0154
0154f
Sketches of Young Gentlemen
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.
CONTENTS
PAGE
The Bashful Young Gentleman 403
The Out-and-out Young Gentleman 407
The Very Friendly Young Gentleman 410
The Military Young Gentleman 414
The Political Young Gentleman 418
The Domestic Young Gentleman 421
The Censorious Young Gentleman 424
The Funny Young Gentleman 427
The Theatrical Young Gentleman 431
The Poetical Young Gentleman 433
The ‘Throwing-off’ Young Gentleman 436
The Young Ladies’ Young Gentleman 439
Conclusion 443
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.
[Picture: The out-and-out Young Gentleman]
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 _éclat_.
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.
[Picture: The Military Young Gentleman]
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.
[Picture: The Domestic Young Gentleman]
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.
[Picture: The Funny Young Gentleman]
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, {429} 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.
[Picture: The Poetical Young Gentleman]
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.
[Picture: The Young Ladies’ Young Gentleman]
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.
FOOTNOTES
{429} [In its original form.]
***
