do you play?" although the reply in that case always made and provided is "the piano," yet the mention of a few composers' names will soon inform you of the kind of musical taste the fair one possesses. If she admire Herz, you will know she belongs to the thunder-and-lightning school of "fine players"; therefore, breathe not the names of Mozart, Beethoven, or Cramer. Should she own to singing, and call Mercadante "grand" or Donizetti "exquisite," do not mention Weber or Schubert, but say a word or two for Alexander Lee.18
It will frequently occur that (always excepting the first two queries) a young lady will answer your questions with indifference—almost contempt—in the belief that you are a very commonplace soulless person. She has, you will find, a tinge of romance in her character; therefore, lose not a moment in plunging over head-and-ears into a talk about poetry. Should Byron or Wordsworth fail, try T. K. Hervey, or Barry Cornwall, but Moore is most strongly recommended. If you think you can trust yourself to do a little poetry on your own account, dash it slightly with meta-physics. Wherever you discover a tinge of blueism or romance, the mixture of "the moon," "the stars," and "the human mind," with common conversation is highly efficacious. When the latter predominates in the damsel, an effective parting speech may be quoted from Romeo and Juliet, which will bring in a reflection upon the short duration of the happiness you have enjoyed, and the quotation:
"I never knew a young gazelle," etc.
"Finishing" a Daughter
This was written in Punch in July, 1842, but there is not much difference in the estimate of the feminine intellect given ten years later:—
HOW TO "FINISH" A DAUGHTER
1. Be always telling her how pretty she is.
2. Instil into her mind a proper love of dress.
3. Accustom her to so much pleasure that she is never happy at home.
4. Allow her to read nothing but novels.
5. Teach her all the accomplishments, but none of the utilities of life.
6. Keep her in the darkest ignorance of the mysteries of house-keeping.
7. Initiate her into the principle that it is vulgar to do anything for herself.
8. To strengthen the latter belief, let her have a lady's maid.
9. And lastly, having given her such an education, marry her to a clerk in the Treasury upon £75 a year, or to an ensign who is going out to India.
If, with the above careful training, your daughter is not finished, you may be sure it is no fault of yours, and you must look upon her escape as nothing short of a miracle.
Sporting Man (loquitur): "I say, Charles, that's a promising little filly along o' that bay-haired woman who's talking to the black-cob-looking man."
The "higher education" of women was not discussed in these days of Keepsakes and Books of Beauty, though, as we have seen, the official recognition of learned women and authoresses—Mrs. Somerville and Maria Edgeworth—was supported by Punch. In his "Letters to a Young Man about Town," Thackeray frequently insists on the refining influence of good women in Society, but intellectual ladies met with little encouragement from his pen or pencil; he liked to see women at dinners, regretted their early departure, and suggested that the custom of the gentlemen remaining behind might be modified if not abolished; "the only substitute for them or consolation for the want of them is smoking."
Punch castigates the caprice of flirts, while admitting their fascination. He ridicules the imaginary ailments of fashionable women exhausted by gaiety; but he waxes bitterly indignant over "the Old Bailey ladies" who obtained access to the chapel at Newgate to listen to the "condemned sermon" in the presence of a convicted murderer, or scrambled for seats at the trials of notorious malefactors. The only excuse for this odious curiosity was that their menfolk set the women the worst possible example. Executions were public, and were freely patronized by the nobility and gentry. The most powerful of the Ingoldsby Legends deals with this ugly phase of early Victorian manners, and can be verified from the pages of Punch, who tells us how, on the occasion of an execution in June, 1842:—
All the houses opposite to the prison (Old Bailey) had been let to sight-seeking lovers at an enormous price, and, in several instances, the whole of the casements were taken out and raised seats erected for their accommodation. In one case a noble lord was pointed out to the reporter as having been a spectator at the last four or five executions: his price for his seat was said to be fifteen pounds.
The "Model Fast Lady" liked champagne, but the charge of indulgence in the pleasures of the table is never brought against women of fashion. Their extravagance in dress is often rebuked; but lovely woman, if left to herself, in the 'forties and 'fifties, was probably content to subsist (as according to R. L. Stevenson she subsisted forty or fifty years later) mainly on tea and cake. Women were not exempt from the accusation of snobbery: sarcastic comment is prompted by the letter of a correspondent to the Morning Post, who wrote to describe how, as the result of a railway accident, she, "a young lady of some birth, was placed in a cornfield and had to wait six hours."
Manners and Cvstoms of ye Englyshe.
A FASHIONABLE CLUB—FOUR O'CLOCK P.M.
Verrey and Gunter
The brunt, however, of the social satire was borne by the men. Gluttony was ever a male vice, and Punch is constantly running a tilt against civic gourmands and turtle-guzzling aldermen. But his censure was not confined to the gross orgies of the City Fathers at a time when cholera and typhus were rampant. "Everybody lives as if he had three or four thousand a year," is his dictum, which he follows up by pleading for more simple and frequent dinners, the entertainment of poor friends and relations—more hospitality and less show. The "nobility and gentry" did not, however, court publicity in their entertainments as in a later age.19 They dined sumptuously in their own houses; there were few expensive restaurants in those days or for many years to come. The nearest approach was Verrey's Café, which was then a fashionable resort, and the immortal Gunter, who "to parties gave up what was meant for mankind." "Society" was small, unmixed, and exclusive. Neither love nor money could secure the "Spangle-Lacquers" (under which title Punch satirizes the pretensions of the New Rich), the entrée to Almack's. For club life a mine of useful information is to be found in Thackeray's "Letters to a Young Man about Town" and in the social cartoons of Richard Doyle. The account of a club cardroom and the absorption and obsession of the players needs little revision to fit the manners of to-day, and there is much excellent advice to young men to avoid roystering and drinking with "Old Silenus," the midnight monarch of the smoking-room at the Polyanthus. From Thackeray's contributions we have borrowed sparingly, but cannot refrain from quoting the passage in which he pays noble homage to the genius of Dickens:—
What a calm and pleasant seclusion the library presents after the brawl and bustle of the newspaper-room! There is never anybody here. English gentlemen get up such a prodigious quantity of knowledge in their early life that they leave off reading soon after they begin to shave, or never look at anything but a newspaper. How pleasant this room is—isn't it? with its sober draperies, and long calm lines of peaceful volumes—nothing to interrupt the quiet—only the melody of Horner's nose as he lies asleep upon one of the sofas. What is he reading? Hah, Pendennis, No. VII.—hum, let us pass on. Have you read David Copperfield, by the way? How beautiful it is—how charmingly fresh and simple! In those admirable touches of tender humour—and I should call humour, Bob, a mixture of love and wit—who can equal this great genius? There are little words and phrases in his books which are like personal benefits to the reader. What a place it is to hold in the affections of men! What an awful responsibility hanging over a writer! What man,