OKI
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 , 
 

 
 CLUB CAMEOS: 
 
 PORTRAITS OF THE DAY. 
 
 ' Quemvis media elige turba ; 
 Aut ob avaritiam, aut misera ambitione laborat.' 
 
 HORACE, Satires, lib. i. iv. 
 
 WITH SIXTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS BY RUPERT BROWNE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, 
 
 CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET. 
 I8 79 . 
 
 [All rights resented.]
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. THE HOUSE . 
 
 o 
 
 II. THE PRIVATE SECRETARY .... 29 
 
 III. THE GUARDSMAN 
 
 ol 
 
 IV. PATRIOTISM . _. 
 
 /O 
 
 V. LETTERS 
 
 y 4 
 
 VI. THE CLUB ...... 195 
 
 VIL M. F. H. 
 
 ... lol 
 
 VIII. CULTURE ...... 17 - 
 
 IX. FINANCE ..... OQ1 
 
 x - WITS .... 
 
 ........ .091 
 
 XL THE OLD SCHOOL ...... 2 47 
 
 XII. SOCIAL AMBITION ...... 269 
 
 XIII. BOHEMIA 
 
 ... zyi 
 
 XIV. A PARASITE ....... ;513 
 
 XV. AGITATION oo 
 
 20O0588
 
 THE HOUSE. 
 
 B
 
 THE HOUSE. 
 
 WITHIN the last two generations a revolution, bloodless, 
 gradual, and unobtrusive, but none the less radical and 
 subversive, has been working within our midst. Si- 
 lently, yet surely, the invading forces of Wealth and 
 Competition have marched into the once exclusive terri- 
 tory of Privilege, and dethroned her from her narrow 
 and haughty position. We have had the age of the 
 feudal system, when knightly deeds were the passport 
 to distinction; we have had the age of superstition, 
 when the priesthood was supreme; we have had the 
 intellectual age, when literary activity was the highway 
 to fame ; we have had the dissipated age, when gal- 
 lantry was the only education of the satellites of fashion; 
 and now in this nineteenth century we have, in all. its 
 glory, ostentation, power, and vulgarity, the Age of 
 
 Money : 
 
 * omnis enitn res, 
 
 Virtus, fama, decus, divina humanaque, pulchris 
 Divitiis parent ; quas qui contraxerit, ille 
 Clarus erit, fortis, Justus Sapiensne ? Etiam ! et rex, 
 Et quicquid volet.' 
 
 Disguise it as we may, wealth is the governing force in
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 our social system. Birth has its limits, intellect is 
 fettered by restrictions ; ready money alone amongst us 
 can walk erect straight on to its goal, and be master of 
 all it surveys. "What barrier opposes it ? It surmounts 
 its newly-found escutcheon with a coronet, and takes its 
 seat amongst the Howards and the Talbots of the House 
 of Lords. It is sworn of the Privy Council and is 
 enrolled in the Cabinet. It takes the oath before the 
 Speaker, and is the representative of wealthy shires and 
 important boroughs. It buys up lands, castles, halls, 
 and manor-houses ; it is put into the commission of the 
 peace, wears the scarlet and silver of the deputy-lieu- 
 tenant and the gorgeous uniform of the yeomanry, and 
 constitutes itself an important section of the landed 
 gentry. It contracts brilliant marriages ; it enters, 
 and sometimes leads, society ; its sons officer the crack 
 regiments; its daughters command the matrimonial 
 market ; in short, there is no boundary to its ambition, 
 no confine to its power. Instead of the pedigree-chart 
 we have substituted the banker's-book. 
 
 There was a time, however, and that not very long 
 ago, when wealth and social position did not necessarily 
 go hand in hand together. Birth had its sphere and 
 bullion its own circle. Commerce drew its votaries from 
 its own set, leaving the higher things in life to its 
 betters. An unbridged gulf stood between the moneyed
 
 THE HOUSE. 
 
 proletarian and the haughty aristocrat. It was right 
 that the aristocrat should dance at Almack's, should play 
 his rubber at "White's, should command his troop in the 
 Blues or the First Life Guards, should be returned for a 
 close borough, and burden the state with his sinecures. 
 
 It was his right, his due, the necessary consequences 
 that ancient lineage entailed. As for the City man, he 
 had his ambition and settled career : let him become a 
 director of the East India Company or the Bank of
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 England, a member of the Court of Aldermen, Lord 
 Mayor, the warden of a company, or anything that 
 the commercial classes might aspire after ; but forbid it. 
 Heaven, that his vulgar figure should obtrude itself into 
 the coteries of society, that his plebeian hands should 
 shuffle the cards in an exclusive club, that his sons 
 should be attached to embassies or obtain commissions 
 in crack regiments, that he should oust the landed 
 gentry from the soil, and deem himself the equal of 
 men whose ancestry dated back to the Conquest ! 
 
 Such were the views views as old as the days 
 of Aristotle and of Plato that society held as to 
 the position of commerce until the beginning of this 
 century. Trade was ignoble ; the only occupations 
 fit for ' a gentleman' were arms, diplomacy, the Bar, 
 and the Church. But such narrow teaching exists 
 no more. Commerce, with its splendid fortunes, its 
 exciting career, its rapid profits, has cast the professions 
 into the shade, and counts among its followers some of 
 the best blood in the land. What is the income of a 
 leading barrister, of a renowned physician, of a bishop, 
 or an ambassador, or a statesman, when compared with 
 the colossal profits of a great tea-broker, corn-merchant,, 
 brewer, distiller, warehouseman, stockbroker, or of that 
 omnivorous creature the general merchant ? No wonder 
 that the sons of peers gladly accept partnerships in good
 
 THE HOUSE. 
 
 firms, that dandies go on 'Change, and that the voice of 
 Fashion declares that l there is nothing like trade now- 
 adays.' Privilege, with its airs and graces, its comfort 
 
 and convenience, its patronage and its injustice, is dead 
 and buried, and over its newly-raised mausoleum Capital 
 and Competition dance in jubilant triumph. 
 
 I am led to make these reflections whenever I have 
 the pleasure of meeting my friend Mr. Angus Me Welder, 
 the wealthy iron-master east of the Clyde, and member
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 for the Forge Burghs. In none of our institutions has 
 Reform, been more busy with its abolitions and inno- 
 vations than with the House of Commons. Before the 
 measures of 1832 and 1867 became law, a young man 
 of good blood or of great ability could take his seat 
 upon the green benches of the Lower House as the 
 nominee of some powerful peer or opulent squire, with- 
 out being put to the expense of a single farthing. In 
 this easy fashion the second Pitt, Canning, and Macaulay 
 entered the House of Commons. But at the present 
 day, thanks to Eeform Bills and the establishment of 
 Election judges, to become a member of Parliament 
 (save in certain exceptional cases, where brilliant 
 talent or a hereditary name specially recommends 
 itself to a constituency) requires money, and in many 
 instances money alone. "What chance has the most 
 glib barrister or the most clever adventurer against 
 some local plutocrat who builds a new wing to the town 
 hospital, erects almshouses for the poor, subscribes 
 liberally to the racecourse, gives cups at regatta meet- 
 ings, and on all occasions drops his money as freely 
 perhaps as he does his 7i's ? "What chance has an un- 
 known new-comer, with a few hundreds advanced to 
 him out of the funds of the political committee of his 
 club, against the man of capital who has been * nursing' 
 the borough for years in the expectation of a vacancy,
 
 THE HOUSE. 
 
 and who, in spite of bribery and corruption clauses, lets 
 the inhabitants of the town know perfectly well that if 
 they stand by him he will be their friend, spend his 
 money amongst them, look after their local interests, 
 and assist them in all their urban improvements ? 
 
 Two things are now requisite to obtain a seat in 
 Parliament money and a long courtship to the shire or 
 borough selected by the candidate. The consequence 
 is that these conditions cause the House of Commons 
 of the present day to be a somewhat dull assembly ; 
 its members having taken to politics late in life, there is 
 an absence of that youthful talent which made the 
 House bright with its keen wit in the ' good old times' 
 of close boroughs and nomination boroughs. 
 
 From what I hear of Mr. McWelder, he is not cal- 
 culated, either by his wit or his eloquence, to enliven 
 the character of the debates. He is interested in but 
 one subject the sewage question ; and as the word 
 ' manure,' which he calls, by the way, ' manyer,' enters 
 largely into the composition of his speeches, the wags 
 have christened him ' Old Guano.' No matter what 
 may be before the House the Estimates, affairs in the 
 East, the repair of a turret- ship, Church reform, and 
 the like as sure as McWelder rises to speak, so sure 
 will the current of his eloquence finally flow into the 
 drainage question, until cries of ' Order, order !' i Ques-
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 tion!' and a friendly tug at his coat-tails from his 
 nearest neighbour brings him down from the lofty 
 height of his subject to his seat. The appearance of 
 McWelder is not in his favour. His face is red and 
 
 rough like a Highland steer, and crowned with light 
 sandy hair which is turning gray at the roots. His eyes 
 are small, and their expression marred by a most 
 diabolical squint, caused apparently by a constant ex- 
 amination of a great wart which nestles closely at the
 
 THE HOUSE. 
 
 side of his fleshy and flexible nose. His chest and barrel 
 are huge and tremulous, and supported by short sturdy 
 legs as bandy as the timbers of a sugar-cask. He 
 speaks a language intelligible, I believe, to the mem- 
 bers of his family, but which requires great care and 
 attention on the part of the stranger to master. At 
 times when excited upon his favourite topic, or indignant 
 with one of the morning -room waiters because the 
 Scotsman has been mislaid or the Glasgow Herald has 
 not arrived, I am fearful lest his burrs and his brogue 
 should force the roof off his mouth. 
 
 Like many men whose appearance is somewhat 
 repelling, he is the essence of kindliness. The nut 
 is coarse and shaggy, but the kernel is sweet and 
 tender. "When you know him he talks simply of 
 himself, and owns with pride that he began life by 
 trundling a wheelbarrow in one of his own quarries. 
 On most Wednesdays and Saturdays he engages the 
 largest table in the strangers' dining-room of the 
 Caravanserai, and feasts his constituents, men as red, 
 as unwieldy, and as loud and singsong in their talk 
 as himself, and who sit far into the night over their 
 wassail of 'whusky' in the smoking-room. Next 
 to telling a very long story, always about Scotland 
 and Scotchmen, which is simply incomprehensible from 
 its want of point and constant imitation of dialect to
 
 12 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 any one not hailing from the banks of the Clyde, the 
 delight of Me Welder is to reproduce before any audience 
 that will attend to him, in his own peculiar language, 
 the speeches that were made the night before by the 
 more important members of either House. To listen to 
 my friend you would imagine that he was on the most 
 intimate terms with every member of the Government and 
 of the Opposition, for in conversation he calls them all by 
 their Christian names. If the Earl of Beaconsfield has 
 laid before their lordships in the Upper House some 
 important disclosures as to the state of foreign affairs 
 during a season of grave crisis, Me Welder innocently 
 remarks as he snorts over the Times to me or to some 
 one else of his acquaintance, 'Ye should have hair-r-r-r-r-d 
 Benjamin in the Lor-r-rds last nicht ; it wus jist pair-r-r- 
 fect.' Should the name of the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer crop up, it is Me Welder's opinion ' that Stafford 
 is doing vara weel in the Hoose, leddie; dinna fash 
 yersel, he can hold his ain against William.' When he 
 alludes to the most noble the leader of the Opposition, 
 or to the Eight Honourable the Speaker, he speaks of 
 those august persons in so familiar a manner that you 
 might imagine he was a blood relation of the family. 
 ISTo matter who the man is whose life or whose character 
 is being discussed, whether he be a Cabinet Minister or 
 a judge or an ambassador or a bishop, provided that he
 
 THE HOUSE. 13 
 
 at least be a somebody, McWelder will always make 
 some casual remark about him, and designate him by 
 his Christian name. "Why he does this no one knows, for 
 he is the last man to give himself airs and assume 
 swagger. How he remembers the Christian names of 
 all the great people he so familiarly alludes to is also 
 a puzzle to me. Whisky must be very conducive to a 
 good memory. 
 
 Until I became more intimately acquainted with 
 McWelder, an acquaintance since cemented by a diligent 
 study of Sir Walter Scott and the glossary to Burns's 
 poems, it was a matter of wonder to me why he should 
 have embraced a parliamentary career. He did not want 
 a baronetcy ; he had no social aspirations ; his education, 
 to put it kindly, was imperfect ; he had no strong politi- 
 cal opinions ; he had no special grievances to air. Why, 
 therefore, should an uncouth untutored man, who was 
 the head of a most important manufacturing industry, 
 give up his valuable time, neglect his business, and 
 incur a grave expenditure to embark upon a career for 
 which he was both socially and intellectually unfitted ? 
 The question is a reasonable one; let me therefore 
 answer it from information that I afterwards received. 
 Mr. McWelder, as soon as Fortune began to smile upon 
 him, and iron to claim him for its own, took unto him- 
 self a wife, the daughter of a large manufacturer at
 
 i 4 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 Galashiels. For several years their married life kept 
 the even tenor of its way. McWelder, engrossed by 
 his commercial operations, had very little time for 
 anything else, and what leisure fell to him was spent 
 in improving the magnificent estate he had lately 
 purchased from a Scotch peer, whose descent was as 
 rapid as Me Welder's ascent. As Mrs. McWelder an- 
 nually for some seven years presented her lord and 
 iron-master with pledges of her love with the most 
 painful punctuality, she naturally had little opportunity 
 for idleness. When she wanted change of air, she was 
 delighted with a tour in the Highlands, or with the 
 shooting-box on her husband's moors; and when she 
 thought a little society would do her good, she and her 
 husband took a house in Edinburgh for the winter. 
 Neither their thoughts nor their ambition went beyond 
 their being happy and useful in the position that Provi- 
 dence had placed them. Fond of her husband and of her 
 children, Mrs. Me Welder's life was one most equal and 
 contented. But the serpent was on the trail to poison 
 her with its venom. 
 
 It so happened that a Mr. McMashem of Ayr, a 
 wealthy brewer and intimate friend of Me Welder's, was 
 returned to Parliament for Vatlivat. Mrs. McMashem 
 now lorded it over poor Mrs. McWelder, though they 
 had been at school together and had learnt the West-
 
 THE HOUSE. 15 
 
 minster Catechism together, to an extent not to be 
 borne by human endurance. She took the pas of her on 
 every occasion. She laughed at the people of Glasgow ; 
 she ridiculed the clerical and legal society of Edinburgh ; 
 she took her children from a Scotch boarding-school and 
 sent them to Rugby ; she quitted the Free Church 
 and became an Episcopalian ; she affected to talk Eng- 
 lish; and in short, she pooh-poohed everything and 
 everybody about her. ' There was only one place to 
 live in, and that was London,' she said over and over 
 again to Mrs. Me Welder. Indeed, the good lady brewed 
 mischief as her husband brewed beer. 
 
 The die was cast. Nothing would now satisfy 
 Mrs. Me Welder but that her husband should enter 
 Parliament, and she be on a footing of equality with 
 that 'ojous' Mrs. McMashem. Need I say that 
 when a lady takes anything very violently into her 
 head nothing on the earth beneath or in the waters 
 under the earth will prevent her from attaining her 
 object? Me Welder felt that if his life was to be 
 bearable he must submit to his wife's wishes. He 
 was somewhat disturbed in his mind as to which 
 political party he should attach himself. Should he be 
 a Eaadical, or should he be a Conservative ? His 
 impartial wife came to his rescue. c Ah, Angus, dinna 
 fash yersel aboot political opeenions; jist enter the
 
 1 6 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 Hoose o' Commons for ainy toon that'll tak ye! Ye 
 can think of opeenions aifter !' The prospect of an 
 immediate vacancy in the Forge Burghs which had 
 been Tory since Sheriffmuir decided Me Welder to 
 enrol himself in the ranks of the ' Consairvative' party. 
 He hurried up to London, saw the political agent, and 
 was interrupted in an eloquent speech upon the purity 
 and fidelity of his political principles by the practical 
 question, What was he prepared to spend ? It was the 
 old story of ' them as pays my rent has my vote.' The 
 Forge Burghs were commercially ambitious: they 
 wanted a new dock ; they wanted a new pier, a good 
 quay, warehouses, harbour drainage, a junction with the 
 North British Eailway, and a few other moderate re- 
 quests. The man who helped them the most in carry- 
 ing out their intentions was sure of being returned. 
 Me Welder came down with his hundreds like a man, 
 and soon caused his opponent a respectable Edinburgh 
 advocate, who could talk a horse's hind leg off upon 
 such questions as education, the Established Church, the 
 law of hypothec, Scotch currency, &c., but whose purse 
 was more slenderly stocked than' his head to desist 
 from canvassing. For the last five years the great 
 iron-master has represented the Forge Burghs. 
 
 It is said that as soon as a man becomes acclimatised 
 to the peculiar atmosphere of the House of Commons he
 
 THE HOUSE. 
 
 cares to breathe no other air. This is the case with 
 Me Welder. Outside St. Stephen's all is now a blank and 
 devoid of interest to him. His eldest son carries on the 
 business, and his wife, thanks to ministerial receptions 
 
 and to her hospitalities at the big house in Cromwell- 
 road, is getting on in London society, and Me Welder is 
 left much to his own devices. He is always at West- 
 minster, and is ever to be depended upon to make up a 
 House ; for when not in the presence of the Speaker or 
 
 c
 
 1 8 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 the Chairman of Committees, he is sure to be in the 
 smoking-room or in the little apartment sacred to the 
 genial Sergeant-at-Arms. He speaks constantly ; but as 
 no one listens to him, he takes his revenge by writing 
 out his speeches (with casual interpolations of i cheers, 7 
 'loud cheers,' 'hear, hear,' and 'laughter') and sending 
 them to his subsidised organ, the Forge Daily Blower. 
 He serves on committees, and it has fallen to my lot 
 occasionally to hear him examine a witness ; one of the 
 clerks has at last been appointed as an interpreter. 
 
 Nothing he more delights in than being attentive 
 to such ladies as he ushers into their latticed gallery. 
 How he hands them their tea ! how he informs them 
 of the customs of the House ! how he points out all the 
 distinguished members, talking of them of course as 
 William and Eobert and John and Henry ! how polite, 
 how garrulous, how egotistic he is ! I fancy he does not 
 tell Mrs. McWelder the names of all the ladies he puts 
 down in the book. On an important night, when the 
 entrance to the lobby is thronged with spectators anxious 
 to obtain admission into the House, how slowly, how 
 majestically he passes the policemen and runs the 
 gauntlet of inquiring eyes ! Surely that bent figure, that 
 thoughtful brow, that absorbed air can belong to none 
 other than a Cabinet Minister full of the grave informa- 
 tion he is about to lay before Parliament! How he
 
 THE HOUSE. 
 
 stands about the lobby, with that peculiar House-of- 
 Commons air which is so different from every other form 
 of swagger, or unites himself to little groups of members, 
 or walks arm-in-arm with a friend, solemn and thought- 
 ful, as if upon his rounded shoulders all the responsi- 
 bilities of the Empire rested ! Yet he is no humbug. 
 Though he thinks there is no club like the House of 
 Commons its chat and gossip the best, its dinners the 
 best, its smoking-room the best, its library the best, 
 and that he would like to be buried in a House of 
 Commons coffin beneath the flags of the Embankment, 
 still he serves his constituents well. He attends to all 
 their local requests; works at what private bills they 
 require; never shirks them when they call upon him; 
 dines with them ; puts their names down for the 
 Speaker's or the Strangers' Gallery ; does his best to get 
 them places in the Customs or the Eevenue ; patronises 
 their sons ; promises a good deal, and fulfils not a little. 
 McWelder is one of the shining lights of the Cara- 
 vanserai (to which splendid establishment I also belong), 
 and he uses the club very frequently. Whenever her 
 Majesty or the Speaker holds a levee, he generally puts 
 in an appearance afterwards in the smoking-room to 
 exhibit the green and gold of his Archer's uniform. 
 The waiters fear him, for his orders are not very 
 intelligible to the Southern ear, and he is apt to be
 
 20 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 irritable when asked to repeat his request. He is fond 
 of the society of young men, many of whom, I regret to 
 say, with the insincerity of youth, eat his dinners, smoke 
 his cigars, dance at his wife's balls, ride his horses, use 
 
 his opera-box, ask him for Speaker's orders, and then 
 behind his back imitate his peculiarities and ridicule his 
 kindnesses. Fortunately Me Welder is not thin-skinned. 
 He can listen unflinchingly to the derisive laughter of 
 the House when turned against him ; he can bear un-
 
 THE HOUSE. 
 
 moved its offensive indifference to his speeches; chaff, 
 innuendoes, invective, are powerless to wound him. 
 "With amusing blindness McWelder is under the impres- 
 sion that he is a practical statesman and a politician of a 
 high order. The office he especially considers himself 
 fitted for is that of President of the Local Government 
 Board. He has lately been elected a member of the 
 committee of the club ; consequently his first duty was 
 to make inquiry into its drainage system. Undoubtedly, 
 as Me Welder says, a special knowledge of any subject 
 is always useful in the House of Commons; but it is 
 doubtful to me whether my friend's i special knowledge' 
 is of such a nature as to bear him on its unsavoury tide 
 to office, however humble. His seat is sure ; his fortune 
 large ; his wife is avaricious after social honours ; he 
 has spent a good deal of money for i the party :' it would 
 not therefore surprise me if some day we should see on 
 the panels of the gorgeous barouche that occasionally 
 waits for Me Welder outside the Caravanserai, the blood- 
 red hand. 
 
 There must be something terribly fascinating in par- 
 liamentary life which the stranger to its existence fails 
 to understand or sympathise with. "When I see a man 
 like McWelder not only interested in, but engrossed by, 
 his duties, it is evident that St. Stephen's has charms* 
 which she only displays to those admitted within her
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 circle. The social distinction that once attended upon 
 the letters M.P. cannot be the attraction, for at the 
 present day many of our legislators are little better than 
 town councillors. It cannot be the prizes of the profes- 
 sion, for out of the six hundred and odd members how 
 many draw salary from the Treasury ? "Why should a 
 man abandon his business, give up much of his leisure, 
 be absent from the country when it is most beautiful, 
 live for many hours in a close atmosphere, keep late 
 hours, have to attend to often dull and laborious work, 
 spend his money, receive no pay, and be on terms of 
 acquaintanceship with a vast number of people many of 
 whom in all probability are repulsive to him, and all for 
 the honour of being returned to Parliament ? Yet, con- 
 sidering how every seat is competed for, there must be 
 some powerful attraction in the green benches of the 
 House of Commons, which we, who are not under the 
 wand of the magician, fail to comprehend. I can under- 
 stand certain men the venal, the ambitious, the intel- 
 lectually active embracing a political career ; they may 
 win or they may lose ; still the struggle is worth the 
 effort. "What I cannot understand is, why the men 
 who constitute the majority of the House of Commons, 
 the men who cannot hope to get anything, who flo not 
 even wish to get anything, who are mere voting- 
 machines and Wednesday orators I cannot understand
 
 THE HOUSE. 23 
 
 why these should disburse large sums of money, should 
 subject themselves to much physical labour, should 
 swallow self-respect for a vote, should be eternally 
 badgered, worried, and annoyed, for what to my simple 
 gaze seems a game hardly worth the candle. 
 
 Some little time ago a friend of mine, a man whose 
 birth and fortune render him independent of the ordin- 
 ary aspirations of mankind, caught a terrible cold. He 
 was put to bed ; a blazing fire was all aglow in the room ; 
 the sudorific he had taken was agreeably acting; a 
 sense of comfort and relief tingled through his frame ; 
 quiet and contented, he was immersed in the pages 
 of Le Nabob. Suddenly his door-bell was rung, a 
 messenger came in hot haste from 'the whip,' and he 
 had to dress, to go out in the fog, and hurry down to 
 the House of Commons to swell the ranks of the Govern- 
 ment against the tactics of a mischievous Opposition. 
 "Why should he have subjected himself to this ? Que 
 diable allait-il faire dans cette galere ? He never speaks 
 in the House; he is pale with terror even when he 
 has to address his constituents; he seldom serves on 
 Committees: he does not want a peerage; he is not 
 a barrister intent upon reaching the woolsack ; the 
 House of Commons can give him nothing that he has 
 not already; and yet session after session he submits 
 to boredom, to late hours, to a bad atmosphere, and to
 
 24 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 numerous restrictions interfering with his comfort and 
 his liberty. 
 
 I doubt whether McWelder, in the days when he 
 was consolidating his iron business, worked much harder 
 than he does now for the honour and glory of the thing. 
 "What with writing letters to his constituents, listening 
 to their wants, their grievances, their applications, 
 bothering the patient and long-suffering clerks of the 
 House of Commons about the private bills he wants to 
 introduce, serving on committees, occasionally being a 
 member of a Royal Commission, hunting up references 
 in Hansard for his speeches and replies, and putting in 
 a constant attendance (when has his name been absent 
 from the division list?) at the debates of the House, 
 he never appears to have a minute to himself during the 
 session; and what little leisure he possesses always 
 seems occupied in dining his constituents, taking Mrs. 
 Me Welder to receptions, going to a State ball or concert, 
 attending levies, and being entertained by the Speaker 
 or by public companies. It is only very early in the 
 morning or very late at night that his presence haunts 
 the writing-room and smoking-room of the Caravanserai. 
 
 Even out of the session he is constantly occupied. 
 "When he is good enough in the autumn to ask me 
 to Anvilhaugh Castle he can seldom spare time to 
 shoot the grouse on the moors or the pheasants in
 
 THE HOUSE. 25 
 
 his well-preserved coverts, because he has to preside 
 at this dock committee, or that railway committee, or 
 the pier improvements committee, or the Forge Burghs 
 Young Men's Christian Association, or the Forge Burghs 
 Quarry dinner, or the Masonic meetings of the Hammer 
 Lodge, or the hundred and one other calls upon the time 
 of a man who is both a popular and hardworking M.P. 
 and an extensive landowner. Still Me Welder is not to 
 be pitied. He is so thoroughly wedded to his new life 
 that were he to be unseated to-morrow no man north of 
 the Tweed would be more miserable. 
 
 As for the fair chatelaine of Anvilhaugh, she has for a 
 long time ceased to trouble herself with the McMashems 
 of this life. A lady whose dinners are as well dressed 
 as herself, whose dances are famous for the excellent 
 condition of the floor and the magnificent suppers that 
 follow, whose two daughters are supposed to have eighty 
 thousand apiece, and who is every season increasing her 
 social reputation, need take little notice of those she 
 knew in the days of her obscurity. ' They are not in 
 my set,' she says to me in excellent English, and in the 
 tones of one who from her earliest_infancy has been born 
 in the purple, and always worn the colour. Ah, Mistress 
 Me Welder, though the Westminster Catechism may 
 have taught you much, methinks the articles in the 
 creed of London Society have taught you more ! Weigh
 
 26 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 husband and wife in the balance, and the husband will 
 be found to be the better and more sterling of the two. 
 On the bede-roll of baronets you may find men more 
 polished with the gloss of civilisation, and better edu- 
 cated with the lore of the schools, but not one more 
 honourable in his dealings, more indefatigable in his 
 labours, more honest and just, than the future Sir Angus 
 Me Welder, Bart., M.P. for the Forge Burghs.
 
 THE PKIYATE SECEETAEY.
 
 THE PEIYATE SECRETARY. 
 
 TACT is to manner what genius is to talent. There are 
 many people in the intellectual world who are clever, 
 erudite, sharp, yet utterly destitute of genius; whilst 
 in the social world the number of persons who are am- 
 bitious, plausible, and agreeable, and yet totally defi- 
 cient in tact, is legion. How frequently do we hear 
 questions asked which should be avoided, answers given 
 which should be evaded, and subjects discussed which 
 should never be introduced ! How constantly do the 
 scheming and the worldly wise show their hand, and 
 thus mar their game, by a plausibility so palpable that 
 it never deceives ! How often is hate defeated by the 
 intensity of its spite and its clumsy malevolence ! 
 
 If men and women exhibited a little more tact in 
 their walk through life, the snob would talk less of his 
 intimacy with the great, Dives would boast less of his 
 wealth, women would be more careful in their disparage- 
 ments of each other, the jealous would pretend less to 
 indifference, and the acrid would mingle a little more 
 honey with their gall. We read of an ambition that
 
 30 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 overvaults itself and falls on the other side. It is quite 
 as possible to fail from overdoing as from never attempt- 
 ing. A well-bred display is one thing, the ostentation 
 of the vulgar another. To know a lord does not neces- 
 sarily imply an incessant reference to the aristocracy. 
 The possession of wealth is not always evinced by allu- 
 sions to the balance at our banker's, the extent of our 
 property, and the splendour of our establishment. 
 To be familiar with a thing is to be silent about it ; to 
 be new to it is to be loquacious and intrusive. 
 
 The man who has been of the gentry for centuries 
 never obtrudes his birth ; but the nouveau riche, smart- 
 ing under his social shortcomings, is always climbing up 
 his family tree, and garrulous as to his ancestors. The 
 Volunteer officer is always more military in his ideas 
 than the warrior. The dissenting minister is often far 
 more clerical in his attire than his brother of the Estab- 
 lishment. Whenever we see an over-precision in dress, 
 in language, and in the surroundings of a man or woman, 
 we may be sure that his or her introduction into the 
 ranks of the cultivated is but recent. 
 
 As a rule, in that microcosm which we call society, 
 it is easy to estimate the character of a man, or judge 
 the disposition of a woman. But when tact envelops 
 the subject in its subtle folds, criticism becomes more 
 difficult. To detect between the fustian and the purple,
 
 THE PRIVATE SECRETARY. 
 
 the superficial and the solid, the moderate and the 
 wealthy, when tact blinds the observer with its glamour, 
 is an analysis often requiring the greatest social ability. 
 Amongst minerals there are some precious stones which 
 can be imitated so cunningly that even the professed 
 lapidary is often deceived. In wandering through the 
 dazzling alleys of Vanity Fair it is not always at a 
 glance that we can separate the pearls from the paste. 
 Tact, which is often only another form of imitation, 
 baffles our penetration. 
 
 Take the case of Horry Fortescue, for instance. The 
 son of a clergyman of good birth, but slender means, 
 with no commanding talents, with no overpowering 
 attractions as to face or figure, he has yet distanced all 
 his compeers, and is already in possession of much that 
 men envy and women admire. He never trespasses upon 
 the paternal purse Horry is a charming young man, 
 and remembers that he has sisters yet he never lacks 
 funds. Though in these days money has ousted birth 
 from the lofty and exclusive position it occupied during 
 the regime of the Governing Families, there are still 
 coteries guarded and protected by vigilant outposts, 
 where the knavish capitalist, the vulgar borough mem- 
 ber, the prosperous trader never intrude. 
 
 ' Licet superbus ambules pecunia, 
 Fortuna non mutat genus.'
 
 32 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 In these well- winnowed assemblies the name of Horry 
 frequently appears, whilst better and cleverer men are 
 excluded. There are in his set men who have written 
 books ; there are glib barristers with an eye to Parlia- 
 ment who make great orations ; yet none can draw up a 
 document so clearly and succinctly as Horry, none at 
 wedding-breakfast or other hospitality can say just what 
 should be said, and no more, better than he. He is 
 surrounded by men who spend hours over their personal 
 adornment, and to whom Nature has granted consider- 
 able attractions ; yet Horry, who runs up a modest bill 
 with his tailor, and who will dress for dinner when 
 pressed in some six minutes, is always considered by 
 ladies to bear away the palm both as to attire and dis- 
 tinction. He is not a scholar, he is not even well read ; 
 and yet his conversation is agreeable ; whilst the book- 
 worm is silent and the erudite shy. He never makes an 
 enemy ; and yet all his friends are drawn from the ser- 
 viceable class. He is all things to all men, and espe- 
 cially to women, but he has the good taste to shun the 
 air of plausibility of the popular man of the clubs or the 
 tame cat of the boudoirs. "What his vices are we know 
 not, for he keeps them rigidly to himself. His talk is 
 clean and guarded ; he respects the convenances of life ; 
 he shuns the slang of the turf and the betting-room; and 
 without being a prig of the Mechanic's Institute type, or
 
 THE PRIVATE SECRETARY. 
 
 33 
 
 imitating the intense fastidiousness of the educated 
 tradesman, speaks English like a gentleman. Hence in 
 the eyes of the ladies he is deemed ' so nice;' whilst men, 
 
 in the vernacular they encourage, call him i good form 
 all round.' 
 
 It is now some seven years since Horry Fortescue 
 came to town. After a career successful yet not brilliant 
 at Harrow, he went up to Oxford to complete his educa- 
 tion. He had scarcely furnished his rooms at Merton 
 
 D
 
 34 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 when he was summoned to town, and requested to seat 
 himself at one of the bureaus in the Protocol Depart- 
 ment, to which he was appointed by his Grace the Duke 
 of Ambleside, the Lord Keeper of the Department, and 
 who, as the Marquis of "Windermere, had been a college 
 friend of the father of young Fortescue. In these days 
 of competitive examinations and Civil Service reorgan- 
 isation, we need hardly say that the Protocol Depart- 
 ment is one of the most envied of the public offices. It 
 is divided, with a simplicity of arrangement which makes 
 the men of the War Office and of Somerset House rage 
 enviously, into two sections : the first section, with the 
 title of Assistant Keepers of Protocols, begins at three 
 hundred a year, rising by thirty-five-pound stages to six 
 hundred; whilst the second section, with the rank of 
 Keepers of Protocols, pays its officials from seven hun- 
 dred to nine hundred a year. There are also various 
 staff appointments, ranging from a thousand to fifteen 
 hundred a year, which are given in the Department or 
 not, according to the interest of the applicant inside, or 
 the claims of hungry place-hunters outside. 
 
 The Protocol Department has this advantage over 
 its fellows, that its candidates are appointed direct by 
 the Lord Keeper, and have to endure no ordeal at the 
 hands of the Civil Service examiners. It is one of the 
 maxims of the Department that education is all very
 
 THE PRIVATE SECRETARY. 
 
 35 
 
 well, but that, where simple yet responsible duties are 
 to be performed, to be what is termed a ' gentleman' is 
 of far more importance. The Lord Keeper is always a 
 peer of high degree, and the aristocratic mind shudders 
 at the thought of seeing some young scion of the vulgar, 
 whose only recommendation would be brains and a 
 baptismal certificate, copying protocols or conventions 
 at one of the comfortable oak bureaus of the Depart- 
 ment, only perhaps to sell his information to the first 
 newspaper which would bid for his services. We need 
 hardly say that honour and honesty are exclusively 
 confined to those born in the purple. The turf frauds, 
 the card scandals, the City Company swindles, and the 
 divorce revelations of recent date, have arisen, as we all 
 know, entirely within the ranks of the plebeian. At 
 least, such is the opinion of the Lord Keepers of Pro- 
 tocols from time immemorial. No son of the people, no 
 hardworking Irish student, none of the geniuses from 
 Glasgow and Aberdeen have ever yet entered the swing- 
 ing dark-mahogany doors of the Department. The 
 officials are all men with some claims to ancestry, their 
 fathers standing well in the front of the landed gentry ; 
 a few of them bear titles of courtesy ; also one or two 
 have the shadow of the bar sinister across their escutch- 
 eon. A well-bred fashionable coterie is the Protocol 
 Department, and such it is likely to remain until the
 
 3 6 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 seldom quoted New Zealander shall come to take a 
 photograph of its ruins from the Thames Embankment. 
 
 Into this snug berth Horace Fortescue was en- 
 sconced. The young man well knew that little from 
 the paternal estate could fall to his share, and that he 
 would have to be dependent upon his own energies for 
 his advancement in life. He worked hard, he was 
 punctual in his attendance, and the result of his labours 
 could generally be relied upon. There are those who 
 imagine that the industry displayed in a Government 
 office chiefly consists in reading the morning papers, 
 receiving visits from friends, lounging from one room to 
 the other, partaking of elaborate luncheons, with per- 
 haps the copying a letter or the adding up of a total, 
 supported by the stimulant of a cigarette or a cigar. 
 No greater delusion exists. As a rule, the Civil ser- 
 vants of the Crown are as industrious and as hard 
 worked as any other community ; and considering the 
 poverty of their pay and of their prospects, it speaks 
 somewhat of their sense of honour that official treachery 
 is almost unknown in their midst. What banker, mer- 
 chant, or solicitor would intrust his clerks with the 
 secrets that are often among the daily duties of a 
 member of the Civil Service ? 
 
 As in all other departments, there were men in the 
 Protocol Office who came late and went away early,
 
 THE PRIVATE SECRETARY. 37 
 
 who idled their time, and who, whenever a diligent 
 colleague was promoted, cursed their ill-luck, but never 
 found fault with their industry. The keen calculating 
 glance of Horry Fortescue soon saw through his brother 
 officials, and speedily distinguished between the men 
 who were to be his rivals and those from whom he had 
 nothing to fear. His tact, his genial ways, his innate 
 good taste, stood him in good stead during the struggle. 
 The idlers knew he worked, but did not call him 'a 
 smug ;' the industrious saw they had a dangerous foe, 
 but did not dislike him ; on the contrary, he was rather 
 popular. Gradually Horry began to obtain a reputation 
 in the Department. The Keepers complimented him; 
 the assistant- secretaries asked him to dinner; there 
 was some talk of sending him abroad, attached to a 
 commission to inspect boundaries. 
 
 But the goal upon which the ambition of Horry 
 was firmly set was still as far removed as ever. He 
 wanted to know his Grace of Ambleside. On his 
 appointment he had been introduced to the Duke, who 
 had hoped his father was well, said that he thought the 
 morning was cold for the time of the year, trusted there 
 would soon be a change in the weather, and that was 
 all. The old rector had asked a few great people he 
 knew in town to be civil to his son, and Horry had 
 exerted all his manoeuvres to come across the consort of
 
 38 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 his Chief. But in vain. Her Grace was a volatile, 
 impulsive, and somewhat stupid woman, who gave her- 
 self great airs, snubbed people or took them up, accord- 
 ing to her fickle fancy, accepted invitations, and then at 
 the last moment declined them, so that no dependence 
 could be placed upon her word or her movements. 
 Three times had Horry been asked to a crush in order 
 to meet the Duchess, and it had pleased her Grace 
 precisely at those three times not to put in an appear- 
 ance. ' It all depends upon how she likes you at first,' 
 said his fair friends ; l sometimes she likes certain young 
 men for one thing, and then at other times hates them 
 for exactly the same thing. It is all a chance.' But 
 Horry knew perfectly well that where his own interests 
 were concerned it would become a very difficult job for 
 any one to hate him. Only let him have five minutes 
 with the Duchess, and he would not fear the conse- 
 quences. 
 
 As luck would have it, one night he met her Grace 
 at a calico dance, to which she had not been invited, 
 but to which she suddenly thought she should like to 
 go. He was introduced, and had the honour of dancing 
 with the Lady Maud, the second daughter of the illus- 
 trious house. There was to be a cotillon. Everybody 
 was talking about the Moldavian minuet that had been 
 got up the night before at the house of the Duchess
 
 THE PRIVATE SECRETARY. 
 
 39 
 
 y Pommeros y Grenos y Giesleroso. No one could re- 
 member it. Her Grace of Ambleside was most anxious 
 to see the figure reproduced; she had been told that 
 there had been a Tarantella in it : Maud could do the 
 
 Tarantella no one could do a Tarantella like Maud; 
 she must see it ; at all events try. Fortunately Horry 
 had been at the Spanish Embassy. He explained the 
 much desired figure, and added a few suggestions of his 
 own ; the Moldavian minuet was got up ; Maud danced
 
 40 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 the Tarantella. The Duchess was delighted. She 
 thought Mr. Fortescue the most charming young man 
 she had ever seen. Horry was asked to Kendal House. 
 
 It is said that every man has his opportunity once in 
 a lifetime, which, if made the most of, leads on to fortune. 
 The friendship of the Duchess of Ambleside was the 
 opportunity of Horry Fortescue, and he cleverly availed 
 himself of it. He suggested the blue and silver which 
 was to furnish her Grace's boudoir ; he designed, thanks 
 to an artistic friend in the office, a series of menu cards 
 of the most novel and elaborate description for her 
 table; he bought her a gray parrot which could talk 
 like an Irish Obstructive; his services were invalu- 
 able at picnics, garden-parties, and at lawn- tennis; he 
 recommended works of devotion to the eldest daughter, 
 gave sporting 'tips' to the second, and supported the 
 third, who was in her teens, when she skated at Prince's. 
 From l such a charming young man' he soon developed 
 into ' that dear Horry Fortescue.' 
 
 At the end of the season he was asked down to 
 Ullsthwaite Castle for the shooting. He now schemed 
 for his reward. There was a talk in the Department 
 that Sefton Fitzgerald, the Duke's private secretary, 
 was to become one of the Commissioners of Abbey 
 Lands. Horry was most desirous of succeeding him. 
 He begged the Duchess to use her good offices ; and as
 
 THE PRIVATE SECRETARY. 41 
 
 her Grace had no poor cousin or favourite tutor to pro- 
 vide for, she readily consented to become his friend. The 
 result was that at the end of a few weeks there appeared 
 the following paragraph in the morning papers : 
 
 'We hear that Mr. Sefton Fitzgerald, of the Pro- 
 tocol Department, has been appointed a Commissioner of 
 Abbey Lands. Mr. Fortescue, of the same department, 
 will succeed Mr. Fitzgerald as private secretary to his 
 Grace the Duke of Ambleside.' 
 
 Any one acquainted with official life is well aware 
 that to be private secretary to a Cabinet Minister is one 
 of the prizes in the Civil Service. Not only is the lucky 
 recipient freed from the ordinary duties of his depart- 
 ment, but he stands an excellent chance of being ap- 
 pointed to any of the staff posts in the service that 
 may fall vacant Commissionerships, Comptrollerships, 
 Assistant-secretaryships, and the like. It is true that 
 Horry has placed his foot on the first rung of the ladder 
 of the State, but he has no intention of being content 
 with his position. His calculating eye looks beyond, 
 and he sees no obstacle to prevent him from attain- 
 ing further successes. Already he enjoys the reputa- 
 tion of being a model private secretary. Search the 
 Government service through, and there is not a man 
 in it who knows how to receive a deputation with more 
 urbanity or dismiss it with greater platitudes than
 
 42 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 Horry Fortescue. To see him get rid of an Irishman 
 who thinks he has a claim upon the Government is a 
 marvel of tact, firmness, and diplomacy. At a glance 
 he can distinguish the men whom he should introduce 
 to his Chief from those he is able to deal with himself. 
 The letters he writes are so terse and yet so courteous ; 
 no one has a happier knack than he of refusing without 
 offence or accepting without responsibility. 
 
 Seated in his spacious room overlooking St. James's 
 Park, with its rich mahogany furniture and imposing 
 silver candlesticks, well dressed never does he don 
 that indescribable garment called an * office-coat' cour- 
 teous, agreeable, dignified without hauteur, and easy 
 without familiarity, he appears to the political visitor 
 as a very fitting representative of the aristocratic 
 traditions of the Protocol Department. The Duke 
 is charmed with him, and vows that he never had a 
 secretary who was so useful, and whose information can 
 be so fully relied upon. As his Grace leans on the arm 
 of Horry whilst walking down to the House of Lords on 
 a fine afternoon, the friends of the young man who 
 knew him at Harrow or Oxford friends briefless in 
 their chambers or poring over ledgers in their fathers' 
 counting-houses, or who curse the ; service' look at him 
 enviously, and mutter to themselves, ( What luck some 
 men have !'
 
 THE PRIVATE SECRETARY. 
 
 43 
 
 It is true that Horry is a lucky man the element of 
 luck enters more into the affairs of life than philosophers 
 suppose but his post is no sinecure. There are few 
 men in town more hard worked all the year round than 
 
 our private secretary. He is daily at the office at eleven ; 
 he has to read all the letters the Duke receives, 
 from an important State paper to an application for 
 an appointment from some one who stayed at the 
 same hotel at Homburg with his Grace and gave
 
 44 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 him the address of a doctor ; he receives visitors ; he 
 attends upon deputations ; he has to hunt up references 
 for the Duke's speeches, and furnish him with all 
 departmental facts when the office is inquired into by 
 the House; after the office is closed he has to attend 
 upon his Chief at the House of Lords ; when the Pro- 
 tocol Department is attacked by the Opposition he 
 knows no rest either day or night, examining corre- 
 spondence, wading through Blue-books, verifying re- 
 ferences, and the like ; whilst at the same time he has 
 to put in an appearance at all great social entertain- 
 ments, to accompany the Duke to public dinners, and 
 out of the session to coach up his Grace in the current 
 topics of the day, and find him material for speech- 
 making. In short, Horry is amanuensis, aide-de-camp, 
 public servant, literary man, official devil, man of 
 fashion, and confidential correspondent all rolled into 
 one. 
 
 He is occasionally to be seen within the walls of the 
 Caravanserai. I am an elderly gentleman and what 
 Horace the poet, not the private secretary calls justa 
 chiragra, or in other words, gout afflicts considerably 
 my extremities. Consequently my temper is somewhat 
 peevish and irritable ; and as my dinner chiefly consists 
 of a basin of mutton-broth and a bottle of Apollinaris 
 water, I am aware that my company does not much add
 
 THE PRIVATE SECRETARY. 45 
 
 to the gaieties of the table. But it is always a pleasure 
 for me to meet young Fortescue. He is so very different 
 from many of the jeunesse doree of the present day, who 
 are often only so many walking advertisements of their 
 tailor, hatter, perfumer, and jeweller. He does not 
 part his hair in the middle, or wear white gaiters, or 
 swagger in his walk, or tilt his hat on one side, or 
 cover his white well-shaped fingers with massive rings. 
 He comes of a good stock, and has none of the pretence 
 and self-assertion of the would-be gentry. 
 
 "Whenever he dines at the club I try to secure the 
 table next him. Living, as he does, among the great, 
 he knows everything that is going on, and he imparts 
 such information as he feels inclined to give with none 
 of the mystery and importance of your fifth-rate man of 
 fashion, but simply and naturally. He tells me what 
 young women are going to the altar, and what young 
 men are going to the dogs ; what beauties are going to 
 Court, and what fast men are going through it; he 
 knows the latest good stories in circulation ; he explains 
 to my untutored mind the mysterious paragraphs in the 
 newspapers relating to meditated divorces, turf frauds, 
 and card scandals ; his conversation is always amusing 
 and, when he chooses, often instructive. Like most 
 men who work hard, he is something of a gourmet, and 
 it does my impaired digestion good to see him discuss
 
 46 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 his dainty little dishes and moisten his throat with the 
 best club vintages. 
 
 But, unfortunately for me, Horry is not a frequent 
 visitor at the Caravanserai. He belongs to the Blen- 
 heim and the Coterie, and the fascinations of those two 
 superior establishments interfere greatly with the 
 modest charms of my club. His official duties and 
 crowd of invitations are also formidable obstacles to the 
 ordinary routine of club life. Horry is a young man 
 who ' will arrive' as the French say ; and he knows per- 
 fectly well that to selfishly dine at the club, and after- 
 wards to play whist till three in the morning, is not the 
 course for him to adopt. He looks upon society as a 
 woman does, not as a form of distraction, but as a pro- 
 fession. Cautious, calculating, self-seeking, good-tem- 
 pered, good-looking, amusing, he takes stock of his 
 advantages, and lays them out at the best interest he 
 can command. He knows the fortunes of all the 
 widows of his acquaintance, and can be frequently seen 
 bending over the bulky volumes at the Probate Office 
 of course always for a friend. Perfectly aware that he 
 is a 'detrimental,' and not an 'eligible,' he never 
 attempts to enlist the affections of the few heiresses that 
 cross his path, and consequently is highly thought of by 
 prudent mothers. But a charming young widow ! one 
 who has been united to a wealthy elderly man, who has
 
 THE PRIVATE SECRETARY. 
 
 47 
 
 twined her simple guileless heart around his sexagena- 
 rian sympathies like ivy round a ruin, who has inherited 
 all his fortune, and who has accordingly been cordially 
 hated by all her husband's relations ! I can fancy 
 
 young Fortescue's graceful figure, his winning manners, 
 his deep-blue eyes, and silky beard, not entering the 
 lists in vain in such a quarter. Horry's future is cer- 
 tain. He will marry money, he will enter the House of 
 Commons, he will make a name for himself, and the
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 time will assuredly come when, holding some good sub- 
 ordinate post as Under-Secretary, or Junior Lord, or 
 Vice-President he will himself command the services 
 of a Private Secretary.
 
 THE GUAKDSMAN.
 
 THE GUARDSMAN. 
 
 WE can hardly imagine any one in this enlightened 
 nineteenth centuiy labouring under a state of social ig- 
 norance so profound as to be unacquainted with that 
 great ornament to himself and to society the Guards- 
 man of the period. It may not have fallen to the lot of 
 all to have shaken him personally by the hand, to have 
 listened awe-struck to his lisping accents, to have been 
 taken down by him to dinner, or, if we belong to the 
 sterner sex, to have been taken up by him sharply for 
 some misstatement we have made respecting the turf, 
 the opera, or society generally. As regards the flesh 
 we may, it is true, be strangers to each other ; but 0, 
 thanks to the ever-flowing pen of the novelist, are we 
 not intimately acquainted with his movements, his 
 deeds, his conversations, his habits, his tastes, and all 
 that belongs to him ? Is not the name of the Guards- 
 man synonymous with the most voluptuous luxury, the 
 most perfect fashion, the most graceful indolence, the 
 most brilliant wit, the noblest birth, the most charming 
 combination of effeminacy and daring prowess ; in short,
 
 52 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 with everything that woman admires and man envies ? 
 If you reply to this in the negative, all we can answer 
 is, that you are no believer in modern novels. 
 
 It is my custom of an afternoon to enter the palatial 
 halls of the Caravanserai, and to salt my buttered toast 
 and drink my ante-prandial cup of tea whilst poring 
 over the evening editions of the newspapers. I must 
 confess to being partial to that social but somewhat in- 
 digestible institution, five-o'clock tea, and dawdle over 
 the mild refection with all the love and languor of those 
 who sipped bohea in the days of good Queen Anne. As 
 a rule, scarcely am I seated in my roomy armchair, 
 with the Pall Mall Gazette, the Globe, and the Evening 
 Standard clutched in my selfish grasp, than Dolly Cla- 
 vering, unless his arduous military duties interfere with 
 his movements, comes in and sits down beside me. He, 
 too, is fond of the exhilarating Chinese herb, and his 
 tastes are considerably encouraged in that direction by a 
 bevy of as fair sisters as ever donned tea-gowns. Dolly 
 and I are excellent friends * pals' is the expression he 
 uses ; and he is good enough to say that ' he has a 
 regard, don't you know, for the old sportsman,' alluding 
 to myself; though why I am a l sportsman,' unless that 
 in Dolly's phraseology everybody is a sportsman, is be- 
 yond me. Some of Dolly's friends call me an 'old 
 fogey ' and if I am not to be designated by my rightful
 
 THE GUARDSMAN. 
 
 53 
 
 name, of the two I prefer to be termed an ( old sports- 
 man.' There is a savour of manliness in the one which 
 is not objectionable, but of womanliness in the other 
 which is hardly flattering. 
 
 Dolly is a mere lad of one-and-twenty ; and his 
 bright, fresh, youthful face, with its nascent whiskers 
 and moustache, the latter fondly caressed, the Clavering 
 rather beaky nose, and his sisters' eyes, are as pleasant 
 for a tired London man to look upon as are the snows of
 
 54 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 the Alps after the sands of the desert. A great buck is 
 Dolly. His frock-coat fits his tall slender figure without 
 a wrinkle ; his trousers never break out into ugly folds 
 at the knees; his boots are lacquered like polished 
 ebony ; his hat is new without being glossy ; and there 
 is a swagger, partly from diffidence, partly from hau- 
 teur, in his gait and greeting, which is seldom disagree- 
 able in a very young man. Careful as is Dolly with 
 respect to his attire, you could never mistake him for a 
 dressy stockbroker or City swell ; everything about him 
 is quiet, sober, and unpretentious. Apart from liking 
 young Clavering, and knowing something of his people, 
 Dolly is regarded by me with a peculiar and special 
 interest. He is a Guardsman, and has the honour to 
 hold a commission in that favourite regiment the 
 Bombardiers. Again let me say that Dolly is in the 
 Guards. 
 
 I repeat the statement, for it appears to me that some 
 curious delusions exist in the public mind as to the 
 Guardsman of the period. He is the prize favourite of 
 the novelists, and it must be confessed that messieurs les 
 romanciers make him out to be a most wonderful per- 
 sonage. Only last night I read Bearskin and Boudoir 
 by that favourite author of military fiction the fashion- 
 able Fitz- Jenkins. All the heroes of Fitz- Jenkins' works 
 are soldiers, and it is needless for me to add, when
 
 THE GUARDSMAN. 55 
 
 a man boasts of an aristocratic prefix to a plebeian 
 cognomen, that all his soldiers are Guardsmen, officers 
 either in the Household Cavalry or in the Foot Guards. 
 When I read of the doughty deeds of Dormer de Bohun 
 Cholmondeley Beaumanoir (Fitz-Jenkins likes a good 
 name for his hero), and think of Dolly, who is rather shy 
 in ladies' society, and who prefers to go through a gate 
 than over one when out with the hounds, the contrast is 
 amusing. 
 
 Of course you know this Beaumanoir ? What reader 
 of fiction (and I own to being a most omnivorous novel- 
 reader myself) is not acquainted with him ? Are we 
 not all familiar with his haughty commanding figure, 
 his perfect features, those dark terrible eyes always 
 being lit up with desire or revenge, the heavy mou- 
 stache falling over the stern cruel mouth, the exquisitely 
 modelled hands white as a beauty's, the arched instep, 
 and the Arabian feet ? And then the views of this 
 splendid creature upon modern society ! How fierce is 
 the cynicism underlying all his opinions and judgments! 
 When I listen to Fitz-Jenkins' heroes inveighing against 
 the falsity of woman, and dealing out mordant strokes 
 against the shams and hypocrisies of life in the club 
 smoking-room, or in the tabagie of one of those ancient 
 country mansions for which the pen of our author is 
 noted, I compare him with Dolly, who can be seen any
 
 56 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 Sunday morning during the season with his mother and 
 sisters in the family pew at St. Peter's, Eaton-square, 
 who is passionately fond of dancing, who is devoted to 
 amateur theatricals, who loses what he is pleased to call 
 his heart about half a dozen times a week, and who 
 colours furiously when a woman snubs him (which is 
 not often, for he is too shy and too much of a gentle- 
 man to be forward) ; and the contrast is striking. 
 
 "What an ordinary man is Dolly Clavering, and what 
 a brilliant creature is our Beaumanoir ! When Dolly 
 goes to ball or dance he is quite in a nutter of excite- 
 ment if a reigning beauty will allow him to write his 
 name on her card, or if some high dame of fashion asks 
 for his escort to Hurlingham or the Orleans Club. 
 Whereas Beaumanoir creates such havoc amid the 
 duchesses and countesses, scattered liberally throughout 
 Fitz- Jenkins' volumes, as to exhibit a most lamentable 
 state of things in the English peerage. Haughty ladies, 
 whose blood is so blue that it is surprising it con- 
 descends to flow at all, sigh for him ; the greatest heir- 
 esses languish after his smiles; disappointment, rejec- 
 tion, refusal, are words never to be met with in his 
 social dictionary. Dolly is not a bad man across country 
 when his blood is up ; but, as I have said, he regards 
 jumping, unless when necessary, as a work of superero- 
 gation ; he is a fair shot, and can knock over his pigeons
 
 THE GUARDSMAN. 57 
 
 at Hurlingham or the Gun Club as well as the gene- 
 rality of his fellows ; nor is his performance despicable 
 in the stubble and turnip fields, or in the coverts of the 
 paternal woods. But Beaumanoir ! He rides horses 
 that none but he can ride ; he never hunts but he is 
 glued to the hounds from find to finish; whilst the 
 gates, fences, brooks, doubles, and every mortal thing 
 he takes with such consummate ease, always make the 
 whole field tremble with fear. He eschews dauntless 
 and magnificent creature that he is ! ordinary sport 
 partridges, pheasants, grouse, and the like and is only 
 keen after big game. The tigers he shoots on foot ; the 
 wild buffaloes his unerring aim brings down ; the lions, 
 leopards, pumas, the whole Zoological Gardens, in fact, 
 that fall to his wonderful breech-loader, are they not 
 written in the pages of the veracious Fitz-Jenkins ? 
 
 Unless when Dolly is on guard or engaged by society, 
 he dines modestly at his club for some four or five shil- 
 lings ; then, while digestion is pleasantly waiting upon 
 appetite, he pays a visit to the smoking-room and falls 
 asleep over a novel ; perhaps, when slumber has refreshed 
 him, he goes up-stairs and takes a hand at whist, rigidly 
 eschewing all bets, till it is time for him to go to his 
 bachelor lodgings in Jermyn-street and turn into bed. 
 We know how Beaumanoir, on the contrary, passes his 
 time. What princely dinners he orders ! what an
 
 58 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 educated gourmet lie is ! How deep are his potations, 
 without ever affecting the clearness of his brain, the 
 steadiness of his hand, or the basilisk coldness of his 
 extraordinary eyes ! How he gambles at ccarte, 
 napoleon, poker, baccarat, winning or losing thousands 
 without ruffling the composure of that sphinx-like face 
 or disturbing the serenity of that marble brow ! How 
 he has to hear from charming female lips of the misery 
 his coldness, his indifference, or his neglect has caused 
 in their too susceptible hearts ! When I read of Beau- 
 manoir of his prowess, his Eochefoucauld maxims, his 
 pampered tastes, his gorgeous attire, his innumerable 
 conquests, and his Munchausen sporting adventures it 
 is a source of congratulation to me that I have never 
 had the pleasure of seeing him amongst his comrades in 
 the Household troops; for with all due deference to 
 Fitz- Jenkins, it seems to me that Beaumanoir is a hard 
 vicious brute, and far more like a flash groom who has 
 been educated in the music-halls of the period than ' an 
 officer and a gentleman.' If certain of our novelists hold 
 the mirror up to Nature, well may society talk about the 
 degeneracy of the British army. For my part, I do not 
 believe in the accuracy of these descriptions of what 
 use is imagination unless you draw upon it? and in 
 refutation of such views and theories let me sketch the, 
 I fear, somewhat commonplace career of Dolly Claveringv
 
 THE GUARDSMAN. 59 
 
 The eldest son of an old Wiltshire squire and heir 
 to some six thousand a year, Dolly, after a brief educa- 
 tion at Eton, where he distinguished himself as one of 
 the smartest * fields' in the eleven, was gazetted to the 
 Bombardiers. In these days of equality and open com- 
 petition many of the privileges of the Guards have been 
 docked ; still a commission in one of its regiments 
 will always be an object of envy to most young men. 
 Living in London, except when quartered at Windsor 
 or Shorncliffe, the Guardsman has every advantage 
 that town life offers, and can enjoy to the full all 
 the charms and fascinations of good society. Un- 
 like his less fortunate brother in the Line, he knows 
 nothing of dull provincial cities, with their barrack 
 monotonies, garrison hacks, fifth-rate theatres, and 
 indifferent amusements. He is exempt from foreign 
 service ; but in the hour of danger, and when the con- 
 flict is deepening around him, it is his special privilege 
 to be in the front of battle. The uniform he wears is 
 in my opinion the most becoming in the service. There 
 are ladies who so admire the gauntlets, helmets, and 
 cuirasses of the Life Guards and the Blues, and the 
 gorgeous blue-and-gold of the Horse Artillery, that 
 they vow no dress in the British Army equals them. 
 But with all due deference to the opinion of the fair sex 
 and in matters of costume their judgment is not to be
 
 Co 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 decried when Dolly is adorned in his bearskin and well- 
 fitting 'regimentals,' to use a word always employed by 
 the ladies when describing the British officer in his 
 war paint, no soldier, it seems to me, can wear a more 
 
 becoming uniform, or one which more unites grace with 
 quiet splendour. 
 
 If we are to credit our novelists, the young Guards- 
 man is always the handsomest of his sex, enjoys a most 
 lavish allowance, dwells in sumptuous chambers in St.
 
 THE GUARDSMAN. 61 
 
 James's-street, runs through a couple of fortunes before 
 he has been five years on the town, disappoints his 
 tradesmen, and then retires to some West India regiment 
 or takes service under a half-savage potentate till the 
 friendly heiress, who seems ever to be hovering over the 
 colours of 'the Household,' takes pity upon him, and 
 makes him once more a man and a millionaire. Dolly 
 is certainly very good-looking, but for that advantage, 
 it seems to me, he is more indebted to his father and 
 mother than to the Guards. The old Squire gives his 
 son a decent allowance, which enables him to pay his 
 wine-merchant and his tailor, to keep a horse which he 
 both rides and drives, and to have comfortable rooms on 
 the second floor of a house in Jermyn-street excepting 
 to the adjutant no quarters are given to officers in 
 the Guards in London. The paternal mansion is in 
 Lowndes Street, but Dolly thinks it incumbent upon 
 himself to live in apartments near his two clubs. He 
 is known as a good son and a kind brother, and his 
 people have little cause to complain of his desertion. 
 Whenever he wants a dinner he has only to let his 
 mother know that he will make one of the family party 
 at eight o'clock for the cook to show all her cunning 
 and the Squire to have up some of that ' Mouton' claret 
 which has moistened the throats of the Claverings for 
 well-nigh a generation. Having four charming sisters
 
 62 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 we need hardly say that Dolly finds no difficulty in 
 obtaining the company of one or two men in his regi- 
 ment on these occasions. 
 
 I have said that my young friend's allowance is good, 
 but it is not exorbitant. Dolly has, however, one pull 
 over his brother linesman he is saved from many of the 
 expenses which ordinarily attend an officer's life. Ex- 
 cept when at Windsor or Shorncliife he has no mess-bills 
 to pay, nor is he called upon for incessant contribu- 
 tions ; hence his income goes farther than it otherwise 
 might. If Dolly draws five hundred a year from the 
 kindly old man he calls l the governor,' it is about as 
 much as he does ; and if a man does not gamble and is 
 not the slave of any vicious tastes, five hundred a year 
 when spent rigidly upon oneself will cover a fair expendi- 
 ture. At all events Dolly does not live uncomfortably, 
 he never seems to lack funds to dine his friends at the 
 Caravanserai, to run over to Paris, to put in an appear- 
 ance on first nights at the theatres, or to indulge in the 
 various other forms of social distraction which require 
 ready money. Nor should he ; for I, moi qui parle, had 
 a relative the watch he picked up on the field of 
 Waterloo after the engagement ticks before me as I 
 write who managed to live in the Guards on an al- 
 lowance of three hundred a year, until he succeeded 
 to his modest property ; but, as Dolly reminds me,
 
 THE GUARDSMAN. 63 
 
 that was many years ago, and money went further 
 then than it does now in these days of high wages, 
 continual strikes, and increased expenditure. From 
 what one hears, I fancy that the old Squire assists 
 Dolly in the settlement of his accounts with his tailor 
 and livery-stable keeper. 
 
 In reading novels one is always struck with the 
 idleness of the Guardsman : he is making his hands 
 white ; he is adorning his outward man ; he is flirting, 
 lounging, eating, dancing, riding, driving, shooting, 
 yachting, hunting, but never working. Far be it from 
 me to say that Dolly's is an industrious or arduous 
 life, yet it is not one that is 'all beer and skittles.' 
 What with attending commanding officer's parade or 
 adjutant's parade, and going on guard as a rule 
 about every second day, he is not the complete idler 
 and l chalk soldier' many suppose. When on duty at 
 St. James's or Buckingham Palace, or at the Tilt-yard, 
 a grateful nation entertains him at St. James's Palace at 
 a dinner, which costs the country some three thousand 
 a year. At this dinner there are the three officers on 
 guard at St. James's Palace (colonel, captain, and 
 lieutenant), the two officers on guard at Buckingham 
 Palace and the Tilt-yard, the three officers of the Life 
 Guards if they like to put in an appearance and the 
 guests of the evening ; the colonel of guard inviting,
 
 64 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 unless he give a place to one of the juniors ; if the Life 
 Guards do not come their seats can be filled up. When 
 it is the lot of the young Guardsman to march his men. 
 down to Threadneedle-street for the protection of that 
 treasury of the nation, the Bank of England, the directors 
 of that distinguished company furnish him with a neat 
 little dinner, and even extend their hospitality to a 
 couple of his friends when required ; the Bank granting 
 one bottle of port, sherry, or claret to each friend, and 
 one bottle to the officer on guard. Occasionally Dolly 
 asks me to be his guest, and, indolent youngster that he 
 is, instead of marching his men along the Strand, Fleet- 
 street, and Cheapside, he limits his pedestrianism to 
 walking the soldiers to St. James's Park Station, and 
 conveying them to their destination by the stifling but 
 lazy process of travelling by the underground railway, 
 the fares of course being defrayed out of Dolly's pocket. 
 No wonder that the men have no objection to Mr. 
 Clavering being on Bank guard ! 
 
 When I dine in Threadneedle-street with Dolly, and 
 look at my cheery host the smart tunic discarded for 
 the easy shooting-coat I cannot but think how many 
 young men have sat in that comfortable Bank parlour, 
 and have drawn the curtain to sleep in that adjoining 
 bedroom, with life and hope before them, and how 
 various have been their careers ! There was Jones,
 
 THE GUARDSMAN. 
 
 happiest and most amusing of private actors ; lie was 
 shot down on that pitiless hillside of the Alma. There 
 was Brown, who, after a brief career, and a decided re- 
 fusal from his father to pay his bills, became bankrupt, 
 
 and is now a partner in a respectable wine- merchant's 
 office in the east of England. There was Smith, the dull- 
 est soldier who ever cried out ' form fours' or ' shoulder 
 arms,' but who is now a great military authority, and 
 >one of the shining lights in the House of Commons. 
 
 F
 
 66 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 There was Kobbynson, who, after that grievous love dis- 
 appointment of his, exchanged arms for diplomacy, and is 
 now Secretary of Legation somewhere across the Atlantic, 
 and married, so they tell me, to a Creole he who so 
 raved about fair women ! There was Snooks, a feather- 
 weight and the buck of his regiment, who is now sixteen 
 stone, dresses like a farmer, and is great at agricultural 
 dinners, ploughing matches, and in breeding stock. 
 "What a funny world it is ! Those we thought fools are 
 now the wise of the earth, the failures are brilliant 
 successes, the poor have become rich, and those from 
 whom we expected such great things have turned out 
 the most commonplace of mediocrities. True it is 
 that nothing is certain but the unforeseen, and that 
 he is a sage man who can predict the future of his 
 friends. 
 
 Still, in spite of this remark, I will take upon myself 
 to cast the future of my friend, young Clavering. Unless 
 the old Squire shall have been summoned by pallida 
 mors to take his place in the vault of his ancestors 
 beneath the aisle of the parish church at Trevennis, 
 Dolly will remain in the Bombadiers, in all probability, 
 till he obtains his company. For the next few years he 
 will enjoy to the full, in all sobriety, I hope, the plea- 
 sures of the town. With all the buoyancy of youth he 
 will let the future take care of itself, and bask in the
 
 THE GUARDSMAN. 67 
 
 sunshine of that present which seems eternal at one- 
 and-twenty. 
 
 ' Quid sit futurum eras, fuge quserere ; et 
 Quern sors dierum cunque dabit, lucro 
 Appone ; nee dulces amores 
 Sperne puer ; neque tu choreas, 
 Donee virenti canities abest 
 Morosa.' 
 
 The health of Dolly is excellent, and consequently he 
 looks upon life through the rosiest of glasses. When 
 he has money in his pocket he feels that the world 
 is at his feet. He is easily amused; he believes in 
 the sincerity of man's friendship ; and in his opinion 
 there are very few young women who are really ugly. 
 "We know that even under the humblest auspices life 
 is enjoyable at that golden age of twenty. Dans un 
 yrenier on est lien a vingt am; how much more then 
 must it be enchanting when youth is to be passed amid 
 all the agrements of existence that men generally care 
 for? The typical Guardsman, it is true, is an awful 
 cynic; but then think of those 'deep draughts' he is 
 always taking, the dinners he eats daily, the love-making 
 he has to go through, and ask yourself whether all that 
 liquor, gormandising, and sensuality is not enough to 
 upset the liver of even a transpontine hero for after all 
 cynicism is often only another word for spleen. And 
 pray, why should a Guardsman be a cynic, and his
 
 68 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 comments always cruel, and his heart always savage? 
 Is it a matter of such extreme dissatisfaction to be 
 tolerably well born, to be the heir of a fair fortune, to 
 be the bien venu, if you behave yourself, in the best 
 London society, and a welcome guest in country house 
 after country house? And why should he be biting 
 and savage in his sarcasms ? Why not make him, for a 
 change, instead of a being ' sensual, earthly, devilish,' 
 a frank, genial, kindly type of Young England, as in 
 nine cases out of ten he is ? Why let his love be always 
 adultery, his wit always satanic, his courage always 
 brutality, and his religion always unbelief? Has it 
 ever struck the novelist that to be a Guardsman is not 
 necessarily to be above all the ordinary feelings common 
 to inferior mortals ? Is he aware that the Guards were 
 among the first to organise after the Crimean war a 
 society the object of which was to relieve the distress 
 in the squalid districts of London in the fever-stricken 
 haunts of Shoreditch, Bethnal-green, Whitechapel, and 
 Westminster and to relieve that distress not by deputy ? 
 'Would he be surprised to hear' that gay young 
 Guardsmen visited these haunts themselves, and dis- 
 tributed with their own ' snow-white hands' tickets for 
 such plebeian articles of necessity as bread, meat, and 
 coal? Yet such was the case, for the writer of these 
 pages had the pleasure of assisting them in their labours.
 
 THE GUARDSMAN. 
 
 69 
 
 Perhaps, by his sixth or seventh season, Dolly will 
 begin to find that there is, after all, a certain amount 
 of monotony in the distractions of society ; that dinners 
 and dances are a bore ; that the gossip of the club is 
 
 dull ; and that it is possible to have too much of polo, 
 pigeon- shooting, cricket, lawn- tennis, and incessant ex- 
 citement. His watchful mother and affectionate sisters 
 will now make the most of this ennui ; they will pass in 
 review all the nice eligible girls they know of; a selec-
 
 70 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 tion will be made ; they will be trotted out for Dolly's 
 inspection ; the object of his preference will be made to 
 frequently cross his path in town ; she will be asked 
 down to Trevennis in the autumn; a fond companion- 
 ship will be struck up between her and Dolly's sisters ;. 
 and one fine morning Adolphus Frederick Claver- 
 ing, captain and lieutenant-colonel in the Bombardier 
 Guards, will find himself standing at the altar-rails, 
 ready to be offered as a victim to matrimony. As a 
 married man and heir to a goodish property he will 
 abandon soldiering, and betake himself to civil pursuits. 
 By this time it is not improbable that the old Squire 
 will be feeing Charon to ferry him over the Styx, and 
 Dolly will succeed to the paternal fortune and honours. 
 He will not be lavish or ostentatious, for his fortune 
 will not permit of extravagance ; yet his house will be 
 by no means closed to the country around, or to his 
 various London friends. He will be put into the com- 
 mission of the peace, and when he goes to Court he 
 will wear the scarlet uniform of a deputy-lieutenant. 
 He will hunt a good deal, till he gets fat and his 
 nervous system begins to break down. He will be 
 always fond of shooting, for sight generally lasts longer 
 than nerves. He will be a good landlord, and interest 
 himself moderately in agricultural matters. If he has 
 a few hundreds to throw away, and wants occupation,.
 
 THE GUARDSMAN. 
 
 he may amuse himself by farming the home-farm on his 
 own account. His wife and children will look after 
 the poor. He will be on good terms with his vicar, 
 and make a point of putting in an appearance in the 
 square curtained pew of the parish church every Sun- 
 day morning. He will come up to town for three 
 months in the year, and as he gets older abuse the 
 change from the country to London. In short, he will 
 be a model country gentleman, and he will be none 
 the less popular in his county, and none the worse 
 husband and father, because he is a man of the world, 
 and in his youth was a Guardsman.
 
 PATKIOTISM.
 
 PATEIOTISM. 
 
 are told that imitation is the sincerest flattery ; and 
 if this be the case, the Frenchman ought by no means to 
 feel his self-love wounded at the homage his country 
 nowadays meets with at our hands. It was once the 
 distinctive characteristic of England that she was not 
 like other continental nations. Her manners, her tastes, 
 her architecture, the habits of her men, the dresses of 
 her women, were all very different from the customs 
 that reigned abroad. It might be difficult at first sight 
 to distinguish between a Frenchman and an Italian, a 
 Spaniard and a Portuguese, a Eussian and a German; 
 but an Englishman carried unmistakably his nationality 
 in his face, his walk, and the manner in which he took off 
 his hat. As we were cut off from other countries by our 
 insulated position, so were our inhabitants cut off from 
 other people by their insulated tastes and characteristics. 
 "We piqued ourselves upon being cleaner in our habits, 
 more refined in our sanitary arrangements, manlier in 
 our tastes and sports, and at heart more moral and reli- 
 gious in our approval and condemnation of things. "We
 
 76 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 thought that in the 'foreigner' there was little calculated 
 to excite our envy or admiration, and by the word 'fo- 
 reigner' we generally signified the Frenchman. France 
 was our hereditary foe ; she was always threatening our 
 shores ; she was the disturber of the peace of Europe ; 
 her wit had severely satirised the institutions of our 
 country, and between the two nations little love was 
 lost. To the Frenchman we were la perfide Albion, a 
 nation of shopkeepers, a people with no taste for the fine 
 arts, puritanical in our creed, and good only to breed 
 horses and brew beer. To the ' honest John Bull type' 
 of Englishman the son of Gaul had the manners of a 
 dancing-master, the morals of a courtesan, the dress and 
 appearance of a billiard-marker a man filthy in his 
 personal habits, effeminate in his tastes, and one whose 
 favourite food was frogs and whose favourite drink was 
 sugar-and-water. 
 
 However, thanks to steam and electricity, our preju- 
 dices have undergone considerable modification, and, 
 instead of despising the Frenchman, we now run to the 
 other extreme, and import many of his customs with 
 most of his wines to our shores. Slowly but surely our 
 English institutions are becoming Frenchified. Our 
 fashions are copied from those in Paris ; our cooks serve 
 up French dishes ; the most modest restaurant thinks it 
 incumbent upon itself to translate its thoroughly English
 
 PATRIOTISM. 77 
 
 bill of fare into the language of France; every hotel 
 that conies into existence offers us that most dull and 
 dreary of all festivities, an English table d'hote; thin sour 
 wines, maliciously labelled clarets and burgundies, have 
 ousted old October ale and old dry port from the cellar ; 
 the startling views of domesticity so dear to the French 
 novelist and playwriter have been introduced into our 
 fiction and upon our stage. In spite of the treacheries 
 of our climate, the familiar cafe of the boulevards has 
 been transported into certain of our streets ; the games 
 at cards that are now most popular with our youth are 
 those that are freely played in the cercles of Paris ; whilst 
 the one great stronghold of the country, the English 
 day of rest, is gradually being transformed by the social 
 hospitalities of the fashionable and the efforts of the 
 philanthropist into the Sunday of the Continent. 
 
 I am not for a moment saying that these changes are 
 an improvement or the reverse. I simply state a fact 
 patent to all that our institutions are becoming French- 
 ified. And la belle France has paid us a similar compli- 
 ment. As we have adopted, or flatter ourselves that we 
 have adopted, her toilettes, her vintages, her cookery, 
 her gaiety, her morality, her games of chance, so she has 
 introduced our Turf nomenclature into her language, our 
 stallions into her stud, our jockeys into her stable, the 
 strain of our hounds into her packs, pale ale into her
 
 78 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 drinks, the wares of Savile-row into her sartorial estab- 
 lishments, and built her carriages upon English lines. 
 The result of this reciprocity has been to create in both 
 nations a class of men which, whilst maligning the habits 
 and institutions of its own country, blindly worships all 
 that belongs to its neighbour. "We have at Paris the 
 Frenchman who so warmly admires our club-life in Pall 
 Mall, the beauty of our women, the breed of our horses, 
 the freedom of our government, the manliness of our 
 field sports, the cleanliness of our tastes, that, surveying 
 his own fair land from Picardy to Gascony, and from 
 Brittany to Franche Comte, he finds it stale, flat, and 
 unprofitable, and that out of England there is nothing 
 worthy of envy or acceptance. At London we have the 
 man who is always instituting comparisons between our 
 capital and Paris, very much to the disadvantage of the 
 former, who curses our climate, our architecture, our ill- 
 dressed women, our wretched cookery, our servility to 
 the powers that be, our vulgarity, our mock-modesty, 
 our inappreciation of all true art; our love of beer, 
 which makes us gross ; our love of field sports, which 
 makes us brutal in short, everything that belongs to 
 us and our country. 
 
 Prominent among this band of Anglophobists is 
 Luttrell Chichester, who, on the few occasions that he 
 visits l that damned city of yours,' as he is pleased to
 
 PATRIOTISM. 79 
 
 call the London of Ms fathers, makes his home at the 
 Caravanserai. A younger son, he was passing his time 
 as one of the second secretaries of her Majesty's em- 
 bassy at Vienna, copying despatches, and making a 
 precis of reports touching the growth and development 
 of Austrian commerce, when, by the whim of a cousin, 
 he became the heir to a fair property situated in the not 
 very beautiful district of East Lincolnshire. To quit 
 diplomacy, to let his newly acquired estate, and to settle 
 in Paris were, as the novelists say, the work of a mo- 
 ment. To be in Paris, and of Paris, had always been 
 the ambition of Chichester. "When in the diplomatic 
 service he had exerted all his interest to be attached to 
 our embassy at that bright capital ; but the Fates and the 
 Foreign Office had declined to listen to his wishes. He 
 had been sent to Stuttgardt, then to Dresden, then 
 this exchange was delightful to Ispahan, and then to 
 Vienna ; but never once had he had occasion to don his 
 diplomatic uniform at a ball or levee at the Tuileries. 
 Therefore as soon as he was a free man, and his bankers' 
 book permitted him to enjoy without stint all the fasci- 
 nations of life, he made Paris his home. 
 
 He was precisely the man to appreciate the pursuits 
 and pleasures of this the gayest of cities the gayest 
 because it is the capital not only of France, but of 
 Europe. He was a Catholic, but his religion sat lightly
 
 So CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 upon him, never pricking his conscience or interfering 
 with his amusements, yet always ready to soothe him 
 when bilious or disappointed; it was not a curb or a 
 fetter, but an anodyne. He was well-read in the sense 
 that a Frenchman is well-read ; he was familiar with the 
 light literature of most countries ; he knew most of the 
 great tragedies and comedies that had been written ; he 
 was well up in modern history ; he had a good practical 
 acquaintance with geography and political economy ; he 
 had a keen appreciation of wit and humour; and he 
 knew enough Latin to read the Odes of Horace. He 
 was an epicure ; he was fond of amusement ; he was 
 addicted very far from wisely to the society of the fair 
 sex ; and he could give and swallow any amount of flat- 
 tery. Between him and the typical Englishman there 
 was little in common. In the tastes and habits of Lut- 
 trell Chichester there was a touch of effeminacy. He 
 was fond of ostentation, and was perfectly free from our 
 national mauvaise honte. He cared far more to flirt in a 
 boudoir than to ride across country. Spending a great 
 deal of time over his personal appearance, and setting up 
 for a lady-killer of the most seductive description, he 
 was never so happy as when surrounded by women, 
 complimenting them, escorting them, and carrying out 
 their behests. To such a man whose fortune permitted 
 him to gamble at his cercle, whose birth and religion did
 
 PATRIOTISM. 8 1 
 
 not exclude him from the exclusive assemblies of 
 the Faubourg St. Germain, who was well introduced 
 into the amusing and cosmopolitan society of the capital 
 Paris possessed attractions such as no other city could 
 offer. After a couple of winters, Chichester resolved to 
 look upon France as his home, and to substitute Paris 
 for London. 
 
 For all practical purposes, he is now as complete a 
 Frenchman as if he had not been born this side of the 
 Channel. He rents a flat near the Champs Elysees, 
 &nd a small chateau near Fontainebleau. He is a mem- 
 ber of the Bebe Club. He swears fealty to the white flag, 
 and is the most loyal of those who regard Henri Cinq as 
 their king. In his dress, and in the appointments of his 
 chambers and of his country seat, he slavishly imitates 
 the fashions of the land of his adoption. He eschews 
 the society of the English at Paris. He trims his hair, 
 shaves his cheeks, and curls his moustache like a French- 
 man. He takes his two meals a day like a Frenchman. 
 He interests himself alone in French politics, and works 
 himself into a passion when the German victories, the 
 .annexation of Alsace and Lorraine, and the movements 
 of M. Gambetta are mentioned. When he has occasion 
 to speak English he shrugs his shoulders and gesticu- 
 lates like the true Gaul; and when he talks to an 
 Englishman of England, he alludes to her as 'your 
 
 G
 
 82 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 country.' He has obtained a title from the Pope, and 
 has blossomed forth into the Chevalier Chichestere. 
 Ashamed of our island and avoiding her people, he has 
 so identified himself with French interests and French 
 manners, that when he is called un Anglais he feels 
 himself insulted. It must be admitted, however, that 
 his impersonation of the Frenchman is a great histrionic 
 success; he both speaks the language and looks the 
 character to perfection. 
 
 When Chichester enters the Caravanserai during one 
 of his short visits to London, the waiters always look 
 upon him as one of our distinguished foreign members, 
 and treat him accordingly. He wears a peculiar hat, 
 very shiny, very narrow brimmed, and very arched ; he 
 looks at life out of the lenses of a pince-nez; a heavy 
 moustache falls over his mouth, whilst a little mouche (it 
 was an imperial, you know, in the days of the Empire ; 
 now, under the Eepublic, it is a mouche for MacMahon 
 wears one how suggestive this is of man's fidelity !) 
 nestles in the curve above the chin ; his cheeks are blue 
 and shaven like those of a priest ; very loose all-round 
 collars, with a spotted tie made into a bow, with wide 
 pendulous ends, encircle his neck ; his cutaway coat and 
 waistcoat have that peculiar tightness and inelegance 
 of the Parisian tailor ; the trousers, often wonderful in 
 pattern (lavender and the Mackenzie tartan for choice),
 
 PATRIOTISM. 83 
 
 fit tight to the leg, and fall over a snow-white pair of 
 gaiters ; whilst the boots are short and very broad at 
 the toes. No wonder that men accustomed to the works 
 
 of art of Poole, Lock, and Thomas regard Chichester as 
 a foreigner. As he walks up our morning-room he 
 adopts a little mincing gait; when he talks to you or 
 sits down to read the newspaper he puts himself into 
 attitudes; and when he has occasion to find fault, he
 
 84 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 pouts and waves his hands like a girl. The wags at the 
 Caravanserai have christened him Henrietta. 
 
 He is a source of great amusement to many of the 
 members. In his diatribes against England there is no 
 affectation of animosity ; he really and unfeignedly de- 
 tests the country, its climate, institutions, and inhabit- 
 ants. When he takes his walks abroad he returns to the 
 club sick at heart and sincerely disgusted. He has seen 
 toilettes that have made his fastidious nerves shudder 
 as if he had listened to a false note in music ; the dust 
 has gone into his eyes and down his throat ; the water- 
 ing-carts have flooded the land where he wants to cross 
 the road. ' We lay the dust,' he says, with his girlish 
 pout ; i you make mud.' The hot streets have been un- 
 shaded by trees, whilst no cool enticing cafe has been 
 there to offer him repose and refreshment ; he has been 
 shaken about in a dirty and miserably-hung cab ; he has 
 been bored by the dead-level of dulness and monotony 
 that is everywhere visible. ( No wonder,' he says, as he 
 takes up the Figaro, l that you boast of your home life 
 in this damned country of yours, for nobody who could 
 help it would ever go out of doors.' He dines out at the 
 houses of his sisters, and at the houses of friends he feels 
 bound once a year to meet, and he mourns over the bad 
 wines he has to drink, the indigestible dishes that he 
 has to eat, the bad ventilation of the rooms, the solemnity
 
 PATRIOTISM. 85 
 
 of the men, and the want of tact of the women. ' To 
 thoroughly appreciate Bignon's,' he sneers, 'you must 
 have dined in England. To know what dress is without 
 taste, what conversation is without sparkle, what hospi- 
 tality is without grace, you must enter London society.' 
 "We take him to the theatres ; we show him Mr. and 
 Mrs. Bancroft, we show him Mr. and Mrs. Kendal, we 
 show him Mr. Hare, we show him Mr. Irving ; we ask 
 him to weep over our tragedies, to laugh over our come- 
 dies, and to split his sides over our burlesques ; but his 
 face never relaxes its rigid expression of utter boredom. 
 ' Man Dieu, and those are your actors and actresses !' he 
 yawns, as he quits the theatre. ' "What a pity it is you 
 do things by halves ! You get your plays from Paris ; 
 why not get your actors ?' If he wishes to dine away 
 from the club, where, he plaintively asks, can he go ? 
 At his beloved Paris he has the Cafe Anglais (I have 
 dined with him there in K"o. 16 or rather sat down to 
 dinner, for dyspepsia does not permit me to indulge and 
 can speak of him most favourably as a host), the Maison 
 Doree, Bignon's, and several other haunts well known 
 to the French gourmet. '"Whilst here,' he cries, 'your 
 best restaurants, now that Francatelli is dead, are a 
 disgrace even to the Palais Eoyal.' It is impossible to 
 please him ; everything he sees, everything we do, every- 
 thing we praise, is a mistake, and gives rise to the
 
 86 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 ridicule of Europe. Like ancient Eome and ancient 
 Greece, like Venice and Spain, England has seen her best 
 days, and is fast going to wreck and ruin. ' Sapristi P 
 he says, with his girlish gesticulations, ' you are a droll 
 people ! In your newspapers and at your clubs you 
 imagine yourselves a powerful nation, and that your 
 voice is a potent one in the councils of Europe. Yet 
 cross the Channel, and what notice do you find any of 
 the Powers taking of the views and feelings of England? 
 Rien ! You are a shop, not a barrack, and what else 
 can you expect? You look upon politics only through 
 the medium of commercial interests, and then wonder at 
 the decline of your national prestige. You encourage 
 pusillanimity, and call it arbitration. You weaken 
 strength, and call it reduction. You impair efficiency, 
 and call it economy. You exchange a patriotic aristo- 
 cracy for a mischievous middle class, and then wonder 
 at misgovernment. You ridicule Protection, and then 
 wonder at commercial panics and agricultural distress. 
 You legalise trades-unions, and then marvel at the 
 antagonism between labour and capital. You sanction 
 the freedom of the press, and then are astonished at the 
 spread of sedition. Mon Dieu, your country is going to 
 the devil, and it won't be much of a catch when he gets 
 it !' Luttrell Chichester, I fear, will. 
 
 He is particularly wrath with the conduct of the
 
 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 English who visit his fondly cherished city. He objects 
 to the style of dress they adopt, to their open contempt 
 for the manners of the country, to their arrogance, bru- 
 tality, and utter want of savoir-faire. 
 
 1 Why, if you were Germans,' he sneers, ' you could 
 not behave worse ! Why walk about the Boulevards as 
 if you were going out cover-shooting ? Why, when you 
 dine together, talk at the top of your voice, and let all 
 Paris know that you are English ? Why refuse to be
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 courteous to a man or woman simply because he or she 
 happens to stand behind a counter ? Why, when shut 
 up at a railway station waiting for your luggage, or 
 standing at a box-office waiting for a ticket for the 
 theatre, or at a review, or on the racecourse, always 
 insist in the loudest of tones upon the superiority of 
 your own institutions, and make yourselves thoroughly 
 objectionable to all around you? At Paris you arc 
 simply hated, and if it were not for your money you 
 would be treated with marked disrespect.' 
 
 ' You are quite right to stand up for Paris,' replies 
 a youngster, who has just entered upon his forensic 
 career as judge's marshal ; ' it is the jolliest place out ! 
 If I had my way I'd be like you, and live over there. 
 Give me an invite at Easter, Chichester.' 
 
 ' Paris the jolliest place out !' sardonically laughs 
 Chichester. ' That is the way with you young fellows. 
 Pray what do you know of Paris? You put up at an 
 hotel where a Parisian never enters ; you walk arm-in- 
 arm along the Boulevards, and inspired by the romances 
 of Paul de Kock and Xavier de Montepin, imagine 
 that you are to enter into an intrigue with the first 
 great lady you meet in your promenade ; you drive to- 
 the Bois or up and down the Champs Elysees in a two 
 francs and a half fly ; you dine by yourselves, and drink 
 too much at the Cafe Anglais or at Bignon's, and then..
 
 PATRIOTISM. 89 
 
 flushed and noisy, you sally forth to a theatre, where 
 you don't understand the language, or to the Mabille or 
 the Closerie des Lilas, where you do understand the 
 language, and finish your day with a supper at Brebant's, 
 in society which even the clerk of a notaire would con- 
 sider compromising. And then you say there is no 
 place like Paris, and flatter yourselves you know what 
 life in Paris is ! You bring no letters of introduction 
 with you ; you do not know a single lady of fashion to 
 ask you to a dance or to dinner ; you belong to none of 
 the cercles ; you are not acquainted with a single political 
 or literary celebrity to show you any attention ; and yet 
 you return to London and say, "Awfully jolly place, 
 Paris ! Know every inch of it ! Never was more amused 
 in my life ! You go and see Niniclie" 
 
 Chichester, however, is one of the few Englishmen 
 who really is acquainted with Paris. He has been good 
 enough to invite me to stay with him both at his cham- 
 bers and at his charming little country seat. Under his 
 auspices I am able to form some idea of what Parisian 
 life is. He takes me into society, which I am not sur- 
 prised to find is very different from that depicted by 
 certain novelists and dramatic authors ; at his hospitable 
 breakfast-table one meets authors, actors, and the 
 ' curled darlings' of the Bebe and the Jockey Club ; he 
 has introduced me at the greenroom of the Francais;
 
 9 o 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 he has obtained tickets for me to listen to debates 
 at Versailles ; and, thanks to him, I have sat amongst 
 the crush on the admission of an Academician. He 
 drives me to neighbouring races in his drag driving 
 like a Frenchman, with his arms sticking out from his 
 
 sides, and his body well forward ; he puts my name 
 down as an honorary member at a cercle, where I can 
 play baccarat if it pleases me to the most unlimited 
 extent; he tells me what to see, whom to know, and 
 what to avoid. He is as different a companion in France 
 as a London fog is from an Italian sky. Bright, cheery, 
 amusing, full of anecdote and geniality, he has little in
 
 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 common with the discontented, dyspeptic, surly denizen 
 of Pall Mall that he is when in England. 
 
 But to see him at his best you must stay with him 
 at his chateau near Fontainebleau. There he is the 
 complete French country gentleman, as on the Boule- 
 vards he is the complete flaneur. Dressed in a suit of 
 yellow jean, with a large Leghorn straw hat on his 
 head, he goes pottering about his trim gardens, with 
 their succession of terraces, formal flower-beds, mimic 
 fountains, and yews cut into all manner of fantastic 
 shapes, whilst the shaved poodle trots by his side ; or 
 else he pays a visit to his little home farm, well 
 stocked with Breton cows, Auvergne sheep, pigs from 
 Westphalia, Spanish poultry, and white huge-flanked 
 Gorman horses. He is a kind landlord, and is on ex- 
 cellent terms with the cure of the village, to whom his 
 donations pour lespauvres are very liberal. As becomes 
 a Legitimist, and one on whom the pious regions of 
 the Faubourg St. Germain smile kindly, in the country 
 he is most respectable, and never misses attending high 
 mass on Sundays or on the great festivals, acting as 
 escort to some high dame engaged in collecting une 
 quete. In Paris he does as he pleases, but in the country 
 he has to set an example. When la cliasse sets in, 
 Chichester is in great force. In the coverts around he 
 has plenty of birds, but it must be admitted that the
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 pheasants and partridges have little to fear. Not only 
 is Chichester a wretched shot, but the guests he fills 
 his house with are little better. His shooting-parties 
 are very delicious. The petits creves and the gommeux. 
 
 who dawdle over breakfast, gorgeously attired in dark- 
 green coats, black- velvet caps, jack-boots, and couteaux 
 de chasse at their waistbelts, are in no hurry for the 
 sport. They chat, smoke cigarettes, look at themselves 
 in the glass, and then, when the morning is fast dis-
 
 PATRIOTISM. 93 
 
 solving into the afternoon, make up their minds to face 
 the cold air. Each one has his man behind him with 
 a couple of guns ; but the young Gauls are far more 
 accustomed to the pavement of Paris than to the ridge 
 and furrow of the fields, or the yielding leafy rides in 
 the woods. They do not attempt to keep in line ; they 
 never think of preserving silence ; they point the bar- 
 rels of their breechloaders at each other with a charm- 
 ing contempt for the consequences of manslaughter; 
 they blaze into a thick covert heedless of dogs, beaters, 
 or a brother sportsman ; and if they make a bag, which 
 we should consider most moderate if it fell to one gun, 
 they are in ecstasies. They want female society, music, 
 or absinthe to wake them up and give them energy ; 
 and I am sure in their heart of hearts they curse the 
 damp, the cold, and long for the evening and to bid 
 for the bank at baccarat. It was the same when they 
 went out hunting. Attired in a costume something 
 between a circus-master and an Odd Fellow, they were 
 only happy when riding to cover or when saying charm- 
 ing nothings to the fair amazons who turned up at the 
 meet; but when the hounds were thrown in by the 
 huntsman into a furze-brake, and when the music of 
 their tongues plainly told that the fox had been found, 
 then the Frenchmen looked uncomfortable. They fidg- 
 eted about, altered their stirrups, and, before they had
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 made up their minds to jump a two-feet ditch, men, 
 horses, and hounds were fields ahead, and our l sports- 
 men' were hopelessly thrown out. 
 
 No, Chichester, most prejudiced of Anglophobists, in 
 spite of all your teaching, give me old England ! Johnny 
 Crapaud may be very well in his way. I grant you he 
 is very amusing and generally very lively; but he wants 
 ballast, he promises more than he performs, his sincerity 
 is not to be depended upon, he is not wholesome in many 
 of his tastes, and he is too fond of ' a gallery' and of 
 showing off to be really in earnest or really manly. 
 John Bull, with all his faults, is the more sterling of 
 the two, as he always was and always will be.
 
 LETTEES.
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 THE successful man of letters at the present day lias 
 little to complain of. Time was when he had to haunt 
 the antechambers of the great, to badger the whole circle 
 of his acquaintance for subscriptions, and to sell his 
 political opinions to the first statesman who wanted 
 them, ere he could eke out a livelihood sufficient to 
 liberate him from the clutches of the sheriff's officer and 
 from the dens of the Fleet. It was a red-letter day with 
 him when he had received his ten guineas for a dedica- 
 tion to a peer who wished to pose as a patron of letters 
 at a modest cost, or when his list of subscribers was full 
 enough to justify him to go to press with his new volume, 
 or when he was offered a collectorship in the Customs or 
 the Revenue because his squibs and his satires had been 
 useful to a Minister. In those ( dark ages' of literature 
 the reading public was limited, and the author, unless 
 favoured by the great or the State, soon found that his 
 audience was too small or too indifferent to support him. 
 One little source of pride, however, remained to him; 
 he might have to starve as Otway starved; he might 
 have to find his bed, like Savage, on the garbage of the 
 
 H
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 market-place; he might be ill-clad, dunned, and arrested; 
 but lie was an author a man of education whose opinions 
 were respectfully listened to, who received the homage 
 
 of the set in which he lived, and whose pen commanded 
 for him a consideration that he would not otherwise 
 have obtained. Authorship was then, not as now a 
 profession, but a distinction. To have written a book, 
 whether it succeeded or was damned, was in itself an 
 accomplishment which raised the writer a full head and
 
 LETTERS. 99 
 
 shoulders above the common herd. It qualified him for 
 admission into society, it ushered him into the presence 
 of the powerful, he was treated with deference by all, 
 saving those who had pecuniary relations with him, and 
 he was regarded as amongst the notables of the coffee- 
 house that he frequented. If his book was talked 
 about, and he was born under the star of a Minister who 
 encouraged letters and the fine arts, he might find him- 
 self performing the duties of a sinecure commissioner- 
 ship, and drawing a handsome salary from the Treasury. 
 He might hold the seals of a Secretary of State like 
 Addison ; he might be a Commissioner of Appeals like 
 Locke ; a Master of the Mint like Newton ; a Com- 
 missioner of Stamps like Steele; or be attached to 
 embassies as were Gay, Prior, and Stepney. 
 
 It was, however, all a question of luck. If a Minister 
 like Walpole or the second Pitt stood at the helm of 
 government, the author, the poet, and the satirist had a 
 hard time of it. No snug post under the Crown then 
 fell to his lot ; he was attached to no embassies ; his old 
 age was cheered by no pensions; as he had made his 
 bed so must he lie upon it. ' If you are such a damned 
 fool,' said Sir Eobert Walpole, with his characteristic 
 delicacy of feeling, to a poor author, 'as to follow a 
 trade that does not pay, you have only yourself to 
 blame. If the State is to help all who have been unsuc-
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 cessful in their calling, the Exchequer would be empty 
 to-morrow, and I do not see why the country should 
 assist one whose books publishers cannot sell, or whose 
 plays managers cannot act, more than one who fails in 
 any other form of business.' Had old Sam Johnson 
 lived in the reign of Queen Anne, a high govern- 
 ment appointment would have effectually relieved 
 him from slaving for the publishers and from the 
 drudgery of hack-work. On the other hand, had Con- 
 greve lived in the days of George II. or of George III. 
 he would simply have remained a writer for the stage, 
 and have been dependent upon his own exertions for his 
 income. The pursuit of literature was in itself a miser- 
 able occupation ; it might lead to advantages, but such 
 advantages were unconnected with the calling of author- 
 ship pure and simple. Until the present century, with 
 the exception of Pope and Dryden, it is doubtful 
 whether any single author managed to subsist com- 
 fortably-upon the profits that arose from the sale of his 
 works. Sir Walter Scott was accustomed to say that 
 the pursuit of literature was a bad staff, but a good 
 stick ; in the ' good old times,' however, the calling of 
 a man of letters was neither a staff nor a stick, but the 
 slenderest of reeds. 
 
 Happity a healthier state of things has been ushered 
 in. Education has been busy with the masses, circulat-
 
 LETTERS. IOI 
 
 ing- libraries have been established, cheap newspapers 
 flood the land with their broadsides, and the consequence 
 is that a vast reading public, eager after novelty and 
 attractive information, has been called into existence. 
 A man who hits the literary taste of the day is sure, not 
 only of popularity, but of the substantial rewards of 
 ready money. He need not pander to the cheap vanity 
 of a patron ; there is no necessity for him to go hat in 
 hand begging for subscribers, nor has the penurious 
 certainty of a small government appointment any attrac- 
 tions for him. His patron is the public, and as long as 
 it reads his works, so long will publishers gladly pay 
 him for his wares and the libraries order their hundreds 
 of copies. Literature is now a profession, like law or 
 medicine, and the successful author enjoys the same rank 
 and receives the same homage as any other successful 
 professional man. The mere fact of having written a 
 book in these days, when everybody reads and almost 
 everybody writes, is in itself no mark of distinction ; 
 should the work make a c hit,' the author is treated by 
 the world with the same consideration that it accords 
 to the rest of the pedestrians who have distanced their 
 fellows on the high-road to fame. He is a fortunate 
 man, precisely as the barrister whose tables are covered 
 with briefs is a fortunate man, or the doctor who is 
 gaining a large practice, or the engineer who is full of
 
 102 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 contracts, or the merchant who freely prospers is a 
 fortunate man. The days are past when an author is 
 stared at by society because a publisher has given his 
 manuscript to the world. We worship success of all 
 kinds, and if our friend of the pen becomes talked about 
 we follow in his train, yet not, as in the days of the 
 Tudors and the Stuarts, because he is a writer, but 
 because he is successful. Literature has no longer a 
 pedestal to itself, but takes its place in the sculpture- 
 gallery with the rest of the statuary, and is bought and 
 criticised like the other figures that surround it, and 
 vulgarly valued for what it will fetch. The divinity 
 that once hedged round the author has departed, and in 
 its stead is the tradesman with his scale of profits and 
 losses, and who knows to an ounce what is the true 
 worth of l copy.' Empty homage has given way to 
 solid bullion. 
 
 That the calling of a successful literary man is not 
 to be despised is evidenced by the career of one of the 
 pillars of the Caravanserai, familiarly called 'Jimmy.' 
 Why he should be known as Jimmy, considering that, 
 according to the wishes of his godfather and godmother, 
 he was christened Hugh, and that the family name is 
 Lister, it is beyond me to discover. One thing is, how- 
 ever, certain, that he is always called Jimmy, and to speak 
 of him as Lister is to brand oneself as an ignoramus, an
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 103 
 
 outsider, and utterly unworthy of membership of the 
 Caravanserai. Quite a representative man is Jimmy. In 
 the smoking-room his easy-chair is always the centre of 
 attraction ; for his stories are amusing, his conversation 
 
 witty, and he possesses precisely that information upon 
 things in general and scandal in particular which is 
 suited to the hour of one o'clock in the morning. He 
 is the great authority in the club upon literature, the 
 drama, and the fine arts. The gossip of the greenroom is
 
 104 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 at his fingers' ends ; and he is not reticent upon the feuds 
 of actors and the witcheries of actresses. He knows all 
 the new works that are coming out, what novels are to 
 be naughty or insipid, and explains all the mysterious 
 allusions in the newspapers, and the classical quotations 
 that may crop up in the course of talk or perusal. Hay- 
 ing once painted a picture that was rejected, he de- 
 veloped into the art-critic of a leading journal, and his 
 remarks, if biting, are amusing on the intrigues of the 
 Eoyal Academy, the jealousies of artists, and on that 
 burlesquing of Nature which English people call art. 
 
 Jimmy is a general favourite, for he has a great deal 
 in his power, and is not unlavish in its disposal. The 
 newspaper of which he is editor and part proprietor is 
 always open to puff his friends who write books, paint 
 pictures, or mould busts ; he is always ready, unless in 
 the full swing of the parliamentary season, to spare a 
 paragraph for the achievements of the l spring-captains* 
 and the t sportsmen' who are amongst the number of his 
 acquaintance for their Alpine ascents, their rowing- 
 matches against time, their hunting of the big game 
 in South America, or their racing, driving, yachting, 
 and running deeds. His pen and kindly words are ever 
 prompt to introduce a friend, or friend's friend, who is 
 supposed to have literary or artistic talent, to the pub- 
 lishers, the picture-dealers, and the editors of magazines
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 I0 5 
 
 and reviews. From his journalistic position and his 
 acquaintance with managers and actors he seldom lacks 
 1 orders' for the theatre and the opera, and when these 
 are in his possession he generously gives them to those in 
 the club who he thinks will most appreciate the present 
 barristers whose briefs have not yet arrived, j^oung 
 government clerks whose seniors decline to make way 
 for them, soldiers on half-pay, and the rest of the 
 fraternity of social paupers. The well-to-do suppliants 
 and it is astonishing how many of the wealthy 
 petition for orders he dismisses with a caustic gibe 
 at their meanness to the libraries and box-offices. 
 
 Whenever anything is to be done and wherever 
 anything is to be seen there to be sure is Jimmy. If an 
 ironclad is going to be launched, a new bridge to bo 
 opened, a grand field-day to be held at Aldershot, a 
 naval review to take place at Spithead, a banquet to 
 be given to a distinguished personage, Jimmy is certain 
 to be presented with a card. And as for the tickets 
 for race-meetings, ' first nights,' private views at exhi- 
 bitions, concerts, City dinners, and for all the other 
 forms of the external dissipation of London society that 
 crowd his looking-glass and mantelpiece, their number 
 is legion. Xo wonder, then, that a man who has so 
 much in his gift, who is such excellent company, and 
 who is the most perfect of hosts, should be much sought
 
 106 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 after and be deemed the most popular of good fellows. 
 He has but one enemy, and that is his tailor, whom he 
 will never permit to dress him in the fashion ; Jimmy 
 running to flesh prefers his habits loose, and declines to- 
 be buttoned up and puckered and encased in the manner 
 sartorial art delights in. 
 
 It is not unusual with me to cross the Park of a 
 morning, and call upon Jimmy at his chambers in Vic- 
 toria-street whilst he is breakfasting at an hour when 
 ordinary people are lunching. When I enter his rooms, 
 furnished in the most approved mediaeval style, and 
 criticise their luxurious appointments the easy-chairs,. 
 the valuable engravings, the rare books, the china, and 
 curious glass that juts out from the wall on velvet 
 brackets, the old brass and mirrors and oak cabinets or 
 watch their owner enjoying life to the full, surrounded 
 by all that modest ambition can desire, the thought 
 frequently crosses my mind, How different is the- 
 fate of Hugh Lister from that of many of his prede- 
 cessors ! 
 
 "When I see Jimmy giving his little dinners at the 
 club at a certain well-known round table, the waiters 
 active and attentive, the chief butler himself superin- 
 tending the serving of the dishes, the champagne iced 
 to perfection, the claret warmed with the most consum- 
 mate care I think of the men, better read than he, and
 
 LETTERS. 107 
 
 endowed with greater talents, who knew not where to 
 turn for a meal or a couch, calling themselves lucky if 
 they could dine at a tripe-shop or pay for the shelter of 
 a garret. I think of the author of Venice Preserved 
 choking himself over the food, from which he had been 
 so long deprived, in the fierce greed of hunger ; of the 
 ill-starred Savage crouching for warmth before the 
 dying ashes of a glass furnace ; of the great Orientalist,, 
 the translator of the Koran, pursuing his studies amid 
 the severest privations; of old Sam Johnson, hidden 
 behind the screen in the publisher's dining-room, be- 
 cause his coat was too ragged to admit him to the table 
 of his host ; of Steele, Goldsmith, Smollett, Fielding, 
 Crabbe, Chatterton, and the hundred and one other 
 brothers of the pen, who knew often what actual want 
 was, what misery was, what pain left to itself was, and 
 what followed from the grasp of the sheriff's officer ! 
 
 When I see Jimmy on his famous three-hundred- 
 guinea cob, well up to eighteen stone, and whose head 
 and crest and quarters are the admiration of the Bow, 
 or driving his pair of bays about the town or the sub- 
 urbs, there rise before me visions of pale sad faces 
 who have had to part with their manuscripts, their 
 poems, their satires, their tragedies, their essays and 
 novels, for a tenth or a twentieth of the sum our nine- 
 teenth-century scribe gives for one of his horses. Did
 
 xoS CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 not Milton sell his incomparable epic for the price of a 
 new saddle ? Can you buy a stanhope at a good maker's 
 for the price at which Goldsmith sold his Vicar of 
 Wakefield? Did not Dryden engage himself to write 
 ten thousand verses for less than the price of an opera- 
 box for the season ? Was not Evelina parted with by 
 Miss Burney at the price of a frock-coat ? And pray 
 what did the men of letters under the first three Georges 
 make out of literature ? But perhaps the saddest of all 
 reflections is how fared it with the men, then as now, 
 who could find no publisher to take their wares, whoso 
 tastes and peculiarities of character unfitted them for 
 the ordinary occupations of life, who read and wrote in 
 the hope of one day receiving their reward and having 
 their niche in the Temple of Fame, only to find their 
 end in the gaol, the hospital, or the terrible exit of the 
 suicide ? As I write there stands out against the back- 
 ground of the past the lean haggard form of one I knew, 
 who busied himself with subjects that appealed to the 
 few, who degenerated into a publisher's hack ; then 
 even that calling failed him, for others could be found 
 to do the work cheaper ; who was poor unto misery, yet 
 neither his garb nor conversation revealed his sorrows, 
 for the pride of manhood made him keep his poverty to 
 himself, till anxiety and suffering bade him one fatal day 
 brave the terrors of the unknown, and put an end to the
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 109 
 
 life, whose burden was greater than he could bear, by 
 his own hand. Poor soul ! had one but known how 
 severe was the measure the Fates had dealt out to him, 
 he needed not have been fearful again of distress or pri- 
 vation ; gladly subscriptions would have been raised for 
 him : but he kept us all in ignorance of his affairs, and 
 whilst we mourn his reserve, we cannot but respect the 
 pride and pluck that dictated it. How many suffering 
 hearts have thus passed to their rest, conscious of the 
 genius working within them, their brains stored with 
 the intellectual accumulations -of ages, yet rudely ignored 
 by the times in which their lot was cast, whilst the 
 empty and the frivolous were the idols of the hour ! 
 To obtain success is not always to deserve it. Life is 
 but a lottery, and it is quite as' often that a prize is 
 drawn by a fluke as by desert. 
 
 Kot that by this digression I am inferring that 
 Jimmy is not deserving of his prosperity. Far from it ; 
 no man works harder or is more worthy of the success 
 that attends him : only there are others to the full as 
 able as himself, and who work quite as assiduously, 
 yet somehow their names are known to the few, and 
 their wares have little market value. Let us see how 
 Jimmy raised himself to the position of a favourite of 
 Fortune. The son of an ex-cavalry officer, who was 
 atoning for the dissipation of his youth and the loss of
 
 no 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 the paternal acres over hazard by strict economy at the 
 little town of Dinan in Brittany, young Lister received 
 his first education at the hands of the parish priest, a 
 Jesuit well schooled in mathematics and who knew the 
 
 classics as his Breviary. Sharp, studious, and a keen 
 observer of all that fell within his ken, the lad was a 
 most promising pupil, and soon showed of what he was 
 capable. He was sent to a grammar-school in Kent 
 which had numerous exhibitions at Oxford ; two of these
 
 LETTERS. in 
 
 young Lister gained, and passed himself through the 
 University without costing his impecunious parent a 
 single sou. Disappointed in obtaining a fellowship, he 
 came to London and entered himself at the Bar. He 
 had his name painted in the blackest of letters on the 
 yellowest of backgrounds, he went circuit, he went 
 sessions, he attended the courts at Westminster; but 
 solicitors declined to honour him with their patronage. 
 At last he put his wig in its tin box, hung up his gown, 
 and betook himself to that great refuge of the unsuccess- 
 ful forensic mind journalism. He had succeeded to 
 the family property of two hundred a year, and what 
 with reviews, magazine articles, and occasional leaders, 
 he managed to live in Dry den's Buildings, not uncom- 
 fortably, nay with splendour compared to many of the 
 barristers who lodged on his staircase. Finding that 
 works of imagination, if successful, were the most lucra- 
 tive of all literary productions, he wrote a novel. It 
 was rejected by the trade. Young authors, take heart 
 from this, and be not cast down ! The first novel of the 
 popular Jimmy was refused; why, then, need you 
 despair? What is the general fate of first efforts? 
 What are Eaphael's ' Dream' and Gibbon's History of 
 Switzerland but miserable failures ? Were not the first 
 appearances of Kean, Kemble, and Mrs. Siddons cordi- 
 ally hissed? Were not the first speeches of Walpole,
 
 H2 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 Canning, Erskine, Grattan, Disraeli in the House of 
 Commons failures ? Were not the first works of most 
 of our modern writers politely declined with thanks? 
 Success! What is success but the triumph over past 
 failure ? Mon ami, if you have never been a fool, you 
 will never be a wise man ; if you have never failed, you 
 will never be successful. The best across country are 
 not those who have had the fewest falls. 
 
 Mortified at his failure, Jimmy vowed that he would 
 court Imagination no more ; and, with a sneer, said 
 he would leave that sphere 'to the women.' It is 
 astonishing how savage were his reviews on all the 
 novels that crossed his path at this time, and how 
 highly moral were the reproofs he directed against the 
 frivolity of the public taste. Certain social topics then 
 being discussed, Jimmy took the matter up, infused his 
 humour and classical culture into the question, and 
 wrote a few letters signed ' E. S. Y. P.' to that great 
 journal the Trimmer upon the subject. They were 
 inserted, and led to his permanent engagement on the 
 staff. His letters, with the signature ' E. S. Y. P.,' 
 on international law, penny ices, cheap divorces, 
 gamekeepers' fees, domestic economy, justices' justice, 
 tips to servants, state of the nation, state of Eotten 
 Eow, model farms, baby-farms, what to do with your 
 manure, what to do with your poor in short, on
 
 LETTERS. 113 
 
 anything and everything, were regarded by the public 
 mind with the respect and consideration accorded only 
 to the epistles of the most brilliant writers of the day, 
 which occasionally, through the medium of the Trimmer, 
 kindly advise the estates of the realm how to act, the 
 law-officers of the Crown how to legislate, the bench 
 how to decide, and society generally how to behave. 
 
 For the next few years Hugh Lister led the ordinary 
 life of the literary man- of- all- work. He wrote reviews 
 on books of all classes from an encyclopedia to an 
 Oriental grammar by studying the preface and deriving 
 his information from the pages he criticised, then wind- 
 ing up with praise or abuse, according to the state of 
 his liver and the bother the volumes gave him. He 
 wrote essays, pamphlets, magazine articles, a book of 
 travels, which was read and forgotten, and edited a 
 classical author. It was at this time that he painted 
 the head of a cardinal, which he fancied was, for shade 
 and colouring, worthy of Eembrandt. As I have said, 
 it was not accepted by the Eoyal Academy. One mem- 
 ber of the hanging committee, as he examined it, said 
 he was prepared for anything from an English artist, 
 but he must really draw the line at sign-boards. Genial 
 and good-tempered as are naturally most burly men, 
 it is a sure ' draw' to get Jimmy on the subject of Art. 
 His ire is hot and his invectives unbounded when he 
 
 i
 
 H4 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 dilates upon that close borough, the Eoyal Academy. 
 As Listen imagined that tragedy was his forte, so Lister 
 sneers at his literary fame, and thinks that the brush 
 and not the pen should have been his calling, and 
 that he should be handed down to posterity, not as 
 a Fielding, but as a Eaphael. 
 
 So some fifteen years passed away since Hugh 
 Lister quitted the cloisters of Alma Mater. Beyond 
 the literary circle in which he lived he was almost 
 unknown; his friends recognised his talents, and won- 
 dered why he had allowed his intellectual inferiors to 
 distance him in the race of life. Great things had been 
 anticipated from him by all in his set, still he had not 
 realised the expectations formed of him. Men not 
 worthy to clean his inkstand were drawing their hun- 
 dreds from the publishers and were household names 
 at the libraries, whilst he was still grinding away at 
 journalism and hack-work. At last the hour came, and 
 the man was found ready. 
 
 Whilst fishing in Scotland, Hugh Lister was laid 
 on his back with rheumatism. Immured in a little 
 Highland village, unable to stir out, free from the ex- 
 citement of society and the interruption of friends, as 
 he slowly recovered he bethought himself of a story, 
 and began for the second time to write a novel. His 
 experience of life had matured ; he had always been a
 
 LETTERS. 1x5 
 
 keen observer of character ; his sense of toleration had 
 deepened ; his powers of sarcasm, humour, pathos, had 
 widened in their range and increased in intensity. He 
 took Balzac and Fielding as his models; he wrote 
 leisurely and thought much ; two years he spent over 
 his work, and then gave it to the public. The time 
 had not been wasted. The book was one exactly suited 
 to the cynical, genial, religious, infidel, ostentatious, 
 retiring spirit of the age, and its success was unbounded. 
 It dissected character, especially female character; it 
 laid bare the selfishness of human nature ; it lashed the 
 vices of society and held up the mirror' to the world, so 
 that it saw itself, not flattered or distorted, but faithfully 
 reflected. We love to be told of our faults and virtues, 
 especially when we attribute all the virtues to ourselves 
 and burden our neighbour with the faults. 
 
 The future of Hugh Lister was assured. He was 
 the Balzac of the day, and anything from his pen found 
 a ready market. Since his first venture he has written 
 numerous works, some good, some bad, some indifferent, 
 but all commanding a large sale and handsomely swell- 
 ing their author's banking account. A great man is 
 Jimmy now. He dines with dukes and bishops ; he 
 lectures in America ; he is a member of several learned 
 societies ; he takes the chair at literary meetings ; he 
 is a member of far more distinguished clubs than the
 
 n6 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 Caravanserai; he has declined a seat in Parliament; 
 he 'is said to be worth a small fortune. "When I read 
 Jimmy's books and wince under his satire and caustic 
 cynicism, and then see him at the club, his fat sides 
 shaking with laughter, his hand ever ready to help 
 a friend, always generous, kind, and good, it strikes 
 me what a difference there often is between what a 
 man writes and what a man is. I wonder whether l goody' 
 authors in their private lives are acid, spiteful, and 
 stingy ? Satirists are often the pleasantest of fellows ; 
 but may it be forgiven if I say that moralists and the 
 ''gushing' fraternity have occasionally been found far from 
 agreeable society ? "We all of us have a certain amount 
 of spleen to get rid of: the literary cynic vents it on 
 paper, the literary gusher on his friends. Which do 
 you prefer ? 
 
 Whilst at the zenith of his prosperity Hugh Lister 
 resolved to carry out an idea that he had long medi- 
 tated. As most actors are ambitious of developing into 
 managers, so many men who have been engaged in 
 journalism are desirous of being at the head of a news- 
 paper. Lister thought he saw his way to start a new 
 organ, and being well supported by a few sanguine peers 
 of the Moderado party, and by three or four wealthy 
 City men, began to put his scheme into execution. The 
 journal was to be conducted on certain novel principles..
 
 LETTERS. 117 
 
 It was to be written by gentlemen for gentlemen ; pri- 
 vate secretaries were to communicate what official infor- 
 mation they could impart ; men thoroughly in society 
 were to give the tittle-tattle of the day gossip which 
 could be relied upon and not contradicted in the next 
 number; the leaders were to be written by the best 
 brains that money could buy; foreign correspondents 
 were to receive the salaries of ambassadors, and furnish 
 the latest intelligence from the capitals to which they 
 were accredited; the dramatic, literary, and artistic 
 criticisms were to be in the hands of men who had been 
 encouraged by success, and not soured by failure, and 
 who were to have no crotchets or personal animosities; 
 the City article was to be intrusted to a firm of such 
 wealth and position as to render it like Caesar's wife, 
 above suspicion; the ladies were to be propitiated by 
 articles on the fashions direct from the workrooms of 
 the great Paris men-milliners themselves; whilst hospi- 
 tality was to be encouraged by the proprietors of the 
 journal giving every fortnight magnificent 'breakfasts' 
 at their offices to the illustrious and the fashionable of 
 the London world. 
 
 Doling the winter months the proposed newspaper 
 was fully talked about in society and at the clubs, and 
 well ventilated by the press. Early in the season 
 the first number of the Piccadilly Courier made its
 
 nS CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 appearance. Its success was never one moment in 
 doubt. It was so well printed, and on such charm- 
 ingly-toned paper, that the blind could almost read 
 it. It was so well informed on all the subjects of 
 which it treated, that to doubt its accuracy was like 
 doubting infallibility. On all sides it had friends; 
 never did a journal steer so cleverly between extremes 
 without running aground or shattering its circulation 
 by bad editorial navigation. The aristocracy liked it 
 because it was properly deferential to privilege and 
 prerogative, and held a right view (that meant an 
 aristocratic view) upon the land question, game-laws, 
 and all vested interests. The middle classes liked it 
 because it took a just view (that meant a mercantile 
 view) upon all commercial subjects, and advocated 
 freedom in trade, general progress, and the most com- 
 plete toleration. Pious people liked it because it was 
 Catholic without Popery, and Protestant without Dis- 
 sent. Worldlings liked it because it was witty, cynical, 
 and epigrammatic in its observations upon men and 
 manners. Society generally liked it because it told it 
 exactly what it wanted to know without being cruelly 
 malicious or impertinently inquisitive. The * breakfasts' 
 were a most successful institution, and ladies fought 
 over the possession of cards as they fight over anything 
 which is new and the rage. In short, the Piccadilly
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 119 
 
 Courier at one bound placed itself at the head of jour- 
 nalism, had its claims allowed, and has since declined to 
 be ousted from its proud position. 
 
 And now it was that Hugh Lister became a great 
 personage in London society, and was christened Jimmy. 
 It was said that he knew everything, could ' make' any- 
 body, and was in the most intimate confidence of the 
 Cabinet and the Eoyal family. He was a lion in club 
 smoking-rooms. He went to all the great parties in the 
 season, and to all the great country houses in the 
 autumn. He had his portrait painted not after Eem- 
 brandt and hung in the Academy. When he walks 
 out or rides in the Eow people nudge each other and 
 say, ' See that fellow ? that's Lister, the great novelist 
 and editor of the Piccadilly /' He is one of the sights of 
 London, like the Monument or the Tower. Yet wealth 
 and fame and flattery sit very well on him. Success is 
 like wiue some men it exhilarates, some men it makes 
 sulky, some it does not affect. Jimmy is of the last 
 order. Prosperous, celebrated, feted, he is the same 
 joyous, genial, epicurean being that he was when he 
 was working his steps up the ladder of fame. 
 
 Eest on your well-won laurels, Jimmy, most stanch 
 of friends and cheeriest of companions ! Long may 
 your brain teem with its present fertility, and never 
 may you Swift-like ' wither from the top' ! Long may
 
 I2O 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 the charms of music delight you, the little dishes you 
 love alas, too well ! nourish you, the drama amuse 
 you, tobacco solace you, and the life you so thoroughly 
 enjoy be preserved in all its vigorous completeness ! 
 
 It will be a sad day for those you leave behind when 
 your burly form is missed, those chatty lips silenced, 
 and that joyous, hearty, unmusical laughter heard no 
 more. Ay, and it will be a sadder day to the struggling 
 author you have so generously befriended, to the un-
 
 LETTERS. 12 1 
 
 known actress whom your praise has encouraged to 
 further efforts, to the wearied reporter, the worn-out 
 press-man, and to the whole community of the sick and 
 afflicted, when you have been summoned hence, and 
 have joined the majority. But why talk of the urn 
 and the cypress ? Non omnis moriar. In the hearts of 
 your friends you will always live, and when they cease 
 to beat Literature will enshrine you amongst her favour- 
 ites, and jealously guard your name for posterity.
 
 THE CLUB.
 
 THE CLUB. 
 
 DURING the last generation a great domestic revolution 
 has been gradually taking place, which promises to 
 effect no unimportant changes in the constitution of 
 English social life in the latter part of the nineteenth 
 century. As a people, we have been so long accustomed 
 to pique ourselves upon the strength of our domestic 
 affections, upon our more solid characteristics, and upon 
 our devotion to the attractions of our own fireside, that 
 in spite of circumstances somewhat calculated to dis- 
 pel this national belief, we still wrap ourselves in our 
 superior virtue, and congratulate ourselves that we are 
 not as our neighbour. We still vaunt the sanctity of 
 an English home, and with a sneer at the freedom of 
 continental habits, pronounce the word to be untranslat- 
 able. We still view with pity the benighted ' foreigner,' 
 who, ignorant of the fascinations of a pure, a bright, 
 and a cultivated home-life, prefers in their stead the 
 gossip of his cafe or the whist of his cercle, and think if 
 he but crossed the Channel and studied our manners 
 and customs how valuable might be the lessons he
 
 126 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 would receive. Here, in our respectable country he 
 would see the home, that word for which his language 
 has no equivalent, taking the place of external dissipa- 
 tion, and the household gods so warmly worshipped, 
 that it would be deemed iconoclasm of the most ruth- 
 less character to depose them from the pinnacles on 
 which they are set. Ah, happy England ! where your 
 houses are so well built that your citizens are never 
 tempted to quit them; where thoughtful servants 
 attend to your every order, and give a dignity to the 
 office of service ; where your young women are so pru- 
 dently reared that the most perfect house-discipline 
 inevitably follows in the wake of marriage ; where your 
 young men, unselfish and industrious, are content to 
 begin as their fathers before them began, and to wait 
 till success has attended their labours before exchanging 
 a severe economy for a graceful extravagance, and where 
 all is nobleness of purpose, improvement of mind, and 
 modesty of conduct. Ah, thrice happy country ! What 
 need for a Utopia so long as she exists ! 
 
 I am afraid, however, that there is something un- 
 sound in this peean of self-praise. It requires only the 
 slightest amount of national introspection to find that we 
 are not so different from our neighbour. Boast as we 
 may of our superior tone of morality, the difference is but 
 slight between London and Paris, London and Vienna,
 
 THE CLUB. 
 
 127 
 
 or London and St. Petersburg. "With us secrecy and 
 modern honour are now synonymous terms * Do what 
 you like, but be not found out,' is our maxim and we con- 
 ceal much which our neighbours expose. Thus we are 
 more discreet ; but discretion is not morality. "We may 
 vaunt our love of home-life as we please, but there are 
 very strong indications that such love is fast loosening 
 its hold upon us. Great wealth, a long peace, the 
 popular position occupied by trade, the rapid removal of 
 the social barriers that used formerly to exist, have all 
 succeeded in bringing us to the not very enviable con- 
 dition described by Wordsworth : 
 
 ' Our life is only dressed 
 
 For show : mean handiwork of craftsman, cook, 
 Or groom ! "We must run glittering like a brook 
 In the open sunshine, or we are unblest : 
 The wealthiest man among us is the best : 
 !Nb grandeur now, in nature or in book, 
 Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense, 
 This is idolatry ; and these we adore : 
 Plain living and high thinking are no more.' 
 
 But of all the circumstances that are tending to 
 cause English life to enter upon a new phase of exist- 
 ence, none is more powerful or more insidious than the 
 establishment of the modern club. Fifty years ago it 
 was the exception for a man to belong to a club. The 
 fact of club-membership then implied some social posi- 
 tion or distinction on the part of the individual. White's,
 
 I 2 8 CLUB CAMEOS, 
 
 Brooks's, Boodles's, and a few other establishments, 
 constituted the palaces in Clubland, and to obtain the 
 entree was a matter of no little difficulty. A man of hum- 
 ble birth, or one unknown to the committee, would have 
 been sure of being blackballed. Clubs were then filled 
 by those who belonged either to the same political 
 party or the same fashionable coterie, the members of 
 which were all known more or less to each other. The 
 Tory patrician entered himself at "White's ; the Whig 
 politician of good blood was a member of Brooks's ; the 
 country gentleman put his name down at Boodles's ; the 
 distinguished lawyer, divine, or man of letters, became 
 a member of the Athenaeum; the soldier who was a 
 field officer crossed over to the United Service ; whilst 
 the roue, the rake, and the dandy punted at Crockford's. 
 Save as a house of reunion, in which to write letters 
 and to play high, a club in the past was of little service 
 to its members. A club was then an exclusive circle, 
 not a restaurant. Men visited it, they did not live in it. 
 But now, owing to the development of the wealth of 
 the country, the spread of education, and the easier 
 condition of the community generally, a great change 
 has taken place in the kingdom of Clubland. When 
 the advantages of that cooperative system, based upon 
 debentures and supported by entrance fees and annual 
 subscriptions, which we call club-life, became to be
 
 THE CLUB. 
 
 129 
 
 more fully appreciated, it was found that the demand 
 exceeded the supply. In all the old-fashioned clubs the 
 books were so crowded with names, that almost half a 
 generation had to elapse before a candidate stood his 
 chance of election. The only solution of the difficulty 
 was to found new clubs. One by one, as years rolled 
 on, the little shops in Pall Mall and St. James's-street 
 were demolished, and on their ruins rose stately edifices 
 such as Venice in her palmiest days would not have 
 been ashamed of owning. New political clubs, new 
 professional clubs, new social clubs, sprang into existence, 
 till what was a luxury in the reign of George IV. is 
 now a comparative necessity. 
 
 Except at one or two establishments, which have 
 always been reserved for those of recognised position, no 
 man, provided he does not commit the unpardonable sin of 
 keeping a shop (but as many warehouses as you please), 
 and there be nothing known against his character, need 
 despair of being a recipient of club favours. If he be 
 blackballed at one institution, there is little to pre- 
 vent him from putting his name up at another. His 
 father before him had but a limited choice; whereas 
 he, the son, can try his chance at several. Is he a Tory, 
 but his blood not blue enough for White's the father 
 of the club system he can still seek admission into the 
 Carlton, the Junior Carlton, the Conservative, or St. 
 
 K
 
 1 3 o CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 Stephen's. Is he a middle-class Whig, and fearful of 
 being ' pilled' at Brooks's, what is to prevent him en- 
 tering his name at the Reform or the Devonshire ? Does 
 he belong to one of her Majesty's services, his choice is 
 embarrassing, for the list of naval and military clubs 
 has recently been largely swelled. Still, what with the 
 two United Service Clubs, the Army and Navy more 
 popularly known as the l Rag' the Naval and Military, 
 and the East Indian United Service Club, * an officer and 
 a gentleman' ought to have little difficulty in getting 
 quarters at one or other of these establishments. The 
 officers in the Household Troops, however, make a coterie 
 of their own at the Guards' Club. Tor the University 
 man who hails from classical Oxford or mathematical 
 Cambridge (Dublin, Durham, and the like need not 
 apply), there is the choice between the University Club, 
 the Oxford and Cambridge, or the New University Club. 
 For the distinguished divine or lawyer, savant or man of 
 letters, there is the Athenaeum, whilst for the actor, 
 the literary man, and the man about town, the Garrick 
 opens its hospitable doors. To him who does not wish 
 to bind himself to any political party, but seeks a cercle 
 of a purely social character, there are the Travellers', 
 Boodles' s, Arthur's, St. James's, the "Windham, the 
 Union, and for Anglo -Indians the Oriental, of curry 
 celebrity. The Marlborough is for the friends of the
 
 THE CLUB. 131 
 
 Prince of Wales. The Park, the Badminton, and the 
 Turf are the favourite haunts of the man of pleasure. 
 The Portland is sacred to whist. In addition to this 
 tolerably full list, there are a number of other clubs 
 less well known, where the subscriptions are lower, and 
 where the rights of membership can be claimed without 
 any delay. At the accession of George IV. there were 
 but some half-dozen clubs ; there are now close upon a 
 hundred. 
 
 It is impossible that this increase in the club-system 
 should have attained to its present height without affect- 
 ing the current of English life, and altering the course 
 of its stream. A brief comparison between the past and 
 the present will show the nature of the change that has 
 taken place. In former days, when Pall Mall and St. 
 James's-street were crowded with the shops of tailors 
 and of bootmakers, instead of the magnificent palaces 
 that now occupy their site, men led a very different life 
 from that now in vogue. A buck, a macaroni, a Corin- 
 thian the ' swell' of the past lounged into his club to 
 write a letter or to take a hand at whist, and considered 
 such an institution as an indispensable adjunct to the 
 character of a man of fashion as necessary as a know- 
 ledge of French, or to be a connoisseur of china or of 
 old fiddles. But to the ordinary man, born in the ranks 
 of the middle class, who had to look to a profession for
 
 132 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 his livelihood, a club was out of the question. The 
 young man reading for the bar, the younger son in a 
 government office, or the merchant's son in his father's 
 counting-house, had to content himself with tastes and 
 habits in accordance with his income. He lived in 
 modest lodgings or in chambers on the third floor of one 
 of the Inns of Court. He dined off the joint at a tavern 
 in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, and it was with 
 him a red-letter day when he ordered a pint of wine. 
 When he went to the play he patronised the pit, and 
 even on such occasions took advantage of the system of 
 half-price. He seldom entered society, partly because 
 it was expensive, and partly because he was not fre- 
 quently invited. When he lounged down Bond-street 
 or walked in the Park, he considered himself a dandy of 
 the first water, and the anxiety he evinced as to his 
 dress, and the extreme hauteur of his swagger, plainly 
 proved that his promenade was an event not to be lightly 
 considered, nor one of frequent occurrence. If he was 
 a sensible fellow he worked hard at his profession, and 
 looked forward to the day when he could complete his 
 modest career by matrimony. Solitary lodgings, tavern 
 dinners, an absence of comfort, there was little in his life 
 to make celibacy desirable, and marriage was the haven 
 for which he steered his bark. Thus, as soon as his in- 
 come justified him in taking that important step, he
 
 THE CLUB. 133 
 
 married. If the parish registers of the earlier half of 
 the nineteenth century be examined, it will be found 
 that more than two-thirds of the marriages that then 
 took place were entered into before the bridegroom had 
 
 reached thirty. This is a fact which should not be lost 
 sight of by the social historian. 
 
 But if we turn from the past to the present how dif- 
 ferent is the picture ! The continued prosperity of the 
 country in spite of the increase in the cost of living has
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 greatly benefited every class in the community. The 
 lower orders receive higher wages and are better off than 
 their fathers, whilst the incomes of professional people 
 have more than doubled themselves. The introduction 
 of a plutocracy among the aristocracy and the acre- 
 ocracy, though it has tended somewhat to vulgarise our 
 social institutions, has succeeded in developing a rate of 
 expenditure which formerly did not exist. Money 
 easily made is lavishly spent. Never was there a time 
 in our history when heavier rents were demanded by 
 the house-agents, higher prices by the horse-dealers, 
 more exorbitant sums by carriage-builders, milliners, 
 breeders of stock, jewellers, tailors, by everybody in 
 short who ministers to the wants and luxuries of man. 
 Since wealth enjoys now the power and advantages for- 
 merly possessed by high rank and high intellect, display 
 has assumed the position of a social force. We give 
 better dinners, ride better horses, live in better houses, 
 drive about in better carriages, yet all not so much for 
 the sake of the enjoyment of excellence, as for the ex- 
 hibition of the pride of rivalry. 
 
 The consequence of this plethora of wealth has been 
 to create throughout the community fictitious and artifi- 
 cial tastes. The customs and fashions of our fathers have 
 been deemed capable of improvement. Quarters that 
 had once been fashionable have been gradually deserted.
 
 THE CLUB. 135 
 
 The glory of Bloomsbury and Baker-street has departed, 
 and Belgravia, where, amid its swamps at the beginning 
 of the century, men shot snipe, and Sonth Kensington, 
 once noted for its market-gardens, are now the districts 
 favoured by the great world, and by those who wish to 
 be thought within- its circle. The old taverns of the 
 Strand and Fleet-street, and the neighbouring regions, 
 have given place to joint-stock hotels, where everything, 
 including the wines, is brand new. The dinner-hour 
 has become later and later, till to ' dine in hall ' is like 
 dining in the middle of the day. The young lawyers 
 and students having found no advantage in living near 
 their Inns, but, on the contrary, that they are far re- 
 moved from the scenes of social dissipation, migrate to 
 the west, quitting Lincoln's Inn, the Temple, and 
 Gray's Inn, for the dingy back streets in the vicinity of 
 St. James's. The long peace had caused the army to be 
 dull, so that men as soon as they obtained their companies 
 retired as a rule from the service. Thus it was, what 
 with a large population of idlers, and an increasing 
 luxury all around, that the advantages of the club- 
 system began to be seriously considered. Men wished 
 to have comfort without extravagance, and attendance 
 without responsibility. It was known that the clubs 
 that had come into existence at the accession of George 
 IV. were in the most flourishing condition, and that
 
 136 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 their members had all the advantages of an exqui- 
 sitely appointed house without the expense and trouble 
 of proprietorship. One by one, as it became more and 
 more difficult to be admitted into the older establish- 
 ments, new clubs sprang up, and have continued spring- 
 ing up, till now Clubland, from an exclusive and limited 
 territory, has developed into an extensive and densely 
 populated domain, offering hospitality to all who have 
 the slightest claim to that somewhat elastic title of 
 1 gentleman.' 
 
 With the establishment of the club-system a great 
 revolution has taken place in the domestic life of men, 
 and especially of young men. Married men, accustomed 
 to the refined and luxurious mode of existence in a 
 club, endeavour, so far as their means will permit, 
 to reproduce its elegance and perfections within their 
 own homes. They send their cooks to have a fortnight's 
 training under the eye of the superb club chef; in their 
 appointments of the table they imitate the club ; their 
 wine -merchant is often one of the fraternity who sup- 
 plies the club ; and to say l they could not dine better at 
 the club' is to confer the highest praise upon one's 
 domestic arrangements. It was in the year 1850 that 
 the club-system became popular, and that the club, from 
 being a lounge, developed into a home. Let an elderly 
 man hark back in his memory, and compare the dinners
 
 THE CLUB. 137 
 
 to which he was invited before the Crimean War, and 
 those to which he is now asked, and he will find that 
 the superiority of the one over the other is due not 
 a little to the host having been educated by his club. 
 
 But it is in the life of the bachelor that the intro- 
 duction of clubs has caused the greatest change. The 
 solitary lodgings and the tavern dinners have been 
 relegated to the limbo of the past. All that is now 
 needed is a bedroom, for the club provides the bachelor 
 with the rest of his wants. It matters little in what 
 dingy street or squalid quarter a man lodges, for the 
 club is the address, and society inquires no further. 
 He need not purchase an envelope or a sheet of note- 
 paper throughout the year, for the club provides him 
 with all the stationery he can possibly require. There 
 is no occasion for him to buy a book, a magazine, or 
 a newspaper, for in his club he will find a library such 
 as few private houses can furnish, and in the morning- 
 room every newspaper and weekly review that has 
 a respectable circulation. Does he wish to practise 
 economy without privation, where can he dine better 
 and cheaper than at his club? If, on the other hand, 
 his tastes are those of a gourmet, and his income permits 
 him, where can he better satisfy the cravings of a 
 cultivated epicureanism ? Both to the social Dives and 
 the social Lazarus the club is a boon. The poor man
 
 '38 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 enjoys life without the discomforts that ordinarily attend 
 upon poverty, whilst the rich man receives to the full 
 the value of his money. 
 
 To that large class which is neither rich nor poor, 
 the club is a most cherished haunt. A young man on 
 some four or five hundred a year enjoys advantages 
 at his club which only the wealthiest outside can 
 command. For an annual subscription, after having 
 paid his entrance fee, of some eight or ten guineas a
 
 THE CLUB. 139 
 
 year, he finds himself part owner of a most splendid 
 town house, where the tax-collector never intrudes, 
 where repairs and dilapidations never concern him, 
 where attentive servants wait upon his every order, 
 where everything provided is of the very best, for it is 
 worth the contractor's while to give satisfaction, where 
 retirement can be obtained without the depressing sense 
 of solitude, and where companionship can be enjoyed 
 without the dangers of intrusion in short, a home 
 always well appointed, always bright, and ready to cater 
 for the simplest necessities or the most elaborate 
 luxuries. 
 
 One of the most prominent consequences of all this 
 perfection of organisation has been to render celibacy 
 so desirable, that matrimony, instead of being the natu- 
 ral ambition of man, is now regarded by many in the 
 light of a sacrifice. To marry, unless on an income 
 which is the exception, signifies the exchange of club- 
 life, with its pleasant gossip, its agreeable luxuries, and 
 all its disciplined requirements, for the monotony of the 
 domestic hearth, the worries of housekeeping, and the 
 servitude of family restraint. Under the old order of 
 things, when clubs were the exception, matrimony was 
 regarded as the panacea for all the ills that bachelordom 
 was heir to, and a man married in order to have the 
 companionship of a home. Whereas now, in that one
 
 140 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 word dub, men find a safer substitute for the uncertain 
 advantages of matrimony. ' "Why should I marry ?' asks 
 the celibate. l What are the advantages that marriage 
 will bring to counterbalance its disadvantages? At 
 present with my income I am well off, the club supplies 
 me with all my wants, and my movements are unfet- 
 tered. If I marry, I descend at once to be a poor man, 
 with all the mortifications and privations of poverty. 
 The charms of marriage are all very well, but what if 
 they be followed by anxiety, by boredom, by disappoint- 
 ment ? Such has been the fate of many ; why should it 
 not be mine ? Even in a happy marriage there must be 
 a vast amount of monotony.' That this selfish and one- 
 sided reasoning is daily gaining ground amongst us is 
 evident from the decrease of marriages, and the increase 
 of the club-system, not only in London, but in provincial 
 towns. 
 
 I know no better illustration of these views than my 
 friend Tommy Montague. An ex-cavalry officer, who 
 was compelled to send in his papers from certain finan- 
 cial circumstances over which he had no control, the 
 future of Tommy was not particularly bright. An 
 allowance of 150. a year granted him by a surly elder 
 brother, and the proceeds of his commission, could hardly 
 be considered a state of affluence for a man who had 
 never made himself acquainted with the value of money.
 
 THE CLUB. 141 
 
 and to whom self-denial was an unknown virtue. As 
 fortune would have it, one evening, at a certain set of 
 chambers in the mansion of the Albany, Tommy had 
 such a run of luck whilst playing ecarte with a young 
 peer who had just come into his possessions that my lord 
 preferred, instead of mortgaging some of his acres to ob- 
 tain the necessary ready money, to allow Montague for 
 the rest of his natural life the annual sum of five hun- 
 dred pounds, to be paid quarterly by his lordship's solici- 
 tors. Tommy had no objection to the arrangement ; and 
 from that very hour up to the present time he has never 
 touched a card ; he is one of the very few who have made 
 gambling pay, and he is quite content. 
 
 On this annuity, coupled with his brother's allow- 
 ance, and the interest on the money he received for 
 his commission, Tommy leads the quiet luxurious life 
 of the club-man who spends his all upon himself. 
 Tommy's maxim is that money spent upon oneself is 
 never wasted. A garret in Bury-street is the only 
 pied-a-terre he owns, for the club to him signifies 
 lodgings, restaurant, country house, library, divan, 
 in fact, home and all. He hates sport, travelling, 
 and society, and prefers the club in August and Sep- 
 tember to anywhere else without the club. To see him 
 really wretched you must watch him when his beloved 
 haunt is shut up for repairs, and he has either to go out
 
 142 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 of town or to betake himself to a strange club which, has 
 offered him hospitality. On such occasions he is 
 thoroughly miserable, for it is not club-life that Tommy 
 merely loves, but the life of his own club. He likes to 
 breakfast at the same table, to read the newspaper in the 
 same chair at the same window, to write his letters at 
 the same table, to study the bill of fare at the same 
 accustomed stand, and to have his dinner served by the 
 same waiter at the same corner of the coffee-room. He 
 is the strictest and most monotonous of Conservatives. 
 Never was there a man whom it is more easy to find. 
 You know the hour to a moment when he breakfasts, 
 when he takes his ' constitutional,' when he smokes his 
 first cigar, when he lunches, dines, writes his letters, 
 reads, and goes through the programme of his thoroughly 
 selfish but not uncomfortable life. He seldom enters 
 society, and, with the exception of running down to 
 Brighton or Folkestone for a fortnight, never visits 
 the country. The club is his home, and save to take 
 Ms daily stroll or to go to the theatre, of which he is 
 very fond, he hardly stirs from its walls. 
 
 He is the great critic of the establishment, and we all 
 feel that our comfort is safe in his hands. If the slightest 
 thing goes w r rong in the club the ventilation imperfect, 
 sanitary arrangements out of order, waiters inattentive, 
 books missing, newspapers forgotten to be taken in, and
 
 THE CLUB. 143 
 
 the like dip goes Tommy's pen in the ink, and the 
 secretary is at once informed of the fact. At the annual 
 meeting Tommy is a perfect Joseph Hume. He is irri- 
 tatingly inquisitive as to every detail of club expendi- 
 
 ture, and declines to be content with the brief statement 
 in the circular issued by the committee. He wants to 
 know why there should be a loss on the coffee-room, 
 why so much should be spent upon snuff, toothpicks, 
 and stationery, why the bills for repairs should be so
 
 144 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 enormous, why the salary of the secretary should be 
 raised, why so little is added to the sinking fund, and 
 all the rest of it. Nor will he be put off with a smile 
 from the chairman, or with a little bit of flattery from 
 some of the committee. He wants to know the reason 
 why ; and when Tommy ' wants to know the reason why,' 
 the information he seeks must be lucid and complete 
 before he is satisfied. 
 
 He is the terror of the club-servants, and backs 
 his bill remorselessly if the joint which is down for 
 eight o'clock appears half an hour late, or the wine- 
 butler makes a mistake about the vintage that is 
 ordered, or the waiter at his table is not perfect in his 
 duties. Tommy knows to a day when everything is in 
 season, and woe betide the steward if at the earliest 
 moment there are no plovers' eggs, no asparagus, no 
 green peas, or no new potatoes ! He is acquainted with 
 the price of every article, and instantly checks any at- 
 tempt on the part of the club to overcharge its members. 
 He is the great authority on club discipline and club 
 etiquette ; but everything outside the club he views 
 with supreme indifference. Talk to him of some awful 
 disaster, of some terrible commercial failure (provided 
 he be not affected by it), of some great national loss, 
 of the death of some great man, and his interest will 
 hardly be excited ; but tell him that the excellent club
 
 THE CLUB. 145 
 
 -cook has given notice, that a certain bin of rare wines 
 lias been drunk up and cannot be replaced, that the 
 hall-porter has broken his leg, that there has been a 
 ' row' between certain members on the committee, or that 
 Brown has not paid his debts of honour, yet still persists 
 in sitting down to whist, or that the member who steals 
 the umbrellas has been caught in the act, or that Jones 
 has been declared a bankrupt, and what will be the 
 action of the committee, and you at once find him a 
 ready and suggestive listener. The club, the whole 
 club, and nothing but the club, is the one creed of Cap- 
 tain Montague. 
 
 A hard selfish man, a I age de la gourmandise, the 
 Caravanserai provides Tommy with all that he requires. 
 He declines to dine out, because he says he gets a better 
 dinner at the club for some ten or twelve shillings than 
 at the best houses in town ; and why, he inquires, should 
 he bore himself with dull society when he can have the 
 chat and ease of the smoking-room ? If he wants to be 
 amused he goes to the theatre ; if he wants to be instructed 
 he goes to the library : what has he to do with society, he 
 asks with a sneer ; he has no money, and he has not a 
 pretty wife. He is perfectly content with the future 
 before him, and as he makes his bed so has he no objec- 
 tion to lie upon it. In spite of shaving off his whiskers, 
 cutting short his moustache, and freely using a wonderful 
 
 L
 
 146 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 hair-dye, Tommy is not the young man strangers would 
 at first sight take him for. Quiet, comfort, good living, 
 freedom from responsibility and anxiety, are the great 
 desiderata of his life, ' and, begad, you don't get that by 
 
 marriage !' he remarks. Talk to him of the solicitude of a 
 tender wife, of the charms of home, of the soothing power 
 of affection during the feverish hours of a long sickness, 
 and he answers, 1 0, of course ! but I get all that from a 
 nurses' institootion ; two guineas a week and beer-money.'
 
 THE CLUB. r 47 
 
 To convert Tommy is hopeless. He will never be 
 made to see that he leads a purposeless selfish exist- 
 ence, occupied with petty details, making a business 
 of trivialities, and ignoring all that is great and noble 
 in life. He will dine and chat and moon the days away 
 till the sands of the hour-glass are all run out, and the 
 hearse stands before his lodgings to convey him to that 
 great club which is open to us all, and from which no 
 black balls exclude the cemetery. Then the blind of 
 his room will be pulled up, somebody else will sleep 
 in his little bed, there will be a few allusions during the 
 next fortnight in the club he loved so well to 'poor 
 Tommy,' and then well, then he will be as completely 
 forgotten as if he had never been. Yet Captain Mon- 
 tague is under the impression that were he to quit the 
 club it would at once fall to the ground. Such is the 
 difference between the estimate we form of ourselves 
 and that formed of us by other people.
 
 M. F. H.
 
 M. F. H. 
 
 WHATEVER faults the present day may possess, from the 
 one great vice which is generally attendant upon a 
 luxurious state of civilisation it is happily free. We 
 may be all that the cynics and satirists allege, but from 
 one grave accusation we are at least exempt the courage 
 of Englishmen is as high and daring as it ever was. No 
 poet of the future, as he tunes his lyre to sing of the 
 men and manners of the nineteenth century, can give 
 vent to the bitter sneer of Horace, as he wailed over 
 the degeneracy of the Roman youth : 
 
 his juventus orta parentibus 
 Infecit sequor sanguine Punico, 
 Pyrrhumque et ingentem cecidit 
 Antiochum Annibalemque dirum.' 
 
 In all feats of pluck and prowess the young Englishman 
 heads the list of the adventurous. On the Continent 
 his eagerness for unconventional excitement, and his 
 contempt for danger, have caused him to be branded 
 with the stigma of insanity. Nothing is too extra- 
 ordinary, nothing is too arduous, nothing is too peril- 
 ous, for the 'mad Englishman' to undertake. He
 
 152 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 ascends mountains that even the local brave flinch at 
 scaling; he will scull his outrigger, or paddle his 
 canoe, in the most unknown and dangerous of waters; 
 he will cross the most boisterous seas in the pettiest of 
 yawls ; he will betake himself to the wildest regions to 
 satisfy his cravings after sport. The fact that a certain 
 event has never before been accomplished is alone suffi- 
 cient to tempt him to undertake it, and to give him 110 
 rest till it has been brought to a satisfactory termina- 
 tion. In all these feats of daring he seldom has any 
 great object to serve which justifies the peril that is to 
 be encountered. The excitement of danger, and the 
 desire to find a vent for his wealthy supply of nervous 
 energy, are in themselves often the only inducements 
 which lead him to enter upon his self-imposed tasks. 
 I remember once talking to a young Englishman in 
 Switzerland, who had just come down from making the 
 ascent of one of the severest and most seldom climbed 
 of Alpine peaks. 'What a splendid view you must 
 have had from the top!' said I. * They say there is,' 
 he replied quietly ; ' but I never looked at it. I don't 
 care for views.' The exercise, the fun, and the peril 
 were all that interested this athletic young Philistine. 
 
 But there is one sport which of all others is essen- 
 tially English, which is first favourite amongst us, and 
 which want of money is the only reason that prevents it
 
 M. F. H. 153 
 
 from being freely indulged in by all classes. There 
 breathes not an Englishman who does not, provided his 
 banker's book sanctions the expenditure, take to hunting 
 as instinctively as the duckling takes to water. The 
 horse is the special object of our national veneration. 
 Your ordinary Englishman is not much hurt if his 
 grammar or spelling be found fault with, but he is 
 wounded to the core if his riding is condemned. He 
 does not pretend to be a connoisseur in the fine arts, he 
 admits that his taste in wine may want educating ; but 
 will he ever forgive you if you tell him that he is no 
 judge of the noble animal ? He will, as a rule, bear 
 kindly much hostile criticism, but he is the touchiest of 
 mortals where his stud and his seat are concerned. 
 This sensitiveness is perhaps the strongest proof we have 
 of our innate passion for the chase. Since hunting is 
 our great pastime, and the breed of our horses the finest 
 in the world, it becomes almost a reflection for an Eng- 
 lishman not to be able to sit his fences or to express 
 ignorance upon the points of a horse. However modest 
 he may be, there are two things an Englishman always 
 piques himself upon he can ride, and he is a judge of 
 horseflesh. You may doubt his parentage, his fortune, 
 his ability, ay, even his honour ; but if you doubt his 
 possession of these two gifts you have made an enemy 
 who will never forgive.
 
 i 5 4 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 In comparing the past with the present, there are 
 few things which more strike an elderly man than the 
 new phase hunting has entered upon. That it is a sport 
 which has always been a favourite with us is evident ; 
 but it was never so popular or so generally indulged in 
 as at the present day. Thanks to the increased wealth 
 of the country, and to our being able to use the railways 
 as our cover hacks, hunting is brought within reach of 
 most of us. The well-to-do idle man will always have 
 his hunting-box, or take up his quarters at a well-known 
 hostel in the neighbourhood of the meets; nor is there now 
 any necessity for the man in active employment the bar- 
 rister, the merchant, the banker, and the like either to 
 give up his sport or his business ; such an one can com- 
 bine both : be can work in the City, and yet, by the aid 
 of the friendly locomotive, have his two days a week. I 
 know one hard-working lawyer in town who, though 
 among the most industrious of his fraternity, yet hunts 
 regularly his two days a week ; he keeps his horses at 
 Eugby ; the North-Western is his cover hack ; and thus, 
 without detriment to the interests of his clients, he is 
 able to enjoy in moderation the sport he so dearly loves. 
 In former days this was impossible ; men who hunted 
 were then within easy reach of the hounds they fol- 
 lowed; now several of the best subscribers to a pack 
 live at a considerable distance from its neighbourhood.
 
 M. F. H. 155 
 
 Thus hunting no longer appeals especially to those 
 who reside in the country, but comprises both the rural 
 and urban populations. How many men engaged in our 
 manufacturing towns hunt regularly through the winter, 
 who, before the introduction of steam, would have been 
 compelled by the necessities of their pursuits to abandon 
 the sport altogether ! This is no doubt one of the chief 
 reasons why so many more packs of hounds have come 
 into existence than were known of at the beginning of 
 this century. And it is a good sign. Hunting is a test 
 of courage, of endurance, of activity, of health, and of all 
 those qualities which call forth presence of mind and 
 quickness of judgment; and it speaks well for the 
 manhood of a country where such a sport is, as it is 
 amongst us, so enthusiastically encouraged. Of course 
 in every field there is the ' coffee-housing' sportsman 
 his hat, his natty tie, his well-cut coat, his spotless 
 leathers, all that the hatter, the haberdasher, the 
 tailor, the breeches-maker, and the boot-maker can 
 show of superior workmanship ; who has a perfect 
 knowledge of the local geography ; who declines to jump 
 the slightest obstacle, but who is acquainted with every 
 gate, gap, and bridle-path which will eventually bring 
 him up with the hounds; and who after dinner, when 
 the decanters are making their pleasant rounds, will 
 gallantly talk of the brooks that he cleared, the posts
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 and rails that lie leaped, and the doubles that he so 
 cleverly took. In pleasure as well as in business 
 there are impostors ; but as a rule the fault of our 
 
 young men is, not that they funk, but that they ride 
 too hard. 
 
 There is one member of the Caravanserai whom it is 
 always a great pleasure for me to see within its walls. 
 Among the c hard riders of England,' Ashby Folville, the 
 popular master of the Slottesloe foxhounds one of the
 
 M.F.H. 157 
 
 loveliest, best-looking, and fastest packs in the country 
 holds a prominent place. Bad at his books, he is one 
 of those men who excel in every kind of manly sport. 
 Though now past forty, there are few young men who do 
 not own themselves vanquished by him, where gun or 
 rifle, rod or spear, tennis-ball or cricket-ball, is concerned. 
 Sport is the only atmosphere he breathes or cares to 
 breathe. I know no one to whom an accident which 
 would render him a cripple for life would be more intol- 
 erable. Eob him of his enjoyment of physical exercise, 
 and you deprive him of all that makes existence delight- 
 ful. When Folville is not hunting or shooting, he is 
 salmon -fishing, sculling, cricketing, mountaineering, or 
 in some other form getting rid of the superfluous energy 
 with which he is so abundantly blessed. But good man 
 as he is all round, it is to the king of sports that he 
 swears the most ardent attachment. What the meeting 
 of Parliament is to the ambitious legislator, what the 
 first day of term is to the lawyer, what the beginning 
 of the season is to the beauty, is the first Monday in 
 November to the jovial squire of Highthorpe Abbey. 
 
 And small blame to him, as the Irishman says. In 
 the whole round of pleasure is there any excitement 
 more intoxicating, is there any exercise more health- 
 giving both for man and woman, is there any better 
 training for the acquisition of courage, than hunting?
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 It is the only innocent pleasure which never palls 
 upon us. The early rising and the anticipation 
 of the day's sport give us an appetite such as all the 
 tumblers of medicinal waters can never excite. As 
 
 we ride to covert, Nature, clad in the russet hue of 
 early winter decay like a woman, Nature never 
 tries to please so much as when her beauty is on 
 the wane offers us vistas of sylvan scenery, views of 
 down and dell bathed in the morning dews, and studies
 
 M. F. H. 159 
 
 of clouds which stimulate all that is of the artist and of 
 the poet within us. Conversation is never so easy and 
 so brisk as when we meet at the cover-side, smoking 
 our last cigar before the business of the day begins, and 
 criticising the mounts of our friends and the fair faces 
 of the women who enliven the scene by their presence. 
 Then the pause of expectation, and the encouraging pull 
 from our flask, whilst the hounds are drawing the cover; 
 the deep long-drawn-out note proclaiming a find, the 
 chorus of the pack, and away we follow ; our first fence 
 taken, confidence is restored, and we are ready to hold 
 our own with the wickedest. In the excitement of 
 the run, the light south-west breeze stirring the air 
 around us, the scent breast high, the pack running really 
 fast, our mount full of heart and go, at such a supreme 
 moment we know nothing of physical ills, we ignore all 
 the anxieties that have been oppressing us ; disease, debt, 
 care, misery, are thrown off with the hounds ; and for 
 one day, at least, the wicked cease to trouble us, and the 
 weary are at rest. 
 
 The sport never loses its interest. "When gout or 
 rheumatism compels us to exchange the saddle for the 
 phaeton, like the ruined gamester, whose greatest 
 delight it is to hover round the fatal board of green 
 cloth, to watch the fall of the cards, and to speculate as 
 to what colour or number he would back, though he is
 
 160 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 powerless to stake a farthing, so we who are invalided are 
 always ready to drive the ladies to the meet, to pass our 
 comments upon the hounds and the horses, to have a 
 friendly chat with the redcoats ere they start, and to see as 
 much of the sport as the line the fox takes and a know- 
 ledge of the neighbouring roads will permit. It is true 
 there is another side to the picture. A lame horse, miles 
 away from anywhere, our flask empty, our sandwich-case 
 lost, our coat and leathers wet through, a sharp penetrating 
 rain, night and a sore throat coming on, and a terrible 
 march to the nearest station from which we can box 
 home. Or the crashing fall, the gate taken off its hinges, 
 which serves as the impromptu stretcher, the darkened 
 room, the weekly six guineas from the ' Accidental' till 
 we recover, or perhaps we may never require that 
 pension. In all sports there is a certain amount of 
 clanger ; but this we maintain, that when we consider 
 the number of men who ride to hounds, and compare 
 that number with the accidents which occur during a 
 season, few will admit that hunting is the dangerous 
 pastime its enemies allege. 
 
 If the noblest study be man, I am sure the noblest 
 specimen of his race is an English gentleman. He is 
 courteous, yet manly, which your foreigner so seldom is ; 
 he is proud, yet not haughty proud with the proper 
 sense of self-respect ; he has a large stake in the country,
 
 M.F. H. 161 
 
 and he is conscious of it ; he comes of a line that has 
 been gentle for centuries, and he is not ashamed of the 
 fact. He may be a profound scholar, or he may have 
 only enough learning to examine the accounts of his 
 steward, to say a few words without breaking down at 
 an agricultural dinner, and to take his seat amongst his 
 brother magistrates without disgracing the bench ; but 
 where will you find honour more unsullied, hospitality 
 more generous, and truth more loved for its own sake 
 than in the order to which he belonged ? England, in 
 spite of her climate and the diatribes of her critics, is his 
 ideal of all that a country should be. Whatever be the 
 creed he professes, or the political principles to which he 
 adheres, neither his religion nor his party is permitted 
 to interfere with his patriotism. He is an Englishman 
 first a disciple or politician afterwards. 
 
 Ashby Folville is no bad type of his class. In tastes 
 and sentiments he is a thorough Englishman. He 
 thinks there is no country like England, for in no 
 country, he says, can you spend so much time out of 
 doors. For beauty and wholesome surroundings he con- 
 siders his own fair countrywomen as first, and the rest 
 nowhere. "When he travels he is amused with the 
 foreigners he comes across, though he never fails to 
 regard them as an inferior people. In his opinion there 
 is no man out of England who can ride; or handle a team 
 
 M
 
 162 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 without coming to grief; no man but an Englishman 
 who has an idea what real sport is ; no gentleman like 
 an English gentleman, and no pluck like English pluck. 
 The face and figure of Folville are eminently Eng- 
 lish. Though he rides well-nigh sixteen stone, his height, 
 the broad powerful shoulders, and the mighty limbs take 
 off from the appearance of his bulk, and make him look 
 a lighter weight than he really is. His face, with its 
 healthy complexion, gives signs of the outdoor life he so 
 dearly loves, and were it not for the finely- cut features 
 it would not escape the stigma of coarseness. I suppose 
 he has his cares, yet they must sit lightly on him, for 
 the keenest observer fails to detect worry on that bright 
 open countenance. To watch him cheering on his 
 hounds, to hear his jovial laugh, to listen to his simple 
 honest talk, are all as good as change of air to the 
 bilious and the acrid. Yet that well-shaped mouth of 
 his can give tongue to pretty vigorous expressions 
 should a young farmer head the fox, or ride over a 
 favourite hound. If a man be heir to a good name, if 
 his fortune be ample, if his health be sound, and if he 
 have brains enough to carry him through his ordinary 
 duties, but not brains enough to make him ambitious 
 and discontented, life, let the moralist preach as he 
 may, is to such a one full of enjoyment from find to 
 finish.
 
 M. F. H. 163 
 
 The possessor of one of the finest seats in the 
 country, happily married, rich, well-born, the squire of 
 Highthorpe Abbey has little cause to grumble at his 
 lot. Genial, generous, hospitable, he is the first M.F.H. 
 who has hunted his country to the satisfaction of its 
 neighbourhood. Before he took over the Slottesloe 
 hounds, incessant were the squabbles in the district; 
 master after master had succeeded to the command of 
 the pack, yet had always come to loggerheads with the 
 subscribers ; the farmers wired their fences, and breathed 
 threatenings and slaughter against all who dared to ride 
 over their land ; petty spites were at work, and permis- 
 sion was often refused for neighbouring coverts to be 
 drawn; the pack deteriorated; there was no lack of 
 foxes, yet no sport could be got ; and at last the question 
 of selling the hounds was seriously discussed. 
 
 At this juncture Ashby Folville stepped in. He 
 had just succeeded to the paternal estates, and to a 
 father who was as fond of chemistry as the son was of 
 sport. He agreed to take over the hounds. He took a 
 pleasure in their working and management, and he 
 would pay keepers, stoppers, damage, everything, him- 
 self. Need I say so liberal an offer was. gladly ac- 
 cepted ? Young, wealthy, and known to be a venture- 
 some rider, the country soon rallied round him. What 
 was denied to crabbed elderly men was granted to him.
 
 164 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 ^Neighbouring landowners sank their jealousies; the 
 farmers were won over, and became the most ardent 
 of the supporters of the hunt ; and gorse covers, where 
 the woodlands were deficient, were judiciously planted. 
 At the end of four years the number of hounds reached 
 sixty couple, boasting some of the best blood from the 
 finest kennels in the kingdom. 
 
 Slowly but steadily the fame of the pack increased. 
 Hunting-boxes in the neighbourhood were let at double 
 their former rents. A large joint-stock hotel, with the 
 most extensive stabling, was erected at Highthorpe. 
 Men came down from London with their horses to hunt 
 with the Slottesloe, as they went into the shires to 
 follow the Pytchley or the Quorn. The name of i the 
 squire' became as a household word in the sporting 
 circles of the country. Mounted on his powerful brown 
 horse, it must indeed be a quick thing which fails to see 
 Folville close up at the finish. In spite of every obstacle 
 that falls in his "way to negotiate, he can tell you the 
 name of every hound that was leading during any part 
 of the run; he has an eye for country such as few 
 cavalry officers possess ; his ear, never at fault, tells him 
 in an instant the course his hounds are taking, and 
 when sound is useless as a guide, he seems to have an 
 instinctive knowledge of all the turns and dodges the 
 fox is up to. It is not therefore surprising that when
 
 M. F. H. 165 
 
 its master shows such sport ' the Slottesloe' should be a 
 great favourite with all who can and dare ride, and that 
 the right to wear the uniform of the hunt (olive green 
 "with buff facings) should be much coveted. 
 
 Every November finds me invariably a guest at 
 Highthorpe Abbey. Both the squire and his charming 
 wife know the art of hospitality to perfection. As a 
 rule, most country houses are very enjoyable from the 
 hour of dinner to the end of the evening pleasant 
 people, well-dressed women, a good table, the produce of 
 favourite bins, conversation, music, billiards, whist, and 
 the wind up in the smoking-room, form a combination of 
 delights which cannot but please even the most difficult. 
 It is the early part of the day which is often such a trial 
 at many country houses. Can there be anything more 
 depressing than that awful meal of breakfast at several 
 houses ? It is served punctually at half-past nine, and 
 your host regards it as a slight upon himself if you do 
 not put in an appearance. You have sat up late, you 
 are nervous, you are irritable, you have no appetite, 
 you want to have your cup of tea and bread-and-butter 
 in bed, and wait till your letters arrive. Yet you 
 are bound to talk and be agreeable, and take an interest 
 in the children, and be as lively as if you were at 
 dinner. There is no meet anywhere in the neighbour- 
 hood that day, and perhaps the weather does not tempt
 
 i66 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 you to go out shooting. People have been invited with- 
 out any regard to each other's tastes and habits. You 
 think one man looks like an actor and that you will 
 have some fun, and you find he is a missionary. You 
 essay to get up a flirtation with a pretty girl, and she 
 will have none of it, but bores you with questions upon 
 scientific subjects of which you have never heard. The 
 few pleasant people in the house are always in their 
 rooms writing letters. You propose a game of 
 billiards, but the only man who can play got up at 
 seven in the morning to ride twenty miles to cover. 
 You wander into the library, but there are no modern 
 novels, and you care for no other kind of literature. 
 The host is engaged his own way ; the hostess is engaged 
 hers ; girls you would like to know have formed them- 
 selves into little groups, and you fear to intrude. And 
 so you end by mooning down to the stable with one 
 or two friends equally bored with yourself, to smoke. 
 Some people think when once they have invited you 
 to stay with them, that they have done all that is 
 required, and you must amuse yourself as you best 
 can. To make country-house life agreeable, you ought 
 to be able to afford either excellent sport, when a man 
 will accommodate himself to dull society and indifferent 
 cooking, or if the sport that you can offer be only 
 moderate, your house should be filled with pleasant
 
 M. F. H. 
 
 167 
 
 people, and the cunning of your chef a thing to be 
 fondly anticipated and gratefully remembered even by 
 a Catius. At Highthorpe Abbey the visitor has little 
 cause to grumble. The house is always full during the 
 
 winter with charming married women, pretty girls, 
 amusing men, and with one or two celebrities in art and 
 literature to give a tone to the conversation at dinner 
 and to assist the ladies in their sketches or in the 
 solution of acrostics. If you feel lazy after the severities
 
 1 68 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 of the past week, you tell the comely Hebe who brings 
 you your morning cup of tea that you are not going 
 down to breakfast ; and accordingly a fire is lit in your 
 room, your dejeuner is served up-stairs, and, being in 
 the bachelors' wing, you can smoke, write your letters, 
 or read the country papers without intrusion. At 
 Highthorpe you have all the ease and independence 
 of an hotel with all the charms of a gay and luxurious 
 country house. 
 
 A strong bond of union exists between the host and 
 his visitors. Everybody in the house rides, and is 
 devoted to hunting. The Squire hunts his own hounds 
 four days a week, and you are within an easy ride to 
 cover of the Brookby Holt harriers and the Eevesby 
 and Hawthorne foxhounds. If the visitor at Highthorpe 
 be a glutton, he can hunt his six days a week, so far as 
 hounds are concerned. Everything is redolent of the 
 pleasures of the chase. Walking along the corridors 
 of the old house, at every turn you come across valets, 
 either taking to, or bringing from, their masters tops, 
 leathers, and pink or black coats. The end of your 
 chamber's bell-rope is ornamented with a fox's brush, 
 your inkstand is a fox's head, and the handle of your 
 paper-cutter a fox's pad. Over your mantelpiece, side 
 by side with the cards that tell you of the arrival and 
 departure of the London trains and the hour when the
 
 M. F. H. 
 
 169 
 
 post goes out, is a list of the meets of the Slottesloe and 
 of the neighbouring packs. When you go down to 
 breakfast (no formal long table, but little tables scat- 
 tered about the room, at which you can be as sulky or 
 
 as sociable as you please) you see ladies in their habits 
 the cut and fit plainly suggestive of hard riding 
 and the men in all their bravery of pink, or in Melton 
 coats and gorgeous waistcoats. Talk to them of Patti 
 la Diva or of Thalberg la petite, yet to most of them
 
 1 7 o CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 there is no music like the deep-throated chorus of the 
 pack, or even of the tramp of the hoofs of the horses as 
 they are being brought round. 
 
 Yet, enthusiastic as all the inmates of Highthorpe 
 are about hunting if you do not hunt you will be 
 about as cheerful there as a salmon on a gravel walk 
 it is the rule of the house that during dinner all hunting 
 topics are to be strictly tabooed. As you take your tea 
 in the library with the ladies before going to dress, you 
 may talk about the run and the fences you took or the 
 ' croppers' you came as much as you please ; you may 
 resume the subject when you adjourn to the smoking- 
 room ; but during dinner, and for a couple of hours 
 afterwards, you are not to pose as the one-idea'd man, 
 whose powers of conversation are limited entirely ta 
 the subject of fox-hunting. It is a most excellent rule, 
 and, when we remember the mendacity and monotony 
 that so frequently characterise this kind of talk, one 
 well worthy of adoption. It does not follow that be- 
 cause a man is fond of hunting he is necessarily inca- 
 pable of anything better. Some of the most distinguished 
 men on the bench, in the senate, the camp, the studio, 
 in literature and in science, have been enrolled in the 
 ranks of the hard riders of England. Nor, on the other 
 hand, is it a proof of intellect or humanity for a man 
 to run down hunting. One of the dullest and savagest
 
 M.F.H. 17 1 
 
 of critics that it has ever been my misfortune to meet 
 is as sentimental as a schoolgirl over i the poor fox ;' 
 but give him a book to review or a picture to criticise, 
 and where is his charity, his tenderness, or his hu- 
 manity ? It has been expended upon the sufferings 
 of hunted vermin, and is exhausted when he has to 
 deal with his fellow-creatures. Ah, my bilious friend, 
 take a few lessons in riding even have a day with 
 the Old Surrey and your invigorated system will soon 
 teach you that all who differ from you are neither so 
 utterly in the wrong nor so hopelessly idiotic as your 
 jaundiced imagination conceives. 
 
 Shortly after his arrival at Highthorpe, one of the 
 first duties that the visitor if he belong to what is 
 ironically called the sterner sex has to perform is to 
 inspect the kennels and the stables. Skirting the well- 
 timbered park, and pausing occasionally to watch the 
 red and fallow deer feeding beneath the beech-trees, 
 clothed in all the golden glories of their autumnal garb, 
 our destination is soon reached. The kennels and 
 stables at Highthorpe are a fine range of buildings, 
 erected at no little cost by the Squire, and freely sup- 
 plied with water which is pumped up by steam to an 
 elevation commanding the whole of the buildings. The 
 first- whip's house is close to the kennels ; and many a 
 vicar is worse lodged. After a rigid inspection of the
 
 172 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 dog-pack and the 'ladies' it is best not to hazard a 
 criticism if your canine knowledge is deficient, for 
 there are few better judges of the points of a hound 
 than Ashby Folville brought out on the sward for 
 your express benefit, and having had the young 
 hounds drafted out for special examination, you are 
 nothing loth for perhaps you have been nervous 
 as to the calves of your legs to be taken over the 
 stables. The stable-yard consists of a wide square. 
 On one side is a covered riding-school; on the oppo- 
 site side is a magnificent range of loose boxes; on 
 the third side is an equally magnificent range of 
 stalls; whilst on the fourth side are the boiling- 
 houses and meal-stores. Men are never shy when 
 invited to Highthorpe about asking leave to bring 
 down their horses, for room can always be found for 
 them ; whilst, on the other hand, he who has no horses 
 can easily be accommodated with nags ; for the Squire's 
 stud is an extensive one. l If you can ride I can mount 
 you,' says Folville to the young men who come down 
 from the University to spend their Christmastide with 
 him. However, he would not give his dearest friend 
 leave to lay his legs over certain valuable animals at the 
 north end of the stable, which constitute the Squire's 
 own lot. When a man pays from three to five hundred 
 guineas for his hunters he is justified in being selfish.
 
 M.F.H. 173 
 
 When a frost sets in, or during a couple of months 
 in the season (chiefly spent at Lord's), the Squire turns 
 up frequently at the Caravanserai, preferring the gaiety 
 of that establishment to the sedateness of Boodles' s. He 
 knows everybody worth knowing in the club ; and we 
 to whom he has been civil in the country do our best to 
 repay his hospitality. "When Mrs. Folville gives a 
 dance, and though she is not a fashionable dame as the 
 London world counts fashion, we of the club take care to 
 send her a strong contingency from our best waltzing 
 division, so that there shall be no lack of good partners. 
 Her little people are always being taken to the play; 
 indeed the governess has remonstrated more than once, 
 as these attentions, she says, interfere with the studies 
 of her charges. When her boys get an exeat, and none 
 of the family are in town, there are always plenty of us 
 glad to receive the lads, and to send them on their way 
 rejoicing with a tip. As for me, I am always charmed 
 when it lies within my power to make any return for 
 the hospitality and kindness it has been my good for- 
 tune, winter after winter, to receive at that pleasantest 
 of country houses Highthorpe Abbey.
 
 CULTUEE.
 
 CULTUEE. 
 
 LOOKING back at the past from the vantage-point now, 
 alas ! of many years, there are few features in English 
 life which more impress me than the giant strides made 
 within the last generation in the matter of National 
 Education. The knowledge which was considered highly 
 creditable in a young man when our fourth George was 
 king would be considered at the present day as hardly 
 worthy of the position of an intelligent City clerk. In 
 those ' good old times' a man obtained his degree often 
 without examination, or when he had to go through that 
 ordeal his papers for 'greats' were scarcely superior 
 to those now put before the candidate at matriculation. 
 If the army was to be his career, he donned his Majesty's 
 uniform without troubling himself about the Commen- 
 taries of Julius Ca3sar, the epochs of history, or the 
 course of English literature ; his commission had been 
 paid for, and nothing more was needed. Had he relatives 
 in the law, he was destined for the bar, ate his dinners, 
 and became entitled to wear his wig and gown, thanks 
 to his stomach, and not to his brains. "Was he a younger 
 
 N
 
 178 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 son with interest, lie was appointed to a clerkship in a 
 Government office, without first having to pay his fees 
 to a crammer. But now the days of privilege are num- 
 bered, and the reign of Education has been ushered in. 
 The creed of the survival of the fittest is the religion 
 under which we live and move and have our being, and 
 it must be admitted that the impecunious born fool of 
 this our age has a roughish future before him. 
 
 Yet it is an ill wind that blows no one any good. 
 If the lot of the noodle is a hard one, that of the clever 
 man was never more brilliant. Patronage has given 
 place to competitive examinations, and the world of 
 official and professional life is no longer an exclusive 
 area, but an open field, where the prizes of the race fall 
 to the swiftest. The scholar has it all his own way. 
 He does not require to come of an ancient line, or to 
 know a Cabinet Minister, or to possess capital; all he 
 needs to command success are brains, with perhaps a 
 baptismal or medical certificate. He can rise to the 
 highest posts in the service of our Indian empire with- 
 out being the nephew of a director or the friend of those 
 in power in Down ing-street. He can wear the blue of 
 the Artillery and the scarlet of the Engineers ; he can 
 fly his flag as an admiral ; he can take his seat on the 
 woolsack ; he can wear the lawn sleeves ; he can become 
 a member of the Cabinet there is no limit to his ambi-
 
 CULTURE. 
 
 179 
 
 tion but the throne and the grave, provided he be one 
 of the brilliant pupils of our new schoolmaster. As 
 Demosthenes extolled the advantages of action, action, 
 action, so now the sires of the rising generation din into 
 
 the ears of their sons the advantages of education, edu- 
 cation, education. Can we therefore wonder that the 
 temple of Minerva should be thronged with worshippers ? 
 A great statesman once wrote that we lived under the 
 Venetian system. Under whatever system we lived
 
 i8o CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 before the first Eeform Bill, there can be little doubt 
 about our now living under the Chinese system. 
 
 Nor is this progress in education limited to the 
 higher classes. Culture I believe that is the correct 
 word is now the aim and desire of all save the most 
 vagabond. What with endless cram, competitive exa- 
 minations, mechanic institutes, popular science, and 
 text-books on all subjects for the million, it will be 
 quite a treat in a few years to meet with a man who 
 knows nothing. A veteran like myself, educated under 
 the old regime, is about as much at home in modern 
 conversation as an alderman upon a penitential diet. 
 Everything that I learned in my youth has to be un- 
 learned. Historical characters that I was taught to 
 regard as monsters are now proved to have possessed 
 every domestic virtue ; whilst the men who appeared to- 
 me all that was noble and good have, alas, turned out to 
 be villains of the blackest dye. The constant revelations 
 of science and science is a subject which was never 
 my strong point bewilder me to exasperation; for no 
 sooner have I made myself familiar with a recent dis- 
 covery and disabused myself of all my former preju- 
 dices, than some great leader of science starts up, and 
 proves most satisfactorily that what I have just acquired 
 is nothing more than a tissue of false conclusions drawn 
 from unsound premises, and utterly worthless in theory
 
 CULTURE. iSr 
 
 and in practice. Then this enlightened person is in his 
 turn contradicted by another great leader in science; 
 and so the ball goes rolling until, what with dogmatic 
 assertions and vehement refutations, it seems to me that 
 life is too short to make a study of science. It is the 
 same with theology : all my early impressions upon the 
 subject have been shown to be most erroneous; yet 
 what to believe is very puzzling, for no two divines 
 teach alike, and every theory is at variance with its 
 fellow. 
 
 Sometimes I think the ignorance and simple faith, 
 which were the fashion in my younger days, preferable 
 to this very advanced state of education, which destroys 
 so much and builds up so little. We are so educated 
 that not only do youths in their teens glibly discuss the 
 most abstruse subjects, but our lower orders have caught 
 the contagion. They in their turn have acquired that 
 little knowledge which Bacon says is so dangerous a 
 thing, and the consequence is that they are gradually 
 becoming discontented with their position in life. The 
 educated tradesman is ashamed of keeping a shop, so he 
 calls his quarters an 'emporium.' The working man, 
 who jumbles up history, geography, and political economy 
 at a night-class, calls himself an * artisan.' The counter- 
 jumper, who drops his 7i's at a debating-club, dubs him- 
 ,self an 'assistant.' The bagman is a 'commercial
 
 1 82 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 gentleman,' the young person is a i young lady,' the 
 clerk is an ' employe,' the hairdresser is an ' artiste,' 
 and for aught I know to the contrary the dustman may 
 call himself an l artiste in refuse,' and his brother of the 
 watering-cart an i employe in hydraulics.' A system of 
 education which renders a man happier in his position 
 in life, which makes him a better creature and a more 
 respectable citizen, is a great national boon ; but a system 
 of education which makes him ashamed of his calling 
 and sullen to his superiors, yet does not render him 
 qualified for a superior station, is, it seems to me, a very 
 doubtful advantage. 
 
 Hence one of the results of this false shame is to 
 cause a great exodus from the working classes into the 
 middle classes. The prosperous shopkeeper declines to 
 bring up his son for the lower walks of trade. The field 
 is now so open thanks to the example set us by John 
 Chinaman and the prizes to be obtained by the highly 
 educated are so worth the winning, that every one 
 wishes to qualify for the race. The son of the yeoman 
 and the son of the tradesman jostle the son of the gentle- 
 man at every step at the public schools, at the univer- 
 sities, and at the great examinations. But though the 
 prizes are many, the competitors are to be counted by 
 their thousands ; and as only the few can win, the many 
 who are defeated have no alternative but to add them-
 
 CULTURE. 183 
 
 selves to the already overcrowded middle classes, and 
 intensify the fierce fight for life. With those whom 
 education has placed in the ranks of the victors, exist- 
 ence is no doubt pleasant enough ; but with those who 
 have not been so successful, who have tried and have 
 failed, what is their future ! How many a tradesman, 
 who sees his son, of whom he had such expectations, 
 plucked for India or the Engineers, getting no practice 
 at the bar, obtaining no patients in medicine, discon- 
 tented, idle, and fit for nothing, too good for trade, yet 
 not good enough for anything else, must have regretted 
 the day when he vowed l he would make a gentleman of 
 the boy' instead of sending him into the shop! And 
 how many a son, suspicious and sensitive, and made 
 perhaps by an unkind world to smart under his social 
 shortcomings (you want money and success to carry off 
 some things), must often have felt, in spite of his l posi- 
 tion as a gentleman,' that it would have been better for 
 him to have been as his father before him, a prosperous 
 tradesman, than a poor and unsuccessful ' gentleman' ! 
 
 One man whom I know within the walls of the 
 -Caravanserai must often have indulged in such reflec- 
 tions. Mr. Thome can hardly be considered in the 
 light of an eligible member of our community. We 
 are told that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, 
 .and it is surprising how disagreeable one cantankerous
 
 1 84 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 man who uses his club can make it to those around him. 
 He is always coming upon the scene and cannot be 
 avoided. If you go up to the library you find him 
 snoring on the very sofa you want, with the very book 
 you have come in search of in his useless grasp. If you 
 dine accidentally at the club your table is sure to be 
 placed next to his. Are you having a quiet chat with a 
 friend in the smoking-room, most assuredly will this 
 wretched being drop in and spoil the conversation. He 
 is always quarrelling with the committee, and asking 
 you to support his complaints ; nor is it a pleasant task 
 to refuse the requests of the cantankerous. At billiards 
 he disputes the accuracy of the marker; at whist his 
 frowns and reproofs intimidate his partner ; if you turn 
 up the king at ecarte his expressive smile plainly con- 
 veys to you the impression that he considers you a 
 swindler. 
 
 From these observations you will perhaps gather that 
 Mr. Thorne is not a popular personage, nor in arriving 
 at that conclusion will you be much mistaken. Indeed, 
 he is not a favourite. There are some men, no matter 
 how illustrious their birth or how high their office, who 
 from their charm of manner and attractive geniality are 
 always known to their fellows by some fond sobriquet 
 or affectionate diminution of their Christian name ; but 
 who, looking into the pale spiteful face of Mr. Thorne,
 
 CULTURE. 
 
 185 
 
 with the sinister set in his cold gray eyes, and the angry 
 lines round his snappish mouth, would ever think of 
 addressing him otherwise than as Mr. Thorne ? He has 
 no friends, and the list of his acquaintances is limited. 
 
 "When he speaks to you he draws himself up to his full 
 height, regards you with elevated eyebrows, and a 
 general look of lofty superiority on his sickly counte- 
 nance, and expects you humbly to listen to him, as if he 
 were conferring a great favour in imparting the opinions
 
 1 86 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 his splendid intellect has arrived at to so incompetent a 
 creature as yourself. ' "What I hate about that fellow,' 
 said a frank youth to me, ' is that he always treats every 
 one as if he were a damned ass.' The remark is forcible, 
 but it not inaptly hits off the character of this superior 
 person. 
 
 Mr. Thorne is one of those men with whom conver- 
 sation is impossible. He will address you, he will lecture 
 you, he will instruct you, but he will not chat with 
 you conversation with him is a monologue. He is to 
 preach, you are to listen. If you interrupt him he will 
 look at you as if utterly dumbfounded by your audacity ; 
 if you advance an opinion he will promptly contradict 
 it; and if you ask him a question upon a subject of 
 which he knows nothing he will reply in his nastiest 
 tones that 'he is not a schoolboy.' "When he is present 
 he is Sir Oracle, and permits no one to interfere with 
 his monopoly of eloquence and information. He passes 
 his judgment upon the works of the greatest writers, 
 patronising them if he approves of their views, or run- 
 ning them down to the lowest depths of disparagement 
 if he differs from them. The range of his criticism 
 is wide, embracing every subject, from music to archae- 
 ology, and from astronomy to comparative philology. 
 Provided you are submissive and deferential he will 
 answer the queries you put to him. Should you, how-
 
 CULTURE. 187 
 
 ever, hold views of your own, he will decline to enter 
 into a discussion with you. 1 1 object to have my 
 brains sucked,' he says loftily. As for me, I scarcely 
 over like to inquire after his health for fear he should 
 think I want to l suck his brains' about anatomy. 
 
 Quack is a favourite word of Mr. Thome's. If a man 
 has attained to fame by some brilliant discovery, or by 
 the publication of some erudite work, or by the achieve- 
 ment of some great deed, Mr. Thorne, who hates success 
 -as only the failed can hate it, brands him as a quack. 
 Essentially a critic, and the turn of his mind purely 
 receptive, our lofty genius piques himself upon his 
 creative faculties, and is indifferent to everything that 
 is not what he considers original. It must, however, be 
 admitted that there are few things which Mr. Thorne 
 considers original outside his own literary efforts; for 
 no sooner is some discovery said to be new, or some 
 author becomes famous for the novelty of his opinions, 
 than this kindly person proyes that the discoverer has 
 only improved upon an old plan, and that the writer is a 
 plagiarist. Listening to this critic it would appear that 
 we have amongst us no scientific men worthy of the 
 name, no profound philosophers, no statesmen who are 
 not adventurers, no historians who are aught than 
 ignorant copyists, no artists, actors, engineers ; in short, 
 that there is in this country but one man whose learning
 
 1 88 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 and brilliant abilities save her from contempt, and his 
 name is Mr. Ebenezer Thorne. If to detract from the 
 fame of established reputations, if to take the exact 
 opposite of public opinion, if to be guided alone by the 
 spiteful views of a splenetic egotism be originality, no 
 one will deny that Mr. Thorne is of all men the most 
 original ; and long may the monopoly of such a gift be 
 confined to him ! 
 
 The existence of such a creature is due entirely to 
 our system of advanced education. Mr. Thorne is one 
 of the painful results of culture to be pronounced, 
 if you please, ' culchaw.' The son of a fairly prosperous 
 bootmaker in Oxford-street, he was sent as a lad to one 
 of the large City schools. Here his aptitude for mathe- 
 matics and the superior calibre of his abilities generally 
 attracted the attention of the head-master. Young 
 Thorne soon worked his way up to the sixth form, and 
 gained most of the prizes in the school. It had been the 
 intention of the worthy bootmaker to let his son have a 
 good commercial education, and then to take him into 
 the shop as a partner. But the father, like many men 
 whose sons are more brilliantly endowed than them- 
 selves, was somewhat in awe of his boy. How could he 
 .ask a young man who could spout page after page from 
 the orations of Cicero and Demosthenes, who could read 
 the comedies of Moliere without a dictionary, and who
 
 CULTURE. 
 
 189 
 
 was quite at home in conic sections and hydrostatics, to 
 add up a ledger, put on an apron, and take orders? 
 There was no alternative but for the father to ' make a 
 gentleman of the lad.' He came to this resolve with a 
 
 sigh, for he knew the profits of the shop were not to be 
 despised ; and, from several of the bad debts he had on 
 his books, he also entertained a shrewd idea of what 
 a i gentleman' was. Yet there was no help for it ; he 
 had educated his son above his position, and there was
 
 I 9 o CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 little blame to be attached to the boy if he sneered 
 at his father's calling. * There is nothing like leather,' 
 we all know ; so let us appreciate at its proper value the 
 sacrifice made by the parent. 
 
 Accordingly, young Thorne was sent to Cambridge. 
 That he would pass all the examinations was never for 
 one moment to be doubted. He had been the head of 
 his school, and it was fully expected that he would 
 greatly distinguish himself. Nor would these hopes 
 have been disappointed had the peculiarities of his tem- 
 perament not made themselves now painfully visible. 
 Mr. Thorne declined to follow the counsels of his tutor ; 
 he rejected the books he was told to study ; he disputed 
 many of the conclusions that the greatest mathematicians 
 had arrived at. His was one of those lofty minds not to 
 be fettered by tutors and nourished upon school-books. 
 He would rely only upon himself; he would take nothing 
 for granted ; he would be his own mathematician, geo- 
 metrician, and astronomer ; and the consequence was that 
 instead of being, as he had modestly expected, Smith's 
 prizeman and among the first three wranglers, he came 
 out in the middle of the Junior Optimes. Of course 
 it was from no fault of his ; he had often feared what 
 the result would be ; the examiners were jealous of him, 
 and had entered into a conspiracy to defeat him. One 
 of the most painful features in the character of Thorne
 
 CULTURE. 
 
 191 
 
 is that he never will acknowledge himself worsted from 
 any failure of his own. As the Frenchman, when he is 
 beaten, always cries out, f Nous sommes trahisj so 
 Thorne always ascribes his unsuccesses to jealousies, 
 combinations, and conspiracies. "Why the world should 
 put itself to such inconvenience as always to spy upon 
 his every action and misinterpret his every motive none 
 of us have as yet been able to discover. Perhaps, after 
 all, it may be that the world is not so malicious as Mr. 
 Thorne alleges, and that its censures are but the out- 
 come of its honest judgment and opinions. 
 
 Quitting Cambridge, Thorne took up his abode in 
 London at the paternal villa of Eulham. So superior a 
 person declined to go through the drudgery of working 
 for professional success. He had no interest at the bar ; 
 he despised commerce ; and of course, as became a man 
 of his enlightened views, he held that religion was but 
 the result of hereditary prejudices, and the Church an 
 organised superstition. He resolved to devote him- 
 self to science, and to show the world how unjust had 
 been the treatment he had received at the hands of that 
 school of a larger growth the University. He wrote a 
 work on ' Gravitation,' in which his views were so 
 ' original ' that he inveighed against everybody who 
 had previously illustrated the Newtonian theory, and 
 maintained that his own conclusions were the only
 
 192 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 sound ones upon the subject. The book was damned by 
 the press, and the publisher's ledger displayed an alarm- 
 ing sale of forty copies, of which twenty-five had been 
 bought by the proud father of the author. 
 
 Still the confidence of Mr. Thorne in himself was not 
 damped ; the world only cared for frivolity, the critics 
 were a parcel of venal and spiteful hacks, and the council 
 of the Astronomical Society had conspired to crush him. 
 He declined to be crushed. He wrote a volume on the 
 ' Multiple Stars,' another on ' Sound,' a third on ' Tidal 
 Investigations,' an essay on ' Optics,' and a treatise on 
 'Statical Couples.' None of these great works having 
 succeeded in bringing either money or fame to their 
 illustrious author, the old bootmaker roundly declared to 
 his son that he could no longer afford to keep him in 
 idleness, and that he must look out for some employ- 
 ment. A third-rate insurance office being in want of 
 an actuary, Mr. Thorne sent in an application, and was 
 glad enough to be appointed to the post. We have to 
 thank one of his directors for electing this great genius 
 a member of the Caravanserai. 
 
 We are told by Sydney Smith that the dissenters 
 of Bicester were very fond of declaring that until their 
 arrival there was no such thing in their town as intellec- 
 tual light all was wrapped in ignorance, incapacity, 
 and the Established Church. Mr. Thorne is gifted with
 
 CULTURE. 193 
 
 not a little of the conceit and arrogance of the Bicester 
 dissenter. Until his election to the Caravanserai, he 
 considers that no man of real culture or superior attain- 
 ments has ever been admitted within the club. Though 
 surrounded by statesmen, distinguished lawyers, well- 
 known members of the House of Commons, men of 
 letters who have taken high honours at the University, 
 et hoc genus omne, he calmly regards himself as the one 
 intellectual star of the establishment. It is his judg- 
 ment that should alone be accepted; his opinion that 
 should alone carry weight. He knows what the Govern- 
 ment is going to do and what it should do better than 
 the one or two Parliamentary Under-Secretaries who 
 honour the smoking-room with their presence. He lays 
 down the law about art, in spite of the E.A.s and 
 A.E.A.s who are amongst his audience. If the Astrono- 
 mer Eoyal were to sit at the next table to him he would 
 condemn many of his conclusions. He criticises every- 
 thing and everybody, yet in all his criticisms his object 
 is to show, either by implication or by positive state- 
 ment, how very much better he could have done the 
 work under discussion. His own brains are the standard 
 by which he measures everything; and therefore, 
 whenever he says in his most dogmatic manner, ' / can- 
 not understand it,' or i /have never heard of it,' it is to 
 be at once concluded that the subject which engages 
 
 o
 
 194 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 our attention is either too ridiculous or too trivial to be 
 noticed. Whenever any classical or French quotation is 
 made in his presence he has a disagreeable trick of ask- 
 ing what you said, and on the request being complied 
 with of dryly saying, 'Oh!' and then of repeating the 
 quotation very distinctly, as much as to say that is the 
 way it should be pronounced. It was of Mr. Thome 
 that it was once remarked that had he been present at 
 the Creation he would have given a few hints. 
 
 Yet, let us be charitable ; for much of this irritating 
 omniscience Mr. Thome has a certain excuse. He has 
 never found his level. At school, at the University, in 
 his little circle, he has always lived in a set who have 
 looked up to him with blind adoration. At home he is 
 surrounded by those to whom socially and intellectually 
 he is greatly the superior, and he lords it over the 
 parental circle with that despotism which is generally 
 accorded to these dictators of a coterie. Thus he has 
 acquired a habit of not only laying down the law, but of 
 imagining that because education is a novelty to himself 
 and to those in his own sphere, it must be equally a 
 novelty to others. We know how the man to whom 
 champagne is an unwonted luxury talks about that vin- 
 tage ; how the snob swaggers about having met a lord ; 
 how the beggar behaves when set on horseback; and 
 therefore we must not be hard upon Mr. Thorne, consi-
 
 CULTURE. 
 
 dering his shortcomings, that he somewhat over-estimates 
 his erudition. 
 
 Nor has any one the wish to be hard upon him, if 
 he would only act with a little more tact and modesty. 
 
 Conscious that he is the social inferior of almost every 
 one in the club, he thinks it incumbent upon him- 
 self to assume a defensive tone in order to preserve 
 his dignity. But he who is always on the defensive 
 scarcely fails to be offensive. Suspicious to insanity, he
 
 196 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 snatches at every accidental remark, as if it were in- 
 tended to convey a personal insult to himself. Should 
 one member innocently say to another, ' It is ill waiting 
 for dead men's shoes,' or ' There is nothing like leather,' 
 or 'Shoemaker, stick to your last,' or 'What boots it?' 
 or ' That is quite another pair of shoes,' and the like, 
 Mr. Thorne grows pale and quivers, and imagines that 
 allusions are being made to his origin. Of course at the 
 Caravanserai we all know who the man is, though Mr. 
 Thorne is under the delusion that he preserves the secret 
 of his birth most cleverly ; but with the good taste of 
 Englishmen we do not permit ourselves to be prejudiced 
 against him on account of any social shortcomings under 
 which he labours, and willingly would we hold out the 
 right hand of fellowship were Mr. Thorne a more 
 agreeable personage. Yet with that strange incon- 
 sistency which is so puzzling a feature in human 
 nature, it is Thorne who ever begins the aggressive; 
 it is he who is always indulging in personal remarks, 
 who is always branding a member as no gentle- 
 man, and who is always informing us what 'society' 
 should do on certain occasions. It is true that he has 
 more than once drawn upon himself some cruel retort 
 which has silenced him for days, but it has only been 
 after having richly deserved the punishment. He has 
 made numerous enemies, and his foes know that his
 
 CULTURE. 
 
 197 
 
 vulnerable point is 'the shop.' Thus tortured by his 
 sense of social inferiority, yet exalted by what he con- 
 siders his intellectual superiority, he goes through life 
 transformed into that curious combination of antitheses 
 which we so often see in men of the Thorne type com- 
 bative, yet shrinkingly sensitive ; arrogant, yet humble ; 
 fearful of oppression, yet ever oppressing ; a master one 
 moment, a slave the next. 
 
 To me he is a study. Yet when I watch him turning 
 pale at some covert sneer; jealous at the success of men 
 who have distanced him ; the holder of a petty appoint- 
 ment, after all the nourish of trumpets that had ushered 
 him into the arena of life ; bitter, sensitive, miserable 
 it seems to me how much happier he would have been 
 had not ' culture' taken him out of his position, and we 
 of the Caravanserai had been, instead of his companions 
 his customers.
 
 FINANCE.
 
 FINANCE. 
 
 THEORIES are like men, they may be crushed by scorn or 
 ridicule ; yet if they decline to be crushed they will end 
 by being listened to, and by gaining followers. Look- 
 ing over a file of old newspapers a few nights ago, and 
 reading them by the light of some of ' H. B.'s' carica- 
 tures, I could not help comparing the present with 
 the past, and reflecting how very different was the 
 treatment which one peculiar theory met with in days 
 bygone from what it now receives. Most of us can 
 remember when the opinions concerning the 'Asian 
 mystery' were first promulgated. We were told that 
 mankind, instead of holding the Hebrew race in pro- 
 found contempt, should reverence it for the important 
 part it played in the history of the world. "Without the 
 Hebrew race, it was said, the records of Holy Writ would 
 have been hopelessly lost ; without the Hebrew race the 
 creed of Christianity would never have been founded ; 
 without the Hebrew race the scheme of man's redemp- 
 tion would never have been accomplished. The Jews 
 were both the favoured and the ostracised of the
 
 202 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 Supreme Being ; to their disloyalty as well as to their 
 loyalty the world owed a deep debt of devotion. 
 
 We were told that the existence of the Hebrew race 
 was a proof of its superiority over the other families of 
 mankind. It had encountered the bitterest of persecu- 
 tions j it had been dispersed ; it had been oppressed by 
 the harshest of laws ; all over the globe it had met with 
 cruelty, contempt, and infamous restrictions. Yet it 
 lived, whilst the nations which had maltreated it had 
 declined and had fallen, never to rise again. Not only 
 did it live, but we were informed that, in spite of the 
 awful past, the intellectual vitality of the Hebrew race 
 was as vivid, as powerful, and as commanding as ever. 
 Eemove the shackles that fettered the Jew, admit him 
 into the arena of life unhandicapped by the restrictions 
 of intolerance, accord him all the civil rights of a subject, 
 and speedily, it was alleged, he would work his way to 
 the front, and stand a full head and shoulders above the 
 rest of the crowd. From this fact it was argued we 
 ought to learn a great ethnological truth that a supe- 
 rior race cannot be absorbed or repressed by one that is 
 inferior. Other races had existed as pure in their 
 lineage as the Jew, but what had been their fate ? 
 Either they had been absorbed by their victors in inter- 
 marriage, or they had become extinct from the deadly 
 thraldom of conquest. Save the Jew, there was not an
 
 FINANCE. 203 
 
 instance in the world of a race, whilst subject for centu- 
 ries to every evil influence that prejudice and persecu- 
 tion could suggest, having maintained both its purity of 
 blood and its intellectual vitality. From this we were 
 bidden to mark not only the fulfilment of prophecy, but 
 the superiority of the Jew. 
 
 We can remember the wit and humour that were 
 directed against this theory and against its Apostle. Yet 
 the laugh has not been exactly on our side. The Apostle 
 has proved the truth of his teaching in his own person, 
 by a success which has never before fallen to the lot of 
 a statesman in this country, whilst his theory is on all 
 sides being most fully exemplified. Everywhere the 
 Jew confronts his fellow-man, and stands forth as master 
 of the situation. Admitted but yesterday to the bar, he 
 is in the first rank of counsel, second to none in elo- 
 quence, in the lore of jurisprudence, and in the skill of 
 the consummate advocate. The realms of finance have 
 always been his especial dominion, but never has he 
 occupied so powerful a position as at the present day ; 
 he holds empires in pawn, and by a wish to realise his 
 possessions could reduce half a continent to bankruptcy. 
 His civil disabilities removed, he becomes a legislator 
 distinguished by his ready gift of debate, or a magistrate 
 conspicuous for his tact and common sense. Music and 
 song and the drama have been so eminently the mono-
 
 204 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 poly of the Hebrew race, that no one is surprised at a 
 great composer, or a great actress, or a prima donna 
 being of Jewish descent. In art, in science, in litera- 
 ture, the Hebrew is again among the most gifted in his 
 
 profession. Whatever department is open to him, his 
 success in it is so remarkable as to make him one of the 
 conspicuous. When the field of his intellect was 
 limited to medicine and finance, he rose till he could 
 rise no higher ; and now that the world closes none of
 
 FINANCE. 205 
 
 its avenues at his approach, the talents which made him 
 attain distinction when under persecution render every 
 career he selects in this age of his toleration a brilliant 
 one. 
 
 The Hebrew has all the qualities which lead men to 
 prosperity. A keen brain, intense perseverance, great 
 industry, great nervous energy, frugality, an ambition 
 that never loses an opportunity, a conscience somewhat 
 dulled by that cunning which is hereditary in the per- 
 secuted, pushing, active, knowing instinctively what to 
 accept and what to reject, it is not surprising that his 
 success is marked. Between the Jew and the Scotch- 
 man though both cordially dislike each other there is 
 much in common. Both comprise within themselves all 
 that is good and bad in human nature in a marked 
 degree ; both clan together, seldom working singly, so 
 that the success of one brings other successes in its 
 wake ; both carry their nationality in their face ; both 
 are eager after the main chance, and somewhat indiffer- 
 ent as to the means, provided the end be gained ; both 
 are frugal and persevering; both are imbued with 
 strong religious prejudices and both sold their king. 
 
 It is in society that the position of the Jew has be- 
 come the most conspicuous. Men now not elderly can 
 remember the time when the Jew was never met with at 
 the houses of the great. He lived apart, formed a com-
 
 206 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 nmnity of his own, and was regarded as a pariah outside 
 the pale of social existence. A dame of fashion would 
 have felt her self-respect wounded had she permitted a 
 Jewess to enter her drawing-rooms, whilst a peer would 
 as soon have asked a Jew to his country house as he 
 would the hangman. But as wealth became more and 
 more the idol of the age, as one by one the barriers set 
 up by prejudice were uprooted, and as Judaism, gradu- 
 ally losing its distinctive characteristics, developed into 
 a kind of deism, society had to march with the times and 
 extend its frontiers. The Jew was admitted, and his 
 tact soon transformed the bare inch which was reluct- 
 antly doled out to him into the lengthiest of ells. It is 
 a curious fact that whilst the middle classes still enter- 
 tain a strong prejudice against the Jew, nowhere is he 
 more cordially welcomed than amongst what are termed 
 the higher classes. "Whether this is due to the fact that 
 the more rarefied the social atmosphere the freer is it 
 from the vulgarities of intolerance and the artificialities 
 of civilisation, or that Hebrews, themselves strongly 
 tinged with aristocratic sentiments, take more pains to 
 please when in the society of the great than when 
 amongst their equals, I know not. 
 
 There is one member of the Caravanserai to whom 
 many of these remarks refer. It is now many years 
 since Hermann Wertheim left his native city of Magde-
 
 FINANCE. 207 
 
 burg to seek his fortune and build up a prosperous 
 career for himself. Obscure, penniless, unbefriended, 
 he began life dependent entirely upon his own resources. 
 What the history of his lineage is none of us know, 
 though, since he has attained to celebrity, malice and 
 imagination have been busy with his name. Yet what- 
 ever his parentage may have been, there can be no doubt 
 as to his Hebrew origin. There are various types of 
 Jew. There is the low-caste Jew bullet-headed, bull- 
 necked, olive-hued, snub-nosed, with low brow, greasy 
 curls, negro lips, and redeemed alone from the most for- 
 bidding ugliness by the splendid eyes of his tribe. 
 There is the Jew in the humbler walks of trade, short, 
 fat, and differing little from the physiognomy of the or- 
 dinary Frenchman save in the hook of the nose and the 
 peculiar shape of the eye. There is the Jew whose 
 wealth has raised him for generations above the common 
 herd of his fellows who is the aristocrat of his race 
 whose features are finely cut; the forehead broad yet 
 lofty ; the nose aquiline, and only when past middle age 
 developing into the Judaic curve ; the mouth, though 
 too full, yet beautifully shaped; the chin firm and 
 decided ; the shape of the head, the ears, the hands, 
 the feet, all showing unmistakable signs of breed- 
 ing. There are dark Jews and fair Jews, red-headed 
 Jews and bald-headed Jews, little dumpy Jews and
 
 208 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 tall slim Jews, Jews bearded like the pard, Jews shaved 
 like priests; yet different as are these various types 
 of Israelite, in the 'cast of countenance, and above 
 all in the melancholy expression of the eyes, the ob- 
 
 server has seldom any difficulty in deciphering the 
 nationality. Wertheim is a dark man with black curly 
 locks, large brown eyes, an aquiline nose, and a long 
 well-kept beard ; he might pass for an Italian, were it 
 not for that peculiarity of expression which stamps him
 
 FINANCE. 
 
 209 
 
 at a glance as a Jew. By the women he is considered 
 very handsome ; the men say he would be good-looking 
 were he not a Jew. 
 
 The career of Wertheiin is a curious one. Whilstja 
 
 lad at Magdeburg he read an advertisement in an Eng- 
 lish journal stating that a firm of merchants were in 
 want of a clerk. He thought the opportunity a good 
 one for perfecting himself in the English language, and 
 applied for the post. He was successful, and was engaged
 
 210 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 at the modest salary of forty pounds a year. At the 
 end of three years he rose to the position of correspond- 
 ence clerk. Here his knowledge of foreign languages, 
 his shrewdness, his business capacity, his tact and fore- 
 sight, caused him to be regarded as one of the most 
 useful of officials. He was sent over to Eio Janeiro as 
 a junior partner to manage the fortunes of the Bra- 
 zilian branch of the firm. Before he was forty he had 
 succeeded thanks to the busy hand of death in be- 
 coming senior partner, and then retired from the busi- 
 ness, demanding as his share some two hundred thousand 
 pounds. 
 
 With this sum Wertheim speculated largely in the 
 United States during a season of great commercial 
 depression, and well-nigh doubled his fortune. He now 
 came to London, took splendid offices in the City, and 
 soon established a reputation as one of the happiest of 
 financial promoters. He touched nothing which did not 
 dissolve itself into gold. Every company he brought 
 out was a success, and paid handsome dividends. His 
 name as chairman or director of a mine, a line of rail- 
 way, a joint-stock bank, or any other financial associa- 
 tion, inspired the public with confidence and sent up the 
 price of its shares. His terms were heavy, yet specula- 
 tors were only too glad to pay what he asked, provided 
 he would promote the companies they proposed to him.
 
 FINANCE. 
 
 When it was known that Wertheim had consented 
 to bring out a company, the competition for allotments 
 set in fast and furious, and the shares once floated were 
 bought up at a heavy premium. His offices were 
 always crowded with eager capitalists anxious for an 
 interview not always granted with the great man, 
 imploring him to take their money and invest it in any 
 undertaking he thought best. At first the great City 
 houses looked somewhat askance at the l adventurer,' as 
 he was called ; but they ended, as the rest of the frater- 
 nity had ended, by hanging about his magnificent ante- 
 rooms and invoking his aid. It is better to be born 
 lucky than rich, says the proverb ; but when a man is 
 both lucky and rich the ball lies at his feet. Wertheim 
 was lucky. Numerous as had been the enterprises in 
 which he had been engaged, none had been miserable 
 failures, none had led to investigations which reflected 
 upon his honour. Some were paying twenty per cent, 
 some were only paying four, but there was not one of 
 them at a discount. The official liquidator had never 
 had occasion to intrude himself unpleasantly upon the 
 presence of Hermann Wertheim. It was computed that 
 within ten years he had realised nearly a couple of 
 millions. 
 
 And now the self-control and sagacity of the man 
 appeared. At the very zenith of his prosperity, when
 
 212 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 he was worshipped in the streets and lanes around the 
 Exchange, when every continental Bourse was applaud- 
 ing his ventures and exaggerating his successes, when 
 committees of the House of Commons listened to his 
 opinions as conclusive, when he was looked up to both 
 by the Treasury and the Bank of England as the 
 soundest of financial advisers, Wertheim sold his offices 
 in the City and retired from every undertaking in 
 which his name appeared. Jews are, of all people, the 
 most pleasure -loving and the least given to ennui or 
 satiety. They drink the cup of life to the dregs, and 
 find the last quaff almost as pleasant as the first. Wer- 
 theim had worked and won ; he would give ill-luck no 
 opportunity; the rest of his days he would pass in 
 leisure. 
 
 A brilliant position east of Temple Bar signifies at 
 the present day a brilliant position west of that now 
 happily removed obstacle. Gradually, first through 
 dandies and politicians who had sat with him at the 
 same Boards of Directors, then through Ministers who- 
 had asked him for counsel, and then through certain 
 great ladies of a speculative temperament, who had been 
 indebted to the famous promoter for allotments, shares^ 
 and early information as to railway amalgamations, "Wer- 
 theim entered society, and his wealth soon made him 
 a personage in the circles of its leaders. It is difficult
 
 FINANCE. 
 
 213 
 
 to understand how a race, shunned and oppressed like 
 the Jews, should have obtained that social tact and 
 power of pleasing, when it suits them, which are emi- 
 nently their characteristics. There is hardly a capital in 
 Europe, where a Jewess by her brilliant social gifts is 
 not amongst the leaders of its society; and the Jew, 
 whether he be one by religion or by blood, who has 
 mixed much in the world, is always a witty and amus- 
 ing companion. It is only when among his equals or 
 inferiors that the egotism, the selfishness, and the lack 
 of scruple of the Hebrew appear. 
 
 Hermann "Wertheim was not only admitted into good 
 society ; he was soon courted by it. The women con- 
 sidered him handsome ; his manners had much of the 
 repose and dignity of the Oriental ; his conversation was 
 always amusing and could be instructive; whilst his 
 wealth gave him that assurance and self-respect which 
 other men obtain from high birth and acknowledged 
 position. He bought a beautiful property in the 
 favourite home county of his race, and one of the best 
 town houses that the agents had on their books. He 
 w r as unmarried, and such a parti was not likely to be 
 permitted to remain for long unattached. Whatever 
 creed "Wertheim inwardly professed, he was to all in- 
 tents and purposes a Christian. In the country he was 
 a model squire, and from his large curtained pew in the
 
 214 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 village church repeated the responses in a most edifying 
 manner. In town he could be seen every Sunday morn- 
 ing in the fashionable fane of his quarter. He had a few 
 livings in his gift, and was most orthodox in the exer- 
 
 cise of his patronage. He took a great interest in the 
 future of the English Church, and spoke once or twice on 
 the subject at Congress meetings. Whether he was ever 
 baptised no one inquired ; he was for all practical pur- 
 poses as much a Christian as half the inhabitants of the
 
 FINANCE. 215 
 
 kingdom, and to look deeper would have been both, im- 
 pertinent and inquisitive. Still the Jews are an adaptive 
 people, and in posing as a good Protestant Hermann 
 Wertheim may after all be but an outsider in the fold. 
 "Wandering up Edgeware-road one fine September morn- 
 ing, I entered the splendid synagogue of that district. 
 It was the Day of Atonement. Gazing at the sad sallow 
 countenances of the worshippers, it struck me that I saw 
 the great ex-financier in their midst. As our eyes met, 
 he buried his face in his talitli. Perhaps after all I was 
 mistaken one Jew is so very like another. 
 
 It took few of us by surprise when Wertheim married 
 Lady Delia St. Julien. Everybody knew that the Earl 
 of Leoville was as poor as poor could be, and that his 
 clever wife had devoted the best part of two seasons to 
 ensnare the capitalist. The match has proved a happy 
 one for both parties. The mortgages on Medoc Castle 
 and Eomanee Park have been paid off, and the Countess 
 has taken her diamonds out of pawn I mean has re- 
 ceived them back from her banker. Lady Delia a dame 
 of some five-and-thirty, very cold, very haughty, very 
 distant, and who would have married Beelzebub, had she 
 been assured of the extent of his rent-roll, to benefit her 
 family has come to the conclusion that she is a most 
 fortunate woman. Domesticity has always been a marked 
 feature in the Jewish race, and Wertheim is no excep-
 
 216 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 tion to the rest of his tribe. Fond of his wife, passion- 
 ately attached to their only child, he has succeeded in 
 transforming Lady Delia from a statue into a most 
 agreeable and charming woman. Thanks to the wealth 
 and generous disposition of her husband, she has made 
 her house one of the most popular in town. In the coun- 
 try their hospitalities are conducted in the most lavish 
 manner. The house is seldom free from visitors ; and 
 as "Wertheim is himself a splendid musician and some- 
 what of an artist, one meets there not only the fashion- 
 able, but the celebrities of the drama, the studio, and 
 the library. 
 
 Considering that Hermann Wertheim is a man much 
 sought after, he is a frequent visitor at the Caravanserai. 
 He has many friends, especially amongst the young and 
 the hard-working who have not yet attained to fame. 
 At his dinners and Lady Delia's balls the youth of the 
 Caravanserai show up in great force, whilst he places 
 his stable and his shootings almost too much at their 
 disposal. He has his enemies ; but when they have 
 called him ' a German Jew,' and sneered at him as 
 an 'adventurer,' they have little more to say against 
 him. Besides, he has been forced so frequently to meet 
 these two charges during his life that their venom has 
 long ceased to wound : he has found the antidote in 
 wealth and success.
 
 FINANCE. 
 
 217 
 
 One regret he certainly experiences. Imbued with 
 a sincere admiration for the institutions and the people 
 of England, a naturalised subject himself of her Majesty, 
 and well read in political history, he would give much 
 of his bullion to be able to enter the House of Com- 
 mons. Those green benches have an attraction for him 
 which the promoting of companies or the bringing out 
 of loans never possessed. When an important debate 
 takes place he may generally be seen sitting behind a 
 friendly member under the gallery. How slight is the 
 barrier that divides him from the House ! yet by him 
 it can never be o'erpassed. As I see him watching 
 speaker after speaker, the mere routine of the business 
 of the House having a special interest for him, the desire 
 of his heart can be read. He is another instance of a 
 man not completely happy. He has wealth, he has 
 talents, he has health, he has a delightful home ; yet 
 the one thing he yearns after he has not (had he it, 
 would he yearn after it ?) the power to take an active 
 part in the legislative labours of the nation of his adop- 
 tion. Among those who have gained much, yet who 
 still long after the unattainable, the name of Hermann 
 "Wertheim must also be written. 
 
 ' Inde fit, ut raro, qui se vixisse beatum 
 Dicat, et exacto contentus tempore vitae 
 Cedat, uti conviva satur, reperire queamus.'
 
 WITS.
 
 WITS. 
 
 THERE are few things more puzzling to the unsophisti- 
 cated mind than the manner in which certain people, 
 without any definite means of subsistence, manage to 
 live. "We know that such persons have no profession, 
 that no kind relations have put their names down for 
 handsome legacies, that they are social waifs and strays, 
 not clearly belonging to anybody or to anything ; yet 
 they appear always to be amply supplied with the goods 
 of this world, and freely to enjoy the pleasures thereof. 
 If they are married they live in the most charming of 
 bijou establishments, give excellent dinners, where the 
 male element somewhat predominates, drive in the easi- 
 est and most miniature of broughams, ride the cleverest 
 of hunters in the shires and the most perfect of hacks 
 in the Park, and are always to be met with in the 
 haunts that Fashion specially selects for her amuse- 
 ment, and everywhere maintaining a rate of expenditure 
 of several thousands a year. How do they do it ? We 
 know that the husband was ' broke' in the Goodwood of
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 18 , and that his wife had nothing; how, then, da 
 they exist in comfort and splendour ? 
 
 On the other hand, if they are bachelors they give 
 their address at one or two good clubs, they are clad in 
 
 purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day. 
 They have their stall at the Opera and their hack for 
 the Kow, they are not content with the club points at 
 whist, but bet heavily, and they always have money to 
 entertain useful friends at the neatest of little dinners.
 
 WITS. 
 
 223 
 
 and to gratify the sins they most affect. Yet how is it 
 done ? We see men with good fortunes, making a 
 lucrative practice or holding high and well-paid appoint- 
 ments, and yet they say candidly that they should come 
 to signal grief did they launch themselves forth on the 
 lavish career which is the daily life of these penniless 
 puzzles. Again we ask, How do they do it? The 
 answer returned is, By their wits. 
 
 At the present day the clever impecunious adven- 
 turer finds many an active sphere for his peculiar 
 labours which was denied to his predecessor. In the 
 olden times our friend, whose keen wit had to stand 
 him in the stead of lofty name and handsome revenues, 
 was forced to open the world with his sword as a soldier 
 of fortune, or to ingratiate himself, under the happy 
 feudal system, with a monarch who would offer him the 
 requisite facilities for marrying an heiress, or else to 
 descend to the tricks and cunning of the downright 
 knave. He could punt over the green cloth at games 
 of hazard, it is true ; but your man who has to live by 
 his wits can seldom afford to play unless he has a 
 decided advantage over his opponent; he is willing to 
 keep the bank, to play whist or ecarte; a game of skill 
 is an income to him, whilst a game of pure chance de- 
 feats his calculations and renders his superior knowledge 
 valueless.
 
 224 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 But in these easier later times there are numerous 
 roads and convenient bypaths which lead to the temple 
 of Fortune the temple of Honour is behind the temple 
 of Fortune. A knowledge of horseflesh can in itself 
 be employed so as to gain a comfortable annuity; a 
 crack ' gentleman jock,' though he is disqualified from 
 getting his three pounds a mount and five pounds when 
 successful, may yet make an excellent thing of his 
 riding, thanks to the little investments put to his credit 
 by his employer. And as for the income that can be 
 obained from whist, from ecarte, from billiards, from 
 pigeon-shooting, and from making a book on the different 
 races, it may vary according to the capital and capacities 
 of the ' sportsman,' from one hundred to thousands a 
 year. The man who has to live by his wits, provided 
 he be not ashamed of the profession and his nerve and 
 talent fit him for the career, need scarcely nowadays 
 grumble at the opportunities afforded him for distinction 
 and perhaps for notoriety. There are plenty of pick- 
 ings for the rook ; the fox seldom prowls about in vain ; 
 and the fold is so feebly guarded that the wolf now 
 almost wants a whet for his appetite. The creed of the 
 survival of the fittest is an excellent arrangement for 
 the fittest; to those, however, who are not in that 
 category it is perhaps open to objection. 
 
 Among the predatory individuals who are especially
 
 WITS. 225 
 
 created, as it were, to live upon their fellow-men, Davie 
 Benson will always occupy a prominent place. No one 
 knows who he is, what his parentage is, what locality 
 gave him birth, or what his available means of subsist- 
 ence are. He is the child of mystery, nor does he ever 
 attempt to raise the veil except when he vaguely alludes 
 to ' his people in the north ;' but whether he means the 
 north of England or the north of Scotland or the north 
 of London none of us whom he honours with his ac- 
 quaintance have ever been able to discover. If I might 
 venture upon a suggestion, I fancy he knows more about 
 the people of the east than of the north, from the nature 
 of the monetary transactions he occasionally indulges in. 
 Yet Davie, in spite of the secrecy with which he en- 
 velops his social surroundings, is quite a representative 
 man of his order at the Caravanserai. At a glance you 
 can tell to what calling he belongs. To the observing 
 mind nothing is simpler than to identify a man with his 
 profession. A hundred tricks of gait, attire, and talk 
 reveal the soldier and the sailor. Without his white 
 tie and black garb the parson, disguise himself as he 
 may, is soon discovered. You can tell a barrister by 
 the way he trims his whiskers, pulls about his nose, and 
 rises and sits down. "What tutored eye ever fails to 
 recognise the solicitor, the doctor, the clerk, and the 
 City man ? All have peculiar movements and expres- 
 
 Q
 
 226 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 sions inseparable from their walk in life, and which 
 stamp them with the trade-mark of their calling. And 
 who could ever make a mistake about Davie Benson? 
 In his bell-shaped hat, so glossy and so curly ; in the 
 
 small keen whiskerless face ; in the tie, sporting yet not 
 loud ; in the frock-coat, fitting like a glove to his thin 
 supple figure ; in the tight trousers, the gait, and the 
 gaiters and varnished boots, you read as plainly as if it 
 were labelled on his back, Horseflesh. No one who
 
 WITS. 227 
 
 does not spend much of his time in the saddle could 
 walk in that peculiar style, and no one save he whose 
 figure is always in strict training could be so emaciated 
 and yet so powerful. 
 
 Standing little above five feet six, with not an ounce 
 of superfluous flesh upon him, apparently as slight as a 
 girl, there are not many who can surpass Davie in those 
 feats which require both strength and dexterity for their 
 accomplishment. The raking chestnut which carries 
 him so well amid the pastures of Leicestershire, and 
 which is the admiration of the grooms at the ' George/ 
 knows the utter futility of attempting to free herself 
 when in one of her moods from the iron hands that never 
 move from her withers. The favourite pupil of Alick 
 Eeed, there are few more awkward customers to encounter 
 at a bout with the gloves than Davie who quicker than 
 he at out-fighting or more clever in avoiding a rally ? 
 To watch him ' on the bench' handling an unruly team is 
 a study of strength, tact, and patience ; how soon the 
 restive wheelers and the recalcitrant leaders find out that 
 obstinacy is a mistake, and put an end to their opposition 
 by stepping as well together as if they had been accus- 
 tomed to leave Piccadilly every morning at ten and trot 
 back in the evening at seven. "Watch Davie turn in to 
 scale after a three-mile match, ' lOst. 71b. each, owners 
 up,' over a stiffish hunting country : he is as cool and
 
 228 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 calm as if lie had just come out of his morning tub, 
 whilst his opponent is breathing like a walrus and 
 streaming like a waterfall. Many a broad-shouldered 
 powerful Goliath has had to acknowledge himself beaten 
 by the endurance of this effeminate-looking David on 
 the moors of Scotland, amid the streams of Norway and 
 Canada, on the track of the big game, and wherever 
 sport and pluck cater for disciples. 
 
 'It is all a question of condition,' says Davie 
 quietly; 'the only difference between me and other 
 men is that I am always in condition, whilst other 
 men only occasionally are. A man says he will ride 
 against me or run me for a mile or row against me 
 from Putney to Mortlake, and forthwith he goes 
 into severe training, but the moment the match is 
 over drops back to his old life : dines late, takes 
 brandies-and-sodas, eats too much, sleeps too much, 
 drinks too much, everything too much, and substitutes 
 mooning for exercise. It is not the training that 
 does a man harm; it is the life he leads after the 
 training, the sudden revulsion from a systematic asceti- 
 cism to unbridled luxury. I am always in training, 
 and my weight does not fluctuate a pound in a twelve- 
 month. It is true I sit up late except when I am 
 going to ride or men have made some match or other 
 for me but as I never smoke and seldom drink it
 
 WITS. 
 
 229 
 
 affects me less than it otherwise might. Besides, a man 
 who is always taking severe exercise does not require 
 much sleep. It is your idle, well-fed, luxurious man 
 about town who is always ready for slumber. The prize 
 pig cannot keep awake ; a few hours' sleep is ample for 
 the racehorse.' 
 
 He has need for this asceticism. What wealth, 
 rank, and education are to other men, coolness, temper- 
 ance, and endurance are to Davie. His physical quali- 
 ties are his stock-in-trade, and should his nerve fail or 
 he damage himself permanently steeplechasing, he would, 
 metaphorically, have to put the shutters up and take 
 the benefit of the act. Though he insures heavily in 
 the ' Accidental,' the sum he would receive in case of 
 mutilation or incapacity would, I fear, be but a poor 
 compensation for the loss of income he would sustain. 
 What Davie' s income is it is difficult to ascertain, but 
 it must be considerable. A man cannot lead the life he 
 does, ride the horses he does, play the points he does, 
 know the men he does, or undertake the financial opera- 
 tions he does, without having at his disposal a large 
 amount of ready money. How does he amass it ? If 
 you study his career the reply is not difficult to find. 
 
 In these days of fierce competition, when every 
 calling is crowded with pushing, eager, greedy fol- 
 lowers, every man who comes to the front has some-
 
 230 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 thing of great merit in him. He may not have all 
 the brilliant qualities his friends allege, but assuredly 
 he is not the mediocrity his enemies declare. In 
 his own peculiar vocation Davie is a prominent man, 
 and consequently a successful one. My acquaintance 
 with him is slight, but whenever we meet he is always 
 agreeable, and I am under obligations to him for pick- 
 ing me up, for a mere song, the handsomest roan cob 
 that was ever trotted out at the Eanelagh. Nor do I 
 fail to confess that there is much in Davie which calls 
 forth my admiration. I respect his skill, his courage, 
 his manly tastes and the splendid self-control he always 
 exhibits. I have never seen him lose his temper, and I 
 have heard less against his honour honour nowadays 
 being confined to the fulfilment of all pecuniary obliga- 
 tions than one would expect from the peculiar life he 
 leads. If he rides it is generally safe to back his mount ; 
 and if he does not rigidly eschew all the frauds of the 
 turf, he has never acted in such a way as to draw upon 
 himself censure, or to justify the desertion of his sup- 
 porters. When he puts down his name, either at home 
 or abroad, as one of the competitors at a dove tourna- 
 ment, he means to kill his bird, and it is through no 
 fault or conspiracy of his if the blue-rock flies over the 
 enclosure. His debts of honour are always scrupulously 
 paid. When you make a bet with him he does not pre-
 
 WITS. 
 
 231 
 
 tend to do you a favour, and then give you a point 
 below the current odds. You may safely play ecarte 
 with him so far as scoring the king is concerned, though 
 it is only fair to tell you that there are few men at the 
 
 ' Mediterranee' at Nice who better know the game. If 
 he sells you a horse he will certainly make his profit on 
 the transaction, but the probability is that you will get 
 a better and a cheaper animal than from the dealers. 
 In short Davie knows the world so well as to be fully
 
 232 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 alive to the advantages to be gained by having the repu- 
 tation of a fair character. Honesty is not only morally 
 the best policy, but also pecuniarily. 
 
 The social position that Davie occupies is, as I have 
 said, a mystery to those of his acquaintance. He never 
 speaks of his relations or of his early days, and that in 
 itself is a secrecy somewhat open to suspicion. Men as 
 a rule, after a certain amount of acquaintance, have no 
 objection to let their fellows know to whom they belong, 
 where they have been educated, and what county is- 
 their home ; it is only the adventurer who is silent on 
 such subjects. To repeat the rumours as to Davie's 
 origin which gossip and calumny indulge in is idle. 
 According to some, the bar sinister lies across his 
 escutcheon ; according to others, his parentage is legi- 
 timate, but his father was a convict, an unfrocked priest, 
 a hatter, a horse-coper, a bankrupt warehouseman, a 
 barrister, an undertaker, a soldier, a sailor, a tinker, a 
 tailor ; all which simply proves that my friend knows 
 how to keep his own counsel ; and that the world, as it 
 always does when it is in utter ignorance about any- 
 thing, substitutes imagination for information. What- 
 ever may be Davie's antecedents, his social sponsor is 
 Sir Eankesborough Gorse, the well-known sportsman 
 and pillar of the turf. Where Sir Eankesborough met 
 Davie and how an alliance between the two sprang up
 
 WITS. 
 
 2 33 
 
 are questions which the inquisitive have not yet solved. 
 Certain it is that Davie is the managing man of Sir 
 Eankesborough's stud and controls all its arrangements, 
 from the purchase of the yearlings to the dismissal of 
 the trainer. He executes all Sir Eankesborough's racing- 
 commissions, rides when required, and his opinion is law 
 in the stable. More than once has his judgment been 
 confirmed against an adverse majority; and in spite of 
 the objections of the trainer and the fears of his patron, 
 more than once has he selected some despised and over- 
 looked animal which has carried the ' black and silver' 
 colours of the baronet to victory. Can we not remember 
 the hostility of the ring against Whitesocks, and how 
 severe were the comments of the learned in horseflesh 
 upon his somewhat abject appearance ? yet Davie never 
 once faltered in his decision, and, as we all know, the 
 horse won ' the Guineas' in the commonest of canters. 
 A knowledge of the noble animal is a great gift, and 
 Davie ranks second to none in the possession of that 
 information. Dealers know better than to palm off any 
 of their dodges upon ' Sir Eankesborough's man' their 
 flattery, their doctoring, and all their cunning never 
 deceive the keen cold eye that takes in at a glance both 
 the character of the vendor and the points of the ani- 
 mal. I will back Davie to pick up a horse cheaper and 
 sell it at a better profit than any man in England,
 
 234 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 whilst seldom incurring after reproaches from the pur- 
 chaser. 
 
 The intimacy between Sir Eankesborough Gorse and 
 David Benson is one of those friendships which benefits 
 both the contracting parties. Since Davie has had the 
 control of the baronet's stable the ' black and silver' has 
 had no cause to complain ; race after race has fallen to 
 Sir Eankesborough's colours, till his lot have become 
 the idols of the public. He has not yet won a Derby, 
 but there is a certain yearling, bought by Davie at 
 Marden Park some months ago, which will, I am sure, 
 astonish the beholders when he makes his appearance 
 on the Downs. To win a Derby is the one soul-absorb- 
 ing ambition of Sir Eankesborough an ambition which, 
 unless I grievously mistake, will be gratified when the 
 time arrives for that yearling aforesaid to strip in the 
 paddock. On the other hand, * the f 'la that Sir Eankes- 
 borough picked up' has been admitted into a social 
 atmosphere which, under less happy circumstances, he 
 would not have breathed. It is through Sir Eankes- 
 borough that Davie has been elected a member of the 
 Caravanserai and of the Verdure ; it is through his con- 
 nection with Sir Eankesborough that he gathers together 
 the select specimens of la jeunesse doree of our capital 
 that are so often to be met with at his hospitable dining- 
 table at Long's Hotel ; it is to Sir Eankesborough that
 
 WITS. 
 
 2 35 
 
 he owns his introduction to the messes of most of the 
 crack regiments in the kingdom ; in short, without the 
 baronet, Davie would have remained a little stagnant 
 puddle, isolated and alone, and hopelessly cut off from 
 ever mingling with the brilliant stream of life. 
 
 Yet Davie, large as is his acquaintance, is essen- 
 tially a man's man. "Walk with him in the Park, and 
 it is astonishing the number of friendly greetings that 
 he has to acknowledge ; but he has seldom an occasion 
 to remove his hat, for rarely does a bonnet bow to him 
 in graceful salutation. Men ask him freely to dinner 
 at their clubs, but never dream of taking him home and 
 introducing him to their wives and sisters. You meet 
 him at bachelors' boxes, not at country houses. When- 
 ever Davie talks about ladies he calls them 'modest 
 women' which the spiteful say shows that he knows 
 very little of society. Intimate as he is with Sir 
 Eankesborough, he no more knows Lady Mildred Gorse 
 than does her ladyship's house-steward or head-groom. 
 K"or does Davie object to this exclusion. "Whether the 
 society of ladies would bore him, or he is conscious of 
 his social shortcomings, or whatever be the reason, he 
 never seems hurt that his most intimate acquaintance 
 keeps the women of his household from him, nor does 
 he ever attempt to push his way into drawing-room or 
 boudoir. He is quite content with his position in life
 
 236 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 and the manner lie has played his cards, and he no more 
 regrets that the doors of society are shut upon him than 
 does a ring-man at Ascot that he is not admitted into 
 the royal enclosure. Not that Davie is in any way 
 objectionable, for, on the contrary, he is far more modest 
 and presentable than many of his betters who have the 
 entree of the best houses in the town. If he is not ' a 
 gentleman' he is an excellent imitation of the article ; 
 and if in manners, dress, and appearance somewhat 
 horsey, in tone of honour and in sense of self-respect he 
 is often the superior of those who sneer at him as ' the 
 fellah Sir Eankesborough picked up.' The position 
 occupied by Davie is, however, not an exceptional one. 
 There are many men in London who, from their talents, 
 their skill, their amusing qualities, their special know- 
 ledge of special subjects, live on the surface of society, 
 comfortabty, perhaps brilliantly, yet, by some tacit 
 understanding between them and those they come in 
 contact with, they never seek to penetrate deeper. A 
 frontier line is drawn, and it must not be overstepped. 
 The club, the suite of chambers, the hunting-box, the 
 shooting-box, the moor, the deer-forest, the yacht, as 
 much as you please; but the drawing-room requires 
 credentials which it is not given to every one to possess. 
 That passport is not among Davie' s papers. 
 
 However uncertain and nondescript may be the
 
 WITS. 237 
 
 social position of Davie, there can be no question as to 
 the certainty and substantiality of his income. In these 
 days, when the professions are thronged, and commerce 
 is venturesome, save to the large capitalist, a man might 
 do worse, so far as money is concerned, than follow in 
 the steps of Davie. The occupation of the viveur upon 
 his wits is, however, not the simple matter it may 
 appear to the ignorant. As the barrister has to study 
 law, as the doctor has to walk the hospitals, as the mer- 
 chant has to learn the duties of a clerk, and as the 
 tradesman begins by being an apprentice, so men like 
 Davie have to acquire their part and perfect themselves 
 Toy severe application. That consummate skill in all 
 their accomplishments, that steadiness of nerve, that 
 coolness of head which neither the excitement of success 
 intoxicates nor the mortification of failure irritates, that 
 power of enduring fatigue, that pluck and strength, are 
 not obtained without continual practice and the severest 
 application. Watch Davie at Sandown or Croydon, at 
 Liverpool or Warwick: with what judgment he rides, 
 what patience he has, how well he knows when to force 
 the running and when to wait upon his horses, and how 
 exactly at the right time does he make his effort and 
 scores another victory for the black and silver ! Have 
 that skill and judgment been obtained by aught than the 
 severest labour? Mark Davie at the Gun Club, at
 
 238 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 Baden, at Monaco, at Deauville, when he has backed 
 himself to win a heavy sweepstake, or is pitted in a 
 match against a formidable dove-slayer the roar of the 
 ring never disturbs him, the hopes of his admirers never 
 fluster him, the consciousness of the fact that success 
 may mean a fortune and defeat a heavy loss never ruffles 
 his equanimity ; he takes his breech-loader calmly from 
 the man, surveys the brazen-throated book-makers with 
 a smile, makes a few additional bets, perhaps, as he takes 
 up his position, then, 'Are you ready?' 'Pull!' covers 
 his bird, and the day must be very bad, or the blue-rock 
 wonderfully wild, if it does not fall a victim on the sward. 
 How many hours must he have spent before he educated 
 his eye to attain that unerring aim ! Again, watch 
 Davie at billiards : how softly he plays his l cannons' and 
 makes his ' hazards,' whilst always managing to leave 
 nothing on the table for his opponent ! At pool, too, 
 who more dead at taking l lives,' or who more clever in 
 nestling himself under the cushion, than he ? But it is 
 perhaps at whist that his peculiar gifts are the most daz- 
 zling. He has all the qualities necessary for a whist- 
 player of the very first class a splendid memory, a 
 perfect temper, a clear head never clouded by the fumes 
 of wine or tobacco (Oh, those after-dinner rubbers !), great 
 powers of combination and concentration, and a lightning 
 quickness for drawing inferences. He plays high the
 
 WITS. 
 
 2 39 
 
 loss of a ' bumper' at the Verdure is no joke and when as 
 confident in his partner as he is in his own genius, he 
 does not scruple to back himself to a considerable extent. 
 Yet his self-control never deserts him. Your true-born 
 
 Englishman, as a rule, when he is winning stops and 
 pockets his gains, whilst he will back his ill-fortune to 
 any extent, and plunge deeper and deeper, in the hopes 
 of regaining his losses. 
 
 Davie is wiser in his generation. "When in luck he
 
 24 o CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 soon rushes his opponents into money. ' The great art 
 of gambling,' he says, ( is to avoid losing your own coin, 
 and to play boldly when Fortune favours you with your 
 gains.' This theory he carries into practice. "When he 
 loses four rubbers running or five games ofecarte straight 
 off he withdraws from the table. ' I wish whist,' he re- 
 marks, ' to last me all my life ; and if you lose four rub- 
 bers running, luck is against you, and you may, if you con- 
 tinue, lose another ten. No matter what are the points, 
 to take up bad hand after bad hand interferes with 
 your play and robs you of the pleasure of the game.' 
 Like most men who gamble, Davie is a believer in luck ; 
 and, however much one may be unable logically to de- 
 monstrate that there is such a thing, there can be no 
 question as to the fact of its existence. Any one who 
 plays cards must have noticed how often Fortune clings 
 to one man or to certain seats during an evening, whilst 
 ill-luck of the most persistent description marks another 
 man or the opposite seat for its own. "Why ? How ? 
 "Who can tell? Watch the lucky man: what honours 
 he holds, what cards he has, and how well he is always 
 supported by his partner ! The unlucky man, on the 
 other hand, cannot escape from his temporary bad for- 
 tune ; he may call for fresh cards, he may change his 
 seat, he may adjure the fickle goddess by all the strangest 
 forms of propitiation, yet the spell cannot be broken.
 
 WITS. 
 
 241 
 
 Since I have heard Davie's remarks, how often have 
 I noticed that a man who loses four rubbers running 
 continues to lose, and how often have five adverse games 
 at ecarte developed into ten and more ! In all specula- 
 tions nothing is certain; but as luck is on the whole 
 even in its operations, he who is a good whist-player, 
 and who declines to follow a run of misfortune, cannot 
 fail to rise up a winner at the end of the year. Hence 
 to Davie whist alone must be a comfortable annuity. 
 
 The young men at the Caravanserai to whom Davie 
 is somewhat of an idol often speculate as to the sums 
 he makes in a year. That he amasses wealth cannot be 
 doubted. He is one of those men who whatever they 
 touch turns into coin. "What arrangements Sir Kankes- 
 borough enters into with him we know not ; but Davie 
 must draw a handsome share of the profits of the stable 
 in addition to the sums he independently backs himself 
 for when confident of his mount. From billiards and pool 
 alone he must derive the income of a county court judge. 
 Whist yields him large profits, which are considerably 
 increased by his operations of systematically laying 'five 
 to two' on the winners of the first game. ' I began,' he 
 openly admits, in reference to these operations, ' with a 
 capital of one thousand pounds my capital, though it 
 has had to bear some smartish fluctuations, is always 
 intact at the end of the year, whilst my profits quite 
 
 TV
 
 242 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 satisfy my modest requirements. To any man in search 
 of a livelihood, I recommend the profession of laying 
 five to two. The odds are always eagerly taken and 
 seldom landed. Let a man begin with a capital of one 
 hundred pounds, let him make himself acquainted with 
 the respective merits of the players he is to back, and 
 then let him systematically lay five pounds to two using 
 of course his judgment when to decline and he will 
 preserve his capital untouched, and make without 
 difficulty three hundred a year.' Davie lays fifty to 
 twenty, therefore the profits he derives from his pro- 
 ceedings can easily be ascertained by a simple sum of 
 rule of three. Having an extensive acquaintance with 
 men, the ' books' he makes on all the large races must 
 allow him after every meeting to place a handsome 
 sum at his bankers'. 
 
 Of late dark gentlemen with almond eyes, beaky 
 noses, curly locks, and moist yellow complexions have 
 been seen coming out of Davie's chambers, and I hear 
 that my active young friend has recently taken to 
 utilise his capital by indulging in certain very profit- 
 able speculations in land. Thus what with riding, 
 betting, horse-coping, cards, billiards, pigeon-shooting,, 
 and backing himself generally for anything that he is 
 likely to win, Davie must turn over annually a very 
 handsome income. Knowledge is power, and the pos-
 
 WITS. 243 
 
 session of wits is wealth. I do not say that . the career 
 is a perfectly reputable one yet Davie has never been 
 guilty of anything glaringly disreputable still it has 
 the advantage of being open to all who are endowed with 
 the requisite physical and intellectual gifts. You do not 
 require education, for from the mistakes in orthography 
 that Davie makes in his letters asking you to dinner, 
 and from the peculiar pronunciation of certain words, he 
 can scarcely be called an educated man. You do not 
 require good birth, or even good manners, or even capital 
 to enter upon this somewhat outside profession. Still, 
 though you may dispense with the learning from books, 
 you must possess qualities which are, perhaps, after all 
 rarer to find than the attainments of the scholar, before 
 you can hope to make such a livelihood as falls to the lot 
 of Davie Benson, Esq., of the north.
 
 THE OLD SCHOOL.
 
 THE OLD SCHOOL. 
 
 THERE are few things more distressing to a reflective 
 mind than the attitude which the Church of England 
 has assumed within the last generation. Disguise the 
 matter as much as we may, there can be no doubt of the 
 fact that the Anglican Church is fast becoming a Komish 
 institution. In spite of the bench of bishops, the Thirty- 
 nine Articles, and the decisions of the courts of law, 
 many of our clergy preach to their congregations the 
 creed pure and simple of the Eoman Catholic Church. 
 Enter many of our places of worship in London and 
 in our country towns, and, unless told to the contrary, 
 we might imagine that we were under the sway of the 
 Vatican. The altar is gorgeously draped and lighted ; 
 incense renders the air heavy and sickly; the conse- 
 crated elements are held aloft for adoration ; confession 
 is openly taught from the pulpit and practised in the 
 aisles ; the clergy, not content with the title of priest, 
 insist upon the designation of 'father;' banners with 
 strange devices hang against the walls ; and forms and
 
 248 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 ceremonies unknown to the Establishment are freely 
 introduced into the services. 
 
 Between Eitualism on the one hand and Eesearch on 
 the other, it seems to me that the dear old Church 
 of England of my youth must fall to the ground. It 
 was once the pride of Englishmen to regard the creed 
 they professed as the best and purest of all religions. It 
 was manly without being destructive ; it was Catholic 
 without mummery ; it was warmly attached to the State, 
 and its teachers were gentlemen. Can the same now be 
 said of the Church of England ? In one parish we see a 
 clergyman ashamed of his garb and his title ; dressing 
 like a layman and dropping the reverend; criticising 
 the Bible as he would any ordinary historical work, and 
 dismissing many of what have been considered the great 
 truths of Christianity as unworthy of acceptance by any 
 rational mind. Whilst in another parish we see its vicar 
 acting more like an Italian than an Englishman, and 
 doing his utmost to put down the Protestantism of the 
 Church which he has solemnly sworn to support, and to 
 erect in its place the faith of the Papacy. I decline 
 to split hairs. I know that our Eitualists maintain 
 they are not Papists ; but when I see them inculcating 
 the teaching of Eome, issuing little books of devotion 
 coolly plagiarised from those of Eome, and imitating in 
 their ceremonies, their attire, and their institutions the
 
 THE OLD SCHOOL. 
 
 249 
 
 practices of Eome, it seems to me perfectly justifiable to 
 say that they are Italian, and not English, Churchmen. 
 And it is from the Eitualists that we have the most 
 to fear. The Broad Churchman appeals to the few 
 
 whose intellect is stronger than their faith; but the 
 Eitualist appeals to that immense class, idle, weak, 
 emotional, in whom the superstitious element is stronger 
 than the intellectual. No one who has watched, even 
 most superficially, the currents of society but must have
 
 250 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 perceived how they set, especially among the higher, or, 
 to speak more correctly, the wealthier classes, towards 
 Eitualism. We are living under a plutocracy, and 
 Eitualism is essentially the religion for the rich. In 
 Eitualism plutocracy sees itself reflected: it is the 
 caricature of an ancient faith, as the plutocrat is himself 
 the caricature of the aristocrat ; it is gay and gaudy, 
 and fond of pomp and show like the plutocrat; it is 
 arrogant and self-asserting, its priests concealing their 
 want of birth and scholarship by the robes of sacerdotal 
 pretensions, as the plutocrat himself attempts to hide his 
 deficiencies by the display of his wealth and money 
 power ; it is shallow, unscrupulous, and miserably 
 effeminate. Yet no sensible man can attempt to deny 
 that Eitualism is now an immense force in the country, 
 and one that is daily extending its power. 
 
 A society that is rich, that is idle, that has little to 
 occupy its leisure, must betake itself to some form of 
 distraction. Men have their professions and their ambi- 
 tion to engage their minds ; but it is upon the women 
 that idleness falls as a rule with so heavy a hand. Balls, 
 dinners, and intrigue that is politely called flirtation 
 will occupy the leisure of many ; still there are others 
 to whom social dissipation is a routine of boredom, and 
 who seek after a more refined excitement. If they have 
 a taste for art, science, or literature, they are fortunate ;
 
 THE OLD SCHOOL. 251 
 
 but these are the exceptions, not the rule. And now it 
 is that that strange creation of the nineteenth century, 
 the Anglican priest, steps in and opens out a path for 
 work and action. The young woman whose matrimonial 
 chances are not yet decided, the disappointed middle- 
 aged woman, the elderly dame with no domestic cares, 
 all find their allotted labour a round of ceremonial 
 observances and duties occupy all their leisure. The 
 nineteenth- century dame, be she spinster, childless wife, 
 or widow, need have no cause to mourn over the leaden 
 wings of Time. The Eitualist comes to her aid, and 
 ennui and inactivity are no more. What with attending 
 early celebrations, matins, confession, vespers, and mid- 
 night services ; attaching herself to a sisterhood ; visit- 
 ing a certain class of sick and poor under strict clerical 
 supervision ; interesting herself in church decorations, 
 pestering her friends for endless contributions, and dis- 
 tributing little sentimental works of devotion, the day 
 is, in fact, too short for her so short, indeed, that she 
 is often unable to assist her mother in the concerns of 
 her household, or to add by her presence to the geniality 
 of the domestic circle. 
 
 We are so wealthy that we wish our religion, like 
 our houses and other appointments, to be in keeping. 
 The robes of our clergy must be splendid; and our 
 clergy, who are now for the most part literates instead
 
 252 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 of graduates, have 110 objection that the cope should hide 
 the want of the university hood ; our churches must be 
 ornate and artistic ; we must have music, flowers, ban- 
 ners, elaborate altar-cloths, and everything that fasci- 
 nates the eye and inspires the senses. The old-fashioned 
 faith of our fathers has gone to its rest, and save in 
 some obscure village, where people go to worship and 
 not to perform, is hard to be met with. Sentimental 
 pietism is now religion; an adherence to a host of silly 
 ceremonial observances stands in the place of duty ; and 
 faith is now only another word for a belief in the ' priest.' 
 It is idle to talk to Englishmen of the devotion of the 
 Anglican priest, the purity of the Anglican nun, and the 
 zeal of the Anglican monk now working within our 
 midst. Innovators are always zealous and devoted till 
 their system is established. But we have had the sys- 
 tem before ; and we know, three hundred years ago, 
 what the priesthood, the nunnery, and the monastic 
 order resulted in. History is apt to repeat itself; we 
 have no wish to see those scenes repeated. 
 
 There is one dear friend of mine who cordially sym- 
 pathises with these views, whom it is always a great 
 pleasure to see at the Caravanserai. Hubert Marborough 
 is a type of the old English clergyman which is, un- 
 happily for us, fast dying out. A man of unfeigned 
 piety, an active yet not fussily inquisitive rector, a good
 
 THE OLD SCHOOL. 
 
 253 
 
 classic, and a most perfect gentleman in all his tastes 
 and feelings, lie is the last of that class which Sydney 
 Smith called the ' squarsons.' A second son, he was 
 destined for holy orders, and was duly installed in the 
 family living of Hettiscombe. Ten years after having 
 taken his ordination vows, his elder brother was drowned 
 with his only son whilst yachting in the Mediterranean, 
 and Hubert suddenly found himself transformed from a 
 country parson, with a living of eight hundred a year, 
 into a squire with a rent-roll of some annual twelve 
 thousand. Many men under these circumstances would 
 have quitted the Church, and have forgotten the priest 
 in the country gentleman. Not so Hubert Marborough. 
 He exchanged the rectory for the old hall, letting his 
 curates dwell in the house that he had deserted ; but he 
 still worked his parish, visited his poor, and preached 
 his sermons as became a man who had put his hand to 
 the plough and declined to look back. 
 
 The only difference that fortune made in him was to 
 extend immensely his powers for doing good. He pays 
 his curates well, neither patronising them nor despising 
 them, but treating them like gentlemen, though he is 
 very particular as to their belonging either to the one 
 or the other of our two Universities, and to their style 
 of reading. He can forgive a young clergyman a good 
 many things, but he will not forgive him for dropping.
 
 254 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 his A's or making a false quantity. He has established 
 a dispensary and a good useful library, in which humor- 
 ous works are not excluded, in the village. He sees 
 that every cottage on his estate is put into repair, and 
 
 made not only habitable but comfortable. One of the 
 sternest of magistrates on the bench to the tramp and 
 the vagrant, his hand is ever ready to alleviate misery 
 and suffering. Nor does he perform his acts of charity 
 by deputy, for none knows better than he how a kind
 
 THE OLD SCHOOL. 255 
 
 word and a friendly greeting enhance a gift from the 
 rich to the poor. It is his hand that often tucks the 
 warm clean blankets around the bed of the rheumatic 
 peasant, or administers the nourishing soup or the dry 
 old port to the weak and the sickly. It is his smile and 
 chat that are almost as welcome to the honest man 
 temporarily out of work as is the little present of ready 
 money. The poor dame, who has just become a mother, 
 knows well enough to whom to apply, if she is ordered 
 by the village doctor what it is impossible for her hus- 
 band to supply her with. Though an opulent squire, 
 the chairman of quarter sessions, and allied by marriage 
 to a powerful earl in his county, none of the poor stand 
 in awe of him. If they want advice or assistance they 
 scruple less to go to him than to one of the curates. 
 Yet, gentle and loving as is their pastor, they know 
 better than to try to use any of the wiles of the sup- 
 pliant. In spite of his large heart and intense amiability, 
 Hubert Marborough has a keen eye for character, and 
 can be as repellent as the harshest if he suspect imposi- 
 tion. He is the tenderest of shepherds to his flock, but 
 he is quite up to all the gambols of the black sheep. 
 
 Of all the broad counties in England I know no 
 fairer than that of let me call it Quartzshire. For 
 the combination of mountain and moor, wood and water, 
 it stands unrivalled. To the artist with his aasthetic
 
 256 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 eye, its hilly passes, richly-clothed valleys, thickly-tim- 
 bered forests, and picturesque varieties which the land- 
 scape is ever unfolding, are as full of charm as are the 
 well-stocked trout-streams and the wild moorland, broken 
 by hill and dale, to the sportsman. In one of its most 
 lovely spots, watered by the broad current of let me 
 say the Mica, and within gunshot of the spledid Knole 
 Wood, stands Hettiscombe, a large white building with 
 columns and porticoes, on the brow of one of the nu- 
 merous undulations that surround the neighbourhood. 
 A fine park, severed in twain by a lake fed by the river 
 Mica, encircles the house, whilst in the rear is the 
 wood, with its tall waving firs and mysteries of shade. 
 Away in the distance the great upland region of Sleign- 
 moor can be seen, with all its variety of hill and valley, 
 bog and stream ; whilst, like Cyclopean castles, the 
 gigantic masses of weathered granite rise at intervals to 
 crown the famous Tors. 
 
 Approaching the house, one sees from the balconied 
 terraces and well-kept lawn and gardens that the place 
 is carefully looked after; yet it is not merely as a 
 country seat that Hettiscombe is dear to me. No doubt, 
 amid the stately mansions of this old England of ours, 
 there is many a castle and hall which, so far as archi- 
 tecture, luxury, and appointments are concerned, is the 
 superior of Hettiscombe ; but where shall I find such a
 
 THE OLD SCHOOL. 257 
 
 home ? Eunning down from London, with its cynical 
 tone, its artificial pleasures, and its wearying round of 
 excitement, to Quartzshire, no sooner have you passed 
 a couple of days with the family of Hubert Marborough 
 than you look upon life very differently from what you 
 have been accustomed to do in Pall Mall. Perhaps, for 
 the first time, it strikes you that there is something 
 higher than mere pleasure, something nobler than selfish- 
 ness, something truer and more comforting than mundane 
 philosophy. The manner in which a man brings up his 
 family has always been to me the best test of his character 
 and of the strength of his principles, and I know no 
 more charming sight than the home-life of Hettiscombe. 
 The daughters are simple, well-bred, and unaffected ; the 
 sons are free from the slang of the barrack and the stable ; 
 whilst between parents and children, and husband and 
 wife, there is that exquisite harmony of feeling caused 
 by affection, self-respect, and a clear conscience. 
 
 A spirit of the most fascinating cheerfulness pervades 
 the whole establishment, and even finds itself reflected 
 amongst the stable-helps, a notoriously discontented 
 class. The old vicar talks to his wife as if the honey- 
 moon had never dissolved itself into the silver wedding, 
 and the sisters only wrangle amongst themselves in 
 trying to spoil their brothers when on leave from their 
 regiments, or at home during f the Long.' Though the 
 
 s
 
 2 5 8 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 house is seldom free from visitors, yet there is no need 
 for the presence of the stranger to give a fillip to the 
 often monotonous round of domesticity. The vicar is 
 quite happy among his books and papers, thinning his 
 
 trees, cantering about the moorland on his old white 
 hunter, or making a round of calls in the parish. Lady 
 Mary, it seems to me, is never so content as when, in 
 big hat and gauntlet gloves, she is pottering about the 
 garden, whilst her husband, in the roomiest of Indian
 
 THE OLD SCHOOL. 259 
 
 chairs, is seated within call, studying the advertise- 
 ments in the Field, or reading the clerical speeches in 
 the Guardian. The girls amuse themselves in a 
 thousand ways with a sense of consideration for each 
 other's tastes and wishes not always to be observed 
 amongst sisters; whilst the brothers seem so proud of 
 the successes of each other Hal has got the good- 
 conduct sword at Woolwich, Dick has won the cup as 
 best shot at Hythe, Eeggie has been complimented by 
 the judge for the way in which he conducted his case 
 as utterly to preclude all feelings of secret jealousy. 
 When the visitor arrives he is made not only welcome, 
 but feels, no matter how shy by nature, completely at 
 home. Without any fuss or obtrusive activity, he finds 
 the whole family consulting his wishes, laying before 
 him proposals exactly in accordance with his tastes, 
 leaving him alone when he desires, or giving him plenty 
 of society when solitude is unacceptable. 
 
 And one of the charms of Hettiscombe is, that you 
 never meet disagreeable people. However cantankerous 
 a man's or woman's nature is, I do not believe he or she 
 could be long in that irritable state under the influence 
 of the cheery piety of the rector, and of the sunny pre- 
 sence of his household. The most suspicious cannot but 
 feel, however much they may differ from him, that 
 Hubert Marborough is a good and single-minded man.
 
 260 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 Listen to his conversation, watch him as narrowly as 
 you please in all the relations of life, hear him pray and 
 preach, observe the example he sets his family, and you 
 cannot come to any other conclusion than that you are in 
 the society of one who, without a doubt or reservation, 
 believes in the doctrine he professes, and essays to carry 
 out all that it teaches. A Low Churchman of the old 
 school, he is as devoid of the intolerance and acidity of 
 certain of his brethren as he is of the mummery and 
 sickly sentimentalities of the Ritualist. He is an Eng- 
 lishman, with the healthy tastes and aspirations of an 
 Englishman. Old as he is there are few men in his part 
 of the county, did he think hunting a sport that became 
 his profession, who are better riders to hounds ; and in 
 spite of his waning sight I would sooner back the rec- 
 tor's breechloader to bring down more birds, either in 
 the coverts or on the moors, than that of many a 
 younger man who fancies i himself.' 
 
 Marborough can get on with most people, and long as 
 I have known him never have I heard him utter a spite- 
 ful remark or give heed to scandal. Frivolous and ma- 
 licious gossip he abominates, and its entire absence from 
 the conversation of the household of Hettiscombe is one 
 of the peculiarities of that charming home. Never do you 
 hear any of the slander about the lord-lieutenant, the 
 bishop, or the neighbouring clergy and gentry, which
 
 THE OLD SCHOOL. 261 
 
 forms so large a part of the conversation of the country. 
 The rector's maxim is that of good old Archbishop Tillot- 
 son, if you can say no good of a man, at least say no evil. 
 Yet there is one class of people he cannot agree with. 
 He sternly refuses to countenance the Ritualists. He 
 can understand, and to a certain extent sympathise with, 
 a man who is a Roman Catholic or a Dissenter or a Jew 
 or even a Freethinker, but he can neither understand 
 nor sympathise with one whom he regards as a traitor to 
 the Church of England. To his keen sense of honour it 
 .seems inconceivable that a man should continue to draw 
 his stipend from the Church whose teaching he declines 
 to accept and whose discipline he seeks to subvert. It is 
 open to any one who differs from the creed of the Church 
 of England to go outside her pale ; but, in the opinion of 
 Marborough, it is mean and dishonest in the extreme to 
 receive the pay of the Church and to wear her uniform 
 whilst working for the enemy. In vain the Ritualists 
 around Hettiscombe have sought to convert Hubert 
 Marborough to their way of thinking. His church is 
 sound, solid, air-tight, water-tight, warm, and comfortable; 
 he will not have it l restored.' Vestments have no charms 
 for him ; when he reads prayers he wears his surplice 
 and university hood, and when he preaches he appears 
 in the pulpit in a black gown. He does not believe in 
 incessant church services and in constant celebrations of
 
 262 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 the Holy Communion, for in his eyes these only fatigue 
 the clergy and make worship mechanical. But he believes 
 in helping the sick and needy, in visiting the widow in 
 her affliction, and in succouring the distressed. "When 
 spoken to of the advantages of the system of confession, 
 he mildly replies that he ' has travelled in Italy, France, 
 and Spain, and he has yet to learn that the morality in 
 those countries is superior to that in England.' 
 
 During the month of May, when the meetings at 
 Exeter Hall and St. James's Hall are held, my host of 
 Hettiscombe always turns up at the Caravanserai. His 
 figure is quite one of the curiosities of the club. There 
 is no mistaking that tall slender form, now somewhat 
 bowed with age, that high broad-brimmed hat with the 
 healthy smiling face beneath, that frill jutting out of the 
 black sporting-looking waistcoat, till it loses itself within 
 the folds of the capacious white neckcloth ; no mistaking 
 that loose untidy-looking black coat, with the side- 
 pockets wide open, suggestive of samples ; those wonder- 
 ful trousers, tight below the knee, yet voluminous enough 
 in all conscience above; those rough cloth gaiters; 
 those thick serviceable shoes ! Thus attired, the rector- 
 squire looks the very opposite of many of his clerical 
 brethren, with their smug suits of shiny black and their 
 atrocious head-gear a hideous compromise between a 
 billycock and the hat of a cardinal.
 
 THE OLD SCHOOL. 263 
 
 There are many married men to whom a run up 
 to London and a fortnight at the club are the most 
 delightful of changes. Not so with Hubert Marborough. 
 As he wanders about the rooms of the Caravanserai, 
 taking up one newspaper after the other, fidgeting about 
 from chair to chair, you can see at a glance that he is 
 not at home. At breakfast the little table, with its 
 bachelor equipments, is a poor substitute for the long 
 broad board at Hettiscombe, with its snow-white cloth 
 and graceful medley of fruit and flowers amid the 
 toast and scones and rolls and the old-fashioned silver 
 dishes. He misses, like most men blessed with many 
 children, the talk and society of the family circle ; and 
 he says his tea never tastes the same unless poured out 
 by his eldest daughter. When he surveys the daily bill 
 of fare, swinging on its frame, he looks at it helplessly, 
 undecidedly, and is grateful to the butler when he sug- 
 gests what should be ordered for dinner. He agrees 
 with the Apostle, that a little wine for the stomach's 
 sake is a good thing ; and he also agrees with the Apostle 
 that it should be wine, and not logwood juice, or some 
 other vile decoction calculated to give the drinker acute 
 heartburn within twenty minutes. At Hettiscombe he 
 knows he can rely upon the contents of his cellar-book ; 
 .. but the club wine-list is a publication with which he is 
 not so familiar ; the names of many of the wine-mer-
 
 264 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 chants are new to him ; several of the clarets are un- 
 known to him; and as he sips his port-wine after 
 dinner (our ports are not famous at the Caravanserai) 
 I fancy he sighs after the vintages he is accustomed to 
 
 at home. He declines to take a house in town for the 
 season, because he is unwilling to quit his parish for 
 any length of time ; and as his wife and daughters have 
 no fancy to leave the country when it is most beautiful
 
 THE OLD SCHOOL. 265 
 
 for the dust and heat of London, the rector generally 
 spends his month en garcon. Occasionally his family 
 come up ; but after three weeks at Thomas's Hotel they 
 pine for the shade and breezes of their west-country 
 home, and take their departure. 
 
 As the club scarcely suits the domestic instincts of 
 my friend, it is very fortunate that he has seldom occa- 
 sion to find himself within its walls. As a representative 
 Low Churchman, and one of the pillars of the National, 
 Hubert ]\larborough is the welcome guest of the London 
 evangelical world. He dines out at sedate mansions, 
 where the festivities of the evening conclude with an 
 exposition of Scripture and family prayers. At evan- 
 gelical Drawing-rooms, assembled to encourage mission- 
 ary or philanthropic enterprise, he often takes the chair, 
 and offers a handsome contribution to the institution 
 pleaded for when the velvet bag or china plate makes 
 its begging round. He is always one of the speakers 
 at the anniversaries of the great Low Church societies, 
 and has frequently been asked to preach their annual 
 sermon. He is on the committee of most of the reli- 
 gious institutions of his party, and is the president of 
 one or two little benevolent ' homes' and 'refuges,' which 
 he has founded, and which, if the truth were known, 
 are mainly supported by his generosity. Young ladies 
 who write anecdotes of the poor, or little stories with a
 
 266 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 moral, are always petitioning him to draw up a preface, 
 or to allow them to introduce his name, so as to en- 
 courage the sale of their literary undertakings. For the 
 rector-squire of Hettiscombe, apart from the sermons 
 and addresses that he has published, is one of the most 
 fertile of the polemical writers of his party. Not a 
 movement is made by the Eitualists but he exposes the 
 danger to be apprehended from their insidious proceed- 
 ings. No sooner does a freethinking divine indulge in re- 
 flections contrary to the spirit and teaching of the Thirty- 
 nine Articles than the rector of Hettiscombe boldly comes 
 to the front, and does his best to refute them. 
 
 Thus Hubert Marborough, from his social position, 
 his wealth, and his decided views, is looked up to as 
 one of the leaders of his party. His advice is courted 
 by his bishop, and young evangelical vicars and curates 
 decline to form an opinion upon any great clerical 
 question until they know the views of the divine of 
 Hettiscombe. My friend no doubt has his faults, like 
 all of us ; but when his exquisite conscientiousness, 
 his single-minded piety, his high tone of honour, his 
 practice to the very letter of all that he preaches, are 
 compared with the life and morality of the rest of the 
 world, he seems to me one of the very few who really 
 deserve that noblest title on the roll of Honour, that 
 of a Christian and a gentleman.
 
 SOCIAL AMBITION.
 
 SOCIAL AMBITION. 
 
 EVER since the days when Horace asked of Maecenas 
 how it came to pass that no one was satisfied with the 
 position that the gods had placed him in, discontent has 
 been the lot of humanity. "What is a source of envy to 
 one man is a source of disappointment to another. Here 
 is a distinguished statesman, whose lofty wisdom has 
 influenced the councils of Cabinets and guided the 
 policy of the State ; yet in his heart of hearts he would 
 gladly sacrifice all his past reputation could he but gain 
 a niche in the temple of fame as a great author. There 
 is a gallant soldier, whose broad breast, covered with 
 hardly-won decorations, bears witness to the brilliant 
 services he has rendered his country; yet he is indif- 
 ferent to the laurels won by his sword, and is only 
 solicitous after those he is never likely to gain by his 
 brush as an artist. A third sees the distance between 
 himself and the woolsack lessening year after year ; yet, 
 careless of his name as a splendid lawyer, he aspires 
 after the reputation of a Lovelace, and curses Nature, 
 which has endowed him with brains, for neglecting to
 
 270 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 adorn his face. Were not Kiehelieu, Mazarin, Somers, 
 "Walpole, far prouder of their conquests in the boudoir 
 than of their victories in the Senate? A fourth has 
 raised himself to a leading position in the republic of 
 letters ; yet would he throw all his manuscripts to the 
 wind to be considered a man of fashion. A fifth lends 
 loans to empires, and by a word of acceptance or re- 
 fusal can influence the markets of the world ; yet all his 
 wealth is powerless to buy what he covets with cravings 
 that can never be satisfied the blue blood of ancient 
 lineage. Around us we see soldiers who would they 
 were divines, divines who would they were statesmen, 
 lawyers who wish to be artists, philosophers who wish 
 to be men of fashion, peers who would they were dema- 
 gogues, republicans who would sell their souls for a 
 coronet men of war, men of science, men of industry, 
 men of idleness all dissatisfied with their position in 
 life, and longing after the unattainable. The question 
 put to the illustrious descendant of Tuscan kings is as 
 applicable now as then. ' How is it, Maecenas,' asks the 
 genial pagan, ' that no one lives content with his condi- 
 tion, whether Eeason gave it him or Luck threw it in 
 his way, but praises those who have different pursuits ?' 
 Yet is this question only the echo of the cry of the 
 bard-king who had drunk the chalice of life to the very 
 dregs, and found the cup but vanity of vanities, all was
 
 SOCIAL AMBITION. 271 
 
 vanity. In this best of all possible worlds no one is 
 completely happy, no one is so thoroughly contented 
 with his lot however brilliant that lot may appear to 
 the outsider as not to hanker after what he has not. 
 The barrister, up whose staircase solicitors never ascend, 
 no doubt looks upon the illustrious occupier of the wool- 
 sack as the happiest and most fortunate of men; yet 
 perhaps his lordship is a martyr to dyspepsia or the 
 gout, or his wife makes his home-life unbearable, or his 
 eldest son goes to the bad, or there hangs over his head 
 some scandal of the past which he is ever in terror of 
 being made public, or there is some other decoction of 
 the amari aliquid which mars the completeness of his 
 enjoyment. However well furnished our houses and 
 ornate their appointments, there exists a skeleton in 
 every cupboard; and not a tenant but fears, at some 
 time or other, that either he or his guests will hear the 
 rattling of its bones. Conscience makes cowards of us 
 all. We know in what particular apartment of our 
 mansion is suspended that attenuated spectre, and we 
 dread lest it walk down-stairs and expose itself to our 
 disgrace. Perhaps we give ourselves the airs of the 
 choicest Lafitte or of '42 port; how, then, should we 
 like the skeleton to visit our cellar and show us up as 
 vin ordinaire of the thinnest of vintages ? Or it may be 
 that we pretend to be as wealthy as our neighbour;
 
 272 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS, 
 
 how, then, should we approve of that lean monster quit- 
 ting his retreat, and holding up our banker's book to the 
 world, and revealing our miserable shifts and petty 
 economies to make both ends meet ? We say we are 
 as brave as Agamemnon : should we care for the arm of 
 the skeleton to strip the lion's skin from off our shoul- 
 
 ders, and expose us in our true asinine garb ? We are 
 religious, and looked up to by the neighbourhood ; but 
 have we no stories in the book of our life to which we 
 would rather that that bony finger did not point ? We 
 are high born or well connected, and we pretend to 
 intimate relations with certain in the Peerage or the-
 
 SOCIAL AMBITION. 
 
 273 
 
 Landed Gentry ; can it, then, be desirable for our cup- 
 board tenant to be let loose, and to disclose those little 
 flaws in our genealogical tree which somewhat rudely 
 disturb the purity, or perhaps the legitimacy, of our 
 descent ? And so each one of us shuts up his peculiar 
 skeleton, stows his bones effectively out of sight and 
 smell, and tries to forget that so ghastly a visitor is in 
 the family. But our precautions are in vain : close as 
 we keep the secret of its prison, not a friend who calls 
 upon us but is perfectly aware of the existence of our 
 disagreeable lodger, and, blind to the fact that we know 
 all about the anatomical remains in his closet, pities us 
 accordingly. My good sir, if you wish to preserve any- 
 thing from the public eye, expose it ; conceal it, and it 
 will be criticised, inquired into, and disclosed before you 
 are many hours older. 
 
 My friend, little Freddy West, has a secret which 
 he fancies he cleverly conceals from us of the Caravan- 
 serai. He, too, is under the impression that his skeleton 
 is most safely locked up, and that none of his friends 
 have ever heard its bones rattle. The son of a most 
 respectable City tea-merchant (everybody in Mincing- 
 lane knows the firm, Leaf, West, Grounds, & Co.), who 
 lias made a large fortune, I am given to understand, out 
 of his dealings with the Chinese in opium, and with the 
 English in bohea, Freddy declines to have any connec- 
 
 T
 
 274 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 tion with the paternal warehouse. The little impostor 
 scorns trade and all its belongings, and, thanks to manu- 
 factured crest and manipulated arms, lays claim to belong 
 to a distinguished Kentish family. "When asked by the 
 stranger, in all innocence, whether he is related to the 
 noble house whose armorial bearings he has assumed, he 
 replies quietly, ' Yes, but we are the younger branch ;' 
 and drops the subject. In common with so many of his 
 class, he ' double-barrels' his name. His mother, a Miss- 
 Farningham, the daughter of a small country vicar, he 
 was christened Frederick Farningham ; and consequently 
 he has now blossomed forth as F. Farningham- West, 
 leaving the uninitiated to imagine, by the adoption of the 
 hyphen, that in his veins is not only the blood of the 
 Wests, but that he will succeed to some of the family 
 property. It has much amused me, when the waiter 
 has written Freddy's name on a bit of paper, and placed 
 it on the table which that young gentleman wishes to 
 secure for dinner, to hear one of the enlightened of the 
 club, on ascertaining who is to be his prandial neigh- 
 bour, remark, ' yes, he is one of the Delawarr lot, you 
 know ; his father, a younger son, married a Sackville 
 West, had a pot of money with her, and took the name. 
 That young fellow is the heir to a rattling good fortune.' 
 Of such is the accuracy of the world. 
 
 Whatever may be . the wealth of West pere, very
 
 SOCIAL AMBITION. 275 
 
 little of its golden stream will flow into the pockets of 
 the son. Educated at Harrow and afterwards at Oriel, 
 Freddy, after having obtained his degree, declined to sit 
 on a three-legged stool, to pore over ledgers or to look 
 after customers. In an age which sees the sons of some 
 of the first families in the country covet partnerships in 
 good mercantile houses, young "West, whose social in- 
 stincts were strong, felt that he had a soul above com- 
 merce, and pined after a prominent position in what his 
 father called 'the West-end.' As he added up the 
 books, examined dock- warrants, or watched the expec- 
 torations of the tea-taster, visions of intimacies with 
 men of fashion, of flirtations with high-born dames, of 
 the portals of society opened a deux battants before him, 
 revealing all the pleasures and hospitalities of a graceful 
 and refined civilisation, conjured themselves up before 
 his envious gaze. He wanted to be a c swell' and to 
 belong to the order. He had nothing in common with 
 business and its surroundings. He hated the loud noisy 
 men, who came into the office with their hats on the 
 side of their heads, who slapped him vigorously on the 
 back and wanted 'to know if the governor was in.' 
 Careful and fastidious in his dress, he objected to run 
 about the lanes and alleys of the City on mercantile 
 errands, like a bank-clerk. The partners did not come 
 up to his standard of what gentlemen should be; he
 
 276 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 declined to laugh at their stories whilst he corrected 
 their grammar. His airs and graces so grievously 
 offended many of the firm's best clients that they went 
 away in anger and took their custom to a rival. 
 
 Nor did Freddy attend to the work intrusted to him. 
 He came late and went away early. He read the news- 
 papers instead of the letters. He preferred to lunch at 
 the Caravanserai to the cookshops patronised by the 
 other partners. He was far more eager to obtain invi-
 
 SOCIAL AMBITION. 277 
 
 tations to dance or dinner than to beat up for customers. 
 In short, he was worse than useless in the firm, and his 
 father had no alternative but to turn him out. Freddy, 
 intent upon exploring the realms of society, had long 
 quitted the paternal villa at Dulwich, and between son 
 and sire there was little love lost. Accordingly the 
 young man found himself the possessor of the interest 
 on 10,000/., strictly tied up, and with not a hope of 
 obtaining a farthing beyond. His second brother, 
 who had been educated at a City school, and who was 
 perfectly content with suburban life, was taken into 
 partnership, and doubtless will one day develop into a 
 merchant-prince. 
 
 Idle, independent, ambitious, Freddy strained all 
 his efforts to get into good society. It was up-hill 
 work, and he made little progress. A young man, 
 against whom there is nothing notorious, has several 
 ways at the present day of entering society, should his 
 kith and kin be unable to command the ordinary mode 
 of ingress. A good tenor voice will open the doors of 
 houses which otherwise would be closed. A marked 
 capacity for private theatricals is in itself an introduc- 
 tion to the highest. An amusing talker will generally 
 end by finding his legs under the mahogany in most 
 desirable dining-rooms. Music, comic songs, a talent 
 for getting up cotillons, mimicry, ventriloquism, conjur-
 
 278 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 ing, are all means to an end. I know one man who 
 was asked out a good deal simply and solely because he 
 had a name as being a clever designer of monograms, in 
 the days when monograms were the rage. Where he 
 dined he had to design ; as another man, where he dines, 
 has to sing, play, amuse, or talk. Society conducts its 
 hospitalities on a very commercial basis. You are wel- 
 come because you are noble, illustrious, famous, or 
 wealthy, and thus by your presence reflect credit on 
 your host and hostess. If you are none of these things, 
 you are invited because you take the place of the pro- 
 fessional singer, musician, or entertainer. There is no 
 obligation on either side. You get your dinners out of 
 society, and society gets its equivalent out of you. But 
 to the man who has no equivalent to offer, society is the 
 coldest of hosts. And this was the case with Freddy. 
 He had enough to live on with economy, but nothing 
 more. In spite of his sham pedigree the secret of his 
 origin was known to all. He was not musical, he had 
 no voice, he was a bad waltzer, he was not particularly 
 amusing, he could not act, he had no special gifts likely 
 to bear him on their tide to social success. Season after 
 season passes, and he finds himself no nearer to the goal 
 of his ambition than when he started. 
 
 Yet he employs all the devices of the unadmitted. He 
 knows a good many men, but they do not take him to
 
 SOCIAL AMBITION. 279 
 
 their houses. He hunted one winter at Melton, and he 
 took a share in a yacht one summer at Cowes ; but nei- 
 ther of these moves led to anything. He travels a good 
 deal ; but the English he knows abroad drop him when 
 they cross the Channel. He has taken an active part in 
 politics ; but though the members whose elections he has 
 been instrumental in obtaining gladly ask him to meet 
 their constituents at a club-dinner, and seek his coopera- 
 tion on platforms at meetings, these are not exactly the 
 rewards he desires. He has essayed the religious line, in 
 the hope that when in the one world he might scale the 
 boundary- wall and find his way into the other. Yet in 
 vain. He has interested himself in parish-work under 
 the auspices of a fashionable London vicar ; he has taught 
 in schools ; he has visited the poor ; he has asked the 
 curates to dinner ; he has subscribed to causes he does 
 not care about, and to missions he never before heard 
 of: but all his energy and hypocrisy have been useless. 
 He was invited to a conversazione and a drawing-room 
 meeting or two, but he made no acquaintances. The 
 vicar and the fashionable district-visitors were charmed 
 to meet him on parochial matters, and to give him a long 
 list of the poor he was to visit ; but they did not con- 
 sider that an interest in alleviating surrounding distress, 
 however admirable and praiseworthy such feelings might 
 be, necessarily led to social intimacy. ' That game is no
 
 280 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 go,' said Master Freddy to himself; ' damme, I don't 
 want to know the poor I want to know the rich.' To 
 us who were somewhat behind the scenes this episode in 
 our little friend's life was very amusing. 
 
 Thus it has happened that the aims Freddy set before 
 him have never been realised. He is still, though on 
 the verge of thirty, to use a favourite word of his, an 
 * outsider.' In his modest lodgings in Duke-street no 
 invitations arrive of the nature he desires; no well- 
 appointed carriage, with its fair well-dressed occupants r 
 calls for him at the club to take him out for a drive ; 
 when he takes his walks abroad it is seldom that he haa 
 occasion to lift his hat and make his bow. He hovers 
 between two social spheres, and belongs to neither. He 
 is not of the great world, and he is not of the commer- 
 cial world. Holding in horror trade, and clinging with 
 such tenacity to the Farningham-West imposition that 
 he ends by almost believing it, he has completely severed 
 himself from his father's friends and relations. On the 
 few occasions when he has put in an appearance at the 
 parental table, he has become livid with suppressed rage 
 at the boorish fashion in which his sire partakes of the 
 dishes he loves, at the vulgar caps and colours his 
 mother wears, at the English spoken by his brothers,, 
 and at the want of breeding of his sisters. It is not a 
 happy gathering. The family look upon Freddy as ( a
 
 SOCIAL AMBITION. 281 
 
 swell,' and stand in awe of him ; whilst "West pere, hot 
 with drink and sulky, glares at his first-born as if he 
 would like, but dare not, to kick him into the road. 
 
 Yet in the whole realms of Pall Mall there is not a 
 more miserable little creature than Freddy. Thanks to 
 his tailor and hatter, a neat figure and an agreeable 
 appearance, he looks like a gentleman ; but in his views 
 and sentiments he has little in common with the name. 
 To rank he is prepared to pardon every shortcoming ; 
 and so long as men and women are born in the purple, 
 he extenuates every fault and vice they commit. He 
 worships birth and all the surroundings of fashion as 
 only one of the middle class, who is ashamed of the order 
 to which he belongs, can worship them. ' Blood' is to 
 him all what religion is, all what principle is, all what 
 honour, truth, morality are to other men. He does not 
 respect rank as it is only right that it should in this 
 country be respected, but he regards it with the most 
 slavish adulation. If the son of a peer is a knave, or 
 the daughter of a peer hideous, he will find the one 
 honourable and the other a beauty. He detests every 
 class but the one to which he does not belong, and into 
 which he cannot gain admittance. He is indifferent to 
 anything for its own sake; but if an undertaking be 
 encouraged by the peerage, he likes to see his name 
 amongst those who have given a guinea. He is the
 
 282 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 best of men to visit a fancy bazaar, for a duchess or a 
 countess can wheedle him out of half of his monthly 
 allowance. He seldom plays whist ; but when he finds 
 that any ' swells' t are in the card-room of the Caravan- 
 serai, he will cut in and be proud to lose his money in 
 such good company. On the slightest encouragement 
 he will strike up an acquaintance with men of fashion, 
 and economise for a fortnight to ask them to a dinner, 
 which they never return. Though not in the world, he 
 takes great pains to appear to be of it. He studies all 
 the fashionable newspapers, and makes himself familiar 
 with the movements of the leaders of society. He 
 knows what receptions are to be held, and what balls 
 and dinners are to be given, during the week. He has 
 learnt his Burke almost by heart, and makes it his busi- 
 ness to be familiar with the marriages that are to take 
 place during the season. He knows by sight all the 
 great people in town, and is a very useful man to escort 
 country cousins to the Opera or the Park. Such people 
 imagine him to be a buck of the first water, for he points 
 out to them the beauties amongst the women and the 
 distinguished amongst the men; and freely, when in 
 their company, takes off his hat to carriages as they 
 drive past, but whose occupants, a keen observer will 
 notice, decline to return the salutation. He casually 
 inquires of these rustics whether they are going to Lady
 
 SOCIAL AMBITION. 
 
 283 
 
 Dash's dance to-night, or to the Duchess of Blank's 
 reception to-morrow ; and when they modestly say, * 
 dear no ; we know no one in London !' he manages to 
 convey the impression to their minds that he of course 
 is amongst the invited. 
 
 As her is only happy in the society of those who, as 
 it were, bolster up his social position, he is the most 
 abject of toadies. If one of the few really great men 
 who belong to the Caravanserai enters the club, Freddy
 
 284 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 will follow him about with his eyes, examine his dress, 
 and watch how he eats, sits down, or reads the news- 
 paper. "When the young men of fashion, who belong to 
 that world whose joys he so fiercely covets, hang about 
 the hall in groups before driving out to the houses to- 
 which they are invited, he hovers near them and listens 
 to their conversation. How he admires those ' swells,' 
 who talk quite simply and naturally of the great people 
 they know, nor seem to be much impressed by the 
 favours accorded to them ! I verily believe if Mephis- 
 topheles would come up and offer Freddy a peerage, and 
 all the advantages attached to it, he would have no 
 difficulty in coming to terms about my little friend's 
 soul. Aware that he is not what he wishes to be 
 and what he pretends to be (it is amusing how jealously 
 he keeps the secret of his commercial origin, and how 
 patent that secret is to all of us !), young West is utterly 
 deficient in self-respect, and in the higher qualities of 
 true manhood. In his heart he feels himself, to use a 
 term of reproach he is rather fond of casting at others, a 
 ' snob ;' and as long as he holds the mean views of life 
 he entertains, even were he the son of a duke, he richly 
 deserves the name. Freddy is a snob. He has the 
 tricks of imposition of the snob, the servile admiration 
 of the snob, that mixture of deference for the great and 
 contempt for the lowly only to be found in the snob r
 
 SOCIAL AMBITION. 285 
 
 and he suffers the needless mental tortures of the 
 snob. 
 
 When I see Freddy and listen to his conversation, I 
 cannot help moralising on man's discontent. Here is a 
 young fellow born to what many would envy. He en- 
 tered upon life under most favourable auspices. For 
 him the anxiety and struggle which fall to the lot of 
 the man who has to make a career did not exist. The 
 family business was already founded; he had only to 
 follow in his father's footsteps to be a wealthy man. He 
 had a home (it might, perhaps, be in better taste, but 
 one cannot have everything) such as only money could 
 furnish and keep up. His family doted upon him until 
 his contemptible affectation alienated them from him. 
 He could have had troops of friends to cheer and amuse 
 him. He could have led a happy, manly, and contented 
 life. He had nothing to be ashamed of. His father 
 was an upright honest man, whose good name had never 
 been tarnished by sharp practice or fraudulent proceed- 
 ings. It was true that he was in trade ; and pray, 
 Master Freddy, who is not in trade in these days ? The 
 father may have just reason to be ashamed of the son, 
 but certainly not the son of the sire. 
 
 Yet Freddy has sacrificed all these advantages for 
 the emptiest of ambitions ; he has lost everything and 
 gained nothing. He is nobody. He never will have
 
 286 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 more than some eight hundred a year. He would like 
 to marry, but he refuses to marry into his father's set, 
 and he has little chance of marrying outside it. He has 
 no friends but those who ridicule him for his failings. 
 
 His life is passed in sham, hypocrisy, and unhappiness. 
 Cui bono? Even from his own point of view he has 
 played his cards badly. Had he humoured his father 
 and been diligent in business there was nothing to pre- 
 vent him, good-looking and well-mannered, and with For-
 
 SOCIAL AMBITION. 287 
 
 tune at his back, from, working his "way, as many have 
 before him, into the society he so warmly admires. As 
 a member of the great Plutocracy he would have had 
 no occasion to go forth into the highways and byways 
 to find ' friends;' nor, when once the extent of his 
 means was ascertained, need he have despaired of 
 making an excellent alliance. He had a future before 
 him which might have been brilliant, but which cer- 
 tainly would have been comfortable. The future that 
 now stares him in the face is a blank ; for let Freddy 
 wish as much as he may, the portals of the paternal firm 
 are shut against him. JSTor will it be long, from what I 
 hear, before the doors of the Dulwich villa will follow 
 the example of the warehouse in Mincing-lane. If ever 
 man gave up the substance to grasp the shadow, it 
 is F. Farningham-'West ; and there must be times, I 
 fancy, when he and his skeleton pass many a mauvais 
 quart d^lieure together. I should not care to be present 
 at those interviews.
 
 BOHEMIA. 
 
 u
 
 BOHEMIA. 
 
 IT has been well said that the one half of the world does 
 not know how the other half lives. We each of us 
 move in our own sphere, follow its habits, accept its 
 teaching, and adopt its customs. Of the vast world 
 outside our own petty circle of its struggles for ex- 
 istence, of its professional wiles, of its feuds, jealousies, 
 and observances we know no more than the Chinaman, 
 who writes down all beyond his dominions as barbarians. 
 As in geology each stratum has its separate and distinct 
 formation, so in social life each class has its own pecu- 
 liarities of manner, industry, and amusement, which 
 reveal the order to which it belongs. What is per- 
 mitted in the one class is not tolerated in the other; 
 what is pleasure to the one would be regarded as the 
 most irksome of restraints by the other. If there were 
 no lines of demarcation separating the one class from 
 the other, the very differences in the mode of life and in 
 the ways of thought would prove in themselves obstacles
 
 292 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 sufficiently insurmountable to prevent fusion between 
 such discordant elements. 
 
 Take the Bohemian as an example. To him the 
 fetters of civilisation are insupportable ; he declines to 
 obey the commands of society and the code of morals 
 it draws up. The homage to rank and wealth, the 
 emptiness of general conversation, the monotony of 
 routine, the attention paid to outward adornment, are all 
 eminently distasteful to him. A man generally with 
 some pretensions to art or literature, he infinitely prefers 
 to chat with an artist over his pictures or with an author 
 over his manuscripts than to add his name to the crowd 
 of nobodies which throng the reception-rooms of a lady 
 of fashion, or to take part in the feebleness and platitudes 
 of ordinary social talk. Fond of the society of women, 
 he detests the society of those whom the vulgar call 
 ' ladies of position.' A woman no matter how humble 
 her birth of genius ; a clever woman ; a woman who is 
 well read without being a prig ; a woman who is making 
 a name for herself by her pen, her brush, her chisel, or 
 by her musical attainments, is always sure of his homage 
 and respectful admiration. In the society of such an 
 one he thinks there is the best of all companionships, the 
 companionship of thought ; whilst on the other hand the 
 society of ladies, of women who are simply the repre- 
 sentatives of their order, and destitute of everything but
 
 BOHEMIA. 293 
 
 modesty and good breeding, is in his opinion an un- 
 pleasant restraint. In the presence of the woman of 
 Bohemia he can talk without reserve, he can consult his 
 own comfort as to the posture he adopts, he can drink 
 and smoke in her society without wounding her self- 
 respect, and his brain becomes quick and teeming from 
 the rapid interchange of ideas and the play of wit 
 and humour. The propriety and inanities of a lady, 
 however, freeze him up and render him dull and sulky. 
 The Bohemian is, as a rule, singularly free from the 
 scruples of the moralist and the antipathies of the bigot ; 
 he will make love to all who let him, and when he has 
 money he intends to pay his debts. He is kind and 
 generous if it be in his power to those who are not 
 likely to develop into rivals; but where he fears compe- 
 tition he is more jealous and spiteful than would bo 
 expected from his jovial presence and careless indif- 
 ference. He frequents those haunts in the town where 
 he is sure to meet men of his own calling and addicted 
 to his own tastes ; and, except under certain special cir- 
 cumstances, he resents the intrusion of the followers of 
 ' society' within his midst. In all things he consults his 
 own ease, and refuses to hamper his pleasures by any 
 restrictions which Mrs. Grundy may think it prudent to 
 -suggest. 
 
 He has little sympathy with certain of his brother
 
 294 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 Bohemians, who are using the reputation which their 
 productions have gained to become acquainted with the 
 great and to hang on to the skirts of fashion. He ridi- 
 cules their pretensions and despises their ambition. To 
 him the conviviality of his own set, the freedom which 
 permits each one to do as he pleases, the stories that are 
 told, the liquor that is drunk, the fun and devilry which 
 are interwoven with the texture of their lives, surpass 
 all that the most servile toadyism can ever expect to 
 obtain. Your true Bohemian is never more intolerant 
 than when attacking those who are in a superior position 
 to his own, and running amuck at all the proprieties. 
 When by chance he meets a great man he will refute his 
 arguments and disparage the profession to which he 
 belongs. On the occasions when he treads upon that 
 common ground where all worlds assemble at flower- 
 shows, exhibitions, musical and dramatic entertainments, 
 and the rest he is easily to be recognised by his garb 
 and his studied contempt of all the convenances of life. 
 Good-humoured enough in his own circle, a spirit of the 
 most truculent antagonism pervades all his movements 
 and conversation when he issues into a higher grade of 
 life than his own. He thinks his own views upon all 
 subjects to be correct, and is apt to become warm when 
 contradicted. It is impossible to mistake him for aught 
 than he is, or to identify him with the class to which he
 
 BOHEMIA. 
 
 2 95 
 
 does not belong. In his dress and bearing we as plainly 
 recognise him to be a citizen of the realm of Bohemia 
 as we can tell the Frenchman who hails from Paris 
 or the German whose home is in Berlin. 
 
 One such Bohemian is a member of the Caravanse- 
 rai. Converts are always the most fervent in the sup- 
 port of their new creed, and no subjects are more 
 patriotic than those who have been naturalised. Boy 
 Somerset Fitzgerald Capel de Beaufoy (commonly called 
 Alphabet de Beaufoy from his ample supply of Christian 
 names) belongs to the Bohemian world, not by birth or 
 profession, but by inclination and preference. The son 
 of a distinguished Irish peer, who at one time gracefully 
 filled the office of Viceroy of his native land, Alphabet 
 de Beaufoy has little in common with the stock from 
 which he has sprung. He is deficient in all the charac- 
 teristics of the typical aristocrat. Little Farningham- 
 "West, with his blonde locks, his large blue eyes, his 
 aquiline nose, his short upper-lip, and the smallness of 
 his ears, hands, and feet, possesses in an eminent degree 
 all those i points' which race alone, it is said, can confer. 
 Yet we know that he is but humbly born, and for the 
 sake of Mrs. West, who is the severest of Sabbatarians, 
 let us hope that the principles of ethnology occasionally 
 vary in their course of development. 
 
 No one looking at Alphabet would imagine him to
 
 296 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 belong to an exclusive order, and to be allied directly 
 or indirectly to some of the proudest houses in the 
 country. He is untidy in his dress, and careless as to 
 the make and shape of his garments ; as long as they 
 
 keep him warm in winter and cool in summer he is 
 utterly indifferent as to their cut or texture. He has 
 been reproved more than once by his sisters for putting 
 in an attendance at a fashionable marriage with an 
 alpaca coat on his back and a straw hat on his head,
 
 BOHEMIA. 297 
 
 simply because the event happened to take place on a 
 warm day in June. He abominates evening attire most 
 heartily, and considers that as long as a man's linen is 
 clean he is in proper costume to go anywhere. On the 
 few occasions when he drives his stanhope in the Park, 
 or rides his mare in the Eow for he prefers, not un- 
 wisely, the attractions of the suburbs he dons a cos- 
 tume more suitable for the country than for London. 
 Only once have I seen him in a tall hat, and then he 
 told me he had been to church with his mother ; but 
 even this deference to the demands of civilisation was 
 somewhat marred by the tweed suit he had thought it 
 convenient to wear on the occasion. 
 
 There are some men who can dispense with all the 
 advantages of art, but De Beaufoy is hardly to be in- 
 cluded in the category. He is not ugly (no one with 
 those honest brown eyes of his could be positively ill- 
 looking, and some ladies have even been known to admit 
 that he is ' almost handsome ;' but then my friend has a 
 very good fortune left him by his grandmother) ; but a 
 man with a big nose, a large laughing mouth, a com- 
 plexion very much freckled, hair thin and sandy, and a 
 figure which good living and whisky-and-water have 
 combined most effectually to destroy, should not be 
 offended if his friends class him amongst the ill-favoured. 
 Yet plain in appearance and disorderly in dress, it is
 
 298 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 impossible not to take the man for a gentleman after 
 speaking to him. On certain occasions, when his self- 
 respect has been wounded, his manner is very haughty 
 and dignified ; the great monarch himself could not be 
 more crushing in his lofty disdain than De Beaufoy when 
 he has to suppress a cad. 
 
 When Alphabet first joined the Caravanserai, it was 
 considered f shocking bad form' for him always to ap- 
 pear in the club in a wideawake, and to dine in a shoot- 
 ing-coat it was treating the club like 'a pot-house,' 
 some said; nor do I think such remarks were uncalled 
 for by the supreme indifference of my friend to the con- 
 ventionalities of life. Little West was one of the 
 warmest of this band of critics ; when, however, he dis- 
 covered that the object of his severe strictures was the 
 son of a mighty peer, he discontinued his observations, 
 and did his best to become acquainted with the Bohe- 
 mian. How elastic is human nature, and how much we 
 forgive to our superiors ! If Jones was to walk in the 
 Park in a pot-hat, to enter the stalls of a theatre in a 
 tweed suit, or to be seen outside an omnibus, he would 
 lay himself open to being cut by his acquaintances. But 
 if a noble Marquis dines at his club in thick boots and 
 velveteens, or walks up St. James's- street eating wal- 
 nuts, or is seen carrying home a large parcel from the 
 Cooperative Stores, his conduct is not considered repre-
 
 BOHEMIA. 299 
 
 liensible. The one is ' a cad' for acting as he does ; the 
 other is praised for being above the t timidity of the snob.' 
 "Who after this can say that there is not one law for the 
 great and another for the humble ? 
 
 "Where civilisation has attained to. its highest pitch 
 of luxury and ostentation, as at the present day with us, 
 there will always be men to whom its splendours and 
 restraints will be distasteful. And as a rule those who 
 can enjoy to the fullest extent all that a wealthy and re- 
 fined civilisation has to offer will often be the very men 
 to turn their backs upon its charms, and go elsewhere. 
 These know what they are rejecting ; they have entered 
 the race, found the training irksome, and have seen that 
 the prizes are not worth the winning. On the other 
 hand, the men who have had little opportunity for the 
 indulgence of social pleasures either from the intensity 
 of their industry or from obstacles that bar their pro- 
 gress in society are always most keen in their pursuit 
 of what wealth and rank can lay before them. The one 
 have eaten the apple, and discovered that it is but Dead 
 Sea fruit ; the other see the pippin hanging on the tree 
 red, luscious, and tempting and with outstretched 
 hand and watering mouth long for the moment when 
 they can grasp it and taste its imagined sweetness. 
 
 De Beaufoy has little to learn from the great world 
 which he does not already know. Familiar from the
 
 300 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 days of his boyhood with all the seductions that society 
 can offer, they cease now to have any attraction for him. 
 It is with difficulty that he can ever be persuaded to be 
 bored by going out to dance and dinner. His Bohemian 
 tastes interfere sadly with his family ties, for it is only 
 under the greatest pressure that he can be made to visit 
 his relations, or to add himself to the number of the 
 home circle. Yet if his mother and sisters only knew 
 how easily he accepts an invitation from an actress to 
 breakfast, or from an actor to supper, or from a detective 
 to go the rounds of the cribs of London, they would 
 scarcely feel flattered. 
 
 He is Bohemian to the backbone, and only cares 
 for Bohemia. Every single haunt in the country of his 
 adoption he is familiar with. When he is in society he 
 is huffy, and stands on his dignity ; outside its pale he 
 will be on good terms with all the varied crew that cross 
 his path. However strict may be the rules of a theatre, 
 De Beaufoy has only to send his card round to the stage- 
 door to be welcomed by the manager, to lounge about 
 the greenroom, and to enter into little prandial arrange- 
 ments with certain of the fair artistes. He belongs to a 
 host of small clubs, which hold their meetings at a late 
 hour of the night in cozy taverns, where the rooms are 
 carpeted with sawdust; where the chairs are of the 
 familiar Windsor pattern now relegated to kitchens;
 
 BOHEMIA. 
 
 301 
 
 where the tables are coverless, and of the darkest ma- 
 hogany, and stained by the rings of pewter-pots and the 
 blemishes caused by heated tumblers ; where prints of 
 famous trotters, of ex-champions of the belt and of the 
 
 river, of jockeys, statesmen, and deformities, hang 
 against the walls ; where the cuisine is strictly limited 
 to kidneys, chops, and steaks, served with the whitest 
 and most floury of potatoes; where the wines should 
 be shunned, but where the beer and the spirits may be-
 
 302 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 depended upon; and where the unfamed in letters and 
 in art love to assemble. On the few occasions when it 
 has been my good fortune to meet the magnates of 
 authorship, I have invariably been disappointed with 
 their powers of conversation. Their wit seems forced, 
 their stories are old, and their talk is halting and hesi- 
 tating, as if they knew that they were impostors, and on 
 the point of being found out. In many an anteroom I 
 have listened to far more wit and humour from men who- 
 could not write a page without committing themselves 
 to errors in grammar and orthography. 
 
 Yet I must admit that when Alphabet has taken me 
 into one of these obscure haunts as his guest, it has sel- 
 dom been my lot to come away from the kindly dens 
 disappointed. those evenings, or rather nights, or 
 rather mornings ! How bright was the wit, how exqui- 
 sitely droll, though somewhat naughty, the stories ! how 
 good were the songs! how jokes and (keen, but not ma- 
 licious) chaff went the round ! and how queer and un- 
 couth were many of the members, and what a terrible 
 dryness of throat seemed to afflict every one of the com- 
 munity ! There they were actors scarcely a remove 
 from supers; journalists who were really little better 
 than penny-a-liners ; artists sketching for magazines, or 
 painting for the dealers at famine prices ; stage-managers 
 of theatres one never heard of ; authors who had to put
 
 BOHEMIA. 303 
 
 their big thoughts away, and slave for the publishers as 
 hacks ; a few barristers who had never held a brief, but 
 who, from their remarks, seemed worthy to occupy the 
 seat on the bench vacated by an eminent Lord Chief 
 Baron who at one time held his court in the Strand ; 
 one or two men whom drink had i broke,' and who were 
 picking up a livelihood as best they could; and a 
 sprinkling of what some of the club called ' swells from 
 the West-end.' What a motley lot! full of fun and 
 devilry and brandy-and-water ! They appeared to re- 
 gard life as one gigantic joke, and to look upon him who 
 was the funniest comedian as the best man amongst 
 them. Never had I been made to laugh so much. The 
 very appearance of some of the men, the expressions 
 they used when discussing any question that came up, 
 their wholesale irreverence for the leaders of their dif- 
 ferent professions, were all intensely amusing. Added 
 to this, there was much real brilliancy in the conversa- 
 tion during the earlier part of the evening, till the talk 
 unhappily became blended with spirits-and-water ; whilst 
 there were two men whose voices would have commanded 
 high prices on the stage or in concert-rooms, could their 
 sobriety only have been guaranteed. In such company 
 even the great Dr. Johnson himself would have refrained 
 from moralising. It is the next morning, when the 
 tongue is parched and the brow is fevered, that we
 
 304 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 moralise. l Those fellows do make me laugh./ said Do 
 Beaufoy, as we returned westwards ; l if we only had 
 one or two of them at Pratt' s !' 
 
 Eeading a novel some nights ago, I was much 
 
 amused at certain ideas of the talented authoress touch- 
 ing Bohemia. The fair and gifted creature was evi- 
 dently under the impression that there- is a certain 
 quarter in our capital which is as much the haunt of the 
 Bohemian as Pall Mall is of the club-man. In this
 
 BOHEMIA. 
 
 35 
 
 curious faubourg, we are told, the inhabitants consist 
 entirely of artists, authors, journalists, actors, sculptors, 
 and entertainers of the public. It has its own special 
 clubs and taverns and places of amusement. None but 
 the Bohemian is admitted within this privileged quarter; 
 and it is subject to its own laws, which it has power to 
 enforce by fine or punishment upon the refractory. I 
 need hardly say that, except in the fertile imagination 
 of the novelist, no such imperium in imperio exists. 
 
 As Satan in Paradise Lost is made to say that 
 wherever he goes he makes a hell, so the Bohemian, 
 wherever he pitches his tent, makes a Bohemia. Let 
 De Beaufoy wander where he list, he is sure to surround 
 himself with Bohemians. Though he flies the ensign of 
 ' the Squadron,' he shuns all the fascinations of Cowes; 
 but is generally to be found off the coast of Scotland or 
 Ireland, where he is the patron of whalers, herring 
 fishermen, coastguard-men, pilots, and the officials con- 
 nected with the lighthouses and lifeboats. "When be- 
 calmed or fond of a certain spot, he is a godsend to every 
 one in the harbour, and to the seafaring community 
 around. He gets up sailing - matches amongst the 
 owners of the herring - smacks, rowing - matches and 
 swimming-matches, and is most liberal in the distribu- 
 tion of prizes in the shape of tankards, kegs of whisky, 
 ready money, and tablets of honeydew tobacco. Should
 
 306 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 a storm arise, and the lifeboat of the place distin- 
 guish itself, he invites the crew to a supper at a 
 tavern, and shines as the most noisy and jovial of hosts. 
 He avoids the country houses of the neighbourhood like 
 the plague ; but he can talk by the hour to an old salt, 
 and is the best and thirstiest listener imaginable to a 
 yarn. Alphabet is no fool or ' chalk yachtsman.' He 
 has studied harder in Thames-street than most men do 
 at the University, and has obtained his certificate from 
 the Board of Trade. The sailors know that, though he 
 is a ' swell,' he is as smart an amateur seaman as there 
 is afloat; and captains of barques have more than once 
 been indebted to him for downright professional as- 
 sistance. 
 
 Like many men passionately fond of the sea, Alpha- 
 bet is but a lukewarm lover of the pleasures of the chase. 
 He has a little hunting-box about fifty miles from 
 London ; and if a bad rider to hounds, he is at least a 
 bold one, for he cranes at nothing, though he has come 
 terribly to grief on more than one occasion. When a 
 frost sets in, I fancy he is not keenly disappointed ; for 
 at such times he drives over to the stables of a neigh- 
 bouring trainer of great repute, and is far happier 
 chatting with that gentleman over some old dry sherry, 
 hearing anecdotes about the days of the turf past and 
 present, inspecting the horses, and talking to the jockeys,
 
 BOHEMIA. 307 
 
 than when pursuing the wily fox. He is a good shot, 
 but in his eyes there is no sport more attractive than at 
 the dead of night to join with the keepers in a free-fight 
 with the poachers. Those guardians of the game for 
 miles around always let l the honourable' know when 
 they expect battle, and seldom does he fail to put in an 
 appearance. Some men have a weakness for driving 
 locomotives, others for attending conflagrations and 
 working the fire-engine, and others for slaving at a 
 printing-press. The weakness of De Beaufoy is a moon- 
 light night, the rides of a wood, and a hand-to-hand 
 encounter between a dozen men and a dozen poachers. 
 It is fortunate for the poachers that the law limits 
 Alphabet's powers of punishment as a magistrate, else 
 those sneaking puiioiners would never receive a more 
 lenient sentence than five years' penal servitude. 
 
 Whenever an opportunity presents itself De Beaufoy 
 runs up to London. Like your true Bohemian, he is 
 always happy in a crowd, with the bustle of life going 
 on around him, the fun of the fair presenting itself at 
 every step, agitation, noise, confusion, amusement at 
 every turn. The theatre is his favourite pastime, and 
 he must be on the high seas, or else there must be very 
 good reason for his absence, when he fails to attend the 
 performances of a first night. He is extremely fond of 
 discovering obscure talent, and more than one young
 
 308 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 actor owes his elevation to the London boards to the 
 interest and discrimination of my friend, who has been 
 struck by his playing in the provinces. Sunday is the 
 favourite day for De Beaufoy to give his dinners at the 
 Caravanserai, because that day is generally the only one 
 at the disposal of the actors, who are sure to be amongst 
 his guests. There is scarcely a theatre in town where 
 his presence is not welcome in the greenroom, and there 
 is not a play brought out but that he forms part of the 
 audience which listens to its first reading. Intimately 
 acquainted with modern dramatic literature, De Beaufoy 
 would make an excellent newspaper critic were he forced 
 to write for his living. More than once, at some of his 
 tavern haunts, have I heard him, after the first night of 
 a new piece, correcting the surmises of dramatic critics 
 as to the source of the new play, showing what was 
 original in it and what was plagiarised, and giving 
 chapter and verse for his authority. Actresses like him, 
 not simply because he is very generous and peculiarly 
 susceptible to the charms of a pretty face and of a well- 
 moulded figure, but because, having travelled much, and 
 having been acquainted with most of the leading actors 
 in Europe, he has been really of service to them in the 
 creation of their characters. I know one young actress 
 who made a great hit in a part, and yet her idea of the 
 character was due, not to the originality of her genius,
 
 BOHEMIA. 
 
 309 
 
 but solely to the teaching of De Beaufoy, who had seen 
 when at Dresden an obscure German actress in a role of 
 a similar kind. 
 
 Anything new, or any one who is making a sensation, 
 
 is sure of finding in De Beaufoy a patron and friend. Is 
 a comic singer the rage, is a gymnast particularly clever 
 on the trapeze, has a pedestrian made himself famous by 
 his walking powers, has a new comic author appeared, 
 Alphabet will make his acquaintance, and if the man is
 
 3io CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 presentable ask him to supper at a certain excellent 
 hostel not a hundred miles from Covent Garden. Is 
 there a man or woman noted for gigantic stature, enor- 
 mous bulk, or some extraordinary malformation, Do 
 Beaufoy is sure to be among those present at the earliest 
 medical investigation. His curiosity is boundless. He 
 visits prisons, lunatic asylums, convict establishments, 
 and, thanks to the protection of friendly detectives, he 
 knows every thieves' kitchen in London as well as if he 
 had lived all his years in the atmosphere of Scotland 
 Yard. The low life of the town, the society of those 
 in an inferior grade to his own, intercourse with that 
 great body of the community whose object it is to amuse 
 the public by their peculiar gifts, have attractions for 
 him which are irresistible. His fortune, his name, his 
 social surroundings, have placed him in the order of the 
 patricians ; but in tastes, habits, and sympathies nature 
 has marked him out as a proletarian. As the age of 
 miracles is past it cannot be expected that he will ever 
 be transformed into other than he is. He will live and 
 die a Bohemian.
 
 A PAEASITE.
 
 A PAEASITE. 
 
 IN the animal world there are certain insects, apparently 
 of little use in the scheme of creation except to them- 
 selves, which derive their sustenance entirely from the 
 objects, whether animate or inanimate, to which they 
 cling. Eefusing to be shaken off, they only take their 
 departure when the victim of their close embraces has 
 yielded up all that he, she, or it once possessed. Their 
 appearance upon the scene is generally indicative of two 
 things : the first, that the creature upon which they 
 settle is a prey worth the sucking ; and the second, that 
 their attentions generally end in the ruin of their sub- 
 ject. "We know the plant that stealthily creeps up the 
 stalwart trunk of the vigorous tree twines its deadly 
 foliage around the bark, and soon causes what was once 
 blossom and vitality to be transformed into tinder and 
 decay. We know the insidious reptile which so tena- 
 ciously adheres to its quarry, that, whilst it swells and 
 battens upon the blood, every prick of its sucker inflicts 
 a mortal wound. "We know that terrible excrescence, 
 half animal, half vegetable, which, wherever it deposits
 
 314 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 itself, becomes so identified with the object of its selec- 
 tion as to be an actual necessity to the existence of the 
 victim : remove it, and he dies ; starve it, and he perishes ; 
 the two the victimiser and the victimised are insepar- 
 able until the hateful union is dissolved by the triumph 
 of the parasite. 
 
 Nor is the species unknown to the social world. 
 Yaried in its operations, of different tastes, habits, and 
 capacity, the manoeuvres of the class are always the 
 same in the end profit to themselves and destruction to 
 the creature fixed upon for suction. As in animal life, 
 so in social life, the parasite never attaches itself to a 
 vigorous and healthy subject. It knows that where 
 there is sound and genuine vitality it has no place, and 
 would be instantly expelled did it attempt to take up 
 its abode. Its scent is keen after physical or moral 
 decay, and where that is found it is sure of a home. 
 The oak may appear to the uninitiated healthy and 
 flourishing ; but the parasite knows what poison is in- 
 stilled in the juice of the sap, and how long it will be 
 before the branches wither, and the trunk be the haunt 
 of corruption. The man may seem, to most of his 
 acquaintance, more than ordinarily free from the faults 
 of human nature ; yet the parasite knows what are his 
 infirmities, and settles upon the weak points, provided 
 something worth the effort may be extracted from them.
 
 A PARASITE. 315 
 
 The social parasite is of all descriptions ; the genus is as 
 extensive as ubiquitous ; still its characteristics are in- 
 variably the same to maintain its existence at the 
 expense of another. 
 
 There is the literary parasite. He may be of a 
 keenly acquisitive turn of mind, and obtain his reputa- 
 tion by sucking the brains of deceased authors, of obso- 
 lete authors, of unknown foreign authors, or of authors 
 who have innocently confided their manuscripts to his 
 hands, and, by manipulating their thoughts and dressing 
 their ideas in a different costume, pose before the public 
 as a new and original writer. A great work of science 
 appears ; it is the result of the labour of half a lifetime ; 
 it is heavy, crude, and undigested, and appeals to the 
 few. The literary parasite takes it up, cleverly evades 
 infringing upon its copyright, and popularises it ; it has 
 a large sale, and the parasite profits at the expense of 
 the discoverer. A valuable history is published; he 
 epitomises it. A writer hits the public taste by inge- 
 nuity of plot or charm of style ; he copies it. It may 
 be that the parasite has been unfortunate in his produc- 
 tions; they have no market; they are unread at the 
 libraries; they have been bought by weight by the 
 butterman and the trunkmaker. The instincts of his 
 species prompt him how to act. He fastens himself 
 upon some writer who has gained for himself a great
 
 316 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 name. He criticises with spiteful malevolence every 
 work such an author produces. He discovers errors in 
 his dates, in his grammar, in his transcripts, in all that 
 he says and thinks. When the great author issues his 
 volumes, the cynical and malicious rush to the reviews 
 and the magazines to hear what the parasite has to say. 
 Abuse, so long as it be bitter and personal, never lacks 
 readers. As the moon receives all her light from the 
 sun, so the literary parasite borrows all his lustre from 
 the great intellectual orbs he copies or traduces. 
 
 There is the commercial parasite. He attaches him- 
 self to some great capitalist, sings the praises of his 
 wealth, vaunts the undertakings he has set afloat, and 
 receives his reward by sneaking into the board-room as 
 a director. He makes it his business to know when a 
 bank is shaky in its credit, or a stock-jobber has sold 
 shares which he cannot deliver, and forthwith it is 
 through him and his tribe that the stock of the one falls 
 to the ground, and the stock of the other rises to a 
 heavy premium. He twines himself round the great 
 pillars of the City, and is always petitioning for ' tips,' 
 and for allotments in new Companies which are sure on 
 their day of issue to be quoted at a profit. "When one 
 of his patrons fails, or is committed for fraudulent pro- 
 ceedings, the parasite is always among the first to say 
 that 'he knew all along that the firm was rotten,' or
 
 A PARASITE. 317- 
 
 that 'the fellow was the greatest scoundrel unhung.' 
 He worships chairmen of committees, for he is a great 
 respecter of the powers that be. He is the toady of the 
 wealthy merchant, but the systematic libeller of all the 
 smaller fry. He is the Ananias of panics, and would 
 lie till his tongue cleaved to his mouth, provided he 
 could rig the market so as to serve his ends. He is the 
 first to crave for time when unable to meet his own bills, 
 and the last to extend such mercy to another. 
 
 There is the political parasite. He clings to the 
 leaders of the party, writes them up in newspapers, and 
 flatters them at the meetings of their associations. He 
 gets up testimonials ; he is honorary secretary to half a 
 dozen political institutions, but leaves the work to a 
 clerk ; he is the terror of private secretaries, upon whom 
 he is always calling ; he is the author of pamphlets, 
 which he sends to every member of the Cabinet, on all 
 the great public questions; and he passes his fussy days 
 in the hope that he will eventually creep into office and 
 fifteen hundred a year. If he is appointed, the country 
 is saved. If the Government refuse to recognise his 
 claims, the country is going to the mischief, and he 
 offers his services to the other side. 
 
 There is the military parasite, haunting the Horse 
 Guards, and cringing after good civil or military posts, 
 to the exclusion of men who have served their country
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 in all parts of the globe, whilst he himself has never 
 been out of England. There is the clerical parasite, 
 hanging on to the dignitaries of the Church ; toadying 
 private patrons, pretending to interest himself in the 
 
 labours of the great religious societies, fawning, schem- 
 ing, eating dirt, and crawling in the dust, provided he 
 only succeeds in obtaining the prize he has set before 
 him a good fat living. There is the scientific parasite, 
 turning the inventions of other men to his own account,.
 
 A PARASITE. 
 
 319 
 
 and stealing the principle of their ideas, whilst keeping 
 himself clear of the Patent Laws. And there is the 
 commonest and most prosperous of the order the para- 
 site who makes society his victim. 
 
 Scrope Hillingdon is a prominent member of this 
 class of creature. A younger son, he testifies by his 
 life and career to the partialities of the law of primo- 
 geniture. Whilst his brother, Sir Alured, is a great 
 landowner and a county magnate of the wealthiest and 
 most powerful description, Scrope is a nobody, and 
 lord of some six thousand pounds, strictly tied up, which 
 yield him four and a half per cent per annum. During 
 his father's lifetime no distinction was made between 
 himself and the heir. Both went to the same school ; 
 both went to the same tutor on the Continent; both 
 spent the same pocket-money ; and both, on their return 
 to the parental roof, led the same kind of lives. Scrope 
 thought of entering a profession; but pleasant years 
 passed by, and he forgot all about his intention. He 
 lived in the same set as his elder brother ; went into the 
 same society; belonged to the same clubs; had the 
 same tastes, and indulged in the same expenditure; 
 when he wanted horses he drew upon the paternal 
 stables, and when he wanted funds he was permitted to 
 draw upon the paternal banker. One chill October 
 morning his father dies ; the elder son succeeds to the
 
 320 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 family honours ; and the younger son finds himself with 
 a pittance, on which he is to live for the rest of his 
 days. 
 
 What course is open to him ? His past habits and 
 tastes have unfitted him for the slow laborious business 
 of following a profession and making it pay. He has 
 lived in society, he has been accustomed to luxuries of 
 a certain kind which have developed into necessities, 
 and whenever he wanted the sinews of war ' the old dad 
 parted like a trump.' Therefore, without any previous 
 training in self-denial or economy, he suddenly finds 
 himself thrown upon the world a beggar. All the ac- 
 complishments he possesses are useless for the serious 
 purposes of life; it is hard work tilling land with a 
 silver trowel. He can ride ; he can dance ; he is a fair 
 shot ; he can read French ; he is a very good amateur 
 vet. ; and his knowledge of navigation, for a yachtsman, 
 is more than respectable. Yet, desirable as these accom- 
 plishments are for the idle man, they have no market 
 value. To fight the battle of life a man wants something 
 more than a becoming uniform. 
 
 Scrope soon realised his position. His brother was 
 very kind to him, was hospitality itself in the way of 
 putting him up in the country for any length of period, 
 allowed him to ride his horses, lent him his yacht and 
 paid all the expenses; but he drew the line at ready
 
 A PARASITE. 321 
 
 money. When Scrope hinted at his wretched allowance, 
 and how acceptable a further provision would be to him, 
 Sir Alured never rose to the bait. On the contrary, it 
 was the baronet who made out that his own resources 
 were crippled he had to pay off certain heavy mort- 
 gages ; the portions of his sisters were a terrible charge 
 upon the estate ; the expenses that he had incurred for 
 drainage and building improvements were simply enor- 
 mous ; the demands of his tenants were as incessant as 
 they were exorbitant ; and the rest of the usual excuses 
 which country gentlemen make when directly applied to 
 by any branch of their family for money. Sir Alured 
 would do all in his power to help his brother ; he would 
 willingly use what interest he possessed with the Govern- 
 ment to get him an appointment. How would he like 
 an inspectorship of factories, or the governorship of a 
 prison, or a post in the Consular service? But he 
 clearly made him to understand that the property would 
 not bear the grant of any addition to the six thousand 
 pounds, and that he would not consider himself liable 
 for any debts that the younger brother might in the 
 future incur. 
 
 For a man of Scrope' s tastes to live on an income of 
 something less than three hundred a year was practically 
 impossible. With economy it might keep him in clothes 
 and dinners, and suffice for his travelling expenses, but 
 
 Y
 
 322 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 it was incapable of further extension. He thought of 
 the matrimonial market: but heiresses, numerous and 
 amiable enough in novels, are not so easily found in real 
 life to bestow their wealth upon penniless younger sons. 
 
 Gradually, and almost unconsciously, Scrope sank to the 
 vocation of a parasite. He had birth, he had good looks, 
 and, above all, thanks to his name and his sisters' 
 marriages, he was in society. Around him he saw 
 many men who had what he had not, and who coveted
 
 A PARASITE. 
 
 323 
 
 to possess what he, until he was made to learn its value, 
 held somewhat cheap. With these people he entered 
 into a treaty of reciprocity ; he gave what they desired, 
 he received what he was in need of. 
 
 The acquaintance of Scrope is strictly limited to those 
 who are calculated to be of service to him. As sure as 
 he attaches himself to any man or family, so sure is it 
 that the victim is worth the bleeding. A young peer 
 has just succeeded to his property; Scrope makes his 
 acquaintance, takes stock of his intellectual attainments, 
 and if he finds him a likely subject to be operated upon, 
 proceeds at once to leech him. Endowed with most of 
 those agreeable qualities which captivate the young, 
 Scrope soon weaves his cobwebs to catch his fly. He 
 flatters the lad about the two points that youth is the 
 most easily gulled the fair sex and horse-flesh. My 
 lord soon fancies himself a perfect lady-killer, and is 
 introduced by Scrope into doubtful society ; and, as a 
 consummate judge of that noble animal the horse, buys 
 from his friend at high prices the refuse of the market. 
 The parasite is generally a good card-player, and Scrope 
 is no exception to the rule. He teaches the young aris- 
 tocrat how to play whist and ecarte, and the subtle beau- 
 ties that are to be found in baccarat, napoleon, and 
 poker. Such lessons are not given, as we are aware, for 
 nothing ; and perhaps most of us have had to pay pretty
 
 324 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 heavily for our knowledge in these matters. I should 
 like to know the extent of the cheques to which many a 
 young peer has scrawled his name and handed over to 
 Scrope as fees for tuition. 
 
 The next move of the parasite is to look after the 
 estates of his victim ; and, if he finds the steward is 
 capable of being corrupted, the two stand in together, 
 and derive no inconsiderable profit from what they are 
 pleased to term the management of the property. During 
 this happy period of suction Scrope has seldom occasion 
 to touch the interest upon his six thousand pounds. 
 His lordship provides him with all that ministers to the 
 wants of man, and as long as such a state of things 
 continues Scrope is perfectly content and supremely 
 loyal. The intimacy, however, seldom lasts for any 
 great length of time. Many causes operate against its 
 duration. The victim gradually finds out, perhaps, that 
 he is being pigeoned, and a rupture takes place ; or he 
 marries, and his wife disapproves of the acquaintance of 
 Mr. Hillingdon ; or his friends interfere ; or he ends by 
 being ruined, when it is the parasite and not the peer 
 who brusquely dissolves partnership. 
 
 Scrope, however, has many irons in the fire, and if 
 one falls out it is soon replaced. To the man of trade 
 whose wife is ambitious of social honours the parasite is 
 a most invaluable friend. He tones down the gaudiness
 
 A PARASITE. 
 
 325 
 
 of the furniture, and alters the suburban look of the ap- 
 pointments of the establishment. He gives little hints 
 as to behaviour and deportment, which are gratefully 
 received. He examines the lady's visiting-list, and freely 
 erases from it. When his lessons have been mastered 
 sufficiently, so that the woman can dress herself without 
 courting ridicule, and the man can behave at dinner 
 without attracting attention, Scrope calls upon his sis- 
 ters and desires them * to be civil to these people.' And 
 those fair dames, knowing that it is to their brother's 
 interest to comply with his request, carry out his instruc- 
 tions to the letter. More than one eminent City lady 
 has entered society through the interest of the female 
 branches of the Hillingdon family in her behalf, and 
 more than one eminent City man has had to pay sub- 
 stantial footing-money to Scrope for the favours thus 
 accorded. 
 
 Scrope is the middle-man between the outside world 
 and the inside world, and, provided you pay his fees, he 
 will do the best he can for you. As there are men in 
 London who will furnish you with cooked dinners, with 
 active waiters, with bands (brass or string), with plate 
 and china, and temporary decorations of all kinds, so 
 Scrope will supply you with guests for your garden-par- 
 ties, celebrities for your dinners, and saltatory youth for 
 your dances, It is like everything else nowadays, only
 
 326 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 a question of arrangement and ready money. If it may 
 be said without offence, I should certainly decline to 
 appoint Scrope Hillingdon as one of my executors; I 
 should not recommend him as a trustee ; there are times 
 when his word might be open to suspicion ; it might be 
 perhaps carrying confidence too far to lend him money ; 
 but if I wanted a garden-party to be a success, or the 
 dresses at a fancy-ball to be noted for their artistic or 
 picturesque character, or a complicated cotillon to be got 
 up, or pleasant people to be collected together and to be 
 amused, or anything of a similar nature, I should with- 
 out hesitation be only too glad to employ the services of 
 Scrope. He is a kind of master of the ceremonies let 
 out for hire. 
 
 Nor is he in this matter different from the rest of the 
 class. One of the oddest features which society nowa- 
 days presents is the calm business-like manner in which 
 certain of its members, without apparent loss of caste, 
 receive money for the display of any accomplishments 
 they may possess. You go to one house, and listen to 
 a young man pleasantly warbling at the piano to a 
 hushed crowd, and your hostess tells you in a whisper 
 that he is very much in request, and that she pays him 
 ten guineas for his three songs. The next evening 
 you are at dinner, and there opposite you is the young 
 man) whom in the simplicity of your heart you regarded
 
 A PARASITE. 327 
 
 as an ordinary professional vocalist, and you find that 
 he is an officer retired from the service, and the nephew 
 of a bishop. At a third house you meet a mediaeval 
 designer ; at a fourth, a comic entertainer ; at a fifth, a 
 reader ; at a sixth, an amateur actor, and so on, all 
 young men of the most irreproachable connections, all 
 ' in society,' and all who receive payment in solid cash 
 for their services. It is difficult in these days to know 
 where the amateur ends and the professional begins. In 
 former times the line of demarcation was very fairly 
 drawn ; he who received payment for his work could no 
 longer dub himself amateur. But now it is notorious 
 that men, who would be much angered if they were 
 considered as professionals, sing at drawing-rooms for 
 money, act at private theatricals for money, give comic 
 or dramatic readings for money, ride indirectly for 
 money, play cricket-matches for money, superintend 
 the decoration of your houses in the most approved style 
 of Gothic art for money ; and soon, I suppose, country 
 gentlemen, who wish to outrival each other in the 
 slaughter they can effect, will have to pay crack shots 
 to walk their moors and enter their preserves; or 
 hostesses, in despair at the absence of good dancers, 
 will have to pay young men to waltz. Fifty years ago 
 such a nondescript state of things would not have 
 been permitted to exist. If a man chose to be a l pro--
 
 328 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 fessional,' he had to work at his career as a profes- 
 sional; if he became celebrated, society was glad to 
 know him ; if he failed to attain distinction, he was lost 
 to his former set. But it would never have been allowed 
 for a man to expect the social advantages of an ama- 
 teur whilst in the enjoyment of the pecuniary rewards 
 of the professional. We in this generation are more 
 liberal ; we permit our young men to serve society and 
 worship Mammon. 
 
 Such being the case, Scrope Hillingdon has carved 
 out for himself a very lucrative career as an amateur 
 master of the ceremonies. To the great and the wealthy, 
 whom he knows, he takes an amazing amount of trouble 
 off their hands. He organises their picnics, superintends 
 all the arrangements at their garden-parties, prompts the 
 nervous and the hesitating at private theatricals, gives 
 instructions as to the dresses to be worn at fancy-balls, 
 makes neat little speeches when circumstances require 
 them ; and, in short, is a kind of general-utility man on 
 the stage of society. Of course he is paid. If the truth 
 Were known, that paternal legacy of six thousand pounds 
 must have swelled itself into quite a splendid array of 
 figures by this time. I cannot say that the course he 
 pursues is either pleasant or highly honourable, but it is 
 eminently prosperous. Young men have entered life 
 under his auspices : some have shunned the rocks ahead,
 
 A PARASITE. 329 
 
 and got safe into port ; others have struck and have 
 foundered: but Scrope Hillingdon, the -wrecker, has 
 managed, ere the bark went down, to secure for himself 
 a goodly portion of the cargo. Wealthy men have been 
 ushered into society through the portieres of his sisters' 
 drawing-rooms ; their ambitious wives have entered upon 
 a reckless career of luxury and display ; ruin has over- 
 taken them ; yet Scrope Hillingdon has made full profit 
 out of the transaction before the servants were dismissed, 
 and the petition in bankruptcy filed. 
 
 As in the days of fable story there were few who 
 crossed the path of the ogre but had to pay for their 
 temerity, so there are few who have fallen in the way of 
 Scrope and have escaped unhurt. He may not have 
 taken their lives, but at least his victims issue from his 
 den torn and maimed. "Why was poor young Fluffe, 
 Lord Downy's eldest son, the gayest Lancer that ever 
 fluttered pennon, hurriedly obliged to send in his papers ? 
 Had Scrope nothing to do with introducing the lad to the 
 money-lenders, and with the history of that card scandal 
 which was the talk of every ante-room in the kingdom ? 
 What made poor old Molasses, that eminent sugar -baker, 
 suspend payment and appear in the Gazette ? Was it 
 not the extravagance of his wife, prompted and encour- 
 aged by Scrope ? and pray how much of that misspent 
 Wealth found its way into Scrope's pocket ? Why did
 
 330 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 young Fitz-Storke have to mortgage the Heron property 
 to the hilt ? Who was the cause of Monty Lascelles 
 having to resign his excellent appointment, and betake 
 himself to cattle-farming at Monte Video ? Who created 
 
 the difference between young Palmer and his father, and 
 who was the real cause why that ill-balanced youth imi- 
 tated the signature of his parent ? Where are Arthur 
 Domville, Eeggie Turner, the ' General,' Jumping Hin- 
 ton, and the rest of that gay crew ? Broke, helplessly
 
 A PARASITE. 331 
 
 broke ! And their ruin, either directly or indirectly, 
 lies at the door of Scrope Hillingdon. 
 
 Naturally there are numerous stories against this 
 plausible gentleman, yet none have been proved in such 
 a satisfactory manner as to justify either society or the 
 committee of his clubs to take cognisance of his proceed- 
 ings. On the contrary, on the few occasions when it 
 has been necessary to make some quiet and unofficial 
 inquiry into certain matters with which Scrope was con- 
 nected, he has come triumphantly out of the investiga- 
 tion, and those who have set it on foot have been made 
 to smart for their suspicions. Still most of us know it 
 bodes little good to the aristocrat or plutocrat who is 
 seen much in his society. How we pity the young men 
 he collects around his luxurious dining- table at the club, 
 who laugh at his stories in the smoking-room, who sit in 
 his box at the theatre, and who are so proud to be seen 
 with a man who knows everybody, and one of whose 
 sisters is a countess of the highest fashion ! Rest assured 
 that a time will come when his victims will find neither 
 his dinners appetising nor his stories amusing, but, when 
 that grave parliament with the family lawyer is held, 
 will curse the day they ever allowed themselves to be 
 dazzled by the brilliancy of the gifts of Scrope Hil- 
 lingdon. 
 
 Of late years this skilful spider has chiefly been con-
 
 332 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 tent with spinning his web in commercial circles. He is 
 just the man the wealthy trader admires. He is a gentle- 
 man by birth, and looks the character ; his manners are 
 perfect, he knows everybody who is worth knowing, 
 
 and he is entirely free from pride. Given a man of un- 
 doubted wealth, and there are few who can surpass 
 Scrope in all the arts of fascination ; to the ordinary 
 mortal he is, however, as a rule, cold and repellent. The 
 plutocrat likes to have Scrope at his house, and to trot
 
 A PARASITE. 333 
 
 him out to the different guests. 'Know that fellow? 
 0, he's a capital chap ! He is a brother of Sir Alured 
 Hillingdon' (occasionally Sir Halured Illingdon), 'and 
 his sister, don't you know, is the wife of that old swell, 
 the Earl of Mountsorrel. 0, he's a great friend of mine ; 
 always here.' And as long as the plutocrat has a large 
 balance at his banker's, a good house over his head, a 
 good cook in his kitchen, curious vintages in his cellar, 
 a well-kept country house, a moor to shoot over, a 
 deer-forest, and perhaps a steam-yacht, Scrope has 
 not the slightest objection to be his 'great friend.' 
 Indeed, he prefers the plutocracy to the aristocracy. 
 ' They think more of one, and they give better dinners,' 
 he says. After a few weeks' acquaintance with Mr. 
 Bullion, the old game begins. ' I suppose you know that 
 Lady Mountsorrel is my sister ?' asks Scrope of his host, 
 as they sit together after dinner. ' 0, of course ; who 
 does not ?' is the reply. c Why, she is one of the most 
 fashionable women in London.' * I was thinking,' says 
 Scrope carelessly, ' of asking her to call upon Mrs. Bul- 
 lion. Your wife would have no objection, I suppose ?' 
 ' Objection, my dear feller ! Why, it's what Mrs. Bul- 
 lion has been badgering me about for the last I mean 
 my wife would take it as a great honour, Mr. Hilling- 
 don, and I should be very much obliged to you. You 
 know Mrs. Bullion is a bit 'igh in her notions.' Then
 
 334 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 the conversation takes the form of business. At the end 
 of a few days the barouche of Lady Mountsorrel appears 
 at the door of Mr. Bullion's mansion ; cards are handed 
 out ; Mrs. Bullion, seated in the gaudiest of chariots 
 drawn by the showiest of horses in the brassiest of har- 
 ness, returns the visit ; and a fortnight afterwards the 
 couple are asked to dinner. Scrope is invited to meet 
 them ; he takes down Mrs. Bullion, and freely introduces 
 her at the reception which his sister afterwards holds. 
 He borrows (that is the polite way of putting it) a loan 
 from Mr. Bullion shortly after this arrangement has been 
 entered into. 
 
 The system of ' promotion by purchase' has been 
 transferred from the ranks of the army to the ranks of 
 society.
 
 AGITATION.
 
 AGITATION. 
 
 THE professional fanner of discontent has at the present 
 day a wide and active career before him. Scarcely a 
 question arises which is not capable of bringing grist to 
 his mill. No matter what be the course proposed by the 
 calm and temperate mind for the solution of surround- 
 ing difficulties, the agitator is equal to the occasion, and 
 can discover flaws in every scheme. In a country like 
 England, where there is great wealth on the one side, 
 and great poverty on the other, where labour and 
 capital, production and want, free-trade and restrictions 
 are ever coming into collision, it is not difficult for the 
 man whose interest it is to sow the seeds of dissension 
 to scatter them broadcast, and to watch the upgrowth of 
 a goodly crop. 
 
 The agitator declines to be satisfied, and can turn 
 the softest answer into bitterness. If we extend the 
 suffrage, we are permitting an ignorant majority to over- 
 awe an educated minority* If we refuse to extend the 
 suffrage, we are allowing a coterie to legislate for the 
 nation, and ignoring the opinions of the masses. If we
 
 338 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 reduce the naval and military estimates, we are enfeebling 
 our position as a great power. If we increase the esti- 
 mates, we are wantonly adding to the taxation of the 
 country. If we take part in the affairs of foreign 
 nations, we are guilty of officious interference. If we 
 hold ourselves aloof, we are conscious of our insigni- 
 ficance. If we consent to arbitration, we are afraid to 
 fight. If we are prepared to maintain our demands by 
 force, we are a blustering bully. If we add new laws to 
 the statute-book, we are harassing the country by over- 
 legislation. If we cease to legislate, we are indifferent 
 to the existence of the grossest abuses. If we advise 
 capital to modify its gains, we are being intimidated by 
 the working classes. If we recommend labour to suc- 
 cumb, we are pandering to the extortions of a grinding 
 plutocracy. Nothing that we do or suggest satisfies 
 the agitator, whose object it is to fan the flames to heat 
 himself. 
 
 Outside the realm of agitation the professional agi- 
 tator has nothing, and has attained to no distinction. 
 Discontent is the atmosphere he breathes, and he lives 
 only by encouraging the passions and prejudices of his 
 followers. He is indifferent to what cause he supports, 
 provided he sees his way to bringing his name before 
 the public, to becoming the agent of the special societies 
 that have been created, and to being handsomely paid
 
 AGITATION. 
 
 for his services. He may pose as the uncompromising 
 defender of Protestant principles, flood the land with 
 offensive literature, and incite mob-riots by the stimu- 
 lating invective of his lectures. He may appear in the 
 garb of a Kitualist, and derive a handsome annuity, 
 thanks to the subscriptions of sympathisers, out of the 
 prosecutions that have been instituted against him. He 
 may stand forth as the fierce denunciator of the wrongs 
 of the working man, and draw a comfortable salary out 
 of the penny contributions of the masses. If there is 
 an explosion underground, he depicts the sufferings of 
 the poor miner, and exposes the indifference of the 
 Government to the welfare of the mining population. 
 If a ship is lost at sea, he dilates upon the scoundrelism 
 of ship-owners, who, provided they obtain their insur- 
 ance, are careless as to the soundness of the craft they 
 overload with cargo, or the safety of the crew they col- 
 lect together. If there is a strike, he sides with the 
 foes of the manufacturer, coal-owner, or agricultural 
 employer. If men, notorious for their political offences, 
 or for their fraudulent practices, are confined in gaol, he 
 takes their part, speaks at indignation meetings, drives 
 in a fly at Sunday processions, and is incessant in peti- 
 tioning the Home Secretary. The aim of his mischievous 
 existence is to be always talked about, to have his name 
 always cropping up in newspapers, and to create, if not
 
 340 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 an anxiety, at least a curiosity, in the mind of the public 
 as to his movements during seasons of crisis and excite- 
 ment. 
 
 The goal that the professional agitator sets before 
 him varies according to his talents, his position in life, 
 and the notoriety he succeeds in obtaining. At the end 
 of a few years, what with contributions, peculations, 
 fees for lecturing, and the sale of pamphlets, he may be 
 able to retire on his ill-gotten gains and quit the trade 
 of agitation for ever. Or he may receive an income 
 from his followers, have his political expenses paid, and 
 enter Parliament. Or it may be the policy of Govern- 
 ment to throw him a sop in the shape of petty office, 
 and silence his barking. But whatever be the prizes of 
 the seditious career that the professional agitator has 
 chosen, of one thing we may be assured, that no sooner 
 has he received the reward that contents him, than he 
 will utterly ignore in the future the advocacy of the 
 cause that has borne him on its tide to success* Of 
 what use is the orange when its contents have been well 
 sucked ? Job knew human nature well when he wrote, 
 ' Doth the wild-ass bray when it hath grass ?' 
 
 There is one man of my acquaintance who, when he 
 finds his way into the Caravanserai, is generally to be 
 seen in the library poring over the pages of Hansard 
 or the file of old newspapers, who on the whole has
 
 AGITATION. 34 j 
 
 not found the profession of agitation either dull or 
 unprosperous. There is no mistaking Bob Koyston for 
 other than he is. Who but a demagogue and the 
 favourite tribune of the people would dare be seen, 
 west of Charing Cross, wearing that low, broad-brimmed, 
 conspirator's-looking hat, and with that huge, ill-folded, 
 faded, green umbrella as a staff for his footsteps ? "Who 
 but an agitator one so absorbed in the miseries of the 
 people as to be heedless of the petits soins of civilisation 
 would wear so rusty and shapeless a coat, so unbut- 
 toned a waistcoat, such terribly curtailed inexpressibles, 
 and such ragged and discoloured linen? "Who but a 
 democrat could knit his features into so severe a frown, 
 and pass his hand through his long untidy locks with 
 such an air of thought, menace, contempt, and ferocity ? 
 "Who but the poor man's advocate could enter the club, 
 and so savagely glare at the luxurious surroundings of 
 the Caravanserai ; at the newspapers stitched and care- 
 fully folded for perusal ; at the oil-lamps giving a soft 
 subdued light ; at the sofas and easy-chairs, so sugges- 
 tive of conversation, repose, or slumber ; at the attentive 
 gentle-footed waiters, wearing the plush and stockings of 
 servitude; at the hush and quiet of well-disciplined 
 arrangements? He says, as plainly as face can speak 
 without words, ' Ye Sybarites, ye pampered scions of a 
 one-sided state of creation, why are ye revelling in
 
 342 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 luxury and in all the refinements of the most selfish 
 civilisation, whilst yonder, outside these walls, are the 
 bitterest misery, the most grinding poverty, the basest 
 crime ? Arouse ye out of your sloth, and come out and 
 
 help us !' And who but the agitator, born to be obeyed 
 by his followers, to be listened to with deference, and to 
 be enveloped in the incense of homage and flattery, 
 could so bully the waiters who have to attend upon his 
 orders could so rudely crush conversation by the intro-
 
 AGITATION, 343 
 
 cluction of argument could be so arrogant, offensive, 
 and generally disagreeable ? 
 
 There is in all that Eoyston does that charming 
 suavity of the Eepublican who considers rudeness a 
 proof of independence, and that good manners and ser- 
 vility necessarily go hand in hand together. He talks 
 in a loud voice, as if he were addressing a meeting ; he 
 snatches a newspaper from your knee without apology ; 
 he jostles you on one side as he enters the room ; he 
 breathes hard as he writes his letters; he opens the 
 window when the wind is in the east ; he disturbs the 
 silence of the library by his snores, and the waiters dare 
 not awake him; he eats like a German, and drinks 
 spirits-and-water like an exciseman. He is one of the 
 most objectionable men in the club, yet neither the club 
 nor the committee can turn him out. Ah, if clubs could 
 only treat offensive persons as they do bankrupts, how 
 much more pleasant those institutions would become ! 
 But, then, who are to decide as to the offensive people ? 
 We might have a club which would winnow its members 
 till none were left. 
 
 Yet there was a time when Eoyston was deemed a 
 good fellow, and no one who knew him in the days of 
 his youth would have imagined that he would have de- 
 veloped into the turbulent truculent man he now is. At 
 Winchester he was a popular captain of the school, and
 
 344 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 when he went up to New, his rooms, owing to his musi- 
 cal talents and the liberality of his festivities, were 
 among the most frequented in the University. It was 
 only when he quitted Oxford, and after several years 
 passed in obscurity at the Bar, that he began to pose as 
 the people's friend and the enemy of his own class. As 
 so often happens to men who have attained to distinction 
 or to notoriety, a purely accidental circumstance made 
 him create the character he now plays with such success 
 upon life's stage. How chance fashions the careers of 
 men ! Had Smeaton been articled to an attorney, 
 would the world ever have heard of him? Had Eousseau 
 taken his seat at the paternal cobbler's stall, should we 
 have had the Confessions and Emile ? Had Hume gone 
 into trade, would our literature have been enriched with 
 his History ? Had Turner remained a barber, would he 
 have been handed down to posterity as the Shakespeare 
 of English landscape-painters? Had Lord Eldon be- 
 taken himself to coals instead of to Coke upon Littleton, 
 would he ever have raised himself above the ruck of 
 mankind ? Had the great Thesiger remained in the navy, 
 should we ever have heard of his name ? And if Koy- 
 ston had not been engaged as counsel in a leading case, 
 would he ever have achieved notoriety and developed 
 into a mob-hero? Fortune in one of her freaks made 
 him what he is, and transformed him from what he was.
 
 AGITATION. 
 
 345 
 
 There is no necessity to enter into the details of the 
 famous trial which a few years ago was the talk of the 
 country, and still occupies a prominent place among our 
 causes celebres. A Eoman Catholic peer had succeeded 
 in forcing his orphan niece, to whom he was guardian, 
 to be converted from Protestantism, to place her fortune 
 in his hands, and to enter a convent. The friends of 
 the lady interfered, and, on discovering that the young 
 woman had acted under severe pressure in alienating 
 her property and in changing her religion, demanded 
 her release, and the restoration of her estates. His 
 lordship, however, denied the facts brought against him, 
 and declined to return a single acre of what he was 
 pleased to term 'the free and spontaneous gift of his 
 niece.' The case came into court, and Eoyston held a 
 brief as counsel for the young lady. As luck would 
 have it, his leader became so gravely indisposed during 
 the proceedings that almost the whole onus of the trial 
 devolved upon the junior. Eoyston saw his opportunity, 
 embraced it, and became famous. The case had all 
 those elements which appeal to the passions and preju- 
 dices of the multitude. The oppressor was a peer, a 
 man of wealth, and a Papist ; the victim was a young 
 and pretty woman, compelled to abjure her religion, and 
 to be immured against her will in that ecclesiastical 
 prison, a convent. Fierce were the denunciations of
 
 546 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 Boyston against the avarice and inutility of an aristo- 
 cracy, against the inhumanity of the defendant, and the 
 diabolical nature of the machinery of the Eomish Church 
 when it was once set in motion to crush a helpless 
 victim ! With what keenness he cross-examined the 
 Eoman Catholic bishops and monsignors and lady-supe- 
 riors and nuns that appeared in the witness-box, and 
 how terrible was his invective when he commented upon 
 their proceedings ! How eloquently he discoursed upon 
 the virtues of the plaintiff, her miseries, her sufferings, 
 and the tyranny of her protector, who had robbed her 
 of her property, and alienated her from those of her 
 religion ! 
 
 The trial was eagerly watched by the public. All 
 classes of society were interested in it, and the court 
 was densely crowded throughout the proceedings. The 
 newspapers took the matter up, and their columns were 
 filled with verbatim reports of each day's doings. Sel- 
 dom had a barrister such an opportunity, and Eoyston 
 made the most of it. He was the idol of the hour, and 
 both when he entered and took his departure from 
 "Westminster Hall he was vociferously cheered by an ad- 
 miring crowd. When the verdict of the jury was given 
 in favour of his fair client the enthusiasm of the mob 
 knew no bounds; they applauded in open court, they 
 surrounded Eoyston as he entered his brougham, and if
 
 AGITATION. 347 
 
 the police had not interfered they would have taken the 
 job-horses out and drawn the carriage themselves. 
 
 Before that memorable trial Koyston was unknown ; 
 after it not a hamlet in the country but was familiar 
 with his name. Suddenly, without preparation, and 
 almost in spite of himself, the barrister had created a 
 role which he felt henceforth he must always act. Be- 
 fore the trial he had been welcome in society ; he had, 
 as a gentleman, lived amongst gentlemen, and he had 
 entertained the views and sentiments of the class to 
 which he, by birth, belonged. All was now changed. 
 Carried away by the homage of the mob, he had, during 
 the trial, identified himself with the people; he had 
 uttered sentiments which he knew would be popular 
 with the crowd ; he had inveighed against the govern- 
 ing classes, against the inequality in the distribution of 
 wealth, against the absorption of the land by a pleasure- 
 seeking aristocracy, against the Eomish Church, and 
 much that he had said against the Church of Eome was 
 applicable to the Church of England. Yet whilst in- 
 dulging in these diatribes against the upper classes he 
 had pandered to the vanity and the discontent of the 
 mob, by applauding all their actions and sympathising 
 with all their grievances. 
 
 There was now no alternative but for him to continue 
 as he had begun. He had insulted society, and the
 
 343 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 polite world looked askant at him ; his former friends 
 shunned him as a political mischief-maker ; save one or 
 two very advanced Eadicals, he was cut by all who had 
 once known him, Indifferent to all slights, Eoyston 
 
 threw in his lot with the most mischievous of the lower 
 orders with the men who will agitate, but who will 
 not work. By these he was most cordially welcomed. 
 He was on the committees of all their societies for the 
 equalisation of mankind and the destruction of capital.
 
 AGITATION. 349 
 
 In all their differences lie was appointed their arbitrator. 
 He was the favourite speaker at all their meetings. A 
 newspaper called the Red Banner was especially started 
 to report his speeches, and to convey his opinions to the 
 multitude. Whenever an agitation deputation no 
 matter what was the cause of the agitation waited 
 upon the Home Secretary or other Minister, Eoyston 
 was the spokesman. The mob, whatever be its faults, 
 is seldom fickle in its loyalty to its own favourites ; 
 come weal or woe, through pleasure or persecution, in 
 storm or sunshine, the fervent ignorant crowd declines 
 to be laughed out of its sympathies, or to depose the 
 idols it has once set up. Politicians, newspapers, re- 
 views, priests, dandies, might sneer at Eoyston, but his 
 unwashed adherents never doubted his judgment or 
 deserted his standard. In all strikes, lock-outs, and 
 agricultural differences, his opinion was the first asked 
 and the first followed. 
 
 The forensic career presents numerous phases of ex- 
 istence. There is the barrister who wins a name as a 
 brilliant lawyer, who enters Parliament, who becomes 
 one of the law-advisers of the Crown, and who ends by 
 gaining the great prizes of his profession. There is the 
 barrister who, as the son of a solicitor or as the husband 
 of the daughter of a solicitor, finds himself at once the 
 master of a lucrative practice, and though he may never
 
 350 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 have been heard of by the public outside, yet he is not the 
 least amongst the luminaries of his calling. There is 
 the barrister who, despairing of solicitors' visits, be- 
 takes himself to the cheaper but readier rewards of 
 journalism. There is the barrister, generally the son of 
 a retired tradesman, who is called to the Bar because 
 he thinks it will give him the * position of a gentle- 
 man.' There is the barrister, the heir to a good estate, 
 who attaches himself to one of the Inns of Court, not 
 with any intention of practising, but because a study of 
 the law will be of service to him when he takes his seat 
 amongst his brother magistrates. And there is the 
 barrister who commands a large business in the lower 
 walks of his profession, who is not held in much esteem 
 'by his fellows of the long robe, and who has as much 
 chance of obtaining ' silk' or of being raised to the bench 
 as a bottle of Tarragon vinegar has of developing into 
 '47 port. 
 
 To this last class belongs Bob Eoyston. One of the 
 results of his appearing in the character of the people's 
 friend, and of posing as the enemy of the privileged 
 classes, was gradually to turn his business from the 
 civil into the criminal channeL Many barristers have 
 begun at the Old Bailey, and have ended as the most 
 respectable of Westminster HalL Eoyston has reversed 
 the process. He made his name at "Westminster, and
 
 AGITATION. 
 
 351 
 
 he is now one of the pillars of the criminal law east 
 of Temple Bar. In all cases where the proletariat have 
 struggled against their masters, or rank or wealth has 
 been guilty of misconduct, he is engaged as counsel 
 
 in the first instance to defend the poor, in the second 
 to expose the rich. Is a tenant of a small holding 
 at war with his powerful landlord, the Agricultural 
 Union comes to the defence, and Eoyston enters the 
 arena of justice as the peasant's friend. Is a sailor uu-
 
 352 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 justly treated by his captain on a long voyage, Eoyston 
 is just the man to deal with the ease, and to attribute 
 all the blame to the commander and none to the hand. 
 Is labour fighting against the compromises of capital, 
 Eoyston is the upholder of trades-unionism, and bids the 
 working man not yield a jot of his demands. Is the 
 directorate of a bank accused of defrauding its share- 
 holders, and of robbing the widow and the fatherless, 
 who more severe against a grasping and unscrupulous 
 plutocracy than Royston ? Has a wild Irishman been 
 imprisoned for treasonable practices, who can better de- 
 fend him than the turbulent demagogue? In all 
 election disputes, how scathing are the comments of 
 Royston upon the bribery and corruption practised by 
 the rich ! To hear him, one would think that honour, 
 virtue, patriotism, and fair dealing were only on the 
 side of the lower orders. 
 
 Royston is an excellent type of the Old Bailey law- 
 yer of the last generation. He has a power of coarse 
 eloquence ; a bullying manner of cross-examination ; a 
 loud overbearing voice ; a face capable of all the ex^ 
 pressions of scorn, hate, contempt, and ridicule, which 
 would have made him the bosom friend of Judge 
 Jeffreys. Witnesses have fainted in the box at the mere 
 look of the man. Judges stand somewhat in awe of 
 him, and dislike differing from him or interrupting him,
 
 AGITATION. 
 
 353 
 
 Jurymen have been days before the sounds of his grating 
 boisterous voice have ceased to buzz in their ears. The 
 fellow knows his power, and does not scruple to use 
 it. Fear him, and he will domineer over you to the 
 last; but brave his furious glances, meet him as he 
 meets you, show him that you are not to be intimidated, 
 and he will cringe and fawn and be as submissive as 
 a whipped hound. Still it must be admitted that it 
 is only a few who are prepared to oppose him. It is not 
 given to everybody to possess the peculiar qualities 
 which subdue the bully, though no man yields sooner 
 than he. 
 
 The aim of Royston, like that of most men who live 
 by agitation, is to enter Parliament ; but as yet he has 
 been uniformly unsuccessful. In spite of the eulogiums 
 of his newspapers, of the efforts of his itinerant lec- 
 turers, and of his obtruding himself, whenever an occa- 
 sion offers, as the working man's candidate, he has 
 never yet headed the poll. "Why he should have been 
 so systematically rejected, it is difficult for me to under- 
 stand. He is the friend of the working man; the 
 working man pays all his election expenses ; the work- 
 ing man quotes him as an infallible authority; the 
 working man adds largely to the agitator's income by 
 paying him to serve on committees and to look after his 
 interests ; yet Eoyston has stood for boroughs where the 
 
 AA
 
 354 
 
 CLUB CAMEOS. 
 
 votes of the working classes should have carried the day, 
 but has not been elected. His political principles are 
 elastic enough for any shire or borough in the country. 
 He is an independent Liberal, or, in other words, inde- 
 
 pendent of his party when it declines to do anything 
 for him, but dependent enough when he fancies he per- 
 ceives rewards in the distance. 
 
 It is amusing t& watch Eoyston shift and veer and 
 trim his sails to catch every breeze that blows from
 
 AGITATION. 355 
 
 high quarters, when he thinks he has the chance of 
 being appointed a judge of county courts, or of con- 
 quering the prejudices of the Lord Chancellor against 
 admitting him within the bar. Eoyston is a very clever 
 man, well read in law, and enjoys the reputation, among 
 certain classes, of being a sound Protestant, a great 
 philanthropist, and a perfect Cato where loyalty to his 
 principles is concerned ; yet I should be very sorry to 
 place much faith either in his honour or integrity where 
 a conflict had to ensue between his principles and his 
 interests. The latter, I think, would win easily, and 
 there would be little market for the former. Still, pro- 
 fession is a great thing. People are too indolent or too 
 timid to judge for themselves, and to have the courage 
 of their opinions ; and hence, what a man calls himself, 
 the world generally ends by accepting and acknowledging. 
 Eoyston is the working man's friend, though it seems 
 to me, considering the amount of business the working 
 man brings to Eoyston, the name is somewhat of a mis- 
 nomer; it is the working man who is the friend of 
 the agitator, not the agitator who is the friend of the 
 working man. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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