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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2686-0.txt b/2686-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e326334 --- /dev/null +++ b/2686-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6788 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Book of Snobs, by William Makepeace Thackeray + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Book of Snobs + +Author: William Makepeace Thackeray + +Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #2686] +Last Updated: March 5, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF SNOBS *** + + + + +Produced by Sean Hackett; David Widger + + + + + +THE BOOK OF SNOBS + + +By One Of Themselves + +(William Makepeace Thackeray) + + + + +PREFATORY REMARKS + +(The necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved +by felicitous illustrations:--I am the individual destined to write that +work--My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence--I show +that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and the +MAN--Snobs are to be studied like other objects of Natural Science, +and are a part of the Beautiful (with a large B). They pervade all +classes--Affecting instance of Colonel Snobley.) + +We have all read a statement, (the authenticity of which I take leave to +doubt entirely, for upon what calculations I should like to know is it +founded?)--we have all, I say, been favoured by perusing a remark, +that when the times and necessities of the world call for a Man, that +individual is found. Thus at the French Revolution (which the reader +will be pleased to have introduced so early), when it was requisite to +administer a corrective dose to the nation, Robespierre was found; +a most foul and nauseous dose indeed, and swallowed eagerly by the +patient, greatly to the latter's ultimate advantage: thus, when it +became necessary to kick John Bull out of America, Mr. Washington +stepped forward, and performed that job to satisfaction: thus, when +the Earl of Aldborough was unwell, Professor Holloway appeared with his +pills, and cured his lordship, as per advertisement, &c. &c.. Numberless +instances might be adduced to show that when a nation is in great want, +the relief is at hand; just as in the Pantomime (that microcosm) where +when CLOWN wants anything--a warming-pan, a pump-handle, a goose, or a +lady's tippet--a fellow comes sauntering out from behind the side-scenes +with the very article in question. + +Again, when men commence an undertaking, they always are prepared +to show that the absolute necessities of the world demanded its +completion.--Say it is a railroad: the directors begin by stating that +'A more intimate communication between Bathershins and Derrynane Beg +is necessary for the advancement of civilization, and demanded by the +multitudinous acclamations of the great Irish people.' Or suppose it is +a newspaper: the prospectus states that 'At a time when the Church is +in danger, threatened from without by savage fanaticism and miscreant +unbelief, and undermined from within by dangerous Jesuitism, and +suicidal Schism, a Want has been universally felt--a suffering people +has looked abroad--for an Ecclesiastical Champion and Guardian. A body +of Prelates and Gentlemen have therefore stepped forward in this our +hour of danger, and determined on establishing the BEADLE newspaper,' +&c. &c. One or other of these points at least is incontrovertible: the +public wants a thing, therefore it is supplied with it; or the public is +supplied with a thing, therefore it wants it. + +I have long gone about with a conviction on my mind that I had a work to +do--a Work, if you like, with a great W; a Purpose to fulfil; a chasm to +leap into, like Curtius, horse and foot; a Great Social Evil to Discover +and to Remedy. That Conviction Has Pursued me for Years. It has Dogged +me in the Busy Street; Seated Itself By Me in The Lonely Study; Jogged +My Elbow as it Lifted the Wine-cup at The Festive Board; Pursued me +through the Maze of Rotten Row; Followed me in Far Lands. On Brighton's +Shingly Beach, or Margate's Sand, the Voice Outpiped the Roaring of the +Sea; it Nestles in my Nightcap, and It Whispers, 'Wake, Slumberer, thy +Work Is Not Yet Done.' Last Year, By Moonlight, in the Colosseum, +the Little Sedulous Voice Came To Me and Said, 'Smith, or Jones' (The +Writer's Name is Neither Here nor There), 'Smith or Jones, my fine +fellow, this is all very well, but you ought to be at home writing your +great work on SNOBS. + +When a man has this sort of vocation it is all nonsense attempting to +elude it. He must speak out to the nations; he must unbusm himself, as +Jeames would say, or choke and die. 'Mark to yourself,' I have often +mentally exclaimed to your humble servant, 'the gradual way in which you +have been prepared for, and are now led by an irresistible necessity +to enter upon your great labour. First, the World was made: then, as a +matter of course, Snobs; they existed for years and years, and were no +more known than America. But presently,--INGENS PATEBAT TELLUS,--the +people became darkly aware that there was such a race. Not above +five-and-twenty years since, a name, an expressive monosyllable, arose +to designate that race. That name has spread over England like railroads +subsequently; Snobs are known and recognized throughout an Empire on +which I am given to understand the Sun never sets. PUNCH appears at the +ripe season, to chronicle their history: and the individual comes forth +to write that history in PUNCH.' + +I have (and for this gift I congratulate myself with Deep and Abiding +Thankfulness) an eye for a Snob. If the Truthful is the Beautiful, it is +Beautiful to study even the Snobbish; to track Snobs through history, +as certain little dogs in Hampshire hunt out truffles; to sink shafts in +society and come upon rich veins of Snobore. Snobbishness is like Death +in a quotation from Horace, which I hope you never have heard, 'beating +with equal foot at poor men's doors, and kicking at the gates of +Emperors.' It is a great mistake to judge of Snobs lightly, and think +they exist among the lower classes merely. An immense percentage of +Snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life. You +must not judge hastily or vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that you are +yourself a Snob. I myself have been taken for one. + +When I was taking the waters at Bagnigge Wells, and living at the +'Imperial Hotel' there, there used to sit opposite me at breakfast, for +a short time, a Snob so insufferable that I felt I should never get +any benefit of the waters so long as he remained. His name was +Lieutenant-Colonel Snobley, of a certain dragoon regiment. He wore +japanned boots and moustaches: he lisped, drawled, and left the 'r's' +out of his words: he was always flourishing about, and smoothing his +lacquered whiskers with a huge flaming bandanna, that filled the room +with an odour of musk so stifling that I determined to do battle with +that Snob, and that either he or I should quit the Inn. I first began +harmless conversations with him; frightening him exceedingly, for he did +not know what to do when so attacked, and had never the slightest notion +that anybody would take such a liberty with him as to speak first: +then I handed him the paper: then, as he would take no notice of these +advances, I used to look him in the face steadily and--and use my fork +in the light of a toothpick. After two mornings of this practice, he +could bear it no longer, and fairly quitted the place. + +Should the Colonel see this, will he remember the Gent who asked him if +he thought Publicoaler was a fine writer, and drove him from the Hotel +with a four-pronged fork? + + + +CHAPTER I--THE SNOB PLAYFULLY DEALT WITH + + +There are relative and positive Snobs. I mean by positive, such persons +as are Snobs everywhere, in all companies, from morning till night, +from youth to the grave, being by Nature endowed with Snobbishness--and +others who are Snobs only in certain circumstances and relations of +life. + +For instance: I once knew a man who committed before me an act as +atrocious as that which I have indicated in the last chapter as +performed by me for the purpose of disgusting Colonel Snobley; viz, the +using the fork in the guise of a toothpick. I once, I say, knew a man +who, dining in my company at the 'Europa Coffee-house,' (opposite the +Grand Opera, and, as everybody knows, the only decent place for dining +at Naples,) ate peas with the assistance of his knife. He was a person +with whose society I was greatly pleased at first--indeed, we had met in +the crater of Mount Vesuvius, and were subsequently robbed and held to +ransom by brigands in Calabria, which is nothing to the purpose--a man +of great powers, excellent heart, and varied information; but I had +never before seen him with a dish of pease, and his conduct in regard to +them caused me the deepest pain. + +After having seen him thus publicly comport himself, but one course was +open to me--to cut his acquaintance. I commissioned a mutual friend +(the Honourable Poly Anthus) to break the matter to this gentleman as +delicately as possible, and to say that painful circumstances--in nowise +affecting Mr. Marrowfat's honour, or my esteem for him--had occurred, +which obliged me to forego my intimacy with him; and accordingly we met +and gave each other the cut direct that night at the Duchess of Monte +Fiasco's ball. + +Everybody at Naples remarked the separation of the Damon and +Pythias--indeed, Marrowfat had saved my life more than once--but, as an +English gentleman, what was I to do? + +My dear friend was, in this instance, the Snob RELATIVE. It is not +snobbish of persons of rank of any other nation to employ their knife in +the manner alluded to. I have seen Monte Fiasco clean his trencher with +his knife, and every Principe in company doing likewise. I have seen, +at the hospitable board of H.I.H. the Grand Duchess Stephanie of +Baden--(who, if these humble lines should come under her Imperial eyes, +is besought to remember graciously the most devoted of her servants)--I +have seen, I say, the Hereditary Princess of Potztausend-Donnerwetter +(that serenely-beautiful woman) use her knife in lieu of a fork or +spoon; I have seen her almost swallow it, by Jove! like Ramo Samee, the +Indian juggler. And did I blench? Did my estimation for the Princess +diminish? No, lovely Amalia! One of the truest passions that ever was +inspired by woman was raised in this bosom by that lady. Beautiful +one! long, long may the knife carry food to those lips! the reddest and +loveliest in the world! + +The cause of my quarrel with Marrowfat I never breathed to mortal soul +for four years. We met in the halls of the aristocracy--our friends and +relatives. We jostled each other in the dance or at the board; but the +estrangement continued, and seemed irrevocable, until the fourth of +June, last year. + +We met at Sir George Golloper's. We were placed, he on the right, your +humble servant on the left of the admirable Lady G.. Peas formed part of +the banquet--ducks and green peas. I trembled as I saw Marrowfat helped, +and turned away sickening, lest I should behold the weapon darting down +his horrid jaws. + +What was my astonishment, what my delight, when I saw him use his fork +like any other Christian! He did not administer the cold steel once. Old +times rushed back upon me--the remembrance of old services--his rescuing +me from the brigands--his gallant conduct in the affair with the +Countess Dei Spinachi--his lending me the 1,700L. I almost burst into +tears with joy--my voice trembled with emotion. 'George, my boy!' I +exclaimed, 'George Marrowfat, my dear fellow! a glass of wine!' + +Blushing--deeply moved--almost as tremulous as I was myself, George +answered, 'FRANK, SHALL IT BE HOCK OR MADEIRA? I could have hugged +him to my heart but for the presence of the company. Little did Lady +Golloper know what was the cause of the emotion which sent the duckling +I was carving into her ladyship's pink satin lap. The most good-natured +of women pardoned the error, and the butler removed the bird. + +We have been the closest friends over since, nor, of course, has George +repeated his odious habit. He acquired it at a country school, where +they cultivated peas and only used two-pronged forks, and it was only +by living on the Continent where the usage of the four-prong is general, +that he lost the horrible custom. + +In this point--and in this only--I confess myself a member of the +Silver-Fork School; and if this tale but induce one of my readers to +pause, to examine in his own mind solemnly, and ask, 'Do I or do I not +eat peas with a knife?'--to see the ruin which may fall upon himself by +continuing the practice, or his family by beholding the example, these +lines will not have been written in vain. And now, whatever other +authors may be, I flatter myself, it will be allowed that I, at least, +am a moral man. + +By the way, as some readers are dull of comprehension, I may as well +say what the moral of this history is. The moral is this--Society having +ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and +conform to its harmless orders. + +If I should go to the British and Foreign Institute (and heaven forbid I +should go under any pretext or in any costume whatever)--if I should go +to one of the tea-parties in a dressing-gown and slippers, and not in +the usual attire of a gentleman, viz, pumps, a gold waistcoat, a crush +hat, a sham frill, and a white choker--I should be insulting society, +and EATING PEASE WITH MY KNIFE. Let the porters of the Institute hustle +out the individual who shall so offend. Such an offender is, as regards +society, a most emphatical and refractory Snob. It has its code and +police as well as governments, and he must conform who would profit by +the decrees set forth for their common comfort. + +I am naturally averse to egotism, and hate selflaudation consumedly; but +I can't help relating here a circumstance illustrative of the point in +question, in which I must think I acted with considerable prudence. + +Being at Constantinople a few years since--(on a delicate mission),--the +Russians were playing a double game, between ourselves, and it became +necessary on our part to employ an EXTRA NEGOTIATOR--Leckerbiss Pasha of +Roumelia, then Chief Galeongee of the Porte, gave a diplomatic banquet +at his summer palace at Bujukdere. I was on the left of the Galeongee, +and the Russian agent, Count de Diddloff, on his dexter side. Diddloff +is a dandy who would die of a rose in aromatic pain: he had tried to +have me assassinated three times in the course of the negotiation; but +of course we were friends in public, and saluted each other in the most +cordial and charming manner. + +The Galeongee is--or was, alas! for a bow-string has done for him--a +staunch supporter of the old school of Turkish politics. We dined with +our fingers, and had flaps of bread for plates; the only innovation +he admitted was the use of European liquors, in which he indulged with +great gusto. He was an enormous eater. Amongst the dishes a very large +one was placed before him of a lamb dressed in its wool, stuffed with +prunes, garlic, assafoetida, capsicums, and other condiments, the most +abominable mixture that ever mortal smelt or tasted. The Galeongee ate +of this hugely; and pursuing the Eastern fashion, insisted on helping +his friends right and left, and when he came to a particularly spicy +morsel, would push it with his own hands into his guests' very mouths. + +I never shall forget the look of poor Diddloff, when his Excellency, +rolling up a large quantity of this into a ball and exclaiming, 'Buk +Buk' (it is very good), administered the horrible bolus to Diddloff. The +Russian's eyes rolled dreadfully as he received it: he swallowed it with +a grimace that I thought must precede a convulsion, and seizing a bottle +next him, which he thought was Sauterne, but which turned out to be +French brandy, he drank off nearly a pint before he know his error. It +finished him; he was carried away from the dining-room almost dead, and +laid out to cool in a summer-house on the Bosphorus. + +When it came to my turn, I took down the condiment with a smile, said +'Bismillah,' licked my lips with easy gratification, and when the next +dish was served, made up a ball myself so dexterously, and popped it +down the old Galeongee's mouth with so much grace, that his heart was +won. Russia was put out of court at once and THE TREATY of Kabobanople +WAS SIGNED. As for Diddloff, all was over with HIM: he was recalled to +St. Petersburg, and Sir Roderick Murchison saw him, under the No. 3967, +working in the Ural mines. + +The moral of this tale, I need not say, is, that there are many +disagreeable things in society which you are bound to take down, and to +do so with a smiling face. + + + +CHAPTER II--THE SNOB ROYAL + +Long since at the commencement of the reign of her present Gracious +Majesty, it chanced 'on a fair summer evening,' as Mr. James would say, +that three or four young cavaliers were drinking a cup of wine after +dinner at the hostelry called the 'King's Arms,' kept by Mistress +Anderson, in the royal village of Kensington. 'Twas a balmy evening, +and the wayfarers looked out on a cheerful scene. The tall elms of +the ancient gardens were in full leaf, and countless chariots of +the nobility of England whirled by to the neighbouring palace, where +princely Sussex (whose income latterly only allowed him to give +tea-parties) entertained his royal niece at a state banquet. When the +caroches of the nobles had set down their owners at the banquethall, +their varlets and servitors came to quaff a flagon of nut-brown ale in +the 'King's Arms' gardens hard by. We watched these fellows from our +lattice. By Saint Boniface 'twas a rare sight! + +The tulips in Mynheer Van Dunck's gardens were not more gorgeous than +the liveries of these pie-coated retainers. All the flowers of the field +bloomed in their ruffled bosoms, all the hues of the rainbow gleamed +in their plush breeches, and the long-caned ones walked up and down the +garden with that charming solemnity, that delightful quivering swagger +of the calves, which has always had a frantic fascination for us. The +walk was not wide enough for them as the shoulder-knots strutted up and +down it in canary, and crimson, and light blue. + +Suddenly, in the midst of their pride, a little bell was rung, a side +door opened, and (after setting down their Royal Mistress) her Majesty's +own crimson footmen, with epaulets and black plushes, came in. + +It was pitiable to see the other poor Johns slink off at this arrival! +Not one of the honest private Plushes could stand up before the Royal +Flunkeys. They left the walk: they sneaked into dark holes and drank +their beer in silence. The Royal Plush kept possession of the garden +until the Royal Plush dinner was announced, when it retired, and we +heard from the pavilion where they dined, conservative cheers, and +speeches, and Kentish fires. The other Flunkeys we never saw more. + +My dear Flunkeys, so absurdly conceited at one moment and so abject +at the next, are but the types of their masters in this world. HE WHO +MEANLY ADMIRES MEAN THINGS IS A SNOB--perhaps that is a safe definition +of the character. + +And this is why I have, with the utmost respect, ventured to place The +Snob Royal at the head of my list, causing all others to give way before +him, as the Flunkeys before the royal representative in Kensington +Gardens. To say of such and such a Gracious Sovereign that he is a Snob, +is but to say that his Majesty is a man. Kings, too, are men and Snobs. +In a country where Snobs are in the majority, a prime one, surely, +cannot be unfit to govern. With us they have succeeded to admiration. + +For instance, James I. was a Snob, and a Scotch Snob, than which the +world contains no more offensive creature. He appears to have had not +one of the good qualities of a man--neither courage, nor generosity, +nor honesty, nor brains; but read what the great Divines and Doctors of +England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not +a Snob; whilst Louis XIV., his old squaretoes of a contemporary,--the +great worshipper of Bigwiggery--has always struck me as a most undoubted +and Royal Snob. + +I will not, however, take instances from our own country of Royal Snobs, +but refer to a neighbouring kingdom, that of Brentford--and its monarch, +the late great and lamented Gorgius IV. With the same humility with +which the footmen at the 'King's Arms' gave way before the Plush Royal, +the aristocracy of the Brentford nation bent down and truckled before +Gorgius, and proclaimed him the first gentleman in Europe. And it's a +wonder to think what is the gentlefolks' opinion of a gentleman, when +they gave Gorgius such a title. + +What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be +generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, +to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman +to be a loyal son, a true husband, and honest father? Ought his life to +be decent--his bills to be paid--his tastes to be high and elegant--his +aims in life lofty and noble? In a word, ought not the Biography of a +First Gentleman in Europe to be of such a nature that it might be read +in Young Ladies' Schools with advantage, and studied with profit in the +Seminaries of Young Gentlemen? I put this question to all instructors +of youth--to Mrs. Ellis and the Women of England; to all schoolmasters, +from Doctor Hawtrey down to Mr. Squeers. I conjure up before me an awful +tribunal of youth and innocence, attended by its venerable instructors +(like the ten thousand red-cheeked charity-children in Saint Paul's), +sitting in judgment, and Gorgius pleading his cause in the midst. Out of +Court, out of Court, fat old Florizel! Beadles, turn out that bloated, +pimple-faced man!--If Gorgius MUST have a statue in the new Palace which +the Brentford nation is building, it ought to be set up in the Flunkeys' +Hall. He should be represented cutting out a coat, in which art he is +said to have excelled. He also invented Maraschino punch, a shoe-buckle +(this was in the vigour of his youth, and the prime force of his +invention), and a Chinese pavilion, the most hideous building in the +world. He could drive a four-in-hand very nearly as well as the Brighton +coachman, could fence elegantly, and it is said, played the fiddle well. +And he smiled with such irresistible fascination, that persons who were +introduced into his august presence became his victims, body and soul, +as a rabbit becomes the prey of a great big boa-constrictor. + +I would wager that if Mr. Widdicomb were, by a revolution, placed on +the throne of Brentford, people would be equally fascinated by his +irresistibly majestic smile and tremble as they knelt down to kiss his +hand. If he went to Dublin they would erect an obelisk on the spot where +he first landed, as the Paddylanders did when Gorgius visited them. +We have all of us read with delight that story of the King's voyage to +Haggisland, where his presence inspired such a fury of loyalty and where +the most famous man of the country--the Baron of Bradwardine--coming +on board the royal yacht, and finding a glass out of which Gorgius had +drunk, put it into his coatpocket as an inestimable relic, and went +ashore in his boat again. But the Baron sat down upon the glass and +broke it, and cut his coat-tails very much; and the inestimable relic +was lost to the world for ever. O noble Bradwardine! what old-world +superstition could set you on your knees before such an idol as that? + +If you want to moralise upon the mutability of human affairs, go and +see the figure of Gorgius in his real, identical robes, at the +waxwork.--Admittance one shilling. Children and flunkeys sixpence. Go, +and pay sixpence. + + + +CHAPTER III--THE INFLUENCE OF THE ARISTOCRACY ON SNOBS + +Last Sunday week, being at church in this city, and the service just +ended, I heard two Snobs conversing about the Parson. One was asking +the other who the clergyman was? 'He is Mr. So-and-so,' the second Snob +answered, 'domestic chaplain to the Earl of What-d'ye-call'im.' 'Oh, is +he' said the first Snob, with a tone of indescribable satisfaction.--The +Parson's orthodoxy and identity were at once settled in this Snob's +mind. He knew no more about the Earl than about the Chaplain, but he +took the latter's character upon the authority of the former; and went +home quite contented with his Reverence, like a little truckling Snob. + +This incident gave me more matter for reflection even than the sermon: +and wonderment at the extent and prevalence of Lordolatory in this +country. What could it matter to Snob whether his Reverence were +chaplain to his Lordship or not? What Peerageworship there is all +through this free country! How we are all implicated in it, and more or +less down on our knees.--And with regard to the great subject on hand, I +think that the influence of the Peerage upon Snobbishness has been +more remarkable than that of any other institution. The increase, +encouragement, and maintenance of Snobs are among the 'priceless +services,' as Lord John Russell says, which we owe to the nobility. + +It can't be otherwise. A man becomes enormously rich, or he jobs +successfully in the aid of a Minister, or he wins a great battle, or +executes a treaty, or is a clever lawyer who makes a multitude of fees +and ascends the bench; and the country rewards him for ever with a gold +coronet (with more or less balls or leaves) and a title, and a rank +as legislator. 'Your merits are so great,' says the nation, 'that your +children shall be allowed to reign over us, in a manner. It does not in +the least matter that your eldest son be a fool: we think your services +so remarkable, that he shall have the reversion of your honours when +death vacates your noble shoes. If you are poor, we will give you such +a sum of money as shall enable you and the eldest-born of your race for +ever to live in fat and splendour. It is our wish that there should be +a race set apart in this happy country, who shall hold the first rank, +have the first prizes and chances in all government jobs and patronages. +We cannot make all your dear children Peers--that would make Peerage +common and crowd the House of Lords uncomfortably--but the young ones +shall have everything a Government can give: they shall get the pick +of all the places: they shall be Captains and Lieutenant-Colonels at +nineteen, when hoary-headed old lieutenants are spending thirty years +at drill: they shall command ships at one-and-twenty, and veterans who +fought before they were born. And as we are eminently a free people, and +in order to encourage all men to do their duty, we say to any man of +any rank--get enormously rich, make immense fees as a lawyer, or great +speeches, or distinguish yourself and win battles--and you, even you, +shall come into the privileged class, and your children shall reign +naturally over ours.' + +How can we help Snobbishness, with such a prodigious national +institution erected for its worship? How can we help cringing to +Lords? Flesh and blood can't do otherwise. What man can withstand this +prodigious temptation? Inspired by what is called a noble emulation, +some people grasp at honours and win them; others, too weak or mean, +blindly admire and grovel before those who have gained them; others, not +being able to acquire them, furiously hate, abuse, and envy. There are +only a few bland and not-in-the-least-conceited philosophers, who +can behold the state of society, viz., Toadyism, organised:--base +Man-and-Mammon worship, instituted by command of law:--Snobbishness, in +a word, perpetuated,--and mark the phenomenon calmly. And of these calm +moralists, is there one, I wonder, whose heart would not throb with +pleasure if he could be seen walking arm-in-arm with a couple of dukes +down Pall Mall? No it is impossible in our condition of society, not to +be sometimes a Snob. + +On one hand it encourages the commoner to be snobbishly mean, and the +noble to be snobbishly arrogant. When a noble marchioness writes in +her travels about the hard necessity under which steam-boat travellers +labour of being brought into contact 'with all sorts and conditions of +people:' implying that a fellowship with God's creatures is disagreeable +to to her Ladyship, who is their superior:--when, I say, the Marchioness +of ---- writes in this fashion, we must consider that out of her natural +heart it would have been impossible for any woman to have had such a +sentiment; but that the habit of truckling and cringing, which all +who surround her have adopted towards this beautiful and magnificent +lady,--this proprietor of so many black and other diamonds,--has really +induced her to believe that she is the superior of the world in general: +and that people are not to associate with her except awfully at a +distance. I recollect being once at the city of Grand Cairo, through +which a European Royal Prince was passing India-wards. One night at the +inn there was a great disturbance: a man had drowned himself in the well +hard by: all the inhabitants of the hotel came bustling into the Court, +and amongst others your humble servant, who asked of a certain young man +the reason of the disturbance. How was I to know that this young gent +was a prince? He had not his crown and sceptre on: he was dressed in a +white jacket and felt hat: but he looked surprised at anybody speaking +to him: answered an unintelligible monosyllable, and--BECKONED HIS +AID-DE-CAMP TO COME AND SPEAK TO ME. It is our fault, not that of the +great, that they should fancy themselves so far above us. If you WILL +fling yourself under the wheels, Juggernaut will go over you, depend +upon it; and if you and I, my dear friend, had Kotow performed before +us every day,--found people whenever we appeared grovelling in slavish +adoration, we should drop into the airs of superiority quite naturally, +and accept the greatness with which the world insisted upon endowing us. + +Here is an instance, out of Lord L----'s travels, of that calm, +good-natured, undoubting way in which a great man accepts the homage of +his inferiors. After making some profound and ingenious remarks about +the town of Brussells, his lordship says:--'Staying some day at the +Hotel de Belle Vue, a greatly overrated establishment, and not nearly as +comfortable as the Hotel de France--I made acquaintance with Dr. L----, +the physician of the Mission. He was desirous of doing the honours of +the place to me, and he ordered for us a DINER EN GOURMAND at the chief +restaurateur's, maintaining it surpassed the Rocher at Paris. Six or +eight partook of the entertainment, and we all agreed it was infinitely +inferior to the Paris display, and much more extravagant. So much for +the copy. + +And so much for the gentleman who gave the dinner. Dr. L----, desirous +to do his lordship 'the honour of the place,' feasts him with the +best victuals money can procure--and my lord finds the entertainment +extravagant and inferior. Extravagant! it was not extravagant to +HIM;--Inferior! Mr. L---- did his best to satisfy those noble jaws, +and my lord receives the entertainment, and dismisses the giver with +a rebuke. It is like a three-tailed Pasha grumbling about an +unsatisfactory backsheesh. + +But how should it be otherwise in a country where Lordolatry is part +of our creed, and where our children are brought up to respect the +'Peerage' as the Englishman's second Bible? + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE COURT CIRCULAR, AND ITS INFLUENCE ON SNOBS + +Example is the best of precepts; so let us begin with a true and +authentic story, showing how young aristocratic snobs are reared, and +how early their Snobbishness may be made to bloom. A beautiful and +fashionable lady--(pardon, gracious madam, that your story should +be made public; but it is so moral that it ought to be known to the +universal world)--told me that in her early youth she had a little +acquaintance, who is now indeed a beautiful and fashionable lady too. +In mentioning Miss Snobky, daughter of Sir Snobby Snobky, whose +presentation at Court caused such a sensation, need I say more? + +When Miss Snobky was so very young as to be in the nursery regions, and +to walk off early mornings in St. James's Park, protected by a French +governess and followed by a huge hirsute flunkey in the canary coloured +livery of the Snobkys, she used occasionally in these promenades to meet +with young Lord Claude Lollipop, the Marquis of Sillabub's younger +son. In the very height of the season, from some unexplained cause, the +Snobkys suddenly determined upon leaving town. Miss Snobky spoke to her +female friend and confidante. 'What will poor Claude Lollipop say when +he hears of my absence?' asked the tender-hearted child. + +'Oh, perhaps he won't hear of it,' answers the confidante. + +'MY DEAR, HE WILL READ IT IN THE PAPERS,' replied the dear little +fashionable rogue of seven years old. She knew already her importance, +and how all the world of England, how all the would-be-genteel people, +how all the silver-fork worshippers, how all the tattle-mongers, how all +the grocers' ladies, the tailors' ladies, the attorneys' and merchants' +ladies, and the people living at Clapham and Brunswick Square,--who have +no more chance of consorting with a Snobky than my beloved reader has +of dining with the Emperor of China--yet watched the movements of the +Snobkys with interest and were glad to know when they came to London and +left it. + +Here is the account of Miss Snobky's dress, and that of her mother, Lady +Snobky, from the papers:-- + +'MISS SNOBKY. + +Habit de Cour, composed of a yellow nankeen illusion dress over a +slip of rich pea-green corduroy, trimmed en tablier, with bouquets +of Brussels sprouts: the body and sleeves handsomely trimmed with +calimanco, and festooned with a pink train and white radishes. +Head-dress, carrots and lappets. + +'LADY SNOBKY. + +'Costume de Cour, composed of a train of the most superb Pekin +bandannas, elegantly trimmed with spangles, tinfoil, and red-tape. +Bodice and underdress of sky-blue velveteen, trimmed with bouffants and +noeuds of bell-pulls. Stomacher a muffin. Head-dress a bird's nest, +with a bird of paradise, over a rich brass knocker en ferroniere. This +splendid costume, by Madame Crinoline, of Regent Street, was the object +of universal admiration.' + +This is what you read. Oh, Mrs. Ellis! Oh, mothers, daughters, aunts, +grandmothers of England, this is the sort of writing which is put in the +newspapers for you! How can you help being the mothers, daughters, &c. +of Snobs, so long as this balderdash is set before you? + +You stuff the little rosy foot of a Chinese young lady of fashion into a +slipper that is about the size of a salt-cruet, and keep the poor little +toes there imprisoned and twisted up so long that the dwarfishness +becomes irremediable. Later, the foot would not expand to the natural +size were you to give her a washing-tub for a shoe and for all her life +she has little feet, and is a cripple. Oh, my dear Miss Wiggins, thank +your stars that those beautiful feet of yours--though I declare when you +walk they are so small as to be almost invisible--thank your stars that +society never so practised upon them; but look around and see how +many friends of ours in the highest circles have had their BRAINS so +prematurely and hopelessly pinched and distorted. + +How can you expect that those poor creatures are to move naturally when +the world and their parents have mutilated them so cruelly? As long as +a COURT CIRCULAR exists, how the deuce are people whose names are +chronicled in it ever to believe themselves the equals of the cringing +race which daily reads that abominable trash? I believe that ours is the +only country in the world now where the COURT CIRCULAR remains in full +flourish--where you read, 'This day his Royal Highness Prince Pattypan +was taken an airing in his go-cart.' 'The Princess Pimminy was taken a +drive, attended by her ladies of honour, and accompanied by her doll,' +&c. We laugh at the solemnity with which Saint Simon announces that SA +MAJESTE SE MEDICAMENTE AUJOURD'HUI. Under our very noses the same folly +is daily going on. That wonderful and mysterious man, the author of the +COURT CIRCULAR, drops in with his budget at the newspaper offices every +night. I once asked the editor of a paper to allow me to lie in wait and +see him. + +I am told that in a kingdom where there is a German King-Consort +(Portugal it must be, for the Queen of that country married a German +Prince, who is greatly admired and respected by the natives), whenever +the Consort takes the diversion of shooting among the rabbit-warrens of +Cintra, or the pheasant-preserve of Mafra, he has a keeper to load his +guns, as a matter of course, and then they are handed to the nobleman, +his equerry, and the nobleman hands them to the Prince who blazes +away--gives back the discharged gun to the nobleman, who gives it to the +keeper, and so on. But the Prince WON'T TAKE THE GUN FROM THE HANDS OF +THE LOADER. + +As long as this unnatural and monstrous etiquette continues, Snobs there +must be. The three persons engaged in this transaction are, for the time +being, Snobs. + +1. The keeper--the least Snob of all, because he is discharging his +daily duty; but he appears here as a Snob, that is to say, in a position +of debasement before another human being (the Prince), with whom he +is allowed to communicate through another party. A free Portuguese +gamekeeper, who professes himself to be unworthy to communicate directly +with any person, confesses himself to be a Snob. + +2. The nobleman in waiting is a Snob. If it degrades the Prince to +receive the gun from the gamekeeper, it is degrading to the nobleman in +waiting to execute that service. He acts as a Snob towards the keeper, +whom he keeps from communication with the Prince--a Snob to the Prince, +to whom he pays a degrading homage. + +3. The King-Consort of Portugal is a Snob for insulting fellow-men in +this way. There's no harm in his accepting the services of the keeper +directly; but indirectly he insults the service performed, and the +servants who perform it; and therefore, I say, respectfully, is a most +undoubted, though royal Snob. + +And then you read in the DIARIO DO GOBERNO--'Yesterday his Majesty the +King took the diversion of shooting the woods off Cintra, attended by +Colonel the honourable Whiskerando Sombrero. His Majesty returned to the +Necessidades to lunch, at,' &c. &c.. + +Oh! that COURT CIRCULAR! once more, I exclaim. + +Down with the COURT CIRCULAR--that engine and propagator of +Snobbishness! I promise to subscribe for a year to any daily paper that +shall come out without a COURT CIRCULAR--were it the MORNING HERALD +itself. When I read that trash, I rise in my wrath; I feel myself +disloyal, a regicide, a member of the Calf's Head Club. The only COURT +CIRCULAR story which ever pleased me, was that of the King of Spain, +who in great part was roasted, because there was not time for the Prime +Minister to command the Lord Chamberlain to desire the Grand Gold Stick +to order the first page in waiting to bid the chief of the flunkeys to +request the House-maid of Honour to bring up a pail of water to put his +Majesty out. + +I am like the Pasha of three tails, to whom the Sultan sends HIS COURT +CIRCULAR, the bowstring. + +It CHOKES me. May its usage be abolished for ever. + + + +CHAPTER V--WHAT SNOBS ADMIRE + +Now let us consider how difficult it is even for great men to escape +from being Snobs. It is very well for the reader, whose fine feelings +are disgusted by the assertion that Kings, Princes, Lords, are Snobs, to +say 'You are confessedly a Snob yourself. In professing to depict Snobs, +it is only your own ugly mug which you are copying with a Narcissus-like +conceit and fatuity.' But I shall pardon this explosion of ill-temper +on the part of my constant reader, reflecting upon the misfortune of his +birth and country. It is impossible for ANY Briton, perhaps, not to be a +Snob in some degree. If people can be convinced of this fact, an immense +point is gained, surely. If I have pointed out the disease, let us hope +that other scientific characters may discover the remedy. + +If you, who are a person of the middle ranks of life, are a Snob,--you +whom nobody flatters particularly; you who have no toadies; you whom no +cringing flunkeys or shopmen bow out of doors; you whom the policeman +tells to move on; you who are jostled in the crowd of this world, and +amongst the Snobs our brethren: consider how much harder it is for a man +to escape who has not your advantages, and is all his life long subject +to adulation; the butt of meanness; consider how difficult it is for the +Snobs' idol not to be a Snob. + +As I was discoursing with my friend Eugenio in this impressive way, Lord +Buckram passed us, the son of the Marquis of Bagwig, and knocked at +the door of the family mansion in Red Lion Square. His noble father and +mother occupied, as everybody knows, distinguished posts in the +Courts of late Sovereigns. The Marquis was Lord of the Pantry, and her +Ladyship, Lady of the Powder Closet to Queen Charlotte. Buck (as I +call him, for we are very familiar) gave me a nod as he passed, and +I proceeded to show Eugenio how it was impossible that this nobleman +should not be one of ourselves, having been practised upon by Snobs all +his life. + +His parents resolved to give him a public education, and sent him to +school at the earliest possible period. The Reverend Otto Rose, D.D., +Principal of the Preparatory Academy for young noblemen and gentlemen, +Richmond Lodge, took this little Lord in hand, and fell down and +worshipped him. He always introduced him to fathers and mothers who +came to visit their children at the school. He referred with pride and +pleasure to the most noble the Marquis of Bagwig, as one of the kind +friends and patrons of his Seminary. He made Lord Buckram a bait for +such a multiplicity of pupils, that a new wing was built to Richmond +Lodge, and thirty-five new little white dimity beds were added to +the establishment. Mm. Rose used to take out the little Lord in the +one-horse chaise with her when she paid visits, until the Rector's +lady and the Surgeon's wife almost died with envy. His own son and Lord +Buckram having been discovered robbing an orchard together, the Doctor +flogged his own flesh and blood most unmercifully for leading the young +Lord astray. He parted from him with tears. There was always a letter +directed to the Most Noble the Marquis ef Bagwig, on the Doctor's study +table, when any visitors were received by him. + +At Eton, a great deal of Snobbishness was thrashed out of Lord Buckram, +and he was birched with perfect impartiality. Even there, however, a +select band of sucking tuft-hunters followed him. Young Croesus lent +him three-and-twenty bran-new sovereigns out of his father's bank. Young +Snaily did his exercises for him, and tried 'to know him at home;' but +Young Bull licked him in a fight of fifty-five minutes, and he was caned +several times with great advantage for not sufficiently polishing his +master Smith's shoes. Boys are not ALL toadies in the morning of life. + +But when he went to the University, crowds of toadies sprawled over +him. The tutors toadied him. The fellows in hall paid him great clumsy +compliments. The Dean never remarked his absence from Chapel, or heard +any noise issuing from his rooms. A number of respectable young fellows, +(it is among the respectable, the Baker Street class, that Snobbishness +flourishes, more than among any set of people in England)--a number of +these clung to him like leeches. There was no end now to Croesus's loans +of money; and Buckram couldn't ride out with the hounds, but Snaily (a +timid creature by nature) was in the field, and would take any leap at +which his friend chose to ride. Young Rose came up to the same College, +having been kept back for that express purpose by his father. He spent a +quarter's allowance in giving Buckram a single dinner; but he knew +there was always pardon for him for extravagance in such a cause; and a +ten-pound note always came to him from home when he mentioned Buckram's +name in a letter. What wild visions entered the brains of Mrs. Podge +and Miss Podge, the wife and daughter of the Principal of Lord Buckram's +College, I don't know, but that reverend old gentleman was too profound +a flunkey by nature ever for one minute to think that a child of his +could marry a nobleman. He therefore hastened on his daughter's union +with Professor Crab. + +When Lord Buckram, after taking his honorary degree, (for Alma Mater is +a Snob, too, and truckles to a Lord like the rest,)--when Lord Buckram +went abroad to finish his education, you all know what dangers he ran, +and what numbers of caps were set at him. Lady Leach and her daughters +followed him from Paris to Rome, and from Rome to Baden-Baden; +Miss Leggitt burst into tears before his face when he announced his +determination to quit Naples, and fainted on the neck of her mamma: +Captain Macdragon, of Macdragonstown, County Tipperary, called upon +him to 'explene his intintions with respect to his sisther, Miss Amalia +Macdragon, of Macdragonstown,' and proposed to shoot him unless he +married that spotless and beautiful young creature, who was afterwards +led to the altar by Mr. Muff, at Cheltenham. If perseverance and forty +thousand pounds down could have tempted him, Miss Lydia Croesus would +certainly have been Lady Buckram. Count Towrowski was glad to take her +with half the meney, as all the genteel world knows. + +And now, perhaps, the reader is anxious to know what sort of a man +this is who wounded so many ladies' hearts, and who has been such a +prodigious favourite with men. If we were to describe him it would be +personal. Besides, it really does not matter in the least what sort of a +man he is, or what his personal qualities are. + +Suppose he is a young nobleman of a literary turn, and that he published +poems ever so foolish and feeble, the Snobs would purchase thousands +of his volumes: the publishers (who refused my Passion-Flowers, and +my grand Epic at any price) would give him his own. Suppose he is a +nobleman of a jovial turn, and has a fancy for wrenching off knockers, +frequenting ginshops, and half murdering policemen: the public will +sympathize good-naturedly with his amusements, and say he is a hearty, +honest fellow. Suppose he is fond of play and the turf; and has a fancy +to be a blackleg, and occasionally condescends to pluck a pigeon at +cards; the public will pardon him, and many honest people will court +him, as they would court a housebreaker if he happened to be a Lord. +Suppose he is an idiot; yet, by the glorious constitution, he is good +enough to govern US. Suppose he is an honest, highminded gentleman; so +much the better for himself. But he may be an ass, and yet respected; or +a ruffian, and yet be exceedingly popular; or a rogue, and yet excuses +will be found for him. Snobs will still worship him. Male Snobs will do +him honour, and females look kindly upon him, however hideous he may be. + + + +CHAPTER VI--ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS + +Having received a great deal of obloquy for dragging monarchs, princes, +and the respected nobility into the Snob category, I trust to please +everybody in the present chapter, by stating my firm opinion that it +is among the RESPECTABLE classes of this vast and happy empire that the +greatest profusion of Snobs is to be found. I pace down my beloved Baker +Street, (I am engaged on a life of Baker, founder of this celebrated +street,) I walk in Harley Street (where every other house has a +hatchment), Wimpole Street, that is as cheerful as the Catacombs--a +dingy Mausoleum of the genteel:--I rove round Regent's Park, where the +plaster is patching off the house walls; where Methodist preachers are +holding forth to three little children in the green inclosures, and +puffy valetudinarians are cantering in the solitary mud:--I thread the +doubtful ZIG-ZAGS of May Fair, where Mrs. Kitty Lorimer's Brougham may +be seen drawn up next door to old Lady Lollipop's belozenged family +coach;--I roam through Belgravia, that pale and polite district, where +all the inhabitants look prim and correct, and the mansions are painted +a faint whity-brown: I lose myself in the new squares and terraces of +the brilliant bran-new Bayswater-and-Tyburn-Junction line; and in one +and all of these districts the same truth comes across me. I stop before +any house at hazard, and say, 'O house, you are inhabited--O knocker, +you are knocked at--O undressed flunkey, sunning your lazy calves as +you lean against the iron railings, you are paid--by Snobs.' It is +a tremendous thought that; and it is almost sufficient to drive a +benevolent mind to madness to think that perhaps there is not one in +ten of those houses where the 'Peerage' does not lie on the drawing-room +table. Considering the harm that foolish lying book does, I would have +all the copies of it burned, as the barber burned all Quixote's books of +humbugging chivalry. + +Look at this grand house in the middle of the square. The Earl of +Loughcorrib lives there: he has fifty thousand a year. A DEJEUNER +DANSANT given at his house last week cost, who knows how much? The +mere flowers for the room and bouquets for the ladies cost four hundred +pounds. That man in drab trousers, coming crying down the stops, is a +dun: Lord Loughcorrib has ruined him, and won't see him: that is his +lordship peeping through the blind of his study at him now. Go thy ways, +Loughcorrib, thou art a Snob, a heartless pretender, a hypocrite of +hospitality; a rogue who passes forged notes upon society;--but I am +growing too eloquent. + +You see that nice house, No. 23, where a butcher's boy is ringing the +area-bell. He has three muttonchops in his tray. They are for the dinner +of a very different and very respectable family; for Lady Susan Scraper, +and her daughters, Miss Scraper and Miss Emily Scraper. The domestics, +luckily for them, are on board wages--two huge footmen in light blue and +canary, a fat steady coachman who is a Methodist, and a butler who +would never have stayed in the family but that he was orderly to General +Scraper when the General distinguished himself at Walcheren. His widow +sent his portrait to the United Service Club, and it is hung up in +one of the back dressing-closets there. He is represented at a parlour +window with red curtains; in the distance is a whirlwind, in which +cannon are firing off; and he is pointing to a chart, on which are +written the words 'Walcheren, Tobago.' + +Lady Susan is, as everybody knows by referring to the 'British Bible,' a +daughter of the great and good Earl Bagwig before mentioned. She thinks +everything belonging to her the greatest and best in the world. The +first of men naturally are the Buckrams, her own race: then follow in +rank the Scrapers. The General was the greatest general: his eldest son, +Scraper Buckram Scraper, is at present the greatest and best; his second +son the next greatest and best; and herself the paragon of women. + +Indeed, she is a most respectable and honourable lady. She goes to +church of course: she would fancy the Church in danger if she did not. +She subscribes to Church and parish charities; and is a directress +of meritorious charitable institutions--of Queen Charlotte's Lying-in +Hospital, the Washerwomen's Asylum, the British Drummers' Daughters' +Home, &c.. She is a model of a matron. + +The tradesman never lived who could say that he was not paid on +the quarter-day. The beggars of her neighbourhood avoid her like a +pestilence; for while she walks out, protected by John, that domestic +has always two or three mendicity tickets ready for deserving objects. +Ten guineas a year will pay all her charities. There is no respectable +lady in all London who gets her name more often printed for such a sum +of money. + +Those three mutton-chops which you see entering at the kitchen-door will +be served on the family-plate at seven o'clock this evening, the huge +footman being present, and the butler in black, and the crest and +coat-of-arms of the Scrapers blazing everywhere. I pity Miss Emily +Scraper--she is still young--young and hungry. Is it a fact that she +spends her pocket-money in buns? Malicious tongues say so; but she has +very little to spare for buns, the poor little hungry soul! For the +fact is, that when the footmen, and the ladies' maids, and the fat +coach-horses, which are jobbed, and the six dinner-parties in the +season, and the two great solemn evening-parties, and the rent of the +big house, and the journey to an English or foreign watering-place for +the autumn, are paid, my lady's income has dwindled away to a very small +sum, and she is as poor as you or I. + +You would not think it when you saw her big carriage rattling up to the +drawing-room, and caught a glimpse of her plumes, lappets, and diamonds, +waving over her ladyship's sandy hair and majestical hooked nose;--you +would not think it when you hear 'Lady Susan Scraper's carriage' bawled +out at midnight so as to disturb all Belgravia:--you would not think it +when she comes rustling into church, the obsequious John behind with the +bag of Prayer-books. Is it possible, you would say, that so grand and +awful a personage as that can be hard-up for money? Alas! So it is. + +She never heard such a word as Snob, I will engage, in this wicked and +vulgar world. And, O stars and garters! how she would start if she heard +that she--she, as solemn as Minerva--she, as chaste as Diana (without +that heathen goddess's unladylike propensity for field-sports)--that she +too was a Snob! + +A Snob she is, as long as she sets that prodigious value upon herself, +upon her name, upon her outward appearance, and indulges in that +intolerable pomposity; as long as she goes parading abroad, like +Solomon in all his glory; as long as she goes to bed--as I believe she +does--with a turban and a bird of paradise in it, and a court train +to her night-gown; as long as she is so insufferably virtuous and +condescending; as long as she does not cut at least one of those footmen +down into mutton-chops for the benefit of the young ladies. + +I had my notions of her from my old schoolfellow,--her son Sydney +Scraper--a Chancery barrister without any practice--the most placid, +polite, and genteel of Snobs, who never exceeded his allowance of two +hundred a year, and who may be seen any evening at the 'Oxford and +Cambridge Club,' simpering over the QUARTERLY REVIEW, in the blameless +enjoyment of his half-pint of port. + + + +CHAPTER VII--ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS + +Look at the next house to Lady Susan Scraper's. The first mansion with +the awning over the door: that canopy will be let down this evening for +the comfort of the friends of Sir Alured and Lady S. de Mogyns, whose +parties are so much admired by the public, and the givers themselves. + +Peach-coloured liveries laced with silver, and pea-green plush +inexpressibles, render the De Mogyns' flunkeys the pride of the ring +when they appear in Hyde Park where Lady de Mogyns, as she sits upon +her satin cushions, with her dwarf spaniel in her arms, bows to the very +selectest of the genteel. Times are altered now with Mary Anne, or, as +she calls herself, Marian de Mogyns. + +She was the daughter of Captain Flack of the Rathdrum Fencibles, who +crossed with his regiment over from Ireland to Caermarthenshire ever +so many years ago, and defended Wales from the Corsican invader. The +Rathdrums were quartered at Pontydwdlm, where Marian wooed and won her +De Mogyns, a young banker in the place. His attentions to Miss Flack at +a race ball were such that her father said De Mogyns must either die on +the field of honour, or become his son-in-law. He preferred marriage. +His name was Muggins then, and his father--a flourishing banker, +army-contractor, smuggler, and general jobber--almost disinherited him +on account of this connection. + +There is a story that Muggins the Elder was made a baronet for having +lent money to a R-y-l p-rs-n-ge. I do not believe it. The R-y-l Family +always paid their debts, from the Prince of Wales downwards. + +Howbeit, to his life's end he remained simple Sir Thomas Muggins, +representing Pontydwdlm in Parliament for many years after the war. The +old banker died in course of time, and to use the affectionate phrase +common on such occasions, 'cut up' prodigiously well. His son, Alfred +Smith Mogyns, succeeded to the main portion of his wealth, and to his +titles and the bloody hand of his scutcheon. It was not for many years +after that he appeared as Sir Alured Mogyns Smyth de Mogyns, with a +genealogy found out for him by the Editor of 'Fluke's Peerage,' and +which appears as follows in that work:--'De Mogyns.--Sir Alured Mogyns +Smyth, Second Baronet. This gentleman is a representative of one of the +most ancient families of Wales, who trace their descent until it is lost +in the mists of antiquity. A genealogical tree beginning with Shem is in +the possession of the family, and is stated by a legend of many thousand +years' date to have been drawn on papyrus by a grandson of the patriarch +himself. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt of the immense +antiquity of the race of Mogyns. + +'In the time of Boadicea, Hogyn Mogyn, of the hundred Beeves, was a +suitor and a rival of Caractacus for the hand of that Princess. He was +a person gigantic in stature, and was slain by Suetonius in the battle +which terminated the liberties of Britain. From him descended directly +the Princes of Pontydwdlm, Mogyn of the Golden Harp (see the Mabinogion +of Lady Charlotte Guest,) Bogyn-Merodac-ap-Mogyn, (the black fiend son +of Mogyn,) and a long list of bards and warriors, celebrated both in +Wales and Armorica. The independent Princes of Mogyn long held out +against the ruthless Kings of England, until finally Gam Mogyns made his +submission to Prince Henry, son of Henry IV., and under the name of Sir +David Gam de Mogyns, was distinguished at the battle of Agincourt. + +From him the present Baronet is descended. (And here the descent follows +in order until it comes to) Thomas Muggins, first Baronet of Pontydwdlm +Castle, for 23 years Member of Parliament for that borough, who had +issue, Alured Mogyns Smyth, the present Baronet, who married Marian, +daughter of the late general P. Flack, of Ballyflack, in the Kingdom of +Ireland of the Counts Flack of the H. R. Empire. Sir Alured has issue, +Alured Caradoc, born 1819, Marian, 1811, Blanche Adeliza, Emily Doria, +Adelaide Obleans, Katinka Rostopchin, Patrick Flack, died 1809. + +'Arms--a mullion garbled, gules on a saltire reversed of the second. +Crest--a tom-tit rampant regardant. Motto--UNG ROY UNG MOGYNS.' + +It was long before Lady de Mogyns shone as a star in the fashionable +world. At first, poor Muggins was the in the hands of the Flacks, the +Clancys, the Tooles, the Shanahans, his wife's Irish relations; and +whilst he was yet but heir-apparent, his house overflowed with claret +and the national nectar, for the benefit of Hibernian relatives. Tom +Tufto absolutely left the street in which they lived in London, because +he said 'it was infected with such a confounded smell of whisky from the +house of those IWISH people.' + +It was abroad that they learned to be genteel. They pushed into all +foreign courts, and elbowed their way into the halls of Ambassadors. +They pounced upon the stray nobility, and seized young lords travelling +with their bear-leaders. They gave parties at Naples, Rome, and Paris. +They got a Royal Prince to attend their SOIREES at the latter place, and +it was here that they first appeared under the name of De Mogyns, which +they bear with such splendour to this day. + +All sorts of stories are told of the desperate efforts made by the +indomitable Lady de Mogyns to gain the place she now occupies, and those +of my beloved readers who live in middle life, and are unacquainted +with the frantic struggles, the wicked feuds, the intrigues, cabals, +and disappointments which, as I am given to understand, reign in the +fashionable world, may bless their stars that they at least are not +FASHIONABLE Snobs. The intrigues set afoot by the De Mogyns to get +the Duchess of Buckskin to her parties, would strike a Talleyrand +with admiration. She had a brain fever after being disappointed of an +invitation to Lady Aldermanbury's THE DANSANT, and would have committed +suicide but for a ball at Windsor. I have the following story from my +noble friend Lady Clapperclaw herself,--Lady Kathleen O'Shaughnessy that +was, and daughter of the Earl of Turfanthunder:-- + +'When that odious disguised Irishwoman, Lady Muggins, was struggling to +take her place in the world, and was bringing out her hidjous daughter +Blanche,' said old Lady Clapperclaw--(Marian has a hump-back and doesn't +show, but she's the only lady in the family)--'when that wretched Polly +Muggins was bringing out Blanche, with her radish of a nose, and her +carrots of ringlets, and her turnip for a face, she was most anxious--as +her father had been a cowboy on my father's land--to be patronized +by us, and asked me point-blank, in the midst of a silence at Count +Volauvent's, the French Ambassador's dinner, why I had not sent her a +card for my ball? + +'“Because my rooms are already too full, and your ladyship would be +crowded inconveniently,” says I; indeed she takes up as much room as an +elephant: besides I wouldn't have her, and that was flat. + +'I thought my answer was a settler to her: but the next day she comes +weeping to my arms--“Dear Lady Clapperclaw,” says she, “it's not for ME; +I ask it for my blessed Blanche! a young creature in her first season, +and not at your ball! My tender child will pine and die of vexation. I +don't want to come. I will stay at home to nurse Sir Alured in the gout. +Mrs. Bolster is going, I know; she will be Blanche's chaperon.” + +'“You wouldn't subscribe for the Rathdrum blanket and potato fund; you, +who come out of the parish,” says I, “and whose grandfather, honest man, +kept cows there.” + +'“Will twenty guineas be enough, dearest Lady Clapperclaw?” + +'“Twenty guineas is sufficient,” says I, and she paid them; so I said, +“Blanche may come, but not you, mind:” and she left me with a world of +thanks. + +'Would you believe it?--when my ball came, the horrid woman made her +appearance with her daughter! + +“Didn't I tell you not to come?” said I, in a mighty passion. “What +would the world have said?” cries my Lady Muggins: “my carriage is gone +for Sir Alured to the Club; let me stay only ten minutes, dearest Lady +Clapperclaw.” + +'“Well as you are here, madam, you may stay and get your supper,” I +answered, and so left her, and never spoke a word more to her all night. + +'And now,' screamed out old Lady Clapperclaw, clapping her hands, and +speaking with more brogue than ever, 'what do you think, after all +my kindness to her, the wicked, vulgar, odious, impudent upstart of s +cowboy's granddaughter, has done?--she cut me yesterday in Hy' Park, and +hasn't sent me a ticket for her ball to-night, though they say Prince +George is to be there.' + +Yes, such is the fact. In the race of fashion the resolute and active +De Mogyns has passed the poor old Clapperclaw. Her progress in gentility +may be traced by the sets of friends whom she has courted, and made, +and cut, and left behind her. She has struggled so gallantly for polite +reputation that she has won it: pitilessly kicking down the ladder as +she advanced degree by degree. + +Irish relations were first sacrificed; she made her father dine in the +steward's room, to his perfect contentment: and would send Sir Alured +thither like-wise but that he is a peg on which she hopes to hang her +future honours; and is, after all, paymaster of her daughter's fortunes. +He is meek and content. He has been so long a gentleman that he is used +to it, and acts the part of governor very well. In the day-time he goes +from the 'Union' to 'Arthur's,' and from 'Arthur's' to the 'Union.' He +is a dead hand at piquet, and loses a very comfortable maintenance to +some young fellows, at whist, at the 'Travellers'.' + +His son has taken his father's seat in Parliament, and has of course +joined Young England. He is the only man in the country who believes in +the De Mogynses, and sighs for the days when a De Mogyns led the van of +battle. He has written a little volume of spoony puny poems. He wears a +lock of the hair of Laud, the Confessor and Martyr, and fainted when +he kissed the Pope's toe at Rome. He sleeps in white kid-gloves, and +commits dangerous excesses upon green tea. + + + +CHAPTER VIII--GREAT CITY SNOBS + +There is no disguising the fact that this series of papers is making +a prodigious sensation among all classes in this Empire. Notes of +admiration (!), of interrogation (?), of remonstrance, approval, or +abuse, come pouring into MR. PUNCH'S box. We have been called to task +for betraying the secrets of three different families of De Mogyns; no +less than four Lady Scrapers have been discovered; and young gentlemen +are quite shy of ordering half-a-pint of port and simpering over the +QUARTERLY REVIEW at the Club, lest they should be mistaken for Sydney +Scraper, Esq. 'What CAN be your antipathy to Baker Street?' asks some +fair remonstrant, evidently writing from that quarter. + +'Why only attack the aristocratic Snobs?' says one 'estimable +correspondent: 'are not the snobbish Snobs to have their turn?'--'Pitch +into the University Snobs!' writes an indignant gentleman (who +spelt ELEGANT with two I's)--'Show up the Clerical Snob,' suggests +another.--'Being at “Meurice's Hotel,” Paris, some time since,' some wag +hints, 'I saw Lord B. leaning out of the window with his boots in his +hand, and bawling out “GARCON, CIREZ-MOI CES BOTTES.” Oughtn't he to be +brought in among the Snobs?' + +No; far from it. If his lordship's boots are dirty, it is because he is +Lord B., and walks. There is nothing snobbish in having only one pair of +boots, or a favourite pair; and certainly nothing snobbish in desiring +to have them cleaned. Lord B., in so doing, performed a perfectly +natural and gentlemanlike action; for which I am so pleased with him +that I have had him designed in a favourable and elegant attitude, and +put at the head of this Chapter in the place of honour. No, we are not +personal in these candid remarks. As Phidias took the pick of a score of +beauties before he completed a Venus, so have we to examine, perhaps, a +thousand Snobs, before one is expressed upon paper. + +Great City Snobs are the next in the hierarchy, and ought to be +considered. But here is a difficulty. The great City Snob is commonly +most difficult of access. Unless you are a capitalist, you cannot visit +him in the recesses of his bank parlour in Lombard Street. Unless you +are a sprig of nobility there is little hope of seeing him at home. In +a great City Snob firm there is generally one partner whose name is down +for charities, and who frequents Exeter Hall; you may catch a glimpse +of another (a scientific City Snob) at my Lord N----'s SOIREES, or the +lectures of the London Institution; of a third (a City Snob of taste) +at picture-auctions, at private views of exhibitions, or at the Opera or +the Philharmonic. But intimacy is impossible, in most cases, with this +grave, pompous, and awful being. + +A mere gentleman may hope to sit at almost anybody's table--to take +his place at my lord duke's in the country--to dance a quadrille at +Buckingham Palace itself--(beloved Lady Wilhelmina Wagglewiggle! do you +recollect the sensation we made at the ball of our late adored Sovereign +Queen Caroline, at Brandenburg House, Hammersmith?) but the City Snob's +doors are, for the most part, closed to him; and hence all that one +knows of this great class is mostly from hearsay. + +In other countries of Europe, the Banking Snob is more expansive and +communicative than with us, and receives all the world into his +circle. For instance, everybody knows the princely hospitalities of the +Scharlaschild family at Paris, Naples, Frankfort, &c.. They entertain +all the world, even the poor, at their FETES. Prince Polonia, at Rome, +and his brother, the Duke of Strachino, are also remarkable for their +hospitalities. I like the spirit of the first-named nobleman. Titles not +costing much in the Roman territory, he has had the head clerk of the +banking-house made a Marquis, and his Lordship will screw a BAJOCCO +out of you in exchange as dexterously as any commoner could do. It is a +comfort to be able to gratify such grandees with a farthing or two; +it makes the poorest man feel that he can do good. 'The Polonias have +intermarried with the greatest and most ancient families of Rome, and +you see their heraldic cognizance (a mushroom or on an azure field) +quartered in a hundred places in the city with the arms of the Colonnas +and Dorias. + +City Snobs have the same mania for aristocratic marriages. I like to +see such. I am of a savage and envious nature,--I like to see these two +humbugs which, dividing, as they do, the social empire of this kingdom +between them, hate each other naturally, making truce and uniting, +for the sordid interests of either. I like to see an old aristocrat, +swelling with pride of race, the descendant of illustrious Norman +robbers, whose blood has been pure for centuries, and who looks down +upon common Englishmen as a free American does on a nigger,--I like to +see old Stiffneck obliged to bow down his head and swallow his infernal +pride, and drink the cup of humiliation poured out by Pump and Aldgate's +butler. 'Pump and Aldgate, says he, 'your grandfather was a bricklayer, +and his hod is still kept in the bank. Your pedigree begins in a +workhouse; mine can be dated from all the royal palaces of Europe. I +came over with the Conqueror; I am own cousin to Charles Martel, Orlando +Furioso, Philip Augustus, Peter the Cruel, and Frederick Barbarossa. +I quarter the Royal Arms of Brentford in my coat. I despise you, but I +want money; and I will sell you my beloved daughter, Blanche Stiffneck, +for a hundred thousand pounds, to pay off my mortgages. Let your son +marry her, and she shall become Lady Blanche Pump and Aldgate.' + +Old Pump and Aldgate clutches at the bargain. And a comfortable thing +it is to think that birth can be bought for money. So you learn to value +it. Why should we, who don't possess it, set a higher store on it than +those who do? Perhaps the best use of that book, the 'Peerage,' is to +look down the list, and see how many have bought and sold birth,--how +poor sprigs of nobility somehow sell themselves to rich City Snobs' +daughters, how rich City Snobs purchase noble ladies--and so to admire +the double baseness of the bargain. + +Old Pump and Aldgate buys the article and pays the money. The sale +of the girl's person is blessed by a Bishop at St. George's, Hanover +Square, and next year you read, 'At Roehampton, on Saturday, the Lady +Blanche Pump, of a son and heir. + +After this interesting event, some old acquaintance, who saw young Pump +in the parlour at the bank in the City, said to him, familiarly, 'How's +your wife, Pump, my boy?' + +Mr. Pump looked exceedingly puzzled and disgusted, and, after a pause, +said, 'LADY BLANCHE PUMP' is pretty well, I thank you.' + +'OH, I THOUGHT SHE WAS YOUR WIFE!' said the familiar brute, Snooks, +wishing him good-bye; and ten minutes after, the story was all over the +Stock Exchange, where it is told, when young Pump appears, to this very +day. + +We can imagine the weary life this poor Pump, this martyr to Mammon, is +compelled to undergo. Fancy the domestic enjoyments of a man who has a +wife who scorns him; who cannot see his own friends in his own house; +who having deserted the middle rank of life, is not yet admitted to +the higher; but who is resigned to rebuffs and delay and humiliation, +contented to think that his son will be more fortunate. + +It used to be the custom of some very old-fashioned clubs in this city, +when a gentleman asked for change a guinea, always to bring it to him +in WASHED SILVER: that which had passed immediately out of the hands of +vulgar being considered 'as too coarse to soil a gentleman's fingers.' +So, when the City Snob's money has been washed during a generation +or so; has been washed into estates, and woods, and castles, and +town-mansions, it is allowed to pass current as real aristocratic coin. +Old Pump sweeps a shop, runs of messages, becomes a confidential clerk +and partner. Pump the Second becomes chief of the house, spins more and +more money, marries his son to an Earl's daughter. Pump Tertius goes on +with the bank; but his chief business in life is to become the father of +Pump Quartus, who comes out a full-blown aristocrat, and takes his seat +as Baron Pumpington, and his race rules hereditarily over this nation of +Snobs. + + + +CHAPTER IX--ON SOME MILITARY SNOBS + +As no society in the world is more agreeable than that of well-bred +and well-informed military gentlemen, so, likewise, none is more +insufferable than that of Military Snobs. They are to be found of all +grades, from the General Officer, whose padded old breast twinkles over +with a score of stars, clasps, and decorations, to the budding +cornet, who is shaving for a beard, and has just been appointed to the +Saxe-Coburg Lancers. + +I have always admired that dispensation of rank in our country, which +sets up this last-named little creature (who was flogged only last week +because he could not spell) to command great whiskered warriors, who +have faced all dangers of climate and battle; which, because he has +money, to lodge at the agent's, will place him over the heads of men +who have a thousand times more experience and desert: and which, in the +course of time, will bring him all the honours of his profession, when +the veteran soldier he commanded has got no other reward for his bravery +than a berth in Chelsea Hospital, and the veteran officer he superseded +has slunk into shabby retirement, and ends his disappointed life on a +threadbare half-pay. + +When I read in the GAZETTE such announcements as 'Lieutenant and Captain +Grig, from the Bombardier Guards, to be Captain, vice Grizzle, who +retires,' I know what becomes of the Peninsular Grizzle; I follow him in +spirit to the humble country town, where he takes up his quarters, +and occupies himself with the most desperate attempts to live like a +gentleman, on the stipend of half a tailor's foreman; and I picture to +myself little Grig rising from rank to rank, skipping from one regiment +to another, with an increased grade in each, avoiding disagreeable +foreign service, and ranking as a colonel at thirty;--all because he has +money, and Lord Grigsby is his father, who had the same luck before him. +Grig must blush at first to give his orders to old men in every way his +betters. And as it is very difficult for a spoiled child to escape being +selfish and arrogant, so it is a very hard task indeed for this spoiled +child of fortune not to be a Snob. + +It must have often been a matter of wonder to the candid reader, that +the army, the most enormous job of all our political institutions, +should yet work so well in the field; and we must cheerfully give +Grig, and his like, the credit for courage which they display whenever +occasion calls for it. The Duke's dandy regiments fought as well as any +(they said better than any, but that is absurd). The great Duke himself +was a dandy once, and jobbed on, as Marlborough did before him. But +this only proves that dandies are brave as well as other Britons--as +all Britons. Let us concede that the high-born Grig rode into +the entrenchments at Sobraon as gallantly as Corporal Wallop, the +ex-ploughboy. + +The times of war are more favourable to him than the periods of peace. +Think of Grig's life in the Bombardier Guards, or the Jack-boot Guards; +his marches from Windsor to London, from London to Windsor, from +Knightsbridge to Regent's Park; the idiotic services he has to perform, +which consist in inspecting the pipeclay of his company, or the horses +in the stable, or bellowing out 'Shoulder humps! Carry humps!' all which +duties the very smallest intellect that ever belonged to mortal man +would suffice to comprehend. The professional duties of a footman are +quite as difficult and various. The red-jackets who hold gentlemen's +horses in St. James's Street could do the work just as well as those +vacuous, good-natured, gentlemanlike, rickety little lieutenants, who +may be seen sauntering about Pall Mall, in high-heeled little boots, or +rallying round the standard of their regiment in the Palace Court, at +eleven o'clock, when the band plays. Did the beloved reader ever see +one of the young fellows staggering under the flag, or, above all, going +through the operation of saluting it? It is worth a walk to the Palace +to witness that magnificent piece of tomfoolery. + +I have had the honour of meeting once or twice an old gentleman, whom I +look upon to be a specimen of army-training, and who has served in +crack regiments, or commanded them, all his life. I allude to +Lieutenant-General the Honourable Sir George Granby Tufto, K.C.B., +K.T.S., K.H., K.S.W., &c. &c.. His manners are irreproachable generally; +in society he is a perfect gentleman, and a most thorough Snob. + +A man can't help being a fool, be he ever so old, and Sir George is a +greater ass at sixty-eight than he was when he first entered the army at +fifteen. He distinguished himself everywhere: his name is mentioned +with praise in a score of Gazettes: he is the man, in fact, whose padded +breast, twinkling over with innumerable decorations, has already been +introduced to the reader. It is difficult to say what virtues this +prosperous gentleman possesses. He never read a book in his life, and, +with his purple, old gouty fingers, still writes a schoolboy hand. He +has reached old age and grey hairs without being the least venerable. He +dresses like an outrageously young man to the present moment, and laces +and pads his old carcass as if he were still handsome George Tufto of +1800. He is selfish, brutal, passionate, and a glutton. It is curious +to mark him at table, and see him heaving in his waistband, his little +bloodshot eyes gloating over his meal. He swears considerably in his +talk, and tells filthy garrison stories after dinner. On account of his +rank and his services, people pay the bestarred and betitled old brute +a sort of reverence; and he looks down upon you and me, and exhibits +his contempt for us, with a stupid and artless candour which is quite +amusing to watch. Perhaps, had he been bred to another profession, he +would not have been the disreputable old creature he now is. But what +other? He was fit for none; too incorrigibly idle and dull for any trade +but this, in which he has distinguished himself publicly as a good and +gallant officer, and privately for riding races, drinking port, fighting +duels, and seducing women. He believes himself to be one of the most +honourable and deserving beings in the world. About Waterloo Place, +of afternoons, you may see him tottering in his varnished boots, and +leering under the bonnets of the women who pass by. When he dies of +apoplexy, THE TIMES will have a quarter of a column about his services +and battles--four lines of print will be wanted to describe his titles +and orders alone--and the earth will cover one of the wickedest and +dullest old wretches that ever strutted over it. + +Lest it should be imagined that I am of so obstinate a misanthropic +nature as to be satisfied with nothing, I beg (for the comfort of the +forces) to state my belief that the army is not composed of such persons +as the above. He has only been selected for the study of civilians and +the military, as a specimen of a prosperous and bloated Army Snob. No: +when epaulets are not sold; when corporal punishments are abolished, and +Corporal Smith has a chance to have his gallantry rewarded as well +as that of Lieutenant Grig; when there is no such rank as ensign and +lieutenant (the existence of which rank is an absurd anomaly, and an +insult upon all the rest of the army), and should there be no war, I +should not be disinclined to be a major-general myself. + +I have a little sheaf of Army Snobs in my portfolio, but shall pause in +my attack upon the forces till next week. + + + +CHAPTER X--MILITARY SNOBS + +Walking in the Park yesterday with my young friend Tagg, and discoursing +with him upon the next number of the Snob, at the very nick of time +who should pass us but two very good specimens of Military Snobs,--the +Sporting Military Snob, Capt. Rag, and the 'lurking' or raffish Military +Snob, Ensign Famish. Indeed you are fully sure to meet them lounging +on horseback, about five o'clock, under the trees by the Serpentine, +examining critically the inmates of the flashy broughams which parade up +and down 'the Lady's Mile.' + +Tagg and Rag are very well acquainted, and so the former, with that +candour inseparable from intimate friendship, told me his dear friend's +history. Captain Rag is a small dapper north-country man. He went when +quite a boy into a crack light cavalry regiment, and by the time he got +his troop, had cheated all his brother officers so completely, selling +them lame horses for sound ones, and winning their money by all manner +of strange and ingenious contrivances, that his Colonel advised him to +retire; which he did without much reluctance, accommodating a youngster, +who had just entered the regiment, with a glandered charger at an +uncommonly stiff figure. + +He has since devoted his time to billiards, steeple-chasing, and the +turf. His head-quarters are 'Rummer's,' in Conduit Street, where +he keeps his kit; but he is ever on the move in the exercise of his +vocation as a gentleman-jockey and gentleman-leg. + +According to BELL'S LIFE, he is an invariable attendant at all races, +and an actor in most of them. He rode the winner at Leamington; he was +left for dead in a ditch a fortnight ago at Harrow; and yet there he +was, last week, at the Croix de Berny, pale and determined as ever, +astonishing the BADAUDS of Paris by the elegance of his seat and the +neatness of his rig, as he took a preliminary gallop on that vicious +brute 'The Disowned,' before starting for 'the French Grand National.' + +He is a regular attendant at the Corner, where he compiles a limited but +comfortable libretto. During season he rides often in the Park, mounted +on a clever well-bred pony. He is to be seen escorting celebrated +horsewoman, Fanny Highflyer, or in confidential converse with Lord +Thimblerig, the eminent handicapper. + +He carefully avoids decent society, and would rather dine off a steak at +the 'One Tun' with Sam Snaffle the jockey, Captain O'Rourke, and two or +three other notorious turf robbers, than with the choicest company in +London. He likes to announce at 'Rummer's' that he is going to run down +and spend his Saturday and Sunday in a friendly way with Hocus, the leg, +at his little box near Epsom; where, if report speak true, many 'rummish +plants' are concocted. + +He does not play billiards often, and never in public: but when he does +play, he always contrives to get hold of a good flat, and never leaves +him till he has done him uncommonly brown. He has lately been playing a +good deal with Famish. + +When he makes his appearance in the drawing-room, which occasionally +happens at a hunt-meeting or a race-ball, he enjoys himself extremely. + +His young friend is Ensign Famish, who is not a little pleased to be +seen with such a smart fellow as Rag, who bows to the best turf company +in the Park. Rag lets Famish accompany him to Tattersall's, and +sells him bargains in horse-flesh, and uses Famish's cab. That young +gentleman's regiment is in India, and he is at home on sick leave. He +recruits his health by being intoxicated every night, and fortifies his +lungs, which are weak, by smoking cigars all day. The policemen about +the Haymarket know the little creature, and the early cabmen salute him. +The closed doors of fish and lobster shops open after service, and vomit +out little Famish, who is either tipsy and quarrelsome--when he wants +to fight the cabmen; or drunk and helpless--when some kind friend (in +yellow satin) takes care of him. All the neighbourhood, the cabmen, the +police, the early potato-men, and the friends in yellow satin, know the +young fellow, and he is called Little Bobby by some of the very worst +reprobates in Europe. + +His mother, Lady Fanny Famish, believes devoutly that Robert is in +London solely for the benefit of consulting the physician; is going to +have him exchanged into a dragoon regiment, which doesn't go to that +odious India; and has an idea that his chest is delicate, and that +he takes gruel every evening, when he puts his feet in hot water. Her +Ladyship resides at Cheltenham, and is of a serious turn. + +Bobby frequents the 'Union Jack Club' of course; where he breakfasts on +pale ale and devilled kidneys at three o'clock; where beardless young +heroes of his own sort congregate, and make merry, and give each other +dinners; where you may see half-a-dozen of young rakes of the fourth +or fifth order lounging and smoking on the steps; where you behold +Slapper's long-tailed leggy mare in the custody of a red-jacket until +the Captain is primed for the Park with a glass of curacoa; and where +you see Hobby, of the Highland Buffs, driving up with Dobby, of the +Madras Fusiliers, in the great banging, swinging cab, which the latter +hires from Rumble of Bond Street. + +In fact, Military Snobs are of such number and variety, that a hundred +weeks of PUNCH would not suffice to give an audience to them. There is, +besides the disreputable old Military Snob, who has seen service, the +respectable old Military Snob, who has seen none, and gives himself the +most prodigious Martinet airs. There is the Medical-Military Snob, who +is generally more outrageously military in his conversation than the +greatest SABREUR in the army. There is the Heavy-Dragoon Snob, whom +young ladies, admire with his great stupid pink face and yellow +moustaches--a vacuous, solemn, foolish, but brave and honourable Snob. +There is the Amateur-Military Snob who writes Captain on his card +because he is a Lieutenant in the Bungay Militia. There is the +Lady-killing Military Snob; and more, who need not be named. + +But let no man, we repeat, charge MR. PUNCH with disrespect for the Army +in general--that gallant and judicious Army, every man of which, from +F.M. the Duke of Wellington, &c., downwards--(with the exception of +H.R.H. Field-Marshal Prince Albert, who, however, can hardly count as a +military man,)--reads PUNCH in every quarter of the globe. + +Let those civilians who sneer at the acquirements of the army read Sir +Harry Smith's account of the Battle of Aliwal. A noble deed was never +told in nobler language. And you who doubt if chivalry exists, or the +age of heroism has passed by, think of Sir Henry Hardinge, with his son, +'dear little Arthur,' riding in front of the lines at Ferozeshah. I hope +no English painter will endeavour to illustrate that scene; for who is +there to do justice to it? The history of the world contains no more +brilliant and heroic picture. No, no; the men who perform these +deeds with such brilliant valour, and describe them with such modest +manliness--SUCH are not Snobs. Their country admires them, their +Sovereign rewards them, and PUNCH, the universal railer, takes off his +hat and, says, Heaven save them! + + + +CHAPTER XI--ON CLERICAL SNOBS + +After Snobs-Military, Snobs-Clerical suggest themselves quite naturally, +and it is clear that, with every respect for the cloth, yet having a +regard for truth, humanity, and the British public, such a vast and +influential class must not be omitted from our notices of the great Snob +world. + +Of these Clerics there are some whose claim to snobbishness is +undoubted, and yet it cannot be discussed here; for the same reason that +PUNCH would not set up his show in a Cathedral, out of respect for +the solemn service celebrated within. There are some places where he +acknowledges himself not privileged to make a noise, and puts away his +show, and silences his drum, and takes off his hat, and holds his peace. + +And I know this, that if there are some Clerics who do wrong, there are +straightway a thousand newspapers to haul up those unfortunates, and +cry, 'Fie upon them, fie upon them!' while, though the press is always +ready to yell and bellow excommunication against these stray delinquent +parsons, it somehow takes very little count of the many good ones--of +the tens of thousands of honest men, who lead Christian lives, who give +to the poor generously, who deny themselves rigidly, and live and die +in their duty, without ever a newspaper paragraph in their favour. My +beloved friend and reader, I wish you and I could do the same: and let +me whisper my belief, ENTRE NOUS that of those eminent philosophers who +cry out against parsons the loudest, there are not many who have got +their knowledge of the church by going thither often. + +But you who have ever listened to village bells, or walked to church as +children on sunny Sabbath mornings; you who have ever seen the parson's +wife tending the poor man's bedside; or the town clergyman threading the +dirty stairs of noxious alleys upon his business;--do not raise a shout +when one falls away, or yell with the mob that howls after him. + +Every man can do that. When old Father Noah was overtaken in his cups, +there was only one of his sons that dared to make merry at his disaster, +and he was not the most virtuous of the family. Let us too turn away +silently, nor huzza like a parcel of school-boys, because some big young +rebel suddenly starts up and whops the schoolmaster. + +I confess, though, if I had by me the names of those seven or eight +Irish bishops, the probates of whose wills were mentioned in last year's +journals, and who died leaving behind them some two hundred thousand +a-piece--I would like to put THEM up as patrons of my Clerical Snobs, +and operate upon them as successfully as I see from the newspapers Mr. +Eisenberg, Chiropodist, has lately done upon 'His Grace the Reverend +Lord Bishop of Tapioca.' + +I confess that when those Right Reverend Prelates come up to the gates +of Paradise with their probates of wills in their hands, I think that +their chance is.... But the gates of Paradise is a far way to follow +their Lordships; so let us trip down again lest awkward questions be +asked there about our own favourite vices too. + +And don't let us give way to the vulgar prejudice, that clergymen are an +over-paid and luxurious body of men. When that eminent ascetic, the +late Sydney Smith--(by the way, by what law of nature is it that so many +Smiths in this world are called Sydney Smith?)--lauded the system of +great prizes in the Church,--without which he said gentlemen would +not be induced to follow the clerical profession, he admitted most +pathetically that the clergy in general were by no means to be envied +for their worldly prosperity. From reading the works of some modern +writers of repute, you would fancy that a parson's life was passed +in gorging himself with plum-pudding and port-wine; and that his +Reverence's fat chaps were always greasy with the crackling of tithe +pigs. Caricaturists delight to represent him so: round, short-necked, +pimple-faced, apoplectic, bursting out of waistcoat, like a +black-pudding, a shovel-hatted fuzz-wigged Silenus. Whereas, if you take +the real man, the poor fellow's flesh-pots are very scantily furnished +with meat. He labours commonly for a wage that a tailor's foreman +would despise: he has, too, such claims upon his dismal income as most +philosophers would rather grumble to meet; many tithes are levied upon +HIS pocket, let it be remembered, by those who grudge him his means +of livelihood. He has to dine with the Squire: and his wife must dress +neatly; and he must 'look like a gentleman,' as they call it, and bring +up six great hungry sons as such. Add to this, if he does his duty, +he has such temptations to spend his money as no mortal man could +withstand. Yes; you who can't resist purchasing a chest of cigars, +because they are so good; or an ormolu clock at Howell and James's, +because it is such a bargain; or a box at the Opera, because Lablache +and Grisi are divine in the PURITANI; fancy how difficult it is for a +parson to resist spending a half-crown when John Breakstone's family +are without a loaf; or 'standing' a bottle of port for poor old Polly +Rabbits, who has her thirteenth child; or treating himself to a suit +of corduroys for little Bob Scarecrow, whose breeches are sadly out at +elbows. Think of these temptations, brother moralists and philosophers, +and don't be too hard on the parson. + +But what is this? Instead of 'showing up' the parsons, are we indulging +in maudlin praises of that monstrous black-coated race? O saintly +Francis, lying at rest under the turf; O Jimmy, and Johnny, and Willy, +friends of my youth! O noble and dear old Elias! how should he who +knows you not respect you and your calling? May this pen never write a +pennyworth again, if it ever casts ridicule upon either! + + + +CHAPTER XII--ON CLERICAL SNOBS AND SNOBBISHNESS + +'Dear Mr. Snob,' an amiable young correspondent writes, who signs +himself Snobling, 'ought the clergyman who, at the request of a noble +Duke, lately interrupted a marriage ceremony between two persons +perfectly authorised to marry, to be ranked or not among the Clerical +Snobs?' + +This, my dear young friend, is not a fair question. One of the +illustrated weekly papers has already seized hold of the clergyman, +and blackened him most unmercifully, by representing him in his cassock +performing the marriage service. Let that be sufficient punishment; and, +if you please, do not press the query. + +It is very likely that if Miss Smith had come with a licence to marry +Jones, the parson in question, not seeing old Smith present, would have +sent off the beadle in a cab to let the old gentleman know what was +going on; and would have delayed the service until the arrival of Smith +senior. He very likely thinks it his duty to ask all marriageable young +ladies, who come without their papa, why their parent is absent; and, no +doubt, ALWAYS sends off the beadle for that missing governor. + +Or, it is very possible that the Duke of Coeurdelion was Mr. +What-d'ye-call'im's most intimate friend, and has often said to him, +'What-d'ye-call'im, my boy, my daughter must never marry the Capting. +If ever they try at your church, I beseech you, considering the terms of +intimacy on which we are, to send off Rattan in a hack cab to fetch me.' + +In either of which cases, you see, dear Snobling, that though the parson +would not have been authorised, yet he might have been excused for +interfering. He has no more right to stop my marriage than to stop my +dinner, to both of which, as a free-born Briton, I am entitled by law, +if I can pay for them. But, consider pastoral solicitude, a deep sense +of the duties of his office, and pardon this inconvenient, but genuine +zeal. + +But if the clergyman did in the Duke's case what he would NOT do in +Smith's; if he has no more acquaintance with the Coeurdelion family than +I have with the Royal and Serene House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha,--THEN, I +confess, my dear Snobling, your question might elicit a disagreeable +reply, and one which I respectfully decline to give. I wonder what Sir +George Tufto would say, if a sentry left his post because a noble lord +(not the least connected with the service) begged the sentinel not to do +his duty! + +Alas! that the beadle who canes little boys and drives them out, cannot +drive worldliness out too; what is worldliness but snobbishness? When, +for instance, I read in the newspapers that the Right Reverend the Lord +Charles James administered the rite of confirmation to a PARTY OF THE +JUVENILE NOBILITY at the Chapel Royal,--as if the Chapel Royal were a +sort of ecclesiastical Almack's, and young people were to get ready for +the next world in little exclusive genteel knots of the aristocracy, who +were not to be disturbed in their journey thither by the company of +the vulgar:--when I read such a paragraph as that (and one or two such +generally appear during the present fashionable season), it seems to me +to be the most odious, mean and disgusting part of that odious, mean, +and disgusting publication, the COURT CIRCULAR; and that snobbishness is +therein carried to quite an awful pitch. What, gentlemen, can't we even +in the Church acknowledge a republic? There, at least, the Heralds' +College itself might allow that we all of us have the same pedigree, +and are direct descendants of Eve and Adam, whose inheritance is divided +amongst us. + +I hereby call upon all Dukes, Earls, Baronets, and other potentates, not +to lend themselves to this shameful scandal and error, and beseech all +Bishops who read this publication to take the matter into consideration, +and to protest against the continuance of the practice, and to declare, +'We WON'T confirm or christen Lord Tomnoddy, or Sir Carnaby Jenks, to +the exclusion of any other young Christian;' the which declaration if +their Lordships are induced to make, a great LAPIS OFFENSIONIS will be +removed, and the Snob Papers will not have been written in vain. + +A story is current of a celebrated NOUVEAU-RICHE, who having had +occasion to oblige that excellent prelate the Bishop of Bullocksmithy, +asked his Lordship, in return, to confirm his children privately in his +Lordship's own chapel; which ceremony the grateful prelate accordingly +performed. Can satire go farther than this? Is there even in this most +amusing of prints, any more NAIVE absurdity? It is as if a man wouldn't +go to heaven unless he went in a special train, or as if he thought (as +some people think about vaccination) Confirmation more effectual when +administered at first hand. When that eminent person, the Begum Sumroo, +died, it is said she left ten thousand pounds to the Pope, and ten +thousand to the Archbishop of Canterbury,--so that there should be no +mistake,--so as to make sure of having the ecclesiastical authorities on +her side. This is only a little more openly and undisguisedly snobbish +than the cases before alluded to. A well-bred Snob is just as secretly +proud of his riches and honours as a PARVENU Snob who makes the most +ludicrous exhibition of them; and a high-born Marchioness or Duchess +just as vain of herself and her diamonds, as Queen Quashyboo, who sews a +pair of epaulets on to her skirt, and turns out in state in a cocked hat +and feathers. + +It is not out of disrespect to my 'Peerage,' which I love and honour, +(indeed, have I not said before, that I should be ready to jump out of +my skin if two Dukes would walk down Pall Mall with me?)--it is not out +of disrespect for the individuals, that I wish these titles had never +been invented; but, consider, if there were no tree, there would be no +shadow; and how much more honest society would be, and how much more +serviceable the clergy would be (which is our present consideration), if +these temptations of rank and continual baits of worldliness were not in +existence, and perpetually thrown out to lead them astray. + +I have seen many examples of their falling away. When, for instance, Tom +Sniffle first went into the country as Curate for Mr. Fuddleston (Sir +Huddleston Fuddleston's brother), who resided on some other living, +there could not be a more kind, hardworking, and excellent creature +than Tom. He had his aunt to live with him. His conduct to his poor was +admirable. He wrote annually reams of the best-intentioned and vapid +sermons. When Lord Brandyball's family came down into the country, and +invited him to dine at Brandyball Park, Sniffle was so agitated that he +almost forgot how to say grace, and upset a bowl of currant-jelly sauce +in Lady Fanny Toffy's lap. + +What was the consequence of his intimacy with that noble family? He +quarrelled with his aunt for dining out every night. The wretch forgot +his poor altogether, and killed his old nag by always riding over to +Brandyball; where he revelled in the maddest passion for Lady Fanny. +He ordered the neatest new clothes and ecclesiastical waistcoats from +London; he appeared with corazza-shirts, lackered boots, and perfumery; +he bought a blood-horse from Bob Toffy: was seen at archery meetings, +public breakfasts,--actually at cover; and, I blush to say, that I saw +him in a stall at the Opera; and afterwards riding by Lady Fanny's side +in Rotten Row. He DOUBLE-BARRELLED his name, (as many poor Snobs do,) +and instead of T. Sniffle, as formerly, came out, in a porcelain card, +as Rev. T. D'Arcy Sniffle, Burlington Hotel. + +The end of all this may be imagined: when the Earl of Brandyball was +made acquainted with the curate's love for Lady Fanny, he had that fit +of the gout which so nearly carried him off (to the inexpressible grief +of his son, Lord Alicompayne), and uttered that remarkable speech to +Sniffle, which disposed of the claims of the latter:--' If I didn't +respect the Church, Sir,' his Lordship said, 'by Jove, I'd kick you +downstairs:' his Lordship then fell back into the fit aforesaid; and +Lady Fanny, as we all know, married General Podager. + +As for poor Tom, he was over head and ears in debt as well as in +love: his creditors came down upon him. Mr. Hemp, of Portugal Street, +proclaimed his name lately as a reverend outlaw; and he has been seen +at various foreign watering-places; sometimes doing duty; sometimes +'coaching' a stray gentleman's son at Carlsruhe or Kissingen; +sometimes--must we say it?--lurking about the roulette-tables with a +tuft to his chin. + +If temptation had not come upon this unhappy fellow in the shape of +a Lord Brandyball, he might still have been following his profession, +humbly and worthily. He might have married his cousin with four thousand +pounds, the wine-merchant's daughter (the old gentleman quarrelled with +his nephew for not soliciting wine-orders from Lord B. for him): he +might have had seven children, and taken private pupils, and eked out +his income, and lived and died a country parson. + +Could he have done better? You who want to know how great, and good, and +noble such a character may be, read Stanley's 'Life of Doctor Arnold.' + + + +CHAPTER XIII--ON CLERICAL SNOBS + +Among the varieties of the Snob Clerical, the University Snob and the +Scholastic Snob ought never to be forgotten; they form a very strong +battalion in the black-coated army. + +The wisdom of our ancestors (which I admire more and more every day) +seemed to have determined that education of youth was so paltry and +unimportant a matter, that almost any man, armed with a birch and +regulation cassock and degree, might undertake the charge: and many an +honest country gentleman may be found to the present day, who takes very +good care to have a character with his butler when he engages him +and will not purchase a horse without the warranty and the closest +inspection; but sends off his son, young John Thomas, to school without +asking any questions about the Schoolmaster, and places the lad at +Switchester College, under Doctor Block, because he (the good old +English gentleman) had been at Switchester, under Doctor Buzwig, forty +years ago. + +We have a love for all little boys at school; for many scores of +thousands of them read and love PUNCH:--may he never write a word that +shall not be honest and fit for them to read! He will not have his young +friends to be Snobs in the future, or to be bullied by Snobs, or +given over to such to be educated. Our connexion with the youth at the +Universities is very close and affectionate. The candid undergraduate +is our friend. The pompous old College Don trembles in his common room, +lest we should attack him and show him up as a Snob. + +When railroads were threatening to invade the land which they have +since conquered, it may be recollected what a shrieking and outcry the +authorities of Oxford and Eton made, lest the iron abominations should +come near those seats of pure learning, and tempt the British youth +astray. The supplications were in vain; the railroad is in upon them, +and the old-world institutions are doomed. I felt charmed to read in the +papers the other day a most veracious puffing advertisement headed, 'To +College and back for Five Shillings.' 'The College Gardens (it said) +will be thrown open on this occasion; the College youths will perform +a regatta; the Chapel of King's College will have its celebrated +music;'--and all for five shillings! The Goths have got into Rome; +Napoleon Stephenson draws his republican lines round the sacred old +cities and the ecclesiastical big-wigs who garrison them must prepare to +lay down key and crosier before the iron conqueror. + +If you consider, dear reader, what profound snobbishness the University +System produced, you will allow that it is time to attack some of those +feudal middle-age superstitions. If you go down for five shillings to +look at the 'College Youths,' you may see one sneaking down the court +without a tassel to his cap; another with a gold or silver fringe to his +velvet trencher; a third lad with a master's gown and hat, walking at +ease over the sacred College grass-plats, which common men must not +tread on. + +He may do it because he is a nobleman. Because a lad is a lord, the +University gives him a degree at the end of two years which another is +seven in acquiring. Because he is a lord, he has no call to go through +an examination. Any man who has not been to College and back for +five shillings, would not believe in such distinctions in a place of +education, so absurd and monstrous do they seem to be. + +The lads with gold and silver lace are sons of rich gentlemen and +called Fellow Commoners; they are privileged to feed better than the +pensioners, and to have wine with their victuals, which the latter can +only get in their rooms. + +The unlucky boys who have no tassels to their caps, are called +sizars--SERVITORS at Oxford--(a very pretty and gentlemanlike title). +A distinction is made in their clothes because they are poor; for which +reason they wear a badge of poverty, and are not allowed to take their +meals with their fellow-students. + +When this wicked and shameful distinction was set up, it was of a piece +with all the rest--a part of the brutal, unchristian, blundering feudal +system. Distinctions of rank were then so strongly insisted upon, that +it would have been thought blasphemy to doubt them, as blasphemous as it +is in parts of the United States now for a nigger to set up as the equal +of a white man. A ruffian like Henry VIII. talked as gravely about the +divine powers vested in him, as if he had been an inspired prophet. +A wretch like James I. not only believed that there was in himself a +particular sanctity, but other people believed him. Government regulated +the length of a merchant's shoes as well as meddled with his trade, +prices, exports, machinery. It thought itself justified in roasting a +man for his religion, or pulling a Jew's teeth out if he did not pay a +contribution, or ordered him to dress in a yellow gabardine, and locked +him in a particular quarter. + +Now a merchant may wear what boots he pleases, and has pretty nearly +acquired the privilege of buying and selling without the Government +laying its paws upon the bargain. The stake for heretics is gone; the +pillory is taken down; Bishops are even found lifting up their voices +against the remains of persecution, and ready to do away with the last +Catholic Disabilities. Sir Robert Peel, though he wished it ever so +much, has no power over Mr. Benjamin Disraeli's grinders, or any means +of violently handling that gentleman's jaw. Jews are not called upon +to wear badges: on the contrary, they may live in Piccadilly, or the +Minories, according to fancy; they may dress like Christians, and do +sometimes in a most elegant and fashionable manner. + +Why is the poor College servitor to wear that name and that badge still? +Because Universities are the last places into which Reform penetrates. +But now that she can go to College and back for five shillings, let her +travel down thither. + + + +CHAPTER XIV--ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS + +All the men of Saint Boniface will recognize Hugby and Crump in these +two pictures. They were tutors in our time, and Crump is since advanced +to be President of the College. He was formerly, and is now, a rich +specimen of a University Snob. + +At five-and-twenty, Crump invented three new metres, and published +an edition of an exceedingly improper Greek Comedy, with no less than +twenty emendations upon the German text of Schnupfenius and Schnapsius. +These Services to religion instantly pointed him out for advancement in +the Church, and he is now President of Saint Boniface, and very narrowly +escaped the bench. + +Crump thinks Saint Boniface the centre of the world, and his position as +President the highest in England. He expects the fellows and tutors to +pay him the same sort of service that Cardinals pay to the Pope. I am +sure Crawler would have no objection to carry his trencher, or Page to +hold up the skirts of his gown as he stalks into chapel. He roars out +the responses there as if it were an honour to heaven that the President +of Saint Boniface should take a part in the service, and in his own +lodge and college acknowledges the Sovereign only as his superior. + +When the allied monarchs came down, and were made Doctors of the +University, a breakfast was given at Saint Boniface; on which occasion +Crump allowed the Emperor Alexander to walk before him, but took the PAS +himself of the King of Prussia and Prince Blucher. He was going to put +the Hetman Platoff to breakfast at a side-table with the under college +tutors; but he was induced to relent, and merely entertained that +distinguished Cossack with a discourse on his own language, in which he +showed that the Hetman knew nothing about it. + +As for us undergraduates, we scarcely knew more about Crump than about +the Grand Llama. A few favoured youths are asked occasionally to tea at +the lodge; but they do not speak unless first addressed by the Doctor; +and if they venture to sit down, Crump's follower, Mr. Toady, whispers, +'Gentlemen, will you have the kindness to get up?--The President is +passing;' or 'Gentlemen, the President prefers that undergraduates +should not sit down;' or words to a similar effect. + +To do Crump justice, he does not cringe now to great people. He rather +patronizes them than otherwise; and, in London, speaks quite affably to +a Duke who has been brought up at his college, or holds out a finger +to a Marquis. He does not disguise his own origin, but brags of it with +considerable self-gratulation:--'I was a Charity-boy,' says he; 'see +what I am now; the greatest Greek scholar of the greatest College of the +greatest University of the greatest Empire in the world.' The argument +being, that this is a capital world, for beggars, because he, being a +beggar, has managed to get on horseback. + +Hugby owes his eminence to patient merit and agreeable perseverance. He +is a meek, mild, inoffensive creature, with just enough of scholarship +to fit him to hold a lecture, or set an examination paper. He rose by +kindness to the aristocracy. It was wonderful to see the way in which +that poor creature grovelled before a nobleman or a lord's nephew, or +even some noisy and disreputable commoner, the friend of a lord. He used +to give the young noblemen the most painful and elaborate breakfasts, +and adopt a jaunty genteel air, and talk with them (although he was +decidedly serious) about the opera, or the last run with the hounds. It +was good to watch him in the midst of a circle of young tufts, with +his mean, smiling, eager, uneasy familiarity. He used to write home +confidential letters to their parents, and made it his duty to call upon +them when in town, to condole or rejoice with them when a death, birth, +or marriage took place in their family; and to feast them whenever they +came to the University. I recollect a letter lying on a desk in his +lecture-room for a whole term, beginning, 'My Lord Duke.' It was to show +us that he corresponded with such dignities. + +When the late lamented Lord Glenlivat, who broke his neck at a +hurdle-race, at the premature age of twenty-four, was at the University, +the amiable young fellow, passing to his rooms in the early morning, +and seeing Hugby's boots at his door, on the same staircase, playfully +wadded the insides of the boots with cobbler's wax, which caused +excruciating pains to the Rev. Mr. Hugby, when he came to take them off +the same evening, before dining with the Master of St. Crispin's. + +Everybody gave the credit of this admirable piece of fun to Lord +Glenlivat's friend, Bob Tizzy, who was famous for such feats, and who +had already made away with the college pump-handle; filed St. Boniface's +nose smooth with his face; carried off four images of nigger-boys from +the tobacconists; painted the senior proctor's horse pea-green, &c. &c.; +and Bob (who was of the party certainly, and would not peach,) was just +on the point of incurring expulsion, and so losing the family living +which was in store for him, when Glenlivat nobly stepped forward, owned +himself to be the author of the delightful JEU-D'ESPRIT, apologized to +the tutor, and accepted the rustication. + +Hugby cried when Glenlivat apologized; if the young nobleman had kicked +him round the court, I believe the tutor would have been happy, so that +an apology and a reconciliation might subsequently ensue. 'My lord,' +said he, 'in your conduct on this and all other occasions, you have +acted as becomes a gentleman; you have been an honour to the University, +as you will be to the peerage, I am sure, when the amiable vivacity of +youth is calmed down, and you are called upon to take your proper share +in the government of the nation.' And when his lordship took leave of +the University, Hugby presented him with a copy of his 'Sermons to a +Nobleman's Family' (Hugby was once private tutor to the Sons of the +Earl of Muffborough), which Glenlivat presented in return to Mr. William +Ramm, known to the fancy as the Tutbury Pet, and the sermons now figure +on the boudoir-table of Mrs. Ramm, behind the bar of her house of +entertainment, 'The Game Cock and Spurs,' near Woodstock, Oxon. + +At the beginning of the long vacation, Hugby comes to town, and puts up +in handsome lodgings near St. James's Square; rides in the Park in the +afternoon; and is delighted to read his name in the morning papers among +the list of persons present at Muffborough House, and the Marquis of +Farintosh's evening-parties. He is a member of Sydney Scraper's Club, +where, however, he drinks his pint of claret. + +Sometimes you may see him on Sundays, at the hour when tavern doors +open, whence issue little girls with great jugs of porter; when +charity-boys walk the streets, bearing brown dishes of smoking shoulders +of mutton and baked 'taturs; when Sheeny and Moses are seen smoking +their pipes before their lazy shutters in Seven Dials; when a crowd of +smiling persons in clean outlandish dresses, in monstrous bonnets and +flaring printed gowns, or in crumpled glossy coats and silks that bear +the creases of the drawers where they have lain all the week, file down +High Street,--sometimes, I say, you may see Hugby coming out of the +Church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, with a stout gentlewoman leaning +on his arm, whose old face bears an expression of supreme pride and +happiness as she glances round at all the neighbours, and who faces the +curate himself and marches into Holborn, where she pulls the bell of a +house over which is inscribed, 'Hugby, Haberdasher.' It is the mother of +the Rev. F. Hugby, as proud of her son in his white choker as Cornelia +of her jewels at Rome. That is old Hugby bringing up the rear with the +Prayer-books, and Betsy Hugby the old maid, his daughter,--old Hugby, +Haberdasher and Church-warden. + +In the front room upstairs, where the dinner is laid out, there is +a picture of Muffborough Castle; of the Earl of Muffborough, K.X., +Lord-Lieutenant for Diddlesex; an engraving, from an almanac, of Saint +Boniface College, Oxon; and a sticking-plaster portrait of Hugby when +young, in a cap and gown. A copy of his 'Sermons to a Nobleman's Family' +is on the bookshelf, by the 'Whole Duty of Man,' the Reports of the +Missionary Societies, and the 'Oxford University Calendar.' Old Hugby +knows part of this by heart; every living belonging to Saint Boniface, +and the name of every tutor, fellow, nobleman, and undergraduate. + +He used to go to meeting and preach himself, until his son took orders; +but of late the old gentleman has been accused of Puseyism, and is quite +pitiless against the Dissenters. + + + +CHAPTER XV--ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS + +I should like to fill several volumes with accounts of various +University Snobs; so fond are my reminiscences of them, and so numerous +are they. I should like to speak, above all, of the wives and daughters +of some of the Professor-Snobs; their amusements, habits, jealousies; +their innocent artifices to entrap young men; their picnics, concerts, +and evening-parties. I wonder what has become of Emily Blades, daughter +of Blades, the Professor of the Mandingo language? I remember her +shoulders to this day, as she sat in the midst of a crowd of about +seventy young gentlemen, from Corpus and Catherine Hall, entertaining +them with ogles and French songs on the guitar. Are you married, fair +Emily of the shoulders? What beautiful ringlets those were that used to +dribble over them!--what a waist!--what a killing sea-green shot-silk +gown!--what a cameo, the size of a muffin! There were thirty-six young +men of the University in love at one time with Emily Blades: and no +words are sufficient to describe the pity, the sorrow, the deep, +deep commiseration--the rage, fury, and uncharitableness, in other +words--with which the Miss Trumps (daughter of Trumps, the Professor +of Phlebotomy) regarded her, because she DIDN'T squint, and because she +WASN'T marked with the small-pox. + +As for the young University Snobs, I am getting too old, now, to speak +of such very familiarly. My recollections of them lie in the far, far +past--almost as far back as Pelham's time. + +We THEN used to consider Snobs raw-looking lads, who never missed +chapel; who wore highlows and no straps; who walked two hours on the +Trumpington road every day of their lives; who carried off the college +scholarships, and who overrated themselves in hall. We were premature in +pronouncing our verdict of youthful Snobbishness The man without straps +fulfilled his destiny and duty. He eased his old governor, the curate +in Westmoreland, or helped his sisters to set up the Ladies' School. He +wrote a 'Dictionary,' or a 'Treatise on Conic Sections,' as his nature +and genius prompted. He got a fellowship: and then took to himself a +wife, and a living. He presides over a parish now, and thinks it rather +a dashing thing to belong to the 'Oxford and Cambridge Club;' and his +parishioners love him, and snore under his sermons. No, no, HE is not a +Snob. It is not straps that make the gentleman, or highlows that unmake +him, be they ever so thick. My son, it is you who are the Snob if you +lightly despise a man for doing his duty, and refuse to shake an honest +man's hand because it wears a Berlin glove. + +We then used to consider it not the least vulgar for a parcel of lads +who had been whipped three months previous, and were not allowed more +than three glasses of port at home, to sit down to pineapples and ices +at each other's rooms, and fuddle themselves with champagne and claret. + +One looks back to what was called a 'wine-party' with a sort of wonder. +Thirty lads round a table covered with bad sweetmeats, drinking bad +wines, telling bad stories, singing bad songs over and over again. Milk +punch--smoking--ghastly headache--frightful spectacle of dessert-table +next morning, and smell of tobacco--your guardian, the clergyman, +dropping in, in the midst of this--expecting to find you deep in +Algebra, and discovering the Gyp administering soda-water. + +There were young men who despised the lads who indulged in the coarse +hospitalities of wine-parties, who prided themselves in giving RECHERCHE +little French dinners. Both wine-party-givers and dinner-givers were +Snobs. + +There were what used to be called 'dressy' Snobs:--Jimmy, who might +be seen at five o'clock elaborately rigged out, with a camellia in his +button-hole, glazed boots, and fresh kid-gloves twice a day;--Jessamy, +who was conspicuous for his 'jewellery,'--a young donkey, glittering +all over with chains, rings, and shirt-studs;--Jacky, who rode every day +solemnly on the Blenheim Road, in pumps and white silk stockings, with +his hair curled,--all three of whom flattered themselves they gave laws +to the University about dress--all three most odious varieties of Snobs. + +Sporting Snobs of course there were, and are always--those happy beings +in whom Nature has implanted a love of slang: who loitered about the +horsekeeper's stables, and drove the London coaches--a stage in and +out--and might be seen swaggering through the courts in pink of early +mornings, and indulged in dice and blind-hookey at nights, and +never missed a race or a boxing-match; and rode flat-races, and kept +bull-terriers. Worse Snobs even than these were poor miserable wretches +who did not like hunting at all, and could not afford it, and were in +mortal fear at a two-foot ditch; but who hunted because Glenlivat and +Cinqbars hunted. The Billiard Snob and the Boating Snob were varieties +of these, and are to be found elsewhere than in universities. + +Then there were Philosophical Snobs, who used to ape statesmen at the +spouting-clubs, and who believed as a fact that Government always had +an eye on the University for the selection of orators for the House of +Commons. There were audacious young free-thinkers, who adored nobody or +nothing, except perhaps Robespierre and the Koran, and panted for the +day when the pale name of priest should shrink and dwindle away before +the indignation of an enlightened world. + +But the worst of all University Snobs are those unfortunates who go +to rack and ruin from their desire to ape their betters. Smith becomes +acquainted with great people at college, and is ashamed of his father +the tradesman. Jones has fine acquaintances, and lives after their +fashion like a gay free-hearted fellow as he is, and ruins his father, +and robs his sister's portion, and cripples his younger brother's outset +in life, for the pleasure of entertaining my lord, and riding by the +side of Sir John. And though it may be very good fun for Robinson to +fuddle himself at home as he does at College, and to be brought home by +the policeman he has just been trying to knock down--think what fun it +is for the poor old soul his mother!--the half-pay captain's widow, who +has been pinching herself all her life long, in order that that jolly +young fellow might have a University education. + + + +CHAPTER XVI--ON LITERARY SNOBS + +What will he say about Literary Snobs? has been a question, I make no +doubt, often asked by the public. How can he let off his own profession? +Will that truculent and unsparing monster who attacks the nobility, the +clergy, the army, and the ladies, indiscriminately, hesitate when the +turn comes to EGORGER his own flesh and blood? + +My dear and excellent querist, whom does the schoolmaster flog so +resolutely as his own son? Didn't Brutus chop his offspring's head off? +You have a very bad opinion indeed of the present state of literature +and of literary men, if you fancy that any one of us would hesitate to +stick a knife into his neighbour penman, if the latter's death could do +the State any service. + +But the fact is, that in the literary profession THERE ARE NO SNOBS. +Look round at the whole body of British men of letters; and I defy you +to point out among them a single instance of vulgarity, or envy, or +assumption. + +Men and women, as far as I have known them, they are all modest in +their demeanour, elegant in their manners, spotless in their lives, and +honourable in their conduct to the world and to each other. You MAY, +occasionally, it is true, hear one literary man abusing his brother; but +why? Not in the least out of malice; not at all from envy; merely from a +sense of truth and public duty. Suppose, for instance, I, good-naturedly +point out a blemish in my friend MR. PUNCH'S person, and say, MR. P. has +a hump-back, and his nose and chin are more crooked than those features +in the Apollo or Antinous, which we are accustomed to consider as our +standards of beauty; does this argue malice on my part towards MR. +PUNCH? Not in the least. It is the critic's duty to point out defects as +well as merits, and he invariably does his duty with utmost gentleness +and candour. + +An intelligent foreigner's testimony about our manners is always worth +having, and I think, in this respect the work of an eminent American, +Mr. N. P. Willis is eminently valuable and impartial. In his 'History +of Ernest Clay,' a crack magazine-writer, the reader will get an exact +account of the life of a popular man of letters in England. He is always +the lion of society. + +He takes the PAS of dukes and earls; all the nobility crowd to see him: +I forget how many baronesses and duchesses fall in love with him. But +on this subject let us hold our tongues. Modesty forbids that we should +reveal the names of the heart-broken countesses and dear marchionesses +who are pining for every one of the contributors in PUNCH. + +If anybody wants to know how intimately authors are connected with +the fashionable world, they have but to read the genteel novels. +What refinement and delicacy pervades the works of Mrs. Barnaby! What +delightful good company do you meet with in Mrs. Armytage! She seldom +introduces you to anybody under a marquis! I don't know anything more +delicious than the pictures of genteel life in 'Ten Thousand a Year,' +except perhaps the 'Young Duke,' and 'Coningsby.' There's a modest +grace about THEM, and an air of easy high fashion, which only belongs to +blood, my dear Sir--to true blood. + +And what linguists many of our writers are! Lady Bulwer, Lady +Londonderry, Sir Edward himself--they write the French language with a +luxurious elegance and ease which sets them far above their continental +rivals, of whom not one (except Paul de Kock) knows a word of English. + +And what Briton can read without enjoyment the works of James, so +admirable for terseness; and the playful humour and dazzling offhand +lightness of Ainsworth? Among other humourists, one might glance at a +Jerrold, the chivalrous advocate of Toryism and Church and State; an a +Beckett, with a lightsome pen, but a savage earnestness of purpose; +a Jeames, whose pure style, and wit unmingled with buffoonery, was +relished by a congenial public. + +Speaking of critics, perhaps there never was a review that has done so +much for literature as the admirable QUARTERLY. It has its prejudices, +to be sure, as which of us has not? It goes out of its way to abuse +a great man, or lays mercilessly on to such pretenders as Keats and +Tennyson; but, on the other hand, it is the friend of all young authors, +and has marked and nurtured all the rising talent of the country. It is +loved by everybody. There, again, is BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE--conspicuous +for modest elegance and amiable satire; that review never passes the +bounds of politeness in a joke. It is the arbiter of manners; and, while +gently exposing the foibles of Londoners (for whom the BEAUX ESPRITS of +Edinburgh entertain a justifiable contempt), it is never coarse in its +fun. The fiery enthusiasm of the ATHENAEUM is well known: and the bitter +wit of the too difficult LITERARY GAZETTE. The EXAMINER is perhaps too +timid, and the SPECTATOR too boisterous in its praise--but who can carp +at these minor faults? No, no; the critics of England and the authors of +England are unrivalled as a body; and hence it becomes impossible for us +to find fault with them. + +Above all, I never knew a man of letters ASHAMED OF HIS PROFESSION. +Those who know us, know what an affectionate and brotherly spirit there +is among us all. Sometimes one of us rises in the world: we never attack +him or sneer at him under those circumstances, but rejoice to a man at +his success. If Jones dines with a lord, Smith never says Jones is a +courtier and cringer. Nor, on the other hand, does Jones, who is in the +habit of frequenting the society of great people, give himself any airs +on account of the company he keeps; but will leave a duke's arm in Pall +Mall to come over and speak to poor Brown, the young penny-a-liner. + +That sense of equality and fraternity amongst authors has always struck +me as one of the most amiable characteristics of the class. It is +because we know and respect each other, that the world respects us so +much; that we hold such a good position in society, and demean ourselves +so irreproachably when there. + +Literary persons are held in such esteem by the nation that about two of +them have been absolutely invited to court during the present reign; and +it is probable that towards the end of the season, one or two will be +asked to dinner by Sir Robert Peel. + +They are such favourites with the public, that they are continually +obliged to have their pictures taken and published; and one or two could +be pointed out, of whom the nation insists upon having a fresh portrait +every year. Nothing can be more gratifying than this proof of the +affectionate regard which the people has for its instructors. + +Literature is held in such honour in England, that there is a sum of +near twelve hundred pounds per annum set apart to pension deserving +persons following that profession. And a great compliment this is, +too, to the professors, and a proof of their generally prosperous and +flourishing condition. They are generally so rich and thrifty, that +scarcely any money is wanted to help them. + +If every word of this is true, how, I should like to know am I to write +about Literary Snobs? + + + +CHAPTER XVII--A LITTLE ABOUT IRISH SNOBS + +You do not, to be sure, imagine that there are no other Snobs in Ireland +than those of the amiable party who wish to make pikes of iron railroads +(it's a fine Irish economy), and to cut the throats of the Saxon +invaders. These are of the venomous sort; and had they been invented in +his time, St. Patrick would have banished them out of the kingdom along +with the other dangerous reptiles. + +I think it is the Four Masters, or else it's Olaus Magnus, or else +it's certainly O'Neill Daunt, in the 'Catechism of Irish History,' who +relates that when Richard the Second came to Ireland, and the Irish +chiefs did homage to him, going down on their knees--the poor simple +creatures!--and worshipping and wondering before the English king and +the dandies of his court, my lords the English noblemen mocked and +jeered at their uncouth Irish admirers, mimicked their talk and +gestures, pulled their poor old beards, and laughed at the strange +fashion of their garments. + +The English Snob rampant always does this to the present day. There is +no Snob in existence, perhaps, that has such an indomitable belief in +himself: that sneers you down all the rest of the world besides, and has +such an insufferable, admirable, stupid contempt for all people but his +own--nay, for all sets but his own. 'Gwacious Gad' what stories about +'the Iwish' these young dandies accompanying King Richard must have had +to tell, when they returned to Pall Mall, and smoked their cigars upon +the steps of 'White's.' + +The Irish snobbishness developes itself not in pride so much as in +servility and mean admirations, and trumpery imitations of their +neighbours. And I wonder De Tocqueville and De Beaumont, and THE TIMES' +Commissioner, did not explain the Snobbishness of Ireland as contrasted +with our own. Ours is that of Richard's Norman Knights,--haughty, brutal +stupid, and perfectly self-confident;--theirs, of the poor, wondering, +kneeling, simple chieftains. They are on their knees still before +English fashion--these simple, wild people; and indeed it is hard not to +grin at some of their NAIVE exhibitions. + +Some years since, when a certain great orator was Lord Mayor of Dublin, +he used to wear a red gown and a cocked hat, the splendour of which +delighted him as much as a new curtain-ring in her nose or a string of +glass-beads round her neck charms Queen Quasheeneboo. He used to pay +visits to people in this dress; to appear at meetings hundreds of miles +off, in the red velvet gown. And to hear the people crying 'Yes, me +Lard!' and 'No, me Lard!' and to read the prodigious accounts of his +Lordship in the papers: it seemed as if the people and he liked to be +taken in by this twopenny splendour. Twopenny magnificence, +indeed, exists all over Ireland, and may be considered as the great +characteristic of the Snobbishness of that country. + +When Mrs. Mulholligan, the grocer's lady, retires to Kingstown, she has +Mulholliganville' painted over the gate of her villa; and receives you +at a door that won't shut or gazes at you out of a window that is glazed +with an old petticoat. + +Be it ever so shabby and dismal, nobody ever owns to keeping a shop. A +fellow whose stock in trade is a penny roll or a tumbler of lollipops, +calls his cabin the 'American Flour Stores,' or the 'Depository for +Colonial Produce,' or some such name. + +As for Inns, there are none in the country; Hotels abound as well +furnished as Mulholliganville; but again there are no such people as +landlords and land-ladies; the landlord is out with the hounds, and my +lady in the parlour talking with the Captain or playing the piano. + +If a gentleman has a hundred a year to leave to his family they all +become gentlemen, all keep a nag, ride to hounds, and swagger about +in the 'Phaynix,' and grow tufts to their chins like so many real +aristocrats. + +A friend of mine has taken to be a painter, and lives out of Ireland, +where he is considered to have disgraced the family by choosing such +a profession. His father is a wine-merchant; and his elder brother an +apothecary. + +The number of men one meets in London and on the Continent who have a +pretty little property of five-and-twenty hundred a year in Ireland +is prodigious: those who WILL have nine thousand a year in land when +somebody dies are still more numerous. I myself have met as many +descendants from Irish kings as would form a brigade. + +And who has not met the Irishman who apes the Englishman, and who +forgets his country and tries to forget his accent, or to smother the +taste of it, as it were? 'Come, dine with me, my boy,' says O'Dowd, of +O'Dowdstown: 'you'll FIND US ALL ENGLISH THERE;' which he tells you with +a brogue as broad as from here to Kingstown Pier. And did you never hear +Mrs. Captain Macmanus talk about 'I-ah-land,' and her account of her +'fawther's esteet?' Very few men have rubbed through the world without +hearing and witnessing some of these Hibernian phenomena--these twopenny +splendours. + +And what say you to the summit of society--the Castle--with a sham +king, and sham lords-in-waiting, and sham loyalty, and a sham Haroun +Alraschid, to go about in a sham disguise, making believe to be affable +and splendid? That Castle is the pink and pride of Snobbishness. A COURT +CIRCULAR is bad enough, with two columns of print about a little baby +that's christened--but think of people liking a sham COURT CIRCULAR! + +I think the shams of Ireland are more outrageous than those of any +country. A fellow shows you a hill and says, 'That's the highest +mountain in all Ireland;' a gentleman tells you he is descended from +Brian Boroo and has his five-and-thirty hundred a year; or Mrs. Macmanus +describes her fawther's esteet; or ould Dan rises and says the Irish +women are the loveliest, the Irish men the bravest, the Irish land the +most fertile in the world: and nobody believes anybody--the latter does +not believe his story nor the hearer:--but they make-believe to believe, +and solemnly do honour to humbug. + +O Ireland! O my country! (for I make little doubt I am descended from +Brian Boroo too) when will you acknowledge that two and two make four, +and call a pikestaff a pikestaff?--that is the very best use you can +make of the latter. Irish snobs will dwindle away then and we shall +never hear tell of Hereditary bondsmen. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--PARTY-GIVING SNOBS + +Our selection of Snobs has lately been too exclusively of a political +character. 'Give us private Snobs,' cry the dear ladies. (I have before +me the letter of one fair correspondent of the fishing village of +Brighthelmstone in Sussex, and could her commands ever be disobeyed?) +'Tell us more, dear Mr. Snob, about your experience of Snobs in +society.' Heaven bless the dear souls!--they are accustomed to the word +now--the odious, vulgar, horrid, unpronounceable word slips out of their +lips with the prettiest glibness possible. I should not wonder if it +were used at Court amongst the Maids of Honour. In the very best society +I know it is. And why not? Snobbishness is vulgar--the mere words +are not: that which we call a Snob, by any other name would still be +Snobbish. + +Well, then. As the season is drawing to a close: as many hundreds +of kind souls, snobbish or otherwise, have quitted London; as many +hospitable carpets are taken up; and window-blinds are pitilessly +papered with the MORNING HERALD; and mansions once inhabited by cheerful +owners are now consigned to the care of the housekeeper's dreary LOCUM +TENENS--some mouldy old woman, who, in reply to the hopeless clanging +of the bell, peers at you for a moment from the area, and then slowly +unbolting the great hall-door, informs you my lady has left town, or +that 'the family's in the country,' or 'gone up the Rind,'--or what not; +as the season and parties are over; why not consider Party-giving Snobs +for a while, and review the conduct of some of those individuals who +have quitted the town for six months? + +Some of those worthy Snobs are making-believe to go yachting, and, +dressed in telescopes and pea-jackets, are passing their time between +Cherbourg and Cowes; some living higgledy-piggledy in dismal little +huts in Scotland, provisioned with canisters of portable soup, +and fricandeaux hermetically sealed in tin, are passing their days +slaughtering grouse upon the moors; some are dozing and bathing away the +effects of the season at Kissingen, or watching the ingenious game of +TRENTE ET QUARANTE at Homburg and Ems. We can afford to be very bitter +upon them now they are all gone. Now there are no more parties, let us +have at the Party-giving Snobs. The dinner-giving, the ball-giving, the +DEJEUNER-giving, the CONVERSAZIONE-GIVING Snobs--Lord! Lord! what +havoc might have been made amongst them had we attacked them during the +plethora of the season! I should have been obliged to have a guard to +defend me from fiddlers and pastrycooks, indignant at the abuse of +their patrons. Already I'm told that, from some flippant and unguarded +expressions considered derogatory to Baker Street and Harley Street, +rents have fallen in these respectable quarters; and orders have been +issued that at least Mr. Snob shall be asked to parties there no more. +Well, then--now they are ALL away, let us frisk at our ease, and have at +everything like the bull in the china-shop. They mayn't hear of what is +going on in their absence, and, if they do they can't bear malice for +six months. We will begin to make it up with them about next February, +and let next year take care of itself. We shall have no dinners from +the dinner-giving Snobs: no more from the ball-givers: no more +CONVERSAZIONES (thank Mussy! as Jeames says,) from the Conversaziones +Snob: and what is to prevent us from telling the truth? + +The snobbishness of Conversazione Snobs is very soon disposed of: as +soon as that cup of washy bohea is handed to you in the tea-room; or the +muddy remnant of ice that you grasp in the suffocating scuffle of the +assembly upstairs. + +Good heavens! What do people mean by going there? What is done there, +that everybody throngs into those three little rooms? Was the Black Hole +considered to be an agreeable REUNION, that Britons in the dog-days here +seek to imitate it? After being rammed to a jelly in a door-way (where +you feel your feet going through Lady Barbara Macbeth's lace flounces, +and get a look from that haggard and painted old harpy, compared to +which the gaze of Ugolino is quite cheerful); after withdrawing your +elbow out of poor gasping Bob Guttleton's white waistcoat, from which +cushion it was impossible to remove it, though you knew you were +squeezing poor Bob into an apoplexy--you find yourself at last in +the reception-room, and try to catch the eye of Mrs. Botibol, the +CONVERSAZIONE-giver. When you catch her eye, you are expected to grin, +and she smiles too, for the four hundredth time that night; and, if +she's very glad to see you, waggles her little hand before her face as +if to blow you a kiss, as the phrase is. + +Why the deuce should Mrs. Botibol blow me a kiss? I wouldn't kiss her +for the world. Why do I grin when I see her, as if I was delighted? Am +I? I don't care a straw for Mrs. Botibol. I know what she thinks about +me. I know what she said about my last volume of poems (I had it from +a dear mutual friend). Why, I say in a word, are we going on ogling +and telegraphing each other in this insane way?--Because we are both +performing the ceremonies demanded by the Great Snob Society; whose +dictates we all of us obey. + +Well; the recognition is over--my jaws have returned to their usual +English expression of subdued agony and intense gloom, and the Botibol +is grinning and kissing her fingers to somebody else, who is squeezing +through the aperture by which we have just entered. It is Lady Ann +Clutterbuck, who has her Friday evenings, as Botibol (Botty, we call +her,) has Wednesdays. That is Miss Clementina Clutterbuck the cadaverous +young woman in green, with florid auburn hair, who has published her +volume of poems ['The Death-Shriek;' 'Damiens;' 'The Faggot of Joan +of Arc;' and 'Translations from the German' of course). The +conversazione-women salute each other calling each other 'My dear Lady +Ann' and 'My dear good Eliza,' and hating each other, as women hate who +give parties on Wednesdays and Fridays. With inexpressible pain dear +good Eliza sees Ann go up and coax and wheedle Abou Gosh, who has just +arrived from Syria, and beg him to patronize her Fridays. + +All this while, amidst the crowd and the scuffle, and a perpetual buzz +and chatter, and the flare of the wax-candles, and an intolerable smell +of musk--what the poor Snobs who write fashionable romances call 'the +gleam of gems, the odour of perfumes, the blaze of countless lamps'--a +scrubby-looking, yellow-faced foreigner, with cleaned gloves, is +warbling inaudibly in a corner, to the accompaniment of another. 'The +Great Cacafogo,' Mrs. Botibol whispers, as she passes you by. 'A great +creature, Thumpenstrumpff, is at the instrument--the Hetman Platoff's +pianist, you know.' + +To hear this Cacafogo and Thumpenstrumpff, a hundred people are gathered +together--a bevy of dowagers, stout or scraggy; a faint sprinkling of +misses; six moody-looking lords, perfectly meek and solemn; wonderful +foreign Counts, with bushy whiskers and yellow faces, and a great deal +of dubious jewellery; young dandies with slim waists and open necks, and +self-satisfied simpers, and flowers in their buttons; the old, stiff, +stout, bald-headed CONVERSAZIONE ROUES, whom You meet everywhere--who +never miss a night of this delicious enjoyment; the three last-caught +lions of the season--Higgs, the traveller, Biggs, the novelist, and +Toffey, who has come out so on the sugar question; Captain Flash, who is +invited on account of his pretty wife and Lord Ogleby, who goes wherever +she goes. + +QUE SCAIS-JE? Who are the owners of all those showy scarfs and white +neckcloths?--Ask little Tom Prig, who is there in all his glory, knows +everybody, has a story about every one; and, as he trips home to his +lodgings in Jermyn Street, with his gibus-hat and his little glazed +pumps, thinks he is the fashionablest young fellow in town, and that he +really has passed a night of exquisite enjoyment. + +You go up (with our usual easy elegance of manner) and talk to Miss +Smith in a corner. 'Oh, Mr. Snob, I'm afraid you're sadly satirical.' + +That's all she says. If you say it's fine weather, she bursts out +laughing; or hint that it's very hot, she vows you are the drollest +wretch! Meanwhile Mrs. Botibol is simpering on fresh arrivals; the +individual at the door is roaring out their names; poor Cacafogo is +quavering away in the music-room, under the impression that he will be +LANCE in the world by singing inaudibly here. And what a blessing it is +to squeeze out of the door, and into the street, where a half-hundred of +carriages are in waiting; and where the link-boy, with that unnecessary +lantern of his, pounces upon all who issue out, and will insist upon +getting your noble honour's lordship's cab. + +And to think that there are people who, after having been to Botibol on +Wednesday, will go to Clutterbuck on Friday! + + + +CHAPTER XIX--DINING-OUT SNOBS + +In England Dinner-giving Snobs occupy a very important place in society, +and the task of describing them is tremendous. There was a time in my +life when the consciousness of having eaten a man's salt rendered me +dumb regarding his demerits, and I thought it a wicked act and a breach +of hospitality to speak ill of him. + +But why should a saddle-of-mutton blind you, or a turbot and +lobster-sauce shut your mouth for ever? With advancing age, men see +their duties more clearly. I am not to be hoodwinked any longer by a +slice of venison, be it ever so fat; and as for being dumb on account of +turbot and lobster-sauce----of course I am; good manners ordain that I +should be so, until I have swallowed the compound--but not afterwards; +directly the victuals are discussed, and John takes away the plate, +my tongue begins to wag. Does not yours, if you have a pleasant +neighbour?--a lovely creature, say, of some five-and-thirty, whose +daughters have not yet quite come out--they are the best talkers. As for +your young misses, they are only put about the table to look at--like +the flowers in the centre-piece. Their blushing youth and natural +modesty preclude them from easy, confidential, conversational ABANDON +which forms the delight of the intercourse with their dear mothers. It +is to these, if he would prosper in his profession, that the Dining-out +Snob should address himself. Suppose you sit next to one of these, how +pleasant it is, in the intervals of the banquet, actually to abuse the +victuals and the giver of the entertainment! It's twice as PIQUANT to +make fun of a man under his very nose. + +'What IS a Dinner-giving Snob?' some innocent youth, who is not REPANDU +in the world, may ask--or some simple reader who has not the benefits of +London experience. + +My dear sir, I will show you--not all, for that is impossible--but +several kinds of Dinner-giving Snobs. For instance, suppose you, in the +middle rank of life, accustomed to Mutton, roast on Tuesday, cold +on Wednesday, hashed on Thursday, &c., with small means and a small +establishment, choose to waste the former and set the latter topsy-turvy +by giving entertainments unnaturally costly--you come into the +Dinner-giving Snob class at once. Suppose you get in cheap-made +dishes from the pastrycook's, and hire a couple of greengrocers, or +carpet-beaters, to figure as footmen, dismissing honest Molly, who waits +on common days, and bedizening your table (ordinarily ornamented with +willow-pattern crockery) with twopenny-halfpenny Birmingham plate. +Suppose you pretend to be richer and grander than you ought to be--you +are a Dinner-giving Snob. And oh, I tremble to think how many and many a +one will read this! + +A man who entertains in this way--and, alas, how few do not!--is like +a fellow who would borrow his neighbour's coat to make a show in, or a +lady who flaunts in the diamonds from next door--a humbug, in a word, +and amongst the Snobs he must be set down. + +A man who goes out of his natural sphere of society to ask Lords, +Generals, Aldermen, and other persons of fashion, but is niggardly of +his hospitality towards his own equals, is a Dinner-giving Snob. My +dear friend, Jack Tufthunt, for example, knows ONE Lord whom he met at +a watering-place: old Lord Mumble, who is as toothless as a +three-months-old baby, and as mum as an undertaker, and as dull +as--well, we will not particularise. Tufthunt never has a dinner now but +you see this solemn old toothless patrician at the right-hand of Mrs. +Tufthunt--Tufthunt is a Dinner-giving Snob. + +Old Livermore, old Soy, old Chutney, the East Indian Director, old +Cutler, the Surgeon, &c.,--that society of old fogies, in fine, who give +each other dinners round and round, and dine for the mere purpose of +guttling--these, again, are Dinner-giving Snobs. + +Again, my friend Lady MacScrew, who has three grenadier flunkeys in lace +round the table, and serves up a scrag-of-mutton on silver, and dribbles +you out bad sherry and port by thimblefuls, is a Dinner-giving Snob of +the other sort; and I confess, for my part, I would rather dine with old +Livermore or old Soy than with her Ladyship. + +Stinginess is snobbish. Ostentation is snobbish. Too great profusion +is snobbish. Tuft-hunting is snobbish. But I own there are people more +snobbish than all those whose defects are above mentioned: viz., those +individuals who can, and don't give dinners at all. The man without +hospitality shall never sit SUB IISDEM TRABIBUS with ME. Let the sordid +wretch go mumble his bone alone! + +What, again, is true hospitality? Alas, my dear friends and brother +Snobs! how little do we meet of it after all! Are the motives PURE which +induce your friends to ask you to dinner? This has often come across me. +Does your entertainer want something from you? For instance, I am not of +a suspicious turn; but it IS a fact that when Hookey is bringing out a +new work, he asks the critics all round to dinner; that when Walker has +got his picture ready for the Exhibition, he somehow grows exceedingly +hospitable, and has his friends of the press to a quiet cutlet and a +glass of Sillery. Old Hunks, the miser, who died lately (leaving his +money to his housekeeper) lived many years on the fat of the land, by +simply taking down, at all his friends', the names and Christian names +OF ALL THE CHILDREN. But though you may have your own opinion about +the hospitality of your acquaintances; and though men who ask you from +sordid motives are most decidedly Dinner-giving Snobs, it is best not +to inquire into their motives too keenly. Be not too curious about the +mouth of a gift-horse. After all, a man does not intend to insult you by +asking you to dinner. + +Though, for that matter, I know some characters about town who actually +consider themselves injured and insulted if the dinner or the company +is not to their liking. There is Guttleton, who dines at home off a +shilling's-worth of beef from the cookshop, but if he is asked to dine +at a house where there are not pease at the end of May, or cucumbers in +March along with the turbot, thinks himself insulted by being invited. +'Good Ged!' says he, 'what the deuce do the Forkers mean by asking ME +to a family dinner? I can get mutton at home;' or 'What infernal +impertinence it is of the Spooners to get ENTREES from the pastrycook's, +and fancy that I am to be deceived with their stories about their French +cook!' Then, again, there is Jack Puddington--I saw that honest fellow +t'other day quite in a rage, because, as chance would have it, Sir +John Carver asked him to meet the very same party he had met at Colonel +Cramley's the day before, and he had not got up a new set of stories +to entertain them. Poor Dinner-giving Snobs! you don't know what small +thanks you get for all your pains and money! How we Dining-out Snobs +sneer at your cookery, and pooh-pooh your old hock, and are incredulous +about your four-and-six-penny champagne, and know that the side-dishes +of to-day are RECHAUFFES from the dinner of yesterday, and mark how +certain dishes are whisked off the table untasted, so that they may +figure at the banquet tomorrow. Whenever, for my part, I see the head +man particularly anxious to ESCAMOTER a fricandeau or a blanc-mange, I +always call out, and insist upon massacring it with a spoon. All this +sort of conduct makes one popular with the Dinner-giving Snob. One +friend of mine, I know, has made a prodigious sensation in good society, +by announcing apropos of certain dishes when offered to him, that he +never eats aspic except at Lord Tittup's, and that Lady Jimmy's CHEF is +the only man in London who knows how to dress--FILET EN SERPENTEAU--or +SUPREME DE VOLAILLE AUX TRUFFES. + + + +CHAPTER XX--DINNER-GIVING SNOBS FURTHER CONSIDERED + +If my friends would but follow the present prevailing fashion, I think +they ought to give me a testimonial for the paper on Dinner-giving +Snobs, which I am now writing. What do you say now to a handsome +comfortable dinner-service of plate (NOT including plates, for I hold +silver plates to be sheer wantonness, and would almost as soon think of +silver teacups), a couple of neat teapots, a coffeepot, trays, &c., with +a little inscription to my wife, Mrs. Snob; and a half-score of silver +tankards for the little Snoblings, to glitter on the homely table where +they partake of their quotidian mutton? + +If I had my way, and my plans could be carried out, dinner-giving would +increase as much on the one hand as dinner-giving Snobbishness would +diminish:--to my mind the most amiable part of the work lately published +by my esteemed friend (if upon a very brief acquaintance he will allow +me to call him so), Alexis Soyer, the regenerator--what he (in his noble +style) would call the most succulent, savoury, and elegant passages--are +those which relate, not to the grand banquets and ceremonial dinners, +but to his 'dinners at home.' + +The 'dinner at home' ought to be the centre of the whole system +of dinner-giving. Your usual style of meal--that is, plenteous, +comfortable, and in its perfection--should be that to which you welcome +your friends, as it is that of which you partake yourself. + +For, towards what woman in the world do I entertain a higher regard than +towards the beloved partner of my existence, Mrs. Snob? Who should have +a greater place in my affections than her six brothers (three or four +of whom we are pretty sure will favour us with their company at seven +o'clock), or her angelic mother, my own valued mother-in-law?--for whom, +finally, would I wish to cater more generously than for your very humble +servant, the present writer? Now, nobody supposes that the Birmingham +plate is had out, the disguised carpet-beaters introduced to the +exclusion of the neat parlour-maid, the miserable ENTREES from the +pastrycook's ordered in, and the children packed off (as it is supposed) +to the nursery, but really only to the staircase, down which they slide +during the dinner-time, waylaying the dishes as they come out, and +fingering the round bumps on the jellies, and the forced-meat balls +in the soup,--nobody, I say, supposes that a dinner at home is +characterized by the horrible ceremony, the foolish makeshifts, the mean +pomp and ostentation which distinguish our banquets on grand field-days. + +Such a notion is monstrous. I would as soon think of having my dearest +Bessy sitting opposite me in a turban and bird of paradise, and showing +her jolly mottled arms out of blond sleeves in her famous red satin +gown: ay, or of having Mr. Toole every day, in a white waistcoat, at my +back, shouting, 'Silence FAW the chair!' + +Now, if this be the case; if the Brummagem-plate pomp and the +processions of disguised footmen are odious and foolish in everyday +life, why not always? Why should Jones and I, who are in the middle +rank, alter the modes of our being to assume an ECLAT which does not +belong to us--to entertain our friends, who (if we are worth anything +and honest fellows at bottom,) are men of the middle rank too, who are +not in the least deceived by our temporary splendour, and who play off +exactly the same absurd trick upon us when they ask us to dine? + +If it be pleasant to dine with your friends, as all persons with good +stomachs and kindly hearts will, I presume, allow it to be, it is better +to dine twice than to dine once. It is impossible for men of small means +to be continually spending five-and-twenty or thirty shillings on each +friend who sits down to their table. People dine for less. I myself have +seen, at my favourite Club (the Senior United Service), His Grace the +Duke of Wellington quite contented with the joint, one-and-three, and +half-pint of sherry, nine; and if his Grace, why not you and I? + +This rule I have made, and found the benefit of. Whenever I ask a couple +of Dukes and a Marquis or so to dine with me, I set them down to a piece +of beef, or a leg-of-mutton and trimmings. The grandees thank you for +this simplicity, and appreciate the same. My dear Jones, ask any of +those whom you have the honour of knowing, if such be not the case. + +I am far from wishing that their Graces should treat me in a similar +fashion. Splendour is a part of their station, as decent comfort (let us +trust), of yours and mine. Fate has comfortably appointed gold plate for +some, and has bidden others contentedly to wear the willow-pattern. And +being perfectly contented (indeed humbly thankful--for look around, O +Jones, and see the myriads who are not so fortunate,) to wear honest +linen, while magnificos of the world are adorned with cambric and +point-lace, surely we ought to hold as miserable, envious fools, those +wretched Beaux Tibbs's of society, who sport a lace dickey, and nothing +besides,--the poor silly jays, who trail a peacock's feather behind +them, and think to simulate the gorgeous bird whose nature it is to +strut on palace-terraces, and to flaunt his magnificent fan-tail in the +sunshine! + +The jays with peacocks' feathers are the Snobs of this world: and never, +since the days of Aesop, were they more numerous in any land than they +are at present in this free country. + +How does this most ancient apologue apply to the subject in hand?--the +Dinner-giving Snob. The imitation of the great is universal in this +city, from the palaces of Kensingtonia and Belgravia, even to the +remotest corner of Brunswick Square. + +Peacocks' feathers are stuck in the tails of most families. Scarce +one of us domestic birds but imitates the lanky, pavonine strut, and +shrill, genteel scream. O you misguided dinner-giving Snobs, think how +much pleasure you lose, and how much mischief you do with your +absurd grandeurs and hypocrisies! You stuff each other with unnatural +forced-meats, and entertain each other to the ruin of friendship +(let alone health) and the destruction of hospitality and +good-fellowship--you, who but for the peacock's tail might chatter away +so much at your ease, and be so jovial and happy! + +When a man goes into a great set company of dinner-giving and +dinner-receiving Snobs, if he has a philosophical turn of mind, he will +consider what a huge humbug the whole affair is: the dishes, and the +drink, and the servants, and the plate, and the host and hostess, and +the conversation, and the company,--the philosopher included. + +The host is smiling, and hob-nobbing, and talking up and down the +table; but a prey to secret terrors and anxieties, lest the wines he +has brought up from the cellar should prove insufficient; lest a corked +bottle should destroy his calculations; or our friend the carpet-beater, +by making some BEVUE, should disclose his real quality of greengrocer, +and show that he is not the family butler. + +The hostess is smiling resolutely through all the courses, smiling +through her agony; though her heart is in the kitchen, and she is +speculating with terror lest there be any disaster there. If the SOUFFLE +should collapse, or if Wiggins does not send the ices in time--she feels +as if she would commit suicide--that smiling, jolly woman! + +The children upstairs are yelling, as their maid is crimping their +miserable ringlets with hot tongs, tearing Miss Emmy's hair out by the +roots, or scrubbing Miss Polly's dumpy nose with mottled soap till the +little wretch screams herself into fits. The young males of the +family are employed, as we have stated, in piratical exploits upon the +landing-place. + +The servants are not servants, but the before-mentioned retail +tradesmen. + +The plate is not plate, but a mere shiny Birmingham lacquer; and so is +the hospitality, and everything else. + +The talk is Birmingham talk. The wag of the party, with bitterness in +his heart, having just quitted his laundress, who is dunning him for her +bill, is firing off good stories; and the opposition wag is furious +that he cannot get an innings. Jawkins, the great conversationalist, is +scornful and indignant with the pair of them, because he is kept out of +court. Young Muscadel, that cheap dandy, is talking Fashion and Almack's +out of the MORNING POST, and disgusting his neighbour, Mrs. Fox, who +reflects that she has never been there. The widow is vexed out of +patience, because her daughter Maria has got a place beside young +Cambric, the penniless curate, and not by Colonel Goldmore, the rich +widower from India. The Doctor's wife is sulky, because she has not been +led out before the barrister's lady; old Doctor Cork is grumbling at the +wine, and Guttleton sneering at the cookery. + +And to think that all these people might be so happy, and easy, and +friendly, were they brought together in a natural unpretentious way, +and but for an unhappy passion for peacocks' feathers in England. Gentle +shades of Marat and Robespierre! when I see how all the honesty of +society is corrupted among us by the miserable fashion-worship, I feel +as angry as Mrs. Fox just mentioned, and ready to order a general BATTUE +of peacocks. + + + +CHAPTER XXI--SOME CONTINENTAL SNOBS + +Now that September has come, and all our Parliamentary duties are over, +perhaps no class of Snobs are in such high feather as the Continental +Snobs. I watch these daily as they commence their migrations from the +beach at Folkestone. I see shoals of them depart (not perhaps without +an innate longing too to quit the Island along with those happy Snobs). +Farewell, dear friends, I say: you little know that the individual +who regards you from the beach is your friend and historiographer and +brother. + +I went to-day to see our excellent friend Snooks, on board the 'Queen of +the French;' many scores of Snobs were there, on the deck of that fine +ship, marching forth in their pride and bravery. They will be at Ostend +in four hours; they will inundate the Continent next week; they will +carry into far lands the famous image of the British Snob. I shall +not see them--but am with them in spirit: and indeed there is hardly a +country in the known and civilized world in which these eyes have not +beheld them. + +I have seen Snobs, in pink coats and hunting-boots, scouring over the +Campagna of Rome; and have heard their oaths and their well-known slang +in the galleries of the Vatican, and under the shadowy arches of +the Colosseum. I have met a Snob on a dromedary in the desert, and +picnicking under the Pyramid of Cheops. I like to think how many gallant +British Snobs there are, at this minute of writing, pushing their +heads out of every window in the courtyard of 'Meurice's' in the Rue +de Rivoli; or roaring out, 'Garsong, du pang,' 'Garsong, du Yang;' or +swaggering down the Toledo at Naples; or even how many will be on the +look-out for Snooks on Ostend Pier,--for Snooks, and the rest of the +Snobs on board the 'Queen of the French.' + +Look at the Marquis of Carabas and his two carriages. My Lady +Marchioness comes on board, looks round with that happy air of mingled +terror and impertinence which distinguishes her ladyship, and rushes to +her carriage, for it is impossible that she should mingle with the +other Snobs on deck. There she sits, and will be ill in private. The +strawberry leaves on her chariot-panels are engraved on her ladyship's +heart. If she were going to heaven instead of to Ostend, I rather think +she would expect to have DES PLACES RESERVEES for her, and would send to +order the best rooms. A courier, with his money-bag of office round his +shoulders--a huge scowling footman, whose dark pepper-and-salt livery +glistens with the heraldic insignia of the Carabases--a brazen-looking, +tawdry French FEMME-DE-CHAMBRE (none but a female pen can do justice +to that wonderful tawdry toilette of the lady's-maid EN VOYAGE)--and +a miserable DAME DE COMPAGNIE, are ministering to the wants of her +ladyship and her King Charles's spaniel. They are rushing to and fro +with eau-de-Cologne, pocket-handkerchiefs, which are all fringe and +cipher, and popping mysterious cushions behind and before, and in every +available corner of the carriage. + +The little Marquis, her husband is walking about the deck in a +bewildered manner, with a lean daughter on each arm: the carroty-tufted +hope of the family is already smoking on the foredeck in a travelling +costume checked all over, and in little lacquer-tip pod jean boots, and +a shirt embroidered with pink boa-constrictors. 'What is it that gives +travelling Snobs such a marvellous propensity to rush into a costume? +Why should a man not travel in a coat, &c.? but think proper to dress +himself like a harlequin in mourning? See, even young Aldermanbury, +the tallow-merchant, who has just stepped on board, has got a +travelling-dress gaping all over with pockets; and little Tom Tapeworm, +the lawyer's clerk out of the City, who has but three weeks' leave, +turns out in gaiters and a bran-new shooting-jacket, and must let the +moustaches grow on his little sniffy upper lip, forsooth! + +Pompey Hicks is giving elaborate directions to his servant, and asking +loudly, 'Davis, where's the dwessing-case?' and 'Davis, you'd best +take the pistol-case into the cabin.' Little Pompey travels with a +dressing-case, and without a beard: whom he is going to shoot with his +pistols, who on earth can tell? and what he is to do with his servant +but wait upon him, I am at a loss to conjecture. + +Look at honest Nathan Houndsditch and his lady, and their little son. +What a noble air of blazing contentment illuminates the features of +those Snobs of Eastern race! What a toilette Houndsditch's is! What +rings and chains, what gold-headed canes and diamonds, what a tuft the +rogue has got to his chin (the rogue! he will never spare himself any +cheap enjoyment!) Little Houndsditch has a little cane with a gilt head +and little mosaic ornaments--altogether an extra air. As for the lady, +she is all the colours of the rainbow! she has a pink parasol, with a +white lining, and a yellow bonnet, and an emerald green shawl, and +a shot-silk pelisse; and drab boots and rhubarb-coloured gloves; +and parti-coloured glass buttons, expanding from the size of a +fourpenny-piece to a crown, glitter and twiddle all down the front +of her gorgeous costume. I have said before, I like to look at 'the +Peoples' on their gala days, they are so picturesquely and outrageously +splendid and happy. + +Yonder comes Captain Bull; spick and span, tight and trim; who travels +for four or six months every year of his life; who does not commit +himself by luxury of raiment or insolence of demeanour, but I think is +as great a Snob as any man on board. Bull passes the season in London, +sponging for dinners, and sleeping in a garret near his Club. Abroad, +he has been everywhere; he knows the best wine at every inn in every +capital in Europe; lives with the best English company there; has seen +every palace and picture-gallery from Madrid to Stockholm; speaks +an abominable little jargon of half-a-dozen languages--and knows +nothing--nothing. Bull hunts tufts on the Continent, and is a sort of +amateur courier. He will scrape acquaintance with old Carabas before +they make Ostend; and will remind his lordship that he met him at Vienna +twenty years ago, or gave him a glass of Schnapps up the Righi. We have +said Bull knows nothing: he knows the birth, arms, and pedigree of all +the peerage, has poked his little eyes into every one of the carriages +on board--their panels noted and their crests surveyed; he knows all the +Continental stories of English scandal--how Count Towrowski ran off +with Miss Baggs at Naples--how VERY thick Lady Smigsmag was with young +Cornichon of the French Legation at Florence--the exact amount which +Jack Deuceace won of Bob Greengoose at Baden--what it is that made the +Staggs settle on the Continent: the sum for which the O'Goggarty +estates are mortgaged, &c. If he can't catch a lord he will hook on to a +baronet, or else the old wretch will catch hold of some beardless young +stripling of fashion, and show him 'life' in various and amiable and +inaccessible quarters. Faugh! the old brute! If he has every one of the +vices of the most boisterous youth, at least he is comforted by having +no conscience. He is utterly stupid, but of a jovial turn, He believes +himself to be quite a respectable member of society: but perhaps the +only good action he ever did in his life is the involuntary one of +giving an example to be avoided, and showing what an odious thing in +the social picture is that figure of the debauched old man who passes +through life rather a decorous Silenus, and dies some day in his garret, +alone, unrepenting, and unnoted, save by his astonished heirs, who find +that the dissolute old miser has left money behind him. See! he is up to +old Carabas already! I told you he would. + +Yonder you see the old Lady Mary MacScrew, and those middle-aged young +women her daughters; they are going to cheapen and haggle in Belgium and +up the Rhine until they meet with a boarding-house where they can live +upon less board-wages than her ladyship pays her footmen. But she will +exact and receive considerable respect from the British Snobs located in +the watering place which she selects for her summer residence, being the +daughter of the Earl of Haggistoun. That broad-shouldered buck, with the +great whiskers and the cleaned white kid-gloves, is Mr. Phelim Clancy of +Poldoodystown: he calls himself Mr. De Clancy; he endeavours to disguise +his native brogue with the richest superposition of English; and if you +play at billiards or ECARTE with him, the chances are that you will win +the first game, and he the seven or eight games ensuing. + +That overgrown lady with the four daughters, and the young dandy from +the University, her son, is Mrs. Kewsy, the eminent barrister's lady, +who would rather die than not be in the fashion. She has the 'Peerage' +in her carpet-bag, you may be sure; but she is altogether cut out by +Mrs. Quod, the attorney's wife, whose carriage, with the apparatus of +rumbles, dickeys, and imperials, scarcely yields in splendour to the +Marquis of Carabas's own travelling-chariot, and whose courier has even +bigger whiskers and a larger morocco money-bag than the Marquis's own +travelling gentleman. Remark her well: she is talking to Mr. Spout, the +new Member for Jawborough, who is going out to inspect the operations +of the Zollverein, and will put some very severe questions to Lord +Palmerston next session upon England and her relations with the +Prussian-blue trade, the Naples-soap trade, the German-tinder trade, &c. +Spout will patronize King Leopold at Brussels; will write letters from +abroad to the JAWBOROUGH INDEPENDENT; and in his quality of MEMBER DU +PARLIAMONG BRITANNIQUE, will expect to be invited to a family dinner +with every sovereign whose dominions he honours with a visit during his +tour. + +The next person is--but hark! the bell for shore is ringing, and, +shaking Snook's hand cordially, we rush on to the pier, waving him a +farewell as the noble black ship cuts keenly through the sunny azure +waters, bearing away that cargo of Snobs outward bound. + + + +CHAPTER XXII--CONTINENTAL SNOBBERY CONTINUED + +We are accustomed to laugh at the French for their braggadocio +propensities, and intolerable vanity about La France, la gloire, +l'Empereur, and the like; and yet I think in my heart that the British +Snob, for conceit and self-sufficiency and braggartism in his way, is +without a parallel. There is always something uneasy in a Frenchman's +conceit. He brags with so much fury, shrieking, and gesticulation; yells +out so loudly that the Francais is at the head of civilization, the +centre of thought, &c.; that one can't but see the poor fellow has a +lurking doubt in his own mind that he is not the wonder he professes to +be. + +About the British Snob, on the contrary, there is commonly no noise, no +bluster, but the calmness of profound conviction. We are better than all +the world; we don't question the opinion at all; it's an axiom. And when +a Frenchman bellows out, 'LA FRANCE, MONSIEUR, LA FRANCE EST A LA TETE +DU MONDE CIVILISE!' we laugh good-naturedly at the frantic poor devil. +WE are the first chop of the world: we know the fact so well in our +secret hearts that a claim set up elsewhere is simply ludicrous. My dear +brother reader, say, as a man of honour, if you are not of this opinion? +Do you think a Frenchman your equal? You don't--you gallant British +Snob--you know you don't: no more, perhaps, does the Snob your humble +servant, brother. + +And I am inclined to think it is this conviction, and the consequent +bearing of the Englishman towards the foreigner whom he condescends to +visit, this confidence of superiority which holds up the head of the +owner of every English hat-box from Sicily to St. Petersburg, that makes +us so magnificently hated throughout Europe as we are; this--more than +all our little victories, and of which many Frenchmen and Spaniards have +never heard--this amazing and indomitable insular pride, which animates +my lord in his travelling-carriage as well as John in the rumble. + +If you read the old Chronicles of the French wars, you find precisely +the same character of the Englishman, and Henry V.'s people behaved with +just the cool domineering manner of our gallant veterans of France +and the Peninsula. Did you never hear Colonel Cutler and Major Slasher +talking over the war after dinner? or Captain Boarder describing his +action with the 'Indomptable?' 'Hang the fellows,' says Boarder, 'their +practice was very good. I was beat off three times before I took her.' +'Cuss those carabineers of Milhaud's,' says Slasher, 'what work they +made of our light cavalry!' implying a sort of surprise that the +Frenchman should stand up against Britons at all: a good-natured wonder +that the blind, mad, vain-glorious, brave poor devils should actually +have the courage to resist an Englishman. Legions of such Englishmen +are patronizing Europe at this moment, being kind to the Pope, or +good-natured to the King of Holland, or condescending to inspect the +Prussian reviews. When Nicholas came here, who reviews a quarter of a +million of pairs of moustaches to his breakfast every morning, we took +him off to Windsor and showed him two whole regiments of six or eight +hundred Britons a-piece, with an air as much as to say,--'There, my boy, +look at THAT. Those are ENGLISHMEN, those are, and your master whenever +you please,' as the nursery song says. The British Snob is long, long +past scepticism, and can afford to laugh quite good-humouredly at those +conceited Yankees, or besotted little Frenchmen, who set up as models of +mankind. THEY forsooth! + +I have been led into these remarks by listening to an old fellow at the +Hotel du Nord, at Boulogne, and who is evidently of the Slasher sort. He +came down and seated himself at the breakfast-table, with a surly +scowl on his salmon-coloured bloodshot face, strangling in a tight, +cross-barred cravat; his linen and his appointments so perfectly stiff +and spotless that everybody at once recognized him as a dear countryman. +Only our port-wine and other admirable institutions could have produced +a figure so insolent, so stupid, so gentleman-like. After a while our +attention was called to him by his roaring out, in a voice of plethoric +fury, 'O!' + +Everybody turned round at the 'O,' conceiving the Colonel to be, as his +countenance denoted him, in intense pain; but the waiters knew better, +and instead of being alarmed, brought the Colonel the kettle. 'O,' it +appears, is the French for hot-water. The Colonel (though he despises it +heartily) thinks he speaks the language remarkably well. Whilst he was +inhausting his smoking tea, which went rolling and gurgling down his +throat, and hissing over the 'hot coppers' of that respectable veteran, +a friend joined him, with a wizened face and very black wig, evidently a +Colonel too. + +The two warriors, waggling their old heads at each other, presently +joined breakfast, and fell into conversation, and we had the advantage +of hearing about the old war, and some pleasant conjectures as to the +next, which they considered imminent. They psha'd the French fleet; they +pooh-pooh'd the French commercial marine; they showed how, in a war, +there would be a cordon ['a cordong, by---') of steamers along our +coast, and 'by ---,' ready at a minute to land anywhere on the other +shore, to give the French as good a thrashing as they got in the last +war, 'by ---'. In fact, a rumbling cannonade of oaths was fired by the +two veterans during the whole of their conversation. + +There was a Frenchman in the room, but as he had not been above ten +years in London, of course he did not speak the language, and lost the +benefit of the conversation. 'But, O my country!' said I to myself, it's +no wonder that you are so beloved! If I were a Frenchman, how I would +hate you!' + +That brutal, ignorant, peevish bully of an Englishman is showing himself +in every city of Europe. One of the dullest creatures under heaven, he +goes travelling Europe under foot, shouldering his way into galleries +and cathedrals, and bustling into palaces with his buck-ram uniform. +At church or theatre, gala or picture-gallery, HIS face never varies. +A thousand delightful sights pass before his bloodshot eyes, and don't +affect him. Countless brilliant scenes of life and manners are shown +him, but never move him. He goes to church, and calls the practices +there degrading and superstitious: as if HIS altar was the only one that +was acceptable. He goes to picture-galleries, and is more ignorant about +Art than a French shoeblack. Art, Nature pass, and there is no dot of +admiration in his stupid eyes: nothing moves him, except when a very +great man comes his way, and then the rigid, proud, self-confident, +inflexible British Snob can be as humble as a flunkey and as supple as a +harlequin. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII--ENGLISH SNOBS ON THE CONTINENT + +'WHAT is the use of Lord Rome's telescope?' my friend Panwiski exclaimed +the other day. 'It only enables you to see a few hundred thousands of +miles farther. What were thought to be mere nebulae, turn out to be most +perceivable starry systems; and beyond these, you see other nebulae, +which a more powerful glass will show to be stars, again; and so they go +on glittering and winking away into eternity.' With which my friend Pan, +heaving a great sigh, as if confessing his inability to look Infinity in +the face, sank back resigned, and swallowed a large bumper of claret. + +I (who, like other great men, have but one idea), thought to myself, +that as the stars are, so are the Snobs:--the more you gaze upon those +luminaries, the more you behold--now nebulously congregated--now faintly +distinguishable--now brightly defined--until they twinkle off in endless +blazes, and fade into the immeasurable darkness. I am but as a child +playing on the sea-shore. Some telescopic philosopher will arise one +day, some great Snobonomer, to find the laws of the great science which +we are now merely playing with, and to define, and settle, and classify +that which is at present but vague theory, and loose though elegant +assertion. + +Yes: a single eye can but trace a very few and simple varieties of +the enormous universe of Snobs. I sometimes think of appealing to +the public, and calling together a congress of SAVANS, such as met at +Southampton--each to bring his contributions and read his paper on the +Great Subject. For what can a single poor few do, even with the subject +at present in hand? English Snobs on the Continent--though they are a +hundred thousand times less numerous than on their native island, yet +even these few are too many. One can only fix a stray one here and +there. The individuals are caught--the thousands escape. I have noted +down but three whom I have met with in my walk this morning through this +pleasant marine city of Boulogne. + +There is the English Raff Snob, that frequents ESTAMINETS and CABARETS; +who is heard yelling, 'We won't go home till morning!' and startling +the midnight echoes of quiet Continental towns with shrieks of English +slang. The boozy unshorn wretch is seen hovering round quays as packets +arrive, and tippling drains in inn bars where he gets credit. He +talks French with slang familiarity: he and his like quite people the +debt-prisons on the Continent. He plays pool at the billiard-houses, and +may be seen engaged at cards and dominoes of forenoons. His signature is +to be seen on countless bills of exchange: it belonged to an honourable +family once, very likely; for the English Raff most probably began by +being a gentleman, and has a father over the water who is ashamed to +hear his name. He has cheated the old 'governor' repeatedly in better +days, and swindled his sisters of their portions, and robbed his younger +brothers. Now he is living on his wife's jointure: she is hidden away in +some dismal garret, patching shabby finery and cobbling up old clothes +for her children--the most miserable and slatternly of women. + +Or sometimes the poor woman and her daughters go about timidly, giving +lessons in English and music, or do embroidery and work under-hand, to +purchase the means for the POT-AU-FEU; while Raff is swaggering on the +quay, or tossing off glasses of cognac at the CAFÉ. The unfortunate +creature has a child still every year, and her constant hypocrisy is to +try and make her girls believe that their father is a respectable man, +and to huddle him out of the way when the brute comes home drunk. + +Those poor ruined souls get together and have a society of their own, +the which it is very affecting to watch--those tawdry pretences at +gentility, those flimsy attempts at gaiety: those woful sallies: that +jingling old piano; oh, it makes the heart sick to see and hear them. As +Mrs. Raff, with her company of pale daughters, gives a penny tea to Mrs. +Diddler, they talk about bygone times and the fine society they kept; +and they sing feeble songs out of tattered old music-books; and while +engaged in this sort of entertainment, in comes Captain Raff with his +greasy hat on one side, and straightway the whole of the dismal room +reeks with a mingled odour of smoke and spirits. + +Has not everybody who has lived abroad met Captain Raff? His name is +proclaimed, every now and then, by Mr. Sheriff's Officer Hemp; and about +Boulogne, and Paris, and Brussels, there are so many of his sort that +I will lay a wager that I shall be accused of gross personality for +showing him up. Many a less irreclaimable villain is transported; many a +more honourable man is at present at the treadmill; and although we +are the noblest, greatest, most religious, and most moral people in the +world, I would still like to know where, except in the United Kingdom, +debts are a matter of joke, and making tradesmen 'suffer' a sport that +gentlemen own to? It is dishonourable to owe money in France. You never +hear people in other parts of Europe brag of their swindling; or see +a prison in a large Continental town which is not more or less peopled +with English rogues. + +A still more loathsome and dangerous Snob than the above transparent and +passive scamp, is frequent on the continent of Europe, and my young Snob +friends who are travelling thither should be especially warned against +him. Captain Legg is a gentleman, like Raff, though perhaps of a better +degree. He has robbed his family too, but of a great deal more, and has +boldly dishonoured bills for thousands, where Raff has been boggling +over the clumsy conveyance of a ten-pound note. Legg is always at the +best inn, with the finest waistcoats and moustaches, or tearing about +in the flashest of britzkas, while poor Raff is tipsifying himself with +spirits, and smoking cheap tobacco. It is amazing to think that Legg, so +often shown up, and known everywhere, is flourishing yet. He would sink +into utter ruin, but for the constant and ardent love of gentility that +distinguishes the English Snob. There is many a young fellow of the +middle classes who must know Legg to be a rogue and a cheat; and yet +from his desire to be in the fashion, and his admiration of tip-top +swells, and from his ambition to air himself by the side of a Lord's +son, will let Legg make an income out of him; content to pay, so long +as he can enjoy that society. Many a worthy father of a family, when he +hears that his son is riding about with Captain Legg, Lord Levant's son, +is rather pleased that young Hopeful should be in such good company. + +Legg and his friend, Major Macer, make professional tours through +Europe, and are to be found at the right places at the right time. Last +year I heard how my young acquaintance, Mr. Muff, from Oxford, going +to see a little life at a Carnival ball at Paris, was accosted by an +Englishman who did not know a word of the d----language, and hearing +Muff speak it so admirably, begged him to interpret to a waiter with +whom there was a dispute about refreshments. It was quite a comfort, the +stranger said, to see an honest English face; and did Muff know where +there was a good place for supper? So those two went to supper, and who +should come in, of all men in the world, but Major Macer? And so Legg +introduced Macer, and so there came on a little intimacy, and three-card +loo, &c. &c.. Year after year scores of Muffs, in various places in +the world, are victimised by Legg and Macer. The story is so stale, the +trick of seduction so entirely old and clumsy, that it is only a +wonder people can be taken in any more: but the temptations of vice +and gentility together are too much for young English Snobs, and those +simple young victims are caught fresh every day. Though it is only to +be kicked and cheated by men of fashion, your true British Snob will +present himself for the honour. + +I need not allude here to that very common British Snob, who makes +desperate efforts at becoming intimate with the great Continental +aristocracy, such as old Rolls, the baker, who has set up his quarters +in the Faubourg Saint Germain, and will receive none but Carlists, and +no French gentleman under the rank of a Marquis. We can all of us laugh +at THAT fellow's pretensions well enough--we who tremble before a great +man of our own nation. But, as you say, my brave and honest John Bull +of a Snob, a French Marquis of twenty descents is very different from +an English Peer; and a pack of beggarly German and Italian Fuersten +and Principi awaken the scorn of an honest-minded Briton. But our +aristocracy!--that's a very different matter. They are the real leaders +of the world--the real old original and-no-mistake nobility. + +Off with your cap, Snob; down on your knees, Snob, and truckle. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV--ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Tired of the town, where the sight of the closed shutters of the +nobility, my friends, makes my heart sick in my walks; afraid almost to +sit in those vast Pall Mall solitudes, the Clubs, and of annoying the +Club waiters, who might, I thought, be going to shoot in the country, +but for me, I determined on a brief tour in the provinces, and paying +some visits in the country which were long due. + +My first visit was to my friend Major Ponto (H.P. of the Horse Marines), +in Mangelwurzelshire. The Major, in his little phaeton, was in waiting +to take me up at the station. The vehicle was not certainly splendid, +but such a carriage as would accommodate a plain man (as Ponto said he +was) and a numerous family. We drove by beautiful fresh fields and green +hedges, through a cheerful English landscape; the high-road, as smooth +and trim as the way in a nobleman's park, was charmingly chequered with +cool shade and golden sunshine. Rustics in snowy smock-frocks jerked +their hats off smiling as we passed. Children, with cheeks as red as the +apples in the orchards, bobbed curtsies to us at the cottage-doors. +Blue church spires rose here and there in the distance: and as the buxom +gardener's wife opened the white gate at the Major's little ivy-covered +lodge, and we drove through the neat plantations of firs and evergreens, +up to the house, my bosom felt a joy and elation which I thought it was +impossible to experience in the smoky atmosphere of a town. 'Here,' I +mentally exclaimed, 'is all peace, plenty, happiness. Here, I shall be +rid of Snobs. There can be none in this charming Arcadian spot.' + +Stripes, the Major's man (formerly corporal in his gallant corps), +received my portmanteau, and an elegant little present, which I had +brought from town as a peace-offering to Mrs. Ponto; viz., a cod and +oysters from Grove's, in a hamper about the size of a coffin. + +Ponto's house ['The Evergreens' Mrs. P. has christened it) is a perfect +Paradise of a place. It is all over creepers, and bow-windows, +and verandahs. A wavy lawn tumbles up and down all round it, with +flower-beds of wonderful shapes, and zigzag gravel walks, and beautiful +but damp shrubberies of myrtles and glistening laurustines, which have +procured it its change of name. It was called Little Bullock's Pound +in old Doctor Ponto's time. I had a view of the pretty grounds, and the +stable, and the adjoining village and church, and a great park beyond, +from the windows of the bedroom whither Ponto conducted me. It was the +yellow bedroom, the freshest and pleasantest of bed-chambers; the air +was fragrant with a large bouquet that was placed on the writing-table; +the linen was fragrant with the lavender in which it had been laid; the +chintz hangings of the bed and the big sofa were, if not fragrant with +flowers, at least painted all over with them; the pen-wiper on the table +was the imitation of a double dahlia; and there was accommodation for my +watch in a sun-flower on the mantelpiece. A scarlet-leaved creeper came +curling over the windows, through which the setting sun was pouring a +flood of golden light. It was all flowers and freshness. Oh, how unlike +those black chimney-pots in St. Alban's Place, London, on which these +weary eyes are accustomed to look. + +'It must be all happiness here, Ponto,' said I, flinging myself down +into the snug BERGERE, and inhaling such a delicious draught of country +air as all the MILLEFLEURS of Mr. Atkinson's shop cannot impart to any +the most expensive pocket-handkerchief. + +'Nice place, isn't it?' said Ponto. 'Quiet and unpretending. I like +everything quiet. You've not brought your valet with you? Stripes will +arrange your dressing things;' and that functionary, entering at the +same time, proceeded to gut my portmanteau, and to lay out the black +kerseymeres, 'the rich cut velvet Genoa waistcoat,' the white choker, +and other polite articles of evening costume, with great gravity and +despatch. 'A great dinner-party,' thinks I to myself, seeing these +preparations (and not, perhaps, displeased at the idea that some of the +best people in the neighbourhood were coming to see me). 'Hark, theres +the first bell ringing! 'said Ponto, moving away; and, in fact, a +clamorous harbinger of victuals began clanging from the stable +turret, and announced the agreeable fact that dinner would appear in +half-an-hour. 'If the dinner is as grand as the dinner-bell,' thought I, +'faith, I'm in good quarters!' and had leisure, during the half-hour's +interval, not only to advance my own person to the utmost polish of +elegance which it is capable of receiving, to admire the pedigree of the +Pontos hanging over the chimney, and the Ponto crest and arms emblazoned +on the wash-hand basin and jug, but to make a thousand reflections on +the happiness of a country life--upon the innocent friendliness and +cordiality of rustic intercourse; and to sigh for an opportunity of +retiring, like Ponto, to my own fields, to my own vine and fig-tree, +with a placens uxor in my domus, and a half-score of sweet young pledges +of affection sporting round my paternal knee. + +Clang! At the end of thirty minutes, dinner-bell number two pealed from +the adjacent turret. I hastened downstairs, expecting to find a score +of healthy country folk in the drawing-room. There was only one person +there; a tall and Roman-nosed lady, glistering over with bugles, in deep +mourning. She rose, advanced two steps, made a majestic curtsey, during +which all the bugles in her awful head-dress began to twiddle and +quiver--and then said, 'Mr. Snob, we are very happy to see you at the +Evergreens,' and heaved a great sigh. + +This, then, was Mrs. Major Ponto; to whom making my very best bow, I +replied, that I was very proud to make her acquaintance, as also that of +so charming a place as the Evergreens. + +Another sigh. 'We are distantly related, Mr. Snob,' said she, shaking +her melancholy head. 'Poor dear Lord Rubadub!' + +'Oh!' said I; not knowing what the deuce Mrs. Major Ponto meant. + +'Major Ponto told me that you were of the Leicestershire Snobs: a very +old family, and related to Lord Snobbington, who married Laura Rubadub, +who is a cousin of mine, as was her poor dear father, for whom we are +mourning. What a seizure! only sixty-three, and apoplexy quite unknown +until now in our family! In life we are in death, Mr. Snob. Does Lady +Snobbington bear the deprivation well?' + +'Why, really, ma'am, I--I don't know,' I replied, more and more +confused. + +As she was speaking I heard a sort of CLOOP, by which well-known sound I +was aware that somebody was opening a bottle of wine, and Ponto entered, +in a huge white neckcloth, and a rather shabby black suit. + +'My love,' Mrs. Major Ponto said to her husband, 'we were talking of our +cousin--poor dear Lord Rubadub. His death has placed some of the first +families in England in mourning. Does Lady Rubadub keep the house in +Hill Street, do you know?' + +I didn't know, but I said, 'I believe she does,' at a venture; and, +looking down to the drawing-room table, saw the inevitable, abominable, +maniacal, absurd, disgusting 'Peerage' open on the table, interleaved +with annotations, and open at the article 'Snobbington.' + +'Dinner is served,' says Stripes, flinging open the door; and I gave +Mrs. Major Ponto my arm. + + + +CHAPTER XXV--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Of the dinner to which we now sat down, I am not going to be a severe +critic. The mahogany I hold to be inviolable; but this I will say, that +I prefer sherry to marsala when I can get it, and the latter was the +wine of which I have no doubt I heard the 'cloop' just before dinner. +Nor was it particularly good of its kind; however, Mrs. Major Ponto did +not evidently know the difference, for she called the liquor Amontillado +during the whole of the repast, and drank but half a glass of it, +leaving the rest for the Major and his guest. + +Stripes was in the livery of the Ponto family--a thought shabby, but +gorgeous in the extreme--lots of magnificent worsted lace, and livery +buttons of a very notable size. The honest fellow's hands, I remarked, +were very large and black; and a fine odour of the stable was wafted +about the room as he moved to and fro in his ministration. I should have +preferred a clean maidservant, but the sensations of Londoners are too +acute perhaps on these subjects; and a faithful John, after all, IS more +genteel. + +From the circumstance of the dinner being composed of pig's-head +mock-turtle soup, of pig's fry and roast ribs of pork, I am led to +imagine that one of Ponto's black Hampshires had been sacrificed a short +time previous to my visit. It was an excellent and comfortable repast; +only there WAS rather a sameness in it, certainly. I made a similar +remark the next day'. + +During the dinner Mrs. Ponto asked me many questions regarding the +nobility, my relatives. 'When Lady Angelina Skeggs would come out; +and if the countess her mamma' (this was said with much archness and +he-he-ing) 'still wore that extraordinary purple hair-dye?' 'Whether my +Lord Guttlebury kept, besides his French chef, and an English cordonbleu +for the roasts, an Italian for the confectionery?' + +'Who attended at Lady Clapperclaw's conversazioni?' and 'whether Sir +John Champignon's “Thursday Mornings” were pleasant?' 'Was it true that +Lady Carabas, wanting to pawn her diamonds, found that they were paste, +and that the Marquis had disposed of them beforehand?' 'How was it that +Snuffin, the great tobacco-merchant, broke off the marriage which was on +the tapis between him and their second daughter; and was it true that a +mulatto lady came over from the Havanna and forbade the match?' + +'Upon my word, Madam,' I had begun, and was going on to say that I +didn't know one word about all these matters which seemed so to interest +Mrs. Major Ponto, when the Major, giving me a tread or stamp with his +large foot under the table, said--'Come, come, Snob my boy, we are all +tiled, you know. We KNOW you're one of the fashionable people about +town: we saw your name at Lady Clapperclaw's SOIREES, and the Champignon +breakfasts; and as for the Rubadubs, of course, as relations ---' + +'Oh, of course, I dine there twice a-week,' I said; and then I +remembered that my cousin, Humphry Snob, of the Middle Temple, IS a +great frequenter of genteel societies, and to have seen his name in the +MORNING POST at the tag-end of several party lists. So, taking the +hint, I am ashamed to say I indulged Mrs. Major Ponto with a deal of +information about the first families in England, such as would astonish +those great personages if they knew it. I described to her most +accurately the three reigning beauties of last season at Almack's: +told her in confidence that his Grace the D--- of W--- was going to be +married the day after his Statue was put up; that his Grace the D--- of +D--- was also about to lead the fourth daughter of the Archduke Stephen +to the hymeneal altar:--and talked to her, in a word, just in the style +of Mrs. Gore's last fashionable novel. + +Mrs. Major was quite fascinated by this brilliant conversation. She +began to trot out scraps of French, just for all the world as they do +in the novels; and kissed her hand to me quite graciously, telling me +to come soon to caffy, UNG PU DE MUSICK O SALONG--with which she tripped +off like an elderly fairy. + +'Shall I open a bottle of port, or do you ever drink such a thing as +Hollands and water?' says Ponto, looking ruefully at me. This was a very +different style of thing to what I had been led to expect from him at +our smoking-room at the Club: where he swaggers about his horses and +his cellar: and slapping me on the shoulder used to say, 'Come down +to Mangelwurzelshire, Snob my boy, and I'll give you as good a day's +shooting and as good a glass of claret as any in the county.'--'Well,' +I said, 'I like Hollands much better than port, and gin even better than +Hollands.' This was lucky. It WAS gin; and Stripes brought in hot water +on a splendid plated tray. + +The jingling of a harp and piano soon announced that Mrs. Ponto's ung PU +DE MUSICK had commenced, and the smell of the stable again entering +the dining-room, in the person of Stripes, summoned us to CAFFY and the +little concert. She beckoned me with a winning smile to the sofa, on +which she made room for me, and where we could command a fine view +of the backs of the young ladies who were performing the musical +entertainment. Very broad backs they were too, strictly according to +the present mode, for crinoline or its substitutes is not an expensive +luxury, and young people in the country can afford to be in the fashion +at very trifling charges. Miss Emily Ponto at the piano, and her sister +Maria at that somewhat exploded instrument, the harp, were in light blue +dresses that looked all flounce, and spread out like Mr. Green's balloon +when inflated. + +'Brilliant touch Emily has--what a fine arm Maria's is,' Mrs. Ponto +remarked good-naturedly, pointing out the merits of her daughters, and +waving her own arm in such a way as to show that she was not a little +satisfied with the beauty of that member. I observed she had about nine +bracelets and bangles, consisting of chains and padlocks, the Major's +miniature, and a variety of brass serpents with fiery ruby or tender +turquoise eyes, writhing up to her elbow almost, in the most profuse +contortions. + +'You recognize those polkas? They were played at Devonshire House on +the 23rd of July, the day of the grand fête.' So I said yes--I knew 'em +quite intimately; and began wagging my head as if in acknowledgment of +those old friends. + +When the performance was concluded, I had the felicity of a presentation +and conversation with the two tall and scraggy Miss Pontos; and Miss +Wirt, the governess, sat down to entertain us with variations on 'Sich a +gettin' up Stairs.' They were determined to be in the fashion. + +For the performance of the 'Gettin' up Stairs,' I have no other name but +that it was a STUNNER. First Miss Wirt, with great deliberation, played +the original and beautiful melody, cutting it, as it were, out of the +instrument, and firing off each note so loud, clear, and sharp, that I +am sure Stripes must have heard it in the stable. + +'What a finger!' says Mrs. Ponto; and indeed it WAS a finger, as knotted +as a turkey's drumstick, and splaying all over the piano. When she had +banged out the tune slowly, she began a different manner of 'Gettin' up +Stairs,' and did so with a fury and swiftness quite incredible. She spun +up stairs; she whirled up stairs: she galloped up stairs; she rattled up +stairs; and then having got the tune to the top landing, as it were, she +hurled it down again shrieking to the bottom floor, where it sank in a +crash as if exhausted by the breathless rapidity of the descent. Then +Miss Wirt played the 'Gettin' up Stairs' with the most pathetic and +ravishing solemnity: plaintive moans and sobs issued from the keys--you +wept and trembled as you were gettin' up stairs. Miss Wirt's hands +seemed to faint and wail and die in variations: again, and she went up +with a savage clang and rush of trumpets, as if Miss Wirt was storming a +breach; and although I knew nothing of music, as I sat and listened +with my mouth open to this wonderful display, my CAFFY grew cold, and I +wondered the windows did not crack and the chandelier start out of the +beam at the sound of this earthquake of a piece of music. + +'Glorious creature! Isn't she?' said Mrs. Ponto. 'Squirtz's favourite +pupil--inestimable to have such a creature. Lady Carabas would give her +eyes for her! A prodigy of accomplishments! Thank you, Miss Wirt'--and +the young ladies gave a heave and a gasp of admiration--a deep-breathing +gushing sound, such as you hear at church when the sermon comes to a +full stop. + +Miss Wirt put her two great double-knuckled hands round a waist of her +two pupils, and said, 'My dear children, I hope you will be able to play +it soon as well as your poor little governess. When I lived with the +Dunsinanes, it was the dear Duchess's favourite, and Lady Barbara and +Lady Jane McBeth learned it. It was while hearing Jane play that, I +remember, that dear Lord Castletoddy first fell in love with her; and +though he is but an Irish Peer, with not more than fifteen thousand +a year, I persuaded Jane to have him. Do you know Castletoddy, Mr. +Snob?--round towers--sweet place-County Mayo. Old Lord Castletoddy (the +present Lord was then Lord Inishowan) was a most eccentric old man--they +say he was mad. I heard his Royal Highness the poor dear Duke of +Sussex--(SUCH a man, my dears, but alas! addicted to smoking!)--I +heard his Royal Highness say to the Marquis of Anglesey, “I am sure +Castletoddy is mad!” but Inishowan wasn't in marrying my sweet Jane, +though the dear child had but her ten thousand pounds POUR TOUT POTAGE!' + +'Most invaluable person,' whispered Mrs. Major Ponto to me. 'Has lived +in the very highest society:' and I, who have been accustomed to see +governesses bullied in the world, was delighted to find this one ruling +the roast, and to think that even the majestic Mrs. Ponto bent before +her. + +As for my pipe, so to speak, it went out at once. I hadn't a word to say +against a woman who was intimate with every Duchess in the Red Book. She +wasn't the rosebud, but she had been near it. She had rubbed shoulders +with the great, and about these we talked all the evening incessantly, +and about the fashions, and about the Court, until bed-time came. + +'And are there Snobs in this Elysium?' I exclaimed, jumping into the +lavender-perfumed bed. Ponto's snoring boomed from the neighbouring +bed-room in reply. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI--ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Something like a journal of the proceedings at the Evergreens may be +interesting to those foreign readers of PUNCH who want to know the +customs of an English gentleman's family and household. There's plenty +of time to keep the Journal. Piano-strumming begins at six o'clock in +the morning; it lasts till breakfast, with but a minute's intermission, +when the instrument changes hands, and Miss Emily practises in place of +her sister Miss Maria. + +In fact, the confounded instrument never stops when the young ladies are +at their lessons, Miss Wirt hammers away at those stunning variations, +and keeps her magnificent finger in exercise. + +I asked this great creature in what other branches of education she +instructed her pupils? 'The modern languages,' says she modestly: +'French, German, Spanish, and Italian, Latin and the rudiments of Greek +if desired. English of course; the practice of Elocution, Geography, +and Astronomy, and the Use of the Globes, Algebra (but only as far as +quadratic equations); for a poor ignorant female, you know, Mr. Snob, +cannot be expected to know everything. Ancient and Modern History +no young woman can be without; and of these I make my beloved pupils +PERFECT MISTRESSES. Botany, Geology, and Mineralogy, I consider as +amusements. And with these I assure you we manage to pass the days at +the Evergreens not unpleasantly.' + +Only these, thought I--what an education! But I looked in one of Miss +Ponto's manuscript song-books and found five faults of French in four +words; and in a waggish mood asking Miss Wirt whether Dante Algiery was +so called because he was born at Algiers, received a smiling answer in +the affirmative, which made me rather doubt about the accuracy of Miss +Wirt's knowledge. + +When the above little morning occupations are concluded, these +unfortunate young women perform what they call Calisthenic Exercises +in the garden. I saw them to-day, without any crinoline, pulling the +garden-roller. + +Dear Mrs. Ponto was in the garden too, and as limp as her daughters; in +a faded bandeau of hair, in a battered bonnet, in a holland pinafore, +in pattens, on a broken chair, snipping leaves off a vine. Mrs. Ponto +measures many yards about in an evening. Ye heavens! what a guy she is +in that skeleton morning-costume! + +Besides Stripes, they keep a boy called Thomas or Tummus. Tummus works +in the garden or about the pigsty and stable; Thomas wears a page's +costume of eruptive buttons. + +When anybody calls, and Stripes is out of the way, Tummus flings +himself like mad into Thomas's clothes, and comes out metamorphosed +like Harlequin in the pantomime. To-day, as Mrs. P. was cutting the +grapevine, as the young ladies were at the roller, down comes Tummus +like a roaring whirlwind, with 'Missus, Missus, there's company +coomin'!' Away skurry the young ladies from the roller, down comes Mrs. +P. from the old chair, off flies Tummus to change his clothes, and in +an incredibly short space of time Sir John Hawbuck, my Lady Hawbuck, +and Master Hugh Hawbuck are introduced into the garden with brazen +effrontery by Thomas, who says, 'Please Sir Jan and my Lady to walk this +year way: I KNOW Missus is in the rose-garden.' + +And there, sure enough, she was! + +In a pretty little garden bonnet, with beautiful curling ringlets, with +the smartest of aprons and the freshest of pearl-coloured gloves, this +amazing woman was in the arms of her dearest Lady Hawbuck. 'Dearest Lady +Hawbuck, how good of you! Always among my flowers! can't live away from +them!' + +'Sweets to the sweet! hum--a-ha--haw!' says Sir John Hawbuck, who piques +himself on his gallantry, and says nothing without 'a-hum--a-ha--a-haw!' + +'Whereth yaw pinnafaw?' cries Master Hugh. 'WE thaw you in it, over the +wall, didn't we, Pa?' + +'Hum--a-ha--a-haw!' burst out Sir John, dreadfully alarmed. 'Where's +Ponto? Why wasn't he at Quarter Sessions? How are his birds this year, +Mrs. Ponto--have those Carabas pheasants done any harm to your wheat? +a-hum--a-ha--a-haw!' and all this while he was making the most ferocious +and desperate signals to his youthful heir. + +'Well, she WATH in her pinnafaw, wathn't she, Ma?' says Hugh, quite +unabashed; which question Lady Hawbuck turned away with a sudden query +regarding her dear darling daughters, and the ENFANT TERRIBLE was +removed by his father. + +'I hope you weren't disturbed by the music?' Ponto says. 'My girls, +you know, practise four hours a day, you know--must do it, you +know--absolutely necessary. As for me, you know I'm an early man, and in +my farm every morning at five--no, no laziness for ME.' + +The facts are these. Ponto goes to sleep directly after dinner on +entering the drawing-room, and wakes up when the ladies leave off +practice at ten. From seven till ten, from ten till five, is a very fair +allowance of slumber for a man who says he's NOT a lazy man. It is my +private opinion that when Ponto retires to what is called his 'Study,' +he sleeps too. He locks himself up there daily two hours with the +newspaper. + +I saw the HAWBUCK scene out of the Study, which commands the garden. +It's a curious object, that Study. Ponto's library mostly consists of +boots. He and Stripes have important interviews here of mornings, +when the potatoes are discussed, or the fate of the calf ordained, or +sentence passed on the pig, &c.. All the Major's bills are docketed on +the Study table and displayed like a lawyer's briefs. Here, too, lie +displayed his hooks, knives, and other gardening irons, his whistles, +and strings of spare buttons. He has a drawer of endless brown paper for +parcels, and another containing a prodigious and never-failing supply of +string. What a man can want with so many gig-whips I can never conceive. +These, and fishing-rods, and landing-nets, and spurs, and boot-trees, +and balls for horses, and surgical implements for the same, and +favourite pots of shiny blacking, with which he paints his own shoes +in the most elegant manner, and buckskin gloves stretched out on their +trees, and his gorget, sash, and sabre of the Horse Marines, with his +boot-hooks underneath in atrophy; and the family medicine-chest, and +in a corner the very rod with which he used to whip his son, Wellesley +Ponto, when a boy (Wellesley never entered the 'Study' but for that +awful purpose)--all these, with 'Mogg's Road Book,' the GARDENERS' +CHRONICLE, and a backgammon-board, form the Major's library. Under the +trophy there's a picture of Mrs. Ponto, in a light blue dress and train, +and no waist, when she was first married; a fox's brush lies over the +frame, and serves to keep the dust off that work of art. + +'My library's small, says Ponto, with the most amazing impudence, 'but +well selected, my boy--well selected. I have been reading the “History +of England” all the morning.' + + + +CHAPTER XXVII--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +We had the fish, which, as the kind reader may remember, I had brought +down in a delicate attention to Mrs. Ponto, to variegate the repast of +next day; and cod and oyster-sauce, twice laid, salt cod and scolloped +oysters, formed parts of the bill of fare until I began to fancy that +the Ponto family, like our late revered monarch George II., had a fancy +for stale fish. And about this time, the pig being consumed, we began +upon a sheep. + +But how shall I forget the solemn splendour of a second course, which +was served up in great state by Stripes in a silver dish and cove; a +napkin round his dirty thumbs; and consisted of a landrail, not much +bigger than a corpulent sparrow. + +'My love, will you take any game?' says Ponto, with prodigious gravity; +and stuck his fork into that little mouthful of an island in the +silver sea. Stripes, too, at intervals, dribbled out the Marsala with +a solemnity which would have done honour to a Duke's butler. The +Bamnecide's dinner to Shacabac was only one degree removed from these +solemn banquets. + +As there were plenty of pretty country places close by; a comfortable +country town, with good houses of gentlefolks; a beautiful old +parsonage, close to the church whither we went (and where the Carabas +family have their ancestral carved and monumented Gothic pew), and every +appearance of good society in the neighbourhood, I rather wondered we +were not enlivened by the appearance of some of the neighbours at the +Evergreens, and asked about them. + +'We can't in our position of life--we can't well associate with +the attorney's family, as I leave you to suppose,' says Mrs. Ponto, +confidentially. 'Of course not,' I answered, though I didn't know why. +'And the Doctor?' said I. + +'A most excellent worthy creature,' says Mrs. P. saved Maria's +life--really a learned man; but what can one do in one's position? One +may ask one's medical man to one's table certainly: but his family, my +dear Mr. Snob!' + +'Half-a-dozen little gallipots,' interposed Miss Wirt, the governess: +'he, he, he!' and the young ladies laughed in chorus. + +'We only live with the county families,' Miss Wirt (1) continued, +tossing up her head. 'The Duke is abroad: we are at feud with the +Carabases; the Ringwoods don't come down till Christmas: in fact, +nobody's here till the hunting season--positively nobody.' + +'Whose is the large red house just outside of the town?' + +'What! the CHATEAU-CALICOT? he, he, he! That purse-proud ex-linendraper, +Mr. Yardley, with the yellow liveries, and the wife in red velvet? How +CAN you, my dear Mr. Snob, be so satirical? The impertinence of those +people is really something quite overwhelming.' + +'Well, then, there is the parson, Doctor Chrysostom. He's a gentleman, +at any rate.' At this Mrs. Ponto looked at Miss Wirt. After their eyes +had met and they had wagged their heads at each other. They looked up +to the ceiling. So did the young ladies. They thrilled. It was evident I +had said something terrible. Another black sheep in the Church? thought +I with a little sorrow; for I don't care to own that I have a respect +for the cloth. 'I--hope there's nothing wrong? + +'Wrong?' says Mrs. P., clasping her hands with a tragic air. + +'Oh!' says Miss Wirt, and the two girls, gasping in chorus. + +'Well,' says I, 'I'm very sorry for it. I never saw a nicer-looking old +gentleman, or a better school, or heard a better sermon.' + +'He used to preach those sermons in a surplice,' hissed out Mrs. Ponto. +'He's a Puseyite, Mr. Snob.' + +'Heavenly powers!' says I, admiring the pure ardour of these female +theologians; and Stripes came in with the tea. It's so weak that no +wonder Ponto's sleep isn't disturbed by it. + +Of mornings we used to go out shooting. We had Ponto's own fields to +sport over (where we got the landrail), and the non-preserved part of +the Hawbuck property: and one evening in a stubble of Ponto's skirting +the Carabas woods, we got among some pheasants, and had some real sport. +I shot a hen, I know, greatly to my delight. 'Bag it,' says Ponto, in +rather a hurried manner: 'here's somebody coming.' So I pocketed the +bird. + +'You infernal poaching thieves!' roars out a man from the hedge in the +garb of a gamekeeper. 'I wish I could catch you on this side of the +hedge. I'd put a brace of barrels into you, that I would.' + +'Curse that Snapper,' says Ponto, moving off; 'he's always watching me +like a spy.' + +'Carry off the birds, you sneaks, and sell 'em in London,' roars the +individual, who it appears was a keeper of Lord Carabas. 'You'll get six +shillings a brace for 'em.' + +'YOU know the price of 'em well enough, and so does your master too, you +scoundrel,' says Ponto, still retreating. + +'We kill 'em on our ground,' cries Mr. Snapper. 'WE don't set traps for +other people's birds. We're no decoy ducks. We're no sneaking poachers. +We don't shoot 'ens, like that 'ere Cockney, who's got the tail of one +a-sticking out of his pocket. Only just come across the hedge, that's +all.' + +'I tell you what,' says Stripes, who was out with us as keeper this +day, (in fact he's keeper, coachman, gardener, valet, and bailiff, with +Tummus under him,) 'if YOU'LL come across, John Snapper, and take your +coat off, I'll give you such a whopping as you've never had since the +last time I did it at Guttlebury Fair.' + +'Whop one of your own weight,' Mr. Snapper said, whistling his dogs +and disappearing into the wood. And so we came out of this controversy +rather victoriously; but I began to alter my preconceived ideas of rural +felicity. + +Notes. + +(1) I have since heard that this aristocratic lady's father was a +livery-button maker in St. Martin's Lane: where he met with misfortunes, +and his daughter acquired her taste for heraldry. But it may be told +to her credit, that out of her earnings she has kept the bed-ridden old +bankrupt in great comfort and secrecy at Pentonville; and furnished her +brother's outfit for the Cadetship which her patron, Lord Swigglebiggle, +gave her when he was at the Board of Control. I have this information +from a friend. To hear Miss Wirt herself, you would fancy that her Papa +was a Rothschild, and that the markets of Europe were convulsed when he +went into the GAZETTE. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII--ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +'Be hanged to your aristocrats!' Ponto said, in some conversation we had +regarding the family at Carabas, between whom and the Evergreens there +was a feud. 'When I first came into the county--it was the year before +Sir John Buff contested in the Blue interest--the Marquis, then Lord St. +Michaels, who, of course, was Orange to the core, paid me and Mrs. Ponto +such attentions, that I fairly confess I was taken in by the old humbug, +and thought that I'd met with a rare neighbour. 'Gad, Sir, we used to +get pines from Carabas, and pheasants from Carabas, and it was--“Ponto, +when will you come over and shoot?”--and--“Ponto, our pheasants want +thinning,”--and my Lady would insist upon her dear Mrs. Ponto coming +over to Carabas to sleep, and put me I don't know to what expense for +turbans and velvet gowns for my wife's toilette. Well, Sir, the election +takes place, and though I was always a Liberal, personal friendship of +course induces me to plump for St. Michaels, who comes in at the head of +the poll. Next year, Mrs. P. insists upon going to town--with lodgings +in Clarges Street at ten pounds a week, with a hired brougham, and new +dresses for herself and the girls, and the deuce and all to pay. Our +first cards were to Carabas House; my Lady's are returned by a great big +flunkey; and I leave you to fancy my poor Betsy's discomfiture as the +lodging-house maid took in the cards, and Lady St. Michaels drives away, +though she actually saw us at the drawing-room window. Would you believe +it, Sir, that though we called four times afterwards, those infernal +aristocrats never returned our visit; that though Lady St. Michaels gave +nine dinner-parties and four DEJEUNERS that season, she never asked us +to one; and that she cut us dead at the Opera, though Betsy was nodding +to her the whole night? We wrote to her for tickets for Almack's; she +writes to say that all hers were promised; and said, in the presence of +Wiggins, her lady's-maid, who told it to Diggs, my wife's woman, that +she couldn't conceive how people in our station of life could so far +forget themselves as to wish to appear in any such place! Go to +Castle Carabas! I'd sooner die than set my foot in the house of that +impertinent, insolvent, insolent jackanapes--and I hold him in scorn!' +After this, Ponto gave me some private information regarding Lord +Carabas's pecuniary affairs; how he owed money all over the county; how +Jukes the carpenter was utterly ruined and couldn't get a shilling of +his bill; how Biggs the butcher hanged himself for the same reason; how +the six big footmen never received a guinea of wages, and Snaffle, the +state coachman, actually took off his blown-glass wig of ceremony and +flung it at Lady Carabas's feet on the terrace before the Castle; all +which stories, as they are private, I do not think proper to divulge. +But these details did not stifle my desire to see the famous mansion +of Castle Carabas, nay, possibly excited my interest to know more about +that lordly house and its owners. + +At the entrance of the park, there are a pair of great gaunt mildewed +lodges--mouldy Doric temples with black chimney-pots, in the finest +classic taste, and the gates of course are surmounted by the CHATS +BOTTES, the well-known supporters of the Carabas family. 'Give the +lodge-keeper a shilling,' says Ponto, (who drove me near to it in his +four-wheeled cruelty-chaise). 'I warrant it's the first piece of ready +money he has received for some time. I don't know whether there was any +foundation for this sneer, but the gratuity was received with a curtsey, +and the gate opened for me to enter. 'Poor old porteress!' says I, +inwardly. 'You little know that it is the Historian of Snobs whom you +let in!' The gates were passed. A damp green stretch of park spread +right and left immeasurably, confined by a chilly grey wall, and a damp +long straight road between two huge rows of moist, dismal lime-trees, +leads up to the Castle. In the midst of the park is a great black tank +or lake, bristling over with rushes, and here and there covered over +with patches of pea-soup. A shabby temple rises on an island in this +delectable lake, which is approached by a rotten barge that lies at +roost in a dilapidated boat house. Clumps of elms and oaks dot over the +huge green flat. Every one of them would have been down long since, but +that the Marquis is not allowed to cut the timber. + +Up that long avenue the Snobographer walked in solitude. At the +seventy-ninth tree on the left-hand side, the insolvent butcher hanged +himself. I scarcely wondered at the dismal deed, so woful and sad were +the impressions connected with the place. So, for a mile and a half I +walked--alone and thinking of death. + +I forgot to say the house is in full view all the way--except when +intercepted by the trees on the miserable island in the lake--an +enormous red-brick mansion, square, vast, and dingy. It is flanked by +four stone towers with weathercocks. In the midst of the grand facade is +a huge Ionic portico, approached by a vast, lonely, ghastly staircase. +Rows of black windows, framed in stone, stretch on either side, right +and left--three storeys and eighteen windows of a row. You may see +a picture of the palace and staircase, in the 'Views of England and +Wales,' with four carved and gilt carriages waiting at the gravel walk, +and several parties of ladies and gentlemen in wigs and hoops, dotting +the fatiguing lines of stairs. + +But these stairs are made in great houses for people NOT to ascend. The +first Lady Carabas (they are but eighty years in the peerage), if she +got out of her gilt coach in a shower, would be wet to the skin before +she got half-way to the carved Ionic portico, where four dreary statues +of Peace, Plenty, Piety and Patriotism, are the only sentinels. You +enter these palaces by back-doors. 'That was the way the Carabases got +their peerage,' the misanthropic Ponto said after dinner. + +Well--I rang the bell at a little low side-door; it clanged and jingled +and echoed for a long, long while, till at length a face, as of a +housekeeper, peered through the door, and, as she saw my hand in my +waistcoat pocket, opened it. Unhappy, lonely housekeeper, I thought. Is +Miss Crusoe in her island more solitary? The door clapped to, and I was +in Castle Carabas. + +'The side entrance and All,' says the housekeeper. 'The halligator +hover the mantelpiece was brought home by Hadmiral St. Michaels, when +a Capting with Lord Hanson. The harms on the cheers is the harms of the +Carabas family.' The hall was rather comfortable. We went clapping up a +clean stone backstair, and then into a back passage cheerfully decorated +with ragged light-green Kidderminster, and issued upon + +'THE GREAT ALL. + +'The great all is seventy-two feet in lenth, fifty-six in breath, and +thirty-eight feet 'igh. The carvings of the chimlies, representing the +birth of Venus, and Ercules, and Eyelash, is by Van Chislum, the most +famous sculpture of his hage and country. The ceiling, by Calimanco, +represents Painting, Harchitecture and Music (the naked female figure +with the barrel horgan) introducing George, fust Lord Carabas, to the +Temple of the Muses. The winder ornaments is by Vanderputty. The floor +is Patagonian marble; and the chandelier in the centre was presented to +Lionel, second Marquis, by Lewy the Sixteenth, whose 'ead was cut hoff +in the French Revelation. We now henter + +THE SOUTH GALLERY. + +'One 'undred and forty-eight in lenth by thirty-two in breath; it is +profusely hornaminted by the choicest works of Hart. Sir Andrew Katz, +founder of the Carabas family and banker of the Prince of Horange, +Kneller. Her present Ladyship, by Lawrence. Lord St. Michaels, by the +same--he is represented sittin' on a rock in velvit pantaloons. Moses in +the bullrushes--the bull very fine, by Paul Potter. The toilet of Venus, +Fantaski. Flemish Bores drinking, Van Ginnums. Jupiter and Europia, de +Horn. The Grandjunction Canal, Venis, by Candleetty; and Italian Bandix, +by Slavata Rosa.'--And so this worthy woman went on, from one room into +another, from the blue room to the green, and the green to the grand +saloon, and the grand saloon to the tapestry closet, cackling her list +of pictures and wonders: and furtively turning up a corner of brown +holland to show the colour of the old, faded, seedy, mouldy, dismal +hangings. + +At last we came to her Ladyship's bed-room. In the centre of this dreary +apartment there is a bed about the size of one of those whizgig temples +in which the Genius appears in a pantomime. The huge gilt edifice is +approached by steps, and so tall, that it might be let off in floors, +for sleeping-rooms for all the Carabas family. An awful bed! A murder +might be done at one end of that bed, and people sleeping at the other +end be ignorant of it. Gracious powers! fancy little Lord Carabas in a +nightcap ascending those steps after putting out the candle! + +The sight of that seedy and solitary splendour was too much for me. +I should go mad were I that lonely housekeeper--in those enormous +galleries--in that lonely library, filled up with ghastly folios that +nobody dares read, with an inkstand on the centre table like the coffin +of a baby, and sad portraits staring at you from the bleak walls with +their solemn Mouldy eyes. No wonder that Carabas does not come down here +often. + +It would require two thousand footmen to make the place cheerful. No +wonder the coachman resigned his wig, that the masters are insolvent, +and the servants perish in this huge dreary out-at-elbow place. + +A single family has no more right to build itself a temple of that sort +than to erect a Tower of Babel. Such a habitation is not decent for a +mere mortal man. But, after all, I suppose poor Carabas had no choice. +Fate put him there as it sent Napoleon to St. Helena. Suppose it had +been decreed by Nature that you and I should be Marquises? We wouldn't +refuse, I suppose, but take Castle Carabas and all, with debts, duns, +and mean makeshifts, and shabby pride, and swindling magnificence. + +Next season, when I read of Lady Carabas's splendid entertainments in +the MORNING POST, and see the poor old insolvent cantering through the +Park--I shall have a much tenderer interest in these great people than +I have had heretofore. Poor old shabby Snob! Ride on and fancy the world +is still on its knees before the house of Carabas! Give yourself airs, +poor old bankrupt Magnifico, who are under money-obligations to your +flunkeys; and must stoop so as to swindle poor tradesmen! And for us, O +my brother Snobs, oughtn't we to feel happy if our walk through life is +more even, and that we are out of the reach of that surprising arrogance +and that astounding meanness to which this wretched old victim is +obliged to mount and descend. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Notable as my reception had been (under that unfortunate mistake of Mrs. +Ponto that I was related to Lord Snobbington, which I was not permitted +to correct), it was nothing compared to the bowing and kotooing, the +raptures and flurry which preceded and welcomed the visit of a real live +lord and lord's son, a brother officer of Cornet Wellesley Ponto, in +the 120th Hussars, who came over with the young Cornet from Guttlebury, +where their distinguished regiment was quartered. This was my +Lord Gules, Lord Saltire's grandson and heir: a very young, short, +sandy-haired and tobacco-smoking nobleman, who cannot have left the +nursery very long, and who, though he accepted the honest Major's +invitation to the Evergreens in a letter written in a school-boy +handwriting, with a number of faults of spelling, may yet be a very fine +classical scholar for what I know: having had his education at Eton, +where he and young Ponto were inseparable. + +At any rate, if he can't write, he has mastered a number of other +accomplishments wonderful for one of his age and size. He is one of the +best shots and riders in England. He rode his horse Abracadabra, and won +the famous Guttlebury steeple-chase. He has horses entered at half the +races in the country (under other people's names; for the old lord is a +strict hand, and will not hear of betting or gambling). He has lost and +won such sums of money as my Lord George himself might be proud of. +He knows all the stables, and all the jockeys, and has all the +'information,' and is a match for the best Leg at Newmarket. Nobody was +ever known to be 'too much' for him at play or in the stable. + +Although his grandfather makes him a moderate allowance, by the aid of +POST-OBITS and convenient friends he can live in a splendour becoming +his rank. He has not distinguished himself in the knocking down of +policemen much; he is not big enough for that. But, as a light-weight, +his skill is of the very highest order. At billiards he is said to +be first-rate. He drinks and smokes as much as any two of the biggest +officers in his regiment. With such high talents, who can say how far +he may not go? He may take to politics as a DELASSEMENT, and be Prime +Minister after Lord George Bentinck. + +My young friend Wellesley Ponto is a gaunt and bony youth, with a pale +face profusely blotched. From his continually pulling something on +his chin, I am led to fancy that he believes he has what is called an +Imperial growing there. That is not the only tuft that is hunted in +the family, by the way. He can't, of course, indulge in those expensive +amusements which render his aristocratic comrade so respected: he bets +pretty freely when he is in cash, and rides when somebody mounts him +(for he can't afford more than his regulation chargers). At drinking +he is by no means inferior; and why do you think he brought his noble +friend, Lord Gules, to the Evergreens?--Why? because he intended to +ask his mother to order his father to pay his debts, which she couldn't +refuse before such an exalted presence. Young Ponto gave me all this +information with the most engaging frankness. We are old friends. I used +to tip him when he was at school. + +'Gad!': says he, 'our wedgment's so DOOTHID exthpenthif. Must hunt, you +know. A man couldn't live in the wedgment if he didn't. Mess expenses +enawmuth. Must dine at mess. Must drink champagne and claret. Ours ain't +a port and sherry light-infantry mess. Uniform's awful. Fitzstultz, our +Colonel, will have 'em so. Must be a distinction you know. At his own +expense Fitzstultz altered the plumes in the men's caps (you called them +shaving-brushes, Snob, my boy: most absurd and unjust that attack of +yours, by the way); that altewation alone cotht him five hundred pound. +The year befaw latht he horthed the wegiment at an immenthe expenthe, +and we're called the Queen'th Own Pyebalds from that day. Ever theen uth +on pawade? The Empewar Nicolath burtht into tearth of envy when he thaw +uth at Windthor. And you see,' continued my young friend, 'I brought +Gules down with me, as the Governor is very sulky about shelling out, +just to talk my mother over, who can do anything with him. Gules told +her that I was Fitzstultz's favourite of the whole regiment; and, Gad! +she thinks the Horse Guards will give me my troop for nothing, and he +humbugged the Governor that I was the greatest screw in the army. Ain't +it a good dodge?' + +With this Wellesley left me to go and smoke a cigar in the stables +with Lord Gules, and make merry over the cattle there, under Stripes's +superintendence. Young Ponto laughed with his friend, at the venerable +four-wheeled cruelty-chaise; but seemed amazed that the latter should +ridicule still more an ancient chariot of the build of 1824, emblazoned +immensely with the arme of the Pontos and the Snaileys, from which +latter distinguished family Mrs. Ponto issued. + +I found poor Pon in his study among his boots, in such a rueful attitude +of despondency, that I could not but remark it. 'Look at that!' says +the poor fellow, handing me over a document. 'It's the second change +in uniform since he's been in the army, and yet there's no extravagance +about the lad. Lord Gules tells me he is the most careful youngster in +the regiment, God bless him! But look at that! by heaven, Snob, look at +that and say how can a man of nine hundred keep out of the Bench?' He +gave a sob as he handed me the paper across the table; and his old face, +and his old corduroys, and his shrunk shooting-jacket, and his lean +shanks, looked, as he spoke, more miserably haggard, bankrupt, and +threadbare. + + LIEUT. WELLESLEY PONTO, 120TH QUEEN'S OWN PYEBALD + HUSSARS, + TO KNOPF AND STECKNADEL, + CONDUIT STREET, LONDON. + L. s. d + Dress Jacket, richly laced with gold . 35 0 0 + Ditto Pelisse ditto, and trimmed with sable . . 60 0 0 + Undress Jacket, trimmed with gold 15 15 0 + Ditto Pelisse . . 30 0 0 + Dress Pantaloons 12 0 0 + Ditto Overalls, gold lace on sides. 6 6 0 + Undress ditto ditto. 5 5 0 + Blue Braided Frock 14 14 0 + Forage Cap . . 3 3 0 + Dress Cap, gold lines, plume and chain . . . 25 0 0 + Gold Barrelled Sash 11 18 0 + Sword . . 11 11 0 + Ditto Belt and Sabretache .. 16 16 0 + Pouch and Belt. 15 15 0 + SwordKnot .. 1 4 0 + Cloak . .. 13 13 0 + Valise . .. 3 13 6 + Regulation Saddle . 7 17 6 + Ditto Bridle, complete . .. 10 10 0 + A Dress Housing, complete .. 30 0 0 + A pair of Pistols. 10 10 0 + A Black Sheepskin, edged. . . 6 18 0 + Total L347 9 0 + +That evening Mrs. Ponto and her family made their darling Wellesley give +a full, true, and particular account of everything that had taken place +at Lord Fitzstultz's; how many servants waited at dinner; and how the +Ladies Schneider dressed; and what his Royal Highness said when he came +down to shoot; and who was there? “What a blessing that boy is to me!” + said she, as my pimple-faced young friend moved off to resume smoking +operations with Gules in the now vacant kitchen;--and poor Ponto's +dreary and desperate look, shall I ever forget that? + +O you parents and guardians! O you men and women of sense in England! O +you legislators about to assemble in Parliament! read over that tailor's +bill above printed, read over that absurd catalogue of insane gimcracks +and madman's tomfoolery--and say how are you ever to get rid of +Snobbishness when society does so much for its education? + +Three hundred and forty pounds for a young chap's saddle and breeches! +Before George, I would rather be a Hottentot or a Highlander. We laugh +at poor Jocko, the monkey, dancing in uniform; or at poor Jeames, the +flunkey, with his quivering calves and plush tights; or at the nigger +Marquis of Marmalade, dressed out with sabre and epaulets, and giving +himself the airs of a field-marshal. Lo! is not one of the Queen's +Pyebalds, in full fig, as great and foolish a monster? + + + +CHAPTER XXX--ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +At last came that fortunate day at the Evergreens, when I was to be made +acquainted with some of the 'county families' with whom only people of +Ponto's rank condescended to associate. And now, although poor Ponto had +just been so cruelly made to bleed on occasion of his son's new uniform, +and though he was in the direst and most cut-throat spirits with an +overdrawn account at the banker's, and other pressing evils of poverty; +although a tenpenny bottle of Marsala and an awful parsimony presided +generally at his table, yet the poor fellow was obliged to assume +the most frank and jovial air of cordiality; and all the covers being +removed from the hangings, and new dresses being procured for the young +ladies, and the family plate being unlocked and displayed, the house +and all within assumed a benevolent and festive appearance. The +kitchen fires began to blaze, the good wine ascended from the cellar, +a professed cook actually came over from Guttlebury to compile culinary +abominations. Stripes was in a new coat, and so was Ponto, for a wonder, +and Tummus's button-suit was worn EN PERMANENCE. + +And all this to show off the little lord, thinks I. All this in honour +of a stupid little cigarrified Cornet of dragoons, who can barely write +his name,--while an eminent and profound moralist like--somebody--is +fobbed off with cold mutton and relays of pig. Well, well: a martyrdom +of cold mutton is just bearable. I pardon Mrs. Ponto, from my heart I +do, especially as I wouldn't turn out of the best bed-room, in spite of +all her hints; but held my ground in the chintz tester, vowing that Lord +Gules, as a young man, was quite small and hardy enough to make himself +comfortable elsewhere. + +The great Ponto party was a very august one. The Hawbucks came in their +family coach, with the blood-red band emblazoned all over it: and their +man in yellow livery waited in country fashion at table, only to be +exceeded in splendour by the Hipsleys, the opposition baronet, in light +blue. The old Ladies Fitzague drove over in their little old chariot +with the fat black horses, the fat coachman, the fat footman--(why +are dowagers' horses and footmen always fat?) And soon after these +personages had arrived, with their auburn fronts and red beaks and +turbans, came the Honourable and Reverend Lionel Pettipois, who with +General and Mrs. Sago formed the rest of the party. 'Lord and Lady +Frederick Howlet were asked, but they have friends at Ivybush,' Mrs. +Ponto told me; and that very morning, the Castlehaggards sent an excuse, +as her ladyship had a return of the quinsy. Between ourselves, Lady +Castlehaggard's quinsy always comes on when there is dinner at the +Evergreens. + +If the keeping of polite company could make a woman happy, surely my +kind hostess Mrs. Ponto was on that day a happy woman. Every person +present (except the unlucky impostor who pretended to a connexion with +the Snobbington Family, and General Sago, who had brought home I don't +know how many lacs of rupees from India,) was related to the Peerage +or the Baronetage. Mrs. P. had her heart's desire. If she had been an +Earl's daughter herself could she have expected better company?--and her +family were in the oil-trade at Bristol, as all her friends very well +know. + +What I complained of in my heart was not the dining--which, for this +once, was plentiful and comfortable enough--but the prodigious dulness +of the talking part of the entertainment. O my beloved brother Snobs of +the City, if we love each other no better than our country brethren, at +least we amuse each other more; if we bore ourselves, we are not called +upon to go ten miles to do it! + +For instance, the Hipsleys came ten miles from the south, and the +Hawbucks ten miles from the north, of the Evergreens; and were magnates +in two different divisions of the county of Mangelwurzelshire. Hipsley, +who is an old baronet, with a bothered estate, did not care to show his +contempt for Hawbuck, who is a new creation, and rich. Hawbuck, on his +part, gives himself patronizing airs to General Sago, who looks upon the +Pontos as little better than paupers. 'Old Lady Blanche,' says Ponto, 'I +hope will leave something to her god-daughter--my second girl--we've all +of us half-poisoned ourselves with taking her physic.' + +Lady Blanche and Lady Rose Fitzague have, the first, a medical, and the +second a literary turn. I am inclined to believe the former had a wet +COMPRESSE around her body, on the occasion when I had the happiness of +meeting her. She doctors everybody in the neighbourhood of which she is +the ornament; and has tried everything on her own person. She went into +Court, and testified publicly her faith in St. John Long: she swore by +Doctor Buchan, she took quantities of Gambouge's Universal Medicine, +and whole boxfuls of Parr's Life Pills. She has cured a multiplicity of +headaches by Squinstone's Eye-snuff; she wears a picture of Hahnemann +in her bracelet and a lock of Priessnitz's hair in a brooch. She talked +about her own complaints and those of her CONFIDANTE for the time being, +to every lady in the room successively, from our hostess down to +Miss Wirt, taking them into corners, and whispering about bronchitis, +hepatitis, St. Vitus, neuralgia, cephalalgia, and so forth. I observed +poor fat Lady Hawbuck in a dreadful alarm after some communication +regarding the state of her daughter Miss Lucy Hawbuck's health, and Mrs. +Sago turned quite yellow, and put down her third glass of Madeira, at a +warning glance from Lady Blanche. + +Lady Rose talked literature, and about the book-club at Guttlebury, and +is very strong in voyages and travels. She has a prodigious interest +in Borneo, and displayed a knowledge of the history of the Punjaub and +Kaffirland that does credit to her memory. Old General Sago, who sat +perfectly silent and plethoric, roused up as from a lethargy when the +former country was mentioned, and gave the company his story about a +hog-hunt at Ramjugger. I observed her ladyship treated with something +like contempt her neighbour the Reverend Lionel Pettipois, a young +divine whom you may track through the country by little 'awakening' +books at half-a-crown a hundred, which dribble out of his pockets +wherever he goes. I saw him give Miss Wirt a sheaf of 'The Little +Washer-woman on Putney Common,' and to Miss Hawbuck a couple of dozen +of 'Meat in the Tray; or the Young Butcher-boy Rescued;' and on paying +a visit to Guttlebury gaol, I saw two notorious fellows waiting their +trial there (and temporarily occupied with a game of cribbage), to whom +his Reverence offered a tract as he was walking over Crackshins Common, +and who robbed him of his purse, umbrella, and cambric handkerchief, +leaving him the tracts to distribute elsewhere. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +'Why, dear Mr. Snob,' said a young lady of rank and fashion (to whom I +present my best compliments), 'if you found everything so SNOBBISH at +the Evergreens, if the pig bored you and the mutton was not to your +liking, and Mrs. Ponto was a humbug, and Miss Wirt a nuisance, with her +abominable piano practice,--why did you stay so long?' + +Ah, Miss, what a question! Have you never heard of gallant British +soldiers storming batteries, of doctors passing nights in plague wards +of lazarettos, and other instances of martyrdom? What do you suppose +induced gentlemen to walk two miles up to the batteries of Sabroan, with +a hundred and fifty thundering guns bowling them down by hundreds?--not +pleasure, surely. What causes your respected father to quit his +comfortable home for his chambers, after dinner, and pore over the most +dreary law papers until long past midnight?, Mademoiselle; duty, which +must be done alike by military, or legal, or literary gents. There's a +power of martyrdom in our profession. + +You won't believe it? Your rosy lips assume a smile of incredulity--a +most naughty and odious expression in a young lady's face. Well, then, +the fact is, that my chambers, No. 24, Pump Court, Temple, were being +painted by the Honourable Society, and Mrs. Slamkin, my laundress, +having occasion to go into Durham to see her daughter, who is married, +and has presented her with the sweetest little grandson--a few weeks +could not be better spent than in rusticating. But ah, how delightful +Pump Court looked when I revisited its well-known chimney-pots! CARI +LUOGHI. Welcome, welcome, O fog and smut! + +But if you think there is no moral in the foregoing account of the +Pontine family, you are, Madam, most painfully mistaken. In this very +chapter we are going to have the moral--why, the whole of the papers +are nothing BUT the moral, setting forth as they do the folly of being a +Snob. + +You will remark that in the Country Snobography my poor friend Ponto has +been held up almost exclusively for the public gaze--and why? Because +we went to no other house? Because other families did not welcome us to +their mahogany? No, no. Sir John Hawbuck of the Haws, Sir John Hipsley +of Briary Hall, don't shut the gates of hospitality: of General Sago's +mulligatawny I could speak from experience. And the two old ladies at +Guttlebury, were they nothing? Do you suppose that an agreeable young +dog, who shall be nameless, would not be made welcome? Don't you know +that people are too glad to see ANYBODY in the country? + +But those dignified personages do not enter into the scheme of the +present work, and are but minor characters of our Snob drama; just as, +in the play, kings and emperors are not half so important as many humble +persons. The DOGE OF VENICE, for instance, gives way to OTHELLO, who is +but a nigger; and the KING OF FRANCE to FALCONBRIDGE, who is a gentleman +of positively no birth at all. So with the exalted characters above +mentioned. I perfectly well recollect that the claret at Hawbuck's was +not by any means so good as that of Hipsley's, while, on the contrary, +some white hermitage at the Haws (by the way, the butler only gave +me half a glass each time) was supernacular. And I remember the +conversations. O Madam, Madam, how stupid they were! The subsoil +ploughing; the pheasants and poaching; the row about the representation +of the county; the Earl of Mangelwurzelshire being at variance with his +relative and nominee, the Honourable Marmaduke Tomnoddy; all these I +could put down, had I a mind to violate the confidence of private +life; and a great deal of conversation about the weather, the +Mangelwurzelshire Hunt, new manures, and eating and drinking, of course. + +But CUI BONO? In these perfectly stupid and honourable families there +is not that Snobbishness which it is our purpose to expose. An ox is an +ox--a great hulking, fat-sided, bellowing, munching Beef. He ruminates +according to his nature, and consumes his destined portion of turnips or +oilcake, until the time comes for his disappearance from the pastures, +to be succeeded by other deep-lunged and fat-ribbed animals. Perhaps +we do not respect an ox. We rather acquiesce in him. The Snob, my dear +Madam, is the Frog that tries to swell himself to ox size. Let us pelt +the silly brute out of his folly. + +Look, I pray you, at the case of my unfortunate friend Ponto, a +good-natured, kindly English gentleman--not over-wise, but quite +passable--fond of port-wine, of his family, of country sports and +agriculture, hospitably minded, with as pretty a little patrimonial +country-house as heart can desire, and a thousand pounds a year. It +is not much; but, ENTRE NOUS, people can live for less, and not +uncomfortably. + +For instance, there is the doctor, whom Mrs. P. does not condescend to +visit: that man educates a mirific family, and is loved by the poor for +miles round: and gives them port-wine for physic and medicine, gratis. +And how those people can get on with their pittance, as Mrs. Ponto says, +is a wonder to HER. + +Again, there is the clergyman, Doctor Chrysostom,--Mrs. P. says they +quarrelled about Puseyism, but I am given to understand it was because +Mrs. C. had the PAS of her at the Haws--you may see what the value of +his living is any day in the 'Clerical Guide;' but you don't know what +he gives away. + +Even Pettipois allows that, in whose eyes the Doctor's surplice is a +scarlet abomination; and so does Pettipois do his duty in his way, and +administer not only his tracts and his talk, but his money and his means +to his people. As a lord's son, by the way, Mrs. Ponto is uncommonly +anxious that he should marry EITHER of the girls whom Lord Gules does +not intend to choose. + +Well, although Pon's income would make up almost as much as that of +these three worthies put together--oh, my dear Madam, see in what +hopeless penury the poor fellow lives! What tenant can look to HIS +forbearance? What poor man can hope for HIS charity? 'Master's the best +of men,' honest Stripes says, 'and when we was in the ridgment a more +free-handed chap didn't live. But the way in which Missus DU scryou, I +wonder the young ladies is alive, that I du!' + +They live upon a fine governess and fine masters, and have clothes made +by Lady Carabas's own milliner; and their brother rides with earls to +cover; and only the best people in the county visit at the Evergreens, +and Mrs. Ponto thinks herself a paragon of wives and mothers, and +a wonder of the world, for doing all this misery and humbug, and +snobbishness, on a thousand a year. + +What an inexpressible comfort it was, my dear Madam, when Stripes put +my portmanteau in the four-wheeled chaise, and (poor P on being touched +with sciatica) drove me over to 'Carabas Arms' at Guttlebury, where we +took leave. There were some bagmen there in the Commercial Room, and one +talked about the house he represented; and another about his dinner, and +a third about the Inns on the road, and so forth--a talk, not very wise, +but honest and to the purpose--about as good as that of the country +gentlemen: and oh, how much pleasanter than listening to Miss Wirt's +show-pieces on the piano, and Mrs. Ponto's genteel cackle about the +fashion and the county families! + + + +CHAPTER XXXII--SNOBBIUM GATHERUM + +WHEN I see the great effect which these papers are producing on an +intelligent public, I have a strong hope that before long we shall have +a regular Snob department in the newspapers, just as we have the +Police Courts and the Court News at present. When a flagrant case of +bone-crushing or Poor-law abuse occurs in the world, who so eloquent +as THE TIMES to point it out? When a gross instance of Snobbishness +happens, why should not the indignant journalist call the public +attention to that delinquency too? + +How, for instance, could that wonderful case of the Earl of Mangelwurzel +and his brother be examined in the Snobbish point of view? Let alone +the hectoring, the bullying, the vapouring, the bad grammar, the mutual +recriminations, lie-givings, challenges, retractations, which abound +in the fraternal dispute--put out of the question these points as +concerning the individual nobleman and his relative, with whose personal +affairs we have nothing to do--and consider how intimately corrupt, how +habitually grovelling and mean, how entirely Snobbish in a word, a whole +county must be which can find no better chiefs or leaders than these two +gentlemen. 'We don't want,' the great county of Mangelwurzelshire seems +to say, 'that a man should be able to write good grammar; or that he +should keep a Christian tongue in his head; or that he should have the +commonest decency of temper, or even a fair share of good sense, in +order to represent us in Parliament. + +All we require is, that a man should be recommended to us by the Earl +of Mangelwurzelshire. And all that we require of the Earl of +Mangelwurzelshire is that he should have fifty thousand a year and hunt +the country.' O you pride of all Snobland! O you crawling, truckling, +self-confessed lackeys and parasites! + +But this is growing too savage: don't let us forget our usual amenity, +and that tone of playfulness and sentiment with which the beloved +reader and writer have pursued their mutual reflections hitherto. Well, +Snobbishness pervades the little Social Farce as well as the great State +Comedy; and the self-same moral is tacked to either. + +There was, for instance, an account in the papers of a young lady who, +misled by a fortune-teller, actually went part of the way to India (as +far as Bagnigge Wells, I think,) in search of a husband who was promised +her there. Do you suppose this poor deluded little soul would have left +her shop for a man below her in rank, or for anything but a darling of +a Captain in epaulets and a red coat. It was her Snobbish sentiment +that misled her, and made her vanities a prey to the swindling +fortune-teller. + +Case 2 was that of Mademoiselle de Saugrenue, 'the interesting young +Frenchwoman with a profusion of jetty ringlets,' who lived for nothing +at a boardinghouse at Gosport, was then conveyed to Fareham gratis: and +being there, and lying on the bed of the good old lady her entertainer, +the dear girl took occasion to rip open the mattress, and steal a +cash-box, with which she fled to London. How would you account for the +prodigious benevolence exercised towards the interesting young French +lady? Was it her jetty ringlets or her charming face?--Bah! Do ladies +love others for having faces and black hair?--she said SHE WAS A +RELATION OF de Saugrenue: talked of her ladyship her aunt, and of +herself as a De Saugrenue. The honest boarding-house people were at her +feet at once. Good, honest, simple, lord-loving children of Snobland. + +Finally, there was the case of 'the Right Honourable Mr. Vernon,' at +York. The Right Honourable was the son of a nobleman, and practised +on an old lady. He procured from her dinners, money, wearing-apparel, +spoons, implicit credence, and an entire refit of linen. Then he cast +his nets over a family of father, mother, and daughters, one of whom he +proposed to marry. The father lent him money, the mother made jams and +pickles for him, the daughters vied with each other in cooking dinners +for the Right Honourable--and what was the end? One day the traitor +fled, with a teapot and a basketful of cold victuals. It was the 'Right +Honourable' which baited the hook which gorged all these greedy, simple +Snobs. Would they have been taken in by a commoner? What old lady is +there, my dear sir, who would take in you and me, were we ever so ill to +do, and comfort us, and clothe us, and give us her money, and her silver +forks? Alas and alas! what mortal man that speaks the truth can hope +for such a landlady? And yet, all these instances of fond and credulous +Snobbishness have occurred in the same week's paper, with who knows how +many score more? + +Just as we had concluded the above remarks comes a pretty little note +sealed with a pretty little butterfly--bearing a northern postmark--and +to the following effect:-- + +'19th November. + +'Mr. Punch,--'Taking great interest in your Snob Papers, we are very +anxious to know under what class of that respectable fraternity you +would designate us. + +'We are three sisters, from seventeen to twenty-two. Our father is +HONESTLY AND TRULY of a very good family (you will say it is Snobbish +to mention that, but I wish to state the plain fact); our maternal +grandfather was an Earl.' (1) + +'We CAN afford to take in a stamped edition of YOU, and all Dickens' +works as fast as they come out, but we do NOT keep such a thing as a +PEERAGE or even a BARONETAGE in the house. + +'We live with every comfort, excellent cellar, &c. &c.; but as we cannot +well afford a butler, we have a neat table-maid (though our father was a +military man, has travelled much, been in the best society, &c.) We HAVE +a coachman and helper, but we don't put the latter into buttons, nor +make them wait at table, like Stripes and Tummus.' (2) + +'We are just the same to persons with a handle to their name as to those +without it. We wear a moderate modicum of crinoline, (3)and are never +limp (4) in the morning. We have good and abundant dinners on CHINA +though we have plate (5), and just as good when alone as with company. + +'Now, my dear MR. PUNCH, will you PLEASE give us a short answer in your +next number, and I will be SO much obliged to you. Nobody knows we are +writing to you, not even our father; nor will we ever tease (6) you +again if you will only give us an answer--just for FUN, now do! + +'If you get as far as this, which is doubtful, you will probably fling +it into the fire. If you do, I cannot help it; but I am of a sanguine +disposition, and entertain a lingering hope. At all events, I shall +be impatient for next Sunday, for you reach us on that day, and I am +ashamed to confess, we CANNOT resist opening you in the carriage driving +home from church. (7) + +'I remain, &c. &c., for myself and sisters. + +Excuse this scrawl, but I always write headlong. (8) + +'P. S.--You were rather stupid last week, don't you think? (9) We keep +no gamekeeper, and yet have always abundant game for friends to shoot, +in spite of the poachers. We never write on perfumed paper--in short, I +can't help thinking that if you knew us you would not think us Snobs.' + +To this I reply in the following manner:--'My dear young ladies, I know +your post-town: and shall be at church there the Sunday AFTER next; +when, will you please to wear a tulip or some little trifle in your +bonnets, so that I may know you? You will recognize me and my dress--a +quiet-looking young fellow, in a white top-coat, a crimson satin +neckcloth, light blue trousers, with glossy tipped boots, and an emerald +breast-pin. I shall have a black crape round my white hat; and my usual +bamboo cane with the richly-gilt knob. I am sorry there will be no time +to get up moustaches between now and next week. + +'From seventeen to two-and-twenty! Ye gods! what ages! Dear young +creatures, I can see you all three. Seventeen suits me, as nearest my +own time of life; but mind, I don't say two-and-twenty is too old. No, +no. And that pretty, roguish, demure, middle one. Peace, peace, thou +silly little fluttering heart! + +'YOU Snobs, dear young ladies! I will pull any man's nose who says so. +There is no harm in being of a good family. You can't help it, poor +dears. What's in a name? What is in a handle to it? I confess openly +that I should not object to being a Duke myself; and between ourselves +you might see a worse leg for a garter. + +'YOU Snobs, dear little good-natured things, no that is, I hope not--I +think not--I won't be too confident--none of us should be--that we are +not Snobs. That very confidence savours of arrogance, and to be arrogant +is to be a Snob. In all the social gradations from sneak to tyrant, +nature has placed a most wondrous and various progeny of Snobs. But are +there no kindly natures, no tender hearts, no souls humble, simple, and +truth-loving? Ponder well on this question, sweet young ladies. And if +you can answer it, as no doubt you can--lucky are you--and lucky the +respected Herr Papa, and lucky the three handsome young gentlemen who +are about to become each others' brothers-in-law.' + + +(1) The introduction of Grandpapa, is I fear, Snobbish. + +(2) That is, as you like. I don't object to buttons in moderation. + +(3) Quite right. + +(4) Bless you! + +(5) Snobbish; and I doubt whether you ought to dine as well alone as +with company. You will be getting too good dinners. + +(6) We like to be teased; but tell Papa. + +(7) O garters and stars! what will Captain Gordon and Exeter Hall say to +this? + +(8) Dear little enthusiast! + +(9) You were never more mistaken, miss, in your life. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII--SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +Everybody of the middle rank who walks through this life with a sympathy +for his companions on the same journey--at any rate, every man who has +been jostling in the world for some three or four lustres--must make +no end of melancholy reflections upon the fate of those victims whom +Society, that is, Snobbishness, is immolating every day. With love and +simplicity and natural kindness Snobbishness is perpetually at war. +People dare not be happy for fear of Snobs. People dare not love for +fear of Snobs. People pine away lonely under the tyranny of Snobs. +Honest kindly hearts dry up and die. Gallant generous lads, blooming +with hearty youth, swell into bloated old-bachelorhood, and burst +and tumble over. Tender girls wither into shrunken decay, and perish +solitary, from whom Snobbishness has cut off the common claim to +happiness and affection with which Nature endowed us all. My heart grows +sad as I see the blundering tyrant's handiwork. As I behold it I swell +with cheap rage, and glow with fury against the Snob. Come down, I say, +thou skulking dulness! Come down, thou stupid bully, and give up thy +brutal ghost! And I arm myself with the sword and spear, and taking +leave of my family, go forth to do battle with that hideous ogre and +giant, that brutal despot in Snob Castle, who holds so many gentle +hearts in torture and thrall. + +When PUNCH is king, I declare there shall be no such thing as old maids +and old bachelors. The Reverend Mr. Malthus shall be burned annually, +instead of Guy Fawkes. Those who don't marry shall go into the +workhouse. It shall be a sin for the poorest not to have a pretty girl +to love him. + +The above reflections came to mind after taking a walk with an old +comrade, Jack Spiggot by name, who is just passing into the state of +old-bachelorhood, after the manly and blooming youth in which I remember +him. Jack was one of the handsomest fellows in England when we entered +together in the Highland Buffs; but I quitted the Cuttykilts early, and +lost sight of him for many years. + +Ah! how changed he is from those days! He wears a waistband now, and has +begun to dye his whiskers. His cheeks, which were red, are now mottled; +his eyes, once so bright and steadfast, are the colour of peeled +plovers' eggs. + +'Are you married, Jack?' says I, remembering how consumedly in love he +was with his cousin Letty Lovelace, when the Cuttykilts were quartered +at Strathbungo some twenty years ago. + +'Married? no,' says he. 'Not money enough. Hard enough to keep myself, +much more a family, on five hundred a year. Come to Dickinson's; there's +some of the best Madeira in London there, my boy.' So we went and talked +over old times. The bill for dinner and wine consumed was prodigious, +and the quantity of brandy-and-water that Jack took showed what a +regular boozer he was. 'A guinea or two guineas. What the devil do I +care what I spend for my dinner?' says he. + +'And Letty Lovelace?' says I. + +Jack's countenance fell. However, he burst into a loud laugh presently. +'Letty Lovelace!' says he. 'She's Letty Lovelace still; but Gad, such a +wizened old woman! She's as thin as a thread-paper; (you remember what a +figure she had:) her nose has got red, and her teeth blue. She's +always ill; always quarrelling with the rest of the family; always +psalm-singing, and always taking pills. Gad, I had a rare escape THERE. +Push round the grog, old boy.' + +Straightway memory went back to the days when Letty was the loveliest +of blooming young creatures: when to hear her sing was to make the heart +jump into your throat; when to see her dance, was better than Montessu +or Noblet (they were the Ballet Queens of those days); when Jack used to +wear a locket of her hair, with a little gold chain round his neck, and, +exhilarated with toddy, after a sederunt of the Cuttykilt mess, used +to pull out this token, and kiss it, and howl about it, to the great +amusement of the bottle-nosed old Major and the rest of the table. + +'My father and hers couldn't put their horses together,' Jack said. 'The +General wouldn't come down with more than six thousand. My governor said +it shouldn't be done under eight. Lovelace told him to go and be hanged, +and so we parted company. They said she was in a decline. Gammon! She's +forty, and as tough and as sour as this bit of lemon-peel. Don't put +much into your punch, Snob my boy. No man CAN stand punch after wine.' + +'And what are your pursuits, Jack?' says I. + +'Sold out when the governor died. Mother lives at Bath. Go down there +once a year for a week. Dreadful slow. Shilling whist. Four sisters--all +unmarried except the youngest--awful work. Scotland in August. Italy in +the winter. Cursed rheumatism. Come to London in March, and toddle +about at the Club, old boy; and we won't go home till maw-aw-rning till +daylight does appear. + +'And here's the wreck of two lives!' mused the present Snobographer, +after taking leave of Jack Spiggot. 'Pretty merry Letty Lovelace's +rudder lost and she cast away, and handsome Jack Spiggot stranded on the +shore like a drunken Trinculo.' + +What was it that insulted Nature (to use no higher name), and perverted +her kindly intentions towards them? What cursed frost was it that +nipped the love that both were bearing, and condemned the girl to sour +sterility, and the lad to selfish old-bachelorhood? It was the infernal +Snob tyrant who governs us all, who says, 'Thou shalt not love without +a lady's maid; thou shalt not marry without a carriage and horses; thou +shalt have no wife in thy heart, and no children on thy knee, without +a page in buttons and a French BONNE; thou shalt go to the devil unless +thou hast a brougham; marry poor, and society shall forsake thee; thy +kinsmen shall avoid thee as a criminal; thy aunts and uncles shall turn +up their eyes and bemoan the sad, sad manner in which Tom or Harry has +thrown himself away.' You, young woman, may sell yourself without shame, +and marry old Croesus; you, young man, may lie away your heart and your +life for a jointure. But if 'you are poor, woe be to you! Society, the +brutal Snob autocrat, consigns you to solitary perdition. Wither, poor +girl, in your garret; rot, poor bachelor, in your Club. + +When I see those graceless recluses--those unnatural monks and nuns of +the order of St. Beelzebub, (1) my hatred for Snobs, and their worship, +and their idols, passes all continence. Let us hew down that man-eating +Juggernaut, I say, that hideous Dagon; and I glow with the heroic +courage of Tom Thumb, and join battle with the giant Snob. + +(1) This, of course, is understood to apply only to those unmarried +persons whom a mean and Snobbish fear about money has kept from +fulfilling their natural destiny. Many persons there are devoted to +celibacy because they cannot help it. Of these a man would be a brute +who spoke roughly. Indeed, after Miss O'Toole's conduct to the writer, +he would be the last to condemn. But never mind, these are personal +matters. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV--SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +In that noble romance called 'Ten Thousand a Year,' I remember a +profoundly pathetic description of the Christian manner in which the +hero, Mr. Aubrey, bore his misfortunes. After making a display of the +most florid and grandiloquent resignation, and quitting his country +mansion, the writer supposes Aubrey to come to town in a post-chaise and +pair, sitting bodkin probably between his wife and sister. It is about +seven o'clock, carriages are rattling about, knockers are thundering, +and tears bedim the fine eyes of Kate and Mrs. Aubrey as they think that +in happier times at this hour--their Aubrey used formerly to go out to +dinner to the houses of the aristocracy his friends. This is the gist of +the passage--the elegant words I forget. But the noble, noble sentiment +I shall always cherish and remember. What can be more sublime than the +notion of a great man's relatives in tears about--his dinner? With a few +touches, what author ever more happily described A Snob? + +We were reading the passage lately at the house of my friend, Raymond +Gray, Esquire, Barrister-at-Law, an ingenuous youth without the least +practice, but who has luckily a great share of good spirits, which +enables him to bide his time, and bear laughingly his humble position in +the world. Meanwhile, until it is altered, the stern laws of necessity +and the expenses of the Northern Circuit oblige Mr. Gray to live in a +very tiny mansion in a very queer small square in the airy neighbourhood +of Gray's Inn Lane. + +What is the more remarkable is, that Gray has a wife there. Mrs. +Gray was a Miss Harley Baker: and I suppose I need not say THAT is +a respectable family. Allied to the Cavendishes, the Oxfords, the +Marrybones, they still, though rather DECHUS from their original +splendour, hold their heads as high as any. Mrs. Harley Baker, I know, +never goes to church without John behind to carry her prayer-book; nor +will Miss Welbeck, her sister, walk twenty yards a-shopping without the +protection of Figby, her sugar-loaf page; though the old lady is as ugly +as any woman in the parish and as tall and whiskery as a grenadier. +The astonishment is, how Emily Harley Baker could have stooped to marry +Raymond Gray. She, who was the prettiest and proudest of the family; +she, who refused Sir Cockle Byles, of the Bengal Service; she, who +turned up her little nose at Essex Temple, Q.C., and connected with +the noble house of Albyn; she, who had but 4,000L. POUR TOUT POTAGE, +to marry a man who had scarcely as much more. A scream of wrath and +indignation was uttered by the whole family when they heard of this +MESALLIANCE. Mrs. Harley Baker never speaks of her daughter now but +with tears in her eyes, and as a ruined creature. Miss Welbeck says, 'I +consider that man a villain;' and has denounced poor good-natured Mrs. +Perkins as a swindler, at whose ball the young people met for the first +time. + +Mr. and Mrs. Gray, meanwhile, live in Gray's Inn Lane aforesaid, with +a maid-servant and a nurse, whose hands are very full, and in a most +provoking and unnatural state of happiness. They have never once thought +of crying about their dinner, like the wretchedly puling and Snobbish +womankind of my favourite Snob Aubrey, of 'Ten Thousand a Year;' but, +on the contrary, accept such humble victuals as fate awards them with a +most perfect and thankful good grace--nay, actually have a portion for a +hungry friend at times--as the present writer can gratefully testify. + +I was mentioning these dinners, and some admirable lemon puddings which +Mrs. Gray makes, to our mutual friend the great Mr. Goldmore, the East +India Director, when that gentleman's face assumed an expression +of almost apoplectic terror, and he gasped out, 'What! Do they give +dinners?' He seemed to think it a crime and a wonder that such people +should dine at all, and that it was their custom to huddle round their +kitchen-fire over a bone and a crust. Whenever he meets them in society, +it is a matter of wonder to him (and he always expresses his surprise +very loud) how the lady can appear decently dressed, and the man have an +unpatched coat to his back. I have heard him enlarge upon this poverty +before the whole room at the 'Conflagrative Club,' to which he and I and +Gray have the honour to belong. + +We meet at the Club on most days. At half-past four, Goldmore arrives +in St. James's Street, from the City, and you may see him reading the +evening papers in the bow-window of the Club, which enfilades +Pall Mall--a large plethoric man, with a bunch of seals in a large +bow-windowed light waistcoat. He has large coat-tails, stuffed with +agents' letters and papers about companies of which he is a Director. +His seals jingle as he walks. I wish I had such a man for an uncle, and +that he himself were childless. I would love and cherish him, and be +kind to him. + +At six o'clock in the full season, when all the world is in St. James's +Street, and the carriages are cutting in and out among the cabs on the +stand, and the tufted dandies are showing their listless faces out of +'White's,' and you see respectable grey-headed gentlemen waggling their +heads to each other through the plate-glass windows of 'Arthur's:' and +the red-coats wish to be Briareian, so as to hold all the gentlemen's +horses; and that wonderful red-coated royal porter is sunning himself +before Marlborough House;--at the noon of London time, you see a +light-yellow carriage with black horses, and a coachman in a tight +floss-silk wig, and two footmen in powder and white and yellow liveries, +and a large woman inside in shot-silk, a poodle, and a pink parasol, +which drives up to the gate of the Conflagrative, and the page goes +and says to Mr. Goldmore (who is perfectly aware of the fact, as he +is looking out of the windows with about forty other 'Conflagrative' +bucks), 'Your carriage, Sir.' G. wags his head. 'Remember, eight o'clock +precisely,' says he to Mulligatawney, the other East India Director; +and, ascending the carriage, plumps down by the side of Mrs. Goldmore +for a drive in the Park, and then home to Portland Place. As the +carriage whirls off, all the young bucks in the Club feel a secret +elation. It is a part of their establishment, as it were. That carriage +belongs to their Club, and their Club belongs to them. They follow the +equipage with interest; they eye it knowingly as they see it in the +Park. But halt! we are not come to the Club Snobs yet. O my brave Snobs, +what a flurry there will be among you when those papers appear! + +Well, you may judge, from the above description, what sort of a man +Goldmore is. A dull and pompous Leadenhall Street Croesus, good-natured +withal, and affable--cruelly affable. 'Mr. Goldmore can never forget,' +his lady used to say, 'that it was Mrs. Gray's Grandfather who sent +him to India; and though that young woman has made the most imprudent +marriage in the world, and has left her station in society, her husband +seems an ingenious and laborious young man, and we shall do everything +in our power to be of use to him.' So they used to ask the Grays to +dinner twice or thrice in a season, when, by way of increasing the +kindness, Buff, the butler, is ordered to hire a fly to convey them to +and from Portland Place. + +Of course I am much too good-natured a friend of both parties not to +tell Gray of Goldmore's opinion in him, and the nabob's astonishment +at the of the briefless barrister having any dinner at all. Indeed, +Goldmore's saying became a joke against Gray amongst us wags at the +Club, and we used to ask him when he tasted meat last? whether we should +bring him home something from dinner? and cut a thousand other mad +pranks with him in our facetious way. + +One day, then, coming home from the Club, Mr. Gray conveyed to his wife +the astounding information that he had asked Goldmore to dinner. + +'My love,' says Mrs. Gray, in a tremor, 'how could you be so cruel? Why, +the dining-room won't hold Mrs. Goldmore.' + +'Make your mind easy, Mrs. Gray; her ladyship is in Paris. It is only +Croesus that's coming, and we are going to the play afterwards--to +Sadler's Wells. Goldmore said at the Club that he thought Shakspeare was +a great dramatic poet, and ought to be patronized; whereupon, fired with +enthusiasm, I invited him to our banquet.' + +'Goodness gracious! what CAN we give him for dinner? He has two French +cooks; you know Mrs. Goldmore is always telling us about them; and he +dines with Aldermen every day.' + +'“A plain leg of mutton, my Lucy, I prythee get ready at three; Have it +tender, and smoking, and juicy, And what better meat can there be?”' + +says Gray, quoting my favourite poet. + +'But the cook is ill; and you know that horrible Pattypan the +pastrycook's---' + +'Silence, Frau!' says Gray, in a deep tragedy voice. 'I will have the +ordering of this repast. Do all things as I bid thee. Invite our friend +Snob here to partake of the feast. Be mine the task of procuring it.' + +'Don't be expensive, Raymond,' says his wife. + +'Peace, thou timid partner of the briefless one. Goldmore's dinner shall +be suited to our narrow means. Only do thou in all things my commands.' +And seeing by the peculiar expression of the rogue's countenance, that +some mad waggery was in preparation, I awaited the morrow with anxiety. + + + +CHAPTER XXXV--SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +Punctual to the hour--(by the way, I cannot omit to mark down my hatred, +scorn, and indignation towards those miserable Snobs who come to dinner +at nine when they are asked at eight, in order to make a sensation in +the company. May the loathing of honest folks, the backbiting of others, +the curses of cooks, pursue these wretches, and avenge the society on +which they trample!)--Punctual, I say, to the hour of five, which Mr. +and Mrs. Raymond Gray had appointed, a youth of an elegant appearance, +in a neat evening-dress, whose trim whiskers indicated neatness, whose +light step denoted activity (for in sooth he was hungry, and always is +at the dinner hour, whatsoever that hour may be), and whose rich +golden hair, curling down his shoulders, was set off by a perfectly new +four-and-ninepenny silk hat, was seen wending his way down Bittlestone +Street, Bittlestone Square, Gray's Inn. The person in question, I need +not say, was Mr. Snob. HE was never late when invited to dine. But to +proceed my narrative:-- + +Mr. Snob may have flattered himself that he made a sensation as he +strutted down Bittlestone with his richly gilt knobbed cane (and indeed +I vow I saw heads looking at me from Miss Squilsby's, the brass-plated +milliner opposite Raymond Gray's, who has three silver-paper bonnets, +and two fly-blown prints of fashion in the window), yet what was the +emotion produced by my arrival, compared to that which the little street +thrilled, when at five minutes past five the floss-wigged coachman, the +yellow hammer-cloth and flunkeys, the black horses and blazing silver +harness of Mr. Goldmore whirled down the street! + +It is a very little street, of very little houses, most of them with +very large brass plates like Miss Squilsby's. Coal-merchants, architects +and surveyors, two surgeons, a solicitor, a dancing-master, and of +course several house-agents, occupy the houses--little two-storeyed +edifices with little stucco porticoes. Goldmore's carriage overtopped +the roofs almost; the first floors might shake hands with Croesus as +he lolled inside; all the windows of those first floors thronged +with children and women in a twinkling. There was Mrs. Hammerly in +curl-papers; Mrs. Saxby with her front awry; Mr. Wriggles peering +through the gauze curtains, holding the while his hot glass of +rum-and-water--in fine, a tremendous commotion in Bittlestone Street, as +the Goldmore carriage drove up to Mr. Raymond Gray's door. + +'How kind it is of him to come with BOTH the footmen!' says little Mrs. +Gray, peeping at the vehicle too. The huge domestic, descending from his +perch, gave a rap at the door which almost drove in the building. All +the heads were out; the sun was shining; the very organ-boy paused; the +footman, the coach, and Goldmore's red face and white waistcoat were +blazing in splendour. The herculean plushed one went back to open the +carriage-door. + +Raymond Gray opened his--in his shirt-sleeves. He ran up to the +carriage. 'Come in, Goldmore,' says he; 'just in time, my boy. Open +the door, What-d'ye-call'um, and let your master out,'--and +What-d'ye-call'um obeyed mechanically, with a face of wonder and +horror, only to be equalled by the look of stupefied astonishment which +ornamented the purple countenance of his master. + +'Wawt taim will you please have the CAGE, sir?' says What-d'ye-call'um, +in that peculiar, unspellable, inimitable, flunkefied pronunciation +which forms one of the chief charms of existence. + +Best have it to the theatre at night,' Gray exclaims; 'it is but a step +from here to the Wells, and we can walk there. I've got tickets for all. +Be at Sadler's Wells at eleven.' + +'Yes, at eleven,' exclaims Goldmore, perturbedly, and walks with a +flurried step into the house, as if he were going to execution (as +indeed he was, with that wicked Gray as a Jack Ketch over him). The +carriage drove away, followed by numberless eyes from doorsteps and +balconies; its appearance is still a wonder in Bittlestone Street. + +'Go in there, and amuse yourself with Snob,' says Gray, opening the +little drawing-room door. 'I'll call out as soon as the chops are ready. +Fanny's below, seeing to the pudding.' + +'Gracious mercy!' says Goldmore to me, quite confidentially, 'how could +he ask us? I really had no idea of this--this utter destitution.' + +'Dinner, dinner!' roars out Gray, from the diningroom, whence issued a +great smoking and frying; and entering that apartment we find Mrs. Gray +ready to receive us, and looking perfectly like a Princess who, by +some accident, had a bowl of potatoes in her hand, which vegetables she +placed on the table. Her husband 'was meanwhile cooking mutton-chops on +a gridiron over the fire. + +Fanny has made the roly-poly pudding,' says he; the chops are my part. +Here's a fine one; try this, Goldmore.' And he popped a fizzing cutlet +on that gentleman's plate. What words, what notes of exclamation can +describe the nabob's astonishment? + +The tablecloth was a very old one, darned in a score places. There was +mustard in a teacup, a silver fork for Goldmore--all ours were iron. + +'I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth,' says Gray, gravely. +'That fork is the only one we have. Fanny has it generally.' + +'Raymond!'--cries Mrs. Gray, with an imploring face. 'She was used to +better things, you know: and I hope one day to get her a dinner-service. +I'm told the electro-plate is uncommonly good. Where the deuce IS +that boy with the beer? And now,' said he, springing up, 'I'll be a +gentleman.' And so he put on his coat, and sat down quite gravely, with +four fresh mutton-chops which he had by this time broiled. + +'We don't have meat every day, Mr. Goldmore,' he continued, 'and it's a +treat to me to get a dinner like this. You little know, you gentlemen of +England, who live at home at ease, what hardships briefless barristers +endure.' + +'Gracious mercy!' says Mr. Goldmore. + +'Where's the half-and-half? Fanny, go over to the 'Keys' and get the +beer. Here's sixpence.' And what was our astonishment when Fanny got up +as if to go! + +'Gracious mercy! let ME,' cries Goldmore. + +'Not for worlds, my dear sir. She's used to it. They wouldn't serve +you as well as they serve her. Leave her alone. Law bless you!' Raymond +said, with astounding composure. And Mrs. Gray left the room, and +actually came back with a tray on which there was a pewter flagon of +beer. Little Polly (to whom, at her christening, I had the honour +of presenting a silver mug EX OFFICIO) followed with a couple of +tobacco-pipes, and the queerest roguish look in her round little chubby +face. + +'Did you speak to Tapling about the gin, Fanny, my dear?' Gray asked, +after bidding Polly put the pipes on the chimney-piece, which that +little person had some difficulty in reaching. 'The last was turpentine, +and even your brewing didn't make good punch of it.' + +'You would hardly suspect, Goldmore, that my wife, a Harley Baker, would +ever make gin-punch? I think my mother-in-law would commit suicide if +she saw her.' + +'Don't be always laughing at mamma, Raymond,' says Mrs. Gray. + +'Well, well, she wouldn't die, and I DON'T wish she would. And you don't +make gin-punch, and you don't like it either and--Goldmore do you drink +your beer out of the glass, or out of the pewter?' + +'Gracious mercy!' ejaculates Croesus once more, as little Polly, taking +the pot with both her little bunches of hands, offers it, smiling, to +that astonished Director. + +And so, in a word, the dinner commenced, and was presently ended in a +similar fashion. Gray pursued his unfortunate guest with the most queer +and outrageous description of his struggles, misery, and poverty. He +described how he cleaned the knives when they were first married; and +how he used to drag the children in a little cart; how his wife could +toss pancakes; and what parts of his dress she made. He told Tibbits, +his clerk (who was in fact the functionary who had brought the beer from +the public-house, which Mrs. Fanny had fetched from the neighbouring +apartment)--to fetch 'the bottle of port-wine,' when the dinner was +over; and told Goldmore as wonderful a history about the way in which +that bottle of wine had come into his hands as any of his former stories +had been. When the repast was all over, and it was near time to move +to the play, and Mrs. Gray had retired, and we were sitting ruminating +rather silently over the last glasses of the port, Gray suddenly breaks +the silence by slapping Goldmore on the shoulder, and saying, 'Now, +Goldmore, tell me something.' + +'What?' asks Croesus. + +'Haven't you had a good dinner?' + +Goldmore started, as if a sudden truth had just dawned upon him. He HAD +had a good dinner; and didn't know it until then. The three mutton-chops +consumed by him were best of the mutton kind; the potatoes were perfect +of their order; as for the rolypoly, it was too good. The porter was +frothy and cool, and the port-wine was worthy of the gills of a bishop. +I speak with ulterior views; for there is more in Gray's cellar. + +'Well,' says Goldmore, after a pause, during which he took time to +consider the momentous question Gray put to him--' 'Pon my word--now +you say so--I--I have--I really have had a monsous good dinnah--monsous +good, upon my ward! Here's your health, Gray my boy, and your amiable +lady; and when Mrs. Goldmore comes back, I hope we shall see you more in +Portland Place.' And with this the time came for the play, and we went +to see Mr. Phelps at Sadler's Wells. The best of this story (for the +truth of every word of which I pledge my honour) is, that after this +banquet, which Goldmore enjoyed so, the honest fellow felt a prodigious +compassion and regard for the starving and miserable giver of the feast, +and determined to help him in his profession. And being a Director of +the newly-established Antibilious Life Assurance Company, he has had +Gray appointed Standing Counsel, with a pretty annual fee; and +only yesterday, in an appeal from Bombay (Buckmuckjee Bobbachee v. +Ramchowder-Bahawder) in the Privy Council, Lord Brougham complimented +Mr. Gray, who was in the case, on his curious and exact knowledge of the +Sanscrit language. + +Whether he knows Sanscrit or not, I can't say; but Goldmore got him the +business; and so I cannot help having a lurking regard for that pompous +old Bigwig. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI--SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +'We Bachelors in Clubs are very much obliged to you,' says my old school +and college companion, Essex Temple, 'for the opinion which you hold of +us. You call us selfish, purple-faced, bloated, and other pretty names. +You state, in the simplest possible terms, that we shall go to the +deuce. You bid us rot in loneliness, and deny us all claims to honesty, +conduct, decent Christian life. Who are you, Mr. Snob, to judge us. Who +are you, with your infernal benevolent smirk and grin, that laugh at all +our generation? + +'I will tell you my case,' says Essex Temple; 'mine and my sister +Polly's, and you may make what you like of it; and sneer at old maids, +and bully old bachelors, if you will. + +'I will whisper to you confidentially that my sister was engaged to +Serjeant Shirker--a fellow whose talents one cannot deny, and be hanged +to them, but whom I have always known to be mean, selfish, and a prig. +However, women don't see these faults in the men whom Love throws in +their way. Shirker, who has about as much warmth as an eel, made up to +Polly years and years ago, and was no bad match for a briefless +barrister, as he was then. + +Have you ever read Lord Eldon's Life? Do you remember how the sordid old +Snob narrates his going out to purchase twopence-worth of sprats, which +he and Mrs. Scott fried between them? And how he parades his humility, +and exhibits his miserable poverty--he who, at that time, must have been +making a thousand pounds a year? Well, Shirker was just as proud of his +prudence--just as thankful for his own meanness, and of course would not +marry without a competency. Who so honourable? Polly waited, and waited +faintly, from year to year. HE wasn't sick at heart; HIS passion never +disturbed his six hours' sleep, or kept his ambition out of mind. He +would rather have hugged an attorney any day than have kissed Polly, +though she was one of the prettiest creatures in the world; and while +she was pining alone upstairs, reading over the stock of half-a-dozen +frigid letters that the confounded prig had condescended to write +to her, HE, be sure, was never busy with anything but his briefs in +chambers--always frigid, rigid, self-satisfied, and at his duty. The +marriage trailed on year after year, while Mr. Serjeant Shirker grew to +be the famous lawyer he is. + +'Meanwhile, my younger brother, Pump Temple, who was in the 120th +Hussars, and had the same little patrimony which fell to the lot of +myself and Polly, must fall in love with our cousin, Fanny Figtree, and +marry her out of hand. You should have seen the wedding! Six +bridesmaids in pink, to hold the fan, bouquet, gloves, scent-bottle, +and pocket-handkerchief of the bride; basketfuls of white favours in +the vestry, to be pinned on to the footmen and horses; a genteel +congregation of curious acquaintance in the pews, a shabby one of poor +on the steps; all the carriages of all our acquaintance, whom Aunt +Figtree had levied for the occasion; and of course four horses for Mr. +Pump's bridal vehicle. + +'Then comes the breakfast, or DEJEUNER, if you please, with a brass band +in the street, and policemen to keep order. The happy bridegroom +spends about a year's income in dresses for the bridesmaids and +pretty presents; and the bride must have a TROUSSEAU of laces, satins, +jewel-boxes and tomfoolery, to make her fit to be a lieutenant's wife. +There was no hesitation about Pump. He flung about his money as if it +had been dross; and Mrs. P. Temple, on the horse Tom Tiddler, which her +husband gave her, was the most dashing of military women at Brighton or +Dublin. + +How old Mrs. Figtree used to bore me and Polly with stories of Pump's +grandeur and the noble company he kept! Polly lives with the Figtrees, +as I am not rich enough to keep a home for her. + +'Pump and I have always been rather distant. Not having the slightest +notions about horseflesh, he has a natural contempt for me; and in our +mother's lifetime, when the good old lady was always paying his debts +and petting him, I'm not sure there was not a little jealousy. It used +to be Polly that kept the peace between us. + +'She went to Dublin to visit Pump, and brought back grand accounts +of his doings--gayest man about town--Aide-de-Camp to the +Lord-Lieutenant--Fanny admired everywhere--Her Excellency godmother to +the second boy: the eldest with a string of aristocratic Christian-names +that made the grandmother wild with delight. Presently Fanny and Pump +obligingly came to London, where the third was born. + +'Polly was godmother to this, and who so loving as she and Pump now? +“Oh, Essex,” says she to me, “he is so good, so generous, so fond of his +family; so handsome; who can help loving him, and pardoning his little +errors?” One day, while Mrs. Pump was yet in the upper regions, and +Doctor Fingerfee's brougham at her door every day, having business at +Guildhall, whom should I meet in Cheapside but Pump and Polly? The poor +girl looked more happy and rosy than I have seen her these twelve years. +Pump, on the contrary, was rather blushing and embarrassed. + +'I couldn't be mistaken in her face and its look of mischief and +triumph. She had been committing some act of sacrifice. I went to the +family stockbroker. She had sold out two thousand pounds that morning +and given them to Pump. Quarrelling was useless--Pump had the money; he +was off to Dublin by the time I reached his mother's, and Polly radiant +still. He was going to make his fortune; he was going to embark the +money in the Bog of Allen--I don't know what. The fact is, he was going +to pay his losses upon the last Manchester steeple-chase, and I leave +you to imagine how much principal or interest poor Polly ever saw back +again. + +'It was more than half her fortune, and he has had another thousand +since from her. Then came efforts to stave off ruin and prevent +exposure; struggles on all our parts, and sacrifices, that' (here Mr. +Essex Temple began to hesitate)--'that needn't be talked of; but they +are of no more use than such sacrifices ever are. Pump and his wife are +abroad--I don't like to ask where; Polly has the three children, and Mr. +Serjeant Shirker has formally written to break off an engagement, on the +conclusion of which Miss Temple must herself have speculated, when she +alienated the greater part of her fortune. + +'And here's your famous theory of poor marriages!' Essex Temple cries, +concluding the above history. 'How do you know that I don't want to +marry myself? How do you dare sneer at my poor sister? What are we +but martyrs of the reckless marriage system which Mr. Snob, forsooth, +chooses to advocate?' And he thought he had the better of the argument, +which, strange to say, is not my opinion. + +But for the infernal Snob-worship, might not every one of these people +be happy? If poor Polly's happiness lay in linking her tender arms round +such a heartless prig as the sneak who has deceived her, she might have +been happy now--as happy as Raymond Raymond in the ballad, with the +stone statue by his side. She is wretched because Mr. Serjeant Shirker +worships money and ambition, and is a Snob and a coward. + +If the unfortunate Pump Temple and his giddy hussy of a wife have ruined +themselves, and dragged down others into their calamity, it is because +they loved rank, and horses, and plate, and carriages, and COURT GUIDES, +and millinery, and would sacrifice all to attain those objects. + +And who misguides them? If the world were more simple, would not those +foolish people follow the fashion? Does not the world love COURT +GUIDES, and millinery, and plate, and carriages? Mercy on us! Read the +fashionable intelligence; read the COURT CIRCULAR; read the genteel +novels; survey mankind, from Pimlico to Red Lion Square, and see how the +Poor Snob is aping the Rich Snob; how the Mean Snob is grovelling at the +feet of the Proud Snob; and the Great Snob is lording it over his humble +brother. Does the idea of equality ever enter Dives' head? Will it ever? +Will the Duchess of Fitzbattleaxe (I like a good name) ever believe that +Lady Croesus, her next-door neighbour in Belgrave Square, is as good a +lady as her Grace? Will Lady Croesus ever leave off pining the Duchess's +parties, and cease patronizing Mrs. Broadcloth whose husband has not got +his Baronetcy yet? Will Mrs. Broadcloth ever heartily shake hands with +Mrs. Seedy, and give up those odious calculations about poor dear Mrs. +Seedy's income? Will Mrs. Seedy who is starving in her great house, go +and live comfortably in a little one, or in lodgings? Will her landlady, +Miss Letsam, ever stop wondering at the familiarity of tradespeople, or +rebuking the insolence of Suky, the maid, who wears flowers under her +bonnet like a lady? + +But why hope, why wish for such times? Do I wish all Snobs to perish? Do +I wish these Snob papers to determine? Suicidal fool, art not thou, too, +a Snob and a brother? + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII--CLUB SNOBS + +As I wish to be particularly agreeable to the ladies (to whom I make my +most humble obeisance), we will now, if you please, commence maligning +a class of Snobs against whom, I believe, most female minds are +embittered--I mean Club Snobs. I have very seldom heard even the most +gentle and placable woman speak without a little feeling of bitterness +against those social institutions, those palaces swaggering in St. +James's, which are open to the men; while the ladies have but their +dingy three-windowed brick boxes in Belgravia or in Paddingtonia, or in +the region between the road of Edgware and that of Gray's Inn. + +In my grandfather's time it used to be Freemasonry that roused their +anger. It was my grand-aunt (whose portrait we still have in the family) +who got into the clock-case at the Royal Rosicrucian Lodge at Bungay, +Suffolk, to spy the proceedings of the Society, of which her husband +was a member, and being frightened by the sudden whirring and striking +eleven of the clock (just as the Deputy-Grand-Master was bringing in the +mystic gridiron for the reception of a neophyte), rushed out into the +midst of the lodge assembled; and was elected, by a desperate unanimity, +Deputy-Grand-Mistress for life. Though that admirable and courageous +female never subsequently breathed a word with regard to the secrets +of the initiation, yet she inspired all our family with such a terror +regarding the mysteries of Jachin and Boaz, that none of our family have +ever since joined the Society, or worn the dreadful Masonic insignia. + +It is known that Orpheus was torn to pieces by some justly indignant +Thracian ladies for belonging to an Harmonic Lodge. 'Let him go back +to Eurydice,' they said, 'whom he is pretending to regret so.' But the +history is given in Dr. Lempriere's elegant dictionary in a manner much +more forcible than any this feeble pen can attempt. At once, then, and +without verbiage, let us take up this subject-matter of Clubs. + +Clubs ought not, in my mind, to be permitted to bachelors. If my friend +of the Cuttykilts had not our club, the 'Union Jack,' to go to (I belong +to the 'U.J. and nine other similar institutions), who knows but he +never would be a bachelor at this present moment? Instead of being made +comfortable, and cockered up with every luxury, as they are at Clubs, +bachelors ought to be rendered profoundly miserable, in my opinion. +Every encouragement should be given to the rendering their spare time +disagreeable. There can be no more odious object, according to my +sentiments, than young Smith in the pride of health, commanding his +dinner of three courses; than middle-aged Jones wallowing (as I may +say) in an easy padded arm-chair, over the delicious novel or brilliant +magazine; or than old Brown, that selfish old reprobate for whom mere +literature has no charms, stretched on the best sofa, sitting on the +second edition of THE TIMES, having the MORNING CHRONICLE between his +knees, the HERALD pushed in between his coat and waistcoat, the STANDARD +under his arm, the GLOBE under the other pinion, and the DAILY NEWS +in perusal. 'I'll trouble you for PUNCH, Mr. Wiggins' says the +unconscionable old gormandiser, interrupting our friend, who is laughing +over the periodical in question. + +This kind of selfishness ought not to be. No, no. Young Smith, instead +of his dinner and his wine, ought to be, where?--at the festive +tea-table, to be sure, by the side of Miss Higgs, sipping the bohea, or +tasting the harmless muffin; while old Mrs. Higgs looks on, pleased at +their innocent dalliance, and my friend Miss Wirt, the governess, is +performing Thalberg's last sonata in treble X., totally unheeded, at the +piano. + +Where should the middle-aged Jones be? At his time of life, he ought +to be the father of a family. At such an hour--say, at nine o'clock at +night--the nursery-bell should have just rung the children to bed. He +and Mrs. J. ought to be, by rights, seated on each side of the fire by +the dining-room table, a bottle of port-wine between them, not so full +as it was an hour since. Mrs. J. has had two glasses; Mrs. Grumble +(Jones's mother-in-law) has had three; Jones himself has finished the +rest, and dozes comfortably until bed-time. + +And Brown, that old newspaper-devouring miscreant, what right has HE at +a club at a decent hour of night? He ought to be playing his rubber with +Miss MacWhirter, his wife, and the family apothecary. His candle ought +to be brought to him at ten o'clock, and he should retire to rest just +as the young people were thinking of a dance. How much finer, simpler, +nobler are the several employments I have sketched out for these +gentlemen than their present nightly orgies at the horrid Club. + +And, ladies, think of men who do not merely frequent the dining-room and +library, but who use other apartments of those horrible dens which it +is my purpose to batter down; think of Cannon, the wretch, with his coat +off, at his age and size, clattering the balls over the billiard-table +all night, and making bets with that odious Captain Spot!--think of +Pam in a dark room with Bob Trumper, Jack Deuceace, and Charley Vole, +playing, the poor dear misguided wretch, guinea points and five pounds +on the rubber!--above all, think--oh, think of that den of abomination, +which, I am told, has been established in SOME clubs, called THE +SMOKING-ROOM,--think of the debauchees who congregate there, the +quantities of reeking whisky-punch or more dangerous sherry-cobbler +which they consume;--think of them coming home at cock-crow and letting +themselves into the quiet house with the Chubb key;--think of them, the +hypocrites, taking off their insidious boots before they slink upstairs, +the children sleeping overhead, the wife of their bosom alone with +the waning rushlight in the two-pair front--that chamber so soon to +be rendered hateful by the smell of their stale cigars: I am not an +advocate of violence; I am not, by nature, of an incendiary turn of +mind: but if, my dear ladies, you are for assassinating Mr. Chubb and +burning down Club-houses in St. James's, there is ONE Snob at who will +not think the worse of you. + +The only men who, as I opine, ought to be allowed the use of Clubs, are +married men without a profession. The continual presence of these in a +house cannot be thought, even by the most loving of wives, desirable. +Say the girls are beginning to practise their music, which in an +honourable English family, ought to occupy every young gentlewoman three +hours; it would be rather hard to call upon poor papa to sit in the +drawing-room all that time, and listen to the interminable discords and +shrieks which are elicited from the miserable piano during the above +necessary operation. A man with a good ear, especially, would go mad, if +compelled daily to submit to this horror. + +Or suppose you have a fancy to go to the milliner's, or to Howell and +James's, it is manifest, my dear Madam, that your husband is much better +at the Club during these operations than by your side in the carriage, +or perched in wonder upon one of the stools at Shawl and Gimcrack's, +whilst young counter-dandies are displaying their wares. + +This sort of husbands should be sent out after breakfast, and if not +Members of Parliament, or Directors of a Railroad, or an Insurance +Company, should be put into their clubs, and told to remain there until +dinner-time. No sight is more agreeable to my truly regulated mind than +to see the noble characters so worthily employed. Whenever I pass by +St. James's Street, having the privilege, like the rest of the world, of +looking in at the windows of 'Blight's,' or 'Foodle's,' or 'Snook's,' +or the great bay at the 'Contemplative Club,' I behold with respectful +appreciation the figures within--the honest rosy old fogies, the mouldy +old dandies, the waist-belts and glossy wigs and tight cravats of those +most vacuous and respectable men. Such men are best there during the +day-time surely. When you part with them, dear ladies, think of the +rapture consequent on their return. You have transacted your household +affairs; you have made your purchases; you have paid your visits; you +have aired your poodle in the Park; your French maid has completed the +toilette which renders you so ravishingly beautiful by candlelight, and +you are fit to make home pleasant to him who has been absent all day. + +Such men surely ought to have their Clubs, and we will not class them +among Club Snobs therefore:--on whom let us reserve our attack for the +next chapter. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII--CLUB SNOBS + +Such a Sensation has been created in the Clubs by the appearance of the +last paper on Club Snobs, as can't but be complimentary to me who am one +of their number. + +I belong to many Clubs. The 'Union Jack,' the 'Sash and +Marlin-spike'--Military Clubs. 'The True Blue,' the 'No Surrender,' +the 'Blue and Buff,' the 'Guy Fawkes,' and the 'Cato Street'--Political +Clubs. 'The Brummel' and the 'Regent'--Dandy Clubs. The 'Acropolis,' the +'Palladium,' the 'Areopagus,' the 'Pnyx' the 'Pentelicus,' the 'Ilissus' +and the 'Poluphloisboio Thalasses'--Literary Clubs. I never could make +out how the latter set of Clubs got their names; I don't know Greek for +one, and I wonder how many other members of those institutions do? Ever +since the Club Snobs have been announced, I observe a sensation created +on my entrance into any one of these places. Members get up and hustle +together; they nod, they scowl, as they glance towards the present Snob. +'Infernal impudent jackanapes! If he shows me up,' says Colonel Bludyer, +'I'll break every bone in his skin.' 'I told you what would come of +admitting literary men into the Club,' says Ranville Ranville to his +colleague, Spooney, of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office. 'These people +are very well in their proper places, and as a public man, I make a +point of shaking hands with them, and that sort of thing; but to have +one's privacy obtruded upon by such people is really too much. Come +along, Spooney,' and the pair of prigs retire superciliously. + +As I came into the coffee-room at the 'No Surrender,' old Jawkins was +holding out to a knot of men, who were yawning, as usual. There he +stood, waving the STANDARD, and swaggering before the fire. 'What,' says +he, 'did I tell Peel last year? If you touch the Corn Laws, you touch +the Sugar Question; if you touch the Sugar, you touch the Tea. I am no +monopolist. I am a liberal man, but I cannot forget that I stand on +the brink of a precipice; and if were to have Free Trade, give me +reciprocity. And what was Sir Robert Peel's answer to me? “Mr. Jawkins,” + he said--' + +Here Jawkins's eye suddenly turning on your humble servant, he stopped +his sentence, with a guilty look--his stale old stupid sentence, which +every one of us at the Club has heard over and over again. + +Jawkins is a most pertinacious Club Snob. Every day he is at +that fireplace, holding that STANDARD, of which he reads up the +leading-article, and pours it out ORE ROTUNDO, with the most astonishing +composure, in the face of his neighbour, who has just read every word +of it in the paper. Jawkins has money, as you may see by the tie of his +neckcloth. He passes the morning swaggering about the City, in bankers' +and brokers parlours, and says:--'I spoke with Peel yesterday, and his +intentions are so and so. Graham and I were talking over the matter, +and I pledge you my word of honour, his opinion coincides with mine; and +that What-d'ye-call-um is the only measure Government will venture on +trying.' By evening-paper time he is at the Club: 'I can tell you the +opinion of the City, my lord,' says he, 'and the way in which Jones Loyd +looks at it is briefly this: Rothschilds told me so themselves. In +Mark Lane, people's minds are QUITE made up.' He is considered rather a +well-informed man. + +He lives in Belgravia, of course; in a drab-coloured genteel house, +and has everything about him that is properly grave, dismal, and +comfortable. His dinners are in the MORNING HERALD, among the parties +for the week; and his wife and daughters make a very handsome appearance +at the Drawing-Room, once a year, when he comes down to the Club in his +Deputy-Lieutenant's uniform. + +He is fond of beginning a speech to you by saying, 'When I was in the +House, I &c.'--in fact he sat for Skittlebury for three weeks in the +first Reformed Parliament, and was unseated for bribery; since which he +has three times unsuccessfully contested that honourable borough. + +Another sort of Political Snob I have seen at most Clubs and that is +the man who does not care so much for home politics, but is great upon +foreign affairs. I think this sort of man is scarcely found anywhere BUT +in Clubs. It is for him the papers provide their foreign articles, +at the expense of some ten thousand a-year each. He is the man who is +really seriously uncomfortable about the designs of Russia, and the +atrocious treachery of Louis Philippe. He it is who expects a French +fleet in the Thames, and has a constant eye upon the American President, +every word of whose speech (goodness help him!) he reads. He knows the +names of the contending leaders in Portugal, and what they are fighting +about: and it is he who says that Lord Aberdeen ought to be impeached, +and Lord Palmerston hanged, or VICE VERSA. + +Lord Palmerston's being sold to Russia, the exact number of roubles +paid, by what house in the City, is a favourite theme with this kind of +Snob. I once overheard him--it was Captain Spitfire, R.N., (who had been +refused a ship by the Whigs, by the way)--indulging in the following +conversation with Mr. Minns after dinner. + +Why wasn't the Princess Scragamoffsky at Lady Palmerston's party, Minns? +Because SHE CAN'T SHOW--why can't she show? Shall I tell you, Minns, +why she can't show? The Princess Scragainoffsky's back is flayed alive, +Minns--I tell you it's raw, sir! On Tuesday last, at twelve o'clock, +three drummers of the Preobajinski Regiment arrived at Ashburnham House, +and at half-past twelve, in the yellow drawing-room at the Russian +Embassy, before the ambassadress and four ladies'-maids, the Greek Papa, +and the Secretary of Embassy, Madame de Scragamoffsky received thirteen +dozen. She was knouted, sir, knouted in the midst of England--in +Berkeley Square, for having said that the Grand Duchess Olga's hair was +red. And now, sir, will you tell me Lord Palmerston ought to continue +Minister?' + +Minns: 'Good Ged!' + +Minns follows Spitfire about, and thinks him the greatest and wisest of +human beings. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX--CLUB SNOBS + +Why does not some great author write 'The Mysteries of the Club-houses; +or St. James's Street unveiled?' It would be a fine subject for an +imaginative writer. We must all, as boys, remember when we went to the +fair, and had spent all our money--the sort of awe and anxiety with +which we loitered round the outside of the show, speculating upon the +nature of the entertainment going on within. + +Man is a Drama--of Wonder and Passion, and Mystery and Meanness, and +Beauty and Truthfulness, and Etcetera. Each Bosom is a Booth in Vanity +Fair. But let us stop this capital style, I should die if I kept it +up for a column (a pretty thing a column all capitals would be, by the +way). In a Club, though there mayn't be a soul of your acquaintance +in the room, you have always the chance of watching strangers, and +speculating on what is going on within those tents and curtains of their +souls, their coats and waistcoats. This is a never-failing sport. Indeed +I am told there are some Clubs in the town where nobody ever speaks to +anybody. They sit in the coffee-room, quite silent, and watching each +other. + +Yet how little you can tell from a man's outward demeanour! There's a +man at our Club--large, heavy, middle-aged--gorgeously dressed--rather +bald--with lacquered boots--and a boa when he goes out; quiet in +demeanour, always ordering and consuming a RECHERCHE little dinner: whom +I have mistaken for Sir John Pocklington any time these five years, and +respected as a man with five hundred pounds PER DIEM; and I find he +is but a clerk in an office in the City, with not two hundred pounds +income, and his name is Jubber. Sir John Pocklington was, on the +contrary, the dirty little snuffy man who cried out so about the bad +quality of the beer, and grumbled at being overcharged three-halfpence +for a herring, seated at the next table to Jubber on the day when some +one pointed the Baronet out to me. + +Take a different sort of mystery. I see, for instance, old Fawney +stealing round the rooms of the Club, with glassy, meaningless eyes, +and an endless greasy simper--he fawns on everybody he meets, and +shakes hands with you, and blesses you, and betrays the most tender and +astonishing interest in your welfare. You know him to be a quack and a +rogue, and he knows you know it. But he wriggles on his way, and leaves +a track of slimy flattery after him wherever he goes. Who can penetrate +that man's mystery? What earthly good can he get from you or me? You +don't know what is working under that leering tranquil mask. You have +only the dim instinctive repulsion that warns you, you are in the +presence of a knave--beyond which fact all Fawney's soul is a secret to +you. + +I think I like to speculate on the young men best. Their play is opener. +You know the cards in their hand, as it were. Take, for example, Messrs. +Spavin and Cockspur. + +A specimen or two of the above sort of young fellows may be found, I +believe, at most Clubs. They know nobody. They bring a fine smell of +cigars into the room with them, and they growl together, in a corner, +about sporting matters. They recollect the history of that short period +in which they have been ornaments of the world by the names of winning +horses. As political men talk about 'the Reform year,' 'the year the +Whigs went out,' and so forth, these young sporting bucks speak of +TARNATION'S year, or OPODELDOC'S year, or the year when CATAWAMPUS ran +second for the Chester Cup. They play at billiards in the morning, +they absorb pale ale for breakfast, and 'top up' with glasses of strong +waters. They read BELL'S LIFE (and a very pleasant paper too, with a +great deal of erudition in the answers to correspondents). They go down +to Tattersall's, and swagger in the Park, with their hands plunged in +the pockets of their paletots. + +What strikes me especially in the outward demeanour of sporting youth +is their amazing gravity, their conciseness of speech, and careworn and +moody air. In the smoking-room at the 'Regent,' when Joe Millerson +will be setting the whole room in a roar with laughter, you hear young +Messrs. Spavin and Cockspur grumbling together in a corner. 'I'll take +your five-and-twenty to one about Brother to Bluenose,' whispers Spavin. +'Can't do it at the price,' Cockspur says, wagging his head ominously. +The betting-book is always present in the minds of those unfortunate +youngsters. I think I hate that work even more than the 'Peerage.' There +is some good in the latter--though, generally speaking, a vain record: +though De Mogyns is not descended from the giant Hogyn Mogyn; though +half the other genealogies are equally false and foolish; yet the +mottoes are good reading--some of them; and the book itself a sort of +gold-laced and livened lackey to History, and in so far serviceable. But +what good ever came out of, or went into, a betting-book? If I could +be Caliph Omar for a week, I would pitch every one of those despicable +manuscripts into the flames; from my Lord's, who is 'in' with Jack +Snaffle's stable, and is over-reaching worse-informed rogues and +swindling greenhorns, down to Sam's, the butcher-boy's, who books +eighteenpenny odds in the tap-room, and 'stands to win five-and-twenty +bob.' + +In a turf transaction, either Spavin or Cockspur would try to get the +better of his father, and, to gain a point in the odds, victimise his +best friends. One day we shall hear of one or other levanting; an +event at which, not being sporting men, we shall not break our hearts. +See--Mr. Spavin is settling his toilette previous to departure; giving a +curl in the glass to his side-wisps of hair. Look at him! It is only +at the hulks, or among turf-men, that you ever see a face so mean, so +knowing, and so gloomy. + +A much more humane being among the youthful Clubbists is the +Lady-killing Snob. I saw Wiggle just now in the dressing-room, talking +to Waggle, his inseparable. + +WAGGLE.--'Pon my honour, Wiggle, she did.' + +WIGGLE.--'Well, Waggle, as you say--I own I think she DID look at me +rather kindly. We'll see to-night at the French play.' + +And having arrayed their little persons, these two harmless young bucks +go upstairs to dinner. + + + +CHAPTER XL--CLUB SNOBS + +Both sorts of young men, mentioned in my last under the flippant names +of Wiggle and Waggle, may be found in tolerable plenty, I think, in +Clubs. Wiggle and Waggle are both idle. They come of the middle classes. +One of them very likely makes believe to be a barrister, and the other +has smart apartments about Piccadilly. They are a sort of second-chop +dandies; they cannot imitate that superb listlessness of demeanour, and +that admirable vacuous folly which distinguish the noble and high-born +chiefs of the race; but they lead lives almost as bad (were it but for +the example), and are personally quite as useless. I am not going to +arm a thunderbolt, and launch it at the beads of these little Pall +Mall butterflies. They don't commit much public harm, or private +extravagance. They don't spend a thousand pounds for diamond earrings +for an Opera-dancer, as Lord Tarquin can: neither of them ever set up a +public-house or broke the bank of a gambling-club, like the young Earl +of Martingale. They have good points, kind feelings, and deal honourably +in money-transactions--only in their characters of men of second-rate +pleasure about town, they and their like are so utterly mean, +self-contented, and absurd, that they must not be omitted in a work +treating on Snobs. + +Wiggle has been abroad, where he gives you to understand that his +success among the German countesses and Italian princesses, whom he met +at the TABLES-D'HOTE, was perfectly terrific. His rooms are hung round +with pictures of actresses and ballet-dancers. He passes his mornings +in a fine dressing-gown, burning pastilles, and reading 'Don Juan' and +French novels (by the way, the life of the author of 'Don Juan,' as +described by himself, was the model of the life of a Snob). He has +twopenny-halfpenny French prints of women with languishing eyes, dressed +in dominoes,--guitars, gondolas, and so forth,--and tells you stories +about them. + +'It's a bad print,' says he, 'I know, but I've a reason for liking it. +It reminds me of somebody--somebody I knew in other climes. You have +heard of the Principessa di Monte Pulciano? I met her at Rimini. Dear, +dear Francesca! That fair-haired, bright-eyed thing in the Bird of +Paradise and the Turkish Simar with the love-bird on her finger, I'm +sure must have been taken from--from somebody perhaps whom you don't +know--but she's known at Munich, Waggle my boy,--everybody knows the +Countess Ottilia de Eulenschreckenstein. Gad, sir, what a beautiful +creature she was when I danced with her on the birthday of Prince Attila +of Bavaria, in '44. Prince Carloman was our vis-a-vis, and Prince +Pepin danced the same CONTREDANSE. She had a Polyanthus in her bouquet. +Waggle, I HAVE IT NOW.' His countenance assumes an agonized and +mysterious expression, and he buries his head in the sofa cushions, as +if plunging into a whirlpool of passionate recollections. + +Last year he made a considerable sensation by having on his table a +morocco miniature-case locked by a gold key, which he always wore round +his neck, and on which was stamped a serpent--emblem of eternity--with +the letter M in the circle. Sometimes he laid this upon his little +morocco writing-table, as if it were on an altar--generally he had +flowers upon it; in the middle of a conversation he would start up and +kiss it. He would call out from his bed-room to his valet, 'Hicks, bring +me my casket!' + +'I don't know who it is,' Waggle would say. 'Who DOES know that fellow's +intrigues! Desborough Wiggle, sir, is the slave of passion. I suppose +you have heard the story of the Italian princess locked up in the +Convent of Saint Barbara, at Rimini? He hasn't told you? Then I'm not +at liberty to speak. Or the countess, about whom he nearly had the duel +with Prince Witikind of Bavaria? Perhaps you haven't even heard about +that beautiful girl at Pentonville, daughter of a most respectable +Dissenting clergyman. She broke her heart when she found he was engaged +(to a most lovely creature of high family, who afterwards proved false +to him), and she's now in Hanwell.' + +Waggle's belief in his friend amounts to frantic adoration. 'What a +genius he is, if he would but apply himself!' he whispers to me. 'He +could be anything, sir, but for his passions. His poems are the most +beautiful things you ever saw. He's written a continuation of “Don +Juan,” from his own adventures. Did you ever read his lines to Mary? +They're superior to Byron, sir--superior to Byron.' + +I was glad to hear this from so accomplished a critic as Waggle; for +the fact is, I had composed the verses myself for honest Wiggle one +day, whom I found at his chambers plunged in thought over a very dirty +old-fashioned album, in which he had not as yet written a single word. + +'I can't,' says he. 'Sometimes I can write whole cantos, and to-day not +a line. Oh, Snob! such an opportunity! Such a divine creature! She's +asked me to write verses for her album, and I can't.' + +'Is she rich?' said I. 'I thought you would never marry any but an +heiress.' + +'Oh, Snob! she's the most accomplished, highly-connected creature!--and +I can't get out a line.' + +'How will you have it?' says I. 'Hot, with sugar?' + +'Don't, don't! You trample on the most sacred feelings, Snob. I want +something wild and tender,--like Byron. I want to tell her that amongst +the festive balls, and that sort of thing, you know--I only think about +her, you know--that I scorn the world, and am weary of it, you know, +and--something about a gazelle, and a bulbul, you know.' + +'And a yataghan to finish off with,' the present writer observed, and we +began:-- + +'TO MARY + +'I seem, in the midst of the crowd, The lightest of all; My laughter +rings cheery and loud, In banquet and ball. My lip hath its smiles and +its sneers, For all men to see; But my soul, and my truth, and my tears, +Are for thee, are for thee!' + +'Do you call THAT neat, Wiggle?' says I. 'I declare it almost makes me +cry myself.' + +'Now suppose,' says Wiggle, 'we say that all the world is at my +feet--make her jealous, you know, and that sort of thing--and that--that +I'm going to TRAVEL, you know? That perhaps may work upon her feelings.' + +So WE (as this wretched prig said) began again:-- + +'Around me they flatter and fawn--The young and the old, The fairest are +ready to pawn Their hearts for my gold. They sue me--I laugh as I spurn +The slaves at my knee, But in faith and in fondness I turn Unto thee, +unto thee!' + +'Now for the travelling, Wiggle my boy!' And I began, in a voice choked +with emotion-- + +'Away! for my heart knows no rest Since you taught it to feel; The +secret must die in my breast I burn to reveal; The passion I may +not. . . .' + +'I say, Snob!' Wiggle here interrupted the excited bard (just as I was +about to break out into four lines so pathetic that they would drive you +into hysterics). 'I say--ahem--couldn't you say that I was--a--military +man, and that there was some danger of my life?' + +'You a military man?--danger of your life? What the deuce do you mean?' + +'Why,' said Wiggle, blushing a great deal, 'I told her I was going +out--on--the--Ecuador--expedition.' + +'You abominable young impostor,' I exclaimed. 'Finish the poem for +yourself!' And so he did, and entirely out of all metre, and bragged +about the work at the Club as his own performance. + +Poor Waggle fully believed in his friend's genius, until one day last +week he came with a grin on his countenance to the Club, and said, 'Oh, +Snob, I've made SUCH a discovery! Going down to the skating to-day, whom +should I see but Wiggle walking with that splendid woman--that lady of +illustrious family and immense fortune, Mary, you know, whom he wrote +the beautiful verses about. She's five-and-forty. She's red hair. She's +a nose like a pump-handle. Her father made his fortune by keeping a +ham-and-beef shop, and Wiggle's going to marry her next week.' + +'So much the better, Waggle, my young friend,' I exclaimed. 'Better +for the sake of womankind that this dangerous dog should leave off +lady-killing--this Blue-Beard give up practice. Or, better rather +for his own sake. For as there is not a word of truth in any of those +prodigious love-stories which you used to swallow, nobody has been +hurt except Wiggle himself, whose affections will now centre in the +ham-and-beef shop. There ARE people, Mr. Waggle, who do these things +in earnest, and hold a good rank in the world too. But these are not +subjects for ridicule, and though certainly Snobs, are scoundrels +likewise. Their cases go up to a higher Court.' + + + +CHAPTER XLI--CLUB SNOBS + +Bacchus is the divinity to whom Waggle devotes his especial worship. +'Give me wine, my boy,' says he to his friend Wiggle, who is prating +about lovely woman; and holds up his glass full of the rosy fluid, and +winks at it portentously, and sips it, and smacks his lips after it, and +meditates on it, as if he were the greatest of connoisseurs. + +I have remarked this excessive wine-amateurship especially in youth. +Snoblings from college, Fledglings from the army, Goslings from the +public schools, who ornament our Clubs, are frequently to be heard in +great force upon wine questions. 'This bottle's corked,' says Snobling; +and Mr. Sly, the butler, taking it away, returns presently with the same +wine in another jug, which the young amateur pronounces excellent. 'Hang +champagne!' says Fledgling, 'it's only fit for gals and children. +Give me pale sherry at dinner, and my twenty-three claret afterwards.' +'What's port now?' says Gosling; 'disgusting thick sweet stuff--where's +the old dry wine one USED to get?' Until the last twelvemonth, Fledgling +drank small-beer at Doctor Swishtail's; and Gosling used to get his dry +old port at a gin-shop in Westminster--till he quitted that seminary, in +1844. + +Anybody who has looked at the caricatures of thirty years ago, +must remember how frequently bottle-noses, pimpled faces, and other +Bardolphian features are introduced by the designer. They are much more +rare now (in nature, and in pictures, therefore,) than in those good old +times; but there are still to be found amongst the youth of our Clubs +lads who glory in drinking-bouts, and whose faces, quite sickly and +yellow, for the most part are decorated with those marks which Rowland's +Kalydor is said to efface. 'I was SO cut last night--old boy!' Hopkins +says to Tomkins (with amiable confidence). 'I tell you what we did. We +breakfasted with Jack Herring at twelve, and kept up with brandy and +soda-water and weeds till four; then we toddled into the Park for an +hour; then we dined and drank mulled port till half-price; then we +looked in for an hour at the Haymarket; then we came back to the Club, +and had grills and whisky punch till all was blue--Hullo, waiter! Get me +a glass of cherry-brandy.' Club waiters, the civilest, the kindest, the +patientest of men, die under the infliction of these cruel young topers. +But if the reader wishes to see a perfect picture on the stage of this +class of young fellows, I would recommend him to witness the ingenious +comedy of LONDON ASSURANCE--the amiable heroes of which are represented, +not only as drunkards and five-o'clock-in-the-morning men, but as +showing a hundred other delightful traits of swindling, lying, and +general debauchery, quite edifying to witness. + +How different is the conduct of these outrageous youths to the decent +behaviour of my friend, Mr. Papworthy; who says to Poppins, the butler +at the Club:-- + +PAPWORTHY.--'Poppins, I'm thinking of dining early; is there any cold +game in the house?' + +POPPINS.--'There's a game pie, sir; there's cold grouse, sir; there's +cold pheasant, sir; there's cold peacock, sir; cold swan, sir; cold +ostrich, sir,' &c. &c. (as the case may be). + +PAPWORTHY.--'Hem! What's your best claret now, Poppins?--in pints, I +mean.' + +POPPINS.--'There's Cooper and Magnum's Lafitte, sir: there's Lath and +Sawdust's St. Julien, sir; Bung's Leoville is considered remarkably +fine; and I think you'd like Jugger's Chateau-Margaux.' + +PAPWORTHY.--'Hum!--hah!--well--give me a crust of bread and a glass of +beer. I'll only LUNCH, Poppins. + +Captain Shindy is another sort of Club bore. He has been known to throw +all the Club in an uproar about the quality of his mutton-chop. + +'Look at it, sir! Is it cooked, sir? Smell it, sir! Is it meat fit for +a gentleman?' he roars out to the steward, who stands trembling before +him, and who in vain tells him that the Bishop of Bullocksmithy has just +had three from the same loin. All the waiters in the Club are huddled +round the captain's mutton-chop. He roars out the most horrible curses +at John for not bringing the pickles; he utters the most dreadful +oaths because Thomas has not arrived with the Harvey Sauce; Peter comes +tumbling with the water-jug over Jeames, who is bringing 'the glittering +canisters with bread.' Whenever Shindy enters the room (such is the +force of character), every table is deserted, every gentleman must dine +as he best may, and all those big footmen are in terror. + +He makes his account of it. He scolds, and is better waited upon in +consequence. At the Club he has ten servants scudding about to do his +bidding. + +Poor Mrs. Shindy and the children are, meanwhile, in dingy lodgings +somewhere, waited upon by a charity-girl in pattens. + + + +CHAPTER XLII--CLUB SNOBS + +Every well-bred English female will sympathize with the subject of +the harrowing tale, the history of Sackville Maine, I am now about to +recount. The pleasures of Clubs have been spoken of: let us now glance +for a moment at the dangers of those institutions, and for this purpose +I must introduce you to my young acquaintance, Sackville Maine. + +It was at a ball at the house of my respected friend, Mrs. Perkins, that +I was introduced to this gentleman and his charming lady. Seeing a young +creature before me in a white dress, with white satin shoes; with a pink +ribbon, about a yard in breadth, flaming out as she twirled in a polka +in the arms of Monsieur de Springbock, the German diplomatist; with a +green wreath on her head, and the blackest hair this individual set eyes +on--seeing, I say, before me a charming young woman whisking beautifully +in a beautiful dance, and presenting, as she wound and wound round the +room, now a full face, then a three-quarter face, then a profile--a +face, in fine, which in every way you saw it, looked pretty, and rosy, +and happy, I felt (as I trust) a not unbecoming curiosity regarding the +owner of this pleasant countenance, and asked Wagley (who was standing +by, in conversation with an acquaintance) who was the lady in question? + +'Which?' says Wagley. + +'That one with the coal-black eyes,' I replied. + +'Hush!' says he; and the gentleman with whom he was talking moved off, +with rather a discomfited air. + +When he was gone Wagley burst out laughing. 'COAL-BLACK eyes!' said +he; 'you've just hit it. That's Mrs. Sackville Maine, and that was her +husband who just went away. He's a coal-merchant, Snob my boy, and I +have no doubt Mr. Perkins's Wallsends are supplied from his wharf. He is +in a flaming furnace when he hears coals mentioned. He and his wife and +his mother are very proud of Mrs. Sackville's family; she was a Miss +Chuff, daughter of Captain Chuff, R.N. That is the widow; that stout +woman in crimson tabinet, battling about the odd trick with old Mr. +Dumps, at the card-table.' + +And so, in fact, it was. Sackville Maine (whose name is a hundred times +more elegant, surely, than that of Chuff) was blest with a pretty wife, +and a genteel mother-in-law, both of whom some people may envy him. + +Soon after his marriage the old lady was good enough to come and pay him +a visit--just for a fortnight--at his pretty little cottage, Kennington +Oval; and, such is her affection for the place, has never quitted it +these four years. She has also brought her son, Nelson Collingwood +Chuff, to live with her; but he is not so much at home as his mamma, +going as a day-boy to Merchant Taylors' School, where he is getting a +sound classical education. + +If these beings, so closely allied to his wife, and so justly dear to +her, may be considered as drawbacks to Maine's happiness, what man is +there that has not some things in life to complain of? And when I first +knew Mr. Maine, no man seemed more comfortable than he. His cottage was +a picture of elegance and comfort; his table and cellar were excellently +and neatly supplied. There was every enjoyment, but no ostentation. The +omnibus took him to business of a morning; the boat brought him back to +the happiest of homes, where he would while away the long evenings by +reading out the fashionable novels to the ladies as they worked; or +accompany his wife on the flute (which he played elegantly); or in any +one of the hundred pleasing and innocent amusements of the domestic +circle. Mrs. Chuff covered the drawing-rooms with prodigious tapestries, +the work of her hands. Mrs. Sackville had a particular genius for making +covers of tape or network for these tapestried cushions. She could make +home-made wines. She could make preserves and pickles. She had an +album, into which, during the time of his courtship, Sackville Maine bad +written choice scraps of Byron's and Moore's poetry, analogous to his +own situation, and in a fine mercantile hand. She had a large manuscript +receipt-book--every quality, in a word, which indicated a virtuous and +well-bred English female mind. + +'And as for Nelson Collingwood,' Sackville would say, laughing, 'we +couldn't do without him in the house. If he didn't spoil the tapestry we +should be 'over-cushioned in a few months; and whom could we get but him +to drink Laura's home-made wine?' The truth is, the gents who came from +the City to dine at the 'Oval' could not be induced to drink it--in +which fastidiousness, I myself, when I grew to be intimate with the +family, confess that I shared. + +'And yet, sir, that green ginger has been drunk by some of England's +proudest heroes,' Mrs. Chuff would exclaim. 'Admiral Lord Exmouth +tasted and praised it, sir, on board Captain Chuff's ship, the +“Nebuchadnezzar,” 74, at Algiers; and he had three dozen with turn +in the “Pitchfork” frigate, a part of which was served out to the men +before he went into his immortal action with the “Furibonde,” Captain +Choufleur, in the Gulf of Panama.' + +All this, though the old dowager told us the story every day when the +wine was produced, never served to get rid of any quantity of it--and +the green ginger, though it had fired British tars for combat and +victory, was not to the taste of us peaceful and degenerate gents of +modern times. + +I see Sackville now, as on the occasion when, presented by +Wagley, I paid my first visit to him. It was in July--a Sunday +afternoon--Sackville Maine was coming from church, with his wife on one +arm, and his mother-ill-law (in red tabinet, as usual,) on the other. +A half-grown, or hobbadehoyish footman, so to speak, walked after them, +carrying their shining golden prayer-books--the ladies had splendid +parasols with tags and fringes. Mrs. Chuff's great gold watch, fastened +to her stomach, gleamed there like a ball of fire. Nelson Collingwood +was in the distance, shying stones at an old horse on Kennington Common. +'Twas on that verdant spot we met--nor can I ever forget the majestic +courtesy of Mrs. Chuff, as she remembered having had the pleasure of +seeing me at Mrs. Perkins's--nor the glance of scorn which she threw +at an unfortunate gentleman who was preaching an exceedingly desultory +discourse to a sceptical audience of omnibus-cads and nurse-maids, on a +tub, as we passed by. 'I cannot help it, sir,' says she; 'I am the widow +of an officer of Britain's Navy: I was taught to honour my Church and my +King: and I cannot bear a Radical or a Dissenter.' + +With these fine principles I found Sackville Maine impressed. 'Wagley,' +said he, to my introducer, 'if no better engagement, why shouldn't self +and friend dine at the “Oval?” Mr. Snob, sir, the mutton's coming off +the spit at this very minute. Laura and Mrs. Chuff' (he said LAURAR and +Mrs. Chuff; but I hate people who make remarks on these peculiarities of +pronunciation,) 'will be most happy to see you; and I can promise you a +hearty welcome, and as good a glass of port-wine as any in England.' + +'This is better than dining at the “Sarcophagus,”' thinks I to myself, +at which Club Wagley and I had intended to take our meal; and so we +accepted the kindly invitation, whence arose afterwards a considerable +intimacy. + +Everything about this family and house was so good-natured, comfortable, +and well-conditioned, that a cynic would have ceased to growl there. +Mrs. Laura was all graciousness and smiles, and looked to as great +advantage in her pretty morning-gown as in her dress-robe at Mrs. +Perkins's. Mrs. Chuff fired off her stories about the 'Nebuchadnezzar,' +74, the action between the 'Pitchfork' and the 'Furibonde'--the heroic +resistance of Captain Choufleur, and the quantity of snuff he took, &c. +&c.; which, as they were heard for the first time, were pleasanter than +I have subsequently found them. Sackville Maine was the best of hosts. +He agreed in everything everybody said, altering his opinions without +the slightest reservation upon the slightest possible contradiction. +He was not one of those beings who would emulate a Schonbein or +Friar Bacon, or act the part of an incendiary towards the Thames, his +neighbour--but a good, kind, simple, honest, easy fellow--in love with +his wife--well disposed to all the world--content with himself, content +even with his mother-in-law. Nelson Collingwood, I remember, in the +course of the evening, when whisky-and-water was for some reason +produced, grew a little tipsy. This did not in the least move +Sackville's equanimity. 'Take him upstairs, Joseph,' said he to the +hobbadehoy, 'and--Joseph--don't tell his mamma.' + +What could make a man so happily disposed, unhappy? What could cause +discomfort, bickering, and estrangement in a family so friendly and +united? Ladies, it was not my fault--it was Mrs. Chuff's doing--but the +rest of the tale you shall have on a future day. + + + +CHAPTER XLIII--CLUB SNOBS + +The misfortune which befell the simple and good-natured young Sackville, +arose entirely from that abominable 'Sarcophagus Club;' and that he ever +entered it was partly the fault of the present writer. + +For seeing Mrs. Chuff, his mother-in-law, had a taste for the +genteel--(indeed, her talk was all about Lord Collingwood, Lord Gambier, +Sir Jahaleel Brenton, and the Gosport and Plymouth balls)--Wagley and I, +according to our wont, trumped her conversation, and talked about +Lords, Dukes, Marquises, and Baronets, as if those dignitaries were our +familiar friends. + +'Lord Sextonbury,' says I, 'seems to have recovered her ladyship's +death. He and the Duke were very jolly over their wine at the +“Sarcophagus” last night; weren't they, Wagley?' + +'Good fellow, the Duke,' Wagley replied. 'Pray, ma'am' (to Mrs. Chuff), +'you who know the world and etiquette, will you tell me what a man ought +to do in my case? Last June, his Grace, his son Lord Castlerampant, +Tom Smith, and myself were dining at the Club, when I offered the odds +against DADDYLONGLEGS for the Derby--forty to one, in sovereigns only. +His Grace took the bet, and of course I won. He has never paid me. Now, +can I ask such a great man for a sovereign?--One more lump of sugar, if +you please, my dear madam.' + +It was lucky Wagley gave her this opportunity to elude the question, +for it prostrated the whole worthy family among whom we were. They +telegraphed each other with wondering eyes. Mrs. Chuff's stories about +the naval nobility grew quite faint and kind little Mrs. Sackville +became uneasy, and went upstairs to look at the children--not at +that young monster, Nelson Collingwood, who was sleeping off the +whisky-and-water--but at a couple of little ones who had made their +appearance at dessert, and of whom she and Sackville were the happy +parents. + +The end of this and subsequent meetings with Mr. Maine was, that we +proposed and got him elected as a member of the 'Sarcophagus Club.' + +It was not done without a deal of opposition--the secret having been +whispered that the candidate was a coal-merchant. You may be sure some +of the proud people and most of the parvenus of the Club were ready +to blackball him. We combated this opposition successfully, however. +We pointed out to the parvenus that the Lambtons and the Stuarts sold +coals: we mollified the proud by accounts of his good birth, good +nature, and good behaviour; and Wagley went about on the day of +election, describing with great eloquence, the action between the +'Pitchfork' and the 'Furibonde,' and the valour of Captain Maine, our +friend's father. There was a slight mistake in the narrative; but we +carried our man, with only a trifling sprinkling of black beans in the +boxes: Byles's, of course, who blackballs everybody: and Bung's, who +looks down upon a coal-merchant, having himself lately retired from the +wine-trade. + +Some fortnight afterwards I saw Sackville Maine under the following +circumstances:-- + +He was showing the Club to his family. He had 'brought them thither +in the light-blue fly, waiting at the Club door; with Mrs. Chuff's +hobbadehoy footboy on the box, by the side of the flyman, in a sham +livery. Nelson Collingwood; pretty Mrs. Sackville; Mrs. Captain Chuff +(Mrs. Commodore Chuff we call her), were all there; the latter, of +course, in the vermilion tabinet, which, splendid as it is, is nothing +in comparison to the splendour of the 'Sarcophagus.' The delighted +Sackville Maine was pointing out the beauties of the place to them. It +seemed as beautiful as Paradise to that little party. + +The 'Sarcophagus' displays every known variety of architecture and +decoration. The great library is Elizabethan; the small library is +pointed Gothic; the dining-room is severe Doric; the strangers' room +has an Egyptian look; the drawing-rooms are Louis Quatorze (so called +because the hideous ornaments displayed were used in the time of Louis +Quinze); the CORTILE, or hall, is Morisco-Italian. It is all over +marble, maplewood, looking-glasses, arabesques, ormolu, and scagliola. +Scrolls, ciphers, dragons, Cupids, polyanthuses, and other flowers +writhe up the walls in every kind of cornucopiosity. Fancy every +gentleman in Jullien's band playing with all his might, and +each performing a different tune; the ornaments at our Club, the +'Sarcophagus,' so bewilder and affect me. Dazzled with emotions which I +cannot describe, and which she dared not reveal, Mrs. Chuff, followed +by her children and son-in-law, walked wondering amongst these blundering +splendours. + +In the great library (225 feet long by 150) the only man Mrs. Chuff saw, +was Tiggs. He was lying on a crimson-velvet sofa, reading a French novel +of Paul de Kock. It was a very little book. He is a very little man. +In that enormous hall he looked like a mere speck. As the ladies passed +breathless and trembling in the vastness of the magnificent solitude, +he threw a knowing, killing glance at the fair strangers, as much as to +say, 'Ain't I a fine fellow?' They thought so, I am sure. + +'WHO IS THAT?' hisses out Mrs. Chuff, when we were about fifty yards +off him at the other end of the room. + +'Tiggs!' says I, in a similar whisper. + +'Pretty comfortable this, isn't it, my dear?' says Maine in a +free-and-easy way to Mrs. Sackville; 'all the magazines, you see--writing +materials--new works--choice library, containing every work of +importance--what have we here?--“Dugdale's Monasticon,” a most valuable +and, I believe, entertaining book.' + +And proposing to take down one of the books for Mrs. Maine's inspection, +he selected Volume VII., to which he was attracted by the singular fact +that a brass door-handle grew out of the back. Instead of pulling out +a book, however, he pulled open a cupboard, only inhabited by a lazy +housemaid's broom and duster, at which he looked exceedingly discomfited; +while Nelson Collingwood, losing all respect, burst into a roar of +laughter. + +'That's the rummest book I ever saw,' says Nelson. 'I wish we'd no +others at Merchant Taylors'.' + +'Hush, Nelson!' cries Mrs. Chuff, and we went into the other magnificent +apartments. + +How they did admire the drawing-room hangings, (pink and silver brocade, +most excellent wear for London,) and calculated the price per yard; +and revelled on the luxurious sofas; and gazed on the immeasurable +looking-glasses. + +'Pretty well to shave by, eh?' says Maine to his mother-in-law. (He was +getting more abominably conceited every minute.) 'Get away, Sackville,' +says she, quite delighted, and threw a glance over her shoulder, +and spread out the wings of the red tabinet, and took a good look +at herself; so did Mrs. Sackville--just one, and I thought the glass +reflected a very smiling, pretty creature. + +But what's a woman at a looking-glass? Bless the little dears, it's +their place. They fly to it naturally. It pleases them, and they adorn +it. What I like to see, and watch with increasing joy and adoration, +is the Club MEN at the great looking-glasses. Old Gills pushing up his +collars and grinning at his own mottled face. Hulker looking solemnly at +his great person, and tightening his coat to give himself a waist. Fred +Minchin simpering by as he is going out to dine, and casting upon the +reflection of his white neckcloth a pleased moony smile. What a deal of +vanity that Club mirror has reflected, to be sure! + +Well, the ladies went through the whole establishment with perfect +pleasure. They beheld the coffee-rooms, and the little tables laid for +dinner, and the gentlemen who were taking their lunch, and old Jawkins +thundering away as usual; they saw the reading-rooms, and the rush for +the evening papers; they saw the kitchens--those wonders of art--where +the CHEF was presiding over twenty pretty kitchen-maids, and ten +thousand shining saucepans: and they got into the light-blue fly +perfectly bewildered with pleasure. + +Sackville did not enter it, though little Laura took the back seat on +purpose, and left him the front place alongside of Mrs. Chuff's red +tabinet. + +'We have your favourite dinner,' says she, in a timid voice; 'won't you +come, Sackville?' + +'I shall take a chop here to-day, my dear,' Sackville replied. 'Home, +James.' And he went up the steps of the 'Sarcophagus,' and the pretty +face looked very sad out of the carriage, as the blue fly drove away. + + + +CHAPTER XLIV--CLUB SNOBS + +Why--Why did I and Wagley ever do so cruel an action as to introduce +young Sackville Maine into that odious 'Sarcophagus'? Let our imprudence +and his example be a warning to other gents; let his fate and that of +his poor wife be remembered by every British female. The consequences of +his entering the Club were as follows:-- + +One of the first vices the unhappy wretch acquired in this abode of +frivolity was that of SMOKING. Some of the dandies of the Club, such as +the Marquis of Macabaw, Lord Doodeen, and fellows of that high order, +are in the habit of indulging in this propensity upstairs in the +billiard-rooms of the 'Sarcophagus'--and, partly to make their +acquaintance, partly from a natural aptitude for crime, Sackville Maine +followed them, and became an adept in the odious custom. Where it is +introduced into a family I need not say how sad the consequences +are, both to the furniture and the morals. Sackville smoked in his +dining-room at home, and caused an agony to his wife and mother-in-law +which I do not venture to describe. + +He then became a professed BILLIARD-PLAYER, wasting hours upon hours +at that amusement; betting freely, playing tolerably, losing awfully to +Captain Spot and Col. Cannon. He played matches of a hundred games with +these gentlemen, and would not only continue until four or five o'clock +in the morning at this work, but would be found at the Club of a +forenoon, indulging himself to the detriment of his business, the ruin +of his health, and the neglect of his wife. + +From billiards to whist is but a step--and when a man gets to whist and +five pounds on a rubber, my opinion is, that it is all up with him. How +was the coal business to go on, and the connection of the firm to be +kept up, and the senior partner always at the card-table? + +Consorting now with genteel persons and Pall Mall bucks, Sackville +became ashamed of his snug little residence in Kennington Oval, and +transported his family to Pimlico, where, though Mrs. Chuff, his +mother-in-law, was at first happy, as the quarter was elegant and +near her Sovereign, poor little Laura and the children found a woful +difference. Where were her friends who came in with their work of a +morning?--At Kennington and in the vicinity of Clapham. 'Where were her +children's little playmates?--On Kennington Common. The great thundering +carriages that roared up and down the drab-coloured streets of the +new quarter, contained no friends for the sociable little Laura. +The children that paced the squares, attended by a BONNE or a prim +governess, were not like those happy ones that flew kites, or played +hop-scotch, on the well-beloved old Common. And ah! what a difference at +Church too!--between St. Benedict's of Pimlico, with open seats, service +in sing-song--tapers--albs--surplices--garlands and processions, and +the honest old ways of Kennington! The footmen, too, attending St. +Benedict's were so splendid and enormous, that James, Mrs. Chuff's boy, +trembled amongst them, and said he would give warning rather than carry +the books to that church any more. + +The furnishing of the house was not done without expense. + +And, ye gods! what a difference there was between Sackville's dreary +French banquets in Pimlico, and the jolly dinners at the Oval! No more +legs-of-mutton, no more of 'the best port-wine in England;' but ENTREES +on plate, and dismal twopenny champagne, and waiters in gloves, and +the Club bucks for company--among whom Mrs. Chuff was uneasy and Mrs. +Sackville quite silent. + +Not that he dined at home often. The wretch had become a perfect +epicure, and dined commonly at the Club with the gormandising clique +there; with old Doctor Maw, Colonel Cramley (who is as lean as a +greyhound and has jaws like a jack), and the rest of them. Here you +might see the wretch tippling Sillery champagne and gorging himself with +French viands; and I often looked with sorrow from my table, (on which +cold meat, the Club small-beer, and a half-pint of Marsala form the +modest banquet,) and sighed to think it was my work. + +And there were other beings present to my repentant thoughts. Where's +his wife, thought I? Where's poor, good, kind little Laura? At this +very moment--it's about the nursery bed-time, and while yonder +good-for-nothing is swilling his wine--the little ones are at Laura's +knees lisping their prayers: and she is teaching them to say--'Pray God +bless Papa.' + +When she has put them to bed, her day's occupation is gone; and she is +utterly lonely all night, and sad, and waiting for him. + +Oh, for shame! Oh, for shame! Go home, thou idle tippler. + +How Sackville lost his health: how he lost his business; how he got +into scrapes; how he got into debt; how he became a railroad director; +how the Pimlico house was shut up; how he went to Boulogne,--all this +I could tell, only I am too much ashamed of my part of the transaction. +They returned to England, because, to the surprise of everybody, Mrs. +Chuff came down with a great sum of money (which nobody knew she had +saved), and paid his liabilities. He is in England; but at Kennington. +His name is taken off the books of the 'Sarcophagus' long ago. When we +meet, he crosses over to the other side of the street; I don't call, as +I should be sorry to see a look of reproach or sadness in Laura's sweet +face. + +Not, however, all evil, as I am proud to think, has been the influence +of the Snob of England upon Clubs in general:--Captain Shindy is afraid +to bully the waiters any more, and eats his mutton-chop without moving +Acheron. Gobemouche does not take more than two papers at a time for +his private reading. Tiggs does not ring the bell and cause the +library-waiter to walk about a quarter of a mile in order to give him +Vol. II., which lies on the next table. Growler has ceased to walk from +table to table in the coffee-room, and inspect what people are having +for dinner. Trotty Veck takes his own umbrella from the hall--the cotton +one; and Sydney Scraper's paletot lined with silk has been brought back +by Jobbins, who entirely mistook it for his own. Wiggle has discontinued +telling stories about the ladies he has killed. Snooks does not any +more think it gentlemanlike to blackball attorneys. Snuffler no longer +publicly spreads out his great red cotton pocket-handkerchief before the +fire, for the admiration of two hundred gentlemen; and if one Club Snob +has been brought back to the paths of rectitude, and if one poor John +has been spared a journey or a scolding--say, friends and brethren if +these sketches of Club Snobs have been in vain? + + + + +CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON SNOBS + +How it is that we have come to No. 45 of this present series of papers, +my dear friends and brother Snobs, I hardly know--but for a whole mortal +year have we been together, prattling, and abusing the human race; and +were we to live for a hundred years more, I believe there is plenty of +subject for conversation in the enormous theme of Snobs. + +The national mind is awakened to the subject. Letters pour in every +day, conveying marks of sympathy; directing the attention of the Snob +of England to races of Snobs yet undescribed. 'Where are your Theatrical +Snobs; your Commercial Snobs; your Medical and Chirurgical Snobs; your +Official Snobs; your Legal Snobs; your Artistical Snobs; your Musical +Snobs; your Sporting Snobs?' write my esteemed correspondents. 'Surely +you are not going to miss the Cambridge Chancellor election, and omit +showing up your Don Snobs, who are coming, cap in hand, to a young +Prince of six-and-twenty, and to implore him to be the chief of their +renowned University?' writes a friend who seals with the signet of the +Cam and Isis Club. 'Pray, pray,' cries another, 'now the Operas are +opening, give us a lecture about Omnibus Snobs.' Indeed, I should like +to write a chapter about the Snobbish Dons very much, and another about +the Snobbish Dandies. Of my dear Theatrical Snobs I think with a pang; +and I can hardly break away from some Snobbish artists, with whom I have +long, long intended to have a palaver. + +But what's the use of delaying? When these were done there would be +fresh Snobs to pourtray. The labour is endless. No single man could +complete it. Here are but fifty-two bricks--and a pyramid to build. It +is best to stop. As Jones always quits the room as soon as he has said +his good thing,--as Cincinnatus and General Washington both retired into +private life in the height of their popularity,--as Prince Albert, +when he laid the first stone of the Exchange, left the bricklayers to +complete that edifice and went home to his royal dinner,--as the poet +Bunn comes forward at the end of the season, and with feelings too +tumultuous to describe, blesses his KYIND friends over the footlights: +so, friends, in the flush of conquest and the splendour of victory, amid +the shouts and the plaudits of a people--triumphant yet modest--the Snob +of England bids ye farewell. + +But only for a season. Not for ever. No, no. There is one celebrated +author whom I admire very much--who has been taking leave of the public +any time these ten years in his prefaces, and always comes back again +when everybody is glad to see him. How can he have the heart to be +saying good-bye so often? I believe that Bunn is affected when he +blesses the people. Parting is always painful. Even the familiar bore is +dear to you. I should be sorry to shake hands even with Jawkins for +the last time. I think a well-constituted convict, on coming home +from transportation, ought to be rather sad when he takes leave of +Van Diemen's Land. When the curtain goes down on the last night of a +pantomime, poor old clown must be very dismal, depend on it. Ha! with +what joy he rushes forward on the evening of the 26th of December +next, and says--'How are you?--Here we are!' But I am growing too +sentimental:--to return to the theme. + +THE NATIONAL MIND IS AWAKENED TO THE SUBJECT OF SNOBS. The word Snob +has taken a place in our honest English vocabulary. We can't define it, +perhaps. We can't say what it is, any more than we can define wit, or +humour, or humbug; but we KNOW what it is. Some weeks since, happening +to have the felicity to sit next to a young lady at a hospitable table, +where poor old Jawkins was holding forth in a very absurd pompous +manner, I wrote upon the spotless damask 'S--B,' and called my +neighbour's attention to the little remark. + +That young lady smiled. She knew it at once. Her mind straightway filled +up the two letters concealed by apostrophic reserve, and I read in her +assenting eyes that she knew Jawkins was a Snob. You seldom get them +to make use of the word as yet, it is true; but it is inconceivable how +pretty an expression their little smiling mouths assume when they speak +it out. If any young lady doubts, just let her go up to her own room, +look at herself steadily in the glass, and say 'Snob.' If she tries this +simple experiment, my life for it, she will smile, and own that the word +becomes her mouth amazingly. A pretty little round word, all composed of +soft letters, with a hiss at the beginning, just to make it piquant, as +it were. + +Jawkins, meanwhile, went on blundering, and bragging and boring, quite +unconsciously. And so he will, no doubt, go on roaring and braying, to +the end of time or at least so long as people will hear him. You cannot +alter the nature of men and Snobs by any force of satire; as, by laying +ever so many stripes on a donkey's back, you can't turn him into a +zebra. + +But we can warn the neighbourhood that the person whom they and Jawkins +admire is an impostor. We apply the Snob test to him, and try whether he +is conceited and a quack, whether pompous and lacking humility--whether +uncharitable and proud of his narrow soul? How does he treat a great +man--how regard a small one? How does he comport himself in the presence +of His Grace the Duke; and how in that of Smith the tradesman? + +And it seems to me that all English society is cursed by this +mammoniacal superstition; and that we are sneaking and bowing and +cringing on the one hand, or bullying and scorning on the other, +from the lowest to the highest. My wife speaks with great +circumspection--'proper pride,' she calls it--to our neighbour the +tradesman's lady: and she, I mean Mrs. Snob,--Eliza--would give one of +her eyes to go to Court, as her cousin, the Captain's wife, did. She, +again, is a good soul, but it costs her agonies to be obliged to confess +that we live in Upper Thompson Street, Somers Town. And though I believe +in her heart Mrs. Whiskerington is fonder of us than of her cousins, +the Smigsmags, you should hear how she goes on prattling about Lady +Smigsmag,--and 'I said to Sir John, my dear John;' and about the +Smigsmags' house and parties in Hyde Park Terrace. + +Lady Smigsmag, when she meets Eliza,--who is a sort of a kind of a +species of a connection of the family, pokes out one finger, which my +wife is at liberty to embrace in the most cordial manner she can devise. +But oh, you should see her ladyship's behaviour on her first-chop +dinner-party days, when Lord and Lady Longears come! + +I can bear it no longer--this diabolical invention of gentility which +kills natural kindliness and honest friendship. Proper pride, indeed! +Rank and precedence, forsooth! The table of ranks and degrees is a lie, +and should be flung into the fire. Organize rank and precedence! that +was well for the masters of ceremonies of former ages. Come forward, +some great marshal, and organize Equality in society, and your rod +shall swallow up all the juggling old court goldsticks. If this is +not gospel-truth--if the world does not tend to this--if +hereditary-great-man worship is not a humbug and an idolatry--let us +have the Stuarts back again, and crop the Free Press's ears in the +pillory. + +If ever our cousins, the Smigsmags, asked me to meet Lord Longears, +I would like to take an opportunity after dinner and say, in the most +good-natured way in the world:--Sir, Fortune makes you a present of +a number of thousand pounds every year. The ineffable wisdom of our +ancestors has placed you as a chief and hereditary legislator over me. +Our admirable Constitution (the pride of Britons and envy of surrounding +nations) obliges me to receive you as my senator, superior, and +guardian. Your eldest son, Fitz-Heehaw, is sure of a place in +Parliament; your younger sons, the De Brays, will kindly condescend +to be post-captains and lieutenants-colonels, and to represent us in +foreign courts or to take a good living when it falls convenient. +These prizes our admirable Constitution (the pride and envy of, &c.) +pronounces to be your due: without count of your dulness, your vices, +your selfishness; or your entire incapacity and folly. Dull as you may +be (and we have as good a right to assume that my lord is an ass, as the +other proposition, that he is an enlightened patriot);--dull, I say, +as you may be, no one will accuse you of such monstrous folly, as to +suppose that you are indifferent to the good luck which you possess, or +have any inclination to part with it. No--and patriots as we are, under +happier circumstances, Smith and I, I have no doubt, were we dukes +ourselves, would stand by our order. + +We would submit good-naturedly to sit in a high place. We would +acquiesce in that admirable Constitution (pride and envy of, &c.) +which made us chiefs and the world our inferiors; we would not cavil +particularly at that notion of hereditary superiority which brought many +simple people cringing to our knees. May be we would rally round the +Corn-Laws; we would make a stand against the Reform Bill; we would die +rather than repeal the Acts against Catholics and Dissenters; we would, +by our noble system of class-legislation, bring Ireland to its present +admirable condition. + +But Smith and I are not Earls as yet. 'We don't believe that it is +for the interest of Smith's army that De Bray should be a Colonel at +five-and-twenty, of Smith's diplomatic relations that Lord Longears +should go Ambassador to Constantinople,--of our politics, that Longears +should put his hereditary foot into them. + +This bowing and cringing Smith believes to be the act of Snobs; and he +will do all in his might and main to be a Snob and to submit to Snobs +no longer. To Longears he says, 'We can't help seeing, Longears, that +we are as good as you. We can spell even better; can think quite as +rightly; we will not have you for our master, or black your shoes any +more. Your footmen do it, but they are paid; and the fellow who comes to +get a list of the company when you give a banquet or a dancing breakfast +at Longueoreille House, gets money from the newspapers for performing +that service. But for us, thank you for nothing, Longears my boy, and we +don't wish to pay you any more than we owe. We will take off our hats to +Wellington because he is Wellington; but to you--who are you?' + +I am sick of COURT CIRCULARS. I loathe HAUT-TON intelligence. I believe +such words as Fashionable, Exclusive, Aristocratic, and the like, to +be wicked, unchristian epithets, that ought to be banished from honest +vocabularies. A Court system that sends men of genius to the second +table, I hold to be a Snobbish system. A society that sets up to be +polite, and ignores Arts and Letters, I hold to be a Snobbish society. +You, who despise your neighbour, are a Snob; you, who forget your own +friends, meanly to follow after those of a higher degree, are a Snob; +you, who are ashamed of your poverty, and blush for your calling, are +a Snob; as are you who boast of your pedigree, or are proud of your +wealth. + +To laugh at such is MR. PUNCH'S business. May he laugh honestly, hit +no foul blow, and tell the truth when at his very broadest grin--never +forgetting that if Fun is good, Truth is still better, and Love best of +all. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Book of Snobs, by William Makepeace Thackeray + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF SNOBS *** + +***** This file should be named 2686-0.txt or 2686-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/8/2686/ + +Produced by Sean Hackett; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/2686-0.zip b/2686-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff1fe59 --- /dev/null +++ b/2686-0.zip diff --git a/2686-8.txt b/2686-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1fb9c6f --- /dev/null +++ b/2686-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6787 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Book of Snobs, by William Makepeace Thackeray + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Book of Snobs + +Author: William Makepeace Thackeray + +Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #2686] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF SNOBS *** + + + + +Produced by Sean Hackett; David Widger + + + + + +THE BOOK OF SNOBS + + +By One Of Themselves + +(William Makepeace Thackeray) + + + + +PREFATORY REMARKS + +(The necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved +by felicitous illustrations:--I am the individual destined to write that +work--My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence--I show +that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and the +MAN--Snobs are to be studied like other objects of Natural Science, +and are a part of the Beautiful (with a large B). They pervade all +classes--Affecting instance of Colonel Snobley.) + +We have all read a statement, (the authenticity of which I take leave to +doubt entirely, for upon what calculations I should like to know is it +founded?)--we have all, I say, been favoured by perusing a remark, +that when the times and necessities of the world call for a Man, that +individual is found. Thus at the French Revolution (which the reader +will be pleased to have introduced so early), when it was requisite to +administer a corrective dose to the nation, Robespierre was found; +a most foul and nauseous dose indeed, and swallowed eagerly by the +patient, greatly to the latter's ultimate advantage: thus, when it +became necessary to kick John Bull out of America, Mr. Washington +stepped forward, and performed that job to satisfaction: thus, when +the Earl of Aldborough was unwell, Professor Holloway appeared with his +pills, and cured his lordship, as per advertisement, &c. &c.. Numberless +instances might be adduced to show that when a nation is in great want, +the relief is at hand; just as in the Pantomime (that microcosm) where +when CLOWN wants anything--a warming-pan, a pump-handle, a goose, or a +lady's tippet--a fellow comes sauntering out from behind the side-scenes +with the very article in question. + +Again, when men commence an undertaking, they always are prepared +to show that the absolute necessities of the world demanded its +completion.--Say it is a railroad: the directors begin by stating that +'A more intimate communication between Bathershins and Derrynane Beg +is necessary for the advancement of civilization, and demanded by the +multitudinous acclamations of the great Irish people.' Or suppose it is +a newspaper: the prospectus states that 'At a time when the Church is +in danger, threatened from without by savage fanaticism and miscreant +unbelief, and undermined from within by dangerous Jesuitism, and +suicidal Schism, a Want has been universally felt--a suffering people +has looked abroad--for an Ecclesiastical Champion and Guardian. A body +of Prelates and Gentlemen have therefore stepped forward in this our +hour of danger, and determined on establishing the BEADLE newspaper,' +&c. &c. One or other of these points at least is incontrovertible: the +public wants a thing, therefore it is supplied with it; or the public is +supplied with a thing, therefore it wants it. + +I have long gone about with a conviction on my mind that I had a work to +do--a Work, if you like, with a great W; a Purpose to fulfil; a chasm to +leap into, like Curtius, horse and foot; a Great Social Evil to Discover +and to Remedy. That Conviction Has Pursued me for Years. It has Dogged +me in the Busy Street; Seated Itself By Me in The Lonely Study; Jogged +My Elbow as it Lifted the Wine-cup at The Festive Board; Pursued me +through the Maze of Rotten Row; Followed me in Far Lands. On Brighton's +Shingly Beach, or Margate's Sand, the Voice Outpiped the Roaring of the +Sea; it Nestles in my Nightcap, and It Whispers, 'Wake, Slumberer, thy +Work Is Not Yet Done.' Last Year, By Moonlight, in the Colosseum, +the Little Sedulous Voice Came To Me and Said, 'Smith, or Jones' (The +Writer's Name is Neither Here nor There), 'Smith or Jones, my fine +fellow, this is all very well, but you ought to be at home writing your +great work on SNOBS. + +When a man has this sort of vocation it is all nonsense attempting to +elude it. He must speak out to the nations; he must unbusm himself, as +Jeames would say, or choke and die. 'Mark to yourself,' I have often +mentally exclaimed to your humble servant, 'the gradual way in which you +have been prepared for, and are now led by an irresistible necessity +to enter upon your great labour. First, the World was made: then, as a +matter of course, Snobs; they existed for years and years, and were no +more known than America. But presently,--INGENS PATEBAT TELLUS,--the +people became darkly aware that there was such a race. Not above +five-and-twenty years since, a name, an expressive monosyllable, arose +to designate that race. That name has spread over England like railroads +subsequently; Snobs are known and recognized throughout an Empire on +which I am given to understand the Sun never sets. PUNCH appears at the +ripe season, to chronicle their history: and the individual comes forth +to write that history in PUNCH.' + +I have (and for this gift I congratulate myself with Deep and Abiding +Thankfulness) an eye for a Snob. If the Truthful is the Beautiful, it is +Beautiful to study even the Snobbish; to track Snobs through history, +as certain little dogs in Hampshire hunt out truffles; to sink shafts in +society and come upon rich veins of Snobore. Snobbishness is like Death +in a quotation from Horace, which I hope you never have heard, 'beating +with equal foot at poor men's doors, and kicking at the gates of +Emperors.' It is a great mistake to judge of Snobs lightly, and think +they exist among the lower classes merely. An immense percentage of +Snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life. You +must not judge hastily or vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that you are +yourself a Snob. I myself have been taken for one. + +When I was taking the waters at Bagnigge Wells, and living at the +'Imperial Hotel' there, there used to sit opposite me at breakfast, for +a short time, a Snob so insufferable that I felt I should never get +any benefit of the waters so long as he remained. His name was +Lieutenant-Colonel Snobley, of a certain dragoon regiment. He wore +japanned boots and moustaches: he lisped, drawled, and left the 'r's' +out of his words: he was always flourishing about, and smoothing his +lacquered whiskers with a huge flaming bandanna, that filled the room +with an odour of musk so stifling that I determined to do battle with +that Snob, and that either he or I should quit the Inn. I first began +harmless conversations with him; frightening him exceedingly, for he did +not know what to do when so attacked, and had never the slightest notion +that anybody would take such a liberty with him as to speak first: +then I handed him the paper: then, as he would take no notice of these +advances, I used to look him in the face steadily and--and use my fork +in the light of a toothpick. After two mornings of this practice, he +could bear it no longer, and fairly quitted the place. + +Should the Colonel see this, will he remember the Gent who asked him if +he thought Publicoaler was a fine writer, and drove him from the Hotel +with a four-pronged fork? + + + +CHAPTER I--THE SNOB PLAYFULLY DEALT WITH + + +There are relative and positive Snobs. I mean by positive, such persons +as are Snobs everywhere, in all companies, from morning till night, +from youth to the grave, being by Nature endowed with Snobbishness--and +others who are Snobs only in certain circumstances and relations of +life. + +For instance: I once knew a man who committed before me an act as +atrocious as that which I have indicated in the last chapter as +performed by me for the purpose of disgusting Colonel Snobley; viz, the +using the fork in the guise of a toothpick. I once, I say, knew a man +who, dining in my company at the 'Europa Coffee-house,' (opposite the +Grand Opera, and, as everybody knows, the only decent place for dining +at Naples,) ate peas with the assistance of his knife. He was a person +with whose society I was greatly pleased at first--indeed, we had met in +the crater of Mount Vesuvius, and were subsequently robbed and held to +ransom by brigands in Calabria, which is nothing to the purpose--a man +of great powers, excellent heart, and varied information; but I had +never before seen him with a dish of pease, and his conduct in regard to +them caused me the deepest pain. + +After having seen him thus publicly comport himself, but one course was +open to me--to cut his acquaintance. I commissioned a mutual friend +(the Honourable Poly Anthus) to break the matter to this gentleman as +delicately as possible, and to say that painful circumstances--in nowise +affecting Mr. Marrowfat's honour, or my esteem for him--had occurred, +which obliged me to forego my intimacy with him; and accordingly we met +and gave each other the cut direct that night at the Duchess of Monte +Fiasco's ball. + +Everybody at Naples remarked the separation of the Damon and +Pythias--indeed, Marrowfat had saved my life more than once--but, as an +English gentleman, what was I to do? + +My dear friend was, in this instance, the Snob RELATIVE. It is not +snobbish of persons of rank of any other nation to employ their knife in +the manner alluded to. I have seen Monte Fiasco clean his trencher with +his knife, and every Principe in company doing likewise. I have seen, +at the hospitable board of H.I.H. the Grand Duchess Stephanie of +Baden--(who, if these humble lines should come under her Imperial eyes, +is besought to remember graciously the most devoted of her servants)--I +have seen, I say, the Hereditary Princess of Potztausend-Donnerwetter +(that serenely-beautiful woman) use her knife in lieu of a fork or +spoon; I have seen her almost swallow it, by Jove! like Ramo Samee, the +Indian juggler. And did I blench? Did my estimation for the Princess +diminish? No, lovely Amalia! One of the truest passions that ever was +inspired by woman was raised in this bosom by that lady. Beautiful +one! long, long may the knife carry food to those lips! the reddest and +loveliest in the world! + +The cause of my quarrel with Marrowfat I never breathed to mortal soul +for four years. We met in the halls of the aristocracy--our friends and +relatives. We jostled each other in the dance or at the board; but the +estrangement continued, and seemed irrevocable, until the fourth of +June, last year. + +We met at Sir George Golloper's. We were placed, he on the right, your +humble servant on the left of the admirable Lady G.. Peas formed part of +the banquet--ducks and green peas. I trembled as I saw Marrowfat helped, +and turned away sickening, lest I should behold the weapon darting down +his horrid jaws. + +What was my astonishment, what my delight, when I saw him use his fork +like any other Christian! He did not administer the cold steel once. Old +times rushed back upon me--the remembrance of old services--his rescuing +me from the brigands--his gallant conduct in the affair with the +Countess Dei Spinachi--his lending me the 1,700L. I almost burst into +tears with joy--my voice trembled with emotion. 'George, my boy!' I +exclaimed, 'George Marrowfat, my dear fellow! a glass of wine!' + +Blushing--deeply moved--almost as tremulous as I was myself, George +answered, 'FRANK, SHALL IT BE HOCK OR MADEIRA? I could have hugged +him to my heart but for the presence of the company. Little did Lady +Golloper know what was the cause of the emotion which sent the duckling +I was carving into her ladyship's pink satin lap. The most good-natured +of women pardoned the error, and the butler removed the bird. + +We have been the closest friends over since, nor, of course, has George +repeated his odious habit. He acquired it at a country school, where +they cultivated peas and only used two-pronged forks, and it was only +by living on the Continent where the usage of the four-prong is general, +that he lost the horrible custom. + +In this point--and in this only--I confess myself a member of the +Silver-Fork School; and if this tale but induce one of my readers to +pause, to examine in his own mind solemnly, and ask, 'Do I or do I not +eat peas with a knife?'--to see the ruin which may fall upon himself by +continuing the practice, or his family by beholding the example, these +lines will not have been written in vain. And now, whatever other +authors may be, I flatter myself, it will be allowed that I, at least, +am a moral man. + +By the way, as some readers are dull of comprehension, I may as well +say what the moral of this history is. The moral is this--Society having +ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and +conform to its harmless orders. + +If I should go to the British and Foreign Institute (and heaven forbid I +should go under any pretext or in any costume whatever)--if I should go +to one of the tea-parties in a dressing-gown and slippers, and not in +the usual attire of a gentleman, viz, pumps, a gold waistcoat, a crush +hat, a sham frill, and a white choker--I should be insulting society, +and EATING PEASE WITH MY KNIFE. Let the porters of the Institute hustle +out the individual who shall so offend. Such an offender is, as regards +society, a most emphatical and refractory Snob. It has its code and +police as well as governments, and he must conform who would profit by +the decrees set forth for their common comfort. + +I am naturally averse to egotism, and hate selflaudation consumedly; but +I can't help relating here a circumstance illustrative of the point in +question, in which I must think I acted with considerable prudence. + +Being at Constantinople a few years since--(on a delicate mission),--the +Russians were playing a double game, between ourselves, and it became +necessary on our part to employ an EXTRA NEGOTIATOR--Leckerbiss Pasha of +Roumelia, then Chief Galeongee of the Porte, gave a diplomatic banquet +at his summer palace at Bujukdere. I was on the left of the Galeongee, +and the Russian agent, Count de Diddloff, on his dexter side. Diddloff +is a dandy who would die of a rose in aromatic pain: he had tried to +have me assassinated three times in the course of the negotiation; but +of course we were friends in public, and saluted each other in the most +cordial and charming manner. + +The Galeongee is--or was, alas! for a bow-string has done for him--a +staunch supporter of the old school of Turkish politics. We dined with +our fingers, and had flaps of bread for plates; the only innovation +he admitted was the use of European liquors, in which he indulged with +great gusto. He was an enormous eater. Amongst the dishes a very large +one was placed before him of a lamb dressed in its wool, stuffed with +prunes, garlic, assafoetida, capsicums, and other condiments, the most +abominable mixture that ever mortal smelt or tasted. The Galeongee ate +of this hugely; and pursuing the Eastern fashion, insisted on helping +his friends right and left, and when he came to a particularly spicy +morsel, would push it with his own hands into his guests' very mouths. + +I never shall forget the look of poor Diddloff, when his Excellency, +rolling up a large quantity of this into a ball and exclaiming, 'Buk +Buk' (it is very good), administered the horrible bolus to Diddloff. The +Russian's eyes rolled dreadfully as he received it: he swallowed it with +a grimace that I thought must precede a convulsion, and seizing a bottle +next him, which he thought was Sauterne, but which turned out to be +French brandy, he drank off nearly a pint before he know his error. It +finished him; he was carried away from the dining-room almost dead, and +laid out to cool in a summer-house on the Bosphorus. + +When it came to my turn, I took down the condiment with a smile, said +'Bismillah,' licked my lips with easy gratification, and when the next +dish was served, made up a ball myself so dexterously, and popped it +down the old Galeongee's mouth with so much grace, that his heart was +won. Russia was put out of court at once and THE TREATY of Kabobanople +WAS SIGNED. As for Diddloff, all was over with HIM: he was recalled to +St. Petersburg, and Sir Roderick Murchison saw him, under the No. 3967, +working in the Ural mines. + +The moral of this tale, I need not say, is, that there are many +disagreeable things in society which you are bound to take down, and to +do so with a smiling face. + + + +CHAPTER II--THE SNOB ROYAL + +Long since at the commencement of the reign of her present Gracious +Majesty, it chanced 'on a fair summer evening,' as Mr. James would say, +that three or four young cavaliers were drinking a cup of wine after +dinner at the hostelry called the 'King's Arms,' kept by Mistress +Anderson, in the royal village of Kensington. 'Twas a balmy evening, +and the wayfarers looked out on a cheerful scene. The tall elms of +the ancient gardens were in full leaf, and countless chariots of +the nobility of England whirled by to the neighbouring palace, where +princely Sussex (whose income latterly only allowed him to give +tea-parties) entertained his royal niece at a state banquet. When the +caroches of the nobles had set down their owners at the banquethall, +their varlets and servitors came to quaff a flagon of nut-brown ale in +the 'King's Arms' gardens hard by. We watched these fellows from our +lattice. By Saint Boniface 'twas a rare sight! + +The tulips in Mynheer Van Dunck's gardens were not more gorgeous than +the liveries of these pie-coated retainers. All the flowers of the field +bloomed in their ruffled bosoms, all the hues of the rainbow gleamed +in their plush breeches, and the long-caned ones walked up and down the +garden with that charming solemnity, that delightful quivering swagger +of the calves, which has always had a frantic fascination for us. The +walk was not wide enough for them as the shoulder-knots strutted up and +down it in canary, and crimson, and light blue. + +Suddenly, in the midst of their pride, a little bell was rung, a side +door opened, and (after setting down their Royal Mistress) her Majesty's +own crimson footmen, with epaulets and black plushes, came in. + +It was pitiable to see the other poor Johns slink off at this arrival! +Not one of the honest private Plushes could stand up before the Royal +Flunkeys. They left the walk: they sneaked into dark holes and drank +their beer in silence. The Royal Plush kept possession of the garden +until the Royal Plush dinner was announced, when it retired, and we +heard from the pavilion where they dined, conservative cheers, and +speeches, and Kentish fires. The other Flunkeys we never saw more. + +My dear Flunkeys, so absurdly conceited at one moment and so abject +at the next, are but the types of their masters in this world. HE WHO +MEANLY ADMIRES MEAN THINGS IS A SNOB--perhaps that is a safe definition +of the character. + +And this is why I have, with the utmost respect, ventured to place The +Snob Royal at the head of my list, causing all others to give way before +him, as the Flunkeys before the royal representative in Kensington +Gardens. To say of such and such a Gracious Sovereign that he is a Snob, +is but to say that his Majesty is a man. Kings, too, are men and Snobs. +In a country where Snobs are in the majority, a prime one, surely, +cannot be unfit to govern. With us they have succeeded to admiration. + +For instance, James I. was a Snob, and a Scotch Snob, than which the +world contains no more offensive creature. He appears to have had not +one of the good qualities of a man--neither courage, nor generosity, +nor honesty, nor brains; but read what the great Divines and Doctors of +England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not +a Snob; whilst Louis XIV., his old squaretoes of a contemporary,--the +great worshipper of Bigwiggery--has always struck me as a most undoubted +and Royal Snob. + +I will not, however, take instances from our own country of Royal Snobs, +but refer to a neighbouring kingdom, that of Brentford--and its monarch, +the late great and lamented Gorgius IV. With the same humility with +which the footmen at the 'King's Arms' gave way before the Plush Royal, +the aristocracy of the Brentford nation bent down and truckled before +Gorgius, and proclaimed him the first gentleman in Europe. And it's a +wonder to think what is the gentlefolks' opinion of a gentleman, when +they gave Gorgius such a title. + +What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be +generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, +to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman +to be a loyal son, a true husband, and honest father? Ought his life to +be decent--his bills to be paid--his tastes to be high and elegant--his +aims in life lofty and noble? In a word, ought not the Biography of a +First Gentleman in Europe to be of such a nature that it might be read +in Young Ladies' Schools with advantage, and studied with profit in the +Seminaries of Young Gentlemen? I put this question to all instructors +of youth--to Mrs. Ellis and the Women of England; to all schoolmasters, +from Doctor Hawtrey down to Mr. Squeers. I conjure up before me an awful +tribunal of youth and innocence, attended by its venerable instructors +(like the ten thousand red-cheeked charity-children in Saint Paul's), +sitting in judgment, and Gorgius pleading his cause in the midst. Out of +Court, out of Court, fat old Florizel! Beadles, turn out that bloated, +pimple-faced man!--If Gorgius MUST have a statue in the new Palace which +the Brentford nation is building, it ought to be set up in the Flunkeys' +Hall. He should be represented cutting out a coat, in which art he is +said to have excelled. He also invented Maraschino punch, a shoe-buckle +(this was in the vigour of his youth, and the prime force of his +invention), and a Chinese pavilion, the most hideous building in the +world. He could drive a four-in-hand very nearly as well as the Brighton +coachman, could fence elegantly, and it is said, played the fiddle well. +And he smiled with such irresistible fascination, that persons who were +introduced into his august presence became his victims, body and soul, +as a rabbit becomes the prey of a great big boa-constrictor. + +I would wager that if Mr. Widdicomb were, by a revolution, placed on +the throne of Brentford, people would be equally fascinated by his +irresistibly majestic smile and tremble as they knelt down to kiss his +hand. If he went to Dublin they would erect an obelisk on the spot where +he first landed, as the Paddylanders did when Gorgius visited them. +We have all of us read with delight that story of the King's voyage to +Haggisland, where his presence inspired such a fury of loyalty and where +the most famous man of the country--the Baron of Bradwardine--coming +on board the royal yacht, and finding a glass out of which Gorgius had +drunk, put it into his coatpocket as an inestimable relic, and went +ashore in his boat again. But the Baron sat down upon the glass and +broke it, and cut his coat-tails very much; and the inestimable relic +was lost to the world for ever. O noble Bradwardine! what old-world +superstition could set you on your knees before such an idol as that? + +If you want to moralise upon the mutability of human affairs, go and +see the figure of Gorgius in his real, identical robes, at the +waxwork.--Admittance one shilling. Children and flunkeys sixpence. Go, +and pay sixpence. + + + +CHAPTER III--THE INFLUENCE OF THE ARISTOCRACY ON SNOBS + +Last Sunday week, being at church in this city, and the service just +ended, I heard two Snobs conversing about the Parson. One was asking +the other who the clergyman was? 'He is Mr. So-and-so,' the second Snob +answered, 'domestic chaplain to the Earl of What-d'ye-call'im.' 'Oh, is +he' said the first Snob, with a tone of indescribable satisfaction.--The +Parson's orthodoxy and identity were at once settled in this Snob's +mind. He knew no more about the Earl than about the Chaplain, but he +took the latter's character upon the authority of the former; and went +home quite contented with his Reverence, like a little truckling Snob. + +This incident gave me more matter for reflection even than the sermon: +and wonderment at the extent and prevalence of Lordolatory in this +country. What could it matter to Snob whether his Reverence were +chaplain to his Lordship or not? What Peerageworship there is all +through this free country! How we are all implicated in it, and more or +less down on our knees.--And with regard to the great subject on hand, I +think that the influence of the Peerage upon Snobbishness has been +more remarkable than that of any other institution. The increase, +encouragement, and maintenance of Snobs are among the 'priceless +services,' as Lord John Russell says, which we owe to the nobility. + +It can't be otherwise. A man becomes enormously rich, or he jobs +successfully in the aid of a Minister, or he wins a great battle, or +executes a treaty, or is a clever lawyer who makes a multitude of fees +and ascends the bench; and the country rewards him for ever with a gold +coronet (with more or less balls or leaves) and a title, and a rank +as legislator. 'Your merits are so great,' says the nation, 'that your +children shall be allowed to reign over us, in a manner. It does not in +the least matter that your eldest son be a fool: we think your services +so remarkable, that he shall have the reversion of your honours when +death vacates your noble shoes. If you are poor, we will give you such +a sum of money as shall enable you and the eldest-born of your race for +ever to live in fat and splendour. It is our wish that there should be +a race set apart in this happy country, who shall hold the first rank, +have the first prizes and chances in all government jobs and patronages. +We cannot make all your dear children Peers--that would make Peerage +common and crowd the House of Lords uncomfortably--but the young ones +shall have everything a Government can give: they shall get the pick +of all the places: they shall be Captains and Lieutenant-Colonels at +nineteen, when hoary-headed old lieutenants are spending thirty years +at drill: they shall command ships at one-and-twenty, and veterans who +fought before they were born. And as we are eminently a free people, and +in order to encourage all men to do their duty, we say to any man of +any rank--get enormously rich, make immense fees as a lawyer, or great +speeches, or distinguish yourself and win battles--and you, even you, +shall come into the privileged class, and your children shall reign +naturally over ours.' + +How can we help Snobbishness, with such a prodigious national +institution erected for its worship? How can we help cringing to +Lords? Flesh and blood can't do otherwise. What man can withstand this +prodigious temptation? Inspired by what is called a noble emulation, +some people grasp at honours and win them; others, too weak or mean, +blindly admire and grovel before those who have gained them; others, not +being able to acquire them, furiously hate, abuse, and envy. There are +only a few bland and not-in-the-least-conceited philosophers, who +can behold the state of society, viz., Toadyism, organised:--base +Man-and-Mammon worship, instituted by command of law:--Snobbishness, in +a word, perpetuated,--and mark the phenomenon calmly. And of these calm +moralists, is there one, I wonder, whose heart would not throb with +pleasure if he could be seen walking arm-in-arm with a couple of dukes +down Pall Mall? No it is impossible in our condition of society, not to +be sometimes a Snob. + +On one hand it encourages the commoner to be snobbishly mean, and the +noble to be snobbishly arrogant. When a noble marchioness writes in +her travels about the hard necessity under which steam-boat travellers +labour of being brought into contact 'with all sorts and conditions of +people:' implying that a fellowship with God's creatures is disagreeable +to to her Ladyship, who is their superior:--when, I say, the Marchioness +of ---- writes in this fashion, we must consider that out of her natural +heart it would have been impossible for any woman to have had such a +sentiment; but that the habit of truckling and cringing, which all +who surround her have adopted towards this beautiful and magnificent +lady,--this proprietor of so many black and other diamonds,--has really +induced her to believe that she is the superior of the world in general: +and that people are not to associate with her except awfully at a +distance. I recollect being once at the city of Grand Cairo, through +which a European Royal Prince was passing India-wards. One night at the +inn there was a great disturbance: a man had drowned himself in the well +hard by: all the inhabitants of the hotel came bustling into the Court, +and amongst others your humble servant, who asked of a certain young man +the reason of the disturbance. How was I to know that this young gent +was a prince? He had not his crown and sceptre on: he was dressed in a +white jacket and felt hat: but he looked surprised at anybody speaking +to him: answered an unintelligible monosyllable, and--BECKONED HIS +AID-DE-CAMP TO COME AND SPEAK TO ME. It is our fault, not that of the +great, that they should fancy themselves so far above us. If you WILL +fling yourself under the wheels, Juggernaut will go over you, depend +upon it; and if you and I, my dear friend, had Kotow performed before +us every day,--found people whenever we appeared grovelling in slavish +adoration, we should drop into the airs of superiority quite naturally, +and accept the greatness with which the world insisted upon endowing us. + +Here is an instance, out of Lord L----'s travels, of that calm, +good-natured, undoubting way in which a great man accepts the homage of +his inferiors. After making some profound and ingenious remarks about +the town of Brussells, his lordship says:--'Staying some day at the +Hotel de Belle Vue, a greatly overrated establishment, and not nearly as +comfortable as the Hotel de France--I made acquaintance with Dr. L----, +the physician of the Mission. He was desirous of doing the honours of +the place to me, and he ordered for us a DINER EN GOURMAND at the chief +restaurateur's, maintaining it surpassed the Rocher at Paris. Six or +eight partook of the entertainment, and we all agreed it was infinitely +inferior to the Paris display, and much more extravagant. So much for +the copy. + +And so much for the gentleman who gave the dinner. Dr. L----, desirous +to do his lordship 'the honour of the place,' feasts him with the +best victuals money can procure--and my lord finds the entertainment +extravagant and inferior. Extravagant! it was not extravagant to +HIM;--Inferior! Mr. L---- did his best to satisfy those noble jaws, +and my lord receives the entertainment, and dismisses the giver with +a rebuke. It is like a three-tailed Pasha grumbling about an +unsatisfactory backsheesh. + +But how should it be otherwise in a country where Lordolatry is part +of our creed, and where our children are brought up to respect the +'Peerage' as the Englishman's second Bible? + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE COURT CIRCULAR, AND ITS INFLUENCE ON SNOBS + +Example is the best of precepts; so let us begin with a true and +authentic story, showing how young aristocratic snobs are reared, and +how early their Snobbishness may be made to bloom. A beautiful and +fashionable lady--(pardon, gracious madam, that your story should +be made public; but it is so moral that it ought to be known to the +universal world)--told me that in her early youth she had a little +acquaintance, who is now indeed a beautiful and fashionable lady too. +In mentioning Miss Snobky, daughter of Sir Snobby Snobky, whose +presentation at Court caused such a sensation, need I say more? + +When Miss Snobky was so very young as to be in the nursery regions, and +to walk off early mornings in St. James's Park, protected by a French +governess and followed by a huge hirsute flunkey in the canary coloured +livery of the Snobkys, she used occasionally in these promenades to meet +with young Lord Claude Lollipop, the Marquis of Sillabub's younger +son. In the very height of the season, from some unexplained cause, the +Snobkys suddenly determined upon leaving town. Miss Snobky spoke to her +female friend and confidante. 'What will poor Claude Lollipop say when +he hears of my absence?' asked the tender-hearted child. + +'Oh, perhaps he won't hear of it,' answers the confidante. + +'MY DEAR, HE WILL READ IT IN THE PAPERS,' replied the dear little +fashionable rogue of seven years old. She knew already her importance, +and how all the world of England, how all the would-be-genteel people, +how all the silver-fork worshippers, how all the tattle-mongers, how all +the grocers' ladies, the tailors' ladies, the attorneys' and merchants' +ladies, and the people living at Clapham and Brunswick Square,--who have +no more chance of consorting with a Snobky than my beloved reader has +of dining with the Emperor of China--yet watched the movements of the +Snobkys with interest and were glad to know when they came to London and +left it. + +Here is the account of Miss Snobky's dress, and that of her mother, Lady +Snobky, from the papers:-- + +'MISS SNOBKY. + +Habit de Cour, composed of a yellow nankeen illusion dress over a +slip of rich pea-green corduroy, trimmed en tablier, with bouquets +of Brussels sprouts: the body and sleeves handsomely trimmed with +calimanco, and festooned with a pink train and white radishes. +Head-dress, carrots and lappets. + +'LADY SNOBKY. + +'Costume de Cour, composed of a train of the most superb Pekin +bandannas, elegantly trimmed with spangles, tinfoil, and red-tape. +Bodice and underdress of sky-blue velveteen, trimmed with bouffants and +noeuds of bell-pulls. Stomacher a muffin. Head-dress a bird's nest, +with a bird of paradise, over a rich brass knocker en ferroniere. This +splendid costume, by Madame Crinoline, of Regent Street, was the object +of universal admiration.' + +This is what you read. Oh, Mrs. Ellis! Oh, mothers, daughters, aunts, +grandmothers of England, this is the sort of writing which is put in the +newspapers for you! How can you help being the mothers, daughters, &c. +of Snobs, so long as this balderdash is set before you? + +You stuff the little rosy foot of a Chinese young lady of fashion into a +slipper that is about the size of a salt-cruet, and keep the poor little +toes there imprisoned and twisted up so long that the dwarfishness +becomes irremediable. Later, the foot would not expand to the natural +size were you to give her a washing-tub for a shoe and for all her life +she has little feet, and is a cripple. Oh, my dear Miss Wiggins, thank +your stars that those beautiful feet of yours--though I declare when you +walk they are so small as to be almost invisible--thank your stars that +society never so practised upon them; but look around and see how +many friends of ours in the highest circles have had their BRAINS so +prematurely and hopelessly pinched and distorted. + +How can you expect that those poor creatures are to move naturally when +the world and their parents have mutilated them so cruelly? As long as +a COURT CIRCULAR exists, how the deuce are people whose names are +chronicled in it ever to believe themselves the equals of the cringing +race which daily reads that abominable trash? I believe that ours is the +only country in the world now where the COURT CIRCULAR remains in full +flourish--where you read, 'This day his Royal Highness Prince Pattypan +was taken an airing in his go-cart.' 'The Princess Pimminy was taken a +drive, attended by her ladies of honour, and accompanied by her doll,' +&c. We laugh at the solemnity with which Saint Simon announces that SA +MAJESTE SE MEDICAMENTE AUJOURD'HUI. Under our very noses the same folly +is daily going on. That wonderful and mysterious man, the author of the +COURT CIRCULAR, drops in with his budget at the newspaper offices every +night. I once asked the editor of a paper to allow me to lie in wait and +see him. + +I am told that in a kingdom where there is a German King-Consort +(Portugal it must be, for the Queen of that country married a German +Prince, who is greatly admired and respected by the natives), whenever +the Consort takes the diversion of shooting among the rabbit-warrens of +Cintra, or the pheasant-preserve of Mafra, he has a keeper to load his +guns, as a matter of course, and then they are handed to the nobleman, +his equerry, and the nobleman hands them to the Prince who blazes +away--gives back the discharged gun to the nobleman, who gives it to the +keeper, and so on. But the Prince WON'T TAKE THE GUN FROM THE HANDS OF +THE LOADER. + +As long as this unnatural and monstrous etiquette continues, Snobs there +must be. The three persons engaged in this transaction are, for the time +being, Snobs. + +1. The keeper--the least Snob of all, because he is discharging his +daily duty; but he appears here as a Snob, that is to say, in a position +of debasement before another human being (the Prince), with whom he +is allowed to communicate through another party. A free Portuguese +gamekeeper, who professes himself to be unworthy to communicate directly +with any person, confesses himself to be a Snob. + +2. The nobleman in waiting is a Snob. If it degrades the Prince to +receive the gun from the gamekeeper, it is degrading to the nobleman in +waiting to execute that service. He acts as a Snob towards the keeper, +whom he keeps from communication with the Prince--a Snob to the Prince, +to whom he pays a degrading homage. + +3. The King-Consort of Portugal is a Snob for insulting fellow-men in +this way. There's no harm in his accepting the services of the keeper +directly; but indirectly he insults the service performed, and the +servants who perform it; and therefore, I say, respectfully, is a most +undoubted, though royal Snob. + +And then you read in the DIARIO DO GOBERNO--'Yesterday his Majesty the +King took the diversion of shooting the woods off Cintra, attended by +Colonel the honourable Whiskerando Sombrero. His Majesty returned to the +Necessidades to lunch, at,' &c. &c.. + +Oh! that COURT CIRCULAR! once more, I exclaim. + +Down with the COURT CIRCULAR--that engine and propagator of +Snobbishness! I promise to subscribe for a year to any daily paper that +shall come out without a COURT CIRCULAR--were it the MORNING HERALD +itself. When I read that trash, I rise in my wrath; I feel myself +disloyal, a regicide, a member of the Calf's Head Club. The only COURT +CIRCULAR story which ever pleased me, was that of the King of Spain, +who in great part was roasted, because there was not time for the Prime +Minister to command the Lord Chamberlain to desire the Grand Gold Stick +to order the first page in waiting to bid the chief of the flunkeys to +request the House-maid of Honour to bring up a pail of water to put his +Majesty out. + +I am like the Pasha of three tails, to whom the Sultan sends HIS COURT +CIRCULAR, the bowstring. + +It CHOKES me. May its usage be abolished for ever. + + + +CHAPTER V--WHAT SNOBS ADMIRE + +Now let us consider how difficult it is even for great men to escape +from being Snobs. It is very well for the reader, whose fine feelings +are disgusted by the assertion that Kings, Princes, Lords, are Snobs, to +say 'You are confessedly a Snob yourself. In professing to depict Snobs, +it is only your own ugly mug which you are copying with a Narcissus-like +conceit and fatuity.' But I shall pardon this explosion of ill-temper +on the part of my constant reader, reflecting upon the misfortune of his +birth and country. It is impossible for ANY Briton, perhaps, not to be a +Snob in some degree. If people can be convinced of this fact, an immense +point is gained, surely. If I have pointed out the disease, let us hope +that other scientific characters may discover the remedy. + +If you, who are a person of the middle ranks of life, are a Snob,--you +whom nobody flatters particularly; you who have no toadies; you whom no +cringing flunkeys or shopmen bow out of doors; you whom the policeman +tells to move on; you who are jostled in the crowd of this world, and +amongst the Snobs our brethren: consider how much harder it is for a man +to escape who has not your advantages, and is all his life long subject +to adulation; the butt of meanness; consider how difficult it is for the +Snobs' idol not to be a Snob. + +As I was discoursing with my friend Eugenio in this impressive way, Lord +Buckram passed us, the son of the Marquis of Bagwig, and knocked at +the door of the family mansion in Red Lion Square. His noble father and +mother occupied, as everybody knows, distinguished posts in the +Courts of late Sovereigns. The Marquis was Lord of the Pantry, and her +Ladyship, Lady of the Powder Closet to Queen Charlotte. Buck (as I +call him, for we are very familiar) gave me a nod as he passed, and +I proceeded to show Eugenio how it was impossible that this nobleman +should not be one of ourselves, having been practised upon by Snobs all +his life. + +His parents resolved to give him a public education, and sent him to +school at the earliest possible period. The Reverend Otto Rose, D.D., +Principal of the Preparatory Academy for young noblemen and gentlemen, +Richmond Lodge, took this little Lord in hand, and fell down and +worshipped him. He always introduced him to fathers and mothers who +came to visit their children at the school. He referred with pride and +pleasure to the most noble the Marquis of Bagwig, as one of the kind +friends and patrons of his Seminary. He made Lord Buckram a bait for +such a multiplicity of pupils, that a new wing was built to Richmond +Lodge, and thirty-five new little white dimity beds were added to +the establishment. Mm. Rose used to take out the little Lord in the +one-horse chaise with her when she paid visits, until the Rector's +lady and the Surgeon's wife almost died with envy. His own son and Lord +Buckram having been discovered robbing an orchard together, the Doctor +flogged his own flesh and blood most unmercifully for leading the young +Lord astray. He parted from him with tears. There was always a letter +directed to the Most Noble the Marquis ef Bagwig, on the Doctor's study +table, when any visitors were received by him. + +At Eton, a great deal of Snobbishness was thrashed out of Lord Buckram, +and he was birched with perfect impartiality. Even there, however, a +select band of sucking tuft-hunters followed him. Young Croesus lent +him three-and-twenty bran-new sovereigns out of his father's bank. Young +Snaily did his exercises for him, and tried 'to know him at home;' but +Young Bull licked him in a fight of fifty-five minutes, and he was caned +several times with great advantage for not sufficiently polishing his +master Smith's shoes. Boys are not ALL toadies in the morning of life. + +But when he went to the University, crowds of toadies sprawled over +him. The tutors toadied him. The fellows in hall paid him great clumsy +compliments. The Dean never remarked his absence from Chapel, or heard +any noise issuing from his rooms. A number of respectable young fellows, +(it is among the respectable, the Baker Street class, that Snobbishness +flourishes, more than among any set of people in England)--a number of +these clung to him like leeches. There was no end now to Croesus's loans +of money; and Buckram couldn't ride out with the hounds, but Snaily (a +timid creature by nature) was in the field, and would take any leap at +which his friend chose to ride. Young Rose came up to the same College, +having been kept back for that express purpose by his father. He spent a +quarter's allowance in giving Buckram a single dinner; but he knew +there was always pardon for him for extravagance in such a cause; and a +ten-pound note always came to him from home when he mentioned Buckram's +name in a letter. What wild visions entered the brains of Mrs. Podge +and Miss Podge, the wife and daughter of the Principal of Lord Buckram's +College, I don't know, but that reverend old gentleman was too profound +a flunkey by nature ever for one minute to think that a child of his +could marry a nobleman. He therefore hastened on his daughter's union +with Professor Crab. + +When Lord Buckram, after taking his honorary degree, (for Alma Mater is +a Snob, too, and truckles to a Lord like the rest,)--when Lord Buckram +went abroad to finish his education, you all know what dangers he ran, +and what numbers of caps were set at him. Lady Leach and her daughters +followed him from Paris to Rome, and from Rome to Baden-Baden; +Miss Leggitt burst into tears before his face when he announced his +determination to quit Naples, and fainted on the neck of her mamma: +Captain Macdragon, of Macdragonstown, County Tipperary, called upon +him to 'explene his intintions with respect to his sisther, Miss Amalia +Macdragon, of Macdragonstown,' and proposed to shoot him unless he +married that spotless and beautiful young creature, who was afterwards +led to the altar by Mr. Muff, at Cheltenham. If perseverance and forty +thousand pounds down could have tempted him, Miss Lydia Croesus would +certainly have been Lady Buckram. Count Towrowski was glad to take her +with half the meney, as all the genteel world knows. + +And now, perhaps, the reader is anxious to know what sort of a man +this is who wounded so many ladies' hearts, and who has been such a +prodigious favourite with men. If we were to describe him it would be +personal. Besides, it really does not matter in the least what sort of a +man he is, or what his personal qualities are. + +Suppose he is a young nobleman of a literary turn, and that he published +poems ever so foolish and feeble, the Snobs would purchase thousands +of his volumes: the publishers (who refused my Passion-Flowers, and +my grand Epic at any price) would give him his own. Suppose he is a +nobleman of a jovial turn, and has a fancy for wrenching off knockers, +frequenting ginshops, and half murdering policemen: the public will +sympathize good-naturedly with his amusements, and say he is a hearty, +honest fellow. Suppose he is fond of play and the turf; and has a fancy +to be a blackleg, and occasionally condescends to pluck a pigeon at +cards; the public will pardon him, and many honest people will court +him, as they would court a housebreaker if he happened to be a Lord. +Suppose he is an idiot; yet, by the glorious constitution, he is good +enough to govern US. Suppose he is an honest, highminded gentleman; so +much the better for himself. But he may be an ass, and yet respected; or +a ruffian, and yet be exceedingly popular; or a rogue, and yet excuses +will be found for him. Snobs will still worship him. Male Snobs will do +him honour, and females look kindly upon him, however hideous he may be. + + + +CHAPTER VI--ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS + +Having received a great deal of obloquy for dragging monarchs, princes, +and the respected nobility into the Snob category, I trust to please +everybody in the present chapter, by stating my firm opinion that it +is among the RESPECTABLE classes of this vast and happy empire that the +greatest profusion of Snobs is to be found. I pace down my beloved Baker +Street, (I am engaged on a life of Baker, founder of this celebrated +street,) I walk in Harley Street (where every other house has a +hatchment), Wimpole Street, that is as cheerful as the Catacombs--a +dingy Mausoleum of the genteel:--I rove round Regent's Park, where the +plaster is patching off the house walls; where Methodist preachers are +holding forth to three little children in the green inclosures, and +puffy valetudinarians are cantering in the solitary mud:--I thread the +doubtful ZIG-ZAGS of May Fair, where Mrs. Kitty Lorimer's Brougham may +be seen drawn up next door to old Lady Lollipop's belozenged family +coach;--I roam through Belgravia, that pale and polite district, where +all the inhabitants look prim and correct, and the mansions are painted +a faint whity-brown: I lose myself in the new squares and terraces of +the brilliant bran-new Bayswater-and-Tyburn-Junction line; and in one +and all of these districts the same truth comes across me. I stop before +any house at hazard, and say, 'O house, you are inhabited--O knocker, +you are knocked at--O undressed flunkey, sunning your lazy calves as +you lean against the iron railings, you are paid--by Snobs.' It is +a tremendous thought that; and it is almost sufficient to drive a +benevolent mind to madness to think that perhaps there is not one in +ten of those houses where the 'Peerage' does not lie on the drawing-room +table. Considering the harm that foolish lying book does, I would have +all the copies of it burned, as the barber burned all Quixote's books of +humbugging chivalry. + +Look at this grand house in the middle of the square. The Earl of +Loughcorrib lives there: he has fifty thousand a year. A DEJEUNER +DANSANT given at his house last week cost, who knows how much? The +mere flowers for the room and bouquets for the ladies cost four hundred +pounds. That man in drab trousers, coming crying down the stops, is a +dun: Lord Loughcorrib has ruined him, and won't see him: that is his +lordship peeping through the blind of his study at him now. Go thy ways, +Loughcorrib, thou art a Snob, a heartless pretender, a hypocrite of +hospitality; a rogue who passes forged notes upon society;--but I am +growing too eloquent. + +You see that nice house, No. 23, where a butcher's boy is ringing the +area-bell. He has three muttonchops in his tray. They are for the dinner +of a very different and very respectable family; for Lady Susan Scraper, +and her daughters, Miss Scraper and Miss Emily Scraper. The domestics, +luckily for them, are on board wages--two huge footmen in light blue and +canary, a fat steady coachman who is a Methodist, and a butler who +would never have stayed in the family but that he was orderly to General +Scraper when the General distinguished himself at Walcheren. His widow +sent his portrait to the United Service Club, and it is hung up in +one of the back dressing-closets there. He is represented at a parlour +window with red curtains; in the distance is a whirlwind, in which +cannon are firing off; and he is pointing to a chart, on which are +written the words 'Walcheren, Tobago.' + +Lady Susan is, as everybody knows by referring to the 'British Bible,' a +daughter of the great and good Earl Bagwig before mentioned. She thinks +everything belonging to her the greatest and best in the world. The +first of men naturally are the Buckrams, her own race: then follow in +rank the Scrapers. The General was the greatest general: his eldest son, +Scraper Buckram Scraper, is at present the greatest and best; his second +son the next greatest and best; and herself the paragon of women. + +Indeed, she is a most respectable and honourable lady. She goes to +church of course: she would fancy the Church in danger if she did not. +She subscribes to Church and parish charities; and is a directress +of meritorious charitable institutions--of Queen Charlotte's Lying-in +Hospital, the Washerwomen's Asylum, the British Drummers' Daughters' +Home, &c.. She is a model of a matron. + +The tradesman never lived who could say that he was not paid on +the quarter-day. The beggars of her neighbourhood avoid her like a +pestilence; for while she walks out, protected by John, that domestic +has always two or three mendicity tickets ready for deserving objects. +Ten guineas a year will pay all her charities. There is no respectable +lady in all London who gets her name more often printed for such a sum +of money. + +Those three mutton-chops which you see entering at the kitchen-door will +be served on the family-plate at seven o'clock this evening, the huge +footman being present, and the butler in black, and the crest and +coat-of-arms of the Scrapers blazing everywhere. I pity Miss Emily +Scraper--she is still young--young and hungry. Is it a fact that she +spends her pocket-money in buns? Malicious tongues say so; but she has +very little to spare for buns, the poor little hungry soul! For the +fact is, that when the footmen, and the ladies' maids, and the fat +coach-horses, which are jobbed, and the six dinner-parties in the +season, and the two great solemn evening-parties, and the rent of the +big house, and the journey to an English or foreign watering-place for +the autumn, are paid, my lady's income has dwindled away to a very small +sum, and she is as poor as you or I. + +You would not think it when you saw her big carriage rattling up to the +drawing-room, and caught a glimpse of her plumes, lappets, and diamonds, +waving over her ladyship's sandy hair and majestical hooked nose;--you +would not think it when you hear 'Lady Susan Scraper's carriage' bawled +out at midnight so as to disturb all Belgravia:--you would not think it +when she comes rustling into church, the obsequious John behind with the +bag of Prayer-books. Is it possible, you would say, that so grand and +awful a personage as that can be hard-up for money? Alas! So it is. + +She never heard such a word as Snob, I will engage, in this wicked and +vulgar world. And, O stars and garters! how she would start if she heard +that she--she, as solemn as Minerva--she, as chaste as Diana (without +that heathen goddess's unladylike propensity for field-sports)--that she +too was a Snob! + +A Snob she is, as long as she sets that prodigious value upon herself, +upon her name, upon her outward appearance, and indulges in that +intolerable pomposity; as long as she goes parading abroad, like +Solomon in all his glory; as long as she goes to bed--as I believe she +does--with a turban and a bird of paradise in it, and a court train +to her night-gown; as long as she is so insufferably virtuous and +condescending; as long as she does not cut at least one of those footmen +down into mutton-chops for the benefit of the young ladies. + +I had my notions of her from my old schoolfellow,--her son Sydney +Scraper--a Chancery barrister without any practice--the most placid, +polite, and genteel of Snobs, who never exceeded his allowance of two +hundred a year, and who may be seen any evening at the 'Oxford and +Cambridge Club,' simpering over the QUARTERLY REVIEW, in the blameless +enjoyment of his half-pint of port. + + + +CHAPTER VII--ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS + +Look at the next house to Lady Susan Scraper's. The first mansion with +the awning over the door: that canopy will be let down this evening for +the comfort of the friends of Sir Alured and Lady S. de Mogyns, whose +parties are so much admired by the public, and the givers themselves. + +Peach-coloured liveries laced with silver, and pea-green plush +inexpressibles, render the De Mogyns' flunkeys the pride of the ring +when they appear in Hyde Park where Lady de Mogyns, as she sits upon +her satin cushions, with her dwarf spaniel in her arms, bows to the very +selectest of the genteel. Times are altered now with Mary Anne, or, as +she calls herself, Marian de Mogyns. + +She was the daughter of Captain Flack of the Rathdrum Fencibles, who +crossed with his regiment over from Ireland to Caermarthenshire ever +so many years ago, and defended Wales from the Corsican invader. The +Rathdrums were quartered at Pontydwdlm, where Marian wooed and won her +De Mogyns, a young banker in the place. His attentions to Miss Flack at +a race ball were such that her father said De Mogyns must either die on +the field of honour, or become his son-in-law. He preferred marriage. +His name was Muggins then, and his father--a flourishing banker, +army-contractor, smuggler, and general jobber--almost disinherited him +on account of this connection. + +There is a story that Muggins the Elder was made a baronet for having +lent money to a R-y-l p-rs-n-ge. I do not believe it. The R-y-l Family +always paid their debts, from the Prince of Wales downwards. + +Howbeit, to his life's end he remained simple Sir Thomas Muggins, +representing Pontydwdlm in Parliament for many years after the war. The +old banker died in course of time, and to use the affectionate phrase +common on such occasions, 'cut up' prodigiously well. His son, Alfred +Smith Mogyns, succeeded to the main portion of his wealth, and to his +titles and the bloody hand of his scutcheon. It was not for many years +after that he appeared as Sir Alured Mogyns Smyth de Mogyns, with a +genealogy found out for him by the Editor of 'Fluke's Peerage,' and +which appears as follows in that work:--'De Mogyns.--Sir Alured Mogyns +Smyth, Second Baronet. This gentleman is a representative of one of the +most ancient families of Wales, who trace their descent until it is lost +in the mists of antiquity. A genealogical tree beginning with Shem is in +the possession of the family, and is stated by a legend of many thousand +years' date to have been drawn on papyrus by a grandson of the patriarch +himself. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt of the immense +antiquity of the race of Mogyns. + +'In the time of Boadicea, Hogyn Mogyn, of the hundred Beeves, was a +suitor and a rival of Caractacus for the hand of that Princess. He was +a person gigantic in stature, and was slain by Suetonius in the battle +which terminated the liberties of Britain. From him descended directly +the Princes of Pontydwdlm, Mogyn of the Golden Harp (see the Mabinogion +of Lady Charlotte Guest,) Bogyn-Merodac-ap-Mogyn, (the black fiend son +of Mogyn,) and a long list of bards and warriors, celebrated both in +Wales and Armorica. The independent Princes of Mogyn long held out +against the ruthless Kings of England, until finally Gam Mogyns made his +submission to Prince Henry, son of Henry IV., and under the name of Sir +David Gam de Mogyns, was distinguished at the battle of Agincourt. + +From him the present Baronet is descended. (And here the descent follows +in order until it comes to) Thomas Muggins, first Baronet of Pontydwdlm +Castle, for 23 years Member of Parliament for that borough, who had +issue, Alured Mogyns Smyth, the present Baronet, who married Marian, +daughter of the late general P. Flack, of Ballyflack, in the Kingdom of +Ireland of the Counts Flack of the H. R. Empire. Sir Alured has issue, +Alured Caradoc, born 1819, Marian, 1811, Blanche Adeliza, Emily Doria, +Adelaide Obleans, Katinka Rostopchin, Patrick Flack, died 1809. + +'Arms--a mullion garbled, gules on a saltire reversed of the second. +Crest--a tom-tit rampant regardant. Motto--UNG ROY UNG MOGYNS.' + +It was long before Lady de Mogyns shone as a star in the fashionable +world. At first, poor Muggins was the in the hands of the Flacks, the +Clancys, the Tooles, the Shanahans, his wife's Irish relations; and +whilst he was yet but heir-apparent, his house overflowed with claret +and the national nectar, for the benefit of Hibernian relatives. Tom +Tufto absolutely left the street in which they lived in London, because +he said 'it was infected with such a confounded smell of whisky from the +house of those IWISH people.' + +It was abroad that they learned to be genteel. They pushed into all +foreign courts, and elbowed their way into the halls of Ambassadors. +They pounced upon the stray nobility, and seized young lords travelling +with their bear-leaders. They gave parties at Naples, Rome, and Paris. +They got a Royal Prince to attend their SOIREES at the latter place, and +it was here that they first appeared under the name of De Mogyns, which +they bear with such splendour to this day. + +All sorts of stories are told of the desperate efforts made by the +indomitable Lady de Mogyns to gain the place she now occupies, and those +of my beloved readers who live in middle life, and are unacquainted +with the frantic struggles, the wicked feuds, the intrigues, cabals, +and disappointments which, as I am given to understand, reign in the +fashionable world, may bless their stars that they at least are not +FASHIONABLE Snobs. The intrigues set afoot by the De Mogyns to get +the Duchess of Buckskin to her parties, would strike a Talleyrand +with admiration. She had a brain fever after being disappointed of an +invitation to Lady Aldermanbury's THE DANSANT, and would have committed +suicide but for a ball at Windsor. I have the following story from my +noble friend Lady Clapperclaw herself,--Lady Kathleen O'Shaughnessy that +was, and daughter of the Earl of Turfanthunder:-- + +'When that odious disguised Irishwoman, Lady Muggins, was struggling to +take her place in the world, and was bringing out her hidjous daughter +Blanche,' said old Lady Clapperclaw--(Marian has a hump-back and doesn't +show, but she's the only lady in the family)--'when that wretched Polly +Muggins was bringing out Blanche, with her radish of a nose, and her +carrots of ringlets, and her turnip for a face, she was most anxious--as +her father had been a cowboy on my father's land--to be patronized +by us, and asked me point-blank, in the midst of a silence at Count +Volauvent's, the French Ambassador's dinner, why I had not sent her a +card for my ball? + +'"Because my rooms are already too full, and your ladyship would be +crowded inconveniently," says I; indeed she takes up as much room as an +elephant: besides I wouldn't have her, and that was flat. + +'I thought my answer was a settler to her: but the next day she comes +weeping to my arms--"Dear Lady Clapperclaw," says she, "it's not for ME; +I ask it for my blessed Blanche! a young creature in her first season, +and not at your ball! My tender child will pine and die of vexation. I +don't want to come. I will stay at home to nurse Sir Alured in the gout. +Mrs. Bolster is going, I know; she will be Blanche's chaperon." + +'"You wouldn't subscribe for the Rathdrum blanket and potato fund; you, +who come out of the parish," says I, "and whose grandfather, honest man, +kept cows there." + +'"Will twenty guineas be enough, dearest Lady Clapperclaw?" + +'"Twenty guineas is sufficient," says I, and she paid them; so I said, +"Blanche may come, but not you, mind:" and she left me with a world of +thanks. + +'Would you believe it?--when my ball came, the horrid woman made her +appearance with her daughter! + +"Didn't I tell you not to come?" said I, in a mighty passion. "What +would the world have said?" cries my Lady Muggins: "my carriage is gone +for Sir Alured to the Club; let me stay only ten minutes, dearest Lady +Clapperclaw." + +'"Well as you are here, madam, you may stay and get your supper," I +answered, and so left her, and never spoke a word more to her all night. + +'And now,' screamed out old Lady Clapperclaw, clapping her hands, and +speaking with more brogue than ever, 'what do you think, after all +my kindness to her, the wicked, vulgar, odious, impudent upstart of s +cowboy's granddaughter, has done?--she cut me yesterday in Hy' Park, and +hasn't sent me a ticket for her ball to-night, though they say Prince +George is to be there.' + +Yes, such is the fact. In the race of fashion the resolute and active +De Mogyns has passed the poor old Clapperclaw. Her progress in gentility +may be traced by the sets of friends whom she has courted, and made, +and cut, and left behind her. She has struggled so gallantly for polite +reputation that she has won it: pitilessly kicking down the ladder as +she advanced degree by degree. + +Irish relations were first sacrificed; she made her father dine in the +steward's room, to his perfect contentment: and would send Sir Alured +thither like-wise but that he is a peg on which she hopes to hang her +future honours; and is, after all, paymaster of her daughter's fortunes. +He is meek and content. He has been so long a gentleman that he is used +to it, and acts the part of governor very well. In the day-time he goes +from the 'Union' to 'Arthur's,' and from 'Arthur's' to the 'Union.' He +is a dead hand at piquet, and loses a very comfortable maintenance to +some young fellows, at whist, at the 'Travellers'.' + +His son has taken his father's seat in Parliament, and has of course +joined Young England. He is the only man in the country who believes in +the De Mogynses, and sighs for the days when a De Mogyns led the van of +battle. He has written a little volume of spoony puny poems. He wears a +lock of the hair of Laud, the Confessor and Martyr, and fainted when +he kissed the Pope's toe at Rome. He sleeps in white kid-gloves, and +commits dangerous excesses upon green tea. + + + +CHAPTER VIII--GREAT CITY SNOBS + +There is no disguising the fact that this series of papers is making +a prodigious sensation among all classes in this Empire. Notes of +admiration (!), of interrogation (?), of remonstrance, approval, or +abuse, come pouring into MR. PUNCH'S box. We have been called to task +for betraying the secrets of three different families of De Mogyns; no +less than four Lady Scrapers have been discovered; and young gentlemen +are quite shy of ordering half-a-pint of port and simpering over the +QUARTERLY REVIEW at the Club, lest they should be mistaken for Sydney +Scraper, Esq. 'What CAN be your antipathy to Baker Street?' asks some +fair remonstrant, evidently writing from that quarter. + +'Why only attack the aristocratic Snobs?' says one 'estimable +correspondent: 'are not the snobbish Snobs to have their turn?'--'Pitch +into the University Snobs!' writes an indignant gentleman (who +spelt ELEGANT with two I's)--'Show up the Clerical Snob,' suggests +another.--'Being at "Meurice's Hotel," Paris, some time since,' some wag +hints, 'I saw Lord B. leaning out of the window with his boots in his +hand, and bawling out "GARCON, CIREZ-MOI CES BOTTES." Oughtn't he to be +brought in among the Snobs?' + +No; far from it. If his lordship's boots are dirty, it is because he is +Lord B., and walks. There is nothing snobbish in having only one pair of +boots, or a favourite pair; and certainly nothing snobbish in desiring +to have them cleaned. Lord B., in so doing, performed a perfectly +natural and gentlemanlike action; for which I am so pleased with him +that I have had him designed in a favourable and elegant attitude, and +put at the head of this Chapter in the place of honour. No, we are not +personal in these candid remarks. As Phidias took the pick of a score of +beauties before he completed a Venus, so have we to examine, perhaps, a +thousand Snobs, before one is expressed upon paper. + +Great City Snobs are the next in the hierarchy, and ought to be +considered. But here is a difficulty. The great City Snob is commonly +most difficult of access. Unless you are a capitalist, you cannot visit +him in the recesses of his bank parlour in Lombard Street. Unless you +are a sprig of nobility there is little hope of seeing him at home. In +a great City Snob firm there is generally one partner whose name is down +for charities, and who frequents Exeter Hall; you may catch a glimpse +of another (a scientific City Snob) at my Lord N----'s SOIREES, or the +lectures of the London Institution; of a third (a City Snob of taste) +at picture-auctions, at private views of exhibitions, or at the Opera or +the Philharmonic. But intimacy is impossible, in most cases, with this +grave, pompous, and awful being. + +A mere gentleman may hope to sit at almost anybody's table--to take +his place at my lord duke's in the country--to dance a quadrille at +Buckingham Palace itself--(beloved Lady Wilhelmina Wagglewiggle! do you +recollect the sensation we made at the ball of our late adored Sovereign +Queen Caroline, at Brandenburg House, Hammersmith?) but the City Snob's +doors are, for the most part, closed to him; and hence all that one +knows of this great class is mostly from hearsay. + +In other countries of Europe, the Banking Snob is more expansive and +communicative than with us, and receives all the world into his +circle. For instance, everybody knows the princely hospitalities of the +Scharlaschild family at Paris, Naples, Frankfort, &c.. They entertain +all the world, even the poor, at their FETES. Prince Polonia, at Rome, +and his brother, the Duke of Strachino, are also remarkable for their +hospitalities. I like the spirit of the first-named nobleman. Titles not +costing much in the Roman territory, he has had the head clerk of the +banking-house made a Marquis, and his Lordship will screw a BAJOCCO +out of you in exchange as dexterously as any commoner could do. It is a +comfort to be able to gratify such grandees with a farthing or two; +it makes the poorest man feel that he can do good. 'The Polonias have +intermarried with the greatest and most ancient families of Rome, and +you see their heraldic cognizance (a mushroom or on an azure field) +quartered in a hundred places in the city with the arms of the Colonnas +and Dorias. + +City Snobs have the same mania for aristocratic marriages. I like to +see such. I am of a savage and envious nature,--I like to see these two +humbugs which, dividing, as they do, the social empire of this kingdom +between them, hate each other naturally, making truce and uniting, +for the sordid interests of either. I like to see an old aristocrat, +swelling with pride of race, the descendant of illustrious Norman +robbers, whose blood has been pure for centuries, and who looks down +upon common Englishmen as a free American does on a nigger,--I like to +see old Stiffneck obliged to bow down his head and swallow his infernal +pride, and drink the cup of humiliation poured out by Pump and Aldgate's +butler. 'Pump and Aldgate, says he, 'your grandfather was a bricklayer, +and his hod is still kept in the bank. Your pedigree begins in a +workhouse; mine can be dated from all the royal palaces of Europe. I +came over with the Conqueror; I am own cousin to Charles Martel, Orlando +Furioso, Philip Augustus, Peter the Cruel, and Frederick Barbarossa. +I quarter the Royal Arms of Brentford in my coat. I despise you, but I +want money; and I will sell you my beloved daughter, Blanche Stiffneck, +for a hundred thousand pounds, to pay off my mortgages. Let your son +marry her, and she shall become Lady Blanche Pump and Aldgate.' + +Old Pump and Aldgate clutches at the bargain. And a comfortable thing +it is to think that birth can be bought for money. So you learn to value +it. Why should we, who don't possess it, set a higher store on it than +those who do? Perhaps the best use of that book, the 'Peerage,' is to +look down the list, and see how many have bought and sold birth,--how +poor sprigs of nobility somehow sell themselves to rich City Snobs' +daughters, how rich City Snobs purchase noble ladies--and so to admire +the double baseness of the bargain. + +Old Pump and Aldgate buys the article and pays the money. The sale +of the girl's person is blessed by a Bishop at St. George's, Hanover +Square, and next year you read, 'At Roehampton, on Saturday, the Lady +Blanche Pump, of a son and heir. + +After this interesting event, some old acquaintance, who saw young Pump +in the parlour at the bank in the City, said to him, familiarly, 'How's +your wife, Pump, my boy?' + +Mr. Pump looked exceedingly puzzled and disgusted, and, after a pause, +said, 'LADY BLANCHE PUMP' is pretty well, I thank you.' + +'OH, I THOUGHT SHE WAS YOUR WIFE!' said the familiar brute, Snooks, +wishing him good-bye; and ten minutes after, the story was all over the +Stock Exchange, where it is told, when young Pump appears, to this very +day. + +We can imagine the weary life this poor Pump, this martyr to Mammon, is +compelled to undergo. Fancy the domestic enjoyments of a man who has a +wife who scorns him; who cannot see his own friends in his own house; +who having deserted the middle rank of life, is not yet admitted to +the higher; but who is resigned to rebuffs and delay and humiliation, +contented to think that his son will be more fortunate. + +It used to be the custom of some very old-fashioned clubs in this city, +when a gentleman asked for change a guinea, always to bring it to him +in WASHED SILVER: that which had passed immediately out of the hands of +vulgar being considered 'as too coarse to soil a gentleman's fingers.' +So, when the City Snob's money has been washed during a generation +or so; has been washed into estates, and woods, and castles, and +town-mansions, it is allowed to pass current as real aristocratic coin. +Old Pump sweeps a shop, runs of messages, becomes a confidential clerk +and partner. Pump the Second becomes chief of the house, spins more and +more money, marries his son to an Earl's daughter. Pump Tertius goes on +with the bank; but his chief business in life is to become the father of +Pump Quartus, who comes out a full-blown aristocrat, and takes his seat +as Baron Pumpington, and his race rules hereditarily over this nation of +Snobs. + + + +CHAPTER IX--ON SOME MILITARY SNOBS + +As no society in the world is more agreeable than that of well-bred +and well-informed military gentlemen, so, likewise, none is more +insufferable than that of Military Snobs. They are to be found of all +grades, from the General Officer, whose padded old breast twinkles over +with a score of stars, clasps, and decorations, to the budding +cornet, who is shaving for a beard, and has just been appointed to the +Saxe-Coburg Lancers. + +I have always admired that dispensation of rank in our country, which +sets up this last-named little creature (who was flogged only last week +because he could not spell) to command great whiskered warriors, who +have faced all dangers of climate and battle; which, because he has +money, to lodge at the agent's, will place him over the heads of men +who have a thousand times more experience and desert: and which, in the +course of time, will bring him all the honours of his profession, when +the veteran soldier he commanded has got no other reward for his bravery +than a berth in Chelsea Hospital, and the veteran officer he superseded +has slunk into shabby retirement, and ends his disappointed life on a +threadbare half-pay. + +When I read in the GAZETTE such announcements as 'Lieutenant and Captain +Grig, from the Bombardier Guards, to be Captain, vice Grizzle, who +retires,' I know what becomes of the Peninsular Grizzle; I follow him in +spirit to the humble country town, where he takes up his quarters, +and occupies himself with the most desperate attempts to live like a +gentleman, on the stipend of half a tailor's foreman; and I picture to +myself little Grig rising from rank to rank, skipping from one regiment +to another, with an increased grade in each, avoiding disagreeable +foreign service, and ranking as a colonel at thirty;--all because he has +money, and Lord Grigsby is his father, who had the same luck before him. +Grig must blush at first to give his orders to old men in every way his +betters. And as it is very difficult for a spoiled child to escape being +selfish and arrogant, so it is a very hard task indeed for this spoiled +child of fortune not to be a Snob. + +It must have often been a matter of wonder to the candid reader, that +the army, the most enormous job of all our political institutions, +should yet work so well in the field; and we must cheerfully give +Grig, and his like, the credit for courage which they display whenever +occasion calls for it. The Duke's dandy regiments fought as well as any +(they said better than any, but that is absurd). The great Duke himself +was a dandy once, and jobbed on, as Marlborough did before him. But +this only proves that dandies are brave as well as other Britons--as +all Britons. Let us concede that the high-born Grig rode into +the entrenchments at Sobraon as gallantly as Corporal Wallop, the +ex-ploughboy. + +The times of war are more favourable to him than the periods of peace. +Think of Grig's life in the Bombardier Guards, or the Jack-boot Guards; +his marches from Windsor to London, from London to Windsor, from +Knightsbridge to Regent's Park; the idiotic services he has to perform, +which consist in inspecting the pipeclay of his company, or the horses +in the stable, or bellowing out 'Shoulder humps! Carry humps!' all which +duties the very smallest intellect that ever belonged to mortal man +would suffice to comprehend. The professional duties of a footman are +quite as difficult and various. The red-jackets who hold gentlemen's +horses in St. James's Street could do the work just as well as those +vacuous, good-natured, gentlemanlike, rickety little lieutenants, who +may be seen sauntering about Pall Mall, in high-heeled little boots, or +rallying round the standard of their regiment in the Palace Court, at +eleven o'clock, when the band plays. Did the beloved reader ever see +one of the young fellows staggering under the flag, or, above all, going +through the operation of saluting it? It is worth a walk to the Palace +to witness that magnificent piece of tomfoolery. + +I have had the honour of meeting once or twice an old gentleman, whom I +look upon to be a specimen of army-training, and who has served in +crack regiments, or commanded them, all his life. I allude to +Lieutenant-General the Honourable Sir George Granby Tufto, K.C.B., +K.T.S., K.H., K.S.W., &c. &c.. His manners are irreproachable generally; +in society he is a perfect gentleman, and a most thorough Snob. + +A man can't help being a fool, be he ever so old, and Sir George is a +greater ass at sixty-eight than he was when he first entered the army at +fifteen. He distinguished himself everywhere: his name is mentioned +with praise in a score of Gazettes: he is the man, in fact, whose padded +breast, twinkling over with innumerable decorations, has already been +introduced to the reader. It is difficult to say what virtues this +prosperous gentleman possesses. He never read a book in his life, and, +with his purple, old gouty fingers, still writes a schoolboy hand. He +has reached old age and grey hairs without being the least venerable. He +dresses like an outrageously young man to the present moment, and laces +and pads his old carcass as if he were still handsome George Tufto of +1800. He is selfish, brutal, passionate, and a glutton. It is curious +to mark him at table, and see him heaving in his waistband, his little +bloodshot eyes gloating over his meal. He swears considerably in his +talk, and tells filthy garrison stories after dinner. On account of his +rank and his services, people pay the bestarred and betitled old brute +a sort of reverence; and he looks down upon you and me, and exhibits +his contempt for us, with a stupid and artless candour which is quite +amusing to watch. Perhaps, had he been bred to another profession, he +would not have been the disreputable old creature he now is. But what +other? He was fit for none; too incorrigibly idle and dull for any trade +but this, in which he has distinguished himself publicly as a good and +gallant officer, and privately for riding races, drinking port, fighting +duels, and seducing women. He believes himself to be one of the most +honourable and deserving beings in the world. About Waterloo Place, +of afternoons, you may see him tottering in his varnished boots, and +leering under the bonnets of the women who pass by. When he dies of +apoplexy, THE TIMES will have a quarter of a column about his services +and battles--four lines of print will be wanted to describe his titles +and orders alone--and the earth will cover one of the wickedest and +dullest old wretches that ever strutted over it. + +Lest it should be imagined that I am of so obstinate a misanthropic +nature as to be satisfied with nothing, I beg (for the comfort of the +forces) to state my belief that the army is not composed of such persons +as the above. He has only been selected for the study of civilians and +the military, as a specimen of a prosperous and bloated Army Snob. No: +when epaulets are not sold; when corporal punishments are abolished, and +Corporal Smith has a chance to have his gallantry rewarded as well +as that of Lieutenant Grig; when there is no such rank as ensign and +lieutenant (the existence of which rank is an absurd anomaly, and an +insult upon all the rest of the army), and should there be no war, I +should not be disinclined to be a major-general myself. + +I have a little sheaf of Army Snobs in my portfolio, but shall pause in +my attack upon the forces till next week. + + + +CHAPTER X--MILITARY SNOBS + +Walking in the Park yesterday with my young friend Tagg, and discoursing +with him upon the next number of the Snob, at the very nick of time +who should pass us but two very good specimens of Military Snobs,--the +Sporting Military Snob, Capt. Rag, and the 'lurking' or raffish Military +Snob, Ensign Famish. Indeed you are fully sure to meet them lounging +on horseback, about five o'clock, under the trees by the Serpentine, +examining critically the inmates of the flashy broughams which parade up +and down 'the Lady's Mile.' + +Tagg and Rag are very well acquainted, and so the former, with that +candour inseparable from intimate friendship, told me his dear friend's +history. Captain Rag is a small dapper north-country man. He went when +quite a boy into a crack light cavalry regiment, and by the time he got +his troop, had cheated all his brother officers so completely, selling +them lame horses for sound ones, and winning their money by all manner +of strange and ingenious contrivances, that his Colonel advised him to +retire; which he did without much reluctance, accommodating a youngster, +who had just entered the regiment, with a glandered charger at an +uncommonly stiff figure. + +He has since devoted his time to billiards, steeple-chasing, and the +turf. His head-quarters are 'Rummer's,' in Conduit Street, where +he keeps his kit; but he is ever on the move in the exercise of his +vocation as a gentleman-jockey and gentleman-leg. + +According to BELL'S LIFE, he is an invariable attendant at all races, +and an actor in most of them. He rode the winner at Leamington; he was +left for dead in a ditch a fortnight ago at Harrow; and yet there he +was, last week, at the Croix de Berny, pale and determined as ever, +astonishing the BADAUDS of Paris by the elegance of his seat and the +neatness of his rig, as he took a preliminary gallop on that vicious +brute 'The Disowned,' before starting for 'the French Grand National.' + +He is a regular attendant at the Corner, where he compiles a limited but +comfortable libretto. During season he rides often in the Park, mounted +on a clever well-bred pony. He is to be seen escorting celebrated +horsewoman, Fanny Highflyer, or in confidential converse with Lord +Thimblerig, the eminent handicapper. + +He carefully avoids decent society, and would rather dine off a steak at +the 'One Tun' with Sam Snaffle the jockey, Captain O'Rourke, and two or +three other notorious turf robbers, than with the choicest company in +London. He likes to announce at 'Rummer's' that he is going to run down +and spend his Saturday and Sunday in a friendly way with Hocus, the leg, +at his little box near Epsom; where, if report speak true, many 'rummish +plants' are concocted. + +He does not play billiards often, and never in public: but when he does +play, he always contrives to get hold of a good flat, and never leaves +him till he has done him uncommonly brown. He has lately been playing a +good deal with Famish. + +When he makes his appearance in the drawing-room, which occasionally +happens at a hunt-meeting or a race-ball, he enjoys himself extremely. + +His young friend is Ensign Famish, who is not a little pleased to be +seen with such a smart fellow as Rag, who bows to the best turf company +in the Park. Rag lets Famish accompany him to Tattersall's, and +sells him bargains in horse-flesh, and uses Famish's cab. That young +gentleman's regiment is in India, and he is at home on sick leave. He +recruits his health by being intoxicated every night, and fortifies his +lungs, which are weak, by smoking cigars all day. The policemen about +the Haymarket know the little creature, and the early cabmen salute him. +The closed doors of fish and lobster shops open after service, and vomit +out little Famish, who is either tipsy and quarrelsome--when he wants +to fight the cabmen; or drunk and helpless--when some kind friend (in +yellow satin) takes care of him. All the neighbourhood, the cabmen, the +police, the early potato-men, and the friends in yellow satin, know the +young fellow, and he is called Little Bobby by some of the very worst +reprobates in Europe. + +His mother, Lady Fanny Famish, believes devoutly that Robert is in +London solely for the benefit of consulting the physician; is going to +have him exchanged into a dragoon regiment, which doesn't go to that +odious India; and has an idea that his chest is delicate, and that +he takes gruel every evening, when he puts his feet in hot water. Her +Ladyship resides at Cheltenham, and is of a serious turn. + +Bobby frequents the 'Union Jack Club' of course; where he breakfasts on +pale ale and devilled kidneys at three o'clock; where beardless young +heroes of his own sort congregate, and make merry, and give each other +dinners; where you may see half-a-dozen of young rakes of the fourth +or fifth order lounging and smoking on the steps; where you behold +Slapper's long-tailed leggy mare in the custody of a red-jacket until +the Captain is primed for the Park with a glass of curacoa; and where +you see Hobby, of the Highland Buffs, driving up with Dobby, of the +Madras Fusiliers, in the great banging, swinging cab, which the latter +hires from Rumble of Bond Street. + +In fact, Military Snobs are of such number and variety, that a hundred +weeks of PUNCH would not suffice to give an audience to them. There is, +besides the disreputable old Military Snob, who has seen service, the +respectable old Military Snob, who has seen none, and gives himself the +most prodigious Martinet airs. There is the Medical-Military Snob, who +is generally more outrageously military in his conversation than the +greatest SABREUR in the army. There is the Heavy-Dragoon Snob, whom +young ladies, admire with his great stupid pink face and yellow +moustaches--a vacuous, solemn, foolish, but brave and honourable Snob. +There is the Amateur-Military Snob who writes Captain on his card +because he is a Lieutenant in the Bungay Militia. There is the +Lady-killing Military Snob; and more, who need not be named. + +But let no man, we repeat, charge MR. PUNCH with disrespect for the Army +in general--that gallant and judicious Army, every man of which, from +F.M. the Duke of Wellington, &c., downwards--(with the exception of +H.R.H. Field-Marshal Prince Albert, who, however, can hardly count as a +military man,)--reads PUNCH in every quarter of the globe. + +Let those civilians who sneer at the acquirements of the army read Sir +Harry Smith's account of the Battle of Aliwal. A noble deed was never +told in nobler language. And you who doubt if chivalry exists, or the +age of heroism has passed by, think of Sir Henry Hardinge, with his son, +'dear little Arthur,' riding in front of the lines at Ferozeshah. I hope +no English painter will endeavour to illustrate that scene; for who is +there to do justice to it? The history of the world contains no more +brilliant and heroic picture. No, no; the men who perform these +deeds with such brilliant valour, and describe them with such modest +manliness--SUCH are not Snobs. Their country admires them, their +Sovereign rewards them, and PUNCH, the universal railer, takes off his +hat and, says, Heaven save them! + + + +CHAPTER XI--ON CLERICAL SNOBS + +After Snobs-Military, Snobs-Clerical suggest themselves quite naturally, +and it is clear that, with every respect for the cloth, yet having a +regard for truth, humanity, and the British public, such a vast and +influential class must not be omitted from our notices of the great Snob +world. + +Of these Clerics there are some whose claim to snobbishness is +undoubted, and yet it cannot be discussed here; for the same reason that +PUNCH would not set up his show in a Cathedral, out of respect for +the solemn service celebrated within. There are some places where he +acknowledges himself not privileged to make a noise, and puts away his +show, and silences his drum, and takes off his hat, and holds his peace. + +And I know this, that if there are some Clerics who do wrong, there are +straightway a thousand newspapers to haul up those unfortunates, and +cry, 'Fie upon them, fie upon them!' while, though the press is always +ready to yell and bellow excommunication against these stray delinquent +parsons, it somehow takes very little count of the many good ones--of +the tens of thousands of honest men, who lead Christian lives, who give +to the poor generously, who deny themselves rigidly, and live and die +in their duty, without ever a newspaper paragraph in their favour. My +beloved friend and reader, I wish you and I could do the same: and let +me whisper my belief, ENTRE NOUS that of those eminent philosophers who +cry out against parsons the loudest, there are not many who have got +their knowledge of the church by going thither often. + +But you who have ever listened to village bells, or walked to church as +children on sunny Sabbath mornings; you who have ever seen the parson's +wife tending the poor man's bedside; or the town clergyman threading the +dirty stairs of noxious alleys upon his business;--do not raise a shout +when one falls away, or yell with the mob that howls after him. + +Every man can do that. When old Father Noah was overtaken in his cups, +there was only one of his sons that dared to make merry at his disaster, +and he was not the most virtuous of the family. Let us too turn away +silently, nor huzza like a parcel of school-boys, because some big young +rebel suddenly starts up and whops the schoolmaster. + +I confess, though, if I had by me the names of those seven or eight +Irish bishops, the probates of whose wills were mentioned in last year's +journals, and who died leaving behind them some two hundred thousand +a-piece--I would like to put THEM up as patrons of my Clerical Snobs, +and operate upon them as successfully as I see from the newspapers Mr. +Eisenberg, Chiropodist, has lately done upon 'His Grace the Reverend +Lord Bishop of Tapioca.' + +I confess that when those Right Reverend Prelates come up to the gates +of Paradise with their probates of wills in their hands, I think that +their chance is.... But the gates of Paradise is a far way to follow +their Lordships; so let us trip down again lest awkward questions be +asked there about our own favourite vices too. + +And don't let us give way to the vulgar prejudice, that clergymen are an +over-paid and luxurious body of men. When that eminent ascetic, the +late Sydney Smith--(by the way, by what law of nature is it that so many +Smiths in this world are called Sydney Smith?)--lauded the system of +great prizes in the Church,--without which he said gentlemen would +not be induced to follow the clerical profession, he admitted most +pathetically that the clergy in general were by no means to be envied +for their worldly prosperity. From reading the works of some modern +writers of repute, you would fancy that a parson's life was passed +in gorging himself with plum-pudding and port-wine; and that his +Reverence's fat chaps were always greasy with the crackling of tithe +pigs. Caricaturists delight to represent him so: round, short-necked, +pimple-faced, apoplectic, bursting out of waistcoat, like a +black-pudding, a shovel-hatted fuzz-wigged Silenus. Whereas, if you take +the real man, the poor fellow's flesh-pots are very scantily furnished +with meat. He labours commonly for a wage that a tailor's foreman +would despise: he has, too, such claims upon his dismal income as most +philosophers would rather grumble to meet; many tithes are levied upon +HIS pocket, let it be remembered, by those who grudge him his means +of livelihood. He has to dine with the Squire: and his wife must dress +neatly; and he must 'look like a gentleman,' as they call it, and bring +up six great hungry sons as such. Add to this, if he does his duty, +he has such temptations to spend his money as no mortal man could +withstand. Yes; you who can't resist purchasing a chest of cigars, +because they are so good; or an ormolu clock at Howell and James's, +because it is such a bargain; or a box at the Opera, because Lablache +and Grisi are divine in the PURITANI; fancy how difficult it is for a +parson to resist spending a half-crown when John Breakstone's family +are without a loaf; or 'standing' a bottle of port for poor old Polly +Rabbits, who has her thirteenth child; or treating himself to a suit +of corduroys for little Bob Scarecrow, whose breeches are sadly out at +elbows. Think of these temptations, brother moralists and philosophers, +and don't be too hard on the parson. + +But what is this? Instead of 'showing up' the parsons, are we indulging +in maudlin praises of that monstrous black-coated race? O saintly +Francis, lying at rest under the turf; O Jimmy, and Johnny, and Willy, +friends of my youth! O noble and dear old Elias! how should he who +knows you not respect you and your calling? May this pen never write a +pennyworth again, if it ever casts ridicule upon either! + + + +CHAPTER XII--ON CLERICAL SNOBS AND SNOBBISHNESS + +'Dear Mr. Snob,' an amiable young correspondent writes, who signs +himself Snobling, 'ought the clergyman who, at the request of a noble +Duke, lately interrupted a marriage ceremony between two persons +perfectly authorised to marry, to be ranked or not among the Clerical +Snobs?' + +This, my dear young friend, is not a fair question. One of the +illustrated weekly papers has already seized hold of the clergyman, +and blackened him most unmercifully, by representing him in his cassock +performing the marriage service. Let that be sufficient punishment; and, +if you please, do not press the query. + +It is very likely that if Miss Smith had come with a licence to marry +Jones, the parson in question, not seeing old Smith present, would have +sent off the beadle in a cab to let the old gentleman know what was +going on; and would have delayed the service until the arrival of Smith +senior. He very likely thinks it his duty to ask all marriageable young +ladies, who come without their papa, why their parent is absent; and, no +doubt, ALWAYS sends off the beadle for that missing governor. + +Or, it is very possible that the Duke of Coeurdelion was Mr. +What-d'ye-call'im's most intimate friend, and has often said to him, +'What-d'ye-call'im, my boy, my daughter must never marry the Capting. +If ever they try at your church, I beseech you, considering the terms of +intimacy on which we are, to send off Rattan in a hack cab to fetch me.' + +In either of which cases, you see, dear Snobling, that though the parson +would not have been authorised, yet he might have been excused for +interfering. He has no more right to stop my marriage than to stop my +dinner, to both of which, as a free-born Briton, I am entitled by law, +if I can pay for them. But, consider pastoral solicitude, a deep sense +of the duties of his office, and pardon this inconvenient, but genuine +zeal. + +But if the clergyman did in the Duke's case what he would NOT do in +Smith's; if he has no more acquaintance with the Coeurdelion family than +I have with the Royal and Serene House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha,--THEN, I +confess, my dear Snobling, your question might elicit a disagreeable +reply, and one which I respectfully decline to give. I wonder what Sir +George Tufto would say, if a sentry left his post because a noble lord +(not the least connected with the service) begged the sentinel not to do +his duty! + +Alas! that the beadle who canes little boys and drives them out, cannot +drive worldliness out too; what is worldliness but snobbishness? When, +for instance, I read in the newspapers that the Right Reverend the Lord +Charles James administered the rite of confirmation to a PARTY OF THE +JUVENILE NOBILITY at the Chapel Royal,--as if the Chapel Royal were a +sort of ecclesiastical Almack's, and young people were to get ready for +the next world in little exclusive genteel knots of the aristocracy, who +were not to be disturbed in their journey thither by the company of +the vulgar:--when I read such a paragraph as that (and one or two such +generally appear during the present fashionable season), it seems to me +to be the most odious, mean and disgusting part of that odious, mean, +and disgusting publication, the COURT CIRCULAR; and that snobbishness is +therein carried to quite an awful pitch. What, gentlemen, can't we even +in the Church acknowledge a republic? There, at least, the Heralds' +College itself might allow that we all of us have the same pedigree, +and are direct descendants of Eve and Adam, whose inheritance is divided +amongst us. + +I hereby call upon all Dukes, Earls, Baronets, and other potentates, not +to lend themselves to this shameful scandal and error, and beseech all +Bishops who read this publication to take the matter into consideration, +and to protest against the continuance of the practice, and to declare, +'We WON'T confirm or christen Lord Tomnoddy, or Sir Carnaby Jenks, to +the exclusion of any other young Christian;' the which declaration if +their Lordships are induced to make, a great LAPIS OFFENSIONIS will be +removed, and the Snob Papers will not have been written in vain. + +A story is current of a celebrated NOUVEAU-RICHE, who having had +occasion to oblige that excellent prelate the Bishop of Bullocksmithy, +asked his Lordship, in return, to confirm his children privately in his +Lordship's own chapel; which ceremony the grateful prelate accordingly +performed. Can satire go farther than this? Is there even in this most +amusing of prints, any more NAIVE absurdity? It is as if a man wouldn't +go to heaven unless he went in a special train, or as if he thought (as +some people think about vaccination) Confirmation more effectual when +administered at first hand. When that eminent person, the Begum Sumroo, +died, it is said she left ten thousand pounds to the Pope, and ten +thousand to the Archbishop of Canterbury,--so that there should be no +mistake,--so as to make sure of having the ecclesiastical authorities on +her side. This is only a little more openly and undisguisedly snobbish +than the cases before alluded to. A well-bred Snob is just as secretly +proud of his riches and honours as a PARVENU Snob who makes the most +ludicrous exhibition of them; and a high-born Marchioness or Duchess +just as vain of herself and her diamonds, as Queen Quashyboo, who sews a +pair of epaulets on to her skirt, and turns out in state in a cocked hat +and feathers. + +It is not out of disrespect to my 'Peerage,' which I love and honour, +(indeed, have I not said before, that I should be ready to jump out of +my skin if two Dukes would walk down Pall Mall with me?)--it is not out +of disrespect for the individuals, that I wish these titles had never +been invented; but, consider, if there were no tree, there would be no +shadow; and how much more honest society would be, and how much more +serviceable the clergy would be (which is our present consideration), if +these temptations of rank and continual baits of worldliness were not in +existence, and perpetually thrown out to lead them astray. + +I have seen many examples of their falling away. When, for instance, Tom +Sniffle first went into the country as Curate for Mr. Fuddleston (Sir +Huddleston Fuddleston's brother), who resided on some other living, +there could not be a more kind, hardworking, and excellent creature +than Tom. He had his aunt to live with him. His conduct to his poor was +admirable. He wrote annually reams of the best-intentioned and vapid +sermons. When Lord Brandyball's family came down into the country, and +invited him to dine at Brandyball Park, Sniffle was so agitated that he +almost forgot how to say grace, and upset a bowl of currant-jelly sauce +in Lady Fanny Toffy's lap. + +What was the consequence of his intimacy with that noble family? He +quarrelled with his aunt for dining out every night. The wretch forgot +his poor altogether, and killed his old nag by always riding over to +Brandyball; where he revelled in the maddest passion for Lady Fanny. +He ordered the neatest new clothes and ecclesiastical waistcoats from +London; he appeared with corazza-shirts, lackered boots, and perfumery; +he bought a blood-horse from Bob Toffy: was seen at archery meetings, +public breakfasts,--actually at cover; and, I blush to say, that I saw +him in a stall at the Opera; and afterwards riding by Lady Fanny's side +in Rotten Row. He DOUBLE-BARRELLED his name, (as many poor Snobs do,) +and instead of T. Sniffle, as formerly, came out, in a porcelain card, +as Rev. T. D'Arcy Sniffle, Burlington Hotel. + +The end of all this may be imagined: when the Earl of Brandyball was +made acquainted with the curate's love for Lady Fanny, he had that fit +of the gout which so nearly carried him off (to the inexpressible grief +of his son, Lord Alicompayne), and uttered that remarkable speech to +Sniffle, which disposed of the claims of the latter:--' If I didn't +respect the Church, Sir,' his Lordship said, 'by Jove, I'd kick you +downstairs:' his Lordship then fell back into the fit aforesaid; and +Lady Fanny, as we all know, married General Podager. + +As for poor Tom, he was over head and ears in debt as well as in +love: his creditors came down upon him. Mr. Hemp, of Portugal Street, +proclaimed his name lately as a reverend outlaw; and he has been seen +at various foreign watering-places; sometimes doing duty; sometimes +'coaching' a stray gentleman's son at Carlsruhe or Kissingen; +sometimes--must we say it?--lurking about the roulette-tables with a +tuft to his chin. + +If temptation had not come upon this unhappy fellow in the shape of +a Lord Brandyball, he might still have been following his profession, +humbly and worthily. He might have married his cousin with four thousand +pounds, the wine-merchant's daughter (the old gentleman quarrelled with +his nephew for not soliciting wine-orders from Lord B. for him): he +might have had seven children, and taken private pupils, and eked out +his income, and lived and died a country parson. + +Could he have done better? You who want to know how great, and good, and +noble such a character may be, read Stanley's 'Life of Doctor Arnold.' + + + +CHAPTER XIII--ON CLERICAL SNOBS + +Among the varieties of the Snob Clerical, the University Snob and the +Scholastic Snob ought never to be forgotten; they form a very strong +battalion in the black-coated army. + +The wisdom of our ancestors (which I admire more and more every day) +seemed to have determined that education of youth was so paltry and +unimportant a matter, that almost any man, armed with a birch and +regulation cassock and degree, might undertake the charge: and many an +honest country gentleman may be found to the present day, who takes very +good care to have a character with his butler when he engages him +and will not purchase a horse without the warranty and the closest +inspection; but sends off his son, young John Thomas, to school without +asking any questions about the Schoolmaster, and places the lad at +Switchester College, under Doctor Block, because he (the good old +English gentleman) had been at Switchester, under Doctor Buzwig, forty +years ago. + +We have a love for all little boys at school; for many scores of +thousands of them read and love PUNCH:--may he never write a word that +shall not be honest and fit for them to read! He will not have his young +friends to be Snobs in the future, or to be bullied by Snobs, or +given over to such to be educated. Our connexion with the youth at the +Universities is very close and affectionate. The candid undergraduate +is our friend. The pompous old College Don trembles in his common room, +lest we should attack him and show him up as a Snob. + +When railroads were threatening to invade the land which they have +since conquered, it may be recollected what a shrieking and outcry the +authorities of Oxford and Eton made, lest the iron abominations should +come near those seats of pure learning, and tempt the British youth +astray. The supplications were in vain; the railroad is in upon them, +and the old-world institutions are doomed. I felt charmed to read in the +papers the other day a most veracious puffing advertisement headed, 'To +College and back for Five Shillings.' 'The College Gardens (it said) +will be thrown open on this occasion; the College youths will perform +a regatta; the Chapel of King's College will have its celebrated +music;'--and all for five shillings! The Goths have got into Rome; +Napoleon Stephenson draws his republican lines round the sacred old +cities and the ecclesiastical big-wigs who garrison them must prepare to +lay down key and crosier before the iron conqueror. + +If you consider, dear reader, what profound snobbishness the University +System produced, you will allow that it is time to attack some of those +feudal middle-age superstitions. If you go down for five shillings to +look at the 'College Youths,' you may see one sneaking down the court +without a tassel to his cap; another with a gold or silver fringe to his +velvet trencher; a third lad with a master's gown and hat, walking at +ease over the sacred College grass-plats, which common men must not +tread on. + +He may do it because he is a nobleman. Because a lad is a lord, the +University gives him a degree at the end of two years which another is +seven in acquiring. Because he is a lord, he has no call to go through +an examination. Any man who has not been to College and back for +five shillings, would not believe in such distinctions in a place of +education, so absurd and monstrous do they seem to be. + +The lads with gold and silver lace are sons of rich gentlemen and +called Fellow Commoners; they are privileged to feed better than the +pensioners, and to have wine with their victuals, which the latter can +only get in their rooms. + +The unlucky boys who have no tassels to their caps, are called +sizars--SERVITORS at Oxford--(a very pretty and gentlemanlike title). +A distinction is made in their clothes because they are poor; for which +reason they wear a badge of poverty, and are not allowed to take their +meals with their fellow-students. + +When this wicked and shameful distinction was set up, it was of a piece +with all the rest--a part of the brutal, unchristian, blundering feudal +system. Distinctions of rank were then so strongly insisted upon, that +it would have been thought blasphemy to doubt them, as blasphemous as it +is in parts of the United States now for a nigger to set up as the equal +of a white man. A ruffian like Henry VIII. talked as gravely about the +divine powers vested in him, as if he had been an inspired prophet. +A wretch like James I. not only believed that there was in himself a +particular sanctity, but other people believed him. Government regulated +the length of a merchant's shoes as well as meddled with his trade, +prices, exports, machinery. It thought itself justified in roasting a +man for his religion, or pulling a Jew's teeth out if he did not pay a +contribution, or ordered him to dress in a yellow gabardine, and locked +him in a particular quarter. + +Now a merchant may wear what boots he pleases, and has pretty nearly +acquired the privilege of buying and selling without the Government +laying its paws upon the bargain. The stake for heretics is gone; the +pillory is taken down; Bishops are even found lifting up their voices +against the remains of persecution, and ready to do away with the last +Catholic Disabilities. Sir Robert Peel, though he wished it ever so +much, has no power over Mr. Benjamin Disraeli's grinders, or any means +of violently handling that gentleman's jaw. Jews are not called upon +to wear badges: on the contrary, they may live in Piccadilly, or the +Minories, according to fancy; they may dress like Christians, and do +sometimes in a most elegant and fashionable manner. + +Why is the poor College servitor to wear that name and that badge still? +Because Universities are the last places into which Reform penetrates. +But now that she can go to College and back for five shillings, let her +travel down thither. + + + +CHAPTER XIV--ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS + +All the men of Saint Boniface will recognize Hugby and Crump in these +two pictures. They were tutors in our time, and Crump is since advanced +to be President of the College. He was formerly, and is now, a rich +specimen of a University Snob. + +At five-and-twenty, Crump invented three new metres, and published +an edition of an exceedingly improper Greek Comedy, with no less than +twenty emendations upon the German text of Schnupfenius and Schnapsius. +These Services to religion instantly pointed him out for advancement in +the Church, and he is now President of Saint Boniface, and very narrowly +escaped the bench. + +Crump thinks Saint Boniface the centre of the world, and his position as +President the highest in England. He expects the fellows and tutors to +pay him the same sort of service that Cardinals pay to the Pope. I am +sure Crawler would have no objection to carry his trencher, or Page to +hold up the skirts of his gown as he stalks into chapel. He roars out +the responses there as if it were an honour to heaven that the President +of Saint Boniface should take a part in the service, and in his own +lodge and college acknowledges the Sovereign only as his superior. + +When the allied monarchs came down, and were made Doctors of the +University, a breakfast was given at Saint Boniface; on which occasion +Crump allowed the Emperor Alexander to walk before him, but took the PAS +himself of the King of Prussia and Prince Blucher. He was going to put +the Hetman Platoff to breakfast at a side-table with the under college +tutors; but he was induced to relent, and merely entertained that +distinguished Cossack with a discourse on his own language, in which he +showed that the Hetman knew nothing about it. + +As for us undergraduates, we scarcely knew more about Crump than about +the Grand Llama. A few favoured youths are asked occasionally to tea at +the lodge; but they do not speak unless first addressed by the Doctor; +and if they venture to sit down, Crump's follower, Mr. Toady, whispers, +'Gentlemen, will you have the kindness to get up?--The President is +passing;' or 'Gentlemen, the President prefers that undergraduates +should not sit down;' or words to a similar effect. + +To do Crump justice, he does not cringe now to great people. He rather +patronizes them than otherwise; and, in London, speaks quite affably to +a Duke who has been brought up at his college, or holds out a finger +to a Marquis. He does not disguise his own origin, but brags of it with +considerable self-gratulation:--'I was a Charity-boy,' says he; 'see +what I am now; the greatest Greek scholar of the greatest College of the +greatest University of the greatest Empire in the world.' The argument +being, that this is a capital world, for beggars, because he, being a +beggar, has managed to get on horseback. + +Hugby owes his eminence to patient merit and agreeable perseverance. He +is a meek, mild, inoffensive creature, with just enough of scholarship +to fit him to hold a lecture, or set an examination paper. He rose by +kindness to the aristocracy. It was wonderful to see the way in which +that poor creature grovelled before a nobleman or a lord's nephew, or +even some noisy and disreputable commoner, the friend of a lord. He used +to give the young noblemen the most painful and elaborate breakfasts, +and adopt a jaunty genteel air, and talk with them (although he was +decidedly serious) about the opera, or the last run with the hounds. It +was good to watch him in the midst of a circle of young tufts, with +his mean, smiling, eager, uneasy familiarity. He used to write home +confidential letters to their parents, and made it his duty to call upon +them when in town, to condole or rejoice with them when a death, birth, +or marriage took place in their family; and to feast them whenever they +came to the University. I recollect a letter lying on a desk in his +lecture-room for a whole term, beginning, 'My Lord Duke.' It was to show +us that he corresponded with such dignities. + +When the late lamented Lord Glenlivat, who broke his neck at a +hurdle-race, at the premature age of twenty-four, was at the University, +the amiable young fellow, passing to his rooms in the early morning, +and seeing Hugby's boots at his door, on the same staircase, playfully +wadded the insides of the boots with cobbler's wax, which caused +excruciating pains to the Rev. Mr. Hugby, when he came to take them off +the same evening, before dining with the Master of St. Crispin's. + +Everybody gave the credit of this admirable piece of fun to Lord +Glenlivat's friend, Bob Tizzy, who was famous for such feats, and who +had already made away with the college pump-handle; filed St. Boniface's +nose smooth with his face; carried off four images of nigger-boys from +the tobacconists; painted the senior proctor's horse pea-green, &c. &c.; +and Bob (who was of the party certainly, and would not peach,) was just +on the point of incurring expulsion, and so losing the family living +which was in store for him, when Glenlivat nobly stepped forward, owned +himself to be the author of the delightful JEU-D'ESPRIT, apologized to +the tutor, and accepted the rustication. + +Hugby cried when Glenlivat apologized; if the young nobleman had kicked +him round the court, I believe the tutor would have been happy, so that +an apology and a reconciliation might subsequently ensue. 'My lord,' +said he, 'in your conduct on this and all other occasions, you have +acted as becomes a gentleman; you have been an honour to the University, +as you will be to the peerage, I am sure, when the amiable vivacity of +youth is calmed down, and you are called upon to take your proper share +in the government of the nation.' And when his lordship took leave of +the University, Hugby presented him with a copy of his 'Sermons to a +Nobleman's Family' (Hugby was once private tutor to the Sons of the +Earl of Muffborough), which Glenlivat presented in return to Mr. William +Ramm, known to the fancy as the Tutbury Pet, and the sermons now figure +on the boudoir-table of Mrs. Ramm, behind the bar of her house of +entertainment, 'The Game Cock and Spurs,' near Woodstock, Oxon. + +At the beginning of the long vacation, Hugby comes to town, and puts up +in handsome lodgings near St. James's Square; rides in the Park in the +afternoon; and is delighted to read his name in the morning papers among +the list of persons present at Muffborough House, and the Marquis of +Farintosh's evening-parties. He is a member of Sydney Scraper's Club, +where, however, he drinks his pint of claret. + +Sometimes you may see him on Sundays, at the hour when tavern doors +open, whence issue little girls with great jugs of porter; when +charity-boys walk the streets, bearing brown dishes of smoking shoulders +of mutton and baked 'taturs; when Sheeny and Moses are seen smoking +their pipes before their lazy shutters in Seven Dials; when a crowd of +smiling persons in clean outlandish dresses, in monstrous bonnets and +flaring printed gowns, or in crumpled glossy coats and silks that bear +the creases of the drawers where they have lain all the week, file down +High Street,--sometimes, I say, you may see Hugby coming out of the +Church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, with a stout gentlewoman leaning +on his arm, whose old face bears an expression of supreme pride and +happiness as she glances round at all the neighbours, and who faces the +curate himself and marches into Holborn, where she pulls the bell of a +house over which is inscribed, 'Hugby, Haberdasher.' It is the mother of +the Rev. F. Hugby, as proud of her son in his white choker as Cornelia +of her jewels at Rome. That is old Hugby bringing up the rear with the +Prayer-books, and Betsy Hugby the old maid, his daughter,--old Hugby, +Haberdasher and Church-warden. + +In the front room upstairs, where the dinner is laid out, there is +a picture of Muffborough Castle; of the Earl of Muffborough, K.X., +Lord-Lieutenant for Diddlesex; an engraving, from an almanac, of Saint +Boniface College, Oxon; and a sticking-plaster portrait of Hugby when +young, in a cap and gown. A copy of his 'Sermons to a Nobleman's Family' +is on the bookshelf, by the 'Whole Duty of Man,' the Reports of the +Missionary Societies, and the 'Oxford University Calendar.' Old Hugby +knows part of this by heart; every living belonging to Saint Boniface, +and the name of every tutor, fellow, nobleman, and undergraduate. + +He used to go to meeting and preach himself, until his son took orders; +but of late the old gentleman has been accused of Puseyism, and is quite +pitiless against the Dissenters. + + + +CHAPTER XV--ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS + +I should like to fill several volumes with accounts of various +University Snobs; so fond are my reminiscences of them, and so numerous +are they. I should like to speak, above all, of the wives and daughters +of some of the Professor-Snobs; their amusements, habits, jealousies; +their innocent artifices to entrap young men; their picnics, concerts, +and evening-parties. I wonder what has become of Emily Blades, daughter +of Blades, the Professor of the Mandingo language? I remember her +shoulders to this day, as she sat in the midst of a crowd of about +seventy young gentlemen, from Corpus and Catherine Hall, entertaining +them with ogles and French songs on the guitar. Are you married, fair +Emily of the shoulders? What beautiful ringlets those were that used to +dribble over them!--what a waist!--what a killing sea-green shot-silk +gown!--what a cameo, the size of a muffin! There were thirty-six young +men of the University in love at one time with Emily Blades: and no +words are sufficient to describe the pity, the sorrow, the deep, +deep commiseration--the rage, fury, and uncharitableness, in other +words--with which the Miss Trumps (daughter of Trumps, the Professor +of Phlebotomy) regarded her, because she DIDN'T squint, and because she +WASN'T marked with the small-pox. + +As for the young University Snobs, I am getting too old, now, to speak +of such very familiarly. My recollections of them lie in the far, far +past--almost as far back as Pelham's time. + +We THEN used to consider Snobs raw-looking lads, who never missed +chapel; who wore highlows and no straps; who walked two hours on the +Trumpington road every day of their lives; who carried off the college +scholarships, and who overrated themselves in hall. We were premature in +pronouncing our verdict of youthful Snobbishness The man without straps +fulfilled his destiny and duty. He eased his old governor, the curate +in Westmoreland, or helped his sisters to set up the Ladies' School. He +wrote a 'Dictionary,' or a 'Treatise on Conic Sections,' as his nature +and genius prompted. He got a fellowship: and then took to himself a +wife, and a living. He presides over a parish now, and thinks it rather +a dashing thing to belong to the 'Oxford and Cambridge Club;' and his +parishioners love him, and snore under his sermons. No, no, HE is not a +Snob. It is not straps that make the gentleman, or highlows that unmake +him, be they ever so thick. My son, it is you who are the Snob if you +lightly despise a man for doing his duty, and refuse to shake an honest +man's hand because it wears a Berlin glove. + +We then used to consider it not the least vulgar for a parcel of lads +who had been whipped three months previous, and were not allowed more +than three glasses of port at home, to sit down to pineapples and ices +at each other's rooms, and fuddle themselves with champagne and claret. + +One looks back to what was called a 'wine-party' with a sort of wonder. +Thirty lads round a table covered with bad sweetmeats, drinking bad +wines, telling bad stories, singing bad songs over and over again. Milk +punch--smoking--ghastly headache--frightful spectacle of dessert-table +next morning, and smell of tobacco--your guardian, the clergyman, +dropping in, in the midst of this--expecting to find you deep in +Algebra, and discovering the Gyp administering soda-water. + +There were young men who despised the lads who indulged in the coarse +hospitalities of wine-parties, who prided themselves in giving RECHERCHE +little French dinners. Both wine-party-givers and dinner-givers were +Snobs. + +There were what used to be called 'dressy' Snobs:--Jimmy, who might +be seen at five o'clock elaborately rigged out, with a camellia in his +button-hole, glazed boots, and fresh kid-gloves twice a day;--Jessamy, +who was conspicuous for his 'jewellery,'--a young donkey, glittering +all over with chains, rings, and shirt-studs;--Jacky, who rode every day +solemnly on the Blenheim Road, in pumps and white silk stockings, with +his hair curled,--all three of whom flattered themselves they gave laws +to the University about dress--all three most odious varieties of Snobs. + +Sporting Snobs of course there were, and are always--those happy beings +in whom Nature has implanted a love of slang: who loitered about the +horsekeeper's stables, and drove the London coaches--a stage in and +out--and might be seen swaggering through the courts in pink of early +mornings, and indulged in dice and blind-hookey at nights, and +never missed a race or a boxing-match; and rode flat-races, and kept +bull-terriers. Worse Snobs even than these were poor miserable wretches +who did not like hunting at all, and could not afford it, and were in +mortal fear at a two-foot ditch; but who hunted because Glenlivat and +Cinqbars hunted. The Billiard Snob and the Boating Snob were varieties +of these, and are to be found elsewhere than in universities. + +Then there were Philosophical Snobs, who used to ape statesmen at the +spouting-clubs, and who believed as a fact that Government always had +an eye on the University for the selection of orators for the House of +Commons. There were audacious young free-thinkers, who adored nobody or +nothing, except perhaps Robespierre and the Koran, and panted for the +day when the pale name of priest should shrink and dwindle away before +the indignation of an enlightened world. + +But the worst of all University Snobs are those unfortunates who go +to rack and ruin from their desire to ape their betters. Smith becomes +acquainted with great people at college, and is ashamed of his father +the tradesman. Jones has fine acquaintances, and lives after their +fashion like a gay free-hearted fellow as he is, and ruins his father, +and robs his sister's portion, and cripples his younger brother's outset +in life, for the pleasure of entertaining my lord, and riding by the +side of Sir John. And though it may be very good fun for Robinson to +fuddle himself at home as he does at College, and to be brought home by +the policeman he has just been trying to knock down--think what fun it +is for the poor old soul his mother!--the half-pay captain's widow, who +has been pinching herself all her life long, in order that that jolly +young fellow might have a University education. + + + +CHAPTER XVI--ON LITERARY SNOBS + +What will he say about Literary Snobs? has been a question, I make no +doubt, often asked by the public. How can he let off his own profession? +Will that truculent and unsparing monster who attacks the nobility, the +clergy, the army, and the ladies, indiscriminately, hesitate when the +turn comes to EGORGER his own flesh and blood? + +My dear and excellent querist, whom does the schoolmaster flog so +resolutely as his own son? Didn't Brutus chop his offspring's head off? +You have a very bad opinion indeed of the present state of literature +and of literary men, if you fancy that any one of us would hesitate to +stick a knife into his neighbour penman, if the latter's death could do +the State any service. + +But the fact is, that in the literary profession THERE ARE NO SNOBS. +Look round at the whole body of British men of letters; and I defy you +to point out among them a single instance of vulgarity, or envy, or +assumption. + +Men and women, as far as I have known them, they are all modest in +their demeanour, elegant in their manners, spotless in their lives, and +honourable in their conduct to the world and to each other. You MAY, +occasionally, it is true, hear one literary man abusing his brother; but +why? Not in the least out of malice; not at all from envy; merely from a +sense of truth and public duty. Suppose, for instance, I, good-naturedly +point out a blemish in my friend MR. PUNCH'S person, and say, MR. P. has +a hump-back, and his nose and chin are more crooked than those features +in the Apollo or Antinous, which we are accustomed to consider as our +standards of beauty; does this argue malice on my part towards MR. +PUNCH? Not in the least. It is the critic's duty to point out defects as +well as merits, and he invariably does his duty with utmost gentleness +and candour. + +An intelligent foreigner's testimony about our manners is always worth +having, and I think, in this respect the work of an eminent American, +Mr. N. P. Willis is eminently valuable and impartial. In his 'History +of Ernest Clay,' a crack magazine-writer, the reader will get an exact +account of the life of a popular man of letters in England. He is always +the lion of society. + +He takes the PAS of dukes and earls; all the nobility crowd to see him: +I forget how many baronesses and duchesses fall in love with him. But +on this subject let us hold our tongues. Modesty forbids that we should +reveal the names of the heart-broken countesses and dear marchionesses +who are pining for every one of the contributors in PUNCH. + +If anybody wants to know how intimately authors are connected with +the fashionable world, they have but to read the genteel novels. +What refinement and delicacy pervades the works of Mrs. Barnaby! What +delightful good company do you meet with in Mrs. Armytage! She seldom +introduces you to anybody under a marquis! I don't know anything more +delicious than the pictures of genteel life in 'Ten Thousand a Year,' +except perhaps the 'Young Duke,' and 'Coningsby.' There's a modest +grace about THEM, and an air of easy high fashion, which only belongs to +blood, my dear Sir--to true blood. + +And what linguists many of our writers are! Lady Bulwer, Lady +Londonderry, Sir Edward himself--they write the French language with a +luxurious elegance and ease which sets them far above their continental +rivals, of whom not one (except Paul de Kock) knows a word of English. + +And what Briton can read without enjoyment the works of James, so +admirable for terseness; and the playful humour and dazzling offhand +lightness of Ainsworth? Among other humourists, one might glance at a +Jerrold, the chivalrous advocate of Toryism and Church and State; an a +Beckett, with a lightsome pen, but a savage earnestness of purpose; +a Jeames, whose pure style, and wit unmingled with buffoonery, was +relished by a congenial public. + +Speaking of critics, perhaps there never was a review that has done so +much for literature as the admirable QUARTERLY. It has its prejudices, +to be sure, as which of us has not? It goes out of its way to abuse +a great man, or lays mercilessly on to such pretenders as Keats and +Tennyson; but, on the other hand, it is the friend of all young authors, +and has marked and nurtured all the rising talent of the country. It is +loved by everybody. There, again, is BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE--conspicuous +for modest elegance and amiable satire; that review never passes the +bounds of politeness in a joke. It is the arbiter of manners; and, while +gently exposing the foibles of Londoners (for whom the BEAUX ESPRITS of +Edinburgh entertain a justifiable contempt), it is never coarse in its +fun. The fiery enthusiasm of the ATHENAEUM is well known: and the bitter +wit of the too difficult LITERARY GAZETTE. The EXAMINER is perhaps too +timid, and the SPECTATOR too boisterous in its praise--but who can carp +at these minor faults? No, no; the critics of England and the authors of +England are unrivalled as a body; and hence it becomes impossible for us +to find fault with them. + +Above all, I never knew a man of letters ASHAMED OF HIS PROFESSION. +Those who know us, know what an affectionate and brotherly spirit there +is among us all. Sometimes one of us rises in the world: we never attack +him or sneer at him under those circumstances, but rejoice to a man at +his success. If Jones dines with a lord, Smith never says Jones is a +courtier and cringer. Nor, on the other hand, does Jones, who is in the +habit of frequenting the society of great people, give himself any airs +on account of the company he keeps; but will leave a duke's arm in Pall +Mall to come over and speak to poor Brown, the young penny-a-liner. + +That sense of equality and fraternity amongst authors has always struck +me as one of the most amiable characteristics of the class. It is +because we know and respect each other, that the world respects us so +much; that we hold such a good position in society, and demean ourselves +so irreproachably when there. + +Literary persons are held in such esteem by the nation that about two of +them have been absolutely invited to court during the present reign; and +it is probable that towards the end of the season, one or two will be +asked to dinner by Sir Robert Peel. + +They are such favourites with the public, that they are continually +obliged to have their pictures taken and published; and one or two could +be pointed out, of whom the nation insists upon having a fresh portrait +every year. Nothing can be more gratifying than this proof of the +affectionate regard which the people has for its instructors. + +Literature is held in such honour in England, that there is a sum of +near twelve hundred pounds per annum set apart to pension deserving +persons following that profession. And a great compliment this is, +too, to the professors, and a proof of their generally prosperous and +flourishing condition. They are generally so rich and thrifty, that +scarcely any money is wanted to help them. + +If every word of this is true, how, I should like to know am I to write +about Literary Snobs? + + + +CHAPTER XVII--A LITTLE ABOUT IRISH SNOBS + +You do not, to be sure, imagine that there are no other Snobs in Ireland +than those of the amiable party who wish to make pikes of iron railroads +(it's a fine Irish economy), and to cut the throats of the Saxon +invaders. These are of the venomous sort; and had they been invented in +his time, St. Patrick would have banished them out of the kingdom along +with the other dangerous reptiles. + +I think it is the Four Masters, or else it's Olaus Magnus, or else +it's certainly O'Neill Daunt, in the 'Catechism of Irish History,' who +relates that when Richard the Second came to Ireland, and the Irish +chiefs did homage to him, going down on their knees--the poor simple +creatures!--and worshipping and wondering before the English king and +the dandies of his court, my lords the English noblemen mocked and +jeered at their uncouth Irish admirers, mimicked their talk and +gestures, pulled their poor old beards, and laughed at the strange +fashion of their garments. + +The English Snob rampant always does this to the present day. There is +no Snob in existence, perhaps, that has such an indomitable belief in +himself: that sneers you down all the rest of the world besides, and has +such an insufferable, admirable, stupid contempt for all people but his +own--nay, for all sets but his own. 'Gwacious Gad' what stories about +'the Iwish' these young dandies accompanying King Richard must have had +to tell, when they returned to Pall Mall, and smoked their cigars upon +the steps of 'White's.' + +The Irish snobbishness developes itself not in pride so much as in +servility and mean admirations, and trumpery imitations of their +neighbours. And I wonder De Tocqueville and De Beaumont, and THE TIMES' +Commissioner, did not explain the Snobbishness of Ireland as contrasted +with our own. Ours is that of Richard's Norman Knights,--haughty, brutal +stupid, and perfectly self-confident;--theirs, of the poor, wondering, +kneeling, simple chieftains. They are on their knees still before +English fashion--these simple, wild people; and indeed it is hard not to +grin at some of their NAIVE exhibitions. + +Some years since, when a certain great orator was Lord Mayor of Dublin, +he used to wear a red gown and a cocked hat, the splendour of which +delighted him as much as a new curtain-ring in her nose or a string of +glass-beads round her neck charms Queen Quasheeneboo. He used to pay +visits to people in this dress; to appear at meetings hundreds of miles +off, in the red velvet gown. And to hear the people crying 'Yes, me +Lard!' and 'No, me Lard!' and to read the prodigious accounts of his +Lordship in the papers: it seemed as if the people and he liked to be +taken in by this twopenny splendour. Twopenny magnificence, +indeed, exists all over Ireland, and may be considered as the great +characteristic of the Snobbishness of that country. + +When Mrs. Mulholligan, the grocer's lady, retires to Kingstown, she has +Mulholliganville' painted over the gate of her villa; and receives you +at a door that won't shut or gazes at you out of a window that is glazed +with an old petticoat. + +Be it ever so shabby and dismal, nobody ever owns to keeping a shop. A +fellow whose stock in trade is a penny roll or a tumbler of lollipops, +calls his cabin the 'American Flour Stores,' or the 'Depository for +Colonial Produce,' or some such name. + +As for Inns, there are none in the country; Hotels abound as well +furnished as Mulholliganville; but again there are no such people as +landlords and land-ladies; the landlord is out with the hounds, and my +lady in the parlour talking with the Captain or playing the piano. + +If a gentleman has a hundred a year to leave to his family they all +become gentlemen, all keep a nag, ride to hounds, and swagger about +in the 'Phaynix,' and grow tufts to their chins like so many real +aristocrats. + +A friend of mine has taken to be a painter, and lives out of Ireland, +where he is considered to have disgraced the family by choosing such +a profession. His father is a wine-merchant; and his elder brother an +apothecary. + +The number of men one meets in London and on the Continent who have a +pretty little property of five-and-twenty hundred a year in Ireland +is prodigious: those who WILL have nine thousand a year in land when +somebody dies are still more numerous. I myself have met as many +descendants from Irish kings as would form a brigade. + +And who has not met the Irishman who apes the Englishman, and who +forgets his country and tries to forget his accent, or to smother the +taste of it, as it were? 'Come, dine with me, my boy,' says O'Dowd, of +O'Dowdstown: 'you'll FIND US ALL ENGLISH THERE;' which he tells you with +a brogue as broad as from here to Kingstown Pier. And did you never hear +Mrs. Captain Macmanus talk about 'I-ah-land,' and her account of her +'fawther's esteet?' Very few men have rubbed through the world without +hearing and witnessing some of these Hibernian phenomena--these twopenny +splendours. + +And what say you to the summit of society--the Castle--with a sham +king, and sham lords-in-waiting, and sham loyalty, and a sham Haroun +Alraschid, to go about in a sham disguise, making believe to be affable +and splendid? That Castle is the pink and pride of Snobbishness. A COURT +CIRCULAR is bad enough, with two columns of print about a little baby +that's christened--but think of people liking a sham COURT CIRCULAR! + +I think the shams of Ireland are more outrageous than those of any +country. A fellow shows you a hill and says, 'That's the highest +mountain in all Ireland;' a gentleman tells you he is descended from +Brian Boroo and has his five-and-thirty hundred a year; or Mrs. Macmanus +describes her fawther's esteet; or ould Dan rises and says the Irish +women are the loveliest, the Irish men the bravest, the Irish land the +most fertile in the world: and nobody believes anybody--the latter does +not believe his story nor the hearer:--but they make-believe to believe, +and solemnly do honour to humbug. + +O Ireland! O my country! (for I make little doubt I am descended from +Brian Boroo too) when will you acknowledge that two and two make four, +and call a pikestaff a pikestaff?--that is the very best use you can +make of the latter. Irish snobs will dwindle away then and we shall +never hear tell of Hereditary bondsmen. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--PARTY-GIVING SNOBS + +Our selection of Snobs has lately been too exclusively of a political +character. 'Give us private Snobs,' cry the dear ladies. (I have before +me the letter of one fair correspondent of the fishing village of +Brighthelmstone in Sussex, and could her commands ever be disobeyed?) +'Tell us more, dear Mr. Snob, about your experience of Snobs in +society.' Heaven bless the dear souls!--they are accustomed to the word +now--the odious, vulgar, horrid, unpronounceable word slips out of their +lips with the prettiest glibness possible. I should not wonder if it +were used at Court amongst the Maids of Honour. In the very best society +I know it is. And why not? Snobbishness is vulgar--the mere words +are not: that which we call a Snob, by any other name would still be +Snobbish. + +Well, then. As the season is drawing to a close: as many hundreds +of kind souls, snobbish or otherwise, have quitted London; as many +hospitable carpets are taken up; and window-blinds are pitilessly +papered with the MORNING HERALD; and mansions once inhabited by cheerful +owners are now consigned to the care of the housekeeper's dreary LOCUM +TENENS--some mouldy old woman, who, in reply to the hopeless clanging +of the bell, peers at you for a moment from the area, and then slowly +unbolting the great hall-door, informs you my lady has left town, or +that 'the family's in the country,' or 'gone up the Rind,'--or what not; +as the season and parties are over; why not consider Party-giving Snobs +for a while, and review the conduct of some of those individuals who +have quitted the town for six months? + +Some of those worthy Snobs are making-believe to go yachting, and, +dressed in telescopes and pea-jackets, are passing their time between +Cherbourg and Cowes; some living higgledy-piggledy in dismal little +huts in Scotland, provisioned with canisters of portable soup, +and fricandeaux hermetically sealed in tin, are passing their days +slaughtering grouse upon the moors; some are dozing and bathing away the +effects of the season at Kissingen, or watching the ingenious game of +TRENTE ET QUARANTE at Homburg and Ems. We can afford to be very bitter +upon them now they are all gone. Now there are no more parties, let us +have at the Party-giving Snobs. The dinner-giving, the ball-giving, the +DEJEUNER-giving, the CONVERSAZIONE-GIVING Snobs--Lord! Lord! what +havoc might have been made amongst them had we attacked them during the +plethora of the season! I should have been obliged to have a guard to +defend me from fiddlers and pastrycooks, indignant at the abuse of +their patrons. Already I'm told that, from some flippant and unguarded +expressions considered derogatory to Baker Street and Harley Street, +rents have fallen in these respectable quarters; and orders have been +issued that at least Mr. Snob shall be asked to parties there no more. +Well, then--now they are ALL away, let us frisk at our ease, and have at +everything like the bull in the china-shop. They mayn't hear of what is +going on in their absence, and, if they do they can't bear malice for +six months. We will begin to make it up with them about next February, +and let next year take care of itself. We shall have no dinners from +the dinner-giving Snobs: no more from the ball-givers: no more +CONVERSAZIONES (thank Mussy! as Jeames says,) from the Conversaziones +Snob: and what is to prevent us from telling the truth? + +The snobbishness of Conversazione Snobs is very soon disposed of: as +soon as that cup of washy bohea is handed to you in the tea-room; or the +muddy remnant of ice that you grasp in the suffocating scuffle of the +assembly upstairs. + +Good heavens! What do people mean by going there? What is done there, +that everybody throngs into those three little rooms? Was the Black Hole +considered to be an agreeable REUNION, that Britons in the dog-days here +seek to imitate it? After being rammed to a jelly in a door-way (where +you feel your feet going through Lady Barbara Macbeth's lace flounces, +and get a look from that haggard and painted old harpy, compared to +which the gaze of Ugolino is quite cheerful); after withdrawing your +elbow out of poor gasping Bob Guttleton's white waistcoat, from which +cushion it was impossible to remove it, though you knew you were +squeezing poor Bob into an apoplexy--you find yourself at last in +the reception-room, and try to catch the eye of Mrs. Botibol, the +CONVERSAZIONE-giver. When you catch her eye, you are expected to grin, +and she smiles too, for the four hundredth time that night; and, if +she's very glad to see you, waggles her little hand before her face as +if to blow you a kiss, as the phrase is. + +Why the deuce should Mrs. Botibol blow me a kiss? I wouldn't kiss her +for the world. Why do I grin when I see her, as if I was delighted? Am +I? I don't care a straw for Mrs. Botibol. I know what she thinks about +me. I know what she said about my last volume of poems (I had it from +a dear mutual friend). Why, I say in a word, are we going on ogling +and telegraphing each other in this insane way?--Because we are both +performing the ceremonies demanded by the Great Snob Society; whose +dictates we all of us obey. + +Well; the recognition is over--my jaws have returned to their usual +English expression of subdued agony and intense gloom, and the Botibol +is grinning and kissing her fingers to somebody else, who is squeezing +through the aperture by which we have just entered. It is Lady Ann +Clutterbuck, who has her Friday evenings, as Botibol (Botty, we call +her,) has Wednesdays. That is Miss Clementina Clutterbuck the cadaverous +young woman in green, with florid auburn hair, who has published her +volume of poems ('The Death-Shriek;' 'Damiens;' 'The Faggot of Joan +of Arc;' and 'Translations from the German' of course). The +conversazione-women salute each other calling each other 'My dear Lady +Ann' and 'My dear good Eliza,' and hating each other, as women hate who +give parties on Wednesdays and Fridays. With inexpressible pain dear +good Eliza sees Ann go up and coax and wheedle Abou Gosh, who has just +arrived from Syria, and beg him to patronize her Fridays. + +All this while, amidst the crowd and the scuffle, and a perpetual buzz +and chatter, and the flare of the wax-candles, and an intolerable smell +of musk--what the poor Snobs who write fashionable romances call 'the +gleam of gems, the odour of perfumes, the blaze of countless lamps'--a +scrubby-looking, yellow-faced foreigner, with cleaned gloves, is +warbling inaudibly in a corner, to the accompaniment of another. 'The +Great Cacafogo,' Mrs. Botibol whispers, as she passes you by. 'A great +creature, Thumpenstrumpff, is at the instrument--the Hetman Platoff's +pianist, you know.' + +To hear this Cacafogo and Thumpenstrumpff, a hundred people are gathered +together--a bevy of dowagers, stout or scraggy; a faint sprinkling of +misses; six moody-looking lords, perfectly meek and solemn; wonderful +foreign Counts, with bushy whiskers and yellow faces, and a great deal +of dubious jewellery; young dandies with slim waists and open necks, and +self-satisfied simpers, and flowers in their buttons; the old, stiff, +stout, bald-headed CONVERSAZIONE ROUES, whom You meet everywhere--who +never miss a night of this delicious enjoyment; the three last-caught +lions of the season--Higgs, the traveller, Biggs, the novelist, and +Toffey, who has come out so on the sugar question; Captain Flash, who is +invited on account of his pretty wife and Lord Ogleby, who goes wherever +she goes. + +QUE SCAIS-JE? Who are the owners of all those showy scarfs and white +neckcloths?--Ask little Tom Prig, who is there in all his glory, knows +everybody, has a story about every one; and, as he trips home to his +lodgings in Jermyn Street, with his gibus-hat and his little glazed +pumps, thinks he is the fashionablest young fellow in town, and that he +really has passed a night of exquisite enjoyment. + +You go up (with our usual easy elegance of manner) and talk to Miss +Smith in a corner. 'Oh, Mr. Snob, I'm afraid you're sadly satirical.' + +That's all she says. If you say it's fine weather, she bursts out +laughing; or hint that it's very hot, she vows you are the drollest +wretch! Meanwhile Mrs. Botibol is simpering on fresh arrivals; the +individual at the door is roaring out their names; poor Cacafogo is +quavering away in the music-room, under the impression that he will be +LANCE in the world by singing inaudibly here. And what a blessing it is +to squeeze out of the door, and into the street, where a half-hundred of +carriages are in waiting; and where the link-boy, with that unnecessary +lantern of his, pounces upon all who issue out, and will insist upon +getting your noble honour's lordship's cab. + +And to think that there are people who, after having been to Botibol on +Wednesday, will go to Clutterbuck on Friday! + + + +CHAPTER XIX--DINING-OUT SNOBS + +In England Dinner-giving Snobs occupy a very important place in society, +and the task of describing them is tremendous. There was a time in my +life when the consciousness of having eaten a man's salt rendered me +dumb regarding his demerits, and I thought it a wicked act and a breach +of hospitality to speak ill of him. + +But why should a saddle-of-mutton blind you, or a turbot and +lobster-sauce shut your mouth for ever? With advancing age, men see +their duties more clearly. I am not to be hoodwinked any longer by a +slice of venison, be it ever so fat; and as for being dumb on account of +turbot and lobster-sauce----of course I am; good manners ordain that I +should be so, until I have swallowed the compound--but not afterwards; +directly the victuals are discussed, and John takes away the plate, +my tongue begins to wag. Does not yours, if you have a pleasant +neighbour?--a lovely creature, say, of some five-and-thirty, whose +daughters have not yet quite come out--they are the best talkers. As for +your young misses, they are only put about the table to look at--like +the flowers in the centre-piece. Their blushing youth and natural +modesty preclude them from easy, confidential, conversational ABANDON +which forms the delight of the intercourse with their dear mothers. It +is to these, if he would prosper in his profession, that the Dining-out +Snob should address himself. Suppose you sit next to one of these, how +pleasant it is, in the intervals of the banquet, actually to abuse the +victuals and the giver of the entertainment! It's twice as PIQUANT to +make fun of a man under his very nose. + +'What IS a Dinner-giving Snob?' some innocent youth, who is not REPANDU +in the world, may ask--or some simple reader who has not the benefits of +London experience. + +My dear sir, I will show you--not all, for that is impossible--but +several kinds of Dinner-giving Snobs. For instance, suppose you, in the +middle rank of life, accustomed to Mutton, roast on Tuesday, cold +on Wednesday, hashed on Thursday, &c., with small means and a small +establishment, choose to waste the former and set the latter topsy-turvy +by giving entertainments unnaturally costly--you come into the +Dinner-giving Snob class at once. Suppose you get in cheap-made +dishes from the pastrycook's, and hire a couple of greengrocers, or +carpet-beaters, to figure as footmen, dismissing honest Molly, who waits +on common days, and bedizening your table (ordinarily ornamented with +willow-pattern crockery) with twopenny-halfpenny Birmingham plate. +Suppose you pretend to be richer and grander than you ought to be--you +are a Dinner-giving Snob. And oh, I tremble to think how many and many a +one will read this! + +A man who entertains in this way--and, alas, how few do not!--is like +a fellow who would borrow his neighbour's coat to make a show in, or a +lady who flaunts in the diamonds from next door--a humbug, in a word, +and amongst the Snobs he must be set down. + +A man who goes out of his natural sphere of society to ask Lords, +Generals, Aldermen, and other persons of fashion, but is niggardly of +his hospitality towards his own equals, is a Dinner-giving Snob. My +dear friend, Jack Tufthunt, for example, knows ONE Lord whom he met at +a watering-place: old Lord Mumble, who is as toothless as a +three-months-old baby, and as mum as an undertaker, and as dull +as--well, we will not particularise. Tufthunt never has a dinner now but +you see this solemn old toothless patrician at the right-hand of Mrs. +Tufthunt--Tufthunt is a Dinner-giving Snob. + +Old Livermore, old Soy, old Chutney, the East Indian Director, old +Cutler, the Surgeon, &c.,--that society of old fogies, in fine, who give +each other dinners round and round, and dine for the mere purpose of +guttling--these, again, are Dinner-giving Snobs. + +Again, my friend Lady MacScrew, who has three grenadier flunkeys in lace +round the table, and serves up a scrag-of-mutton on silver, and dribbles +you out bad sherry and port by thimblefuls, is a Dinner-giving Snob of +the other sort; and I confess, for my part, I would rather dine with old +Livermore or old Soy than with her Ladyship. + +Stinginess is snobbish. Ostentation is snobbish. Too great profusion +is snobbish. Tuft-hunting is snobbish. But I own there are people more +snobbish than all those whose defects are above mentioned: viz., those +individuals who can, and don't give dinners at all. The man without +hospitality shall never sit SUB IISDEM TRABIBUS with ME. Let the sordid +wretch go mumble his bone alone! + +What, again, is true hospitality? Alas, my dear friends and brother +Snobs! how little do we meet of it after all! Are the motives PURE which +induce your friends to ask you to dinner? This has often come across me. +Does your entertainer want something from you? For instance, I am not of +a suspicious turn; but it IS a fact that when Hookey is bringing out a +new work, he asks the critics all round to dinner; that when Walker has +got his picture ready for the Exhibition, he somehow grows exceedingly +hospitable, and has his friends of the press to a quiet cutlet and a +glass of Sillery. Old Hunks, the miser, who died lately (leaving his +money to his housekeeper) lived many years on the fat of the land, by +simply taking down, at all his friends', the names and Christian names +OF ALL THE CHILDREN. But though you may have your own opinion about +the hospitality of your acquaintances; and though men who ask you from +sordid motives are most decidedly Dinner-giving Snobs, it is best not +to inquire into their motives too keenly. Be not too curious about the +mouth of a gift-horse. After all, a man does not intend to insult you by +asking you to dinner. + +Though, for that matter, I know some characters about town who actually +consider themselves injured and insulted if the dinner or the company +is not to their liking. There is Guttleton, who dines at home off a +shilling's-worth of beef from the cookshop, but if he is asked to dine +at a house where there are not pease at the end of May, or cucumbers in +March along with the turbot, thinks himself insulted by being invited. +'Good Ged!' says he, 'what the deuce do the Forkers mean by asking ME +to a family dinner? I can get mutton at home;' or 'What infernal +impertinence it is of the Spooners to get ENTREES from the pastrycook's, +and fancy that I am to be deceived with their stories about their French +cook!' Then, again, there is Jack Puddington--I saw that honest fellow +t'other day quite in a rage, because, as chance would have it, Sir +John Carver asked him to meet the very same party he had met at Colonel +Cramley's the day before, and he had not got up a new set of stories +to entertain them. Poor Dinner-giving Snobs! you don't know what small +thanks you get for all your pains and money! How we Dining-out Snobs +sneer at your cookery, and pooh-pooh your old hock, and are incredulous +about your four-and-six-penny champagne, and know that the side-dishes +of to-day are RECHAUFFES from the dinner of yesterday, and mark how +certain dishes are whisked off the table untasted, so that they may +figure at the banquet tomorrow. Whenever, for my part, I see the head +man particularly anxious to ESCAMOTER a fricandeau or a blanc-mange, I +always call out, and insist upon massacring it with a spoon. All this +sort of conduct makes one popular with the Dinner-giving Snob. One +friend of mine, I know, has made a prodigious sensation in good society, +by announcing apropos of certain dishes when offered to him, that he +never eats aspic except at Lord Tittup's, and that Lady Jimmy's CHEF is +the only man in London who knows how to dress--FILET EN SERPENTEAU--or +SUPREME DE VOLAILLE AUX TRUFFES. + + + +CHAPTER XX--DINNER-GIVING SNOBS FURTHER CONSIDERED + +If my friends would but follow the present prevailing fashion, I think +they ought to give me a testimonial for the paper on Dinner-giving +Snobs, which I am now writing. What do you say now to a handsome +comfortable dinner-service of plate (NOT including plates, for I hold +silver plates to be sheer wantonness, and would almost as soon think of +silver teacups), a couple of neat teapots, a coffeepot, trays, &c., with +a little inscription to my wife, Mrs. Snob; and a half-score of silver +tankards for the little Snoblings, to glitter on the homely table where +they partake of their quotidian mutton? + +If I had my way, and my plans could be carried out, dinner-giving would +increase as much on the one hand as dinner-giving Snobbishness would +diminish:--to my mind the most amiable part of the work lately published +by my esteemed friend (if upon a very brief acquaintance he will allow +me to call him so), Alexis Soyer, the regenerator--what he (in his noble +style) would call the most succulent, savoury, and elegant passages--are +those which relate, not to the grand banquets and ceremonial dinners, +but to his 'dinners at home.' + +The 'dinner at home' ought to be the centre of the whole system +of dinner-giving. Your usual style of meal--that is, plenteous, +comfortable, and in its perfection--should be that to which you welcome +your friends, as it is that of which you partake yourself. + +For, towards what woman in the world do I entertain a higher regard than +towards the beloved partner of my existence, Mrs. Snob? Who should have +a greater place in my affections than her six brothers (three or four +of whom we are pretty sure will favour us with their company at seven +o'clock), or her angelic mother, my own valued mother-in-law?--for whom, +finally, would I wish to cater more generously than for your very humble +servant, the present writer? Now, nobody supposes that the Birmingham +plate is had out, the disguised carpet-beaters introduced to the +exclusion of the neat parlour-maid, the miserable ENTREES from the +pastrycook's ordered in, and the children packed off (as it is supposed) +to the nursery, but really only to the staircase, down which they slide +during the dinner-time, waylaying the dishes as they come out, and +fingering the round bumps on the jellies, and the forced-meat balls +in the soup,--nobody, I say, supposes that a dinner at home is +characterized by the horrible ceremony, the foolish makeshifts, the mean +pomp and ostentation which distinguish our banquets on grand field-days. + +Such a notion is monstrous. I would as soon think of having my dearest +Bessy sitting opposite me in a turban and bird of paradise, and showing +her jolly mottled arms out of blond sleeves in her famous red satin +gown: ay, or of having Mr. Toole every day, in a white waistcoat, at my +back, shouting, 'Silence FAW the chair!' + +Now, if this be the case; if the Brummagem-plate pomp and the +processions of disguised footmen are odious and foolish in everyday +life, why not always? Why should Jones and I, who are in the middle +rank, alter the modes of our being to assume an ECLAT which does not +belong to us--to entertain our friends, who (if we are worth anything +and honest fellows at bottom,) are men of the middle rank too, who are +not in the least deceived by our temporary splendour, and who play off +exactly the same absurd trick upon us when they ask us to dine? + +If it be pleasant to dine with your friends, as all persons with good +stomachs and kindly hearts will, I presume, allow it to be, it is better +to dine twice than to dine once. It is impossible for men of small means +to be continually spending five-and-twenty or thirty shillings on each +friend who sits down to their table. People dine for less. I myself have +seen, at my favourite Club (the Senior United Service), His Grace the +Duke of Wellington quite contented with the joint, one-and-three, and +half-pint of sherry, nine; and if his Grace, why not you and I? + +This rule I have made, and found the benefit of. Whenever I ask a couple +of Dukes and a Marquis or so to dine with me, I set them down to a piece +of beef, or a leg-of-mutton and trimmings. The grandees thank you for +this simplicity, and appreciate the same. My dear Jones, ask any of +those whom you have the honour of knowing, if such be not the case. + +I am far from wishing that their Graces should treat me in a similar +fashion. Splendour is a part of their station, as decent comfort (let us +trust), of yours and mine. Fate has comfortably appointed gold plate for +some, and has bidden others contentedly to wear the willow-pattern. And +being perfectly contented (indeed humbly thankful--for look around, O +Jones, and see the myriads who are not so fortunate,) to wear honest +linen, while magnificos of the world are adorned with cambric and +point-lace, surely we ought to hold as miserable, envious fools, those +wretched Beaux Tibbs's of society, who sport a lace dickey, and nothing +besides,--the poor silly jays, who trail a peacock's feather behind +them, and think to simulate the gorgeous bird whose nature it is to +strut on palace-terraces, and to flaunt his magnificent fan-tail in the +sunshine! + +The jays with peacocks' feathers are the Snobs of this world: and never, +since the days of Aesop, were they more numerous in any land than they +are at present in this free country. + +How does this most ancient apologue apply to the subject in hand?--the +Dinner-giving Snob. The imitation of the great is universal in this +city, from the palaces of Kensingtonia and Belgravia, even to the +remotest corner of Brunswick Square. + +Peacocks' feathers are stuck in the tails of most families. Scarce +one of us domestic birds but imitates the lanky, pavonine strut, and +shrill, genteel scream. O you misguided dinner-giving Snobs, think how +much pleasure you lose, and how much mischief you do with your +absurd grandeurs and hypocrisies! You stuff each other with unnatural +forced-meats, and entertain each other to the ruin of friendship +(let alone health) and the destruction of hospitality and +good-fellowship--you, who but for the peacock's tail might chatter away +so much at your ease, and be so jovial and happy! + +When a man goes into a great set company of dinner-giving and +dinner-receiving Snobs, if he has a philosophical turn of mind, he will +consider what a huge humbug the whole affair is: the dishes, and the +drink, and the servants, and the plate, and the host and hostess, and +the conversation, and the company,--the philosopher included. + +The host is smiling, and hob-nobbing, and talking up and down the +table; but a prey to secret terrors and anxieties, lest the wines he +has brought up from the cellar should prove insufficient; lest a corked +bottle should destroy his calculations; or our friend the carpet-beater, +by making some BEVUE, should disclose his real quality of greengrocer, +and show that he is not the family butler. + +The hostess is smiling resolutely through all the courses, smiling +through her agony; though her heart is in the kitchen, and she is +speculating with terror lest there be any disaster there. If the SOUFFLE +should collapse, or if Wiggins does not send the ices in time--she feels +as if she would commit suicide--that smiling, jolly woman! + +The children upstairs are yelling, as their maid is crimping their +miserable ringlets with hot tongs, tearing Miss Emmy's hair out by the +roots, or scrubbing Miss Polly's dumpy nose with mottled soap till the +little wretch screams herself into fits. The young males of the +family are employed, as we have stated, in piratical exploits upon the +landing-place. + +The servants are not servants, but the before-mentioned retail +tradesmen. + +The plate is not plate, but a mere shiny Birmingham lacquer; and so is +the hospitality, and everything else. + +The talk is Birmingham talk. The wag of the party, with bitterness in +his heart, having just quitted his laundress, who is dunning him for her +bill, is firing off good stories; and the opposition wag is furious +that he cannot get an innings. Jawkins, the great conversationalist, is +scornful and indignant with the pair of them, because he is kept out of +court. Young Muscadel, that cheap dandy, is talking Fashion and Almack's +out of the MORNING POST, and disgusting his neighbour, Mrs. Fox, who +reflects that she has never been there. The widow is vexed out of +patience, because her daughter Maria has got a place beside young +Cambric, the penniless curate, and not by Colonel Goldmore, the rich +widower from India. The Doctor's wife is sulky, because she has not been +led out before the barrister's lady; old Doctor Cork is grumbling at the +wine, and Guttleton sneering at the cookery. + +And to think that all these people might be so happy, and easy, and +friendly, were they brought together in a natural unpretentious way, +and but for an unhappy passion for peacocks' feathers in England. Gentle +shades of Marat and Robespierre! when I see how all the honesty of +society is corrupted among us by the miserable fashion-worship, I feel +as angry as Mrs. Fox just mentioned, and ready to order a general BATTUE +of peacocks. + + + +CHAPTER XXI--SOME CONTINENTAL SNOBS + +Now that September has come, and all our Parliamentary duties are over, +perhaps no class of Snobs are in such high feather as the Continental +Snobs. I watch these daily as they commence their migrations from the +beach at Folkestone. I see shoals of them depart (not perhaps without +an innate longing too to quit the Island along with those happy Snobs). +Farewell, dear friends, I say: you little know that the individual +who regards you from the beach is your friend and historiographer and +brother. + +I went to-day to see our excellent friend Snooks, on board the 'Queen of +the French;' many scores of Snobs were there, on the deck of that fine +ship, marching forth in their pride and bravery. They will be at Ostend +in four hours; they will inundate the Continent next week; they will +carry into far lands the famous image of the British Snob. I shall +not see them--but am with them in spirit: and indeed there is hardly a +country in the known and civilized world in which these eyes have not +beheld them. + +I have seen Snobs, in pink coats and hunting-boots, scouring over the +Campagna of Rome; and have heard their oaths and their well-known slang +in the galleries of the Vatican, and under the shadowy arches of +the Colosseum. I have met a Snob on a dromedary in the desert, and +picnicking under the Pyramid of Cheops. I like to think how many gallant +British Snobs there are, at this minute of writing, pushing their +heads out of every window in the courtyard of 'Meurice's' in the Rue +de Rivoli; or roaring out, 'Garsong, du pang,' 'Garsong, du Yang;' or +swaggering down the Toledo at Naples; or even how many will be on the +look-out for Snooks on Ostend Pier,--for Snooks, and the rest of the +Snobs on board the 'Queen of the French.' + +Look at the Marquis of Carabas and his two carriages. My Lady +Marchioness comes on board, looks round with that happy air of mingled +terror and impertinence which distinguishes her ladyship, and rushes to +her carriage, for it is impossible that she should mingle with the +other Snobs on deck. There she sits, and will be ill in private. The +strawberry leaves on her chariot-panels are engraved on her ladyship's +heart. If she were going to heaven instead of to Ostend, I rather think +she would expect to have DES PLACES RESERVEES for her, and would send to +order the best rooms. A courier, with his money-bag of office round his +shoulders--a huge scowling footman, whose dark pepper-and-salt livery +glistens with the heraldic insignia of the Carabases--a brazen-looking, +tawdry French FEMME-DE-CHAMBRE (none but a female pen can do justice +to that wonderful tawdry toilette of the lady's-maid EN VOYAGE)--and +a miserable DAME DE COMPAGNIE, are ministering to the wants of her +ladyship and her King Charles's spaniel. They are rushing to and fro +with eau-de-Cologne, pocket-handkerchiefs, which are all fringe and +cipher, and popping mysterious cushions behind and before, and in every +available corner of the carriage. + +The little Marquis, her husband is walking about the deck in a +bewildered manner, with a lean daughter on each arm: the carroty-tufted +hope of the family is already smoking on the foredeck in a travelling +costume checked all over, and in little lacquer-tip pod jean boots, and +a shirt embroidered with pink boa-constrictors. 'What is it that gives +travelling Snobs such a marvellous propensity to rush into a costume? +Why should a man not travel in a coat, &c.? but think proper to dress +himself like a harlequin in mourning? See, even young Aldermanbury, +the tallow-merchant, who has just stepped on board, has got a +travelling-dress gaping all over with pockets; and little Tom Tapeworm, +the lawyer's clerk out of the City, who has but three weeks' leave, +turns out in gaiters and a bran-new shooting-jacket, and must let the +moustaches grow on his little sniffy upper lip, forsooth! + +Pompey Hicks is giving elaborate directions to his servant, and asking +loudly, 'Davis, where's the dwessing-case?' and 'Davis, you'd best +take the pistol-case into the cabin.' Little Pompey travels with a +dressing-case, and without a beard: whom he is going to shoot with his +pistols, who on earth can tell? and what he is to do with his servant +but wait upon him, I am at a loss to conjecture. + +Look at honest Nathan Houndsditch and his lady, and their little son. +What a noble air of blazing contentment illuminates the features of +those Snobs of Eastern race! What a toilette Houndsditch's is! What +rings and chains, what gold-headed canes and diamonds, what a tuft the +rogue has got to his chin (the rogue! he will never spare himself any +cheap enjoyment!) Little Houndsditch has a little cane with a gilt head +and little mosaic ornaments--altogether an extra air. As for the lady, +she is all the colours of the rainbow! she has a pink parasol, with a +white lining, and a yellow bonnet, and an emerald green shawl, and +a shot-silk pelisse; and drab boots and rhubarb-coloured gloves; +and parti-coloured glass buttons, expanding from the size of a +fourpenny-piece to a crown, glitter and twiddle all down the front +of her gorgeous costume. I have said before, I like to look at 'the +Peoples' on their gala days, they are so picturesquely and outrageously +splendid and happy. + +Yonder comes Captain Bull; spick and span, tight and trim; who travels +for four or six months every year of his life; who does not commit +himself by luxury of raiment or insolence of demeanour, but I think is +as great a Snob as any man on board. Bull passes the season in London, +sponging for dinners, and sleeping in a garret near his Club. Abroad, +he has been everywhere; he knows the best wine at every inn in every +capital in Europe; lives with the best English company there; has seen +every palace and picture-gallery from Madrid to Stockholm; speaks +an abominable little jargon of half-a-dozen languages--and knows +nothing--nothing. Bull hunts tufts on the Continent, and is a sort of +amateur courier. He will scrape acquaintance with old Carabas before +they make Ostend; and will remind his lordship that he met him at Vienna +twenty years ago, or gave him a glass of Schnapps up the Righi. We have +said Bull knows nothing: he knows the birth, arms, and pedigree of all +the peerage, has poked his little eyes into every one of the carriages +on board--their panels noted and their crests surveyed; he knows all the +Continental stories of English scandal--how Count Towrowski ran off +with Miss Baggs at Naples--how VERY thick Lady Smigsmag was with young +Cornichon of the French Legation at Florence--the exact amount which +Jack Deuceace won of Bob Greengoose at Baden--what it is that made the +Staggs settle on the Continent: the sum for which the O'Goggarty +estates are mortgaged, &c. If he can't catch a lord he will hook on to a +baronet, or else the old wretch will catch hold of some beardless young +stripling of fashion, and show him 'life' in various and amiable and +inaccessible quarters. Faugh! the old brute! If he has every one of the +vices of the most boisterous youth, at least he is comforted by having +no conscience. He is utterly stupid, but of a jovial turn, He believes +himself to be quite a respectable member of society: but perhaps the +only good action he ever did in his life is the involuntary one of +giving an example to be avoided, and showing what an odious thing in +the social picture is that figure of the debauched old man who passes +through life rather a decorous Silenus, and dies some day in his garret, +alone, unrepenting, and unnoted, save by his astonished heirs, who find +that the dissolute old miser has left money behind him. See! he is up to +old Carabas already! I told you he would. + +Yonder you see the old Lady Mary MacScrew, and those middle-aged young +women her daughters; they are going to cheapen and haggle in Belgium and +up the Rhine until they meet with a boarding-house where they can live +upon less board-wages than her ladyship pays her footmen. But she will +exact and receive considerable respect from the British Snobs located in +the watering place which she selects for her summer residence, being the +daughter of the Earl of Haggistoun. That broad-shouldered buck, with the +great whiskers and the cleaned white kid-gloves, is Mr. Phelim Clancy of +Poldoodystown: he calls himself Mr. De Clancy; he endeavours to disguise +his native brogue with the richest superposition of English; and if you +play at billiards or ECARTE with him, the chances are that you will win +the first game, and he the seven or eight games ensuing. + +That overgrown lady with the four daughters, and the young dandy from +the University, her son, is Mrs. Kewsy, the eminent barrister's lady, +who would rather die than not be in the fashion. She has the 'Peerage' +in her carpet-bag, you may be sure; but she is altogether cut out by +Mrs. Quod, the attorney's wife, whose carriage, with the apparatus of +rumbles, dickeys, and imperials, scarcely yields in splendour to the +Marquis of Carabas's own travelling-chariot, and whose courier has even +bigger whiskers and a larger morocco money-bag than the Marquis's own +travelling gentleman. Remark her well: she is talking to Mr. Spout, the +new Member for Jawborough, who is going out to inspect the operations +of the Zollverein, and will put some very severe questions to Lord +Palmerston next session upon England and her relations with the +Prussian-blue trade, the Naples-soap trade, the German-tinder trade, &c. +Spout will patronize King Leopold at Brussels; will write letters from +abroad to the JAWBOROUGH INDEPENDENT; and in his quality of MEMBER DU +PARLIAMONG BRITANNIQUE, will expect to be invited to a family dinner +with every sovereign whose dominions he honours with a visit during his +tour. + +The next person is--but hark! the bell for shore is ringing, and, +shaking Snook's hand cordially, we rush on to the pier, waving him a +farewell as the noble black ship cuts keenly through the sunny azure +waters, bearing away that cargo of Snobs outward bound. + + + +CHAPTER XXII--CONTINENTAL SNOBBERY CONTINUED + +We are accustomed to laugh at the French for their braggadocio +propensities, and intolerable vanity about La France, la gloire, +l'Empereur, and the like; and yet I think in my heart that the British +Snob, for conceit and self-sufficiency and braggartism in his way, is +without a parallel. There is always something uneasy in a Frenchman's +conceit. He brags with so much fury, shrieking, and gesticulation; yells +out so loudly that the Francais is at the head of civilization, the +centre of thought, &c.; that one can't but see the poor fellow has a +lurking doubt in his own mind that he is not the wonder he professes to +be. + +About the British Snob, on the contrary, there is commonly no noise, no +bluster, but the calmness of profound conviction. We are better than all +the world; we don't question the opinion at all; it's an axiom. And when +a Frenchman bellows out, 'LA FRANCE, MONSIEUR, LA FRANCE EST A LA TETE +DU MONDE CIVILISE!' we laugh good-naturedly at the frantic poor devil. +WE are the first chop of the world: we know the fact so well in our +secret hearts that a claim set up elsewhere is simply ludicrous. My dear +brother reader, say, as a man of honour, if you are not of this opinion? +Do you think a Frenchman your equal? You don't--you gallant British +Snob--you know you don't: no more, perhaps, does the Snob your humble +servant, brother. + +And I am inclined to think it is this conviction, and the consequent +bearing of the Englishman towards the foreigner whom he condescends to +visit, this confidence of superiority which holds up the head of the +owner of every English hat-box from Sicily to St. Petersburg, that makes +us so magnificently hated throughout Europe as we are; this--more than +all our little victories, and of which many Frenchmen and Spaniards have +never heard--this amazing and indomitable insular pride, which animates +my lord in his travelling-carriage as well as John in the rumble. + +If you read the old Chronicles of the French wars, you find precisely +the same character of the Englishman, and Henry V.'s people behaved with +just the cool domineering manner of our gallant veterans of France +and the Peninsula. Did you never hear Colonel Cutler and Major Slasher +talking over the war after dinner? or Captain Boarder describing his +action with the 'Indomptable?' 'Hang the fellows,' says Boarder, 'their +practice was very good. I was beat off three times before I took her.' +'Cuss those carabineers of Milhaud's,' says Slasher, 'what work they +made of our light cavalry!' implying a sort of surprise that the +Frenchman should stand up against Britons at all: a good-natured wonder +that the blind, mad, vain-glorious, brave poor devils should actually +have the courage to resist an Englishman. Legions of such Englishmen +are patronizing Europe at this moment, being kind to the Pope, or +good-natured to the King of Holland, or condescending to inspect the +Prussian reviews. When Nicholas came here, who reviews a quarter of a +million of pairs of moustaches to his breakfast every morning, we took +him off to Windsor and showed him two whole regiments of six or eight +hundred Britons a-piece, with an air as much as to say,--'There, my boy, +look at THAT. Those are ENGLISHMEN, those are, and your master whenever +you please,' as the nursery song says. The British Snob is long, long +past scepticism, and can afford to laugh quite good-humouredly at those +conceited Yankees, or besotted little Frenchmen, who set up as models of +mankind. THEY forsooth! + +I have been led into these remarks by listening to an old fellow at the +Hotel du Nord, at Boulogne, and who is evidently of the Slasher sort. He +came down and seated himself at the breakfast-table, with a surly +scowl on his salmon-coloured bloodshot face, strangling in a tight, +cross-barred cravat; his linen and his appointments so perfectly stiff +and spotless that everybody at once recognized him as a dear countryman. +Only our port-wine and other admirable institutions could have produced +a figure so insolent, so stupid, so gentleman-like. After a while our +attention was called to him by his roaring out, in a voice of plethoric +fury, 'O!' + +Everybody turned round at the 'O,' conceiving the Colonel to be, as his +countenance denoted him, in intense pain; but the waiters knew better, +and instead of being alarmed, brought the Colonel the kettle. 'O,' it +appears, is the French for hot-water. The Colonel (though he despises it +heartily) thinks he speaks the language remarkably well. Whilst he was +inhausting his smoking tea, which went rolling and gurgling down his +throat, and hissing over the 'hot coppers' of that respectable veteran, +a friend joined him, with a wizened face and very black wig, evidently a +Colonel too. + +The two warriors, waggling their old heads at each other, presently +joined breakfast, and fell into conversation, and we had the advantage +of hearing about the old war, and some pleasant conjectures as to the +next, which they considered imminent. They psha'd the French fleet; they +pooh-pooh'd the French commercial marine; they showed how, in a war, +there would be a cordon ('a cordong, by---') of steamers along our +coast, and 'by ---,' ready at a minute to land anywhere on the other +shore, to give the French as good a thrashing as they got in the last +war, 'by ---'. In fact, a rumbling cannonade of oaths was fired by the +two veterans during the whole of their conversation. + +There was a Frenchman in the room, but as he had not been above ten +years in London, of course he did not speak the language, and lost the +benefit of the conversation. 'But, O my country!' said I to myself, it's +no wonder that you are so beloved! If I were a Frenchman, how I would +hate you!' + +That brutal, ignorant, peevish bully of an Englishman is showing himself +in every city of Europe. One of the dullest creatures under heaven, he +goes travelling Europe under foot, shouldering his way into galleries +and cathedrals, and bustling into palaces with his buck-ram uniform. +At church or theatre, gala or picture-gallery, HIS face never varies. +A thousand delightful sights pass before his bloodshot eyes, and don't +affect him. Countless brilliant scenes of life and manners are shown +him, but never move him. He goes to church, and calls the practices +there degrading and superstitious: as if HIS altar was the only one that +was acceptable. He goes to picture-galleries, and is more ignorant about +Art than a French shoeblack. Art, Nature pass, and there is no dot of +admiration in his stupid eyes: nothing moves him, except when a very +great man comes his way, and then the rigid, proud, self-confident, +inflexible British Snob can be as humble as a flunkey and as supple as a +harlequin. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII--ENGLISH SNOBS ON THE CONTINENT + +'WHAT is the use of Lord Rome's telescope?' my friend Panwiski exclaimed +the other day. 'It only enables you to see a few hundred thousands of +miles farther. What were thought to be mere nebulae, turn out to be most +perceivable starry systems; and beyond these, you see other nebulae, +which a more powerful glass will show to be stars, again; and so they go +on glittering and winking away into eternity.' With which my friend Pan, +heaving a great sigh, as if confessing his inability to look Infinity in +the face, sank back resigned, and swallowed a large bumper of claret. + +I (who, like other great men, have but one idea), thought to myself, +that as the stars are, so are the Snobs:--the more you gaze upon those +luminaries, the more you behold--now nebulously congregated--now faintly +distinguishable--now brightly defined--until they twinkle off in endless +blazes, and fade into the immeasurable darkness. I am but as a child +playing on the sea-shore. Some telescopic philosopher will arise one +day, some great Snobonomer, to find the laws of the great science which +we are now merely playing with, and to define, and settle, and classify +that which is at present but vague theory, and loose though elegant +assertion. + +Yes: a single eye can but trace a very few and simple varieties of +the enormous universe of Snobs. I sometimes think of appealing to +the public, and calling together a congress of SAVANS, such as met at +Southampton--each to bring his contributions and read his paper on the +Great Subject. For what can a single poor few do, even with the subject +at present in hand? English Snobs on the Continent--though they are a +hundred thousand times less numerous than on their native island, yet +even these few are too many. One can only fix a stray one here and +there. The individuals are caught--the thousands escape. I have noted +down but three whom I have met with in my walk this morning through this +pleasant marine city of Boulogne. + +There is the English Raff Snob, that frequents ESTAMINETS and CABARETS; +who is heard yelling, 'We won't go home till morning!' and startling +the midnight echoes of quiet Continental towns with shrieks of English +slang. The boozy unshorn wretch is seen hovering round quays as packets +arrive, and tippling drains in inn bars where he gets credit. He +talks French with slang familiarity: he and his like quite people the +debt-prisons on the Continent. He plays pool at the billiard-houses, and +may be seen engaged at cards and dominoes of forenoons. His signature is +to be seen on countless bills of exchange: it belonged to an honourable +family once, very likely; for the English Raff most probably began by +being a gentleman, and has a father over the water who is ashamed to +hear his name. He has cheated the old 'governor' repeatedly in better +days, and swindled his sisters of their portions, and robbed his younger +brothers. Now he is living on his wife's jointure: she is hidden away in +some dismal garret, patching shabby finery and cobbling up old clothes +for her children--the most miserable and slatternly of women. + +Or sometimes the poor woman and her daughters go about timidly, giving +lessons in English and music, or do embroidery and work under-hand, to +purchase the means for the POT-AU-FEU; while Raff is swaggering on the +quay, or tossing off glasses of cognac at the CAF. The unfortunate +creature has a child still every year, and her constant hypocrisy is to +try and make her girls believe that their father is a respectable man, +and to huddle him out of the way when the brute comes home drunk. + +Those poor ruined souls get together and have a society of their own, +the which it is very affecting to watch--those tawdry pretences at +gentility, those flimsy attempts at gaiety: those woful sallies: that +jingling old piano; oh, it makes the heart sick to see and hear them. As +Mrs. Raff, with her company of pale daughters, gives a penny tea to Mrs. +Diddler, they talk about bygone times and the fine society they kept; +and they sing feeble songs out of tattered old music-books; and while +engaged in this sort of entertainment, in comes Captain Raff with his +greasy hat on one side, and straightway the whole of the dismal room +reeks with a mingled odour of smoke and spirits. + +Has not everybody who has lived abroad met Captain Raff? His name is +proclaimed, every now and then, by Mr. Sheriff's Officer Hemp; and about +Boulogne, and Paris, and Brussels, there are so many of his sort that +I will lay a wager that I shall be accused of gross personality for +showing him up. Many a less irreclaimable villain is transported; many a +more honourable man is at present at the treadmill; and although we +are the noblest, greatest, most religious, and most moral people in the +world, I would still like to know where, except in the United Kingdom, +debts are a matter of joke, and making tradesmen 'suffer' a sport that +gentlemen own to? It is dishonourable to owe money in France. You never +hear people in other parts of Europe brag of their swindling; or see +a prison in a large Continental town which is not more or less peopled +with English rogues. + +A still more loathsome and dangerous Snob than the above transparent and +passive scamp, is frequent on the continent of Europe, and my young Snob +friends who are travelling thither should be especially warned against +him. Captain Legg is a gentleman, like Raff, though perhaps of a better +degree. He has robbed his family too, but of a great deal more, and has +boldly dishonoured bills for thousands, where Raff has been boggling +over the clumsy conveyance of a ten-pound note. Legg is always at the +best inn, with the finest waistcoats and moustaches, or tearing about +in the flashest of britzkas, while poor Raff is tipsifying himself with +spirits, and smoking cheap tobacco. It is amazing to think that Legg, so +often shown up, and known everywhere, is flourishing yet. He would sink +into utter ruin, but for the constant and ardent love of gentility that +distinguishes the English Snob. There is many a young fellow of the +middle classes who must know Legg to be a rogue and a cheat; and yet +from his desire to be in the fashion, and his admiration of tip-top +swells, and from his ambition to air himself by the side of a Lord's +son, will let Legg make an income out of him; content to pay, so long +as he can enjoy that society. Many a worthy father of a family, when he +hears that his son is riding about with Captain Legg, Lord Levant's son, +is rather pleased that young Hopeful should be in such good company. + +Legg and his friend, Major Macer, make professional tours through +Europe, and are to be found at the right places at the right time. Last +year I heard how my young acquaintance, Mr. Muff, from Oxford, going +to see a little life at a Carnival ball at Paris, was accosted by an +Englishman who did not know a word of the d----language, and hearing +Muff speak it so admirably, begged him to interpret to a waiter with +whom there was a dispute about refreshments. It was quite a comfort, the +stranger said, to see an honest English face; and did Muff know where +there was a good place for supper? So those two went to supper, and who +should come in, of all men in the world, but Major Macer? And so Legg +introduced Macer, and so there came on a little intimacy, and three-card +loo, &c. &c.. Year after year scores of Muffs, in various places in +the world, are victimised by Legg and Macer. The story is so stale, the +trick of seduction so entirely old and clumsy, that it is only a +wonder people can be taken in any more: but the temptations of vice +and gentility together are too much for young English Snobs, and those +simple young victims are caught fresh every day. Though it is only to +be kicked and cheated by men of fashion, your true British Snob will +present himself for the honour. + +I need not allude here to that very common British Snob, who makes +desperate efforts at becoming intimate with the great Continental +aristocracy, such as old Rolls, the baker, who has set up his quarters +in the Faubourg Saint Germain, and will receive none but Carlists, and +no French gentleman under the rank of a Marquis. We can all of us laugh +at THAT fellow's pretensions well enough--we who tremble before a great +man of our own nation. But, as you say, my brave and honest John Bull +of a Snob, a French Marquis of twenty descents is very different from +an English Peer; and a pack of beggarly German and Italian Fuersten +and Principi awaken the scorn of an honest-minded Briton. But our +aristocracy!--that's a very different matter. They are the real leaders +of the world--the real old original and-no-mistake nobility. + +Off with your cap, Snob; down on your knees, Snob, and truckle. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV--ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Tired of the town, where the sight of the closed shutters of the +nobility, my friends, makes my heart sick in my walks; afraid almost to +sit in those vast Pall Mall solitudes, the Clubs, and of annoying the +Club waiters, who might, I thought, be going to shoot in the country, +but for me, I determined on a brief tour in the provinces, and paying +some visits in the country which were long due. + +My first visit was to my friend Major Ponto (H.P. of the Horse Marines), +in Mangelwurzelshire. The Major, in his little phaeton, was in waiting +to take me up at the station. The vehicle was not certainly splendid, +but such a carriage as would accommodate a plain man (as Ponto said he +was) and a numerous family. We drove by beautiful fresh fields and green +hedges, through a cheerful English landscape; the high-road, as smooth +and trim as the way in a nobleman's park, was charmingly chequered with +cool shade and golden sunshine. Rustics in snowy smock-frocks jerked +their hats off smiling as we passed. Children, with cheeks as red as the +apples in the orchards, bobbed curtsies to us at the cottage-doors. +Blue church spires rose here and there in the distance: and as the buxom +gardener's wife opened the white gate at the Major's little ivy-covered +lodge, and we drove through the neat plantations of firs and evergreens, +up to the house, my bosom felt a joy and elation which I thought it was +impossible to experience in the smoky atmosphere of a town. 'Here,' I +mentally exclaimed, 'is all peace, plenty, happiness. Here, I shall be +rid of Snobs. There can be none in this charming Arcadian spot.' + +Stripes, the Major's man (formerly corporal in his gallant corps), +received my portmanteau, and an elegant little present, which I had +brought from town as a peace-offering to Mrs. Ponto; viz., a cod and +oysters from Grove's, in a hamper about the size of a coffin. + +Ponto's house ('The Evergreens' Mrs. P. has christened it) is a perfect +Paradise of a place. It is all over creepers, and bow-windows, +and verandahs. A wavy lawn tumbles up and down all round it, with +flower-beds of wonderful shapes, and zigzag gravel walks, and beautiful +but damp shrubberies of myrtles and glistening laurustines, which have +procured it its change of name. It was called Little Bullock's Pound +in old Doctor Ponto's time. I had a view of the pretty grounds, and the +stable, and the adjoining village and church, and a great park beyond, +from the windows of the bedroom whither Ponto conducted me. It was the +yellow bedroom, the freshest and pleasantest of bed-chambers; the air +was fragrant with a large bouquet that was placed on the writing-table; +the linen was fragrant with the lavender in which it had been laid; the +chintz hangings of the bed and the big sofa were, if not fragrant with +flowers, at least painted all over with them; the pen-wiper on the table +was the imitation of a double dahlia; and there was accommodation for my +watch in a sun-flower on the mantelpiece. A scarlet-leaved creeper came +curling over the windows, through which the setting sun was pouring a +flood of golden light. It was all flowers and freshness. Oh, how unlike +those black chimney-pots in St. Alban's Place, London, on which these +weary eyes are accustomed to look. + +'It must be all happiness here, Ponto,' said I, flinging myself down +into the snug BERGERE, and inhaling such a delicious draught of country +air as all the MILLEFLEURS of Mr. Atkinson's shop cannot impart to any +the most expensive pocket-handkerchief. + +'Nice place, isn't it?' said Ponto. 'Quiet and unpretending. I like +everything quiet. You've not brought your valet with you? Stripes will +arrange your dressing things;' and that functionary, entering at the +same time, proceeded to gut my portmanteau, and to lay out the black +kerseymeres, 'the rich cut velvet Genoa waistcoat,' the white choker, +and other polite articles of evening costume, with great gravity and +despatch. 'A great dinner-party,' thinks I to myself, seeing these +preparations (and not, perhaps, displeased at the idea that some of the +best people in the neighbourhood were coming to see me). 'Hark, theres +the first bell ringing! 'said Ponto, moving away; and, in fact, a +clamorous harbinger of victuals began clanging from the stable +turret, and announced the agreeable fact that dinner would appear in +half-an-hour. 'If the dinner is as grand as the dinner-bell,' thought I, +'faith, I'm in good quarters!' and had leisure, during the half-hour's +interval, not only to advance my own person to the utmost polish of +elegance which it is capable of receiving, to admire the pedigree of the +Pontos hanging over the chimney, and the Ponto crest and arms emblazoned +on the wash-hand basin and jug, but to make a thousand reflections on +the happiness of a country life--upon the innocent friendliness and +cordiality of rustic intercourse; and to sigh for an opportunity of +retiring, like Ponto, to my own fields, to my own vine and fig-tree, +with a placens uxor in my domus, and a half-score of sweet young pledges +of affection sporting round my paternal knee. + +Clang! At the end of thirty minutes, dinner-bell number two pealed from +the adjacent turret. I hastened downstairs, expecting to find a score +of healthy country folk in the drawing-room. There was only one person +there; a tall and Roman-nosed lady, glistering over with bugles, in deep +mourning. She rose, advanced two steps, made a majestic curtsey, during +which all the bugles in her awful head-dress began to twiddle and +quiver--and then said, 'Mr. Snob, we are very happy to see you at the +Evergreens,' and heaved a great sigh. + +This, then, was Mrs. Major Ponto; to whom making my very best bow, I +replied, that I was very proud to make her acquaintance, as also that of +so charming a place as the Evergreens. + +Another sigh. 'We are distantly related, Mr. Snob,' said she, shaking +her melancholy head. 'Poor dear Lord Rubadub!' + +'Oh!' said I; not knowing what the deuce Mrs. Major Ponto meant. + +'Major Ponto told me that you were of the Leicestershire Snobs: a very +old family, and related to Lord Snobbington, who married Laura Rubadub, +who is a cousin of mine, as was her poor dear father, for whom we are +mourning. What a seizure! only sixty-three, and apoplexy quite unknown +until now in our family! In life we are in death, Mr. Snob. Does Lady +Snobbington bear the deprivation well?' + +'Why, really, ma'am, I--I don't know,' I replied, more and more +confused. + +As she was speaking I heard a sort of CLOOP, by which well-known sound I +was aware that somebody was opening a bottle of wine, and Ponto entered, +in a huge white neckcloth, and a rather shabby black suit. + +'My love,' Mrs. Major Ponto said to her husband, 'we were talking of our +cousin--poor dear Lord Rubadub. His death has placed some of the first +families in England in mourning. Does Lady Rubadub keep the house in +Hill Street, do you know?' + +I didn't know, but I said, 'I believe she does,' at a venture; and, +looking down to the drawing-room table, saw the inevitable, abominable, +maniacal, absurd, disgusting 'Peerage' open on the table, interleaved +with annotations, and open at the article 'Snobbington.' + +'Dinner is served,' says Stripes, flinging open the door; and I gave +Mrs. Major Ponto my arm. + + + +CHAPTER XXV--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Of the dinner to which we now sat down, I am not going to be a severe +critic. The mahogany I hold to be inviolable; but this I will say, that +I prefer sherry to marsala when I can get it, and the latter was the +wine of which I have no doubt I heard the 'cloop' just before dinner. +Nor was it particularly good of its kind; however, Mrs. Major Ponto did +not evidently know the difference, for she called the liquor Amontillado +during the whole of the repast, and drank but half a glass of it, +leaving the rest for the Major and his guest. + +Stripes was in the livery of the Ponto family--a thought shabby, but +gorgeous in the extreme--lots of magnificent worsted lace, and livery +buttons of a very notable size. The honest fellow's hands, I remarked, +were very large and black; and a fine odour of the stable was wafted +about the room as he moved to and fro in his ministration. I should have +preferred a clean maidservant, but the sensations of Londoners are too +acute perhaps on these subjects; and a faithful John, after all, IS more +genteel. + +From the circumstance of the dinner being composed of pig's-head +mock-turtle soup, of pig's fry and roast ribs of pork, I am led to +imagine that one of Ponto's black Hampshires had been sacrificed a short +time previous to my visit. It was an excellent and comfortable repast; +only there WAS rather a sameness in it, certainly. I made a similar +remark the next day'. + +During the dinner Mrs. Ponto asked me many questions regarding the +nobility, my relatives. 'When Lady Angelina Skeggs would come out; +and if the countess her mamma' (this was said with much archness and +he-he-ing) 'still wore that extraordinary purple hair-dye?' 'Whether my +Lord Guttlebury kept, besides his French chef, and an English cordonbleu +for the roasts, an Italian for the confectionery?' + +'Who attended at Lady Clapperclaw's conversazioni?' and 'whether Sir +John Champignon's "Thursday Mornings" were pleasant?' 'Was it true that +Lady Carabas, wanting to pawn her diamonds, found that they were paste, +and that the Marquis had disposed of them beforehand?' 'How was it that +Snuffin, the great tobacco-merchant, broke off the marriage which was on +the tapis between him and their second daughter; and was it true that a +mulatto lady came over from the Havanna and forbade the match?' + +'Upon my word, Madam,' I had begun, and was going on to say that I +didn't know one word about all these matters which seemed so to interest +Mrs. Major Ponto, when the Major, giving me a tread or stamp with his +large foot under the table, said--'Come, come, Snob my boy, we are all +tiled, you know. We KNOW you're one of the fashionable people about +town: we saw your name at Lady Clapperclaw's SOIREES, and the Champignon +breakfasts; and as for the Rubadubs, of course, as relations ---' + +'Oh, of course, I dine there twice a-week,' I said; and then I +remembered that my cousin, Humphry Snob, of the Middle Temple, IS a +great frequenter of genteel societies, and to have seen his name in the +MORNING POST at the tag-end of several party lists. So, taking the +hint, I am ashamed to say I indulged Mrs. Major Ponto with a deal of +information about the first families in England, such as would astonish +those great personages if they knew it. I described to her most +accurately the three reigning beauties of last season at Almack's: +told her in confidence that his Grace the D--- of W--- was going to be +married the day after his Statue was put up; that his Grace the D--- of +D--- was also about to lead the fourth daughter of the Archduke Stephen +to the hymeneal altar:--and talked to her, in a word, just in the style +of Mrs. Gore's last fashionable novel. + +Mrs. Major was quite fascinated by this brilliant conversation. She +began to trot out scraps of French, just for all the world as they do +in the novels; and kissed her hand to me quite graciously, telling me +to come soon to caffy, UNG PU DE MUSICK O SALONG--with which she tripped +off like an elderly fairy. + +'Shall I open a bottle of port, or do you ever drink such a thing as +Hollands and water?' says Ponto, looking ruefully at me. This was a very +different style of thing to what I had been led to expect from him at +our smoking-room at the Club: where he swaggers about his horses and +his cellar: and slapping me on the shoulder used to say, 'Come down +to Mangelwurzelshire, Snob my boy, and I'll give you as good a day's +shooting and as good a glass of claret as any in the county.'--'Well,' +I said, 'I like Hollands much better than port, and gin even better than +Hollands.' This was lucky. It WAS gin; and Stripes brought in hot water +on a splendid plated tray. + +The jingling of a harp and piano soon announced that Mrs. Ponto's ung PU +DE MUSICK had commenced, and the smell of the stable again entering +the dining-room, in the person of Stripes, summoned us to CAFFY and the +little concert. She beckoned me with a winning smile to the sofa, on +which she made room for me, and where we could command a fine view +of the backs of the young ladies who were performing the musical +entertainment. Very broad backs they were too, strictly according to +the present mode, for crinoline or its substitutes is not an expensive +luxury, and young people in the country can afford to be in the fashion +at very trifling charges. Miss Emily Ponto at the piano, and her sister +Maria at that somewhat exploded instrument, the harp, were in light blue +dresses that looked all flounce, and spread out like Mr. Green's balloon +when inflated. + +'Brilliant touch Emily has--what a fine arm Maria's is,' Mrs. Ponto +remarked good-naturedly, pointing out the merits of her daughters, and +waving her own arm in such a way as to show that she was not a little +satisfied with the beauty of that member. I observed she had about nine +bracelets and bangles, consisting of chains and padlocks, the Major's +miniature, and a variety of brass serpents with fiery ruby or tender +turquoise eyes, writhing up to her elbow almost, in the most profuse +contortions. + +'You recognize those polkas? They were played at Devonshire House on +the 23rd of July, the day of the grand fte.' So I said yes--I knew 'em +quite intimately; and began wagging my head as if in acknowledgment of +those old friends. + +When the performance was concluded, I had the felicity of a presentation +and conversation with the two tall and scraggy Miss Pontos; and Miss +Wirt, the governess, sat down to entertain us with variations on 'Sich a +gettin' up Stairs.' They were determined to be in the fashion. + +For the performance of the 'Gettin' up Stairs,' I have no other name but +that it was a STUNNER. First Miss Wirt, with great deliberation, played +the original and beautiful melody, cutting it, as it were, out of the +instrument, and firing off each note so loud, clear, and sharp, that I +am sure Stripes must have heard it in the stable. + +'What a finger!' says Mrs. Ponto; and indeed it WAS a finger, as knotted +as a turkey's drumstick, and splaying all over the piano. When she had +banged out the tune slowly, she began a different manner of 'Gettin' up +Stairs,' and did so with a fury and swiftness quite incredible. She spun +up stairs; she whirled up stairs: she galloped up stairs; she rattled up +stairs; and then having got the tune to the top landing, as it were, she +hurled it down again shrieking to the bottom floor, where it sank in a +crash as if exhausted by the breathless rapidity of the descent. Then +Miss Wirt played the 'Gettin' up Stairs' with the most pathetic and +ravishing solemnity: plaintive moans and sobs issued from the keys--you +wept and trembled as you were gettin' up stairs. Miss Wirt's hands +seemed to faint and wail and die in variations: again, and she went up +with a savage clang and rush of trumpets, as if Miss Wirt was storming a +breach; and although I knew nothing of music, as I sat and listened +with my mouth open to this wonderful display, my CAFFY grew cold, and I +wondered the windows did not crack and the chandelier start out of the +beam at the sound of this earthquake of a piece of music. + +'Glorious creature! Isn't she?' said Mrs. Ponto. 'Squirtz's favourite +pupil--inestimable to have such a creature. Lady Carabas would give her +eyes for her! A prodigy of accomplishments! Thank you, Miss Wirt'--and +the young ladies gave a heave and a gasp of admiration--a deep-breathing +gushing sound, such as you hear at church when the sermon comes to a +full stop. + +Miss Wirt put her two great double-knuckled hands round a waist of her +two pupils, and said, 'My dear children, I hope you will be able to play +it soon as well as your poor little governess. When I lived with the +Dunsinanes, it was the dear Duchess's favourite, and Lady Barbara and +Lady Jane McBeth learned it. It was while hearing Jane play that, I +remember, that dear Lord Castletoddy first fell in love with her; and +though he is but an Irish Peer, with not more than fifteen thousand +a year, I persuaded Jane to have him. Do you know Castletoddy, Mr. +Snob?--round towers--sweet place-County Mayo. Old Lord Castletoddy (the +present Lord was then Lord Inishowan) was a most eccentric old man--they +say he was mad. I heard his Royal Highness the poor dear Duke of +Sussex--(SUCH a man, my dears, but alas! addicted to smoking!)--I +heard his Royal Highness say to the Marquis of Anglesey, "I am sure +Castletoddy is mad!" but Inishowan wasn't in marrying my sweet Jane, +though the dear child had but her ten thousand pounds POUR TOUT POTAGE!' + +'Most invaluable person,' whispered Mrs. Major Ponto to me. 'Has lived +in the very highest society:' and I, who have been accustomed to see +governesses bullied in the world, was delighted to find this one ruling +the roast, and to think that even the majestic Mrs. Ponto bent before +her. + +As for my pipe, so to speak, it went out at once. I hadn't a word to say +against a woman who was intimate with every Duchess in the Red Book. She +wasn't the rosebud, but she had been near it. She had rubbed shoulders +with the great, and about these we talked all the evening incessantly, +and about the fashions, and about the Court, until bed-time came. + +'And are there Snobs in this Elysium?' I exclaimed, jumping into the +lavender-perfumed bed. Ponto's snoring boomed from the neighbouring +bed-room in reply. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI--ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Something like a journal of the proceedings at the Evergreens may be +interesting to those foreign readers of PUNCH who want to know the +customs of an English gentleman's family and household. There's plenty +of time to keep the Journal. Piano-strumming begins at six o'clock in +the morning; it lasts till breakfast, with but a minute's intermission, +when the instrument changes hands, and Miss Emily practises in place of +her sister Miss Maria. + +In fact, the confounded instrument never stops when the young ladies are +at their lessons, Miss Wirt hammers away at those stunning variations, +and keeps her magnificent finger in exercise. + +I asked this great creature in what other branches of education she +instructed her pupils? 'The modern languages,' says she modestly: +'French, German, Spanish, and Italian, Latin and the rudiments of Greek +if desired. English of course; the practice of Elocution, Geography, +and Astronomy, and the Use of the Globes, Algebra (but only as far as +quadratic equations); for a poor ignorant female, you know, Mr. Snob, +cannot be expected to know everything. Ancient and Modern History +no young woman can be without; and of these I make my beloved pupils +PERFECT MISTRESSES. Botany, Geology, and Mineralogy, I consider as +amusements. And with these I assure you we manage to pass the days at +the Evergreens not unpleasantly.' + +Only these, thought I--what an education! But I looked in one of Miss +Ponto's manuscript song-books and found five faults of French in four +words; and in a waggish mood asking Miss Wirt whether Dante Algiery was +so called because he was born at Algiers, received a smiling answer in +the affirmative, which made me rather doubt about the accuracy of Miss +Wirt's knowledge. + +When the above little morning occupations are concluded, these +unfortunate young women perform what they call Calisthenic Exercises +in the garden. I saw them to-day, without any crinoline, pulling the +garden-roller. + +Dear Mrs. Ponto was in the garden too, and as limp as her daughters; in +a faded bandeau of hair, in a battered bonnet, in a holland pinafore, +in pattens, on a broken chair, snipping leaves off a vine. Mrs. Ponto +measures many yards about in an evening. Ye heavens! what a guy she is +in that skeleton morning-costume! + +Besides Stripes, they keep a boy called Thomas or Tummus. Tummus works +in the garden or about the pigsty and stable; Thomas wears a page's +costume of eruptive buttons. + +When anybody calls, and Stripes is out of the way, Tummus flings +himself like mad into Thomas's clothes, and comes out metamorphosed +like Harlequin in the pantomime. To-day, as Mrs. P. was cutting the +grapevine, as the young ladies were at the roller, down comes Tummus +like a roaring whirlwind, with 'Missus, Missus, there's company +coomin'!' Away skurry the young ladies from the roller, down comes Mrs. +P. from the old chair, off flies Tummus to change his clothes, and in +an incredibly short space of time Sir John Hawbuck, my Lady Hawbuck, +and Master Hugh Hawbuck are introduced into the garden with brazen +effrontery by Thomas, who says, 'Please Sir Jan and my Lady to walk this +year way: I KNOW Missus is in the rose-garden.' + +And there, sure enough, she was! + +In a pretty little garden bonnet, with beautiful curling ringlets, with +the smartest of aprons and the freshest of pearl-coloured gloves, this +amazing woman was in the arms of her dearest Lady Hawbuck. 'Dearest Lady +Hawbuck, how good of you! Always among my flowers! can't live away from +them!' + +'Sweets to the sweet! hum--a-ha--haw!' says Sir John Hawbuck, who piques +himself on his gallantry, and says nothing without 'a-hum--a-ha--a-haw!' + +'Whereth yaw pinnafaw?' cries Master Hugh. 'WE thaw you in it, over the +wall, didn't we, Pa?' + +'Hum--a-ha--a-haw!' burst out Sir John, dreadfully alarmed. 'Where's +Ponto? Why wasn't he at Quarter Sessions? How are his birds this year, +Mrs. Ponto--have those Carabas pheasants done any harm to your wheat? +a-hum--a-ha--a-haw!' and all this while he was making the most ferocious +and desperate signals to his youthful heir. + +'Well, she WATH in her pinnafaw, wathn't she, Ma?' says Hugh, quite +unabashed; which question Lady Hawbuck turned away with a sudden query +regarding her dear darling daughters, and the ENFANT TERRIBLE was +removed by his father. + +'I hope you weren't disturbed by the music?' Ponto says. 'My girls, +you know, practise four hours a day, you know--must do it, you +know--absolutely necessary. As for me, you know I'm an early man, and in +my farm every morning at five--no, no laziness for ME.' + +The facts are these. Ponto goes to sleep directly after dinner on +entering the drawing-room, and wakes up when the ladies leave off +practice at ten. From seven till ten, from ten till five, is a very fair +allowance of slumber for a man who says he's NOT a lazy man. It is my +private opinion that when Ponto retires to what is called his 'Study,' +he sleeps too. He locks himself up there daily two hours with the +newspaper. + +I saw the HAWBUCK scene out of the Study, which commands the garden. +It's a curious object, that Study. Ponto's library mostly consists of +boots. He and Stripes have important interviews here of mornings, +when the potatoes are discussed, or the fate of the calf ordained, or +sentence passed on the pig, &c.. All the Major's bills are docketed on +the Study table and displayed like a lawyer's briefs. Here, too, lie +displayed his hooks, knives, and other gardening irons, his whistles, +and strings of spare buttons. He has a drawer of endless brown paper for +parcels, and another containing a prodigious and never-failing supply of +string. What a man can want with so many gig-whips I can never conceive. +These, and fishing-rods, and landing-nets, and spurs, and boot-trees, +and balls for horses, and surgical implements for the same, and +favourite pots of shiny blacking, with which he paints his own shoes +in the most elegant manner, and buckskin gloves stretched out on their +trees, and his gorget, sash, and sabre of the Horse Marines, with his +boot-hooks underneath in atrophy; and the family medicine-chest, and +in a corner the very rod with which he used to whip his son, Wellesley +Ponto, when a boy (Wellesley never entered the 'Study' but for that +awful purpose)--all these, with 'Mogg's Road Book,' the GARDENERS' +CHRONICLE, and a backgammon-board, form the Major's library. Under the +trophy there's a picture of Mrs. Ponto, in a light blue dress and train, +and no waist, when she was first married; a fox's brush lies over the +frame, and serves to keep the dust off that work of art. + +'My library's small, says Ponto, with the most amazing impudence, 'but +well selected, my boy--well selected. I have been reading the "History +of England" all the morning.' + + + +CHAPTER XXVII--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +We had the fish, which, as the kind reader may remember, I had brought +down in a delicate attention to Mrs. Ponto, to variegate the repast of +next day; and cod and oyster-sauce, twice laid, salt cod and scolloped +oysters, formed parts of the bill of fare until I began to fancy that +the Ponto family, like our late revered monarch George II., had a fancy +for stale fish. And about this time, the pig being consumed, we began +upon a sheep. + +But how shall I forget the solemn splendour of a second course, which +was served up in great state by Stripes in a silver dish and cove; a +napkin round his dirty thumbs; and consisted of a landrail, not much +bigger than a corpulent sparrow. + +'My love, will you take any game?' says Ponto, with prodigious gravity; +and stuck his fork into that little mouthful of an island in the +silver sea. Stripes, too, at intervals, dribbled out the Marsala with +a solemnity which would have done honour to a Duke's butler. The +Bamnecide's dinner to Shacabac was only one degree removed from these +solemn banquets. + +As there were plenty of pretty country places close by; a comfortable +country town, with good houses of gentlefolks; a beautiful old +parsonage, close to the church whither we went (and where the Carabas +family have their ancestral carved and monumented Gothic pew), and every +appearance of good society in the neighbourhood, I rather wondered we +were not enlivened by the appearance of some of the neighbours at the +Evergreens, and asked about them. + +'We can't in our position of life--we can't well associate with +the attorney's family, as I leave you to suppose,' says Mrs. Ponto, +confidentially. 'Of course not,' I answered, though I didn't know why. +'And the Doctor?' said I. + +'A most excellent worthy creature,' says Mrs. P. saved Maria's +life--really a learned man; but what can one do in one's position? One +may ask one's medical man to one's table certainly: but his family, my +dear Mr. Snob!' + +'Half-a-dozen little gallipots,' interposed Miss Wirt, the governess: +'he, he, he!' and the young ladies laughed in chorus. + +'We only live with the county families,' Miss Wirt (1) continued, +tossing up her head. 'The Duke is abroad: we are at feud with the +Carabases; the Ringwoods don't come down till Christmas: in fact, +nobody's here till the hunting season--positively nobody.' + +'Whose is the large red house just outside of the town?' + +'What! the CHATEAU-CALICOT? he, he, he! That purse-proud ex-linendraper, +Mr. Yardley, with the yellow liveries, and the wife in red velvet? How +CAN you, my dear Mr. Snob, be so satirical? The impertinence of those +people is really something quite overwhelming.' + +'Well, then, there is the parson, Doctor Chrysostom. He's a gentleman, +at any rate.' At this Mrs. Ponto looked at Miss Wirt. After their eyes +had met and they had wagged their heads at each other. They looked up +to the ceiling. So did the young ladies. They thrilled. It was evident I +had said something terrible. Another black sheep in the Church? thought +I with a little sorrow; for I don't care to own that I have a respect +for the cloth. 'I--hope there's nothing wrong? + +'Wrong?' says Mrs. P., clasping her hands with a tragic air. + +'Oh!' says Miss Wirt, and the two girls, gasping in chorus. + +'Well,' says I, 'I'm very sorry for it. I never saw a nicer-looking old +gentleman, or a better school, or heard a better sermon.' + +'He used to preach those sermons in a surplice,' hissed out Mrs. Ponto. +'He's a Puseyite, Mr. Snob.' + +'Heavenly powers!' says I, admiring the pure ardour of these female +theologians; and Stripes came in with the tea. It's so weak that no +wonder Ponto's sleep isn't disturbed by it. + +Of mornings we used to go out shooting. We had Ponto's own fields to +sport over (where we got the landrail), and the non-preserved part of +the Hawbuck property: and one evening in a stubble of Ponto's skirting +the Carabas woods, we got among some pheasants, and had some real sport. +I shot a hen, I know, greatly to my delight. 'Bag it,' says Ponto, in +rather a hurried manner: 'here's somebody coming.' So I pocketed the +bird. + +'You infernal poaching thieves!' roars out a man from the hedge in the +garb of a gamekeeper. 'I wish I could catch you on this side of the +hedge. I'd put a brace of barrels into you, that I would.' + +'Curse that Snapper,' says Ponto, moving off; 'he's always watching me +like a spy.' + +'Carry off the birds, you sneaks, and sell 'em in London,' roars the +individual, who it appears was a keeper of Lord Carabas. 'You'll get six +shillings a brace for 'em.' + +'YOU know the price of 'em well enough, and so does your master too, you +scoundrel,' says Ponto, still retreating. + +'We kill 'em on our ground,' cries Mr. Snapper. 'WE don't set traps for +other people's birds. We're no decoy ducks. We're no sneaking poachers. +We don't shoot 'ens, like that 'ere Cockney, who's got the tail of one +a-sticking out of his pocket. Only just come across the hedge, that's +all.' + +'I tell you what,' says Stripes, who was out with us as keeper this +day, (in fact he's keeper, coachman, gardener, valet, and bailiff, with +Tummus under him,) 'if YOU'LL come across, John Snapper, and take your +coat off, I'll give you such a whopping as you've never had since the +last time I did it at Guttlebury Fair.' + +'Whop one of your own weight,' Mr. Snapper said, whistling his dogs +and disappearing into the wood. And so we came out of this controversy +rather victoriously; but I began to alter my preconceived ideas of rural +felicity. + +Notes. + +(1) I have since heard that this aristocratic lady's father was a +livery-button maker in St. Martin's Lane: where he met with misfortunes, +and his daughter acquired her taste for heraldry. But it may be told +to her credit, that out of her earnings she has kept the bed-ridden old +bankrupt in great comfort and secrecy at Pentonville; and furnished her +brother's outfit for the Cadetship which her patron, Lord Swigglebiggle, +gave her when he was at the Board of Control. I have this information +from a friend. To hear Miss Wirt herself, you would fancy that her Papa +was a Rothschild, and that the markets of Europe were convulsed when he +went into the GAZETTE. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII--ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +'Be hanged to your aristocrats!' Ponto said, in some conversation we had +regarding the family at Carabas, between whom and the Evergreens there +was a feud. 'When I first came into the county--it was the year before +Sir John Buff contested in the Blue interest--the Marquis, then Lord St. +Michaels, who, of course, was Orange to the core, paid me and Mrs. Ponto +such attentions, that I fairly confess I was taken in by the old humbug, +and thought that I'd met with a rare neighbour. 'Gad, Sir, we used to +get pines from Carabas, and pheasants from Carabas, and it was--"Ponto, +when will you come over and shoot?"--and--"Ponto, our pheasants want +thinning,"--and my Lady would insist upon her dear Mrs. Ponto coming +over to Carabas to sleep, and put me I don't know to what expense for +turbans and velvet gowns for my wife's toilette. Well, Sir, the election +takes place, and though I was always a Liberal, personal friendship of +course induces me to plump for St. Michaels, who comes in at the head of +the poll. Next year, Mrs. P. insists upon going to town--with lodgings +in Clarges Street at ten pounds a week, with a hired brougham, and new +dresses for herself and the girls, and the deuce and all to pay. Our +first cards were to Carabas House; my Lady's are returned by a great big +flunkey; and I leave you to fancy my poor Betsy's discomfiture as the +lodging-house maid took in the cards, and Lady St. Michaels drives away, +though she actually saw us at the drawing-room window. Would you believe +it, Sir, that though we called four times afterwards, those infernal +aristocrats never returned our visit; that though Lady St. Michaels gave +nine dinner-parties and four DEJEUNERS that season, she never asked us +to one; and that she cut us dead at the Opera, though Betsy was nodding +to her the whole night? We wrote to her for tickets for Almack's; she +writes to say that all hers were promised; and said, in the presence of +Wiggins, her lady's-maid, who told it to Diggs, my wife's woman, that +she couldn't conceive how people in our station of life could so far +forget themselves as to wish to appear in any such place! Go to +Castle Carabas! I'd sooner die than set my foot in the house of that +impertinent, insolvent, insolent jackanapes--and I hold him in scorn!' +After this, Ponto gave me some private information regarding Lord +Carabas's pecuniary affairs; how he owed money all over the county; how +Jukes the carpenter was utterly ruined and couldn't get a shilling of +his bill; how Biggs the butcher hanged himself for the same reason; how +the six big footmen never received a guinea of wages, and Snaffle, the +state coachman, actually took off his blown-glass wig of ceremony and +flung it at Lady Carabas's feet on the terrace before the Castle; all +which stories, as they are private, I do not think proper to divulge. +But these details did not stifle my desire to see the famous mansion +of Castle Carabas, nay, possibly excited my interest to know more about +that lordly house and its owners. + +At the entrance of the park, there are a pair of great gaunt mildewed +lodges--mouldy Doric temples with black chimney-pots, in the finest +classic taste, and the gates of course are surmounted by the CHATS +BOTTES, the well-known supporters of the Carabas family. 'Give the +lodge-keeper a shilling,' says Ponto, (who drove me near to it in his +four-wheeled cruelty-chaise). 'I warrant it's the first piece of ready +money he has received for some time. I don't know whether there was any +foundation for this sneer, but the gratuity was received with a curtsey, +and the gate opened for me to enter. 'Poor old porteress!' says I, +inwardly. 'You little know that it is the Historian of Snobs whom you +let in!' The gates were passed. A damp green stretch of park spread +right and left immeasurably, confined by a chilly grey wall, and a damp +long straight road between two huge rows of moist, dismal lime-trees, +leads up to the Castle. In the midst of the park is a great black tank +or lake, bristling over with rushes, and here and there covered over +with patches of pea-soup. A shabby temple rises on an island in this +delectable lake, which is approached by a rotten barge that lies at +roost in a dilapidated boat house. Clumps of elms and oaks dot over the +huge green flat. Every one of them would have been down long since, but +that the Marquis is not allowed to cut the timber. + +Up that long avenue the Snobographer walked in solitude. At the +seventy-ninth tree on the left-hand side, the insolvent butcher hanged +himself. I scarcely wondered at the dismal deed, so woful and sad were +the impressions connected with the place. So, for a mile and a half I +walked--alone and thinking of death. + +I forgot to say the house is in full view all the way--except when +intercepted by the trees on the miserable island in the lake--an +enormous red-brick mansion, square, vast, and dingy. It is flanked by +four stone towers with weathercocks. In the midst of the grand facade is +a huge Ionic portico, approached by a vast, lonely, ghastly staircase. +Rows of black windows, framed in stone, stretch on either side, right +and left--three storeys and eighteen windows of a row. You may see +a picture of the palace and staircase, in the 'Views of England and +Wales,' with four carved and gilt carriages waiting at the gravel walk, +and several parties of ladies and gentlemen in wigs and hoops, dotting +the fatiguing lines of stairs. + +But these stairs are made in great houses for people NOT to ascend. The +first Lady Carabas (they are but eighty years in the peerage), if she +got out of her gilt coach in a shower, would be wet to the skin before +she got half-way to the carved Ionic portico, where four dreary statues +of Peace, Plenty, Piety and Patriotism, are the only sentinels. You +enter these palaces by back-doors. 'That was the way the Carabases got +their peerage,' the misanthropic Ponto said after dinner. + +Well--I rang the bell at a little low side-door; it clanged and jingled +and echoed for a long, long while, till at length a face, as of a +housekeeper, peered through the door, and, as she saw my hand in my +waistcoat pocket, opened it. Unhappy, lonely housekeeper, I thought. Is +Miss Crusoe in her island more solitary? The door clapped to, and I was +in Castle Carabas. + +'The side entrance and All,' says the housekeeper. 'The halligator +hover the mantelpiece was brought home by Hadmiral St. Michaels, when +a Capting with Lord Hanson. The harms on the cheers is the harms of the +Carabas family.' The hall was rather comfortable. We went clapping up a +clean stone backstair, and then into a back passage cheerfully decorated +with ragged light-green Kidderminster, and issued upon + +'THE GREAT ALL. + +'The great all is seventy-two feet in lenth, fifty-six in breath, and +thirty-eight feet 'igh. The carvings of the chimlies, representing the +birth of Venus, and Ercules, and Eyelash, is by Van Chislum, the most +famous sculpture of his hage and country. The ceiling, by Calimanco, +represents Painting, Harchitecture and Music (the naked female figure +with the barrel horgan) introducing George, fust Lord Carabas, to the +Temple of the Muses. The winder ornaments is by Vanderputty. The floor +is Patagonian marble; and the chandelier in the centre was presented to +Lionel, second Marquis, by Lewy the Sixteenth, whose 'ead was cut hoff +in the French Revelation. We now henter + +THE SOUTH GALLERY. + +'One 'undred and forty-eight in lenth by thirty-two in breath; it is +profusely hornaminted by the choicest works of Hart. Sir Andrew Katz, +founder of the Carabas family and banker of the Prince of Horange, +Kneller. Her present Ladyship, by Lawrence. Lord St. Michaels, by the +same--he is represented sittin' on a rock in velvit pantaloons. Moses in +the bullrushes--the bull very fine, by Paul Potter. The toilet of Venus, +Fantaski. Flemish Bores drinking, Van Ginnums. Jupiter and Europia, de +Horn. The Grandjunction Canal, Venis, by Candleetty; and Italian Bandix, +by Slavata Rosa.'--And so this worthy woman went on, from one room into +another, from the blue room to the green, and the green to the grand +saloon, and the grand saloon to the tapestry closet, cackling her list +of pictures and wonders: and furtively turning up a corner of brown +holland to show the colour of the old, faded, seedy, mouldy, dismal +hangings. + +At last we came to her Ladyship's bed-room. In the centre of this dreary +apartment there is a bed about the size of one of those whizgig temples +in which the Genius appears in a pantomime. The huge gilt edifice is +approached by steps, and so tall, that it might be let off in floors, +for sleeping-rooms for all the Carabas family. An awful bed! A murder +might be done at one end of that bed, and people sleeping at the other +end be ignorant of it. Gracious powers! fancy little Lord Carabas in a +nightcap ascending those steps after putting out the candle! + +The sight of that seedy and solitary splendour was too much for me. +I should go mad were I that lonely housekeeper--in those enormous +galleries--in that lonely library, filled up with ghastly folios that +nobody dares read, with an inkstand on the centre table like the coffin +of a baby, and sad portraits staring at you from the bleak walls with +their solemn Mouldy eyes. No wonder that Carabas does not come down here +often. + +It would require two thousand footmen to make the place cheerful. No +wonder the coachman resigned his wig, that the masters are insolvent, +and the servants perish in this huge dreary out-at-elbow place. + +A single family has no more right to build itself a temple of that sort +than to erect a Tower of Babel. Such a habitation is not decent for a +mere mortal man. But, after all, I suppose poor Carabas had no choice. +Fate put him there as it sent Napoleon to St. Helena. Suppose it had +been decreed by Nature that you and I should be Marquises? We wouldn't +refuse, I suppose, but take Castle Carabas and all, with debts, duns, +and mean makeshifts, and shabby pride, and swindling magnificence. + +Next season, when I read of Lady Carabas's splendid entertainments in +the MORNING POST, and see the poor old insolvent cantering through the +Park--I shall have a much tenderer interest in these great people than +I have had heretofore. Poor old shabby Snob! Ride on and fancy the world +is still on its knees before the house of Carabas! Give yourself airs, +poor old bankrupt Magnifico, who are under money-obligations to your +flunkeys; and must stoop so as to swindle poor tradesmen! And for us, O +my brother Snobs, oughtn't we to feel happy if our walk through life is +more even, and that we are out of the reach of that surprising arrogance +and that astounding meanness to which this wretched old victim is +obliged to mount and descend. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Notable as my reception had been (under that unfortunate mistake of Mrs. +Ponto that I was related to Lord Snobbington, which I was not permitted +to correct), it was nothing compared to the bowing and kotooing, the +raptures and flurry which preceded and welcomed the visit of a real live +lord and lord's son, a brother officer of Cornet Wellesley Ponto, in +the 120th Hussars, who came over with the young Cornet from Guttlebury, +where their distinguished regiment was quartered. This was my +Lord Gules, Lord Saltire's grandson and heir: a very young, short, +sandy-haired and tobacco-smoking nobleman, who cannot have left the +nursery very long, and who, though he accepted the honest Major's +invitation to the Evergreens in a letter written in a school-boy +handwriting, with a number of faults of spelling, may yet be a very fine +classical scholar for what I know: having had his education at Eton, +where he and young Ponto were inseparable. + +At any rate, if he can't write, he has mastered a number of other +accomplishments wonderful for one of his age and size. He is one of the +best shots and riders in England. He rode his horse Abracadabra, and won +the famous Guttlebury steeple-chase. He has horses entered at half the +races in the country (under other people's names; for the old lord is a +strict hand, and will not hear of betting or gambling). He has lost and +won such sums of money as my Lord George himself might be proud of. +He knows all the stables, and all the jockeys, and has all the +'information,' and is a match for the best Leg at Newmarket. Nobody was +ever known to be 'too much' for him at play or in the stable. + +Although his grandfather makes him a moderate allowance, by the aid of +POST-OBITS and convenient friends he can live in a splendour becoming +his rank. He has not distinguished himself in the knocking down of +policemen much; he is not big enough for that. But, as a light-weight, +his skill is of the very highest order. At billiards he is said to +be first-rate. He drinks and smokes as much as any two of the biggest +officers in his regiment. With such high talents, who can say how far +he may not go? He may take to politics as a DELASSEMENT, and be Prime +Minister after Lord George Bentinck. + +My young friend Wellesley Ponto is a gaunt and bony youth, with a pale +face profusely blotched. From his continually pulling something on +his chin, I am led to fancy that he believes he has what is called an +Imperial growing there. That is not the only tuft that is hunted in +the family, by the way. He can't, of course, indulge in those expensive +amusements which render his aristocratic comrade so respected: he bets +pretty freely when he is in cash, and rides when somebody mounts him +(for he can't afford more than his regulation chargers). At drinking +he is by no means inferior; and why do you think he brought his noble +friend, Lord Gules, to the Evergreens?--Why? because he intended to +ask his mother to order his father to pay his debts, which she couldn't +refuse before such an exalted presence. Young Ponto gave me all this +information with the most engaging frankness. We are old friends. I used +to tip him when he was at school. + +'Gad!': says he, 'our wedgment's so DOOTHID exthpenthif. Must hunt, you +know. A man couldn't live in the wedgment if he didn't. Mess expenses +enawmuth. Must dine at mess. Must drink champagne and claret. Ours ain't +a port and sherry light-infantry mess. Uniform's awful. Fitzstultz, our +Colonel, will have 'em so. Must be a distinction you know. At his own +expense Fitzstultz altered the plumes in the men's caps (you called them +shaving-brushes, Snob, my boy: most absurd and unjust that attack of +yours, by the way); that altewation alone cotht him five hundred pound. +The year befaw latht he horthed the wegiment at an immenthe expenthe, +and we're called the Queen'th Own Pyebalds from that day. Ever theen uth +on pawade? The Empewar Nicolath burtht into tearth of envy when he thaw +uth at Windthor. And you see,' continued my young friend, 'I brought +Gules down with me, as the Governor is very sulky about shelling out, +just to talk my mother over, who can do anything with him. Gules told +her that I was Fitzstultz's favourite of the whole regiment; and, Gad! +she thinks the Horse Guards will give me my troop for nothing, and he +humbugged the Governor that I was the greatest screw in the army. Ain't +it a good dodge?' + +With this Wellesley left me to go and smoke a cigar in the stables +with Lord Gules, and make merry over the cattle there, under Stripes's +superintendence. Young Ponto laughed with his friend, at the venerable +four-wheeled cruelty-chaise; but seemed amazed that the latter should +ridicule still more an ancient chariot of the build of 1824, emblazoned +immensely with the arme of the Pontos and the Snaileys, from which +latter distinguished family Mrs. Ponto issued. + +I found poor Pon in his study among his boots, in such a rueful attitude +of despondency, that I could not but remark it. 'Look at that!' says +the poor fellow, handing me over a document. 'It's the second change +in uniform since he's been in the army, and yet there's no extravagance +about the lad. Lord Gules tells me he is the most careful youngster in +the regiment, God bless him! But look at that! by heaven, Snob, look at +that and say how can a man of nine hundred keep out of the Bench?' He +gave a sob as he handed me the paper across the table; and his old face, +and his old corduroys, and his shrunk shooting-jacket, and his lean +shanks, looked, as he spoke, more miserably haggard, bankrupt, and +threadbare. + + LIEUT. WELLESLEY PONTO, 120TH QUEEN'S OWN PYEBALD + HUSSARS, + TO KNOPF AND STECKNADEL, + CONDUIT STREET, LONDON. + L. s. d + Dress Jacket, richly laced with gold . 35 0 0 + Ditto Pelisse ditto, and trimmed with sable . . 60 0 0 + Undress Jacket, trimmed with gold 15 15 0 + Ditto Pelisse . . 30 0 0 + Dress Pantaloons 12 0 0 + Ditto Overalls, gold lace on sides. 6 6 0 + Undress ditto ditto. 5 5 0 + Blue Braided Frock 14 14 0 + Forage Cap . . 3 3 0 + Dress Cap, gold lines, plume and chain . . . 25 0 0 + Gold Barrelled Sash 11 18 0 + Sword . . 11 11 0 + Ditto Belt and Sabretache .. 16 16 0 + Pouch and Belt. 15 15 0 + SwordKnot .. 1 4 0 + Cloak . .. 13 13 0 + Valise . .. 3 13 6 + Regulation Saddle . 7 17 6 + Ditto Bridle, complete . .. 10 10 0 + A Dress Housing, complete .. 30 0 0 + A pair of Pistols. 10 10 0 + A Black Sheepskin, edged. . . 6 18 0 + Total L347 9 0 + +That evening Mrs. Ponto and her family made their darling Wellesley give +a full, true, and particular account of everything that had taken place +at Lord Fitzstultz's; how many servants waited at dinner; and how the +Ladies Schneider dressed; and what his Royal Highness said when he came +down to shoot; and who was there? "What a blessing that boy is to me!" +said she, as my pimple-faced young friend moved off to resume smoking +operations with Gules in the now vacant kitchen;--and poor Ponto's +dreary and desperate look, shall I ever forget that? + +O you parents and guardians! O you men and women of sense in England! O +you legislators about to assemble in Parliament! read over that tailor's +bill above printed, read over that absurd catalogue of insane gimcracks +and madman's tomfoolery--and say how are you ever to get rid of +Snobbishness when society does so much for its education? + +Three hundred and forty pounds for a young chap's saddle and breeches! +Before George, I would rather be a Hottentot or a Highlander. We laugh +at poor Jocko, the monkey, dancing in uniform; or at poor Jeames, the +flunkey, with his quivering calves and plush tights; or at the nigger +Marquis of Marmalade, dressed out with sabre and epaulets, and giving +himself the airs of a field-marshal. Lo! is not one of the Queen's +Pyebalds, in full fig, as great and foolish a monster? + + + +CHAPTER XXX--ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +At last came that fortunate day at the Evergreens, when I was to be made +acquainted with some of the 'county families' with whom only people of +Ponto's rank condescended to associate. And now, although poor Ponto had +just been so cruelly made to bleed on occasion of his son's new uniform, +and though he was in the direst and most cut-throat spirits with an +overdrawn account at the banker's, and other pressing evils of poverty; +although a tenpenny bottle of Marsala and an awful parsimony presided +generally at his table, yet the poor fellow was obliged to assume +the most frank and jovial air of cordiality; and all the covers being +removed from the hangings, and new dresses being procured for the young +ladies, and the family plate being unlocked and displayed, the house +and all within assumed a benevolent and festive appearance. The +kitchen fires began to blaze, the good wine ascended from the cellar, +a professed cook actually came over from Guttlebury to compile culinary +abominations. Stripes was in a new coat, and so was Ponto, for a wonder, +and Tummus's button-suit was worn EN PERMANENCE. + +And all this to show off the little lord, thinks I. All this in honour +of a stupid little cigarrified Cornet of dragoons, who can barely write +his name,--while an eminent and profound moralist like--somebody--is +fobbed off with cold mutton and relays of pig. Well, well: a martyrdom +of cold mutton is just bearable. I pardon Mrs. Ponto, from my heart I +do, especially as I wouldn't turn out of the best bed-room, in spite of +all her hints; but held my ground in the chintz tester, vowing that Lord +Gules, as a young man, was quite small and hardy enough to make himself +comfortable elsewhere. + +The great Ponto party was a very august one. The Hawbucks came in their +family coach, with the blood-red band emblazoned all over it: and their +man in yellow livery waited in country fashion at table, only to be +exceeded in splendour by the Hipsleys, the opposition baronet, in light +blue. The old Ladies Fitzague drove over in their little old chariot +with the fat black horses, the fat coachman, the fat footman--(why +are dowagers' horses and footmen always fat?) And soon after these +personages had arrived, with their auburn fronts and red beaks and +turbans, came the Honourable and Reverend Lionel Pettipois, who with +General and Mrs. Sago formed the rest of the party. 'Lord and Lady +Frederick Howlet were asked, but they have friends at Ivybush,' Mrs. +Ponto told me; and that very morning, the Castlehaggards sent an excuse, +as her ladyship had a return of the quinsy. Between ourselves, Lady +Castlehaggard's quinsy always comes on when there is dinner at the +Evergreens. + +If the keeping of polite company could make a woman happy, surely my +kind hostess Mrs. Ponto was on that day a happy woman. Every person +present (except the unlucky impostor who pretended to a connexion with +the Snobbington Family, and General Sago, who had brought home I don't +know how many lacs of rupees from India,) was related to the Peerage +or the Baronetage. Mrs. P. had her heart's desire. If she had been an +Earl's daughter herself could she have expected better company?--and her +family were in the oil-trade at Bristol, as all her friends very well +know. + +What I complained of in my heart was not the dining--which, for this +once, was plentiful and comfortable enough--but the prodigious dulness +of the talking part of the entertainment. O my beloved brother Snobs of +the City, if we love each other no better than our country brethren, at +least we amuse each other more; if we bore ourselves, we are not called +upon to go ten miles to do it! + +For instance, the Hipsleys came ten miles from the south, and the +Hawbucks ten miles from the north, of the Evergreens; and were magnates +in two different divisions of the county of Mangelwurzelshire. Hipsley, +who is an old baronet, with a bothered estate, did not care to show his +contempt for Hawbuck, who is a new creation, and rich. Hawbuck, on his +part, gives himself patronizing airs to General Sago, who looks upon the +Pontos as little better than paupers. 'Old Lady Blanche,' says Ponto, 'I +hope will leave something to her god-daughter--my second girl--we've all +of us half-poisoned ourselves with taking her physic.' + +Lady Blanche and Lady Rose Fitzague have, the first, a medical, and the +second a literary turn. I am inclined to believe the former had a wet +COMPRESSE around her body, on the occasion when I had the happiness of +meeting her. She doctors everybody in the neighbourhood of which she is +the ornament; and has tried everything on her own person. She went into +Court, and testified publicly her faith in St. John Long: she swore by +Doctor Buchan, she took quantities of Gambouge's Universal Medicine, +and whole boxfuls of Parr's Life Pills. She has cured a multiplicity of +headaches by Squinstone's Eye-snuff; she wears a picture of Hahnemann +in her bracelet and a lock of Priessnitz's hair in a brooch. She talked +about her own complaints and those of her CONFIDANTE for the time being, +to every lady in the room successively, from our hostess down to +Miss Wirt, taking them into corners, and whispering about bronchitis, +hepatitis, St. Vitus, neuralgia, cephalalgia, and so forth. I observed +poor fat Lady Hawbuck in a dreadful alarm after some communication +regarding the state of her daughter Miss Lucy Hawbuck's health, and Mrs. +Sago turned quite yellow, and put down her third glass of Madeira, at a +warning glance from Lady Blanche. + +Lady Rose talked literature, and about the book-club at Guttlebury, and +is very strong in voyages and travels. She has a prodigious interest +in Borneo, and displayed a knowledge of the history of the Punjaub and +Kaffirland that does credit to her memory. Old General Sago, who sat +perfectly silent and plethoric, roused up as from a lethargy when the +former country was mentioned, and gave the company his story about a +hog-hunt at Ramjugger. I observed her ladyship treated with something +like contempt her neighbour the Reverend Lionel Pettipois, a young +divine whom you may track through the country by little 'awakening' +books at half-a-crown a hundred, which dribble out of his pockets +wherever he goes. I saw him give Miss Wirt a sheaf of 'The Little +Washer-woman on Putney Common,' and to Miss Hawbuck a couple of dozen +of 'Meat in the Tray; or the Young Butcher-boy Rescued;' and on paying +a visit to Guttlebury gaol, I saw two notorious fellows waiting their +trial there (and temporarily occupied with a game of cribbage), to whom +his Reverence offered a tract as he was walking over Crackshins Common, +and who robbed him of his purse, umbrella, and cambric handkerchief, +leaving him the tracts to distribute elsewhere. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +'Why, dear Mr. Snob,' said a young lady of rank and fashion (to whom I +present my best compliments), 'if you found everything so SNOBBISH at +the Evergreens, if the pig bored you and the mutton was not to your +liking, and Mrs. Ponto was a humbug, and Miss Wirt a nuisance, with her +abominable piano practice,--why did you stay so long?' + +Ah, Miss, what a question! Have you never heard of gallant British +soldiers storming batteries, of doctors passing nights in plague wards +of lazarettos, and other instances of martyrdom? What do you suppose +induced gentlemen to walk two miles up to the batteries of Sabroan, with +a hundred and fifty thundering guns bowling them down by hundreds?--not +pleasure, surely. What causes your respected father to quit his +comfortable home for his chambers, after dinner, and pore over the most +dreary law papers until long past midnight?, Mademoiselle; duty, which +must be done alike by military, or legal, or literary gents. There's a +power of martyrdom in our profession. + +You won't believe it? Your rosy lips assume a smile of incredulity--a +most naughty and odious expression in a young lady's face. Well, then, +the fact is, that my chambers, No. 24, Pump Court, Temple, were being +painted by the Honourable Society, and Mrs. Slamkin, my laundress, +having occasion to go into Durham to see her daughter, who is married, +and has presented her with the sweetest little grandson--a few weeks +could not be better spent than in rusticating. But ah, how delightful +Pump Court looked when I revisited its well-known chimney-pots! CARI +LUOGHI. Welcome, welcome, O fog and smut! + +But if you think there is no moral in the foregoing account of the +Pontine family, you are, Madam, most painfully mistaken. In this very +chapter we are going to have the moral--why, the whole of the papers +are nothing BUT the moral, setting forth as they do the folly of being a +Snob. + +You will remark that in the Country Snobography my poor friend Ponto has +been held up almost exclusively for the public gaze--and why? Because +we went to no other house? Because other families did not welcome us to +their mahogany? No, no. Sir John Hawbuck of the Haws, Sir John Hipsley +of Briary Hall, don't shut the gates of hospitality: of General Sago's +mulligatawny I could speak from experience. And the two old ladies at +Guttlebury, were they nothing? Do you suppose that an agreeable young +dog, who shall be nameless, would not be made welcome? Don't you know +that people are too glad to see ANYBODY in the country? + +But those dignified personages do not enter into the scheme of the +present work, and are but minor characters of our Snob drama; just as, +in the play, kings and emperors are not half so important as many humble +persons. The DOGE OF VENICE, for instance, gives way to OTHELLO, who is +but a nigger; and the KING OF FRANCE to FALCONBRIDGE, who is a gentleman +of positively no birth at all. So with the exalted characters above +mentioned. I perfectly well recollect that the claret at Hawbuck's was +not by any means so good as that of Hipsley's, while, on the contrary, +some white hermitage at the Haws (by the way, the butler only gave +me half a glass each time) was supernacular. And I remember the +conversations. O Madam, Madam, how stupid they were! The subsoil +ploughing; the pheasants and poaching; the row about the representation +of the county; the Earl of Mangelwurzelshire being at variance with his +relative and nominee, the Honourable Marmaduke Tomnoddy; all these I +could put down, had I a mind to violate the confidence of private +life; and a great deal of conversation about the weather, the +Mangelwurzelshire Hunt, new manures, and eating and drinking, of course. + +But CUI BONO? In these perfectly stupid and honourable families there +is not that Snobbishness which it is our purpose to expose. An ox is an +ox--a great hulking, fat-sided, bellowing, munching Beef. He ruminates +according to his nature, and consumes his destined portion of turnips or +oilcake, until the time comes for his disappearance from the pastures, +to be succeeded by other deep-lunged and fat-ribbed animals. Perhaps +we do not respect an ox. We rather acquiesce in him. The Snob, my dear +Madam, is the Frog that tries to swell himself to ox size. Let us pelt +the silly brute out of his folly. + +Look, I pray you, at the case of my unfortunate friend Ponto, a +good-natured, kindly English gentleman--not over-wise, but quite +passable--fond of port-wine, of his family, of country sports and +agriculture, hospitably minded, with as pretty a little patrimonial +country-house as heart can desire, and a thousand pounds a year. It +is not much; but, ENTRE NOUS, people can live for less, and not +uncomfortably. + +For instance, there is the doctor, whom Mrs. P. does not condescend to +visit: that man educates a mirific family, and is loved by the poor for +miles round: and gives them port-wine for physic and medicine, gratis. +And how those people can get on with their pittance, as Mrs. Ponto says, +is a wonder to HER. + +Again, there is the clergyman, Doctor Chrysostom,--Mrs. P. says they +quarrelled about Puseyism, but I am given to understand it was because +Mrs. C. had the PAS of her at the Haws--you may see what the value of +his living is any day in the 'Clerical Guide;' but you don't know what +he gives away. + +Even Pettipois allows that, in whose eyes the Doctor's surplice is a +scarlet abomination; and so does Pettipois do his duty in his way, and +administer not only his tracts and his talk, but his money and his means +to his people. As a lord's son, by the way, Mrs. Ponto is uncommonly +anxious that he should marry EITHER of the girls whom Lord Gules does +not intend to choose. + +Well, although Pon's income would make up almost as much as that of +these three worthies put together--oh, my dear Madam, see in what +hopeless penury the poor fellow lives! What tenant can look to HIS +forbearance? What poor man can hope for HIS charity? 'Master's the best +of men,' honest Stripes says, 'and when we was in the ridgment a more +free-handed chap didn't live. But the way in which Missus DU scryou, I +wonder the young ladies is alive, that I du!' + +They live upon a fine governess and fine masters, and have clothes made +by Lady Carabas's own milliner; and their brother rides with earls to +cover; and only the best people in the county visit at the Evergreens, +and Mrs. Ponto thinks herself a paragon of wives and mothers, and +a wonder of the world, for doing all this misery and humbug, and +snobbishness, on a thousand a year. + +What an inexpressible comfort it was, my dear Madam, when Stripes put +my portmanteau in the four-wheeled chaise, and (poor P on being touched +with sciatica) drove me over to 'Carabas Arms' at Guttlebury, where we +took leave. There were some bagmen there in the Commercial Room, and one +talked about the house he represented; and another about his dinner, and +a third about the Inns on the road, and so forth--a talk, not very wise, +but honest and to the purpose--about as good as that of the country +gentlemen: and oh, how much pleasanter than listening to Miss Wirt's +show-pieces on the piano, and Mrs. Ponto's genteel cackle about the +fashion and the county families! + + + +CHAPTER XXXII--SNOBBIUM GATHERUM + +WHEN I see the great effect which these papers are producing on an +intelligent public, I have a strong hope that before long we shall have +a regular Snob department in the newspapers, just as we have the +Police Courts and the Court News at present. When a flagrant case of +bone-crushing or Poor-law abuse occurs in the world, who so eloquent +as THE TIMES to point it out? When a gross instance of Snobbishness +happens, why should not the indignant journalist call the public +attention to that delinquency too? + +How, for instance, could that wonderful case of the Earl of Mangelwurzel +and his brother be examined in the Snobbish point of view? Let alone +the hectoring, the bullying, the vapouring, the bad grammar, the mutual +recriminations, lie-givings, challenges, retractations, which abound +in the fraternal dispute--put out of the question these points as +concerning the individual nobleman and his relative, with whose personal +affairs we have nothing to do--and consider how intimately corrupt, how +habitually grovelling and mean, how entirely Snobbish in a word, a whole +county must be which can find no better chiefs or leaders than these two +gentlemen. 'We don't want,' the great county of Mangelwurzelshire seems +to say, 'that a man should be able to write good grammar; or that he +should keep a Christian tongue in his head; or that he should have the +commonest decency of temper, or even a fair share of good sense, in +order to represent us in Parliament. + +All we require is, that a man should be recommended to us by the Earl +of Mangelwurzelshire. And all that we require of the Earl of +Mangelwurzelshire is that he should have fifty thousand a year and hunt +the country.' O you pride of all Snobland! O you crawling, truckling, +self-confessed lackeys and parasites! + +But this is growing too savage: don't let us forget our usual amenity, +and that tone of playfulness and sentiment with which the beloved +reader and writer have pursued their mutual reflections hitherto. Well, +Snobbishness pervades the little Social Farce as well as the great State +Comedy; and the self-same moral is tacked to either. + +There was, for instance, an account in the papers of a young lady who, +misled by a fortune-teller, actually went part of the way to India (as +far as Bagnigge Wells, I think,) in search of a husband who was promised +her there. Do you suppose this poor deluded little soul would have left +her shop for a man below her in rank, or for anything but a darling of +a Captain in epaulets and a red coat. It was her Snobbish sentiment +that misled her, and made her vanities a prey to the swindling +fortune-teller. + +Case 2 was that of Mademoiselle de Saugrenue, 'the interesting young +Frenchwoman with a profusion of jetty ringlets,' who lived for nothing +at a boardinghouse at Gosport, was then conveyed to Fareham gratis: and +being there, and lying on the bed of the good old lady her entertainer, +the dear girl took occasion to rip open the mattress, and steal a +cash-box, with which she fled to London. How would you account for the +prodigious benevolence exercised towards the interesting young French +lady? Was it her jetty ringlets or her charming face?--Bah! Do ladies +love others for having faces and black hair?--she said SHE WAS A +RELATION OF de Saugrenue: talked of her ladyship her aunt, and of +herself as a De Saugrenue. The honest boarding-house people were at her +feet at once. Good, honest, simple, lord-loving children of Snobland. + +Finally, there was the case of 'the Right Honourable Mr. Vernon,' at +York. The Right Honourable was the son of a nobleman, and practised +on an old lady. He procured from her dinners, money, wearing-apparel, +spoons, implicit credence, and an entire refit of linen. Then he cast +his nets over a family of father, mother, and daughters, one of whom he +proposed to marry. The father lent him money, the mother made jams and +pickles for him, the daughters vied with each other in cooking dinners +for the Right Honourable--and what was the end? One day the traitor +fled, with a teapot and a basketful of cold victuals. It was the 'Right +Honourable' which baited the hook which gorged all these greedy, simple +Snobs. Would they have been taken in by a commoner? What old lady is +there, my dear sir, who would take in you and me, were we ever so ill to +do, and comfort us, and clothe us, and give us her money, and her silver +forks? Alas and alas! what mortal man that speaks the truth can hope +for such a landlady? And yet, all these instances of fond and credulous +Snobbishness have occurred in the same week's paper, with who knows how +many score more? + +Just as we had concluded the above remarks comes a pretty little note +sealed with a pretty little butterfly--bearing a northern postmark--and +to the following effect:-- + +'19th November. + +'Mr. Punch,--'Taking great interest in your Snob Papers, we are very +anxious to know under what class of that respectable fraternity you +would designate us. + +'We are three sisters, from seventeen to twenty-two. Our father is +HONESTLY AND TRULY of a very good family (you will say it is Snobbish +to mention that, but I wish to state the plain fact); our maternal +grandfather was an Earl.' (1) + +'We CAN afford to take in a stamped edition of YOU, and all Dickens' +works as fast as they come out, but we do NOT keep such a thing as a +PEERAGE or even a BARONETAGE in the house. + +'We live with every comfort, excellent cellar, &c. &c.; but as we cannot +well afford a butler, we have a neat table-maid (though our father was a +military man, has travelled much, been in the best society, &c.) We HAVE +a coachman and helper, but we don't put the latter into buttons, nor +make them wait at table, like Stripes and Tummus.' (2) + +'We are just the same to persons with a handle to their name as to those +without it. We wear a moderate modicum of crinoline, (3)and are never +limp (4) in the morning. We have good and abundant dinners on CHINA +though we have plate (5), and just as good when alone as with company. + +'Now, my dear MR. PUNCH, will you PLEASE give us a short answer in your +next number, and I will be SO much obliged to you. Nobody knows we are +writing to you, not even our father; nor will we ever tease (6) you +again if you will only give us an answer--just for FUN, now do! + +'If you get as far as this, which is doubtful, you will probably fling +it into the fire. If you do, I cannot help it; but I am of a sanguine +disposition, and entertain a lingering hope. At all events, I shall +be impatient for next Sunday, for you reach us on that day, and I am +ashamed to confess, we CANNOT resist opening you in the carriage driving +home from church. (7) + +'I remain, &c. &c., for myself and sisters. + +Excuse this scrawl, but I always write headlong. (8) + +'P. S.--You were rather stupid last week, don't you think? (9) We keep +no gamekeeper, and yet have always abundant game for friends to shoot, +in spite of the poachers. We never write on perfumed paper--in short, I +can't help thinking that if you knew us you would not think us Snobs.' + +To this I reply in the following manner:--'My dear young ladies, I know +your post-town: and shall be at church there the Sunday AFTER next; +when, will you please to wear a tulip or some little trifle in your +bonnets, so that I may know you? You will recognize me and my dress--a +quiet-looking young fellow, in a white top-coat, a crimson satin +neckcloth, light blue trousers, with glossy tipped boots, and an emerald +breast-pin. I shall have a black crape round my white hat; and my usual +bamboo cane with the richly-gilt knob. I am sorry there will be no time +to get up moustaches between now and next week. + +'From seventeen to two-and-twenty! Ye gods! what ages! Dear young +creatures, I can see you all three. Seventeen suits me, as nearest my +own time of life; but mind, I don't say two-and-twenty is too old. No, +no. And that pretty, roguish, demure, middle one. Peace, peace, thou +silly little fluttering heart! + +'YOU Snobs, dear young ladies! I will pull any man's nose who says so. +There is no harm in being of a good family. You can't help it, poor +dears. What's in a name? What is in a handle to it? I confess openly +that I should not object to being a Duke myself; and between ourselves +you might see a worse leg for a garter. + +'YOU Snobs, dear little good-natured things, no that is, I hope not--I +think not--I won't be too confident--none of us should be--that we are +not Snobs. That very confidence savours of arrogance, and to be arrogant +is to be a Snob. In all the social gradations from sneak to tyrant, +nature has placed a most wondrous and various progeny of Snobs. But are +there no kindly natures, no tender hearts, no souls humble, simple, and +truth-loving? Ponder well on this question, sweet young ladies. And if +you can answer it, as no doubt you can--lucky are you--and lucky the +respected Herr Papa, and lucky the three handsome young gentlemen who +are about to become each others' brothers-in-law.' + + +(1) The introduction of Grandpapa, is I fear, Snobbish. + +(2) That is, as you like. I don't object to buttons in moderation. + +(3) Quite right. + +(4) Bless you! + +(5) Snobbish; and I doubt whether you ought to dine as well alone as +with company. You will be getting too good dinners. + +(6) We like to be teased; but tell Papa. + +(7) O garters and stars! what will Captain Gordon and Exeter Hall say to +this? + +(8) Dear little enthusiast! + +(9) You were never more mistaken, miss, in your life. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII--SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +Everybody of the middle rank who walks through this life with a sympathy +for his companions on the same journey--at any rate, every man who has +been jostling in the world for some three or four lustres--must make +no end of melancholy reflections upon the fate of those victims whom +Society, that is, Snobbishness, is immolating every day. With love and +simplicity and natural kindness Snobbishness is perpetually at war. +People dare not be happy for fear of Snobs. People dare not love for +fear of Snobs. People pine away lonely under the tyranny of Snobs. +Honest kindly hearts dry up and die. Gallant generous lads, blooming +with hearty youth, swell into bloated old-bachelorhood, and burst +and tumble over. Tender girls wither into shrunken decay, and perish +solitary, from whom Snobbishness has cut off the common claim to +happiness and affection with which Nature endowed us all. My heart grows +sad as I see the blundering tyrant's handiwork. As I behold it I swell +with cheap rage, and glow with fury against the Snob. Come down, I say, +thou skulking dulness! Come down, thou stupid bully, and give up thy +brutal ghost! And I arm myself with the sword and spear, and taking +leave of my family, go forth to do battle with that hideous ogre and +giant, that brutal despot in Snob Castle, who holds so many gentle +hearts in torture and thrall. + +When PUNCH is king, I declare there shall be no such thing as old maids +and old bachelors. The Reverend Mr. Malthus shall be burned annually, +instead of Guy Fawkes. Those who don't marry shall go into the +workhouse. It shall be a sin for the poorest not to have a pretty girl +to love him. + +The above reflections came to mind after taking a walk with an old +comrade, Jack Spiggot by name, who is just passing into the state of +old-bachelorhood, after the manly and blooming youth in which I remember +him. Jack was one of the handsomest fellows in England when we entered +together in the Highland Buffs; but I quitted the Cuttykilts early, and +lost sight of him for many years. + +Ah! how changed he is from those days! He wears a waistband now, and has +begun to dye his whiskers. His cheeks, which were red, are now mottled; +his eyes, once so bright and steadfast, are the colour of peeled +plovers' eggs. + +'Are you married, Jack?' says I, remembering how consumedly in love he +was with his cousin Letty Lovelace, when the Cuttykilts were quartered +at Strathbungo some twenty years ago. + +'Married? no,' says he. 'Not money enough. Hard enough to keep myself, +much more a family, on five hundred a year. Come to Dickinson's; there's +some of the best Madeira in London there, my boy.' So we went and talked +over old times. The bill for dinner and wine consumed was prodigious, +and the quantity of brandy-and-water that Jack took showed what a +regular boozer he was. 'A guinea or two guineas. What the devil do I +care what I spend for my dinner?' says he. + +'And Letty Lovelace?' says I. + +Jack's countenance fell. However, he burst into a loud laugh presently. +'Letty Lovelace!' says he. 'She's Letty Lovelace still; but Gad, such a +wizened old woman! She's as thin as a thread-paper; (you remember what a +figure she had:) her nose has got red, and her teeth blue. She's +always ill; always quarrelling with the rest of the family; always +psalm-singing, and always taking pills. Gad, I had a rare escape THERE. +Push round the grog, old boy.' + +Straightway memory went back to the days when Letty was the loveliest +of blooming young creatures: when to hear her sing was to make the heart +jump into your throat; when to see her dance, was better than Montessu +or Noblet (they were the Ballet Queens of those days); when Jack used to +wear a locket of her hair, with a little gold chain round his neck, and, +exhilarated with toddy, after a sederunt of the Cuttykilt mess, used +to pull out this token, and kiss it, and howl about it, to the great +amusement of the bottle-nosed old Major and the rest of the table. + +'My father and hers couldn't put their horses together,' Jack said. 'The +General wouldn't come down with more than six thousand. My governor said +it shouldn't be done under eight. Lovelace told him to go and be hanged, +and so we parted company. They said she was in a decline. Gammon! She's +forty, and as tough and as sour as this bit of lemon-peel. Don't put +much into your punch, Snob my boy. No man CAN stand punch after wine.' + +'And what are your pursuits, Jack?' says I. + +'Sold out when the governor died. Mother lives at Bath. Go down there +once a year for a week. Dreadful slow. Shilling whist. Four sisters--all +unmarried except the youngest--awful work. Scotland in August. Italy in +the winter. Cursed rheumatism. Come to London in March, and toddle +about at the Club, old boy; and we won't go home till maw-aw-rning till +daylight does appear. + +'And here's the wreck of two lives!' mused the present Snobographer, +after taking leave of Jack Spiggot. 'Pretty merry Letty Lovelace's +rudder lost and she cast away, and handsome Jack Spiggot stranded on the +shore like a drunken Trinculo.' + +What was it that insulted Nature (to use no higher name), and perverted +her kindly intentions towards them? What cursed frost was it that +nipped the love that both were bearing, and condemned the girl to sour +sterility, and the lad to selfish old-bachelorhood? It was the infernal +Snob tyrant who governs us all, who says, 'Thou shalt not love without +a lady's maid; thou shalt not marry without a carriage and horses; thou +shalt have no wife in thy heart, and no children on thy knee, without +a page in buttons and a French BONNE; thou shalt go to the devil unless +thou hast a brougham; marry poor, and society shall forsake thee; thy +kinsmen shall avoid thee as a criminal; thy aunts and uncles shall turn +up their eyes and bemoan the sad, sad manner in which Tom or Harry has +thrown himself away.' You, young woman, may sell yourself without shame, +and marry old Croesus; you, young man, may lie away your heart and your +life for a jointure. But if 'you are poor, woe be to you! Society, the +brutal Snob autocrat, consigns you to solitary perdition. Wither, poor +girl, in your garret; rot, poor bachelor, in your Club. + +When I see those graceless recluses--those unnatural monks and nuns of +the order of St. Beelzebub, (1) my hatred for Snobs, and their worship, +and their idols, passes all continence. Let us hew down that man-eating +Juggernaut, I say, that hideous Dagon; and I glow with the heroic +courage of Tom Thumb, and join battle with the giant Snob. + +(1) This, of course, is understood to apply only to those unmarried +persons whom a mean and Snobbish fear about money has kept from +fulfilling their natural destiny. Many persons there are devoted to +celibacy because they cannot help it. Of these a man would be a brute +who spoke roughly. Indeed, after Miss O'Toole's conduct to the writer, +he would be the last to condemn. But never mind, these are personal +matters. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV--SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +In that noble romance called 'Ten Thousand a Year,' I remember a +profoundly pathetic description of the Christian manner in which the +hero, Mr. Aubrey, bore his misfortunes. After making a display of the +most florid and grandiloquent resignation, and quitting his country +mansion, the writer supposes Aubrey to come to town in a post-chaise and +pair, sitting bodkin probably between his wife and sister. It is about +seven o'clock, carriages are rattling about, knockers are thundering, +and tears bedim the fine eyes of Kate and Mrs. Aubrey as they think that +in happier times at this hour--their Aubrey used formerly to go out to +dinner to the houses of the aristocracy his friends. This is the gist of +the passage--the elegant words I forget. But the noble, noble sentiment +I shall always cherish and remember. What can be more sublime than the +notion of a great man's relatives in tears about--his dinner? With a few +touches, what author ever more happily described A Snob? + +We were reading the passage lately at the house of my friend, Raymond +Gray, Esquire, Barrister-at-Law, an ingenuous youth without the least +practice, but who has luckily a great share of good spirits, which +enables him to bide his time, and bear laughingly his humble position in +the world. Meanwhile, until it is altered, the stern laws of necessity +and the expenses of the Northern Circuit oblige Mr. Gray to live in a +very tiny mansion in a very queer small square in the airy neighbourhood +of Gray's Inn Lane. + +What is the more remarkable is, that Gray has a wife there. Mrs. +Gray was a Miss Harley Baker: and I suppose I need not say THAT is +a respectable family. Allied to the Cavendishes, the Oxfords, the +Marrybones, they still, though rather DECHUS from their original +splendour, hold their heads as high as any. Mrs. Harley Baker, I know, +never goes to church without John behind to carry her prayer-book; nor +will Miss Welbeck, her sister, walk twenty yards a-shopping without the +protection of Figby, her sugar-loaf page; though the old lady is as ugly +as any woman in the parish and as tall and whiskery as a grenadier. +The astonishment is, how Emily Harley Baker could have stooped to marry +Raymond Gray. She, who was the prettiest and proudest of the family; +she, who refused Sir Cockle Byles, of the Bengal Service; she, who +turned up her little nose at Essex Temple, Q.C., and connected with +the noble house of Albyn; she, who had but 4,000L. POUR TOUT POTAGE, +to marry a man who had scarcely as much more. A scream of wrath and +indignation was uttered by the whole family when they heard of this +MESALLIANCE. Mrs. Harley Baker never speaks of her daughter now but +with tears in her eyes, and as a ruined creature. Miss Welbeck says, 'I +consider that man a villain;' and has denounced poor good-natured Mrs. +Perkins as a swindler, at whose ball the young people met for the first +time. + +Mr. and Mrs. Gray, meanwhile, live in Gray's Inn Lane aforesaid, with +a maid-servant and a nurse, whose hands are very full, and in a most +provoking and unnatural state of happiness. They have never once thought +of crying about their dinner, like the wretchedly puling and Snobbish +womankind of my favourite Snob Aubrey, of 'Ten Thousand a Year;' but, +on the contrary, accept such humble victuals as fate awards them with a +most perfect and thankful good grace--nay, actually have a portion for a +hungry friend at times--as the present writer can gratefully testify. + +I was mentioning these dinners, and some admirable lemon puddings which +Mrs. Gray makes, to our mutual friend the great Mr. Goldmore, the East +India Director, when that gentleman's face assumed an expression +of almost apoplectic terror, and he gasped out, 'What! Do they give +dinners?' He seemed to think it a crime and a wonder that such people +should dine at all, and that it was their custom to huddle round their +kitchen-fire over a bone and a crust. Whenever he meets them in society, +it is a matter of wonder to him (and he always expresses his surprise +very loud) how the lady can appear decently dressed, and the man have an +unpatched coat to his back. I have heard him enlarge upon this poverty +before the whole room at the 'Conflagrative Club,' to which he and I and +Gray have the honour to belong. + +We meet at the Club on most days. At half-past four, Goldmore arrives +in St. James's Street, from the City, and you may see him reading the +evening papers in the bow-window of the Club, which enfilades +Pall Mall--a large plethoric man, with a bunch of seals in a large +bow-windowed light waistcoat. He has large coat-tails, stuffed with +agents' letters and papers about companies of which he is a Director. +His seals jingle as he walks. I wish I had such a man for an uncle, and +that he himself were childless. I would love and cherish him, and be +kind to him. + +At six o'clock in the full season, when all the world is in St. James's +Street, and the carriages are cutting in and out among the cabs on the +stand, and the tufted dandies are showing their listless faces out of +'White's,' and you see respectable grey-headed gentlemen waggling their +heads to each other through the plate-glass windows of 'Arthur's:' and +the red-coats wish to be Briareian, so as to hold all the gentlemen's +horses; and that wonderful red-coated royal porter is sunning himself +before Marlborough House;--at the noon of London time, you see a +light-yellow carriage with black horses, and a coachman in a tight +floss-silk wig, and two footmen in powder and white and yellow liveries, +and a large woman inside in shot-silk, a poodle, and a pink parasol, +which drives up to the gate of the Conflagrative, and the page goes +and says to Mr. Goldmore (who is perfectly aware of the fact, as he +is looking out of the windows with about forty other 'Conflagrative' +bucks), 'Your carriage, Sir.' G. wags his head. 'Remember, eight o'clock +precisely,' says he to Mulligatawney, the other East India Director; +and, ascending the carriage, plumps down by the side of Mrs. Goldmore +for a drive in the Park, and then home to Portland Place. As the +carriage whirls off, all the young bucks in the Club feel a secret +elation. It is a part of their establishment, as it were. That carriage +belongs to their Club, and their Club belongs to them. They follow the +equipage with interest; they eye it knowingly as they see it in the +Park. But halt! we are not come to the Club Snobs yet. O my brave Snobs, +what a flurry there will be among you when those papers appear! + +Well, you may judge, from the above description, what sort of a man +Goldmore is. A dull and pompous Leadenhall Street Croesus, good-natured +withal, and affable--cruelly affable. 'Mr. Goldmore can never forget,' +his lady used to say, 'that it was Mrs. Gray's Grandfather who sent +him to India; and though that young woman has made the most imprudent +marriage in the world, and has left her station in society, her husband +seems an ingenious and laborious young man, and we shall do everything +in our power to be of use to him.' So they used to ask the Grays to +dinner twice or thrice in a season, when, by way of increasing the +kindness, Buff, the butler, is ordered to hire a fly to convey them to +and from Portland Place. + +Of course I am much too good-natured a friend of both parties not to +tell Gray of Goldmore's opinion in him, and the nabob's astonishment +at the of the briefless barrister having any dinner at all. Indeed, +Goldmore's saying became a joke against Gray amongst us wags at the +Club, and we used to ask him when he tasted meat last? whether we should +bring him home something from dinner? and cut a thousand other mad +pranks with him in our facetious way. + +One day, then, coming home from the Club, Mr. Gray conveyed to his wife +the astounding information that he had asked Goldmore to dinner. + +'My love,' says Mrs. Gray, in a tremor, 'how could you be so cruel? Why, +the dining-room won't hold Mrs. Goldmore.' + +'Make your mind easy, Mrs. Gray; her ladyship is in Paris. It is only +Croesus that's coming, and we are going to the play afterwards--to +Sadler's Wells. Goldmore said at the Club that he thought Shakspeare was +a great dramatic poet, and ought to be patronized; whereupon, fired with +enthusiasm, I invited him to our banquet.' + +'Goodness gracious! what CAN we give him for dinner? He has two French +cooks; you know Mrs. Goldmore is always telling us about them; and he +dines with Aldermen every day.' + +'"A plain leg of mutton, my Lucy, I prythee get ready at three; Have it +tender, and smoking, and juicy, And what better meat can there be?"' + +says Gray, quoting my favourite poet. + +'But the cook is ill; and you know that horrible Pattypan the +pastrycook's---' + +'Silence, Frau!' says Gray, in a deep tragedy voice. 'I will have the +ordering of this repast. Do all things as I bid thee. Invite our friend +Snob here to partake of the feast. Be mine the task of procuring it.' + +'Don't be expensive, Raymond,' says his wife. + +'Peace, thou timid partner of the briefless one. Goldmore's dinner shall +be suited to our narrow means. Only do thou in all things my commands.' +And seeing by the peculiar expression of the rogue's countenance, that +some mad waggery was in preparation, I awaited the morrow with anxiety. + + + +CHAPTER XXXV--SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +Punctual to the hour--(by the way, I cannot omit to mark down my hatred, +scorn, and indignation towards those miserable Snobs who come to dinner +at nine when they are asked at eight, in order to make a sensation in +the company. May the loathing of honest folks, the backbiting of others, +the curses of cooks, pursue these wretches, and avenge the society on +which they trample!)--Punctual, I say, to the hour of five, which Mr. +and Mrs. Raymond Gray had appointed, a youth of an elegant appearance, +in a neat evening-dress, whose trim whiskers indicated neatness, whose +light step denoted activity (for in sooth he was hungry, and always is +at the dinner hour, whatsoever that hour may be), and whose rich +golden hair, curling down his shoulders, was set off by a perfectly new +four-and-ninepenny silk hat, was seen wending his way down Bittlestone +Street, Bittlestone Square, Gray's Inn. The person in question, I need +not say, was Mr. Snob. HE was never late when invited to dine. But to +proceed my narrative:-- + +Mr. Snob may have flattered himself that he made a sensation as he +strutted down Bittlestone with his richly gilt knobbed cane (and indeed +I vow I saw heads looking at me from Miss Squilsby's, the brass-plated +milliner opposite Raymond Gray's, who has three silver-paper bonnets, +and two fly-blown prints of fashion in the window), yet what was the +emotion produced by my arrival, compared to that which the little street +thrilled, when at five minutes past five the floss-wigged coachman, the +yellow hammer-cloth and flunkeys, the black horses and blazing silver +harness of Mr. Goldmore whirled down the street! + +It is a very little street, of very little houses, most of them with +very large brass plates like Miss Squilsby's. Coal-merchants, architects +and surveyors, two surgeons, a solicitor, a dancing-master, and of +course several house-agents, occupy the houses--little two-storeyed +edifices with little stucco porticoes. Goldmore's carriage overtopped +the roofs almost; the first floors might shake hands with Croesus as +he lolled inside; all the windows of those first floors thronged +with children and women in a twinkling. There was Mrs. Hammerly in +curl-papers; Mrs. Saxby with her front awry; Mr. Wriggles peering +through the gauze curtains, holding the while his hot glass of +rum-and-water--in fine, a tremendous commotion in Bittlestone Street, as +the Goldmore carriage drove up to Mr. Raymond Gray's door. + +'How kind it is of him to come with BOTH the footmen!' says little Mrs. +Gray, peeping at the vehicle too. The huge domestic, descending from his +perch, gave a rap at the door which almost drove in the building. All +the heads were out; the sun was shining; the very organ-boy paused; the +footman, the coach, and Goldmore's red face and white waistcoat were +blazing in splendour. The herculean plushed one went back to open the +carriage-door. + +Raymond Gray opened his--in his shirt-sleeves. He ran up to the +carriage. 'Come in, Goldmore,' says he; 'just in time, my boy. Open +the door, What-d'ye-call'um, and let your master out,'--and +What-d'ye-call'um obeyed mechanically, with a face of wonder and +horror, only to be equalled by the look of stupefied astonishment which +ornamented the purple countenance of his master. + +'Wawt taim will you please have the CAGE, sir?' says What-d'ye-call'um, +in that peculiar, unspellable, inimitable, flunkefied pronunciation +which forms one of the chief charms of existence. + +Best have it to the theatre at night,' Gray exclaims; 'it is but a step +from here to the Wells, and we can walk there. I've got tickets for all. +Be at Sadler's Wells at eleven.' + +'Yes, at eleven,' exclaims Goldmore, perturbedly, and walks with a +flurried step into the house, as if he were going to execution (as +indeed he was, with that wicked Gray as a Jack Ketch over him). The +carriage drove away, followed by numberless eyes from doorsteps and +balconies; its appearance is still a wonder in Bittlestone Street. + +'Go in there, and amuse yourself with Snob,' says Gray, opening the +little drawing-room door. 'I'll call out as soon as the chops are ready. +Fanny's below, seeing to the pudding.' + +'Gracious mercy!' says Goldmore to me, quite confidentially, 'how could +he ask us? I really had no idea of this--this utter destitution.' + +'Dinner, dinner!' roars out Gray, from the diningroom, whence issued a +great smoking and frying; and entering that apartment we find Mrs. Gray +ready to receive us, and looking perfectly like a Princess who, by +some accident, had a bowl of potatoes in her hand, which vegetables she +placed on the table. Her husband 'was meanwhile cooking mutton-chops on +a gridiron over the fire. + +Fanny has made the roly-poly pudding,' says he; the chops are my part. +Here's a fine one; try this, Goldmore.' And he popped a fizzing cutlet +on that gentleman's plate. What words, what notes of exclamation can +describe the nabob's astonishment? + +The tablecloth was a very old one, darned in a score places. There was +mustard in a teacup, a silver fork for Goldmore--all ours were iron. + +'I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth,' says Gray, gravely. +'That fork is the only one we have. Fanny has it generally.' + +'Raymond!'--cries Mrs. Gray, with an imploring face. 'She was used to +better things, you know: and I hope one day to get her a dinner-service. +I'm told the electro-plate is uncommonly good. Where the deuce IS +that boy with the beer? And now,' said he, springing up, 'I'll be a +gentleman.' And so he put on his coat, and sat down quite gravely, with +four fresh mutton-chops which he had by this time broiled. + +'We don't have meat every day, Mr. Goldmore,' he continued, 'and it's a +treat to me to get a dinner like this. You little know, you gentlemen of +England, who live at home at ease, what hardships briefless barristers +endure.' + +'Gracious mercy!' says Mr. Goldmore. + +'Where's the half-and-half? Fanny, go over to the 'Keys' and get the +beer. Here's sixpence.' And what was our astonishment when Fanny got up +as if to go! + +'Gracious mercy! let ME,' cries Goldmore. + +'Not for worlds, my dear sir. She's used to it. They wouldn't serve +you as well as they serve her. Leave her alone. Law bless you!' Raymond +said, with astounding composure. And Mrs. Gray left the room, and +actually came back with a tray on which there was a pewter flagon of +beer. Little Polly (to whom, at her christening, I had the honour +of presenting a silver mug EX OFFICIO) followed with a couple of +tobacco-pipes, and the queerest roguish look in her round little chubby +face. + +'Did you speak to Tapling about the gin, Fanny, my dear?' Gray asked, +after bidding Polly put the pipes on the chimney-piece, which that +little person had some difficulty in reaching. 'The last was turpentine, +and even your brewing didn't make good punch of it.' + +'You would hardly suspect, Goldmore, that my wife, a Harley Baker, would +ever make gin-punch? I think my mother-in-law would commit suicide if +she saw her.' + +'Don't be always laughing at mamma, Raymond,' says Mrs. Gray. + +'Well, well, she wouldn't die, and I DON'T wish she would. And you don't +make gin-punch, and you don't like it either and--Goldmore do you drink +your beer out of the glass, or out of the pewter?' + +'Gracious mercy!' ejaculates Croesus once more, as little Polly, taking +the pot with both her little bunches of hands, offers it, smiling, to +that astonished Director. + +And so, in a word, the dinner commenced, and was presently ended in a +similar fashion. Gray pursued his unfortunate guest with the most queer +and outrageous description of his struggles, misery, and poverty. He +described how he cleaned the knives when they were first married; and +how he used to drag the children in a little cart; how his wife could +toss pancakes; and what parts of his dress she made. He told Tibbits, +his clerk (who was in fact the functionary who had brought the beer from +the public-house, which Mrs. Fanny had fetched from the neighbouring +apartment)--to fetch 'the bottle of port-wine,' when the dinner was +over; and told Goldmore as wonderful a history about the way in which +that bottle of wine had come into his hands as any of his former stories +had been. When the repast was all over, and it was near time to move +to the play, and Mrs. Gray had retired, and we were sitting ruminating +rather silently over the last glasses of the port, Gray suddenly breaks +the silence by slapping Goldmore on the shoulder, and saying, 'Now, +Goldmore, tell me something.' + +'What?' asks Croesus. + +'Haven't you had a good dinner?' + +Goldmore started, as if a sudden truth had just dawned upon him. He HAD +had a good dinner; and didn't know it until then. The three mutton-chops +consumed by him were best of the mutton kind; the potatoes were perfect +of their order; as for the rolypoly, it was too good. The porter was +frothy and cool, and the port-wine was worthy of the gills of a bishop. +I speak with ulterior views; for there is more in Gray's cellar. + +'Well,' says Goldmore, after a pause, during which he took time to +consider the momentous question Gray put to him--' 'Pon my word--now +you say so--I--I have--I really have had a monsous good dinnah--monsous +good, upon my ward! Here's your health, Gray my boy, and your amiable +lady; and when Mrs. Goldmore comes back, I hope we shall see you more in +Portland Place.' And with this the time came for the play, and we went +to see Mr. Phelps at Sadler's Wells. The best of this story (for the +truth of every word of which I pledge my honour) is, that after this +banquet, which Goldmore enjoyed so, the honest fellow felt a prodigious +compassion and regard for the starving and miserable giver of the feast, +and determined to help him in his profession. And being a Director of +the newly-established Antibilious Life Assurance Company, he has had +Gray appointed Standing Counsel, with a pretty annual fee; and +only yesterday, in an appeal from Bombay (Buckmuckjee Bobbachee v. +Ramchowder-Bahawder) in the Privy Council, Lord Brougham complimented +Mr. Gray, who was in the case, on his curious and exact knowledge of the +Sanscrit language. + +Whether he knows Sanscrit or not, I can't say; but Goldmore got him the +business; and so I cannot help having a lurking regard for that pompous +old Bigwig. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI--SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +'We Bachelors in Clubs are very much obliged to you,' says my old school +and college companion, Essex Temple, 'for the opinion which you hold of +us. You call us selfish, purple-faced, bloated, and other pretty names. +You state, in the simplest possible terms, that we shall go to the +deuce. You bid us rot in loneliness, and deny us all claims to honesty, +conduct, decent Christian life. Who are you, Mr. Snob, to judge us. Who +are you, with your infernal benevolent smirk and grin, that laugh at all +our generation? + +'I will tell you my case,' says Essex Temple; 'mine and my sister +Polly's, and you may make what you like of it; and sneer at old maids, +and bully old bachelors, if you will. + +'I will whisper to you confidentially that my sister was engaged to +Serjeant Shirker--a fellow whose talents one cannot deny, and be hanged +to them, but whom I have always known to be mean, selfish, and a prig. +However, women don't see these faults in the men whom Love throws in +their way. Shirker, who has about as much warmth as an eel, made up to +Polly years and years ago, and was no bad match for a briefless +barrister, as he was then. + +Have you ever read Lord Eldon's Life? Do you remember how the sordid old +Snob narrates his going out to purchase twopence-worth of sprats, which +he and Mrs. Scott fried between them? And how he parades his humility, +and exhibits his miserable poverty--he who, at that time, must have been +making a thousand pounds a year? Well, Shirker was just as proud of his +prudence--just as thankful for his own meanness, and of course would not +marry without a competency. Who so honourable? Polly waited, and waited +faintly, from year to year. HE wasn't sick at heart; HIS passion never +disturbed his six hours' sleep, or kept his ambition out of mind. He +would rather have hugged an attorney any day than have kissed Polly, +though she was one of the prettiest creatures in the world; and while +she was pining alone upstairs, reading over the stock of half-a-dozen +frigid letters that the confounded prig had condescended to write +to her, HE, be sure, was never busy with anything but his briefs in +chambers--always frigid, rigid, self-satisfied, and at his duty. The +marriage trailed on year after year, while Mr. Serjeant Shirker grew to +be the famous lawyer he is. + +'Meanwhile, my younger brother, Pump Temple, who was in the 120th +Hussars, and had the same little patrimony which fell to the lot of +myself and Polly, must fall in love with our cousin, Fanny Figtree, and +marry her out of hand. You should have seen the wedding! Six +bridesmaids in pink, to hold the fan, bouquet, gloves, scent-bottle, +and pocket-handkerchief of the bride; basketfuls of white favours in +the vestry, to be pinned on to the footmen and horses; a genteel +congregation of curious acquaintance in the pews, a shabby one of poor +on the steps; all the carriages of all our acquaintance, whom Aunt +Figtree had levied for the occasion; and of course four horses for Mr. +Pump's bridal vehicle. + +'Then comes the breakfast, or DEJEUNER, if you please, with a brass band +in the street, and policemen to keep order. The happy bridegroom +spends about a year's income in dresses for the bridesmaids and +pretty presents; and the bride must have a TROUSSEAU of laces, satins, +jewel-boxes and tomfoolery, to make her fit to be a lieutenant's wife. +There was no hesitation about Pump. He flung about his money as if it +had been dross; and Mrs. P. Temple, on the horse Tom Tiddler, which her +husband gave her, was the most dashing of military women at Brighton or +Dublin. + +How old Mrs. Figtree used to bore me and Polly with stories of Pump's +grandeur and the noble company he kept! Polly lives with the Figtrees, +as I am not rich enough to keep a home for her. + +'Pump and I have always been rather distant. Not having the slightest +notions about horseflesh, he has a natural contempt for me; and in our +mother's lifetime, when the good old lady was always paying his debts +and petting him, I'm not sure there was not a little jealousy. It used +to be Polly that kept the peace between us. + +'She went to Dublin to visit Pump, and brought back grand accounts +of his doings--gayest man about town--Aide-de-Camp to the +Lord-Lieutenant--Fanny admired everywhere--Her Excellency godmother to +the second boy: the eldest with a string of aristocratic Christian-names +that made the grandmother wild with delight. Presently Fanny and Pump +obligingly came to London, where the third was born. + +'Polly was godmother to this, and who so loving as she and Pump now? +"Oh, Essex," says she to me, "he is so good, so generous, so fond of his +family; so handsome; who can help loving him, and pardoning his little +errors?" One day, while Mrs. Pump was yet in the upper regions, and +Doctor Fingerfee's brougham at her door every day, having business at +Guildhall, whom should I meet in Cheapside but Pump and Polly? The poor +girl looked more happy and rosy than I have seen her these twelve years. +Pump, on the contrary, was rather blushing and embarrassed. + +'I couldn't be mistaken in her face and its look of mischief and +triumph. She had been committing some act of sacrifice. I went to the +family stockbroker. She had sold out two thousand pounds that morning +and given them to Pump. Quarrelling was useless--Pump had the money; he +was off to Dublin by the time I reached his mother's, and Polly radiant +still. He was going to make his fortune; he was going to embark the +money in the Bog of Allen--I don't know what. The fact is, he was going +to pay his losses upon the last Manchester steeple-chase, and I leave +you to imagine how much principal or interest poor Polly ever saw back +again. + +'It was more than half her fortune, and he has had another thousand +since from her. Then came efforts to stave off ruin and prevent +exposure; struggles on all our parts, and sacrifices, that' (here Mr. +Essex Temple began to hesitate)--'that needn't be talked of; but they +are of no more use than such sacrifices ever are. Pump and his wife are +abroad--I don't like to ask where; Polly has the three children, and Mr. +Serjeant Shirker has formally written to break off an engagement, on the +conclusion of which Miss Temple must herself have speculated, when she +alienated the greater part of her fortune. + +'And here's your famous theory of poor marriages!' Essex Temple cries, +concluding the above history. 'How do you know that I don't want to +marry myself? How do you dare sneer at my poor sister? What are we +but martyrs of the reckless marriage system which Mr. Snob, forsooth, +chooses to advocate?' And he thought he had the better of the argument, +which, strange to say, is not my opinion. + +But for the infernal Snob-worship, might not every one of these people +be happy? If poor Polly's happiness lay in linking her tender arms round +such a heartless prig as the sneak who has deceived her, she might have +been happy now--as happy as Raymond Raymond in the ballad, with the +stone statue by his side. She is wretched because Mr. Serjeant Shirker +worships money and ambition, and is a Snob and a coward. + +If the unfortunate Pump Temple and his giddy hussy of a wife have ruined +themselves, and dragged down others into their calamity, it is because +they loved rank, and horses, and plate, and carriages, and COURT GUIDES, +and millinery, and would sacrifice all to attain those objects. + +And who misguides them? If the world were more simple, would not those +foolish people follow the fashion? Does not the world love COURT +GUIDES, and millinery, and plate, and carriages? Mercy on us! Read the +fashionable intelligence; read the COURT CIRCULAR; read the genteel +novels; survey mankind, from Pimlico to Red Lion Square, and see how the +Poor Snob is aping the Rich Snob; how the Mean Snob is grovelling at the +feet of the Proud Snob; and the Great Snob is lording it over his humble +brother. Does the idea of equality ever enter Dives' head? Will it ever? +Will the Duchess of Fitzbattleaxe (I like a good name) ever believe that +Lady Croesus, her next-door neighbour in Belgrave Square, is as good a +lady as her Grace? Will Lady Croesus ever leave off pining the Duchess's +parties, and cease patronizing Mrs. Broadcloth whose husband has not got +his Baronetcy yet? Will Mrs. Broadcloth ever heartily shake hands with +Mrs. Seedy, and give up those odious calculations about poor dear Mrs. +Seedy's income? Will Mrs. Seedy who is starving in her great house, go +and live comfortably in a little one, or in lodgings? Will her landlady, +Miss Letsam, ever stop wondering at the familiarity of tradespeople, or +rebuking the insolence of Suky, the maid, who wears flowers under her +bonnet like a lady? + +But why hope, why wish for such times? Do I wish all Snobs to perish? Do +I wish these Snob papers to determine? Suicidal fool, art not thou, too, +a Snob and a brother? + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII--CLUB SNOBS + +As I wish to be particularly agreeable to the ladies (to whom I make my +most humble obeisance), we will now, if you please, commence maligning +a class of Snobs against whom, I believe, most female minds are +embittered--I mean Club Snobs. I have very seldom heard even the most +gentle and placable woman speak without a little feeling of bitterness +against those social institutions, those palaces swaggering in St. +James's, which are open to the men; while the ladies have but their +dingy three-windowed brick boxes in Belgravia or in Paddingtonia, or in +the region between the road of Edgware and that of Gray's Inn. + +In my grandfather's time it used to be Freemasonry that roused their +anger. It was my grand-aunt (whose portrait we still have in the family) +who got into the clock-case at the Royal Rosicrucian Lodge at Bungay, +Suffolk, to spy the proceedings of the Society, of which her husband +was a member, and being frightened by the sudden whirring and striking +eleven of the clock (just as the Deputy-Grand-Master was bringing in the +mystic gridiron for the reception of a neophyte), rushed out into the +midst of the lodge assembled; and was elected, by a desperate unanimity, +Deputy-Grand-Mistress for life. Though that admirable and courageous +female never subsequently breathed a word with regard to the secrets +of the initiation, yet she inspired all our family with such a terror +regarding the mysteries of Jachin and Boaz, that none of our family have +ever since joined the Society, or worn the dreadful Masonic insignia. + +It is known that Orpheus was torn to pieces by some justly indignant +Thracian ladies for belonging to an Harmonic Lodge. 'Let him go back +to Eurydice,' they said, 'whom he is pretending to regret so.' But the +history is given in Dr. Lempriere's elegant dictionary in a manner much +more forcible than any this feeble pen can attempt. At once, then, and +without verbiage, let us take up this subject-matter of Clubs. + +Clubs ought not, in my mind, to be permitted to bachelors. If my friend +of the Cuttykilts had not our club, the 'Union Jack,' to go to (I belong +to the 'U.J. and nine other similar institutions), who knows but he +never would be a bachelor at this present moment? Instead of being made +comfortable, and cockered up with every luxury, as they are at Clubs, +bachelors ought to be rendered profoundly miserable, in my opinion. +Every encouragement should be given to the rendering their spare time +disagreeable. There can be no more odious object, according to my +sentiments, than young Smith in the pride of health, commanding his +dinner of three courses; than middle-aged Jones wallowing (as I may +say) in an easy padded arm-chair, over the delicious novel or brilliant +magazine; or than old Brown, that selfish old reprobate for whom mere +literature has no charms, stretched on the best sofa, sitting on the +second edition of THE TIMES, having the MORNING CHRONICLE between his +knees, the HERALD pushed in between his coat and waistcoat, the STANDARD +under his arm, the GLOBE under the other pinion, and the DAILY NEWS +in perusal. 'I'll trouble you for PUNCH, Mr. Wiggins' says the +unconscionable old gormandiser, interrupting our friend, who is laughing +over the periodical in question. + +This kind of selfishness ought not to be. No, no. Young Smith, instead +of his dinner and his wine, ought to be, where?--at the festive +tea-table, to be sure, by the side of Miss Higgs, sipping the bohea, or +tasting the harmless muffin; while old Mrs. Higgs looks on, pleased at +their innocent dalliance, and my friend Miss Wirt, the governess, is +performing Thalberg's last sonata in treble X., totally unheeded, at the +piano. + +Where should the middle-aged Jones be? At his time of life, he ought +to be the father of a family. At such an hour--say, at nine o'clock at +night--the nursery-bell should have just rung the children to bed. He +and Mrs. J. ought to be, by rights, seated on each side of the fire by +the dining-room table, a bottle of port-wine between them, not so full +as it was an hour since. Mrs. J. has had two glasses; Mrs. Grumble +(Jones's mother-in-law) has had three; Jones himself has finished the +rest, and dozes comfortably until bed-time. + +And Brown, that old newspaper-devouring miscreant, what right has HE at +a club at a decent hour of night? He ought to be playing his rubber with +Miss MacWhirter, his wife, and the family apothecary. His candle ought +to be brought to him at ten o'clock, and he should retire to rest just +as the young people were thinking of a dance. How much finer, simpler, +nobler are the several employments I have sketched out for these +gentlemen than their present nightly orgies at the horrid Club. + +And, ladies, think of men who do not merely frequent the dining-room and +library, but who use other apartments of those horrible dens which it +is my purpose to batter down; think of Cannon, the wretch, with his coat +off, at his age and size, clattering the balls over the billiard-table +all night, and making bets with that odious Captain Spot!--think of +Pam in a dark room with Bob Trumper, Jack Deuceace, and Charley Vole, +playing, the poor dear misguided wretch, guinea points and five pounds +on the rubber!--above all, think--oh, think of that den of abomination, +which, I am told, has been established in SOME clubs, called THE +SMOKING-ROOM,--think of the debauchees who congregate there, the +quantities of reeking whisky-punch or more dangerous sherry-cobbler +which they consume;--think of them coming home at cock-crow and letting +themselves into the quiet house with the Chubb key;--think of them, the +hypocrites, taking off their insidious boots before they slink upstairs, +the children sleeping overhead, the wife of their bosom alone with +the waning rushlight in the two-pair front--that chamber so soon to +be rendered hateful by the smell of their stale cigars: I am not an +advocate of violence; I am not, by nature, of an incendiary turn of +mind: but if, my dear ladies, you are for assassinating Mr. Chubb and +burning down Club-houses in St. James's, there is ONE Snob at who will +not think the worse of you. + +The only men who, as I opine, ought to be allowed the use of Clubs, are +married men without a profession. The continual presence of these in a +house cannot be thought, even by the most loving of wives, desirable. +Say the girls are beginning to practise their music, which in an +honourable English family, ought to occupy every young gentlewoman three +hours; it would be rather hard to call upon poor papa to sit in the +drawing-room all that time, and listen to the interminable discords and +shrieks which are elicited from the miserable piano during the above +necessary operation. A man with a good ear, especially, would go mad, if +compelled daily to submit to this horror. + +Or suppose you have a fancy to go to the milliner's, or to Howell and +James's, it is manifest, my dear Madam, that your husband is much better +at the Club during these operations than by your side in the carriage, +or perched in wonder upon one of the stools at Shawl and Gimcrack's, +whilst young counter-dandies are displaying their wares. + +This sort of husbands should be sent out after breakfast, and if not +Members of Parliament, or Directors of a Railroad, or an Insurance +Company, should be put into their clubs, and told to remain there until +dinner-time. No sight is more agreeable to my truly regulated mind than +to see the noble characters so worthily employed. Whenever I pass by +St. James's Street, having the privilege, like the rest of the world, of +looking in at the windows of 'Blight's,' or 'Foodle's,' or 'Snook's,' +or the great bay at the 'Contemplative Club,' I behold with respectful +appreciation the figures within--the honest rosy old fogies, the mouldy +old dandies, the waist-belts and glossy wigs and tight cravats of those +most vacuous and respectable men. Such men are best there during the +day-time surely. When you part with them, dear ladies, think of the +rapture consequent on their return. You have transacted your household +affairs; you have made your purchases; you have paid your visits; you +have aired your poodle in the Park; your French maid has completed the +toilette which renders you so ravishingly beautiful by candlelight, and +you are fit to make home pleasant to him who has been absent all day. + +Such men surely ought to have their Clubs, and we will not class them +among Club Snobs therefore:--on whom let us reserve our attack for the +next chapter. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII--CLUB SNOBS + +Such a Sensation has been created in the Clubs by the appearance of the +last paper on Club Snobs, as can't but be complimentary to me who am one +of their number. + +I belong to many Clubs. The 'Union Jack,' the 'Sash and +Marlin-spike'--Military Clubs. 'The True Blue,' the 'No Surrender,' +the 'Blue and Buff,' the 'Guy Fawkes,' and the 'Cato Street'--Political +Clubs. 'The Brummel' and the 'Regent'--Dandy Clubs. The 'Acropolis,' the +'Palladium,' the 'Areopagus,' the 'Pnyx' the 'Pentelicus,' the 'Ilissus' +and the 'Poluphloisboio Thalasses'--Literary Clubs. I never could make +out how the latter set of Clubs got their names; I don't know Greek for +one, and I wonder how many other members of those institutions do? Ever +since the Club Snobs have been announced, I observe a sensation created +on my entrance into any one of these places. Members get up and hustle +together; they nod, they scowl, as they glance towards the present Snob. +'Infernal impudent jackanapes! If he shows me up,' says Colonel Bludyer, +'I'll break every bone in his skin.' 'I told you what would come of +admitting literary men into the Club,' says Ranville Ranville to his +colleague, Spooney, of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office. 'These people +are very well in their proper places, and as a public man, I make a +point of shaking hands with them, and that sort of thing; but to have +one's privacy obtruded upon by such people is really too much. Come +along, Spooney,' and the pair of prigs retire superciliously. + +As I came into the coffee-room at the 'No Surrender,' old Jawkins was +holding out to a knot of men, who were yawning, as usual. There he +stood, waving the STANDARD, and swaggering before the fire. 'What,' says +he, 'did I tell Peel last year? If you touch the Corn Laws, you touch +the Sugar Question; if you touch the Sugar, you touch the Tea. I am no +monopolist. I am a liberal man, but I cannot forget that I stand on +the brink of a precipice; and if were to have Free Trade, give me +reciprocity. And what was Sir Robert Peel's answer to me? "Mr. Jawkins," +he said--' + +Here Jawkins's eye suddenly turning on your humble servant, he stopped +his sentence, with a guilty look--his stale old stupid sentence, which +every one of us at the Club has heard over and over again. + +Jawkins is a most pertinacious Club Snob. Every day he is at +that fireplace, holding that STANDARD, of which he reads up the +leading-article, and pours it out ORE ROTUNDO, with the most astonishing +composure, in the face of his neighbour, who has just read every word +of it in the paper. Jawkins has money, as you may see by the tie of his +neckcloth. He passes the morning swaggering about the City, in bankers' +and brokers parlours, and says:--'I spoke with Peel yesterday, and his +intentions are so and so. Graham and I were talking over the matter, +and I pledge you my word of honour, his opinion coincides with mine; and +that What-d'ye-call-um is the only measure Government will venture on +trying.' By evening-paper time he is at the Club: 'I can tell you the +opinion of the City, my lord,' says he, 'and the way in which Jones Loyd +looks at it is briefly this: Rothschilds told me so themselves. In +Mark Lane, people's minds are QUITE made up.' He is considered rather a +well-informed man. + +He lives in Belgravia, of course; in a drab-coloured genteel house, +and has everything about him that is properly grave, dismal, and +comfortable. His dinners are in the MORNING HERALD, among the parties +for the week; and his wife and daughters make a very handsome appearance +at the Drawing-Room, once a year, when he comes down to the Club in his +Deputy-Lieutenant's uniform. + +He is fond of beginning a speech to you by saying, 'When I was in the +House, I &c.'--in fact he sat for Skittlebury for three weeks in the +first Reformed Parliament, and was unseated for bribery; since which he +has three times unsuccessfully contested that honourable borough. + +Another sort of Political Snob I have seen at most Clubs and that is +the man who does not care so much for home politics, but is great upon +foreign affairs. I think this sort of man is scarcely found anywhere BUT +in Clubs. It is for him the papers provide their foreign articles, +at the expense of some ten thousand a-year each. He is the man who is +really seriously uncomfortable about the designs of Russia, and the +atrocious treachery of Louis Philippe. He it is who expects a French +fleet in the Thames, and has a constant eye upon the American President, +every word of whose speech (goodness help him!) he reads. He knows the +names of the contending leaders in Portugal, and what they are fighting +about: and it is he who says that Lord Aberdeen ought to be impeached, +and Lord Palmerston hanged, or VICE VERSA. + +Lord Palmerston's being sold to Russia, the exact number of roubles +paid, by what house in the City, is a favourite theme with this kind of +Snob. I once overheard him--it was Captain Spitfire, R.N., (who had been +refused a ship by the Whigs, by the way)--indulging in the following +conversation with Mr. Minns after dinner. + +Why wasn't the Princess Scragamoffsky at Lady Palmerston's party, Minns? +Because SHE CAN'T SHOW--why can't she show? Shall I tell you, Minns, +why she can't show? The Princess Scragainoffsky's back is flayed alive, +Minns--I tell you it's raw, sir! On Tuesday last, at twelve o'clock, +three drummers of the Preobajinski Regiment arrived at Ashburnham House, +and at half-past twelve, in the yellow drawing-room at the Russian +Embassy, before the ambassadress and four ladies'-maids, the Greek Papa, +and the Secretary of Embassy, Madame de Scragamoffsky received thirteen +dozen. She was knouted, sir, knouted in the midst of England--in +Berkeley Square, for having said that the Grand Duchess Olga's hair was +red. And now, sir, will you tell me Lord Palmerston ought to continue +Minister?' + +Minns: 'Good Ged!' + +Minns follows Spitfire about, and thinks him the greatest and wisest of +human beings. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX--CLUB SNOBS + +Why does not some great author write 'The Mysteries of the Club-houses; +or St. James's Street unveiled?' It would be a fine subject for an +imaginative writer. We must all, as boys, remember when we went to the +fair, and had spent all our money--the sort of awe and anxiety with +which we loitered round the outside of the show, speculating upon the +nature of the entertainment going on within. + +Man is a Drama--of Wonder and Passion, and Mystery and Meanness, and +Beauty and Truthfulness, and Etcetera. Each Bosom is a Booth in Vanity +Fair. But let us stop this capital style, I should die if I kept it +up for a column (a pretty thing a column all capitals would be, by the +way). In a Club, though there mayn't be a soul of your acquaintance +in the room, you have always the chance of watching strangers, and +speculating on what is going on within those tents and curtains of their +souls, their coats and waistcoats. This is a never-failing sport. Indeed +I am told there are some Clubs in the town where nobody ever speaks to +anybody. They sit in the coffee-room, quite silent, and watching each +other. + +Yet how little you can tell from a man's outward demeanour! There's a +man at our Club--large, heavy, middle-aged--gorgeously dressed--rather +bald--with lacquered boots--and a boa when he goes out; quiet in +demeanour, always ordering and consuming a RECHERCHE little dinner: whom +I have mistaken for Sir John Pocklington any time these five years, and +respected as a man with five hundred pounds PER DIEM; and I find he +is but a clerk in an office in the City, with not two hundred pounds +income, and his name is Jubber. Sir John Pocklington was, on the +contrary, the dirty little snuffy man who cried out so about the bad +quality of the beer, and grumbled at being overcharged three-halfpence +for a herring, seated at the next table to Jubber on the day when some +one pointed the Baronet out to me. + +Take a different sort of mystery. I see, for instance, old Fawney +stealing round the rooms of the Club, with glassy, meaningless eyes, +and an endless greasy simper--he fawns on everybody he meets, and +shakes hands with you, and blesses you, and betrays the most tender and +astonishing interest in your welfare. You know him to be a quack and a +rogue, and he knows you know it. But he wriggles on his way, and leaves +a track of slimy flattery after him wherever he goes. Who can penetrate +that man's mystery? What earthly good can he get from you or me? You +don't know what is working under that leering tranquil mask. You have +only the dim instinctive repulsion that warns you, you are in the +presence of a knave--beyond which fact all Fawney's soul is a secret to +you. + +I think I like to speculate on the young men best. Their play is opener. +You know the cards in their hand, as it were. Take, for example, Messrs. +Spavin and Cockspur. + +A specimen or two of the above sort of young fellows may be found, I +believe, at most Clubs. They know nobody. They bring a fine smell of +cigars into the room with them, and they growl together, in a corner, +about sporting matters. They recollect the history of that short period +in which they have been ornaments of the world by the names of winning +horses. As political men talk about 'the Reform year,' 'the year the +Whigs went out,' and so forth, these young sporting bucks speak of +TARNATION'S year, or OPODELDOC'S year, or the year when CATAWAMPUS ran +second for the Chester Cup. They play at billiards in the morning, +they absorb pale ale for breakfast, and 'top up' with glasses of strong +waters. They read BELL'S LIFE (and a very pleasant paper too, with a +great deal of erudition in the answers to correspondents). They go down +to Tattersall's, and swagger in the Park, with their hands plunged in +the pockets of their paletots. + +What strikes me especially in the outward demeanour of sporting youth +is their amazing gravity, their conciseness of speech, and careworn and +moody air. In the smoking-room at the 'Regent,' when Joe Millerson +will be setting the whole room in a roar with laughter, you hear young +Messrs. Spavin and Cockspur grumbling together in a corner. 'I'll take +your five-and-twenty to one about Brother to Bluenose,' whispers Spavin. +'Can't do it at the price,' Cockspur says, wagging his head ominously. +The betting-book is always present in the minds of those unfortunate +youngsters. I think I hate that work even more than the 'Peerage.' There +is some good in the latter--though, generally speaking, a vain record: +though De Mogyns is not descended from the giant Hogyn Mogyn; though +half the other genealogies are equally false and foolish; yet the +mottoes are good reading--some of them; and the book itself a sort of +gold-laced and livened lackey to History, and in so far serviceable. But +what good ever came out of, or went into, a betting-book? If I could +be Caliph Omar for a week, I would pitch every one of those despicable +manuscripts into the flames; from my Lord's, who is 'in' with Jack +Snaffle's stable, and is over-reaching worse-informed rogues and +swindling greenhorns, down to Sam's, the butcher-boy's, who books +eighteenpenny odds in the tap-room, and 'stands to win five-and-twenty +bob.' + +In a turf transaction, either Spavin or Cockspur would try to get the +better of his father, and, to gain a point in the odds, victimise his +best friends. One day we shall hear of one or other levanting; an +event at which, not being sporting men, we shall not break our hearts. +See--Mr. Spavin is settling his toilette previous to departure; giving a +curl in the glass to his side-wisps of hair. Look at him! It is only +at the hulks, or among turf-men, that you ever see a face so mean, so +knowing, and so gloomy. + +A much more humane being among the youthful Clubbists is the +Lady-killing Snob. I saw Wiggle just now in the dressing-room, talking +to Waggle, his inseparable. + +WAGGLE.--'Pon my honour, Wiggle, she did.' + +WIGGLE.--'Well, Waggle, as you say--I own I think she DID look at me +rather kindly. We'll see to-night at the French play.' + +And having arrayed their little persons, these two harmless young bucks +go upstairs to dinner. + + + +CHAPTER XL--CLUB SNOBS + +Both sorts of young men, mentioned in my last under the flippant names +of Wiggle and Waggle, may be found in tolerable plenty, I think, in +Clubs. Wiggle and Waggle are both idle. They come of the middle classes. +One of them very likely makes believe to be a barrister, and the other +has smart apartments about Piccadilly. They are a sort of second-chop +dandies; they cannot imitate that superb listlessness of demeanour, and +that admirable vacuous folly which distinguish the noble and high-born +chiefs of the race; but they lead lives almost as bad (were it but for +the example), and are personally quite as useless. I am not going to +arm a thunderbolt, and launch it at the beads of these little Pall +Mall butterflies. They don't commit much public harm, or private +extravagance. They don't spend a thousand pounds for diamond earrings +for an Opera-dancer, as Lord Tarquin can: neither of them ever set up a +public-house or broke the bank of a gambling-club, like the young Earl +of Martingale. They have good points, kind feelings, and deal honourably +in money-transactions--only in their characters of men of second-rate +pleasure about town, they and their like are so utterly mean, +self-contented, and absurd, that they must not be omitted in a work +treating on Snobs. + +Wiggle has been abroad, where he gives you to understand that his +success among the German countesses and Italian princesses, whom he met +at the TABLES-D'HOTE, was perfectly terrific. His rooms are hung round +with pictures of actresses and ballet-dancers. He passes his mornings +in a fine dressing-gown, burning pastilles, and reading 'Don Juan' and +French novels (by the way, the life of the author of 'Don Juan,' as +described by himself, was the model of the life of a Snob). He has +twopenny-halfpenny French prints of women with languishing eyes, dressed +in dominoes,--guitars, gondolas, and so forth,--and tells you stories +about them. + +'It's a bad print,' says he, 'I know, but I've a reason for liking it. +It reminds me of somebody--somebody I knew in other climes. You have +heard of the Principessa di Monte Pulciano? I met her at Rimini. Dear, +dear Francesca! That fair-haired, bright-eyed thing in the Bird of +Paradise and the Turkish Simar with the love-bird on her finger, I'm +sure must have been taken from--from somebody perhaps whom you don't +know--but she's known at Munich, Waggle my boy,--everybody knows the +Countess Ottilia de Eulenschreckenstein. Gad, sir, what a beautiful +creature she was when I danced with her on the birthday of Prince Attila +of Bavaria, in '44. Prince Carloman was our vis-a-vis, and Prince +Pepin danced the same CONTREDANSE. She had a Polyanthus in her bouquet. +Waggle, I HAVE IT NOW.' His countenance assumes an agonized and +mysterious expression, and he buries his head in the sofa cushions, as +if plunging into a whirlpool of passionate recollections. + +Last year he made a considerable sensation by having on his table a +morocco miniature-case locked by a gold key, which he always wore round +his neck, and on which was stamped a serpent--emblem of eternity--with +the letter M in the circle. Sometimes he laid this upon his little +morocco writing-table, as if it were on an altar--generally he had +flowers upon it; in the middle of a conversation he would start up and +kiss it. He would call out from his bed-room to his valet, 'Hicks, bring +me my casket!' + +'I don't know who it is,' Waggle would say. 'Who DOES know that fellow's +intrigues! Desborough Wiggle, sir, is the slave of passion. I suppose +you have heard the story of the Italian princess locked up in the +Convent of Saint Barbara, at Rimini? He hasn't told you? Then I'm not +at liberty to speak. Or the countess, about whom he nearly had the duel +with Prince Witikind of Bavaria? Perhaps you haven't even heard about +that beautiful girl at Pentonville, daughter of a most respectable +Dissenting clergyman. She broke her heart when she found he was engaged +(to a most lovely creature of high family, who afterwards proved false +to him), and she's now in Hanwell.' + +Waggle's belief in his friend amounts to frantic adoration. 'What a +genius he is, if he would but apply himself!' he whispers to me. 'He +could be anything, sir, but for his passions. His poems are the most +beautiful things you ever saw. He's written a continuation of "Don +Juan," from his own adventures. Did you ever read his lines to Mary? +They're superior to Byron, sir--superior to Byron.' + +I was glad to hear this from so accomplished a critic as Waggle; for +the fact is, I had composed the verses myself for honest Wiggle one +day, whom I found at his chambers plunged in thought over a very dirty +old-fashioned album, in which he had not as yet written a single word. + +'I can't,' says he. 'Sometimes I can write whole cantos, and to-day not +a line. Oh, Snob! such an opportunity! Such a divine creature! She's +asked me to write verses for her album, and I can't.' + +'Is she rich?' said I. 'I thought you would never marry any but an +heiress.' + +'Oh, Snob! she's the most accomplished, highly-connected creature!--and +I can't get out a line.' + +'How will you have it?' says I. 'Hot, with sugar?' + +'Don't, don't! You trample on the most sacred feelings, Snob. I want +something wild and tender,--like Byron. I want to tell her that amongst +the festive balls, and that sort of thing, you know--I only think about +her, you know--that I scorn the world, and am weary of it, you know, +and--something about a gazelle, and a bulbul, you know.' + +'And a yataghan to finish off with,' the present writer observed, and we +began:-- + +'TO MARY + +'I seem, in the midst of the crowd, The lightest of all; My laughter +rings cheery and loud, In banquet and ball. My lip hath its smiles and +its sneers, For all men to see; But my soul, and my truth, and my tears, +Are for thee, are for thee!' + +'Do you call THAT neat, Wiggle?' says I. 'I declare it almost makes me +cry myself.' + +'Now suppose,' says Wiggle, 'we say that all the world is at my +feet--make her jealous, you know, and that sort of thing--and that--that +I'm going to TRAVEL, you know? That perhaps may work upon her feelings.' + +So WE (as this wretched prig said) began again:-- + +'Around me they flatter and fawn--The young and the old, The fairest are +ready to pawn Their hearts for my gold. They sue me--I laugh as I spurn +The slaves at my knee, But in faith and in fondness I turn Unto thee, +unto thee!' + +'Now for the travelling, Wiggle my boy!' And I began, in a voice choked +with emotion-- + +'Away! for my heart knows no rest Since you taught it to feel; The +secret must die in my breast I burn to reveal; The passion I may +not. . . .' + +'I say, Snob!' Wiggle here interrupted the excited bard (just as I was +about to break out into four lines so pathetic that they would drive you +into hysterics). 'I say--ahem--couldn't you say that I was--a--military +man, and that there was some danger of my life?' + +'You a military man?--danger of your life? What the deuce do you mean?' + +'Why,' said Wiggle, blushing a great deal, 'I told her I was going +out--on--the--Ecuador--expedition.' + +'You abominable young impostor,' I exclaimed. 'Finish the poem for +yourself!' And so he did, and entirely out of all metre, and bragged +about the work at the Club as his own performance. + +Poor Waggle fully believed in his friend's genius, until one day last +week he came with a grin on his countenance to the Club, and said, 'Oh, +Snob, I've made SUCH a discovery! Going down to the skating to-day, whom +should I see but Wiggle walking with that splendid woman--that lady of +illustrious family and immense fortune, Mary, you know, whom he wrote +the beautiful verses about. She's five-and-forty. She's red hair. She's +a nose like a pump-handle. Her father made his fortune by keeping a +ham-and-beef shop, and Wiggle's going to marry her next week.' + +'So much the better, Waggle, my young friend,' I exclaimed. 'Better +for the sake of womankind that this dangerous dog should leave off +lady-killing--this Blue-Beard give up practice. Or, better rather +for his own sake. For as there is not a word of truth in any of those +prodigious love-stories which you used to swallow, nobody has been +hurt except Wiggle himself, whose affections will now centre in the +ham-and-beef shop. There ARE people, Mr. Waggle, who do these things +in earnest, and hold a good rank in the world too. But these are not +subjects for ridicule, and though certainly Snobs, are scoundrels +likewise. Their cases go up to a higher Court.' + + + +CHAPTER XLI--CLUB SNOBS + +Bacchus is the divinity to whom Waggle devotes his especial worship. +'Give me wine, my boy,' says he to his friend Wiggle, who is prating +about lovely woman; and holds up his glass full of the rosy fluid, and +winks at it portentously, and sips it, and smacks his lips after it, and +meditates on it, as if he were the greatest of connoisseurs. + +I have remarked this excessive wine-amateurship especially in youth. +Snoblings from college, Fledglings from the army, Goslings from the +public schools, who ornament our Clubs, are frequently to be heard in +great force upon wine questions. 'This bottle's corked,' says Snobling; +and Mr. Sly, the butler, taking it away, returns presently with the same +wine in another jug, which the young amateur pronounces excellent. 'Hang +champagne!' says Fledgling, 'it's only fit for gals and children. +Give me pale sherry at dinner, and my twenty-three claret afterwards.' +'What's port now?' says Gosling; 'disgusting thick sweet stuff--where's +the old dry wine one USED to get?' Until the last twelvemonth, Fledgling +drank small-beer at Doctor Swishtail's; and Gosling used to get his dry +old port at a gin-shop in Westminster--till he quitted that seminary, in +1844. + +Anybody who has looked at the caricatures of thirty years ago, +must remember how frequently bottle-noses, pimpled faces, and other +Bardolphian features are introduced by the designer. They are much more +rare now (in nature, and in pictures, therefore,) than in those good old +times; but there are still to be found amongst the youth of our Clubs +lads who glory in drinking-bouts, and whose faces, quite sickly and +yellow, for the most part are decorated with those marks which Rowland's +Kalydor is said to efface. 'I was SO cut last night--old boy!' Hopkins +says to Tomkins (with amiable confidence). 'I tell you what we did. We +breakfasted with Jack Herring at twelve, and kept up with brandy and +soda-water and weeds till four; then we toddled into the Park for an +hour; then we dined and drank mulled port till half-price; then we +looked in for an hour at the Haymarket; then we came back to the Club, +and had grills and whisky punch till all was blue--Hullo, waiter! Get me +a glass of cherry-brandy.' Club waiters, the civilest, the kindest, the +patientest of men, die under the infliction of these cruel young topers. +But if the reader wishes to see a perfect picture on the stage of this +class of young fellows, I would recommend him to witness the ingenious +comedy of LONDON ASSURANCE--the amiable heroes of which are represented, +not only as drunkards and five-o'clock-in-the-morning men, but as +showing a hundred other delightful traits of swindling, lying, and +general debauchery, quite edifying to witness. + +How different is the conduct of these outrageous youths to the decent +behaviour of my friend, Mr. Papworthy; who says to Poppins, the butler +at the Club:-- + +PAPWORTHY.--'Poppins, I'm thinking of dining early; is there any cold +game in the house?' + +POPPINS.--'There's a game pie, sir; there's cold grouse, sir; there's +cold pheasant, sir; there's cold peacock, sir; cold swan, sir; cold +ostrich, sir,' &c. &c. (as the case may be). + +PAPWORTHY.--'Hem! What's your best claret now, Poppins?--in pints, I +mean.' + +POPPINS.--'There's Cooper and Magnum's Lafitte, sir: there's Lath and +Sawdust's St. Julien, sir; Bung's Leoville is considered remarkably +fine; and I think you'd like Jugger's Chateau-Margaux.' + +PAPWORTHY.--'Hum!--hah!--well--give me a crust of bread and a glass of +beer. I'll only LUNCH, Poppins. + +Captain Shindy is another sort of Club bore. He has been known to throw +all the Club in an uproar about the quality of his mutton-chop. + +'Look at it, sir! Is it cooked, sir? Smell it, sir! Is it meat fit for +a gentleman?' he roars out to the steward, who stands trembling before +him, and who in vain tells him that the Bishop of Bullocksmithy has just +had three from the same loin. All the waiters in the Club are huddled +round the captain's mutton-chop. He roars out the most horrible curses +at John for not bringing the pickles; he utters the most dreadful +oaths because Thomas has not arrived with the Harvey Sauce; Peter comes +tumbling with the water-jug over Jeames, who is bringing 'the glittering +canisters with bread.' Whenever Shindy enters the room (such is the +force of character), every table is deserted, every gentleman must dine +as he best may, and all those big footmen are in terror. + +He makes his account of it. He scolds, and is better waited upon in +consequence. At the Club he has ten servants scudding about to do his +bidding. + +Poor Mrs. Shindy and the children are, meanwhile, in dingy lodgings +somewhere, waited upon by a charity-girl in pattens. + + + +CHAPTER XLII--CLUB SNOBS + +Every well-bred English female will sympathize with the subject of +the harrowing tale, the history of Sackville Maine, I am now about to +recount. The pleasures of Clubs have been spoken of: let us now glance +for a moment at the dangers of those institutions, and for this purpose +I must introduce you to my young acquaintance, Sackville Maine. + +It was at a ball at the house of my respected friend, Mrs. Perkins, that +I was introduced to this gentleman and his charming lady. Seeing a young +creature before me in a white dress, with white satin shoes; with a pink +ribbon, about a yard in breadth, flaming out as she twirled in a polka +in the arms of Monsieur de Springbock, the German diplomatist; with a +green wreath on her head, and the blackest hair this individual set eyes +on--seeing, I say, before me a charming young woman whisking beautifully +in a beautiful dance, and presenting, as she wound and wound round the +room, now a full face, then a three-quarter face, then a profile--a +face, in fine, which in every way you saw it, looked pretty, and rosy, +and happy, I felt (as I trust) a not unbecoming curiosity regarding the +owner of this pleasant countenance, and asked Wagley (who was standing +by, in conversation with an acquaintance) who was the lady in question? + +'Which?' says Wagley. + +'That one with the coal-black eyes,' I replied. + +'Hush!' says he; and the gentleman with whom he was talking moved off, +with rather a discomfited air. + +When he was gone Wagley burst out laughing. 'COAL-BLACK eyes!' said +he; 'you've just hit it. That's Mrs. Sackville Maine, and that was her +husband who just went away. He's a coal-merchant, Snob my boy, and I +have no doubt Mr. Perkins's Wallsends are supplied from his wharf. He is +in a flaming furnace when he hears coals mentioned. He and his wife and +his mother are very proud of Mrs. Sackville's family; she was a Miss +Chuff, daughter of Captain Chuff, R.N. That is the widow; that stout +woman in crimson tabinet, battling about the odd trick with old Mr. +Dumps, at the card-table.' + +And so, in fact, it was. Sackville Maine (whose name is a hundred times +more elegant, surely, than that of Chuff) was blest with a pretty wife, +and a genteel mother-in-law, both of whom some people may envy him. + +Soon after his marriage the old lady was good enough to come and pay him +a visit--just for a fortnight--at his pretty little cottage, Kennington +Oval; and, such is her affection for the place, has never quitted it +these four years. She has also brought her son, Nelson Collingwood +Chuff, to live with her; but he is not so much at home as his mamma, +going as a day-boy to Merchant Taylors' School, where he is getting a +sound classical education. + +If these beings, so closely allied to his wife, and so justly dear to +her, may be considered as drawbacks to Maine's happiness, what man is +there that has not some things in life to complain of? And when I first +knew Mr. Maine, no man seemed more comfortable than he. His cottage was +a picture of elegance and comfort; his table and cellar were excellently +and neatly supplied. There was every enjoyment, but no ostentation. The +omnibus took him to business of a morning; the boat brought him back to +the happiest of homes, where he would while away the long evenings by +reading out the fashionable novels to the ladies as they worked; or +accompany his wife on the flute (which he played elegantly); or in any +one of the hundred pleasing and innocent amusements of the domestic +circle. Mrs. Chuff covered the drawing-rooms with prodigious tapestries, +the work of her hands. Mrs. Sackville had a particular genius for making +covers of tape or network for these tapestried cushions. She could make +home-made wines. She could make preserves and pickles. She had an +album, into which, during the time of his courtship, Sackville Maine bad +written choice scraps of Byron's and Moore's poetry, analogous to his +own situation, and in a fine mercantile hand. She had a large manuscript +receipt-book--every quality, in a word, which indicated a virtuous and +well-bred English female mind. + +'And as for Nelson Collingwood,' Sackville would say, laughing, 'we +couldn't do without him in the house. If he didn't spoil the tapestry we +should be 'over-cushioned in a few months; and whom could we get but him +to drink Laura's home-made wine?' The truth is, the gents who came from +the City to dine at the 'Oval' could not be induced to drink it--in +which fastidiousness, I myself, when I grew to be intimate with the +family, confess that I shared. + +'And yet, sir, that green ginger has been drunk by some of England's +proudest heroes,' Mrs. Chuff would exclaim. 'Admiral Lord Exmouth +tasted and praised it, sir, on board Captain Chuff's ship, the +"Nebuchadnezzar," 74, at Algiers; and he had three dozen with turn +in the "Pitchfork" frigate, a part of which was served out to the men +before he went into his immortal action with the "Furibonde," Captain +Choufleur, in the Gulf of Panama.' + +All this, though the old dowager told us the story every day when the +wine was produced, never served to get rid of any quantity of it--and +the green ginger, though it had fired British tars for combat and +victory, was not to the taste of us peaceful and degenerate gents of +modern times. + +I see Sackville now, as on the occasion when, presented by +Wagley, I paid my first visit to him. It was in July--a Sunday +afternoon--Sackville Maine was coming from church, with his wife on one +arm, and his mother-ill-law (in red tabinet, as usual,) on the other. +A half-grown, or hobbadehoyish footman, so to speak, walked after them, +carrying their shining golden prayer-books--the ladies had splendid +parasols with tags and fringes. Mrs. Chuff's great gold watch, fastened +to her stomach, gleamed there like a ball of fire. Nelson Collingwood +was in the distance, shying stones at an old horse on Kennington Common. +'Twas on that verdant spot we met--nor can I ever forget the majestic +courtesy of Mrs. Chuff, as she remembered having had the pleasure of +seeing me at Mrs. Perkins's--nor the glance of scorn which she threw +at an unfortunate gentleman who was preaching an exceedingly desultory +discourse to a sceptical audience of omnibus-cads and nurse-maids, on a +tub, as we passed by. 'I cannot help it, sir,' says she; 'I am the widow +of an officer of Britain's Navy: I was taught to honour my Church and my +King: and I cannot bear a Radical or a Dissenter.' + +With these fine principles I found Sackville Maine impressed. 'Wagley,' +said he, to my introducer, 'if no better engagement, why shouldn't self +and friend dine at the "Oval?" Mr. Snob, sir, the mutton's coming off +the spit at this very minute. Laura and Mrs. Chuff' (he said LAURAR and +Mrs. Chuff; but I hate people who make remarks on these peculiarities of +pronunciation,) 'will be most happy to see you; and I can promise you a +hearty welcome, and as good a glass of port-wine as any in England.' + +'This is better than dining at the "Sarcophagus,"' thinks I to myself, +at which Club Wagley and I had intended to take our meal; and so we +accepted the kindly invitation, whence arose afterwards a considerable +intimacy. + +Everything about this family and house was so good-natured, comfortable, +and well-conditioned, that a cynic would have ceased to growl there. +Mrs. Laura was all graciousness and smiles, and looked to as great +advantage in her pretty morning-gown as in her dress-robe at Mrs. +Perkins's. Mrs. Chuff fired off her stories about the 'Nebuchadnezzar,' +74, the action between the 'Pitchfork' and the 'Furibonde'--the heroic +resistance of Captain Choufleur, and the quantity of snuff he took, &c. +&c.; which, as they were heard for the first time, were pleasanter than +I have subsequently found them. Sackville Maine was the best of hosts. +He agreed in everything everybody said, altering his opinions without +the slightest reservation upon the slightest possible contradiction. +He was not one of those beings who would emulate a Schonbein or +Friar Bacon, or act the part of an incendiary towards the Thames, his +neighbour--but a good, kind, simple, honest, easy fellow--in love with +his wife--well disposed to all the world--content with himself, content +even with his mother-in-law. Nelson Collingwood, I remember, in the +course of the evening, when whisky-and-water was for some reason +produced, grew a little tipsy. This did not in the least move +Sackville's equanimity. 'Take him upstairs, Joseph,' said he to the +hobbadehoy, 'and--Joseph--don't tell his mamma.' + +What could make a man so happily disposed, unhappy? What could cause +discomfort, bickering, and estrangement in a family so friendly and +united? Ladies, it was not my fault--it was Mrs. Chuff's doing--but the +rest of the tale you shall have on a future day. + + + +CHAPTER XLIII--CLUB SNOBS + +The misfortune which befell the simple and good-natured young Sackville, +arose entirely from that abominable 'Sarcophagus Club;' and that he ever +entered it was partly the fault of the present writer. + +For seeing Mrs. Chuff, his mother-in-law, had a taste for the +genteel--(indeed, her talk was all about Lord Collingwood, Lord Gambier, +Sir Jahaleel Brenton, and the Gosport and Plymouth balls)--Wagley and I, +according to our wont, trumped her conversation, and talked about +Lords, Dukes, Marquises, and Baronets, as if those dignitaries were our +familiar friends. + +'Lord Sextonbury,' says I, 'seems to have recovered her ladyship's +death. He and the Duke were very jolly over their wine at the +"Sarcophagus" last night; weren't they, Wagley?' + +'Good fellow, the Duke,' Wagley replied. 'Pray, ma'am' (to Mrs. Chuff), +'you who know the world and etiquette, will you tell me what a man ought +to do in my case? Last June, his Grace, his son Lord Castlerampant, +Tom Smith, and myself were dining at the Club, when I offered the odds +against DADDYLONGLEGS for the Derby--forty to one, in sovereigns only. +His Grace took the bet, and of course I won. He has never paid me. Now, +can I ask such a great man for a sovereign?--One more lump of sugar, if +you please, my dear madam.' + +It was lucky Wagley gave her this opportunity to elude the question, +for it prostrated the whole worthy family among whom we were. They +telegraphed each other with wondering eyes. Mrs. Chuff's stories about +the naval nobility grew quite faint and kind little Mrs. Sackville +became uneasy, and went upstairs to look at the children--not at +that young monster, Nelson Collingwood, who was sleeping off the +whisky-and-water--but at a couple of little ones who had made their +appearance at dessert, and of whom she and Sackville were the happy +parents. + +The end of this and subsequent meetings with Mr. Maine was, that we +proposed and got him elected as a member of the 'Sarcophagus Club.' + +It was not done without a deal of opposition--the secret having been +whispered that the candidate was a coal-merchant. You may be sure some +of the proud people and most of the parvenus of the Club were ready +to blackball him. We combated this opposition successfully, however. +We pointed out to the parvenus that the Lambtons and the Stuarts sold +coals: we mollified the proud by accounts of his good birth, good +nature, and good behaviour; and Wagley went about on the day of +election, describing with great eloquence, the action between the +'Pitchfork' and the 'Furibonde,' and the valour of Captain Maine, our +friend's father. There was a slight mistake in the narrative; but we +carried our man, with only a trifling sprinkling of black beans in the +boxes: Byles's, of course, who blackballs everybody: and Bung's, who +looks down upon a coal-merchant, having himself lately retired from the +wine-trade. + +Some fortnight afterwards I saw Sackville Maine under the following +circumstances:-- + +He was showing the Club to his family. He had 'brought them thither +in the light-blue fly, waiting at the Club door; with Mrs. Chuff's +hobbadehoy footboy on the box, by the side of the flyman, in a sham +livery. Nelson Collingwood; pretty Mrs. Sackville; Mrs. Captain Chuff +(Mrs. Commodore Chuff we call her), were all there; the latter, of +course, in the vermilion tabinet, which, splendid as it is, is nothing +in comparison to the splendour of the 'Sarcophagus.' The delighted +Sackville Maine was pointing out the beauties of the place to them. It +seemed as beautiful as Paradise to that little party. + +The 'Sarcophagus' displays every known variety of architecture and +decoration. The great library is Elizabethan; the small library is +pointed Gothic; the dining-room is severe Doric; the strangers' room +has an Egyptian look; the drawing-rooms are Louis Quatorze (so called +because the hideous ornaments displayed were used in the time of Louis +Quinze); the CORTILE, or hall, is Morisco-Italian. It is all over +marble, maplewood, looking-glasses, arabesques, ormolu, and scagliola. +Scrolls, ciphers, dragons, Cupids, polyanthuses, and other flowers +writhe up the walls in every kind of cornucopiosity. Fancy every +gentleman in Jullien's band playing with all his might, and +each performing a different tune; the ornaments at our Club, the +'Sarcophagus,' so bewilder and affect me. Dazzled with emotions which I +cannot describe, and which she dared not reveal, Mrs. Chuff, followed +by her children and son-in-law, walked wondering amongst these blundering +splendours. + +In the great library (225 feet long by 150) the only man Mrs. Chuff saw, +was Tiggs. He was lying on a crimson-velvet sofa, reading a French novel +of Paul de Kock. It was a very little book. He is a very little man. +In that enormous hall he looked like a mere speck. As the ladies passed +breathless and trembling in the vastness of the magnificent solitude, +he threw a knowing, killing glance at the fair strangers, as much as to +say, 'Ain't I a fine fellow?' They thought so, I am sure. + +'WHO IS THAT?' hisses out Mrs. Chuff, when we were about fifty yards +off him at the other end of the room. + +'Tiggs!' says I, in a similar whisper. + +'Pretty comfortable this, isn't it, my dear?' says Maine in a +free-and-easy way to Mrs. Sackville; 'all the magazines, you see--writing +materials--new works--choice library, containing every work of +importance--what have we here?--"Dugdale's Monasticon," a most valuable +and, I believe, entertaining book.' + +And proposing to take down one of the books for Mrs. Maine's inspection, +he selected Volume VII., to which he was attracted by the singular fact +that a brass door-handle grew out of the back. Instead of pulling out +a book, however, he pulled open a cupboard, only inhabited by a lazy +housemaid's broom and duster, at which he looked exceedingly discomfited; +while Nelson Collingwood, losing all respect, burst into a roar of +laughter. + +'That's the rummest book I ever saw,' says Nelson. 'I wish we'd no +others at Merchant Taylors'.' + +'Hush, Nelson!' cries Mrs. Chuff, and we went into the other magnificent +apartments. + +How they did admire the drawing-room hangings, (pink and silver brocade, +most excellent wear for London,) and calculated the price per yard; +and revelled on the luxurious sofas; and gazed on the immeasurable +looking-glasses. + +'Pretty well to shave by, eh?' says Maine to his mother-in-law. (He was +getting more abominably conceited every minute.) 'Get away, Sackville,' +says she, quite delighted, and threw a glance over her shoulder, +and spread out the wings of the red tabinet, and took a good look +at herself; so did Mrs. Sackville--just one, and I thought the glass +reflected a very smiling, pretty creature. + +But what's a woman at a looking-glass? Bless the little dears, it's +their place. They fly to it naturally. It pleases them, and they adorn +it. What I like to see, and watch with increasing joy and adoration, +is the Club MEN at the great looking-glasses. Old Gills pushing up his +collars and grinning at his own mottled face. Hulker looking solemnly at +his great person, and tightening his coat to give himself a waist. Fred +Minchin simpering by as he is going out to dine, and casting upon the +reflection of his white neckcloth a pleased moony smile. What a deal of +vanity that Club mirror has reflected, to be sure! + +Well, the ladies went through the whole establishment with perfect +pleasure. They beheld the coffee-rooms, and the little tables laid for +dinner, and the gentlemen who were taking their lunch, and old Jawkins +thundering away as usual; they saw the reading-rooms, and the rush for +the evening papers; they saw the kitchens--those wonders of art--where +the CHEF was presiding over twenty pretty kitchen-maids, and ten +thousand shining saucepans: and they got into the light-blue fly +perfectly bewildered with pleasure. + +Sackville did not enter it, though little Laura took the back seat on +purpose, and left him the front place alongside of Mrs. Chuff's red +tabinet. + +'We have your favourite dinner,' says she, in a timid voice; 'won't you +come, Sackville?' + +'I shall take a chop here to-day, my dear,' Sackville replied. 'Home, +James.' And he went up the steps of the 'Sarcophagus,' and the pretty +face looked very sad out of the carriage, as the blue fly drove away. + + + +CHAPTER XLIV--CLUB SNOBS + +Why--Why did I and Wagley ever do so cruel an action as to introduce +young Sackville Maine into that odious 'Sarcophagus'? Let our imprudence +and his example be a warning to other gents; let his fate and that of +his poor wife be remembered by every British female. The consequences of +his entering the Club were as follows:-- + +One of the first vices the unhappy wretch acquired in this abode of +frivolity was that of SMOKING. Some of the dandies of the Club, such as +the Marquis of Macabaw, Lord Doodeen, and fellows of that high order, +are in the habit of indulging in this propensity upstairs in the +billiard-rooms of the 'Sarcophagus'--and, partly to make their +acquaintance, partly from a natural aptitude for crime, Sackville Maine +followed them, and became an adept in the odious custom. Where it is +introduced into a family I need not say how sad the consequences +are, both to the furniture and the morals. Sackville smoked in his +dining-room at home, and caused an agony to his wife and mother-in-law +which I do not venture to describe. + +He then became a professed BILLIARD-PLAYER, wasting hours upon hours +at that amusement; betting freely, playing tolerably, losing awfully to +Captain Spot and Col. Cannon. He played matches of a hundred games with +these gentlemen, and would not only continue until four or five o'clock +in the morning at this work, but would be found at the Club of a +forenoon, indulging himself to the detriment of his business, the ruin +of his health, and the neglect of his wife. + +From billiards to whist is but a step--and when a man gets to whist and +five pounds on a rubber, my opinion is, that it is all up with him. How +was the coal business to go on, and the connection of the firm to be +kept up, and the senior partner always at the card-table? + +Consorting now with genteel persons and Pall Mall bucks, Sackville +became ashamed of his snug little residence in Kennington Oval, and +transported his family to Pimlico, where, though Mrs. Chuff, his +mother-in-law, was at first happy, as the quarter was elegant and +near her Sovereign, poor little Laura and the children found a woful +difference. Where were her friends who came in with their work of a +morning?--At Kennington and in the vicinity of Clapham. 'Where were her +children's little playmates?--On Kennington Common. The great thundering +carriages that roared up and down the drab-coloured streets of the +new quarter, contained no friends for the sociable little Laura. +The children that paced the squares, attended by a BONNE or a prim +governess, were not like those happy ones that flew kites, or played +hop-scotch, on the well-beloved old Common. And ah! what a difference at +Church too!--between St. Benedict's of Pimlico, with open seats, service +in sing-song--tapers--albs--surplices--garlands and processions, and +the honest old ways of Kennington! The footmen, too, attending St. +Benedict's were so splendid and enormous, that James, Mrs. Chuff's boy, +trembled amongst them, and said he would give warning rather than carry +the books to that church any more. + +The furnishing of the house was not done without expense. + +And, ye gods! what a difference there was between Sackville's dreary +French banquets in Pimlico, and the jolly dinners at the Oval! No more +legs-of-mutton, no more of 'the best port-wine in England;' but ENTREES +on plate, and dismal twopenny champagne, and waiters in gloves, and +the Club bucks for company--among whom Mrs. Chuff was uneasy and Mrs. +Sackville quite silent. + +Not that he dined at home often. The wretch had become a perfect +epicure, and dined commonly at the Club with the gormandising clique +there; with old Doctor Maw, Colonel Cramley (who is as lean as a +greyhound and has jaws like a jack), and the rest of them. Here you +might see the wretch tippling Sillery champagne and gorging himself with +French viands; and I often looked with sorrow from my table, (on which +cold meat, the Club small-beer, and a half-pint of Marsala form the +modest banquet,) and sighed to think it was my work. + +And there were other beings present to my repentant thoughts. Where's +his wife, thought I? Where's poor, good, kind little Laura? At this +very moment--it's about the nursery bed-time, and while yonder +good-for-nothing is swilling his wine--the little ones are at Laura's +knees lisping their prayers: and she is teaching them to say--'Pray God +bless Papa.' + +When she has put them to bed, her day's occupation is gone; and she is +utterly lonely all night, and sad, and waiting for him. + +Oh, for shame! Oh, for shame! Go home, thou idle tippler. + +How Sackville lost his health: how he lost his business; how he got +into scrapes; how he got into debt; how he became a railroad director; +how the Pimlico house was shut up; how he went to Boulogne,--all this +I could tell, only I am too much ashamed of my part of the transaction. +They returned to England, because, to the surprise of everybody, Mrs. +Chuff came down with a great sum of money (which nobody knew she had +saved), and paid his liabilities. He is in England; but at Kennington. +His name is taken off the books of the 'Sarcophagus' long ago. When we +meet, he crosses over to the other side of the street; I don't call, as +I should be sorry to see a look of reproach or sadness in Laura's sweet +face. + +Not, however, all evil, as I am proud to think, has been the influence +of the Snob of England upon Clubs in general:--Captain Shindy is afraid +to bully the waiters any more, and eats his mutton-chop without moving +Acheron. Gobemouche does not take more than two papers at a time for +his private reading. Tiggs does not ring the bell and cause the +library-waiter to walk about a quarter of a mile in order to give him +Vol. II., which lies on the next table. Growler has ceased to walk from +table to table in the coffee-room, and inspect what people are having +for dinner. Trotty Veck takes his own umbrella from the hall--the cotton +one; and Sydney Scraper's paletot lined with silk has been brought back +by Jobbins, who entirely mistook it for his own. Wiggle has discontinued +telling stories about the ladies he has killed. Snooks does not any +more think it gentlemanlike to blackball attorneys. Snuffler no longer +publicly spreads out his great red cotton pocket-handkerchief before the +fire, for the admiration of two hundred gentlemen; and if one Club Snob +has been brought back to the paths of rectitude, and if one poor John +has been spared a journey or a scolding--say, friends and brethren if +these sketches of Club Snobs have been in vain? + + + + +CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON SNOBS + +How it is that we have come to No. 45 of this present series of papers, +my dear friends and brother Snobs, I hardly know--but for a whole mortal +year have we been together, prattling, and abusing the human race; and +were we to live for a hundred years more, I believe there is plenty of +subject for conversation in the enormous theme of Snobs. + +The national mind is awakened to the subject. Letters pour in every +day, conveying marks of sympathy; directing the attention of the Snob +of England to races of Snobs yet undescribed. 'Where are your Theatrical +Snobs; your Commercial Snobs; your Medical and Chirurgical Snobs; your +Official Snobs; your Legal Snobs; your Artistical Snobs; your Musical +Snobs; your Sporting Snobs?' write my esteemed correspondents. 'Surely +you are not going to miss the Cambridge Chancellor election, and omit +showing up your Don Snobs, who are coming, cap in hand, to a young +Prince of six-and-twenty, and to implore him to be the chief of their +renowned University?' writes a friend who seals with the signet of the +Cam and Isis Club. 'Pray, pray,' cries another, 'now the Operas are +opening, give us a lecture about Omnibus Snobs.' Indeed, I should like +to write a chapter about the Snobbish Dons very much, and another about +the Snobbish Dandies. Of my dear Theatrical Snobs I think with a pang; +and I can hardly break away from some Snobbish artists, with whom I have +long, long intended to have a palaver. + +But what's the use of delaying? When these were done there would be +fresh Snobs to pourtray. The labour is endless. No single man could +complete it. Here are but fifty-two bricks--and a pyramid to build. It +is best to stop. As Jones always quits the room as soon as he has said +his good thing,--as Cincinnatus and General Washington both retired into +private life in the height of their popularity,--as Prince Albert, +when he laid the first stone of the Exchange, left the bricklayers to +complete that edifice and went home to his royal dinner,--as the poet +Bunn comes forward at the end of the season, and with feelings too +tumultuous to describe, blesses his KYIND friends over the footlights: +so, friends, in the flush of conquest and the splendour of victory, amid +the shouts and the plaudits of a people--triumphant yet modest--the Snob +of England bids ye farewell. + +But only for a season. Not for ever. No, no. There is one celebrated +author whom I admire very much--who has been taking leave of the public +any time these ten years in his prefaces, and always comes back again +when everybody is glad to see him. How can he have the heart to be +saying good-bye so often? I believe that Bunn is affected when he +blesses the people. Parting is always painful. Even the familiar bore is +dear to you. I should be sorry to shake hands even with Jawkins for +the last time. I think a well-constituted convict, on coming home +from transportation, ought to be rather sad when he takes leave of +Van Diemen's Land. When the curtain goes down on the last night of a +pantomime, poor old clown must be very dismal, depend on it. Ha! with +what joy he rushes forward on the evening of the 26th of December +next, and says--'How are you?--Here we are!' But I am growing too +sentimental:--to return to the theme. + +THE NATIONAL MIND IS AWAKENED TO THE SUBJECT OF SNOBS. The word Snob +has taken a place in our honest English vocabulary. We can't define it, +perhaps. We can't say what it is, any more than we can define wit, or +humour, or humbug; but we KNOW what it is. Some weeks since, happening +to have the felicity to sit next to a young lady at a hospitable table, +where poor old Jawkins was holding forth in a very absurd pompous +manner, I wrote upon the spotless damask 'S--B,' and called my +neighbour's attention to the little remark. + +That young lady smiled. She knew it at once. Her mind straightway filled +up the two letters concealed by apostrophic reserve, and I read in her +assenting eyes that she knew Jawkins was a Snob. You seldom get them +to make use of the word as yet, it is true; but it is inconceivable how +pretty an expression their little smiling mouths assume when they speak +it out. If any young lady doubts, just let her go up to her own room, +look at herself steadily in the glass, and say 'Snob.' If she tries this +simple experiment, my life for it, she will smile, and own that the word +becomes her mouth amazingly. A pretty little round word, all composed of +soft letters, with a hiss at the beginning, just to make it piquant, as +it were. + +Jawkins, meanwhile, went on blundering, and bragging and boring, quite +unconsciously. And so he will, no doubt, go on roaring and braying, to +the end of time or at least so long as people will hear him. You cannot +alter the nature of men and Snobs by any force of satire; as, by laying +ever so many stripes on a donkey's back, you can't turn him into a +zebra. + +But we can warn the neighbourhood that the person whom they and Jawkins +admire is an impostor. We apply the Snob test to him, and try whether he +is conceited and a quack, whether pompous and lacking humility--whether +uncharitable and proud of his narrow soul? How does he treat a great +man--how regard a small one? How does he comport himself in the presence +of His Grace the Duke; and how in that of Smith the tradesman? + +And it seems to me that all English society is cursed by this +mammoniacal superstition; and that we are sneaking and bowing and +cringing on the one hand, or bullying and scorning on the other, +from the lowest to the highest. My wife speaks with great +circumspection--'proper pride,' she calls it--to our neighbour the +tradesman's lady: and she, I mean Mrs. Snob,--Eliza--would give one of +her eyes to go to Court, as her cousin, the Captain's wife, did. She, +again, is a good soul, but it costs her agonies to be obliged to confess +that we live in Upper Thompson Street, Somers Town. And though I believe +in her heart Mrs. Whiskerington is fonder of us than of her cousins, +the Smigsmags, you should hear how she goes on prattling about Lady +Smigsmag,--and 'I said to Sir John, my dear John;' and about the +Smigsmags' house and parties in Hyde Park Terrace. + +Lady Smigsmag, when she meets Eliza,--who is a sort of a kind of a +species of a connection of the family, pokes out one finger, which my +wife is at liberty to embrace in the most cordial manner she can devise. +But oh, you should see her ladyship's behaviour on her first-chop +dinner-party days, when Lord and Lady Longears come! + +I can bear it no longer--this diabolical invention of gentility which +kills natural kindliness and honest friendship. Proper pride, indeed! +Rank and precedence, forsooth! The table of ranks and degrees is a lie, +and should be flung into the fire. Organize rank and precedence! that +was well for the masters of ceremonies of former ages. Come forward, +some great marshal, and organize Equality in society, and your rod +shall swallow up all the juggling old court goldsticks. If this is +not gospel-truth--if the world does not tend to this--if +hereditary-great-man worship is not a humbug and an idolatry--let us +have the Stuarts back again, and crop the Free Press's ears in the +pillory. + +If ever our cousins, the Smigsmags, asked me to meet Lord Longears, +I would like to take an opportunity after dinner and say, in the most +good-natured way in the world:--Sir, Fortune makes you a present of +a number of thousand pounds every year. The ineffable wisdom of our +ancestors has placed you as a chief and hereditary legislator over me. +Our admirable Constitution (the pride of Britons and envy of surrounding +nations) obliges me to receive you as my senator, superior, and +guardian. Your eldest son, Fitz-Heehaw, is sure of a place in +Parliament; your younger sons, the De Brays, will kindly condescend +to be post-captains and lieutenants-colonels, and to represent us in +foreign courts or to take a good living when it falls convenient. +These prizes our admirable Constitution (the pride and envy of, &c.) +pronounces to be your due: without count of your dulness, your vices, +your selfishness; or your entire incapacity and folly. Dull as you may +be (and we have as good a right to assume that my lord is an ass, as the +other proposition, that he is an enlightened patriot);--dull, I say, +as you may be, no one will accuse you of such monstrous folly, as to +suppose that you are indifferent to the good luck which you possess, or +have any inclination to part with it. No--and patriots as we are, under +happier circumstances, Smith and I, I have no doubt, were we dukes +ourselves, would stand by our order. + +We would submit good-naturedly to sit in a high place. We would +acquiesce in that admirable Constitution (pride and envy of, &c.) +which made us chiefs and the world our inferiors; we would not cavil +particularly at that notion of hereditary superiority which brought many +simple people cringing to our knees. May be we would rally round the +Corn-Laws; we would make a stand against the Reform Bill; we would die +rather than repeal the Acts against Catholics and Dissenters; we would, +by our noble system of class-legislation, bring Ireland to its present +admirable condition. + +But Smith and I are not Earls as yet. 'We don't believe that it is +for the interest of Smith's army that De Bray should be a Colonel at +five-and-twenty, of Smith's diplomatic relations that Lord Longears +should go Ambassador to Constantinople,--of our politics, that Longears +should put his hereditary foot into them. + +This bowing and cringing Smith believes to be the act of Snobs; and he +will do all in his might and main to be a Snob and to submit to Snobs +no longer. To Longears he says, 'We can't help seeing, Longears, that +we are as good as you. We can spell even better; can think quite as +rightly; we will not have you for our master, or black your shoes any +more. Your footmen do it, but they are paid; and the fellow who comes to +get a list of the company when you give a banquet or a dancing breakfast +at Longueoreille House, gets money from the newspapers for performing +that service. But for us, thank you for nothing, Longears my boy, and we +don't wish to pay you any more than we owe. We will take off our hats to +Wellington because he is Wellington; but to you--who are you?' + +I am sick of COURT CIRCULARS. I loathe HAUT-TON intelligence. I believe +such words as Fashionable, Exclusive, Aristocratic, and the like, to +be wicked, unchristian epithets, that ought to be banished from honest +vocabularies. A Court system that sends men of genius to the second +table, I hold to be a Snobbish system. A society that sets up to be +polite, and ignores Arts and Letters, I hold to be a Snobbish society. +You, who despise your neighbour, are a Snob; you, who forget your own +friends, meanly to follow after those of a higher degree, are a Snob; +you, who are ashamed of your poverty, and blush for your calling, are +a Snob; as are you who boast of your pedigree, or are proud of your +wealth. + +To laugh at such is MR. PUNCH'S business. May he laugh honestly, hit +no foul blow, and tell the truth when at his very broadest grin--never +forgetting that if Fun is good, Truth is still better, and Love best of +all. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Book of Snobs, by William Makepeace Thackeray + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF SNOBS *** + +***** This file should be named 2686-8.txt or 2686-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/8/2686/ + +Produced by Sean Hackett; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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M. Thackeray + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +Project Gutenberg's The Book of Snobs, by William Makepeace Thackeray + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Book of Snobs + +Author: William Makepeace Thackeray + +Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #2686] +Last Updated: March 5, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF SNOBS *** + + + + +Produced by Sean Hackett; David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE BOOK OF SNOBS + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By One Of Themselves <br /> (William Makepeace Thackeray) + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> PREFATORY REMARKS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I—THE SNOB PLAYFULLY DEALT WITH + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II—THE SNOB ROYAL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III—THE INFLUENCE OF THE + ARISTOCRACY ON SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV—THE COURT CIRCULAR, AND ITS + INFLUENCE ON SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V—WHAT SNOBS ADMIRE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI—ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII—ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII—GREAT CITY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX—ON SOME MILITARY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X—MILITARY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI—ON CLERICAL SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII—ON CLERICAL SNOBS AND + SNOBBISHNESS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII—ON CLERICAL SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV—ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV—ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI—ON LITERARY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII—A LITTLE ABOUT IRISH SNOBS + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII—PARTY-GIVING SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX—DINING-OUT SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX—DINNER-GIVING SNOBS FURTHER + CONSIDERED </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI—SOME CONTINENTAL SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII—CONTINENTAL SNOBBERY + CONTINUED </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII—ENGLISH SNOBS ON THE + CONTINENT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY + SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY + SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY + SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII—SNOBBIUM GATHERUM </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XXXV—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XXXVI—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER XXXVII—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER XXXVIII—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER XXXIX—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER XL—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER XLI—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER XLII—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0043"> CHAPTER XLIII—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0044"> CHAPTER XLIV—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0048"> CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON SNOBS </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + PREFATORY REMARKS + </h2> + <p> + (The necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved + by felicitous illustrations:—I am the individual destined to write + that work—My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence—I + show that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and + the MAN—Snobs are to be studied like other objects of Natural + Science, and are a part of the Beautiful (with a large B). They pervade + all classes—Affecting instance of Colonel Snobley.) + </p> + <p> + We have all read a statement, (the authenticity of which I take leave to + doubt entirely, for upon what calculations I should like to know is it + founded?)—we have all, I say, been favoured by perusing a remark, + that when the times and necessities of the world call for a Man, that + individual is found. Thus at the French Revolution (which the reader will + be pleased to have introduced so early), when it was requisite to + administer a corrective dose to the nation, Robespierre was found; a most + foul and nauseous dose indeed, and swallowed eagerly by the patient, + greatly to the latter's ultimate advantage: thus, when it became necessary + to kick John Bull out of America, Mr. Washington stepped forward, and + performed that job to satisfaction: thus, when the Earl of Aldborough was + unwell, Professor Holloway appeared with his pills, and cured his + lordship, as per advertisement, &c. &c.. Numberless instances + might be adduced to show that when a nation is in great want, the relief + is at hand; just as in the Pantomime (that microcosm) where when CLOWN + wants anything—a warming-pan, a pump-handle, a goose, or a lady's + tippet—a fellow comes sauntering out from behind the side-scenes + with the very article in question. + </p> + <p> + Again, when men commence an undertaking, they always are prepared to show + that the absolute necessities of the world demanded its completion.—Say + it is a railroad: the directors begin by stating that 'A more intimate + communication between Bathershins and Derrynane Beg is necessary for the + advancement of civilization, and demanded by the multitudinous + acclamations of the great Irish people.' Or suppose it is a newspaper: the + prospectus states that 'At a time when the Church is in danger, threatened + from without by savage fanaticism and miscreant unbelief, and undermined + from within by dangerous Jesuitism, and suicidal Schism, a Want has been + universally felt—a suffering people has looked abroad—for an + Ecclesiastical Champion and Guardian. A body of Prelates and Gentlemen + have therefore stepped forward in this our hour of danger, and determined + on establishing the BEADLE newspaper,' &c. &c. One or other of + these points at least is incontrovertible: the public wants a thing, + therefore it is supplied with it; or the public is supplied with a thing, + therefore it wants it. + </p> + <p> + I have long gone about with a conviction on my mind that I had a work to + do—a Work, if you like, with a great W; a Purpose to fulfil; a chasm + to leap into, like Curtius, horse and foot; a Great Social Evil to + Discover and to Remedy. That Conviction Has Pursued me for Years. It has + Dogged me in the Busy Street; Seated Itself By Me in The Lonely Study; + Jogged My Elbow as it Lifted the Wine-cup at The Festive Board; Pursued me + through the Maze of Rotten Row; Followed me in Far Lands. On Brighton's + Shingly Beach, or Margate's Sand, the Voice Outpiped the Roaring of the + Sea; it Nestles in my Nightcap, and It Whispers, 'Wake, Slumberer, thy + Work Is Not Yet Done.' Last Year, By Moonlight, in the Colosseum, the + Little Sedulous Voice Came To Me and Said, 'Smith, or Jones' (The Writer's + Name is Neither Here nor There), 'Smith or Jones, my fine fellow, this is + all very well, but you ought to be at home writing your great work on + SNOBS. + </p> + <p> + When a man has this sort of vocation it is all nonsense attempting to + elude it. He must speak out to the nations; he must unbusm himself, as + Jeames would say, or choke and die. 'Mark to yourself,' I have often + mentally exclaimed to your humble servant, 'the gradual way in which you + have been prepared for, and are now led by an irresistible necessity to + enter upon your great labour. First, the World was made: then, as a matter + of course, Snobs; they existed for years and years, and were no more known + than America. But presently,—INGENS PATEBAT TELLUS,—the people + became darkly aware that there was such a race. Not above five-and-twenty + years since, a name, an expressive monosyllable, arose to designate that + race. That name has spread over England like railroads subsequently; Snobs + are known and recognized throughout an Empire on which I am given to + understand the Sun never sets. PUNCH appears at the ripe season, to + chronicle their history: and the individual comes forth to write that + history in PUNCH.' + </p> + <p> + I have (and for this gift I congratulate myself with Deep and Abiding + Thankfulness) an eye for a Snob. If the Truthful is the Beautiful, it is + Beautiful to study even the Snobbish; to track Snobs through history, as + certain little dogs in Hampshire hunt out truffles; to sink shafts in + society and come upon rich veins of Snobore. Snobbishness is like Death in + a quotation from Horace, which I hope you never have heard, 'beating with + equal foot at poor men's doors, and kicking at the gates of Emperors.' It + is a great mistake to judge of Snobs lightly, and think they exist among + the lower classes merely. An immense percentage of Snobs, I believe, is to + be found in every rank of this mortal life. You must not judge hastily or + vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that you are yourself a Snob. I myself + have been taken for one. + </p> + <p> + When I was taking the waters at Bagnigge Wells, and living at the + 'Imperial Hotel' there, there used to sit opposite me at breakfast, for a + short time, a Snob so insufferable that I felt I should never get any + benefit of the waters so long as he remained. His name was + Lieutenant-Colonel Snobley, of a certain dragoon regiment. He wore + japanned boots and moustaches: he lisped, drawled, and left the 'r's' out + of his words: he was always flourishing about, and smoothing his lacquered + whiskers with a huge flaming bandanna, that filled the room with an odour + of musk so stifling that I determined to do battle with that Snob, and + that either he or I should quit the Inn. I first began harmless + conversations with him; frightening him exceedingly, for he did not know + what to do when so attacked, and had never the slightest notion that + anybody would take such a liberty with him as to speak first: then I + handed him the paper: then, as he would take no notice of these advances, + I used to look him in the face steadily and—and use my fork in the + light of a toothpick. After two mornings of this practice, he could bear + it no longer, and fairly quitted the place. + </p> + <p> + Should the Colonel see this, will he remember the Gent who asked him if he + thought Publicoaler was a fine writer, and drove him from the Hotel with a + four-pronged fork? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I—THE SNOB PLAYFULLY DEALT WITH + </h2> + <p> + There are relative and positive Snobs. I mean by positive, such persons as + are Snobs everywhere, in all companies, from morning till night, from + youth to the grave, being by Nature endowed with Snobbishness—and + others who are Snobs only in certain circumstances and relations of life. + </p> + <p> + For instance: I once knew a man who committed before me an act as + atrocious as that which I have indicated in the last chapter as performed + by me for the purpose of disgusting Colonel Snobley; viz, the using the + fork in the guise of a toothpick. I once, I say, knew a man who, dining in + my company at the 'Europa Coffee-house,' (opposite the Grand Opera, and, + as everybody knows, the only decent place for dining at Naples,) ate peas + with the assistance of his knife. He was a person with whose society I was + greatly pleased at first—indeed, we had met in the crater of Mount + Vesuvius, and were subsequently robbed and held to ransom by brigands in + Calabria, which is nothing to the purpose—a man of great powers, + excellent heart, and varied information; but I had never before seen him + with a dish of pease, and his conduct in regard to them caused me the + deepest pain. + </p> + <p> + After having seen him thus publicly comport himself, but one course was + open to me—to cut his acquaintance. I commissioned a mutual friend + (the Honourable Poly Anthus) to break the matter to this gentleman as + delicately as possible, and to say that painful circumstances—in + nowise affecting Mr. Marrowfat's honour, or my esteem for him—had + occurred, which obliged me to forego my intimacy with him; and accordingly + we met and gave each other the cut direct that night at the Duchess of + Monte Fiasco's ball. + </p> + <p> + Everybody at Naples remarked the separation of the Damon and Pythias—indeed, + Marrowfat had saved my life more than once—but, as an English + gentleman, what was I to do? + </p> + <p> + My dear friend was, in this instance, the Snob RELATIVE. It is not + snobbish of persons of rank of any other nation to employ their knife in + the manner alluded to. I have seen Monte Fiasco clean his trencher with + his knife, and every Principe in company doing likewise. I have seen, at + the hospitable board of H.I.H. the Grand Duchess Stephanie of Baden—(who, + if these humble lines should come under her Imperial eyes, is besought to + remember graciously the most devoted of her servants)—I have seen, I + say, the Hereditary Princess of Potztausend-Donnerwetter (that + serenely-beautiful woman) use her knife in lieu of a fork or spoon; I have + seen her almost swallow it, by Jove! like Ramo Samee, the Indian juggler. + And did I blench? Did my estimation for the Princess diminish? No, lovely + Amalia! One of the truest passions that ever was inspired by woman was + raised in this bosom by that lady. Beautiful one! long, long may the knife + carry food to those lips! the reddest and loveliest in the world! + </p> + <p> + The cause of my quarrel with Marrowfat I never breathed to mortal soul for + four years. We met in the halls of the aristocracy—our friends and + relatives. We jostled each other in the dance or at the board; but the + estrangement continued, and seemed irrevocable, until the fourth of June, + last year. + </p> + <p> + We met at Sir George Golloper's. We were placed, he on the right, your + humble servant on the left of the admirable Lady G.. Peas formed part of + the banquet—ducks and green peas. I trembled as I saw Marrowfat + helped, and turned away sickening, lest I should behold the weapon darting + down his horrid jaws. + </p> + <p> + What was my astonishment, what my delight, when I saw him use his fork + like any other Christian! He did not administer the cold steel once. Old + times rushed back upon me—the remembrance of old services—his + rescuing me from the brigands—his gallant conduct in the affair with + the Countess Dei Spinachi—his lending me the 1,700L. I almost burst + into tears with joy—my voice trembled with emotion. 'George, my + boy!' I exclaimed, 'George Marrowfat, my dear fellow! a glass of wine!' + </p> + <p> + Blushing—deeply moved—almost as tremulous as I was myself, + George answered, 'FRANK, SHALL IT BE HOCK OR MADEIRA? I could have hugged + him to my heart but for the presence of the company. Little did Lady + Golloper know what was the cause of the emotion which sent the duckling I + was carving into her ladyship's pink satin lap. The most good-natured of + women pardoned the error, and the butler removed the bird. + </p> + <p> + We have been the closest friends over since, nor, of course, has George + repeated his odious habit. He acquired it at a country school, where they + cultivated peas and only used two-pronged forks, and it was only by living + on the Continent where the usage of the four-prong is general, that he + lost the horrible custom. + </p> + <p> + In this point—and in this only—I confess myself a member of + the Silver-Fork School; and if this tale but induce one of my readers to + pause, to examine in his own mind solemnly, and ask, 'Do I or do I not eat + peas with a knife?'—to see the ruin which may fall upon himself by + continuing the practice, or his family by beholding the example, these + lines will not have been written in vain. And now, whatever other authors + may be, I flatter myself, it will be allowed that I, at least, am a moral + man. + </p> + <p> + By the way, as some readers are dull of comprehension, I may as well say + what the moral of this history is. The moral is this—Society having + ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and + conform to its harmless orders. + </p> + <p> + If I should go to the British and Foreign Institute (and heaven forbid I + should go under any pretext or in any costume whatever)—if I should + go to one of the tea-parties in a dressing-gown and slippers, and not in + the usual attire of a gentleman, viz, pumps, a gold waistcoat, a crush + hat, a sham frill, and a white choker—I should be insulting society, + and EATING PEASE WITH MY KNIFE. Let the porters of the Institute hustle + out the individual who shall so offend. Such an offender is, as regards + society, a most emphatical and refractory Snob. It has its code and police + as well as governments, and he must conform who would profit by the + decrees set forth for their common comfort. + </p> + <p> + I am naturally averse to egotism, and hate selflaudation consumedly; but I + can't help relating here a circumstance illustrative of the point in + question, in which I must think I acted with considerable prudence. + </p> + <p> + Being at Constantinople a few years since—(on a delicate mission),—the + Russians were playing a double game, between ourselves, and it became + necessary on our part to employ an EXTRA NEGOTIATOR—Leckerbiss Pasha + of Roumelia, then Chief Galeongee of the Porte, gave a diplomatic banquet + at his summer palace at Bujukdere. I was on the left of the Galeongee, and + the Russian agent, Count de Diddloff, on his dexter side. Diddloff is a + dandy who would die of a rose in aromatic pain: he had tried to have me + assassinated three times in the course of the negotiation; but of course + we were friends in public, and saluted each other in the most cordial and + charming manner. + </p> + <p> + The Galeongee is—or was, alas! for a bow-string has done for him—a + staunch supporter of the old school of Turkish politics. We dined with our + fingers, and had flaps of bread for plates; the only innovation he + admitted was the use of European liquors, in which he indulged with great + gusto. He was an enormous eater. Amongst the dishes a very large one was + placed before him of a lamb dressed in its wool, stuffed with prunes, + garlic, assafoetida, capsicums, and other condiments, the most abominable + mixture that ever mortal smelt or tasted. The Galeongee ate of this + hugely; and pursuing the Eastern fashion, insisted on helping his friends + right and left, and when he came to a particularly spicy morsel, would + push it with his own hands into his guests' very mouths. + </p> + <p> + I never shall forget the look of poor Diddloff, when his Excellency, + rolling up a large quantity of this into a ball and exclaiming, 'Buk Buk' + (it is very good), administered the horrible bolus to Diddloff. The + Russian's eyes rolled dreadfully as he received it: he swallowed it with a + grimace that I thought must precede a convulsion, and seizing a bottle + next him, which he thought was Sauterne, but which turned out to be French + brandy, he drank off nearly a pint before he know his error. It finished + him; he was carried away from the dining-room almost dead, and laid out to + cool in a summer-house on the Bosphorus. + </p> + <p> + When it came to my turn, I took down the condiment with a smile, said + 'Bismillah,' licked my lips with easy gratification, and when the next + dish was served, made up a ball myself so dexterously, and popped it down + the old Galeongee's mouth with so much grace, that his heart was won. + Russia was put out of court at once and THE TREATY of Kabobanople WAS + SIGNED. As for Diddloff, all was over with HIM: he was recalled to St. + Petersburg, and Sir Roderick Murchison saw him, under the No. 3967, + working in the Ural mines. + </p> + <p> + The moral of this tale, I need not say, is, that there are many + disagreeable things in society which you are bound to take down, and to do + so with a smiling face. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II—THE SNOB ROYAL + </h2> + <p> + Long since at the commencement of the reign of her present Gracious + Majesty, it chanced 'on a fair summer evening,' as Mr. James would say, + that three or four young cavaliers were drinking a cup of wine after + dinner at the hostelry called the 'King's Arms,' kept by Mistress + Anderson, in the royal village of Kensington. 'Twas a balmy evening, and + the wayfarers looked out on a cheerful scene. The tall elms of the ancient + gardens were in full leaf, and countless chariots of the nobility of + England whirled by to the neighbouring palace, where princely Sussex + (whose income latterly only allowed him to give tea-parties) entertained + his royal niece at a state banquet. When the caroches of the nobles had + set down their owners at the banquethall, their varlets and servitors came + to quaff a flagon of nut-brown ale in the 'King's Arms' gardens hard by. + We watched these fellows from our lattice. By Saint Boniface 'twas a rare + sight! + </p> + <p> + The tulips in Mynheer Van Dunck's gardens were not more gorgeous than the + liveries of these pie-coated retainers. All the flowers of the field + bloomed in their ruffled bosoms, all the hues of the rainbow gleamed in + their plush breeches, and the long-caned ones walked up and down the + garden with that charming solemnity, that delightful quivering swagger of + the calves, which has always had a frantic fascination for us. The walk + was not wide enough for them as the shoulder-knots strutted up and down it + in canary, and crimson, and light blue. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly, in the midst of their pride, a little bell was rung, a side door + opened, and (after setting down their Royal Mistress) her Majesty's own + crimson footmen, with epaulets and black plushes, came in. + </p> + <p> + It was pitiable to see the other poor Johns slink off at this arrival! Not + one of the honest private Plushes could stand up before the Royal + Flunkeys. They left the walk: they sneaked into dark holes and drank their + beer in silence. The Royal Plush kept possession of the garden until the + Royal Plush dinner was announced, when it retired, and we heard from the + pavilion where they dined, conservative cheers, and speeches, and Kentish + fires. The other Flunkeys we never saw more. + </p> + <p> + My dear Flunkeys, so absurdly conceited at one moment and so abject at the + next, are but the types of their masters in this world. HE WHO MEANLY + ADMIRES MEAN THINGS IS A SNOB—perhaps that is a safe definition of + the character. + </p> + <p> + And this is why I have, with the utmost respect, ventured to place The + Snob Royal at the head of my list, causing all others to give way before + him, as the Flunkeys before the royal representative in Kensington + Gardens. To say of such and such a Gracious Sovereign that he is a Snob, + is but to say that his Majesty is a man. Kings, too, are men and Snobs. In + a country where Snobs are in the majority, a prime one, surely, cannot be + unfit to govern. With us they have succeeded to admiration. + </p> + <p> + For instance, James I. was a Snob, and a Scotch Snob, than which the world + contains no more offensive creature. He appears to have had not one of the + good qualities of a man—neither courage, nor generosity, nor + honesty, nor brains; but read what the great Divines and Doctors of + England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not a + Snob; whilst Louis XIV., his old squaretoes of a contemporary,—the + great worshipper of Bigwiggery—has always struck me as a most + undoubted and Royal Snob. + </p> + <p> + I will not, however, take instances from our own country of Royal Snobs, + but refer to a neighbouring kingdom, that of Brentford—and its + monarch, the late great and lamented Gorgius IV. With the same humility + with which the footmen at the 'King's Arms' gave way before the Plush + Royal, the aristocracy of the Brentford nation bent down and truckled + before Gorgius, and proclaimed him the first gentleman in Europe. And it's + a wonder to think what is the gentlefolks' opinion of a gentleman, when + they gave Gorgius such a title. + </p> + <p> + What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be + generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to + exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be + a loyal son, a true husband, and honest father? Ought his life to be + decent—his bills to be paid—his tastes to be high and elegant—his + aims in life lofty and noble? In a word, ought not the Biography of a + First Gentleman in Europe to be of such a nature that it might be read in + Young Ladies' Schools with advantage, and studied with profit in the + Seminaries of Young Gentlemen? I put this question to all instructors of + youth—to Mrs. Ellis and the Women of England; to all schoolmasters, + from Doctor Hawtrey down to Mr. Squeers. I conjure up before me an awful + tribunal of youth and innocence, attended by its venerable instructors + (like the ten thousand red-cheeked charity-children in Saint Paul's), + sitting in judgment, and Gorgius pleading his cause in the midst. Out of + Court, out of Court, fat old Florizel! Beadles, turn out that bloated, + pimple-faced man!—If Gorgius MUST have a statue in the new Palace + which the Brentford nation is building, it ought to be set up in the + Flunkeys' Hall. He should be represented cutting out a coat, in which art + he is said to have excelled. He also invented Maraschino punch, a + shoe-buckle (this was in the vigour of his youth, and the prime force of + his invention), and a Chinese pavilion, the most hideous building in the + world. He could drive a four-in-hand very nearly as well as the Brighton + coachman, could fence elegantly, and it is said, played the fiddle well. + And he smiled with such irresistible fascination, that persons who were + introduced into his august presence became his victims, body and soul, as + a rabbit becomes the prey of a great big boa-constrictor. + </p> + <p> + I would wager that if Mr. Widdicomb were, by a revolution, placed on the + throne of Brentford, people would be equally fascinated by his + irresistibly majestic smile and tremble as they knelt down to kiss his + hand. If he went to Dublin they would erect an obelisk on the spot where + he first landed, as the Paddylanders did when Gorgius visited them. We + have all of us read with delight that story of the King's voyage to + Haggisland, where his presence inspired such a fury of loyalty and where + the most famous man of the country—the Baron of Bradwardine—coming + on board the royal yacht, and finding a glass out of which Gorgius had + drunk, put it into his coatpocket as an inestimable relic, and went ashore + in his boat again. But the Baron sat down upon the glass and broke it, and + cut his coat-tails very much; and the inestimable relic was lost to the + world for ever. O noble Bradwardine! what old-world superstition could set + you on your knees before such an idol as that? + </p> + <p> + If you want to moralise upon the mutability of human affairs, go and see + the figure of Gorgius in his real, identical robes, at the waxwork.—Admittance + one shilling. Children and flunkeys sixpence. Go, and pay sixpence. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III—THE INFLUENCE OF THE ARISTOCRACY ON SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Last Sunday week, being at church in this city, and the service just + ended, I heard two Snobs conversing about the Parson. One was asking the + other who the clergyman was? 'He is Mr. So-and-so,' the second Snob + answered, 'domestic chaplain to the Earl of What-d'ye-call'im.' 'Oh, is + he' said the first Snob, with a tone of indescribable satisfaction.—The + Parson's orthodoxy and identity were at once settled in this Snob's mind. + He knew no more about the Earl than about the Chaplain, but he took the + latter's character upon the authority of the former; and went home quite + contented with his Reverence, like a little truckling Snob. + </p> + <p> + This incident gave me more matter for reflection even than the sermon: and + wonderment at the extent and prevalence of Lordolatory in this country. + What could it matter to Snob whether his Reverence were chaplain to his + Lordship or not? What Peerageworship there is all through this free + country! How we are all implicated in it, and more or less down on our + knees.—And with regard to the great subject on hand, I think that + the influence of the Peerage upon Snobbishness has been more remarkable + than that of any other institution. The increase, encouragement, and + maintenance of Snobs are among the 'priceless services,' as Lord John + Russell says, which we owe to the nobility. + </p> + <p> + It can't be otherwise. A man becomes enormously rich, or he jobs + successfully in the aid of a Minister, or he wins a great battle, or + executes a treaty, or is a clever lawyer who makes a multitude of fees and + ascends the bench; and the country rewards him for ever with a gold + coronet (with more or less balls or leaves) and a title, and a rank as + legislator. 'Your merits are so great,' says the nation, 'that your + children shall be allowed to reign over us, in a manner. It does not in + the least matter that your eldest son be a fool: we think your services so + remarkable, that he shall have the reversion of your honours when death + vacates your noble shoes. If you are poor, we will give you such a sum of + money as shall enable you and the eldest-born of your race for ever to + live in fat and splendour. It is our wish that there should be a race set + apart in this happy country, who shall hold the first rank, have the first + prizes and chances in all government jobs and patronages. We cannot make + all your dear children Peers—that would make Peerage common and + crowd the House of Lords uncomfortably—but the young ones shall have + everything a Government can give: they shall get the pick of all the + places: they shall be Captains and Lieutenant-Colonels at nineteen, when + hoary-headed old lieutenants are spending thirty years at drill: they + shall command ships at one-and-twenty, and veterans who fought before they + were born. And as we are eminently a free people, and in order to + encourage all men to do their duty, we say to any man of any rank—get + enormously rich, make immense fees as a lawyer, or great speeches, or + distinguish yourself and win battles—and you, even you, shall come + into the privileged class, and your children shall reign naturally over + ours.' + </p> + <p> + How can we help Snobbishness, with such a prodigious national institution + erected for its worship? How can we help cringing to Lords? Flesh and + blood can't do otherwise. What man can withstand this prodigious + temptation? Inspired by what is called a noble emulation, some people + grasp at honours and win them; others, too weak or mean, blindly admire + and grovel before those who have gained them; others, not being able to + acquire them, furiously hate, abuse, and envy. There are only a few bland + and not-in-the-least-conceited philosophers, who can behold the state of + society, viz., Toadyism, organised:—base Man-and-Mammon worship, + instituted by command of law:—Snobbishness, in a word, perpetuated,—and + mark the phenomenon calmly. And of these calm moralists, is there one, I + wonder, whose heart would not throb with pleasure if he could be seen + walking arm-in-arm with a couple of dukes down Pall Mall? No it is + impossible in our condition of society, not to be sometimes a Snob. + </p> + <p> + On one hand it encourages the commoner to be snobbishly mean, and the + noble to be snobbishly arrogant. When a noble marchioness writes in her + travels about the hard necessity under which steam-boat travellers labour + of being brought into contact 'with all sorts and conditions of people:' + implying that a fellowship with God's creatures is disagreeable to to her + Ladyship, who is their superior:—when, I say, the Marchioness of + —— writes in this fashion, we must consider that out of her + natural heart it would have been impossible for any woman to have had such + a sentiment; but that the habit of truckling and cringing, which all who + surround her have adopted towards this beautiful and magnificent lady,—this + proprietor of so many black and other diamonds,—has really induced + her to believe that she is the superior of the world in general: and that + people are not to associate with her except awfully at a distance. I + recollect being once at the city of Grand Cairo, through which a European + Royal Prince was passing India-wards. One night at the inn there was a + great disturbance: a man had drowned himself in the well hard by: all the + inhabitants of the hotel came bustling into the Court, and amongst others + your humble servant, who asked of a certain young man the reason of the + disturbance. How was I to know that this young gent was a prince? He had + not his crown and sceptre on: he was dressed in a white jacket and felt + hat: but he looked surprised at anybody speaking to him: answered an + unintelligible monosyllable, and—BECKONED HIS AID-DE-CAMP TO COME + AND SPEAK TO ME. It is our fault, not that of the great, that they should + fancy themselves so far above us. If you WILL fling yourself under the + wheels, Juggernaut will go over you, depend upon it; and if you and I, my + dear friend, had Kotow performed before us every day,—found people + whenever we appeared grovelling in slavish adoration, we should drop into + the airs of superiority quite naturally, and accept the greatness with + which the world insisted upon endowing us. + </p> + <p> + Here is an instance, out of Lord L——'s travels, of that calm, + good-natured, undoubting way in which a great man accepts the homage of + his inferiors. After making some profound and ingenious remarks about the + town of Brussells, his lordship says:—'Staying some day at the Hotel + de Belle Vue, a greatly overrated establishment, and not nearly as + comfortable as the Hotel de France—I made acquaintance with Dr. L——, + the physician of the Mission. He was desirous of doing the honours of the + place to me, and he ordered for us a DINER EN GOURMAND at the chief + restaurateur's, maintaining it surpassed the Rocher at Paris. Six or eight + partook of the entertainment, and we all agreed it was infinitely inferior + to the Paris display, and much more extravagant. So much for the copy. + </p> + <p> + And so much for the gentleman who gave the dinner. Dr. L——, + desirous to do his lordship 'the honour of the place,' feasts him with the + best victuals money can procure—and my lord finds the entertainment + extravagant and inferior. Extravagant! it was not extravagant to HIM;—Inferior! + Mr. L—— did his best to satisfy those noble jaws, and my lord + receives the entertainment, and dismisses the giver with a rebuke. It is + like a three-tailed Pasha grumbling about an unsatisfactory backsheesh. + </p> + <p> + But how should it be otherwise in a country where Lordolatry is part of + our creed, and where our children are brought up to respect the 'Peerage' + as the Englishman's second Bible? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV—THE COURT CIRCULAR, AND ITS INFLUENCE ON SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Example is the best of precepts; so let us begin with a true and authentic + story, showing how young aristocratic snobs are reared, and how early + their Snobbishness may be made to bloom. A beautiful and fashionable lady—(pardon, + gracious madam, that your story should be made public; but it is so moral + that it ought to be known to the universal world)—told me that in + her early youth she had a little acquaintance, who is now indeed a + beautiful and fashionable lady too. In mentioning Miss Snobky, daughter of + Sir Snobby Snobky, whose presentation at Court caused such a sensation, + need I say more? + </p> + <p> + When Miss Snobky was so very young as to be in the nursery regions, and to + walk off early mornings in St. James's Park, protected by a French + governess and followed by a huge hirsute flunkey in the canary coloured + livery of the Snobkys, she used occasionally in these promenades to meet + with young Lord Claude Lollipop, the Marquis of Sillabub's younger son. In + the very height of the season, from some unexplained cause, the Snobkys + suddenly determined upon leaving town. Miss Snobky spoke to her female + friend and confidante. 'What will poor Claude Lollipop say when he hears + of my absence?' asked the tender-hearted child. + </p> + <p> + 'Oh, perhaps he won't hear of it,' answers the confidante. + </p> + <p> + 'MY DEAR, HE WILL READ IT IN THE PAPERS,' replied the dear little + fashionable rogue of seven years old. She knew already her importance, and + how all the world of England, how all the would-be-genteel people, how all + the silver-fork worshippers, how all the tattle-mongers, how all the + grocers' ladies, the tailors' ladies, the attorneys' and merchants' + ladies, and the people living at Clapham and Brunswick Square,—who + have no more chance of consorting with a Snobky than my beloved reader has + of dining with the Emperor of China—yet watched the movements of the + Snobkys with interest and were glad to know when they came to London and + left it. + </p> + <p> + Here is the account of Miss Snobky's dress, and that of her mother, Lady + Snobky, from the papers:— + </p> + <p> + 'MISS SNOBKY. + </p> + <p> + Habit de Cour, composed of a yellow nankeen illusion dress over a slip of + rich pea-green corduroy, trimmed en tablier, with bouquets of Brussels + sprouts: the body and sleeves handsomely trimmed with calimanco, and + festooned with a pink train and white radishes. Head-dress, carrots and + lappets. + </p> + <p> + 'LADY SNOBKY. + </p> + <p> + 'Costume de Cour, composed of a train of the most superb Pekin bandannas, + elegantly trimmed with spangles, tinfoil, and red-tape. Bodice and + underdress of sky-blue velveteen, trimmed with bouffants and noeuds of + bell-pulls. Stomacher a muffin. Head-dress a bird's nest, with a bird of + paradise, over a rich brass knocker en ferroniere. This splendid costume, + by Madame Crinoline, of Regent Street, was the object of universal + admiration.' + </p> + <p> + This is what you read. Oh, Mrs. Ellis! Oh, mothers, daughters, aunts, + grandmothers of England, this is the sort of writing which is put in the + newspapers for you! How can you help being the mothers, daughters, &c. + of Snobs, so long as this balderdash is set before you? + </p> + <p> + You stuff the little rosy foot of a Chinese young lady of fashion into a + slipper that is about the size of a salt-cruet, and keep the poor little + toes there imprisoned and twisted up so long that the dwarfishness becomes + irremediable. Later, the foot would not expand to the natural size were + you to give her a washing-tub for a shoe and for all her life she has + little feet, and is a cripple. Oh, my dear Miss Wiggins, thank your stars + that those beautiful feet of yours—though I declare when you walk + they are so small as to be almost invisible—thank your stars that + society never so practised upon them; but look around and see how many + friends of ours in the highest circles have had their BRAINS so + prematurely and hopelessly pinched and distorted. + </p> + <p> + How can you expect that those poor creatures are to move naturally when + the world and their parents have mutilated them so cruelly? As long as a + COURT CIRCULAR exists, how the deuce are people whose names are chronicled + in it ever to believe themselves the equals of the cringing race which + daily reads that abominable trash? I believe that ours is the only country + in the world now where the COURT CIRCULAR remains in full flourish—where + you read, 'This day his Royal Highness Prince Pattypan was taken an airing + in his go-cart.' 'The Princess Pimminy was taken a drive, attended by her + ladies of honour, and accompanied by her doll,' &c. We laugh at the + solemnity with which Saint Simon announces that SA MAJESTE SE MEDICAMENTE + AUJOURD'HUI. Under our very noses the same folly is daily going on. That + wonderful and mysterious man, the author of the COURT CIRCULAR, drops in + with his budget at the newspaper offices every night. I once asked the + editor of a paper to allow me to lie in wait and see him. + </p> + <p> + I am told that in a kingdom where there is a German King-Consort (Portugal + it must be, for the Queen of that country married a German Prince, who is + greatly admired and respected by the natives), whenever the Consort takes + the diversion of shooting among the rabbit-warrens of Cintra, or the + pheasant-preserve of Mafra, he has a keeper to load his guns, as a matter + of course, and then they are handed to the nobleman, his equerry, and the + nobleman hands them to the Prince who blazes away—gives back the + discharged gun to the nobleman, who gives it to the keeper, and so on. But + the Prince WON'T TAKE THE GUN FROM THE HANDS OF THE LOADER. + </p> + <p> + As long as this unnatural and monstrous etiquette continues, Snobs there + must be. The three persons engaged in this transaction are, for the time + being, Snobs. + </p> + <p> + 1. The keeper—the least Snob of all, because he is discharging his + daily duty; but he appears here as a Snob, that is to say, in a position + of debasement before another human being (the Prince), with whom he is + allowed to communicate through another party. A free Portuguese + gamekeeper, who professes himself to be unworthy to communicate directly + with any person, confesses himself to be a Snob. + </p> + <p> + 2. The nobleman in waiting is a Snob. If it degrades the Prince to receive + the gun from the gamekeeper, it is degrading to the nobleman in waiting to + execute that service. He acts as a Snob towards the keeper, whom he keeps + from communication with the Prince—a Snob to the Prince, to whom he + pays a degrading homage. + </p> + <p> + 3. The King-Consort of Portugal is a Snob for insulting fellow-men in this + way. There's no harm in his accepting the services of the keeper directly; + but indirectly he insults the service performed, and the servants who + perform it; and therefore, I say, respectfully, is a most undoubted, + though royal Snob. + </p> + <p> + And then you read in the DIARIO DO GOBERNO—'Yesterday his Majesty + the King took the diversion of shooting the woods off Cintra, attended by + Colonel the honourable Whiskerando Sombrero. His Majesty returned to the + Necessidades to lunch, at,' &c. &c.. + </p> + <p> + Oh! that COURT CIRCULAR! once more, I exclaim. + </p> + <p> + Down with the COURT CIRCULAR—that engine and propagator of + Snobbishness! I promise to subscribe for a year to any daily paper that + shall come out without a COURT CIRCULAR—were it the MORNING HERALD + itself. When I read that trash, I rise in my wrath; I feel myself + disloyal, a regicide, a member of the Calf's Head Club. The only COURT + CIRCULAR story which ever pleased me, was that of the King of Spain, who + in great part was roasted, because there was not time for the Prime + Minister to command the Lord Chamberlain to desire the Grand Gold Stick to + order the first page in waiting to bid the chief of the flunkeys to + request the House-maid of Honour to bring up a pail of water to put his + Majesty out. + </p> + <p> + I am like the Pasha of three tails, to whom the Sultan sends HIS COURT + CIRCULAR, the bowstring. + </p> + <p> + It CHOKES me. May its usage be abolished for ever. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V—WHAT SNOBS ADMIRE + </h2> + <p> + Now let us consider how difficult it is even for great men to escape from + being Snobs. It is very well for the reader, whose fine feelings are + disgusted by the assertion that Kings, Princes, Lords, are Snobs, to say + 'You are confessedly a Snob yourself. In professing to depict Snobs, it is + only your own ugly mug which you are copying with a Narcissus-like conceit + and fatuity.' But I shall pardon this explosion of ill-temper on the part + of my constant reader, reflecting upon the misfortune of his birth and + country. It is impossible for ANY Briton, perhaps, not to be a Snob in + some degree. If people can be convinced of this fact, an immense point is + gained, surely. If I have pointed out the disease, let us hope that other + scientific characters may discover the remedy. + </p> + <p> + If you, who are a person of the middle ranks of life, are a Snob,—you + whom nobody flatters particularly; you who have no toadies; you whom no + cringing flunkeys or shopmen bow out of doors; you whom the policeman + tells to move on; you who are jostled in the crowd of this world, and + amongst the Snobs our brethren: consider how much harder it is for a man + to escape who has not your advantages, and is all his life long subject to + adulation; the butt of meanness; consider how difficult it is for the + Snobs' idol not to be a Snob. + </p> + <p> + As I was discoursing with my friend Eugenio in this impressive way, Lord + Buckram passed us, the son of the Marquis of Bagwig, and knocked at the + door of the family mansion in Red Lion Square. His noble father and mother + occupied, as everybody knows, distinguished posts in the Courts of late + Sovereigns. The Marquis was Lord of the Pantry, and her Ladyship, Lady of + the Powder Closet to Queen Charlotte. Buck (as I call him, for we are very + familiar) gave me a nod as he passed, and I proceeded to show Eugenio how + it was impossible that this nobleman should not be one of ourselves, + having been practised upon by Snobs all his life. + </p> + <p> + His parents resolved to give him a public education, and sent him to + school at the earliest possible period. The Reverend Otto Rose, D.D., + Principal of the Preparatory Academy for young noblemen and gentlemen, + Richmond Lodge, took this little Lord in hand, and fell down and + worshipped him. He always introduced him to fathers and mothers who came + to visit their children at the school. He referred with pride and pleasure + to the most noble the Marquis of Bagwig, as one of the kind friends and + patrons of his Seminary. He made Lord Buckram a bait for such a + multiplicity of pupils, that a new wing was built to Richmond Lodge, and + thirty-five new little white dimity beds were added to the establishment. + Mm. Rose used to take out the little Lord in the one-horse chaise with her + when she paid visits, until the Rector's lady and the Surgeon's wife + almost died with envy. His own son and Lord Buckram having been discovered + robbing an orchard together, the Doctor flogged his own flesh and blood + most unmercifully for leading the young Lord astray. He parted from him + with tears. There was always a letter directed to the Most Noble the + Marquis ef Bagwig, on the Doctor's study table, when any visitors were + received by him. + </p> + <p> + At Eton, a great deal of Snobbishness was thrashed out of Lord Buckram, + and he was birched with perfect impartiality. Even there, however, a + select band of sucking tuft-hunters followed him. Young Croesus lent him + three-and-twenty bran-new sovereigns out of his father's bank. Young + Snaily did his exercises for him, and tried 'to know him at home;' but + Young Bull licked him in a fight of fifty-five minutes, and he was caned + several times with great advantage for not sufficiently polishing his + master Smith's shoes. Boys are not ALL toadies in the morning of life. + </p> + <p> + But when he went to the University, crowds of toadies sprawled over him. + The tutors toadied him. The fellows in hall paid him great clumsy + compliments. The Dean never remarked his absence from Chapel, or heard any + noise issuing from his rooms. A number of respectable young fellows, (it + is among the respectable, the Baker Street class, that Snobbishness + flourishes, more than among any set of people in England)—a number + of these clung to him like leeches. There was no end now to Croesus's + loans of money; and Buckram couldn't ride out with the hounds, but Snaily + (a timid creature by nature) was in the field, and would take any leap at + which his friend chose to ride. Young Rose came up to the same College, + having been kept back for that express purpose by his father. He spent a + quarter's allowance in giving Buckram a single dinner; but he knew there + was always pardon for him for extravagance in such a cause; and a + ten-pound note always came to him from home when he mentioned Buckram's + name in a letter. What wild visions entered the brains of Mrs. Podge and + Miss Podge, the wife and daughter of the Principal of Lord Buckram's + College, I don't know, but that reverend old gentleman was too profound a + flunkey by nature ever for one minute to think that a child of his could + marry a nobleman. He therefore hastened on his daughter's union with + Professor Crab. + </p> + <p> + When Lord Buckram, after taking his honorary degree, (for Alma Mater is a + Snob, too, and truckles to a Lord like the rest,)—when Lord Buckram + went abroad to finish his education, you all know what dangers he ran, and + what numbers of caps were set at him. Lady Leach and her daughters + followed him from Paris to Rome, and from Rome to Baden-Baden; Miss + Leggitt burst into tears before his face when he announced his + determination to quit Naples, and fainted on the neck of her mamma: + Captain Macdragon, of Macdragonstown, County Tipperary, called upon him to + 'explene his intintions with respect to his sisther, Miss Amalia + Macdragon, of Macdragonstown,' and proposed to shoot him unless he married + that spotless and beautiful young creature, who was afterwards led to the + altar by Mr. Muff, at Cheltenham. If perseverance and forty thousand + pounds down could have tempted him, Miss Lydia Croesus would certainly + have been Lady Buckram. Count Towrowski was glad to take her with half the + meney, as all the genteel world knows. + </p> + <p> + And now, perhaps, the reader is anxious to know what sort of a man this is + who wounded so many ladies' hearts, and who has been such a prodigious + favourite with men. If we were to describe him it would be personal. + Besides, it really does not matter in the least what sort of a man he is, + or what his personal qualities are. + </p> + <p> + Suppose he is a young nobleman of a literary turn, and that he published + poems ever so foolish and feeble, the Snobs would purchase thousands of + his volumes: the publishers (who refused my Passion-Flowers, and my grand + Epic at any price) would give him his own. Suppose he is a nobleman of a + jovial turn, and has a fancy for wrenching off knockers, frequenting + ginshops, and half murdering policemen: the public will sympathize + good-naturedly with his amusements, and say he is a hearty, honest fellow. + Suppose he is fond of play and the turf; and has a fancy to be a blackleg, + and occasionally condescends to pluck a pigeon at cards; the public will + pardon him, and many honest people will court him, as they would court a + housebreaker if he happened to be a Lord. Suppose he is an idiot; yet, by + the glorious constitution, he is good enough to govern US. Suppose he is + an honest, highminded gentleman; so much the better for himself. But he + may be an ass, and yet respected; or a ruffian, and yet be exceedingly + popular; or a rogue, and yet excuses will be found for him. Snobs will + still worship him. Male Snobs will do him honour, and females look kindly + upon him, however hideous he may be. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI—ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Having received a great deal of obloquy for dragging monarchs, princes, + and the respected nobility into the Snob category, I trust to please + everybody in the present chapter, by stating my firm opinion that it is + among the RESPECTABLE classes of this vast and happy empire that the + greatest profusion of Snobs is to be found. I pace down my beloved Baker + Street, (I am engaged on a life of Baker, founder of this celebrated + street,) I walk in Harley Street (where every other house has a + hatchment), Wimpole Street, that is as cheerful as the Catacombs—a + dingy Mausoleum of the genteel:—I rove round Regent's Park, where + the plaster is patching off the house walls; where Methodist preachers are + holding forth to three little children in the green inclosures, and puffy + valetudinarians are cantering in the solitary mud:—I thread the + doubtful ZIG-ZAGS of May Fair, where Mrs. Kitty Lorimer's Brougham may be + seen drawn up next door to old Lady Lollipop's belozenged family coach;—I + roam through Belgravia, that pale and polite district, where all the + inhabitants look prim and correct, and the mansions are painted a faint + whity-brown: I lose myself in the new squares and terraces of the + brilliant bran-new Bayswater-and-Tyburn-Junction line; and in one and all + of these districts the same truth comes across me. I stop before any house + at hazard, and say, 'O house, you are inhabited—O knocker, you are + knocked at—O undressed flunkey, sunning your lazy calves as you lean + against the iron railings, you are paid—by Snobs.' It is a + tremendous thought that; and it is almost sufficient to drive a benevolent + mind to madness to think that perhaps there is not one in ten of those + houses where the 'Peerage' does not lie on the drawing-room table. + Considering the harm that foolish lying book does, I would have all the + copies of it burned, as the barber burned all Quixote's books of + humbugging chivalry. + </p> + <p> + Look at this grand house in the middle of the square. The Earl of + Loughcorrib lives there: he has fifty thousand a year. A DEJEUNER DANSANT + given at his house last week cost, who knows how much? The mere flowers + for the room and bouquets for the ladies cost four hundred pounds. That + man in drab trousers, coming crying down the stops, is a dun: Lord + Loughcorrib has ruined him, and won't see him: that is his lordship + peeping through the blind of his study at him now. Go thy ways, + Loughcorrib, thou art a Snob, a heartless pretender, a hypocrite of + hospitality; a rogue who passes forged notes upon society;—but I am + growing too eloquent. + </p> + <p> + You see that nice house, No. 23, where a butcher's boy is ringing the + area-bell. He has three muttonchops in his tray. They are for the dinner + of a very different and very respectable family; for Lady Susan Scraper, + and her daughters, Miss Scraper and Miss Emily Scraper. The domestics, + luckily for them, are on board wages—two huge footmen in light blue + and canary, a fat steady coachman who is a Methodist, and a butler who + would never have stayed in the family but that he was orderly to General + Scraper when the General distinguished himself at Walcheren. His widow + sent his portrait to the United Service Club, and it is hung up in one of + the back dressing-closets there. He is represented at a parlour window + with red curtains; in the distance is a whirlwind, in which cannon are + firing off; and he is pointing to a chart, on which are written the words + 'Walcheren, Tobago.' + </p> + <p> + Lady Susan is, as everybody knows by referring to the 'British Bible,' a + daughter of the great and good Earl Bagwig before mentioned. She thinks + everything belonging to her the greatest and best in the world. The first + of men naturally are the Buckrams, her own race: then follow in rank the + Scrapers. The General was the greatest general: his eldest son, Scraper + Buckram Scraper, is at present the greatest and best; his second son the + next greatest and best; and herself the paragon of women. + </p> + <p> + Indeed, she is a most respectable and honourable lady. She goes to church + of course: she would fancy the Church in danger if she did not. She + subscribes to Church and parish charities; and is a directress of + meritorious charitable institutions—of Queen Charlotte's Lying-in + Hospital, the Washerwomen's Asylum, the British Drummers' Daughters' Home, + &c.. She is a model of a matron. + </p> + <p> + The tradesman never lived who could say that he was not paid on the + quarter-day. The beggars of her neighbourhood avoid her like a pestilence; + for while she walks out, protected by John, that domestic has always two + or three mendicity tickets ready for deserving objects. Ten guineas a year + will pay all her charities. There is no respectable lady in all London who + gets her name more often printed for such a sum of money. + </p> + <p> + Those three mutton-chops which you see entering at the kitchen-door will + be served on the family-plate at seven o'clock this evening, the huge + footman being present, and the butler in black, and the crest and + coat-of-arms of the Scrapers blazing everywhere. I pity Miss Emily Scraper—she + is still young—young and hungry. Is it a fact that she spends her + pocket-money in buns? Malicious tongues say so; but she has very little to + spare for buns, the poor little hungry soul! For the fact is, that when + the footmen, and the ladies' maids, and the fat coach-horses, which are + jobbed, and the six dinner-parties in the season, and the two great solemn + evening-parties, and the rent of the big house, and the journey to an + English or foreign watering-place for the autumn, are paid, my lady's + income has dwindled away to a very small sum, and she is as poor as you or + I. + </p> + <p> + You would not think it when you saw her big carriage rattling up to the + drawing-room, and caught a glimpse of her plumes, lappets, and diamonds, + waving over her ladyship's sandy hair and majestical hooked nose;—you + would not think it when you hear 'Lady Susan Scraper's carriage' bawled + out at midnight so as to disturb all Belgravia:—you would not think + it when she comes rustling into church, the obsequious John behind with + the bag of Prayer-books. Is it possible, you would say, that so grand and + awful a personage as that can be hard-up for money? Alas! So it is. + </p> + <p> + She never heard such a word as Snob, I will engage, in this wicked and + vulgar world. And, O stars and garters! how she would start if she heard + that she—she, as solemn as Minerva—she, as chaste as Diana + (without that heathen goddess's unladylike propensity for field-sports)—that + she too was a Snob! + </p> + <p> + A Snob she is, as long as she sets that prodigious value upon herself, + upon her name, upon her outward appearance, and indulges in that + intolerable pomposity; as long as she goes parading abroad, like Solomon + in all his glory; as long as she goes to bed—as I believe she does—with + a turban and a bird of paradise in it, and a court train to her + night-gown; as long as she is so insufferably virtuous and condescending; + as long as she does not cut at least one of those footmen down into + mutton-chops for the benefit of the young ladies. + </p> + <p> + I had my notions of her from my old schoolfellow,—her son Sydney + Scraper—a Chancery barrister without any practice—the most + placid, polite, and genteel of Snobs, who never exceeded his allowance of + two hundred a year, and who may be seen any evening at the 'Oxford and + Cambridge Club,' simpering over the QUARTERLY REVIEW, in the blameless + enjoyment of his half-pint of port. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII—ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Look at the next house to Lady Susan Scraper's. The first mansion with the + awning over the door: that canopy will be let down this evening for the + comfort of the friends of Sir Alured and Lady S. de Mogyns, whose parties + are so much admired by the public, and the givers themselves. + </p> + <p> + Peach-coloured liveries laced with silver, and pea-green plush + inexpressibles, render the De Mogyns' flunkeys the pride of the ring when + they appear in Hyde Park where Lady de Mogyns, as she sits upon her satin + cushions, with her dwarf spaniel in her arms, bows to the very selectest + of the genteel. Times are altered now with Mary Anne, or, as she calls + herself, Marian de Mogyns. + </p> + <p> + She was the daughter of Captain Flack of the Rathdrum Fencibles, who + crossed with his regiment over from Ireland to Caermarthenshire ever so + many years ago, and defended Wales from the Corsican invader. The + Rathdrums were quartered at Pontydwdlm, where Marian wooed and won her De + Mogyns, a young banker in the place. His attentions to Miss Flack at a + race ball were such that her father said De Mogyns must either die on the + field of honour, or become his son-in-law. He preferred marriage. His name + was Muggins then, and his father—a flourishing banker, + army-contractor, smuggler, and general jobber—almost disinherited + him on account of this connection. + </p> + <p> + There is a story that Muggins the Elder was made a baronet for having lent + money to a R-y-l p-rs-n-ge. I do not believe it. The R-y-l Family always + paid their debts, from the Prince of Wales downwards. + </p> + <p> + Howbeit, to his life's end he remained simple Sir Thomas Muggins, + representing Pontydwdlm in Parliament for many years after the war. The + old banker died in course of time, and to use the affectionate phrase + common on such occasions, 'cut up' prodigiously well. His son, Alfred + Smith Mogyns, succeeded to the main portion of his wealth, and to his + titles and the bloody hand of his scutcheon. It was not for many years + after that he appeared as Sir Alured Mogyns Smyth de Mogyns, with a + genealogy found out for him by the Editor of 'Fluke's Peerage,' and which + appears as follows in that work:—'De Mogyns.—Sir Alured Mogyns + Smyth, Second Baronet. This gentleman is a representative of one of the + most ancient families of Wales, who trace their descent until it is lost + in the mists of antiquity. A genealogical tree beginning with Shem is in + the possession of the family, and is stated by a legend of many thousand + years' date to have been drawn on papyrus by a grandson of the patriarch + himself. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt of the immense antiquity + of the race of Mogyns. + </p> + <p> + 'In the time of Boadicea, Hogyn Mogyn, of the hundred Beeves, was a suitor + and a rival of Caractacus for the hand of that Princess. He was a person + gigantic in stature, and was slain by Suetonius in the battle which + terminated the liberties of Britain. From him descended directly the + Princes of Pontydwdlm, Mogyn of the Golden Harp (see the Mabinogion of + Lady Charlotte Guest,) Bogyn-Merodac-ap-Mogyn, (the black fiend son of + Mogyn,) and a long list of bards and warriors, celebrated both in Wales + and Armorica. The independent Princes of Mogyn long held out against the + ruthless Kings of England, until finally Gam Mogyns made his submission to + Prince Henry, son of Henry IV., and under the name of Sir David Gam de + Mogyns, was distinguished at the battle of Agincourt. + </p> + <p> + From him the present Baronet is descended. (And here the descent follows + in order until it comes to) Thomas Muggins, first Baronet of Pontydwdlm + Castle, for 23 years Member of Parliament for that borough, who had issue, + Alured Mogyns Smyth, the present Baronet, who married Marian, daughter of + the late general P. Flack, of Ballyflack, in the Kingdom of Ireland of the + Counts Flack of the H. R. Empire. Sir Alured has issue, Alured Caradoc, + born 1819, Marian, 1811, Blanche Adeliza, Emily Doria, Adelaide Obleans, + Katinka Rostopchin, Patrick Flack, died 1809. + </p> + <p> + 'Arms—a mullion garbled, gules on a saltire reversed of the second. + Crest—a tom-tit rampant regardant. Motto—UNG ROY UNG MOGYNS.' + </p> + <p> + It was long before Lady de Mogyns shone as a star in the fashionable + world. At first, poor Muggins was the in the hands of the Flacks, the + Clancys, the Tooles, the Shanahans, his wife's Irish relations; and whilst + he was yet but heir-apparent, his house overflowed with claret and the + national nectar, for the benefit of Hibernian relatives. Tom Tufto + absolutely left the street in which they lived in London, because he said + 'it was infected with such a confounded smell of whisky from the house of + those IWISH people.' + </p> + <p> + It was abroad that they learned to be genteel. They pushed into all + foreign courts, and elbowed their way into the halls of Ambassadors. They + pounced upon the stray nobility, and seized young lords travelling with + their bear-leaders. They gave parties at Naples, Rome, and Paris. They got + a Royal Prince to attend their SOIREES at the latter place, and it was + here that they first appeared under the name of De Mogyns, which they bear + with such splendour to this day. + </p> + <p> + All sorts of stories are told of the desperate efforts made by the + indomitable Lady de Mogyns to gain the place she now occupies, and those + of my beloved readers who live in middle life, and are unacquainted with + the frantic struggles, the wicked feuds, the intrigues, cabals, and + disappointments which, as I am given to understand, reign in the + fashionable world, may bless their stars that they at least are not + FASHIONABLE Snobs. The intrigues set afoot by the De Mogyns to get the + Duchess of Buckskin to her parties, would strike a Talleyrand with + admiration. She had a brain fever after being disappointed of an + invitation to Lady Aldermanbury's THE DANSANT, and would have committed + suicide but for a ball at Windsor. I have the following story from my + noble friend Lady Clapperclaw herself,—Lady Kathleen O'Shaughnessy + that was, and daughter of the Earl of Turfanthunder:— + </p> + <p> + 'When that odious disguised Irishwoman, Lady Muggins, was struggling to + take her place in the world, and was bringing out her hidjous daughter + Blanche,' said old Lady Clapperclaw—(Marian has a hump-back and + doesn't show, but she's the only lady in the family)—'when that + wretched Polly Muggins was bringing out Blanche, with her radish of a + nose, and her carrots of ringlets, and her turnip for a face, she was most + anxious—as her father had been a cowboy on my father's land—to + be patronized by us, and asked me point-blank, in the midst of a silence + at Count Volauvent's, the French Ambassador's dinner, why I had not sent + her a card for my ball? + </p> + <p> + '“Because my rooms are already too full, and your ladyship would be + crowded inconveniently,” says I; indeed she takes up as much room as an + elephant: besides I wouldn't have her, and that was flat. + </p> + <p> + 'I thought my answer was a settler to her: but the next day she comes + weeping to my arms—“Dear Lady Clapperclaw,” says she, “it's not for + ME; I ask it for my blessed Blanche! a young creature in her first season, + and not at your ball! My tender child will pine and die of vexation. I + don't want to come. I will stay at home to nurse Sir Alured in the gout. + Mrs. Bolster is going, I know; she will be Blanche's chaperon.” + </p> + <p> + '“You wouldn't subscribe for the Rathdrum blanket and potato fund; you, + who come out of the parish,” says I, “and whose grandfather, honest man, + kept cows there.” + </p> + <p> + '“Will twenty guineas be enough, dearest Lady Clapperclaw?” + </p> + <p> + '“Twenty guineas is sufficient,” says I, and she paid them; so I said, + “Blanche may come, but not you, mind:” and she left me with a world of + thanks. + </p> + <p> + 'Would you believe it?—when my ball came, the horrid woman made her + appearance with her daughter! + </p> + <p> + “Didn't I tell you not to come?” said I, in a mighty passion. “What would + the world have said?” cries my Lady Muggins: “my carriage is gone for Sir + Alured to the Club; let me stay only ten minutes, dearest Lady + Clapperclaw.” + </p> + <p> + '“Well as you are here, madam, you may stay and get your supper,” I + answered, and so left her, and never spoke a word more to her all night. + </p> + <p> + 'And now,' screamed out old Lady Clapperclaw, clapping her hands, and + speaking with more brogue than ever, 'what do you think, after all my + kindness to her, the wicked, vulgar, odious, impudent upstart of s + cowboy's granddaughter, has done?—she cut me yesterday in Hy' Park, + and hasn't sent me a ticket for her ball to-night, though they say Prince + George is to be there.' + </p> + <p> + Yes, such is the fact. In the race of fashion the resolute and active De + Mogyns has passed the poor old Clapperclaw. Her progress in gentility may + be traced by the sets of friends whom she has courted, and made, and cut, + and left behind her. She has struggled so gallantly for polite reputation + that she has won it: pitilessly kicking down the ladder as she advanced + degree by degree. + </p> + <p> + Irish relations were first sacrificed; she made her father dine in the + steward's room, to his perfect contentment: and would send Sir Alured + thither like-wise but that he is a peg on which she hopes to hang her + future honours; and is, after all, paymaster of her daughter's fortunes. + He is meek and content. He has been so long a gentleman that he is used to + it, and acts the part of governor very well. In the day-time he goes from + the 'Union' to 'Arthur's,' and from 'Arthur's' to the 'Union.' He is a + dead hand at piquet, and loses a very comfortable maintenance to some + young fellows, at whist, at the 'Travellers'.' + </p> + <p> + His son has taken his father's seat in Parliament, and has of course + joined Young England. He is the only man in the country who believes in + the De Mogynses, and sighs for the days when a De Mogyns led the van of + battle. He has written a little volume of spoony puny poems. He wears a + lock of the hair of Laud, the Confessor and Martyr, and fainted when he + kissed the Pope's toe at Rome. He sleeps in white kid-gloves, and commits + dangerous excesses upon green tea. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII—GREAT CITY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + There is no disguising the fact that this series of papers is making a + prodigious sensation among all classes in this Empire. Notes of admiration + (!), of interrogation (?), of remonstrance, approval, or abuse, come + pouring into MR. PUNCH'S box. We have been called to task for betraying + the secrets of three different families of De Mogyns; no less than four + Lady Scrapers have been discovered; and young gentlemen are quite shy of + ordering half-a-pint of port and simpering over the QUARTERLY REVIEW at + the Club, lest they should be mistaken for Sydney Scraper, Esq. 'What CAN + be your antipathy to Baker Street?' asks some fair remonstrant, evidently + writing from that quarter. + </p> + <p> + 'Why only attack the aristocratic Snobs?' says one 'estimable + correspondent: 'are not the snobbish Snobs to have their turn?'—'Pitch + into the University Snobs!' writes an indignant gentleman (who spelt + ELEGANT with two I's)—'Show up the Clerical Snob,' suggests another.—'Being + at “Meurice's Hotel,” Paris, some time since,' some wag hints, 'I saw Lord + B. leaning out of the window with his boots in his hand, and bawling out + “GARCON, CIREZ-MOI CES BOTTES.” Oughtn't he to be brought in among the + Snobs?' + </p> + <p> + No; far from it. If his lordship's boots are dirty, it is because he is + Lord B., and walks. There is nothing snobbish in having only one pair of + boots, or a favourite pair; and certainly nothing snobbish in desiring to + have them cleaned. Lord B., in so doing, performed a perfectly natural and + gentlemanlike action; for which I am so pleased with him that I have had + him designed in a favourable and elegant attitude, and put at the head of + this Chapter in the place of honour. No, we are not personal in these + candid remarks. As Phidias took the pick of a score of beauties before he + completed a Venus, so have we to examine, perhaps, a thousand Snobs, + before one is expressed upon paper. + </p> + <p> + Great City Snobs are the next in the hierarchy, and ought to be + considered. But here is a difficulty. The great City Snob is commonly most + difficult of access. Unless you are a capitalist, you cannot visit him in + the recesses of his bank parlour in Lombard Street. Unless you are a sprig + of nobility there is little hope of seeing him at home. In a great City + Snob firm there is generally one partner whose name is down for charities, + and who frequents Exeter Hall; you may catch a glimpse of another (a + scientific City Snob) at my Lord N——'s SOIREES, or the + lectures of the London Institution; of a third (a City Snob of taste) at + picture-auctions, at private views of exhibitions, or at the Opera or the + Philharmonic. But intimacy is impossible, in most cases, with this grave, + pompous, and awful being. + </p> + <p> + A mere gentleman may hope to sit at almost anybody's table—to take + his place at my lord duke's in the country—to dance a quadrille at + Buckingham Palace itself—(beloved Lady Wilhelmina Wagglewiggle! do + you recollect the sensation we made at the ball of our late adored + Sovereign Queen Caroline, at Brandenburg House, Hammersmith?) but the City + Snob's doors are, for the most part, closed to him; and hence all that one + knows of this great class is mostly from hearsay. + </p> + <p> + In other countries of Europe, the Banking Snob is more expansive and + communicative than with us, and receives all the world into his circle. + For instance, everybody knows the princely hospitalities of the + Scharlaschild family at Paris, Naples, Frankfort, &c.. They entertain + all the world, even the poor, at their FETES. Prince Polonia, at Rome, and + his brother, the Duke of Strachino, are also remarkable for their + hospitalities. I like the spirit of the first-named nobleman. Titles not + costing much in the Roman territory, he has had the head clerk of the + banking-house made a Marquis, and his Lordship will screw a BAJOCCO out of + you in exchange as dexterously as any commoner could do. It is a comfort + to be able to gratify such grandees with a farthing or two; it makes the + poorest man feel that he can do good. 'The Polonias have intermarried with + the greatest and most ancient families of Rome, and you see their heraldic + cognizance (a mushroom or on an azure field) quartered in a hundred places + in the city with the arms of the Colonnas and Dorias. + </p> + <p> + City Snobs have the same mania for aristocratic marriages. I like to see + such. I am of a savage and envious nature,—I like to see these two + humbugs which, dividing, as they do, the social empire of this kingdom + between them, hate each other naturally, making truce and uniting, for the + sordid interests of either. I like to see an old aristocrat, swelling with + pride of race, the descendant of illustrious Norman robbers, whose blood + has been pure for centuries, and who looks down upon common Englishmen as + a free American does on a nigger,—I like to see old Stiffneck + obliged to bow down his head and swallow his infernal pride, and drink the + cup of humiliation poured out by Pump and Aldgate's butler. 'Pump and + Aldgate, says he, 'your grandfather was a bricklayer, and his hod is still + kept in the bank. Your pedigree begins in a workhouse; mine can be dated + from all the royal palaces of Europe. I came over with the Conqueror; I am + own cousin to Charles Martel, Orlando Furioso, Philip Augustus, Peter the + Cruel, and Frederick Barbarossa. I quarter the Royal Arms of Brentford in + my coat. I despise you, but I want money; and I will sell you my beloved + daughter, Blanche Stiffneck, for a hundred thousand pounds, to pay off my + mortgages. Let your son marry her, and she shall become Lady Blanche Pump + and Aldgate.' + </p> + <p> + Old Pump and Aldgate clutches at the bargain. And a comfortable thing it + is to think that birth can be bought for money. So you learn to value it. + Why should we, who don't possess it, set a higher store on it than those + who do? Perhaps the best use of that book, the 'Peerage,' is to look down + the list, and see how many have bought and sold birth,—how poor + sprigs of nobility somehow sell themselves to rich City Snobs' daughters, + how rich City Snobs purchase noble ladies—and so to admire the + double baseness of the bargain. + </p> + <p> + Old Pump and Aldgate buys the article and pays the money. The sale of the + girl's person is blessed by a Bishop at St. George's, Hanover Square, and + next year you read, 'At Roehampton, on Saturday, the Lady Blanche Pump, of + a son and heir. + </p> + <p> + After this interesting event, some old acquaintance, who saw young Pump in + the parlour at the bank in the City, said to him, familiarly, 'How's your + wife, Pump, my boy?' + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pump looked exceedingly puzzled and disgusted, and, after a pause, + said, 'LADY BLANCHE PUMP' is pretty well, I thank you.' + </p> + <p> + 'OH, I THOUGHT SHE WAS YOUR WIFE!' said the familiar brute, Snooks, + wishing him good-bye; and ten minutes after, the story was all over the + Stock Exchange, where it is told, when young Pump appears, to this very + day. + </p> + <p> + We can imagine the weary life this poor Pump, this martyr to Mammon, is + compelled to undergo. Fancy the domestic enjoyments of a man who has a + wife who scorns him; who cannot see his own friends in his own house; who + having deserted the middle rank of life, is not yet admitted to the + higher; but who is resigned to rebuffs and delay and humiliation, + contented to think that his son will be more fortunate. + </p> + <p> + It used to be the custom of some very old-fashioned clubs in this city, + when a gentleman asked for change a guinea, always to bring it to him in + WASHED SILVER: that which had passed immediately out of the hands of + vulgar being considered 'as too coarse to soil a gentleman's fingers.' So, + when the City Snob's money has been washed during a generation or so; has + been washed into estates, and woods, and castles, and town-mansions, it is + allowed to pass current as real aristocratic coin. Old Pump sweeps a shop, + runs of messages, becomes a confidential clerk and partner. Pump the + Second becomes chief of the house, spins more and more money, marries his + son to an Earl's daughter. Pump Tertius goes on with the bank; but his + chief business in life is to become the father of Pump Quartus, who comes + out a full-blown aristocrat, and takes his seat as Baron Pumpington, and + his race rules hereditarily over this nation of Snobs. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX—ON SOME MILITARY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + As no society in the world is more agreeable than that of well-bred and + well-informed military gentlemen, so, likewise, none is more insufferable + than that of Military Snobs. They are to be found of all grades, from the + General Officer, whose padded old breast twinkles over with a score of + stars, clasps, and decorations, to the budding cornet, who is shaving for + a beard, and has just been appointed to the Saxe-Coburg Lancers. + </p> + <p> + I have always admired that dispensation of rank in our country, which sets + up this last-named little creature (who was flogged only last week because + he could not spell) to command great whiskered warriors, who have faced + all dangers of climate and battle; which, because he has money, to lodge + at the agent's, will place him over the heads of men who have a thousand + times more experience and desert: and which, in the course of time, will + bring him all the honours of his profession, when the veteran soldier he + commanded has got no other reward for his bravery than a berth in Chelsea + Hospital, and the veteran officer he superseded has slunk into shabby + retirement, and ends his disappointed life on a threadbare half-pay. + </p> + <p> + When I read in the GAZETTE such announcements as 'Lieutenant and Captain + Grig, from the Bombardier Guards, to be Captain, vice Grizzle, who + retires,' I know what becomes of the Peninsular Grizzle; I follow him in + spirit to the humble country town, where he takes up his quarters, and + occupies himself with the most desperate attempts to live like a + gentleman, on the stipend of half a tailor's foreman; and I picture to + myself little Grig rising from rank to rank, skipping from one regiment to + another, with an increased grade in each, avoiding disagreeable foreign + service, and ranking as a colonel at thirty;—all because he has + money, and Lord Grigsby is his father, who had the same luck before him. + Grig must blush at first to give his orders to old men in every way his + betters. And as it is very difficult for a spoiled child to escape being + selfish and arrogant, so it is a very hard task indeed for this spoiled + child of fortune not to be a Snob. + </p> + <p> + It must have often been a matter of wonder to the candid reader, that the + army, the most enormous job of all our political institutions, should yet + work so well in the field; and we must cheerfully give Grig, and his like, + the credit for courage which they display whenever occasion calls for it. + The Duke's dandy regiments fought as well as any (they said better than + any, but that is absurd). The great Duke himself was a dandy once, and + jobbed on, as Marlborough did before him. But this only proves that + dandies are brave as well as other Britons—as all Britons. Let us + concede that the high-born Grig rode into the entrenchments at Sobraon as + gallantly as Corporal Wallop, the ex-ploughboy. + </p> + <p> + The times of war are more favourable to him than the periods of peace. + Think of Grig's life in the Bombardier Guards, or the Jack-boot Guards; + his marches from Windsor to London, from London to Windsor, from + Knightsbridge to Regent's Park; the idiotic services he has to perform, + which consist in inspecting the pipeclay of his company, or the horses in + the stable, or bellowing out 'Shoulder humps! Carry humps!' all which + duties the very smallest intellect that ever belonged to mortal man would + suffice to comprehend. The professional duties of a footman are quite as + difficult and various. The red-jackets who hold gentlemen's horses in St. + James's Street could do the work just as well as those vacuous, + good-natured, gentlemanlike, rickety little lieutenants, who may be seen + sauntering about Pall Mall, in high-heeled little boots, or rallying round + the standard of their regiment in the Palace Court, at eleven o'clock, + when the band plays. Did the beloved reader ever see one of the young + fellows staggering under the flag, or, above all, going through the + operation of saluting it? It is worth a walk to the Palace to witness that + magnificent piece of tomfoolery. + </p> + <p> + I have had the honour of meeting once or twice an old gentleman, whom I + look upon to be a specimen of army-training, and who has served in crack + regiments, or commanded them, all his life. I allude to Lieutenant-General + the Honourable Sir George Granby Tufto, K.C.B., K.T.S., K.H., K.S.W., + &c. &c.. His manners are irreproachable generally; in society he + is a perfect gentleman, and a most thorough Snob. + </p> + <p> + A man can't help being a fool, be he ever so old, and Sir George is a + greater ass at sixty-eight than he was when he first entered the army at + fifteen. He distinguished himself everywhere: his name is mentioned with + praise in a score of Gazettes: he is the man, in fact, whose padded + breast, twinkling over with innumerable decorations, has already been + introduced to the reader. It is difficult to say what virtues this + prosperous gentleman possesses. He never read a book in his life, and, + with his purple, old gouty fingers, still writes a schoolboy hand. He has + reached old age and grey hairs without being the least venerable. He + dresses like an outrageously young man to the present moment, and laces + and pads his old carcass as if he were still handsome George Tufto of + 1800. He is selfish, brutal, passionate, and a glutton. It is curious to + mark him at table, and see him heaving in his waistband, his little + bloodshot eyes gloating over his meal. He swears considerably in his talk, + and tells filthy garrison stories after dinner. On account of his rank and + his services, people pay the bestarred and betitled old brute a sort of + reverence; and he looks down upon you and me, and exhibits his contempt + for us, with a stupid and artless candour which is quite amusing to watch. + Perhaps, had he been bred to another profession, he would not have been + the disreputable old creature he now is. But what other? He was fit for + none; too incorrigibly idle and dull for any trade but this, in which he + has distinguished himself publicly as a good and gallant officer, and + privately for riding races, drinking port, fighting duels, and seducing + women. He believes himself to be one of the most honourable and deserving + beings in the world. About Waterloo Place, of afternoons, you may see him + tottering in his varnished boots, and leering under the bonnets of the + women who pass by. When he dies of apoplexy, THE TIMES will have a quarter + of a column about his services and battles—four lines of print will + be wanted to describe his titles and orders alone—and the earth will + cover one of the wickedest and dullest old wretches that ever strutted + over it. + </p> + <p> + Lest it should be imagined that I am of so obstinate a misanthropic nature + as to be satisfied with nothing, I beg (for the comfort of the forces) to + state my belief that the army is not composed of such persons as the + above. He has only been selected for the study of civilians and the + military, as a specimen of a prosperous and bloated Army Snob. No: when + epaulets are not sold; when corporal punishments are abolished, and + Corporal Smith has a chance to have his gallantry rewarded as well as that + of Lieutenant Grig; when there is no such rank as ensign and lieutenant + (the existence of which rank is an absurd anomaly, and an insult upon all + the rest of the army), and should there be no war, I should not be + disinclined to be a major-general myself. + </p> + <p> + I have a little sheaf of Army Snobs in my portfolio, but shall pause in my + attack upon the forces till next week. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X—MILITARY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Walking in the Park yesterday with my young friend Tagg, and discoursing + with him upon the next number of the Snob, at the very nick of time who + should pass us but two very good specimens of Military Snobs,—the + Sporting Military Snob, Capt. Rag, and the 'lurking' or raffish Military + Snob, Ensign Famish. Indeed you are fully sure to meet them lounging on + horseback, about five o'clock, under the trees by the Serpentine, + examining critically the inmates of the flashy broughams which parade up + and down 'the Lady's Mile.' + </p> + <p> + Tagg and Rag are very well acquainted, and so the former, with that + candour inseparable from intimate friendship, told me his dear friend's + history. Captain Rag is a small dapper north-country man. He went when + quite a boy into a crack light cavalry regiment, and by the time he got + his troop, had cheated all his brother officers so completely, selling + them lame horses for sound ones, and winning their money by all manner of + strange and ingenious contrivances, that his Colonel advised him to + retire; which he did without much reluctance, accommodating a youngster, + who had just entered the regiment, with a glandered charger at an + uncommonly stiff figure. + </p> + <p> + He has since devoted his time to billiards, steeple-chasing, and the turf. + His head-quarters are 'Rummer's,' in Conduit Street, where he keeps his + kit; but he is ever on the move in the exercise of his vocation as a + gentleman-jockey and gentleman-leg. + </p> + <p> + According to BELL'S LIFE, he is an invariable attendant at all races, and + an actor in most of them. He rode the winner at Leamington; he was left + for dead in a ditch a fortnight ago at Harrow; and yet there he was, last + week, at the Croix de Berny, pale and determined as ever, astonishing the + BADAUDS of Paris by the elegance of his seat and the neatness of his rig, + as he took a preliminary gallop on that vicious brute 'The Disowned,' + before starting for 'the French Grand National.' + </p> + <p> + He is a regular attendant at the Corner, where he compiles a limited but + comfortable libretto. During season he rides often in the Park, mounted on + a clever well-bred pony. He is to be seen escorting celebrated horsewoman, + Fanny Highflyer, or in confidential converse with Lord Thimblerig, the + eminent handicapper. + </p> + <p> + He carefully avoids decent society, and would rather dine off a steak at + the 'One Tun' with Sam Snaffle the jockey, Captain O'Rourke, and two or + three other notorious turf robbers, than with the choicest company in + London. He likes to announce at 'Rummer's' that he is going to run down + and spend his Saturday and Sunday in a friendly way with Hocus, the leg, + at his little box near Epsom; where, if report speak true, many 'rummish + plants' are concocted. + </p> + <p> + He does not play billiards often, and never in public: but when he does + play, he always contrives to get hold of a good flat, and never leaves him + till he has done him uncommonly brown. He has lately been playing a good + deal with Famish. + </p> + <p> + When he makes his appearance in the drawing-room, which occasionally + happens at a hunt-meeting or a race-ball, he enjoys himself extremely. + </p> + <p> + His young friend is Ensign Famish, who is not a little pleased to be seen + with such a smart fellow as Rag, who bows to the best turf company in the + Park. Rag lets Famish accompany him to Tattersall's, and sells him + bargains in horse-flesh, and uses Famish's cab. That young gentleman's + regiment is in India, and he is at home on sick leave. He recruits his + health by being intoxicated every night, and fortifies his lungs, which + are weak, by smoking cigars all day. The policemen about the Haymarket + know the little creature, and the early cabmen salute him. The closed + doors of fish and lobster shops open after service, and vomit out little + Famish, who is either tipsy and quarrelsome—when he wants to fight + the cabmen; or drunk and helpless—when some kind friend (in yellow + satin) takes care of him. All the neighbourhood, the cabmen, the police, + the early potato-men, and the friends in yellow satin, know the young + fellow, and he is called Little Bobby by some of the very worst reprobates + in Europe. + </p> + <p> + His mother, Lady Fanny Famish, believes devoutly that Robert is in London + solely for the benefit of consulting the physician; is going to have him + exchanged into a dragoon regiment, which doesn't go to that odious India; + and has an idea that his chest is delicate, and that he takes gruel every + evening, when he puts his feet in hot water. Her Ladyship resides at + Cheltenham, and is of a serious turn. + </p> + <p> + Bobby frequents the 'Union Jack Club' of course; where he breakfasts on + pale ale and devilled kidneys at three o'clock; where beardless young + heroes of his own sort congregate, and make merry, and give each other + dinners; where you may see half-a-dozen of young rakes of the fourth or + fifth order lounging and smoking on the steps; where you behold Slapper's + long-tailed leggy mare in the custody of a red-jacket until the Captain is + primed for the Park with a glass of curacoa; and where you see Hobby, of + the Highland Buffs, driving up with Dobby, of the Madras Fusiliers, in the + great banging, swinging cab, which the latter hires from Rumble of Bond + Street. + </p> + <p> + In fact, Military Snobs are of such number and variety, that a hundred + weeks of PUNCH would not suffice to give an audience to them. There is, + besides the disreputable old Military Snob, who has seen service, the + respectable old Military Snob, who has seen none, and gives himself the + most prodigious Martinet airs. There is the Medical-Military Snob, who is + generally more outrageously military in his conversation than the greatest + SABREUR in the army. There is the Heavy-Dragoon Snob, whom young ladies, + admire with his great stupid pink face and yellow moustaches—a + vacuous, solemn, foolish, but brave and honourable Snob. There is the + Amateur-Military Snob who writes Captain on his card because he is a + Lieutenant in the Bungay Militia. There is the Lady-killing Military Snob; + and more, who need not be named. + </p> + <p> + But let no man, we repeat, charge MR. PUNCH with disrespect for the Army + in general—that gallant and judicious Army, every man of which, from + F.M. the Duke of Wellington, &c., downwards—(with the exception + of H.R.H. Field-Marshal Prince Albert, who, however, can hardly count as a + military man,)—reads PUNCH in every quarter of the globe. + </p> + <p> + Let those civilians who sneer at the acquirements of the army read Sir + Harry Smith's account of the Battle of Aliwal. A noble deed was never told + in nobler language. And you who doubt if chivalry exists, or the age of + heroism has passed by, think of Sir Henry Hardinge, with his son, 'dear + little Arthur,' riding in front of the lines at Ferozeshah. I hope no + English painter will endeavour to illustrate that scene; for who is there + to do justice to it? The history of the world contains no more brilliant + and heroic picture. No, no; the men who perform these deeds with such + brilliant valour, and describe them with such modest manliness—SUCH + are not Snobs. Their country admires them, their Sovereign rewards them, + and PUNCH, the universal railer, takes off his hat and, says, Heaven save + them! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI—ON CLERICAL SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + After Snobs-Military, Snobs-Clerical suggest themselves quite naturally, + and it is clear that, with every respect for the cloth, yet having a + regard for truth, humanity, and the British public, such a vast and + influential class must not be omitted from our notices of the great Snob + world. + </p> + <p> + Of these Clerics there are some whose claim to snobbishness is undoubted, + and yet it cannot be discussed here; for the same reason that PUNCH would + not set up his show in a Cathedral, out of respect for the solemn service + celebrated within. There are some places where he acknowledges himself not + privileged to make a noise, and puts away his show, and silences his drum, + and takes off his hat, and holds his peace. + </p> + <p> + And I know this, that if there are some Clerics who do wrong, there are + straightway a thousand newspapers to haul up those unfortunates, and cry, + 'Fie upon them, fie upon them!' while, though the press is always ready to + yell and bellow excommunication against these stray delinquent parsons, it + somehow takes very little count of the many good ones—of the tens of + thousands of honest men, who lead Christian lives, who give to the poor + generously, who deny themselves rigidly, and live and die in their duty, + without ever a newspaper paragraph in their favour. My beloved friend and + reader, I wish you and I could do the same: and let me whisper my belief, + ENTRE NOUS that of those eminent philosophers who cry out against parsons + the loudest, there are not many who have got their knowledge of the church + by going thither often. + </p> + <p> + But you who have ever listened to village bells, or walked to church as + children on sunny Sabbath mornings; you who have ever seen the parson's + wife tending the poor man's bedside; or the town clergyman threading the + dirty stairs of noxious alleys upon his business;—do not raise a + shout when one falls away, or yell with the mob that howls after him. + </p> + <p> + Every man can do that. When old Father Noah was overtaken in his cups, + there was only one of his sons that dared to make merry at his disaster, + and he was not the most virtuous of the family. Let us too turn away + silently, nor huzza like a parcel of school-boys, because some big young + rebel suddenly starts up and whops the schoolmaster. + </p> + <p> + I confess, though, if I had by me the names of those seven or eight Irish + bishops, the probates of whose wills were mentioned in last year's + journals, and who died leaving behind them some two hundred thousand + a-piece—I would like to put THEM up as patrons of my Clerical Snobs, + and operate upon them as successfully as I see from the newspapers Mr. + Eisenberg, Chiropodist, has lately done upon 'His Grace the Reverend Lord + Bishop of Tapioca.' + </p> + <p> + I confess that when those Right Reverend Prelates come up to the gates of + Paradise with their probates of wills in their hands, I think that their + chance is.... But the gates of Paradise is a far way to follow their + Lordships; so let us trip down again lest awkward questions be asked there + about our own favourite vices too. + </p> + <p> + And don't let us give way to the vulgar prejudice, that clergymen are an + over-paid and luxurious body of men. When that eminent ascetic, the late + Sydney Smith—(by the way, by what law of nature is it that so many + Smiths in this world are called Sydney Smith?)—lauded the system of + great prizes in the Church,—without which he said gentlemen would + not be induced to follow the clerical profession, he admitted most + pathetically that the clergy in general were by no means to be envied for + their worldly prosperity. From reading the works of some modern writers of + repute, you would fancy that a parson's life was passed in gorging himself + with plum-pudding and port-wine; and that his Reverence's fat chaps were + always greasy with the crackling of tithe pigs. Caricaturists delight to + represent him so: round, short-necked, pimple-faced, apoplectic, bursting + out of waistcoat, like a black-pudding, a shovel-hatted fuzz-wigged + Silenus. Whereas, if you take the real man, the poor fellow's flesh-pots + are very scantily furnished with meat. He labours commonly for a wage that + a tailor's foreman would despise: he has, too, such claims upon his dismal + income as most philosophers would rather grumble to meet; many tithes are + levied upon HIS pocket, let it be remembered, by those who grudge him his + means of livelihood. He has to dine with the Squire: and his wife must + dress neatly; and he must 'look like a gentleman,' as they call it, and + bring up six great hungry sons as such. Add to this, if he does his duty, + he has such temptations to spend his money as no mortal man could + withstand. Yes; you who can't resist purchasing a chest of cigars, because + they are so good; or an ormolu clock at Howell and James's, because it is + such a bargain; or a box at the Opera, because Lablache and Grisi are + divine in the PURITANI; fancy how difficult it is for a parson to resist + spending a half-crown when John Breakstone's family are without a loaf; or + 'standing' a bottle of port for poor old Polly Rabbits, who has her + thirteenth child; or treating himself to a suit of corduroys for little + Bob Scarecrow, whose breeches are sadly out at elbows. Think of these + temptations, brother moralists and philosophers, and don't be too hard on + the parson. + </p> + <p> + But what is this? Instead of 'showing up' the parsons, are we indulging in + maudlin praises of that monstrous black-coated race? O saintly Francis, + lying at rest under the turf; O Jimmy, and Johnny, and Willy, friends of + my youth! O noble and dear old Elias! how should he who knows you not + respect you and your calling? May this pen never write a pennyworth again, + if it ever casts ridicule upon either! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII—ON CLERICAL SNOBS AND SNOBBISHNESS + </h2> + <p> + 'Dear Mr. Snob,' an amiable young correspondent writes, who signs himself + Snobling, 'ought the clergyman who, at the request of a noble Duke, lately + interrupted a marriage ceremony between two persons perfectly authorised + to marry, to be ranked or not among the Clerical Snobs?' + </p> + <p> + This, my dear young friend, is not a fair question. One of the illustrated + weekly papers has already seized hold of the clergyman, and blackened him + most unmercifully, by representing him in his cassock performing the + marriage service. Let that be sufficient punishment; and, if you please, + do not press the query. + </p> + <p> + It is very likely that if Miss Smith had come with a licence to marry + Jones, the parson in question, not seeing old Smith present, would have + sent off the beadle in a cab to let the old gentleman know what was going + on; and would have delayed the service until the arrival of Smith senior. + He very likely thinks it his duty to ask all marriageable young ladies, + who come without their papa, why their parent is absent; and, no doubt, + ALWAYS sends off the beadle for that missing governor. + </p> + <p> + Or, it is very possible that the Duke of Coeurdelion was Mr. + What-d'ye-call'im's most intimate friend, and has often said to him, + 'What-d'ye-call'im, my boy, my daughter must never marry the Capting. If + ever they try at your church, I beseech you, considering the terms of + intimacy on which we are, to send off Rattan in a hack cab to fetch me.' + </p> + <p> + In either of which cases, you see, dear Snobling, that though the parson + would not have been authorised, yet he might have been excused for + interfering. He has no more right to stop my marriage than to stop my + dinner, to both of which, as a free-born Briton, I am entitled by law, if + I can pay for them. But, consider pastoral solicitude, a deep sense of the + duties of his office, and pardon this inconvenient, but genuine zeal. + </p> + <p> + But if the clergyman did in the Duke's case what he would NOT do in + Smith's; if he has no more acquaintance with the Coeurdelion family than I + have with the Royal and Serene House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha,—THEN, I + confess, my dear Snobling, your question might elicit a disagreeable + reply, and one which I respectfully decline to give. I wonder what Sir + George Tufto would say, if a sentry left his post because a noble lord + (not the least connected with the service) begged the sentinel not to do + his duty! + </p> + <p> + Alas! that the beadle who canes little boys and drives them out, cannot + drive worldliness out too; what is worldliness but snobbishness? When, for + instance, I read in the newspapers that the Right Reverend the Lord + Charles James administered the rite of confirmation to a PARTY OF THE + JUVENILE NOBILITY at the Chapel Royal,—as if the Chapel Royal were a + sort of ecclesiastical Almack's, and young people were to get ready for + the next world in little exclusive genteel knots of the aristocracy, who + were not to be disturbed in their journey thither by the company of the + vulgar:—when I read such a paragraph as that (and one or two such + generally appear during the present fashionable season), it seems to me to + be the most odious, mean and disgusting part of that odious, mean, and + disgusting publication, the COURT CIRCULAR; and that snobbishness is + therein carried to quite an awful pitch. What, gentlemen, can't we even in + the Church acknowledge a republic? There, at least, the Heralds' College + itself might allow that we all of us have the same pedigree, and are + direct descendants of Eve and Adam, whose inheritance is divided amongst + us. + </p> + <p> + I hereby call upon all Dukes, Earls, Baronets, and other potentates, not + to lend themselves to this shameful scandal and error, and beseech all + Bishops who read this publication to take the matter into consideration, + and to protest against the continuance of the practice, and to declare, + 'We WON'T confirm or christen Lord Tomnoddy, or Sir Carnaby Jenks, to the + exclusion of any other young Christian;' the which declaration if their + Lordships are induced to make, a great LAPIS OFFENSIONIS will be removed, + and the Snob Papers will not have been written in vain. + </p> + <p> + A story is current of a celebrated NOUVEAU-RICHE, who having had occasion + to oblige that excellent prelate the Bishop of Bullocksmithy, asked his + Lordship, in return, to confirm his children privately in his Lordship's + own chapel; which ceremony the grateful prelate accordingly performed. Can + satire go farther than this? Is there even in this most amusing of prints, + any more NAIVE absurdity? It is as if a man wouldn't go to heaven unless + he went in a special train, or as if he thought (as some people think + about vaccination) Confirmation more effectual when administered at first + hand. When that eminent person, the Begum Sumroo, died, it is said she + left ten thousand pounds to the Pope, and ten thousand to the Archbishop + of Canterbury,—so that there should be no mistake,—so as to + make sure of having the ecclesiastical authorities on her side. This is + only a little more openly and undisguisedly snobbish than the cases before + alluded to. A well-bred Snob is just as secretly proud of his riches and + honours as a PARVENU Snob who makes the most ludicrous exhibition of them; + and a high-born Marchioness or Duchess just as vain of herself and her + diamonds, as Queen Quashyboo, who sews a pair of epaulets on to her skirt, + and turns out in state in a cocked hat and feathers. + </p> + <p> + It is not out of disrespect to my 'Peerage,' which I love and honour, + (indeed, have I not said before, that I should be ready to jump out of my + skin if two Dukes would walk down Pall Mall with me?)—it is not out + of disrespect for the individuals, that I wish these titles had never been + invented; but, consider, if there were no tree, there would be no shadow; + and how much more honest society would be, and how much more serviceable + the clergy would be (which is our present consideration), if these + temptations of rank and continual baits of worldliness were not in + existence, and perpetually thrown out to lead them astray. + </p> + <p> + I have seen many examples of their falling away. When, for instance, Tom + Sniffle first went into the country as Curate for Mr. Fuddleston (Sir + Huddleston Fuddleston's brother), who resided on some other living, there + could not be a more kind, hardworking, and excellent creature than Tom. He + had his aunt to live with him. His conduct to his poor was admirable. He + wrote annually reams of the best-intentioned and vapid sermons. When Lord + Brandyball's family came down into the country, and invited him to dine at + Brandyball Park, Sniffle was so agitated that he almost forgot how to say + grace, and upset a bowl of currant-jelly sauce in Lady Fanny Toffy's lap. + </p> + <p> + What was the consequence of his intimacy with that noble family? He + quarrelled with his aunt for dining out every night. The wretch forgot his + poor altogether, and killed his old nag by always riding over to + Brandyball; where he revelled in the maddest passion for Lady Fanny. He + ordered the neatest new clothes and ecclesiastical waistcoats from London; + he appeared with corazza-shirts, lackered boots, and perfumery; he bought + a blood-horse from Bob Toffy: was seen at archery meetings, public + breakfasts,—actually at cover; and, I blush to say, that I saw him + in a stall at the Opera; and afterwards riding by Lady Fanny's side in + Rotten Row. He DOUBLE-BARRELLED his name, (as many poor Snobs do,) and + instead of T. Sniffle, as formerly, came out, in a porcelain card, as Rev. + T. D'Arcy Sniffle, Burlington Hotel. + </p> + <p> + The end of all this may be imagined: when the Earl of Brandyball was made + acquainted with the curate's love for Lady Fanny, he had that fit of the + gout which so nearly carried him off (to the inexpressible grief of his + son, Lord Alicompayne), and uttered that remarkable speech to Sniffle, + which disposed of the claims of the latter:—' If I didn't respect + the Church, Sir,' his Lordship said, 'by Jove, I'd kick you downstairs:' + his Lordship then fell back into the fit aforesaid; and Lady Fanny, as we + all know, married General Podager. + </p> + <p> + As for poor Tom, he was over head and ears in debt as well as in love: his + creditors came down upon him. Mr. Hemp, of Portugal Street, proclaimed his + name lately as a reverend outlaw; and he has been seen at various foreign + watering-places; sometimes doing duty; sometimes 'coaching' a stray + gentleman's son at Carlsruhe or Kissingen; sometimes—must we say it?—lurking + about the roulette-tables with a tuft to his chin. + </p> + <p> + If temptation had not come upon this unhappy fellow in the shape of a Lord + Brandyball, he might still have been following his profession, humbly and + worthily. He might have married his cousin with four thousand pounds, the + wine-merchant's daughter (the old gentleman quarrelled with his nephew for + not soliciting wine-orders from Lord B. for him): he might have had seven + children, and taken private pupils, and eked out his income, and lived and + died a country parson. + </p> + <p> + Could he have done better? You who want to know how great, and good, and + noble such a character may be, read Stanley's 'Life of Doctor Arnold.' + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII—ON CLERICAL SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Among the varieties of the Snob Clerical, the University Snob and the + Scholastic Snob ought never to be forgotten; they form a very strong + battalion in the black-coated army. + </p> + <p> + The wisdom of our ancestors (which I admire more and more every day) + seemed to have determined that education of youth was so paltry and + unimportant a matter, that almost any man, armed with a birch and + regulation cassock and degree, might undertake the charge: and many an + honest country gentleman may be found to the present day, who takes very + good care to have a character with his butler when he engages him and will + not purchase a horse without the warranty and the closest inspection; but + sends off his son, young John Thomas, to school without asking any + questions about the Schoolmaster, and places the lad at Switchester + College, under Doctor Block, because he (the good old English gentleman) + had been at Switchester, under Doctor Buzwig, forty years ago. + </p> + <p> + We have a love for all little boys at school; for many scores of thousands + of them read and love PUNCH:—may he never write a word that shall + not be honest and fit for them to read! He will not have his young friends + to be Snobs in the future, or to be bullied by Snobs, or given over to + such to be educated. Our connexion with the youth at the Universities is + very close and affectionate. The candid undergraduate is our friend. The + pompous old College Don trembles in his common room, lest we should attack + him and show him up as a Snob. + </p> + <p> + When railroads were threatening to invade the land which they have since + conquered, it may be recollected what a shrieking and outcry the + authorities of Oxford and Eton made, lest the iron abominations should + come near those seats of pure learning, and tempt the British youth + astray. The supplications were in vain; the railroad is in upon them, and + the old-world institutions are doomed. I felt charmed to read in the + papers the other day a most veracious puffing advertisement headed, 'To + College and back for Five Shillings.' 'The College Gardens (it said) will + be thrown open on this occasion; the College youths will perform a + regatta; the Chapel of King's College will have its celebrated music;'—and + all for five shillings! The Goths have got into Rome; Napoleon Stephenson + draws his republican lines round the sacred old cities and the + ecclesiastical big-wigs who garrison them must prepare to lay down key and + crosier before the iron conqueror. + </p> + <p> + If you consider, dear reader, what profound snobbishness the University + System produced, you will allow that it is time to attack some of those + feudal middle-age superstitions. If you go down for five shillings to look + at the 'College Youths,' you may see one sneaking down the court without a + tassel to his cap; another with a gold or silver fringe to his velvet + trencher; a third lad with a master's gown and hat, walking at ease over + the sacred College grass-plats, which common men must not tread on. + </p> + <p> + He may do it because he is a nobleman. Because a lad is a lord, the + University gives him a degree at the end of two years which another is + seven in acquiring. Because he is a lord, he has no call to go through an + examination. Any man who has not been to College and back for five + shillings, would not believe in such distinctions in a place of education, + so absurd and monstrous do they seem to be. + </p> + <p> + The lads with gold and silver lace are sons of rich gentlemen and called + Fellow Commoners; they are privileged to feed better than the pensioners, + and to have wine with their victuals, which the latter can only get in + their rooms. + </p> + <p> + The unlucky boys who have no tassels to their caps, are called sizars—SERVITORS + at Oxford—(a very pretty and gentlemanlike title). A distinction is + made in their clothes because they are poor; for which reason they wear a + badge of poverty, and are not allowed to take their meals with their + fellow-students. + </p> + <p> + When this wicked and shameful distinction was set up, it was of a piece + with all the rest—a part of the brutal, unchristian, blundering + feudal system. Distinctions of rank were then so strongly insisted upon, + that it would have been thought blasphemy to doubt them, as blasphemous as + it is in parts of the United States now for a nigger to set up as the + equal of a white man. A ruffian like Henry VIII. talked as gravely about + the divine powers vested in him, as if he had been an inspired prophet. A + wretch like James I. not only believed that there was in himself a + particular sanctity, but other people believed him. Government regulated + the length of a merchant's shoes as well as meddled with his trade, + prices, exports, machinery. It thought itself justified in roasting a man + for his religion, or pulling a Jew's teeth out if he did not pay a + contribution, or ordered him to dress in a yellow gabardine, and locked + him in a particular quarter. + </p> + <p> + Now a merchant may wear what boots he pleases, and has pretty nearly + acquired the privilege of buying and selling without the Government laying + its paws upon the bargain. The stake for heretics is gone; the pillory is + taken down; Bishops are even found lifting up their voices against the + remains of persecution, and ready to do away with the last Catholic + Disabilities. Sir Robert Peel, though he wished it ever so much, has no + power over Mr. Benjamin Disraeli's grinders, or any means of violently + handling that gentleman's jaw. Jews are not called upon to wear badges: on + the contrary, they may live in Piccadilly, or the Minories, according to + fancy; they may dress like Christians, and do sometimes in a most elegant + and fashionable manner. + </p> + <p> + Why is the poor College servitor to wear that name and that badge still? + Because Universities are the last places into which Reform penetrates. But + now that she can go to College and back for five shillings, let her travel + down thither. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV—ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + All the men of Saint Boniface will recognize Hugby and Crump in these two + pictures. They were tutors in our time, and Crump is since advanced to be + President of the College. He was formerly, and is now, a rich specimen of + a University Snob. + </p> + <p> + At five-and-twenty, Crump invented three new metres, and published an + edition of an exceedingly improper Greek Comedy, with no less than twenty + emendations upon the German text of Schnupfenius and Schnapsius. These + Services to religion instantly pointed him out for advancement in the + Church, and he is now President of Saint Boniface, and very narrowly + escaped the bench. + </p> + <p> + Crump thinks Saint Boniface the centre of the world, and his position as + President the highest in England. He expects the fellows and tutors to pay + him the same sort of service that Cardinals pay to the Pope. I am sure + Crawler would have no objection to carry his trencher, or Page to hold up + the skirts of his gown as he stalks into chapel. He roars out the + responses there as if it were an honour to heaven that the President of + Saint Boniface should take a part in the service, and in his own lodge and + college acknowledges the Sovereign only as his superior. + </p> + <p> + When the allied monarchs came down, and were made Doctors of the + University, a breakfast was given at Saint Boniface; on which occasion + Crump allowed the Emperor Alexander to walk before him, but took the PAS + himself of the King of Prussia and Prince Blucher. He was going to put the + Hetman Platoff to breakfast at a side-table with the under college tutors; + but he was induced to relent, and merely entertained that distinguished + Cossack with a discourse on his own language, in which he showed that the + Hetman knew nothing about it. + </p> + <p> + As for us undergraduates, we scarcely knew more about Crump than about the + Grand Llama. A few favoured youths are asked occasionally to tea at the + lodge; but they do not speak unless first addressed by the Doctor; and if + they venture to sit down, Crump's follower, Mr. Toady, whispers, + 'Gentlemen, will you have the kindness to get up?—The President is + passing;' or 'Gentlemen, the President prefers that undergraduates should + not sit down;' or words to a similar effect. + </p> + <p> + To do Crump justice, he does not cringe now to great people. He rather + patronizes them than otherwise; and, in London, speaks quite affably to a + Duke who has been brought up at his college, or holds out a finger to a + Marquis. He does not disguise his own origin, but brags of it with + considerable self-gratulation:—'I was a Charity-boy,' says he; 'see + what I am now; the greatest Greek scholar of the greatest College of the + greatest University of the greatest Empire in the world.' The argument + being, that this is a capital world, for beggars, because he, being a + beggar, has managed to get on horseback. + </p> + <p> + Hugby owes his eminence to patient merit and agreeable perseverance. He is + a meek, mild, inoffensive creature, with just enough of scholarship to fit + him to hold a lecture, or set an examination paper. He rose by kindness to + the aristocracy. It was wonderful to see the way in which that poor + creature grovelled before a nobleman or a lord's nephew, or even some + noisy and disreputable commoner, the friend of a lord. He used to give the + young noblemen the most painful and elaborate breakfasts, and adopt a + jaunty genteel air, and talk with them (although he was decidedly serious) + about the opera, or the last run with the hounds. It was good to watch him + in the midst of a circle of young tufts, with his mean, smiling, eager, + uneasy familiarity. He used to write home confidential letters to their + parents, and made it his duty to call upon them when in town, to condole + or rejoice with them when a death, birth, or marriage took place in their + family; and to feast them whenever they came to the University. I + recollect a letter lying on a desk in his lecture-room for a whole term, + beginning, 'My Lord Duke.' It was to show us that he corresponded with + such dignities. + </p> + <p> + When the late lamented Lord Glenlivat, who broke his neck at a + hurdle-race, at the premature age of twenty-four, was at the University, + the amiable young fellow, passing to his rooms in the early morning, and + seeing Hugby's boots at his door, on the same staircase, playfully wadded + the insides of the boots with cobbler's wax, which caused excruciating + pains to the Rev. Mr. Hugby, when he came to take them off the same + evening, before dining with the Master of St. Crispin's. + </p> + <p> + Everybody gave the credit of this admirable piece of fun to Lord + Glenlivat's friend, Bob Tizzy, who was famous for such feats, and who had + already made away with the college pump-handle; filed St. Boniface's nose + smooth with his face; carried off four images of nigger-boys from the + tobacconists; painted the senior proctor's horse pea-green, &c. &c.; + and Bob (who was of the party certainly, and would not peach,) was just on + the point of incurring expulsion, and so losing the family living which + was in store for him, when Glenlivat nobly stepped forward, owned himself + to be the author of the delightful JEU-D'ESPRIT, apologized to the tutor, + and accepted the rustication. + </p> + <p> + Hugby cried when Glenlivat apologized; if the young nobleman had kicked + him round the court, I believe the tutor would have been happy, so that an + apology and a reconciliation might subsequently ensue. 'My lord,' said he, + 'in your conduct on this and all other occasions, you have acted as + becomes a gentleman; you have been an honour to the University, as you + will be to the peerage, I am sure, when the amiable vivacity of youth is + calmed down, and you are called upon to take your proper share in the + government of the nation.' And when his lordship took leave of the + University, Hugby presented him with a copy of his 'Sermons to a + Nobleman's Family' (Hugby was once private tutor to the Sons of the Earl + of Muffborough), which Glenlivat presented in return to Mr. William Ramm, + known to the fancy as the Tutbury Pet, and the sermons now figure on the + boudoir-table of Mrs. Ramm, behind the bar of her house of entertainment, + 'The Game Cock and Spurs,' near Woodstock, Oxon. + </p> + <p> + At the beginning of the long vacation, Hugby comes to town, and puts up in + handsome lodgings near St. James's Square; rides in the Park in the + afternoon; and is delighted to read his name in the morning papers among + the list of persons present at Muffborough House, and the Marquis of + Farintosh's evening-parties. He is a member of Sydney Scraper's Club, + where, however, he drinks his pint of claret. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes you may see him on Sundays, at the hour when tavern doors open, + whence issue little girls with great jugs of porter; when charity-boys + walk the streets, bearing brown dishes of smoking shoulders of mutton and + baked 'taturs; when Sheeny and Moses are seen smoking their pipes before + their lazy shutters in Seven Dials; when a crowd of smiling persons in + clean outlandish dresses, in monstrous bonnets and flaring printed gowns, + or in crumpled glossy coats and silks that bear the creases of the drawers + where they have lain all the week, file down High Street,—sometimes, + I say, you may see Hugby coming out of the Church of St. + Giles-in-the-Fields, with a stout gentlewoman leaning on his arm, whose + old face bears an expression of supreme pride and happiness as she glances + round at all the neighbours, and who faces the curate himself and marches + into Holborn, where she pulls the bell of a house over which is inscribed, + 'Hugby, Haberdasher.' It is the mother of the Rev. F. Hugby, as proud of + her son in his white choker as Cornelia of her jewels at Rome. That is old + Hugby bringing up the rear with the Prayer-books, and Betsy Hugby the old + maid, his daughter,—old Hugby, Haberdasher and Church-warden. + </p> + <p> + In the front room upstairs, where the dinner is laid out, there is a + picture of Muffborough Castle; of the Earl of Muffborough, K.X., + Lord-Lieutenant for Diddlesex; an engraving, from an almanac, of Saint + Boniface College, Oxon; and a sticking-plaster portrait of Hugby when + young, in a cap and gown. A copy of his 'Sermons to a Nobleman's Family' + is on the bookshelf, by the 'Whole Duty of Man,' the Reports of the + Missionary Societies, and the 'Oxford University Calendar.' Old Hugby + knows part of this by heart; every living belonging to Saint Boniface, and + the name of every tutor, fellow, nobleman, and undergraduate. + </p> + <p> + He used to go to meeting and preach himself, until his son took orders; + but of late the old gentleman has been accused of Puseyism, and is quite + pitiless against the Dissenters. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV—ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + I should like to fill several volumes with accounts of various University + Snobs; so fond are my reminiscences of them, and so numerous are they. I + should like to speak, above all, of the wives and daughters of some of the + Professor-Snobs; their amusements, habits, jealousies; their innocent + artifices to entrap young men; their picnics, concerts, and + evening-parties. I wonder what has become of Emily Blades, daughter of + Blades, the Professor of the Mandingo language? I remember her shoulders + to this day, as she sat in the midst of a crowd of about seventy young + gentlemen, from Corpus and Catherine Hall, entertaining them with ogles + and French songs on the guitar. Are you married, fair Emily of the + shoulders? What beautiful ringlets those were that used to dribble over + them!—what a waist!—what a killing sea-green shot-silk gown!—what + a cameo, the size of a muffin! There were thirty-six young men of the + University in love at one time with Emily Blades: and no words are + sufficient to describe the pity, the sorrow, the deep, deep commiseration—the + rage, fury, and uncharitableness, in other words—with which the Miss + Trumps (daughter of Trumps, the Professor of Phlebotomy) regarded her, + because she DIDN'T squint, and because she WASN'T marked with the + small-pox. + </p> + <p> + As for the young University Snobs, I am getting too old, now, to speak of + such very familiarly. My recollections of them lie in the far, far past—almost + as far back as Pelham's time. + </p> + <p> + We THEN used to consider Snobs raw-looking lads, who never missed chapel; + who wore highlows and no straps; who walked two hours on the Trumpington + road every day of their lives; who carried off the college scholarships, + and who overrated themselves in hall. We were premature in pronouncing our + verdict of youthful Snobbishness The man without straps fulfilled his + destiny and duty. He eased his old governor, the curate in Westmoreland, + or helped his sisters to set up the Ladies' School. He wrote a + 'Dictionary,' or a 'Treatise on Conic Sections,' as his nature and genius + prompted. He got a fellowship: and then took to himself a wife, and a + living. He presides over a parish now, and thinks it rather a dashing + thing to belong to the 'Oxford and Cambridge Club;' and his parishioners + love him, and snore under his sermons. No, no, HE is not a Snob. It is not + straps that make the gentleman, or highlows that unmake him, be they ever + so thick. My son, it is you who are the Snob if you lightly despise a man + for doing his duty, and refuse to shake an honest man's hand because it + wears a Berlin glove. + </p> + <p> + We then used to consider it not the least vulgar for a parcel of lads who + had been whipped three months previous, and were not allowed more than + three glasses of port at home, to sit down to pineapples and ices at each + other's rooms, and fuddle themselves with champagne and claret. + </p> + <p> + One looks back to what was called a 'wine-party' with a sort of wonder. + Thirty lads round a table covered with bad sweetmeats, drinking bad wines, + telling bad stories, singing bad songs over and over again. Milk punch—smoking—ghastly + headache—frightful spectacle of dessert-table next morning, and + smell of tobacco—your guardian, the clergyman, dropping in, in the + midst of this—expecting to find you deep in Algebra, and discovering + the Gyp administering soda-water. + </p> + <p> + There were young men who despised the lads who indulged in the coarse + hospitalities of wine-parties, who prided themselves in giving RECHERCHE + little French dinners. Both wine-party-givers and dinner-givers were + Snobs. + </p> + <p> + There were what used to be called 'dressy' Snobs:—Jimmy, who might + be seen at five o'clock elaborately rigged out, with a camellia in his + button-hole, glazed boots, and fresh kid-gloves twice a day;—Jessamy, + who was conspicuous for his 'jewellery,'—a young donkey, glittering + all over with chains, rings, and shirt-studs;—Jacky, who rode every + day solemnly on the Blenheim Road, in pumps and white silk stockings, with + his hair curled,—all three of whom flattered themselves they gave + laws to the University about dress—all three most odious varieties + of Snobs. + </p> + <p> + Sporting Snobs of course there were, and are always—those happy + beings in whom Nature has implanted a love of slang: who loitered about + the horsekeeper's stables, and drove the London coaches—a stage in + and out—and might be seen swaggering through the courts in pink of + early mornings, and indulged in dice and blind-hookey at nights, and never + missed a race or a boxing-match; and rode flat-races, and kept + bull-terriers. Worse Snobs even than these were poor miserable wretches + who did not like hunting at all, and could not afford it, and were in + mortal fear at a two-foot ditch; but who hunted because Glenlivat and + Cinqbars hunted. The Billiard Snob and the Boating Snob were varieties of + these, and are to be found elsewhere than in universities. + </p> + <p> + Then there were Philosophical Snobs, who used to ape statesmen at the + spouting-clubs, and who believed as a fact that Government always had an + eye on the University for the selection of orators for the House of + Commons. There were audacious young free-thinkers, who adored nobody or + nothing, except perhaps Robespierre and the Koran, and panted for the day + when the pale name of priest should shrink and dwindle away before the + indignation of an enlightened world. + </p> + <p> + But the worst of all University Snobs are those unfortunates who go to + rack and ruin from their desire to ape their betters. Smith becomes + acquainted with great people at college, and is ashamed of his father the + tradesman. Jones has fine acquaintances, and lives after their fashion + like a gay free-hearted fellow as he is, and ruins his father, and robs + his sister's portion, and cripples his younger brother's outset in life, + for the pleasure of entertaining my lord, and riding by the side of Sir + John. And though it may be very good fun for Robinson to fuddle himself at + home as he does at College, and to be brought home by the policeman he has + just been trying to knock down—think what fun it is for the poor old + soul his mother!—the half-pay captain's widow, who has been pinching + herself all her life long, in order that that jolly young fellow might + have a University education. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVI—ON LITERARY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + What will he say about Literary Snobs? has been a question, I make no + doubt, often asked by the public. How can he let off his own profession? + Will that truculent and unsparing monster who attacks the nobility, the + clergy, the army, and the ladies, indiscriminately, hesitate when the turn + comes to EGORGER his own flesh and blood? + </p> + <p> + My dear and excellent querist, whom does the schoolmaster flog so + resolutely as his own son? Didn't Brutus chop his offspring's head off? + You have a very bad opinion indeed of the present state of literature and + of literary men, if you fancy that any one of us would hesitate to stick a + knife into his neighbour penman, if the latter's death could do the State + any service. + </p> + <p> + But the fact is, that in the literary profession THERE ARE NO SNOBS. Look + round at the whole body of British men of letters; and I defy you to point + out among them a single instance of vulgarity, or envy, or assumption. + </p> + <p> + Men and women, as far as I have known them, they are all modest in their + demeanour, elegant in their manners, spotless in their lives, and + honourable in their conduct to the world and to each other. You MAY, + occasionally, it is true, hear one literary man abusing his brother; but + why? Not in the least out of malice; not at all from envy; merely from a + sense of truth and public duty. Suppose, for instance, I, good-naturedly + point out a blemish in my friend MR. PUNCH'S person, and say, MR. P. has a + hump-back, and his nose and chin are more crooked than those features in + the Apollo or Antinous, which we are accustomed to consider as our + standards of beauty; does this argue malice on my part towards MR. PUNCH? + Not in the least. It is the critic's duty to point out defects as well as + merits, and he invariably does his duty with utmost gentleness and + candour. + </p> + <p> + An intelligent foreigner's testimony about our manners is always worth + having, and I think, in this respect the work of an eminent American, Mr. + N. P. Willis is eminently valuable and impartial. In his 'History of + Ernest Clay,' a crack magazine-writer, the reader will get an exact + account of the life of a popular man of letters in England. He is always + the lion of society. + </p> + <p> + He takes the PAS of dukes and earls; all the nobility crowd to see him: I + forget how many baronesses and duchesses fall in love with him. But on + this subject let us hold our tongues. Modesty forbids that we should + reveal the names of the heart-broken countesses and dear marchionesses who + are pining for every one of the contributors in PUNCH. + </p> + <p> + If anybody wants to know how intimately authors are connected with the + fashionable world, they have but to read the genteel novels. What + refinement and delicacy pervades the works of Mrs. Barnaby! What + delightful good company do you meet with in Mrs. Armytage! She seldom + introduces you to anybody under a marquis! I don't know anything more + delicious than the pictures of genteel life in 'Ten Thousand a Year,' + except perhaps the 'Young Duke,' and 'Coningsby.' There's a modest grace + about THEM, and an air of easy high fashion, which only belongs to blood, + my dear Sir—to true blood. + </p> + <p> + And what linguists many of our writers are! Lady Bulwer, Lady Londonderry, + Sir Edward himself—they write the French language with a luxurious + elegance and ease which sets them far above their continental rivals, of + whom not one (except Paul de Kock) knows a word of English. + </p> + <p> + And what Briton can read without enjoyment the works of James, so + admirable for terseness; and the playful humour and dazzling offhand + lightness of Ainsworth? Among other humourists, one might glance at a + Jerrold, the chivalrous advocate of Toryism and Church and State; an a + Beckett, with a lightsome pen, but a savage earnestness of purpose; a + Jeames, whose pure style, and wit unmingled with buffoonery, was relished + by a congenial public. + </p> + <p> + Speaking of critics, perhaps there never was a review that has done so + much for literature as the admirable QUARTERLY. It has its prejudices, to + be sure, as which of us has not? It goes out of its way to abuse a great + man, or lays mercilessly on to such pretenders as Keats and Tennyson; but, + on the other hand, it is the friend of all young authors, and has marked + and nurtured all the rising talent of the country. It is loved by + everybody. There, again, is BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE—conspicuous for + modest elegance and amiable satire; that review never passes the bounds of + politeness in a joke. It is the arbiter of manners; and, while gently + exposing the foibles of Londoners (for whom the BEAUX ESPRITS of Edinburgh + entertain a justifiable contempt), it is never coarse in its fun. The + fiery enthusiasm of the ATHENAEUM is well known: and the bitter wit of the + too difficult LITERARY GAZETTE. The EXAMINER is perhaps too timid, and the + SPECTATOR too boisterous in its praise—but who can carp at these + minor faults? No, no; the critics of England and the authors of England + are unrivalled as a body; and hence it becomes impossible for us to find + fault with them. + </p> + <p> + Above all, I never knew a man of letters ASHAMED OF HIS PROFESSION. Those + who know us, know what an affectionate and brotherly spirit there is among + us all. Sometimes one of us rises in the world: we never attack him or + sneer at him under those circumstances, but rejoice to a man at his + success. If Jones dines with a lord, Smith never says Jones is a courtier + and cringer. Nor, on the other hand, does Jones, who is in the habit of + frequenting the society of great people, give himself any airs on account + of the company he keeps; but will leave a duke's arm in Pall Mall to come + over and speak to poor Brown, the young penny-a-liner. + </p> + <p> + That sense of equality and fraternity amongst authors has always struck me + as one of the most amiable characteristics of the class. It is because we + know and respect each other, that the world respects us so much; that we + hold such a good position in society, and demean ourselves so + irreproachably when there. + </p> + <p> + Literary persons are held in such esteem by the nation that about two of + them have been absolutely invited to court during the present reign; and + it is probable that towards the end of the season, one or two will be + asked to dinner by Sir Robert Peel. + </p> + <p> + They are such favourites with the public, that they are continually + obliged to have their pictures taken and published; and one or two could + be pointed out, of whom the nation insists upon having a fresh portrait + every year. Nothing can be more gratifying than this proof of the + affectionate regard which the people has for its instructors. + </p> + <p> + Literature is held in such honour in England, that there is a sum of near + twelve hundred pounds per annum set apart to pension deserving persons + following that profession. And a great compliment this is, too, to the + professors, and a proof of their generally prosperous and flourishing + condition. They are generally so rich and thrifty, that scarcely any money + is wanted to help them. + </p> + <p> + If every word of this is true, how, I should like to know am I to write + about Literary Snobs? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVII—A LITTLE ABOUT IRISH SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + You do not, to be sure, imagine that there are no other Snobs in Ireland + than those of the amiable party who wish to make pikes of iron railroads + (it's a fine Irish economy), and to cut the throats of the Saxon invaders. + These are of the venomous sort; and had they been invented in his time, + St. Patrick would have banished them out of the kingdom along with the + other dangerous reptiles. + </p> + <p> + I think it is the Four Masters, or else it's Olaus Magnus, or else it's + certainly O'Neill Daunt, in the 'Catechism of Irish History,' who relates + that when Richard the Second came to Ireland, and the Irish chiefs did + homage to him, going down on their knees—the poor simple creatures!—and + worshipping and wondering before the English king and the dandies of his + court, my lords the English noblemen mocked and jeered at their uncouth + Irish admirers, mimicked their talk and gestures, pulled their poor old + beards, and laughed at the strange fashion of their garments. + </p> + <p> + The English Snob rampant always does this to the present day. There is no + Snob in existence, perhaps, that has such an indomitable belief in + himself: that sneers you down all the rest of the world besides, and has + such an insufferable, admirable, stupid contempt for all people but his + own—nay, for all sets but his own. 'Gwacious Gad' what stories about + 'the Iwish' these young dandies accompanying King Richard must have had to + tell, when they returned to Pall Mall, and smoked their cigars upon the + steps of 'White's.' + </p> + <p> + The Irish snobbishness developes itself not in pride so much as in + servility and mean admirations, and trumpery imitations of their + neighbours. And I wonder De Tocqueville and De Beaumont, and THE TIMES' + Commissioner, did not explain the Snobbishness of Ireland as contrasted + with our own. Ours is that of Richard's Norman Knights,—haughty, + brutal stupid, and perfectly self-confident;—theirs, of the poor, + wondering, kneeling, simple chieftains. They are on their knees still + before English fashion—these simple, wild people; and indeed it is + hard not to grin at some of their NAIVE exhibitions. + </p> + <p> + Some years since, when a certain great orator was Lord Mayor of Dublin, he + used to wear a red gown and a cocked hat, the splendour of which delighted + him as much as a new curtain-ring in her nose or a string of glass-beads + round her neck charms Queen Quasheeneboo. He used to pay visits to people + in this dress; to appear at meetings hundreds of miles off, in the red + velvet gown. And to hear the people crying 'Yes, me Lard!' and 'No, me + Lard!' and to read the prodigious accounts of his Lordship in the papers: + it seemed as if the people and he liked to be taken in by this twopenny + splendour. Twopenny magnificence, indeed, exists all over Ireland, and may + be considered as the great characteristic of the Snobbishness of that + country. + </p> + <p> + When Mrs. Mulholligan, the grocer's lady, retires to Kingstown, she has + Mulholliganville' painted over the gate of her villa; and receives you at + a door that won't shut or gazes at you out of a window that is glazed with + an old petticoat. + </p> + <p> + Be it ever so shabby and dismal, nobody ever owns to keeping a shop. A + fellow whose stock in trade is a penny roll or a tumbler of lollipops, + calls his cabin the 'American Flour Stores,' or the 'Depository for + Colonial Produce,' or some such name. + </p> + <p> + As for Inns, there are none in the country; Hotels abound as well + furnished as Mulholliganville; but again there are no such people as + landlords and land-ladies; the landlord is out with the hounds, and my + lady in the parlour talking with the Captain or playing the piano. + </p> + <p> + If a gentleman has a hundred a year to leave to his family they all become + gentlemen, all keep a nag, ride to hounds, and swagger about in the + 'Phaynix,' and grow tufts to their chins like so many real aristocrats. + </p> + <p> + A friend of mine has taken to be a painter, and lives out of Ireland, + where he is considered to have disgraced the family by choosing such a + profession. His father is a wine-merchant; and his elder brother an + apothecary. + </p> + <p> + The number of men one meets in London and on the Continent who have a + pretty little property of five-and-twenty hundred a year in Ireland is + prodigious: those who WILL have nine thousand a year in land when somebody + dies are still more numerous. I myself have met as many descendants from + Irish kings as would form a brigade. + </p> + <p> + And who has not met the Irishman who apes the Englishman, and who forgets + his country and tries to forget his accent, or to smother the taste of it, + as it were? 'Come, dine with me, my boy,' says O'Dowd, of O'Dowdstown: + 'you'll FIND US ALL ENGLISH THERE;' which he tells you with a brogue as + broad as from here to Kingstown Pier. And did you never hear Mrs. Captain + Macmanus talk about 'I-ah-land,' and her account of her 'fawther's + esteet?' Very few men have rubbed through the world without hearing and + witnessing some of these Hibernian phenomena—these twopenny + splendours. + </p> + <p> + And what say you to the summit of society—the Castle—with a + sham king, and sham lords-in-waiting, and sham loyalty, and a sham Haroun + Alraschid, to go about in a sham disguise, making believe to be affable + and splendid? That Castle is the pink and pride of Snobbishness. A COURT + CIRCULAR is bad enough, with two columns of print about a little baby + that's christened—but think of people liking a sham COURT CIRCULAR! + </p> + <p> + I think the shams of Ireland are more outrageous than those of any + country. A fellow shows you a hill and says, 'That's the highest mountain + in all Ireland;' a gentleman tells you he is descended from Brian Boroo + and has his five-and-thirty hundred a year; or Mrs. Macmanus describes her + fawther's esteet; or ould Dan rises and says the Irish women are the + loveliest, the Irish men the bravest, the Irish land the most fertile in + the world: and nobody believes anybody—the latter does not believe + his story nor the hearer:—but they make-believe to believe, and + solemnly do honour to humbug. + </p> + <p> + O Ireland! O my country! (for I make little doubt I am descended from + Brian Boroo too) when will you acknowledge that two and two make four, and + call a pikestaff a pikestaff?—that is the very best use you can make + of the latter. Irish snobs will dwindle away then and we shall never hear + tell of Hereditary bondsmen. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVIII—PARTY-GIVING SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Our selection of Snobs has lately been too exclusively of a political + character. 'Give us private Snobs,' cry the dear ladies. (I have before me + the letter of one fair correspondent of the fishing village of + Brighthelmstone in Sussex, and could her commands ever be disobeyed?) + 'Tell us more, dear Mr. Snob, about your experience of Snobs in society.' + Heaven bless the dear souls!—they are accustomed to the word now—the + odious, vulgar, horrid, unpronounceable word slips out of their lips with + the prettiest glibness possible. I should not wonder if it were used at + Court amongst the Maids of Honour. In the very best society I know it is. + And why not? Snobbishness is vulgar—the mere words are not: that + which we call a Snob, by any other name would still be Snobbish. + </p> + <p> + Well, then. As the season is drawing to a close: as many hundreds of kind + souls, snobbish or otherwise, have quitted London; as many hospitable + carpets are taken up; and window-blinds are pitilessly papered with the + MORNING HERALD; and mansions once inhabited by cheerful owners are now + consigned to the care of the housekeeper's dreary LOCUM TENENS—some + mouldy old woman, who, in reply to the hopeless clanging of the bell, + peers at you for a moment from the area, and then slowly unbolting the + great hall-door, informs you my lady has left town, or that 'the family's + in the country,' or 'gone up the Rind,'—or what not; as the season + and parties are over; why not consider Party-giving Snobs for a while, and + review the conduct of some of those individuals who have quitted the town + for six months? + </p> + <p> + Some of those worthy Snobs are making-believe to go yachting, and, dressed + in telescopes and pea-jackets, are passing their time between Cherbourg + and Cowes; some living higgledy-piggledy in dismal little huts in + Scotland, provisioned with canisters of portable soup, and fricandeaux + hermetically sealed in tin, are passing their days slaughtering grouse + upon the moors; some are dozing and bathing away the effects of the season + at Kissingen, or watching the ingenious game of TRENTE ET QUARANTE at + Homburg and Ems. We can afford to be very bitter upon them now they are + all gone. Now there are no more parties, let us have at the Party-giving + Snobs. The dinner-giving, the ball-giving, the DEJEUNER-giving, the + CONVERSAZIONE-GIVING Snobs—Lord! Lord! what havoc might have been + made amongst them had we attacked them during the plethora of the season! + I should have been obliged to have a guard to defend me from fiddlers and + pastrycooks, indignant at the abuse of their patrons. Already I'm told + that, from some flippant and unguarded expressions considered derogatory + to Baker Street and Harley Street, rents have fallen in these respectable + quarters; and orders have been issued that at least Mr. Snob shall be + asked to parties there no more. Well, then—now they are ALL away, + let us frisk at our ease, and have at everything like the bull in the + china-shop. They mayn't hear of what is going on in their absence, and, if + they do they can't bear malice for six months. We will begin to make it up + with them about next February, and let next year take care of itself. We + shall have no dinners from the dinner-giving Snobs: no more from the + ball-givers: no more CONVERSAZIONES (thank Mussy! as Jeames says,) from + the Conversaziones Snob: and what is to prevent us from telling the truth? + </p> + <p> + The snobbishness of Conversazione Snobs is very soon disposed of: as soon + as that cup of washy bohea is handed to you in the tea-room; or the muddy + remnant of ice that you grasp in the suffocating scuffle of the assembly + upstairs. + </p> + <p> + Good heavens! What do people mean by going there? What is done there, that + everybody throngs into those three little rooms? Was the Black Hole + considered to be an agreeable REUNION, that Britons in the dog-days here + seek to imitate it? After being rammed to a jelly in a door-way (where you + feel your feet going through Lady Barbara Macbeth's lace flounces, and get + a look from that haggard and painted old harpy, compared to which the gaze + of Ugolino is quite cheerful); after withdrawing your elbow out of poor + gasping Bob Guttleton's white waistcoat, from which cushion it was + impossible to remove it, though you knew you were squeezing poor Bob into + an apoplexy—you find yourself at last in the reception-room, and try + to catch the eye of Mrs. Botibol, the CONVERSAZIONE-giver. When you catch + her eye, you are expected to grin, and she smiles too, for the four + hundredth time that night; and, if she's very glad to see you, waggles her + little hand before her face as if to blow you a kiss, as the phrase is. + </p> + <p> + Why the deuce should Mrs. Botibol blow me a kiss? I wouldn't kiss her for + the world. Why do I grin when I see her, as if I was delighted? Am I? I + don't care a straw for Mrs. Botibol. I know what she thinks about me. I + know what she said about my last volume of poems (I had it from a dear + mutual friend). Why, I say in a word, are we going on ogling and + telegraphing each other in this insane way?—Because we are both + performing the ceremonies demanded by the Great Snob Society; whose + dictates we all of us obey. + </p> + <p> + Well; the recognition is over—my jaws have returned to their usual + English expression of subdued agony and intense gloom, and the Botibol is + grinning and kissing her fingers to somebody else, who is squeezing + through the aperture by which we have just entered. It is Lady Ann + Clutterbuck, who has her Friday evenings, as Botibol (Botty, we call her,) + has Wednesdays. That is Miss Clementina Clutterbuck the cadaverous young + woman in green, with florid auburn hair, who has published her volume of + poems ('The Death-Shriek;' 'Damiens;' 'The Faggot of Joan of Arc;' and + 'Translations from the German' of course). The conversazione-women salute + each other calling each other 'My dear Lady Ann' and 'My dear good Eliza,' + and hating each other, as women hate who give parties on Wednesdays and + Fridays. With inexpressible pain dear good Eliza sees Ann go up and coax + and wheedle Abou Gosh, who has just arrived from Syria, and beg him to + patronize her Fridays. + </p> + <p> + All this while, amidst the crowd and the scuffle, and a perpetual buzz and + chatter, and the flare of the wax-candles, and an intolerable smell of + musk—what the poor Snobs who write fashionable romances call 'the + gleam of gems, the odour of perfumes, the blaze of countless lamps'—a + scrubby-looking, yellow-faced foreigner, with cleaned gloves, is warbling + inaudibly in a corner, to the accompaniment of another. 'The Great + Cacafogo,' Mrs. Botibol whispers, as she passes you by. 'A great creature, + Thumpenstrumpff, is at the instrument—the Hetman Platoff's pianist, + you know.' + </p> + <p> + To hear this Cacafogo and Thumpenstrumpff, a hundred people are gathered + together—a bevy of dowagers, stout or scraggy; a faint sprinkling of + misses; six moody-looking lords, perfectly meek and solemn; wonderful + foreign Counts, with bushy whiskers and yellow faces, and a great deal of + dubious jewellery; young dandies with slim waists and open necks, and + self-satisfied simpers, and flowers in their buttons; the old, stiff, + stout, bald-headed CONVERSAZIONE ROUES, whom You meet everywhere—who + never miss a night of this delicious enjoyment; the three last-caught + lions of the season—Higgs, the traveller, Biggs, the novelist, and + Toffey, who has come out so on the sugar question; Captain Flash, who is + invited on account of his pretty wife and Lord Ogleby, who goes wherever + she goes. + </p> + <p> + QUE SCAIS-JE? Who are the owners of all those showy scarfs and white + neckcloths?—Ask little Tom Prig, who is there in all his glory, + knows everybody, has a story about every one; and, as he trips home to his + lodgings in Jermyn Street, with his gibus-hat and his little glazed pumps, + thinks he is the fashionablest young fellow in town, and that he really + has passed a night of exquisite enjoyment. + </p> + <p> + You go up (with our usual easy elegance of manner) and talk to Miss Smith + in a corner. 'Oh, Mr. Snob, I'm afraid you're sadly satirical.' + </p> + <p> + That's all she says. If you say it's fine weather, she bursts out + laughing; or hint that it's very hot, she vows you are the drollest + wretch! Meanwhile Mrs. Botibol is simpering on fresh arrivals; the + individual at the door is roaring out their names; poor Cacafogo is + quavering away in the music-room, under the impression that he will be + LANCE in the world by singing inaudibly here. And what a blessing it is to + squeeze out of the door, and into the street, where a half-hundred of + carriages are in waiting; and where the link-boy, with that unnecessary + lantern of his, pounces upon all who issue out, and will insist upon + getting your noble honour's lordship's cab. + </p> + <p> + And to think that there are people who, after having been to Botibol on + Wednesday, will go to Clutterbuck on Friday! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIX—DINING-OUT SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + In England Dinner-giving Snobs occupy a very important place in society, + and the task of describing them is tremendous. There was a time in my life + when the consciousness of having eaten a man's salt rendered me dumb + regarding his demerits, and I thought it a wicked act and a breach of + hospitality to speak ill of him. + </p> + <p> + But why should a saddle-of-mutton blind you, or a turbot and lobster-sauce + shut your mouth for ever? With advancing age, men see their duties more + clearly. I am not to be hoodwinked any longer by a slice of venison, be it + ever so fat; and as for being dumb on account of turbot and lobster-sauce——of + course I am; good manners ordain that I should be so, until I have + swallowed the compound—but not afterwards; directly the victuals are + discussed, and John takes away the plate, my tongue begins to wag. Does + not yours, if you have a pleasant neighbour?—a lovely creature, say, + of some five-and-thirty, whose daughters have not yet quite come out—they + are the best talkers. As for your young misses, they are only put about + the table to look at—like the flowers in the centre-piece. Their + blushing youth and natural modesty preclude them from easy, confidential, + conversational ABANDON which forms the delight of the intercourse with + their dear mothers. It is to these, if he would prosper in his profession, + that the Dining-out Snob should address himself. Suppose you sit next to + one of these, how pleasant it is, in the intervals of the banquet, + actually to abuse the victuals and the giver of the entertainment! It's + twice as PIQUANT to make fun of a man under his very nose. + </p> + <p> + 'What IS a Dinner-giving Snob?' some innocent youth, who is not REPANDU in + the world, may ask—or some simple reader who has not the benefits of + London experience. + </p> + <p> + My dear sir, I will show you—not all, for that is impossible—but + several kinds of Dinner-giving Snobs. For instance, suppose you, in the + middle rank of life, accustomed to Mutton, roast on Tuesday, cold on + Wednesday, hashed on Thursday, &c., with small means and a small + establishment, choose to waste the former and set the latter topsy-turvy + by giving entertainments unnaturally costly—you come into the + Dinner-giving Snob class at once. Suppose you get in cheap-made dishes + from the pastrycook's, and hire a couple of greengrocers, or + carpet-beaters, to figure as footmen, dismissing honest Molly, who waits + on common days, and bedizening your table (ordinarily ornamented with + willow-pattern crockery) with twopenny-halfpenny Birmingham plate. Suppose + you pretend to be richer and grander than you ought to be—you are a + Dinner-giving Snob. And oh, I tremble to think how many and many a one + will read this! + </p> + <p> + A man who entertains in this way—and, alas, how few do not!—is + like a fellow who would borrow his neighbour's coat to make a show in, or + a lady who flaunts in the diamonds from next door—a humbug, in a + word, and amongst the Snobs he must be set down. + </p> + <p> + A man who goes out of his natural sphere of society to ask Lords, + Generals, Aldermen, and other persons of fashion, but is niggardly of his + hospitality towards his own equals, is a Dinner-giving Snob. My dear + friend, Jack Tufthunt, for example, knows ONE Lord whom he met at a + watering-place: old Lord Mumble, who is as toothless as a three-months-old + baby, and as mum as an undertaker, and as dull as—well, we will not + particularise. Tufthunt never has a dinner now but you see this solemn old + toothless patrician at the right-hand of Mrs. Tufthunt—Tufthunt is a + Dinner-giving Snob. + </p> + <p> + Old Livermore, old Soy, old Chutney, the East Indian Director, old Cutler, + the Surgeon, &c.,—that society of old fogies, in fine, who give + each other dinners round and round, and dine for the mere purpose of + guttling—these, again, are Dinner-giving Snobs. + </p> + <p> + Again, my friend Lady MacScrew, who has three grenadier flunkeys in lace + round the table, and serves up a scrag-of-mutton on silver, and dribbles + you out bad sherry and port by thimblefuls, is a Dinner-giving Snob of the + other sort; and I confess, for my part, I would rather dine with old + Livermore or old Soy than with her Ladyship. + </p> + <p> + Stinginess is snobbish. Ostentation is snobbish. Too great profusion is + snobbish. Tuft-hunting is snobbish. But I own there are people more + snobbish than all those whose defects are above mentioned: viz., those + individuals who can, and don't give dinners at all. The man without + hospitality shall never sit SUB IISDEM TRABIBUS with ME. Let the sordid + wretch go mumble his bone alone! + </p> + <p> + What, again, is true hospitality? Alas, my dear friends and brother Snobs! + how little do we meet of it after all! Are the motives PURE which induce + your friends to ask you to dinner? This has often come across me. Does + your entertainer want something from you? For instance, I am not of a + suspicious turn; but it IS a fact that when Hookey is bringing out a new + work, he asks the critics all round to dinner; that when Walker has got + his picture ready for the Exhibition, he somehow grows exceedingly + hospitable, and has his friends of the press to a quiet cutlet and a glass + of Sillery. Old Hunks, the miser, who died lately (leaving his money to + his housekeeper) lived many years on the fat of the land, by simply taking + down, at all his friends', the names and Christian names OF ALL THE + CHILDREN. But though you may have your own opinion about the hospitality + of your acquaintances; and though men who ask you from sordid motives are + most decidedly Dinner-giving Snobs, it is best not to inquire into their + motives too keenly. Be not too curious about the mouth of a gift-horse. + After all, a man does not intend to insult you by asking you to dinner. + </p> + <p> + Though, for that matter, I know some characters about town who actually + consider themselves injured and insulted if the dinner or the company is + not to their liking. There is Guttleton, who dines at home off a + shilling's-worth of beef from the cookshop, but if he is asked to dine at + a house where there are not pease at the end of May, or cucumbers in March + along with the turbot, thinks himself insulted by being invited. 'Good + Ged!' says he, 'what the deuce do the Forkers mean by asking ME to a + family dinner? I can get mutton at home;' or 'What infernal impertinence + it is of the Spooners to get ENTREES from the pastrycook's, and fancy that + I am to be deceived with their stories about their French cook!' Then, + again, there is Jack Puddington—I saw that honest fellow t'other day + quite in a rage, because, as chance would have it, Sir John Carver asked + him to meet the very same party he had met at Colonel Cramley's the day + before, and he had not got up a new set of stories to entertain them. Poor + Dinner-giving Snobs! you don't know what small thanks you get for all your + pains and money! How we Dining-out Snobs sneer at your cookery, and + pooh-pooh your old hock, and are incredulous about your four-and-six-penny + champagne, and know that the side-dishes of to-day are RECHAUFFES from the + dinner of yesterday, and mark how certain dishes are whisked off the table + untasted, so that they may figure at the banquet tomorrow. Whenever, for + my part, I see the head man particularly anxious to ESCAMOTER a fricandeau + or a blanc-mange, I always call out, and insist upon massacring it with a + spoon. All this sort of conduct makes one popular with the Dinner-giving + Snob. One friend of mine, I know, has made a prodigious sensation in good + society, by announcing apropos of certain dishes when offered to him, that + he never eats aspic except at Lord Tittup's, and that Lady Jimmy's CHEF is + the only man in London who knows how to dress—FILET EN SERPENTEAU—or + SUPREME DE VOLAILLE AUX TRUFFES. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XX—DINNER-GIVING SNOBS FURTHER CONSIDERED + </h2> + <p> + If my friends would but follow the present prevailing fashion, I think + they ought to give me a testimonial for the paper on Dinner-giving Snobs, + which I am now writing. What do you say now to a handsome comfortable + dinner-service of plate (NOT including plates, for I hold silver plates to + be sheer wantonness, and would almost as soon think of silver teacups), a + couple of neat teapots, a coffeepot, trays, &c., with a little + inscription to my wife, Mrs. Snob; and a half-score of silver tankards for + the little Snoblings, to glitter on the homely table where they partake of + their quotidian mutton? + </p> + <p> + If I had my way, and my plans could be carried out, dinner-giving would + increase as much on the one hand as dinner-giving Snobbishness would + diminish:—to my mind the most amiable part of the work lately + published by my esteemed friend (if upon a very brief acquaintance he will + allow me to call him so), Alexis Soyer, the regenerator—what he (in + his noble style) would call the most succulent, savoury, and elegant + passages—are those which relate, not to the grand banquets and + ceremonial dinners, but to his 'dinners at home.' + </p> + <p> + The 'dinner at home' ought to be the centre of the whole system of + dinner-giving. Your usual style of meal—that is, plenteous, + comfortable, and in its perfection—should be that to which you + welcome your friends, as it is that of which you partake yourself. + </p> + <p> + For, towards what woman in the world do I entertain a higher regard than + towards the beloved partner of my existence, Mrs. Snob? Who should have a + greater place in my affections than her six brothers (three or four of + whom we are pretty sure will favour us with their company at seven + o'clock), or her angelic mother, my own valued mother-in-law?—for + whom, finally, would I wish to cater more generously than for your very + humble servant, the present writer? Now, nobody supposes that the + Birmingham plate is had out, the disguised carpet-beaters introduced to + the exclusion of the neat parlour-maid, the miserable ENTREES from the + pastrycook's ordered in, and the children packed off (as it is supposed) + to the nursery, but really only to the staircase, down which they slide + during the dinner-time, waylaying the dishes as they come out, and + fingering the round bumps on the jellies, and the forced-meat balls in the + soup,—nobody, I say, supposes that a dinner at home is characterized + by the horrible ceremony, the foolish makeshifts, the mean pomp and + ostentation which distinguish our banquets on grand field-days. + </p> + <p> + Such a notion is monstrous. I would as soon think of having my dearest + Bessy sitting opposite me in a turban and bird of paradise, and showing + her jolly mottled arms out of blond sleeves in her famous red satin gown: + ay, or of having Mr. Toole every day, in a white waistcoat, at my back, + shouting, 'Silence FAW the chair!' + </p> + <p> + Now, if this be the case; if the Brummagem-plate pomp and the processions + of disguised footmen are odious and foolish in everyday life, why not + always? Why should Jones and I, who are in the middle rank, alter the + modes of our being to assume an ECLAT which does not belong to us—to + entertain our friends, who (if we are worth anything and honest fellows at + bottom,) are men of the middle rank too, who are not in the least deceived + by our temporary splendour, and who play off exactly the same absurd trick + upon us when they ask us to dine? + </p> + <p> + If it be pleasant to dine with your friends, as all persons with good + stomachs and kindly hearts will, I presume, allow it to be, it is better + to dine twice than to dine once. It is impossible for men of small means + to be continually spending five-and-twenty or thirty shillings on each + friend who sits down to their table. People dine for less. I myself have + seen, at my favourite Club (the Senior United Service), His Grace the Duke + of Wellington quite contented with the joint, one-and-three, and half-pint + of sherry, nine; and if his Grace, why not you and I? + </p> + <p> + This rule I have made, and found the benefit of. Whenever I ask a couple + of Dukes and a Marquis or so to dine with me, I set them down to a piece + of beef, or a leg-of-mutton and trimmings. The grandees thank you for this + simplicity, and appreciate the same. My dear Jones, ask any of those whom + you have the honour of knowing, if such be not the case. + </p> + <p> + I am far from wishing that their Graces should treat me in a similar + fashion. Splendour is a part of their station, as decent comfort (let us + trust), of yours and mine. Fate has comfortably appointed gold plate for + some, and has bidden others contentedly to wear the willow-pattern. And + being perfectly contented (indeed humbly thankful—for look around, O + Jones, and see the myriads who are not so fortunate,) to wear honest + linen, while magnificos of the world are adorned with cambric and + point-lace, surely we ought to hold as miserable, envious fools, those + wretched Beaux Tibbs's of society, who sport a lace dickey, and nothing + besides,—the poor silly jays, who trail a peacock's feather behind + them, and think to simulate the gorgeous bird whose nature it is to strut + on palace-terraces, and to flaunt his magnificent fan-tail in the + sunshine! + </p> + <p> + The jays with peacocks' feathers are the Snobs of this world: and never, + since the days of Aesop, were they more numerous in any land than they are + at present in this free country. + </p> + <p> + How does this most ancient apologue apply to the subject in hand?—the + Dinner-giving Snob. The imitation of the great is universal in this city, + from the palaces of Kensingtonia and Belgravia, even to the remotest + corner of Brunswick Square. + </p> + <p> + Peacocks' feathers are stuck in the tails of most families. Scarce one of + us domestic birds but imitates the lanky, pavonine strut, and shrill, + genteel scream. O you misguided dinner-giving Snobs, think how much + pleasure you lose, and how much mischief you do with your absurd grandeurs + and hypocrisies! You stuff each other with unnatural forced-meats, and + entertain each other to the ruin of friendship (let alone health) and the + destruction of hospitality and good-fellowship—you, who but for the + peacock's tail might chatter away so much at your ease, and be so jovial + and happy! + </p> + <p> + When a man goes into a great set company of dinner-giving and + dinner-receiving Snobs, if he has a philosophical turn of mind, he will + consider what a huge humbug the whole affair is: the dishes, and the + drink, and the servants, and the plate, and the host and hostess, and the + conversation, and the company,—the philosopher included. + </p> + <p> + The host is smiling, and hob-nobbing, and talking up and down the table; + but a prey to secret terrors and anxieties, lest the wines he has brought + up from the cellar should prove insufficient; lest a corked bottle should + destroy his calculations; or our friend the carpet-beater, by making some + BEVUE, should disclose his real quality of greengrocer, and show that he + is not the family butler. + </p> + <p> + The hostess is smiling resolutely through all the courses, smiling through + her agony; though her heart is in the kitchen, and she is speculating with + terror lest there be any disaster there. If the SOUFFLE should collapse, + or if Wiggins does not send the ices in time—she feels as if she + would commit suicide—that smiling, jolly woman! + </p> + <p> + The children upstairs are yelling, as their maid is crimping their + miserable ringlets with hot tongs, tearing Miss Emmy's hair out by the + roots, or scrubbing Miss Polly's dumpy nose with mottled soap till the + little wretch screams herself into fits. The young males of the family are + employed, as we have stated, in piratical exploits upon the landing-place. + </p> + <p> + The servants are not servants, but the before-mentioned retail tradesmen. + </p> + <p> + The plate is not plate, but a mere shiny Birmingham lacquer; and so is the + hospitality, and everything else. + </p> + <p> + The talk is Birmingham talk. The wag of the party, with bitterness in his + heart, having just quitted his laundress, who is dunning him for her bill, + is firing off good stories; and the opposition wag is furious that he + cannot get an innings. Jawkins, the great conversationalist, is scornful + and indignant with the pair of them, because he is kept out of court. + Young Muscadel, that cheap dandy, is talking Fashion and Almack's out of + the MORNING POST, and disgusting his neighbour, Mrs. Fox, who reflects + that she has never been there. The widow is vexed out of patience, because + her daughter Maria has got a place beside young Cambric, the penniless + curate, and not by Colonel Goldmore, the rich widower from India. The + Doctor's wife is sulky, because she has not been led out before the + barrister's lady; old Doctor Cork is grumbling at the wine, and Guttleton + sneering at the cookery. + </p> + <p> + And to think that all these people might be so happy, and easy, and + friendly, were they brought together in a natural unpretentious way, and + but for an unhappy passion for peacocks' feathers in England. Gentle + shades of Marat and Robespierre! when I see how all the honesty of society + is corrupted among us by the miserable fashion-worship, I feel as angry as + Mrs. Fox just mentioned, and ready to order a general BATTUE of peacocks. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXI—SOME CONTINENTAL SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Now that September has come, and all our Parliamentary duties are over, + perhaps no class of Snobs are in such high feather as the Continental + Snobs. I watch these daily as they commence their migrations from the + beach at Folkestone. I see shoals of them depart (not perhaps without an + innate longing too to quit the Island along with those happy Snobs). + Farewell, dear friends, I say: you little know that the individual who + regards you from the beach is your friend and historiographer and brother. + </p> + <p> + I went to-day to see our excellent friend Snooks, on board the 'Queen of + the French;' many scores of Snobs were there, on the deck of that fine + ship, marching forth in their pride and bravery. They will be at Ostend in + four hours; they will inundate the Continent next week; they will carry + into far lands the famous image of the British Snob. I shall not see them—but + am with them in spirit: and indeed there is hardly a country in the known + and civilized world in which these eyes have not beheld them. + </p> + <p> + I have seen Snobs, in pink coats and hunting-boots, scouring over the + Campagna of Rome; and have heard their oaths and their well-known slang in + the galleries of the Vatican, and under the shadowy arches of the + Colosseum. I have met a Snob on a dromedary in the desert, and picnicking + under the Pyramid of Cheops. I like to think how many gallant British + Snobs there are, at this minute of writing, pushing their heads out of + every window in the courtyard of 'Meurice's' in the Rue de Rivoli; or + roaring out, 'Garsong, du pang,' 'Garsong, du Yang;' or swaggering down + the Toledo at Naples; or even how many will be on the look-out for Snooks + on Ostend Pier,—for Snooks, and the rest of the Snobs on board the + 'Queen of the French.' + </p> + <p> + Look at the Marquis of Carabas and his two carriages. My Lady Marchioness + comes on board, looks round with that happy air of mingled terror and + impertinence which distinguishes her ladyship, and rushes to her carriage, + for it is impossible that she should mingle with the other Snobs on deck. + There she sits, and will be ill in private. The strawberry leaves on her + chariot-panels are engraved on her ladyship's heart. If she were going to + heaven instead of to Ostend, I rather think she would expect to have DES + PLACES RESERVEES for her, and would send to order the best rooms. A + courier, with his money-bag of office round his shoulders—a huge + scowling footman, whose dark pepper-and-salt livery glistens with the + heraldic insignia of the Carabases—a brazen-looking, tawdry French + FEMME-DE-CHAMBRE (none but a female pen can do justice to that wonderful + tawdry toilette of the lady's-maid EN VOYAGE)—and a miserable DAME + DE COMPAGNIE, are ministering to the wants of her ladyship and her King + Charles's spaniel. They are rushing to and fro with eau-de-Cologne, + pocket-handkerchiefs, which are all fringe and cipher, and popping + mysterious cushions behind and before, and in every available corner of + the carriage. + </p> + <p> + The little Marquis, her husband is walking about the deck in a bewildered + manner, with a lean daughter on each arm: the carroty-tufted hope of the + family is already smoking on the foredeck in a travelling costume checked + all over, and in little lacquer-tip pod jean boots, and a shirt + embroidered with pink boa-constrictors. 'What is it that gives travelling + Snobs such a marvellous propensity to rush into a costume? Why should a + man not travel in a coat, &c.? but think proper to dress himself like + a harlequin in mourning? See, even young Aldermanbury, the + tallow-merchant, who has just stepped on board, has got a travelling-dress + gaping all over with pockets; and little Tom Tapeworm, the lawyer's clerk + out of the City, who has but three weeks' leave, turns out in gaiters and + a bran-new shooting-jacket, and must let the moustaches grow on his little + sniffy upper lip, forsooth! + </p> + <p> + Pompey Hicks is giving elaborate directions to his servant, and asking + loudly, 'Davis, where's the dwessing-case?' and 'Davis, you'd best take + the pistol-case into the cabin.' Little Pompey travels with a + dressing-case, and without a beard: whom he is going to shoot with his + pistols, who on earth can tell? and what he is to do with his servant but + wait upon him, I am at a loss to conjecture. + </p> + <p> + Look at honest Nathan Houndsditch and his lady, and their little son. What + a noble air of blazing contentment illuminates the features of those Snobs + of Eastern race! What a toilette Houndsditch's is! What rings and chains, + what gold-headed canes and diamonds, what a tuft the rogue has got to his + chin (the rogue! he will never spare himself any cheap enjoyment!) Little + Houndsditch has a little cane with a gilt head and little mosaic ornaments—altogether + an extra air. As for the lady, she is all the colours of the rainbow! she + has a pink parasol, with a white lining, and a yellow bonnet, and an + emerald green shawl, and a shot-silk pelisse; and drab boots and + rhubarb-coloured gloves; and parti-coloured glass buttons, expanding from + the size of a fourpenny-piece to a crown, glitter and twiddle all down the + front of her gorgeous costume. I have said before, I like to look at 'the + Peoples' on their gala days, they are so picturesquely and outrageously + splendid and happy. + </p> + <p> + Yonder comes Captain Bull; spick and span, tight and trim; who travels for + four or six months every year of his life; who does not commit himself by + luxury of raiment or insolence of demeanour, but I think is as great a + Snob as any man on board. Bull passes the season in London, sponging for + dinners, and sleeping in a garret near his Club. Abroad, he has been + everywhere; he knows the best wine at every inn in every capital in + Europe; lives with the best English company there; has seen every palace + and picture-gallery from Madrid to Stockholm; speaks an abominable little + jargon of half-a-dozen languages—and knows nothing—nothing. + Bull hunts tufts on the Continent, and is a sort of amateur courier. He + will scrape acquaintance with old Carabas before they make Ostend; and + will remind his lordship that he met him at Vienna twenty years ago, or + gave him a glass of Schnapps up the Righi. We have said Bull knows + nothing: he knows the birth, arms, and pedigree of all the peerage, has + poked his little eyes into every one of the carriages on board—their + panels noted and their crests surveyed; he knows all the Continental + stories of English scandal—how Count Towrowski ran off with Miss + Baggs at Naples—how VERY thick Lady Smigsmag was with young + Cornichon of the French Legation at Florence—the exact amount which + Jack Deuceace won of Bob Greengoose at Baden—what it is that made + the Staggs settle on the Continent: the sum for which the O'Goggarty + estates are mortgaged, &c. If he can't catch a lord he will hook on to + a baronet, or else the old wretch will catch hold of some beardless young + stripling of fashion, and show him 'life' in various and amiable and + inaccessible quarters. Faugh! the old brute! If he has every one of the + vices of the most boisterous youth, at least he is comforted by having no + conscience. He is utterly stupid, but of a jovial turn, He believes + himself to be quite a respectable member of society: but perhaps the only + good action he ever did in his life is the involuntary one of giving an + example to be avoided, and showing what an odious thing in the social + picture is that figure of the debauched old man who passes through life + rather a decorous Silenus, and dies some day in his garret, alone, + unrepenting, and unnoted, save by his astonished heirs, who find that the + dissolute old miser has left money behind him. See! he is up to old + Carabas already! I told you he would. + </p> + <p> + Yonder you see the old Lady Mary MacScrew, and those middle-aged young + women her daughters; they are going to cheapen and haggle in Belgium and + up the Rhine until they meet with a boarding-house where they can live + upon less board-wages than her ladyship pays her footmen. But she will + exact and receive considerable respect from the British Snobs located in + the watering place which she selects for her summer residence, being the + daughter of the Earl of Haggistoun. That broad-shouldered buck, with the + great whiskers and the cleaned white kid-gloves, is Mr. Phelim Clancy of + Poldoodystown: he calls himself Mr. De Clancy; he endeavours to disguise + his native brogue with the richest superposition of English; and if you + play at billiards or ECARTE with him, the chances are that you will win + the first game, and he the seven or eight games ensuing. + </p> + <p> + That overgrown lady with the four daughters, and the young dandy from the + University, her son, is Mrs. Kewsy, the eminent barrister's lady, who + would rather die than not be in the fashion. She has the 'Peerage' in her + carpet-bag, you may be sure; but she is altogether cut out by Mrs. Quod, + the attorney's wife, whose carriage, with the apparatus of rumbles, + dickeys, and imperials, scarcely yields in splendour to the Marquis of + Carabas's own travelling-chariot, and whose courier has even bigger + whiskers and a larger morocco money-bag than the Marquis's own travelling + gentleman. Remark her well: she is talking to Mr. Spout, the new Member + for Jawborough, who is going out to inspect the operations of the + Zollverein, and will put some very severe questions to Lord Palmerston + next session upon England and her relations with the Prussian-blue trade, + the Naples-soap trade, the German-tinder trade, &c. Spout will + patronize King Leopold at Brussels; will write letters from abroad to the + JAWBOROUGH INDEPENDENT; and in his quality of MEMBER DU PARLIAMONG + BRITANNIQUE, will expect to be invited to a family dinner with every + sovereign whose dominions he honours with a visit during his tour. + </p> + <p> + The next person is—but hark! the bell for shore is ringing, and, + shaking Snook's hand cordially, we rush on to the pier, waving him a + farewell as the noble black ship cuts keenly through the sunny azure + waters, bearing away that cargo of Snobs outward bound. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXII—CONTINENTAL SNOBBERY CONTINUED + </h2> + <p> + We are accustomed to laugh at the French for their braggadocio + propensities, and intolerable vanity about La France, la gloire, + l'Empereur, and the like; and yet I think in my heart that the British + Snob, for conceit and self-sufficiency and braggartism in his way, is + without a parallel. There is always something uneasy in a Frenchman's + conceit. He brags with so much fury, shrieking, and gesticulation; yells + out so loudly that the Francais is at the head of civilization, the centre + of thought, &c.; that one can't but see the poor fellow has a lurking + doubt in his own mind that he is not the wonder he professes to be. + </p> + <p> + About the British Snob, on the contrary, there is commonly no noise, no + bluster, but the calmness of profound conviction. We are better than all + the world; we don't question the opinion at all; it's an axiom. And when a + Frenchman bellows out, 'LA FRANCE, MONSIEUR, LA FRANCE EST A LA TETE DU + MONDE CIVILISE!' we laugh good-naturedly at the frantic poor devil. WE are + the first chop of the world: we know the fact so well in our secret hearts + that a claim set up elsewhere is simply ludicrous. My dear brother reader, + say, as a man of honour, if you are not of this opinion? Do you think a + Frenchman your equal? You don't—you gallant British Snob—you + know you don't: no more, perhaps, does the Snob your humble servant, + brother. + </p> + <p> + And I am inclined to think it is this conviction, and the consequent + bearing of the Englishman towards the foreigner whom he condescends to + visit, this confidence of superiority which holds up the head of the owner + of every English hat-box from Sicily to St. Petersburg, that makes us so + magnificently hated throughout Europe as we are; this—more than all + our little victories, and of which many Frenchmen and Spaniards have never + heard—this amazing and indomitable insular pride, which animates my + lord in his travelling-carriage as well as John in the rumble. + </p> + <p> + If you read the old Chronicles of the French wars, you find precisely the + same character of the Englishman, and Henry V.'s people behaved with just + the cool domineering manner of our gallant veterans of France and the + Peninsula. Did you never hear Colonel Cutler and Major Slasher talking + over the war after dinner? or Captain Boarder describing his action with + the 'Indomptable?' 'Hang the fellows,' says Boarder, 'their practice was + very good. I was beat off three times before I took her.' 'Cuss those + carabineers of Milhaud's,' says Slasher, 'what work they made of our light + cavalry!' implying a sort of surprise that the Frenchman should stand up + against Britons at all: a good-natured wonder that the blind, mad, + vain-glorious, brave poor devils should actually have the courage to + resist an Englishman. Legions of such Englishmen are patronizing Europe at + this moment, being kind to the Pope, or good-natured to the King of + Holland, or condescending to inspect the Prussian reviews. When Nicholas + came here, who reviews a quarter of a million of pairs of moustaches to + his breakfast every morning, we took him off to Windsor and showed him two + whole regiments of six or eight hundred Britons a-piece, with an air as + much as to say,—'There, my boy, look at THAT. Those are ENGLISHMEN, + those are, and your master whenever you please,' as the nursery song says. + The British Snob is long, long past scepticism, and can afford to laugh + quite good-humouredly at those conceited Yankees, or besotted little + Frenchmen, who set up as models of mankind. THEY forsooth! + </p> + <p> + I have been led into these remarks by listening to an old fellow at the + Hotel du Nord, at Boulogne, and who is evidently of the Slasher sort. He + came down and seated himself at the breakfast-table, with a surly scowl on + his salmon-coloured bloodshot face, strangling in a tight, cross-barred + cravat; his linen and his appointments so perfectly stiff and spotless + that everybody at once recognized him as a dear countryman. Only our + port-wine and other admirable institutions could have produced a figure so + insolent, so stupid, so gentleman-like. After a while our attention was + called to him by his roaring out, in a voice of plethoric fury, 'O!' + </p> + <p> + Everybody turned round at the 'O,' conceiving the Colonel to be, as his + countenance denoted him, in intense pain; but the waiters knew better, and + instead of being alarmed, brought the Colonel the kettle. 'O,' it appears, + is the French for hot-water. The Colonel (though he despises it heartily) + thinks he speaks the language remarkably well. Whilst he was inhausting + his smoking tea, which went rolling and gurgling down his throat, and + hissing over the 'hot coppers' of that respectable veteran, a friend + joined him, with a wizened face and very black wig, evidently a Colonel + too. + </p> + <p> + The two warriors, waggling their old heads at each other, presently joined + breakfast, and fell into conversation, and we had the advantage of hearing + about the old war, and some pleasant conjectures as to the next, which + they considered imminent. They psha'd the French fleet; they pooh-pooh'd + the French commercial marine; they showed how, in a war, there would be a + cordon ('a cordong, by—-') of steamers along our coast, and 'by + —-,' ready at a minute to land anywhere on the other shore, to give + the French as good a thrashing as they got in the last war, 'by —-'. + In fact, a rumbling cannonade of oaths was fired by the two veterans + during the whole of their conversation. + </p> + <p> + There was a Frenchman in the room, but as he had not been above ten years + in London, of course he did not speak the language, and lost the benefit + of the conversation. 'But, O my country!' said I to myself, it's no wonder + that you are so beloved! If I were a Frenchman, how I would hate you!' + </p> + <p> + That brutal, ignorant, peevish bully of an Englishman is showing himself + in every city of Europe. One of the dullest creatures under heaven, he + goes travelling Europe under foot, shouldering his way into galleries and + cathedrals, and bustling into palaces with his buck-ram uniform. At church + or theatre, gala or picture-gallery, HIS face never varies. A thousand + delightful sights pass before his bloodshot eyes, and don't affect him. + Countless brilliant scenes of life and manners are shown him, but never + move him. He goes to church, and calls the practices there degrading and + superstitious: as if HIS altar was the only one that was acceptable. He + goes to picture-galleries, and is more ignorant about Art than a French + shoeblack. Art, Nature pass, and there is no dot of admiration in his + stupid eyes: nothing moves him, except when a very great man comes his + way, and then the rigid, proud, self-confident, inflexible British Snob + can be as humble as a flunkey and as supple as a harlequin. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIII—ENGLISH SNOBS ON THE CONTINENT + </h2> + <p> + 'WHAT is the use of Lord Rome's telescope?' my friend Panwiski exclaimed + the other day. 'It only enables you to see a few hundred thousands of + miles farther. What were thought to be mere nebulae, turn out to be most + perceivable starry systems; and beyond these, you see other nebulae, which + a more powerful glass will show to be stars, again; and so they go on + glittering and winking away into eternity.' With which my friend Pan, + heaving a great sigh, as if confessing his inability to look Infinity in + the face, sank back resigned, and swallowed a large bumper of claret. + </p> + <p> + I (who, like other great men, have but one idea), thought to myself, that + as the stars are, so are the Snobs:—the more you gaze upon those + luminaries, the more you behold—now nebulously congregated—now + faintly distinguishable—now brightly defined—until they + twinkle off in endless blazes, and fade into the immeasurable darkness. I + am but as a child playing on the sea-shore. Some telescopic philosopher + will arise one day, some great Snobonomer, to find the laws of the great + science which we are now merely playing with, and to define, and settle, + and classify that which is at present but vague theory, and loose though + elegant assertion. + </p> + <p> + Yes: a single eye can but trace a very few and simple varieties of the + enormous universe of Snobs. I sometimes think of appealing to the public, + and calling together a congress of SAVANS, such as met at Southampton—each + to bring his contributions and read his paper on the Great Subject. For + what can a single poor few do, even with the subject at present in hand? + English Snobs on the Continent—though they are a hundred thousand + times less numerous than on their native island, yet even these few are + too many. One can only fix a stray one here and there. The individuals are + caught—the thousands escape. I have noted down but three whom I have + met with in my walk this morning through this pleasant marine city of + Boulogne. + </p> + <p> + There is the English Raff Snob, that frequents ESTAMINETS and CABARETS; + who is heard yelling, 'We won't go home till morning!' and startling the + midnight echoes of quiet Continental towns with shrieks of English slang. + The boozy unshorn wretch is seen hovering round quays as packets arrive, + and tippling drains in inn bars where he gets credit. He talks French with + slang familiarity: he and his like quite people the debt-prisons on the + Continent. He plays pool at the billiard-houses, and may be seen engaged + at cards and dominoes of forenoons. His signature is to be seen on + countless bills of exchange: it belonged to an honourable family once, + very likely; for the English Raff most probably began by being a + gentleman, and has a father over the water who is ashamed to hear his + name. He has cheated the old 'governor' repeatedly in better days, and + swindled his sisters of their portions, and robbed his younger brothers. + Now he is living on his wife's jointure: she is hidden away in some dismal + garret, patching shabby finery and cobbling up old clothes for her + children—the most miserable and slatternly of women. + </p> + <p> + Or sometimes the poor woman and her daughters go about timidly, giving + lessons in English and music, or do embroidery and work under-hand, to + purchase the means for the POT-AU-FEU; while Raff is swaggering on the + quay, or tossing off glasses of cognac at the CAFÉ. The unfortunate + creature has a child still every year, and her constant hypocrisy is to + try and make her girls believe that their father is a respectable man, and + to huddle him out of the way when the brute comes home drunk. + </p> + <p> + Those poor ruined souls get together and have a society of their own, the + which it is very affecting to watch—those tawdry pretences at + gentility, those flimsy attempts at gaiety: those woful sallies: that + jingling old piano; oh, it makes the heart sick to see and hear them. As + Mrs. Raff, with her company of pale daughters, gives a penny tea to Mrs. + Diddler, they talk about bygone times and the fine society they kept; and + they sing feeble songs out of tattered old music-books; and while engaged + in this sort of entertainment, in comes Captain Raff with his greasy hat + on one side, and straightway the whole of the dismal room reeks with a + mingled odour of smoke and spirits. + </p> + <p> + Has not everybody who has lived abroad met Captain Raff? His name is + proclaimed, every now and then, by Mr. Sheriff's Officer Hemp; and about + Boulogne, and Paris, and Brussels, there are so many of his sort that I + will lay a wager that I shall be accused of gross personality for showing + him up. Many a less irreclaimable villain is transported; many a more + honourable man is at present at the treadmill; and although we are the + noblest, greatest, most religious, and most moral people in the world, I + would still like to know where, except in the United Kingdom, debts are a + matter of joke, and making tradesmen 'suffer' a sport that gentlemen own + to? It is dishonourable to owe money in France. You never hear people in + other parts of Europe brag of their swindling; or see a prison in a large + Continental town which is not more or less peopled with English rogues. + </p> + <p> + A still more loathsome and dangerous Snob than the above transparent and + passive scamp, is frequent on the continent of Europe, and my young Snob + friends who are travelling thither should be especially warned against + him. Captain Legg is a gentleman, like Raff, though perhaps of a better + degree. He has robbed his family too, but of a great deal more, and has + boldly dishonoured bills for thousands, where Raff has been boggling over + the clumsy conveyance of a ten-pound note. Legg is always at the best inn, + with the finest waistcoats and moustaches, or tearing about in the + flashest of britzkas, while poor Raff is tipsifying himself with spirits, + and smoking cheap tobacco. It is amazing to think that Legg, so often + shown up, and known everywhere, is flourishing yet. He would sink into + utter ruin, but for the constant and ardent love of gentility that + distinguishes the English Snob. There is many a young fellow of the middle + classes who must know Legg to be a rogue and a cheat; and yet from his + desire to be in the fashion, and his admiration of tip-top swells, and + from his ambition to air himself by the side of a Lord's son, will let + Legg make an income out of him; content to pay, so long as he can enjoy + that society. Many a worthy father of a family, when he hears that his son + is riding about with Captain Legg, Lord Levant's son, is rather pleased + that young Hopeful should be in such good company. + </p> + <p> + Legg and his friend, Major Macer, make professional tours through Europe, + and are to be found at the right places at the right time. Last year I + heard how my young acquaintance, Mr. Muff, from Oxford, going to see a + little life at a Carnival ball at Paris, was accosted by an Englishman who + did not know a word of the d——language, and hearing Muff speak + it so admirably, begged him to interpret to a waiter with whom there was a + dispute about refreshments. It was quite a comfort, the stranger said, to + see an honest English face; and did Muff know where there was a good place + for supper? So those two went to supper, and who should come in, of all + men in the world, but Major Macer? And so Legg introduced Macer, and so + there came on a little intimacy, and three-card loo, &c. &c.. Year + after year scores of Muffs, in various places in the world, are victimised + by Legg and Macer. The story is so stale, the trick of seduction so + entirely old and clumsy, that it is only a wonder people can be taken in + any more: but the temptations of vice and gentility together are too much + for young English Snobs, and those simple young victims are caught fresh + every day. Though it is only to be kicked and cheated by men of fashion, + your true British Snob will present himself for the honour. + </p> + <p> + I need not allude here to that very common British Snob, who makes + desperate efforts at becoming intimate with the great Continental + aristocracy, such as old Rolls, the baker, who has set up his quarters in + the Faubourg Saint Germain, and will receive none but Carlists, and no + French gentleman under the rank of a Marquis. We can all of us laugh at + THAT fellow's pretensions well enough—we who tremble before a great + man of our own nation. But, as you say, my brave and honest John Bull of a + Snob, a French Marquis of twenty descents is very different from an + English Peer; and a pack of beggarly German and Italian Fuersten and + Principi awaken the scorn of an honest-minded Briton. But our aristocracy!—that's + a very different matter. They are the real leaders of the world—the + real old original and-no-mistake nobility. + </p> + <p> + Off with your cap, Snob; down on your knees, Snob, and truckle. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIV—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Tired of the town, where the sight of the closed shutters of the nobility, + my friends, makes my heart sick in my walks; afraid almost to sit in those + vast Pall Mall solitudes, the Clubs, and of annoying the Club waiters, who + might, I thought, be going to shoot in the country, but for me, I + determined on a brief tour in the provinces, and paying some visits in the + country which were long due. + </p> + <p> + My first visit was to my friend Major Ponto (H.P. of the Horse Marines), + in Mangelwurzelshire. The Major, in his little phaeton, was in waiting to + take me up at the station. The vehicle was not certainly splendid, but + such a carriage as would accommodate a plain man (as Ponto said he was) + and a numerous family. We drove by beautiful fresh fields and green + hedges, through a cheerful English landscape; the high-road, as smooth and + trim as the way in a nobleman's park, was charmingly chequered with cool + shade and golden sunshine. Rustics in snowy smock-frocks jerked their hats + off smiling as we passed. Children, with cheeks as red as the apples in + the orchards, bobbed curtsies to us at the cottage-doors. Blue church + spires rose here and there in the distance: and as the buxom gardener's + wife opened the white gate at the Major's little ivy-covered lodge, and we + drove through the neat plantations of firs and evergreens, up to the + house, my bosom felt a joy and elation which I thought it was impossible + to experience in the smoky atmosphere of a town. 'Here,' I mentally + exclaimed, 'is all peace, plenty, happiness. Here, I shall be rid of + Snobs. There can be none in this charming Arcadian spot.' + </p> + <p> + Stripes, the Major's man (formerly corporal in his gallant corps), + received my portmanteau, and an elegant little present, which I had + brought from town as a peace-offering to Mrs. Ponto; viz., a cod and + oysters from Grove's, in a hamper about the size of a coffin. + </p> + <p> + Ponto's house ('The Evergreens' Mrs. P. has christened it) is a perfect + Paradise of a place. It is all over creepers, and bow-windows, and + verandahs. A wavy lawn tumbles up and down all round it, with flower-beds + of wonderful shapes, and zigzag gravel walks, and beautiful but damp + shrubberies of myrtles and glistening laurustines, which have procured it + its change of name. It was called Little Bullock's Pound in old Doctor + Ponto's time. I had a view of the pretty grounds, and the stable, and the + adjoining village and church, and a great park beyond, from the windows of + the bedroom whither Ponto conducted me. It was the yellow bedroom, the + freshest and pleasantest of bed-chambers; the air was fragrant with a + large bouquet that was placed on the writing-table; the linen was fragrant + with the lavender in which it had been laid; the chintz hangings of the + bed and the big sofa were, if not fragrant with flowers, at least painted + all over with them; the pen-wiper on the table was the imitation of a + double dahlia; and there was accommodation for my watch in a sun-flower on + the mantelpiece. A scarlet-leaved creeper came curling over the windows, + through which the setting sun was pouring a flood of golden light. It was + all flowers and freshness. Oh, how unlike those black chimney-pots in St. + Alban's Place, London, on which these weary eyes are accustomed to look. + </p> + <p> + 'It must be all happiness here, Ponto,' said I, flinging myself down into + the snug BERGERE, and inhaling such a delicious draught of country air as + all the MILLEFLEURS of Mr. Atkinson's shop cannot impart to any the most + expensive pocket-handkerchief. + </p> + <p> + 'Nice place, isn't it?' said Ponto. 'Quiet and unpretending. I like + everything quiet. You've not brought your valet with you? Stripes will + arrange your dressing things;' and that functionary, entering at the same + time, proceeded to gut my portmanteau, and to lay out the black + kerseymeres, 'the rich cut velvet Genoa waistcoat,' the white choker, and + other polite articles of evening costume, with great gravity and despatch. + 'A great dinner-party,' thinks I to myself, seeing these preparations (and + not, perhaps, displeased at the idea that some of the best people in the + neighbourhood were coming to see me). 'Hark, theres the first bell + ringing! 'said Ponto, moving away; and, in fact, a clamorous harbinger of + victuals began clanging from the stable turret, and announced the + agreeable fact that dinner would appear in half-an-hour. 'If the dinner is + as grand as the dinner-bell,' thought I, 'faith, I'm in good quarters!' + and had leisure, during the half-hour's interval, not only to advance my + own person to the utmost polish of elegance which it is capable of + receiving, to admire the pedigree of the Pontos hanging over the chimney, + and the Ponto crest and arms emblazoned on the wash-hand basin and jug, + but to make a thousand reflections on the happiness of a country life—upon + the innocent friendliness and cordiality of rustic intercourse; and to + sigh for an opportunity of retiring, like Ponto, to my own fields, to my + own vine and fig-tree, with a placens uxor in my domus, and a half-score + of sweet young pledges of affection sporting round my paternal knee. + </p> + <p> + Clang! At the end of thirty minutes, dinner-bell number two pealed from + the adjacent turret. I hastened downstairs, expecting to find a score of + healthy country folk in the drawing-room. There was only one person there; + a tall and Roman-nosed lady, glistering over with bugles, in deep + mourning. She rose, advanced two steps, made a majestic curtsey, during + which all the bugles in her awful head-dress began to twiddle and quiver—and + then said, 'Mr. Snob, we are very happy to see you at the Evergreens,' and + heaved a great sigh. + </p> + <p> + This, then, was Mrs. Major Ponto; to whom making my very best bow, I + replied, that I was very proud to make her acquaintance, as also that of + so charming a place as the Evergreens. + </p> + <p> + Another sigh. 'We are distantly related, Mr. Snob,' said she, shaking her + melancholy head. 'Poor dear Lord Rubadub!' + </p> + <p> + 'Oh!' said I; not knowing what the deuce Mrs. Major Ponto meant. + </p> + <p> + 'Major Ponto told me that you were of the Leicestershire Snobs: a very old + family, and related to Lord Snobbington, who married Laura Rubadub, who is + a cousin of mine, as was her poor dear father, for whom we are mourning. + What a seizure! only sixty-three, and apoplexy quite unknown until now in + our family! In life we are in death, Mr. Snob. Does Lady Snobbington bear + the deprivation well?' + </p> + <p> + 'Why, really, ma'am, I—I don't know,' I replied, more and more + confused. + </p> + <p> + As she was speaking I heard a sort of CLOOP, by which well-known sound I + was aware that somebody was opening a bottle of wine, and Ponto entered, + in a huge white neckcloth, and a rather shabby black suit. + </p> + <p> + 'My love,' Mrs. Major Ponto said to her husband, 'we were talking of our + cousin—poor dear Lord Rubadub. His death has placed some of the + first families in England in mourning. Does Lady Rubadub keep the house in + Hill Street, do you know?' + </p> + <p> + I didn't know, but I said, 'I believe she does,' at a venture; and, + looking down to the drawing-room table, saw the inevitable, abominable, + maniacal, absurd, disgusting 'Peerage' open on the table, interleaved with + annotations, and open at the article 'Snobbington.' + </p> + <p> + 'Dinner is served,' says Stripes, flinging open the door; and I gave Mrs. + Major Ponto my arm. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXV—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Of the dinner to which we now sat down, I am not going to be a severe + critic. The mahogany I hold to be inviolable; but this I will say, that I + prefer sherry to marsala when I can get it, and the latter was the wine of + which I have no doubt I heard the 'cloop' just before dinner. Nor was it + particularly good of its kind; however, Mrs. Major Ponto did not evidently + know the difference, for she called the liquor Amontillado during the + whole of the repast, and drank but half a glass of it, leaving the rest + for the Major and his guest. + </p> + <p> + Stripes was in the livery of the Ponto family—a thought shabby, but + gorgeous in the extreme—lots of magnificent worsted lace, and livery + buttons of a very notable size. The honest fellow's hands, I remarked, + were very large and black; and a fine odour of the stable was wafted about + the room as he moved to and fro in his ministration. I should have + preferred a clean maidservant, but the sensations of Londoners are too + acute perhaps on these subjects; and a faithful John, after all, IS more + genteel. + </p> + <p> + From the circumstance of the dinner being composed of pig's-head + mock-turtle soup, of pig's fry and roast ribs of pork, I am led to imagine + that one of Ponto's black Hampshires had been sacrificed a short time + previous to my visit. It was an excellent and comfortable repast; only + there WAS rather a sameness in it, certainly. I made a similar remark the + next day'. + </p> + <p> + During the dinner Mrs. Ponto asked me many questions regarding the + nobility, my relatives. 'When Lady Angelina Skeggs would come out; and if + the countess her mamma' (this was said with much archness and he-he-ing) + 'still wore that extraordinary purple hair-dye?' 'Whether my Lord + Guttlebury kept, besides his French chef, and an English cordonbleu for + the roasts, an Italian for the confectionery?' + </p> + <p> + 'Who attended at Lady Clapperclaw's conversazioni?' and 'whether Sir John + Champignon's “Thursday Mornings” were pleasant?' 'Was it true that Lady + Carabas, wanting to pawn her diamonds, found that they were paste, and + that the Marquis had disposed of them beforehand?' 'How was it that + Snuffin, the great tobacco-merchant, broke off the marriage which was on + the tapis between him and their second daughter; and was it true that a + mulatto lady came over from the Havanna and forbade the match?' + </p> + <p> + 'Upon my word, Madam,' I had begun, and was going on to say that I didn't + know one word about all these matters which seemed so to interest Mrs. + Major Ponto, when the Major, giving me a tread or stamp with his large + foot under the table, said—'Come, come, Snob my boy, we are all + tiled, you know. We KNOW you're one of the fashionable people about town: + we saw your name at Lady Clapperclaw's SOIREES, and the Champignon + breakfasts; and as for the Rubadubs, of course, as relations —-' + </p> + <p> + 'Oh, of course, I dine there twice a-week,' I said; and then I remembered + that my cousin, Humphry Snob, of the Middle Temple, IS a great frequenter + of genteel societies, and to have seen his name in the MORNING POST at the + tag-end of several party lists. So, taking the hint, I am ashamed to say I + indulged Mrs. Major Ponto with a deal of information about the first + families in England, such as would astonish those great personages if they + knew it. I described to her most accurately the three reigning beauties of + last season at Almack's: told her in confidence that his Grace the D—- + of W—- was going to be married the day after his Statue was put up; + that his Grace the D—- of D—- was also about to lead the + fourth daughter of the Archduke Stephen to the hymeneal altar:—and + talked to her, in a word, just in the style of Mrs. Gore's last + fashionable novel. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Major was quite fascinated by this brilliant conversation. She began + to trot out scraps of French, just for all the world as they do in the + novels; and kissed her hand to me quite graciously, telling me to come + soon to caffy, UNG PU DE MUSICK O SALONG—with which she tripped off + like an elderly fairy. + </p> + <p> + 'Shall I open a bottle of port, or do you ever drink such a thing as + Hollands and water?' says Ponto, looking ruefully at me. This was a very + different style of thing to what I had been led to expect from him at our + smoking-room at the Club: where he swaggers about his horses and his + cellar: and slapping me on the shoulder used to say, 'Come down to + Mangelwurzelshire, Snob my boy, and I'll give you as good a day's shooting + and as good a glass of claret as any in the county.'—'Well,' I said, + 'I like Hollands much better than port, and gin even better than + Hollands.' This was lucky. It WAS gin; and Stripes brought in hot water on + a splendid plated tray. + </p> + <p> + The jingling of a harp and piano soon announced that Mrs. Ponto's ung PU + DE MUSICK had commenced, and the smell of the stable again entering the + dining-room, in the person of Stripes, summoned us to CAFFY and the little + concert. She beckoned me with a winning smile to the sofa, on which she + made room for me, and where we could command a fine view of the backs of + the young ladies who were performing the musical entertainment. Very broad + backs they were too, strictly according to the present mode, for crinoline + or its substitutes is not an expensive luxury, and young people in the + country can afford to be in the fashion at very trifling charges. Miss + Emily Ponto at the piano, and her sister Maria at that somewhat exploded + instrument, the harp, were in light blue dresses that looked all flounce, + and spread out like Mr. Green's balloon when inflated. + </p> + <p> + 'Brilliant touch Emily has—what a fine arm Maria's is,' Mrs. Ponto + remarked good-naturedly, pointing out the merits of her daughters, and + waving her own arm in such a way as to show that she was not a little + satisfied with the beauty of that member. I observed she had about nine + bracelets and bangles, consisting of chains and padlocks, the Major's + miniature, and a variety of brass serpents with fiery ruby or tender + turquoise eyes, writhing up to her elbow almost, in the most profuse + contortions. + </p> + <p> + 'You recognize those polkas? They were played at Devonshire House on the + 23rd of July, the day of the grand fête.' So I said yes—I knew 'em + quite intimately; and began wagging my head as if in acknowledgment of + those old friends. + </p> + <p> + When the performance was concluded, I had the felicity of a presentation + and conversation with the two tall and scraggy Miss Pontos; and Miss Wirt, + the governess, sat down to entertain us with variations on 'Sich a gettin' + up Stairs.' They were determined to be in the fashion. + </p> + <p> + For the performance of the 'Gettin' up Stairs,' I have no other name but + that it was a STUNNER. First Miss Wirt, with great deliberation, played + the original and beautiful melody, cutting it, as it were, out of the + instrument, and firing off each note so loud, clear, and sharp, that I am + sure Stripes must have heard it in the stable. + </p> + <p> + 'What a finger!' says Mrs. Ponto; and indeed it WAS a finger, as knotted + as a turkey's drumstick, and splaying all over the piano. When she had + banged out the tune slowly, she began a different manner of 'Gettin' up + Stairs,' and did so with a fury and swiftness quite incredible. She spun + up stairs; she whirled up stairs: she galloped up stairs; she rattled up + stairs; and then having got the tune to the top landing, as it were, she + hurled it down again shrieking to the bottom floor, where it sank in a + crash as if exhausted by the breathless rapidity of the descent. Then Miss + Wirt played the 'Gettin' up Stairs' with the most pathetic and ravishing + solemnity: plaintive moans and sobs issued from the keys—you wept + and trembled as you were gettin' up stairs. Miss Wirt's hands seemed to + faint and wail and die in variations: again, and she went up with a savage + clang and rush of trumpets, as if Miss Wirt was storming a breach; and + although I knew nothing of music, as I sat and listened with my mouth open + to this wonderful display, my CAFFY grew cold, and I wondered the windows + did not crack and the chandelier start out of the beam at the sound of + this earthquake of a piece of music. + </p> + <p> + 'Glorious creature! Isn't she?' said Mrs. Ponto. 'Squirtz's favourite + pupil—inestimable to have such a creature. Lady Carabas would give + her eyes for her! A prodigy of accomplishments! Thank you, Miss Wirt'—and + the young ladies gave a heave and a gasp of admiration—a + deep-breathing gushing sound, such as you hear at church when the sermon + comes to a full stop. + </p> + <p> + Miss Wirt put her two great double-knuckled hands round a waist of her two + pupils, and said, 'My dear children, I hope you will be able to play it + soon as well as your poor little governess. When I lived with the + Dunsinanes, it was the dear Duchess's favourite, and Lady Barbara and Lady + Jane McBeth learned it. It was while hearing Jane play that, I remember, + that dear Lord Castletoddy first fell in love with her; and though he is + but an Irish Peer, with not more than fifteen thousand a year, I persuaded + Jane to have him. Do you know Castletoddy, Mr. Snob?—round towers—sweet + place-County Mayo. Old Lord Castletoddy (the present Lord was then Lord + Inishowan) was a most eccentric old man—they say he was mad. I heard + his Royal Highness the poor dear Duke of Sussex—(SUCH a man, my + dears, but alas! addicted to smoking!)—I heard his Royal Highness + say to the Marquis of Anglesey, “I am sure Castletoddy is mad!” but + Inishowan wasn't in marrying my sweet Jane, though the dear child had but + her ten thousand pounds POUR TOUT POTAGE!' + </p> + <p> + 'Most invaluable person,' whispered Mrs. Major Ponto to me. 'Has lived in + the very highest society:' and I, who have been accustomed to see + governesses bullied in the world, was delighted to find this one ruling + the roast, and to think that even the majestic Mrs. Ponto bent before her. + </p> + <p> + As for my pipe, so to speak, it went out at once. I hadn't a word to say + against a woman who was intimate with every Duchess in the Red Book. She + wasn't the rosebud, but she had been near it. She had rubbed shoulders + with the great, and about these we talked all the evening incessantly, and + about the fashions, and about the Court, until bed-time came. + </p> + <p> + 'And are there Snobs in this Elysium?' I exclaimed, jumping into the + lavender-perfumed bed. Ponto's snoring boomed from the neighbouring + bed-room in reply. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVI—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Something like a journal of the proceedings at the Evergreens may be + interesting to those foreign readers of PUNCH who want to know the customs + of an English gentleman's family and household. There's plenty of time to + keep the Journal. Piano-strumming begins at six o'clock in the morning; it + lasts till breakfast, with but a minute's intermission, when the + instrument changes hands, and Miss Emily practises in place of her sister + Miss Maria. + </p> + <p> + In fact, the confounded instrument never stops when the young ladies are + at their lessons, Miss Wirt hammers away at those stunning variations, and + keeps her magnificent finger in exercise. + </p> + <p> + I asked this great creature in what other branches of education she + instructed her pupils? 'The modern languages,' says she modestly: 'French, + German, Spanish, and Italian, Latin and the rudiments of Greek if desired. + English of course; the practice of Elocution, Geography, and Astronomy, + and the Use of the Globes, Algebra (but only as far as quadratic + equations); for a poor ignorant female, you know, Mr. Snob, cannot be + expected to know everything. Ancient and Modern History no young woman can + be without; and of these I make my beloved pupils PERFECT MISTRESSES. + Botany, Geology, and Mineralogy, I consider as amusements. And with these + I assure you we manage to pass the days at the Evergreens not + unpleasantly.' + </p> + <p> + Only these, thought I—what an education! But I looked in one of Miss + Ponto's manuscript song-books and found five faults of French in four + words; and in a waggish mood asking Miss Wirt whether Dante Algiery was so + called because he was born at Algiers, received a smiling answer in the + affirmative, which made me rather doubt about the accuracy of Miss Wirt's + knowledge. + </p> + <p> + When the above little morning occupations are concluded, these unfortunate + young women perform what they call Calisthenic Exercises in the garden. I + saw them to-day, without any crinoline, pulling the garden-roller. + </p> + <p> + Dear Mrs. Ponto was in the garden too, and as limp as her daughters; in a + faded bandeau of hair, in a battered bonnet, in a holland pinafore, in + pattens, on a broken chair, snipping leaves off a vine. Mrs. Ponto + measures many yards about in an evening. Ye heavens! what a guy she is in + that skeleton morning-costume! + </p> + <p> + Besides Stripes, they keep a boy called Thomas or Tummus. Tummus works in + the garden or about the pigsty and stable; Thomas wears a page's costume + of eruptive buttons. + </p> + <p> + When anybody calls, and Stripes is out of the way, Tummus flings himself + like mad into Thomas's clothes, and comes out metamorphosed like Harlequin + in the pantomime. To-day, as Mrs. P. was cutting the grapevine, as the + young ladies were at the roller, down comes Tummus like a roaring + whirlwind, with 'Missus, Missus, there's company coomin'!' Away skurry the + young ladies from the roller, down comes Mrs. P. from the old chair, off + flies Tummus to change his clothes, and in an incredibly short space of + time Sir John Hawbuck, my Lady Hawbuck, and Master Hugh Hawbuck are + introduced into the garden with brazen effrontery by Thomas, who says, + 'Please Sir Jan and my Lady to walk this year way: I KNOW Missus is in the + rose-garden.' + </p> + <p> + And there, sure enough, she was! + </p> + <p> + In a pretty little garden bonnet, with beautiful curling ringlets, with + the smartest of aprons and the freshest of pearl-coloured gloves, this + amazing woman was in the arms of her dearest Lady Hawbuck. 'Dearest Lady + Hawbuck, how good of you! Always among my flowers! can't live away from + them!' + </p> + <p> + 'Sweets to the sweet! hum—a-ha—haw!' says Sir John Hawbuck, + who piques himself on his gallantry, and says nothing without 'a-hum—a-ha—a-haw!' + </p> + <p> + 'Whereth yaw pinnafaw?' cries Master Hugh. 'WE thaw you in it, over the + wall, didn't we, Pa?' + </p> + <p> + 'Hum—a-ha—a-haw!' burst out Sir John, dreadfully alarmed. + 'Where's Ponto? Why wasn't he at Quarter Sessions? How are his birds this + year, Mrs. Ponto—have those Carabas pheasants done any harm to your + wheat? a-hum—a-ha—a-haw!' and all this while he was making the + most ferocious and desperate signals to his youthful heir. + </p> + <p> + 'Well, she WATH in her pinnafaw, wathn't she, Ma?' says Hugh, quite + unabashed; which question Lady Hawbuck turned away with a sudden query + regarding her dear darling daughters, and the ENFANT TERRIBLE was removed + by his father. + </p> + <p> + 'I hope you weren't disturbed by the music?' Ponto says. 'My girls, you + know, practise four hours a day, you know—must do it, you know—absolutely + necessary. As for me, you know I'm an early man, and in my farm every + morning at five—no, no laziness for ME.' + </p> + <p> + The facts are these. Ponto goes to sleep directly after dinner on entering + the drawing-room, and wakes up when the ladies leave off practice at ten. + From seven till ten, from ten till five, is a very fair allowance of + slumber for a man who says he's NOT a lazy man. It is my private opinion + that when Ponto retires to what is called his 'Study,' he sleeps too. He + locks himself up there daily two hours with the newspaper. + </p> + <p> + I saw the HAWBUCK scene out of the Study, which commands the garden. It's + a curious object, that Study. Ponto's library mostly consists of boots. He + and Stripes have important interviews here of mornings, when the potatoes + are discussed, or the fate of the calf ordained, or sentence passed on the + pig, &c.. All the Major's bills are docketed on the Study table and + displayed like a lawyer's briefs. Here, too, lie displayed his hooks, + knives, and other gardening irons, his whistles, and strings of spare + buttons. He has a drawer of endless brown paper for parcels, and another + containing a prodigious and never-failing supply of string. What a man can + want with so many gig-whips I can never conceive. These, and fishing-rods, + and landing-nets, and spurs, and boot-trees, and balls for horses, and + surgical implements for the same, and favourite pots of shiny blacking, + with which he paints his own shoes in the most elegant manner, and + buckskin gloves stretched out on their trees, and his gorget, sash, and + sabre of the Horse Marines, with his boot-hooks underneath in atrophy; and + the family medicine-chest, and in a corner the very rod with which he used + to whip his son, Wellesley Ponto, when a boy (Wellesley never entered the + 'Study' but for that awful purpose)—all these, with 'Mogg's Road + Book,' the GARDENERS' CHRONICLE, and a backgammon-board, form the Major's + library. Under the trophy there's a picture of Mrs. Ponto, in a light blue + dress and train, and no waist, when she was first married; a fox's brush + lies over the frame, and serves to keep the dust off that work of art. + </p> + <p> + 'My library's small, says Ponto, with the most amazing impudence, 'but + well selected, my boy—well selected. I have been reading the + “History of England” all the morning.' + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVII—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + We had the fish, which, as the kind reader may remember, I had brought + down in a delicate attention to Mrs. Ponto, to variegate the repast of + next day; and cod and oyster-sauce, twice laid, salt cod and scolloped + oysters, formed parts of the bill of fare until I began to fancy that the + Ponto family, like our late revered monarch George II., had a fancy for + stale fish. And about this time, the pig being consumed, we began upon a + sheep. + </p> + <p> + But how shall I forget the solemn splendour of a second course, which was + served up in great state by Stripes in a silver dish and cove; a napkin + round his dirty thumbs; and consisted of a landrail, not much bigger than + a corpulent sparrow. + </p> + <p> + 'My love, will you take any game?' says Ponto, with prodigious gravity; + and stuck his fork into that little mouthful of an island in the silver + sea. Stripes, too, at intervals, dribbled out the Marsala with a solemnity + which would have done honour to a Duke's butler. The Bamnecide's dinner to + Shacabac was only one degree removed from these solemn banquets. + </p> + <p> + As there were plenty of pretty country places close by; a comfortable + country town, with good houses of gentlefolks; a beautiful old parsonage, + close to the church whither we went (and where the Carabas family have + their ancestral carved and monumented Gothic pew), and every appearance of + good society in the neighbourhood, I rather wondered we were not enlivened + by the appearance of some of the neighbours at the Evergreens, and asked + about them. + </p> + <p> + 'We can't in our position of life—we can't well associate with the + attorney's family, as I leave you to suppose,' says Mrs. Ponto, + confidentially. 'Of course not,' I answered, though I didn't know why. + 'And the Doctor?' said I. + </p> + <p> + 'A most excellent worthy creature,' says Mrs. P. saved Maria's life—really + a learned man; but what can one do in one's position? One may ask one's + medical man to one's table certainly: but his family, my dear Mr. Snob!' + </p> + <p> + 'Half-a-dozen little gallipots,' interposed Miss Wirt, the governess: 'he, + he, he!' and the young ladies laughed in chorus. + </p> + <p> + 'We only live with the county families,' Miss Wirt (1) continued, tossing + up her head. 'The Duke is abroad: we are at feud with the Carabases; the + Ringwoods don't come down till Christmas: in fact, nobody's here till the + hunting season—positively nobody.' + </p> + <p> + 'Whose is the large red house just outside of the town?' + </p> + <p> + 'What! the CHATEAU-CALICOT? he, he, he! That purse-proud ex-linendraper, + Mr. Yardley, with the yellow liveries, and the wife in red velvet? How CAN + you, my dear Mr. Snob, be so satirical? The impertinence of those people + is really something quite overwhelming.' + </p> + <p> + 'Well, then, there is the parson, Doctor Chrysostom. He's a gentleman, at + any rate.' At this Mrs. Ponto looked at Miss Wirt. After their eyes had + met and they had wagged their heads at each other. They looked up to the + ceiling. So did the young ladies. They thrilled. It was evident I had said + something terrible. Another black sheep in the Church? thought I with a + little sorrow; for I don't care to own that I have a respect for the + cloth. 'I—hope there's nothing wrong? + </p> + <p> + 'Wrong?' says Mrs. P., clasping her hands with a tragic air. + </p> + <p> + 'Oh!' says Miss Wirt, and the two girls, gasping in chorus. + </p> + <p> + 'Well,' says I, 'I'm very sorry for it. I never saw a nicer-looking old + gentleman, or a better school, or heard a better sermon.' + </p> + <p> + 'He used to preach those sermons in a surplice,' hissed out Mrs. Ponto. + 'He's a Puseyite, Mr. Snob.' + </p> + <p> + 'Heavenly powers!' says I, admiring the pure ardour of these female + theologians; and Stripes came in with the tea. It's so weak that no wonder + Ponto's sleep isn't disturbed by it. + </p> + <p> + Of mornings we used to go out shooting. We had Ponto's own fields to sport + over (where we got the landrail), and the non-preserved part of the + Hawbuck property: and one evening in a stubble of Ponto's skirting the + Carabas woods, we got among some pheasants, and had some real sport. I + shot a hen, I know, greatly to my delight. 'Bag it,' says Ponto, in rather + a hurried manner: 'here's somebody coming.' So I pocketed the bird. + </p> + <p> + 'You infernal poaching thieves!' roars out a man from the hedge in the + garb of a gamekeeper. 'I wish I could catch you on this side of the hedge. + I'd put a brace of barrels into you, that I would.' + </p> + <p> + 'Curse that Snapper,' says Ponto, moving off; 'he's always watching me + like a spy.' + </p> + <p> + 'Carry off the birds, you sneaks, and sell 'em in London,' roars the + individual, who it appears was a keeper of Lord Carabas. 'You'll get six + shillings a brace for 'em.' + </p> + <p> + 'YOU know the price of 'em well enough, and so does your master too, you + scoundrel,' says Ponto, still retreating. + </p> + <p> + 'We kill 'em on our ground,' cries Mr. Snapper. 'WE don't set traps for + other people's birds. We're no decoy ducks. We're no sneaking poachers. We + don't shoot 'ens, like that 'ere Cockney, who's got the tail of one + a-sticking out of his pocket. Only just come across the hedge, that's + all.' + </p> + <p> + 'I tell you what,' says Stripes, who was out with us as keeper this day, + (in fact he's keeper, coachman, gardener, valet, and bailiff, with Tummus + under him,) 'if YOU'LL come across, John Snapper, and take your coat off, + I'll give you such a whopping as you've never had since the last time I + did it at Guttlebury Fair.' + </p> + <p> + 'Whop one of your own weight,' Mr. Snapper said, whistling his dogs and + disappearing into the wood. And so we came out of this controversy rather + victoriously; but I began to alter my preconceived ideas of rural + felicity. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_NOTE" id="link2H_NOTE"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Notes. + </h2> + <p> + (1) I have since heard that this aristocratic lady's father was a + livery-button maker in St. Martin's Lane: where he met with misfortunes, + and his daughter acquired her taste for heraldry. But it may be told to + her credit, that out of her earnings she has kept the bed-ridden old + bankrupt in great comfort and secrecy at Pentonville; and furnished her + brother's outfit for the Cadetship which her patron, Lord Swigglebiggle, + gave her when he was at the Board of Control. I have this information from + a friend. To hear Miss Wirt herself, you would fancy that her Papa was a + Rothschild, and that the markets of Europe were convulsed when he went + into the GAZETTE. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVIII—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + 'Be hanged to your aristocrats!' Ponto said, in some conversation we had + regarding the family at Carabas, between whom and the Evergreens there was + a feud. 'When I first came into the county—it was the year before + Sir John Buff contested in the Blue interest—the Marquis, then Lord + St. Michaels, who, of course, was Orange to the core, paid me and Mrs. + Ponto such attentions, that I fairly confess I was taken in by the old + humbug, and thought that I'd met with a rare neighbour. 'Gad, Sir, we used + to get pines from Carabas, and pheasants from Carabas, and it was—“Ponto, + when will you come over and shoot?”—and—“Ponto, our pheasants + want thinning,”—and my Lady would insist upon her dear Mrs. Ponto + coming over to Carabas to sleep, and put me I don't know to what expense + for turbans and velvet gowns for my wife's toilette. Well, Sir, the + election takes place, and though I was always a Liberal, personal + friendship of course induces me to plump for St. Michaels, who comes in at + the head of the poll. Next year, Mrs. P. insists upon going to town—with + lodgings in Clarges Street at ten pounds a week, with a hired brougham, + and new dresses for herself and the girls, and the deuce and all to pay. + Our first cards were to Carabas House; my Lady's are returned by a great + big flunkey; and I leave you to fancy my poor Betsy's discomfiture as the + lodging-house maid took in the cards, and Lady St. Michaels drives away, + though she actually saw us at the drawing-room window. Would you believe + it, Sir, that though we called four times afterwards, those infernal + aristocrats never returned our visit; that though Lady St. Michaels gave + nine dinner-parties and four DEJEUNERS that season, she never asked us to + one; and that she cut us dead at the Opera, though Betsy was nodding to + her the whole night? We wrote to her for tickets for Almack's; she writes + to say that all hers were promised; and said, in the presence of Wiggins, + her lady's-maid, who told it to Diggs, my wife's woman, that she couldn't + conceive how people in our station of life could so far forget themselves + as to wish to appear in any such place! Go to Castle Carabas! I'd sooner + die than set my foot in the house of that impertinent, insolvent, insolent + jackanapes—and I hold him in scorn!' After this, Ponto gave me some + private information regarding Lord Carabas's pecuniary affairs; how he + owed money all over the county; how Jukes the carpenter was utterly ruined + and couldn't get a shilling of his bill; how Biggs the butcher hanged + himself for the same reason; how the six big footmen never received a + guinea of wages, and Snaffle, the state coachman, actually took off his + blown-glass wig of ceremony and flung it at Lady Carabas's feet on the + terrace before the Castle; all which stories, as they are private, I do + not think proper to divulge. But these details did not stifle my desire to + see the famous mansion of Castle Carabas, nay, possibly excited my + interest to know more about that lordly house and its owners. + </p> + <p> + At the entrance of the park, there are a pair of great gaunt mildewed + lodges—mouldy Doric temples with black chimney-pots, in the finest + classic taste, and the gates of course are surmounted by the CHATS BOTTES, + the well-known supporters of the Carabas family. 'Give the lodge-keeper a + shilling,' says Ponto, (who drove me near to it in his four-wheeled + cruelty-chaise). 'I warrant it's the first piece of ready money he has + received for some time. I don't know whether there was any foundation for + this sneer, but the gratuity was received with a curtsey, and the gate + opened for me to enter. 'Poor old porteress!' says I, inwardly. 'You + little know that it is the Historian of Snobs whom you let in!' The gates + were passed. A damp green stretch of park spread right and left + immeasurably, confined by a chilly grey wall, and a damp long straight + road between two huge rows of moist, dismal lime-trees, leads up to the + Castle. In the midst of the park is a great black tank or lake, bristling + over with rushes, and here and there covered over with patches of + pea-soup. A shabby temple rises on an island in this delectable lake, + which is approached by a rotten barge that lies at roost in a dilapidated + boat house. Clumps of elms and oaks dot over the huge green flat. Every + one of them would have been down long since, but that the Marquis is not + allowed to cut the timber. + </p> + <p> + Up that long avenue the Snobographer walked in solitude. At the + seventy-ninth tree on the left-hand side, the insolvent butcher hanged + himself. I scarcely wondered at the dismal deed, so woful and sad were the + impressions connected with the place. So, for a mile and a half I walked—alone + and thinking of death. + </p> + <p> + I forgot to say the house is in full view all the way—except when + intercepted by the trees on the miserable island in the lake—an + enormous red-brick mansion, square, vast, and dingy. It is flanked by four + stone towers with weathercocks. In the midst of the grand facade is a huge + Ionic portico, approached by a vast, lonely, ghastly staircase. Rows of + black windows, framed in stone, stretch on either side, right and left—three + storeys and eighteen windows of a row. You may see a picture of the palace + and staircase, in the 'Views of England and Wales,' with four carved and + gilt carriages waiting at the gravel walk, and several parties of ladies + and gentlemen in wigs and hoops, dotting the fatiguing lines of stairs. + </p> + <p> + But these stairs are made in great houses for people NOT to ascend. The + first Lady Carabas (they are but eighty years in the peerage), if she got + out of her gilt coach in a shower, would be wet to the skin before she got + half-way to the carved Ionic portico, where four dreary statues of Peace, + Plenty, Piety and Patriotism, are the only sentinels. You enter these + palaces by back-doors. 'That was the way the Carabases got their peerage,' + the misanthropic Ponto said after dinner. + </p> + <p> + Well—I rang the bell at a little low side-door; it clanged and + jingled and echoed for a long, long while, till at length a face, as of a + housekeeper, peered through the door, and, as she saw my hand in my + waistcoat pocket, opened it. Unhappy, lonely housekeeper, I thought. Is + Miss Crusoe in her island more solitary? The door clapped to, and I was in + Castle Carabas. + </p> + <p> + 'The side entrance and All,' says the housekeeper. 'The halligator hover + the mantelpiece was brought home by Hadmiral St. Michaels, when a Capting + with Lord Hanson. The harms on the cheers is the harms of the Carabas + family.' The hall was rather comfortable. We went clapping up a clean + stone backstair, and then into a back passage cheerfully decorated with + ragged light-green Kidderminster, and issued upon + </p> + <p> + 'THE GREAT ALL. + </p> + <p> + 'The great all is seventy-two feet in lenth, fifty-six in breath, and + thirty-eight feet 'igh. The carvings of the chimlies, representing the + birth of Venus, and Ercules, and Eyelash, is by Van Chislum, the most + famous sculpture of his hage and country. The ceiling, by Calimanco, + represents Painting, Harchitecture and Music (the naked female figure with + the barrel horgan) introducing George, fust Lord Carabas, to the Temple of + the Muses. The winder ornaments is by Vanderputty. The floor is Patagonian + marble; and the chandelier in the centre was presented to Lionel, second + Marquis, by Lewy the Sixteenth, whose 'ead was cut hoff in the French + Revelation. We now henter + </p> + <p> + THE SOUTH GALLERY. + </p> + <p> + 'One 'undred and forty-eight in lenth by thirty-two in breath; it is + profusely hornaminted by the choicest works of Hart. Sir Andrew Katz, + founder of the Carabas family and banker of the Prince of Horange, + Kneller. Her present Ladyship, by Lawrence. Lord St. Michaels, by the same—he + is represented sittin' on a rock in velvit pantaloons. Moses in the + bullrushes—the bull very fine, by Paul Potter. The toilet of Venus, + Fantaski. Flemish Bores drinking, Van Ginnums. Jupiter and Europia, de + Horn. The Grandjunction Canal, Venis, by Candleetty; and Italian Bandix, + by Slavata Rosa.'—And so this worthy woman went on, from one room + into another, from the blue room to the green, and the green to the grand + saloon, and the grand saloon to the tapestry closet, cackling her list of + pictures and wonders: and furtively turning up a corner of brown holland + to show the colour of the old, faded, seedy, mouldy, dismal hangings. + </p> + <p> + At last we came to her Ladyship's bed-room. In the centre of this dreary + apartment there is a bed about the size of one of those whizgig temples in + which the Genius appears in a pantomime. The huge gilt edifice is + approached by steps, and so tall, that it might be let off in floors, for + sleeping-rooms for all the Carabas family. An awful bed! A murder might be + done at one end of that bed, and people sleeping at the other end be + ignorant of it. Gracious powers! fancy little Lord Carabas in a nightcap + ascending those steps after putting out the candle! + </p> + <p> + The sight of that seedy and solitary splendour was too much for me. I + should go mad were I that lonely housekeeper—in those enormous + galleries—in that lonely library, filled up with ghastly folios that + nobody dares read, with an inkstand on the centre table like the coffin of + a baby, and sad portraits staring at you from the bleak walls with their + solemn Mouldy eyes. No wonder that Carabas does not come down here often. + </p> + <p> + It would require two thousand footmen to make the place cheerful. No + wonder the coachman resigned his wig, that the masters are insolvent, and + the servants perish in this huge dreary out-at-elbow place. + </p> + <p> + A single family has no more right to build itself a temple of that sort + than to erect a Tower of Babel. Such a habitation is not decent for a mere + mortal man. But, after all, I suppose poor Carabas had no choice. Fate put + him there as it sent Napoleon to St. Helena. Suppose it had been decreed + by Nature that you and I should be Marquises? We wouldn't refuse, I + suppose, but take Castle Carabas and all, with debts, duns, and mean + makeshifts, and shabby pride, and swindling magnificence. + </p> + <p> + Next season, when I read of Lady Carabas's splendid entertainments in the + MORNING POST, and see the poor old insolvent cantering through the Park—I + shall have a much tenderer interest in these great people than I have had + heretofore. Poor old shabby Snob! Ride on and fancy the world is still on + its knees before the house of Carabas! Give yourself airs, poor old + bankrupt Magnifico, who are under money-obligations to your flunkeys; and + must stoop so as to swindle poor tradesmen! And for us, O my brother + Snobs, oughtn't we to feel happy if our walk through life is more even, + and that we are out of the reach of that surprising arrogance and that + astounding meanness to which this wretched old victim is obliged to mount + and descend. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIX—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Notable as my reception had been (under that unfortunate mistake of Mrs. + Ponto that I was related to Lord Snobbington, which I was not permitted to + correct), it was nothing compared to the bowing and kotooing, the raptures + and flurry which preceded and welcomed the visit of a real live lord and + lord's son, a brother officer of Cornet Wellesley Ponto, in the 120th + Hussars, who came over with the young Cornet from Guttlebury, where their + distinguished regiment was quartered. This was my Lord Gules, Lord + Saltire's grandson and heir: a very young, short, sandy-haired and + tobacco-smoking nobleman, who cannot have left the nursery very long, and + who, though he accepted the honest Major's invitation to the Evergreens in + a letter written in a school-boy handwriting, with a number of faults of + spelling, may yet be a very fine classical scholar for what I know: having + had his education at Eton, where he and young Ponto were inseparable. + </p> + <p> + At any rate, if he can't write, he has mastered a number of other + accomplishments wonderful for one of his age and size. He is one of the + best shots and riders in England. He rode his horse Abracadabra, and won + the famous Guttlebury steeple-chase. He has horses entered at half the + races in the country (under other people's names; for the old lord is a + strict hand, and will not hear of betting or gambling). He has lost and + won such sums of money as my Lord George himself might be proud of. He + knows all the stables, and all the jockeys, and has all the 'information,' + and is a match for the best Leg at Newmarket. Nobody was ever known to be + 'too much' for him at play or in the stable. + </p> + <p> + Although his grandfather makes him a moderate allowance, by the aid of + POST-OBITS and convenient friends he can live in a splendour becoming his + rank. He has not distinguished himself in the knocking down of policemen + much; he is not big enough for that. But, as a light-weight, his skill is + of the very highest order. At billiards he is said to be first-rate. He + drinks and smokes as much as any two of the biggest officers in his + regiment. With such high talents, who can say how far he may not go? He + may take to politics as a DELASSEMENT, and be Prime Minister after Lord + George Bentinck. + </p> + <p> + My young friend Wellesley Ponto is a gaunt and bony youth, with a pale + face profusely blotched. From his continually pulling something on his + chin, I am led to fancy that he believes he has what is called an Imperial + growing there. That is not the only tuft that is hunted in the family, by + the way. He can't, of course, indulge in those expensive amusements which + render his aristocratic comrade so respected: he bets pretty freely when + he is in cash, and rides when somebody mounts him (for he can't afford + more than his regulation chargers). At drinking he is by no means + inferior; and why do you think he brought his noble friend, Lord Gules, to + the Evergreens?—Why? because he intended to ask his mother to order + his father to pay his debts, which she couldn't refuse before such an + exalted presence. Young Ponto gave me all this information with the most + engaging frankness. We are old friends. I used to tip him when he was at + school. + </p> + <p> + 'Gad!': says he, 'our wedgment's so DOOTHID exthpenthif. Must hunt, you + know. A man couldn't live in the wedgment if he didn't. Mess expenses + enawmuth. Must dine at mess. Must drink champagne and claret. Ours ain't a + port and sherry light-infantry mess. Uniform's awful. Fitzstultz, our + Colonel, will have 'em so. Must be a distinction you know. At his own + expense Fitzstultz altered the plumes in the men's caps (you called them + shaving-brushes, Snob, my boy: most absurd and unjust that attack of + yours, by the way); that altewation alone cotht him five hundred pound. + The year befaw latht he horthed the wegiment at an immenthe expenthe, and + we're called the Queen'th Own Pyebalds from that day. Ever theen uth on + pawade? The Empewar Nicolath burtht into tearth of envy when he thaw uth + at Windthor. And you see,' continued my young friend, 'I brought Gules + down with me, as the Governor is very sulky about shelling out, just to + talk my mother over, who can do anything with him. Gules told her that I + was Fitzstultz's favourite of the whole regiment; and, Gad! she thinks the + Horse Guards will give me my troop for nothing, and he humbugged the + Governor that I was the greatest screw in the army. Ain't it a good + dodge?' + </p> + <p> + With this Wellesley left me to go and smoke a cigar in the stables with + Lord Gules, and make merry over the cattle there, under Stripes's + superintendence. Young Ponto laughed with his friend, at the venerable + four-wheeled cruelty-chaise; but seemed amazed that the latter should + ridicule still more an ancient chariot of the build of 1824, emblazoned + immensely with the arme of the Pontos and the Snaileys, from which latter + distinguished family Mrs. Ponto issued. + </p> + <p> + I found poor Pon in his study among his boots, in such a rueful attitude + of despondency, that I could not but remark it. 'Look at that!' says the + poor fellow, handing me over a document. 'It's the second change in + uniform since he's been in the army, and yet there's no extravagance about + the lad. Lord Gules tells me he is the most careful youngster in the + regiment, God bless him! But look at that! by heaven, Snob, look at that + and say how can a man of nine hundred keep out of the Bench?' He gave a + sob as he handed me the paper across the table; and his old face, and his + old corduroys, and his shrunk shooting-jacket, and his lean shanks, + looked, as he spoke, more miserably haggard, bankrupt, and threadbare. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + LIEUT. WELLESLEY PONTO, 120TH QUEEN'S OWN PYEBALD + HUSSARS, + TO KNOPF AND STECKNADEL, + CONDUIT STREET, LONDON. + L. s. d + Dress Jacket, richly laced with gold . 35 0 0 + Ditto Pelisse ditto, and trimmed with sable . . 60 0 0 + Undress Jacket, trimmed with gold 15 15 0 + Ditto Pelisse . . 30 0 0 + Dress Pantaloons 12 0 0 + Ditto Overalls, gold lace on sides. 6 6 0 + Undress ditto ditto. 5 5 0 + Blue Braided Frock 14 14 0 + Forage Cap . . 3 3 0 + Dress Cap, gold lines, plume and chain . . . 25 0 0 + Gold Barrelled Sash 11 18 0 + Sword . . 11 11 0 + Ditto Belt and Sabretache .. 16 16 0 + Pouch and Belt. 15 15 0 + SwordKnot .. 1 4 0 + Cloak . .. 13 13 0 + Valise . .. 3 13 6 + Regulation Saddle . 7 17 6 + Ditto Bridle, complete . .. 10 10 0 + A Dress Housing, complete .. 30 0 0 + A pair of Pistols. 10 10 0 + A Black Sheepskin, edged. . . 6 18 0 + Total L347 9 0 +</pre> + <p> + That evening Mrs. Ponto and her family made their darling Wellesley give a + full, true, and particular account of everything that had taken place at + Lord Fitzstultz's; how many servants waited at dinner; and how the Ladies + Schneider dressed; and what his Royal Highness said when he came down to + shoot; and who was there? “What a blessing that boy is to me!” said she, + as my pimple-faced young friend moved off to resume smoking operations + with Gules in the now vacant kitchen;—and poor Ponto's dreary and + desperate look, shall I ever forget that? + </p> + <p> + O you parents and guardians! O you men and women of sense in England! O + you legislators about to assemble in Parliament! read over that tailor's + bill above printed, read over that absurd catalogue of insane gimcracks + and madman's tomfoolery—and say how are you ever to get rid of + Snobbishness when society does so much for its education? + </p> + <p> + Three hundred and forty pounds for a young chap's saddle and breeches! + Before George, I would rather be a Hottentot or a Highlander. We laugh at + poor Jocko, the monkey, dancing in uniform; or at poor Jeames, the + flunkey, with his quivering calves and plush tights; or at the nigger + Marquis of Marmalade, dressed out with sabre and epaulets, and giving + himself the airs of a field-marshal. Lo! is not one of the Queen's + Pyebalds, in full fig, as great and foolish a monster? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXX—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + At last came that fortunate day at the Evergreens, when I was to be made + acquainted with some of the 'county families' with whom only people of + Ponto's rank condescended to associate. And now, although poor Ponto had + just been so cruelly made to bleed on occasion of his son's new uniform, + and though he was in the direst and most cut-throat spirits with an + overdrawn account at the banker's, and other pressing evils of poverty; + although a tenpenny bottle of Marsala and an awful parsimony presided + generally at his table, yet the poor fellow was obliged to assume the most + frank and jovial air of cordiality; and all the covers being removed from + the hangings, and new dresses being procured for the young ladies, and the + family plate being unlocked and displayed, the house and all within + assumed a benevolent and festive appearance. The kitchen fires began to + blaze, the good wine ascended from the cellar, a professed cook actually + came over from Guttlebury to compile culinary abominations. Stripes was in + a new coat, and so was Ponto, for a wonder, and Tummus's button-suit was + worn EN PERMANENCE. + </p> + <p> + And all this to show off the little lord, thinks I. All this in honour of + a stupid little cigarrified Cornet of dragoons, who can barely write his + name,—while an eminent and profound moralist like—somebody—is + fobbed off with cold mutton and relays of pig. Well, well: a martyrdom of + cold mutton is just bearable. I pardon Mrs. Ponto, from my heart I do, + especially as I wouldn't turn out of the best bed-room, in spite of all + her hints; but held my ground in the chintz tester, vowing that Lord + Gules, as a young man, was quite small and hardy enough to make himself + comfortable elsewhere. + </p> + <p> + The great Ponto party was a very august one. The Hawbucks came in their + family coach, with the blood-red band emblazoned all over it: and their + man in yellow livery waited in country fashion at table, only to be + exceeded in splendour by the Hipsleys, the opposition baronet, in light + blue. The old Ladies Fitzague drove over in their little old chariot with + the fat black horses, the fat coachman, the fat footman—(why are + dowagers' horses and footmen always fat?) And soon after these personages + had arrived, with their auburn fronts and red beaks and turbans, came the + Honourable and Reverend Lionel Pettipois, who with General and Mrs. Sago + formed the rest of the party. 'Lord and Lady Frederick Howlet were asked, + but they have friends at Ivybush,' Mrs. Ponto told me; and that very + morning, the Castlehaggards sent an excuse, as her ladyship had a return + of the quinsy. Between ourselves, Lady Castlehaggard's quinsy always comes + on when there is dinner at the Evergreens. + </p> + <p> + If the keeping of polite company could make a woman happy, surely my kind + hostess Mrs. Ponto was on that day a happy woman. Every person present + (except the unlucky impostor who pretended to a connexion with the + Snobbington Family, and General Sago, who had brought home I don't know + how many lacs of rupees from India,) was related to the Peerage or the + Baronetage. Mrs. P. had her heart's desire. If she had been an Earl's + daughter herself could she have expected better company?—and her + family were in the oil-trade at Bristol, as all her friends very well + know. + </p> + <p> + What I complained of in my heart was not the dining—which, for this + once, was plentiful and comfortable enough—but the prodigious + dulness of the talking part of the entertainment. O my beloved brother + Snobs of the City, if we love each other no better than our country + brethren, at least we amuse each other more; if we bore ourselves, we are + not called upon to go ten miles to do it! + </p> + <p> + For instance, the Hipsleys came ten miles from the south, and the Hawbucks + ten miles from the north, of the Evergreens; and were magnates in two + different divisions of the county of Mangelwurzelshire. Hipsley, who is an + old baronet, with a bothered estate, did not care to show his contempt for + Hawbuck, who is a new creation, and rich. Hawbuck, on his part, gives + himself patronizing airs to General Sago, who looks upon the Pontos as + little better than paupers. 'Old Lady Blanche,' says Ponto, 'I hope will + leave something to her god-daughter—my second girl—we've all + of us half-poisoned ourselves with taking her physic.' + </p> + <p> + Lady Blanche and Lady Rose Fitzague have, the first, a medical, and the + second a literary turn. I am inclined to believe the former had a wet + COMPRESSE around her body, on the occasion when I had the happiness of + meeting her. She doctors everybody in the neighbourhood of which she is + the ornament; and has tried everything on her own person. She went into + Court, and testified publicly her faith in St. John Long: she swore by + Doctor Buchan, she took quantities of Gambouge's Universal Medicine, and + whole boxfuls of Parr's Life Pills. She has cured a multiplicity of + headaches by Squinstone's Eye-snuff; she wears a picture of Hahnemann in + her bracelet and a lock of Priessnitz's hair in a brooch. She talked about + her own complaints and those of her CONFIDANTE for the time being, to + every lady in the room successively, from our hostess down to Miss Wirt, + taking them into corners, and whispering about bronchitis, hepatitis, St. + Vitus, neuralgia, cephalalgia, and so forth. I observed poor fat Lady + Hawbuck in a dreadful alarm after some communication regarding the state + of her daughter Miss Lucy Hawbuck's health, and Mrs. Sago turned quite + yellow, and put down her third glass of Madeira, at a warning glance from + Lady Blanche. + </p> + <p> + Lady Rose talked literature, and about the book-club at Guttlebury, and is + very strong in voyages and travels. She has a prodigious interest in + Borneo, and displayed a knowledge of the history of the Punjaub and + Kaffirland that does credit to her memory. Old General Sago, who sat + perfectly silent and plethoric, roused up as from a lethargy when the + former country was mentioned, and gave the company his story about a + hog-hunt at Ramjugger. I observed her ladyship treated with something like + contempt her neighbour the Reverend Lionel Pettipois, a young divine whom + you may track through the country by little 'awakening' books at + half-a-crown a hundred, which dribble out of his pockets wherever he goes. + I saw him give Miss Wirt a sheaf of 'The Little Washer-woman on Putney + Common,' and to Miss Hawbuck a couple of dozen of 'Meat in the Tray; or + the Young Butcher-boy Rescued;' and on paying a visit to Guttlebury gaol, + I saw two notorious fellows waiting their trial there (and temporarily + occupied with a game of cribbage), to whom his Reverence offered a tract + as he was walking over Crackshins Common, and who robbed him of his purse, + umbrella, and cambric handkerchief, leaving him the tracts to distribute + elsewhere. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXI—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + 'Why, dear Mr. Snob,' said a young lady of rank and fashion (to whom I + present my best compliments), 'if you found everything so SNOBBISH at the + Evergreens, if the pig bored you and the mutton was not to your liking, + and Mrs. Ponto was a humbug, and Miss Wirt a nuisance, with her abominable + piano practice,—why did you stay so long?' + </p> + <p> + Ah, Miss, what a question! Have you never heard of gallant British + soldiers storming batteries, of doctors passing nights in plague wards of + lazarettos, and other instances of martyrdom? What do you suppose induced + gentlemen to walk two miles up to the batteries of Sabroan, with a hundred + and fifty thundering guns bowling them down by hundreds?—not + pleasure, surely. What causes your respected father to quit his + comfortable home for his chambers, after dinner, and pore over the most + dreary law papers until long past midnight?, Mademoiselle; duty, which + must be done alike by military, or legal, or literary gents. There's a + power of martyrdom in our profession. + </p> + <p> + You won't believe it? Your rosy lips assume a smile of incredulity—a + most naughty and odious expression in a young lady's face. Well, then, the + fact is, that my chambers, No. 24, Pump Court, Temple, were being painted + by the Honourable Society, and Mrs. Slamkin, my laundress, having occasion + to go into Durham to see her daughter, who is married, and has presented + her with the sweetest little grandson—a few weeks could not be + better spent than in rusticating. But ah, how delightful Pump Court looked + when I revisited its well-known chimney-pots! CARI LUOGHI. Welcome, + welcome, O fog and smut! + </p> + <p> + But if you think there is no moral in the foregoing account of the Pontine + family, you are, Madam, most painfully mistaken. In this very chapter we + are going to have the moral—why, the whole of the papers are nothing + BUT the moral, setting forth as they do the folly of being a Snob. + </p> + <p> + You will remark that in the Country Snobography my poor friend Ponto has + been held up almost exclusively for the public gaze—and why? Because + we went to no other house? Because other families did not welcome us to + their mahogany? No, no. Sir John Hawbuck of the Haws, Sir John Hipsley of + Briary Hall, don't shut the gates of hospitality: of General Sago's + mulligatawny I could speak from experience. And the two old ladies at + Guttlebury, were they nothing? Do you suppose that an agreeable young dog, + who shall be nameless, would not be made welcome? Don't you know that + people are too glad to see ANYBODY in the country? + </p> + <p> + But those dignified personages do not enter into the scheme of the present + work, and are but minor characters of our Snob drama; just as, in the + play, kings and emperors are not half so important as many humble persons. + The DOGE OF VENICE, for instance, gives way to OTHELLO, who is but a + nigger; and the KING OF FRANCE to FALCONBRIDGE, who is a gentleman of + positively no birth at all. So with the exalted characters above + mentioned. I perfectly well recollect that the claret at Hawbuck's was not + by any means so good as that of Hipsley's, while, on the contrary, some + white hermitage at the Haws (by the way, the butler only gave me half a + glass each time) was supernacular. And I remember the conversations. O + Madam, Madam, how stupid they were! The subsoil ploughing; the pheasants + and poaching; the row about the representation of the county; the Earl of + Mangelwurzelshire being at variance with his relative and nominee, the + Honourable Marmaduke Tomnoddy; all these I could put down, had I a mind to + violate the confidence of private life; and a great deal of conversation + about the weather, the Mangelwurzelshire Hunt, new manures, and eating and + drinking, of course. + </p> + <p> + But CUI BONO? In these perfectly stupid and honourable families there is + not that Snobbishness which it is our purpose to expose. An ox is an ox—a + great hulking, fat-sided, bellowing, munching Beef. He ruminates according + to his nature, and consumes his destined portion of turnips or oilcake, + until the time comes for his disappearance from the pastures, to be + succeeded by other deep-lunged and fat-ribbed animals. Perhaps we do not + respect an ox. We rather acquiesce in him. The Snob, my dear Madam, is the + Frog that tries to swell himself to ox size. Let us pelt the silly brute + out of his folly. + </p> + <p> + Look, I pray you, at the case of my unfortunate friend Ponto, a + good-natured, kindly English gentleman—not over-wise, but quite + passable—fond of port-wine, of his family, of country sports and + agriculture, hospitably minded, with as pretty a little patrimonial + country-house as heart can desire, and a thousand pounds a year. It is not + much; but, ENTRE NOUS, people can live for less, and not uncomfortably. + </p> + <p> + For instance, there is the doctor, whom Mrs. P. does not condescend to + visit: that man educates a mirific family, and is loved by the poor for + miles round: and gives them port-wine for physic and medicine, gratis. And + how those people can get on with their pittance, as Mrs. Ponto says, is a + wonder to HER. + </p> + <p> + Again, there is the clergyman, Doctor Chrysostom,—Mrs. P. says they + quarrelled about Puseyism, but I am given to understand it was because + Mrs. C. had the PAS of her at the Haws—you may see what the value of + his living is any day in the 'Clerical Guide;' but you don't know what he + gives away. + </p> + <p> + Even Pettipois allows that, in whose eyes the Doctor's surplice is a + scarlet abomination; and so does Pettipois do his duty in his way, and + administer not only his tracts and his talk, but his money and his means + to his people. As a lord's son, by the way, Mrs. Ponto is uncommonly + anxious that he should marry EITHER of the girls whom Lord Gules does not + intend to choose. + </p> + <p> + Well, although Pon's income would make up almost as much as that of these + three worthies put together—oh, my dear Madam, see in what hopeless + penury the poor fellow lives! What tenant can look to HIS forbearance? + What poor man can hope for HIS charity? 'Master's the best of men,' honest + Stripes says, 'and when we was in the ridgment a more free-handed chap + didn't live. But the way in which Missus DU scryou, I wonder the young + ladies is alive, that I du!' + </p> + <p> + They live upon a fine governess and fine masters, and have clothes made by + Lady Carabas's own milliner; and their brother rides with earls to cover; + and only the best people in the county visit at the Evergreens, and Mrs. + Ponto thinks herself a paragon of wives and mothers, and a wonder of the + world, for doing all this misery and humbug, and snobbishness, on a + thousand a year. + </p> + <p> + What an inexpressible comfort it was, my dear Madam, when Stripes put my + portmanteau in the four-wheeled chaise, and (poor P on being touched with + sciatica) drove me over to 'Carabas Arms' at Guttlebury, where we took + leave. There were some bagmen there in the Commercial Room, and one talked + about the house he represented; and another about his dinner, and a third + about the Inns on the road, and so forth—a talk, not very wise, but + honest and to the purpose—about as good as that of the country + gentlemen: and oh, how much pleasanter than listening to Miss Wirt's + show-pieces on the piano, and Mrs. Ponto's genteel cackle about the + fashion and the county families! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXII—SNOBBIUM GATHERUM + </h2> + <p> + WHEN I see the great effect which these papers are producing on an + intelligent public, I have a strong hope that before long we shall have a + regular Snob department in the newspapers, just as we have the Police + Courts and the Court News at present. When a flagrant case of + bone-crushing or Poor-law abuse occurs in the world, who so eloquent as + THE TIMES to point it out? When a gross instance of Snobbishness happens, + why should not the indignant journalist call the public attention to that + delinquency too? + </p> + <p> + How, for instance, could that wonderful case of the Earl of Mangelwurzel + and his brother be examined in the Snobbish point of view? Let alone the + hectoring, the bullying, the vapouring, the bad grammar, the mutual + recriminations, lie-givings, challenges, retractations, which abound in + the fraternal dispute—put out of the question these points as + concerning the individual nobleman and his relative, with whose personal + affairs we have nothing to do—and consider how intimately corrupt, + how habitually grovelling and mean, how entirely Snobbish in a word, a + whole county must be which can find no better chiefs or leaders than these + two gentlemen. 'We don't want,' the great county of Mangelwurzelshire + seems to say, 'that a man should be able to write good grammar; or that he + should keep a Christian tongue in his head; or that he should have the + commonest decency of temper, or even a fair share of good sense, in order + to represent us in Parliament. + </p> + <p> + All we require is, that a man should be recommended to us by the Earl of + Mangelwurzelshire. And all that we require of the Earl of + Mangelwurzelshire is that he should have fifty thousand a year and hunt + the country.' O you pride of all Snobland! O you crawling, truckling, + self-confessed lackeys and parasites! + </p> + <p> + But this is growing too savage: don't let us forget our usual amenity, and + that tone of playfulness and sentiment with which the beloved reader and + writer have pursued their mutual reflections hitherto. Well, Snobbishness + pervades the little Social Farce as well as the great State Comedy; and + the self-same moral is tacked to either. + </p> + <p> + There was, for instance, an account in the papers of a young lady who, + misled by a fortune-teller, actually went part of the way to India (as far + as Bagnigge Wells, I think,) in search of a husband who was promised her + there. Do you suppose this poor deluded little soul would have left her + shop for a man below her in rank, or for anything but a darling of a + Captain in epaulets and a red coat. It was her Snobbish sentiment that + misled her, and made her vanities a prey to the swindling fortune-teller. + </p> + <p> + Case 2 was that of Mademoiselle de Saugrenue, 'the interesting young + Frenchwoman with a profusion of jetty ringlets,' who lived for nothing at + a boardinghouse at Gosport, was then conveyed to Fareham gratis: and being + there, and lying on the bed of the good old lady her entertainer, the dear + girl took occasion to rip open the mattress, and steal a cash-box, with + which she fled to London. How would you account for the prodigious + benevolence exercised towards the interesting young French lady? Was it + her jetty ringlets or her charming face?—Bah! Do ladies love others + for having faces and black hair?—she said SHE WAS A RELATION OF de + Saugrenue: talked of her ladyship her aunt, and of herself as a De + Saugrenue. The honest boarding-house people were at her feet at once. + Good, honest, simple, lord-loving children of Snobland. + </p> + <p> + Finally, there was the case of 'the Right Honourable Mr. Vernon,' at York. + The Right Honourable was the son of a nobleman, and practised on an old + lady. He procured from her dinners, money, wearing-apparel, spoons, + implicit credence, and an entire refit of linen. Then he cast his nets + over a family of father, mother, and daughters, one of whom he proposed to + marry. The father lent him money, the mother made jams and pickles for + him, the daughters vied with each other in cooking dinners for the Right + Honourable—and what was the end? One day the traitor fled, with a + teapot and a basketful of cold victuals. It was the 'Right Honourable' + which baited the hook which gorged all these greedy, simple Snobs. Would + they have been taken in by a commoner? What old lady is there, my dear + sir, who would take in you and me, were we ever so ill to do, and comfort + us, and clothe us, and give us her money, and her silver forks? Alas and + alas! what mortal man that speaks the truth can hope for such a landlady? + And yet, all these instances of fond and credulous Snobbishness have + occurred in the same week's paper, with who knows how many score more? + </p> + <p> + Just as we had concluded the above remarks comes a pretty little note + sealed with a pretty little butterfly—bearing a northern postmark—and + to the following effect:— + </p> + <p> + '19th November. + </p> + <p> + 'Mr. Punch,—'Taking great interest in your Snob Papers, we are very + anxious to know under what class of that respectable fraternity you would + designate us. + </p> + <p> + 'We are three sisters, from seventeen to twenty-two. Our father is + HONESTLY AND TRULY of a very good family (you will say it is Snobbish to + mention that, but I wish to state the plain fact); our maternal + grandfather was an Earl.' (1) + </p> + <p> + 'We CAN afford to take in a stamped edition of YOU, and all Dickens' works + as fast as they come out, but we do NOT keep such a thing as a PEERAGE or + even a BARONETAGE in the house. + </p> + <p> + 'We live with every comfort, excellent cellar, &c. &c.; but as we + cannot well afford a butler, we have a neat table-maid (though our father + was a military man, has travelled much, been in the best society, &c.) + We HAVE a coachman and helper, but we don't put the latter into buttons, + nor make them wait at table, like Stripes and Tummus.' (2) + </p> + <p> + 'We are just the same to persons with a handle to their name as to those + without it. We wear a moderate modicum of crinoline, (3)and are never limp + (4) in the morning. We have good and abundant dinners on CHINA though we + have plate (5), and just as good when alone as with company. + </p> + <p> + 'Now, my dear MR. PUNCH, will you PLEASE give us a short answer in your + next number, and I will be SO much obliged to you. Nobody knows we are + writing to you, not even our father; nor will we ever tease (6) you again + if you will only give us an answer—just for FUN, now do! + </p> + <p> + 'If you get as far as this, which is doubtful, you will probably fling it + into the fire. If you do, I cannot help it; but I am of a sanguine + disposition, and entertain a lingering hope. At all events, I shall be + impatient for next Sunday, for you reach us on that day, and I am ashamed + to confess, we CANNOT resist opening you in the carriage driving home from + church. (7) + </p> + <p> + 'I remain, &c. &c., for myself and sisters. + </p> + <p> + Excuse this scrawl, but I always write headlong. (8) + </p> + <p> + 'P. S.—You were rather stupid last week, don't you think? (9) We + keep no gamekeeper, and yet have always abundant game for friends to + shoot, in spite of the poachers. We never write on perfumed paper—in + short, I can't help thinking that if you knew us you would not think us + Snobs.' + </p> + <p> + To this I reply in the following manner:—'My dear young ladies, I + know your post-town: and shall be at church there the Sunday AFTER next; + when, will you please to wear a tulip or some little trifle in your + bonnets, so that I may know you? You will recognize me and my dress—a + quiet-looking young fellow, in a white top-coat, a crimson satin + neckcloth, light blue trousers, with glossy tipped boots, and an emerald + breast-pin. I shall have a black crape round my white hat; and my usual + bamboo cane with the richly-gilt knob. I am sorry there will be no time to + get up moustaches between now and next week. + </p> + <p> + 'From seventeen to two-and-twenty! Ye gods! what ages! Dear young + creatures, I can see you all three. Seventeen suits me, as nearest my own + time of life; but mind, I don't say two-and-twenty is too old. No, no. And + that pretty, roguish, demure, middle one. Peace, peace, thou silly little + fluttering heart! + </p> + <p> + 'YOU Snobs, dear young ladies! I will pull any man's nose who says so. + There is no harm in being of a good family. You can't help it, poor dears. + What's in a name? What is in a handle to it? I confess openly that I + should not object to being a Duke myself; and between ourselves you might + see a worse leg for a garter. + </p> + <p> + 'YOU Snobs, dear little good-natured things, no that is, I hope not—I + think not—I won't be too confident—none of us should be—that + we are not Snobs. That very confidence savours of arrogance, and to be + arrogant is to be a Snob. In all the social gradations from sneak to + tyrant, nature has placed a most wondrous and various progeny of Snobs. + But are there no kindly natures, no tender hearts, no souls humble, + simple, and truth-loving? Ponder well on this question, sweet young + ladies. And if you can answer it, as no doubt you can—lucky are you—and + lucky the respected Herr Papa, and lucky the three handsome young + gentlemen who are about to become each others' brothers-in-law.' + </p> + <p> + (1) The introduction of Grandpapa, is I fear, Snobbish. + </p> + <p> + (2) That is, as you like. I don't object to buttons in moderation. + </p> + <p> + (3) Quite right. + </p> + <p> + (4) Bless you! + </p> + <p> + (5) Snobbish; and I doubt whether you ought to dine as well alone as with + company. You will be getting too good dinners. + </p> + <p> + (6) We like to be teased; but tell Papa. + </p> + <p> + (7) O garters and stars! what will Captain Gordon and Exeter Hall say to + this? + </p> + <p> + (8) Dear little enthusiast! + </p> + <p> + (9) You were never more mistaken, miss, in your life. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXIII—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + </h2> + <p> + Everybody of the middle rank who walks through this life with a sympathy + for his companions on the same journey—at any rate, every man who + has been jostling in the world for some three or four lustres—must + make no end of melancholy reflections upon the fate of those victims whom + Society, that is, Snobbishness, is immolating every day. With love and + simplicity and natural kindness Snobbishness is perpetually at war. People + dare not be happy for fear of Snobs. People dare not love for fear of + Snobs. People pine away lonely under the tyranny of Snobs. Honest kindly + hearts dry up and die. Gallant generous lads, blooming with hearty youth, + swell into bloated old-bachelorhood, and burst and tumble over. Tender + girls wither into shrunken decay, and perish solitary, from whom + Snobbishness has cut off the common claim to happiness and affection with + which Nature endowed us all. My heart grows sad as I see the blundering + tyrant's handiwork. As I behold it I swell with cheap rage, and glow with + fury against the Snob. Come down, I say, thou skulking dulness! Come down, + thou stupid bully, and give up thy brutal ghost! And I arm myself with the + sword and spear, and taking leave of my family, go forth to do battle with + that hideous ogre and giant, that brutal despot in Snob Castle, who holds + so many gentle hearts in torture and thrall. + </p> + <p> + When PUNCH is king, I declare there shall be no such thing as old maids + and old bachelors. The Reverend Mr. Malthus shall be burned annually, + instead of Guy Fawkes. Those who don't marry shall go into the workhouse. + It shall be a sin for the poorest not to have a pretty girl to love him. + </p> + <p> + The above reflections came to mind after taking a walk with an old + comrade, Jack Spiggot by name, who is just passing into the state of + old-bachelorhood, after the manly and blooming youth in which I remember + him. Jack was one of the handsomest fellows in England when we entered + together in the Highland Buffs; but I quitted the Cuttykilts early, and + lost sight of him for many years. + </p> + <p> + Ah! how changed he is from those days! He wears a waistband now, and has + begun to dye his whiskers. His cheeks, which were red, are now mottled; + his eyes, once so bright and steadfast, are the colour of peeled plovers' + eggs. + </p> + <p> + 'Are you married, Jack?' says I, remembering how consumedly in love he was + with his cousin Letty Lovelace, when the Cuttykilts were quartered at + Strathbungo some twenty years ago. + </p> + <p> + 'Married? no,' says he. 'Not money enough. Hard enough to keep myself, + much more a family, on five hundred a year. Come to Dickinson's; there's + some of the best Madeira in London there, my boy.' So we went and talked + over old times. The bill for dinner and wine consumed was prodigious, and + the quantity of brandy-and-water that Jack took showed what a regular + boozer he was. 'A guinea or two guineas. What the devil do I care what I + spend for my dinner?' says he. + </p> + <p> + 'And Letty Lovelace?' says I. + </p> + <p> + Jack's countenance fell. However, he burst into a loud laugh presently. + 'Letty Lovelace!' says he. 'She's Letty Lovelace still; but Gad, such a + wizened old woman! She's as thin as a thread-paper; (you remember what a + figure she had:) her nose has got red, and her teeth blue. She's always + ill; always quarrelling with the rest of the family; always psalm-singing, + and always taking pills. Gad, I had a rare escape THERE. Push round the + grog, old boy.' + </p> + <p> + Straightway memory went back to the days when Letty was the loveliest of + blooming young creatures: when to hear her sing was to make the heart jump + into your throat; when to see her dance, was better than Montessu or + Noblet (they were the Ballet Queens of those days); when Jack used to wear + a locket of her hair, with a little gold chain round his neck, and, + exhilarated with toddy, after a sederunt of the Cuttykilt mess, used to + pull out this token, and kiss it, and howl about it, to the great + amusement of the bottle-nosed old Major and the rest of the table. + </p> + <p> + 'My father and hers couldn't put their horses together,' Jack said. 'The + General wouldn't come down with more than six thousand. My governor said + it shouldn't be done under eight. Lovelace told him to go and be hanged, + and so we parted company. They said she was in a decline. Gammon! She's + forty, and as tough and as sour as this bit of lemon-peel. Don't put much + into your punch, Snob my boy. No man CAN stand punch after wine.' + </p> + <p> + 'And what are your pursuits, Jack?' says I. + </p> + <p> + 'Sold out when the governor died. Mother lives at Bath. Go down there once + a year for a week. Dreadful slow. Shilling whist. Four sisters—all + unmarried except the youngest—awful work. Scotland in August. Italy + in the winter. Cursed rheumatism. Come to London in March, and toddle + about at the Club, old boy; and we won't go home till maw-aw-rning till + daylight does appear. + </p> + <p> + 'And here's the wreck of two lives!' mused the present Snobographer, after + taking leave of Jack Spiggot. 'Pretty merry Letty Lovelace's rudder lost + and she cast away, and handsome Jack Spiggot stranded on the shore like a + drunken Trinculo.' + </p> + <p> + What was it that insulted Nature (to use no higher name), and perverted + her kindly intentions towards them? What cursed frost was it that nipped + the love that both were bearing, and condemned the girl to sour sterility, + and the lad to selfish old-bachelorhood? It was the infernal Snob tyrant + who governs us all, who says, 'Thou shalt not love without a lady's maid; + thou shalt not marry without a carriage and horses; thou shalt have no + wife in thy heart, and no children on thy knee, without a page in buttons + and a French BONNE; thou shalt go to the devil unless thou hast a + brougham; marry poor, and society shall forsake thee; thy kinsmen shall + avoid thee as a criminal; thy aunts and uncles shall turn up their eyes + and bemoan the sad, sad manner in which Tom or Harry has thrown himself + away.' You, young woman, may sell yourself without shame, and marry old + Croesus; you, young man, may lie away your heart and your life for a + jointure. But if 'you are poor, woe be to you! Society, the brutal Snob + autocrat, consigns you to solitary perdition. Wither, poor girl, in your + garret; rot, poor bachelor, in your Club. + </p> + <p> + When I see those graceless recluses—those unnatural monks and nuns + of the order of St. Beelzebub, (1) my hatred for Snobs, and their worship, + and their idols, passes all continence. Let us hew down that man-eating + Juggernaut, I say, that hideous Dagon; and I glow with the heroic courage + of Tom Thumb, and join battle with the giant Snob. + </p> + <p> + (1) This, of course, is understood to apply only to those unmarried + persons whom a mean and Snobbish fear about money has kept from fulfilling + their natural destiny. Many persons there are devoted to celibacy because + they cannot help it. Of these a man would be a brute who spoke roughly. + Indeed, after Miss O'Toole's conduct to the writer, he would be the last + to condemn. But never mind, these are personal matters. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXIV—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + </h2> + <p> + In that noble romance called 'Ten Thousand a Year,' I remember a + profoundly pathetic description of the Christian manner in which the hero, + Mr. Aubrey, bore his misfortunes. After making a display of the most + florid and grandiloquent resignation, and quitting his country mansion, + the writer supposes Aubrey to come to town in a post-chaise and pair, + sitting bodkin probably between his wife and sister. It is about seven + o'clock, carriages are rattling about, knockers are thundering, and tears + bedim the fine eyes of Kate and Mrs. Aubrey as they think that in happier + times at this hour—their Aubrey used formerly to go out to dinner to + the houses of the aristocracy his friends. This is the gist of the passage—the + elegant words I forget. But the noble, noble sentiment I shall always + cherish and remember. What can be more sublime than the notion of a great + man's relatives in tears about—his dinner? With a few touches, what + author ever more happily described A Snob? + </p> + <p> + We were reading the passage lately at the house of my friend, Raymond + Gray, Esquire, Barrister-at-Law, an ingenuous youth without the least + practice, but who has luckily a great share of good spirits, which enables + him to bide his time, and bear laughingly his humble position in the + world. Meanwhile, until it is altered, the stern laws of necessity and the + expenses of the Northern Circuit oblige Mr. Gray to live in a very tiny + mansion in a very queer small square in the airy neighbourhood of Gray's + Inn Lane. + </p> + <p> + What is the more remarkable is, that Gray has a wife there. Mrs. Gray was + a Miss Harley Baker: and I suppose I need not say THAT is a respectable + family. Allied to the Cavendishes, the Oxfords, the Marrybones, they + still, though rather DECHUS from their original splendour, hold their + heads as high as any. Mrs. Harley Baker, I know, never goes to church + without John behind to carry her prayer-book; nor will Miss Welbeck, her + sister, walk twenty yards a-shopping without the protection of Figby, her + sugar-loaf page; though the old lady is as ugly as any woman in the parish + and as tall and whiskery as a grenadier. The astonishment is, how Emily + Harley Baker could have stooped to marry Raymond Gray. She, who was the + prettiest and proudest of the family; she, who refused Sir Cockle Byles, + of the Bengal Service; she, who turned up her little nose at Essex Temple, + Q.C., and connected with the noble house of Albyn; she, who had but + 4,000L. POUR TOUT POTAGE, to marry a man who had scarcely as much more. A + scream of wrath and indignation was uttered by the whole family when they + heard of this MESALLIANCE. Mrs. Harley Baker never speaks of her daughter + now but with tears in her eyes, and as a ruined creature. Miss Welbeck + says, 'I consider that man a villain;' and has denounced poor good-natured + Mrs. Perkins as a swindler, at whose ball the young people met for the + first time. + </p> + <p> + Mr. and Mrs. Gray, meanwhile, live in Gray's Inn Lane aforesaid, with a + maid-servant and a nurse, whose hands are very full, and in a most + provoking and unnatural state of happiness. They have never once thought + of crying about their dinner, like the wretchedly puling and Snobbish + womankind of my favourite Snob Aubrey, of 'Ten Thousand a Year;' but, on + the contrary, accept such humble victuals as fate awards them with a most + perfect and thankful good grace—nay, actually have a portion for a + hungry friend at times—as the present writer can gratefully testify. + </p> + <p> + I was mentioning these dinners, and some admirable lemon puddings which + Mrs. Gray makes, to our mutual friend the great Mr. Goldmore, the East + India Director, when that gentleman's face assumed an expression of almost + apoplectic terror, and he gasped out, 'What! Do they give dinners?' He + seemed to think it a crime and a wonder that such people should dine at + all, and that it was their custom to huddle round their kitchen-fire over + a bone and a crust. Whenever he meets them in society, it is a matter of + wonder to him (and he always expresses his surprise very loud) how the + lady can appear decently dressed, and the man have an unpatched coat to + his back. I have heard him enlarge upon this poverty before the whole room + at the 'Conflagrative Club,' to which he and I and Gray have the honour to + belong. + </p> + <p> + We meet at the Club on most days. At half-past four, Goldmore arrives in + St. James's Street, from the City, and you may see him reading the evening + papers in the bow-window of the Club, which enfilades Pall Mall—a + large plethoric man, with a bunch of seals in a large bow-windowed light + waistcoat. He has large coat-tails, stuffed with agents' letters and + papers about companies of which he is a Director. His seals jingle as he + walks. I wish I had such a man for an uncle, and that he himself were + childless. I would love and cherish him, and be kind to him. + </p> + <p> + At six o'clock in the full season, when all the world is in St. James's + Street, and the carriages are cutting in and out among the cabs on the + stand, and the tufted dandies are showing their listless faces out of + 'White's,' and you see respectable grey-headed gentlemen waggling their + heads to each other through the plate-glass windows of 'Arthur's:' and the + red-coats wish to be Briareian, so as to hold all the gentlemen's horses; + and that wonderful red-coated royal porter is sunning himself before + Marlborough House;—at the noon of London time, you see a + light-yellow carriage with black horses, and a coachman in a tight + floss-silk wig, and two footmen in powder and white and yellow liveries, + and a large woman inside in shot-silk, a poodle, and a pink parasol, which + drives up to the gate of the Conflagrative, and the page goes and says to + Mr. Goldmore (who is perfectly aware of the fact, as he is looking out of + the windows with about forty other 'Conflagrative' bucks), 'Your carriage, + Sir.' G. wags his head. 'Remember, eight o'clock precisely,' says he to + Mulligatawney, the other East India Director; and, ascending the carriage, + plumps down by the side of Mrs. Goldmore for a drive in the Park, and then + home to Portland Place. As the carriage whirls off, all the young bucks in + the Club feel a secret elation. It is a part of their establishment, as it + were. That carriage belongs to their Club, and their Club belongs to them. + They follow the equipage with interest; they eye it knowingly as they see + it in the Park. But halt! we are not come to the Club Snobs yet. O my + brave Snobs, what a flurry there will be among you when those papers + appear! + </p> + <p> + Well, you may judge, from the above description, what sort of a man + Goldmore is. A dull and pompous Leadenhall Street Croesus, good-natured + withal, and affable—cruelly affable. 'Mr. Goldmore can never + forget,' his lady used to say, 'that it was Mrs. Gray's Grandfather who + sent him to India; and though that young woman has made the most imprudent + marriage in the world, and has left her station in society, her husband + seems an ingenious and laborious young man, and we shall do everything in + our power to be of use to him.' So they used to ask the Grays to dinner + twice or thrice in a season, when, by way of increasing the kindness, + Buff, the butler, is ordered to hire a fly to convey them to and from + Portland Place. + </p> + <p> + Of course I am much too good-natured a friend of both parties not to tell + Gray of Goldmore's opinion in him, and the nabob's astonishment at the of + the briefless barrister having any dinner at all. Indeed, Goldmore's + saying became a joke against Gray amongst us wags at the Club, and we used + to ask him when he tasted meat last? whether we should bring him home + something from dinner? and cut a thousand other mad pranks with him in our + facetious way. + </p> + <p> + One day, then, coming home from the Club, Mr. Gray conveyed to his wife + the astounding information that he had asked Goldmore to dinner. + </p> + <p> + 'My love,' says Mrs. Gray, in a tremor, 'how could you be so cruel? Why, + the dining-room won't hold Mrs. Goldmore.' + </p> + <p> + 'Make your mind easy, Mrs. Gray; her ladyship is in Paris. It is only + Croesus that's coming, and we are going to the play afterwards—to + Sadler's Wells. Goldmore said at the Club that he thought Shakspeare was a + great dramatic poet, and ought to be patronized; whereupon, fired with + enthusiasm, I invited him to our banquet.' + </p> + <p> + 'Goodness gracious! what CAN we give him for dinner? He has two French + cooks; you know Mrs. Goldmore is always telling us about them; and he + dines with Aldermen every day.' + </p> + <p> + '“A plain leg of mutton, my Lucy, I prythee get ready at three; Have it + tender, and smoking, and juicy, And what better meat can there be?”' + </p> + <p> + says Gray, quoting my favourite poet. + </p> + <p> + 'But the cook is ill; and you know that horrible Pattypan the pastrycook's—-' + </p> + <p> + 'Silence, Frau!' says Gray, in a deep tragedy voice. 'I will have the + ordering of this repast. Do all things as I bid thee. Invite our friend + Snob here to partake of the feast. Be mine the task of procuring it.' + </p> + <p> + 'Don't be expensive, Raymond,' says his wife. + </p> + <p> + 'Peace, thou timid partner of the briefless one. Goldmore's dinner shall + be suited to our narrow means. Only do thou in all things my commands.' + And seeing by the peculiar expression of the rogue's countenance, that + some mad waggery was in preparation, I awaited the morrow with anxiety. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXV—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + </h2> + <p> + Punctual to the hour—(by the way, I cannot omit to mark down my + hatred, scorn, and indignation towards those miserable Snobs who come to + dinner at nine when they are asked at eight, in order to make a sensation + in the company. May the loathing of honest folks, the backbiting of + others, the curses of cooks, pursue these wretches, and avenge the society + on which they trample!)—Punctual, I say, to the hour of five, which + Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Gray had appointed, a youth of an elegant appearance, + in a neat evening-dress, whose trim whiskers indicated neatness, whose + light step denoted activity (for in sooth he was hungry, and always is at + the dinner hour, whatsoever that hour may be), and whose rich golden hair, + curling down his shoulders, was set off by a perfectly new + four-and-ninepenny silk hat, was seen wending his way down Bittlestone + Street, Bittlestone Square, Gray's Inn. The person in question, I need not + say, was Mr. Snob. HE was never late when invited to dine. But to proceed + my narrative:— + </p> + <p> + Mr. Snob may have flattered himself that he made a sensation as he + strutted down Bittlestone with his richly gilt knobbed cane (and indeed I + vow I saw heads looking at me from Miss Squilsby's, the brass-plated + milliner opposite Raymond Gray's, who has three silver-paper bonnets, and + two fly-blown prints of fashion in the window), yet what was the emotion + produced by my arrival, compared to that which the little street thrilled, + when at five minutes past five the floss-wigged coachman, the yellow + hammer-cloth and flunkeys, the black horses and blazing silver harness of + Mr. Goldmore whirled down the street! + </p> + <p> + It is a very little street, of very little houses, most of them with very + large brass plates like Miss Squilsby's. Coal-merchants, architects and + surveyors, two surgeons, a solicitor, a dancing-master, and of course + several house-agents, occupy the houses—little two-storeyed edifices + with little stucco porticoes. Goldmore's carriage overtopped the roofs + almost; the first floors might shake hands with Croesus as he lolled + inside; all the windows of those first floors thronged with children and + women in a twinkling. There was Mrs. Hammerly in curl-papers; Mrs. Saxby + with her front awry; Mr. Wriggles peering through the gauze curtains, + holding the while his hot glass of rum-and-water—in fine, a + tremendous commotion in Bittlestone Street, as the Goldmore carriage drove + up to Mr. Raymond Gray's door. + </p> + <p> + 'How kind it is of him to come with BOTH the footmen!' says little Mrs. + Gray, peeping at the vehicle too. The huge domestic, descending from his + perch, gave a rap at the door which almost drove in the building. All the + heads were out; the sun was shining; the very organ-boy paused; the + footman, the coach, and Goldmore's red face and white waistcoat were + blazing in splendour. The herculean plushed one went back to open the + carriage-door. + </p> + <p> + Raymond Gray opened his—in his shirt-sleeves. He ran up to the + carriage. 'Come in, Goldmore,' says he; 'just in time, my boy. Open the + door, What-d'ye-call'um, and let your master out,'—and + What-d'ye-call'um obeyed mechanically, with a face of wonder and horror, + only to be equalled by the look of stupefied astonishment which ornamented + the purple countenance of his master. + </p> + <p> + 'Wawt taim will you please have the CAGE, sir?' says What-d'ye-call'um, in + that peculiar, unspellable, inimitable, flunkefied pronunciation which + forms one of the chief charms of existence. + </p> + <p> + Best have it to the theatre at night,' Gray exclaims; 'it is but a step + from here to the Wells, and we can walk there. I've got tickets for all. + Be at Sadler's Wells at eleven.' + </p> + <p> + 'Yes, at eleven,' exclaims Goldmore, perturbedly, and walks with a + flurried step into the house, as if he were going to execution (as indeed + he was, with that wicked Gray as a Jack Ketch over him). The carriage + drove away, followed by numberless eyes from doorsteps and balconies; its + appearance is still a wonder in Bittlestone Street. + </p> + <p> + 'Go in there, and amuse yourself with Snob,' says Gray, opening the little + drawing-room door. 'I'll call out as soon as the chops are ready. Fanny's + below, seeing to the pudding.' + </p> + <p> + 'Gracious mercy!' says Goldmore to me, quite confidentially, 'how could he + ask us? I really had no idea of this—this utter destitution.' + </p> + <p> + 'Dinner, dinner!' roars out Gray, from the diningroom, whence issued a + great smoking and frying; and entering that apartment we find Mrs. Gray + ready to receive us, and looking perfectly like a Princess who, by some + accident, had a bowl of potatoes in her hand, which vegetables she placed + on the table. Her husband 'was meanwhile cooking mutton-chops on a + gridiron over the fire. + </p> + <p> + Fanny has made the roly-poly pudding,' says he; the chops are my part. + Here's a fine one; try this, Goldmore.' And he popped a fizzing cutlet on + that gentleman's plate. What words, what notes of exclamation can describe + the nabob's astonishment? + </p> + <p> + The tablecloth was a very old one, darned in a score places. There was + mustard in a teacup, a silver fork for Goldmore—all ours were iron. + </p> + <p> + 'I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth,' says Gray, gravely. 'That + fork is the only one we have. Fanny has it generally.' + </p> + <p> + 'Raymond!'—cries Mrs. Gray, with an imploring face. 'She was used to + better things, you know: and I hope one day to get her a dinner-service. + I'm told the electro-plate is uncommonly good. Where the deuce IS that boy + with the beer? And now,' said he, springing up, 'I'll be a gentleman.' And + so he put on his coat, and sat down quite gravely, with four fresh + mutton-chops which he had by this time broiled. + </p> + <p> + 'We don't have meat every day, Mr. Goldmore,' he continued, 'and it's a + treat to me to get a dinner like this. You little know, you gentlemen of + England, who live at home at ease, what hardships briefless barristers + endure.' + </p> + <p> + 'Gracious mercy!' says Mr. Goldmore. + </p> + <p> + 'Where's the half-and-half? Fanny, go over to the 'Keys' and get the beer. + Here's sixpence.' And what was our astonishment when Fanny got up as if to + go! + </p> + <p> + 'Gracious mercy! let ME,' cries Goldmore. + </p> + <p> + 'Not for worlds, my dear sir. She's used to it. They wouldn't serve you as + well as they serve her. Leave her alone. Law bless you!' Raymond said, + with astounding composure. And Mrs. Gray left the room, and actually came + back with a tray on which there was a pewter flagon of beer. Little Polly + (to whom, at her christening, I had the honour of presenting a silver mug + EX OFFICIO) followed with a couple of tobacco-pipes, and the queerest + roguish look in her round little chubby face. + </p> + <p> + 'Did you speak to Tapling about the gin, Fanny, my dear?' Gray asked, + after bidding Polly put the pipes on the chimney-piece, which that little + person had some difficulty in reaching. 'The last was turpentine, and even + your brewing didn't make good punch of it.' + </p> + <p> + 'You would hardly suspect, Goldmore, that my wife, a Harley Baker, would + ever make gin-punch? I think my mother-in-law would commit suicide if she + saw her.' + </p> + <p> + 'Don't be always laughing at mamma, Raymond,' says Mrs. Gray. + </p> + <p> + 'Well, well, she wouldn't die, and I DON'T wish she would. And you don't + make gin-punch, and you don't like it either and—Goldmore do you + drink your beer out of the glass, or out of the pewter?' + </p> + <p> + 'Gracious mercy!' ejaculates Croesus once more, as little Polly, taking + the pot with both her little bunches of hands, offers it, smiling, to that + astonished Director. + </p> + <p> + And so, in a word, the dinner commenced, and was presently ended in a + similar fashion. Gray pursued his unfortunate guest with the most queer + and outrageous description of his struggles, misery, and poverty. He + described how he cleaned the knives when they were first married; and how + he used to drag the children in a little cart; how his wife could toss + pancakes; and what parts of his dress she made. He told Tibbits, his clerk + (who was in fact the functionary who had brought the beer from the + public-house, which Mrs. Fanny had fetched from the neighbouring + apartment)—to fetch 'the bottle of port-wine,' when the dinner was + over; and told Goldmore as wonderful a history about the way in which that + bottle of wine had come into his hands as any of his former stories had + been. When the repast was all over, and it was near time to move to the + play, and Mrs. Gray had retired, and we were sitting ruminating rather + silently over the last glasses of the port, Gray suddenly breaks the + silence by slapping Goldmore on the shoulder, and saying, 'Now, Goldmore, + tell me something.' + </p> + <p> + 'What?' asks Croesus. + </p> + <p> + 'Haven't you had a good dinner?' + </p> + <p> + Goldmore started, as if a sudden truth had just dawned upon him. He HAD + had a good dinner; and didn't know it until then. The three mutton-chops + consumed by him were best of the mutton kind; the potatoes were perfect of + their order; as for the rolypoly, it was too good. The porter was frothy + and cool, and the port-wine was worthy of the gills of a bishop. I speak + with ulterior views; for there is more in Gray's cellar. + </p> + <p> + 'Well,' says Goldmore, after a pause, during which he took time to + consider the momentous question Gray put to him—' 'Pon my word—now + you say so—I—I have—I really have had a monsous good + dinnah—monsous good, upon my ward! Here's your health, Gray my boy, + and your amiable lady; and when Mrs. Goldmore comes back, I hope we shall + see you more in Portland Place.' And with this the time came for the play, + and we went to see Mr. Phelps at Sadler's Wells. The best of this story + (for the truth of every word of which I pledge my honour) is, that after + this banquet, which Goldmore enjoyed so, the honest fellow felt a + prodigious compassion and regard for the starving and miserable giver of + the feast, and determined to help him in his profession. And being a + Director of the newly-established Antibilious Life Assurance Company, he + has had Gray appointed Standing Counsel, with a pretty annual fee; and + only yesterday, in an appeal from Bombay (Buckmuckjee Bobbachee v. + Ramchowder-Bahawder) in the Privy Council, Lord Brougham complimented Mr. + Gray, who was in the case, on his curious and exact knowledge of the + Sanscrit language. + </p> + <p> + Whether he knows Sanscrit or not, I can't say; but Goldmore got him the + business; and so I cannot help having a lurking regard for that pompous + old Bigwig. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXVI—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + </h2> + <p> + 'We Bachelors in Clubs are very much obliged to you,' says my old school + and college companion, Essex Temple, 'for the opinion which you hold of + us. You call us selfish, purple-faced, bloated, and other pretty names. + You state, in the simplest possible terms, that we shall go to the deuce. + You bid us rot in loneliness, and deny us all claims to honesty, conduct, + decent Christian life. Who are you, Mr. Snob, to judge us. Who are you, + with your infernal benevolent smirk and grin, that laugh at all our + generation? + </p> + <p> + 'I will tell you my case,' says Essex Temple; 'mine and my sister Polly's, + and you may make what you like of it; and sneer at old maids, and bully + old bachelors, if you will. + </p> + <p> + 'I will whisper to you confidentially that my sister was engaged to + Serjeant Shirker—a fellow whose talents one cannot deny, and be + hanged to them, but whom I have always known to be mean, selfish, and a + prig. However, women don't see these faults in the men whom Love throws in + their way. Shirker, who has about as much warmth as an eel, made up to + Polly years and years ago, and was no bad match for a briefless barrister, + as he was then. + </p> + <p> + Have you ever read Lord Eldon's Life? Do you remember how the sordid old + Snob narrates his going out to purchase twopence-worth of sprats, which he + and Mrs. Scott fried between them? And how he parades his humility, and + exhibits his miserable poverty—he who, at that time, must have been + making a thousand pounds a year? Well, Shirker was just as proud of his + prudence—just as thankful for his own meanness, and of course would + not marry without a competency. Who so honourable? Polly waited, and + waited faintly, from year to year. HE wasn't sick at heart; HIS passion + never disturbed his six hours' sleep, or kept his ambition out of mind. He + would rather have hugged an attorney any day than have kissed Polly, + though she was one of the prettiest creatures in the world; and while she + was pining alone upstairs, reading over the stock of half-a-dozen frigid + letters that the confounded prig had condescended to write to her, HE, be + sure, was never busy with anything but his briefs in chambers—always + frigid, rigid, self-satisfied, and at his duty. The marriage trailed on + year after year, while Mr. Serjeant Shirker grew to be the famous lawyer + he is. + </p> + <p> + 'Meanwhile, my younger brother, Pump Temple, who was in the 120th Hussars, + and had the same little patrimony which fell to the lot of myself and + Polly, must fall in love with our cousin, Fanny Figtree, and marry her out + of hand. You should have seen the wedding! Six bridesmaids in pink, to + hold the fan, bouquet, gloves, scent-bottle, and pocket-handkerchief of + the bride; basketfuls of white favours in the vestry, to be pinned on to + the footmen and horses; a genteel congregation of curious acquaintance in + the pews, a shabby one of poor on the steps; all the carriages of all our + acquaintance, whom Aunt Figtree had levied for the occasion; and of course + four horses for Mr. Pump's bridal vehicle. + </p> + <p> + 'Then comes the breakfast, or DEJEUNER, if you please, with a brass band + in the street, and policemen to keep order. The happy bridegroom spends + about a year's income in dresses for the bridesmaids and pretty presents; + and the bride must have a TROUSSEAU of laces, satins, jewel-boxes and + tomfoolery, to make her fit to be a lieutenant's wife. There was no + hesitation about Pump. He flung about his money as if it had been dross; + and Mrs. P. Temple, on the horse Tom Tiddler, which her husband gave her, + was the most dashing of military women at Brighton or Dublin. + </p> + <p> + How old Mrs. Figtree used to bore me and Polly with stories of Pump's + grandeur and the noble company he kept! Polly lives with the Figtrees, as + I am not rich enough to keep a home for her. + </p> + <p> + 'Pump and I have always been rather distant. Not having the slightest + notions about horseflesh, he has a natural contempt for me; and in our + mother's lifetime, when the good old lady was always paying his debts and + petting him, I'm not sure there was not a little jealousy. It used to be + Polly that kept the peace between us. + </p> + <p> + 'She went to Dublin to visit Pump, and brought back grand accounts of his + doings—gayest man about town—Aide-de-Camp to the + Lord-Lieutenant—Fanny admired everywhere—Her Excellency + godmother to the second boy: the eldest with a string of aristocratic + Christian-names that made the grandmother wild with delight. Presently + Fanny and Pump obligingly came to London, where the third was born. + </p> + <p> + 'Polly was godmother to this, and who so loving as she and Pump now? “Oh, + Essex,” says she to me, “he is so good, so generous, so fond of his + family; so handsome; who can help loving him, and pardoning his little + errors?” One day, while Mrs. Pump was yet in the upper regions, and Doctor + Fingerfee's brougham at her door every day, having business at Guildhall, + whom should I meet in Cheapside but Pump and Polly? The poor girl looked + more happy and rosy than I have seen her these twelve years. Pump, on the + contrary, was rather blushing and embarrassed. + </p> + <p> + 'I couldn't be mistaken in her face and its look of mischief and triumph. + She had been committing some act of sacrifice. I went to the family + stockbroker. She had sold out two thousand pounds that morning and given + them to Pump. Quarrelling was useless—Pump had the money; he was off + to Dublin by the time I reached his mother's, and Polly radiant still. He + was going to make his fortune; he was going to embark the money in the Bog + of Allen—I don't know what. The fact is, he was going to pay his + losses upon the last Manchester steeple-chase, and I leave you to imagine + how much principal or interest poor Polly ever saw back again. + </p> + <p> + 'It was more than half her fortune, and he has had another thousand since + from her. Then came efforts to stave off ruin and prevent exposure; + struggles on all our parts, and sacrifices, that' (here Mr. Essex Temple + began to hesitate)—'that needn't be talked of; but they are of no + more use than such sacrifices ever are. Pump and his wife are abroad—I + don't like to ask where; Polly has the three children, and Mr. Serjeant + Shirker has formally written to break off an engagement, on the conclusion + of which Miss Temple must herself have speculated, when she alienated the + greater part of her fortune. + </p> + <p> + 'And here's your famous theory of poor marriages!' Essex Temple cries, + concluding the above history. 'How do you know that I don't want to marry + myself? How do you dare sneer at my poor sister? What are we but martyrs + of the reckless marriage system which Mr. Snob, forsooth, chooses to + advocate?' And he thought he had the better of the argument, which, + strange to say, is not my opinion. + </p> + <p> + But for the infernal Snob-worship, might not every one of these people be + happy? If poor Polly's happiness lay in linking her tender arms round such + a heartless prig as the sneak who has deceived her, she might have been + happy now—as happy as Raymond Raymond in the ballad, with the stone + statue by his side. She is wretched because Mr. Serjeant Shirker worships + money and ambition, and is a Snob and a coward. + </p> + <p> + If the unfortunate Pump Temple and his giddy hussy of a wife have ruined + themselves, and dragged down others into their calamity, it is because + they loved rank, and horses, and plate, and carriages, and COURT GUIDES, + and millinery, and would sacrifice all to attain those objects. + </p> + <p> + And who misguides them? If the world were more simple, would not those + foolish people follow the fashion? Does not the world love COURT GUIDES, + and millinery, and plate, and carriages? Mercy on us! Read the fashionable + intelligence; read the COURT CIRCULAR; read the genteel novels; survey + mankind, from Pimlico to Red Lion Square, and see how the Poor Snob is + aping the Rich Snob; how the Mean Snob is grovelling at the feet of the + Proud Snob; and the Great Snob is lording it over his humble brother. Does + the idea of equality ever enter Dives' head? Will it ever? Will the + Duchess of Fitzbattleaxe (I like a good name) ever believe that Lady + Croesus, her next-door neighbour in Belgrave Square, is as good a lady as + her Grace? Will Lady Croesus ever leave off pining the Duchess's parties, + and cease patronizing Mrs. Broadcloth whose husband has not got his + Baronetcy yet? Will Mrs. Broadcloth ever heartily shake hands with Mrs. + Seedy, and give up those odious calculations about poor dear Mrs. Seedy's + income? Will Mrs. Seedy who is starving in her great house, go and live + comfortably in a little one, or in lodgings? Will her landlady, Miss + Letsam, ever stop wondering at the familiarity of tradespeople, or + rebuking the insolence of Suky, the maid, who wears flowers under her + bonnet like a lady? + </p> + <p> + But why hope, why wish for such times? Do I wish all Snobs to perish? Do I + wish these Snob papers to determine? Suicidal fool, art not thou, too, a + Snob and a brother? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXVII—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + As I wish to be particularly agreeable to the ladies (to whom I make my + most humble obeisance), we will now, if you please, commence maligning a + class of Snobs against whom, I believe, most female minds are embittered—I + mean Club Snobs. I have very seldom heard even the most gentle and + placable woman speak without a little feeling of bitterness against those + social institutions, those palaces swaggering in St. James's, which are + open to the men; while the ladies have but their dingy three-windowed + brick boxes in Belgravia or in Paddingtonia, or in the region between the + road of Edgware and that of Gray's Inn. + </p> + <p> + In my grandfather's time it used to be Freemasonry that roused their + anger. It was my grand-aunt (whose portrait we still have in the family) + who got into the clock-case at the Royal Rosicrucian Lodge at Bungay, + Suffolk, to spy the proceedings of the Society, of which her husband was a + member, and being frightened by the sudden whirring and striking eleven of + the clock (just as the Deputy-Grand-Master was bringing in the mystic + gridiron for the reception of a neophyte), rushed out into the midst of + the lodge assembled; and was elected, by a desperate unanimity, + Deputy-Grand-Mistress for life. Though that admirable and courageous + female never subsequently breathed a word with regard to the secrets of + the initiation, yet she inspired all our family with such a terror + regarding the mysteries of Jachin and Boaz, that none of our family have + ever since joined the Society, or worn the dreadful Masonic insignia. + </p> + <p> + It is known that Orpheus was torn to pieces by some justly indignant + Thracian ladies for belonging to an Harmonic Lodge. 'Let him go back to + Eurydice,' they said, 'whom he is pretending to regret so.' But the + history is given in Dr. Lempriere's elegant dictionary in a manner much + more forcible than any this feeble pen can attempt. At once, then, and + without verbiage, let us take up this subject-matter of Clubs. + </p> + <p> + Clubs ought not, in my mind, to be permitted to bachelors. If my friend of + the Cuttykilts had not our club, the 'Union Jack,' to go to (I belong to + the 'U.J. and nine other similar institutions), who knows but he never + would be a bachelor at this present moment? Instead of being made + comfortable, and cockered up with every luxury, as they are at Clubs, + bachelors ought to be rendered profoundly miserable, in my opinion. Every + encouragement should be given to the rendering their spare time + disagreeable. There can be no more odious object, according to my + sentiments, than young Smith in the pride of health, commanding his dinner + of three courses; than middle-aged Jones wallowing (as I may say) in an + easy padded arm-chair, over the delicious novel or brilliant magazine; or + than old Brown, that selfish old reprobate for whom mere literature has no + charms, stretched on the best sofa, sitting on the second edition of THE + TIMES, having the MORNING CHRONICLE between his knees, the HERALD pushed + in between his coat and waistcoat, the STANDARD under his arm, the GLOBE + under the other pinion, and the DAILY NEWS in perusal. 'I'll trouble you + for PUNCH, Mr. Wiggins' says the unconscionable old gormandiser, + interrupting our friend, who is laughing over the periodical in question. + </p> + <p> + This kind of selfishness ought not to be. No, no. Young Smith, instead of + his dinner and his wine, ought to be, where?—at the festive + tea-table, to be sure, by the side of Miss Higgs, sipping the bohea, or + tasting the harmless muffin; while old Mrs. Higgs looks on, pleased at + their innocent dalliance, and my friend Miss Wirt, the governess, is + performing Thalberg's last sonata in treble X., totally unheeded, at the + piano. + </p> + <p> + Where should the middle-aged Jones be? At his time of life, he ought to be + the father of a family. At such an hour—say, at nine o'clock at + night—the nursery-bell should have just rung the children to bed. He + and Mrs. J. ought to be, by rights, seated on each side of the fire by the + dining-room table, a bottle of port-wine between them, not so full as it + was an hour since. Mrs. J. has had two glasses; Mrs. Grumble (Jones's + mother-in-law) has had three; Jones himself has finished the rest, and + dozes comfortably until bed-time. + </p> + <p> + And Brown, that old newspaper-devouring miscreant, what right has HE at a + club at a decent hour of night? He ought to be playing his rubber with + Miss MacWhirter, his wife, and the family apothecary. His candle ought to + be brought to him at ten o'clock, and he should retire to rest just as the + young people were thinking of a dance. How much finer, simpler, nobler are + the several employments I have sketched out for these gentlemen than their + present nightly orgies at the horrid Club. + </p> + <p> + And, ladies, think of men who do not merely frequent the dining-room and + library, but who use other apartments of those horrible dens which it is + my purpose to batter down; think of Cannon, the wretch, with his coat off, + at his age and size, clattering the balls over the billiard-table all + night, and making bets with that odious Captain Spot!—think of Pam + in a dark room with Bob Trumper, Jack Deuceace, and Charley Vole, playing, + the poor dear misguided wretch, guinea points and five pounds on the + rubber!—above all, think—oh, think of that den of abomination, + which, I am told, has been established in SOME clubs, called THE + SMOKING-ROOM,—think of the debauchees who congregate there, the + quantities of reeking whisky-punch or more dangerous sherry-cobbler which + they consume;—think of them coming home at cock-crow and letting + themselves into the quiet house with the Chubb key;—think of them, + the hypocrites, taking off their insidious boots before they slink + upstairs, the children sleeping overhead, the wife of their bosom alone + with the waning rushlight in the two-pair front—that chamber so soon + to be rendered hateful by the smell of their stale cigars: I am not an + advocate of violence; I am not, by nature, of an incendiary turn of mind: + but if, my dear ladies, you are for assassinating Mr. Chubb and burning + down Club-houses in St. James's, there is ONE Snob at who will not think + the worse of you. + </p> + <p> + The only men who, as I opine, ought to be allowed the use of Clubs, are + married men without a profession. The continual presence of these in a + house cannot be thought, even by the most loving of wives, desirable. Say + the girls are beginning to practise their music, which in an honourable + English family, ought to occupy every young gentlewoman three hours; it + would be rather hard to call upon poor papa to sit in the drawing-room all + that time, and listen to the interminable discords and shrieks which are + elicited from the miserable piano during the above necessary operation. A + man with a good ear, especially, would go mad, if compelled daily to + submit to this horror. + </p> + <p> + Or suppose you have a fancy to go to the milliner's, or to Howell and + James's, it is manifest, my dear Madam, that your husband is much better + at the Club during these operations than by your side in the carriage, or + perched in wonder upon one of the stools at Shawl and Gimcrack's, whilst + young counter-dandies are displaying their wares. + </p> + <p> + This sort of husbands should be sent out after breakfast, and if not + Members of Parliament, or Directors of a Railroad, or an Insurance + Company, should be put into their clubs, and told to remain there until + dinner-time. No sight is more agreeable to my truly regulated mind than to + see the noble characters so worthily employed. Whenever I pass by St. + James's Street, having the privilege, like the rest of the world, of + looking in at the windows of 'Blight's,' or 'Foodle's,' or 'Snook's,' or + the great bay at the 'Contemplative Club,' I behold with respectful + appreciation the figures within—the honest rosy old fogies, the + mouldy old dandies, the waist-belts and glossy wigs and tight cravats of + those most vacuous and respectable men. Such men are best there during the + day-time surely. When you part with them, dear ladies, think of the + rapture consequent on their return. You have transacted your household + affairs; you have made your purchases; you have paid your visits; you have + aired your poodle in the Park; your French maid has completed the toilette + which renders you so ravishingly beautiful by candlelight, and you are fit + to make home pleasant to him who has been absent all day. + </p> + <p> + Such men surely ought to have their Clubs, and we will not class them + among Club Snobs therefore:—on whom let us reserve our attack for + the next chapter. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXVIII—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Such a Sensation has been created in the Clubs by the appearance of the + last paper on Club Snobs, as can't but be complimentary to me who am one + of their number. + </p> + <p> + I belong to many Clubs. The 'Union Jack,' the 'Sash and Marlin-spike'—Military + Clubs. 'The True Blue,' the 'No Surrender,' the 'Blue and Buff,' the 'Guy + Fawkes,' and the 'Cato Street'—Political Clubs. 'The Brummel' and + the 'Regent'—Dandy Clubs. The 'Acropolis,' the 'Palladium,' the + 'Areopagus,' the 'Pnyx' the 'Pentelicus,' the 'Ilissus' and the + 'Poluphloisboio Thalasses'—Literary Clubs. I never could make out + how the latter set of Clubs got their names; I don't know Greek for one, + and I wonder how many other members of those institutions do? Ever since + the Club Snobs have been announced, I observe a sensation created on my + entrance into any one of these places. Members get up and hustle together; + they nod, they scowl, as they glance towards the present Snob. 'Infernal + impudent jackanapes! If he shows me up,' says Colonel Bludyer, 'I'll break + every bone in his skin.' 'I told you what would come of admitting literary + men into the Club,' says Ranville Ranville to his colleague, Spooney, of + the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office. 'These people are very well in their + proper places, and as a public man, I make a point of shaking hands with + them, and that sort of thing; but to have one's privacy obtruded upon by + such people is really too much. Come along, Spooney,' and the pair of + prigs retire superciliously. + </p> + <p> + As I came into the coffee-room at the 'No Surrender,' old Jawkins was + holding out to a knot of men, who were yawning, as usual. There he stood, + waving the STANDARD, and swaggering before the fire. 'What,' says he, 'did + I tell Peel last year? If you touch the Corn Laws, you touch the Sugar + Question; if you touch the Sugar, you touch the Tea. I am no monopolist. I + am a liberal man, but I cannot forget that I stand on the brink of a + precipice; and if were to have Free Trade, give me reciprocity. And what + was Sir Robert Peel's answer to me? “Mr. Jawkins,” he said—' + </p> + <p> + Here Jawkins's eye suddenly turning on your humble servant, he stopped his + sentence, with a guilty look—his stale old stupid sentence, which + every one of us at the Club has heard over and over again. + </p> + <p> + Jawkins is a most pertinacious Club Snob. Every day he is at that + fireplace, holding that STANDARD, of which he reads up the + leading-article, and pours it out ORE ROTUNDO, with the most astonishing + composure, in the face of his neighbour, who has just read every word of + it in the paper. Jawkins has money, as you may see by the tie of his + neckcloth. He passes the morning swaggering about the City, in bankers' + and brokers parlours, and says:—'I spoke with Peel yesterday, and + his intentions are so and so. Graham and I were talking over the matter, + and I pledge you my word of honour, his opinion coincides with mine; and + that What-d'ye-call-um is the only measure Government will venture on + trying.' By evening-paper time he is at the Club: 'I can tell you the + opinion of the City, my lord,' says he, 'and the way in which Jones Loyd + looks at it is briefly this: Rothschilds told me so themselves. In Mark + Lane, people's minds are QUITE made up.' He is considered rather a + well-informed man. + </p> + <p> + He lives in Belgravia, of course; in a drab-coloured genteel house, and + has everything about him that is properly grave, dismal, and comfortable. + His dinners are in the MORNING HERALD, among the parties for the week; and + his wife and daughters make a very handsome appearance at the + Drawing-Room, once a year, when he comes down to the Club in his + Deputy-Lieutenant's uniform. + </p> + <p> + He is fond of beginning a speech to you by saying, 'When I was in the + House, I &c.'—in fact he sat for Skittlebury for three weeks in + the first Reformed Parliament, and was unseated for bribery; since which + he has three times unsuccessfully contested that honourable borough. + </p> + <p> + Another sort of Political Snob I have seen at most Clubs and that is the + man who does not care so much for home politics, but is great upon foreign + affairs. I think this sort of man is scarcely found anywhere BUT in Clubs. + It is for him the papers provide their foreign articles, at the expense of + some ten thousand a-year each. He is the man who is really seriously + uncomfortable about the designs of Russia, and the atrocious treachery of + Louis Philippe. He it is who expects a French fleet in the Thames, and has + a constant eye upon the American President, every word of whose speech + (goodness help him!) he reads. He knows the names of the contending + leaders in Portugal, and what they are fighting about: and it is he who + says that Lord Aberdeen ought to be impeached, and Lord Palmerston hanged, + or VICE VERSA. + </p> + <p> + Lord Palmerston's being sold to Russia, the exact number of roubles paid, + by what house in the City, is a favourite theme with this kind of Snob. I + once overheard him—it was Captain Spitfire, R.N., (who had been + refused a ship by the Whigs, by the way)—indulging in the following + conversation with Mr. Minns after dinner. + </p> + <p> + Why wasn't the Princess Scragamoffsky at Lady Palmerston's party, Minns? + Because SHE CAN'T SHOW—why can't she show? Shall I tell you, Minns, + why she can't show? The Princess Scragainoffsky's back is flayed alive, + Minns—I tell you it's raw, sir! On Tuesday last, at twelve o'clock, + three drummers of the Preobajinski Regiment arrived at Ashburnham House, + and at half-past twelve, in the yellow drawing-room at the Russian + Embassy, before the ambassadress and four ladies'-maids, the Greek Papa, + and the Secretary of Embassy, Madame de Scragamoffsky received thirteen + dozen. She was knouted, sir, knouted in the midst of England—in + Berkeley Square, for having said that the Grand Duchess Olga's hair was + red. And now, sir, will you tell me Lord Palmerston ought to continue + Minister?' + </p> + <p> + Minns: 'Good Ged!' + </p> + <p> + Minns follows Spitfire about, and thinks him the greatest and wisest of + human beings. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXIX—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Why does not some great author write 'The Mysteries of the Club-houses; or + St. James's Street unveiled?' It would be a fine subject for an + imaginative writer. We must all, as boys, remember when we went to the + fair, and had spent all our money—the sort of awe and anxiety with + which we loitered round the outside of the show, speculating upon the + nature of the entertainment going on within. + </p> + <p> + Man is a Drama—of Wonder and Passion, and Mystery and Meanness, and + Beauty and Truthfulness, and Etcetera. Each Bosom is a Booth in Vanity + Fair. But let us stop this capital style, I should die if I kept it up for + a column (a pretty thing a column all capitals would be, by the way). In a + Club, though there mayn't be a soul of your acquaintance in the room, you + have always the chance of watching strangers, and speculating on what is + going on within those tents and curtains of their souls, their coats and + waistcoats. This is a never-failing sport. Indeed I am told there are some + Clubs in the town where nobody ever speaks to anybody. They sit in the + coffee-room, quite silent, and watching each other. + </p> + <p> + Yet how little you can tell from a man's outward demeanour! There's a man + at our Club—large, heavy, middle-aged—gorgeously dressed—rather + bald—with lacquered boots—and a boa when he goes out; quiet in + demeanour, always ordering and consuming a RECHERCHE little dinner: whom I + have mistaken for Sir John Pocklington any time these five years, and + respected as a man with five hundred pounds PER DIEM; and I find he is but + a clerk in an office in the City, with not two hundred pounds income, and + his name is Jubber. Sir John Pocklington was, on the contrary, the dirty + little snuffy man who cried out so about the bad quality of the beer, and + grumbled at being overcharged three-halfpence for a herring, seated at the + next table to Jubber on the day when some one pointed the Baronet out to + me. + </p> + <p> + Take a different sort of mystery. I see, for instance, old Fawney stealing + round the rooms of the Club, with glassy, meaningless eyes, and an endless + greasy simper—he fawns on everybody he meets, and shakes hands with + you, and blesses you, and betrays the most tender and astonishing interest + in your welfare. You know him to be a quack and a rogue, and he knows you + know it. But he wriggles on his way, and leaves a track of slimy flattery + after him wherever he goes. Who can penetrate that man's mystery? What + earthly good can he get from you or me? You don't know what is working + under that leering tranquil mask. You have only the dim instinctive + repulsion that warns you, you are in the presence of a knave—beyond + which fact all Fawney's soul is a secret to you. + </p> + <p> + I think I like to speculate on the young men best. Their play is opener. + You know the cards in their hand, as it were. Take, for example, Messrs. + Spavin and Cockspur. + </p> + <p> + A specimen or two of the above sort of young fellows may be found, I + believe, at most Clubs. They know nobody. They bring a fine smell of + cigars into the room with them, and they growl together, in a corner, + about sporting matters. They recollect the history of that short period in + which they have been ornaments of the world by the names of winning + horses. As political men talk about 'the Reform year,' 'the year the Whigs + went out,' and so forth, these young sporting bucks speak of TARNATION'S + year, or OPODELDOC'S year, or the year when CATAWAMPUS ran second for the + Chester Cup. They play at billiards in the morning, they absorb pale ale + for breakfast, and 'top up' with glasses of strong waters. They read + BELL'S LIFE (and a very pleasant paper too, with a great deal of erudition + in the answers to correspondents). They go down to Tattersall's, and + swagger in the Park, with their hands plunged in the pockets of their + paletots. + </p> + <p> + What strikes me especially in the outward demeanour of sporting youth is + their amazing gravity, their conciseness of speech, and careworn and moody + air. In the smoking-room at the 'Regent,' when Joe Millerson will be + setting the whole room in a roar with laughter, you hear young Messrs. + Spavin and Cockspur grumbling together in a corner. 'I'll take your + five-and-twenty to one about Brother to Bluenose,' whispers Spavin. 'Can't + do it at the price,' Cockspur says, wagging his head ominously. The + betting-book is always present in the minds of those unfortunate + youngsters. I think I hate that work even more than the 'Peerage.' There + is some good in the latter—though, generally speaking, a vain + record: though De Mogyns is not descended from the giant Hogyn Mogyn; + though half the other genealogies are equally false and foolish; yet the + mottoes are good reading—some of them; and the book itself a sort of + gold-laced and livened lackey to History, and in so far serviceable. But + what good ever came out of, or went into, a betting-book? If I could be + Caliph Omar for a week, I would pitch every one of those despicable + manuscripts into the flames; from my Lord's, who is 'in' with Jack + Snaffle's stable, and is over-reaching worse-informed rogues and swindling + greenhorns, down to Sam's, the butcher-boy's, who books eighteenpenny odds + in the tap-room, and 'stands to win five-and-twenty bob.' + </p> + <p> + In a turf transaction, either Spavin or Cockspur would try to get the + better of his father, and, to gain a point in the odds, victimise his best + friends. One day we shall hear of one or other levanting; an event at + which, not being sporting men, we shall not break our hearts. See—Mr. + Spavin is settling his toilette previous to departure; giving a curl in + the glass to his side-wisps of hair. Look at him! It is only at the hulks, + or among turf-men, that you ever see a face so mean, so knowing, and so + gloomy. + </p> + <p> + A much more humane being among the youthful Clubbists is the Lady-killing + Snob. I saw Wiggle just now in the dressing-room, talking to Waggle, his + inseparable. + </p> + <p> + WAGGLE.—'Pon my honour, Wiggle, she did.' + </p> + <p> + WIGGLE.—'Well, Waggle, as you say—I own I think she DID look + at me rather kindly. We'll see to-night at the French play.' + </p> + <p> + And having arrayed their little persons, these two harmless young bucks go + upstairs to dinner. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XL—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Both sorts of young men, mentioned in my last under the flippant names of + Wiggle and Waggle, may be found in tolerable plenty, I think, in Clubs. + Wiggle and Waggle are both idle. They come of the middle classes. One of + them very likely makes believe to be a barrister, and the other has smart + apartments about Piccadilly. They are a sort of second-chop dandies; they + cannot imitate that superb listlessness of demeanour, and that admirable + vacuous folly which distinguish the noble and high-born chiefs of the + race; but they lead lives almost as bad (were it but for the example), and + are personally quite as useless. I am not going to arm a thunderbolt, and + launch it at the beads of these little Pall Mall butterflies. They don't + commit much public harm, or private extravagance. They don't spend a + thousand pounds for diamond earrings for an Opera-dancer, as Lord Tarquin + can: neither of them ever set up a public-house or broke the bank of a + gambling-club, like the young Earl of Martingale. They have good points, + kind feelings, and deal honourably in money-transactions—only in + their characters of men of second-rate pleasure about town, they and their + like are so utterly mean, self-contented, and absurd, that they must not + be omitted in a work treating on Snobs. + </p> + <p> + Wiggle has been abroad, where he gives you to understand that his success + among the German countesses and Italian princesses, whom he met at the + TABLES-D'HOTE, was perfectly terrific. His rooms are hung round with + pictures of actresses and ballet-dancers. He passes his mornings in a fine + dressing-gown, burning pastilles, and reading 'Don Juan' and French novels + (by the way, the life of the author of 'Don Juan,' as described by + himself, was the model of the life of a Snob). He has twopenny-halfpenny + French prints of women with languishing eyes, dressed in dominoes,—guitars, + gondolas, and so forth,—and tells you stories about them. + </p> + <p> + 'It's a bad print,' says he, 'I know, but I've a reason for liking it. It + reminds me of somebody—somebody I knew in other climes. You have + heard of the Principessa di Monte Pulciano? I met her at Rimini. Dear, + dear Francesca! That fair-haired, bright-eyed thing in the Bird of + Paradise and the Turkish Simar with the love-bird on her finger, I'm sure + must have been taken from—from somebody perhaps whom you don't know—but + she's known at Munich, Waggle my boy,—everybody knows the Countess + Ottilia de Eulenschreckenstein. Gad, sir, what a beautiful creature she + was when I danced with her on the birthday of Prince Attila of Bavaria, in + '44. Prince Carloman was our vis-a-vis, and Prince Pepin danced the same + CONTREDANSE. She had a Polyanthus in her bouquet. Waggle, I HAVE IT NOW.' + His countenance assumes an agonized and mysterious expression, and he + buries his head in the sofa cushions, as if plunging into a whirlpool of + passionate recollections. + </p> + <p> + Last year he made a considerable sensation by having on his table a + morocco miniature-case locked by a gold key, which he always wore round + his neck, and on which was stamped a serpent—emblem of eternity—with + the letter M in the circle. Sometimes he laid this upon his little morocco + writing-table, as if it were on an altar—generally he had flowers + upon it; in the middle of a conversation he would start up and kiss it. He + would call out from his bed-room to his valet, 'Hicks, bring me my + casket!' + </p> + <p> + 'I don't know who it is,' Waggle would say. 'Who DOES know that fellow's + intrigues! Desborough Wiggle, sir, is the slave of passion. I suppose you + have heard the story of the Italian princess locked up in the Convent of + Saint Barbara, at Rimini? He hasn't told you? Then I'm not at liberty to + speak. Or the countess, about whom he nearly had the duel with Prince + Witikind of Bavaria? Perhaps you haven't even heard about that beautiful + girl at Pentonville, daughter of a most respectable Dissenting clergyman. + She broke her heart when she found he was engaged (to a most lovely + creature of high family, who afterwards proved false to him), and she's + now in Hanwell.' + </p> + <p> + Waggle's belief in his friend amounts to frantic adoration. 'What a genius + he is, if he would but apply himself!' he whispers to me. 'He could be + anything, sir, but for his passions. His poems are the most beautiful + things you ever saw. He's written a continuation of “Don Juan,” from his + own adventures. Did you ever read his lines to Mary? They're superior to + Byron, sir—superior to Byron.' + </p> + <p> + I was glad to hear this from so accomplished a critic as Waggle; for the + fact is, I had composed the verses myself for honest Wiggle one day, whom + I found at his chambers plunged in thought over a very dirty old-fashioned + album, in which he had not as yet written a single word. + </p> + <p> + 'I can't,' says he. 'Sometimes I can write whole cantos, and to-day not a + line. Oh, Snob! such an opportunity! Such a divine creature! She's asked + me to write verses for her album, and I can't.' + </p> + <p> + 'Is she rich?' said I. 'I thought you would never marry any but an + heiress.' + </p> + <p> + 'Oh, Snob! she's the most accomplished, highly-connected creature!—and + I can't get out a line.' + </p> + <p> + 'How will you have it?' says I. 'Hot, with sugar?' + </p> + <p> + 'Don't, don't! You trample on the most sacred feelings, Snob. I want + something wild and tender,—like Byron. I want to tell her that + amongst the festive balls, and that sort of thing, you know—I only + think about her, you know—that I scorn the world, and am weary of + it, you know, and—something about a gazelle, and a bulbul, you + know.' + </p> + <p> + 'And a yataghan to finish off with,' the present writer observed, and we + began:— + </p> + <p> + 'TO MARY + </p> + <p> + 'I seem, in the midst of the crowd, The lightest of all; My laughter rings + cheery and loud, In banquet and ball. My lip hath its smiles and its + sneers, For all men to see; But my soul, and my truth, and my tears, Are + for thee, are for thee!' + </p> + <p> + 'Do you call THAT neat, Wiggle?' says I. 'I declare it almost makes me cry + myself.' + </p> + <p> + 'Now suppose,' says Wiggle, 'we say that all the world is at my feet—make + her jealous, you know, and that sort of thing—and that—that + I'm going to TRAVEL, you know? That perhaps may work upon her feelings.' + </p> + <p> + So WE (as this wretched prig said) began again:— + </p> + <p> + 'Around me they flatter and fawn—The young and the old, The fairest + are ready to pawn Their hearts for my gold. They sue me—I laugh as I + spurn The slaves at my knee, But in faith and in fondness I turn Unto + thee, unto thee!' + </p> + <p> + 'Now for the travelling, Wiggle my boy!' And I began, in a voice choked + with emotion— + </p> + <p> + 'Away! for my heart knows no rest Since you taught it to feel; The secret + must die in my breast I burn to reveal; The passion I may not. . . .' + </p> + <p> + 'I say, Snob!' Wiggle here interrupted the excited bard (just as I was + about to break out into four lines so pathetic that they would drive you + into hysterics). 'I say—ahem—couldn't you say that I was—a—military + man, and that there was some danger of my life?' + </p> + <p> + 'You a military man?—danger of your life? What the deuce do you + mean?' + </p> + <p> + 'Why,' said Wiggle, blushing a great deal, 'I told her I was going out—on—the—Ecuador—expedition.' + </p> + <p> + 'You abominable young impostor,' I exclaimed. 'Finish the poem for + yourself!' And so he did, and entirely out of all metre, and bragged about + the work at the Club as his own performance. + </p> + <p> + Poor Waggle fully believed in his friend's genius, until one day last week + he came with a grin on his countenance to the Club, and said, 'Oh, Snob, + I've made SUCH a discovery! Going down to the skating to-day, whom should + I see but Wiggle walking with that splendid woman—that lady of + illustrious family and immense fortune, Mary, you know, whom he wrote the + beautiful verses about. She's five-and-forty. She's red hair. She's a nose + like a pump-handle. Her father made his fortune by keeping a ham-and-beef + shop, and Wiggle's going to marry her next week.' + </p> + <p> + 'So much the better, Waggle, my young friend,' I exclaimed. 'Better for + the sake of womankind that this dangerous dog should leave off + lady-killing—this Blue-Beard give up practice. Or, better rather for + his own sake. For as there is not a word of truth in any of those + prodigious love-stories which you used to swallow, nobody has been hurt + except Wiggle himself, whose affections will now centre in the + ham-and-beef shop. There ARE people, Mr. Waggle, who do these things in + earnest, and hold a good rank in the world too. But these are not subjects + for ridicule, and though certainly Snobs, are scoundrels likewise. Their + cases go up to a higher Court.' + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XLI—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Bacchus is the divinity to whom Waggle devotes his especial worship. 'Give + me wine, my boy,' says he to his friend Wiggle, who is prating about + lovely woman; and holds up his glass full of the rosy fluid, and winks at + it portentously, and sips it, and smacks his lips after it, and meditates + on it, as if he were the greatest of connoisseurs. + </p> + <p> + I have remarked this excessive wine-amateurship especially in youth. + Snoblings from college, Fledglings from the army, Goslings from the public + schools, who ornament our Clubs, are frequently to be heard in great force + upon wine questions. 'This bottle's corked,' says Snobling; and Mr. Sly, + the butler, taking it away, returns presently with the same wine in + another jug, which the young amateur pronounces excellent. 'Hang + champagne!' says Fledgling, 'it's only fit for gals and children. Give me + pale sherry at dinner, and my twenty-three claret afterwards.' 'What's + port now?' says Gosling; 'disgusting thick sweet stuff—where's the + old dry wine one USED to get?' Until the last twelvemonth, Fledgling drank + small-beer at Doctor Swishtail's; and Gosling used to get his dry old port + at a gin-shop in Westminster—till he quitted that seminary, in 1844. + </p> + <p> + Anybody who has looked at the caricatures of thirty years ago, must + remember how frequently bottle-noses, pimpled faces, and other Bardolphian + features are introduced by the designer. They are much more rare now (in + nature, and in pictures, therefore,) than in those good old times; but + there are still to be found amongst the youth of our Clubs lads who glory + in drinking-bouts, and whose faces, quite sickly and yellow, for the most + part are decorated with those marks which Rowland's Kalydor is said to + efface. 'I was SO cut last night—old boy!' Hopkins says to Tomkins + (with amiable confidence). 'I tell you what we did. We breakfasted with + Jack Herring at twelve, and kept up with brandy and soda-water and weeds + till four; then we toddled into the Park for an hour; then we dined and + drank mulled port till half-price; then we looked in for an hour at the + Haymarket; then we came back to the Club, and had grills and whisky punch + till all was blue—Hullo, waiter! Get me a glass of cherry-brandy.' + Club waiters, the civilest, the kindest, the patientest of men, die under + the infliction of these cruel young topers. But if the reader wishes to + see a perfect picture on the stage of this class of young fellows, I would + recommend him to witness the ingenious comedy of LONDON ASSURANCE—the + amiable heroes of which are represented, not only as drunkards and + five-o'clock-in-the-morning men, but as showing a hundred other delightful + traits of swindling, lying, and general debauchery, quite edifying to + witness. + </p> + <p> + How different is the conduct of these outrageous youths to the decent + behaviour of my friend, Mr. Papworthy; who says to Poppins, the butler at + the Club:— + </p> + <p> + PAPWORTHY.—'Poppins, I'm thinking of dining early; is there any cold + game in the house?' + </p> + <p> + POPPINS.—'There's a game pie, sir; there's cold grouse, sir; there's + cold pheasant, sir; there's cold peacock, sir; cold swan, sir; cold + ostrich, sir,' &c. &c. (as the case may be). + </p> + <p> + PAPWORTHY.—'Hem! What's your best claret now, Poppins?—in + pints, I mean.' + </p> + <p> + POPPINS.—'There's Cooper and Magnum's Lafitte, sir: there's Lath and + Sawdust's St. Julien, sir; Bung's Leoville is considered remarkably fine; + and I think you'd like Jugger's Chateau-Margaux.' + </p> + <p> + PAPWORTHY.—'Hum!—hah!—well—give me a crust of + bread and a glass of beer. I'll only LUNCH, Poppins. + </p> + <p> + Captain Shindy is another sort of Club bore. He has been known to throw + all the Club in an uproar about the quality of his mutton-chop. + </p> + <p> + 'Look at it, sir! Is it cooked, sir? Smell it, sir! Is it meat fit for a + gentleman?' he roars out to the steward, who stands trembling before him, + and who in vain tells him that the Bishop of Bullocksmithy has just had + three from the same loin. All the waiters in the Club are huddled round + the captain's mutton-chop. He roars out the most horrible curses at John + for not bringing the pickles; he utters the most dreadful oaths because + Thomas has not arrived with the Harvey Sauce; Peter comes tumbling with + the water-jug over Jeames, who is bringing 'the glittering canisters with + bread.' Whenever Shindy enters the room (such is the force of character), + every table is deserted, every gentleman must dine as he best may, and all + those big footmen are in terror. + </p> + <p> + He makes his account of it. He scolds, and is better waited upon in + consequence. At the Club he has ten servants scudding about to do his + bidding. + </p> + <p> + Poor Mrs. Shindy and the children are, meanwhile, in dingy lodgings + somewhere, waited upon by a charity-girl in pattens. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XLII—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Every well-bred English female will sympathize with the subject of the + harrowing tale, the history of Sackville Maine, I am now about to recount. + The pleasures of Clubs have been spoken of: let us now glance for a moment + at the dangers of those institutions, and for this purpose I must + introduce you to my young acquaintance, Sackville Maine. + </p> + <p> + It was at a ball at the house of my respected friend, Mrs. Perkins, that I + was introduced to this gentleman and his charming lady. Seeing a young + creature before me in a white dress, with white satin shoes; with a pink + ribbon, about a yard in breadth, flaming out as she twirled in a polka in + the arms of Monsieur de Springbock, the German diplomatist; with a green + wreath on her head, and the blackest hair this individual set eyes on—seeing, + I say, before me a charming young woman whisking beautifully in a + beautiful dance, and presenting, as she wound and wound round the room, + now a full face, then a three-quarter face, then a profile—a face, + in fine, which in every way you saw it, looked pretty, and rosy, and + happy, I felt (as I trust) a not unbecoming curiosity regarding the owner + of this pleasant countenance, and asked Wagley (who was standing by, in + conversation with an acquaintance) who was the lady in question? + </p> + <p> + 'Which?' says Wagley. + </p> + <p> + 'That one with the coal-black eyes,' I replied. + </p> + <p> + 'Hush!' says he; and the gentleman with whom he was talking moved off, + with rather a discomfited air. + </p> + <p> + When he was gone Wagley burst out laughing. 'COAL-BLACK eyes!' said he; + 'you've just hit it. That's Mrs. Sackville Maine, and that was her husband + who just went away. He's a coal-merchant, Snob my boy, and I have no doubt + Mr. Perkins's Wallsends are supplied from his wharf. He is in a flaming + furnace when he hears coals mentioned. He and his wife and his mother are + very proud of Mrs. Sackville's family; she was a Miss Chuff, daughter of + Captain Chuff, R.N. That is the widow; that stout woman in crimson + tabinet, battling about the odd trick with old Mr. Dumps, at the + card-table.' + </p> + <p> + And so, in fact, it was. Sackville Maine (whose name is a hundred times + more elegant, surely, than that of Chuff) was blest with a pretty wife, + and a genteel mother-in-law, both of whom some people may envy him. + </p> + <p> + Soon after his marriage the old lady was good enough to come and pay him a + visit—just for a fortnight—at his pretty little cottage, + Kennington Oval; and, such is her affection for the place, has never + quitted it these four years. She has also brought her son, Nelson + Collingwood Chuff, to live with her; but he is not so much at home as his + mamma, going as a day-boy to Merchant Taylors' School, where he is getting + a sound classical education. + </p> + <p> + If these beings, so closely allied to his wife, and so justly dear to her, + may be considered as drawbacks to Maine's happiness, what man is there + that has not some things in life to complain of? And when I first knew Mr. + Maine, no man seemed more comfortable than he. His cottage was a picture + of elegance and comfort; his table and cellar were excellently and neatly + supplied. There was every enjoyment, but no ostentation. The omnibus took + him to business of a morning; the boat brought him back to the happiest of + homes, where he would while away the long evenings by reading out the + fashionable novels to the ladies as they worked; or accompany his wife on + the flute (which he played elegantly); or in any one of the hundred + pleasing and innocent amusements of the domestic circle. Mrs. Chuff + covered the drawing-rooms with prodigious tapestries, the work of her + hands. Mrs. Sackville had a particular genius for making covers of tape or + network for these tapestried cushions. She could make home-made wines. She + could make preserves and pickles. She had an album, into which, during the + time of his courtship, Sackville Maine bad written choice scraps of + Byron's and Moore's poetry, analogous to his own situation, and in a fine + mercantile hand. She had a large manuscript receipt-book—every + quality, in a word, which indicated a virtuous and well-bred English + female mind. + </p> + <p> + 'And as for Nelson Collingwood,' Sackville would say, laughing, 'we + couldn't do without him in the house. If he didn't spoil the tapestry we + should be 'over-cushioned in a few months; and whom could we get but him + to drink Laura's home-made wine?' The truth is, the gents who came from + the City to dine at the 'Oval' could not be induced to drink it—in + which fastidiousness, I myself, when I grew to be intimate with the + family, confess that I shared. + </p> + <p> + 'And yet, sir, that green ginger has been drunk by some of England's + proudest heroes,' Mrs. Chuff would exclaim. 'Admiral Lord Exmouth tasted + and praised it, sir, on board Captain Chuff's ship, the “Nebuchadnezzar,” + 74, at Algiers; and he had three dozen with turn in the “Pitchfork” + frigate, a part of which was served out to the men before he went into his + immortal action with the “Furibonde,” Captain Choufleur, in the Gulf of + Panama.' + </p> + <p> + All this, though the old dowager told us the story every day when the wine + was produced, never served to get rid of any quantity of it—and the + green ginger, though it had fired British tars for combat and victory, was + not to the taste of us peaceful and degenerate gents of modern times. + </p> + <p> + I see Sackville now, as on the occasion when, presented by Wagley, I paid + my first visit to him. It was in July—a Sunday afternoon—Sackville + Maine was coming from church, with his wife on one arm, and his + mother-ill-law (in red tabinet, as usual,) on the other. A half-grown, or + hobbadehoyish footman, so to speak, walked after them, carrying their + shining golden prayer-books—the ladies had splendid parasols with + tags and fringes. Mrs. Chuff's great gold watch, fastened to her stomach, + gleamed there like a ball of fire. Nelson Collingwood was in the distance, + shying stones at an old horse on Kennington Common. 'Twas on that verdant + spot we met—nor can I ever forget the majestic courtesy of Mrs. + Chuff, as she remembered having had the pleasure of seeing me at Mrs. + Perkins's—nor the glance of scorn which she threw at an unfortunate + gentleman who was preaching an exceedingly desultory discourse to a + sceptical audience of omnibus-cads and nurse-maids, on a tub, as we passed + by. 'I cannot help it, sir,' says she; 'I am the widow of an officer of + Britain's Navy: I was taught to honour my Church and my King: and I cannot + bear a Radical or a Dissenter.' + </p> + <p> + With these fine principles I found Sackville Maine impressed. 'Wagley,' + said he, to my introducer, 'if no better engagement, why shouldn't self + and friend dine at the “Oval?” Mr. Snob, sir, the mutton's coming off the + spit at this very minute. Laura and Mrs. Chuff' (he said LAURAR and Mrs. + Chuff; but I hate people who make remarks on these peculiarities of + pronunciation,) 'will be most happy to see you; and I can promise you a + hearty welcome, and as good a glass of port-wine as any in England.' + </p> + <p> + 'This is better than dining at the “Sarcophagus,”' thinks I to myself, at + which Club Wagley and I had intended to take our meal; and so we accepted + the kindly invitation, whence arose afterwards a considerable intimacy. + </p> + <p> + Everything about this family and house was so good-natured, comfortable, + and well-conditioned, that a cynic would have ceased to growl there. Mrs. + Laura was all graciousness and smiles, and looked to as great advantage in + her pretty morning-gown as in her dress-robe at Mrs. Perkins's. Mrs. Chuff + fired off her stories about the 'Nebuchadnezzar,' 74, the action between + the 'Pitchfork' and the 'Furibonde'—the heroic resistance of Captain + Choufleur, and the quantity of snuff he took, &c. &c.; which, as + they were heard for the first time, were pleasanter than I have + subsequently found them. Sackville Maine was the best of hosts. He agreed + in everything everybody said, altering his opinions without the slightest + reservation upon the slightest possible contradiction. He was not one of + those beings who would emulate a Schonbein or Friar Bacon, or act the part + of an incendiary towards the Thames, his neighbour—but a good, kind, + simple, honest, easy fellow—in love with his wife—well + disposed to all the world—content with himself, content even with + his mother-in-law. Nelson Collingwood, I remember, in the course of the + evening, when whisky-and-water was for some reason produced, grew a little + tipsy. This did not in the least move Sackville's equanimity. 'Take him + upstairs, Joseph,' said he to the hobbadehoy, 'and—Joseph—don't + tell his mamma.' + </p> + <p> + What could make a man so happily disposed, unhappy? What could cause + discomfort, bickering, and estrangement in a family so friendly and + united? Ladies, it was not my fault—it was Mrs. Chuff's doing—but + the rest of the tale you shall have on a future day. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0043" id="link2HCH0043"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XLIII—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + The misfortune which befell the simple and good-natured young Sackville, + arose entirely from that abominable 'Sarcophagus Club;' and that he ever + entered it was partly the fault of the present writer. + </p> + <p> + For seeing Mrs. Chuff, his mother-in-law, had a taste for the genteel—(indeed, + her talk was all about Lord Collingwood, Lord Gambier, Sir Jahaleel + Brenton, and the Gosport and Plymouth balls)—Wagley and I, according + to our wont, trumped her conversation, and talked about Lords, Dukes, + Marquises, and Baronets, as if those dignitaries were our familiar + friends. + </p> + <p> + 'Lord Sextonbury,' says I, 'seems to have recovered her ladyship's death. + He and the Duke were very jolly over their wine at the “Sarcophagus” last + night; weren't they, Wagley?' + </p> + <p> + 'Good fellow, the Duke,' Wagley replied. 'Pray, ma'am' (to Mrs. Chuff), + 'you who know the world and etiquette, will you tell me what a man ought + to do in my case? Last June, his Grace, his son Lord Castlerampant, Tom + Smith, and myself were dining at the Club, when I offered the odds against + DADDYLONGLEGS for the Derby—forty to one, in sovereigns only. His + Grace took the bet, and of course I won. He has never paid me. Now, can I + ask such a great man for a sovereign?—One more lump of sugar, if you + please, my dear madam.' + </p> + <p> + It was lucky Wagley gave her this opportunity to elude the question, for + it prostrated the whole worthy family among whom we were. They telegraphed + each other with wondering eyes. Mrs. Chuff's stories about the naval + nobility grew quite faint and kind little Mrs. Sackville became uneasy, + and went upstairs to look at the children—not at that young monster, + Nelson Collingwood, who was sleeping off the whisky-and-water—but at + a couple of little ones who had made their appearance at dessert, and of + whom she and Sackville were the happy parents. + </p> + <p> + The end of this and subsequent meetings with Mr. Maine was, that we + proposed and got him elected as a member of the 'Sarcophagus Club.' + </p> + <p> + It was not done without a deal of opposition—the secret having been + whispered that the candidate was a coal-merchant. You may be sure some of + the proud people and most of the parvenus of the Club were ready to + blackball him. We combated this opposition successfully, however. We + pointed out to the parvenus that the Lambtons and the Stuarts sold coals: + we mollified the proud by accounts of his good birth, good nature, and + good behaviour; and Wagley went about on the day of election, describing + with great eloquence, the action between the 'Pitchfork' and the + 'Furibonde,' and the valour of Captain Maine, our friend's father. There + was a slight mistake in the narrative; but we carried our man, with only a + trifling sprinkling of black beans in the boxes: Byles's, of course, who + blackballs everybody: and Bung's, who looks down upon a coal-merchant, + having himself lately retired from the wine-trade. + </p> + <p> + Some fortnight afterwards I saw Sackville Maine under the following + circumstances:— + </p> + <p> + He was showing the Club to his family. He had 'brought them thither in the + light-blue fly, waiting at the Club door; with Mrs. Chuff's hobbadehoy + footboy on the box, by the side of the flyman, in a sham livery. Nelson + Collingwood; pretty Mrs. Sackville; Mrs. Captain Chuff (Mrs. Commodore + Chuff we call her), were all there; the latter, of course, in the + vermilion tabinet, which, splendid as it is, is nothing in comparison to + the splendour of the 'Sarcophagus.' The delighted Sackville Maine was + pointing out the beauties of the place to them. It seemed as beautiful as + Paradise to that little party. + </p> + <p> + The 'Sarcophagus' displays every known variety of architecture and + decoration. The great library is Elizabethan; the small library is pointed + Gothic; the dining-room is severe Doric; the strangers' room has an + Egyptian look; the drawing-rooms are Louis Quatorze (so called because the + hideous ornaments displayed were used in the time of Louis Quinze); the + CORTILE, or hall, is Morisco-Italian. It is all over marble, maplewood, + looking-glasses, arabesques, ormolu, and scagliola. Scrolls, ciphers, + dragons, Cupids, polyanthuses, and other flowers writhe up the walls in + every kind of cornucopiosity. Fancy every gentleman in Jullien's band + playing with all his might, and each performing a different tune; the + ornaments at our Club, the 'Sarcophagus,' so bewilder and affect me. + Dazzled with emotions which I cannot describe, and which she dared not + reveal, Mrs. Chuff, followed by her children and son-in-law, walked + wondering amongst these blundering splendours. + </p> + <p> + In the great library (225 feet long by 150) the only man Mrs. Chuff saw, + was Tiggs. He was lying on a crimson-velvet sofa, reading a French novel + of Paul de Kock. It was a very little book. He is a very little man. In + that enormous hall he looked like a mere speck. As the ladies passed + breathless and trembling in the vastness of the magnificent solitude, he + threw a knowing, killing glance at the fair strangers, as much as to say, + 'Ain't I a fine fellow?' They thought so, I am sure. + </p> + <p> + 'WHO IS THAT?' hisses out Mrs. Chuff, when we were about fifty yards off + him at the other end of the room. + </p> + <p> + 'Tiggs!' says I, in a similar whisper. + </p> + <p> + 'Pretty comfortable this, isn't it, my dear?' says Maine in a + free-and-easy way to Mrs. Sackville; 'all the magazines, you see—writing + materials—new works—choice library, containing every work of + importance—what have we here?—“Dugdale's Monasticon,” a most + valuable and, I believe, entertaining book.' + </p> + <p> + And proposing to take down one of the books for Mrs. Maine's inspection, + he selected Volume VII., to which he was attracted by the singular fact + that a brass door-handle grew out of the back. Instead of pulling out a + book, however, he pulled open a cupboard, only inhabited by a lazy + housemaid's broom and duster, at which he looked exceedingly discomfited; + while Nelson Collingwood, losing all respect, burst into a roar of + laughter. + </p> + <p> + 'That's the rummest book I ever saw,' says Nelson. 'I wish we'd no others + at Merchant Taylors'.' + </p> + <p> + 'Hush, Nelson!' cries Mrs. Chuff, and we went into the other magnificent + apartments. + </p> + <p> + How they did admire the drawing-room hangings, (pink and silver brocade, + most excellent wear for London,) and calculated the price per yard; and + revelled on the luxurious sofas; and gazed on the immeasurable + looking-glasses. + </p> + <p> + 'Pretty well to shave by, eh?' says Maine to his mother-in-law. (He was + getting more abominably conceited every minute.) 'Get away, Sackville,' + says she, quite delighted, and threw a glance over her shoulder, and + spread out the wings of the red tabinet, and took a good look at herself; + so did Mrs. Sackville—just one, and I thought the glass reflected a + very smiling, pretty creature. + </p> + <p> + But what's a woman at a looking-glass? Bless the little dears, it's their + place. They fly to it naturally. It pleases them, and they adorn it. What + I like to see, and watch with increasing joy and adoration, is the Club + MEN at the great looking-glasses. Old Gills pushing up his collars and + grinning at his own mottled face. Hulker looking solemnly at his great + person, and tightening his coat to give himself a waist. Fred Minchin + simpering by as he is going out to dine, and casting upon the reflection + of his white neckcloth a pleased moony smile. What a deal of vanity that + Club mirror has reflected, to be sure! + </p> + <p> + Well, the ladies went through the whole establishment with perfect + pleasure. They beheld the coffee-rooms, and the little tables laid for + dinner, and the gentlemen who were taking their lunch, and old Jawkins + thundering away as usual; they saw the reading-rooms, and the rush for the + evening papers; they saw the kitchens—those wonders of art—where + the CHEF was presiding over twenty pretty kitchen-maids, and ten thousand + shining saucepans: and they got into the light-blue fly perfectly + bewildered with pleasure. + </p> + <p> + Sackville did not enter it, though little Laura took the back seat on + purpose, and left him the front place alongside of Mrs. Chuff's red + tabinet. + </p> + <p> + 'We have your favourite dinner,' says she, in a timid voice; 'won't you + come, Sackville?' + </p> + <p> + 'I shall take a chop here to-day, my dear,' Sackville replied. 'Home, + James.' And he went up the steps of the 'Sarcophagus,' and the pretty face + looked very sad out of the carriage, as the blue fly drove away. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0044" id="link2HCH0044"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XLIV—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Why—Why did I and Wagley ever do so cruel an action as to introduce + young Sackville Maine into that odious 'Sarcophagus'? Let our imprudence + and his example be a warning to other gents; let his fate and that of his + poor wife be remembered by every British female. The consequences of his + entering the Club were as follows:— + </p> + <p> + One of the first vices the unhappy wretch acquired in this abode of + frivolity was that of SMOKING. Some of the dandies of the Club, such as + the Marquis of Macabaw, Lord Doodeen, and fellows of that high order, are + in the habit of indulging in this propensity upstairs in the + billiard-rooms of the 'Sarcophagus'—and, partly to make their + acquaintance, partly from a natural aptitude for crime, Sackville Maine + followed them, and became an adept in the odious custom. Where it is + introduced into a family I need not say how sad the consequences are, both + to the furniture and the morals. Sackville smoked in his dining-room at + home, and caused an agony to his wife and mother-in-law which I do not + venture to describe. + </p> + <p> + He then became a professed BILLIARD-PLAYER, wasting hours upon hours at + that amusement; betting freely, playing tolerably, losing awfully to + Captain Spot and Col. Cannon. He played matches of a hundred games with + these gentlemen, and would not only continue until four or five o'clock in + the morning at this work, but would be found at the Club of a forenoon, + indulging himself to the detriment of his business, the ruin of his + health, and the neglect of his wife. + </p> + <p> + From billiards to whist is but a step—and when a man gets to whist + and five pounds on a rubber, my opinion is, that it is all up with him. + How was the coal business to go on, and the connection of the firm to be + kept up, and the senior partner always at the card-table? + </p> + <p> + Consorting now with genteel persons and Pall Mall bucks, Sackville became + ashamed of his snug little residence in Kennington Oval, and transported + his family to Pimlico, where, though Mrs. Chuff, his mother-in-law, was at + first happy, as the quarter was elegant and near her Sovereign, poor + little Laura and the children found a woful difference. Where were her + friends who came in with their work of a morning?—At Kennington and + in the vicinity of Clapham. 'Where were her children's little playmates?—On + Kennington Common. The great thundering carriages that roared up and down + the drab-coloured streets of the new quarter, contained no friends for the + sociable little Laura. The children that paced the squares, attended by a + BONNE or a prim governess, were not like those happy ones that flew kites, + or played hop-scotch, on the well-beloved old Common. And ah! what a + difference at Church too!—between St. Benedict's of Pimlico, with + open seats, service in sing-song—tapers—albs—surplices—garlands + and processions, and the honest old ways of Kennington! The footmen, too, + attending St. Benedict's were so splendid and enormous, that James, Mrs. + Chuff's boy, trembled amongst them, and said he would give warning rather + than carry the books to that church any more. + </p> + <p> + The furnishing of the house was not done without expense. + </p> + <p> + And, ye gods! what a difference there was between Sackville's dreary + French banquets in Pimlico, and the jolly dinners at the Oval! No more + legs-of-mutton, no more of 'the best port-wine in England;' but ENTREES on + plate, and dismal twopenny champagne, and waiters in gloves, and the Club + bucks for company—among whom Mrs. Chuff was uneasy and Mrs. + Sackville quite silent. + </p> + <p> + Not that he dined at home often. The wretch had become a perfect epicure, + and dined commonly at the Club with the gormandising clique there; with + old Doctor Maw, Colonel Cramley (who is as lean as a greyhound and has + jaws like a jack), and the rest of them. Here you might see the wretch + tippling Sillery champagne and gorging himself with French viands; and I + often looked with sorrow from my table, (on which cold meat, the Club + small-beer, and a half-pint of Marsala form the modest banquet,) and + sighed to think it was my work. + </p> + <p> + And there were other beings present to my repentant thoughts. Where's his + wife, thought I? Where's poor, good, kind little Laura? At this very + moment—it's about the nursery bed-time, and while yonder + good-for-nothing is swilling his wine—the little ones are at Laura's + knees lisping their prayers: and she is teaching them to say—'Pray + God bless Papa.' + </p> + <p> + When she has put them to bed, her day's occupation is gone; and she is + utterly lonely all night, and sad, and waiting for him. + </p> + <p> + Oh, for shame! Oh, for shame! Go home, thou idle tippler. + </p> + <p> + How Sackville lost his health: how he lost his business; how he got into + scrapes; how he got into debt; how he became a railroad director; how the + Pimlico house was shut up; how he went to Boulogne,—all this I could + tell, only I am too much ashamed of my part of the transaction. They + returned to England, because, to the surprise of everybody, Mrs. Chuff + came down with a great sum of money (which nobody knew she had saved), and + paid his liabilities. He is in England; but at Kennington. His name is + taken off the books of the 'Sarcophagus' long ago. When we meet, he + crosses over to the other side of the street; I don't call, as I should be + sorry to see a look of reproach or sadness in Laura's sweet face. + </p> + <p> + Not, however, all evil, as I am proud to think, has been the influence of + the Snob of England upon Clubs in general:—Captain Shindy is afraid + to bully the waiters any more, and eats his mutton-chop without moving + Acheron. Gobemouche does not take more than two papers at a time for his + private reading. Tiggs does not ring the bell and cause the library-waiter + to walk about a quarter of a mile in order to give him Vol. II., which + lies on the next table. Growler has ceased to walk from table to table in + the coffee-room, and inspect what people are having for dinner. Trotty + Veck takes his own umbrella from the hall—the cotton one; and Sydney + Scraper's paletot lined with silk has been brought back by Jobbins, who + entirely mistook it for his own. Wiggle has discontinued telling stories + about the ladies he has killed. Snooks does not any more think it + gentlemanlike to blackball attorneys. Snuffler no longer publicly spreads + out his great red cotton pocket-handkerchief before the fire, for the + admiration of two hundred gentlemen; and if one Club Snob has been brought + back to the paths of rectitude, and if one poor John has been spared a + journey or a scolding—say, friends and brethren if these sketches of + Club Snobs have been in vain? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0048" id="link2H_4_0048"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + How it is that we have come to No. 45 of this present series of papers, my + dear friends and brother Snobs, I hardly know—but for a whole mortal + year have we been together, prattling, and abusing the human race; and + were we to live for a hundred years more, I believe there is plenty of + subject for conversation in the enormous theme of Snobs. + </p> + <p> + The national mind is awakened to the subject. Letters pour in every day, + conveying marks of sympathy; directing the attention of the Snob of + England to races of Snobs yet undescribed. 'Where are your Theatrical + Snobs; your Commercial Snobs; your Medical and Chirurgical Snobs; your + Official Snobs; your Legal Snobs; your Artistical Snobs; your Musical + Snobs; your Sporting Snobs?' write my esteemed correspondents. 'Surely you + are not going to miss the Cambridge Chancellor election, and omit showing + up your Don Snobs, who are coming, cap in hand, to a young Prince of + six-and-twenty, and to implore him to be the chief of their renowned + University?' writes a friend who seals with the signet of the Cam and Isis + Club. 'Pray, pray,' cries another, 'now the Operas are opening, give us a + lecture about Omnibus Snobs.' Indeed, I should like to write a chapter + about the Snobbish Dons very much, and another about the Snobbish Dandies. + Of my dear Theatrical Snobs I think with a pang; and I can hardly break + away from some Snobbish artists, with whom I have long, long intended to + have a palaver. + </p> + <p> + But what's the use of delaying? When these were done there would be fresh + Snobs to pourtray. The labour is endless. No single man could complete it. + Here are but fifty-two bricks—and a pyramid to build. It is best to + stop. As Jones always quits the room as soon as he has said his good + thing,—as Cincinnatus and General Washington both retired into + private life in the height of their popularity,—as Prince Albert, + when he laid the first stone of the Exchange, left the bricklayers to + complete that edifice and went home to his royal dinner,—as the poet + Bunn comes forward at the end of the season, and with feelings too + tumultuous to describe, blesses his KYIND friends over the footlights: so, + friends, in the flush of conquest and the splendour of victory, amid the + shouts and the plaudits of a people—triumphant yet modest—the + Snob of England bids ye farewell. + </p> + <p> + But only for a season. Not for ever. No, no. There is one celebrated + author whom I admire very much—who has been taking leave of the + public any time these ten years in his prefaces, and always comes back + again when everybody is glad to see him. How can he have the heart to be + saying good-bye so often? I believe that Bunn is affected when he blesses + the people. Parting is always painful. Even the familiar bore is dear to + you. I should be sorry to shake hands even with Jawkins for the last time. + I think a well-constituted convict, on coming home from transportation, + ought to be rather sad when he takes leave of Van Diemen's Land. When the + curtain goes down on the last night of a pantomime, poor old clown must be + very dismal, depend on it. Ha! with what joy he rushes forward on the + evening of the 26th of December next, and says—'How are you?—Here + we are!' But I am growing too sentimental:—to return to the theme. + </p> + <p> + THE NATIONAL MIND IS AWAKENED TO THE SUBJECT OF SNOBS. The word Snob has + taken a place in our honest English vocabulary. We can't define it, + perhaps. We can't say what it is, any more than we can define wit, or + humour, or humbug; but we KNOW what it is. Some weeks since, happening to + have the felicity to sit next to a young lady at a hospitable table, where + poor old Jawkins was holding forth in a very absurd pompous manner, I + wrote upon the spotless damask 'S—B,' and called my neighbour's + attention to the little remark. + </p> + <p> + That young lady smiled. She knew it at once. Her mind straightway filled + up the two letters concealed by apostrophic reserve, and I read in her + assenting eyes that she knew Jawkins was a Snob. You seldom get them to + make use of the word as yet, it is true; but it is inconceivable how + pretty an expression their little smiling mouths assume when they speak it + out. If any young lady doubts, just let her go up to her own room, look at + herself steadily in the glass, and say 'Snob.' If she tries this simple + experiment, my life for it, she will smile, and own that the word becomes + her mouth amazingly. A pretty little round word, all composed of soft + letters, with a hiss at the beginning, just to make it piquant, as it + were. + </p> + <p> + Jawkins, meanwhile, went on blundering, and bragging and boring, quite + unconsciously. And so he will, no doubt, go on roaring and braying, to the + end of time or at least so long as people will hear him. You cannot alter + the nature of men and Snobs by any force of satire; as, by laying ever so + many stripes on a donkey's back, you can't turn him into a zebra. + </p> + <p> + But we can warn the neighbourhood that the person whom they and Jawkins + admire is an impostor. We apply the Snob test to him, and try whether he + is conceited and a quack, whether pompous and lacking humility—whether + uncharitable and proud of his narrow soul? How does he treat a great man—how + regard a small one? How does he comport himself in the presence of His + Grace the Duke; and how in that of Smith the tradesman? + </p> + <p> + And it seems to me that all English society is cursed by this mammoniacal + superstition; and that we are sneaking and bowing and cringing on the one + hand, or bullying and scorning on the other, from the lowest to the + highest. My wife speaks with great circumspection—'proper pride,' + she calls it—to our neighbour the tradesman's lady: and she, I mean + Mrs. Snob,—Eliza—would give one of her eyes to go to Court, as + her cousin, the Captain's wife, did. She, again, is a good soul, but it + costs her agonies to be obliged to confess that we live in Upper Thompson + Street, Somers Town. And though I believe in her heart Mrs. Whiskerington + is fonder of us than of her cousins, the Smigsmags, you should hear how + she goes on prattling about Lady Smigsmag,—and 'I said to Sir John, + my dear John;' and about the Smigsmags' house and parties in Hyde Park + Terrace. + </p> + <p> + Lady Smigsmag, when she meets Eliza,—who is a sort of a kind of a + species of a connection of the family, pokes out one finger, which my wife + is at liberty to embrace in the most cordial manner she can devise. But + oh, you should see her ladyship's behaviour on her first-chop dinner-party + days, when Lord and Lady Longears come! + </p> + <p> + I can bear it no longer—this diabolical invention of gentility which + kills natural kindliness and honest friendship. Proper pride, indeed! Rank + and precedence, forsooth! The table of ranks and degrees is a lie, and + should be flung into the fire. Organize rank and precedence! that was well + for the masters of ceremonies of former ages. Come forward, some great + marshal, and organize Equality in society, and your rod shall swallow up + all the juggling old court goldsticks. If this is not gospel-truth—if + the world does not tend to this—if hereditary-great-man worship is + not a humbug and an idolatry—let us have the Stuarts back again, and + crop the Free Press's ears in the pillory. + </p> + <p> + If ever our cousins, the Smigsmags, asked me to meet Lord Longears, I + would like to take an opportunity after dinner and say, in the most + good-natured way in the world:—Sir, Fortune makes you a present of a + number of thousand pounds every year. The ineffable wisdom of our + ancestors has placed you as a chief and hereditary legislator over me. Our + admirable Constitution (the pride of Britons and envy of surrounding + nations) obliges me to receive you as my senator, superior, and guardian. + Your eldest son, Fitz-Heehaw, is sure of a place in Parliament; your + younger sons, the De Brays, will kindly condescend to be post-captains and + lieutenants-colonels, and to represent us in foreign courts or to take a + good living when it falls convenient. These prizes our admirable + Constitution (the pride and envy of, &c.) pronounces to be your due: + without count of your dulness, your vices, your selfishness; or your + entire incapacity and folly. Dull as you may be (and we have as good a + right to assume that my lord is an ass, as the other proposition, that he + is an enlightened patriot);—dull, I say, as you may be, no one will + accuse you of such monstrous folly, as to suppose that you are indifferent + to the good luck which you possess, or have any inclination to part with + it. No—and patriots as we are, under happier circumstances, Smith + and I, I have no doubt, were we dukes ourselves, would stand by our order. + </p> + <p> + We would submit good-naturedly to sit in a high place. We would acquiesce + in that admirable Constitution (pride and envy of, &c.) which made us + chiefs and the world our inferiors; we would not cavil particularly at + that notion of hereditary superiority which brought many simple people + cringing to our knees. May be we would rally round the Corn-Laws; we would + make a stand against the Reform Bill; we would die rather than repeal the + Acts against Catholics and Dissenters; we would, by our noble system of + class-legislation, bring Ireland to its present admirable condition. + </p> + <p> + But Smith and I are not Earls as yet. 'We don't believe that it is for the + interest of Smith's army that De Bray should be a Colonel at + five-and-twenty, of Smith's diplomatic relations that Lord Longears should + go Ambassador to Constantinople,—of our politics, that Longears + should put his hereditary foot into them. + </p> + <p> + This bowing and cringing Smith believes to be the act of Snobs; and he + will do all in his might and main to be a Snob and to submit to Snobs no + longer. To Longears he says, 'We can't help seeing, Longears, that we are + as good as you. We can spell even better; can think quite as rightly; we + will not have you for our master, or black your shoes any more. Your + footmen do it, but they are paid; and the fellow who comes to get a list + of the company when you give a banquet or a dancing breakfast at + Longueoreille House, gets money from the newspapers for performing that + service. But for us, thank you for nothing, Longears my boy, and we don't + wish to pay you any more than we owe. We will take off our hats to + Wellington because he is Wellington; but to you—who are you?' + </p> + <p> + I am sick of COURT CIRCULARS. I loathe HAUT-TON intelligence. I believe + such words as Fashionable, Exclusive, Aristocratic, and the like, to be + wicked, unchristian epithets, that ought to be banished from honest + vocabularies. A Court system that sends men of genius to the second table, + I hold to be a Snobbish system. A society that sets up to be polite, and + ignores Arts and Letters, I hold to be a Snobbish society. You, who + despise your neighbour, are a Snob; you, who forget your own friends, + meanly to follow after those of a higher degree, are a Snob; you, who are + ashamed of your poverty, and blush for your calling, are a Snob; as are + you who boast of your pedigree, or are proud of your wealth. + </p> + <p> + To laugh at such is MR. PUNCH'S business. May he laugh honestly, hit no + foul blow, and tell the truth when at his very broadest grin—never + forgetting that if Fun is good, Truth is still better, and Love best of + all. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Book of Snobs, by William Makepeace Thackeray + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF SNOBS *** + +***** This file should be named 2686-h.htm or 2686-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/8/2686/ + +Produced by Sean Hackett; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Book of Snobs + +Author: William Makepeace Thackeray + +Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #2686] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF SNOBS *** + + + + +Produced by Sean Hackett + + + + + +THE BOOK OF SNOBS + + +By One Of Themselves + +(William Makepeace Thackeray) + + + + +PREFATORY REMARKS + +(The necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved +by felicitous illustrations:--I am the individual destined to write that +work--My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence--I show +that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and the +MAN--Snobs are to be studied like other objects of Natural Science, +and are a part of the Beautiful (with a large B). They pervade all +classes--Affecting instance of Colonel Snobley.) + +We have all read a statement, (the authenticity of which I take leave to +doubt entirely, for upon what calculations I should like to know is it +founded?)--we have all, I say, been favoured by perusing a remark, +that when the times and necessities of the world call for a Man, that +individual is found. Thus at the French Revolution (which the reader +will be pleased to have introduced so early), when it was requisite to +administer a corrective dose to the nation, Robespierre was found; +a most foul and nauseous dose indeed, and swallowed eagerly by the +patient, greatly to the latter's ultimate advantage: thus, when it +became necessary to kick John Bull out of America, Mr. Washington +stepped forward, and performed that job to satisfaction: thus, when +the Earl of Aldborough was unwell, Professor Holloway appeared with his +pills, and cured his lordship, as per advertisement, &c. &c.. Numberless +instances might be adduced to show that when a nation is in great want, +the relief is at hand; just as in the Pantomime (that microcosm) where +when CLOWN wants anything--a warming-pan, a pump-handle, a goose, or a +lady's tippet--a fellow comes sauntering out from behind the side-scenes +with the very article in question. + +Again, when men commence an undertaking, they always are prepared +to show that the absolute necessities of the world demanded its +completion.--Say it is a railroad: the directors begin by stating that +'A more intimate communication between Bathershins and Derrynane Beg +is necessary for the advancement of civilization, and demanded by the +multitudinous acclamations of the great Irish people.' Or suppose it is +a newspaper: the prospectus states that 'At a time when the Church is +in danger, threatened from without by savage fanaticism and miscreant +unbelief, and undermined from within by dangerous Jesuitism, and +suicidal Schism, a Want has been universally felt--a suffering people +has looked abroad--for an Ecclesiastical Champion and Guardian. A body +of Prelates and Gentlemen have therefore stepped forward in this our +hour of danger, and determined on establishing the BEADLE newspaper,' +&c. &c. One or other of these points at least is incontrovertible: the +public wants a thing, therefore it is supplied with it; or the public is +supplied with a thing, therefore it wants it. + +I have long gone about with a conviction on my mind that I had a work to +do--a Work, if you like, with a great W; a Purpose to fulfil; a chasm to +leap into, like Curtius, horse and foot; a Great Social Evil to Discover +and to Remedy. That Conviction Has Pursued me for Years. It has Dogged +me in the Busy Street; Seated Itself By Me in The Lonely Study; Jogged +My Elbow as it Lifted the Wine-cup at The Festive Board; Pursued me +through the Maze of Rotten Row; Followed me in Far Lands. On Brighton's +Shingly Beach, or Margate's Sand, the Voice Outpiped the Roaring of the +Sea; it Nestles in my Nightcap, and It Whispers, 'Wake, Slumberer, thy +Work Is Not Yet Done.' Last Year, By Moonlight, in the Colosseum, +the Little Sedulous Voice Came To Me and Said, 'Smith, or Jones' (The +Writer's Name is Neither Here nor There), 'Smith or Jones, my fine +fellow, this is all very well, but you ought to be at home writing your +great work on SNOBS. + +When a man has this sort of vocation it is all nonsense attempting to +elude it. He must speak out to the nations; he must unbusm himself, as +Jeames would say, or choke and die. 'Mark to yourself,' I have often +mentally exclaimed to your humble servant, 'the gradual way in which you +have been prepared for, and are now led by an irresistible necessity +to enter upon your great labour. First, the World was made: then, as a +matter of course, Snobs; they existed for years and years, and were no +more known than America. But presently,--INGENS PATEBAT TELLUS,--the +people became darkly aware that there was such a race. Not above +five-and-twenty years since, a name, an expressive monosyllable, arose +to designate that race. That name has spread over England like railroads +subsequently; Snobs are known and recognized throughout an Empire on +which I am given to understand the Sun never sets. PUNCH appears at the +ripe season, to chronicle their history: and the individual comes forth +to write that history in PUNCH.' + +I have (and for this gift I congratulate myself with Deep and Abiding +Thankfulness) an eye for a Snob. If the Truthful is the Beautiful, it is +Beautiful to study even the Snobbish; to track Snobs through history, +as certain little dogs in Hampshire hunt out truffles; to sink shafts in +society and come upon rich veins of Snobore. Snobbishness is like Death +in a quotation from Horace, which I hope you never have heard, 'beating +with equal foot at poor men's doors, and kicking at the gates of +Emperors.' It is a great mistake to judge of Snobs lightly, and think +they exist among the lower classes merely. An immense percentage of +Snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life. You +must not judge hastily or vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that you are +yourself a Snob. I myself have been taken for one. + +When I was taking the waters at Bagnigge Wells, and living at the +'Imperial Hotel' there, there used to sit opposite me at breakfast, for +a short time, a Snob so insufferable that I felt I should never get +any benefit of the waters so long as he remained. His name was +Lieutenant-Colonel Snobley, of a certain dragoon regiment. He wore +japanned boots and moustaches: he lisped, drawled, and left the 'r's' +out of his words: he was always flourishing about, and smoothing his +lacquered whiskers with a huge flaming bandanna, that filled the room +with an odour of musk so stifling that I determined to do battle with +that Snob, and that either he or I should quit the Inn. I first began +harmless conversations with him; frightening him exceedingly, for he did +not know what to do when so attacked, and had never the slightest notion +that anybody would take such a liberty with him as to speak first: +then I handed him the paper: then, as he would take no notice of these +advances, I used to look him in the face steadily and--and use my fork +in the light of a toothpick. After two mornings of this practice, he +could bear it no longer, and fairly quitted the place. + +Should the Colonel see this, will he remember the Gent who asked him if +he thought Publicoaler was a fine writer, and drove him from the Hotel +with a four-pronged fork? + + + +CHAPTER I--THE SNOB PLAYFULLY DEALT WITH + + +There are relative and positive Snobs. I mean by positive, such persons +as are Snobs everywhere, in all companies, from morning till night, +from youth to the grave, being by Nature endowed with Snobbishness--and +others who are Snobs only in certain circumstances and relations of +life. + +For instance: I once knew a man who committed before me an act as +atrocious as that which I have indicated in the last chapter as +performed by me for the purpose of disgusting Colonel Snobley; viz, the +using the fork in the guise of a toothpick. I once, I say, knew a man +who, dining in my company at the 'Europa Coffee-house,' (opposite the +Grand Opera, and, as everybody knows, the only decent place for dining +at Naples,) ate peas with the assistance of his knife. He was a person +with whose society I was greatly pleased at first--indeed, we had met in +the crater of Mount Vesuvius, and were subsequently robbed and held to +ransom by brigands in Calabria, which is nothing to the purpose--a man +of great powers, excellent heart, and varied information; but I had +never before seen him with a dish of pease, and his conduct in regard to +them caused me the deepest pain. + +After having seen him thus publicly comport himself, but one course was +open to me--to cut his acquaintance. I commissioned a mutual friend +(the Honourable Poly Anthus) to break the matter to this gentleman as +delicately as possible, and to say that painful circumstances--in nowise +affecting Mr. Marrowfat's honour, or my esteem for him--had occurred, +which obliged me to forego my intimacy with him; and accordingly we met +and gave each other the cut direct that night at the Duchess of Monte +Fiasco's ball. + +Everybody at Naples remarked the separation of the Damon and +Pythias--indeed, Marrowfat had saved my life more than once--but, as an +English gentleman, what was I to do? + +My dear friend was, in this instance, the Snob RELATIVE. It is not +snobbish of persons of rank of any other nation to employ their knife in +the manner alluded to. I have seen Monte Fiasco clean his trencher with +his knife, and every Principe in company doing likewise. I have seen, +at the hospitable board of H.I.H. the Grand Duchess Stephanie of +Baden--(who, if these humble lines should come under her Imperial eyes, +is besought to remember graciously the most devoted of her servants)--I +have seen, I say, the Hereditary Princess of Potztausend-Donnerwetter +(that serenely-beautiful woman) use her knife in lieu of a fork or +spoon; I have seen her almost swallow it, by Jove! like Ramo Samee, the +Indian juggler. And did I blench? Did my estimation for the Princess +diminish? No, lovely Amalia! One of the truest passions that ever was +inspired by woman was raised in this bosom by that lady. Beautiful +one! long, long may the knife carry food to those lips! the reddest and +loveliest in the world! + +The cause of my quarrel with Marrowfat I never breathed to mortal soul +for four years. We met in the halls of the aristocracy--our friends and +relatives. We jostled each other in the dance or at the board; but the +estrangement continued, and seemed irrevocable, until the fourth of +June, last year. + +We met at Sir George Golloper's. We were placed, he on the right, your +humble servant on the left of the admirable Lady G.. Peas formed part of +the banquet--ducks and green peas. I trembled as I saw Marrowfat helped, +and turned away sickening, lest I should behold the weapon darting down +his horrid jaws. + +What was my astonishment, what my delight, when I saw him use his fork +like any other Christian! He did not administer the cold steel once. Old +times rushed back upon me--the remembrance of old services--his rescuing +me from the brigands--his gallant conduct in the affair with the +Countess Dei Spinachi--his lending me the 1,700L. I almost burst into +tears with joy--my voice trembled with emotion. 'George, my boy!' I +exclaimed, 'George Marrowfat, my dear fellow! a glass of wine!' + +Blushing--deeply moved--almost as tremulous as I was myself, George +answered, 'FRANK, SHALL IT BE HOCK OR MADEIRA? I could have hugged +him to my heart but for the presence of the company. Little did Lady +Golloper know what was the cause of the emotion which sent the duckling +I was carving into her ladyship's pink satin lap. The most good-natured +of women pardoned the error, and the butler removed the bird. + +We have been the closest friends over since, nor, of course, has George +repeated his odious habit. He acquired it at a country school, where +they cultivated peas and only used two-pronged forks, and it was only +by living on the Continent where the usage of the four-prong is general, +that he lost the horrible custom. + +In this point--and in this only--I confess myself a member of the +Silver-Fork School; and if this tale but induce one of my readers to +pause, to examine in his own mind solemnly, and ask, 'Do I or do I not +eat peas with a knife?'--to see the ruin which may fall upon himself by +continuing the practice, or his family by beholding the example, these +lines will not have been written in vain. And now, whatever other +authors may be, I flatter myself, it will be allowed that I, at least, +am a moral man. + +By the way, as some readers are dull of comprehension, I may as well +say what the moral of this history is. The moral is this--Society having +ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and +conform to its harmless orders. + +If I should go to the British and Foreign Institute (and heaven forbid I +should go under any pretext or in any costume whatever)--if I should go +to one of the tea-parties in a dressing-gown and slippers, and not in +the usual attire of a gentleman, viz, pumps, a gold waistcoat, a crush +hat, a sham frill, and a white choker--I should be insulting society, +and EATING PEASE WITH MY KNIFE. Let the porters of the Institute hustle +out the individual who shall so offend. Such an offender is, as regards +society, a most emphatical and refractory Snob. It has its code and +police as well as governments, and he must conform who would profit by +the decrees set forth for their common comfort. + +I am naturally averse to egotism, and hate selflaudation consumedly; but +I can't help relating here a circumstance illustrative of the point in +question, in which I must think I acted with considerable prudence. + +Being at Constantinople a few years since--(on a delicate mission),--the +Russians were playing a double game, between ourselves, and it became +necessary on our part to employ an EXTRA NEGOTIATOR--Leckerbiss Pasha of +Roumelia, then Chief Galeongee of the Porte, gave a diplomatic banquet +at his summer palace at Bujukdere. I was on the left of the Galeongee, +and the Russian agent, Count de Diddloff, on his dexter side. Diddloff +is a dandy who would die of a rose in aromatic pain: he had tried to +have me assassinated three times in the course of the negotiation; but +of course we were friends in public, and saluted each other in the most +cordial and charming manner. + +The Galeongee is--or was, alas! for a bow-string has done for him--a +staunch supporter of the old school of Turkish politics. We dined with +our fingers, and had flaps of bread for plates; the only innovation +he admitted was the use of European liquors, in which he indulged with +great gusto. He was an enormous eater. Amongst the dishes a very large +one was placed before him of a lamb dressed in its wool, stuffed with +prunes, garlic, assafoetida, capsicums, and other condiments, the most +abominable mixture that ever mortal smelt or tasted. The Galeongee ate +of this hugely; and pursuing the Eastern fashion, insisted on helping +his friends right and left, and when he came to a particularly spicy +morsel, would push it with his own hands into his guests' very mouths. + +I never shall forget the look of poor Diddloff, when his Excellency, +rolling up a large quantity of this into a ball and exclaiming, 'Buk +Buk' (it is very good), administered the horrible bolus to Diddloff. The +Russian's eyes rolled dreadfully as he received it: he swallowed it with +a grimace that I thought must precede a convulsion, and seizing a bottle +next him, which he thought was Sauterne, but which turned out to be +French brandy, he drank off nearly a pint before he know his error. It +finished him; he was carried away from the dining-room almost dead, and +laid out to cool in a summer-house on the Bosphorus. + +When it came to my turn, I took down the condiment with a smile, said +'Bismillah,' licked my lips with easy gratification, and when the next +dish was served, made up a ball myself so dexterously, and popped it +down the old Galeongee's mouth with so much grace, that his heart was +won. Russia was put out of court at once and THE TREATY of Kabobanople +WAS SIGNED. As for Diddloff, all was over with HIM: he was recalled to +St. Petersburg, and Sir Roderick Murchison saw him, under the No. 3967, +working in the Ural mines. + +The moral of this tale, I need not say, is, that there are many +disagreeable things in society which you are bound to take down, and to +do so with a smiling face. + + + +CHAPTER II--THE SNOB ROYAL + +Long since at the commencement of the reign of her present Gracious +Majesty, it chanced 'on a fair summer evening,' as Mr. James would say, +that three or four young cavaliers were drinking a cup of wine after +dinner at the hostelry called the 'King's Arms,' kept by Mistress +Anderson, in the royal village of Kensington. 'Twas a balmy evening, +and the wayfarers looked out on a cheerful scene. The tall elms of +the ancient gardens were in full leaf, and countless chariots of +the nobility of England whirled by to the neighbouring palace, where +princely Sussex (whose income latterly only allowed him to give +tea-parties) entertained his royal niece at a state banquet. When the +caroches of the nobles had set down their owners at the banquethall, +their varlets and servitors came to quaff a flagon of nut-brown ale in +the 'King's Arms' gardens hard by. We watched these fellows from our +lattice. By Saint Boniface 'twas a rare sight! + +The tulips in Mynheer Van Dunck's gardens were not more gorgeous than +the liveries of these pie-coated retainers. All the flowers of the field +bloomed in their ruffled bosoms, all the hues of the rainbow gleamed +in their plush breeches, and the long-caned ones walked up and down the +garden with that charming solemnity, that delightful quivering swagger +of the calves, which has always had a frantic fascination for us. The +walk was not wide enough for them as the shoulder-knots strutted up and +down it in canary, and crimson, and light blue. + +Suddenly, in the midst of their pride, a little bell was rung, a side +door opened, and (after setting down their Royal Mistress) her Majesty's +own crimson footmen, with epaulets and black plushes, came in. + +It was pitiable to see the other poor Johns slink off at this arrival! +Not one of the honest private Plushes could stand up before the Royal +Flunkeys. They left the walk: they sneaked into dark holes and drank +their beer in silence. The Royal Plush kept possession of the garden +until the Royal Plush dinner was announced, when it retired, and we +heard from the pavilion where they dined, conservative cheers, and +speeches, and Kentish fires. The other Flunkeys we never saw more. + +My dear Flunkeys, so absurdly conceited at one moment and so abject +at the next, are but the types of their masters in this world. HE WHO +MEANLY ADMIRES MEAN THINGS IS A SNOB--perhaps that is a safe definition +of the character. + +And this is why I have, with the utmost respect, ventured to place The +Snob Royal at the head of my list, causing all others to give way before +him, as the Flunkeys before the royal representative in Kensington +Gardens. To say of such and such a Gracious Sovereign that he is a Snob, +is but to say that his Majesty is a man. Kings, too, are men and Snobs. +In a country where Snobs are in the majority, a prime one, surely, +cannot be unfit to govern. With us they have succeeded to admiration. + +For instance, James I. was a Snob, and a Scotch Snob, than which the +world contains no more offensive creature. He appears to have had not +one of the good qualities of a man--neither courage, nor generosity, +nor honesty, nor brains; but read what the great Divines and Doctors of +England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not +a Snob; whilst Louis XIV., his old squaretoes of a contemporary,--the +great worshipper of Bigwiggery--has always struck me as a most undoubted +and Royal Snob. + +I will not, however, take instances from our own country of Royal Snobs, +but refer to a neighbouring kingdom, that of Brentford--and its monarch, +the late great and lamented Gorgius IV. With the same humility with +which the footmen at the 'King's Arms' gave way before the Plush Royal, +the aristocracy of the Brentford nation bent down and truckled before +Gorgius, and proclaimed him the first gentleman in Europe. And it's a +wonder to think what is the gentlefolks' opinion of a gentleman, when +they gave Gorgius such a title. + +What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be +generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, +to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman +to be a loyal son, a true husband, and honest father? Ought his life to +be decent--his bills to be paid--his tastes to be high and elegant--his +aims in life lofty and noble? In a word, ought not the Biography of a +First Gentleman in Europe to be of such a nature that it might be read +in Young Ladies' Schools with advantage, and studied with profit in the +Seminaries of Young Gentlemen? I put this question to all instructors +of youth--to Mrs. Ellis and the Women of England; to all schoolmasters, +from Doctor Hawtrey down to Mr. Squeers. I conjure up before me an awful +tribunal of youth and innocence, attended by its venerable instructors +(like the ten thousand red-cheeked charity-children in Saint Paul's), +sitting in judgment, and Gorgius pleading his cause in the midst. Out of +Court, out of Court, fat old Florizel! Beadles, turn out that bloated, +pimple-faced man!--If Gorgius MUST have a statue in the new Palace which +the Brentford nation is building, it ought to be set up in the Flunkeys' +Hall. He should be represented cutting out a coat, in which art he is +said to have excelled. He also invented Maraschino punch, a shoe-buckle +(this was in the vigour of his youth, and the prime force of his +invention), and a Chinese pavilion, the most hideous building in the +world. He could drive a four-in-hand very nearly as well as the Brighton +coachman, could fence elegantly, and it is said, played the fiddle well. +And he smiled with such irresistible fascination, that persons who were +introduced into his august presence became his victims, body and soul, +as a rabbit becomes the prey of a great big boa-constrictor. + +I would wager that if Mr. Widdicomb were, by a revolution, placed on +the throne of Brentford, people would be equally fascinated by his +irresistibly majestic smile and tremble as they knelt down to kiss his +hand. If he went to Dublin they would erect an obelisk on the spot where +he first landed, as the Paddylanders did when Gorgius visited them. +We have all of us read with delight that story of the King's voyage to +Haggisland, where his presence inspired such a fury of loyalty and where +the most famous man of the country--the Baron of Bradwardine--coming +on board the royal yacht, and finding a glass out of which Gorgius had +drunk, put it into his coatpocket as an inestimable relic, and went +ashore in his boat again. But the Baron sat down upon the glass and +broke it, and cut his coat-tails very much; and the inestimable relic +was lost to the world for ever. O noble Bradwardine! what old-world +superstition could set you on your knees before such an idol as that? + +If you want to moralise upon the mutability of human affairs, go and +see the figure of Gorgius in his real, identical robes, at the +waxwork.--Admittance one shilling. Children and flunkeys sixpence. Go, +and pay sixpence. + + + +CHAPTER III--THE INFLUENCE OF THE ARISTOCRACY ON SNOBS + +Last Sunday week, being at church in this city, and the service just +ended, I heard two Snobs conversing about the Parson. One was asking +the other who the clergyman was? 'He is Mr. So-and-so,' the second Snob +answered, 'domestic chaplain to the Earl of What-d'ye-call'im.' 'Oh, is +he' said the first Snob, with a tone of indescribable satisfaction.--The +Parson's orthodoxy and identity were at once settled in this Snob's +mind. He knew no more about the Earl than about the Chaplain, but he +took the latter's character upon the authority of the former; and went +home quite contented with his Reverence, like a little truckling Snob. + +This incident gave me more matter for reflection even than the sermon: +and wonderment at the extent and prevalence of Lordolatory in this +country. What could it matter to Snob whether his Reverence were +chaplain to his Lordship or not? What Peerageworship there is all +through this free country! How we are all implicated in it, and more or +less down on our knees.--And with regard to the great subject on hand, I +think that the influence of the Peerage upon Snobbishness has been +more remarkable than that of any other institution. The increase, +encouragement, and maintenance of Snobs are among the 'priceless +services,' as Lord John Russell says, which we owe to the nobility. + +It can't be otherwise. A man becomes enormously rich, or he jobs +successfully in the aid of a Minister, or he wins a great battle, or +executes a treaty, or is a clever lawyer who makes a multitude of fees +and ascends the bench; and the country rewards him for ever with a gold +coronet (with more or less balls or leaves) and a title, and a rank +as legislator. 'Your merits are so great,' says the nation, 'that your +children shall be allowed to reign over us, in a manner. It does not in +the least matter that your eldest son be a fool: we think your services +so remarkable, that he shall have the reversion of your honours when +death vacates your noble shoes. If you are poor, we will give you such +a sum of money as shall enable you and the eldest-born of your race for +ever to live in fat and splendour. It is our wish that there should be +a race set apart in this happy country, who shall hold the first rank, +have the first prizes and chances in all government jobs and patronages. +We cannot make all your dear children Peers--that would make Peerage +common and crowd the House of Lords uncomfortably--but the young ones +shall have everything a Government can give: they shall get the pick +of all the places: they shall be Captains and Lieutenant-Colonels at +nineteen, when hoary-headed old lieutenants are spending thirty years +at drill: they shall command ships at one-and-twenty, and veterans who +fought before they were born. And as we are eminently a free people, and +in order to encourage all men to do their duty, we say to any man of +any rank--get enormously rich, make immense fees as a lawyer, or great +speeches, or distinguish yourself and win battles--and you, even you, +shall come into the privileged class, and your children shall reign +naturally over ours.' + +How can we help Snobbishness, with such a prodigious national +institution erected for its worship? How can we help cringing to +Lords? Flesh and blood can't do otherwise. What man can withstand this +prodigious temptation? Inspired by what is called a noble emulation, +some people grasp at honours and win them; others, too weak or mean, +blindly admire and grovel before those who have gained them; others, not +being able to acquire them, furiously hate, abuse, and envy. There are +only a few bland and not-in-the-least-conceited philosophers, who +can behold the state of society, viz., Toadyism, organised:--base +Man-and-Mammon worship, instituted by command of law:--Snobbishness, in +a word, perpetuated,--and mark the phenomenon calmly. And of these calm +moralists, is there one, I wonder, whose heart would not throb with +pleasure if he could be seen walking arm-in-arm with a couple of dukes +down Pall Mall? No it is impossible in our condition of society, not to +be sometimes a Snob. + +On one hand it encourages the commoner to be snobbishly mean, and the +noble to be snobbishly arrogant. When a noble marchioness writes in +her travels about the hard necessity under which steam-boat travellers +labour of being brought into contact 'with all sorts and conditions of +people:' implying that a fellowship with God's creatures is disagreeable +to to her Ladyship, who is their superior:--when, I say, the Marchioness +of ---- writes in this fashion, we must consider that out of her natural +heart it would have been impossible for any woman to have had such a +sentiment; but that the habit of truckling and cringing, which all +who surround her have adopted towards this beautiful and magnificent +lady,--this proprietor of so many black and other diamonds,--has really +induced her to believe that she is the superior of the world in general: +and that people are not to associate with her except awfully at a +distance. I recollect being once at the city of Grand Cairo, through +which a European Royal Prince was passing India-wards. One night at the +inn there was a great disturbance: a man had drowned himself in the well +hard by: all the inhabitants of the hotel came bustling into the Court, +and amongst others your humble servant, who asked of a certain young man +the reason of the disturbance. How was I to know that this young gent +was a prince? He had not his crown and sceptre on: he was dressed in a +white jacket and felt hat: but he looked surprised at anybody speaking +to him: answered an unintelligible monosyllable, and--BECKONED HIS +AID-DE-CAMP TO COME AND SPEAK TO ME. It is our fault, not that of the +great, that they should fancy themselves so far above us. If you WILL +fling yourself under the wheels, Juggernaut will go over you, depend +upon it; and if you and I, my dear friend, had Kotow performed before +us every day,--found people whenever we appeared grovelling in slavish +adoration, we should drop into the airs of superiority quite naturally, +and accept the greatness with which the world insisted upon endowing us. + +Here is an instance, out of Lord L----'s travels, of that calm, +good-natured, undoubting way in which a great man accepts the homage of +his inferiors. After making some profound and ingenious remarks about +the town of Brussells, his lordship says:--'Staying some day at the +Hotel de Belle Vue, a greatly overrated establishment, and not nearly as +comfortable as the Hotel de France--I made acquaintance with Dr. L----, +the physician of the Mission. He was desirous of doing the honours of +the place to me, and he ordered for us a DINER EN GOURMAND at the chief +restaurateur's, maintaining it surpassed the Rocher at Paris. Six or +eight partook of the entertainment, and we all agreed it was infinitely +inferior to the Paris display, and much more extravagant. So much for +the copy. + +And so much for the gentleman who gave the dinner. Dr. L----, desirous +to do his lordship 'the honour of the place,' feasts him with the +best victuals money can procure--and my lord finds the entertainment +extravagant and inferior. Extravagant! it was not extravagant to +HIM;--Inferior! Mr. L---- did his best to satisfy those noble jaws, +and my lord receives the entertainment, and dismisses the giver with +a rebuke. It is like a three-tailed Pasha grumbling about an +unsatisfactory backsheesh. + +But how should it be otherwise in a country where Lordolatry is part +of our creed, and where our children are brought up to respect the +'Peerage' as the Englishman's second Bible? + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE COURT CIRCULAR, AND ITS INFLUENCE ON SNOBS + +Example is the best of precepts; so let us begin with a true and +authentic story, showing how young aristocratic snobs are reared, and +how early their Snobbishness may be made to bloom. A beautiful and +fashionable lady--(pardon, gracious madam, that your story should +be made public; but it is so moral that it ought to be known to the +universal world)--told me that in her early youth she had a little +acquaintance, who is now indeed a beautiful and fashionable lady too. +In mentioning Miss Snobky, daughter of Sir Snobby Snobky, whose +presentation at Court caused such a sensation, need I say more? + +When Miss Snobky was so very young as to be in the nursery regions, and +to walk off early mornings in St. James's Park, protected by a French +governess and followed by a huge hirsute flunkey in the canary coloured +livery of the Snobkys, she used occasionally in these promenades to meet +with young Lord Claude Lollipop, the Marquis of Sillabub's younger +son. In the very height of the season, from some unexplained cause, the +Snobkys suddenly determined upon leaving town. Miss Snobky spoke to her +female friend and confidante. 'What will poor Claude Lollipop say when +he hears of my absence?' asked the tender-hearted child. + +'Oh, perhaps he won't hear of it,' answers the confidante. + +'MY DEAR, HE WILL READ IT IN THE PAPERS,' replied the dear little +fashionable rogue of seven years old. She knew already her importance, +and how all the world of England, how all the would-be-genteel people, +how all the silver-fork worshippers, how all the tattle-mongers, how all +the grocers' ladies, the tailors' ladies, the attorneys' and merchants' +ladies, and the people living at Clapham and Brunswick Square,--who have +no more chance of consorting with a Snobky than my beloved reader has +of dining with the Emperor of China--yet watched the movements of the +Snobkys with interest and were glad to know when they came to London and +left it. + +Here is the account of Miss Snobky's dress, and that of her mother, Lady +Snobky, from the papers:-- + +'MISS SNOBKY. + +Habit de Cour, composed of a yellow nankeen illusion dress over a +slip of rich pea-green corduroy, trimmed en tablier, with bouquets +of Brussels sprouts: the body and sleeves handsomely trimmed with +calimanco, and festooned with a pink train and white radishes. +Head-dress, carrots and lappets. + +'LADY SNOBKY. + +'Costume de Cour, composed of a train of the most superb Pekin +bandannas, elegantly trimmed with spangles, tinfoil, and red-tape. +Bodice and underdress of sky-blue velveteen, trimmed with bouffants and +noeuds of bell-pulls. Stomacher a muffin. Head-dress a bird's nest, +with a bird of paradise, over a rich brass knocker en ferroniere. This +splendid costume, by Madame Crinoline, of Regent Street, was the object +of universal admiration.' + +This is what you read. Oh, Mrs. Ellis! Oh, mothers, daughters, aunts, +grandmothers of England, this is the sort of writing which is put in the +newspapers for you! How can you help being the mothers, daughters, &c. +of Snobs, so long as this balderdash is set before you? + +You stuff the little rosy foot of a Chinese young lady of fashion into a +slipper that is about the size of a salt-cruet, and keep the poor little +toes there imprisoned and twisted up so long that the dwarfishness +becomes irremediable. Later, the foot would not expand to the natural +size were you to give her a washing-tub for a shoe and for all her life +she has little feet, and is a cripple. Oh, my dear Miss Wiggins, thank +your stars that those beautiful feet of yours--though I declare when you +walk they are so small as to be almost invisible--thank your stars that +society never so practised upon them; but look around and see how +many friends of ours in the highest circles have had their BRAINS so +prematurely and hopelessly pinched and distorted. + +How can you expect that those poor creatures are to move naturally when +the world and their parents have mutilated them so cruelly? As long as +a COURT CIRCULAR exists, how the deuce are people whose names are +chronicled in it ever to believe themselves the equals of the cringing +race which daily reads that abominable trash? I believe that ours is the +only country in the world now where the COURT CIRCULAR remains in full +flourish--where you read, 'This day his Royal Highness Prince Pattypan +was taken an airing in his go-cart.' 'The Princess Pimminy was taken a +drive, attended by her ladies of honour, and accompanied by her doll,' +&c. We laugh at the solemnity with which Saint Simon announces that SA +MAJESTE SE MEDICAMENTE AUJOURD'HUI. Under our very noses the same folly +is daily going on. That wonderful and mysterious man, the author of the +COURT CIRCULAR, drops in with his budget at the newspaper offices every +night. I once asked the editor of a paper to allow me to lie in wait and +see him. + +I am told that in a kingdom where there is a German King-Consort +(Portugal it must be, for the Queen of that country married a German +Prince, who is greatly admired and respected by the natives), whenever +the Consort takes the diversion of shooting among the rabbit-warrens of +Cintra, or the pheasant-preserve of Mafra, he has a keeper to load his +guns, as a matter of course, and then they are handed to the nobleman, +his equerry, and the nobleman hands them to the Prince who blazes +away--gives back the discharged gun to the nobleman, who gives it to the +keeper, and so on. But the Prince WON'T TAKE THE GUN FROM THE HANDS OF +THE LOADER. + +As long as this unnatural and monstrous etiquette continues, Snobs there +must be. The three persons engaged in this transaction are, for the time +being, Snobs. + +1. The keeper--the least Snob of all, because he is discharging his +daily duty; but he appears here as a Snob, that is to say, in a position +of debasement before another human being (the Prince), with whom he +is allowed to communicate through another party. A free Portuguese +gamekeeper, who professes himself to be unworthy to communicate directly +with any person, confesses himself to be a Snob. + +2. The nobleman in waiting is a Snob. If it degrades the Prince to +receive the gun from the gamekeeper, it is degrading to the nobleman in +waiting to execute that service. He acts as a Snob towards the keeper, +whom he keeps from communication with the Prince--a Snob to the Prince, +to whom he pays a degrading homage. + +3. The King-Consort of Portugal is a Snob for insulting fellow-men in +this way. There's no harm in his accepting the services of the keeper +directly; but indirectly he insults the service performed, and the +servants who perform it; and therefore, I say, respectfully, is a most +undoubted, though royal Snob. + +And then you read in the DIARIO DO GOBERNO--'Yesterday his Majesty the +King took the diversion of shooting the woods off Cintra, attended by +Colonel the honourable Whiskerando Sombrero. His Majesty returned to the +Necessidades to lunch, at,' &c. &c.. + +Oh! that COURT CIRCULAR! once more, I exclaim. + +Down with the COURT CIRCULAR--that engine and propagator of +Snobbishness! I promise to subscribe for a year to any daily paper that +shall come out without a COURT CIRCULAR--were it the MORNING HERALD +itself. When I read that trash, I rise in my wrath; I feel myself +disloyal, a regicide, a member of the Calf's Head Club. The only COURT +CIRCULAR story which ever pleased me, was that of the King of Spain, +who in great part was roasted, because there was not time for the Prime +Minister to command the Lord Chamberlain to desire the Grand Gold Stick +to order the first page in waiting to bid the chief of the flunkeys to +request the House-maid of Honour to bring up a pail of water to put his +Majesty out. + +I am like the Pasha of three tails, to whom the Sultan sends HIS COURT +CIRCULAR, the bowstring. + +It CHOKES me. May its usage be abolished for ever. + + + +CHAPTER V--WHAT SNOBS ADMIRE + +Now let us consider how difficult it is even for great men to escape +from being Snobs. It is very well for the reader, whose fine feelings +are disgusted by the assertion that Kings, Princes, Lords, are Snobs, to +say 'You are confessedly a Snob yourself. In professing to depict Snobs, +it is only your own ugly mug which you are copying with a Narcissus-like +conceit and fatuity.' But I shall pardon this explosion of ill-temper +on the part of my constant reader, reflecting upon the misfortune of his +birth and country. It is impossible for ANY Briton, perhaps, not to be a +Snob in some degree. If people can be convinced of this fact, an immense +point is gained, surely. If I have pointed out the disease, let us hope +that other scientific characters may discover the remedy. + +If you, who are a person of the middle ranks of life, are a Snob,--you +whom nobody flatters particularly; you who have no toadies; you whom no +cringing flunkeys or shopmen bow out of doors; you whom the policeman +tells to move on; you who are jostled in the crowd of this world, and +amongst the Snobs our brethren: consider how much harder it is for a man +to escape who has not your advantages, and is all his life long subject +to adulation; the butt of meanness; consider how difficult it is for the +Snobs' idol not to be a Snob. + +As I was discoursing with my friend Eugenio in this impressive way, Lord +Buckram passed us, the son of the Marquis of Bagwig, and knocked at +the door of the family mansion in Red Lion Square. His noble father and +mother occupied, as everybody knows, distinguished posts in the +Courts of late Sovereigns. The Marquis was Lord of the Pantry, and her +Ladyship, Lady of the Powder Closet to Queen Charlotte. Buck (as I +call him, for we are very familiar) gave me a nod as he passed, and +I proceeded to show Eugenio how it was impossible that this nobleman +should not be one of ourselves, having been practised upon by Snobs all +his life. + +His parents resolved to give him a public education, and sent him to +school at the earliest possible period. The Reverend Otto Rose, D.D., +Principal of the Preparatory Academy for young noblemen and gentlemen, +Richmond Lodge, took this little Lord in hand, and fell down and +worshipped him. He always introduced him to fathers and mothers who +came to visit their children at the school. He referred with pride and +pleasure to the most noble the Marquis of Bagwig, as one of the kind +friends and patrons of his Seminary. He made Lord Buckram a bait for +such a multiplicity of pupils, that a new wing was built to Richmond +Lodge, and thirty-five new little white dimity beds were added to +the establishment. Mm. Rose used to take out the little Lord in the +one-horse chaise with her when she paid visits, until the Rector's +lady and the Surgeon's wife almost died with envy. His own son and Lord +Buckram having been discovered robbing an orchard together, the Doctor +flogged his own flesh and blood most unmercifully for leading the young +Lord astray. He parted from him with tears. There was always a letter +directed to the Most Noble the Marquis ef Bagwig, on the Doctor's study +table, when any visitors were received by him. + +At Eton, a great deal of Snobbishness was thrashed out of Lord Buckram, +and he was birched with perfect impartiality. Even there, however, a +select band of sucking tuft-hunters followed him. Young Croesus lent +him three-and-twenty bran-new sovereigns out of his father's bank. Young +Snaily did his exercises for him, and tried 'to know him at home;' but +Young Bull licked him in a fight of fifty-five minutes, and he was caned +several times with great advantage for not sufficiently polishing his +master Smith's shoes. Boys are not ALL toadies in the morning of life. + +But when he went to the University, crowds of toadies sprawled over +him. The tutors toadied him. The fellows in hall paid him great clumsy +compliments. The Dean never remarked his absence from Chapel, or heard +any noise issuing from his rooms. A number of respectable young fellows, +(it is among the respectable, the Baker Street class, that Snobbishness +flourishes, more than among any set of people in England)--a number of +these clung to him like leeches. There was no end now to Croesus's loans +of money; and Buckram couldn't ride out with the hounds, but Snaily (a +timid creature by nature) was in the field, and would take any leap at +which his friend chose to ride. Young Rose came up to the same College, +having been kept back for that express purpose by his father. He spent a +quarter's allowance in giving Buckram a single dinner; but he knew +there was always pardon for him for extravagance in such a cause; and a +ten-pound note always came to him from home when he mentioned Buckram's +name in a letter. What wild visions entered the brains of Mrs. Podge +and Miss Podge, the wife and daughter of the Principal of Lord Buckram's +College, I don't know, but that reverend old gentleman was too profound +a flunkey by nature ever for one minute to think that a child of his +could marry a nobleman. He therefore hastened on his daughter's union +with Professor Crab. + +When Lord Buckram, after taking his honorary degree, (for Alma Mater is +a Snob, too, and truckles to a Lord like the rest,)--when Lord Buckram +went abroad to finish his education, you all know what dangers he ran, +and what numbers of caps were set at him. Lady Leach and her daughters +followed him from Paris to Rome, and from Rome to Baden-Baden; +Miss Leggitt burst into tears before his face when he announced his +determination to quit Naples, and fainted on the neck of her mamma: +Captain Macdragon, of Macdragonstown, County Tipperary, called upon +him to 'explene his intintions with respect to his sisther, Miss Amalia +Macdragon, of Macdragonstown,' and proposed to shoot him unless he +married that spotless and beautiful young creature, who was afterwards +led to the altar by Mr. Muff, at Cheltenham. If perseverance and forty +thousand pounds down could have tempted him, Miss Lydia Croesus would +certainly have been Lady Buckram. Count Towrowski was glad to take her +with half the meney, as all the genteel world knows. + +And now, perhaps, the reader is anxious to know what sort of a man +this is who wounded so many ladies' hearts, and who has been such a +prodigious favourite with men. If we were to describe him it would be +personal. Besides, it really does not matter in the least what sort of a +man he is, or what his personal qualities are. + +Suppose he is a young nobleman of a literary turn, and that he published +poems ever so foolish and feeble, the Snobs would purchase thousands +of his volumes: the publishers (who refused my Passion-Flowers, and +my grand Epic at any price) would give him his own. Suppose he is a +nobleman of a jovial turn, and has a fancy for wrenching off knockers, +frequenting ginshops, and half murdering policemen: the public will +sympathize good-naturedly with his amusements, and say he is a hearty, +honest fellow. Suppose he is fond of play and the turf; and has a fancy +to be a blackleg, and occasionally condescends to pluck a pigeon at +cards; the public will pardon him, and many honest people will court +him, as they would court a housebreaker if he happened to be a Lord. +Suppose he is an idiot; yet, by the glorious constitution, he is good +enough to govern US. Suppose he is an honest, highminded gentleman; so +much the better for himself. But he may be an ass, and yet respected; or +a ruffian, and yet be exceedingly popular; or a rogue, and yet excuses +will be found for him. Snobs will still worship him. Male Snobs will do +him honour, and females look kindly upon him, however hideous he may be. + + + +CHAPTER VI--ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS + +Having received a great deal of obloquy for dragging monarchs, princes, +and the respected nobility into the Snob category, I trust to please +everybody in the present chapter, by stating my firm opinion that it +is among the RESPECTABLE classes of this vast and happy empire that the +greatest profusion of Snobs is to be found. I pace down my beloved Baker +Street, (I am engaged on a life of Baker, founder of this celebrated +street,) I walk in Harley Street (where every other house has a +hatchment), Wimpole Street, that is as cheerful as the Catacombs--a +dingy Mausoleum of the genteel:--I rove round Regent's Park, where the +plaster is patching off the house walls; where Methodist preachers are +holding forth to three little children in the green inclosures, and +puffy valetudinarians are cantering in the solitary mud:--I thread the +doubtful ZIG-ZAGS of May Fair, where Mrs. Kitty Lorimer's Brougham may +be seen drawn up next door to old Lady Lollipop's belozenged family +coach;--I roam through Belgravia, that pale and polite district, where +all the inhabitants look prim and correct, and the mansions are painted +a faint whity-brown: I lose myself in the new squares and terraces of +the brilliant bran-new Bayswater-and-Tyburn-Junction line; and in one +and all of these districts the same truth comes across me. I stop before +any house at hazard, and say, 'O house, you are inhabited--O knocker, +you are knocked at--O undressed flunkey, sunning your lazy calves as +you lean against the iron railings, you are paid--by Snobs.' It is +a tremendous thought that; and it is almost sufficient to drive a +benevolent mind to madness to think that perhaps there is not one in +ten of those houses where the 'Peerage' does not lie on the drawing-room +table. Considering the harm that foolish lying book does, I would have +all the copies of it burned, as the barber burned all Quixote's books of +humbugging chivalry. + +Look at this grand house in the middle of the square. The Earl of +Loughcorrib lives there: he has fifty thousand a year. A DEJEUNER +DANSANT given at his house last week cost, who knows how much? The +mere flowers for the room and bouquets for the ladies cost four hundred +pounds. That man in drab trousers, coming crying down the stops, is a +dun: Lord Loughcorrib has ruined him, and won't see him: that is his +lordship peeping through the blind of his study at him now. Go thy ways, +Loughcorrib, thou art a Snob, a heartless pretender, a hypocrite of +hospitality; a rogue who passes forged notes upon society;--but I am +growing too eloquent. + +You see that nice house, No. 23, where a butcher's boy is ringing the +area-bell. He has three muttonchops in his tray. They are for the dinner +of a very different and very respectable family; for Lady Susan Scraper, +and her daughters, Miss Scraper and Miss Emily Scraper. The domestics, +luckily for them, are on board wages--two huge footmen in light blue and +canary, a fat steady coachman who is a Methodist, and a butler who +would never have stayed in the family but that he was orderly to General +Scraper when the General distinguished himself at Walcheren. His widow +sent his portrait to the United Service Club, and it is hung up in +one of the back dressing-closets there. He is represented at a parlour +window with red curtains; in the distance is a whirlwind, in which +cannon are firing off; and he is pointing to a chart, on which are +written the words 'Walcheren, Tobago.' + +Lady Susan is, as everybody knows by referring to the 'British Bible,' a +daughter of the great and good Earl Bagwig before mentioned. She thinks +everything belonging to her the greatest and best in the world. The +first of men naturally are the Buckrams, her own race: then follow in +rank the Scrapers. The General was the greatest general: his eldest son, +Scraper Buckram Scraper, is at present the greatest and best; his second +son the next greatest and best; and herself the paragon of women. + +Indeed, she is a most respectable and honourable lady. She goes to +church of course: she would fancy the Church in danger if she did not. +She subscribes to Church and parish charities; and is a directress +of meritorious charitable institutions--of Queen Charlotte's Lying-in +Hospital, the Washerwomen's Asylum, the British Drummers' Daughters' +Home, &c.. She is a model of a matron. + +The tradesman never lived who could say that he was not paid on +the quarter-day. The beggars of her neighbourhood avoid her like a +pestilence; for while she walks out, protected by John, that domestic +has always two or three mendicity tickets ready for deserving objects. +Ten guineas a year will pay all her charities. There is no respectable +lady in all London who gets her name more often printed for such a sum +of money. + +Those three mutton-chops which you see entering at the kitchen-door will +be served on the family-plate at seven o'clock this evening, the huge +footman being present, and the butler in black, and the crest and +coat-of-arms of the Scrapers blazing everywhere. I pity Miss Emily +Scraper--she is still young--young and hungry. Is it a fact that she +spends her pocket-money in buns? Malicious tongues say so; but she has +very little to spare for buns, the poor little hungry soul! For the +fact is, that when the footmen, and the ladies' maids, and the fat +coach-horses, which are jobbed, and the six dinner-parties in the +season, and the two great solemn evening-parties, and the rent of the +big house, and the journey to an English or foreign watering-place for +the autumn, are paid, my lady's income has dwindled away to a very small +sum, and she is as poor as you or I. + +You would not think it when you saw her big carriage rattling up to the +drawing-room, and caught a glimpse of her plumes, lappets, and diamonds, +waving over her ladyship's sandy hair and majestical hooked nose;--you +would not think it when you hear 'Lady Susan Scraper's carriage' bawled +out at midnight so as to disturb all Belgravia:--you would not think it +when she comes rustling into church, the obsequious John behind with the +bag of Prayer-books. Is it possible, you would say, that so grand and +awful a personage as that can be hard-up for money? Alas! So it is. + +She never heard such a word as Snob, I will engage, in this wicked and +vulgar world. And, O stars and garters! how she would start if she heard +that she--she, as solemn as Minerva--she, as chaste as Diana (without +that heathen goddess's unladylike propensity for field-sports)--that she +too was a Snob! + +A Snob she is, as long as she sets that prodigious value upon herself, +upon her name, upon her outward appearance, and indulges in that +intolerable pomposity; as long as she goes parading abroad, like +Solomon in all his glory; as long as she goes to bed--as I believe she +does--with a turban and a bird of paradise in it, and a court train +to her night-gown; as long as she is so insufferably virtuous and +condescending; as long as she does not cut at least one of those footmen +down into mutton-chops for the benefit of the young ladies. + +I had my notions of her from my old schoolfellow,--her son Sydney +Scraper--a Chancery barrister without any practice--the most placid, +polite, and genteel of Snobs, who never exceeded his allowance of two +hundred a year, and who may be seen any evening at the 'Oxford and +Cambridge Club,' simpering over the QUARTERLY REVIEW, in the blameless +enjoyment of his half-pint of port. + + + +CHAPTER VII--ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS + +Look at the next house to Lady Susan Scraper's. The first mansion with +the awning over the door: that canopy will be let down this evening for +the comfort of the friends of Sir Alured and Lady S. de Mogyns, whose +parties are so much admired by the public, and the givers themselves. + +Peach-coloured liveries laced with silver, and pea-green plush +inexpressibles, render the De Mogyns' flunkeys the pride of the ring +when they appear in Hyde Park where Lady de Mogyns, as she sits upon +her satin cushions, with her dwarf spaniel in her arms, bows to the very +selectest of the genteel. Times are altered now with Mary Anne, or, as +she calls herself, Marian de Mogyns. + +She was the daughter of Captain Flack of the Rathdrum Fencibles, who +crossed with his regiment over from Ireland to Caermarthenshire ever +so many years ago, and defended Wales from the Corsican invader. The +Rathdrums were quartered at Pontydwdlm, where Marian wooed and won her +De Mogyns, a young banker in the place. His attentions to Miss Flack at +a race ball were such that her father said De Mogyns must either die on +the field of honour, or become his son-in-law. He preferred marriage. +His name was Muggins then, and his father--a flourishing banker, +army-contractor, smuggler, and general jobber--almost disinherited him +on account of this connection. + +There is a story that Muggins the Elder was made a baronet for having +lent money to a R-y-l p-rs-n-ge. I do not believe it. The R-y-l Family +always paid their debts, from the Prince of Wales downwards. + +Howbeit, to his life's end he remained simple Sir Thomas Muggins, +representing Pontydwdlm in Parliament for many years after the war. The +old banker died in course of time, and to use the affectionate phrase +common on such occasions, 'cut up' prodigiously well. His son, Alfred +Smith Mogyns, succeeded to the main portion of his wealth, and to his +titles and the bloody hand of his scutcheon. It was not for many years +after that he appeared as Sir Alured Mogyns Smyth de Mogyns, with a +genealogy found out for him by the Editor of 'Fluke's Peerage,' and +which appears as follows in that work:--'De Mogyns.--Sir Alured Mogyns +Smyth, Second Baronet. This gentleman is a representative of one of the +most ancient families of Wales, who trace their descent until it is lost +in the mists of antiquity. A genealogical tree beginning with Shem is in +the possession of the family, and is stated by a legend of many thousand +years' date to have been drawn on papyrus by a grandson of the patriarch +himself. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt of the immense +antiquity of the race of Mogyns. + +'In the time of Boadicea, Hogyn Mogyn, of the hundred Beeves, was a +suitor and a rival of Caractacus for the hand of that Princess. He was +a person gigantic in stature, and was slain by Suetonius in the battle +which terminated the liberties of Britain. From him descended directly +the Princes of Pontydwdlm, Mogyn of the Golden Harp (see the Mabinogion +of Lady Charlotte Guest,) Bogyn-Merodac-ap-Mogyn, (the black fiend son +of Mogyn,) and a long list of bards and warriors, celebrated both in +Wales and Armorica. The independent Princes of Mogyn long held out +against the ruthless Kings of England, until finally Gam Mogyns made his +submission to Prince Henry, son of Henry IV., and under the name of Sir +David Gam de Mogyns, was distinguished at the battle of Agincourt. + +From him the present Baronet is descended. (And here the descent follows +in order until it comes to) Thomas Muggins, first Baronet of Pontydwdlm +Castle, for 23 years Member of Parliament for that borough, who had +issue, Alured Mogyns Smyth, the present Baronet, who married Marian, +daughter of the late general P. Flack, of Ballyflack, in the Kingdom of +Ireland of the Counts Flack of the H. R. Empire. Sir Alured has issue, +Alured Caradoc, born 1819, Marian, 1811, Blanche Adeliza, Emily Doria, +Adelaide Obleans, Katinka Rostopchin, Patrick Flack, died 1809. + +'Arms--a mullion garbled, gules on a saltire reversed of the second. +Crest--a tom-tit rampant regardant. Motto--UNG ROY UNG MOGYNS.' + +It was long before Lady de Mogyns shone as a star in the fashionable +world. At first, poor Muggins was the in the hands of the Flacks, the +Clancys, the Tooles, the Shanahans, his wife's Irish relations; and +whilst he was yet but heir-apparent, his house overflowed with claret +and the national nectar, for the benefit of Hibernian relatives. Tom +Tufto absolutely left the street in which they lived in London, because +he said 'it was infected with such a confounded smell of whisky from the +house of those IWISH people.' + +It was abroad that they learned to be genteel. They pushed into all +foreign courts, and elbowed their way into the halls of Ambassadors. +They pounced upon the stray nobility, and seized young lords travelling +with their bear-leaders. They gave parties at Naples, Rome, and Paris. +They got a Royal Prince to attend their SOIREES at the latter place, and +it was here that they first appeared under the name of De Mogyns, which +they bear with such splendour to this day. + +All sorts of stories are told of the desperate efforts made by the +indomitable Lady de Mogyns to gain the place she now occupies, and those +of my beloved readers who live in middle life, and are unacquainted +with the frantic struggles, the wicked feuds, the intrigues, cabals, +and disappointments which, as I am given to understand, reign in the +fashionable world, may bless their stars that they at least are not +FASHIONABLE Snobs. The intrigues set afoot by the De Mogyns to get +the Duchess of Buckskin to her parties, would strike a Talleyrand +with admiration. She had a brain fever after being disappointed of an +invitation to Lady Aldermanbury's THE DANSANT, and would have committed +suicide but for a ball at Windsor. I have the following story from my +noble friend Lady Clapperclaw herself,--Lady Kathleen O'Shaughnessy that +was, and daughter of the Earl of Turfanthunder:-- + +'When that odious disguised Irishwoman, Lady Muggins, was struggling to +take her place in the world, and was bringing out her hidjous daughter +Blanche,' said old Lady Clapperclaw--(Marian has a hump-back and doesn't +show, but she's the only lady in the family)--'when that wretched Polly +Muggins was bringing out Blanche, with her radish of a nose, and her +carrots of ringlets, and her turnip for a face, she was most anxious--as +her father had been a cowboy on my father's land--to be patronized +by us, and asked me point-blank, in the midst of a silence at Count +Volauvent's, the French Ambassador's dinner, why I had not sent her a +card for my ball? + +'"Because my rooms are already too full, and your ladyship would be +crowded inconveniently," says I; indeed she takes up as much room as an +elephant: besides I wouldn't have her, and that was flat. + +'I thought my answer was a settler to her: but the next day she comes +weeping to my arms--"Dear Lady Clapperclaw," says she, "it's not for ME; +I ask it for my blessed Blanche! a young creature in her first season, +and not at your ball! My tender child will pine and die of vexation. I +don't want to come. I will stay at home to nurse Sir Alured in the gout. +Mrs. Bolster is going, I know; she will be Blanche's chaperon." + +'"You wouldn't subscribe for the Rathdrum blanket and potato fund; you, +who come out of the parish," says I, "and whose grandfather, honest man, +kept cows there." + +'"Will twenty guineas be enough, dearest Lady Clapperclaw?" + +'"Twenty guineas is sufficient," says I, and she paid them; so I said, +"Blanche may come, but not you, mind:" and she left me with a world of +thanks. + +'Would you believe it?--when my ball came, the horrid woman made her +appearance with her daughter! + +"Didn't I tell you not to come?" said I, in a mighty passion. "What +would the world have said?" cries my Lady Muggins: "my carriage is gone +for Sir Alured to the Club; let me stay only ten minutes, dearest Lady +Clapperclaw." + +'"Well as you are here, madam, you may stay and get your supper," I +answered, and so left her, and never spoke a word more to her all night. + +'And now,' screamed out old Lady Clapperclaw, clapping her hands, and +speaking with more brogue than ever, 'what do you think, after all +my kindness to her, the wicked, vulgar, odious, impudent upstart of s +cowboy's granddaughter, has done?--she cut me yesterday in Hy' Park, and +hasn't sent me a ticket for her ball to-night, though they say Prince +George is to be there.' + +Yes, such is the fact. In the race of fashion the resolute and active +De Mogyns has passed the poor old Clapperclaw. Her progress in gentility +may be traced by the sets of friends whom she has courted, and made, +and cut, and left behind her. She has struggled so gallantly for polite +reputation that she has won it: pitilessly kicking down the ladder as +she advanced degree by degree. + +Irish relations were first sacrificed; she made her father dine in the +steward's room, to his perfect contentment: and would send Sir Alured +thither like-wise but that he is a peg on which she hopes to hang her +future honours; and is, after all, paymaster of her daughter's fortunes. +He is meek and content. He has been so long a gentleman that he is used +to it, and acts the part of governor very well. In the day-time he goes +from the 'Union' to 'Arthur's,' and from 'Arthur's' to the 'Union.' He +is a dead hand at piquet, and loses a very comfortable maintenance to +some young fellows, at whist, at the 'Travellers'.' + +His son has taken his father's seat in Parliament, and has of course +joined Young England. He is the only man in the country who believes in +the De Mogynses, and sighs for the days when a De Mogyns led the van of +battle. He has written a little volume of spoony puny poems. He wears a +lock of the hair of Laud, the Confessor and Martyr, and fainted when +he kissed the Pope's toe at Rome. He sleeps in white kid-gloves, and +commits dangerous excesses upon green tea. + + + +CHAPTER VIII--GREAT CITY SNOBS + +There is no disguising the fact that this series of papers is making +a prodigious sensation among all classes in this Empire. Notes of +admiration (!), of interrogation (?), of remonstrance, approval, or +abuse, come pouring into MR. PUNCH'S box. We have been called to task +for betraying the secrets of three different families of De Mogyns; no +less than four Lady Scrapers have been discovered; and young gentlemen +are quite shy of ordering half-a-pint of port and simpering over the +QUARTERLY REVIEW at the Club, lest they should be mistaken for Sydney +Scraper, Esq. 'What CAN be your antipathy to Baker Street?' asks some +fair remonstrant, evidently writing from that quarter. + +'Why only attack the aristocratic Snobs?' says one 'estimable +correspondent: 'are not the snobbish Snobs to have their turn?'--'Pitch +into the University Snobs!' writes an indignant gentleman (who +spelt ELEGANT with two I's)--'Show up the Clerical Snob,' suggests +another.--'Being at "Meurice's Hotel," Paris, some time since,' some wag +hints, 'I saw Lord B. leaning out of the window with his boots in his +hand, and bawling out "GARCON, CIREZ-MOI CES BOTTES." Oughtn't he to be +brought in among the Snobs?' + +No; far from it. If his lordship's boots are dirty, it is because he is +Lord B., and walks. There is nothing snobbish in having only one pair of +boots, or a favourite pair; and certainly nothing snobbish in desiring +to have them cleaned. Lord B., in so doing, performed a perfectly +natural and gentlemanlike action; for which I am so pleased with him +that I have had him designed in a favourable and elegant attitude, and +put at the head of this Chapter in the place of honour. No, we are not +personal in these candid remarks. As Phidias took the pick of a score of +beauties before he completed a Venus, so have we to examine, perhaps, a +thousand Snobs, before one is expressed upon paper. + +Great City Snobs are the next in the hierarchy, and ought to be +considered. But here is a difficulty. The great City Snob is commonly +most difficult of access. Unless you are a capitalist, you cannot visit +him in the recesses of his bank parlour in Lombard Street. Unless you +are a sprig of nobility there is little hope of seeing him at home. In +a great City Snob firm there is generally one partner whose name is down +for charities, and who frequents Exeter Hall; you may catch a glimpse +of another (a scientific City Snob) at my Lord N----'s SOIREES, or the +lectures of the London Institution; of a third (a City Snob of taste) +at picture-auctions, at private views of exhibitions, or at the Opera or +the Philharmonic. But intimacy is impossible, in most cases, with this +grave, pompous, and awful being. + +A mere gentleman may hope to sit at almost anybody's table--to take +his place at my lord duke's in the country--to dance a quadrille at +Buckingham Palace itself--(beloved Lady Wilhelmina Wagglewiggle! do you +recollect the sensation we made at the ball of our late adored Sovereign +Queen Caroline, at Brandenburg House, Hammersmith?) but the City Snob's +doors are, for the most part, closed to him; and hence all that one +knows of this great class is mostly from hearsay. + +In other countries of Europe, the Banking Snob is more expansive and +communicative than with us, and receives all the world into his +circle. For instance, everybody knows the princely hospitalities of the +Scharlaschild family at Paris, Naples, Frankfort, &c.. They entertain +all the world, even the poor, at their FETES. Prince Polonia, at Rome, +and his brother, the Duke of Strachino, are also remarkable for their +hospitalities. I like the spirit of the first-named nobleman. Titles not +costing much in the Roman territory, he has had the head clerk of the +banking-house made a Marquis, and his Lordship will screw a BAJOCCO +out of you in exchange as dexterously as any commoner could do. It is a +comfort to be able to gratify such grandees with a farthing or two; +it makes the poorest man feel that he can do good. 'The Polonias have +intermarried with the greatest and most ancient families of Rome, and +you see their heraldic cognizance (a mushroom or on an azure field) +quartered in a hundred places in the city with the arms of the Colonnas +and Dorias. + +City Snobs have the same mania for aristocratic marriages. I like to +see such. I am of a savage and envious nature,--I like to see these two +humbugs which, dividing, as they do, the social empire of this kingdom +between them, hate each other naturally, making truce and uniting, +for the sordid interests of either. I like to see an old aristocrat, +swelling with pride of race, the descendant of illustrious Norman +robbers, whose blood has been pure for centuries, and who looks down +upon common Englishmen as a free American does on a nigger,--I like to +see old Stiffneck obliged to bow down his head and swallow his infernal +pride, and drink the cup of humiliation poured out by Pump and Aldgate's +butler. 'Pump and Aldgate, says he, 'your grandfather was a bricklayer, +and his hod is still kept in the bank. Your pedigree begins in a +workhouse; mine can be dated from all the royal palaces of Europe. I +came over with the Conqueror; I am own cousin to Charles Martel, Orlando +Furioso, Philip Augustus, Peter the Cruel, and Frederick Barbarossa. +I quarter the Royal Arms of Brentford in my coat. I despise you, but I +want money; and I will sell you my beloved daughter, Blanche Stiffneck, +for a hundred thousand pounds, to pay off my mortgages. Let your son +marry her, and she shall become Lady Blanche Pump and Aldgate.' + +Old Pump and Aldgate clutches at the bargain. And a comfortable thing +it is to think that birth can be bought for money. So you learn to value +it. Why should we, who don't possess it, set a higher store on it than +those who do? Perhaps the best use of that book, the 'Peerage,' is to +look down the list, and see how many have bought and sold birth,--how +poor sprigs of nobility somehow sell themselves to rich City Snobs' +daughters, how rich City Snobs purchase noble ladies--and so to admire +the double baseness of the bargain. + +Old Pump and Aldgate buys the article and pays the money. The sale +of the girl's person is blessed by a Bishop at St. George's, Hanover +Square, and next year you read, 'At Roehampton, on Saturday, the Lady +Blanche Pump, of a son and heir. + +After this interesting event, some old acquaintance, who saw young Pump +in the parlour at the bank in the City, said to him, familiarly, 'How's +your wife, Pump, my boy?' + +Mr. Pump looked exceedingly puzzled and disgusted, and, after a pause, +said, 'LADY BLANCHE PUMP' is pretty well, I thank you.' + +'OH, I THOUGHT SHE WAS YOUR WIFE!' said the familiar brute, Snooks, +wishing him good-bye; and ten minutes after, the story was all over the +Stock Exchange, where it is told, when young Pump appears, to this very +day. + +We can imagine the weary life this poor Pump, this martyr to Mammon, is +compelled to undergo. Fancy the domestic enjoyments of a man who has a +wife who scorns him; who cannot see his own friends in his own house; +who having deserted the middle rank of life, is not yet admitted to +the higher; but who is resigned to rebuffs and delay and humiliation, +contented to think that his son will be more fortunate. + +It used to be the custom of some very old-fashioned clubs in this city, +when a gentleman asked for change a guinea, always to bring it to him +in WASHED SILVER: that which had passed immediately out of the hands of +vulgar being considered 'as too coarse to soil a gentleman's fingers.' +So, when the City Snob's money has been washed during a generation +or so; has been washed into estates, and woods, and castles, and +town-mansions, it is allowed to pass current as real aristocratic coin. +Old Pump sweeps a shop, runs of messages, becomes a confidential clerk +and partner. Pump the Second becomes chief of the house, spins more and +more money, marries his son to an Earl's daughter. Pump Tertius goes on +with the bank; but his chief business in life is to become the father of +Pump Quartus, who comes out a full-blown aristocrat, and takes his seat +as Baron Pumpington, and his race rules hereditarily over this nation of +Snobs. + + + +CHAPTER IX--ON SOME MILITARY SNOBS + +As no society in the world is more agreeable than that of well-bred +and well-informed military gentlemen, so, likewise, none is more +insufferable than that of Military Snobs. They are to be found of all +grades, from the General Officer, whose padded old breast twinkles over +with a score of stars, clasps, and decorations, to the budding +cornet, who is shaving for a beard, and has just been appointed to the +Saxe-Coburg Lancers. + +I have always admired that dispensation of rank in our country, which +sets up this last-named little creature (who was flogged only last week +because he could not spell) to command great whiskered warriors, who +have faced all dangers of climate and battle; which, because he has +money, to lodge at the agent's, will place him over the heads of men +who have a thousand times more experience and desert: and which, in the +course of time, will bring him all the honours of his profession, when +the veteran soldier he commanded has got no other reward for his bravery +than a berth in Chelsea Hospital, and the veteran officer he superseded +has slunk into shabby retirement, and ends his disappointed life on a +threadbare half-pay. + +When I read in the GAZETTE such announcements as 'Lieutenant and Captain +Grig, from the Bombardier Guards, to be Captain, vice Grizzle, who +retires,' I know what becomes of the Peninsular Grizzle; I follow him in +spirit to the humble country town, where he takes up his quarters, +and occupies himself with the most desperate attempts to live like a +gentleman, on the stipend of half a tailor's foreman; and I picture to +myself little Grig rising from rank to rank, skipping from one regiment +to another, with an increased grade in each, avoiding disagreeable +foreign service, and ranking as a colonel at thirty;--all because he has +money, and Lord Grigsby is his father, who had the same luck before him. +Grig must blush at first to give his orders to old men in every way his +betters. And as it is very difficult for a spoiled child to escape being +selfish and arrogant, so it is a very hard task indeed for this spoiled +child of fortune not to be a Snob. + +It must have often been a matter of wonder to the candid reader, that +the army, the most enormous job of all our political institutions, +should yet work so well in the field; and we must cheerfully give +Grig, and his like, the credit for courage which they display whenever +occasion calls for it. The Duke's dandy regiments fought as well as any +(they said better than any, but that is absurd). The great Duke himself +was a dandy once, and jobbed on, as Marlborough did before him. But +this only proves that dandies are brave as well as other Britons--as +all Britons. Let us concede that the high-born Grig rode into +the entrenchments at Sobraon as gallantly as Corporal Wallop, the +ex-ploughboy. + +The times of war are more favourable to him than the periods of peace. +Think of Grig's life in the Bombardier Guards, or the Jack-boot Guards; +his marches from Windsor to London, from London to Windsor, from +Knightsbridge to Regent's Park; the idiotic services he has to perform, +which consist in inspecting the pipeclay of his company, or the horses +in the stable, or bellowing out 'Shoulder humps! Carry humps!' all which +duties the very smallest intellect that ever belonged to mortal man +would suffice to comprehend. The professional duties of a footman are +quite as difficult and various. The red-jackets who hold gentlemen's +horses in St. James's Street could do the work just as well as those +vacuous, good-natured, gentlemanlike, rickety little lieutenants, who +may be seen sauntering about Pall Mall, in high-heeled little boots, or +rallying round the standard of their regiment in the Palace Court, at +eleven o'clock, when the band plays. Did the beloved reader ever see +one of the young fellows staggering under the flag, or, above all, going +through the operation of saluting it? It is worth a walk to the Palace +to witness that magnificent piece of tomfoolery. + +I have had the honour of meeting once or twice an old gentleman, whom I +look upon to be a specimen of army-training, and who has served in +crack regiments, or commanded them, all his life. I allude to +Lieutenant-General the Honourable Sir George Granby Tufto, K.C.B., +K.T.S., K.H., K.S.W., &c. &c.. His manners are irreproachable generally; +in society he is a perfect gentleman, and a most thorough Snob. + +A man can't help being a fool, be he ever so old, and Sir George is a +greater ass at sixty-eight than he was when he first entered the army at +fifteen. He distinguished himself everywhere: his name is mentioned +with praise in a score of Gazettes: he is the man, in fact, whose padded +breast, twinkling over with innumerable decorations, has already been +introduced to the reader. It is difficult to say what virtues this +prosperous gentleman possesses. He never read a book in his life, and, +with his purple, old gouty fingers, still writes a schoolboy hand. He +has reached old age and grey hairs without being the least venerable. He +dresses like an outrageously young man to the present moment, and laces +and pads his old carcass as if he were still handsome George Tufto of +1800. He is selfish, brutal, passionate, and a glutton. It is curious +to mark him at table, and see him heaving in his waistband, his little +bloodshot eyes gloating over his meal. He swears considerably in his +talk, and tells filthy garrison stories after dinner. On account of his +rank and his services, people pay the bestarred and betitled old brute +a sort of reverence; and he looks down upon you and me, and exhibits +his contempt for us, with a stupid and artless candour which is quite +amusing to watch. Perhaps, had he been bred to another profession, he +would not have been the disreputable old creature he now is. But what +other? He was fit for none; too incorrigibly idle and dull for any trade +but this, in which he has distinguished himself publicly as a good and +gallant officer, and privately for riding races, drinking port, fighting +duels, and seducing women. He believes himself to be one of the most +honourable and deserving beings in the world. About Waterloo Place, +of afternoons, you may see him tottering in his varnished boots, and +leering under the bonnets of the women who pass by. When he dies of +apoplexy, THE TIMES will have a quarter of a column about his services +and battles--four lines of print will be wanted to describe his titles +and orders alone--and the earth will cover one of the wickedest and +dullest old wretches that ever strutted over it. + +Lest it should be imagined that I am of so obstinate a misanthropic +nature as to be satisfied with nothing, I beg (for the comfort of the +forces) to state my belief that the army is not composed of such persons +as the above. He has only been selected for the study of civilians and +the military, as a specimen of a prosperous and bloated Army Snob. No: +when epaulets are not sold; when corporal punishments are abolished, and +Corporal Smith has a chance to have his gallantry rewarded as well +as that of Lieutenant Grig; when there is no such rank as ensign and +lieutenant (the existence of which rank is an absurd anomaly, and an +insult upon all the rest of the army), and should there be no war, I +should not be disinclined to be a major-general myself. + +I have a little sheaf of Army Snobs in my portfolio, but shall pause in +my attack upon the forces till next week. + + + +CHAPTER X--MILITARY SNOBS + +Walking in the Park yesterday with my young friend Tagg, and discoursing +with him upon the next number of the Snob, at the very nick of time +who should pass us but two very good specimens of Military Snobs,--the +Sporting Military Snob, Capt. Rag, and the 'lurking' or raffish Military +Snob, Ensign Famish. Indeed you are fully sure to meet them lounging +on horseback, about five o'clock, under the trees by the Serpentine, +examining critically the inmates of the flashy broughams which parade up +and down 'the Lady's Mile.' + +Tagg and Rag are very well acquainted, and so the former, with that +candour inseparable from intimate friendship, told me his dear friend's +history. Captain Rag is a small dapper north-country man. He went when +quite a boy into a crack light cavalry regiment, and by the time he got +his troop, had cheated all his brother officers so completely, selling +them lame horses for sound ones, and winning their money by all manner +of strange and ingenious contrivances, that his Colonel advised him to +retire; which he did without much reluctance, accommodating a youngster, +who had just entered the regiment, with a glandered charger at an +uncommonly stiff figure. + +He has since devoted his time to billiards, steeple-chasing, and the +turf. His head-quarters are 'Rummer's,' in Conduit Street, where +he keeps his kit; but he is ever on the move in the exercise of his +vocation as a gentleman-jockey and gentleman-leg. + +According to BELL'S LIFE, he is an invariable attendant at all races, +and an actor in most of them. He rode the winner at Leamington; he was +left for dead in a ditch a fortnight ago at Harrow; and yet there he +was, last week, at the Croix de Berny, pale and determined as ever, +astonishing the BADAUDS of Paris by the elegance of his seat and the +neatness of his rig, as he took a preliminary gallop on that vicious +brute 'The Disowned,' before starting for 'the French Grand National.' + +He is a regular attendant at the Corner, where he compiles a limited but +comfortable libretto. During season he rides often in the Park, mounted +on a clever well-bred pony. He is to be seen escorting celebrated +horsewoman, Fanny Highflyer, or in confidential converse with Lord +Thimblerig, the eminent handicapper. + +He carefully avoids decent society, and would rather dine off a steak at +the 'One Tun' with Sam Snaffle the jockey, Captain O'Rourke, and two or +three other notorious turf robbers, than with the choicest company in +London. He likes to announce at 'Rummer's' that he is going to run down +and spend his Saturday and Sunday in a friendly way with Hocus, the leg, +at his little box near Epsom; where, if report speak true, many 'rummish +plants' are concocted. + +He does not play billiards often, and never in public: but when he does +play, he always contrives to get hold of a good flat, and never leaves +him till he has done him uncommonly brown. He has lately been playing a +good deal with Famish. + +When he makes his appearance in the drawing-room, which occasionally +happens at a hunt-meeting or a race-ball, he enjoys himself extremely. + +His young friend is Ensign Famish, who is not a little pleased to be +seen with such a smart fellow as Rag, who bows to the best turf company +in the Park. Rag lets Famish accompany him to Tattersall's, and +sells him bargains in horse-flesh, and uses Famish's cab. That young +gentleman's regiment is in India, and he is at home on sick leave. He +recruits his health by being intoxicated every night, and fortifies his +lungs, which are weak, by smoking cigars all day. The policemen about +the Haymarket know the little creature, and the early cabmen salute him. +The closed doors of fish and lobster shops open after service, and vomit +out little Famish, who is either tipsy and quarrelsome--when he wants +to fight the cabmen; or drunk and helpless--when some kind friend (in +yellow satin) takes care of him. All the neighbourhood, the cabmen, the +police, the early potato-men, and the friends in yellow satin, know the +young fellow, and he is called Little Bobby by some of the very worst +reprobates in Europe. + +His mother, Lady Fanny Famish, believes devoutly that Robert is in +London solely for the benefit of consulting the physician; is going to +have him exchanged into a dragoon regiment, which doesn't go to that +odious India; and has an idea that his chest is delicate, and that +he takes gruel every evening, when he puts his feet in hot water. Her +Ladyship resides at Cheltenham, and is of a serious turn. + +Bobby frequents the 'Union Jack Club' of course; where he breakfasts on +pale ale and devilled kidneys at three o'clock; where beardless young +heroes of his own sort congregate, and make merry, and give each other +dinners; where you may see half-a-dozen of young rakes of the fourth +or fifth order lounging and smoking on the steps; where you behold +Slapper's long-tailed leggy mare in the custody of a red-jacket until +the Captain is primed for the Park with a glass of curacoa; and where +you see Hobby, of the Highland Buffs, driving up with Dobby, of the +Madras Fusiliers, in the great banging, swinging cab, which the latter +hires from Rumble of Bond Street. + +In fact, Military Snobs are of such number and variety, that a hundred +weeks of PUNCH would not suffice to give an audience to them. There is, +besides the disreputable old Military Snob, who has seen service, the +respectable old Military Snob, who has seen none, and gives himself the +most prodigious Martinet airs. There is the Medical-Military Snob, who +is generally more outrageously military in his conversation than the +greatest SABREUR in the army. There is the Heavy-Dragoon Snob, whom +young ladies, admire with his great stupid pink face and yellow +moustaches--a vacuous, solemn, foolish, but brave and honourable Snob. +There is the Amateur-Military Snob who writes Captain on his card +because he is a Lieutenant in the Bungay Militia. There is the +Lady-killing Military Snob; and more, who need not be named. + +But let no man, we repeat, charge MR. PUNCH with disrespect for the Army +in general--that gallant and judicious Army, every man of which, from +F.M. the Duke of Wellington, &c., downwards--(with the exception of +H.R.H. Field-Marshal Prince Albert, who, however, can hardly count as a +military man,)--reads PUNCH in every quarter of the globe. + +Let those civilians who sneer at the acquirements of the army read Sir +Harry Smith's account of the Battle of Aliwal. A noble deed was never +told in nobler language. And you who doubt if chivalry exists, or the +age of heroism has passed by, think of Sir Henry Hardinge, with his son, +'dear little Arthur,' riding in front of the lines at Ferozeshah. I hope +no English painter will endeavour to illustrate that scene; for who is +there to do justice to it? The history of the world contains no more +brilliant and heroic picture. No, no; the men who perform these +deeds with such brilliant valour, and describe them with such modest +manliness--SUCH are not Snobs. Their country admires them, their +Sovereign rewards them, and PUNCH, the universal railer, takes off his +hat and, says, Heaven save them! + + + +CHAPTER XI--ON CLERICAL SNOBS + +After Snobs-Military, Snobs-Clerical suggest themselves quite naturally, +and it is clear that, with every respect for the cloth, yet having a +regard for truth, humanity, and the British public, such a vast and +influential class must not be omitted from our notices of the great Snob +world. + +Of these Clerics there are some whose claim to snobbishness is +undoubted, and yet it cannot be discussed here; for the same reason that +PUNCH would not set up his show in a Cathedral, out of respect for +the solemn service celebrated within. There are some places where he +acknowledges himself not privileged to make a noise, and puts away his +show, and silences his drum, and takes off his hat, and holds his peace. + +And I know this, that if there are some Clerics who do wrong, there are +straightway a thousand newspapers to haul up those unfortunates, and +cry, 'Fie upon them, fie upon them!' while, though the press is always +ready to yell and bellow excommunication against these stray delinquent +parsons, it somehow takes very little count of the many good ones--of +the tens of thousands of honest men, who lead Christian lives, who give +to the poor generously, who deny themselves rigidly, and live and die +in their duty, without ever a newspaper paragraph in their favour. My +beloved friend and reader, I wish you and I could do the same: and let +me whisper my belief, ENTRE NOUS that of those eminent philosophers who +cry out against parsons the loudest, there are not many who have got +their knowledge of the church by going thither often. + +But you who have ever listened to village bells, or walked to church as +children on sunny Sabbath mornings; you who have ever seen the parson's +wife tending the poor man's bedside; or the town clergyman threading the +dirty stairs of noxious alleys upon his business;--do not raise a shout +when one falls away, or yell with the mob that howls after him. + +Every man can do that. When old Father Noah was overtaken in his cups, +there was only one of his sons that dared to make merry at his disaster, +and he was not the most virtuous of the family. Let us too turn away +silently, nor huzza like a parcel of school-boys, because some big young +rebel suddenly starts up and whops the schoolmaster. + +I confess, though, if I had by me the names of those seven or eight +Irish bishops, the probates of whose wills were mentioned in last year's +journals, and who died leaving behind them some two hundred thousand +a-piece--I would like to put THEM up as patrons of my Clerical Snobs, +and operate upon them as successfully as I see from the newspapers Mr. +Eisenberg, Chiropodist, has lately done upon 'His Grace the Reverend +Lord Bishop of Tapioca.' + +I confess that when those Right Reverend Prelates come up to the gates +of Paradise with their probates of wills in their hands, I think that +their chance is.... But the gates of Paradise is a far way to follow +their Lordships; so let us trip down again lest awkward questions be +asked there about our own favourite vices too. + +And don't let us give way to the vulgar prejudice, that clergymen are an +over-paid and luxurious body of men. When that eminent ascetic, the +late Sydney Smith--(by the way, by what law of nature is it that so many +Smiths in this world are called Sydney Smith?)--lauded the system of +great prizes in the Church,--without which he said gentlemen would +not be induced to follow the clerical profession, he admitted most +pathetically that the clergy in general were by no means to be envied +for their worldly prosperity. From reading the works of some modern +writers of repute, you would fancy that a parson's life was passed +in gorging himself with plum-pudding and port-wine; and that his +Reverence's fat chaps were always greasy with the crackling of tithe +pigs. Caricaturists delight to represent him so: round, short-necked, +pimple-faced, apoplectic, bursting out of waistcoat, like a +black-pudding, a shovel-hatted fuzz-wigged Silenus. Whereas, if you take +the real man, the poor fellow's flesh-pots are very scantily furnished +with meat. He labours commonly for a wage that a tailor's foreman +would despise: he has, too, such claims upon his dismal income as most +philosophers would rather grumble to meet; many tithes are levied upon +HIS pocket, let it be remembered, by those who grudge him his means +of livelihood. He has to dine with the Squire: and his wife must dress +neatly; and he must 'look like a gentleman,' as they call it, and bring +up six great hungry sons as such. Add to this, if he does his duty, +he has such temptations to spend his money as no mortal man could +withstand. Yes; you who can't resist purchasing a chest of cigars, +because they are so good; or an ormolu clock at Howell and James's, +because it is such a bargain; or a box at the Opera, because Lablache +and Grisi are divine in the PURITANI; fancy how difficult it is for a +parson to resist spending a half-crown when John Breakstone's family +are without a loaf; or 'standing' a bottle of port for poor old Polly +Rabbits, who has her thirteenth child; or treating himself to a suit +of corduroys for little Bob Scarecrow, whose breeches are sadly out at +elbows. Think of these temptations, brother moralists and philosophers, +and don't be too hard on the parson. + +But what is this? Instead of 'showing up' the parsons, are we indulging +in maudlin praises of that monstrous black-coated race? O saintly +Francis, lying at rest under the turf; O Jimmy, and Johnny, and Willy, +friends of my youth! O noble and dear old Elias! how should he who +knows you not respect you and your calling? May this pen never write a +pennyworth again, if it ever casts ridicule upon either! + + + +CHAPTER XII--ON CLERICAL SNOBS AND SNOBBISHNESS + +'Dear Mr. Snob,' an amiable young correspondent writes, who signs +himself Snobling, 'ought the clergyman who, at the request of a noble +Duke, lately interrupted a marriage ceremony between two persons +perfectly authorised to marry, to be ranked or not among the Clerical +Snobs?' + +This, my dear young friend, is not a fair question. One of the +illustrated weekly papers has already seized hold of the clergyman, +and blackened him most unmercifully, by representing him in his cassock +performing the marriage service. Let that be sufficient punishment; and, +if you please, do not press the query. + +It is very likely that if Miss Smith had come with a licence to marry +Jones, the parson in question, not seeing old Smith present, would have +sent off the beadle in a cab to let the old gentleman know what was +going on; and would have delayed the service until the arrival of Smith +senior. He very likely thinks it his duty to ask all marriageable young +ladies, who come without their papa, why their parent is absent; and, no +doubt, ALWAYS sends off the beadle for that missing governor. + +Or, it is very possible that the Duke of Coeurdelion was Mr. +What-d'ye-call'im's most intimate friend, and has often said to him, +'What-d'ye-call'im, my boy, my daughter must never marry the Capting. +If ever they try at your church, I beseech you, considering the terms of +intimacy on which we are, to send off Rattan in a hack cab to fetch me.' + +In either of which cases, you see, dear Snobling, that though the parson +would not have been authorised, yet he might have been excused for +interfering. He has no more right to stop my marriage than to stop my +dinner, to both of which, as a free-born Briton, I am entitled by law, +if I can pay for them. But, consider pastoral solicitude, a deep sense +of the duties of his office, and pardon this inconvenient, but genuine +zeal. + +But if the clergyman did in the Duke's case what he would NOT do in +Smith's; if he has no more acquaintance with the Coeurdelion family than +I have with the Royal and Serene House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha,--THEN, I +confess, my dear Snobling, your question might elicit a disagreeable +reply, and one which I respectfully decline to give. I wonder what Sir +George Tufto would say, if a sentry left his post because a noble lord +(not the least connected with the service) begged the sentinel not to do +his duty! + +Alas! that the beadle who canes little boys and drives them out, cannot +drive worldliness out too; what is worldliness but snobbishness? When, +for instance, I read in the newspapers that the Right Reverend the Lord +Charles James administered the rite of confirmation to a PARTY OF THE +JUVENILE NOBILITY at the Chapel Royal,--as if the Chapel Royal were a +sort of ecclesiastical Almack's, and young people were to get ready for +the next world in little exclusive genteel knots of the aristocracy, who +were not to be disturbed in their journey thither by the company of +the vulgar:--when I read such a paragraph as that (and one or two such +generally appear during the present fashionable season), it seems to me +to be the most odious, mean and disgusting part of that odious, mean, +and disgusting publication, the COURT CIRCULAR; and that snobbishness is +therein carried to quite an awful pitch. What, gentlemen, can't we even +in the Church acknowledge a republic? There, at least, the Heralds' +College itself might allow that we all of us have the same pedigree, +and are direct descendants of Eve and Adam, whose inheritance is divided +amongst us. + +I hereby call upon all Dukes, Earls, Baronets, and other potentates, not +to lend themselves to this shameful scandal and error, and beseech all +Bishops who read this publication to take the matter into consideration, +and to protest against the continuance of the practice, and to declare, +'We WON'T confirm or christen Lord Tomnoddy, or Sir Carnaby Jenks, to +the exclusion of any other young Christian;' the which declaration if +their Lordships are induced to make, a great LAPIS OFFENSIONIS will be +removed, and the Snob Papers will not have been written in vain. + +A story is current of a celebrated NOUVEAU-RICHE, who having had +occasion to oblige that excellent prelate the Bishop of Bullocksmithy, +asked his Lordship, in return, to confirm his children privately in his +Lordship's own chapel; which ceremony the grateful prelate accordingly +performed. Can satire go farther than this? Is there even in this most +amusing of prints, any more NAIVE absurdity? It is as if a man wouldn't +go to heaven unless he went in a special train, or as if he thought (as +some people think about vaccination) Confirmation more effectual when +administered at first hand. When that eminent person, the Begum Sumroo, +died, it is said she left ten thousand pounds to the Pope, and ten +thousand to the Archbishop of Canterbury,--so that there should be no +mistake,--so as to make sure of having the ecclesiastical authorities on +her side. This is only a little more openly and undisguisedly snobbish +than the cases before alluded to. A well-bred Snob is just as secretly +proud of his riches and honours as a PARVENU Snob who makes the most +ludicrous exhibition of them; and a high-born Marchioness or Duchess +just as vain of herself and her diamonds, as Queen Quashyboo, who sews a +pair of epaulets on to her skirt, and turns out in state in a cocked hat +and feathers. + +It is not out of disrespect to my 'Peerage,' which I love and honour, +(indeed, have I not said before, that I should be ready to jump out of +my skin if two Dukes would walk down Pall Mall with me?)--it is not out +of disrespect for the individuals, that I wish these titles had never +been invented; but, consider, if there were no tree, there would be no +shadow; and how much more honest society would be, and how much more +serviceable the clergy would be (which is our present consideration), if +these temptations of rank and continual baits of worldliness were not in +existence, and perpetually thrown out to lead them astray. + +I have seen many examples of their falling away. When, for instance, Tom +Sniffle first went into the country as Curate for Mr. Fuddleston (Sir +Huddleston Fuddleston's brother), who resided on some other living, +there could not be a more kind, hardworking, and excellent creature +than Tom. He had his aunt to live with him. His conduct to his poor was +admirable. He wrote annually reams of the best-intentioned and vapid +sermons. When Lord Brandyball's family came down into the country, and +invited him to dine at Brandyball Park, Sniffle was so agitated that he +almost forgot how to say grace, and upset a bowl of currant-jelly sauce +in Lady Fanny Toffy's lap. + +What was the consequence of his intimacy with that noble family? He +quarrelled with his aunt for dining out every night. The wretch forgot +his poor altogether, and killed his old nag by always riding over to +Brandyball; where he revelled in the maddest passion for Lady Fanny. +He ordered the neatest new clothes and ecclesiastical waistcoats from +London; he appeared with corazza-shirts, lackered boots, and perfumery; +he bought a blood-horse from Bob Toffy: was seen at archery meetings, +public breakfasts,--actually at cover; and, I blush to say, that I saw +him in a stall at the Opera; and afterwards riding by Lady Fanny's side +in Rotten Row. He DOUBLE-BARRELLED his name, (as many poor Snobs do,) +and instead of T. Sniffle, as formerly, came out, in a porcelain card, +as Rev. T. D'Arcy Sniffle, Burlington Hotel. + +The end of all this may be imagined: when the Earl of Brandyball was +made acquainted with the curate's love for Lady Fanny, he had that fit +of the gout which so nearly carried him off (to the inexpressible grief +of his son, Lord Alicompayne), and uttered that remarkable speech to +Sniffle, which disposed of the claims of the latter:--' If I didn't +respect the Church, Sir,' his Lordship said, 'by Jove, I'd kick you +downstairs:' his Lordship then fell back into the fit aforesaid; and +Lady Fanny, as we all know, married General Podager. + +As for poor Tom, he was over head and ears in debt as well as in +love: his creditors came down upon him. Mr. Hemp, of Portugal Street, +proclaimed his name lately as a reverend outlaw; and he has been seen +at various foreign watering-places; sometimes doing duty; sometimes +'coaching' a stray gentleman's son at Carlsruhe or Kissingen; +sometimes--must we say it?--lurking about the roulette-tables with a +tuft to his chin. + +If temptation had not come upon this unhappy fellow in the shape of +a Lord Brandyball, he might still have been following his profession, +humbly and worthily. He might have married his cousin with four thousand +pounds, the wine-merchant's daughter (the old gentleman quarrelled with +his nephew for not soliciting wine-orders from Lord B. for him): he +might have had seven children, and taken private pupils, and eked out +his income, and lived and died a country parson. + +Could he have done better? You who want to know how great, and good, and +noble such a character may be, read Stanley's 'Life of Doctor Arnold.' + + + +CHAPTER XIII--ON CLERICAL SNOBS + +Among the varieties of the Snob Clerical, the University Snob and the +Scholastic Snob ought never to be forgotten; they form a very strong +battalion in the black-coated army. + +The wisdom of our ancestors (which I admire more and more every day) +seemed to have determined that education of youth was so paltry and +unimportant a matter, that almost any man, armed with a birch and +regulation cassock and degree, might undertake the charge: and many an +honest country gentleman may be found to the present day, who takes very +good care to have a character with his butler when he engages him +and will not purchase a horse without the warranty and the closest +inspection; but sends off his son, young John Thomas, to school without +asking any questions about the Schoolmaster, and places the lad at +Switchester College, under Doctor Block, because he (the good old +English gentleman) had been at Switchester, under Doctor Buzwig, forty +years ago. + +We have a love for all little boys at school; for many scores of +thousands of them read and love PUNCH:--may he never write a word that +shall not be honest and fit for them to read! He will not have his young +friends to be Snobs in the future, or to be bullied by Snobs, or +given over to such to be educated. Our connexion with the youth at the +Universities is very close and affectionate. The candid undergraduate +is our friend. The pompous old College Don trembles in his common room, +lest we should attack him and show him up as a Snob. + +When railroads were threatening to invade the land which they have +since conquered, it may be recollected what a shrieking and outcry the +authorities of Oxford and Eton made, lest the iron abominations should +come near those seats of pure learning, and tempt the British youth +astray. The supplications were in vain; the railroad is in upon them, +and the old-world institutions are doomed. I felt charmed to read in the +papers the other day a most veracious puffing advertisement headed, 'To +College and back for Five Shillings.' 'The College Gardens (it said) +will be thrown open on this occasion; the College youths will perform +a regatta; the Chapel of King's College will have its celebrated +music;'--and all for five shillings! The Goths have got into Rome; +Napoleon Stephenson draws his republican lines round the sacred old +cities and the ecclesiastical big-wigs who garrison them must prepare to +lay down key and crosier before the iron conqueror. + +If you consider, dear reader, what profound snobbishness the University +System produced, you will allow that it is time to attack some of those +feudal middle-age superstitions. If you go down for five shillings to +look at the 'College Youths,' you may see one sneaking down the court +without a tassel to his cap; another with a gold or silver fringe to his +velvet trencher; a third lad with a master's gown and hat, walking at +ease over the sacred College grass-plats, which common men must not +tread on. + +He may do it because he is a nobleman. Because a lad is a lord, the +University gives him a degree at the end of two years which another is +seven in acquiring. Because he is a lord, he has no call to go through +an examination. Any man who has not been to College and back for +five shillings, would not believe in such distinctions in a place of +education, so absurd and monstrous do they seem to be. + +The lads with gold and silver lace are sons of rich gentlemen and +called Fellow Commoners; they are privileged to feed better than the +pensioners, and to have wine with their victuals, which the latter can +only get in their rooms. + +The unlucky boys who have no tassels to their caps, are called +sizars--SERVITORS at Oxford--(a very pretty and gentlemanlike title). +A distinction is made in their clothes because they are poor; for which +reason they wear a badge of poverty, and are not allowed to take their +meals with their fellow-students. + +When this wicked and shameful distinction was set up, it was of a piece +with all the rest--a part of the brutal, unchristian, blundering feudal +system. Distinctions of rank were then so strongly insisted upon, that +it would have been thought blasphemy to doubt them, as blasphemous as it +is in parts of the United States now for a nigger to set up as the equal +of a white man. A ruffian like Henry VIII. talked as gravely about the +divine powers vested in him, as if he had been an inspired prophet. +A wretch like James I. not only believed that there was in himself a +particular sanctity, but other people believed him. Government regulated +the length of a merchant's shoes as well as meddled with his trade, +prices, exports, machinery. It thought itself justified in roasting a +man for his religion, or pulling a Jew's teeth out if he did not pay a +contribution, or ordered him to dress in a yellow gabardine, and locked +him in a particular quarter. + +Now a merchant may wear what boots he pleases, and has pretty nearly +acquired the privilege of buying and selling without the Government +laying its paws upon the bargain. The stake for heretics is gone; the +pillory is taken down; Bishops are even found lifting up their voices +against the remains of persecution, and ready to do away with the last +Catholic Disabilities. Sir Robert Peel, though he wished it ever so +much, has no power over Mr. Benjamin Disraeli's grinders, or any means +of violently handling that gentleman's jaw. Jews are not called upon +to wear badges: on the contrary, they may live in Piccadilly, or the +Minories, according to fancy; they may dress like Christians, and do +sometimes in a most elegant and fashionable manner. + +Why is the poor College servitor to wear that name and that badge still? +Because Universities are the last places into which Reform penetrates. +But now that she can go to College and back for five shillings, let her +travel down thither. + + + +CHAPTER XIV--ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS + +All the men of Saint Boniface will recognize Hugby and Crump in these +two pictures. They were tutors in our time, and Crump is since advanced +to be President of the College. He was formerly, and is now, a rich +specimen of a University Snob. + +At five-and-twenty, Crump invented three new metres, and published +an edition of an exceedingly improper Greek Comedy, with no less than +twenty emendations upon the German text of Schnupfenius and Schnapsius. +These Services to religion instantly pointed him out for advancement in +the Church, and he is now President of Saint Boniface, and very narrowly +escaped the bench. + +Crump thinks Saint Boniface the centre of the world, and his position as +President the highest in England. He expects the fellows and tutors to +pay him the same sort of service that Cardinals pay to the Pope. I am +sure Crawler would have no objection to carry his trencher, or Page to +hold up the skirts of his gown as he stalks into chapel. He roars out +the responses there as if it were an honour to heaven that the President +of Saint Boniface should take a part in the service, and in his own +lodge and college acknowledges the Sovereign only as his superior. + +When the allied monarchs came down, and were made Doctors of the +University, a breakfast was given at Saint Boniface; on which occasion +Crump allowed the Emperor Alexander to walk before him, but took the PAS +himself of the King of Prussia and Prince Blucher. He was going to put +the Hetman Platoff to breakfast at a side-table with the under college +tutors; but he was induced to relent, and merely entertained that +distinguished Cossack with a discourse on his own language, in which he +showed that the Hetman knew nothing about it. + +As for us undergraduates, we scarcely knew more about Crump than about +the Grand Llama. A few favoured youths are asked occasionally to tea at +the lodge; but they do not speak unless first addressed by the Doctor; +and if they venture to sit down, Crump's follower, Mr. Toady, whispers, +'Gentlemen, will you have the kindness to get up?--The President is +passing;' or 'Gentlemen, the President prefers that undergraduates +should not sit down;' or words to a similar effect. + +To do Crump justice, he does not cringe now to great people. He rather +patronizes them than otherwise; and, in London, speaks quite affably to +a Duke who has been brought up at his college, or holds out a finger +to a Marquis. He does not disguise his own origin, but brags of it with +considerable self-gratulation:--'I was a Charity-boy,' says he; 'see +what I am now; the greatest Greek scholar of the greatest College of the +greatest University of the greatest Empire in the world.' The argument +being, that this is a capital world, for beggars, because he, being a +beggar, has managed to get on horseback. + +Hugby owes his eminence to patient merit and agreeable perseverance. He +is a meek, mild, inoffensive creature, with just enough of scholarship +to fit him to hold a lecture, or set an examination paper. He rose by +kindness to the aristocracy. It was wonderful to see the way in which +that poor creature grovelled before a nobleman or a lord's nephew, or +even some noisy and disreputable commoner, the friend of a lord. He used +to give the young noblemen the most painful and elaborate breakfasts, +and adopt a jaunty genteel air, and talk with them (although he was +decidedly serious) about the opera, or the last run with the hounds. It +was good to watch him in the midst of a circle of young tufts, with +his mean, smiling, eager, uneasy familiarity. He used to write home +confidential letters to their parents, and made it his duty to call upon +them when in town, to condole or rejoice with them when a death, birth, +or marriage took place in their family; and to feast them whenever they +came to the University. I recollect a letter lying on a desk in his +lecture-room for a whole term, beginning, 'My Lord Duke.' It was to show +us that he corresponded with such dignities. + +When the late lamented Lord Glenlivat, who broke his neck at a +hurdle-race, at the premature age of twenty-four, was at the University, +the amiable young fellow, passing to his rooms in the early morning, +and seeing Hugby's boots at his door, on the same staircase, playfully +wadded the insides of the boots with cobbler's wax, which caused +excruciating pains to the Rev. Mr. Hugby, when he came to take them off +the same evening, before dining with the Master of St. Crispin's. + +Everybody gave the credit of this admirable piece of fun to Lord +Glenlivat's friend, Bob Tizzy, who was famous for such feats, and who +had already made away with the college pump-handle; filed St. Boniface's +nose smooth with his face; carried off four images of nigger-boys from +the tobacconists; painted the senior proctor's horse pea-green, &c. &c.; +and Bob (who was of the party certainly, and would not peach,) was just +on the point of incurring expulsion, and so losing the family living +which was in store for him, when Glenlivat nobly stepped forward, owned +himself to be the author of the delightful JEU-D'ESPRIT, apologized to +the tutor, and accepted the rustication. + +Hugby cried when Glenlivat apologized; if the young nobleman had kicked +him round the court, I believe the tutor would have been happy, so that +an apology and a reconciliation might subsequently ensue. 'My lord,' +said he, 'in your conduct on this and all other occasions, you have +acted as becomes a gentleman; you have been an honour to the University, +as you will be to the peerage, I am sure, when the amiable vivacity of +youth is calmed down, and you are called upon to take your proper share +in the government of the nation.' And when his lordship took leave of +the University, Hugby presented him with a copy of his 'Sermons to a +Nobleman's Family' (Hugby was once private tutor to the Sons of the +Earl of Muffborough), which Glenlivat presented in return to Mr. William +Ramm, known to the fancy as the Tutbury Pet, and the sermons now figure +on the boudoir-table of Mrs. Ramm, behind the bar of her house of +entertainment, 'The Game Cock and Spurs,' near Woodstock, Oxon. + +At the beginning of the long vacation, Hugby comes to town, and puts up +in handsome lodgings near St. James's Square; rides in the Park in the +afternoon; and is delighted to read his name in the morning papers among +the list of persons present at Muffborough House, and the Marquis of +Farintosh's evening-parties. He is a member of Sydney Scraper's Club, +where, however, he drinks his pint of claret. + +Sometimes you may see him on Sundays, at the hour when tavern doors +open, whence issue little girls with great jugs of porter; when +charity-boys walk the streets, bearing brown dishes of smoking shoulders +of mutton and baked 'taturs; when Sheeny and Moses are seen smoking +their pipes before their lazy shutters in Seven Dials; when a crowd of +smiling persons in clean outlandish dresses, in monstrous bonnets and +flaring printed gowns, or in crumpled glossy coats and silks that bear +the creases of the drawers where they have lain all the week, file down +High Street,--sometimes, I say, you may see Hugby coming out of the +Church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, with a stout gentlewoman leaning +on his arm, whose old face bears an expression of supreme pride and +happiness as she glances round at all the neighbours, and who faces the +curate himself and marches into Holborn, where she pulls the bell of a +house over which is inscribed, 'Hugby, Haberdasher.' It is the mother of +the Rev. F. Hugby, as proud of her son in his white choker as Cornelia +of her jewels at Rome. That is old Hugby bringing up the rear with the +Prayer-books, and Betsy Hugby the old maid, his daughter,--old Hugby, +Haberdasher and Church-warden. + +In the front room upstairs, where the dinner is laid out, there is +a picture of Muffborough Castle; of the Earl of Muffborough, K.X., +Lord-Lieutenant for Diddlesex; an engraving, from an almanac, of Saint +Boniface College, Oxon; and a sticking-plaster portrait of Hugby when +young, in a cap and gown. A copy of his 'Sermons to a Nobleman's Family' +is on the bookshelf, by the 'Whole Duty of Man,' the Reports of the +Missionary Societies, and the 'Oxford University Calendar.' Old Hugby +knows part of this by heart; every living belonging to Saint Boniface, +and the name of every tutor, fellow, nobleman, and undergraduate. + +He used to go to meeting and preach himself, until his son took orders; +but of late the old gentleman has been accused of Puseyism, and is quite +pitiless against the Dissenters. + + + +CHAPTER XV--ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS + +I should like to fill several volumes with accounts of various +University Snobs; so fond are my reminiscences of them, and so numerous +are they. I should like to speak, above all, of the wives and daughters +of some of the Professor-Snobs; their amusements, habits, jealousies; +their innocent artifices to entrap young men; their picnics, concerts, +and evening-parties. I wonder what has become of Emily Blades, daughter +of Blades, the Professor of the Mandingo language? I remember her +shoulders to this day, as she sat in the midst of a crowd of about +seventy young gentlemen, from Corpus and Catherine Hall, entertaining +them with ogles and French songs on the guitar. Are you married, fair +Emily of the shoulders? What beautiful ringlets those were that used to +dribble over them!--what a waist!--what a killing sea-green shot-silk +gown!--what a cameo, the size of a muffin! There were thirty-six young +men of the University in love at one time with Emily Blades: and no +words are sufficient to describe the pity, the sorrow, the deep, +deep commiseration--the rage, fury, and uncharitableness, in other +words--with which the Miss Trumps (daughter of Trumps, the Professor +of Phlebotomy) regarded her, because she DIDN'T squint, and because she +WASN'T marked with the small-pox. + +As for the young University Snobs, I am getting too old, now, to speak +of such very familiarly. My recollections of them lie in the far, far +past--almost as far back as Pelham's time. + +We THEN used to consider Snobs raw-looking lads, who never missed +chapel; who wore highlows and no straps; who walked two hours on the +Trumpington road every day of their lives; who carried off the college +scholarships, and who overrated themselves in hall. We were premature in +pronouncing our verdict of youthful Snobbishness The man without straps +fulfilled his destiny and duty. He eased his old governor, the curate +in Westmoreland, or helped his sisters to set up the Ladies' School. He +wrote a 'Dictionary,' or a 'Treatise on Conic Sections,' as his nature +and genius prompted. He got a fellowship: and then took to himself a +wife, and a living. He presides over a parish now, and thinks it rather +a dashing thing to belong to the 'Oxford and Cambridge Club;' and his +parishioners love him, and snore under his sermons. No, no, HE is not a +Snob. It is not straps that make the gentleman, or highlows that unmake +him, be they ever so thick. My son, it is you who are the Snob if you +lightly despise a man for doing his duty, and refuse to shake an honest +man's hand because it wears a Berlin glove. + +We then used to consider it not the least vulgar for a parcel of lads +who had been whipped three months previous, and were not allowed more +than three glasses of port at home, to sit down to pineapples and ices +at each other's rooms, and fuddle themselves with champagne and claret. + +One looks back to what was called a 'wine-party' with a sort of wonder. +Thirty lads round a table covered with bad sweetmeats, drinking bad +wines, telling bad stories, singing bad songs over and over again. Milk +punch--smoking--ghastly headache--frightful spectacle of dessert-table +next morning, and smell of tobacco--your guardian, the clergyman, +dropping in, in the midst of this--expecting to find you deep in +Algebra, and discovering the Gyp administering soda-water. + +There were young men who despised the lads who indulged in the coarse +hospitalities of wine-parties, who prided themselves in giving RECHERCHE +little French dinners. Both wine-party-givers and dinner-givers were +Snobs. + +There were what used to be called 'dressy' Snobs:--Jimmy, who might +be seen at five o'clock elaborately rigged out, with a camellia in his +button-hole, glazed boots, and fresh kid-gloves twice a day;--Jessamy, +who was conspicuous for his 'jewellery,'--a young donkey, glittering +all over with chains, rings, and shirt-studs;--Jacky, who rode every day +solemnly on the Blenheim Road, in pumps and white silk stockings, with +his hair curled,--all three of whom flattered themselves they gave laws +to the University about dress--all three most odious varieties of Snobs. + +Sporting Snobs of course there were, and are always--those happy beings +in whom Nature has implanted a love of slang: who loitered about the +horsekeeper's stables, and drove the London coaches--a stage in and +out--and might be seen swaggering through the courts in pink of early +mornings, and indulged in dice and blind-hookey at nights, and +never missed a race or a boxing-match; and rode flat-races, and kept +bull-terriers. Worse Snobs even than these were poor miserable wretches +who did not like hunting at all, and could not afford it, and were in +mortal fear at a two-foot ditch; but who hunted because Glenlivat and +Cinqbars hunted. The Billiard Snob and the Boating Snob were varieties +of these, and are to be found elsewhere than in universities. + +Then there were Philosophical Snobs, who used to ape statesmen at the +spouting-clubs, and who believed as a fact that Government always had +an eye on the University for the selection of orators for the House of +Commons. There were audacious young free-thinkers, who adored nobody or +nothing, except perhaps Robespierre and the Koran, and panted for the +day when the pale name of priest should shrink and dwindle away before +the indignation of an enlightened world. + +But the worst of all University Snobs are those unfortunates who go +to rack and ruin from their desire to ape their betters. Smith becomes +acquainted with great people at college, and is ashamed of his father +the tradesman. Jones has fine acquaintances, and lives after their +fashion like a gay free-hearted fellow as he is, and ruins his father, +and robs his sister's portion, and cripples his younger brother's outset +in life, for the pleasure of entertaining my lord, and riding by the +side of Sir John. And though it may be very good fun for Robinson to +fuddle himself at home as he does at College, and to be brought home by +the policeman he has just been trying to knock down--think what fun it +is for the poor old soul his mother!--the half-pay captain's widow, who +has been pinching herself all her life long, in order that that jolly +young fellow might have a University education. + + + +CHAPTER XVI--ON LITERARY SNOBS + +What will he say about Literary Snobs? has been a question, I make no +doubt, often asked by the public. How can he let off his own profession? +Will that truculent and unsparing monster who attacks the nobility, the +clergy, the army, and the ladies, indiscriminately, hesitate when the +turn comes to EGORGER his own flesh and blood? + +My dear and excellent querist, whom does the schoolmaster flog so +resolutely as his own son? Didn't Brutus chop his offspring's head off? +You have a very bad opinion indeed of the present state of literature +and of literary men, if you fancy that any one of us would hesitate to +stick a knife into his neighbour penman, if the latter's death could do +the State any service. + +But the fact is, that in the literary profession THERE ARE NO SNOBS. +Look round at the whole body of British men of letters; and I defy you +to point out among them a single instance of vulgarity, or envy, or +assumption. + +Men and women, as far as I have known them, they are all modest in +their demeanour, elegant in their manners, spotless in their lives, and +honourable in their conduct to the world and to each other. You MAY, +occasionally, it is true, hear one literary man abusing his brother; but +why? Not in the least out of malice; not at all from envy; merely from a +sense of truth and public duty. Suppose, for instance, I, good-naturedly +point out a blemish in my friend MR. PUNCH'S person, and say, MR. P. has +a hump-back, and his nose and chin are more crooked than those features +in the Apollo or Antinous, which we are accustomed to consider as our +standards of beauty; does this argue malice on my part towards MR. +PUNCH? Not in the least. It is the critic's duty to point out defects as +well as merits, and he invariably does his duty with utmost gentleness +and candour. + +An intelligent foreigner's testimony about our manners is always worth +having, and I think, in this respect the work of an eminent American, +Mr. N. P. Willis is eminently valuable and impartial. In his 'History +of Ernest Clay,' a crack magazine-writer, the reader will get an exact +account of the life of a popular man of letters in England. He is always +the lion of society. + +He takes the PAS of dukes and earls; all the nobility crowd to see him: +I forget how many baronesses and duchesses fall in love with him. But +on this subject let us hold our tongues. Modesty forbids that we should +reveal the names of the heart-broken countesses and dear marchionesses +who are pining for every one of the contributors in PUNCH. + +If anybody wants to know how intimately authors are connected with +the fashionable world, they have but to read the genteel novels. +What refinement and delicacy pervades the works of Mrs. Barnaby! What +delightful good company do you meet with in Mrs. Armytage! She seldom +introduces you to anybody under a marquis! I don't know anything more +delicious than the pictures of genteel life in 'Ten Thousand a Year,' +except perhaps the 'Young Duke,' and 'Coningsby.' There's a modest +grace about THEM, and an air of easy high fashion, which only belongs to +blood, my dear Sir--to true blood. + +And what linguists many of our writers are! Lady Bulwer, Lady +Londonderry, Sir Edward himself--they write the French language with a +luxurious elegance and ease which sets them far above their continental +rivals, of whom not one (except Paul de Kock) knows a word of English. + +And what Briton can read without enjoyment the works of James, so +admirable for terseness; and the playful humour and dazzling offhand +lightness of Ainsworth? Among other humourists, one might glance at a +Jerrold, the chivalrous advocate of Toryism and Church and State; an a +Beckett, with a lightsome pen, but a savage earnestness of purpose; +a Jeames, whose pure style, and wit unmingled with buffoonery, was +relished by a congenial public. + +Speaking of critics, perhaps there never was a review that has done so +much for literature as the admirable QUARTERLY. It has its prejudices, +to be sure, as which of us has not? It goes out of its way to abuse +a great man, or lays mercilessly on to such pretenders as Keats and +Tennyson; but, on the other hand, it is the friend of all young authors, +and has marked and nurtured all the rising talent of the country. It is +loved by everybody. There, again, is BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE--conspicuous +for modest elegance and amiable satire; that review never passes the +bounds of politeness in a joke. It is the arbiter of manners; and, while +gently exposing the foibles of Londoners (for whom the BEAUX ESPRITS of +Edinburgh entertain a justifiable contempt), it is never coarse in its +fun. The fiery enthusiasm of the ATHENAEUM is well known: and the bitter +wit of the too difficult LITERARY GAZETTE. The EXAMINER is perhaps too +timid, and the SPECTATOR too boisterous in its praise--but who can carp +at these minor faults? No, no; the critics of England and the authors of +England are unrivalled as a body; and hence it becomes impossible for us +to find fault with them. + +Above all, I never knew a man of letters ASHAMED OF HIS PROFESSION. +Those who know us, know what an affectionate and brotherly spirit there +is among us all. Sometimes one of us rises in the world: we never attack +him or sneer at him under those circumstances, but rejoice to a man at +his success. If Jones dines with a lord, Smith never says Jones is a +courtier and cringer. Nor, on the other hand, does Jones, who is in the +habit of frequenting the society of great people, give himself any airs +on account of the company he keeps; but will leave a duke's arm in Pall +Mall to come over and speak to poor Brown, the young penny-a-liner. + +That sense of equality and fraternity amongst authors has always struck +me as one of the most amiable characteristics of the class. It is +because we know and respect each other, that the world respects us so +much; that we hold such a good position in society, and demean ourselves +so irreproachably when there. + +Literary persons are held in such esteem by the nation that about two of +them have been absolutely invited to court during the present reign; and +it is probable that towards the end of the season, one or two will be +asked to dinner by Sir Robert Peel. + +They are such favourites with the public, that they are continually +obliged to have their pictures taken and published; and one or two could +be pointed out, of whom the nation insists upon having a fresh portrait +every year. Nothing can be more gratifying than this proof of the +affectionate regard which the people has for its instructors. + +Literature is held in such honour in England, that there is a sum of +near twelve hundred pounds per annum set apart to pension deserving +persons following that profession. And a great compliment this is, +too, to the professors, and a proof of their generally prosperous and +flourishing condition. They are generally so rich and thrifty, that +scarcely any money is wanted to help them. + +If every word of this is true, how, I should like to know am I to write +about Literary Snobs? + + + +CHAPTER XVII--A LITTLE ABOUT IRISH SNOBS + +You do not, to be sure, imagine that there are no other Snobs in Ireland +than those of the amiable party who wish to make pikes of iron railroads +(it's a fine Irish economy), and to cut the throats of the Saxon +invaders. These are of the venomous sort; and had they been invented in +his time, St. Patrick would have banished them out of the kingdom along +with the other dangerous reptiles. + +I think it is the Four Masters, or else it's Olaus Magnus, or else +it's certainly O'Neill Daunt, in the 'Catechism of Irish History,' who +relates that when Richard the Second came to Ireland, and the Irish +chiefs did homage to him, going down on their knees--the poor simple +creatures!--and worshipping and wondering before the English king and +the dandies of his court, my lords the English noblemen mocked and +jeered at their uncouth Irish admirers, mimicked their talk and +gestures, pulled their poor old beards, and laughed at the strange +fashion of their garments. + +The English Snob rampant always does this to the present day. There is +no Snob in existence, perhaps, that has such an indomitable belief in +himself: that sneers you down all the rest of the world besides, and has +such an insufferable, admirable, stupid contempt for all people but his +own--nay, for all sets but his own. 'Gwacious Gad' what stories about +'the Iwish' these young dandies accompanying King Richard must have had +to tell, when they returned to Pall Mall, and smoked their cigars upon +the steps of 'White's.' + +The Irish snobbishness developes itself not in pride so much as in +servility and mean admirations, and trumpery imitations of their +neighbours. And I wonder De Tocqueville and De Beaumont, and THE TIMES' +Commissioner, did not explain the Snobbishness of Ireland as contrasted +with our own. Ours is that of Richard's Norman Knights,--haughty, brutal +stupid, and perfectly self-confident;--theirs, of the poor, wondering, +kneeling, simple chieftains. They are on their knees still before +English fashion--these simple, wild people; and indeed it is hard not to +grin at some of their NAIVE exhibitions. + +Some years since, when a certain great orator was Lord Mayor of Dublin, +he used to wear a red gown and a cocked hat, the splendour of which +delighted him as much as a new curtain-ring in her nose or a string of +glass-beads round her neck charms Queen Quasheeneboo. He used to pay +visits to people in this dress; to appear at meetings hundreds of miles +off, in the red velvet gown. And to hear the people crying 'Yes, me +Lard!' and 'No, me Lard!' and to read the prodigious accounts of his +Lordship in the papers: it seemed as if the people and he liked to be +taken in by this twopenny splendour. Twopenny magnificence, +indeed, exists all over Ireland, and may be considered as the great +characteristic of the Snobbishness of that country. + +When Mrs. Mulholligan, the grocer's lady, retires to Kingstown, she has +Mulholliganville' painted over the gate of her villa; and receives you +at a door that won't shut or gazes at you out of a window that is glazed +with an old petticoat. + +Be it ever so shabby and dismal, nobody ever owns to keeping a shop. A +fellow whose stock in trade is a penny roll or a tumbler of lollipops, +calls his cabin the 'American Flour Stores,' or the 'Depository for +Colonial Produce,' or some such name. + +As for Inns, there are none in the country; Hotels abound as well +furnished as Mulholliganville; but again there are no such people as +landlords and land-ladies; the landlord is out with the hounds, and my +lady in the parlour talking with the Captain or playing the piano. + +If a gentleman has a hundred a year to leave to his family they all +become gentlemen, all keep a nag, ride to hounds, and swagger about +in the 'Phaynix,' and grow tufts to their chins like so many real +aristocrats. + +A friend of mine has taken to be a painter, and lives out of Ireland, +where he is considered to have disgraced the family by choosing such +a profession. His father is a wine-merchant; and his elder brother an +apothecary. + +The number of men one meets in London and on the Continent who have a +pretty little property of five-and-twenty hundred a year in Ireland +is prodigious: those who WILL have nine thousand a year in land when +somebody dies are still more numerous. I myself have met as many +descendants from Irish kings as would form a brigade. + +And who has not met the Irishman who apes the Englishman, and who +forgets his country and tries to forget his accent, or to smother the +taste of it, as it were? 'Come, dine with me, my boy,' says O'Dowd, of +O'Dowdstown: 'you'll FIND US ALL ENGLISH THERE;' which he tells you with +a brogue as broad as from here to Kingstown Pier. And did you never hear +Mrs. Captain Macmanus talk about 'I-ah-land,' and her account of her +'fawther's esteet?' Very few men have rubbed through the world without +hearing and witnessing some of these Hibernian phenomena--these twopenny +splendours. + +And what say you to the summit of society--the Castle--with a sham +king, and sham lords-in-waiting, and sham loyalty, and a sham Haroun +Alraschid, to go about in a sham disguise, making believe to be affable +and splendid? That Castle is the pink and pride of Snobbishness. A COURT +CIRCULAR is bad enough, with two columns of print about a little baby +that's christened--but think of people liking a sham COURT CIRCULAR! + +I think the shams of Ireland are more outrageous than those of any +country. A fellow shows you a hill and says, 'That's the highest +mountain in all Ireland;' a gentleman tells you he is descended from +Brian Boroo and has his five-and-thirty hundred a year; or Mrs. Macmanus +describes her fawther's esteet; or ould Dan rises and says the Irish +women are the loveliest, the Irish men the bravest, the Irish land the +most fertile in the world: and nobody believes anybody--the latter does +not believe his story nor the hearer:--but they make-believe to believe, +and solemnly do honour to humbug. + +O Ireland! O my country! (for I make little doubt I am descended from +Brian Boroo too) when will you acknowledge that two and two make four, +and call a pikestaff a pikestaff?--that is the very best use you can +make of the latter. Irish snobs will dwindle away then and we shall +never hear tell of Hereditary bondsmen. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--PARTY-GIVING SNOBS + +Our selection of Snobs has lately been too exclusively of a political +character. 'Give us private Snobs,' cry the dear ladies. (I have before +me the letter of one fair correspondent of the fishing village of +Brighthelmstone in Sussex, and could her commands ever be disobeyed?) +'Tell us more, dear Mr. Snob, about your experience of Snobs in +society.' Heaven bless the dear souls!--they are accustomed to the word +now--the odious, vulgar, horrid, unpronounceable word slips out of their +lips with the prettiest glibness possible. I should not wonder if it +were used at Court amongst the Maids of Honour. In the very best society +I know it is. And why not? Snobbishness is vulgar--the mere words +are not: that which we call a Snob, by any other name would still be +Snobbish. + +Well, then. As the season is drawing to a close: as many hundreds +of kind souls, snobbish or otherwise, have quitted London; as many +hospitable carpets are taken up; and window-blinds are pitilessly +papered with the MORNING HERALD; and mansions once inhabited by cheerful +owners are now consigned to the care of the housekeeper's dreary LOCUM +TENENS--some mouldy old woman, who, in reply to the hopeless clanging +of the bell, peers at you for a moment from the area, and then slowly +unbolting the great hall-door, informs you my lady has left town, or +that 'the family's in the country,' or 'gone up the Rind,'--or what not; +as the season and parties are over; why not consider Party-giving Snobs +for a while, and review the conduct of some of those individuals who +have quitted the town for six months? + +Some of those worthy Snobs are making-believe to go yachting, and, +dressed in telescopes and pea-jackets, are passing their time between +Cherbourg and Cowes; some living higgledy-piggledy in dismal little +huts in Scotland, provisioned with canisters of portable soup, +and fricandeaux hermetically sealed in tin, are passing their days +slaughtering grouse upon the moors; some are dozing and bathing away the +effects of the season at Kissingen, or watching the ingenious game of +TRENTE ET QUARANTE at Homburg and Ems. We can afford to be very bitter +upon them now they are all gone. Now there are no more parties, let us +have at the Party-giving Snobs. The dinner-giving, the ball-giving, the +DEJEUNER-giving, the CONVERSAZIONE-GIVING Snobs--Lord! Lord! what +havoc might have been made amongst them had we attacked them during the +plethora of the season! I should have been obliged to have a guard to +defend me from fiddlers and pastrycooks, indignant at the abuse of +their patrons. Already I'm told that, from some flippant and unguarded +expressions considered derogatory to Baker Street and Harley Street, +rents have fallen in these respectable quarters; and orders have been +issued that at least Mr. Snob shall be asked to parties there no more. +Well, then--now they are ALL away, let us frisk at our ease, and have at +everything like the bull in the china-shop. They mayn't hear of what is +going on in their absence, and, if they do they can't bear malice for +six months. We will begin to make it up with them about next February, +and let next year take care of itself. We shall have no dinners from +the dinner-giving Snobs: no more from the ball-givers: no more +CONVERSAZIONES (thank Mussy! as Jeames says,) from the Conversaziones +Snob: and what is to prevent us from telling the truth? + +The snobbishness of Conversazione Snobs is very soon disposed of: as +soon as that cup of washy bohea is handed to you in the tea-room; or the +muddy remnant of ice that you grasp in the suffocating scuffle of the +assembly upstairs. + +Good heavens! What do people mean by going there? What is done there, +that everybody throngs into those three little rooms? Was the Black Hole +considered to be an agreeable REUNION, that Britons in the dog-days here +seek to imitate it? After being rammed to a jelly in a door-way (where +you feel your feet going through Lady Barbara Macbeth's lace flounces, +and get a look from that haggard and painted old harpy, compared to +which the gaze of Ugolino is quite cheerful); after withdrawing your +elbow out of poor gasping Bob Guttleton's white waistcoat, from which +cushion it was impossible to remove it, though you knew you were +squeezing poor Bob into an apoplexy--you find yourself at last in +the reception-room, and try to catch the eye of Mrs. Botibol, the +CONVERSAZIONE-giver. When you catch her eye, you are expected to grin, +and she smiles too, for the four hundredth time that night; and, if +she's very glad to see you, waggles her little hand before her face as +if to blow you a kiss, as the phrase is. + +Why the deuce should Mrs. Botibol blow me a kiss? I wouldn't kiss her +for the world. Why do I grin when I see her, as if I was delighted? Am +I? I don't care a straw for Mrs. Botibol. I know what she thinks about +me. I know what she said about my last volume of poems (I had it from +a dear mutual friend). Why, I say in a word, are we going on ogling +and telegraphing each other in this insane way?--Because we are both +performing the ceremonies demanded by the Great Snob Society; whose +dictates we all of us obey. + +Well; the recognition is over--my jaws have returned to their usual +English expression of subdued agony and intense gloom, and the Botibol +is grinning and kissing her fingers to somebody else, who is squeezing +through the aperture by which we have just entered. It is Lady Ann +Clutterbuck, who has her Friday evenings, as Botibol (Botty, we call +her,) has Wednesdays. That is Miss Clementina Clutterbuck the cadaverous +young woman in green, with florid auburn hair, who has published her +volume of poems ('The Death-Shriek;' 'Damiens;' 'The Faggot of Joan +of Arc;' and 'Translations from the German' of course). The +conversazione-women salute each other calling each other 'My dear Lady +Ann' and 'My dear good Eliza,' and hating each other, as women hate who +give parties on Wednesdays and Fridays. With inexpressible pain dear +good Eliza sees Ann go up and coax and wheedle Abou Gosh, who has just +arrived from Syria, and beg him to patronize her Fridays. + +All this while, amidst the crowd and the scuffle, and a perpetual buzz +and chatter, and the flare of the wax-candles, and an intolerable smell +of musk--what the poor Snobs who write fashionable romances call 'the +gleam of gems, the odour of perfumes, the blaze of countless lamps'--a +scrubby-looking, yellow-faced foreigner, with cleaned gloves, is +warbling inaudibly in a corner, to the accompaniment of another. 'The +Great Cacafogo,' Mrs. Botibol whispers, as she passes you by. 'A great +creature, Thumpenstrumpff, is at the instrument--the Hetman Platoff's +pianist, you know.' + +To hear this Cacafogo and Thumpenstrumpff, a hundred people are gathered +together--a bevy of dowagers, stout or scraggy; a faint sprinkling of +misses; six moody-looking lords, perfectly meek and solemn; wonderful +foreign Counts, with bushy whiskers and yellow faces, and a great deal +of dubious jewellery; young dandies with slim waists and open necks, and +self-satisfied simpers, and flowers in their buttons; the old, stiff, +stout, bald-headed CONVERSAZIONE ROUES, whom You meet everywhere--who +never miss a night of this delicious enjoyment; the three last-caught +lions of the season--Higgs, the traveller, Biggs, the novelist, and +Toffey, who has come out so on the sugar question; Captain Flash, who is +invited on account of his pretty wife and Lord Ogleby, who goes wherever +she goes. + +QUE SCAIS-JE? Who are the owners of all those showy scarfs and white +neckcloths?--Ask little Tom Prig, who is there in all his glory, knows +everybody, has a story about every one; and, as he trips home to his +lodgings in Jermyn Street, with his gibus-hat and his little glazed +pumps, thinks he is the fashionablest young fellow in town, and that he +really has passed a night of exquisite enjoyment. + +You go up (with our usual easy elegance of manner) and talk to Miss +Smith in a corner. 'Oh, Mr. Snob, I'm afraid you're sadly satirical.' + +That's all she says. If you say it's fine weather, she bursts out +laughing; or hint that it's very hot, she vows you are the drollest +wretch! Meanwhile Mrs. Botibol is simpering on fresh arrivals; the +individual at the door is roaring out their names; poor Cacafogo is +quavering away in the music-room, under the impression that he will be +LANCE in the world by singing inaudibly here. And what a blessing it is +to squeeze out of the door, and into the street, where a half-hundred of +carriages are in waiting; and where the link-boy, with that unnecessary +lantern of his, pounces upon all who issue out, and will insist upon +getting your noble honour's lordship's cab. + +And to think that there are people who, after having been to Botibol on +Wednesday, will go to Clutterbuck on Friday! + + + +CHAPTER XIX--DINING-OUT SNOBS + +In England Dinner-giving Snobs occupy a very important place in society, +and the task of describing them is tremendous. There was a time in my +life when the consciousness of having eaten a man's salt rendered me +dumb regarding his demerits, and I thought it a wicked act and a breach +of hospitality to speak ill of him. + +But why should a saddle-of-mutton blind you, or a turbot and +lobster-sauce shut your mouth for ever? With advancing age, men see +their duties more clearly. I am not to be hoodwinked any longer by a +slice of venison, be it ever so fat; and as for being dumb on account of +turbot and lobster-sauce----of course I am; good manners ordain that I +should be so, until I have swallowed the compound--but not afterwards; +directly the victuals are discussed, and John takes away the plate, +my tongue begins to wag. Does not yours, if you have a pleasant +neighbour?--a lovely creature, say, of some five-and-thirty, whose +daughters have not yet quite come out--they are the best talkers. As for +your young misses, they are only put about the table to look at--like +the flowers in the centre-piece. Their blushing youth and natural +modesty preclude them from easy, confidential, conversational ABANDON +which forms the delight of the intercourse with their dear mothers. It +is to these, if he would prosper in his profession, that the Dining-out +Snob should address himself. Suppose you sit next to one of these, how +pleasant it is, in the intervals of the banquet, actually to abuse the +victuals and the giver of the entertainment! It's twice as PIQUANT to +make fun of a man under his very nose. + +'What IS a Dinner-giving Snob?' some innocent youth, who is not REPANDU +in the world, may ask--or some simple reader who has not the benefits of +London experience. + +My dear sir, I will show you--not all, for that is impossible--but +several kinds of Dinner-giving Snobs. For instance, suppose you, in the +middle rank of life, accustomed to Mutton, roast on Tuesday, cold +on Wednesday, hashed on Thursday, &c., with small means and a small +establishment, choose to waste the former and set the latter topsy-turvy +by giving entertainments unnaturally costly--you come into the +Dinner-giving Snob class at once. Suppose you get in cheap-made +dishes from the pastrycook's, and hire a couple of greengrocers, or +carpet-beaters, to figure as footmen, dismissing honest Molly, who waits +on common days, and bedizening your table (ordinarily ornamented with +willow-pattern crockery) with twopenny-halfpenny Birmingham plate. +Suppose you pretend to be richer and grander than you ought to be--you +are a Dinner-giving Snob. And oh, I tremble to think how many and many a +one will read this! + +A man who entertains in this way--and, alas, how few do not!--is like +a fellow who would borrow his neighbour's coat to make a show in, or a +lady who flaunts in the diamonds from next door--a humbug, in a word, +and amongst the Snobs he must be set down. + +A man who goes out of his natural sphere of society to ask Lords, +Generals, Aldermen, and other persons of fashion, but is niggardly of +his hospitality towards his own equals, is a Dinner-giving Snob. My +dear friend, Jack Tufthunt, for example, knows ONE Lord whom he met at +a watering-place: old Lord Mumble, who is as toothless as a +three-months-old baby, and as mum as an undertaker, and as dull +as--well, we will not particularise. Tufthunt never has a dinner now but +you see this solemn old toothless patrician at the right-hand of Mrs. +Tufthunt--Tufthunt is a Dinner-giving Snob. + +Old Livermore, old Soy, old Chutney, the East Indian Director, old +Cutler, the Surgeon, &c.,--that society of old fogies, in fine, who give +each other dinners round and round, and dine for the mere purpose of +guttling--these, again, are Dinner-giving Snobs. + +Again, my friend Lady MacScrew, who has three grenadier flunkeys in lace +round the table, and serves up a scrag-of-mutton on silver, and dribbles +you out bad sherry and port by thimblefuls, is a Dinner-giving Snob of +the other sort; and I confess, for my part, I would rather dine with old +Livermore or old Soy than with her Ladyship. + +Stinginess is snobbish. Ostentation is snobbish. Too great profusion +is snobbish. Tuft-hunting is snobbish. But I own there are people more +snobbish than all those whose defects are above mentioned: viz., those +individuals who can, and don't give dinners at all. The man without +hospitality shall never sit SUB IISDEM TRABIBUS with ME. Let the sordid +wretch go mumble his bone alone! + +What, again, is true hospitality? Alas, my dear friends and brother +Snobs! how little do we meet of it after all! Are the motives PURE which +induce your friends to ask you to dinner? This has often come across me. +Does your entertainer want something from you? For instance, I am not of +a suspicious turn; but it IS a fact that when Hookey is bringing out a +new work, he asks the critics all round to dinner; that when Walker has +got his picture ready for the Exhibition, he somehow grows exceedingly +hospitable, and has his friends of the press to a quiet cutlet and a +glass of Sillery. Old Hunks, the miser, who died lately (leaving his +money to his housekeeper) lived many years on the fat of the land, by +simply taking down, at all his friends', the names and Christian names +OF ALL THE CHILDREN. But though you may have your own opinion about +the hospitality of your acquaintances; and though men who ask you from +sordid motives are most decidedly Dinner-giving Snobs, it is best not +to inquire into their motives too keenly. Be not too curious about the +mouth of a gift-horse. After all, a man does not intend to insult you by +asking you to dinner. + +Though, for that matter, I know some characters about town who actually +consider themselves injured and insulted if the dinner or the company +is not to their liking. There is Guttleton, who dines at home off a +shilling's-worth of beef from the cookshop, but if he is asked to dine +at a house where there are not pease at the end of May, or cucumbers in +March along with the turbot, thinks himself insulted by being invited. +'Good Ged!' says he, 'what the deuce do the Forkers mean by asking ME +to a family dinner? I can get mutton at home;' or 'What infernal +impertinence it is of the Spooners to get ENTREES from the pastrycook's, +and fancy that I am to be deceived with their stories about their French +cook!' Then, again, there is Jack Puddington--I saw that honest fellow +t'other day quite in a rage, because, as chance would have it, Sir +John Carver asked him to meet the very same party he had met at Colonel +Cramley's the day before, and he had not got up a new set of stories +to entertain them. Poor Dinner-giving Snobs! you don't know what small +thanks you get for all your pains and money! How we Dining-out Snobs +sneer at your cookery, and pooh-pooh your old hock, and are incredulous +about your four-and-six-penny champagne, and know that the side-dishes +of to-day are RECHAUFFES from the dinner of yesterday, and mark how +certain dishes are whisked off the table untasted, so that they may +figure at the banquet tomorrow. Whenever, for my part, I see the head +man particularly anxious to ESCAMOTER a fricandeau or a blanc-mange, I +always call out, and insist upon massacring it with a spoon. All this +sort of conduct makes one popular with the Dinner-giving Snob. One +friend of mine, I know, has made a prodigious sensation in good society, +by announcing apropos of certain dishes when offered to him, that he +never eats aspic except at Lord Tittup's, and that Lady Jimmy's CHEF is +the only man in London who knows how to dress--FILET EN SERPENTEAU--or +SUPREME DE VOLAILLE AUX TRUFFES. + + + +CHAPTER XX--DINNER-GIVING SNOBS FURTHER CONSIDERED + +If my friends would but follow the present prevailing fashion, I think +they ought to give me a testimonial for the paper on Dinner-giving +Snobs, which I am now writing. What do you say now to a handsome +comfortable dinner-service of plate (NOT including plates, for I hold +silver plates to be sheer wantonness, and would almost as soon think of +silver teacups), a couple of neat teapots, a coffeepot, trays, &c., with +a little inscription to my wife, Mrs. Snob; and a half-score of silver +tankards for the little Snoblings, to glitter on the homely table where +they partake of their quotidian mutton? + +If I had my way, and my plans could be carried out, dinner-giving would +increase as much on the one hand as dinner-giving Snobbishness would +diminish:--to my mind the most amiable part of the work lately published +by my esteemed friend (if upon a very brief acquaintance he will allow +me to call him so), Alexis Soyer, the regenerator--what he (in his noble +style) would call the most succulent, savoury, and elegant passages--are +those which relate, not to the grand banquets and ceremonial dinners, +but to his 'dinners at home.' + +The 'dinner at home' ought to be the centre of the whole system +of dinner-giving. Your usual style of meal--that is, plenteous, +comfortable, and in its perfection--should be that to which you welcome +your friends, as it is that of which you partake yourself. + +For, towards what woman in the world do I entertain a higher regard than +towards the beloved partner of my existence, Mrs. Snob? Who should have +a greater place in my affections than her six brothers (three or four +of whom we are pretty sure will favour us with their company at seven +o'clock), or her angelic mother, my own valued mother-in-law?--for whom, +finally, would I wish to cater more generously than for your very humble +servant, the present writer? Now, nobody supposes that the Birmingham +plate is had out, the disguised carpet-beaters introduced to the +exclusion of the neat parlour-maid, the miserable ENTREES from the +pastrycook's ordered in, and the children packed off (as it is supposed) +to the nursery, but really only to the staircase, down which they slide +during the dinner-time, waylaying the dishes as they come out, and +fingering the round bumps on the jellies, and the forced-meat balls +in the soup,--nobody, I say, supposes that a dinner at home is +characterized by the horrible ceremony, the foolish makeshifts, the mean +pomp and ostentation which distinguish our banquets on grand field-days. + +Such a notion is monstrous. I would as soon think of having my dearest +Bessy sitting opposite me in a turban and bird of paradise, and showing +her jolly mottled arms out of blond sleeves in her famous red satin +gown: ay, or of having Mr. Toole every day, in a white waistcoat, at my +back, shouting, 'Silence FAW the chair!' + +Now, if this be the case; if the Brummagem-plate pomp and the +processions of disguised footmen are odious and foolish in everyday +life, why not always? Why should Jones and I, who are in the middle +rank, alter the modes of our being to assume an ECLAT which does not +belong to us--to entertain our friends, who (if we are worth anything +and honest fellows at bottom,) are men of the middle rank too, who are +not in the least deceived by our temporary splendour, and who play off +exactly the same absurd trick upon us when they ask us to dine? + +If it be pleasant to dine with your friends, as all persons with good +stomachs and kindly hearts will, I presume, allow it to be, it is better +to dine twice than to dine once. It is impossible for men of small means +to be continually spending five-and-twenty or thirty shillings on each +friend who sits down to their table. People dine for less. I myself have +seen, at my favourite Club (the Senior United Service), His Grace the +Duke of Wellington quite contented with the joint, one-and-three, and +half-pint of sherry, nine; and if his Grace, why not you and I? + +This rule I have made, and found the benefit of. Whenever I ask a couple +of Dukes and a Marquis or so to dine with me, I set them down to a piece +of beef, or a leg-of-mutton and trimmings. The grandees thank you for +this simplicity, and appreciate the same. My dear Jones, ask any of +those whom you have the honour of knowing, if such be not the case. + +I am far from wishing that their Graces should treat me in a similar +fashion. Splendour is a part of their station, as decent comfort (let us +trust), of yours and mine. Fate has comfortably appointed gold plate for +some, and has bidden others contentedly to wear the willow-pattern. And +being perfectly contented (indeed humbly thankful--for look around, O +Jones, and see the myriads who are not so fortunate,) to wear honest +linen, while magnificos of the world are adorned with cambric and +point-lace, surely we ought to hold as miserable, envious fools, those +wretched Beaux Tibbs's of society, who sport a lace dickey, and nothing +besides,--the poor silly jays, who trail a peacock's feather behind +them, and think to simulate the gorgeous bird whose nature it is to +strut on palace-terraces, and to flaunt his magnificent fan-tail in the +sunshine! + +The jays with peacocks' feathers are the Snobs of this world: and never, +since the days of Aesop, were they more numerous in any land than they +are at present in this free country. + +How does this most ancient apologue apply to the subject in hand?--the +Dinner-giving Snob. The imitation of the great is universal in this +city, from the palaces of Kensingtonia and Belgravia, even to the +remotest corner of Brunswick Square. + +Peacocks' feathers are stuck in the tails of most families. Scarce +one of us domestic birds but imitates the lanky, pavonine strut, and +shrill, genteel scream. O you misguided dinner-giving Snobs, think how +much pleasure you lose, and how much mischief you do with your +absurd grandeurs and hypocrisies! You stuff each other with unnatural +forced-meats, and entertain each other to the ruin of friendship +(let alone health) and the destruction of hospitality and +good-fellowship--you, who but for the peacock's tail might chatter away +so much at your ease, and be so jovial and happy! + +When a man goes into a great set company of dinner-giving and +dinner-receiving Snobs, if he has a philosophical turn of mind, he will +consider what a huge humbug the whole affair is: the dishes, and the +drink, and the servants, and the plate, and the host and hostess, and +the conversation, and the company,--the philosopher included. + +The host is smiling, and hob-nobbing, and talking up and down the +table; but a prey to secret terrors and anxieties, lest the wines he +has brought up from the cellar should prove insufficient; lest a corked +bottle should destroy his calculations; or our friend the carpet-beater, +by making some BEVUE, should disclose his real quality of greengrocer, +and show that he is not the family butler. + +The hostess is smiling resolutely through all the courses, smiling +through her agony; though her heart is in the kitchen, and she is +speculating with terror lest there be any disaster there. If the SOUFFLE +should collapse, or if Wiggins does not send the ices in time--she feels +as if she would commit suicide--that smiling, jolly woman! + +The children upstairs are yelling, as their maid is crimping their +miserable ringlets with hot tongs, tearing Miss Emmy's hair out by the +roots, or scrubbing Miss Polly's dumpy nose with mottled soap till the +little wretch screams herself into fits. The young males of the +family are employed, as we have stated, in piratical exploits upon the +landing-place. + +The servants are not servants, but the before-mentioned retail +tradesmen. + +The plate is not plate, but a mere shiny Birmingham lacquer; and so is +the hospitality, and everything else. + +The talk is Birmingham talk. The wag of the party, with bitterness in +his heart, having just quitted his laundress, who is dunning him for her +bill, is firing off good stories; and the opposition wag is furious +that he cannot get an innings. Jawkins, the great conversationalist, is +scornful and indignant with the pair of them, because he is kept out of +court. Young Muscadel, that cheap dandy, is talking Fashion and Almack's +out of the MORNING POST, and disgusting his neighbour, Mrs. Fox, who +reflects that she has never been there. The widow is vexed out of +patience, because her daughter Maria has got a place beside young +Cambric, the penniless curate, and not by Colonel Goldmore, the rich +widower from India. The Doctor's wife is sulky, because she has not been +led out before the barrister's lady; old Doctor Cork is grumbling at the +wine, and Guttleton sneering at the cookery. + +And to think that all these people might be so happy, and easy, and +friendly, were they brought together in a natural unpretentious way, +and but for an unhappy passion for peacocks' feathers in England. Gentle +shades of Marat and Robespierre! when I see how all the honesty of +society is corrupted among us by the miserable fashion-worship, I feel +as angry as Mrs. Fox just mentioned, and ready to order a general BATTUE +of peacocks. + + + +CHAPTER XXI--SOME CONTINENTAL SNOBS + +Now that September has come, and all our Parliamentary duties are over, +perhaps no class of Snobs are in such high feather as the Continental +Snobs. I watch these daily as they commence their migrations from the +beach at Folkestone. I see shoals of them depart (not perhaps without +an innate longing too to quit the Island along with those happy Snobs). +Farewell, dear friends, I say: you little know that the individual +who regards you from the beach is your friend and historiographer and +brother. + +I went to-day to see our excellent friend Snooks, on board the 'Queen of +the French;' many scores of Snobs were there, on the deck of that fine +ship, marching forth in their pride and bravery. They will be at Ostend +in four hours; they will inundate the Continent next week; they will +carry into far lands the famous image of the British Snob. I shall +not see them--but am with them in spirit: and indeed there is hardly a +country in the known and civilized world in which these eyes have not +beheld them. + +I have seen Snobs, in pink coats and hunting-boots, scouring over the +Campagna of Rome; and have heard their oaths and their well-known slang +in the galleries of the Vatican, and under the shadowy arches of +the Colosseum. I have met a Snob on a dromedary in the desert, and +picnicking under the Pyramid of Cheops. I like to think how many gallant +British Snobs there are, at this minute of writing, pushing their +heads out of every window in the courtyard of 'Meurice's' in the Rue +de Rivoli; or roaring out, 'Garsong, du pang,' 'Garsong, du Yang;' or +swaggering down the Toledo at Naples; or even how many will be on the +look-out for Snooks on Ostend Pier,--for Snooks, and the rest of the +Snobs on board the 'Queen of the French.' + +Look at the Marquis of Carabas and his two carriages. My Lady +Marchioness comes on board, looks round with that happy air of mingled +terror and impertinence which distinguishes her ladyship, and rushes to +her carriage, for it is impossible that she should mingle with the +other Snobs on deck. There she sits, and will be ill in private. The +strawberry leaves on her chariot-panels are engraved on her ladyship's +heart. If she were going to heaven instead of to Ostend, I rather think +she would expect to have DES PLACES RESERVEES for her, and would send to +order the best rooms. A courier, with his money-bag of office round his +shoulders--a huge scowling footman, whose dark pepper-and-salt livery +glistens with the heraldic insignia of the Carabases--a brazen-looking, +tawdry French FEMME-DE-CHAMBRE (none but a female pen can do justice +to that wonderful tawdry toilette of the lady's-maid EN VOYAGE)--and +a miserable DAME DE COMPAGNIE, are ministering to the wants of her +ladyship and her King Charles's spaniel. They are rushing to and fro +with eau-de-Cologne, pocket-handkerchiefs, which are all fringe and +cipher, and popping mysterious cushions behind and before, and in every +available corner of the carriage. + +The little Marquis, her husband is walking about the deck in a +bewildered manner, with a lean daughter on each arm: the carroty-tufted +hope of the family is already smoking on the foredeck in a travelling +costume checked all over, and in little lacquer-tip pod jean boots, and +a shirt embroidered with pink boa-constrictors. 'What is it that gives +travelling Snobs such a marvellous propensity to rush into a costume? +Why should a man not travel in a coat, &c.? but think proper to dress +himself like a harlequin in mourning? See, even young Aldermanbury, +the tallow-merchant, who has just stepped on board, has got a +travelling-dress gaping all over with pockets; and little Tom Tapeworm, +the lawyer's clerk out of the City, who has but three weeks' leave, +turns out in gaiters and a bran-new shooting-jacket, and must let the +moustaches grow on his little sniffy upper lip, forsooth! + +Pompey Hicks is giving elaborate directions to his servant, and asking +loudly, 'Davis, where's the dwessing-case?' and 'Davis, you'd best +take the pistol-case into the cabin.' Little Pompey travels with a +dressing-case, and without a beard: whom he is going to shoot with his +pistols, who on earth can tell? and what he is to do with his servant +but wait upon him, I am at a loss to conjecture. + +Look at honest Nathan Houndsditch and his lady, and their little son. +What a noble air of blazing contentment illuminates the features of +those Snobs of Eastern race! What a toilette Houndsditch's is! What +rings and chains, what gold-headed canes and diamonds, what a tuft the +rogue has got to his chin (the rogue! he will never spare himself any +cheap enjoyment!) Little Houndsditch has a little cane with a gilt head +and little mosaic ornaments--altogether an extra air. As for the lady, +she is all the colours of the rainbow! she has a pink parasol, with a +white lining, and a yellow bonnet, and an emerald green shawl, and +a shot-silk pelisse; and drab boots and rhubarb-coloured gloves; +and parti-coloured glass buttons, expanding from the size of a +fourpenny-piece to a crown, glitter and twiddle all down the front +of her gorgeous costume. I have said before, I like to look at 'the +Peoples' on their gala days, they are so picturesquely and outrageously +splendid and happy. + +Yonder comes Captain Bull; spick and span, tight and trim; who travels +for four or six months every year of his life; who does not commit +himself by luxury of raiment or insolence of demeanour, but I think is +as great a Snob as any man on board. Bull passes the season in London, +sponging for dinners, and sleeping in a garret near his Club. Abroad, +he has been everywhere; he knows the best wine at every inn in every +capital in Europe; lives with the best English company there; has seen +every palace and picture-gallery from Madrid to Stockholm; speaks +an abominable little jargon of half-a-dozen languages--and knows +nothing--nothing. Bull hunts tufts on the Continent, and is a sort of +amateur courier. He will scrape acquaintance with old Carabas before +they make Ostend; and will remind his lordship that he met him at Vienna +twenty years ago, or gave him a glass of Schnapps up the Righi. We have +said Bull knows nothing: he knows the birth, arms, and pedigree of all +the peerage, has poked his little eyes into every one of the carriages +on board--their panels noted and their crests surveyed; he knows all the +Continental stories of English scandal--how Count Towrowski ran off +with Miss Baggs at Naples--how VERY thick Lady Smigsmag was with young +Cornichon of the French Legation at Florence--the exact amount which +Jack Deuceace won of Bob Greengoose at Baden--what it is that made the +Staggs settle on the Continent: the sum for which the O'Goggarty +estates are mortgaged, &c. If he can't catch a lord he will hook on to a +baronet, or else the old wretch will catch hold of some beardless young +stripling of fashion, and show him 'life' in various and amiable and +inaccessible quarters. Faugh! the old brute! If he has every one of the +vices of the most boisterous youth, at least he is comforted by having +no conscience. He is utterly stupid, but of a jovial turn, He believes +himself to be quite a respectable member of society: but perhaps the +only good action he ever did in his life is the involuntary one of +giving an example to be avoided, and showing what an odious thing in +the social picture is that figure of the debauched old man who passes +through life rather a decorous Silenus, and dies some day in his garret, +alone, unrepenting, and unnoted, save by his astonished heirs, who find +that the dissolute old miser has left money behind him. See! he is up to +old Carabas already! I told you he would. + +Yonder you see the old Lady Mary MacScrew, and those middle-aged young +women her daughters; they are going to cheapen and haggle in Belgium and +up the Rhine until they meet with a boarding-house where they can live +upon less board-wages than her ladyship pays her footmen. But she will +exact and receive considerable respect from the British Snobs located in +the watering place which she selects for her summer residence, being the +daughter of the Earl of Haggistoun. That broad-shouldered buck, with the +great whiskers and the cleaned white kid-gloves, is Mr. Phelim Clancy of +Poldoodystown: he calls himself Mr. De Clancy; he endeavours to disguise +his native brogue with the richest superposition of English; and if you +play at billiards or ECARTE with him, the chances are that you will win +the first game, and he the seven or eight games ensuing. + +That overgrown lady with the four daughters, and the young dandy from +the University, her son, is Mrs. Kewsy, the eminent barrister's lady, +who would rather die than not be in the fashion. She has the 'Peerage' +in her carpet-bag, you may be sure; but she is altogether cut out by +Mrs. Quod, the attorney's wife, whose carriage, with the apparatus of +rumbles, dickeys, and imperials, scarcely yields in splendour to the +Marquis of Carabas's own travelling-chariot, and whose courier has even +bigger whiskers and a larger morocco money-bag than the Marquis's own +travelling gentleman. Remark her well: she is talking to Mr. Spout, the +new Member for Jawborough, who is going out to inspect the operations +of the Zollverein, and will put some very severe questions to Lord +Palmerston next session upon England and her relations with the +Prussian-blue trade, the Naples-soap trade, the German-tinder trade, &c. +Spout will patronize King Leopold at Brussels; will write letters from +abroad to the JAWBOROUGH INDEPENDENT; and in his quality of MEMBER DU +PARLIAMONG BRITANNIQUE, will expect to be invited to a family dinner +with every sovereign whose dominions he honours with a visit during his +tour. + +The next person is--but hark! the bell for shore is ringing, and, +shaking Snook's hand cordially, we rush on to the pier, waving him a +farewell as the noble black ship cuts keenly through the sunny azure +waters, bearing away that cargo of Snobs outward bound. + + + +CHAPTER XXII--CONTINENTAL SNOBBERY CONTINUED + +We are accustomed to laugh at the French for their braggadocio +propensities, and intolerable vanity about La France, la gloire, +l'Empereur, and the like; and yet I think in my heart that the British +Snob, for conceit and self-sufficiency and braggartism in his way, is +without a parallel. There is always something uneasy in a Frenchman's +conceit. He brags with so much fury, shrieking, and gesticulation; yells +out so loudly that the Francais is at the head of civilization, the +centre of thought, &c.; that one can't but see the poor fellow has a +lurking doubt in his own mind that he is not the wonder he professes to +be. + +About the British Snob, on the contrary, there is commonly no noise, no +bluster, but the calmness of profound conviction. We are better than all +the world; we don't question the opinion at all; it's an axiom. And when +a Frenchman bellows out, 'LA FRANCE, MONSIEUR, LA FRANCE EST A LA TETE +DU MONDE CIVILISE!' we laugh good-naturedly at the frantic poor devil. +WE are the first chop of the world: we know the fact so well in our +secret hearts that a claim set up elsewhere is simply ludicrous. My dear +brother reader, say, as a man of honour, if you are not of this opinion? +Do you think a Frenchman your equal? You don't--you gallant British +Snob--you know you don't: no more, perhaps, does the Snob your humble +servant, brother. + +And I am inclined to think it is this conviction, and the consequent +bearing of the Englishman towards the foreigner whom he condescends to +visit, this confidence of superiority which holds up the head of the +owner of every English hat-box from Sicily to St. Petersburg, that makes +us so magnificently hated throughout Europe as we are; this--more than +all our little victories, and of which many Frenchmen and Spaniards have +never heard--this amazing and indomitable insular pride, which animates +my lord in his travelling-carriage as well as John in the rumble. + +If you read the old Chronicles of the French wars, you find precisely +the same character of the Englishman, and Henry V.'s people behaved with +just the cool domineering manner of our gallant veterans of France +and the Peninsula. Did you never hear Colonel Cutler and Major Slasher +talking over the war after dinner? or Captain Boarder describing his +action with the 'Indomptable?' 'Hang the fellows,' says Boarder, 'their +practice was very good. I was beat off three times before I took her.' +'Cuss those carabineers of Milhaud's,' says Slasher, 'what work they +made of our light cavalry!' implying a sort of surprise that the +Frenchman should stand up against Britons at all: a good-natured wonder +that the blind, mad, vain-glorious, brave poor devils should actually +have the courage to resist an Englishman. Legions of such Englishmen +are patronizing Europe at this moment, being kind to the Pope, or +good-natured to the King of Holland, or condescending to inspect the +Prussian reviews. When Nicholas came here, who reviews a quarter of a +million of pairs of moustaches to his breakfast every morning, we took +him off to Windsor and showed him two whole regiments of six or eight +hundred Britons a-piece, with an air as much as to say,--'There, my boy, +look at THAT. Those are ENGLISHMEN, those are, and your master whenever +you please,' as the nursery song says. The British Snob is long, long +past scepticism, and can afford to laugh quite good-humouredly at those +conceited Yankees, or besotted little Frenchmen, who set up as models of +mankind. THEY forsooth! + +I have been led into these remarks by listening to an old fellow at the +Hotel du Nord, at Boulogne, and who is evidently of the Slasher sort. He +came down and seated himself at the breakfast-table, with a surly +scowl on his salmon-coloured bloodshot face, strangling in a tight, +cross-barred cravat; his linen and his appointments so perfectly stiff +and spotless that everybody at once recognized him as a dear countryman. +Only our port-wine and other admirable institutions could have produced +a figure so insolent, so stupid, so gentleman-like. After a while our +attention was called to him by his roaring out, in a voice of plethoric +fury, 'O!' + +Everybody turned round at the 'O,' conceiving the Colonel to be, as his +countenance denoted him, in intense pain; but the waiters knew better, +and instead of being alarmed, brought the Colonel the kettle. 'O,' it +appears, is the French for hot-water. The Colonel (though he despises it +heartily) thinks he speaks the language remarkably well. Whilst he was +inhausting his smoking tea, which went rolling and gurgling down his +throat, and hissing over the 'hot coppers' of that respectable veteran, +a friend joined him, with a wizened face and very black wig, evidently a +Colonel too. + +The two warriors, waggling their old heads at each other, presently +joined breakfast, and fell into conversation, and we had the advantage +of hearing about the old war, and some pleasant conjectures as to the +next, which they considered imminent. They psha'd the French fleet; they +pooh-pooh'd the French commercial marine; they showed how, in a war, +there would be a cordon ('a cordong, by---') of steamers along our +coast, and 'by ---,' ready at a minute to land anywhere on the other +shore, to give the French as good a thrashing as they got in the last +war, 'by ---'. In fact, a rumbling cannonade of oaths was fired by the +two veterans during the whole of their conversation. + +There was a Frenchman in the room, but as he had not been above ten +years in London, of course he did not speak the language, and lost the +benefit of the conversation. 'But, O my country!' said I to myself, it's +no wonder that you are so beloved! If I were a Frenchman, how I would +hate you!' + +That brutal, ignorant, peevish bully of an Englishman is showing himself +in every city of Europe. One of the dullest creatures under heaven, he +goes travelling Europe under foot, shouldering his way into galleries +and cathedrals, and bustling into palaces with his buck-ram uniform. +At church or theatre, gala or picture-gallery, HIS face never varies. +A thousand delightful sights pass before his bloodshot eyes, and don't +affect him. Countless brilliant scenes of life and manners are shown +him, but never move him. He goes to church, and calls the practices +there degrading and superstitious: as if HIS altar was the only one that +was acceptable. He goes to picture-galleries, and is more ignorant about +Art than a French shoeblack. Art, Nature pass, and there is no dot of +admiration in his stupid eyes: nothing moves him, except when a very +great man comes his way, and then the rigid, proud, self-confident, +inflexible British Snob can be as humble as a flunkey and as supple as a +harlequin. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII--ENGLISH SNOBS ON THE CONTINENT + +'WHAT is the use of Lord Rome's telescope?' my friend Panwiski exclaimed +the other day. 'It only enables you to see a few hundred thousands of +miles farther. What were thought to be mere nebulae, turn out to be most +perceivable starry systems; and beyond these, you see other nebulae, +which a more powerful glass will show to be stars, again; and so they go +on glittering and winking away into eternity.' With which my friend Pan, +heaving a great sigh, as if confessing his inability to look Infinity in +the face, sank back resigned, and swallowed a large bumper of claret. + +I (who, like other great men, have but one idea), thought to myself, +that as the stars are, so are the Snobs:--the more you gaze upon those +luminaries, the more you behold--now nebulously congregated--now faintly +distinguishable--now brightly defined--until they twinkle off in endless +blazes, and fade into the immeasurable darkness. I am but as a child +playing on the sea-shore. Some telescopic philosopher will arise one +day, some great Snobonomer, to find the laws of the great science which +we are now merely playing with, and to define, and settle, and classify +that which is at present but vague theory, and loose though elegant +assertion. + +Yes: a single eye can but trace a very few and simple varieties of +the enormous universe of Snobs. I sometimes think of appealing to +the public, and calling together a congress of SAVANS, such as met at +Southampton--each to bring his contributions and read his paper on the +Great Subject. For what can a single poor few do, even with the subject +at present in hand? English Snobs on the Continent--though they are a +hundred thousand times less numerous than on their native island, yet +even these few are too many. One can only fix a stray one here and +there. The individuals are caught--the thousands escape. I have noted +down but three whom I have met with in my walk this morning through this +pleasant marine city of Boulogne. + +There is the English Raff Snob, that frequents ESTAMINETS and CABARETS; +who is heard yelling, 'We won't go home till morning!' and startling +the midnight echoes of quiet Continental towns with shrieks of English +slang. The boozy unshorn wretch is seen hovering round quays as packets +arrive, and tippling drains in inn bars where he gets credit. He +talks French with slang familiarity: he and his like quite people the +debt-prisons on the Continent. He plays pool at the billiard-houses, and +may be seen engaged at cards and dominoes of forenoons. His signature is +to be seen on countless bills of exchange: it belonged to an honourable +family once, very likely; for the English Raff most probably began by +being a gentleman, and has a father over the water who is ashamed to +hear his name. He has cheated the old 'governor' repeatedly in better +days, and swindled his sisters of their portions, and robbed his younger +brothers. Now he is living on his wife's jointure: she is hidden away in +some dismal garret, patching shabby finery and cobbling up old clothes +for her children--the most miserable and slatternly of women. + +Or sometimes the poor woman and her daughters go about timidly, giving +lessons in English and music, or do embroidery and work under-hand, to +purchase the means for the POT-AU-FEU; while Raff is swaggering on the +quay, or tossing off glasses of cognac at the CAFE. The unfortunate +creature has a child still every year, and her constant hypocrisy is to +try and make her girls believe that their father is a respectable man, +and to huddle him out of the way when the brute comes home drunk. + +Those poor ruined souls get together and have a society of their own, +the which it is very affecting to watch--those tawdry pretences at +gentility, those flimsy attempts at gaiety: those woful sallies: that +jingling old piano; oh, it makes the heart sick to see and hear them. As +Mrs. Raff, with her company of pale daughters, gives a penny tea to Mrs. +Diddler, they talk about bygone times and the fine society they kept; +and they sing feeble songs out of tattered old music-books; and while +engaged in this sort of entertainment, in comes Captain Raff with his +greasy hat on one side, and straightway the whole of the dismal room +reeks with a mingled odour of smoke and spirits. + +Has not everybody who has lived abroad met Captain Raff? His name is +proclaimed, every now and then, by Mr. Sheriff's Officer Hemp; and about +Boulogne, and Paris, and Brussels, there are so many of his sort that +I will lay a wager that I shall be accused of gross personality for +showing him up. Many a less irreclaimable villain is transported; many a +more honourable man is at present at the treadmill; and although we +are the noblest, greatest, most religious, and most moral people in the +world, I would still like to know where, except in the United Kingdom, +debts are a matter of joke, and making tradesmen 'suffer' a sport that +gentlemen own to? It is dishonourable to owe money in France. You never +hear people in other parts of Europe brag of their swindling; or see +a prison in a large Continental town which is not more or less peopled +with English rogues. + +A still more loathsome and dangerous Snob than the above transparent and +passive scamp, is frequent on the continent of Europe, and my young Snob +friends who are travelling thither should be especially warned against +him. Captain Legg is a gentleman, like Raff, though perhaps of a better +degree. He has robbed his family too, but of a great deal more, and has +boldly dishonoured bills for thousands, where Raff has been boggling +over the clumsy conveyance of a ten-pound note. Legg is always at the +best inn, with the finest waistcoats and moustaches, or tearing about +in the flashest of britzkas, while poor Raff is tipsifying himself with +spirits, and smoking cheap tobacco. It is amazing to think that Legg, so +often shown up, and known everywhere, is flourishing yet. He would sink +into utter ruin, but for the constant and ardent love of gentility that +distinguishes the English Snob. There is many a young fellow of the +middle classes who must know Legg to be a rogue and a cheat; and yet +from his desire to be in the fashion, and his admiration of tip-top +swells, and from his ambition to air himself by the side of a Lord's +son, will let Legg make an income out of him; content to pay, so long +as he can enjoy that society. Many a worthy father of a family, when he +hears that his son is riding about with Captain Legg, Lord Levant's son, +is rather pleased that young Hopeful should be in such good company. + +Legg and his friend, Major Macer, make professional tours through +Europe, and are to be found at the right places at the right time. Last +year I heard how my young acquaintance, Mr. Muff, from Oxford, going +to see a little life at a Carnival ball at Paris, was accosted by an +Englishman who did not know a word of the d----language, and hearing +Muff speak it so admirably, begged him to interpret to a waiter with +whom there was a dispute about refreshments. It was quite a comfort, the +stranger said, to see an honest English face; and did Muff know where +there was a good place for supper? So those two went to supper, and who +should come in, of all men in the world, but Major Macer? And so Legg +introduced Macer, and so there came on a little intimacy, and three-card +loo, &c. &c.. Year after year scores of Muffs, in various places in +the world, are victimised by Legg and Macer. The story is so stale, the +trick of seduction so entirely old and clumsy, that it is only a +wonder people can be taken in any more: but the temptations of vice +and gentility together are too much for young English Snobs, and those +simple young victims are caught fresh every day. Though it is only to +be kicked and cheated by men of fashion, your true British Snob will +present himself for the honour. + +I need not allude here to that very common British Snob, who makes +desperate efforts at becoming intimate with the great Continental +aristocracy, such as old Rolls, the baker, who has set up his quarters +in the Faubourg Saint Germain, and will receive none but Carlists, and +no French gentleman under the rank of a Marquis. We can all of us laugh +at THAT fellow's pretensions well enough--we who tremble before a great +man of our own nation. But, as you say, my brave and honest John Bull +of a Snob, a French Marquis of twenty descents is very different from +an English Peer; and a pack of beggarly German and Italian Fuersten +and Principi awaken the scorn of an honest-minded Briton. But our +aristocracy!--that's a very different matter. They are the real leaders +of the world--the real old original and-no-mistake nobility. + +Off with your cap, Snob; down on your knees, Snob, and truckle. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV--ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Tired of the town, where the sight of the closed shutters of the +nobility, my friends, makes my heart sick in my walks; afraid almost to +sit in those vast Pall Mall solitudes, the Clubs, and of annoying the +Club waiters, who might, I thought, be going to shoot in the country, +but for me, I determined on a brief tour in the provinces, and paying +some visits in the country which were long due. + +My first visit was to my friend Major Ponto (H.P. of the Horse Marines), +in Mangelwurzelshire. The Major, in his little phaeton, was in waiting +to take me up at the station. The vehicle was not certainly splendid, +but such a carriage as would accommodate a plain man (as Ponto said he +was) and a numerous family. We drove by beautiful fresh fields and green +hedges, through a cheerful English landscape; the high-road, as smooth +and trim as the way in a nobleman's park, was charmingly chequered with +cool shade and golden sunshine. Rustics in snowy smock-frocks jerked +their hats off smiling as we passed. Children, with cheeks as red as the +apples in the orchards, bobbed curtsies to us at the cottage-doors. +Blue church spires rose here and there in the distance: and as the buxom +gardener's wife opened the white gate at the Major's little ivy-covered +lodge, and we drove through the neat plantations of firs and evergreens, +up to the house, my bosom felt a joy and elation which I thought it was +impossible to experience in the smoky atmosphere of a town. 'Here,' I +mentally exclaimed, 'is all peace, plenty, happiness. Here, I shall be +rid of Snobs. There can be none in this charming Arcadian spot.' + +Stripes, the Major's man (formerly corporal in his gallant corps), +received my portmanteau, and an elegant little present, which I had +brought from town as a peace-offering to Mrs. Ponto; viz., a cod and +oysters from Grove's, in a hamper about the size of a coffin. + +Ponto's house ('The Evergreens' Mrs. P. has christened it) is a perfect +Paradise of a place. It is all over creepers, and bow-windows, +and verandahs. A wavy lawn tumbles up and down all round it, with +flower-beds of wonderful shapes, and zigzag gravel walks, and beautiful +but damp shrubberies of myrtles and glistening laurustines, which have +procured it its change of name. It was called Little Bullock's Pound +in old Doctor Ponto's time. I had a view of the pretty grounds, and the +stable, and the adjoining village and church, and a great park beyond, +from the windows of the bedroom whither Ponto conducted me. It was the +yellow bedroom, the freshest and pleasantest of bed-chambers; the air +was fragrant with a large bouquet that was placed on the writing-table; +the linen was fragrant with the lavender in which it had been laid; the +chintz hangings of the bed and the big sofa were, if not fragrant with +flowers, at least painted all over with them; the pen-wiper on the table +was the imitation of a double dahlia; and there was accommodation for my +watch in a sun-flower on the mantelpiece. A scarlet-leaved creeper came +curling over the windows, through which the setting sun was pouring a +flood of golden light. It was all flowers and freshness. Oh, how unlike +those black chimney-pots in St. Alban's Place, London, on which these +weary eyes are accustomed to look. + +'It must be all happiness here, Ponto,' said I, flinging myself down +into the snug BERGERE, and inhaling such a delicious draught of country +air as all the MILLEFLEURS of Mr. Atkinson's shop cannot impart to any +the most expensive pocket-handkerchief. + +'Nice place, isn't it?' said Ponto. 'Quiet and unpretending. I like +everything quiet. You've not brought your valet with you? Stripes will +arrange your dressing things;' and that functionary, entering at the +same time, proceeded to gut my portmanteau, and to lay out the black +kerseymeres, 'the rich cut velvet Genoa waistcoat,' the white choker, +and other polite articles of evening costume, with great gravity and +despatch. 'A great dinner-party,' thinks I to myself, seeing these +preparations (and not, perhaps, displeased at the idea that some of the +best people in the neighbourhood were coming to see me). 'Hark, theres +the first bell ringing! 'said Ponto, moving away; and, in fact, a +clamorous harbinger of victuals began clanging from the stable +turret, and announced the agreeable fact that dinner would appear in +half-an-hour. 'If the dinner is as grand as the dinner-bell,' thought I, +'faith, I'm in good quarters!' and had leisure, during the half-hour's +interval, not only to advance my own person to the utmost polish of +elegance which it is capable of receiving, to admire the pedigree of the +Pontos hanging over the chimney, and the Ponto crest and arms emblazoned +on the wash-hand basin and jug, but to make a thousand reflections on +the happiness of a country life--upon the innocent friendliness and +cordiality of rustic intercourse; and to sigh for an opportunity of +retiring, like Ponto, to my own fields, to my own vine and fig-tree, +with a placens uxor in my domus, and a half-score of sweet young pledges +of affection sporting round my paternal knee. + +Clang! At the end of thirty minutes, dinner-bell number two pealed from +the adjacent turret. I hastened downstairs, expecting to find a score +of healthy country folk in the drawing-room. There was only one person +there; a tall and Roman-nosed lady, glistering over with bugles, in deep +mourning. She rose, advanced two steps, made a majestic curtsey, during +which all the bugles in her awful head-dress began to twiddle and +quiver--and then said, 'Mr. Snob, we are very happy to see you at the +Evergreens,' and heaved a great sigh. + +This, then, was Mrs. Major Ponto; to whom making my very best bow, I +replied, that I was very proud to make her acquaintance, as also that of +so charming a place as the Evergreens. + +Another sigh. 'We are distantly related, Mr. Snob,' said she, shaking +her melancholy head. 'Poor dear Lord Rubadub!' + +'Oh!' said I; not knowing what the deuce Mrs. Major Ponto meant. + +'Major Ponto told me that you were of the Leicestershire Snobs: a very +old family, and related to Lord Snobbington, who married Laura Rubadub, +who is a cousin of mine, as was her poor dear father, for whom we are +mourning. What a seizure! only sixty-three, and apoplexy quite unknown +until now in our family! In life we are in death, Mr. Snob. Does Lady +Snobbington bear the deprivation well?' + +'Why, really, ma'am, I--I don't know,' I replied, more and more +confused. + +As she was speaking I heard a sort of CLOOP, by which well-known sound I +was aware that somebody was opening a bottle of wine, and Ponto entered, +in a huge white neckcloth, and a rather shabby black suit. + +'My love,' Mrs. Major Ponto said to her husband, 'we were talking of our +cousin--poor dear Lord Rubadub. His death has placed some of the first +families in England in mourning. Does Lady Rubadub keep the house in +Hill Street, do you know?' + +I didn't know, but I said, 'I believe she does,' at a venture; and, +looking down to the drawing-room table, saw the inevitable, abominable, +maniacal, absurd, disgusting 'Peerage' open on the table, interleaved +with annotations, and open at the article 'Snobbington.' + +'Dinner is served,' says Stripes, flinging open the door; and I gave +Mrs. Major Ponto my arm. + + + +CHAPTER XXV--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Of the dinner to which we now sat down, I am not going to be a severe +critic. The mahogany I hold to be inviolable; but this I will say, that +I prefer sherry to marsala when I can get it, and the latter was the +wine of which I have no doubt I heard the 'cloop' just before dinner. +Nor was it particularly good of its kind; however, Mrs. Major Ponto did +not evidently know the difference, for she called the liquor Amontillado +during the whole of the repast, and drank but half a glass of it, +leaving the rest for the Major and his guest. + +Stripes was in the livery of the Ponto family--a thought shabby, but +gorgeous in the extreme--lots of magnificent worsted lace, and livery +buttons of a very notable size. The honest fellow's hands, I remarked, +were very large and black; and a fine odour of the stable was wafted +about the room as he moved to and fro in his ministration. I should have +preferred a clean maidservant, but the sensations of Londoners are too +acute perhaps on these subjects; and a faithful John, after all, IS more +genteel. + +From the circumstance of the dinner being composed of pig's-head +mock-turtle soup, of pig's fry and roast ribs of pork, I am led to +imagine that one of Ponto's black Hampshires had been sacrificed a short +time previous to my visit. It was an excellent and comfortable repast; +only there WAS rather a sameness in it, certainly. I made a similar +remark the next day'. + +During the dinner Mrs. Ponto asked me many questions regarding the +nobility, my relatives. 'When Lady Angelina Skeggs would come out; +and if the countess her mamma' (this was said with much archness and +he-he-ing) 'still wore that extraordinary purple hair-dye?' 'Whether my +Lord Guttlebury kept, besides his French chef, and an English cordonbleu +for the roasts, an Italian for the confectionery?' + +'Who attended at Lady Clapperclaw's conversazioni?' and 'whether Sir +John Champignon's "Thursday Mornings" were pleasant?' 'Was it true that +Lady Carabas, wanting to pawn her diamonds, found that they were paste, +and that the Marquis had disposed of them beforehand?' 'How was it that +Snuffin, the great tobacco-merchant, broke off the marriage which was on +the tapis between him and their second daughter; and was it true that a +mulatto lady came over from the Havanna and forbade the match?' + +'Upon my word, Madam,' I had begun, and was going on to say that I +didn't know one word about all these matters which seemed so to interest +Mrs. Major Ponto, when the Major, giving me a tread or stamp with his +large foot under the table, said--'Come, come, Snob my boy, we are all +tiled, you know. We KNOW you're one of the fashionable people about +town: we saw your name at Lady Clapperclaw's SOIREES, and the Champignon +breakfasts; and as for the Rubadubs, of course, as relations ---' + +'Oh, of course, I dine there twice a-week,' I said; and then I +remembered that my cousin, Humphry Snob, of the Middle Temple, IS a +great frequenter of genteel societies, and to have seen his name in the +MORNING POST at the tag-end of several party lists. So, taking the +hint, I am ashamed to say I indulged Mrs. Major Ponto with a deal of +information about the first families in England, such as would astonish +those great personages if they knew it. I described to her most +accurately the three reigning beauties of last season at Almack's: +told her in confidence that his Grace the D--- of W--- was going to be +married the day after his Statue was put up; that his Grace the D--- of +D--- was also about to lead the fourth daughter of the Archduke Stephen +to the hymeneal altar:--and talked to her, in a word, just in the style +of Mrs. Gore's last fashionable novel. + +Mrs. Major was quite fascinated by this brilliant conversation. She +began to trot out scraps of French, just for all the world as they do +in the novels; and kissed her hand to me quite graciously, telling me +to come soon to caffy, UNG PU DE MUSICK O SALONG--with which she tripped +off like an elderly fairy. + +'Shall I open a bottle of port, or do you ever drink such a thing as +Hollands and water?' says Ponto, looking ruefully at me. This was a very +different style of thing to what I had been led to expect from him at +our smoking-room at the Club: where he swaggers about his horses and +his cellar: and slapping me on the shoulder used to say, 'Come down +to Mangelwurzelshire, Snob my boy, and I'll give you as good a day's +shooting and as good a glass of claret as any in the county.'--'Well,' +I said, 'I like Hollands much better than port, and gin even better than +Hollands.' This was lucky. It WAS gin; and Stripes brought in hot water +on a splendid plated tray. + +The jingling of a harp and piano soon announced that Mrs. Ponto's ung PU +DE MUSICK had commenced, and the smell of the stable again entering +the dining-room, in the person of Stripes, summoned us to CAFFY and the +little concert. She beckoned me with a winning smile to the sofa, on +which she made room for me, and where we could command a fine view +of the backs of the young ladies who were performing the musical +entertainment. Very broad backs they were too, strictly according to +the present mode, for crinoline or its substitutes is not an expensive +luxury, and young people in the country can afford to be in the fashion +at very trifling charges. Miss Emily Ponto at the piano, and her sister +Maria at that somewhat exploded instrument, the harp, were in light blue +dresses that looked all flounce, and spread out like Mr. Green's balloon +when inflated. + +'Brilliant touch Emily has--what a fine arm Maria's is,' Mrs. Ponto +remarked good-naturedly, pointing out the merits of her daughters, and +waving her own arm in such a way as to show that she was not a little +satisfied with the beauty of that member. I observed she had about nine +bracelets and bangles, consisting of chains and padlocks, the Major's +miniature, and a variety of brass serpents with fiery ruby or tender +turquoise eyes, writhing up to her elbow almost, in the most profuse +contortions. + +'You recognize those polkas? They were played at Devonshire House on +the 23rd of July, the day of the grand fete.' So I said yes--I knew 'em +quite intimately; and began wagging my head as if in acknowledgment of +those old friends. + +When the performance was concluded, I had the felicity of a presentation +and conversation with the two tall and scraggy Miss Pontos; and Miss +Wirt, the governess, sat down to entertain us with variations on 'Sich a +gettin' up Stairs.' They were determined to be in the fashion. + +For the performance of the 'Gettin' up Stairs,' I have no other name but +that it was a STUNNER. First Miss Wirt, with great deliberation, played +the original and beautiful melody, cutting it, as it were, out of the +instrument, and firing off each note so loud, clear, and sharp, that I +am sure Stripes must have heard it in the stable. + +'What a finger!' says Mrs. Ponto; and indeed it WAS a finger, as knotted +as a turkey's drumstick, and splaying all over the piano. When she had +banged out the tune slowly, she began a different manner of 'Gettin' up +Stairs,' and did so with a fury and swiftness quite incredible. She spun +up stairs; she whirled up stairs: she galloped up stairs; she rattled up +stairs; and then having got the tune to the top landing, as it were, she +hurled it down again shrieking to the bottom floor, where it sank in a +crash as if exhausted by the breathless rapidity of the descent. Then +Miss Wirt played the 'Gettin' up Stairs' with the most pathetic and +ravishing solemnity: plaintive moans and sobs issued from the keys--you +wept and trembled as you were gettin' up stairs. Miss Wirt's hands +seemed to faint and wail and die in variations: again, and she went up +with a savage clang and rush of trumpets, as if Miss Wirt was storming a +breach; and although I knew nothing of music, as I sat and listened +with my mouth open to this wonderful display, my CAFFY grew cold, and I +wondered the windows did not crack and the chandelier start out of the +beam at the sound of this earthquake of a piece of music. + +'Glorious creature! Isn't she?' said Mrs. Ponto. 'Squirtz's favourite +pupil--inestimable to have such a creature. Lady Carabas would give her +eyes for her! A prodigy of accomplishments! Thank you, Miss Wirt'--and +the young ladies gave a heave and a gasp of admiration--a deep-breathing +gushing sound, such as you hear at church when the sermon comes to a +full stop. + +Miss Wirt put her two great double-knuckled hands round a waist of her +two pupils, and said, 'My dear children, I hope you will be able to play +it soon as well as your poor little governess. When I lived with the +Dunsinanes, it was the dear Duchess's favourite, and Lady Barbara and +Lady Jane McBeth learned it. It was while hearing Jane play that, I +remember, that dear Lord Castletoddy first fell in love with her; and +though he is but an Irish Peer, with not more than fifteen thousand +a year, I persuaded Jane to have him. Do you know Castletoddy, Mr. +Snob?--round towers--sweet place-County Mayo. Old Lord Castletoddy (the +present Lord was then Lord Inishowan) was a most eccentric old man--they +say he was mad. I heard his Royal Highness the poor dear Duke of +Sussex--(SUCH a man, my dears, but alas! addicted to smoking!)--I +heard his Royal Highness say to the Marquis of Anglesey, "I am sure +Castletoddy is mad!" but Inishowan wasn't in marrying my sweet Jane, +though the dear child had but her ten thousand pounds POUR TOUT POTAGE!' + +'Most invaluable person,' whispered Mrs. Major Ponto to me. 'Has lived +in the very highest society:' and I, who have been accustomed to see +governesses bullied in the world, was delighted to find this one ruling +the roast, and to think that even the majestic Mrs. Ponto bent before +her. + +As for my pipe, so to speak, it went out at once. I hadn't a word to say +against a woman who was intimate with every Duchess in the Red Book. She +wasn't the rosebud, but she had been near it. She had rubbed shoulders +with the great, and about these we talked all the evening incessantly, +and about the fashions, and about the Court, until bed-time came. + +'And are there Snobs in this Elysium?' I exclaimed, jumping into the +lavender-perfumed bed. Ponto's snoring boomed from the neighbouring +bed-room in reply. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI--ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Something like a journal of the proceedings at the Evergreens may be +interesting to those foreign readers of PUNCH who want to know the +customs of an English gentleman's family and household. There's plenty +of time to keep the Journal. Piano-strumming begins at six o'clock in +the morning; it lasts till breakfast, with but a minute's intermission, +when the instrument changes hands, and Miss Emily practises in place of +her sister Miss Maria. + +In fact, the confounded instrument never stops when the young ladies are +at their lessons, Miss Wirt hammers away at those stunning variations, +and keeps her magnificent finger in exercise. + +I asked this great creature in what other branches of education she +instructed her pupils? 'The modern languages,' says she modestly: +'French, German, Spanish, and Italian, Latin and the rudiments of Greek +if desired. English of course; the practice of Elocution, Geography, +and Astronomy, and the Use of the Globes, Algebra (but only as far as +quadratic equations); for a poor ignorant female, you know, Mr. Snob, +cannot be expected to know everything. Ancient and Modern History +no young woman can be without; and of these I make my beloved pupils +PERFECT MISTRESSES. Botany, Geology, and Mineralogy, I consider as +amusements. And with these I assure you we manage to pass the days at +the Evergreens not unpleasantly.' + +Only these, thought I--what an education! But I looked in one of Miss +Ponto's manuscript song-books and found five faults of French in four +words; and in a waggish mood asking Miss Wirt whether Dante Algiery was +so called because he was born at Algiers, received a smiling answer in +the affirmative, which made me rather doubt about the accuracy of Miss +Wirt's knowledge. + +When the above little morning occupations are concluded, these +unfortunate young women perform what they call Calisthenic Exercises +in the garden. I saw them to-day, without any crinoline, pulling the +garden-roller. + +Dear Mrs. Ponto was in the garden too, and as limp as her daughters; in +a faded bandeau of hair, in a battered bonnet, in a holland pinafore, +in pattens, on a broken chair, snipping leaves off a vine. Mrs. Ponto +measures many yards about in an evening. Ye heavens! what a guy she is +in that skeleton morning-costume! + +Besides Stripes, they keep a boy called Thomas or Tummus. Tummus works +in the garden or about the pigsty and stable; Thomas wears a page's +costume of eruptive buttons. + +When anybody calls, and Stripes is out of the way, Tummus flings +himself like mad into Thomas's clothes, and comes out metamorphosed +like Harlequin in the pantomime. To-day, as Mrs. P. was cutting the +grapevine, as the young ladies were at the roller, down comes Tummus +like a roaring whirlwind, with 'Missus, Missus, there's company +coomin'!' Away skurry the young ladies from the roller, down comes Mrs. +P. from the old chair, off flies Tummus to change his clothes, and in +an incredibly short space of time Sir John Hawbuck, my Lady Hawbuck, +and Master Hugh Hawbuck are introduced into the garden with brazen +effrontery by Thomas, who says, 'Please Sir Jan and my Lady to walk this +year way: I KNOW Missus is in the rose-garden.' + +And there, sure enough, she was! + +In a pretty little garden bonnet, with beautiful curling ringlets, with +the smartest of aprons and the freshest of pearl-coloured gloves, this +amazing woman was in the arms of her dearest Lady Hawbuck. 'Dearest Lady +Hawbuck, how good of you! Always among my flowers! can't live away from +them!' + +'Sweets to the sweet! hum--a-ha--haw!' says Sir John Hawbuck, who piques +himself on his gallantry, and says nothing without 'a-hum--a-ha--a-haw!' + +'Whereth yaw pinnafaw?' cries Master Hugh. 'WE thaw you in it, over the +wall, didn't we, Pa?' + +'Hum--a-ha--a-haw!' burst out Sir John, dreadfully alarmed. 'Where's +Ponto? Why wasn't he at Quarter Sessions? How are his birds this year, +Mrs. Ponto--have those Carabas pheasants done any harm to your wheat? +a-hum--a-ha--a-haw!' and all this while he was making the most ferocious +and desperate signals to his youthful heir. + +'Well, she WATH in her pinnafaw, wathn't she, Ma?' says Hugh, quite +unabashed; which question Lady Hawbuck turned away with a sudden query +regarding her dear darling daughters, and the ENFANT TERRIBLE was +removed by his father. + +'I hope you weren't disturbed by the music?' Ponto says. 'My girls, +you know, practise four hours a day, you know--must do it, you +know--absolutely necessary. As for me, you know I'm an early man, and in +my farm every morning at five--no, no laziness for ME.' + +The facts are these. Ponto goes to sleep directly after dinner on +entering the drawing-room, and wakes up when the ladies leave off +practice at ten. From seven till ten, from ten till five, is a very fair +allowance of slumber for a man who says he's NOT a lazy man. It is my +private opinion that when Ponto retires to what is called his 'Study,' +he sleeps too. He locks himself up there daily two hours with the +newspaper. + +I saw the HAWBUCK scene out of the Study, which commands the garden. +It's a curious object, that Study. Ponto's library mostly consists of +boots. He and Stripes have important interviews here of mornings, +when the potatoes are discussed, or the fate of the calf ordained, or +sentence passed on the pig, &c.. All the Major's bills are docketed on +the Study table and displayed like a lawyer's briefs. Here, too, lie +displayed his hooks, knives, and other gardening irons, his whistles, +and strings of spare buttons. He has a drawer of endless brown paper for +parcels, and another containing a prodigious and never-failing supply of +string. What a man can want with so many gig-whips I can never conceive. +These, and fishing-rods, and landing-nets, and spurs, and boot-trees, +and balls for horses, and surgical implements for the same, and +favourite pots of shiny blacking, with which he paints his own shoes +in the most elegant manner, and buckskin gloves stretched out on their +trees, and his gorget, sash, and sabre of the Horse Marines, with his +boot-hooks underneath in atrophy; and the family medicine-chest, and +in a corner the very rod with which he used to whip his son, Wellesley +Ponto, when a boy (Wellesley never entered the 'Study' but for that +awful purpose)--all these, with 'Mogg's Road Book,' the GARDENERS' +CHRONICLE, and a backgammon-board, form the Major's library. Under the +trophy there's a picture of Mrs. Ponto, in a light blue dress and train, +and no waist, when she was first married; a fox's brush lies over the +frame, and serves to keep the dust off that work of art. + +'My library's small, says Ponto, with the most amazing impudence, 'but +well selected, my boy--well selected. I have been reading the "History +of England" all the morning.' + + + +CHAPTER XXVII--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +We had the fish, which, as the kind reader may remember, I had brought +down in a delicate attention to Mrs. Ponto, to variegate the repast of +next day; and cod and oyster-sauce, twice laid, salt cod and scolloped +oysters, formed parts of the bill of fare until I began to fancy that +the Ponto family, like our late revered monarch George II., had a fancy +for stale fish. And about this time, the pig being consumed, we began +upon a sheep. + +But how shall I forget the solemn splendour of a second course, which +was served up in great state by Stripes in a silver dish and cove; a +napkin round his dirty thumbs; and consisted of a landrail, not much +bigger than a corpulent sparrow. + +'My love, will you take any game?' says Ponto, with prodigious gravity; +and stuck his fork into that little mouthful of an island in the +silver sea. Stripes, too, at intervals, dribbled out the Marsala with +a solemnity which would have done honour to a Duke's butler. The +Bamnecide's dinner to Shacabac was only one degree removed from these +solemn banquets. + +As there were plenty of pretty country places close by; a comfortable +country town, with good houses of gentlefolks; a beautiful old +parsonage, close to the church whither we went (and where the Carabas +family have their ancestral carved and monumented Gothic pew), and every +appearance of good society in the neighbourhood, I rather wondered we +were not enlivened by the appearance of some of the neighbours at the +Evergreens, and asked about them. + +'We can't in our position of life--we can't well associate with +the attorney's family, as I leave you to suppose,' says Mrs. Ponto, +confidentially. 'Of course not,' I answered, though I didn't know why. +'And the Doctor?' said I. + +'A most excellent worthy creature,' says Mrs. P. saved Maria's +life--really a learned man; but what can one do in one's position? One +may ask one's medical man to one's table certainly: but his family, my +dear Mr. Snob!' + +'Half-a-dozen little gallipots,' interposed Miss Wirt, the governess: +'he, he, he!' and the young ladies laughed in chorus. + +'We only live with the county families,' Miss Wirt (1) continued, +tossing up her head. 'The Duke is abroad: we are at feud with the +Carabases; the Ringwoods don't come down till Christmas: in fact, +nobody's here till the hunting season--positively nobody.' + +'Whose is the large red house just outside of the town?' + +'What! the CHATEAU-CALICOT? he, he, he! That purse-proud ex-linendraper, +Mr. Yardley, with the yellow liveries, and the wife in red velvet? How +CAN you, my dear Mr. Snob, be so satirical? The impertinence of those +people is really something quite overwhelming.' + +'Well, then, there is the parson, Doctor Chrysostom. He's a gentleman, +at any rate.' At this Mrs. Ponto looked at Miss Wirt. After their eyes +had met and they had wagged their heads at each other. They looked up +to the ceiling. So did the young ladies. They thrilled. It was evident I +had said something terrible. Another black sheep in the Church? thought +I with a little sorrow; for I don't care to own that I have a respect +for the cloth. 'I--hope there's nothing wrong? + +'Wrong?' says Mrs. P., clasping her hands with a tragic air. + +'Oh!' says Miss Wirt, and the two girls, gasping in chorus. + +'Well,' says I, 'I'm very sorry for it. I never saw a nicer-looking old +gentleman, or a better school, or heard a better sermon.' + +'He used to preach those sermons in a surplice,' hissed out Mrs. Ponto. +'He's a Puseyite, Mr. Snob.' + +'Heavenly powers!' says I, admiring the pure ardour of these female +theologians; and Stripes came in with the tea. It's so weak that no +wonder Ponto's sleep isn't disturbed by it. + +Of mornings we used to go out shooting. We had Ponto's own fields to +sport over (where we got the landrail), and the non-preserved part of +the Hawbuck property: and one evening in a stubble of Ponto's skirting +the Carabas woods, we got among some pheasants, and had some real sport. +I shot a hen, I know, greatly to my delight. 'Bag it,' says Ponto, in +rather a hurried manner: 'here's somebody coming.' So I pocketed the +bird. + +'You infernal poaching thieves!' roars out a man from the hedge in the +garb of a gamekeeper. 'I wish I could catch you on this side of the +hedge. I'd put a brace of barrels into you, that I would.' + +'Curse that Snapper,' says Ponto, moving off; 'he's always watching me +like a spy.' + +'Carry off the birds, you sneaks, and sell 'em in London,' roars the +individual, who it appears was a keeper of Lord Carabas. 'You'll get six +shillings a brace for 'em.' + +'YOU know the price of 'em well enough, and so does your master too, you +scoundrel,' says Ponto, still retreating. + +'We kill 'em on our ground,' cries Mr. Snapper. 'WE don't set traps for +other people's birds. We're no decoy ducks. We're no sneaking poachers. +We don't shoot 'ens, like that 'ere Cockney, who's got the tail of one +a-sticking out of his pocket. Only just come across the hedge, that's +all.' + +'I tell you what,' says Stripes, who was out with us as keeper this +day, (in fact he's keeper, coachman, gardener, valet, and bailiff, with +Tummus under him,) 'if YOU'LL come across, John Snapper, and take your +coat off, I'll give you such a whopping as you've never had since the +last time I did it at Guttlebury Fair.' + +'Whop one of your own weight,' Mr. Snapper said, whistling his dogs +and disappearing into the wood. And so we came out of this controversy +rather victoriously; but I began to alter my preconceived ideas of rural +felicity. + +Notes. + +(1) I have since heard that this aristocratic lady's father was a +livery-button maker in St. Martin's Lane: where he met with misfortunes, +and his daughter acquired her taste for heraldry. But it may be told +to her credit, that out of her earnings she has kept the bed-ridden old +bankrupt in great comfort and secrecy at Pentonville; and furnished her +brother's outfit for the Cadetship which her patron, Lord Swigglebiggle, +gave her when he was at the Board of Control. I have this information +from a friend. To hear Miss Wirt herself, you would fancy that her Papa +was a Rothschild, and that the markets of Europe were convulsed when he +went into the GAZETTE. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII--ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +'Be hanged to your aristocrats!' Ponto said, in some conversation we had +regarding the family at Carabas, between whom and the Evergreens there +was a feud. 'When I first came into the county--it was the year before +Sir John Buff contested in the Blue interest--the Marquis, then Lord St. +Michaels, who, of course, was Orange to the core, paid me and Mrs. Ponto +such attentions, that I fairly confess I was taken in by the old humbug, +and thought that I'd met with a rare neighbour. 'Gad, Sir, we used to +get pines from Carabas, and pheasants from Carabas, and it was--"Ponto, +when will you come over and shoot?"--and--"Ponto, our pheasants want +thinning,"--and my Lady would insist upon her dear Mrs. Ponto coming +over to Carabas to sleep, and put me I don't know to what expense for +turbans and velvet gowns for my wife's toilette. Well, Sir, the election +takes place, and though I was always a Liberal, personal friendship of +course induces me to plump for St. Michaels, who comes in at the head of +the poll. Next year, Mrs. P. insists upon going to town--with lodgings +in Clarges Street at ten pounds a week, with a hired brougham, and new +dresses for herself and the girls, and the deuce and all to pay. Our +first cards were to Carabas House; my Lady's are returned by a great big +flunkey; and I leave you to fancy my poor Betsy's discomfiture as the +lodging-house maid took in the cards, and Lady St. Michaels drives away, +though she actually saw us at the drawing-room window. Would you believe +it, Sir, that though we called four times afterwards, those infernal +aristocrats never returned our visit; that though Lady St. Michaels gave +nine dinner-parties and four DEJEUNERS that season, she never asked us +to one; and that she cut us dead at the Opera, though Betsy was nodding +to her the whole night? We wrote to her for tickets for Almack's; she +writes to say that all hers were promised; and said, in the presence of +Wiggins, her lady's-maid, who told it to Diggs, my wife's woman, that +she couldn't conceive how people in our station of life could so far +forget themselves as to wish to appear in any such place! Go to +Castle Carabas! I'd sooner die than set my foot in the house of that +impertinent, insolvent, insolent jackanapes--and I hold him in scorn!' +After this, Ponto gave me some private information regarding Lord +Carabas's pecuniary affairs; how he owed money all over the county; how +Jukes the carpenter was utterly ruined and couldn't get a shilling of +his bill; how Biggs the butcher hanged himself for the same reason; how +the six big footmen never received a guinea of wages, and Snaffle, the +state coachman, actually took off his blown-glass wig of ceremony and +flung it at Lady Carabas's feet on the terrace before the Castle; all +which stories, as they are private, I do not think proper to divulge. +But these details did not stifle my desire to see the famous mansion +of Castle Carabas, nay, possibly excited my interest to know more about +that lordly house and its owners. + +At the entrance of the park, there are a pair of great gaunt mildewed +lodges--mouldy Doric temples with black chimney-pots, in the finest +classic taste, and the gates of course are surmounted by the CHATS +BOTTES, the well-known supporters of the Carabas family. 'Give the +lodge-keeper a shilling,' says Ponto, (who drove me near to it in his +four-wheeled cruelty-chaise). 'I warrant it's the first piece of ready +money he has received for some time. I don't know whether there was any +foundation for this sneer, but the gratuity was received with a curtsey, +and the gate opened for me to enter. 'Poor old porteress!' says I, +inwardly. 'You little know that it is the Historian of Snobs whom you +let in!' The gates were passed. A damp green stretch of park spread +right and left immeasurably, confined by a chilly grey wall, and a damp +long straight road between two huge rows of moist, dismal lime-trees, +leads up to the Castle. In the midst of the park is a great black tank +or lake, bristling over with rushes, and here and there covered over +with patches of pea-soup. A shabby temple rises on an island in this +delectable lake, which is approached by a rotten barge that lies at +roost in a dilapidated boat house. Clumps of elms and oaks dot over the +huge green flat. Every one of them would have been down long since, but +that the Marquis is not allowed to cut the timber. + +Up that long avenue the Snobographer walked in solitude. At the +seventy-ninth tree on the left-hand side, the insolvent butcher hanged +himself. I scarcely wondered at the dismal deed, so woful and sad were +the impressions connected with the place. So, for a mile and a half I +walked--alone and thinking of death. + +I forgot to say the house is in full view all the way--except when +intercepted by the trees on the miserable island in the lake--an +enormous red-brick mansion, square, vast, and dingy. It is flanked by +four stone towers with weathercocks. In the midst of the grand facade is +a huge Ionic portico, approached by a vast, lonely, ghastly staircase. +Rows of black windows, framed in stone, stretch on either side, right +and left--three storeys and eighteen windows of a row. You may see +a picture of the palace and staircase, in the 'Views of England and +Wales,' with four carved and gilt carriages waiting at the gravel walk, +and several parties of ladies and gentlemen in wigs and hoops, dotting +the fatiguing lines of stairs. + +But these stairs are made in great houses for people NOT to ascend. The +first Lady Carabas (they are but eighty years in the peerage), if she +got out of her gilt coach in a shower, would be wet to the skin before +she got half-way to the carved Ionic portico, where four dreary statues +of Peace, Plenty, Piety and Patriotism, are the only sentinels. You +enter these palaces by back-doors. 'That was the way the Carabases got +their peerage,' the misanthropic Ponto said after dinner. + +Well--I rang the bell at a little low side-door; it clanged and jingled +and echoed for a long, long while, till at length a face, as of a +housekeeper, peered through the door, and, as she saw my hand in my +waistcoat pocket, opened it. Unhappy, lonely housekeeper, I thought. Is +Miss Crusoe in her island more solitary? The door clapped to, and I was +in Castle Carabas. + +'The side entrance and All,' says the housekeeper. 'The halligator +hover the mantelpiece was brought home by Hadmiral St. Michaels, when +a Capting with Lord Hanson. The harms on the cheers is the harms of the +Carabas family.' The hall was rather comfortable. We went clapping up a +clean stone backstair, and then into a back passage cheerfully decorated +with ragged light-green Kidderminster, and issued upon + +'THE GREAT ALL. + +'The great all is seventy-two feet in lenth, fifty-six in breath, and +thirty-eight feet 'igh. The carvings of the chimlies, representing the +birth of Venus, and Ercules, and Eyelash, is by Van Chislum, the most +famous sculpture of his hage and country. The ceiling, by Calimanco, +represents Painting, Harchitecture and Music (the naked female figure +with the barrel horgan) introducing George, fust Lord Carabas, to the +Temple of the Muses. The winder ornaments is by Vanderputty. The floor +is Patagonian marble; and the chandelier in the centre was presented to +Lionel, second Marquis, by Lewy the Sixteenth, whose 'ead was cut hoff +in the French Revelation. We now henter + +THE SOUTH GALLERY. + +'One 'undred and forty-eight in lenth by thirty-two in breath; it is +profusely hornaminted by the choicest works of Hart. Sir Andrew Katz, +founder of the Carabas family and banker of the Prince of Horange, +Kneller. Her present Ladyship, by Lawrence. Lord St. Michaels, by the +same--he is represented sittin' on a rock in velvit pantaloons. Moses in +the bullrushes--the bull very fine, by Paul Potter. The toilet of Venus, +Fantaski. Flemish Bores drinking, Van Ginnums. Jupiter and Europia, de +Horn. The Grandjunction Canal, Venis, by Candleetty; and Italian Bandix, +by Slavata Rosa.'--And so this worthy woman went on, from one room into +another, from the blue room to the green, and the green to the grand +saloon, and the grand saloon to the tapestry closet, cackling her list +of pictures and wonders: and furtively turning up a corner of brown +holland to show the colour of the old, faded, seedy, mouldy, dismal +hangings. + +At last we came to her Ladyship's bed-room. In the centre of this dreary +apartment there is a bed about the size of one of those whizgig temples +in which the Genius appears in a pantomime. The huge gilt edifice is +approached by steps, and so tall, that it might be let off in floors, +for sleeping-rooms for all the Carabas family. An awful bed! A murder +might be done at one end of that bed, and people sleeping at the other +end be ignorant of it. Gracious powers! fancy little Lord Carabas in a +nightcap ascending those steps after putting out the candle! + +The sight of that seedy and solitary splendour was too much for me. +I should go mad were I that lonely housekeeper--in those enormous +galleries--in that lonely library, filled up with ghastly folios that +nobody dares read, with an inkstand on the centre table like the coffin +of a baby, and sad portraits staring at you from the bleak walls with +their solemn Mouldy eyes. No wonder that Carabas does not come down here +often. + +It would require two thousand footmen to make the place cheerful. No +wonder the coachman resigned his wig, that the masters are insolvent, +and the servants perish in this huge dreary out-at-elbow place. + +A single family has no more right to build itself a temple of that sort +than to erect a Tower of Babel. Such a habitation is not decent for a +mere mortal man. But, after all, I suppose poor Carabas had no choice. +Fate put him there as it sent Napoleon to St. Helena. Suppose it had +been decreed by Nature that you and I should be Marquises? We wouldn't +refuse, I suppose, but take Castle Carabas and all, with debts, duns, +and mean makeshifts, and shabby pride, and swindling magnificence. + +Next season, when I read of Lady Carabas's splendid entertainments in +the MORNING POST, and see the poor old insolvent cantering through the +Park--I shall have a much tenderer interest in these great people than +I have had heretofore. Poor old shabby Snob! Ride on and fancy the world +is still on its knees before the house of Carabas! Give yourself airs, +poor old bankrupt Magnifico, who are under money-obligations to your +flunkeys; and must stoop so as to swindle poor tradesmen! And for us, O +my brother Snobs, oughtn't we to feel happy if our walk through life is +more even, and that we are out of the reach of that surprising arrogance +and that astounding meanness to which this wretched old victim is +obliged to mount and descend. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Notable as my reception had been (under that unfortunate mistake of Mrs. +Ponto that I was related to Lord Snobbington, which I was not permitted +to correct), it was nothing compared to the bowing and kotooing, the +raptures and flurry which preceded and welcomed the visit of a real live +lord and lord's son, a brother officer of Cornet Wellesley Ponto, in +the 120th Hussars, who came over with the young Cornet from Guttlebury, +where their distinguished regiment was quartered. This was my +Lord Gules, Lord Saltire's grandson and heir: a very young, short, +sandy-haired and tobacco-smoking nobleman, who cannot have left the +nursery very long, and who, though he accepted the honest Major's +invitation to the Evergreens in a letter written in a school-boy +handwriting, with a number of faults of spelling, may yet be a very fine +classical scholar for what I know: having had his education at Eton, +where he and young Ponto were inseparable. + +At any rate, if he can't write, he has mastered a number of other +accomplishments wonderful for one of his age and size. He is one of the +best shots and riders in England. He rode his horse Abracadabra, and won +the famous Guttlebury steeple-chase. He has horses entered at half the +races in the country (under other people's names; for the old lord is a +strict hand, and will not hear of betting or gambling). He has lost and +won such sums of money as my Lord George himself might be proud of. +He knows all the stables, and all the jockeys, and has all the +'information,' and is a match for the best Leg at Newmarket. Nobody was +ever known to be 'too much' for him at play or in the stable. + +Although his grandfather makes him a moderate allowance, by the aid of +POST-OBITS and convenient friends he can live in a splendour becoming +his rank. He has not distinguished himself in the knocking down of +policemen much; he is not big enough for that. But, as a light-weight, +his skill is of the very highest order. At billiards he is said to +be first-rate. He drinks and smokes as much as any two of the biggest +officers in his regiment. With such high talents, who can say how far +he may not go? He may take to politics as a DELASSEMENT, and be Prime +Minister after Lord George Bentinck. + +My young friend Wellesley Ponto is a gaunt and bony youth, with a pale +face profusely blotched. From his continually pulling something on +his chin, I am led to fancy that he believes he has what is called an +Imperial growing there. That is not the only tuft that is hunted in +the family, by the way. He can't, of course, indulge in those expensive +amusements which render his aristocratic comrade so respected: he bets +pretty freely when he is in cash, and rides when somebody mounts him +(for he can't afford more than his regulation chargers). At drinking +he is by no means inferior; and why do you think he brought his noble +friend, Lord Gules, to the Evergreens?--Why? because he intended to +ask his mother to order his father to pay his debts, which she couldn't +refuse before such an exalted presence. Young Ponto gave me all this +information with the most engaging frankness. We are old friends. I used +to tip him when he was at school. + +'Gad!': says he, 'our wedgment's so DOOTHID exthpenthif. Must hunt, you +know. A man couldn't live in the wedgment if he didn't. Mess expenses +enawmuth. Must dine at mess. Must drink champagne and claret. Ours ain't +a port and sherry light-infantry mess. Uniform's awful. Fitzstultz, our +Colonel, will have 'em so. Must be a distinction you know. At his own +expense Fitzstultz altered the plumes in the men's caps (you called them +shaving-brushes, Snob, my boy: most absurd and unjust that attack of +yours, by the way); that altewation alone cotht him five hundred pound. +The year befaw latht he horthed the wegiment at an immenthe expenthe, +and we're called the Queen'th Own Pyebalds from that day. Ever theen uth +on pawade? The Empewar Nicolath burtht into tearth of envy when he thaw +uth at Windthor. And you see,' continued my young friend, 'I brought +Gules down with me, as the Governor is very sulky about shelling out, +just to talk my mother over, who can do anything with him. Gules told +her that I was Fitzstultz's favourite of the whole regiment; and, Gad! +she thinks the Horse Guards will give me my troop for nothing, and he +humbugged the Governor that I was the greatest screw in the army. Ain't +it a good dodge?' + +With this Wellesley left me to go and smoke a cigar in the stables +with Lord Gules, and make merry over the cattle there, under Stripes's +superintendence. Young Ponto laughed with his friend, at the venerable +four-wheeled cruelty-chaise; but seemed amazed that the latter should +ridicule still more an ancient chariot of the build of 1824, emblazoned +immensely with the arme of the Pontos and the Snaileys, from which +latter distinguished family Mrs. Ponto issued. + +I found poor Pon in his study among his boots, in such a rueful attitude +of despondency, that I could not but remark it. 'Look at that!' says +the poor fellow, handing me over a document. 'It's the second change +in uniform since he's been in the army, and yet there's no extravagance +about the lad. Lord Gules tells me he is the most careful youngster in +the regiment, God bless him! But look at that! by heaven, Snob, look at +that and say how can a man of nine hundred keep out of the Bench?' He +gave a sob as he handed me the paper across the table; and his old face, +and his old corduroys, and his shrunk shooting-jacket, and his lean +shanks, looked, as he spoke, more miserably haggard, bankrupt, and +threadbare. + + LIEUT. WELLESLEY PONTO, 120TH QUEEN'S OWN PYEBALD + HUSSARS, + TO KNOPF AND STECKNADEL, + CONDUIT STREET, LONDON. + L. s. d + Dress Jacket, richly laced with gold . 35 0 0 + Ditto Pelisse ditto, and trimmed with sable . . 60 0 0 + Undress Jacket, trimmed with gold 15 15 0 + Ditto Pelisse . . 30 0 0 + Dress Pantaloons 12 0 0 + Ditto Overalls, gold lace on sides. 6 6 0 + Undress ditto ditto. 5 5 0 + Blue Braided Frock 14 14 0 + Forage Cap . . 3 3 0 + Dress Cap, gold lines, plume and chain . . . 25 0 0 + Gold Barrelled Sash 11 18 0 + Sword . . 11 11 0 + Ditto Belt and Sabretache .. 16 16 0 + Pouch and Belt. 15 15 0 + SwordKnot .. 1 4 0 + Cloak . .. 13 13 0 + Valise . .. 3 13 6 + Regulation Saddle . 7 17 6 + Ditto Bridle, complete . .. 10 10 0 + A Dress Housing, complete .. 30 0 0 + A pair of Pistols. 10 10 0 + A Black Sheepskin, edged. . . 6 18 0 + Total L347 9 0 + +That evening Mrs. Ponto and her family made their darling Wellesley give +a full, true, and particular account of everything that had taken place +at Lord Fitzstultz's; how many servants waited at dinner; and how the +Ladies Schneider dressed; and what his Royal Highness said when he came +down to shoot; and who was there? "What a blessing that boy is to me!" +said she, as my pimple-faced young friend moved off to resume smoking +operations with Gules in the now vacant kitchen;--and poor Ponto's +dreary and desperate look, shall I ever forget that? + +O you parents and guardians! O you men and women of sense in England! O +you legislators about to assemble in Parliament! read over that tailor's +bill above printed, read over that absurd catalogue of insane gimcracks +and madman's tomfoolery--and say how are you ever to get rid of +Snobbishness when society does so much for its education? + +Three hundred and forty pounds for a young chap's saddle and breeches! +Before George, I would rather be a Hottentot or a Highlander. We laugh +at poor Jocko, the monkey, dancing in uniform; or at poor Jeames, the +flunkey, with his quivering calves and plush tights; or at the nigger +Marquis of Marmalade, dressed out with sabre and epaulets, and giving +himself the airs of a field-marshal. Lo! is not one of the Queen's +Pyebalds, in full fig, as great and foolish a monster? + + + +CHAPTER XXX--ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +At last came that fortunate day at the Evergreens, when I was to be made +acquainted with some of the 'county families' with whom only people of +Ponto's rank condescended to associate. And now, although poor Ponto had +just been so cruelly made to bleed on occasion of his son's new uniform, +and though he was in the direst and most cut-throat spirits with an +overdrawn account at the banker's, and other pressing evils of poverty; +although a tenpenny bottle of Marsala and an awful parsimony presided +generally at his table, yet the poor fellow was obliged to assume +the most frank and jovial air of cordiality; and all the covers being +removed from the hangings, and new dresses being procured for the young +ladies, and the family plate being unlocked and displayed, the house +and all within assumed a benevolent and festive appearance. The +kitchen fires began to blaze, the good wine ascended from the cellar, +a professed cook actually came over from Guttlebury to compile culinary +abominations. Stripes was in a new coat, and so was Ponto, for a wonder, +and Tummus's button-suit was worn EN PERMANENCE. + +And all this to show off the little lord, thinks I. All this in honour +of a stupid little cigarrified Cornet of dragoons, who can barely write +his name,--while an eminent and profound moralist like--somebody--is +fobbed off with cold mutton and relays of pig. Well, well: a martyrdom +of cold mutton is just bearable. I pardon Mrs. Ponto, from my heart I +do, especially as I wouldn't turn out of the best bed-room, in spite of +all her hints; but held my ground in the chintz tester, vowing that Lord +Gules, as a young man, was quite small and hardy enough to make himself +comfortable elsewhere. + +The great Ponto party was a very august one. The Hawbucks came in their +family coach, with the blood-red band emblazoned all over it: and their +man in yellow livery waited in country fashion at table, only to be +exceeded in splendour by the Hipsleys, the opposition baronet, in light +blue. The old Ladies Fitzague drove over in their little old chariot +with the fat black horses, the fat coachman, the fat footman--(why +are dowagers' horses and footmen always fat?) And soon after these +personages had arrived, with their auburn fronts and red beaks and +turbans, came the Honourable and Reverend Lionel Pettipois, who with +General and Mrs. Sago formed the rest of the party. 'Lord and Lady +Frederick Howlet were asked, but they have friends at Ivybush,' Mrs. +Ponto told me; and that very morning, the Castlehaggards sent an excuse, +as her ladyship had a return of the quinsy. Between ourselves, Lady +Castlehaggard's quinsy always comes on when there is dinner at the +Evergreens. + +If the keeping of polite company could make a woman happy, surely my +kind hostess Mrs. Ponto was on that day a happy woman. Every person +present (except the unlucky impostor who pretended to a connexion with +the Snobbington Family, and General Sago, who had brought home I don't +know how many lacs of rupees from India,) was related to the Peerage +or the Baronetage. Mrs. P. had her heart's desire. If she had been an +Earl's daughter herself could she have expected better company?--and her +family were in the oil-trade at Bristol, as all her friends very well +know. + +What I complained of in my heart was not the dining--which, for this +once, was plentiful and comfortable enough--but the prodigious dulness +of the talking part of the entertainment. O my beloved brother Snobs of +the City, if we love each other no better than our country brethren, at +least we amuse each other more; if we bore ourselves, we are not called +upon to go ten miles to do it! + +For instance, the Hipsleys came ten miles from the south, and the +Hawbucks ten miles from the north, of the Evergreens; and were magnates +in two different divisions of the county of Mangelwurzelshire. Hipsley, +who is an old baronet, with a bothered estate, did not care to show his +contempt for Hawbuck, who is a new creation, and rich. Hawbuck, on his +part, gives himself patronizing airs to General Sago, who looks upon the +Pontos as little better than paupers. 'Old Lady Blanche,' says Ponto, 'I +hope will leave something to her god-daughter--my second girl--we've all +of us half-poisoned ourselves with taking her physic.' + +Lady Blanche and Lady Rose Fitzague have, the first, a medical, and the +second a literary turn. I am inclined to believe the former had a wet +COMPRESSE around her body, on the occasion when I had the happiness of +meeting her. She doctors everybody in the neighbourhood of which she is +the ornament; and has tried everything on her own person. She went into +Court, and testified publicly her faith in St. John Long: she swore by +Doctor Buchan, she took quantities of Gambouge's Universal Medicine, +and whole boxfuls of Parr's Life Pills. She has cured a multiplicity of +headaches by Squinstone's Eye-snuff; she wears a picture of Hahnemann +in her bracelet and a lock of Priessnitz's hair in a brooch. She talked +about her own complaints and those of her CONFIDANTE for the time being, +to every lady in the room successively, from our hostess down to +Miss Wirt, taking them into corners, and whispering about bronchitis, +hepatitis, St. Vitus, neuralgia, cephalalgia, and so forth. I observed +poor fat Lady Hawbuck in a dreadful alarm after some communication +regarding the state of her daughter Miss Lucy Hawbuck's health, and Mrs. +Sago turned quite yellow, and put down her third glass of Madeira, at a +warning glance from Lady Blanche. + +Lady Rose talked literature, and about the book-club at Guttlebury, and +is very strong in voyages and travels. She has a prodigious interest +in Borneo, and displayed a knowledge of the history of the Punjaub and +Kaffirland that does credit to her memory. Old General Sago, who sat +perfectly silent and plethoric, roused up as from a lethargy when the +former country was mentioned, and gave the company his story about a +hog-hunt at Ramjugger. I observed her ladyship treated with something +like contempt her neighbour the Reverend Lionel Pettipois, a young +divine whom you may track through the country by little 'awakening' +books at half-a-crown a hundred, which dribble out of his pockets +wherever he goes. I saw him give Miss Wirt a sheaf of 'The Little +Washer-woman on Putney Common,' and to Miss Hawbuck a couple of dozen +of 'Meat in the Tray; or the Young Butcher-boy Rescued;' and on paying +a visit to Guttlebury gaol, I saw two notorious fellows waiting their +trial there (and temporarily occupied with a game of cribbage), to whom +his Reverence offered a tract as he was walking over Crackshins Common, +and who robbed him of his purse, umbrella, and cambric handkerchief, +leaving him the tracts to distribute elsewhere. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +'Why, dear Mr. Snob,' said a young lady of rank and fashion (to whom I +present my best compliments), 'if you found everything so SNOBBISH at +the Evergreens, if the pig bored you and the mutton was not to your +liking, and Mrs. Ponto was a humbug, and Miss Wirt a nuisance, with her +abominable piano practice,--why did you stay so long?' + +Ah, Miss, what a question! Have you never heard of gallant British +soldiers storming batteries, of doctors passing nights in plague wards +of lazarettos, and other instances of martyrdom? What do you suppose +induced gentlemen to walk two miles up to the batteries of Sabroan, with +a hundred and fifty thundering guns bowling them down by hundreds?--not +pleasure, surely. What causes your respected father to quit his +comfortable home for his chambers, after dinner, and pore over the most +dreary law papers until long past midnight?, Mademoiselle; duty, which +must be done alike by military, or legal, or literary gents. There's a +power of martyrdom in our profession. + +You won't believe it? Your rosy lips assume a smile of incredulity--a +most naughty and odious expression in a young lady's face. Well, then, +the fact is, that my chambers, No. 24, Pump Court, Temple, were being +painted by the Honourable Society, and Mrs. Slamkin, my laundress, +having occasion to go into Durham to see her daughter, who is married, +and has presented her with the sweetest little grandson--a few weeks +could not be better spent than in rusticating. But ah, how delightful +Pump Court looked when I revisited its well-known chimney-pots! CARI +LUOGHI. Welcome, welcome, O fog and smut! + +But if you think there is no moral in the foregoing account of the +Pontine family, you are, Madam, most painfully mistaken. In this very +chapter we are going to have the moral--why, the whole of the papers +are nothing BUT the moral, setting forth as they do the folly of being a +Snob. + +You will remark that in the Country Snobography my poor friend Ponto has +been held up almost exclusively for the public gaze--and why? Because +we went to no other house? Because other families did not welcome us to +their mahogany? No, no. Sir John Hawbuck of the Haws, Sir John Hipsley +of Briary Hall, don't shut the gates of hospitality: of General Sago's +mulligatawny I could speak from experience. And the two old ladies at +Guttlebury, were they nothing? Do you suppose that an agreeable young +dog, who shall be nameless, would not be made welcome? Don't you know +that people are too glad to see ANYBODY in the country? + +But those dignified personages do not enter into the scheme of the +present work, and are but minor characters of our Snob drama; just as, +in the play, kings and emperors are not half so important as many humble +persons. The DOGE OF VENICE, for instance, gives way to OTHELLO, who is +but a nigger; and the KING OF FRANCE to FALCONBRIDGE, who is a gentleman +of positively no birth at all. So with the exalted characters above +mentioned. I perfectly well recollect that the claret at Hawbuck's was +not by any means so good as that of Hipsley's, while, on the contrary, +some white hermitage at the Haws (by the way, the butler only gave +me half a glass each time) was supernacular. And I remember the +conversations. O Madam, Madam, how stupid they were! The subsoil +ploughing; the pheasants and poaching; the row about the representation +of the county; the Earl of Mangelwurzelshire being at variance with his +relative and nominee, the Honourable Marmaduke Tomnoddy; all these I +could put down, had I a mind to violate the confidence of private +life; and a great deal of conversation about the weather, the +Mangelwurzelshire Hunt, new manures, and eating and drinking, of course. + +But CUI BONO? In these perfectly stupid and honourable families there +is not that Snobbishness which it is our purpose to expose. An ox is an +ox--a great hulking, fat-sided, bellowing, munching Beef. He ruminates +according to his nature, and consumes his destined portion of turnips or +oilcake, until the time comes for his disappearance from the pastures, +to be succeeded by other deep-lunged and fat-ribbed animals. Perhaps +we do not respect an ox. We rather acquiesce in him. The Snob, my dear +Madam, is the Frog that tries to swell himself to ox size. Let us pelt +the silly brute out of his folly. + +Look, I pray you, at the case of my unfortunate friend Ponto, a +good-natured, kindly English gentleman--not over-wise, but quite +passable--fond of port-wine, of his family, of country sports and +agriculture, hospitably minded, with as pretty a little patrimonial +country-house as heart can desire, and a thousand pounds a year. It +is not much; but, ENTRE NOUS, people can live for less, and not +uncomfortably. + +For instance, there is the doctor, whom Mrs. P. does not condescend to +visit: that man educates a mirific family, and is loved by the poor for +miles round: and gives them port-wine for physic and medicine, gratis. +And how those people can get on with their pittance, as Mrs. Ponto says, +is a wonder to HER. + +Again, there is the clergyman, Doctor Chrysostom,--Mrs. P. says they +quarrelled about Puseyism, but I am given to understand it was because +Mrs. C. had the PAS of her at the Haws--you may see what the value of +his living is any day in the 'Clerical Guide;' but you don't know what +he gives away. + +Even Pettipois allows that, in whose eyes the Doctor's surplice is a +scarlet abomination; and so does Pettipois do his duty in his way, and +administer not only his tracts and his talk, but his money and his means +to his people. As a lord's son, by the way, Mrs. Ponto is uncommonly +anxious that he should marry EITHER of the girls whom Lord Gules does +not intend to choose. + +Well, although Pon's income would make up almost as much as that of +these three worthies put together--oh, my dear Madam, see in what +hopeless penury the poor fellow lives! What tenant can look to HIS +forbearance? What poor man can hope for HIS charity? 'Master's the best +of men,' honest Stripes says, 'and when we was in the ridgment a more +free-handed chap didn't live. But the way in which Missus DU scryou, I +wonder the young ladies is alive, that I du!' + +They live upon a fine governess and fine masters, and have clothes made +by Lady Carabas's own milliner; and their brother rides with earls to +cover; and only the best people in the county visit at the Evergreens, +and Mrs. Ponto thinks herself a paragon of wives and mothers, and +a wonder of the world, for doing all this misery and humbug, and +snobbishness, on a thousand a year. + +What an inexpressible comfort it was, my dear Madam, when Stripes put +my portmanteau in the four-wheeled chaise, and (poor P on being touched +with sciatica) drove me over to 'Carabas Arms' at Guttlebury, where we +took leave. There were some bagmen there in the Commercial Room, and one +talked about the house he represented; and another about his dinner, and +a third about the Inns on the road, and so forth--a talk, not very wise, +but honest and to the purpose--about as good as that of the country +gentlemen: and oh, how much pleasanter than listening to Miss Wirt's +show-pieces on the piano, and Mrs. Ponto's genteel cackle about the +fashion and the county families! + + + +CHAPTER XXXII--SNOBBIUM GATHERUM + +WHEN I see the great effect which these papers are producing on an +intelligent public, I have a strong hope that before long we shall have +a regular Snob department in the newspapers, just as we have the +Police Courts and the Court News at present. When a flagrant case of +bone-crushing or Poor-law abuse occurs in the world, who so eloquent +as THE TIMES to point it out? When a gross instance of Snobbishness +happens, why should not the indignant journalist call the public +attention to that delinquency too? + +How, for instance, could that wonderful case of the Earl of Mangelwurzel +and his brother be examined in the Snobbish point of view? Let alone +the hectoring, the bullying, the vapouring, the bad grammar, the mutual +recriminations, lie-givings, challenges, retractations, which abound +in the fraternal dispute--put out of the question these points as +concerning the individual nobleman and his relative, with whose personal +affairs we have nothing to do--and consider how intimately corrupt, how +habitually grovelling and mean, how entirely Snobbish in a word, a whole +county must be which can find no better chiefs or leaders than these two +gentlemen. 'We don't want,' the great county of Mangelwurzelshire seems +to say, 'that a man should be able to write good grammar; or that he +should keep a Christian tongue in his head; or that he should have the +commonest decency of temper, or even a fair share of good sense, in +order to represent us in Parliament. + +All we require is, that a man should be recommended to us by the Earl +of Mangelwurzelshire. And all that we require of the Earl of +Mangelwurzelshire is that he should have fifty thousand a year and hunt +the country.' O you pride of all Snobland! O you crawling, truckling, +self-confessed lackeys and parasites! + +But this is growing too savage: don't let us forget our usual amenity, +and that tone of playfulness and sentiment with which the beloved +reader and writer have pursued their mutual reflections hitherto. Well, +Snobbishness pervades the little Social Farce as well as the great State +Comedy; and the self-same moral is tacked to either. + +There was, for instance, an account in the papers of a young lady who, +misled by a fortune-teller, actually went part of the way to India (as +far as Bagnigge Wells, I think,) in search of a husband who was promised +her there. Do you suppose this poor deluded little soul would have left +her shop for a man below her in rank, or for anything but a darling of +a Captain in epaulets and a red coat. It was her Snobbish sentiment +that misled her, and made her vanities a prey to the swindling +fortune-teller. + +Case 2 was that of Mademoiselle de Saugrenue, 'the interesting young +Frenchwoman with a profusion of jetty ringlets,' who lived for nothing +at a boardinghouse at Gosport, was then conveyed to Fareham gratis: and +being there, and lying on the bed of the good old lady her entertainer, +the dear girl took occasion to rip open the mattress, and steal a +cash-box, with which she fled to London. How would you account for the +prodigious benevolence exercised towards the interesting young French +lady? Was it her jetty ringlets or her charming face?--Bah! Do ladies +love others for having faces and black hair?--she said SHE WAS A +RELATION OF de Saugrenue: talked of her ladyship her aunt, and of +herself as a De Saugrenue. The honest boarding-house people were at her +feet at once. Good, honest, simple, lord-loving children of Snobland. + +Finally, there was the case of 'the Right Honourable Mr. Vernon,' at +York. The Right Honourable was the son of a nobleman, and practised +on an old lady. He procured from her dinners, money, wearing-apparel, +spoons, implicit credence, and an entire refit of linen. Then he cast +his nets over a family of father, mother, and daughters, one of whom he +proposed to marry. The father lent him money, the mother made jams and +pickles for him, the daughters vied with each other in cooking dinners +for the Right Honourable--and what was the end? One day the traitor +fled, with a teapot and a basketful of cold victuals. It was the 'Right +Honourable' which baited the hook which gorged all these greedy, simple +Snobs. Would they have been taken in by a commoner? What old lady is +there, my dear sir, who would take in you and me, were we ever so ill to +do, and comfort us, and clothe us, and give us her money, and her silver +forks? Alas and alas! what mortal man that speaks the truth can hope +for such a landlady? And yet, all these instances of fond and credulous +Snobbishness have occurred in the same week's paper, with who knows how +many score more? + +Just as we had concluded the above remarks comes a pretty little note +sealed with a pretty little butterfly--bearing a northern postmark--and +to the following effect:-- + +'19th November. + +'Mr. Punch,--'Taking great interest in your Snob Papers, we are very +anxious to know under what class of that respectable fraternity you +would designate us. + +'We are three sisters, from seventeen to twenty-two. Our father is +HONESTLY AND TRULY of a very good family (you will say it is Snobbish +to mention that, but I wish to state the plain fact); our maternal +grandfather was an Earl.' (1) + +'We CAN afford to take in a stamped edition of YOU, and all Dickens' +works as fast as they come out, but we do NOT keep such a thing as a +PEERAGE or even a BARONETAGE in the house. + +'We live with every comfort, excellent cellar, &c. &c.; but as we cannot +well afford a butler, we have a neat table-maid (though our father was a +military man, has travelled much, been in the best society, &c.) We HAVE +a coachman and helper, but we don't put the latter into buttons, nor +make them wait at table, like Stripes and Tummus.' (2) + +'We are just the same to persons with a handle to their name as to those +without it. We wear a moderate modicum of crinoline, (3)and are never +limp (4) in the morning. We have good and abundant dinners on CHINA +though we have plate (5), and just as good when alone as with company. + +'Now, my dear MR. PUNCH, will you PLEASE give us a short answer in your +next number, and I will be SO much obliged to you. Nobody knows we are +writing to you, not even our father; nor will we ever tease (6) you +again if you will only give us an answer--just for FUN, now do! + +'If you get as far as this, which is doubtful, you will probably fling +it into the fire. If you do, I cannot help it; but I am of a sanguine +disposition, and entertain a lingering hope. At all events, I shall +be impatient for next Sunday, for you reach us on that day, and I am +ashamed to confess, we CANNOT resist opening you in the carriage driving +home from church. (7) + +'I remain, &c. &c., for myself and sisters. + +Excuse this scrawl, but I always write headlong. (8) + +'P. S.--You were rather stupid last week, don't you think? (9) We keep +no gamekeeper, and yet have always abundant game for friends to shoot, +in spite of the poachers. We never write on perfumed paper--in short, I +can't help thinking that if you knew us you would not think us Snobs.' + +To this I reply in the following manner:--'My dear young ladies, I know +your post-town: and shall be at church there the Sunday AFTER next; +when, will you please to wear a tulip or some little trifle in your +bonnets, so that I may know you? You will recognize me and my dress--a +quiet-looking young fellow, in a white top-coat, a crimson satin +neckcloth, light blue trousers, with glossy tipped boots, and an emerald +breast-pin. I shall have a black crape round my white hat; and my usual +bamboo cane with the richly-gilt knob. I am sorry there will be no time +to get up moustaches between now and next week. + +'From seventeen to two-and-twenty! Ye gods! what ages! Dear young +creatures, I can see you all three. Seventeen suits me, as nearest my +own time of life; but mind, I don't say two-and-twenty is too old. No, +no. And that pretty, roguish, demure, middle one. Peace, peace, thou +silly little fluttering heart! + +'YOU Snobs, dear young ladies! I will pull any man's nose who says so. +There is no harm in being of a good family. You can't help it, poor +dears. What's in a name? What is in a handle to it? I confess openly +that I should not object to being a Duke myself; and between ourselves +you might see a worse leg for a garter. + +'YOU Snobs, dear little good-natured things, no that is, I hope not--I +think not--I won't be too confident--none of us should be--that we are +not Snobs. That very confidence savours of arrogance, and to be arrogant +is to be a Snob. In all the social gradations from sneak to tyrant, +nature has placed a most wondrous and various progeny of Snobs. But are +there no kindly natures, no tender hearts, no souls humble, simple, and +truth-loving? Ponder well on this question, sweet young ladies. And if +you can answer it, as no doubt you can--lucky are you--and lucky the +respected Herr Papa, and lucky the three handsome young gentlemen who +are about to become each others' brothers-in-law.' + + +(1) The introduction of Grandpapa, is I fear, Snobbish. + +(2) That is, as you like. I don't object to buttons in moderation. + +(3) Quite right. + +(4) Bless you! + +(5) Snobbish; and I doubt whether you ought to dine as well alone as +with company. You will be getting too good dinners. + +(6) We like to be teased; but tell Papa. + +(7) O garters and stars! what will Captain Gordon and Exeter Hall say to +this? + +(8) Dear little enthusiast! + +(9) You were never more mistaken, miss, in your life. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII--SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +Everybody of the middle rank who walks through this life with a sympathy +for his companions on the same journey--at any rate, every man who has +been jostling in the world for some three or four lustres--must make +no end of melancholy reflections upon the fate of those victims whom +Society, that is, Snobbishness, is immolating every day. With love and +simplicity and natural kindness Snobbishness is perpetually at war. +People dare not be happy for fear of Snobs. People dare not love for +fear of Snobs. People pine away lonely under the tyranny of Snobs. +Honest kindly hearts dry up and die. Gallant generous lads, blooming +with hearty youth, swell into bloated old-bachelorhood, and burst +and tumble over. Tender girls wither into shrunken decay, and perish +solitary, from whom Snobbishness has cut off the common claim to +happiness and affection with which Nature endowed us all. My heart grows +sad as I see the blundering tyrant's handiwork. As I behold it I swell +with cheap rage, and glow with fury against the Snob. Come down, I say, +thou skulking dulness! Come down, thou stupid bully, and give up thy +brutal ghost! And I arm myself with the sword and spear, and taking +leave of my family, go forth to do battle with that hideous ogre and +giant, that brutal despot in Snob Castle, who holds so many gentle +hearts in torture and thrall. + +When PUNCH is king, I declare there shall be no such thing as old maids +and old bachelors. The Reverend Mr. Malthus shall be burned annually, +instead of Guy Fawkes. Those who don't marry shall go into the +workhouse. It shall be a sin for the poorest not to have a pretty girl +to love him. + +The above reflections came to mind after taking a walk with an old +comrade, Jack Spiggot by name, who is just passing into the state of +old-bachelorhood, after the manly and blooming youth in which I remember +him. Jack was one of the handsomest fellows in England when we entered +together in the Highland Buffs; but I quitted the Cuttykilts early, and +lost sight of him for many years. + +Ah! how changed he is from those days! He wears a waistband now, and has +begun to dye his whiskers. His cheeks, which were red, are now mottled; +his eyes, once so bright and steadfast, are the colour of peeled +plovers' eggs. + +'Are you married, Jack?' says I, remembering how consumedly in love he +was with his cousin Letty Lovelace, when the Cuttykilts were quartered +at Strathbungo some twenty years ago. + +'Married? no,' says he. 'Not money enough. Hard enough to keep myself, +much more a family, on five hundred a year. Come to Dickinson's; there's +some of the best Madeira in London there, my boy.' So we went and talked +over old times. The bill for dinner and wine consumed was prodigious, +and the quantity of brandy-and-water that Jack took showed what a +regular boozer he was. 'A guinea or two guineas. What the devil do I +care what I spend for my dinner?' says he. + +'And Letty Lovelace?' says I. + +Jack's countenance fell. However, he burst into a loud laugh presently. +'Letty Lovelace!' says he. 'She's Letty Lovelace still; but Gad, such a +wizened old woman! She's as thin as a thread-paper; (you remember what a +figure she had:) her nose has got red, and her teeth blue. She's +always ill; always quarrelling with the rest of the family; always +psalm-singing, and always taking pills. Gad, I had a rare escape THERE. +Push round the grog, old boy.' + +Straightway memory went back to the days when Letty was the loveliest +of blooming young creatures: when to hear her sing was to make the heart +jump into your throat; when to see her dance, was better than Montessu +or Noblet (they were the Ballet Queens of those days); when Jack used to +wear a locket of her hair, with a little gold chain round his neck, and, +exhilarated with toddy, after a sederunt of the Cuttykilt mess, used +to pull out this token, and kiss it, and howl about it, to the great +amusement of the bottle-nosed old Major and the rest of the table. + +'My father and hers couldn't put their horses together,' Jack said. 'The +General wouldn't come down with more than six thousand. My governor said +it shouldn't be done under eight. Lovelace told him to go and be hanged, +and so we parted company. They said she was in a decline. Gammon! She's +forty, and as tough and as sour as this bit of lemon-peel. Don't put +much into your punch, Snob my boy. No man CAN stand punch after wine.' + +'And what are your pursuits, Jack?' says I. + +'Sold out when the governor died. Mother lives at Bath. Go down there +once a year for a week. Dreadful slow. Shilling whist. Four sisters--all +unmarried except the youngest--awful work. Scotland in August. Italy in +the winter. Cursed rheumatism. Come to London in March, and toddle +about at the Club, old boy; and we won't go home till maw-aw-rning till +daylight does appear. + +'And here's the wreck of two lives!' mused the present Snobographer, +after taking leave of Jack Spiggot. 'Pretty merry Letty Lovelace's +rudder lost and she cast away, and handsome Jack Spiggot stranded on the +shore like a drunken Trinculo.' + +What was it that insulted Nature (to use no higher name), and perverted +her kindly intentions towards them? What cursed frost was it that +nipped the love that both were bearing, and condemned the girl to sour +sterility, and the lad to selfish old-bachelorhood? It was the infernal +Snob tyrant who governs us all, who says, 'Thou shalt not love without +a lady's maid; thou shalt not marry without a carriage and horses; thou +shalt have no wife in thy heart, and no children on thy knee, without +a page in buttons and a French BONNE; thou shalt go to the devil unless +thou hast a brougham; marry poor, and society shall forsake thee; thy +kinsmen shall avoid thee as a criminal; thy aunts and uncles shall turn +up their eyes and bemoan the sad, sad manner in which Tom or Harry has +thrown himself away.' You, young woman, may sell yourself without shame, +and marry old Croesus; you, young man, may lie away your heart and your +life for a jointure. But if 'you are poor, woe be to you! Society, the +brutal Snob autocrat, consigns you to solitary perdition. Wither, poor +girl, in your garret; rot, poor bachelor, in your Club. + +When I see those graceless recluses--those unnatural monks and nuns of +the order of St. Beelzebub, (1) my hatred for Snobs, and their worship, +and their idols, passes all continence. Let us hew down that man-eating +Juggernaut, I say, that hideous Dagon; and I glow with the heroic +courage of Tom Thumb, and join battle with the giant Snob. + +(1) This, of course, is understood to apply only to those unmarried +persons whom a mean and Snobbish fear about money has kept from +fulfilling their natural destiny. Many persons there are devoted to +celibacy because they cannot help it. Of these a man would be a brute +who spoke roughly. Indeed, after Miss O'Toole's conduct to the writer, +he would be the last to condemn. But never mind, these are personal +matters. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV--SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +In that noble romance called 'Ten Thousand a Year,' I remember a +profoundly pathetic description of the Christian manner in which the +hero, Mr. Aubrey, bore his misfortunes. After making a display of the +most florid and grandiloquent resignation, and quitting his country +mansion, the writer supposes Aubrey to come to town in a post-chaise and +pair, sitting bodkin probably between his wife and sister. It is about +seven o'clock, carriages are rattling about, knockers are thundering, +and tears bedim the fine eyes of Kate and Mrs. Aubrey as they think that +in happier times at this hour--their Aubrey used formerly to go out to +dinner to the houses of the aristocracy his friends. This is the gist of +the passage--the elegant words I forget. But the noble, noble sentiment +I shall always cherish and remember. What can be more sublime than the +notion of a great man's relatives in tears about--his dinner? With a few +touches, what author ever more happily described A Snob? + +We were reading the passage lately at the house of my friend, Raymond +Gray, Esquire, Barrister-at-Law, an ingenuous youth without the least +practice, but who has luckily a great share of good spirits, which +enables him to bide his time, and bear laughingly his humble position in +the world. Meanwhile, until it is altered, the stern laws of necessity +and the expenses of the Northern Circuit oblige Mr. Gray to live in a +very tiny mansion in a very queer small square in the airy neighbourhood +of Gray's Inn Lane. + +What is the more remarkable is, that Gray has a wife there. Mrs. +Gray was a Miss Harley Baker: and I suppose I need not say THAT is +a respectable family. Allied to the Cavendishes, the Oxfords, the +Marrybones, they still, though rather DECHUS from their original +splendour, hold their heads as high as any. Mrs. Harley Baker, I know, +never goes to church without John behind to carry her prayer-book; nor +will Miss Welbeck, her sister, walk twenty yards a-shopping without the +protection of Figby, her sugar-loaf page; though the old lady is as ugly +as any woman in the parish and as tall and whiskery as a grenadier. +The astonishment is, how Emily Harley Baker could have stooped to marry +Raymond Gray. She, who was the prettiest and proudest of the family; +she, who refused Sir Cockle Byles, of the Bengal Service; she, who +turned up her little nose at Essex Temple, Q.C., and connected with +the noble house of Albyn; she, who had but 4,000L. POUR TOUT POTAGE, +to marry a man who had scarcely as much more. A scream of wrath and +indignation was uttered by the whole family when they heard of this +MESALLIANCE. Mrs. Harley Baker never speaks of her daughter now but +with tears in her eyes, and as a ruined creature. Miss Welbeck says, 'I +consider that man a villain;' and has denounced poor good-natured Mrs. +Perkins as a swindler, at whose ball the young people met for the first +time. + +Mr. and Mrs. Gray, meanwhile, live in Gray's Inn Lane aforesaid, with +a maid-servant and a nurse, whose hands are very full, and in a most +provoking and unnatural state of happiness. They have never once thought +of crying about their dinner, like the wretchedly puling and Snobbish +womankind of my favourite Snob Aubrey, of 'Ten Thousand a Year;' but, +on the contrary, accept such humble victuals as fate awards them with a +most perfect and thankful good grace--nay, actually have a portion for a +hungry friend at times--as the present writer can gratefully testify. + +I was mentioning these dinners, and some admirable lemon puddings which +Mrs. Gray makes, to our mutual friend the great Mr. Goldmore, the East +India Director, when that gentleman's face assumed an expression +of almost apoplectic terror, and he gasped out, 'What! Do they give +dinners?' He seemed to think it a crime and a wonder that such people +should dine at all, and that it was their custom to huddle round their +kitchen-fire over a bone and a crust. Whenever he meets them in society, +it is a matter of wonder to him (and he always expresses his surprise +very loud) how the lady can appear decently dressed, and the man have an +unpatched coat to his back. I have heard him enlarge upon this poverty +before the whole room at the 'Conflagrative Club,' to which he and I and +Gray have the honour to belong. + +We meet at the Club on most days. At half-past four, Goldmore arrives +in St. James's Street, from the City, and you may see him reading the +evening papers in the bow-window of the Club, which enfilades +Pall Mall--a large plethoric man, with a bunch of seals in a large +bow-windowed light waistcoat. He has large coat-tails, stuffed with +agents' letters and papers about companies of which he is a Director. +His seals jingle as he walks. I wish I had such a man for an uncle, and +that he himself were childless. I would love and cherish him, and be +kind to him. + +At six o'clock in the full season, when all the world is in St. James's +Street, and the carriages are cutting in and out among the cabs on the +stand, and the tufted dandies are showing their listless faces out of +'White's,' and you see respectable grey-headed gentlemen waggling their +heads to each other through the plate-glass windows of 'Arthur's:' and +the red-coats wish to be Briareian, so as to hold all the gentlemen's +horses; and that wonderful red-coated royal porter is sunning himself +before Marlborough House;--at the noon of London time, you see a +light-yellow carriage with black horses, and a coachman in a tight +floss-silk wig, and two footmen in powder and white and yellow liveries, +and a large woman inside in shot-silk, a poodle, and a pink parasol, +which drives up to the gate of the Conflagrative, and the page goes +and says to Mr. Goldmore (who is perfectly aware of the fact, as he +is looking out of the windows with about forty other 'Conflagrative' +bucks), 'Your carriage, Sir.' G. wags his head. 'Remember, eight o'clock +precisely,' says he to Mulligatawney, the other East India Director; +and, ascending the carriage, plumps down by the side of Mrs. Goldmore +for a drive in the Park, and then home to Portland Place. As the +carriage whirls off, all the young bucks in the Club feel a secret +elation. It is a part of their establishment, as it were. That carriage +belongs to their Club, and their Club belongs to them. They follow the +equipage with interest; they eye it knowingly as they see it in the +Park. But halt! we are not come to the Club Snobs yet. O my brave Snobs, +what a flurry there will be among you when those papers appear! + +Well, you may judge, from the above description, what sort of a man +Goldmore is. A dull and pompous Leadenhall Street Croesus, good-natured +withal, and affable--cruelly affable. 'Mr. Goldmore can never forget,' +his lady used to say, 'that it was Mrs. Gray's Grandfather who sent +him to India; and though that young woman has made the most imprudent +marriage in the world, and has left her station in society, her husband +seems an ingenious and laborious young man, and we shall do everything +in our power to be of use to him.' So they used to ask the Grays to +dinner twice or thrice in a season, when, by way of increasing the +kindness, Buff, the butler, is ordered to hire a fly to convey them to +and from Portland Place. + +Of course I am much too good-natured a friend of both parties not to +tell Gray of Goldmore's opinion in him, and the nabob's astonishment +at the of the briefless barrister having any dinner at all. Indeed, +Goldmore's saying became a joke against Gray amongst us wags at the +Club, and we used to ask him when he tasted meat last? whether we should +bring him home something from dinner? and cut a thousand other mad +pranks with him in our facetious way. + +One day, then, coming home from the Club, Mr. Gray conveyed to his wife +the astounding information that he had asked Goldmore to dinner. + +'My love,' says Mrs. Gray, in a tremor, 'how could you be so cruel? Why, +the dining-room won't hold Mrs. Goldmore.' + +'Make your mind easy, Mrs. Gray; her ladyship is in Paris. It is only +Croesus that's coming, and we are going to the play afterwards--to +Sadler's Wells. Goldmore said at the Club that he thought Shakspeare was +a great dramatic poet, and ought to be patronized; whereupon, fired with +enthusiasm, I invited him to our banquet.' + +'Goodness gracious! what CAN we give him for dinner? He has two French +cooks; you know Mrs. Goldmore is always telling us about them; and he +dines with Aldermen every day.' + +'"A plain leg of mutton, my Lucy, I prythee get ready at three; Have it +tender, and smoking, and juicy, And what better meat can there be?"' + +says Gray, quoting my favourite poet. + +'But the cook is ill; and you know that horrible Pattypan the +pastrycook's---' + +'Silence, Frau!' says Gray, in a deep tragedy voice. 'I will have the +ordering of this repast. Do all things as I bid thee. Invite our friend +Snob here to partake of the feast. Be mine the task of procuring it.' + +'Don't be expensive, Raymond,' says his wife. + +'Peace, thou timid partner of the briefless one. Goldmore's dinner shall +be suited to our narrow means. Only do thou in all things my commands.' +And seeing by the peculiar expression of the rogue's countenance, that +some mad waggery was in preparation, I awaited the morrow with anxiety. + + + +CHAPTER XXXV--SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +Punctual to the hour--(by the way, I cannot omit to mark down my hatred, +scorn, and indignation towards those miserable Snobs who come to dinner +at nine when they are asked at eight, in order to make a sensation in +the company. May the loathing of honest folks, the backbiting of others, +the curses of cooks, pursue these wretches, and avenge the society on +which they trample!)--Punctual, I say, to the hour of five, which Mr. +and Mrs. Raymond Gray had appointed, a youth of an elegant appearance, +in a neat evening-dress, whose trim whiskers indicated neatness, whose +light step denoted activity (for in sooth he was hungry, and always is +at the dinner hour, whatsoever that hour may be), and whose rich +golden hair, curling down his shoulders, was set off by a perfectly new +four-and-ninepenny silk hat, was seen wending his way down Bittlestone +Street, Bittlestone Square, Gray's Inn. The person in question, I need +not say, was Mr. Snob. HE was never late when invited to dine. But to +proceed my narrative:-- + +Mr. Snob may have flattered himself that he made a sensation as he +strutted down Bittlestone with his richly gilt knobbed cane (and indeed +I vow I saw heads looking at me from Miss Squilsby's, the brass-plated +milliner opposite Raymond Gray's, who has three silver-paper bonnets, +and two fly-blown prints of fashion in the window), yet what was the +emotion produced by my arrival, compared to that which the little street +thrilled, when at five minutes past five the floss-wigged coachman, the +yellow hammer-cloth and flunkeys, the black horses and blazing silver +harness of Mr. Goldmore whirled down the street! + +It is a very little street, of very little houses, most of them with +very large brass plates like Miss Squilsby's. Coal-merchants, architects +and surveyors, two surgeons, a solicitor, a dancing-master, and of +course several house-agents, occupy the houses--little two-storeyed +edifices with little stucco porticoes. Goldmore's carriage overtopped +the roofs almost; the first floors might shake hands with Croesus as +he lolled inside; all the windows of those first floors thronged +with children and women in a twinkling. There was Mrs. Hammerly in +curl-papers; Mrs. Saxby with her front awry; Mr. Wriggles peering +through the gauze curtains, holding the while his hot glass of +rum-and-water--in fine, a tremendous commotion in Bittlestone Street, as +the Goldmore carriage drove up to Mr. Raymond Gray's door. + +'How kind it is of him to come with BOTH the footmen!' says little Mrs. +Gray, peeping at the vehicle too. The huge domestic, descending from his +perch, gave a rap at the door which almost drove in the building. All +the heads were out; the sun was shining; the very organ-boy paused; the +footman, the coach, and Goldmore's red face and white waistcoat were +blazing in splendour. The herculean plushed one went back to open the +carriage-door. + +Raymond Gray opened his--in his shirt-sleeves. He ran up to the +carriage. 'Come in, Goldmore,' says he; 'just in time, my boy. Open +the door, What-d'ye-call'um, and let your master out,'--and +What-d'ye-call'um obeyed mechanically, with a face of wonder and +horror, only to be equalled by the look of stupefied astonishment which +ornamented the purple countenance of his master. + +'Wawt taim will you please have the CAGE, sir?' says What-d'ye-call'um, +in that peculiar, unspellable, inimitable, flunkefied pronunciation +which forms one of the chief charms of existence. + +Best have it to the theatre at night,' Gray exclaims; 'it is but a step +from here to the Wells, and we can walk there. I've got tickets for all. +Be at Sadler's Wells at eleven.' + +'Yes, at eleven,' exclaims Goldmore, perturbedly, and walks with a +flurried step into the house, as if he were going to execution (as +indeed he was, with that wicked Gray as a Jack Ketch over him). The +carriage drove away, followed by numberless eyes from doorsteps and +balconies; its appearance is still a wonder in Bittlestone Street. + +'Go in there, and amuse yourself with Snob,' says Gray, opening the +little drawing-room door. 'I'll call out as soon as the chops are ready. +Fanny's below, seeing to the pudding.' + +'Gracious mercy!' says Goldmore to me, quite confidentially, 'how could +he ask us? I really had no idea of this--this utter destitution.' + +'Dinner, dinner!' roars out Gray, from the diningroom, whence issued a +great smoking and frying; and entering that apartment we find Mrs. Gray +ready to receive us, and looking perfectly like a Princess who, by +some accident, had a bowl of potatoes in her hand, which vegetables she +placed on the table. Her husband 'was meanwhile cooking mutton-chops on +a gridiron over the fire. + +Fanny has made the roly-poly pudding,' says he; the chops are my part. +Here's a fine one; try this, Goldmore.' And he popped a fizzing cutlet +on that gentleman's plate. What words, what notes of exclamation can +describe the nabob's astonishment? + +The tablecloth was a very old one, darned in a score places. There was +mustard in a teacup, a silver fork for Goldmore--all ours were iron. + +'I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth,' says Gray, gravely. +'That fork is the only one we have. Fanny has it generally.' + +'Raymond!'--cries Mrs. Gray, with an imploring face. 'She was used to +better things, you know: and I hope one day to get her a dinner-service. +I'm told the electro-plate is uncommonly good. Where the deuce IS +that boy with the beer? And now,' said he, springing up, 'I'll be a +gentleman.' And so he put on his coat, and sat down quite gravely, with +four fresh mutton-chops which he had by this time broiled. + +'We don't have meat every day, Mr. Goldmore,' he continued, 'and it's a +treat to me to get a dinner like this. You little know, you gentlemen of +England, who live at home at ease, what hardships briefless barristers +endure.' + +'Gracious mercy!' says Mr. Goldmore. + +'Where's the half-and-half? Fanny, go over to the 'Keys' and get the +beer. Here's sixpence.' And what was our astonishment when Fanny got up +as if to go! + +'Gracious mercy! let ME,' cries Goldmore. + +'Not for worlds, my dear sir. She's used to it. They wouldn't serve +you as well as they serve her. Leave her alone. Law bless you!' Raymond +said, with astounding composure. And Mrs. Gray left the room, and +actually came back with a tray on which there was a pewter flagon of +beer. Little Polly (to whom, at her christening, I had the honour +of presenting a silver mug EX OFFICIO) followed with a couple of +tobacco-pipes, and the queerest roguish look in her round little chubby +face. + +'Did you speak to Tapling about the gin, Fanny, my dear?' Gray asked, +after bidding Polly put the pipes on the chimney-piece, which that +little person had some difficulty in reaching. 'The last was turpentine, +and even your brewing didn't make good punch of it.' + +'You would hardly suspect, Goldmore, that my wife, a Harley Baker, would +ever make gin-punch? I think my mother-in-law would commit suicide if +she saw her.' + +'Don't be always laughing at mamma, Raymond,' says Mrs. Gray. + +'Well, well, she wouldn't die, and I DON'T wish she would. And you don't +make gin-punch, and you don't like it either and--Goldmore do you drink +your beer out of the glass, or out of the pewter?' + +'Gracious mercy!' ejaculates Croesus once more, as little Polly, taking +the pot with both her little bunches of hands, offers it, smiling, to +that astonished Director. + +And so, in a word, the dinner commenced, and was presently ended in a +similar fashion. Gray pursued his unfortunate guest with the most queer +and outrageous description of his struggles, misery, and poverty. He +described how he cleaned the knives when they were first married; and +how he used to drag the children in a little cart; how his wife could +toss pancakes; and what parts of his dress she made. He told Tibbits, +his clerk (who was in fact the functionary who had brought the beer from +the public-house, which Mrs. Fanny had fetched from the neighbouring +apartment)--to fetch 'the bottle of port-wine,' when the dinner was +over; and told Goldmore as wonderful a history about the way in which +that bottle of wine had come into his hands as any of his former stories +had been. When the repast was all over, and it was near time to move +to the play, and Mrs. Gray had retired, and we were sitting ruminating +rather silently over the last glasses of the port, Gray suddenly breaks +the silence by slapping Goldmore on the shoulder, and saying, 'Now, +Goldmore, tell me something.' + +'What?' asks Croesus. + +'Haven't you had a good dinner?' + +Goldmore started, as if a sudden truth had just dawned upon him. He HAD +had a good dinner; and didn't know it until then. The three mutton-chops +consumed by him were best of the mutton kind; the potatoes were perfect +of their order; as for the rolypoly, it was too good. The porter was +frothy and cool, and the port-wine was worthy of the gills of a bishop. +I speak with ulterior views; for there is more in Gray's cellar. + +'Well,' says Goldmore, after a pause, during which he took time to +consider the momentous question Gray put to him--' 'Pon my word--now +you say so--I--I have--I really have had a monsous good dinnah--monsous +good, upon my ward! Here's your health, Gray my boy, and your amiable +lady; and when Mrs. Goldmore comes back, I hope we shall see you more in +Portland Place.' And with this the time came for the play, and we went +to see Mr. Phelps at Sadler's Wells. The best of this story (for the +truth of every word of which I pledge my honour) is, that after this +banquet, which Goldmore enjoyed so, the honest fellow felt a prodigious +compassion and regard for the starving and miserable giver of the feast, +and determined to help him in his profession. And being a Director of +the newly-established Antibilious Life Assurance Company, he has had +Gray appointed Standing Counsel, with a pretty annual fee; and +only yesterday, in an appeal from Bombay (Buckmuckjee Bobbachee v. +Ramchowder-Bahawder) in the Privy Council, Lord Brougham complimented +Mr. Gray, who was in the case, on his curious and exact knowledge of the +Sanscrit language. + +Whether he knows Sanscrit or not, I can't say; but Goldmore got him the +business; and so I cannot help having a lurking regard for that pompous +old Bigwig. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI--SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +'We Bachelors in Clubs are very much obliged to you,' says my old school +and college companion, Essex Temple, 'for the opinion which you hold of +us. You call us selfish, purple-faced, bloated, and other pretty names. +You state, in the simplest possible terms, that we shall go to the +deuce. You bid us rot in loneliness, and deny us all claims to honesty, +conduct, decent Christian life. Who are you, Mr. Snob, to judge us. Who +are you, with your infernal benevolent smirk and grin, that laugh at all +our generation? + +'I will tell you my case,' says Essex Temple; 'mine and my sister +Polly's, and you may make what you like of it; and sneer at old maids, +and bully old bachelors, if you will. + +'I will whisper to you confidentially that my sister was engaged to +Serjeant Shirker--a fellow whose talents one cannot deny, and be hanged +to them, but whom I have always known to be mean, selfish, and a prig. +However, women don't see these faults in the men whom Love throws in +their way. Shirker, who has about as much warmth as an eel, made up to +Polly years and years ago, and was no bad match for a briefless +barrister, as he was then. + +Have you ever read Lord Eldon's Life? Do you remember how the sordid old +Snob narrates his going out to purchase twopence-worth of sprats, which +he and Mrs. Scott fried between them? And how he parades his humility, +and exhibits his miserable poverty--he who, at that time, must have been +making a thousand pounds a year? Well, Shirker was just as proud of his +prudence--just as thankful for his own meanness, and of course would not +marry without a competency. Who so honourable? Polly waited, and waited +faintly, from year to year. HE wasn't sick at heart; HIS passion never +disturbed his six hours' sleep, or kept his ambition out of mind. He +would rather have hugged an attorney any day than have kissed Polly, +though she was one of the prettiest creatures in the world; and while +she was pining alone upstairs, reading over the stock of half-a-dozen +frigid letters that the confounded prig had condescended to write +to her, HE, be sure, was never busy with anything but his briefs in +chambers--always frigid, rigid, self-satisfied, and at his duty. The +marriage trailed on year after year, while Mr. Serjeant Shirker grew to +be the famous lawyer he is. + +'Meanwhile, my younger brother, Pump Temple, who was in the 120th +Hussars, and had the same little patrimony which fell to the lot of +myself and Polly, must fall in love with our cousin, Fanny Figtree, and +marry her out of hand. You should have seen the wedding! Six +bridesmaids in pink, to hold the fan, bouquet, gloves, scent-bottle, +and pocket-handkerchief of the bride; basketfuls of white favours in +the vestry, to be pinned on to the footmen and horses; a genteel +congregation of curious acquaintance in the pews, a shabby one of poor +on the steps; all the carriages of all our acquaintance, whom Aunt +Figtree had levied for the occasion; and of course four horses for Mr. +Pump's bridal vehicle. + +'Then comes the breakfast, or DEJEUNER, if you please, with a brass band +in the street, and policemen to keep order. The happy bridegroom +spends about a year's income in dresses for the bridesmaids and +pretty presents; and the bride must have a TROUSSEAU of laces, satins, +jewel-boxes and tomfoolery, to make her fit to be a lieutenant's wife. +There was no hesitation about Pump. He flung about his money as if it +had been dross; and Mrs. P. Temple, on the horse Tom Tiddler, which her +husband gave her, was the most dashing of military women at Brighton or +Dublin. + +How old Mrs. Figtree used to bore me and Polly with stories of Pump's +grandeur and the noble company he kept! Polly lives with the Figtrees, +as I am not rich enough to keep a home for her. + +'Pump and I have always been rather distant. Not having the slightest +notions about horseflesh, he has a natural contempt for me; and in our +mother's lifetime, when the good old lady was always paying his debts +and petting him, I'm not sure there was not a little jealousy. It used +to be Polly that kept the peace between us. + +'She went to Dublin to visit Pump, and brought back grand accounts +of his doings--gayest man about town--Aide-de-Camp to the +Lord-Lieutenant--Fanny admired everywhere--Her Excellency godmother to +the second boy: the eldest with a string of aristocratic Christian-names +that made the grandmother wild with delight. Presently Fanny and Pump +obligingly came to London, where the third was born. + +'Polly was godmother to this, and who so loving as she and Pump now? +"Oh, Essex," says she to me, "he is so good, so generous, so fond of his +family; so handsome; who can help loving him, and pardoning his little +errors?" One day, while Mrs. Pump was yet in the upper regions, and +Doctor Fingerfee's brougham at her door every day, having business at +Guildhall, whom should I meet in Cheapside but Pump and Polly? The poor +girl looked more happy and rosy than I have seen her these twelve years. +Pump, on the contrary, was rather blushing and embarrassed. + +'I couldn't be mistaken in her face and its look of mischief and +triumph. She had been committing some act of sacrifice. I went to the +family stockbroker. She had sold out two thousand pounds that morning +and given them to Pump. Quarrelling was useless--Pump had the money; he +was off to Dublin by the time I reached his mother's, and Polly radiant +still. He was going to make his fortune; he was going to embark the +money in the Bog of Allen--I don't know what. The fact is, he was going +to pay his losses upon the last Manchester steeple-chase, and I leave +you to imagine how much principal or interest poor Polly ever saw back +again. + +'It was more than half her fortune, and he has had another thousand +since from her. Then came efforts to stave off ruin and prevent +exposure; struggles on all our parts, and sacrifices, that' (here Mr. +Essex Temple began to hesitate)--'that needn't be talked of; but they +are of no more use than such sacrifices ever are. Pump and his wife are +abroad--I don't like to ask where; Polly has the three children, and Mr. +Serjeant Shirker has formally written to break off an engagement, on the +conclusion of which Miss Temple must herself have speculated, when she +alienated the greater part of her fortune. + +'And here's your famous theory of poor marriages!' Essex Temple cries, +concluding the above history. 'How do you know that I don't want to +marry myself? How do you dare sneer at my poor sister? What are we +but martyrs of the reckless marriage system which Mr. Snob, forsooth, +chooses to advocate?' And he thought he had the better of the argument, +which, strange to say, is not my opinion. + +But for the infernal Snob-worship, might not every one of these people +be happy? If poor Polly's happiness lay in linking her tender arms round +such a heartless prig as the sneak who has deceived her, she might have +been happy now--as happy as Raymond Raymond in the ballad, with the +stone statue by his side. She is wretched because Mr. Serjeant Shirker +worships money and ambition, and is a Snob and a coward. + +If the unfortunate Pump Temple and his giddy hussy of a wife have ruined +themselves, and dragged down others into their calamity, it is because +they loved rank, and horses, and plate, and carriages, and COURT GUIDES, +and millinery, and would sacrifice all to attain those objects. + +And who misguides them? If the world were more simple, would not those +foolish people follow the fashion? Does not the world love COURT +GUIDES, and millinery, and plate, and carriages? Mercy on us! Read the +fashionable intelligence; read the COURT CIRCULAR; read the genteel +novels; survey mankind, from Pimlico to Red Lion Square, and see how the +Poor Snob is aping the Rich Snob; how the Mean Snob is grovelling at the +feet of the Proud Snob; and the Great Snob is lording it over his humble +brother. Does the idea of equality ever enter Dives' head? Will it ever? +Will the Duchess of Fitzbattleaxe (I like a good name) ever believe that +Lady Croesus, her next-door neighbour in Belgrave Square, is as good a +lady as her Grace? Will Lady Croesus ever leave off pining the Duchess's +parties, and cease patronizing Mrs. Broadcloth whose husband has not got +his Baronetcy yet? Will Mrs. Broadcloth ever heartily shake hands with +Mrs. Seedy, and give up those odious calculations about poor dear Mrs. +Seedy's income? Will Mrs. Seedy who is starving in her great house, go +and live comfortably in a little one, or in lodgings? Will her landlady, +Miss Letsam, ever stop wondering at the familiarity of tradespeople, or +rebuking the insolence of Suky, the maid, who wears flowers under her +bonnet like a lady? + +But why hope, why wish for such times? Do I wish all Snobs to perish? Do +I wish these Snob papers to determine? Suicidal fool, art not thou, too, +a Snob and a brother? + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII--CLUB SNOBS + +As I wish to be particularly agreeable to the ladies (to whom I make my +most humble obeisance), we will now, if you please, commence maligning +a class of Snobs against whom, I believe, most female minds are +embittered--I mean Club Snobs. I have very seldom heard even the most +gentle and placable woman speak without a little feeling of bitterness +against those social institutions, those palaces swaggering in St. +James's, which are open to the men; while the ladies have but their +dingy three-windowed brick boxes in Belgravia or in Paddingtonia, or in +the region between the road of Edgware and that of Gray's Inn. + +In my grandfather's time it used to be Freemasonry that roused their +anger. It was my grand-aunt (whose portrait we still have in the family) +who got into the clock-case at the Royal Rosicrucian Lodge at Bungay, +Suffolk, to spy the proceedings of the Society, of which her husband +was a member, and being frightened by the sudden whirring and striking +eleven of the clock (just as the Deputy-Grand-Master was bringing in the +mystic gridiron for the reception of a neophyte), rushed out into the +midst of the lodge assembled; and was elected, by a desperate unanimity, +Deputy-Grand-Mistress for life. Though that admirable and courageous +female never subsequently breathed a word with regard to the secrets +of the initiation, yet she inspired all our family with such a terror +regarding the mysteries of Jachin and Boaz, that none of our family have +ever since joined the Society, or worn the dreadful Masonic insignia. + +It is known that Orpheus was torn to pieces by some justly indignant +Thracian ladies for belonging to an Harmonic Lodge. 'Let him go back +to Eurydice,' they said, 'whom he is pretending to regret so.' But the +history is given in Dr. Lempriere's elegant dictionary in a manner much +more forcible than any this feeble pen can attempt. At once, then, and +without verbiage, let us take up this subject-matter of Clubs. + +Clubs ought not, in my mind, to be permitted to bachelors. If my friend +of the Cuttykilts had not our club, the 'Union Jack,' to go to (I belong +to the 'U.J. and nine other similar institutions), who knows but he +never would be a bachelor at this present moment? Instead of being made +comfortable, and cockered up with every luxury, as they are at Clubs, +bachelors ought to be rendered profoundly miserable, in my opinion. +Every encouragement should be given to the rendering their spare time +disagreeable. There can be no more odious object, according to my +sentiments, than young Smith in the pride of health, commanding his +dinner of three courses; than middle-aged Jones wallowing (as I may +say) in an easy padded arm-chair, over the delicious novel or brilliant +magazine; or than old Brown, that selfish old reprobate for whom mere +literature has no charms, stretched on the best sofa, sitting on the +second edition of THE TIMES, having the MORNING CHRONICLE between his +knees, the HERALD pushed in between his coat and waistcoat, the STANDARD +under his arm, the GLOBE under the other pinion, and the DAILY NEWS +in perusal. 'I'll trouble you for PUNCH, Mr. Wiggins' says the +unconscionable old gormandiser, interrupting our friend, who is laughing +over the periodical in question. + +This kind of selfishness ought not to be. No, no. Young Smith, instead +of his dinner and his wine, ought to be, where?--at the festive +tea-table, to be sure, by the side of Miss Higgs, sipping the bohea, or +tasting the harmless muffin; while old Mrs. Higgs looks on, pleased at +their innocent dalliance, and my friend Miss Wirt, the governess, is +performing Thalberg's last sonata in treble X., totally unheeded, at the +piano. + +Where should the middle-aged Jones be? At his time of life, he ought +to be the father of a family. At such an hour--say, at nine o'clock at +night--the nursery-bell should have just rung the children to bed. He +and Mrs. J. ought to be, by rights, seated on each side of the fire by +the dining-room table, a bottle of port-wine between them, not so full +as it was an hour since. Mrs. J. has had two glasses; Mrs. Grumble +(Jones's mother-in-law) has had three; Jones himself has finished the +rest, and dozes comfortably until bed-time. + +And Brown, that old newspaper-devouring miscreant, what right has HE at +a club at a decent hour of night? He ought to be playing his rubber with +Miss MacWhirter, his wife, and the family apothecary. His candle ought +to be brought to him at ten o'clock, and he should retire to rest just +as the young people were thinking of a dance. How much finer, simpler, +nobler are the several employments I have sketched out for these +gentlemen than their present nightly orgies at the horrid Club. + +And, ladies, think of men who do not merely frequent the dining-room and +library, but who use other apartments of those horrible dens which it +is my purpose to batter down; think of Cannon, the wretch, with his coat +off, at his age and size, clattering the balls over the billiard-table +all night, and making bets with that odious Captain Spot!--think of +Pam in a dark room with Bob Trumper, Jack Deuceace, and Charley Vole, +playing, the poor dear misguided wretch, guinea points and five pounds +on the rubber!--above all, think--oh, think of that den of abomination, +which, I am told, has been established in SOME clubs, called THE +SMOKING-ROOM,--think of the debauchees who congregate there, the +quantities of reeking whisky-punch or more dangerous sherry-cobbler +which they consume;--think of them coming home at cock-crow and letting +themselves into the quiet house with the Chubb key;--think of them, the +hypocrites, taking off their insidious boots before they slink upstairs, +the children sleeping overhead, the wife of their bosom alone with +the waning rushlight in the two-pair front--that chamber so soon to +be rendered hateful by the smell of their stale cigars: I am not an +advocate of violence; I am not, by nature, of an incendiary turn of +mind: but if, my dear ladies, you are for assassinating Mr. Chubb and +burning down Club-houses in St. James's, there is ONE Snob at who will +not think the worse of you. + +The only men who, as I opine, ought to be allowed the use of Clubs, are +married men without a profession. The continual presence of these in a +house cannot be thought, even by the most loving of wives, desirable. +Say the girls are beginning to practise their music, which in an +honourable English family, ought to occupy every young gentlewoman three +hours; it would be rather hard to call upon poor papa to sit in the +drawing-room all that time, and listen to the interminable discords and +shrieks which are elicited from the miserable piano during the above +necessary operation. A man with a good ear, especially, would go mad, if +compelled daily to submit to this horror. + +Or suppose you have a fancy to go to the milliner's, or to Howell and +James's, it is manifest, my dear Madam, that your husband is much better +at the Club during these operations than by your side in the carriage, +or perched in wonder upon one of the stools at Shawl and Gimcrack's, +whilst young counter-dandies are displaying their wares. + +This sort of husbands should be sent out after breakfast, and if not +Members of Parliament, or Directors of a Railroad, or an Insurance +Company, should be put into their clubs, and told to remain there until +dinner-time. No sight is more agreeable to my truly regulated mind than +to see the noble characters so worthily employed. Whenever I pass by +St. James's Street, having the privilege, like the rest of the world, of +looking in at the windows of 'Blight's,' or 'Foodle's,' or 'Snook's,' +or the great bay at the 'Contemplative Club,' I behold with respectful +appreciation the figures within--the honest rosy old fogies, the mouldy +old dandies, the waist-belts and glossy wigs and tight cravats of those +most vacuous and respectable men. Such men are best there during the +day-time surely. When you part with them, dear ladies, think of the +rapture consequent on their return. You have transacted your household +affairs; you have made your purchases; you have paid your visits; you +have aired your poodle in the Park; your French maid has completed the +toilette which renders you so ravishingly beautiful by candlelight, and +you are fit to make home pleasant to him who has been absent all day. + +Such men surely ought to have their Clubs, and we will not class them +among Club Snobs therefore:--on whom let us reserve our attack for the +next chapter. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII--CLUB SNOBS + +Such a Sensation has been created in the Clubs by the appearance of the +last paper on Club Snobs, as can't but be complimentary to me who am one +of their number. + +I belong to many Clubs. The 'Union Jack,' the 'Sash and +Marlin-spike'--Military Clubs. 'The True Blue,' the 'No Surrender,' +the 'Blue and Buff,' the 'Guy Fawkes,' and the 'Cato Street'--Political +Clubs. 'The Brummel' and the 'Regent'--Dandy Clubs. The 'Acropolis,' the +'Palladium,' the 'Areopagus,' the 'Pnyx' the 'Pentelicus,' the 'Ilissus' +and the 'Poluphloisboio Thalasses'--Literary Clubs. I never could make +out how the latter set of Clubs got their names; I don't know Greek for +one, and I wonder how many other members of those institutions do? Ever +since the Club Snobs have been announced, I observe a sensation created +on my entrance into any one of these places. Members get up and hustle +together; they nod, they scowl, as they glance towards the present Snob. +'Infernal impudent jackanapes! If he shows me up,' says Colonel Bludyer, +'I'll break every bone in his skin.' 'I told you what would come of +admitting literary men into the Club,' says Ranville Ranville to his +colleague, Spooney, of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office. 'These people +are very well in their proper places, and as a public man, I make a +point of shaking hands with them, and that sort of thing; but to have +one's privacy obtruded upon by such people is really too much. Come +along, Spooney,' and the pair of prigs retire superciliously. + +As I came into the coffee-room at the 'No Surrender,' old Jawkins was +holding out to a knot of men, who were yawning, as usual. There he +stood, waving the STANDARD, and swaggering before the fire. 'What,' says +he, 'did I tell Peel last year? If you touch the Corn Laws, you touch +the Sugar Question; if you touch the Sugar, you touch the Tea. I am no +monopolist. I am a liberal man, but I cannot forget that I stand on +the brink of a precipice; and if were to have Free Trade, give me +reciprocity. And what was Sir Robert Peel's answer to me? "Mr. Jawkins," +he said--' + +Here Jawkins's eye suddenly turning on your humble servant, he stopped +his sentence, with a guilty look--his stale old stupid sentence, which +every one of us at the Club has heard over and over again. + +Jawkins is a most pertinacious Club Snob. Every day he is at +that fireplace, holding that STANDARD, of which he reads up the +leading-article, and pours it out ORE ROTUNDO, with the most astonishing +composure, in the face of his neighbour, who has just read every word +of it in the paper. Jawkins has money, as you may see by the tie of his +neckcloth. He passes the morning swaggering about the City, in bankers' +and brokers parlours, and says:--'I spoke with Peel yesterday, and his +intentions are so and so. Graham and I were talking over the matter, +and I pledge you my word of honour, his opinion coincides with mine; and +that What-d'ye-call-um is the only measure Government will venture on +trying.' By evening-paper time he is at the Club: 'I can tell you the +opinion of the City, my lord,' says he, 'and the way in which Jones Loyd +looks at it is briefly this: Rothschilds told me so themselves. In +Mark Lane, people's minds are QUITE made up.' He is considered rather a +well-informed man. + +He lives in Belgravia, of course; in a drab-coloured genteel house, +and has everything about him that is properly grave, dismal, and +comfortable. His dinners are in the MORNING HERALD, among the parties +for the week; and his wife and daughters make a very handsome appearance +at the Drawing-Room, once a year, when he comes down to the Club in his +Deputy-Lieutenant's uniform. + +He is fond of beginning a speech to you by saying, 'When I was in the +House, I &c.'--in fact he sat for Skittlebury for three weeks in the +first Reformed Parliament, and was unseated for bribery; since which he +has three times unsuccessfully contested that honourable borough. + +Another sort of Political Snob I have seen at most Clubs and that is +the man who does not care so much for home politics, but is great upon +foreign affairs. I think this sort of man is scarcely found anywhere BUT +in Clubs. It is for him the papers provide their foreign articles, +at the expense of some ten thousand a-year each. He is the man who is +really seriously uncomfortable about the designs of Russia, and the +atrocious treachery of Louis Philippe. He it is who expects a French +fleet in the Thames, and has a constant eye upon the American President, +every word of whose speech (goodness help him!) he reads. He knows the +names of the contending leaders in Portugal, and what they are fighting +about: and it is he who says that Lord Aberdeen ought to be impeached, +and Lord Palmerston hanged, or VICE VERSA. + +Lord Palmerston's being sold to Russia, the exact number of roubles +paid, by what house in the City, is a favourite theme with this kind of +Snob. I once overheard him--it was Captain Spitfire, R.N., (who had been +refused a ship by the Whigs, by the way)--indulging in the following +conversation with Mr. Minns after dinner. + +Why wasn't the Princess Scragamoffsky at Lady Palmerston's party, Minns? +Because SHE CAN'T SHOW--why can't she show? Shall I tell you, Minns, +why she can't show? The Princess Scragainoffsky's back is flayed alive, +Minns--I tell you it's raw, sir! On Tuesday last, at twelve o'clock, +three drummers of the Preobajinski Regiment arrived at Ashburnham House, +and at half-past twelve, in the yellow drawing-room at the Russian +Embassy, before the ambassadress and four ladies'-maids, the Greek Papa, +and the Secretary of Embassy, Madame de Scragamoffsky received thirteen +dozen. She was knouted, sir, knouted in the midst of England--in +Berkeley Square, for having said that the Grand Duchess Olga's hair was +red. And now, sir, will you tell me Lord Palmerston ought to continue +Minister?' + +Minns: 'Good Ged!' + +Minns follows Spitfire about, and thinks him the greatest and wisest of +human beings. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX--CLUB SNOBS + +Why does not some great author write 'The Mysteries of the Club-houses; +or St. James's Street unveiled?' It would be a fine subject for an +imaginative writer. We must all, as boys, remember when we went to the +fair, and had spent all our money--the sort of awe and anxiety with +which we loitered round the outside of the show, speculating upon the +nature of the entertainment going on within. + +Man is a Drama--of Wonder and Passion, and Mystery and Meanness, and +Beauty and Truthfulness, and Etcetera. Each Bosom is a Booth in Vanity +Fair. But let us stop this capital style, I should die if I kept it +up for a column (a pretty thing a column all capitals would be, by the +way). In a Club, though there mayn't be a soul of your acquaintance +in the room, you have always the chance of watching strangers, and +speculating on what is going on within those tents and curtains of their +souls, their coats and waistcoats. This is a never-failing sport. Indeed +I am told there are some Clubs in the town where nobody ever speaks to +anybody. They sit in the coffee-room, quite silent, and watching each +other. + +Yet how little you can tell from a man's outward demeanour! There's a +man at our Club--large, heavy, middle-aged--gorgeously dressed--rather +bald--with lacquered boots--and a boa when he goes out; quiet in +demeanour, always ordering and consuming a RECHERCHE little dinner: whom +I have mistaken for Sir John Pocklington any time these five years, and +respected as a man with five hundred pounds PER DIEM; and I find he +is but a clerk in an office in the City, with not two hundred pounds +income, and his name is Jubber. Sir John Pocklington was, on the +contrary, the dirty little snuffy man who cried out so about the bad +quality of the beer, and grumbled at being overcharged three-halfpence +for a herring, seated at the next table to Jubber on the day when some +one pointed the Baronet out to me. + +Take a different sort of mystery. I see, for instance, old Fawney +stealing round the rooms of the Club, with glassy, meaningless eyes, +and an endless greasy simper--he fawns on everybody he meets, and +shakes hands with you, and blesses you, and betrays the most tender and +astonishing interest in your welfare. You know him to be a quack and a +rogue, and he knows you know it. But he wriggles on his way, and leaves +a track of slimy flattery after him wherever he goes. Who can penetrate +that man's mystery? What earthly good can he get from you or me? You +don't know what is working under that leering tranquil mask. You have +only the dim instinctive repulsion that warns you, you are in the +presence of a knave--beyond which fact all Fawney's soul is a secret to +you. + +I think I like to speculate on the young men best. Their play is opener. +You know the cards in their hand, as it were. Take, for example, Messrs. +Spavin and Cockspur. + +A specimen or two of the above sort of young fellows may be found, I +believe, at most Clubs. They know nobody. They bring a fine smell of +cigars into the room with them, and they growl together, in a corner, +about sporting matters. They recollect the history of that short period +in which they have been ornaments of the world by the names of winning +horses. As political men talk about 'the Reform year,' 'the year the +Whigs went out,' and so forth, these young sporting bucks speak of +TARNATION'S year, or OPODELDOC'S year, or the year when CATAWAMPUS ran +second for the Chester Cup. They play at billiards in the morning, +they absorb pale ale for breakfast, and 'top up' with glasses of strong +waters. They read BELL'S LIFE (and a very pleasant paper too, with a +great deal of erudition in the answers to correspondents). They go down +to Tattersall's, and swagger in the Park, with their hands plunged in +the pockets of their paletots. + +What strikes me especially in the outward demeanour of sporting youth +is their amazing gravity, their conciseness of speech, and careworn and +moody air. In the smoking-room at the 'Regent,' when Joe Millerson +will be setting the whole room in a roar with laughter, you hear young +Messrs. Spavin and Cockspur grumbling together in a corner. 'I'll take +your five-and-twenty to one about Brother to Bluenose,' whispers Spavin. +'Can't do it at the price,' Cockspur says, wagging his head ominously. +The betting-book is always present in the minds of those unfortunate +youngsters. I think I hate that work even more than the 'Peerage.' There +is some good in the latter--though, generally speaking, a vain record: +though De Mogyns is not descended from the giant Hogyn Mogyn; though +half the other genealogies are equally false and foolish; yet the +mottoes are good reading--some of them; and the book itself a sort of +gold-laced and livened lackey to History, and in so far serviceable. But +what good ever came out of, or went into, a betting-book? If I could +be Caliph Omar for a week, I would pitch every one of those despicable +manuscripts into the flames; from my Lord's, who is 'in' with Jack +Snaffle's stable, and is over-reaching worse-informed rogues and +swindling greenhorns, down to Sam's, the butcher-boy's, who books +eighteenpenny odds in the tap-room, and 'stands to win five-and-twenty +bob.' + +In a turf transaction, either Spavin or Cockspur would try to get the +better of his father, and, to gain a point in the odds, victimise his +best friends. One day we shall hear of one or other levanting; an +event at which, not being sporting men, we shall not break our hearts. +See--Mr. Spavin is settling his toilette previous to departure; giving a +curl in the glass to his side-wisps of hair. Look at him! It is only +at the hulks, or among turf-men, that you ever see a face so mean, so +knowing, and so gloomy. + +A much more humane being among the youthful Clubbists is the +Lady-killing Snob. I saw Wiggle just now in the dressing-room, talking +to Waggle, his inseparable. + +WAGGLE.--'Pon my honour, Wiggle, she did.' + +WIGGLE.--'Well, Waggle, as you say--I own I think she DID look at me +rather kindly. We'll see to-night at the French play.' + +And having arrayed their little persons, these two harmless young bucks +go upstairs to dinner. + + + +CHAPTER XL--CLUB SNOBS + +Both sorts of young men, mentioned in my last under the flippant names +of Wiggle and Waggle, may be found in tolerable plenty, I think, in +Clubs. Wiggle and Waggle are both idle. They come of the middle classes. +One of them very likely makes believe to be a barrister, and the other +has smart apartments about Piccadilly. They are a sort of second-chop +dandies; they cannot imitate that superb listlessness of demeanour, and +that admirable vacuous folly which distinguish the noble and high-born +chiefs of the race; but they lead lives almost as bad (were it but for +the example), and are personally quite as useless. I am not going to +arm a thunderbolt, and launch it at the beads of these little Pall +Mall butterflies. They don't commit much public harm, or private +extravagance. They don't spend a thousand pounds for diamond earrings +for an Opera-dancer, as Lord Tarquin can: neither of them ever set up a +public-house or broke the bank of a gambling-club, like the young Earl +of Martingale. They have good points, kind feelings, and deal honourably +in money-transactions--only in their characters of men of second-rate +pleasure about town, they and their like are so utterly mean, +self-contented, and absurd, that they must not be omitted in a work +treating on Snobs. + +Wiggle has been abroad, where he gives you to understand that his +success among the German countesses and Italian princesses, whom he met +at the TABLES-D'HOTE, was perfectly terrific. His rooms are hung round +with pictures of actresses and ballet-dancers. He passes his mornings +in a fine dressing-gown, burning pastilles, and reading 'Don Juan' and +French novels (by the way, the life of the author of 'Don Juan,' as +described by himself, was the model of the life of a Snob). He has +twopenny-halfpenny French prints of women with languishing eyes, dressed +in dominoes,--guitars, gondolas, and so forth,--and tells you stories +about them. + +'It's a bad print,' says he, 'I know, but I've a reason for liking it. +It reminds me of somebody--somebody I knew in other climes. You have +heard of the Principessa di Monte Pulciano? I met her at Rimini. Dear, +dear Francesca! That fair-haired, bright-eyed thing in the Bird of +Paradise and the Turkish Simar with the love-bird on her finger, I'm +sure must have been taken from--from somebody perhaps whom you don't +know--but she's known at Munich, Waggle my boy,--everybody knows the +Countess Ottilia de Eulenschreckenstein. Gad, sir, what a beautiful +creature she was when I danced with her on the birthday of Prince Attila +of Bavaria, in '44. Prince Carloman was our vis-a-vis, and Prince +Pepin danced the same CONTREDANSE. She had a Polyanthus in her bouquet. +Waggle, I HAVE IT NOW.' His countenance assumes an agonized and +mysterious expression, and he buries his head in the sofa cushions, as +if plunging into a whirlpool of passionate recollections. + +Last year he made a considerable sensation by having on his table a +morocco miniature-case locked by a gold key, which he always wore round +his neck, and on which was stamped a serpent--emblem of eternity--with +the letter M in the circle. Sometimes he laid this upon his little +morocco writing-table, as if it were on an altar--generally he had +flowers upon it; in the middle of a conversation he would start up and +kiss it. He would call out from his bed-room to his valet, 'Hicks, bring +me my casket!' + +'I don't know who it is,' Waggle would say. 'Who DOES know that fellow's +intrigues! Desborough Wiggle, sir, is the slave of passion. I suppose +you have heard the story of the Italian princess locked up in the +Convent of Saint Barbara, at Rimini? He hasn't told you? Then I'm not +at liberty to speak. Or the countess, about whom he nearly had the duel +with Prince Witikind of Bavaria? Perhaps you haven't even heard about +that beautiful girl at Pentonville, daughter of a most respectable +Dissenting clergyman. She broke her heart when she found he was engaged +(to a most lovely creature of high family, who afterwards proved false +to him), and she's now in Hanwell.' + +Waggle's belief in his friend amounts to frantic adoration. 'What a +genius he is, if he would but apply himself!' he whispers to me. 'He +could be anything, sir, but for his passions. His poems are the most +beautiful things you ever saw. He's written a continuation of "Don +Juan," from his own adventures. Did you ever read his lines to Mary? +They're superior to Byron, sir--superior to Byron.' + +I was glad to hear this from so accomplished a critic as Waggle; for +the fact is, I had composed the verses myself for honest Wiggle one +day, whom I found at his chambers plunged in thought over a very dirty +old-fashioned album, in which he had not as yet written a single word. + +'I can't,' says he. 'Sometimes I can write whole cantos, and to-day not +a line. Oh, Snob! such an opportunity! Such a divine creature! She's +asked me to write verses for her album, and I can't.' + +'Is she rich?' said I. 'I thought you would never marry any but an +heiress.' + +'Oh, Snob! she's the most accomplished, highly-connected creature!--and +I can't get out a line.' + +'How will you have it?' says I. 'Hot, with sugar?' + +'Don't, don't! You trample on the most sacred feelings, Snob. I want +something wild and tender,--like Byron. I want to tell her that amongst +the festive balls, and that sort of thing, you know--I only think about +her, you know--that I scorn the world, and am weary of it, you know, +and--something about a gazelle, and a bulbul, you know.' + +'And a yataghan to finish off with,' the present writer observed, and we +began:-- + +'TO MARY + +'I seem, in the midst of the crowd, The lightest of all; My laughter +rings cheery and loud, In banquet and ball. My lip hath its smiles and +its sneers, For all men to see; But my soul, and my truth, and my tears, +Are for thee, are for thee!' + +'Do you call THAT neat, Wiggle?' says I. 'I declare it almost makes me +cry myself.' + +'Now suppose,' says Wiggle, 'we say that all the world is at my +feet--make her jealous, you know, and that sort of thing--and that--that +I'm going to TRAVEL, you know? That perhaps may work upon her feelings.' + +So WE (as this wretched prig said) began again:-- + +'Around me they flatter and fawn--The young and the old, The fairest are +ready to pawn Their hearts for my gold. They sue me--I laugh as I spurn +The slaves at my knee, But in faith and in fondness I turn Unto thee, +unto thee!' + +'Now for the travelling, Wiggle my boy!' And I began, in a voice choked +with emotion-- + +'Away! for my heart knows no rest Since you taught it to feel; The +secret must die in my breast I burn to reveal; The passion I may +not. . . .' + +'I say, Snob!' Wiggle here interrupted the excited bard (just as I was +about to break out into four lines so pathetic that they would drive you +into hysterics). 'I say--ahem--couldn't you say that I was--a--military +man, and that there was some danger of my life?' + +'You a military man?--danger of your life? What the deuce do you mean?' + +'Why,' said Wiggle, blushing a great deal, 'I told her I was going +out--on--the--Ecuador--expedition.' + +'You abominable young impostor,' I exclaimed. 'Finish the poem for +yourself!' And so he did, and entirely out of all metre, and bragged +about the work at the Club as his own performance. + +Poor Waggle fully believed in his friend's genius, until one day last +week he came with a grin on his countenance to the Club, and said, 'Oh, +Snob, I've made SUCH a discovery! Going down to the skating to-day, whom +should I see but Wiggle walking with that splendid woman--that lady of +illustrious family and immense fortune, Mary, you know, whom he wrote +the beautiful verses about. She's five-and-forty. She's red hair. She's +a nose like a pump-handle. Her father made his fortune by keeping a +ham-and-beef shop, and Wiggle's going to marry her next week.' + +'So much the better, Waggle, my young friend,' I exclaimed. 'Better +for the sake of womankind that this dangerous dog should leave off +lady-killing--this Blue-Beard give up practice. Or, better rather +for his own sake. For as there is not a word of truth in any of those +prodigious love-stories which you used to swallow, nobody has been +hurt except Wiggle himself, whose affections will now centre in the +ham-and-beef shop. There ARE people, Mr. Waggle, who do these things +in earnest, and hold a good rank in the world too. But these are not +subjects for ridicule, and though certainly Snobs, are scoundrels +likewise. Their cases go up to a higher Court.' + + + +CHAPTER XLI--CLUB SNOBS + +Bacchus is the divinity to whom Waggle devotes his especial worship. +'Give me wine, my boy,' says he to his friend Wiggle, who is prating +about lovely woman; and holds up his glass full of the rosy fluid, and +winks at it portentously, and sips it, and smacks his lips after it, and +meditates on it, as if he were the greatest of connoisseurs. + +I have remarked this excessive wine-amateurship especially in youth. +Snoblings from college, Fledglings from the army, Goslings from the +public schools, who ornament our Clubs, are frequently to be heard in +great force upon wine questions. 'This bottle's corked,' says Snobling; +and Mr. Sly, the butler, taking it away, returns presently with the same +wine in another jug, which the young amateur pronounces excellent. 'Hang +champagne!' says Fledgling, 'it's only fit for gals and children. +Give me pale sherry at dinner, and my twenty-three claret afterwards.' +'What's port now?' says Gosling; 'disgusting thick sweet stuff--where's +the old dry wine one USED to get?' Until the last twelvemonth, Fledgling +drank small-beer at Doctor Swishtail's; and Gosling used to get his dry +old port at a gin-shop in Westminster--till he quitted that seminary, in +1844. + +Anybody who has looked at the caricatures of thirty years ago, +must remember how frequently bottle-noses, pimpled faces, and other +Bardolphian features are introduced by the designer. They are much more +rare now (in nature, and in pictures, therefore,) than in those good old +times; but there are still to be found amongst the youth of our Clubs +lads who glory in drinking-bouts, and whose faces, quite sickly and +yellow, for the most part are decorated with those marks which Rowland's +Kalydor is said to efface. 'I was SO cut last night--old boy!' Hopkins +says to Tomkins (with amiable confidence). 'I tell you what we did. We +breakfasted with Jack Herring at twelve, and kept up with brandy and +soda-water and weeds till four; then we toddled into the Park for an +hour; then we dined and drank mulled port till half-price; then we +looked in for an hour at the Haymarket; then we came back to the Club, +and had grills and whisky punch till all was blue--Hullo, waiter! Get me +a glass of cherry-brandy.' Club waiters, the civilest, the kindest, the +patientest of men, die under the infliction of these cruel young topers. +But if the reader wishes to see a perfect picture on the stage of this +class of young fellows, I would recommend him to witness the ingenious +comedy of LONDON ASSURANCE--the amiable heroes of which are represented, +not only as drunkards and five-o'clock-in-the-morning men, but as +showing a hundred other delightful traits of swindling, lying, and +general debauchery, quite edifying to witness. + +How different is the conduct of these outrageous youths to the decent +behaviour of my friend, Mr. Papworthy; who says to Poppins, the butler +at the Club:-- + +PAPWORTHY.--'Poppins, I'm thinking of dining early; is there any cold +game in the house?' + +POPPINS.--'There's a game pie, sir; there's cold grouse, sir; there's +cold pheasant, sir; there's cold peacock, sir; cold swan, sir; cold +ostrich, sir,' &c. &c. (as the case may be). + +PAPWORTHY.--'Hem! What's your best claret now, Poppins?--in pints, I +mean.' + +POPPINS.--'There's Cooper and Magnum's Lafitte, sir: there's Lath and +Sawdust's St. Julien, sir; Bung's Leoville is considered remarkably +fine; and I think you'd like Jugger's Chateau-Margaux.' + +PAPWORTHY.--'Hum!--hah!--well--give me a crust of bread and a glass of +beer. I'll only LUNCH, Poppins. + +Captain Shindy is another sort of Club bore. He has been known to throw +all the Club in an uproar about the quality of his mutton-chop. + +'Look at it, sir! Is it cooked, sir? Smell it, sir! Is it meat fit for +a gentleman?' he roars out to the steward, who stands trembling before +him, and who in vain tells him that the Bishop of Bullocksmithy has just +had three from the same loin. All the waiters in the Club are huddled +round the captain's mutton-chop. He roars out the most horrible curses +at John for not bringing the pickles; he utters the most dreadful +oaths because Thomas has not arrived with the Harvey Sauce; Peter comes +tumbling with the water-jug over Jeames, who is bringing 'the glittering +canisters with bread.' Whenever Shindy enters the room (such is the +force of character), every table is deserted, every gentleman must dine +as he best may, and all those big footmen are in terror. + +He makes his account of it. He scolds, and is better waited upon in +consequence. At the Club he has ten servants scudding about to do his +bidding. + +Poor Mrs. Shindy and the children are, meanwhile, in dingy lodgings +somewhere, waited upon by a charity-girl in pattens. + + + +CHAPTER XLII--CLUB SNOBS + +Every well-bred English female will sympathize with the subject of +the harrowing tale, the history of Sackville Maine, I am now about to +recount. The pleasures of Clubs have been spoken of: let us now glance +for a moment at the dangers of those institutions, and for this purpose +I must introduce you to my young acquaintance, Sackville Maine. + +It was at a ball at the house of my respected friend, Mrs. Perkins, that +I was introduced to this gentleman and his charming lady. Seeing a young +creature before me in a white dress, with white satin shoes; with a pink +ribbon, about a yard in breadth, flaming out as she twirled in a polka +in the arms of Monsieur de Springbock, the German diplomatist; with a +green wreath on her head, and the blackest hair this individual set eyes +on--seeing, I say, before me a charming young woman whisking beautifully +in a beautiful dance, and presenting, as she wound and wound round the +room, now a full face, then a three-quarter face, then a profile--a +face, in fine, which in every way you saw it, looked pretty, and rosy, +and happy, I felt (as I trust) a not unbecoming curiosity regarding the +owner of this pleasant countenance, and asked Wagley (who was standing +by, in conversation with an acquaintance) who was the lady in question? + +'Which?' says Wagley. + +'That one with the coal-black eyes,' I replied. + +'Hush!' says he; and the gentleman with whom he was talking moved off, +with rather a discomfited air. + +When he was gone Wagley burst out laughing. 'COAL-BLACK eyes!' said +he; 'you've just hit it. That's Mrs. Sackville Maine, and that was her +husband who just went away. He's a coal-merchant, Snob my boy, and I +have no doubt Mr. Perkins's Wallsends are supplied from his wharf. He is +in a flaming furnace when he hears coals mentioned. He and his wife and +his mother are very proud of Mrs. Sackville's family; she was a Miss +Chuff, daughter of Captain Chuff, R.N. That is the widow; that stout +woman in crimson tabinet, battling about the odd trick with old Mr. +Dumps, at the card-table.' + +And so, in fact, it was. Sackville Maine (whose name is a hundred times +more elegant, surely, than that of Chuff) was blest with a pretty wife, +and a genteel mother-in-law, both of whom some people may envy him. + +Soon after his marriage the old lady was good enough to come and pay him +a visit--just for a fortnight--at his pretty little cottage, Kennington +Oval; and, such is her affection for the place, has never quitted it +these four years. She has also brought her son, Nelson Collingwood +Chuff, to live with her; but he is not so much at home as his mamma, +going as a day-boy to Merchant Taylors' School, where he is getting a +sound classical education. + +If these beings, so closely allied to his wife, and so justly dear to +her, may be considered as drawbacks to Maine's happiness, what man is +there that has not some things in life to complain of? And when I first +knew Mr. Maine, no man seemed more comfortable than he. His cottage was +a picture of elegance and comfort; his table and cellar were excellently +and neatly supplied. There was every enjoyment, but no ostentation. The +omnibus took him to business of a morning; the boat brought him back to +the happiest of homes, where he would while away the long evenings by +reading out the fashionable novels to the ladies as they worked; or +accompany his wife on the flute (which he played elegantly); or in any +one of the hundred pleasing and innocent amusements of the domestic +circle. Mrs. Chuff covered the drawing-rooms with prodigious tapestries, +the work of her hands. Mrs. Sackville had a particular genius for making +covers of tape or network for these tapestried cushions. She could make +home-made wines. She could make preserves and pickles. She had an +album, into which, during the time of his courtship, Sackville Maine bad +written choice scraps of Byron's and Moore's poetry, analogous to his +own situation, and in a fine mercantile hand. She had a large manuscript +receipt-book--every quality, in a word, which indicated a virtuous and +well-bred English female mind. + +'And as for Nelson Collingwood,' Sackville would say, laughing, 'we +couldn't do without him in the house. If he didn't spoil the tapestry we +should be 'over-cushioned in a few months; and whom could we get but him +to drink Laura's home-made wine?' The truth is, the gents who came from +the City to dine at the 'Oval' could not be induced to drink it--in +which fastidiousness, I myself, when I grew to be intimate with the +family, confess that I shared. + +'And yet, sir, that green ginger has been drunk by some of England's +proudest heroes,' Mrs. Chuff would exclaim. 'Admiral Lord Exmouth +tasted and praised it, sir, on board Captain Chuff's ship, the +"Nebuchadnezzar," 74, at Algiers; and he had three dozen with turn +in the "Pitchfork" frigate, a part of which was served out to the men +before he went into his immortal action with the "Furibonde," Captain +Choufleur, in the Gulf of Panama.' + +All this, though the old dowager told us the story every day when the +wine was produced, never served to get rid of any quantity of it--and +the green ginger, though it had fired British tars for combat and +victory, was not to the taste of us peaceful and degenerate gents of +modern times. + +I see Sackville now, as on the occasion when, presented by +Wagley, I paid my first visit to him. It was in July--a Sunday +afternoon--Sackville Maine was coming from church, with his wife on one +arm, and his mother-ill-law (in red tabinet, as usual,) on the other. +A half-grown, or hobbadehoyish footman, so to speak, walked after them, +carrying their shining golden prayer-books--the ladies had splendid +parasols with tags and fringes. Mrs. Chuff's great gold watch, fastened +to her stomach, gleamed there like a ball of fire. Nelson Collingwood +was in the distance, shying stones at an old horse on Kennington Common. +'Twas on that verdant spot we met--nor can I ever forget the majestic +courtesy of Mrs. Chuff, as she remembered having had the pleasure of +seeing me at Mrs. Perkins's--nor the glance of scorn which she threw +at an unfortunate gentleman who was preaching an exceedingly desultory +discourse to a sceptical audience of omnibus-cads and nurse-maids, on a +tub, as we passed by. 'I cannot help it, sir,' says she; 'I am the widow +of an officer of Britain's Navy: I was taught to honour my Church and my +King: and I cannot bear a Radical or a Dissenter.' + +With these fine principles I found Sackville Maine impressed. 'Wagley,' +said he, to my introducer, 'if no better engagement, why shouldn't self +and friend dine at the "Oval?" Mr. Snob, sir, the mutton's coming off +the spit at this very minute. Laura and Mrs. Chuff' (he said LAURAR and +Mrs. Chuff; but I hate people who make remarks on these peculiarities of +pronunciation,) 'will be most happy to see you; and I can promise you a +hearty welcome, and as good a glass of port-wine as any in England.' + +'This is better than dining at the "Sarcophagus,"' thinks I to myself, +at which Club Wagley and I had intended to take our meal; and so we +accepted the kindly invitation, whence arose afterwards a considerable +intimacy. + +Everything about this family and house was so good-natured, comfortable, +and well-conditioned, that a cynic would have ceased to growl there. +Mrs. Laura was all graciousness and smiles, and looked to as great +advantage in her pretty morning-gown as in her dress-robe at Mrs. +Perkins's. Mrs. Chuff fired off her stories about the 'Nebuchadnezzar,' +74, the action between the 'Pitchfork' and the 'Furibonde'--the heroic +resistance of Captain Choufleur, and the quantity of snuff he took, &c. +&c.; which, as they were heard for the first time, were pleasanter than +I have subsequently found them. Sackville Maine was the best of hosts. +He agreed in everything everybody said, altering his opinions without +the slightest reservation upon the slightest possible contradiction. +He was not one of those beings who would emulate a Schonbein or +Friar Bacon, or act the part of an incendiary towards the Thames, his +neighbour--but a good, kind, simple, honest, easy fellow--in love with +his wife--well disposed to all the world--content with himself, content +even with his mother-in-law. Nelson Collingwood, I remember, in the +course of the evening, when whisky-and-water was for some reason +produced, grew a little tipsy. This did not in the least move +Sackville's equanimity. 'Take him upstairs, Joseph,' said he to the +hobbadehoy, 'and--Joseph--don't tell his mamma.' + +What could make a man so happily disposed, unhappy? What could cause +discomfort, bickering, and estrangement in a family so friendly and +united? Ladies, it was not my fault--it was Mrs. Chuff's doing--but the +rest of the tale you shall have on a future day. + + + +CHAPTER XLIII--CLUB SNOBS + +The misfortune which befell the simple and good-natured young Sackville, +arose entirely from that abominable 'Sarcophagus Club;' and that he ever +entered it was partly the fault of the present writer. + +For seeing Mrs. Chuff, his mother-in-law, had a taste for the +genteel--(indeed, her talk was all about Lord Collingwood, Lord Gambier, +Sir Jahaleel Brenton, and the Gosport and Plymouth balls)--Wagley and I, +according to our wont, trumped her conversation, and talked about +Lords, Dukes, Marquises, and Baronets, as if those dignitaries were our +familiar friends. + +'Lord Sextonbury,' says I, 'seems to have recovered her ladyship's +death. He and the Duke were very jolly over their wine at the +"Sarcophagus" last night; weren't they, Wagley?' + +'Good fellow, the Duke,' Wagley replied. 'Pray, ma'am' (to Mrs. Chuff), +'you who know the world and etiquette, will you tell me what a man ought +to do in my case? Last June, his Grace, his son Lord Castlerampant, +Tom Smith, and myself were dining at the Club, when I offered the odds +against DADDYLONGLEGS for the Derby--forty to one, in sovereigns only. +His Grace took the bet, and of course I won. He has never paid me. Now, +can I ask such a great man for a sovereign?--One more lump of sugar, if +you please, my dear madam.' + +It was lucky Wagley gave her this opportunity to elude the question, +for it prostrated the whole worthy family among whom we were. They +telegraphed each other with wondering eyes. Mrs. Chuff's stories about +the naval nobility grew quite faint and kind little Mrs. Sackville +became uneasy, and went upstairs to look at the children--not at +that young monster, Nelson Collingwood, who was sleeping off the +whisky-and-water--but at a couple of little ones who had made their +appearance at dessert, and of whom she and Sackville were the happy +parents. + +The end of this and subsequent meetings with Mr. Maine was, that we +proposed and got him elected as a member of the 'Sarcophagus Club.' + +It was not done without a deal of opposition--the secret having been +whispered that the candidate was a coal-merchant. You may be sure some +of the proud people and most of the parvenus of the Club were ready +to blackball him. We combated this opposition successfully, however. +We pointed out to the parvenus that the Lambtons and the Stuarts sold +coals: we mollified the proud by accounts of his good birth, good +nature, and good behaviour; and Wagley went about on the day of +election, describing with great eloquence, the action between the +'Pitchfork' and the 'Furibonde,' and the valour of Captain Maine, our +friend's father. There was a slight mistake in the narrative; but we +carried our man, with only a trifling sprinkling of black beans in the +boxes: Byles's, of course, who blackballs everybody: and Bung's, who +looks down upon a coal-merchant, having himself lately retired from the +wine-trade. + +Some fortnight afterwards I saw Sackville Maine under the following +circumstances:-- + +He was showing the Club to his family. He had 'brought them thither +in the light-blue fly, waiting at the Club door; with Mrs. Chuff's +hobbadehoy footboy on the box, by the side of the flyman, in a sham +livery. Nelson Collingwood; pretty Mrs. Sackville; Mrs. Captain Chuff +(Mrs. Commodore Chuff we call her), were all there; the latter, of +course, in the vermilion tabinet, which, splendid as it is, is nothing +in comparison to the splendour of the 'Sarcophagus.' The delighted +Sackville Maine was pointing out the beauties of the place to them. It +seemed as beautiful as Paradise to that little party. + +The 'Sarcophagus' displays every known variety of architecture and +decoration. The great library is Elizabethan; the small library is +pointed Gothic; the dining-room is severe Doric; the strangers' room +has an Egyptian look; the drawing-rooms are Louis Quatorze (so called +because the hideous ornaments displayed were used in the time of Louis +Quinze); the CORTILE, or hall, is Morisco-Italian. It is all over +marble, maplewood, looking-glasses, arabesques, ormolu, and scagliola. +Scrolls, ciphers, dragons, Cupids, polyanthuses, and other flowers +writhe up the walls in every kind of cornucopiosity. Fancy every +gentleman in Jullien's band playing with all his might, and +each performing a different tune; the ornaments at our Club, the +'Sarcophagus,' so bewilder and affect me. Dazzled with emotions which I +cannot describe, and which she dared not reveal, Mrs. Chuff, followed +by her children and son-in-law, walked wondering amongst these blundering +splendours. + +In the great library (225 feet long by 150) the only man Mrs. Chuff saw, +was Tiggs. He was lying on a crimson-velvet sofa, reading a French novel +of Paul de Kock. It was a very little book. He is a very little man. +In that enormous hall he looked like a mere speck. As the ladies passed +breathless and trembling in the vastness of the magnificent solitude, +he threw a knowing, killing glance at the fair strangers, as much as to +say, 'Ain't I a fine fellow?' They thought so, I am sure. + +'WHO IS THAT?' hisses out Mrs. Chuff, when we were about fifty yards +off him at the other end of the room. + +'Tiggs!' says I, in a similar whisper. + +'Pretty comfortable this, isn't it, my dear?' says Maine in a +free-and-easy way to Mrs. Sackville; 'all the magazines, you see--writing +materials--new works--choice library, containing every work of +importance--what have we here?--"Dugdale's Monasticon," a most valuable +and, I believe, entertaining book.' + +And proposing to take down one of the books for Mrs. Maine's inspection, +he selected Volume VII., to which he was attracted by the singular fact +that a brass door-handle grew out of the back. Instead of pulling out +a book, however, he pulled open a cupboard, only inhabited by a lazy +housemaid's broom and duster, at which he looked exceedingly discomfited; +while Nelson Collingwood, losing all respect, burst into a roar of +laughter. + +'That's the rummest book I ever saw,' says Nelson. 'I wish we'd no +others at Merchant Taylors'.' + +'Hush, Nelson!' cries Mrs. Chuff, and we went into the other magnificent +apartments. + +How they did admire the drawing-room hangings, (pink and silver brocade, +most excellent wear for London,) and calculated the price per yard; +and revelled on the luxurious sofas; and gazed on the immeasurable +looking-glasses. + +'Pretty well to shave by, eh?' says Maine to his mother-in-law. (He was +getting more abominably conceited every minute.) 'Get away, Sackville,' +says she, quite delighted, and threw a glance over her shoulder, +and spread out the wings of the red tabinet, and took a good look +at herself; so did Mrs. Sackville--just one, and I thought the glass +reflected a very smiling, pretty creature. + +But what's a woman at a looking-glass? Bless the little dears, it's +their place. They fly to it naturally. It pleases them, and they adorn +it. What I like to see, and watch with increasing joy and adoration, +is the Club MEN at the great looking-glasses. Old Gills pushing up his +collars and grinning at his own mottled face. Hulker looking solemnly at +his great person, and tightening his coat to give himself a waist. Fred +Minchin simpering by as he is going out to dine, and casting upon the +reflection of his white neckcloth a pleased moony smile. What a deal of +vanity that Club mirror has reflected, to be sure! + +Well, the ladies went through the whole establishment with perfect +pleasure. They beheld the coffee-rooms, and the little tables laid for +dinner, and the gentlemen who were taking their lunch, and old Jawkins +thundering away as usual; they saw the reading-rooms, and the rush for +the evening papers; they saw the kitchens--those wonders of art--where +the CHEF was presiding over twenty pretty kitchen-maids, and ten +thousand shining saucepans: and they got into the light-blue fly +perfectly bewildered with pleasure. + +Sackville did not enter it, though little Laura took the back seat on +purpose, and left him the front place alongside of Mrs. Chuff's red +tabinet. + +'We have your favourite dinner,' says she, in a timid voice; 'won't you +come, Sackville?' + +'I shall take a chop here to-day, my dear,' Sackville replied. 'Home, +James.' And he went up the steps of the 'Sarcophagus,' and the pretty +face looked very sad out of the carriage, as the blue fly drove away. + + + +CHAPTER XLIV--CLUB SNOBS + +Why--Why did I and Wagley ever do so cruel an action as to introduce +young Sackville Maine into that odious 'Sarcophagus'? Let our imprudence +and his example be a warning to other gents; let his fate and that of +his poor wife be remembered by every British female. The consequences of +his entering the Club were as follows:-- + +One of the first vices the unhappy wretch acquired in this abode of +frivolity was that of SMOKING. Some of the dandies of the Club, such as +the Marquis of Macabaw, Lord Doodeen, and fellows of that high order, +are in the habit of indulging in this propensity upstairs in the +billiard-rooms of the 'Sarcophagus'--and, partly to make their +acquaintance, partly from a natural aptitude for crime, Sackville Maine +followed them, and became an adept in the odious custom. Where it is +introduced into a family I need not say how sad the consequences +are, both to the furniture and the morals. Sackville smoked in his +dining-room at home, and caused an agony to his wife and mother-in-law +which I do not venture to describe. + +He then became a professed BILLIARD-PLAYER, wasting hours upon hours +at that amusement; betting freely, playing tolerably, losing awfully to +Captain Spot and Col. Cannon. He played matches of a hundred games with +these gentlemen, and would not only continue until four or five o'clock +in the morning at this work, but would be found at the Club of a +forenoon, indulging himself to the detriment of his business, the ruin +of his health, and the neglect of his wife. + +From billiards to whist is but a step--and when a man gets to whist and +five pounds on a rubber, my opinion is, that it is all up with him. How +was the coal business to go on, and the connection of the firm to be +kept up, and the senior partner always at the card-table? + +Consorting now with genteel persons and Pall Mall bucks, Sackville +became ashamed of his snug little residence in Kennington Oval, and +transported his family to Pimlico, where, though Mrs. Chuff, his +mother-in-law, was at first happy, as the quarter was elegant and +near her Sovereign, poor little Laura and the children found a woful +difference. Where were her friends who came in with their work of a +morning?--At Kennington and in the vicinity of Clapham. 'Where were her +children's little playmates?--On Kennington Common. The great thundering +carriages that roared up and down the drab-coloured streets of the +new quarter, contained no friends for the sociable little Laura. +The children that paced the squares, attended by a BONNE or a prim +governess, were not like those happy ones that flew kites, or played +hop-scotch, on the well-beloved old Common. And ah! what a difference at +Church too!--between St. Benedict's of Pimlico, with open seats, service +in sing-song--tapers--albs--surplices--garlands and processions, and +the honest old ways of Kennington! The footmen, too, attending St. +Benedict's were so splendid and enormous, that James, Mrs. Chuff's boy, +trembled amongst them, and said he would give warning rather than carry +the books to that church any more. + +The furnishing of the house was not done without expense. + +And, ye gods! what a difference there was between Sackville's dreary +French banquets in Pimlico, and the jolly dinners at the Oval! No more +legs-of-mutton, no more of 'the best port-wine in England;' but ENTREES +on plate, and dismal twopenny champagne, and waiters in gloves, and +the Club bucks for company--among whom Mrs. Chuff was uneasy and Mrs. +Sackville quite silent. + +Not that he dined at home often. The wretch had become a perfect +epicure, and dined commonly at the Club with the gormandising clique +there; with old Doctor Maw, Colonel Cramley (who is as lean as a +greyhound and has jaws like a jack), and the rest of them. Here you +might see the wretch tippling Sillery champagne and gorging himself with +French viands; and I often looked with sorrow from my table, (on which +cold meat, the Club small-beer, and a half-pint of Marsala form the +modest banquet,) and sighed to think it was my work. + +And there were other beings present to my repentant thoughts. Where's +his wife, thought I? Where's poor, good, kind little Laura? At this +very moment--it's about the nursery bed-time, and while yonder +good-for-nothing is swilling his wine--the little ones are at Laura's +knees lisping their prayers: and she is teaching them to say--'Pray God +bless Papa.' + +When she has put them to bed, her day's occupation is gone; and she is +utterly lonely all night, and sad, and waiting for him. + +Oh, for shame! Oh, for shame! Go home, thou idle tippler. + +How Sackville lost his health: how he lost his business; how he got +into scrapes; how he got into debt; how he became a railroad director; +how the Pimlico house was shut up; how he went to Boulogne,--all this +I could tell, only I am too much ashamed of my part of the transaction. +They returned to England, because, to the surprise of everybody, Mrs. +Chuff came down with a great sum of money (which nobody knew she had +saved), and paid his liabilities. He is in England; but at Kennington. +His name is taken off the books of the 'Sarcophagus' long ago. When we +meet, he crosses over to the other side of the street; I don't call, as +I should be sorry to see a look of reproach or sadness in Laura's sweet +face. + +Not, however, all evil, as I am proud to think, has been the influence +of the Snob of England upon Clubs in general:--Captain Shindy is afraid +to bully the waiters any more, and eats his mutton-chop without moving +Acheron. Gobemouche does not take more than two papers at a time for +his private reading. Tiggs does not ring the bell and cause the +library-waiter to walk about a quarter of a mile in order to give him +Vol. II., which lies on the next table. Growler has ceased to walk from +table to table in the coffee-room, and inspect what people are having +for dinner. Trotty Veck takes his own umbrella from the hall--the cotton +one; and Sydney Scraper's paletot lined with silk has been brought back +by Jobbins, who entirely mistook it for his own. Wiggle has discontinued +telling stories about the ladies he has killed. Snooks does not any +more think it gentlemanlike to blackball attorneys. Snuffler no longer +publicly spreads out his great red cotton pocket-handkerchief before the +fire, for the admiration of two hundred gentlemen; and if one Club Snob +has been brought back to the paths of rectitude, and if one poor John +has been spared a journey or a scolding--say, friends and brethren if +these sketches of Club Snobs have been in vain? + + + + +CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON SNOBS + +How it is that we have come to No. 45 of this present series of papers, +my dear friends and brother Snobs, I hardly know--but for a whole mortal +year have we been together, prattling, and abusing the human race; and +were we to live for a hundred years more, I believe there is plenty of +subject for conversation in the enormous theme of Snobs. + +The national mind is awakened to the subject. Letters pour in every +day, conveying marks of sympathy; directing the attention of the Snob +of England to races of Snobs yet undescribed. 'Where are your Theatrical +Snobs; your Commercial Snobs; your Medical and Chirurgical Snobs; your +Official Snobs; your Legal Snobs; your Artistical Snobs; your Musical +Snobs; your Sporting Snobs?' write my esteemed correspondents. 'Surely +you are not going to miss the Cambridge Chancellor election, and omit +showing up your Don Snobs, who are coming, cap in hand, to a young +Prince of six-and-twenty, and to implore him to be the chief of their +renowned University?' writes a friend who seals with the signet of the +Cam and Isis Club. 'Pray, pray,' cries another, 'now the Operas are +opening, give us a lecture about Omnibus Snobs.' Indeed, I should like +to write a chapter about the Snobbish Dons very much, and another about +the Snobbish Dandies. Of my dear Theatrical Snobs I think with a pang; +and I can hardly break away from some Snobbish artists, with whom I have +long, long intended to have a palaver. + +But what's the use of delaying? When these were done there would be +fresh Snobs to pourtray. The labour is endless. No single man could +complete it. Here are but fifty-two bricks--and a pyramid to build. It +is best to stop. As Jones always quits the room as soon as he has said +his good thing,--as Cincinnatus and General Washington both retired into +private life in the height of their popularity,--as Prince Albert, +when he laid the first stone of the Exchange, left the bricklayers to +complete that edifice and went home to his royal dinner,--as the poet +Bunn comes forward at the end of the season, and with feelings too +tumultuous to describe, blesses his KYIND friends over the footlights: +so, friends, in the flush of conquest and the splendour of victory, amid +the shouts and the plaudits of a people--triumphant yet modest--the Snob +of England bids ye farewell. + +But only for a season. Not for ever. No, no. There is one celebrated +author whom I admire very much--who has been taking leave of the public +any time these ten years in his prefaces, and always comes back again +when everybody is glad to see him. How can he have the heart to be +saying good-bye so often? I believe that Bunn is affected when he +blesses the people. Parting is always painful. Even the familiar bore is +dear to you. I should be sorry to shake hands even with Jawkins for +the last time. I think a well-constituted convict, on coming home +from transportation, ought to be rather sad when he takes leave of +Van Diemen's Land. When the curtain goes down on the last night of a +pantomime, poor old clown must be very dismal, depend on it. Ha! with +what joy he rushes forward on the evening of the 26th of December +next, and says--'How are you?--Here we are!' But I am growing too +sentimental:--to return to the theme. + +THE NATIONAL MIND IS AWAKENED TO THE SUBJECT OF SNOBS. The word Snob +has taken a place in our honest English vocabulary. We can't define it, +perhaps. We can't say what it is, any more than we can define wit, or +humour, or humbug; but we KNOW what it is. Some weeks since, happening +to have the felicity to sit next to a young lady at a hospitable table, +where poor old Jawkins was holding forth in a very absurd pompous +manner, I wrote upon the spotless damask 'S--B,' and called my +neighbour's attention to the little remark. + +That young lady smiled. She knew it at once. Her mind straightway filled +up the two letters concealed by apostrophic reserve, and I read in her +assenting eyes that she knew Jawkins was a Snob. You seldom get them +to make use of the word as yet, it is true; but it is inconceivable how +pretty an expression their little smiling mouths assume when they speak +it out. If any young lady doubts, just let her go up to her own room, +look at herself steadily in the glass, and say 'Snob.' If she tries this +simple experiment, my life for it, she will smile, and own that the word +becomes her mouth amazingly. A pretty little round word, all composed of +soft letters, with a hiss at the beginning, just to make it piquant, as +it were. + +Jawkins, meanwhile, went on blundering, and bragging and boring, quite +unconsciously. And so he will, no doubt, go on roaring and braying, to +the end of time or at least so long as people will hear him. You cannot +alter the nature of men and Snobs by any force of satire; as, by laying +ever so many stripes on a donkey's back, you can't turn him into a +zebra. + +But we can warn the neighbourhood that the person whom they and Jawkins +admire is an impostor. We apply the Snob test to him, and try whether he +is conceited and a quack, whether pompous and lacking humility--whether +uncharitable and proud of his narrow soul? How does he treat a great +man--how regard a small one? How does he comport himself in the presence +of His Grace the Duke; and how in that of Smith the tradesman? + +And it seems to me that all English society is cursed by this +mammoniacal superstition; and that we are sneaking and bowing and +cringing on the one hand, or bullying and scorning on the other, +from the lowest to the highest. My wife speaks with great +circumspection--'proper pride,' she calls it--to our neighbour the +tradesman's lady: and she, I mean Mrs. Snob,--Eliza--would give one of +her eyes to go to Court, as her cousin, the Captain's wife, did. She, +again, is a good soul, but it costs her agonies to be obliged to confess +that we live in Upper Thompson Street, Somers Town. And though I believe +in her heart Mrs. Whiskerington is fonder of us than of her cousins, +the Smigsmags, you should hear how she goes on prattling about Lady +Smigsmag,--and 'I said to Sir John, my dear John;' and about the +Smigsmags' house and parties in Hyde Park Terrace. + +Lady Smigsmag, when she meets Eliza,--who is a sort of a kind of a +species of a connection of the family, pokes out one finger, which my +wife is at liberty to embrace in the most cordial manner she can devise. +But oh, you should see her ladyship's behaviour on her first-chop +dinner-party days, when Lord and Lady Longears come! + +I can bear it no longer--this diabolical invention of gentility which +kills natural kindliness and honest friendship. Proper pride, indeed! +Rank and precedence, forsooth! The table of ranks and degrees is a lie, +and should be flung into the fire. Organize rank and precedence! that +was well for the masters of ceremonies of former ages. Come forward, +some great marshal, and organize Equality in society, and your rod +shall swallow up all the juggling old court goldsticks. If this is +not gospel-truth--if the world does not tend to this--if +hereditary-great-man worship is not a humbug and an idolatry--let us +have the Stuarts back again, and crop the Free Press's ears in the +pillory. + +If ever our cousins, the Smigsmags, asked me to meet Lord Longears, +I would like to take an opportunity after dinner and say, in the most +good-natured way in the world:--Sir, Fortune makes you a present of +a number of thousand pounds every year. The ineffable wisdom of our +ancestors has placed you as a chief and hereditary legislator over me. +Our admirable Constitution (the pride of Britons and envy of surrounding +nations) obliges me to receive you as my senator, superior, and +guardian. Your eldest son, Fitz-Heehaw, is sure of a place in +Parliament; your younger sons, the De Brays, will kindly condescend +to be post-captains and lieutenants-colonels, and to represent us in +foreign courts or to take a good living when it falls convenient. +These prizes our admirable Constitution (the pride and envy of, &c.) +pronounces to be your due: without count of your dulness, your vices, +your selfishness; or your entire incapacity and folly. Dull as you may +be (and we have as good a right to assume that my lord is an ass, as the +other proposition, that he is an enlightened patriot);--dull, I say, +as you may be, no one will accuse you of such monstrous folly, as to +suppose that you are indifferent to the good luck which you possess, or +have any inclination to part with it. No--and patriots as we are, under +happier circumstances, Smith and I, I have no doubt, were we dukes +ourselves, would stand by our order. + +We would submit good-naturedly to sit in a high place. We would +acquiesce in that admirable Constitution (pride and envy of, &c.) +which made us chiefs and the world our inferiors; we would not cavil +particularly at that notion of hereditary superiority which brought many +simple people cringing to our knees. May be we would rally round the +Corn-Laws; we would make a stand against the Reform Bill; we would die +rather than repeal the Acts against Catholics and Dissenters; we would, +by our noble system of class-legislation, bring Ireland to its present +admirable condition. + +But Smith and I are not Earls as yet. 'We don't believe that it is +for the interest of Smith's army that De Bray should be a Colonel at +five-and-twenty, of Smith's diplomatic relations that Lord Longears +should go Ambassador to Constantinople,--of our politics, that Longears +should put his hereditary foot into them. + +This bowing and cringing Smith believes to be the act of Snobs; and he +will do all in his might and main to be a Snob and to submit to Snobs +no longer. To Longears he says, 'We can't help seeing, Longears, that +we are as good as you. We can spell even better; can think quite as +rightly; we will not have you for our master, or black your shoes any +more. Your footmen do it, but they are paid; and the fellow who comes to +get a list of the company when you give a banquet or a dancing breakfast +at Longueoreille House, gets money from the newspapers for performing +that service. But for us, thank you for nothing, Longears my boy, and we +don't wish to pay you any more than we owe. We will take off our hats to +Wellington because he is Wellington; but to you--who are you?' + +I am sick of COURT CIRCULARS. I loathe HAUT-TON intelligence. I believe +such words as Fashionable, Exclusive, Aristocratic, and the like, to +be wicked, unchristian epithets, that ought to be banished from honest +vocabularies. A Court system that sends men of genius to the second +table, I hold to be a Snobbish system. A society that sets up to be +polite, and ignores Arts and Letters, I hold to be a Snobbish society. +You, who despise your neighbour, are a Snob; you, who forget your own +friends, meanly to follow after those of a higher degree, are a Snob; +you, who are ashamed of your poverty, and blush for your calling, are +a Snob; as are you who boast of your pedigree, or are proud of your +wealth. + +To laugh at such is MR. PUNCH'S business. May he laugh honestly, hit +no foul blow, and tell the truth when at his very broadest grin--never +forgetting that if Fun is good, Truth is still better, and Love best of +all. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Book of Snobs, by William Makepeace Thackeray + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF SNOBS *** + +***** This file should be named 2686.txt or 2686.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/8/2686/ + +Produced by Sean Hackett + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thackeray + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +Project Gutenberg's The Book of Snobs, by William Makepeace Thackeray + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Book of Snobs + +Author: William Makepeace Thackeray + +Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #2686] +Last Updated: March 5, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF SNOBS *** + + + + +Produced by Sean Hackett; David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE BOOK OF SNOBS + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By One Of Themselves <br /> (William Makepeace Thackeray) + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> PREFATORY REMARKS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I—THE SNOB PLAYFULLY DEALT WITH + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II—THE SNOB ROYAL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III—THE INFLUENCE OF THE + ARISTOCRACY ON SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV—THE COURT CIRCULAR, AND ITS + INFLUENCE ON SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V—WHAT SNOBS ADMIRE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI—ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII—ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII—GREAT CITY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX—ON SOME MILITARY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X—MILITARY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI—ON CLERICAL SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII—ON CLERICAL SNOBS AND + SNOBBISHNESS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII—ON CLERICAL SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV—ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV—ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI—ON LITERARY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII—A LITTLE ABOUT IRISH SNOBS + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII—PARTY-GIVING SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX—DINING-OUT SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX—DINNER-GIVING SNOBS FURTHER + CONSIDERED </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI—SOME CONTINENTAL SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII—CONTINENTAL SNOBBERY + CONTINUED </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII—ENGLISH SNOBS ON THE + CONTINENT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY + SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY + SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY + SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII—SNOBBIUM GATHERUM </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XXXV—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XXXVI—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER XXXVII—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER XXXVIII—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER XXXIX—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER XL—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER XLI—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER XLII—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0043"> CHAPTER XLIII—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0044"> CHAPTER XLIV—CLUB SNOBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0048"> CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON SNOBS </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + PREFATORY REMARKS + </h2> + <p> + (The necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved + by felicitous illustrations:—I am the individual destined to write + that work—My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence—I + show that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and + the MAN—Snobs are to be studied like other objects of Natural + Science, and are a part of the Beautiful (with a large B). They pervade + all classes—Affecting instance of Colonel Snobley.) + </p> + <p> + We have all read a statement, (the authenticity of which I take leave to + doubt entirely, for upon what calculations I should like to know is it + founded?)—we have all, I say, been favoured by perusing a remark, + that when the times and necessities of the world call for a Man, that + individual is found. Thus at the French Revolution (which the reader will + be pleased to have introduced so early), when it was requisite to + administer a corrective dose to the nation, Robespierre was found; a most + foul and nauseous dose indeed, and swallowed eagerly by the patient, + greatly to the latter's ultimate advantage: thus, when it became necessary + to kick John Bull out of America, Mr. Washington stepped forward, and + performed that job to satisfaction: thus, when the Earl of Aldborough was + unwell, Professor Holloway appeared with his pills, and cured his + lordship, as per advertisement, &c. &c.. Numberless instances + might be adduced to show that when a nation is in great want, the relief + is at hand; just as in the Pantomime (that microcosm) where when CLOWN + wants anything—a warming-pan, a pump-handle, a goose, or a lady's + tippet—a fellow comes sauntering out from behind the side-scenes + with the very article in question. + </p> + <p> + Again, when men commence an undertaking, they always are prepared to show + that the absolute necessities of the world demanded its completion.—Say + it is a railroad: the directors begin by stating that 'A more intimate + communication between Bathershins and Derrynane Beg is necessary for the + advancement of civilization, and demanded by the multitudinous + acclamations of the great Irish people.' Or suppose it is a newspaper: the + prospectus states that 'At a time when the Church is in danger, threatened + from without by savage fanaticism and miscreant unbelief, and undermined + from within by dangerous Jesuitism, and suicidal Schism, a Want has been + universally felt—a suffering people has looked abroad—for an + Ecclesiastical Champion and Guardian. A body of Prelates and Gentlemen + have therefore stepped forward in this our hour of danger, and determined + on establishing the BEADLE newspaper,' &c. &c. One or other of + these points at least is incontrovertible: the public wants a thing, + therefore it is supplied with it; or the public is supplied with a thing, + therefore it wants it. + </p> + <p> + I have long gone about with a conviction on my mind that I had a work to + do—a Work, if you like, with a great W; a Purpose to fulfil; a chasm + to leap into, like Curtius, horse and foot; a Great Social Evil to + Discover and to Remedy. That Conviction Has Pursued me for Years. It has + Dogged me in the Busy Street; Seated Itself By Me in The Lonely Study; + Jogged My Elbow as it Lifted the Wine-cup at The Festive Board; Pursued me + through the Maze of Rotten Row; Followed me in Far Lands. On Brighton's + Shingly Beach, or Margate's Sand, the Voice Outpiped the Roaring of the + Sea; it Nestles in my Nightcap, and It Whispers, 'Wake, Slumberer, thy + Work Is Not Yet Done.' Last Year, By Moonlight, in the Colosseum, the + Little Sedulous Voice Came To Me and Said, 'Smith, or Jones' (The Writer's + Name is Neither Here nor There), 'Smith or Jones, my fine fellow, this is + all very well, but you ought to be at home writing your great work on + SNOBS. + </p> + <p> + When a man has this sort of vocation it is all nonsense attempting to + elude it. He must speak out to the nations; he must unbusm himself, as + Jeames would say, or choke and die. 'Mark to yourself,' I have often + mentally exclaimed to your humble servant, 'the gradual way in which you + have been prepared for, and are now led by an irresistible necessity to + enter upon your great labour. First, the World was made: then, as a matter + of course, Snobs; they existed for years and years, and were no more known + than America. But presently,—INGENS PATEBAT TELLUS,—the people + became darkly aware that there was such a race. Not above five-and-twenty + years since, a name, an expressive monosyllable, arose to designate that + race. That name has spread over England like railroads subsequently; Snobs + are known and recognized throughout an Empire on which I am given to + understand the Sun never sets. PUNCH appears at the ripe season, to + chronicle their history: and the individual comes forth to write that + history in PUNCH.' + </p> + <p> + I have (and for this gift I congratulate myself with Deep and Abiding + Thankfulness) an eye for a Snob. If the Truthful is the Beautiful, it is + Beautiful to study even the Snobbish; to track Snobs through history, as + certain little dogs in Hampshire hunt out truffles; to sink shafts in + society and come upon rich veins of Snobore. Snobbishness is like Death in + a quotation from Horace, which I hope you never have heard, 'beating with + equal foot at poor men's doors, and kicking at the gates of Emperors.' It + is a great mistake to judge of Snobs lightly, and think they exist among + the lower classes merely. An immense percentage of Snobs, I believe, is to + be found in every rank of this mortal life. You must not judge hastily or + vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that you are yourself a Snob. I myself + have been taken for one. + </p> + <p> + When I was taking the waters at Bagnigge Wells, and living at the + 'Imperial Hotel' there, there used to sit opposite me at breakfast, for a + short time, a Snob so insufferable that I felt I should never get any + benefit of the waters so long as he remained. His name was + Lieutenant-Colonel Snobley, of a certain dragoon regiment. He wore + japanned boots and moustaches: he lisped, drawled, and left the 'r's' out + of his words: he was always flourishing about, and smoothing his lacquered + whiskers with a huge flaming bandanna, that filled the room with an odour + of musk so stifling that I determined to do battle with that Snob, and + that either he or I should quit the Inn. I first began harmless + conversations with him; frightening him exceedingly, for he did not know + what to do when so attacked, and had never the slightest notion that + anybody would take such a liberty with him as to speak first: then I + handed him the paper: then, as he would take no notice of these advances, + I used to look him in the face steadily and—and use my fork in the + light of a toothpick. After two mornings of this practice, he could bear + it no longer, and fairly quitted the place. + </p> + <p> + Should the Colonel see this, will he remember the Gent who asked him if he + thought Publicoaler was a fine writer, and drove him from the Hotel with a + four-pronged fork? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I—THE SNOB PLAYFULLY DEALT WITH + </h2> + <p> + There are relative and positive Snobs. I mean by positive, such persons as + are Snobs everywhere, in all companies, from morning till night, from + youth to the grave, being by Nature endowed with Snobbishness—and + others who are Snobs only in certain circumstances and relations of life. + </p> + <p> + For instance: I once knew a man who committed before me an act as + atrocious as that which I have indicated in the last chapter as performed + by me for the purpose of disgusting Colonel Snobley; viz, the using the + fork in the guise of a toothpick. I once, I say, knew a man who, dining in + my company at the 'Europa Coffee-house,' (opposite the Grand Opera, and, + as everybody knows, the only decent place for dining at Naples,) ate peas + with the assistance of his knife. He was a person with whose society I was + greatly pleased at first—indeed, we had met in the crater of Mount + Vesuvius, and were subsequently robbed and held to ransom by brigands in + Calabria, which is nothing to the purpose—a man of great powers, + excellent heart, and varied information; but I had never before seen him + with a dish of pease, and his conduct in regard to them caused me the + deepest pain. + </p> + <p> + After having seen him thus publicly comport himself, but one course was + open to me—to cut his acquaintance. I commissioned a mutual friend + (the Honourable Poly Anthus) to break the matter to this gentleman as + delicately as possible, and to say that painful circumstances—in + nowise affecting Mr. Marrowfat's honour, or my esteem for him—had + occurred, which obliged me to forego my intimacy with him; and accordingly + we met and gave each other the cut direct that night at the Duchess of + Monte Fiasco's ball. + </p> + <p> + Everybody at Naples remarked the separation of the Damon and Pythias—indeed, + Marrowfat had saved my life more than once—but, as an English + gentleman, what was I to do? + </p> + <p> + My dear friend was, in this instance, the Snob RELATIVE. It is not + snobbish of persons of rank of any other nation to employ their knife in + the manner alluded to. I have seen Monte Fiasco clean his trencher with + his knife, and every Principe in company doing likewise. I have seen, at + the hospitable board of H.I.H. the Grand Duchess Stephanie of Baden—(who, + if these humble lines should come under her Imperial eyes, is besought to + remember graciously the most devoted of her servants)—I have seen, I + say, the Hereditary Princess of Potztausend-Donnerwetter (that + serenely-beautiful woman) use her knife in lieu of a fork or spoon; I have + seen her almost swallow it, by Jove! like Ramo Samee, the Indian juggler. + And did I blench? Did my estimation for the Princess diminish? No, lovely + Amalia! One of the truest passions that ever was inspired by woman was + raised in this bosom by that lady. Beautiful one! long, long may the knife + carry food to those lips! the reddest and loveliest in the world! + </p> + <p> + The cause of my quarrel with Marrowfat I never breathed to mortal soul for + four years. We met in the halls of the aristocracy—our friends and + relatives. We jostled each other in the dance or at the board; but the + estrangement continued, and seemed irrevocable, until the fourth of June, + last year. + </p> + <p> + We met at Sir George Golloper's. We were placed, he on the right, your + humble servant on the left of the admirable Lady G.. Peas formed part of + the banquet—ducks and green peas. I trembled as I saw Marrowfat + helped, and turned away sickening, lest I should behold the weapon darting + down his horrid jaws. + </p> + <p> + What was my astonishment, what my delight, when I saw him use his fork + like any other Christian! He did not administer the cold steel once. Old + times rushed back upon me—the remembrance of old services—his + rescuing me from the brigands—his gallant conduct in the affair with + the Countess Dei Spinachi—his lending me the 1,700L. I almost burst + into tears with joy—my voice trembled with emotion. 'George, my + boy!' I exclaimed, 'George Marrowfat, my dear fellow! a glass of wine!' + </p> + <p> + Blushing—deeply moved—almost as tremulous as I was myself, + George answered, 'FRANK, SHALL IT BE HOCK OR MADEIRA? I could have hugged + him to my heart but for the presence of the company. Little did Lady + Golloper know what was the cause of the emotion which sent the duckling I + was carving into her ladyship's pink satin lap. The most good-natured of + women pardoned the error, and the butler removed the bird. + </p> + <p> + We have been the closest friends over since, nor, of course, has George + repeated his odious habit. He acquired it at a country school, where they + cultivated peas and only used two-pronged forks, and it was only by living + on the Continent where the usage of the four-prong is general, that he + lost the horrible custom. + </p> + <p> + In this point—and in this only—I confess myself a member of + the Silver-Fork School; and if this tale but induce one of my readers to + pause, to examine in his own mind solemnly, and ask, 'Do I or do I not eat + peas with a knife?'—to see the ruin which may fall upon himself by + continuing the practice, or his family by beholding the example, these + lines will not have been written in vain. And now, whatever other authors + may be, I flatter myself, it will be allowed that I, at least, am a moral + man. + </p> + <p> + By the way, as some readers are dull of comprehension, I may as well say + what the moral of this history is. The moral is this—Society having + ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and + conform to its harmless orders. + </p> + <p> + If I should go to the British and Foreign Institute (and heaven forbid I + should go under any pretext or in any costume whatever)—if I should + go to one of the tea-parties in a dressing-gown and slippers, and not in + the usual attire of a gentleman, viz, pumps, a gold waistcoat, a crush + hat, a sham frill, and a white choker—I should be insulting society, + and EATING PEASE WITH MY KNIFE. Let the porters of the Institute hustle + out the individual who shall so offend. Such an offender is, as regards + society, a most emphatical and refractory Snob. It has its code and police + as well as governments, and he must conform who would profit by the + decrees set forth for their common comfort. + </p> + <p> + I am naturally averse to egotism, and hate selflaudation consumedly; but I + can't help relating here a circumstance illustrative of the point in + question, in which I must think I acted with considerable prudence. + </p> + <p> + Being at Constantinople a few years since—(on a delicate mission),—the + Russians were playing a double game, between ourselves, and it became + necessary on our part to employ an EXTRA NEGOTIATOR—Leckerbiss Pasha + of Roumelia, then Chief Galeongee of the Porte, gave a diplomatic banquet + at his summer palace at Bujukdere. I was on the left of the Galeongee, and + the Russian agent, Count de Diddloff, on his dexter side. Diddloff is a + dandy who would die of a rose in aromatic pain: he had tried to have me + assassinated three times in the course of the negotiation; but of course + we were friends in public, and saluted each other in the most cordial and + charming manner. + </p> + <p> + The Galeongee is—or was, alas! for a bow-string has done for him—a + staunch supporter of the old school of Turkish politics. We dined with our + fingers, and had flaps of bread for plates; the only innovation he + admitted was the use of European liquors, in which he indulged with great + gusto. He was an enormous eater. Amongst the dishes a very large one was + placed before him of a lamb dressed in its wool, stuffed with prunes, + garlic, assafoetida, capsicums, and other condiments, the most abominable + mixture that ever mortal smelt or tasted. The Galeongee ate of this + hugely; and pursuing the Eastern fashion, insisted on helping his friends + right and left, and when he came to a particularly spicy morsel, would + push it with his own hands into his guests' very mouths. + </p> + <p> + I never shall forget the look of poor Diddloff, when his Excellency, + rolling up a large quantity of this into a ball and exclaiming, 'Buk Buk' + (it is very good), administered the horrible bolus to Diddloff. The + Russian's eyes rolled dreadfully as he received it: he swallowed it with a + grimace that I thought must precede a convulsion, and seizing a bottle + next him, which he thought was Sauterne, but which turned out to be French + brandy, he drank off nearly a pint before he know his error. It finished + him; he was carried away from the dining-room almost dead, and laid out to + cool in a summer-house on the Bosphorus. + </p> + <p> + When it came to my turn, I took down the condiment with a smile, said + 'Bismillah,' licked my lips with easy gratification, and when the next + dish was served, made up a ball myself so dexterously, and popped it down + the old Galeongee's mouth with so much grace, that his heart was won. + Russia was put out of court at once and THE TREATY of Kabobanople WAS + SIGNED. As for Diddloff, all was over with HIM: he was recalled to St. + Petersburg, and Sir Roderick Murchison saw him, under the No. 3967, + working in the Ural mines. + </p> + <p> + The moral of this tale, I need not say, is, that there are many + disagreeable things in society which you are bound to take down, and to do + so with a smiling face. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II—THE SNOB ROYAL + </h2> + <p> + Long since at the commencement of the reign of her present Gracious + Majesty, it chanced 'on a fair summer evening,' as Mr. James would say, + that three or four young cavaliers were drinking a cup of wine after + dinner at the hostelry called the 'King's Arms,' kept by Mistress + Anderson, in the royal village of Kensington. 'Twas a balmy evening, and + the wayfarers looked out on a cheerful scene. The tall elms of the ancient + gardens were in full leaf, and countless chariots of the nobility of + England whirled by to the neighbouring palace, where princely Sussex + (whose income latterly only allowed him to give tea-parties) entertained + his royal niece at a state banquet. When the caroches of the nobles had + set down their owners at the banquethall, their varlets and servitors came + to quaff a flagon of nut-brown ale in the 'King's Arms' gardens hard by. + We watched these fellows from our lattice. By Saint Boniface 'twas a rare + sight! + </p> + <p> + The tulips in Mynheer Van Dunck's gardens were not more gorgeous than the + liveries of these pie-coated retainers. All the flowers of the field + bloomed in their ruffled bosoms, all the hues of the rainbow gleamed in + their plush breeches, and the long-caned ones walked up and down the + garden with that charming solemnity, that delightful quivering swagger of + the calves, which has always had a frantic fascination for us. The walk + was not wide enough for them as the shoulder-knots strutted up and down it + in canary, and crimson, and light blue. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly, in the midst of their pride, a little bell was rung, a side door + opened, and (after setting down their Royal Mistress) her Majesty's own + crimson footmen, with epaulets and black plushes, came in. + </p> + <p> + It was pitiable to see the other poor Johns slink off at this arrival! Not + one of the honest private Plushes could stand up before the Royal + Flunkeys. They left the walk: they sneaked into dark holes and drank their + beer in silence. The Royal Plush kept possession of the garden until the + Royal Plush dinner was announced, when it retired, and we heard from the + pavilion where they dined, conservative cheers, and speeches, and Kentish + fires. The other Flunkeys we never saw more. + </p> + <p> + My dear Flunkeys, so absurdly conceited at one moment and so abject at the + next, are but the types of their masters in this world. HE WHO MEANLY + ADMIRES MEAN THINGS IS A SNOB—perhaps that is a safe definition of + the character. + </p> + <p> + And this is why I have, with the utmost respect, ventured to place The + Snob Royal at the head of my list, causing all others to give way before + him, as the Flunkeys before the royal representative in Kensington + Gardens. To say of such and such a Gracious Sovereign that he is a Snob, + is but to say that his Majesty is a man. Kings, too, are men and Snobs. In + a country where Snobs are in the majority, a prime one, surely, cannot be + unfit to govern. With us they have succeeded to admiration. + </p> + <p> + For instance, James I. was a Snob, and a Scotch Snob, than which the world + contains no more offensive creature. He appears to have had not one of the + good qualities of a man—neither courage, nor generosity, nor + honesty, nor brains; but read what the great Divines and Doctors of + England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not a + Snob; whilst Louis XIV., his old squaretoes of a contemporary,—the + great worshipper of Bigwiggery—has always struck me as a most + undoubted and Royal Snob. + </p> + <p> + I will not, however, take instances from our own country of Royal Snobs, + but refer to a neighbouring kingdom, that of Brentford—and its + monarch, the late great and lamented Gorgius IV. With the same humility + with which the footmen at the 'King's Arms' gave way before the Plush + Royal, the aristocracy of the Brentford nation bent down and truckled + before Gorgius, and proclaimed him the first gentleman in Europe. And it's + a wonder to think what is the gentlefolks' opinion of a gentleman, when + they gave Gorgius such a title. + </p> + <p> + What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be + generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to + exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be + a loyal son, a true husband, and honest father? Ought his life to be + decent—his bills to be paid—his tastes to be high and elegant—his + aims in life lofty and noble? In a word, ought not the Biography of a + First Gentleman in Europe to be of such a nature that it might be read in + Young Ladies' Schools with advantage, and studied with profit in the + Seminaries of Young Gentlemen? I put this question to all instructors of + youth—to Mrs. Ellis and the Women of England; to all schoolmasters, + from Doctor Hawtrey down to Mr. Squeers. I conjure up before me an awful + tribunal of youth and innocence, attended by its venerable instructors + (like the ten thousand red-cheeked charity-children in Saint Paul's), + sitting in judgment, and Gorgius pleading his cause in the midst. Out of + Court, out of Court, fat old Florizel! Beadles, turn out that bloated, + pimple-faced man!—If Gorgius MUST have a statue in the new Palace + which the Brentford nation is building, it ought to be set up in the + Flunkeys' Hall. He should be represented cutting out a coat, in which art + he is said to have excelled. He also invented Maraschino punch, a + shoe-buckle (this was in the vigour of his youth, and the prime force of + his invention), and a Chinese pavilion, the most hideous building in the + world. He could drive a four-in-hand very nearly as well as the Brighton + coachman, could fence elegantly, and it is said, played the fiddle well. + And he smiled with such irresistible fascination, that persons who were + introduced into his august presence became his victims, body and soul, as + a rabbit becomes the prey of a great big boa-constrictor. + </p> + <p> + I would wager that if Mr. Widdicomb were, by a revolution, placed on the + throne of Brentford, people would be equally fascinated by his + irresistibly majestic smile and tremble as they knelt down to kiss his + hand. If he went to Dublin they would erect an obelisk on the spot where + he first landed, as the Paddylanders did when Gorgius visited them. We + have all of us read with delight that story of the King's voyage to + Haggisland, where his presence inspired such a fury of loyalty and where + the most famous man of the country—the Baron of Bradwardine—coming + on board the royal yacht, and finding a glass out of which Gorgius had + drunk, put it into his coatpocket as an inestimable relic, and went ashore + in his boat again. But the Baron sat down upon the glass and broke it, and + cut his coat-tails very much; and the inestimable relic was lost to the + world for ever. O noble Bradwardine! what old-world superstition could set + you on your knees before such an idol as that? + </p> + <p> + If you want to moralise upon the mutability of human affairs, go and see + the figure of Gorgius in his real, identical robes, at the waxwork.—Admittance + one shilling. Children and flunkeys sixpence. Go, and pay sixpence. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III—THE INFLUENCE OF THE ARISTOCRACY ON SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Last Sunday week, being at church in this city, and the service just + ended, I heard two Snobs conversing about the Parson. One was asking the + other who the clergyman was? 'He is Mr. So-and-so,' the second Snob + answered, 'domestic chaplain to the Earl of What-d'ye-call'im.' 'Oh, is + he' said the first Snob, with a tone of indescribable satisfaction.—The + Parson's orthodoxy and identity were at once settled in this Snob's mind. + He knew no more about the Earl than about the Chaplain, but he took the + latter's character upon the authority of the former; and went home quite + contented with his Reverence, like a little truckling Snob. + </p> + <p> + This incident gave me more matter for reflection even than the sermon: and + wonderment at the extent and prevalence of Lordolatory in this country. + What could it matter to Snob whether his Reverence were chaplain to his + Lordship or not? What Peerageworship there is all through this free + country! How we are all implicated in it, and more or less down on our + knees.—And with regard to the great subject on hand, I think that + the influence of the Peerage upon Snobbishness has been more remarkable + than that of any other institution. The increase, encouragement, and + maintenance of Snobs are among the 'priceless services,' as Lord John + Russell says, which we owe to the nobility. + </p> + <p> + It can't be otherwise. A man becomes enormously rich, or he jobs + successfully in the aid of a Minister, or he wins a great battle, or + executes a treaty, or is a clever lawyer who makes a multitude of fees and + ascends the bench; and the country rewards him for ever with a gold + coronet (with more or less balls or leaves) and a title, and a rank as + legislator. 'Your merits are so great,' says the nation, 'that your + children shall be allowed to reign over us, in a manner. It does not in + the least matter that your eldest son be a fool: we think your services so + remarkable, that he shall have the reversion of your honours when death + vacates your noble shoes. If you are poor, we will give you such a sum of + money as shall enable you and the eldest-born of your race for ever to + live in fat and splendour. It is our wish that there should be a race set + apart in this happy country, who shall hold the first rank, have the first + prizes and chances in all government jobs and patronages. We cannot make + all your dear children Peers—that would make Peerage common and + crowd the House of Lords uncomfortably—but the young ones shall have + everything a Government can give: they shall get the pick of all the + places: they shall be Captains and Lieutenant-Colonels at nineteen, when + hoary-headed old lieutenants are spending thirty years at drill: they + shall command ships at one-and-twenty, and veterans who fought before they + were born. And as we are eminently a free people, and in order to + encourage all men to do their duty, we say to any man of any rank—get + enormously rich, make immense fees as a lawyer, or great speeches, or + distinguish yourself and win battles—and you, even you, shall come + into the privileged class, and your children shall reign naturally over + ours.' + </p> + <p> + How can we help Snobbishness, with such a prodigious national institution + erected for its worship? How can we help cringing to Lords? Flesh and + blood can't do otherwise. What man can withstand this prodigious + temptation? Inspired by what is called a noble emulation, some people + grasp at honours and win them; others, too weak or mean, blindly admire + and grovel before those who have gained them; others, not being able to + acquire them, furiously hate, abuse, and envy. There are only a few bland + and not-in-the-least-conceited philosophers, who can behold the state of + society, viz., Toadyism, organised:—base Man-and-Mammon worship, + instituted by command of law:—Snobbishness, in a word, perpetuated,—and + mark the phenomenon calmly. And of these calm moralists, is there one, I + wonder, whose heart would not throb with pleasure if he could be seen + walking arm-in-arm with a couple of dukes down Pall Mall? No it is + impossible in our condition of society, not to be sometimes a Snob. + </p> + <p> + On one hand it encourages the commoner to be snobbishly mean, and the + noble to be snobbishly arrogant. When a noble marchioness writes in her + travels about the hard necessity under which steam-boat travellers labour + of being brought into contact 'with all sorts and conditions of people:' + implying that a fellowship with God's creatures is disagreeable to to her + Ladyship, who is their superior:—when, I say, the Marchioness of + —— writes in this fashion, we must consider that out of her + natural heart it would have been impossible for any woman to have had such + a sentiment; but that the habit of truckling and cringing, which all who + surround her have adopted towards this beautiful and magnificent lady,—this + proprietor of so many black and other diamonds,—has really induced + her to believe that she is the superior of the world in general: and that + people are not to associate with her except awfully at a distance. I + recollect being once at the city of Grand Cairo, through which a European + Royal Prince was passing India-wards. One night at the inn there was a + great disturbance: a man had drowned himself in the well hard by: all the + inhabitants of the hotel came bustling into the Court, and amongst others + your humble servant, who asked of a certain young man the reason of the + disturbance. How was I to know that this young gent was a prince? He had + not his crown and sceptre on: he was dressed in a white jacket and felt + hat: but he looked surprised at anybody speaking to him: answered an + unintelligible monosyllable, and—BECKONED HIS AID-DE-CAMP TO COME + AND SPEAK TO ME. It is our fault, not that of the great, that they should + fancy themselves so far above us. If you WILL fling yourself under the + wheels, Juggernaut will go over you, depend upon it; and if you and I, my + dear friend, had Kotow performed before us every day,—found people + whenever we appeared grovelling in slavish adoration, we should drop into + the airs of superiority quite naturally, and accept the greatness with + which the world insisted upon endowing us. + </p> + <p> + Here is an instance, out of Lord L——'s travels, of that calm, + good-natured, undoubting way in which a great man accepts the homage of + his inferiors. After making some profound and ingenious remarks about the + town of Brussells, his lordship says:—'Staying some day at the Hotel + de Belle Vue, a greatly overrated establishment, and not nearly as + comfortable as the Hotel de France—I made acquaintance with Dr. L——, + the physician of the Mission. He was desirous of doing the honours of the + place to me, and he ordered for us a DINER EN GOURMAND at the chief + restaurateur's, maintaining it surpassed the Rocher at Paris. Six or eight + partook of the entertainment, and we all agreed it was infinitely inferior + to the Paris display, and much more extravagant. So much for the copy. + </p> + <p> + And so much for the gentleman who gave the dinner. Dr. L——, + desirous to do his lordship 'the honour of the place,' feasts him with the + best victuals money can procure—and my lord finds the entertainment + extravagant and inferior. Extravagant! it was not extravagant to HIM;—Inferior! + Mr. L—— did his best to satisfy those noble jaws, and my lord + receives the entertainment, and dismisses the giver with a rebuke. It is + like a three-tailed Pasha grumbling about an unsatisfactory backsheesh. + </p> + <p> + But how should it be otherwise in a country where Lordolatry is part of + our creed, and where our children are brought up to respect the 'Peerage' + as the Englishman's second Bible? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV—THE COURT CIRCULAR, AND ITS INFLUENCE ON SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Example is the best of precepts; so let us begin with a true and authentic + story, showing how young aristocratic snobs are reared, and how early + their Snobbishness may be made to bloom. A beautiful and fashionable lady—(pardon, + gracious madam, that your story should be made public; but it is so moral + that it ought to be known to the universal world)—told me that in + her early youth she had a little acquaintance, who is now indeed a + beautiful and fashionable lady too. In mentioning Miss Snobky, daughter of + Sir Snobby Snobky, whose presentation at Court caused such a sensation, + need I say more? + </p> + <p> + When Miss Snobky was so very young as to be in the nursery regions, and to + walk off early mornings in St. James's Park, protected by a French + governess and followed by a huge hirsute flunkey in the canary coloured + livery of the Snobkys, she used occasionally in these promenades to meet + with young Lord Claude Lollipop, the Marquis of Sillabub's younger son. In + the very height of the season, from some unexplained cause, the Snobkys + suddenly determined upon leaving town. Miss Snobky spoke to her female + friend and confidante. 'What will poor Claude Lollipop say when he hears + of my absence?' asked the tender-hearted child. + </p> + <p> + 'Oh, perhaps he won't hear of it,' answers the confidante. + </p> + <p> + 'MY DEAR, HE WILL READ IT IN THE PAPERS,' replied the dear little + fashionable rogue of seven years old. She knew already her importance, and + how all the world of England, how all the would-be-genteel people, how all + the silver-fork worshippers, how all the tattle-mongers, how all the + grocers' ladies, the tailors' ladies, the attorneys' and merchants' + ladies, and the people living at Clapham and Brunswick Square,—who + have no more chance of consorting with a Snobky than my beloved reader has + of dining with the Emperor of China—yet watched the movements of the + Snobkys with interest and were glad to know when they came to London and + left it. + </p> + <p> + Here is the account of Miss Snobky's dress, and that of her mother, Lady + Snobky, from the papers:— + </p> + <p> + 'MISS SNOBKY. + </p> + <p> + Habit de Cour, composed of a yellow nankeen illusion dress over a slip of + rich pea-green corduroy, trimmed en tablier, with bouquets of Brussels + sprouts: the body and sleeves handsomely trimmed with calimanco, and + festooned with a pink train and white radishes. Head-dress, carrots and + lappets. + </p> + <p> + 'LADY SNOBKY. + </p> + <p> + 'Costume de Cour, composed of a train of the most superb Pekin bandannas, + elegantly trimmed with spangles, tinfoil, and red-tape. Bodice and + underdress of sky-blue velveteen, trimmed with bouffants and noeuds of + bell-pulls. Stomacher a muffin. Head-dress a bird's nest, with a bird of + paradise, over a rich brass knocker en ferroniere. This splendid costume, + by Madame Crinoline, of Regent Street, was the object of universal + admiration.' + </p> + <p> + This is what you read. Oh, Mrs. Ellis! Oh, mothers, daughters, aunts, + grandmothers of England, this is the sort of writing which is put in the + newspapers for you! How can you help being the mothers, daughters, &c. + of Snobs, so long as this balderdash is set before you? + </p> + <p> + You stuff the little rosy foot of a Chinese young lady of fashion into a + slipper that is about the size of a salt-cruet, and keep the poor little + toes there imprisoned and twisted up so long that the dwarfishness becomes + irremediable. Later, the foot would not expand to the natural size were + you to give her a washing-tub for a shoe and for all her life she has + little feet, and is a cripple. Oh, my dear Miss Wiggins, thank your stars + that those beautiful feet of yours—though I declare when you walk + they are so small as to be almost invisible—thank your stars that + society never so practised upon them; but look around and see how many + friends of ours in the highest circles have had their BRAINS so + prematurely and hopelessly pinched and distorted. + </p> + <p> + How can you expect that those poor creatures are to move naturally when + the world and their parents have mutilated them so cruelly? As long as a + COURT CIRCULAR exists, how the deuce are people whose names are chronicled + in it ever to believe themselves the equals of the cringing race which + daily reads that abominable trash? I believe that ours is the only country + in the world now where the COURT CIRCULAR remains in full flourish—where + you read, 'This day his Royal Highness Prince Pattypan was taken an airing + in his go-cart.' 'The Princess Pimminy was taken a drive, attended by her + ladies of honour, and accompanied by her doll,' &c. We laugh at the + solemnity with which Saint Simon announces that SA MAJESTE SE MEDICAMENTE + AUJOURD'HUI. Under our very noses the same folly is daily going on. That + wonderful and mysterious man, the author of the COURT CIRCULAR, drops in + with his budget at the newspaper offices every night. I once asked the + editor of a paper to allow me to lie in wait and see him. + </p> + <p> + I am told that in a kingdom where there is a German King-Consort (Portugal + it must be, for the Queen of that country married a German Prince, who is + greatly admired and respected by the natives), whenever the Consort takes + the diversion of shooting among the rabbit-warrens of Cintra, or the + pheasant-preserve of Mafra, he has a keeper to load his guns, as a matter + of course, and then they are handed to the nobleman, his equerry, and the + nobleman hands them to the Prince who blazes away—gives back the + discharged gun to the nobleman, who gives it to the keeper, and so on. But + the Prince WON'T TAKE THE GUN FROM THE HANDS OF THE LOADER. + </p> + <p> + As long as this unnatural and monstrous etiquette continues, Snobs there + must be. The three persons engaged in this transaction are, for the time + being, Snobs. + </p> + <p> + 1. The keeper—the least Snob of all, because he is discharging his + daily duty; but he appears here as a Snob, that is to say, in a position + of debasement before another human being (the Prince), with whom he is + allowed to communicate through another party. A free Portuguese + gamekeeper, who professes himself to be unworthy to communicate directly + with any person, confesses himself to be a Snob. + </p> + <p> + 2. The nobleman in waiting is a Snob. If it degrades the Prince to receive + the gun from the gamekeeper, it is degrading to the nobleman in waiting to + execute that service. He acts as a Snob towards the keeper, whom he keeps + from communication with the Prince—a Snob to the Prince, to whom he + pays a degrading homage. + </p> + <p> + 3. The King-Consort of Portugal is a Snob for insulting fellow-men in this + way. There's no harm in his accepting the services of the keeper directly; + but indirectly he insults the service performed, and the servants who + perform it; and therefore, I say, respectfully, is a most undoubted, + though royal Snob. + </p> + <p> + And then you read in the DIARIO DO GOBERNO—'Yesterday his Majesty + the King took the diversion of shooting the woods off Cintra, attended by + Colonel the honourable Whiskerando Sombrero. His Majesty returned to the + Necessidades to lunch, at,' &c. &c.. + </p> + <p> + Oh! that COURT CIRCULAR! once more, I exclaim. + </p> + <p> + Down with the COURT CIRCULAR—that engine and propagator of + Snobbishness! I promise to subscribe for a year to any daily paper that + shall come out without a COURT CIRCULAR—were it the MORNING HERALD + itself. When I read that trash, I rise in my wrath; I feel myself + disloyal, a regicide, a member of the Calf's Head Club. The only COURT + CIRCULAR story which ever pleased me, was that of the King of Spain, who + in great part was roasted, because there was not time for the Prime + Minister to command the Lord Chamberlain to desire the Grand Gold Stick to + order the first page in waiting to bid the chief of the flunkeys to + request the House-maid of Honour to bring up a pail of water to put his + Majesty out. + </p> + <p> + I am like the Pasha of three tails, to whom the Sultan sends HIS COURT + CIRCULAR, the bowstring. + </p> + <p> + It CHOKES me. May its usage be abolished for ever. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V—WHAT SNOBS ADMIRE + </h2> + <p> + Now let us consider how difficult it is even for great men to escape from + being Snobs. It is very well for the reader, whose fine feelings are + disgusted by the assertion that Kings, Princes, Lords, are Snobs, to say + 'You are confessedly a Snob yourself. In professing to depict Snobs, it is + only your own ugly mug which you are copying with a Narcissus-like conceit + and fatuity.' But I shall pardon this explosion of ill-temper on the part + of my constant reader, reflecting upon the misfortune of his birth and + country. It is impossible for ANY Briton, perhaps, not to be a Snob in + some degree. If people can be convinced of this fact, an immense point is + gained, surely. If I have pointed out the disease, let us hope that other + scientific characters may discover the remedy. + </p> + <p> + If you, who are a person of the middle ranks of life, are a Snob,—you + whom nobody flatters particularly; you who have no toadies; you whom no + cringing flunkeys or shopmen bow out of doors; you whom the policeman + tells to move on; you who are jostled in the crowd of this world, and + amongst the Snobs our brethren: consider how much harder it is for a man + to escape who has not your advantages, and is all his life long subject to + adulation; the butt of meanness; consider how difficult it is for the + Snobs' idol not to be a Snob. + </p> + <p> + As I was discoursing with my friend Eugenio in this impressive way, Lord + Buckram passed us, the son of the Marquis of Bagwig, and knocked at the + door of the family mansion in Red Lion Square. His noble father and mother + occupied, as everybody knows, distinguished posts in the Courts of late + Sovereigns. The Marquis was Lord of the Pantry, and her Ladyship, Lady of + the Powder Closet to Queen Charlotte. Buck (as I call him, for we are very + familiar) gave me a nod as he passed, and I proceeded to show Eugenio how + it was impossible that this nobleman should not be one of ourselves, + having been practised upon by Snobs all his life. + </p> + <p> + His parents resolved to give him a public education, and sent him to + school at the earliest possible period. The Reverend Otto Rose, D.D., + Principal of the Preparatory Academy for young noblemen and gentlemen, + Richmond Lodge, took this little Lord in hand, and fell down and + worshipped him. He always introduced him to fathers and mothers who came + to visit their children at the school. He referred with pride and pleasure + to the most noble the Marquis of Bagwig, as one of the kind friends and + patrons of his Seminary. He made Lord Buckram a bait for such a + multiplicity of pupils, that a new wing was built to Richmond Lodge, and + thirty-five new little white dimity beds were added to the establishment. + Mm. Rose used to take out the little Lord in the one-horse chaise with her + when she paid visits, until the Rector's lady and the Surgeon's wife + almost died with envy. His own son and Lord Buckram having been discovered + robbing an orchard together, the Doctor flogged his own flesh and blood + most unmercifully for leading the young Lord astray. He parted from him + with tears. There was always a letter directed to the Most Noble the + Marquis ef Bagwig, on the Doctor's study table, when any visitors were + received by him. + </p> + <p> + At Eton, a great deal of Snobbishness was thrashed out of Lord Buckram, + and he was birched with perfect impartiality. Even there, however, a + select band of sucking tuft-hunters followed him. Young Croesus lent him + three-and-twenty bran-new sovereigns out of his father's bank. Young + Snaily did his exercises for him, and tried 'to know him at home;' but + Young Bull licked him in a fight of fifty-five minutes, and he was caned + several times with great advantage for not sufficiently polishing his + master Smith's shoes. Boys are not ALL toadies in the morning of life. + </p> + <p> + But when he went to the University, crowds of toadies sprawled over him. + The tutors toadied him. The fellows in hall paid him great clumsy + compliments. The Dean never remarked his absence from Chapel, or heard any + noise issuing from his rooms. A number of respectable young fellows, (it + is among the respectable, the Baker Street class, that Snobbishness + flourishes, more than among any set of people in England)—a number + of these clung to him like leeches. There was no end now to Croesus's + loans of money; and Buckram couldn't ride out with the hounds, but Snaily + (a timid creature by nature) was in the field, and would take any leap at + which his friend chose to ride. Young Rose came up to the same College, + having been kept back for that express purpose by his father. He spent a + quarter's allowance in giving Buckram a single dinner; but he knew there + was always pardon for him for extravagance in such a cause; and a + ten-pound note always came to him from home when he mentioned Buckram's + name in a letter. What wild visions entered the brains of Mrs. Podge and + Miss Podge, the wife and daughter of the Principal of Lord Buckram's + College, I don't know, but that reverend old gentleman was too profound a + flunkey by nature ever for one minute to think that a child of his could + marry a nobleman. He therefore hastened on his daughter's union with + Professor Crab. + </p> + <p> + When Lord Buckram, after taking his honorary degree, (for Alma Mater is a + Snob, too, and truckles to a Lord like the rest,)—when Lord Buckram + went abroad to finish his education, you all know what dangers he ran, and + what numbers of caps were set at him. Lady Leach and her daughters + followed him from Paris to Rome, and from Rome to Baden-Baden; Miss + Leggitt burst into tears before his face when he announced his + determination to quit Naples, and fainted on the neck of her mamma: + Captain Macdragon, of Macdragonstown, County Tipperary, called upon him to + 'explene his intintions with respect to his sisther, Miss Amalia + Macdragon, of Macdragonstown,' and proposed to shoot him unless he married + that spotless and beautiful young creature, who was afterwards led to the + altar by Mr. Muff, at Cheltenham. If perseverance and forty thousand + pounds down could have tempted him, Miss Lydia Croesus would certainly + have been Lady Buckram. Count Towrowski was glad to take her with half the + meney, as all the genteel world knows. + </p> + <p> + And now, perhaps, the reader is anxious to know what sort of a man this is + who wounded so many ladies' hearts, and who has been such a prodigious + favourite with men. If we were to describe him it would be personal. + Besides, it really does not matter in the least what sort of a man he is, + or what his personal qualities are. + </p> + <p> + Suppose he is a young nobleman of a literary turn, and that he published + poems ever so foolish and feeble, the Snobs would purchase thousands of + his volumes: the publishers (who refused my Passion-Flowers, and my grand + Epic at any price) would give him his own. Suppose he is a nobleman of a + jovial turn, and has a fancy for wrenching off knockers, frequenting + ginshops, and half murdering policemen: the public will sympathize + good-naturedly with his amusements, and say he is a hearty, honest fellow. + Suppose he is fond of play and the turf; and has a fancy to be a blackleg, + and occasionally condescends to pluck a pigeon at cards; the public will + pardon him, and many honest people will court him, as they would court a + housebreaker if he happened to be a Lord. Suppose he is an idiot; yet, by + the glorious constitution, he is good enough to govern US. Suppose he is + an honest, highminded gentleman; so much the better for himself. But he + may be an ass, and yet respected; or a ruffian, and yet be exceedingly + popular; or a rogue, and yet excuses will be found for him. Snobs will + still worship him. Male Snobs will do him honour, and females look kindly + upon him, however hideous he may be. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI—ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Having received a great deal of obloquy for dragging monarchs, princes, + and the respected nobility into the Snob category, I trust to please + everybody in the present chapter, by stating my firm opinion that it is + among the RESPECTABLE classes of this vast and happy empire that the + greatest profusion of Snobs is to be found. I pace down my beloved Baker + Street, (I am engaged on a life of Baker, founder of this celebrated + street,) I walk in Harley Street (where every other house has a + hatchment), Wimpole Street, that is as cheerful as the Catacombs—a + dingy Mausoleum of the genteel:—I rove round Regent's Park, where + the plaster is patching off the house walls; where Methodist preachers are + holding forth to three little children in the green inclosures, and puffy + valetudinarians are cantering in the solitary mud:—I thread the + doubtful ZIG-ZAGS of May Fair, where Mrs. Kitty Lorimer's Brougham may be + seen drawn up next door to old Lady Lollipop's belozenged family coach;—I + roam through Belgravia, that pale and polite district, where all the + inhabitants look prim and correct, and the mansions are painted a faint + whity-brown: I lose myself in the new squares and terraces of the + brilliant bran-new Bayswater-and-Tyburn-Junction line; and in one and all + of these districts the same truth comes across me. I stop before any house + at hazard, and say, 'O house, you are inhabited—O knocker, you are + knocked at—O undressed flunkey, sunning your lazy calves as you lean + against the iron railings, you are paid—by Snobs.' It is a + tremendous thought that; and it is almost sufficient to drive a benevolent + mind to madness to think that perhaps there is not one in ten of those + houses where the 'Peerage' does not lie on the drawing-room table. + Considering the harm that foolish lying book does, I would have all the + copies of it burned, as the barber burned all Quixote's books of + humbugging chivalry. + </p> + <p> + Look at this grand house in the middle of the square. The Earl of + Loughcorrib lives there: he has fifty thousand a year. A DEJEUNER DANSANT + given at his house last week cost, who knows how much? The mere flowers + for the room and bouquets for the ladies cost four hundred pounds. That + man in drab trousers, coming crying down the stops, is a dun: Lord + Loughcorrib has ruined him, and won't see him: that is his lordship + peeping through the blind of his study at him now. Go thy ways, + Loughcorrib, thou art a Snob, a heartless pretender, a hypocrite of + hospitality; a rogue who passes forged notes upon society;—but I am + growing too eloquent. + </p> + <p> + You see that nice house, No. 23, where a butcher's boy is ringing the + area-bell. He has three muttonchops in his tray. They are for the dinner + of a very different and very respectable family; for Lady Susan Scraper, + and her daughters, Miss Scraper and Miss Emily Scraper. The domestics, + luckily for them, are on board wages—two huge footmen in light blue + and canary, a fat steady coachman who is a Methodist, and a butler who + would never have stayed in the family but that he was orderly to General + Scraper when the General distinguished himself at Walcheren. His widow + sent his portrait to the United Service Club, and it is hung up in one of + the back dressing-closets there. He is represented at a parlour window + with red curtains; in the distance is a whirlwind, in which cannon are + firing off; and he is pointing to a chart, on which are written the words + 'Walcheren, Tobago.' + </p> + <p> + Lady Susan is, as everybody knows by referring to the 'British Bible,' a + daughter of the great and good Earl Bagwig before mentioned. She thinks + everything belonging to her the greatest and best in the world. The first + of men naturally are the Buckrams, her own race: then follow in rank the + Scrapers. The General was the greatest general: his eldest son, Scraper + Buckram Scraper, is at present the greatest and best; his second son the + next greatest and best; and herself the paragon of women. + </p> + <p> + Indeed, she is a most respectable and honourable lady. She goes to church + of course: she would fancy the Church in danger if she did not. She + subscribes to Church and parish charities; and is a directress of + meritorious charitable institutions—of Queen Charlotte's Lying-in + Hospital, the Washerwomen's Asylum, the British Drummers' Daughters' Home, + &c.. She is a model of a matron. + </p> + <p> + The tradesman never lived who could say that he was not paid on the + quarter-day. The beggars of her neighbourhood avoid her like a pestilence; + for while she walks out, protected by John, that domestic has always two + or three mendicity tickets ready for deserving objects. Ten guineas a year + will pay all her charities. There is no respectable lady in all London who + gets her name more often printed for such a sum of money. + </p> + <p> + Those three mutton-chops which you see entering at the kitchen-door will + be served on the family-plate at seven o'clock this evening, the huge + footman being present, and the butler in black, and the crest and + coat-of-arms of the Scrapers blazing everywhere. I pity Miss Emily Scraper—she + is still young—young and hungry. Is it a fact that she spends her + pocket-money in buns? Malicious tongues say so; but she has very little to + spare for buns, the poor little hungry soul! For the fact is, that when + the footmen, and the ladies' maids, and the fat coach-horses, which are + jobbed, and the six dinner-parties in the season, and the two great solemn + evening-parties, and the rent of the big house, and the journey to an + English or foreign watering-place for the autumn, are paid, my lady's + income has dwindled away to a very small sum, and she is as poor as you or + I. + </p> + <p> + You would not think it when you saw her big carriage rattling up to the + drawing-room, and caught a glimpse of her plumes, lappets, and diamonds, + waving over her ladyship's sandy hair and majestical hooked nose;—you + would not think it when you hear 'Lady Susan Scraper's carriage' bawled + out at midnight so as to disturb all Belgravia:—you would not think + it when she comes rustling into church, the obsequious John behind with + the bag of Prayer-books. Is it possible, you would say, that so grand and + awful a personage as that can be hard-up for money? Alas! So it is. + </p> + <p> + She never heard such a word as Snob, I will engage, in this wicked and + vulgar world. And, O stars and garters! how she would start if she heard + that she—she, as solemn as Minerva—she, as chaste as Diana + (without that heathen goddess's unladylike propensity for field-sports)—that + she too was a Snob! + </p> + <p> + A Snob she is, as long as she sets that prodigious value upon herself, + upon her name, upon her outward appearance, and indulges in that + intolerable pomposity; as long as she goes parading abroad, like Solomon + in all his glory; as long as she goes to bed—as I believe she does—with + a turban and a bird of paradise in it, and a court train to her + night-gown; as long as she is so insufferably virtuous and condescending; + as long as she does not cut at least one of those footmen down into + mutton-chops for the benefit of the young ladies. + </p> + <p> + I had my notions of her from my old schoolfellow,—her son Sydney + Scraper—a Chancery barrister without any practice—the most + placid, polite, and genteel of Snobs, who never exceeded his allowance of + two hundred a year, and who may be seen any evening at the 'Oxford and + Cambridge Club,' simpering over the QUARTERLY REVIEW, in the blameless + enjoyment of his half-pint of port. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII—ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Look at the next house to Lady Susan Scraper's. The first mansion with the + awning over the door: that canopy will be let down this evening for the + comfort of the friends of Sir Alured and Lady S. de Mogyns, whose parties + are so much admired by the public, and the givers themselves. + </p> + <p> + Peach-coloured liveries laced with silver, and pea-green plush + inexpressibles, render the De Mogyns' flunkeys the pride of the ring when + they appear in Hyde Park where Lady de Mogyns, as she sits upon her satin + cushions, with her dwarf spaniel in her arms, bows to the very selectest + of the genteel. Times are altered now with Mary Anne, or, as she calls + herself, Marian de Mogyns. + </p> + <p> + She was the daughter of Captain Flack of the Rathdrum Fencibles, who + crossed with his regiment over from Ireland to Caermarthenshire ever so + many years ago, and defended Wales from the Corsican invader. The + Rathdrums were quartered at Pontydwdlm, where Marian wooed and won her De + Mogyns, a young banker in the place. His attentions to Miss Flack at a + race ball were such that her father said De Mogyns must either die on the + field of honour, or become his son-in-law. He preferred marriage. His name + was Muggins then, and his father—a flourishing banker, + army-contractor, smuggler, and general jobber—almost disinherited + him on account of this connection. + </p> + <p> + There is a story that Muggins the Elder was made a baronet for having lent + money to a R-y-l p-rs-n-ge. I do not believe it. The R-y-l Family always + paid their debts, from the Prince of Wales downwards. + </p> + <p> + Howbeit, to his life's end he remained simple Sir Thomas Muggins, + representing Pontydwdlm in Parliament for many years after the war. The + old banker died in course of time, and to use the affectionate phrase + common on such occasions, 'cut up' prodigiously well. His son, Alfred + Smith Mogyns, succeeded to the main portion of his wealth, and to his + titles and the bloody hand of his scutcheon. It was not for many years + after that he appeared as Sir Alured Mogyns Smyth de Mogyns, with a + genealogy found out for him by the Editor of 'Fluke's Peerage,' and which + appears as follows in that work:—'De Mogyns.—Sir Alured Mogyns + Smyth, Second Baronet. This gentleman is a representative of one of the + most ancient families of Wales, who trace their descent until it is lost + in the mists of antiquity. A genealogical tree beginning with Shem is in + the possession of the family, and is stated by a legend of many thousand + years' date to have been drawn on papyrus by a grandson of the patriarch + himself. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt of the immense antiquity + of the race of Mogyns. + </p> + <p> + 'In the time of Boadicea, Hogyn Mogyn, of the hundred Beeves, was a suitor + and a rival of Caractacus for the hand of that Princess. He was a person + gigantic in stature, and was slain by Suetonius in the battle which + terminated the liberties of Britain. From him descended directly the + Princes of Pontydwdlm, Mogyn of the Golden Harp (see the Mabinogion of + Lady Charlotte Guest,) Bogyn-Merodac-ap-Mogyn, (the black fiend son of + Mogyn,) and a long list of bards and warriors, celebrated both in Wales + and Armorica. The independent Princes of Mogyn long held out against the + ruthless Kings of England, until finally Gam Mogyns made his submission to + Prince Henry, son of Henry IV., and under the name of Sir David Gam de + Mogyns, was distinguished at the battle of Agincourt. + </p> + <p> + From him the present Baronet is descended. (And here the descent follows + in order until it comes to) Thomas Muggins, first Baronet of Pontydwdlm + Castle, for 23 years Member of Parliament for that borough, who had issue, + Alured Mogyns Smyth, the present Baronet, who married Marian, daughter of + the late general P. Flack, of Ballyflack, in the Kingdom of Ireland of the + Counts Flack of the H. R. Empire. Sir Alured has issue, Alured Caradoc, + born 1819, Marian, 1811, Blanche Adeliza, Emily Doria, Adelaide Obleans, + Katinka Rostopchin, Patrick Flack, died 1809. + </p> + <p> + 'Arms—a mullion garbled, gules on a saltire reversed of the second. + Crest—a tom-tit rampant regardant. Motto—UNG ROY UNG MOGYNS.' + </p> + <p> + It was long before Lady de Mogyns shone as a star in the fashionable + world. At first, poor Muggins was the in the hands of the Flacks, the + Clancys, the Tooles, the Shanahans, his wife's Irish relations; and whilst + he was yet but heir-apparent, his house overflowed with claret and the + national nectar, for the benefit of Hibernian relatives. Tom Tufto + absolutely left the street in which they lived in London, because he said + 'it was infected with such a confounded smell of whisky from the house of + those IWISH people.' + </p> + <p> + It was abroad that they learned to be genteel. They pushed into all + foreign courts, and elbowed their way into the halls of Ambassadors. They + pounced upon the stray nobility, and seized young lords travelling with + their bear-leaders. They gave parties at Naples, Rome, and Paris. They got + a Royal Prince to attend their SOIREES at the latter place, and it was + here that they first appeared under the name of De Mogyns, which they bear + with such splendour to this day. + </p> + <p> + All sorts of stories are told of the desperate efforts made by the + indomitable Lady de Mogyns to gain the place she now occupies, and those + of my beloved readers who live in middle life, and are unacquainted with + the frantic struggles, the wicked feuds, the intrigues, cabals, and + disappointments which, as I am given to understand, reign in the + fashionable world, may bless their stars that they at least are not + FASHIONABLE Snobs. The intrigues set afoot by the De Mogyns to get the + Duchess of Buckskin to her parties, would strike a Talleyrand with + admiration. She had a brain fever after being disappointed of an + invitation to Lady Aldermanbury's THE DANSANT, and would have committed + suicide but for a ball at Windsor. I have the following story from my + noble friend Lady Clapperclaw herself,—Lady Kathleen O'Shaughnessy + that was, and daughter of the Earl of Turfanthunder:— + </p> + <p> + 'When that odious disguised Irishwoman, Lady Muggins, was struggling to + take her place in the world, and was bringing out her hidjous daughter + Blanche,' said old Lady Clapperclaw—(Marian has a hump-back and + doesn't show, but she's the only lady in the family)—'when that + wretched Polly Muggins was bringing out Blanche, with her radish of a + nose, and her carrots of ringlets, and her turnip for a face, she was most + anxious—as her father had been a cowboy on my father's land—to + be patronized by us, and asked me point-blank, in the midst of a silence + at Count Volauvent's, the French Ambassador's dinner, why I had not sent + her a card for my ball? + </p> + <p> + '“Because my rooms are already too full, and your ladyship would be + crowded inconveniently,” says I; indeed she takes up as much room as an + elephant: besides I wouldn't have her, and that was flat. + </p> + <p> + 'I thought my answer was a settler to her: but the next day she comes + weeping to my arms—“Dear Lady Clapperclaw,” says she, “it's not for + ME; I ask it for my blessed Blanche! a young creature in her first season, + and not at your ball! My tender child will pine and die of vexation. I + don't want to come. I will stay at home to nurse Sir Alured in the gout. + Mrs. Bolster is going, I know; she will be Blanche's chaperon.” + </p> + <p> + '“You wouldn't subscribe for the Rathdrum blanket and potato fund; you, + who come out of the parish,” says I, “and whose grandfather, honest man, + kept cows there.” + </p> + <p> + '“Will twenty guineas be enough, dearest Lady Clapperclaw?” + </p> + <p> + '“Twenty guineas is sufficient,” says I, and she paid them; so I said, + “Blanche may come, but not you, mind:” and she left me with a world of + thanks. + </p> + <p> + 'Would you believe it?—when my ball came, the horrid woman made her + appearance with her daughter! + </p> + <p> + “Didn't I tell you not to come?” said I, in a mighty passion. “What would + the world have said?” cries my Lady Muggins: “my carriage is gone for Sir + Alured to the Club; let me stay only ten minutes, dearest Lady + Clapperclaw.” + </p> + <p> + '“Well as you are here, madam, you may stay and get your supper,” I + answered, and so left her, and never spoke a word more to her all night. + </p> + <p> + 'And now,' screamed out old Lady Clapperclaw, clapping her hands, and + speaking with more brogue than ever, 'what do you think, after all my + kindness to her, the wicked, vulgar, odious, impudent upstart of s + cowboy's granddaughter, has done?—she cut me yesterday in Hy' Park, + and hasn't sent me a ticket for her ball to-night, though they say Prince + George is to be there.' + </p> + <p> + Yes, such is the fact. In the race of fashion the resolute and active De + Mogyns has passed the poor old Clapperclaw. Her progress in gentility may + be traced by the sets of friends whom she has courted, and made, and cut, + and left behind her. She has struggled so gallantly for polite reputation + that she has won it: pitilessly kicking down the ladder as she advanced + degree by degree. + </p> + <p> + Irish relations were first sacrificed; she made her father dine in the + steward's room, to his perfect contentment: and would send Sir Alured + thither like-wise but that he is a peg on which she hopes to hang her + future honours; and is, after all, paymaster of her daughter's fortunes. + He is meek and content. He has been so long a gentleman that he is used to + it, and acts the part of governor very well. In the day-time he goes from + the 'Union' to 'Arthur's,' and from 'Arthur's' to the 'Union.' He is a + dead hand at piquet, and loses a very comfortable maintenance to some + young fellows, at whist, at the 'Travellers'.' + </p> + <p> + His son has taken his father's seat in Parliament, and has of course + joined Young England. He is the only man in the country who believes in + the De Mogynses, and sighs for the days when a De Mogyns led the van of + battle. He has written a little volume of spoony puny poems. He wears a + lock of the hair of Laud, the Confessor and Martyr, and fainted when he + kissed the Pope's toe at Rome. He sleeps in white kid-gloves, and commits + dangerous excesses upon green tea. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII—GREAT CITY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + There is no disguising the fact that this series of papers is making a + prodigious sensation among all classes in this Empire. Notes of admiration + (!), of interrogation (?), of remonstrance, approval, or abuse, come + pouring into MR. PUNCH'S box. We have been called to task for betraying + the secrets of three different families of De Mogyns; no less than four + Lady Scrapers have been discovered; and young gentlemen are quite shy of + ordering half-a-pint of port and simpering over the QUARTERLY REVIEW at + the Club, lest they should be mistaken for Sydney Scraper, Esq. 'What CAN + be your antipathy to Baker Street?' asks some fair remonstrant, evidently + writing from that quarter. + </p> + <p> + 'Why only attack the aristocratic Snobs?' says one 'estimable + correspondent: 'are not the snobbish Snobs to have their turn?'—'Pitch + into the University Snobs!' writes an indignant gentleman (who spelt + ELEGANT with two I's)—'Show up the Clerical Snob,' suggests another.—'Being + at “Meurice's Hotel,” Paris, some time since,' some wag hints, 'I saw Lord + B. leaning out of the window with his boots in his hand, and bawling out + “GARCON, CIREZ-MOI CES BOTTES.” Oughtn't he to be brought in among the + Snobs?' + </p> + <p> + No; far from it. If his lordship's boots are dirty, it is because he is + Lord B., and walks. There is nothing snobbish in having only one pair of + boots, or a favourite pair; and certainly nothing snobbish in desiring to + have them cleaned. Lord B., in so doing, performed a perfectly natural and + gentlemanlike action; for which I am so pleased with him that I have had + him designed in a favourable and elegant attitude, and put at the head of + this Chapter in the place of honour. No, we are not personal in these + candid remarks. As Phidias took the pick of a score of beauties before he + completed a Venus, so have we to examine, perhaps, a thousand Snobs, + before one is expressed upon paper. + </p> + <p> + Great City Snobs are the next in the hierarchy, and ought to be + considered. But here is a difficulty. The great City Snob is commonly most + difficult of access. Unless you are a capitalist, you cannot visit him in + the recesses of his bank parlour in Lombard Street. Unless you are a sprig + of nobility there is little hope of seeing him at home. In a great City + Snob firm there is generally one partner whose name is down for charities, + and who frequents Exeter Hall; you may catch a glimpse of another (a + scientific City Snob) at my Lord N——'s SOIREES, or the + lectures of the London Institution; of a third (a City Snob of taste) at + picture-auctions, at private views of exhibitions, or at the Opera or the + Philharmonic. But intimacy is impossible, in most cases, with this grave, + pompous, and awful being. + </p> + <p> + A mere gentleman may hope to sit at almost anybody's table—to take + his place at my lord duke's in the country—to dance a quadrille at + Buckingham Palace itself—(beloved Lady Wilhelmina Wagglewiggle! do + you recollect the sensation we made at the ball of our late adored + Sovereign Queen Caroline, at Brandenburg House, Hammersmith?) but the City + Snob's doors are, for the most part, closed to him; and hence all that one + knows of this great class is mostly from hearsay. + </p> + <p> + In other countries of Europe, the Banking Snob is more expansive and + communicative than with us, and receives all the world into his circle. + For instance, everybody knows the princely hospitalities of the + Scharlaschild family at Paris, Naples, Frankfort, &c.. They entertain + all the world, even the poor, at their FETES. Prince Polonia, at Rome, and + his brother, the Duke of Strachino, are also remarkable for their + hospitalities. I like the spirit of the first-named nobleman. Titles not + costing much in the Roman territory, he has had the head clerk of the + banking-house made a Marquis, and his Lordship will screw a BAJOCCO out of + you in exchange as dexterously as any commoner could do. It is a comfort + to be able to gratify such grandees with a farthing or two; it makes the + poorest man feel that he can do good. 'The Polonias have intermarried with + the greatest and most ancient families of Rome, and you see their heraldic + cognizance (a mushroom or on an azure field) quartered in a hundred places + in the city with the arms of the Colonnas and Dorias. + </p> + <p> + City Snobs have the same mania for aristocratic marriages. I like to see + such. I am of a savage and envious nature,—I like to see these two + humbugs which, dividing, as they do, the social empire of this kingdom + between them, hate each other naturally, making truce and uniting, for the + sordid interests of either. I like to see an old aristocrat, swelling with + pride of race, the descendant of illustrious Norman robbers, whose blood + has been pure for centuries, and who looks down upon common Englishmen as + a free American does on a nigger,—I like to see old Stiffneck + obliged to bow down his head and swallow his infernal pride, and drink the + cup of humiliation poured out by Pump and Aldgate's butler. 'Pump and + Aldgate, says he, 'your grandfather was a bricklayer, and his hod is still + kept in the bank. Your pedigree begins in a workhouse; mine can be dated + from all the royal palaces of Europe. I came over with the Conqueror; I am + own cousin to Charles Martel, Orlando Furioso, Philip Augustus, Peter the + Cruel, and Frederick Barbarossa. I quarter the Royal Arms of Brentford in + my coat. I despise you, but I want money; and I will sell you my beloved + daughter, Blanche Stiffneck, for a hundred thousand pounds, to pay off my + mortgages. Let your son marry her, and she shall become Lady Blanche Pump + and Aldgate.' + </p> + <p> + Old Pump and Aldgate clutches at the bargain. And a comfortable thing it + is to think that birth can be bought for money. So you learn to value it. + Why should we, who don't possess it, set a higher store on it than those + who do? Perhaps the best use of that book, the 'Peerage,' is to look down + the list, and see how many have bought and sold birth,—how poor + sprigs of nobility somehow sell themselves to rich City Snobs' daughters, + how rich City Snobs purchase noble ladies—and so to admire the + double baseness of the bargain. + </p> + <p> + Old Pump and Aldgate buys the article and pays the money. The sale of the + girl's person is blessed by a Bishop at St. George's, Hanover Square, and + next year you read, 'At Roehampton, on Saturday, the Lady Blanche Pump, of + a son and heir. + </p> + <p> + After this interesting event, some old acquaintance, who saw young Pump in + the parlour at the bank in the City, said to him, familiarly, 'How's your + wife, Pump, my boy?' + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pump looked exceedingly puzzled and disgusted, and, after a pause, + said, 'LADY BLANCHE PUMP' is pretty well, I thank you.' + </p> + <p> + 'OH, I THOUGHT SHE WAS YOUR WIFE!' said the familiar brute, Snooks, + wishing him good-bye; and ten minutes after, the story was all over the + Stock Exchange, where it is told, when young Pump appears, to this very + day. + </p> + <p> + We can imagine the weary life this poor Pump, this martyr to Mammon, is + compelled to undergo. Fancy the domestic enjoyments of a man who has a + wife who scorns him; who cannot see his own friends in his own house; who + having deserted the middle rank of life, is not yet admitted to the + higher; but who is resigned to rebuffs and delay and humiliation, + contented to think that his son will be more fortunate. + </p> + <p> + It used to be the custom of some very old-fashioned clubs in this city, + when a gentleman asked for change a guinea, always to bring it to him in + WASHED SILVER: that which had passed immediately out of the hands of + vulgar being considered 'as too coarse to soil a gentleman's fingers.' So, + when the City Snob's money has been washed during a generation or so; has + been washed into estates, and woods, and castles, and town-mansions, it is + allowed to pass current as real aristocratic coin. Old Pump sweeps a shop, + runs of messages, becomes a confidential clerk and partner. Pump the + Second becomes chief of the house, spins more and more money, marries his + son to an Earl's daughter. Pump Tertius goes on with the bank; but his + chief business in life is to become the father of Pump Quartus, who comes + out a full-blown aristocrat, and takes his seat as Baron Pumpington, and + his race rules hereditarily over this nation of Snobs. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX—ON SOME MILITARY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + As no society in the world is more agreeable than that of well-bred and + well-informed military gentlemen, so, likewise, none is more insufferable + than that of Military Snobs. They are to be found of all grades, from the + General Officer, whose padded old breast twinkles over with a score of + stars, clasps, and decorations, to the budding cornet, who is shaving for + a beard, and has just been appointed to the Saxe-Coburg Lancers. + </p> + <p> + I have always admired that dispensation of rank in our country, which sets + up this last-named little creature (who was flogged only last week because + he could not spell) to command great whiskered warriors, who have faced + all dangers of climate and battle; which, because he has money, to lodge + at the agent's, will place him over the heads of men who have a thousand + times more experience and desert: and which, in the course of time, will + bring him all the honours of his profession, when the veteran soldier he + commanded has got no other reward for his bravery than a berth in Chelsea + Hospital, and the veteran officer he superseded has slunk into shabby + retirement, and ends his disappointed life on a threadbare half-pay. + </p> + <p> + When I read in the GAZETTE such announcements as 'Lieutenant and Captain + Grig, from the Bombardier Guards, to be Captain, vice Grizzle, who + retires,' I know what becomes of the Peninsular Grizzle; I follow him in + spirit to the humble country town, where he takes up his quarters, and + occupies himself with the most desperate attempts to live like a + gentleman, on the stipend of half a tailor's foreman; and I picture to + myself little Grig rising from rank to rank, skipping from one regiment to + another, with an increased grade in each, avoiding disagreeable foreign + service, and ranking as a colonel at thirty;—all because he has + money, and Lord Grigsby is his father, who had the same luck before him. + Grig must blush at first to give his orders to old men in every way his + betters. And as it is very difficult for a spoiled child to escape being + selfish and arrogant, so it is a very hard task indeed for this spoiled + child of fortune not to be a Snob. + </p> + <p> + It must have often been a matter of wonder to the candid reader, that the + army, the most enormous job of all our political institutions, should yet + work so well in the field; and we must cheerfully give Grig, and his like, + the credit for courage which they display whenever occasion calls for it. + The Duke's dandy regiments fought as well as any (they said better than + any, but that is absurd). The great Duke himself was a dandy once, and + jobbed on, as Marlborough did before him. But this only proves that + dandies are brave as well as other Britons—as all Britons. Let us + concede that the high-born Grig rode into the entrenchments at Sobraon as + gallantly as Corporal Wallop, the ex-ploughboy. + </p> + <p> + The times of war are more favourable to him than the periods of peace. + Think of Grig's life in the Bombardier Guards, or the Jack-boot Guards; + his marches from Windsor to London, from London to Windsor, from + Knightsbridge to Regent's Park; the idiotic services he has to perform, + which consist in inspecting the pipeclay of his company, or the horses in + the stable, or bellowing out 'Shoulder humps! Carry humps!' all which + duties the very smallest intellect that ever belonged to mortal man would + suffice to comprehend. The professional duties of a footman are quite as + difficult and various. The red-jackets who hold gentlemen's horses in St. + James's Street could do the work just as well as those vacuous, + good-natured, gentlemanlike, rickety little lieutenants, who may be seen + sauntering about Pall Mall, in high-heeled little boots, or rallying round + the standard of their regiment in the Palace Court, at eleven o'clock, + when the band plays. Did the beloved reader ever see one of the young + fellows staggering under the flag, or, above all, going through the + operation of saluting it? It is worth a walk to the Palace to witness that + magnificent piece of tomfoolery. + </p> + <p> + I have had the honour of meeting once or twice an old gentleman, whom I + look upon to be a specimen of army-training, and who has served in crack + regiments, or commanded them, all his life. I allude to Lieutenant-General + the Honourable Sir George Granby Tufto, K.C.B., K.T.S., K.H., K.S.W., + &c. &c.. His manners are irreproachable generally; in society he + is a perfect gentleman, and a most thorough Snob. + </p> + <p> + A man can't help being a fool, be he ever so old, and Sir George is a + greater ass at sixty-eight than he was when he first entered the army at + fifteen. He distinguished himself everywhere: his name is mentioned with + praise in a score of Gazettes: he is the man, in fact, whose padded + breast, twinkling over with innumerable decorations, has already been + introduced to the reader. It is difficult to say what virtues this + prosperous gentleman possesses. He never read a book in his life, and, + with his purple, old gouty fingers, still writes a schoolboy hand. He has + reached old age and grey hairs without being the least venerable. He + dresses like an outrageously young man to the present moment, and laces + and pads his old carcass as if he were still handsome George Tufto of + 1800. He is selfish, brutal, passionate, and a glutton. It is curious to + mark him at table, and see him heaving in his waistband, his little + bloodshot eyes gloating over his meal. He swears considerably in his talk, + and tells filthy garrison stories after dinner. On account of his rank and + his services, people pay the bestarred and betitled old brute a sort of + reverence; and he looks down upon you and me, and exhibits his contempt + for us, with a stupid and artless candour which is quite amusing to watch. + Perhaps, had he been bred to another profession, he would not have been + the disreputable old creature he now is. But what other? He was fit for + none; too incorrigibly idle and dull for any trade but this, in which he + has distinguished himself publicly as a good and gallant officer, and + privately for riding races, drinking port, fighting duels, and seducing + women. He believes himself to be one of the most honourable and deserving + beings in the world. About Waterloo Place, of afternoons, you may see him + tottering in his varnished boots, and leering under the bonnets of the + women who pass by. When he dies of apoplexy, THE TIMES will have a quarter + of a column about his services and battles—four lines of print will + be wanted to describe his titles and orders alone—and the earth will + cover one of the wickedest and dullest old wretches that ever strutted + over it. + </p> + <p> + Lest it should be imagined that I am of so obstinate a misanthropic nature + as to be satisfied with nothing, I beg (for the comfort of the forces) to + state my belief that the army is not composed of such persons as the + above. He has only been selected for the study of civilians and the + military, as a specimen of a prosperous and bloated Army Snob. No: when + epaulets are not sold; when corporal punishments are abolished, and + Corporal Smith has a chance to have his gallantry rewarded as well as that + of Lieutenant Grig; when there is no such rank as ensign and lieutenant + (the existence of which rank is an absurd anomaly, and an insult upon all + the rest of the army), and should there be no war, I should not be + disinclined to be a major-general myself. + </p> + <p> + I have a little sheaf of Army Snobs in my portfolio, but shall pause in my + attack upon the forces till next week. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X—MILITARY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Walking in the Park yesterday with my young friend Tagg, and discoursing + with him upon the next number of the Snob, at the very nick of time who + should pass us but two very good specimens of Military Snobs,—the + Sporting Military Snob, Capt. Rag, and the 'lurking' or raffish Military + Snob, Ensign Famish. Indeed you are fully sure to meet them lounging on + horseback, about five o'clock, under the trees by the Serpentine, + examining critically the inmates of the flashy broughams which parade up + and down 'the Lady's Mile.' + </p> + <p> + Tagg and Rag are very well acquainted, and so the former, with that + candour inseparable from intimate friendship, told me his dear friend's + history. Captain Rag is a small dapper north-country man. He went when + quite a boy into a crack light cavalry regiment, and by the time he got + his troop, had cheated all his brother officers so completely, selling + them lame horses for sound ones, and winning their money by all manner of + strange and ingenious contrivances, that his Colonel advised him to + retire; which he did without much reluctance, accommodating a youngster, + who had just entered the regiment, with a glandered charger at an + uncommonly stiff figure. + </p> + <p> + He has since devoted his time to billiards, steeple-chasing, and the turf. + His head-quarters are 'Rummer's,' in Conduit Street, where he keeps his + kit; but he is ever on the move in the exercise of his vocation as a + gentleman-jockey and gentleman-leg. + </p> + <p> + According to BELL'S LIFE, he is an invariable attendant at all races, and + an actor in most of them. He rode the winner at Leamington; he was left + for dead in a ditch a fortnight ago at Harrow; and yet there he was, last + week, at the Croix de Berny, pale and determined as ever, astonishing the + BADAUDS of Paris by the elegance of his seat and the neatness of his rig, + as he took a preliminary gallop on that vicious brute 'The Disowned,' + before starting for 'the French Grand National.' + </p> + <p> + He is a regular attendant at the Corner, where he compiles a limited but + comfortable libretto. During season he rides often in the Park, mounted on + a clever well-bred pony. He is to be seen escorting celebrated horsewoman, + Fanny Highflyer, or in confidential converse with Lord Thimblerig, the + eminent handicapper. + </p> + <p> + He carefully avoids decent society, and would rather dine off a steak at + the 'One Tun' with Sam Snaffle the jockey, Captain O'Rourke, and two or + three other notorious turf robbers, than with the choicest company in + London. He likes to announce at 'Rummer's' that he is going to run down + and spend his Saturday and Sunday in a friendly way with Hocus, the leg, + at his little box near Epsom; where, if report speak true, many 'rummish + plants' are concocted. + </p> + <p> + He does not play billiards often, and never in public: but when he does + play, he always contrives to get hold of a good flat, and never leaves him + till he has done him uncommonly brown. He has lately been playing a good + deal with Famish. + </p> + <p> + When he makes his appearance in the drawing-room, which occasionally + happens at a hunt-meeting or a race-ball, he enjoys himself extremely. + </p> + <p> + His young friend is Ensign Famish, who is not a little pleased to be seen + with such a smart fellow as Rag, who bows to the best turf company in the + Park. Rag lets Famish accompany him to Tattersall's, and sells him + bargains in horse-flesh, and uses Famish's cab. That young gentleman's + regiment is in India, and he is at home on sick leave. He recruits his + health by being intoxicated every night, and fortifies his lungs, which + are weak, by smoking cigars all day. The policemen about the Haymarket + know the little creature, and the early cabmen salute him. The closed + doors of fish and lobster shops open after service, and vomit out little + Famish, who is either tipsy and quarrelsome—when he wants to fight + the cabmen; or drunk and helpless—when some kind friend (in yellow + satin) takes care of him. All the neighbourhood, the cabmen, the police, + the early potato-men, and the friends in yellow satin, know the young + fellow, and he is called Little Bobby by some of the very worst reprobates + in Europe. + </p> + <p> + His mother, Lady Fanny Famish, believes devoutly that Robert is in London + solely for the benefit of consulting the physician; is going to have him + exchanged into a dragoon regiment, which doesn't go to that odious India; + and has an idea that his chest is delicate, and that he takes gruel every + evening, when he puts his feet in hot water. Her Ladyship resides at + Cheltenham, and is of a serious turn. + </p> + <p> + Bobby frequents the 'Union Jack Club' of course; where he breakfasts on + pale ale and devilled kidneys at three o'clock; where beardless young + heroes of his own sort congregate, and make merry, and give each other + dinners; where you may see half-a-dozen of young rakes of the fourth or + fifth order lounging and smoking on the steps; where you behold Slapper's + long-tailed leggy mare in the custody of a red-jacket until the Captain is + primed for the Park with a glass of curacoa; and where you see Hobby, of + the Highland Buffs, driving up with Dobby, of the Madras Fusiliers, in the + great banging, swinging cab, which the latter hires from Rumble of Bond + Street. + </p> + <p> + In fact, Military Snobs are of such number and variety, that a hundred + weeks of PUNCH would not suffice to give an audience to them. There is, + besides the disreputable old Military Snob, who has seen service, the + respectable old Military Snob, who has seen none, and gives himself the + most prodigious Martinet airs. There is the Medical-Military Snob, who is + generally more outrageously military in his conversation than the greatest + SABREUR in the army. There is the Heavy-Dragoon Snob, whom young ladies, + admire with his great stupid pink face and yellow moustaches—a + vacuous, solemn, foolish, but brave and honourable Snob. There is the + Amateur-Military Snob who writes Captain on his card because he is a + Lieutenant in the Bungay Militia. There is the Lady-killing Military Snob; + and more, who need not be named. + </p> + <p> + But let no man, we repeat, charge MR. PUNCH with disrespect for the Army + in general—that gallant and judicious Army, every man of which, from + F.M. the Duke of Wellington, &c., downwards—(with the exception + of H.R.H. Field-Marshal Prince Albert, who, however, can hardly count as a + military man,)—reads PUNCH in every quarter of the globe. + </p> + <p> + Let those civilians who sneer at the acquirements of the army read Sir + Harry Smith's account of the Battle of Aliwal. A noble deed was never told + in nobler language. And you who doubt if chivalry exists, or the age of + heroism has passed by, think of Sir Henry Hardinge, with his son, 'dear + little Arthur,' riding in front of the lines at Ferozeshah. I hope no + English painter will endeavour to illustrate that scene; for who is there + to do justice to it? The history of the world contains no more brilliant + and heroic picture. No, no; the men who perform these deeds with such + brilliant valour, and describe them with such modest manliness—SUCH + are not Snobs. Their country admires them, their Sovereign rewards them, + and PUNCH, the universal railer, takes off his hat and, says, Heaven save + them! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI—ON CLERICAL SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + After Snobs-Military, Snobs-Clerical suggest themselves quite naturally, + and it is clear that, with every respect for the cloth, yet having a + regard for truth, humanity, and the British public, such a vast and + influential class must not be omitted from our notices of the great Snob + world. + </p> + <p> + Of these Clerics there are some whose claim to snobbishness is undoubted, + and yet it cannot be discussed here; for the same reason that PUNCH would + not set up his show in a Cathedral, out of respect for the solemn service + celebrated within. There are some places where he acknowledges himself not + privileged to make a noise, and puts away his show, and silences his drum, + and takes off his hat, and holds his peace. + </p> + <p> + And I know this, that if there are some Clerics who do wrong, there are + straightway a thousand newspapers to haul up those unfortunates, and cry, + 'Fie upon them, fie upon them!' while, though the press is always ready to + yell and bellow excommunication against these stray delinquent parsons, it + somehow takes very little count of the many good ones—of the tens of + thousands of honest men, who lead Christian lives, who give to the poor + generously, who deny themselves rigidly, and live and die in their duty, + without ever a newspaper paragraph in their favour. My beloved friend and + reader, I wish you and I could do the same: and let me whisper my belief, + ENTRE NOUS that of those eminent philosophers who cry out against parsons + the loudest, there are not many who have got their knowledge of the church + by going thither often. + </p> + <p> + But you who have ever listened to village bells, or walked to church as + children on sunny Sabbath mornings; you who have ever seen the parson's + wife tending the poor man's bedside; or the town clergyman threading the + dirty stairs of noxious alleys upon his business;—do not raise a + shout when one falls away, or yell with the mob that howls after him. + </p> + <p> + Every man can do that. When old Father Noah was overtaken in his cups, + there was only one of his sons that dared to make merry at his disaster, + and he was not the most virtuous of the family. Let us too turn away + silently, nor huzza like a parcel of school-boys, because some big young + rebel suddenly starts up and whops the schoolmaster. + </p> + <p> + I confess, though, if I had by me the names of those seven or eight Irish + bishops, the probates of whose wills were mentioned in last year's + journals, and who died leaving behind them some two hundred thousand + a-piece—I would like to put THEM up as patrons of my Clerical Snobs, + and operate upon them as successfully as I see from the newspapers Mr. + Eisenberg, Chiropodist, has lately done upon 'His Grace the Reverend Lord + Bishop of Tapioca.' + </p> + <p> + I confess that when those Right Reverend Prelates come up to the gates of + Paradise with their probates of wills in their hands, I think that their + chance is.... But the gates of Paradise is a far way to follow their + Lordships; so let us trip down again lest awkward questions be asked there + about our own favourite vices too. + </p> + <p> + And don't let us give way to the vulgar prejudice, that clergymen are an + over-paid and luxurious body of men. When that eminent ascetic, the late + Sydney Smith—(by the way, by what law of nature is it that so many + Smiths in this world are called Sydney Smith?)—lauded the system of + great prizes in the Church,—without which he said gentlemen would + not be induced to follow the clerical profession, he admitted most + pathetically that the clergy in general were by no means to be envied for + their worldly prosperity. From reading the works of some modern writers of + repute, you would fancy that a parson's life was passed in gorging himself + with plum-pudding and port-wine; and that his Reverence's fat chaps were + always greasy with the crackling of tithe pigs. Caricaturists delight to + represent him so: round, short-necked, pimple-faced, apoplectic, bursting + out of waistcoat, like a black-pudding, a shovel-hatted fuzz-wigged + Silenus. Whereas, if you take the real man, the poor fellow's flesh-pots + are very scantily furnished with meat. He labours commonly for a wage that + a tailor's foreman would despise: he has, too, such claims upon his dismal + income as most philosophers would rather grumble to meet; many tithes are + levied upon HIS pocket, let it be remembered, by those who grudge him his + means of livelihood. He has to dine with the Squire: and his wife must + dress neatly; and he must 'look like a gentleman,' as they call it, and + bring up six great hungry sons as such. Add to this, if he does his duty, + he has such temptations to spend his money as no mortal man could + withstand. Yes; you who can't resist purchasing a chest of cigars, because + they are so good; or an ormolu clock at Howell and James's, because it is + such a bargain; or a box at the Opera, because Lablache and Grisi are + divine in the PURITANI; fancy how difficult it is for a parson to resist + spending a half-crown when John Breakstone's family are without a loaf; or + 'standing' a bottle of port for poor old Polly Rabbits, who has her + thirteenth child; or treating himself to a suit of corduroys for little + Bob Scarecrow, whose breeches are sadly out at elbows. Think of these + temptations, brother moralists and philosophers, and don't be too hard on + the parson. + </p> + <p> + But what is this? Instead of 'showing up' the parsons, are we indulging in + maudlin praises of that monstrous black-coated race? O saintly Francis, + lying at rest under the turf; O Jimmy, and Johnny, and Willy, friends of + my youth! O noble and dear old Elias! how should he who knows you not + respect you and your calling? May this pen never write a pennyworth again, + if it ever casts ridicule upon either! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII—ON CLERICAL SNOBS AND SNOBBISHNESS + </h2> + <p> + 'Dear Mr. Snob,' an amiable young correspondent writes, who signs himself + Snobling, 'ought the clergyman who, at the request of a noble Duke, lately + interrupted a marriage ceremony between two persons perfectly authorised + to marry, to be ranked or not among the Clerical Snobs?' + </p> + <p> + This, my dear young friend, is not a fair question. One of the illustrated + weekly papers has already seized hold of the clergyman, and blackened him + most unmercifully, by representing him in his cassock performing the + marriage service. Let that be sufficient punishment; and, if you please, + do not press the query. + </p> + <p> + It is very likely that if Miss Smith had come with a licence to marry + Jones, the parson in question, not seeing old Smith present, would have + sent off the beadle in a cab to let the old gentleman know what was going + on; and would have delayed the service until the arrival of Smith senior. + He very likely thinks it his duty to ask all marriageable young ladies, + who come without their papa, why their parent is absent; and, no doubt, + ALWAYS sends off the beadle for that missing governor. + </p> + <p> + Or, it is very possible that the Duke of Coeurdelion was Mr. + What-d'ye-call'im's most intimate friend, and has often said to him, + 'What-d'ye-call'im, my boy, my daughter must never marry the Capting. If + ever they try at your church, I beseech you, considering the terms of + intimacy on which we are, to send off Rattan in a hack cab to fetch me.' + </p> + <p> + In either of which cases, you see, dear Snobling, that though the parson + would not have been authorised, yet he might have been excused for + interfering. He has no more right to stop my marriage than to stop my + dinner, to both of which, as a free-born Briton, I am entitled by law, if + I can pay for them. But, consider pastoral solicitude, a deep sense of the + duties of his office, and pardon this inconvenient, but genuine zeal. + </p> + <p> + But if the clergyman did in the Duke's case what he would NOT do in + Smith's; if he has no more acquaintance with the Coeurdelion family than I + have with the Royal and Serene House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha,—THEN, I + confess, my dear Snobling, your question might elicit a disagreeable + reply, and one which I respectfully decline to give. I wonder what Sir + George Tufto would say, if a sentry left his post because a noble lord + (not the least connected with the service) begged the sentinel not to do + his duty! + </p> + <p> + Alas! that the beadle who canes little boys and drives them out, cannot + drive worldliness out too; what is worldliness but snobbishness? When, for + instance, I read in the newspapers that the Right Reverend the Lord + Charles James administered the rite of confirmation to a PARTY OF THE + JUVENILE NOBILITY at the Chapel Royal,—as if the Chapel Royal were a + sort of ecclesiastical Almack's, and young people were to get ready for + the next world in little exclusive genteel knots of the aristocracy, who + were not to be disturbed in their journey thither by the company of the + vulgar:—when I read such a paragraph as that (and one or two such + generally appear during the present fashionable season), it seems to me to + be the most odious, mean and disgusting part of that odious, mean, and + disgusting publication, the COURT CIRCULAR; and that snobbishness is + therein carried to quite an awful pitch. What, gentlemen, can't we even in + the Church acknowledge a republic? There, at least, the Heralds' College + itself might allow that we all of us have the same pedigree, and are + direct descendants of Eve and Adam, whose inheritance is divided amongst + us. + </p> + <p> + I hereby call upon all Dukes, Earls, Baronets, and other potentates, not + to lend themselves to this shameful scandal and error, and beseech all + Bishops who read this publication to take the matter into consideration, + and to protest against the continuance of the practice, and to declare, + 'We WON'T confirm or christen Lord Tomnoddy, or Sir Carnaby Jenks, to the + exclusion of any other young Christian;' the which declaration if their + Lordships are induced to make, a great LAPIS OFFENSIONIS will be removed, + and the Snob Papers will not have been written in vain. + </p> + <p> + A story is current of a celebrated NOUVEAU-RICHE, who having had occasion + to oblige that excellent prelate the Bishop of Bullocksmithy, asked his + Lordship, in return, to confirm his children privately in his Lordship's + own chapel; which ceremony the grateful prelate accordingly performed. Can + satire go farther than this? Is there even in this most amusing of prints, + any more NAIVE absurdity? It is as if a man wouldn't go to heaven unless + he went in a special train, or as if he thought (as some people think + about vaccination) Confirmation more effectual when administered at first + hand. When that eminent person, the Begum Sumroo, died, it is said she + left ten thousand pounds to the Pope, and ten thousand to the Archbishop + of Canterbury,—so that there should be no mistake,—so as to + make sure of having the ecclesiastical authorities on her side. This is + only a little more openly and undisguisedly snobbish than the cases before + alluded to. A well-bred Snob is just as secretly proud of his riches and + honours as a PARVENU Snob who makes the most ludicrous exhibition of them; + and a high-born Marchioness or Duchess just as vain of herself and her + diamonds, as Queen Quashyboo, who sews a pair of epaulets on to her skirt, + and turns out in state in a cocked hat and feathers. + </p> + <p> + It is not out of disrespect to my 'Peerage,' which I love and honour, + (indeed, have I not said before, that I should be ready to jump out of my + skin if two Dukes would walk down Pall Mall with me?)—it is not out + of disrespect for the individuals, that I wish these titles had never been + invented; but, consider, if there were no tree, there would be no shadow; + and how much more honest society would be, and how much more serviceable + the clergy would be (which is our present consideration), if these + temptations of rank and continual baits of worldliness were not in + existence, and perpetually thrown out to lead them astray. + </p> + <p> + I have seen many examples of their falling away. When, for instance, Tom + Sniffle first went into the country as Curate for Mr. Fuddleston (Sir + Huddleston Fuddleston's brother), who resided on some other living, there + could not be a more kind, hardworking, and excellent creature than Tom. He + had his aunt to live with him. His conduct to his poor was admirable. He + wrote annually reams of the best-intentioned and vapid sermons. When Lord + Brandyball's family came down into the country, and invited him to dine at + Brandyball Park, Sniffle was so agitated that he almost forgot how to say + grace, and upset a bowl of currant-jelly sauce in Lady Fanny Toffy's lap. + </p> + <p> + What was the consequence of his intimacy with that noble family? He + quarrelled with his aunt for dining out every night. The wretch forgot his + poor altogether, and killed his old nag by always riding over to + Brandyball; where he revelled in the maddest passion for Lady Fanny. He + ordered the neatest new clothes and ecclesiastical waistcoats from London; + he appeared with corazza-shirts, lackered boots, and perfumery; he bought + a blood-horse from Bob Toffy: was seen at archery meetings, public + breakfasts,—actually at cover; and, I blush to say, that I saw him + in a stall at the Opera; and afterwards riding by Lady Fanny's side in + Rotten Row. He DOUBLE-BARRELLED his name, (as many poor Snobs do,) and + instead of T. Sniffle, as formerly, came out, in a porcelain card, as Rev. + T. D'Arcy Sniffle, Burlington Hotel. + </p> + <p> + The end of all this may be imagined: when the Earl of Brandyball was made + acquainted with the curate's love for Lady Fanny, he had that fit of the + gout which so nearly carried him off (to the inexpressible grief of his + son, Lord Alicompayne), and uttered that remarkable speech to Sniffle, + which disposed of the claims of the latter:—' If I didn't respect + the Church, Sir,' his Lordship said, 'by Jove, I'd kick you downstairs:' + his Lordship then fell back into the fit aforesaid; and Lady Fanny, as we + all know, married General Podager. + </p> + <p> + As for poor Tom, he was over head and ears in debt as well as in love: his + creditors came down upon him. Mr. Hemp, of Portugal Street, proclaimed his + name lately as a reverend outlaw; and he has been seen at various foreign + watering-places; sometimes doing duty; sometimes 'coaching' a stray + gentleman's son at Carlsruhe or Kissingen; sometimes—must we say it?—lurking + about the roulette-tables with a tuft to his chin. + </p> + <p> + If temptation had not come upon this unhappy fellow in the shape of a Lord + Brandyball, he might still have been following his profession, humbly and + worthily. He might have married his cousin with four thousand pounds, the + wine-merchant's daughter (the old gentleman quarrelled with his nephew for + not soliciting wine-orders from Lord B. for him): he might have had seven + children, and taken private pupils, and eked out his income, and lived and + died a country parson. + </p> + <p> + Could he have done better? You who want to know how great, and good, and + noble such a character may be, read Stanley's 'Life of Doctor Arnold.' + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII—ON CLERICAL SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Among the varieties of the Snob Clerical, the University Snob and the + Scholastic Snob ought never to be forgotten; they form a very strong + battalion in the black-coated army. + </p> + <p> + The wisdom of our ancestors (which I admire more and more every day) + seemed to have determined that education of youth was so paltry and + unimportant a matter, that almost any man, armed with a birch and + regulation cassock and degree, might undertake the charge: and many an + honest country gentleman may be found to the present day, who takes very + good care to have a character with his butler when he engages him and will + not purchase a horse without the warranty and the closest inspection; but + sends off his son, young John Thomas, to school without asking any + questions about the Schoolmaster, and places the lad at Switchester + College, under Doctor Block, because he (the good old English gentleman) + had been at Switchester, under Doctor Buzwig, forty years ago. + </p> + <p> + We have a love for all little boys at school; for many scores of thousands + of them read and love PUNCH:—may he never write a word that shall + not be honest and fit for them to read! He will not have his young friends + to be Snobs in the future, or to be bullied by Snobs, or given over to + such to be educated. Our connexion with the youth at the Universities is + very close and affectionate. The candid undergraduate is our friend. The + pompous old College Don trembles in his common room, lest we should attack + him and show him up as a Snob. + </p> + <p> + When railroads were threatening to invade the land which they have since + conquered, it may be recollected what a shrieking and outcry the + authorities of Oxford and Eton made, lest the iron abominations should + come near those seats of pure learning, and tempt the British youth + astray. The supplications were in vain; the railroad is in upon them, and + the old-world institutions are doomed. I felt charmed to read in the + papers the other day a most veracious puffing advertisement headed, 'To + College and back for Five Shillings.' 'The College Gardens (it said) will + be thrown open on this occasion; the College youths will perform a + regatta; the Chapel of King's College will have its celebrated music;'—and + all for five shillings! The Goths have got into Rome; Napoleon Stephenson + draws his republican lines round the sacred old cities and the + ecclesiastical big-wigs who garrison them must prepare to lay down key and + crosier before the iron conqueror. + </p> + <p> + If you consider, dear reader, what profound snobbishness the University + System produced, you will allow that it is time to attack some of those + feudal middle-age superstitions. If you go down for five shillings to look + at the 'College Youths,' you may see one sneaking down the court without a + tassel to his cap; another with a gold or silver fringe to his velvet + trencher; a third lad with a master's gown and hat, walking at ease over + the sacred College grass-plats, which common men must not tread on. + </p> + <p> + He may do it because he is a nobleman. Because a lad is a lord, the + University gives him a degree at the end of two years which another is + seven in acquiring. Because he is a lord, he has no call to go through an + examination. Any man who has not been to College and back for five + shillings, would not believe in such distinctions in a place of education, + so absurd and monstrous do they seem to be. + </p> + <p> + The lads with gold and silver lace are sons of rich gentlemen and called + Fellow Commoners; they are privileged to feed better than the pensioners, + and to have wine with their victuals, which the latter can only get in + their rooms. + </p> + <p> + The unlucky boys who have no tassels to their caps, are called sizars—SERVITORS + at Oxford—(a very pretty and gentlemanlike title). A distinction is + made in their clothes because they are poor; for which reason they wear a + badge of poverty, and are not allowed to take their meals with their + fellow-students. + </p> + <p> + When this wicked and shameful distinction was set up, it was of a piece + with all the rest—a part of the brutal, unchristian, blundering + feudal system. Distinctions of rank were then so strongly insisted upon, + that it would have been thought blasphemy to doubt them, as blasphemous as + it is in parts of the United States now for a nigger to set up as the + equal of a white man. A ruffian like Henry VIII. talked as gravely about + the divine powers vested in him, as if he had been an inspired prophet. A + wretch like James I. not only believed that there was in himself a + particular sanctity, but other people believed him. Government regulated + the length of a merchant's shoes as well as meddled with his trade, + prices, exports, machinery. It thought itself justified in roasting a man + for his religion, or pulling a Jew's teeth out if he did not pay a + contribution, or ordered him to dress in a yellow gabardine, and locked + him in a particular quarter. + </p> + <p> + Now a merchant may wear what boots he pleases, and has pretty nearly + acquired the privilege of buying and selling without the Government laying + its paws upon the bargain. The stake for heretics is gone; the pillory is + taken down; Bishops are even found lifting up their voices against the + remains of persecution, and ready to do away with the last Catholic + Disabilities. Sir Robert Peel, though he wished it ever so much, has no + power over Mr. Benjamin Disraeli's grinders, or any means of violently + handling that gentleman's jaw. Jews are not called upon to wear badges: on + the contrary, they may live in Piccadilly, or the Minories, according to + fancy; they may dress like Christians, and do sometimes in a most elegant + and fashionable manner. + </p> + <p> + Why is the poor College servitor to wear that name and that badge still? + Because Universities are the last places into which Reform penetrates. But + now that she can go to College and back for five shillings, let her travel + down thither. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV—ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + All the men of Saint Boniface will recognize Hugby and Crump in these two + pictures. They were tutors in our time, and Crump is since advanced to be + President of the College. He was formerly, and is now, a rich specimen of + a University Snob. + </p> + <p> + At five-and-twenty, Crump invented three new metres, and published an + edition of an exceedingly improper Greek Comedy, with no less than twenty + emendations upon the German text of Schnupfenius and Schnapsius. These + Services to religion instantly pointed him out for advancement in the + Church, and he is now President of Saint Boniface, and very narrowly + escaped the bench. + </p> + <p> + Crump thinks Saint Boniface the centre of the world, and his position as + President the highest in England. He expects the fellows and tutors to pay + him the same sort of service that Cardinals pay to the Pope. I am sure + Crawler would have no objection to carry his trencher, or Page to hold up + the skirts of his gown as he stalks into chapel. He roars out the + responses there as if it were an honour to heaven that the President of + Saint Boniface should take a part in the service, and in his own lodge and + college acknowledges the Sovereign only as his superior. + </p> + <p> + When the allied monarchs came down, and were made Doctors of the + University, a breakfast was given at Saint Boniface; on which occasion + Crump allowed the Emperor Alexander to walk before him, but took the PAS + himself of the King of Prussia and Prince Blucher. He was going to put the + Hetman Platoff to breakfast at a side-table with the under college tutors; + but he was induced to relent, and merely entertained that distinguished + Cossack with a discourse on his own language, in which he showed that the + Hetman knew nothing about it. + </p> + <p> + As for us undergraduates, we scarcely knew more about Crump than about the + Grand Llama. A few favoured youths are asked occasionally to tea at the + lodge; but they do not speak unless first addressed by the Doctor; and if + they venture to sit down, Crump's follower, Mr. Toady, whispers, + 'Gentlemen, will you have the kindness to get up?—The President is + passing;' or 'Gentlemen, the President prefers that undergraduates should + not sit down;' or words to a similar effect. + </p> + <p> + To do Crump justice, he does not cringe now to great people. He rather + patronizes them than otherwise; and, in London, speaks quite affably to a + Duke who has been brought up at his college, or holds out a finger to a + Marquis. He does not disguise his own origin, but brags of it with + considerable self-gratulation:—'I was a Charity-boy,' says he; 'see + what I am now; the greatest Greek scholar of the greatest College of the + greatest University of the greatest Empire in the world.' The argument + being, that this is a capital world, for beggars, because he, being a + beggar, has managed to get on horseback. + </p> + <p> + Hugby owes his eminence to patient merit and agreeable perseverance. He is + a meek, mild, inoffensive creature, with just enough of scholarship to fit + him to hold a lecture, or set an examination paper. He rose by kindness to + the aristocracy. It was wonderful to see the way in which that poor + creature grovelled before a nobleman or a lord's nephew, or even some + noisy and disreputable commoner, the friend of a lord. He used to give the + young noblemen the most painful and elaborate breakfasts, and adopt a + jaunty genteel air, and talk with them (although he was decidedly serious) + about the opera, or the last run with the hounds. It was good to watch him + in the midst of a circle of young tufts, with his mean, smiling, eager, + uneasy familiarity. He used to write home confidential letters to their + parents, and made it his duty to call upon them when in town, to condole + or rejoice with them when a death, birth, or marriage took place in their + family; and to feast them whenever they came to the University. I + recollect a letter lying on a desk in his lecture-room for a whole term, + beginning, 'My Lord Duke.' It was to show us that he corresponded with + such dignities. + </p> + <p> + When the late lamented Lord Glenlivat, who broke his neck at a + hurdle-race, at the premature age of twenty-four, was at the University, + the amiable young fellow, passing to his rooms in the early morning, and + seeing Hugby's boots at his door, on the same staircase, playfully wadded + the insides of the boots with cobbler's wax, which caused excruciating + pains to the Rev. Mr. Hugby, when he came to take them off the same + evening, before dining with the Master of St. Crispin's. + </p> + <p> + Everybody gave the credit of this admirable piece of fun to Lord + Glenlivat's friend, Bob Tizzy, who was famous for such feats, and who had + already made away with the college pump-handle; filed St. Boniface's nose + smooth with his face; carried off four images of nigger-boys from the + tobacconists; painted the senior proctor's horse pea-green, &c. &c.; + and Bob (who was of the party certainly, and would not peach,) was just on + the point of incurring expulsion, and so losing the family living which + was in store for him, when Glenlivat nobly stepped forward, owned himself + to be the author of the delightful JEU-D'ESPRIT, apologized to the tutor, + and accepted the rustication. + </p> + <p> + Hugby cried when Glenlivat apologized; if the young nobleman had kicked + him round the court, I believe the tutor would have been happy, so that an + apology and a reconciliation might subsequently ensue. 'My lord,' said he, + 'in your conduct on this and all other occasions, you have acted as + becomes a gentleman; you have been an honour to the University, as you + will be to the peerage, I am sure, when the amiable vivacity of youth is + calmed down, and you are called upon to take your proper share in the + government of the nation.' And when his lordship took leave of the + University, Hugby presented him with a copy of his 'Sermons to a + Nobleman's Family' (Hugby was once private tutor to the Sons of the Earl + of Muffborough), which Glenlivat presented in return to Mr. William Ramm, + known to the fancy as the Tutbury Pet, and the sermons now figure on the + boudoir-table of Mrs. Ramm, behind the bar of her house of entertainment, + 'The Game Cock and Spurs,' near Woodstock, Oxon. + </p> + <p> + At the beginning of the long vacation, Hugby comes to town, and puts up in + handsome lodgings near St. James's Square; rides in the Park in the + afternoon; and is delighted to read his name in the morning papers among + the list of persons present at Muffborough House, and the Marquis of + Farintosh's evening-parties. He is a member of Sydney Scraper's Club, + where, however, he drinks his pint of claret. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes you may see him on Sundays, at the hour when tavern doors open, + whence issue little girls with great jugs of porter; when charity-boys + walk the streets, bearing brown dishes of smoking shoulders of mutton and + baked 'taturs; when Sheeny and Moses are seen smoking their pipes before + their lazy shutters in Seven Dials; when a crowd of smiling persons in + clean outlandish dresses, in monstrous bonnets and flaring printed gowns, + or in crumpled glossy coats and silks that bear the creases of the drawers + where they have lain all the week, file down High Street,—sometimes, + I say, you may see Hugby coming out of the Church of St. + Giles-in-the-Fields, with a stout gentlewoman leaning on his arm, whose + old face bears an expression of supreme pride and happiness as she glances + round at all the neighbours, and who faces the curate himself and marches + into Holborn, where she pulls the bell of a house over which is inscribed, + 'Hugby, Haberdasher.' It is the mother of the Rev. F. Hugby, as proud of + her son in his white choker as Cornelia of her jewels at Rome. That is old + Hugby bringing up the rear with the Prayer-books, and Betsy Hugby the old + maid, his daughter,—old Hugby, Haberdasher and Church-warden. + </p> + <p> + In the front room upstairs, where the dinner is laid out, there is a + picture of Muffborough Castle; of the Earl of Muffborough, K.X., + Lord-Lieutenant for Diddlesex; an engraving, from an almanac, of Saint + Boniface College, Oxon; and a sticking-plaster portrait of Hugby when + young, in a cap and gown. A copy of his 'Sermons to a Nobleman's Family' + is on the bookshelf, by the 'Whole Duty of Man,' the Reports of the + Missionary Societies, and the 'Oxford University Calendar.' Old Hugby + knows part of this by heart; every living belonging to Saint Boniface, and + the name of every tutor, fellow, nobleman, and undergraduate. + </p> + <p> + He used to go to meeting and preach himself, until his son took orders; + but of late the old gentleman has been accused of Puseyism, and is quite + pitiless against the Dissenters. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV—ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + I should like to fill several volumes with accounts of various University + Snobs; so fond are my reminiscences of them, and so numerous are they. I + should like to speak, above all, of the wives and daughters of some of the + Professor-Snobs; their amusements, habits, jealousies; their innocent + artifices to entrap young men; their picnics, concerts, and + evening-parties. I wonder what has become of Emily Blades, daughter of + Blades, the Professor of the Mandingo language? I remember her shoulders + to this day, as she sat in the midst of a crowd of about seventy young + gentlemen, from Corpus and Catherine Hall, entertaining them with ogles + and French songs on the guitar. Are you married, fair Emily of the + shoulders? What beautiful ringlets those were that used to dribble over + them!—what a waist!—what a killing sea-green shot-silk gown!—what + a cameo, the size of a muffin! There were thirty-six young men of the + University in love at one time with Emily Blades: and no words are + sufficient to describe the pity, the sorrow, the deep, deep commiseration—the + rage, fury, and uncharitableness, in other words—with which the Miss + Trumps (daughter of Trumps, the Professor of Phlebotomy) regarded her, + because she DIDN'T squint, and because she WASN'T marked with the + small-pox. + </p> + <p> + As for the young University Snobs, I am getting too old, now, to speak of + such very familiarly. My recollections of them lie in the far, far past—almost + as far back as Pelham's time. + </p> + <p> + We THEN used to consider Snobs raw-looking lads, who never missed chapel; + who wore highlows and no straps; who walked two hours on the Trumpington + road every day of their lives; who carried off the college scholarships, + and who overrated themselves in hall. We were premature in pronouncing our + verdict of youthful Snobbishness The man without straps fulfilled his + destiny and duty. He eased his old governor, the curate in Westmoreland, + or helped his sisters to set up the Ladies' School. He wrote a + 'Dictionary,' or a 'Treatise on Conic Sections,' as his nature and genius + prompted. He got a fellowship: and then took to himself a wife, and a + living. He presides over a parish now, and thinks it rather a dashing + thing to belong to the 'Oxford and Cambridge Club;' and his parishioners + love him, and snore under his sermons. No, no, HE is not a Snob. It is not + straps that make the gentleman, or highlows that unmake him, be they ever + so thick. My son, it is you who are the Snob if you lightly despise a man + for doing his duty, and refuse to shake an honest man's hand because it + wears a Berlin glove. + </p> + <p> + We then used to consider it not the least vulgar for a parcel of lads who + had been whipped three months previous, and were not allowed more than + three glasses of port at home, to sit down to pineapples and ices at each + other's rooms, and fuddle themselves with champagne and claret. + </p> + <p> + One looks back to what was called a 'wine-party' with a sort of wonder. + Thirty lads round a table covered with bad sweetmeats, drinking bad wines, + telling bad stories, singing bad songs over and over again. Milk punch—smoking—ghastly + headache—frightful spectacle of dessert-table next morning, and + smell of tobacco—your guardian, the clergyman, dropping in, in the + midst of this—expecting to find you deep in Algebra, and discovering + the Gyp administering soda-water. + </p> + <p> + There were young men who despised the lads who indulged in the coarse + hospitalities of wine-parties, who prided themselves in giving RECHERCHE + little French dinners. Both wine-party-givers and dinner-givers were + Snobs. + </p> + <p> + There were what used to be called 'dressy' Snobs:—Jimmy, who might + be seen at five o'clock elaborately rigged out, with a camellia in his + button-hole, glazed boots, and fresh kid-gloves twice a day;—Jessamy, + who was conspicuous for his 'jewellery,'—a young donkey, glittering + all over with chains, rings, and shirt-studs;—Jacky, who rode every + day solemnly on the Blenheim Road, in pumps and white silk stockings, with + his hair curled,—all three of whom flattered themselves they gave + laws to the University about dress—all three most odious varieties + of Snobs. + </p> + <p> + Sporting Snobs of course there were, and are always—those happy + beings in whom Nature has implanted a love of slang: who loitered about + the horsekeeper's stables, and drove the London coaches—a stage in + and out—and might be seen swaggering through the courts in pink of + early mornings, and indulged in dice and blind-hookey at nights, and never + missed a race or a boxing-match; and rode flat-races, and kept + bull-terriers. Worse Snobs even than these were poor miserable wretches + who did not like hunting at all, and could not afford it, and were in + mortal fear at a two-foot ditch; but who hunted because Glenlivat and + Cinqbars hunted. The Billiard Snob and the Boating Snob were varieties of + these, and are to be found elsewhere than in universities. + </p> + <p> + Then there were Philosophical Snobs, who used to ape statesmen at the + spouting-clubs, and who believed as a fact that Government always had an + eye on the University for the selection of orators for the House of + Commons. There were audacious young free-thinkers, who adored nobody or + nothing, except perhaps Robespierre and the Koran, and panted for the day + when the pale name of priest should shrink and dwindle away before the + indignation of an enlightened world. + </p> + <p> + But the worst of all University Snobs are those unfortunates who go to + rack and ruin from their desire to ape their betters. Smith becomes + acquainted with great people at college, and is ashamed of his father the + tradesman. Jones has fine acquaintances, and lives after their fashion + like a gay free-hearted fellow as he is, and ruins his father, and robs + his sister's portion, and cripples his younger brother's outset in life, + for the pleasure of entertaining my lord, and riding by the side of Sir + John. And though it may be very good fun for Robinson to fuddle himself at + home as he does at College, and to be brought home by the policeman he has + just been trying to knock down—think what fun it is for the poor old + soul his mother!—the half-pay captain's widow, who has been pinching + herself all her life long, in order that that jolly young fellow might + have a University education. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVI—ON LITERARY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + What will he say about Literary Snobs? has been a question, I make no + doubt, often asked by the public. How can he let off his own profession? + Will that truculent and unsparing monster who attacks the nobility, the + clergy, the army, and the ladies, indiscriminately, hesitate when the turn + comes to EGORGER his own flesh and blood? + </p> + <p> + My dear and excellent querist, whom does the schoolmaster flog so + resolutely as his own son? Didn't Brutus chop his offspring's head off? + You have a very bad opinion indeed of the present state of literature and + of literary men, if you fancy that any one of us would hesitate to stick a + knife into his neighbour penman, if the latter's death could do the State + any service. + </p> + <p> + But the fact is, that in the literary profession THERE ARE NO SNOBS. Look + round at the whole body of British men of letters; and I defy you to point + out among them a single instance of vulgarity, or envy, or assumption. + </p> + <p> + Men and women, as far as I have known them, they are all modest in their + demeanour, elegant in their manners, spotless in their lives, and + honourable in their conduct to the world and to each other. You MAY, + occasionally, it is true, hear one literary man abusing his brother; but + why? Not in the least out of malice; not at all from envy; merely from a + sense of truth and public duty. Suppose, for instance, I, good-naturedly + point out a blemish in my friend MR. PUNCH'S person, and say, MR. P. has a + hump-back, and his nose and chin are more crooked than those features in + the Apollo or Antinous, which we are accustomed to consider as our + standards of beauty; does this argue malice on my part towards MR. PUNCH? + Not in the least. It is the critic's duty to point out defects as well as + merits, and he invariably does his duty with utmost gentleness and + candour. + </p> + <p> + An intelligent foreigner's testimony about our manners is always worth + having, and I think, in this respect the work of an eminent American, Mr. + N. P. Willis is eminently valuable and impartial. In his 'History of + Ernest Clay,' a crack magazine-writer, the reader will get an exact + account of the life of a popular man of letters in England. He is always + the lion of society. + </p> + <p> + He takes the PAS of dukes and earls; all the nobility crowd to see him: I + forget how many baronesses and duchesses fall in love with him. But on + this subject let us hold our tongues. Modesty forbids that we should + reveal the names of the heart-broken countesses and dear marchionesses who + are pining for every one of the contributors in PUNCH. + </p> + <p> + If anybody wants to know how intimately authors are connected with the + fashionable world, they have but to read the genteel novels. What + refinement and delicacy pervades the works of Mrs. Barnaby! What + delightful good company do you meet with in Mrs. Armytage! She seldom + introduces you to anybody under a marquis! I don't know anything more + delicious than the pictures of genteel life in 'Ten Thousand a Year,' + except perhaps the 'Young Duke,' and 'Coningsby.' There's a modest grace + about THEM, and an air of easy high fashion, which only belongs to blood, + my dear Sir—to true blood. + </p> + <p> + And what linguists many of our writers are! Lady Bulwer, Lady Londonderry, + Sir Edward himself—they write the French language with a luxurious + elegance and ease which sets them far above their continental rivals, of + whom not one (except Paul de Kock) knows a word of English. + </p> + <p> + And what Briton can read without enjoyment the works of James, so + admirable for terseness; and the playful humour and dazzling offhand + lightness of Ainsworth? Among other humourists, one might glance at a + Jerrold, the chivalrous advocate of Toryism and Church and State; an a + Beckett, with a lightsome pen, but a savage earnestness of purpose; a + Jeames, whose pure style, and wit unmingled with buffoonery, was relished + by a congenial public. + </p> + <p> + Speaking of critics, perhaps there never was a review that has done so + much for literature as the admirable QUARTERLY. It has its prejudices, to + be sure, as which of us has not? It goes out of its way to abuse a great + man, or lays mercilessly on to such pretenders as Keats and Tennyson; but, + on the other hand, it is the friend of all young authors, and has marked + and nurtured all the rising talent of the country. It is loved by + everybody. There, again, is BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE—conspicuous for + modest elegance and amiable satire; that review never passes the bounds of + politeness in a joke. It is the arbiter of manners; and, while gently + exposing the foibles of Londoners (for whom the BEAUX ESPRITS of Edinburgh + entertain a justifiable contempt), it is never coarse in its fun. The + fiery enthusiasm of the ATHENAEUM is well known: and the bitter wit of the + too difficult LITERARY GAZETTE. The EXAMINER is perhaps too timid, and the + SPECTATOR too boisterous in its praise—but who can carp at these + minor faults? No, no; the critics of England and the authors of England + are unrivalled as a body; and hence it becomes impossible for us to find + fault with them. + </p> + <p> + Above all, I never knew a man of letters ASHAMED OF HIS PROFESSION. Those + who know us, know what an affectionate and brotherly spirit there is among + us all. Sometimes one of us rises in the world: we never attack him or + sneer at him under those circumstances, but rejoice to a man at his + success. If Jones dines with a lord, Smith never says Jones is a courtier + and cringer. Nor, on the other hand, does Jones, who is in the habit of + frequenting the society of great people, give himself any airs on account + of the company he keeps; but will leave a duke's arm in Pall Mall to come + over and speak to poor Brown, the young penny-a-liner. + </p> + <p> + That sense of equality and fraternity amongst authors has always struck me + as one of the most amiable characteristics of the class. It is because we + know and respect each other, that the world respects us so much; that we + hold such a good position in society, and demean ourselves so + irreproachably when there. + </p> + <p> + Literary persons are held in such esteem by the nation that about two of + them have been absolutely invited to court during the present reign; and + it is probable that towards the end of the season, one or two will be + asked to dinner by Sir Robert Peel. + </p> + <p> + They are such favourites with the public, that they are continually + obliged to have their pictures taken and published; and one or two could + be pointed out, of whom the nation insists upon having a fresh portrait + every year. Nothing can be more gratifying than this proof of the + affectionate regard which the people has for its instructors. + </p> + <p> + Literature is held in such honour in England, that there is a sum of near + twelve hundred pounds per annum set apart to pension deserving persons + following that profession. And a great compliment this is, too, to the + professors, and a proof of their generally prosperous and flourishing + condition. They are generally so rich and thrifty, that scarcely any money + is wanted to help them. + </p> + <p> + If every word of this is true, how, I should like to know am I to write + about Literary Snobs? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVII—A LITTLE ABOUT IRISH SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + You do not, to be sure, imagine that there are no other Snobs in Ireland + than those of the amiable party who wish to make pikes of iron railroads + (it's a fine Irish economy), and to cut the throats of the Saxon invaders. + These are of the venomous sort; and had they been invented in his time, + St. Patrick would have banished them out of the kingdom along with the + other dangerous reptiles. + </p> + <p> + I think it is the Four Masters, or else it's Olaus Magnus, or else it's + certainly O'Neill Daunt, in the 'Catechism of Irish History,' who relates + that when Richard the Second came to Ireland, and the Irish chiefs did + homage to him, going down on their knees—the poor simple creatures!—and + worshipping and wondering before the English king and the dandies of his + court, my lords the English noblemen mocked and jeered at their uncouth + Irish admirers, mimicked their talk and gestures, pulled their poor old + beards, and laughed at the strange fashion of their garments. + </p> + <p> + The English Snob rampant always does this to the present day. There is no + Snob in existence, perhaps, that has such an indomitable belief in + himself: that sneers you down all the rest of the world besides, and has + such an insufferable, admirable, stupid contempt for all people but his + own—nay, for all sets but his own. 'Gwacious Gad' what stories about + 'the Iwish' these young dandies accompanying King Richard must have had to + tell, when they returned to Pall Mall, and smoked their cigars upon the + steps of 'White's.' + </p> + <p> + The Irish snobbishness developes itself not in pride so much as in + servility and mean admirations, and trumpery imitations of their + neighbours. And I wonder De Tocqueville and De Beaumont, and THE TIMES' + Commissioner, did not explain the Snobbishness of Ireland as contrasted + with our own. Ours is that of Richard's Norman Knights,—haughty, + brutal stupid, and perfectly self-confident;—theirs, of the poor, + wondering, kneeling, simple chieftains. They are on their knees still + before English fashion—these simple, wild people; and indeed it is + hard not to grin at some of their NAIVE exhibitions. + </p> + <p> + Some years since, when a certain great orator was Lord Mayor of Dublin, he + used to wear a red gown and a cocked hat, the splendour of which delighted + him as much as a new curtain-ring in her nose or a string of glass-beads + round her neck charms Queen Quasheeneboo. He used to pay visits to people + in this dress; to appear at meetings hundreds of miles off, in the red + velvet gown. And to hear the people crying 'Yes, me Lard!' and 'No, me + Lard!' and to read the prodigious accounts of his Lordship in the papers: + it seemed as if the people and he liked to be taken in by this twopenny + splendour. Twopenny magnificence, indeed, exists all over Ireland, and may + be considered as the great characteristic of the Snobbishness of that + country. + </p> + <p> + When Mrs. Mulholligan, the grocer's lady, retires to Kingstown, she has + Mulholliganville' painted over the gate of her villa; and receives you at + a door that won't shut or gazes at you out of a window that is glazed with + an old petticoat. + </p> + <p> + Be it ever so shabby and dismal, nobody ever owns to keeping a shop. A + fellow whose stock in trade is a penny roll or a tumbler of lollipops, + calls his cabin the 'American Flour Stores,' or the 'Depository for + Colonial Produce,' or some such name. + </p> + <p> + As for Inns, there are none in the country; Hotels abound as well + furnished as Mulholliganville; but again there are no such people as + landlords and land-ladies; the landlord is out with the hounds, and my + lady in the parlour talking with the Captain or playing the piano. + </p> + <p> + If a gentleman has a hundred a year to leave to his family they all become + gentlemen, all keep a nag, ride to hounds, and swagger about in the + 'Phaynix,' and grow tufts to their chins like so many real aristocrats. + </p> + <p> + A friend of mine has taken to be a painter, and lives out of Ireland, + where he is considered to have disgraced the family by choosing such a + profession. His father is a wine-merchant; and his elder brother an + apothecary. + </p> + <p> + The number of men one meets in London and on the Continent who have a + pretty little property of five-and-twenty hundred a year in Ireland is + prodigious: those who WILL have nine thousand a year in land when somebody + dies are still more numerous. I myself have met as many descendants from + Irish kings as would form a brigade. + </p> + <p> + And who has not met the Irishman who apes the Englishman, and who forgets + his country and tries to forget his accent, or to smother the taste of it, + as it were? 'Come, dine with me, my boy,' says O'Dowd, of O'Dowdstown: + 'you'll FIND US ALL ENGLISH THERE;' which he tells you with a brogue as + broad as from here to Kingstown Pier. And did you never hear Mrs. Captain + Macmanus talk about 'I-ah-land,' and her account of her 'fawther's + esteet?' Very few men have rubbed through the world without hearing and + witnessing some of these Hibernian phenomena—these twopenny + splendours. + </p> + <p> + And what say you to the summit of society—the Castle—with a + sham king, and sham lords-in-waiting, and sham loyalty, and a sham Haroun + Alraschid, to go about in a sham disguise, making believe to be affable + and splendid? That Castle is the pink and pride of Snobbishness. A COURT + CIRCULAR is bad enough, with two columns of print about a little baby + that's christened—but think of people liking a sham COURT CIRCULAR! + </p> + <p> + I think the shams of Ireland are more outrageous than those of any + country. A fellow shows you a hill and says, 'That's the highest mountain + in all Ireland;' a gentleman tells you he is descended from Brian Boroo + and has his five-and-thirty hundred a year; or Mrs. Macmanus describes her + fawther's esteet; or ould Dan rises and says the Irish women are the + loveliest, the Irish men the bravest, the Irish land the most fertile in + the world: and nobody believes anybody—the latter does not believe + his story nor the hearer:—but they make-believe to believe, and + solemnly do honour to humbug. + </p> + <p> + O Ireland! O my country! (for I make little doubt I am descended from + Brian Boroo too) when will you acknowledge that two and two make four, and + call a pikestaff a pikestaff?—that is the very best use you can make + of the latter. Irish snobs will dwindle away then and we shall never hear + tell of Hereditary bondsmen. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVIII—PARTY-GIVING SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Our selection of Snobs has lately been too exclusively of a political + character. 'Give us private Snobs,' cry the dear ladies. (I have before me + the letter of one fair correspondent of the fishing village of + Brighthelmstone in Sussex, and could her commands ever be disobeyed?) + 'Tell us more, dear Mr. Snob, about your experience of Snobs in society.' + Heaven bless the dear souls!—they are accustomed to the word now—the + odious, vulgar, horrid, unpronounceable word slips out of their lips with + the prettiest glibness possible. I should not wonder if it were used at + Court amongst the Maids of Honour. In the very best society I know it is. + And why not? Snobbishness is vulgar—the mere words are not: that + which we call a Snob, by any other name would still be Snobbish. + </p> + <p> + Well, then. As the season is drawing to a close: as many hundreds of kind + souls, snobbish or otherwise, have quitted London; as many hospitable + carpets are taken up; and window-blinds are pitilessly papered with the + MORNING HERALD; and mansions once inhabited by cheerful owners are now + consigned to the care of the housekeeper's dreary LOCUM TENENS—some + mouldy old woman, who, in reply to the hopeless clanging of the bell, + peers at you for a moment from the area, and then slowly unbolting the + great hall-door, informs you my lady has left town, or that 'the family's + in the country,' or 'gone up the Rind,'—or what not; as the season + and parties are over; why not consider Party-giving Snobs for a while, and + review the conduct of some of those individuals who have quitted the town + for six months? + </p> + <p> + Some of those worthy Snobs are making-believe to go yachting, and, dressed + in telescopes and pea-jackets, are passing their time between Cherbourg + and Cowes; some living higgledy-piggledy in dismal little huts in + Scotland, provisioned with canisters of portable soup, and fricandeaux + hermetically sealed in tin, are passing their days slaughtering grouse + upon the moors; some are dozing and bathing away the effects of the season + at Kissingen, or watching the ingenious game of TRENTE ET QUARANTE at + Homburg and Ems. We can afford to be very bitter upon them now they are + all gone. Now there are no more parties, let us have at the Party-giving + Snobs. The dinner-giving, the ball-giving, the DEJEUNER-giving, the + CONVERSAZIONE-GIVING Snobs—Lord! Lord! what havoc might have been + made amongst them had we attacked them during the plethora of the season! + I should have been obliged to have a guard to defend me from fiddlers and + pastrycooks, indignant at the abuse of their patrons. Already I'm told + that, from some flippant and unguarded expressions considered derogatory + to Baker Street and Harley Street, rents have fallen in these respectable + quarters; and orders have been issued that at least Mr. Snob shall be + asked to parties there no more. Well, then—now they are ALL away, + let us frisk at our ease, and have at everything like the bull in the + china-shop. They mayn't hear of what is going on in their absence, and, if + they do they can't bear malice for six months. We will begin to make it up + with them about next February, and let next year take care of itself. We + shall have no dinners from the dinner-giving Snobs: no more from the + ball-givers: no more CONVERSAZIONES (thank Mussy! as Jeames says,) from + the Conversaziones Snob: and what is to prevent us from telling the truth? + </p> + <p> + The snobbishness of Conversazione Snobs is very soon disposed of: as soon + as that cup of washy bohea is handed to you in the tea-room; or the muddy + remnant of ice that you grasp in the suffocating scuffle of the assembly + upstairs. + </p> + <p> + Good heavens! What do people mean by going there? What is done there, that + everybody throngs into those three little rooms? Was the Black Hole + considered to be an agreeable REUNION, that Britons in the dog-days here + seek to imitate it? After being rammed to a jelly in a door-way (where you + feel your feet going through Lady Barbara Macbeth's lace flounces, and get + a look from that haggard and painted old harpy, compared to which the gaze + of Ugolino is quite cheerful); after withdrawing your elbow out of poor + gasping Bob Guttleton's white waistcoat, from which cushion it was + impossible to remove it, though you knew you were squeezing poor Bob into + an apoplexy—you find yourself at last in the reception-room, and try + to catch the eye of Mrs. Botibol, the CONVERSAZIONE-giver. When you catch + her eye, you are expected to grin, and she smiles too, for the four + hundredth time that night; and, if she's very glad to see you, waggles her + little hand before her face as if to blow you a kiss, as the phrase is. + </p> + <p> + Why the deuce should Mrs. Botibol blow me a kiss? I wouldn't kiss her for + the world. Why do I grin when I see her, as if I was delighted? Am I? I + don't care a straw for Mrs. Botibol. I know what she thinks about me. I + know what she said about my last volume of poems (I had it from a dear + mutual friend). Why, I say in a word, are we going on ogling and + telegraphing each other in this insane way?—Because we are both + performing the ceremonies demanded by the Great Snob Society; whose + dictates we all of us obey. + </p> + <p> + Well; the recognition is over—my jaws have returned to their usual + English expression of subdued agony and intense gloom, and the Botibol is + grinning and kissing her fingers to somebody else, who is squeezing + through the aperture by which we have just entered. It is Lady Ann + Clutterbuck, who has her Friday evenings, as Botibol (Botty, we call her,) + has Wednesdays. That is Miss Clementina Clutterbuck the cadaverous young + woman in green, with florid auburn hair, who has published her volume of + poems ('The Death-Shriek;' 'Damiens;' 'The Faggot of Joan of Arc;' and + 'Translations from the German' of course). The conversazione-women salute + each other calling each other 'My dear Lady Ann' and 'My dear good Eliza,' + and hating each other, as women hate who give parties on Wednesdays and + Fridays. With inexpressible pain dear good Eliza sees Ann go up and coax + and wheedle Abou Gosh, who has just arrived from Syria, and beg him to + patronize her Fridays. + </p> + <p> + All this while, amidst the crowd and the scuffle, and a perpetual buzz and + chatter, and the flare of the wax-candles, and an intolerable smell of + musk—what the poor Snobs who write fashionable romances call 'the + gleam of gems, the odour of perfumes, the blaze of countless lamps'—a + scrubby-looking, yellow-faced foreigner, with cleaned gloves, is warbling + inaudibly in a corner, to the accompaniment of another. 'The Great + Cacafogo,' Mrs. Botibol whispers, as she passes you by. 'A great creature, + Thumpenstrumpff, is at the instrument—the Hetman Platoff's pianist, + you know.' + </p> + <p> + To hear this Cacafogo and Thumpenstrumpff, a hundred people are gathered + together—a bevy of dowagers, stout or scraggy; a faint sprinkling of + misses; six moody-looking lords, perfectly meek and solemn; wonderful + foreign Counts, with bushy whiskers and yellow faces, and a great deal of + dubious jewellery; young dandies with slim waists and open necks, and + self-satisfied simpers, and flowers in their buttons; the old, stiff, + stout, bald-headed CONVERSAZIONE ROUES, whom You meet everywhere—who + never miss a night of this delicious enjoyment; the three last-caught + lions of the season—Higgs, the traveller, Biggs, the novelist, and + Toffey, who has come out so on the sugar question; Captain Flash, who is + invited on account of his pretty wife and Lord Ogleby, who goes wherever + she goes. + </p> + <p> + QUE SCAIS-JE? Who are the owners of all those showy scarfs and white + neckcloths?—Ask little Tom Prig, who is there in all his glory, + knows everybody, has a story about every one; and, as he trips home to his + lodgings in Jermyn Street, with his gibus-hat and his little glazed pumps, + thinks he is the fashionablest young fellow in town, and that he really + has passed a night of exquisite enjoyment. + </p> + <p> + You go up (with our usual easy elegance of manner) and talk to Miss Smith + in a corner. 'Oh, Mr. Snob, I'm afraid you're sadly satirical.' + </p> + <p> + That's all she says. If you say it's fine weather, she bursts out + laughing; or hint that it's very hot, she vows you are the drollest + wretch! Meanwhile Mrs. Botibol is simpering on fresh arrivals; the + individual at the door is roaring out their names; poor Cacafogo is + quavering away in the music-room, under the impression that he will be + LANCE in the world by singing inaudibly here. And what a blessing it is to + squeeze out of the door, and into the street, where a half-hundred of + carriages are in waiting; and where the link-boy, with that unnecessary + lantern of his, pounces upon all who issue out, and will insist upon + getting your noble honour's lordship's cab. + </p> + <p> + And to think that there are people who, after having been to Botibol on + Wednesday, will go to Clutterbuck on Friday! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIX—DINING-OUT SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + In England Dinner-giving Snobs occupy a very important place in society, + and the task of describing them is tremendous. There was a time in my life + when the consciousness of having eaten a man's salt rendered me dumb + regarding his demerits, and I thought it a wicked act and a breach of + hospitality to speak ill of him. + </p> + <p> + But why should a saddle-of-mutton blind you, or a turbot and lobster-sauce + shut your mouth for ever? With advancing age, men see their duties more + clearly. I am not to be hoodwinked any longer by a slice of venison, be it + ever so fat; and as for being dumb on account of turbot and lobster-sauce——of + course I am; good manners ordain that I should be so, until I have + swallowed the compound—but not afterwards; directly the victuals are + discussed, and John takes away the plate, my tongue begins to wag. Does + not yours, if you have a pleasant neighbour?—a lovely creature, say, + of some five-and-thirty, whose daughters have not yet quite come out—they + are the best talkers. As for your young misses, they are only put about + the table to look at—like the flowers in the centre-piece. Their + blushing youth and natural modesty preclude them from easy, confidential, + conversational ABANDON which forms the delight of the intercourse with + their dear mothers. It is to these, if he would prosper in his profession, + that the Dining-out Snob should address himself. Suppose you sit next to + one of these, how pleasant it is, in the intervals of the banquet, + actually to abuse the victuals and the giver of the entertainment! It's + twice as PIQUANT to make fun of a man under his very nose. + </p> + <p> + 'What IS a Dinner-giving Snob?' some innocent youth, who is not REPANDU in + the world, may ask—or some simple reader who has not the benefits of + London experience. + </p> + <p> + My dear sir, I will show you—not all, for that is impossible—but + several kinds of Dinner-giving Snobs. For instance, suppose you, in the + middle rank of life, accustomed to Mutton, roast on Tuesday, cold on + Wednesday, hashed on Thursday, &c., with small means and a small + establishment, choose to waste the former and set the latter topsy-turvy + by giving entertainments unnaturally costly—you come into the + Dinner-giving Snob class at once. Suppose you get in cheap-made dishes + from the pastrycook's, and hire a couple of greengrocers, or + carpet-beaters, to figure as footmen, dismissing honest Molly, who waits + on common days, and bedizening your table (ordinarily ornamented with + willow-pattern crockery) with twopenny-halfpenny Birmingham plate. Suppose + you pretend to be richer and grander than you ought to be—you are a + Dinner-giving Snob. And oh, I tremble to think how many and many a one + will read this! + </p> + <p> + A man who entertains in this way—and, alas, how few do not!—is + like a fellow who would borrow his neighbour's coat to make a show in, or + a lady who flaunts in the diamonds from next door—a humbug, in a + word, and amongst the Snobs he must be set down. + </p> + <p> + A man who goes out of his natural sphere of society to ask Lords, + Generals, Aldermen, and other persons of fashion, but is niggardly of his + hospitality towards his own equals, is a Dinner-giving Snob. My dear + friend, Jack Tufthunt, for example, knows ONE Lord whom he met at a + watering-place: old Lord Mumble, who is as toothless as a three-months-old + baby, and as mum as an undertaker, and as dull as—well, we will not + particularise. Tufthunt never has a dinner now but you see this solemn old + toothless patrician at the right-hand of Mrs. Tufthunt—Tufthunt is a + Dinner-giving Snob. + </p> + <p> + Old Livermore, old Soy, old Chutney, the East Indian Director, old Cutler, + the Surgeon, &c.,—that society of old fogies, in fine, who give + each other dinners round and round, and dine for the mere purpose of + guttling—these, again, are Dinner-giving Snobs. + </p> + <p> + Again, my friend Lady MacScrew, who has three grenadier flunkeys in lace + round the table, and serves up a scrag-of-mutton on silver, and dribbles + you out bad sherry and port by thimblefuls, is a Dinner-giving Snob of the + other sort; and I confess, for my part, I would rather dine with old + Livermore or old Soy than with her Ladyship. + </p> + <p> + Stinginess is snobbish. Ostentation is snobbish. Too great profusion is + snobbish. Tuft-hunting is snobbish. But I own there are people more + snobbish than all those whose defects are above mentioned: viz., those + individuals who can, and don't give dinners at all. The man without + hospitality shall never sit SUB IISDEM TRABIBUS with ME. Let the sordid + wretch go mumble his bone alone! + </p> + <p> + What, again, is true hospitality? Alas, my dear friends and brother Snobs! + how little do we meet of it after all! Are the motives PURE which induce + your friends to ask you to dinner? This has often come across me. Does + your entertainer want something from you? For instance, I am not of a + suspicious turn; but it IS a fact that when Hookey is bringing out a new + work, he asks the critics all round to dinner; that when Walker has got + his picture ready for the Exhibition, he somehow grows exceedingly + hospitable, and has his friends of the press to a quiet cutlet and a glass + of Sillery. Old Hunks, the miser, who died lately (leaving his money to + his housekeeper) lived many years on the fat of the land, by simply taking + down, at all his friends', the names and Christian names OF ALL THE + CHILDREN. But though you may have your own opinion about the hospitality + of your acquaintances; and though men who ask you from sordid motives are + most decidedly Dinner-giving Snobs, it is best not to inquire into their + motives too keenly. Be not too curious about the mouth of a gift-horse. + After all, a man does not intend to insult you by asking you to dinner. + </p> + <p> + Though, for that matter, I know some characters about town who actually + consider themselves injured and insulted if the dinner or the company is + not to their liking. There is Guttleton, who dines at home off a + shilling's-worth of beef from the cookshop, but if he is asked to dine at + a house where there are not pease at the end of May, or cucumbers in March + along with the turbot, thinks himself insulted by being invited. 'Good + Ged!' says he, 'what the deuce do the Forkers mean by asking ME to a + family dinner? I can get mutton at home;' or 'What infernal impertinence + it is of the Spooners to get ENTREES from the pastrycook's, and fancy that + I am to be deceived with their stories about their French cook!' Then, + again, there is Jack Puddington—I saw that honest fellow t'other day + quite in a rage, because, as chance would have it, Sir John Carver asked + him to meet the very same party he had met at Colonel Cramley's the day + before, and he had not got up a new set of stories to entertain them. Poor + Dinner-giving Snobs! you don't know what small thanks you get for all your + pains and money! How we Dining-out Snobs sneer at your cookery, and + pooh-pooh your old hock, and are incredulous about your four-and-six-penny + champagne, and know that the side-dishes of to-day are RECHAUFFES from the + dinner of yesterday, and mark how certain dishes are whisked off the table + untasted, so that they may figure at the banquet tomorrow. Whenever, for + my part, I see the head man particularly anxious to ESCAMOTER a fricandeau + or a blanc-mange, I always call out, and insist upon massacring it with a + spoon. All this sort of conduct makes one popular with the Dinner-giving + Snob. One friend of mine, I know, has made a prodigious sensation in good + society, by announcing apropos of certain dishes when offered to him, that + he never eats aspic except at Lord Tittup's, and that Lady Jimmy's CHEF is + the only man in London who knows how to dress—FILET EN SERPENTEAU—or + SUPREME DE VOLAILLE AUX TRUFFES. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XX—DINNER-GIVING SNOBS FURTHER CONSIDERED + </h2> + <p> + If my friends would but follow the present prevailing fashion, I think + they ought to give me a testimonial for the paper on Dinner-giving Snobs, + which I am now writing. What do you say now to a handsome comfortable + dinner-service of plate (NOT including plates, for I hold silver plates to + be sheer wantonness, and would almost as soon think of silver teacups), a + couple of neat teapots, a coffeepot, trays, &c., with a little + inscription to my wife, Mrs. Snob; and a half-score of silver tankards for + the little Snoblings, to glitter on the homely table where they partake of + their quotidian mutton? + </p> + <p> + If I had my way, and my plans could be carried out, dinner-giving would + increase as much on the one hand as dinner-giving Snobbishness would + diminish:—to my mind the most amiable part of the work lately + published by my esteemed friend (if upon a very brief acquaintance he will + allow me to call him so), Alexis Soyer, the regenerator—what he (in + his noble style) would call the most succulent, savoury, and elegant + passages—are those which relate, not to the grand banquets and + ceremonial dinners, but to his 'dinners at home.' + </p> + <p> + The 'dinner at home' ought to be the centre of the whole system of + dinner-giving. Your usual style of meal—that is, plenteous, + comfortable, and in its perfection—should be that to which you + welcome your friends, as it is that of which you partake yourself. + </p> + <p> + For, towards what woman in the world do I entertain a higher regard than + towards the beloved partner of my existence, Mrs. Snob? Who should have a + greater place in my affections than her six brothers (three or four of + whom we are pretty sure will favour us with their company at seven + o'clock), or her angelic mother, my own valued mother-in-law?—for + whom, finally, would I wish to cater more generously than for your very + humble servant, the present writer? Now, nobody supposes that the + Birmingham plate is had out, the disguised carpet-beaters introduced to + the exclusion of the neat parlour-maid, the miserable ENTREES from the + pastrycook's ordered in, and the children packed off (as it is supposed) + to the nursery, but really only to the staircase, down which they slide + during the dinner-time, waylaying the dishes as they come out, and + fingering the round bumps on the jellies, and the forced-meat balls in the + soup,—nobody, I say, supposes that a dinner at home is characterized + by the horrible ceremony, the foolish makeshifts, the mean pomp and + ostentation which distinguish our banquets on grand field-days. + </p> + <p> + Such a notion is monstrous. I would as soon think of having my dearest + Bessy sitting opposite me in a turban and bird of paradise, and showing + her jolly mottled arms out of blond sleeves in her famous red satin gown: + ay, or of having Mr. Toole every day, in a white waistcoat, at my back, + shouting, 'Silence FAW the chair!' + </p> + <p> + Now, if this be the case; if the Brummagem-plate pomp and the processions + of disguised footmen are odious and foolish in everyday life, why not + always? Why should Jones and I, who are in the middle rank, alter the + modes of our being to assume an ECLAT which does not belong to us—to + entertain our friends, who (if we are worth anything and honest fellows at + bottom,) are men of the middle rank too, who are not in the least deceived + by our temporary splendour, and who play off exactly the same absurd trick + upon us when they ask us to dine? + </p> + <p> + If it be pleasant to dine with your friends, as all persons with good + stomachs and kindly hearts will, I presume, allow it to be, it is better + to dine twice than to dine once. It is impossible for men of small means + to be continually spending five-and-twenty or thirty shillings on each + friend who sits down to their table. People dine for less. I myself have + seen, at my favourite Club (the Senior United Service), His Grace the Duke + of Wellington quite contented with the joint, one-and-three, and half-pint + of sherry, nine; and if his Grace, why not you and I? + </p> + <p> + This rule I have made, and found the benefit of. Whenever I ask a couple + of Dukes and a Marquis or so to dine with me, I set them down to a piece + of beef, or a leg-of-mutton and trimmings. The grandees thank you for this + simplicity, and appreciate the same. My dear Jones, ask any of those whom + you have the honour of knowing, if such be not the case. + </p> + <p> + I am far from wishing that their Graces should treat me in a similar + fashion. Splendour is a part of their station, as decent comfort (let us + trust), of yours and mine. Fate has comfortably appointed gold plate for + some, and has bidden others contentedly to wear the willow-pattern. And + being perfectly contented (indeed humbly thankful—for look around, O + Jones, and see the myriads who are not so fortunate,) to wear honest + linen, while magnificos of the world are adorned with cambric and + point-lace, surely we ought to hold as miserable, envious fools, those + wretched Beaux Tibbs's of society, who sport a lace dickey, and nothing + besides,—the poor silly jays, who trail a peacock's feather behind + them, and think to simulate the gorgeous bird whose nature it is to strut + on palace-terraces, and to flaunt his magnificent fan-tail in the + sunshine! + </p> + <p> + The jays with peacocks' feathers are the Snobs of this world: and never, + since the days of Aesop, were they more numerous in any land than they are + at present in this free country. + </p> + <p> + How does this most ancient apologue apply to the subject in hand?—the + Dinner-giving Snob. The imitation of the great is universal in this city, + from the palaces of Kensingtonia and Belgravia, even to the remotest + corner of Brunswick Square. + </p> + <p> + Peacocks' feathers are stuck in the tails of most families. Scarce one of + us domestic birds but imitates the lanky, pavonine strut, and shrill, + genteel scream. O you misguided dinner-giving Snobs, think how much + pleasure you lose, and how much mischief you do with your absurd grandeurs + and hypocrisies! You stuff each other with unnatural forced-meats, and + entertain each other to the ruin of friendship (let alone health) and the + destruction of hospitality and good-fellowship—you, who but for the + peacock's tail might chatter away so much at your ease, and be so jovial + and happy! + </p> + <p> + When a man goes into a great set company of dinner-giving and + dinner-receiving Snobs, if he has a philosophical turn of mind, he will + consider what a huge humbug the whole affair is: the dishes, and the + drink, and the servants, and the plate, and the host and hostess, and the + conversation, and the company,—the philosopher included. + </p> + <p> + The host is smiling, and hob-nobbing, and talking up and down the table; + but a prey to secret terrors and anxieties, lest the wines he has brought + up from the cellar should prove insufficient; lest a corked bottle should + destroy his calculations; or our friend the carpet-beater, by making some + BEVUE, should disclose his real quality of greengrocer, and show that he + is not the family butler. + </p> + <p> + The hostess is smiling resolutely through all the courses, smiling through + her agony; though her heart is in the kitchen, and she is speculating with + terror lest there be any disaster there. If the SOUFFLE should collapse, + or if Wiggins does not send the ices in time—she feels as if she + would commit suicide—that smiling, jolly woman! + </p> + <p> + The children upstairs are yelling, as their maid is crimping their + miserable ringlets with hot tongs, tearing Miss Emmy's hair out by the + roots, or scrubbing Miss Polly's dumpy nose with mottled soap till the + little wretch screams herself into fits. The young males of the family are + employed, as we have stated, in piratical exploits upon the landing-place. + </p> + <p> + The servants are not servants, but the before-mentioned retail tradesmen. + </p> + <p> + The plate is not plate, but a mere shiny Birmingham lacquer; and so is the + hospitality, and everything else. + </p> + <p> + The talk is Birmingham talk. The wag of the party, with bitterness in his + heart, having just quitted his laundress, who is dunning him for her bill, + is firing off good stories; and the opposition wag is furious that he + cannot get an innings. Jawkins, the great conversationalist, is scornful + and indignant with the pair of them, because he is kept out of court. + Young Muscadel, that cheap dandy, is talking Fashion and Almack's out of + the MORNING POST, and disgusting his neighbour, Mrs. Fox, who reflects + that she has never been there. The widow is vexed out of patience, because + her daughter Maria has got a place beside young Cambric, the penniless + curate, and not by Colonel Goldmore, the rich widower from India. The + Doctor's wife is sulky, because she has not been led out before the + barrister's lady; old Doctor Cork is grumbling at the wine, and Guttleton + sneering at the cookery. + </p> + <p> + And to think that all these people might be so happy, and easy, and + friendly, were they brought together in a natural unpretentious way, and + but for an unhappy passion for peacocks' feathers in England. Gentle + shades of Marat and Robespierre! when I see how all the honesty of society + is corrupted among us by the miserable fashion-worship, I feel as angry as + Mrs. Fox just mentioned, and ready to order a general BATTUE of peacocks. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXI—SOME CONTINENTAL SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Now that September has come, and all our Parliamentary duties are over, + perhaps no class of Snobs are in such high feather as the Continental + Snobs. I watch these daily as they commence their migrations from the + beach at Folkestone. I see shoals of them depart (not perhaps without an + innate longing too to quit the Island along with those happy Snobs). + Farewell, dear friends, I say: you little know that the individual who + regards you from the beach is your friend and historiographer and brother. + </p> + <p> + I went to-day to see our excellent friend Snooks, on board the 'Queen of + the French;' many scores of Snobs were there, on the deck of that fine + ship, marching forth in their pride and bravery. They will be at Ostend in + four hours; they will inundate the Continent next week; they will carry + into far lands the famous image of the British Snob. I shall not see them—but + am with them in spirit: and indeed there is hardly a country in the known + and civilized world in which these eyes have not beheld them. + </p> + <p> + I have seen Snobs, in pink coats and hunting-boots, scouring over the + Campagna of Rome; and have heard their oaths and their well-known slang in + the galleries of the Vatican, and under the shadowy arches of the + Colosseum. I have met a Snob on a dromedary in the desert, and picnicking + under the Pyramid of Cheops. I like to think how many gallant British + Snobs there are, at this minute of writing, pushing their heads out of + every window in the courtyard of 'Meurice's' in the Rue de Rivoli; or + roaring out, 'Garsong, du pang,' 'Garsong, du Yang;' or swaggering down + the Toledo at Naples; or even how many will be on the look-out for Snooks + on Ostend Pier,—for Snooks, and the rest of the Snobs on board the + 'Queen of the French.' + </p> + <p> + Look at the Marquis of Carabas and his two carriages. My Lady Marchioness + comes on board, looks round with that happy air of mingled terror and + impertinence which distinguishes her ladyship, and rushes to her carriage, + for it is impossible that she should mingle with the other Snobs on deck. + There she sits, and will be ill in private. The strawberry leaves on her + chariot-panels are engraved on her ladyship's heart. If she were going to + heaven instead of to Ostend, I rather think she would expect to have DES + PLACES RESERVEES for her, and would send to order the best rooms. A + courier, with his money-bag of office round his shoulders—a huge + scowling footman, whose dark pepper-and-salt livery glistens with the + heraldic insignia of the Carabases—a brazen-looking, tawdry French + FEMME-DE-CHAMBRE (none but a female pen can do justice to that wonderful + tawdry toilette of the lady's-maid EN VOYAGE)—and a miserable DAME + DE COMPAGNIE, are ministering to the wants of her ladyship and her King + Charles's spaniel. They are rushing to and fro with eau-de-Cologne, + pocket-handkerchiefs, which are all fringe and cipher, and popping + mysterious cushions behind and before, and in every available corner of + the carriage. + </p> + <p> + The little Marquis, her husband is walking about the deck in a bewildered + manner, with a lean daughter on each arm: the carroty-tufted hope of the + family is already smoking on the foredeck in a travelling costume checked + all over, and in little lacquer-tip pod jean boots, and a shirt + embroidered with pink boa-constrictors. 'What is it that gives travelling + Snobs such a marvellous propensity to rush into a costume? Why should a + man not travel in a coat, &c.? but think proper to dress himself like + a harlequin in mourning? See, even young Aldermanbury, the + tallow-merchant, who has just stepped on board, has got a travelling-dress + gaping all over with pockets; and little Tom Tapeworm, the lawyer's clerk + out of the City, who has but three weeks' leave, turns out in gaiters and + a bran-new shooting-jacket, and must let the moustaches grow on his little + sniffy upper lip, forsooth! + </p> + <p> + Pompey Hicks is giving elaborate directions to his servant, and asking + loudly, 'Davis, where's the dwessing-case?' and 'Davis, you'd best take + the pistol-case into the cabin.' Little Pompey travels with a + dressing-case, and without a beard: whom he is going to shoot with his + pistols, who on earth can tell? and what he is to do with his servant but + wait upon him, I am at a loss to conjecture. + </p> + <p> + Look at honest Nathan Houndsditch and his lady, and their little son. What + a noble air of blazing contentment illuminates the features of those Snobs + of Eastern race! What a toilette Houndsditch's is! What rings and chains, + what gold-headed canes and diamonds, what a tuft the rogue has got to his + chin (the rogue! he will never spare himself any cheap enjoyment!) Little + Houndsditch has a little cane with a gilt head and little mosaic ornaments—altogether + an extra air. As for the lady, she is all the colours of the rainbow! she + has a pink parasol, with a white lining, and a yellow bonnet, and an + emerald green shawl, and a shot-silk pelisse; and drab boots and + rhubarb-coloured gloves; and parti-coloured glass buttons, expanding from + the size of a fourpenny-piece to a crown, glitter and twiddle all down the + front of her gorgeous costume. I have said before, I like to look at 'the + Peoples' on their gala days, they are so picturesquely and outrageously + splendid and happy. + </p> + <p> + Yonder comes Captain Bull; spick and span, tight and trim; who travels for + four or six months every year of his life; who does not commit himself by + luxury of raiment or insolence of demeanour, but I think is as great a + Snob as any man on board. Bull passes the season in London, sponging for + dinners, and sleeping in a garret near his Club. Abroad, he has been + everywhere; he knows the best wine at every inn in every capital in + Europe; lives with the best English company there; has seen every palace + and picture-gallery from Madrid to Stockholm; speaks an abominable little + jargon of half-a-dozen languages—and knows nothing—nothing. + Bull hunts tufts on the Continent, and is a sort of amateur courier. He + will scrape acquaintance with old Carabas before they make Ostend; and + will remind his lordship that he met him at Vienna twenty years ago, or + gave him a glass of Schnapps up the Righi. We have said Bull knows + nothing: he knows the birth, arms, and pedigree of all the peerage, has + poked his little eyes into every one of the carriages on board—their + panels noted and their crests surveyed; he knows all the Continental + stories of English scandal—how Count Towrowski ran off with Miss + Baggs at Naples—how VERY thick Lady Smigsmag was with young + Cornichon of the French Legation at Florence—the exact amount which + Jack Deuceace won of Bob Greengoose at Baden—what it is that made + the Staggs settle on the Continent: the sum for which the O'Goggarty + estates are mortgaged, &c. If he can't catch a lord he will hook on to + a baronet, or else the old wretch will catch hold of some beardless young + stripling of fashion, and show him 'life' in various and amiable and + inaccessible quarters. Faugh! the old brute! If he has every one of the + vices of the most boisterous youth, at least he is comforted by having no + conscience. He is utterly stupid, but of a jovial turn, He believes + himself to be quite a respectable member of society: but perhaps the only + good action he ever did in his life is the involuntary one of giving an + example to be avoided, and showing what an odious thing in the social + picture is that figure of the debauched old man who passes through life + rather a decorous Silenus, and dies some day in his garret, alone, + unrepenting, and unnoted, save by his astonished heirs, who find that the + dissolute old miser has left money behind him. See! he is up to old + Carabas already! I told you he would. + </p> + <p> + Yonder you see the old Lady Mary MacScrew, and those middle-aged young + women her daughters; they are going to cheapen and haggle in Belgium and + up the Rhine until they meet with a boarding-house where they can live + upon less board-wages than her ladyship pays her footmen. But she will + exact and receive considerable respect from the British Snobs located in + the watering place which she selects for her summer residence, being the + daughter of the Earl of Haggistoun. That broad-shouldered buck, with the + great whiskers and the cleaned white kid-gloves, is Mr. Phelim Clancy of + Poldoodystown: he calls himself Mr. De Clancy; he endeavours to disguise + his native brogue with the richest superposition of English; and if you + play at billiards or ECARTE with him, the chances are that you will win + the first game, and he the seven or eight games ensuing. + </p> + <p> + That overgrown lady with the four daughters, and the young dandy from the + University, her son, is Mrs. Kewsy, the eminent barrister's lady, who + would rather die than not be in the fashion. She has the 'Peerage' in her + carpet-bag, you may be sure; but she is altogether cut out by Mrs. Quod, + the attorney's wife, whose carriage, with the apparatus of rumbles, + dickeys, and imperials, scarcely yields in splendour to the Marquis of + Carabas's own travelling-chariot, and whose courier has even bigger + whiskers and a larger morocco money-bag than the Marquis's own travelling + gentleman. Remark her well: she is talking to Mr. Spout, the new Member + for Jawborough, who is going out to inspect the operations of the + Zollverein, and will put some very severe questions to Lord Palmerston + next session upon England and her relations with the Prussian-blue trade, + the Naples-soap trade, the German-tinder trade, &c. Spout will + patronize King Leopold at Brussels; will write letters from abroad to the + JAWBOROUGH INDEPENDENT; and in his quality of MEMBER DU PARLIAMONG + BRITANNIQUE, will expect to be invited to a family dinner with every + sovereign whose dominions he honours with a visit during his tour. + </p> + <p> + The next person is—but hark! the bell for shore is ringing, and, + shaking Snook's hand cordially, we rush on to the pier, waving him a + farewell as the noble black ship cuts keenly through the sunny azure + waters, bearing away that cargo of Snobs outward bound. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXII—CONTINENTAL SNOBBERY CONTINUED + </h2> + <p> + We are accustomed to laugh at the French for their braggadocio + propensities, and intolerable vanity about La France, la gloire, + l'Empereur, and the like; and yet I think in my heart that the British + Snob, for conceit and self-sufficiency and braggartism in his way, is + without a parallel. There is always something uneasy in a Frenchman's + conceit. He brags with so much fury, shrieking, and gesticulation; yells + out so loudly that the Francais is at the head of civilization, the centre + of thought, &c.; that one can't but see the poor fellow has a lurking + doubt in his own mind that he is not the wonder he professes to be. + </p> + <p> + About the British Snob, on the contrary, there is commonly no noise, no + bluster, but the calmness of profound conviction. We are better than all + the world; we don't question the opinion at all; it's an axiom. And when a + Frenchman bellows out, 'LA FRANCE, MONSIEUR, LA FRANCE EST A LA TETE DU + MONDE CIVILISE!' we laugh good-naturedly at the frantic poor devil. WE are + the first chop of the world: we know the fact so well in our secret hearts + that a claim set up elsewhere is simply ludicrous. My dear brother reader, + say, as a man of honour, if you are not of this opinion? Do you think a + Frenchman your equal? You don't—you gallant British Snob—you + know you don't: no more, perhaps, does the Snob your humble servant, + brother. + </p> + <p> + And I am inclined to think it is this conviction, and the consequent + bearing of the Englishman towards the foreigner whom he condescends to + visit, this confidence of superiority which holds up the head of the owner + of every English hat-box from Sicily to St. Petersburg, that makes us so + magnificently hated throughout Europe as we are; this—more than all + our little victories, and of which many Frenchmen and Spaniards have never + heard—this amazing and indomitable insular pride, which animates my + lord in his travelling-carriage as well as John in the rumble. + </p> + <p> + If you read the old Chronicles of the French wars, you find precisely the + same character of the Englishman, and Henry V.'s people behaved with just + the cool domineering manner of our gallant veterans of France and the + Peninsula. Did you never hear Colonel Cutler and Major Slasher talking + over the war after dinner? or Captain Boarder describing his action with + the 'Indomptable?' 'Hang the fellows,' says Boarder, 'their practice was + very good. I was beat off three times before I took her.' 'Cuss those + carabineers of Milhaud's,' says Slasher, 'what work they made of our light + cavalry!' implying a sort of surprise that the Frenchman should stand up + against Britons at all: a good-natured wonder that the blind, mad, + vain-glorious, brave poor devils should actually have the courage to + resist an Englishman. Legions of such Englishmen are patronizing Europe at + this moment, being kind to the Pope, or good-natured to the King of + Holland, or condescending to inspect the Prussian reviews. When Nicholas + came here, who reviews a quarter of a million of pairs of moustaches to + his breakfast every morning, we took him off to Windsor and showed him two + whole regiments of six or eight hundred Britons a-piece, with an air as + much as to say,—'There, my boy, look at THAT. Those are ENGLISHMEN, + those are, and your master whenever you please,' as the nursery song says. + The British Snob is long, long past scepticism, and can afford to laugh + quite good-humouredly at those conceited Yankees, or besotted little + Frenchmen, who set up as models of mankind. THEY forsooth! + </p> + <p> + I have been led into these remarks by listening to an old fellow at the + Hotel du Nord, at Boulogne, and who is evidently of the Slasher sort. He + came down and seated himself at the breakfast-table, with a surly scowl on + his salmon-coloured bloodshot face, strangling in a tight, cross-barred + cravat; his linen and his appointments so perfectly stiff and spotless + that everybody at once recognized him as a dear countryman. Only our + port-wine and other admirable institutions could have produced a figure so + insolent, so stupid, so gentleman-like. After a while our attention was + called to him by his roaring out, in a voice of plethoric fury, 'O!' + </p> + <p> + Everybody turned round at the 'O,' conceiving the Colonel to be, as his + countenance denoted him, in intense pain; but the waiters knew better, and + instead of being alarmed, brought the Colonel the kettle. 'O,' it appears, + is the French for hot-water. The Colonel (though he despises it heartily) + thinks he speaks the language remarkably well. Whilst he was inhausting + his smoking tea, which went rolling and gurgling down his throat, and + hissing over the 'hot coppers' of that respectable veteran, a friend + joined him, with a wizened face and very black wig, evidently a Colonel + too. + </p> + <p> + The two warriors, waggling their old heads at each other, presently joined + breakfast, and fell into conversation, and we had the advantage of hearing + about the old war, and some pleasant conjectures as to the next, which + they considered imminent. They psha'd the French fleet; they pooh-pooh'd + the French commercial marine; they showed how, in a war, there would be a + cordon ('a cordong, by—-') of steamers along our coast, and 'by + —-,' ready at a minute to land anywhere on the other shore, to give + the French as good a thrashing as they got in the last war, 'by —-'. + In fact, a rumbling cannonade of oaths was fired by the two veterans + during the whole of their conversation. + </p> + <p> + There was a Frenchman in the room, but as he had not been above ten years + in London, of course he did not speak the language, and lost the benefit + of the conversation. 'But, O my country!' said I to myself, it's no wonder + that you are so beloved! If I were a Frenchman, how I would hate you!' + </p> + <p> + That brutal, ignorant, peevish bully of an Englishman is showing himself + in every city of Europe. One of the dullest creatures under heaven, he + goes travelling Europe under foot, shouldering his way into galleries and + cathedrals, and bustling into palaces with his buck-ram uniform. At church + or theatre, gala or picture-gallery, HIS face never varies. A thousand + delightful sights pass before his bloodshot eyes, and don't affect him. + Countless brilliant scenes of life and manners are shown him, but never + move him. He goes to church, and calls the practices there degrading and + superstitious: as if HIS altar was the only one that was acceptable. He + goes to picture-galleries, and is more ignorant about Art than a French + shoeblack. Art, Nature pass, and there is no dot of admiration in his + stupid eyes: nothing moves him, except when a very great man comes his + way, and then the rigid, proud, self-confident, inflexible British Snob + can be as humble as a flunkey and as supple as a harlequin. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIII—ENGLISH SNOBS ON THE CONTINENT + </h2> + <p> + 'WHAT is the use of Lord Rome's telescope?' my friend Panwiski exclaimed + the other day. 'It only enables you to see a few hundred thousands of + miles farther. What were thought to be mere nebulae, turn out to be most + perceivable starry systems; and beyond these, you see other nebulae, which + a more powerful glass will show to be stars, again; and so they go on + glittering and winking away into eternity.' With which my friend Pan, + heaving a great sigh, as if confessing his inability to look Infinity in + the face, sank back resigned, and swallowed a large bumper of claret. + </p> + <p> + I (who, like other great men, have but one idea), thought to myself, that + as the stars are, so are the Snobs:—the more you gaze upon those + luminaries, the more you behold—now nebulously congregated—now + faintly distinguishable—now brightly defined—until they + twinkle off in endless blazes, and fade into the immeasurable darkness. I + am but as a child playing on the sea-shore. Some telescopic philosopher + will arise one day, some great Snobonomer, to find the laws of the great + science which we are now merely playing with, and to define, and settle, + and classify that which is at present but vague theory, and loose though + elegant assertion. + </p> + <p> + Yes: a single eye can but trace a very few and simple varieties of the + enormous universe of Snobs. I sometimes think of appealing to the public, + and calling together a congress of SAVANS, such as met at Southampton—each + to bring his contributions and read his paper on the Great Subject. For + what can a single poor few do, even with the subject at present in hand? + English Snobs on the Continent—though they are a hundred thousand + times less numerous than on their native island, yet even these few are + too many. One can only fix a stray one here and there. The individuals are + caught—the thousands escape. I have noted down but three whom I have + met with in my walk this morning through this pleasant marine city of + Boulogne. + </p> + <p> + There is the English Raff Snob, that frequents ESTAMINETS and CABARETS; + who is heard yelling, 'We won't go home till morning!' and startling the + midnight echoes of quiet Continental towns with shrieks of English slang. + The boozy unshorn wretch is seen hovering round quays as packets arrive, + and tippling drains in inn bars where he gets credit. He talks French with + slang familiarity: he and his like quite people the debt-prisons on the + Continent. He plays pool at the billiard-houses, and may be seen engaged + at cards and dominoes of forenoons. His signature is to be seen on + countless bills of exchange: it belonged to an honourable family once, + very likely; for the English Raff most probably began by being a + gentleman, and has a father over the water who is ashamed to hear his + name. He has cheated the old 'governor' repeatedly in better days, and + swindled his sisters of their portions, and robbed his younger brothers. + Now he is living on his wife's jointure: she is hidden away in some dismal + garret, patching shabby finery and cobbling up old clothes for her + children—the most miserable and slatternly of women. + </p> + <p> + Or sometimes the poor woman and her daughters go about timidly, giving + lessons in English and music, or do embroidery and work under-hand, to + purchase the means for the POT-AU-FEU; while Raff is swaggering on the + quay, or tossing off glasses of cognac at the CAFÉ. The unfortunate + creature has a child still every year, and her constant hypocrisy is to + try and make her girls believe that their father is a respectable man, and + to huddle him out of the way when the brute comes home drunk. + </p> + <p> + Those poor ruined souls get together and have a society of their own, the + which it is very affecting to watch—those tawdry pretences at + gentility, those flimsy attempts at gaiety: those woful sallies: that + jingling old piano; oh, it makes the heart sick to see and hear them. As + Mrs. Raff, with her company of pale daughters, gives a penny tea to Mrs. + Diddler, they talk about bygone times and the fine society they kept; and + they sing feeble songs out of tattered old music-books; and while engaged + in this sort of entertainment, in comes Captain Raff with his greasy hat + on one side, and straightway the whole of the dismal room reeks with a + mingled odour of smoke and spirits. + </p> + <p> + Has not everybody who has lived abroad met Captain Raff? His name is + proclaimed, every now and then, by Mr. Sheriff's Officer Hemp; and about + Boulogne, and Paris, and Brussels, there are so many of his sort that I + will lay a wager that I shall be accused of gross personality for showing + him up. Many a less irreclaimable villain is transported; many a more + honourable man is at present at the treadmill; and although we are the + noblest, greatest, most religious, and most moral people in the world, I + would still like to know where, except in the United Kingdom, debts are a + matter of joke, and making tradesmen 'suffer' a sport that gentlemen own + to? It is dishonourable to owe money in France. You never hear people in + other parts of Europe brag of their swindling; or see a prison in a large + Continental town which is not more or less peopled with English rogues. + </p> + <p> + A still more loathsome and dangerous Snob than the above transparent and + passive scamp, is frequent on the continent of Europe, and my young Snob + friends who are travelling thither should be especially warned against + him. Captain Legg is a gentleman, like Raff, though perhaps of a better + degree. He has robbed his family too, but of a great deal more, and has + boldly dishonoured bills for thousands, where Raff has been boggling over + the clumsy conveyance of a ten-pound note. Legg is always at the best inn, + with the finest waistcoats and moustaches, or tearing about in the + flashest of britzkas, while poor Raff is tipsifying himself with spirits, + and smoking cheap tobacco. It is amazing to think that Legg, so often + shown up, and known everywhere, is flourishing yet. He would sink into + utter ruin, but for the constant and ardent love of gentility that + distinguishes the English Snob. There is many a young fellow of the middle + classes who must know Legg to be a rogue and a cheat; and yet from his + desire to be in the fashion, and his admiration of tip-top swells, and + from his ambition to air himself by the side of a Lord's son, will let + Legg make an income out of him; content to pay, so long as he can enjoy + that society. Many a worthy father of a family, when he hears that his son + is riding about with Captain Legg, Lord Levant's son, is rather pleased + that young Hopeful should be in such good company. + </p> + <p> + Legg and his friend, Major Macer, make professional tours through Europe, + and are to be found at the right places at the right time. Last year I + heard how my young acquaintance, Mr. Muff, from Oxford, going to see a + little life at a Carnival ball at Paris, was accosted by an Englishman who + did not know a word of the d——language, and hearing Muff speak + it so admirably, begged him to interpret to a waiter with whom there was a + dispute about refreshments. It was quite a comfort, the stranger said, to + see an honest English face; and did Muff know where there was a good place + for supper? So those two went to supper, and who should come in, of all + men in the world, but Major Macer? And so Legg introduced Macer, and so + there came on a little intimacy, and three-card loo, &c. &c.. Year + after year scores of Muffs, in various places in the world, are victimised + by Legg and Macer. The story is so stale, the trick of seduction so + entirely old and clumsy, that it is only a wonder people can be taken in + any more: but the temptations of vice and gentility together are too much + for young English Snobs, and those simple young victims are caught fresh + every day. Though it is only to be kicked and cheated by men of fashion, + your true British Snob will present himself for the honour. + </p> + <p> + I need not allude here to that very common British Snob, who makes + desperate efforts at becoming intimate with the great Continental + aristocracy, such as old Rolls, the baker, who has set up his quarters in + the Faubourg Saint Germain, and will receive none but Carlists, and no + French gentleman under the rank of a Marquis. We can all of us laugh at + THAT fellow's pretensions well enough—we who tremble before a great + man of our own nation. But, as you say, my brave and honest John Bull of a + Snob, a French Marquis of twenty descents is very different from an + English Peer; and a pack of beggarly German and Italian Fuersten and + Principi awaken the scorn of an honest-minded Briton. But our aristocracy!—that's + a very different matter. They are the real leaders of the world—the + real old original and-no-mistake nobility. + </p> + <p> + Off with your cap, Snob; down on your knees, Snob, and truckle. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIV—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Tired of the town, where the sight of the closed shutters of the nobility, + my friends, makes my heart sick in my walks; afraid almost to sit in those + vast Pall Mall solitudes, the Clubs, and of annoying the Club waiters, who + might, I thought, be going to shoot in the country, but for me, I + determined on a brief tour in the provinces, and paying some visits in the + country which were long due. + </p> + <p> + My first visit was to my friend Major Ponto (H.P. of the Horse Marines), + in Mangelwurzelshire. The Major, in his little phaeton, was in waiting to + take me up at the station. The vehicle was not certainly splendid, but + such a carriage as would accommodate a plain man (as Ponto said he was) + and a numerous family. We drove by beautiful fresh fields and green + hedges, through a cheerful English landscape; the high-road, as smooth and + trim as the way in a nobleman's park, was charmingly chequered with cool + shade and golden sunshine. Rustics in snowy smock-frocks jerked their hats + off smiling as we passed. Children, with cheeks as red as the apples in + the orchards, bobbed curtsies to us at the cottage-doors. Blue church + spires rose here and there in the distance: and as the buxom gardener's + wife opened the white gate at the Major's little ivy-covered lodge, and we + drove through the neat plantations of firs and evergreens, up to the + house, my bosom felt a joy and elation which I thought it was impossible + to experience in the smoky atmosphere of a town. 'Here,' I mentally + exclaimed, 'is all peace, plenty, happiness. Here, I shall be rid of + Snobs. There can be none in this charming Arcadian spot.' + </p> + <p> + Stripes, the Major's man (formerly corporal in his gallant corps), + received my portmanteau, and an elegant little present, which I had + brought from town as a peace-offering to Mrs. Ponto; viz., a cod and + oysters from Grove's, in a hamper about the size of a coffin. + </p> + <p> + Ponto's house ('The Evergreens' Mrs. P. has christened it) is a perfect + Paradise of a place. It is all over creepers, and bow-windows, and + verandahs. A wavy lawn tumbles up and down all round it, with flower-beds + of wonderful shapes, and zigzag gravel walks, and beautiful but damp + shrubberies of myrtles and glistening laurustines, which have procured it + its change of name. It was called Little Bullock's Pound in old Doctor + Ponto's time. I had a view of the pretty grounds, and the stable, and the + adjoining village and church, and a great park beyond, from the windows of + the bedroom whither Ponto conducted me. It was the yellow bedroom, the + freshest and pleasantest of bed-chambers; the air was fragrant with a + large bouquet that was placed on the writing-table; the linen was fragrant + with the lavender in which it had been laid; the chintz hangings of the + bed and the big sofa were, if not fragrant with flowers, at least painted + all over with them; the pen-wiper on the table was the imitation of a + double dahlia; and there was accommodation for my watch in a sun-flower on + the mantelpiece. A scarlet-leaved creeper came curling over the windows, + through which the setting sun was pouring a flood of golden light. It was + all flowers and freshness. Oh, how unlike those black chimney-pots in St. + Alban's Place, London, on which these weary eyes are accustomed to look. + </p> + <p> + 'It must be all happiness here, Ponto,' said I, flinging myself down into + the snug BERGERE, and inhaling such a delicious draught of country air as + all the MILLEFLEURS of Mr. Atkinson's shop cannot impart to any the most + expensive pocket-handkerchief. + </p> + <p> + 'Nice place, isn't it?' said Ponto. 'Quiet and unpretending. I like + everything quiet. You've not brought your valet with you? Stripes will + arrange your dressing things;' and that functionary, entering at the same + time, proceeded to gut my portmanteau, and to lay out the black + kerseymeres, 'the rich cut velvet Genoa waistcoat,' the white choker, and + other polite articles of evening costume, with great gravity and despatch. + 'A great dinner-party,' thinks I to myself, seeing these preparations (and + not, perhaps, displeased at the idea that some of the best people in the + neighbourhood were coming to see me). 'Hark, theres the first bell + ringing! 'said Ponto, moving away; and, in fact, a clamorous harbinger of + victuals began clanging from the stable turret, and announced the + agreeable fact that dinner would appear in half-an-hour. 'If the dinner is + as grand as the dinner-bell,' thought I, 'faith, I'm in good quarters!' + and had leisure, during the half-hour's interval, not only to advance my + own person to the utmost polish of elegance which it is capable of + receiving, to admire the pedigree of the Pontos hanging over the chimney, + and the Ponto crest and arms emblazoned on the wash-hand basin and jug, + but to make a thousand reflections on the happiness of a country life—upon + the innocent friendliness and cordiality of rustic intercourse; and to + sigh for an opportunity of retiring, like Ponto, to my own fields, to my + own vine and fig-tree, with a placens uxor in my domus, and a half-score + of sweet young pledges of affection sporting round my paternal knee. + </p> + <p> + Clang! At the end of thirty minutes, dinner-bell number two pealed from + the adjacent turret. I hastened downstairs, expecting to find a score of + healthy country folk in the drawing-room. There was only one person there; + a tall and Roman-nosed lady, glistering over with bugles, in deep + mourning. She rose, advanced two steps, made a majestic curtsey, during + which all the bugles in her awful head-dress began to twiddle and quiver—and + then said, 'Mr. Snob, we are very happy to see you at the Evergreens,' and + heaved a great sigh. + </p> + <p> + This, then, was Mrs. Major Ponto; to whom making my very best bow, I + replied, that I was very proud to make her acquaintance, as also that of + so charming a place as the Evergreens. + </p> + <p> + Another sigh. 'We are distantly related, Mr. Snob,' said she, shaking her + melancholy head. 'Poor dear Lord Rubadub!' + </p> + <p> + 'Oh!' said I; not knowing what the deuce Mrs. Major Ponto meant. + </p> + <p> + 'Major Ponto told me that you were of the Leicestershire Snobs: a very old + family, and related to Lord Snobbington, who married Laura Rubadub, who is + a cousin of mine, as was her poor dear father, for whom we are mourning. + What a seizure! only sixty-three, and apoplexy quite unknown until now in + our family! In life we are in death, Mr. Snob. Does Lady Snobbington bear + the deprivation well?' + </p> + <p> + 'Why, really, ma'am, I—I don't know,' I replied, more and more + confused. + </p> + <p> + As she was speaking I heard a sort of CLOOP, by which well-known sound I + was aware that somebody was opening a bottle of wine, and Ponto entered, + in a huge white neckcloth, and a rather shabby black suit. + </p> + <p> + 'My love,' Mrs. Major Ponto said to her husband, 'we were talking of our + cousin—poor dear Lord Rubadub. His death has placed some of the + first families in England in mourning. Does Lady Rubadub keep the house in + Hill Street, do you know?' + </p> + <p> + I didn't know, but I said, 'I believe she does,' at a venture; and, + looking down to the drawing-room table, saw the inevitable, abominable, + maniacal, absurd, disgusting 'Peerage' open on the table, interleaved with + annotations, and open at the article 'Snobbington.' + </p> + <p> + 'Dinner is served,' says Stripes, flinging open the door; and I gave Mrs. + Major Ponto my arm. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXV—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Of the dinner to which we now sat down, I am not going to be a severe + critic. The mahogany I hold to be inviolable; but this I will say, that I + prefer sherry to marsala when I can get it, and the latter was the wine of + which I have no doubt I heard the 'cloop' just before dinner. Nor was it + particularly good of its kind; however, Mrs. Major Ponto did not evidently + know the difference, for she called the liquor Amontillado during the + whole of the repast, and drank but half a glass of it, leaving the rest + for the Major and his guest. + </p> + <p> + Stripes was in the livery of the Ponto family—a thought shabby, but + gorgeous in the extreme—lots of magnificent worsted lace, and livery + buttons of a very notable size. The honest fellow's hands, I remarked, + were very large and black; and a fine odour of the stable was wafted about + the room as he moved to and fro in his ministration. I should have + preferred a clean maidservant, but the sensations of Londoners are too + acute perhaps on these subjects; and a faithful John, after all, IS more + genteel. + </p> + <p> + From the circumstance of the dinner being composed of pig's-head + mock-turtle soup, of pig's fry and roast ribs of pork, I am led to imagine + that one of Ponto's black Hampshires had been sacrificed a short time + previous to my visit. It was an excellent and comfortable repast; only + there WAS rather a sameness in it, certainly. I made a similar remark the + next day'. + </p> + <p> + During the dinner Mrs. Ponto asked me many questions regarding the + nobility, my relatives. 'When Lady Angelina Skeggs would come out; and if + the countess her mamma' (this was said with much archness and he-he-ing) + 'still wore that extraordinary purple hair-dye?' 'Whether my Lord + Guttlebury kept, besides his French chef, and an English cordonbleu for + the roasts, an Italian for the confectionery?' + </p> + <p> + 'Who attended at Lady Clapperclaw's conversazioni?' and 'whether Sir John + Champignon's “Thursday Mornings” were pleasant?' 'Was it true that Lady + Carabas, wanting to pawn her diamonds, found that they were paste, and + that the Marquis had disposed of them beforehand?' 'How was it that + Snuffin, the great tobacco-merchant, broke off the marriage which was on + the tapis between him and their second daughter; and was it true that a + mulatto lady came over from the Havanna and forbade the match?' + </p> + <p> + 'Upon my word, Madam,' I had begun, and was going on to say that I didn't + know one word about all these matters which seemed so to interest Mrs. + Major Ponto, when the Major, giving me a tread or stamp with his large + foot under the table, said—'Come, come, Snob my boy, we are all + tiled, you know. We KNOW you're one of the fashionable people about town: + we saw your name at Lady Clapperclaw's SOIREES, and the Champignon + breakfasts; and as for the Rubadubs, of course, as relations —-' + </p> + <p> + 'Oh, of course, I dine there twice a-week,' I said; and then I remembered + that my cousin, Humphry Snob, of the Middle Temple, IS a great frequenter + of genteel societies, and to have seen his name in the MORNING POST at the + tag-end of several party lists. So, taking the hint, I am ashamed to say I + indulged Mrs. Major Ponto with a deal of information about the first + families in England, such as would astonish those great personages if they + knew it. I described to her most accurately the three reigning beauties of + last season at Almack's: told her in confidence that his Grace the D—- + of W—- was going to be married the day after his Statue was put up; + that his Grace the D—- of D—- was also about to lead the + fourth daughter of the Archduke Stephen to the hymeneal altar:—and + talked to her, in a word, just in the style of Mrs. Gore's last + fashionable novel. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Major was quite fascinated by this brilliant conversation. She began + to trot out scraps of French, just for all the world as they do in the + novels; and kissed her hand to me quite graciously, telling me to come + soon to caffy, UNG PU DE MUSICK O SALONG—with which she tripped off + like an elderly fairy. + </p> + <p> + 'Shall I open a bottle of port, or do you ever drink such a thing as + Hollands and water?' says Ponto, looking ruefully at me. This was a very + different style of thing to what I had been led to expect from him at our + smoking-room at the Club: where he swaggers about his horses and his + cellar: and slapping me on the shoulder used to say, 'Come down to + Mangelwurzelshire, Snob my boy, and I'll give you as good a day's shooting + and as good a glass of claret as any in the county.'—'Well,' I said, + 'I like Hollands much better than port, and gin even better than + Hollands.' This was lucky. It WAS gin; and Stripes brought in hot water on + a splendid plated tray. + </p> + <p> + The jingling of a harp and piano soon announced that Mrs. Ponto's ung PU + DE MUSICK had commenced, and the smell of the stable again entering the + dining-room, in the person of Stripes, summoned us to CAFFY and the little + concert. She beckoned me with a winning smile to the sofa, on which she + made room for me, and where we could command a fine view of the backs of + the young ladies who were performing the musical entertainment. Very broad + backs they were too, strictly according to the present mode, for crinoline + or its substitutes is not an expensive luxury, and young people in the + country can afford to be in the fashion at very trifling charges. Miss + Emily Ponto at the piano, and her sister Maria at that somewhat exploded + instrument, the harp, were in light blue dresses that looked all flounce, + and spread out like Mr. Green's balloon when inflated. + </p> + <p> + 'Brilliant touch Emily has—what a fine arm Maria's is,' Mrs. Ponto + remarked good-naturedly, pointing out the merits of her daughters, and + waving her own arm in such a way as to show that she was not a little + satisfied with the beauty of that member. I observed she had about nine + bracelets and bangles, consisting of chains and padlocks, the Major's + miniature, and a variety of brass serpents with fiery ruby or tender + turquoise eyes, writhing up to her elbow almost, in the most profuse + contortions. + </p> + <p> + 'You recognize those polkas? They were played at Devonshire House on the + 23rd of July, the day of the grand fête.' So I said yes—I knew 'em + quite intimately; and began wagging my head as if in acknowledgment of + those old friends. + </p> + <p> + When the performance was concluded, I had the felicity of a presentation + and conversation with the two tall and scraggy Miss Pontos; and Miss Wirt, + the governess, sat down to entertain us with variations on 'Sich a gettin' + up Stairs.' They were determined to be in the fashion. + </p> + <p> + For the performance of the 'Gettin' up Stairs,' I have no other name but + that it was a STUNNER. First Miss Wirt, with great deliberation, played + the original and beautiful melody, cutting it, as it were, out of the + instrument, and firing off each note so loud, clear, and sharp, that I am + sure Stripes must have heard it in the stable. + </p> + <p> + 'What a finger!' says Mrs. Ponto; and indeed it WAS a finger, as knotted + as a turkey's drumstick, and splaying all over the piano. When she had + banged out the tune slowly, she began a different manner of 'Gettin' up + Stairs,' and did so with a fury and swiftness quite incredible. She spun + up stairs; she whirled up stairs: she galloped up stairs; she rattled up + stairs; and then having got the tune to the top landing, as it were, she + hurled it down again shrieking to the bottom floor, where it sank in a + crash as if exhausted by the breathless rapidity of the descent. Then Miss + Wirt played the 'Gettin' up Stairs' with the most pathetic and ravishing + solemnity: plaintive moans and sobs issued from the keys—you wept + and trembled as you were gettin' up stairs. Miss Wirt's hands seemed to + faint and wail and die in variations: again, and she went up with a savage + clang and rush of trumpets, as if Miss Wirt was storming a breach; and + although I knew nothing of music, as I sat and listened with my mouth open + to this wonderful display, my CAFFY grew cold, and I wondered the windows + did not crack and the chandelier start out of the beam at the sound of + this earthquake of a piece of music. + </p> + <p> + 'Glorious creature! Isn't she?' said Mrs. Ponto. 'Squirtz's favourite + pupil—inestimable to have such a creature. Lady Carabas would give + her eyes for her! A prodigy of accomplishments! Thank you, Miss Wirt'—and + the young ladies gave a heave and a gasp of admiration—a + deep-breathing gushing sound, such as you hear at church when the sermon + comes to a full stop. + </p> + <p> + Miss Wirt put her two great double-knuckled hands round a waist of her two + pupils, and said, 'My dear children, I hope you will be able to play it + soon as well as your poor little governess. When I lived with the + Dunsinanes, it was the dear Duchess's favourite, and Lady Barbara and Lady + Jane McBeth learned it. It was while hearing Jane play that, I remember, + that dear Lord Castletoddy first fell in love with her; and though he is + but an Irish Peer, with not more than fifteen thousand a year, I persuaded + Jane to have him. Do you know Castletoddy, Mr. Snob?—round towers—sweet + place-County Mayo. Old Lord Castletoddy (the present Lord was then Lord + Inishowan) was a most eccentric old man—they say he was mad. I heard + his Royal Highness the poor dear Duke of Sussex—(SUCH a man, my + dears, but alas! addicted to smoking!)—I heard his Royal Highness + say to the Marquis of Anglesey, “I am sure Castletoddy is mad!” but + Inishowan wasn't in marrying my sweet Jane, though the dear child had but + her ten thousand pounds POUR TOUT POTAGE!' + </p> + <p> + 'Most invaluable person,' whispered Mrs. Major Ponto to me. 'Has lived in + the very highest society:' and I, who have been accustomed to see + governesses bullied in the world, was delighted to find this one ruling + the roast, and to think that even the majestic Mrs. Ponto bent before her. + </p> + <p> + As for my pipe, so to speak, it went out at once. I hadn't a word to say + against a woman who was intimate with every Duchess in the Red Book. She + wasn't the rosebud, but she had been near it. She had rubbed shoulders + with the great, and about these we talked all the evening incessantly, and + about the fashions, and about the Court, until bed-time came. + </p> + <p> + 'And are there Snobs in this Elysium?' I exclaimed, jumping into the + lavender-perfumed bed. Ponto's snoring boomed from the neighbouring + bed-room in reply. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVI—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Something like a journal of the proceedings at the Evergreens may be + interesting to those foreign readers of PUNCH who want to know the customs + of an English gentleman's family and household. There's plenty of time to + keep the Journal. Piano-strumming begins at six o'clock in the morning; it + lasts till breakfast, with but a minute's intermission, when the + instrument changes hands, and Miss Emily practises in place of her sister + Miss Maria. + </p> + <p> + In fact, the confounded instrument never stops when the young ladies are + at their lessons, Miss Wirt hammers away at those stunning variations, and + keeps her magnificent finger in exercise. + </p> + <p> + I asked this great creature in what other branches of education she + instructed her pupils? 'The modern languages,' says she modestly: 'French, + German, Spanish, and Italian, Latin and the rudiments of Greek if desired. + English of course; the practice of Elocution, Geography, and Astronomy, + and the Use of the Globes, Algebra (but only as far as quadratic + equations); for a poor ignorant female, you know, Mr. Snob, cannot be + expected to know everything. Ancient and Modern History no young woman can + be without; and of these I make my beloved pupils PERFECT MISTRESSES. + Botany, Geology, and Mineralogy, I consider as amusements. And with these + I assure you we manage to pass the days at the Evergreens not + unpleasantly.' + </p> + <p> + Only these, thought I—what an education! But I looked in one of Miss + Ponto's manuscript song-books and found five faults of French in four + words; and in a waggish mood asking Miss Wirt whether Dante Algiery was so + called because he was born at Algiers, received a smiling answer in the + affirmative, which made me rather doubt about the accuracy of Miss Wirt's + knowledge. + </p> + <p> + When the above little morning occupations are concluded, these unfortunate + young women perform what they call Calisthenic Exercises in the garden. I + saw them to-day, without any crinoline, pulling the garden-roller. + </p> + <p> + Dear Mrs. Ponto was in the garden too, and as limp as her daughters; in a + faded bandeau of hair, in a battered bonnet, in a holland pinafore, in + pattens, on a broken chair, snipping leaves off a vine. Mrs. Ponto + measures many yards about in an evening. Ye heavens! what a guy she is in + that skeleton morning-costume! + </p> + <p> + Besides Stripes, they keep a boy called Thomas or Tummus. Tummus works in + the garden or about the pigsty and stable; Thomas wears a page's costume + of eruptive buttons. + </p> + <p> + When anybody calls, and Stripes is out of the way, Tummus flings himself + like mad into Thomas's clothes, and comes out metamorphosed like Harlequin + in the pantomime. To-day, as Mrs. P. was cutting the grapevine, as the + young ladies were at the roller, down comes Tummus like a roaring + whirlwind, with 'Missus, Missus, there's company coomin'!' Away skurry the + young ladies from the roller, down comes Mrs. P. from the old chair, off + flies Tummus to change his clothes, and in an incredibly short space of + time Sir John Hawbuck, my Lady Hawbuck, and Master Hugh Hawbuck are + introduced into the garden with brazen effrontery by Thomas, who says, + 'Please Sir Jan and my Lady to walk this year way: I KNOW Missus is in the + rose-garden.' + </p> + <p> + And there, sure enough, she was! + </p> + <p> + In a pretty little garden bonnet, with beautiful curling ringlets, with + the smartest of aprons and the freshest of pearl-coloured gloves, this + amazing woman was in the arms of her dearest Lady Hawbuck. 'Dearest Lady + Hawbuck, how good of you! Always among my flowers! can't live away from + them!' + </p> + <p> + 'Sweets to the sweet! hum—a-ha—haw!' says Sir John Hawbuck, + who piques himself on his gallantry, and says nothing without 'a-hum—a-ha—a-haw!' + </p> + <p> + 'Whereth yaw pinnafaw?' cries Master Hugh. 'WE thaw you in it, over the + wall, didn't we, Pa?' + </p> + <p> + 'Hum—a-ha—a-haw!' burst out Sir John, dreadfully alarmed. + 'Where's Ponto? Why wasn't he at Quarter Sessions? How are his birds this + year, Mrs. Ponto—have those Carabas pheasants done any harm to your + wheat? a-hum—a-ha—a-haw!' and all this while he was making the + most ferocious and desperate signals to his youthful heir. + </p> + <p> + 'Well, she WATH in her pinnafaw, wathn't she, Ma?' says Hugh, quite + unabashed; which question Lady Hawbuck turned away with a sudden query + regarding her dear darling daughters, and the ENFANT TERRIBLE was removed + by his father. + </p> + <p> + 'I hope you weren't disturbed by the music?' Ponto says. 'My girls, you + know, practise four hours a day, you know—must do it, you know—absolutely + necessary. As for me, you know I'm an early man, and in my farm every + morning at five—no, no laziness for ME.' + </p> + <p> + The facts are these. Ponto goes to sleep directly after dinner on entering + the drawing-room, and wakes up when the ladies leave off practice at ten. + From seven till ten, from ten till five, is a very fair allowance of + slumber for a man who says he's NOT a lazy man. It is my private opinion + that when Ponto retires to what is called his 'Study,' he sleeps too. He + locks himself up there daily two hours with the newspaper. + </p> + <p> + I saw the HAWBUCK scene out of the Study, which commands the garden. It's + a curious object, that Study. Ponto's library mostly consists of boots. He + and Stripes have important interviews here of mornings, when the potatoes + are discussed, or the fate of the calf ordained, or sentence passed on the + pig, &c.. All the Major's bills are docketed on the Study table and + displayed like a lawyer's briefs. Here, too, lie displayed his hooks, + knives, and other gardening irons, his whistles, and strings of spare + buttons. He has a drawer of endless brown paper for parcels, and another + containing a prodigious and never-failing supply of string. What a man can + want with so many gig-whips I can never conceive. These, and fishing-rods, + and landing-nets, and spurs, and boot-trees, and balls for horses, and + surgical implements for the same, and favourite pots of shiny blacking, + with which he paints his own shoes in the most elegant manner, and + buckskin gloves stretched out on their trees, and his gorget, sash, and + sabre of the Horse Marines, with his boot-hooks underneath in atrophy; and + the family medicine-chest, and in a corner the very rod with which he used + to whip his son, Wellesley Ponto, when a boy (Wellesley never entered the + 'Study' but for that awful purpose)—all these, with 'Mogg's Road + Book,' the GARDENERS' CHRONICLE, and a backgammon-board, form the Major's + library. Under the trophy there's a picture of Mrs. Ponto, in a light blue + dress and train, and no waist, when she was first married; a fox's brush + lies over the frame, and serves to keep the dust off that work of art. + </p> + <p> + 'My library's small, says Ponto, with the most amazing impudence, 'but + well selected, my boy—well selected. I have been reading the + “History of England” all the morning.' + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVII—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + We had the fish, which, as the kind reader may remember, I had brought + down in a delicate attention to Mrs. Ponto, to variegate the repast of + next day; and cod and oyster-sauce, twice laid, salt cod and scolloped + oysters, formed parts of the bill of fare until I began to fancy that the + Ponto family, like our late revered monarch George II., had a fancy for + stale fish. And about this time, the pig being consumed, we began upon a + sheep. + </p> + <p> + But how shall I forget the solemn splendour of a second course, which was + served up in great state by Stripes in a silver dish and cove; a napkin + round his dirty thumbs; and consisted of a landrail, not much bigger than + a corpulent sparrow. + </p> + <p> + 'My love, will you take any game?' says Ponto, with prodigious gravity; + and stuck his fork into that little mouthful of an island in the silver + sea. Stripes, too, at intervals, dribbled out the Marsala with a solemnity + which would have done honour to a Duke's butler. The Bamnecide's dinner to + Shacabac was only one degree removed from these solemn banquets. + </p> + <p> + As there were plenty of pretty country places close by; a comfortable + country town, with good houses of gentlefolks; a beautiful old parsonage, + close to the church whither we went (and where the Carabas family have + their ancestral carved and monumented Gothic pew), and every appearance of + good society in the neighbourhood, I rather wondered we were not enlivened + by the appearance of some of the neighbours at the Evergreens, and asked + about them. + </p> + <p> + 'We can't in our position of life—we can't well associate with the + attorney's family, as I leave you to suppose,' says Mrs. Ponto, + confidentially. 'Of course not,' I answered, though I didn't know why. + 'And the Doctor?' said I. + </p> + <p> + 'A most excellent worthy creature,' says Mrs. P. saved Maria's life—really + a learned man; but what can one do in one's position? One may ask one's + medical man to one's table certainly: but his family, my dear Mr. Snob!' + </p> + <p> + 'Half-a-dozen little gallipots,' interposed Miss Wirt, the governess: 'he, + he, he!' and the young ladies laughed in chorus. + </p> + <p> + 'We only live with the county families,' Miss Wirt (1) continued, tossing + up her head. 'The Duke is abroad: we are at feud with the Carabases; the + Ringwoods don't come down till Christmas: in fact, nobody's here till the + hunting season—positively nobody.' + </p> + <p> + 'Whose is the large red house just outside of the town?' + </p> + <p> + 'What! the CHATEAU-CALICOT? he, he, he! That purse-proud ex-linendraper, + Mr. Yardley, with the yellow liveries, and the wife in red velvet? How CAN + you, my dear Mr. Snob, be so satirical? The impertinence of those people + is really something quite overwhelming.' + </p> + <p> + 'Well, then, there is the parson, Doctor Chrysostom. He's a gentleman, at + any rate.' At this Mrs. Ponto looked at Miss Wirt. After their eyes had + met and they had wagged their heads at each other. They looked up to the + ceiling. So did the young ladies. They thrilled. It was evident I had said + something terrible. Another black sheep in the Church? thought I with a + little sorrow; for I don't care to own that I have a respect for the + cloth. 'I—hope there's nothing wrong? + </p> + <p> + 'Wrong?' says Mrs. P., clasping her hands with a tragic air. + </p> + <p> + 'Oh!' says Miss Wirt, and the two girls, gasping in chorus. + </p> + <p> + 'Well,' says I, 'I'm very sorry for it. I never saw a nicer-looking old + gentleman, or a better school, or heard a better sermon.' + </p> + <p> + 'He used to preach those sermons in a surplice,' hissed out Mrs. Ponto. + 'He's a Puseyite, Mr. Snob.' + </p> + <p> + 'Heavenly powers!' says I, admiring the pure ardour of these female + theologians; and Stripes came in with the tea. It's so weak that no wonder + Ponto's sleep isn't disturbed by it. + </p> + <p> + Of mornings we used to go out shooting. We had Ponto's own fields to sport + over (where we got the landrail), and the non-preserved part of the + Hawbuck property: and one evening in a stubble of Ponto's skirting the + Carabas woods, we got among some pheasants, and had some real sport. I + shot a hen, I know, greatly to my delight. 'Bag it,' says Ponto, in rather + a hurried manner: 'here's somebody coming.' So I pocketed the bird. + </p> + <p> + 'You infernal poaching thieves!' roars out a man from the hedge in the + garb of a gamekeeper. 'I wish I could catch you on this side of the hedge. + I'd put a brace of barrels into you, that I would.' + </p> + <p> + 'Curse that Snapper,' says Ponto, moving off; 'he's always watching me + like a spy.' + </p> + <p> + 'Carry off the birds, you sneaks, and sell 'em in London,' roars the + individual, who it appears was a keeper of Lord Carabas. 'You'll get six + shillings a brace for 'em.' + </p> + <p> + 'YOU know the price of 'em well enough, and so does your master too, you + scoundrel,' says Ponto, still retreating. + </p> + <p> + 'We kill 'em on our ground,' cries Mr. Snapper. 'WE don't set traps for + other people's birds. We're no decoy ducks. We're no sneaking poachers. We + don't shoot 'ens, like that 'ere Cockney, who's got the tail of one + a-sticking out of his pocket. Only just come across the hedge, that's + all.' + </p> + <p> + 'I tell you what,' says Stripes, who was out with us as keeper this day, + (in fact he's keeper, coachman, gardener, valet, and bailiff, with Tummus + under him,) 'if YOU'LL come across, John Snapper, and take your coat off, + I'll give you such a whopping as you've never had since the last time I + did it at Guttlebury Fair.' + </p> + <p> + 'Whop one of your own weight,' Mr. Snapper said, whistling his dogs and + disappearing into the wood. And so we came out of this controversy rather + victoriously; but I began to alter my preconceived ideas of rural + felicity. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_NOTE" id="link2H_NOTE"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Notes. + </h2> + <p> + (1) I have since heard that this aristocratic lady's father was a + livery-button maker in St. Martin's Lane: where he met with misfortunes, + and his daughter acquired her taste for heraldry. But it may be told to + her credit, that out of her earnings she has kept the bed-ridden old + bankrupt in great comfort and secrecy at Pentonville; and furnished her + brother's outfit for the Cadetship which her patron, Lord Swigglebiggle, + gave her when he was at the Board of Control. I have this information from + a friend. To hear Miss Wirt herself, you would fancy that her Papa was a + Rothschild, and that the markets of Europe were convulsed when he went + into the GAZETTE. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVIII—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + 'Be hanged to your aristocrats!' Ponto said, in some conversation we had + regarding the family at Carabas, between whom and the Evergreens there was + a feud. 'When I first came into the county—it was the year before + Sir John Buff contested in the Blue interest—the Marquis, then Lord + St. Michaels, who, of course, was Orange to the core, paid me and Mrs. + Ponto such attentions, that I fairly confess I was taken in by the old + humbug, and thought that I'd met with a rare neighbour. 'Gad, Sir, we used + to get pines from Carabas, and pheasants from Carabas, and it was—“Ponto, + when will you come over and shoot?”—and—“Ponto, our pheasants + want thinning,”—and my Lady would insist upon her dear Mrs. Ponto + coming over to Carabas to sleep, and put me I don't know to what expense + for turbans and velvet gowns for my wife's toilette. Well, Sir, the + election takes place, and though I was always a Liberal, personal + friendship of course induces me to plump for St. Michaels, who comes in at + the head of the poll. Next year, Mrs. P. insists upon going to town—with + lodgings in Clarges Street at ten pounds a week, with a hired brougham, + and new dresses for herself and the girls, and the deuce and all to pay. + Our first cards were to Carabas House; my Lady's are returned by a great + big flunkey; and I leave you to fancy my poor Betsy's discomfiture as the + lodging-house maid took in the cards, and Lady St. Michaels drives away, + though she actually saw us at the drawing-room window. Would you believe + it, Sir, that though we called four times afterwards, those infernal + aristocrats never returned our visit; that though Lady St. Michaels gave + nine dinner-parties and four DEJEUNERS that season, she never asked us to + one; and that she cut us dead at the Opera, though Betsy was nodding to + her the whole night? We wrote to her for tickets for Almack's; she writes + to say that all hers were promised; and said, in the presence of Wiggins, + her lady's-maid, who told it to Diggs, my wife's woman, that she couldn't + conceive how people in our station of life could so far forget themselves + as to wish to appear in any such place! Go to Castle Carabas! I'd sooner + die than set my foot in the house of that impertinent, insolvent, insolent + jackanapes—and I hold him in scorn!' After this, Ponto gave me some + private information regarding Lord Carabas's pecuniary affairs; how he + owed money all over the county; how Jukes the carpenter was utterly ruined + and couldn't get a shilling of his bill; how Biggs the butcher hanged + himself for the same reason; how the six big footmen never received a + guinea of wages, and Snaffle, the state coachman, actually took off his + blown-glass wig of ceremony and flung it at Lady Carabas's feet on the + terrace before the Castle; all which stories, as they are private, I do + not think proper to divulge. But these details did not stifle my desire to + see the famous mansion of Castle Carabas, nay, possibly excited my + interest to know more about that lordly house and its owners. + </p> + <p> + At the entrance of the park, there are a pair of great gaunt mildewed + lodges—mouldy Doric temples with black chimney-pots, in the finest + classic taste, and the gates of course are surmounted by the CHATS BOTTES, + the well-known supporters of the Carabas family. 'Give the lodge-keeper a + shilling,' says Ponto, (who drove me near to it in his four-wheeled + cruelty-chaise). 'I warrant it's the first piece of ready money he has + received for some time. I don't know whether there was any foundation for + this sneer, but the gratuity was received with a curtsey, and the gate + opened for me to enter. 'Poor old porteress!' says I, inwardly. 'You + little know that it is the Historian of Snobs whom you let in!' The gates + were passed. A damp green stretch of park spread right and left + immeasurably, confined by a chilly grey wall, and a damp long straight + road between two huge rows of moist, dismal lime-trees, leads up to the + Castle. In the midst of the park is a great black tank or lake, bristling + over with rushes, and here and there covered over with patches of + pea-soup. A shabby temple rises on an island in this delectable lake, + which is approached by a rotten barge that lies at roost in a dilapidated + boat house. Clumps of elms and oaks dot over the huge green flat. Every + one of them would have been down long since, but that the Marquis is not + allowed to cut the timber. + </p> + <p> + Up that long avenue the Snobographer walked in solitude. At the + seventy-ninth tree on the left-hand side, the insolvent butcher hanged + himself. I scarcely wondered at the dismal deed, so woful and sad were the + impressions connected with the place. So, for a mile and a half I walked—alone + and thinking of death. + </p> + <p> + I forgot to say the house is in full view all the way—except when + intercepted by the trees on the miserable island in the lake—an + enormous red-brick mansion, square, vast, and dingy. It is flanked by four + stone towers with weathercocks. In the midst of the grand facade is a huge + Ionic portico, approached by a vast, lonely, ghastly staircase. Rows of + black windows, framed in stone, stretch on either side, right and left—three + storeys and eighteen windows of a row. You may see a picture of the palace + and staircase, in the 'Views of England and Wales,' with four carved and + gilt carriages waiting at the gravel walk, and several parties of ladies + and gentlemen in wigs and hoops, dotting the fatiguing lines of stairs. + </p> + <p> + But these stairs are made in great houses for people NOT to ascend. The + first Lady Carabas (they are but eighty years in the peerage), if she got + out of her gilt coach in a shower, would be wet to the skin before she got + half-way to the carved Ionic portico, where four dreary statues of Peace, + Plenty, Piety and Patriotism, are the only sentinels. You enter these + palaces by back-doors. 'That was the way the Carabases got their peerage,' + the misanthropic Ponto said after dinner. + </p> + <p> + Well—I rang the bell at a little low side-door; it clanged and + jingled and echoed for a long, long while, till at length a face, as of a + housekeeper, peered through the door, and, as she saw my hand in my + waistcoat pocket, opened it. Unhappy, lonely housekeeper, I thought. Is + Miss Crusoe in her island more solitary? The door clapped to, and I was in + Castle Carabas. + </p> + <p> + 'The side entrance and All,' says the housekeeper. 'The halligator hover + the mantelpiece was brought home by Hadmiral St. Michaels, when a Capting + with Lord Hanson. The harms on the cheers is the harms of the Carabas + family.' The hall was rather comfortable. We went clapping up a clean + stone backstair, and then into a back passage cheerfully decorated with + ragged light-green Kidderminster, and issued upon + </p> + <p> + 'THE GREAT ALL. + </p> + <p> + 'The great all is seventy-two feet in lenth, fifty-six in breath, and + thirty-eight feet 'igh. The carvings of the chimlies, representing the + birth of Venus, and Ercules, and Eyelash, is by Van Chislum, the most + famous sculpture of his hage and country. The ceiling, by Calimanco, + represents Painting, Harchitecture and Music (the naked female figure with + the barrel horgan) introducing George, fust Lord Carabas, to the Temple of + the Muses. The winder ornaments is by Vanderputty. The floor is Patagonian + marble; and the chandelier in the centre was presented to Lionel, second + Marquis, by Lewy the Sixteenth, whose 'ead was cut hoff in the French + Revelation. We now henter + </p> + <p> + THE SOUTH GALLERY. + </p> + <p> + 'One 'undred and forty-eight in lenth by thirty-two in breath; it is + profusely hornaminted by the choicest works of Hart. Sir Andrew Katz, + founder of the Carabas family and banker of the Prince of Horange, + Kneller. Her present Ladyship, by Lawrence. Lord St. Michaels, by the same—he + is represented sittin' on a rock in velvit pantaloons. Moses in the + bullrushes—the bull very fine, by Paul Potter. The toilet of Venus, + Fantaski. Flemish Bores drinking, Van Ginnums. Jupiter and Europia, de + Horn. The Grandjunction Canal, Venis, by Candleetty; and Italian Bandix, + by Slavata Rosa.'—And so this worthy woman went on, from one room + into another, from the blue room to the green, and the green to the grand + saloon, and the grand saloon to the tapestry closet, cackling her list of + pictures and wonders: and furtively turning up a corner of brown holland + to show the colour of the old, faded, seedy, mouldy, dismal hangings. + </p> + <p> + At last we came to her Ladyship's bed-room. In the centre of this dreary + apartment there is a bed about the size of one of those whizgig temples in + which the Genius appears in a pantomime. The huge gilt edifice is + approached by steps, and so tall, that it might be let off in floors, for + sleeping-rooms for all the Carabas family. An awful bed! A murder might be + done at one end of that bed, and people sleeping at the other end be + ignorant of it. Gracious powers! fancy little Lord Carabas in a nightcap + ascending those steps after putting out the candle! + </p> + <p> + The sight of that seedy and solitary splendour was too much for me. I + should go mad were I that lonely housekeeper—in those enormous + galleries—in that lonely library, filled up with ghastly folios that + nobody dares read, with an inkstand on the centre table like the coffin of + a baby, and sad portraits staring at you from the bleak walls with their + solemn Mouldy eyes. No wonder that Carabas does not come down here often. + </p> + <p> + It would require two thousand footmen to make the place cheerful. No + wonder the coachman resigned his wig, that the masters are insolvent, and + the servants perish in this huge dreary out-at-elbow place. + </p> + <p> + A single family has no more right to build itself a temple of that sort + than to erect a Tower of Babel. Such a habitation is not decent for a mere + mortal man. But, after all, I suppose poor Carabas had no choice. Fate put + him there as it sent Napoleon to St. Helena. Suppose it had been decreed + by Nature that you and I should be Marquises? We wouldn't refuse, I + suppose, but take Castle Carabas and all, with debts, duns, and mean + makeshifts, and shabby pride, and swindling magnificence. + </p> + <p> + Next season, when I read of Lady Carabas's splendid entertainments in the + MORNING POST, and see the poor old insolvent cantering through the Park—I + shall have a much tenderer interest in these great people than I have had + heretofore. Poor old shabby Snob! Ride on and fancy the world is still on + its knees before the house of Carabas! Give yourself airs, poor old + bankrupt Magnifico, who are under money-obligations to your flunkeys; and + must stoop so as to swindle poor tradesmen! And for us, O my brother + Snobs, oughtn't we to feel happy if our walk through life is more even, + and that we are out of the reach of that surprising arrogance and that + astounding meanness to which this wretched old victim is obliged to mount + and descend. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIX—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Notable as my reception had been (under that unfortunate mistake of Mrs. + Ponto that I was related to Lord Snobbington, which I was not permitted to + correct), it was nothing compared to the bowing and kotooing, the raptures + and flurry which preceded and welcomed the visit of a real live lord and + lord's son, a brother officer of Cornet Wellesley Ponto, in the 120th + Hussars, who came over with the young Cornet from Guttlebury, where their + distinguished regiment was quartered. This was my Lord Gules, Lord + Saltire's grandson and heir: a very young, short, sandy-haired and + tobacco-smoking nobleman, who cannot have left the nursery very long, and + who, though he accepted the honest Major's invitation to the Evergreens in + a letter written in a school-boy handwriting, with a number of faults of + spelling, may yet be a very fine classical scholar for what I know: having + had his education at Eton, where he and young Ponto were inseparable. + </p> + <p> + At any rate, if he can't write, he has mastered a number of other + accomplishments wonderful for one of his age and size. He is one of the + best shots and riders in England. He rode his horse Abracadabra, and won + the famous Guttlebury steeple-chase. He has horses entered at half the + races in the country (under other people's names; for the old lord is a + strict hand, and will not hear of betting or gambling). He has lost and + won such sums of money as my Lord George himself might be proud of. He + knows all the stables, and all the jockeys, and has all the 'information,' + and is a match for the best Leg at Newmarket. Nobody was ever known to be + 'too much' for him at play or in the stable. + </p> + <p> + Although his grandfather makes him a moderate allowance, by the aid of + POST-OBITS and convenient friends he can live in a splendour becoming his + rank. He has not distinguished himself in the knocking down of policemen + much; he is not big enough for that. But, as a light-weight, his skill is + of the very highest order. At billiards he is said to be first-rate. He + drinks and smokes as much as any two of the biggest officers in his + regiment. With such high talents, who can say how far he may not go? He + may take to politics as a DELASSEMENT, and be Prime Minister after Lord + George Bentinck. + </p> + <p> + My young friend Wellesley Ponto is a gaunt and bony youth, with a pale + face profusely blotched. From his continually pulling something on his + chin, I am led to fancy that he believes he has what is called an Imperial + growing there. That is not the only tuft that is hunted in the family, by + the way. He can't, of course, indulge in those expensive amusements which + render his aristocratic comrade so respected: he bets pretty freely when + he is in cash, and rides when somebody mounts him (for he can't afford + more than his regulation chargers). At drinking he is by no means + inferior; and why do you think he brought his noble friend, Lord Gules, to + the Evergreens?—Why? because he intended to ask his mother to order + his father to pay his debts, which she couldn't refuse before such an + exalted presence. Young Ponto gave me all this information with the most + engaging frankness. We are old friends. I used to tip him when he was at + school. + </p> + <p> + 'Gad!': says he, 'our wedgment's so DOOTHID exthpenthif. Must hunt, you + know. A man couldn't live in the wedgment if he didn't. Mess expenses + enawmuth. Must dine at mess. Must drink champagne and claret. Ours ain't a + port and sherry light-infantry mess. Uniform's awful. Fitzstultz, our + Colonel, will have 'em so. Must be a distinction you know. At his own + expense Fitzstultz altered the plumes in the men's caps (you called them + shaving-brushes, Snob, my boy: most absurd and unjust that attack of + yours, by the way); that altewation alone cotht him five hundred pound. + The year befaw latht he horthed the wegiment at an immenthe expenthe, and + we're called the Queen'th Own Pyebalds from that day. Ever theen uth on + pawade? The Empewar Nicolath burtht into tearth of envy when he thaw uth + at Windthor. And you see,' continued my young friend, 'I brought Gules + down with me, as the Governor is very sulky about shelling out, just to + talk my mother over, who can do anything with him. Gules told her that I + was Fitzstultz's favourite of the whole regiment; and, Gad! she thinks the + Horse Guards will give me my troop for nothing, and he humbugged the + Governor that I was the greatest screw in the army. Ain't it a good + dodge?' + </p> + <p> + With this Wellesley left me to go and smoke a cigar in the stables with + Lord Gules, and make merry over the cattle there, under Stripes's + superintendence. Young Ponto laughed with his friend, at the venerable + four-wheeled cruelty-chaise; but seemed amazed that the latter should + ridicule still more an ancient chariot of the build of 1824, emblazoned + immensely with the arme of the Pontos and the Snaileys, from which latter + distinguished family Mrs. Ponto issued. + </p> + <p> + I found poor Pon in his study among his boots, in such a rueful attitude + of despondency, that I could not but remark it. 'Look at that!' says the + poor fellow, handing me over a document. 'It's the second change in + uniform since he's been in the army, and yet there's no extravagance about + the lad. Lord Gules tells me he is the most careful youngster in the + regiment, God bless him! But look at that! by heaven, Snob, look at that + and say how can a man of nine hundred keep out of the Bench?' He gave a + sob as he handed me the paper across the table; and his old face, and his + old corduroys, and his shrunk shooting-jacket, and his lean shanks, + looked, as he spoke, more miserably haggard, bankrupt, and threadbare. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + LIEUT. WELLESLEY PONTO, 120TH QUEEN'S OWN PYEBALD + HUSSARS, + TO KNOPF AND STECKNADEL, + CONDUIT STREET, LONDON. + L. s. d + Dress Jacket, richly laced with gold . 35 0 0 + Ditto Pelisse ditto, and trimmed with sable . . 60 0 0 + Undress Jacket, trimmed with gold 15 15 0 + Ditto Pelisse . . 30 0 0 + Dress Pantaloons 12 0 0 + Ditto Overalls, gold lace on sides. 6 6 0 + Undress ditto ditto. 5 5 0 + Blue Braided Frock 14 14 0 + Forage Cap . . 3 3 0 + Dress Cap, gold lines, plume and chain . . . 25 0 0 + Gold Barrelled Sash 11 18 0 + Sword . . 11 11 0 + Ditto Belt and Sabretache .. 16 16 0 + Pouch and Belt. 15 15 0 + SwordKnot .. 1 4 0 + Cloak . .. 13 13 0 + Valise . .. 3 13 6 + Regulation Saddle . 7 17 6 + Ditto Bridle, complete . .. 10 10 0 + A Dress Housing, complete .. 30 0 0 + A pair of Pistols. 10 10 0 + A Black Sheepskin, edged. . . 6 18 0 + Total L347 9 0 +</pre> + <p> + That evening Mrs. Ponto and her family made their darling Wellesley give a + full, true, and particular account of everything that had taken place at + Lord Fitzstultz's; how many servants waited at dinner; and how the Ladies + Schneider dressed; and what his Royal Highness said when he came down to + shoot; and who was there? “What a blessing that boy is to me!” said she, + as my pimple-faced young friend moved off to resume smoking operations + with Gules in the now vacant kitchen;—and poor Ponto's dreary and + desperate look, shall I ever forget that? + </p> + <p> + O you parents and guardians! O you men and women of sense in England! O + you legislators about to assemble in Parliament! read over that tailor's + bill above printed, read over that absurd catalogue of insane gimcracks + and madman's tomfoolery—and say how are you ever to get rid of + Snobbishness when society does so much for its education? + </p> + <p> + Three hundred and forty pounds for a young chap's saddle and breeches! + Before George, I would rather be a Hottentot or a Highlander. We laugh at + poor Jocko, the monkey, dancing in uniform; or at poor Jeames, the + flunkey, with his quivering calves and plush tights; or at the nigger + Marquis of Marmalade, dressed out with sabre and epaulets, and giving + himself the airs of a field-marshal. Lo! is not one of the Queen's + Pyebalds, in full fig, as great and foolish a monster? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXX—ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + At last came that fortunate day at the Evergreens, when I was to be made + acquainted with some of the 'county families' with whom only people of + Ponto's rank condescended to associate. And now, although poor Ponto had + just been so cruelly made to bleed on occasion of his son's new uniform, + and though he was in the direst and most cut-throat spirits with an + overdrawn account at the banker's, and other pressing evils of poverty; + although a tenpenny bottle of Marsala and an awful parsimony presided + generally at his table, yet the poor fellow was obliged to assume the most + frank and jovial air of cordiality; and all the covers being removed from + the hangings, and new dresses being procured for the young ladies, and the + family plate being unlocked and displayed, the house and all within + assumed a benevolent and festive appearance. The kitchen fires began to + blaze, the good wine ascended from the cellar, a professed cook actually + came over from Guttlebury to compile culinary abominations. Stripes was in + a new coat, and so was Ponto, for a wonder, and Tummus's button-suit was + worn EN PERMANENCE. + </p> + <p> + And all this to show off the little lord, thinks I. All this in honour of + a stupid little cigarrified Cornet of dragoons, who can barely write his + name,—while an eminent and profound moralist like—somebody—is + fobbed off with cold mutton and relays of pig. Well, well: a martyrdom of + cold mutton is just bearable. I pardon Mrs. Ponto, from my heart I do, + especially as I wouldn't turn out of the best bed-room, in spite of all + her hints; but held my ground in the chintz tester, vowing that Lord + Gules, as a young man, was quite small and hardy enough to make himself + comfortable elsewhere. + </p> + <p> + The great Ponto party was a very august one. The Hawbucks came in their + family coach, with the blood-red band emblazoned all over it: and their + man in yellow livery waited in country fashion at table, only to be + exceeded in splendour by the Hipsleys, the opposition baronet, in light + blue. The old Ladies Fitzague drove over in their little old chariot with + the fat black horses, the fat coachman, the fat footman—(why are + dowagers' horses and footmen always fat?) And soon after these personages + had arrived, with their auburn fronts and red beaks and turbans, came the + Honourable and Reverend Lionel Pettipois, who with General and Mrs. Sago + formed the rest of the party. 'Lord and Lady Frederick Howlet were asked, + but they have friends at Ivybush,' Mrs. Ponto told me; and that very + morning, the Castlehaggards sent an excuse, as her ladyship had a return + of the quinsy. Between ourselves, Lady Castlehaggard's quinsy always comes + on when there is dinner at the Evergreens. + </p> + <p> + If the keeping of polite company could make a woman happy, surely my kind + hostess Mrs. Ponto was on that day a happy woman. Every person present + (except the unlucky impostor who pretended to a connexion with the + Snobbington Family, and General Sago, who had brought home I don't know + how many lacs of rupees from India,) was related to the Peerage or the + Baronetage. Mrs. P. had her heart's desire. If she had been an Earl's + daughter herself could she have expected better company?—and her + family were in the oil-trade at Bristol, as all her friends very well + know. + </p> + <p> + What I complained of in my heart was not the dining—which, for this + once, was plentiful and comfortable enough—but the prodigious + dulness of the talking part of the entertainment. O my beloved brother + Snobs of the City, if we love each other no better than our country + brethren, at least we amuse each other more; if we bore ourselves, we are + not called upon to go ten miles to do it! + </p> + <p> + For instance, the Hipsleys came ten miles from the south, and the Hawbucks + ten miles from the north, of the Evergreens; and were magnates in two + different divisions of the county of Mangelwurzelshire. Hipsley, who is an + old baronet, with a bothered estate, did not care to show his contempt for + Hawbuck, who is a new creation, and rich. Hawbuck, on his part, gives + himself patronizing airs to General Sago, who looks upon the Pontos as + little better than paupers. 'Old Lady Blanche,' says Ponto, 'I hope will + leave something to her god-daughter—my second girl—we've all + of us half-poisoned ourselves with taking her physic.' + </p> + <p> + Lady Blanche and Lady Rose Fitzague have, the first, a medical, and the + second a literary turn. I am inclined to believe the former had a wet + COMPRESSE around her body, on the occasion when I had the happiness of + meeting her. She doctors everybody in the neighbourhood of which she is + the ornament; and has tried everything on her own person. She went into + Court, and testified publicly her faith in St. John Long: she swore by + Doctor Buchan, she took quantities of Gambouge's Universal Medicine, and + whole boxfuls of Parr's Life Pills. She has cured a multiplicity of + headaches by Squinstone's Eye-snuff; she wears a picture of Hahnemann in + her bracelet and a lock of Priessnitz's hair in a brooch. She talked about + her own complaints and those of her CONFIDANTE for the time being, to + every lady in the room successively, from our hostess down to Miss Wirt, + taking them into corners, and whispering about bronchitis, hepatitis, St. + Vitus, neuralgia, cephalalgia, and so forth. I observed poor fat Lady + Hawbuck in a dreadful alarm after some communication regarding the state + of her daughter Miss Lucy Hawbuck's health, and Mrs. Sago turned quite + yellow, and put down her third glass of Madeira, at a warning glance from + Lady Blanche. + </p> + <p> + Lady Rose talked literature, and about the book-club at Guttlebury, and is + very strong in voyages and travels. She has a prodigious interest in + Borneo, and displayed a knowledge of the history of the Punjaub and + Kaffirland that does credit to her memory. Old General Sago, who sat + perfectly silent and plethoric, roused up as from a lethargy when the + former country was mentioned, and gave the company his story about a + hog-hunt at Ramjugger. I observed her ladyship treated with something like + contempt her neighbour the Reverend Lionel Pettipois, a young divine whom + you may track through the country by little 'awakening' books at + half-a-crown a hundred, which dribble out of his pockets wherever he goes. + I saw him give Miss Wirt a sheaf of 'The Little Washer-woman on Putney + Common,' and to Miss Hawbuck a couple of dozen of 'Meat in the Tray; or + the Young Butcher-boy Rescued;' and on paying a visit to Guttlebury gaol, + I saw two notorious fellows waiting their trial there (and temporarily + occupied with a game of cribbage), to whom his Reverence offered a tract + as he was walking over Crackshins Common, and who robbed him of his purse, + umbrella, and cambric handkerchief, leaving him the tracts to distribute + elsewhere. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXI—A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + 'Why, dear Mr. Snob,' said a young lady of rank and fashion (to whom I + present my best compliments), 'if you found everything so SNOBBISH at the + Evergreens, if the pig bored you and the mutton was not to your liking, + and Mrs. Ponto was a humbug, and Miss Wirt a nuisance, with her abominable + piano practice,—why did you stay so long?' + </p> + <p> + Ah, Miss, what a question! Have you never heard of gallant British + soldiers storming batteries, of doctors passing nights in plague wards of + lazarettos, and other instances of martyrdom? What do you suppose induced + gentlemen to walk two miles up to the batteries of Sabroan, with a hundred + and fifty thundering guns bowling them down by hundreds?—not + pleasure, surely. What causes your respected father to quit his + comfortable home for his chambers, after dinner, and pore over the most + dreary law papers until long past midnight?, Mademoiselle; duty, which + must be done alike by military, or legal, or literary gents. There's a + power of martyrdom in our profession. + </p> + <p> + You won't believe it? Your rosy lips assume a smile of incredulity—a + most naughty and odious expression in a young lady's face. Well, then, the + fact is, that my chambers, No. 24, Pump Court, Temple, were being painted + by the Honourable Society, and Mrs. Slamkin, my laundress, having occasion + to go into Durham to see her daughter, who is married, and has presented + her with the sweetest little grandson—a few weeks could not be + better spent than in rusticating. But ah, how delightful Pump Court looked + when I revisited its well-known chimney-pots! CARI LUOGHI. Welcome, + welcome, O fog and smut! + </p> + <p> + But if you think there is no moral in the foregoing account of the Pontine + family, you are, Madam, most painfully mistaken. In this very chapter we + are going to have the moral—why, the whole of the papers are nothing + BUT the moral, setting forth as they do the folly of being a Snob. + </p> + <p> + You will remark that in the Country Snobography my poor friend Ponto has + been held up almost exclusively for the public gaze—and why? Because + we went to no other house? Because other families did not welcome us to + their mahogany? No, no. Sir John Hawbuck of the Haws, Sir John Hipsley of + Briary Hall, don't shut the gates of hospitality: of General Sago's + mulligatawny I could speak from experience. And the two old ladies at + Guttlebury, were they nothing? Do you suppose that an agreeable young dog, + who shall be nameless, would not be made welcome? Don't you know that + people are too glad to see ANYBODY in the country? + </p> + <p> + But those dignified personages do not enter into the scheme of the present + work, and are but minor characters of our Snob drama; just as, in the + play, kings and emperors are not half so important as many humble persons. + The DOGE OF VENICE, for instance, gives way to OTHELLO, who is but a + nigger; and the KING OF FRANCE to FALCONBRIDGE, who is a gentleman of + positively no birth at all. So with the exalted characters above + mentioned. I perfectly well recollect that the claret at Hawbuck's was not + by any means so good as that of Hipsley's, while, on the contrary, some + white hermitage at the Haws (by the way, the butler only gave me half a + glass each time) was supernacular. And I remember the conversations. O + Madam, Madam, how stupid they were! The subsoil ploughing; the pheasants + and poaching; the row about the representation of the county; the Earl of + Mangelwurzelshire being at variance with his relative and nominee, the + Honourable Marmaduke Tomnoddy; all these I could put down, had I a mind to + violate the confidence of private life; and a great deal of conversation + about the weather, the Mangelwurzelshire Hunt, new manures, and eating and + drinking, of course. + </p> + <p> + But CUI BONO? In these perfectly stupid and honourable families there is + not that Snobbishness which it is our purpose to expose. An ox is an ox—a + great hulking, fat-sided, bellowing, munching Beef. He ruminates according + to his nature, and consumes his destined portion of turnips or oilcake, + until the time comes for his disappearance from the pastures, to be + succeeded by other deep-lunged and fat-ribbed animals. Perhaps we do not + respect an ox. We rather acquiesce in him. The Snob, my dear Madam, is the + Frog that tries to swell himself to ox size. Let us pelt the silly brute + out of his folly. + </p> + <p> + Look, I pray you, at the case of my unfortunate friend Ponto, a + good-natured, kindly English gentleman—not over-wise, but quite + passable—fond of port-wine, of his family, of country sports and + agriculture, hospitably minded, with as pretty a little patrimonial + country-house as heart can desire, and a thousand pounds a year. It is not + much; but, ENTRE NOUS, people can live for less, and not uncomfortably. + </p> + <p> + For instance, there is the doctor, whom Mrs. P. does not condescend to + visit: that man educates a mirific family, and is loved by the poor for + miles round: and gives them port-wine for physic and medicine, gratis. And + how those people can get on with their pittance, as Mrs. Ponto says, is a + wonder to HER. + </p> + <p> + Again, there is the clergyman, Doctor Chrysostom,—Mrs. P. says they + quarrelled about Puseyism, but I am given to understand it was because + Mrs. C. had the PAS of her at the Haws—you may see what the value of + his living is any day in the 'Clerical Guide;' but you don't know what he + gives away. + </p> + <p> + Even Pettipois allows that, in whose eyes the Doctor's surplice is a + scarlet abomination; and so does Pettipois do his duty in his way, and + administer not only his tracts and his talk, but his money and his means + to his people. As a lord's son, by the way, Mrs. Ponto is uncommonly + anxious that he should marry EITHER of the girls whom Lord Gules does not + intend to choose. + </p> + <p> + Well, although Pon's income would make up almost as much as that of these + three worthies put together—oh, my dear Madam, see in what hopeless + penury the poor fellow lives! What tenant can look to HIS forbearance? + What poor man can hope for HIS charity? 'Master's the best of men,' honest + Stripes says, 'and when we was in the ridgment a more free-handed chap + didn't live. But the way in which Missus DU scryou, I wonder the young + ladies is alive, that I du!' + </p> + <p> + They live upon a fine governess and fine masters, and have clothes made by + Lady Carabas's own milliner; and their brother rides with earls to cover; + and only the best people in the county visit at the Evergreens, and Mrs. + Ponto thinks herself a paragon of wives and mothers, and a wonder of the + world, for doing all this misery and humbug, and snobbishness, on a + thousand a year. + </p> + <p> + What an inexpressible comfort it was, my dear Madam, when Stripes put my + portmanteau in the four-wheeled chaise, and (poor P on being touched with + sciatica) drove me over to 'Carabas Arms' at Guttlebury, where we took + leave. There were some bagmen there in the Commercial Room, and one talked + about the house he represented; and another about his dinner, and a third + about the Inns on the road, and so forth—a talk, not very wise, but + honest and to the purpose—about as good as that of the country + gentlemen: and oh, how much pleasanter than listening to Miss Wirt's + show-pieces on the piano, and Mrs. Ponto's genteel cackle about the + fashion and the county families! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXII—SNOBBIUM GATHERUM + </h2> + <p> + WHEN I see the great effect which these papers are producing on an + intelligent public, I have a strong hope that before long we shall have a + regular Snob department in the newspapers, just as we have the Police + Courts and the Court News at present. When a flagrant case of + bone-crushing or Poor-law abuse occurs in the world, who so eloquent as + THE TIMES to point it out? When a gross instance of Snobbishness happens, + why should not the indignant journalist call the public attention to that + delinquency too? + </p> + <p> + How, for instance, could that wonderful case of the Earl of Mangelwurzel + and his brother be examined in the Snobbish point of view? Let alone the + hectoring, the bullying, the vapouring, the bad grammar, the mutual + recriminations, lie-givings, challenges, retractations, which abound in + the fraternal dispute—put out of the question these points as + concerning the individual nobleman and his relative, with whose personal + affairs we have nothing to do—and consider how intimately corrupt, + how habitually grovelling and mean, how entirely Snobbish in a word, a + whole county must be which can find no better chiefs or leaders than these + two gentlemen. 'We don't want,' the great county of Mangelwurzelshire + seems to say, 'that a man should be able to write good grammar; or that he + should keep a Christian tongue in his head; or that he should have the + commonest decency of temper, or even a fair share of good sense, in order + to represent us in Parliament. + </p> + <p> + All we require is, that a man should be recommended to us by the Earl of + Mangelwurzelshire. And all that we require of the Earl of + Mangelwurzelshire is that he should have fifty thousand a year and hunt + the country.' O you pride of all Snobland! O you crawling, truckling, + self-confessed lackeys and parasites! + </p> + <p> + But this is growing too savage: don't let us forget our usual amenity, and + that tone of playfulness and sentiment with which the beloved reader and + writer have pursued their mutual reflections hitherto. Well, Snobbishness + pervades the little Social Farce as well as the great State Comedy; and + the self-same moral is tacked to either. + </p> + <p> + There was, for instance, an account in the papers of a young lady who, + misled by a fortune-teller, actually went part of the way to India (as far + as Bagnigge Wells, I think,) in search of a husband who was promised her + there. Do you suppose this poor deluded little soul would have left her + shop for a man below her in rank, or for anything but a darling of a + Captain in epaulets and a red coat. It was her Snobbish sentiment that + misled her, and made her vanities a prey to the swindling fortune-teller. + </p> + <p> + Case 2 was that of Mademoiselle de Saugrenue, 'the interesting young + Frenchwoman with a profusion of jetty ringlets,' who lived for nothing at + a boardinghouse at Gosport, was then conveyed to Fareham gratis: and being + there, and lying on the bed of the good old lady her entertainer, the dear + girl took occasion to rip open the mattress, and steal a cash-box, with + which she fled to London. How would you account for the prodigious + benevolence exercised towards the interesting young French lady? Was it + her jetty ringlets or her charming face?—Bah! Do ladies love others + for having faces and black hair?—she said SHE WAS A RELATION OF de + Saugrenue: talked of her ladyship her aunt, and of herself as a De + Saugrenue. The honest boarding-house people were at her feet at once. + Good, honest, simple, lord-loving children of Snobland. + </p> + <p> + Finally, there was the case of 'the Right Honourable Mr. Vernon,' at York. + The Right Honourable was the son of a nobleman, and practised on an old + lady. He procured from her dinners, money, wearing-apparel, spoons, + implicit credence, and an entire refit of linen. Then he cast his nets + over a family of father, mother, and daughters, one of whom he proposed to + marry. The father lent him money, the mother made jams and pickles for + him, the daughters vied with each other in cooking dinners for the Right + Honourable—and what was the end? One day the traitor fled, with a + teapot and a basketful of cold victuals. It was the 'Right Honourable' + which baited the hook which gorged all these greedy, simple Snobs. Would + they have been taken in by a commoner? What old lady is there, my dear + sir, who would take in you and me, were we ever so ill to do, and comfort + us, and clothe us, and give us her money, and her silver forks? Alas and + alas! what mortal man that speaks the truth can hope for such a landlady? + And yet, all these instances of fond and credulous Snobbishness have + occurred in the same week's paper, with who knows how many score more? + </p> + <p> + Just as we had concluded the above remarks comes a pretty little note + sealed with a pretty little butterfly—bearing a northern postmark—and + to the following effect:— + </p> + <p> + '19th November. + </p> + <p> + 'Mr. Punch,—'Taking great interest in your Snob Papers, we are very + anxious to know under what class of that respectable fraternity you would + designate us. + </p> + <p> + 'We are three sisters, from seventeen to twenty-two. Our father is + HONESTLY AND TRULY of a very good family (you will say it is Snobbish to + mention that, but I wish to state the plain fact); our maternal + grandfather was an Earl.' (1) + </p> + <p> + 'We CAN afford to take in a stamped edition of YOU, and all Dickens' works + as fast as they come out, but we do NOT keep such a thing as a PEERAGE or + even a BARONETAGE in the house. + </p> + <p> + 'We live with every comfort, excellent cellar, &c. &c.; but as we + cannot well afford a butler, we have a neat table-maid (though our father + was a military man, has travelled much, been in the best society, &c.) + We HAVE a coachman and helper, but we don't put the latter into buttons, + nor make them wait at table, like Stripes and Tummus.' (2) + </p> + <p> + 'We are just the same to persons with a handle to their name as to those + without it. We wear a moderate modicum of crinoline, (3)and are never limp + (4) in the morning. We have good and abundant dinners on CHINA though we + have plate (5), and just as good when alone as with company. + </p> + <p> + 'Now, my dear MR. PUNCH, will you PLEASE give us a short answer in your + next number, and I will be SO much obliged to you. Nobody knows we are + writing to you, not even our father; nor will we ever tease (6) you again + if you will only give us an answer—just for FUN, now do! + </p> + <p> + 'If you get as far as this, which is doubtful, you will probably fling it + into the fire. If you do, I cannot help it; but I am of a sanguine + disposition, and entertain a lingering hope. At all events, I shall be + impatient for next Sunday, for you reach us on that day, and I am ashamed + to confess, we CANNOT resist opening you in the carriage driving home from + church. (7) + </p> + <p> + 'I remain, &c. &c., for myself and sisters. + </p> + <p> + Excuse this scrawl, but I always write headlong. (8) + </p> + <p> + 'P. S.—You were rather stupid last week, don't you think? (9) We + keep no gamekeeper, and yet have always abundant game for friends to + shoot, in spite of the poachers. We never write on perfumed paper—in + short, I can't help thinking that if you knew us you would not think us + Snobs.' + </p> + <p> + To this I reply in the following manner:—'My dear young ladies, I + know your post-town: and shall be at church there the Sunday AFTER next; + when, will you please to wear a tulip or some little trifle in your + bonnets, so that I may know you? You will recognize me and my dress—a + quiet-looking young fellow, in a white top-coat, a crimson satin + neckcloth, light blue trousers, with glossy tipped boots, and an emerald + breast-pin. I shall have a black crape round my white hat; and my usual + bamboo cane with the richly-gilt knob. I am sorry there will be no time to + get up moustaches between now and next week. + </p> + <p> + 'From seventeen to two-and-twenty! Ye gods! what ages! Dear young + creatures, I can see you all three. Seventeen suits me, as nearest my own + time of life; but mind, I don't say two-and-twenty is too old. No, no. And + that pretty, roguish, demure, middle one. Peace, peace, thou silly little + fluttering heart! + </p> + <p> + 'YOU Snobs, dear young ladies! I will pull any man's nose who says so. + There is no harm in being of a good family. You can't help it, poor dears. + What's in a name? What is in a handle to it? I confess openly that I + should not object to being a Duke myself; and between ourselves you might + see a worse leg for a garter. + </p> + <p> + 'YOU Snobs, dear little good-natured things, no that is, I hope not—I + think not—I won't be too confident—none of us should be—that + we are not Snobs. That very confidence savours of arrogance, and to be + arrogant is to be a Snob. In all the social gradations from sneak to + tyrant, nature has placed a most wondrous and various progeny of Snobs. + But are there no kindly natures, no tender hearts, no souls humble, + simple, and truth-loving? Ponder well on this question, sweet young + ladies. And if you can answer it, as no doubt you can—lucky are you—and + lucky the respected Herr Papa, and lucky the three handsome young + gentlemen who are about to become each others' brothers-in-law.' + </p> + <p> + (1) The introduction of Grandpapa, is I fear, Snobbish. + </p> + <p> + (2) That is, as you like. I don't object to buttons in moderation. + </p> + <p> + (3) Quite right. + </p> + <p> + (4) Bless you! + </p> + <p> + (5) Snobbish; and I doubt whether you ought to dine as well alone as with + company. You will be getting too good dinners. + </p> + <p> + (6) We like to be teased; but tell Papa. + </p> + <p> + (7) O garters and stars! what will Captain Gordon and Exeter Hall say to + this? + </p> + <p> + (8) Dear little enthusiast! + </p> + <p> + (9) You were never more mistaken, miss, in your life. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXIII—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + </h2> + <p> + Everybody of the middle rank who walks through this life with a sympathy + for his companions on the same journey—at any rate, every man who + has been jostling in the world for some three or four lustres—must + make no end of melancholy reflections upon the fate of those victims whom + Society, that is, Snobbishness, is immolating every day. With love and + simplicity and natural kindness Snobbishness is perpetually at war. People + dare not be happy for fear of Snobs. People dare not love for fear of + Snobs. People pine away lonely under the tyranny of Snobs. Honest kindly + hearts dry up and die. Gallant generous lads, blooming with hearty youth, + swell into bloated old-bachelorhood, and burst and tumble over. Tender + girls wither into shrunken decay, and perish solitary, from whom + Snobbishness has cut off the common claim to happiness and affection with + which Nature endowed us all. My heart grows sad as I see the blundering + tyrant's handiwork. As I behold it I swell with cheap rage, and glow with + fury against the Snob. Come down, I say, thou skulking dulness! Come down, + thou stupid bully, and give up thy brutal ghost! And I arm myself with the + sword and spear, and taking leave of my family, go forth to do battle with + that hideous ogre and giant, that brutal despot in Snob Castle, who holds + so many gentle hearts in torture and thrall. + </p> + <p> + When PUNCH is king, I declare there shall be no such thing as old maids + and old bachelors. The Reverend Mr. Malthus shall be burned annually, + instead of Guy Fawkes. Those who don't marry shall go into the workhouse. + It shall be a sin for the poorest not to have a pretty girl to love him. + </p> + <p> + The above reflections came to mind after taking a walk with an old + comrade, Jack Spiggot by name, who is just passing into the state of + old-bachelorhood, after the manly and blooming youth in which I remember + him. Jack was one of the handsomest fellows in England when we entered + together in the Highland Buffs; but I quitted the Cuttykilts early, and + lost sight of him for many years. + </p> + <p> + Ah! how changed he is from those days! He wears a waistband now, and has + begun to dye his whiskers. His cheeks, which were red, are now mottled; + his eyes, once so bright and steadfast, are the colour of peeled plovers' + eggs. + </p> + <p> + 'Are you married, Jack?' says I, remembering how consumedly in love he was + with his cousin Letty Lovelace, when the Cuttykilts were quartered at + Strathbungo some twenty years ago. + </p> + <p> + 'Married? no,' says he. 'Not money enough. Hard enough to keep myself, + much more a family, on five hundred a year. Come to Dickinson's; there's + some of the best Madeira in London there, my boy.' So we went and talked + over old times. The bill for dinner and wine consumed was prodigious, and + the quantity of brandy-and-water that Jack took showed what a regular + boozer he was. 'A guinea or two guineas. What the devil do I care what I + spend for my dinner?' says he. + </p> + <p> + 'And Letty Lovelace?' says I. + </p> + <p> + Jack's countenance fell. However, he burst into a loud laugh presently. + 'Letty Lovelace!' says he. 'She's Letty Lovelace still; but Gad, such a + wizened old woman! She's as thin as a thread-paper; (you remember what a + figure she had:) her nose has got red, and her teeth blue. She's always + ill; always quarrelling with the rest of the family; always psalm-singing, + and always taking pills. Gad, I had a rare escape THERE. Push round the + grog, old boy.' + </p> + <p> + Straightway memory went back to the days when Letty was the loveliest of + blooming young creatures: when to hear her sing was to make the heart jump + into your throat; when to see her dance, was better than Montessu or + Noblet (they were the Ballet Queens of those days); when Jack used to wear + a locket of her hair, with a little gold chain round his neck, and, + exhilarated with toddy, after a sederunt of the Cuttykilt mess, used to + pull out this token, and kiss it, and howl about it, to the great + amusement of the bottle-nosed old Major and the rest of the table. + </p> + <p> + 'My father and hers couldn't put their horses together,' Jack said. 'The + General wouldn't come down with more than six thousand. My governor said + it shouldn't be done under eight. Lovelace told him to go and be hanged, + and so we parted company. They said she was in a decline. Gammon! She's + forty, and as tough and as sour as this bit of lemon-peel. Don't put much + into your punch, Snob my boy. No man CAN stand punch after wine.' + </p> + <p> + 'And what are your pursuits, Jack?' says I. + </p> + <p> + 'Sold out when the governor died. Mother lives at Bath. Go down there once + a year for a week. Dreadful slow. Shilling whist. Four sisters—all + unmarried except the youngest—awful work. Scotland in August. Italy + in the winter. Cursed rheumatism. Come to London in March, and toddle + about at the Club, old boy; and we won't go home till maw-aw-rning till + daylight does appear. + </p> + <p> + 'And here's the wreck of two lives!' mused the present Snobographer, after + taking leave of Jack Spiggot. 'Pretty merry Letty Lovelace's rudder lost + and she cast away, and handsome Jack Spiggot stranded on the shore like a + drunken Trinculo.' + </p> + <p> + What was it that insulted Nature (to use no higher name), and perverted + her kindly intentions towards them? What cursed frost was it that nipped + the love that both were bearing, and condemned the girl to sour sterility, + and the lad to selfish old-bachelorhood? It was the infernal Snob tyrant + who governs us all, who says, 'Thou shalt not love without a lady's maid; + thou shalt not marry without a carriage and horses; thou shalt have no + wife in thy heart, and no children on thy knee, without a page in buttons + and a French BONNE; thou shalt go to the devil unless thou hast a + brougham; marry poor, and society shall forsake thee; thy kinsmen shall + avoid thee as a criminal; thy aunts and uncles shall turn up their eyes + and bemoan the sad, sad manner in which Tom or Harry has thrown himself + away.' You, young woman, may sell yourself without shame, and marry old + Croesus; you, young man, may lie away your heart and your life for a + jointure. But if 'you are poor, woe be to you! Society, the brutal Snob + autocrat, consigns you to solitary perdition. Wither, poor girl, in your + garret; rot, poor bachelor, in your Club. + </p> + <p> + When I see those graceless recluses—those unnatural monks and nuns + of the order of St. Beelzebub, (1) my hatred for Snobs, and their worship, + and their idols, passes all continence. Let us hew down that man-eating + Juggernaut, I say, that hideous Dagon; and I glow with the heroic courage + of Tom Thumb, and join battle with the giant Snob. + </p> + <p> + (1) This, of course, is understood to apply only to those unmarried + persons whom a mean and Snobbish fear about money has kept from fulfilling + their natural destiny. Many persons there are devoted to celibacy because + they cannot help it. Of these a man would be a brute who spoke roughly. + Indeed, after Miss O'Toole's conduct to the writer, he would be the last + to condemn. But never mind, these are personal matters. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXIV—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + </h2> + <p> + In that noble romance called 'Ten Thousand a Year,' I remember a + profoundly pathetic description of the Christian manner in which the hero, + Mr. Aubrey, bore his misfortunes. After making a display of the most + florid and grandiloquent resignation, and quitting his country mansion, + the writer supposes Aubrey to come to town in a post-chaise and pair, + sitting bodkin probably between his wife and sister. It is about seven + o'clock, carriages are rattling about, knockers are thundering, and tears + bedim the fine eyes of Kate and Mrs. Aubrey as they think that in happier + times at this hour—their Aubrey used formerly to go out to dinner to + the houses of the aristocracy his friends. This is the gist of the passage—the + elegant words I forget. But the noble, noble sentiment I shall always + cherish and remember. What can be more sublime than the notion of a great + man's relatives in tears about—his dinner? With a few touches, what + author ever more happily described A Snob? + </p> + <p> + We were reading the passage lately at the house of my friend, Raymond + Gray, Esquire, Barrister-at-Law, an ingenuous youth without the least + practice, but who has luckily a great share of good spirits, which enables + him to bide his time, and bear laughingly his humble position in the + world. Meanwhile, until it is altered, the stern laws of necessity and the + expenses of the Northern Circuit oblige Mr. Gray to live in a very tiny + mansion in a very queer small square in the airy neighbourhood of Gray's + Inn Lane. + </p> + <p> + What is the more remarkable is, that Gray has a wife there. Mrs. Gray was + a Miss Harley Baker: and I suppose I need not say THAT is a respectable + family. Allied to the Cavendishes, the Oxfords, the Marrybones, they + still, though rather DECHUS from their original splendour, hold their + heads as high as any. Mrs. Harley Baker, I know, never goes to church + without John behind to carry her prayer-book; nor will Miss Welbeck, her + sister, walk twenty yards a-shopping without the protection of Figby, her + sugar-loaf page; though the old lady is as ugly as any woman in the parish + and as tall and whiskery as a grenadier. The astonishment is, how Emily + Harley Baker could have stooped to marry Raymond Gray. She, who was the + prettiest and proudest of the family; she, who refused Sir Cockle Byles, + of the Bengal Service; she, who turned up her little nose at Essex Temple, + Q.C., and connected with the noble house of Albyn; she, who had but + 4,000L. POUR TOUT POTAGE, to marry a man who had scarcely as much more. A + scream of wrath and indignation was uttered by the whole family when they + heard of this MESALLIANCE. Mrs. Harley Baker never speaks of her daughter + now but with tears in her eyes, and as a ruined creature. Miss Welbeck + says, 'I consider that man a villain;' and has denounced poor good-natured + Mrs. Perkins as a swindler, at whose ball the young people met for the + first time. + </p> + <p> + Mr. and Mrs. Gray, meanwhile, live in Gray's Inn Lane aforesaid, with a + maid-servant and a nurse, whose hands are very full, and in a most + provoking and unnatural state of happiness. They have never once thought + of crying about their dinner, like the wretchedly puling and Snobbish + womankind of my favourite Snob Aubrey, of 'Ten Thousand a Year;' but, on + the contrary, accept such humble victuals as fate awards them with a most + perfect and thankful good grace—nay, actually have a portion for a + hungry friend at times—as the present writer can gratefully testify. + </p> + <p> + I was mentioning these dinners, and some admirable lemon puddings which + Mrs. Gray makes, to our mutual friend the great Mr. Goldmore, the East + India Director, when that gentleman's face assumed an expression of almost + apoplectic terror, and he gasped out, 'What! Do they give dinners?' He + seemed to think it a crime and a wonder that such people should dine at + all, and that it was their custom to huddle round their kitchen-fire over + a bone and a crust. Whenever he meets them in society, it is a matter of + wonder to him (and he always expresses his surprise very loud) how the + lady can appear decently dressed, and the man have an unpatched coat to + his back. I have heard him enlarge upon this poverty before the whole room + at the 'Conflagrative Club,' to which he and I and Gray have the honour to + belong. + </p> + <p> + We meet at the Club on most days. At half-past four, Goldmore arrives in + St. James's Street, from the City, and you may see him reading the evening + papers in the bow-window of the Club, which enfilades Pall Mall—a + large plethoric man, with a bunch of seals in a large bow-windowed light + waistcoat. He has large coat-tails, stuffed with agents' letters and + papers about companies of which he is a Director. His seals jingle as he + walks. I wish I had such a man for an uncle, and that he himself were + childless. I would love and cherish him, and be kind to him. + </p> + <p> + At six o'clock in the full season, when all the world is in St. James's + Street, and the carriages are cutting in and out among the cabs on the + stand, and the tufted dandies are showing their listless faces out of + 'White's,' and you see respectable grey-headed gentlemen waggling their + heads to each other through the plate-glass windows of 'Arthur's:' and the + red-coats wish to be Briareian, so as to hold all the gentlemen's horses; + and that wonderful red-coated royal porter is sunning himself before + Marlborough House;—at the noon of London time, you see a + light-yellow carriage with black horses, and a coachman in a tight + floss-silk wig, and two footmen in powder and white and yellow liveries, + and a large woman inside in shot-silk, a poodle, and a pink parasol, which + drives up to the gate of the Conflagrative, and the page goes and says to + Mr. Goldmore (who is perfectly aware of the fact, as he is looking out of + the windows with about forty other 'Conflagrative' bucks), 'Your carriage, + Sir.' G. wags his head. 'Remember, eight o'clock precisely,' says he to + Mulligatawney, the other East India Director; and, ascending the carriage, + plumps down by the side of Mrs. Goldmore for a drive in the Park, and then + home to Portland Place. As the carriage whirls off, all the young bucks in + the Club feel a secret elation. It is a part of their establishment, as it + were. That carriage belongs to their Club, and their Club belongs to them. + They follow the equipage with interest; they eye it knowingly as they see + it in the Park. But halt! we are not come to the Club Snobs yet. O my + brave Snobs, what a flurry there will be among you when those papers + appear! + </p> + <p> + Well, you may judge, from the above description, what sort of a man + Goldmore is. A dull and pompous Leadenhall Street Croesus, good-natured + withal, and affable—cruelly affable. 'Mr. Goldmore can never + forget,' his lady used to say, 'that it was Mrs. Gray's Grandfather who + sent him to India; and though that young woman has made the most imprudent + marriage in the world, and has left her station in society, her husband + seems an ingenious and laborious young man, and we shall do everything in + our power to be of use to him.' So they used to ask the Grays to dinner + twice or thrice in a season, when, by way of increasing the kindness, + Buff, the butler, is ordered to hire a fly to convey them to and from + Portland Place. + </p> + <p> + Of course I am much too good-natured a friend of both parties not to tell + Gray of Goldmore's opinion in him, and the nabob's astonishment at the of + the briefless barrister having any dinner at all. Indeed, Goldmore's + saying became a joke against Gray amongst us wags at the Club, and we used + to ask him when he tasted meat last? whether we should bring him home + something from dinner? and cut a thousand other mad pranks with him in our + facetious way. + </p> + <p> + One day, then, coming home from the Club, Mr. Gray conveyed to his wife + the astounding information that he had asked Goldmore to dinner. + </p> + <p> + 'My love,' says Mrs. Gray, in a tremor, 'how could you be so cruel? Why, + the dining-room won't hold Mrs. Goldmore.' + </p> + <p> + 'Make your mind easy, Mrs. Gray; her ladyship is in Paris. It is only + Croesus that's coming, and we are going to the play afterwards—to + Sadler's Wells. Goldmore said at the Club that he thought Shakspeare was a + great dramatic poet, and ought to be patronized; whereupon, fired with + enthusiasm, I invited him to our banquet.' + </p> + <p> + 'Goodness gracious! what CAN we give him for dinner? He has two French + cooks; you know Mrs. Goldmore is always telling us about them; and he + dines with Aldermen every day.' + </p> + <p> + '“A plain leg of mutton, my Lucy, I prythee get ready at three; Have it + tender, and smoking, and juicy, And what better meat can there be?”' + </p> + <p> + says Gray, quoting my favourite poet. + </p> + <p> + 'But the cook is ill; and you know that horrible Pattypan the pastrycook's—-' + </p> + <p> + 'Silence, Frau!' says Gray, in a deep tragedy voice. 'I will have the + ordering of this repast. Do all things as I bid thee. Invite our friend + Snob here to partake of the feast. Be mine the task of procuring it.' + </p> + <p> + 'Don't be expensive, Raymond,' says his wife. + </p> + <p> + 'Peace, thou timid partner of the briefless one. Goldmore's dinner shall + be suited to our narrow means. Only do thou in all things my commands.' + And seeing by the peculiar expression of the rogue's countenance, that + some mad waggery was in preparation, I awaited the morrow with anxiety. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXV—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + </h2> + <p> + Punctual to the hour—(by the way, I cannot omit to mark down my + hatred, scorn, and indignation towards those miserable Snobs who come to + dinner at nine when they are asked at eight, in order to make a sensation + in the company. May the loathing of honest folks, the backbiting of + others, the curses of cooks, pursue these wretches, and avenge the society + on which they trample!)—Punctual, I say, to the hour of five, which + Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Gray had appointed, a youth of an elegant appearance, + in a neat evening-dress, whose trim whiskers indicated neatness, whose + light step denoted activity (for in sooth he was hungry, and always is at + the dinner hour, whatsoever that hour may be), and whose rich golden hair, + curling down his shoulders, was set off by a perfectly new + four-and-ninepenny silk hat, was seen wending his way down Bittlestone + Street, Bittlestone Square, Gray's Inn. The person in question, I need not + say, was Mr. Snob. HE was never late when invited to dine. But to proceed + my narrative:— + </p> + <p> + Mr. Snob may have flattered himself that he made a sensation as he + strutted down Bittlestone with his richly gilt knobbed cane (and indeed I + vow I saw heads looking at me from Miss Squilsby's, the brass-plated + milliner opposite Raymond Gray's, who has three silver-paper bonnets, and + two fly-blown prints of fashion in the window), yet what was the emotion + produced by my arrival, compared to that which the little street thrilled, + when at five minutes past five the floss-wigged coachman, the yellow + hammer-cloth and flunkeys, the black horses and blazing silver harness of + Mr. Goldmore whirled down the street! + </p> + <p> + It is a very little street, of very little houses, most of them with very + large brass plates like Miss Squilsby's. Coal-merchants, architects and + surveyors, two surgeons, a solicitor, a dancing-master, and of course + several house-agents, occupy the houses—little two-storeyed edifices + with little stucco porticoes. Goldmore's carriage overtopped the roofs + almost; the first floors might shake hands with Croesus as he lolled + inside; all the windows of those first floors thronged with children and + women in a twinkling. There was Mrs. Hammerly in curl-papers; Mrs. Saxby + with her front awry; Mr. Wriggles peering through the gauze curtains, + holding the while his hot glass of rum-and-water—in fine, a + tremendous commotion in Bittlestone Street, as the Goldmore carriage drove + up to Mr. Raymond Gray's door. + </p> + <p> + 'How kind it is of him to come with BOTH the footmen!' says little Mrs. + Gray, peeping at the vehicle too. The huge domestic, descending from his + perch, gave a rap at the door which almost drove in the building. All the + heads were out; the sun was shining; the very organ-boy paused; the + footman, the coach, and Goldmore's red face and white waistcoat were + blazing in splendour. The herculean plushed one went back to open the + carriage-door. + </p> + <p> + Raymond Gray opened his—in his shirt-sleeves. He ran up to the + carriage. 'Come in, Goldmore,' says he; 'just in time, my boy. Open the + door, What-d'ye-call'um, and let your master out,'—and + What-d'ye-call'um obeyed mechanically, with a face of wonder and horror, + only to be equalled by the look of stupefied astonishment which ornamented + the purple countenance of his master. + </p> + <p> + 'Wawt taim will you please have the CAGE, sir?' says What-d'ye-call'um, in + that peculiar, unspellable, inimitable, flunkefied pronunciation which + forms one of the chief charms of existence. + </p> + <p> + Best have it to the theatre at night,' Gray exclaims; 'it is but a step + from here to the Wells, and we can walk there. I've got tickets for all. + Be at Sadler's Wells at eleven.' + </p> + <p> + 'Yes, at eleven,' exclaims Goldmore, perturbedly, and walks with a + flurried step into the house, as if he were going to execution (as indeed + he was, with that wicked Gray as a Jack Ketch over him). The carriage + drove away, followed by numberless eyes from doorsteps and balconies; its + appearance is still a wonder in Bittlestone Street. + </p> + <p> + 'Go in there, and amuse yourself with Snob,' says Gray, opening the little + drawing-room door. 'I'll call out as soon as the chops are ready. Fanny's + below, seeing to the pudding.' + </p> + <p> + 'Gracious mercy!' says Goldmore to me, quite confidentially, 'how could he + ask us? I really had no idea of this—this utter destitution.' + </p> + <p> + 'Dinner, dinner!' roars out Gray, from the diningroom, whence issued a + great smoking and frying; and entering that apartment we find Mrs. Gray + ready to receive us, and looking perfectly like a Princess who, by some + accident, had a bowl of potatoes in her hand, which vegetables she placed + on the table. Her husband 'was meanwhile cooking mutton-chops on a + gridiron over the fire. + </p> + <p> + Fanny has made the roly-poly pudding,' says he; the chops are my part. + Here's a fine one; try this, Goldmore.' And he popped a fizzing cutlet on + that gentleman's plate. What words, what notes of exclamation can describe + the nabob's astonishment? + </p> + <p> + The tablecloth was a very old one, darned in a score places. There was + mustard in a teacup, a silver fork for Goldmore—all ours were iron. + </p> + <p> + 'I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth,' says Gray, gravely. 'That + fork is the only one we have. Fanny has it generally.' + </p> + <p> + 'Raymond!'—cries Mrs. Gray, with an imploring face. 'She was used to + better things, you know: and I hope one day to get her a dinner-service. + I'm told the electro-plate is uncommonly good. Where the deuce IS that boy + with the beer? And now,' said he, springing up, 'I'll be a gentleman.' And + so he put on his coat, and sat down quite gravely, with four fresh + mutton-chops which he had by this time broiled. + </p> + <p> + 'We don't have meat every day, Mr. Goldmore,' he continued, 'and it's a + treat to me to get a dinner like this. You little know, you gentlemen of + England, who live at home at ease, what hardships briefless barristers + endure.' + </p> + <p> + 'Gracious mercy!' says Mr. Goldmore. + </p> + <p> + 'Where's the half-and-half? Fanny, go over to the 'Keys' and get the beer. + Here's sixpence.' And what was our astonishment when Fanny got up as if to + go! + </p> + <p> + 'Gracious mercy! let ME,' cries Goldmore. + </p> + <p> + 'Not for worlds, my dear sir. She's used to it. They wouldn't serve you as + well as they serve her. Leave her alone. Law bless you!' Raymond said, + with astounding composure. And Mrs. Gray left the room, and actually came + back with a tray on which there was a pewter flagon of beer. Little Polly + (to whom, at her christening, I had the honour of presenting a silver mug + EX OFFICIO) followed with a couple of tobacco-pipes, and the queerest + roguish look in her round little chubby face. + </p> + <p> + 'Did you speak to Tapling about the gin, Fanny, my dear?' Gray asked, + after bidding Polly put the pipes on the chimney-piece, which that little + person had some difficulty in reaching. 'The last was turpentine, and even + your brewing didn't make good punch of it.' + </p> + <p> + 'You would hardly suspect, Goldmore, that my wife, a Harley Baker, would + ever make gin-punch? I think my mother-in-law would commit suicide if she + saw her.' + </p> + <p> + 'Don't be always laughing at mamma, Raymond,' says Mrs. Gray. + </p> + <p> + 'Well, well, she wouldn't die, and I DON'T wish she would. And you don't + make gin-punch, and you don't like it either and—Goldmore do you + drink your beer out of the glass, or out of the pewter?' + </p> + <p> + 'Gracious mercy!' ejaculates Croesus once more, as little Polly, taking + the pot with both her little bunches of hands, offers it, smiling, to that + astonished Director. + </p> + <p> + And so, in a word, the dinner commenced, and was presently ended in a + similar fashion. Gray pursued his unfortunate guest with the most queer + and outrageous description of his struggles, misery, and poverty. He + described how he cleaned the knives when they were first married; and how + he used to drag the children in a little cart; how his wife could toss + pancakes; and what parts of his dress she made. He told Tibbits, his clerk + (who was in fact the functionary who had brought the beer from the + public-house, which Mrs. Fanny had fetched from the neighbouring + apartment)—to fetch 'the bottle of port-wine,' when the dinner was + over; and told Goldmore as wonderful a history about the way in which that + bottle of wine had come into his hands as any of his former stories had + been. When the repast was all over, and it was near time to move to the + play, and Mrs. Gray had retired, and we were sitting ruminating rather + silently over the last glasses of the port, Gray suddenly breaks the + silence by slapping Goldmore on the shoulder, and saying, 'Now, Goldmore, + tell me something.' + </p> + <p> + 'What?' asks Croesus. + </p> + <p> + 'Haven't you had a good dinner?' + </p> + <p> + Goldmore started, as if a sudden truth had just dawned upon him. He HAD + had a good dinner; and didn't know it until then. The three mutton-chops + consumed by him were best of the mutton kind; the potatoes were perfect of + their order; as for the rolypoly, it was too good. The porter was frothy + and cool, and the port-wine was worthy of the gills of a bishop. I speak + with ulterior views; for there is more in Gray's cellar. + </p> + <p> + 'Well,' says Goldmore, after a pause, during which he took time to + consider the momentous question Gray put to him—' 'Pon my word—now + you say so—I—I have—I really have had a monsous good + dinnah—monsous good, upon my ward! Here's your health, Gray my boy, + and your amiable lady; and when Mrs. Goldmore comes back, I hope we shall + see you more in Portland Place.' And with this the time came for the play, + and we went to see Mr. Phelps at Sadler's Wells. The best of this story + (for the truth of every word of which I pledge my honour) is, that after + this banquet, which Goldmore enjoyed so, the honest fellow felt a + prodigious compassion and regard for the starving and miserable giver of + the feast, and determined to help him in his profession. And being a + Director of the newly-established Antibilious Life Assurance Company, he + has had Gray appointed Standing Counsel, with a pretty annual fee; and + only yesterday, in an appeal from Bombay (Buckmuckjee Bobbachee v. + Ramchowder-Bahawder) in the Privy Council, Lord Brougham complimented Mr. + Gray, who was in the case, on his curious and exact knowledge of the + Sanscrit language. + </p> + <p> + Whether he knows Sanscrit or not, I can't say; but Goldmore got him the + business; and so I cannot help having a lurking regard for that pompous + old Bigwig. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXVI—SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + </h2> + <p> + 'We Bachelors in Clubs are very much obliged to you,' says my old school + and college companion, Essex Temple, 'for the opinion which you hold of + us. You call us selfish, purple-faced, bloated, and other pretty names. + You state, in the simplest possible terms, that we shall go to the deuce. + You bid us rot in loneliness, and deny us all claims to honesty, conduct, + decent Christian life. Who are you, Mr. Snob, to judge us. Who are you, + with your infernal benevolent smirk and grin, that laugh at all our + generation? + </p> + <p> + 'I will tell you my case,' says Essex Temple; 'mine and my sister Polly's, + and you may make what you like of it; and sneer at old maids, and bully + old bachelors, if you will. + </p> + <p> + 'I will whisper to you confidentially that my sister was engaged to + Serjeant Shirker—a fellow whose talents one cannot deny, and be + hanged to them, but whom I have always known to be mean, selfish, and a + prig. However, women don't see these faults in the men whom Love throws in + their way. Shirker, who has about as much warmth as an eel, made up to + Polly years and years ago, and was no bad match for a briefless barrister, + as he was then. + </p> + <p> + Have you ever read Lord Eldon's Life? Do you remember how the sordid old + Snob narrates his going out to purchase twopence-worth of sprats, which he + and Mrs. Scott fried between them? And how he parades his humility, and + exhibits his miserable poverty—he who, at that time, must have been + making a thousand pounds a year? Well, Shirker was just as proud of his + prudence—just as thankful for his own meanness, and of course would + not marry without a competency. Who so honourable? Polly waited, and + waited faintly, from year to year. HE wasn't sick at heart; HIS passion + never disturbed his six hours' sleep, or kept his ambition out of mind. He + would rather have hugged an attorney any day than have kissed Polly, + though she was one of the prettiest creatures in the world; and while she + was pining alone upstairs, reading over the stock of half-a-dozen frigid + letters that the confounded prig had condescended to write to her, HE, be + sure, was never busy with anything but his briefs in chambers—always + frigid, rigid, self-satisfied, and at his duty. The marriage trailed on + year after year, while Mr. Serjeant Shirker grew to be the famous lawyer + he is. + </p> + <p> + 'Meanwhile, my younger brother, Pump Temple, who was in the 120th Hussars, + and had the same little patrimony which fell to the lot of myself and + Polly, must fall in love with our cousin, Fanny Figtree, and marry her out + of hand. You should have seen the wedding! Six bridesmaids in pink, to + hold the fan, bouquet, gloves, scent-bottle, and pocket-handkerchief of + the bride; basketfuls of white favours in the vestry, to be pinned on to + the footmen and horses; a genteel congregation of curious acquaintance in + the pews, a shabby one of poor on the steps; all the carriages of all our + acquaintance, whom Aunt Figtree had levied for the occasion; and of course + four horses for Mr. Pump's bridal vehicle. + </p> + <p> + 'Then comes the breakfast, or DEJEUNER, if you please, with a brass band + in the street, and policemen to keep order. The happy bridegroom spends + about a year's income in dresses for the bridesmaids and pretty presents; + and the bride must have a TROUSSEAU of laces, satins, jewel-boxes and + tomfoolery, to make her fit to be a lieutenant's wife. There was no + hesitation about Pump. He flung about his money as if it had been dross; + and Mrs. P. Temple, on the horse Tom Tiddler, which her husband gave her, + was the most dashing of military women at Brighton or Dublin. + </p> + <p> + How old Mrs. Figtree used to bore me and Polly with stories of Pump's + grandeur and the noble company he kept! Polly lives with the Figtrees, as + I am not rich enough to keep a home for her. + </p> + <p> + 'Pump and I have always been rather distant. Not having the slightest + notions about horseflesh, he has a natural contempt for me; and in our + mother's lifetime, when the good old lady was always paying his debts and + petting him, I'm not sure there was not a little jealousy. It used to be + Polly that kept the peace between us. + </p> + <p> + 'She went to Dublin to visit Pump, and brought back grand accounts of his + doings—gayest man about town—Aide-de-Camp to the + Lord-Lieutenant—Fanny admired everywhere—Her Excellency + godmother to the second boy: the eldest with a string of aristocratic + Christian-names that made the grandmother wild with delight. Presently + Fanny and Pump obligingly came to London, where the third was born. + </p> + <p> + 'Polly was godmother to this, and who so loving as she and Pump now? “Oh, + Essex,” says she to me, “he is so good, so generous, so fond of his + family; so handsome; who can help loving him, and pardoning his little + errors?” One day, while Mrs. Pump was yet in the upper regions, and Doctor + Fingerfee's brougham at her door every day, having business at Guildhall, + whom should I meet in Cheapside but Pump and Polly? The poor girl looked + more happy and rosy than I have seen her these twelve years. Pump, on the + contrary, was rather blushing and embarrassed. + </p> + <p> + 'I couldn't be mistaken in her face and its look of mischief and triumph. + She had been committing some act of sacrifice. I went to the family + stockbroker. She had sold out two thousand pounds that morning and given + them to Pump. Quarrelling was useless—Pump had the money; he was off + to Dublin by the time I reached his mother's, and Polly radiant still. He + was going to make his fortune; he was going to embark the money in the Bog + of Allen—I don't know what. The fact is, he was going to pay his + losses upon the last Manchester steeple-chase, and I leave you to imagine + how much principal or interest poor Polly ever saw back again. + </p> + <p> + 'It was more than half her fortune, and he has had another thousand since + from her. Then came efforts to stave off ruin and prevent exposure; + struggles on all our parts, and sacrifices, that' (here Mr. Essex Temple + began to hesitate)—'that needn't be talked of; but they are of no + more use than such sacrifices ever are. Pump and his wife are abroad—I + don't like to ask where; Polly has the three children, and Mr. Serjeant + Shirker has formally written to break off an engagement, on the conclusion + of which Miss Temple must herself have speculated, when she alienated the + greater part of her fortune. + </p> + <p> + 'And here's your famous theory of poor marriages!' Essex Temple cries, + concluding the above history. 'How do you know that I don't want to marry + myself? How do you dare sneer at my poor sister? What are we but martyrs + of the reckless marriage system which Mr. Snob, forsooth, chooses to + advocate?' And he thought he had the better of the argument, which, + strange to say, is not my opinion. + </p> + <p> + But for the infernal Snob-worship, might not every one of these people be + happy? If poor Polly's happiness lay in linking her tender arms round such + a heartless prig as the sneak who has deceived her, she might have been + happy now—as happy as Raymond Raymond in the ballad, with the stone + statue by his side. She is wretched because Mr. Serjeant Shirker worships + money and ambition, and is a Snob and a coward. + </p> + <p> + If the unfortunate Pump Temple and his giddy hussy of a wife have ruined + themselves, and dragged down others into their calamity, it is because + they loved rank, and horses, and plate, and carriages, and COURT GUIDES, + and millinery, and would sacrifice all to attain those objects. + </p> + <p> + And who misguides them? If the world were more simple, would not those + foolish people follow the fashion? Does not the world love COURT GUIDES, + and millinery, and plate, and carriages? Mercy on us! Read the fashionable + intelligence; read the COURT CIRCULAR; read the genteel novels; survey + mankind, from Pimlico to Red Lion Square, and see how the Poor Snob is + aping the Rich Snob; how the Mean Snob is grovelling at the feet of the + Proud Snob; and the Great Snob is lording it over his humble brother. Does + the idea of equality ever enter Dives' head? Will it ever? Will the + Duchess of Fitzbattleaxe (I like a good name) ever believe that Lady + Croesus, her next-door neighbour in Belgrave Square, is as good a lady as + her Grace? Will Lady Croesus ever leave off pining the Duchess's parties, + and cease patronizing Mrs. Broadcloth whose husband has not got his + Baronetcy yet? Will Mrs. Broadcloth ever heartily shake hands with Mrs. + Seedy, and give up those odious calculations about poor dear Mrs. Seedy's + income? Will Mrs. Seedy who is starving in her great house, go and live + comfortably in a little one, or in lodgings? Will her landlady, Miss + Letsam, ever stop wondering at the familiarity of tradespeople, or + rebuking the insolence of Suky, the maid, who wears flowers under her + bonnet like a lady? + </p> + <p> + But why hope, why wish for such times? Do I wish all Snobs to perish? Do I + wish these Snob papers to determine? Suicidal fool, art not thou, too, a + Snob and a brother? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXVII—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + As I wish to be particularly agreeable to the ladies (to whom I make my + most humble obeisance), we will now, if you please, commence maligning a + class of Snobs against whom, I believe, most female minds are embittered—I + mean Club Snobs. I have very seldom heard even the most gentle and + placable woman speak without a little feeling of bitterness against those + social institutions, those palaces swaggering in St. James's, which are + open to the men; while the ladies have but their dingy three-windowed + brick boxes in Belgravia or in Paddingtonia, or in the region between the + road of Edgware and that of Gray's Inn. + </p> + <p> + In my grandfather's time it used to be Freemasonry that roused their + anger. It was my grand-aunt (whose portrait we still have in the family) + who got into the clock-case at the Royal Rosicrucian Lodge at Bungay, + Suffolk, to spy the proceedings of the Society, of which her husband was a + member, and being frightened by the sudden whirring and striking eleven of + the clock (just as the Deputy-Grand-Master was bringing in the mystic + gridiron for the reception of a neophyte), rushed out into the midst of + the lodge assembled; and was elected, by a desperate unanimity, + Deputy-Grand-Mistress for life. Though that admirable and courageous + female never subsequently breathed a word with regard to the secrets of + the initiation, yet she inspired all our family with such a terror + regarding the mysteries of Jachin and Boaz, that none of our family have + ever since joined the Society, or worn the dreadful Masonic insignia. + </p> + <p> + It is known that Orpheus was torn to pieces by some justly indignant + Thracian ladies for belonging to an Harmonic Lodge. 'Let him go back to + Eurydice,' they said, 'whom he is pretending to regret so.' But the + history is given in Dr. Lempriere's elegant dictionary in a manner much + more forcible than any this feeble pen can attempt. At once, then, and + without verbiage, let us take up this subject-matter of Clubs. + </p> + <p> + Clubs ought not, in my mind, to be permitted to bachelors. If my friend of + the Cuttykilts had not our club, the 'Union Jack,' to go to (I belong to + the 'U.J. and nine other similar institutions), who knows but he never + would be a bachelor at this present moment? Instead of being made + comfortable, and cockered up with every luxury, as they are at Clubs, + bachelors ought to be rendered profoundly miserable, in my opinion. Every + encouragement should be given to the rendering their spare time + disagreeable. There can be no more odious object, according to my + sentiments, than young Smith in the pride of health, commanding his dinner + of three courses; than middle-aged Jones wallowing (as I may say) in an + easy padded arm-chair, over the delicious novel or brilliant magazine; or + than old Brown, that selfish old reprobate for whom mere literature has no + charms, stretched on the best sofa, sitting on the second edition of THE + TIMES, having the MORNING CHRONICLE between his knees, the HERALD pushed + in between his coat and waistcoat, the STANDARD under his arm, the GLOBE + under the other pinion, and the DAILY NEWS in perusal. 'I'll trouble you + for PUNCH, Mr. Wiggins' says the unconscionable old gormandiser, + interrupting our friend, who is laughing over the periodical in question. + </p> + <p> + This kind of selfishness ought not to be. No, no. Young Smith, instead of + his dinner and his wine, ought to be, where?—at the festive + tea-table, to be sure, by the side of Miss Higgs, sipping the bohea, or + tasting the harmless muffin; while old Mrs. Higgs looks on, pleased at + their innocent dalliance, and my friend Miss Wirt, the governess, is + performing Thalberg's last sonata in treble X., totally unheeded, at the + piano. + </p> + <p> + Where should the middle-aged Jones be? At his time of life, he ought to be + the father of a family. At such an hour—say, at nine o'clock at + night—the nursery-bell should have just rung the children to bed. He + and Mrs. J. ought to be, by rights, seated on each side of the fire by the + dining-room table, a bottle of port-wine between them, not so full as it + was an hour since. Mrs. J. has had two glasses; Mrs. Grumble (Jones's + mother-in-law) has had three; Jones himself has finished the rest, and + dozes comfortably until bed-time. + </p> + <p> + And Brown, that old newspaper-devouring miscreant, what right has HE at a + club at a decent hour of night? He ought to be playing his rubber with + Miss MacWhirter, his wife, and the family apothecary. His candle ought to + be brought to him at ten o'clock, and he should retire to rest just as the + young people were thinking of a dance. How much finer, simpler, nobler are + the several employments I have sketched out for these gentlemen than their + present nightly orgies at the horrid Club. + </p> + <p> + And, ladies, think of men who do not merely frequent the dining-room and + library, but who use other apartments of those horrible dens which it is + my purpose to batter down; think of Cannon, the wretch, with his coat off, + at his age and size, clattering the balls over the billiard-table all + night, and making bets with that odious Captain Spot!—think of Pam + in a dark room with Bob Trumper, Jack Deuceace, and Charley Vole, playing, + the poor dear misguided wretch, guinea points and five pounds on the + rubber!—above all, think—oh, think of that den of abomination, + which, I am told, has been established in SOME clubs, called THE + SMOKING-ROOM,—think of the debauchees who congregate there, the + quantities of reeking whisky-punch or more dangerous sherry-cobbler which + they consume;—think of them coming home at cock-crow and letting + themselves into the quiet house with the Chubb key;—think of them, + the hypocrites, taking off their insidious boots before they slink + upstairs, the children sleeping overhead, the wife of their bosom alone + with the waning rushlight in the two-pair front—that chamber so soon + to be rendered hateful by the smell of their stale cigars: I am not an + advocate of violence; I am not, by nature, of an incendiary turn of mind: + but if, my dear ladies, you are for assassinating Mr. Chubb and burning + down Club-houses in St. James's, there is ONE Snob at who will not think + the worse of you. + </p> + <p> + The only men who, as I opine, ought to be allowed the use of Clubs, are + married men without a profession. The continual presence of these in a + house cannot be thought, even by the most loving of wives, desirable. Say + the girls are beginning to practise their music, which in an honourable + English family, ought to occupy every young gentlewoman three hours; it + would be rather hard to call upon poor papa to sit in the drawing-room all + that time, and listen to the interminable discords and shrieks which are + elicited from the miserable piano during the above necessary operation. A + man with a good ear, especially, would go mad, if compelled daily to + submit to this horror. + </p> + <p> + Or suppose you have a fancy to go to the milliner's, or to Howell and + James's, it is manifest, my dear Madam, that your husband is much better + at the Club during these operations than by your side in the carriage, or + perched in wonder upon one of the stools at Shawl and Gimcrack's, whilst + young counter-dandies are displaying their wares. + </p> + <p> + This sort of husbands should be sent out after breakfast, and if not + Members of Parliament, or Directors of a Railroad, or an Insurance + Company, should be put into their clubs, and told to remain there until + dinner-time. No sight is more agreeable to my truly regulated mind than to + see the noble characters so worthily employed. Whenever I pass by St. + James's Street, having the privilege, like the rest of the world, of + looking in at the windows of 'Blight's,' or 'Foodle's,' or 'Snook's,' or + the great bay at the 'Contemplative Club,' I behold with respectful + appreciation the figures within—the honest rosy old fogies, the + mouldy old dandies, the waist-belts and glossy wigs and tight cravats of + those most vacuous and respectable men. Such men are best there during the + day-time surely. When you part with them, dear ladies, think of the + rapture consequent on their return. You have transacted your household + affairs; you have made your purchases; you have paid your visits; you have + aired your poodle in the Park; your French maid has completed the toilette + which renders you so ravishingly beautiful by candlelight, and you are fit + to make home pleasant to him who has been absent all day. + </p> + <p> + Such men surely ought to have their Clubs, and we will not class them + among Club Snobs therefore:—on whom let us reserve our attack for + the next chapter. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXVIII—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Such a Sensation has been created in the Clubs by the appearance of the + last paper on Club Snobs, as can't but be complimentary to me who am one + of their number. + </p> + <p> + I belong to many Clubs. The 'Union Jack,' the 'Sash and Marlin-spike'—Military + Clubs. 'The True Blue,' the 'No Surrender,' the 'Blue and Buff,' the 'Guy + Fawkes,' and the 'Cato Street'—Political Clubs. 'The Brummel' and + the 'Regent'—Dandy Clubs. The 'Acropolis,' the 'Palladium,' the + 'Areopagus,' the 'Pnyx' the 'Pentelicus,' the 'Ilissus' and the + 'Poluphloisboio Thalasses'—Literary Clubs. I never could make out + how the latter set of Clubs got their names; I don't know Greek for one, + and I wonder how many other members of those institutions do? Ever since + the Club Snobs have been announced, I observe a sensation created on my + entrance into any one of these places. Members get up and hustle together; + they nod, they scowl, as they glance towards the present Snob. 'Infernal + impudent jackanapes! If he shows me up,' says Colonel Bludyer, 'I'll break + every bone in his skin.' 'I told you what would come of admitting literary + men into the Club,' says Ranville Ranville to his colleague, Spooney, of + the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office. 'These people are very well in their + proper places, and as a public man, I make a point of shaking hands with + them, and that sort of thing; but to have one's privacy obtruded upon by + such people is really too much. Come along, Spooney,' and the pair of + prigs retire superciliously. + </p> + <p> + As I came into the coffee-room at the 'No Surrender,' old Jawkins was + holding out to a knot of men, who were yawning, as usual. There he stood, + waving the STANDARD, and swaggering before the fire. 'What,' says he, 'did + I tell Peel last year? If you touch the Corn Laws, you touch the Sugar + Question; if you touch the Sugar, you touch the Tea. I am no monopolist. I + am a liberal man, but I cannot forget that I stand on the brink of a + precipice; and if were to have Free Trade, give me reciprocity. And what + was Sir Robert Peel's answer to me? “Mr. Jawkins,” he said—' + </p> + <p> + Here Jawkins's eye suddenly turning on your humble servant, he stopped his + sentence, with a guilty look—his stale old stupid sentence, which + every one of us at the Club has heard over and over again. + </p> + <p> + Jawkins is a most pertinacious Club Snob. Every day he is at that + fireplace, holding that STANDARD, of which he reads up the + leading-article, and pours it out ORE ROTUNDO, with the most astonishing + composure, in the face of his neighbour, who has just read every word of + it in the paper. Jawkins has money, as you may see by the tie of his + neckcloth. He passes the morning swaggering about the City, in bankers' + and brokers parlours, and says:—'I spoke with Peel yesterday, and + his intentions are so and so. Graham and I were talking over the matter, + and I pledge you my word of honour, his opinion coincides with mine; and + that What-d'ye-call-um is the only measure Government will venture on + trying.' By evening-paper time he is at the Club: 'I can tell you the + opinion of the City, my lord,' says he, 'and the way in which Jones Loyd + looks at it is briefly this: Rothschilds told me so themselves. In Mark + Lane, people's minds are QUITE made up.' He is considered rather a + well-informed man. + </p> + <p> + He lives in Belgravia, of course; in a drab-coloured genteel house, and + has everything about him that is properly grave, dismal, and comfortable. + His dinners are in the MORNING HERALD, among the parties for the week; and + his wife and daughters make a very handsome appearance at the + Drawing-Room, once a year, when he comes down to the Club in his + Deputy-Lieutenant's uniform. + </p> + <p> + He is fond of beginning a speech to you by saying, 'When I was in the + House, I &c.'—in fact he sat for Skittlebury for three weeks in + the first Reformed Parliament, and was unseated for bribery; since which + he has three times unsuccessfully contested that honourable borough. + </p> + <p> + Another sort of Political Snob I have seen at most Clubs and that is the + man who does not care so much for home politics, but is great upon foreign + affairs. I think this sort of man is scarcely found anywhere BUT in Clubs. + It is for him the papers provide their foreign articles, at the expense of + some ten thousand a-year each. He is the man who is really seriously + uncomfortable about the designs of Russia, and the atrocious treachery of + Louis Philippe. He it is who expects a French fleet in the Thames, and has + a constant eye upon the American President, every word of whose speech + (goodness help him!) he reads. He knows the names of the contending + leaders in Portugal, and what they are fighting about: and it is he who + says that Lord Aberdeen ought to be impeached, and Lord Palmerston hanged, + or VICE VERSA. + </p> + <p> + Lord Palmerston's being sold to Russia, the exact number of roubles paid, + by what house in the City, is a favourite theme with this kind of Snob. I + once overheard him—it was Captain Spitfire, R.N., (who had been + refused a ship by the Whigs, by the way)—indulging in the following + conversation with Mr. Minns after dinner. + </p> + <p> + Why wasn't the Princess Scragamoffsky at Lady Palmerston's party, Minns? + Because SHE CAN'T SHOW—why can't she show? Shall I tell you, Minns, + why she can't show? The Princess Scragainoffsky's back is flayed alive, + Minns—I tell you it's raw, sir! On Tuesday last, at twelve o'clock, + three drummers of the Preobajinski Regiment arrived at Ashburnham House, + and at half-past twelve, in the yellow drawing-room at the Russian + Embassy, before the ambassadress and four ladies'-maids, the Greek Papa, + and the Secretary of Embassy, Madame de Scragamoffsky received thirteen + dozen. She was knouted, sir, knouted in the midst of England—in + Berkeley Square, for having said that the Grand Duchess Olga's hair was + red. And now, sir, will you tell me Lord Palmerston ought to continue + Minister?' + </p> + <p> + Minns: 'Good Ged!' + </p> + <p> + Minns follows Spitfire about, and thinks him the greatest and wisest of + human beings. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXIX—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Why does not some great author write 'The Mysteries of the Club-houses; or + St. James's Street unveiled?' It would be a fine subject for an + imaginative writer. We must all, as boys, remember when we went to the + fair, and had spent all our money—the sort of awe and anxiety with + which we loitered round the outside of the show, speculating upon the + nature of the entertainment going on within. + </p> + <p> + Man is a Drama—of Wonder and Passion, and Mystery and Meanness, and + Beauty and Truthfulness, and Etcetera. Each Bosom is a Booth in Vanity + Fair. But let us stop this capital style, I should die if I kept it up for + a column (a pretty thing a column all capitals would be, by the way). In a + Club, though there mayn't be a soul of your acquaintance in the room, you + have always the chance of watching strangers, and speculating on what is + going on within those tents and curtains of their souls, their coats and + waistcoats. This is a never-failing sport. Indeed I am told there are some + Clubs in the town where nobody ever speaks to anybody. They sit in the + coffee-room, quite silent, and watching each other. + </p> + <p> + Yet how little you can tell from a man's outward demeanour! There's a man + at our Club—large, heavy, middle-aged—gorgeously dressed—rather + bald—with lacquered boots—and a boa when he goes out; quiet in + demeanour, always ordering and consuming a RECHERCHE little dinner: whom I + have mistaken for Sir John Pocklington any time these five years, and + respected as a man with five hundred pounds PER DIEM; and I find he is but + a clerk in an office in the City, with not two hundred pounds income, and + his name is Jubber. Sir John Pocklington was, on the contrary, the dirty + little snuffy man who cried out so about the bad quality of the beer, and + grumbled at being overcharged three-halfpence for a herring, seated at the + next table to Jubber on the day when some one pointed the Baronet out to + me. + </p> + <p> + Take a different sort of mystery. I see, for instance, old Fawney stealing + round the rooms of the Club, with glassy, meaningless eyes, and an endless + greasy simper—he fawns on everybody he meets, and shakes hands with + you, and blesses you, and betrays the most tender and astonishing interest + in your welfare. You know him to be a quack and a rogue, and he knows you + know it. But he wriggles on his way, and leaves a track of slimy flattery + after him wherever he goes. Who can penetrate that man's mystery? What + earthly good can he get from you or me? You don't know what is working + under that leering tranquil mask. You have only the dim instinctive + repulsion that warns you, you are in the presence of a knave—beyond + which fact all Fawney's soul is a secret to you. + </p> + <p> + I think I like to speculate on the young men best. Their play is opener. + You know the cards in their hand, as it were. Take, for example, Messrs. + Spavin and Cockspur. + </p> + <p> + A specimen or two of the above sort of young fellows may be found, I + believe, at most Clubs. They know nobody. They bring a fine smell of + cigars into the room with them, and they growl together, in a corner, + about sporting matters. They recollect the history of that short period in + which they have been ornaments of the world by the names of winning + horses. As political men talk about 'the Reform year,' 'the year the Whigs + went out,' and so forth, these young sporting bucks speak of TARNATION'S + year, or OPODELDOC'S year, or the year when CATAWAMPUS ran second for the + Chester Cup. They play at billiards in the morning, they absorb pale ale + for breakfast, and 'top up' with glasses of strong waters. They read + BELL'S LIFE (and a very pleasant paper too, with a great deal of erudition + in the answers to correspondents). They go down to Tattersall's, and + swagger in the Park, with their hands plunged in the pockets of their + paletots. + </p> + <p> + What strikes me especially in the outward demeanour of sporting youth is + their amazing gravity, their conciseness of speech, and careworn and moody + air. In the smoking-room at the 'Regent,' when Joe Millerson will be + setting the whole room in a roar with laughter, you hear young Messrs. + Spavin and Cockspur grumbling together in a corner. 'I'll take your + five-and-twenty to one about Brother to Bluenose,' whispers Spavin. 'Can't + do it at the price,' Cockspur says, wagging his head ominously. The + betting-book is always present in the minds of those unfortunate + youngsters. I think I hate that work even more than the 'Peerage.' There + is some good in the latter—though, generally speaking, a vain + record: though De Mogyns is not descended from the giant Hogyn Mogyn; + though half the other genealogies are equally false and foolish; yet the + mottoes are good reading—some of them; and the book itself a sort of + gold-laced and livened lackey to History, and in so far serviceable. But + what good ever came out of, or went into, a betting-book? If I could be + Caliph Omar for a week, I would pitch every one of those despicable + manuscripts into the flames; from my Lord's, who is 'in' with Jack + Snaffle's stable, and is over-reaching worse-informed rogues and swindling + greenhorns, down to Sam's, the butcher-boy's, who books eighteenpenny odds + in the tap-room, and 'stands to win five-and-twenty bob.' + </p> + <p> + In a turf transaction, either Spavin or Cockspur would try to get the + better of his father, and, to gain a point in the odds, victimise his best + friends. One day we shall hear of one or other levanting; an event at + which, not being sporting men, we shall not break our hearts. See—Mr. + Spavin is settling his toilette previous to departure; giving a curl in + the glass to his side-wisps of hair. Look at him! It is only at the hulks, + or among turf-men, that you ever see a face so mean, so knowing, and so + gloomy. + </p> + <p> + A much more humane being among the youthful Clubbists is the Lady-killing + Snob. I saw Wiggle just now in the dressing-room, talking to Waggle, his + inseparable. + </p> + <p> + WAGGLE.—'Pon my honour, Wiggle, she did.' + </p> + <p> + WIGGLE.—'Well, Waggle, as you say—I own I think she DID look + at me rather kindly. We'll see to-night at the French play.' + </p> + <p> + And having arrayed their little persons, these two harmless young bucks go + upstairs to dinner. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XL—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Both sorts of young men, mentioned in my last under the flippant names of + Wiggle and Waggle, may be found in tolerable plenty, I think, in Clubs. + Wiggle and Waggle are both idle. They come of the middle classes. One of + them very likely makes believe to be a barrister, and the other has smart + apartments about Piccadilly. They are a sort of second-chop dandies; they + cannot imitate that superb listlessness of demeanour, and that admirable + vacuous folly which distinguish the noble and high-born chiefs of the + race; but they lead lives almost as bad (were it but for the example), and + are personally quite as useless. I am not going to arm a thunderbolt, and + launch it at the beads of these little Pall Mall butterflies. They don't + commit much public harm, or private extravagance. They don't spend a + thousand pounds for diamond earrings for an Opera-dancer, as Lord Tarquin + can: neither of them ever set up a public-house or broke the bank of a + gambling-club, like the young Earl of Martingale. They have good points, + kind feelings, and deal honourably in money-transactions—only in + their characters of men of second-rate pleasure about town, they and their + like are so utterly mean, self-contented, and absurd, that they must not + be omitted in a work treating on Snobs. + </p> + <p> + Wiggle has been abroad, where he gives you to understand that his success + among the German countesses and Italian princesses, whom he met at the + TABLES-D'HOTE, was perfectly terrific. His rooms are hung round with + pictures of actresses and ballet-dancers. He passes his mornings in a fine + dressing-gown, burning pastilles, and reading 'Don Juan' and French novels + (by the way, the life of the author of 'Don Juan,' as described by + himself, was the model of the life of a Snob). He has twopenny-halfpenny + French prints of women with languishing eyes, dressed in dominoes,—guitars, + gondolas, and so forth,—and tells you stories about them. + </p> + <p> + 'It's a bad print,' says he, 'I know, but I've a reason for liking it. It + reminds me of somebody—somebody I knew in other climes. You have + heard of the Principessa di Monte Pulciano? I met her at Rimini. Dear, + dear Francesca! That fair-haired, bright-eyed thing in the Bird of + Paradise and the Turkish Simar with the love-bird on her finger, I'm sure + must have been taken from—from somebody perhaps whom you don't know—but + she's known at Munich, Waggle my boy,—everybody knows the Countess + Ottilia de Eulenschreckenstein. Gad, sir, what a beautiful creature she + was when I danced with her on the birthday of Prince Attila of Bavaria, in + '44. Prince Carloman was our vis-a-vis, and Prince Pepin danced the same + CONTREDANSE. She had a Polyanthus in her bouquet. Waggle, I HAVE IT NOW.' + His countenance assumes an agonized and mysterious expression, and he + buries his head in the sofa cushions, as if plunging into a whirlpool of + passionate recollections. + </p> + <p> + Last year he made a considerable sensation by having on his table a + morocco miniature-case locked by a gold key, which he always wore round + his neck, and on which was stamped a serpent—emblem of eternity—with + the letter M in the circle. Sometimes he laid this upon his little morocco + writing-table, as if it were on an altar—generally he had flowers + upon it; in the middle of a conversation he would start up and kiss it. He + would call out from his bed-room to his valet, 'Hicks, bring me my + casket!' + </p> + <p> + 'I don't know who it is,' Waggle would say. 'Who DOES know that fellow's + intrigues! Desborough Wiggle, sir, is the slave of passion. I suppose you + have heard the story of the Italian princess locked up in the Convent of + Saint Barbara, at Rimini? He hasn't told you? Then I'm not at liberty to + speak. Or the countess, about whom he nearly had the duel with Prince + Witikind of Bavaria? Perhaps you haven't even heard about that beautiful + girl at Pentonville, daughter of a most respectable Dissenting clergyman. + She broke her heart when she found he was engaged (to a most lovely + creature of high family, who afterwards proved false to him), and she's + now in Hanwell.' + </p> + <p> + Waggle's belief in his friend amounts to frantic adoration. 'What a genius + he is, if he would but apply himself!' he whispers to me. 'He could be + anything, sir, but for his passions. His poems are the most beautiful + things you ever saw. He's written a continuation of “Don Juan,” from his + own adventures. Did you ever read his lines to Mary? They're superior to + Byron, sir—superior to Byron.' + </p> + <p> + I was glad to hear this from so accomplished a critic as Waggle; for the + fact is, I had composed the verses myself for honest Wiggle one day, whom + I found at his chambers plunged in thought over a very dirty old-fashioned + album, in which he had not as yet written a single word. + </p> + <p> + 'I can't,' says he. 'Sometimes I can write whole cantos, and to-day not a + line. Oh, Snob! such an opportunity! Such a divine creature! She's asked + me to write verses for her album, and I can't.' + </p> + <p> + 'Is she rich?' said I. 'I thought you would never marry any but an + heiress.' + </p> + <p> + 'Oh, Snob! she's the most accomplished, highly-connected creature!—and + I can't get out a line.' + </p> + <p> + 'How will you have it?' says I. 'Hot, with sugar?' + </p> + <p> + 'Don't, don't! You trample on the most sacred feelings, Snob. I want + something wild and tender,—like Byron. I want to tell her that + amongst the festive balls, and that sort of thing, you know—I only + think about her, you know—that I scorn the world, and am weary of + it, you know, and—something about a gazelle, and a bulbul, you + know.' + </p> + <p> + 'And a yataghan to finish off with,' the present writer observed, and we + began:— + </p> + <p> + 'TO MARY + </p> + <p> + 'I seem, in the midst of the crowd, The lightest of all; My laughter rings + cheery and loud, In banquet and ball. My lip hath its smiles and its + sneers, For all men to see; But my soul, and my truth, and my tears, Are + for thee, are for thee!' + </p> + <p> + 'Do you call THAT neat, Wiggle?' says I. 'I declare it almost makes me cry + myself.' + </p> + <p> + 'Now suppose,' says Wiggle, 'we say that all the world is at my feet—make + her jealous, you know, and that sort of thing—and that—that + I'm going to TRAVEL, you know? That perhaps may work upon her feelings.' + </p> + <p> + So WE (as this wretched prig said) began again:— + </p> + <p> + 'Around me they flatter and fawn—The young and the old, The fairest + are ready to pawn Their hearts for my gold. They sue me—I laugh as I + spurn The slaves at my knee, But in faith and in fondness I turn Unto + thee, unto thee!' + </p> + <p> + 'Now for the travelling, Wiggle my boy!' And I began, in a voice choked + with emotion— + </p> + <p> + 'Away! for my heart knows no rest Since you taught it to feel; The secret + must die in my breast I burn to reveal; The passion I may not. . . .' + </p> + <p> + 'I say, Snob!' Wiggle here interrupted the excited bard (just as I was + about to break out into four lines so pathetic that they would drive you + into hysterics). 'I say—ahem—couldn't you say that I was—a—military + man, and that there was some danger of my life?' + </p> + <p> + 'You a military man?—danger of your life? What the deuce do you + mean?' + </p> + <p> + 'Why,' said Wiggle, blushing a great deal, 'I told her I was going out—on—the—Ecuador—expedition.' + </p> + <p> + 'You abominable young impostor,' I exclaimed. 'Finish the poem for + yourself!' And so he did, and entirely out of all metre, and bragged about + the work at the Club as his own performance. + </p> + <p> + Poor Waggle fully believed in his friend's genius, until one day last week + he came with a grin on his countenance to the Club, and said, 'Oh, Snob, + I've made SUCH a discovery! Going down to the skating to-day, whom should + I see but Wiggle walking with that splendid woman—that lady of + illustrious family and immense fortune, Mary, you know, whom he wrote the + beautiful verses about. She's five-and-forty. She's red hair. She's a nose + like a pump-handle. Her father made his fortune by keeping a ham-and-beef + shop, and Wiggle's going to marry her next week.' + </p> + <p> + 'So much the better, Waggle, my young friend,' I exclaimed. 'Better for + the sake of womankind that this dangerous dog should leave off + lady-killing—this Blue-Beard give up practice. Or, better rather for + his own sake. For as there is not a word of truth in any of those + prodigious love-stories which you used to swallow, nobody has been hurt + except Wiggle himself, whose affections will now centre in the + ham-and-beef shop. There ARE people, Mr. Waggle, who do these things in + earnest, and hold a good rank in the world too. But these are not subjects + for ridicule, and though certainly Snobs, are scoundrels likewise. Their + cases go up to a higher Court.' + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XLI—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Bacchus is the divinity to whom Waggle devotes his especial worship. 'Give + me wine, my boy,' says he to his friend Wiggle, who is prating about + lovely woman; and holds up his glass full of the rosy fluid, and winks at + it portentously, and sips it, and smacks his lips after it, and meditates + on it, as if he were the greatest of connoisseurs. + </p> + <p> + I have remarked this excessive wine-amateurship especially in youth. + Snoblings from college, Fledglings from the army, Goslings from the public + schools, who ornament our Clubs, are frequently to be heard in great force + upon wine questions. 'This bottle's corked,' says Snobling; and Mr. Sly, + the butler, taking it away, returns presently with the same wine in + another jug, which the young amateur pronounces excellent. 'Hang + champagne!' says Fledgling, 'it's only fit for gals and children. Give me + pale sherry at dinner, and my twenty-three claret afterwards.' 'What's + port now?' says Gosling; 'disgusting thick sweet stuff—where's the + old dry wine one USED to get?' Until the last twelvemonth, Fledgling drank + small-beer at Doctor Swishtail's; and Gosling used to get his dry old port + at a gin-shop in Westminster—till he quitted that seminary, in 1844. + </p> + <p> + Anybody who has looked at the caricatures of thirty years ago, must + remember how frequently bottle-noses, pimpled faces, and other Bardolphian + features are introduced by the designer. They are much more rare now (in + nature, and in pictures, therefore,) than in those good old times; but + there are still to be found amongst the youth of our Clubs lads who glory + in drinking-bouts, and whose faces, quite sickly and yellow, for the most + part are decorated with those marks which Rowland's Kalydor is said to + efface. 'I was SO cut last night—old boy!' Hopkins says to Tomkins + (with amiable confidence). 'I tell you what we did. We breakfasted with + Jack Herring at twelve, and kept up with brandy and soda-water and weeds + till four; then we toddled into the Park for an hour; then we dined and + drank mulled port till half-price; then we looked in for an hour at the + Haymarket; then we came back to the Club, and had grills and whisky punch + till all was blue—Hullo, waiter! Get me a glass of cherry-brandy.' + Club waiters, the civilest, the kindest, the patientest of men, die under + the infliction of these cruel young topers. But if the reader wishes to + see a perfect picture on the stage of this class of young fellows, I would + recommend him to witness the ingenious comedy of LONDON ASSURANCE—the + amiable heroes of which are represented, not only as drunkards and + five-o'clock-in-the-morning men, but as showing a hundred other delightful + traits of swindling, lying, and general debauchery, quite edifying to + witness. + </p> + <p> + How different is the conduct of these outrageous youths to the decent + behaviour of my friend, Mr. Papworthy; who says to Poppins, the butler at + the Club:— + </p> + <p> + PAPWORTHY.—'Poppins, I'm thinking of dining early; is there any cold + game in the house?' + </p> + <p> + POPPINS.—'There's a game pie, sir; there's cold grouse, sir; there's + cold pheasant, sir; there's cold peacock, sir; cold swan, sir; cold + ostrich, sir,' &c. &c. (as the case may be). + </p> + <p> + PAPWORTHY.—'Hem! What's your best claret now, Poppins?—in + pints, I mean.' + </p> + <p> + POPPINS.—'There's Cooper and Magnum's Lafitte, sir: there's Lath and + Sawdust's St. Julien, sir; Bung's Leoville is considered remarkably fine; + and I think you'd like Jugger's Chateau-Margaux.' + </p> + <p> + PAPWORTHY.—'Hum!—hah!—well—give me a crust of + bread and a glass of beer. I'll only LUNCH, Poppins. + </p> + <p> + Captain Shindy is another sort of Club bore. He has been known to throw + all the Club in an uproar about the quality of his mutton-chop. + </p> + <p> + 'Look at it, sir! Is it cooked, sir? Smell it, sir! Is it meat fit for a + gentleman?' he roars out to the steward, who stands trembling before him, + and who in vain tells him that the Bishop of Bullocksmithy has just had + three from the same loin. All the waiters in the Club are huddled round + the captain's mutton-chop. He roars out the most horrible curses at John + for not bringing the pickles; he utters the most dreadful oaths because + Thomas has not arrived with the Harvey Sauce; Peter comes tumbling with + the water-jug over Jeames, who is bringing 'the glittering canisters with + bread.' Whenever Shindy enters the room (such is the force of character), + every table is deserted, every gentleman must dine as he best may, and all + those big footmen are in terror. + </p> + <p> + He makes his account of it. He scolds, and is better waited upon in + consequence. At the Club he has ten servants scudding about to do his + bidding. + </p> + <p> + Poor Mrs. Shindy and the children are, meanwhile, in dingy lodgings + somewhere, waited upon by a charity-girl in pattens. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XLII—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Every well-bred English female will sympathize with the subject of the + harrowing tale, the history of Sackville Maine, I am now about to recount. + The pleasures of Clubs have been spoken of: let us now glance for a moment + at the dangers of those institutions, and for this purpose I must + introduce you to my young acquaintance, Sackville Maine. + </p> + <p> + It was at a ball at the house of my respected friend, Mrs. Perkins, that I + was introduced to this gentleman and his charming lady. Seeing a young + creature before me in a white dress, with white satin shoes; with a pink + ribbon, about a yard in breadth, flaming out as she twirled in a polka in + the arms of Monsieur de Springbock, the German diplomatist; with a green + wreath on her head, and the blackest hair this individual set eyes on—seeing, + I say, before me a charming young woman whisking beautifully in a + beautiful dance, and presenting, as she wound and wound round the room, + now a full face, then a three-quarter face, then a profile—a face, + in fine, which in every way you saw it, looked pretty, and rosy, and + happy, I felt (as I trust) a not unbecoming curiosity regarding the owner + of this pleasant countenance, and asked Wagley (who was standing by, in + conversation with an acquaintance) who was the lady in question? + </p> + <p> + 'Which?' says Wagley. + </p> + <p> + 'That one with the coal-black eyes,' I replied. + </p> + <p> + 'Hush!' says he; and the gentleman with whom he was talking moved off, + with rather a discomfited air. + </p> + <p> + When he was gone Wagley burst out laughing. 'COAL-BLACK eyes!' said he; + 'you've just hit it. That's Mrs. Sackville Maine, and that was her husband + who just went away. He's a coal-merchant, Snob my boy, and I have no doubt + Mr. Perkins's Wallsends are supplied from his wharf. He is in a flaming + furnace when he hears coals mentioned. He and his wife and his mother are + very proud of Mrs. Sackville's family; she was a Miss Chuff, daughter of + Captain Chuff, R.N. That is the widow; that stout woman in crimson + tabinet, battling about the odd trick with old Mr. Dumps, at the + card-table.' + </p> + <p> + And so, in fact, it was. Sackville Maine (whose name is a hundred times + more elegant, surely, than that of Chuff) was blest with a pretty wife, + and a genteel mother-in-law, both of whom some people may envy him. + </p> + <p> + Soon after his marriage the old lady was good enough to come and pay him a + visit—just for a fortnight—at his pretty little cottage, + Kennington Oval; and, such is her affection for the place, has never + quitted it these four years. She has also brought her son, Nelson + Collingwood Chuff, to live with her; but he is not so much at home as his + mamma, going as a day-boy to Merchant Taylors' School, where he is getting + a sound classical education. + </p> + <p> + If these beings, so closely allied to his wife, and so justly dear to her, + may be considered as drawbacks to Maine's happiness, what man is there + that has not some things in life to complain of? And when I first knew Mr. + Maine, no man seemed more comfortable than he. His cottage was a picture + of elegance and comfort; his table and cellar were excellently and neatly + supplied. There was every enjoyment, but no ostentation. The omnibus took + him to business of a morning; the boat brought him back to the happiest of + homes, where he would while away the long evenings by reading out the + fashionable novels to the ladies as they worked; or accompany his wife on + the flute (which he played elegantly); or in any one of the hundred + pleasing and innocent amusements of the domestic circle. Mrs. Chuff + covered the drawing-rooms with prodigious tapestries, the work of her + hands. Mrs. Sackville had a particular genius for making covers of tape or + network for these tapestried cushions. She could make home-made wines. She + could make preserves and pickles. She had an album, into which, during the + time of his courtship, Sackville Maine bad written choice scraps of + Byron's and Moore's poetry, analogous to his own situation, and in a fine + mercantile hand. She had a large manuscript receipt-book—every + quality, in a word, which indicated a virtuous and well-bred English + female mind. + </p> + <p> + 'And as for Nelson Collingwood,' Sackville would say, laughing, 'we + couldn't do without him in the house. If he didn't spoil the tapestry we + should be 'over-cushioned in a few months; and whom could we get but him + to drink Laura's home-made wine?' The truth is, the gents who came from + the City to dine at the 'Oval' could not be induced to drink it—in + which fastidiousness, I myself, when I grew to be intimate with the + family, confess that I shared. + </p> + <p> + 'And yet, sir, that green ginger has been drunk by some of England's + proudest heroes,' Mrs. Chuff would exclaim. 'Admiral Lord Exmouth tasted + and praised it, sir, on board Captain Chuff's ship, the “Nebuchadnezzar,” + 74, at Algiers; and he had three dozen with turn in the “Pitchfork” + frigate, a part of which was served out to the men before he went into his + immortal action with the “Furibonde,” Captain Choufleur, in the Gulf of + Panama.' + </p> + <p> + All this, though the old dowager told us the story every day when the wine + was produced, never served to get rid of any quantity of it—and the + green ginger, though it had fired British tars for combat and victory, was + not to the taste of us peaceful and degenerate gents of modern times. + </p> + <p> + I see Sackville now, as on the occasion when, presented by Wagley, I paid + my first visit to him. It was in July—a Sunday afternoon—Sackville + Maine was coming from church, with his wife on one arm, and his + mother-ill-law (in red tabinet, as usual,) on the other. A half-grown, or + hobbadehoyish footman, so to speak, walked after them, carrying their + shining golden prayer-books—the ladies had splendid parasols with + tags and fringes. Mrs. Chuff's great gold watch, fastened to her stomach, + gleamed there like a ball of fire. Nelson Collingwood was in the distance, + shying stones at an old horse on Kennington Common. 'Twas on that verdant + spot we met—nor can I ever forget the majestic courtesy of Mrs. + Chuff, as she remembered having had the pleasure of seeing me at Mrs. + Perkins's—nor the glance of scorn which she threw at an unfortunate + gentleman who was preaching an exceedingly desultory discourse to a + sceptical audience of omnibus-cads and nurse-maids, on a tub, as we passed + by. 'I cannot help it, sir,' says she; 'I am the widow of an officer of + Britain's Navy: I was taught to honour my Church and my King: and I cannot + bear a Radical or a Dissenter.' + </p> + <p> + With these fine principles I found Sackville Maine impressed. 'Wagley,' + said he, to my introducer, 'if no better engagement, why shouldn't self + and friend dine at the “Oval?” Mr. Snob, sir, the mutton's coming off the + spit at this very minute. Laura and Mrs. Chuff' (he said LAURAR and Mrs. + Chuff; but I hate people who make remarks on these peculiarities of + pronunciation,) 'will be most happy to see you; and I can promise you a + hearty welcome, and as good a glass of port-wine as any in England.' + </p> + <p> + 'This is better than dining at the “Sarcophagus,”' thinks I to myself, at + which Club Wagley and I had intended to take our meal; and so we accepted + the kindly invitation, whence arose afterwards a considerable intimacy. + </p> + <p> + Everything about this family and house was so good-natured, comfortable, + and well-conditioned, that a cynic would have ceased to growl there. Mrs. + Laura was all graciousness and smiles, and looked to as great advantage in + her pretty morning-gown as in her dress-robe at Mrs. Perkins's. Mrs. Chuff + fired off her stories about the 'Nebuchadnezzar,' 74, the action between + the 'Pitchfork' and the 'Furibonde'—the heroic resistance of Captain + Choufleur, and the quantity of snuff he took, &c. &c.; which, as + they were heard for the first time, were pleasanter than I have + subsequently found them. Sackville Maine was the best of hosts. He agreed + in everything everybody said, altering his opinions without the slightest + reservation upon the slightest possible contradiction. He was not one of + those beings who would emulate a Schonbein or Friar Bacon, or act the part + of an incendiary towards the Thames, his neighbour—but a good, kind, + simple, honest, easy fellow—in love with his wife—well + disposed to all the world—content with himself, content even with + his mother-in-law. Nelson Collingwood, I remember, in the course of the + evening, when whisky-and-water was for some reason produced, grew a little + tipsy. This did not in the least move Sackville's equanimity. 'Take him + upstairs, Joseph,' said he to the hobbadehoy, 'and—Joseph—don't + tell his mamma.' + </p> + <p> + What could make a man so happily disposed, unhappy? What could cause + discomfort, bickering, and estrangement in a family so friendly and + united? Ladies, it was not my fault—it was Mrs. Chuff's doing—but + the rest of the tale you shall have on a future day. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0043" id="link2HCH0043"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XLIII—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + The misfortune which befell the simple and good-natured young Sackville, + arose entirely from that abominable 'Sarcophagus Club;' and that he ever + entered it was partly the fault of the present writer. + </p> + <p> + For seeing Mrs. Chuff, his mother-in-law, had a taste for the genteel—(indeed, + her talk was all about Lord Collingwood, Lord Gambier, Sir Jahaleel + Brenton, and the Gosport and Plymouth balls)—Wagley and I, according + to our wont, trumped her conversation, and talked about Lords, Dukes, + Marquises, and Baronets, as if those dignitaries were our familiar + friends. + </p> + <p> + 'Lord Sextonbury,' says I, 'seems to have recovered her ladyship's death. + He and the Duke were very jolly over their wine at the “Sarcophagus” last + night; weren't they, Wagley?' + </p> + <p> + 'Good fellow, the Duke,' Wagley replied. 'Pray, ma'am' (to Mrs. Chuff), + 'you who know the world and etiquette, will you tell me what a man ought + to do in my case? Last June, his Grace, his son Lord Castlerampant, Tom + Smith, and myself were dining at the Club, when I offered the odds against + DADDYLONGLEGS for the Derby—forty to one, in sovereigns only. His + Grace took the bet, and of course I won. He has never paid me. Now, can I + ask such a great man for a sovereign?—One more lump of sugar, if you + please, my dear madam.' + </p> + <p> + It was lucky Wagley gave her this opportunity to elude the question, for + it prostrated the whole worthy family among whom we were. They telegraphed + each other with wondering eyes. Mrs. Chuff's stories about the naval + nobility grew quite faint and kind little Mrs. Sackville became uneasy, + and went upstairs to look at the children—not at that young monster, + Nelson Collingwood, who was sleeping off the whisky-and-water—but at + a couple of little ones who had made their appearance at dessert, and of + whom she and Sackville were the happy parents. + </p> + <p> + The end of this and subsequent meetings with Mr. Maine was, that we + proposed and got him elected as a member of the 'Sarcophagus Club.' + </p> + <p> + It was not done without a deal of opposition—the secret having been + whispered that the candidate was a coal-merchant. You may be sure some of + the proud people and most of the parvenus of the Club were ready to + blackball him. We combated this opposition successfully, however. We + pointed out to the parvenus that the Lambtons and the Stuarts sold coals: + we mollified the proud by accounts of his good birth, good nature, and + good behaviour; and Wagley went about on the day of election, describing + with great eloquence, the action between the 'Pitchfork' and the + 'Furibonde,' and the valour of Captain Maine, our friend's father. There + was a slight mistake in the narrative; but we carried our man, with only a + trifling sprinkling of black beans in the boxes: Byles's, of course, who + blackballs everybody: and Bung's, who looks down upon a coal-merchant, + having himself lately retired from the wine-trade. + </p> + <p> + Some fortnight afterwards I saw Sackville Maine under the following + circumstances:— + </p> + <p> + He was showing the Club to his family. He had 'brought them thither in the + light-blue fly, waiting at the Club door; with Mrs. Chuff's hobbadehoy + footboy on the box, by the side of the flyman, in a sham livery. Nelson + Collingwood; pretty Mrs. Sackville; Mrs. Captain Chuff (Mrs. Commodore + Chuff we call her), were all there; the latter, of course, in the + vermilion tabinet, which, splendid as it is, is nothing in comparison to + the splendour of the 'Sarcophagus.' The delighted Sackville Maine was + pointing out the beauties of the place to them. It seemed as beautiful as + Paradise to that little party. + </p> + <p> + The 'Sarcophagus' displays every known variety of architecture and + decoration. The great library is Elizabethan; the small library is pointed + Gothic; the dining-room is severe Doric; the strangers' room has an + Egyptian look; the drawing-rooms are Louis Quatorze (so called because the + hideous ornaments displayed were used in the time of Louis Quinze); the + CORTILE, or hall, is Morisco-Italian. It is all over marble, maplewood, + looking-glasses, arabesques, ormolu, and scagliola. Scrolls, ciphers, + dragons, Cupids, polyanthuses, and other flowers writhe up the walls in + every kind of cornucopiosity. Fancy every gentleman in Jullien's band + playing with all his might, and each performing a different tune; the + ornaments at our Club, the 'Sarcophagus,' so bewilder and affect me. + Dazzled with emotions which I cannot describe, and which she dared not + reveal, Mrs. Chuff, followed by her children and son-in-law, walked + wondering amongst these blundering splendours. + </p> + <p> + In the great library (225 feet long by 150) the only man Mrs. Chuff saw, + was Tiggs. He was lying on a crimson-velvet sofa, reading a French novel + of Paul de Kock. It was a very little book. He is a very little man. In + that enormous hall he looked like a mere speck. As the ladies passed + breathless and trembling in the vastness of the magnificent solitude, he + threw a knowing, killing glance at the fair strangers, as much as to say, + 'Ain't I a fine fellow?' They thought so, I am sure. + </p> + <p> + 'WHO IS THAT?' hisses out Mrs. Chuff, when we were about fifty yards off + him at the other end of the room. + </p> + <p> + 'Tiggs!' says I, in a similar whisper. + </p> + <p> + 'Pretty comfortable this, isn't it, my dear?' says Maine in a + free-and-easy way to Mrs. Sackville; 'all the magazines, you see—writing + materials—new works—choice library, containing every work of + importance—what have we here?—“Dugdale's Monasticon,” a most + valuable and, I believe, entertaining book.' + </p> + <p> + And proposing to take down one of the books for Mrs. Maine's inspection, + he selected Volume VII., to which he was attracted by the singular fact + that a brass door-handle grew out of the back. Instead of pulling out a + book, however, he pulled open a cupboard, only inhabited by a lazy + housemaid's broom and duster, at which he looked exceedingly discomfited; + while Nelson Collingwood, losing all respect, burst into a roar of + laughter. + </p> + <p> + 'That's the rummest book I ever saw,' says Nelson. 'I wish we'd no others + at Merchant Taylors'.' + </p> + <p> + 'Hush, Nelson!' cries Mrs. Chuff, and we went into the other magnificent + apartments. + </p> + <p> + How they did admire the drawing-room hangings, (pink and silver brocade, + most excellent wear for London,) and calculated the price per yard; and + revelled on the luxurious sofas; and gazed on the immeasurable + looking-glasses. + </p> + <p> + 'Pretty well to shave by, eh?' says Maine to his mother-in-law. (He was + getting more abominably conceited every minute.) 'Get away, Sackville,' + says she, quite delighted, and threw a glance over her shoulder, and + spread out the wings of the red tabinet, and took a good look at herself; + so did Mrs. Sackville—just one, and I thought the glass reflected a + very smiling, pretty creature. + </p> + <p> + But what's a woman at a looking-glass? Bless the little dears, it's their + place. They fly to it naturally. It pleases them, and they adorn it. What + I like to see, and watch with increasing joy and adoration, is the Club + MEN at the great looking-glasses. Old Gills pushing up his collars and + grinning at his own mottled face. Hulker looking solemnly at his great + person, and tightening his coat to give himself a waist. Fred Minchin + simpering by as he is going out to dine, and casting upon the reflection + of his white neckcloth a pleased moony smile. What a deal of vanity that + Club mirror has reflected, to be sure! + </p> + <p> + Well, the ladies went through the whole establishment with perfect + pleasure. They beheld the coffee-rooms, and the little tables laid for + dinner, and the gentlemen who were taking their lunch, and old Jawkins + thundering away as usual; they saw the reading-rooms, and the rush for the + evening papers; they saw the kitchens—those wonders of art—where + the CHEF was presiding over twenty pretty kitchen-maids, and ten thousand + shining saucepans: and they got into the light-blue fly perfectly + bewildered with pleasure. + </p> + <p> + Sackville did not enter it, though little Laura took the back seat on + purpose, and left him the front place alongside of Mrs. Chuff's red + tabinet. + </p> + <p> + 'We have your favourite dinner,' says she, in a timid voice; 'won't you + come, Sackville?' + </p> + <p> + 'I shall take a chop here to-day, my dear,' Sackville replied. 'Home, + James.' And he went up the steps of the 'Sarcophagus,' and the pretty face + looked very sad out of the carriage, as the blue fly drove away. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0044" id="link2HCH0044"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XLIV—CLUB SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + Why—Why did I and Wagley ever do so cruel an action as to introduce + young Sackville Maine into that odious 'Sarcophagus'? Let our imprudence + and his example be a warning to other gents; let his fate and that of his + poor wife be remembered by every British female. The consequences of his + entering the Club were as follows:— + </p> + <p> + One of the first vices the unhappy wretch acquired in this abode of + frivolity was that of SMOKING. Some of the dandies of the Club, such as + the Marquis of Macabaw, Lord Doodeen, and fellows of that high order, are + in the habit of indulging in this propensity upstairs in the + billiard-rooms of the 'Sarcophagus'—and, partly to make their + acquaintance, partly from a natural aptitude for crime, Sackville Maine + followed them, and became an adept in the odious custom. Where it is + introduced into a family I need not say how sad the consequences are, both + to the furniture and the morals. Sackville smoked in his dining-room at + home, and caused an agony to his wife and mother-in-law which I do not + venture to describe. + </p> + <p> + He then became a professed BILLIARD-PLAYER, wasting hours upon hours at + that amusement; betting freely, playing tolerably, losing awfully to + Captain Spot and Col. Cannon. He played matches of a hundred games with + these gentlemen, and would not only continue until four or five o'clock in + the morning at this work, but would be found at the Club of a forenoon, + indulging himself to the detriment of his business, the ruin of his + health, and the neglect of his wife. + </p> + <p> + From billiards to whist is but a step—and when a man gets to whist + and five pounds on a rubber, my opinion is, that it is all up with him. + How was the coal business to go on, and the connection of the firm to be + kept up, and the senior partner always at the card-table? + </p> + <p> + Consorting now with genteel persons and Pall Mall bucks, Sackville became + ashamed of his snug little residence in Kennington Oval, and transported + his family to Pimlico, where, though Mrs. Chuff, his mother-in-law, was at + first happy, as the quarter was elegant and near her Sovereign, poor + little Laura and the children found a woful difference. Where were her + friends who came in with their work of a morning?—At Kennington and + in the vicinity of Clapham. 'Where were her children's little playmates?—On + Kennington Common. The great thundering carriages that roared up and down + the drab-coloured streets of the new quarter, contained no friends for the + sociable little Laura. The children that paced the squares, attended by a + BONNE or a prim governess, were not like those happy ones that flew kites, + or played hop-scotch, on the well-beloved old Common. And ah! what a + difference at Church too!—between St. Benedict's of Pimlico, with + open seats, service in sing-song—tapers—albs—surplices—garlands + and processions, and the honest old ways of Kennington! The footmen, too, + attending St. Benedict's were so splendid and enormous, that James, Mrs. + Chuff's boy, trembled amongst them, and said he would give warning rather + than carry the books to that church any more. + </p> + <p> + The furnishing of the house was not done without expense. + </p> + <p> + And, ye gods! what a difference there was between Sackville's dreary + French banquets in Pimlico, and the jolly dinners at the Oval! No more + legs-of-mutton, no more of 'the best port-wine in England;' but ENTREES on + plate, and dismal twopenny champagne, and waiters in gloves, and the Club + bucks for company—among whom Mrs. Chuff was uneasy and Mrs. + Sackville quite silent. + </p> + <p> + Not that he dined at home often. The wretch had become a perfect epicure, + and dined commonly at the Club with the gormandising clique there; with + old Doctor Maw, Colonel Cramley (who is as lean as a greyhound and has + jaws like a jack), and the rest of them. Here you might see the wretch + tippling Sillery champagne and gorging himself with French viands; and I + often looked with sorrow from my table, (on which cold meat, the Club + small-beer, and a half-pint of Marsala form the modest banquet,) and + sighed to think it was my work. + </p> + <p> + And there were other beings present to my repentant thoughts. Where's his + wife, thought I? Where's poor, good, kind little Laura? At this very + moment—it's about the nursery bed-time, and while yonder + good-for-nothing is swilling his wine—the little ones are at Laura's + knees lisping their prayers: and she is teaching them to say—'Pray + God bless Papa.' + </p> + <p> + When she has put them to bed, her day's occupation is gone; and she is + utterly lonely all night, and sad, and waiting for him. + </p> + <p> + Oh, for shame! Oh, for shame! Go home, thou idle tippler. + </p> + <p> + How Sackville lost his health: how he lost his business; how he got into + scrapes; how he got into debt; how he became a railroad director; how the + Pimlico house was shut up; how he went to Boulogne,—all this I could + tell, only I am too much ashamed of my part of the transaction. They + returned to England, because, to the surprise of everybody, Mrs. Chuff + came down with a great sum of money (which nobody knew she had saved), and + paid his liabilities. He is in England; but at Kennington. His name is + taken off the books of the 'Sarcophagus' long ago. When we meet, he + crosses over to the other side of the street; I don't call, as I should be + sorry to see a look of reproach or sadness in Laura's sweet face. + </p> + <p> + Not, however, all evil, as I am proud to think, has been the influence of + the Snob of England upon Clubs in general:—Captain Shindy is afraid + to bully the waiters any more, and eats his mutton-chop without moving + Acheron. Gobemouche does not take more than two papers at a time for his + private reading. Tiggs does not ring the bell and cause the library-waiter + to walk about a quarter of a mile in order to give him Vol. II., which + lies on the next table. Growler has ceased to walk from table to table in + the coffee-room, and inspect what people are having for dinner. Trotty + Veck takes his own umbrella from the hall—the cotton one; and Sydney + Scraper's paletot lined with silk has been brought back by Jobbins, who + entirely mistook it for his own. Wiggle has discontinued telling stories + about the ladies he has killed. Snooks does not any more think it + gentlemanlike to blackball attorneys. Snuffler no longer publicly spreads + out his great red cotton pocket-handkerchief before the fire, for the + admiration of two hundred gentlemen; and if one Club Snob has been brought + back to the paths of rectitude, and if one poor John has been spared a + journey or a scolding—say, friends and brethren if these sketches of + Club Snobs have been in vain? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0048" id="link2H_4_0048"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON SNOBS + </h2> + <p> + How it is that we have come to No. 45 of this present series of papers, my + dear friends and brother Snobs, I hardly know—but for a whole mortal + year have we been together, prattling, and abusing the human race; and + were we to live for a hundred years more, I believe there is plenty of + subject for conversation in the enormous theme of Snobs. + </p> + <p> + The national mind is awakened to the subject. Letters pour in every day, + conveying marks of sympathy; directing the attention of the Snob of + England to races of Snobs yet undescribed. 'Where are your Theatrical + Snobs; your Commercial Snobs; your Medical and Chirurgical Snobs; your + Official Snobs; your Legal Snobs; your Artistical Snobs; your Musical + Snobs; your Sporting Snobs?' write my esteemed correspondents. 'Surely you + are not going to miss the Cambridge Chancellor election, and omit showing + up your Don Snobs, who are coming, cap in hand, to a young Prince of + six-and-twenty, and to implore him to be the chief of their renowned + University?' writes a friend who seals with the signet of the Cam and Isis + Club. 'Pray, pray,' cries another, 'now the Operas are opening, give us a + lecture about Omnibus Snobs.' Indeed, I should like to write a chapter + about the Snobbish Dons very much, and another about the Snobbish Dandies. + Of my dear Theatrical Snobs I think with a pang; and I can hardly break + away from some Snobbish artists, with whom I have long, long intended to + have a palaver. + </p> + <p> + But what's the use of delaying? When these were done there would be fresh + Snobs to pourtray. The labour is endless. No single man could complete it. + Here are but fifty-two bricks—and a pyramid to build. It is best to + stop. As Jones always quits the room as soon as he has said his good + thing,—as Cincinnatus and General Washington both retired into + private life in the height of their popularity,—as Prince Albert, + when he laid the first stone of the Exchange, left the bricklayers to + complete that edifice and went home to his royal dinner,—as the poet + Bunn comes forward at the end of the season, and with feelings too + tumultuous to describe, blesses his KYIND friends over the footlights: so, + friends, in the flush of conquest and the splendour of victory, amid the + shouts and the plaudits of a people—triumphant yet modest—the + Snob of England bids ye farewell. + </p> + <p> + But only for a season. Not for ever. No, no. There is one celebrated + author whom I admire very much—who has been taking leave of the + public any time these ten years in his prefaces, and always comes back + again when everybody is glad to see him. How can he have the heart to be + saying good-bye so often? I believe that Bunn is affected when he blesses + the people. Parting is always painful. Even the familiar bore is dear to + you. I should be sorry to shake hands even with Jawkins for the last time. + I think a well-constituted convict, on coming home from transportation, + ought to be rather sad when he takes leave of Van Diemen's Land. When the + curtain goes down on the last night of a pantomime, poor old clown must be + very dismal, depend on it. Ha! with what joy he rushes forward on the + evening of the 26th of December next, and says—'How are you?—Here + we are!' But I am growing too sentimental:—to return to the theme. + </p> + <p> + THE NATIONAL MIND IS AWAKENED TO THE SUBJECT OF SNOBS. The word Snob has + taken a place in our honest English vocabulary. We can't define it, + perhaps. We can't say what it is, any more than we can define wit, or + humour, or humbug; but we KNOW what it is. Some weeks since, happening to + have the felicity to sit next to a young lady at a hospitable table, where + poor old Jawkins was holding forth in a very absurd pompous manner, I + wrote upon the spotless damask 'S—B,' and called my neighbour's + attention to the little remark. + </p> + <p> + That young lady smiled. She knew it at once. Her mind straightway filled + up the two letters concealed by apostrophic reserve, and I read in her + assenting eyes that she knew Jawkins was a Snob. You seldom get them to + make use of the word as yet, it is true; but it is inconceivable how + pretty an expression their little smiling mouths assume when they speak it + out. If any young lady doubts, just let her go up to her own room, look at + herself steadily in the glass, and say 'Snob.' If she tries this simple + experiment, my life for it, she will smile, and own that the word becomes + her mouth amazingly. A pretty little round word, all composed of soft + letters, with a hiss at the beginning, just to make it piquant, as it + were. + </p> + <p> + Jawkins, meanwhile, went on blundering, and bragging and boring, quite + unconsciously. And so he will, no doubt, go on roaring and braying, to the + end of time or at least so long as people will hear him. You cannot alter + the nature of men and Snobs by any force of satire; as, by laying ever so + many stripes on a donkey's back, you can't turn him into a zebra. + </p> + <p> + But we can warn the neighbourhood that the person whom they and Jawkins + admire is an impostor. We apply the Snob test to him, and try whether he + is conceited and a quack, whether pompous and lacking humility—whether + uncharitable and proud of his narrow soul? How does he treat a great man—how + regard a small one? How does he comport himself in the presence of His + Grace the Duke; and how in that of Smith the tradesman? + </p> + <p> + And it seems to me that all English society is cursed by this mammoniacal + superstition; and that we are sneaking and bowing and cringing on the one + hand, or bullying and scorning on the other, from the lowest to the + highest. My wife speaks with great circumspection—'proper pride,' + she calls it—to our neighbour the tradesman's lady: and she, I mean + Mrs. Snob,—Eliza—would give one of her eyes to go to Court, as + her cousin, the Captain's wife, did. She, again, is a good soul, but it + costs her agonies to be obliged to confess that we live in Upper Thompson + Street, Somers Town. And though I believe in her heart Mrs. Whiskerington + is fonder of us than of her cousins, the Smigsmags, you should hear how + she goes on prattling about Lady Smigsmag,—and 'I said to Sir John, + my dear John;' and about the Smigsmags' house and parties in Hyde Park + Terrace. + </p> + <p> + Lady Smigsmag, when she meets Eliza,—who is a sort of a kind of a + species of a connection of the family, pokes out one finger, which my wife + is at liberty to embrace in the most cordial manner she can devise. But + oh, you should see her ladyship's behaviour on her first-chop dinner-party + days, when Lord and Lady Longears come! + </p> + <p> + I can bear it no longer—this diabolical invention of gentility which + kills natural kindliness and honest friendship. Proper pride, indeed! Rank + and precedence, forsooth! The table of ranks and degrees is a lie, and + should be flung into the fire. Organize rank and precedence! that was well + for the masters of ceremonies of former ages. Come forward, some great + marshal, and organize Equality in society, and your rod shall swallow up + all the juggling old court goldsticks. If this is not gospel-truth—if + the world does not tend to this—if hereditary-great-man worship is + not a humbug and an idolatry—let us have the Stuarts back again, and + crop the Free Press's ears in the pillory. + </p> + <p> + If ever our cousins, the Smigsmags, asked me to meet Lord Longears, I + would like to take an opportunity after dinner and say, in the most + good-natured way in the world:—Sir, Fortune makes you a present of a + number of thousand pounds every year. The ineffable wisdom of our + ancestors has placed you as a chief and hereditary legislator over me. Our + admirable Constitution (the pride of Britons and envy of surrounding + nations) obliges me to receive you as my senator, superior, and guardian. + Your eldest son, Fitz-Heehaw, is sure of a place in Parliament; your + younger sons, the De Brays, will kindly condescend to be post-captains and + lieutenants-colonels, and to represent us in foreign courts or to take a + good living when it falls convenient. These prizes our admirable + Constitution (the pride and envy of, &c.) pronounces to be your due: + without count of your dulness, your vices, your selfishness; or your + entire incapacity and folly. Dull as you may be (and we have as good a + right to assume that my lord is an ass, as the other proposition, that he + is an enlightened patriot);—dull, I say, as you may be, no one will + accuse you of such monstrous folly, as to suppose that you are indifferent + to the good luck which you possess, or have any inclination to part with + it. No—and patriots as we are, under happier circumstances, Smith + and I, I have no doubt, were we dukes ourselves, would stand by our order. + </p> + <p> + We would submit good-naturedly to sit in a high place. We would acquiesce + in that admirable Constitution (pride and envy of, &c.) which made us + chiefs and the world our inferiors; we would not cavil particularly at + that notion of hereditary superiority which brought many simple people + cringing to our knees. May be we would rally round the Corn-Laws; we would + make a stand against the Reform Bill; we would die rather than repeal the + Acts against Catholics and Dissenters; we would, by our noble system of + class-legislation, bring Ireland to its present admirable condition. + </p> + <p> + But Smith and I are not Earls as yet. 'We don't believe that it is for the + interest of Smith's army that De Bray should be a Colonel at + five-and-twenty, of Smith's diplomatic relations that Lord Longears should + go Ambassador to Constantinople,—of our politics, that Longears + should put his hereditary foot into them. + </p> + <p> + This bowing and cringing Smith believes to be the act of Snobs; and he + will do all in his might and main to be a Snob and to submit to Snobs no + longer. To Longears he says, 'We can't help seeing, Longears, that we are + as good as you. We can spell even better; can think quite as rightly; we + will not have you for our master, or black your shoes any more. Your + footmen do it, but they are paid; and the fellow who comes to get a list + of the company when you give a banquet or a dancing breakfast at + Longueoreille House, gets money from the newspapers for performing that + service. But for us, thank you for nothing, Longears my boy, and we don't + wish to pay you any more than we owe. We will take off our hats to + Wellington because he is Wellington; but to you—who are you?' + </p> + <p> + I am sick of COURT CIRCULARS. I loathe HAUT-TON intelligence. I believe + such words as Fashionable, Exclusive, Aristocratic, and the like, to be + wicked, unchristian epithets, that ought to be banished from honest + vocabularies. A Court system that sends men of genius to the second table, + I hold to be a Snobbish system. A society that sets up to be polite, and + ignores Arts and Letters, I hold to be a Snobbish society. You, who + despise your neighbour, are a Snob; you, who forget your own friends, + meanly to follow after those of a higher degree, are a Snob; you, who are + ashamed of your poverty, and blush for your calling, are a Snob; as are + you who boast of your pedigree, or are proud of your wealth. + </p> + <p> + To laugh at such is MR. PUNCH'S business. May he laugh honestly, hit no + foul blow, and tell the truth when at his very broadest grin—never + forgetting that if Fun is good, Truth is still better, and Love best of + all. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Book of Snobs, by William Makepeace Thackeray + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF SNOBS *** + +***** This file should be named 2686-h.htm or 2686-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/8/2686/ + +Produced by Sean Hackett; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This Etext of The Book of Snobs by William Makepeace Thackeray +scanned and proof-read by Sean Hackett (shack@eircom.net) + + + + + +THE BOOK OF SNOBS + + +BY ONE OF THEMSELVES + + + +PREFATORY REMARKS + +(The necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from +History, and proved by felicitous illustrations:-- I am +the individual destined to write that work--My vocation +is announced in terms of great eloquence--I show that the +world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK +and the MAN--Snobs are to be studied like other objects +of Natural Science, and are a part of the Beautiful (with +a large B). They pervade all classes--Affecting instance +of Colonel Snobley.) + +We have all read a statement, (the authenticity of which +I take leave to doubt entirely, for upon what +calculations I should like to know is it founded?)--we +have all, I say, been favoured by perusing a remark, that +when the times and necessities of the world call for a +Man, that individual is found. Thus at the French +Revolution (which the reader will be pleased to have +introduced so early), when it was requisite to administer +a corrective dose to the nation, Robespierre was found; a +most foul and nauseous dose indeed, and swallowed eagerly +by the patient, greatly to the latter's ultimate +advantage: thus, when it became necessary to kick John +Bull out of America, Mr. Washington stepped forward, and +performed that job to satisfaction: thus, when the Earl +of Aldborough was unwell, Professor Holloway appeared +with his pills, and cured his lordship, as per +advertisement, &c. &c.. Numberless instances might be +adduced to show that when a nation is in great want, the +relief is at hand; just as in the Pantomime (that +microcosm) where when CLOWN wants anything--a warming- +pan, a pump-handle, a goose, or a lady's tippet--a fellow +comes sauntering out from behind the side-scenes with the +very article in question. + +Again, when men commence an undertaking, they always are +prepared to show that the absolute necessities of the +world demanded its completion.--Say it is a railroad: the +directors begin by stating that 'A more intimate +communication between Bathershins and Derrynane Beg is +necessary for the advancement of civilization, and +demanded by the multitudinous acclamations of the great +Irish people.' Or suppose it is a newspaper: the +prospectus states that 'At a time when the Church is in +danger, threatened from without by savage fanaticism and +miscreant unbelief, and undermined from within by +dangerous Jesuitism, and suicidal Schism, a Want has been +universally felt--a suffering people has looked abroad-- +for an Ecclesiastical Champion and Guardian. A body of +Prelates and Gentlemen have therefore stepped forward in +this our hour of danger, and determined on establishing +the BEADLE newspaper,' &c. &c. One or other of these +points at least is incontrovertible: the public wants a +thing, therefore it is supplied with it; or the public is +supplied with a thing, therefore it wants it. + +I have long gone about with a conviction on my mind that +I had a work to do--a Work, if you like, with a great W; +a Purpose to fulfil; a chasm to leap into, like Curtius, +horse and foot; a Great Social Evil to Discover and to +Remedy. That Conviction Has Pursued me for Years. It +has Dogged me in the Busy Street; Seated Itself By Me in +The Lonely Study; Jogged My Elbow as it Lifted the Wine- +cup at The Festive Board; Pursued me through the Maze of +Rotten Row; Followed me in Far Lands. On Brighton's +Shingly Beach, or Margate's Sand, the Voice Outpiped the +Roaring of the Sea; it Nestles in my Nightcap, and It +Whispers, 'Wake, Slumberer, thy Work Is Not Yet Done.' +Last Year, By Moonlight, in the Colosseum, the Little +Sedulous Voice Came To Me and Said, 'Smith, or Jones' +(The Writer's Name is Neither Here nor There), 'Smith or +Jones, my fine fellow, this is all very well, but you +ought to be at home writing your great work on SNOBS. + +When a man has this sort of vocation it is all nonsense +attempting to elude it. He must speak out to the +nations; he must unbusm himself, as Jeames would say, or +choke and die. 'Mark to yourself,' I have often mentally +exclaimed to your humble servant, 'the gradual way in +which you have been prepared for, and are now led by an +irresistible necessity to enter upon your great labour. +First, the World was made: then, as a matter of course, +Snobs; they existed for years and years, and were no more +known than America. But presently,--INGENS PATEBAT +TELLUS,--the people became darkly aware that there was +such a race. Not above five-and-twenty years since, a +name, an expressive monosyllable, arose to designate that +race. That name has spread over England like railroads +subsequently; Snobs are known and recognized throughout +an Empire on which I am given to understand the Sun never +sets. PUNCH appears at the ripe season, to chronicle +their history: and the individual comes forth to write +that history in PUNCH.' + +I have (and for this gift I congratulate myself with Deep +and Abiding Thankfulness) an eye for a Snob. If the +Truthful is the Beautiful, it is Beautiful to study even +the Snobbish; to track Snobs through history, as certain +little dogs in Hampshire hunt out truffles; to sink +shafts in society and come upon rich veins of Snobore. +Snobbishness is like Death in a quotation from Horace, +which I hope you never have heard, 'beating with equal +foot at poor men's doors, and kicking at the gates of +Emperors.' It is a great mistake to judge of Snobs +lightly, and think they exist among the lower classes +merely. An immense percentage of Snobs, I believe, is to +be found in every rank of this mortal life. You must not +judge hastily or vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that +you are yourself a Snob. I myself have been taken for +one. + +When I was taking the waters at Bagnigge Wells, and +living at the 'Imperial Hotel' there, there used to sit +opposite me at breakfast, for a short time, a Snob so +insufferable that I felt I should never get any benefit +of the waters so long as he remained. His name was +Lieutenant-Colonel Snobley, of a certain dragoon +regiment. He wore japanned boots and moustaches: he +lisped, drawled, and left the 'r's' out of his words: he +was always flourishing about, and smoothing his lacquered +whiskers with a huge flaming bandanna, that filled the +room with an odour of musk so stifling that I determined +to do battle with that Snob, and that either he or I +should quit the Inn. I first began harmless +conversations with him; frightening him exceedingly, for +he did not know what to do when so attacked, and had +never the slightest notion that anybody would take such a +liberty with him as to speak first: then I handed him the +paper: then, as he would take no notice of these +advances, I used to look him in the face steadily and-- +and use my fork in the light of a toothpick. After two +mornings of this practice, he could bear it no longer, +and fairly quitted the place. + +Should the Colonel see this, will he remember the Gent +who asked him if he thought Publicoaler was a fine +writer, and drove him from the Hotel with a four-pronged +fork? + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE SNOB PLAYFULLY DEALT WITH + + +There are relative and positive Snobs. I mean by +positive, such persons as are Snobs everywhere, in all +companies, from morning till night, from youth to the +grave, being by Nature endowed with Snobbishness--and +others who are Snobs only in certain circumstances and +relations of life. + +For instance: I once knew a man who committed before me +an act as atrocious as that which I have indicated in the +last chapter as performed by me for the purpose of +disgusting Colonel Snobley; viz, the using the fork in +the guise of a toothpick. I once, I say, knew a man who, +dining in my company at the 'Europa Coffee-house,' +(opposite the Grand Opera, and, as everybody knows, the +only decent place for dining at Naples,) ate peas with +the assistance of his knife. He was a person with whose +society I was greatly pleased at first--indeed, we had +met in the crater of Mount Vesuvius, and were +subsequently robbed and held to ransom by brigands in +Calabria, which is nothing to the purpose--a man of great +powers, excellent heart, and varied information; but I +had never before seen him with a dish of pease, and his +conduct in regard to them caused me the deepest pain. + +After having seen him thus publicly comport himself, but +one course was open to me--to cut his acquaintance. I +commissioned a mutual friend (the Honourable Poly Anthus) +to break the matter to this gentleman as delicately as +possible, and to say that painful circumstances--in +nowise affecting Mr. Marrowfat's honour, or my esteem for +him--had occurred, which obliged me to forego my intimacy +with him; and accordingly we met and gave each other the +cut direct that night at the Duchess of Monte Fiasco's +ball. + +Everybody at Naples remarked the separation of the Damon +and Pythias--indeed, Marrowfat had saved my life more +than once--but, as an English gentleman, what was I to +do? + +My dear friend was, in this instance, the Snob RELATIVE. +It is not snobbish of persons of rank of any other nation +to employ their knife in the manner alluded to. I have +seen Monte Fiasco clean his trencher with his knife, and +every Principe in company doing likewise. I have seen, +at the hospitable board of H.I.H. the Grand Duchess +Stephanie of Baden--(who, if these humble lines should +come under her Imperial eyes, is besought to remember +graciously the most devoted of her servants)--I have +seen, I say, the Hereditary Princess of Potztausend- +Donnerwetter (that serenely-beautiful woman) use her +knife in lieu of a fork or spoon; I have seen her almost +swallow it, by Jove! like Ramo Samee, the Indian juggler. +And did I blench? Did my estimation for the Princess +diminish? No, lovely Amalia! One of the truest passions +that ever was inspired by woman was raised in this bosom +by that lady. Beautiful one! long, long may the knife +carry food to those lips! the reddest and loveliest in +the world! + +The cause of my quarrel with Marrowfat I never breathed +to mortal soul for four years. We met in the halls of +the aristocracy--our friends and relatives. We jostled +each other in the dance or at the board; but the +estrangement continued, and seemed irrevocable, until the +fourth of June, last year. + +We met at Sir George Golloper's. We were placed, he on +the right, your humble servant on the left of the +admirable Lady G.. Peas formed part of the banquet-- +ducks and green peas. I trembled as I saw Marrowfat +helped, and turned away sickening, lest I should behold +the weapon darting down his horrid jaws. + +What was my astonishment, what my delight, when I saw him +use his fork like any other Christian! He did not +administer the cold steel once. Old times rushed back +upon me--the remembrance of old services--his rescuing me +from the brigands--his gallant conduct in the affair with +the Countess Dei Spinachi--his lending me the 1,700L. I +almost burst into tears with joy--my voice trembled with +emotion. 'George, my boy!' I exclaimed, 'George +Marrowfat, my dear fellow! a glass of wine!' + +Blushing--deeply moved--almost as tremulous as I was +myself, George answered, 'FRANK, SHALL IT BE HOCK OR +MADEIRA? I could have hugged him to my heart but for the +presence of the company. Little did Lady Golloper know +what was the cause of the emotion which sent the duckling +I was carving into her ladyship's pink satin lap. The +most good-natured of women pardoned the error, and the +butler removed the bird. + +We have been the closest friends over since, nor, of +course, has George repeated his odious habit. He +acquired it at a country school, where they cultivated +peas and only used two-pronged forks, and it was only by +living on the Continent where the usage of the four-prong +is general, that he lost the horrible custom. + +In this point--and in this only--I confess myself a +member of the Silver-Fork School; and if this tale but +induce one of my readers to pause, to examine in his own +mind solemnly, and ask, 'Do I or do I not eat peas with a +knife?'--to see the ruin which may fall upon himself by +continuing the practice, or his family by beholding the +example, these lines will not have been written in vain. +And now, whatever other authors may be, I flatter myself, +it will be allowed that I, at least, am a moral man. + +By the way, as some readers are dull of comprehension, I +may as well say what the moral of this history is. The +moral is this--Society having ordained certain customs, +men are bound to obey the law of society, and conform to +its harmless orders. + +If I should go to the British and Foreign Institute (and +heaven forbid I should go under any pretext or in any +costume whatever)--if I should go to one of the tea- +parties in a dressing-gown and slippers, and not in the +usual attire of a gentleman, viz, pumps, a gold +waistcoat, a crush hat, a sham frill, and a white choker- +-I should be insulting society, and EATING PEASE WITH MY +KNIFE. Let the porters of the Institute hustle out the +individual who shall so offend. Such an offender is, as +regards society, a most emphatical and refractory Snob. +It has its code and police as well as governments, and he +must conform who would profit by the decrees set forth +for their common comfort. + +I am naturally averse to egotism, and hate selflaudation +consumedly; but I can't help relating here a circumstance +illustrative of the point in question, in which I must +think I acted with considerable prudence. + +Being at Constantinople a few years since--(on a delicate +mission),--the Russians were playing a double game, +between ourselves, and it became necessary on our part to +employ an EXTRA NEGOTIATOR--Leckerbiss Pasha of Roumelia, +then Chief Galeongee of the Porte, gave a diplomatic +banquet at his summer palace at Bujukdere. I was on the +left of the Galeongee, and the Russian agent, Count de +Diddloff, on his dexter side. Diddloff is a dandy who +would die of a rose in aromatic pain: he had tried to +have me assassinated three times in the course of the +negotiation; but of course we were friends in public, and +saluted each other in the most cordial and charming +manner. + +The Galeongee is--or was, alas! for a bow-string has done +for him--a staunch supporter of the old school of Turkish +politics. We dined with our fingers, and had flaps of +bread for plates; the only innovation he admitted was the +use of European liquors, in which he indulged with great +gusto. He was an enormous eater. Amongst the dishes a +very large one was placed before him of a lamb dressed in +its wool, stuffed with prunes, garlic, assafoetida, +capsicums, and other condiments, the most abominable +mixture that ever mortal smelt or tasted. The Galeongee +ate of this hugely; and pursuing the Eastern fashion, +insisted on helping his friends right and left, and when +he came to a particularly spicy morsel, would push it +with his own hands into his guests' very mouths. + +I never shall forget the look of poor Diddloff, when his +Excellency, rolling up a large quantity of this into a +ball and exclaiming, 'Buk Buk' (it is very good), +administered the horrible bolus to Diddloff. The +Russian's eyes rolled dreadfully as he received it: he +swallowed it with a grimace that I thought must precede a +convulsion, and seizing a bottle next him, which he +thought was Sauterne, but which turned out to be French +brandy, he drank off nearly a pint before he know his +error. It finished him; he was carried away from the +dining-room almost dead, and laid out to cool in a +summer-house on the Bosphorus. + +When it came to my turn, I took down the condiment with a +smile, said 'Bismillah,' licked my lips with easy +gratification, and when the next dish was served, made up +a ball myself so dexterously, and popped it down the old +Galeongee's mouth with so much grace, that his heart was +won. Russia was put out of court at once and THE TREATY +of Kabobanople WAS SIGNED. As for Diddloff, all was over +with HIM: he was recalled to St. Petersburg, and Sir +Roderick Murchison saw him, under the No. 3967, working +in the Ural mines. + +The moral of this tale, I need not say, is, that there +are many disagreeable things in society which you are +bound to take down, and to do so with a smiling face. + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE SNOB ROYAL + +Long since at the commencement of the reign of her +present Gracious Majesty, it chanced 'on a fair summer +evening,' as Mr. James would say, that three or four +young cavaliers were drinking a cup of wine after dinner +at the hostelry called the 'King's Arms,' kept by +Mistress Anderson, in the royal village of Kensington. +'Twas a balmy evening, and the wayfarers looked out on a +cheerful scene. The tall elms of the ancient gardens +were in full leaf, and countless chariots of the nobility +of England whirled by to the neighbouring palace, where +princely Sussex (whose income latterly only allowed him +to give tea-parties) entertained his royal niece at a +state banquet. When the caroches of the nobles had set +down their owners at the banquethall, their varlets and +servitors came to quaff a flagon of nut-brown ale in the +'King's Arms' gardens hard by. We watched these fellows +from our lattice. By Saint Boniface 'twas a rare sight! + +The tulips in Mynheer Van Dunck's gardens were not more +gorgeous than the liveries of these pie-coated retainers. +All the flowers of the field bloomed in their ruffled +bosoms, all the hues of the rainbow gleamed in their +plush breeches, and the long-caned ones walked up and +down the garden with that charming solemnity, that +delightfull quivering swagger of the calves, which has +always had a frantic fascination for us. The walk was +not wide enough for them as the shoulder-knots strutted +up and down it in canary, and crimson, and light blue. + +Suddenly, in the midst of their pride, a little bell was +rung, a side door opened, and (after setting down their +Royal Mistress) her Majesty's own crimson footmen, with +epaulets and black plushes, came in. + +It was pitiable to see the other poor Johns slink off at +this arrival! Not one of the honest private Plushes +could stand up before the Royal Flunkeys. They left the +walk: they sneaked into dark holes and drank tbeir beer +in silence. The Royal Plush kept possession of the +garden until the Royal Plush dinner was announced, when +it retired, and we heard from the pavilion where they +dined, conservative cheers, and speeches, and Kentish +fires. The other Flunkeys we never saw more. + +My dear Flunkeys, so absurdly conceited at one moment and +so abject at the next, are but the types of their masters +in this world. HE WHO MEANLY ADMIRES MEAN THINGS IS A +SNOB--perhaps that is a safe definition of the character. + +And this is why I have, with the utmost respect, ventured +to place The Snob Royal at the head of my list, causing +all others to give way before him, as the Flunkeys before +the royal representative in Kensington Gardens. To say +of such and such a Gracious Sovereign that he is a Snob, +is but to say that his Majesty is a man. Kings, too, are +men and Snobs. In a country where Snobs are in the +majority, a prime one, surely, cannot be unfit to govern. +With us they have succeeded to admiration. + +For instance, James I. was a Snob, and a Scotch Snob, +than which the world contains no more offensive creature. +He appears to have had not one of the good qualities of a +man--neither courage, nor generosity, nor honesty, nor +brains; but read what the great Divines and Doctors of +England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a +rogue, but not a Snob; whilst Louis XIV., his old +squaretoes of a contemporary,--the great worshipper of +Bigwiggery--has always struck me as a most undoubted and +Royal Snob. + +I will not, however, take instances from our own country +of Royal Snobs, but refer to a neighbouring kingdom, that +of Brentford--and its monarch, the late great and +lamented Gorgius IV. With the same humility with which +the footmen at the 'King's Arms' gave way before the +Plush Royal, the aristocracy of the Brentford nation bent +down and truckled before Gorgius, and proclaimed him the +first gentleman in Europe. And it's a wonder to think +what is the gentlefolks' opinion of a gentleman, when +they gave Gorgius such a title. + +What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be +gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, +possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the +most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be a +loyal son, a true husband, and honest father? Ought his +life to be decent--his bills to be paid--his tastes to be +high and elegant--his aims in life lofty and noble? In +a word, ought not the Biography of a First Gentleman in +Europe to be of such a nature that it might be read in +Young Ladies' Schools with advantage, and studied with +profit in the Seminaries of Young Gentlemen? I put this +question to all instructors of youth--to Mrs. Ellis and +the Women of England; to all schoolmasters, from Doctor +Hawtrey down to Mr. Squeers. I conjure up before me an +awful tribunal of youth and innocence, attended by its +venerable instructors (like the ten thousand red-cheeked +charity-children in Saint Paul's), sitting in judgment, +and Gorgius pleading his cause in the midst. Out of +Court, out of Court, fat old Florizel! Beadles, turn out +that bloated, pimple-faced man!--If Gorgius MUST have a +statue in the new Palace which the Brentford nation is +building, it ought to be set up in the Flunkeys' Hall. +He should be represented cutting out a coat, in which art +he is said to have excelled. He also invented Maraschino +punch, a shoe-buckle (this was in the vigour of his +youth, and the prime force of his invention), and a +Chinese pavilion, the most hideous building in the world. +He could drive a four-in-hand very nearly as well as the +Brighton coachman, could fence elegantly, and it is said, +played the fiddle well. And he smiled with such +irresistible fascination, that persons who were +introduced into his august presence became his victims, +body and soul, as a rabbit becomes the prey of a great +big boa-constrictor. + +I would wager that if Mr. Widdicomb were, by a +revolution, placed on the throne of Brentford, people +would be equally fascinated by his irresistibly majestic +smile and tremble as they knelt down to kiss his hand. +If he went to Dublin they would erect an obelisk on the +spot where he first landed, as the Paddylanders did when +Gorgius visited them. We have all of us read with +delight that story of the King's voyage to Haggisland, +where his presence inspired such a fury of loyalty and +where the most famous man of the country--the Baron of +Bradwardine--coming on board the royal yacht, and finding +a glass out of which Gorgius had drunk, put it into his +coatpocket as an inestimable relic, and went ashore in +his boat again. But the Baron sat down upon the glass +and broke it, and cut his coat-tails very much; and the +inestimable relic was lost to the world for ever. O +noble Bradwardine! what old-world superstition could set +you on your knees before such an idol as that? + +If you want to moralise upon the mutability of human +affairs, go and see the figure of Gorgius in his real, +identical robes, at the waxwork.--Admittance one +shilling. Children and flunkeys sixpence. Go, and pay +sixpence. + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE INFLUENCE OF THE ARISTOCRACY ON SNOBS + +Last Sunday week, being at church in this city, and the +service just ended, I heard two Snobs conversing about +the Parson. One was asking the other who the clergyman +was? 'He is Mr. So-and-so,' the second Snob answered, +'domestic chaplain to the Earl of What-d'ye-call'im.' +'Oh, is he' said the first Snob, with a tone of +indescribable satisfaction.--The Parson's orthodoxy and +identity were at once settled in this Snob's mind. He +knew no more about the Earl than about the Chaplain, but +he took the latter's character upon the authority of the +former; and went home quite contented with his Reverence, +like a little truckling Snob. + +This incident gave me more matter for reflection even +than the sermon: and wonderment at the extent and +prevalence of Lordolatory in this country. What could it +matter to Snob whether his Reverence were chaplain to his +Lordship or not? What Peerageworship there is all +through this free country! How we are all implicated in +it, and more or less down on our knees.--And with regard +to the great subject on hand, I think that the influence +of the Peerage upon Snobbishness has been more remarkabie +than that of any other institution. The increase, +encouragement, and maintenance of Snobs are among the +'priceless services,' as Lord John Russell says, which we +owe to the nobility. + +It can't be otherwise. A man becomes enormously rich, or +he jobs successfully in the aid of a Minister, or he wins +a great battle, or executes a treaty, or is a clever +lawyer who makes a multitude of fees and ascends the +bench; and the country rewards him for ever with a gold +coronot (with more or less balls or leaves) and a title, +and a rank as legislator. 'Your merits are so great,' +says the nation, 'that your children shall be allowed to +reign over us, in a manner. It does not in the least +matter that your eldest son be a fool: we think your +services so remarkable, that he shall have the reversion +of your honours when death vacates your noble shoes. If +you are poor, we will give you such a sum of money as +shall enable you and the eldest-born of your race for +ever to live in fat and splendour. It is our wish that +there should be a race set apart in this happy country, +who shall hold the first rank, have the first prizes and +chances in all government jobs and patronages. We cannot +make all your dear children Peers--that would make +Peerage common and crowd the House of Lords +uncomfortably--but the young ones shall have everything a +Government can give: they shall get the pick of all the +places: they shall be Captains and Lieutenant-Colonels at +nineteen, when hoary-headed old lieutenants are spending +thirty years at drill: they shall command ships at one- +and-twenty, and veterans who fought before they were +born. And as we are eminently a free people, and in +order to encourage all men to do their duty, we say to +any man of any rank--get enormously rich, make immense +fees as a lawyer, or great speeches, or distinguish +yourself and win battles--and you, even you, shall come +into the privileged class, and your children shall reign +naturally over ours.' + +How can we help Snobbishness, with such a prodigious +national institution erected for its worship? How can we +help cringing to Lords? Flesh and blood can't do +otherwise. What man can withstand this prodigious +temptation? Inspired by what is called a noble +emulation, some people grasp at honours and win them; +others, too weak or mean, blindly admire and grovel +before those who have gained them; others, not being able +to acquire them, furiously hate, abuse, and envy. There +are only a few bland and not-in-the-least-conceited +philosophers, who can behold the state of society, viz., +Toadyism, organised:--base Man-and-Mammon worship, +instituted by command of law:--Snobbishness, in a word, +perpetuated,--and mark the phenomenon calmly. And of +these calm moralists, is there one, I wonder, whose heart +would not throb with pleasure if he could be seen walking +arm-in-arm with a couple of dukes down Pall Mall? No it +is impossible in our condition of society, not to be +sometimes a Snob. + +On one hand it encourages the commoner to be snobbishly +mean, and the noble to be snobbishly arrogant. When a +noble marchioness writes in her travels about the hard +necessity under which steam-boat travellers labour of +being brought into contact 'with all sorts and conditions +of people:' implying that a fellowship with God's +creatures is disagreeable to to her Ladyship, who is +their superier:--when, I say, the Marchioness of ---- +writes in this fashion, we must consider that out of her +natural heart it would have been impossible for any woman +to have had such a sentiment; but that the habit of +truckling and cringing, which all who surround her have +adopted towards this beautiful and magnificent lady,-- +this proprietor of so many black and other diamonds,--has +really induced her to believe that she is the superior of +the world in general: and that people are not to +associate with her except awfully at a distance. I +recollect being once at the city of Grand Cairo, through +which a European Royal Prince was passing India-wards. +One night at the inn there was a great disturbance: a man +had drowned himself in the well hard by: all the +inhabitants of the hotel came bustling into the Court, +and amongst others your humble servant, who asked of a +certain young man the reason of the disturbance. How was +I to know that this young gent was a prince? He had not +his crown and sceptre on: he was dressed in a white +jacket and felt hat: but he looked surprised at anybody +speaking to him: answered an unintelligible monosyllable, +and--BECKONED HIS AID-DE-CAMP TO COME AND SPEAK TO ME. +It is our fault, not that of the great, that they should +fancy themselves so far above us. If you WILL fling +yourself under the wheels, Juggernaut will go over you, +depend upon it; and if you and I, my dear friend, had +Kotow performed before us every day,--found people +whenever we appeared grovelling in slavish adoration, we +should drop into the airs of superiority quite naturally, +and accept the greatness with which the world insisted +upon endowing us. + +Here is an instance, out of Lord L----'s travels, of that +calm, good-natured, undoubting way in which a great man +accepts the homage of his inferiors. After making some +profound and ingenious remarks about the town of +Brussells, his lordship says:--'Staying some day at the +Hotel de Belle Vue, a greatly overrated establishment, +and not nearly as comfortable as the Hotel de France--I +made acquaintance with Dr. L----, the physician of the +Mission. He was desirous of doing the honours of the +place to me, and he ordered for us a DINER EN GOURMAND at +the chief restaurateur's, maintaining it surpassed the +Rocher at Paris. Six or eight partook of the +entertainment, and we all agreed it was infinitely +inferior to the Paris display, and much more extravagant. +So much for the copy. + +And so much for the gentleman who gave the dinner. Dr. +L----, desirous to do his lordship 'the honour of the +place,' feasts him with the best victuals money can +procure--and my lord finds the entertainment extravagant +and inferior. Extravagant! it was not extravagant to +HIM;--Inferior! Mr. L---- did his best to satisfy those +noble jaws, and my lord receives the entertainment, and +dismisses the giver with a rebuke. It is like a three- +tailed Pasha grumbling about an unsatisfactory +backsheesh. + +But how should it be otherwise in a country where +Lordolatry is part of our creed, and where our children +are brought up to respect the 'Peerage' as the +Englishman's second Bible? + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE COURT CIRCULAR, AND ITS INFLUENCE ON SNOBS + +Example is the best of precepts; so let us begin with a +true and authentic story, showing how young aristocratic +snobs are reared, and how early their Snobbishness may be +made to bloom. A beautiful and fashionable lady-- +(pardon, gracious madam, that your story should be made +public; but it is so moral that it ought to be known to +the universal world)--told me that in her early youth she +had a little acquaintance, who is now indeed a beautiful +and fashionable lady too. In mentioning Miss Snobky, +daughter of Sir Snobby Snobky, whose presentation at +Court caused such a sensation, need I say more? + +When Miss Snobky was so very young as to be in the +nursery regions, and to walk off early mornings in St. +James's Park, protected by a French governess and +followed by a huge hirsute flunkey in the canary coloured +livery of the Snobkys, she used occasionally in these +promenades to meet with young Lord Claude Lollipop, the +Marquis of Sillabub's younger son. In the very height of +the season, from some unexplained cause, the Snobkys +suddenly determined upon leaving town. Miss Snobky spoke +to her female friend and confidante. 'What will poor +Claude Lollipop say when he hears of my absence?' asked +the tender-hearted child. + +'Oh, perhaps he won't hear of it,' answers the +confidante. + +'MY DEAR, HE WILL READ IT IN THE PAPERS,' replied the +dear little fashionable rogue of seven years old. She +knew already her importance, and how all the world of +England, how all the would-be-genteel people, how all the +silver-fork worshippers, how all the tattle-mongers, how +all the grocers' ladies, the tailors' ladies, the +attorneys' and merchants' ladies, and the people living +at Clapham and Brunswick Square,--who have no more chance +of consorting with a Snobky than my beloved reader has of +dining with the Emperor of China--yet watched the +movements of the Snobkys with interest and were glad to +know when they came to London and left it. + +Here is the account of Miss Snobky's dress, and that of +her mother, Lady Snobky, from the papers:-- + +'MISS SNOBKY. + +Habit de Cour, composed of a yellow nankeen illusion +dress over a slip of rich pea-green corduroy, trimmed en +tablier, with bouquets of Brussels sprouts: the body and +sleeves handsomely trimmed with calimanco, and festooned +with a pink train and white radishes. Head-dress, +carrots and lappets. + +'LADY SNOBKY. + +'Costume de Cour, composed of a train of the most superb +Pekin bandannas, elegantly trimmed with spangles, +tinfoil, and red-tape. Bodice and underdress of sky-blue +velveteen, trimmed with bouffants and noeuds of bell- +pulls. Stomacher a muffin. Head-dress a bird's nest, +with a bird of paradise, over a rich brass knocker en +ferroniere. This splendid costume, by Madame Crinoline, +of Regent Street, was the object of universal +admiration.' + +This is what you read. Oh, Mrs. Ellis! Oh, mothers, +daughters, aunts, grandmothers of England, this is the +sort of writing which is put in the newspapers for you! +How can you help being the mothers, daughters, &c. of +Snobs, so long as this balderdash is set before you? + +You stuff the little rosy foot of a Chinese young lady of +fashion into a slipper that is about the size of a salt- +cruet, and keep the poor little toes there imprisoned and +twisted up so long that the dwarfishness becomes +irremediable. Later, the foot would not expand to the +natural size were you to give her a washing-tub for a +shoe and for all her life she has little feet, and is a +cripple. Oh, my dear Miss Wiggins, thank your stars that +those beautiful feet of yours--though I declare when you +walk they are so small as to be almost invisible--thank +your stars that society never so practised upon them; but +look around and see how many friends of ours in the +highest circles have had their BRAINS so prematurely and +hopelessly pinched and distorted. + +How can you expect that those poor creatures are to move +naturally when the world and their parents have mutilated +them so cruelly? As long as a COURT CIRCULAR exists, how +the deuce are people whose names are chronicled in it +ever to believe themselves the equals of the cringing +race which daily reads that abominable trash? I believe +that ours is the only country in the world now where the +COURT CIRCULAR remains in full flourish--where you read, +'This day his Royal Highness Prince Pattypan was taken an +airing in his go-cart.' 'The Princess Pimminy was taken +a drive, attended by her ladies of honour, and +accompanied by her doll,' &c. We laugh at the solemnity +with which Saint Simon announces that SA MAJESTE SE +MEDICAMENTE AUJOURD'HUI. Under our very noses the same +folly is daily going on. "That wonderful and mysterious +man, the author of the COURT CIRCULAR, drops in with his +budget at the newspaper offices every night. I once +asked the editor of a paper to allow me to lie in wait +and see him. + +I am told that in a kingdom where there is a German King- +Consort (Portugal it must be, for the Queen of that +country married a German Prince, who is greatly admired +and respected by the natives), whenever the Consort takes +the diversion of shooting among the rabbit-warrens of +Cintra, or the pheasant-preserve of Mafra, he has a +keeper to load his guns, as a matter of course, and then +they are handed to the nobleman, his equerry, and the +nobleman hands them to the Prince who blazes away--gives +back the discharged gun to the nobleman, who gives it to +the keeper, and so on. But the Prince WON'T TAKE THE GUN +FROM THE HANDS OF THE LOADER. + +As long as this unnatural and monstrous etiquette +continues, Snobs there must be. The three persons +engaged in this transaction are, for the time being, +Snobs. + +1. The keeper--the least Snob of all, because he is +discharging his daily duty; but he appears here as a +Snob, that is to say, in a position of debasement,before +another human being (the Prince), with whom he is allowed +to cemmunicate through another party. A free Portuguese +gamekeeper, who professes himself to be unworthy to +communicate directly with any person, confesses himself +to be a Snob. + +2. The nobleman in waiting is a Snob. If it degrades +the Prince to receive the gun from the gamekeeper, it is +degrading to the nobleman in waiting to execute that +service. He acts as a Snob towards the keeper, whom he +keeps from communication with the Prince--a Snob to the +Prince, to whom he pays a degrading homage. + +3. The King-Consort of Portugal is a Snob for insulting +fellow-men in this way. There's no harm in his accepting +the services of the keeper directly; but indirectly he +insults the service performed, and the servants who +perform it; and therefore, I say, respectfully, is a most +undoubted, though royal Snob. + +And then you read in the DIARIO DO GOBERNO--'Yesterday +his Majesty the King took the diversion of shooting the +woods off Cintra, attended by Colonel the honourable +Whiskerando Sombrero. His Majesty returned to the +Necessidades to lunch, at,' &c. &c.. + +Oh! that COURT CIRCULAR! once more, I exclaim. + +Down with the COURT CIRCULAR--that engine and propagator +of Snobbishness! I promise to subscribe for a year to +any daily paper that shall come out without a COURT +CIRCULAR--were it the MORNING HERALD itself. When I read +that trash, I rise in my wrath; I feel myself disloyal, a +regicide, a member of the Calf's Head Club. The only +COURT CIRCULAR story which ever pleased me, was that of +the King of Spain, who in great part was roasted, because +there was not time for the Prime Minister to command the +Lord Chamberlain to desire the Grand Gold Stick to order +the first page in waiting to bid the chief of the +flunkeys to request the House-maid of Honour to bring up +a pail of water to put his Majesty out. + +I am like the Pasha of three tails, to whom the Sultan +sends HIS COURT CIRCULAR, the bowstring. + +It CHOKES me. May its usage be abolished for ever. + + + +CHAPTER V + +WHAT SNOBS ADMIRE + +Now let us consider how difficult it is even for great +men to escape from being Snobs. It is very well for the +reader, whose fine feelings are disgusted by the +assertion that Kings, Princes, Lords, are Snobs, to say +'You are confessedly a Snob yourself. In professing to +depict Snobs, it is only your own ugly mug which you are +copying with a Narcissus-like conceit and fatuity.' But +I shall pardon this explosion of ill-temper on the part +of my constant reader, reflecting upon the misfortune of +his birth and country. It is impossible for ANY Briton, +perhaps, not to be a Snob in some degree. If people can +be convinced of this fact, an immense point is gained, +surely. If I have pointed out the disease, let us hope +that other scientific characters may discover the remedy. + +If you, who are a person of the middle ranks of life, are +a Snob,--you whom nobody flatters particularly; you who +have no toadies; you whom no cringing flunkeys or shopmen +bow out of doors; you whom the policeman tells to move +on; you who are jostled in the crowd of this world, and +amongst the Snobs our brethren: consider how much harder +it is for a man to escape who has not your advantages, +and is all his life long subject to adulation; the butt +of meanness; consider how difficult it is for the Snobs' +idol not to be a Snob. + +As I was discoursing with my friend Eugenio in this +impressive way, Lord Buckram passed us, the son of the +Marquis of Bagwig, and knocked at the door of the family +mansion in Red Lion Square. His noble father and mother +occupied, as everybody knows, distinguished posts in the +Courts of late Sovereigns. The Marquis was Lord of the +Pantry, and her Ladyship, Lady of the Powder Closet to +Queen Charlotte. Buck (as I call him, for we are very +familiar) gave me a nod as he passed, and I proceeded to +show Eugenio how it was impossible that this nobleman +should not be one of ourselves, having been practised +upon by Snobs all his life. + +His parents resolved to give him a public education, and +sent him to school at the earliest possible period. The +Reverend Otto Rose, D.D., Principal of the Preparatory +Academy for young noblemen and gentlemen, Richmond Lodge, +took this little Lord in hand, and fell down and +worshipped him. He always introduced him to fathers and +mothers who came to visit their children at the school. +He referred with pride and pleasure to the most noble the +Marquis of Bagwig, as one of the kind friends and patrons +of his Seminary. He made Lord Buckram a bait for such a +multiplicity of pupils, that a new wing was built to +Richmond Lodge, and thirty-five new little white dimity +beds were added to the establishment. Mm. Rose used to +take out the little Lord in the one-horse chaise with her +when she paid visits, until the Rector's lady and the +Surgeon's wife almost died with envy. His own son and +Lord Buckram having been discovered robbing an orchard +together, the Doctor flogged his own flesh and blood most +unmercifully for leading the young Lord astray. He +parted from him with tears. There was always a letter +directed to the Most Noble the Marquis ef Bagwig, on the +Doctor's study table, when any visitors were received by +him. + +At Eton, a great deal of Snobbishness was thrashed out of +Lord Buckram, and he was birched with perfect +impartiality. Even there, however, a select band of +sucking tuft-hunters followed him. Young Croesus lent +him three-and-twenty bran-new sovereigns out of his +father's bank. Young Snaily did his exercises for him, +and tried 'to know him at home;' but Young Bull licked +him in a fight of fifty-five minutes, and he was caned +several times with great advantage for not sufficiently +polishing his master Smith's shoes. Boys are not ALL +toadies in the morning of life. + +But when he went to the University, crowds of toadies +sprawled over him. The tutors toadied him. The fellows +in hall paid him great clumsy compliments. The Dean +never remarked his absence from Chapel, or heard any +noise issuing from his rooms. A number of respectable +young fellows, (it is among the respectable, the Baker +Street class, that Snobbishness flourishes, more than +among any set of people in England)--a number of these +clung to him like leeches. There was no end now to +Croesus's loans of money; and Buckram couldn't ride out +with the hounds, but Snaily (a timid creature by nature) +was in the field, and would take any leap at which his +friend chose to ride. Young Rose came up to the same +College, having been kept back for that express purpose +by his father. He spent a quarter's allowance in giving +Buckram a single dinner; but he knew there was always +pardon for him for extravagance in such a cause; and a +ten-pound note always came to him from home when he +mentioned Buckram's name in a letter. What wild visions +entered the brains of Mrs. Podge and Miss Podge, the wife +and daughter of the Principal of Lord Buckram's College, +I don't know, but that reverend old gentleman was too +profound a flunkey by nature ever for one minute to think +that a child of his could marry a nobleman. He therefore +hastened on his daughter's union with Professer Crab. + +When Lord Buckram, after taking his honorary degree, (for +Alma Mater is a Snob, too, and truckles to a Lord like +the rest,)--when Lord Buckram went abread to finish his +education, you all know what dangers he ran, and what +numbers of caps were set at him. Lady Leach and her +daughters followed him from Paris to Rome, and from Rome +to Baden-Baden; Miss Leggitt burst into tears before his +face when he announced his determination to quit Naples, +and fainted on the neck of her mamma: Captain Macdragon, +of Macdragonstown, County Tipperary, called upon him to +'explene his intintions with respect to his sisther, Miss +Amalia Macdragon, of Macdragonstown,' and proposed to +shoot him unless he married that spotless and beautiful +young creature, who was afterwards led to the altar by +Mr. Muff, at Cheltenham. If perseverance and forty +thousand pounds down could have tempted him, Miss Lydia +Croesus would certainly have been Lady Buckram. Count +Towrowski was glad to take her with half the meney, as +all the genteel world knows. + +And now, perhaps, the reader is anxious to know what sort +of a man this is who wounded so many ladies' hearts, and +who has been such a prodigious favourite with men. If we +were to describe him it would be personal. Besides, it +really does not matter in the least what sort of a man he +is, or what his personal qualities are. + +Suppose he is a young nobleman of a literary turn, and +that he published poems ever so foolish and feeble, the +Snobs would purchase thousands of his volumes: the +publishers (who refused my Passion-Flowers, and my grand +Epic at any price) would give him his own. Suppose he is +a nobleman of a jovial turn, and has a fancy for +wrenching off knockers, frequenting ginshops, and half +murdering policemen: the public will sympathize good- +naturedly with his amusements, and say he is a hearty, +honest fellow. Suppose he is fond of play and the turf; +and has a fancy to be a blackleg, and occasionally +condescends to pluck a pigeon at cards; the public will +pardon him, and many honest people will court him, as +they would court a housebreaker if he happened to be a +Lord. Suppose he is an idiot; yet, by the glorious +constitution, he is good enough to govern US. Suppose he +is an honest, highminded gentleman; so much the better +for himself. But he may be an ass, and yet respected; or +a ruffian, and yet be exceedingly popular; or a rogue, +and yet excuses will be found for him. Snobs will still +worship him. Male Snobs will do him honour, and females +look kindly upon him, however hideous he may be. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS + +Having received a great deal of obloquy for dragging +monarchs, princes, and the respected nobility into the +Snob category, I trust to please everybody in the present +chapter, by stating my firm opinion that it is among the +RESPECTABLE classes of this vast and happy empire that +the greatest profusion of Snobs is to be found. I pace +down my beloved Baker Street, (I am engaged on a life of +Baker, founder of this celebrated street,) I walk in +Harley Street (where every other house has a hatchment), +Wimpole Street, that is as cheerful as the Catacombs--a +dingy Mausoleum of the genteel:--I rove round Regent's +Park, where the plaster is patching off the house walls; +where Methodist preachers are holding forth to three +little children in the green inclosures, and puffy +valetudinarians are cantering in the solitary mud:--I +thread the doubtful ZIG-ZAGS of May Fair, where Mrs. +Kitty Lorimer's Brougham may be seen drawn up next door +to old Lady Lollipop's belozenged family coach;--I roam +through Belgravia, that pale and polite district, where +all the inhabitants look prim and correct, and the +mansions are painted a faint whity-brown: I lose myself +in the new squares and terraces of the brilliant bran-new +Bayswater-and-Tyburn-Junction line; and in one and all of +these districts the same truth comes across me. I stop +before any house at hazard, and say, 'O house, you are +inhabited--O knocker, you are knocked at--O undressed +flunkey, sunning your lazy calves as you lean against the +iron railings, you are paid--by Snobs.' It is a +tremendous thought that; and it is almost sufficient to +drive a benevolent mind to madness to think that perhaps +there is not one in ten of those houses where the +'Peerage' does not lie on the drawing-room table. +Considering the harm that foolish lying book does, I +would have all the copies of it burned, as the barber +burned all Quixote's books of humbugging chivalry. + +Look at this grand house in the middle of the square. +The Earl of Loughcorrib lives there: he has fifty +thousand a year. A DEJEUNER DANSANT given at his house +last week cost, who knows how much? The mere flowers for +the room and bouquets for the ladies cost four hundred +pounds. That man in drab trousers, coming crying down +the stops, is a dun: Lord Loughcorrib has ruined him, and +won't see him: that is his lordship peeping through the +blind of his study at him now. Go thy ways, Loughcorrib, +thou art a Snob, a heartless pretender, a hypocrite of +hospitality; a rogue who passes forged notes upon +society;--but I am growing too eloquent. + +You see that nice house, No. 23, where a butcher's boy is +ringing the area-bell. He has three muttonchops in his +tray. They are for the dinner of a very different and +very respectable family; for Lady Susan Scraper, and her +daughters, Miss Scraper and Miss Emily Scraper. The +domestics, luckily for them, are on board wages--two huge +footmen in light blue and canary, a fat steady coachman +who is a Methodist, and a butler who would never have +stayed in the family but that he was orderly to General +Scraper when the General distinguished himself at +Walcheren. His widow sent his portrait to the United +Service Club, and it is hung up in one of the back +dressing-closets there. He is represented at a parlour +window with red curtains; in the distance is a whirlwind, +in which cannon are firing off; and he is pointing to a +chart, on which are written the words 'Walcheren, +Tobago.' + +Lady Susan is, as everybody knows by referring to the +'British Bible,' a daughter of the great and good Earl +Bagwig before mentioned. She thinks everything belonging +to her the greatest and best in the world. The first of +men naturally are the Buckrams, her own race: then follow +in rank the Scrapers. The General was the greatest +general: his eldest son, Scraper Buckram Scraper, is at +present the greatest and best; his second son the next +greatest and best; and herself the paragon of women. + +Indeed, she is a most respectable and honourable lady. +She goes to church of course: she would fancy the Church +in danger if she did not. She subscribes to Church and +parish charities; and is a directress of meritorious +charitable institutions--of Queen Charlotte's Lying-in +Hospital, the Washerwomen's Asylum, the British Drummers' +Daughters' Home, &c.. She is a model of a matron. + +The tradesman never lived who could say that he was not +paid on the quarter-day. The beggars of her +neighbourhood avoid her like a pestilence; for while she +walks out, protected by John, that domestic has always +two or three mendicity tickets ready for deserving +objects. Ten guineas a year will pay all her charities. +There is no respectable lady in all London who gets her +name more often printed for such a sum of money. + +Those three mutton-chops which you see entering at the +kitchen-door will be served on the family-plate at seven +o'clock this evening, the huge footman being present, and +the butler in black, and the crest and coat-of-arms of +the Scrapers blazing everywhere. I pity Miss Emily +Scraper--she is still young--young and hungry. Is it a +fact that she spends her pocket-money in buns? Malicious +tongues say so; but she has very little to spare for +buns, the poor little hungry soul! For the fact is, that +when the footmen, and the ladies' maids, and the fat +coach-horses, which are jobbed, and the six dinner- +parties in the season, and the two great solemn evening- +parties, and the rent of the big house, and the journey +to an English or foreign watering-place for the autumn, +are paid, my lady's income has dwindled away to a very +small sum, and she is as poor as you or I. + +You would not think it when you saw her big carriage +rattling up to the drawing-room, and caught a glimpse of +her plumes, lappets, and diamonds, waving over her +ladyship's sandy hair and majestical hooked nose;--you +would not think it when you hear 'Lady Susan Scraper's +carriage' bawled out at midnight so as to disturb all +Belgravia:--you would not think it when she comes +rustling into church, the obsequious John behind with the +bag of Prayer-books. Is it possible, you would say, that +so grand and awful a personage as that can be hard-up for +money? Alas! So it is. + +She never heard such a word as Snob, I will engage, in +this wicked and vulgar world. And, O stars and garters! +how she would start if she heard that she--she, as solemn +as Minerva--she, as chaste as Diana (without that heathen +goddess's unladylike propensity for field-sports)--that +she too was a Snob! + +A Snob she is, as long as she sets that prodigious value +upon herself, upon her name, upon her outward appearance, +and indulges in that intolerable pomposity; as long as +she goes parading abroad, like Solomon in all his glory; +as long as she goes to bed--as I believe she does--with a +turban and a bird of paradise in it, and a court train to +her night-gown; as long as she is so insufferably +virtuous and condescending; as long as she does not cut +at least one of those footmen down into mutton-chops for +the benefit of the young ladies. + +I had my notions of her from my old schoolfellow,--her +son Sydney Scraper--a Chancery barrister without any +practice--the most placid, polite, and genteel of Snobs, +who never exceeded his allowance of two hundred a year, +and who may be seen any evening at the 'Oxford and +Cambridge Club,' simpering over the QUARTERLY REVIEW, in +the blameless enjoyment of his half-pint of port. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS + +Look at the next house to Lady Susan Scraper's. The +first mansion with the awning over the door: that canopy +will be let down this evening for the comfort of the +friends of Sir Alured and Lady S. de Mogyns, whose +parties are so much admired by the public, and the givers +themselves. + +Peach-coloured liveries laced with silver, and pea-green +plush inexpressibles, render the De Mogyns' flunkeys the +pride of the ring when they appear in Hyde Park where +Lady de Mogyns, as she sits upon her satin cushions, with +her dwarf spaniel in her arms, bows to the very selectest +of the genteel. Times are altered now with Mary Anne, +or, as she calls herself, Marian de Mogyns. + +She was the daughter of Captain Flack of the Rathdrum +Fencibles, who crossed with his regiment over from +Ireland to Caermarthenshire ever so many years ago, and +defended Wales from the Corsican invader. The Rathdrums +were quartered at Pontydwdlm, where Marian wooed and won +her De Mogyns, a young banker in the place. His +attentions to Miss Flack at a race ball were such that +her father said De Mogyns must either die on the field of +honour, or become his son-in-law. He preferred marriage. +His name was Muggins then, and his father--a flourishing +banker, army-contractor, smuggler, and general jobber-- +almost disinherited him on account of this connection. + +There is a story that Muggins the Elder was made a +baronet for having lent money to a R-y-l p-rs-n-ge. I do +not believe it. The R-y-l Family always paid their +debts, from the Prince of Wales downwards. + +Howbeit, to his life's end he remained simple Sir Thomas +Muggins, representing Pontydwdlm in Parliament for many +years after the war. The old banker died in course of +time, and to use the affectionate phrase common on such +occasions, 'cut up' prodigiously well. His son, Alfred +Smith Mogyns, succeeded to the main portion of his +wealth, and to his titles and the bloody hand of his +scutcheon. It was not for many years after that he +appeared as Sir Alured Mogyns Smyth de Mogyns, with a +genealogy found out for him by the Editor of 'Fluke's +Peerage,' and which appears as follows in that work:- 'De +Mogyns.--Sir Alured Mogyns Smyth, Second Baronet. This +gentleman is a representative of one of the most ancient +families of Wales, who trace their descent until it is +lost in the mists of antiquity. A genealogical tree +beginning with Shem is in the possession of the family, +and is stated by a legend of many thousand years' date to +have been drawn on papyrus by a grandson of the patriarch +himself. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt of the +immense antiquity of the race of Mogyns. + +'In the time of Boadicea, Hogyn Mogyn, of the hundred +Beeves, was a suitor and a rival of Caractacus for the +hand of that Princess. He was a person gigantic in +stature, and was slain by Suetonius in the battle which +terminated the liberties of Britain. From him descended +directly the Princes of Pontydwdlm, Mogyn of the Golden +Harp (see the Mabinogion of Lady Charlotte Guest,) Bogyn- +Merodac-ap-Mogyn, (the black fiend son of Mogyn,) and a +long list of bards and warriors, celebrated both in Wales +and Armorica. The independent Princes of Mogyn long held +out against the ruthless Kings of England, until finally +Gam Mogyns made his submission to Prince Henry, son of +Henry IV., and under the name of Sir David Gam de Mogyns, +was distinguished at the battle of Agincourt. + +>From him the present Baronet is descended. (And here the +descent follows in order until it comes to) Thomas +Muggins, first Baronet of Pontydwdlm Castle, for 23 years +Member of Parliament for that borough, who had issue, +Alured Mogyns Smyth, the present Baronet, who married +Marian, daughter of the late general P. Flack, of +Ballyflack, in the Kingdom of Ireland of the Counts Flack +of the H. R. Empire. Sir Alured has issue, Alured +Caradoc, born 1819, Marian, 1811, Blanche Adeliza, Emily +Doria, Adelaide Obleans, Katinka Rostopchin, Patrick +Flack, died 1809. + +'Arms--a mullion garbled, gules on a saltire reversed of +the second. Crest--a tom-tit rampant regardant. Motto-- +UNG ROY UNG MOGYNS.' + +It was long before Lady de Mogyns shone as a star in the +fashionable world. At first, poor Muggins was the in the +hands of the Flacks, the Clancys, the Tooles, the +Shanahans, his wife's Irish relations; and whilst he was +yet but heir-apparent, his house overflowed with claret +and the national nectar, for the benefit of Hibernian +relatives. Tom Tufto absolutely left the street in which +they lived in London, because he said 'it was infected +with such a confounded smell of whisky from the house of +those IWISH people.' + +It was abroad that they learned to be genteel. They +pushed into all foreign courts, and elbowed their way +into the halls of Ambassadors. They pounced upon the +stray nobility, and seized young lords travelling with +their bear-leaders. They gave parties at Naples, Rome, +and Paris. They got a Royal Prince to attend their +SOIREES at the latter place, and it was here that they +first appeared under the name of De Mogyns, which they +bear with such splendour to this day. + +All sorts of stories are told of the desperate efforts +made by the indomitable Lady de Mogyns to gain the place +she now occupies, and those of my beloved readers who +live in middle life, and are unacquainted with the +frantic struggles, the wicked feuds, the intrigues, +cabals, and disappointments which, as I am given to +understand, reign in the fashionable world, may bless +their stars that they at least are not FASHIONABLE Snobs. +The intrigues set afoot by the De Mogyns to get the +Duchess of Buckskin to her parties, would strike a +Talleyrand with admiration. She had a brain fever after +being disappointed of an invitation to Lady +Aldermanbury's THE DANSANT, and would have committed +suicide but for a ball at Windsor. I have the following +story from my noble friend Lady Clapperclaw herself,-- +Lady Kathleen O'Shaughnessy that was, and daughter of the +Earl of Turfanthunder:- + +'When that odious disguised Irishwoman, Lady Muggins, was +struggling to take her place in the world, and was +bringing out her hidjous daughter Blanche,' said old Lady +Clapperclaw--'Marian has a hump-back and doesn't show, +but she's the only lady in the family)--when that +wretched Polly Muggins was bringing out Blanche, with her +radish of a nose, and her carrots of ringlets, and her +turnip for a face, she was most anxious--as her father +had been a cowboy on my father's land--to be patronized +by us, and asked me point-blank, in the midst of a +silence at Count Volauvent's, the French Ambassador's +dinner, why I had not sent her a card for my ball? + +'"Because my rooms are already too full, and your +ladyship would be crowded inconveniently," says I; indeed +she takes up as much room as an elephant: besides I +wouldn't have her, and that was flat. + +'I thought my answer was a settler to her: but the next +day she comes weeping to my arms--"Dear Lady +Clapperclaw," says she, "it's not for ME; I ask it for my +blessed Blanche! a young creature in her first season, +and not at your ball! My tender child will pine and die +of vexation. I don't want to come. I will stay at home +to nurse Sir Alured in the gout. Mrs. Bolster is going, +I know; she will be Blanche's chaperon." + +'"You wouldn't subscribe for the Rathdrum blanket and +potato fund; you, who come out of the parish," says I, +"and whose grandfather, honest man, kept cows there." + +'"Will twenty guineas be enough, dearest Lady +Clapperclaw?" + +'"Twenty guineas is sufficient," says I, and she paid +them; so I said, "Blanche may come, but not you, mind:" +and she left me with a world of thanks. + +'Would you believe it?--when my ball came, the horrid +woman made her appearance with her daughter! + +"Didn't I tell you not to come?" said I, in a mighty +passion. "What would the world have said?" cries my Lady +Muggins: "my carriage is gone for Sir Alured to the Club; +let me stay only ten minutes, dearest Lady Clapperclaw" + +'"Well as you are here, madam, you may stay and get your +supper," I answered, and so left her, and never spoke a +word more to her all night. + +'And now,' screamed out old Lady Clapperclaw, clapping +her hands, and speaking with more brogue than ever, 'what +do you think, after all my kindness to her, the wicked, +vulgar, odious, impudent upstart of s cowboy's +granddaughter, has done?--she cut me yesterday in Hy' +Park, and hasn't sent me a ticket for her ball to-night, +though they say Prince George is to be there.' + +Yes, such is the fact. In the race of fashion the +resolute and active De Mogyns has passed the poor old +Clapperclaw. Her progress in gentility may be traced by +the sets of friends whom she has courted, and made, and +cut, and left behind her. She has struggled so gallantly +for polite reputation that she has won it: pitilessly +kicking down the ladder as she advanced degree by degree. + +Irish relations were first sacrificed; she made her +father dine in the steward's room, to his perfect +contentment: and would send Sir Alured thither like-wise +but that he is a peg on which she hopes to hang her +future honours; and is, after all, paymaster of her +daughter's fortunes. He is meek and content. He has +been so long a gentleman that he is used to it, and acts +the part of governor very well. In the day-time he goes +from the 'Union' to 'Arthur's,' and from 'Arthur's' to +the 'Union.' He is a dead hand at piquet, and loses a +very comfortable maintenance to some young fellows, at +whist, at the 'Travellers'.' + +His son has taken his father's seat in Parliament, and +has of course joined Young England. He is the only man +in the country who believes in the De Mogynses, and sighs +for the days when a De Mogyns led the van of battle. He +has written a little volume of spoony puny poems. He +wears a lock of the hair of Laud, the Confessor and +Martyr, and fainted when he kissed the Pope's toe at +Rome. He sleeps in white kid-gloves, and commits +dangerous excesses upon green tea. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +GREAT CITY SNOBS + +There is no disguising the fact that this series of +papers is making a prodigious sensation among all classes +in this Empire. Notes of admiration (!), of +interrogation (?), of remonstrance, approval, or abuse, +come pouring into MR. PUNCH'S box. We have been called +to task for betraying the secrets of three different +families of De Mogyns; no less than four Lady Scrapers +have been discovered; and young gentlemen are quite shy +of ordering half-a-pint of port and simpering over the +QUARTERLY REVIEW at the Club, lest they should be +mistaken for Sydney Scraper, Esq. 'What CAN be your +antipathy to Baker Street?' asks some fair remonstrant, +evidently writing from that quarter. + +'Why only attack the aristocratic Snobs?' says one +'estimable correspondent: 'are not the snobbish Snobs to +have their turn?'--'Pitch into the University Snobs!' +writes an indignant gentleman (who spelt ELEGANT with two +I's)--'Show up the Clerical Snob,' suggests another.-- +'Being at "Meurice's Hotel," Paris, some time since,' +some wag hints, 'I saw Lord B. leaning out of the window +with his boots in his hand, and bawling out "GARCON, +CIREZ-MOI CES BOTTES." Oughtn't he to be brought in +among the Snobs?' + +No; far from it. If his lordship's boots are dirty, it +is because he is Lord B., and walks. There is nothing +snobbish in having only one pair of boots, or a favourite +pair; and certainly nothing snobbish in desiring to have +them cleaned. Lord B., in so doing, performed a +perfectly natural and gentlemanlike action; for which I +am so pleased with him that I have had him designed in a +favourable and elegant attitude, and put at the head of +this Chapter in the place of honour. No, we are not +personal in these candid remarks. As Phidias took the +pick of a score of beauties before he completed a Venus, +so have we to examine, perhaps, a thousand Snobs, before +one is expressed upon paper. + +Great City Snobs are the next in the hierarchy, and ought +to be considered. But here is a difficulty. The great +City Snob is commonly most difficult of access. Unless +you are a capitalist, you cannot visit him in the +recesses of his bank parlour in Lombard Street. Unless +you are a sprig of nobility there is little hope of +seeing him at home. In a great City Snob firm there is +generally one partner whose name is down for charities, +and who frequents Exeter Hall; you may catch a glimpse of +another (a scientific City Snob) at my Lord N----'s +SOIREES, or the lectures of the London Institution; of a +third (a City Snob of taste) at picture-auctions, at +private views of exhibitions, or at the Opera or the +Philharmonic. But intimacy is impossible, in most cases, +with this grave, pompous, and awful being. + +A mere gentleman may hope to sit at almost anybody's +table--to take his place at my lord duke's in the +country--to dance a quadrille at Buckingham Palace +itself--(beloved Lady Wilhelmina Wagglewiggle! do you +recollect the sensation we made at the ball of our late +adored Sovereign Queen Caroline, at Brandenburg House, +Hammersmith?) but the City Snob's doors are, for the most +part, closed to him; and hence all that one knows of this +great class is mostly from hearsay. + +In other countries of Europe, the Banking Snob is more +expansive and communicative than with us, and receives +all the world into his circle. For instance, everybody +knows the princely hospitalities of the Scharlaschild +family at Paris, Naples, Frankfort, &c.. They entertain +all the world, even the poor, at their FETES. Prince +Polonia, at Rome, and his brother, the Duke of Strachino, +are also remarkable for their hospitalities. I like the +spirit of the first-named nobleman. Titles not costing +much in the Roman territory, he has had the head clerk of +the banking-house made a Marquis, and his Lordship will +screw a BAJOCCO out of you in exchange as dexterously as +any commoner could do. It is a comfort to be able to +gratify such grandees with a farthing or two; it makes +the poorest man feel that he can do good. 'The Polonias +have intermarried with the greatest and most ancient +families of Rome, and you see their heraldic cognizance +(a mushroom or on an azure field) quartered in a hundred +places in the city with the arms of the Colonnas and +Dorias. + +City Snobs have the same mania for aristocratic +marriages. I like to see such. I am of a savage and +envious nature,--I like to see these two humbugs which, +dividing, as they do, the social empire of this kingdom +between them, hate each other naturally, making truce and +uniting, for the sordid interests of either. I like to +see an old aristocrat, swelling with pride of race, the +descendant of illustrious Norman robbers, whose blood has +been pure for centuries, and who looks down upon common +Englishmen as a free American does on a nigger,--I like +to see old Stiffneck obliged to bow down his head and +swallow his infernal pride, and drink the cup of +humiliation poured out by Pump and Aldgate's butler. +'Pump and Aldgate, says he, 'your grandfather was a +bricklayer, and his hod is still kept in the bank. Your +pedigree begins in a workhouse; mine can be dated from +all the royal palaces of Europe. I came over with the +Conqueror; I am own cousin to Charles Martel, Orlando +Furioso, Philip Augustus, Peter the Cruel, and Frederick +Barbarossa. I quarter the Royal Arms of Brentford in my +coat. I despise you, but I want money; and I will sell +you my beloved daughter, Blanche Stiffneck, for a hundred +thousand pounds, to pay off my mortgages. Let your son +marry her, and she shall become Lady Blanche Pump and +Aldgate.' + +Old Pump and Aldgate clutches at the bargain. And a +comfortable thing it is to think that birth can be bought +for money. So you learn to value it. Why should we, who +don't possess it, set a higher store on it than those who +do? Perhaps the best use of that book, the 'Peerage,' is +to look down the list, and see how many have bought and +sold birth,--how poor sprigs of nobility somehow sell +themselves to rich City Snobs' daughters, how rich City +Snobs purchase noble ladies--and so to admire the double +baseness of the bargain. + +Old Pump and Aldgate buys the article and pays the money. +The sale of the girl's person is blessed by a Bishop at +St. George's, Hanover Square, and next year you read, 'At +Roehampton, on Saturday, the Lady Blanche Pump, of a son +and heir. + +After this interesting event, some old acquaintance, who +saw young Pump in the parlour at the bank in the City, +said to him, familiarly, 'How's your wife, Pump, my boy?' + +Mr. Pump looked exceedingly puzzled and disgusted, and, +after a pause, said, 'LADY BLANCHE PUMP' is pretty well, +I thank you.' + +'OH, I THOUGHT SHE WAS YOUR WIFE!' said the familiar +brute, Snooks, wishing him good-bye; and ten minutes +after, the story was all over the Stock Exchange, where +it is told, when young Pump appears, to this very day. + +We can imagine the weary life this poor Pump, this martyr +to Mammon, is compelled to undergo. Fancy the domestic +enjoyments of a man who has a wife who scorns him; who +cannot see his own friends in his own house; who having +deserted the middle rank of life, is not yet admitted to +the higher; but who is resigned to rebuffs and delay and +humiliation, contented to think that his son will be more +fortunate. + +It used to be the custom of some very old-fashioned clubs +in this city, when a gentleman asked for change a guinea, +always to bring it to him in WASHED SILVER: that which +had passed immediately out of the hands of vulgar being +considered 'as too coarse to soil a gentleman's fingers.' +So, when the City Snob's money has been washed during a +generation or so; has been washed into estates, and +woods, and castles, and town-mansions, it is allowed to +pass current as real aristocratic coin. Old Pump sweeps +a shop, runs of messages, becomes a confidential clerk +and partner. Pump the Second becomes chief of the house, +spins more and more money, marries his son to an Earl's +daughter. Pump Tertius goes on with the bank; but his +chief business in life is to become the father of Pump +Quartus, who comes out a full-blown aristocrat, and takes +his seat as Baron Pumpington, and his race rules +hereditarily over this nation of Snobs. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ON SOME MILITARY SNOBS + +As no society in the world is more agreeable than that of +well-bred and well-informed military gentlemen, so, +likewise, none is more insufferable than that of Military +Snobs. They are to be found of all grades, from the +General Officer, whose padded old breast twinkles over +with a score of stars, clasps, and decorations, to the +budding cornet, who is shaving for a beard, and has just +been appointed to the Saxe-Coburg Lancers. + +I have always admired that dispensation of rank in our +country, which sets up this last-named little creature +(who was flogged only last week because he could not +spell) to command great whiskered warriors, who have +faced all dangers of climate and battle; which, because +he has money, to lodge at the agent's, will place him +over the heads of men who have a thousand times more +experience and desert: and which, in the course of time, +will bring him all the honours of his profession, when +the veteran soldier he commanded has got no other reward +for his bravery than a berth in Chelsea Hospital, and the +veteran officer he superseded has slunk into shabby +retirement, and ends his disappointed life on a +threadbare half-pay. + +When I read in the GAZETTE such announcements as +'Lieutenant and Captain Grig, from the Bombardier Guards, +to be Captain, vice Grizzle, who retires,' I know what +becomes of the Peninsular Grizzle; I follow him in spirit +to the humble country town, where he takes up his +quarters, and occupies himself with the most desperate +attempts to live like a gentleman, on the stipend of half +a tailor's foreman; and I picture to myself little Grig +rising from rank to rank, skipping from one regiment to +another, with an increased grade in each, avoiding +disagreeable foreign service, and ranking as a colonel at +thirty;--all because he has money, and Lord Grigsby is +his father, who had the same luck before him. Grig must +blush at first to give his orders to old men in every way +his betters. And as it is very difficult for a spoiled +child to escape being selfish and arrogant, so it is a +very hard task indeed for this spoiled child of fortune +not to be a Snob. + +It must have often been a matter of wonder to the candid +reader, that the army, the most enormous job of all our +political institutions, should yet work so well in the +field; and we must cheerfully give Grig, and his like, +the credit for courage which they display whenever +occasion calls for it. The Duke's dandy regiments fought +as well as any (they said better than any, but that is +absurd). The great Duke himself was a dandy once, and +jobbed on, as Marlborough did before him. But this only +proves that dandies are brave as well as other Britons-- +as all Britons. Let us concede that the high-born Grig +rode into the entrenchments at Sobraon as gallantly as +Corporal Wallop, the ex-ploughboy. + +The times of war are more favourable to him than the +periods of peace. Think of Grig's life in the Bombardier +Guards, or the Jack-boot Guards; his marches from Windsor +to London, from London to Windsor, from Knightsbridge to +Regent's Park; the idiotic services he has to perform, +which consist in inspecting the pipeclay of his company, +or the horses in the stable, or bellowing out 'Shoulder +humps! Carry humps!' all which duties the very smallest +intellect that ever belonged to mortal man would suffice +to comprehend. The professional duties of a footman are +quite as difficult and various. The red-jackets who hold +gentlemen's horses in St. James's Street could do the +work just as well as those vacuous, good-natured, +gentlemanlike, rickety little lieutenants, who may be +seen sauntering about Pall Mall, in high-heeled little +boots, or rallying round the standard of their regiment +in the Palace Court, at eleven o'clock, when the band +plays. Did the beloved reader ever see one of the young +fellows staggering under the flag, or, above all, going +through the operation of saluting it? It is worth a walk +to the Palace to witness that magnificent piece of +tomfoolery. + +I have had the honour of meeting once or twice an old +gentleman, whom I look upon to be a specimen of army- +training, and who has served in crack regiments, or +commanded them, all his life. I allude to Lieutenant- +General the Honourable Sir George Granby Tufto, K.C.B., +K.T.S., K.H., K.S.W., &c. &c.. His manners are +irreproachable generally; in society he is a perfect +gentleman, and a most thorough Snob. + +A man can't help being a fool, be he ever so old, and Sir +George is a greater ass at sixty-eight than he was when +he first entered the army at fifteen. He distinguished +himself everywhere: his name is mentioned with praise in +a score of Gazettes: he is the man, in fact, whose padded +breast, twinkling over with innumerable decorations, has +already been introduced to the reader. It is difficult +to say what virtues this prosperous gentleman possesses. +He never read a book in his life, and, with his purple, +old gouty fingers, still writes a schoolboy hand. He has +reached old age and grey hairs without being the least +venerable. He dresses like an outrageously young man to +the present moment, and laces and pads his old carcass as +if he were still handsome George Tufto of 1800. He is +selfish, brutal, passionate, and a glutton. It is +curious to mark him at table, and see him heaving in his +waistband, his little bloodshot eyes goating over his +meal. He swears considerably in his talk, and tells +filthy garrison stories after dinner. On account of his +rank and his services, people pay the bestarred and +betitled old brute a sort of reverence; and he looks down +upon you and me, and exhibits his contempt for us, with a +stupid and artless candour which is quite amusing to +watch. Perhaps, had he been bred to another profession, +he would not have been the disreputable old creature he +now is. But what other? He was fit for none; too +incorrigibly idle and dull for any trade but this, in +which he has distinguished himself publicly as a good and +gallant officer, and privately for riding races, drinking +port, fighting duels, and seducing women. He believes +himself to be one of the most honourable and deserving +beings in the world. About Waterloo Place, of +afternoons, you may see him tottering in his varnished +boots, and leering under the bonnets of the women who +pass by. When he dies of apoplexy, THE TIMES will have a +quarter of a column about his services and battles--four +lines of print will be wanted to describe his titles and +orders alone--and the earth will cover one of the +wickedest and dullest old wretches that ever strutted +over it. + +Lest it should be imagined that I am of so obstinate a +misanthropic nature as to be satisfied with nothing, I +beg (for the comfort of the forces) to state my belief +that the army is not composed of such persons as the +above. He has only been selected for the study of +civilians and the military, as a specimen of a prosperous +and bloated Army Snob. No: when epaulets are not sold; +when corporal punishments are abolished, and Corporal +Smith has a chance to have his gallantry rewarded as well +as that of Lieutenant Grig; when there is no such rank as +ensign and lieutenant (the existence of which rank is an +absurd anomaly, and an insult upon all the rest of the +army), and should there be no war, I should not be +disinclined to be a major-general myself. + +I have a little sheaf of Army Snobs in my portfolio, but +shall pause in my attack upon the forces till next week. + + + +CHAPTER X + +MILITARY SNOBS + +Walking in the Park yesterday with my young friend Tagg, +and discoursing with him upon the next number of the +Snob, at the very nick of time who should pass us but two +very good specimens of Military Snobs,-- the Sporting +Military Snob, Capt. Rag, and the 'lurking' or raffish +Military Snob, Ensign Famish. Indeed you are fully sure +to meet them lounging on horseback, about five o'clock, +under the trees by the Serpentine, examining critically +the inmates of the flashy broughams which parade up and +down 'the Lady's Mile.' + +Tagg and Rag are very well acquainted, and so the former, +with that candour inseparable from intimate friendship, +told me his dear friend's history. Captain Rag is a +small dapper north-country man. He went when quite a boy +into a crack light cavalry regiment, and by the time he +got his troop, had cheated all his brother officers so +completely, selling them lame horses for sound ones, and +winning their money by all manner of strange and +ingenious contrivances, that his Colonel advised him to +retire; which he did without much reluctance, +accommodating a youngster, who had just entered the +regiment, with a glaudered charger at an uncommonly stiff +figure. + +He has since devoted his time to billiards, steeple- +chasing, and the turf. His head-quarters are 'Rummer's,' +in Conduit Street, where he keeps his kit; but he is ever +on the move in the exercise of his vocation as a +gentleman-jockey and gentleman-leg. + +According to BELL'S LIFE, he is an invariable attendant +at all races, and an actor in most of them. He rode the +winner at Leamington; he was left for dead in a ditch a +fortnight ago at Harrow; and yet there he was, last week, +at the Croix de Berny, pale and determined as ever, +astonishing the BADAUDS of Paris by the elegance of his +seat and the neatness of his rig, as he took a +preliminary gallop on that vicious brute 'The Disowned,' +before starting for 'the French Grand National.' + +He is a regular attendant at the Corner, where he +compiles a limited but comfortable libretto. During +season he rides often in the Park, mounted on a clever +well-bred pony. He is to be seen escorting celebrated +horsewoman, Fanny Highflyer, or in confidential converse +with Lord Thimblerig, the eminent handicapper. + +He carefully avoids decent society, and would rather dine +off a steak at the 'One Tun' with Sam Snaffle the jockey, +Captain O'Rourke, and two or three other notorious turf +robbers, than with the choicest company in London. He +likes to announce at 'Rummer's' that he is going to run +down and spend his Saturday and Sunday in a friendly way +with Hocus, the leg, at his little box near Epsom; where, +if report speak true, many 'rummish plants' are +concocted. + +He does not play billiards often, and never in public: +but when he does play, he always contrives to get hold of +a good flat, and never leaves him till he has done him +uncommonly brown. He has lately been playing a good deal +with Famish. + +When he makes his appearance in the drawing-room, which +occasionally happens at a hunt-meeting or a race-ball, he +enjoys himself extremely. + +His young friend is Ensign Famish, who is not a little +pleased to be seen with such a smart fellow as Rag, +who bows to the best turf company in the Park. Rag lets +Famish accompany him to Tattersall's, and sells him +bargains in horse-flesh, and uses Famish's cab. That +young gentleman's regiment is in India, and he is at home +on sick leave. He recruits his health by being +intoxicated every night, and fortifies his lungs, which +are weak, by smoking cigars all day. The policemen +about the Haymarket know the little creature, and the +early cabmen salute him. The closed doors of fish and +lobster shops open after service, and vomit out little +Famish, who is either tipsy and quarrelsome--when he +wants to fight the cabmen; or drunk and helpless--when +some kind friend (in yellow satin) takes care of him. +All the neighbourhood, the cabmen, the police, the early +potato-men, and the friends in yellow satin, know the +young fellow, and he is called Little Bobby by some of +the very worst reprobates in Europe. + +His mother, Lady Fanny Famish, believes devoutly that +Robert is in London solely for the benefit of consulting +the physician; is going to have him exchanged into a +dragoon regiment, which doesn't go to that odious India; +and has an idea that his chest is delicate, and that he +takes gruel every evening, when he puts his feet in hot +water. Her Ladyship resides at Cheltenham, and is of a +serious turn. + +Bobby frequents the 'Union Jack Club' of course; where he +breakfasts on pale ale and devilled kidneys at three +o'clock; where beardless young heroes of his own sort +congregate, and make merry, and give each other dinners; +where you may see half-a-dozen of young rakes of the +fourth or fifth order lounging and smoking on the steps; +where you behold Slapper's long-tailed leggy mare in the +custody of a red-jacket until the Captain is primed for +the Park with a glass of curacoa; and where you see +Hobby, of the Highland Buffs, driving up with Dobby, of +the Madras Fusiliers, in the great banging, swinging cab, +which the latter hires from Rumble of Bond Street. + +In fact, Military Snobs are of such number and variety, +that a hundred weeks of PUNCH would not suffice to give +an audience to them. There is, besides the disreputable +old Military Snob, who has seen service, the respectable +old Military Snob, who has seen none, and gives himself +the most prodigious Martinet airs. There is the Medical- +Military Snob, who is generally more outrageously +military in his conversation than the greatest SABREUR in +the army. There is the Heavy-Dragoon Snob, whom young +ladies, admire with his great stupid pink face and yellow +moustaches--a vacuous, solemn, foolish, but brave and +honourable Snob. There is the Amateur-Military Snob who +writes Captain on his card because he is a Lieutenant in +the Bungay Militia. There is the Lady-killing Military +Snob; and more, who need not be named. + +But let no man, we repeat, charge MR. PUNCH with +disrespect for the Army in general--that gallant and +judicious Army, every man of which, from F.M. the Duke of +Wellington, &c., downwards--(with the exception of H.R.H. +Field-Marshal Prince Albert, who, however, can hardly +count as a military man,)--reads PUNCH in every quarter +of the globe. + +Let those civilians who sneer at the acquirements of the +army read Sir Harry Smith's account of the Battle of +Aliwal. A noble deed was never told in nobler language. +And you who doubt if chivalry exists, or the age of +heroism has passed by, think of Sir Henry Hardinge, with +his son, 'dear little Arthur,' riding in front of the +lines at Ferozeshah. I hope no English painter will +endeavour to illustrate that scene; for who is there to +do justice to it? The history of the world contains no +more brilliant and heroic picture. No, no; the men who +perform these deeds with such brilliant valour, and +describe them with such modest manliness--SUCH are not +Snobs. Their country admires them, their Sovereign +rewards them, and PUNCH, the universal railer, takes off +his hat and, says, Heaven save them! + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ON CLERICAL SNOBS + +After Snobs-Military, Snobs-Clerical suggest themselves +quite naturally, and it is clear that, with every respect +for the cloth, yet having a regard for truth, humanity, +and the British public, such a vast and influential class +must not be omitted from our notices of the great Snob +world. + +Of these Clerics there are some whose claim to +snobbishness is undoubted, and yet it cannot be discussed +here; for the same reason that PUNCH would not set up his +show in a Cathedral, out of respect for the solemn +service celebrated within. There are some places where +he acknowledges himself not privileged to make a noise, +and puts away his show, and silences his drum, and takes +off his hat, and holds his peace. + +And I know this, that if there are some Clerics who do +wrong, there are straightway a thousand newspapers to +haul up those unfortunates, and cry, 'Fie upon them, fie +upon them!' while, though the press is always ready to +yell and bellow excommunication against these stray +delinquent parsons, it somehow takes very little count of +the many good ones--of the tens of thousands of honest +men, who lead Christian lives, who give to the poor +generously, who deny themselves rigidly, and live and die +in their duty, without ever a newspaper paragraph in +their favour. My beloved friend and reader, I wish you +and I could do the same: and let me whisper my belief, +ENTRE NOUS that of those eminent philosophers who cry out +against parsons the loudest, there are not many who have +got their knowledge of the church by going thither often. + +But you who have ever listened to village bells, or +walked to church as children on sunny Sabbath mornings; +you who have ever seen the parson's wife tending the poor +man's bedside; or the town clergyman threading the dirty +stairs of noxious alleys upon his business;--do not raise +a shout when one falls away, or yell with the mob that +howls after him. + +Every man can do that. When old Father Noah was +overtaken in his cups, there was only one of his sons +that dared to make merry at his disaster, and he was not +the most virtuous of the family. Let us too turn away +silently, nor huzza like a parcel of school-boys, because +some big young rebel suddenly starts up and whops the +schoolmaster. + +I confess, though, if I had by me the names of those +seven or eight Irish bishops, the probates of whose wills +were mentioned in last year's journals, and who died +leaving behind them some two hundred thousand a-piece--I +would like to put THEM up as patrons of my Clerical +Snobs, and operate upon them as successfully as I see +from the newspapers Mr. Eisenberg, Chiropodist, has +lately done upon 'His Grace the Reverend Lord Bishop of +Tapioca.' + +I confess that when those Right Reverend Prelates come up +to the gates of Paradise with their probates of wills in +their hands, I think that their chance is.... But the +gates of Paradise is a far way to follow their Lordships; +so let us trip down again lest awkward questions be asked +there about our own favourite vices too. + +And don't let us give way to the vulgar prejudice, that +clergymen are an over-paid and luxurious body of men. +When that eminent ascetic, the late Sydney Smith--(by the +way, by what law of nature is it that so many Smiths in +this world are called Sydney Smith?)--lauded the system +of great prizes in the Church,--without which he said +gentlemen would not be induced to follow the clerical +profession, he admitted most pathetically that the clergy +in general were by no means to be envied for their +worldly prosperity. From reading the works of some +modern writers of repute, you would fancy that a parson's +life was passed in gorging himself with plum-pudding and +port-wine; and that his Reverence's fat chaps were always +greasy with the crackling of tithe pigs. Caricaturists +delight to represent him so: round, short-necked, pimple- +faced, apoplectic, bursting out of waistcoat, like a +black-pudding, a shovel-hatted fuzz-wigged Silenus. +Whereas, if you take the real man, the poor fellow's +flesh-pots are very scantily furnished with meat. He +labours commonly for a wage that a tailor's foreman would +despise: he has, too, such claims upon his dismal income +as most philosophers would rather grumble to meet; many +tithes are levied upon HIS pocket, let it be remembered, +by those who grudge him his means of livelihood. He has +to dine with the Squire: and his wife must dress neatly; +and he must 'look like a gentleman,' as they call it, and +bring up six great hungry sons as such. Add to this, if +he does his duty, he has such temptations to spend his +money as no mortal man could withstand. Yes; you who +can't resist purchasing a chest of cigars, because they +are so good; or an ormolu clock at Howell and James's, +because it is such a bargain; or a box at the Opera, +because Lablache and Grisi are divine in the PURITANI; +fancy how difficult it is for a parson to resist spending +a half-crown when John Breakstone's family are without a +loaf; or 'standing' a bottle of port for poor old Polly +Rabbits, who has her thirteenth child; or treating +himself to a suit of corduroys for little Bob Scarecrow, +whose breeches are sadly out at elbows. Think of these +temptations, brother moralists and philosophers, and +don't be too hard on the parson. + +But what is this? Instead of 'showing up' the parsons, +are we indulging in maudlin praises of that monstrous +black-coated race? O saintly Francis, lying at rest +under the turf; O Jimmy, and Johnny, and Willy, friends +of my youth! O noble and dear old Elias! how should he +who knows you not respect you and your calling? May this +pen never write a pennyworth again, if it ever casts +ridicule upon either! + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ON CLERICAL SNOBS AND SNOBBISHNESS + +'Dear Mr. Snob,' an amiable young correspondent writes, +who signs himself Snobling, 'ought the clergyman who, at +the request of a noble Duke, lately interrupted a +marriage ceremony between two persons perfectly +authorised to marry, to be ranked or not among the +Clerical Snobs?' + +This, my dear young friend, is not a fair question. One +of the illustrated weekly papers has already seized hold +of the clergyman, and blackened him most unmercifully, by +representing him in his cassock performing the marriage +service. Let that be sufficient punishment; and, if you +please, do not press the query. + +It is very likely that if Miss Smith had come with a +licence to marry Jones, the parson in question, not +seeing old Smith present, would have sent off the beadle +in a cab to let the old gentleman know what was going on; +and would have delayed the service until the arrival of +Smith senior. He very likely thinks it his duty to ask +all marriageable young ladies, who come without their +papa, why their parent is absent; and, no doubt, ALWAYS +sends off the beadle for that missing governor. + +Or, it is very possible that the Duke of Coeurdelion was +Mr. What-d'ye-call'im's most intimate friend, and has +often said to him, 'What-d'ye-call'im, my boy, my +daughter must never marry the Capting. If ever they try +at your church, I beseech you, considering the terms of +intimacy on which we are, to send off Rattan in a hack +cab to fetch me.' + +In either of which cases, you see, dear Snobling, that +though the parson would not have been authorised, yet be +might have been excused for interfering. He has no more +right to stop my marriage than to stop my dinner, to both +of which, as a free-born Briton, I am entitled by law, if +I can pay for them. But, consider pastoral solicitude, a +deep sense of the duties of his office, and pardon this +inconvenient, but genuine zeal. + +But if the clergyman did in the Duke's case what be would +NOT do in Smith's; if be has no more acquaintance with +the Coeurdelion family than I have with the Royal and +Serene House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha,--THEN, I confess, my +dear Snobling, your question might elicit a disagreeable +reply, and one which I respectfully decline to give. I +wonder what Sir George Tufto would say, if a sentry left +his post because a noble lord (not the least connected +with the service) begged the sentinel not to do his duty! + +Alas! that the beadle who canes little boys and drives +them out, cannot drive worldliness out too; what is +worldliness but snobbishness? When, for instance, I read +in the newspapers that the Right Reverend the Lord +Charles James administered the rite of confirmation to a +PARTY OF THE JUVENILE NOBILITY at the Chapel Royal,--as +if the Chapel Royal were a sort of ecclesiastical +Almack's, and young people were to get ready for the next +world in little exclusive genteel knots of the +aristocracy, who were not to be disturbed in their +journey thither by the company of the vulgar:--when I +read such a paragraph as that (and one or two such +generally appear during the present fashionable season), +it seems to me to be the most odious, mean and disgusting +part of that odious, mean, and disgusting publication, +the COURT CIRCULAR; and that snobbishness is therein +carried to quite an awful pitch. What, gentlemen, can't +we even in the Church acknowledge a republic? There, at +least, the Heralds' College itself might allow that we +all of us have the same pedigree, and are direct +descendants of Eve and Adam, whose inheritance is divided +amongst us. + +I hereby call upon all Dukes, Earls, Baronets, and other +potentates, not to lend themselves to this shameful +scandal and error, and beseech all Bishops who read this +publication to take the matter into consideration, and to +protest against the continuance of the practice, and to +declare, 'We WON'T confirm or christen Lord Tomnoddy, or +Sir Carnaby Jenks, to the exclusion of any other young +Christian;' the which declaration if their Lordships are +induced to make, a great LAPIS OFFENSIONIS will be +removed, and the Snob Papers will not have been written +in vain. + +A story is current of a celebrated NOUVEAU-RICHE, who +having had occasion to oblige that excellent prelate the +Bishop of Bullocksmithy, asked his Lordship, in return, +to confirm his children privately in his Lordship's own +chapel; which ceremony the grateful prelate accordingly +performed. Can satire go farther than this? Is there +even in this most amusing of prints, any more NAIVE +absurdity? It is as if a man wouldn't go to heaven +unless he went in a special train, or as if he thought +(as some people think about vaccination) Confirmation +more effectual when administered at first hand. When +that eminent person, the Begum Sumroo, died, it is said +she left ten thousand pounds to the Pope, and ten +thousand to the Archbishop of Canterbury,--so that there +should be no mistake,--so as to make sure of having the +ecclesiastical authorities on her side. This is only a +little more openly and undisguisedly snobbish than the +cases before alluded to. A well-bred Snob is just as +secretly proud of his riches and honours as a PARVENU +Snob who makes the most ludicrous exhibition of them; and +a high-born Marchioness or Duchess just as vain of +herself and her diamonds, as Queen Quashyboo, who sews a +pair of epaulets on to her skirt, and turns out in state +in a cocked hat and feathers. + +It is not out of disrespect to my 'Peerage,' which I love +and honour, (indeed, have I not said before, that I +should be ready to jump out of my skin if two Dukes would +walk down Pall Mall with me?)--it is not out of +disrespect for the individuals, that I wish these titles +had never been invented; but, consider, if there were no +tree, there would be no shadow; and how much more honest +society would be, and how much more serviceable the +clergy would be (which is our present consideration), if +these temptations of rank and continual baits of +worldliness were not in existence, and perpetually thrown +out to lead them astray. + +I have seen many examples of their falling away. When, +for instance, Tom Sniffle first went into the country as +Curate for Mr. Fuddleston (Sir Huddleston Fuddleston's +brother), who resided on some other living, there could +not be a more kind, hardworking, and excellent creature +than Tom. He had his aunt to live with him. His conduct +to his poor was admirable. He wrote annually reams of +the best-intentioned and vapid sermons. When Lord +Brandyball's family came down into the country, and +invited him to dine at Brandyball Park, Sniffle was so +agitated that he almost forgot how to say grace, and +upset a bowl of currant-jelly sauce in Lady Fanny +Toffy's lap. + +What was the consequence of his intimacy with that noble +family? He quarrelled with his aunt for dining out every +night. The wretch forgot his poor altogether, and killed +his old nag by always riding over to Brandyball; where he +revelled in the maddest passion for Lady Fanny. He +ordered the neatest new clothes and ecclesiastical +waistcoats from London; he appeared with corazza-shirts, +lackered boots, and perfumery; he bought a blood-horse +from Bob Toffy: was seen at archery meetings, public +breakfasts,--actually at cover; and, I blush to say, that +I saw him in a stall at the Opera; and afterwards riding +by Lady Fanny's side in Rotten Row. He DOUBLE-BARRELLED +his name, (as many poor Snobs do,) and instead of T. +Sniffle, as formerly, came out, in a porcelain card, as +Rev. T. D'Arcy Sniffle, Burlington Hotel. + +The end of all this may be imagined: when the Earl of +Brandyball was made acquainted with the curate's love for +Lady Fanny, he had that fit of the gout which so nearly +carried him off (to the inexpressible grief of his son, +Lord Alicompayne), and uttered that remarkable speech to +Sniffle, which disposed of the claims of the latter:--' +If I didn't respect the Church, Sir,' his Lordship said, +'by Jove, I'd kick you downstairs:' his Lordship then +fell back into the fit aforesaid; and Lady Fanny, as we +all know, married General Podager. + +As for poor Tom, he was over head and ears in debt as +well as in love: his creditors came down upon him. Mr. +Hemp, of Portugal Street, proclaimed his name lately as a +reverend outlaw; and he has been seen at various foreign +watering-places; sometimes doing duty; sometimes +'coaching' a stray gentleman's son at Carlsruhe or +Kissingen; sometimes--must we say it?-- lurking about the +roulette-tables with a tuft to his chin. + +If temptation had not come upon this unhappy fellow in +the shape of a Lord Brandyball, he might still have been +following his profession, humbly and worthily. He might +have married his cousin with four thousand pounds, the +wine-merchant's daughter (the old gentleman quarrelled +with his nephew for not soliciting wine-orders from Lord +B. for him): he might have had seven children, and taken +private pupils, and eked out his income, and lived and +died a country parson. + +Could he have done better? You who want to know how +great, and good, and noble such a character may be, read +Stanley's 'Life of Doctor Arnold.' + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +ON CLERICAL SNOBS + +Among the varieties of the Snob Clerical, the University +Snob and the Scholastic Snob ought never to be forgotten; +they form a very strong battalion in the black-coated +army. + +The wisdom of our ancestors (which I admire more and more +every day) seemed to have determined that education of +youth was so paltry and unimportant a matter, that almost +any man, armed with a birch and regulation cassock and +degree, might undertake the charge: and many an honest +country gentleman may be found to the present day, who +takes very good care to have a character with his butler +when he engages him and will not purchase a horse without +the warranty and the closest inspection; but sends off +his son, young John Thomas, to school without asking any +questions about the Schoolmaster, and places the lad at +Switchester College, under Doctor Block, because he (the +good old English gentleman) had been at Switchester, +under Doctor Buzwig, forty years ago. + +We have a love for all little boys at school; for many +scores of thousands of them read and love PUNCH:--may he +never write a word that shall not be honest and fit for +them to read! He will not have his young friends to be +Snobs in the future, or to be bullied by Snobs, or given +over to such to be educated. Our connexion with the +youth at the Universities is very close and affectionate. +The candid undergraduate is our friend. The pompous old +College Don trembles in his common room, lest we should +attack him and show him up as a Snob. + +When railroads were threatening to invade the land which +they have since conquered, it may be recollected what a +shrieking and outcry the authorities of Oxford and Eton +made, lest the iron abominations should come near those +seats of pure learning, and tempt the British youth +astray. The supplications were in vain; the railroad is +in upon them, and the old-world institutions are doomed. +I felt charmed to read in the papers the other day a most +veracious puffing advertisement headed, 'To College and +back for Five Shillings.' 'The College Gardens (it said) +will be thrown open on this occasion; the College youths +will perform a regatta; the Chapel of King's College will +have its celebrated music;'--and all for five shillings! +The Goths have got into Rome; Napoleon Stephenson draws +his republican lines round the sacred old cities and the +ecclesiastical big-wigs who garrison them must prepare to +lay down key and crosier before the iron conqueror. + +If you consider, dear reader, what profound snobbishness +the University System produced, you will allow that it is +time to attack some of those feudal middle-age +superstitions. If you go down for five shillings to look +at the 'College Youths,' you may see one sneaking down +the court without a tassel to his cap; another with a +gold or silver fringe to his velvet trencher; a third lad +with a master's gown and hat, walking at ease over the +sacred College grass-plats, which common men must not +tread on. + +He may do it because he is a nobleman. Because a lad is +a lord, the University gives him a degree at the end of +two years which another is seven in acquiring. Because +he is a lord, he has no call to go through an +examination. Any man who has not been to College and +back for five shillings, would not believe in such +distinctions in a place of education, so absurd and +monstrous do they seem to be. + +The lads with gold and silver lace are sons of rich +gentlemen and called Fellow Commoners; they are +privileged to feed better than the pensioners, and to +have wine with their victuals, which the latter can only +get in their rooms. + +The unlucky boys who have no tassels to their caps, are +called sizars--SERVITORS at Oxford--(a very pretty and +gentlemanlike title). A distinction is made in their +clothes because they are poor; for which reason they wear +a badge of poverty, and are not allowed to take their +meals with their fellow-students. + +When this wicked and shameful distinction was set up, it +was of a piece with all the rest--a part of the brutal, +unchristian, blundering feudal system. Distinctions of +rank were then so strongly insisted upon, that it would +have been thought blasphemy to doubt them, as blasphemous +as it is in parts of the United States now for a nigger +to set up as the equal of a white man. A ruffian like +Henry VIII. talked as gravely about the divine powers +vested in him, as if he had been an inspired prophet. A +wretch like James I. not only believed that there was in +himself a particular sanctity, but other people believed +him. Government regulated the length of a merchant's +shoes as well as meddled with his trade, prices, exports, +machinery. It thought itself justified in roasting a man +for his religion, or pulling a Jew's teeth out if he did +not pay a contribution, or ordered him to dress in a +yellow gabardine, and locked him in a particular quarter. + +Now a merchant may wear what boots he pleases, and has +pretty nearly acquired the privilege of buying and +selling without the Government laying its paws upon the +bargain. The stake for heretics is gone; the pillory is +taken down; Bishops are even found lifting up their +voices against the remains of persecution, and ready to +do away with the last Catholic Disabilities. Sir Robert +Peel, though he wished it ever so much, has no power over +Mr. Benjamin Disraeli's grinders, or any means of +violently handling that gentleman's jaw. Jews are not +called upon to wear badges: on the contrary, they may +live in Piccadilly, or the Minories, according to fancy; +they may dress like Christians, and do sometimes in a +most elegant and fashionable manner. + +Why is the poor College servitor to wear that name and +that badge still? Because Universities are the last +places into which Reform penetrates. But now that she +can go to College and back for five shillings, let her +travel down thither. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS + +All the men of Saint Boniface will recognize Hugby and +Crump in these two pictures. They were tutors in our +time, and Crump is since advanced to be President of the +College. He was formerly, and is now, a rich specimen of +a University Snob. + +At five-and-twenty, Crump invented three new metres, and +published an edition of an exceedingly improper Greek +Comedy, with no less than twenty emendations upon the +German text of Schnupfenius and Schnapsius. These +Services to religion instantly pointed him out for +advancement in the Church, and he is now President of +Saint Boniface, and very narrowly escaped the bench. + +Crump thinks Saint Boniface the centre of the world, and +his position as President the highest in England. He +expects the fellows and tutors to pay him the same sort +of service that Cardinals pay to the Pope. I am sure +Crawler would have no objection to carry his trencher, or +Page to hold up the skirts of his gown as he stalks into +chapel. He roars out the responses there as if it were +an honour to heaven that the President of Saint Boniface +should take a part in the service, and in his own lodge +and college acknowledges the Sovereign only as his +superior. + +When the allied monarchs came down, and were made Doctors +of the University, a breakfast was given at Saint +Boniface; on which occasion Crump allowed the Emperor +Alexander to walk before him, but took the PAS himself of +the King of Prussia and Prince Blucher. He was going to +put the Hetman Platoff to breakfast at a side-table with +the under college tutors; but he was induced to relent, +and merely entertained that distinguished Cossack with a +discourse on his own language, in which he showed that +the Hetman knew nothing about it. + +As for us undergraduates, we scarcely knew more about +Crump than about the Grand Llama. A few favoured youths +are asked occasionally to tea at the lodge; but they do +not speak unless first addressed by the Doctor; and if +they venture to sit down, Crump's follower, Mr. Toady, +whispers, 'Gentlemen, will you have the kindness to get +up?--The President is passing;' or 'Gentlemen, the +President prefers that undergraduates should not sit +down;' or words to a similar effect. + +To do Crump justice, he does not cringe now to great +people. He rather patronizes them than otherwise; and, +in London, speaks quite affably to a Duke who has been +brought up at his college, or holds out a finger to a +Marquis. He does not disguise his own origin, but brags +of it with considerable self-gratulation:--'I was a +Charity-boy,' says he; 'see what I am now; the greatest +Greek scholar of the greatest College of the greatest +University of the greatest Empire in the world.' The +argument being, that this is a capital world, for +beggars, because he, being a beggar, has managed to get +on horseback. + +Hugby owes his eminence to patient merit and agreeable +perseverance. He is a meek, mild, inoffensive creature, +with just enough of scholarship to fit him to hold a +lecture, or set an examination paper. He rose by +kindness to the aristocracy. It was wonderful to see the +way in which that poor creature grovelled before a +nobleman or a lord's nephew, or even some noisy and +disreputable commoner, the friend of a lord. He used to +give the young noblemen the most painful and elaborate +breakfasts, and adopt a jaunty genteel air, and talk with +them (although he was decidedly serious) about the opera, +or the last run with the hounds. It was good to watch +him in the midst of a circle of young tufts, with his +mean, smiling, eager, uneasy familiarity. He used to +write home confidential letters to their parents, and +made it his duty to call upon them when in town, to +condole or rejoice with them when a death, birth, or +marriage took place in their family; and to feast them +whenever they came to the University. I recollect a +letter lying on a desk in his lecture-room for a whole +term, beginning, 'My Lord Duke.' It was to show us that +he corresponded with such dignities. + +When the late lamented Lord Glenlivat, who broke his neck +at a hurdle-race, at the premature age of twenty-four, +was at the University, the amiable young fellow, passing +to his rooms in the early morning, and seeing Hugby's +boots at his door, on the same staircase, playfully +wadded the insides of the boots with cobbler's wax, which +caused excruciating pains to the Rev. Mr. Hugby, when he +came to take them off the same evening, before dining +with the Master of St. Crispin's. + +Everybody gave the credit of this admirable piece of fun +to Lord Glenlivat's friend, Bob Tizzy, who was famous for +such feats, and who had already made away with the +college pump-handle; filed St. Boniface's nose smooth +with his face; carried off four images of nigger-boys +from the tobacconists; painted the senior proctor's horse +pea-green, &c. &c.; and Bob (who was of the party +certainly, and would not peach,) was just on the point of +incurring expulsion, and so losing the family living +which was in store for him, when Glenlivat nobly stepped +forward, owned himself to be the author of the delightful +JEU-D'ESPRIT, apologized to the tutor, and accepted the +rustication. + +Hugby cried when Glenlivat apologized; if the young +nobleman had kicked him round the court, I believe the +tutor would have been happy, so that an apology and a +reconciliation might subsequently ensue. 'My lord,' said +he, 'in your conduct on this and all other occasions, you +have acted as becomes a gentleman; you have been an +honour to the University, as you will be to the peerage, +I am sure, when the amiable vivacity of youth is calmed +down, and you are called upon to take your proper share +in the government of the nation.' And when his lordship +took leave of the University, Hugby presented him with a +copy of his 'Sermons to a Nobleman's Family' (Hugby was +once private tutor to the Sons of the Earl of +Muffborough), which Glenlivat presented in return to Mr. +William Ramm, known to the fancy as the Tutbury Pet, and +the sermons now figure on the boudoir-table of Mrs. Ramm, +behind the bar of her house of entertainment, 'The Game +Cock and Spurs,' near Woodstock, Oxon. + +At the beginning of the long vacation, Hugby comes to +town, and puts up in handsome lodgings near St. James's +Square; rides in the Park in the afternoon; and is +delighted to read his name in the morning papers among +the list of persons present at Muffborough House, and the +Marquis of Farintosh's evening-parties. He is a member +of Sydney Scraper's Club, where, however, he drinks his +pint of claret. + +Sometimes you may see him on Sundays, at the hour when +tavern doors open, whence issue little girls with great +jugs of porter; when charity-boys walk the streets, +bearing brown dishes of smoking shoulders of mutton and +baked 'taturs; when Sheeny and Moses are seen smoking +their pipes before their lazy shutters in Seven Dials; +when a crowd of smiling persons in clean outlandish +dresses, in monstrous bonnets and flaring printed gowns, +or in crumpled glossy coats and silks that bear the +creases of the drawers where they have lain all the week, +file down High Street,--sometimes, I say, you may see +Hugby coming out of the Church of St. Giles-in-the- +Fields, with a stout gentlewoman leaning on his arm, +whose old face bears an expression of supreme pride and +happiness as she glances round at all the neighbours, and +who faces the curate himself and marches into Holborn, +where she pulls the bell of a house over which is +inscribed, 'Hugby, Haberdasher.' It is the mother of the +Rev. F. Hugby, as proud of her son in his white choker as +Cornelia of her jewels at Rome. That is old Hugby +bringing up the rear with the Prayer-books, and Betsy +Hugby the old maid, his daughter,--old Hugby, Haberdasher +and Church-warden. + +In the front room upstairs, where the dinner is laid out, +there is a picture of Muffborough Castle; of the Earl of +Muffborough, K.X., Lord-Lieutenant for Diddlesex; an +engraving, from an almanac, of Saint Boniface College, +Oxon; and a sticking-plaster portrait of Hugby when +young, in a cap and gown. A copy of his 'Sermons to a +Nobleman's Family' is on the bookshelf, by the 'Whole +Duty of Man,' the Reports of the Missionary Societies, +and the 'Oxford University Calendar.' Old Hugby knows +part of this by heart; every living belonging to Saint +Boniface, and the name of every tutor, fellow, nobleman, +and undergraduate. + +He used to go to meeting and preach himself, until his +son took orders; but of late the old gentleman has been +accused of Puseyism, and is quite pitiless against the +Dissenters. + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS + +I should like to fill several volumes with accounts of +various University Snobs; so fond are my reminiscences of +them, and so numerous are they. I should like to speak, +above all, of the wives and daughters of some of the +Professor-Snobs; their amusements, habits, jealousies; +their innocent artifices to entrap young men; their +picnics, concerts, and evening-parties. I wonder what +has become of Emily Blades, daughter of Blades, the +Professor of the Mandingo language? I remember her +shoulders to this day, as she sat in the midst of a crowd +of about seventy young gentlemen, from Corpus and +Catherine Hall, entertaining them with ogles and French +songs on the guitar. Are you married, fair Emily of the +shoulders? What beautiful ringlets those were that used +to dribble over them!--what a waist!--what a killing sea- +green shot-silk gown!--what a cameo, the size of a +muffin! There were thirty-six young men of the +University in love at one time with Emily Blades: and no +words are sufficient to describe the pity, the sorrow, +the deep, deep commiseration--the rage, fury, and +uncharitableness, in other words--with which the Miss +Trumps (daughter of Trumps, the Professor of Phlebotomy) +regarded her, because she DIDN'T squint, and because she +WASN'T marked with the small-pox. + +As for the young University Snobs, I am getting too old, +now, to speak of such very familiarly. My recollections +of them lie in the far, far past--almost as far back as +Pelham's time. + +We THEN used to consider Snobs raw-looking lads, who +never missed chapel; who wore highlows and no straps; who +walked two hours on the Trumpington road every day of +their lives; who carried off the college scholarships, +and who overrated themselves in hall. We were premature +in pronouncing our verdict of youthful Snobbishness The +man without straps fulfilled his destiny and duty. He +eased his old governor, the curate in Westmoreland, or +helped his sisters to set up the Ladies' School. He +wrote a 'Dictionary,' or a 'Treatise on Conic Sections,' +as his nature and genius prompted. He got a fellowship: +and then took to himself a wife, and a living. He +presides over a parish now, and thinks it rather a +dashing thing to belong to the 'Oxford and Cambridge +Club;' and his parishioners love him, and snore under his +sermons. No, no, HE is not a Snob. It is not straps +that make the gentleman, or highlows that unmake him, be +they ever so thick. My son, it is you who are the Snob +if you lightly despise a man for doing his duty, and +refuse to shake an honest man's hand because it wears a +Berlin glove. + +We then used to consider it not the least vulgar for a +parcel of lads who had been whipped three months +previous, and were not allowed more than three glasses of +port at home, to sit down to pineapples and ices at each +other's rooms, and fuddle themselves with champagne and +claret. + +One looks back to what was called a 'wine-party' with a +sort of wonder. Thirty lads round a table covered with +bad sweetmeats, drinking bad wines, telling bad stories, +singing bad songs over and over again. Milk punch-- +smoking--ghastly headache-- frightful spectacle of +dessert-table next morning, and smell of tobacco--your +guardian, the clergyman, dropping in, in the midst of +this--expecting to find you deep in Algebra, and +discovering the Gyp administering soda-water. + +There were young men who despised the lads who indulged +in the coarse hospitalities of wine-parties, who prided +themselves in giving RECHERCHE little French dinners. +Both wine-party-givers and dinner-givers were Snobs. + +There were what used to be called 'dressy' Snobs:- Jimmy, +who might be seen at five o'clock elaborately rigged out, +with a camellia in his button-hole, glazed boots, and +fresh kid-gloves twice a day;--Jessamy, who was +conspicuous for his 'jewellery,'--a young donkey, +glittering all over with chains, rings, and shirt-studs;- +-Jacky, who rode every day solemnly on the Blenheim Road, +in pumps and white silk stockings, with his hair curled,- +-all three of whom flattered themselves they gave laws to +the University about dress--all three most odious +varieties of Snobs. + +Sporting Snobs of course there were, and are always-- +those happy beings in whom Nature has implanted a love of +slang: who loitered about the horsekeeper's stables, and +drove the London coaches--a stage in and out--and might +be seen swaggering through the courts in pink of early +mornings, and indulged in dice and blind-hookey at +nights, and never missed a race or a boxing-match; and +rode flat-races, and kept bull-terriers. Worse Snobs +even than these were poor miserable wretches who did not +like hunting at all, and could not afford it, and were in +mortal fear at a two-foot ditch; but who hunted because +Glenlivat and Cinqbars hunted. The Billiard Snob and the +Boating Snob were varieties of these, and are to be found +elsewhere than in universities. + +Then there were Philosophical Snobs, who used to ape +statesmen at the spouting-clubs, and who believed as a +fact that Government always had an eye on the University +for the selection of orators for the House of Commons. +There were audacious young free-thinkers, who adored +nobody or nothing, except perhaps Robespierre and the +Koran, and panted for the day when the pale name of +priest should shrink and dwindle away before the +indignation of an enlightened world. + +But the worst of all University Snobs are those +unfortunates who go to rack and ruin from their desire to +ape their betters. Smith becomes acquainted with great +people at college, and is ashamed of his father the +tradesman. Jones has fine acquaintances, and lives after +their fashion like a gay free-hearted fellow as he is, +and ruins his father, and robs his sister's portion, and +cripples his younger brother's outset in life, for the +pleasure of entertaining my lord, and riding by the side +of Sir John. And though it may be very good fun for +Robinson to fuddle himself at home as he does at College, +and to be brought home by the policeman he has just been +trying to knock down-- think what fun it is for the poor +old soul his mother!--the half-pay captain's widow, who +has been pinching herself all her life long, in order +that that jolly young fellow might have a University +education. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +ON LITERARY SNOBS + +What will he say about Literary Snobs? has been a +question, I make no doubt, often asked by the public. +How can he let off his own profession? Will that +truculent and unsparing monster who attacks the nobility, +the clergy, the army, and the ladies, indiscriminately, +hesitate when the turn comes to EGORGER his own flesh +and blood? + +My dear and excellent querist, whom does the schoolmaster +flog so resolutely as his own son? Didn't Brutus chop +his offspring's head off? You have a very bad opinion +indeed of the present state of literature and of literary +men, if you fancy that any one of us would hesitate to +stick a knife into his neighbour penman, if the latter's +death could do the State any service. + +But the fact is, that in the literary profession THERE +ARE NO SNOBS. Look round at the whole body of British +men of letters; and I defy you to point out among them a +single instance of vulgarity, or envy, or assumption. + +Men and women, as far as I have known them, they are all +modest in their demeanour, elegant in their manners, +spotless in their lives, and honourable in their conduct +to the world and to each other. You MAY, occasionally, +it is true, hear one literary man abusing his brother; +but why? Not in the least out of malice; not at all from +envy; merely from a sense of truth and public duty. +Suppose, for instance, I, good-naturedly point out a +blemish in my friend MR. PUNCH'S person, and say, MR. P. +has a hump-back, and his nose and chin are more crooked +than those features in the Apollo or Antinous, which we +are accustomed to consider as our standards of beauty; +does this argue malice on my part towards MR. PUNCH? Not +in the least. It is the critic's duty to point out +defects as well as merits, and he invariably does his +duty with utmost gentleness and candour. + +An intelligent foreigner's testimony about our manners is +always worth having, and I think, in this respect the +work of an eminent American, Mr. N. P. Willis is +eminently valuable and impartial. In his 'History of +Ernest Clay,' a crack magazine-writer, the reader will +get an exact account of the life of a popular man of +letters in England. He is always the lion of society. + +He takes the PAS of dukes and earls; all the nobility +crowd to see him: I forget how many baronesses and +duchesses fall in love with him. But on this subject let +us hold our tongues. Modesty forbids that we should +reveal the names of the heart-broken countesses and dear +marchionesses who are pining for every one of the +contributors in PUNCH. + +If anybody wants to know how intimately authors are +connected with the fashionable world, they have but to +read the genteel novels. What refinement and delicacy +pervades the works of Mrs. Barnaby! What delightful +good company do you meet with in Mrs. Armytage! She +seldom introduces you to anybody under a marquis! I +don't know anything more delicious than the pictures of +genteel life in 'Ten Thousand a Year,' except perhaps the +'Young Duke,' and 'Coningsby.' There's a modest grace +about THEM, and an air of easy high fashion, which only +belongs to blood, my dear Sir--to true blood. + +And what linguists many of our writers are! Lady Bulwer, +Lady Londonderry, Sir Edward himself--they write the +French language with a luxurious elegance and ease which +sets them far above their continental rivals, of whom not +one (except Paul de Kock) knows a word of English. + +And what Briton can read without enjoyment the works of +James, so admirable for terseness; and the playful humour +and dazzling offhand lightness of Ainsworth? Among other +humourists, one might glance at a Jerrold, the chivalrous +advocate of Toryism and Church and State; an a Beckett, +with a lightsome pen, but a savage earnestness of +purpose; a Jeames, whose pure style, and wit unmingled +with buffoonery, was relished by a congenial public. + +Speaking of critics, perhaps there never was a review +that has done so much for literature as the admirable +QUARTERLY. It has its prejudices, to be sure, as which +of us has not? It goes out of its way to abuse a great +man, or lays mercilessly on to such pretenders as Keats +and Tennyson; but, on the other hand, it is the friend of +all young authors, and has marked and nurtured all the +rising talent of the country. It is loved by everybody. +There, again, is BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE--conspicuous for +modest elegance and amiable satire; that review never +passes the bounds of politeness in a joke. It is the +arbiter of manners; and, while gently exposing the +foibles of Londoners (for whom the BEAUX ESPRITS of +Edinburgh entertain a justifiable contempt), it is never +coarse in its fun. The fiery enthusiasm of the ATHENAEUM +is well known: and the bitter wit of the too difficult +LITERARY GAZETTE. The EXAMINER is perhaps too timid, and +the SPECTATOR too boisterous in its praise--but who can +carp at these minor faults? No, no; the critics of +England and the authors of England are unrivalled as a +body; and hence it becomes impossible for us to find +fault with them. + +Above all, I never knew a man of letters ASHAMED OF HIS +PROFESSION. Those who know us, know what an affectionate +and brotherly spirit there is among us all. Sometimes +one of us rises in the world: we never attack him or +sneer at him under those circumstances, but rejoice to a +man at his success. If Jones dines with a lord, Smith +never says Jones is a courtier and cringer. Nor, on the +other hand, does Jones, who is in the habit of +frequenting the society of great people, give himself any +airs on account of the company he keeps; but will leave a +duke's arm in Pall Mall to come over and speak to poor +Brown, the young penny-a-liner. + +That sense of equality and fraternity amongst authors has +always struck me as one of the most amiable +characteristics of the class. It is because we know and +respect each other, that the world respects us so much; +that we hold such a good position in society, and demean +ourselves so irreproachably when there. + +Literary persons are held in such esteem by the nation +that about two of them have been absolutely invited to +court during the present reign; and it is probable that +towards the end of the season, one or two will be asked +to dinner by Sir Robert Peel. + +They are such favourites with the public, that they are +continually obliged to have their pictures taken and +published; and one or two could be pointed out, of whom +the nation insists upon having a fresh portrait every +year. Nothing can be more gratifying than this proof of +the affectionate regard which the people has for its +instructors. + +Literature is held in such honour in England, that there +is a sum of near twelve hundred pounds per annum set +apart to pension deserving persons following that +profession. And a great compliment this is, too, to the +professors, and a proof of their generally prosperous and +flourishing condition. They are generally so rich and +thrifty, that scarcely any money is wanted to help them. + +If every word of this is true, how, I should like to know +am I to write about Literary Snobs? + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A LITTLE ABOUT IRISH SNOBS + +You do not, to be sure, imagine that there are no other +Snobs in Ireland than those of the amiable party who wish +to make pikes of iron railroads (it's a fine Irish +economy), and to cut the throats of the Saxon invaders. +These are of the venomous sort; and had they been +invented in his time, St. Patrick would have banished +them out of the kingdom along with the other dangerous +reptiles. + +I think it is the Four Masters, or else it's Olaus +Magnus, or else it's certainly O'Neill Daunt, in the +'Catechism of Irish History,' who relates that when +Richard the Second came to Ireland, and the Irish chiefs +did homage to him, going down on their knees --the poor +simple creatures!--and worshipping and wondering before +the English king and the dandies of his court, my lords +the English noblemen mocked and jeered at their uncouth +Irish admirers, mimicked their talk and gestures, pulled +their poor old beards, and laughed at the strange fashion +of their garments. + +The English Snob rampant always does this to the present +day. There is no Snob in existence, perhaps, that has +such an indomitable belief in himself: that sneers you +down all the rest of the world besides, and has such an +insufferable, admirable, stupid contempt for all people +but his own--nay, for all sets but his own. 'Gwacious +Gad' what stories about 'the Iwish' these young dandies +accompanying King Richard must have had to tell, when +they returned to Pall Mall, and smoked their cigars upon +the steps of 'White's.' + +The Irish snobbishness developes itself not in pride so +much as in servility and mean admirations, and trumpery +imitations of their neighbours. And I wonder De +Tocqueville and De Beaumont, and THE TIMES' Commissioner, +did not explain the Snobbishness of Ireland as contrasted +with our own. Ours is that of Richard's Norman Knights,- +-haughty, brutal stupid, and perfectly self-confident;-- +theirs, of the poor, wondering, kneeling, simple +chieftains. They are on their knees still before English +fashion--these simple, wild people; and indeed it is hard +not to grin at some of their NAIVE exhibitions. + +Some years since, when a certain great orator was Lord +Mayor of Dublin, he used to wear a red gown and a cocked +hat, the splendour of which delighted him as much as a +new curtain-ring in her nose or a string of glass-beads +round her neck charms Queen Quasheeneboo. He used to pay +visits to people in this dress; to appear at meetings +hundreds of miles off, in the red velvet gown. And to +hear the people crying 'Yes, me Lard!' and 'No, me Lard!' +and to read the prodigious accounts of his Lordship in +the papers: it seemed as if the people and he liked to be +taken in by this twopenny splendour. Twopenny +magnificence, indeed, exists all over Ireland, and may be +considered as the great characteristic of the +Snobbishness of that country. + +When Mrs. Mulholligan, the grocer's lady, retires to +Kingstown, she has Mulholliganville' painted over the +gate of her villa; and receives you at a door that won't +shut or gazes at you out of a window that is glazed with +an old petticoat. + +Be it ever so shabby and dismal, nobody ever owns to +keeping a shop. A fellow whose stock in trade is a penny +roll or a tumbler of lollipops, calls his cabin the +'American Flour Stores,' or the 'Depository for Colonial +Produce,' or some such name. + +As for Inns, there are none in the country; Hotels abound +as well furnished as Mulholliganville; but again there +are no such people as landlords and land-ladies; the +landlord is out with the hounds, and my lady in the +parlour talking with the Captain or playing the piano. + +If a gentleman has a hundred a year to leave to his +family they all become gentlemen, all keep a nag, ride to +hounds, and swagger about in the 'Phaynix,' and grow +tufts to their chins like so many real aristocrats. + +A friend of mine has taken to be a painter, and lives out +of Ireland, where he is considered to have disgraced the +family by choosing such a profession. His father is a +wine-merchant; and his elder brother an apothecary. + +The number of men one meets in London and on the +Continent who have a pretty little property of five-and- +twenty hundred a year in Ireland is prodigious: those who +WILL have nine thousand a year in land when somebody dies +are still more numerous. I myself have met as many +descendants from Irish kings as would form a brigade. + +And who has not met the Irishman who apes the Englishman, +and who forgets his country and tries to forget his +accent, or to smother the taste of it, as it were? +'Come, dine with me, my boy,' says O'Dowd, of +O'Dowdstown: 'you'll FIND US ALL ENGLISH THERE;' which he +tells you with a brogue as broad as from here to +Kingstown Pier. And did you never hear Mrs. Captain +Macmanus talk about 'I-ah-land,' and her account of her +'fawther's esteet?' Very few men have rubbed through the +world without hearing and witnessing some of these +Hibernian phenomena--these twopenny splendours. + +And what say you to the summit of society--the Castle-- +with a sham king, and sham lords-in-waiting, and sham +loyalty, and a sham Haroun Alraschid, to go about in a +sham disguise, making believe to be affable and splendid? +That Castle is the pink and pride of Snobbishness. A +COURT CIRCULAR is bad enough, with two columns of print +about a little baby that's christened--but think of +people liking a sham COURT CIRCULAR! + +I think the shams of Ireland are more outrageous than +those of any country. A fellow shows you a hill and +says, 'That's the highest mountain in all Ireland;' +a gentleman tells you he is descended from Brian Boroo +and has his five-and-thirty hundred a year; or Mrs. +Macmanus describes her fawther's esteet; or ould Dan +rises and says the Irish women are the loveliest, the +Irish men the bravest, the Irish land the most fertile in +the world: and nobody believes anybody--the latter does +not believe his story nor the hearer:--but they make- +believe to believe, and solemnly do honour to humbug. + +O Ireland! O my country! (for I make little doubt I am +descended from Brian Boroo too) when will you acknowledge +that two and two make four, and call a pikestaff a +pikestaff?--that is the very best use you can make of the +latter. Irish snobs will dwindle away then and we shall +never hear tell of Hereditary bondsmen. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +PARTY-GIVING SNOBS + +Our selection of Snobs has lately been too exclusively of +a political character. 'Give us private Snobs,' cry the +dear ladies. (I have before me the letter of one fair +correspondent of the fishing village of Brighthelmstone +in Sussex, and could her commands ever be disobeyed?) +'Tell us more, dear Mr. Snob, about your experience of +Snobs in society.' Heaven bless the dear souls!--they +are accustomed to the word now--the odious, vulgar, +horrid, unpronounceable word slips out of their lips with +the prettiest glibness possible. I should not wonder if +it were used at Court amongst the Maids of Honour. In +the very best society I know it is. And why not? +Snobbishness is vulgar--the mere words are not: that +which we call a Snob, by any other name would still be +Snobbish. + +Well, then. As the season is drawing to a close: as many +hundreds of kind souls, snobbish or otherwise, have +quitted London; as many hospitable carpets are taken up; +and window-blinds are pitilessly papered with the MORNING +HERALD; and mansions once inhabited by cheerful owners +are now consigned to the care of the housekeeper's dreary +LOCUM TENENS--some mouldy old woman, who, in reply to the +hopeless clanging of the bell, peers at you for a moment +from the area, and then slowly unbolting the great hall- +door, informs you my lady has left town, or that 'the +family's in the country,' or 'gone up the Rind,'--or what +not; as the season and parties are over; why not consider +Party-giving Snobs for a while, and review the conduct of +some of those individuals who have quitted the town for +six months? + +Some of those worthy Snobs are making-believe to go +yachting, and, dressed in telescopes and pea-jackets, are +passing their time between Cherbourg and Cowes; some +living higgledy-piggledy in dismal little huts in +Scotland, provisioned with canisters of portable soup, +and fricandeaux hermetically sealed in tin, are passing +their days slaughtering grouse upon the moors; some are +dozing and bathing away the effects of the season at +Kissingen, or watching the ingenious game of TRENTE ET +QUARANTE at Homburg and Ems. We can afford to be very +bitter upon them now they are all gone. Now there are no +more parties, let us have at the Party-giving Snobs. The +dinner-giving, the ball-giving, the DEJEUNER-giving, the +CONVERSAZIONE-GIVING Snobs--Lord! Lord! what havoc might +have been made amongst them had we attacked them during +the plethora of the season! I should have been obliged +to have a guard to defend me from fiddlers and +pastrycooks, indignant at the abuse of their patrons. +Already I'm told that, from some flippant and unguarded +expressions considered derogatory to Baker Street and +Harley Street, rents have fallen in these respectable +quarters; and orders have been issued that at least Mr. +Snob shall be asked to parties there no more. Well, +then--now they are ALL away, let us frisk at our ease, +and have at everything like the bull in the china-shop. +They mayn't hear of what is going on in their absence, +and, if they do they can't bear malice for six months. +We will begin to make it up with them about next +February, and let next year take care of itself. We +shall have no dinners from the dinner-giving Snobs: no +more from the ball-givers: no more CONVERSAZIONES (thank +Mussy! as Jeames says,) from the Conversaziones Snob: and +what is to prevent us from telling the truth? + +The snobbishness of Conversazione Snobs is very soon +disposed of: as soon as that cup of washy bohea is handed +to you in the tea-room; or the muddy remnant of ice that +you grasp in the suffocating scuffle of the assembly +upstairs. + +Good heavens! What do people mean by going there? What +is done there, that everybody throngs into those three +little rooms? Was the Black Hole considered to be an +agreeable REUNION, that Britons in the dog-days here seek +to imitate it? After being rammed to a jelly in a door- +way (where you feel your feet going through Lady Barbara +Macbeth's lace flounces, and get a look from that haggard +and painted old harpy, compared to which the gaze of +Ugolino is quite cheerful); after withdrawing your elbow +out of poor gasping Bob Guttleton's white waistcoat, from +which cushion it was impossible to remove it, though you +knew you were squeezing poor Bob into an apoplexy--you +find yourself at last in the reception-room, and try to +catch the eye of Mrs. Botibol, the CONVERSAZIONE-giver. +When you catch her eye, you are expected to grin, and she +smiles too, for the four hundredth time that night; and, +if she's very glad to see you, waggles her little hand +before her face as if to blow you a kiss, as the phrase +is. + +Why the deuce should Mrs. Botibol blow me a kiss? I +wouldn't kiss her for the world. Why do I grin when I +see her, as if I was delighted? Am I? I don't care a +straw for Mrs. Botibol. I know what she thinks about me. +I know what she said about my last volume of poems (I had +it from a dear mutual friend). Why, I say in a word, are +we going on ogling and telegraphing each other in this +insane way?-- +Because we are both performing the ceremonies demanded by +the Great Snob Society; whose dictates we all of us obey. + +Well; the recognition is over--my jaws have returned to +their usual English expression of subdued agony and +intense gloom, and the Botibol is grinning and kissing +her fingers to somebody else, who is squeezing through +the aperture by which we have just entered. It is Lady +Ann Clutterbuck, who has her Friday evenings, as Botibol +(Botty, we call her,) has Wednesdays. That is Miss +Clementina Clutterbuck the cadaverous young woman in +green, with florid auburn hair, who has published her +volume of poems ('The Death-Shriek;' 'Damiens;' 'The +Faggot of Joan of Arc;' and 'Translations from the +German' of course). The conversazione-women salute each +other calling each other 'My dear Lady Ann' and 'My dear +good Eliza,' and hating each other, as women hate who +give parties on Wednesdays and Fridays. With +inexpressible pain dear good Eliza sees Ann go up and +coax and wheedle Abou Gosh, who has just arrived from +Syria, and beg him to patronize her Fridays. + +All this while, amidst the crowd and the scuffle, and a +perpetual buzz and chatter, and the flare of the wax- +candles, and an intolerable smell of musk--what the poor +Snobs who write fashionable romances call 'the gleam of +gems, the odour of perfumes, the blaze of countless +lamps'--a scrubby-looking, yellow-faced foreigner, with +cleaned gloves, is warbling inaudibly in a corner, to the +accompaniment of another. 'The Great Cacafogo,' Mrs. +Botibol whispers, as she passes you by. 'A great +creature, Thumpenstrumpff, is at the instrument--the +Hetman Platoff's pianist, you know.' + +To hear this Cacafogo and Thumpenstrumpff, a hundred +people are gathered together--a bevy of dowagers, stout +or scraggy; a faint sprinkling of misses; six moody- +looking lords, perfectly meek and solemn; wonderful +foreign Counts, with bushy whiskers and yellow faces, and +a great deal of dubious jewellery; young dandies with +slim waists and open necks, and self-satisfied simpers, +and flowers in their buttons; the old, stiff, stout, +bald-headed CONVERSAZIONE ROUES, whom +You meet everywhere--who never miss a night of this +delicious enjoyment; the three last-caught lions of the +season--Higgs, the traveller, Biggs, the novelist, and +Toffey, who has come out so on the sugar question; +Captain Flash, who is invited on account of his pretty +wife and Lord Ogleby, who goes wherever she goes. + +QUE SCAIS-JE? Who are the owners of all those showy +scarfs and white neckcloths?--Ask little Tom Prig, who is +there in all his glory, knows everybody, has a story +about every one; and, as he trips home to his lodgings in +Jermyn Street, with his gibus-hat and his little glazed +pumps, thinks he is the fashionablest young fellow in +town, and that he really has passed a night of exquisite +enjoyment. + +You go up (with our usual easy elegance of manner) and +talk to Miss Smith in a corner. 'Oh, Mr. Snob, I'm +afraid you're sadly satirical.' + +That's all she says. If you say it's fine weather, she +bursts out laughing; or hint that it's very hot, she vows +you are the drollest wretch! Meanwhile Mrs. Botibol is +simpering on fresh arrivals; the individual at the door +is roaring out their names; poor Cacafogo is quavering +away in the music-room, under the impression that he will +be LANCE in the world by singing inaudibly here. And +what a blessing it is to squeeze out of the door, and +into the street, where a half-hundred of carriages are in +waiting; and where the link-boy, with that unnecessary +lantern of his, pounces upon all who issue out, and will +insist upon getting your noble honour's lordship's cab. + +And to think that there are people who, after having +been to Botibol on Wednesday, will go to Clutterbuck +on Friday! + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +DINING-OUT SNOBS + +In England Dinner-giving Snobs occupy a very important +place in society, and the task of describing them is +tremendous. There was a time in my life when the +consciousness of having eaten a man's salt rendered me +dumb regarding his demerits, and I thought it a wicked +act and a breach of hospitality to speak ill of him. + +But why should a saddle-of-mutton blind you, or a turbot +and lobster-sauce shut your mouth for ever? With +advancing age, men see their duties more clearly. I am +not to be hoodwinked any longer by a slice of venison, be +it ever so fat; and as for being dumb on account of +turbot and lobster-sauce----of course I am; good manners +ordain that I should be so, until I have swallowed the +compound--but not afterwards; directly the victuals are +discussed, and John takes away the plate, my tongue +begins to wag. Does not yours, if you have a pleasant +neighbour?--a lovely creature, say, of some five-and- +thirty, whose daughters have not yet quite come out--they +are the best talkers. As for your young misses, they are +only put about the table to look at--like the flowers in +the centre-piece. Their blushing youth and natural +modesty preclude them from easy, confidential, +conversational ABANDON which forms the delight of the +intercourse with their dear mothers. It is to these, if +he would prosper in his profession, that the Dining-out +Snob should address himself. Suppose you sit next to one +of these, how pleasant it is, in the intervals of the +banquet, actually to abuse the victuals and the giver of +the entertainment! It's twice as PIQUANT to make fun of +a man under his very nose. + +'What IS a Dinner-giving Snob?' some innocent youth, who +is not REPANDU in the world, may ask--or some simple +reader who has not the benefits of London experience. + +My dear sir, I will show you--not all, for that is +impossible--but several kinds of Dinner-giving Snobs. +For instance, suppose you, in the middle rank of life, +accustomed to Mutton, roast on Tuesday, cold on +Wednesday, hashed on Thursday, &c., with small means and +a small establishment, choose to waste the former and set +the latter topsy-turvy by giving entertainments +unnaturally costly--you come into the Dinner-giving Snob +class at once. Suppose you get in cheap-made dishes from +the pastrycook's, and hire a couple of greengrocers, or +carpet-beaters, to figure as footmen, dismissing honest +Molly, who waits on common days, and bedizening your +table (ordinarily ornamented with willow-pattern +crockery) with twopenny-halfpenny Birmingham plate. +Suppose you pretend to be richer and grander than you +ought to be--you are a Dinner-giving Snob. And oh, I +tremble to think how many and many a one will read this! + +A man who entertains in this way--and, alas, how few do +not!--is like a fellow who would borrow his neighbour's +coat to make a show in, or a lady who flaunts in the +diamonds from next door--a humbug, in a word, and amongst +the Snobs he must be set down. + +A man who goes out of his natural sphere of society to +ask Lords, Generals, Aldermen, and other persons of +fashion, but is niggardly of his hospitality towards his +own equals, is a Dinner-giving Snob. My dear friend, +Jack Tufthunt, for example, knows ONE Lord whom he met at +a watering-place: old Lord Mumble, who is as toothless as +a three-months-old baby, and as mum as an undertaker, and +as dull as--well, we will not particularise. Tufthunt +never has a dinner now but you see this solemn old +toothless patrician at the right-hand of Mrs. Tufthunt-- +Tufthunt is a Dinner-giving Snob. + +Old Livermore, old Soy, old Chutney, the East Indian +Director, old Cutler, the Surgeon, &c.,--that society of +old fogies, in fine, who give each other dinners round +and round, and dine for the mere purpose of guttling-- +these, again, are Dinner-giving Snobs. + +Again, my friend Lady MacScrew, who has three grenadier +flunkeys in lace round the table, and serves up a scrag- +of-mutton on silver, and dribbles you out bad sherry and +port by thimblefuls, is a Dinner-giving Snob of the other +sort; and I confess, for my part, I would rather dine +with old Livermore or old Soy than with her Ladyship. + +Stinginess is snobbish. Ostentation is snobbish. Too +great profusion is snobbish. Tuft-hunting is snobbish. +But I own there are people more snobbish than all those +whose defects are above mentioned: viz., those +individuals who can, and don't give dinners at all. The +man without hospitality shall never sit SUB IISDEM +TRABIBUS with ME. Let the sordid wretch go mumble his +bone alone! + +What, again, is true hospitality? Alas, my dear friends +and brother Snobs! how little do we meet of it after all! +Are the motives PURE which induce your friends to ask you +to dinner? This has often come across me. Does your +entertainer want something from you? For instance, I am +not of a suspicious turn; but it IS a fact that when +Hookey is bringing out a new work, he asks the critics +all round to dinner; that when Walker has got his picture +ready for the Exhibition, he somehow grows exceedingly +hospitable, and has his friends of the press to a quiet +cutlet and a glass of Sillery. Old Hunks, the miser, who +died lately (leaving his money to his housekeeper) lived +many years on the fat of the land, by simply taking down, +at all his friends', the names and Christian names OF ALL +THE CHILDREN. But though you may have your own opinion +about the hospitality of your acquaintances; and though +men who ask you from sordid motives are most decidedly +Dinner-giving Snobs, it is best not to inquire into their +motives too keenly. Be not too curious about the mouth +of a gift-horse. After all, a man does not intend to +insult you by asking you to dinner. + +Though, for that matter, I know some characters about +town who actually consider themselves injured and +insulted if the dinner or the company is not to their +liking. There is Guttleton, who dines at home off a +shilling's-worth of beef from the cookshop, but if he is +asked to dine at a house where there are not pease at the +end of May, or cucumbers in March along with the turbot, +thinks himself insulted by being invited. 'Good Ged!' +says he, 'what the deuce do the Forkers mean by asking ME +to a family dinner? I can get mutton at home;' or 'What +infernal impertinence it is of the Spooners to get +ENTREES from the pastrycook's, and fancy that I am to be +deceived with their stories about their French cook!' +Then, again, there is Jack Puddington--I saw that honest +fellow t'other day quite in a rage, because, as chance +would have it, Sir John Carver asked him to meet the very +same party he had met at Colonel Cramley's the day +before, and he had not got up a new set of stories to +entertain them. Poor Dinner-giving Snobs! you don't know +what small thanks you get for all your pains and money! +How we Dining-out Snobs sneer at your cookery, and pooh- +pooh your old hock, and are incredulous about your four- +and-six-penny champagne, and know that the side-dishes of +to-day are RECHAUFFES from the dinner of yesterday, and +mark how certain dishes are whisked off the table +untasted, so that they may figure at the banquet +tomorrow. Whenever, for my part, I see the head man +particularly anxious to ESCAMOTER a fricandeau or a +blanc-mange, I always call out, and insist upon +massacring it with a spoon. All this sort of conduct +makes one popular with the Dinner-giving Snob. One +friend of mine, I know, has made a prodigious sensation +in good society, by announcing apropos of certain dishes +when offered to him, that he never eats aspic except at +Lord Tittup's, and that Lady Jimmy's CHEF is the only man +in London who knows how to dress--FILET EN SERPENTEAU--or +SUPREME DE VOLAILLE AUX TRUFFES. + + + +CHAPTER XX + +DINNER-GIVING SNOBS FURTHER CONSIDERED + +If my friends would but follow the present prevailing +fashion, I think they ought to give me a testimonial for +the paper on Dinner-giving Snobs, which I am now writing. +What do you say now to a handsome comfortable dinner- +service of plate (NOT including plates, for I hold silver +plates to be sheer wantonness, and would almost as soon +think of silver teacups), a couple of neat teapots, a +coffeepot, trays, &c., with a little inscription to my +wife, Mrs. Snob; and a half-score of silver tankards for +the little Snoblings, to glitter on the homely table +where they partake of their quotidian mutton? + +If I had my way, and my plans could be carried out, +dinner-giving would increase as much on the one hand as +dinner-giving Snobbishness would diminish:--to my mind +the most amiable part of the work lately published by my +esteemed friend (if upon a very brief acquaintance he +will allow me to call him so), Alexis Soyer, the +regenerator--what he (in his noble style) would call the +most succulent, savoury, and elegant passages--are those +which relate, not to the grand banquets and ceremonial +dinners, but to his 'dinners at home.' + +The 'dinner at home' ought to be the centre of the whole +system of dinner-giving. Your usual style of meal--that +is, plenteous, comfortable, and in its perfection--should +be that to which you welcome your friends, as it is that +of which you partake yourself. + +For, towards what woman in the world do I entertain a +higher regard than towards the beloved partner of my +existence, Mrs. Snob? Who should have a greater place in +my affections than her six brothers (three or four of +whom we are pretty sure will favour us with their company +at seven o'clock), or her angelic mother, my own valued +mother-in-law?--for whom, finally, would I wish to cater +more generously than for your very humble servant, the +present writer? Now, nobody supposes that the Birmingham +plate is had out, the disguised carpet-beaters introduced +to the exclusion of the neat parlour-maid, the miserable +ENTREES from the pastrycook's ordered in, and the +children packed off (as it is supposed) to the nursery, +but really only to the staircase, down which they slide +during the dinner-time, waylaying the dishes as they come +out, and fingering the round bumps on the jellies, and +the forced-meat balls in the soup,--nobody, I say, +supposes that a dinner at home is characterized by the +horrible ceremony, the foolish makeshifts, the mean pomp +and ostentation which distinguish our banquets on grand +field-days. + +Such a notion is monstrous. I would as soon think of +having my dearest Bessy sitting opposite me in a turban +and bird of paradise, and showing her jolly mottled arms +out of blond sleeves in her famous red satin gown: ay, or +of having Mr. Toole every day, in a white waistcoat, at +my back, shouting, 'Silence FAW the chair!' + +Now, if this be the case; if the Brummagem-plate pomp and +the processions of disguised footmen are odious and +foolish in everyday life, why not always? Why should +Jones and I, who are in the middle rank, alter the modes +of our being to assume an ECLAT which does not belong to +us--to entertain our friends, who (if we are worth +anything and honest fellows at bottom,) are men of the +middle rank too, who are not in the least deceived by our +temporary splendour, and who play off exactly the same +absurd trick upon us when they ask us to dine? + +If it be pleasant to dine with your friends, as all +persons with good stomachs and kindly hearts will, I +presume, allow it to be, it is better to dine twice than +to dine once. It is impossible for men of small means to +be continually spending five-and-twenty or thirty +shillings on each friend who sits down to their table. +People dine for less. I myself have seen, at my +favourite Club (the Senior United Service), His Grace the +Duke of Wellington quite contented with the joint, one- +and-three, and half-pint of sherry, nine; and if his +Grace, why not you and I? + +This rule I have made, and found the benefit of. +Whenever I ask a couple of Dukes and a Marquis or so to +dine with me, I set them down to a piece of beef, or a +leg-of-mutton and trimmings. The grandees thank you for +this simplicity, and appreciate the same. My dear Jones, +ask any of those whom you have the honour of knowing, if +such be not the case. + +I am far from wishing that their Graces should treat me +in a similar fashion. Splendour is a part of their +station, as decent comfort (let us trust), of yours and +mine. Fate has comfortably appointed gold plate for +some, and has bidden others contentedly to wear the +willow-pattern. And being perfectly contented (indeed +humbly thankful--for look around, O Jones, and see the +myriads who are not so fortunate,) to wear honest linen, +while magnificos of the world are adorned with cambric +and point-lace, surely we ought to hold as miserable, +envious fools, those wretched Beaux Tibbs's of society, +who sport a lace dickey, and nothing besides,--the +poor silly jays, who trail a peacock's feather +behind them, and think to simulate the gorgeous bird +whose nature it is to strut on palace-terraces, and to +flaunt his magnificent fan-tail in the sunshine! + +The jays with peacocks' feathers are the Snobs of this +world: and never, since the days of Aesop, were they more +numerous in any land than they are at present in this +free country. + +How does this most ancient apologue apply to the subject +in hand?--the Dinner-giving Snob. The imitation of the +great is universal in this city, from the palaces of +Kensingtonia and Belgravia, even to the remotest corner +of Brunswick Square. + +Peacocks' feathers are stuck in the tails of most +families. Scarce one of us domestic 2birds but imitates +the lanky, pavonine strut, and shrill, genteel scream. +O you misguided dinner-giving Snobs, think how much +pleasure you lose, and how much mischief you do with your +absurd grandeurs and hypocrisies! You stuff each other +with unnatural forced-meats, and entertain each other to +the ruin of friendship (let alone health) and the +destruction of hospitality and good-fellowship--you, who +but for the peacock's tail might chatter away so much at +your ease, and be so jovial and happy! + +When a man goes into a great set company of dinner-giving +and dinner-receiving Snobs, if he has a philosophical +turn of mind, he will consider what a huge humbug the +whole affair is: the dishes, and the drink, and the +servants, and the plate, and the host and hostess, and +the conversation, and the company,--the philosopher +included. + +The host is smiling, and hob-nobbing, and talking up and +down the table; but a prey to secret terrors and +anxieties, lest the wines he has brought up from the +cellar should prove insufficient; lest a corked bottle +should destroy his calculations; or our friend the +carpet-beater, by making some BEVUE, should disclose his +real quality of greengrocer, and show that he is not the +family butler. + +The hostess is smiling resolutely through all the +courses, smiling through her agony; though her heart is +in the kitchen, and she is speculating with terror lest +there be any disaster there. If the SOUFFLE should +collapse, or if Wiggins does not send the ices in time-- +she feels as if she would commit suicide--that smiling, +jolly woman! + +The children upstairs are yelling, as their maid is +crimping their miserable ringlets with hot tongs, tearing +Miss Emmy's hair out by the roots, or scrubbing Miss +Polly's dumpy nose with mottled soap till the little +wretch screams herself into fits. The young males of the +family are employed, as we have stated, in piratical +exploits upon the landing-place. + +The servants are not servants, but the before-mentioned +retail tradesmen. + +The plate is not plate, but a mere shiny Birmingham +lacquer; and so is the hospitality, and everything else. + +The talk is Birmingham talk. The wag of the party, with +bitterness in his heart, having just quitted his +laundress, who is dunning him for her bill, is firing off +good stories; and the opposition wag is furious that he +cannot get an innings. Jawkins, the great +conversationalist, is scornful and indignant with the +pair of them, because he is kept out of court. Young +Muscadel, that cheap dandy, is talking Fashion and +Almack's out of the MORNING POST, and disgusting his +neighbour, Mrs. Fox, who reflects that she has never been +there. The widow is vexed out of patience, because her +daughter Maria has got a place beside young Cambric, the +penniless curate, and not by Colonel Goldmore, the rich +widower from India. The Doctor's wife is sulky, because +she has not been led out before the barrister's lady; old +Doctor Cork is grumbling at the wine, and Guttleton +sneering at the cookery. + +And to think that all these people might be so happy, and +easy, and friendly, were they brought together in a +natural unpretentious way, and but for an unhappy passion +for peacocks' feathers in England. Gentle shades of +Marat and Robespierre! when I see how all the honesty of +society is corrupted among us by the miserable fashion- +worship, I feel as angry as Mrs. Fox just mentioned, and +ready to order a general BATTUE of peacocks. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +SOME CONTINENTAL SNOBS + +Now that September has come, and all our Parliamentary +duties are over, perhaps no class of Snobs are in such +high feather as the Continental Snobs. I watch these +daily as they commence their migrations from the beach at +Folkestone. I see shoals of them depart (not perhaps +without an innate longing too to quit the Island along +with those happy Snobs). Farewell, dear friends, I say: +you little know that the individual who regards you from +the beach is your friend and historiographer and brother. + +I went to-day to see our excellent friend Snooks, on +board the 'Queen of the French;' many scores of Snobs +were there, on the deck of that fine ship, marching forth +in their pride and bravery. They will be at Ostend in +four hours; they will inundate the Continent next week; +they will carry into far lands the famous image of the +British Snob. I shall not see them--but am with them in +spirit: and indeed there is hardly a country in the known +and civilized world in which these eyes have not beheld +them. + +I have seen Snobs, in pink coats and hunting-boots, +scouring over the Campagna of Rome; and have heard their +oaths and their well-known slang in the galleries of the +Vatican, and under the shadowy arches of the Colosseum. +I have met a Snob on a dromedary in the desert, and +picnicking under the Pyramid of Cheops. I like to think +how many gallant British Snobs there are, at this minute +of writing, pushing their heads out of every window in +the courtyard of 'Meurice's' in the Rue de Rivoli; or +roaring out, 'Garsong, du pang,' 'Garsong, du Yang;' or +swaggering down the Toledo at Naples; or even how many +will be on the look-out for Snooks on Ostend Pier,--for +Snooks, and the rest of the Snobs on board the 'Queen of +the French.' + +Look at the Marquis of Carabas and his two carriages. My +Lady Marchioness comes on board, looks round with that +happy air of mingled terror and impertinence which +distinguishes her ladyship, and rushes to her carriage, +for it is impossible that she should mingle with the +other Snobs on deck. There she sits, and will be ill in +private. The strawberry leaves on her chariot-panels are +engraved on her ladyship's heart. If she were going to +heaven instead of to Ostend, I rather think she would +expect to have DES PLACES RESERVEES for her, and would +send to order the best rooms. A courier, with his money- +bag of office round his shoulders--a huge scowling +footman, whose dark pepper-and-salt livery glistens with +the heraldic insignia of the Carabases--a brazen-looking, +tawdry French FEMME-DE-CHAMBRE (none but a female pen can +do justice to that wonderful tawdry toilette of the +lady's-maid EN VOYAGE)--and a miserable DAME DE +COMPAGNIE, are ministering to the wants of her ladyship +and her King Charles's spaniel. They are rushing to and +fro with eau-de-Cologne, pocket-handkerchiefs, which are +all fringe and cipher, and popping mysterious cushions +behind and before, and in every available corner of the +carriage. + +The little Marquis, her husband is walking about the deck +in a bewildered manner, with a lean daughter on each arm: +the carroty-tufted hope of the family is already smoking +on the foredeck in a travelling costume checked all over, +and in little lacquer-tip pod jean boots, and a shirt +embroidered with pink boa-constrictors. 'What is it that +gives travelling Snobs such a marvellous propensity to +rush into a costume? Why should a man not travel in a +coat, &c.? but think proper to dress himself like a +harlequin in mourning? See, even young Aldermanbury, the +tallow-merchant, who has just stepped on board, has got a +travelling-dress gaping all over with pockets; and little +Tom Tapeworm, the lawyer's clerk out of the City, who has +but three weeks' leave, turns out in gaiters and a bran- +new shooting-jacket, and must let the moustaches grow on +his little sniffy upper lip, forsooth! + +Pompey Hicks is giving elaborate directions to his +servant, and asking loudly, 'Davis, where's the dwessing- +case?' and 'Davis, you'd best take the pistol-case into +the cabin.' Little Pompey travels with a dressing-case, +and without a beard: whom he is going to shoot with his +pistols, who on earth can tell? and what he is to do with +his servant but wait upon him, I am at a loss to +conjecture. + +Look at honest Nathan Houndsditch and his lady, and their +little son. What a noble air of blazing contentment +illuminates the features of those Snobs of Eastern race! +What a toilette Houndsditch's is! What rings and chains, +what gold-headed canes and diamonds, what a tuft the +rogue has got to his chin (the rogue! he will never spare +himself any cheap enjoyment!) Little Houndsditch has a +little cane with a gilt head and little mosaic ornaments- +-altogether an extra air. As for the lady, she is all +the colours of the rainbow! she has a pink parasol, with +a white lining, and a yellow bonnet, and an emerald green +shawl, and a shot-silk pelisse; and drab boots and +rhubarb-coloured gloves; and parti-coloured glass +buttons, expanding from the size of a fourpenny-piece to +a crown, glitter and twiddle all down the front of her +gorgeous costume. I have said before, I like to look at +'the Peoples' on their gala days, they are so +picturesquely and outrageously splendid and happy. + +Yonder comes Captain Bull; spick and span, tight and +trim; who travels for four or six months every year of +his life; who does not commit himself by luxury of +raiment or insolence of demeanour, but I think is as +great a Snob as any man on board. Bull passes the season +in London, sponging for dinners, and sleeping in a garret +near his Club. Abroad, he has been everywhere; he knows +the best wine at every inn in every capital in Europe; +lives with the best English company there; has seen every +palace and picture-gallery from Madrid to Stockholm; +speaks an abominable little jargon of half-a-dozen +languages--and knows nothing--nothing. Bull hunts tufts +on the Continent, and is a sort of amateur courier. He +will scrape acquaintance with old Carabas before they +make Ostend; and will remind his lordship that he met him +at Vienna twenty years ago, or gave him a glass of +Schnapps up the Righi. We have said Bull knows nothing: +he knows the birth, arms, and pedigree of all the +peerage, has poked his little eyes into every one of the +carriages on board--their panels noted and their crests +surveyed; he knows all the Continental stories of English +scandal--how Count Towrowski ran off with Miss Baggs at +Naples--how VERY thick Lady Smigsmag was with young +Cornichon of the French Legation at Florence--the exact +amount which Jack Deuceace won of Bob Greengoose at +Baden--what it is that made the Staggs settle on the +Continent: the sum for which the O'Goggarty estates are +mortgaged, &c. If he can't catch a lord he will hook on +to a baronet, or else the old wretch will catch hold of +some beardless young stripling of fashion, and show him +'life' in various and amiable and inaccessible quarters. +Faugh! the old brute! If he has every one of the vices +of the most boisterous youth, at least he is comforted by +having no conscience. He is utterly stupid, but of a +jovial turn, He believes himself to be quite a +respectable member of society: but perhaps the only good +action he ever did in his life is the involuntary one of +giving an example to be avoided, and showing what an +odious thing in the social picture is that figure of the +debauched old man who passes through life rather a +decorous Silenus, and dies some day in his garret, alone, +unrepenting, and unnoted, save by his astonished heirs, +who find that the dissolute old miser has left money +behind him. See! he is up to old Carabas already! I +told you he would. + +Yonder you see the old Lady Mary MacScrew, and those +middle-aged young women her daughters; they are going to +cheapen and haggle in Belgium and up the Rhine until they +meet with a boarding-house where they can live upon less +board-wages than her ladyship pays her footmen. But she +will exact and receive considerable respect from the +British Snobs located in the watering place which she +selects for her summer residence, being the daughter of +the Earl of Haggistoun. That broad-shouldered buck, with +the great whiskers and the cleaned white kid-gloves, is +Mr. Phelim Clancy of Poldoodystown: he calls himself Mr. +De Clancy; he endeavours to disguise his native brogue +with the richest superposition of English; and if you +play at billiards or ECARTE with him, the chances are +that you will win the first game, and he the seven or +eight games ensuing. + +That overgrown lady with the four daughters, and the +young dandy from the University, her son, is Mrs. Kewsy, +the eminent barrister's lady, who would rather die than +not be in the fashion. She has the 'Peerage' in her +carpet-bag, you may be sure; but she is altogether cut +out by Mrs. Quod, the attorney's wife, whose carriage, +with the apparatus of rumbles, dickeys, and imperials, +scarcely yields in splendour to the Marquis of Carabas's +own travelling-chariot, and whose courier has even bigger +whiskers and a larger morocco money-bag than the +Marquis's own travelling gentleman. Remark her well: she +is talking to Mr. Spout, the new Member for Jawborough, +who is going out to inspect the operations of the +Zollverein, and will put some very severe questions to +Lord Palmerston next session upon England and her +relations with the Prussian-blue trade, the Naples-soap +trade, the German-tinder trade, &c. Spout will patronize +King Leopold at Brussels; will write letters from abroad +to the JAWBOROUGH INDEPENDENT; and in his quality of +MEMBER DU PARLIAMONG BRITANNIQUE, will expect to be +invited to a family dinner with every sovereign whose +dominions he honours with a visit during his tour. + +The next person is--but hark! the bell for shore is +ringing, and, shaking Snook's hand cordially, we rush on +to the pier, waving him a farewell as the noble black +ship cuts keenly through the sunny azure waters, bearing +away that cargo of Snobs outward bound. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +CONTINENTAL SNOBBERY CONTINUED + +We are accustomed to laugh at the French for their +braggadocio propensities, and intolerable vanity about La +France, la gloire, l'Empereur, and the like; and yet I +think in my heart that the British Snob, for conceit and +self-sufficiency and braggartism in his way, is without a +parallel. There is always something uneasy in a +Frenchman's conceit. He brags with so much fury, +shrieking, and gesticulation; yells out so loudly that +the Francais is at the head of civilization, the centre +of thought, &c.; that one can't but see the poor fellow +has a lurking doubt in his own mind that he is not the +wonder he professes to be. + +About the British Snob, on the contrary, there is +commonly no noise, no bluster, but the calmness of +profound conviction. We are better than all the world; +we don't question the opinion at all; it's an axiom. And +when a Frenchman bellows out, 'LA FRANCE, MONSIEUR, LA +FRANCE EST A LA TETE DU MONDE CIVILISE!' we laugh good- +naturedly at the frantic poor devil. WE are the first +chop of the world: we know the fact so well in our secret +hearts that a claim set up elsewhere is simply ludicrous. +My dear brother reader, say, as a man of honour, if you +are not of this opinion? Do you think a Frenchman your +equal? You don't--you gallant British Snob--you know you +don't: no more, perhaps, does the Snob your humble +servant, brother. + +And I am inclined to think it is this conviction, and the +consequent bearing of the Englishman towards the +foreigner whom he condescends to visit, this confidence +of superiority which holds up the head of the owner of +every English hat-box from Sicily to St. Petersburg, that +makes us so magnificently hated throughout Europe as we +are; this--more than all our little victories, and of +which many Frenchmen and Spaniards have never heard--this +amazing and indomitable insular pride, which animates my +lord in his travelling-carriage as well as John in the +rumble. + +If you read the old Chronicles of the French wars, you +find precisely the same character of the Englishman, and +Henry V.'s people behaved with just the cool domineering +manner of our gallant veterans of France and the +Peninsula. Did you never hear Colonel Cutler and Major +Slasher talking over the war after dinner? or Captain +Boarder describing his action with the 'Indomptable?' +'Hang the fellows,' says Boarder, 'their practice was +very good. I was beat off three times before I took +her.' 'Cuss those carabineers of Milhaud's,' says +Slasher, 'what work they made of our light cavalry!' +implying a sort of surprise that the Frenchman should +stand up against Britons at all: a good-natured wonder +that the blind, mad, vain-glorious, brave poor devils +should actually have the courage to resist an Englishman. +Legions of such Englishmen are patronizing Europe at this +moment, being kind to the Pope, or good-natured to the +King of Holland, or condescending to inspect the Prussian +reviews. When Nicholas came here, who reviews a quarter +of a million of pairs of moustaches to his breakfast +every morning, we took him off to Windsor and showed him +two whole regiments of six or eight hundred Britons a- +piece, with an air as much as to say,--'There, my boy, +look at THAT. Those are ENGLISHMEN, those are, and your +master whenever you please,' as the nursery song says. +The British Snob is long, long past scepticism, and can +afford to laugh quite good-humouredly at those conceited +Yankees, or besotted little Frenchmen, who set up as +models of mankind. THEY forsooth! + +I have been led into these remarks by listening to an old +fellow at the Hotel du Nord, at Boulogne, and who is +evidently of the Slasher sort. He came down and seated +himself at the breakfast-table, with a surly scowl on his +salmon-coloured bloodshot face, strangling in a tight, +cross-barred cravat; his linen and his appointments so +perfectly stiff and spotless that everybody at once +recognized him as a dear countryman. Only our port-wine +and other admirable institutions could have produced a +figure so insolent, so stupid, so gentleman-like. After +a while our attention was called to him by his roaring +out, in a voice of plethoric fury, 'O!' + +Everybody turned round at the 'O,' conceiving the Colonel +to be, as his countenance denoted him, in intense pain; +but the waiters knew better, and instead of being +alarmed, brought the Colonel the kettle. 'O,' it +appears, is the French for hot-water. The Colonel +(though he despises it heartily) thinks he speaks the +language remarkably well. Whilst he was inhausting his +smoking tea, which went rolling and gurgling down his +throat, and hissing over the 'hot coppers' of that +respectable veteran, a friend joined him, with a wizened +face and very black wig, evidently a Colonel too. + +The two warriors, waggling their old heads at each other, +presently joined breakfast, and fell into conversation, +and we had the advantage of hearing about the old war, +and some pleasant conjectures as to the next, which they +considered imminent. They psha'd the French fleet; they +pooh-pooh'd the French commercial marine; they showed +how, in a war, there would be a cordon ('a cordong, by--- +') of steamers along our coast, and 'by ---,' ready at a +minute to land anywhere on the other shore, to give the +French as good a thrashing as they got in the last war, +'by ---'. In fact, a rumbling cannonade of oaths was +fired by the two veterans during the whole of their +conversation. + +There was a Frenchman in the room, but as he had not been +above ten years in London, of course he did not speak the +language, and lost the benefit of the conversation. +'But, O my country!' said I to myself, it's no wonder +that you are so beloved! If I were a Frenchman, how I +would hate you!' + +That brutal, ignorant, peevish bully of an Englishman is +showing himself in every city of Europe. One of the +dullest creatures under heaven, he goes travelling Europe +under foot, shouldering his way into galleries and +cathedrals, and bustling into palaces with his buck-ram +uniform. At church or theatre, gala or picture-gallery, +HIS face never varies. A thousand delightful sights pass +before his bloodshot eyes, and don't affect him. +Countless brilliant scenes of life and manners are shown +him, but never move him. He goes to church, and calls +the practices there degrading and superstitious: as if +HIS altar was the only one that was acceptable. He goes +to picture-galleries, and is more ignorant about Art than +a French shoeblack. Art, Nature pass, and there is no +dot of admiration in his stupid eyes: nothing moves him, +except when a very great man comes his way, and then the +rigid, proud, self-confident, inflexible British Snob can +be as humble as a flunkey and as supple as a harlequin. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +ENGLISH SNOBS ON THE CONTINENT + +'WHAT is the use of Lord Rome's telescope?' my friend +Panwiski exclaimed the other day. 'It only enables you +to see a few hundred thousands of miles farther. What +were thought to be mere nebulae, turn out to be most +perceivable starry systems; and beyond these, you see +other nebulae, which a more powerful glass will show to +be stars, again; and so they go on glittering and winking +away into eternity.' With which my friend Pan, heaving a +great sigh, as if confessing his inability to look +Infinity in the face, sank back resigned, and swallowed a +large bumper of claret. + +I (who, like other great men, have but one idea), thought +to myself, that as the stars are, so are the Snobs:--the +more. you gaze upon those luminaries, the more you +behold--now nebulously congregated--now faintly +distinguishable--now brightly defined--until they twinkle +off in endless blazes, and fade into the immeasurable +darkness. I am but as a child playing on the sea-shore. +Some telescopic philosopher will arise one day, some +great Snobonomer, to find the laws of the great science +which we are now merely playing with, and to define, and +settle, and classify that which is at present but vague +theory, and loose though elegant assertion. + +Yes: a single eye can but trace a very few and simple +varieties of the enormous universe of Snobs. I sometimes +think of appealing to the public, and calling together a +congress of SAVANS, such as met at Southampton--each to +bring his contributions and read his paper on the Great +Subject. For what can a single poor few do, even with +the subject at present in hand? English Snobs on the +Continent--though they are a hundred thousand times less +numerous than on their native island, yet even these few +are too many. One can only fix a stray one here and +there. The individuals are caught--the thousands escape. +I have noted down but three whom I have met with in my +walk this morning through this pleasant marine city of +Boulogne. + +There is the English Raff Snob, that frequents ESTAMINETS +and CABARETS; who is heard yelling, 'We won't go home +till morning!' and startling the midnight echoes of quiet +Continental towns with shrieks of English slang. The +boozy unshorn wretch is seen hovering round quays as +packets arrive, and tippling drains in inn bars where he +gets credit. He talks French with slang familiarity: he +and his like quite people the debt-prisons on the +Continent. He plays pool at the billiard-houses, and may +be seen engaged at cards and dominoes of forenoons. His +signature is to be seen on countless bills of exchange: +it belonged to an honourable family once, very likely; +for the English Raff most probably began by being a +gentleman, and has a father over the water who is ashamed +to hear his name. He has cheated the old 'governor' +repeatedly in better days, and swindled his sisters of +their portions, and robbed his younger brothers. Now he +is living on his wife's jointure: she is hidden away in +some dismal garret, patching shabby finery and cobbling +up old clothes for her children--the most miserable and +slatternly of women. + +Or sometimes the poor woman and her daughters go about +timidly, giving lessons in English and music, or do +embroidery and work under-hand, to purchase the means for +the POT-AU-FEU; while Raff is swaggering on the quay, or +tossing off glasses of cognac at the CAF. The +unfortunate creature has a child still every year, and +her constant hypocrisy is to try and make her girls +believe that their father is a respectable man, and to +huddle him out of the way when the brute comes home +drunk. + +Those poor ruined souls get together and have a society +of their own, the which it is very affecting to watch-- +those tawdry pretences at gentility, those flimsy +attempts at gaiety: those woful sallies: that jingling +old piano; oh, it makes the heart sick to see and hear +them. As Mrs. Raff, with her company of pale daughters, +gives a penny tea to Mrs. Diddler, they talk about bygone +times and the fine society they kept; and they sing +feeble songs out of tattered old music-books; and while +engaged in this sort of entertainment, in comes Captain +Raff with his greasy hat on one side, and straightway the +whole of the dismal room reeks with a mingled odour of +smoke and spirits. + +Has not everybody who has lived abroad met Captain Raff? +His name is proclaimed, every now and then, by Mr. +Sheriff's Officer Hemp; and about Boulogne, and Paris, +and Brussels, there are so many of his sort that I will +lay a wager that I shall be accused of gross personality +for showing him up. Many a less irreclaimable villain is +transported; many a more honourable man is at present at +the treadmill; and although we are the noblest, greatest, +most religious, and most moral people in the world, I +would still like to know where, except in the United +Kingdom, debts are a matter of joke, and making tradesmen +'suffer' a sport that gentlemen own to? It is +dishonourable to owe money in France. You never hear +people in other parts of Europe brag of their swindling; +or see a prison in a large Continental town which is not +more or less peopled with English rogues. + +A still more loathsome and dangerous Snob than the above +transparent and passive scamp, is frequent on the +continent of Europe, and my young Snob friends who are +travelling thither should be especially warned against +him. Captain Legg is a gentleman, like Raff, though +perhaps of a better degree. He has robbed his family +too, but of a great deal more, and has boldly dishonoured +bills for thousands, where Raff has been boggling over +the clumsy conveyance of a ten-pound note. Legg is +always at the best inn, with the finest waistcoats and +moustaches, or tearing about in the flashest of britzkas, +while poor Raff is tipsifying himself with spirits, and +smoking cheap tobacco. It is amazing to think that Legg, +so often shown up, and known everywhere, is flourishing +yet. He would sink into utter ruin, but for the constant +and ardent love of gentility that distinguishes the +English Snob. There is many a young fellow of the middle +classes who must know Legg to be a rogue and a cheat; and +yet from his desire to be in the fashion, and his +admiration of tip-top swells, and from his ambition to +air himself by the side of a Lord's son, will let Legg +make an income out of him; content to pay, so long as he +can enjoy that society. Many a worthy father of a +family, when he hears that his son is riding about with +Captain Legg, Lord Levant's son, is rather pleased that +young Hopeful should be in such good company. + +Legg and his friend, Major Macer, make professional tours +through Europe, and are to be found at the right places +at the right time. Last year I heard how my young +acquaintance, Mr. Muff, from Oxford, going to see a +little life at a Carnival ball at Paris, was accosted by +an Englishman who did not know a word of the d---- +language, and hearing Muff speak it so admirably, begged +him to interpret to a waiter with whom there was a +dispute about refreshments. It was quite a comfort, the +stranger said, to see an honest English face; and did +Muff know where there was a good place for supper? So +those two went to supper, and who should come in, of all +men in the world, but Major Macer? And so Legg +introduced Macer, and so there came on a little intimacy, +and three-card loo, &c. &c.. Year after year scores of +Muffs, in various places in the world, are victimised by +Legg and Macer. The story is so stale, the trick of +seduction so entirely old and clumsy, that it is only a +wonder people can be taken in any more: but the +temptations of vice and gentility together are too much +for young English Snobs, and those simple young victims +are caught fresh every day. Though it is only to be +kicked and cheated by men of fashion, your true British +Snob will present himself for the honour. + +I need not allude here to that very common British Snob, +who makes desperate efforts at becoming intimate with the +great Continental aristocracy, such as old Rolls, the +baker, who has set up his quarters in the Faubourg Saint +Germain, and will receive none but Carlists, and no +French gentleman under the rank of a Marquis. We can all +of us laugh at THAT fellow's pretensions well enough--we +who tremble before a great man of our own nation. But, +as you say, my brave and honest John Bull of a Snob, a +French Marquis of twenty descents is very different from +an English Peer; and a pack of beggarly German and +Italian Fuersten and Principi awaken the scorn of an +honest-minded Briton. But our aristocracy!--that's a +very different matter. They are the real leaders of the +world--the real old original and-no-mistake nobility. + +Off with your cap, Snob; down on your knees, Snob, and +truckle. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Tired of the town, where the sight of the closed shutters +of the nobility, my friends, makes my heart sick in my +walks; afraid almost to sit in those vast Pall Mall +solitudes, the Clubs, and of annoying the Club waiters, +who might, I thought, be going to shoot in the country, +but for me, I determined on a brief tour in the +provinces, and paying some visits in the country which +were long due. + +My first visit was to my friend Major Ponto (H.P. of the +Horse Marines), in Mangelwurzelshire. The Major, in his +little phaeton, was in waiting to take me up at the +station. The vehicle was not certainly splendid, but +such a carriage as would accommodate a plain man (as +Ponto said he was) and a numerous family. We drove by +beautiful fresh fields and green hedges, through a +cheerful English landscape; the high-road, as smooth and +trim as the way in a nobleman's park, was charmingly +chequered with cool shade and golden sunshine. Rustics +in snowy smock-frocks jerked their hats off smiling as we +passed. Children, with cheeks as red as the apples in +the orchards, bobbed curtsies to us at the cottage-doors. +Blue church spires rose here and there in the distance: +and as the buxom gardener's wife opened the white gate at +the Major's little ivy-covered lodge, and we drove +through the neat plantations of firs and evergreens, up +to the house, my bosom felt a joy and elation which I +thought it was impossible to experience in the smoky +atmosphere of a town. 'Here,' I mentally exclaimed, 'is +all peace, plenty, happiness. Here, I shall be rid of +Snobs. There can be none in this charming Arcadian +spot.' + +Stripes, the Major's man (formerly corporal in his +gallant corps), received my portmanteau, and an elegant +little present, which I had brought from town as a peace- +offering to Mrs. Ponto; viz., a cod and oysters from +Grove's, in a hamper about the size of a coffin. + +Ponto's house ('The Evergreens' Mrs. P. has christened +it) is a perfect Paradise of a place. It is all over +creepers, and bow-windows, and verandahs. A wavy lawn +tumbles up and down all round it, with flower-beds of +wonderful shapes, and zigzag gravel walks, and beautiful +but damp shrubberies of myrtles and glistening +laurustines, which have procured it its change of name. +It was called Little Bullock's Pound in old Doctor +Ponto's time. I had a view of the pretty grounds, and +the stable, and the adjoining village and church, and a +great park beyond, from the windows of the bedroom +whither Ponto conducted me. It was the yellow bedroom, +the freshest and pleasantest of bed-chambers; the air was +fragrant with a large bouquet that was placed on the +writing-table; the linen was fragrant with the lavender +in which it had been laid; the chintz hangings of the bed +and the big sofa were, if not fragrant with flowers, at +least painted all over with them; the pen-wiper on the +table was the imitation of a double dahlia; and there was +accommodation for my watch in a sun-flower on the +mantelpiece. A scarlet-leaved creeper came curling over +the windows, through which the setting sun was pouring a +flood of golden light. It was all flowers and freshness. +Oh, how unlike those black chimney-pots in St. Alban's +Place, London, on which these weary eyes are accustomed +to look. + +'It must be all happiness here, Ponto,' said I, flinging +myself down into the snug BERGERE, and inhaling such a +delicious draught of country air as all the MILLEFLEURS +of Mr. Atkinson's shop cannot impart to any the most +expensive pocket-handkerchief. + +'Nice place, isn't it?' said Ponto. 'Quiet and +unpretending. I like everything quiet. You've not +brought your valet with you? Stripes will arrange your +dressing things;' and that functionary, entering at the +same time, proceeded to gut my portmanteau, and to lay +out the black kerseymeres, 'the rich cut velvet Genoa +waistcoat,' the white choker, and other polite articles +of evening costume, with great gravity and despatch. 'A +great dinner-party,' thinks I to myself, seeing these +preparations (and not, perhaps, displeased at the idea +that some of the best people in the neighbourhood were +coming to see me). 'Hark, theres the first bell ringing! +'said Ponto, moving away; and, in fact, a clamorous +harbinger of victuals began clanging from the stable +turret, and announced the agreeable fact that dinner +would appear in half-an-hour. 'If the dinner is as grand +as the dinner-bell,' thought I, 'faith, I'm in good +quarters!' and had leisure, during the half-hour's +interval, not only to advance my own person to the utmost +polish of elegance which it is capable of receiving, to +admire the pedigree of the Pontos hanging over the +chimney, and the Ponto crest and arms emblazoned on the +wash-hand basin and jug, but to make a thousand +reflections on the happiness of a country life--upon the +innocent friendliness and cordiality of rustic +intercourse; and to sigh for an opportunity of retiring, +like Ponto, to my own fields, to my own vine and fig- +tree, with a placens uxor in my domus, and a half-score +of sweet young pledges of affection sporting round my +paternal knee. + +Clang! At the end of thirty minutes, dinner-bell number +two pealed from the adjacent turret. I hastened +downstairs, expecting to find a score of healthy country +folk in the drawing-room. There was only one person +there; a tall and Roman-nosed lady, glistering over with +bugles, in deep mourning. She rose, advanced two steps, +made a majestic curtsey, during which all the bugles in +her awful head-dress began to twiddle and quiver--and +then said, 'Mr. Snob, we are very happy to see you at the +Evergreens,' and heaved a great sigh. + +This, then, was Mrs. Major Ponto; to whom making my very +best bow, I replied, that I was very proud to make her +acquaintance, as also that of so charming a place as the +Evergreens. + +Another sigh. 'We are distantly related, Mr. Snob,' said +she, shaking her melancholy head. 'Poor dear Lord +Rubadub!' + +'Oh!' said I; not knowing what the deuce Mrs. Major Ponto +meant. + +'Major Ponto told me that you were of the Leicestershire +Snobs: a very old family, and related to Lord +Snobbington, who married Laura Rubadub, who is a cousin +of mine, as was her poor dear father, for whom we are +mourning. What a seizure! only sixty-three, and apoplexy +quite unknown until now in our family! In life we are in +death, Mr. Snob. Does Lady Snobbington bear the +deprivation well?' + +'Why, really, ma'am, I--I don't know,' I replied, more +and more confused. + +As she was speaking I heard a sort of CLOOP, by which +well-known sound I was aware that somebody was opening a +bottle of wine, and Ponto entered, in a huge white +neckcloth, and a rather shabby black suit. + +'My love,' Mrs. Major Ponto said to her husband, 'we were +talking of our cousin--poor dear Lord Rubadub. His death +has placed some of the first families in England in +mourning. Does Lady Rubadub keep the house in Hill +Street, do you know?' + +I didn't know, but I said, 'I believe she does,' at a +venture; and, looking down to the drawing-room table, saw +the inevitable, abominable, maniacal, absurd, disgusting +'Peerage' open on the table, interleaved with +annotations, and open at the article 'Snobbington.' + +'Dinner is served,' says Stripes, flinging open the door; +and I gave Mrs. Major Ponto my arm. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Of the dinner to which we now sat down, I am not going to +be a severe critic. The mahogany I hold to be +inviolable; but this I will say, that I prefer sherry to +marsala when I can get it, and the latter was the wine of +which I have no doubt I heard the 'cloop' just before +dinner. Nor was it particularly good of its kind; +however, Mrs. Major Ponto did not evidently know the +difference, for she called the liquor Amontillado during +the whole of the repast, and drank but half a glass of +it, leaving the rest for the Major and his guest. + +Stripes was in the livery of the Ponto family--a thought +shabby, but gorgeous in the extreme--lots of magnificent +worsted lace, and livery buttons of a very notable size. +The honest fellow's hands, I remarked, were very large +and black; and a fine odour of the stable was wafted +about the room as he moved to and fro in his +ministration. I should have preferred a clean +maidservant, but the sensations of Londoners are too +acute perhaps on these subjects; and a faithful John, +after all, IS more genteel. + +>From the circumstance of the dinner being composed of +pig's-head mock-turtle soup, of pig's fry and roast ribs +of pork, I am led to imagine that one of Ponto's black +Hampshires had been sacrificed a short time previous to +my visit. It was an excellent and comfortable repast; +only there WAS rather a sameness in it, certainly. I +made a similar remark the next day'. + +During the dinner Mrs. Ponto asked me many questions +regarding the nobility, my relatives. 'When Lady +Angelina Skeggs would come out; and if the countess her +mamma' (this was said with much archness and he-he-ing) +'still wore that extraordinary purple hair-dye?' +'Whether my Lord Guttlebury kept, besides his French +chef, and an English cordonbleu for the roasts, an +Italian for the confectionery?' + +'Who attended at Lady Clapperclaw's conversazioni?' and +'whether Sir John Champignon's "Thursday Mornings" were +pleasant?' 'Was it true that Lady Carabas, wanting to +pawn her diamonds, found that they were paste, and that +the Marquis had disposed of them beforehand?' 'How was +it that Snuffin, the great tobacco-merchant, broke off +the marriage which was on the tapis between him and their +second daughter; and was it true that a mulatto lady came +over from the Havanna and forbade the match?' + +'Upon my word, Madam,' I had begun, and was going on to +say that I didn't know one word about all these matters +which seemed so to interest Mrs. Major Ponto, when the +Major, giving me a tread or stamp with his large foot +under the table, said-- 'Come, come, Snob my boy, we are +all tiled, you know. We KNOW you're one of the +fashionable people about town: we saw your name at Lady +Clapperclaw's SOIREES, and the Champignon breakfasts; and +as for the Rubadubs, of course, as relations ---' + +'Oh, of course, I dine there twice a-week,' I said; and +then I remembered that my cousin, Humphry Snob, of the +Middle Temple, IS a great frequenter of genteel +societies, and to have seen his name in the MORNING POST +at the tag-end of several party lists. So, taking the +hint, I am ashamed to say I indulged Mrs. Major Ponto +with a deal of information about the first families in +England, such as would astonish those great personages if +they knew it. I described to her most accurately the +three reigning beauties of last season at Almack's: told +her in confidence that his Grace the D--- of W--- was +going to be married the day after his Statue was put up; +that his Grace the D--- of D--- was also about to lead +the fourth daughter of the Archduke Stephen to the +hymeneal altar:--and talked to her, in a word, just in +the style of Mrs. Gore's last fashionable novel. + +Mrs. Major was quite fascinated by this brilliant +conversation. She began to trot out scraps of French, +just for all the world as they do in the novels; and +kissed her hand to me quite graciously, telling me to +come soon to caffy, UNG PU DE MUSICK O SALONG--with which +she tripped off like an elderly fairy. + +'Shall I open a bottle of port, or do you ever drink such +a thing as Hollands and water?' says Ponto, looking +ruefully at me. This was a very different style of thing +to what I had been led to expect from him at our smoking- +room at the Club: where he swaggers about his horses and +his cellar: and slapping me on the shoulder used to say, +'Come down to Mangelwurzelshire, Snob my boy, and I'll +give you as good a day's shooting and as good a glass of +claret as any in the county.'--'Well,' I said, 'I like +Hollands much better than port, and gin even better than +Hollands.' This was lucky. It WAS gin; and Stripes +brought in hot water on a splendid plated tray. + +The jingling of a harp and piano soon announced that Mrs. +Ponto's ung PU DE MUSICK had commenced, and the smell of +the stable again entering the dining-room, in the person +of Stripes, summoned us to CAFFY and the little concert. +She beckoned me with a winning smile to the sofa, on +which she made room for me, and where we could command a +fine view of the backs of the young ladies who were +performing the musical entertainment. Very broad backs +they were too, strictly according to the present mode, +for crinoline or its substitutes is not an expensive +luxury, and young people in the country can afford to be +in the fashion at very trifling charges. Miss Emily +Ponto at the piano, and her sister Maria at that somewhat +exploded instrument, the harp, were in light blue dresses +that looked all flounce, and spread out like Mr. Green's +balloon when inflated. + +'Brilliant touch Emily has--what a fine arm Maria's is,' +Mrs. Ponto remarked good-naturedly, pointing out the +merits of her daughters, and waving her own arm in such a +way as to show that she was not a little satisfied with +the beauty of that member. I observed she had about nine +bracelets and bangles, consisting of chains and padlocks, +the Major's miniature, and a variety of brass serpents +with fiery ruby or tender turquoise eyes, writhing up to +her elbow almost, in the most profuse contortions. + +'You recognize those polkas? They were played at +Devonshire House on the 23rd of July, the day of the +grand fte.' So I said yes--I knew 'em quite intimately; +and began wagging my head as if in acknowledgment of +those old friends. + +When the performance was concluded, I had the felicity of +a presentation and conversation with the two tall and +scraggy Miss Pontos; and Miss Wirt, the governess, sat +down to entertain us with variations on 'Sich a gettin' +up Stairs.' They were determined to be in the fashion. + +For the performance of the 'Gettin' up Stairs,' I have no +other name but that it was a STUNNER. First Miss Wirt, +with great deliberation, played the original and +beautiful melody, cutting it, as it were, out of the +instrument, and firing off each note so loud, clear, and +sharp, that I am sure Stripes must have heard it in the +stable. + +'What a finger!' says Mrs. Ponto; and indeed it WAS a +finger, as knotted as a turkey's drumstick, and splaying +all over the piano. When she had banged out the tune +slowly, she began a different manner of 'Gettin' up +Stairs,' and did so with a fury and swiftness quite +incredible. She spun up stairs; she whirled up stairs: +she galloped up stairs; she rattled up stairs; and then +having got the tune to the top landing, as it were, she +hurled it down again shrieking to the bottom floor, where +it sank in a crash as if exhausted by the breathless +rapidity of the descent. Then Miss Wirt played the +'Gettin' up Stairs' with the most pathetic and ravishing +solemnity: plaintive moans and sobs issued from the keys- +-you wept and trembled as you were gettin' up stairs. +Miss Wirt's hands seemed to faint and wail and die in +variations: again, and she went up with a savage clang +and rush of trumpets, as if Miss Wirt was storming a +breach; and although I knew nothing of music, as I sat +and listened with my mouth open to this wonderful +display, my CAFFY grew cold, and I wondered the windows +did not crack and the chandelier start out of the beam at +the sound of this earthquake of a piece of music. + +'Glorious creature! Isn't she?' said Mrs. Ponto. +'Squirtz's favourite pupil--inestimable to have such a +creature. Lady Carabas would give her eyes for her! A +prodigy of accomplishments! Thank you, Miss Wirt'--and +the young ladies gave a heave and a gasp of admiration--a +deep-breathing gushing sound, such as you hear at church +when the sermon comes to a full stop. + +Miss Wirt put her two great double-knuckled hands round a +waist of her two pupils, and said, 'My dear children, I +hope you will be able to play it soon as well as your +poor little governess. When I lived with the Dunsinanes, +it was the dear Duchess's favourite, and Lady Barbara and +Lady Jane McBeth learned it. It was while hearing Jane +play that, I remember, that dear Lord Castletoddy first +fell in love with her; and though he is but an Irish +Peer, with not more than fifteen thousand a year, I +persuaded Jane to have him. Do you know Castletoddy, Mr. +Snob?--round towers--sweet place-County Mayo. Old Lord +Castletoddy (the present Lord was then Lord Inishowan) +was a most eccentric old man--they say he was mad. I +heard his Royal Highness the poor dear Duke of Sussex-- +(SUCH a man, my dears, but alas! addicted to smoking!)--I +heard his Royal Highness say to the Marquis of Anglesey, +"I am sure Castletoddy is mad!" but Inishowan wasn't in +marrying my sweet Jane, though the dear child had but her +ten thousand pounds POUR TOUT POTAGE!' + +'Most invaluable person,' whispered Mrs. Major Ponto to +me. 'Has lived in the very highest society:' and I, who +have been accustomed to see governesses bullied in the +world, was delighted to find this one ruling the roast, +and to think that even the majestic Mrs. Ponto bent +before her. + +As for my pipe, so to speak, it went out at once. I +hadn't a word to say against a woman who was intimate +with every Duchess in the Red Book. She wasn't the +rosebud, but she had been near it. She had rubbed +shoulders with the great, and about these we talked all +the evening incessantly, and about the fashions, and +about the Court, until bed-time came. + +'And are there Snobs in this Elysium?' I exclaimed, +jumping into the lavender-perfumed bed. Ponto's snoring +boomed from the neighbouring bed-room in reply. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Something like a journal of the proceedings at the +Evergreens may be interesting to those foreign readers of +PUNCH who want to know the customs of an English +gentleman's family and household. There's plenty of time +to keep the Journal. Piano-strumming begins at six +o'clock in the morning; it lasts till breakfast, with but +a minute's intermission, when the instrument changes +hands, and Miss Emily practises in place of her sister +Miss Maria. + +In fact, the confounded instrument never stops when the +young ladies are at their lessons, Miss Wirt hammers away +at those stunning variations, and keeps her magnificent +finger in exercise. + +I asked this great creature in what other branches of +education she instructed her pupils? 'The modern +languages,' says she modestly: 'French, German, Spanish, +and Italian, Latin and the rudiments of Greek if desired. +English of course; the practice of Elocution, Geography, +and Astronomy, and the Use of the Globes, Algebra (but +only as far as quadratic equations); for a poor ignorant +female, you know, Mr. Snob, cannot be expected to know +everything. Ancient and Modern History no young woman +can be without; and of these I make my beloved pupils +PERFECT MISTRESSES. Botany, Geology, and Mineralogy, I +consider as amusements. And with these I assure you we +manage to pass the days at the Evergreens not +unpleasantly.' + +Only these, thought I--what an education! But I looked +in one of Miss Ponto's manuscript song-books and found +five faults of French in four words; and in a waggish +mood asking Miss Wirt whether Dante Algiery was so called +because he was born at Algiers, received a smiling answer +in the affirmative, which made me rather doubt about the +accuracy of Miss Wirt's knowledge. + +When the above little morning occupations are concluded, +these unfortunate young women perform what they call +Calisthenic Exercises in the garden. I saw them to-day, +without any crinoline, pulling the garden-roller. + +Dear Mrs. Ponto was in the garden too, and as limp as her +daughters; in a faded bandeau of hair, in a battered +bonnet, in a holland pinafore, in pattens, on a broken +chair, snipping leaves off a vine. Mrs. Ponto measures +many yards about in an evening. Ye heavens! what a guy +she is in that skeleton morning-costume! + +Besides Stripes, they keep a boy called Thomas or Tummus. +Tummus works in the garden or about the pigsty and +stable; Thomas wears a page's costume of eruptive +buttons. + +When anybody calls, and Stripes is out of the way, Tummus +flings himself like mad into Thomas's clothes, and comes +out metamorphosed like Harlequin in the pantomime. To- +day, as Mrs. P. was cutting the grapevine, as the young +ladies were at the roller, down comes Tummus like a +roaring whirlwind, with 'Missus, Missus, there's company +coomin'!' Away skurry the young ladies from the roller, +down comes Mrs. P. from the old chair, off flies Tummus +to change his clothes, and in an incredibly short space +of time Sir John Hawbuck, my Lady Hawbuck, and Master +Hugh Hawbuck are introduced into the garden with brazen +effrontery by Thomas, who says, 'Please Sir Jan and my +Lady to walk this year way: I KNOW Missus is in the rose- +garden.' + +And there, sure enough, she was! + +In a pretty little garden bonnet, with beautiful curling +ringlets, with the smartest of aprons and the freshest of +pearl-coloured gloves, this amazing woman was in the arms +of her dearest Lady Hawbuck. 'Dearest Lady Hawbuck, how +good of you! Always among my flowers! can't live away +from them!' + +'Sweets to the sweet! hum--a-ha--haw!' says Sir John +Hawbuck, who piques himself on his gallantry, and says +nothing without 'a-hum--a-ha--a-haw!' + +'Whereth yaw pinnafaw?' cries Master Hugh. 'WE thaw you +in it, over the wall, didn't we, Pa?' + +'Hum--a-ha--a-haw!' burst out Sir John, dreadfully +alarmed. 'Where's Ponto? Why wasn't he at Quarter +Sessions? How are his birds this year, Mrs. Ponto--have +those Carabas pheasants done any harm to your wheat? a- +hum--a-ha--a-haw!' and all this while he was making the +most ferocious and desperate signals to his youthful +heir. + +'Well, she WATH in her pinnafaw, wathn't she, Ma?' says +Hugh, quite unabashed; which question Lady Hawbuck turned +away with a sudden query regarding her dear darling +daughters, and the ENFANT TERRIBLE was removed by his +father. + +'I hope you weren't disturbed by the music?' Ponto says. +'My girls, you know, practise four hours a day, you know- +-must do it, you know--absolutely necessary. As for me, +you know I'm an early man, and in my farm every morning +at five--no, no laziness for ME.' + +The facts are these. Ponto goes to sleep directly after +dinner on entering the drawing-room, and wakes up when +the ladies leave off practice at ten. From seven till +ten, from ten till five, is a very fair allowance of +slumber for a man who says he's NOT a lazy man. It is my +private opinion that when Ponto retires to what is called +his 'Study,' he sleeps too. He locks himself up there +daily two hours with the newspaper. + +I saw the HAWBUCK scene out of the Study, which commands +the garden. It's a curious object, that Study. Ponto's +library mostly consists of boots. He and Stripes have +important interviews here of mornings, when the potatoes +are discussed, or the fate of the calf ordained, or +sentence passed on the pig, &c.. All the Major's bills +are docketed on the Study table and displayed like a +lawyer's briefs. Here, too, lie displayed his hooks, +knives, and other gardening irons, his whistles, and +strings of spare buttons. He has a drawer of endless +brown paper for parcels, and another containing a +prodigious and never-failing supply of string. What a +man can want with so many gig-whips I can never conceive. +These, and fishing-rods, and landing-nets, and spurs, and +boot-trees, and balls for horses, and surgical implements +for the same, and favourite pots of shiny blacking, with +which he paints his own shoes in the most elegant manner, +and buckskin gloves stretched out on their trees, and his +gorget, sash, and sabre of the Horse Marines, with his +boot-hooks underneath in atrophy; and the family +medicine-chest, and in a corner the very rod with which +he used to whip his son, Wellesley Ponto, when a boy +(Wellesley never entered the 'Study' but for that awful +purpose)--all these, with 'Mogg's Road Book,' the +GARDENERS' CHRONICLE, and a backgammon-board, form the +Major's library. Under the trophy there's a picture of +Mrs. Ponto, in a light blue dress and train, and no +waist, when she was first married; a fox's brush lies +over the frame, and serves to keep the dust off that work +of art. + +'My library's small, says Ponto, with the most amazing +impudence, 'but well selected, my boy--well selected. I +have been reading the "History of England" all the +morning.' + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +We had the fish, which, as the kind reader may remember, +I had brought down in a delicate attention to Mrs. Ponto, +to variegate the repast of next day; and cod and oyster- +sauce, twice laid, salt cod and scolloped oysters, formed +parts of the bill of fare until I began to fancy that the +Ponto family, like our late revered monarch George II., +had a fancy for stale fish. And about this time, the pig +being consumed, we began upon a sheep. + +But how shall I forget the solemn splendour of a second +course, which was served up in great state by Stripes in +a silver dish and cove; a napkin round his dirty thumbs; +and consisted of a landrail, not much bigger than a +corpulent sparrow. + +'My love, will you take any game?' says Ponto, with +prodigious gravity; and stuck his fork into that little +mouthful of an island in the silver sea. Stripes, too, +at intervals, dribbled out the Marsala with a solemnity +which would have done honour to a Duke's butler. The +Bamnecide's dinner to Shacabac was only one degree +removed from these solemn banquets. + +As there were plenty of pretty country places close by; a +comfortable country town, with good houses of +gentlefolks; a beautiful old parsonage, close to the +church whither we went (and where the Carabas family have +their ancestral carved and monumented Gothic pew), and +every appearance of good society in the neighbourhood, I +rather wondered we were not enlivened by the appearance +of some of the neighbours at the Evergreens, and asked +about them. + +'We can't in our position of life--we can't well +associate with the attorney's family, as I leave you to +suppose,' says Mrs. Ponto, confidentially. 'Of course +not,' I answered, though I didn't know why. 'And the +Doctor?' said I. + +'A most excellent worthy creature,' says Mrs. P. saved +Maria's life--really a learned man; but what can one do +in one's position? One may ask one's medical man to +one's table certainly: but his family, my dear Mr. Snob!' + +'Half-a-dozen little gallipots,' interposed Miss Wirt, +the governess: 'he, he, he!' and the young ladies laughed +in chorus. + +'We only live with the county families,' Miss Wirt (1) +continued, tossing up her head. 'The Duke is abroad: we +are at feud with the Carabases; the Ringwoods don't come +down till Christmas: in fact, nobody's here till the +hunting season--positively nobody.' + +'Whose is the large red house just outside of the town?' + +'What! the CHATEAU-CALICOT? he, he, he! That purse-proud +ex-linendraper, Mr. Yardley, with the yellow liveries, +and the wife in red velvet? How CAN you, my dear Mr. +Snob, be so satirical? The impertinence of those people +is really something quite overwhelming.' + +'Well, then, there is the parson, Doctor Chrysostom. +He's a gentleman, at any rate.' At this Mrs. Ponto +looked at Miss Wirt. After their eyes had met and they +had wagged their heads at each other. They looked up to +the ceiling. So did the young ladies. They thrilled. +It was evident I had said something terrible. Another +black sheep in the Church? thought I with a little +sorrow; for I don't care to own that I have a respect for +the cloth. 'I--hope there's nothing wrong? + +'Wrong?' says Mrs. P., clasping her hands with a tragic +air. + +'Oh!' says Miss Wirt, and the two girls, gasping in +chorus. + +'Well,' says I, 'I'm very sorry for it. I never saw a +nicer-looking old gentleman, or a better school, or heard +a better sermon.' + +'He used to preach those sermons in a surplice,' hissed +out Mrs. Ponto. 'He's a Puseyite, Mr. Snob.' + +'Heavenly powers!' says I, admiring the pure ardour of +these female theologians; and Stripes came in with the +tea. It's so weak that no wonder Ponto's sleep isn't +disturbed by it. + +Of mornings we used to go out shooting. We had Ponto's +own fields to sport over (where we got the landrail), and +the non-preserved part of the Hawbuck property: and one +evening in a stubble of Ponto's skirting the Carabas +woods, we got among some pheasants, and had some real +sport. I shot a hen, I know, greatly to my delight. +'Bag it,' says Ponto, in rather a hurried manner: 'here's +somebody coming.' So I pocketed the bird. + +'You infernal poaching thieves!' roars out a man from the +hedge in the garb of a gamekeeper. 'I wish I could catch +you on this side of the hedge. I'd put a brace of +barrels into you, that I would.' + +'Curse that Snapper,' says Ponto, moving off; 'he's +always watching me like a spy.' + +'Carry off the birds, you sneaks, and sell 'em in +London,' roars the individual, who it appears was a +keeper of Lord Carabas. 'You'll get six shillings a +brace for 'em.' + +'YOU know the price of 'em well enough, and so does your +master too, you scoundrel,' says Ponto, still retreating. + +'We kill 'em on our ground,' cries Mr. Snapper. 'WE +don't set traps for other people's birds. We're no decoy +ducks. We're no sneaking poachers. We don't shoot 'ens, +like that 'ere Cockney, who's got the tail of one a- +sticking out of his pocket. Only just come across the +hedge, that's all.' + +'I tell you what,' says Stripes, who was out with us as +keeper this day, (in fact he's keeper, coachman, +gardener, valet, and bailiff, with Tummus under him,) 'if +YOU'LL come across, John Snapper, and take your coat off, +I'll give you such a whopping as you've never had since +the last time I did it at Guttlebury Fair.' + +'Whop one of your own weight,' Mr. Snapper said, +whistling his dogs and disappearing into the wood. And +so we came out of this controversy rather victoriously; +but I began to alter my preconceived ideas of rural +felicity. + +Notes. + +(1) I have since heard that this aristocratic lady's +father was a livery-button maker in St. Martin's Lane: +where he met with misfortunes, and his daughter acquired +her taste for heraldry. But it may be told to her +credit, that out of her earnings she has kept the bed- +ridden old bankrupt in great comfort and secrecy at +Pentonville; and furnished her brother's outfit for the +Cadetship which her patron, Lord Swigglebiggle, gave her +when he was at the Board of Control. I have this +information from a friend. To hear Miss Wirt herself, +you would fancy that her Papa was a Rothschild, and that +the markets of Europe were convulsed when he went into +the GAZETTE. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +'Be hanged to your aristocrats!' Ponto said, in some +conversation we had regarding the family at Carabas, +between whom and the Evergreens there was a feud. 'When +I first came into the county--it was the year before Sir +John Buff contested in the Blue interest--the Marquis, +then Lord St. Michaels, who, of course, was Orange to the +core, paid me and Mrs. Ponto such attentions, that I +fairly confess I was taken in by the old humbug, and +thought that I'd met with a rare neighbour. 'Gad, Sir, +we used to get pines from Carabas, and pheasants from +Carabas, and it was--"Ponto, when will you come over and +shoot?"--and--"Ponto, our pheasants want thinning,"--and +my Lady would insist upon her dear Mrs. Ponto coming over +to Carabas to sleep, and put me I don't know to what +expense for turbans and velvet gowns for my wife's +toilette. Well, Sir, the election takes place, and +though I was always a Liberal, personal friendship of +course induces me to plump for St. Michaels, who comes in +at the head of the poll. Next year, Mrs. P. insists upon +going to town--with lodgings in Clarges Street at ten +pounds a week, with a hired brougham, and new dresses for +herself and the girls, and the deuce and all to pay. Our +first cards were to Carabas House; my Lady's are returned +by a great big flunkey; and I leave you to fancy my poor +Betsy's discomfiture as the lodging-house maid took in +the cards, and Lady St. Michaels drives away, though she +actually saw us at the drawing-room window. Would you +believe it, Sir, that though we called four times +afterwards, those infernal aristocrats never returned our +visit; that though Lady St. Michaels gave nine dinner- +parties and four DEJEUNERS that season, she never asked +us to one; and that she cut us dead at the Opera, though +Betsy was nodding to her the whole night? We wrote to +her for tickets for Almack's; she writes to say that all +hers were promised; and said, in the presence of Wiggins, +her lady's-maid, who told it to Diggs, my wife's woman, +that she couldn't conceive how people in our station of +life could so far forget themselves as to wish to appear +in any such place! Go to Castle Carabas! I'd sooner die +than set my foot in the house of that impertinent, +insolvent, insolent jackanapes-- and I hold him in +scorn!' After this, Ponto gave me some private +information regarding Lord Carabas's pecuniary affairs; +how he owed money all over the county; how Jukes the +carpenter was utterly ruined and couldn't get a shilling +of his bill; how Biggs the butcher hanged himself for the +same reason; how the six big footmen never received a +guinea of wages, and Snaffle, the state coachman, +actually took off his blown-glass wig of ceremony and +flung it at Lady Carabas's feet on the terrace before the +Castle; all which stories, as they are private, I do not +think proper to divulge. But these details did not +stifle my desire to see the famous mansion of Castle +Carabas, nay, possibly excited my interest to know more +about that lordly house and its owners. + +At the entrance of the park, there are a pair of great +gaunt mildewed lodges--mouldy Doric temples with black +chimney-pots, in the finest classic taste, and the gates +of course are surmounted by the CHATS BOTTES, the well- +known supporters of the Carabas family. 'Give the lodge- +keeper a shilling,' says Ponto, (who drove me near to it +in his four-wheeled cruelty-chaise). 'I warrant it's the +first piece of ready money he has received for some time. +I don't know whether there was any foundation for this +sneer, but the gratuity was received with a curtsey, and +the gate opened for me to enter. 'Poor old porteress!' +says I, inwardly. 'You little know that it is the +Historian of Snobs whom you let in!' The gates were +passed. A damp green stretch of park spread right and +left immeasurably, confined by a chilly grey wall, and a +damp long straight road between two huge rows of moist, +dismal lime-trees, leads up to the Castle. In the midst +of the park is a great black tank or lake, bristling over +with rushes, and here and there covered over with patches +of pea-soup. A shabby temple rises on an island in this +delectable lake, which is approached by a rotten barge +that lies at roost in a dilapidated boat house. Clumps +of elms and oaks dot over the huge green flat. Every one +of them would have been down long since, but that the +Marquis is not allowed to cut the timber. + +Up that long avenue the Snobographer walked in solitude. +At the seventy-ninth tree on the left-hand side, the +insolvent butcher hanged himself. I scarcely wondered at +the dismal deed, so woful and sad were the impressions +connected with the place. So, for a mile and a half I +walked--alone and thinking of death. + +I forgot to say the house is in full view all the way-- +except when intercepted by the trees on the miserable +island in the lake--an enormous red-brick mansion, +square, vast, and dingy. It is flanked by four stone +towers with weathercocks. In the midst of the grand +facade is a huge Ionic portico, approached by a vast, +lonely, ghastly staircase. Rows of black windows, framed +in stone, stretch on either side, right and left--three +storeys and eighteen windows of a row. You may see a +picture of the palace and staircase, in the 'Views of +England and Wales,' with four carved and gilt carriages +waiting at the gravel walk, and several parties of ladies +and gentlemen in wigs and hoops, dotting the fatiguing +lines of stairs. + +But these stairs are made in great houses for people NOT +to ascend. The first Lady Carabas (they are but eighty +years in the peerage), if she got out of her gilt coach +in a shower, would be wet to the skin before she got +half-way to the carved Ionic portico, where four dreary +statues of Peace, Plenty, Piety and Patriotism, are the +only sentinels. You enter these palaces by back-doors. +'That was the way the Carabases got their peerage,' the +misanthropic Ponto said after dinner. + +Well--I rang the bell at a little low side-door; it +clanged and jingled and echoed for a long, long while, +till at length a face, as of a housekeeper, peered +through the door, and, as she saw my hand in my waistcoat +pocket, opened it. Unhappy, lonely housekeeper, I +thought. Is Miss Crusoe in her island more solitary? +The door clapped to, and I was in Castle Carabas. + +'The side entrance and All,' says the housekeeper. 'The +halligator hover the mantelpiece was brought home by +Hadmiral St. Michaels, when a Capting with Lord Hanson. +The harms on the cheers is the harms of the Carabas +family.' The hall was rather comfortable. We went +clapping up a clean stone backstair, and then into a back +passage cheerfully decorated with ragged light-green +Kidderminster, and issued upon + +'THE GREAT ALL. + +'The great all is seventy-two feet in lenth, fifty-six in +breath, and thirty-eight feet 'igh. The carvings of the +chimlies, representing the buth of Venus, and Ercules, +and Eyelash, is by Van Chislum, the most famous sculpture +of his hage and country. The ceiling, by Calimanco, +represents Painting, Harchitecture and Music (the naked +female figure with the barrel horgan) introducing George, +fust Lord Carabas, to the Temple of the Muses. The +winder ornaments is by Vanderputty. The floor is +Patagonian marble; and the chandelier in the centre was +presented to Lionel, second Marquis, by Lewy the +Sixteenth, whose 'ead was cut hoff in the French +Revelation. We now henter + +THE SOUTH GALLERY. + +'One 'undred and forty-eight in lenth by thirty-two in +breath; it is profusely hornaminted by the choicest works +of Hart. Sir Andrew Katz, founder of the Carabas family +and banker of the Prince of Horange, Kneller. Her +present Ladyship, by Lawrence. Lord St. Michaels, by the +same--he is represented sittin' on a rock in velvit +pantaloons. Moses in the bullrushes--the bull very fine, +by Paul Potter. The toilet of Venus, Fantaski. Flemish +Bores drinking, Van Ginnums. Jupiter and Europia, de +Horn. The Grandjunction Canal, Venis, by Candleetty; and +Italian Bandix, by Slavata Rosa.'--And so this worthy +woman went on, from one room into another, from the blue +room to the green, and the green to the grand saloon, and +the grand saloon to the tapestry closet, cackling her +list of pictures and wonders: and furtively turning up a +corner of brown holland to show the colour of the old, +faded, seedy, mouldy, dismal hangings. + +At last we came to her Ladyship's bed-room. In the +centre of this dreary apartment there is a bed about the +size of one of those whizgig temples in which the Genius +appears in a pantomime. The huge gilt edifice is +approached by steps, and so tall, that it might be let +off in floors, for sleeping-rooms for all the Carabas +family. An awful bed! A murder might be done at one end +of that bed, and people sleeping at the other end be +ignorant of it. Gracious powers! fancy little Lord +Carabas in a nightcap ascending those steps after putting +out the candle! + +The sight of that seedy and solitary splendour was too +much for me. I should go mad were I that lonely +housekeeper--in those enormous galleries--in that lonely +library, filled up with ghastly folios that nobody dares +read, with an inkstand on the centre table like the +coffin of a baby, and sad portraits staring at you from +the bleak walls with their solemn Mouldy eyes. No wonder +that Carabas does not come down here often. + +It would require two thousand footmen to make the place +cheerful. No wonder the coachman resigned his wig, that +the masters are insolvent, and the servants perish in +this huge dreary out-at-elbow place. + +A single family has no more right to build itself a +temple of that sort than to erect a Tower of Babel. Such +a habitation is not decent for a mere mortal man. But, +after all, I suppose poor Carabas had no choice. Fate +put him there as it sent Napoleon to St. Helena. Suppose +it had been decreed by Nature that you and I should be +Marquises? We wouldn't refuse, I suppose, but take +Castle Carabas and all, with debts, duns, and mean +makeshifts, and shabby pride, and swindling magnificence. + +Next season, when I read of Lady Carabas's splendid +entertainments in the MORNING POST, and see the poor old +insolvent cantering through the Park--I shall have a much +tenderer interest in these great people than I have had +heretofore. Poor old shabby Snob! Ride on and fancy the +world is still on its knees before the house of Carabas! +Give yourself airs, poor old bankrupt Magnifico, who are +under money-obligations to your flunkeys; and must stoop +so as to swindle poor tradesmen! And for us, O my +brother Snobs, oughtn't we to feel happy if our walk +through life is more even, and that we are out of the +reach of that surprising arrogance and that astounding +meanness to which this wretched old victim is obliged to +mount and descend. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +Notable as my reception had been (under that unfortunate +mistake of Mrs. Ponto that I was related to Lord +Snobbington, which I was not permitted to correct), it +was nothing compared to the bowing and kotooing, the +raptures and flurry which preceded and welcomed the visit +of a real live lord and lord's son, a brother officer of +Cornet Wellesley Ponto, in the 120th Hussars, who came +over with the young Cornet from Guttlebury, where their +distinguished regiment was quartered. This was my Lord +Gules, Lord Saltire's grandson and heir: a very young, +short, sandy-haired and tobacco-smoking nobleman, who +cannot have left the nursery very long, and who, though +he accepted the honest Major's invitation to the +Evergreens in a letter written in a school-boy +handwriting, with a number of faults of spelling, may yet +be a very fine classical scholar for what I know: having +had his education at Eton, where he and young Ponto were +inseparable. + +At any rate, if he can't write, he has mastered a number +of other accomplishments wonderful for one of his age and +size. He is one of the best shots and riders in England. +He rode his horse Abracadabra, and won the famous +Guttlebury steeple-chase. He has horses entered at half +the races in the country (under other people's names; for +the old lord is a strict hand, and will not hear of +betting or gambling). He has lost and won such sums of +money as my Lord George himself might be proud of. He +knows all the stables, and all the jockeys, and has all +the 'information,' and is a match for the best Leg at +Newmarket. Nobody was ever known to be 'too much' for +him at play or in the stable. + +Although his grandfather makes him a moderate allowance, +by the aid of POST-OBITS and convenient friends he can +live in a splendour becoming his rank. He has not +distinguished himself in the knocking down of policemen +much; he is not big enough for that. But, as a light- +weight, his skill is of the very highest order. At +billiards he is said to be first-rate. He drinks and +smokes as much as any two of the biggest officers in his +regiment. With such high talents, who can say how far he +may not go? He may take to politics as a DELASSEMENT, +and be Prime Minister after Lord George Bentinck. + +My young friend Wellesley Ponto is a gaunt and bony +youth, with a pale face profusely blotched. From his +continually pulling something on his chin, I am led to +fancy that he believes he has what is called an Imperial +growing there. That is not the only tuft that is hunted +in the family, by the way. He can't, of course, indulge +in those expensive amusements which render his +aristocratic comrade so respected: he bets pretty freely +when he is in cash, and rides when somebody mounts him +(for he can't afford more than his regulation chargers). +At drinking he is by no means inferior; and why do you +think he brought his noble friend, Lord Gules, to the +Evergreens?--Why? because he intended to ask his mother +to order his father to pay his debts, which she couldn't +refuse before such an exalted presence. Young Ponto gave +me all this information with the most engaging frankness. +We are old friends. I used to tip him when he was at +school. + +'Gad!': says he, 'our wedgment's so DOOTHID exthpenthif. +Must hunt, you know. A man couldn't live in the wedgment +if he didn't. Mess expenses enawmuth. Must dine at +mess. Must drink champagne and claret. Ours ain't a +port and sherry light-infantry mess. Uniform's awful. +Fitzstultz, our Colonel, will have 'em so. Must be a +distinction you know. At his own expense Fitzstultz +altered the plumes in the men's caps (you called them +shaving-brushes, Snob, my boy: most absurd and unjust +that attack of yours, by the way); that altewation alone +cotht him five hundred pound. The year befaw latht he +horthed the wegiment at an immenthe expenthe, and we're +called the Queen'th Own Pyebalds from that day. Ever +theen uth on pawade? The Empewar Nicolath burtht into +tearth of envy when he thaw uth at Windthor. And you +see,' continued my young friend, 'I brought Gules down +with me, as the Governor is very sulky about shelling +out, just to talk my mother over, who can do anything +with him. Gules told her that I was Fitzstultz's +favourite of the whole regiment; and, Gad! she thinks the +Horse Guards will give me my troop for nothing, and he +humbugged the Governor that I was the greatest screw in +the army. Ain't it a good dodge?' + +With this Wellesley left me to go and smoke a cigar in +the stables with Lord Gules, and make merry over the +cattle there, under Stripes's superintendence. Young +Ponto laughed with his friend, at the venerable four- +wheeled cruelty-chaise; but seemed amazed that the latter +should ridicule still more an ancient chariot of the +build of 1824, emblazoned immensely with the arme of the +Pontos and the Snaileys, from which latter distinguished +family Mrs. Ponto issued. + +I found poor Pon in his study among his boots, in such a +rueful attitude of despondency, that I could not but +remark it. 'Look at that!' says the poor fellow, handing +me over a document. 'It's the second change in uniform +since he's been in the army, and yet there's no +extravagance about the lad. Lord Gules tells me he is +the most careful youngster in the regiment, God bless +him! But look at that! by heaven, Snob, look at that and +say how can a man of nine hundred keep out of the Bench?' +He gave a sob as he handed me the paper across the table; +and his old face, and his old corduroys, and his shrunk +shooting-jacket, and his lean shanks, looked, as he +spoke, more miserably haggard, bankrupt, and threadbare. + +LIEUT. WELLESLEY PONTO, 120TH QUEEN'S OWN PYEBALD +HUSSARS, +TO KNOPF AND STECKNADEL, +CONDUIT STREET, LONDON. + L. s. d +Dress Jacket, richly laced with gold . 35 0 0 +Ditto Pelisse ditto, and trimmed with sable . . 60 0 0 +Undress Jacket, trimmed with gold 15 15 0 +Ditto Pelisse . . 30 0 0 +Dress Pantaloons 12 0 0 +Ditto Overalls, gold lace on sides. 6 6 0 +Undress ditto ditto. 5 5 0 +Blue Braided Frock 14 14 0 +Forage Cap . . 3 3 0 +Dress Cap, gold lines, plume and chain . . . 25 0 0 +Gold Barrelled Sash 11 18 0 +Sword . . 11 11 0 +Ditto Belt and Sabretache .. 16 16 0 +Pouch and Belt. 15 15 0 +SwordKnot .. 1 4 0 +Cloak . .. 13 13 0 +Valise . .. 3 13 6 +Regulation Saddle . 7 17 6 +Ditto Bridle, complete . .. 10 10 0 +A Dress Housing, complete .. 30 0 0 +A pair of Pistols. 10 10 0 +A Black Sheepskin, edged. . . 6 18 0 +Total L347 9 0 + +That evening Mrs. Ponto and her family made their darling +Wellesley give a full, true, and particular account of +everything that had taken place at Lord Fitzstultz's; how +many servants waited at dinner; and how the Ladies +Schneider dressed; and what his Royal Highness said when +he came down to shoot; and who was there? "What a +blessing that boy is to me!" said she, as my pimple-faced +young friend moved off to resume smoking operations with +Gules in the now vacant kitchen ;--and poor Ponto's +dreary and desperate look, shall I ever forget that? + +O you parents and guardians! O you men and women of +sense in England! O you legislators about to assemble in +Parliament! read over that tailor's bill above printed, +read over that absurd catalogue of insane gimcracks and +madman's tomfoolery--and say how are you ever to get rid +of Snobbishness when society does so much for its +education? + +Three hundred and forty pounds for a young chap's saddle +and breeches! Before George, I would rather be a +Hottentot or a Highlander. We laugh at poor Jocko, the +monkey, dancing in uniform; or at poor Jeames, the +flunkey, with his quivering calves and plush tights; or +at the nigger Marquis of Marmalade, dressed out with +sabre and epaulets, and giving himself the airs of a +field-marshal. Lo! is not one of the Queen's Pyebalds, +in full fig, as great and foolish a monster? + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +At last came that fortunate day at the Evergreens, when I +was to be made acquainted with some of the 'county +families' with whom only people of Ponto's rank +condescended to associate. And now, although poor Ponto +had just been so cruelly made to bleed on occasion of his +son's new uniform, and though he was in the direst and +most cut-throat spirits with an overdrawn account at the +banker's, and other pressing evils of poverty; although a +tenpenny bottle of Marsala and an awful parsimony +presided generally at his table, yet the poor fellow was +obliged to assume the most frank and jovial air of +cordiality; and all the covers being removed from the +hangings, and new dresses being procured for the young +ladies, and the family plate being unlocked and +displayed, the house and all within assumed a benevolent +and festive appearance. The kitchen fires began to +blaze, the good wine ascended from the cellar, a +professed cook actually came over from Guttlebury to +compile culinary abominations. Stripes was in a new +coat, and so was Ponto, for a wonder, and Tummus's +button-suit was worn EN PERMANENCE. + +And all this to show off the little lord, thinks I. All +this in honour of a stupid little cigarrified Cornet of +dragoons, who can barely write his name,--while an +eminent and profound moralist like--somebody--is fobbed +off with cold mutton and relays of pig. Well, well: a +martyrdom of cold mutton is just bearable. I pardon Mrs. +Ponto, from my heart I do, especially as I wouldn't turn +out of the best bed-room, in spite of all her hints; but +held my ground in the chintz tester, vowing that Lord +Gules, as a young man, was quite small and hardy enough +to make himself comfortable elsewhere. + +The great Ponto party was a very august one. The +Hawbucks came in their family coach, with the blood-red +band emblazoned all over it: and their man in yellow +livery waited in country fashion at table, only to be +exceeded in splendour by the Hipsleys, the opposition +baronet, in light blue. The old Ladies Fitzague drove +over in their little old chariot with the fat black +horses, the fat coachman, the fat footman--(why are +dowagers' horses and footmen always fat?) And soon after +these personages had arrived, with their auburn fronts +and red beaks and turbans, came the Honourable and +Reverend Lionel Pettipois, who with General and Mrs. Sago +formed the rest of the party. 'Lord and Lady Frederick +Howlet were asked, but they have friends at Ivybush,' +Mrs. Ponto told me; and that very morning, the +Castlehaggards sent an excuse, as her ladyship had a +return of the quinsy. Between ourselves, Lady +Castlehaggard's quinsy always comes on when there is +dinner at the Evergreens. + +If the keeping of polite company could make a woman +happy, surely my kind hostess Mrs. Ponto was on that day +a happy woman. Every person present (except the unlucky +impostor who pretended to a connexion with the +Snobbington Family, and General Sago, who had brought +home I don't know how many lacs of rupees from India,) +was related to the Peerage or the Baronetage. Mrs. P. +had her heart's desire. If she had been an Earl's +daughter herself could she have expected better company?- +-and her family were in the oil-trade at Bristol, as all +her friends very well know. + +What I complained of in my heart was not the dining-- +which, for this once, was plentiful and comfortable +enough--but the prodigious dulness of the talking part of +the entertainment. O my beloved brother Snobs of the +City, if we love each other no better than our country +brethren, at least we amuse each other more; if we bore +ourselves, we are not called upon to go ten miles to do +it! + +For instance, the Hipsleys came ten miles from the south, +and the Hawbucks ten miles from the north, of the +Evergreens; and were magnates in two different divisions +of the county of Mangelwurzelshire. Hipsley, who is an +old baronet, with a bothered estate, did not care to show +his contempt for Hawbuck, who is a new creation, and +rich. Hawbuck, on his part, gives himself patronizing +airs to General Sago, who looks upon the Pontos as little +better than paupers. 'Old Lady Blanche,' says Ponto, 'I +hope will leave something to her god-daughter--my second +girl--we've all of us half-poisoned ourselves with taking +her physic.' + +Lady Blanche and Lady Rose Fitzague have, the first, a +medical, and the second a literary turn. I am inclined +to believe the former had a wet COMPRESSE around her +body, on the occasion when I had the happiness of meeting +her. She doctors everybody in the neighbourhood of which +she is the ornament; and has tried everything on her own +person. She went into Court, and testified publicly her +faith in St. John Long: she swore by Doctor Buchan, she +took quantities of Gambouge's Universal Medicine, and +whole boxfuls of Parr's Life Pills. She has cured a +multiplicity of headaches by Squinstone's Eye-snuff; she +wears a picture of Hahnemann in her bracelet and a lock +of Priessnitz's hair in a brooch. She talked about her +own complaints and those of her CONFIDANTE for the time +being, to every lady in the room successively, from our +hostess down to Miss Wirt, taking them into corners, and +whispering about bronchitis, hepatitis, St. Vitus, +neuralgia, cephalalgia, and so forth. I observed poor +fat Lady Hawbuck in a dreadful alarm after some +communication regarding the state of her daughter Miss +Lucy Hawbuck's health, and Mrs. Sago turned quite yellow, +and put down her third glass of Madeira, at a warning +glance from Lady Blanche. + +Lady Rose talked literature, and about the book-club at +Guttlebury, and is very strong in voyages and travels. +She has a prodigious interest in Borneo, and displayed a +knowledge of the history of the Punjaub and Kaffirland +that does credit to her memory. Old General Sago, who +sat perfectly silent and plethoric, roused up as from a +lethargy when the former country was mentioned, and gave +the company his story about a hog-hunt at Ramjugger. I +observed her ladyship treated with something like +contempt her neighbour the Reverend Lionel Pettipois, a +young divine whom you may track through the country by +little 'awakening' books at half-a-crown a hundred, which +dribble out of his pockets wherever he goes. I saw him +give Miss Wirt a sheaf of 'The Little Washer-woman on +Putney Common,' and to Miss Hawbuck a couple of dozen of +'Meat in the Tray; or the Young Butcher-boy Rescued;' and +on paying a visit to Guttlebury gaol, I saw two notorious +fellows waiting their trial there (and temporarily +occupied with a game of cribbage), to whom his Reverence +offered a tract as he was walking over Crackshins Common, +and who robbed him of his purse, umbrella, and cambric +handkerchief, leaving him the tracts to distribute +elsewhere. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS + +'Why, dear Mr. Snob,' said a young lady of rank and +fashion (to whom I present my best compliments), 'if you +found everything so SNOBBISH at the Evergreens, if the +pig bored you and the mutton was not to your liking, and +Mrs. Ponto was a humbug, and Miss Wirt a nuisance, with +her abominable piano practice,--why did you stay so +long?' + +Ah, Miss, what a question! Have you never heard of +gallant British soldiers storming batteries, of doctors +passing nights in plague wards of lazarettos, and other +instances of martyrdom? What do you suppose induced +gentlemen to walk two miles up to the batteries of +Sabroan, with a hundred and fifty thundering guns bowling +them down by hundreds?--not pleasure, surely. What +causes your respected father to quit his comfortable home +for his chambers, after dinner, and pore over the most +dreary law papers until long past midnight?, +Mademoiselle; duty, which must be done alike by military, +or legal, or literary gents. There's a power of +martyrdom in our profession. + +You won't believe it? Your rosy lips assume a smile of +incredulity--a most naughty and odious expression in a +young lady's face. Well, then, the fact is, that my +chambers, No. 24, Pump Court, Temple, were being painted +by the Honourable Society, and Mrs. Slamkin, my +laundress, having occasion to go into Durham to see her +daughter, who is married, and has presented her with the +sweetest little grandson--a few weeks could not be better +spent than in rusticating. But ah, how delightful Pump +Court looked when I revisited its well-known chimney- +pots! CARI LUOGHI. Welcome, welcome, O fog and smut! + +But if you think there is no moral in the foregoing +account of the Pontine family, you are, Madam, most +painfully mistaken. In this very chapter we are going to +have the moral--why, the whole of the papers are nothing +BUT the moral, setting forth as they do the folly of +being a Snob. + +You will remark that in the Country Snobography my poor +friend Ponto has been held up almost exclusively for the +public gaze--and why? Because we went to no other house? +Because other families did not welcome us to their +mahogany? No, no. Sir John Hawbuck of the Haws, Sir +John Hipsley of Briary Hall, don't shut the gates of +hospitality: of General Sago's mulligatawny I could speak +from experience. And the two old ladies at Guttlebury, +were they nothing? Do you suppose that an agreeable +young dog, who shall be nameless, would not be made +welcome? Don't you know that people are too glad to see +ANYBODY in the country? + +But those dignified personages do not enter into the +scheme of the present work, and are but minor characters +of our Snob drama; just as, in the play, kings and +emperors are not half so important as many humble +persons. The DOGE OF VENICE, for instance, gives way to +OTHELLO, who is but a nigger; and the KING OF FRANCE to +FALCONBRIDGE, who is a gentleman of positively no birth +at all. So with the exalted characters above mentioned. +I perfectly well recollect that the claret at Hawbuck's +was not by any means so good as that of Hipsley's, while, +on the contrary, some white hermitage at the Haws (by the +way, the butler only gave me half a glass each time) was +supernacular. And I remember the conversations. O +Madam, Madam, how stupid they were! The subsoil +ploughing; the pheasants and poaching; the row about the +representation of the county; the Earl of +Mangelwurzelshire being at variance with his relative and +nominee, the Honourable Marmaduke Tomnoddy; all these I +could put down, had I a mind to violate the confidence of +private life; and a great deal of conversation about the +weather, the Mangelwurzelshire Hunt, new manures, and +eating and drinking, of course. + +But CUI BONO? In these perfectly stupid and honourable +families there is not that Snobbishness which it is our +purpose to expose. An ox is an ox--a great hulking, fat- +sided, bellowing, munching Beef. He ruminates according +to his nature, and consumes his destined portion of +turnips or oilcake, until the time comes for his +disappearance from the pastures, to be succeeded by other +deep-lunged and fat-ribbed animals. Perhaps we do not +respect an ox. We rather acquiesce in him. The Snob, my +dear Madam, is the Frog that tries to swell himself to ox +size. Let us pelt the silly brute out of his folly. + +Look, I pray you, at the case of my unfortunate friend +Ponto, a good-natured, kindly English gentleman--not +over-wise, but quite passable--fond of port-wine, of his +family, of country sports and agriculture, hospitably +minded, with as pretty a little patrimonial country-house +as heart can desire, and a thousand pounds a year. It is +not much; but, ENTRE NOUS, people can live for less, and +not uncomfortably. + +For instance, there is the doctor, whom Mrs. P. does not +condescend to visit: that man educates a mirific family, +and is loved by the poor for miles round: and gives them +port-wine for physic and medicine, gratis. And how those +people can get on with their pittance, as Mrs. Ponto +says, is a wonder to HER. + +Again, there is the clergyman, Doctor Chrysostom, --Mrs. +P. says they quarrelled about Puseyism, but I am given to +understand it was because Mrs. C. had the PAS of her at +the Haws--you may see what the value of his living is any +day in the 'Clerical Guide;' but you don't know what he +gives away. + +Even Pettipois allows that, in whose eyes the Doctor's +surplice is a scarlet abomination; and so does Pettipois +do his duty in his way, and administer not only his +tracts and his talk, but his money and his means to his +people. As a lord's son, by the way, Mrs. Ponto is +uncommonly anxious that he should marry EITHER of the +girls whom Lord Gules does not intend to choose. + +Well, although Pon's income would make up almost as much +as that of these three worthies put together-- oh, my +dear Madam, see in what hopeless penury the poor fellow +lives! What tenant can look to HIS forbearance? What +poor man can hope for HIS charity? 'Master's the best of +men,' honest Stripes says, 'and when we was in the +ridgment a more free-handed chap didn't live. But the +way in which Missus DU scryou, I wonder the young ladies +is alive, that I du!' + +They live upon a fine governess and fine masters, and +have clothes made by Lady Carabas's own milliner; and +their brother rides with earls to cover; and only the +best people in the county visit at the Evergreens, and +Mrs. Ponto thinks herself a paragon of wives and mothers, +and a wonder of the world, for doing all this misery and +humbug, and snobbishness, on a thousand a year. + +What an inexpressible comfort it was, my dear Madam, when +Stripes put my portmanteau in the four-wheeled chaise, +and (poor P on being touched with sciatica) drove me over +to 'Carabas Arms' at Guttlebury, where we took leave. +There were some bagmen there in the Commercial Room, and +one talked about the house he represented; and another +about his dinner, and a third about the Inns on the road, +and so forth--a talk, not very wise, but honest and to +the purpose--about as good as that of the country +gentlemen: and oh, how much pleasanter than listening to +Miss Wirt's show-pieces on the piano, and Mrs. Ponto's +genteel cackle about the fashion and the county families! + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +SNOBBIUM GATHERUM + +WHEN I see the great effect which these papers are +producing on an intelligent public, I have a strong hope +that before long we shall have a regular Snob department +in the newspapers, just as we have the Police Courts and +the Court News at present. When a flagrant case of bone- +crushing or Poor-law abuse occurs in the world, who so +eloquent as THE TIMES to point it out? When a gross +instance of Snobbishness happens, why should not the +indignant journalist call the public attention to that +delinquency too? + +How, for instance, could that wonderful case of the Earl +of Mangelwurzel and his brother be examined in the +Snobbish point of view? Let alone the hectoring, the +bullying, the vapouring, the bad grammar, the mutual +recriminations, lie-givings, challenges, retractations, +which abound in the fraternal dispute--put out of the +question these points as concerning the individual +nobleman and his relative, with whose personal affairs we +have nothing to do--and consider how intimately corrupt, +how habitually grovelling and mean, how entirely Snobbish +in a word, a whole county must be which can find no +better chiefs or leaders than these two gentlemen. 'We +don't want,' the great county of Mangelwurzelshire seems +to say, 'that a man should be able to write good grammar; +or that he should keep a Christian tongue in his head; or +that he should have the commonest decency of temper, or +even a fair share of good sense, in order to represent us +in Parliament. + +All we require is, that a man should be recommended to us +by the Earl of Mangelwurzelshire. And all that we +require of the Earl of Mangelwurzelshire is that he +should have fifty thousand a year and hunt the country.' +O you pride of all Snobland! O you crawling, truckling, +self-confessed lackeys and parasites! + +But this is growing too savage: don't let us forget our +usual amenity, and that tone of playfulness and sentiment +with which the beloved reader and writer have pursued +their mutual reflections hitherto. Well, Snobbishness +pervades the little Social Farce as well as the great +State Comedy; and the self-same moral is tacked to +either. + +There was, for instance, an account in the papers of a +young lady who, misled by a fortune-teller, actually went +part of the way to India (as far as Bagnigge Wells, I +think,) in search of a husband who was promised her +there. Do you suppose this poor deluded little soul +would have left her shop for a man below her in rank, or +for anything but a darling of a Captain in epaulets and a +red coat. It was her Snobbish sentiment that misled her, +and made her vanities a prey to the swindling fortune- +teller. + +Case 2 was that of Mademoiselle de Saugrenue, 'the +interesting young Frenchwoman with a profusion of jetty +ringlets,' who lived for nothing at a boardinghouse at +Gosport, was then conveyed to Fareham gratis: and being +there, and lying on the bed of the good old lady her +entertainer, the dear girl took occasion to rip open the +mattress, and steal a cash-box, with which she fled to +London. How would you account for the prodigious +benevolence exercised towards the interesting young +French lady? Was it her jetty ringlets or her charming +face?--Bah! Do ladies love others for having faces and +black hair?--she said SHE WAS A RELATION OF de Saugrenue: +talked of her ladyship her aunt, and of herself as a De +Saugrenue. The honest boarding-house people were at her +feet at once. Good, honest, simple, lord-loving children +of Snobland. + +Finally, there was the case of 'the Right Honourable Mr. +Vernon,' at York. The Right Honourable was the son of a +nobleman, and practised on an old lady. He procured from +her dinners, money, wearing-apparel, spoons, implicit +credence, and an entire refit of linen. Then he cast his +nets over a family of father, mother, and daughters, one +of whom he proposed to marry. The father lent him money, +the mother made jams and pickles for him, the daughters +vied with each other in cooking dinners for the Right +Honourable--and what was the end? One day the traitor +fled, with a teapot and a basketful of cold victuals. It +was the 'Right Honourable' which baited the hook which +gorged all these greedy, simple Snobs. Would they have +been taken in by a commoner? What old lady is there, my +dear sir, who would take in you and me, were we ever so +ill to do, and comfort us, and clothe us, and give us her +money, and her silver forks? Alas and alas! what mortal +man that speaks the truth can hope for such a landlady? +And yet, all these instances of fond and credulous +Snobbishness have occurred in the same week's paper, with +who knows how many score more? + +Just as we had concluded the above remarks comes a pretty +little note sealed with a pretty little butterfly-- +bearing a northern postmark--and to the following +effect:- + +'19th November. + +'Mr. Punch,--'Taking great interest in your Snob Papers, +we are very anxious to know under what class of that +respectable fraternity you would designate us. + +'We are three sisters, from seventeen to twenty-two. Our +father is HONESTLY AND TRULY of a very good family (you +will say it is Snobbish to mention that, but I wish to +state the plain fact); our maternal grandfather was an +Earl.' (1) + +'We CAN afford to take in a stamped edition of YOU, and +all Dickens' works as fast as they come out, but we do +NOT keep such a thing as a PEERAGE or even a BARONETAGE +in the house. + +'We live with every comfort, excellent cellar, &c. &c.; +but as we cannot well afford a butler, we have a neat +table-maid (though our father was a military man, has +travelled much, been in the best society, &c.) We HAVE a +coachman and helper, but we don't put the latter into +buttons, nor make them wait at table, like Stripes and +Tummus.' (2) + +'We are just the same to persons with a handle to their +name as to those without it. We wear a moderate modicum +of crinoline, (3)and are never limp (4) in the morning. +We have good and abundant dinners on CHINA (though we +have plate (5), and just as good when alone as with +company. + +'Now, my dear MR. PUNCH, will you PLEASE give us a short +answer in your next number, and I will be SO much obliged +to you. Nobody knows we are writing to you, not even our +father; nor will we ever tease (6) you again if you will +only give us an answer--just for FUN, now do! + +'If you get as far as this, which is doubtful, you will +probably fling it into the fire. If you do, I cannot +help it; but I am of a sanguine disposition, and +entertain a lingering hope. At all events, I shall be +impatient for next Sunday, for you reach us on that day, +and I am ashamed to confess, we CANNOT resist opening you +in the carriage driving home from church. (7) + +'I remain, &c. &c., for myself and sisters. + +Excuse this scrawl, but I always write headlong. (8) + +'P. S.--You were rather stupid last week, don't you +think? (9) We keep no gamekeeper, and yet have always +abundant game for friends to shoot, in spite of the +poachers. We never write on perfumed paper--in short, I +can't help thinking that if you knew us you would not +think us Snobs.' + +To this I reply in the following manner:--'My dear young +ladies, I know your post-town: and shall be at church +there the Sunday AFTER next; when, will you please to +wear a tulip or some little trifle in your bonnets, so +that I may know you? You will recognize me and my dress- +-a quiet-looking young fellow, in a white top-coat, a +crimson satin neckcloth, light blue trousers, with glossy +tipped boots, and an emerald breast-pin. I shall have a +black crape round my white hat; and my usual bamboo cane +with the richly-gilt knob. I am sorry there will be no +time to get up moustaches between now and next week. + +'From seventeen to two-and-twenty! Ye gods! what ages! +Dear young creatures, I can see you all three. Seventeen +suits me, as nearest my own time of life; but mind, I +don't say two-and-twenty is too old. No, no. And that +pretty, roguish, demure, middle one. Peace, peace, thou +silly little fluttering heart! + +'YOU Snobs, dear young ladies! I will pull any man's +nose who says so. There is no harm in being of a good +family. You can't help it, poor dears. What's in a +name? What is in a handle to it? I confess openly that +I should not object to being a Duke myself; and between +ourselves you might see a worse leg for a garter. + +'YOU Snobs, dear little good-natured things, no that is, +I hope not--I think not--I won't be too confident--none +of us should be--that we are not Snobs. That very +confidence savours of arrogance, and to be arrogant is to +be a Snob. In all the social gradations from sneak to +tyrant, nature has placed a most wondrous and various +progeny of Snobs. But are there no kindly natures, no +tender hearts, no souls humble, simple, and truth-loving? +Ponder well on this question, sweet young ladies. And if +you can answer it, as no doubt you can--lucky are you-- +and lucky the respected Herr Papa, and lucky the three +handsome young gentlemen who are about to become each +others' brothers-in-law.' + + +(1) The introduction of Grandpapa, is I fear, Snobbish. + +(2) That is, as you like. I don't object to buttons in +moderation. + +(3) Quite right. + +(4) Bless you! + +(5) Snobbish; and I doubt whether you ought to dine as +well alone as with company. You will be getting too good +dinners. + +(6) We like to be teased; but tell Papa. + +(7) O garters and stars! what will Captain Gordon and +Exeter Hall say to this? + +(8) Dear little enthusiast! + +(9) You were never more mistaken, miss, in your life. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +Everybody of the middle rank who walks through this life +with a sympathy for his companions on the same journey-- +at any rate, every man who has been jostling in the world +for some three or four lustres--must make no end of +melancholy reflections upon the fate of those victims +whom Society, that is, Snobbishness, is immolating every +day. With love and simplicity and natural kindness +Snobbishness is perpetually at war. People dare not be +happy for fear of Snobs. People dare not love for fear +of Snobs. People pine away lonely under the tyranny of +Snobs. Honest kindly hearts dry up and die. Gallant +generous lads, blooming with hearty youth, swell into +bloated old-bachelorhood, and burst and tumble over. +Tender girls wither into shrunken decay, and perish +solitary, from whom Snobbishness has cut off the common +claim to happiness and affection with which Nature +endowed us all. My heart grows sad as I see the +blundering tyrant's handiwork. As I behold it I swell +with cheap rage, and glow with fury against the Snob. +Come down, I say, thou skulking dulness! Come down, thou +stupid bully, and give up thy brutal ghost! And I arm +myself with the sword and spear, and taking leave of my +family, go forth to do battle with that hideous ogre and +giant, that brutal despot in Snob Castle, who holds so +many gentle hearts in torture and thrall. + +When PUNCH is king, I declare there shall be no such +thing as old maids and old bachelors. The Reverend Mr. +Malthus shall be burned annually, instead of Guy Fawkes. +Those who don't marry shall go into the workhouse. It +shall be a sin for the poorest not to have a pretty girl +to love him. + +The above reflections came to mind after taking a walk +with an old comrade, Jack Spiggot by name, who is just +passing into the state of old-bachelorhood, after the +manly and blooming youth in which I remember him. Jack +was one of the handsomest fellows in England when we +entered together in the Highland Buffs; but I quitted the +Cuttykilts early, and lost sight of him for many years. + +Ah! how changed he is from those days! He wears a +waistband now, and has begun to dye his whiskers. His +cheeks, which were red, are now mottled; his eyes, once +so bright and steadfast, are the colour of peeled +plovers' eggs. + +'Are you married, Jack?' says I, remembering how +consumedly in love he was with his cousin Letty Lovelace, +when the Cuttykilts were quartered at Strathbungo some +twenty years ago. + +'Married? no,' says he. 'Not money enough. Hard enough +to keep myself, much more a family, on five hundred a +year. Come to Dickinson's; there's some of the best +Madeira in London there, my boy.' So we went and talked +over old times. The bill for dinner and wine consumed +was prodigious, and the quantity of brandy-and-water that +Jack took showed what a regular boozer he was. 'A guinea +or two guineas. What the devil do I care what I spend +for my dinner?' says he. + +'And Letty Lovelace?' says I. + +Jack's countenance fell. However, he burst into a loud +laugh presently. 'Letty Lovelace!' says he. 'She's +Letty Lovelace still; but Gad, such a wizened old woman! +She's as thin as a thread-paper; (you remember what a +figure she had:) her nose has got red, and her teeth +blue. She's always ill; always quarrelling with the rest +of the family; always psalm-singing, and always taking +pills. Gad, I had a rare escape THERE. Push round the +grog, old boy.' + +Straightway memory went back to the days when Letty was +the loveliest of blooming young creatures: when to hear +her sing was to make the heart jump into your throat; +when to see her dance, was better than Montessu or Noblet +(they were the Ballet Queens of those days); when Jack +used to wear a locket of her hair, with a little gold +chain round his neck, and, exhilarated with toddy, after +a sederunt of the Cuttykilt mess, used to pull out this +token, and kiss it, and howl about it, to the great +amusement of the bottle-nosed old Major and the rest of +the table. + +'My father and hers couldn't put their horses together,' +Jack said. 'The General wouldn't come down with more +than six thousand. My governor said it shouldn't be done +under eight. Lovelace told him to go and be hanged, and +so we parted company. They said she was in a decline. +Gammon! She's forty, and as tough and as sour as this +bit of lemon-peel. Don't put much into your punch, Snob +my boy. No man CAN stand punch after wine.' + +'And what are your pursuits, Jack?' says I. + +'Sold out when the governor died. Mother lives at Bath. +Go down there once a year for a week. Dreadful slow. +Shilling whist. Four sisters --all unmarried except the +youngest--awful work. Scotland in August. Italy in the +winter. Cursed rheumatism. Come to London in March, and +toddle about at the Club, old boy; and we won't go home +till maw-aw-rning till daylight does appear. + +'And here's the wreck of two lives!' mused the present +Snobographer, after taking leave of Jack Spiggot. +'Pretty merry Letty Lovelace's rudder lost and she cast +away, and handsome Jack Spiggot stranded on the shore +like a drunken Trinculo.' + +What was it that insulted Nature (to use no higher name), +and perverted her kindly intentions towards them? What +cursed frost was it that nipped the love that both were +bearing, and condemned the girl to sour sterility, and +the lad to selfish old-bachelorhood? It was the infernal +Snob tyrant who governs us all, who +says, 'Thou shalt not love without a lady's maid; thou +shalt not marry without a carriage and horses; thou shalt +have no wife in thy heart, and no children on thy knee, +without a page in buttons and a French BONNE; thou shalt +go to the devil unless thou hast a brougham; marry poor, +and society shall forsake thee; thy kinsmen shall avoid +thee as a criminal; thy aunts and uncles shall turn up +their eyes and bemoan the sad, sad manner in which Tom or +Harry has thrown himself away.' You, young woman, may +sell yourself without shame, and marry old Croesus; you, +young man, may lie away your heart and your life for a +jointure. But if 'you are poor, woe be to you! Society, +the brutal Snob autocrat, consigns you to solitary +perdition. Wither, poor girl, in your garret; rot, poor +bachelor, in your Club. + +When I see those graceless recluses--those unnatural +monks and nuns of the order of St. Beelzebub, (1) my +hatred for Snobs, and their worship, and their idols, +passes all continence. Let us hew down that man-eating +Juggernaut, I say, that hideous Dagon; and I glow with +the heroic courage of Tom Thumb, and join battle with the +giant Snob. + +(1) This, of course, is understood to apply only to those +unmarried persons whom a mean and Snobbish fear about +money has kept from fulfilling their natural destiny. +Many persons there are devoted to celibacy because they +cannot help it. Of these a man would be a brute who +spoke roughly. Indeed, after Miss O'Toole's conduct to +the writer, he would be the last to condemn. But never +mind, these are personal matters. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +In that noble romance called 'Ten Thousand a Year,' I +remember a profoundly pathetic description of the +Christian manner in which the hero, Mr. Aubrey, bore his +misfortunes. After making a display of the most florid +and grandiloquent resignation, and quitting his country +mansion, the writer supposes Aubrey to come to town in a +post-chaise and pair, sitting bodkin probably between his +wife and sister. It is about seven o'clock, carriages +are rattling about, knockers are thundering, and tears +bedim the fine eyes of Kate and Mrs. Aubrey as they think +that in happier times at this hour--their Aubrey used +formerly to go out to dinner to the houses of the +aristocracy his friends. This is the gist of the +passage--the elegant words I forget. But the noble, +noble sentiment I shall always cherish and remember. +What can be more sublime than the notion of a great man's +relatives in tears about ---his dinner? With a few +touches, what author ever more happily described A Snob? + +We were reading the passage lately at the house of my +friend, Raymond Gray, Esquire, Barrister-at-Law, an +ingenuous youth without the least practice, but who has +luckily a great share of good spirits, which enables him +to bide his time, and bear laughingly his humble position +in the world. Meanwhile, until it is altered, the stern +laws of necessity and the expenses of the Northern +Circuit oblige Mr. Gray to live in a very tiny mansion in +a very queer small square in the airy neighbourhood of +Gray's Inn Lane. + +What is the more remarkable is, that Gray has a wife +there. Mrs. Gray was a Miss Harley Baker: and I suppose +I need not say THAT is a respectable family. Allied to +the Cavendishes, the Oxfords, the Marrybones, they still, +though rather DECHUS from their original splendour, hold +their heads as high as any. Mrs. Harley Baker, I know, +never goes to church without John behind to carry her +prayer-book; nor will Miss Welbeck, her sister, walk +twenty yards a-shopping without the protection of Figby, +her sugar-loaf page; though the old lady is as ugly as +any woman in the parish and as tall and whiskery as a +grenadier. The astonishment is, how Emily Harley Baker +could have stooped to marry Raymond Gray. She, who was +the prettiest and proudest of the family; she, who +refused Sir Cockle Byles, of the Bengal Service; she, who +turned up her little nose at Essex Temple, Q.C., and +connected with the noble house of Albyn; she, who had but +4,000L. POUR TOUT POTAGE, to marry a man who had scarcely +as much more. A scream of wrath and indignation was +uttered by the whole family when they heard of this +MESALLIANCE. Mrs. Harley Baker never speaks of her +daughter now but with tears in her eyes, and as a ruined +creature. Miss Welbeck says, 'I consider that man a +villain;' and has denounced poor good-natured Mrs. +Perkins as a swindler, at whose ball the young people met +for the first time. + +Mr. and Mrs. Gray, meanwhile, live in Gray's Inn Lane +aforesaid, with a maid-servant and a nurse, whose hands +are very full, and in a most provoking and unnatural +state of happiness. They have never once thought of +crying about their dinner, like the wretchedly puling and +Snobbish womankind of my favourite Snob Aubrey, of 'Ten +Thousand a Year;' but, on the contrary, accept such +humble victuals as fate awards them with a most perfect +and thankful good grace--nay, actually have a portion for +a hungry friend at times--as the present writer can +gratefully testify. + +I was mentioning these dinners, and some admirable lemon +puddings which Mrs. Gray makes, to our mutual friend the +great Mr. Goldmore, the East India Director, when that +gentleman's face assumed an expression of almost +apoplectic terror, and he gasped out, 'What! Do they +give dinners?' He seemed to think it a crime and a +wonder that such people should dine at all, and that it +was their custom to huddle round their kitchen-fire over +a bone and a crust. Whenever he meets them in society, +it is a matter of wonder to him (and he always expresses +his surprise very loud) how the lady can appear decently +dressed, and the man have an unpatched coat to his back. +I have heard him enlarge upon this poverty before the +whole room at the 'Conflagrative Club,' to which he and I +and Gray have the honour to belong. + +We meet at the Club on most days. At half-past four, +Goldmore arrives in St. James's Street, from the City, +and you may see him reading the evening papers in the +bow-window of the Club, which enfilades Pall Mall--a +large plethoric man, with a bunch of seals in a large +bow-windowed light waistcoat. He has large coat-tails, +stuffed with agents' letters and papers about companies +of which he is a Director. His seals jingle as he walks. +I wish I had such a man for an uncle, and that he himself +were childless. I would love and cherish him, and be +kind to him. + +At six o'clock in the full season, when all the world is +in St. James's Street, and the carriages are cutting in +and out among the cabs on the stand, and the tufted +dandies are showing their listless faces out of +'White's,' and you see respectable grey-headed gentlemen +waggling their heads to each other through the plate- +glass windows of 'Arthur's:' and the red-coats wish to be +Briareian, so as to hold all the gentlemen's horses; and +that wonderful red-coated royal porter is sunning himself +before Marlborough House;--at the noon of London time, +you see a light-yellow carriage with black horses, and a +coachman in a tight floss-silk wig, and two footmen in +powder and white and yellow liveries, and a large woman +inside in shot-silk, a poodle, and a pink parasol, which +drives up to the gate of the Conflagrative, and the page +goes and says to Mr. Goldmore (who is perfectly aware of +the fact, as he is looking out of the windows with about +forty other +'Conflagrative' bucks), 'Your carriage, Sir.' G. wags +his head. 'Remember, eight o'clock precisely,' says he +to Mulligatawney, the other East India Director; and, +ascending the carriage, plumps down by the side of Mrs. +Goldmore for a drive in the Park, and then home to +Portland Place. As the carriage whirls off, all the +young bucks in the Club feel a secret elation. It is a +part of their establishment, as it were. That carriage +belongs to their Club, and their Club belongs to them. +They follow the equipage with interest; they eye it +knowingly as they see it in the Park. But halt! we are +not come to the Club Snobs yet. O my brave Snobs, what a +flurry there will be among you when those papers appear! + +Well, you may judge, from the above description, what +sort of a man Goldmore is. A dull and pompous Leadenhall +Street Croesus, good-natured withal, and affable--cruelly +affable. 'Mr. Goldmore can never forget,' his lady used +to say, 'that it was Mrs. Gray's Grandfather who sent him +to India; and though that young woman has made the most +imprudent marriage in the world, and has left her station +in society, her husband seems an ingenious and laborious +young man, and we shall do everything in our power to be +of use to him.' So they used to ask the Grays to dinner +twice or thrice in a season, when, by way of increasing +the kindness, Buff, the butler, is ordered to hire a fly +to convey them to and from Portland Place. + +Of course I am much too good-natured a friend of both +parties not to tell Gray of Goldmore's opinion in him, +and the nabob's astonishment at the of the briefless +barrister having any dinner at all. Indeed, Goldmore's +saying became a joke against Gray amongst us wags at the +Club, and we used to ask him when he tasted meat last? +whether we should bring him home something from dinner? +and cut a thousand other mad pranks with him in our +facetious way. + +One day, then, coming home from the Club, Mr. Gray +conveyed to his wife the astounding information that he +had asked Goldmore to dinner. + +'My love,' says Mrs. Gray, in a tremor, 'how could you be +so cruel? Why, the dining-room won't hold Mrs. +Goldmore.' + +'Make your mind easy, Mrs. Gray; her ladyship is in +Paris. It is only Croesus that's coming, and we are +going to the play afterwards--to Sadler's Wells. +Goldmore said at the Club that he thought Shakspeare was +a great dramatic poet, and ought to be patronized; +whereupon, fired with enthusiasm, I invited him to our +banquet.' + +'Goodness gracious! what CAN we give him for dinner? He +has two French cooks; you know Mrs. Goldmore is always +telling us about them; and he dines with Aldermen every +day.' + +'"A plain leg of mutton, my Lucy, +I prythee get ready at three; +Have it tender, and smoking, and juicy, +And what better meat can there be?"' + +says Gray, quoting my favourite poet. + +'But the cook is ill; and you know that horrible Pattypan +the pastrycook's ---' + +'Silence, Frau!' says Gray, in a deep tragedy voice. 'I +will have the ordering of this repast. Do all things as +I bid thee. Invite our friend Snob here to partake of +the feast. Be mine the task of procuring it.' + +'Don't be expensive, Raymond,' says his wife. + +'Peace, thou timid partner of the briefless one. +Goldmore's dinner shall be suited to our narrow means. +Only do thou in all things my commands.' And seeing by +the peculiar expression of the rogue's countenance, that +some mad waggery was in preparation, I awaited the morrow +with anxiety. + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +Punctual to the hour--(by the way, I cannot omit to mark +down my hatred, scorn, and indignation towards those +miserable Snobs who come to dinner at nine when they are +asked at eight, in order to make a sensation in the +company. May the loathing of honest folks, the +backbiting of others, the curses of cooks, pursue these +wretches, and avenge the society on which they trample!)- +-Punctual, I say, to the hour of five, which Mr. and Mrs. +Raymond Gray had appointed, a youth of an elegant +appearance, in a neat evening-dress, whose trim whiskers +indicated neatness, whose light step denoted activity +(for in sooth he was hungry, and always is at the dinner +hour, whatsoever that hour may be), and whose rich golden +hair, curling down his shoulders, was set off by a +perfectly new four-and-ninepenny silk hat, was seen +wending his way down Bittlestone Street, Bittlestone +Square, Gray's Inn. The person in question, I need not +say, was Mr. Snob. HE was never late when invited to +dine. But to proceed my narrative:-- + +Mr. Snob may have flattered himself that he made a +sensation as he strutted down Bittlestone with his richly +gilt knobbed cane (and indeed I vow I saw heads looking +at me from Miss Squilsby's, the brass-plated milliner +opposite Raymond Gray's, who has three silver-paper +bonnets, and two fly-blown prints of fashion in the +window), yet what was the emotion produced by my arrival, +compared to that which the little street thrilled, when +at five minutes past five the floss-wigged coachman, the +yellow hammer-cloth and flunkeys, the black horses and +blazing silver harness of Mr. Goldmore whirled down the +street! + +It is a very little street, of very little houses, most +of them with very large brass plates like Miss +Squilsby's. Coal-merchants, architects and surveyors, +two surgeons, a solicitor, a dancing-master, and of +course several house-agents, occupy the houses--little +two-storeyed edifices with little stucco porticoes. +Goldmore's carriage overtopped the roofs almost; the +first floors might shake hands with Croesus as he lolled +inside; all the windows of those first floors thronged +with children and women in a twinkling. There was Mrs. +Hammerly in curl-papers; Mrs. Saxby with her front awry; +Mr. Wriggles peering through the gauze curtains, holding +the while his hot glass of rum-and-water--in fine, a +tremendous commotion in Bittlestone Street, as the +Goldmore carriage drove up to Mr. Raymond Gray's door. + +'How kind it is of him to come with BOTH the footmen!' +says little Mrs. Gray, peeping at the vehicle too. The +huge domestic, descending from his perch, gave a rap at +the door which almost drove in the building. All the +heads were out; the sun was shining; the very organ-boy +paused; the footman, the coach, and Goldmore's red face +and white waistcoat were blazing in splendour. The +herculean plushed one went back to open the carriage- +door. + +Raymond Gray opened his--in his shirt-sleeves. He ran up +to the carriage. 'Come in, Goldmore,' says he; 'just in +time, my boy. Open the door, What-d'ye-call'um, and let +your master out,'--and What-d'ye-call'um obeyed +mechanically, with a face of wonder and horror, only to +be equalled by the look of stupefied astonishment which +ornamented the purple countenance of his master. + +'Wawt taim will you please have the CAGE, sir?' says +What-d'ye-call'um, in that peculiar, unspellable, +inimitable, flunkefied pronunciation which forms one of +the chief charms of existence. + +Best have it to the theatre at night,' Gray exclaims; 'it +is but a step from here to the Wells, and we can walk +there. I've got tickets for all. Be at Sadler's Wells +at eleven.' + +'Yes, at eleven,' exclaims Goldmore, perturbedly, and +walks with a flurried step into the house, as if he were +going to execution (as indeed he was, with that wicked +Gray as a Jack Ketch over him). The carriage drove away, +followed by numberless eyes from doorsteps and balconies; +its appearance is still a wonder in Bittlestone Street. + +'Go in there, and amuse yourself with Snob,' says Gray, +opening the little drawing-room door. 'I'll call out as +soon as the chops are ready. Fanny's below, seeing to +the pudding.' + +'Gracious mercy!' says Goldmore to me, quite +confidentially, 'how could he ask us? I really had no +idea of this--this utter destitution.' + +'Dinner, dinner!' roars out Gray, from the diningroom, +whence issued a great smoking and frying; and entering +that apartment we find Mrs. Gray ready to receive us, and +looking perfectly like a Princess who, by some accident, +had a bowl of potatoes in her hand, which vegetables she +placed on the table. Her husband 'was meanwhile cooking +mutton-chops on a gridiron over the fire. + +Fanny has made the roly-poly pudding,' says he; the chops +are my part. Here's a fine one; try this, Goldmore.' +And he popped a fizzing cutlet on that gentleman's plate. +What words, what notes of exclamation can describe the +nabob's astonishment? + +The tablecloth was a very old one, darned in a score +places. There was mustard in a teacup, a silver fork for +Goldmore--all ours were iron. + +"I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth,' says +Gray, gravely. 'That fork is the only one we have. +Fanny has it generally.' + +'Raymond!'- cries Mrs. Gray, with an imploring face. +'She was used to better things, you know: and I hope one +day to get her a dinner-service. I'm told the electro- +plate is uncommonly good. Where the deuce IS that boy +with the beer? And now,' said he, springing up, 'I'll be +a gentleman.' And so he put on his coat, and sat down +quite gravely, with four fresh mutton-chops which he had +by this time broiled. + +'We don t have meat every day, Mr. Goldmore,' he +continued, 'and it's a treat to me to get a dinner like +this. You little know, you gentlemen of England, who +live at home at ease, what hardships briefless barristers +endure.' + +'Gracious mercy!' says Mr. Goldmore. + +'Where's the half-and-half? Fanny, go over to the 'Keys' +and get the beer. Here's sixpence.' And what was our +astonishment when Fanny got up as if to go! + +'Gracious mercy! let ME,' cries Goldmore. + +'Not for worlds, my dear sir. She's used to it. They +wouldn't serve you as well as they serve her. Leave her +alone. Law bless you!' Raymond said, with astounding +composure. And Mrs. Gray left the room, and actually +came back with a tray on which there was a pewter flagon +of beer. Little Polly (to whom, at her christening, I +had the honour of presenting a silver mug EX OFFICIO) +followed with a couple of tobacco-pipes, and the queerest +roguish look in her round little chubby face. + +'Did you speak to Tapling about the gin, Fanny, my dear?' +Gray asked, after bidding Polly put the pipes on the +chimney-piece, which that little person had some +difficulty in reaching. 'The last was turpentine, and +even your brewing didn't make good punch of it.' + +'You would hardly suspect, Goldmore, that my wife, a +Harley Baker, would ever make gin-punch? I think my +mother-in-law would commit suicide if she saw her.' + +'Don't be always laughing at mamma, Raymond,' says Mrs. +Gray. + +'Well, well, she wouldn't die, and I DON'T wish she +would. And you don't make gin-punch, and you don't like +it either and--Goldmore do you drink your beer out of the +glass, or out of the pewter?' + +'Gracious mercy!' ejaculates Croesus once more, as little +Polly, taking the pot with both her little bunches of +hands, offers it, smiling, to that astonished Director. + +And so, in a word, the dinner commenced, and was +presently ended in a similar fashion. Gray pursued his +unfortunate guest with the most queer and outrageous +description of his struggles, misery, and poverty. He +described how he cleaned the knives when they were first +married; and how he used to drag the children in a little +cart; how his wife could toss pancakes; and what parts of +his dress she made. He told Tibbits, his clerk (who was +in fact the functionary who had brought the beer from the +public-house, which Mrs. Fanny had fetched from the +neighbouring apartment)--to fetch 'the bottle of port- +wine,' when the dinner was over; and told Goldmore as +wonderful a history about the way in which that bottle of +wine had come into his hands as any of his former stories +had been. When the repast was all over, and it was near +time to move to the play, and Mrs. Gray had retired, and +we were sitting ruminating rather silently over the last +glasses of the port, Gray suddenly breaks the silence by +slapping Goldmore on the shoulder, and saying, 'Now, +Goldmore, tell me something.' + +'What?' asks Croesus. + +'Haven't you had a good dinner?' + +Goldmore started, as if a sudden truth had just dawned +upon him. He HAD had a good dinner; and didn't know it +until then. The three mutton-chops consumed by him were +best of the mutton kind; the potatoes were perfect of +their order; as for the rolypoly, it was too good. The +porter was frothy and cool, and the port-wine was worthy +of the gills of a bishop. I speak with ulterior views; +for there is more in Gray's cellar. + +'Well,' says Goldmore, after a pause, during which he +took time to consider the momentous question Gray put to +him--' 'Pon my word--now you say so--I--I have--I really +have had a monsous good dinnah-- monsous good, upon my +ward! Here's your health, Gray my boy, and your amiable +lady; and when Mrs. Goldmore comes back, I hope we shall +see you more in Portland Place.' And with this the time +came for the play, and we went to see Mr. Phelps at +Sadler's Wells. The best of this story (for the truth of +every word of which I pledge my honour) is, that after +this banquet, which Goldmore enjoyed so, the honest +fellow felt a prodigious compassion and regard for the +starving and miserable giver of the feast, and determined +to help him in his profession. And being a Director of +the newly-established Antibilious Life Assurance Company, +he has had Gray appointed Standing Counsel, with a pretty +annual fee; and only yesterday, in an appeal from Bombay +(Buckmuckjee Bobbachee v. Ramchowder-Bahawder) in the +Privy Council, Lord Brougham complimented Mr. Gray, who +was in the case, on his curious and exact knowledge of +the Sanscrit language. + +Whether he knows Sanscrit or not, I can't say; but +Goldmore got him the business; and so I cannot help +having a lurking regard for that pompous old Bigwig. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +SNOBS AND MARRIAGE + +'We Bachelors in Clubs are very much obliged to you," +says my old school and college companion, Essex Temple, +'for the opinion which you hold of us. You call us +selfish, purple-faced, bloated, and other pretty names. +You state, in the simplest possible terms, that we shall +go to the deuce. You bid us rot in loneliness, and deny +us all claims to honesty, conduct, decent Christian life. +Who are you, Mr. Snob, to judge us. Who are you, with +your infernal benevolent smirk and grin, that laugh at +all our generation? + +'I will tell you my case,' says Essex Temple; 'mine and +my sister Polly's, and you may make what you like of it; +and sneer at old maids, and bully old bachelors, if you +will. + +'I will whisper to you confidentially that my sister was +engaged to Serjeant Shirker--a fellow whose talents one +cannot deny, and be hanged to them, but whomwhom I have +always known to be mean, selfish, and a prig. However, +women don't see these faults in the men whom Love throws +in their way. Shirker, who has about as much warmth as +an eel, made up to Polly years and years ago, and was no +bad match for a briefless barrister, as he was then. + +Have you ever read Lord Eldon's Life? Do you remember +how the sordid old Snob narrates his going out to +purchase twopence-worth of sprats, which he and Mrs. +Scott fried between them? And how he parades his +humility, and exhibits his miserable poverty--he who, at +that time, must have been making a thousand pounds a +year? Well, Shirker was just as proud of his prudence-- +just as thankful for his own meanness, and of course +would not marry without a competency. Who so honourable? +Polly waited, and waited faintly, from year to year. HE +wasn't sick at heart; HIS passion never disturbed his six +hours' sleep, or kept his ambition out of mind. He would +rather have hugged an attorney any day than have kissed +Polly, though she was one of the prettiest creatures in +the world; and while she was pining alone upstairs, +reading over the stock of half-a-dozen frigid letters +that the confounded prig had condescended to write to +her, HE, be sure, was never busy with anything but his +briefs in chambers--always frigid, rigid, self-satisfied, +and at his duty. The marriage trailed on year after +year, while Mr. Serjeant Shirker grew to be the famous +lawyer he is. + +'Meanwhile, my younger brother, Pump Temple, who was in +the 120th Hussars, and had the same little patrimony +which fell to the lot of myself and Polly, must fall in +love with our cousin, Fanny Figtree, and marry her out of +hand. You should have seen the wedding! Six bridesmaids +in pink, to hold the fan, bouquet, gloves, scent-bottle, +and pocket-handkerchief of the bride; basketfuls of white +favours in the vestry, to be pinned on to the footmen and +horses; a genteel congregation of curious acquaintance in +the pews, a shabby one of poor on the steps; all the +carriages of all our acquaintance, whom Aunt Figtree had +levied for the occasion; and of course four horses for +Mr. Pump's bridal vehicle. + +'Then comes the breakfast, or DEJEUNER, if you please, +with a brass band in the street, and policemen to keep +order. The happy bridegroom spends about a year's income +in dresses for the bridesmaids and pretty presents; and +the bride must have a TROUSSEAU of laces, satins, jewel- +boxes and tomfoolery, to make her fit to be a +lieutenant's wife. There was no hesitation about Pump. +He flung about his money as if it had been dross; and +Mrs. P. Temple, on the horse Tom Tiddler, which her +husband gave her, was the most dashing of military women +at Brighton or Dublin. + +How old Mrs. Figtree used to bore me and Polly with +stories of Pump's grandeur and the noble company he kept! +Polly lives with the Figtrees, as I am not rich enough to +keep a home for her. + +'Pump and I have always been rather distant. Not having +the slightest notions about horseflesh, he has a natural +contempt for me; and in our mother's lifetime, when the +good old lady was always paying his debts and petting +him, I'm not sure there was not a little jealousy. It +used to be Polly that kept the peace between us. + +'She went to Dublin to visit Pump, and brought back grand +accounts of his doings--gayest man about town--Aide-de- +Camp to the Lord-Lieutenant--Fanny admired everywhere-- +Her Excellency godmother to the second boy: the eldest +with a string of aristocratic Christian-names that made +the grandmother wild with delight. Presently Fanny and +Pump obligingly came to London, where the third was born. + +'Polly was godmother to this, and who so loving as she +and Pump now? "Oh, Essex," says she to me, "he is so +good, so generous, so fond of his family; so +handsome; who can help loving him, and pardoning his +little errors?" One day, while Mrs. Pump was yet in the +upper regions, and Doctor Fingerfee's brougham +at her door every day, having business at Guildhall, whom +should I meet in Cheapside but Pump and Polly? The poor +girl looked more happy and rosy +than I have seen her these twelve years. Pump, on the +contrary, was rather blushing and embarrassed. + +'I couldn't be mistaken in her face and its look of +mischief and triumph. She had been committing some act +of sacrifice. I went to the family stockbroker. She had +sold out two thousand pounds that morning and given them +to Pump. Quarrelling was useless--Pump had the money; he +was off to Dublin by the time I reached his mother's, and +Polly radiant still. He was going to make his fortune; +he was going to embark the money in the Bog of Allen--I +don't know what. The fact is, he was going to pay his +losses upon the last Manchester steeple-chase, and I +leave you to imagine how much principal or interest poor +Polly ever saw back again. + +'It was more than half her fortune, and he has had +another thousand since from her. Then came efforts to +stave off ruin and prevent exposure; struggles on all our +parts, and sacrifices, that' (here Mr. Essex Temple began +to hesitate)--'that needn't be talked of; but they are of +no more use than such sacrifices ever are. Pump and his +wife are abroad--I don't like to ask where; Polly has the +three children, and Mr. Serjeant Shirker has formally +written to break off an engagement, on the conclusion of +which Miss Temple must herself have speculated, when she +alienated the greater part of her fortune. + +'And here's your famous theory of poor marriages!' Essex +Temple cries, concluding the above history. 'How do you +know that I don't want to marry myself? How do you dare +sneer at my poor sister? What are we but martyrs of the +reckless marriage system which Mr. Snob, forsooth, +chooses to advocate?' And he thought he had the better +of the argument, which, strange to say, is not my +opinion. + +But for the infernal Snob-worship, might not every one of +these people be happy? If poor Polly's happiness lay in +linking her tender arms round such a heartless prig as +the sneak who has deceived her, she might have been happy +now--as happy as Raymond Raymond in the ballad, with the +stone statue by his side. She is wretched because Mr. +Serjeant Shirker worships money and ambition, and is a +Snob and a coward. + +If the unfortunate Pump Temple and his giddy hussy of a +wife have ruined themselves, and dragged down others into +their calamity, it is because they loved rank, and +horses, and plate, and carriages, and COURT GUIDES, and +millinery, and would sacrifice all to attain those +objects. + +And who misguides them? If the world were more simple, +would not those foolish people follow the fashion? Does +not the world love COURT GUIDES, and millinery, and +plate, and carriages? Mercy on us! Read the fashionable +intelligence; read the COURT CIRCULAR; read the genteel +novels; survey mankind, from Pimlico to Red Lion Square, +and see how the Poor Snob is aping the Rich Snob; how the +Mean Snob is grovelling at the feet of the Proud Snob; +and the Great Snob is lording it over his humble brother. +Does the idea of equality ever enter Dives' head? Will +it ever? Will the Duchess of Fitzbattleaxe (I like a +good name) ever believe that Lady Croesus, her next-door +neighbour in Belgrave Square, is as good a lady as her +Grace? Will Lady Croesus ever leave off pining the +Duchess's parties, and cease patronizing Mrs. Broadcloth +whose husband has not got his Baronetcy yet? Will Mrs. +Broadcloth ever heartily shake hands with Mrs. Seedy, and +give up those odious calculations about poor dear Mrs. +Seedy's income? Will Mrs. Seedy who is starving in her +great house, go and live comfortably in a little one, or +in lodgings? Will her landlady, Miss Letsam, ever stop +wondering at the familiarity of tradespeople, or rebuking +the insolence of Suky, the maid, who wears flowers under +her bonnet like a lady? + +But why hope, why wish for such times? Do I wish all +Snobs to perish? Do I wish these Snob papers to +determine? Suicidal fool, art not thou, too, a Snob and +a brother? + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +CLUB SNOBS + +As I wish to be particularly agreeable to the ladies (to +whom I make my most humble obeisance), we will now, if +you please, commence maligning a class of Snobs against +whom, I believe, most female minds are embittered--I mean +Club Snobs. I have very seldom heard even the most +gentle and placable woman speak without a little feeling +of bitterness against those social institutions, those +palaces swaggering in St. James's, which are open to the +men; while the ladies have but their dingy three-windowed +brick boxes in Belgravia or in Paddingtonia, or in the +region between the road of Edgware and that of Gray's +Inn. + +In my grandfather's time it used to be Freemasonry that +roused their anger. It was my grand-aunt (whose portrait +we still have in the family) who got into the clock-case +at the Royal Rosicrucian Lodge at Bungay, Suffolk, to spy +the proceedings of the Society, of which her husband was +a member, and being frightened by the sudden whirring and +striking eleven of the clock (just as the Deputy-Grand- +Master was bringing in the mystic gridiron for the +reception of a neophyte), rushed out into the midst of +the lodge assembled; and was elected, by a desperate +unanimity, Deputy-Grand-Mistress for life. Though that +admirable and courageous female never subsequently +breathed a word with regard to the secrets of the +initiation, yet she inspired all our family with such a +terror regarding the mysteries of Jachin and Boaz, that +none of our family have ever since joined the Society, or +worn the dreadful Masonic insignia. + +It is known that Orpheus was torn to pieces by some +justly indignant Thracian ladies for belonging to an +Harmonic Lodge. 'Let him go back to Eurydice,' they +said, 'whom he is pretending to regret so.' But the +history is given in Dr. Lempriere's elegant dictionary in +a manner much more forcible than any +this feeble pen can attempt. At once, then, and without +verbiage, let us take up this subject-matter of Clubs. + +Clubs ought not, in my mind, to be permitted to +bachelors. If my friend of the Cuttykilts had not our +club, the 'Union Jack,' to go to (I belong to the 'U.J. +and nine other similar institutions), who knows but he +never would be a bachelor at this present moment? +Instead of being made comfortable, and cockered up with +every luxury, as they are at Clubs, bachelors ought to be +rendered profoundly miserable, in my opinion. Every +encouragement should be given to the rendering their +spare time disagreeable. There can be no more odious +object, according to my sentiments, than young Smith in +the pride of health, commanding his dinner of three +courses; than middle-aged Jones wallowing (as I may say) +in an easy padded arm-chair, over the delicious novel or +brilliant magazine; or than old Brown, that selfish old +reprobate for whom mere literature has no charms, +stretched on the best sofa, sitting on the second edition +of THE TIMES, having the MORNING CHRONICLE between his +knees, the HERALD pushed in between his coat and +waistcoat, the STANDARD under his arm, the GLOBE under +the other pinion, and the DAILY NEWS in perusal. 'I'll +trouble you for PUNCH, Mr. Wiggins' says the +unconscionable old gormandiser, interrupting our friend, +who is laughing over the periodical in question. + +This kind of selfishness ought not to be. No, no. Young +Smith, instead of his dinner and his wine, ought to be, +where?--at the festive tea-table, to be sure, by the side +of Miss Higgs, sipping the bohea, or tasting the harmless +muffin; while old Mrs. Higgs looks on, pleased at their +innocent dalliance, and my friend Miss Wirt, the +governess, is performing Thalberg's last sonata in treble +X., totally unheeded, at the piano. + +Where should the middle-aged Jones be? At his time of +life, he ought to be the father of a family. At such an +hour--say, at nine o'clock at night--the nursery-bell +should have just rung the children to bed. He and Mrs. +J. ought to be, by rights, seated on each side of the +fire by the dining-room table, a bottle of port-wine +between them, not so full as it was an hour since. Mrs. +J. has had two glasses; Mrs. Grumble (Jones's mother-in- +law) has had three; Jones himself has finished the rest, +and dozes comfortably until bed-time. + +And Brown, that old newspaper-devouring miscreant, what +right has HE at a club at a decent hour of night? He +ought to be playing his rubber with Miss MacWhirter, his +wife, and the family apothecary. His candle ought to be +brought to him at ten o'clock, and he should retire to +rest just as the young people were thinking of a dance. +How much finer, simpler, nobler are the several +employments I have sketched out for these gentlemen than +their present nightly orgies at the horrid Club. + +And, ladies, think of men who do not merely frequent the +dining-room and library, but who use other apartments of +those horrible dens which it is my purpose to batter +down; think of Cannon, the wretch, with his coat off, at +his age and size, clattering the balls over the billiard- +table all night, and making bets with that odious Captain +Spot!--think of Pam in a dark room with Bob Trumper, Jack +Deuceace, and Charley Vole, playing, the poor dear +misguided wretch, guinea points and five pounds on the +rubber!--above all, think--oh, think of that den of +abomination, which, I am told, has been established in +SOME clubs, called THE SMOKING-ROOM,--think of the +debauchees who congregate there, the quantities of +reeking whisky-punch or more dangerous sherry-cobbler +which they consume;--think of them coming home at cock- +crow and letting themselves into the quiet house with the +Chubb key;-- think of them, the hypocrites, taking off +their insidious boots before they slink upstairs, the +children sleeping overhead, the wife of their bosom alone +with the waning rushlight in the two-pair front--that +chamber so soon to be rendered hateful by the smell of +their stale cigars: I am not an advocate of violence; I +am not, by nature, of an incendiary turn of mind: but if, +my dear ladies, you are for assassinating Mr. Chubb and +burning down Club-houses in St. James's, there is ONE +Snob at who will not think the worse of you. + +The only men who, as I opine, ought to be allowed the use +of Clubs, are married men without a profession. The +continual presence of these in a house cannot be +thought, even by the most loving of wives, desirable. +Say the girls are beginning to practise their music, +which in an honourable English family, ought to occupy +every young gentlewoman three hours; it would be rather +hard to call upon poor papa to sit in the drawing-room +all that time, and listen to the interminable discords +and shrieks which are elicited from the miserable piano +during the above necessary operation. A man with a good +ear, especially, would go mad, if compelled daily to +submit to this horror. + +Or suppose you have a fancy to go to the milliner's, or +to Howell and James's, it is manifest, my dear Madam, +that your husband is much better at the Club during these +operations than by your side in the carriage, or perched +in wonder upon one of the stools at Shawl and Gimcrack's, +whilst young counter-dandies are displaying their wares. + +This sort of husbands should be sent out after breakfast, +and if not Members of Parliament, or Directors of a +Railroad, or an Insurance Company, should be put into +their clubs, and told to remain there until dinner-time. +No sight is more agreeable to my truly regulated mind +than to see the noble characters so worthily employed. +Whenever I pass by St. James's Street, having the +privilege, like the rest of the world, of looking in at +the windows of 'Blight's,' or 'Foodle's,' or 'Snook's,' +or the great bay at the 'Contemplative Club,' I behold +with respectful appreciation the figures within--the +honest rosy old fogies, the mouldy old dandies, the +waist-belts and glossy wigs and tight cravats of those +most vacuous and respectable men. Such men are best +there during the day-time surely. When you part with +them, dear ladies, think of the rapture consequent on +their return. You have transacted your household +affairs; you have made your purchases; you have paid your +visits; you have aired your poodle in the Park; your +French maid has completed the toilette which renders you +so ravishingly beautiful by candlelight, and you are fit +to make home pleasant to him who has been absent all day. + +Such men surely ought to have their Clubs, and we will +not class them among Club Snobs therefore:--on whom let +us reserve our attack for the next chapter. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +CLUB SNOBS + +Such a Sensation has been created in the Clubs by the +appearance of the last paper on Club Snobs, as can't but +be complimentary to me who am one of their number. + +I belong to many Clubs. The 'Union Jack,' the 'Sash and +Marlin-spike'--Military Clubs. 'The True Blue,' the 'No +Surrender,' the 'Blue and Buff,' the 'Guy Fawkes,' and +the 'Cato Street'--Political Clubs. 'The Brummel' and +the 'Regent'--Dandy Clubs. The 'Acropolis,' the +'Palladium,' the 'Areopagus,' the 'Pnyx' the +'Pentelicus,' the 'Ilissus' and the 'Poluphloisboio +Thalasses'--Literary Clubs. I never could make out how +the latter set of Clubs got their names; I don't know +Greek for one, and I wonder how many other members of +those institutions do? +Ever since the Club Snobs have been announced, I observe +a sensation created on my entrance into any one of these +places. Members get up and hustle together; they nod, +they scowl, as they glance towards the present Snob. +'Infernal impudent jackanapes! If he shows me up,' says +Colonel Bludyer, 'I'll break every bone in his skin.' 'I +told you what would come of admitting literary men into +the Club,' says Ranville Ranville to his colleague, +Spooney, of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office. 'These +people are very well in their proper places, and as a +public man, I make a point of shaking hands with them, +and that sort of thing; but to have one's privacy +obtruded upon by such people is really too much. Come +along, Spooney,' and the pair of prigs retire +superciliously. + +As I came into the coffee-room at the 'No Surrender,' old +Jawkins was holding out to a knot of men, who were +yawning, as usual. There he stood, waving the STANDARD, +and swaggering before the fire. 'What,' says he, 'did I +tell Peel last year? If you touch the Corn Laws, you +touch the Sugar Question; if you touch the Sugar, you +touch the Tea. I am no monopolist. I am a liberal man, +but I cannot forget that I stand on the brink of a +precipice; and if were to have Free Trade, give me +reciprocity. And what was Sir Robert Peel's answer to +me? "Mr. Jawkins," he said ---' + +Here Jawkins's eye suddenly turning on your humble +servant, he stopped his sentence, with a guilty look-- +his stale old stupid sentence, which every one of us at +the Club has heard over and over again. + +Jawkins is a most pertinacious Club Snob. Every day he +is at that fireplace, holding that STANDARD, of which he +reads up the leading-article, and pours it out ORE +ROTUNDO, with the most astonishing composure, in the face +of his neighbour, who has just read every word of it in +the paper. Jawkins has money, as you may see by the tie +of his neckcloth. He passes the morning swaggering about +the City, in bankers' and brokers parlours, and says :-- +'I spoke with Peel yesterday, and his intentions are so +and so. Graham and I were talking over the matter, and I +pledge you my word of honour, his opinion coincides with +mine; and that What-d'ye-call-um is the only measure +Government will venture on trying.' By evening-paper +time he is at the Club: 'I can tell you the opinion of +the City, my lord,' says he, 'and the way in which Jones +Loyd looks at it is briefly this: Rothschilds told me so +themselves. In Mark Lane, people's minds are QUITE made +up.' He is considered rather a well-informed man. + +He lives in Belgravia, of course; in a drab-coloured +genteel house, and has everything about him that is +properly grave, dismal, and comfortable. His dinners are +in the MORNING HERALD, among the parties for the week; +and his wife and daughters make a very handsome +appearance at the Drawing-Room, once a year, when he +comes down to the Club in his Deputy-Lieutenant's +uniform. + +He is fond of beginning a speech to you by saying, 'When +I was in the House, I &c.'--in fact he sat for +Skittlebury for three weeks in the first Reformed +Parliament, and was unseated for bribery; since which he +has three times unsuccessfully contested that honourable +borough. + +Another sort of Political Snob I have seen at most Clubs +and that is the man who does not care so much for home +politics, but is great upon foreign affairs. I think +this sort of man is scarcely found anywhere BUT in Clubs. +It is for him the papers provide their foreign articles, +at the expense of some ten thousand a-year each. He is +the man who is really seriously uncomfortable about the +designs of Russia, and the atrocious treachery of Louis +Philippe. He it is who expects a French fleet in the +Thames, and has a constant eye upon the American +President, every word of whose speech (goodness help +him!) he reads. He knows the names of the contending +leaders in Portugal, and what they are fighting about: +and it is he who says that Lord Aberdeen ought to be +impeached, and Lord Palmerston hanged, or VICE VERSA. + +Lord Palmerston's being sold to Russia, the exact number +of roubles paid, by what house in the City, is a +favourite theme with this kind of Snob. I once overheard +him--it was Captain Spitfire, R.N., (who had been refused +a ship by the Whigs, by the way)--indulging in the +following conversation with Mr. Minns after dinner. + +Why wasn't the Princess Scragamoffsky at Lady +Palmerston's party, Minns? Because SHE CAN'T SHOW-- why +can't she show? Shall I tell you, Minns, why she can't +show? The Princess Scragainoffsky's back is flayed +alive, Minns--I tell you it's raw, sir! On Tuesday last, +at twelve o'clock, three drummers of the Preobajinski +Regiment arrived at Ashburnham House, and at half-past +twelve, in the yellow drawing-room at the Russian +Embassy, before the ambassadress and four ladies'-maids, +the Greek Papa, and the Secretary of Embassy, Madame de +Scragamoffsky received thirteen dozen. She was knouted, +sir, knouted in the midst of England--in Berkeley Square, +for having said that the Grand Duchess Olga's hair was +red. And now, sir, will you tell me Lord Palmerston +ought to continue Minister?' + +Minns: 'Good Ged!' + +Minns follows Spitfire about, and thinks him the greatest +and wisest of human beings. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +CLUB SNOBS + +Why does not some great author write 'The Mysteries of +the Club-houses; or St. James's Street unveiled?' It +would be a fine subject for an imaginative writer. We +must all, as boys, remember when we went to the fair, and +had spent all our money--the sort of awe and anxiety with +which we loitered round the outside of the show, +speculating upon the nature of the entertainment going on +within. + +Man is a Drama--of Wonder and Passion, and Mystery and +Meanness, and Beauty and Truthfulness, and Etcetera. +Each Bosom is a Booth in Vanity Fair. But let us stop +this capital style, I should die if I kept it up for a +column (a pretty thing a column all capitals would be, by +the way). In a Club, though there mayn't be a soul of +your acquaintance in the room, you have always the chance +of watching strangers, and speculating on what is going +on within those tents and curtains of their souls, their +coats and waistcoats. This is a never-failing sport. +Indeed I am told there are some Clubs in the town where +nobody ever speaks to anybody. They sit in the coffee- +room, quite silent, and watching each other. + +Yet how little you can tell from a man's outward +demeanour! There's a man at our Club--large, heavy, +middle-aged--gorgeously dressed--rather bald--with +lacquered boots--and a boa when he goes out; quiet in +demeanour, always ordering and consuming a RECHERCHE +little dinner: whom I have mistaken for Sir John +Pocklington any time these five years, and respected as a +man with five hundred pounds PER DIEM; and I find he is +but a clerk in an office in the City, with not two +hundred pounds income, and his name is Jubber. Sir John +Pocklington was, on the contrary, the dirty little snuffy +man who cried out so about the bad quality of the beer, +and grumbled at being overcharged three-halfpence for a +herring, seated at the next table to Jubber on the day +when some one pointed the Baronet out to me. + +Take a different sort of mystery. I see, for instance, +old Fawney stealing round the rooms of the Club, with +glassy, meaningless eyes, and an endless greasy simper-- +he fawns on everybody he meets, and shakes hands with +you, and blesses you, and betrays the most tender and +astonishing interest in your welfare. You know him to be +a quack and a rogue, and he knows you know it. But he +wriggles on his way, and leaves a track of slimy flattery +after him wherever he goes. Who can penetrate that man's +mystery? What earthly good can he get from you or me? +You don't know what is working under that leering +tranquil mask. You have only the dim instinctive +repulsion that warns you, you are in the presence of a +knave--beyond which fact all Fawney's soul is a secret to +you. + +I think I like to speculate on the young men best. Their +play is opener. You know the cards in their hand, as it +were. Take, for example, Messrs. Spavin and Cockspur. + +A specimen or two of the above sort of young fellows may +be found, I believe, at most Clubs. They know nobody. +They bring a fine smell of cigars into the room with +them, and they growl together, in a corner, about +sporting matters. They recollect the history of that +short period in which they have been ornaments of the +world by the names of winning horses. As political men +talk about 'the Reform year,' 'the year the Whigs went +out,' and so forth, these young sporting bucks speak of +TARNATION'S year, or OPODELDOC'S year, or the year when +CATAWAMPUS ran second for the Chester Cup. They play at +billiards in the morning, they absorb pale ale for +breakfast, and 'top up' with glasses of strong waters. +They read BELL'S LIFE (and a very pleasant paper too, +with a great deal of erudition in the answers to +correspondents). They go down to Tattersall's, and +swagger in the Park, with their hands plunged in the +pockets of their paletots. + +What strikes me especially in the outward demeanour of +sporting youth is their amazing gravity, their +conciseness of speech, and careworn and moody air. In +the smoking-room at the 'Regent,' when Joe Millerson will +be setting the whole room in a roar with laughter, you +hear young Messrs. Spavin and Cockspur grumbling +together in a corner. 'I'll take your five-and-twenty to +one about Brother to Bluenose,' whispers Spavin. 'Can't +do it at the price,' Cockspur says, wagging his head +ominously. The betting-book is always present in the +minds of those unfortunate youngsters. I think I hate +that work even more than the 'Peerage.' There is some +good in the latter--though, generally speaking, a vain +record: though De Mogyns is not descended from the giant +Hogyn Mogyn; though half the other genealogies are +equally false and foolish; yet the mottoes are good +reading--some of them; and the book itself a sort of +gold-laced and livened lackey to History, and in so far +serviceable. But what good ever came out of, or went +into, a betting-book? If I could be Caliph Omar for a +week, I would pitch every one of those despicable +manuscripts into the flames; from my Lord's, who is 'in' +with Jack Snaffle's stable, and is over-reaching worse- +informed rogues and swindling greenhorns, down to Sam's, +the butcher-boy's, who books eighteenpenny odds in the +tap-room, and 'stands to win five-and-twenty bob.' + +In a turf transaction, either Spavin or Cockspur would +try to get the better of his father, and, to gain a point +in the odds, victimise his best friends. One day we +shall hear of one or other levanting; an event at which, +not being sporting men, we shall not break our hearts. +See--Mr. Spavin is settling his toilette previous to +departure; giving a curl in the glass to his side-wisps +of hair. Look at him! It is only at the hulks, or among +turf-men, that you ever see a face so mean, so knowing, +and so gloomy. + +A much more humane being among the youthful Clubbists is +the Lady-killing Snob. I saw Wiggle just now in the +dressing-room, talking to Waggle, his inseparable. + +WAGGLE.-- 'Pon my honour, Wiggle, she did.' + +WIGGLE.-- 'Well, Waggle, as you say--I own I think she +DID look at me rather kindly. We'll see to-night at the +French play.' + +And having arrayed their little persons, these two +harmless young bucks go upstairs to dinner. + + + +CHAPTER XL + +CLUB SNOBS + +Both sorts of young men, mentioned in my last under the +flippant names of Wiggle and Waggle, may be found in +tolerable plenty, I think, in Clubs. Wiggle and Waggle +are both idle. They come of the middle classes. One of +them very likely makes believe to be a barrister, and the +other has smart apartments about Piccadilly. They are a +sort of second-chop dandies; they cannot imitate that +superb listlessness of demeanour, and that admirable +vacuous folly which distinguish the noble and high-born +chiefs of the race; but they lead lives almost as bad +(were it but for the example), and are personally quite +as useless. I am not going to arm a thunderbolt, and +launch it at the beads of these little Pall Mall +butterflies. They don't commit much public harm, or +private extravagance. They don't spend a thousand pounds +for diamond earrings for an Opera-dancer, as Lord Tarquin +can: +neither of them ever set up a public-house or broke the +bank of a gambling-club, like the young Earl of +Martingale. They have good points, kind feelings, and +deal honourably in money-transactions--only in their +characters of men of second-rate pleasure about town, +they and their like are so utterly mean, self-contented, +and absurd, that they must not be omitted in a work +treating on Snobs. + +Wiggle has been abroad, where he gives you to understand +that his success among the German countesses and Italian +princesses, whom he met at the TABLES-D'HOTE, was +perfectly terrific. His rooms are hung round with +pictures of actresses and ballet-dancers. He passes his +mornings in a fine dressing-gown, burning pastilles, and +reading 'Don Juan' and French novels (by the way, the +life of the author of 'Don Juan,' as described by +himself, was the model of the life of a Snob). He has +twopenny-halfpenny French prints of women with +languishing eyes, dressed in dominoes,--guitars, +gondolas, and so forth,--and tells you stories about +them. + +'It's a bad print,' says he, 'I know, but I've a reason +for liking it. It reminds me of somebody--somebody I +knew in other climes. You have heard of the Principessa +di Monte Pulciano? I met her at Rimini. Dear, dear +Francesca! That fair-haired, bright-eyed thing in the +Bird of Paradise and the Turkish Simar with the love-bird +on her finger, I'm sure must have been taken from--from +somebody perhaps whom you don't know --but she's known at +Munich, Waggle my boy,-- everybody knows the Countess +Ottilia de Eulenschreckenstein. Gad, sir, what a +beautiful creature she was when I danced with her on the +birthday of Prince Attila of Bavaria, in '44. Prince +Carloman was our vis-a-vis, and Prince Pepin danced the +same CONTREDANSE. She had a Polyanthus in her bouquet. +Waggle, I HAVE IT NOW.' His countenance assumes an +agonized and mysterious expression, and he buries his +head in the sofa cushions, as if plunging into a +whirlpool of passionate recollections. + +Last year he made a considerable sensation by having on +his table a morocco miniature-case locked by a gold key, +which he always wore round his neck, and on which was +stamped a serpent--emblem of eternity--with the letter M +in the circle. Sometimes he laid this upon his little +morocco writing-table, as if it were on an altar-- +generally he had flowers upon it; in the middle of a +conversation he would start up and kiss it. He would +call out from his bed-room to his valet, 'Hicks, bring me +my casket!' + +'I don't know who it is,' Waggle would say. 'Who DOES +know that fellow's intrigues! Desborough Wiggle, sir, is +the slave of passion. I suppose you have heard the story +of the Italian princess locked up in the Convent of Saint +Barbara, at Rimini? He hasn't told you? Then I'm not at +liberty to speak. Or the countess, about whom he nearly +had the duel with Prince Witikind of Bavaria? Perhaps +you haven't even heard about that beautiful girl at +Pentonville, daughter of a most respectable Dissenting +clergyman. She broke her heart when she found he was +engaged (to a most lovely creature of high family, who +afterwards proved false to him), and she's now in +Hanwell.' + +Waggle's belief in his friend amounts to frantic +adoration. 'What a genius he is, if he would but apply +himself!' he whispers to me. 'He could be anything, sir, +but for his passions. His poems are the most beautiful +things you ever saw. He's written a continuation of "Don +Juan," from his own adventures. Did you ever read his +lines to Mary? They're superior to Byron, sir--superior +to Byron.' + +I was glad to hear this from so accomplished a critic as +Waggle; for the fact is, I had composed the verses myself +for honest Wiggle one day, whom I found at his chambers +plunged in thought over a very dirty old-fashioned album, +in which he had not as yet written a single word. + +'I can't,' says he. 'Sometimes I can write whole cantos, +and to-day not a line. Oh, Snob! such an opportunity! +Such a divine creature! She's asked me to write verses +for her album, and I can't.' + +'Is she rich?' said I. 'I thought you would never marry +any but an heiress.' + +'Oh, Snob! she's the most accomplished, highly-connected +creature!--and I can't get out a line.' + +'How will you have it?' says I. 'Hot, with sugar?' + +'Don't, don't! You trample on the most sacred feelings, +Snob. I want something wild and tender,--like Byron. I +want to tell her that amongst the festive balls, and that +sort of thing, you know--I only think about her, you +know--that I scorn the world, and am weary of it, you +know, and--something about a gazelle, and a bulbul, you +know.' + +'And a yataghan to finish off with,' the present writer +observed, and we began:-- + +'TO MARY + +'I seem, in the midst of the crowd, +The lightest of all; +My laughter rings cheery and loud, +In banquet and ball. +My lip hath its smiles and its sneers, +For all men to see; +But my soul, and my truth, and my tears, +Are for thee, are for thee!' + +'Do you call THAT neat, Wiggle?' says I. 'I declare it +almost makes me cry myself.' + +'Now suppose,' says Wiggle, 'we say that all the world is +at my feet--make her jealous, you know, and that sort of +thing--and that--that I'm going to TRAVEL, you know? +That perhaps may work upon her feelings.' + +So WE (as this wretched prig said) began again:-- + +'Around me they flatter and fawn-- +The young and the old, +The fairest are ready to pawn +Their hearts for my gold. +They sue me--I laugh as I spurn +The slaves at my knee, +But in faith and in fondness I turn +Unto thee, unto thee!' + +'Now for the travelling, Wiggle my boy!' And I began, in +a voice choked with emotion-- + +'Away! for my heart knows no rest +Since you taught it to feel; +The secret must die in my breast +I burn to reveal; +The passion I may not. . .' + +'I say, Snob!' Wiggle here interrupted the excited bard +(just as I was about to break out into four lines so +pathetic that they would drive you into hysterics). 'I +say--ahem--couldn't you say that I was--a--military man, +and that there was some danger of my life?' + +'You a military man?--danger of your life? What the +deuce do you mean?' + +'Why,' said Wiggle, blushing a great deal, 'I told her I +was going out--on--the--Ecuador--expedition.' + +'You abominable young impostor,' I exclaimed. 'Finish +the poem for yourself!' And so he did, and entirely out +of all metre, and bragged about the work at the Club as +his own performance. + +Poor Waggle fully believed in his friend's genius, until +one day last week he came with a grin on his countenance +to the Club, and said, 'Oh, Snob, I've made SUCH a +discovery! Going down to the skating to-day, whom should +I see but Wiggle walking with that splendid woman--that +lady of illustrious family and immense fortune, Mary, you +know, whom he wrote the beautiful verses about. She's +five-and-forty. She's red hair. She's a nose like a +pump-handle. Her father made his fortune by keeping a +ham-and-beef shop, and Wiggle's going to marry her next +week.' + +'So much the better, Waggle, my young friend,' I +exclaimed. 'Better for the sake of womankind that this +dangerous dog should leave off lady-killing--this Blue- +Beard give up practice. Or, better rather for his own +sake. For as there is not a word of truth in any of +those prodigious love-stories which you used to swallow, +nobody has been hurt except Wiggle himself, whose +affections will now centre in the ham-and-beef shop. +There ARE people, Mr. Waggle, who do these things in +earnest, and hold a good rank in the world too. But +these are not subjects for ridicule, and though certainly +Snobs, are scoundrels likewise. Their cases go up to a +higher Court.' + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +CLUB SNOBS + +Bacchus is the divinity to whom Waggle devotes his +especial worship. 'Give me wine, my boy,' says he to his +friend Wiggle, who is prating about lovely woman; and +holds up his glass full of the rosy fluid, and winks at +it portentously, and sips it, and smacks his lips after +it, and meditates on it, as if he were the greatest of +connoisseurs. + +I have remarked this excessive wine-amateurship +especially in youth. Snoblings from college, Fledglings +from the army, Goslings from the public schools, who +ornament our Clubs, are frequently to be heard in great +force upon wine questions. 'This bottle's corked,' says +Snobling; and Mr. Sly, the butler, taking it away, +returns presently with the same wine in another jug, +which the young amateur pronounces excellent. 'Hang +champagne!' says Fledgling, 'it's only fit for gals and +children. Give me pale sherry at dinner, and my twenty- +three claret afterwards.' 'What's port now?' says +Gosling; 'disgusting thick sweet stuff--where's the old +dry wine one USED to get?' Until the last twelvemonth, +Fledgling drank small-beer at Doctor Swishtail's; and +Gosling used to get his dry old port at a gin-shop in +Westminster--till he quitted that seminary, in 1844. + +Anybody who has looked at the caricatures of thirty years +ago, must remember how frequently bottle-noses, pimpled +faces, and other Bardolphian features are introduced by +the designer. They are much more rare now (in nature, +and in pictures, therefore,) than in those good old +times; but there are still to be found amongst the youth +of our Clubs lads who glory in drinking-bouts, and whose +faces, quite sickly and yellow, for the most part are +decorated with those marks which Rowland's Kalydor is +said to efface. 'I was SO cut last night--old boy!' +Hopkins says to Tomkins (with amiable confidence). 'I +tell you what we did. We breakfasted with Jack Herring +at twelve, and kept up with brandy and soda-water and +weeds till four; then we toddled into the Park for an +hour; then we dined and drank mulled port till half- +price; then we looked in for an hour at the Haymarket; +then we came back to the Club, and had grills and whisky +punch till all was blue--Hullo, waiter! Get me a glass +of cherry-brandy.' Club waiters, the civilest, the +kindest, the patientest of men, die under the infliction +of these cruel young topers. But if the reader wishes to +see a perfect picture on the stage of this class of young +fellows, I would recommend him to witness the ingenious +comedy of LONDON ASSURANCE--the amiable heroes of which +are represented, not only as drunkards and five-o'clock- +in-the-morning men, but as showing a hundred other +delightful traits of swindling, lying, and general +debauchery, quite edifying to witness. + +How different is the conduct of these outrageous youths +to the decent behaviour of my friend, Mr. Papworthy; who +says to Poppins, the butler at the Club:-- + +PAPWORTHY.--'Poppins, I'm thinking of dining early; is +there any cold game in the house?' + +POPPINS.--'There's a game pie, sir; there's cold grouse, +sir; there's cold pheasant, sir; there's cold peacock, +sir; cold swan, sir; cold ostrich, sir,' &c. &c. (as the +case may be). + +PAPWORTHY.--'Hem! What's your best claret now, Poppins?- +-in pints, I mean.' + +POPPINS.--'There's Cooper and Magnum's Lafitte, sir: +there's Lath and Sawdust's St. Julien, sir; Bung's +Leoville is considered remarkably fine; and I think you'd +like Jugger's Chateau-Margaux.' + +PAPWORTHY.--'Hum!--hah!--well--give me a crust of bread +and a glass of beer. I'll only LUNCH, Poppins. + +Captain Shindy is another sort of Club bore. He has been +known to throw all the Club in an uproar about the +quality of his mutton-chop. + +'Look at it, sir! Is it cooked, sir? Smell it, sir! Is +it meat fit for a gentleman?' he roars out to the +steward, who stands trembling before him, and who in vain +tells him that the Bishop of Bullocksmithy has just had +three from the same loin. All the waiters in the Club +are huddled round the captain's mutton-chop. He roars +out the most horrible curses at John for not bringing the +pickles; he utters the most dreadful oaths because Thomas +has not arrived with the Harvey Sauce; Peter comes +tumbling with the water-jug over Jeames, who is bringing +'the glittering canisters with bread.' Whenever Shindy +enters the room (such is the force of character), every +table is deserted, every gentleman must dine as he best +may, and all those big footmen are in terror. + +He makes his account of it. He scolds, and is better +waited upon in consequence. At the Club he has ten +servants scudding about to do his bidding. + +Poor Mrs. Shindy and the children are, meanwhile, in +dingy lodgings somewhere, waited upon by a charity-girl +in pattens. + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +CLUB SNOBS + +Every well-bred English female will sympathize with the +subject of the harrowing tale, the history of Sackville +Maine, I am now about to recount. The pleasures of Clubs +have been spoken of: let us now glance for a moment at +the dangers of those institutions, and for this purpose I +must introduce you to my young acquaintance, Sackville +Maine. + +It was at a ball at the house of my respected friend, +Mrs. Perkins, that I was introduced to this gentleman and +his charming lady. Seeing a young creature before me in +a white dress, with white satin shoes; with a pink +ribbon, about a yard in breadth, flaming out as she +twirled in a polka in the arms of Monsieur de Springbock, +the German diplomatist; with a green wreath on her head, +and the blackest hair this individual set eyes on-- +seeing, I say, before me a charming +young woman whisking beautifully in a beautiful dance, +and presenting, as she wound and wound round the room, +now a full face, then a three-quarter face, then a +profile--a face, in fine, which in every way you saw it, +looked pretty, and rosy, and happy, I felt (as I trust) a +not unbecoming curiosity regarding the owner of this +pleasant countenance, and asked Wagley (who was standing +by, in conversation with an acquaintance) who was the +lady in question? + +'Which?' says Wagley. + +'That one with the coal-black eyes,' I replied. + +'Hush!' says he; and the gentleman with whom he was +talking moved off, with rather a discomfited air. + +When he was gone Wagley burst out laughing. 'COAL-BLACK +eyes!' said he; 'you've just hit it. That's Mrs. +Sackville Maine, and that was her husband who just went +away. He's a coal-merchant, Snob my boy, and I have no +doubt Mr. Perkins's Wallsends are supplied from his +wharf. He is in a flaming furnace when he hears coals +mentioned. He and his wife and his mother are very proud +of Mrs. Sackville's family; she was a Miss Chuff, +daughter of Captain Chuff, R.N. That is the widow; that +stout woman in crimson tabinet, battling about the odd +trick with old Mr. Dumps, at the card-table.' + +And so, in fact, it was. Sackville Maine (whose name is +a hundred times more elegant, surely, than that of Chuff) +was blest with a pretty wife, and a genteel mother-in- +law, both of whom some people may envy him. + +Soon after his marriage the old lady was good enough to +come and pay him a visit--just for a fortnight--at his +pretty little cottage, Kennington Oval; and, such is her +affection for the place, has never quitted it these four +years. She has also brought her son, Nelson Collingwood +Chuff, to live with her; but he is not so much at home as +his mamma, going as a day-boy to Merchant Taylors' +School, where he is getting a sound classical education. + +If these beings, so closely allied to his wife, and so +justly dear to her, may be considered as drawbacks to +Maine's happiness, what man is there that has not some +things in life to complain of? And when I first knew Mr. +Maine, no man seemed more comfortable than he. His +cottage was a picture of elegance and comfort; his table +and cellar were excellently and neatly supplied. There +was every enjoyment, but no ostentation. The omnibus +took him to business of a morning; the boat brought him +back to the happiest of homes, where he would while away +the long evenings by reading out the fashionable novels +to the ladies as they worked; or accompany his wife on +the flute (which he played elegantly); or in any one of +the hundred pleasing and innocent amusements of the +domestic circle. Mrs. Chuff covered the drawing-rooms +with prodigious tapestries, the work of her hands. Mrs. +Sackville had a particular genius for making covers of +tape or network for these tapestried cushions. She could +make home-made wines. She could make preserves and +pickles. She had an album, into which, during the time +of his courtship, Sackville Maine bad written choice +scraps of Byron's and Moore's poetry, analogous to his +own situation, and in a fine mercantile hand. She had a +large manuscript receipt-book--every quality, in a word, +which indicated a virtuous and well-bred English female +mind. + +'And as for Nelson Collingwood,' Sackville would say, +laughing, 'we couldn't do without him in the house. If +he didn't spoil the tapestry we should be 'over-cushioned +in a few months; and whom could we get but him to drink +Laura's home-made wine?' The truth is, the gents who +came from the City to dine at the 'Oval' could not be +induced to drink it--in which fastidiousness, I myself, +when I grew to be intimate with the family, confess that +I shared. + +'And yet, sir, that green ginger has been drunk by some +of England's proudest heroes,' Mrs. Chuff would exclaim. +'Admiral Lord Exmouth tasted and praised it, sir, on +board Captain Chuff's ship, the "Nebuchadnezzar," 74, at +Algiers; and he had three dozen with turn in the +"Pitchfork" frigate, a part of which was served +out to the men before he went into his immortal action +with the "Furibonde," Captain Choufleur, in the Gulf of +Panama.' + +All this, though the old dowager told us the story every +day when the wine was produced, never served to get rid +of any quantity of it--and the green ginger, though it +had fired British tars for combat and victory, was not to +the taste of us peaceful and degenerate gents of modern +times. + +I see Sackville now, as on the occasion when, presented +by Wagley, I paid my first visit to him. It was in July- +-a Sunday afternoon--Sackville Maine was coming from +church, with his wife on one arm, and his mother-ill-law +(in red tabinet, as usual,) on the other. A half-grown, +or hobbadehoyish footman, so to speak, walked after them, +carrying their shining golden prayer-books--the ladies +had splendid parasols with tags and fringes. Mrs. +Chuff's great gold watch, fastened to her stomach, +gleamed there like a ball of fire. Nelson Collingwood +was in the distance, shying stones at an old horse on +Kennington Common. 'Twas on that verdant spot we met-- +nor can I ever forget the majestic courtesy of Mrs. +Chuff, as she remembered having had the pleasure of +seeing me at Mrs. Perkins's--nor the glance of scorn +which she threw at an unfortunate gentleman who was +preaching an exceedingly desultory discourse to a +sceptical audience of omnibus-cads and nurse-maids, on a +tub, as we passed by. 'I cannot help it, sir,' says she; +'I am the widow of an officer of Britain's Navy: I was +taught to honour my Church and my King: and I cannot bear +a Radical or a Dissenter.' + +With these fine principles I found Sackville Maine +impressed. 'Wagley,' said he, to my introducer, 'if no +better engagement, why shouldn't self and friend dine at +the "Oval?" Mr. Snob, sir, the mutton's coming off the +spit at this very minute. Laura and Mrs. Chuff' (he said +LAURAR and Mrs. Chuff; but I hate people who make remarks +on these peculiarities of pronunciation,) 'will be most +happy to see you; and I can promise you a hearty welcome, +and as good a glass of port-wine as any in England.' + +'This is better than dining at the "Sarcophagus,"' thinks +I to myself, at which Club Wagley and I had intended to +take our meal; and so we accepted the kindly invitation, +whence arose afterwards a considerable intimacy. + +Everything about this family and house was so good- +natured, comfortable, and well-conditioned, that a cynic +would have ceased to growl there. Mrs. Laura was all +graciousness and smiles, and looked to as great advantage +in her pretty morning-gown as in her dress-robe at Mrs. +Perkins's. Mrs. Chuff fired off her stories about the +'Nebuchadnezzar,' 74, the action between the 'Pitchfork' +and the 'Furibonde'--the heroic resistance of Captain +Choufleur, and the quantity of snuff he took, &c. &c.; +which, as they were heard for the first time, were +pleasanter than I have subsequently found them. +Sackville Maine was the best of hosts. He agreed in +everything everybody said, altering his opinions without +the slightest reservation upon the slightest possible +contradiction. He was not one of those beings who would +emulate a Schonbein or Friar Bacon, or act the part of an +incendiary towards the Thames, his neighbour--but a good, +kind, simple, honest, easy fellow--in love with his wife- +-well disposed to all the world--content with himself, +content even with his mother-in-law. Nelson Collingwood, +I remember, in the course of the evening, when whisky- +and-water was for some reason produced, grew a little +tipsy. This did not in the least move Sackville's +equanimity. 'Take him upstairs, Joseph,' said he to the +hobbadehoy, 'and--Joseph--don't tell his mamma.' + +What could make a man so happily disposed, unhappy? What +could cause discomfort, bickering, and estrangement in a +family so friendly and united? Ladies, it was not my +fault--it was Mrs. Chuff's doing--but the rest of the +tale you shall have on a future day. + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +CLUB SNOBS + +The misfortune which befell the simple and good-natured +young Sackville, arose entirely from that abominable +'Sarcophagus Club;' and that he ever entered it was +partly the fault of the present writer. + +For seeing Mrs. Chuff, his mother-in-law, had a taste for +the genteel--(indeed, her talk was all about Lord +Collingwood, Lord Gambier, Sir Jahaleel Brenton, and the +Gosport and Plymouth balls)--Wagley and I, according to +our wont, trumped her conversation, and talked about +Lords, Dukes, Marquises, and Baronets, as if those +dignitaries were our familiar friends. + +'Lord Sextonbury,' says I, 'seems to have recovered her +ladyship's death. He and the Duke were very jolly over +their wine at the "Sarcophagus" last night; weren't they, +Wagley?' + +'Good fellow, the Duke,' Wagley replied. 'Pray, ma'am' +(to Mrs. Chuff), 'you who know the world and etiquette, +will you tell me what a man ought to do in my case? Last +June, his Grace, his son Lord Castlerampant, Tom Smith, +and myself were dining at the Club, when I offered the +odds against DADDYLONGLEGS for the Derby--forty to one, +in sovereigns only. His Grace took the bet, and of +course I won. He has never paid me. Now, can I ask such a +great man for a sovereign?--One more lump of sugar, if +you please, my dear madam.' + +It was lucky Wagley gave her this opportunity to elude +the question, for it prostrated the whole worthy family +among whom we were. They telegraphed each other with +wondering eyes. Mrs. Chuff's stories about the naval +nobility grew quite faint and kind little Mrs. Sackville +became uneasy, and went upstairs to look at the children- +-not at that young monster, Nelson Collingwood, who was +sleeping off the whisky-and-water--but at a couple of +little ones who had made their appearance at dessert, and +of whom she and Sackville were the happy parents. + +The end of this and subsequent meetings with Mr. Maine +was, that we proposed and got him elected as a member of +the 'Sarcophagus Club.' + +It was not done without a deal of opposition--the secret +having been whispered that the candidate was a coal- +merchant. You may be sure some of the proud people and +most of the parvenus of the Club were ready to blackball +him. We combated this opposition sucessfully, however. +We pointed out to the parvenus that the Lambtons and the +Stuarts sold coals: we mollified the proud by accounts of +his good birth, good nature, and good behaviour; and +Wagley went about on the day of election, describing with +great eloquence, the action between the 'Pitchfork' and +the 'Furibonde,' and the valour of Captain Maine, our +friend's father. There was a slight mistake in the +narrative; but we carried our man, with only a trifling +sprinkling of black beans in the boxes: Byles's, of +course, who blackballs everybody: and Bung's, who looks +down upon a coal-merchant, having himself lately retired +from the wine-trade. + +Some fortnight afterwards I saw Sackville Maine under the +following circumstances:-- + +He was showing the Club to his family. He had 'brought +them thither in the light-blue fly, waiting at the Club +door; with Mrs. Chuff's hobbadehoy footboy on the box, by +the side of the flyman, in a sham livery. Nelson +Collingwood; pretty Mrs. Sackville; Mrs. Captain Chuff +(Mrs. Commodore Chuff we call her), were all there; the +latter, of course, in the vermilion tabinet, which, +splendid as it is, is nothing in comparison to the +splendour of the 'Sarcophagus.' The delighted Sackville +Maine was pointing out the beauties of the place to them. +It seemed as beautiful as Paradise to that little party. + +The 'Sarcophagus' displays every known variety of +architecture and decoration. The great library is +Elizabethan; the small library is pointed Gothic; the +dining-room is severe Doric; the strangers' room has an +Egyptian look; the drawing-rooms are Louis Quatorze (so +called because the hideous ornanents displayed were used +in the time of Louis Quinze); the CORTILE, or hall, is +Morisco-Italian. It is all over marble, maplewood, +looking-glasses, arabesques, ormolu, and scagliola. +Scrolls, ciphers, dragons, Cupids, polyanthuses, and +other flowers writhe up the walls in every kind of +cornucopiosity. Fancy every gentleman in Jullien's band +playing with all his might, and each performing a +different tune; the ornaments at our Club, the +'Sarcophagus,' so bewilder and affect me. Dazzled with +emotions which I cannot describe, and which she dared not +reveal, Mrs. Chuff, followed by her children and son-in- +law, walked wondering amonst these blundering splendours. + +In the great library (225 feet long by 150) the only man +Mrs. Chuff saw, was Tiggs. He was lying on a crimson- +velvet sofa, reading a French novel of Paul de Kock. It +was a very little book. He is a very little man. In +that enormous hall he looked like a mere speck. As the +ladies passed breathless and trembling in the vastness of +the magnificent solitude, he threw a knowing, killing +glance at the fair strangers, as much as to say, 'Ain't I +a fine fellow?' They thought so, I am sure. + +'WHO IS THAT?,' hisses out Mrs. Chuff, when we were about +fifty yards off him at the other end of the room. + +'Tiggs!' says I, in a similar whisper. + +'Pretty comfortable this, isn't it, my dear?' says Maine +in a free-and-easy way to Mrs. Sackville; all the +magazines, you see--writing materials--new works--choice +library, containing every work of importance--what have +we here?--"Dugdale's Monasticon,' a most valuable and, I +believe, entertaining book.' + +And proposing to take down one of the books for Mrs. +Maine's inspection, he selected Volume VII., to which he +was attracted by the singular fact that a brass door- +handle grew out of the back. Instead of pulling out a +book, however, he pulled open a cupboard, only inhabited +by a lazy housemaid's broom and duster, at which he +looked exceedingly discomfited ; while Nelson +Collingwood, losing all respect, burst into a roar of +laughter. + +'That's the rummest book I ever saw,' says Nelson. 'I +wish we'd no others at Merchant Taylors'.' + +'Hush, Nelson!' cries Mrs. Chuff, and we went into the +other magnificent apartments. + +How they did admire the drawing-room hangings, (pink and +silver brocade, most excellent wear for London,) and +calculated the price per yard; and revelled on the +luxurious sofas; and gazed on the immeasurable looking- +glasses. + +'Pretty well to shave by, eh?' says Maine to his mother- +in-law. (He was getting more abominably conceited every +minute.) 'Get away, Sackville,' says she, quite +delighted, and threw a glance over her shoulder, and +spread out the wings of the red tabinet, and took a good +look at herself; so did Mrs. Sackville--just one, and I +thought the glass reflected a very smiling, pretty +creature. + +But what's a woman at a looking-glass? Bless the little +dears, it's their place. They fly to it naturally. It +pleases them, and they adorn it. What I like to see, and +watch with increasing joy and adoration, is the Club MEN +at the great looking-glasses. Old Gills pushing up his +collars and grinning at his own mottled face. Hulker +looking solemnly at his great person, and tightening his +coat to give himself a waist. Fred Minchin simpering by +as he is going out to dine, and casting upon the +reflection of his white neckcloth a pleased moony smile. +What a deal of vanity that Club mirror has reflected, to +be sure! + +Well, the ladies went through the whole establishment +with perfect pleasure. They beheld the coffee-rooms, and +the little tables laid for dinner, and the gentlemen who +were taking their lunch, and old Jawkins thundering away +as usual; they saw the reading-rooms, and the rush for +the evening papers; they saw the kitchens--those wonders +of art--where the CHEF was presiding over twenty pretty +kitchen-maids, and ten thousand shining saucepans: and +they got into the light-blue fly perfectly bewildered +with pleasure. + +Sackville did not enter it, though little Laura took the +back seat on purpose, and left him the front place +alongside of Mrs. Chuff's red tabinet. + +'We have your favourite dinner,' says she, in a timid +voice; 'won't you come, Sackville?' + +'I shall take a chop here to-day, my dear,' Sackville +replied. 'Home, James.' And he went up the steps of the +'Sarcophagus,' and the pretty face looked very sad out of +the carriage, as the blue fly drove away. + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +CLUB SNOBS + +Why--Why did I and Wagley ever do so cruel an action as +to introduce young Sackville Maine into that odious +'Sarcophagus'? Let our imprudence and his example be a +warning to other gents; let his fate and that of his poor +wife be remembered by every British female. The +consequences of his entering the Club were as follows:-- + +One of the first vices the unhappy wretch acquired in +this abode of frivolity was that of SMOKING. Some of the +dandies of the Club, such as the Marquis of Macabaw, Lord +Doodeen, and fellows of that high order, are in the habit +of indulging in this propensity upstairs in the billiard- +rooms of the 'Sarcophagus'-- and, partly to make their +acquaintance, partly from a natural aptitude for crime, +Sackville Maine followed them, and became an adept in the +odious custom. Where it is introduced into a family I +need not say how sad the consequences are, both to the +furniture and the morals. Sackville smoked in his +dining-room at home, and caused an agony to his wife and +mother-in-law which I do not venture to describe. + +He then became a professed BILLIARD-PLAYER, wasting hours +upon hours at that amusement; betting freely, playing +tolerably, losing awfully to Captain Spot and Col. +Cannon. He played matches of a hundred games with these +gentlemen, and would not only continue until four or five +o'clock in the morning at this work, but would be found +at the Club of a forenoon, indulging himself to the +detriment of his business, the ruin of his health, and +the neglect of his wife. + +>From billiards to whist is but a step--and when a man +gets to whist and five pounds on a rubber, my opinion is, +that it is all up with him. How was the coal business to +go on, and the connection of the firm to be kept up, and +the senior partner always at the card-table? + +Consorting now with genteel persons and Pall Mall bucks, +Sackville became ashamed of his snug little residence in +Kennington Oval, and transported his family to Pimlico, +where, though Mrs. Chuff, his mother-in-law, was at first +happy, as the quarter was elegant and near her Sovereign, +poor little Laura and the children found a woful +difference. Where were her friends who came in with +their work of a morning?--At Kennington and in the +vicinity of Clapham. 'Where were her children's little +playmates?--On Kennington Common. The great thundering +carriages that roared up and down the drab-coloured +streets of the new quarter, contained no friends for the +sociable little Laura. The children that paced the +squares, attended by a BONNE or a prim governess, were +not like those happy ones that flew kites, or played hop- +scotch, on the well-beloved old Common. And ah! what a +difference at Church too!--between St. Benedict's of +Pimlico, with open seats, service in sing-song--tapers -- +albs--surplices--garlands and processions, and the honest +old ways of Kennington! The footmen, too, attending St. +Benedict's were so splendid and enormous, that James, +Mrs. Chuff's boy, trembled amongst them, and said he +would give warning rather than carry the books to that +church any more. + +The furnishing of the house was not done without expense. + +And, ye gods! what a difference there was between +Sackville's dreary French banquets in Pimlico, and the +jolly dinners at the Oval! No more legs-of-mutton, no +more of 'the best port-wine in England;' but ENTREES on +plate, and dismal twopenny champagne, and waiters in +gloves, and the Club bucks for company--among whom Mrs. +Chuff was uneasy and Mrs. Sackville quite silent. + +Not that he dined at home often. The wretch had become a +perfect epicure, and dined commonly at the Club with the +gormandising clique there; with old Doctor Maw, Colonel +Cramley (who is as lean as a greyhound and has jaws like +a jack), and the rest of them. Here you might see the +wretch tippling Sillery champagne and gorging himself +with French viands; and I often looked with sorrow from +my table, (on which cold meat, the Club small-beer, and a +half-pint of Marsala form the modest banquet,) and sighed +to think it was my work. + +And there were other beings present to my repentant +thoughts. Where's his wife, thought I? Where's poor, +good, kind little Laura? At this very moment--it's about +the nursery bed-time, and while yonder good-for-nothing +is swilling his wine--the little ones are at Laura's +knees lisping their prayers: and she is teaching them to +say--'Pray God bless Papa.' + +When she has put them to bed, her day's occupation is +gone; and she is utterly lonely all night, and sad, and +waiting for him. + +Oh, for shame! Oh, for shame! Go home, thou idle +tippler. + +How Sackville lost his health : how he lost his business; +how he got into scrapes; how he got into debt; how he +became a railroad director; how the Pimlico house was +shut up; how he went to Boulogne,--all this I could tell, +only I am too much ashamed of my part of the transaction. +They returned to England, because, to the surprise of +everybody, Mrs. Chuff came down with a great sum of money +(which nobody knew she had saved), and paid his +liabilities. He is in England; but at Kennington. His +name is taken off the books of the 'Sarcophagus' long +ago. When we meet, he crosses over to the other side of +the street; I don't call, as I should be sorry to see a +look of reproach or sadness in Laura's sweet face. + +Not, however, all evil, as I am proud to think, has been +the influence of the Snob of England upon Clubs in +general:--Captain Shindy is afraid to bully the waiters +any more, and eats his mutton-chop without moving +Acheron. Gobemouche does not take more than two papers +at a time for his private reading. Tiggs does not ring +the bell and cause the library-waiter to walk about a +quarter of a mile in order to give him Vol. II., which +lies on the next table. Growler has ceased to walk from +table to table in the coffee-room, and inspect what +people are having for dinner. Trotty Veck takes his own +umbrella from the hall--the cotton one; and Sydney +Scraper's paletot lined with silk has been brought back +by Jobbins, who entirely mistook it for his own. Wiggle +has discontinued telling stories about the ladies he has +killed. Snooks does not any more think it gentlemanlike +to blackball attorneys. Snuffler no longer publicly +spreads out his great red cotton pocket-handkerchief +before the fire, for the admiration of two hundred +gentlemen; and if one Club Snob has been brought back to +the paths of rectitude, and if one poor John has been +spared a journey or a scolding--say, friends and brethren +if these sketches of Club Snobs have been in vain? + + + +CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON SNOBS + +How it is that we have come to No. 45 of this present +series of papers, my dear friends and brother Snobs, I +hardly know--but for a whole mortal year have we been +together, prattling, and abusing the human race; and were +we to live for a hundred years more, I believe there is +plenty of subject for conversation in the enormous theme +of Snobs. + +The national mind is awakened to the subject. Letters +pour in every day, conveying marks of sympathy; directing +the attention of the Snob of England to races of Snobs +yet undescribed. 'Where are your Theatrical Snobs; your +Commercial Snobs; your Medical and Chirurgical Snobs; +your Official Snobs; your Legal Snobs; your Artistical +Snobs; your Musical Snobs; your Sporting Snobs?' write my +esteemed correspondents. 'Surely you are not going to +miss the Cambridge Chancellor election, and omit showing +up your Don Snobs, who are coming, cap in hand, to a +young Prince of six-and-twenty, and to implore him to be +the chief of their renowned University?' writes a friend +who seals with the signet of the Cam and Isis Club. +'Pray, pray,' cries another, 'now the Operas are opening, +give us a lecture about Omnibus Snobs.' Indeed, I should +like to write a chapter about the Snobbish Dons very +much, and another about the Snobbish Dandies. Of my dear +Theatrical Snobs I think with a pang; and I can hardly +break away from some Snobbish artists, with whom I have +long, long intended to have a palaver. + +But what's the use of delaying? When these were done +there would be fresh Snobs to pourtray. The labour is +endless. No single man could complete it. Here are but +fifty-two bricks--and a pyramid to build. It is best to +stop. As Jones always quits the room as soon as he has +said his good thing,--as Cincinnatus and General +Washington both retired into private life in the height +of their popularity,--as Prince Albert, when he laid the +first stone of the Exchange, left the bricklayers to +complete that edifice and went home to his royal dinner,- +-as the poet Bunn comes forward at the end of the season, +and with feelings too tumultuous to describe, blesses his +KYIND friends over the footlights: so, friends, in the +flush of conquest and the splendour of victory, amid the +shouts and the plaudits of a people--triumphant yet +modest--the Snob of England bids ye farewell. + +But only for a season. Not for ever. No, no. There is +one celebrated author whom I admire very much--who has +been taking leave of the public any time these ten years +in his prefaces, and always comes back again when +everybody is glad to see him. How can he have the heart +to be saying good-bye so often? I believe that Bunn is +affected when he blesses the people. Parting is always +painful. Even the familiar bore is dear to you. I +should be sorry to shake hands even with Jawkins for the +last time. I think a well-constituted convict, on coming +home from transportation, ought to be rather sad when he +takes leave of Van Diemen's Land. When the curtain goes +down on the last night of a pantomime, poor old clown +must be very dismal, depend on it. Ha! with what joy he +rushes forward on the evening of the 26th of December +next, and says--'How are you?--Here we are!' But I am +growing too sentimental:--to return to the theme. + +THE NATIONAL MIND IS AWAKENED TO THE SUBJECT OF SNOBS. +The word Snob has taken a place in our honest English +vocabulary. We can't define it, perhaps. We can't say +what it is, any more than we can define wit, or humour, +or humbug; but we KNOW what it is. Some weeks since, +happening to have the felicity to sit next to a young +lady at a hospitable table, where poor old Jawkins was +holding forth in a very absurd pompous manner, I wrote +upon the spotless damask 'S--B,' and called my +neighbour's attention to the little remark. + +That young lady smiled. She knew it at once. Her mind +straightway filled up the two letters concealed by +apostrophic reserve, and I read in her assenting eyes +that she knew Jawkins was a Snob. You seldom get them to +make use of the word as yet, it is true; but it is +inconceivable how pretty an expression their little +smiling mouths assume when they speak it out. If any +young lady doubts, just let her go up to her own room, +look at herself steadily in the glass, and say 'Snob.' +If she tries this simple experiment, my life for it, she +will smile, and own that the word becomes her mouth +amazingly. A pretty little round word, all composed of +soft letters, with a hiss at the beginning, just to make +it piquant, as it were. + +Jawkins, meanwhile, went on blundering, and bragging and +boring, quite unconsciously. And so he will, no doubt, +go on roaring and braying, to the end of time or at least +so long as people will hear him. You cannot alter the +nature of men and Snobs by any force of satire; as, by +laying ever so many stripes on a donkey's back, you can't +turn him into a zebra. + +But we can warn the neighbourhood that the person whom +they and Jawkins admire is an impostor. We apply the +Snob test to him, and try whether he is conceited and a +quack, whether pompous and lacking humility--whether +uncharitable and proud of his narrow soul? How does he +treat a great man--how regard a small one? How does he +comport himself in the presence of His Grace the Duke; +and how in that of Smith the tradesman? + +And it seems to me that all English society is cursed by +this mammoniacal superstition; and that we are sneaking +and bowing and cringing on the one hand, or bullying and +scorning on the other, from the lowest to the highest. +My wife speaks with great circumspection--'proper pride,' +she calls it--to our neighbour the tradesman's lady: and +she, I mean Mrs. Snob,--Eliza--would give one of her eyes +to go to Court, as her cousin, the Captain's wife, did. +She, again, is a good soul, but it costs her agonies to +be obliged to confess that we live in Upper Thompson +Street, Somers Town. And though I believe in her heart +Mrs. Whiskerington is fonder of us than of her cousins, +the Smigsmags, you should hear how she goes on prattling +about Lady Smigsmag,--and 'I said to Sir John, my dear +John;' and about the Smigsmags' house and parties in Hyde +Park Terrace. + +Lady Smigsmag, when she meets Eliza,--who is a sort of a +kind of a species of a connection of the family, pokes +out one finger, which my wife is at liberty to embrace in +the most cordial manner she can devise. But oh, you +should see her ladyship's behaviour on her first-chop +dinner-party days, when Lord and Lady Longears come! + +I can bear it no longer--this diabolical invention of +gentility which kills natural kindliness and honest +friendship. Proper pride, indeed! Rank and precedence, +forsooth! The table of ranks and degrees is a lie, and +should be flung into the fire. Organize rank and +precedence! that was well for the masters of ceremonies +of former ages. Come forward, some great marshal, and +organize Equality in society, and your rod shall swallow +up all the juggling old court goldsticks. If this is not +gospel-truth--if the world does not tend to this--if +hereditary-great-man worship is not a humbug and an +idolatry--let us have the Stuarts back again, and crop +the Free Press's ears in the pillory. + +If ever our cousins, the Smigsmags, asked me to meet Lord +Longears, I would like to take an opportunity after +dinner and say, in the most good-natured way in the +world:--Sir, Fortune makes you a present of a number of +thousand pounds every year. The ineffable wisdom of our +ancestors has placed you as a chief and hereditary +legislator over me. Our admirable Constitution (the +pride of Britons and envy of surrounding nations) obliges +me to receive you as my senator, superior, and guardian. +Your eldest son, Fitz-Heehaw, is sure of a place in +Parliament; your younger sons, the De Brays, will kindly +condescend to be post-captains and lieutenants-colonels, +and to represent us in foreign courts or to take a good +living when it falls convenient. These prizes our +admirable Constitution (the pride and envy of, &c.) +pronounces to be your due: without count of your dulness, +your vices, your selfishness; or your entire incapacity +and folly. Dull as you may be (and we have as good a +right to assume that my lord is an ass, as the other +proposition, that he is an enlightened patriot);--dull, I +say, as you may be, no one will accuse you of such +monstrous folly, as to suppose that you are indifferent +to the good luck which you possess, or have any +inclination to part with it. No--and patriots as we are, +under happier circumstances, Smith and I, I have no +doubt, were we dukes ourselves, would stand by our order. + +We would submit good-naturedly to sit in a high place. +We would acquiesce in that admirable Constitution (pride +and envy of, &c.) which made us chiefs and the world our +inferiors; we would not cavil particularly at that notion +of hereditary superiority which brought many simple +people cringing to our knees. May be we would rally +round the Corn-Laws; we would make a stand against the +Reform Bill; we would die rather than repeal the Acts +against Catholics and Dissenters; we would, by our noble +system of class-legislation, bring Ireland to its present +admirable condition. + +But Smith and I are not Earls as yet. 'We don't believe +that it is for the interest of Smith's army that De Bray +should be a Colonel at five-and-twenty, of Smith's +diplomatic relations that Lord Longears should go +Ambassador to Constantinople,--of our politics, that +Longears should put his hereditary foot into them. + +This bowing and cringing Smith believes to be the act of +Snobs; and he will do all in his might and main to be a +Snob and to submit to Snobs no longer. To Longears he +says, 'We can't help seeing, Longears, that we are as +good as you. We can spell even better; can think quite +as rightly; we will not have you for our master, or black +your shoes any more. Your footmen do it, but they are +paid; and the fellow who comes to get a list of the +company when you give a banquet or a dancing breakfast at +Longueoreille House, gets money from the newspapers for +performing that service. But for us, thank you for +nothing, Longears my boy, and we don't wish to pay you +any more than we owe. We will take off our hats to +Wellington because he is Wellington; but to you--who are +you?" + +I am sick of COURT CIRCULARS. I loathe HAUT-TON +intelligence. I believe such words as Fashionable, +Exclusive, Aristocratic, and the like, to be wicked, +unchristian epithets, that ought to be banished from +honest vocabularies. A Court system that sends men of +genius to the second table, I hold to be a Snobbish +system. A society that sets up to be polite, and ignores +Arts and Letters, I hold to be a Snobbish society. You, +who despise your neighbour, are a Snob; you, who forget +your own friends, meanly to follow after those of a +higher degree, are a Snob; you, who are ashamed of your +poverty, and blush for your calling, are a Snob; as are +you who boast of your pedigree, or are proud of your +wealth. + +To laugh at such is MR. PUNCH'S business. May he laugh +honestly, hit no foul blow, and tell the truth when at +his very broadest grin--never forgetting that if Fun is +good, Truth is still better, and Love best of all. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Book of Snobs, by Thackeray + diff --git a/old/snobs10.zip b/old/snobs10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..890e83c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/snobs10.zip |