Lionel Granby, Chapter IX [pp. 254-256]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
255
a massy trunk, resisting anarchy and bending to every
storm of revolution, yet rising from each assault in morc
verdant and luxuriant foliage. Philosophy may claim
the gigantic birth of Printing-Religion the Reformation, and Science the discovery of Gunpowder, as the
great engines which opened the path of civilization.
The mind of England seized these mighty levers, her
hand perfected them, and achieved for herself that towering fame which pours its lustre from the table-land of
the world. This picture was the dream of ignorance.
Alas! how soon was its frost-work melted before the
light of truth! Unconscious of the hideous vice which
lurked beneath the gorgeous fabric, I saw only its glowing outline-I was ignorant of its rapine, fraud and
avarice-its selfishness of motive and act-its singleness of empire and power, and of that universal corruption which yields power to wealth, and honors to
knavery. The demon of gain is abroad throughout
England-a pestilence which walketh in the darkness
of the human heart, expanding its ravenous arms in
her cities, or secretly hugging its penny in her lowliest
cottages. Her metropolis is the shamble of the universe-a capacious reservoir, where vice elbows virtue,
and where selfishness festers itself into the loathsome
obesity of the toad. Every thing is on sale, and in the
"mixed assortment" of her merchandise, even learnintg, genius and wit, succumb to the secret spirit of her
ledger.
"E'en the learned pate
Ducks to the golden fool."
Without her Christianity, which often blooms in guileless and untainted simplicity, her blood-stained empire
would tumble to the earth. It is the influence of this
holy faith which neutralizes the excess of profligacy,
and stimulates her expanded philanthropy. Excited
by its spirit, benevolence becomes religion, patriotism
springs into virtue, and in the remotest corners of the
earth we see the charity of the Christian opening the
purse and heart of the Englishman.
I leave the narrative of sights and curiosities to the
guide book. Born in the wilderness, my mind was as
rugged as the grandeur of the forest, and like the native
Indian I had naught to admire but the still and noiseless majesty of my own beautiful land. The stately
palaces-the lofty towers and all the fantastic pageantry which opulence engenders, were but the moral to
the fine sarcasm which antiquity has fabled in the
bridge of Salmoneus. Man's "brief authority" decorates folly with a pyramid or a cathedral, and succeeding ages call it glory. What son of Virginia would
barter her broad rivers-her sunny sky-her fertile
plains, and her snow-capped mountains, for the crumbling monuments of tyranny and superstition, or the
feetid marts of gain? Who would exchange the infant
purity of the western world for the hoary vice and aged
rottenness of Europe? Uncontaminated by the example
of England, we have yet seized from her the sacred
flame of freedom-her habeas corpus without the act of
impressment-her bill of rights without a borough representation, and the rose of civil liberty transplanted
to the west has bloomed without a thorn.
I was soon in London, and received many marks of
attention and kindness from the representatives of an
old commercial house, which for years had sold every
lihgshcad of tobacco from the Granby plantatiors. M]y
bills were honored, and at the instance of Scipio I took
a suite of rooms in the most fashionable street of the
city. Without letters of introduction, and too proud
to search for my many noble relatives, (my uncle had
drugged me with their amors, duels and honors!) I succumbed in silence to that cheerless solitude which flaps
its funeral wing around the indurated selfishness of a
crowded city. At the Virginia Coffee House, I fiequently found many of my own countrymen, who were
making the tour of Europe only because their fathers
had done it. An utter contempt of money-a carelessness of air and manner-a generous and open hearted
confidence in every one-a familiarity with the Doncaster and Epsom turf-an anxious zeal in attending
the courts of Westminster, and the gallery of the House
of Commons, with a thorough knowledge of the literary
history of England, and the places hallowed by Shakspeare and the Spectator, were their striking and changeless characteristics.
Shortly after my permanent and fixed residence had
been made, I was lounging, as was my wont, in the
crowded walks of the Exchange-the only idle being
in that heated and feverish walk of gain, when a loud
cry broke through the multitude and a horse dashed
near me, the foot of his rider hanging in the stirrup. I
instantly sprang forward, caught the bridle, leaped on
his back, and leaning down I rescued the unfortunate
rider fromn his perilous situation. From this event an
intimacy commenced between Col. R and myself.
His history was brief. High birth and fortune smiled
on his cradle. Entering into manhood he had purchased
a commission in the army, and had lived out Swift's
spirited description of the man of fashion, "in dancing,
fighting, gaming, making the circle of Italy, riding the
great horse and speaking French." Satiated with the
world, he had left it without being either a churl or a
misanthrope. He resided in a costly villa near London,
which his taste had decorated with elegance and refinement. The massy richness of an aged grove, soothed,
without chilling the fancy, and through its broad vista
the glimmering light lent itself to diversify uniformity
without diminishing grandeur. Consistency towered
above vanity, for there were no glades rolled into gravelled plains, nor trees sheared into fantastic foliagethat sickly taste which finds honor in the sacrifice of
simplicity, and pride in its outrage on nature. The
walls of his house were hung with rare and deeply
mellowed paintings, and his capacious library was
stocked with the heavy tomes of ancient lore. Gone
are those good old books!-their spirit has been turned
into a tincture!-their life and soul have been abridged
-the stern Clitus has been disgraced by a Persian
dress-the march of mind cannot brook a folio! The
education of Col. R was deeply tainted with the
forgotten glory of his library-a wild flower blooming
amid the silence of a neglected ruin. He had literature
without pedantry, learning without arrogance; and being neither author nor compiler, he yet mingled on equal
terms of compliment and civility with the gifted names
of his land. Proud pre-eminence of genius! respected
even in its slumbers. Though its possessor be unknown
to print, though his pen sleep in idleness, like the prophet, the sacred flame plays around his brow and lightens up his onward course.
In his society I drank from a deep stream of initel