n which I have been insisting is so obvious, and
instances in point are so ready, that I should think it tiresome to
proceed with the subject, except that one or two illustrations may
serve to explain my own language about it, which may not have done
justice to the doctrine which it has been intended to enforce.

For instance, the polished manners and high-bred bearing which are so
difficult of attainment, and so strictly personal when attained,--which
are so much admired in society, from society are acquired. All that
goes to constitute a gentleman,--the carriage, gait, address, gestures,
voice; the ease, the self-possession, the courtesy, the power of
conversing, the talent of not offending; the lofty principle, the
delicacy of thought, the happiness of expression, the taste and
propriety, the generosity and forbearance, the candour and
consideration, the openness of hand;--these qualities, some of them
come by nature, some of them may be found in any rank, some of them are
a direct precept of Christianity; but the full assemblage of them,
bound up in the unity of an individual character, do we expect they can
be learned from books? are they not necessarily acquired, where they
are to be found, in high society? The very nature of the case leads us
to say so; you cannot fence without an antagonist, nor challenge all
comers in disputation before you have supported a thesis; and in like
manner, it stands to reason, you cannot learn to converse till you have
the world to converse with; you cannot unlearn your natural
bashfulness, or awkwardness, or stiffness, or other besetting
deformity, till you serve your time in some school of manners. Well,
and is it not so in matter of fact? The metropolis, the court, the
great houses of the land, are the centres to which at stated times the
country comes up, as to shrines of refinement and good taste; and then
in due time the country goes back again home, enriched with a portion
of the social accomplishments, which those very visits serve to call
out and heighten in the gracious dispensers of them. We are unable to
conceive how the "gentlemanlike" can otherwise be maintained; and
maintained in this way it is.

And now a second instance: and here too I am going to speak without
personal experience of the subject I am introducing. I admit I have
not been in Parliament, any more than I have figured in the _beau
monde_; yet I cannot but think that statesmanship, as well as high