[#] To an article I wrote twenty-five years ago on this topic I find appended the following note: 'We give the following on the authority of Martin, but must add that a private friend, who formerly filled an office of trust in the firm of Rothschild Brothers, declares the whole to be a fiction.' But who this friend was we cannot now remember.Another financier, who almost rivalled Rothschild as a speculator, was Abraham Goldsmid, who was ruined by a conspiracy. He, in conjunction with a banking establishment, had taken a large Government loan. The conspirators managed to cause the omnium stock to fall to 18 discount. The result was Goldsmid's failure and eventually his suicide, whilst the conspirators made a profit of about £2,000,000.Among other notable stockbrokers we must not omit Francis Bailey, F.S.A., President of the Royal Astronomical Society, who retired from the Stock Exchange in 1825. In 1851 he repeated at his house in Tavistock Place, Russell Square, the Cavendish experiment of weighing the earth, and calculating its bulk and figure, and at the same time verifying the standard measure of the British nation, and rectifying pendulum experiments. In the garden of the house a small observatory was erected for those purposes, and is, we believe, still standing.We alluded a little while ago to some gigantic frauds in Stock Exchange operations. One of the most extraordinary and elaborate of such frauds was that carried out by De Berenger and Cochrane-Johnstone in 1814. Napoleon's military operations against the allies had greatly depressed the funds. On February 21, 1814, about one o'clock a.m., a violent knocking was heard at the door of the Ship Inn, then the chief hotel at Dover. When the door was opened, a person in a richly-embroidered scarlet uniform announced himself as an aide-de-camp of Lord Cathcart (who was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington in 1815), and as the bearer of important news. The allies had gained a great victory, and entered Paris; Napoleon had been captured and killed by Cossacks, who had cut his body into a thousand pieces. Immediate peace was now certain. The stranger ordered a post-chaise, and departed for London, but before leaving, he sent a note containing the news to the Port Admiral, who received it about four a.m.; but the morning being foggy, the telegraph could not be worked. The sham aide-de-camp—really De Berenger, an adventurer, afterwards a livery stable-keeper—dashed along the road, throwing napoleons to the post-boys whenever he changed horses. At Bexley Heath it was clear to him that the telegraph could not have worked, so he moderated his pace, spreading at the same time the news of Napoleon's defeat and death. At Lambeth he entered a hackney-coach, telling the post-boys to spread the news, which reached the Stock Exchange about ten o'clock, in consequence of which the funds rose, but fell again when it was found that the Lord Mayor had had no intelligence. But about twelve o'clock three persons, two of whom were dressed as French officers, drove in a post-chaise over London Bridge; their horses were bedecked with laurels. The officers scattered papers among the crowd, announcing the death of Napoleon and the fall of Paris. They then paraded through Cheapside and Fleet Street, passed over Blackfriars Bridge, and drove rapidly to the Marshgate, Lambeth, got out, changed their cocked hats for round ones, and disappeared as mysteriously as their confederate, De Berenger, had done a few hours earlier.The funds now rose again, but when, after hours of anxious expectation, it was discovered that the news, on which many bargains had been made, was false, there was, of course, wailing and gnashing of teeth. A committee was appointed by the Stock Exchange to track out the conspiracy, as on the two days before stocks to the amount of £826,000 had been purchased by persons implicated. One of the gang had, for a blind, called on Lord Cochrane, and Cochrane-Johnstone, a relation of his, had purchased Consols for him, that he might unconsciously benefit by the fraud. The Tories, eager to destroy a political enemy, concentrated all their rage on him, and he was tried, fined £1,000, and sentenced to stand for one hour in the pillory; but this latter part of the sentence was not carried out, as Sir Francis Burdett had declared that if it was done he would stand beside his friend on the scaffold of shame. Cochrane was further stripped of his knighthood, and his escutcheon kicked down the steps of St. George's Chapel at Windsor. But in his old age his innocence and the injustice done to him were recognised, and his coronet restored to him unsoiled. But could this atone for all the wrong inflicted, and all the misery endured? Those who wish to know all the details of this remarkable fraud will find them in the two volumes of theGentleman's Magazinefor 1814. The first volume gives a full account of the evidence produced at the trial.X.WITS AND BEAUX OF OLD LONDON SOCIETY.A mere beau, a 'man of dress,' as our dictionaries define him, is a pitiful object—a walking and talking doll, painted and bedizened, and as imbecile-looking as a wax figure. The man who chooses to go in for being a beau should, if he does not wish to be thoroughly contemptible, possess, besides physical beauty, a stock of brains, elegant manners, ready wit, and moral courage. The gentleman who at the seaside dresses altogether in white must have a personally distinguished appearance not to be taken for his ownchef de cuisine. Beaux are rather out of fashion just now—mashers and fops replace them. In the last century they were more plentiful. Perhaps the then prevailing popinjay style of dress, with its embroidered and many-coloured coats and waistcoats, gaudy breeches, wigs and swords, lent itself more readily to the assumption of the character than does our more subdued costume. In those days the aspirants to the title of beau were termed bucks, gallants, macaronis; and one of their distinguishing features, as the plays and portraits of those days abundantly demonstrate, was their having small legs with slender calves—possibly to show they were not footmen in disguise. And, as a rule, in those days the valet had more brains than his master.Beaux have always been a fruitful and pleasant theme for the satirist's pen. TheSpectator, in No. 275, describes the dissection of a beau's head, which is found to contain no brain, but in the usual place for one, smelling strongly of essences and orange-flower water, a kind of horny substance, cut into a thousand little faces or mirrors. Further, a lot of ribbons, laces, and embroidery, billets-doux, love-letters, snuff, fictions, vows, oaths, and a spongy substance, known as nonsense. A muscle, not often discovered in dissections, was found, theos cribriforme, which draws the nose upwards when by that motion it intends to express contempt. The ogling muscles were very much worn with use. The individual to whom this head had belonged had passed for a man for about thirty years, and died in the flower of his youth by the blow of a fire-shovel, he having been surprised by an eminent citizen as he was paying some attentions to his wife. This analysis of a beau's head, or character, was written in 1712. In 1757 an essayist described him thus in doggerel:'Would you a modern beau commence,Shake off that foe to pleasure, sense.Scorn real, unaffected worth,Despise the virtuous, good and brave,To ev'ry passion be a slave....Be it your passion, joy and fameTo play at ev'ry modish game....Harangue on fashion, point and lace....Affect to know each reigning belleThat throngs the playhouse or the Mall.Though swearing you detest a fool,Be versed in Folly's ample school....These rites observed, each foppish elfMay view an emblem of himself.'The combination of wit and beau in one person has, nevertheless, occasionally been seen, and the ordinary, or numskulled, beau has shared in the reputation created by such a combination, just as all judges are assumed to be sober. But in the days when beaux flourished wit of a very attenuated kind tickled the fancy of the public, who haunted the taverns patronized by the so-called wits. Even the jokes which passed at the Mermaid between Shakspere, Ben Jonson, and other professed jesters must appear to modern readers who are not absurdly prepossessed in favour of all that savours of antiquity, as heavy, dull, and often far-fetched. To justify what may appear rank heresy, let me quote one of Tarleton's 'witty' sayings. Tarleton was Shakspere's friend and fellow-actor,thelow comedian of Queen Elizabeth's reign, who probably suggested to Shakspere some of his jesters and fools. Now, this is what is transmitted to us as a specimen of his wit: Tarleton, keeping an ordinary in Paternoster Row, would approve of mustard standing before his customers to have wit. 'How so?' inquired one. 'It is like a witty scold, meeting another scold, begins to scold first. So,' says he, 'the mustard, being licked up and knowing that you will bite it, begins to bite you first.' 'I'll try that,' says a gull, and the mustard so tickled him that his eyes watered. 'How now?' says Tarleton. 'Does my jest savour?' 'Ay,' says the gull, 'and bite too.' 'If you had had better wit,' says Tarleton, 'you would have bit first. So, then, conclude with me that dumb, unfeeling mustard has more wit than a talking, unfeeling fool, as you are.' And this was considered 'a rare conceit' in the days of Shakspere. We are rather more exacting now.The beaux of the days we are speaking of were, indeed, poor specimens of humanity. They were a noisy, swaggering lot, as we learn from the author of 'Shakspere's England.' 'If a gallant,' he says, 'entered the ordinary ... he would find the room full of fashion-mongers ... courtiers, who came there for society and news; adventurers who have no home ... quarrelsome men paced about fretfully fingering their sword-hilts, and maintaining as sour a face as that Puritan moping in a corner, pent up by a group of young swaggerers, disputing over cards.... The soldiers bragged of nothing but of their employment in Ireland and in the Low Countries.... The mere dullard sat silent, playing with his glove, or discussing at what apothecary's the best tobacco was to be bought.'But let us, in the career of an individual, Beau Fielding, famous in his day, show how beaux then acquired a reputation. Scotland Yard was so called from a palace which stood there, and was the residence of the Kings of Scotland on their annual visit to do homage for their kingdom to the Crown of England. On the union of the Scottish and English Crowns the palace was allowed to go to decay. Parts of it served as occasional residences for various persons, one of whom was Robert Fielding, who died there in the early part of the last century. This Fielding was generally known as Beau Fielding. TheTatler, in August, 1709 (Nos. 50 and 51), thus describes him: 'Tenlustraand more are wholly passed since Orlando (R. Fielding) first appeared in the metropolis of this island, his descent noble, his wit humorous, his person charming. But to none of these advantages was his title so undoubted as that of his beauty. His complexion was fair, but his countenance manly; his stature of the tallest, his shape the most exact; and though in all his limbs he had a proportion as delicate as we see in the work of the most skilful statuaries, his body had a strength and firmness little inferior to the marble of which such images are formed. This made Orlando the universal flame of all the fair sex; innocent virgins sighed for him as Adonis, experienced widows as Hercules. Thus did this figure walk alone, the pattern and ornament of our species, but, of course, the envy of all who had the same passions, without his superior merit, and pretences to the favour of that enchanting creature, woman. However, the generous Orlando believed himself formed for the world, and not to be engrossed by any particular affection.... Woman was his mistress, and the whole sex his seraglio. His form was always irresistible; and if we consider that not one of five hundred can bear the least favour from a lady without being exalted above himself ... we cannot think it wonderful that Orlando's repeated conquests touched his brain. So it certainly did, and Orlando became an enthusiast in love.... He would still add to the advantages of his person that of a profession which the ladies always favour, and immediately commenced soldier.... Our hero seeks distant climes ... after many feats of arms ... Orlando returns home, full, but not loaded, with years.... The beauteous Villaria (Barbara, daughter and heiress of William Villiers, Lord Viscount Grandison, of the Kingdom of Ireland) ... became the object of his affection.... According to Milton,'"The fair with conscious majesty approved."Fortune having now supplied Orlando with necessaries for his high taste of gallantry and pleasure, his equipage and economy had something in them more sumptuous and gallant than could be conceived in our degenerate age, therefore ... all the Britons under the age of sixteen ... followed his chariot with shouts and acclamations.... I remember I saw him one day stop, and call the youths about him, to whom he spoke as follows: "Good youngsters, go to school, and do not lose your time in following my wheels. I am loath to hurt you, because I know not but you are all my own offspring.... Why, you young dogs, did you never see a man before?" "Never such a one as you, noble General," replied a truant from Westminster. "Sirrah, I believe thee; there is a crown for thee. Drive on, coachman." ... Fortune being now propitious to the gay Orlando, he dressed, he spoke, he moved as a man might be supposed to do in a nation of pigmies ... he sometimes rode in an open tumbril, of less size than ordinary, to show the largeness of his limbs, and the grandeur of his personage, to the greater advantage.... In all these glorious excesses did ... Orlando live ... until an unlucky accident brought to his remembrance that ... he was married before he courted the nuptials of Villaria. Several fatal memorandums were produced to revive the memory of this accident, and the unhappy lover was for ever banished her presence, to whom he owed the support of his first renown and gallantry.... Orlando, therefore, now rages in a garret.' The Barbara Villiers mentioned by theTatlerwas identical with Lady Castlemaine, Duchess of Cleveland, whose scandalous history is notorious. She was sixty-five years old when she fell in love with Fielding and married him. The 'unlucky accident' of theTatlerwas the fact that a few weeks before Fielding had been taken in by an adventuress, one Mary Wadsworth, whom, taking her for a rich widow, he had married. On his second—bigamous—marriage, the first wife revealed the fact to Lady Castlemaine, who, having been shamefully treated by Fielding, was glad to get rid of him. The first marriage was proved in a court of law, and sentence passed on Fielding to be burnt in the hand. By interest in certain quarters he was spared this ignominious punishment; but he was left destitute, and died forgotten and forsaken.TheTatlergave Fielding a noble descent, and he, in fact, claimed descent from the Hapsburgs; and on the strength of his name ventured to have the arms of Lord Denbigh emblazoned on his coach, and to drive about the ring in Hyde Park. At the sight of the immaculate coat-of-arms on the plebeian chariot, 'all the blood of the Hapsburgs' flew to the head of Basil, fourth Earl of Denbigh. In a high state of fury, he at once procured a house-painter, and ordered him to daub the coat-of-arms completely over, in broad daylight, and before all the company in the ring. The beau tamely submitted to the insult.Fielding had several competitors in the beau-ship; contemporary with him were Beau Edgeworth and Beau Wilson. Of the former but little is on record; the latter's career was cut short at an early date, for when he was not much beyond his twentieth year he was killed in a duel between him and John Law, afterwards so famous as the originator of the Mississippi scheme. The duel took place on the site of the present Bloomsbury Square. A mushroom growth of beaux arose about the year 1770, some of whom having travelled in Italy, and introduced macaroni as a new dish, they came to be designated by that name. They dressed in the most ridiculous fashion, wearing their hair in a very high foretop, with long side-curls, and an enormous chignon behind. Their clothes were tight-fitting, while silk stockings in all weathers werede rigueur. This folly was of but short duration.In the first half of the eighteenth century flourished Beau Nash—a great contrast in manners, character, social position, and conduct to Beau Fielding; but as his life was passed at Bath he cannot be reckoned among London beaux. Yet we mention him, as in his earlier years he was slightly connected with the Metropolis, by the fact that he was entered for the Temple, though he never followed the law as a profession.We have to come down to comparatively recent times to encounter a beau of some note; that beau was known as Beau George Brummel. He was born in 1777, and sent to Eton, where he enjoyed the credit of being the best scholar, the best oarsman, and the best cricketer of his day. His father was Under-Secretary to Lord North, and left each of his children some £30,000. At Eton he made many aristocratic friends, and thus obtained the entrée to Devonshire House, where the beautiful Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, held her court, and where she introduced Brummell to the Prince Regent, who gave him a commission in the 10th Hussars. But the army, with its restraints, did not suit the beau; he left it, and then resided in Chesterfield Street, where the Prince, finding in him a kindred spirit of vanity and frivolity, used to visit him in the morning to see him make his toilet, and to learn the art of tying his neckerchief fashionably. And frequently the Prince would stay all day to enjoy his friend's intellectual discourse, stopping to take a chop or steak with him, and not returning home till the next morning, half-seas over. The beau spent his time chiefly at Brighton and at Carlton House, and regularly established himself as a leader of fashion, his horses and carriages, his dogs, walking-sticks and snuff-boxes, but especially his clothes, becoming patterns to all the empty-headed noodles who required guidance in such matters. But such show could not be supported on the income derived from his patrimony; Brummell therefore went in heavily for gambling, with varying luck. Once at Brooks's he played with Alderman Combe, nicknamed 'Mash-tub,' Lord Mayor and brewer. The dice-box circulated. 'Come, Mash-tub,' said the beau, who was the caster, 'what do you set?' 'Twenty-five guineas,' said the Alderman. The beau won, and eleven more similar ventures. As he pocketed the money, he said: 'Thank you, Alderman; henceforth I shall drink no porter but yours.' 'I wish, sir,' replied Combe, 'that every other blackguard in London would say the same.' At the Watier Club, established at the instigation of the Prince of Wales, Brummell suffered heavy losses, so that ever after he was in constant pecuniary difficulties, though Fortune smiled on him at times. Indulging in all the superstitious tendencies of gamblers, he at one time attributed his luck to the finding of a crooked sixpence in the kennel, as he was walking with Mr. Raikes, who tells the story, through Berkeley Square. He had a hole bored in the coin, and attached it to his watch-chain. As for the succeeding two years he had great luck at the table and on the turf, he attributed it to the lucky sixpence. He is supposed to have made nearly £30,000 during that time.A coolness between the Prince and the beau arose after a few years; various reasons are assigned for it. He was, for instance, said to have taken the part of Mrs. Fitzherbert, who had been privately married to the Prince Regent at Carlton House; he is reported to have asked Lady Cholmondeley, in the hearing of the Prince, and pointing to him, 'Who is your fat friend?' Though it is also reported that this question was put to Jack Lee, as he was walking up St. James's Street, arm-in-arm with the Prince, a few days after the beau had quarrelled with the latter. But this blew over, and Brummell was again invited to Carlton House, where he took too much wine. The Prince said to his brother, the Duke of York: 'I think we had better order Mr. Brummell's carriage before he gets quite drunk.' Another version of the second rupture is that Brummell took the liberty of saying to the Prince: 'George, ring the bell.' The Prince rang it, and told the servant who answered it: 'Mr. Brummell's carriage.' This Brummell always denied; however, he was a second time forbidden Carlton House. For a few years he was a hanger-on at Oatlands, the seat of the Duke of York, then, having lost large sums at play, he was obliged to fly the country, and having lived for some years in obscurity at Calais, he obtained the post of British Consul at Caen—for which his previous career, of course, eminently fitted him! He died in that town in poor circumstances in 1840.Let us conclude this short account of the poor moth, basking in the royal sunshine for awhile, with one or two anecdotes. One day a youthful beau approached Brummell, and said: 'Permit me to ask you where you get your blacking?' 'Ah,' said the beau, 'my blacking positively ruins me. I will tell you in confidence—it is made with the finest champagne!' He was once at a party in Portman Square. On the cloth being removed, the snuff-boxes made their appearance; Brummell's was particularly admired; it was handed round, and a gentleman, finding it somewhat difficult to open, incautiously applied a desert-knife to the lid. Brummell was on thorns, and at last could contain himself no longer, and addressing the host, he said, loud enough to be heard by the company: 'Will you be good enough to tell your friend that my snuff-box is not an oyster?'England has had no regular beau since the time of Brummell, though occasionally some crack-brained individual has attempted to wear his mantle. Such a one was Ferdinand Geramb, a tight-laced German General and Baron, who in the second decade of this century strutted about the parks, conspicuous for his ringlets, his superb moustaches, and immense spurs. It was asserted that he was a German Jew, who, having married the widow of a Hungarian Baron, assumed her late husband's title. His fiery moustaches were closely imitated by many illustrious personages, and gold spurs several inches long became the fashion—one fool makes many. It is to him the British army is indebted for the introduction of hussar uniforms. Having to leave England under the Alien Act, he went to Hamburg, where he set himself to writing against the Emperor Napoleon, who shut him up in the Castle of Vincennes. There, in terrible fear of being shot, he made a vow that should he regain his liberty he would renounce the devil and his works, and join the Trappist community. He was released at the Restoration, and at once entered a Trappist monastery, under the name of Brother Joseph, and in course of time became Abbot and Procurator-General of the Order. No more fighting of duels now, no more keeping the bailiffs who wanted to seize him for debt at bay for twelve days in an English country house which he had fortified; he submitted to the severest rules of the Order, and in 1831 made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and died at Rome in 1848.XI.LONDON SEEN THROUGH FOREIGN SPECTACLES.In the year 1765 a Frenchman, who did not give his name, visited London, and afterwards published in Paris an account of his visit.'I reached London,' he says, 'towards the close of the day ... and at last, quite by chance, I found myself settled in an apartment in the house of theCruisinier Royalin Leicester Fields. This neighbourhood is filled with small houses, which are mostly let to foreigners.' On the following day he walked down Holborn and the Strand to St. Paul's, then crossed London Bridge, and returned to his hotel by walking through Southwark and Lambeth to Westminster, 'a district full of mean houses and meaner taverns.' The localities named have not greatly altered their character since then. In another place our traveller says: 'Even from the bridges it is impossible to get a view of the river, as the parapets are ten feet high.... The reason given for all this is the inclination which the English, and the Londoners especially, have for suicide. It is true that above and below the town the banks are unprotected, and offer an excellent opportunity to those who really wish to drown themselves; but the distance is great, and, besides, those who wish to leave the world in this manner prefer doing so before the eyes of the public. The parapets, however, of the new bridge [Blackfriars] which is being built will be but of an ordinary height.' Suicidal tendencies must indeed have greatly declined, since the most recently erected bridges, the new Westminster and Blackfriars, have particularly low parapets.Of the streets our author says: 'They are paved in such a manner that it is barely possible to ride or walk on them in safety, and they are always extremely dirty.... The finest streets ... would be impassable were it not that on each side ... footways are made from four to five feet wide, and for communication from one to the other across the street there are smaller footways elevated above the general surface of the roadway, and formed of large stones selected for the purpose.... In the finest part of the Strand, near St. Clement's Church, I noticed, during the whole of my stay in London, that the middle of the street was constantly covered with liquid stinking mud, three or four inches deep.... The walkers are bespattered from head to foot.... The natives, however, brave all these disagreeables, wrapped up in long blue coats, like dressing-gowns, wearing brown stockings and perukes, rough, red and frizzled.'Well, we cannot find much fault with this description, unflattering as it is, for in the last century London certainly was one of the most hideous towns to live in, and its inhabitants the most uncouth, repulsive set of 'guys'! Concerning Oxford Street our author makes a false prognostic: 'The shops of Oxford Street will disappear as the houses are sought after for private dwellings by the rich. Soon will the great city extend itself to Marylebone, which is not more than a quarter of a league distant. At present it is a village, principally of taverns, inhabited by French refugees.'Our traveller sees but four houses in London which will bear comparison with the great hotels in Paris. To the inconvenience of mud, he says, must be added that of smoke, which, mingled with a perpetual fog, covers London as a pall. We, to our sorrow, know this to be true even now.But we have improved in one respect: our old watchmen or 'Charleys' have disappeared before the modern police. Concerning these watchmen our author says: 'There are no troops or guard or watch of any kind, except during the night by some old men, chosen from the dregs of the people. Their only arms are a stick and a lantern. They walk about the streets crying the hour every time the clock strikes ... and it appears to be a point of etiquette among hare-brained youngsters to maul them on leaving their parties.'Our Frenchman formed a correct estimate of the London watchman of his day—nay, it held good to the final extinction of the 'Charleys.' In December, 1826, a watchman was charged before the Lord Mayor with insubordination. On being asked who had appointed him watchman, the prisoner replied that he was in great distress and a burden to the parish, who therefore gave him the appointment to get rid of him. The Lord Mayor: 'I thought so; and what can be expected from such a system of choosing watchmen? I know that most of the men who are thus burdens on the parish are the vilest of wretches, and such men are appointed to guard the lives and property of others! I also know that in most cases robberies are perpetrated by the connivance of watchmen.'But in some cases our author is really too good-naturedly credulous. Says he: 'The people of London, though proud and hasty, are good at heart, and humane, even in the lowest class. If any stoppage occurs in the streets, they are always ready to lend their assistance to remove the difficulty, instead of raising a quarrel, which might end in murder, as is often the case in Paris.' This is really too innocent! And our French visitor must have been very fortunate indeed never to have got into a London crowd of roughs or of pickpockets, who create stoppages in the streets for the only purpose of pursuing their trade, and who seldom hesitate to commit violence if they cannot rob without it. Our author's belief, indeed, in London honesty is boundless. 'In order that the pot-boys,' he says, 'may have but little trouble in collecting them [the pewter pots in which publicans send out the beer], they are placed in the open passages, and sometimes on the doorsteps of the houses. I saw them thus exposed ... and felt quite assured against all the cunning of thieves.' But more astounding is the statement that there are no poor in London! 'A consequence,' says our visitor, 'of its rich and numerous charitable establishments and the immense sums raised by the poor-rates, which impost is one which the little householders pay most cheerfully, as they consider it a fund from which, in the event of their death, their wives and children will be supported.' Fancy a little householder paying his poor-rate cheerfully! And what a mean opinion must our author have had of the spirit of the householder who calmly contemplated his family, after his death, going to the parish!The Frenchman returns once more to our usual melancholy, 'which,' he says, 'is no doubt owing to the fogs' and to our fat meat and strong beer. 'Beef is the Englishman's ordinary diet, relished in proportion to the quantity of fat, and this, mixed in their stomachs with the beer they drink, must produce a chyle, whose viscous heaviness conveys only bilious and melancholic vapours to the brain.'It certainly is satisfactory to have so scientific an explanation of the origin of our spleen.Another French writer in 1784—M. La Combe—published a book, entitled 'A Picture of London,' in which,inter alia, he says: 'The highroads thirty or forty miles round London are filled with armed highwaymen and footpads.' This was then pretty true, though the expression 'filled' is somewhat of an exaggeration. The medical student of forty or fifty years ago seems to have been anticipated in 1784, for M. La Combe tells us that 'the brass knockers of doors, which cost from 12s. to 15s., are stolen at night if the maid forgets to unscrew them'—a precaution which seems to have gone out of fashion. 'The arrival of the mails,' our author says, 'is uncertain at all times of the year.... Persons who frequently receive letters should recommend their correspondents not to insert loose papers, nor to put the letters in covers, because the tax is sometimes treble, and always arbitrary, though in a free country. But rapacity and injustice are the deities of the English.' M. La Combe does not give us a flattering character. 'An Englishman,' he says, 'considers a foreigner as an enemy, whom he dares not offend openly, but whose society he fears; and he attaches himself to no one.' Perhaps it was so in 1784, but such feelings have nearly died out—at least, among educated people. M. La Combe, in another part of his book, exclaims: 'How are you changed, Londoners! ... Your women are become bold, imperious, and expensive. Bankrupts and beggars, coiners, spies and informers, robbers and pickpockets abound.... The baker mixes alum in his bread ... the brewer puts opium and copper filings in his beer ... the milkwoman spoils her milk with snails.'Do more recent writers judge of us more correctly? We shall see.I have lying before me a French book, the title of which, translated into English, runs, 'Geography for Young People.' It is in its eighth edition, and written by M. Lévi, Professor of Belles-Lettres, of History and Geography in Paris. The date of the book is 1850. The Professor in it describes London, and if his pupils ever have, or rather had, occasion to visit our capital, they must have been unable to recognise it from their teacher's description of it. Among the many blunders he commits, there are some which are excusable in a foreigner, because they refer to matters which are often misapprehended even by natives; but to describe London as possessing a certain architectural feature which a mere walk through the streets with his eyes open would have shown him to have no existence at all is rather unpardonable in a professor who takes on himself to teach young people geography. But what does M. Lévi say? He says: 'In London you never see an umbrella, because all the streets are built with arcades, under which you find shelter when it rains, so that an umbrella, which to us Parisians is an indispensable article, is perfectly useless to a Londoner.' M. Lévi evidently, if ever he was in London, visited the Quadrant only, before the arcade was pulled down, and thereupon wrote his account of London. Yet he must have looked about a bit, for he tells us of splendid cafés to be met with in every street; the nobility patronize them; 'one of them accidentally treads on the toes of another, a duel is the consequence, and to-morrow morning one of them will have ceased to live.'M. Lévi reminds us of the Frenchman who came over to England with the object of writing a book about us. He arrived in London one Saturday night, and being tired, at once went to bed. At breakfast next morning he asked for new bread; the waiter told him they only had yesterday's. Out came the Frenchman's note-book, in which he wrote: 'In London the bread is always baked the day before.' He then asked for the day's paper, but was again told they had yesterday's only. A memorandum went into the note-book: 'The London newspapers are always published yesterday.' He then thought he would present the letter of introduction he had brought with him to a private family, so having been directed to the house, he saw a lady near the window, reading. Not wishing to startle or disturb her, he gave a gentle single rap. This not being answered, he had to give a few more raps, when at last a servant partly opened the door and asked his business. He expressed his wish to see the master of the house. 'Master never sees anybody to-day, but he will perhaps to-morrow,' replied the servant, and shut the door in his face. Another memorandum was added to the previous ones: 'In London people never see anyone to-day, but always to-morrow.' Having nothing to do, he thought he would go to the theatre. He inquired for Drury Lane, and was directed to it. The doors being shut, he lounged about the neighbourhood till they should open. As it grew later and later, and there was no sign of aqueue, he at last addressed a passer-by, and asked him when the theatre would open. 'It won't open to-day,' was the reply. This was the last straw that broke the camel's back. Our Frenchman hurried back to his hotel, wrote in his note-book, 'In London there are theatres, but they never open today,' took a cab, caught the night mail, and hastened to leave so barbarous a country.This description of London life is about as correct as that recently given in Max O'Rell's 'John Bull and his Womankind.' What kind of people did O'Rell visit?I look at another book before me, written in Italian, and entitled: 'Semi-serious Observations of an Exile on England.' The book was published at Lugano in 1831, but the author—Giuseppe Pecchio—dates his preface from York in 1827.He speaks thusly of the approach to London by the Dover road: 'If the sky is gloomy, the first aspect of London is no less so. The smoky look of the houses gives them the appearance of a recent fire. If to this you add the silence prevailing amidst a population of a million and a half of inhabitants, all in motion (so that you seem to behold a stage full of Chinese shadows), and the uniformity of the houses, as if you were in a city of beavers, you will easily understand that on entering into such a beehive pleasure gives way to astonishment. This is the old country style, but since the English have substituted blue pills for suicide, or, still better, have made a journey to Paris—since, instead of Young's "Night Thoughts," they read the novels of Walter Scott, they have rendered their houses a little more pleasing in outward appearance. In the West End especially they have adopted a more cheerful style of architecture. But I do not by this mean to imply that the English themselves have become more lively; they still take delight in ghosts, witchcraft, cemeteries, and similar horrors. Woe to the author who writes a novel without some apparition to make your hair stand on end!'In speaking of the thinness of the walls and floors of London houses, he says: 'I could hear the murmur of the conversation of the tenant of the room above and of that of the one below me; from time to time the words "very fine weather," "indeed," "very fine," "comfort," "comfortable," "great comfort," reached my ears. In fact, the houses are ventriloquous. As already mentioned, they are all alike. In a three-storied house there are three perpendicular bedrooms, one above the other, and three parlours, equally so superposed.' We know how much of this description is true.'Why are the English,' he asks, 'not expert dancers? Because they cannot practise dancing in their slightly-built houses, in which a lively caper would at once send the third-floor down into the kitchen. This is the reason why the English gesticulate so little, and have their arms always glued to their sides. The rooms are so small that you cannot move about rapidly without smashing some object,' or, as we should say, you cannot swing a cat in them.'Strangers are astounded,' continues our author, 'at the silence prevailing among the inhabitants of London. But how could a million and a half of people live together without silence? The noise of men, horses, and carriages between the Strand and the Exchange is so great that it is said that in winter there are two degrees of difference in the thermometers of the City and of the West End. I have not verified it,' our author is candid enough to admit, 'but considering the great number of chimneys in the Strand, it is probable enough. From Chering [sic] Cross to the Exchange is the cyclopedia of the world. Anarchy seems to prevail, but it is only apparent. The rules which Gray gives (in his "Trivia; or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London") seem to me unnecessary.'Signor Pecchio pretty well describes the movements of 'City men':'The great monster of the capital,' he says, 'similar to a huge giant, waking up, begins by giving signs of life at its extremities. The movement begins at the circumference, gradually extending to the centre, until about ten o'clock the uproar begins, increasing till four o'clock, which is the hour for going on 'Change. The population seems to follow the law of the tides. Up to that hour the tide rises from the periphery to the Exchange. At half-past four, when the Exchange closes, the ebb sets in, and currents of men, horses, and carriages flow from the Exchange to the periphery.'Like all foreigners, he has something to say about the dulness of an English Sunday. 'This country, all in motion, all alive on other days of the week,' he observes, 'seems struck with an attack of apoplexy on the Lord's day.' Foreigners pass the day at Greenwich or Richmond, where 'they pay dearly for a dinner, seasoned with the bows of a waiter in silk stockings and brown livery, just like the dress of a Turin lawyer.' But if you want to see how John Bull spends the day, it is not in Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens you must look for him. 'If you want to see that marvellous personage who is the wonder and laughing-stock of all Europe, who clothes all the world, wins battles on land and sea without much boasting, who works like three and drinks like six, who is the pawnbroker and usurer of all Kings and all Republics, whilst he is bankrupt at home, and sometimes, like Midas, dies of hunger in the midst of gold, you must look for him elsewhere. In winter you must descend into underground cellars. There, around a blazing fire, you will behold the English workman, well dressed and shod, smoking, drinking, and reading.... For this class of readers special Sunday newspapers are published.... It is in these taverns, and amidst the smoke of tobacco and the froth of their beer, the first condition of public opinion is born and formed. It is there the conduct of every citizen is discussed and appraised; there starts the road which leads to the Capitol or the Tarpeian rock; there praise or blame is awarded to a Burdett issuing triumphantly from the Tower, or to a Castlereagh descending amidst curses to the tomb.... There are no rows in these taverns ... more decency of conduct is observed in them than in our [Italian] churches. When full of spirit and beer the customers, instead of fighting, fall down on the pavement like dead men.'After having so carefully observed the conduct of the British workman, our Italian friend watches him in the suburban tea-garden, which he visits with his family to take tea in the afternoon, or drink his nut-brown ale. 'One of the handsomest,' he says, 'is Cumberland Gardens,[#] close to Vauxhall ... there he sits smoking long pipes of the whitest clay, which the landlord supplies, filled with tobacco, at one penny each. Between his puffs of smoke he occasionally sends forth a truncated phrase, such as we read in "Tristram Sandi" [sic] were uttered by Trion and the captain. It being Sunday, which admits of no amusement, no music or song is heard.' Pretty much as it is at the present day![#] In the early part of 1825, therefore shortly after our author wrote, the tavern was burnt to the ground, and the site taken possession of by the South London Waterworks.Having heard what both Frenchmen and an Italian had to say about London, let us listen to what a German authoress has to tell us on the subject.Johanna Schopenhauer, in her 'Travels through England and Scotland' (third edition, 1826), says: 'The splendid shops, which offer the finest sights, are situate chiefly between the working City and the more aristocratic, enjoying Westminster,' a statement which, as every Londoner knows, is only partially correct. 'The English custom of always making way to the right greatly facilitates walking, so that there is no pushing or running against anyone.' Did our author ever take a walk in Cheapside or Fleet Street? 'Even Italians probably do not fear rain so much as a Londoner; to catch a wetting seems to them the most terrible misfortune; on the first falling of a few drops everyone not provided with an umbrella hastens to take refuge in a coach.' How well the lady has studied the habits of Londoners! What will they say to this?'The police exercise a strict control over hackney-coaches. Woe to the driver who ventures to over-charge!' And again: 'You may safely enter, carrying with you untold wealth, a coach at any time of the night, as long as someone at the house whence you start takes the number of the coach, and lets the driver see that it is taken.'Mrs. Schopenhauer tells us that it is customary to go for breakfast to a pastry-cook's shop, and eat a few cakes hot from the pan. Truly, we did not know it. Of course, she agrees with other writers as to the smallness of the houses, every room of which you can tell from the outside; but we were not aware that, as she informs us, all the doors are exceedingly narrow and high, and that frequently the front-doors look only like narrow slits in the wall.'Bedrooms seldom can contain more than one bed; but English bedsteads are large enough to hold three persons. And it is a universal custom not to sleep alone; sisters, relations, and female friends share a bed without ceremony, and the mistress of the house is not ashamed to take her servant to bed with her, for English ladies are afraid of being alone in a room at night, having never been brought up to it.... The counterpane is fastened to the mattress, leaving but an opening for slipping in between the two.'Again, we are told to our astonishment: 'The majority of Londoners, workmen and shopkeepers, who form but one category, on the whole lead sad lives. Heavy taxes, the high prices of necessaries, extravagance of dress, compel them to observe a frugality of living which, in other countries, would be called poverty.'The shopkeeper, for ever tied to his shop and the dark parlour behind, must deny himself every amusement. Theatres are too far off and too expensive; the wife of a well-to-do tradesman seldom can visit one more than twice a year.'During the week they cannot leave the shop between nine in the morning and twelve at night. The wife generally attends to it, while the husband sits in the parlour behind and keeps the accounts. True, on Sundays all the shops are closed, but so are the theatres, and as all domestics and other employés insist on having that day to themselves, the mistress has to stay at home to take care of the house.'Merchants lead lives nearly as dull. They have to deny themselves social pleasures indulged in by the rich merchants of Hamburg or Leipsic. English ladies are more domesticated, and not accustomed to the bustle of public amusements. But their husbands, after business hours, occasionally seek for recreation in cafés and taverns.'How very one-sided and imperfect a view of English middle life, even as it was seventy years ago, when these remarks were written, is presented to us by them is self-evident!English ladies, according to our author, 'seldom go out, and when they do, they prefer a shopping excursion to every other kind of promenade. They also are fond of visiting pastry-cooks' shops, and as these are open to the street, ladies may safely enter them. But that is not allowable at Mr. Birch's in Cornhill, whose shop ladies cannot visit without being accompanied by gentlemen, the breakfast-room being at the back of the house, at the end of a long passage, and lit up all the year round (as daylight does not penetrate into it) with wax candles, by the light of which ladies and gentlemen—usually amidst solemn silence—swallow their turtle-soup and small hot patties. The house supplies nothing else ... but its former proprietor, Master Horton, by his patties and soup made a fortune of one hundred thousand pounds, and his successor seems in a fair way of doing the same.' We hope the assumption was verified.According to Mrs. Schopenhauer, Londoners are not very hospitable, and 'prefer entertaining a friend they invite to dinner at a coffee-house or tavern, rather than at their own homes, where the presence of ladies is a restraint upon them. Ladies are treated with great respect, but, like all personages imposing respect, they are avoided as much as possible.'Our traveller must have come in contact with some very ungallant Englishmen. She describes a dinner at a private house; we are told that 'there are twelve to fourteen guests, who fill the small drawing-room, the ladies sitting in armchairs, whilst the gentlemen stand about, some warming themselves by the fire, often in a not very decent manner. At the dinner-table napkins are found only in houses which have acquired foreign polish, and they are not many. The tablecloth hangs down to the floor, and every guest takes it upon his knee, and uses it as a napkin.... The lady of the house serves the dishes, and there is no end to her questions put to her guests as to the seasoning, the part of the joint, the sauce, etc., they like,' questions which are exceedingly troublesome to a foreigner who is not up to all the technical terms of English cookery. Of course, the hobnobbing and taking wine with everybody—a fashion now happily abolished—comes in for a good deal of censure, which, indeed, is richly deserved. 'Conversation on any subject of interest is out of the question during dinner; were anyone to attempt it, the master would immediately interrupt him with, "Sir, you are losing your dinner; by-and-by we will discuss these matters." The ladies from sheer modesty speak but little; foreigners must beware from saying much, lest they be considered monstrous bold.'Whilst, after dinner, the gentlemen sit over their wine, the ladies are yawning the time away in the drawing-room, until their hostess sends word down to the dining-room that tea is ready. 'It is said,' continues our author, 'that the slow or quick attention given to this message shows who is master in the house, the husband or the wife.' Long after midnight the guests drive home 'through the streets still swarming with people. All the shops are still open, and lighted up; the street-lamps, of course, are alight, and burn till the rising of the sun.' Has any Londoner ever seen all the shops open and lighted up all night? Did our author have visions?A London Sunday, of course, is commented on. The complaint raised quite recently by some of our bishops seems but a revival of wailings uttered long ago, for we learn from Mrs. Schopenhauer that in her time (sixty years ago) 'some of the highest families in the kingdom were called to account for desecrating the Sabbath with amateur concerts, dances, and card-playing,' so that it would indeed seem there is nothing new under the sun. 'The genuine Englishman,' says our authoress, 'divides his time on Sundays between church and the bottle; his wife spends the hours her religious duties leave her with a gossip, and abuses her neighbours and acquaintances, which is quite lawful on Sundays.'We allow Mrs. Schopenhauer to make her bow and retire with this parting shot. Still, that lady was not singular in attributing great drinking powers to Englishmen. M. Larcher, who in 1861 published a book entitled 'Les Anglais, Londres et l'Angleterre,' says therein that in good society the ladies after dinner retire into another room, after having partaken very moderately of wine, while the gentlemen are left to empty bottles of port, madeira, claret, and champagne. 'And it is,' he adds, 'a constant habit among the ladies to empty bottles of brandy.' And he quotes from a work by General Fillet: 'Towards forty years of age every well-bred English lady goes to bed intoxicated.'M. Jules Lecomte says in his 'Journey of Troubles to London' ('Un Voyage de Désagréments à Londres,' 1854) that he accompanied a blonde English miss to the Exhibition in Hyde Park, where at one sitting she ate six shillings' worth of cake resembling a black brick ornamented with currants.According to M. Francis Wey's account of 'The English at Home' ('Les Anglais chez Eux,' 1856), at Cremorne Gardens the popular refreshment, and particularly with an Oxford theologian, is ginger-beer. M. Wey probably means shandy-gaff. He agrees with M. Lecomte: the consumption of food by one English young lady would suffice for four Paris porters!A Russian visitor to London, the 'Own Correspondent' of theNorthern BeeRussian newspaper, who inspected London in 1861, asserts, in his 'England and Russia,' that any English miss of eighteen is capable of imbibing sundry glasses of wine 'without making a face.'In theDaily Graphicof November 1, 1893, a statement appeared, according to which a French journalist at this present day informs the world, throughLe Jour, that in London—nay, in all England—not one cyclist is to be found, the Government having rigidly suppressed them. Well, M. Lévi has told us that there are no umbrellas in London; now we learn that there are no cyclists (how we wish this were true!). What curious information we get from France about ourselves!When will travellers leave off being Münchausens?
[#] To an article I wrote twenty-five years ago on this topic I find appended the following note: 'We give the following on the authority of Martin, but must add that a private friend, who formerly filled an office of trust in the firm of Rothschild Brothers, declares the whole to be a fiction.' But who this friend was we cannot now remember.
Another financier, who almost rivalled Rothschild as a speculator, was Abraham Goldsmid, who was ruined by a conspiracy. He, in conjunction with a banking establishment, had taken a large Government loan. The conspirators managed to cause the omnium stock to fall to 18 discount. The result was Goldsmid's failure and eventually his suicide, whilst the conspirators made a profit of about £2,000,000.
Among other notable stockbrokers we must not omit Francis Bailey, F.S.A., President of the Royal Astronomical Society, who retired from the Stock Exchange in 1825. In 1851 he repeated at his house in Tavistock Place, Russell Square, the Cavendish experiment of weighing the earth, and calculating its bulk and figure, and at the same time verifying the standard measure of the British nation, and rectifying pendulum experiments. In the garden of the house a small observatory was erected for those purposes, and is, we believe, still standing.
We alluded a little while ago to some gigantic frauds in Stock Exchange operations. One of the most extraordinary and elaborate of such frauds was that carried out by De Berenger and Cochrane-Johnstone in 1814. Napoleon's military operations against the allies had greatly depressed the funds. On February 21, 1814, about one o'clock a.m., a violent knocking was heard at the door of the Ship Inn, then the chief hotel at Dover. When the door was opened, a person in a richly-embroidered scarlet uniform announced himself as an aide-de-camp of Lord Cathcart (who was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington in 1815), and as the bearer of important news. The allies had gained a great victory, and entered Paris; Napoleon had been captured and killed by Cossacks, who had cut his body into a thousand pieces. Immediate peace was now certain. The stranger ordered a post-chaise, and departed for London, but before leaving, he sent a note containing the news to the Port Admiral, who received it about four a.m.; but the morning being foggy, the telegraph could not be worked. The sham aide-de-camp—really De Berenger, an adventurer, afterwards a livery stable-keeper—dashed along the road, throwing napoleons to the post-boys whenever he changed horses. At Bexley Heath it was clear to him that the telegraph could not have worked, so he moderated his pace, spreading at the same time the news of Napoleon's defeat and death. At Lambeth he entered a hackney-coach, telling the post-boys to spread the news, which reached the Stock Exchange about ten o'clock, in consequence of which the funds rose, but fell again when it was found that the Lord Mayor had had no intelligence. But about twelve o'clock three persons, two of whom were dressed as French officers, drove in a post-chaise over London Bridge; their horses were bedecked with laurels. The officers scattered papers among the crowd, announcing the death of Napoleon and the fall of Paris. They then paraded through Cheapside and Fleet Street, passed over Blackfriars Bridge, and drove rapidly to the Marshgate, Lambeth, got out, changed their cocked hats for round ones, and disappeared as mysteriously as their confederate, De Berenger, had done a few hours earlier.
The funds now rose again, but when, after hours of anxious expectation, it was discovered that the news, on which many bargains had been made, was false, there was, of course, wailing and gnashing of teeth. A committee was appointed by the Stock Exchange to track out the conspiracy, as on the two days before stocks to the amount of £826,000 had been purchased by persons implicated. One of the gang had, for a blind, called on Lord Cochrane, and Cochrane-Johnstone, a relation of his, had purchased Consols for him, that he might unconsciously benefit by the fraud. The Tories, eager to destroy a political enemy, concentrated all their rage on him, and he was tried, fined £1,000, and sentenced to stand for one hour in the pillory; but this latter part of the sentence was not carried out, as Sir Francis Burdett had declared that if it was done he would stand beside his friend on the scaffold of shame. Cochrane was further stripped of his knighthood, and his escutcheon kicked down the steps of St. George's Chapel at Windsor. But in his old age his innocence and the injustice done to him were recognised, and his coronet restored to him unsoiled. But could this atone for all the wrong inflicted, and all the misery endured? Those who wish to know all the details of this remarkable fraud will find them in the two volumes of theGentleman's Magazinefor 1814. The first volume gives a full account of the evidence produced at the trial.
X.
WITS AND BEAUX OF OLD LONDON SOCIETY.
A mere beau, a 'man of dress,' as our dictionaries define him, is a pitiful object—a walking and talking doll, painted and bedizened, and as imbecile-looking as a wax figure. The man who chooses to go in for being a beau should, if he does not wish to be thoroughly contemptible, possess, besides physical beauty, a stock of brains, elegant manners, ready wit, and moral courage. The gentleman who at the seaside dresses altogether in white must have a personally distinguished appearance not to be taken for his ownchef de cuisine. Beaux are rather out of fashion just now—mashers and fops replace them. In the last century they were more plentiful. Perhaps the then prevailing popinjay style of dress, with its embroidered and many-coloured coats and waistcoats, gaudy breeches, wigs and swords, lent itself more readily to the assumption of the character than does our more subdued costume. In those days the aspirants to the title of beau were termed bucks, gallants, macaronis; and one of their distinguishing features, as the plays and portraits of those days abundantly demonstrate, was their having small legs with slender calves—possibly to show they were not footmen in disguise. And, as a rule, in those days the valet had more brains than his master.
Beaux have always been a fruitful and pleasant theme for the satirist's pen. TheSpectator, in No. 275, describes the dissection of a beau's head, which is found to contain no brain, but in the usual place for one, smelling strongly of essences and orange-flower water, a kind of horny substance, cut into a thousand little faces or mirrors. Further, a lot of ribbons, laces, and embroidery, billets-doux, love-letters, snuff, fictions, vows, oaths, and a spongy substance, known as nonsense. A muscle, not often discovered in dissections, was found, theos cribriforme, which draws the nose upwards when by that motion it intends to express contempt. The ogling muscles were very much worn with use. The individual to whom this head had belonged had passed for a man for about thirty years, and died in the flower of his youth by the blow of a fire-shovel, he having been surprised by an eminent citizen as he was paying some attentions to his wife. This analysis of a beau's head, or character, was written in 1712. In 1757 an essayist described him thus in doggerel:
'Would you a modern beau commence,Shake off that foe to pleasure, sense.Scorn real, unaffected worth,Despise the virtuous, good and brave,To ev'ry passion be a slave....Be it your passion, joy and fameTo play at ev'ry modish game....Harangue on fashion, point and lace....Affect to know each reigning belleThat throngs the playhouse or the Mall.Though swearing you detest a fool,Be versed in Folly's ample school....These rites observed, each foppish elfMay view an emblem of himself.'
'Would you a modern beau commence,Shake off that foe to pleasure, sense.Scorn real, unaffected worth,Despise the virtuous, good and brave,To ev'ry passion be a slave....Be it your passion, joy and fameTo play at ev'ry modish game....Harangue on fashion, point and lace....Affect to know each reigning belleThat throngs the playhouse or the Mall.Though swearing you detest a fool,Be versed in Folly's ample school....These rites observed, each foppish elfMay view an emblem of himself.'
'Would you a modern beau commence,
Shake off that foe to pleasure, sense.
Scorn real, unaffected worth,
Despise the virtuous, good and brave,
To ev'ry passion be a slave....
Be it your passion, joy and fame
To play at ev'ry modish game....
Harangue on fashion, point and lace....
Affect to know each reigning belle
That throngs the playhouse or the Mall.
Though swearing you detest a fool,
Be versed in Folly's ample school....
These rites observed, each foppish elf
May view an emblem of himself.'
The combination of wit and beau in one person has, nevertheless, occasionally been seen, and the ordinary, or numskulled, beau has shared in the reputation created by such a combination, just as all judges are assumed to be sober. But in the days when beaux flourished wit of a very attenuated kind tickled the fancy of the public, who haunted the taverns patronized by the so-called wits. Even the jokes which passed at the Mermaid between Shakspere, Ben Jonson, and other professed jesters must appear to modern readers who are not absurdly prepossessed in favour of all that savours of antiquity, as heavy, dull, and often far-fetched. To justify what may appear rank heresy, let me quote one of Tarleton's 'witty' sayings. Tarleton was Shakspere's friend and fellow-actor,thelow comedian of Queen Elizabeth's reign, who probably suggested to Shakspere some of his jesters and fools. Now, this is what is transmitted to us as a specimen of his wit: Tarleton, keeping an ordinary in Paternoster Row, would approve of mustard standing before his customers to have wit. 'How so?' inquired one. 'It is like a witty scold, meeting another scold, begins to scold first. So,' says he, 'the mustard, being licked up and knowing that you will bite it, begins to bite you first.' 'I'll try that,' says a gull, and the mustard so tickled him that his eyes watered. 'How now?' says Tarleton. 'Does my jest savour?' 'Ay,' says the gull, 'and bite too.' 'If you had had better wit,' says Tarleton, 'you would have bit first. So, then, conclude with me that dumb, unfeeling mustard has more wit than a talking, unfeeling fool, as you are.' And this was considered 'a rare conceit' in the days of Shakspere. We are rather more exacting now.
The beaux of the days we are speaking of were, indeed, poor specimens of humanity. They were a noisy, swaggering lot, as we learn from the author of 'Shakspere's England.' 'If a gallant,' he says, 'entered the ordinary ... he would find the room full of fashion-mongers ... courtiers, who came there for society and news; adventurers who have no home ... quarrelsome men paced about fretfully fingering their sword-hilts, and maintaining as sour a face as that Puritan moping in a corner, pent up by a group of young swaggerers, disputing over cards.... The soldiers bragged of nothing but of their employment in Ireland and in the Low Countries.... The mere dullard sat silent, playing with his glove, or discussing at what apothecary's the best tobacco was to be bought.'
But let us, in the career of an individual, Beau Fielding, famous in his day, show how beaux then acquired a reputation. Scotland Yard was so called from a palace which stood there, and was the residence of the Kings of Scotland on their annual visit to do homage for their kingdom to the Crown of England. On the union of the Scottish and English Crowns the palace was allowed to go to decay. Parts of it served as occasional residences for various persons, one of whom was Robert Fielding, who died there in the early part of the last century. This Fielding was generally known as Beau Fielding. TheTatler, in August, 1709 (Nos. 50 and 51), thus describes him: 'Tenlustraand more are wholly passed since Orlando (R. Fielding) first appeared in the metropolis of this island, his descent noble, his wit humorous, his person charming. But to none of these advantages was his title so undoubted as that of his beauty. His complexion was fair, but his countenance manly; his stature of the tallest, his shape the most exact; and though in all his limbs he had a proportion as delicate as we see in the work of the most skilful statuaries, his body had a strength and firmness little inferior to the marble of which such images are formed. This made Orlando the universal flame of all the fair sex; innocent virgins sighed for him as Adonis, experienced widows as Hercules. Thus did this figure walk alone, the pattern and ornament of our species, but, of course, the envy of all who had the same passions, without his superior merit, and pretences to the favour of that enchanting creature, woman. However, the generous Orlando believed himself formed for the world, and not to be engrossed by any particular affection.... Woman was his mistress, and the whole sex his seraglio. His form was always irresistible; and if we consider that not one of five hundred can bear the least favour from a lady without being exalted above himself ... we cannot think it wonderful that Orlando's repeated conquests touched his brain. So it certainly did, and Orlando became an enthusiast in love.... He would still add to the advantages of his person that of a profession which the ladies always favour, and immediately commenced soldier.... Our hero seeks distant climes ... after many feats of arms ... Orlando returns home, full, but not loaded, with years.... The beauteous Villaria (Barbara, daughter and heiress of William Villiers, Lord Viscount Grandison, of the Kingdom of Ireland) ... became the object of his affection.... According to Milton,
'"The fair with conscious majesty approved."
'"The fair with conscious majesty approved."
'"The fair with conscious majesty approved."
Fortune having now supplied Orlando with necessaries for his high taste of gallantry and pleasure, his equipage and economy had something in them more sumptuous and gallant than could be conceived in our degenerate age, therefore ... all the Britons under the age of sixteen ... followed his chariot with shouts and acclamations.... I remember I saw him one day stop, and call the youths about him, to whom he spoke as follows: "Good youngsters, go to school, and do not lose your time in following my wheels. I am loath to hurt you, because I know not but you are all my own offspring.... Why, you young dogs, did you never see a man before?" "Never such a one as you, noble General," replied a truant from Westminster. "Sirrah, I believe thee; there is a crown for thee. Drive on, coachman." ... Fortune being now propitious to the gay Orlando, he dressed, he spoke, he moved as a man might be supposed to do in a nation of pigmies ... he sometimes rode in an open tumbril, of less size than ordinary, to show the largeness of his limbs, and the grandeur of his personage, to the greater advantage.... In all these glorious excesses did ... Orlando live ... until an unlucky accident brought to his remembrance that ... he was married before he courted the nuptials of Villaria. Several fatal memorandums were produced to revive the memory of this accident, and the unhappy lover was for ever banished her presence, to whom he owed the support of his first renown and gallantry.... Orlando, therefore, now rages in a garret.' The Barbara Villiers mentioned by theTatlerwas identical with Lady Castlemaine, Duchess of Cleveland, whose scandalous history is notorious. She was sixty-five years old when she fell in love with Fielding and married him. The 'unlucky accident' of theTatlerwas the fact that a few weeks before Fielding had been taken in by an adventuress, one Mary Wadsworth, whom, taking her for a rich widow, he had married. On his second—bigamous—marriage, the first wife revealed the fact to Lady Castlemaine, who, having been shamefully treated by Fielding, was glad to get rid of him. The first marriage was proved in a court of law, and sentence passed on Fielding to be burnt in the hand. By interest in certain quarters he was spared this ignominious punishment; but he was left destitute, and died forgotten and forsaken.
TheTatlergave Fielding a noble descent, and he, in fact, claimed descent from the Hapsburgs; and on the strength of his name ventured to have the arms of Lord Denbigh emblazoned on his coach, and to drive about the ring in Hyde Park. At the sight of the immaculate coat-of-arms on the plebeian chariot, 'all the blood of the Hapsburgs' flew to the head of Basil, fourth Earl of Denbigh. In a high state of fury, he at once procured a house-painter, and ordered him to daub the coat-of-arms completely over, in broad daylight, and before all the company in the ring. The beau tamely submitted to the insult.
Fielding had several competitors in the beau-ship; contemporary with him were Beau Edgeworth and Beau Wilson. Of the former but little is on record; the latter's career was cut short at an early date, for when he was not much beyond his twentieth year he was killed in a duel between him and John Law, afterwards so famous as the originator of the Mississippi scheme. The duel took place on the site of the present Bloomsbury Square. A mushroom growth of beaux arose about the year 1770, some of whom having travelled in Italy, and introduced macaroni as a new dish, they came to be designated by that name. They dressed in the most ridiculous fashion, wearing their hair in a very high foretop, with long side-curls, and an enormous chignon behind. Their clothes were tight-fitting, while silk stockings in all weathers werede rigueur. This folly was of but short duration.
In the first half of the eighteenth century flourished Beau Nash—a great contrast in manners, character, social position, and conduct to Beau Fielding; but as his life was passed at Bath he cannot be reckoned among London beaux. Yet we mention him, as in his earlier years he was slightly connected with the Metropolis, by the fact that he was entered for the Temple, though he never followed the law as a profession.
We have to come down to comparatively recent times to encounter a beau of some note; that beau was known as Beau George Brummel. He was born in 1777, and sent to Eton, where he enjoyed the credit of being the best scholar, the best oarsman, and the best cricketer of his day. His father was Under-Secretary to Lord North, and left each of his children some £30,000. At Eton he made many aristocratic friends, and thus obtained the entrée to Devonshire House, where the beautiful Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, held her court, and where she introduced Brummell to the Prince Regent, who gave him a commission in the 10th Hussars. But the army, with its restraints, did not suit the beau; he left it, and then resided in Chesterfield Street, where the Prince, finding in him a kindred spirit of vanity and frivolity, used to visit him in the morning to see him make his toilet, and to learn the art of tying his neckerchief fashionably. And frequently the Prince would stay all day to enjoy his friend's intellectual discourse, stopping to take a chop or steak with him, and not returning home till the next morning, half-seas over. The beau spent his time chiefly at Brighton and at Carlton House, and regularly established himself as a leader of fashion, his horses and carriages, his dogs, walking-sticks and snuff-boxes, but especially his clothes, becoming patterns to all the empty-headed noodles who required guidance in such matters. But such show could not be supported on the income derived from his patrimony; Brummell therefore went in heavily for gambling, with varying luck. Once at Brooks's he played with Alderman Combe, nicknamed 'Mash-tub,' Lord Mayor and brewer. The dice-box circulated. 'Come, Mash-tub,' said the beau, who was the caster, 'what do you set?' 'Twenty-five guineas,' said the Alderman. The beau won, and eleven more similar ventures. As he pocketed the money, he said: 'Thank you, Alderman; henceforth I shall drink no porter but yours.' 'I wish, sir,' replied Combe, 'that every other blackguard in London would say the same.' At the Watier Club, established at the instigation of the Prince of Wales, Brummell suffered heavy losses, so that ever after he was in constant pecuniary difficulties, though Fortune smiled on him at times. Indulging in all the superstitious tendencies of gamblers, he at one time attributed his luck to the finding of a crooked sixpence in the kennel, as he was walking with Mr. Raikes, who tells the story, through Berkeley Square. He had a hole bored in the coin, and attached it to his watch-chain. As for the succeeding two years he had great luck at the table and on the turf, he attributed it to the lucky sixpence. He is supposed to have made nearly £30,000 during that time.
A coolness between the Prince and the beau arose after a few years; various reasons are assigned for it. He was, for instance, said to have taken the part of Mrs. Fitzherbert, who had been privately married to the Prince Regent at Carlton House; he is reported to have asked Lady Cholmondeley, in the hearing of the Prince, and pointing to him, 'Who is your fat friend?' Though it is also reported that this question was put to Jack Lee, as he was walking up St. James's Street, arm-in-arm with the Prince, a few days after the beau had quarrelled with the latter. But this blew over, and Brummell was again invited to Carlton House, where he took too much wine. The Prince said to his brother, the Duke of York: 'I think we had better order Mr. Brummell's carriage before he gets quite drunk.' Another version of the second rupture is that Brummell took the liberty of saying to the Prince: 'George, ring the bell.' The Prince rang it, and told the servant who answered it: 'Mr. Brummell's carriage.' This Brummell always denied; however, he was a second time forbidden Carlton House. For a few years he was a hanger-on at Oatlands, the seat of the Duke of York, then, having lost large sums at play, he was obliged to fly the country, and having lived for some years in obscurity at Calais, he obtained the post of British Consul at Caen—for which his previous career, of course, eminently fitted him! He died in that town in poor circumstances in 1840.
Let us conclude this short account of the poor moth, basking in the royal sunshine for awhile, with one or two anecdotes. One day a youthful beau approached Brummell, and said: 'Permit me to ask you where you get your blacking?' 'Ah,' said the beau, 'my blacking positively ruins me. I will tell you in confidence—it is made with the finest champagne!' He was once at a party in Portman Square. On the cloth being removed, the snuff-boxes made their appearance; Brummell's was particularly admired; it was handed round, and a gentleman, finding it somewhat difficult to open, incautiously applied a desert-knife to the lid. Brummell was on thorns, and at last could contain himself no longer, and addressing the host, he said, loud enough to be heard by the company: 'Will you be good enough to tell your friend that my snuff-box is not an oyster?'
England has had no regular beau since the time of Brummell, though occasionally some crack-brained individual has attempted to wear his mantle. Such a one was Ferdinand Geramb, a tight-laced German General and Baron, who in the second decade of this century strutted about the parks, conspicuous for his ringlets, his superb moustaches, and immense spurs. It was asserted that he was a German Jew, who, having married the widow of a Hungarian Baron, assumed her late husband's title. His fiery moustaches were closely imitated by many illustrious personages, and gold spurs several inches long became the fashion—one fool makes many. It is to him the British army is indebted for the introduction of hussar uniforms. Having to leave England under the Alien Act, he went to Hamburg, where he set himself to writing against the Emperor Napoleon, who shut him up in the Castle of Vincennes. There, in terrible fear of being shot, he made a vow that should he regain his liberty he would renounce the devil and his works, and join the Trappist community. He was released at the Restoration, and at once entered a Trappist monastery, under the name of Brother Joseph, and in course of time became Abbot and Procurator-General of the Order. No more fighting of duels now, no more keeping the bailiffs who wanted to seize him for debt at bay for twelve days in an English country house which he had fortified; he submitted to the severest rules of the Order, and in 1831 made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and died at Rome in 1848.
XI.
LONDON SEEN THROUGH FOREIGN SPECTACLES.
In the year 1765 a Frenchman, who did not give his name, visited London, and afterwards published in Paris an account of his visit.
'I reached London,' he says, 'towards the close of the day ... and at last, quite by chance, I found myself settled in an apartment in the house of theCruisinier Royalin Leicester Fields. This neighbourhood is filled with small houses, which are mostly let to foreigners.' On the following day he walked down Holborn and the Strand to St. Paul's, then crossed London Bridge, and returned to his hotel by walking through Southwark and Lambeth to Westminster, 'a district full of mean houses and meaner taverns.' The localities named have not greatly altered their character since then. In another place our traveller says: 'Even from the bridges it is impossible to get a view of the river, as the parapets are ten feet high.... The reason given for all this is the inclination which the English, and the Londoners especially, have for suicide. It is true that above and below the town the banks are unprotected, and offer an excellent opportunity to those who really wish to drown themselves; but the distance is great, and, besides, those who wish to leave the world in this manner prefer doing so before the eyes of the public. The parapets, however, of the new bridge [Blackfriars] which is being built will be but of an ordinary height.' Suicidal tendencies must indeed have greatly declined, since the most recently erected bridges, the new Westminster and Blackfriars, have particularly low parapets.
Of the streets our author says: 'They are paved in such a manner that it is barely possible to ride or walk on them in safety, and they are always extremely dirty.... The finest streets ... would be impassable were it not that on each side ... footways are made from four to five feet wide, and for communication from one to the other across the street there are smaller footways elevated above the general surface of the roadway, and formed of large stones selected for the purpose.... In the finest part of the Strand, near St. Clement's Church, I noticed, during the whole of my stay in London, that the middle of the street was constantly covered with liquid stinking mud, three or four inches deep.... The walkers are bespattered from head to foot.... The natives, however, brave all these disagreeables, wrapped up in long blue coats, like dressing-gowns, wearing brown stockings and perukes, rough, red and frizzled.'
Well, we cannot find much fault with this description, unflattering as it is, for in the last century London certainly was one of the most hideous towns to live in, and its inhabitants the most uncouth, repulsive set of 'guys'! Concerning Oxford Street our author makes a false prognostic: 'The shops of Oxford Street will disappear as the houses are sought after for private dwellings by the rich. Soon will the great city extend itself to Marylebone, which is not more than a quarter of a league distant. At present it is a village, principally of taverns, inhabited by French refugees.'
Our traveller sees but four houses in London which will bear comparison with the great hotels in Paris. To the inconvenience of mud, he says, must be added that of smoke, which, mingled with a perpetual fog, covers London as a pall. We, to our sorrow, know this to be true even now.
But we have improved in one respect: our old watchmen or 'Charleys' have disappeared before the modern police. Concerning these watchmen our author says: 'There are no troops or guard or watch of any kind, except during the night by some old men, chosen from the dregs of the people. Their only arms are a stick and a lantern. They walk about the streets crying the hour every time the clock strikes ... and it appears to be a point of etiquette among hare-brained youngsters to maul them on leaving their parties.'
Our Frenchman formed a correct estimate of the London watchman of his day—nay, it held good to the final extinction of the 'Charleys.' In December, 1826, a watchman was charged before the Lord Mayor with insubordination. On being asked who had appointed him watchman, the prisoner replied that he was in great distress and a burden to the parish, who therefore gave him the appointment to get rid of him. The Lord Mayor: 'I thought so; and what can be expected from such a system of choosing watchmen? I know that most of the men who are thus burdens on the parish are the vilest of wretches, and such men are appointed to guard the lives and property of others! I also know that in most cases robberies are perpetrated by the connivance of watchmen.'
But in some cases our author is really too good-naturedly credulous. Says he: 'The people of London, though proud and hasty, are good at heart, and humane, even in the lowest class. If any stoppage occurs in the streets, they are always ready to lend their assistance to remove the difficulty, instead of raising a quarrel, which might end in murder, as is often the case in Paris.' This is really too innocent! And our French visitor must have been very fortunate indeed never to have got into a London crowd of roughs or of pickpockets, who create stoppages in the streets for the only purpose of pursuing their trade, and who seldom hesitate to commit violence if they cannot rob without it. Our author's belief, indeed, in London honesty is boundless. 'In order that the pot-boys,' he says, 'may have but little trouble in collecting them [the pewter pots in which publicans send out the beer], they are placed in the open passages, and sometimes on the doorsteps of the houses. I saw them thus exposed ... and felt quite assured against all the cunning of thieves.' But more astounding is the statement that there are no poor in London! 'A consequence,' says our visitor, 'of its rich and numerous charitable establishments and the immense sums raised by the poor-rates, which impost is one which the little householders pay most cheerfully, as they consider it a fund from which, in the event of their death, their wives and children will be supported.' Fancy a little householder paying his poor-rate cheerfully! And what a mean opinion must our author have had of the spirit of the householder who calmly contemplated his family, after his death, going to the parish!
The Frenchman returns once more to our usual melancholy, 'which,' he says, 'is no doubt owing to the fogs' and to our fat meat and strong beer. 'Beef is the Englishman's ordinary diet, relished in proportion to the quantity of fat, and this, mixed in their stomachs with the beer they drink, must produce a chyle, whose viscous heaviness conveys only bilious and melancholic vapours to the brain.'
It certainly is satisfactory to have so scientific an explanation of the origin of our spleen.
Another French writer in 1784—M. La Combe—published a book, entitled 'A Picture of London,' in which,inter alia, he says: 'The highroads thirty or forty miles round London are filled with armed highwaymen and footpads.' This was then pretty true, though the expression 'filled' is somewhat of an exaggeration. The medical student of forty or fifty years ago seems to have been anticipated in 1784, for M. La Combe tells us that 'the brass knockers of doors, which cost from 12s. to 15s., are stolen at night if the maid forgets to unscrew them'—a precaution which seems to have gone out of fashion. 'The arrival of the mails,' our author says, 'is uncertain at all times of the year.... Persons who frequently receive letters should recommend their correspondents not to insert loose papers, nor to put the letters in covers, because the tax is sometimes treble, and always arbitrary, though in a free country. But rapacity and injustice are the deities of the English.' M. La Combe does not give us a flattering character. 'An Englishman,' he says, 'considers a foreigner as an enemy, whom he dares not offend openly, but whose society he fears; and he attaches himself to no one.' Perhaps it was so in 1784, but such feelings have nearly died out—at least, among educated people. M. La Combe, in another part of his book, exclaims: 'How are you changed, Londoners! ... Your women are become bold, imperious, and expensive. Bankrupts and beggars, coiners, spies and informers, robbers and pickpockets abound.... The baker mixes alum in his bread ... the brewer puts opium and copper filings in his beer ... the milkwoman spoils her milk with snails.'
Do more recent writers judge of us more correctly? We shall see.
I have lying before me a French book, the title of which, translated into English, runs, 'Geography for Young People.' It is in its eighth edition, and written by M. Lévi, Professor of Belles-Lettres, of History and Geography in Paris. The date of the book is 1850. The Professor in it describes London, and if his pupils ever have, or rather had, occasion to visit our capital, they must have been unable to recognise it from their teacher's description of it. Among the many blunders he commits, there are some which are excusable in a foreigner, because they refer to matters which are often misapprehended even by natives; but to describe London as possessing a certain architectural feature which a mere walk through the streets with his eyes open would have shown him to have no existence at all is rather unpardonable in a professor who takes on himself to teach young people geography. But what does M. Lévi say? He says: 'In London you never see an umbrella, because all the streets are built with arcades, under which you find shelter when it rains, so that an umbrella, which to us Parisians is an indispensable article, is perfectly useless to a Londoner.' M. Lévi evidently, if ever he was in London, visited the Quadrant only, before the arcade was pulled down, and thereupon wrote his account of London. Yet he must have looked about a bit, for he tells us of splendid cafés to be met with in every street; the nobility patronize them; 'one of them accidentally treads on the toes of another, a duel is the consequence, and to-morrow morning one of them will have ceased to live.'
M. Lévi reminds us of the Frenchman who came over to England with the object of writing a book about us. He arrived in London one Saturday night, and being tired, at once went to bed. At breakfast next morning he asked for new bread; the waiter told him they only had yesterday's. Out came the Frenchman's note-book, in which he wrote: 'In London the bread is always baked the day before.' He then asked for the day's paper, but was again told they had yesterday's only. A memorandum went into the note-book: 'The London newspapers are always published yesterday.' He then thought he would present the letter of introduction he had brought with him to a private family, so having been directed to the house, he saw a lady near the window, reading. Not wishing to startle or disturb her, he gave a gentle single rap. This not being answered, he had to give a few more raps, when at last a servant partly opened the door and asked his business. He expressed his wish to see the master of the house. 'Master never sees anybody to-day, but he will perhaps to-morrow,' replied the servant, and shut the door in his face. Another memorandum was added to the previous ones: 'In London people never see anyone to-day, but always to-morrow.' Having nothing to do, he thought he would go to the theatre. He inquired for Drury Lane, and was directed to it. The doors being shut, he lounged about the neighbourhood till they should open. As it grew later and later, and there was no sign of aqueue, he at last addressed a passer-by, and asked him when the theatre would open. 'It won't open to-day,' was the reply. This was the last straw that broke the camel's back. Our Frenchman hurried back to his hotel, wrote in his note-book, 'In London there are theatres, but they never open today,' took a cab, caught the night mail, and hastened to leave so barbarous a country.
This description of London life is about as correct as that recently given in Max O'Rell's 'John Bull and his Womankind.' What kind of people did O'Rell visit?
I look at another book before me, written in Italian, and entitled: 'Semi-serious Observations of an Exile on England.' The book was published at Lugano in 1831, but the author—Giuseppe Pecchio—dates his preface from York in 1827.
He speaks thusly of the approach to London by the Dover road: 'If the sky is gloomy, the first aspect of London is no less so. The smoky look of the houses gives them the appearance of a recent fire. If to this you add the silence prevailing amidst a population of a million and a half of inhabitants, all in motion (so that you seem to behold a stage full of Chinese shadows), and the uniformity of the houses, as if you were in a city of beavers, you will easily understand that on entering into such a beehive pleasure gives way to astonishment. This is the old country style, but since the English have substituted blue pills for suicide, or, still better, have made a journey to Paris—since, instead of Young's "Night Thoughts," they read the novels of Walter Scott, they have rendered their houses a little more pleasing in outward appearance. In the West End especially they have adopted a more cheerful style of architecture. But I do not by this mean to imply that the English themselves have become more lively; they still take delight in ghosts, witchcraft, cemeteries, and similar horrors. Woe to the author who writes a novel without some apparition to make your hair stand on end!'
In speaking of the thinness of the walls and floors of London houses, he says: 'I could hear the murmur of the conversation of the tenant of the room above and of that of the one below me; from time to time the words "very fine weather," "indeed," "very fine," "comfort," "comfortable," "great comfort," reached my ears. In fact, the houses are ventriloquous. As already mentioned, they are all alike. In a three-storied house there are three perpendicular bedrooms, one above the other, and three parlours, equally so superposed.' We know how much of this description is true.
'Why are the English,' he asks, 'not expert dancers? Because they cannot practise dancing in their slightly-built houses, in which a lively caper would at once send the third-floor down into the kitchen. This is the reason why the English gesticulate so little, and have their arms always glued to their sides. The rooms are so small that you cannot move about rapidly without smashing some object,' or, as we should say, you cannot swing a cat in them.
'Strangers are astounded,' continues our author, 'at the silence prevailing among the inhabitants of London. But how could a million and a half of people live together without silence? The noise of men, horses, and carriages between the Strand and the Exchange is so great that it is said that in winter there are two degrees of difference in the thermometers of the City and of the West End. I have not verified it,' our author is candid enough to admit, 'but considering the great number of chimneys in the Strand, it is probable enough. From Chering [sic] Cross to the Exchange is the cyclopedia of the world. Anarchy seems to prevail, but it is only apparent. The rules which Gray gives (in his "Trivia; or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London") seem to me unnecessary.'
Signor Pecchio pretty well describes the movements of 'City men':
'The great monster of the capital,' he says, 'similar to a huge giant, waking up, begins by giving signs of life at its extremities. The movement begins at the circumference, gradually extending to the centre, until about ten o'clock the uproar begins, increasing till four o'clock, which is the hour for going on 'Change. The population seems to follow the law of the tides. Up to that hour the tide rises from the periphery to the Exchange. At half-past four, when the Exchange closes, the ebb sets in, and currents of men, horses, and carriages flow from the Exchange to the periphery.'
Like all foreigners, he has something to say about the dulness of an English Sunday. 'This country, all in motion, all alive on other days of the week,' he observes, 'seems struck with an attack of apoplexy on the Lord's day.' Foreigners pass the day at Greenwich or Richmond, where 'they pay dearly for a dinner, seasoned with the bows of a waiter in silk stockings and brown livery, just like the dress of a Turin lawyer.' But if you want to see how John Bull spends the day, it is not in Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens you must look for him. 'If you want to see that marvellous personage who is the wonder and laughing-stock of all Europe, who clothes all the world, wins battles on land and sea without much boasting, who works like three and drinks like six, who is the pawnbroker and usurer of all Kings and all Republics, whilst he is bankrupt at home, and sometimes, like Midas, dies of hunger in the midst of gold, you must look for him elsewhere. In winter you must descend into underground cellars. There, around a blazing fire, you will behold the English workman, well dressed and shod, smoking, drinking, and reading.... For this class of readers special Sunday newspapers are published.... It is in these taverns, and amidst the smoke of tobacco and the froth of their beer, the first condition of public opinion is born and formed. It is there the conduct of every citizen is discussed and appraised; there starts the road which leads to the Capitol or the Tarpeian rock; there praise or blame is awarded to a Burdett issuing triumphantly from the Tower, or to a Castlereagh descending amidst curses to the tomb.... There are no rows in these taverns ... more decency of conduct is observed in them than in our [Italian] churches. When full of spirit and beer the customers, instead of fighting, fall down on the pavement like dead men.'
After having so carefully observed the conduct of the British workman, our Italian friend watches him in the suburban tea-garden, which he visits with his family to take tea in the afternoon, or drink his nut-brown ale. 'One of the handsomest,' he says, 'is Cumberland Gardens,[#] close to Vauxhall ... there he sits smoking long pipes of the whitest clay, which the landlord supplies, filled with tobacco, at one penny each. Between his puffs of smoke he occasionally sends forth a truncated phrase, such as we read in "Tristram Sandi" [sic] were uttered by Trion and the captain. It being Sunday, which admits of no amusement, no music or song is heard.' Pretty much as it is at the present day!
[#] In the early part of 1825, therefore shortly after our author wrote, the tavern was burnt to the ground, and the site taken possession of by the South London Waterworks.
Having heard what both Frenchmen and an Italian had to say about London, let us listen to what a German authoress has to tell us on the subject.
Johanna Schopenhauer, in her 'Travels through England and Scotland' (third edition, 1826), says: 'The splendid shops, which offer the finest sights, are situate chiefly between the working City and the more aristocratic, enjoying Westminster,' a statement which, as every Londoner knows, is only partially correct. 'The English custom of always making way to the right greatly facilitates walking, so that there is no pushing or running against anyone.' Did our author ever take a walk in Cheapside or Fleet Street? 'Even Italians probably do not fear rain so much as a Londoner; to catch a wetting seems to them the most terrible misfortune; on the first falling of a few drops everyone not provided with an umbrella hastens to take refuge in a coach.' How well the lady has studied the habits of Londoners! What will they say to this?
'The police exercise a strict control over hackney-coaches. Woe to the driver who ventures to over-charge!' And again: 'You may safely enter, carrying with you untold wealth, a coach at any time of the night, as long as someone at the house whence you start takes the number of the coach, and lets the driver see that it is taken.'
Mrs. Schopenhauer tells us that it is customary to go for breakfast to a pastry-cook's shop, and eat a few cakes hot from the pan. Truly, we did not know it. Of course, she agrees with other writers as to the smallness of the houses, every room of which you can tell from the outside; but we were not aware that, as she informs us, all the doors are exceedingly narrow and high, and that frequently the front-doors look only like narrow slits in the wall.
'Bedrooms seldom can contain more than one bed; but English bedsteads are large enough to hold three persons. And it is a universal custom not to sleep alone; sisters, relations, and female friends share a bed without ceremony, and the mistress of the house is not ashamed to take her servant to bed with her, for English ladies are afraid of being alone in a room at night, having never been brought up to it.... The counterpane is fastened to the mattress, leaving but an opening for slipping in between the two.'
Again, we are told to our astonishment: 'The majority of Londoners, workmen and shopkeepers, who form but one category, on the whole lead sad lives. Heavy taxes, the high prices of necessaries, extravagance of dress, compel them to observe a frugality of living which, in other countries, would be called poverty.
'The shopkeeper, for ever tied to his shop and the dark parlour behind, must deny himself every amusement. Theatres are too far off and too expensive; the wife of a well-to-do tradesman seldom can visit one more than twice a year.
'During the week they cannot leave the shop between nine in the morning and twelve at night. The wife generally attends to it, while the husband sits in the parlour behind and keeps the accounts. True, on Sundays all the shops are closed, but so are the theatres, and as all domestics and other employés insist on having that day to themselves, the mistress has to stay at home to take care of the house.
'Merchants lead lives nearly as dull. They have to deny themselves social pleasures indulged in by the rich merchants of Hamburg or Leipsic. English ladies are more domesticated, and not accustomed to the bustle of public amusements. But their husbands, after business hours, occasionally seek for recreation in cafés and taverns.'
How very one-sided and imperfect a view of English middle life, even as it was seventy years ago, when these remarks were written, is presented to us by them is self-evident!
English ladies, according to our author, 'seldom go out, and when they do, they prefer a shopping excursion to every other kind of promenade. They also are fond of visiting pastry-cooks' shops, and as these are open to the street, ladies may safely enter them. But that is not allowable at Mr. Birch's in Cornhill, whose shop ladies cannot visit without being accompanied by gentlemen, the breakfast-room being at the back of the house, at the end of a long passage, and lit up all the year round (as daylight does not penetrate into it) with wax candles, by the light of which ladies and gentlemen—usually amidst solemn silence—swallow their turtle-soup and small hot patties. The house supplies nothing else ... but its former proprietor, Master Horton, by his patties and soup made a fortune of one hundred thousand pounds, and his successor seems in a fair way of doing the same.' We hope the assumption was verified.
According to Mrs. Schopenhauer, Londoners are not very hospitable, and 'prefer entertaining a friend they invite to dinner at a coffee-house or tavern, rather than at their own homes, where the presence of ladies is a restraint upon them. Ladies are treated with great respect, but, like all personages imposing respect, they are avoided as much as possible.'
Our traveller must have come in contact with some very ungallant Englishmen. She describes a dinner at a private house; we are told that 'there are twelve to fourteen guests, who fill the small drawing-room, the ladies sitting in armchairs, whilst the gentlemen stand about, some warming themselves by the fire, often in a not very decent manner. At the dinner-table napkins are found only in houses which have acquired foreign polish, and they are not many. The tablecloth hangs down to the floor, and every guest takes it upon his knee, and uses it as a napkin.... The lady of the house serves the dishes, and there is no end to her questions put to her guests as to the seasoning, the part of the joint, the sauce, etc., they like,' questions which are exceedingly troublesome to a foreigner who is not up to all the technical terms of English cookery. Of course, the hobnobbing and taking wine with everybody—a fashion now happily abolished—comes in for a good deal of censure, which, indeed, is richly deserved. 'Conversation on any subject of interest is out of the question during dinner; were anyone to attempt it, the master would immediately interrupt him with, "Sir, you are losing your dinner; by-and-by we will discuss these matters." The ladies from sheer modesty speak but little; foreigners must beware from saying much, lest they be considered monstrous bold.'
Whilst, after dinner, the gentlemen sit over their wine, the ladies are yawning the time away in the drawing-room, until their hostess sends word down to the dining-room that tea is ready. 'It is said,' continues our author, 'that the slow or quick attention given to this message shows who is master in the house, the husband or the wife.' Long after midnight the guests drive home 'through the streets still swarming with people. All the shops are still open, and lighted up; the street-lamps, of course, are alight, and burn till the rising of the sun.' Has any Londoner ever seen all the shops open and lighted up all night? Did our author have visions?
A London Sunday, of course, is commented on. The complaint raised quite recently by some of our bishops seems but a revival of wailings uttered long ago, for we learn from Mrs. Schopenhauer that in her time (sixty years ago) 'some of the highest families in the kingdom were called to account for desecrating the Sabbath with amateur concerts, dances, and card-playing,' so that it would indeed seem there is nothing new under the sun. 'The genuine Englishman,' says our authoress, 'divides his time on Sundays between church and the bottle; his wife spends the hours her religious duties leave her with a gossip, and abuses her neighbours and acquaintances, which is quite lawful on Sundays.'
We allow Mrs. Schopenhauer to make her bow and retire with this parting shot. Still, that lady was not singular in attributing great drinking powers to Englishmen. M. Larcher, who in 1861 published a book entitled 'Les Anglais, Londres et l'Angleterre,' says therein that in good society the ladies after dinner retire into another room, after having partaken very moderately of wine, while the gentlemen are left to empty bottles of port, madeira, claret, and champagne. 'And it is,' he adds, 'a constant habit among the ladies to empty bottles of brandy.' And he quotes from a work by General Fillet: 'Towards forty years of age every well-bred English lady goes to bed intoxicated.'
M. Jules Lecomte says in his 'Journey of Troubles to London' ('Un Voyage de Désagréments à Londres,' 1854) that he accompanied a blonde English miss to the Exhibition in Hyde Park, where at one sitting she ate six shillings' worth of cake resembling a black brick ornamented with currants.
According to M. Francis Wey's account of 'The English at Home' ('Les Anglais chez Eux,' 1856), at Cremorne Gardens the popular refreshment, and particularly with an Oxford theologian, is ginger-beer. M. Wey probably means shandy-gaff. He agrees with M. Lecomte: the consumption of food by one English young lady would suffice for four Paris porters!
A Russian visitor to London, the 'Own Correspondent' of theNorthern BeeRussian newspaper, who inspected London in 1861, asserts, in his 'England and Russia,' that any English miss of eighteen is capable of imbibing sundry glasses of wine 'without making a face.'
In theDaily Graphicof November 1, 1893, a statement appeared, according to which a French journalist at this present day informs the world, throughLe Jour, that in London—nay, in all England—not one cyclist is to be found, the Government having rigidly suppressed them. Well, M. Lévi has told us that there are no umbrellas in London; now we learn that there are no cyclists (how we wish this were true!). What curious information we get from France about ourselves!
When will travellers leave off being Münchausens?