cy in Europe, the guarded
blood of centuries, should pass in review, in such manner as that we
could at leisure and critically inspect their behavior, we might find no
gentleman and no lady; for although excellent specimens of courtesy and
high-breeding would gratify us in the assemblage, in the particulars
we should detect offence. Because elegance comes of no breeding, but
of birth. There must be romance of character, or the most fastidious
exclusion of impertinencies will not avail. It must be genius which
takes that direction: it must be not courteous, but courtesy. High
behavior is as rare in fiction as it is in fact. Scott is praised for
the fidelity with which he painted the demeanor and conversation of the
superior classes. Certainly, kings and queens, nobles and great ladies,
had some right to complain of the absurdity that had been put in their
mouths before the days of Waverley; but neither does Scott's dialogue
bear criticism. His lords brave each other in smart epigramatic
speeches, but the dialogue is in costume, and does not please on the
second reading: it is not warm with life. In Shakspeare alone the
speakers do not strut and bridle, the dialogue is easily great, and he
adds to so many titles that of being the best-bred man in England and in
Christendom. Once or twice in a lifetime we are permitted to enjoy the
charm of noble manners, in the presence of a man or woman who have no
bar in their nature, but whose character emanates freely in their
word and gesture. A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; a
beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form: it gives a higher
pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts. A
man is but a little thing in the midst of the objects of nature, yet,
by the moral quality radiating from his countenance he may abolish all
considerations of magnitude, and in his manners equal the majesty of the
world. I have seen an individual whose manners, though wholly within
the conventions of elegant society, were never learned there, but were
original and commanding and held out protection and prosperity; one who
did not need the aid of a court-suit, but carried the holiday in his
eye; who exhilarated the fancy by flinging wide the doors of new modes
of existence; who shook off the captivity of etiquette, with happy,
spirited bearing, good-natured and free as Robin Hood; yet with the port
of an emperor, if need be,--calm, serious, and fit to stand