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+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
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