Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1856-11-15
From Il. W. Emerson's late work.
ENGLISH HABITS,

can English family consists of a few persons
who, from youth to age are found revolving with.
in a few feet of each other, as if tied by some in
visible hgature, tense as that cartilage which we
have seen attaching the two Siamese. England
produces, under favorable conditions of ease and
culture, the finest women in the world. And as
the men are afe ;tionate and trne-hearted, the wo-
men inspire and refine them. Nothing can be more
delicate, without being fantastical nothing more
firm and based in nature and sentiment than the
c~ourtship ami mutual carriage of the sexes. The
song of 1896 says, The wife of every Englishman
is counted blest.' The sentiment Of Imogene in
Cymbeline is copied from English nature and not
less the PUrtia Of Brutus. the Kate Percy, and the
Desdemona. The romance does not exceed in the
h light of noble passion in Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson,
or in Lady Russell or even as one jiscerns through
the plain prose of Pepys's Diary, the sacred habit
of an English wife. Sir Samuel Romily could not
bear the death of his wife. Every class has its no.
bic and tender example.
"Domesticity is the tap-root which enables the
nation to branch wide and high. The motive and
end of their trade and empire is to guard the indie
pendence and privacy of their homes. Nothing so
much marks their manners as the conceI tration on
their household ties. The domesticity is carried
into court and camp. Wellington governed India
and Spain and his own troops, and fought battles
like a good fa~mily-man, paid his debts, and though
general of an army in Spain, could not stir abroad
for fear of public creditors. This taste for house
and parish merits has of course, its doting and
foolish side. MIR. Goblet attributes the huge pop
ularity of Percival, prime minister in 1910, to the
fact that he was wont to 60 to church every Sun
day with a large quarto gilt prayer-book under
one arm. his wife hanging on the other, and fol-
lowed by a long brood Of children.
6 "They keep their old customs. costumes, and
q pomps their wig and mace, scoptre and CROWN
The middle ages still Turk in the streets of London.
The Knights of the Bath take oath to defend in.
+ jured ladies the gold-stick-in-waitin survives
They repeated the ceremonies of the eleventh cen,
= fury IN the coronation OF the present Queen. A
hereditary tenure is natural to them. Offices
farms, trades and traditions decend so. Their leas
es run for a hundred and a thousand years. Term.
of service and partnership are life long, or are in
f herited. 'Holdship has been with me- said Lore
mess and hooks. Antiquity of usage is sanction
enough. Wordsworth says of the small freehold
es of WestmOreland, Many of these humble SOM
Of the hills had a consciousness that the lane
e which they had titled had for more than five hun
> dred years been possessed by men of the sam,
name and blood The ship carpenter in the pub
u lie yards, my lords gardner and porter have beer
. there for more than a hundred years, grandfather
u father and son.
1.-THE English power resides also in their dislik
of change. They have difficulty in bringing thei
reason to act,and on all occasions use their memor
i hrst. As soon as they have rid themselves of som
grievance, and settled the better practice, the
make haste to fix it as a inality, and never wish t
hear of alteration more.
Every Englishman is ar embryonic chancellor
e his instinct is TO search fO- a precedent. The ia
: vorite phrase of their laws is. "A custom whereo
the memory of man runneth not back to the cor
8 trary.' The barons say, Notamus mutari,' and tn
IS Cockneys stiae the curiosity of the foreigner o.
e the reason Of any practice with, Lord. sir, it wa
S always so.' They hate innovation. Bacon told then
that Time was the right reformer Catham, tina
Confidence was a plant of slow growth : Canning
80 advance with the times and Wellington, tina
Habit was ten times nature All their states
n men learn the irresistibility of the tide of custom
e and have invented many fine phrases to cover thi
# slowness of perception and prehensility of tail.
"a sea-shell should be the crest of England
e not only because it represents a power built on tn
waves. but also the hard finish of the men. Tn
Englishman is finished like a eowry or a murex.-
" After the spire and the spines are formed, or wit
Is the formation, a juice exudes, and a hard ename
Varnlshes every part. The keeping of the pre-
prietes is as Indispensable as clean linen. N
merit quite countervails the want of this, Will
this sometimes stands in lieu of all. IT'S in ba
taste Is the most formidable word an Englishma
can pronounce. But this Japan costs them dea,
mere is a prose in certain Englishmen which ez