his words go forth to vast congregations of mankind—to grown folks, to their children, and perhaps to their children's children—but must think of his calling with a solemn and humble heart? May love and truth guide such a man always! It is an awful prayer; may Heaven further its fulfilment! And then, Bob, let the Record revile him—See, here's Horner waking up—How do you do, Horner?
Tobacco Tabooed
Smoking was not yet a national habit. It was the height of bad form to be seen smoking in the street. Even in clubs it was frowned upon, and Thackeray, in his "Snob Papers," writes in ironic vein respecting "that den of abomination which, I am told, has been established in some clubs, called the Smoking Room." The embargo on pipes was not removed for many years. A well-known judge removed his name from a well-known club about the year 1890 because the committee refused to tolerate pipe-smoking on their precincts. Punch early ranged himself on the side of liberty, and in 1856 was greatly incensed against the British Anti-Tobacco Society, as against all "Anti's," "who, not content with hating balls, plays, and other amusements themselves, want to enforce their small antipathies on the rest of us."
GROUP IN THEATRE BOX
The relaxations of men of fashion, if less multitudinous than to-day, were at least tolerably varied. The golden age of the dandies had passed, but the breed was still not quite extinct in 1849; witness Thackeray's picture of Lord Hugo Fitzurse. "Fops' Alley," at the Opera, was one of their favourite resorts; and its attractions are summed up, during the season of 1844, in the last stanza of a "Song of the Superior Classes":—
Blest ballet, soul-entrancing,
Who would not rather gaze
On youth and beauty dancing
Than one of Shakespeare's plays?
Give me the haunt of Fashion,
And let the Drama's shrine
Engross the vulgar's passion;
Fops' Alley, thou art mine.
Robuster natures found distraction in knocker-wrenching and organizing parties to witness executions, but it would be as unfair to judge the manners of the high life of the time from the exploits of the mad Marquess of Waterford as it would be to base one's estimate on the achievements of Lord Shaftesbury. Thackeray, in The Newcomes, written in 1853, gives a somewhat lurid account of the entertainment at the "Coal Hole," from which the indignant colonel abruptly withdrew with his son Clive. The moral atmosphere of "Cyder Cellars" and similar places of entertainment was not exactly rarefied, but Punch makes a notable exception in favour of Evans's Supper Rooms, which were reopened after redecoration in the year 1856 as the abode of supper and song. There was no price for admission. You entered by a descent from the western end of the Piazza, Covent Garden, and took your choice from the little marble tables near the door or nearer the raised platform. Punch's only adverse criticism is directed against the epileptic gesticulations of the Ethiopian serenaders. For the rest he has nothing but praise for the entertainment, whether for mind or body:—
Anybody wanting to hear a little good music, sup, and get to bed betimes will be precisely suited at this place. Singing commences at eight. Any country curate, now, or indeed, rector, being in town under those circumstances, would find it just answer his purpose. To a serious young man, disapproving of the Opera, and tired of Exeter Hall, it would be a pleasant change from the last-named institution. Moreover it has the advantage of cheapness—so important to all who are truly serious. Even a bishop might give it an occasional inspection, without derogation from the decorum of his shovel hat and gaiters. A resort whereat unobjectionable amusement is provided for the youthful bachelor—the student of law—of medicine—nay, of divinity—offers an attraction in the right direction which is powerful to counteract a tendency towards the wrong: and a glass of grog, with the accompaniment of good singing, may have a moral value superior to that of a teetotal harangue and a cup of Twankay.20
Travellers and Outlaws
The cult of pastime was as yet in its infancy; years were to elapse before even croquet was to assert its gentle sway. But there was always the great game of politics and patronage, and though Crockford, the founder of the famous gambling club at 50, St. James's Street, retired in 1840, after he had won "the whole of the ready money of the existing generation," in Captain Gronow's phrase, there was plenty of gambling for very high stakes. There was also travel, limited in its larger and more leisurely range to people of fortune, but already beginning to appeal through excursions to the middle classes. "Paris in twelve hours" was advertised by the South Eastern Railway in 1849, though according to Punch it really took twenty-nine hours; but before long the time occupied in the transit was reduced to nine hours. Boulogne had long been the resort of a curious colony of Englishmen "composed of those who are living on their means, and those who are living in despite of them, including, to give a romantic air of society, a slight sprinkling of outlaws." It was at Boulogne-sur-Mer that Brummell ended his days in poverty; but the most famous outlaws of the period under review were "the most gorgeous" Countess of Blessington and Count D'Orsay, who fled precipitately from Gore House in April, 1849, to Paris. Nine years earlier Lady Blessington had been one of the most courted leaders of fashionable society. She had beauty, fascination, a fair measure of literary talent, and an industry only surpassed by her extravagance. Of D'Orsay, whom Byron called the Cupidon déchaîné, handsome, gifted and popular, athlete, wit and dandy, it is enough to say that he was the only artist congenial to the Duke of Wellington, who used to call sculptors "damned busters" and so exasperated Goya by his cavalier treatment that the old Spanish painter is alleged to have challenged him to a duel! Lady Blessington and D'Orsay escaped censure from Punch even in his democratic days. It was hard to be angry with these birds of Paradise, gorgeous in their lives, almost tragic in their eclipse. They at any rate did not come under the condemnation meted out to Cockney travellers on the Continent in 1845:—
SMALL CHANGE FOR PERSONS GOING ON THE CONTINENT
Laugh at everything you do not understand, and never fail to ridicule anything that appears strange to you. The habits of the lower class will afford you abundant entertainment, if you have the proper talent to mimic them. Their religious ceremonies you will also find to be an endless source of amusement.
Recollect very few people talk in English on the Continent, so you may be perfectly at your ease in abusing foreigners before their faces, and talking any modest nonsense you like, in the presence of ladies, at a table d'hôte. Do not care what you say about the government of any particular state you may be visiting, and show your national spirit by boasting, on every possible occasion, of the superiority of England and everything English.
THE OPERA
Doorkeeper: "Beg your pardon, Sir—but must, indeed, Sir, be in full dress."
Snob (excited): "Full dress!! Why, what do you call this?"
The "Gent" Abroad and at Home
The criticism, if caustic, was not without provocation, and unhappily the provocation did not cease, indeed, it may not be a rash assertion to observe that it has not yet altogether ceased. The type reappeared as "'Arry." In the early 'forties he was one of Punch's pet aversions under the title of "the Gent":—
Of all the loungers who cross our way in the public thoroughfares, the Gent is the most unbearable, principally from an assumption of style about him—a futile aping of superiority that inspires us with feelings of mingled contempt and amusement, when we contemplate his ridiculous pretensions to be considered "the thing."
No city in the world produces so many holiday specimens of tawdry vulgarity as London; and the river appears to be the point towards which all the countless myriads converge. Their strenuous attempts to ape gentility—a bad style