Influence of Names [pp. 549-552]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
of humility and wretchedness, in the sighs of a contrite
heart, and in the tears of penitential guilt.
But how is it in the world of faseioat? What is
fashion? Many attempts have been made to define
what in truth is undefinable. It is an empty namine-a
mere shadow, and yet is of substance sufficient to be
felt and seen and understood almost every where. A
popular English novelist, writing of his own country,
says-" The middle classes interest themselves in grave
matters: the aggregate of their sentiments is called
OPINION. The great interest themselves in fiivolities,
and the aggregate of their sentiments is termed FASHION.
The first is the moral representative of the popular
mind-the last of the aristocratic." But this definition
is unsatisfactory. Fashion executes its decrees with
as much energy and effect upon those who are excluded
from its mystic circle, as upon them who reside within
its pale; upon the popular mind as well as the aristocratic. Its frivolities bewilder and dazzle the multitude
who abjure them, as well as the chosen fe.wv with whom
they originate. Imagine this mysterious agent, or whatever it may be called, personified, and endowed witlh
the majesty and power of a queen,-and lwhat are her
attributes? A fickle, inconstant, inscrutable and unscrupulous being-selecting her subjects fiom every
rank and condition, and with every diversity in morals
and intellect-yet investing them with an uniform and
exclusive badge of distinction; exacting fiom her followers the most unbounded homage, and repaying them
often with the sacrifice of peace, health, fortune, selfrespect and virtue; instilling into those who throng
around her throne the poison of impure and corrupting
pleasures, and in those who are banished to the outer
courts, awakening the worst passions of envy, discontent and hatred, added to a debasing sense of inferiority.
Fortune is not more capricious in dispensing her favors
than this empress of smiles and frowns. By her command, dullness is transformed into wit, and deformity
into grace. The withered maiden of forty is arrayed
in the matchless charms of blooming seventeen, and
the notorious libertine becomes transmuted into the
fascinating and agreeable companion. If a despot of
bodily shape and form, were to cause his power and
caprice to be felt in all the minute concerns and occupations of society; if he were to ordain laws regulating
thedress-furniture-social intercourse and amusements
of his subjects, and in so doing should levy anll oppressive tax upon their fortunes, time and comforts-the
spirit of freedom would circulate like the electric fluid
from one end of the community to the other; the tyrant
would be resisted with fearless and determined perseverance. And yet doth fashion issue her imperial decrees equally as despotic and calamitous in their effects,
without other aid than the influence and magic of her
name-whilst her subjects, so far from opposing resistance, render an implicit and delighted obedience to her
matidates. And what is this inexorable arbitress at
last but a name? What is this capricious and mysteriolls intermeddler in human affairs but a vain shadow?
a creature of imagination only, and yet as powerful as
Caesar and Napoleon in all their glory! Shakspeare
was wrong; there is much-there is every thing in
itamues.
In that great concern of human society-the structure
and action of the political machine, how does the matter
stand? Are the governed portion of mankind-I mean
a majority of them-influenced by things or names?
The recorded experience of past ages, and our own
particular observation, will answer the question. The
master spirits who have ruled mankind with success,
have studied the genius of the people with whom they
lived. National glory was at one time, if it be not now,
the passion of the French, and Napoleon well knew
how to avail himself of a moral lever of such tremendous
force. Admninistering to that all devouring and never
satiated appetite, he found it an easy task to wade
through tears and blood to the goal of his ambition.
Preceding the period of his nmeteor-like and almost micaculous career, the French nation had been intoxicated
)y seraphic dreams of liberty and equality. Awakening, from a long and gloomy night of slavery, they
became suddenly bewitched by the doctrines of a new
philosophy, (to them at least new,) which proclaimed
the sovereignty of the people-and it was long before
the horrors of Revolution could dispel the enchantment.
The leaders in that dark and bloody episode of hiuman
history, retained their ascendancy so long as the names
of liberty and equality could be skilfitlly employed for
their purposes. An appeal to the people, or a comnpliment
to their sovereign power, wisdom and virtue, was the
daily prologue to those scenes of hulntan butclhery,
which posterity will regard as incredible fictions. "Oh
liberty!" said the beautiful Madame Rolan(l, is she
bowed her neck to the guillotinte-"what crimes are
committed in thy name!"
Are we free in our day firom these disastrous influences? Iave names no fatal magic with us-sufficiently
fatal to unloose the bands of society-to subvert institutions, long cherished and venerated, and finally to
dissolve the fairest fabric which ever realized the visions
of hope, or the speculations of philosophy? Alas! have
we not studied human nature enough to know, that all
men are not honest and patriotic, and that some are
sufficiently selfish, cunning, cruel and ambitious to work
out their own designs, and accomplish their own evil
desires, although calamity should overspread society,
and millions go supperless to bed? Are there not hundi-eds of demagogues who are willing to flatter and
wheedle and delude the people into final enslavement,
if in the whirlwinds of their own creation they can ride
into power and office? With what calm and shameless
effrontery do such men constantly exert before our eyes
a controlling power over the yet doubtful destinies of
this infant republic! To fulfil the purposes of ambition,
the vilest appeals are made to the lowest and basest
passions of the multitude. The pride of democracy is a
never failing chlord to be skilfully touched, when some
wicked design or atrocious mischief is meditated. The
popular good-the welfare of the deal people-is the
favorite string played upon by worn out political hacks
and corrupt aspirants to office. Does a well tried and
virtuous patriot stand in the way, and refuse his sanction to the bold assaults, or disgttised and no less dangerous encroachments of power? He is instantly denounced as an odious and insidious aristocrat, and is
forthwith delivered over to the tender mercies of the
faithful-the great democratic repnblican ftmtily-the selfstyled conservators of the only true and genuine priuciples of liberty-whose peculiar province it is to keep
the republic pure, by a patriotic monopoly of all its
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