CONTENTS
[MORLEY’S UNIVERSAL LIBRARY.]
[INTRODUCTION.]
[PREFACE.]
[RHYME AND REASON.]
[ON THE PRACTICAL BATHOS.]
[NICKNAMES.]
[YES AND NO.]
[THOUGHTS ON THE WORDS “TURN OUT.”]
[SOLITUDE IN A CROWD.]
[POLITENESS AND POLITESSE.]
[A WINDSOR BALL.]
[LOVERS’ VOWS.]
[ON THE PRACTICAL ASYNDETON.]
[ON HAIR-DRESSING.]
[ON A CERTAIN AGE.]
[NOT AT HOME.]
[MUSÆ O’CONNORIANÆ.]
[THE KNIGHT AND THE KNAVE.]
[MAD—QUITE MAD!]
[THE BOGLE OF ANNESLIE; OR, THE THREE-CORNERED HAT.]
[ON THE PROPOSED ESTABLISHMENT OF A PUBLIC LIBRARY AT ETON.]
[THE MISTAKE; OR, SIXES AND SEVENS.]
[SENSE AND SENSIBILITY.]
[MR. LOZELL’S ESSAY ON WEATHERCOCKS.]
[GOLIGHTLY’S ESSAY ON BLUES.]
[OLD BOOTS.]
[ON THE DIVINITIES OF THE ANCIENTS.]
[REMINISCENCES OF MY YOUTH.]
[ON TRUE FRIENDSHIP.]
[THE COUNTRY CURATE.]
[THE WEDDING:]
[PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF PEREGRINE COURTENAY.]
[ABDICATION OF THE KING OF CLUBS.]
[THE UNION CLUB.]
[MY FIRST FOLLY.]
[POINTS.]
[LEONORA.]
[DAMASIPPUS.]
[MY FIRST FLAME.]
[THE INCONVENIENCE OF HAVING AN ELDER BROTHER.]
[TOUJOURS PERDRIX.]
[THE BEST ΒΑΤ IN THE SCHOOL.]

Ballantyne Press
BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON

ESSAYS

BY
WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED
COLLECTED AND ARRANGED BY
SIR GEORGE YOUNG, Bart., Μ.A.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HENRY MORLEY
LL.D., PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS
BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL
GLASGOW AND NEW YORK
1887

MORLEY’S UNIVERSAL LIBRARY.

INTRODUCTION.

The readers of our Library are greatly indebted to Sir George Young for his kindness in presenting them with this first collected edition of the prose writings of his uncle, Winthrop Mackworth Praed. He little knows the charm of the bright regions of Literature who cannot yield himself to full enjoyment of their infinite variety. As we pass from book to book, it is a long leap from Euripides to the brilliant young Etonian who brought all the grace of happy youth into such work as we have here. Happy the old who can grow young again with this book in their hands. If we all came into the world mature, and there were no childhood and youth about us, what a dull world it would be! Any book is a prize that brings the fresh and cheerful voice of youth into the region of true Literature. Of Praed’s work in this way none can speak better than Sir George Young in his Preface.

Of his life, these are a few dry facts. He was born in 1802, lost his mother early, and went to Eton at the age of[Pg 6] twelve. He was still at Eton when, at the age of eighteen, in 1820, he and his friend Walter Blount edited the Etonian, which began its course in October 1820 and ended in July 1821. In the following October Praed went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a Fellowship. He obtained medals for Greek odes and epigrams, a medal for English verse, and he was still full of the old grace of playfulness. He was called to the Bar in 1829. An elder sister died in 1830, and his love for her is shown in tender touches of his later verse. The vers de société which he wrote, and which no man wrote better than Praed, retain their charm because their playfulness is on the surface of a manly earnest nature, from the depth of which a tone now and then rises that comes straight into our hearts. Praed was in Parliament from November 1830 until after the passing of the Reform Bill, and again in 1834, when he was Secretary to the Board of Control under Sir Robert Peel. His father died in 1835; in the same year Praed married; and in July 1839 he died, aged thirty-seven.

Η. Μ.

October 1887.[Pg 7]

PREFACE.

The prose pieces of Winthrop Mackworth Praed have never before been presented in a collected form. They are worthy of preservation, in a degree hardly less than his verse; though by the latter he has hitherto been best known, and will probably be longest remembered. At the time when the high quality of his literary work obtained for the Etonian the honour, unprecedented in the case of a school magazine, of a complimentary notice in the Quarterly Review, it was to the merit of his prose, as much as to that of his poetry, that attention was called by the reviewer. It is not, however, as the phenomenally precocious work of a schoolboy that these papers have been thought worthy of reproduction in the Universal Library. The circumstance that they were, most of them, written at Eton, is only to be accounted of as adding to their interest, by giving the reader a point of view from which to sympathize with the writer’s humour. It would, however, be a mistake to consider the senior Etonian of 1820 as corresponding to any reasonable description of what is generally denoted by the word “schoolboy.” At[Pg 8] the age of eighteen or nineteen, when his grandfathers had already taken their first degrees, subjected to a discipline as light as that of a modern University, more free to study in the way the spirit moved him, or not to study at all, than the undergraduate of a “good” college now, the pupil of Goodall, Keate, or Plumptre was of a maturer sort than is now to be found among the denizens of Sixth Forms. He came between two ages in the history of our Public Schools, in neither of which could such literary work as here follows have been produced by a “schoolboy.” There preceded him the age in which a youth went early to the University, and early into life. There has followed the day in which “boys” at school, when no longer boys, but men in years, are held fast by discipline to boyish studies, or at any rate to boyish amusements. The circumstance that a few individuals, of great and early matured literary gifts, were assembled together under these conditions at a single school, on two several occasions, in two successive generations, at an interval of about thirty years, operated to enrich English Literature with two graceful and unique volumes. Of the Microcosm, the best pieces are due to Canning and Frere; in the Etonian, the share of Praed surpasses and eclipses that of his contemporaries. From his University friends, indeed, he derived powerful help; there are a few lines of poetry, by William Sidney Walker, better than any of his own; and there are a few pages of prose, by Henry Nelson Coleridge, which are also better; but for sustained excellence, and for an energy and variety in production, truly extraordinary under the circumstances, Praed, and Praed only, is the hero of the Etonian; the over-[Pg 9]praised and ambitiously constructed efforts of his friend Moultrie not excepted.

After Praed left Eton, his bent led him to verse, rather than to prose, as his appropriate vehicle of expression; and it was only occasionally that he sent a prose contribution, either to Knight’s Quarterly Magazine, or to the London Magazine, or to the ephemeral pages of the Brazen Head. Two speeches of his in Parliament were “reprinted by request;” but they seem to have owed this distinction rather to the special interest, at the time, of their subject-matter, than to any exceptional finish in their literary form. They were speeches in Committee on the Reform Bills of 1831 and 1832, the one on moving as an amendment what was afterwards known as the “three-cornered constituency” arrangement; the other on moving, similarly, that freeholds within the limits of boroughs should confer votes for the borough and not for the county. His partly versified squib, “The Union Club,” in which he parodied the style and matter of the principal speakers among Cambridge undergraduates in 1822, has been included in this collection, for the sake especially of the comical imitations of Lord Macaulay and Lord Lytton. It was written, as Macaulay himself informed me, “for Cookesley to recite at supper-parties.” The late Rev. William Gifford Cookesley, long an assistant master at Eton, who acted as Lord Beaconsfield’s cicerone when he came down to the spot to make studies for “Coningsby,” is gratefully remembered by many of his scholars for his genuine, if somewhat irregular, love of literature, and for his hearty sympathy with boyish good-fellowship. He was a contemporary of Praed’s both at[Pg 10] Eton and Cambridge, and long preserved, in maturer years, his admirable faculty of mimicry.

Among the characteristics of these pieces will be found an almost unfailing good taste; a polished style, exhibiting a sparkle, as of finely constructed verse; a strong love of sheer fun, not ungracefully indulged; a dash of affectation, inoffensive, and such as is natural in a new-comer, upon whom the eyes of his circle have, by no fault of his, been drawn; a healthy, breezy spirit, redolent of the playing-fields; and a hearty appreciation of the pleasures arising from a first fresh plunge into the waters of literature. Powers of observation are shown of no mean order, and powers, also, of putting in a strong light, whether attractive or ridiculous, the more obvious features of everyday characters. These powers afterwards ripened into a truly admirable skill of political and social verse-writing; and they showed signs of deepening into a more forcible satiric power, tempered with humour, as his too short career drew towards its end.

Praed is moreover especially to be commended in that he is never dull. Although free from “sensationalism,” he is not forgetful that the first business of a writer is—to be read. There are gentle lessons of good manners, of unselfishness, and of chivalry, to be read in his pages; they are not loudly trumpeted, but there they are; there is also a sincere respect for great minds and for good work in literature, enlivened, not neutralized, by unfailing high spirits. One could dispense, certainly, with some of his antithesis; perhaps with all his punning; but life is not so short, or so lively in itself, as to leave us no time to be[Pg 11] amused, and no ground for gratitude to the writers who amuse us.

The only omissions from this collection are, besides the speeches above mentioned, the prefaces contributed, in the taste of the day, to the several numbers of the Etonian, under the title “The King of Clubs,” and to Knight’s Quarterly Magazine, under the title “Castle Vernon.” These are lively in their way, but unequal, and full of allusions which would require notes to make them intelligible. Occasionally, too, they are padded out with contributory matter by other hands. One rather ambitious failure, to be found in the Etonian, “On Silent Sorrow,” has also been omitted, and will not be missed.

It should be added, that the leading articles of the Morning Post newspaper, from August 1832 to some time in the autumn of 1834, were for the most part of Praed’s writing. Many of them are exceedingly well written; but their contents are, of necessity, too ephemeral for reproduction in these pages.

GEORGE YOUNG.

October 1887.[Pg 13][Pg 12]

Praed’s Essays.

RHYME AND REASON.

“Non eadem est ætas, non mens.”—Horace.

He whose life has not been one continued monotony; he who has been susceptible of different passions, opposite in their origins and effects, needs not to be told that the same objects, the same scenes, the same incidents, strike us in a variety of lights, according to the temper and inclination with which we survey them. To borrow an illustration from external scenes,—if we are situated in the centre of a shady valley, our view is confined and our prospect bounded; but if we ascend the topmost heights of the mountain by which that valley is overshadowed, the eye wanders luxuriantly over a perpetual succession of beautiful objects, until the mental faculties appear to catch new freedom from the extension of the sight; we breathe a purer air, and are inspired with purer emotions.

Thus it is with men who differ from each other in their tastes, their studies, or their professions. They look on the same external objects with a different internal perception, and the view which they take of surrounding scenes is beautified or distorted, according to their predominant pursuit or their prevailing inclination.

We were led into this train of ideas by a visit which we lately paid to an old friend, who, from a strong taste for[Pg 14] agricultural pursuits, has abandoned the splendour and absurdity of a town life, and devoted to the cultivation of a large farming establishment, in a picturesque part of England, all the advantages of a strong judgment and a good education. His brother, on the contrary, who was a resident at the farm during our visit, has less of sound understanding than of ardent genius, and is more remarkable for the warmth of his heart than the soundness of his head. In short, to describe them in a word, Jonathan sees with the eye of a merchant, and Charles with that of an enthusiast; Jonathan is a man of business, and Charles is a poet. The contrast between their tempers is frequently the theme of conversation at the social meetings of the neighbourhood; and it is always found that the old and the grave shake their heads at the almost boyish enthusiasm of Charles, while the young and the imprudent indulge in severe sarcasms at the mercenary and uninspired moderation of his brother. All parties, however, concur in admiring the uninterrupted cordiality which subsists between them, and in laughing good-humouredly at the various whims and foibles of these opposite characters, who are known throughout the country by the titles of Rhyme and Reason.

We arrived at the farm as Jonathan was sitting down to his substantial breakfast. We were delighted to see our old friend, now in the decline of life, answering so exactly the description of Cowper—

An honest man close-buttoned to the chin,
Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.

We felt an inward satisfaction in contemplating his frieze coat, whose début we remember to have witnessed five years ago, and in speculating upon the snows which five additional winters had left upon his head since our last interview. It was some time before we recovered sufficiently from our reverie to inquire after the well-being of our younger companion, who had not yet made his appearance at the board. “Oh!” said Jonathan, “Charles is in his heyday years; we must indulge him for the present; we can’t expect such regularity from five-and-twenty as from six-and-fifty.” He had hardly done speaking when a loud[Pg 15] halloo sounded as an avant-courier of Charles’s approach, and in less than a minute he presented himself before us. “Ten thousand pardons!” he cried. “One’s enough,” said his brother. “I’ve seen the finest sunrise,” said Charles. “You’re wet through,” said Jonathan. “I’m all over rapture,” said Rhyme. “You’re all over dirt,” said Reason.

With some difficulty Charles was persuaded to retire for the re-adjustment of his dress, while the old man continued his meal with a composure which proved he was not unused to the morning excursions of his volatile yoke-fellow. By the time he had got through his beefsteak, and three columns of the Courier, Charles re-entered, and despatched the business of eating with a rapidity in which many a modern half-starved rhymer would be glad to emulate him. A walk was immediately proposed; but the one had scarcely reached an umbrella, and the other prepared his manuscript book, when a slight shower of rain prevented our design. “Provoking,” said Rhyme. “Good for the crop,” said Reason.

The shower, however, soon ceased, and a fine clear sun encouraged us to resume our intentions, without fear of a second disappointment. As we walked over the estate, we were struck with the improvements made by our friend, both as regarded the comfort and the value of the property; while now and then we could not suppress a smile on observing the rustic arbour which Charles had designed, or the verses which he had inscribed on our favourite old oak.

It was determined that we should ascend a neighbouring hill, which was dear to us from its having been the principal scene of our boyhood’s amusements. “We must make haste,” said Charles, “or we shall miss the view.” “We must make haste,” said Jonathan, “or we shall catch cold on our return.” Their actions seemed always to amalgamate, though their motives were always different. We observed a tenant of our friend ploughing a small field, and stopped a short time to regard the contented appearance of the man, and the cheerful whistle with which he called to his cattle. “Beatus ille qui procul negotiis,” said the poet. “A poor team, though,” said his brother.

[Pg 16]

Our attention was next excited by a level meadow, whose green hue, set off by the mixture of the white fleeces of a beautiful flock of sheep, was, to the observer of Nature, a more enviable sight than the most studied landscape of Gainsborough’s pencil. “Lovely colours!” ejaculated Charles. “Fine mutton,” observed Jonathan. “Delightful scene for a rustic hop!” cried the enthusiast. “I am thinking of planting hops,” said the farmer.

We reached the summit of the hill, and remained for some moments in silent admiration of one of the most variegated prospects that ever the country presented to the contemplation of its most ardent admirer. The mellow verdure of the meadows, intermingled here and there with the sombre appearance of ploughed land, the cattle reclining in the shade, the cottage of the rustic peeping from behind the screen of a luxuriant hedge, formed a tout-ensemble which every eye must admire, but which few pens can describe. “A delightful landscape!” said Charles. “A rich soil,” said Jonathan. “What scope for description!” cried the first. “What scope for improvement!” returned the second.

As we returned we passed the cottage of the peasant whom we had seen at his plough in the morning. The family were busily engaged in their several domestic occupations. One little chubby-faced rogue was conducting Dobbin to his stable, another was helping his sister to coop up the poultry, and a third was incarcerating the swine, who made a vigorous resistance against their youthful antagonist. “Tender!” cried Rhyme—he was listening to the nightingale. “Very tender!” replied Reason—he was looking at the pigs.

As we drew near home, we met an old gentleman walking with his daughter, between whom and Charles a reciprocal attachment was said to exist. The lateness of the evening prevented much conversation, but the few words which were spoken again brought into contrast the opposite tempers of my friends. “A fine evening, Madam,” said the man of sense, and bowed. “I shall see you to-morrow, Mary!” said the lover, and pressed her hand. We looked back upon her as she left us. After a pause: “She is an angel!” sighed Charles. “She is an heiress,” observed Jonathan. “She has ten thousand perfections,[Pg 17]” cried Rhyme. “She has ten thousand pounds,” said Reason.

We left them the next morning, and spent some days in speculations on the causes which enabled such union of affections to exist with such diversities of taste. For ourselves, we must confess that, while Reason has secured our esteem, Rhyme has run away with our hearts; we have sometimes thought with Jonathan, but we have always felt with Charles.

ON THE PRACTICAL BATHOS.

“To sink the deeper—rose the higher.”—Pope.

Although many learned scholars have laboured with much diligence in the illustration of the Bathos in poetry, we do not remember to have seen any essay calculated to point out the beauties and advantages of this figure when applied to actual life. Surely there is no one who will not allow that the want of such an essay is a desideratum which ought, as soon as possible, to be supplied. Conscious as we are that our feeble powers are not properly qualified to fill up this vacuum in scholastic literature; yet, since the learned commentators of the present day have their hands full either of Greek or politics, we, an unlearned, but we trust a harmless, body of quacks, will endeavour to supply the place of those who kill by rule, and will accordingly offer, for the advantage of our fellow-citizens, a few brief remarks on the Practical Bathos.

We will first lay it down as a principle that the ἀπροσδόκητον, as well in life as in poetry, is a figure, the beauties of which are innumerable and incontrovertible. For the benefit of my fair readers (for Phœbus and Bentley forbid that an Etonian should here need a Lexicon) I will state that the figure ἀπροσδόκητον is “that which produceth things unexpected.” Take a few examples. In poetry there is a notable instance of this figure in the “Œdipus[Pg 18] Tyrannus” of Sophocles, where the messenger who discloses to Œdipus his mistake in supposing Polybus to be his father, believing that the intelligence he brings is of the most agreeable nature, plants a dagger in the heart of his hearer by every word he utters. But Sophocles, although he must be acknowledged a great master of the dramatic art, is infinitely surpassed in the use of this figure by our good friend Mr. Farley of Covent Garden. When we sit in mute astonishment to survey the various pictures which he conjures up, as it were by the wand of a sorcerer, in a moment—when columns and coal-holes, palaces and pig-sties, summer and winter, succeed each other with such perpetually diversified images; we are continually exclaiming, “Mr. Farley, what next?” Every minute presents us with a new and more perfect specimen of this figure. Far be it from us to speak disrespectfully of Sophocles, for whom, as in duty bound, we entertain a most sincere veneration; but he certainly must rank beneath Mr. Farley as a manager of the ἀπροσδόκητον. One of the most striking examples in the present day, which we can recommend to those who wish to apply this figure to the purposes of actual life, is (may we say it without being accused of a political allusion?) her Majesty Queen Caroline. That illustrious personage in one beautiful passage (we mean her passage from Calais to Dover) has certainly proved herself a perfect mistress of the ἀπροσδόκητον.

Of this figure the Bathos must be considered a most elegant species. Again, for the benefit of our fair readers, we will observe, that the usual signification of the Bathos is—the Art of Sinking in Poetry; but what we here propose to discuss is “the Art of Sinking in Life”—an art of which it may be truly said that those who practise it skilfully only stoop to conquer.

It must be evident to every person who is at all conversant with the motives and origin of human opinions, that man is accustomed to regard with a feeling of animosity those who are pre-eminent in any science or virtue—

Urit enim fulgore suo qui prægravat artes
Infra se positas.

[Pg 19]

But this invidious and hostile feeling vanishes at once, when we behold the object of it sinking suddenly from the dazzling sphere he originally occupied, and reducing himself to a level with ordinary mortals. The divine and incomparable Clarissa would never have been considered divine and incomparable, had she never been betrayed into a faux pas; and I question whether Bonaparte was ever looked upon with so favourable an eye as when he afforded a specimen of the Bathos, in his descent from “the Emperor of France” to “the Captive of St. Helena.”

But the strongest argument that can be used in recommendation of this science is, that we are by Nature herself compelled to make use of it. Whatever riches we may amass, whatever age we may attain, whatever honours we may enjoy, we are continually looking forward to one certain and universal Bathos, “Death.” From learning, from wealth, from power, our descent is swift and inevitable. We look upon the graves of our kindred, and say with Hamlet, “To this must we come at last.”

This doctrine is so beautifully illustrated by a passage in Holy Writ, that we cannot refrain from laying it before our readers:—

“Alexander, son of Philip the Macedonian, made many wars, and won many strongholds, and slew the kings of the earth. And he gathered a mighty strong host, and ruled over countries and nations and kings, who became tributaries to him. And after these things he fell sick, and perceived that he should—die.”[1]

A more beautiful instance of this figure cannot be imagined. It needs no comment. But we fear we are growing too serious, and shall therefore pursue this branch of our dissertation no further.

We hope our readers are by this time thoroughly convinced of the beauty and utility of this figure; we will proceed to exhort them most earnestly to apply themselves immediately to the study of “the Art of Sinking in Life.”

The art may be divided into a great number of species; but all, we believe, may be comprehended under two heads—the Bathos Gradual and the Bathos Precipitate. We will offer a few concise remarks upon both, without pre[Pg 20]tending to decide between the various merits of each. Indeed, the opinion of the world appears pretty much divided between them; as there are some bathers, who stand for a time shivering on the brink, and at last totter into the stream with a tardy and reluctant step, while there are others who boldly plunge into the tide with a hasty and impetuous leap.

The Bathos Gradual is principally practised by poets and by coquettes. Of its use by the former we have frequent examples in our own day. A gentleman publishes a book: it is bought, read, and admired. He publishes another, and his career of sinking immediately commences. First he sinks into a book-maker; next he sinks into absurdity; next he sinks into mediocrity; next he sinks into oblivion; and, as it is impossible for him to sink much lower, he may then begin to think of rising to a garret.

The life of Chloe affords an admirable instance of the effect with which this species of the art may be exercised by coquettes. At twenty-four, Chloe was a fashionable beauty; at twenty-six she began to paint; at twenty-eight she was—not what she had been; and at thirty she was voted a maiden lady! Or, to use the slang of the loungers of the day: at twenty-four she was bang-up; at twenty-six she was a made-up thing; at twenty-eight was done up; and at thirty it was—all up with her.

The Bathos Precipitate is adapted to the capacities of great generals, substantial merchants, dashing bloods, and young ladies who are in haste to be married.[2] For examples of it in the first we must refer you to Juvenal’s Tenth Satire, as this part of our subject is hackneyed, and we despair of saying anything new upon it.[Pg 21]

For examples of the Bathos Precipitate in trade, you must make inquiries among the Dulls and Bears on the Stock Exchange; they can instruct you much better than ourselves by what method you may be a good man at twelve o’clock, and a bankrupt at one.

Upon referring to our memoranda, we find some inimitable examples of this species of the Bathos among the two latter classes of its practitioners. Some of these we will extract for the amusement of our readers:—

Sir Edmund Gulley.—Became possessed of a handsome property by the death of his uncle, February 7, 1818. Sat down 10 Rouge et Noir, February 14, 1818, 12 o’clock P.Μ. Shot himself through the head, February 15, 1818, 2 o’clock A.M.

Lord F. Maple.—Acquired great éclat in an affair of honour, March 2, 1818. Horsewhipped for a scoundrel at the Second Newmarket Meeting, 1818.

Mr. G. Bungay.—September 1819—Four-in-hand, blood horses, shag coat, pearl buttons. October 1819—Plain chaise and pair.

Miss Lydia Dormer.—May 1820—Great beauty, manifold accomplishments, £4000 a-year. June 1820—Chère amie of Sir J. Falkland.

The Hon. Miss Amelia Tempest.—(From a daily paper of July 1820.)—“Marriage in High Life.—The beautiful Miss Amelia Tempest will shortly be led to the hymeneal altar by the Marquis of Looney.”

(From the same paper of August 1820.)—“Elopement in High Life.—Last week the Hon. Miss Am-l-a T-mp-st eloped with her father’s footman.”

Reader,—When we inform you that we ourselves had long entertained a sneaking kindness for the amiable Amelia, you will image to yourself the emotion with which we read the above paragraph. We jumped from the table in a paroxysm of indignation, and committed to the flames the obnoxious chronicler of our disappointment; but the next moment composed our feelings with a truly stoic firmness, and, with a steady hand, we wrote down the name of the Hon. Miss Amelia Tempest as an admirable proficient in the Bathos Precipitate.[Pg 22]

NICKNAMES.

“Lusco qui possit dicere ‘lusce.’”

The invention and appropriation of Nicknames are studies which, from want of proper cultivation, have of late years very much decayed. Since these arts contribute so much to the well-being and satisfaction of our Etonian witlings—since the younger part of our community could hardly exist if they were denied the pleasure of affixing a ludicrous addition to the names of their seniors—we hope that the consideration of this art in all its branches and bearings will be to many an amusing, and to some an improving, disquisition.

The different species of nicknames may be divided and subdivided into an endless variety. There is the nickname direct, the nickname oblique, the nickname κατ’ ἐξόχὴν, the nickname κατ’ ἀντιφράσιν, and a multitude of others, which it is unnecessary here to particularize. We shall attempt a few remarks upon these four principal classes.

The nickname direct, as might be expected, is by far more ancient than any other we have enumerated. Much has been argued upon the elegance or inelegance of Homer’s perpetually repeated epithets; for our part we imagine Homer thought very little upon the elegance or inelegance of the expressions to which we allude, since we cannot but regard his Ξανθὸς Μενέλαος—πόδας ὠκὺς Αχιλλεὺς—ἄναξ ανδρών Αγαμέμνων, and other passages of the same kind, not even excepting the thundering cognomen which is tacked on to his Jupiter, Ζεὺς ὑψιβρεμέτης, as so many ancient and therefore inimitable specimens of the nickname direct. This class is with propriety divided into two smaller descriptions; the nickname personal and the nickname descriptive. The first of these is derived from some bodily defect in its object; the latter from some excellence or infirmity of the mind.

The nicknames which were applied to our early British kings generally fell under one of these denominations.[Pg 23] William Rufus and Edward Longshanks are examples of the first, while Henry Beauclerc and Richard Cœur de Lion afford us instances of the second. We cannot depart from this part of our subject without adverting to the extreme liberty which the French have been accustomed to take with the names of their kings. With that volatile nation, “the Cruel,” “the Bald,” and “the Fat” seem as constantly the insignia of royalty as the sceptre and the crown. We must confess that, were it not for the venerable antiquity of the species, we should be glad to see the nickname personal totally discontinued, as in our opinion the most able proficient in this branch of the science evinces a great portion of ill-nature, and very little ingenuity.

The merit of the nickname oblique consists principally in its incomprehensibility. It is frequently derived, like the former, from some real or imaginary personal defect; but the illusion is generally so twisted and distorted in its formation, that even the object to whom it is applied is unable to trace its origin or to be offended by its use. The discovery of the actual fountain from whence so many ingenious windings and intricacies proceed is really a puzzling study for one who wishes to make himself acquainted with the elementary principles of things. In short, the nickname oblique resembles the great river, the Nile: its meanders are equally extensive, its source is equally concealed. We have a specimen of this species in the appellation of our worthy secretary. Mr. Golightly made a pleasant, though a sufficiently obvious hit, when he addressed Mr. Richard Hodgson by the familiar abbreviation of Pam. We should recommend to the professors of the nickname oblique, two material, though much neglected, requisites—simplicity and perspicuity; for, in spite of the long and attentive study which we have devoted to this branch of the art, we ourselves have been frequently puzzled by unauthorized corruptions both of sound and sense, and lost amidst the circuitous labyrinth of a far-fetched prænomen. We were much embarrassed by hearing our good friend, Mr. Peter Snaggs, addressed by the style of “Fried Soles,” until we remembered that his grandfather had figured as a violent Methodist declaimer in the metropolis: nor[Pg 24] could we conceive by what means our old associate, Mr. Matthew Dunstan, had obtained his classical title of “Forceps,” until we recollected the miraculous attack made by the tongs of his prototype upon the nasal orifices of his Satanic antagonist.

The third species is derived from an implied excellence in any one specified study. It is known by the sign “The.” Thus, “The Whistler,” in “Tales of My Landlord,” is so called from his having excelled all others in the polished and fashionable art of whistling. When we call Mr. Ouzel “the blockhead,” we are far from asserting that he is the only blockhead among our well-beloved companions, but merely that he holds that title from undisputed superlative merit; and, when we distinguish Sampson Noll by the honourable designation of “The Nose,” we mean not to allege that Mr. Noll is the only person who challenges admiration, from the extraordinary dimensions of that feature, but simply, that Sampson’s nose exceeds, by several degrees of longitude, the noses of his less distinguished competitors.

We know not, however, whether the species which we are discussing is not rather to be considered a ramification of the first, than a separate class in itself; for it unavoidably happens that the two kinds are frequently confused, and that we know not under which head to arrange a name which is of an ambiguous nature, and may be referred with equal propriety to either definition.

The fourth and last kind is promiscuously derived from sources similar to those of the three preceding; but in its formation it entirely reverses their provisions. We all know that a grove was called by the Latins “lucus;” a non lucendo, that the Præses of the Lower House of Parliament is called by us, “Speaker,” because he is not allowed to speak. Such is the system of the nickname which is at present under consideration; it is applied to its object, not from the qualities which he possesses, but from those which he does not; not from the actions which he has performed, but from those which he has not: in short, contrariety is its distinguishing character, and absurdity its principal merit. Antiquity will supply us with several admirable specimens. Ptolemy murdered his brother, and[Pg 25] was called “Philadelphus.” The Furies, to say the best of them, were spiteful old maids, and they were nicknamed “The Benevolent.” In our times it is certainly in more general use than any other class; nor is this to be wondered at, when we consider the extraordinary neatness of irony which is with great facility couched under it. It has been well observed by some French author, whose name has escaped our memory, that if you call Vice by her own name, she laughs at you; but if you address her by the name of Virtue, she blushes. To give a plainer illustration: if you say to Ouzel “Blockhead,” it is an unregarded truth; if you cry out to him, “Genius,” it is a biting sarcasm. Nothing, indeed, can be imagined more malignantly severe than this weapon of irony, exercised with skill, and pointed with malevolence; no satire is more easy to the assailant, and more painful to the assailed, than that which gives to deformity the praise of beauty, and designates absurdity by the title of absolute wisdom.

We lately had the honour of reckoning among our nearest and dearest friends Dr. Simon Colley, a gentleman who was as estimable for the excellent qualities of his mind as he was ridiculous from the whimsical proportions of his body. Must we give a description of our much lamented friend? If the reader will collect together the various personal defects of all his acquaintance—if he will add the lameness of one to the diminutive stature of another—if he will unite the cast of the eye which designates a third to the departure from the rectilineal line which beautifies the back of a fourth, he will then have some faint idea of the bodily perfections of Dr. Simon Colley. The Doctor was perfectly conscious of his peculiarities, and was frequently in the habit of choosing his corporal appearance as the theme of a hearty laugh or the subject of jocular lamentation; yet the sound sense and cultivated philosophy of our respected friend was not proof against the unexpected vociferation of a well-applied nickname; and, although his favourite topic of conversation was the personal resemblance he bore to the renowned Æsop, he flew into the most violent paroxysms of rage when he was pointed at by some little impertinents as the Apollo Belvidere.[Pg 26]

But this sort of nickname is not used merely as the instrument of wit or the weapon of ill-nature: it assumes occasionally a more serious garb, and becomes the language of flattery or the adulation of hypocrisy. In this form it is of great service in dedicatory epistles and professions of love. When Vapid entreats Lord—— to prefix his name to a list of subscribers, he whines out the praises of his “Mæcenas” with all the mournful earnestness with which a criminal exalts the clemency of his judge; but the manner in which he chuckles at the munificence of his patron over a beefsteak at the Crown and Cushion proves very evidently that Vapid is a hypocrite, and that “Mæcenas” is a nickname. And when Miss Pimpkinson, a maiden lady with £40,000, smiles upon the adoration of Sir Horace Conway, a fashionable without a farthing, she little dreams that “Venus,” which is her title in the boudoir, is only her nickname at the club.

Having now presented our friends with a cursory sketch of these four principal classes, we shall sum up the whole by offering to the reader a specimen in which we lately heard the four kinds admirably blended together. “Toup,” cried “All the Talents,” “tell ‘Swab’ that I have a thrashing in store for ‘The Poet.’” “Toup” is the nickname oblique, borne by its possessor in consequence of some supposed relation between the longitude of his physiognomy and the Longinus of the erudite Toupius; “Swab” is the nickname direct, applied to a rotund gentleman; “The Poet” is κατ’ ἐξοχὴν—“the poet,” because he is super-eminently poetical; and “All the Talents” is κατ’ ἀντιφράσιν—“All the Talents,” because he is the veriest blockhead upon the face of our Etonian hemisphere.

It will be needless to enumerate the many minor classes of this important subject; it will be needless to dwell upon the nickname classical, the nickname clerical, the nickname military, and the nickname bargee; as we believe that no specimen of these is to be found which may not be ranked under one of the preceding descriptions. There is, however, one great and extensive species remaining, to which we shall here give only a brief notice, as we may possibly, at some future period, devote a leading article to its con[Pg 27]sideration—we mean the nickname general. This last-mentioned class claims our attention, from the comprehensive range of its operation. It is not applied to the mental foibles or personal defects of a single object, it does not attack the failings of a solitary individual, it wastes not the lash of censure on an isolated instance of absurdity; but it inflicts a wound upon thousands in a moment, and stamps the mark of ridicule upon numberless victims. The Quizzes, the Prigs, the Marines, the Chaises are, amongst our alumni, well-known examples of the nickname general.

But we have too long lost sight of the main object of our present lucubration, which was the recommendation of this art to our fellow-citizens, as a commendable, though much neglected, study. When we say much neglected, we mean not that nicknames have ceased to be the rage, and are falling into disuse (for certainly there never was an age in which they spread more luxuriantly); but we allude to the lamentable decay of imagination and ingenuity in their formation. If we look back to ancient times, we shall find that, in those days, nicknames were derived from the same sources as in the present age; they had their origin from natural defects, from personal deformities; yet how amazingly do the cognomina of antiquity exceed in elegance and taste the nicknames of more modern date. How wonderfully are the “Chicken,” the “Shanks,” the “Nosey,” of Etonian celebrity surpassed by the “Pullus,” the “Scaurus,” the “Cicero,” of Roman literature. It is a disgrace upon the genius of our generation, that, at a time when other arts have arrived at such a high perfection that our age may almost be considered the Augustan age of the world, the art of nicknames should have totally lost the classical polish for which it was in the olden time so eminently remarkable, until it has sunk into the vehicle of vulgar abuse, neither adorned by wit nor chastened by urbanity.

These considerations have induced us to give our most serious attention to the advancement and improvement of the art. We are confident that our researches in this line of literature have not been misapplied; and our readers will surely agree with us, when they reflect on the manifold[Pg 28] utility of the study, when properly cultivated. There is so little variety in English Christian names, that, where friends are in the habit of using them, great mistakes must naturally take place. A surname, as Charles Surface observes, “is too formal to be registered in Love’s calendar.” A nickname avoids alike the ambiguity of one, and the stiffness of the other; it unites all the familiarity of the first with all the utility of the second. Besides this, the nickname is a brief description of its object: it saves a million of questions, and an hour of explanation: it is in itself a species of biography. Homer, when he gives to his Juno the nickname of “Bull-eyed,” expresses in a word what a modern rhymer would dilate into a canto.

For the rescuing of nicknames from the obloquy into which they have fallen, we have collected a large assortment of them, which we are ready to dispose of to applicants at a very low price. We have in our stock appellations of every descriptions—the Classical, the Familiar, the Theatrical, the Absurd, the Complimentary, the Abusive, and the Composite. By an application at our publisher’s, new nicknames may be had at a moment’s notice. The wit and the blockhead, the sap and the idler, shall be fitted with denominations which shall be alike appropriate and flattering, so that they shall neither outrage propriety nor offend self-conceit. The dandy shall be suited with a name which shall bear no allusion to stays, and the coquette with one which shall in no way reflect upon rouge. In short, we have a collection of novelties adapted to both sexes, and proper for all ages. In one thing only is our stock deficient; and that, we are confident, will be supplied previous to the appearance of our second number. We have no doubt that some obligingly sarcastic associate will favour us with a new and an ingenious nickname for the Etonian.[Pg 29]

YES AND NO.

“We came into the world like brother and brother,
And now let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.”

Shakespeare.

MR. LOZELL’S TREATISE ON THE ART OF SAYING “YES.”

“He humbly answered ‘Yea! Bob.’”
Anon.

Our opinion is very much strengthened by the belief that many of our friends will assent to it, when we assert that no art requires in a greater degree the attention of a young man, on his entrance into life, than that of saying “Yes.” A man who deigns not to use this little word is a bulldog in society; he studies his own gratification rather than that of his friends, and of course accomplishes neither: in short, he deserves not to be called a civilized being, and is totally unworthy of the place which he holds in the creation.

Is not it right to believe the possible fallacy of one’s own opinion?—Yes. Is not it proper to have a due consideration for the opinion of others?—Yes! Is not it truly praiseworthy to sacri[Pg 30]fice our conviction, our argument, our obstinacy upon the shrine of politeness?—Again and again we answer—Yes! yes! yes!

Nothing indeed is to us more gratifying than to behold a man modestly diffident of the powers which Nature has bestowed upon him, and assenting, with a proper sense of his own fallibility, to the opinions of those who kindly endeavour to remedy his faults or to supply his deficiencies. Nothing is to us more gratifying than to hear from the lips of such a man that true test of a complying disposition—that sure prevention of all animosity—that immediate stop to all quarrels—that sweet, civil, complacent, inoffensive monosyllable—Yes!

Yet, alas! how many do we find who, from an affectation of singularity, or a foolish love of argument, do as it were expunge this admirable expression from their vocabularies. How many do we see around us, who are in the daily habit of losing the most advantageous offers, of quarrelling with strangers, and of offending their best friends,[Pg 31] solely because they obstinately refuse to call to their assistance the infallible remedy for all these evils, which is to be found in the three letters upon which we are offering a brief comment.

We are sure we are only chiming in with the opinion of other people, when we lament the manifold and appalling evils which are the sure consequences of this disinclination to affirmatives. To us it is really melancholy to look upon the disposition to contradiction by which some of our friends are characterized, to observe the manifest pride of some, the unreasonable pertinacity of others. Of a surety, if we are doomed at any future season to put on the yoke of wedlock, Mrs. L. and all the Masters and Misses L. shall be early instructed in the art of saying “Yes.”

Look into the pages of history! You will find there innumerable examples in support of our opinion. When the Greeks begged Achilles to pocket his affronts and make an end of Hector, he refused. Very well, we have no doubt he did all for the best; but we are morally sure that Patroclus would[Pg 32] not have been slain if Achilles had known how to say “Yes.” We all know how he cried about it when it was too late. To draw another illustration from the same epoch, how disastrous was the ignorance which Priam displayed of this art when a treaty was on foot for the restoration of Helen. Nothing was easier than to finish all disputes, to step out of all difficulties, by one civil, obliging, gentlemanly “Yes.” But he refused—and Troy was burned. What glorious results would a contrary conduct have produced! It would have prevented a peck of troubles both to the Greeks and the Etonians. It would have saved the Ancients ten years, and the Moderns twelve books, of bloodshed. It is almost unnecessary to allude to the imprudent, the luckless Hippolytus: he never would have been murdered by a marine monster if he could but have said “Yes;” but the word stuck in his throat, and he certainly paid rather dear for his ignorance.

“Yes,” cries a critic, “I agree with all this, but it’s all so old.” We assent to your opinion, my good friend, and will endeavour[Pg 33] to benefit by your suggestion. Come, then, we will look for illustrations among the characters of our own age.

There’s Lord Duretête, the misanthrope. He has a tolerable fortune, tolerable talents, and tolerable person. He plays a tolerable accompaniment on the flute, and a tolerable hand at whist. Yet, with all these tolerable qualifications, he is considered a most intolerable man. What is the reason of this seemingly anomalous circumstance? The reason is obvious—His Lordship can’t say “Yes.” This abominable ignorance of our favourite art interferes in the most trivial incidents of life; it renders him alike miserable and disagreable. “Will your Lordship allow me to prefix your name to a dedication?” says Bill Attic, the satirist. “I must go mad first,” says his Lordship. “Duretête! lend me a couple of hundreds!” says Sir Harry. “Can’t, ’pon honour!” says his Lordship. “You dear creature, you’ll open my ball this evening!” says Lady Germain. “I’ll be d—d if I do!” says his Lordship. See the catastrophe. Bill Attic lampoons him, Sir[Pg 34] Harry spits in his face, and Lady Germain votes him a bore. How unlucky that he cannot say “Yes!”

Look at young Eustace, the man of honour! He came up to town last year with a good dress, a good address, and letters of introduction to half a dozen great men. He made his bow to each of them, spent a week with each of them, offended each of them, and is now starving in a garret upon independence and cold mutton. What is the meaning of all this? Eustace never learned how to say “Yes!” “Virtus post nummos! Eh! young man?” says old Discount, the usurer. “I can’t say I think so,” said Eustace. “Here! Eustace, boy,” says Lord Fanny, “read over these scenes, and let me have your opinion! Fit for the boards, I think! Eh?” “You’ll excuse me if I don’t think they are,” says Eustace. “Well! my young friend,” cries Mr. Pliant, “we must have you in Parliament I suppose; make an orator of you! You’re on the right side, I hope?” “I should vote with my conscience, Sir,” says Eustace. See the finale. Eustace is[Pg 35] enlisted for life in the Grub Street Corps, where he learns by sad experience how dangerous it is to say “No” to the avarice of a usurer, the vanity of a rhymer, or the party spirit of a politician. How unlucky that he cannot say “Yes.”

Godfrey is a lover, and he has every qualification for the office except one. He cannot say “Yes.” Nobody, without this talent, should presume to be in love. “Mr. Godfrey,” says Chloe, “don’t you think this feather pretty?” “Absurd!” says Godfrey. “Mr. Godfrey!” says the lady, “don’t you think this necklace becoming?” “Never saw anything less so!” says Godfrey. “Mr. Godfrey,” says the coquette, “don’t you think I’m divine to-night?” “You never looked worse, by Jove!” says the gentleman. Godfrey is a man of fashion, a man of fortune, and a man of talent, but he will die a bachelor. What a pity! We can never look on such a man without a smile for his caprice and a tear for its consequences. How unlucky that he cannot say “Yes!”

In the position we are next going to advance we know everybody will agree with us, and this consideration very[Pg 36] much strengthens our opinion. Nothing is so becoming to a female mouth as a civil and flattering “Yes.” It is impossible, indeed, but that our fellow-citizens should here agree with us, when they reflect that they never can be husbands until their inamorata shall have learnt the art of saying “Yes.” For the most part, indeed, civility and good-nature are the characteristics of our British fair, and this natural inclination to the affirmative renders it unnecessary for us to point out to our fair countrywomen the beauties and advantages of a word which they love as dearly as they do flattery. While we are on the subject of flattery, let us obiter advise all Etonians to say nothing but “Yes” to a lady. But as a thoughtless coquette or a haughty prude does occasionally forget the necessity and the beauty of the word we are discussing, we cannot but recommend to our fair readers to consider attentively the evils which this forgetfulness infallibly entails. Laurelia would never have been cut by her twenty-first adorer; Charlotte, with £4000 a year at fifteen, would never have been an old maid at fifty; Lucy, with a good face and not a farthing,[Pg 37] would never have refused a carriage, white liveries, and a peerage, if these unfortunate victims had studied in early youth the art of saying “Yes.”

Sweet—light—gay—quaint monosyllable! Tender, obliging, inoffensive, affectionate “Yes!” How we delight in thy delicate sound! We love to hear the enamoured swain petitioning for his mistress’s picture, till the lady, or overcome by affection, or wearied by importunity, changes the “No” of coy reluctance for the “Yes” of final approbation. We love to hear the belle of Holborn Hill supplicating for Greenwich and the one-horse shay, till her surly parent alters the shake of unconvinced obduracy for the nod of unwilling consent. We love to see the hen-pecked husband humbly kneeling for his Sunday coat and the “Star and Garter,” till Madam, conscious that the Captain is secreted in the closet, transmutes the “No” of authoritative detention into the “Yes” of immediate dismission. We love—but it is time to bring our treatise to a conclusion, and we will merely observe, that whenever we see Beauty without[Pg 38] a husband or Talent without a place; whenever we hear a lady considered an old maid, or a gentleman voted a bore, we turn from the sight in melancholy mood, and whisper to ourselves: “This comes of not being able to say ‘Yes.[Pg 39]’”

MR. OAKLEY’S TREATISE ON THE ART OF SAYING “NO.”

“My son—learn betimes to say No.”

Miss Edgeworth.

Our opinion is not a jot weakened by the probability that many of our friends will dissent from it, when we assert that no art requires in a greater degree the attention of a young man, on his entrance into life, than that of saying “No.” A man who is afraid to use this little word is a spaniel in society; he studies to please others rather than to benefit himself, and of course fails in both objects: in short, he deserves not to be called a man, and is totally unworthy of the place which he holds in the creation.

Is he a rational being who has not an opinion of his own?—No. Is he in the possession of his five senses who sees with the eyes, who hears with the ears, of other men?—No![Pg 40] Does he act upon principle who sacrifices truth, honour, and independence, on the shrine of servility?—Again and again we reply—No! no! no!

Nothing indeed is to us more gratifying than to behold a man relying boldly on the powers which Nature has bestowed upon him, and spurning, with a proper consciousness of independence, the suggestions of those who would reduce him from the rank he holds as a reasonable creature to the level of a courtier and a time-server. Nothing is to us more gratifying than to hear from the lips of such a man that decided test of a free spirit—that finisher to all dispute—that knock-down blow in all arguments—that strong, forcible, expressive, incontrovertible monosyllable—No!

Yet, alas! how many do we find who are either unable or unwilling to pronounce this most useful, most necessary response! How many do we see around us, who are in the daily habit of professing to know things of which they are altogether ignorant, of making promises which it is impossible for them to perform, of saying (to use for[Pg 41] once α soft expression) the thing which is not, solely because they will not call to their assistance the infallible remedy for all these evils, which is to be found in the two letters upon which we are offering a brief comment.

It is dreadful to reflect upon the evils which this neglect must infallibly produce. It is dreadful to look round upon the friends and relatives whom we see suffering the most appalling calamities from no other misconduct than a blind aversion to negatives. It is disgusting to observe the flexible indecision of some, the cringing servility of others. Forgive us, reader, but we cannot help soliloquizing: “God save the King of Clubs, and may the Princes of the Blood Royal be early instructed in the art of saying ‘No.’”

Look into the pages of history! You will find there innumerable examples in support of our opinion. Pompey was importuned to give battle to Cæsar: he complied. Poor devil! He would never have been licked at Pharsalia if he had learned from us the art of saying “No.” Look at the conduct of his rival and[Pg 42] conqueror, Cæsar! You remember the words of Casca, “I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown and he put it by once; but for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it!” Now this placid “putting by” was not the thing for the Romans: we are confident Julius Cæsar would never have died by cold steel in the Senate if he had given them a good decisive insuperable “No!” Whatever epoch we examine, we find the same reluctance to say “No” to the allurements of pleasure and the mandates of ambition, and alas! we find it productive of the same consequences. Juvenal tells us of an unfortunate young man, one Caius Silius, who was unlucky enough to be smiled upon by the Empress Messalina. The poor boy knew the danger he ran—he saw the death which awaited him; but an Empress sued, and he had not the heart to say “No!” He lost his heart first, and his head shortly afterwards.

“Dam’me,” says a blood, “all that happened a hundred years ago.” An Etonian has occasionally great difficulty in carrying[Pg 43] his ideas a hundred years back. Well, then, we will go example-hunting nearer home.

There’s Sir Philip Plausible, the Parliament man. He can make a speech of nine hours and a calculation of nine pages; nobody is a better hand at getting up a majority, or palavering a refractory Oppositionist; he proffers an argument and a bribe with equal dexterity, and converts by place and pension when he is unable to convince by alliteration and antithesis. What a pity it is he can’t say “No!” “Sir Philip,” says an envoy, “you’ll remember my little business at the Foreign Office!” “Depend upon my friendship,” says the Minister. “Sir Philip!” says a fat citizen, with two votes and two dozen children, “you will remember Billy’s place in the Customs!” “Rely on my promise!” says the Minister. “Sir Philip!” says a lady of rank, “Ensign Roebuck is an officer most deserving promotion!” “He shall be a colonel! I swear by Venus!” says the Minister. Exitus ergo quis est? He has outraged his friendship, he has forgotten his[Pg 44] promise, he has falsified his oath. Had he ever an idea of performing what he spoke? Quite the reverse! How unlucky that he cannot say “No!”

Look at Bob Lily! There lives no finer poet! Epic, elegiac, satiric, Pindaric—it is all one to him! He is patronized by all the first people in town. Everybody compliments him, everybody asks him to dinner. Nay! there are a few who read him. He excels alike in tragedy and farce, and is without a rival in amphibious dramas, which may be called either the one or the other; but he is a sad bungler in negatives. “Mr. Lily,” says the Duchess, his patroness, “you will be sure to bring that dear epithalamium to my conversazione this evening!” “There is no denying your Grace,” says the poet. “I say, Lily,” says the Duke, his patron, “you will dine with us at seven?” “Your Grace does me honour,” says the poet. “Bob,” says the young Marquis, “you are for Brookes’s to-night?” “Dam’me! to be sure,” says the poet. Mark the result. He is gone to eat tripe with his tyrannical bookseller; he has disappointed his patroness, he has offended his[Pg 45] patron, he has cut the Club! How unlucky that he cannot say “No.”

Jack Shuttle was a dashing young fellow, who, to use his own expression, was “above denying a thing;” in plainer terms, he could not say “No.” “Sir!” says an enraged Tory, “you are the author of this pamphlet!” Jack never saw the work, but he was “above denying a thing,” and was horsewhipped for a libeller. “Sir!” says an unfortunate pigeon, “you hid the king in your sleeve last night!” Jack never saw the pigeon before, but he was “above denying a thing,” and was cut for a blackleg. “Sir!” says a hot Hibernian, “you insulted my sister in the Park!” Jack never saw the lady or her champion before, but he was “above denying a thing,” and was shot through the head the next morning. Poor fellow! How unlucky that he could not say “No!”

In the position we are next going to advance we know everybody will differ from us; but this only[Pg 46] strengthens our opinion. Nothing is so becoming to a female mouth as the power—ay, and the inclination—to say “No.” So firmly, indeed, are we attached to this doctrine, that we never will marry a woman who cannot say “No.” For the most part, indeed, the sex are pretty tolerably actuated by what the world calls a spirit of contradiction, but what we should rather designate as a spirit of independence. This natural inclination to negatives renders it unnecessary for us to point out to our fair countrywomen the beauties and advantages of a word which they use as constantly as their looking-glass. Nevertheless, they do occasionally forget the love of opposition, which is the distinguishing ornament of their sex; and alas! they too frequently render themselves miserable by neglecting our conclusive monosyllable. We most earnestly entreat those belles who honour with their notice the humble efforts of the Etonian, to derive a timely warning from the examples of those ladies who have lived to regret a hasty and unthinking assent. Anna would never have been the mistress of a colonel; Martha would[Pg 47] never have been the wife of a cornet; Lydia would never have been tied to age, ugliness, and gout, if these unfortunate victims had studied in early youth the art of saying “No.”

Short—strong—sharp—quaint monosyllable! Forcible, convincing, argumentative, indisputable “No!” How we delight in thy expressive sound! We love to hear the Miss of fifteen plaguing her uncle for her Christmas ball, till Squaretoes, finding vain the excuses of affection, finishes the negotiation with the “No” of authority. We love to hear the enamoured swain pouring forth his raptures at the feet of an inexorable mistress, till the lady changes her key from the quiet hint of indifference to the decided “No” of aversion. We love to hear the schoolboy supplicating a remission of his sentence, until his sable judge alters the “I can’t” of sorrowful necessity, to the “No” of inflexible indignation. We love—but it is time for us to bring our treatise to a conclusion, and we will merely observe, that whenever we see a man engaged in a duel against his will or in a debauch against his conscience; whenever[Pg 48] we see a patriot accepting of a place, or a beauty united to a blockhead, we turn from the sight in disgust, and mutter to ourselves: “This comes of not being able to say ‘No.[Pg 49]’”

THOUGHTS ON THE WORDS “TURN OUT.”

“We all, in our turns, turn out.”—Song.

Turn Out! There are in the English language no two words which act so forcibly in exciting sympathy and compassion. There is in them a melancholy cadence, beautifully corresponding with the sadness of the idea which they express: they awaken in a moment the tenderest recollections and the most anxious forebodings: there is in them a talismanic charm which influences alike all ages and all dispositions; the Church, the Bar, and the Senate are all comprised in the range of its operation: indeed, we believe that in no profession, in no rank of life, we shall find the man who can meditate, without an inward feeling of mental depression, on the simple, the unstudied, the unaffected pathos of the words “Turn out.”

Is it not extraordinary, that when the idea is in itself so tragic, and gives birth to such sombre sensations, Melpomene should have altogether neglected the illustration of it? Is it not still more extraordinary that her sportive sister Thalia should have dared indecorously to jest with a subject so entirely unsuited to her pen? To take our[Pg 50] meaning from its veil of metaphor, is it not extraordinary that Mr. Kenney should have written a farce on the words “Turn Out?” We regard Mr. Kenney’s farce as a sacrilege, a profanation, a burlesque of the best feelings of our nature; and in spite of the ingenuity of the writer, and the talents of the performers, humanity and its attendant prejudices revolt in disgust from the scene which endeavours to raise a laugh by a parody of so melancholy a topic.

It is not difficult to account for the pensive feelings which are excited by these words: they recall forcibly to our mind the uncertainty of all human concerns; they bid us think on the sad truth, that from power, from affluence, from happiness, we may be “turned out” at a minute’s warning; they whisper to us that the lease of life is held on a precarious tenure, subject to the will of a Providence which we can neither control nor foresee; they oblige us to look forward to that undiscovered country, from whose dark limits we would fain avert our eyes; they convince us of the truth of the desponding expression of the Psalmist, “Man is but a thing of nought, his time passeth away like a shadow.”

Are not these the reflections of every thinking mind? If they are not, we must entreat the indulgence of our readers for the melancholy pleasure we take in the discussion of the subject. The words may indeed be more than ordinarily affecting to us, inasmuch as they remind us of a friend who in his life was “turned out” from every thing that life can bestow, but who in his death shall never be “turned out” from that consolatory tribute to his Manes—the recollection of a sincere friend. Poor Gilbert! The occurrences of his eventful existence would indeed furnish materials for the poet or the moralist, for a tragedy of five acts, or a homily of fifty heads. His father always prophesied he would turn out a great man; and yet the poor fellow did nothing but turn out, and never became a great man. At fourteen he turned out with a bargeman, and lost an eye; at seventeen he was turned out from Eton, and lost King’s; at three-and-twenty he was turned out of his father’s will, and lost a thousand a-year; at four-and-twenty he was turned out of a tandem, and lost the long odds; at five-and-twenty he was turned out of a place, and lost all patience; at six-and-[Pg 51]twenty he was turned out of the affections of his mistress, and lost his last hope; at seven-and-twenty he was turned out of a gaming-house, where he lost his last farthing. Gilbert died about a year ago, after existing for some time in a miserable state of dependence upon a rich uncle. To the last he was fond of narrating to his friends the vicissitudes of his life, which he constantly concluded in the following manner:—“So, gentlemen, I have been turning out during my whole life; you now see me on the brink of the grave, and I don’t care how soon I turn in.”

We had not heard from him for a considerable space of time, and were beginning to wonder at his protracted silence, when a friend who was studying the Morning Post apprised us of his decease by the following exclamation:—“My God! Old Gilbert’s dead! Here’s a quaint turn out!”

Alas! how often does it happen that we are not aware of the value of the blessings we enjoy until chance or destiny has taken them from us. This has been the case in our acquaintance with our lamented companion. How bitterly do we now regret that we did not, while his life was spared, make use of his inestimable experience to collect some instructions on the art of turning out, both in the active and the neuter signification of the words. For surely no two things are more difficult than the giving or receiving of a dismissal. To go through the one with civility, and the other with firmness, is indeed a rare talent, which every man of the world should study to attain.

When we consider the various chances and vicissitudes which await the citizens of our little commonwealth in their progress through life; when we recollect that some of them will enter into political life, in order to be turned out of their places; others will enjoy the titular distinction of M.P., that they may be turned out of their seats the next election; while others again, by an attachment to Chancery expedition, will endeavour to get turned out of their estates;—it is surely worth while to bestow a little attention upon the most proper mode of behaving under these unfortunate circumstances.

Mr. Monxton receives a turn out better than any political man of our acquaintance. It was of him that Sir Andrew Freeman, a Hertfordshire Independent, who, to do him[Pg 52] justice, would be witty if he could, broached the celebrated remark—“He has turned out so often, that I should think he’s turned wrong side out by this time.” Mr. Monxton is indeed a phenomenon in his way. The smile he wears on coming into office differs in no respect from that which he assumes on resigning all his employments. He departs from the enjoyment of place and power, not with the gravity of a disappointed Minister, but with the self-satisfied air of a successful courtier. The tact with which he conceals the inward vexation of spirit beneath an outward serenity of countenance is to us a matter of astonishment. When we have heard him discussing his resignation with a simper on his face, and a jest on his lip, we have often fancied that Mr. Kemble would appear to us in the same light were he to deliver Wolsey’s soliloquy with the attitudes and the gestures of a harlequin in a pantomime. Juvenile politicians cannot propose to themselves, in this line of their profession, a better model than Mr. Monxton.

Nor is this art less worthy the attention of the fair sex. There are very few ladies who have the talent of dismissing a lover in proper style. There are many who reject with so authoritative a demeanour, that they lose him, as an acquaintance, whom they only wish to cast off as a dangler; there are many again who study civility to such an extent that we know not whether they reject or receive, and have no small difficulty in distinguishing their smile from their frown. The deep and sincere interest which we feel in all matters relating to the advantage or improvement of the fair sex induces us to suggest that an academy, or a seminary, or an establishment should be forthwith instituted for the instruction of young ladies not exceeding thirty years of age, in the most approved method of saying “Turn Out.” So far indeed has our zeal in this laudable undertaking carried us, that we have actually communicated our ideas upon the subject to a lady, who, to quote from her own advertisement, “enjoys the advantages of an excellent education, an unblemished character, and an amiable disposition.” We are happy to inform our friends and the public in general that Mrs. Simkins has promised to devote her attention to this branch of female education. By the end of next month she hopes to be quite competent to the instruction of pupils[Pg 53] in every mode of expressing “Turn Out”—the Distant Hint, the Silent Bow, the Positive Cut, the Courteous Repulse, and the Absolute Rejection. We trust that due encouragement will be given to a scheme of such general utility.

In the meantime, until such academy, or seminary, or establishment shall be opened, we invite our fair readers to the study of an excellent model in the person of Caroline Mowbray. Caroline has now seven-and-twenty lovers, all of whom have successively been in favour, and have been successively turned out. Yet so skilfully has she modified her severity, that in most cases she has destroyed hope without extinguishing love: the victims of her caprice continue her slaves, and are proud of her hand in the dance, although they despair of obtaining it at the altar. The twenty-seventh name was added to the list of her admirers last week, and was (with the most heartfelt regret we state it) no less a personage than the Hon. Gerard Montgomery. Alas! unfortunate Gerard!

Quantâ laboras in Charybdi,
Digne puer meliore flammâ.

He had entertained us for some time with accounts of the preference with which he was honoured by this miracle of obduracy, and at last, by dint of long and earnest entreaty, prevailed upon us to be ourselves witness to the power he had obtained over her affections. We set out therefore, not without a considerable suspicion of the manner in which our expedition would terminate, and inwardly anticipated the jests which “The King of Clubs” would infallibly broach upon the subject of Gerard’s “Turn Out.”

Nothing occurred of any importance during our ride. Gerard talked much of Cupids, and Hymen; but, inasmuch as we were not partakers of his passion, we could not reasonably be expected to partake of his inspiration.

Upon our arrival at Mowbray Lodge we were shown into a room so crowded with company that we almost fancied we had been ushered into the Earl’s levee instead of his daughter’s drawing-room. The eye of a lover, however, was more keen. Gerard soon perceived the Goddess of the Shrine receiving the incense of adulation from a crowd[Pg 54] of votaries. Amongst these he immediately enrolled himself, while we, apprehensive that our company might be troublesome to him, hung back, and became imperceptibly engaged in conversation with some gentlemen of our acquaintance. To speak the truth, on our way to the Lodge these “Thoughts on Turn Out” had been the subject of our reveries, and whatever expressions or opinions we heard around us appeared to coincide with the cogitations with which we were occupied. We first became much interested in the laments of an old gentleman who was bewailing the “Turn Out” of a friend at the last election for the county of——. Next we listened to an episode from a dandy, who was discussing the extraordinary coat “turned out” by Mr. Michael Oakley at the last county ball. Finally, we were engaged in a desperate argument with a Wykehamist, upon the comparative degree of talent “turned out” from each of the public schools during the last ten years. Of course we proceeded to advocate the cause of our foster-mother against the pretensions of our numerous and illustrious rivals. Alas! we felt our unworthiness to stand forward as Etona’s panegyrist, but we made up in enthusiasm what we wanted in ability. We ran over with volubility the names of those thrice-honoured models, whose deserved success is constantly the theme of applause and the life-spring of emulation among their successors. We had just brought our catalogue down to the names of our more immediate forerunners, and were dwelling with much complacency on the abilities which have during the last few years so nobly supported the fair fame of Eton at the Universities, when our eye was caught by the countenance of our hon. friend, which at this moment wore an appearance of such unusual despondence, that we hastened immediately to investigate the cause. Upon inquiry, we learned that Montgomery was most romantically displeased, because Caroline had refused to sing an air of which he was passionately fond. We found we had just arrived in time for the finale of the dispute. “And so you can’t sing this to oblige me?” said Gerard. Caroline looked refusal. “I shall know better than to expect such a condescension again,” said Gerard, with a low sigh. “Tant mieux!” said Caroline, with a low[Pg 55] curtsey. The audience were unanimous in an unfeeling laugh, in the midst of which Gerard made a precipitate retreat, or, as O’Connor expresses it, “ran away like mad,” and we followed him as well as we could, though certainly not passibus æquis. As we moved to the door we could hear sundry criticisms on the scene. “Articles of ejectment!” said a limb of the law. “The favourite distanced!” cried a Newmarket squire. “I did not think the breach practicable!” observed a gentleman in regimentals. We overtook the unfortunate object of all these comments about a hundred yards from the house. His wobegone countenance might well have stopped our malicious disposition to jocularity; nevertheless we could not refrain from whispering in his ear, “Gerard! a decided turn out!” “I beg your pardon,” said the poor fellow, mingling a smile’ for his pun with a tear for his disappointment, “I beg your pardon; I consider it a decided take in.”

SOLITUDE IN A CROWD.

“This is to be alone; this, this is solitude.”—Byron.

Reader! Were you ever alone in a crowd? If not, thank your stars, and bestow a grain of pity upon those who must return a different response to the question. A crowded solitude, if we may use such a strange expression, is, in sober sadness, as melancholy a sensation as human nature is capable of enduring.

A crowded solitude! If you are young, thoughtless, and talkative, you will be astonished at the idea; and there will be nothing extraordinary in your surprise. The ancient poets—poor ignorant souls!—have given us a very different description of being alone. They have defined various kinds of solitude, suited to various descriptions of men; but all of them are alike founded on mistaken notions[Pg 56] and groundless prejudice. Were we to follow their opinions, we should place the solitude of the lover in whispering groves, purling rills, and moonlight; that of the sage in a library or an observatory; that of the poet in a dish of vegetables and a Sabine farm; and à fortiori, that of the Etonian in an uncarpeted domicile, with a fractured window on the one side and a smoking fire on the other. Is this solitude? Far from it! We must most strenuously contend that true solitude is to be found in a multitude.

We are aware that the solitude we are now discussing is not that which is generally understood by the term. Many persons have probably never heard of any but a corporeal solitude; that which we are describing is mental. The one is to be found in caves and Caucasus; the other in theatres and Almack’s. The former delights in moonshine—the latter in candelabras; the first sets a great value upon the silence and pure air of the country—the second gives the preference to the noise and squeeze of the fashionable world; and which of these is real solitude—the corporeal, which is removed from the sight and hearing of all objects; or the mental, which both hears and sees a variety of things, and is utterly unconscious that it does either?

We are distrustful of our powers of description, and will therefore endeavour to illustrate our meaning by examples. We are provided with plenty, for we have still in our recollection Lady Mordaunt’s last “At Home.” All the world was there. Whist, music, dancing, and last, not least, eating, were all going on in the usual style at the same time; the squeeze in the rooms was beyond parallel in the annals of ton; and of course we found more solitude in that evening than we had done throughout the whole season. We made our entrée when her ladyship was in her highest glory: she was bowing to one, smiling to another, and curtseying to a third, and straining every nerve and feature to do the proper to all her guests: this, however, was as impossible as the number of her satellites was innumerable; the tumult was tremendous; and there was so much bowing, and begging pardon, and getting out of the way, that it was quite impracticable to advance or[Pg 57] recede a step. Good breeding and bare elbows were thrust in our faces alternately; we with difficulty preserved our toes from the frequent attacks made on them by kid slippers, and with still greater difficulty preserved our hearts from the sweet smiles that said “I beg ten thousand pardons.” It was a vortex of delight, and we were hurried so rapidly in its eddies, that much time elapsed ere we were able to collect our editorial serenity, in order to make a few observations on the scene before us.

The multitude at length began very slowly to diminish; and, having lodged ourselves in an unperceived corner of the music-room, we proceeded, according to our ancient custom, to speculate upon character. Our attention was first attracted by a tall gentleman of a very noble appearance, who was leaning against a pillar, in an attitude of profound meditation. His dress was after the English fashion, but the cast of his features, and his short curling hair, sufficiently denoted him to be a foreigner. His eyes were fixed directly upon us, but we satisfied our curiosity by an attentive survey, without fear of detection, as his mind was evidently some furlongs distant. Upon inquiry we heard that he was an Indian chieftain, by name Teioninhokarawn (we have doubts as to the correctness of our orthography). He had done considerable services to the British arms in the American war, and had now been invited by her ladyship as the lion of the evening. He had been surrounded without intermission by a tribe of quizzers, loungers, and laughers, but one glance was sufficient to convince us that Teioninhokarawn was—alone.

We observed Lady Georgiana Wilmot standing at the other side of the room, the very picture of fatigue. She had been singing much, and was evidently quite exhausted. Λ young star of fashion was moving towards her with a languishing step; and, as we had a strong curiosity to hear his address, we changed our station for that purpose. “‘Pon my soul,” the gentleman began with a bow, “you are divine to-night.” “Am I?” said the lady, with a vacant gaze. “Never heard you in better voice,” returned her assailant. Her ladyship knew it was the tone of flattery, so she smiled, but she had neither spirits nor sense sufficient[Pg 58] to attempt an answer. We immediately decided that Lady Georgiana was—alone.

We next proceeded to the card-room. At first the din, and the disputing, and the quarrelling was so loud, that we doubted whether we should find any solitude there; but another look convinced us of our mistake. Lord Mowbray was evidently—alone. He was walking up and down, deliberating whether he should sacrifice his conscience or his place at to-morrow’s division. Not less apparent was the solitude of the Duchess of Codille; although her Grace was busily engaged at cassino with a select party of right honourables. She had been for a long time alone in the contemplation of her new brocade, and was recalled into company by the vociferation of her partner, “Rat me if I ever saw your Grace play so ill!”

We were about to retire to the ball-room, when we remarked our noble hostess reclining on an ottoman, seemingly quite exhausted with fashionable fatigue. She was still, however, exerting herself to do the agréable, and was talking with appalling rapidity to every one who approached her, although utterly unconscious of what she heard or said. We advanced to pay our respects, and were saluted with “Ah, my lord! what has kept you away so long? And there’s Ellen, poor thing, dying to see you! Ellen, love!” With some difficulty we explained to her ladyship that she was mistaken as to our rank. “Eh! Mon Dieu! Sir Charles,” she exclaimed. “Pardonnez—but I’m really dead with ennui.” We allowed ourselves to be knighted without further explanation, and made a precipitate retreat, for we perceived that her ladyship, after the labour of the evening, would be very glad to be—alone.

The first survey we took of the ball-room presented us with nothing but cheerful faces and laughing eyes; at the second, we discovered even here much and melancholy loneliness. There were moralists without sense, and country squires without acquaintance; beaux without a thought, and belles without a partner. We hastened to make a closer study of the various characters which presented themselves.

We first addressed ourselves to Mr. Morris, a respectable Member of Parliament, with whom we had become ac[Pg 59]quainted the year before in Norfolk. “What! you’re not a dancer, Mr. Morris?” we began. “By the Lord, sir,” he returned, “if this Bill passes——” We passed on, much vexed that we had intruded on our worthy friend’s solitude.

We were hastening to accost Maria Kelly, a very interesting girl, whose lover had lately left this country for Minorca, when we were attracted by a conversation between an exquisite and our old acquaintance, General Brose. “Ah! General,” said the dandy, “how long have you ceased to foot it?” “Foot!” interrupted the General, “by Jupiter! their cavalry was ten thousand strong.” The old man was decidedly—alone.

Before we could reach the recess in which Maria was sitting, she had been assailed by an impertinent. “May I have the honour and felicity——” he began. The poor girl started from her reverie with a sort of vacant gaze, and replied, “He sailed last Tuesday, sir!” “Sola in siccâ,” said the impertinent, and lounged on. We had not the barbarity to speak to her.

Old Tom Morley, the misanthrope, had been admiring a wax taper in an unthinking sort of way ever since we entered the room. We went up, prepared to be witty upon him; but we had hardly opened our mouth when he cut us short with “For God’s sake leave me alone!” and we left him—alone. We were proceeding in our observations, when we saw Ellen Mordaunt, the beautiful daughter of our hostess, surrounded by a set of dashing young officers, at the other end of the room. We had just began to examine the features of one of them, who was somewhat smitten, and appeared prodigiously alone, when the idol herself turned upon us that bright and fascinating eye,

Which but to see is to admire,
And—oh! forgive the word—to love!

We had originally inserted here a rhapsody on Ellen’s glance, which would have occupied, as our printer assures us, three pages and a half; but, in mercy to our friends, we have erased this, and shall content ourselves with stating that we were alone for at least ten minutes, before we recollected that it was five o’clock, and that we ought to think of retiring from the solitude of Lady Mordaunt’s “At Home.[Pg 60]”

POLITENESS AND POLITESSE.

“I cannot bear a French metropolis.”—Johnson.

We have headed our article with two words which are very often, and certainly very improperly, confounded together. Nobody needs to be told that the one is from the English, the other from the French vocabulary; but there may perhaps be some who will be surprised to hear that the one expresses an English, the other a French quality.

Frown if you will, Monsieur Duclos, we must maintain that the English are the only people who have a true idea of politeness. If we are wrong, our error may be excused for the feeling which prompts it; but we believe we are right, and we will try to make our readers believe so.

The English are kind in their politeness—the French are officious in their politesse; the politeness of the English is shown in actions—the politesse of the French evaporates in sound; English politeness is always disinterested—French politesse is too often prompted by selfishness.

When we consider the various forms of these qualities, we appear to be discriminating between the rival merits of two contending beauties, who reign with equal dominion, and divide the admiration of an adoring world. There are many who prefer the ingenious delicacy of politeness, and we congratulate them on their truly English feeling; there are perhaps more who are attracted by the coquettish vivacity of politesse, and we do not envy them their French taste.

A variety of instances of both these traits must have occurred to everybody, but as everybody does not behold the shades of character through the exact medium of an editorial microscope, we will endeavour to bring out more distinctly those examples which seem to us to bear immediately on the subject.

When you dine with old Tom Hardy, he gives you little more than a joint of meat, a bottle of excellent port, and a hearty welcome; when Lord Urban “requests the honour” of your company, you are greeted with every delicacy the[Pg 61] season can afford; you are pampered with every wine, “from humble port to imperial tokay,” and you are put to the blush by every form of adulation that a wish to be civil can devise. Yet we had rather dine once with Tom Hardy than a hundred times with Lord Urban; for the mutton of the one is cooked by politeness, and the turtle of the other is dressed by politesse.

About a month ago, as we were shooting in the north of England with the son of a celebrated Tory baronet, we were encountered by Mr. Ayscott, a landed proprietor notorious for his Whig principles. We were somewhat surprised to see the latter divest himself of all prejudices in a moment; he came up to our companion with the greatest appearance of cordiality, shook him by the hand, reminded him that politics ought not to interfere among friends, knew he was fond of dancing, and hoped to see him frequently at Ayscott. Now this really looked like politeness; for politeness is that feeling which prompts us to make others happy and pleased with themselves, and which for this purpose puts off all dislike, all party spirit, all affectation of superiority. But when we were informed the next day that Mr. Ayscott had seven marriageable daughters, we decided that his behaviour was not politeness, but politesse.

We remember, shortly after Mrs. C. Nugent eloped with an officer in the dragoons, we were riding in Hyde Park with poor Charles, who endeavoured to bear his loss unconcernedly, and betrayed not, except to a close observer, the canker that preyed upon his heart. We were met in the Park by Sir Harry Soulis, an intimate acquaintance of our friend. He was riding at a brisk pace, but the moment he observed us he pulled up, and his flexible features immediately assumed the appearance of unfeigned sympathy. He came up to us, and began, “Ah Charles! How are you? How is this unfortunate business to end? I feel for you, Charles! Upon my soul, I feel for you! You know you may command me in anything”—and he rode on with the same air of nonchalance that he had first worn. Immediately afterwards we met Colonel Stanhope, who also halted, and entered into conversation. He inquired after our friend’s health, addressed a few indifferent remarks to us on the weather, bowed, and passed on. We are sure Nugent[Pg 62] felt, as we should have felt under such circumstances: Soulis had wounded his feelings—Stanhope had spared them. The officiousness of the former was politesse—the silence of the latter was politeness.

But their distinct shades were never so fully impressed upon our minds as upon a visit which we lately paid to two gentlemen, during a short tour. The first specimen of their dissimilarity is to be found in the letters by which we were invited to partake of their hospitality. They were as follows:—

“As Mr. P. Courtenay will in the course of his tour be within a few miles of Melville Lodge, Mr. Melville hopes that he will not turn southward without allowing him, for one day at least, the gratification of his company.

“Melville Lodge, August 1820.”

“Dear Peregrine,—You’ll pass within eyeshot of my windows on your way to Eastbourne. I am sure you’ll stop a moment to ask your old friend how he does, and we will try to detain you for the night.

“Yours, as sincerely as ever,
“Marmaduke Warren.

“P.S. The girls would send love if I’d let ’em.

“Hastings, August 1820.”

Our first visit was paid at Melville Lodge. We have known Mr. Melville long, and we know him to be one who is generally actuated by good motives; and when he is swayed by interested ones is himself unconscious of the fact. On the whole, his character is such that when he is absent we feel the strongest inclination to like him, and when we are in his company we feel an equally strong inclination to say, “Mr. Melville, you are a fool.” We arrived at the Lodge in good time to prepare for dinner, with its usual accompaniments of bows from our host, compliments from our hostess, and smiles from their daughters. A small party was invited to meet us, which somewhat diminished the frequency of the compliments we were doomed to undergo, while it rendered those[Pg 63] which were actually forced upon us infinitely more distressing. We pass over the civilities we received at dinner, the care taken to force upon us the choicest morsels of fish, flesh, and fowl; the attention with which Mr. Melville assured us that we were drinking his very best champagne. We hasten to take notice of the far more perplexing instances of politesse which rendered miserable the evening. When tea and coffee had been disposed of, the Misses Melville sat down to the piano; and, as we are passionately fond of music, and the ladies excel in it, we should have been perfectly happy if we had been allowed to enjoy that happiness unmolested. Diis aliter visum est. Our sisters were known to be tolerable singers; à fortiori, we must be downright nightingales ourselves. Upon the word of an editor, we never committed any further outrage upon harmony than what takes place when we join in the chorus of our witty associate Mr. Golightly or our well-meaning friend Mr. O’Connor, and we were now required to assist the Misses Melville in “La mia Dorabella.” Horrible idea! Peregrine Courtenay warbling Italian! His Majesty of Clubs sinking into an opera-singer! Politesse was sure he could sing—politesse knew he had a sweet voice—politesse knew we only refused from modesty. Politesse was disappointed, however, for we were immovably determined not to be made a fool. Nevertheless we felt somewhat uncomfortable at being the subject of general observation, and this feeling was not diminished by what followed. Politesse, in the shape of Mrs. Melville, whispered it about that the fat silent young gentleman in the black coat was a great writer, who had published an extraordinary quantity of learning, and was likely to publish an extraordinary quantity more. This was all intended to flatter our vanity, and the consequence was that we were bored throughout the remainder of the evening by hearing whispers around us, “Is that the gentleman Mrs. Melville was speaking of?” “I guessed who he was by the family likeness!” “I knew he was an author directly!” “How odd that he should be so reserved!” At the suggestion of politesse Mrs. Melville next discovered that we were precisely a year older than Kitty, and Mr. Melville hinted in a loud whisper that the[Pg 64] girl would have ten thousand pounds. Finally, politesse prepared for us the great state bedroom; and, when we retired, insisted upon it that we had spent a most miserable evening. Alas! Politeness had hardly the grace to contradict politesse upon this point.

How different was the reception we received on the following day! Our old friend Mr. Warren rose from his armchair as we entered, with a look that set formality at defiance; Mrs. Warren put by her work to observe how much we were grown; and their two daughters greeted with a smile, beautiful because it was unaffected, the scarce-remembered playmate of their childhood. The flowers which Elizabeth was painting, the landscape which Susan was designing, were not hastily concealed at the approach of their guest; nor was our old acquaintance Shock, who was our favourite puppy ten years ago, driven in his old age from the parlour rug at the appearance of an idler dog than himself. The few friends who met us at dinner were not prepared to annoy us by accounts of our abilities and attainments. The conversation was general and entertaining; and on reconsideration we perceived that Mr. Warren took pains to draw out what talent we possessed, although we could not at the same time perceive that such was the object of his attention. In the evening Elizabeth entertained us with Handel and Mozart, and Susan sang us some simple airs, in a voice perhaps the more engaging because it was uncultivated. We were allowed to enjoy the “melody of sweet sounds” unmolested and unobserved. The quadrille which followed was not danced with the less spirit because the Brussels carpet supplied the place of a chalked floor, and a single pianoforte was substituted for the formality of a band. We were happy—because we were permitted to enjoy our happiness in our own way; we were amused—because we did not perceive the efforts which were made for our amusement. “This,” we exclaimed, as we buttoned our coat, and proceeded on our journey the next morning—“this is real politeness.”

In spite of the endeavours of those who would dress our native manners in a Parisian costume, politesse will never be the motive by which England as a nation will be[Pg 65] characterized. As long as France shall be the mother of light heads, and Britain of warm hearts, the Frenchman will show his politesse by the profundity of his bow, and the Englishman will prove his politeness by the cordiality of his welcome. Who is not content that it should be so?

A WINDSOR BALL.

We have often thought that the endeavours of a dancing master go but a very little way to prepare a lady for a ball. Were it possible to procure such an acquisition, we should recommend to our sisters not only a maître à danser, but a maître à parler, inasmuch as it is usually much easier to dance than to talk. One does not immediately see why it should be so; dancing and talking are in a ball-room equally mechanical qualifications; they differ indeed in this, that the former requires a “light fantastic toe,” and the other a light fantastic tongue. But for mind—seriously speaking, there is no more mind developed in small-talk than there is in chassez à droit.

We do not admire the taste of Etonians who dislike dancing; we are not of the number of those who go to a ball for the purpose of eating ice. On the contrary, we adore waltzing, and feel our English aversion for the French much diminished when we recollect that we derive from them Vestris and quadrilles. Nevertheless, if anything could diminish the attachment we feel for this our favourite amusement, it would be that we must occasionally submit to dangle at the heels of an icy partner, as beautiful, and, alas! as cold as the Venus de’ Medicis; whose look is torpor, whose speech is monosyllables; who repulses all efforts at conversation, until the austerity, or the backwardness of her demeanour, awes her would-be adorer into a silence as deep as her own. Now all this gravity of demeanour, in the opinion of some people, is a[Pg 66] proof of wisdom: we know not how this may be, but for our own part we think with the old song, “’Tis good to be merry and wise,” and if we cannot have both—why, then the merry without the wise.

These are the ideas which occur to us upon looking back to the last time that we heard “Voulez vous danser?” played at the Town Hall. Start not, fair reader! do not throw us into the fire; we will not be very libellous; and if you shall erroneously suppose that your own defects have afforded matter for our malicious pen, we are sure your indignation will forthwith subside when you recollect that you may possibly have listened to the colloquial raptures of Gerard Montgomery, or been honoured with an editorial tête-à-tête by the condescension of Peregrine Courtenay. Think over your favourite partners. Did any one ask your opinion of the Bill of Pains and Penalties? It could be no one but Sir Francis Wentworth. Did any one hold forth upon the beauties of a Scotch reel? Of a surety it was Mr. Alexander M‘Farlane. Did any one observe to you that a quadrille was a “strange cross-road, and very hilly?” Doubt not but it was the all-accomplished Robert Musgrave. Did any one remark upon the immorality of waltzing? Thrice-honoured fair one! You have danced with Martin Sterling.

Alas! we intended, as Mr. Musgrave would say, to drive straight to the Town Hall, and we have got out of our road a full page. It is indeed a cruel delay in us, for we know, reader, say what you will, you have been all the time turning over the leaf to meet with a spice of scandal. Well, then, suppose all preliminaries adjusted; suppose us fairly lodged in the ball-room, with no other damage than a ruined Cavendish and a dirtied pump; and suppose us immediately struck dumb by the intelligence that the beautiful, the fascinating Louisa had left the room the moment before we entered it. It was easy to perceive that something of the kind had occurred, for the ladies were all looking happy. We bore our disappointment as well as we could, and were introduced to Theodosia—— No! we will refrain from surnames—— Theodosia is a woman of sense (we are told so, and we are willing to believe it), but she is very unwilling that any one should find it out. As in duty bound, we[Pg 67] commenced, or endeavoured to commerce, a conversation by general observations upon the room and the music. By-the-by, we strongly recommend these generalities to our friends in all conversations with strangers; they are quite safe, and can give no offence. In our case, however, they were unavailing—no reply was elicited. A long pause. We inquired whether the lady was fond of “The Lancers?” To our utter astonishment we were answered with a blush and a frown which would have put to silence a much more pertinacious querist than the Etonian—we ventured not another word. Upon after-consideration, we are sure that the lady was thinking of a set of dashing young officers instead of a set of quadrilles.

We were next honoured by the hand of Emily. When we have said that she is backward, beautiful, and seventeen, we have said all we know of the enchanting Emily. Far be it from us to attack with unwarrantable severity the unfortunate victim of mauvaise honte; we merely wish to suggest to one for whose welfare we have a real regard, that modesty does not necessarily imply taciturnity, and that the actual inconvenience of a silent tongue is not altogether compensated by the poetical loquacity of a speaking eye.

Being again left to ourselves, we sunk by degrees into a profound fit of authorship, and were in imminent danger of becoming misanthropic, when we were roused from our reverie by a tap on the shoulder from George Hardy, and an inquiry, “what were our dreams?” We explained to him our calamities, and assured him that, had it not been for his timely intervention, we should certainly have died of silence. “Died of silence!” reiterated our friend; “God forbid! when Corinna is in the room!” And so saying, he half-led, half-dragged us to the other end of the room, and compelled us to make our bow to a girl of lively manners, whom he described to us in a whisper as “a perfect antidote for the sullens.” Our first impression was, “she is a fool;” our second, “she is a wit;” our third, “she is something between both!” Oh! that it were possible for us to commit to paper one-half of what was uttered by Corinna! Our recollection of our tête-à-tête is like the recollection of a dream. In dreams we remember that we were at one[Pg 68] moment in a mud-built cottage, and were the next transported to a Gothic chapel, but by what means the transmutation of place was effected our waking thoughts are unable to conceive. Thus it was when we listened to Corinna. We were hurried from one topic to another with an unaccountable velocity, but by what chain one idea was connected with its predecessor we cannot imagine. The conversation (if conversation it may be called, where the duty of talking devolves upon one person) set out with some mention of fresco; from hence it turned off to Herculaneum, and then passed with inconceivable rapidity through the following stages:—Rome—the Parthenon—National Monument at Edinburgh—Edinburgh Review—Blackwood—Ebony bracelets—Fashion of short sleeves—Fashion in general dress in Queen Elizabeth’s time—“The Abbot”—Walter Scott—Highland scenery. In the Highlands we lost our route for some minutes, and soon afterwards found ourselves (we know not how) at Joannina, in company with Ali Pasha. By this time we were thoroughly wearied, and were unable to keep up regularly with our unfeeling conductress, so that we have but a very faint idea of the places we visited. We remember being dragged to the Giant at the Windsor Fair, from whence we paid a flying visit to the Colossus of Rhodes; we attended Cato, the lady’s favourite pug, during a severe illness, and were shortly after present at the Cato Street conspiracy. We have some idea that after making the tour of the Lakes, we set out to discover the source of the Nile. In our way thither we took a brief survey of the Lake of Como, and were finally for some time immersed in the Red Sea. This put the finishing stroke to our already fatigued senses. We resigned ourselves, without another struggle, to the will and disposal of our sovereign mistress, and for the next half-hour knew not to what quarter of the globe we were conveyed. At the close of that period we awoke from our trance, and found that Corinna had brought us into the Club-room, and was discussing the characters of the members with a most unwarrantable freedom of speech. Before we had time to remonstrate against this manifest breach of privilege, we found ourselves in the gallery of the House of Lords, and began to think we never should make our escape from this[Pg 69] amusing torture. Fortunately, at this moment a freeholder of—— entered the room. One of the candidates was a friend of Corinna’s, and she hurried from us, after a thousand apologies, to learn the state of the poll.

Sic nos servavit Apollo.[3]

Our next companion was Sappho the Blue-stocking. We enjoyed a literary confabulation for some time, for which we beg our readers to understand we are in every way qualified. The deep stores of our reading, enlivened by the pungent readiness of our wit, are bonâ fide the admiration of London as well as of Windsor belles; we beg our friends to have this in mind whenever they sit down to peruse us. But to proceed. We very shortly perceived that Sappho was enchanted with our erudition, and the manner in which we displayed it. She was particularly pleased with our critiques on “Zimmerman upon Solitude,” and was delighted by the praise we bestowed (for the first time in our life) on Southey’s “Thalaba.” We had evidently made considerable progress in her affections, when we ruined ourselves by a piece of imprudence which we have since deeply regretted. We were satirical—this satire is the devil!—we were satirical upon German literature. The lady turned up her nose, turned down her eyes, bit her lip, and looked—we cannot explain how she looked, but it was very terrific. We have since heard she is engaged in translating Klopstock’s “Messiah” into the Sanskrit.

We were next introduced to one of those ladies who are celebrated for the extraordinary tact which they display in the discovery of the faults of their sex. Catherine is indeed one of the leaders of the tribe. She has the extraordinary talent which conveys the most sarcastic remarks in a tone of the greatest kindness. In her the language of hatred assumes the garb of affection, and the observation which is prompted by envy appears to be dictated by compassion. If in her presence you bestow commendation upon a rival, she assents most warmly to your opinion, and immediately destroys its effect by a seemingly extorted “but.” We were[Pg 70] admiring Sophia’s beautiful hair. “Very beautiful!” said Catherine, “but she dresses it so ill!” We made some allusion to Georgiana’s charming spirits. “She has everlasting vivacity,” said Catherine, “but it’s a pity she is so indiscreet.” Then followed something in a whisper which we do not feel ourselves at liberty to repeat. We next were unguarded enough to find something very fascinating in Amelia’s eyes. “Yes,” replied Catherine, “but then she has such an unfortunate nose between them.” Finally, in a moment of imprudent enthusiasm, we declared that we thought Maria the most interesting girl in the room. We shall never (although we live, like our predecessors, Griffin and Grildrig, to the good old age of forty numbers), we shall never, we repeat, forget the “Some people think so!” with which our amiable auditress replied to our exclamation. We saw we were disgraced, and, to say the truth, were not a little pleased that we were no longer of Catherine’s Privy Council.

Now all these ladies are foolish in their way. Theodosia is a silent fool, Emily is a timid fool, Corinna is a talkative fool, Sappho is a learned fool, and Catherine is a malicious fool. With their comparative degrees of moral merit we have nothing to do; but in point of the agreeable, we hesitate not to affirm that the silent fool is to us the more insupportable creature of the five.

We lately were present at a large party, where an Etonian, for whom we have a great esteem, was terribly abused by a witty Marchioness for his inflexible taciturnity. Without entering upon the merits of this particular case, let us be allowed to plead in behalf of our sex, that a gentleman may be silent when a lady is silly, and that it is needless for a beau to be entertaining where a belle is decidedly impracticable.[Pg 71]

LOVERS’ VOWS.

“What grace hast thou, thus to reprove
These worms for loving?” Shakespeare.

We were engaged the other day in making some purchases at Flint’s, when Lady Honoria Saville entered, attended by the Hon. George Comyn. As the lady is a professed coquette, and the gentleman a professed dangler, we conceived it by no means improper to play the listener; for the conversation of these characters is seldom such as to require much secrecy. We therefore placed ourselves in a convenient situation for hearing whatever was said by the beau, the belle, and the milliner, which last I consider the most rational person of the three. The questions which were put to her by her ladyship escaped us; they seemed to be conveyed, not in the language of common mortals, but in signs which were to us incomprehensible. Without exposing ourselves to the notice of either party, we were beyond measure amused at the timely aid which the milliner’s descriptions of her wares afforded to the lover’s description of his passion; for whenever the latter was at a loss for words, the former stepped in to finish his sentence, and occasionally gave a point to it, in which lovers’ vows are generally deficient.

When they first made their appearance, the gentleman was deposing upon oath to the truth of something of which his companion seemed to entertain doubts. He had run through some of the usual forms of adjuration, such as Sun, Moon, Stars, Venus, and Blue Eyes, when he was stopped by “Lovers’ vows, Comyn! lovers’ vows! Where do they come from?” “Where?” repeated the gentleman, in a theatrical attitude; “they come from a sincere affection, from a passionate heart, from a devoted adoration, from——” “From Paris, I assure you, madam,” said the milliner, who was turning over some silks. “But I wonder, Comyn!” resumed her ladyship, “I wonder you can continue to bore me with this nonsense! Lovers’ vows have given me[Pg 72] the vapours these last five years, and, after all, what are they worth?” “Worth!” reiterated the fop; “they are worth the mines of Peru, the diamonds of Golconda, the sands of Pactolus!” “They are worth five shillings a pair, madam,” said the milliner, “and it’s really throwing them away.” She was talking of some kid gloves.

“You gentlemen,” said her ladyship, “must think us very weak creatures, if you fancy that we are to be imposed upon by any folly you choose to utter. Lovers’ vows have been proverbial since the days of Queen Bess, and it would be strange if, in 1820, we should not have found out what they are made of.” “In my case,” said the exquisite, “your ladyship is cruel in supposing them to be made of anything but the purest sincerity.” “They are made of the finest materials,” said the milliner, “and your ladyship can see through them like glass.” She was holding up to the window some stuff with a hard name, which we know nothing about. “Say what you will, Comyn,” said her ladyship,

Men were deceivers ever;
One foot on sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.

“Lovers’ vows are never intended to last beyond a day!” “Your ladyship is unjust!” replied the dandy; “they will last when all other ties shall be broken; they will last when the bond of relationship shall be cancelled, and the link of friendship riven; they will last——” “They will last for ever, madam, and wash afterwards!” said the milliner. She was speaking of some scarfs.

“Really, George,” observed her ladyship, “you would think me an egregious fool if I were to believe one quarter of what you say to me. Speak the truth, George, for once, if it is in your nature—should I not be folle—folle beyond measure?” “You love to trifle with my passion,” sighed the Honourable; “but this is what we must all expect! Fascinating as you are, you feel not for the woes of your victims; you are more insensible than flints—nothing is dear to you.” “Flint’s will make nothing dear to your ladyship,” said the milliner, wrapping up the parcel.[Pg 73]

“In this age of invention,” said Lady Honoria, “it is surprising to me that no one has invented a thermometer to try the temperature of lovers’ vows. What a price would a boarding-school miss give for such an invention! I certainly will make the suggestion to young Montgomery, that writes the sonnets!” “Good God!” cried the worshipper, “where shall I send for such a test of sincerity? I would send to the suns of India, to the snows of Tobolsk; I would send to the little-toed ladies of China, and the great-hatted chieftains of Loo-Choo; I would send——” “Shall I send it to your ladyship’s house?” said the milliner, holding up the parcel.

“Well,” said her ladyship, rising to leave the shop, “I shall contend no more with so subtle a disputant; my opinion of lovers’ vows remains unchanged, and I desire you won’t pester me with them at the Opera this evening, or I shall positively die of ennui.” We saw that this was meant as an assignation, and the Honourable George Comyn saw things in the same light. “How,” he cried, “how shall I thank your ladyship for this condescension? How shall I express the feelings of the heart you have rescued from despair? Language is too poor, utterance is too weak, for the emotion which I feel; what can I say?” “Much obliged to your ladyship,” said the milliner.

ON THE PRACTICAL ASYNDETON.

“Nil fuit unquam
Tam dispar sibi.” Hor.

The treatise on the Practical Bathos which appeared in our first number, and which we have the vanity to hope is not entirely blotted out from the recollection of our readers, was intended as the first of a series of dissertations, in which we design to apply the beauties of the figures of the grammarians to the purposes of real life. We are very[Pg 74] strongly tempted to pursue this design, when we reflect upon the advantages which have already been the result of the above-mentioned treatise. We are assured, from the most indisputable authority, that the number of the specimens of that most admirable figure exhibited by our schoolfellows in the exercises of the ensuing week was without precedent in the annals of Etonian literature. We have no doubt but those apt scholars who have so readily profited by our recommendation of the Bathos, as far as regards composition, will, at no very distant period, make the same use of this inestimable figure in the regulation of their disposition. But it is time to quit this topic, and to enter upon the second of our proposed series: “A Treatise on the Practical Asyndeton.”

First, then, as in duty and in gallantry bound, we must construe this hard word. The figure Asyndeton, in grammar, is that by which conjunctions are omitted, and an unconnected appearance given to the sentence, which is frequently inexpressibly beautiful. Who is there of our rising orators who has not glowed with all the inspiration of a Roman, when fancy echoes in his ears the brief, the unconnected, and energetic thunders of the Consul, “Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit?” What reader of tragedy does not sympathize with the Orosmane of Voltaire, when, upon the receipt of the billet from Zayre, his anxiety bursts out in those beautifully unconnected expressions—

Donne!—qui la porte?—donne!

The use of connecting particles in either of these cases would have ruined everything. They would have destroyed the majesty of Cicero, and reduced to the level of an every-day novelist the simple tenderness of Orosmane.

The use of this figure, however, is not confined to particular sentences or expressions. It sometimes pervades the five acts of what is miscalled a regular drama, or spreads an uncertain transparent gleam over the otherwise insupportable sameness of some inexplicable epic. Numberless are the writers who have been indebted to its assistance; but our own, our immortal countryman, Shake[Pg 75]speare, preserves an undisputed station at the head of the list. Fettered by no imitation, but the imitation of Nature; bound down to no rules but the vivid conceptions of an untutored, self-working genius, he hurries us from place to place with the velocity of a torrent; we appear to be carried on by a rushing stream, which conveys our boat so rapidly in its eddies, that we pass through a thousand scenes, and are unable to observe for a moment the abruptness with which the changes are effected.

Our modern farce-writers have, with laudable emulation, followed the example of this great master of the stage; but as in their use of this figure they possess the audacity without the genius of the bard they imitate, they cannot prevent us from perceiving the frequent Asyndeton in place, in plot, or in character. The beauty of the countries to which they introduce us is not such as to withdraw us from the contemplation of the outrageously miraculous manner in which we were transported to them.

We have delayed the reader quite long enough with this preliminary discussion, and will now enter at once upon our main subject: the Asyndeton in life.

We should imagine that few of our readers are ignorant of the charms of novelty; few have lived through their boyhood and their youth without experiencing the disgust which a too frequent repetition of the same pleasure infallibly produces. There is in novelty a charm, the want of which no other qualification can in any degree compensate. The most studied viands for the gratification of the appetite please us when first we enjoy them, but the enjoyment becomes tasteless by repetition, and the crambe repetita of satiety provokes nausea instead of exciting desire. Thus it is in other and weightier matters. The pleasures which we first devoured with avidity lose much of their relish when they recur a second time, and are mere gall and wormwood to us when their sweets have become familiar to our taste. A common every-day character, although its possessor may enjoy abundance of worth and good sense, makes no impression on our minds; but the novelty of capricious beauty or uncultivated genius finds a sure road to our hearts.

This is something too long for a digression; but novelty[Pg 76] is a very pretty theme, and must be our excuse. We will return forthwith to our subject.

Since novelty then has so much weight in influencing the judgment, or at least the prejudices of mankind, it is right that this most desirable qualification should not be neglected by young persons on their début upon the stage of life; we must be masters of this excellence before we can expect to shine in any other; we must be new before we can hope to be amusing.

Now the figure which we have been discussing, or rather the figure which we ought to have been discussing, is the very essence and quintessence of novelty. It is perpetually bringing before our eyes old scenes in a new form, old friends in a new dress, old recollections in a new imagery: it is the cayenne of life; and from it the dishes, which would without it cloy and disgust, derive a perpetual variety of taste and pungency. It takes from the scenes we so often witness their unpleasing uniformity, and gives to our mortal career an air of romance which is inexpressibly amusing. All ranks of persons may alike derive benefit from it. By its use the charms of the beauty become more irresistible, the exploits of the general more astonishing, the character of the rake more excusable. It gives in an equal degree pleasure to those who behold, and advantage to those who practise it.

How then is it to be practised? The manner and the method are sufficiently obvious. Never wear to-morrow the same character, or the same dress, that you wore to-day. Be, if you can, puncto mobilis horæ. Be red one hour, and pale the next; vary your temper, your appearance, your language, your manners, unceasingly. Let not your studies or your amusements continue the same for a week together. Skim over the surface of everything, and be deep in nothing; you may think a little, read a little, gamble a little: but you must not think deep, read deep, or play deep. In short, be everything and nothing; the butterfly in life, tasting every flower, and tasting only to leave it.

Do you think too much is required? Far from it. Antiquity has handed down to us a character possessed, in a most transcendent degree, of all the qualifications we[Pg 77] have exacted. We always like to get an example or two from antiquity, because it looks learned. Alcibiades then we can safely propose as a model for all juvenile practitioners in the Asyndeton. Was he grave one day? He laughed the next. Was he an orator one day? He was a buffoon the next. Was he a Greek one day? He was a Persian the next. To sum up his character: he was skilled in every profession; an amateur in every fashion; adorned by every virtue; made infamous by every vice. He moralized like a philosopher, jested like a mountebank, fought like a hero, lied like a scoundrel, lived like a knowing one, and died like a fool.

We assert, and we defy the soundest sophist in the world to contradict us, that these mixed characters obtain and preserve a greater portion of the admiration of the world, than more consistent and less interesting personages. We wonder not at the uniformity of the fixed star, but our imagination is actively employed upon the unusual appearance of the comet. Thus the man of firm and unchangeable steadiness of principle receives our esteem, and is forgotten; while the meteoric appearance of inconsistent eccentricity takes instant hold of our admiration, and is decorated with ten thousand indescribable attractions by the proper exercise of the Asyndeton.

But why do we dilate so much upon the authority of Alcibiades? It has been the almost invariable practice of all great men, in all ages, to pay particular attention to the cultivation of this figure. What a prodigy of the Asyndeton was Alexander! His father Philip may have had more science, perhaps more bottom; but the eccentricities of Alexander, the extraordinary rapidity with which he changed the ring for the gin-shop, and laid down the thunder-bolt of Ammon to assume the quart-pot of Hercules, have given, and will preserve to him, the first leaf in the good books of the young and the hasty.

Are we not more delighted by the capricious mutability of Queen Bess than by the moral uniformity of Queen Anne? Is it not a pleasing marvel, and a marvellous pleasure, to look at the last days of Oliver Cromwell, when the usurper, perpetually stretched upon the tenterhooks of conscience, dared not travel the same road[Pg 78] twice, nor sleep two nights following in the same bed? Spirit of mutability, what pranks must thou have played with the Protector!

Since these are the charms of the Asyndeton, it is not surprising that the poets should have so frequently thrown a spice of it into the characters of their heroes. Putting Fingal and Æneas out of the way, we have no hero of any importance who can make pretensions to a consistency in perfection; and even the latter of these trips occasionally into the Asyndeton; especially when he puts off his usual denominations of pius or pater, in order to be simply Dux Trojanus at the court of Queen Dido. As for Achilles, his whole life, magno si quicquam credis Homero, is an Asyndeton. He is equally a warrior and a ballad-singer, a prince and a cook. To-day he cuts up oxen, and to-morrow he cuts up Trojans. In battle he is as stout a glutton as ever peeled at Moulsey Hurst. At supper he is as hungry a glutton as ever sat down to a turtle. Homer has been blamed for the faults of his hero. For our part we think, with his defenders, that the character which aims with success at perfection, aims in vain at interest; and the feats of Achilles appear to us to derive much of their lustre from the Asyndeton which pervades them. Aware of the charm which a character receives from the use of this figure, modern writers have followed, in this point, the example of their great forerunner, and have thrown into the characters of most of their heroes a particle of this fascinating inconsistency. Hence we have the soldier of Flodden Field, something between a freebooter and a knight—

Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight,
Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight.

Hence we trace the unconnected wanderings of a noble but ruined spirit in Manfred; and hence we wonder at the mysterious union of virtue and vice in the gloomy Corsair, who

Leaves a name to other times,
Linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes.

Now, for the instruction of our readers in this elegant,[Pg 79] nay, necessary accomplishment, we must begin by observing that the Asyndeton may be practised in various manners and matters. There is the Asyndeton in actions, the Asyndeton in dress, and the Asyndeton in conversation. The first of these is adapted to the capacities of promising young men, who have some talent, some wit, and just sufficient vanity to render both of no service. The second is very proper to be used by the lady with little beauty, who wishes to be brillante; and the third is equally suitable to the lady with little wit, who wishes to be piquante. We have made our treatise so prolix, and indulged in such frequent digressions, that we fear our description will be considered a specimen of the figure we are describing; we will therefore briefly conclude this, as we concluded our former essay, by throwing together a few promiscuous specimens of the Asyndeton, in the above classes of its professors:—

William Mutable.—Jan. 31, 1820, left Cambridge a wrangler.—Feb. 12, studied “Fancy” with Jackson.—March 10, entered the “Bachelors’ Club.”—April 1, married! the day was ominous.

Charles Random.—Feb. 20, 1820, bought a commission.—26th ditto, entered himself of the Temple.—March 1, entered the Church, and sported a wig.—March 6, left off the wig and fell in love.—March 20, despaired, and turned Quaker.—March 30, caught a fever by dancing.—Feb. 1, quite recovered.—Feb. 2, died.

Sophia Mellon.—First Masquerade in the season, a Venus.—2nd, a Vesta.—3rd, a Georgian.—4th, a Gipsy.

Laura Voluble.—Seven o’clock, talking morality with the Doctor.—Eight, nonsense with the Captain.—Nine, Greek with the pedant.—Ten, love with the Poet.—Eleven,—Silent!—This was the most marvellous change of all, and Laura is without a rival in the Practical Asyndeton.

[Pg 80]

ON HAIR-DRESSING.

“Jamque à tonsore magistro
Pecteris.” Juv.

We intend, with the permission of Mr. John Smith, to present our readers with a few observations upon Hair-dressing. Before we enter upon this topic, which we shall certainly treat capitally, we must assure the respectable individual above alluded to, that it is our intention in no respect to assume to ourselves the shears which he has so long and so successfully wielded. We should be sorry to encroach upon the privileges, or to step into the shoes, of so respectable a member of the community. We have a real veneration for his pointed scissors, and his no less pointed narratives, although our ears are occasionally outraged by both, since the first deal occasionally in the Tmesis, and the latter more frequently in the hyperbole. Long may he continue in the undisturbed possession of those rights which he so deservedly enjoys; long may he continue to restore its youthful polish to the whiskered lip, and to prune with tonsoric scythe the luxuriance of our capillary excrescences:

The last paragraph is from the pen of Allen Le Blanc. We must pull him down from his high horse, and remount our ambling hobby. As we observed, it is not our intention to provoke any competition or comparison with Mr. J. Smith in the science of hair-dressing. We shall treat of a branch of the profession totally distinct from that which is exercised by the worthy tortor, or distortor of curls. We propose to discuss hair-dressing as a test of character, and to show how you may guess at the contents of the inside of the head by an inspection of the cultivation of the outside of it.

The difficulty we experience in reading the hearts of men is a trite subject of declamation. We find some men celebrated for their discrimination of character, while others are in the same proportion blamed for their want of it.[Pg 81] The country maiden has no means of looking into the intentions of her adorer until she has been unfeelingly deserted; and the town pigeon has no means of scrutinizing the honour of his Greek until he has been bit for a thousand. These are lamentable, and, alas! frequent cases. The prescriptions of the regular philosophers have had but little effect in the prevention of them. The idea of Horace, torquere mero quem perspexisse laborant, has but little influence, since the illiterate, who are most frequently in want of assistance, have seldom the cash requisite to procure the necessary merum. Allow us then to recommend our nostrum.

Think of the trouble we shall save if our proposal is adopted! We doubt not but it might be carried into execution to so great an extent that one might find a sharp genius in a sharp comb, and trace the intricacies of a distorted imagination through the intricacies of a distorted curl. Perfumes and manners might be studied together, and a Cavendish and a character might be scrutinized by one and the same glance.

Do not be alarmed at the importance we attach to a head of hair; Homer would never have attributed to one of his warriors the perpetual epithet of Yellow-haired, if he had not seen in the expression something more than a mere external ornament; nor would Pope have

Weighed the men’s wits against the ladies’ hair,

if he had not discerned on the heads of his belles something worthy of so exalted a comparison. The attention which is paid by certain of our companions to this part of the outward man, will with them be a sufficient excuse for the weight which we attach to the subject.

We might go back to the ages of antiquity, and traverse distant countries, in order to prove how constantly the manners of nations are designated by their hair-dressing. We will omit, however, this superfluous voyage, concluding that our schoolfellows need not to be informed of the varieties of the ornaments for the poll, in which the Persian, the Greek, and the Roman character evinced itself. We shall find sufficient illustration of our position in the annals of English manners. In the days of our ancestors the[Pg 82] flowered wig was the decoration of the gentlemen; and the hair, raised by cushions, stiffened with powder, and fastened with wires, formed the most becoming insignia of the lady. The behaviour of both sexes was the counterpart of their occipital distinctions; among the gentlemen the formal gallantry of those days was denoted by a no less formal peruke, and among the ladies the lover was prepared to expect a stiffness of decorum by the warning he received from so rigid a stiffness of tête. In our days the case is altered—altered, we think, for the better; unshackled politeness and innocent gaiety have by degrees succeeded to haughty repulsiveness and affected condescension; and, in the same proportion, the wig of one sex, and the tower of the other, have been gradually superseded by fashions less appalling and more becoming. The harmless freedom, which is the prevailing characteristic of the manners of the present age, is shown in no particular more strikingly than in the cultivation of the head; and the various shades by which the habits and dispositions of men are diversified, are not more distinct from each other than the various modes and tastes in which their heads are made up.

This, we believe, is the substance of a series of observations which we heard from a stranger the last time we were at Covent Garden Theatre. We were seated in the pit (in the fifth row from the orchestra—a situation which we recommend to our readers); our companion was a middle-aged man, of a tolerable person, but marked by no peculiarity except that ease of deportment, and that ready conversational power, which are invariably the characteristics of a man of the world. We were imperceptibly engaged in a conversation with him, which finally turned upon the subject of this paper. We are aware we have not done justice to his ideas. He expressed them with all the ease and perspicuity, mingled with playful humour, which denote a powerful mind employing its energies upon trivial pursuits. Then, pointing as he spoke with a curiously knotted cane which he held in his hand, he proceeded in the following manner to exemplify his doctrines:—

“Cast your eye for a moment upon the pair of figures who are leaning towards each other in the stage-box. The gentleman wears his hair cut somewhat of the shortest,[Pg 83] thrown up negligently in front, so as to discover a full high forehead; I fancy he must be a naval officer—open, bold, thoughtless. The character of the lady is equally legible. Her long auburn hair, erected by the most assiduous attention into an artificial cone, has a bold and imposing appearance, and denotes that the lady is a beauty, and—knows it.

“There are three old gentlemen in the next box, who are worth a moment’s notice. I mean the three in the second row, who are discussing some question with no little vehemence of action and attitude. The first of them, who has his hair so sprucely trimmed, and fitted to the sides of his head with such scrupulous exactness, appears to be a sinecure holder, who receives yearly a large salary, and finds his only occupation in his brush; the second, whose hair seems to have been too much neglected by the scissors, although it is powdered for the occasion, and tied behind en queue, is, I should conceive, a disappointed and disaffected military officer; the third, whose locks seem to have a natural tendency to what was the newest fashion ten years ago, must be a country gentleman come up to town to benefit his constituents and ruin his heirs. By the earnest manner in which they are speaking, their topic is probably some political change; and the fat old gentleman, in the close wig, who is listening to them in the third row, is reflecting upon the influence which such an event would have on the five per cents.

“In the centre box there are a large body of fashionables, with some of whom I have a trifling acquaintance. Let us see how far they comply with my wishes in making the head an index of the heart. Look at the young man on the right. His locks are composed into a studied negligence by the labour of two hours; they are glossy with all the invention of Delcroix, fragrant with a mélange of rose, jasmin, and jonquil. You need not proceed to the inspection of his neckcloth or his waist, in order to be convinced that such a being is an exquisite.

“The lady next to him is a languissante. You might, with no great effort of ingenuity, divine it from the state of her head. Its curls hang over the ivory surface of her neck in a sort of artful listlessness, which is admirably adapted to her torpid style of beauty, and her yet more torpid style of[Pg 84] mind. The other lady, in the front row, is her sister. She has more fashion than beauty, more vivacity than fashion, and more malice than either. With such qualifications, the course of conquest she was to pursue was obvious. She studies singularity, dresses her hair à la grecque, and sets up for a Spirituelle. The success of these light troops is frequently more brilliant than that of the Regulars. The fop with whom she is coquetting is a young author striving to be known. His character is written legibly on his forehead. The spruceness with which every hair is bound down in its proper station, and the stiff pertness with which the topknot is forced up, as if disdainful of the compression of the hat, plainly show that he is, at least in his own estimation, a favourite of Apollo.

“There is a gentleman in the next box, of whom it was once remarked that his countenance bore some resemblance to that of Lord Byron. Since this luckless expression the poor man has studied much to make himself ridiculous by imitating his lordship in his eccentricity, since to copy his genius is out of the question. Without looking at the eye, which takes great pains to be ‘fixed in vacancy,’ or the lip, which endeavours to quiver with an expression of moroseness, you may tell, from the wild and foreign costume of his tresses, that Lord Fanny is a would-be Furioso.

“It is needless to multiply examples. You will see them at every glance which you throw around you. Aurelia shows her reigning passion for rule or misrule by the circlet of gold with which her head is encompassed; and her husband, by the lank and dejected condition of his scanty forelock, gives room for a conjecture that the principal feature of his character is submission. Old Golding, the usurer, shows his aversion for extravagance by the paucity of his visits to the barber; and his young bride, Chloe, takes care to evince a contrary taste by the diamonds which are so bountifully scattered amidst her profusion of dark ringlets. Anna, by the unvaried sameness of her head-dress, gives you a warning of the unvaried sameness of her disposition; and Matilda, by the diversity of modes which her forehead assumes, gives you to understand that her temper and character are diversified as often. It is not surprising that this should be the case. Look to the stage, from which,[Pg 85] indeed, our attention has been too long withdrawn. Would you not smile if Juliet were to soliloquize in Mrs. Hardcastle’s tête, or the Royal Dane to moralize in the peruke of Sir Peter Teazle?”

Here the stranger paused, and we shortly became interested to such a degree in the sorrows of Belvidera, that we know not what further remarks he communicated, nor at what time he ceased to be our companion. As the curtain fell we looked round, and he was no longer by our side.

ON A CERTAIN AGE.

“Tempora certa.”—Hor.

We happened the other day to be present at a small party, where, being almost entire strangers ourselves, we had little to do but to listen to and reflect upon what was said by others. While we were engaged in this occupation, we heard one expression repeated several times, which made a strong impression upon us, and induced us to draw up the following treatise.

We first heard some gentlemen observing that it was quite proper for Mrs.—— to withdraw from the stage in time, for that she was now of a “certain age.” Immediately afterwards we heard it remarked by Mrs. Racket, that it was lucky for Maria the Nabob had proposed in time, for the lady must be of a “certain age.” Now, as the former of these objects had seen fifty winters, of which the latter fell short by at least twenty, it was natural for us to exert ourselves to discover what this “certain age” might be, the limits of which were so extensive. We accordingly commenced an investigation into the subject with great alacrity, and carried it on for some time with great perseverance. We regret to add that our success has not been proportionate to our exertions; and that, by the most[Pg 86] indefatigable research, we can only ascertain that nothing in life is involved in such uncertainty as this “certain age.”

Our first hope was, that by inquiries from some lady of our acquaintance, who had the fortune or the misfortune to come under this definition, we might be able to ascertain the precise boundaries of the period. But here we met with a difficulty, as it were on the threshold of our project. Out of all the young beauties of whom we made inquiries; out of all the fashionable belles in high life, and the vulgar belles in low life, and the languishing belles who have no life at all, we could find no one to return a satisfactory answer to this mysterious, unanswerable, insupportable question, “Are you of a certain age?” One laughed naturally, and another laughed artificially; one looked amazed, and another looked chagrined; one “left it to us to decide,” another left the room; one professed utter ignorance, and another tapped us with her fan, and wondered how we could have the impertinence. But plain “Yes” or “No” was not forthcoming. The ladies had not studied our second number, or they would doubtless have learnt from Messrs. Lozell and Oakley the absolute necessity of these little monosyllables.

But to proceed. Finding this method ineffectual, we changed our battery, and carried on the siege in another quarter. We now applied to the same ladies for the names of such of their acquaintances as they considered were liable to this imputation (for a terrible imputation the witnesses appeared to consider it). Our difficulties were forthwith redoubled. We are not acquainted with a single girl with good eyes, good hair, good complexion, good fortune, or good character, whose name was not given to us as verging upon a “certain age.” And it seemed to us extraordinary that middle-aged fair ones, whose charms were manifestly in their autumn, were seldom honoured with this appellation; it appeared to be exclusively reserved for those who were young, beautiful, and new to a fashionable life. Far be it from us to insinuate that envy had any influence in making this appropriation.

Finding that the study which we had already bestowed upon this subject had tended rather to perplex than to[Pg 87] elucidate the matter, we found it necessary to pursue the investigation a step farther. We now applied for information to the middle-aged matrons, the sober wives, the mothers of families. “Here,” said we to ourselves, “prejudice will have ceased to influence, vanity to mislead, envy to embitter; here we shall learn the real, the whole truth, from lips unsoured by petty peevishness or violent passion.” But the event disappointed our expectations: there appeared to be a strange disagreement upon this topic, for we found no two opinions to coincide. Mrs. Cranstoun, who has two daughters, and is in her twenty-ninth year, is of opinion that a “certain age” commences at thirty-four: but Mrs. Argent, who, according to our guess, is just entering her thirty-fourth year, is inclined to put off the dreaded period to forty. Lady Evergreen, again, who, to do her justice, paints as well at forty as she did at fourteen, disapproves of the impertinent notions of these “girls,” and thinks that ten more years are wanting to give any one a just and proper claim to this enviable distinction. Fifty is with Lady Evergreen the precise period, the golden number, the “certain age.” Still dissatisfied with the result of our examination, we betook ourselves as a last hope to the dowagers. “They,” we thought, “as they must have long passed the boundaries of this dreaded space, can have no object or interest in withholding from us the truth.” Alas! we were again lamentably deceived. Some of their ladyships had daughters whom they were anxious to preserve from this abominable imputation. Others had particular friends whom they were anxious to bring under it. Lady Megrim begged we would not interrupt her; she really never held good cards when any one looked over her hand; and Mrs. Volatile assured us that she had made it a rule never to think after she was married. She never would have married if she had thought before.

Finding ourselves quite at a loss to connect or reconcile with each other these several sentiments, we shall throw together a few observations which occur to us on the subject, and then leave it to wiser heads to determine the day, the hour, the minute, at which the unconscious fair one enters upon—“A certain age!”

And first, we must notice a peculiarity in the words which we do not well know how to account for—viz., that[Pg 88] their use appears to be almost entirely confined to the fair sex. They are but seldom applied to a gentleman. We have certainly been ear-witnesses to some exceptions upon this rule: for instance, we heard old Cleaver the butcher, who has lived nearly seventy years, and amassed nearly seventy thousand pounds, advised by his friend Gibbie, the tobacconist, to leave off business, as he was now of a “certain age.” And in like manner did we hear Mrs. Solander, when inclined for a solitary walk, admonish her husband, the alderman, not to take up his crutch to accompany her, for he was now “of a certain age.” But with these, and a few other exceptions, we have heard this significant expression applied solely to ladies.

As to the meaning of the words, we confess that we are so completely at fault that we do not thoroughly understand whether they imply censure or commendation. The air of sarcasm and contempt with which they are commonly delivered leave us to conclude that the former is intended to be conveyed; yet we cannot but think that the words themselves signify the latter, if they have any signification at all. For, conscious as we are of the uncertainty of female fancies, the doubts they entertain on the most minute point, the hesitation which they display alike, in the refusal of an equipage or a thimble, an earring or a husband, we certainly consider it no small praise in a woman if she is found to be “certain” in anything. Nevertheless, so attached are we all to our folly and our self-conceit, that we are unwilling even to be commended for the exercise of those good qualities which we call mean and contemptible. Hence it is that our fair friends, who cruelly exult in the ambiguity of uncertain wills, uncertain wishes, and uncertain smiles, reject with disdain the honour (which we must allow would be inconsistent) of possessing—“a certain age.”

The discovery of the time at which this epoch is fixed baffles our utmost diligence. We are rather disposed to place it at no particular number of years in the life of man, but to allow it to vary its period according to the disposition and manner of life of each individual. We would make it a sort of interregnum between manhood and age, between decline and imbecility. According to our idea, the certain age of the officer would last from the first to the final[Pg 89] breaking up of his constitution; the certain age of the drunkard would extend from the first fit of the gout to the last shake of the head of his physician; the judge would find himself in a certain age, from the time when he quits the bench to the time when he is unable to quit the sofa; and the coquette must submit to the provoking definition of a certain age, from the day on which rouge and enamel first become necessary, to the silent melancholy day on which rouge and enamel will be unavailing.

According to this arrangement, a certain age would be that restless uneasy space which elapses between our first warning to prepare for another world and our final summons to enter it. That period is to some of long, to others of shorter duration; but we believe there are few to whom this brief, this insufficient space for preparation is not conceded; there are few who are not warned by some previous sign or visitation that their sand is almost run out, that a new state of existence awaits them, that their days upon this earth are numbered. The phrase which we hear so frequently, and disregard, seen in this light will indeed inspire sombre and salutary ideas; for ourselves, we look upon a certain age as if it were the last veil which conceals from us the visions we dread to see; the last barrier which shuts us from that unexplored country on which we fear to tread; the last pause between experience and doubt,—the last dark silent curtain which separates Time from Eternity.

NOT AT HOME.

“An Englishman’s house is his castle.”

“Not at home,” said her ladyship’s footman, with the usual air of nonchalance, which says, “You know I am lying, but—n’importe!”

“Not at home,” I repeated to myself, as I sauntered from the door in a careless fit of abstractedness. “Not at[Pg 90] Home!”—how universally practised is this falsehood! Of what various, and what powerful import? Is there any one who has not been preserved from annoyance by its adoption? Is there any one who has not rejoiced, or grieved, or smiled, or sighed at the sound of “Not at Home?” No! everybody (that is everybody who has any pretensions to the title of somebody) acknowledges the utility and advantages of these three little words. To them the lady of ton is indebted for the undisturbed enjoyment of her vapours, the philosopher for the preservation of solitude and study, the spendthrift for the repulse of the importunate dun.

It is true that the constant use of this sentence savours somewhat of a false French taste, which I hope never to see engrafted upon our true English feeling. But in this particular who will not excuse this imitation of our refined neighbours? Who will so far give up the enviable privilege of making his house his castle, as to throw open the gates upon the first summons of inquisitive impertinence or fashionable intrusion? The “morning calls” of the dun and the dandy, the belle and the bailiff, the poet and the petitioner, appear to us a species of open hostility carried on against our comfort and tranquillity; and, as all stratagems are fair in war, we find no fault with the ingenious device which fortifies us against these insidious attacks.

While I was engaged in this mental soliloquy, a carriage drove up to Lady Mortimer’s door, and a footman in a most appallingly splendid livery roused me from a reverie by a thundering knock. “Not at Home!” was the result of the application. Half a dozen cards were thrust from the window; and, after due inquiries after her ladyship’s cold, and her ladyship’s husband’s cold, and her ladyship’s lap-dog’s cold, the carriage resumed its course, and so did my cogitations. “What,” said I to myself, “would have been the visitor’s perplexity, if this brief formula were not in use?” She must have got out of her carriage; an exertion which would ill accord with the vis inertiæ[4] (excuse Latin in a schoolboy) of a lady, or she must have given up her[Pg 91] intention of leaving her card at a dozen houses to which she is now hastening, or she must have gone to dinner even later than fashionable punctuality requires! Equally annoying would the visit have proved to the lady of the house. She might have been obliged to throw “The Abbot” into the drawer, or to call the children from the nursery. Is she taciturn? She might have been compelled to converse. Is she talkative? She might have been compelled to hold her tongue: or, in all probability, she sees her friends to-night, and it would be hard indeed if she were not allowed to be “Not at Home” till ten at night, when from that time she must be “At Home” till three in the morning.

A knock again recalled me from my abstraction. Upon looking up, I perceived an interesting youth listening with evident mortification to the “Not at Home” of the porter. “Not at Home!” he muttered to himself, as he retired. “What am I to think? She has denied herself these three days!” and, with a most loverlike sigh, he passed on his way. Here again what an invaluable talisman was found in “Not at Home!” The idol of his affections was perhaps at that moment receiving the incense of adoration from another, possibly a more favoured votary: perhaps she was balancing, in the solitude of her boudoir, between the Vicar’s band and the Captain’s epaulettes; or weighing the merits of Gout with a plum, on the one side, against those of Love with a shilling, on the other. Or, possibly, she was sitting unprepared for conquest, unadorned by cosmetic aid, rapt up in dreams of to-night’s assembly, where her face will owe the evening’s unexpected triumph to the assistance of the morning’s “Not at Home.”

Another knock! Another “Not at Home!” A fat tradesman, with all the terrors of authorized impertinence written legibly on his forehead, was combating with pertinacious resolution the denial of a valet. “The Captain’s not at home,” said the servant. “I saw him at the window,” cried the other. “I can’t help that,” resumed the laced Cerberus, “he’s not at home.”

The foe was not easily repulsed, and seemed disposed to storm. I was in no little fear for the security of “the castle,” but the siege was finally raised. The enemy[Pg 92] retreated, sending forth from his half-closed teeth many threats, intermingled with frequent mention of a powerful ally in the person of Lawyer Shark. “Here,” said I, resuming my meditations, “here is another instance of the utility of my theme. Without it, the noble spirit of this disciple of Mars would have been torn away from reflections on twenty-pounders by a demand for twenty pounds; from his pride in the King’s Commission, by his dread of the King’s Bench. Perhaps he is at this moment entranced in dreams of charges of horse and foot! He might have been roused by a charge for boots and shoes. In fancy he is at the head of serried columns of warriors! His eyes might have been opened upon columns of shillings and pence. In fancy he is disposing of crowns! Horrible thought! he might have been awakened to the recollection that he has not half-a crown in the world!”

I had now reached the door of a friend, whom, to say the truth, I designed to dun for an article. Coming in the capacity of a dun, I ought not to have been surprised that I experienced a dun’s reception. Nevertheless, I was a little nettled at the “Not at Home” of my old friend. “What,” said I, recurring to my former ideas, “what can be Harry’s occupation that he is thus inaccessible? Is he making love, or making verses? Studying Euclid or the Sporting Magazine? Meditating on the trial of the Queen last October, or the trial for King’s next July?” For surely no light cause should induce one Etonian to be “Not at Home” to another.

As is usual with persons in my situation, who are accustomed to speculate upon trifles, from which no fixed principle can be deduced, I negatived the theory of one moment by the practice of the next. For, having returned from my perambulations, I seated myself in my study, with pen, ink, and a sheet of foolscap before me; and, finding myself once more “at Home,” enjoined the servant to remember that I was “Not at Home” for the rest of the day.[Pg 93]

MUSÆ O’CONNORIANÆ.
LETTER FROM PATRICK O’CONNOR, ESQ.
Enclosing Metrical Versions in the Greek and Latin Tongues.

Dear Mr. Courtenay,—It is both a shame and a sin that no attempt is made to perpetuate the memory of those excellent ballads with which the languages of Ireland, England, and Scotland abound. For whereas the said languages are allowed by all men of real taste to be Gothic and semi-barbarous, it is incumbent upon us to endeavour to preserve whatever good they do contain by putting it into another dress. You know Mr. O’Doherty has preceded me in this praiseworthy attempt by his admirable version of Chevy Chace, “Persæus ex Northumbriâ,” &c., which I have compared with the English ballad so often that I can hardly tell which is the original. When about to exercise my talents in this line, I held much question with myself whether I should assimilate my metre to that of my original, as is the case in the above-mentioned admirable work, or embody the ideas of my author in the rhythm of the ancient Greeks. For of the former design I do not consider myself altogether incapable; in proof of which I enclose a brief specimen of my abilities in this line—viz., a song from a MS. collection of poems in the possession of John Jackson, Esq., rendered by Patrick O’Connor, with all the original rhymes miraculously preserved.

[Pg 94]

I trust this sample will be sufficient to convince you that when I turn my talents to the monkish style which the author above alluded to has chosen I shall come very little behind my prototype. For the present, however, I have judged that the metres of antiquity are more classical, and consequently more worthy of a place in the Etonian.

With regard to the poem itself, it is not, I believe, generally understood that Looney, the hero of it, is the descendant of the celebrated Phelim MacTwolter, who, in the year 1750 A.D., fought that celebrated pugilistic encounter with Patrick MacNevis, which is the subject of admiration and encomium in the sporting circles of Carrickfergus. It is gratifying to me to be able to notice this genuine son of Hibernia, because the Boxiana of modern criticism, dwelling with delight upon the minor glories of a Corcoran, a Randall, or a Donnelly, have by some strange neglect omitted all mention of the surpassing brilliancy of the merits of Phelim MacTwolter. This is the more remarkable as the above-mentioned fight was made the subject of a stanzaic heroic poem, remarkable for the animation and geniality which is preserved throughout. MacNevis, who it seems was little better than a braggadocio, gave the challenge. This is described with great force and simplicity. The landlord’s daughter of the Shamrock public-house, who is said to have had a penchant for little Phelim, had been boasting of her lover’s pugilistic fame.

Does not this remind us strongly of Homer’s Paris?

Ἀυτὰρ ἔμ’ ἐν μέσσῳ καὶ άρηίφιλον Μενέλαον
Συμβάλετ’, ἀμφ’ Ἑλένῃ καὶ κτήμασι πᾶσι μάχεσθαι.

The address of MacNevis to his antagonist upon meeting him in the ring is conceived in the same style of ferocious grandeur. He sees him applying himself to the bottle, and exclaims[Pg 95]—

Observe that the expression “blue ruin” is very poetical, but my version of it is also prophetical—a charm unknown to the original. Phelim’s reply is beautiful—

Here again the author, of course, had Homer in his eye—

Μήτι μευ, ἠύτε παιδὸς ἀφαυροῦ, πειρήτιζε.

And again—

Πηλείδη, μὴ δή μ’ ἐπέεσσί γε, νηπύτιον ὥς,
Ἐλπεο δειδίξεσθαι.

The contest, which, it is possible, I may by-and-by transmit to you at length, is described with a minuteness which far exceeds Virgil’s Dares and Entellus, or even the pugilism of the Sporting Magazine. The modest MacTwolter is, as he deserves to be, the victor. The poem concludes in a high strain of triumph—