The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1880-01-30
The EnglisI, Country Gentleman.

The English country gentleman mot
necessarily noble, not rich, not clever,
yet proud, respectable, doing his duty,
whether as Sheriff or as member of Par
lament, or as county magistrate, with
sigh, grumbling at his hard fate, yet who
would not change places with the king
of any other country-not only exists
now in England, but has existed amid
various vicissitudes of state for six CEN
turies, and possibly for twice thatperiod.
His counterpart is the equally persistent
constituency which goes on from century
to century, preferring, though with re-
curing fits of willfulness, to repose its
confidence in the representative of the
old stock rather than go afeld for the
new lights of some new order of things.
His people came in with Hengist and
Horsa, with Ella and Cissa, with Cedric
and Cynric, and where they sat down,
there they staid, and there they are still.
'sJn suis 4 u reste,' was and is the motto
which they share with Marshal Mac
Mahon, but with the difference that they
have kept their work for some three
times as many centuries as he took years
to run away from his. Here and there
the names are changed, here and there
the blood. But, like the celebrated
knife, shaft and blade may come and go,
but the class, the folk, the position to be
filed, are the same. From it are re-
cruited at once the orders socially above
and below The squire grows into an
Earl, or degenerates into yeoman, only
to rise again, and perhaps to go up
higher. A few families retain the lands
their fathers won from the Romanized
Briton, few those which came to them
from the gift of William the Norman;
but, in the majority of instances, lands
have not been held in any one place by
any one family for any great length of
time, but have been transferred by
marriage and barter from family to
family; one going down in the world and
another going up, yet all, as it were,
floating in the same temperate zone of
the stream of time. In the House Of
Commons we have to-day men whose an
cestors were in the House of Lords six
centuries ago; and, on the other hand,
we have men in the House of Lords, and
even on the bench of Dukes, whose fore
fathers were yeomen under Henry III.
The burgesses have become squires; the
squires have become burgesses. There
has been constant interchange between
town and countryside town seeking to
the country for position, the country
seeking to the town for wealth. London
drew its supply OF Mayors and Aldermen
from the younger sons of the same
families that sent their elder sons to Par
lament. The younger became squires
in their turn, and the process was re-
peated by their descendants, and still
goes on ca capo People who complain
that the accumulation Of land in the
hands of few graeG landowners is
modern anomaly, forget, or never
learned, the names of Earl Harold or the
Earl or Warwick, of the Bohuns OF
Staffords, of the Wentworths or Villier-
ses, of the Holieses or Harleys, who, at
various times and in various places ac-
cumulated great estates, and then, cul-
minating, faded away into obscurity
again. No entail is sufficient to pre-
serve family from decay. Sooner or
later the wheel goes round. The
midd1e-class man of to-day is the
millionaire of tomorrow, the duke of
the next generation. One great estate
becomes disintegrated, and another is
formed. But the great middle class re-
mains-ridiculed, admired, trusted,
despised-the most peculiar English of
all our ancient institutions. s.-S0turddy
RpuiP2c