by William Howitt.
Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William & Mary Howitt) vol.1 #22 (29 May 1847).
Many are the improvements of the present age. Amongst them we notice with peculiar pleasure a greater tendency to a just appreciation of our common nature in opposition to the false and mischievous distinctions and fallacies, with which a corrupt taste and a cringing spirit of adulation to wealth and power have spotted society, as with the spotting of a plague. In the earliest and purest ages of the world, when
"Gods walked the earth, and beings more than men;"
when the Creator himself came down and visited his creatures, and angels bore his messages of love and mercy to mankind; then the great patriarchs, the fathers of nations, and the models of profound faith and noble action, walked the earth too in the simple dignity of human nature, a dignity which no adventitious title could augment, but would assuredly have diminished. So striking is this, that to speak of our common progenitor as Lord Adam, — Adam, Esq., or of Eve, as Lady Eve, or the Honourable Mrs. Eve, would become a burlesque of the most ludicrous description. How nobly do they stand forth in their own pure and primeval simplicity. What a moral grandeur there is about their names, to which all our titles appear in comparison as the most trumpery and strolling-player's tinsel. What dreadful havoc should we make of the moral sublime if we talked of my Lord Enoch, of the Grand Dukes Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or of his Excellency the Most Noble Marquis Joseph, Governor of Egypt, under his Imperial Highness, Pharaoh.
In the time of Job, the consciousness that these titles were based in something more than mere political distinctions or ordinary respect was most luminously demonstrated by that fine young man, Elihu, who declared that he could not give flattering titles to men, for in so doing the Lord would take him away. When the Saviour of men came, he came, like the first fathers of mankind, arrayed in a dignity of divine simplicity, which, like the pure light of heaven which puts out all the gross lights and tallow-candle luminaries of earth, put far below his feet all the petty honours of ordinary society. The Apostles walked abroad in the same sublime nobility of simple name. It may be very well for an archbishop of these days to be styled his Grace the Lord Archbishop of So-and-so—for a bishop to be dubbed a Right Reverend Father in God—for a dean to be a Very Reverend; but what a degradation and a ridicule would it be to talk of His Grace the Archbishop St. Paul, or the Right Reverend Father in God St. Peter.
In all ages, those who have climbed out of the mob of their time, and planted their glorious feet on the mountain of immortality, have stood forth there too great and beautiful for the obscuration of their eternal names by the foolish epithets of ordinary flattery. Homer, Plato, Socrates, Cicero, Cato, Luther, Shakspere, Milton, Bacon, Newton, and even those living amongst the fogs of our times, Wordsworth, Byron, Scott, Shelley. How all titles drop away from an immortal name! How we tear them down, as we would a beggar's rags from the noble statue of some beneficent divinity!
And shall we then wrap ourselves in these foul rags? Shall we tacitly, nay, fondly, own that that which is too mean for the shoulders of greatness—great goodness, and good greatness, is good enough, nay, is too honourable even, for ourselves? Shall we thus confess the baseness of our being, the abjectness of our ambition? No! let us rather come at once boldly to the point, and claim our portion of the Divine nature, and determine to vindicate it by our devotion to all in life and hope that is simple, pure, great, and glorious. We dare to claim God for our Father:—is it not a less daring to claim the very highest and most illustrious men as our brethren? Let us dare—for it is a noble daring—to claim kinship with Homer, with Plato, with Socrates, with Christ, with the Apostles, with the noble martyrs who in every age have perished by fire, or sword, or the poisoned arrows of malice and calumny, rather than stoop to the corruptions of the time; and with the heroes of the soul, Luther, Milton, Newton, and those of the like lofty stamp; and not grovellingly roll ourselves in the rotten rags of the world's adulation. Let us aim at a like noble simplicity.
For ourselves, we mean to adopt this simple and more manly course. Confessing that we have fallen too easily into the ordinary modes of address, we have still never willingly assumed any of the unmeaning titles so ordinarily assumed. On all our title-pages stand only the simple names of William and Mary Howitt. We prefer them to all others. We crave no additions. We are neither squire nor squiress: we never held the horse or bore the shield of any knight, nor ever intend to do. If others, in addressing us, apply these phrases, they will excuse us in types dropping what we so much wish to drop.
And let no man say that we wish to rob any man of his just honours, or his due respect. We desire to honour all, and to respect all, who show themselves worthy of respect; but we feel that the only real distinctions are those which are laid by God in the foundations of our nature—Genius, Intelligence, and Virtue.
For every man, woman, and child, who possess these, we claim entire respect; and more, we claim the homage of the heart, and give it them. The truest politeness, the utmost courtesies of society, are based on these, and must accompany them.
It was with sincere pleasure that we heard Thomas Cooper on a recent occasion promulgate a similar doctrine; and we particularly call on the great class of which he is one—that of the people—to consider well this matter. There is no class which, we regret to say, even while it is steering a rapidly improved course, is more guilty of this crime against its own dignity—this social crime—than it. How often do we see in the announcements of public meetings by the people, that Mr. So-and-so will move a resolution, and Thomas So and so, Esquire, will second it! Let this cant of fictitious squirearchy perish! Let us leave this folly to the foolish! Let us henceforth be content, nay, for it is a great and arduous strife, let us aspire to be men; and desire no other glory than to be good men!