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The Country Church
A gentleman!
What o' the woolpack? or the sugar-chest?
Or lists of velvet? which is 't, pound, or yard,
You vend your gentry by?
BEGGAR'S BUSH.
THERE 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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."
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.
Washington Irving's short story: The Country Church
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