The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1849-05-21
American Anglicism

recent riots in New York as the expression of a
critical opinion in regard to the comparative merits
of Forrest and Macready, but rather the protest
of the mass of the American people against Eng
lish tastes and English prejudices. We no more
believe that Mr. Forrest insgated the attack which
| was made on the Astor Place Opera House than
that Mr.. Macready bribed Forster to write the ar
tices in the Examiner against the American actor.
The letters of Mr.. Forrest, written as they were
with certain coarse vigor which, though offensive
to good taste, is not more disgusting and certainly
less contemplate than the Werner-like, Childe-
Haroldish, would prosecuted affectaton of Ma
cready, may have had some influence in exciting
the minds of the New Workers.. But the letters
were merely the means of calling into action
the American people. Whether this feeling be
reasonable or unreasonable, we will not pretend to
say; but we think it at any rate far preferable to
the admiraton,of England, Englishmen and Eng
lish Institutions which pervades another portion of
our citizens
The causes of the prejudice in this country
against England and her institutions lie upon the
surface and are easily perceived. The have their
foundation in nature, and the feeling against Eng
llsh manners and English opinions is natural and
inartificial. But the counter feeling which some
Americans have, in favor of British customs and
prejudices is the result of erroneous and defective
education, and Is pampered into some sort of
strength by the intimate commercial relations exist
ing between this country and England. The SYM
pathy for British habits is created and nurtured in
the school; for instead of filling the pupil with the
grand ideas of the Bible, of Shakespeare and of
Milton, which rise above all conventional and ma
tional preudices, the teacher most generally called
on him to admire the graceful diction of Pope and
the sonorous lines of Thomson, together with all
the artificial sentiments which pervade the works
of these and other second-rate poets. When the
boy has passed through the school and gets into the
college, the professor recommends him to read
Hume and other historians who mistake appear
ances for reality, and have got to think what they
call the checks and balances of the English con-
stiiution the most perfect government imaginable.
Of late years, too, the novels of Walter Scott-as
well as his poetry-have had vast influence in
producing a sickly admiration of chivalry and the
manners of the middle ages When the boys and
girls have got through Scott, and many worse au-
thors, they take to reading the fashionable novel;
from the frying-pan they fall into the fire. pic
ture of what exists in London-the cOlors being a
little heightened by the authors arts considered
as the model on which all people of good taste
should form their habits and opinions Last of all,
the merchant trades with England and as his Pc
cuiar pursuits have rendered him an intense adm-
rer Of capital and capitalists, he gets think the
English are the greatest people on the face of the
earth. 1t is rare that a man who has once got
within the circle of such false influences has the
power to withdraw himself from them. Better far
had ne read less and made less money, if reading
and money-makng have produced false tastes and
false opinions.
The existence of an English feeling among
Americans is an illustration of the line i" little
learning is dangerous thing'' The man who |
trusts to his own natural feelings and impulses is
far more apt to be right than he who permits him
self to be swayed by the fancies of men living in
another age and another country. If the past |
shackes us with prejudces, it is better that man
should be ignorant of the past when he acts in the
present; for the political and social wisdom of one
age is never the political and social wisdom of the
age succeeding or preceding. Society is ever in |
movement; and manners and laws must be in ac-
cordance with these movements, or else they are
false and dangerous. Hence the danger of draw
ing our political maxims from the history of another
country. This must ever be done with great re-
serve and caution; and it betrays lamentable
want of original thought and feeling to look TO
foreigners for those social laws-more pervading,
perhaps, than civil which regulate the every
lay intercourse between men.