David Hoffman and the Science of Jurisprudence
Anthony Grumbler on Life in America, 1837
Title page from the 1841 edition.
1837 - After he had resigned from the University of Maryland David Hoffman tried his hand at a number of ventures one of which was literary. Taking for himself the telling pseudonym of "Anthony Grumbler of Grumbler Hall" he offered the nation his view on life in America, or more accurately, Eromitlab. Hoffman's book - Miscellaneous Thoughts on Men, Manners and Things - reflects his disapproval of common social habits and his growing displeasure with American politics. The method of electing government officials and the popular outcry against educated professionals, reflected in the excerpts below, are just two of the many concerns he addressed. Ever the curmudgeon Hoffman didn't neglect his own situation which he summed up in one of the last sections of his book titled "Unjust Ridicule of Book-men:"
In a country like ours, where such book - knowledge is extremely rare; learning, when combined with virtue, should be hailed with honours, and with gratitude, and, at least, should never be made the theme of popular ridicule.
Hoffman's literary efforts continued during this period of his life with a second edition of Miscellaneous Thoughts (1841) and VIATOR; or A Peep into My Note Book published in 1839. The latter was a compilation of thoughts about life in England and the United States offered with the hope of "gradually improving" the reading public.
MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS
ON
MEN, MANNERS AND THINGS;
BY
ANTHONY GRUMBLER,
OF GRUMBLETON HALL, ESQUIRE
[Baltimore: Published by Coale & Co., 1837]
Division I: City Manners, Characters and Things
YOUNG MISSES' COMING OUT
I. Why should young Misses, in their early teens, be suddenly transferred
from the enviable domesticity of the nursery, and the salutary quietude
of the school- room, into the rudeness of the garish world, and the excitements
of the miscellaneous party or ball, by a process equivocally denominated
"coming out?" And would it not be in better taste, slowly to glide, and,
as it were, to grow into the world of fashion, and into its responsibilities
and vanities, then to submit such tender and innocent minds to the copious
rush of new ideas, and to the charge of varied and novel duties? For if
the part be at once well sustained by the novice, my life for it, it has
been at some expense of the discipline of the nursery and school -- and
if ill performed, there must be a great sacrifice of feeling and of sentiment
before she becomes perfected.
p. 20
JULIA NO ARITHMETICIAN
XIII. JULIA has never been taught much arithmetic,- hence, in part, is
it that, when she gets beyond the first or second cipher, all is terra
incognita to her. She gravely tells you that her father's house cost two
hundred thousand dollars! That her brother had to pay for Marcus one hundred
thousand dollars! &c. this is not an absolute want of veracity in
Julia, but consists of equal portions of vanity, of ignorance, and unconsciousness
of the elevated nature of truth. Should not young ladies be taught never
to speak without a clearly understood and defined idea?
p. 26
THE PHYSICIAN MORE USED THAN PAID
XIV. PYRRUS, of old, is said to have made this only request of the gods,
in his daily devotions - to have good health, judging from this blessing
to contain under it every degree of happiness. SEMPRONIUS (though he never
read of Pyrrus,) is, exactly of the same opinion, and he consequently
makes the freest use of his physician throughout the year, and at all
hours-The kind doctor seldom sends in a bill, and when he does, it is
sure to be a very moderate one,-but SEMPRONIUS is quite surprised at its
enormity-and pays every baker, grocer, and haberdasher before the doctor!
Should not such men be nearly scared to death, and should they ever be
physicked but for cash in hand?
p. 27
INDISCRIMINATE USE OF THE TERM ESQUIRE
XXXII. What does the term esquire now import? If nothing, it ought to
be disused-if something, it then must confer a title of some precedence.
Counsellors at law, justices of the peace and aged gentleman were formally
entitled to it, more by reputation than in strict right. But now, no one
can venture to address a youth who has passed twenty-one,-a merchant,
or even a haberdasher, without esquiring him! Where is this title of precedence
so strangely abused as in Eromitlab?-And though it can break no bones,
nor pick any pockets, it is still hugely out of keeping, and strongly
indicative of the "ultraism" of our democracy. Would it not be far better
wholly to abolish every title of precedence, than to use them without
the least discrimination?
p. 36-37
Division II: National Manners, Characters and Things
THE PEOPLE
CXIX. Strange that the people, who, with us, are the constitutional fountain
of all power, should forge their own chains or suffer others so to do!
There must be a reason for this-which is, that the people are not "in
fact" the source of all this power, but that there is something paramount
to the constitution, and even then, which has its rocky and everlasting
foundation in nature itself: and that something is KNOWLEDGE-the sure
and ultimate source of all efficient power....If the people be wise and
virtuous, they possess both the substance and the shadow of true political
rule; if deficient in either, they retain the latter only; their demagogue
leaders are sure to have the substance ...Happy would it be, were the
people Argus-eyed enough to see when, and how, and by whom, they are so
grossly deceived! this would be a golden age, indeed and one that never
can arrive as long as man continues to be man; for mere "numerical" power
is absurd, and as contrary to nature's philosophy, as mere "hereditary"
rule: the people, to be wisely governed, must be wise themselves, or the
numerical principle must be abandoned, and the wise and virtuous alone
be represented--the ignorant and the vicious would still be fully protected.
p.207-208
THE PRESIDENT
CXX. The chief magistrate of this country is, or should be, the nation's
unbiased choice. When thus selected, he is truly an honoured man and wields
an astonishing mass of constitutional power as generously and freely conferred
as the heart of a man could wish. But whatever be the "theory" of a government,
its "practice" is sometimes very different; and this, it seems, may be
eminently so in this, the only government on earth, too, in which the
mere numerical principle is almost universally operative! However the
president may be chosen, he who in name, is a democrat, may become a despot,
in fact!...
p. 209
AGRICULTURE
CXLV. ...The evils which flow from not duly estimating the excellences
of agriculture, manifest themselves in every possible form, and are far
greater than those to which we have alluded. We cannot set them forth
in a little section of a small volume; we only design to set our readers
to "thinking: and if they do think, they must agree with us that no vocation
in life is more honourable, laudable and peaceful then that of agriculture...
p.322
THE LEGAL PROFESSION
CXLVI. A thousand kind things have been said of law, and ten times as
many evil things of lawyers!Pomponius regards the "science" as the invention
of the gods, with the added maxims of wise-men; and that great necromancer,
Cornelius Agrippa, if he be good authority, says the "tongue of a lawyer,
unless fast bound in silver chains, is most mischievous and pernicious;"
and we may add, that it is well if his tongue, and even when so bound,
be not still sometimes very dangerous. Censure en masse, of almost any
profession, arised from ignorance and vulgar prejudice. Superior knowledge
when it appeared in rude ages, was generally ascribed by the ignorant,
either to the gift of the gods, or to some mysterious and wicked communion
with the Prince of Darkness...It must be admitted that knowledge is too
often wrested from its virtuous tendencies, and made the medium of much
wickedness and oppression: but, on the whole, if the secret chronicles
of the legal profession in all ages and nations, were not fully exposed
to view, we truly believe that less of vice and meanness would be brought
to light, than on a similar inquiry into the doings of almost any other
active and important vocation.
p. 322-323
