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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sketches of Young Gentlemen, by Charles Dickens
+(#26 in our series by Charles Dickens)
+
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+Title: Sketches of Young Gentlemen
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+Release Date: May, 1997  [EBook #918]
+[This file was first posted on May 23, 1997]
+[Most recently updated: May 8, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SKETCHES OF YOUNG GENTLEMEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1903 edition by David Price,
+email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+SKETCHES OF YOUNG GENTLEMEN
+
+
+
+
+TO THE YOUNG LADIES
+OF THE
+UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND;
+ALSO
+THE YOUNG LADIES
+OF
+THE PRINCIPALITY OF WALES,
+AND LIKEWISE
+THE YOUNG LADIES
+RESIDENT IN THE ISLES OF
+GUERNSEY, JERSEY, ALDERNEY, AND SARK,
+THE HUMBLE DEDICATION OF THEIR DEVOTED ADMIRER,
+
+SHEWETH, -
+
+THAT your Dedicator has perused, with feelings of virtuous
+indignation, a work purporting to be 'Sketches of Young Ladies;'
+written by Quiz, illustrated by Phiz, and published in one volume,
+square twelvemo.
+
+THAT after an attentive and vigilant perusal of the said work, your
+Dedicator is humbly of opinion that so many libels, upon your
+Honourable sex, were never contained in any previously published
+work, in twelvemo or any other mo.
+
+THAT in the title page and preface to the said work, your
+Honourable sex are described and classified as animals; and
+although your Dedicator is not at present prepared to deny that you
+ARE animals, still he humbly submits that it is not polite to call
+you so.
+
+THAT in the aforesaid preface, your Honourable sex are also
+described as Troglodites, which, being a hard word, may, for aught
+your Honourable sex or your Dedicator can say to the contrary, be
+an injurious and disrespectful appellation.
+
+THAT the author of the said work applied himself to his task in
+malice prepense and with wickedness aforethought; a fact which,
+your Dedicator contends, is sufficiently demonstrated, by his
+assuming the name of Quiz, which, your Dedicator submits, denotes a
+foregone conclusion, and implies an intention of quizzing.
+
+THAT in the execution of his evil design, the said Quiz, or author
+of the said work, must have betrayed some trust or confidence
+reposed in him by some members of your Honourable sex, otherwise he
+never could have acquired so much information relative to the
+manners and customs of your Honourable sex in general.
+
+THAT actuated by these considerations, and further moved by various
+slanders and insinuations respecting your Honourable sex contained
+in the said work, square twelvemo, entitled 'Sketches of Young
+Ladies,' your Dedicator ventures to produce another work, square
+twelvemo, entitled 'Sketches of Young Gentlemen,' of which he now
+solicits your acceptance and approval.
+
+THAT as the Young Ladies are the best companions of the Young
+Gentlemen, so the Young Gentlemen should be the best companions of
+the Young Ladies; and extending the comparison from animals (to
+quote the disrespectful language of the said Quiz) to inanimate
+objects, your Dedicator humbly suggests, that such of your
+Honourable sex as purchased the bane should possess themselves of
+the antidote, and that those of your Honourable sex who were not
+rash enough to take the first, should lose no time in swallowing
+the last,-prevention being in all cases better than cure, as we are
+informed upon the authority, not only of general acknowledgment,
+but also of traditionary wisdom.
+
+THAT with reference to the said bane and antidote, your Dedicator
+has no further remarks to make, than are comprised in the printed
+directions issued with Doctor Morison's pills; namely, that
+whenever your Honourable sex take twenty-five of Number, 1, you
+will be pleased to take fifty of Number 2, without delay.
+
+And your Dedicator shall ever pray, &c.
+
+
+
+THE BASHFUL YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+We found ourself seated at a small dinner party the other day,
+opposite a stranger of such singular appearance and manner, that he
+irresistibly attracted our attention.
+
+This was a fresh-coloured young gentleman, with as good a promise
+of light whisker as one might wish to see, and possessed of a very
+velvet-like, soft-looking countenance.  We do not use the latter
+term invidiously, but merely to denote a pair of smooth, plump,
+highly-coloured cheeks of capacious dimensions, and a mouth rather
+remarkable for the fresh hue of the lips than for any marked or
+striking expression it presented.  His whole face was suffused with
+a crimson blush, and bore that downcast, timid, retiring look,
+which betokens a man ill at ease with himself.
+
+There was nothing in these symptoms to attract more than a passing
+remark, but our attention had been originally drawn to the bashful
+young gentleman, on his first appearance in the drawing-room above-
+stairs, into which he was no sooner introduced, than making his way
+towards us who were standing in a window, and wholly neglecting
+several persons who warmly accosted him, he seized our hand with
+visible emotion, and pressed it with a convulsive grasp for a good
+couple of minutes, after which he dived in a nervous manner across
+the room, oversetting in his way a fine little girl of six years
+and a quarter old-and shrouding himself behind some hangings, was
+seen no more, until the eagle eye of the hostess detecting him in
+his concealment, on the announcement of dinner, he was requested to
+pair off with a lively single lady, of two or three and thirty.
+
+This most flattering salutation from a perfect stranger, would have
+gratified us not a little as a token of his having held us in high
+respect, and for that reason been desirous of our acquaintance, if
+we had not suspected from the first, that the young gentleman, in
+making a desperate effort to get through the ceremony of
+introduction, had, in the bewilderment of his ideas, shaken hands
+with us at random.  This impression was fully confirmed by the
+subsequent behaviour of the bashful young gentleman in question,
+which we noted particularly, with the view of ascertaining whether
+we were right in our conjecture.
+
+The young gentleman seated himself at table with evident
+misgivings, and turning sharp round to pay attention to some
+observation of his loquacious neighbour, overset his bread.  There
+was nothing very bad in this, and if he had had the presence of
+mind to let it go, and say nothing about it, nobody but the man who
+had laid the cloth would have been a bit the wiser; but the young
+gentleman in various semi-successful attempts to prevent its fall,
+played with it a little, as gentlemen in the streets may be seen to
+do with their hats on a windy day, and then giving the roll a smart
+rap in his anxiety to catch it, knocked it with great adroitness
+into a tureen of white soup at some distance, to the unspeakable
+terror and disturbance of a very amiable bald gentleman, who was
+dispensing the contents.  We thought the bashful young gentleman
+would have gone off in an apoplectic fit, consequent upon the
+violent rush of blood to his face at the occurrence of this
+catastrophe.
+
+From this moment we perceived, in the phraseology of the fancy,
+that it was 'all up' with the bashful young gentleman, and so
+indeed it was.  Several benevolent persons endeavoured to relieve
+his embarrassment by taking wine with him, but finding that it only
+augmented his sufferings, and that after mingling sherry,
+champagne, hock, and moselle together, he applied the greater part
+of the mixture externally, instead of internally, they gradually
+dropped off, and left him to the exclusive care of the talkative
+lady, who, not noting the wildness of his eye, firmly believed she
+had secured a listener.  He broke a glass or two in the course of
+the meal, and disappeared shortly afterwards; it is inferred that
+he went away in some confusion, inasmuch as he left the house in
+another gentleman's coat, and the footman's hat.
+
+This little incident led us to reflect upon the most prominent
+characteristics of bashful young gentlemen in the abstract; and as
+this portable volume will be the great text-book of young ladies in
+all future generations, we record them here for their guidance and
+behoof.
+
+If the bashful young gentleman, in turning a street corner, chance
+to stumble suddenly upon two or three young ladies of his
+acquaintance, nothing can exceed his confusion and agitation.  His
+first impulse is to make a great variety of bows, and dart past
+them, which he does until, observing that they wish to stop, but
+are uncertain whether to do so or not, he makes several feints of
+returning, which causes them to do the same; and at length, after a
+great quantity of unnecessary dodging and falling up against the
+other passengers, he returns and shakes hands most affectionately
+with all of them, in doing which he knocks out of their grasp
+sundry little parcels, which he hastily picks up, and returns very
+muddy and disordered.  The chances are that the bashful young
+gentleman then observes it is very fine weather, and being reminded
+that it has only just left off raining for the first time these
+three days, he blushes very much, and smiles as if he had said a
+very good thing.  The young lady who was most anxious to speak,
+here inquires, with an air of great commiseration, how his dear
+sister Harriet is to-day; to which the young gentleman, without the
+slightest consideration, replies with many thanks, that she is
+remarkably well.  'Well, Mr. Hopkins!' cries the young lady, 'why,
+we heard she was bled yesterday evening, and have been perfectly
+miserable about her.'  'Oh, ah,' says the young gentleman, 'so she
+was.  Oh, she's very ill, very ill indeed.'  The young gentleman
+then shakes his head, and looks very desponding (he has been
+smiling perpetually up to this time), and after a short pause,
+gives his glove a great wrench at the wrist, and says, with a
+strong emphasis on the adjective, 'GOOD morning, GOOD morning.'
+And making a great number of bows in acknowledgment of several
+little messages to his sister, walks backward a few paces, and
+comes with great violence against a lamp-post, knocking his hat off
+in the contact, which in his mental confusion and bodily pain he is
+going to walk away without, until a great roar from a carter
+attracts his attention, when he picks it up, and tries to smile
+cheerfully to the young ladies, who are looking back, and who, he
+has the satisfaction of seeing, are all laughing heartily.
+
+At a quadrille party, the bashful young gentleman always remains as
+near the entrance of the room as possible, from which position he
+smiles at the people he knows as they come in, and sometimes steps
+forward to shake hands with more intimate friends:  a process which
+on each repetition seems to turn him a deeper scarlet than before.
+He declines dancing the first set or two, observing, in a faint
+voice, that he would rather wait a little; but at length is
+absolutely compelled to allow himself to be introduced to a
+partner, when he is led, in a great heat and blushing furiously,
+across the room to a spot where half-a-dozen unknown ladies are
+congregated together.
+
+'Miss Lambert, let me introduce Mr. Hopkins for the next
+quadrille.'  Miss Lambert inclines her head graciously.  Mr.
+Hopkins bows, and his fair conductress disappears, leaving Mr.
+Hopkins, as he too well knows, to make himself agreeable.  The
+young lady more than half expects that the bashful young gentleman
+will say something, and the bashful young gentleman feeling this,
+seriously thinks whether he has got anything to say, which, upon
+mature reflection, he is rather disposed to conclude he has not,
+since nothing occurs to him.  Meanwhile, the young lady, after
+several inspections of her bouquet, all made in the expectation
+that the bashful young gentleman is going to talk, whispers her
+mamma, who is sitting next her, which whisper the bashful young
+gentleman immediately suspects (and possibly with very good reason)
+must be about HIM.  In this comfortable condition he remains until
+it is time to 'stand up,' when murmuring a 'Will you allow me?' he
+gives the young lady his arm, and after inquiring where she will
+stand, and receiving a reply that she has no choice, conducts her
+to the remotest corner of the quadrille, and making one attempt at
+conversation, which turns out a desperate failure, preserves a
+profound silence until it is all over, when he walks her twice
+round the room, deposits her in her old seat, and retires in
+confusion.
+
+A married bashful gentleman-for these bashful gentlemen do get
+married sometimes; how it is ever brought about, is a mystery to
+us-a married bashful gentleman either causes his wife to appear
+bold by contrast, or merges her proper importance in his own
+insignificance.  Bashful young gentlemen should be cured, or
+avoided.  They are never hopeless, and never will be, while female
+beauty and attractions retain their influence, as any young lady
+will find, who may think it worth while on this confident assurance
+to take a patient in hand.
+
+
+
+THE OUT-AND-OUT YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+Out-and-out young gentlemen may be divided into two classes-those
+who have something to do, and those who have nothing.  I shall
+commence with the former, because that species come more frequently
+under the notice of young ladies, whom it is our province to warn
+and to instruct.
+
+The out-and-out young gentleman is usually no great dresser, his
+instructions to his tailor being all comprehended in the one
+general direction to 'make that what's-a-name a regular bang-up
+sort of thing.'  For some years past, the favourite costume of the
+out-and-out young gentleman has been a rough pilot coat, with two
+gilt hooks and eyes to the velvet collar; buttons somewhat larger
+than crown-pieces; a black or fancy neckerchief, loosely tied; a
+wide-brimmed hat, with a low crown; tightish inexpressibles, and
+iron-shod boots.  Out of doors he sometimes carries a large ash
+stick, but only on special occasions, for he prefers keeping his
+hands in his coat pockets.  He smokes at all hours, of course, and
+swears considerably.
+
+The out-and-out young gentleman is employed in a city counting-
+house or solicitor's office, in which he does as little as he
+possibly can:  his chief places of resort are, the streets, the
+taverns, and the theatres.  In the streets at evening time, out-
+and-out young gentlemen have a pleasant custom of walking six or
+eight abreast, thus driving females and other inoffensive persons
+into the road, which never fails to afford them the highest
+satisfaction, especially if there be any immediate danger of their
+being run over, which enhances the fun of the thing materially.  In
+all places of public resort, the out-and-outers are careful to
+select each a seat to himself, upon which he lies at full length,
+and (if the weather be very dirty, but not in any other case) he
+lies with his knees up, and the soles of his boots planted firmly
+on the cushion, so that if any low fellow should ask him to make
+room for a lady, he takes ample revenge upon her dress, without
+going at all out of his way to do it.  He always sits with his hat
+on, and flourishes his stick in the air while the play is
+proceeding, with a dignified contempt of the performance; if it be
+possible for one or two out-and-out young gentlemen to get up a
+little crowding in the passages, they are quite in their element,
+squeezing, pushing, whooping, and shouting in the most humorous
+manner possible.  If they can only succeed in irritating the
+gentleman who has a family of daughters under his charge, they are
+like to die with laughing, and boast of it among their companions
+for a week afterwards, adding, that one or two of them were
+'devilish fine girls,' and that they really thought the youngest
+would have fainted, which was the only thing wanted to render the
+joke complete.
+
+If the out-and-out young gentleman have a mother and sisters, of
+course he treats them with becoming contempt, inasmuch as they
+(poor things!) having no notion of life or gaiety, are far too
+weak-spirited and moping for him.  Sometimes, however, on a birth-
+day or at Christmas-time, he cannot very well help accompanying
+them to a party at some old friend's, with which view he comes home
+when they have been dressed an hour or two, smelling very strongly
+of tobacco and spirits, and after exchanging his rough coat for
+some more suitable attire (in which however he loses nothing of the
+out-and-outer), gets into the coach and grumbles all the way at his
+own good nature:  his bitter reflections aggravated by the
+recollection, that Tom Smith has taken the chair at a little
+impromptu dinner at a fighting man's, and that a set-to was to take
+place on a dining-table, between the fighting man and his brother-
+in-law, which is probably 'coming off' at that very instant.
+
+As the out-and-out young gentleman is by no means at his ease in
+ladies' society, he shrinks into a corner of the drawing-room when
+they reach the friend's, and unless one of his sisters is kind
+enough to talk to him, remains there without being much troubled by
+the attentions of other people, until he espies, lingering outside
+the door, another gentleman, whom he at once knows, by his air and
+manner (for there is a kind of free-masonry in the craft), to be a
+brother out-and-outer, and towards whom he accordingly makes his
+way.  Conversation being soon opened by some casual remark, the
+second out-and-outer confidentially informs the first, that he is
+one of the rough sort and hates that kind of thing, only he
+couldn't very well be off coming; to which the other replies, that
+that's just his case-'and I'll tell you what,' continues the out-
+and-outer in a whisper, 'I should like a glass of warm brandy and
+water just now,'-'Or a pint of stout and a pipe,' suggests the
+other out-and-outer.
+
+The discovery is at once made that they are sympathetic souls; each
+of them says at the same moment, that he sees the other understands
+what's what:  and they become fast friends at once, more especially
+when it appears, that the second out-and-outer is no other than a
+gentleman, long favourably known to his familiars as 'Mr. Warmint
+Blake,' who upon divers occasions has distinguished himself in a
+manner that would not have disgraced the fighting man, and who-
+having been a pretty long time about town-had the honour of once
+shaking hands with the celebrated Mr. Thurtell himself.
+
+At supper, these gentlemen greatly distinguish themselves,
+brightening up very much when the ladies leave the table, and
+proclaiming aloud their intention of beginning to spend the
+evening-a process which is generally understood to be
+satisfactorily performed, when a great deal of wine is drunk and a
+great deal of noise made, both of which feats the out-and-out young
+gentlemen execute to perfection.  Having protracted their sitting
+until long after the host and the other guests have adjourned to
+the drawing-room, and finding that they have drained the decanters
+empty, they follow them thither with complexions rather heightened,
+and faces rather bloated with wine; and the agitated lady of the
+house whispers her friends as they waltz together, to the great
+terror of the whole room, that 'both Mr. Blake and Mr. Dummins are
+very nice sort of young men in their way, only they are eccentric
+persons, and unfortunately RATHER TOO WILD!'
+
+The remaining class of out-and-out young gentlemen is composed of
+persons, who, having no money of their own and a soul above earning
+any, enjoy similar pleasures, nobody knows how.  These respectable
+gentlemen, without aiming quite so much at the out-and-out in
+external appearance, are distinguished by all the same amiable and
+attractive characteristics, in an equal or perhaps greater degree,
+and now and then find their way into society, through the medium of
+the other class of out-and-out young gentlemen, who will sometimes
+carry them home, and who usually pay their tavern bills.  As they
+are equally gentlemanly, clever, witty, intelligent, wise, and
+well-bred, we need scarcely have recommended them to the peculiar
+consideration of the young ladies, if it were not that some of the
+gentle creatures whom we hold in such high respect, are perhaps a
+little too apt to confound a great many heavier terms with the
+light word eccentricity, which we beg them henceforth to take in a
+strictly Johnsonian sense, without any liberality or latitude of
+construction.
+
+
+
+THE VERY FRIENDLY YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+We know-and all people know-so many specimens of this class, that
+in selecting the few heads our limits enable us to take from a
+great number, we have been induced to give the very friendly young
+gentleman the preference over many others, to whose claims upon a
+more cursory view of the question we had felt disposed to assign
+the priority.
+
+The very friendly young gentleman is very friendly to everybody,
+but he attaches himself particularly to two, or at most to three
+families:  regulating his choice by their dinners, their circle of
+acquaintance, or some other criterion in which he has an immediate
+interest.  He is of any age between twenty and forty, unmarried of
+course, must be fond of children, and is expected to make himself
+generally useful if possible.  Let us illustrate our meaning by an
+example, which is the shortest mode and the clearest.
+
+We encountered one day, by chance, an old friend of whom we had
+lost sight for some years, and who-expressing a strong anxiety to
+renew our former intimacy-urged us to dine with him on an early
+day, that we might talk over old times.  We readily assented,
+adding, that we hoped we should be alone.  'Oh, certainly,
+certainly,' said our friend, 'not a soul with us but Mincin.'  'And
+who is Mincin?' was our natural inquiry.  'O don't mind him,'
+replied our friend, 'he's a most particular friend of mine, and a
+very friendly fellow you will find him;' and so he left us.
+
+'We thought no more about Mincin until we duly presented ourselves
+at the house next day, when, after a hearty welcome, our friend
+motioned towards a gentleman who had been previously showing his
+teeth by the fireplace, and gave us to understand that it was Mr.
+Mincin, of whom he had spoken.  It required no great penetration on
+our part to discover at once that Mr. Mincin was in every respect a
+very friendly young gentleman.
+
+'I am delighted,' said Mincin, hastily advancing, and pressing our
+hand warmly between both of his, 'I am delighted, I am sure, to
+make your acquaintance-(here he smiled)-very much delighted indeed-
+(here he exhibited a little emotion)-I assure you that I have
+looked forward to it anxiously for a very long time:' here he
+released our hands, and rubbing his own, observed, that the day was
+severe, but that he was delighted to perceive from our appearance
+that it agreed with us wonderfully; and then went on to observe,
+that, notwithstanding the coldness of the weather, he had that
+morning seen in the paper an exceedingly curious paragraph, to the
+effect, that there was now in the garden of Mr. Wilkins of
+Chichester, a pumpkin, measuring four feet in height, and eleven
+feet seven inches in circumference, which he looked upon as a very
+extraordinary piece of intelligence.  We ventured to remark, that
+we had a dim recollection of having once or twice before observed a
+similar paragraph in the public prints, upon which Mr. Mincin took
+us confidentially by the button, and said, Exactly, exactly, to be
+sure, we were very right, and he wondered what the editors meant by
+putting in such things.  Who the deuce, he should like to know, did
+they suppose cared about them? that struck him as being the best of
+it.
+
+The lady of the house appeared shortly afterwards, and Mr. Mincin's
+friendliness, as will readily be supposed, suffered no diminution
+in consequence; he exerted much strength and skill in wheeling a
+large easy-chair up to the fire, and the lady being seated in it,
+carefully closed the door, stirred the fire, and looked to the
+windows to see that they admitted no air; having satisfied himself
+upon all these points, he expressed himself quite easy in his mind,
+and begged to know how she found herself to-day.  Upon the lady's
+replying very well, Mr. Mincin (who it appeared was a medical
+gentleman) offered some general remarks upon the nature and
+treatment of colds in the head, which occupied us agreeably until
+dinner-time.  During the meal, he devoted himself to complimenting
+everybody, not forgetting himself, so that we were an uncommonly
+agreeable quartette.
+
+'I'll tell you what, Capper,' said Mr. Mincin to our host, as he
+closed the room door after the lady had retired, 'you have very
+great reason to be fond of your wife.  Sweet woman, Mrs. Capper,
+sir!'  'Nay, Mincin-I beg,' interposed the host, as we were about
+to reply that Mrs. Capper unquestionably was particularly sweet.
+'Pray, Mincin, don't.'  'Why not?' exclaimed Mr. Mincin, 'why not?
+Why should you feel any delicacy before your old friend-OUR old
+friend, if I may be allowed to call you so, sir; why should you, I
+ask?'  We of course wished to know why he should also, upon which
+our friend admitted that Mrs. Capper WAS a very sweet woman, at
+which admission Mr. Mincin cried 'Bravo!' and begged to propose
+Mrs. Capper with heartfelt enthusiasm, whereupon our host said,
+'Thank you, Mincin,' with deep feeling; and gave us, in a low
+voice, to understand, that Mincin had saved Mrs. Capper's cousin's
+life no less than fourteen times in a year and a half, which he
+considered no common circumstance-an opinion to which we most
+cordially subscribed.
+
+Now that we three were left to entertain ourselves with
+conversation, Mr. Mincin's extreme friendliness became every moment
+more apparent; he was so amazingly friendly, indeed, that it was
+impossible to talk about anything in which he had not the chief
+concern.  We happened to allude to some affairs in which our friend
+and we had been mutually engaged nearly fourteen years before, when
+Mr. Mincin was all at once reminded of a joke which our friend had
+made on that day four years, which he positively must insist upon
+telling-and which he did tell accordingly, with many pleasant
+recollections of what he said, and what Mrs. Capper said, and how
+he well remembered that they had been to the play with orders on
+the very night previous, and had seen Romeo and Juliet, and the
+pantomime, and how Mrs. Capper being faint had been led into the
+lobby, where she smiled, said it was nothing after all, and went
+back again, with many other interesting and absorbing particulars:
+after which the friendly young gentleman went on to assure us, that
+our friend had experienced a marvellously prophetic opinion of that
+same pantomime, which was of such an admirable kind, that two
+morning papers took the same view next day:  to this our friend
+replied, with a little triumph, that in that instance he had some
+reason to think he had been correct, which gave the friendly young
+gentleman occasion to believe that our friend was always correct;
+and so we went on, until our friend, filling a bumper, said he must
+drink one glass to his dear friend Mincin, than whom he would say
+no man saved the lives of his acquaintances more, or had a more
+friendly heart.  Finally, our friend having emptied his glass,
+said, 'God bless you, Mincin,'-and Mr. Mincin and he shook hands
+across the table with much affection and earnestness.
+
+But great as the friendly young gentleman is, in a limited scene
+like this, he plays the same part on a larger scale with increased
+eclat.  Mr. Mincin is invited to an evening party with his dear
+friends the Martins, where he meets his dear friends the Cappers,
+and his dear friends the Watsons, and a hundred other dear friends
+too numerous to mention.  He is as much at home with the Martins as
+with the Cappers; but how exquisitely he balances his attentions,
+and divides them among his dear friends!  If he flirts with one of
+the Miss Watsons, he has one little Martin on the sofa pulling his
+hair, and the other little Martin on the carpet riding on his foot.
+He carries Mrs. Watson down to supper on one arm, and Miss Martin
+on the other, and takes wine so judiciously, and in such exact
+order, that it is impossible for the most punctilious old lady to
+consider herself neglected.  If any young lady, being prevailed
+upon to sing, become nervous afterwards, Mr. Mincin leads her
+tenderly into the next room, and restores her with port wine, which
+she must take medicinally.  If any gentleman be standing by the
+piano during the progress of the ballad, Mr. Mincin seizes him by
+the arm at one point of the melody, and softly beating time the
+while with his head, expresses in dumb show his intense perception
+of the delicacy of the passage.  If anybody's self-love is to be
+flattered, Mr. Mincin is at hand.  If anybody's overweening vanity
+is to be pampered, Mr. Mincin will surfeit it.  What wonder that
+people of all stations and ages recognise Mr. Mincin's
+friendliness; that he is universally allowed to be handsome as
+amiable; that mothers think him an oracle, daughters a dear,
+brothers a beau, and fathers a wonder!  And who would not have the
+reputation of the very friendly young gentleman?
+
+
+
+THE MILITARY YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+We are rather at a loss to imagine how it has come to pass that
+military young gentlemen have obtained so much favour in the eyes
+of the young ladies of this kingdom.  We cannot think so lightly of
+them as to suppose that the mere circumstance of a man's wearing a
+red coat ensures him a ready passport to their regard; and even if
+this were the case, it would be no satisfactory explanation of the
+circumstance, because, although the analogy may in some degree hold
+good in the case of mail coachmen and guards, still general postmen
+wear red coats, and THEY are not to our knowledge better received
+than other men; nor are firemen either, who wear (or used to wear)
+not only red coats, but very resplendent and massive badges
+besides-much larger than epaulettes.  Neither do the twopenny post-
+office boys, if the result of our inquiries be correct, find any
+peculiar favour in woman's eyes, although they wear very bright red
+jackets, and have the additional advantage of constantly appearing
+in public on horseback, which last circumstance may be naturally
+supposed to be greatly in their favour.
+
+We have sometimes thought that this phenomenon may take its rise in
+the conventional behaviour of captains and colonels and other
+gentlemen in red coats on the stage, where they are invariably
+represented as fine swaggering fellows, talking of nothing but
+charming girls, their king and country, their honour, and their
+debts, and crowing over the inferior classes of the community, whom
+they occasionally treat with a little gentlemanly swindling, no
+less to the improvement and pleasure of the audience, than to the
+satisfaction and approval of the choice spirits who consort with
+them.  But we will not devote these pages to our speculations upon
+the subject, inasmuch as our business at the present moment is not
+so much with the young ladies who are bewitched by her Majesty's
+livery as with the young gentlemen whose heads are turned by it.
+For 'heads' we had written 'brains;' but upon consideration, we
+think the former the more appropriate word of the two.
+
+These young gentlemen may be divided into two classes-young
+gentlemen who are actually in the army, and young gentlemen who,
+having an intense and enthusiastic admiration for all things
+appertaining to a military life, are compelled by adverse fortune
+or adverse relations to wear out their existence in some ignoble
+counting-house.  We will take this latter description of military
+young gentlemen first.
+
+The whole heart and soul of the military young gentleman are
+concentrated in his favourite topic.  There is nothing that he is
+so learned upon as uniforms; he will tell you, without faltering
+for an instant, what the habiliments of any one regiment are turned
+up with, what regiment wear stripes down the outside and inside of
+the leg, and how many buttons the Tenth had on their coats; he
+knows to a fraction how many yards and odd inches of gold lace it
+takes to make an ensign in the Guards; is deeply read in the
+comparative merits of different bands, and the apparelling of
+trumpeters; and is very luminous indeed in descanting upon 'crack
+regiments,' and the 'crack' gentlemen who compose them, of whose
+mightiness and grandeur he is never tired of telling.
+
+We were suggesting to a military young gentleman only the other
+day, after he had related to us several dazzling instances of the
+profusion of half-a-dozen honourable ensign somebodies or nobodies
+in the articles of kid gloves and polished boots, that possibly
+'cracked' regiments would be an improvement upon 'crack,' as being
+a more expressive and appropriate designation, when he suddenly
+interrupted us by pulling out his watch, and observing that he must
+hurry off to the Park in a cab, or he would be too late to hear the
+band play.  Not wishing to interfere with so important an
+engagement, and being in fact already slightly overwhelmed by the
+anecdotes of the honourable ensigns afore-mentioned, we made no
+attempt to detain the military young gentleman, but parted company
+with ready good-will.
+
+Some three or four hours afterwards, we chanced to be walking down
+Whitehall, on the Admiralty side of the way, when, as we drew near
+to one of the little stone places in which a couple of horse
+soldiers mount guard in the daytime, we were attracted by the
+motionless appearance and eager gaze of a young gentleman, who was
+devouring both man and horse with his eyes, so eagerly, that he
+seemed deaf and blind to all that was passing around him.  We were
+not much surprised at the discovery that it was our friend, the
+military young gentleman, but we WERE a little astonished when we
+returned from a walk to South Lambeth to find him still there,
+looking on with the same intensity as before.  As it was a very
+windy day, we felt bound to awaken the young gentleman from his
+reverie, when he inquired of us with great enthusiasm, whether
+'that was not a glorious spectacle,' and proceeded to give us a
+detailed account of the weight of every article of the spectacle's
+trappings, from the man's gloves to the horse's shoes.
+
+We have made it a practice since, to take the Horse Guards in our
+daily walk, and we find it is the custom of military young
+gentlemen to plant themselves opposite the sentries, and
+contemplate them at leisure, in periods varying from fifteen
+minutes to fifty, and averaging twenty-five.  We were much struck a
+day or two since, by the behaviour of a very promising young
+butcher who (evincing an interest in the service, which cannot be
+too strongly commanded or encouraged), after a prolonged inspection
+of the sentry, proceeded to handle his boots with great curiosity,
+and as much composure and indifference as if the man were wax-work.
+
+But the really military young gentleman is waiting all this time,
+and at the very moment that an apology rises to our lips, he
+emerges from the barrack gate (he is quartered in a garrison town),
+and takes the way towards the high street.  He wears his undress
+uniform, which somewhat mars the glory of his outward man; but
+still how great, how grand, he is!  What a happy mixture of ease
+and ferocity in his gait and carriage, and how lightly he carries
+that dreadful sword under his arm, making no more ado about it than
+if it were a silk umbrella!  The lion is sleeping:  only think if
+an enemy were in sight, how soon he'd whip it out of the scabbard,
+and what a terrible fellow he would be!
+
+But he walks on, thinking of nothing less than blood and slaughter;
+and now he comes in sight of three other military young gentlemen,
+arm-in-arm, who are bearing down towards him, clanking their iron
+heels on the pavement, and clashing their swords with a noise,
+which should cause all peaceful men to quail at heart.  They stop
+to talk.  See how the flaxen-haired young gentleman with the weak
+legs-he who has his pocket-handkerchief thrust into the breast of
+his coat-glares upon the fainthearted civilians who linger to look
+upon his glory; how the next young gentleman elevates his head in
+the air, and majestically places his arms a-kimbo, while the third
+stands with his legs very wide apart, and clasps his hands behind
+him.  Well may we inquire-not in familiar jest, but in respectful
+earnest-if you call that nothing.  Oh! if some encroaching foreign
+power-the Emperor of Russia, for instance, or any of those deep
+fellows, could only see those military young gentlemen as they move
+on together towards the billiard-room over the way, wouldn't he
+tremble a little!
+
+And then, at the Theatre at night, when the performances are by
+command of Colonel Fitz-Sordust and the officers of the garrison-
+what a splendid sight it is!  How sternly the defenders of their
+country look round the house as if in mute assurance to the
+audience, that they may make themselves comfortable regarding any
+foreign invasion, for they (the military young gentlemen) are
+keeping a sharp look-out, and are ready for anything.  And what a
+contrast between them, and that stage-box full of grey-headed
+officers with tokens of many battles about them, who have nothing
+at all in common with the military young gentlemen, and who-but for
+an old-fashioned kind of manly dignity in their looks and bearing-
+might be common hard-working soldiers for anything they take the
+pains to announce to the contrary!
+
+Ah! here is a family just come in who recognise the flaxen-headed
+young gentleman; and the flaxen-headed young gentleman recognises
+them too, only he doesn't care to show it just now.  Very well done
+indeed!  He talks louder to the little group of military young
+gentlemen who are standing by him, and coughs to induce some ladies
+in the next box but one to look round, in order that their faces
+may undergo the same ordeal of criticism to which they have
+subjected, in not a wholly inaudible tone, the majority of the
+female portion of the audience.  Oh! a gentleman in the same box
+looks round as if he were disposed to resent this as an
+impertinence; and the flaxen-headed young gentleman sees his
+friends at once, and hurries away to them with the most charming
+cordiality.
+
+Three young ladies, one young man, and the mamma of the party,
+receive the military young gentleman with great warmth and
+politeness, and in five minutes afterwards the military young
+gentleman, stimulated by the mamma, introduces the two other
+military young gentlemen with whom he was walking in the morning,
+who take their seats behind the young ladies and commence
+conversation; whereat the mamma bestows a triumphant bow upon a
+rival mamma, who has not succeeded in decoying any military young
+gentlemen, and prepares to consider her visitors from that moment
+three of the most elegant and superior young gentlemen in the whole
+world.
+
+
+
+THE POLITICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+Once upon a time-NOT in the days when pigs drank wine, but in a
+more recent period of our history-it was customary to banish
+politics when ladies were present.  If this usage still prevailed,
+we should have had no chapter for political young gentlemen, for
+ladies would have neither known nor cared what kind of monster a
+political young gentleman was.  But as this good custom in common
+with many others has 'gone out,' and left no word when it is likely
+to be home again; as political young ladies are by no means rare,
+and political young gentlemen the very reverse of scarce, we are
+bound in the strict discharge of our most responsible duty not to
+neglect this natural division of our subject.
+
+If the political young gentleman be resident in a country town (and
+there ARE political young gentlemen in country towns sometimes), he
+is wholly absorbed in his politics; as a pair of purple spectacles
+communicate the same uniform tint to all objects near and remote,
+so the political glasses, with which the young gentleman assists
+his mental vision, give to everything the hue and tinge of party
+feeling.  The political young gentleman would as soon think of
+being struck with the beauty of a young lady in the opposite
+interest, as he would dream of marrying his sister to the opposite
+member.
+
+If the political young gentleman be a Conservative, he has usually
+some vague ideas about Ireland and the Pope which he cannot very
+clearly explain, but which he knows are the right sort of thing,
+and not to be very easily got over by the other side.  He has also
+some choice sentences regarding church and state, culled from the
+banners in use at the last election, with which he intersperses his
+conversation at intervals with surprising effect.  But his great
+topic is the constitution, upon which he will declaim, by the hour
+together, with much heat and fury; not that he has any particular
+information on the subject, but because he knows that the
+constitution is somehow church and state, and church and state
+somehow the constitution, and that the fellows on the other side
+say it isn't, which is quite a sufficient reason for him to say it
+is, and to stick to it.
+
+Perhaps his greatest topic of all, though, is the people.  If a
+fight takes place in a populous town, in which many noses are
+broken, and a few windows, the young gentleman throws down the
+newspaper with a triumphant air, and exclaims, 'Here's your
+precious people!'  If half-a-dozen boys run across the course at
+race time, when it ought to be kept clear, the young gentleman
+looks indignantly round, and begs you to observe the conduct of the
+people; if the gallery demand a hornpipe between the play and the
+afterpiece, the same young gentleman cries 'No' and 'Shame' till he
+is hoarse, and then inquires with a sneer what you think of popular
+moderation NOW; in short, the people form a never-failing theme for
+him; and when the attorney, on the side of his candidate, dwells
+upon it with great power of eloquence at election time, as he never
+fails to do, the young gentleman and his friends, and the body they
+head, cheer with great violence against THE OTHER PEOPLE, with
+whom, of course, they have no possible connexion.  In much the same
+manner the audience at a theatre never fail to be highly amused
+with any jokes at the expense of the public-always laughing
+heartily at some other public, and never at themselves.
+
+If the political young gentleman be a Radical, he is usually a very
+profound person indeed, having great store of theoretical questions
+to put to you, with an infinite variety of possible cases and
+logical deductions therefrom.  If he be of the utilitarian school,
+too, which is more than probable, he is particularly pleasant
+company, having many ingenious remarks to offer upon the voluntary
+principle and various cheerful disquisitions connected with the
+population of the country, the position of Great Britain in the
+scale of nations, and the balance of power.  Then he is exceedingly
+well versed in all doctrines of political economy as laid down in
+the newspapers, and knows a great many parliamentary speeches by
+heart; nay, he has a small stock of aphorisms, none of them
+exceeding a couple of lines in length, which will settle the
+toughest question and leave you nothing to say.  He gives all the
+young ladies to understand, that Miss Martineau is the greatest
+woman that ever lived; and when they praise the good looks of Mr.
+Hawkins the new member, says he's very well for a representative,
+all things considered, but he wants a little calling to account,
+and he is more than half afraid it will be necessary to bring him
+down on his knees for that vote on the miscellaneous estimates.  At
+this, the young ladies express much wonderment, and say surely a
+Member of Parliament is not to be brought upon his knees so easily;
+in reply to which the political young gentleman smiles sternly, and
+throws out dark hints regarding the speedy arrival of that day,
+when Members of Parliament will be paid salaries, and required to
+render weekly accounts of their proceedings, at which the young
+ladies utter many expressions of astonishment and incredulity,
+while their lady-mothers regard the prophecy as little else than
+blasphemous.
+
+It is extremely improving and interesting to hear two political
+young gentlemen, of diverse opinions, discuss some great question
+across a dinner-table; such as, whether, if the public were
+admitted to Westminster Abbey for nothing, they would or would not
+convey small chisels and hammers in their pockets, and immediately
+set about chipping all the noses off the statues; or whether, if
+they once got into the Tower for a shilling, they would not insist
+upon trying the crown on their own heads, and loading and firing
+off all the small arms in the armoury, to the great discomposure of
+Whitechapel and the Minories.  Upon these, and many other momentous
+questions which agitate the public mind in these desperate days,
+they will discourse with great vehemence and irritation for a
+considerable time together, both leaving off precisely where they
+began, and each thoroughly persuaded that he has got the better of
+the other.
+
+In society, at assemblies, balls, and playhouses, these political
+young gentlemen are perpetually on the watch for a political
+allusion, or anything which can be tortured or construed into being
+one; when, thrusting themselves into the very smallest openings for
+their favourite discourse, they fall upon the unhappy company tooth
+and nail.  They have recently had many favourable opportunities of
+opening in churches, but as there the clergyman has it all his own
+way, and must not be contradicted, whatever politics he preaches,
+they are fain to hold their tongues until they reach the outer
+door, though at the imminent risk of bursting in the effort.
+
+As such discussions can please nobody but the talkative parties
+concerned, we hope they will henceforth take the hint and
+discontinue them, otherwise we now give them warning, that the
+ladies have our advice to discountenance such talkers altogether.
+
+
+
+THE DOMESTIC YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+Let us make a slight sketch of our amiable friend, Mr. Felix Nixon.
+We are strongly disposed to think, that if we put him in this
+place, he will answer our purpose without another word of comment.
+
+Felix, then, is a young gentleman who lives at home with his
+mother, just within the twopenny-post office circle of three miles
+from St. Martin-le-Grand.  He wears Indiarubber goloshes when the
+weather is at all damp, and always has a silk handkerchief neatly
+folded up in the right-hand pocket of his great-coat, to tie over
+his mouth when he goes home at night; moreover, being rather near-
+sighted, he carries spectacles for particular occasions, and has a
+weakish tremulous voice, of which he makes great use, for he talks
+as much as any old lady breathing.
+
+The two chief subjects of Felix's discourse, are himself and his
+mother, both of whom would appear to be very wonderful and
+interesting persons.  As Felix and his mother are seldom apart in
+body, so Felix and his mother are scarcely ever separate in spirit.
+If you ask Felix how he finds himself to-day, he prefaces his reply
+with a long and minute bulletin of his mother's state of health;
+and the good lady in her turn, edifies her acquaintance with a
+circumstantial and alarming account, how he sneezed four times and
+coughed once after being out in the rain the other night, but
+having his feet promptly put into hot water, and his head into a
+flannel-something, which we will not describe more particularly
+than by this delicate allusion, was happily brought round by the
+next morning, and enabled to go to business as usual.
+
+Our friend is not a very adventurous or hot-headed person, but he
+has passed through many dangers, as his mother can testify:  there
+is one great story in particular, concerning a hackney coachman who
+wanted to overcharge him one night for bringing them home from the
+play, upon which Felix gave the aforesaid coachman a look which his
+mother thought would have crushed him to the earth, but which did
+not crush him quite, for he continued to demand another sixpence,
+notwithstanding that Felix took out his pocket-book, and, with the
+aid of a flat candle, pointed out the fare in print, which the
+coachman obstinately disregarding, he shut the street-door with a
+slam which his mother shudders to think of; and then, roused to the
+most appalling pitch of passion by the coachman knocking a double
+knock to show that he was by no means convinced, he broke with
+uncontrollable force from his parent and the servant girl, and
+running into the street without his hat, actually shook his fist at
+the coachman, and came back again with a face as white, Mrs. Nixon
+says, looking about her for a simile, as white as that ceiling.
+She never will forget his fury that night, Never!
+
+To this account Felix listens with a solemn face, occasionally
+looking at you to see how it affects you, and when his mother has
+made an end of it, adds that he looked at every coachman he met for
+three weeks afterwards, in hopes that he might see the scoundrel;
+whereupon Mrs. Nixon, with an exclamation of terror, requests to
+know what he would have done to him if he HAD seen him, at which
+Felix smiling darkly and clenching his right fist, she exclaims,
+'Goodness gracious!' with a distracted air, and insists upon
+extorting a promise that he never will on any account do anything
+so rash, which her dutiful son-it being something more than three
+years since the offence was committed-reluctantly concedes, and his
+mother, shaking her head prophetically, fears with a sigh that his
+spirit will lead him into something violent yet.  The discourse
+then, by an easy transition, turns upon the spirit which glows
+within the bosom of Felix, upon which point Felix himself becomes
+eloquent, and relates a thrilling anecdote of the time when he used
+to sit up till two o'clock in the morning reading French, and how
+his mother used to say, 'Felix, you will make yourself ill, I know
+you will;' and how HE used to say, 'Mother, I don't care-I will do
+it;' and how at last his mother privately procured a doctor to come
+and see him, who declared, the moment he felt his pulse, that if he
+had gone on reading one night more-only one night more-he must have
+put a blister on each temple, and another between his shoulders;
+and who, as it was, sat down upon the instant, and writing a
+prescription for a blue pill, said it must be taken immediately, or
+he wouldn't answer for the consequences.  The recital of these and
+many other moving perils of the like nature, constantly harrows up
+the feelings of Mr. Nixon's friends.
+
+Mrs. Nixon has a tolerably extensive circle of female acquaintance,
+being a good-humoured, talkative, bustling little body, and to the
+unmarried girls among them she is constantly vaunting the virtues
+of her son, hinting that she will be a very happy person who wins
+him, but that they must mind their P's and Q's, for he is very
+particular, and terribly severe upon young ladies.  At this last
+caution the young ladies resident in the same row, who happen to be
+spending the evening there, put their pocket-handkerchiefs before
+their mouths, and are troubled with a short cough; just then Felix
+knocks at the door, and his mother drawing the tea-table nearer the
+fire, calls out to him as he takes off his boots in the back
+parlour that he needn't mind coming in in his slippers, for there
+are only the two Miss Greys and Miss Thompson, and she is quite
+sure they will excuse HIM, and nodding to the two Miss Greys, she
+adds, in a whisper, that Julia Thompson is a great favourite with
+Felix, at which intelligence the short cough comes again, and Miss
+Thompson in particular is greatly troubled with it, till Felix
+coming in, very faint for want of his tea, changes the subject of
+discourse, and enables her to laugh out boldly and tell Amelia Grey
+not to be so foolish.  Here they all three laugh, and Mrs. Nixon
+says they are giddy girls; in which stage of the proceedings,
+Felix, who has by this time refreshened himself with the grateful
+herb that 'cheers but not inebriates,' removes his cup from his
+countenance and says with a knowing smile, that all girls are;
+whereat his admiring mamma pats him on the back and tells him not
+to be sly, which calls forth a general laugh from the young ladies,
+and another smile from Felix, who, thinking he looks very sly
+indeed, is perfectly satisfied.
+
+Tea being over, the young ladies resume their work, and Felix
+insists upon holding a skein of silk while Miss Thompson winds it
+on a card.  This process having been performed to the satisfaction
+of all parties, he brings down his flute in compliance with a
+request from the youngest Miss Grey, and plays divers tunes out of
+a very small music-book till supper-time, when he is very facetious
+and talkative indeed.  Finally, after half a tumblerful of warm
+sherry and water, he gallantly puts on his goloshes over his
+slippers, and telling Miss Thompson's servant to run on first and
+get the door open, escorts that young lady to her house, five doors
+off:  the Miss Greys who live in the next house but one stopping to
+peep with merry faces from their own door till he comes back again,
+when they call out 'Very well, Mr. Felix,' and trip into the
+passage with a laugh more musical than any flute that was ever
+played.
+
+Felix is rather prim in his appearance, and perhaps a little
+priggish about his books and flute, and so forth, which have all
+their peculiar corners of peculiar shelves in his bedroom; indeed
+all his female acquaintance (and they are good judges) have long
+ago set him down as a thorough old bachelor.  He is a favourite
+with them however, in a certain way, as an honest, inoffensive,
+kind-hearted creature; and as his peculiarities harm nobody, not
+even himself, we are induced to hope that many who are not
+personally acquainted with him will take our good word in his
+behalf, and be content to leave him to a long continuance of his
+harmless existence.
+
+
+
+THE CENSORIOUS YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+There is an amiable kind of young gentleman going about in society,
+upon whom, after much experience of him, and considerable turning
+over of the subject in our mind, we feel it our duty to affix the
+above appellation.  Young ladies mildly call him a 'sarcastic'
+young gentleman, or a 'severe' young gentleman.  We, who know
+better, beg to acquaint them with the fact, that he is merely a
+censorious young gentleman, and nothing else.
+
+The censorious young gentleman has the reputation among his
+familiars of a remarkably clever person, which he maintains by
+receiving all intelligence and expressing all opinions with a
+dubious sneer, accompanied with a half smile, expressive of
+anything you please but good-humour.  This sets people about
+thinking what on earth the censorious young gentleman means, and
+they speedily arrive at the conclusion that he means something very
+deep indeed; for they reason in this way-'This young gentleman
+looks so very knowing that he must mean something, and as I am by
+no means a dull individual, what a very deep meaning he must have
+if I can't find it out!'  It is extraordinary how soon a censorious
+young gentleman may make a reputation in his own small circle if he
+bear this in his mind, and regulate his proceedings accordingly.
+
+As young ladies are generally-not curious, but laudably desirous to
+acquire information, the censorious young gentleman is much talked
+about among them, and many surmises are hazarded regarding him.  'I
+wonder,' exclaims the eldest Miss Greenwood, laying down her work
+to turn up the lamp, 'I wonder whether Mr. Fairfax will ever be
+married.'  'Bless me, dear,' cries Miss Marshall, 'what ever made
+you think of him?'  'Really I hardly know,' replies Miss Greenwood;
+'he is such a very mysterious person, that I often wonder about
+him.'  'Well, to tell you the truth,' replies Miss Marshall, 'and
+so do I.'  Here two other young ladies profess that they are
+constantly doing the like, and all present appear in the same
+condition except one young lady, who, not scrupling to state that
+she considers Mr. Fairfax 'a horror,' draws down all the opposition
+of the others, which having been expressed in a great many
+ejaculatory passages, such as 'Well, did I ever!'-and 'Lor, Emily,
+dear!' ma takes up the subject, and gravely states, that she must
+say she does not think Mr. Fairfax by any means a horror, but
+rather takes him to be a young man of very great ability; 'and I am
+quite sure,' adds the worthy lady, 'he always means a great deal
+more than he says.'
+
+The door opens at this point of the disclosure, and who of all
+people alive walks into the room, but the very Mr. Fairfax, who has
+been the subject of conversation!  'Well, it really is curious,'
+cries ma, 'we were at that very moment talking about you.'  'You
+did me great honour,' replies Mr. Fairfax; 'may I venture to ask
+what you were saying?'  'Why, if you must know,' returns the eldest
+girl, 'we were remarking what a very mysterious man you are.'  'Ay,
+ay!' observes Mr. Fairfax, 'Indeed!'  Now Mr. Fairfax says this ay,
+ay, and indeed, which are slight words enough in themselves, with
+so very unfathomable an air, and accompanies them with such a very
+equivocal smile, that ma and the young ladies are more than ever
+convinced that he means an immensity, and so tell him he is a very
+dangerous man, and seems to be always thinking ill of somebody,
+which is precisely the sort of character the censorious young
+gentleman is most desirous to establish; wherefore he says, 'Oh,
+dear, no,' in a tone, obviously intended to mean, 'You have me
+there,' and which gives them to understand that they have hit the
+right nail on the very centre of its head.
+
+When the conversation ranges from the mystery overhanging the
+censorious young gentleman's behaviour, to the general topics of
+the day, he sustains his character to admiration.  He considers the
+new tragedy well enough for a new tragedy, but Lord bless us-well,
+no matter; he could say a great deal on that point, but he would
+rather not, lest he should be thought ill-natured, as he knows he
+would be.  'But is not Mr. So-and-so's performance truly charming?'
+inquires a young lady.  'Charming!' replies the censorious young
+gentleman.  'Oh, dear, yes, certainly; very charming-oh, very
+charming indeed.'  After this, he stirs the fire, smiling
+contemptuously all the while:  and a modest young gentleman, who
+has been a silent listener, thinks what a great thing it must be,
+to have such a critical judgment.  Of music, pictures, books, and
+poetry, the censorious young gentleman has an equally fine
+conception.  As to men and women, he can tell all about them at a
+glance.  'Now let us hear your opinion of young Mrs. Barker,' says
+some great believer in the powers of Mr. Fairfax, 'but don't be too
+severe.'  'I never am severe,' replies the censorious young
+gentleman.  'Well, never mind that now.  She is very lady-like, is
+she not?'  'Lady-like!' repeats the censorious young gentleman (for
+he always repeats when he is at a loss for anything to say).  'Did
+you observe her manner?  Bless my heart and soul, Mrs. Thompson,
+did you observe her manner?-that's all I ask.'  'I thought I had
+done so,' rejoins the poor lady, much perplexed; 'I did not observe
+it very closely perhaps.'  'Oh, not very closely,' rejoins the
+censorious young gentleman, triumphantly.  'Very good; then _I_
+did.  Let us talk no more about her.'  The censorious young
+gentleman purses up his lips, and nods his head sagely, as he says
+this; and it is forthwith whispered about, that Mr. Fairfax (who,
+though he is a little prejudiced, must be admitted to be a very
+excellent judge) has observed something exceedingly odd in Mrs.
+Barker's manner.
+
+
+
+THE FUNNY YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+As one funny young gentleman will serve as a sample of all funny
+young Gentlemen we purpose merely to note down the conduct and
+behaviour of an individual specimen of this class, whom we happened
+to meet at an annual family Christmas party in the course of this
+very last Christmas that ever came.
+
+We were all seated round a blazing fire which crackled pleasantly
+as the guests talked merrily and the urn steamed cheerily-for,
+being an old-fashioned party, there WAS an urn, and a teapot
+besides-when there came a postman's knock at the door, so violent
+and sudden, that it startled the whole circle, and actually caused
+two or three very interesting and most unaffected young ladies to
+scream aloud and to exhibit many afflicting symptoms of terror and
+distress, until they had been several times assured by their
+respective adorers, that they were in no danger.  We were about to
+remark that it was surely beyond post-time, and must have been a
+runaway knock, when our host, who had hitherto been paralysed with
+wonder, sank into a chair in a perfect ecstasy of laughter, and
+offered to lay twenty pounds that it was that droll dog Griggins.
+He had no sooner said this, than the majority of the company and
+all the children of the house burst into a roar of laughter too, as
+if some inimitable joke flashed upon them simultaneously, and gave
+vent to various exclamations of-To be sure it must be Griggins, and
+How like him that was, and What spirits he was always in! with many
+other commendatory remarks of the like nature.
+
+Not having the happiness to know Griggins, we became extremely
+desirous to see so pleasant a fellow, the more especially as a
+stout gentleman with a powdered head, who was sitting with his
+breeches buckles almost touching the hob, whispered us he was a wit
+of the first water, when the door opened, and Mr. Griggins being
+announced, presented himself, amidst another shout of laughter and
+a loud clapping of hands from the younger branches.  This welcome
+he acknowledged by sundry contortions of countenance, imitative of
+the clown in one of the new pantomimes, which were so extremely
+successful, that one stout gentleman rolled upon an ottoman in a
+paroxysm of delight, protesting, with many gasps, that if somebody
+didn't make that fellow Griggins leave off, he would be the death
+of him, he knew.  At this the company only laughed more
+boisterously than before, and as we always like to accommodate our
+tone and spirit if possible to the humour of any society in which
+we find ourself, we laughed with the rest, and exclaimed, 'Oh!
+capital, capital!' as loud as any of them.
+
+When he had quite exhausted all beholders, Mr. Griggins received
+the welcomes and congratulations of the circle, and went through
+the needful introductions with much ease and many puns.  This
+ceremony over, he avowed his intention of sitting in somebody's lap
+unless the young ladies made room for him on the sofa, which being
+done, after a great deal of tittering and pleasantry, he squeezed
+himself among them, and likened his condition to that of love among
+the roses.  At this novel jest we all roared once more.  'You
+should consider yourself highly honoured, sir,' said we.  'Sir,'
+replied Mr. Griggins, 'you do me proud.'  Here everybody laughed
+again; and the stout gentleman by the fire whispered in our ear
+that Griggins was making a dead set at us.
+
+The tea-things having been removed, we all sat down to a round
+game, and here Mr. Griggins shone forth with peculiar brilliancy,
+abstracting other people's fish, and looking over their hands in
+the most comical manner.  He made one most excellent joke in
+snuffing a candle, which was neither more nor less than setting
+fire to the hair of a pale young gentleman who sat next him, and
+afterwards begging his pardon with considerable humour.  As the
+young gentleman could not see the joke however, possibly in
+consequence of its being on the top of his own head, it did not go
+off quite as well as it might have done; indeed, the young
+gentleman was heard to murmur some general references to
+'impertinence,' and a 'rascal,' and to state the number of his
+lodgings in an angry tone-a turn of the conversation which might
+have been productive of slaughterous consequences, if a young lady,
+betrothed to the young gentleman, had not used her immediate
+influence to bring about a reconciliation:  emphatically declaring
+in an agitated whisper, intended for his peculiar edification but
+audible to the whole table, that if he went on in that way, she
+never would think of him otherwise than as a friend, though as that
+she must always regard him.  At this terrible threat the young
+gentleman became calm, and the young lady, overcome by the
+revulsion of feeling, instantaneously fainted.
+
+Mr. Griggins's spirits were slightly depressed for a short period
+by this unlooked-for result of such a harmless pleasantry, but
+being promptly elevated by the attentions of the host and several
+glasses of wine, he soon recovered, and became even more vivacious
+than before, insomuch that the stout gentleman previously referred
+to, assured us that although he had known him since he was THAT
+high (something smaller than a nutmeg-grater), he had never beheld
+him in such excellent cue.
+
+When the round game and several games at blind man's buff which
+followed it were all over, and we were going down to supper, the
+inexhaustible Mr. Griggins produced a small sprig of mistletoe from
+his waistcoat pocket, and commenced a general kissing of the
+assembled females, which occasioned great commotion and much
+excitement.  We observed that several young gentlemen-including the
+young gentleman with the pale countenance-were greatly scandalised
+at this indecorous proceeding, and talked very big among themselves
+in corners; and we observed too, that several young ladies when
+remonstrated with by the aforesaid young gentlemen, called each
+other to witness how they had struggled, and protested vehemently
+that it was very rude, and that they were surprised at Mrs. Brown's
+allowing it, and that they couldn't bear it, and had no patience
+with such impertinence.  But such is the gentle and forgiving
+nature of woman, that although we looked very narrowly for it, we
+could not detect the slightest harshness in the subsequent
+treatment of Mr. Griggins.  Indeed, upon the whole, it struck us
+that among the ladies he seemed rather more popular than before!
+
+To recount all the drollery of Mr. Griggins at supper, would fill
+such a tiny volume as this, to the very bottom of the outside
+cover.  How he drank out of other people's glasses, and ate of
+other people's bread, how he frightened into screaming convulsions
+a little boy who was sitting up to supper in a high chair, by
+sinking below the table and suddenly reappearing with a mask on;
+how the hostess was really surprised that anybody could find a
+pleasure in tormenting children, and how the host frowned at the
+hostess, and felt convinced that Mr. Griggins had done it with the
+very best intentions; how Mr. Griggins explained, and how
+everybody's good-humour was restored but the child's;-to tell these
+and a hundred other things ever so briefly, would occupy more of
+our room and our readers' patience, than either they or we can
+conveniently spare.  Therefore we change the subject, merely
+observing that we have offered no description of the funny young
+gentleman's personal appearance, believing that almost every
+society has a Griggins of its own, and leaving all readers to
+supply the deficiency, according to the particular circumstances of
+their particular case.
+
+
+
+THE THEATRICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+All gentlemen who love the drama-and there are few gentlemen who
+are not attached to the most intellectual and rational of all our
+amusements-do not come within this definition.  As we have no mean
+relish for theatrical entertainments ourself, we are
+disinterestedly anxious that this should be perfectly understood.
+
+The theatrical young gentleman has early and important information
+on all theatrical topics.  'Well,' says he, abruptly, when you meet
+him in the street, 'here's a pretty to-do.  Flimkins has thrown up
+his part in the melodrama at the Surrey.'-'And what's to be done?'
+you inquire with as much gravity as you can counterfeit.  'Ah,
+that's the point,' replies the theatrical young gentleman, looking
+very serious; 'Boozle declines it; positively declines it.  From
+all I am told, I should say it was decidedly in Boozle's line, and
+that he would be very likely to make a great hit in it; but he
+objects on the ground of Flimkins having been put up in the part
+first, and says no earthly power shall induce him to take the
+character.  It's a fine part, too-excellent business, I'm told.  He
+has to kill six people in the course of the piece, and to fight
+over a bridge in red fire, which is as safe a card, you know, as
+can be.  Don't mention it; but I hear that the last scene, when he
+is first poisoned, and then stabbed, by Mrs. Flimkins as Vengedora,
+will be the greatest thing that has been done these many years.'
+With this piece of news, and laying his finger on his lips as a
+caution for you not to excite the town with it, the theatrical
+young gentleman hurries away.
+
+The theatrical young gentleman, from often frequenting the
+different theatrical establishments, has pet and familiar names for
+them all.  Thus Covent-Garden is the garden, Drury-Lane the lane,
+the Victoria the vic, and the Olympic the pic.  Actresses, too, are
+always designated by their surnames only, as Taylor, Nisbett,
+Faucit, Honey; that talented and lady-like girl Sheriff, that
+clever little creature Horton, and so on.  In the same manner he
+prefixes Christian names when he mentions actors, as Charley Young,
+Jemmy Buckstone, Fred. Yates, Paul Bedford.  When he is at a loss
+for a Christian name, the word 'old' applied indiscriminately
+answers quite as well:  as old Charley Matthews at Vestris's, old
+Harley, and old Braham.  He has a great knowledge of the private
+proceedings of actresses, especially of their getting married, and
+can tell you in a breath half-a-dozen who have changed their names
+without avowing it.  Whenever an alteration of this kind is made in
+the playbills, he will remind you that he let you into the secret
+six months ago.
+
+The theatrical young gentleman has a great reverence for all that
+is connected with the stage department of the different theatres.
+He would, at any time, prefer going a street or two out of his way,
+to omitting to pass a stage-entrance, into which he always looks
+with a curious and searching eye.  If he can only identify a
+popular actor in the street, he is in a perfect transport of
+delight; and no sooner meets him, than he hurries back, and walks a
+few paces in front of him, so that he can turn round from time to
+time, and have a good stare at his features.  He looks upon a
+theatrical-fund dinner as one of the most enchanting festivities
+ever known; and thinks that to be a member of the Garrick Club, and
+see so many actors in their plain clothes, must be one of the
+highest gratifications the world can bestow.
+
+The theatrical young gentleman is a constant half-price visitor at
+one or other of the theatres, and has an infinite relish for all
+pieces which display the fullest resources of the establishment.
+He likes to place implicit reliance upon the play-bills when he
+goes to see a show-piece, and works himself up to such a pitch of
+enthusiasm, as not only to believe (if the bills say so) that there
+are three hundred and seventy-five people on the stage at one time
+in the last scene, but is highly indignant with you, unless you
+believe it also.  He considers that if the stage be opened from the
+foot-lights to the back wall, in any new play, the piece is a
+triumph of dramatic writing, and applauds accordingly.  He has a
+great notion of trap-doors too; and thinks any character going down
+or coming up a trap (no matter whether he be an angel or a demon-
+they both do it occasionally) one of the most interesting feats in
+the whole range of scenic illusion.
+
+Besides these acquirements, he has several veracious accounts to
+communicate of the private manners and customs of different actors,
+which, during the pauses of a quadrille, he usually communicates to
+his partner, or imparts to his neighbour at a supper table.  Thus
+he is advised, that Mr. Liston always had a footman in gorgeous
+livery waiting at the side-scene with a brandy bottle and tumbler,
+to administer half a pint or so of spirit to him every time he came
+off, without which assistance he must infallibly have fainted.  He
+knows for a fact, that, after an arduous part, Mr. George Bennett
+is put between two feather beds, to absorb the perspiration; and is
+credibly informed, that Mr. Baker has, for many years, submitted to
+a course of lukewarm toast-and-water, to qualify him to sustain his
+favourite characters.  He looks upon Mr. Fitz Ball as the principal
+dramatic genius and poet of the day; but holds that there are great
+writers extant besides him,-in proof whereof he refers you to
+various dramas and melodramas recently produced, of which he takes
+in all the sixpenny and three-penny editions as fast as they
+appear.
+
+The theatrical young gentleman is a great advocate for violence of
+emotion and redundancy of action.  If a father has to curse a child
+upon the stage, he likes to see it done in the thorough-going
+style, with no mistake about it:  to which end it is essential that
+the child should follow the father on her knees, and be knocked
+violently over on her face by the old gentleman as he goes into a
+small cottage, and shuts the door behind him.  He likes to see a
+blessing invoked upon the young lady, when the old gentleman
+repents, with equal earnestness, and accompanied by the usual
+conventional forms, which consist of the old gentleman looking
+anxiously up into the clouds, as if to see whether it rains, and
+then spreading an imaginary tablecloth in the air over the young
+lady's head-soft music playing all the while.  Upon these, and
+other points of a similar kind, the theatrical young gentleman is a
+great critic indeed.  He is likewise very acute in judging of
+natural expressions of the passions, and knows precisely the frown,
+wink, nod, or leer, which stands for any one of them, or the means
+by which it may be converted into any other:  as jealousy, with a
+good stamp of the right foot, becomes anger; or wildness, with the
+hands clasped before the throat, instead of tearing the wig, is
+passionate love.  If you venture to express a doubt of the accuracy
+of any of these portraitures, the theatrical young gentleman
+assures you, with a haughty smile, that it always has been done in
+that way, and he supposes they are not going to change it at this
+time of day to please you; to which, of course, you meekly reply
+that you suppose not.
+
+There are innumerable disquisitions of this nature, in which the
+theatrical young gentleman is very profound, especially to ladies
+whom he is most in the habit of entertaining with them; but as we
+have no space to recapitulate them at greater length, we must rest
+content with calling the attention of the young ladies in general
+to the theatrical young gentlemen of their own acquaintance.
+
+
+
+THE POETICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+Time was, and not very long ago either, when a singular epidemic
+raged among the young gentlemen, vast numbers of whom, under the
+influence of the malady, tore off their neckerchiefs, turned down
+their shirt collars, and exhibited themselves in the open streets
+with bare throats and dejected countenances, before the eyes of an
+astonished public.  These were poetical young gentlemen.  The
+custom was gradually found to be inconvenient, as involving the
+necessity of too much clean linen and too large washing bills, and
+these outward symptoms have consequently passed away; but we are
+disposed to think, notwithstanding, that the number of poetical
+young gentlemen is considerably on the increase.
+
+We know a poetical young gentleman-a very poetical young gentleman.
+We do not mean to say that he is troubled with the gift of poesy in
+any remarkable degree, but his countenance is of a plaintive and
+melancholy cast, his manner is abstracted and bespeaks affliction
+of soul:  he seldom has his hair cut, and often talks about being
+an outcast and wanting a kindred spirit; from which, as well as
+from many general observations in which he is wont to indulge,
+concerning mysterious impulses, and yearnings of the heart, and the
+supremacy of intellect gilding all earthly things with the glowing
+magic of immortal verse, it is clear to all his friends that he has
+been stricken poetical.
+
+The favourite attitude of the poetical young gentleman is lounging
+on a sofa with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling, or sitting bolt
+upright in a high-backed chair, staring with very round eyes at the
+opposite wall.  When he is in one of these positions, his mother,
+who is a worthy, affectionate old soul, will give you a nudge to
+bespeak your attention without disturbing the abstracted one, and
+whisper with a shake of the head, that John's imagination is at
+some extraordinary work or other, you may take her word for it.
+Hereupon John looks more fiercely intent upon vacancy than before,
+and suddenly snatching a pencil from his pocket, puts down three
+words, and a cross on the back of a card, sighs deeply, paces once
+or twice across the room, inflicts a most unmerciful slap upon his
+head, and walks moodily up to his dormitory.
+
+The poetical young gentleman is apt to acquire peculiar notions of
+things too, which plain ordinary people, unblessed with a poetical
+obliquity of vision, would suppose to be rather distorted.  For
+instance, when the sickening murder and mangling of a wretched
+woman was affording delicious food wherewithal to gorge the
+insatiable curiosity of the public, our friend the poetical young
+gentleman was in ecstasies-not of disgust, but admiration.
+'Heavens!' cried the poetical young gentleman, 'how grand; how
+great!'  We ventured deferentially to inquire upon whom these
+epithets were bestowed:  our humble thoughts oscillating between
+the police officer who found the criminal, and the lock-keeper who
+found the head.  'Upon whom!' exclaimed the poetical young
+gentleman in a frenzy of poetry, 'Upon whom should they be bestowed
+but upon the murderer!'-and thereupon it came out, in a fine
+torrent of eloquence, that the murderer was a great spirit, a bold
+creature full of daring and nerve, a man of dauntless heart and
+determined courage, and withal a great casuist and able reasoner,
+as was fully demonstrated in his philosophical colloquies with the
+great and noble of the land.  We held our peace, and meekly
+signified our indisposition to controvert these opinions-firstly,
+because we were no match at quotation for the poetical young
+gentleman; and secondly, because we felt it would be of little use
+our entering into any disputation, if we were:  being perfectly
+convinced that the respectable and immoral hero in question is not
+the first and will not be the last hanged gentleman upon whom false
+sympathy or diseased curiosity will be plentifully expended.
+
+This was a stern mystic flight of the poetical young gentleman.  In
+his milder and softer moments he occasionally lays down his
+neckcloth, and pens stanzas, which sometimes find their way into a
+Lady's Magazine, or the 'Poets' Corner' of some country newspaper;
+or which, in default of either vent for his genius, adorn the
+rainbow leaves of a lady's album.  These are generally written upon
+some such occasions as contemplating the Bank of England by
+midnight, or beholding Saint Paul's in a snow-storm; and when these
+gloomy objects fail to afford him inspiration, he pours forth his
+soul in a touching address to a violet, or a plaintive lament that
+he is no longer a child, but has gradually grown up.
+
+The poetical young gentleman is fond of quoting passages from his
+favourite authors, who are all of the gloomy and desponding school.
+He has a great deal to say too about the world, and is much given
+to opining, especially if he has taken anything strong to drink,
+that there is nothing in it worth living for.  He gives you to
+understand, however, that for the sake of society, he means to bear
+his part in the tiresome play, manfully resisting the gratification
+of his own strong desire to make a premature exit; and consoles
+himself with the reflection, that immortality has some chosen nook
+for himself and the other great spirits whom earth has chafed and
+wearied.
+
+When the poetical young gentleman makes use of adjectives, they are
+all superlatives.  Everything is of the grandest, greatest,
+noblest, mightiest, loftiest; or the lowest, meanest, obscurest,
+vilest, and most pitiful.  He knows no medium:  for enthusiasm is
+the soul of poetry; and who so enthusiastic as a poetical young
+gentleman?  'Mr. Milkwash,' says a young lady as she unlocks her
+album to receive the young gentleman's original impromptu
+contribution, 'how very silent you are!  I think you must be in
+love.'  'Love!' cries the poetical young gentleman, starting from
+his seat by the fire and terrifying the cat who scampers off at
+full speed, 'Love! that burning, consuming passion; that ardour of
+the soul, that fierce glowing of the heart.  Love!  The withering,
+blighting influence of hope misplaced and affection slighted.  Love
+did you say!  Ha! ha! ha!'
+
+With this, the poetical young gentleman laughs a laugh belonging
+only to poets and Mr. O. Smith of the Adelphi Theatre, and sits
+down, pen in hand, to throw off a page or two of verse in the
+biting, semi-atheistical demoniac style, which, like the poetical
+young gentleman himself, is full of sound and fury, signifying
+nothing.
+
+
+
+THE 'THROWING-OFF' YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+There is a certain kind of impostor-a bragging, vaunting, puffing
+young gentleman-against whom we are desirous to warn that fairer
+part of the creation, to whom we more peculiarly devote these our
+labours.  And we are particularly induced to lay especial stress
+upon this division of our subject, by a little dialogue we held
+some short time ago, with an esteemed young lady of our
+acquaintance, touching a most gross specimen of this class of men.
+We had been urging all the absurdities of his conduct and
+conversation, and dwelling upon the impossibilities he constantly
+recounted-to which indeed we had not scrupled to prefix a certain
+hard little word of one syllable and three letters-when our fair
+friend, unable to maintain the contest any longer, reluctantly
+cried, 'Well; he certainly has a habit of throwing-off, but then-'
+What then?  Throw him off yourself, said we.  And so she did, but
+not at our instance, for other reasons appeared, and it might have
+been better if she had done so at first.
+
+The throwing-off young gentleman has so often a father possessed of
+vast property in some remote district of Ireland, that we look with
+some suspicion upon all young gentlemen who volunteer this
+description of themselves.  The deceased grandfather of the
+throwing-off young gentleman was a man of immense possessions, and
+untold wealth; the throwing-off young gentleman remembers, as well
+as if it were only yesterday, the deceased baronet's library, with
+its long rows of scarce and valuable books in superbly embossed
+bindings, arranged in cases, reaching from the lofty ceiling to the
+oaken floor; and the fine antique chairs and tables, and the noble
+old castle of Ballykillbabaloo, with its splendid prospect of hill
+and dale, and wood, and rich wild scenery, and the fine hunting
+stables and the spacious court-yards, 'and-and-everything upon the
+same magnificent scale,' says the throwing-off young gentleman,
+'princely; quite princely.  Ah!'  And he sighs as if mourning over
+the fallen fortunes of his noble house.
+
+The throwing-off young gentleman is a universal genius; at walking,
+running, rowing, swimming, and skating, he is unrivalled; at all
+games of chance or skill, at hunting, shooting, fishing, riding,
+driving, or amateur theatricals, no one can touch him-that is COULD
+not, because he gives you carefully to understand, lest there
+should be any opportunity of testing his skill, that he is quite
+out of practice just now, and has been for some years.  If you
+mention any beautiful girl of your common acquaintance in his
+hearing, the throwing-off young gentleman starts, smiles, and begs
+you not to mind him, for it was quite involuntary:  people do say
+indeed that they were once engaged, but no-although she is a very
+fine girl, he was so situated at that time that he couldn't
+possibly encourage the-'but it's of no use talking about it!' he
+adds, interrupting himself.  'She has got over it now, and I firmly
+hope and trust is happy.'  With this benevolent aspiration he nods
+his head in a mysterious manner, and whistling the first part of
+some popular air, thinks perhaps it will be better to change the
+subject.
+
+There is another great characteristic of the throwing-off young
+gentleman, which is, that he 'happens to be acquainted' with a most
+extraordinary variety of people in all parts of the world.  Thus in
+all disputed questions, when the throwing-off young gentleman has
+no argument to bring forward, he invariably happens to be
+acquainted with some distant person, intimately connected with the
+subject, whose testimony decides the point against you, to the
+great-may we say it-to the great admiration of three young ladies
+out of every four, who consider the throwing-off young gentleman a
+very highly-connected young man, and a most charming person.
+
+Sometimes the throwing-off young gentleman happens to look in upon
+a little family circle of young ladies who are quietly spending the
+evening together, and then indeed is he at the very height and
+summit of his glory; for it is to be observed that he by no means
+shines to equal advantage in the presence of men as in the society
+of over-credulous young ladies, which is his proper element.  It is
+delightful to hear the number of pretty things the throwing-off
+young gentleman gives utterance to, during tea, and still more so
+to observe the ease with which, from long practice and study, he
+delicately blends one compliment to a lady with two for himself.
+'Did you ever see a more lovely blue than this flower, Mr.
+Caveton?' asks a young lady who, truth to tell, is rather smitten
+with the throwing-off young gentleman.  'Never,' he replies,
+bending over the object of admiration, 'never but in your eyes.'
+'Oh, Mr. Caveton,' cries the young lady, blushing of course.
+'Indeed I speak the truth,' replies the throwing-off young
+gentleman, 'I never saw any approach to them.  I used to think my
+cousin's blue eyes lovely, but they grow dim and colourless beside
+yours.'  'Oh! a beautiful cousin, Mr. Caveton!' replies the young
+lady, with that perfect artlessness which is the distinguishing
+characteristic of all young ladies; 'an affair, of course.'  'No;
+indeed, indeed you wrong me,' rejoins the throwing-off young
+gentleman with great energy.  'I fervently hope that her attachment
+towards me may be nothing but the natural result of our close
+intimacy in childhood, and that in change of scene and among new
+faces she may soon overcome it.  _I_ love her!  Think not so meanly
+of me, Miss Lowfield, I beseech, as to suppose that title, lands,
+riches, and beauty, can influence MY choice.  The heart, the heart,
+Miss Lowfield.'  Here the throwing-off young gentleman sinks his
+voice to a still lower whisper; and the young lady duly proclaims
+to all the other young ladies when they go up-stairs, to put their
+bonnets on, that Mr. Caveton's relations are all immensely rich,
+and that he is hopelessly beloved by title, lands, riches, and
+beauty.
+
+We have seen a throwing-off young gentleman who, to our certain
+knowledge, was innocent of a note of music, and scarcely able to
+recognise a tune by ear, volunteer a Spanish air upon the guitar
+when he had previously satisfied himself that there was not such an
+instrument within a mile of the house.
+
+We have heard another throwing-off young gentleman, after striking
+a note or two upon the piano, and accompanying it correctly (by
+dint of laborious practice) with his voice, assure a circle of
+wondering listeners that so acute was his ear that he was wholly
+unable to sing out of tune, let him try as he would.  We have lived
+to witness the unmasking of another throwing-off young gentleman,
+who went out a visiting in a military cap with a gold band and
+tassel, and who, after passing successfully for a captain and being
+lauded to the skies for his red whiskers, his bravery, his
+soldierly bearing and his pride, turned out to be the dishonest son
+of an honest linen-draper in a small country town, and whom, if it
+were not for this fortunate exposure, we should not yet despair of
+encountering as the fortunate husband of some rich heiress.
+Ladies, ladies, the throwing-off young gentlemen are often
+swindlers, and always fools.  So pray you avoid them.
+
+
+
+THE YOUNG LADIES' YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+This young gentleman has several titles.  Some young ladies
+consider him 'a nice young man,' others 'a fine young man,' others
+'quite a lady's man,' others 'a handsome man,' others 'a remarkably
+good-looking young man.'  With some young ladies he is 'a perfect
+angel,' and with others 'quite a love.'  He is likewise a charming
+creature, a duck, and a dear.
+
+The young ladies' young gentleman has usually a fresh colour and
+very white teeth, which latter articles, of course, he displays on
+every possible opportunity.  He has brown or black hair, and
+whiskers of the same, if possible; but a slight tinge of red, or
+the hue which is vulgarly known as SANDY, is not considered an
+objection.  If his head and face be large, his nose prominent, and
+his figure square, he is an uncommonly fine young man, and
+worshipped accordingly.  Should his whiskers meet beneath his chin,
+so much the better, though this is not absolutely insisted on; but
+he must wear an under-waistcoat, and smile constantly.
+
+There was a great party got up by some party-loving friends of ours
+last summer, to go and dine in Epping Forest.  As we hold that such
+wild expeditions should never be indulged in, save by people of the
+smallest means, who have no dinner at home, we should indubitably
+have excused ourself from attending, if we had not recollected that
+the projectors of the excursion were always accompanied on such
+occasions by a choice sample of the young ladies' young gentleman,
+whom we were very anxious to have an opportunity of meeting.  This
+determined us, and we went.
+
+We were to make for Chigwell in four glass coaches, each with a
+trifling company of six or eight inside, and a little boy belonging
+to the projectors on the box-and to start from the residence of the
+projectors, Woburn-place, Russell-square, at half-past ten
+precisely.  We arrived at the place of rendezvous at the appointed
+time, and found the glass coaches and the little boys quite ready,
+and divers young ladies and young gentlemen looking anxiously over
+the breakfast-parlour blinds, who appeared by no means so much
+gratified by our approach as we might have expected, but evidently
+wished we had been somebody else.  Observing that our arrival in
+lieu of the unknown occasioned some disappointment, we ventured to
+inquire who was yet to come, when we found from the hasty reply of
+a dozen voices, that it was no other than the young ladies' young
+gentleman.
+
+'I cannot imagine,' said the mamma, 'what has become of Mr. Balim-
+always so punctual, always so pleasant and agreeable.  I am sure I
+can-NOT think.'  As these last words were uttered in that measured,
+emphatic manner which painfully announces that the speaker has not
+quite made up his or her mind what to say, but is determined to
+talk on nevertheless, the eldest daughter took up the subject, and
+hoped no accident had happened to Mr. Balim, upon which there was a
+general chorus of 'Dear Mr. Balim!' and one young lady, more
+adventurous than the rest, proposed that an express should be
+straightway sent to dear Mr. Balim's lodgings.  This, however, the
+papa resolutely opposed, observing, in what a short young lady
+behind us termed 'quite a bearish way,' that if Mr. Balim didn't
+choose to come, he might stop at home.  At this all the daughters
+raised a murmur of 'Oh pa!' except one sprightly little girl of
+eight or ten years old, who, taking advantage of a pause in the
+discourse, remarked, that perhaps Mr. Balim might have been married
+that morning-for which impertinent suggestion she was summarily
+ejected from the room by her eldest sister.
+
+We were all in a state of great mortification and uneasiness, when
+one of the little boys, running into the room as airily as little
+boys usually run who have an unlimited allowance of animal food in
+the holidays, and keep their hands constantly forced down to the
+bottoms of very deep trouser-pockets when they take exercise,
+joyfully announced that Mr. Balim was at that moment coming up the
+street in a hackney-cab; and the intelligence was confirmed beyond
+all doubt a minute afterwards by the entry of Mr. Balim himself,
+who was received with repeated cries of 'Where have you been, you
+naughty creature?' whereunto the naughty creature replied, that he
+had been in bed, in consequence of a late party the night before,
+and had only just risen.  The acknowledgment awakened a variety of
+agonizing fears that he had taken no breakfast; which appearing
+after a slight cross-examination to be the real state of the case,
+breakfast for one was immediately ordered, notwithstanding Mr.
+Balim's repeated protestations that he couldn't think of it.  He
+did think of it though, and thought better of it too, for he made a
+remarkably good meal when it came, and was assiduously served by a
+select knot of young ladies.  It was quite delightful to see how he
+ate and drank, while one pair of fair hands poured out his coffee,
+and another put in the sugar, and another the milk; the rest of the
+company ever and anon casting angry glances at their watches, and
+the glass coaches,-and the little boys looking on in an agony of
+apprehension lest it should begin to rain before we set out; it
+might have rained all day, after we were once too far to turn back
+again, and welcome, for aught they cared.
+
+However, the cavalcade moved at length, every coachman being
+accommodated with a hamper between his legs something larger than a
+wheelbarrow; and the company being packed as closely as they
+possibly could in the carriages, 'according,' as one married lady
+observed, 'to the immemorial custom, which was half the diversion
+of gipsy parties.'  Thinking it very likely it might be (we have
+never been able to discover the other half), we submitted to be
+stowed away with a cheerful aspect, and were fortunate enough to
+occupy one corner of a coach in which were one old lady, four young
+ladies, and the renowned Mr. Balim the young ladies' young
+gentleman.
+
+We were no sooner fairly off, than the young ladies' young
+gentleman hummed a fragment of an air, which induced a young lady
+to inquire whether he had danced to that the night before.  'By
+Heaven, then, I did,' replied the young gentleman, 'and with a
+lovely heiress; a superb creature, with twenty thousand pounds.'
+'You seem rather struck,' observed another young lady.  ''Gad she
+was a sweet creature,' returned the young gentleman, arranging his
+hair.  'Of course SHE was struck too?' inquired the first young
+lady.  'How can you ask, love?' interposed the second; 'could she
+fail to be?'  'Well, honestly I think she was,' observed the young
+gentleman.  At this point of the dialogue, the young lady who had
+spoken first, and who sat on the young gentleman's right, struck
+him a severe blow on the arm with a rosebud, and said he was a vain
+man-whereupon the young gentleman insisted on having the rosebud,
+and the young lady appealing for help to the other young ladies, a
+charming struggle ensued, terminating in the victory of the young
+gentleman, and the capture of the rosebud.  This little skirmish
+over, the married lady, who was the mother of the rosebud, smiled
+sweetly upon the young gentleman, and accused him of being a flirt;
+the young gentleman pleading not guilty, a most interesting
+discussion took place upon the important point whether the young
+gentleman was a flirt or not, which being an agreeable conversation
+of a light kind, lasted a considerable time.  At length, a short
+silence occurring, the young ladies on either side of the young
+gentleman fell suddenly fast asleep; and the young gentleman,
+winking upon us to preserve silence, won a pair of gloves from
+each, thereby causing them to wake with equal suddenness and to
+scream very loud.  The lively conversation to which this pleasantry
+gave rise, lasted for the remainder of the ride, and would have
+eked out a much longer one.
+
+We dined rather more comfortably than people usually do under such
+circumstances, nothing having been left behind but the cork-screw
+and the bread.  The married gentlemen were unusually thirsty, which
+they attributed to the heat of the weather; the little boys ate to
+inconvenience; mammas were very jovial, and their daughters very
+fascinating; and the attendants being well-behaved men, got
+exceedingly drunk at a respectful distance.
+
+We had our eye on Mr. Balim at dinner-time, and perceived that he
+flourished wonderfully, being still surrounded by a little group of
+young ladies, who listened to him as an oracle, while he ate from
+their plates and drank from their glasses in a manner truly
+captivating from its excessive playfulness.  His conversation, too,
+was exceedingly brilliant.  In fact, one elderly lady assured us,
+that in the course of a little lively badinage on the subject of
+ladies' dresses, he had evinced as much knowledge as if he had been
+born and bred a milliner.
+
+As such of the fat people who did not happen to fall asleep after
+dinner entered upon a most vigorous game at ball, we slipped away
+alone into a thicker part of the wood, hoping to fall in with Mr.
+Balim, the greater part of the young people having dropped off in
+twos and threes and the young ladies' young gentleman among them.
+Nor were we disappointed, for we had not walked far, when, peeping
+through the trees, we discovered him before us, and truly it was a
+pleasant thing to contemplate his greatness.
+
+The young ladies' young gentleman was seated upon the ground, at
+the feet of a few young ladies who were reclining on a bank; he was
+so profusely decked with scarfs, ribands, flowers, and other pretty
+spoils, that he looked like a lamb-or perhaps a calf would be a
+better simile-adorned for the sacrifice.  One young lady supported
+a parasol over his interesting head, another held his hat, and a
+third his neck-cloth, which in romantic fashion he had thrown off;
+the young gentleman himself, with his hand upon his breast, and his
+face moulded into an expression of the most honeyed sweetness, was
+warbling forth some choice specimens of vocal music in praise of
+female loveliness, in a style so exquisitely perfect, that we burst
+into an involuntary shout of laughter, and made a hasty retreat.
+
+What charming fellows these young ladies' young gentlemen are!
+Ducks, dears, loves, angels, are all terms inadequate to express
+their merit.  They are such amazingly, uncommonly, wonderfully,
+nice men.
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+As we have placed before the young ladies so many specimens of
+young gentlemen, and have also in the dedication of this volume
+given them to understand how much we reverence and admire their
+numerous virtues and perfections; as we have given them such strong
+reasons to treat us with confidence, and to banish, in our case,
+all that reserve and distrust of the male sex which, as a point of
+general behaviour, they cannot do better than preserve and
+maintain-we say, as we have done all this, we feel that now, when
+we have arrived at the close of our task, they may naturally press
+upon us the inquiry, what particular description of young gentlemen
+we can conscientiously recommend.
+
+Here we are at a loss.  We look over our list, and can neither
+recommend the bashful young gentleman, nor the out-and-out young
+gentleman, nor the very friendly young gentleman, nor the military
+young gentleman, nor the political young gentleman, nor the
+domestic young gentleman, nor the censorious young gentleman, nor
+the funny young gentleman, nor the theatrical young gentleman, nor
+the poetical young gentleman, nor the throwing-off young gentleman,
+nor the young ladies' young gentleman.
+
+As there are some good points about many of them, which still are
+not sufficiently numerous to render any one among them eligible, as
+a whole, our respectful advice to the young ladies is, to seek for
+a young gentleman who unites in himself the best qualities of all,
+and the worst weaknesses of none, and to lead him forthwith to the
+hymeneal altar, whether he will or no.  And to the young lady who
+secures him, we beg to tender one short fragment of matrimonial
+advice, selected from many sound passages of a similar tendency, to
+be found in a letter written by Dean Swift to a young lady on her
+marriage.
+
+'The grand affair of your life will be, to gain and preserve the
+esteem of your husband.  Neither good-nature nor virtue will suffer
+him to ESTEEM you against his judgment; and although he is not
+capable of using you ill, yet you will in time grow a thing
+indifferent and perhaps contemptible; unless you can supply the
+loss of youth and beauty with more durable qualities.  You have but
+a very few years to be young and handsome in the eyes of the world;
+and as few months to be so in the eyes of a husband who is not a
+fool; for I hope you do not still dream of charms and raptures,
+which marriage ever did, and ever will, put a sudden end to.'
+
+From the anxiety we express for the proper behaviour of the
+fortunate lady after marriage, it may possibly be inferred that the
+young gentleman to whom we have so delicately alluded, is no other
+than ourself.  Without in any way committing ourself upon this
+point, we have merely to observe, that we are ready to receive
+sealed offers containing a full specification of age, temper,
+appearance, and condition; but we beg it to be distinctly
+understood that we do not pledge ourself to accept the highest
+bidder.
+
+These offers may be forwarded to the Publishers, Messrs. Chapman
+and Hall, London; to whom all pieces of plate and other
+testimonials of approbation from the young ladies generally, are
+respectfully requested to be addressed.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SKETCHES OF YOUNG GENTLEMEN ***
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+<a href="#startoftext">Sketches of Young Gentlemen, by Charles Dickens</a>
+</h2>
+<pre>
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+Title: Sketches of Young Gentlemen
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+Release Date: May, 1997  [EBook #918]
+[This file was first posted on May 23, 1997]
+[Most recently updated: May 8, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+</pre>
+<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p>
+<p>Transcribed from the 1903 edition by David Price,
+email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<h1>SKETCHES OF YOUNG GENTLEMEN</h1>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<p>TO THE YOUNG LADIES<br />OF THE<br />UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN
+AND IRELAND;<br />ALSO<br />THE YOUNG LADIES<br />OF<br />THE PRINCIPALITY
+OF WALES,<br />AND LIKEWISE<br />THE YOUNG LADIES<br />RESIDENT IN THE
+ISLES OF<br />GUERNSEY, JERSEY, ALDERNEY, AND SARK,<br />THE HUMBLE
+DEDICATION OF THEIR DEVOTED ADMIRER,</p>
+<p>SHEWETH, -</p>
+<p>THAT your Dedicator has perused, with feelings of virtuous indignation,
+a work purporting to be &lsquo;Sketches of Young Ladies;&rsquo; written
+by Quiz, illustrated by Phiz, and published in one volume, square twelvemo.</p>
+<p>THAT after an attentive and vigilant perusal of the said work, your
+Dedicator is humbly of opinion that so many libels, upon your Honourable
+sex, were never contained in any previously published work, in twelvemo
+or any other mo.</p>
+<p>THAT in the title page and preface to the said work, your Honourable
+sex are described and classified as animals; and although your Dedicator
+is not at present prepared to deny that you <i>are</i> animals, still
+he humbly submits that it is not polite to call you so.</p>
+<p>THAT in the aforesaid preface, your Honourable sex are also described
+as Troglodites, which, being a hard word, may, for aught your Honourable
+sex or your Dedicator can say to the contrary, be an injurious and disrespectful
+appellation.</p>
+<p>THAT the author of the said work applied himself to his task in malice
+prepense and with wickedness aforethought; a fact which, your Dedicator
+contends, is sufficiently demonstrated, by his assuming the name of
+Quiz, which, your Dedicator submits, denotes a foregone conclusion,
+and implies an intention of quizzing.</p>
+<p>THAT in the execution of his evil design, the said Quiz, or author
+of the said work, must have betrayed some trust or confidence reposed
+in him by some members of your Honourable sex, otherwise he never could
+have acquired so much information relative to the manners and customs
+of your Honourable sex in general.</p>
+<p>THAT actuated by these considerations, and further moved by various
+slanders and insinuations respecting your Honourable sex contained in
+the said work, square twelvemo, entitled &lsquo;Sketches of Young Ladies,&rsquo;
+your Dedicator ventures to produce another work, square twelvemo, entitled
+&lsquo;Sketches of Young Gentlemen,&rsquo; of which he now solicits
+your acceptance and approval.</p>
+<p>THAT as the Young Ladies are the best companions of the Young Gentlemen,
+so the Young Gentlemen should be the best companions of the Young Ladies;
+and extending the comparison from animals (to quote the disrespectful
+language of the said Quiz) to inanimate objects, your Dedicator humbly
+suggests, that such of your Honourable sex as purchased the bane should
+possess themselves of the antidote, and that those of your Honourable
+sex who were not rash enough to take the first, should lose no time
+in swallowing the last,&mdash;prevention being in all cases better than
+cure, as we are informed upon the authority, not only of general acknowledgment,
+but also of traditionary wisdom.</p>
+<p>THAT with reference to the said bane and antidote, your Dedicator
+has no further remarks to make, than are comprised in the printed directions
+issued with Doctor Morison&rsquo;s pills; namely, that whenever your
+Honourable sex take twenty-five of Number, 1, you will be pleased to
+take fifty of Number 2, without delay.</p>
+<p>And your Dedicator shall ever pray, &amp;c.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>THE BASHFUL YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>We found ourself seated at a small dinner party the other day, opposite
+a stranger of such singular appearance and manner, that he irresistibly
+attracted our attention.</p>
+<p>This was a fresh-coloured young gentleman, with as good a promise
+of light whisker as one might wish to see, and possessed of a very velvet-like,
+soft-looking countenance.&nbsp; We do not use the latter term invidiously,
+but merely to denote a pair of smooth, plump, highly-coloured cheeks
+of capacious dimensions, and a mouth rather remarkable for the fresh
+hue of the lips than for any marked or striking expression it presented.&nbsp;
+His whole face was suffused with a crimson blush, and bore that downcast,
+timid, retiring look, which betokens a man ill at ease with himself.</p>
+<p>There was nothing in these symptoms to attract more than a passing
+remark, but our attention had been originally drawn to the bashful young
+gentleman, on his first appearance in the drawing-room above-stairs,
+into which he was no sooner introduced, than making his way towards
+us who were standing in a window, and wholly neglecting several persons
+who warmly accosted him, he seized our hand with visible emotion, and
+pressed it with a convulsive grasp for a good couple of minutes, after
+which he dived in a nervous manner across the room, oversetting in his
+way a fine little girl of six years and a quarter old&mdash;and shrouding
+himself behind some hangings, was seen no more, until the eagle eye
+of the hostess detecting him in his concealment, on the announcement
+of dinner, he was requested to pair off with a lively single lady, of
+two or three and thirty.</p>
+<p>This most flattering salutation from a perfect stranger, would have
+gratified us not a little as a token of his having held us in high respect,
+and for that reason been desirous of our acquaintance, if we had not
+suspected from the first, that the young gentleman, in making a desperate
+effort to get through the ceremony of introduction, had, in the bewilderment
+of his ideas, shaken hands with us at random.&nbsp; This impression
+was fully confirmed by the subsequent behaviour of the bashful young
+gentleman in question, which we noted particularly, with the view of
+ascertaining whether we were right in our conjecture.</p>
+<p>The young gentleman seated himself at table with evident misgivings,
+and turning sharp round to pay attention to some observation of his
+loquacious neighbour, overset his bread.&nbsp; There was nothing very
+bad in this, and if he had had the presence of mind to let it go, and
+say nothing about it, nobody but the man who had laid the cloth would
+have been a bit the wiser; but the young gentleman in various semi-successful
+attempts to prevent its fall, played with it a little, as gentlemen
+in the streets may be seen to do with their hats on a windy day, and
+then giving the roll a smart rap in his anxiety to catch it, knocked
+it with great adroitness into a tureen of white soup at some distance,
+to the unspeakable terror and disturbance of a very amiable bald gentleman,
+who was dispensing the contents.&nbsp; We thought the bashful young
+gentleman would have gone off in an apoplectic fit, consequent upon
+the violent rush of blood to his face at the occurrence of this catastrophe.</p>
+<p>From this moment we perceived, in the phraseology of the fancy, that
+it was &lsquo;all up&rsquo; with the bashful young gentleman, and so
+indeed it was.&nbsp; Several benevolent persons endeavoured to relieve
+his embarrassment by taking wine with him, but finding that it only
+augmented his sufferings, and that after mingling sherry, champagne,
+hock, and moselle together, he applied the greater part of the mixture
+externally, instead of internally, they gradually dropped off, and left
+him to the exclusive care of the talkative lady, who, not noting the
+wildness of his eye, firmly believed she had secured a listener.&nbsp;
+He broke a glass or two in the course of the meal, and disappeared shortly
+afterwards; it is inferred that he went away in some confusion, inasmuch
+as he left the house in another gentleman&rsquo;s coat, and the footman&rsquo;s
+hat.</p>
+<p>This little incident led us to reflect upon the most prominent characteristics
+of bashful young gentlemen in the abstract; and as this portable volume
+will be the great text-book of young ladies in all future generations,
+we record them here for their guidance and behoof.</p>
+<p>If the bashful young gentleman, in turning a street corner, chance
+to stumble suddenly upon two or three young ladies of his acquaintance,
+nothing can exceed his confusion and agitation.&nbsp; His first impulse
+is to make a great variety of bows, and dart past them, which he does
+until, observing that they wish to stop, but are uncertain whether to
+do so or not, he makes several feints of returning, which causes them
+to do the same; and at length, after a great quantity of unnecessary
+dodging and falling up against the other passengers, he returns and
+shakes hands most affectionately with all of them, in doing which he
+knocks out of their grasp sundry little parcels, which he hastily picks
+up, and returns very muddy and disordered.&nbsp; The chances are that
+the bashful young gentleman then observes it is very fine weather, and
+being reminded that it has only just left off raining for the first
+time these three days, he blushes very much, and smiles as if he had
+said a very good thing.&nbsp; The young lady who was most anxious to
+speak, here inquires, with an air of great commiseration, how his dear
+sister Harriet is to-day; to which the young gentleman, without the
+slightest consideration, replies with many thanks, that she is remarkably
+well.&nbsp; &lsquo;Well, Mr. Hopkins!&rsquo; cries the young lady, &lsquo;why,
+we heard she was bled yesterday evening, and have been perfectly miserable
+about her.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh, ah,&rsquo; says the young gentleman,
+&lsquo;so she was.&nbsp; Oh, she&rsquo;s very ill, very ill indeed.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+The young gentleman then shakes his head, and looks very desponding
+(he has been smiling perpetually up to this time), and after a short
+pause, gives his glove a great wrench at the wrist, and says, with a
+strong emphasis on the adjective, &lsquo;<i>Good</i> morning, <i>good</i>
+morning.&rsquo;&nbsp; And making a great number of bows in acknowledgment
+of several little messages to his sister, walks backward a few paces,
+and comes with great violence against a lamp-post, knocking his hat
+off in the contact, which in his mental confusion and bodily pain he
+is going to walk away without, until a great roar from a carter attracts
+his attention, when he picks it up, and tries to smile cheerfully to
+the young ladies, who are looking back, and who, he has the satisfaction
+of seeing, are all laughing heartily.</p>
+<p>At a quadrille party, the bashful young gentleman always remains
+as near the entrance of the room as possible, from which position he
+smiles at the people he knows as they come in, and sometimes steps forward
+to shake hands with more intimate friends: a process which on each repetition
+seems to turn him a deeper scarlet than before.&nbsp; He declines dancing
+the first set or two, observing, in a faint voice, that he would rather
+wait a little; but at length is absolutely compelled to allow himself
+to be introduced to a partner, when he is led, in a great heat and blushing
+furiously, across the room to a spot where half-a-dozen unknown ladies
+are congregated together.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;Miss Lambert, let me introduce Mr. Hopkins for the next quadrille.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+Miss Lambert inclines her head graciously.&nbsp; Mr. Hopkins bows, and
+his fair conductress disappears, leaving Mr. Hopkins, as he too well
+knows, to make himself agreeable.&nbsp; The young lady more than half
+expects that the bashful young gentleman will say something, and the
+bashful young gentleman feeling this, seriously thinks whether he has
+got anything to say, which, upon mature reflection, he is rather disposed
+to conclude he has not, since nothing occurs to him.&nbsp; Meanwhile,
+the young lady, after several inspections of her <i>bouquet</i>, all
+made in the expectation that the bashful young gentleman is going to
+talk, whispers her mamma, who is sitting next her, which whisper the
+bashful young gentleman immediately suspects (and possibly with very
+good reason) must be about <i>him</i>.&nbsp; In this comfortable condition
+he remains until it is time to &lsquo;stand up,&rsquo; when murmuring
+a &lsquo;Will you allow me?&rsquo; he gives the young lady his arm,
+and after inquiring where she will stand, and receiving a reply that
+she has no choice, conducts her to the remotest corner of the quadrille,
+and making one attempt at conversation, which turns out a desperate
+failure, preserves a profound silence until it is all over, when he
+walks her twice round the room, deposits her in her old seat, and retires
+in confusion.</p>
+<p>A married bashful gentleman&mdash;for these bashful gentlemen do
+get married sometimes; how it is ever brought about, is a mystery to
+us&mdash;a married bashful gentleman either causes his wife to appear
+bold by contrast, or merges her proper importance in his own insignificance.&nbsp;
+Bashful young gentlemen should be cured, or avoided.&nbsp; They are
+never hopeless, and never will be, while female beauty and attractions
+retain their influence, as any young lady will find, who may think it
+worth while on this confident assurance to take a patient in hand.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>THE OUT-AND-OUT YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>Out-and-out young gentlemen may be divided into two classes&mdash;those
+who have something to do, and those who have nothing.&nbsp; I shall
+commence with the former, because that species come more frequently
+under the notice of young ladies, whom it is our province to warn and
+to instruct.</p>
+<p>The out-and-out young gentleman is usually no great dresser, his
+instructions to his tailor being all comprehended in the one general
+direction to &lsquo;make that what&rsquo;s-a-name a regular bang-up
+sort of thing.&rsquo;&nbsp; For some years past, the favourite costume
+of the out-and-out young gentleman has been a rough pilot coat, with
+two gilt hooks and eyes to the velvet collar; buttons somewhat larger
+than crown-pieces; a black or fancy neckerchief, loosely tied; a wide-brimmed
+hat, with a low crown; tightish inexpressibles, and iron-shod boots.&nbsp;
+Out of doors he sometimes carries a large ash stick, but only on special
+occasions, for he prefers keeping his hands in his coat pockets.&nbsp;
+He smokes at all hours, of course, and swears considerably.</p>
+<p>The out-and-out young gentleman is employed in a city counting-house
+or solicitor&rsquo;s office, in which he does as little as he possibly
+can: his chief places of resort are, the streets, the taverns, and the
+theatres.&nbsp; In the streets at evening time, out-and-out young gentlemen
+have a pleasant custom of walking six or eight abreast, thus driving
+females and other inoffensive persons into the road, which never fails
+to afford them the highest satisfaction, especially if there be any
+immediate danger of their being run over, which enhances the fun of
+the thing materially.&nbsp; In all places of public resort, the out-and-outers
+are careful to select each a seat to himself, upon which he lies at
+full length, and (if the weather be very dirty, but not in any other
+case) he lies with his knees up, and the soles of his boots planted
+firmly on the cushion, so that if any low fellow should ask him to make
+room for a lady, he takes ample revenge upon her dress, without going
+at all out of his way to do it.&nbsp; He always sits with his hat on,
+and flourishes his stick in the air while the play is proceeding, with
+a dignified contempt of the performance; if it be possible for one or
+two out-and-out young gentlemen to get up a little crowding in the passages,
+they are quite in their element, squeezing, pushing, whooping, and shouting
+in the most humorous manner possible.&nbsp; If they can only succeed
+in irritating the gentleman who has a family of daughters under his
+charge, they are like to die with laughing, and boast of it among their
+companions for a week afterwards, adding, that one or two of them were
+&lsquo;devilish fine girls,&rsquo; and that they really thought the
+youngest would have fainted, which was the only thing wanted to render
+the joke complete.</p>
+<p>If the out-and-out young gentleman have a mother and sisters, of
+course he treats them with becoming contempt, inasmuch as they (poor
+things!) having no notion of life or gaiety, are far too weak-spirited
+and moping for him.&nbsp; Sometimes, however, on a birth-day or at Christmas-time,
+he cannot very well help accompanying them to a party at some old friend&rsquo;s,
+with which view he comes home when they have been dressed an hour or
+two, smelling very strongly of tobacco and spirits, and after exchanging
+his rough coat for some more suitable attire (in which however he loses
+nothing of the out-and-outer), gets into the coach and grumbles all
+the way at his own good nature: his bitter reflections aggravated by
+the recollection, that Tom Smith has taken the chair at a little impromptu
+dinner at a fighting man&rsquo;s, and that a set-to was to take place
+on a dining-table, between the fighting man and his brother-in-law,
+which is probably &lsquo;coming off&rsquo; at that very instant.</p>
+<p>As the out-and-out young gentleman is by no means at his ease in
+ladies&rsquo; society, he shrinks into a corner of the drawing-room
+when they reach the friend&rsquo;s, and unless one of his sisters is
+kind enough to talk to him, remains there without being much troubled
+by the attentions of other people, until he espies, lingering outside
+the door, another gentleman, whom he at once knows, by his air and manner
+(for there is a kind of free-masonry in the craft), to be a brother
+out-and-outer, and towards whom he accordingly makes his way.&nbsp;
+Conversation being soon opened by some casual remark, the second out-and-outer
+confidentially informs the first, that he is one of the rough sort and
+hates that kind of thing, only he couldn&rsquo;t very well be off coming;
+to which the other replies, that that&rsquo;s just his case&mdash;&lsquo;and
+I&rsquo;ll tell you what,&rsquo; continues the out-and-outer in a whisper,
+&lsquo;I should like a glass of warm brandy and water just now,&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Or
+a pint of stout and a pipe,&rsquo; suggests the other out-and-outer.</p>
+<p>The discovery is at once made that they are sympathetic souls; each
+of them says at the same moment, that he sees the other understands
+what&rsquo;s what: and they become fast friends at once, more especially
+when it appears, that the second out-and-outer is no other than a gentleman,
+long favourably known to his familiars as &lsquo;Mr. Warmint Blake,&rsquo;
+who upon divers occasions has distinguished himself in a manner that
+would not have disgraced the fighting man, and who&mdash;having been
+a pretty long time about town&mdash;had the honour of once shaking hands
+with the celebrated Mr. Thurtell himself.</p>
+<p>At supper, these gentlemen greatly distinguish themselves, brightening
+up very much when the ladies leave the table, and proclaiming aloud
+their intention of beginning to spend the evening&mdash;a process which
+is generally understood to be satisfactorily performed, when a great
+deal of wine is drunk and a great deal of noise made, both of which
+feats the out-and-out young gentlemen execute to perfection.&nbsp; Having
+protracted their sitting until long after the host and the other guests
+have adjourned to the drawing-room, and finding that they have drained
+the decanters empty, they follow them thither with complexions rather
+heightened, and faces rather bloated with wine; and the agitated lady
+of the house whispers her friends as they waltz together, to the great
+terror of the whole room, that &lsquo;both Mr. Blake and Mr. Dummins
+are very nice sort of young men in their way, only they are eccentric
+persons, and unfortunately <i>rather too wild</i>!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The remaining class of out-and-out young gentlemen is composed of
+persons, who, having no money of their own and a soul above earning
+any, enjoy similar pleasures, nobody knows how.&nbsp; These respectable
+gentlemen, without aiming quite so much at the out-and-out in external
+appearance, are distinguished by all the same amiable and attractive
+characteristics, in an equal or perhaps greater degree, and now and
+then find their way into society, through the medium of the other class
+of out-and-out young gentlemen, who will sometimes carry them home,
+and who usually pay their tavern bills.&nbsp; As they are equally gentlemanly,
+clever, witty, intelligent, wise, and well-bred, we need scarcely have
+recommended them to the peculiar consideration of the young ladies,
+if it were not that some of the gentle creatures whom we hold in such
+high respect, are perhaps a little too apt to confound a great many
+heavier terms with the light word eccentricity, which we beg them henceforth
+to take in a strictly Johnsonian sense, without any liberality or latitude
+of construction.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>THE VERY FRIENDLY YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>We know&mdash;and all people know&mdash;so many specimens of this
+class, that in selecting the few heads our limits enable us to take
+from a great number, we have been induced to give the very friendly
+young gentleman the preference over many others, to whose claims upon
+a more cursory view of the question we had felt disposed to assign the
+priority.</p>
+<p>The very friendly young gentleman is very friendly to everybody,
+but he attaches himself particularly to two, or at most to three families:
+regulating his choice by their dinners, their circle of acquaintance,
+or some other criterion in which he has an immediate interest.&nbsp;
+He is of any age between twenty and forty, unmarried of course, must
+be fond of children, and is expected to make himself generally useful
+if possible.&nbsp; Let us illustrate our meaning by an example, which
+is the shortest mode and the clearest.</p>
+<p>We encountered one day, by chance, an old friend of whom we had lost
+sight for some years, and who&mdash;expressing a strong anxiety to renew
+our former intimacy&mdash;urged us to dine with him on an early day,
+that we might talk over old times.&nbsp; We readily assented, adding,
+that we hoped we should be alone.&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh, certainly, certainly,&rsquo;
+said our friend, &lsquo;not a soul with us but Mincin.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;And who is Mincin?&rsquo; was our natural inquiry.&nbsp; &lsquo;O
+don&rsquo;t mind him,&rsquo; replied our friend, &lsquo;he&rsquo;s a
+most particular friend of mine, and a very friendly fellow you will
+find him;&rsquo; and so he left us.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;We thought no more about Mincin until we duly presented ourselves
+at the house next day, when, after a hearty welcome, our friend motioned
+towards a gentleman who had been previously showing his teeth by the
+fireplace, and gave us to understand that it was Mr. Mincin, of whom
+he had spoken.&nbsp; It required no great penetration on our part to
+discover at once that Mr. Mincin was in every respect a very friendly
+young gentleman.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I am delighted,&rsquo; said Mincin, hastily advancing, and
+pressing our hand warmly between both of his, &lsquo;I am delighted,
+I am sure, to make your acquaintance&mdash;(here he smiled)&mdash;very
+much delighted indeed&mdash;(here he exhibited a little emotion)&mdash;I
+assure you that I have looked forward to it anxiously for a very long
+time:&rsquo; here he released our hands, and rubbing his own, observed,
+that the day was severe, but that he was delighted to perceive from
+our appearance that it agreed with us wonderfully; and then went on
+to observe, that, notwithstanding the coldness of the weather, he had
+that morning seen in the paper an exceedingly curious paragraph, to
+the effect, that there was now in the garden of Mr. Wilkins of Chichester,
+a pumpkin, measuring four feet in height, and eleven feet seven inches
+in circumference, which he looked upon as a very extraordinary piece
+of intelligence.&nbsp; We ventured to remark, that we had a dim recollection
+of having once or twice before observed a similar paragraph in the public
+prints, upon which Mr. Mincin took us confidentially by the button,
+and said, Exactly, exactly, to be sure, we were very right, and he wondered
+what the editors meant by putting in such things.&nbsp; Who the deuce,
+he should like to know, did they suppose cared about them? that struck
+him as being the best of it.</p>
+<p>The lady of the house appeared shortly afterwards, and Mr. Mincin&rsquo;s
+friendliness, as will readily be supposed, suffered no diminution in
+consequence; he exerted much strength and skill in wheeling a large
+easy-chair up to the fire, and the lady being seated in it, carefully
+closed the door, stirred the fire, and looked to the windows to see
+that they admitted no air; having satisfied himself upon all these points,
+he expressed himself quite easy in his mind, and begged to know how
+she found herself to-day.&nbsp; Upon the lady&rsquo;s replying very
+well, Mr. Mincin (who it appeared was a medical gentleman) offered some
+general remarks upon the nature and treatment of colds in the head,
+which occupied us agreeably until dinner-time.&nbsp; During the meal,
+he devoted himself to complimenting everybody, not forgetting himself,
+so that we were an uncommonly agreeable quartette.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what, Capper,&rsquo; said Mr. Mincin to
+our host, as he closed the room door after the lady had retired, &lsquo;you
+have very great reason to be fond of your wife.&nbsp; Sweet woman, Mrs.
+Capper, sir!&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Nay, Mincin&mdash;I beg,&rsquo; interposed
+the host, as we were about to reply that Mrs. Capper unquestionably
+was particularly sweet.&nbsp; &lsquo;Pray, Mincin, don&rsquo;t.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Why not?&rsquo; exclaimed Mr. Mincin, &lsquo;why not?&nbsp; Why
+should you feel any delicacy before your old friend&mdash;<i>our</i>
+old friend, if I may be allowed to call you so, sir; why should you,
+I ask?&rsquo;&nbsp; We of course wished to know why he should also,
+upon which our friend admitted that Mrs. Capper <i>was</i> a very sweet
+woman, at which admission Mr. Mincin cried &lsquo;Bravo!&rsquo; and
+begged to propose Mrs. Capper with heartfelt enthusiasm, whereupon our
+host said, &lsquo;Thank you, Mincin,&rsquo; with deep feeling; and gave
+us, in a low voice, to understand, that Mincin had saved Mrs. Capper&rsquo;s
+cousin&rsquo;s life no less than fourteen times in a year and a half,
+which he considered no common circumstance&mdash;an opinion to which
+we most cordially subscribed.</p>
+<p>Now that we three were left to entertain ourselves with conversation,
+Mr. Mincin&rsquo;s extreme friendliness became every moment more apparent;
+he was so amazingly friendly, indeed, that it was impossible to talk
+about anything in which he had not the chief concern.&nbsp; We happened
+to allude to some affairs in which our friend and we had been mutually
+engaged nearly fourteen years before, when Mr. Mincin was all at once
+reminded of a joke which our friend had made on that day four years,
+which he positively must insist upon telling&mdash;and which he did
+tell accordingly, with many pleasant recollections of what he said,
+and what Mrs. Capper said, and how he well remembered that they had
+been to the play with orders on the very night previous, and had seen
+Romeo and Juliet, and the pantomime, and how Mrs. Capper being faint
+had been led into the lobby, where she smiled, said it was nothing after
+all, and went back again, with many other interesting and absorbing
+particulars: after which the friendly young gentleman went on to assure
+us, that our friend had experienced a marvellously prophetic opinion
+of that same pantomime, which was of such an admirable kind, that two
+morning papers took the same view next day: to this our friend replied,
+with a little triumph, that in that instance he had some reason to think
+he had been correct, which gave the friendly young gentleman occasion
+to believe that our friend was always correct; and so we went on, until
+our friend, filling a bumper, said he must drink one glass to his dear
+friend Mincin, than whom he would say no man saved the lives of his
+acquaintances more, or had a more friendly heart.&nbsp; Finally, our
+friend having emptied his glass, said, &lsquo;God bless you, Mincin,&rsquo;&mdash;and
+Mr. Mincin and he shook hands across the table with much affection and
+earnestness.</p>
+<p>But great as the friendly young gentleman is, in a limited scene
+like this, he plays the same part on a larger scale with increased <i>&eacute;clat</i>.&nbsp;
+Mr. Mincin is invited to an evening party with his dear friends the
+Martins, where he meets his dear friends the Cappers, and his dear friends
+the Watsons, and a hundred other dear friends too numerous to mention.&nbsp;
+He is as much at home with the Martins as with the Cappers; but how
+exquisitely he balances his attentions, and divides them among his dear
+friends!&nbsp; If he flirts with one of the Miss Watsons, he has one
+little Martin on the sofa pulling his hair, and the other little Martin
+on the carpet riding on his foot.&nbsp; He carries Mrs. Watson down
+to supper on one arm, and Miss Martin on the other, and takes wine so
+judiciously, and in such exact order, that it is impossible for the
+most punctilious old lady to consider herself neglected.&nbsp; If any
+young lady, being prevailed upon to sing, become nervous afterwards,
+Mr. Mincin leads her tenderly into the next room, and restores her with
+port wine, which she must take medicinally.&nbsp; If any gentleman be
+standing by the piano during the progress of the ballad, Mr. Mincin
+seizes him by the arm at one point of the melody, and softly beating
+time the while with his head, expresses in dumb show his intense perception
+of the delicacy of the passage.&nbsp; If anybody&rsquo;s self-love is
+to be flattered, Mr. Mincin is at hand.&nbsp; If anybody&rsquo;s overweening
+vanity is to be pampered, Mr. Mincin will surfeit it.&nbsp; What wonder
+that people of all stations and ages recognise Mr. Mincin&rsquo;s friendliness;
+that he is universally allowed to be handsome as amiable; that mothers
+think him an oracle, daughters a dear, brothers a beau, and fathers
+a wonder!&nbsp; And who would not have the reputation of the very friendly
+young gentleman?</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>THE MILITARY YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>We are rather at a loss to imagine how it has come to pass that military
+young gentlemen have obtained so much favour in the eyes of the young
+ladies of this kingdom.&nbsp; We cannot think so lightly of them as
+to suppose that the mere circumstance of a man&rsquo;s wearing a red
+coat ensures him a ready passport to their regard; and even if this
+were the case, it would be no satisfactory explanation of the circumstance,
+because, although the analogy may in some degree hold good in the case
+of mail coachmen and guards, still general postmen wear red coats, and
+<i>they</i> are not to our knowledge better received than other men;
+nor are firemen either, who wear (or used to wear) not only red coats,
+but very resplendent and massive badges besides&mdash;much larger than
+epaulettes.&nbsp; Neither do the twopenny post-office boys, if the result
+of our inquiries be correct, find any peculiar favour in woman&rsquo;s
+eyes, although they wear very bright red jackets, and have the additional
+advantage of constantly appearing in public on horseback, which last
+circumstance may be naturally supposed to be greatly in their favour.</p>
+<p>We have sometimes thought that this phenomenon may take its rise
+in the conventional behaviour of captains and colonels and other gentlemen
+in red coats on the stage, where they are invariably represented as
+fine swaggering fellows, talking of nothing but charming girls, their
+king and country, their honour, and their debts, and crowing over the
+inferior classes of the community, whom they occasionally treat with
+a little gentlemanly swindling, no less to the improvement and pleasure
+of the audience, than to the satisfaction and approval of the choice
+spirits who consort with them.&nbsp; But we will not devote these pages
+to our speculations upon the subject, inasmuch as our business at the
+present moment is not so much with the young ladies who are bewitched
+by her Majesty&rsquo;s livery as with the young gentlemen whose heads
+are turned by it.&nbsp; For &lsquo;heads&rsquo; we had written &lsquo;brains;&rsquo;
+but upon consideration, we think the former the more appropriate word
+of the two.</p>
+<p>These young gentlemen may be divided into two classes&mdash;young
+gentlemen who are actually in the army, and young gentlemen who, having
+an intense and enthusiastic admiration for all things appertaining to
+a military life, are compelled by adverse fortune or adverse relations
+to wear out their existence in some ignoble counting-house.&nbsp; We
+will take this latter description of military young gentlemen first.</p>
+<p>The whole heart and soul of the military young gentleman are concentrated
+in his favourite topic.&nbsp; There is nothing that he is so learned
+upon as uniforms; he will tell you, without faltering for an instant,
+what the habiliments of any one regiment are turned up with, what regiment
+wear stripes down the outside and inside of the leg, and how many buttons
+the Tenth had on their coats; he knows to a fraction how many yards
+and odd inches of gold lace it takes to make an ensign in the Guards;
+is deeply read in the comparative merits of different bands, and the
+apparelling of trumpeters; and is very luminous indeed in descanting
+upon &lsquo;crack regiments,&rsquo; and the &lsquo;crack&rsquo; gentlemen
+who compose them, of whose mightiness and grandeur he is never tired
+of telling.</p>
+<p>We were suggesting to a military young gentleman only the other day,
+after he had related to us several dazzling instances of the profusion
+of half-a-dozen honourable ensign somebodies or nobodies in the articles
+of kid gloves and polished boots, that possibly &lsquo;cracked&rsquo;
+regiments would be an improvement upon &lsquo;crack,&rsquo; as being
+a more expressive and appropriate designation, when he suddenly interrupted
+us by pulling out his watch, and observing that he must hurry off to
+the Park in a cab, or he would be too late to hear the band play.&nbsp;
+Not wishing to interfere with so important an engagement, and being
+in fact already slightly overwhelmed by the anecdotes of the honourable
+ensigns afore-mentioned, we made no attempt to detain the military young
+gentleman, but parted company with ready good-will.</p>
+<p>Some three or four hours afterwards, we chanced to be walking down
+Whitehall, on the Admiralty side of the way, when, as we drew near to
+one of the little stone places in which a couple of horse soldiers mount
+guard in the daytime, we were attracted by the motionless appearance
+and eager gaze of a young gentleman, who was devouring both man and
+horse with his eyes, so eagerly, that he seemed deaf and blind to all
+that was passing around him.&nbsp; We were not much surprised at the
+discovery that it was our friend, the military young gentleman, but
+we <i>were</i> a little astonished when we returned from a walk to South
+Lambeth to find him still there, looking on with the same intensity
+as before.&nbsp; As it was a very windy day, we felt bound to awaken
+the young gentleman from his reverie, when he inquired of us with great
+enthusiasm, whether &lsquo;that was not a glorious spectacle,&rsquo;
+and proceeded to give us a detailed account of the weight of every article
+of the spectacle&rsquo;s trappings, from the man&rsquo;s gloves to the
+horse&rsquo;s shoes.</p>
+<p>We have made it a practice since, to take the Horse Guards in our
+daily walk, and we find it is the custom of military young gentlemen
+to plant themselves opposite the sentries, and contemplate them at leisure,
+in periods varying from fifteen minutes to fifty, and averaging twenty-five.&nbsp;
+We were much struck a day or two since, by the behaviour of a very promising
+young butcher who (evincing an interest in the service, which cannot
+be too strongly commanded or encouraged), after a prolonged inspection
+of the sentry, proceeded to handle his boots with great curiosity, and
+as much composure and indifference as if the man were wax-work.</p>
+<p>But the really military young gentleman is waiting all this time,
+and at the very moment that an apology rises to our lips, he emerges
+from the barrack gate (he is quartered in a garrison town), and takes
+the way towards the high street.&nbsp; He wears his undress uniform,
+which somewhat mars the glory of his outward man; but still how great,
+how grand, he is!&nbsp; What a happy mixture of ease and ferocity in
+his gait and carriage, and how lightly he carries that dreadful sword
+under his arm, making no more ado about it than if it were a silk umbrella!&nbsp;
+The lion is sleeping: only think if an enemy were in sight, how soon
+he&rsquo;d whip it out of the scabbard, and what a terrible fellow he
+would be!</p>
+<p>But he walks on, thinking of nothing less than blood and slaughter;
+and now he comes in sight of three other military young gentlemen, arm-in-arm,
+who are bearing down towards him, clanking their iron heels on the pavement,
+and clashing their swords with a noise, which should cause all peaceful
+men to quail at heart.&nbsp; They stop to talk.&nbsp; See how the flaxen-haired
+young gentleman with the weak legs&mdash;he who has his pocket-handkerchief
+thrust into the breast of his coat-glares upon the fainthearted civilians
+who linger to look upon his glory; how the next young gentleman elevates
+his head in the air, and majestically places his arms a-kimbo, while
+the third stands with his legs very wide apart, and clasps his hands
+behind him.&nbsp; Well may we inquire&mdash;not in familiar jest, but
+in respectful earnest&mdash;if you call that nothing.&nbsp; Oh! if some
+encroaching foreign power&mdash;the Emperor of Russia, for instance,
+or any of those deep fellows, could only see those military young gentlemen
+as they move on together towards the billiard-room over the way, wouldn&rsquo;t
+he tremble a little!</p>
+<p>And then, at the Theatre at night, when the performances are by command
+of Colonel Fitz-Sordust and the officers of the garrison&mdash;what
+a splendid sight it is!&nbsp; How sternly the defenders of their country
+look round the house as if in mute assurance to the audience, that they
+may make themselves comfortable regarding any foreign invasion, for
+they (the military young gentlemen) are keeping a sharp look-out, and
+are ready for anything.&nbsp; And what a contrast between them, and
+that stage-box full of grey-headed officers with tokens of many battles
+about them, who have nothing at all in common with the military young
+gentlemen, and who&mdash;but for an old-fashioned kind of manly dignity
+in their looks and bearing&mdash;might be common hard-working soldiers
+for anything they take the pains to announce to the contrary!</p>
+<p>Ah! here is a family just come in who recognise the flaxen-headed
+young gentleman; and the flaxen-headed young gentleman recognises them
+too, only he doesn&rsquo;t care to show it just now.&nbsp; Very well
+done indeed!&nbsp; He talks louder to the little group of military young
+gentlemen who are standing by him, and coughs to induce some ladies
+in the next box but one to look round, in order that their faces may
+undergo the same ordeal of criticism to which they have subjected, in
+not a wholly inaudible tone, the majority of the female portion of the
+audience.&nbsp; Oh! a gentleman in the same box looks round as if he
+were disposed to resent this as an impertinence; and the flaxen-headed
+young gentleman sees his friends at once, and hurries away to them with
+the most charming cordiality.</p>
+<p>Three young ladies, one young man, and the mamma of the party, receive
+the military young gentleman with great warmth and politeness, and in
+five minutes afterwards the military young gentleman, stimulated by
+the mamma, introduces the two other military young gentlemen with whom
+he was walking in the morning, who take their seats behind the young
+ladies and commence conversation; whereat the mamma bestows a triumphant
+bow upon a rival mamma, who has not succeeded in decoying any military
+young gentlemen, and prepares to consider her visitors from that moment
+three of the most elegant and superior young gentlemen in the whole
+world.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>THE POLITICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>Once upon a time&mdash;<i>not</i> in the days when pigs drank wine,
+but in a more recent period of our history&mdash;it was customary to
+banish politics when ladies were present.&nbsp; If this usage still
+prevailed, we should have had no chapter for political young gentlemen,
+for ladies would have neither known nor cared what kind of monster a
+political young gentleman was.&nbsp; But as this good custom in common
+with many others has &lsquo;gone out,&rsquo; and left no word when it
+is likely to be home again; as political young ladies are by no means
+rare, and political young gentlemen the very reverse of scarce, we are
+bound in the strict discharge of our most responsible duty not to neglect
+this natural division of our subject.</p>
+<p>If the political young gentleman be resident in a country town (and
+there <i>are</i> political young gentlemen in country towns sometimes),
+he is wholly absorbed in his politics; as a pair of purple spectacles
+communicate the same uniform tint to all objects near and remote, so
+the political glasses, with which the young gentleman assists his mental
+vision, give to everything the hue and tinge of party feeling.&nbsp;
+The political young gentleman would as soon think of being struck with
+the beauty of a young lady in the opposite interest, as he would dream
+of marrying his sister to the opposite member.</p>
+<p>If the political young gentleman be a Conservative, he has usually
+some vague ideas about Ireland and the Pope which he cannot very clearly
+explain, but which he knows are the right sort of thing, and not to
+be very easily got over by the other side.&nbsp; He has also some choice
+sentences regarding church and state, culled from the banners in use
+at the last election, with which he intersperses his conversation at
+intervals with surprising effect.&nbsp; But his great topic is the constitution,
+upon which he will declaim, by the hour together, with much heat and
+fury; not that he has any particular information on the subject, but
+because he knows that the constitution is somehow church and state,
+and church and state somehow the constitution, and that the fellows
+on the other side say it isn&rsquo;t, which is quite a sufficient reason
+for him to say it is, and to stick to it.</p>
+<p>Perhaps his greatest topic of all, though, is the people.&nbsp; If
+a fight takes place in a populous town, in which many noses are broken,
+and a few windows, the young gentleman throws down the newspaper with
+a triumphant air, and exclaims, &lsquo;Here&rsquo;s your precious people!&rsquo;&nbsp;
+If half-a-dozen boys run across the course at race time, when it ought
+to be kept clear, the young gentleman looks indignantly round, and begs
+you to observe the conduct of the people; if the gallery demand a hornpipe
+between the play and the afterpiece, the same young gentleman cries
+&lsquo;No&rsquo; and &lsquo;Shame&rsquo; till he is hoarse, and then
+inquires with a sneer what you think of popular moderation <i>now</i>;
+in short, the people form a never-failing theme for him; and when the
+attorney, on the side of his candidate, dwells upon it with great power
+of eloquence at election time, as he never fails to do, the young gentleman
+and his friends, and the body they head, cheer with great violence against
+<i>the other people</i>, with whom, of course, they have no possible
+connexion.&nbsp; In much the same manner the audience at a theatre never
+fail to be highly amused with any jokes at the expense of the public&mdash;always
+laughing heartily at some other public, and never at themselves.</p>
+<p>If the political young gentleman be a Radical, he is usually a very
+profound person indeed, having great store of theoretical questions
+to put to you, with an infinite variety of possible cases and logical
+deductions therefrom.&nbsp; If he be of the utilitarian school, too,
+which is more than probable, he is particularly pleasant company, having
+many ingenious remarks to offer upon the voluntary principle and various
+cheerful disquisitions connected with the population of the country,
+the position of Great Britain in the scale of nations, and the balance
+of power.&nbsp; Then he is exceedingly well versed in all doctrines
+of political economy as laid down in the newspapers, and knows a great
+many parliamentary speeches by heart; nay, he has a small stock of aphorisms,
+none of them exceeding a couple of lines in length, which will settle
+the toughest question and leave you nothing to say.&nbsp; He gives all
+the young ladies to understand, that Miss Martineau is the greatest
+woman that ever lived; and when they praise the good looks of Mr. Hawkins
+the new member, says he&rsquo;s very well for a representative, all
+things considered, but he wants a little calling to account, and he
+is more than half afraid it will be necessary to bring him down on his
+knees for that vote on the miscellaneous estimates.&nbsp; At this, the
+young ladies express much wonderment, and say surely a Member of Parliament
+is not to be brought upon his knees so easily; in reply to which the
+political young gentleman smiles sternly, and throws out dark hints
+regarding the speedy arrival of that day, when Members of Parliament
+will be paid salaries, and required to render weekly accounts of their
+proceedings, at which the young ladies utter many expressions of astonishment
+and incredulity, while their lady-mothers regard the prophecy as little
+else than blasphemous.</p>
+<p>It is extremely improving and interesting to hear two political young
+gentlemen, of diverse opinions, discuss some great question across a
+dinner-table; such as, whether, if the public were admitted to Westminster
+Abbey for nothing, they would or would not convey small chisels and
+hammers in their pockets, and immediately set about chipping all the
+noses off the statues; or whether, if they once got into the Tower for
+a shilling, they would not insist upon trying the crown on their own
+heads, and loading and firing off all the small arms in the armoury,
+to the great discomposure of Whitechapel and the Minories.&nbsp; Upon
+these, and many other momentous questions which agitate the public mind
+in these desperate days, they will discourse with great vehemence and
+irritation for a considerable time together, both leaving off precisely
+where they began, and each thoroughly persuaded that he has got the
+better of the other.</p>
+<p>In society, at assemblies, balls, and playhouses, these political
+young gentlemen are perpetually on the watch for a political allusion,
+or anything which can be tortured or construed into being one; when,
+thrusting themselves into the very smallest openings for their favourite
+discourse, they fall upon the unhappy company tooth and nail.&nbsp;
+They have recently had many favourable opportunities of opening in churches,
+but as there the clergyman has it all his own way, and must not be contradicted,
+whatever politics he preaches, they are fain to hold their tongues until
+they reach the outer door, though at the imminent risk of bursting in
+the effort.</p>
+<p>As such discussions can please nobody but the talkative parties concerned,
+we hope they will henceforth take the hint and discontinue them, otherwise
+we now give them warning, that the ladies have our advice to discountenance
+such talkers altogether.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>THE DOMESTIC YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>Let us make a slight sketch of our amiable friend, Mr. Felix Nixon.&nbsp;
+We are strongly disposed to think, that if we put him in this place,
+he will answer our purpose without another word of comment.</p>
+<p>Felix, then, is a young gentleman who lives at home with his mother,
+just within the twopenny-post office circle of three miles from St.
+Martin-le-Grand.&nbsp; He wears Indiarubber goloshes when the weather
+is at all damp, and always has a silk handkerchief neatly folded up
+in the right-hand pocket of his great-coat, to tie over his mouth when
+he goes home at night; moreover, being rather near-sighted, he carries
+spectacles for particular occasions, and has a weakish tremulous voice,
+of which he makes great use, for he talks as much as any old lady breathing.</p>
+<p>The two chief subjects of Felix&rsquo;s discourse, are himself and
+his mother, both of whom would appear to be very wonderful and interesting
+persons.&nbsp; As Felix and his mother are seldom apart in body, so
+Felix and his mother are scarcely ever separate in spirit.&nbsp; If
+you ask Felix how he finds himself to-day, he prefaces his reply with
+a long and minute bulletin of his mother&rsquo;s state of health; and
+the good lady in her turn, edifies her acquaintance with a circumstantial
+and alarming account, how he sneezed four times and coughed once after
+being out in the rain the other night, but having his feet promptly
+put into hot water, and his head into a flannel-something, which we
+will not describe more particularly than by this delicate allusion,
+was happily brought round by the next morning, and enabled to go to
+business as usual.</p>
+<p>Our friend is not a very adventurous or hot-headed person, but he
+has passed through many dangers, as his mother can testify: there is
+one great story in particular, concerning a hackney coachman who wanted
+to overcharge him one night for bringing them home from the play, upon
+which Felix gave the aforesaid coachman a look which his mother thought
+would have crushed him to the earth, but which did not crush him quite,
+for he continued to demand another sixpence, notwithstanding that Felix
+took out his pocket-book, and, with the aid of a flat candle, pointed
+out the fare in print, which the coachman obstinately disregarding,
+he shut the street-door with a slam which his mother shudders to think
+of; and then, roused to the most appalling pitch of passion by the coachman
+knocking a double knock to show that he was by no means convinced, he
+broke with uncontrollable force from his parent and the servant girl,
+and running into the street without his hat, actually shook his fist
+at the coachman, and came back again with a face as white, Mrs. Nixon
+says, looking about her for a simile, as white as that ceiling.&nbsp;
+She never will forget his fury that night, Never!</p>
+<p>To this account Felix listens with a solemn face, occasionally looking
+at you to see how it affects you, and when his mother has made an end
+of it, adds that he looked at every coachman he met for three weeks
+afterwards, in hopes that he might see the scoundrel; whereupon Mrs.
+Nixon, with an exclamation of terror, requests to know what he would
+have done to him if he <i>had</i> seen him, at which Felix smiling darkly
+and clenching his right fist, she exclaims, &lsquo;Goodness gracious!&rsquo;
+with a distracted air, and insists upon extorting a promise that he
+never will on any account do anything so rash, which her dutiful son&mdash;it
+being something more than three years since the offence was committed&mdash;reluctantly
+concedes, and his mother, shaking her head prophetically, fears with
+a sigh that his spirit will lead him into something violent yet.&nbsp;
+The discourse then, by an easy transition, turns upon the spirit which
+glows within the bosom of Felix, upon which point Felix himself becomes
+eloquent, and relates a thrilling anecdote of the time when he used
+to sit up till two o&rsquo;clock in the morning reading French, and
+how his mother used to say, &lsquo;Felix, you will make yourself ill,
+I know you will;&rsquo; and how <i>he</i> used to say, &lsquo;Mother,
+I don&rsquo;t care&mdash;I will do it;&rsquo; and how at last his mother
+privately procured a doctor to come and see him, who declared, the moment
+he felt his pulse, that if he had gone on reading one night more&mdash;only
+one night more&mdash;he must have put a blister on each temple, and
+another between his shoulders; and who, as it was, sat down upon the
+instant, and writing a prescription for a blue pill, said it must be
+taken immediately, or he wouldn&rsquo;t answer for the consequences.&nbsp;
+The recital of these and many other moving perils of the like nature,
+constantly harrows up the feelings of Mr. Nixon&rsquo;s friends.</p>
+<p>Mrs. Nixon has a tolerably extensive circle of female acquaintance,
+being a good-humoured, talkative, bustling little body, and to the unmarried
+girls among them she is constantly vaunting the virtues of her son,
+hinting that she will be a very happy person who wins him, but that
+they must mind their P&rsquo;s and Q&rsquo;s, for he is very particular,
+and terribly severe upon young ladies.&nbsp; At this last caution the
+young ladies resident in the same row, who happen to be spending the
+evening there, put their pocket-handkerchiefs before their mouths, and
+are troubled with a short cough; just then Felix knocks at the door,
+and his mother drawing the tea-table nearer the fire, calls out to him
+as he takes off his boots in the back parlour that he needn&rsquo;t
+mind coming in in his slippers, for there are only the two Miss Greys
+and Miss Thompson, and she is quite sure they will excuse <i>him</i>,
+and nodding to the two Miss Greys, she adds, in a whisper, that Julia
+Thompson is a great favourite with Felix, at which intelligence the
+short cough comes again, and Miss Thompson in particular is greatly
+troubled with it, till Felix coming in, very faint for want of his tea,
+changes the subject of discourse, and enables her to laugh out boldly
+and tell Amelia Grey not to be so foolish.&nbsp; Here they all three
+laugh, and Mrs. Nixon says they are giddy girls; in which stage of the
+proceedings, Felix, who has by this time refreshened himself with the
+grateful herb that &lsquo;cheers but not inebriates,&rsquo; removes
+his cup from his countenance and says with a knowing smile, that all
+girls are; whereat his admiring mamma pats him on the back and tells
+him not to be sly, which calls forth a general laugh from the young
+ladies, and another smile from Felix, who, thinking he looks very sly
+indeed, is perfectly satisfied.</p>
+<p>Tea being over, the young ladies resume their work, and Felix insists
+upon holding a skein of silk while Miss Thompson winds it on a card.&nbsp;
+This process having been performed to the satisfaction of all parties,
+he brings down his flute in compliance with a request from the youngest
+Miss Grey, and plays divers tunes out of a very small music-book till
+supper-time, when he is very facetious and talkative indeed.&nbsp; Finally,
+after half a tumblerful of warm sherry and water, he gallantly puts
+on his goloshes over his slippers, and telling Miss Thompson&rsquo;s
+servant to run on first and get the door open, escorts that young lady
+to her house, five doors off: the Miss Greys who live in the next house
+but one stopping to peep with merry faces from their own door till he
+comes back again, when they call out &lsquo;Very well, Mr. Felix,&rsquo;
+and trip into the passage with a laugh more musical than any flute that
+was ever played.</p>
+<p>Felix is rather prim in his appearance, and perhaps a little priggish
+about his books and flute, and so forth, which have all their peculiar
+corners of peculiar shelves in his bedroom; indeed all his female acquaintance
+(and they are good judges) have long ago set him down as a thorough
+old bachelor.&nbsp; He is a favourite with them however, in a certain
+way, as an honest, inoffensive, kind-hearted creature; and as his peculiarities
+harm nobody, not even himself, we are induced to hope that many who
+are not personally acquainted with him will take our good word in his
+behalf, and be content to leave him to a long continuance of his harmless
+existence.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>THE CENSORIOUS YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>There is an amiable kind of young gentleman going about in society,
+upon whom, after much experience of him, and considerable turning over
+of the subject in our mind, we feel it our duty to affix the above appellation.&nbsp;
+Young ladies mildly call him a &lsquo;sarcastic&rsquo; young gentleman,
+or a &lsquo;severe&rsquo; young gentleman.&nbsp; We, who know better,
+beg to acquaint them with the fact, that he is merely a censorious young
+gentleman, and nothing else.</p>
+<p>The censorious young gentleman has the reputation among his familiars
+of a remarkably clever person, which he maintains by receiving all intelligence
+and expressing all opinions with a dubious sneer, accompanied with a
+half smile, expressive of anything you please but good-humour.&nbsp;
+This sets people about thinking what on earth the censorious young gentleman
+means, and they speedily arrive at the conclusion that he means something
+very deep indeed; for they reason in this way&mdash;&lsquo;This young
+gentleman looks so very knowing that he must mean something, and as
+I am by no means a dull individual, what a very deep meaning he must
+have if I can&rsquo;t find it out!&rsquo;&nbsp; It is extraordinary
+how soon a censorious young gentleman may make a reputation in his own
+small circle if he bear this in his mind, and regulate his proceedings
+accordingly.</p>
+<p>As young ladies are generally&mdash;not curious, but laudably desirous
+to acquire information, the censorious young gentleman is much talked
+about among them, and many surmises are hazarded regarding him.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;I wonder,&rsquo; exclaims the eldest Miss Greenwood, laying down
+her work to turn up the lamp, &lsquo;I wonder whether Mr. Fairfax will
+ever be married.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Bless me, dear,&rsquo; cries Miss
+Marshall, &lsquo;what ever made you think of him?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Really
+I hardly know,&rsquo; replies Miss Greenwood; &lsquo;he is such a very
+mysterious person, that I often wonder about him.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Well,
+to tell you the truth,&rsquo; replies Miss Marshall, &lsquo;and so do
+I.&rsquo;&nbsp; Here two other young ladies profess that they are constantly
+doing the like, and all present appear in the same condition except
+one young lady, who, not scrupling to state that she considers Mr. Fairfax
+&lsquo;a horror,&rsquo; draws down all the opposition of the others,
+which having been expressed in a great many ejaculatory passages, such
+as &lsquo;Well, did I ever!&rsquo;&mdash;and &lsquo;Lor, Emily, dear!&rsquo;
+ma takes up the subject, and gravely states, that she must say she does
+not think Mr. Fairfax by any means a horror, but rather takes him to
+be a young man of very great ability; &lsquo;and I am quite sure,&rsquo;
+adds the worthy lady, &lsquo;he always means a great deal more than
+he says.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The door opens at this point of the disclosure, and who of all people
+alive walks into the room, but the very Mr. Fairfax, who has been the
+subject of conversation!&nbsp; &lsquo;Well, it really is curious,&rsquo;
+cries ma, &lsquo;we were at that very moment talking about you.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;You did me great honour,&rsquo; replies Mr. Fairfax; &lsquo;may
+I venture to ask what you were saying?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Why, if you
+must know,&rsquo; returns the eldest girl, &lsquo;we were remarking
+what a very mysterious man you are.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Ay, ay!&rsquo;
+observes Mr. Fairfax, &lsquo;Indeed!&rsquo;&nbsp; Now Mr. Fairfax says
+this ay, ay, and indeed, which are slight words enough in themselves,
+with so very unfathomable an air, and accompanies them with such a very
+equivocal smile, that ma and the young ladies are more than ever convinced
+that he means an immensity, and so tell him he is a very dangerous man,
+and seems to be always thinking ill of somebody, which is precisely
+the sort of character the censorious young gentleman is most desirous
+to establish; wherefore he says, &lsquo;Oh, dear, no,&rsquo; in a tone,
+obviously intended to mean, &lsquo;You have me there,&rsquo; and which
+gives them to understand that they have hit the right nail on the very
+centre of its head.</p>
+<p>When the conversation ranges from the mystery overhanging the censorious
+young gentleman&rsquo;s behaviour, to the general topics of the day,
+he sustains his character to admiration.&nbsp; He considers the new
+tragedy well enough for a new tragedy, but Lord bless us&mdash;well,
+no matter; he could say a great deal on that point, but he would rather
+not, lest he should be thought ill-natured, as he knows he would be.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;But is not Mr. So-and-so&rsquo;s performance truly charming?&rsquo;
+inquires a young lady.&nbsp; &lsquo;Charming!&rsquo; replies the censorious
+young gentleman.&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh, dear, yes, certainly; very charming&mdash;oh,
+very charming indeed.&rsquo;&nbsp; After this, he stirs the fire, smiling
+contemptuously all the while: and a modest young gentleman, who has
+been a silent listener, thinks what a great thing it must be, to have
+such a critical judgment.&nbsp; Of music, pictures, books, and poetry,
+the censorious young gentleman has an equally fine conception.&nbsp;
+As to men and women, he can tell all about them at a glance.&nbsp; &lsquo;Now
+let us hear your opinion of young Mrs. Barker,&rsquo; says some great
+believer in the powers of Mr. Fairfax, &lsquo;but don&rsquo;t be too
+severe.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;I never am severe,&rsquo; replies the censorious
+young gentleman.&nbsp; &lsquo;Well, never mind that now.&nbsp; She is
+very lady-like, is she not?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Lady-like!&rsquo; repeats
+the censorious young gentleman (for he always repeats when he is at
+a loss for anything to say).&nbsp; &lsquo;Did you observe her manner?&nbsp;
+Bless my heart and soul, Mrs. Thompson, did you observe her manner?&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+all I ask.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;I thought I had done so,&rsquo; rejoins
+the poor lady, much perplexed; &lsquo;I did not observe it very closely
+perhaps.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh, not very closely,&rsquo; rejoins the
+censorious young gentleman, triumphantly.&nbsp; &lsquo;Very good; then
+<i>I</i> did.&nbsp; Let us talk no more about her.&rsquo;&nbsp; The
+censorious young gentleman purses up his lips, and nods his head sagely,
+as he says this; and it is forthwith whispered about, that Mr. Fairfax
+(who, though he is a little prejudiced, must be admitted to be a very
+excellent judge) has observed something exceedingly odd in Mrs. Barker&rsquo;s
+manner.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>THE FUNNY YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>As one funny young gentleman will serve as a sample of all funny
+young Gentlemen we purpose merely to note down the conduct and behaviour
+of an individual specimen of this class, whom we happened to meet at
+an annual family Christmas party in the course of this very last Christmas
+that ever came.</p>
+<p>We were all seated round a blazing fire which crackled pleasantly
+as the guests talked merrily and the urn steamed cheerily&mdash;for,
+being an old-fashioned party, there <i>was</i> an urn, and a teapot
+besides&mdash;when there came a postman&rsquo;s knock at the door, so
+violent and sudden, that it startled the whole circle, and actually
+caused two or three very interesting and most unaffected young ladies
+to scream aloud and to exhibit many afflicting symptoms of terror and
+distress, until they had been several times assured by their respective
+adorers, that they were in no danger.&nbsp; We were about to remark
+that it was surely beyond post-time, and must have been a runaway knock,
+when our host, who had hitherto been paralysed with wonder, sank into
+a chair in a perfect ecstasy of laughter, and offered to lay twenty
+pounds that it was that droll dog Griggins.&nbsp; He had no sooner said
+this, than the majority of the company and all the children of the house
+burst into a roar of laughter too, as if some inimitable joke flashed
+upon them simultaneously, and gave vent to various exclamations of&mdash;To
+be sure it must be Griggins, and How like him that was, and What spirits
+he was always in! with many other commendatory remarks of the like nature.</p>
+<p>Not having the happiness to know Griggins, we became extremely desirous
+to see so pleasant a fellow, the more especially as a stout gentleman
+with a powdered head, who was sitting with his breeches buckles almost
+touching the hob, whispered us he was a wit of the first water, when
+the door opened, and Mr. Griggins being announced, presented himself,
+amidst another shout of laughter and a loud clapping of hands from the
+younger branches.&nbsp; This welcome he acknowledged by sundry contortions
+of countenance, imitative of the clown in one of the new pantomimes,
+which were so extremely successful, that one stout gentleman rolled
+upon an ottoman in a paroxysm of delight, protesting, with many gasps,
+that if somebody didn&rsquo;t make that fellow Griggins leave off, he
+would be the death of him, he knew.&nbsp; At this the company only laughed
+more boisterously than before, and as we always like to accommodate
+our tone and spirit if possible to the humour of any society in which
+we find ourself, we laughed with the rest, and exclaimed, &lsquo;Oh!
+capital, capital!&rsquo; as loud as any of them.</p>
+<p>When he had quite exhausted all beholders, Mr. Griggins received
+the welcomes and congratulations of the circle, and went through the
+needful introductions with much ease and many puns.&nbsp; This ceremony
+over, he avowed his intention of sitting in somebody&rsquo;s lap unless
+the young ladies made room for him on the sofa, which being done, after
+a great deal of tittering and pleasantry, he squeezed himself among
+them, and likened his condition to that of love among the roses.&nbsp;
+At this novel jest we all roared once more.&nbsp; &lsquo;You should
+consider yourself highly honoured, sir,&rsquo; said we.&nbsp; &lsquo;Sir,&rsquo;
+replied Mr. Griggins, &lsquo;you do me proud.&rsquo;&nbsp; Here everybody
+laughed again; and the stout gentleman by the fire whispered in our
+ear that Griggins was making a dead set at us.</p>
+<p>The tea-things having been removed, we all sat down to a round game,
+and here Mr. Griggins shone forth with peculiar brilliancy, abstracting
+other people&rsquo;s fish, and looking over their hands in the most
+comical manner.&nbsp; He made one most excellent joke in snuffing a
+candle, which was neither more nor less than setting fire to the hair
+of a pale young gentleman who sat next him, and afterwards begging his
+pardon with considerable humour.&nbsp; As the young gentleman could
+not see the joke however, possibly in consequence of its being on the
+top of his own head, it did not go off quite as well as it might have
+done; indeed, the young gentleman was heard to murmur some general references
+to &lsquo;impertinence,&rsquo; and a &lsquo;rascal,&rsquo; and to state
+the number of his lodgings in an angry tone&mdash;a turn of the conversation
+which might have been productive of slaughterous consequences, if a
+young lady, betrothed to the young gentleman, had not used her immediate
+influence to bring about a reconciliation: emphatically declaring in
+an agitated whisper, intended for his peculiar edification but audible
+to the whole table, that if he went on in that way, she never would
+think of him otherwise than as a friend, though as that she must always
+regard him.&nbsp; At this terrible threat the young gentleman became
+calm, and the young lady, overcome by the revulsion of feeling, instantaneously
+fainted.</p>
+<p>Mr. Griggins&rsquo;s spirits were slightly depressed for a short
+period by this unlooked-for result of such a harmless pleasantry, but
+being promptly elevated by the attentions of the host and several glasses
+of wine, he soon recovered, and became even more vivacious than before,
+insomuch that the stout gentleman previously referred to, assured us
+that although he had known him since he was <i>that</i> high (something
+smaller than a nutmeg-grater), he had never beheld him in such excellent
+cue.</p>
+<p>When the round game and several games at blind man&rsquo;s buff which
+followed it were all over, and we were going down to supper, the inexhaustible
+Mr. Griggins produced a small sprig of mistletoe from his waistcoat
+pocket, and commenced a general kissing of the assembled females, which
+occasioned great commotion and much excitement.&nbsp; We observed that
+several young gentlemen&mdash;including the young gentleman with the
+pale countenance&mdash;were greatly scandalised at this indecorous proceeding,
+and talked very big among themselves in corners; and we observed too,
+that several young ladies when remonstrated with by the aforesaid young
+gentlemen, called each other to witness how they had struggled, and
+protested vehemently that it was very rude, and that they were surprised
+at Mrs. Brown&rsquo;s allowing it, and that they couldn&rsquo;t bear
+it, and had no patience with such impertinence.&nbsp; But such is the
+gentle and forgiving nature of woman, that although we looked very narrowly
+for it, we could not detect the slightest harshness in the subsequent
+treatment of Mr. Griggins.&nbsp; Indeed, upon the whole, it struck us
+that among the ladies he seemed rather more popular than before!</p>
+<p>To recount all the drollery of Mr. Griggins at supper, would fill
+such a tiny volume as this, to the very bottom of the outside cover.&nbsp;
+How he drank out of other people&rsquo;s glasses, and ate of other people&rsquo;s
+bread, how he frightened into screaming convulsions a little boy who
+was sitting up to supper in a high chair, by sinking below the table
+and suddenly reappearing with a mask on; how the hostess was really
+surprised that anybody could find a pleasure in tormenting children,
+and how the host frowned at the hostess, and felt convinced that Mr.
+Griggins had done it with the very best intentions; how Mr. Griggins
+explained, and how everybody&rsquo;s good-humour was restored but the
+child&rsquo;s;&mdash;to tell these and a hundred other things ever so
+briefly, would occupy more of our room and our readers&rsquo; patience,
+than either they or we can conveniently spare.&nbsp; Therefore we change
+the subject, merely observing that we have offered no description of
+the funny young gentleman&rsquo;s personal appearance, believing that
+almost every society has a Griggins of its own, and leaving all readers
+to supply the deficiency, according to the particular circumstances
+of their particular case.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>THE THEATRICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>All gentlemen who love the drama&mdash;and there are few gentlemen
+who are not attached to the most intellectual and rational of all our
+amusements&mdash;do not come within this definition.&nbsp; As we have
+no mean relish for theatrical entertainments ourself, we are disinterestedly
+anxious that this should be perfectly understood.</p>
+<p>The theatrical young gentleman has early and important information
+on all theatrical topics.&nbsp; &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; says he, abruptly,
+when you meet him in the street, &lsquo;here&rsquo;s a pretty to-do.&nbsp;
+Flimkins has thrown up his part in the melodrama at the Surrey.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;And
+what&rsquo;s to be done?&rsquo; you inquire with as much gravity as
+you can counterfeit.&nbsp; &lsquo;Ah, that&rsquo;s the point,&rsquo;
+replies the theatrical young gentleman, looking very serious; &lsquo;Boozle
+declines it; positively declines it.&nbsp; From all I am told, I should
+say it was decidedly in Boozle&rsquo;s line, and that he would be very
+likely to make a great hit in it; but he objects on the ground of Flimkins
+having been put up in the part first, and says no earthly power shall
+induce him to take the character.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a fine part, too&mdash;excellent
+business, I&rsquo;m told.&nbsp; He has to kill six people in the course
+of the piece, and to fight over a bridge in red fire, which is as safe
+a card, you know, as can be.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t mention it; but I hear
+that the last scene, when he is first poisoned, and then stabbed, by
+Mrs. Flimkins as Vengedora, will be the greatest thing that has been
+done these many years.&rsquo;&nbsp; With this piece of news, and laying
+his finger on his lips as a caution for you not to excite the town with
+it, the theatrical young gentleman hurries away.</p>
+<p>The theatrical young gentleman, from often frequenting the different
+theatrical establishments, has pet and familiar names for them all.&nbsp;
+Thus Covent-Garden is the garden, Drury-Lane the lane, the Victoria
+the vic, and the Olympic the pic.&nbsp; Actresses, too, are always designated
+by their surnames only, as Taylor, Nisbett, Faucit, Honey; that talented
+and lady-like girl Sheriff, that clever little creature Horton, and
+so on.&nbsp; In the same manner he prefixes Christian names when he
+mentions actors, as Charley Young, Jemmy Buckstone, Fred. Yates, Paul
+Bedford.&nbsp; When he is at a loss for a Christian name, the word &lsquo;old&rsquo;
+applied indiscriminately answers quite as well: as old Charley Matthews
+at Vestris&rsquo;s, old Harley, and old Braham.&nbsp; He has a great
+knowledge of the private proceedings of actresses, especially of their
+getting married, and can tell you in a breath half-a-dozen who have
+changed their names without avowing it.&nbsp; Whenever an alteration
+of this kind is made in the playbills, he will remind you that he let
+you into the secret six months ago.</p>
+<p>The theatrical young gentleman has a great reverence for all that
+is connected with the stage department of the different theatres.&nbsp;
+He would, at any time, prefer going a street or two out of his way,
+to omitting to pass a stage-entrance, into which he always looks with
+a curious and searching eye.&nbsp; If he can only identify a popular
+actor in the street, he is in a perfect transport of delight; and no
+sooner meets him, than he hurries back, and walks a few paces in front
+of him, so that he can turn round from time to time, and have a good
+stare at his features.&nbsp; He looks upon a theatrical-fund dinner
+as one of the most enchanting festivities ever known; and thinks that
+to be a member of the Garrick Club, and see so many actors in their
+plain clothes, must be one of the highest gratifications the world can
+bestow.</p>
+<p>The theatrical young gentleman is a constant half-price visitor at
+one or other of the theatres, and has an infinite relish for all pieces
+which display the fullest resources of the establishment.&nbsp; He likes
+to place implicit reliance upon the play-bills when he goes to see a
+show-piece, and works himself up to such a pitch of enthusiasm, as not
+only to believe (if the bills say so) that there are three hundred and
+seventy-five people on the stage at one time in the last scene, but
+is highly indignant with you, unless you believe it also.&nbsp; He considers
+that if the stage be opened from the foot-lights to the back wall, in
+any new play, the piece is a triumph of dramatic writing, and applauds
+accordingly.&nbsp; He has a great notion of trap-doors too; and thinks
+any character going down or coming up a trap (no matter whether he be
+an angel or a demon&mdash;they both do it occasionally) one of the most
+interesting feats in the whole range of scenic illusion.</p>
+<p>Besides these acquirements, he has several veracious accounts to
+communicate of the private manners and customs of different actors,
+which, during the pauses of a quadrille, he usually communicates to
+his partner, or imparts to his neighbour at a supper table.&nbsp; Thus
+he is advised, that Mr. Liston always had a footman in gorgeous livery
+waiting at the side-scene with a brandy bottle and tumbler, to administer
+half a pint or so of spirit to him every time he came off, without which
+assistance he must infallibly have fainted.&nbsp; He knows for a fact,
+that, after an arduous part, Mr. George Bennett is put between two feather
+beds, to absorb the perspiration; and is credibly informed, that Mr.
+Baker has, for many years, submitted to a course of lukewarm toast-and-water,
+to qualify him to sustain his favourite characters.&nbsp; He looks upon
+Mr. Fitz Ball as the principal dramatic genius and poet of the day;
+but holds that there are great writers extant besides him,&mdash;in
+proof whereof he refers you to various dramas and melodramas recently
+produced, of which he takes in all the sixpenny and three-penny editions
+as fast as they appear.</p>
+<p>The theatrical young gentleman is a great advocate for violence of
+emotion and redundancy of action.&nbsp; If a father has to curse a child
+upon the stage, he likes to see it done in the thorough-going style,
+with no mistake about it: to which end it is essential that the child
+should follow the father on her knees, and be knocked violently over
+on her face by the old gentleman as he goes into a small cottage, and
+shuts the door behind him.&nbsp; He likes to see a blessing invoked
+upon the young lady, when the old gentleman repents, with equal earnestness,
+and accompanied by the usual conventional forms, which consist of the
+old gentleman looking anxiously up into the clouds, as if to see whether
+it rains, and then spreading an imaginary tablecloth in the air over
+the young lady&rsquo;s head&mdash;soft music playing all the while.&nbsp;
+Upon these, and other points of a similar kind, the theatrical young
+gentleman is a great critic indeed.&nbsp; He is likewise very acute
+in judging of natural expressions of the passions, and knows precisely
+the frown, wink, nod, or leer, which stands for any one of them, or
+the means by which it may be converted into any other: as jealousy,
+with a good stamp of the right foot, becomes anger; or wildness, with
+the hands clasped before the throat, instead of tearing the wig, is
+passionate love.&nbsp; If you venture to express a doubt of the accuracy
+of any of these portraitures, the theatrical young gentleman assures
+you, with a haughty smile, that it always has been done in that way,
+and he supposes they are not going to change it at this time of day
+to please you; to which, of course, you meekly reply that you suppose
+not.</p>
+<p>There are innumerable disquisitions of this nature, in which the
+theatrical young gentleman is very profound, especially to ladies whom
+he is most in the habit of entertaining with them; but as we have no
+space to recapitulate them at greater length, we must rest content with
+calling the attention of the young ladies in general to the theatrical
+young gentlemen of their own acquaintance.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>THE POETICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>Time was, and not very long ago either, when a singular epidemic
+raged among the young gentlemen, vast numbers of whom, under the influence
+of the malady, tore off their neckerchiefs, turned down their shirt
+collars, and exhibited themselves in the open streets with bare throats
+and dejected countenances, before the eyes of an astonished public.&nbsp;
+These were poetical young gentlemen.&nbsp; The custom was gradually
+found to be inconvenient, as involving the necessity of too much clean
+linen and too large washing bills, and these outward symptoms have consequently
+passed away; but we are disposed to think, notwithstanding, that the
+number of poetical young gentlemen is considerably on the increase.</p>
+<p>We know a poetical young gentleman&mdash;a very poetical young gentleman.&nbsp;
+We do not mean to say that he is troubled with the gift of poesy in
+any remarkable degree, but his countenance is of a plaintive and melancholy
+cast, his manner is abstracted and bespeaks affliction of soul: he seldom
+has his hair cut, and often talks about being an outcast and wanting
+a kindred spirit; from which, as well as from many general observations
+in which he is wont to indulge, concerning mysterious impulses, and
+yearnings of the heart, and the supremacy of intellect gilding all earthly
+things with the glowing magic of immortal verse, it is clear to all
+his friends that he has been stricken poetical.</p>
+<p>The favourite attitude of the poetical young gentleman is lounging
+on a sofa with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling, or sitting bolt upright
+in a high-backed chair, staring with very round eyes at the opposite
+wall.&nbsp; When he is in one of these positions, his mother, who is
+a worthy, affectionate old soul, will give you a nudge to bespeak your
+attention without disturbing the abstracted one, and whisper with a
+shake of the head, that John&rsquo;s imagination is at some extraordinary
+work or other, you may take her word for it.&nbsp; Hereupon John looks
+more fiercely intent upon vacancy than before, and suddenly snatching
+a pencil from his pocket, puts down three words, and a cross on the
+back of a card, sighs deeply, paces once or twice across the room, inflicts
+a most unmerciful slap upon his head, and walks moodily up to his dormitory.</p>
+<p>The poetical young gentleman is apt to acquire peculiar notions of
+things too, which plain ordinary people, unblessed with a poetical obliquity
+of vision, would suppose to be rather distorted.&nbsp; For instance,
+when the sickening murder and mangling of a wretched woman was affording
+delicious food wherewithal to gorge the insatiable curiosity of the
+public, our friend the poetical young gentleman was in ecstasies&mdash;not
+of disgust, but admiration.&nbsp; &lsquo;Heavens!&rsquo; cried the poetical
+young gentleman, &lsquo;how grand; how great!&rsquo;&nbsp; We ventured
+deferentially to inquire upon whom these epithets were bestowed: our
+humble thoughts oscillating between the police officer who found the
+criminal, and the lock-keeper who found the head.&nbsp; &lsquo;Upon
+whom!&rsquo; exclaimed the poetical young gentleman in a frenzy of poetry,
+&lsquo;Upon whom should they be bestowed but upon the murderer!&rsquo;&mdash;and
+thereupon it came out, in a fine torrent of eloquence, that the murderer
+was a great spirit, a bold creature full of daring and nerve, a man
+of dauntless heart and determined courage, and withal a great casuist
+and able reasoner, as was fully demonstrated in his philosophical colloquies
+with the great and noble of the land.&nbsp; We held our peace, and meekly
+signified our indisposition to controvert these opinions&mdash;firstly,
+because we were no match at quotation for the poetical young gentleman;
+and secondly, because we felt it would be of little use our entering
+into any disputation, if we were: being perfectly convinced that the
+respectable and immoral hero in question is not the first and will not
+be the last hanged gentleman upon whom false sympathy or diseased curiosity
+will be plentifully expended.</p>
+<p>This was a stern mystic flight of the poetical young gentleman.&nbsp;
+In his milder and softer moments he occasionally lays down his neckcloth,
+and pens stanzas, which sometimes find their way into a Lady&rsquo;s
+Magazine, or the &lsquo;Poets&rsquo; Corner&rsquo; of some country newspaper;
+or which, in default of either vent for his genius, adorn the rainbow
+leaves of a lady&rsquo;s album.&nbsp; These are generally written upon
+some such occasions as contemplating the Bank of England by midnight,
+or beholding Saint Paul&rsquo;s in a snow-storm; and when these gloomy
+objects fail to afford him inspiration, he pours forth his soul in a
+touching address to a violet, or a plaintive lament that he is no longer
+a child, but has gradually grown up.</p>
+<p>The poetical young gentleman is fond of quoting passages from his
+favourite authors, who are all of the gloomy and desponding school.&nbsp;
+He has a great deal to say too about the world, and is much given to
+opining, especially if he has taken anything strong to drink, that there
+is nothing in it worth living for.&nbsp; He gives you to understand,
+however, that for the sake of society, he means to bear his part in
+the tiresome play, manfully resisting the gratification of his own strong
+desire to make a premature exit; and consoles himself with the reflection,
+that immortality has some chosen nook for himself and the other great
+spirits whom earth has chafed and wearied.</p>
+<p>When the poetical young gentleman makes use of adjectives, they are
+all superlatives.&nbsp; Everything is of the grandest, greatest, noblest,
+mightiest, loftiest; or the lowest, meanest, obscurest, vilest, and
+most pitiful.&nbsp; He knows no medium: for enthusiasm is the soul of
+poetry; and who so enthusiastic as a poetical young gentleman?&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Mr. Milkwash,&rsquo; says a young lady as she unlocks her album
+to receive the young gentleman&rsquo;s original impromptu contribution,
+&lsquo;how very silent you are!&nbsp; I think you must be in love.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Love!&rsquo; cries the poetical young gentleman, starting from
+his seat by the fire and terrifying the cat who scampers off at full
+speed, &lsquo;Love! that burning, consuming passion; that ardour of
+the soul, that fierce glowing of the heart.&nbsp; Love!&nbsp; The withering,
+blighting influence of hope misplaced and affection slighted.&nbsp;
+Love did you say!&nbsp; Ha! ha! ha!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>With this, the poetical young gentleman laughs a laugh belonging
+only to poets and Mr. O. Smith of the Adelphi Theatre, and sits down,
+pen in hand, to throw off a page or two of verse in the biting, semi-atheistical
+demoniac style, which, like the poetical young gentleman himself, is
+full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>THE &lsquo;THROWING-OFF&rsquo; YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>There is a certain kind of impostor&mdash;a bragging, vaunting, puffing
+young gentleman&mdash;against whom we are desirous to warn that fairer
+part of the creation, to whom we more peculiarly devote these our labours.&nbsp;
+And we are particularly induced to lay especial stress upon this division
+of our subject, by a little dialogue we held some short time ago, with
+an esteemed young lady of our acquaintance, touching a most gross specimen
+of this class of men.&nbsp; We had been urging all the absurdities of
+his conduct and conversation, and dwelling upon the impossibilities
+he constantly recounted&mdash;to which indeed we had not scrupled to
+prefix a certain hard little word of one syllable and three letters&mdash;when
+our fair friend, unable to maintain the contest any longer, reluctantly
+cried, &lsquo;Well; he certainly has a habit of throwing-off, but then&mdash;&rsquo;&nbsp;
+What then?&nbsp; Throw him off yourself, said we.&nbsp; And so she did,
+but not at our instance, for other reasons appeared, and it might have
+been better if she had done so at first.</p>
+<p>The throwing-off young gentleman has so often a father possessed
+of vast property in some remote district of Ireland, that we look with
+some suspicion upon all young gentlemen who volunteer this description
+of themselves.&nbsp; The deceased grandfather of the throwing-off young
+gentleman was a man of immense possessions, and untold wealth; the throwing-off
+young gentleman remembers, as well as if it were only yesterday, the
+deceased baronet&rsquo;s library, with its long rows of scarce and valuable
+books in superbly embossed bindings, arranged in cases, reaching from
+the lofty ceiling to the oaken floor; and the fine antique chairs and
+tables, and the noble old castle of Ballykillbabaloo, with its splendid
+prospect of hill and dale, and wood, and rich wild scenery, and the
+fine hunting stables and the spacious court-yards, &lsquo;and&mdash;and&mdash;everything
+upon the same magnificent scale,&rsquo; says the throwing-off young
+gentleman, &lsquo;princely; quite princely.&nbsp; Ah!&rsquo;&nbsp; And
+he sighs as if mourning over the fallen fortunes of his noble house.</p>
+<p>The throwing-off young gentleman is a universal genius; at walking,
+running, rowing, swimming, and skating, he is unrivalled; at all games
+of chance or skill, at hunting, shooting, fishing, riding, driving,
+or amateur theatricals, no one can touch him&mdash;that is <i>could</i>
+not, because he gives you carefully to understand, lest there should
+be any opportunity of testing his skill, that he is quite out of practice
+just now, and has been for some years.&nbsp; If you mention any beautiful
+girl of your common acquaintance in his hearing, the throwing-off young
+gentleman starts, smiles, and begs you not to mind him, for it was quite
+involuntary: people do say indeed that they were once engaged, but no&mdash;although
+she is a very fine girl, he was so situated at that time that he couldn&rsquo;t
+possibly encourage the&mdash;&lsquo;but it&rsquo;s of no use talking
+about it!&rsquo; he adds, interrupting himself.&nbsp; &lsquo;She has
+got over it now, and I firmly hope and trust is happy.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+With this benevolent aspiration he nods his head in a mysterious manner,
+and whistling the first part of some popular air, thinks perhaps it
+will be better to change the subject.</p>
+<p>There is another great characteristic of the throwing-off young gentleman,
+which is, that he &lsquo;happens to be acquainted&rsquo; with a most
+extraordinary variety of people in all parts of the world.&nbsp; Thus
+in all disputed questions, when the throwing-off young gentleman has
+no argument to bring forward, he invariably happens to be acquainted
+with some distant person, intimately connected with the subject, whose
+testimony decides the point against you, to the great&mdash;may we say
+it&mdash;to the great admiration of three young ladies out of every
+four, who consider the throwing-off young gentleman a very highly-connected
+young man, and a most charming person.</p>
+<p>Sometimes the throwing-off young gentleman happens to look in upon
+a little family circle of young ladies who are quietly spending the
+evening together, and then indeed is he at the very height and summit
+of his glory; for it is to be observed that he by no means shines to
+equal advantage in the presence of men as in the society of over-credulous
+young ladies, which is his proper element.&nbsp; It is delightful to
+hear the number of pretty things the throwing-off young gentleman gives
+utterance to, during tea, and still more so to observe the ease with
+which, from long practice and study, he delicately blends one compliment
+to a lady with two for himself.&nbsp; &lsquo;Did you ever see a more
+lovely blue than this flower, Mr. Caveton?&rsquo; asks a young lady
+who, truth to tell, is rather smitten with the throwing-off young gentleman.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Never,&rsquo; he replies, bending over the object of admiration,
+&lsquo;never but in your eyes.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Oh, Mr. Caveton,&rsquo;
+cries the young lady, blushing of course.&nbsp; &lsquo;Indeed I speak
+the truth,&rsquo; replies the throwing-off young gentleman, &lsquo;I
+never saw any approach to them.&nbsp; I used to think my cousin&rsquo;s
+blue eyes lovely, but they grow dim and colourless beside yours.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Oh! a beautiful cousin, Mr. Caveton!&rsquo; replies the young
+lady, with that perfect artlessness which is the distinguishing characteristic
+of all young ladies; &lsquo;an affair, of course.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;No;
+indeed, indeed you wrong me,&rsquo; rejoins the throwing-off young gentleman
+with great energy.&nbsp; &lsquo;I fervently hope that her attachment
+towards me may be nothing but the natural result of our close intimacy
+in childhood, and that in change of scene and among new faces she may
+soon overcome it.&nbsp; <i>I</i> love her!&nbsp; Think not so meanly
+of me, Miss Lowfield, I beseech, as to suppose that title, lands, riches,
+and beauty, can influence <i>my</i> choice.&nbsp; The heart, the heart,
+Miss Lowfield.&rsquo;&nbsp; Here the throwing-off young gentleman sinks
+his voice to a still lower whisper; and the young lady duly proclaims
+to all the other young ladies when they go up-stairs, to put their bonnets
+on, that Mr. Caveton&rsquo;s relations are all immensely rich, and that
+he is hopelessly beloved by title, lands, riches, and beauty.</p>
+<p>We have seen a throwing-off young gentleman who, to our certain knowledge,
+was innocent of a note of music, and scarcely able to recognise a tune
+by ear, volunteer a Spanish air upon the guitar when he had previously
+satisfied himself that there was not such an instrument within a mile
+of the house.</p>
+<p>We have heard another throwing-off young gentleman, after striking
+a note or two upon the piano, and accompanying it correctly (by dint
+of laborious practice) with his voice, assure a circle of wondering
+listeners that so acute was his ear that he was wholly unable to sing
+out of tune, let him try as he would.&nbsp; We have lived to witness
+the unmasking of another throwing-off young gentleman, who went out
+a visiting in a military cap with a gold band and tassel, and who, after
+passing successfully for a captain and being lauded to the skies for
+his red whiskers, his bravery, his soldierly bearing and his pride,
+turned out to be the dishonest son of an honest linen-draper in a small
+country town, and whom, if it were not for this fortunate exposure,
+we should not yet despair of encountering as the fortunate husband of
+some rich heiress.&nbsp; Ladies, ladies, the throwing-off young gentlemen
+are often swindlers, and always fools.&nbsp; So pray you avoid them.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>THE YOUNG LADIES&rsquo; YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>This young gentleman has several titles.&nbsp; Some young ladies
+consider him &lsquo;a nice young man,&rsquo; others &lsquo;a fine young
+man,&rsquo; others &lsquo;quite a lady&rsquo;s man,&rsquo; others &lsquo;a
+handsome man,&rsquo; others &lsquo;a remarkably good-looking young man.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+With some young ladies he is &lsquo;a perfect angel,&rsquo; and with
+others &lsquo;quite a love.&rsquo;&nbsp; He is likewise a charming creature,
+a duck, and a dear.</p>
+<p>The young ladies&rsquo; young gentleman has usually a fresh colour
+and very white teeth, which latter articles, of course, he displays
+on every possible opportunity.&nbsp; He has brown or black hair, and
+whiskers of the same, if possible; but a slight tinge of red, or the
+hue which is vulgarly known as <i>sandy</i>, is not considered an objection.&nbsp;
+If his head and face be large, his nose prominent, and his figure square,
+he is an uncommonly fine young man, and worshipped accordingly.&nbsp;
+Should his whiskers meet beneath his chin, so much the better, though
+this is not absolutely insisted on; but he must wear an under-waistcoat,
+and smile constantly.</p>
+<p>There was a great party got up by some party-loving friends of ours
+last summer, to go and dine in Epping Forest.&nbsp; As we hold that
+such wild expeditions should never be indulged in, save by people of
+the smallest means, who have no dinner at home, we should indubitably
+have excused ourself from attending, if we had not recollected that
+the projectors of the excursion were always accompanied on such occasions
+by a choice sample of the young ladies&rsquo; young gentleman, whom
+we were very anxious to have an opportunity of meeting.&nbsp; This determined
+us, and we went.</p>
+<p>We were to make for Chigwell in four glass coaches, each with a trifling
+company of six or eight inside, and a little boy belonging to the projectors
+on the box&mdash;and to start from the residence of the projectors,
+Woburn-place, Russell-square, at half-past ten precisely.&nbsp; We arrived
+at the place of rendezvous at the appointed time, and found the glass
+coaches and the little boys quite ready, and divers young ladies and
+young gentlemen looking anxiously over the breakfast-parlour blinds,
+who appeared by no means so much gratified by our approach as we might
+have expected, but evidently wished we had been somebody else.&nbsp;
+Observing that our arrival in lieu of the unknown occasioned some disappointment,
+we ventured to inquire who was yet to come, when we found from the hasty
+reply of a dozen voices, that it was no other than the young ladies&rsquo;
+young gentleman.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;I cannot imagine,&rsquo; said the mamma, &lsquo;what has become
+of Mr. Balim&mdash;always so punctual, always so pleasant and agreeable.&nbsp;
+I am sure I can-<i>not</i> think.&rsquo;&nbsp; As these last words were
+uttered in that measured, emphatic manner which painfully announces
+that the speaker has not quite made up his or her mind what to say,
+but is determined to talk on nevertheless, the eldest daughter took
+up the subject, and hoped no accident had happened to Mr. Balim, upon
+which there was a general chorus of &lsquo;Dear Mr. Balim!&rsquo; and
+one young lady, more adventurous than the rest, proposed that an express
+should be straightway sent to dear Mr. Balim&rsquo;s lodgings.&nbsp;
+This, however, the papa resolutely opposed, observing, in what a short
+young lady behind us termed &lsquo;quite a bearish way,&rsquo; that
+if Mr. Balim didn&rsquo;t choose to come, he might stop at home.&nbsp;
+At this all the daughters raised a murmur of &lsquo;Oh pa!&rsquo; except
+one sprightly little girl of eight or ten years old, who, taking advantage
+of a pause in the discourse, remarked, that perhaps Mr. Balim might
+have been married that morning&mdash;for which impertinent suggestion
+she was summarily ejected from the room by her eldest sister.</p>
+<p>We were all in a state of great mortification and uneasiness, when
+one of the little boys, running into the room as airily as little boys
+usually run who have an unlimited allowance of animal food in the holidays,
+and keep their hands constantly forced down to the bottoms of very deep
+trouser-pockets when they take exercise, joyfully announced that Mr.
+Balim was at that moment coming up the street in a hackney-cab; and
+the intelligence was confirmed beyond all doubt a minute afterwards
+by the entry of Mr. Balim himself, who was received with repeated cries
+of &lsquo;Where have you been, you naughty creature?&rsquo; whereunto
+the naughty creature replied, that he had been in bed, in consequence
+of a late party the night before, and had only just risen.&nbsp; The
+acknowledgment awakened a variety of agonizing fears that he had taken
+no breakfast; which appearing after a slight cross-examination to be
+the real state of the case, breakfast for one was immediately ordered,
+notwithstanding Mr. Balim&rsquo;s repeated protestations that he couldn&rsquo;t
+think of it.&nbsp; He did think of it though, and thought better of
+it too, for he made a remarkably good meal when it came, and was assiduously
+served by a select knot of young ladies.&nbsp; It was quite delightful
+to see how he ate and drank, while one pair of fair hands poured out
+his coffee, and another put in the sugar, and another the milk; the
+rest of the company ever and anon casting angry glances at their watches,
+and the glass coaches,&mdash;and the little boys looking on in an agony
+of apprehension lest it should begin to rain before we set out; it might
+have rained all day, after we were once too far to turn back again,
+and welcome, for aught they cared.</p>
+<p>However, the cavalcade moved at length, every coachman being accommodated
+with a hamper between his legs something larger than a wheelbarrow;
+and the company being packed as closely as they possibly could in the
+carriages, &lsquo;according,&rsquo; as one married lady observed, &lsquo;to
+the immemorial custom, which was half the diversion of gipsy parties.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+Thinking it very likely it might be (we have never been able to discover
+the other half), we submitted to be stowed away with a cheerful aspect,
+and were fortunate enough to occupy one corner of a coach in which were
+one old lady, four young ladies, and the renowned Mr. Balim the young
+ladies&rsquo; young gentleman.</p>
+<p>We were no sooner fairly off, than the young ladies&rsquo; young
+gentleman hummed a fragment of an air, which induced a young lady to
+inquire whether he had danced to that the night before.&nbsp; &lsquo;By
+Heaven, then, I did,&rsquo; replied the young gentleman, &lsquo;and
+with a lovely heiress; a superb creature, with twenty thousand pounds.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;You seem rather struck,&rsquo; observed another young lady.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;&rsquo;Gad she was a sweet creature,&rsquo; returned the young
+gentleman, arranging his hair.&nbsp; &lsquo;Of course <i>she</i> was
+struck too?&rsquo; inquired the first young lady.&nbsp; &lsquo;How can
+you ask, love?&rsquo; interposed the second; &lsquo;could she fail to
+be?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Well, honestly I think she was,&rsquo; observed
+the young gentleman.&nbsp; At this point of the dialogue, the young
+lady who had spoken first, and who sat on the young gentleman&rsquo;s
+right, struck him a severe blow on the arm with a rosebud, and said
+he was a vain man&mdash;whereupon the young gentleman insisted on having
+the rosebud, and the young lady appealing for help to the other young
+ladies, a charming struggle ensued, terminating in the victory of the
+young gentleman, and the capture of the rosebud.&nbsp; This little skirmish
+over, the married lady, who was the mother of the rosebud, smiled sweetly
+upon the young gentleman, and accused him of being a flirt; the young
+gentleman pleading not guilty, a most interesting discussion took place
+upon the important point whether the young gentleman was a flirt or
+not, which being an agreeable conversation of a light kind, lasted a
+considerable time.&nbsp; At length, a short silence occurring, the young
+ladies on either side of the young gentleman fell suddenly fast asleep;
+and the young gentleman, winking upon us to preserve silence, won a
+pair of gloves from each, thereby causing them to wake with equal suddenness
+and to scream very loud.&nbsp; The lively conversation to which this
+pleasantry gave rise, lasted for the remainder of the ride, and would
+have eked out a much longer one.</p>
+<p>We dined rather more comfortably than people usually do under such
+circumstances, nothing having been left behind but the cork-screw and
+the bread.&nbsp; The married gentlemen were unusually thirsty, which
+they attributed to the heat of the weather; the little boys ate to inconvenience;
+mammas were very jovial, and their daughters very fascinating; and the
+attendants being well-behaved men, got exceedingly drunk at a respectful
+distance.</p>
+<p>We had our eye on Mr. Balim at dinner-time, and perceived that he
+flourished wonderfully, being still surrounded by a little group of
+young ladies, who listened to him as an oracle, while he ate from their
+plates and drank from their glasses in a manner truly captivating from
+its excessive playfulness.&nbsp; His conversation, too, was exceedingly
+brilliant.&nbsp; In fact, one elderly lady assured us, that in the course
+of a little lively <i>badinage</i> on the subject of ladies&rsquo; dresses,
+he had evinced as much knowledge as if he had been born and bred a milliner.</p>
+<p>As such of the fat people who did not happen to fall asleep after
+dinner entered upon a most vigorous game at ball, we slipped away alone
+into a thicker part of the wood, hoping to fall in with Mr. Balim, the
+greater part of the young people having dropped off in twos and threes
+and the young ladies&rsquo; young gentleman among them.&nbsp; Nor were
+we disappointed, for we had not walked far, when, peeping through the
+trees, we discovered him before us, and truly it was a pleasant thing
+to contemplate his greatness.</p>
+<p>The young ladies&rsquo; young gentleman was seated upon the ground,
+at the feet of a few young ladies who were reclining on a bank; he was
+so profusely decked with scarfs, ribands, flowers, and other pretty
+spoils, that he looked like a lamb&mdash;or perhaps a calf would be
+a better simile&mdash;adorned for the sacrifice.&nbsp; One young lady
+supported a parasol over his interesting head, another held his hat,
+and a third his neck-cloth, which in romantic fashion he had thrown
+off; the young gentleman himself, with his hand upon his breast, and
+his face moulded into an expression of the most honeyed sweetness, was
+warbling forth some choice specimens of vocal music in praise of female
+loveliness, in a style so exquisitely perfect, that we burst into an
+involuntary shout of laughter, and made a hasty retreat.</p>
+<p>What charming fellows these young ladies&rsquo; young gentlemen are!&nbsp;
+Ducks, dears, loves, angels, are all terms inadequate to express their
+merit.&nbsp; They are such amazingly, uncommonly, wonderfully, nice
+men.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>CONCLUSION</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>As we have placed before the young ladies so many specimens of young
+gentlemen, and have also in the dedication of this volume given them
+to understand how much we reverence and admire their numerous virtues
+and perfections; as we have given them such strong reasons to treat
+us with confidence, and to banish, in our case, all that reserve and
+distrust of the male sex which, as a point of general behaviour, they
+cannot do better than preserve and maintain&mdash;we say, as we have
+done all this, we feel that now, when we have arrived at the close of
+our task, they may naturally press upon us the inquiry, what particular
+description of young gentlemen we can conscientiously recommend.</p>
+<p>Here we are at a loss.&nbsp; We look over our list, and can neither
+recommend the bashful young gentleman, nor the out-and-out young gentleman,
+nor the very friendly young gentleman, nor the military young gentleman,
+nor the political young gentleman, nor the domestic young gentleman,
+nor the censorious young gentleman, nor the funny young gentleman, nor
+the theatrical young gentleman, nor the poetical young gentleman, nor
+the throwing-off young gentleman, nor the young ladies&rsquo; young
+gentleman.</p>
+<p>As there are some good points about many of them, which still are
+not sufficiently numerous to render any one among them eligible, as
+a whole, our respectful advice to the young ladies is, to seek for a
+young gentleman who unites in himself the best qualities of all, and
+the worst weaknesses of none, and to lead him forthwith to the hymeneal
+altar, whether he will or no.&nbsp; And to the young lady who secures
+him, we beg to tender one short fragment of matrimonial advice, selected
+from many sound passages of a similar tendency, to be found in a letter
+written by Dean Swift to a young lady on her marriage.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;The grand affair of your life will be, to gain and preserve
+the esteem of your husband.&nbsp; Neither good-nature nor virtue will
+suffer him to <i>esteem</i> you against his judgment; and although he
+is not capable of using you ill, yet you will in time grow a thing indifferent
+and perhaps contemptible; unless you can supply the loss of youth and
+beauty with more durable qualities.&nbsp; You have but a very few years
+to be young and handsome in the eyes of the world; and as few months
+to be so in the eyes of a husband who is not a fool; for I hope you
+do not still dream of charms and raptures, which marriage ever did,
+and ever will, put a sudden end to.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>From the anxiety we express for the proper behaviour of the fortunate
+lady after marriage, it may possibly be inferred that the young gentleman
+to whom we have so delicately alluded, is no other than ourself.&nbsp;
+Without in any way committing ourself upon this point, we have merely
+to observe, that we are ready to receive sealed offers containing a
+full specification of age, temper, appearance, and condition; but we
+beg it to be distinctly understood that we do not pledge ourself to
+accept the highest bidder.</p>
+<p>These offers may be forwarded to the Publishers, Messrs. Chapman
+and Hall, London; to whom all pieces of plate and other testimonials
+of approbation from the young ladies generally, are respectfully requested
+to be addressed.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SKETCHES OF YOUNG GENTLEMEN ***</p>
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