Chapter VIII: Part II: The Social Fabric (2)

The Queen's visit to Ireland in 1849 is treated in considerable detail, and in an optimistic vein. _Punch_ never believed in the Repeal Agitation or in Daniel O'Connell, whom he regarded as a trading patriot and a self-seeking demagogue, contrasting him unfavourably with Father Mathew. Nor had he any sympathy with "Young Ireland," or Thomas Davis, or the romantic leaders of the movement of 1848; as for Smith O'Brien, an immortality of ridicule was conferred on him in Thackeray's famous ballad on "The Battle of Limerick." The terrible ravages of the potato famine had evoked _Punch's_ sympathy; but his hopes of an enduring reconciliation were small, and he quotes the tremendous saying of Giraldus Cambrensis that Ireland would be pacified _vix paulò ante Diem Judicii_--or only just before the Day of Judgment. Still, the Queen's visit was hailed as of good omen, though _Punch_ reminds her that she had only seen the bright side of the dark Rosaleen--palaces and not cabins. "Let Erin _forget_ the days of old" is the burden of his song; at least he refrained from quoting--if he ever knew of it--that other terrible saying that "Ireland never forgets anything except the benefits that she has received." The Queen's magnanimity and clemency to her traducer Jasper Judge in the same year called forth a warm eulogium. Judge was a thief and a spy, yet the Queen, on the petition of his wife, paid the costs of her vilifier.

In 1849, also, _Punch_, evidently still in mellower mood, published an enthusiastic tribute to the memory of the Dowager Queen Adelaide, who died on December 2. _Punch_ specially refers to her generosity to Mrs. Jordan, the mistress of William IV, when he was Duke of Clarence, and the mother of ten of his children. "Let those who withhold their aid from the daughter of Nelson, because the daughter of Lady Hamilton, consider this and know that the best chastity is adorned by the largest charity." Queen Adelaide had long outlived the unpopularity caused by her supposed interference in politics at the time of the Reform Agitation, and _Punch's_ homage was well deserved. It is a sign of the times that _Punch_ begins to allude to the Queen as "our good Queen," or more affectionately as "our little Queen," and this growth of her popularity continues (with occasional setbacks) throughout the 'fifties. At the close of 1852 _Punch_ ridicules as absurd the rumour of the betrothal of the Princess Royal to Prince Frederick William of Prussia, the Princess being only twelve years old. The report appeared in a German paper, and proved true. _Punch's_ chief objection was sentimental: "The age is past when Royalty respected its family at the rate of live stock," and he could not believe that such a principle would govern the Court, seeing that it was "adorned now at last with the domestic graces." Besides, _Punch_ in the summer of 1844 had published his own New Royal Marriage Act (suggested by _The Times's_ comment on the late Duke of Sussex's love letters), which winds up: "Be it therefore enacted that a member of the Royal Family shall be at liberty to marry whom or how or when, where or anywhere, he or she likes or pleases."

[Sidenote: _The Princess Royal's Betrothal_]

Scepticism of the report animates the set of verses published three years later:--

ABSURD RUMOUR OF AN APPROACHING MARRIAGE IN THE HIGHEST LIFE

They say that young Prussia our Princess will wed,
Which shows that we can't believe half that is said.
What? she marry the nephew of Clicquot the mean!
The friend and ally of the foe of the Queen?

Why, nothing keeps Clicquot from standing array'd
Against her in arms, but his being afraid.
His near kinsman the spouse of Her Majesty's child!
Pooh!--the notion is monstrous, preposterous, wild.

The Princess is--bless her!--scarce fifteen years old;
One summer more even o'er _Dinah_ had roll'd.
To marry so early she can't be inclined;
A suitable _Villikins_ some day she'll find.

Moreover, in her case, we know very well,
There exist no "stern parients" her hand to compel,
Affording the Laureate a theme for a lay,
With a burden of "Teural lal leural li day."

Whether the German newspaper had been merely exercising "intelligent anticipation" or not, the projected alliance was confirmed in 1856. _Punch's_ comment on the Princess's dowry was unsympathetic, but the betrothal was celebrated in verse at once ceremonial and friendly. References to the Queen during the Crimean War are noticed elsewhere; we may note, however, that when one "Raphael" published a Prophetic Almanack in which he took liberties with the Queen's name, _Punch_ administered a severe castigation to the offender. _Punch_ did not like his monopoly to be infringed.

THE OLD NOBILITY

Between the aristocracy as depicted in the pages of _Punch_ and in those of the _Morning Post_ in the 'forties and 'fifties there is a wide gulf. As we have seen, _Punch's_ admiration of the Duke of Wellington stopped a long way this side of idolatry. Yet even when the Duke was criticized most severely as a politician, the recognition of his greatness was not denied. A good example is to be found in the cartoon of the "Giant and the Dwarf," which was inspired by Napoleon's legacy to the subaltern Cantillon, who was charged with an attempt to murder Wellington. Wellington himself had been approached with a view to similar action against Napoleon, and here was his reply:--

"---- wishes to kill him; but I have told him that I shall
remonstrate; I have likewise said that, as a private friend, I
advised him to have nothing to do with so foul a transaction; and
that he and I had acted too distinguished parts in these
transactions to become executioners; and that I was determined
that, if the sovereigns wished to put him to death, they should
appoint an executioner, which would not be me."[15]

The cartoon is accompanied by this comment:--

The Duke has made his political blunders and in his time talked
political nonsense as well as his inferiors. Moreover he exhibits a
defective sympathy with the people.... Nevertheless, contrasting
Wellington's answer to the proposed death of the ex-Emperor with
Napoleon's reward of the would-be assassin of the General (i.e.
Wellington himself), need we ask which is the Giant and which is
the Dwarf?

Other dukes cut a less dignified figure in the lean years which preceded the repeal of the Corn Laws--whether as coal-owners, Protectionists, or strict enforcers of the Game-Laws.

[Footnote 15: Colonel Garwood's selections from the Duke of Wellington's Dispatches.]

Cast from Knockers taken in the vicinities of Sackville Street, Vigo Lane, and Waterloo Place.]

The first hint of the long campaign against the Dukes of Bedford in connexion with "Mud Salad Market" occurs in February, 1844. The Dukes of Sutherland, Atholl, Norfolk and Buckingham all came under the lash. When Lord William Lennox's plagiarisms from Hood and Scott in his novel _The Tuft-hunter_ were exposed, _Punch_ printed this jingling epigram:--

A Duke once declared--and most solemnly too--
That whatever he liked with his own he would do;
But the son of a Duke has gone farther, and shown
He will do what he likes with what isn't his own!

[Sidenote: _Marquesses under the Microscope_]

And the marquesses came off even worse. The eccentric Marquess of Waterford is celebrated for his knocker-hunting exploits in the very first number. The Marquess of Hertford--the original of Thackeray's Marquess of Steyne in _Vanity Fair_--is subjected to posthumous obloquy, _à propos_ of the claim of his valet on his executors, who "were compelled to bring the dead Marquess into Court, that the loathsome dead may declare the greater loathsomeness of the living." The Marquess of Londonderry came under the lash not merely as a rapacious coal-owner, but as a bad writer: "the most noble but not the most grammatical Marquess." So again we are informed respecting the Marquess of Normanby's novels that "they have just declared a dividend of 2½d. in the pound, which is being paid at all the butter shops." One has to wait for nearly ten years for acknowledgment of virtue in the marquisate, but then it is certainly handsome. The occasion was the entrance into power of the Derby-Disraeli (or "Dilly-Dizzy") Cabinet:--

THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE AND THE NEW MINISTRY

The first act of the Ministry in the House of Lords was done with the worst of grace. The Marquis of Lansdowne took farewell of office and of official life. And who was there, among the new men, to do reverence to the unstudied yet touching ceremony? Nobody, save the Earl of Malmesbury. _The Times_ says, and most truly:

"A public life, which has literally embraced the first half of this
century, and which last night was most gracefully concluded,
deserved an ampler and richer tribute than our new Foreign
Secretary seemed able to bestow."

Nothing could be colder, meaner, and certainly more foreign to the heartiness of English generosity than the chip-chip phrases of Lord Malmesbury. It is such men as the Marquis of Lansdowne who are the true strength of the House of Lords. He is a true Englishman. In fifty years of political life his name has never been mixed with aught mean or jobbing. In the most tempestuous times, his voice has been heard amongst the loudest for right. In days when to be a reformer was to take rank a little above a fanatic and a public despoiler, the Marquis of Lansdowne struck at rotten boroughs. He has ever been a patriot in the noblest sense. And there was nobody but cold-mouthed Malmesbury to touch upon his doings? So it is!

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
Those scraps are good deeds past.

But the political deeds of the Marquis of Lansdowne are written in the history of his country. After the wear of fifty years, not one spot rests upon his robes. His coronet borrows worth and lustre from the true, manly, English brain that beats--(and in the serene happiness of honoured age may it long continue to beat!)--beneath it.

[Sidenote: _Educating the House of Lords_]

FIRST CITIZEN: "I say, Bill--I wonder what he calls hisself?"

SECOND DITTO: "Blowed if I know!--but I calls him a Bloated Haristocrat."]

As for peers in general, _Punch's_ views may be gathered from his scheme for the Reform of the House of Lords issued in the same year:--

It is an indisputable truth that there can be no such being as a
born legislator. As unquestionable is the fact that there may be a
born ass.

We are not proving that fact--only stating it--_pace_ your
word-snapper on the look-out for a snap.

But your born ass may be born to your legislator's office, and
command a seat in the house of legislators by inheritance, as in
not a few examples, wherein the coronet hides not the donkey's
ears.

The object of a Reform in the House of Lords should be to keep the
asinines of the aristocracy out of it: so that the business of the
country may be no more impeded by their braying, or harmed by their
kicking.

Nobody is a physician by birth. Even the seventh son of a seventh
son must undergo an examination before he is allowed to prescribe a
dose of physic for an old woman.

But any eldest son, or other male relation, of a person of a
certain order is chartered, as such, to physic the body corporate:
which is absurd.

Now, the Reform we propose for the House of Lords, is, not to admit
any person, whose only claim to membership is that of having been
born a Peer, to practise his profession without examination.

Examine him in the Alphabet--there have been Peers who didn't know
that. In reading, writing, and arithmetic: you already make a
Lord--the Mayor of London--count hobnails. In history--for he is to
help furnish materials for its next page. In geography, astronomy,
and the use of the globes; which, being indispensable to ladies,
are _a fortiori_ to be required of Lords. In political economy, the
physiology of the Constitution which he will have to treat. In
medicine, that he may understand the analogies of national and
individual therapeutics; and also learn not to patronize
homoeopaths and other quacks. In geology, that he may acquire a
philosophical idea of pedigree, by comparing the bones of his
ancestors with those of the ichthyosaurus, or the foundation of his
house with the granite rocks. In the arts and sciences, generally,
which it will be his business to promote, if he does his business.
In literature, that he may cultivate it; at least, respect it, and
stand up for the liberty of unlicensed printing, instead of
insulting and calumniating the Press.

This is our scheme of Peerage Reform, to which the principal
objection we anticipate is, that it is impracticable, because it
can't be done; and that, warned by the confusion and disorder that
has resulted from change in foreign nations, we should shrink from
touching a time-honoured institution; which is as much as to say,
that because our neighbours have divided their carotid arteries, we
had better not shave ourselves.

To "most noble fatuities," "Lord White Sticks," privileged gamblers, extravagant guardsmen, pluralists (among whom the Greys and Elliots are specially attacked), and their fulsome upholders in the Press, scant mercy is shown. Some exceptions are made: Lord Mahon for his interest in the drama and art; Lord Albemarle for his views on the Reform of the Marriage Laws; Lord St. Leonards for cutting down Chancery pleadings and all the "awful and costly machinery of word spinning" connected therewith. With Lord Brougham, who was so long one of _Punch's_ favourite butts, we deal elsewhere. But neither he nor Sugden (Lord St. Leonards) belonged to the "Old Nobility"; they were not ranked with the "snobbish peers" who opposed the education of the masses or the appointment of a Minister of Education, or wanted to keep poor children out of the London parks, a topic referred to more than once.

Aristocratic nepotism is another favourite theme of satire: the classic example being furnished by the famous telegram sent during the Crimean War by Lord Panmure, when Secretary for War, to Lord Raglan: "Take care of Dowb." "Dowb." was Captain Dowbiggin, a relative of Lord Panmure's. Hence the epigram:--

CE N'EST QUE LE PREMIER PAS QUI COÛTE

"The reform of our army," should Panmure ask, "how begin?"
"By not taking," says _Punch_, "quite so much care of Dowbiggin."

With Bulwer Lytton a long feud was maintained, but it was not as a peer but as a writer and a sophisticated snob that he earned the dislike of _Punch_, who published (February 28, 1846) Tennyson's retort on his traducer. In later years, however, a complete reconciliation took place.

[Sidenote: _Thackeray on Great Folks_]

_Punch_ saw no inherent virtue in peers or peerages. He welcomed the bestowal of one on Macaulay; he applauded the decision of Peel's family in declining the honour after his death. Mentions by name of noble personages in his pages in this period are more often hostile than friendly. He agreed with Tennyson that "kind hearts are more than coronets," but he was far from maintaining that they were incompatible. Thackeray, who, as we know, did not see eye to eye with Douglas Jerrold, and found his constant anti-aristocratic invective tiresome, redressed the balance, notably in "Mr. Brown's Letters to a Young Man about Town." Discoursing on good women, in whose company you can't think evil, he says you may find them in the suburbs and Mayfair, and, again:--

The great comfort of the society of great folks is that they do not
trouble themselves about your twopenny little person, as smaller
persons do, but take you for what you are--a man kindly and
good-natured, or witty and sarcastic, or learned and eloquent, or a
good _raconteur_, or a very handsome man, or an excellent gourmand
and judge of wine--or what not. Nobody sets you so quickly at your
ease as a fine gentleman. I have seen more noise made about a
Knight's lady than about the Duchess of Fitz-Battleaxe herself; and
Lady Mountararat, whose family dates from the Deluge, enter and
leave a room, with her daughters the lovely Ladies Eve and Lilith
D'Arc, with much less pretension, and in much simpler capotes and
what-do-you-call-'ems, than Lady de Mogins, or Mrs. Shindy, who
quit an assembly in a whirlwind, with trumpets and alarums like a
stage King and Queen.

SOCIETY--EXCLUSIVE, GENTEEL, AND SHABBY GENTEEL

For the manners and customs of High Life in the 'forties and 'fifties _Punch_ cannot be regarded as a first-rate authority for the excellent reason that, with the exception of Thackeray, none of the staff had the _entrée_ to these exalted circles. They were busy, hard-worked, often overworked, journalists and officials, and their recreations and diversions did not bring them into intimate contact with the dwellers in Mayfair or Belgravia. They kept a watchful eye upon the extravagances and vagaries of High Life, but mainly as it revealed itself in its public form or in politics. In the study of the Geology of Society, which appeared in one of his earliest numbers, _Punch_ subdivides the three main strata of Society--High Life, Middle Life, Low Life--into various classes. The superior, or St. James's series, contains people wearing coronets, related to coronets, expecting coronets. Thence we pass to the Russell Square group, and the Clapham group, and thence to the "inferior series" resident in Whitechapel and St. Giles, and it was of these groups, especially the transitional, genteel and shabby genteel, that _Punch_, in his earliest days, had most first-hand knowledge.

[Sidenote: _Almack's_]

The exclusiveness of fashionable society cannot be better illustrated than by the existence of such an institution as Almack's. It was nothing less than a stroke of genius on the part of that shrewd Scot from Galloway--Almack is said to have been an inversion of his real name, MacCaul, though another account of his origin represents him as a Yorkshire Quaker--who came to London as a valet to the Duke of Hamilton, and, soon after starting Almack's Club, a fashionable resort for aristocratic gamblers, afterwards merged in Brooks's, opened the famous Assembly Rooms in King Street, St. James's, where, for more than seventy-five years, weekly subscription balls were held during the twelve weeks of the London season. Almack gave his name to the Assembly Rooms, but the management was entirely vested in the hands of a committee of lady patronesses of the highest rank and fashion, who distributed the ten-guinea tickets. By the beginning of the nineteenth century it was "the seventh heaven of the fashionable world to be introduced to Almack's." Grantley Berkeley, who frequented the Assembly Rooms in their golden prime, speaks of the committee as "a feminine oligarchy, less in number, but equal in power to the Venetian Council of Ten." They issued the tickets "for the gratification of the _crême de la crême_ of Society, with a jealous watchfulness to prevent the intrusion of the plebeian rich or the untitled vulgar; and they drew up a code of laws, for the select who received invitations, which they, at least, meant to be as unalterable as those of the Medes and Persians."[16] Great care was taken that the supply of _débutantes_ should not exceed the demand, and so many engagements were entered into to the accompaniment of Collinet's band that Almack's was regarded as, perhaps, the greatest matrimonial market of the aristocracy. The maximum attendance recorded was seventeen hundred. Almack himself died in 1781, bequeathing the Assembly Rooms to his niece, who married Willis, after whom they were subsequently named. By 1840 their glory had largely departed, but so serious a review as the _Quarterly_ wrote respectfully of their decline: "The palmy days of exclusiveness are gone by in England. Though it is obviously impossible to prevent any given number of persons from congregating and re-establishing an oligarchy, we are quite sure that the attempt would be ineffectual, and that the sense of their importance would extend little beyond the set." Yet Almack's lingered for several years. In its august precincts, which had welcomed and sanctioned the waltz (originally condemned as an unseemly exhibition), the ravages of the successor of the waltz and quadrille--the polka--are described by _Punch_ (after Byron) in the lament of the sentimental young lady at the close of the season of 1844. The craze for dancing was not so widely diffused as in 1920, but to judge from the "History, Symptoms, and Progress of the Polkamania," all strata of Society were affected:--

[Footnote 16: _Vide_ Grantley Berkeley's _Recollections_.]

1. My Polka before Six Lessons.

2. My Polka after Six Lessons.]

[Sidenote: _Polkamania_]

AN "AT HOME". YE POLKA.]

That obstinate and tormenting disease, the Polkamania, is said to
have originated in Bohemia; in consequence, we may presume from
analogy, of the bite of some rabid insect like the Tarantula
Spider, although the Polka Spider has not yet been described by
entomologists; but, when discovered, it probably will be under the
name of _Aranea Polkapoietica_. The Polkamania, after raging
fiercely for some time in the principal cities of the Continent, at
length made its appearance in London, having been imported by M.
Jullien, who inoculated certain Countesses and others with its
specific virus, which he is said to have obtained from a Bohemian
nobleman. The form of its eruption was at first circular,
corresponding to the circles of fashion; but it has now extended to
the whole body of society, including its lowest members. Its chief
symptoms are extraordinary convulsions and wild gesticulations of
the limbs, with frequent stampings on the floor, and rotatory
movements of the body, such as accompany lesions of the
_cerebellum_. That part is said by Gall to be the organ of
amativeness; and the Polka delirium, in several instances, has
terminated in love-madness. This form of mania, in the female
subject, displays itself, partly, in a passion for fantastic
finery; as fur trimmings, red, green and yellow boots, and other
strange bedizenments. Articles of dress, indeed, seem capable of
propagating the contagion; for there are Polka Pelisses and Polka
Tunics; now, it was but the other day that we met with some Polka
Wafers, so that the Polkamania seems communicable by all sorts of
things that put it into people's heads. In this respect it
obviously resembles the Plague; but not in this respect only; for,
go where you will, you are sure to be plagued with it. After
committing the greatest ravages in London itself, it attacked the
suburbs, whence it quickly spread to remote districts, and there is
now not a hamlet in Great Britain which it does not infest more or
less. Its chief victims are the young and giddy; but as yet it has
not been known to prove fatal, although many, ourselves included,
have complained of having been bored to death by it. No cure has as
yet been proposed for Polkamania; but perhaps an antidote,
corresponding to vaccination, in the shape of some new jig or other
variety of the caper, may prove effectual: yet, after all, it may
be doubted if the remedy would not be worse than the disease.

Very little change would be needed to fit the above to the Jazzmania of to-day. The polka had a long innings. When the 'forties opened, the waltz and the quadrille were firmly entrenched in fashionable favour. The waltz, as we write, shows signs of rearing its diminished head, but the quadrille, in those days a most elaborate business with a variety of figures--La Pastorale, L'Été, La Trénitz, La Poule, etc.--is dead beyond redemption. But the polka mania raged with little abatement for a good ten years.[17] In 1844, amongst other advertisements of teachers of the art of dancing, was that of a young lady who had been instructed by a Bohemian nobleman. In spite of much ridicule and many appeals (in which Thackeray joined) for the suppression of the pest, the malady was described as still acute in the dog-days of 1856, and, in more subdued phases, lasted for another fifty years. The mazurka also came into vogue in the mid-'forties, but was never a serious rival to the polka in its prime. It was an age of famous professional dancers--Taglioni (who gave her name to an overcoat), Fanny Ellsler, Cerito, and Grisi, the cousin of the _prima-donna_; but though there were schools of dancing, and _Thés dansants_, which _Punch_ heavily ridiculed, and though the fashionables occasionally secured the exclusive use of the lawns at Cremorne, there was no competition between amateurs and professionals, as in modern times. The latter were left the monopoly of the higher flights of the art. Besides the polka, the accomplishments of the young lady of fashion were mainly decorative. If they did not toil or spin, at least they occupied themselves with fancy knitting, crochet, and the practice of Poonah painting--an early and crude imitation of Oriental art, so popular that the advertisements of instructors in "Indian Poonah painting" figure in the newspapers and directories of the time. The fashionable pets were spaniels, macaws, and Persian cats. The prevailing tastes in art and letters in fashionable or genteel society are (allowing for a little exaggeration) not badly hit off in a paper on the Natural History of Courtship, giving hints for the nice conduct of conversation at a social gathering:--

[Footnote 17: A correspondent wrote to _The Times_ in 1846 complaining that at Ramsgate "the ladies dance polkas in their bathing dresses," and suggesting a stricter supervision of the proprieties by policemen.]

[Sidenote: _Modish Futilities_]

It hath been wisely ordained, wherever two individuals of opposite
sexes are standing side by side, that during the pauses of "the
figure," or otherwise, the gentleman shall ask the lady if she be
fond of dancing; the reply will be, "Yes, very," for it is known to
be an unvarying rule that all young ladies are fond of dancing.
That, therefore, affords no clue, nor indeed much subject for
converse; hence another question succeeds, "Are you fond of music?"
Answer, without exception, "Yes"--general rule as before; but when
the rejoinder comes, "What instrument 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.

[Sidenote: _"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.

[Footnote 18: George Alexander Lee (1802-51), son of a London publican and pugilist, "tiger" to Lord Barrymore, and subsequently tenor singer, music seller, lessee of Drury Lane, composer and music director at the Strand and Olympic Theatres. Among his many songs and ballads, popular in their day, were "Away, Away to the Mountain's Brow," "The Macgregor's Gathering," and "Come where the Aspens Quiver."]

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."

[Sidenote: _Verrey and Gunter_]

A FASHIONABLE CLUB--FOUR O'CLOCK P.M.]

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, holding such a place, and knowing that 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?

[Footnote 19: _Who's Who_ first appeared in 1849. In those days it was little more than a bare list of dignitaries and officials. It was not until 1897 that the personal note was sounded and details added which have swelled the slim volume to its present portentous bulk.]

[Sidenote: _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."

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]

[Footnote 20: "Twankay," constantly used at this time as an equivalent for tea, after the name of the district of Taung Kei in China.]

[Sidenote: _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.

DOORKEEPER: "Beg your pardon, Sir--but must, indeed, Sir, be in full dress."

SNOB (excited): "Full dress!! Why, what do you call this?"]

[Sidenote: _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 of word, we admit, but one
peculiarly adapted to our purpose--are to us more painful than
ludicrous; and the labouring man, dressed in the usual costume of
his class, is in our eyes far more respectable than the Gent, in
his dreary efforts to assume a style and _tournure_ which he is so
utterly incapable of carrying out.

_Punch_ was a sincere lover of his country and her Constitution. When foreigners criticized England or the English he was up in arms in a moment. John Bull, he declared, _à propos_ of the suspicion of the French Government, was the best natured, most kindly, and tolerant fellow in the world. But this conviction never stood in the way of his playing the candid friend to and dealing faithfully with his countrymen on all possible occasions. As a comprehensive indictment of their failings it would be hard to beat or to improve upon the following list of the things an Englishman likes:--

An Englishman likes a variety of things. For instance, nothing is
more to his liking than: To talk largely about Art, and to have
the worst statues and monuments that ever disgraced a metropolis!

To inveigh against the grinding tyrannies practised upon poor
needlewomen and slop-tailors, and yet to patronize the shops where
cheap shirts and clothes are sold!

To purchase a bargain, no matter whether he is in want of it or
not!

To reward native talent, with which view he supports Italian
operas, French plays, German singers, and in fact gives gold to the
foreigners in exchange for the brass they bring him!

To talk sneeringly against tuft-hunting and all tuft-hunters, and
yet next to running after a lord, nothing delights him more than to
be seen in company with one!

To rave about his public spirit and independence, and with the
greatest submission to endure perpetually a tax[21] that was only
put on for three years!

To brag about his politeness and courteous demeanour in public, and
to scamper after the Queen whenever there is an opportunity of
staring at her!

To boast of his cleanliness, and to leave uncovered (as in the
Thames) the biggest sewer in the world!

To pretend to like music, and to tolerate the Italian organs and
the discordant musicians that infest his streets!

To inveigh against bad legislation, and to refrain in many
instances from exercising the franchise he pays so dearly for!

To admit the utility of education, and yet to exclude from its
benefits every one who is not of the same creed as himself!

And lastly, an Englishman dearly likes:

To grumble, no matter whether he is right or wrong, crying or
laughing, working or playing, gaining a victory or smarting under a
national humiliation, paying or being paid--still he must grumble,
and in fact he is never so happy as when he is grumbling; and,
supposing everything was to his satisfaction (though it says a
great deal for our power of assumption to assume any such absurd
impossibilities), still he would grumble at the fact of there being
nothing for him to grumble about!

[Footnote 21: The income tax. _Punch_ knew better, and prophesied from the very outset that it would never come off.]

_Punch_ certainly exercised the national privilege of grumbling to the full, though the shafts of his satire were sometimes of the nature of boomerangs. We can sympathize with him when, in his list of "things and persons that should emigrate," he includes "all persons who give imitations of actors; all quack doctors and advertising professors; all young men who smoke before the age of fifteen, and young ladies who wear ringlets after the age of thirty," as fit for "dumping." But he runs the risk of the _Quis tulerit Gracchos_ retort when he bans "all punsters and conundrum makers." In the main he was a strenuous supporter of education, especially elementary education, and the recognition and reward of men of science and letters, but, along with his general support of literary and scientific institutions, he seldom missed a chance of making game of learned societies, beginning with the British Association. The ignorance of candidates for appointments in the Civil Service does not escape his reforming zeal, when in 1857 no fewer than 44 per cent. were rejected for bad spelling; yet in 1852 we find him publishing a picture of a Japanese as a black man.

[Sidenote: _Desirable Emigrants_]

SMALL SWELL (who has just finished a quadrille): "H'm, thank goodness that's over. Don't give me your bread-and-butter Misses to dance with--I prefer grown Women of the World!"

(N.B. The bread-and-butter Miss had asked him how old he was, and when he went back to school.)]

JAPANESE: "We won't have Free Trade. Our ports are closed, and shall remain so."

AMERICAN: "Then we will open our ports, and convince you that you're wrong."]

[Sidenote: _Exploiting the Dead_]

Spiritualism invaded England from America at the end of the 'forties; the mania for table-turning dates from 1852, and in 1855 the famous "medium" Daniel Dunglas Home (the original of Browning's "Sludge") paid his first visit to England. From the very first _Punch's_ attitude was hostile, sceptical, even derisive; and he was one of the first to condemn the harrying of humble fortune-tellers while fashionable and expensive exponents of clairvoyance were immune from prosecution. Crystal-gazing is mentioned in 1851. Playing upon words, in the _Almanack_ for 1852 we read: "It is related as astonishing that there are some clairvoyants who can see right through anybody; but that is not so very strange. The wonder is that there should be anybody who cannot see through the clairvoyant." In 1853 it was seriously suggested by a mesmerist in the _Morning Post_ that he could get into communication with Sir John Franklin; this _Punch_ promptly pilloried, as, too, a little later, he did a reference to a play alleged to have been dictated by Shakespeare's spirit. In 1857 _Punch_ solemnly vouches for the authenticity of the following advertisement under the heading "Spirits by retail":--

COMMUNICATIONS with the SPIRIT OF WASHINGTON for Oracular
Revelation of public fact and duty; responses tendered relative to
Executive or Governmental, State or Diplomatic, National or
Personal questions on affairs of moment for their more ready and
appropriate solution, and the special use of official,
Congressional and editorial intelligence. Address "Washington
Medium," Post Office, Box 628, Washington, D.C. No letter (except
for an interview) will be answered unless it encloses one dollar,
and only the first five questions of any letter with but one dollar
will have a reply. Number your questions and preserve copies of
them.

Sober and instructed opinion has always shown this distrust, but _Punch_ was not always justified in his treatment of new arts and discoveries. He quite failed to recognize the importance and the possibilities of photography, the early references to which are uniformly disparaging. There was at least this excuse for his want of foresight, that for many years the professional photographer was destitute of any artistic feeling or training save in the purely mechanical side of his calling. In representing him as combining photography with hairdressing or other even more menial trades, _Punch_ was not indulging in exaggeration. The mere name "photographer" called up the image of a seedy, weedy little man who suggested an unsuccessful artist by his dress and whose "studio" was a shabby chamber of theatrical horrors, in which the subject was clamped and screwed into rigidity by instruments of torture. In the 'fifties photography was already exploited as a means of advertising actors, actresses and even popular preachers, but it had not begun to be thought of as a means of social _réclame_. Apart from politicians and public characters little limelight was shed on personality. The relations between the Stage and Society were curiously different from those which prevail to-day. _Punch_ was a great champion of the legitimate drama. Douglas Jerrold had been a prolific and successful, though not prosperous, playwright, and other members of the staff had written for the stage. The disregard of serious native talent by the Court[22] and the fashionable world was a constant theme of bitter comment. But _Punch_ shows no eagerness for the bestowal of official recognition on actors; when the question of knighthoods was mooted, he expressed apprehension lest they should be conferred upon the upholsterers rather than the upholders of the Drama. With that form of mummer-worship which took the form of the publication of personal gossip about actors he had no sympathy, and even satirized it in a burlesque account of the daily life of an imaginary low comedian. On occasions when actors resented the tone of dramatic criticism, as in the quarrel between Charles Mathews and the _Morning Chronicle_, _Punch_ stood for the liberty of the Press. Against sensationalism, horrors, plays based on crime, and the cult of monstrosity _Punch_ waged unceasing war, but he was no prude. Those who were always on the look out for offence were sure to find it: "certain it is that whenever a father of a family visits a theatre, something verging on impropriety takes place." So again he falls foul of the inconsistent prudery which allowed a performance of _La Dame aux Camélias_ at Exeter Hall in 1857, but prohibited an English translation of the words.

[Footnote 22: "As well hope to touch, Memnon-like, the statue of Queen Anne into mourning music, as to awaken generous impulses in the House of Hanover towards art, or science or letters." The payment of 13s. 4d. each to actors at a Royal Command performance provokes a sarcastic reference to the Court Almoner Extraordinary.]

[Sidenote: _"Punch's" Respect for Decorum_]