Bacchus is the divinity to whom Waggle devotes his especial worship. 'Give me wine, my boy,' says he to his friend Wiggle, who is prating about lovely woman; and holds up his glass full of the rosy fluid, and winks at it portentously, and sips it, and smacks his lips after it, and meditates on it, as if he were the greatest of connoisseurs.
I have remarked this excessive wine-amateurship especially in youth. Snoblings from college, Fledglings from the army, Goslings from the public schools, who ornament our Clubs, are frequently to be heard in great force upon wine questions. 'This bottle's corked,' says Snobling; and Mr. Sly, the butler, taking it away, returns presently with the same wine in another jug, which the young amateur pronounces excellent. 'Hang champagne!' says Fledgling, 'it's only fit for gals and children. Give me pale sherry at dinner, and my twenty-three claret afterwards.' 'What's port now?' says Gosling; 'disgusting thick sweet stuff—where's the old dry wine one USED to get?' Until the last twelvemonth, Fledgling drank small-beer at Doctor Swishtail's; and Gosling used to get his dry old port at a gin-shop in Westminster—till he quitted that seminary, in 1844.
Anybody who has looked at the caricatures of thirty years ago, must remember how frequently bottle-noses, pimpled faces, and other Bardolphian features are introduced by the designer. They are much more rare now (in nature, and in pictures, therefore,) than in those good old times; but there are still to be found amongst the youth of our Clubs lads who glory in drinking-bouts, and whose faces, quite sickly and yellow, for the most part are decorated with those marks which Rowland's Kalydor is said to efface. 'I was SO cut last night—old boy!' Hopkins says to Tomkins (with amiable confidence). 'I tell you what we did. We breakfasted with Jack Herring at twelve, and kept up with brandy and soda-water and weeds till four; then we toddled into the Park for an hour; then we dined and drank mulled port till half-price; then we looked in for an hour at the Haymarket; then we came back to the Club, and had grills and whisky punch till all was blue—Hullo, waiter! Get me a glass of cherry-brandy.' Club waiters, the civilest, the kindest, the patientest of men, die under the infliction of these cruel young topers. But if the reader wishes to see a perfect picture on the stage of this class of young fellows, I would recommend him to witness the ingenious comedy of LONDON ASSURANCE—the amiable heroes of which are represented, not only as drunkards and five-o'clock-in-the-morning men, but as showing a hundred other delightful traits of swindling, lying, and general debauchery, quite edifying to witness.
How different is the conduct of these outrageous youths to the decent behaviour of my friend, Mr. Papworthy; who says to Poppins, the butler at the Club:—
PAPWORTHY.—'Poppins, I'm thinking of dining early; is there any cold game in the house?'
POPPINS.—'There's a game pie, sir; there's cold grouse, sir; there's cold pheasant, sir; there's cold peacock, sir; cold swan, sir; cold ostrich, sir,' &c. &c. (as the case may be).
PAPWORTHY.—'Hem! What's your best claret now, Poppins?—in pints, I mean.'
POPPINS.—'There's Cooper and Magnum's Lafitte, sir: there's Lath and Sawdust's St. Julien, sir; Bung's Leoville is considered remarkably fine; and I think you'd like Jugger's Chateau-Margaux.'
PAPWORTHY.—'Hum!—hah!—well—give me a crust of bread and a glass of beer. I'll only LUNCH, Poppins.
Captain Shindy is another sort of Club bore. He has been known to throw all the Club in an uproar about the quality of his mutton-chop.
'Look at it, sir! Is it cooked, sir? Smell it, sir! Is it meat fit for a gentleman?' he roars out to the steward, who stands trembling before him, and who in vain tells him that the Bishop of Bullocksmithy has just had three from the same loin. All the waiters in the Club are huddled round the captain's mutton-chop. He roars out the most horrible curses at John for not bringing the pickles; he utters the most dreadful oaths because Thomas has not arrived with the Harvey Sauce; Peter comes tumbling with the water-jug over Jeames, who is bringing 'the glittering canisters with bread.' Whenever Shindy enters the room (such is the force of character), every table is deserted, every gentleman must dine as he best may, and all those big footmen are in terror.
He makes his account of it. He scolds, and is better waited upon in consequence. At the Club he has ten servants scudding about to do his bidding.
Poor Mrs. Shindy and the children are, meanwhile, in dingy lodgings somewhere, waited upon by a charity-girl in pattens.
Every well-bred English female will sympathize with the subject of the harrowing tale, the history of Sackville Maine, I am now about to recount. The pleasures of Clubs have been spoken of: let us now glance for a moment at the dangers of those institutions, and for this purpose I must introduce you to my young acquaintance, Sackville Maine.
It was at a ball at the house of my respected friend, Mrs. Perkins, that I was introduced to this gentleman and his charming lady. Seeing a young creature before me in a white dress, with white satin shoes; with a pink ribbon, about a yard in breadth, flaming out as she twirled in a polka in the arms of Monsieur de Springbock, the German diplomatist; with a green wreath on her head, and the blackest hair this individual set eyes on—seeing, I say, before me a charming young woman whisking beautifully in a beautiful dance, and presenting, as she wound and wound round the room, now a full face, then a three-quarter face, then a profile—a face, in fine, which in every way you saw it, looked pretty, and rosy, and happy, I felt (as I trust) a not unbecoming curiosity regarding the owner of this pleasant countenance, and asked Wagley (who was standing by, in conversation with an acquaintance) who was the lady in question?
'Which?' says Wagley.
'That one with the coal-black eyes,' I replied.
'Hush!' says he; and the gentleman with whom he was talking moved off, with rather a discomfited air.
When he was gone Wagley burst out laughing. 'COAL-BLACK eyes!' said he; 'you've just hit it. That's Mrs. Sackville Maine, and that was her husband who just went away. He's a coal-merchant, Snob my boy, and I have no doubt Mr. Perkins's Wallsends are supplied from his wharf. He is in a flaming furnace when he hears coals mentioned. He and his wife and his mother are very proud of Mrs. Sackville's family; she was a Miss Chuff, daughter of Captain Chuff, R.N. That is the widow; that stout woman in crimson tabinet, battling about the odd trick with old Mr. Dumps, at the card-table.'
And so, in fact, it was. Sackville Maine (whose name is a hundred times more elegant, surely, than that of Chuff) was blest with a pretty wife, and a genteel mother-in-law, both of whom some people may envy him.
Soon after his marriage the old lady was good enough to come and pay him a visit—just for a fortnight—at his pretty little cottage, Kennington Oval; and, such is her affection for the place, has never quitted it these four years. She has also brought her son, Nelson Collingwood Chuff, to live with her; but he is not so much at home as his mamma, going as a day-boy to Merchant Taylors' School, where he is getting a sound classical education.
If these beings, so closely allied to his wife, and so justly dear to her, may be considered as drawbacks to Maine's happiness, what man is there that has not some things in life to complain of? And when I first knew Mr. Maine, no man seemed more comfortable than he. His cottage was a picture of elegance and comfort; his table and cellar were excellently and neatly supplied. There was every enjoyment, but no ostentation. The omnibus took him to business of a morning; the boat brought him back to the happiest of homes, where he would while away the long evenings by reading out the fashionable novels to the ladies as they worked; or accompany his wife on the flute (which he played elegantly); or in any one of the hundred pleasing and innocent amusements of the domestic circle. Mrs. Chuff covered the drawing-rooms with prodigious tapestries, the work of her hands. Mrs. Sackville had a particular genius for making covers of tape or network for these tapestried cushions. She could make home-made wines. She could make preserves and pickles. She had an album, into which, during the time of his courtship, Sackville Maine bad written choice scraps of Byron's and Moore's poetry, analogous to his own situation, and in a fine mercantile hand. She had a large manuscript receipt-book—every quality, in a word, which indicated a virtuous and well-bred English female mind.
'And as for Nelson Collingwood,' Sackville would say, laughing, 'we couldn't do without him in the house. If he didn't spoil the tapestry we should be 'over-cushioned in a few months; and whom could we get but him to drink Laura's home-made wine?' The truth is, the gents who came from the City to dine at the 'Oval' could not be induced to drink it—in which fastidiousness, I myself, when I grew to be intimate with the family, confess that I shared.
'And yet, sir, that green ginger has been drunk by some of England's proudest heroes,' Mrs. Chuff would exclaim. 'Admiral Lord Exmouth tasted and praised it, sir, on board Captain Chuff's ship, the “Nebuchadnezzar,” 74, at Algiers; and he had three dozen with turn in the “Pitchfork” frigate, a part of which was served out to the men before he went into his immortal action with the “Furibonde,” Captain Choufleur, in the Gulf of Panama.'
All this, though the old dowager told us the story every day when the wine was produced, never served to get rid of any quantity of it—and the green ginger, though it had fired British tars for combat and victory, was not to the taste of us peaceful and degenerate gents of modern times.
I see Sackville now, as on the occasion when, presented by Wagley, I paid my first visit to him. It was in July—a Sunday afternoon—Sackville Maine was coming from church, with his wife on one arm, and his mother-ill-law (in red tabinet, as usual,) on the other. A half-grown, or hobbadehoyish footman, so to speak, walked after them, carrying their shining golden prayer-books—the ladies had splendid parasols with tags and fringes. Mrs. Chuff's great gold watch, fastened to her stomach, gleamed there like a ball of fire. Nelson Collingwood was in the distance, shying stones at an old horse on Kennington Common. 'Twas on that verdant spot we met—nor can I ever forget the majestic courtesy of Mrs. Chuff, as she remembered having had the pleasure of seeing me at Mrs. Perkins's—nor the glance of scorn which she threw at an unfortunate gentleman who was preaching an exceedingly desultory discourse to a sceptical audience of omnibus-cads and nurse-maids, on a tub, as we passed by. 'I cannot help it, sir,' says she; 'I am the widow of an officer of Britain's Navy: I was taught to honour my Church and my King: and I cannot bear a Radical or a Dissenter.'
With these fine principles I found Sackville Maine impressed. 'Wagley,' said he, to my introducer, 'if no better engagement, why shouldn't self and friend dine at the “Oval?” Mr. Snob, sir, the mutton's coming off the spit at this very minute. Laura and Mrs. Chuff' (he said LAURAR and Mrs. Chuff; but I hate people who make remarks on these peculiarities of pronunciation,) 'will be most happy to see you; and I can promise you a hearty welcome, and as good a glass of port-wine as any in England.'
'This is better than dining at the “Sarcophagus,”' thinks I to myself, at which Club Wagley and I had intended to take our meal; and so we accepted the kindly invitation, whence arose afterwards a considerable intimacy.
Everything about this family and house was so good-natured, comfortable, and well-conditioned, that a cynic would have ceased to growl there. Mrs. Laura was all graciousness and smiles, and looked to as great advantage in her pretty morning-gown as in her dress-robe at Mrs. Perkins's. Mrs. Chuff fired off her stories about the 'Nebuchadnezzar,' 74, the action between the 'Pitchfork' and the 'Furibonde'—the heroic resistance of Captain Choufleur, and the quantity of snuff he took, &c. &c.; which, as they were heard for the first time, were pleasanter than I have subsequently found them. Sackville Maine was the best of hosts. He agreed in everything everybody said, altering his opinions without the slightest reservation upon the slightest possible contradiction. He was not one of those beings who would emulate a Schonbein or Friar Bacon, or act the part of an incendiary towards the Thames, his neighbour—but a good, kind, simple, honest, easy fellow—in love with his wife—well disposed to all the world—content with himself, content even with his mother-in-law. Nelson Collingwood, I remember, in the course of the evening, when whisky-and-water was for some reason produced, grew a little tipsy. This did not in the least move Sackville's equanimity. 'Take him upstairs, Joseph,' said he to the hobbadehoy, 'and—Joseph—don't tell his mamma.'
What could make a man so happily disposed, unhappy? What could cause discomfort, bickering, and estrangement in a family so friendly and united? Ladies, it was not my fault—it was Mrs. Chuff's doing—but the rest of the tale you shall have on a future day.
The misfortune which befell the simple and good-natured young Sackville, arose entirely from that abominable 'Sarcophagus Club;' and that he ever entered it was partly the fault of the present writer.
For seeing Mrs. Chuff, his mother-in-law, had a taste for the genteel—(indeed, her talk was all about Lord Collingwood, Lord Gambier, Sir Jahaleel Brenton, and the Gosport and Plymouth balls)—Wagley and I, according to our wont, trumped her conversation, and talked about Lords, Dukes, Marquises, and Baronets, as if those dignitaries were our familiar friends.
'Lord Sextonbury,' says I, 'seems to have recovered her ladyship's death. He and the Duke were very jolly over their wine at the “Sarcophagus” last night; weren't they, Wagley?'
'Good fellow, the Duke,' Wagley replied. 'Pray, ma'am' (to Mrs. Chuff), 'you who know the world and etiquette, will you tell me what a man ought to do in my case? Last June, his Grace, his son Lord Castlerampant, Tom Smith, and myself were dining at the Club, when I offered the odds against DADDYLONGLEGS for the Derby—forty to one, in sovereigns only. His Grace took the bet, and of course I won. He has never paid me. Now, can I ask such a great man for a sovereign?—One more lump of sugar, if you please, my dear madam.'
It was lucky Wagley gave her this opportunity to elude the question, for it prostrated the whole worthy family among whom we were. They telegraphed each other with wondering eyes. Mrs. Chuff's stories about the naval nobility grew quite faint and kind little Mrs. Sackville became uneasy, and went upstairs to look at the children—not at that young monster, Nelson Collingwood, who was sleeping off the whisky-and-water—but at a couple of little ones who had made their appearance at dessert, and of whom she and Sackville were the happy parents.
The end of this and subsequent meetings with Mr. Maine was, that we proposed and got him elected as a member of the 'Sarcophagus Club.'
It was not done without a deal of opposition—the secret having been whispered that the candidate was a coal-merchant. You may be sure some of the proud people and most of the parvenus of the Club were ready to blackball him. We combated this opposition successfully, however. We pointed out to the parvenus that the Lambtons and the Stuarts sold coals: we mollified the proud by accounts of his good birth, good nature, and good behaviour; and Wagley went about on the day of election, describing with great eloquence, the action between the 'Pitchfork' and the 'Furibonde,' and the valour of Captain Maine, our friend's father. There was a slight mistake in the narrative; but we carried our man, with only a trifling sprinkling of black beans in the boxes: Byles's, of course, who blackballs everybody: and Bung's, who looks down upon a coal-merchant, having himself lately retired from the wine-trade.
Some fortnight afterwards I saw Sackville Maine under the following circumstances:—
He was showing the Club to his family. He had 'brought them thither in the light-blue fly, waiting at the Club door; with Mrs. Chuff's hobbadehoy footboy on the box, by the side of the flyman, in a sham livery. Nelson Collingwood; pretty Mrs. Sackville; Mrs. Captain Chuff (Mrs. Commodore Chuff we call her), were all there; the latter, of course, in the vermilion tabinet, which, splendid as it is, is nothing in comparison to the splendour of the 'Sarcophagus.' The delighted Sackville Maine was pointing out the beauties of the place to them. It seemed as beautiful as Paradise to that little party.
The 'Sarcophagus' displays every known variety of architecture and decoration. The great library is Elizabethan; the small library is pointed Gothic; the dining-room is severe Doric; the strangers' room has an Egyptian look; the drawing-rooms are Louis Quatorze (so called because the hideous ornaments displayed were used in the time of Louis Quinze); the CORTILE, or hall, is Morisco-Italian. It is all over marble, maplewood, looking-glasses, arabesques, ormolu, and scagliola. Scrolls, ciphers, dragons, Cupids, polyanthuses, and other flowers writhe up the walls in every kind of cornucopiosity. Fancy every gentleman in Jullien's band playing with all his might, and each performing a different tune; the ornaments at our Club, the 'Sarcophagus,' so bewilder and affect me. Dazzled with emotions which I cannot describe, and which she dared not reveal, Mrs. Chuff, followed by her children and son-in-law, walked wondering amongst these blundering splendours.
In the great library (225 feet long by 150) the only man Mrs. Chuff saw, was Tiggs. He was lying on a crimson-velvet sofa, reading a French novel of Paul de Kock. It was a very little book. He is a very little man. In that enormous hall he looked like a mere speck. As the ladies passed breathless and trembling in the vastness of the magnificent solitude, he threw a knowing, killing glance at the fair strangers, as much as to say, 'Ain't I a fine fellow?' They thought so, I am sure.
'WHO IS THAT?' hisses out Mrs. Chuff, when we were about fifty yards off him at the other end of the room.
'Tiggs!' says I, in a similar whisper.
'Pretty comfortable this, isn't it, my dear?' says Maine in a free-and-easy way to Mrs. Sackville; 'all the magazines, you see—writing materials—new works—choice library, containing every work of importance—what have we here?—“Dugdale's Monasticon,” a most valuable and, I believe, entertaining book.'
And proposing to take down one of the books for Mrs. Maine's inspection, he selected Volume VII., to which he was attracted by the singular fact that a brass door-handle grew out of the back. Instead of pulling out a book, however, he pulled open a cupboard, only inhabited by a lazy housemaid's broom and duster, at which he looked exceedingly discomfited; while Nelson Collingwood, losing all respect, burst into a roar of laughter.
'That's the rummest book I ever saw,' says Nelson. 'I wish we'd no others at Merchant Taylors'.'
'Hush, Nelson!' cries Mrs. Chuff, and we went into the other magnificent apartments.
How they did admire the drawing-room hangings, (pink and silver brocade, most excellent wear for London,) and calculated the price per yard; and revelled on the luxurious sofas; and gazed on the immeasurable looking-glasses.
'Pretty well to shave by, eh?' says Maine to his mother-in-law. (He was getting more abominably conceited every minute.) 'Get away, Sackville,' says she, quite delighted, and threw a glance over her shoulder, and spread out the wings of the red tabinet, and took a good look at herself; so did Mrs. Sackville—just one, and I thought the glass reflected a very smiling, pretty creature.
But what's a woman at a looking-glass? Bless the little dears, it's their place. They fly to it naturally. It pleases them, and they adorn it. What I like to see, and watch with increasing joy and adoration, is the Club MEN at the great looking-glasses. Old Gills pushing up his collars and grinning at his own mottled face. Hulker looking solemnly at his great person, and tightening his coat to give himself a waist. Fred Minchin simpering by as he is going out to dine, and casting upon the reflection of his white neckcloth a pleased moony smile. What a deal of vanity that Club mirror has reflected, to be sure!
Well, the ladies went through the whole establishment with perfect pleasure. They beheld the coffee-rooms, and the little tables laid for dinner, and the gentlemen who were taking their lunch, and old Jawkins thundering away as usual; they saw the reading-rooms, and the rush for the evening papers; they saw the kitchens—those wonders of art—where the CHEF was presiding over twenty pretty kitchen-maids, and ten thousand shining saucepans: and they got into the light-blue fly perfectly bewildered with pleasure.
Sackville did not enter it, though little Laura took the back seat on purpose, and left him the front place alongside of Mrs. Chuff's red tabinet.
'We have your favourite dinner,' says she, in a timid voice; 'won't you come, Sackville?'
'I shall take a chop here to-day, my dear,' Sackville replied. 'Home, James.' And he went up the steps of the 'Sarcophagus,' and the pretty face looked very sad out of the carriage, as the blue fly drove away.
Why—Why did I and Wagley ever do so cruel an action as to introduce young Sackville Maine into that odious 'Sarcophagus'? Let our imprudence and his example be a warning to other gents; let his fate and that of his poor wife be remembered by every British female. The consequences of his entering the Club were as follows:—
One of the first vices the unhappy wretch acquired in this abode of frivolity was that of SMOKING. Some of the dandies of the Club, such as the Marquis of Macabaw, Lord Doodeen, and fellows of that high order, are in the habit of indulging in this propensity upstairs in the billiard-rooms of the 'Sarcophagus'—and, partly to make their acquaintance, partly from a natural aptitude for crime, Sackville Maine followed them, and became an adept in the odious custom. Where it is introduced into a family I need not say how sad the consequences are, both to the furniture and the morals. Sackville smoked in his dining-room at home, and caused an agony to his wife and mother-in-law which I do not venture to describe.
He then became a professed BILLIARD-PLAYER, wasting hours upon hours at that amusement; betting freely, playing tolerably, losing awfully to Captain Spot and Col. Cannon. He played matches of a hundred games with these gentlemen, and would not only continue until four or five o'clock in the morning at this work, but would be found at the Club of a forenoon, indulging himself to the detriment of his business, the ruin of his health, and the neglect of his wife.
From billiards to whist is but a step—and when a man gets to whist and five pounds on a rubber, my opinion is, that it is all up with him. How was the coal business to go on, and the connection of the firm to be kept up, and the senior partner always at the card-table?
Consorting now with genteel persons and Pall Mall bucks, Sackville became ashamed of his snug little residence in Kennington Oval, and transported his family to Pimlico, where, though Mrs. Chuff, his mother-in-law, was at first happy, as the quarter was elegant and near her Sovereign, poor little Laura and the children found a woful difference. Where were her friends who came in with their work of a morning?—At Kennington and in the vicinity of Clapham. 'Where were her children's little playmates?—On Kennington Common. The great thundering carriages that roared up and down the drab-coloured streets of the new quarter, contained no friends for the sociable little Laura. The children that paced the squares, attended by a BONNE or a prim governess, were not like those happy ones that flew kites, or played hop-scotch, on the well-beloved old Common. And ah! what a difference at Church too!—between St. Benedict's of Pimlico, with open seats, service in sing-song—tapers—albs—surplices—garlands and processions, and the honest old ways of Kennington! The footmen, too, attending St. Benedict's were so splendid and enormous, that James, Mrs. Chuff's boy, trembled amongst them, and said he would give warning rather than carry the books to that church any more.
The furnishing of the house was not done without expense.
And, ye gods! what a difference there was between Sackville's dreary French banquets in Pimlico, and the jolly dinners at the Oval! No more legs-of-mutton, no more of 'the best port-wine in England;' but ENTREES on plate, and dismal twopenny champagne, and waiters in gloves, and the Club bucks for company—among whom Mrs. Chuff was uneasy and Mrs. Sackville quite silent.
Not that he dined at home often. The wretch had become a perfect epicure, and dined commonly at the Club with the gormandising clique there; with old Doctor Maw, Colonel Cramley (who is as lean as a greyhound and has jaws like a jack), and the rest of them. Here you might see the wretch tippling Sillery champagne and gorging himself with French viands; and I often looked with sorrow from my table, (on which cold meat, the Club small-beer, and a half-pint of Marsala form the modest banquet,) and sighed to think it was my work.
And there were other beings present to my repentant thoughts. Where's his wife, thought I? Where's poor, good, kind little Laura? At this very moment—it's about the nursery bed-time, and while yonder good-for-nothing is swilling his wine—the little ones are at Laura's knees lisping their prayers: and she is teaching them to say—'Pray God bless Papa.'
When she has put them to bed, her day's occupation is gone; and she is utterly lonely all night, and sad, and waiting for him.
Oh, for shame! Oh, for shame! Go home, thou idle tippler.
How Sackville lost his health: how he lost his business; how he got into scrapes; how he got into debt; how he became a railroad director; how the Pimlico house was shut up; how he went to Boulogne,—all this I could tell, only I am too much ashamed of my part of the transaction. They returned to England, because, to the surprise of everybody, Mrs. Chuff came down with a great sum of money (which nobody knew she had saved), and paid his liabilities. He is in England; but at Kennington. His name is taken off the books of the 'Sarcophagus' long ago. When we meet, he crosses over to the other side of the street; I don't call, as I should be sorry to see a look of reproach or sadness in Laura's sweet face.
Not, however, all evil, as I am proud to think, has been the influence of the Snob of England upon Clubs in general:—Captain Shindy is afraid to bully the waiters any more, and eats his mutton-chop without moving Acheron. Gobemouche does not take more than two papers at a time for his private reading. Tiggs does not ring the bell and cause the library-waiter to walk about a quarter of a mile in order to give him Vol. II., which lies on the next table. Growler has ceased to walk from table to table in the coffee-room, and inspect what people are having for dinner. Trotty Veck takes his own umbrella from the hall—the cotton one; and Sydney Scraper's paletot lined with silk has been brought back by Jobbins, who entirely mistook it for his own. Wiggle has discontinued telling stories about the ladies he has killed. Snooks does not any more think it gentlemanlike to blackball attorneys. Snuffler no longer publicly spreads out his great red cotton pocket-handkerchief before the fire, for the admiration of two hundred gentlemen; and if one Club Snob has been brought back to the paths of rectitude, and if one poor John has been spared a journey or a scolding—say, friends and brethren if these sketches of Club Snobs have been in vain?
How it is that we have come to No. 45 of this present series of papers, my dear friends and brother Snobs, I hardly know—but for a whole mortal year have we been together, prattling, and abusing the human race; and were we to live for a hundred years more, I believe there is plenty of subject for conversation in the enormous theme of Snobs.
The national mind is awakened to the subject. Letters pour in every day, conveying marks of sympathy; directing the attention of the Snob of England to races of Snobs yet undescribed. 'Where are your Theatrical Snobs; your Commercial Snobs; your Medical and Chirurgical Snobs; your Official Snobs; your Legal Snobs; your Artistical Snobs; your Musical Snobs; your Sporting Snobs?' write my esteemed correspondents. 'Surely you are not going to miss the Cambridge Chancellor election, and omit showing up your Don Snobs, who are coming, cap in hand, to a young Prince of six-and-twenty, and to implore him to be the chief of their renowned University?' writes a friend who seals with the signet of the Cam and Isis Club. 'Pray, pray,' cries another, 'now the Operas are opening, give us a lecture about Omnibus Snobs.' Indeed, I should like to write a chapter about the Snobbish Dons very much, and another about the Snobbish Dandies. Of my dear Theatrical Snobs I think with a pang; and I can hardly break away from some Snobbish artists, with whom I have long, long intended to have a palaver.
But what's the use of delaying? When these were done there would be fresh Snobs to pourtray. The labour is endless. No single man could complete it. Here are but fifty-two bricks—and a pyramid to build. It is best to stop. As Jones always quits the room as soon as he has said his good thing,—as Cincinnatus and General Washington both retired into private life in the height of their popularity,—as Prince Albert, when he laid the first stone of the Exchange, left the bricklayers to complete that edifice and went home to his royal dinner,—as the poet Bunn comes forward at the end of the season, and with feelings too tumultuous to describe, blesses his KYIND friends over the footlights: so, friends, in the flush of conquest and the splendour of victory, amid the shouts and the plaudits of a people—triumphant yet modest—the Snob of England bids ye farewell.
But only for a season. Not for ever. No, no. There is one celebrated author whom I admire very much—who has been taking leave of the public any time these ten years in his prefaces, and always comes back again when everybody is glad to see him. How can he have the heart to be saying good-bye so often? I believe that Bunn is affected when he blesses the people. Parting is always painful. Even the familiar bore is dear to you. I should be sorry to shake hands even with Jawkins for the last time. I think a well-constituted convict, on coming home from transportation, ought to be rather sad when he takes leave of Van Diemen's Land. When the curtain goes down on the last night of a pantomime, poor old clown must be very dismal, depend on it. Ha! with what joy he rushes forward on the evening of the 26th of December next, and says—'How are you?—Here we are!' But I am growing too sentimental:—to return to the theme.
THE NATIONAL MIND IS AWAKENED TO THE SUBJECT OF SNOBS. The word Snob has taken a place in our honest English vocabulary. We can't define it, perhaps. We can't say what it is, any more than we can define wit, or humour, or humbug; but we KNOW what it is. Some weeks since, happening to have the felicity to sit next to a young lady at a hospitable table, where poor old Jawkins was holding forth in a very absurd pompous manner, I wrote upon the spotless damask 'S—B,' and called my neighbour's attention to the little remark.
That young lady smiled. She knew it at once. Her mind straightway filled up the two letters concealed by apostrophic reserve, and I read in her assenting eyes that she knew Jawkins was a Snob. You seldom get them to make use of the word as yet, it is true; but it is inconceivable how pretty an expression their little smiling mouths assume when they speak it out. If any young lady doubts, just let her go up to her own room, look at herself steadily in the glass, and say 'Snob.' If she tries this simple experiment, my life for it, she will smile, and own that the word becomes her mouth amazingly. A pretty little round word, all composed of soft letters, with a hiss at the beginning, just to make it piquant, as it were.
Jawkins, meanwhile, went on blundering, and bragging and boring, quite unconsciously. And so he will, no doubt, go on roaring and braying, to the end of time or at least so long as people will hear him. You cannot alter the nature of men and Snobs by any force of satire; as, by laying ever so many stripes on a donkey's back, you can't turn him into a zebra.
But we can warn the neighbourhood that the person whom they and Jawkins admire is an impostor. We apply the Snob test to him, and try whether he is conceited and a quack, whether pompous and lacking humility—whether uncharitable and proud of his narrow soul? How does he treat a great man—how regard a small one? How does he comport himself in the presence of His Grace the Duke; and how in that of Smith the tradesman?
And it seems to me that all English society is cursed by this mammoniacal superstition; and that we are sneaking and bowing and cringing on the one hand, or bullying and scorning on the other, from the lowest to the highest. My wife speaks with great circumspection—'proper pride,' she calls it—to our neighbour the tradesman's lady: and she, I mean Mrs. Snob,—Eliza—would give one of her eyes to go to Court, as her cousin, the Captain's wife, did. She, again, is a good soul, but it costs her agonies to be obliged to confess that we live in Upper Thompson Street, Somers Town. And though I believe in her heart Mrs. Whiskerington is fonder of us than of her cousins, the Smigsmags, you should hear how she goes on prattling about Lady Smigsmag,—and 'I said to Sir John, my dear John;' and about the Smigsmags' house and parties in Hyde Park Terrace.
Lady Smigsmag, when she meets Eliza,—who is a sort of a kind of a species of a connection of the family, pokes out one finger, which my wife is at liberty to embrace in the most cordial manner she can devise. But oh, you should see her ladyship's behaviour on her first-chop dinner-party days, when Lord and Lady Longears come!
I can bear it no longer—this diabolical invention of gentility which kills natural kindliness and honest friendship. Proper pride, indeed! Rank and precedence, forsooth! The table of ranks and degrees is a lie, and should be flung into the fire. Organize rank and precedence! that was well for the masters of ceremonies of former ages. Come forward, some great marshal, and organize Equality in society, and your rod shall swallow up all the juggling old court goldsticks. If this is not gospel-truth—if the world does not tend to this—if hereditary-great-man worship is not a humbug and an idolatry—let us have the Stuarts back again, and crop the Free Press's ears in the pillory.
If ever our cousins, the Smigsmags, asked me to meet Lord Longears, I would like to take an opportunity after dinner and say, in the most good-natured way in the world:—Sir, Fortune makes you a present of a number of thousand pounds every year. The ineffable wisdom of our ancestors has placed you as a chief and hereditary legislator over me. Our admirable Constitution (the pride of Britons and envy of surrounding nations) obliges me to receive you as my senator, superior, and guardian. Your eldest son, Fitz-Heehaw, is sure of a place in Parliament; your younger sons, the De Brays, will kindly condescend to be post-captains and lieutenants-colonels, and to represent us in foreign courts or to take a good living when it falls convenient. These prizes our admirable Constitution (the pride and envy of, &c.) pronounces to be your due: without count of your dulness, your vices, your selfishness; or your entire incapacity and folly. Dull as you may be (and we have as good a right to assume that my lord is an ass, as the other proposition, that he is an enlightened patriot);—dull, I say, as you may be, no one will accuse you of such monstrous folly, as to suppose that you are indifferent to the good luck which you possess, or have any inclination to part with it. No—and patriots as we are, under happier circumstances, Smith and I, I have no doubt, were we dukes ourselves, would stand by our order.
We would submit good-naturedly to sit in a high place. We would acquiesce in that admirable Constitution (pride and envy of, &c.) which made us chiefs and the world our inferiors; we would not cavil particularly at that notion of hereditary superiority which brought many simple people cringing to our knees. May be we would rally round the Corn-Laws; we would make a stand against the Reform Bill; we would die rather than repeal the Acts against Catholics and Dissenters; we would, by our noble system of class-legislation, bring Ireland to its present admirable condition.
But Smith and I are not Earls as yet. 'We don't believe that it is for the interest of Smith's army that De Bray should be a Colonel at five-and-twenty, of Smith's diplomatic relations that Lord Longears should go Ambassador to Constantinople,—of our politics, that Longears should put his hereditary foot into them.
This bowing and cringing Smith believes to be the act of Snobs; and he will do all in his might and main to be a Snob and to submit to Snobs no longer. To Longears he says, 'We can't help seeing, Longears, that we are as good as you. We can spell even better; can think quite as rightly; we will not have you for our master, or black your shoes any more. Your footmen do it, but they are paid; and the fellow who comes to get a list of the company when you give a banquet or a dancing breakfast at Longueoreille House, gets money from the newspapers for performing that service. But for us, thank you for nothing, Longears my boy, and we don't wish to pay you any more than we owe. We will take off our hats to Wellington because he is Wellington; but to you—who are you?'
I am sick of COURT CIRCULARS. I loathe HAUT-TON intelligence. I believe such words as Fashionable, Exclusive, Aristocratic, and the like, to be wicked, unchristian epithets, that ought to be banished from honest vocabularies. A Court system that sends men of genius to the second table, I hold to be a Snobbish system. A society that sets up to be polite, and ignores Arts and Letters, I hold to be a Snobbish society. You, who despise your neighbour, are a Snob; you, who forget your own friends, meanly to follow after those of a higher degree, are a Snob; you, who are ashamed of your poverty, and blush for your calling, are a Snob; as are you who boast of your pedigree, or are proud of your wealth.
To laugh at such is MR. PUNCH'S business. May he laugh honestly, hit no foul blow, and tell the truth when at his very broadest grin—never forgetting that if Fun is good, Truth is still better, and Love best of all.