were
thronging the walks, I said to him, "After all, this establishment
amounts to a public museum and pleasure grounds for the use of the
people." He assented. "And," said I, "you English people like these
things; you like these old magnificent seats, kept up by old families."
"That is what I tell them," said Joseph Sturge. "I tell them there is no
danger in enlarging the suffrage, for the people would not break up
these old establishments if they could." On that point, of course, I had
no means of forming an opinion.

One cannot view an institution so unlike any thing we have in our own
country without having many reflections excited, for one of these
estates may justly be called an institution; it includes within itself
all the influence on a community of a great model farm, of model
housekeeping, of a general museum of historic remains, and of a gallery
of fine arts.

It is a fact that all these establishments through England are, at
certain fixed hours, thrown open for the inspection of whoever may
choose to visit them, with no other expense than the gratuity which
custom requires to be given to the servant who shows them. I noticed, as
we passed from one part of the ground to another, that our guides
changed--one part apparently being the perquisite of one servant, and
one of another. Many of the servants who showed them appeared to be
superannuated men, who probably had this post as one of the dignities
and perquisites of their old age.

The influence of these estates on the community cannot but be in many
respects beneficial, and should go some way to qualify the prejudice
with which republicans are apt to contemplate any thing aristocratic;
for although the legal title to these things inheres in but one man, yet
in a very important sense they belong to the whole community, indeed, to
universal humanity. It may be very undesirable and unwise to wish to
imitate these institutions in America, and yet it may be illiberal to
undervalue them as they stand in England. A man would not build a house,
in this nineteenth century, on the pattern of a feudal castle; and yet
where the feudal castle is built, surely its antique grace might plead
somewhat in its favor, and it may be better to accommodate it to modern
uses, than to level it, and erect a modern mansion in its place.

Nor, since the world is wide, and now being rapidly united by steam into
one country, does the objection to these things, on account of the roo