Or lists of velvet? which is ‘t, pound, or yard,<br/>
You vend your gentry by?<br/>
BEGGAR’S BUSH.<br/></p>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/9155m.jpg" alt="9155m " width-obs="100%" /><br/> <SPAN href="images/9155.jpg"><i>Original</i></SPAN></div>
<p>HERE are few places more favorable to the study of character than an
English country church. I was once passing a few weeks at the seat of a
friend who resided in, the vicinity of one the appearance of which
particularly struck my fancy. It was one of those rich morsels of quaint
antiquity, which gives such a peculiar charm to English landscape. It
stood in the midst of a country filled with ancient families, and
contained within its cold and silent aisles the congregated dust of many
noble generations. The interior walls were encrusted with monuments of
every age and style. The light streamed through windows dimmed with
armorial bearings, richly emblazoned in stained glass. In various parts of
the church were tombs of knights, and highborn dames, of gorgeous
workmanship, with their effigies in colored marble. On every side, the eye
was struck with some instance of aspiring mortality, some haughty memorial
which human pride had erected over its kindred dust in this temple of the
most humble of all religions.</p>
<p>The congregation was composed of the neighboring people of rank, who sat
in pews sumptuously lined and cushioned, furnished with richly-gilded
prayer-books, and decorated with their arms upon the pew doors; of the
villagers and peasantry, who filled the back seats and a small gallery
beside the organ; and of the poor of the parish, who were ranged on
benches in the aisles.</p>
<p>The service was performed by a snuffling, well-fed vicar, who had a snug
dwelling near the church. He was a privileged guest at all the tables of
the neighborhood, and had been the keenest fox-hunter in the country,
until age and good living had disabled him from doing anything more than
ride to see the hounds throw off, and make one at the hunting dinner.</p>
<p>Under the ministry of such a pastor, I found it impossible to get into the
train of thought suitable to the time and place; so, having, like many
other feeble Christians, compromised with my conscience, by laying the sin
of my own delinquency at another person’s threshold, I occupied myself by
making observations on my neighbors.</p>
<p>I was as yet a stranger in England, and curious to notice the manners of
its fashionable classes. I found, as usual, that there was the least
pretension where there was the most acknowledged title to respect. I was
particularly struck, for instance, with the family of a nobleman of high
rank, consisting of several sons and daughters. Nothing could be more
simple and unassuming than their appearance. They generally came to church
in the plainest equipage, and often on foot. The young ladies would stop
and converse in the kindest manner with the peasantry, caress the
children, and listen to the stories of the humble cottagers. Their
countenances were open and beautifully fair, with an expression of high
refinement, but at the same time a frank cheerfulness and engaging
affability. Their brothers were tall, and elegantly formed. They were
dressed fashionably, but simply—with strict neatness and propriety,
but without any mannerism or foppishness. Their whole demeanor was easy
and natural, with that lofty grace and noble frankness which bespeak
free-born souls that have never been checked in their growth by feelings
of inferiority. There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity, that
never dreads contact and communion with others, however humble. It is only
spurious pride that is morbid and sensitive, and shrinks from every touch.
I was pleased to see the manner in which they would converse with the
peasantry about those rural concerns and field-sports in which the
gentlemen of the country so much delight. In these conversations there was
neither haughtiness on the one part, nor servility on the other, and you
were only reminded of the difference of rank by the habitual respect of
the peasant.</p>
<p>In contrast to these was the family of a wealthy citizen, who had amassed
a vast fortune, and, having purchased the estate and mansion of a ruined
nobleman in the neighborhood, was endeavoring to assume all the style and
dignity of an hereditary lord of the soil. The family always came to
church en prince. They were rolled majestically along in a carriage
emblazoned with arms. The crest glittered in silver radiance from every
part of the harness where a crest could possibly be placed. A fat
coachman, in a three-cornered hat richly laced and a flaxen wig, curling
close round his rosy face, was seated on the box, with a sleek Danish dog
beside him. Two footmen in gorgeous liveries, with huge bouquets, and
gold-headed canes, lolled behind. The carriage rose and sunk on its long
springs with a peculiar stateliness of motion. The very horses champed
their bits, arched their necks, and glanced their eyes more proudly than
common horses; either because they had caught a little of the family
feeling, or were reined up more tightly than ordinary.</p>
<p>I could not but admire the style with which this splendid pageant was
brought up to the gate of the churchyard. There was a vast effect produced
at the turning of an angle of the wall—a great smacking of the whip,
straining and scrambling of the horses, glistening of harness, and
flashing of wheels through gravel. This was the moment of triumph and
vainglory to the coachman. The horses were urged and checked, until they
were fretted into a foam. They threw out their feet in a prancing trot,
dashing about pebbles at every step. The crowd of villagers sauntering
quietly to church opened precipitately to the right and left, gaping in
vacant admiration. On reaching the gate, the horses were pulled up with a
suddenness that produced an immediate stop, and almost threw them on their
haunches.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG src="images/0159m.jpg" alt="0159m " width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<h5>
<SPAN href="images/0159.jpg"><i>Original</i></SPAN>
</h5>
<p>There was an extraordinary hurry of the footmen to alight, pull down the
steps, and prepare everything for the descent on earth of this august
family. The old citizen first emerged his round red face from out the
door, looking about him with the pompous air of a man accustomed to rule
on ‘Change, and shake the Stock Market with a nod. His consort, a fine,
fleshy, comfortable dame, followed him. There seemed, I must confess, but
little pride in her composition. She was the picture of broad, honest,
vulgar enjoyment. The world went well with her; and she liked the world.
She had fine clothes, a fine house, a fine carriage, fine children—everything
was fine about her: it was nothing but driving about and visiting and
feasting. Life was to her a perpetual revel; it was one long Lord Mayor’s
Day.</p>
<p>Two daughters succeeded to this goodly couple. They certainly were
handsome, but had a supercilious air that chilled admiration and disposed
the spectator to be critical. They were ultrafashionable in dress, and,
though no one could deny the richness of their decorations, yet their
appropriateness might be questioned amidst the simplicity of a country
church. They descended loftily from the carriage, and moved up the line of
peasantry with a step that seemed dainty of the soil it trod on. They cast
an excursive glance around, that passed coldly over the burly faces of the
peasantry, until they met the eyes of the nobleman’s family, when their
countenances immediately brightened into smiles, and they made the most
profound and elegant courtesies, which were returned in a manner that
showed they were but slight acquaintances.</p>
<p>I must not forget the two sons of this inspiring citizen, who came to
church in a dashing curricle with outriders. They were arrayed in the
extremity of the mode, with all that pedantry of dress which marks the man
of questionable pretensions to style. They kept entirely by themselves,
eying every one askance that came near them, as if measuring his claims to
respectability; yet they were without conversation, except the exchange of
an occasional cant phrase. They even moved artificially, for their bodies,
in compliance with the caprice of the day, had been disciplined into the
absence of all ease and freedom. Art had done everything to accomplish
them as men of fashion, but Nature had denied them the nameless grace.
They were vulgarly shaped, like men formed for the common purposes of
life, and had that air of supercilious assumption which is never seen in
the true gentleman.</p>
<p>I have been rather minute in drawing the pictures of these two families,
because I considered them specimens of what is often to be met with in
this country—the unpretending great, and the arrogant little. I have
no respect for titled rank, unless it be accompanied with true nobility of
soul; but I have remarked, in all countries where artificial distinctions
exist, that the very highest classes are always the most courteous and
unassuming. Those who are well assured of their own standing are least apt
to trespass on that of others; whereas, nothing is so offensive as the
aspirings of vulgarity, which thinks to elevate itself by humiliating its
neighbor.</p>
<p>As I have brought these families into contrast, I must notice their
behavior in church. That of the nobleman’s family was quiet, serious, and
attentive. Not that they appeared to have any fervor of devotion, but
rather a respect for sacred things, and sacred places, inseparable from
good-breeding. The others, on the contrary, were in a perpetual flutter
and whisper; they betrayed a continual consciousness of finery, and the
sorry ambition of being the wonders of a rural congregation.</p>
<p>The old gentleman was the only one really attentive to the service. He
took the whole burden of family devotion upon himself; standing bolt
upright, and uttering the responses with a loud voice that might be heard
all over the church. It was evident that he was one of these thorough
Church-and-king men, who connect the idea of devotion and loyalty; who
consider the Deity, somehow or other, of the government party, and
religion “a very excellent sort of thing, that ought to be countenanced
and kept up.”</p>
<p>When he joined so loudly in the service, it seemed more by way of example
to the lower orders, to show them that, though so great and wealthy, he
was not above being religious; as I have seen a turtle-fed alderman
swallow publicly a basin of charity soup, smacking his lips at every
mouthful and pronouncing it “excellent food for the poor.”</p>
<p>When the service was at an end, I was curious to witness the several exits
of my groups. The young noblemen and their sisters, as the day was fine,
preferred strolling home across the fields, chatting with the country
people as they went. The others departed as they came, in grand parade.
Again were the equipages wheeled up to the gate. There was again the
smacking of whips, the clattering of hoofs, and the glittering of harness.
The horses started off almost at a bound; the villagers again hurried to
right and left; the wheels threw up a cloud of dust, and the aspirin
family was rapt out of sight in a whirlwind.</p>
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