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ILLINOIS

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

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2015THACKERAYThe Superior Library

The
Book of Snobs

By

One of Themselves

THE SUPERIOR PRINTING COMPANY

AKRON, OHIOTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.*

BY ONE OF THEMSELVES.

PREFATORY REMARKS.

fTke necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved by feiioi-
; i*tows illustrations—I am the individual destined to write that work—My vocation is
^ announced in terms of great eloquence~I show that the world has been gradually pre-
paring itself for the Work and the Man—Snobs are to be studied like other objects of
•""? Natural Science, and are a part of the Beautiful (with a large B)—They pervade att
" classes—Affecting instance of Colonel Snobley.]

^ We have all read a statement (the authenticity of which I
^ take leave to doubt entirely, for upon what calculations I
" should like to know is it founded?)—we have all, I say, bees
^favored by perusing a remark that when the times and neces-
^ sities of the world call for a Man, that individual is found.
— Thus, at the French Revolution (which the reader will be
g, pleased to have introduced so early), when it was requisite to
® administer a corrective dose to the nation, Robespierre was
^ found, a most foul and nauseous dose indeed, and swallowed
5 eagerly by the patient, greatly to the latter's ultimate advan-
ErJ tage; thus, when it became necessary to kick John Bull out
^of America, Mr. Washington stepped forward, and performed
^ that job to satisfaction; thus, when the Earl of Aldborough was
^ unwell, Professor Holloway appeared with his pills, and cure^S
his lordship, as per advertisement, etc., etc. Numberless in-'
*-« stances might be adduced to show that when a nation is in
2 great want, the relief is at hand; just as in the Pantomime
(that microcosm), where when Clown wants anything—a
^warming pan, a pump handle, a goose, or a lady's tippet—a

* The genus 'Snob*»formed the subject of the earliest of Mr. Thackeray's studies
of character. When he was an undergraduate of Cambridge, in 1829, there appeared an
N unpretending little weekly periodical entitled The Snob: a Literary and Scientific
ro Journal, not " conducted by members of the University," to which Mr. Thackeray was
m contributor ; and it probably owed its name and existence to him. Each number con-
^*tained only six pages, of a small octavo size, printed on tinted paper of different colors,
yl green, pink, and yellow ; and, as if to complete the eccentricity of the periodical, its
price was twopence-halfpenny. The Snob had but a short life, only eleven numbers
tiaving been published ; the first being dated April 9, 1839, and the last, June 18 of the
r -i same year.

.-j In those contributions which appear to have been written by Mr. Thackeray, indica-
. .tvons are discernible of the fine satiric humor with which he ridiculed vulgarity and
r"3> pretensions in 'The Book of Saobs.* But as the Publishers believe that the {Author
would not himseif hafre wished such fugitive papers, hastily thrown off in sport for bis
own amusement, at an early period of nis life, to be republished, none of them hav%
been included in tkii£voUime.9	THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

fellow comes sauntering out from behind the side scenes with
the very article in question.

Again, when men commence an undertaking, they always
are prepared to show that the absolute necessities of the world
demanded its completion. Say it is a railroad; the directors
begin by stating that 'A more intimate communication be-
tween Bathershins and Derrynane Beg is necessary for the
advancement of civilization, and demanded by the multitu-
dinous acclamations of the great Irish people.' Or suppose it
is a newspaper; the prospectus states that 'At a time when the
Church is in danger, threatened from without by savage fan-
aticism and miscreant unbelief, and undermined from within
by dangerous Jesuitism and suicidal Schism, a Want has been
universally felt—a suffering people has looked abroad—for an
Ecclesiastical Champion and Guardian. A body of Prelates
and Gentlemen have therefore stepped forward in this our hour
of danger, and determined on establishing the Beadle news-
paper,' etc., etc. One or other of these points at least is in-
controvertible : the public wants a thing, therefore it is sup-
plied with it; or the public is supplied with a thing, therefore
it wants it.

I have long gone about with a conviction on my mind that
I had a work to do—a Work, if you like, with a great W; a
Purpose to fulfill; a chasm to leap into, like Curtius, horse &
foot; a Great Social Evil to Discover and to Remedy. That
Conviction Has Pursued me for Years. It has Dogged me in
the Busy Street; Seated Itself By Me in The Lonely Study;
Jogged My Elbow as it Lifted The Wine-cup at The Festive
Board; Pursued me through the Maze of Rotten Row; Fol-
lowed me in Far Lands. On Brighton's Shingly Beach, or
Margate's Sand, the Voice Outpiped the Roaring of the Sea;
it Nestles in my Nightcap, and It Whispers, 4 Wake, Slum-
berer, thy Work Is Not Yet Done.' Last Year, By Moon-
light, in the Colosseum, the Little Sedulous Voice Came To
Me and Said,6Smith or Jones (The Writer's Name is Neither
Here nor There), Smith or Jones, my fine fellow, this is all
very well, but you ought to be at home writing your great
work on SNOBS.'

When a man has this sort of vocation it is all nonsense at-
tempting to elude it. He must speak out to the nations; he
must unbusm himself, as Jeames would say, or choke and die.
'Mark to yourself,' I have often mentally exclaimed to your
humble servant, 'the gradual way in which you have been pre-
pared for, and are now led by an irresistible necessity to enterTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

8

upon your great labor. First, the World was made; then, as
a matter of course, Snobs; they existed for years and years,
and were no more known than America. But presently—
ingens patebat tellus—the people become darkly aware that
there was such a race. Not above five-and-twenty years since,
a name, an expressive monosyllable, arose to designate that
race. That na-me has spread over England like railroads sub-
sequently; Snobs are known and recognized throughout an
Empire on which I am given to understand the Sun never sets.
Punch appears at the ripe season, to chronicle their history^
and the individual comes forth to write that history inPunchS*

I have (and for this gift I congratulate myself with a Deep
and Abiding Thankfulness) an eye for a Snob. If the Truthful
is the Beautiful it is Beautiful to study even the Snobbish; to
track Snobs through history, as certain little dogs in Hamp-
shire hunt out truffles; to sink shafts in society and come upon
rich veins of Snob-ore. Snobbishness is like Death in a quo-
tation from Horace, which I hope you never have heard, Seat-
ing with equal foot at poor men's doors, and kicking at the
gates of Emperors.' It is a great mistake to judge of Snobs
lightly, and think they exist among the lower classes merely.
An immense percentage of Snobs, I believe, is to be found
in every rank of this mortal life. You must not judge hastily
or vulgarly of Snobs; to do so shows that you are yourself a
Snob. I myself have been taken for one.

When I was taking the waters at Bagnigge Wells, and liv-
ing at the Imperial Hotel there, there used to sit opposite me
at breakfast, for a short time, a Snob so insufferable that I
felt I should never get any benefit of the waters so long as he
remained. His name was Lieutenant-Colonel Snobley, of a
certain dragoon regiment. He wore japanned boots and mus-
taches; he lisped, drawled, and left the r's out of his words;
he was always flourishing about, and smoothing his lacquered
whiskers with a huge flaming bandanna, that filled the room
with an odor of musk so stifling that I determined to do battle
with that Snob, and that either he or I should quit the Inn.
I first began harmless conversations with him, frightening
him exceedingly, for he did not know what to do when so
attacked, and had never the slightest notion that anybody
would take such a liberty with him as to speak first; then I
handed him- the paper; then, as he would take no notice of
these advances, I used to look him in the face steadily and—
and use my fork in the light of a toothpick. After two morn*

* These papers were originally published in that popular periodical.4

the book of snobs.

ings of this practice, he could bear it no longer, and fairly
quitted the place.

Should the Colonel see this, will he remember the Gent who
asked him if he thought Publicoaler was a fine writer, and
drove him from the Hotel with a four-pronged fork?

CHAPTER I.

the snob playfully dealt with.

There are relative and postive.Snobs. I mean by positive,
such persons as are Snobs everywhere in all companies from
morning till night, from youth to the grave, being by Nature
endowed with Snobbishness—and others who are Snobs only
in certain circumstances and relations of life.

For instance: I once knew a man who committed before me
an act as atrocious as that which I have indicated in the last
ehapter as performed by me for the purpose of disgusting
Colonel Snobley; viz., the using the fork in the guise of atooth-
piok. I once, 1 say, knew a man who, dining in my company
at the Europa Coffeehouse (opposite the Grand Opera, and, as
everybody knows, the only decent place for dining at Naples),
ate peas with the assistance of his knife. He was a person
with whose society I was greatly pleased at firBt—indeed, we
had met in the crater of Mount Vesuvius, and were subse-
quently robbed and held to ransom by brigands in Calabria,
which is nothing to the purpose—a man of great powers, ex-
cellent heart, and varied information; but I had never before
seen him with a dish of peas, and his conduct in regard to
them caused me the deepest pain.

After having seen him thus publicly comport himself, but
one course was open to me—to cut his acquaintance. I com-
missioned a mutual friend (the Honorable Poly Anthus) to
break the matter to his gentleman as delicately as possible, and
to say that painful circumstances—in no wise affecting Mr.
Marrowfat's honor, or my esteem for him—had occurred which
obliged me to forego my intimacy with him, and accordingly
we met, and gave each other the cut direct that night at the
Duchess of Monte Fiasco's ball.

Everybody at Naples remarked the separation of the Damon
and Pythias—indeed Marrowfat had saved my life more than
once—but, as an English gentleman, what was I to do?

My dear friend was, in this instance, the Snob relative. It
is »ot snobbish of persons of rank of any other nation to em-
ploy their knife in the manner alluded to. I have seen MonteTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

5

Fiasco clean his trencher with his knife, and every Principe
in company doing likewise. I have seen, at the hospitable
board of H. I. H. the Grand Duchess Stephanie- of Baden
(who, if these humble lines should come under her Imperial
eyes, is besought to remember graciously the most devoted
of her servants)—I have seen, I say, the Hereditary Princess
of Potztausend-Donnerwetter(that serenely beautiful woman)
use her knife in lieu of a fork or spoon; I have seen her almost
swallow it, by Jove! like Ramo Samee, the Indian juggler.
And did I blench? Did my estimation for the Princess di-
minish ? No, lovely Amelia! One of the truest passions that
ever was inspired by woman was raised in this bosom by that
lady. Beautiful one! long, long may the knife carry food to
those lips—the reddest and loveliest in the world!

The cause of my quarrel with Marrowfat I never breathed
to mortal soul for four years. We met in the halls of the
aristocracy—our friends and relatives. We jostled each other
in the dance or at the board; but the estrangement continued,
and seemed irrevocable, until the 4th of June, last year.

We meet at Sir George Golloper's. We were placed, he
on the right, your humble servant on the left of the admirable
Lady G. Peas formed part of the banquet—ducks and1 green
peas. I trembled as I saw Marrowfat helped, and turned
away sickening, lest I should behold the weapon darting down
his horrid jaws.

What was my astonishment, what my delight, when I saw
him use his fork like any other Christian! He did not admin-
ister the cold steel once. Old times rushed back upon me—
the remembrance of old services—his rescuing me from the
brigands—his gallant conduct in the affair with the Countess
Dei Spinachi—his lending me the £1100. I almost burst into
tears with joy—my voice trembled with emotion. iGeorge,
my boy!' I exclaimed, 'George Marrowfat, my dear fellow!
a glass of wine !'

Blushing—deeply moved—almost as tremulous as I was my-
self, George answered, 4Frank, shall it be hock or MadeiraV
I could have hugged him to my heart but for the presence of
the company. Little did Lady Golloper know what was the
cause of the emotion which sent the duckling I was carving
into her ladyship's pink satin lap. The most good-natured of
women pardoned the error, and the butler removed the bird.

We have been the closest friends ever since, nor, of course,
has George repeated his odious habit. He acquired it at a
country school, where they cultivated peas and only used6

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

two-pronged forks, and it was only by living on the conti-
nent, where the usage of the four-prong is general, that he
lost the horrible custom.

In this point—and in this only—I confess myself a member
of the Silver-Fork School; and if this tale but induce one of
my readers to pause, to examine in his own mind solemnly,
and ask, 'Do I or do I not eat peas with a knife?'—to see
the ruin which may fall upon himself by continuing the prac-
tice, or his family by beholding the example, these lines will
not have been written in vain. And now, whatever other
authors may be, I flatter myself it will be allowed that I9 at
least, am a moral man.

By the way, as some readers are dull of comprehension, I
may as well say what the moral of this history is. The.moral
is this: Society having ordained certain customs,men are bound
to obey the law of society, and conform to its harmless orders.

If I should go to the British and Foreign Institute (and
Heaven forbid I should go under any pretext or in any costume
whatever)—if I should go to one of the tea parties in a dress-
ing gown and slippers, and not in the usual attire of a gentle-
man, viz., pumps, a gold waistcoat, a crush hat, a sham frill,
and a white chpker—I should be insulting society, and eating
peas with my fanife. Let the porters of the Institute hustle
out the individual who shall so offend. Such an offender is,
as regards society, a most emphatical and refractory Snob.
It has its code and police as well as governments, and he must
conform who would profit by the deerees set forth for their
common comfort.	%

I am naturally averse to egotism, and hate self-laudation
consumedly; but I can't help relating here a circumstance
illustrative of the point in question, in which I must think I
acted with considerable prudence.

Being at Constantinople a few years since (on a delicate
mission)-—the Russians were playing a double game, between
ourselves, and it became necessary on our part to employ an
extra negotiator—Leckerbiss Pasha of Roumelia, then Chief
Galeongee of the Porte, gave a diplomatic banquet at his
summer palace at Bujukdere. I was on the left of the Gale-
ongee, and the Russian agent, Count de Diddloff, on his dexter
side. Diddloff is a dandy who would die of a rose in aro-
matic pain; he had tried to have me assassinated three times
in the course of the negotiation; but of course we were friends
in public, and saluted each other in the most cordial and
charming manner.THIS BOOK OF SNOBS.

1

The Galeongee is—or was, alas ! for a bowstring has done
for him—a stanch supporter of the old school of Turkish
politics. We dined with our fingers, and had flaps of bread
for plates; the only innovation he admitted was the use of
European liquors, in which he indulged with great gusto. IJe
was an enoromus eater. Among the dishes a very large one
was placed before him of a lamb dressed in its wool, stuffed
with prunes, garlic, asafetida, capsicums, and other condi-
ments, the most abominable mixture that ever mortal smelt or
tasted. The Galeongee ate of this hugely; and pursuing the
Eastern fashion, insisted on helping his friends right and left,
and when he came to a particularly spicy morsel, would push
it with his own hands into his guests' very mouths.

I never shall forget the look of poor Diddloff when his Ex-
cellency, rolling up a large quantity of this into a ball and
exclaiming, 'Buk Buk' (it is very good), administered the
horrible bolus to Diddloff. The Russian's eyes rolled dread-
fully as he received it; he swallowed it with a grimace that I
thought must precede a convulsion, and seizing a bottle next
him, which he thought was Sauterne, but which turned out
to be French brandy, he drank off nearly a pint before he knew
his error. It finished him; he was carried away from the
dining room almost dead, and laid out to cool in a summer-
house on the Bosphorus.

When it came to my turn I took down the condiment with
a smile, said 'Bismillah,' licked my lips with easy gratifica-
tion, and when the next dish was served, made up a ball my-
self so dexterously, and popped it down the old Galeongee's
mouth with so much grace that his heart was won. Russia
was put out of court at once, and the treaty of Kabobanople
was signed. As for Diddloff, all was over with him; he was
recalled to St. Petersburg, and Sijr Roderick Murchison saw
him, under the number 3967, working in the Ural mines.

The moral of this tale, I need not say, is that there are
many disagreeable things in society which you are bound to
take down, and to do so with a smiling face.

CHAPTER II.

THE SNOB ROYAL.

Long since, at the commencement of the reign of her
present Gracious Majesty, it chanced 6 on a fair summer even-
ing,' as Mr. James would say, that three or four young cava--
liers were drinking a cup of wine after dinner at the hostelry8

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

called the King's Arms, kept by Mistress Anderson, in the
royal village of Kensington. 'Twas a balmy evening, and
the wayfarers looked out on a cheerful scene. The tall elms
of the ancient gardens were in full leaf, and countless chariots
of the nobility of England whirled by to the neighboring pal-
ace, where princely Sussex (whose income latterly only allowed
him to give tea parties) entertained his royal niece at a state
banquet. When the caroches of the nobles had set down their
owners at the banquet hall, their varlets and servitors came to
quaff a flagon of nut-brown ale in the King's Arms gardens
hard by. We watched these fellows from our lattice. By
St. Boniface 'twas a rare sight!

The tulips in Mynheer Van Dunck's gardens were not more
gorgeous than the liveries of these pie-coated retainers. All
the flowers of the field bloomed in their ruffled bosoms, all
the hues of the rainbow gleamed in their plush breeches, and
the long-caned ones walked up and down the garden with that
charming solemnity, that delightful quivering swagger of the
calves, which has always had a frantic fascination for us. The
walk was not wide enough for them as the shoulder knots
strutted up and down it in canary and crimson and light blue.

Suddenly, in the midst of their pride, a little bell was rung,
a side door opened, and (after setting down their Royal Mis-
tress) her Majesty's own crimson footmen, with epaulets and
black plushes, came in.

It was pitiable to see the other poor Johns slink off at this
arrival. Not one of the honest private Plushes could stand
up before the Royal Flunkeys! They left the walk; they
sneaked into dark holes and drank their beer in silence. The
Royal Plush kept possessionof the garden until the Royal Plush
dinner was announced, when it retired, and we heard from the
pavilion where they dined conservative cheers and speeches
and Kentish fires. The other Flunkeys we never saw more.

My dear Flunkeys, so absurdly conceited at one moment
and so abject at the next, are but the types of their masters
in this world. ^ He who meanly admires mean things is a
Snob—perhaps liliatrisITsafe definition of the character.

And this is why I have, with the utmost respect, ventured
to place the Snob Royal at the head of my list, causing all
others to give way before him, as the Flunkeys before the
royal representative in Kensington Gardens. To say of such
and «uch a Gracious Sovereign that he is a Snob is but to say
that his Majesty is a man. Kings, too, are men and Snobs.
In a- country where Snobs are in the majority, a prime one,THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

0

eurely, cannot be unfit to govern. With us fchey have suc-
ceeded to admiration.

For instance, James I. was a Snob, and a Scoteh Snob, than
which the world contains no more offensive creature. He
appears to have had not one of the good qualities of a man—
neither courage nor generosity nor honesty nor brains; but
read what the great Divines and Doctors of England said
about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not a
Snob; while Louis XIV., his old squaretoes of a contemporary,
—the great worshiper of Bigwiggery,—has always struck me
as a most undoubted and Royal Snob.

I will not, however, take instances from our own country
of Royal Snobs, but refer to a neighboring kingdom, that of
Brentford—and its monarch, the late great and lamented Gor-
gius IV. With the same humility with which the footmen at
the King's Arms gave way before the Plush Royal, the aris-
tocracy of the Brentford nation bent down and truckled before
Gorgius, and proclaimed him the first gentleman in Europe.
And it's a wonder to think what is the gentlefolks' opinion of
a gentleman when they gave Gorgius such a title.

What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be
gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing
all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful out-
ward manner? Ought a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true
husband, and honest father? Ought his life to be decent—-
his bills to be paid—his tastes to be high and elegant—his
aims in life lofty and noble? In a word, ought not the Biog-
raphy of a First Gentleman in Europe to be of such a nature
that it might be read in Young Ladies' Schools with advan-
tage, and studied with profit in the Seminaries of Young Gen-
tlemen? I put this question to all instructors of youth—to
Mrs. Ellis and the Women of England; to all schoolmasters
from Dr. Hawtrey down to Mr. Squeers. I conjure up before
me an awful tribunal of youth and innocence, attended by its
venerable instructors (like the ten thousand red-cheeked
charity children in St\ Paul's), sitting in judgment, and Gor-
gius pleading his cause in the midst. Out of Court, out of
Court, fat old Florizel! Beadles, turn out that bloated, pimple-
faced man! If Gorgius must have a statue in the new Palace
which the Brentford nation is building, it ought to be get up
in the Flunkeys' Hall. He should be represented cutting out
a coat, in which art he is said to bave excelled. He also in-
vented maraschino punch, a shoe-buckle (this was in the vigor
of hie youth, and the prime force of his invention), and a10

t&e book of snobs.

Chinese pavilion, the most hideous building in the world. He
could drive a four-in-hand very nearly as well as the Brighton
coachman, could fence elegantly, and, it is said, played the
fiddle well. And he smiled with such irresistible fascination
that persons who were introduced into his august presence
became his victims, body and soul, as a rabbit becomes the prey
of a great big boa-constrictor.

I would wager that if Mr. Widdicomb were, by a revolution,
placed on the throne of Brentford, people would be equally
fascinated by his irresistibly majestic smile, and tremble as
they knelt down to kiss his hand. If he went to Dublin they
would erect an obelisk on the spot where he first landed, as
the Paddy landers did when Gorgius visited them. We have
all of us read with delight that story of the King's voyage to
Haggisland, where his presence inspired such a fury of loyalty;
and where the most famous man of the country—the Baron of
Bradwardine—coming on board the royal yacht, and finding a
glass out of which Gorgius had drunk, put it into his coat pocket
as an inestimable relic, and went ashore in his boat again. But
the Baron sat down upon the glass and broke it, and cut his coat
tails very much; and the inestimable relic was lost to the world
forever. Oh, noble Bradwardine! What old-world super-
stition could set you on your knees before such an idol as that?

If you want to moralize upon the mutability of human affairs
go and see the figure of Gorgius in his real, identical robes,
at the waxwork. Admittance one shilling. Children and
flunkeys sixpence. Go, and pay sixpence.

CHAPTER III.

the INFLUENCE OF THE ARISTOCRACY ON SNOBS.

Last Sunday week, being at church in this city, and the
service just ended, I heard two Snobs conversing about tho
Parson. One was asking the other who the clergyman was.
•He is Mr. So-and-so,' the second Snob answered, 'domestic
chaplain to the Earl of What-d'ye-call-'im.5 'Oh, is he?' said
the first Snob with a tone of indescribable satisfaction. The
Parson's orthodoxy and identity were at once settled in this
Snob's mind. He knew no more about the Earl than about the
Chaplain, but he took the latter's character upon the'authority
of the former; and went home quite contented with his Rever-
ence, like a little truckling Snob.

This incident gave me more matter for reflection even than
the sermon; and wonderment at the extent and prevalence o#THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

11

Lordolatry in this country. What could it matter to Snob
whether his Reverence were chaplain to his lordship or not?
What Peerage-worship there is all through this free country!
How we are all implicated in it, and more or less down on our
knees. And. with regard to the great subject on hand, I think
that the influence of the Peerage upon Snobbishness has been
more remarkable than that of any other institution. The in-
crease, encouragement, and maintenance of Snobs are among
the 'priceless services,5 as Lord John Russell says, which we
owe to the nobility.

It can't be otherwise. A man becomes enormously rich, or
jobs successfully in the aid of a Minister, or he wins a great
battle, or executes a treaty, or is a clever lawyer who makes
a multitude of fees and ascends the bench; and the country
rewards him forever with a gold coronet (with more or less
balls or leaves) and a title, and a rank as legislator. 'Your
merits are so great,5 says the nation, 'that your children shall
be allowed to reign over us, in a manner. It does not in the
least matter that your eldest son be a fool; we think your
services so remarkable that he shall hafe the reversion of your
honors when death vacates your noble shoes. If you are poor,
we will give you such a sum of money as shall enable you and
the eldest-born of your race forever to live in fat and splen-
dor. It is our wish that there should be a race set apart ia
this happy country, who shall hojd the first rank, have the
first prizes and chances in all government jobs and patronages.
We cannot make all your dear children Peers—that would make
Peerage common and crowd the House of Lords uncomfortably
—but the young ones shall have everything a Government can
give; they shall get the pick of all the places; they shall be Cap-
tains and Lieutenant-Colonels at nineteen, when hoary-headed
old Lieutenants are spending thirty years at drill; they shall
command ships at one-and-twenty,and veterans who fought be-
fore they were born. And as we are eminently a freepeople,
and in order to encourage all men to do their duty, we say to
any man of any rank, Get enormously rich, make immense fees
as a lawyer, or great speeches, or distinguish yourself and
win battles—and you, even you, shall come into the privileged
class, and your children shall reign naturally over ours.5

How can we help Snobbishness, with such a prodigious
national institution erected for its worship? How can we
help cringing to lords? Flesh and blood can't do otherwise.
What man can withstand this prodigious temptation? In-
spired by what is called a noble emulation, some people grasp18

tsie book of snobs.

at honors and win them; others, too weak or mean, blindly
admire and grovel before those who have gained them; others,
not being able to acquire them, furiously hate, abuse, and
envy. There are only a few bland and not-in-the-least-con-
ceitedphilosophers, who can behold the state of society, viz.,
Toadyism, organized; base Man-and-Mammon worship, in-
stituted by command of law; Snobbishness, in a word, per-
petuated—and mark the phenomenon calmly. And of these
«alm moralists is there one, I wonder, whose heart would not
throb with pleasure if he could be seen walking arm-in-arm
with a couple of dukes down Pall Mall? No; it is impossible,
ia our condition of society, not to be sometimes a Snob.

On one side it encourages the commoner to be snobbishly
mean, and the noble to be snobbishly arrogant. When a noble
marchioness writes in her travels about the hard necessity
under which steamboat travelers labor of being brought into
contact 'with all sorts and conditions of people,' implying
that a fellowship with God's creatures is disagreeable to her
ladyship, who is their superior—when, I say, the Marchioness

of-writes in this fashion, we must consider that out of her

natural heart it would have been impossible for any woman to
have had such a sentiment; but that the habit of truckling and
cringing, which all who surround her have adopted toward
this beautiful and magnificent lady,—this proprietor of so
many black and other diamonds,—has really induced her to
believe that she is the superior of the world in general; and
that people are not to associate with her except awfully at a
distance. I recollect being once at the city of Grand Cairo,
through which a European Royal Prince was passing India-
ward. One night at the inn there was a great disturbance;
a man had drowned himself in the well hard by; all the in-
habitants of the hotel came bustling into the Court, and among
others your humble servant, who asked of a certain young
man the reason of the disturbance. How was I to know that
this young gent was a prince? He had not his crown and
scepter on; he was dressed in a white jacket and felt hat; but
iie looked surprised at anybody speaking to him; answered
an unintelligible monosyllable, and—beckoned his aid-de-camp
to come and speak to me. It is our fault, not that of the great,
that they should fancy themselves so far above us. If you
will fling yourself under the wheels, Juggernaut will go over
you, depend upon it; and if you and I, my dear friend, had
Kotoo performed before us every day, found jpeople when-
ever we appeared groveling in slavish adoration, we shouldthe book of snobs.

1$

drop into the airs of superiority quite naturally, and accept the
greatness with which the world insisted upon endowing us.

Here is an instance, out of Lord L.'s travels, of that
calm, good-natured, undoubting way in which a great man
accepts the homage of his inferiors. After making some pro-
found and ingenious remarks about the town of Brussels, his
lordship says: 'Staying some days at the H6tel de Belle
Vue—a greatly overrated establishment, and not nearly so
comfortable as the Hotel de France—I made acquaintance
with Dr. L. the physician of the Mission. He was desirous
of doing the honor of the place to me, and he ordered for us
a diner en gourmand at the chief restaurateur's, maintaining
it surpassed the Rocher at Paris. Six or eight partook of
the entertainment, and we all agreed it was infinitely inferior
to the Paris display, and much more extravagant. So much
for the copy.'

And so much for the gentleman who gave the dinner. Dr.
L., desirous to do his lordship 'the honor of the place,'feasts
him with the best victuals money can procure—and my lord
finds the entertainment extravagant and inferior. Extrava-
gant! It was not extravagant to him. Inferior! Mr. L.
did his best to satisfy those noble jaws, and my lord receives
the entertainment and dismisses the giver with a rebuke. It
is like a three-tailed Pasha grumbling about an unsatisfactory
backsheesh.

But how should it be otherwise in a country where Lordol-
atry is part of our creed, and where our children are brought
up to respect the 'Peerage' as the Englishman's second Bible?

CHAPTER IV.

the 'court circular,' and its influence on snobs.

Example is the best of precepts; so let us begin with a
true and authentic story, showing how^ young aristocratic
snobs are reared, and how early their Snobbishness may be
made to bloom. A beautiful and fashionable lady (pardon,
gracious madam, that your story should be made public; but
it is so moral that it ought to be known to the universal world)
told me that in her early youth she had a little acquaintance,
who is now indeed a beautiful and fashionable lady too. In
mentioning Miss Snobky, daughter of Sir Snobby Snobky,
whose presentation at Court caused such a sensation, need 1
say more?

When Miss Snobky was so very young as to be in the nursery14

THE BOOK OF SNOBS,

regions, and to walk of early mornings in St. James' Park,
protected by a French governess and followed by a huge hir*
sute flunkey in the canary-colored livery of the Snobkys, she
used occasionally in these promenades to meet with young
Lord Claude Lollipop, the Marquis of Sillabub's younger son.
In the very height of the season, from some unexplained
cause, the Snobkys suddenly determined upon leaving town.
Miss Snobky spoke to her female friend and confidante. e What
will poor Claude Lollipop say when he hears of my absence?'
asked the tender-hearted child.

cOh, perhaps he won't hear of it,' answers the confidante.

^My dear, he will read it in the papers,' replied the dear
little fashionable rogue of seven years old. She knew already
her importance, and how all the world of England, how all
the would-be-genteel people, how all the silver-fork worship*
ers, how all the tattle-mongers, how all the grocers' ladies,
the tailors' ladies, the attorneys' and merchants' ladies, and
the people living at Clapham and Brunswick Square—who
have no more chance of consorting with a Snobky than my
beloved reader has of dining with the Emperor of China—yet
watched the movements of the Snobkys with interest, and
were glad to know when they came to London and left it.

Here is the account of Miss Snobky's dress, and that of her
mother, Lady Snobky, from the papers:

'miss snobky.

* Habit de Cour, composed of a yellow nankeen illusion dress
over a slip of rich pea-green corduroy, trimmed en tablier,
with bouquets of Brussels sprouts; the body and sleeves hand*
somely trimmed with calimanco, and festooned with a pink
train and white radishes. Headdress, carrots and lappets.

4lady snobky.

'Costume de Cour, composed of a train of the most superb
Pekin bandannas, elegantly trimmed with spangles, tinfoil,
and red-tape. Bodice and under-dress of sky-blue velveteen,
trimmed with bouffants and noeuds of bell pulls. Stomacher,
a muffin. Headdress, a bird's nest, with a bird of Paradise.,
over a rich brass knocker en ferroni&re. This splendid cos-
tume, by Mme. Crinoline of Regent Street, was. the object
of universal admiration.'

This is what you read. Oh, Mrs. Ellis! Oh, mothers,
daughters, aunts, grandmothers of England, this is the sort ofTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

15

Writing which is put in the newspapers for you! How can
you help b^ingthe mothers, daughters, etc., of Snobs, so long
as this balderdash is set before you?

You stuff the little rosy foot of a Chinese young lady of
fashion into a slipper that is about the size of a salt cruet,
and keep the poor little toes there imprisoned and twisted up
so long that the dwarfishness becomes irremediable. Later,
the foot would not expand to the natural size were you to give
her a washing tub for a shoe, and for all her life she has little
feet, and is a cripple. Oh, my dear Miss Wiggins, thank your
stars that those beautiful feet of yours—though I declare when
you walk they are so small as to be almost invisible—thank
your stars that society never so practiced upon them; but look
around and see how many friends of ours in the highest circles
have had their brains so prematurely and hopelessly pinched
and distorted.

How can you expect that those poor creatures are to move
naturally when the world and their parents have mutilated
them so cruelly? As long as a Court Gircular exists, how the
deuce are people whose names are chronicled in it ever to be-
lieve themselves the equals of the cringing race, which daily
reads that abominable trash? I believe that ours is the only
country in the world now where the Court Circular remains
in full flourish—where you read, 'This day his Royal High-
ness Prince Pattypan was taken an airing in his go-cart.'
4The Princess Pimminy was taken a drive, attended by her
ladies of honor, and accompanied by her doll,' etc. We
laugh at the solemnity with which St. Simon announces that
Sa Majeste se medicamente aujour&hui. Under our very
noses the same folly is daily going on. That wonderful and
mysterious man the author of the Court Circular drops in
with his budget at the newspaper offices every night. I once
askedthe editorof a paper to allow me to lie in wait and see him.

I am told that in a kingdom where there is a German King-
Consort (Portugal it must be, for the Queen of that country
married a German Prince,who is greatly admired and respected
by the natives), whenever the Consort takes the diversion of
snooting among the rabbit warrens of Cintra, or the pheasant
preserves of Mafra, he has a keeper to load his guns, as a
matter of course, and then they are handed to the nobleman,
his equerry, and the nobleman hands them to the Prince, whe
blazes away—gives back the discharged gun to the nobleman,
who gives it to the keeper, and so on. But the Prince wonH
take the gun from the hands of the loader.16

THE BOOK OP SNOBfc.

As long as this unnatural and monstrous etiquette continues
Snobs there must be. The three persons engaged in this trans-
action are, for the time being, Snobs.

1.	The keeper—the least Snob of all, because he is discharg-
ing his daily duty; but he appears here as a Snob, that is to
say, in a position of debasement before another human being
(the Prince), with whom he is only allowed to communicate
through another party. A free Portuguese gamekeeper, who
professes himself to be unworthy to communicate directly
with any person, confesses himself to be a Snob.

2.	The nobleman in waiting is a Snob. If it degrades the
Prince to receive the gun from the gamekeeper, it is degrad-
ing to the nobleman in waiting to execute that service.- He
act£ as a Snob toward the keeper, whom he keeps from com-
munication with the Prince—a Snob toward the Prince, to
whom he pays a degrading homage.

3.	The King-Consort of Portugal is a Snob for insulting
fellow-men in this way. There's no harm in his accepting
the services of the keeper directly; but indirectly he insults
the service performed, and the two servants who perform it;
and therefore, I say, respectfully, is a most undoubted, though
royal Sn-b.

And then you read in the Diariodo Gobemo: 'Yesterday,
his Majesty the King took the diversion of shooting in the
woods of Cintra, attended by Colonel the Honorable Whisk-
erando Sombrero. His Majesty returned to the Necessidades
to lunch, at,' etc., etc.	✓

Oh! that Court Circular! once more, I exclaim. Down
With the Court Circular—that engine and propagator of
Snobbishness! I promise to subscribe for a year to any daily
paper that shall come out without a Court Circular—were it
the Morning Herald itself. When I read that trash I risein
my wrath; I feel myself disloyal, a regicide, a member of the
Calf's Head Club. The only Court Circidar story which
ever pleased me was that of the King of Spain, who in great
part was roasted because there was not time for the Prime
Minister to command the Lord Chamberlain to desire the
Grand Gold Stick to order the first page in waiting to bid the
chief of the flunkeys to request the Housemaid of Honor to
bring up a pail of water to ptit his Majesty out.

I am like the Pasha of three tails, to whom the Sultan sends
his Court Circular, the bowstring.

It chokes me. May its usage be abolished forever.THE BOOK OF SNOB&.

19

CHAPTER Y.

WHAT SNOBS ADMIRE.

Now let us consider how difficult it is even for great men
to escape from being Snobs. It is very well for the reader,
whose fine feelings are disgusted by the assertion that Kings,
Princes, Lords, are Snobs, to say, 'You are confessedly a Snob
yourself. In professing to depict Snobs, it is only your own
ugly mug which you are copying with a Narcissus-like con-
ceit and fatuity.5 But I shall pardon this explosion of ill tem-
per on the part of my constant reader, reflecting upon the mis-
fortune of his birth and country. It is impossible for any
Briton, perhaps, not to be a Snob in some degree. If people
can be convinced of this fact, an immense point is gained,
surely. If I have pointed out the disease, let us hope that
other scientific characters may discover the remedy.

If you, who are a person of the middle ranks of life, are a
Snob,—you whom nobody flatters particularly; you who have
no toadies; you whom no cringing flunkeys or shopmen bow
out of doors; you whom the policeman tells to move on; you
who are jostled in the crowd of this world, and among the
Snobs our brethren: consider how much harder it is for a ma»
to escape who has not your advantages, and is all his life long
subject to adulation, the butt of meanness; consider how
difficult it is for the Snobs' idol not to be a Snob.

As I was discoursing with my friend Eugenio in this im-
pressive way, Lord Buckram passed us, the son of the Marquis
of Bagwig, and knocked at the door of the family mansion in
Red Lion Square. His noble father and mother occupied, as
everybody knows, distinguished posts in the Courts of late
Sovereigns. The Marquis was Lord of the Pantry, and her
Ladyship, Lady of the Powder Closet to Queen Charlotte.
Buck (as I call him, for we are very familiar) gave me a nod
as he passed, and I proceeded to show Eugenio how it was
impossible that this nobleman should not be one of ourselves,
having been practiced upon by Snobs all his life.

His parents resolved to give him a public education, and sent
him to school at the earliest possible period. The Rev. Otto
Rose, D. D., Principal of the Preparatory Academy for young
noblemen and gentlemen, Richmond Lodge, took this little
Lord in hand, and fell down and worshiped him. He always
introduced him to fathers and mothers who came to visit their
children at the school. He referred with pride and pleasure
to the most noble the Marquis of Bagwig, as one of the ki^18

THE BOOK OP SNOBS.

friends and patrons of his Seminary. He made Lord Buckram
a bait for such a multiplicity of pupils that a new wing was
built to Richmond Lodge, and thirty-five new little white
dimity beds were added to the establishment. Mrs. Rose
used to take out the little Lord in the one-horse chaise with
her when she paid visits, until the Rector's lady and the Sur-
geon's wife almost died with envy. His own son and Lord
Buckram having been discovered robbing an orchard together,
the Doctor flogged his own flesh and blood most unmercifully
for leading the young Lord astray. He parted from him with
tears. There was always a letter directed to the Most Noble
the Marquis of Bagwig on the Doctor's study table, when any
visitors were received by him.

At Eton a great deal of Snobbishness was thrashed out of Lord
Buckram, and he was birched with perfect impartiality. Even
there, however, a select band of sucking tuft-hunters followed
him. Young Croesus lent him three-and-twenty brand new
sovereigns out of his father's bank. Young Snaily did his
exercises for him, and tried 'to know him at home'; but
Young Bull licked him in a fight of fifty-five minutes, and he
was caned several times with great advantage for not suffi-
ciently polishing his master Smith's shoes. Boys are not all
toadies in the morning of life.

But when he went to the University crowds of toadies
sprawled over him. The tutors toadied him. The fellows
in hall paid him great clumsy compliments. The Dean never
remarked his absence from Chapel, or heard any noise issuing
from his rooms. A number of respectable young fellows (it
is among the respectable, the Baker Street class, that Snob-
bishness flourishes, more than among any set of people in
England)-r-a number of these clung to him like leeches. There
was no end now to Croesus' loans of money; and Buckram
couldn't ride out with the hounds but Snaily (a timid crea-
ture by nature) was in the field, and would take any leap at
which his friend chose to ride. Young Rose came up to the
same College, having been kept back for that express purpose
by his father. He spent a quarter's allowance in giving
Buckram a single dinner; but he knew there was always par-
don for him for extravagance in such a cause; and a ten-pound
note always came to him from home when he mentioned Buck-
ram's name in a letter. What wild visions entered the brains
of Mrs. Podge and Miss Podge, the wife and daughter of the
Principal of Lord Buckram's College, I don't know, but that
reverend old gentleman was too profound a flunkey by natureTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

19

ever for one minute to think that a child of his could marry
a nobleman. He therefore hastened on his daughter's union
with Professor Crab.

When Lord Buckram, after taking his honorary degree
(for Alma Mater is a Snob too, and truckles to a lord like
the rest)—when Lord Buckram went abroad to finish his ed-
ucation, you all know what dangers he ran, and what numbers
of caps were set at him. Lady Leach and her daughters fol-
lowed him from Paris to Rome, and from Rome to Baden-
Baden; Miss Leggitt burst into tears before his face when he
announced his determination to quit Naples, and fainted on
the neck of her mamma; Captain Macdragon of Macdragons-
town, County Tipperary, called upon him to 'explerie his
intintions with respect to his sisther, Miss Amalia Macdragon
of Macdragonstown,' and proposed to shoot him unless he
married that spotless and beautiful young creature, who was
afterward led to the altar by Mr. Muff, at Cheltenham. If
perseverance and £40,000 down could have tempted him,
Miss Lydia Croesus would certainly have been Lady Buckram.
Count Towrowski was glad to take her with half the money,
as all the genteel world knows.

And now, perhaps, the reader is anxious to know what sort
of a man this is who wounded so many ladies' hearts, and who
has been such a prodigious favorite with men. If we were
to describe him it would be personal. Besides, it really does
not matter in the least what sort of a man he is, or what hi®
personal qualities are.

Suppose he is a young nobleman of a literary turn, and that
he published pogms ever so foolish and feeble, the Snobs would
purchase thousands of his volumes; the publishers (who re-
fused my Passion-Flowers and my grand Epic at any price)
would give him his own. Suppose he is a nobleman of a jovial
turn, and has a fancy for wrenching off knockers, frequenting
gmshops, and half murdering policemen: the public will
sympathize good-naturedly with his amusements, and say he
is a hearty, honest fellow. Suppose he is fond of play and the
turf, and has a fancy to be a blackleg, and occasionally con-
descends to pluck a pigeon at cards: the public will pardon
him, and many honest people will court him, as they would
court a housebreaker if he happened to be a lord. Suppose
he is an idiot; yet, by the glorious constitution, he is good
enough to govern us. Suppose he is an honest, high-minded
gentleman; so much the better for himself. But he may be
aa ass, and yet respected; or a ruffian, and be exceedingly20

the book of snobs.

popular; or a rogue, and yet excuses will be found for him.
Snobs will still worship him. Male Snobs will do him honor,
and females look kindly upon him, however hideous he maybe.

CHAPTER VI.

on" some respectable snobs.

Haying received a great deal of obloquy for dragging mon-
archs, princes, and the respected nobility into the Snob cate-
gory, I trust to please everybody in the present chapter by
stating my firm opinion that it is among the respectable classes
of this vast and happy empire that the greatest profusion of
Snobs is to be found. I pace down my beloved Baker Street
(I am engaged on a life of Baker, founder of this celebrated
street), I walk in Harley Street (where every other house has
a Hatchment), Wimpole Street, that is as cheerful as the Cata-
combs—a dingy Mausoleum of the genteel; I rove round Re-
gent's Park, where the plaster is patching off the house walls,
where Methodist preachers are holding forth to three little
children in the green inclosures, and puffy valetudinarians are
cantering in the solitary mud; I thread the doubtful zigzags
of May Fair, where Mrs. Kitty Lorimer's brougham may be
seen drawn up next door to old Lady Lollipop's belozenged
family coach; I roam through Belgravia, that pale and polite
district, where all the inhabitants look prim and correct, and
the mansions are painted a faint whitey-brown; I lose myself
in the new squares and terraces of the brilliant brand-new Bays-
water-and-Tyburn-Junction line; and in one and all of these
districts the same truth comes across me. I stop before any
house at hazard, and say, 'O house, you are inhabited—O
knocker, you are knocked at—O undressed flunkey, sunning
your lazy calves as you lean against the iron railings, you are
paid—by Snobs.' It is a tremendous thought that; and it is
almost sufficient to drive a benevolent mind to madness to think
that perhaps there is not one in ten of those houses where the
'Peerage' does not lie on the drawing room table. Consider-
ing the harm that foolish lying book does, I would have all the
copies of it burned, as the barber burned all Quixote's books
of humbugging chivalry.

Look at this grand house in the middle of the square. The
Earl of Loughcorrib lives there; he has fifty thousand a year.
A dejeHner dansant given at his house last week cost, who
knows how much? The mere flowers for the room and bou*THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

21

quets for the ladies cost £400. That man in drab trousers
coming crying down the steps is a dun; Lord Loughcorrib
has ruined him, and won't see him; that is, his lordship
is peeping through the blind of his study at him now. Go
thy ways, Loughcorrib, thou art a Snob, a heartless pre-
tender, a hypocrite of hospitality, a rogue who passes forged
notes upon society—but I am growing too eloquent.

You see that fine house, No. 23, where a butcher's boy is
ringing the area bell. He has three mutton chops in his tray.
They are for the dinner of a very different and very respecta-
ble family—for Lady Susan Scraper, and her daughters, Miss
Scraper and Miss Emily Scraper. The domestics, luckily for
them, are on board wages—two huge footmen in light-blue and
canary, a fat steady coachman who is a Methodist, and a
butler who would never have stayed in the family but that he
was orderly to General Scraper when the General distinguished
himself at Walcheren. His widow sent his portrait to the
United Service Club, and it is hung up in one of the back
dressing closets there. He is represented at a parlor window
with red curtains; in the distance is a whirlwind, in which
cannon are firing off; and he is pointing to a chart, on which
are written the words 'Walcheren, Tobago.'

Lady Susan is, as everybody knows by referring to the
British Bible,' a daughter of the great and good Earl Bagwig
before mentioned. She thinks everything belonging to her
the greatest and best in the world. The first of men naturally
are the Buckrams, her own race^ then follow in rank the
Scrapers. The General was the greatest general; his eldest
son, Scraper Buckram Scraper, is at present the greatest and
best; his second son the next greatest and best; and herself
the paragon of women.

Indeed, she is a most respectable and honorable lady. She

foes to church of course; she would fancy the Church in
anger if she did not. She subscribes to the church and par-
ish charities; and is a directress of many meritorious charita-
ble institutions—of Queen Charlotte's Lying-in Hospital, the
Washerwomen's Asylum, the British Drummers' Daughters'
Home, etc., etc. She is a model of a matron.

The tradesman never lived who could say that his bill was
not paid on the quarter day. The beggars of her neighbor-
hood avoid her like a pestilence; for while she walks out, pro*
tected by John, that domestic has always two or three men-
dicity tickets ready for deserving objects. Ten guineas a yea?
will pay all her charities. There is no respectable lady in all22

THE BOOK OF SNOBS*

London who gets her name more often printed for such a sum
of money.

Those three mutton chops which you see enter in at the
kitchen door will be served on the family plate at seven
o'clock this evening, the huge footmen being present, and the
butler in black, and the crest and coat of arms of the Scrapers
blazing everywhere. I pity Miss Emily Scraper—she is still
young—young and hungry. Is it a fact that she spends her
pocket money in buns? Malicious tongues say so; but she
has very little to spare for buns, the poor little hungry soul!
For the fact is that when the footmen, and the ladies' maids,
and the fat coach horses, which are jobbed, and the six dinner
parties in the season, and the two great solemn evening par*
ties, and the rent of the big house, and the journey to an
English or foreign watering place for the autumn, are paid,
my lady's income has dwindled away to a very small sum, and
she is as poor as you or I.

You would not think it when you saw her big carriage rat*
tling up to the drawing room, and caught a glimpse of her
plumes, lappets, and diamonds, waving over her ladyship's
sandy hair and majestical hooked nose; you would not think
it when you hear 'Lady Susan Scraper's carriage' bawled out
at midnight so as to disturb all Belgravia; you would not
think it when she comes rustling into church, the obsequious
>John behind with the bag of Prayer Books. Is it possible,
you would say, that so grand and awful a personage as thai
can be hard-up for money? Alas! so it is.

She never heard such a word as Snob, I will engage, in this
wicked and vulgar world. And, oh, stars and garters! how
she would start if she heard that she—she, as solemn as Min-
erva—she, as chaste as Diana (without that heathen goddess*
unladylike propensity for field sports)—that she too was aSnob!

A Snob she is, as long as she sets that prodigious value upon
herself, upon her name, upon her outward appearance, and
indulges in that intolerable pomposity; as long as she goes
parading abroad, like Solomon in all his glory; as long as she
goes to bed—as I believe she does—with a turban and a bird
of Paradise in it, and a court train to her nightgown ; as long
as she is so insufferably virtuous and condescending; as long
as she does not cut at least one of those footmen down into
mutton chops for the benefit of the young ladies.

I had my notions of her from my old schoolfellow her
son, Sydney Scraper—a Chancery barrister without any prao*
tiGe—the most placid, polite, and genteel of Snobs, who neve*THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

23

exceeded his allowance of two hundred a year, and who may
be seen any evening at the Oxford and Cambridge Club,
simpering over the Quarterly Review, in the blameless enjoy-
ment of his half pint of port.

CHAPTER VII.

OX SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS.

Look- at the next house to Lady Susan Scraper's, the first
mansion with the awning over the door: that canopy will be
let down this evening for the comfort of the friends of Sir
Alured and Lady S. de Mogyns, whose parties are so much
admired by the public, and the givers themselves.

Peach-colored liveries laced with silver, and pea-green plush
inexpressibles, render the De Mogyns' flunkeys the pride of
the ring when they appear in Hyde Park, where Lady de
Mogyns, as she sits upon her satin cushions, with her dwarf
spaniel in her arms, only bows to the very selectest of the
genteel. Times are altered now with Mary Anne, or, as she
calls herself, Marian de Mogyns.

She was the daughter of Captain Flack of the Rathdrum
Feneibles, who crossed with his regiment over from Ireland
to Caermarthenshire ever so many years ago, and defended
Wales from the Corsican invader. The Rathdrums were quar-
tered at Pontydwdlm, where Marian wooed and won her De
Mogyns, a young banker in the place. His attentions to Miss
Flack at a race ball were such that her father said De Mogyns
must either die on the field of honor or become his son-in-law.
He preferred marriage. His name was Muggins then, and
his father—a flourishing banker, army contractor, smuggler,
and general jobber—almost disinherited him on account of
this connection. There is a story that Muggins the Elder was
made a baronet for having lent money to a R-y-1 p-rs-n-ge.
I do not believe it. The R-y-1 Family always paid their debts,
from the Prince of Wales downward.

Howbeit, to his life's end he remained simple Sir Thomas
Muggins, representing Pontydwdlm in Parliament for many
years after the war. The old banker died in course of time,
and to use the affectionate phrase common on such occasions,
4 cut up' prodigiously well. His son, Alfred Smith Mogyns,
(succeeded to the main portion of his wealth and to his titles
(and the bloody hand of his scutcheon. It was not for many
[years after that he appeared as Sir Alured Mogyns Smyth de24

THE *fe00K OF SNOBS,

Mogyfcs, with a genealogy found out for him by the Editor of
•Fluke's Peerage,' and which appears as follows in that work:

4De Mogyns.—Sir Alured Mogyns Smyth, 2d Baronet. This

!gentleman is a representative of one of the most ancient fami-
ies of Wales, who trace their descent until it is lost in the
mists of antiquity. A genealogical tree beginning with Shem
is in the possession of the family, and is stated by a legend
of many thousand years' date to have been drawn on papyrus
by a grandson of the patriarch himself. Be this as it may,
fchere can be no doubt of the immense antiquity of the race of
Mogyns.

'In the time of Boadicea, Hogyn Mogyn of the hundred
Beeves was a suitor and a rival of Caractacus for the hand of
that Princess. He was a person gigantic in stature, and was
slain by Suetonius in the battle which terminated the liberties
of Britain. From him descended directly the Princes of
Pontydwdlm, Mogyn of the Golden Harp (see the Mabino-
gion of Lady Charlotte Guest), Bogyn-Merodac-ap-Mogyn,
(the black fiend son of Mogyn), and a long list of bards and
warriors, celebrated both in Wales and Armorica. The inde-
pendent Princes of Mogyn long held out against the ruthless
Kings of England, until finally Gam Mogyns made his submis-
sion to Prince Henry, son of Henry IV., and under the name of
Sir David Gam de Mogyns was distinguished at the battle of
Agincourt. From him the present Baronet is descended. (And
here the descent follows in order until it comes to) Thomas
Muggins, first Baronet of Pontydwdlm Castle, for twenty-
three years Member of Parliament for that borough, who had
issue, Alured Mogyns Smyth, the present Baronet, who
married Marian, daughter of the late General P. Flack of
Ballyflack, in the Kingdom of Ireland, of the Counts Flack
of the H. R. Empire. Sir Alured has issue, Alured Caradoc,
born 1819, Marian, 1811, Blanche Adeliza, Emily Doria, Ade-
laide Obleans, Katinka Rostopchin, Patrick Flack, died 1809.

'Arms—a muilion garbled, gules on a saltire reversed of the
second. Crest—a tomtit rampant regardant. Motto—Ting
Roy ung Mogyns.'

It was long before Lady de Mogyns shone as a star in the
fashionable world. At first poor Muggins was in the hands
of the Flacks, the Clancys, the Tooles, the Shanahans, his
wife's Irish relations; and while he was yet but heir-apparent
his house overflowed with claret and the national nectar, for
the benefit of his Hibernian relatives. Tom Tufto absolutelyTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

25

left the street in which they lived in London, because he said
*it was infected with such a confounded smell of whisky from
the house Qf those Iwish people.'

It was abroad that they learned to be genteel. They pushed
into all foreign courts, and elbowed their way into the halls
of Ambassadors. They pounced upon the stray nobility, and
seized young lords traveling with their bear leaders. They
gave parties at Naples, Rome, and Paris. They got a Royal
Prince to attend their soirees at the latter place, and it was
here that they first appeared under the name of De Mogyns,
which they bear with such splendor to this day.

All sorts of stories are told of the desperate efforts made by
the indomitable Lady de Mogyns to gain the place she now
occupies, and those of my beloved readers who live in middle
life, and are unacquainted with the frantic strugles, the wicked
feuds, the intrigues, cabals, and disappointments which, as I
am given to understand, reign in the fashionable world, may
bless their stars that they at least are not fashionable Snobs.
The intrigues set afoot by the De Mogyns to get the Duchess
of Buckskin to her parties would strike a Talleyrand with
admiration. She had a brain fever after being disappointed
of an invitation to Lady Aldermanbury's the dansant, and
would have committed suicide but for a ball at Windsor. I
have the following story from my noble friend Lady Clapper-
claw herself—Lady Kathleen O'Sbaughnessy that was, and
daughter of the Earl of Turfanthunder:

4When that ojous disguised Irishwoman Lady Muggins
was struggling to take her place in the world, and was bring-
ing out her hidjous daughter Blanche,' said old Lady Clapper-
claw—'Marian has a hump back and doesn't show, but she's
the only lady in the family—when that wretched Polly Mug-
gins was bringing out Blanche, with her radish of a nose,
and her carrots of ringlets, and her turnip for a face, she was
most anxious—as her father had been a cowboy on my father's
land—to be patronized by us, and asked me pointblank, in
the midst of a silence at Count Volauvent's, the French Am-
bassador's dinner, why I had not sent her a card for my ball.

4 i'Because my rooms are already too full, and your lady-
ship would be crowded inconveniently," says I; indeed she
takes up as much room as an elephant; besides, 1 wouldn't have
her, and that was flat.

'I thought my answer was a settler to her; but the next day
she comes weeping to my arras—"Dear Lady Clappercaw,"
says she, "it's not for me; I ask it for my bless^ RJ?^hef26

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

a young creature in her first season, and not at your ball! My
tender child will pine and die of vexation. I don't want to
come. I will stay at home to nurse Sir Alured in the gout.
Mrs.Bolster is going, I know; she will be Blanche's chaperon."

4 "You wouldn't subscribe for the Rath drum blanket and
potato fund; you, who come out of the parish," says 1,4'and
whose grandfather, honest man, kept cows there."

4"Will twenty guineas be enough, dearest Lady Clapper-
claw?"

4 "Twenty guineas is sufficient," says I, and she paid them;
so I said, "Blanche may come, but not you, mind;" and she
left me with a world of thanks.

'Would you believe it?—when my ball came, the horrid
woman made her appearance with her daughter I "Didn't I
tell you not to come?" said I in a mighty passion. "What
would the world have said?" cries my Lady Muggins. "My
carriage is gone for Sir Alured to the Club; let me stay only
ten minutes, dearest Lady Clapperclaw."

4 "Well, as you are here, madam, you may stay and get your
supper," I answered, and so left her, and never spoke a word
more to her all night.

iAnd now,5 screamed out old Lady Clapperclaw, clapping
her hands, and speaking with more brogue than ever, 'what
do you think, after all my kindness to her, the wicked, vulgar,
odious, impudent upstart of a cowboy's granddaughter, has
done? She cut me yesterday in Hy' Park, and hasn't sent me
a ticket for her ball to-night, though they say Prince George
is to be there.'

Yes, such is the fact. In the race of fashion the resolute
and active De Mogyns has passed the poor old Clapperclaw.
Her progress in gentility may be traced by the sets of friends
whom she has courted and made and cut and left behind
her. She has struggled so gallantly for polite reputation that
she has won it; pitilessly kicking down the ladder as she
advanced degree by degree.

Her Irish relations were first sacrificed; she made her father
dine in the steward's room, to his perfect contentment; and
Would send Sir Alured thither likewise, but that he is a peg
on which she hopes to hang her future honors; and is, after
all, paymaster of her daughters' fortunes. He is meek and
content. He has been so long a gentleman that he is used to
it, and acts the part of governor very well. In the daytime
he goes from the Union to Arthur's, and from Arthur's to
the Union* He is a dead hand at piquet, and loses a verythe book of snobs.

21

comfortable maintenance to some young fellows, at whist, at
the Travelers'.

His son has taken his father's seat in Parliament, and has
of course joined Young England. He is the only man in the
country who believes in the De Mogynses, and sighs for the
days when a De Mogyns led the van of battle. He has written
a little volume of spoony puny poems. He wears a lock of
the hair of Laud, the Confessor and Martyr, and fainted when
he kissed the Pope's toe at Rome. He sleeps in white kid
gloves, and commits dangerous excesses upon green tea.

CHAPTER VIII.

great city SNOBS.

There is no disguising the fact that this series of papers is
making a prodigious sensation among all classes in this Empire,
Notes of admiration (!), of interrogation^), of remonstrance,
approval, or abuse, come pouring into Mr. Punches box. We
have been called to task for betraying the secrets of three dif-
ferent families of De Mogyns; no less than four Lady Susan
Scrapers have been discovered; and young gentlemen are quite^
shy of ordering half a pint of port and simpering over the
Quarterly Review at the Club, lest they should be mistaken
for Sydney Scraper, Esq. ' What can be your antipathy to
Baker Street?' asks some fair remonstrant, evidently writing
from that quarter.

'Why only attack the aristocratic Snobs?' says one estima-
ble correspondent. 'Are not the snobbish Snobs to have their
turn?' 'Pitch into the University Snobs!' writes an indignant
gentleman (who spells elegant with two Ts). 'Show up the
Clerical Snobs,' suggests another. 'Being at Meurice's Hotel,
Paris, some time since,' some wag hints, 'I saw Lord B. lean-
ing out of the window with his boots in his hand, and bawling
out, " Gar$on, cirez-moi ces bottes." Oughtn't he to be
brought in among the Snobs?'

No; far from it. If his lordship's boots are dirty, it is be-
cause he is Lord B., and walks. There is nothing snobbish in
having only one pair of boots, or a favorite pair; and certainly
nothing snobbish in desiring to have them cleaned. LordB.,
in so doing, performed a perfectly natural and gentlemanlike
action; for which I am so pleased with him that I have
bad him designed in a favorable and elegant attitude, and
put in a place of honor in my portfolio. No, we are
Hot personal in these candid remarks. As Phidias took the28

THJ£ BOOK OF SNOBS.

pick of a score of beauties before he completed a Yenus, so
have we to examine, perhaps, a thousand Snobs before one
is expressed upon paper.

^ Great City Snobs are the next in the hierarchy, and ought
to be considered. But here is a difficulty. The great City
Snob is commonly most difficult of access. Unless you are a
capitalist you cannot visit him in the recesses of his bank par-
lor in Lombard Street. Unless you are a sprig of nobility there
is little hope of seeing him at home. In a great City Snob firm
there is generally one partner whose name is down for char-
ities, and who frequents Exeter Hall; you may catch a glimpse
of another (a scientific City Snob) at m}r Lord N. 's soirees, or
the lectures of the London Institution; of a third (a City Snob
of taste) at picture auctions, at private views of exhibitions, or
at the Opera or the Philharmonic. But intimacy is impossible,
in most cases, with this grave, pompous, and awful being.

A mere gentleman may hope to sit at almost anybody's table
—to take his place at my Lord Duke's in the country—to dance
a quadrille at Buckingham Palace itself (beloved Lady Wil-
helmina Waggle-wiggle! do you recollect the sensation we
made at the ball of our late adored Sovereign Queen Caroline,
at Brandenburg House, Hammersmith?)—but the City Snob's
doors are, for the most part, closed to him; and hence all that
one knows of this great class is mostly from hearsay.

In other countries of Europe, the Banking Snob is more
expansive and communicative than with us, and receives all
the world into his circle. For instance, everybody knows the
princely hospitalities of the Scharlaschild family at Paris,
Naples, Frankfort, etc. They entertain all the world, even
the poor, at their fetes. Prince Polonia, at Rome, and his
brother, the Duke of Strachino, are also remarkable for their
hospitalities. I like the spirit of the first-named nobleman.
Titles not costing much in the Roman territory, he has had
the head clerk of the banking house made a Marquis, and his
Lordship will screw a bajoceo out of you in exchange as dexter^
ously as any commoner could do. It is a comfort to be able
to gratify such grandees with a farthing or two; it makes the
poorest man feel that he can do good. The Polonias have in-
termarried with the greatest and most ancient families of
Rome, and you see their heraldic cognizance (a mushroom or
on an azure field) quartered in a hundred places in the city,
with the arras of the Colonnas and Dorias.

Our City Snobs have the same mania for aristocratic mar-
riages. I like to see such. I am of a savage and enviousTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

29

nature; Hike to see these two humbugs which, dividing, as
they do, the social empire of this kingdom between them, hate
each other naturally, making truce and uniting, for the sordid
interests of either. I like to see an old aristocrat, swelling
with pride of race, the descendant of illustrious Norman rob-
bers, whose blood has been pure for centuries, and who looks
down upon common Englishmen as a freeborn American does
on a nigger—I like to see old Stiffneek obliged to bow down
his head and swallow his infernalpride, and drink the cup of
humiliation poured out by Pump and Aldgate's butler. cPump
and Aldgate,' says he, 'your grandfather was a bricklayer,
and his hod is still kept in the bank. Your pedigree begins
in a workhouse; mine can be dated from all the royal palaces
of Europe. I came over with the Conqueror; I am own cousin
to Charles Martel, Orlando Furioso, Philip Augustus, Peter
the Cruel, and Frederick Barbarossa. I quarter the Royal
Arms of Brentford in my coat. I despise you, but I want
money; and I will sell you my beloved daughter, Blanche
Stiffneek, for a hundred thousand pounds, to pay off my mort-
gages. Let your son marry her, and she shall become Lady
Blanche Pump and Aldgate.'

„ Old Pump and Aldgate clutches at the bargain. And a com-
fortable thing it is to think that birth can be bought for money.
So you learn to value it. Why should we, who don't possess
it, set a higher store on it than those who do? Perhaps the
best use of that book, the 'Peerage,' is to look down the list,
and see how many have bought and sold birth, how poor sprigs
of nobility somehow sell themselves to rich City Snobs' daugh-
ters, how rich City Snobs purchase noble ladies—and so to
admire the double baseness of the bargain.

Old Pump and Aldgate buys the article and pays the money.
The sale of the girl's person is blessed by a Bishop at St. George's,
Hanover Square, and next year you read,4At Roehampton,
on Saturday, the Lady-Blanche Pump, of a son and heir.'

After this interesting event some old acquaintance, who
saw young Pump in the parlor at the bank in the City, said
to him familiarly, 'How's your wife, Pump, my boy?'

Mr. Pump looked exceedingly puzzled and disgusted, and
after a pause said, cLady Blanche Pump is pretty well, I
thank you.5

6 Oh, I thought she was your wifeP said the familiar brute
Snooks, wishing him good-by; and ten minutes after the
story was all over the Stock Exchange, where it is told, when
young Pump appears, to this very day.§0	THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

We can imagine the weary life this poor Pump, this martyr
to Mammon, is compelled to undergo. Fancy the domestic
enjoyments jof a man who has a wife who scorns him; who
cannot see his own friends in his own house; who having
deserted the middle rank of life, is not yet admitted to the
higher; but who is resigned to rebuffs and delay andhumilia*
tion, contented to think that his son will be more fortunate.

It used to be the custom of some very old-fashioned clubs
in this city, when a gentleman asked for change for a guinea,
always to bring it to him in washed silver, that which had
passed immediately out of the hands of the vulgar being con-
sidered 4as too coarse to soil a gentleman's fingers.' So, when
the City Snob's money has been washed during a generation
or so; has been washed into estates and woods and castles
and town mansions, it is allowed to pass current as real aris-
tocratic coin. Old Pump sweeps a shop, runs of messages,
becomes a confidential clerk and partner. Pump the Second
becomes chief of the house, spins more and more money, mar-
ries his son to an Earl's daughter. Pump Tertius goes on
with the bank; but his chief business in life is to become the
father of Pump Quartus, who comes out a full-blown aristo-
crat, and takes his seat as Baron Pumpington, and his race
rules hereditarily over this nation of Snobs,

CHAPTER IX.

ON SOME MILITARY SNOBS,

As no society in the world is more agreeable than that of
well-bred and well-informed military gentlemen, so, likewise,
none is more insufferable than that of Military Snobs. They
are to be found of all grades from the General Officer, whose
padded old breast twinkles over with a score of stars, clasps,
and decorations, to the budding cornet, who is shaving for a
beard,and has just been appointed to the Saxe-Coburg Lancers.

I have always admired that dispensation of rank in our
country which sets up this last-named little creature (who
was flogged only last week because he could not spell) to com-
mand great whiskered warriors, who have faced all dangers
o'f climate and battle; which, because he has money to lodge
at the agent's, will place him over the heads of men who have
!i thousand times more experience and desert; and which, in
the course of time, will bring him all the honors of his pro-
fession, when the veteran soldier he commanded has got no
other reward for his bravery than a berth in Chelsea Hospital,THE BOOK OP SNOBS.

31

and the veteran officer he superseded has slunk into shabby
retirement, and ends his disappointed life on a threadbare
half pay.

When I read in the Gazette such announcements as 'Lieu-
tenant and Captain Grig, from the Bombardier Guards, to be
Captain, vice Grizzle, who retires,' I know what becomes of
the Peninsular Grizzle; I follow him in spirit to the humble
country town, where he takes up his quarters, and occupies
himself with the most desperate attempts to live like a gentle-
man on the stipend of half a tailor's foreman; and I picture to
myself little Grig rising from rank to rank, skipping from one
regiment to another, with an increased grade in each, avoiding
disagreeable foreign service, and ranking as a Colonel at
thirty—all because he has money, and Lord Grigsby is his
father, who had the same luck before him. Grig must blush
at first to give his orders to old men in every way his betters*
And as it is very difficult for a spoiled child to escape being
selfish and arrogant, so it is a very hard task indeed for this
spoiled child of fortune not to be a Snob.

It must have often been a matter of wonder to the candid
reader that the army, the most enormous job of all our polit-
ical institutions, should yet work so well in the field; and
We must cheerfully give Grig, and his like, the credit for
courage which they display whenever occasion calls for it.
The Duke's dandy regiments fought as well as any (they said
better than any, but that is absurd). The great Duke him-
self was a dandy once, and jobbed on, as Marlborough did be-
fore him. But this only proves that dandies are brave as well
as other Britons—as all Britons. Let us concede that the high-
born Grig rode into the entrenchments at Sobraon as gallantly
as Corporal Wallop, the ex-plowboy.

The times of war are more favorable to him than the periods
of peace. Think of Grig's life in the Bombardier Guards, or
the Jackboot Guards; his marches from Windsor to London,
from London to Windsor, from Knightsbridge to Regent's
Park; the idiotic services he has to perform, which consist
in inspecting the pipeclay of his company, or the horses in the
stable, or bellowing out 'Shoulder humps! Carry humps!' all
which duties the very smallest intellect that ever belonged to
mortal man would suffice to comprehend. The professional
duties of a footman are quite as difficult and various. The red-
jackets who hold gentlemen's horses in St. James' Street could
do the work just as well as those vacuous, good-natured, gen-
tlemanlike, rickety little lieutenants, who may be seen saun*32

THE BOOK OF SNOBS*

tering about Pall Mall, in high-heeled little boots, or rallying
round the standard of their regiment in the Palace Court, at
eleven o'clock, when the band plays. Did the beloved reader
ever see one of the young fellows staggering under the flag,
or, above all, going through the operation of saluting it? It
is worth a walk to the Palace to witness that magnificent
piece of tomfoolery.

I have had the honor of meeting once or twice an old gen-
tleman, whom I look upon to be a specimen of army training,
and who has served in crack regiments, or commanded them,
all his life. I allude to Lieutenant General the Honorable Sir
George Granby Tufto, K. C. B., K. T. S., K. H., K. S. W.,
etc., etc. His manners are irreproachable generally; in
society he is a perfect gentleman, and a most thorough Snob.

A man can't help being a fool, be he ever so old, and Sir
George is a greater ass at sixty-eight than he was when he-
first entered the army at fifteen. He distinguished himself
everywhere; his name is mentioned with praise in a score of
.Gazettes; he is the man, in fact, whose padded breast, twin-
kling over with innumerable decorations, has already been in-
troduced to the reader. It is difficult to say what virtues
this prosperous gentleman possesses. He never read a book
in his life, and, with his purple old gouty fingers, still writes
a schoolboy hand. He has reached old age and gray hairs
without being the least venerable. He dresses like an out-
rageously young man to the present moment, and laces and
pads his old carcass as if he were still handsome George Tufto
of 1800. He is selfish, brutal, passionate, and a glutton. It
is curious to mark him at table, and see him heaving in his
waistband, his little bloodshot eyes gloating over his meal.
He swears considerably in his talk, and tells filthy garrison
stories after dinner. On account of hiz rank&/i.l his services,
people pay the bestarred and betitled old brute a sort of rev-
erence ; and he looks down upon you and me, and exhibits his
contempt for us, with a stupid and artless candor which is
quite amusing to watch. Perhaps, had he been bred to
another profession, he would not have been the disreputable
old creature he now is. But what other? He was fit for
none; too incorrigibly idle and dull for any trade but this, in
which he has distinguished himself publicly as a good and
gallant oflicer, and privately for riding races, drinking port,
fighting duels, and seducing women. He believes himself to
be one of the most honorable and deserving beings in the
world. About Waterloo Place, of afternoons, you may seethe book op snobs.

33

him tottering in his varnished hoots, and leering under the
bonnets of the women who pass by. When he dies of apoplexy
The Times will have a quarter of a column about his services
and battles—four lines of print will be wanted to describe his
titles and orders alone—and the earth will cover one of the
wickedest and dullest old wretches that every strutted over it.

Lest it should be imagined that I am of so obstinate a mis-
anthropic nature as to be satisfied with nothing, I beg (for the
comfort of the forces) to state my belief that the army is not
composed of such persons as the above. He has only been
selected for the study of civilians and the military as a speci-
men of a prosperous and bloated army Snob. No; when
epaulets are not sold; when corporal punishments are abol-
ished, and Corporal Smith has a chance to have his gallantry
rewarded as well as that of Lieutenant Grig; when there is no
such rank as ensign and lieutenant (the existence of which rank
is an absurd anomaly, and an insult upon all the rest of the
army), and should there be no war, I should not be disinclined
to be a major-general myself.

I have a little sheaf of Army Snobs in my portfolio, but shall
pause in my attack upon the forces till next week.

CHAPTER X.

MILITARY SNOBS.

Walking in the Park yesterday with my young friend
Tagg, and discoursing with him upon the next number of the
Snob, at the very nick of time who should pass us but two
very good specimens of Military Snobs, the Sporting Military
Snob Captain Rag, and the 'larking' or raffish Military Snob
Ensigu FamlLii. Indeed you are fully sure to meet them
lounging on horseback about five o'clock, under the trees by
the Serpentine, examining75ritically the inmates of the flashy
broughams which parade up and down the Lady's Mile.

Tagg and Rag are very well acquainted, and so the former,
with that candor inseparable from intimate friendship, told
me his dear friend's history. Captain Rag is a small dapper
North Countryman. He went when quite a boy into a crack
light cavalry regiment, and by the time he got his troop, had
cheated all his brother officers so completely, selling them lame
.horses for sound ones, and winning their money by all manner
of strange and ingenious contrivances, that his Colonel advised
him to retire; which he did without much reluctance, accom*34

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

modating a youngster, who had just entered the regiment,
with a glandered charger at an uncommonly stiff figure.

He has siiice devoted his time to billiards, steeple-chasing,
and the turf. vHis headquarters are Rummer's, in Conduit
Street, where he keeps his kit; but he is ever on the move in
the exercise of his vocation as a gentleman jockey and gen-
tleman leg.

According to BelVs Life, he is an invariable attendant at
all races, and an actor in most of them. He rode the winner
at Leamington; he was left for dead in a ditch a fortnight ago
at Harrow; and yet there he was, last week, at the Croix de
Berny, pale and determined as ever, astonishing the badauds
of Paris by the elegance of his seat and the neatness of his
rig, as he took a preliminary gallop on that vicious brute The
Disowned, before starting for the French Grand National.

He is a regular attendant at the Corner, where he compiles
a limited but comfortable libretto. During the season he rides
often in the Park, mounted on a clever, well-bred pony. He
is to be seen escorting that celebrated horsewoman Fanny
Highflyer, or in confidential converse with Lord Tliimblerig,
the eminent handicapper.

He carefully avoids decent society, and would rather dine
off a steak at the One Tun with Sam Snaffle the jockey, Cap-
tain O'Rourke, and two or three other notorious turf robbers,
than with the choicest company in London. He likes to
announce at Rummer's that he is going to run down and
spend his Saturday and Sunday in a friendly way with Hocus,
the leg, at his little box near Epsom; where, if report speak
true, many 'rummish plants' are concocted.

He does not play billiards.often, and never in public; but
when he does play he always contrives to get hold of a good
flat, and never leaves him till he has done him uncommonly
brown. He has lately been playing a good deal with Famish.

When he makes his appearance in the drawing room, which
occasionally happens at a hunt meeting or a race ball, he en-
joys himself extremely.

His young friend is Ensign Famish,who is not a little pleased
to be seen with such a smart fellow as Rag, who bows to the
best turf company in the Park. Rag lets Famish accompany
him to Tattersall's, and sells him bargains in horse flesh, ana
uses Famish's cab. That young gentleman's regiment is in
Iadia, and he is at home on sick leave. He recruits his health
by being intoxicated every night, and fortifies his lungs, which
are weak, by smoking cigars all day. The policemen aboutT,HE BOOK OF SNOBS.

33

the Haymarket know the little creature, and the early cabmen
salute him. The closed doors of fish and lobster shops open
after service, and vomit out little Famish, who is either tipsy
and quarrelsome—when he wants to fight the cabmen; or drunk
and helpless—when some kind friend (in yellow satin) takes
care of him. All the neighborhood, the cabmen, the police,
the early potato men, and the friends in yellow satin know
the young fellow, and he is called Little Bobby by some of the
very worst reprobates in Europe.

His mother, Lady Fanny Famish, believes devotedly that
Robert is in London solely for the benefit of consulting the
physician ; is going to have him exchanged into a dragoon
regiment, which doesn't go to that odious India; and has an
idea that his chest is delicate, and that he takes gruel every
evening, when he puts his feet in hot water. Her Ladyship
resides at Cheltenham, and is of a serious turn.

Bobby frequents the Union-Jack Club, of course; where
he breakfasts on pale ale and deviled kidneys at three o'clock;
where beardless young heroes of his own sort congregate, and
make merry, and give each other dinners; where you may see
half a dozen of young rakes of the fourth or fifth order loung-
ing and smoking on the steps; where you behold Slapper's
long-tailed leggy mare in the custody of a red-jacket until the
Captain is primed for the Park with a glass of curagoa; and
where you see Hobby of the Highland Buffs driving up with
Dobby of the Madras Fusiliers, in the great banging, swing-
ing cab, which the latter hires from Rumble of Bond Street.

In fact, Military Snobs are of such number and variety
that a hundred weeks of Punch would not suffice to give an
audience to them. There is, besides the disreputable old
Military Snob, who has seen service, the respectable old Mili-
tary Snob who has seen none, aj^ gives himself the most pro-
digious martinet airs. There is the Medical-Military Snob,
who is generally more outrageously military in his conversa-
tion than the greatest sabreur in the army. There is the
Heavy-Dragoon Snob, whom young ladies admire, with his
great stupid pink face and yellow mustaches—a vacuous, sol-
emn, foolish, but brave and honorable Snob. There is the
Amateur-Military Snob, who writesCaptain on his card because
he is a Lieutenant in the Bungay Militia. There is a Lady-
killing Military Snob; and more, who need not be named.

But let no man, we repeat, charge Mr. Pu?ich with disre-
spect for the Army in general—that gallant and judicious
Army, every man of which, from F. M. the Duke of Welling*36

the book. of snobs.

ton, etc., downward (with the exception of H. R. H. Field
Marshal Prince Albert, who, however, can hardly count as a
military man), read& Punch in every quarter of the globe.

Let those civilians who sneer at the acquirements of the
Army read Sir Harry Smith's account of the battle of Aliwal.
A noble deed was never told in nobler language. And you
who doubt if chivalry exists, or the age of heroism has passed
by, think of Sir Henry Hardinge, with his son, 'Dear little
Arthur,' riding in front of the lines at Ferozeshah. I hope
no English painter will endeavor to illustrate that scene; for
who is there to do justice to it? The history of the world
contains no more brilliant and heroic picture. No, no; the men
who perform these deeds with such brilliant valor, and describe
them with such modest manliness—such are not Snobs. Their
country admires them, their Sovereign rewards them, and
Punch, the universal railer, takes off his hat and says, Heaven
save them I

CHAPTER XI.

on CLERICAL SNOBS.

After Snobs-Military, Snobs-Clerical suggest themselves
quite naturally, and it is clear that, with every respect for the
cloth, yet having a regard for truth, humanity, and the Brit-
ish public, such a vast and influential class must not be
omitted from our notices of the great Snob world.

Of these Clerics there are some whose claim to snobbishness
is undoubted, and yet it cannot be discussed here; for the same
reason that Punch would not set up his show in a Cathedral,
out of respect for the solemn service celebrated within.
There are some places where he acknowledges himself not
privileged to make a noise, and puts away his show, and
silences his drum, and takes off his hat, and holds his peace.

And I know this, that if there are some Clerics who do
wrong, there are straightway a thousand newspapers to haul
tip those unfortunates, and cry, cFie upon them, fie upon
them!' while, though the press is always ready to yell and
bellow excommunication against these stray delinquent par-
sons, it somehow takes very little count of the many good
ones—of the tens of thousands of honest men, who lead Chris-
tian lives, who give to the poor generously, who deny them-
selves rigidly, and live and die in their duty, without ever a
newspaper paragraph in their favor. My beloved friend and
reader, I wish you and I could do the same; and let me whis-THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

37

per my belief, entre nous, that of those eminent philosophers
who cry out against parsons the loudest, there are not many who
have got their knowledge of the Church by going thither often.

But you who have ever listened to village bells, or have
walked to church as children on sunny Sabbath mornings; you
who have ever seen the parson's wife tending the poor man's
bedside, or the town clergyman threading the dirty stairs of
noxious alleys upon his sacred business: do not raise a shout
when one of these falls away, or yell with the mob that howls
after him.

Every man can do that. When old Father Noah was over-
taken in his cups, there was only one of his sons that dared
to make merry at his disaster, and he was not the most vir-
tuous of the family. Let us too turn away silently, nor huzza
like a parcel of schoolboys, because some big young rebel
suddenly starts up and whops the schoolmaster.

I confess, though, if I had by me the names of those seven
or eight Irish bishops, the probates of whose wills were men-
tioned in last year's journals, and who died leaving behind
them some £200,000 apiece—I would like to put them up as
patrons of my Clerical Snobs, and operate upon them as suc-
cessfully as I see from the newspapers Mr. Eisenberg, Chi-
ropodist, has lately done upon 4 His Grace the Right Reverend
Lord Bishop of Tapioca.'

And I confess that when those Right Re verend' Prelates
come up to the gates of Paradise with their probates of wills

in their hands I think that their chance is'- But the gates

of Paradise is a far way to follow their Lordships; so let us
trip down again, lest awkward questions be asked there about
our own favorite vices too.

And don't let us give way to the vulgar prejudice that
clergymen are an overpaid and luxurious body of men. When
that eminent ascetic the late Sydney Smith (by the way, by
what law of nature is it that so many Smiths in this world are
called Sydney Smith?) lauded the system of great prizes in
the Church—without which he said gentlemen would not be
induced to follow the clerical profession, he admitted most
pathetically that the clergy in general were by no means to
be envied for their worldly prosperity. From reading the
works of some modern writers of repute you would fancy
that a parson's life was passed in gorging himself with plum
pudding and port wine, and that his Reverence's fat chaps
were always greasy with the crackling of tithe pigs. Carica*38

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

turists delight to represent him so: round, short-necked,
pimple-faced, apoplectic, bursting out of waistcoat, like a
black pudding, a shovel-hatted fuzz-wigged Silenus. Where-
as, if you take the real man, the poor fellow's fleshpots are
very scantily furnished with meat. He labors commonly for
a wage that a tailor's foreman would despise; he has, too,
such claims upon his dismal income as most philosophers
would rather grumble to meet; many tithes are levied upon
his pocket, let it be remembered, by those who grudge him
his means of livelihood. He has to dine with the Squire ;
and his wife must dress neatly; and he must 'look like a gen-
tleman,' as they call it, and bring up his six great hungry
sons as such. Add to this if he does his duty he has such
temptations to spend his money as no mortal man could with-
stand. Yes; you who can't resist purchasing a chest of cigars
because they are so good, or an ormolu clock at Howell &
James' because it is such a bargain, or a box at the Opera, be-
cause Lablache and Grisi are divine in the ' Puritani'—fancy
how difficult it is for a parson to resist spending a half crown
when John Breakstone's family are without a loaf; or 'stand-
ing' a bottle of port for poor old Polly Rabbits, who has her
thirteenth child; or treating himself to a suit of corduroys for
little Bob Scarecrow, whose breeches are sadly out at elbows.
Think of these temptations, brother moralists and philosophers,
and don't be too hard on the parson.

But what is this? Instead of 'showing up' the parsons are
we indulging in maudlin praises of that monstrous black-
coated race? Oh, saintly Francis, lying at rest under the
turf! O Jimmy and Johnny and Willy, friends of my youth!
Oh, noble and dear old Elias! how should he who knows you
not respect you and your calling? May this pen never write
a pennyworth again if it ever casts ridicule upon either!

CHAPTER XII.

ON clerical snobs and snobbishness.

4Dear Mr. Snob,'an amiable young correspondent writes,
who signs himself Snobling, 'ought the clergyman who, at
the request of a noble Duke, lately interrupted a marriage
ceremony between two persons perfectly authorized to marry,
to be ranked or not among the Clerical Snobs?'

This, my dear young friend, is not a fair question. One of
the illustrated weekly papers has already seized hold of theTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

80

clergyman, and blackened him most unmercifully by repre-
senting him in his cassock performing the marriage service.
Let that be sufficient punishment; and, if you please, do not
press the query.

It is very likely that if Miss Smith had come with a license
to marry Jones, the parson in question, not seeing old Smith
present, would have sent off the beadle in a cab to let the old
gentleman know what was going on; and would have delayed
the service until the arrival of Smith senior. He very likely
thinks it his duty to ask all marriageable young ladies, who
come without their papa, why their parent is absent; and, no
doubt, always sends off the beadle for that missing governor.

Or, it is very possible that the Duke of Cceurdelion was Mr.
What-d'ye-call'im's most intimate friend, and has often said
to him, 'What-d'ye-call'im9 my boy, my daughter must never
marry the Capting. If ever they try at your church I beseech
youj considering the terms of intimacy on which we are, to
send off Rattan in a hack cab to fetch me.'

In either of which cases, you see, dear Snobling, that though
the parson would not have been authorized, yet he might have
been excused for interfering. He has no more right to stop
my marriage than to stop my dinner, to both of which, as a
freeborn Briton, I am entitled by law, if I can pay for them.
But consider pastoral solicitude, a deep sense of the duties
of his office, and pardon this inconvenient but genuin^ zeal.

But if the clergyman did in the Duke's case what he would
not do in Smith's; if he has no more acquaintance with the
Cceurdelion family than I have with the Royal and Serene
House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,—then, I confess, my dear Snob-
ling, your question might elicit a disagreeable reply, and one
which I respectfully decline to give. I wonder what Sir George
Tufto would say if a sentry left his post because a noble lord
(not in the least connected with the service) begged the sen-
tinel not to do his duty!

Alas! that the beadle who canes little boys and drives them
out cannot drive worldliness out too; and what is worldliness
but snobbishness? When, for instance, I read in the news-
paper that the Right Reverend the Lord Charles James admin-
istered the rite of confirmation to a party of the juvenile no-
bility at the Chapel Royal, as if the Chapel Royal were a sort
of ecclesiastical Almack's, and young people were to get ready
for the next world in little exclusive genteel knots of the aris-
tocracy, who were not to be disturbed in their journey thither
by the company of the vulgar—when I read such a paragraph40

THE BOOK OP SNOBS.

as that (and one or two such generally appear during the pres-
ent fashionable season) it seems to me to be the most odious,
mean, and disgusting part of that odious, mean, and disgust-
ing publication the Court Circular; and that snobbishness is
therein carried to quite an awful pitch. What, gentlemen,
can't we even in the Church acknowledge a republic? There,
at least, the Heralds' College itself might allow that we all of
us have the same pedigree, and are direct descendants of Eve
and Adam, whose inheritance is divided among us.

I hereby call upon all Dukes, Earls, Baronets, and other po-
tentates not to lend themselves to this shameful scandal and
error, and beseech all Bishops who read this publication to
take the matter into consideration, and to protest against the
continuance of the practice, and to declare,4 We wori*t confirm
or christen Lord Tomnoddy or Sir Carnaby Jenks to the ex-
clusion of any other young Christian'; the which declaration
if their lordships are induced to make a great lapis offensionis
will be removed, and the Snob Papers will not have been
written in vain.

A story is current of a celebrated nouveau-riche who, hav-
ing had occasion to oblige that excellent prelate the Bishop of
Bullocksmithy, asked his Lordship, in return, to confirm his
children privately in his Lordship's own chapel; which cere-
mony the grateful prelate accordingly performed. Can satire
go farther than this?' Is there even in this most amusing of
prints any more naive absurdity? It is as if a man wouldn't
go to heaven unless he went in a special train, or as if he
thought (as some people think about vaccination) confirmation
more effectual when administered at first hand. When that
eminent person the Begum Sumroo died it is said she left
ten thousand pounds to the Pope, and ten thousand to the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, so that there should be no mistake, so
as to make sure of having the ecclesiastical authorities on her
side. This is only a little more openly and undisguisedly
snobbish than the ^ases before alluded to. A well-bred Snob
is just as secretly proud of his richesand honors as a parvenu
Snob who makes the most ludicrous exhibition of them; and
a highborn Marchioness or Duchess just as vain of herself and
her diamonds as Queen Quashyboo, who sews a pair of epau-
lets on to her skirts, and turns out in state in a cocked hat
and feathers.

It is not out of disrespect to my 'Peerage,' which I love and
honor (indeed, have I not said before that"I should be ready
to jump out of my skin if two Dukes would walk down PallTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

Mall with me)? it is not out of disrespect for the individuals,
that I wish these titles had never been invented; but consider,
if there were no tree there would be no shadow; and how much
more honest society wou}d be, and how much more serviceable
the clergy would be (which is our present consideration), if
these temptations of rank and continual baits of worldliness
were not in existence, and perpetually thrown out to lead them
astray.

I have seen many examples of their falling away. When,
for instance, Tom Sniffle first went into the country as Curate
for Mr. Fuddleston (Sir Huddleston Fuddleston's brother),
who resided on some other living, there could not be a more
kind, hard-working, and excellent creature than Tom. He had
his aunt to live with him. His conduct to his poor was ad-
mirable. He wrote annually reams of the best-intentioned and
most vapid sermons. When Lord Brandyball's family first
came down into the country, and invited him to dine at
Brand yball Park, Sniffle was so agitated that he almost forgot
how to say grace, and upset a bowl of currant jelly sauce in
Lady Fanny Toffy's lap.

What was the consequence of his intimacy with that noble
family? He quarreled with his aunt for dining out every
night. The wretch forgot his poor altogether, and killed his
old nag by always riding over to Brandyball; where he reveled
in the maddest passion for Lady Fanny. He ordered the neat-
est new clothes and ecclesiastical waistcoats from London; he
appeared with corazza shirts, lacquered boots, and perfumery;
he bought a blood horse from Bob Toffy; was seen at archery
meetings, public breakfasts—actually at cover; and I blush to
say that I saw him in a stall at the Opera; and afterward rid-
ing by Lady Fanny's side in Rotten Row. He double-barreled
his name (as many poor Snobs do), and instead of T. Sniffle, as
formerly, came out, in a porcelain card, as Rev. T. D'Arcy
Sniffle, Burlington Hotel.

The end of all this may be imagined; when the Earl of Bran-
dyball was made acquainted with the Curate's love for Lady
Fanny he had that fit of the gout which so nearly carried him
off (to the inexpressible grie£of his son, Lord Alicompayne),
and uttered that rerparkable speech to Sniffle which disposed
of the claims of the latter: {If I didn't respect the Church,
Sir,' his Lordship said,'by Jove, I'd kick you downstairs!' His
Lordship then fell back into the fit aforesaid; and Lady Fanny,
as we all know, married General Podager.

As for poor Tom, he was over head and ears in debt as well42

the book of snobs.

as in love ; his creditors came down upon him. Mr. Hemp of
Portugal Street proclaimed his name lately as a reverend out-
law ; and he has been seen at various foreign watering places,
sometimes doing duty; sometimes 'coaching' a stray gentle-
man's son at Carlsruhe or Kissingen, sometimes—must we say
it?—lurking about the roulette tables with a tuft to his chin.

If temptation had not come upon this unhappy fellow in the
shape of a Lord Brandyball he might still have been follow-
ing his profession, humbly and worthily. He might have
married his cousin with £4000, the wine merchant's daugh-
ter (the old gentleman quarreled with his nephew for not solicit-
ing wine orders from Lord B. for him); he might have had
seven children, and taken private pupils, and eked out his
income, and lived and died a country parson.

Could he have done better? You who want to know how
great and good and noble such a character may be read
Stanley's 'Life of Dr. Arnold.'

CHAPTER XIII.

on clerical snobs.

Among the varieties of the Snob-Clerical, the University
Snob and the Scholastic Snob ought never to be forgotten;
they form a very strong battalion in the black-coated army.

The wisdom of our ancestors (which I admire more and more
every day) seemed to have determined that the education of
youth was so paltry and unimportant a matter that almost any
man, armed with a-birch and a regulation cassock and degree,
might undertake the charge; and many an honest country gen-
tleman may be found to the present day who takes very good
«are to have a character with his butler when he engages him,
and will not purchase a horse without the strongest warranty
and the closest inspection, but sends off his son, young John
Thomas, to school without asking any questions about the
Schoolmaster, and places the lad at Switchester College, under
Dr. Block, because he (the good old English gentleman)-had
been at Switchester, under Dr. Buzwig, forty years ago.

We have a love for all the little boys at school; for many
scores of thousands of them read and love Punch: may he
never write a word that shall not be honest and fit for them to
read! He will not have his young friends to be Snobs in the
future, or to be bullied by Snobs, or given over to such to be
educated. Our connection with the youth at the Universities
is very close and affectionate. The candid undergraduate isTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

43

our friend. The pompous old College Don trembles in his
common room lest we should attack him and show him up as
a Snob.

When railroads were threatening to invade the land which
they have since conquered it may be recollected what a shriek-
ing and outcry the authorities of Oxford and Eton made, lest
the iron abominations should come near those seats of pure
learning, and tempt the British youth astray. The supplica-
tions were in vain; the railroad is in upon them and the old-
world institutions are doomed. I felt charmed to read in the
papers the other day a most veracious puffing advertisement
headed, 'To College and back for Five Shillings.' The Col-
lege Gardens (it said) will be thrown open on this occasion;
the College youths will perform a regatta; the Chapel of King's
College will have its celebrated music; and all for five shillings!
The Goths have got into Rome; Napoleon Stephenson draws
his republican lines round the sacred old cities; and the ecclesi-
astical bigwigs who garrison them must prepare to lay down
key and crozier before the iron conqueror.

If you consider, dear reader, what pijofound snobbishness
the University System produced, you will allow that it is time
to attack some of those feudal middle-age superstitions. If
you go down for five shillings to look at the 'College Youths,'
you may see one sneaking down the court without a tassel to
his cap; another with a gold or silver fringe to his velvet
trencher; a third lad with a master's gown and hat, walking
at ease over the sacred College grassplots, which common men
must not tread on.

He may do it because he is a nobleman. Because a lad is
a Lord the University gives him a degree at the end of two
years which another is seven in acquiring. Because he is a
Lord he has no call to go through an examination. Any man
who has not been to College and back for five shillings would
not believe in such distinctions in a place of education, so
absurd and monstrous do they seem to be.

The lads with gold and silver lace are sons of rich gentle-
men, and called Fellow-Commoners; they are privileged to
feed better than the pensioners, and to have wine with their
victuals, which the latter can only get in their rooms.

The unlucky boys who have no tassels to their caps, are
called sizars—servitors at Oxford (a very pretty and gentle-
manlike title). A distinction is made in their clothes because
they are poor; for which reason they wear a badge of poverty,
andare notallowedtotaketheirmealswiththeirfellow-students.44

THE BOOK OP SNOBS.

When this wicked and shameful distinction was set up it
was of a piece with all the rest—a part of the brutal, unchris-
tian, blundering feudal system. Distinctions of rank were
then so strongly insisted upon that it would have been thought
blasphemy to doubt them, as blasphemous as it is in parts of
the United States now for a nigger to set up as the equal of a
white man. A ruffian like Henry VIII. talked as gravely about
the divine powers vested in him as if he had been an inspired
prophet. A wretch like James I. riot only believed that there
was in himself a particular sanctity, but other people believed
him. Government regulated the length of a merchant's shoe,
as well as meddled with his trade, prices, exports, machinery.
It thought itself justified in roasting a man for his religion,
or pulling a Jew's teeth out if he did not pay a contribution,
or ordered him to dress in a yellow gabardine, and locked him
in a particular quarter.

Now a merchant may wear what boots he pleases, and has
pretty nearly acquired the privilege of buying and selling
without the Government laying its paws upon the bargain.
The stake for heretics is gone; the pillory is taken down;
Bishops are even found lifting up their voices against the re-
mains of persecution, and ready to do away with the last
Catholic Disabilities. Sir Robert Peel, though he wished it
ever so much, has no power over Mr. Benjamin Disraeli's
grinders, or any means of violently handling that gentleman's
jaw. Jews are not called upon to wear badges; on the con-
trary, they may live in Piccadilly, or the Minories, according
tofandy; they may dress like Christians, and do sometimes
liTa most elegant and fashionable manner.

Why is the poor College servitor to wear that name and
that badge still? Because Universities are the last places into
which Reform penetrates. But now that she can go to Col-
lege and back for five shillings, let her travel down thither.

CHAPTER XIV.

ON UNIVERSITY SNOBS.

All the men of St. Boniface will recognize Hugby and
Crump in these two pictures. They were tutors in our time,
and Crump is since advanced to be President of the College.
He was formerly, and is now, a rich specimen of a University
Snob.

At five-and-twenty Crump invented three new meters, and
published an edition of an exceedingly improper Greek ComedyTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

45

with no less than twenty emendations upon the German text
of Schnupfenius ^nd Schnapsius. These services to religion
instantly pointed him out for advancement in the Church, and
he is now President of St. Boniface, and very narrowly escaped
the bench.

Crump thinks St. Boniface the center of the world, and his
position as 'President the highest in England. He expects the
fellows and tutors to pay him the same sort of service that
Cardinals pay to the Pope. I am sure Crawler would have
no objection to carry his trencher, or Page to hold up the
skirts of his gown as he stalks into chapel. He roars out the
responses there as if it were an honor to Heaven that the Presi-
dent of St. Boniface should take a part in the service, and in
his own lodge and College acknowledges the Sovereigr^ only
as his superior.

When the allied monarchs came down, and were madl; Doc-
tors of the University, a breakfast was given at St. Boniface;
on which occasion Crump allowed the Emperor Alexander to
walk before him, but took the pas himself of the King of Prus-
sia and Prince Blucher. He was going to put the Hetman
Platoff to breakfast at a side table with the under College
tutors; but he was induced to relent, and merely entertained
that distinguished Cossack with a discourse on his own lan-
guage, in which he showed that the Hetman knew nothing
about it.

As for us undergraduates, we scarcely knew more about
Crump than a|>out the Grand Llama. A few favored youths
are asked occasionally to tea at the lodge; but they do not
speak unless first addressed by the Doctor; and if they venture
to sit down, Crump's follower, Mr. Toady, whispers, 'Gentle-
men, will you have the kindness to get up? The President is
passing;' or, 'Gentlemen, the President perfers that undergrad-
uates should not sit down'; or words to a similar effect.

To do Crump justice, he does not cringe now to great people.
He rather patronizes them than otherwise; and, in London,
speaks quite affably to a Duke who has been brought up at his
College, or holds out a finger to a Marquis. He does not dis-
guise his own origin, but brags of it with considerable self-
gratulation: 'I was a Charity-boy,' says he; 'see what I am
now: the greatest Greek scholar of the greatest College of the
greatest University of the greatest Empire in the world.9 The
argument being that this is a capital world for beggars, be-
cause he, being a beggar, has managed to get on horseback/

Hugby owes his eminence to patient merit and agreeable46

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

perseverance. He is a meek, mild, inoffensive creature, with
just enough of scholarship to fit him to hold a lecture or set
an examination paper. He rose by kindness to the aristocracy.
It was wonderful to see the way in which that poor creature
groveled before a nobleman or a Lord's nephew, or even some
noisy and disreputable commoner, the friend of a Lord. He
used to give the young noblemen the most painful and elaborate
breakfasts, and adopt a jaunty genteel air, and talk with them
(although he was decidedly serious) about the opera, or the
last run with the hounds. It was good to watch him in the
midst of a circle of young tufts, with his mean, smiling, eager,
uneasy familiarity. He used to write home confidential letters
to their parents, and made it his duty to call upon them when
in town, to condole or rejoice with them when a death, birth,
or marriage took place in their family; and to feast them when-
ever they came to the University. I recollect a letter lying
on a desk in his lecture room for a whole term, beginning,
1 My Lord Duke.' It was to show us that he corresponded
with such dignities.

When the late lamented Lord Glenlivat, who broke his neck
at a hurdle-race at the premature age of twenty-four, was
at the University, the amiable young fellow, passing [to his
rooms in the early morning, and seeing Hugby's boots at his
door, on the same staircase, playfully wadded the insides of
the boots with cobbler's wax, which caused excruciating pains
to the Rev. Mr. Hugby, when he came to take them off the
same evening, before dining with the master of St. Crispin's.

Everybody gave the credit of this admirable piece of fun to
Lord Glenlivat's friend Bob Tizzy, who was famous for such
feats, and who had already made away with the College pump
handle; filed St. Boniface's nose smooth with his face; carried
off four images of nigger boys from the tobacconists; painted
the senior proctor's horse pea-green, etc., etc.; and Bob (who
was of the party certainly, and would not peach) was just on
the point of incurring expulsion, and so losing the family liv-
ing which was in store for him, when Glenlivat nobly stepped
forward, owned himself to be the author of the delightful jeu
d'esprit, apologized to the tutor, and accepted the rustication.

Hugby cried when Glenlivat apologized; if the young noble-
man had kicked him round the court I believe the tutor would
have been happy, so that an apology and a reconciliation might
subsequently ensue. 'My Lord,' said he,4in your conduct on
this and all other occasions you have acted as becomes a gen-
tleman ; you have been an honor to the University, as you willTHBr BOOK OF SNOBS.

47

be to the peerage, I am sure, when the amiable vivacity of
youth is calmed down, and you are called upon to take your
proper share in the government of the'nation.9 And when
his Lordship took leave of the University Hugby presented
him with a copy of his 'Sermons to a Nobleman's Family'
(Hugby was once private tutor to the sons of the Earl of Muff-
borough), which Glenlivat presented in return to Mr. William
Ramm, known to the fancy as the Tutbury Pet, and the ser-
mons now figure on the boudoir table- of Mrs. Ramm, behind
the bar of her house of entertainment, The Game Cock and
Spurs, near Woodstock, Oxon.

At the beginning of the long vacation Hugby comes to town,
and puts up in handsome lodgings near St. James' Square;
rides in the Park in the afternoon; and is delighted to read
his name in the morning papers among the list of persons pres-
ent at Muffborough House, and the Marquis of Farintosh's
evening parties. He is a member of Sydney Scraper's Club,
where, however, he drinks his pint of claret.

Sometimes you may see him on Sundays, at the hour when
tavern doors open, whence issue little girls with great jugs of
porter; when charity-boys walk the streets, bearing brown
dishes of smoking shoulders of mutton and baked 'taturs; when
Sheeny and Moses are seen smoking their pipes before their
lazy shutters in Seven Dials; when a crowd of smiling persons
in <5lean outlandish dresses, in monstrous bonnets and flaring
printed gowns, or in crumpled glossy coats and silks that bear
the creases of the drawers where they have lain all the week,
file down High Street—sometimes, I say, you may see Hugby
coming out of the Church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, with a
stout gentlewoman leaning on his arm, whose old face bears
an expression of supreme pride and happiness as she glances
round at all the neighbors, and who faces the Curate himself,
and marches into Holborn, where she pulls the bell of a house
over which is inscribed, 4Hugby, Haberdasher.' It is the
mother of the Rev. F. Hugby, as proud of her son in his
white choker as Cornelia of her jewels at Rome. That is
old Hugby bringing up the rear with the Prayer Books, and
Betsy Hugby the old maid, his daughter—old Hugby, Haber-
dasher and Churchwarden.

In the front room upstairs, where the dinner is laid out, there
is a picture of Muffborough Castle; of the Earl of Muffborough,
K. X., Lord-Lieutenant for Diddlesex; an engraving, from
an almanac, of St. Boniface College, Oxon; and a sticking-
plaster portrait of Hugby when young, in a cap and gown. A4S

the book of sjtobs.

copy of his Sermons to a Nobleman's Family' is on the book-
shelf, by the 'Whole Duty of Man,5 the Reports of the Mis-
sionary Societies, and the6 Oxford University Calendar.5 Old
Hugby knows part of this by heart: every living belonging
to St. Boniface, and the name of every tutor, fellow, noble-
man, and undergraduate.

He used to go to meeting and preach himself until his son
took orders ; but of late the old gentleman has been accused of
Puseyism, and is quite pitiless against the Dissenters.

CHAPTER XV.

on university snobs.

I should like to fill several volumes with accounts of various
University Snobs, so fond are my reminiscences of them, and
so numerous are they. I should like to speak, above all, of
the wives and daughters of some of the Professor-Snobs.: their
amusements, habits, jealousies; theirinnocentartificesto entrap
young men; their picnics, concerts, and evening parties. I
wonder what has become of Emily Blades, daughter of Blades,
the Professor of the Mandingo language? I remember her
shoulders to this day, as she sat in the midst of a crowd of about
seventy young gentlemen, from Corpus and Catherine Hall,
entertaining them with ogles and French songs on the guitar.
Are you married, fair Emily of the shoulders? What beautiful
ringlets those were that used to dribble over them! what a
waist! what a killing sea-green shot-silk gown! what a cameo,
the size of a muffin! There were thirty-six young men of the
University in love at one time with Emily Blades; and no
words are sufficient to describe the pity, the sorrow, the deep,
deep comrrnseration—the rage, fury, and uncharitableness, in
other word;;—with which the Miss Trumps (daughter of
Trumps,theProfessorof Phlebotomy)regarded her,because she
didn't squint,and because she wasn't marked with the smallpox.

As for the young University Snobs,"I am getting too old
now to speak of such very familiarly. My recollections of
them lie in the far, far past—almost as far back as Pelham's
time.

We then used to consider Snobs raw-looking lads, who never
missed chapel; who wore high-lows and no straps; who walked
two hours on the Trumpington Road every day of their lives;
who carried off the College scholarships, and who overrated
themselves in hall. We were premature in pronouncing our
verdict of youthful Snobbishness. The man without strapsTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

4ft

fulfilled his destiny and duty. He eased his old governor, the
Curate in Westmoreland, or helped his sisters to set up the
Ladies' School. He wrote a 4Dictionary,' or a 'Treatise on
Conic Sections,' as his nature and genius prompted. He got
a fellowship; and then took to himself a wife, and a living.
He presides over a parish now, and thinks it rather a dashing
thing to belong to the Oxford and Cambridge Club; and his
parishioners love him, and snore under his sermons. No, no,
he is not a Snob. It is not straps that make the gentleman,
or high-lows that unmake him, be they ever so thick. My son,
it is you who are the Snob if you lightly despise a man for
doing his duty, and refuse to shake an honest man's hand be-
cause it wears a Berlin glove.

We then used to consider it not the least vulgar for a parcel
of lads who had been whipped three months previous, and were
not allowed more than three glasses of port at home, to sit
down to pineapples and ices at each other's rooms, and fuddle
themselves with champagne and claret.

One looks back to what was called 'a wine party' with a
sort of wonder. Thirty lads round a table covered with bad
sweetmeats, drinking bad wines, telling bad stories, singing
bad songs over and over again. Milk punch—smoking—
ghastly headache—frightful spectacle of dessert table next
morning, and smell of tobacco—your guardian the clergyman
dropping in, in the midst olthis—expecting to find you deep
in Algebra, and discovering the Gyp administering soda water.

There were young men who despised the lads who indulged
in the coarse hospitalities of wine parties, who prided them-
selves in giving recherchk little French dinners. Both wine
party givers and dinner givers were Snobs.

There were what used to be called 'dressy Snobs'—Jimmy,
who might be seen at five o'clock elaborately rigged out, with
a camellia in his buttonhole, glazed boots, and fresh kid gloves
twice a day; Jessamy, who was conspicuous for his 'jewelry'
—a young monkey, glittering all over with chains, rings, and
shirt studs; Jacky, who rode every day solemnly on the Blen-
heim Road, in pumps and white silk stockings, with his hair
curled—all three of whom flattered themselves they gave laws
to the University about dress—all three most odious varieties
of Snobs.

Sporting Snobs of course there were, and are always—those
happy beings in whom Nature has implanted a love of slangj
who loitered about the horsekeeper's stables, and drove the
London coaches—a stage in and out—and might be seen swag*50

the book of snobs.

gering through the^ourts in pink of early mornings, and in-
dulged in dice sgid blind-hookey at nights, and never missed
a race or a boxing match; and rode flat races, and kept bull-
terriers. Worse Snobs even than these were poor miserable
wretches who did not like hunting at all, and could not afford
it, and were in mortal fear at a two-foot ditch; but who Hunted
because Glenlivat and Cinqbars hunted. The Billiard Snob
and the Boating Snob were varieties of these, and are to be
found elsewhere than in Universities.

Then there were Philosophical Snobs, who used to ape states*
men at the spouting clubs, and who believed as a fact that
Government always had an eye on the University for the se-
lection of orators for the House of Commons. There were
audacious young freethinkers, who adored nobody or nothing,
except perhaps Robespierre and the Koran, and panted for the
day when the pale name of priest should shrink and dwindle
away before the indignation of an enlightened world.

But the worst of all University Snobs are those unfortunates
who go to rack and ruin from their desire to ape their betters.
Smith becomes acquainted with great people at college, and
is ashamed of his father the tradesman. Jones has fine ac-

Suaintances, and lives after their fashion like a gay free-
earted fellow as he is, and ruins his father, and robs his sister's
portion, and cripples his younger brother's outset in life, for
the pleasure of entertaining my Lord, and riding by the side
of Sir John. And though it may be very good fun for Robin-
son to fuddle himself at home as he does at College, and to be
brought home by the policeman he has just been trying to
knock down—think what fun it is for the poor old soul his
mother! the half-pay Captain's widow, who has been pinching
herself all her life long in order that that jolly young fellow
might have a University education.

CHAPTER XYI.

ON LITERARY SNOBS.

What will he say about Literary Snobs? has been a ques-
tion, I make no doubt, often asked by the public. How can
he let off his own profession? Will that truculent and unspar-
ing monster who attacks the nobility, the clergy, the army,
and the ladies, indiscriminately, hesitate when the turn comes
to egorger his own flesh and blood?

My dear and excellent querist, whom does the schoolmaster
flog so resolutely as his own son? Didn't Brutus chop his off*THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

51

spring's head off? You have a very bad opinion indeed of
the present state of literature and of literary men if you fancy
that any one of us would hesitate to stick a knife into his
neighbor penman, if the latter's death could do the State any
service.

But the fact is that in the literary profession there are
no Snobs. Look round at the whole body of British men of
letters, and I defy you to point out among them a single in-
stance of vulgarity or envy or assumption.

Men and women, as far as I have known them, they are all
modest in their demeanor, elegant in their manners, spotless
in their lives, and honorable in their conduct to the world and
to each other. You may, occasionally, it is true, hear one
literary man abusing his brother; but why? Not in the least
out of malice; not at all from envy; merely from a sense of
truth and public duty. Suppose, for instance, I good-naturedly
point out a blemish in my friend Mr. Punch's person, and say,
Mr. P. has a hump back, and his nose and chin are more
crooked than those features in the Apollo or Antinous, which
we are accustomed to consider as our standards of beauty : does
this argue malice on my part toward Mr. Punch? Not in the
least. It is the critic's duty to point out. defects as well as
merits, and he invariably does his duty with the utmost gen-
tleness and candor.

An intelligent foreigner's testimony about our manners is
always worth having, and I think, in this respect, the work of
an eminent American, Mr. N. P. Willis, is eminently valuable
and impartial. In his'History of Ernest Clay,' a crack maga~
zine writer, the reader will get an exact account of the life of
a popular man of letters in England. He is always the great
lion of society.

He takes the pas of Dukes and Earls; all the nobility crowd
to see him; I forget how many Baronesses and Duchesses fall
in love with him. But on this subject let us hold our tongues*
Modesty forbids that we should reveal the names of the heart-
broken Countesses and dear Marchionesses who are pining for
every one of the contributors in Punch.

If anybody wants to know how intimately authors are con-
nected with the fashionable world they have but to read the
genteel novels. What refinement and delicacy pervades the
works of Mrs. Barnaby! What delightful good company do
you meet with in Mrs. Armytage! She seldom introduces
you to anybody under a Marquis! I don't know anything
more delicious than the pictures of genteel life in'Ten Thou*62

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

sand a Year,'except perhaps the 1Young Duke,' and 'Con*
iagsby.' There's a modest grace about them, and an air of
easy high fashion, which only belongs to blood, my dear Sir
—to true blood.

And what linguists many of our writers are! Lady Bulwer,
Lady Londonderry,Sir Edward himself—they write the French
language with a luxurious elegance and ease which sets them
far above their continental rivals, of whom not one (except
Paul de Kock) knows a word of English.

And what Briton can read without enjoyment the works of
James^so admirable for terseness; and the playful humor and
dazzling offhand lightness of Ainsworth? Among other hu-
morists, one might glance at a Jerrold, the chivalrous advo-
cate of Toryism and Church and State; an ar Beckett, with a
lightsome pen, but a savage earnestness of purpose; a Jeames,
whose pure style, and wit unmingled with buffoonery, was
relished by a congenial public.

Speaking of critics, perhaps there never was a review that
has done so much for literaturea s the admirable Quarterly.
It has its prejudices, to be sure, as which of us have not? It
goes out of its way to abuse a great man, or lays mercilessly
on to such pretenders as Keats and Tennyson; but, on the
other hand, it is the friend of all young authors, and has marked
and nurtured all the rising talent of the country. It is loved
by everybody. There, again, is Blackwood?s Magazine—
conspicuous for modest elegance and amiable satire; that re»
view never passes the bounds of politeness in a joke. It is the
arbiter of manners; and, while gently exposing the foibles of
Londoners (for whom the beaux esprits of Edinburgh entertain
a justifiable contempt), it is never coarse int-its fun. The fiery
enthusiasm of the Athenmum is well known; and the bitter
wit of the too difficult Literary Gazette. The Examiner is
perhaps two timid, and the Spectator too boisterous in its
praise—but who can carp at these minor faults? No, no; the
critics of England and the authors of England are unrivaled
as a body; and hence it becomes impossible for us to find fault
with them.

Above all, I never knew a man of letters ashamed of his
profession. Those who know us know what an affectionate
and brotherly spirit there is among us all. Sometimes one of
us rises in the world; we never attack him or sneer at him
under those circumstances, but rejoice to a man at his success.
If Jones dines with a Lord, Smith never says Jones is a cour-
tier and cringer. Nor, on the other hand, does Jones, whoTOE BOOK OF SNOBS.

53

is in the habit of frequenting the society of great people, give
himself any airs on account of the company he keeps; but will
leave a Duke's arm in Pall Mall to come over and speak to poor
Brown, the young penny-a-liner.

That sense of equality and fraternity among authors has
always struck me as one of the most amiable characteristics
of the class. It is because we know and respect each other
that the world respects us so much; that we hold such a good
position in society, and demean ourselves so irreproachably
when there.

Literary persons are held in such esteem by the nation that
about two of them have been absolutely invited to Court dur-
ing the present reign; and it is probable that toward the end
of the season one or two will be asked to dinner by Sir Robert
PeeL

° They are such favorites with the public that they are con«
tinually obliged to have their pictures taken and published;
and one or two could be pointed out of whom the nation in-
sists upon having a fresh portrait every year. Nothing can
be more gratifying than this proof of the affectionate regard
which the people has for its instructors.

Literature is held in such honor in England that there is a
sum of near £1200 per annum set apart to pension deserving
personsfollowing that profession. And a great compliment this
is too to the professors, and a proof of their generally pros-
perous and flourishing condition. They are generally so rich
and thrifty that scarcely any money is wanted to help them.

If every word of this is true, how, I should like to know,
am I to write about Literary Snobs?

CHAPTER XVII.

A LITTLE ABOUT IRISH SNOBS.

You do not, to be sure, imagine that there are no other
Snobs in Ireland than those of the amiable party who wish to
make pikes of iron railroads (it's a fine Irish economy), aad
to cut the throats of the Saxon invaders. These are of the ven-
omous sort; and had they been invented in his time St.
Patrick would have banished them out of the kingdom along
with the other dangerous reptiles.

I think it is the Four Masters, or else it's Olaus Mangus, or
else it's certainly O'Neill Daunt, in the 'Catechism of Irish
History,' who relates that when Richard the Second came to
Ireland, and the Irish chiefs did homage to him, going down54

THE BOOS: OF SNOBS.

011 their knees—the poor simple creatures!—and worshiping
and wondering before the English King and the dandies of his
Court, nay Lords the English noblemen mocked and jeered at
their uncouth Irish admirers, mimicked their talk and gestures,
pulled their poor old beards, and laughed at the strange fashion
of their garments.

The English Snob rampant always does this to the present
day. There is no Snob in existence, perhaps, that has such an
indomitable belief in himself; that sneers you down all the
rest of the world besides, and has such an insufferable, admi-
rable, stupid Contempt for all people but his own—nay, for all
sets but his own. 'Gwacious Gkd!' what stories about 'the
Iwish' these young dandies accompanying King Richard must
have had to tell when they returned to Pall Ma]], and smoked
their cigars upon the steps of White's!

The Irish snobbishness develops itself not in pride so much
as in servility and mean admirations and trumpery imitations
of their neighbors. And I wonder De Tocqueville and De
Beaumont and The Times' Commissioner did not explain the
Snobbishness of Ireland as contrasted with our own. Ours is
tljat of Richard's Norman Knights—haughty, brutal, stupid,
and perfectly self-confident; theirs, of the poor, wondering,
kneeling, simple chieftains. They are on their knees still be-
fore English fashion—these simple, wild people; and indeed
it is hard not to grin at some of their naive exhibitions.

Some years since, when a certain great orator was Lord
Mayor of Dublin, he used to wear a red gown and a cocked
hat, the splendor of which delighted him as much as a new
curtain ring in her nose or a string of glass beads round her
nefck charms Queen Quasheeneaboo. He used to pay visits
to people in this dress; to appear at meetings hundred of miles
off in the red velvet gown. And to hear the people crying
'Yes, me Lard!' and 'No, me Lard!' and to read the prodi-
gious accounts of his Lordship in the papers; it seemed as if
the people and he liked to be taken in by this twopenny splen-
dor. Twopenny magnificence, indeed, exists all over Ire-
land, and may be considered as the great characteristic of the
Snobbishness of that country.

When Mrs. Mulholligan, the grocer's lady, retires to Kings-
town, she has 'Mulholliganville' painted over the gate of her
villa; and receives you at a door that won't shut, or gazes at
you out of a window that is glazed with an old petticoat.

Be it ever so shabby and dispial, nobody ever owns to keep-
ing a shop. A fellow whose stock in trade is a penny roll orTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

55

a tumbler of lollipops calls his cabin the American Flour
Stores, or the Depository for Colonial Produce, or some
such name.

As for Inns, there are none in the country; Hotels abound,
as well furnished as Mulholliganville; but^ again there are no
such people as landlords and landladies; the landlord is out
with the hounds, and my Lady in the parlor talking with the
Captain or playing the piano.

If a gentleman has a hundred a year to leave to his family
they all become gentlemen, all keep a nag, ride to hounds, and
swagger about in the 'Phaynix,' and grow tufts to their chins
like so many real aristocrats.

A friend of mine has taken to be a painter, and lives out of
Ireland, where he is considered to have disgraced the family
by choosing such a profession. His father is a wine merchant ;
and his elder brother an apothecary.

The number of men one meets in London and on the Con-
tinent who have a pretty little property of five-and-twenty
hundred a year in Ireland is prodigious; those who will have
nine thousand a year in land when somebody dies are still
more numerous. I myself have met as many descendants from
Irish Kings as would form a brigade.

And who has not met the Irishman who apes the Englishman,
and who forgets his country and tries to forget his accent, or
to smother the taste of it, as it were? iCome, dine wiih me,
my boy,' says O'Dowd of O'Dowdstown; 'you'll find us all
English there*; which he tells you with a brogue as broad as
from here to Kingstown Pier. And did you never hear Mrs.
Captain Macmanus talk about 'I-ah-land,' and her account of
her 'fawther's esteet'? Very few men have rubbed through
the world without hearing and witnessing some of these Hi-
bernian phenomena—these twopenny splendors.

'And what say you to the summit of society—the Castle—
with a sham King, and sham Lords-in-waiting, and sham
loyalty, and a sham Haroun Alraschid, to go about in a sham
disguise, making believe to be affable and splendid? That
Castle is the pink and pride of Snobbishness. A Court Cir-
cular is bad enough, with two columns of print about a little
baby that's christened—but think of people liking a sham
Court Circular!

I think the shams of Ireland are more outrageous than those
of any country. A fellow shows you a hill and says, 'That's
the highest mountain in all Ireland'; or a gentleman tells you
he is descended from Brian Boru, and has his five-and-thirtythe book of skobs.

hundred a year; or Mrs. Macmanus describes her fawther's
esteet; or ould Dan rises and says the Irish women are the
loveliest, the Irish men the bravest, the Irish, land the most
fertile in the world: and nobody believes anybody—the latter
doesn't believe his story nor the hearer; but they make believe
to believe, and solemnly do honor to humbug.

0 Ireland! oh, my country! (for I make little doubt that
I am descended from Brian Boru too) when will you acknowl-
edge that two and two make four, and call a pikestaff a pike-
staff? That is the very best use you can make of the latter.
Irish Snobs will dwindle away then, and we shall never hear
tell of Hereditary Bondsmen.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PARTY-GIVING SNOBS.

Our selection of Snobs has lately been too exclusively of
apolitical character. 'Give us private Snobs,' cry the dear
ladies. (I have before me the letter of one fair correspondent
of the fishing village of Brighthelmstone in Sussex, and could
her commands ever be disobeyed?) 'Tell us more, dear Mr.
Snob, about your experience of Snobs in society.' Heaven
bless the dear souls! they are accustomed to the word now—
the odious, vulgar, horrid, unpronounceable word slips out of
their lips with the prettiest glibness possible. I should not
■wonder if it were used at Court among the Maids of Honor.
In the very best society I know it is. And why not? Snob-
bishness is vulgar—the mere words are not; that which we
call a Snob by any other name would still be Snobbish.

Well, then. As the season is drawing to a close; as many
hundreds of kind souls, snobbish or otherwise, have quitted
London: as many hospitable carpets are taken up; and
window blinds ape pitilessly papered with the Morning Her-
ald; and mansions once inhabited by cheerful owners are now
consigned to the care of the housekeeper's dreary locum tenens
—-some moldy old woman, who, in reply to the hopeless clang-
ing of the bell, peers at you for a moment from the area, and
then slowly unbolting the great hajl door, informs you my
Lady has left town, or that 'the family's in the country,' or
'gone up the Rind,' or what not: as the season and parties are
over, why not consider Party-giving Snobs for a while, and
review tne conduct of some of those individuals who have
quitted the town for six months?

Some of those worthy Snobs are making believe to go yacht-THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

57

ing, and, dressed in telescopes and pea-jackets, are passing
their time between Cherbourg and Cowes; some living hig-
gledy-piggledy in dismal little huts in Scotland, provisioned
with canisters of portable soup, and fricandeaux hermetically
sealed in tin, are passing their days slaughtering grouse on the
moors; some are dozing and bathing away the effects of the
season at Kissingen or watching the ingenious game of Trente-
et-quarante at Homburg and Ems. We can-afford to be very
bitter upon them now they are all gone. Now there are no
more parties, let us have at the Party-giving Snobs. The
dinner-giving, the ball-giving, the dejetiner-gWmg^ the con?
versazione-giving Snobs — Lord! Lord! what havoc might
have been made among them had we attacked them during the
plethora of the season! 1 should have been obliged to have
a guard to defend me from fiddlers and pastry cooks, indignant
at the abuse of their patrons. Already I'm told that, from
some flippant and unguarded expressions considered deroga-
tory to Baker Street and Harley Street, rents have fallen in
these respectable quarters; and orders have been issued that
at least Mr. Snob shall be asked to parties there no more.
Well, then—now they are all away let us frisk at our ease,
and have at everything, like the bull in the china shop. They
mayn't hear of what is going on in their absence, and, if they
do, they can't bear malice for six months. We will begin to
make itv up with them about next February, and let next year
take care of itself. We shall have no more dinners from the
dinner-giving Snobs; no more balls from the ball-givers; no
more conversaziones (thank Mussy! as Jeames says) from the
Conversazione Snob; and what is to prevent us from telling
the truth?

The snobbishness of Conversazione Snobs is very soon dis-
posed of: as soon as that cup of washy bohcr. that is handed
to you in the tea room, or the muddy remnant of ice that you
grasp in the suffocating scuffle of the assembly upstairs.

Good Heavens! What do people mean by going there?
What is done there that everybody throngs into those three
little rooms? Was the Black Hole considered to be an agree-
able reunion that Britons in the dog days here seek to imitate
it? After being rammed to a jelly in a doorway (where you
feel your feet going through Lady Barbara Macbeth's lace
flounces, and get a look from that haggard and painted old
harpy compared to which the gaze of Ugolino is quite cheer-
ful) ; after withdrawing your elbow out of poor gasping Bob
Guttleton's white waistcoat, from which cushion it was ijn-58

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

possible to remove it, though you knew you were squeezing
poor Bob into an apoplexy—you find yourself at last in the
reception room, and try to catch the eye of Mrs. Botibol, the
conversazione-giver. When you catch her eye you are ex-
pected to grin, and she smiles too, for the four hundredth time
that night; and, if she's very glad to see you, waggles her
little hand before her face as if to blow you a kiss, as the
phrase is.

Why the deuce should Mrs. Botibol blow me a kiss? I
wouldn't kiss her for the world. Why do I grin when I see
her, as if I was delighted? Am I? I don't care a straw for
Mrs. Botibol. I know what she thinks about me. I know
what she said about my last volume of poems (I had it from a
dear mutual friend). Why, I say, in a word, are we going on
ogling and telegraphing each other in this insane way? Be*
cause we are both performing the ceremonies demanded by
the Great Snob Society, whose dictates we all of us obey.

Well, the recognition is over—my jaws have returned to
their usual English expression of subdued agony and intense
gloom, and the Botibol is grinning and kissing her fingers to
somebody else,who is squeezing through the aperture by which
we have just entered. It is Lady Ann Clutterbuck, who has
her Friday evenings, as Botibol (Botty, we call her) has her
Wednesdays. That is Miss Clementina Clutterbuck, the ca-
daverous young woman in green, with florid auburn hair, who
has just published her volume of poems ('The Death-Shriek';
'Damien'; 'The Fagot of Joan of Arc' ; and 'Translations
from the German'—of course). The conversazione-women
salute each other, calling each other 'My dear Lady Ann' and
'My dear good Eliza,' and hating each other, as women hate
who giv^ parties on Wednesdays and Fridays. With inex-
pressible pain dear good Eliza sees Ann go up and coax and
wheedle Abou Gosh, who has just arrived from Syria, and beg
him to patronize her Fridays.

All this while, amid the crowd and the scuffle, and a per-
petual buzz and chatter, and the flare of the wax candles, and
an intolerable smell of musk—what the poor Snobs who write
fashionable romances call 'the gleam of gems, the odor of per-
fumes, the blaze of countless lamps'—a scrubby-looking, yel-
low-faced foreigner, with cleaned gloves, is warbling inaudi-
bly in a corner, to the accompaniment of another. 'The Great
Cacafogo,' Mrs. Botibol whispers as she passes you by. 'A
great creature, Thumpenstrumpff, is at the. instrument—the
Hetman Platoff's pianist, you know.'THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

To hear this Cacafogo and Thumpenstrumpff a hundred
people are gathered together—a bevy of dowagers, stout or
scraggy; a faint sprinkling of misses; six moody-lookingLords,
perfectly meek and solemn; wonderful foreign Counts, with
bushy whiskers and yellow faces, and a great deal of dubious
jewelry; young dandies with slim waists and open necks, and
self-satisfied simpers, and flowers in their buttons; the old,
stiff, stout, bald-headed conversazione roues whom you meet
everywhere—who never miss a night of this delicious enjoy®
ment; the three last-caught lions of the season—Higgs, the
traveler, Biggs, the novelist, and Toffey, who has come out
so on the sugar question; Captain Flash, who is invited on
account ofhis pretty wife; and Lord Ogleby,whogoes where-
ever she goes. Que sais-je? Who are the owners of all those
showy scarfs and,white neckcloths? Ask little Tom Prig, who
is there in all his glory, knows everybody, has a story about
everyone; and, as he trips home to his lodgings in Jermyn
Street, with his gibus hat and his little glazed pumps, thinks
he is the fashionablest young fellow in town, and that he really
has passed a night of exquisite enjoyment.

You go up (with your usual easy elegance of manner) and
talk to Miss Smith in a corner. 'Oh, Mr. Snob, I'm afraid'
you're sadly satirical.'

That's all she says. If you say it's fine weather, she bursts
out laughing; or hint that it's very hot, she vows you are the
drollest wretch! Meanwhile Mrs. Botibol is simpering on
fresh arrivals; the individual at the door is roaring out their
names; poor Cacafogo is quavering away in the music room
under the impression that he will be lanck in the world by
singing inaudibly here. And what a blessing it is to squeeze
out of the door, and into the street, where a half hundred of
carriages are in waiting; and where the link-boy, with that
unnecessary lantern of his, pounces upon all who issue out, and
will insist upon getting your noble Honor's Lordship's cab.

to think that there are people who, after having been
^mxiQtxbol on Wednesday, will go to Clutterbuck on Friday!

CHAPTER XIX.

DINING-OUT SNOBS.

In England Dinner-giving Snobs occupy a very important
place in society, and the task of describing them is tremen-
dous. There was a time in my life when the consciousness of
having eaten a man's salt rendered me dumb regarding his60

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

demerits, and I thought it a wicked act and a breach of hoepl*
tality to speak ill of him.

But why should a saddle of mutton blind you, or a turbot
and lobster sauce shut your mouth forever? With advancing
age men see their duties more clearly. I am not to be hood-
winked any longer by a slice of venison, be it ever so fat; and
as for being dumb on account of turbot and lobster sauce—of
course I am; good manners ordain that I should be so, until I
have swallowed the compound—but not afterward; directly
the victuals are discussed, and John taker; away the plate, my
tongue begins to wag. Does not yours, if you have a pleas-
ant neighbor? a lovely creature, say, of some five-and-thirty,
whose daughters have not yet quite come out ! they are the
best talkers. As for your young misses, they are only put
about the table to look at, like flowers in the centerpiece.
Their blushing youth and natural modesty preclude them from
that easy, confidential, conversational abandon which forms
the delight of the intercourse with their dear mothers. It is
to these, if he would prosper in his profession, that the Din-
ing-out Snob should address himself. Suppose you sit next
to one of these, how pleasant it is, in the intervals of the ban-
quet, actually to abuse the victuals and the giver of the enter-
tainment! It's twice as piquant to make fun of a man under
his very nose.

6 What is a Dinner-giving Snob?' some innocent youth, who
is not rkpandu in the world, may ask—or some simple reader
who has not the benefits of London experience.

My dear sir, I will show you—not all, for that is impossible,
but—several kinds of Dinner-giving Snobs. For instance,
suppose you, in the middle rank of life, accustomed to Mutton,
roast on Tuesday, cold on Wednesday, hashed on Thursday,
etc., with small means and a small establishment, choose to
waste the former and set the latter topsy-turvy by giving en-
tertainments unnaturally costly—you come into the Dinner-
giving Snob class at once. Suppose you get in cheap-made
dishes from the pastry cook's, and hire a couple of green grocers
or carpet beaters to figure as footmen,dismissing honest Molly,
who waits on common days, and bedizening your table (ordi^
narily ornamented with willow-pattern crockery) with two-
penny-halfpenny Birmingham plate; suppose you pretend to
be richer and grander than you ought to be—you are a Dinner-
giving Snob. And oh, I tremble to think how many and many
a one will read this!

A man who entertains in this way—and, alas, how few doTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

not!—is like a fellow who would borrow his neighbor's coat
to make a show in, or a lady who flaunts in the diamonds from
next door—a humbug, in a word, and among the Snobs he
must be set down.

A man who goes out of his natural sphere of society to ask
Lords, Generals, Aldermen, and other persons of fashion, but
is niggardly of his hospitality toward his own equals, is a
Dinner-giving Snob. My dear friend, Jack Tufthunt, for
example, knows one Lord whom he met at a watering place,
old Lord Mumble, who is as toothless as a three-months-old
baby, and as mum as an undertaker, and as dull as—well, we
will not particularize. Tufthunt never has a dinner now but
you see this solemn old toothless patrician at the right-hand
of Mrs. Tufthunt—Tufthunt is a Dinner-giving Snob.

Old Livermore, old Soy, old Chutney, the East Indian Direc-
tor, old Cutler, the Surgeon, etc.—that society of old fogies,
in fine, who give each other dinners round and round, and
dine for the mere purpose of guttling—these, again, are Din-
ner-giving Snobs.

Again, my friend Lady MacScrew, who has three grenadier
flunkeys in lace round the table, and serves up a scrag of mutton
on silver, and dribbles you out bad sherry and port by thim-
blefuls, is a Dinner-giving Snob of the other sort; and I con-
fess, for my part, I would rather dine with old Livermore or
old Soy than with her Ladyship.

Stinginess is snobbish. Ostentation is snobbish. Too great
profusion is snobbish. Tuft-hunting is snobbish. But I own
there are people more snobbish than all those whose defects are
above mentioned—viz., those individuals who can, and don't
give dinners at all. The man without hospitality shall never
sit sub iisdem trabibus with me. Let the sordid wretch go
mumble his bone alone!

What, again., is true hospitality? Alas, my dear friends
and brother Snobs! how little do we meet of it after all! Are
the motives pure which induce your friends to ask yon to
dinner? This has often come across me. Does your enter-
tainer want something from you? For instance, I am not of
a suspicious turn; but it is a fact that when Hookey is bring-
ing out a new work he asks the critics all round to dinner;
that when Walker has got his picture ready for the Exhibi-
tion he somehow grows exceedingly hospitable, and has his
friends of the press to a quiet cutlet and a glass of Sillerf.
Old Hunks, the miser, who died lately (leaving his money to
his housekeeper), lived many years on the fat of the land bj62

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

simply taking down, at all his friends', the names and Chris*
tian names of all the children. But though you may have your
own opinion about the hospitality of your acquaintances, and
though men who ask you from sordid motives are most decid-
edly Dinner-giving Snobs, it is best not to inquire into their
motives too keenly. Be not too curious about the mouth of
a gift horse. After all, a man does not intend to insult you
by asking you to dinner.

Though, for that matter, I know some characters about town
who actually consider themselves injured and insulted if the
dinner or the company is not to their liking. There is Guttle-
ton, who dines at home off a shilling's-worth of beef from the
cookshop, but if he is asked to dine at a house where there are
not peas at the end of May, or cucumbers in March along with
the turbot, thinks himself insulted by being invited. 'Good
God!' says he, 'what the deuce do the Forkers mean by asking
me to a family dinner? I can get mutton at home'; or, 'What
infernal impertinence it is of the Spooners to get entrees from
the pastry cook's, and fancy that I am to be deceived with
their stories about their French cook!' Then, again, there is
Jack Puddington—I saw that honest fellow t'other day quite
in a rage because, as chance would have it, Sir John Carver
asked him to meet the very same party he had met at Colonel
Cramley's the day before, and he had not got up a new set of
stories to entertain them. Poor Dinner-giving Snobs! you
don't know what small thanks you get for all your pains and
money! How we Dining-out Snobs sneer at your cookery, and
pooh-pooh your old hock, and are incredulous about your four-
and-sixpenny champagne, and know that the side dishes of to-
day are rechauffes from the dinner of yesterday, and mark how
certain dishes are whisked off the table untasted, so that they
may figure at the banquet to-morrow. Whenever, for my part,
I see the head man particularly anxious to escamoter a frican-
deau or a blanc-mange, I always call out, and insist upon mas-
sacring it with a spoon. All this sort of conduct makes one
popular with the Dinner-giving Snob. One friend of mine,
I know, has made a prodigious sensation in good society by
announcing apropos of certain dishes when offered to him that
he never eats aspic except at Lord Tittup's, and that Lady
Jiminy's chef is the only man in London who knows how to
dress—Filet en serpenteau—or Supreme de volatile aux truffes.i the book of snobs.

63

CHAPTER XX.

dinner-GIVING SNOBS FURTHER CONSIDERED.

If my friends would but follow the present prevailing
fashion I think they ought to give me a testimonial for the
paper on Dinner-giving Snobs which I am now writing.
What do you say now to a handsome comfortable dinner serv-
ice of plate (not including plates, for I hold silver plates to
be sheer wantonness, and would almost as soon think of silver
teacups), a couple of neat teapots, a coffeepot, trays, etc.,
with a little inscription to my wife, Mrs. Snob: and a half score
of silver tankards for the little Snoblings? to glitter on the
homely table where they partake of their quotidian mutton?

If I had my way and my plans could be carried out, dinner-
giving would increase as much on the one hand as dinner-giv-
ing Snobbishness would diminish; to my mind the most amia-
ble part of the work lately published by my esteemed friend
(if upon a very brief acquaintance he will allow me to call him
so) Alexis Soyer, the regenerator—what he (in his noble style)
would call the most succulent, savory, and elegant passages
—are those which relate, not to the grand banquets and cere-
monial dinners, but to his 'dinners at home.'

The 'dinner at home' ought to be the center of the whole
system of dinner-giving. Your usual style of meal—that is,
plenteous, comfortable, and in its perfection—should be that
to which you welcome your friends, as it is that of which you
partake yourself.

For toward what woman in the world do I entertain a higher
regard than toward the beloved partner of my existence, Mrs.
Snob ? Who should have a greater place in my affections than
her six brothers (three or four of whom we are pretty sure will
favor us with their company at seven o'clock), or her angelic
mother, my own valued mother-in-law? For whom, finally,
would I wish to cater more generously than for your very
humble servant, the present writer? Now, nobody supposes
that the Birmingham plate is had out, the disguised carpet
beaters introduced to the exclusion of the neat parlor maid, the
miserable entrees from the pastrycook's ordered in,and the chil-
dren packed off (as it is supposed) to the nursery, but really
only to the staircase, down which they slide during the dinner
time, waylaying the dishes as they come out, and fingering the
round bumps on the jellies, and the forced-meat balls in the
soup—nobody, I say, supposes that a dinner at home is char-
acterized by the horrible ceremony, the foolish makeshifts, the6*

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

mean pomp and ostentation which distinguish our banquets on
grand field days.

Such a notion is monstrous. I would as soon think of hav-
ing my dearest Bessy sitting opposite me in a turban and bird
of Paradise, and showing her jolly mottled arms out of blond
sleeves in her famous red satin gown; aye, or of having Mr.
Toole every day, in a white waistcoat, at my back, shouting,
6Silence faw the chair!'

Now if this be the case, if the Brummagem-plate pomp and
the processions of disguised footmen are odious and foolish in
everyday life, why not always? Why should Jones and I,
who are in the middle rank, alter the modes of our being to
assume an eclat which does not belong to us—to entertain our
friends, who (if we are worth anything, and honest fellows at
bottom) are men of the middle rank too, who are not in the
least deceived by our temporary splendor, and who play off
exactly the same absurd trick upon us when they ask us to dine?

If it be pleasant to dine with your friends, as all persons with
good stomachs and kindly hearts will, I presume, allow it to be,
it is better to dine twice than to dine once. It is impossible
for men of small means to be continually spending five-and-
twenty or thirty shillings on each friend who sits down to their
table. People dine for less. I myself have seen,at my favorite
Club (the Senior United Service), his Grace the Duke of Wel-
lingon quite contented with the joint, one-and-three, and half
pint of sherry wine, nine; and if his Grace, why not you and I?

This rule I have made, and found the benefit of. Whenever
I ask a couple of Dukes and a Marquis or so to dine with me
I set them down to a piece of beef, or a leg of mutton and
trimmings. The grandees thank you for this simplicity, and
appreciate the same. My dear Jones, ask any of those whom
you have the honor of knowing if such be not the case.

I am far from wishing that their Graces should treat me in
a similar fashion. Splendor is a part of their station, as de-
cent comfort (let us trust) of yours and mine. Fate has com-
fortably appointed gold plate for some, and has bidden others
contentedly to wear the willow-pattern. And being perfectly
contented (indeed humbly thankful—for look around, O Jones,
and see the myriads who are not so fortunate) to wear honest
linen, while magnificos of the world are adorned with cambric
and point lace, surely we ought to hold as miserable, envious
fools those wretched Beaux Tibbses of society, who sport a
lace dickey, andnothingbesides—the poor silly jays, who trail
a peacock's feather behind them, and think to simulate theTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

65

gorgeous bird whose nature it is to strut on palace terraces,
and to flaunt his mangificent fan-tail in the sunshine!

The jays with peacocks' feathers are the Snobs of this world;
and never, since the days of JEsop, were they more numerous
in any land than they are at present in this free country.

How does this most ancient apologue apply to the subject in
hand—the Dinner-giving Snob ? The imitation of the great is
universal in this city, from the palaces of Kensingtonia and
Belgravia even to the remotest corner of Brunswick Square,
Peacocks' feathers are stuck in the tails of most families.
Scarce one of us domestic birds but imitates the lanky, pavo-
nine strut, and shrill, genteel scream. Oh, you misguided
Dinner-giving Snobs, think how much pleasure you lose, and
how much mischief you do, with your absurd grandeurs and
hypocrisies! You stuff eachother with unnatural forced-meats,
and entertain each other to the ruin of friendship (let alone
health) and the destruction of hospitality and good fellowship
—you who but for the peacock's tail might chatter away so
much at your ease, and be so jovial and happy!

When a man goes into a great set company of Dinner-giving
and Dinner-receiving Snobs, if he has a philosophical turn of
mind, he will consider what a huge humbug the whole affair
is: the dishes and the drink and the servants and the plate
and the host and the hostess and the conversation and the com-
pany—the philosopher included.

The host is smiling and hobnobbing and talking up and
down the table; but a prey to secret terrors and anxieties lest
the wines he has brought up from the cellar should prove in-
sufficient; lest a corked bottle should destroy his calculations;
or our friend the carpet beater, by making some bevuey should
disclose his real quality of greengrocer and show that he is
not the family butler.

The hostess is smiling resolutely through all the courses,
smiling through her agony; though her heart is in the kitchen,
and she is speculating with terror lest there be any disaster
there. If the souffle should collapse, or if Wiggins does not
send the ices in time—she feels as if she would commit suicide
—that smiling, jolly woman!

The children upstairs are yelling, as their maid is crimping
their miserable ringlets with hot tongs, tearing Miss Emmy's
hair out by the roots, or scrubbing Miss Polly's dumpy nose
with mottled soap till the little wretch screams herself into fits#
The young males of the family are employed,as we have stated^
in piratical exploits upon the landing place.66

THte BOOK OF SNOBS.

The servants are not servants, but the before-mentioned
retail tradesmen.

The plate is not plate, but a mere shiny Birmingham lacquer;
and so is the hospitality and everything else.

The talk is Birmingham talk. The wag of the party, with
bitterness in his heart, having just quitted his laundress, who
is dunning him for her bill, is firing off good stories; and the
opposition wag is furious that he cannot get an innings. Jaw-
kins,the great conversationalist,is scornful and indignant with
the pair of them because he is kept out of court. Young
Muscadel, that cheap dandy, is talking fashion and Almack's
out of the Morning Post, and disgusting his neighbor, Mrs.
Fox,who reflects that she has never been there. The widow is
vexed out of patience because her daughter Maria has got a
place beside young Cambric, the penniless Curate, and not by
Colonel Goldmore, the rich widower from India. The doctor's
wife is sulky because she has not been led out before the barris-
ter's lady; old Dr. Cork is grumbling at the wine, and Guttle-
ton sneering at the cookery.

And to think that all these people might be so happy and
easy and friendly were they brought together in a natural
unpretentious way, and but for an unhappy passion for pea-
cocks' feathers in England. Gentle shades of Marat and Ko-
bespierre! when I see how all the honesty of society is cor-
rupted among us by the miserable fashion worship, I feel as
angry as Mrs. Fox just mentioned, and ready to order a general
battue of peacocks,

CHAPTER XXI.

SOME CONTINENTAL SNOBS.

Now that September has come, and all our Parliamentary
duties are over, perhaps no class of Snobs are in such hign
feather as the Continental Snobs. I watch these daily as
they commence their migration from the beach at Folkestone,
I see shoals of them depart (not perhaps without an innate
longing too to quit the Island along with those happy Snobs).
Farewell, dear friends, I say; you little know that the indi-
vidual who regards you from the beach is your friend and his-
toriographer and brother.

I went to-day to see our excellent friend Snooks on board
the Queen of the French; many scores of Snobs were there,
on the deck of that fine ship, marching forth in their pride and
bravery. They will be at Ostend in four hours; they willTHE BOOK. OF SNOBS.

inundate the Continent next week; they will carry into fai
lands the famous image of the British Snob. I shall not see
them—but am with them in spirit; and indeed there is hardly
a country in the known and civilized world in which these eyes
have not beheld them.

1 have seen Snobs in pink coats and hunting boots scouring
over the Campagnaof Rome; and have heard their oaths and
their well-known slang in the galleries of the Vatican, and
under the shadowy arches of the Colosseum. I have met a
Snob on a dromedary in the desert, and picnicking under the
Pyramid of Cheops. I like to think how many gallant British
Snobs there are, at this minute of writing, pushing their heads
out of every window in the courtyard of Meurice's in the Rue
de Rivoli; or roaring out, 'Garsong, du pang,5 'Garson, du
vang'; or swaggering down the Toledo at Naples; or even
how many will be on the lookout for Snooks on OstendPier—-
for Snooks, and the rest of the Snobs, on board the Queen of
the French*

Look at the Marquis of Carabas and his two carriages. My
Lady Marchioness comes on board ,looks round with that happy
air of mingled terror and impertinence which distinguishes her
Ladyship, and rushes to her carriage, for it is impossible that
she should mingle with the other Snobs on deck. There she
sits, and will be ill in private. The strawberry leaves on her
chariot panels are engraved on her Ladyship's heart. If she
were going to heaven instead of to Ostend I rather think she
would expect to have des places reservees for her, and would
send to order the best rooms. A courier, with his money bag
of office round his shoulders—a huge scowling footman, whose
dark pepper-and-salt livery glistens with the heraldic insignia
of the Carabases—-a brazen-looking, tawdry French femme-de-
chambre (none but a female pen can do justice to that wonder-
ful tawdry toilet of a lady's maid en voyage)—and a miser-
able dame de compagnie, are ministering to the wants of her
Ladyship and her King Charles spaniel. They are rushing
to and fro with eau-de-cologne, pocket handkerchiefs, which
are all fringe and cipher, and popping mj^sterious cushions
behind and before and in every available corner of the carriage.

The little Marquis her husband .is walking about the deck
in a bewildered manner, with a lean daughter on each arm;
the carroty-tufted hope of the family is already smoking on
the fore deck in a traveling costume checked all over, and in
little lacquer-tipped jean boots, and a shirt embroidered with
pink boa-constrictors. What is it that gives traveling Snobs68

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

such a marvelous propensity to rush into a costume? Why
should a man not travel in a coat, etc., but think proper to
dress himself like a harlequin in mourning? See, even young
Aldermanbury, the tallow merchant, who has just stepped on
board, has got a traveling dress gaping all over with pockets;
and little Tom Tapeworm, the lawyer's clerk out of the City,
who has but three weeks'leave, turns out in gaiters and a
brand-new shooting jacket, and must let the mustaches grow
on his little snuffy upper lip, forsooth!

Pompey Hicks is giving elaborate directions to his servant,
and asking loudly, 'Davis, where's the dwessing case?' and
' Davis, you'd best take the pistol case into the cabin.' Little
Pompey travels with a dressing case, and without a beard;
who he is going to shoot with his pistols, who on earth can tell?
and what he is to do with his servant but wait uj^on him I
am at a loss to conjecture.

Look at honest Nathan Houndsditch and his lady, and their
little son. What a noble air of blazing contentment illumi-
nates the features of those Snobs of Eastern race! What a
toilet Houndsditch's is! What rings and chains, what gold-
beaded canes and diamonds, what a tuft the rogue has got to
his chin (the rogue! he will never spare himself any cheap
enjoyment!) Little Houndsditch has a little cane with a gilt
head and little mosaic ornaments—altogether an extra air. As
for the lady, she is all the colors of the rainbow! She has a pink
parasol, with a white lining, and a yellow bonnet, and an
emerald-green shawl, and a shot-silk pelisse; and drab boots
and rhubarb-colored gloves; and parti-colored glass buttons,
expanding from the size of a fourpenny piece to a crown,

flitter and twiddle all down the front of her gorgeous costume.

have said before, I like to look at 'the Peoples' on their
gala days, they are so picturesquely and outrageously splendid
and happy.

Yonder comes Captain Bull, spick and span, tight and trim:
who travels for four or six months every year of his life; who
does not commit himself by luxury of raiment or insolence of
demeanor, but I think is as great a Snob as any man on board.
Bull passes the season in London, sponging for dinners, and
sleeping in a garret near his Club. Abroad he has been every-
where; he knows the best wine at every inn in every capital
in Europe; lives with the best English company there; has
seen every palace and picture gallery from Madrid to Stock-
holm; speaks an abominable little jargon of half a dozen lan-
guages—and knows nothing—-nothing. Bull hunt$ tufts on theTHE BOOK OF SNOBS*

69

Continent, and is a sort of amateur courier. He will scrape
acquaintance with old Carabas before they make Ostend; and
will remind his Lordship that he met him at Vienna twenty-
years ago, or gave him a glass of Schnapps up the Righi. We
have said Bull knows nothing; he knows the birth, arms, and
pedigree of all the peerage; has poked his little eyes into every
one of the carriages on board—their panels noted and their
crests surveyed; he knows all the continental stories of Eng-
lish scandal—how Count Towrowski ran oif with Miss Baggs
at Naples—how very thick Lady Smigsmag was with young
Cornichon of the French Legation at Florence—the. exact
amount which Jack Deuceace won of Bob Greengoose at Baden
—what it is that made the Staggs settle on the Continent—
the sum for which the O'Goggarty estates are mortgaged, etc.,
etc. If he can't catch a Lord he will hook on to a Baronet, or
else the old wretch will catch hold of some beardless young
stripling of fashion, and show him 'life' in various and amiable
and inaccessible quarters. Faugh t the old brute! If- he has
every one of the vices of the most boisterous youth, at least he
is comforted by having no conscience. He is utterly stupid,
but of a jovial turn. He believes himself to be quite a respect-
able member of society; but perhaps the only good action he
ever did in his life is the involuntary one of giving an example
to be avoided, and showing what an odious thing in the social
picture is that figure of the debauched old man who passes
through life rather a decorous Silenus, and dies some day in his
garret, alone, unrepenting,and unnoted, save by his astonished
heirs, whofindthatthedissoluteoldmiser has left money behind
him. See! heisupto old Carabas already! I told you he would.

Yonder you see the old Lady Mary MacScrew- and those
middle-aged young women her daughters; they are going to
cheapen and haggle in Belgium and up the Rhine until they
meet with a boarding house where they can live upon less
board wages than her Ladyship pays her footmen. But she
will exact and receive considerable respect from the British
Snobs located in the watering place which she selects for her
summer residence, being the daughter of the Earl of Haggis-
toun. That broad-shouldered buck, with the great whiskers
and the cleaned white kid gloves, is Mr. Phelim Clancy of Pol-
doodystown; he calls himself Mr. De Clancy; he endeavors to
disguise his native brogue with the richest superposition of
English; and if you play at billiards or ecarte with him the
chances are that you will win the first game, and he the seven
or eight games ensuing.70.

THE book of snobs.

That overgrown lady with the four daughters, and the young
dandy from the University, her sou, is Mrs. Kewsy, the emi-
nent barrister's lady, who would rather die than not be in the
fashion. She has the 'Peerage' in her carpetbag, you may
be sure; but she is altogether cut out by Mrs. Quod, the at-
torney's wife, whose carriage, with the apparatus of rumbles,
dickeys, and imperials, scarcely yields in splendor to the Mar-
quis of Carabas' own traveling chariot, and whose courier has
even bigger whiskers and a larger morocco money bag than
the Marquis' own traveling gentleman. Remark her well;
she is talking to Mr. Spout, the new Member for Jawborough,
who is going out to inspect the operations of the Zollverein,
and will put some very severe questions to Lord Palmerston
next session upon England and her relations with the Prussian-
blue trade, the Naples-soap trade, the German-tinder trade,
etc. Spout will patronize King Leopold at Brussels; will write
letters from abroad to the Jawborough Independent; and in
his quality of Member du Parliamong Britannique, will ex-
pect to be invited to a family dinner with every Sovereign
whose dominions he honors with a visit during his tour.

The next person is- But hark! the bell for shore is ring-
ing, and, shaking Snooks' hand cordially, we rush on to the
pier, waving him a farewell as the noble black ship cuts keenly
through the sunny azure waters, bearing away that cargo of
Snobs outward bound.

CHAPTER XXII.

continental snobbery continued.

We are accustomed to laugh at the Frenoh for their brag-
gadocio propensities, and intolerable vanity about la France,
la gloire, l'Empereur, and the like; and yet I think in my heart
that the British Snob, for conceit and self-sufficiency and brag-
gartism, in his way is without a parallel. There is always
something uneasy in a Frenchman's conceit. He brags with
so much fury, shrieking, and gesticulation, yells out so loudly
that the Fran^ais is at the head of civilization, the center of
thought, etc., that one can't but see the poor fellow has a lurk-
ing doubt in his own mind that he is not the wonder he pro-
fesses to be.

About the British Snobs, on the contrary, there is commonly
bo noise, no bluster, but the calmness of profound conviction.
We are better than all the world; we don't question the opin-
ion at all; it's an axiom. And when a Frenchman bellowsTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

out, cXa jFrance, monsieur, la France est d t&e du moncte
civilis&P we laugh good-naturedly at the frantic poor devil.
We are the first chop of the world; we know the fact so well
in our secret hearts that a claim set up elsewhere is simply
ludicrous. My dear brother reader, say, as a man of honor*
if you are not of this opinion? Do you think a Frenchman
your equal? You don't—you gallant British Snob—you know
you don't; no more, perhaps, does the Snob your humble
servant, brother.

And I am inclined to think it is this conviction, and the
consequent bearing of the Englishman toward the foreigner
whom he condescends to visit, this confidence of superiority
which holds up the head of the owner of every English hat
box from Sicily to St. Petersburg, that makes us so magnifi-
cently hated throughout Europe as we are; this—more than
all our little victories, and of which many Frenchmen and
Spaniards have never heard—this amazing and indomitable
insular pride, which animates my Lord in his traveling car-
riage as well as John in the rumble.

If you read the old Chronicles of the French wars you find
precisely the same character of the Englishman, and Henry
V.'s people behaved with just the cool domineering manner
of our gallant veterans of France and the Peninsula. Did you
never hear Colonel Cutler and Major Slasher talking over the
war after dinner? or Captain Boarder describing his action
with the Indomptable? cHang the fellows,' says Boarder,
'their practice was very good. I was beat off three times be-
fore I took her.' 'Cuss those carbineers of Milhauds',' says
Slasher, *what work they made of our light cavalry!' imply-
ing a sort of surprise that the Frenchman should stand up
against Britons at all; a good-natured wonder that the blind,
mad, vainglorious, brave poor devils should actually have the
courage to resist an Englishman. Legions of such English-
men are patronizing Europe at this moment, being kind to the
Pope, or good-natured to the King of Hollandy or condescend-
ing to inspect the Prussian reviews. When Nicholas came
here, who reviews a quarter of a million of pairs of mustaches
to his breakfast every morning, we took him off to Windsor and
showed him two whole regiments of six or eight hundred Brit-
ons apiece, with an air as much as to say, 4There, my boyr
look at that. Those are Englishmen, those are, and your
master whenever you please,' as the nursery song says. The
British Snob is long, long past skepticism, and can afford to
laugh quite good-humoredly at those conceited Yankees, orTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

jbesotted little Frenchmen, who set up as mpdels of mankind.
They, forsooth!

I have been led into these remarks by listening to an old
fellow at the Hotel du Nord, at Boulogne, and who is evi-
dently of the Slasher sort. He came down and seated himself
at the breakfast table, with a surly scowl on his salmon-colored
bloodshot face, strangling in a tight, cross-barred cravat; his
linen and his appointments so perfectly stiff and spotless that
everybody at once recognized him as a dear countryman.
Only our wine and other admirable institutions could have pro-
duced a figure so insolent, so stupid, so gentlemanlike. After
a while our attention was called to him by his roaring out in
,a voice of plethoric fury, 'O!'

Everybody turned round at the cO', conceiving the Colonel
to be, as his countenance denoted him, in intense pain; but the
waiters knew better, and instead of being alarmed, brought
the Colonel the kettle. 'O,' it appears, is the French for hot
water. The Colonel (though he despises it heartily) thinks he
speaks the language remarkably well. While he was inhaust-
ing his smoking tea, which went rolling and gurgling down
his throat, and hissing over the 'hot coppers9 of that respect-
able veteran, a friend joined him, with a wizened face and
very black wig, evidently a Colonel too.

The two warriors, waggling their old heads at each other,
presently joined breakfast, and fell into conversation, and we
had the advantage of hearing about the old war, and some
pleasant conjectures as to the next, which they considered im-
minent. They psha'd the French fleet; they pooh-pooh'd the
French commercial marine; they showed how, in a war, there

would be a cordon (£a cordong, by-') of steamers along

our coasts, and 'by-,' ready at a minute to land anywhere

on the other shore, to give the French as good a thrashing as
they got in the last war, 'by-In fact, a rumbling can-
nonade of oaths was fired by the two veterans during the whole
of their conversation.

There was a Frenchman in the room, but as he had not been
above ten years in London, of course he did not speak the
language, and lost the benefit of the conversation. 'But, oh,
my country!' said I to myself, 'it's no wonder that you are
so beloved! If I were a Frenchman, how I would hate you!'

That brutal, ignorant, peevish bully of an Englishman is
showing himself in every city of Europe. One of the dullest
creatures under heaven, he goes trampling Europe under foot,
(shouldering his way into galleries and cathedrals, and bus-THE book op snobs.

73

tling into palaces with his buckram uniform. At church or
theater, gala or picture gallery, his face never varies. A thou-
sand delightful sights pass before his bloodshot eyes, and don't
affect him. Countless brilliant scenes of life and manners are
shown him, but never move him. He goes to church, and
calls the practices there degrading and superstitious; as if his
altar was the only one that was acceptable. He goes to picture
galleries* and is more ignorant about Art than a French shoe-
black. Art, Nature, pass, and there is no dot of admiration
in his stupid eyes; nothing moves him except when a very
great man comes his way, and then the rigid, proud, self-con-
fident, inflexible British Snob can be as humble as a flunkey
and as supple as a harlequin.

CHAPTER XXIII.

english snobs on the continent.

4What is the use of Lord Rosse's telescope?' my friend
Panwiski exclaimed the other day. 'It only enables you to
see a few hundred thousands of miles farther. What were
thought to be mere nebulae, turn out to be most perceivable
starry systems; and beyond these, you see other nebulae, which
a more powerful glass will show to be stars, again r and so they
go on glittering and winking away into eternity.' With
which my friend Pan, heaving a great sigh, as if confessing
his inability to look Infinity in the face, sank back resigned,
and swallowed a large bumper of claret.

I (who, like other great men, have but one idea) thought
to myself that as the stars are so are the Snobs: the more
you gaze upon those luminaries, the more you behold-^-now
nebulously congregated—now faintly distinguishable—now
brightly defined—until they twinkle off in endless blazes, and
fade into the immeasurable darkness. I am but as a child
playing on the seashore. Some telescopic philosopher will
arise one day, some great Snobonomer, to find the laws of the
great science which we are now merely playing with, ana to
define and settle and classify that which is at present but
vague theory, and loose though elegant assertion.

Yes; a single eye can but trace a very few and simple varie-
ties of the enormous universe of Snobs. I sometimes think of
appealing to the public, and calling together a congress of
savants, such as met at Southampton—each to bring his con-
tributions and read his paper on the Great Subject. For what
can a single poor few do, even with the subject at present m74

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

hand? English Snobs on the Continent—though they are a
hundred thousand times less numerous than on their native
island, yet even these few are too many. One can only fix a
stray one here and there. The individuals are caught—the
thousands escape. I have noted down but three whom I have
met with in my walk this morning through this pleasant ma-
rine city of Boulogne.

There is the English Raff Snob, that frequents estaminets
and cabarets; who is heard yelling, 'We won't go home till
morning!' and startling the midnight echoes of quiet conti-
nental towns with shrieks of English slang. The boozy un-
shorn wretch is seen hovering round quays as packets arrive,
and tippling drams in inn bars where he gets credit. He talks
French with slang familiarity; he and his like quite people the
debt-prisons on the Continent. He plays pool at the billiard
houses, and may be seen engaged at cards and dominoes of
forenoons. His signature is to be seen on countless bills of
exchange; it belonged to an honorable family once, very likely;
for the English Raff most probably began by being a gentle-
man, and has a father over the water who is ashamed to hear
his name. He has cheated the old 'governor* repeatedly in
better days, and swindled his sisters of their portions, and
robbed his younger brothers. Now he is living on his wife's
jointure; she is hidden away in some dismal garret, patching
shabby finery and cobbling up old clothes for her children—the
most miserable and slatternly of women.

Or sometimes the poor woman and her daughters go about
timidly, giving lessens in English and music, or do embroid-
ery and work underhand, to purchase the means for the pot-
au-feu/ while Raff is swaggering on the quay, or tossing off
glasses of cognac at the cafe. The unfortunate creature has
a child still every year, and her constant hypocrisy is to try
and make her girls believe that their father is a respectable
man, and to huddle him out of the way when the brute comes
home drunk.

Those poor ruined souls get together and have a society of
their own, the which it is very affecting to watch—those taw-
dry pretenses at gentility, those flimsy attempts at gayety,
those woeful sallies, that jingling old piano;—oh, it makes the
heart sick to see and hear them. As Mrs. Raff, with her com-
pany of pale daughters, gives a penny tea to Mrs. Diddler, they
talk about bygone times and the fine society they kept; and
they sing feeble songs out of tattered old music books; and
while engaged in this sort of entertainment, in comes CaptainTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

15

Raff with his greasy hat on one side, and straightway the whole
of the dismal room reeks with a mingled odor of smoke and
spirits.

Has not everybody who has lived abroad met Captain Raff?
His name is proclaimed every now and then by Mr. Sheriff's
Officer Hemp; and about Boulogne and Paris and Brussels
there are so many of his sort that I will lay a wager that I shall
be accused of gross personality for showing him up. Many a
less irreclaimable villain is transported; many a more honorable
man is at present at the treadmill; and although we are the
noblest, greatest, most religious, and most moral people in the
world, I would still like to know where, except in the United
Kingdom, debts are a matter of joke, and making tradesmen
'suffer' a sport that gentlemen own to? It is dishonorable to
owe money in France. You never hear people in other parts of
Europe brag of their swindling; or see a prison in a large con-
tinental town which is not more or less peopled with English
rogues.

A still more loathsome and dangerous Snob than the above
transparent and passive scamp is frequent on the Continent of
Europe, and my young Snob friends who are traveling thither
should be especially warned against him. Captain Legg is a
gentleman, like Raff, though perhaps of a better degree. He
has robbed his family too, but of a great deal more, and has
boldly dishonored bills for thousands, where Raff has been
boggling over the clumsy conveyance of a ten-pound note.
Legg is always at the best inn, with the finest waistcoats and
mustaches, or tearing about in the flashiest of britzkas, while
poor Raff is tipsifying himself with spirits, and smoking cheap
tobacco. It is amazing to think that Legg, so often shown up,
and known everywhere, is flourishing yet. He would sink into
litter ruin but for the constant and ardent love of gentility that
distinguishes the English Snob. There is many a young fellow
of the middle classes who must know Legg to be a, rogue and a
cheat; and yet from his desire to be in the fashion, and his ad-
miration of tiptop swells, and from his ambition to air himself
by the side of a Lord's son, will let Legg make an income out
of him; content to pay so long as he can enjoy that society.
Many a worthy father of a family, when he hears that his son
is riding about with Captain Legg, Lord Levant's son, is rather
pleased that young Hopeful should be in such good company.

Legg and his friend Major Macer make professional tours
through Europe, and are to be found at the right places at the
right time. Last year I heard how my young .acquaintancethe book of snobs.

Mr. Muff, from Oxford, going to see a little life at a Carnival
ball at Paris, was accosted by an Englishman who did not

know a word of the d-- language, and hearing Muff speak

it so admirably, begged him to interpret to a waiter with whom
there was a dispute about refreshments. It was quite a com-
fort, the stranger said, to see an honest English face; and did
Muff know where there was a good place for supper? So those
two went to supper, and who should come in, of all men in the
world, but Major Macer? And so Legg introduced Macer,
and so there came on a little intimacy, and three-card loo, etc.,
etc. Year after year scores of Muffs, in various places in the
world, are victimized by Legg and Macer. The story is so
stale, the trick of seduction so entirely old and clumsy, that it
is only a wonder people can be taken in any more; but the
temptations of vice and gentility together are too much for
young English Snobs, and those simple young victims are
caught fresh every day. Though it is only to be kicked and
cheated by men of fashion, your true British Snob will present
himself for the honor.

I need not allude here to that very common British Snob^
who makes desperate efforts at becoming intimate with the
great continental aristocracy, such as old Rolls, the baker, who
has set up his quarters in the Faubourg St. Germain, and will
receive none but Carlists, and no French gentleman under the
rank of a Marquis. We can all of us laugh at that fellow's
pretensions well enough—we who tremble before a great man
of our own natiojp. But as you say, my brave and honest John
Bull of a Snob, a French Marquis of twenty descents is very
different from an English Peer; and a pack of beggarly Ger-
man and Italian Fuersten and Principi awaken the scorn of an
honest-minded Briton. But our aristocracy! that's a very
different matter. They are the real leaders of the world—the
real old original and-no-mistake nobility. Off with your cap,
Snob; down on your knees, Snob, and truckle.

CHAPTER XXIV.

on some country snobs.

Tired of the town, where the sight of the closed shutters of
the nobility, my friends, makes my heart sick in my walks,
afraid almost to sit in those vast Pall Mall solitudes the Clubs,
and of annoying the Club waiters, who might, I thought, be
going to shoot in the country but for me, I determined on aTHE BOOK OS1 SNOBS,

77

brief tour in the provinces, and paying some visits in the
country which were long due.

My first visit was to my friend Major Ponto (H. P. of the
Horse Marines), in Mangelwurzelshire. The Major, in his
little phaeton, was in waiting to take me up at the station.
The vehicle was not certainly splendid, but such a carriage as
would accommodate a plain man (as Ponto said he was) and a?
numerous family. We drove by beautiful fresh fields and
green hedges, through a cheerful English landscape; the high-
road, as smooth and trim as the way in a nobleman's park, was
charmingly checkered with cool shade and golden sunshine.
Rustics in snowy smock-frocks jerked their hats off smiling as
we passed. Children, with cheeks as red as the apples in the
orchards, bobbed courtesies to us at the cottage doors. Blue
church spires rose here and there in the distance; and as the
buxom gardener's wife opened the white gate at the Major's
little ivy-covered lodge, and we drpve through the neat plan-
tations of firs and evergreens, up t6 the house, my bosom felt
a joy and elation which I thought it was impossible to expe-
rience in the smoky atmosphere of a town. 4Here,' I mentally
exclaimed, 'is all peace, plenty, happiness. Here I shall be rid
of Snobs. There can be none in this charming Arcadian spot.'

Stripes, the Major's man (formerly Corporal in his gallant
corps), received my portmanteau, and an elegant little present,
which I had brought from town as a peace-offering to Mrs.
Ponto; viz., a cod and oysters from Grove's, in a hamper
about the size of a coffin.

Ponto's house ('The Evergreens' Mrs. P. has christened it)
is a perfect Paradise of a place. It ifc all over creepers and
bow windows and verandas. A wavy lawn tumbles up and
down all round it with flower beds of wonderful shapes, and
zigzag gravel walks, and beautiful but damp shrubberies, of
myrtles and glistening laurestines, which have procured it its
change of name. It was called Little Bullock's Pound in old
Dr. Ponto's time. I had a view of the pretty grounds, and
the stable, and the adjoining village and church, and a great
park beyond from the windows of the bedroom whither Ponto
conducted me. It was the yellow bedroom, the freshest and
pleasantest of bedchambers; the air was fragrant with a large
bouquet that was placed on the writing table; the linen was
fragrant with the lavender in which it had been laid; the chintz
hangings of the bed and the big sofa were, if not fragrant
with flowers, at least painted all over with them; the penwiper
on the table was the imitation of a double dahlia; and there78

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

was accommodation for my watch in a sunflower ©n the mantel*
piece. A scarlet-leafed creeper came curling over the win-
dows, through which the setting sun was pouring a flood of
golden light. It was all flowers and freshness.- Oh, how un-
like those black chimney-pots in St. Alban's Place, London,
on which these weary eyes are accustomed to look!

'It must be all happiness here, Ponto,' said I, flinging my-
self down into the snug bergbre, and inhaling such a delicious
draught of country air as all the mille-fleurs of Mr. Atkinson's
shop cannot impart to any the most expensive pocket handker-
chief.

'Nice place, isn't it?' said Ponto. 'Quiet and unpretend-
ing. I like everything quiet. You've not brought your valet
with you? Stripes will arrange your dressing things;' and
that functionary, entering at the same time, proceeded to gut
my portmanteau, and to lay out the black kerseymeres, 'the
rich cut velvet Genoa waistcoat,' the white choker, and other
polite articles of evening costume, with great gravity and
dispatch. 'A great dinner party,' thinks I to myself, seeing
these preparations (and not, perhaps, displeased at the idea
that some of the best people in the neighborhood were coming
to see me). 'Hark, there's the first bell ringing!' said Ponto,
moving away; and, in fact, a clamorous harbinger of victuals
began clanging from the stable turret, and announced the
agreeable fact that dinner would appear in half an hour. 'If
the dinner is as grand as the dinner bell,' thought I, 'faith,
Pm in good quarters!' and had leisure, during the half hour's
interval, not only to advance my own person to the utmost
polish of elegance which it is capable of receiving, to admire
the pedigree of the Pontos hanging over the chimney, and
the Ponto crest and arms emblazoned on the wash-hand basin
and jug, but to make a thousand reflections on the happiness
of a country life—upon the innocent friendliness and cordiality
of rustic intercourse; and to sigh for an opportunity of retir-
ing like Ponto to my own fields, to my own vine and fig tree,
with a placens uxor in my domus and a half score of sweet
young pledges of affection sporting round my paternal knee.

Clang! At the end of the thirty minutes dinner bell number
two pealed from the adjacent turret. I hastened downstairs,
expecting to find a score of healthy country folks in the draw-
ing room. There was only one person there, a tall and Roman-
nosed lady, glistering over with bugles, in deep mourning.
She rose, advanced two steps, made a majestic courtesy, dur-
ing which the bugles in her awful headdress began to twiddlethe book of snobs.	* $9

and quiver—and then said, 'Mr. Snob, we arevery happy to
see you at the Evergreens,' and heaved a great sigh.

This, then, was Mrs. Major Ponto; to whom, making my very
best bow, I replied that I was very proud to make her acquaint-
ance, as also that of so charming a place as the Evergreens.

Another sigh. 'We are distantly related,Mr. Snob,' said she,
shaking her melancholy head. 'Poor dear Lord Rubadub!'

'Oh!' said I, not knowing what the deuce Mrs. Major
Ponto meant.

'Major Ponto told me that you were of the Leicestershire
Snobs; a very old family, and related to Lord Snobbington,
who married Laura Rubadub, who is a cousin of mine, as was
her poor dear father, for whom we are mourning. What a
seizure! only sixty-three, and apoplexy quite unknown until
now in our family! In life we are in death, Mr. Snob. Does
Lady Snobbington bear the deprivation well?'

'Why, really, ma'am, I—I don't know,VI replied, more and
more confused.

As she was speaking I heard a sort of cloop, by which well-
known sound I was aware that somebody was opening a bottle
of wine, and Ponto entered, in a huge white neckcloth, and
a rather shabby black suit.

'My love,' Mrs. Major Ponto said to her husband, 'we were
talking of our cousin—poor dear Lord Rubadub. His death
has placed some of the first families in England in mourning.
Does Lady Rubadub keep the house in Hill Street, do you
know?'

I didn't know, but I said, CI believe she does,' at a venture;
and, looking down to the drawing room table, saw the inevi-
table, abominable,maniacal, absurd,disgusting 'Peerage'open
on the table, interleaved with annotations, and open at the
article 'Snobbingtbn.'

'Dinner is served,' says Stripes, flinging open the door; aiad
I gave Mrs. Major Ponto my arm.

CHAPTER XXV.

a visit to some country snobs.

Of the dinner to which we now sat down I am not going to
be a severe critic. The mahogany I hold to be inviolable;
but this I will say, that I prefer sherry to Marsala when I can
get it, and the latter was the wine of which I have no doubt I
heard the 'cloop' just before dinner. Nor was it particularly
good of its kind; however, Mrs. Major Ponto did not evidently80	' - - THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

know the difference, for she called the liquor Amontillado
during the whole of the repast, and drank but half a glass of
it, leaving the rest for the Major knd his guest.

Stripes was in the livery of the Ponto family—a thought
shabby, but gorgeous in the extreme—lots of magnificent
worsted lace and livery buttons of a very notable size. The
honest fellow's hands, I remarked, were very large and black;
and a fine odor of the stable was wafted about the room as he
moved to and fro in his ministration. I should have preferred
a clean maidservant, but the sensations of Londoners are too
acute perhaps on these subjects; and a faithful John, after all,
is more genteel.

From the circumstance of the dinner being composed of

r'g's-head mock-turtle soup, of pig's fry and roast ribs of pork,
am led to imagine that one of Ponto's black Hampshires had
been sacrificed a short time previous to my visit. It was an
excellent and comfortable repast; only there was rather a same-
ness in it, certainly. I made a similar remark the next day.

During the dinner Mrs. Ponto asked me many questions re-
garding the nobility, my relatives. 'When Lady Angelina
Skeggs would come out; and if the Countess her mamma'(this
was said with much archness and he-he-ing)' still wore that ex-
traordinary purple hair dye?' 'Whether my Lord Guttlebury
kept, besides his French chef \ and an English cordon-bleu for
the roasts, an Italian for the confectionery?' ' Who attended
at Lady Clapperclaw's conversazioni?' and 'whether Sir John
Champignon's " Thursday Mornings" were pleasant?' 'Was it
true that Lady Carabas, wanting to pawn her diamonds, found
that they were paste, and that the Marquis had disposed of
them beforehand?' 'How was it that Snufiin,the great tobacco
merchant,broke off the marriage which was on the tapis between
him and their second daughter; and was it true that a mulatto
lady came over from the Havana and forbade the match?'

'Upon my word, madam,' I had begun, and was going on to
say that I didn't know one word about all these matters which
seemed so to interest Mrs. Major Ponto, when the Major, giv-
ing me a tread or stamp with his large foot under the table,said:
'Come, come, Snob, my boy, we are all tiled, you know. We
know you're one of the fashionable people about town; we saw
your name at Lady Clapperclaw's soirees, and the Champignon

breakfasts; and as for the Rubadubs,of course,as relations-*

'Oh, of course, I dine there twice a week,' I said; and then
I remembered that my cousin, Humphry Snob, of the Middle
Temple, is a great frequenter of genteel societies, and to haveTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

81

seen his name in the Morning Post at the tag-end of several
party lists. So, taking the hint, I am ashamed' to say I in-
dulged Mrs. Major Ponto with a deal of information about
the first families in England, such as would astonish those great
personages if they knew it. I described to her most accurately
the three reigning beauties of last season at Almack's; told
her in confidence that his Grace the D-of W-was go-
ing to be married the day after his Statue was put up \ that

his Grace the D-of D-was also about to lead the fourth

daughter of the Archduke Stephen to the hymeneal altar—and
talked to her, in a word, just in the style of Mrs. Gore's last
fashionable novel.

Mrs. Majo^ was quite fascinated by this brilliant conversa-
tion. She began to trot out scraps of French, just for all the
world as they do in the novels; and kissed her hand to me
quite graciously, telling me to come soon to caffy, ung pu de
Musich o salong—with which she tripped off like an elderly
fairy.

'Shall I open a bottle of port, or do you ever drink such a
thing as Hollands and water?' says Ponto, looking ruefully at
me. This was a very different style of thing to what I had
been led to expect from him at our smoking room at the Club,
where he swaggers about his horses and his cellar ; and slap-
ping me on the shoulder used to say, 'Come down to Mangel-
wurzelshire, Snob, my boy, and I'll give you as good a day's
shooting and as good a glass of claret as any in the county.5
'Well,' I said, 'I liked Hollands much better than port,, and
gin even better than Hollands.' This was lucky. It was gin;
and Stripes brought in hot water on a splendid plated tray.

The jingling of a harp and piano soon announced that Mrs.
Ponto's ung pu de Musich had commenced, and the smell of
the stable again entering the dining room in the person of
Stripes, summoned us to caffy and the little concert.. She
beckoned me with a winning smile to the sofa, on which she
made room for me, and where we could command a fine view
of the backs of the young ladies who were performing the
musical entertainment. Very broad backs they were too,
strictly according to the present mode, for crinoline or its sub-
stitutes is not an expensive luxury, and young people in the
country can afford to be in the fashion at very trifling charges.
Miss Emily Ponto at the piano, and her sister Maria at that
somewhat exploded instrument the harp, were in light-blue
dresses that looked all flounce, and spread out like Mr. Green V
balloon when inflated.82

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

'Brilliant touch Emily has—what a fine arm Maria's is,' Mrs,
Ponto remarked good-naturedly, pointing out the merits of her
daughters, and waving her own arm in such a way as to show
that she was not a little satisfied with the beauty of that member.
I observed she had about nine bracelets and bangles, consist-
ing of chains and padlocks, the Major's miniature,and a variety
of brass serpents with fiery ruby or tender turquoise eyes, writh-
ing up to her elbow almost, in the most profuse contortions.

'You recognize those polkas? They were played at Devon-
shire House on the 23d of July, the day of the grand fete.'
So I said yes—I knew 'em quite intimately; and began wag-
ging my head as if in acknowledgment of those old friends.

When the performance was concluded, I had the felicity of
a presentation and conversation with the two tall and scraggy
Miss Pontos; and Miss Wirt, the governess, sat down to en-
tertain us with variations on4 Sich a Gettin' Upstairs.' They
were determined to be in the fashion.

For the performance of the 'Gettin' Upstairs,' I have no
other name but that it was a stunner. First Miss Wirt, with
great deliberation, played the original and beautiful melody,
cutting it, as it were, out of the instrument, and firing off each
note so loud, clear, and sharp that I am sure Stripes must have
heard it in the stable.

' What a finger!' says Mrs. Ponto; and indeed it was a finger,
as knotted as a turkey's drumstick, and splaying all over the
piano. When she had banged out the tune slowly, she began
a different manner of 'Gettin' Upstairs,' and did so with a fury
and swiftness quite incredible. She spun upstairs; she whirled
upstairs; she galloped upstairs; she rattled upstairs; and
then having got the tune to the top landing, as it were, she
hurled it down again shrieking to the bottom floor, where it
sank in a crash as if exhausted by the breathless rapidity of the
descent. Then Miss Wirt played the 'Gettin' Upstairs' with
the most pathetic and ravishing solemnity; plaintive moans
and sobs issued from the keys—you wept and trembled as you
were gettin' upstairs. Miss Wirt's hands seemed to faint and
wail and die in variations; again,and she went up with a savage
clang and rush of trumpets, as if Miss Wirt was storming a
breach; and although I knew nothing of music, as I sat and
listened with my mouth open to this wonderful display, my
caffy grew cold, and I wondered the windows did not crack
and chandelier start out of the beam at the sound of this earth-
quake of a piece of music.

'Glorious creature ! Isn't she?' said Mrs. Ponto. 'Squirtz'sTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

favorite pupil—inestimable to have such a creature. Lady
Carabas would give her eyes for her! A prodigy of accom-
plishments! Thank you, Miss Wirt!' and the young ladieS
gave a heave and a gasp of admiration—a deep-breathing gush-
ing sound, such as you hear at church when the sermon comes
to a full stop.	^

Miss1 Wirt put her two great double-knuckled hands round
a waist of her two pupils, and said 4My dear children, I hope
you will be able to play it soon as well as your poor little
governess. When I lived with the Dunsinanes it was the dear
Duchess' favorite, and Lady Barbara and Lady Jane McBeth
learned it. It was while hearing Jane play that, I remember,
that dear Lord Castletoddy first fell in love with her; and
though he is but an Irish Peer, with not more than fifteen
thousand a year, I persuaded Jane to have him. Do you know
Castletoddy, Mr. Snob?—round towers—sweet place—County
Mayo. Old Lord Castletoddy (the present Lord was then
Lord Inishowan) was a most eccentric old man—they say he
was mad. I heard his Royal Highness the poor dear Duke of
Sussex (such a man my dears, but alas! addicted ^o smoking!)
—I heard his Royal Highness say to the Marquis of Anglesea,
"I am sure Castletoddy is mad!" but Inishowan wasn't in
marrying my sweet Jane though the dear child had but her
£10,000 pour tout potageP

'Most invaluable person,'whispered Mrs. Major Ponto to
me. < Has lived in the very highest society;' and I, who have
been accustomed to see governesses bullied in the world, was
delighted to find this one ruling the roast, and to think that
even the majestic* Mrs. Ponto bent before her.

As for my pipe, so to speak, it went out at once. I hadn't
a word to say against a woman who was intimate with every
.Duchess in the Red Book. She wasn't the rosebud, but she
had been near it. She had rubbed shoulders with the great,
and about these we talked all the evening incessantly, and
about the fashions and about the Court, until bedtime came.

6And are there Snobs in this Elysium?' I exclaimed, jump-
ing into the lavender-perfumed bed. Ponto's snoring boomei
from the neighboring bedroom in reply.

CHAPTER XXVI.

on some country snobs.

Something like a journal of the proceedings of the Ever-
greens may be interesting to those foreign readers of Punch84

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

who want to know the custom of an English gentleman's family
and household. There's plenty of time to keep the Journal.
Piano-strummi ag begins at six o'clock in the morning; it lasts
till breakfast, with but a minute's intermission, when the in-
strument changes hands, and Miss Emily practices in place of
her sister Miss Maria.

In fact, the confounded instrument never stops; when the
young ladies are at their lessons, Miss Wirt hammers away at
those stunning variations, and keeps her magnificent finger in
exercise.

I asked this great creature in what other branches of educa-
tion she instructed her pupils. 'The modern languages,' says
she modestly : 'French, German, Spanish, and Italian, Latin
and the rudiments of Greek if desired. English of course;
the practice of Elocution, Geography, and Astronomy , and the
Use of the Globes, Algebra (but only as far as quadratic equa-
tions) ; for a poor ignorant female, you know, Mr. Snob, can-
not be expected to know everything. Ancient and Modern
History no yOung woman can be without; and of these I make
my beloved pupils ^perfect mistresses. Botany, Geology, and
Mineralogy I consider as amusements. And with these I
assure you we manage to pass the days at the Evergreens not
unpleasantly.'

Only these, thought I—what an education! But I looked
in one of Miss Ponto's manuscript song books and found five
faults of French in four words; and in a waggish mood asking
Miss Wirt whether Dante Algiery was so called because he
was born at Algiers, received a smiling answer in the affirma-
tive, which made me rather doubt about the accuracy of Miss
Wirt's knowledge.

When the above little morning occupations are concluded,
these unfortunate young women perform what they call Calis-
thenic Exercises in the garden. I saw them to-day, without
any crinoline, pulling the garden roller.

Dear Mrs. Ponto was in the garden too, and as limp as her
daughters: in a faded bandeau of hair, in a battered bonnet,
in a holland pinafore, in pattens, on a broken chair, snipping
leaves off a vine. Mrs. Ponto measures many yards about in
an evening. Ye Heavens! what a guy she is in that skeleton
morning costume!

Besides Stripes, they keep a boy called Thomas or Tummus.
Tummus works in the garden or about the pigsty and stable;
Thomas wears a page's costume of eruptive buttons.THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

85

When anybody calls, and Stripes is out of the way, Tummus
flings himself like mad into Thomas' clothes, and comes out
metamorphosed like Harlequin in the pantomime. To-day, as
Mrs. P. was cutting the grapevine, as the young ladies were
at the roller, down comes Tummus like a roaring whirlwind,
with 'Missus, Missus,there's company coomin'!' Away skurry
the young ladies from the roller, down comes Mrs. P. from
the old chair, off flies Tummus to change his clothes, and in an
incredibly short space of time Sir John Hawbuck, my Lady
Hawlpuck, and Master Hugh Hawbuck are introduced into the
gardeh with brazen effrontery by Thomas, who says, 'Please
Sir Jan and my Lady to walk this year way; I know Missus
is in the rose garden.'

And there, sure enough, she was!

In a pretty little garden bonnet, with beautiful curling ring-
lets, with the smartest of aprons and the freshest of pearl-col-
ored gloves, this amazing woman was in the arms of her dearest
Lady Hawbuck. 'Dearest Lady Hawbuck, how good of you!
Always among my flowers! can't live away from them!'

'Sweets to the sweet! hum—a-ha—haw!' says Sir John
Hawbuck, who piques himself on his gallantry, and says noth-
ing without 'a-hum—a-ha—a-haw!'

'Whereth yaw pinnafaw?' cries Master Hugh. ' We thaw
you in it, over the wall; didn't we, Pa?5

'Hum—a-ha—-a-haw!' burst out Sir John, dreadfully
alarmed. 'Where's Ponto? Why wasn't he at Quarter Ses-
sions? How are his birds this year, Mrs. Ponto—have those
Carabas pheasants done any harm to your wheat? a-hum—•
a-ha—a-haw!' and all this while he was making the most
ferocious and desperate signals to his youthful heir.

'Well, she wath in her pinnafaw; wathn't she, Ma?' says
Hugh,quite unabashed; which question Lady Hawbuck turned
away with a sudden query regarding her dear darling daugh-
ters, and the enfant terrible was removed by his father.

'I hope you weren't disturbed by the music?' Ponto says.
'My girls, you know, practice four hours a day, you know—
must do it, you know—absolutely necessary. As forme, you
know I'm an early man, arid in my farm every morning at five
—no, no laziness for me.'

The facts are these: Ponto goes to sleep directly after
dinner on entering the drawing room, and wakes up when the
ladies leave off practice at ten. From seven till ten, and
from ten till five, is a very fair allowance of slumber for.a man
who says he's not a lazy man. It is my private opinion that86

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

when Ponto retires to what is called his 'Study,' he sleeps too*
He locks himself up there daily two hours with the newspaper.

I saw the Hawbuck scene out of the Study, which commands
the garden. It's a curious object, that Study. Ponto's library
mostly consists of boots. He and Stripes have important in-
terviews here of mornings, when the potatoes are discussed,
or the fate of the calf ordained, or sentence passed on the pig,
etc. All the Major's bills are docketed on the Study table
and displayed like lawyers' briefs. Here, too, lie displayed
his hooks, knives, and other gardening irons, his whistles, and
strings of spare buttons. He has a drawer of endless brown
paper for parcels, and another containing a prodigious and
never-failing supply of string. What a man can want with
so many gig-whips I can never conceive. These, and fishing
rods, and landing nets, and spurs, and boot trees, and balls
for horses, and surgical implements for the same, and favorite
pots of shiny blacking, with which he paints his own shoes in
the most elegant manner, and buckskin gloves stretched out on
their trees, and his gorget, sash, and saber of the Horse Ma-
rines, with his boot hooks underneath in a trophy, and the
family medicine chest, and in a corner the v£ry rod with which
he used to whip his son, Wellesley Ponto, when a boy (Welles-
ley never entered the 'Study' but for that awful purpose)—
all these, with 'Mogg's Road Book,' the Gardeners' Chronicle,
and a backgammon board, form the Major's library. Under
the trophy there's a picture of Mrs. Ponto, in a light-blue
dress and train, and no waist, when she was first married; a
fox's brush lies over the frame, and serves to keep the dust off
that work of art.

'My library's small,' says Ponto, with the most amazing
impudence, 'but well selected, my boy—well selected. I have
been reading the "History of England" all the morning.5

CHAPTER XXVII.

a visit to some country snobs.

We had the fish, which, as the kind reader may remember,
I had brought down in a delicate attention to Mrs. Ponto, to
variegate the repastof next day; and cod andoyster sauce,twice
laid, salt cod and scolloped oysters, formed parts of the bill of
fare until I began to fancy that the Ponto family, like our late
revered monarch George II., had a fancy for stale fish. And
about this time,the pig beingconsumed, we began upon a sheep.

But how shall I forget the solemn splendor of a second course.THE BOOK OF SNOBS.	87

which was served up ih great state by Stripes in a silver Misb
and cover, a napkin twisted round his dirty thumbs; and con-
sisted of a landrail not much bigger than a corpulent sparrow.

'My love, will you take any game?' says Ponto with pro-
digious gravity; and stuck his fork into that little mouthful of
an island in the silver sea. Stripes, too, at intervals, dribbled
out the Marsala with a solemnity which would have done honor
to a Duke's butler. The Barmecide's dinner to Shacabac was
only one degree removed from these solemn banquets.

As there were plenty of pretty country places close by, a
comfortable country town, with good houses of gentlefolks,
a beautiful old parsonage, close to the church whither we went
(and where the Carabas family have their ancestral carved and
monumented Gothic pew), and every appearance of good so-
ciety in the neighborhood, I rather wondered we were not
enlivened by the appearance of some of the neighbors at the
Evergreens, and asked about them.	^

'We can't in our position of life—we can't well associate
with the attorney's family, as I leave you to suppose,' said Mrs.
Ponto confidentially. 'Of course not,' I answered, though I
didn't know why. 'And the Doctor?' said I.

'A most excellent worthy creature,'says Mrs. P.; 'saved
Maria's life—really a learned man; but what can one do in
one's position? One may ask one's medical man to one's table
certainly; but his family, my dear Mr. Snob!'

'Half a dozen little gallipots,' interposed Miss Wirt, the
governess; 'he,he,he!' and the young ladies laughed in chorus.

'We only live with the county families,' Miss Wirt* con-
tinued, tossing up her head. 'The Duke is abroad; we are at
feud with the Carabases; the Ringwoods don't come down
till Christmas; in fact, nobody's here till the hunting season
—positively nobody.'

'Whose is the large red house just outside of the town?'

'What! the chateau-calicot? he, he, he! That jAirse-proud
ex-linendraper, Mr. Yardley, with the yellow liveries, and the
wife in red velvet? How can you, my dear Mr. Snob, be so
satirical? The impertinence of those people is really some-,
thing quite overwhelming.'

* I have since heard that this aristocratic lady's father was a livery-button maker In
St. Martin's Lane ; where he met with misfortunes, and his daughter acquired her
taste for heraldry. But it may be told to her credit that out of her earnings she has
kept the bedridden old bankrupt in great comfort and secrecy at Pentonville ; and fur-
nished her brother's ontftt for the Cadetship which her patron, Lord Swigglebiggle,
gave her when he was at the Board of Control. I haye this information from a friend.
To hear Miss Wirt herself, you would fancy that her papa was a Rothschild, and that
the markets of Europe were convulsed when he went into the Gazette.88

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

' Well, then, there is the parson, Dr. Chrysostom. He's a
gentleman, at any rate.'

At this Mrs. Ponto looked at Miss Wirt. After their eyes
had met and they had wagged their heads at each other, they
looked up to the ceiling. So did the young ladies. They
thrilled. It was evident I had said somethiug very terrible.
Another black sheep in the Church? thought I, witha little
sorrow; for I don't care to own that I have a respect for the
cloth. 'I—I hope there's nothing wong?'

4 Wrong?' says Mrs. P., clasping her hands with a tragic air.

'Oh!' says Miss Wirt, and the two girls, gasping in chorus.

' Well,'says I,' I'm very sorry for it. I never saw a nicer-look-
ing old gentleman, or a better school, or heard a better sermon.5

4He used to preach those sermons in a surplice,' hissed out
Mrs. Ponto. 'He's a Puseyite, Mr. Snob.'

'Heavenly powers!' says I, admiring the pure ardor of these
female theologians; and Stripes came in with the tea. It's so
weak that no wonder Ponto's sleep isn't disturbed by it.

Of mornings we used to go out shooting. We had Ponto's
own fields to sport over (where we got the fieldfare), and the
non-preserved part of the Hawbuck property; and one even-
ing in a stubble of Ponto's skirting the Carabas woods, we got
among some pheasants, and had some real sport. I shot a
hen, I know, greatly to my delight. 'Bag it,' says Ponto in
ra£her a hurried manner; 'here's somebody coming.' So I
pocketed the bird.

'You infernal poaching thieves!' roars out a man from the
hedge in the garb of a gamekeeper. 'I wish I could, catch you
on this side of the hedge. I'd put a brace of barrels into you,
that I would.'

'Curse that Snapper,5 says Ponto, moving off; 'he's always
watching me like a spy.'

'Carry off the birds, you sneaks, and sell 'em in London,'
roars the individual, who it appears was a keeper of Lord
Carabas. 'You'll get six shillings a brace for 'em.'

' You know the price of 'em well enough, and so does your
master too, you scoundrel,' says Ponto, still retreating.

'We kills 'em on our ground,' cries Mr. Snapper, hfie don't
set traps for other people's birds. We're no decoy ducks.
We're no sneaking poachers. We don't shoot 'ens, like that
'ere Cockney, ^ho's got the tail of one a-sticking out of his
pocket. Only just come across the hedge, that's all.'

'I tell you what,' says Stripes, who was out with us as
keeper this da^ (in fact,he's keeper, coachman, gardener, valetfTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.	"	S&

and bailiff, with Tummus under him), 'if you* 11 come across,
John Snapper, and take your coat off, I'll give you such a
whopping as you've never had since the last time I did it at
Guttlebury Fair.'

'Whop one of your own weight,' Mr. Snapper said, whis-
tling his dogs, and disappearing into the wood. And so we
came out of this controversy rather victoriously; but I began
to alter my preconceived ideas of rural felicity.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ON SOME COUNTRY SNOBS.

?Be hanged to your aristocrats!' Ponto said, in some con-
versation we had regarding the family at Carabas, between
whom and the Evergreens there was a feud. 'When I first
came into the country—it was the year before Sir John ^Buff
contested in the Blue interest-—the Marquis, then Lord St.
Michaels, who, of course, was Orange to the core, paid me and
Mrs. Ponto such attentions that I fairly confess I was taken
in by the old humbug, and thought that I'd met with a rare
neighbor., 'Gad, Sir, we used to get pines from Carabas, and
pheasants from Carabas, and it was, "Ponto, when will you
come over and shoot?" and, "Ponto, our pheasants want
thinning," and my Lady would insist upon her dear Mrs. Ponto
coming over to Carabas to sleep, and put me I don't know to
what expense for turbans and velvet gowns for my wife's
toilet. Well, Sir, the election takes place, and though I
was always a Liberal, personal friendship of course induces
me to plump for St. Michaels, who comes in at the head of the
poll. Next year Mrs. P. insists upon going to town—with
lodgings in Clarges Street at ten pounds a week, with a hired
brougham, and new dresses for herself and the girls, and the
deuce and all to pay. Our first cards were to Carabas House;
my Lady's are returned by a great big flunkey; and I leave
you to fancy my poor Betsy's discomfiture as the lodging
house maid took in the cards, and Lady St. Michaels drives
away, though she actually saw us at the drawing room win-
dow. Would you believe it, Sir, that though we called four
times afterward, those infernal aristocrats never returned our
visit? that though Lady St. Michaels gave nine dinner parties
and four dejettners that season, she never asked us to one? aadi
that she cut us dead at the Opera, though Betsy was nodding
to her the whole night? We wrote to her for tickets for
Almack's$ she writes to say that all hers were promised; and90

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

«aid, in the presence of Wiggins, her lady's maid, who told it
to Diggs, my wife's woman, that she couldn't conceive how
people in our station of life could so far- forget themselves as
to wish to appear in any such place! Go to Castle Carabas!
I'd sooner die than set my foot in the house of that imperti-
nent, insolvent, insolent jackanapes—and I hold him in scorn!'
After this, Ponto gave me some private information regard-
ing Lord Carabas' pecuniary affairs; how he owed money all
over the country; how Jukes the carpenter was utterly ruined
and couldn't get a shilling of his bill; how Biggs the butcher
hanged himself for the same reason; how the six big footmen
never received a guinea of wages, and Snaffle, the state coach-
man, actually took off his blown-glass wig of ceremony and
flung it at Lady Carabas' feet on the terrace before the Castle;
ail which stories, as they are private, I do not think proper to
divulge. But these details did not stifle my desire to see the
famous mansion of Castle Carabas; nay, possibly excited my
interest to know more about that lordly house and its owners.

At the entrance of the park there are a pair of great gaunt
mildewed lodges—moldy Doric temples with black chimney-
pots, in the finest classic taste, and the gates of course are sur-
mounted by the chats bottes, the well-known supporters of the
Carabas family. * Give the lodge keeper a shilling,* says Ponto
(who drove fiie near to it in his four-wheeled cruelty chaise).
*1 warrant it's the first piece of ready money he has received
for some time.' I don't know whether there was any founda-
tion for this sneer, but the gratuity was received with a court-
esy, and the gate opened for me to enter. 4Poor old portress!'
says I inwardly. 'You little know that it is the Historian of
Snobs whom you let in!' The gates were passed. A damp
green stretch of park spread right and left immeasurably, con-
fined by a chilly gray wall, and a damp long straight road be-
tween two huge rows of moist, dismal lime trees leads up to
the Castle. In the midst of the park is a great black tank or
lake, bristling over with rushes, and here and there covered
over with patches of pea-soup. A shabby temple rises on an
island in this delectable lake, which is approached by a rotten
barge that lies at roost in a dilapidated boathouse. Clumps
of elms and oaks dot over the huge green flat. Everyone of
them would have been down long since but that the Marquis is
not allowed to cut the timber.

Up that long avenue the Snobographer walked in solitude.
At the seventy-ninth tree on the left-hand side the insolvent
butcher hanged himself. I scarcely wondered at-the dismalTHE BOOK OF SN023.

91

deed, so awful and sad were the impressions connected with
the place. So, for a mile and a half I walked—alone and think-
ing of death.

I forgot to say the house is in full view all the way—except
when intercepted by the trees on the miserable island in the
lake—an enormous red-brick mansion, square, vast, and dingy.
It is flanked by four stone towers with weathercocks. In the
midst of the grand fa9ade is a huge Ionic portico, approached
by a vast, lonely, ghastly staircase. Rows of black windows,
framed in stone, stretch on either side, right and left—three
storys and eighteen windows of a row. You may see a picture
of the palace and staircase in the 4 Views of England and
Wales,' with four carved and gilt carriages waiting at the
gravel walk, and several parties of ladies and gentlemen in
"wigs and hoops dotting the fatiguing lines of the stairs.

But these stairs are made in great houses for people not to
ascend. The first Lady Carabas (they are but eighty years
in the peerage), if she got out of her gilt coach in a shower,
would be wet to* the skin before she got halfway to the carved
Ionic portico, where four dreary statues of Peace, Plenty,
Piety, and Patriotism, are the only sentinels. You enter these
palaces by back doors. 'That was vthe way the Carabases got
their peerage,' the misanthropic Ponto said after dinner.

Well—-I rang the bell at a little low side door; it clanged
and jingled and echoed for a long, long while, till at length a
face, as of a housekepeer, peered through the door, and, as
she saw my hand in my waistcoat pocket, opened it. Unhappy,
lonely housekeeper,I thought. Is Miss Crusoe in her island more
solitary? The door clapped to, and I was in Castle Carabas.

'The side entrance and All,' says the housekeeper. 'The
halligator hover the mantelpiece was brought home by Had-
miral St. Michaels, when a Capting with Lord Hanson. The
harms on the cheers is the harms of the Carabas family.' The
hall was rather comfortable, We went clapping up a clean
stone backstair and then into a back passage cheerfully dec-
orated with ragged light-green Kidderminster,and issued upon

'the great all.

'The great all is seventy-two feet in lenth, fifty-six in breath,
and thirty-eight feet 'igh. The carvings of the chimlies,
representing the buth of Venus, and Ercules, and Eyelash, is
by Van Chislum, the most famous sculpture of his hage and
country. The ceiling, by Calimanco, represents Painting,
Harchitecture, and Music (the naked female ftgure with the92

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

barrel horgan) introducing George, fust Lord Carabas, to the
Temple of tlie Muses. The winder ornaments is by Vander-
putty. The floor is Patagonian marble; and the chandelier
in the center was presented to Lionel, second Marquis, by
Lewy the Sixteenth, whose 'ead was cut hoff in the French
Revelation. We now henter

4THE SOUTH GALLERY.

'One 5undred and forty-eight in lenth by thirty-two in
breath; it is profusely hornaminted by the choicest works of
Hart. Sir Andrew Katz, founder of the Carabas family and
banker of the Prince of Horange, Kneller. Her present Lady-
ship, by Lawrence. Lord St. Michaels, by the same—he is
represented sittin' on a rock in velvit pantaloons. Moses in
the bullrushes—the bull very fine, by Paul Potter. The toilet
of Venus, Fantaski. Flemish Bores drinking, Van Ginnums.
Jupiter and Europia, de Horn. The Grand junction Canal,
Venis, by Candleetty; and Italian Bandix, by Slavata Rosa.'
And so this worthy woman went on, from one room into an-
other, from the blue room to the green, and the green to the
Jgrand saloon, and the grand saloon to the tapestry closet,
cackling her list of pictures and wonders; and furtively turn-
ing up a corner of brown holland to show the color of the old,
faded, seedy, moldy, dismal hangings.

At last we came to her Ladyship's bedroom. In the center
of this dreary apartment there is a bed about the size of one of
those whizgig temples in which the Genius appears in a panto-
mime. The huge gilt edifice is approached by steps, and so
tall that it might be let off in floors, for sleeping rooms for all
the Carabas family. An awful bed! A murder might be done
at one end of that bed, and people sleeping at the other end be
ignorant of it. Gracious powers! fancy little Lord Carabas in
a nightcap ascending those steps after putting out the candle!

The sight of that seedy and solitary splendor was too much
for me. I should go mad were I that lonely housekeeper—in
those enormous galleries—in that lonely library, filled up with
ghastly folios that nobody dares read, with an inkstand on the
center table like the coffin of a baby, and sad portraits staring
at you from the bleak walls with their solemn moldy eyes.
No wonder that Carabas does not come down here often. It
would require two thousand footmen to make the place cheer-
ful. No wonder the coachman resigned his wig, that the
masters are insolvent, and the servants perish in this huge
dreary out-at-elbow place.the book of snobs.

A single family has no more right to build itself a temple
of that sort than to er^ct a tower of Babel. Such a habitation
is not decent for a mere mortal man. But, after all, I suppose
poor Carabas had no choice. Fate put him there as it sent
Napoleon to St. Helena. Suppose it had been decreed by Nature
that you and I should beJMarquises? We wouldn't refuse, I
suppose, but take Castle Carabas and all, with debts, duns, and
mean makeshifts,and shabby pride,and swindling magnificence.

Next season, when I read of Lady Carabas' splendid enter-
tainments in the Morning Post, and see the poor old insolvent
cantering through the Park—I shall have a much tenderer in-
terest in these great people than I have had heretofore. Poor
old shabby Snob! Ride on and fancy the world is still on its
knees before the house of Carabas! Give yourself airs, poor
old bankrupt Magnifico, who are under money obligations to
your flunkeys; and must stoop so as to swindle poor trades-
men ! And for us, oh, my brother Snobs, oughtn't we to feel
happy if our walk through life is more even, and that we are
out of the reach of that surprising arrogance and that astound-
ing meanness to which this wretched old victim is obliged
to mount and descend?

CHAPTER XXIX.

a visit to some country snobs.

Notable as my reception had been (under that unfortunate
mistake of Mrs. Ponto that I was related to Lord Suobbington,
which I was not permitted to correct), it was nothing compared
to the bowing and kotooting^ the raptures and flurry which
preceded and welcomed the visit of a real live Lord and Lord's
son, a brother officer of Cornet Wellesley Ponto, in the 120th
Hussars, who came over with the young Cornet from Guttle-
bury, where their distinguished regiment was quartered. This
was my Lord Gules, Lord Saltire's grandson and lieir; a very
young, short, sandy-haired, and tobacco-smoking, nobleman,
who cannot have left the nursery very long and who,though he
accepted the honest Major's invitation to the Evergreens in
a letter written in a schoolboy handwriting, with a number of
faults in spelling, may yet be a very fine classical scholar for
what I know, having had his education at Eton, where he and
young Ponto were inseparable.

At any rate, if he can't write, he has mastered a number of
other accomplishments wonderful for one of his age and size.
He is ome of the best shots and riders in England. He rode94

THE BOOK OF SNOBS,

his horse Abracadabra, and won the famous Guttlebury steeple*
chase. He has horses entered at half the races in the country
(under other people's names; for the old Lord is a strict hand,
and will not hear of betting or gambling). He has lost and
won such sums of money as my Lord George himself might be
proud of. He knows all the stables, and all the jockeys, and
has all the 'information,' and is a match for the best Leg at
Newmarket. Nobody was ever known to be 'too much' for
him; at play or in the stable.

Although his grandfather makes him a moderate allowance,
by the aid of post-obits and convenient friends he can live in
a splendor becoming his rank. He has not distinguished him-
self in the knocking down of policemen much; he is not big
enough for that. But as a light-weight his skill is of the
very highest order. At billiards he is said to be first-rate. He
drinks and smokes as much as any two of the biggest officers
in his regiment. With such high talents, who can say how
far he may not go? He may take to politics as a delasseinpnt)
and be Prime Minister after Lord George Bentinck.

My young friend Wellesley Ponto is a gaunt and bony youth,
with a pale face profusely blotched. From his continually
pulling something on his chin, I am led to fancy that he be-
lieves he has what is called an Imperial growing there. That
is not the only tuft that is hunted in the family, by the way.
He can't, of course, indulge in those expensive amusements
which render his aristocratic comrade so respected; he bets
pretty freely when he is in cash, and rides when somebody
mounts him (for he can't afford more than his regulation char-
gers). At drinking he is by no means inferior; and why do
you think he brought his noble friend Lord Gules to the Ever-
greens? Why? because he intended to ask his mother to
order his father to pay his debts, which she couldn't refuse
before such an exalted presence. Young Ponto gave me all
this information with the most engaging frankness. We are
old friends. I used to tip him when he was at school.

'Gad!' says he, 'our wedgment's so doothid exthpenthif.
Must hunt, you know. A man couldn't live in the wedgment
if he didn'to Mess expenses enawmuth. Must dine at mess.
Must drink champagne and claret. Ours aint a port and
sherry light-infantry mess. Uniform's awful. Fitzstultz,
our Colonel, will have 'em so. Must be a distinction, you
know. At his own expense Fitzstultz altered the plumes in
*he men's caps—you called them shaving brushes, Snob, my
boy: most absurd and unjust that attack of yours, by the way jTHE BOOK OP SNOBS.

that altewation alone cotht him £500. The year befaw latht
he horthed the wegiment at an immenthe expenthe, and we're
called the Queen'th Own Pyebalds from that day. Ever theen
uth on pawade? The Empewar Nicolath burtht into tearth of
envy when he thaw nth at Windthor. And you see,' continued
mJ young friend, iI brought Gules down with me, as the
Governor is very sulky about shelling out, just to talk my
mother over, who can do anything with him. Gules told her
that I was Fitzstultz's favorite of the whole regiment; and,
Gad! she thinks,the Horse Guards will give me my troop for
nothing, and he humbugged the Governor that I was the great-
est screw in the army. Aint it a good dodge?'

With this Wellesley left me to go and smoke a cigar in the
stables with Lord Gules, and make merry over the cattle there,
under Stripes' superintendence. Young Ponto laughed writh
his friend at the venerable four-wheeled cruelty chaise; but
seemed amazed that the latter should ridicule still more an
ancient chariot of the build of 18*24, emblazoned immensely
with the arms of the Pontos and the Snaileys, from which
latter distinguished family Mrs. Ponto issued.

I found poor Pon in his study among his boots, in such a
rueful attitude of despondency that I could not but remark it.
'Look at that!' says the poor fellow, handing me over a docu-
ment. 4It's the second change in uniform since he's been in
thearmy,and yet there's no extravagance about the lad. Lord
Gules tells me he is the most careful youngster in the regiment,
God bless him! But look at that! by Heaven, Snob, look at
that and say how can a man of nine hundred keep out of the
bench?' He gave a sob as he handed me the paper across the
table; and his old face, and his old corduroys, and his shrunk
shooting jacket, and his lean shanks looked, as he spoke, more
miserably haggard, bankrupt, and threadbare.

lAeut. Wellesley Ponto, 120 th Queen's Own Pyebald Hits pars.

To Knopf & Stecknadel, Conduit Street, London:

£	s.	d.	£ s. d.

Dress Jacket, richly laced with	Bronght forward, 207 3 0

gold, . . . . . .	35	0	0	Gold Barreled Sash, . . 11 18 0

Ditto Pelisse ditto, and trimmed	Sword,......11 11 0

with ^able..........60	0	0	Ditto Belt and Sabertache, . 16 16 0

Undress Jacket, trimmed with	Pouch and Belt, . . . . 15 16 0

gold.......15	15	0	Sword Knot, .....	140

Ditto Pelisse, . . . .	80	0	0 Cloak,......13 18 6

Dress Pantaloons, . . ,	12	0	0 Valise,,.....3 13 6

Ditto Overalls, gold lace on	Regulation Saddle, . .	7 IT 8

sides, .....	6	6	0	Ditto Bridle, complete, . . 10 10 0

Undress ditto ditto, . . .	5	5	0	A Dregs Housing, complete, . 30 0 0

Blue Braided Frock, . .	14	14	0	A pair of Pistols, . . . 10 10 0

Forage Cap,..........3	3	0	A Black Sheepskin, edged, . 6 18 0

Dress Cap, gold lines, plume and	-

chain............25	0	0	£84? 9 •

Curled forward, £207 3 096

the book of snob#.

That evening Mrs. Ponto and her family made their darling
Wellesleygive afull, true, and particular account of everything
that had taken place at Lord Fitzstultz's: how many servants
waited at dinner; and how the Ladies Schneider dressed; and
what his Royal Highness said when he came down to shoot:
and who was there. 4 What a blessing that boy is to me!' said
she as my pimple-faced young friend moved off to resume
smoking operations with Gules in the now vacant kitchen; and
poor Ponto's dreary and desperate look,shall I ever forget that?

O you parents and guardians! O you men and women of
sense in England! O you legislators about to assemble m
Parliament I read over that tailor's bill above printed—read
over that absurd catalogue of insane gimcracks and madman's
tomfoolery—=OTd^ay^wjare you ever to get rid of Snobbish-
Bess when society does so muclrfor its education?

Three hundred and forty pounds for a young chap's saddle
and breeches! Before George, I would rather be a Hottentot
or a Highlander. We laugh at poor Jocko, the monkey, danc-
ing in uniform; or at poor Jeames, the flunkey, with his
quivering calves and plush tights; or at the nigger Marquis of
Marmalade, dressed out with saber and epaulets, and giving
himself the airs of a field marshal. Lo! is not one of the
Queen's Pyebalds. in full fig, as great and foolish a monster?

CHAPTER XXX.

on some country snobs.

At last came that fortunate day at the Evergreens when 1
was to be made acquainted with some of the country families
with whom only people of Ponto's rank condescended to as-
sociate. And now, although poor Ponto had just been so
cruelty made to bleed on occasion of his son's new uniform,
and though he was in the direst and most cutthroat spirits, with
an overdrawn account at the banker's and other pressing evils
of poverty; although a tenpenny bottle of Marsala and an aw-
ful parsimony presided generally at his table, yet the poor
fellow was obliged to assume the most frank and jovial air of
cordiality; and all the covers being remove from the hangings,
and new dresses being procured for the young ladies, and the
family plate being unlocked and displayed, the house and all
within assumed a benevolent and festive appearance. The
kitchen fires began to blaze, the good wine ascended from the
eellar, a professed cook actually came over from Guttlebury
to compile culinary abominations. Stripes was in a new coat,THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

97

and so was Ponto, for a wonder, and Tummus' button-suit
was worn en permanence.*

And all this to show off the little Lord, thinks I. All this
in honor of a stupid little cigafrified Cornet of dragoons, who
oan barely write his name, while an eminent and profound
moralist like—somebody—is fobbed off with cold mutton and
relays of pig. Well, well; a martyrdom of cold mutton is
just bearable. I pardon Mrs. Ponto, from my heart I do,
especially as I wouldn't turn out of the best bedroom, in spite
of all her hints; but held my ground in the chintz tester, vow-
ing that Lord Gules, as a young man, was quite small and
hardy enough to make himself comfortable elsewhere.

The great Ponto party was a very august one. The Haw-
bucks came in their family coach, with the blood-red hand
emblazoned all over it; and their man in yellow livery waited
in country fashion at table, only to be exceeded in splendor
by the Hipsleys, the opposition Baronet, in light-blue. The
old Ladies Fitzague drove over in their little old chariot with
the fat black horses, the fat coachman, the fat footman—(why
are dowagers' horses and footmen always fat?) And soon
after these personages had arrived, with their auburn fronts
and red beaks and turbans, came the Honorable and Reverend
Lionel Pettipois, who with General and Mrs. Sago formed the
rest of the party. 'Lord and Lady Frederick Howlet were
asked, but they have friends at Ivybush,' Mrs. Ponto told
me; and that very morning, the Castlehaggards sent an ex-
cuse, as her Ladyship had a return of the quinsy. Between
ourselves, Lady Castlehaggard's quinsy always comes on when
there is dinner at the Evergreens.

If the keeping of polite company could make a woman
happy, surely my kind hostess Mrs. Ponto was on that day a
happy woman. Every person present (except the unlucky
impostor who pretended to a connection with the Snobbington
family, and General Sago, who had brought home I don't
know how many lacs of rupees from India) was related to'the
Peerage or the Baronetage. Mrs. P. had her heart's desire.
If she had been an Earl's daughter herself could she have ex-
pected better company? and her family were in the oil trade
at Bristol, as all her friends very well know.

What I complained of in my heart was not the dining—
which, for this once, was plentiful and comfortable enough—
but the prodigious dullness of the talking part of the entertain-

* I caught him in this oostume, trying the flavor of the sauce of a tipsy cake, which
was made by Mrs. Ponto's own hands for her guests' delectation.98

TELE BOOK OP SNOBS.

ment. Oh, my beloved brother Snobs of the City, if we love
each other no better than our country brethren, at least we
amuse each other more; if we bore ourselves, we are not called
upon to go ten miles to do it!

For instance, the Hipsleys came ten miles from the south,
and the Hawbucks ten miles from the north, of the Evergreens;
and were magnates in two different divisions of the county
of Mangelwurzelshire. Hipsley, who is an old Baronet with
a bothered estate, did not care to show his contempt for Haw-
buck, who is a new creation, and rich. Hawbuck, on his part,
gives himself patronizing airs to General Sago, who looks upon
the Pontos as little better than paupers. 'Old Lady Blanche,'
saysPonto, 'I hope will leave something to her goddaughter
—my second girl—we've all of us half poisoned ourselves with
taking her physic.5

Lady Blanche and Lady Rose Fitzague have, the first a
medical, and the second a literary turn. I am inclined to be-
lieve the former had a wet compresse around her body on the
occasion when I had the happiness of meeting her. She doctors
evei'ybody in the neighborhood of which she is the ornament;
and has tried everything on her own person. She went into
Court, and testified publicly her faith in St. John Long; she
swore by Dr. Buchan, she took quantities Gambouge's
Universal Medicine, and whole boxfuls of Parr's Life Pills.
She has cured a multiplicity of headaches by Squinstone's
Eyesiiuff; she wears a picture of Hahnemann in her bracelet,
and a lock of Priessnitz's hair in a brooch. She talked about
her own complaints, and those of her confidante for the time
being, to every lady in the room successively, from our hos-
tess down to Miss Wirt, taking them into corners, and whis-
pering about bronchitis, hepatitis, St. Vitus, neuralgia, cephal-
algia, and so forth. I observed poor fat Lady Hawbuck in a
dreadful alarm after some communication regarding the state
of her daughter Miss Lucy Hawbuck's health, and Mrs. Sago
turn quite yellow, and put down her third glass of Madeira,
at a warning glance from Lady Blanche.

Lady Rose talked literature, and about the book club at
Guttlebury, and is very strong in voyages and travels. She
has a prodigious interest in Borneo, and displayed a knowledge
of the history of the Punjaub and Kaffirland that does credit
to her memory. Old General Sago, who sat perfectly silent
and plethoric, roused up as from a lethargy when the former
country was mentioned, and gave the company his story about
a hog hunt at Ramjugger. I observed her Ladyship treatedthe book of skobs.

99

with something like contempt her neighbor the Rev. Lionel
Pettipois, a young divine whom you may track through the
country by little 'awakening' books at half a crown a hundred,
which dribble out of his pockets wherever he goes. I saw him
give Miss Wirt a sheaf of fThe Little Washerwoman on Putney
Common',' and to Miss Hawbuck a couple of dozenxof 'Meat
in the Tray; or the Young Butcher-boy Rescued'; and on pay-
ing a visit to Guttlebury jail, I saw two notorious fellows wait-
ing their trial there (and temporarily occupied with a game
of cribbage), to whom his Reverence offered a tract as he was
walking over Crackshins Common, and who robbed him of his
purse, umbrella, and cambric handkerchief, leaving him the
tracts to distribute elsewhere.

CHAPTER XXXI.

a VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS.

4 Why, dear Mr. Snob,' said a young lady of rank and fashion
(to whom I present my best compliments), 'if you found every-
thing so snobbisTi at the Evergreens, if the pig bored you and,
the mutton was not to your liking, and Mrs. Ponto was a hum-
bug, and Miss Wirt a nuisance, with her abominable piano
practice, why did you stay so long?'

Ah, Miss, what a question! Have you never heard of gal-
lant British soldiers storming batteries, of doctors passing
nights in plague wards of lazarettos, and other instances of
martyrdom? What do you suppose induced gentlemen to walk
two miles up to the batteries of Sobraon, with a hundred and
fifty thundering guns bowling them down by hundreds? Not
pleasure, surely. What causes your respected father to quit
his comfortable home for his chambers, after dinner, and pore
over the most dreary law papers until long past midnight?
Duty, Mademoiselle; duty, which must be done alike by mili-
tary or legal or literary gents. There's a power of martyr-
dom in our profession.

You won't believe it? Your rosy lips assume of smile of
incredulity—a most naughty and odious expression in a young
lady's face. Well, then, the fact is that my chambers, No.
24 Pump Court, Temple, were being painted by the Honorable
Society, and Mrs.Slamkin, my laundress, having occasion to go
into Durham to see her daughter, who is married, and has pre-
sented her with the sweetest little grandson—a few weeks could
not be better spent than in rusticating. But ah, how delight-
ful Pump Court looked when I revisited its well-known,100

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

chimney-pots! Cari luoghi. Welcome, weloome, O fog and
smut!

But if you think there is no moral in the foregoing aecount
of the Pontine Family you are, Madam, most painfully mis-
taken. In this very chapter we are going to have the moral
—why, the whole of the papers are nothing but the moral, set-
ting forth as they do the folly of being a Snob.

You will remark that in the Country Snobography my poor
friend Ponto has been held up almost exclusively for the public
gaze—and why? Because we went to no other house? Be-
cause other families did not welcome us to their mahogany?
No, noc Sir John Hawbuck of the Haws, Sir John Hipsley
of Briary Hall, don't shut the gates of hospitality; of General
Sago's mulligatawny I could speak from experience. And
the two old ladies at Guttlebury, were they nothing? Do you
suppose that an agreeable young dog, who shall be nameless,
would not be made welcome ? Don't you know that people are
too glad to see anybody in the country?

But those dignified personages do not enter into the scheme
of the present work, and are but minor characters of our Snob
cfcrama; just as, in the play, Kings and Emperors are not half
so important as many humble persons. The Doge of Venice,
for instance, gives way-to Othello, who is but a nigger; and
the King of France to Falconbridge, who is a gentleman of
postively no birth at all. So with the exalted characters above
mentioned. I perfectly well recollect that the claret at Haw-
buck's was not by any means so good as that of Hipsley's,
while, on the contrary, some white hermitage at the Haws (by
the way, the butler only gave me half a glass each time) was
supernacular. And I remember the conversations. O Madam,
Madam, how stupid they were! The subsoil plowing; the
pheasants and poaching; the row about the representation of
the county; the Earl of Mangelwurzelshire being at variance
with his relative and nominee, the Honorable Marmaduke
Tomnoddy: all these I could put down, had I a mind to violate
the confidence of private life; and a great deal of conversation
about the weather, the Mangelwurzelshire Hunt, new manures,
and eating and drinking, of course.

But cui bono? In these perfectly stupid and honorable
families there is not that Snobbishness which it is our purpose
to expose. An ox is an ox—& great hulking, fat-sided, bellow-
ing, munching Beef. He ruminates according to his nature, and
consumes his destined portion of turnips or oilcake, until the
time comes for his disappearance from the pastures, to be sueTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

101

ceeded by other deep-lunged and fat-ribbed animate. Perhaps
we do not respect an ox. We rather acquiesce in him. The
Snob, my dear Madam, is the Frog that tries to swell himself
to ox size. Let us pelt the silly brute out of hia folly.

Look, I pray you,at the case of my unfortunate friend Ponto,
a good-natured, kindly English gentleman—not overwise, but
quite passable—fond of port wine, of his family, of country
sports and agriculture, hospitably minded, with as pretty a
little patrimonial country house as heart can desire, and a thou-
sand pounds a year. It is not much; but, entre nous, people
can live for less, and not uncomfortably.

For instance, there is the Doctor, whom Mrs. P. does not
condescend to visit: that man educates a mirific family, and is
loved by the poor for miles round; and gives them port win©
for physic and medicine, gratis. And how those people can get
on with their pittance, as Mrs. Ponto says, is a wonder to her.

Again, there is the clergyman Dr. Chrysostom: Mrs. P.
says they quarreled about Piiseyism, but I am given to under-
stand it was because Mrs. C. had the pas of her at the Haws
—you may see what the value of his living is any day in the
'Clerical Guide'; but you don't know what he gives away.

Even Pettipois allows that, in whose eyes the Doctor's sur-
plice is a scarlet abomination; and so does Pettipois do his
duty in his way, and administer not only his tracts and his
talk, but his money and his means to his people. As a Lord's
son, by the way, Mrs. Ponto is uncommonly anxious that he
should marry either of the girls whom Lord Gules does not
intend to choose.

Well, although Pon's income would make up almost as much
as that of these three worthies put together—oh, my dear
Madam, see in what hopeless penury the poor fellow lives!
What.tenant can look to his forbearance? What poor man
can hope for his charity? 4Master's the best of men,' honest
Stripes says, 4 and when we was in the ridgment a more free-
handed chap didn't live. But the way in which Missus du
scryou, I wonder the young ladies is alive, that I du!'

They live upon a fine governess and fine masters, and have
clothes made by Lady Carabas' own milliner; and their
brother rides with Earls to cover; and only the best people in
the county visit at the Evergreens; and Mrs. Ponto thinks
herself a paragon of wives and mothers, and a wonder of the
world, for doing all this misery and humbug an£ snobbishness
on a thousand a year.

What an inexpressive	it ^vras, my	Madam,192

the book of snobs.

when Stripes put my portmanteau in the four-wheeled chaise,
and (poor Pon being touched with sciatica) drove me over to
the Garabas Arms at Guttlebury, where we took leave. There
were some bagmen there, in the Commercial Room, and one
talked about the house he represented; and another about his
dinner, and a third about the Inns on the road, and so forth—a
talk,not very wise,buthonestandto the purpose—about as good
as that of the country gentlemen; and oh, how much pleasanter
than listening to Miss Wirt's show pieces on the piano, and
Mrs. Ponto's genteel cackle about the fashion and the county
families!

CHAPTER XXXII.

SNOBBIUM GATHERUM.

When I see the great effect which these papers are produc-
ing on an intelligent public I have a strong hope that before
long we shall have a regular Snob-department in the news-
papers, just as we have the Police Courts and the Court News
at present. When a flagrant case of bone-crushing or Poor-law
abuse occurs in the world, who so eloquent as The Times to
point it out? When a gross instance of Snobbishness hap-
pens, why should not the indignant journalist call the public
attention to that delinquency too?

How, for instance, could that wonderful case of the Earl of
Mangelwurzel and his brother be examined in the Snobbish
point of view? Let alone the hectoring, the bullying, the
vaporing, the bad grammar, the mutual recriminations, lie-
givings, challenges, retractions, whicH abound in the fraternal
dispute—put out of the question these points as concerning the
individual nobleman and his relative, with whose personal
affairs we have nothing to do—and consider how intimately
corrupt, how habitually groveling and mean, how entirely
Snobbish, in a word, a whole county must be which can find no
better chiefs or leaders than these two gentlemen. 6 We don't
want,' the great county of Manglewurzelshire seems to say,
'that a man should be able to write good grammar; or that he
should keep a Christian tongue in his head; or that he should
have the commonest decency of temper, or even a fair share of
good sense, in order to represent us in Parliament. All we
require is that a m$n should be recommended to us by the Earl
of Mangelwurzelshire. And all that we require of the Earl of
Mangelwurzelshire is that he should have fifty thousand a year
and hunt the country.' O you pride of all Snobland! O
you crawling, truckling, self-confessed lackeys and parasites!THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

103

But this is growing too savage; don't let us forget our usual
amenity, and that tone of playfulness and sentiment with
which the beloved reader and writer have pursued their mutual
reflections hitherto. Well, Snobbishness pervades the little
Social farce as well as the great State Comedy; and the self-
same moral is tacked to either.

There was, for instance, an account in the papers of a young
lady who, misled by a fortune-teller, actually went part of the
way to India (as far as Bagnigge Wells, I think) in search of
a husband who was promised her there. Do you suppose this
poor deluded little soul would have left her shop for a man
below her in rank, or for anything but a darling of a Captain
in epaulets and a red coat? It was her Snobbish sentiment
that misled her, and made her vanities a prey to the swin-
dling fortune-teller.

Case 2 was that of Mile, de Saugrenue, 'the interesting
young Frenchwoman with a profusion of jetty ringlets,' who
lived for nothing at a boarding house at Gosport, was then con-
veyed to Fareham gratis; and being there, and lying on the
bed of the good old lady her entertainer, the dear girl took
occasion to rip open the mattress, and steal a cash box, with
which she fled to London. How would you account for the
prodigious benevolence exercised toward the interesting young
French lady ? Was it her jetty ringlets or her charming face?
Bah! Do ladies love others for having pretty faces and
black hair? She said she was a relation of Lord de Saugrenue;
talked of her Ladyship her aunt, and of herself as a De Sau-
grenue. The honest boarding house people were at her feet at
once. Good,honest,simple,Lord-loving children of Snobland.

Finally there was the case of 4the Right Honorable Mr. Ver-
non,' at Yorkc The Right Honorable was the son of a noblemam
and practiced on an old lady. He procured from her dinners,
money, wearing apparel, spoons, implicit credence, and an
entire refit of linene Then he cast his nets over a family of
father, mother, and daughters, one of whom he proposed to
marry. The father lent him money, the mother made jams
and pickles for him, the daughters vied with each other in
cooking dinners for the Right Honorable—and what was the
end ? One day the traitor fled, with a teapot and a basketful of
cold victuals. It was the 'Right Honorable' which baited the
hook which gorged all these greedy, simple Snobs. Would
they have been taken in by a commoner? What old lady is
there, my dear sir, who would take in you and me, were we
ever so ill to do, aad comfort us and clothe us and give104	THE BOOK OP StfOBS.

her money aad her silver forks? Alas and alas! what mortal
fiian that speaks the truth can hope for such a landlady? And
yet, all these instances of fond and credulous Snobbishness
have occurred in the same week's paper, with who knows how
many score more?

Just as we had concluded the above remarks comes a pretty
little note sealed with a pretty little butterfly—bearing a north-
ern postmark—and to the following effect:

19th November.

Mr. Punch : Taking great interest in your Snob Papers, we are very anxious to know
under what class of that respectable fraternity you would designate us.

We are three sisters, from seventeen to twenty-two. Our father is honestly and truly
of a very good family (you will say it is Snobbish to mention that, but I wish to state
theplain fact); our maternal grandfather was an Earl.*

We can afford to take in a stamped edition of you, and all Dicken's works as fast as
they come out, but we do not keep such a thing as a4 Peerage' or even a ' Baronetage *
in the house.

We live with every comfort, excellent cellar, etc., etc.; but as we cannot well afford
a butier, we have a neat table maid (though our father was a military man, has traveled
much, been in the best society, etc.). We have a coachman and helper, but we don't
put the latter into buttons, nor make them wait at table, like Stripes or Tummus.t

We are just the same to persons with a handle to their name as to those without it.
We wear a moderate modicum of crinoline,^; and are never limp § in the morning. We
have good and abundant dinners on china (though we have plate|), and just as good
when alone as with company.

_ Now,, my dear Mr. Punch, will you please give us a short answer in your next number,
and I will be 80 much obliged to you ? Nobody knows we are writing to you, not even
our father ; nor will we ever tease If you again if you will only give us an answer—just
for fun, now do!

If you get as far as this, which is doubtful, you will probably fling it into the fir*.
If you do, I cannot help it; but I am of a sanguine disposition, and entertain a linger-
ing hope^ At all events, I ehall be impatient for next Sunday, for you reach us on that
day, and I am ashamed to confess we cannot resist,opening you in the carriage driving
home from church.**

I remain, etc., etc., for myself and sisters.

Excuse this scrawl, b«t I always write headlong

P. S.—You were rather stupid last week, don't you think ? $$ We keep no game-
keeper, and yet have always abundant game for friends to shoot, in spite of the poachers.
We never write on perfumed paper—in short, I can't help thinking that if you knew us
you would not think us Snobs.

To this I reply in the following manner: My dear young
ladies, I know your post town; and shall be at church there
the Sunday after next; when, will you please to wear a tulip
or some little trifle in your bonnets, so that I may know you?
You will recognize me and my dress—a quiet-looking young
fellow, in a white top coat, a crimson satin neckcloth, light-
blue trousers, with glossy tipped boots and an emerald breast
pin. I shall have a black crape round my white hat; and my

* The introduction of grandpapa is. I fear, Snobbish.	.

t That is as you like. I don't object to buttons in moderation.

i Quite right.	§ Bless you !

j Snobbish ; and I doubt whether you ought to dine as well when alone as with com
paiiy. You will be getting too good dinners.

If We like to be teased; but tell papa.

** O garters and stars! What will Captain Gordon and Exeter Hall gay to this f
tt Dear little enthusiast!	v

tt Yon were nev«r more mistaken, Mies, in your life.THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

105

isual bamboo cane with the richly-gilt knob. I am sorry there
will be no time to get up mustaches between now and next week.

From seventeen to two-and-twenty! Ye gods! what ages!
Dear young creatures, I can see you all three. Seventeen suits
me, as nearest my own time of life; but mind, I don't say two-
and-twenty is too old. No, no. And that pretty, roguish,
demure, middle one. Peace, peace, thou silly little fluttering
heart!

You Snobs, dear young ladies! I will pull any man's nose
who says so. There is no harm in being of a good family.
You can't help it, poor dears. What's in a name? What is
in a handle to it? I confess openly that I should not object
to being a Duke myself; and between ourselves you might see
a worse leg for a garter.

You Snobs, dear little good-natured'things, no! that is, I
hope not—I think not—I won't be too confident—none of us
should be—that we are not Snobs. That very confidence savors
of arrogance, and to be arrogant is to be a Snob. In all the
social gradations from sneak to tyrant, nature has placed
a most wondrous and various progeny of Snobs. But are
there no kindly natures, no tender hearts, no souls humble,
simple, and truth-loving? Ponder well on this question, sweet
young ladies. And if you can answer it, as no doubt you caa
—lucky are you—and lucky the respected Herr Papa, and
lucky the three handsome young gentlemen who are about to
become each other's brothers-in-law.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

snobs and marriage.

Everybody of the middle rank who walks through this life
with a sympathy for his companions on the same journey—at
any rate, every man who has feeen jostling in the world for
some three or four lusters—must make no end of melancholy
reflections upon the fate of those victims whom Society, that
is, Snobbishness, is immolating every day. With love and
simplicity and natural kindness Snobbishness is perpetually at
war. People dare not be happy for fear of Snobs. People
dare not love for fear of Snobs. People pine away lonely
under the tyranny of Snobs. Honest kindly hearts dry up and
die. Gallant generous lads, blooming with hearty yout^,
swell into bloated old-bacherlorhood, and burst and tumble
over. Tender girls wither into shrunken decay, and perish
solitary, from whom Snobbishness has cut off the common106

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

claim to happiness and affection with which Nature endowed
us all. My heart grows sad as I see the blundering tyrant's
handiwork. As I behold it I swell with cheap rage, and glow
with fury against the Snob. Come down, I say, thou skulking
dullness! Come down,thou stupid bully,and give up thy brutal
ghost! And I arm myself with the sword and spear, and tak-
ing leave of my family, go forth to do battle with that hideous
ogre and giant, that brutal despot in Snob Castle, who holds
so many gentle hearts in torture and thrall.

When Punch is King I declare there shall be no such thing
as old maids and old bachelors. The Rev. Mr. Malthus shall
be burned annually, instead of Guy Fawkes. Those who don't
marry shall go into the workhouse. It shall be a sin for the
poorest not to have a pretty girl to love him.

The above reflections came to mind after taking a walk
with an old comrade, Jack Spiggot by name, who is just pass-
ing into the state of old-bachelorhood, after the manly and
blooming youth in which I remember him. Jack was one of
the handsomest fellows in England when we entered together
in the Highland Buffs; but I quitted the Cuttykilt^ early, and
lost sight of him for many years.

Ah! how changed he is from those days! He wears a waist-
band now, and has begun to dye his whiskers. His cheeks,
which were red, are now mottled; his eyes, once so bright
^nd steadfast, are the color of peeled plovers' eggs.

'Are you married, Jack?' says I, remembering how con*
sumedly in love he was with his cousin Letty Lovelace, when
the Cuttykilts were quartered at Strathbungo some twenty
years ago.'

'Married? no,' says he. 'Not money enough. Hard enough
to keep myself, much more a family, on five hundred a year.
Come to Dickinson's; there's some of the best Madeira in
London there, my boy.' So we went and talked over old times.
The bill for dinner and wine consumed was prodigious, and
the quantity of brandy and water that Jack took showed what
a regular boozer he was. 'A guinea or two guineas. What
the devil do I care what I spend for my dinner?' says he.

'And Letty Lovelace?' says I.

Jack's countenance fell. However, he burst into a loud
laugh presently. 'Letty Lovelace!' says he. 'She's Letty
Lovelace still; but Gad, such a wizened old woman! She's
as thin as a thread-paper ; (you remember what a figure she
had); her nose has got red, and her teeth blue. She's always
iil; always quarreling with the rest of the family; alwaysTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

107

psalm-singing, and always taking pills. <3ad, I had a rare
escape there. Push round the grog, old boy.'

Straightway memory went back to the days when Letty was
the loveliest of blooming young creatures; when to hear her
sing was to make the heart jump into your throat; when to see
her dance was better than Montessu or Noblet (they were the
Ballet Queens of those days); when Jack used to wear a locket
of her hair with a little gold chain round his neck, and, ex-
hilarated with toddy, after a sederunt of the Cuttykilt mess,
used to pull out this token, and kiss it, and howl about it, to
the great amusement of the bottle-nosed old Major and the rest
of the table.

4My father and hers couldn't put their horses together,9 Jack
said. 'The General wouldn't come dowp with more than six
thousand. My governor said it shouldn't be done under eight.
Lovelace told him to go and be hanged, and so we parted com-
pany. They said she was in a decline. Gammon! She's
forty, and as tough and as sour as this bit of lemon peel. Don*t
put much into your punch, Snob, my boy. No man can stand
punch after wine.'

'And what are your pursuits, Jack?' says I.

'Sold out when the governor died. Mother lives at Bath.
Go down there once a year for a week. Dreadful slow. Shrll-
ing whist; Four sisters—all unmarried except the youngest
—awful work. Scotland in August. Italy in the winter.
-Cursed rheumatism. Come to London in March, and toddle
about at the Club, old boy; and we won't go home till maw-
aw-rning, till daylight does appear.'

'And here's the wreck of two lives!' mused the present
Snobographer, after taking leave of Jack Spiggot. 'Pretty
merry Letty Lovelace's rudder lost and she cast away, and
handsome Jack Spiggot stranded on the shore like a drunken
Trinculo.'

What was it that insulted Nature (to use no higher name),
and perverted her kindly intentions toward them? What
cursed frost was it that nipped the love that both were bearing,
and condemned the girl to sour sterility , and the lad to selfish
old-bachelorhood? It was the infernal Snob tyrant who gov-
erns m all, who says, 'Thou shalt not love without a lady's
maid; thou shalt not marry without a carriage and horses;
thou shalt have no wife in thy heart, and no children on thy
knee, without a page in buttons and a French bonne; thou
shalt go to the devil unless thou hast a brougham; marry poor,
and society shall forsake thee; thy kinsmen shall avoid thee106	THE BOOK OF SWOBS.

as a criminal; thy aunts and uncles shall turn up their eye$
and bemoan the sad, sad manner in which Tom or Harry has
thrown himself away.' You, young woman, may sell yourself
without shame, and marry old Croesus; you, young man, may
lie away your heart and your life for a jointure. But if you
are poor woe be to you! Society, the brutal Snob autocrat,
consigns you to solitary perdition. Wither, poor girl, in
your garret; rot, poor bachelor, in your Club.

When I see those graceless recluses—those unnatural monks
and nuns of the order of St. Beelzebub,* my hatred for Snobs,
and their worship, and their idols, passes all continence. Let
tts hew down that man-eating Juggernaut, I say, that hideous
I>agon; and I glow with the heroic courage of Tom Thumb,
and join battle with the giant Snob.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

SNOBS AND MABKIAGE.

In that noble romance called 'Ten Thousand a Year' I re-
member a profoundly pathetic description of the Christian
manner in which the hero, Mr. Aubrey, bore his misfortunes^
After making a display of the most florid and grandiloquent
resignation, and quitting his country mansion, the writer sup-
poses Aubrey to come to town in a post chaise and pair, sitting
feodkin probably between his wife and sister. It is about seven
o'clock, carriages are rattling about, knockers are thundering,
and tears bedim the fine eyes of Kate and Mrs. Aubrey as they
think that in happier times at this hour—their Aubrey used
formerly to go out to dinner to the houses of the aristocracy
his friends. This is the gist of the passage—the elegant words
I forget. But the noble, noble sentiment I shall always cherish
and remember. What can be more sublime than the notion of a
great man's relatives in tears about—his dinner? With a few
touches, what author ever more happily described A Snob?

We were reading the passage lately at the house of my friend
Raymond Gray, Esquire, Barrister-at-Law, an ingenuous
youth without the least practice, but who has luckily a great
share of good spirits, which enables him to bide his time, and
bear laughingly his humble position in the world. Meanwhile,
until it is altered, the stern laws of necessity and the expenses

♦This, of course, is understood to apply only to those unmarried persons whom a
mean and Snobbish fear about money has kept from fulfilling their natural destiny.
Many persons there are devoted to celibacy because they cannot help it. Of these a
maa wonld be a brute who spoke roughly. Indeed, after Miss O'Toole's condnet to the
writer, he would be the iast to condemn. Bat never mind, these are personal mattersTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

109

of the Northern Cirouit oblige Mr. Gray to live in a very tiny
mansion in a very queer small square in the airy neighbor-
hood of Gray's Inn Lane.

What is the more remarkable is that Gray has a wife there.
Mrs. Gray was a Miss Harley Baker; and I suppose I need not
say that is a respectable family. Allied to the Cavendishes,
the Oxfords, the Marrybones, they still, though rather deehus
from their original splendor, hold their heads as high as any.
Mrs. Harley Baker, I know, never goes.to church without John
behind to carry her prayer book; nor will Miss Welbeck, her
sister, walk twenty yards a-shopping without the protection
of Figby, her sugar-loaf page, though the old lady is as ugly
as any woman in the parish, and as tall and whiskery as a
grenadier. The astonishment is how Emily Harley Baker could
have stooped to marry Raymond Gray. She, who was the
prettiest and proudest of the family; she, who refused Sir
Cockle Byles of the Bengal Service; she, who turned up her
little nose at Essex Temple, Q. C., and connected with the
noble house of Albyn; she, who had but £4000 pour tout po-
tage, to marry a man who had scarcely as much more. A
scream of wrath and indignation was uttered by the whole
family when they heard of this mesalliance. Mrs. Harley
Baker never speaks of her daughter now but with tears in her
eyes, and as a ruined creature. Miss Welbeck says,' I consider
that man a villain'; and has denounced poor good-natured
Mrs. Perkins as a swindler, at whose ball the young people
met for the first time.

Mr. and Mrs. Gray, meanwhile, live in Gray's Inn Lane
aforesaid, with a maidservant and a nurse,-ovhose hands are
very full, and in a most provoking and unnatural state of
happiness. They have never once thought of crying about
their dinner, like the wretchedly puling and Snobbish woman-
kind of my favorite Snob Aubrey, of 'Ten Thousand a Year';
but, on the contrary, accept such humble victuals as fate
awards them with a most perfect and thankful good grace-
nay, actually have a portion for a hungry friend at times—as
the present writer can gratefi^Jly testify.

I was mentioning these dinners, and some admirable lemon
puddings which Mrs. Gray makes, to our mutual friend the
great Mr. Goldmore, the East India Director, when that gen-
tleman's face assumed an expression of almost apoplectic
terror, and he gasped out, 6 What! Do they give dinners?'
He seemed to think it^a crime and a wonder that such people
should dine at all, and that it was their custom to huddle round110

THE BOOK OF SKOBS.

their kitchen fire over a bone and a crust. Whenever he meets
them in society it is a matter of wonder to him (and he always
expresses his surprise very loud) how the lady can appear de-
cently dressed, and the man have an unpatched coat to his
back. I have heard him enlarge upon this poverty before the
whole room at the Conflagrative Club, to which he and I and
Gray have the honor to belong.

We meet at the Club on most days. At half-past four
Goldmore arrives in St. James' Street from the City, and yon
may see him reading the evening papers in the bow window of
the Club, whioh enfilades Pall Mall—a large plethoric man,
with a bunch of seals in a large bow-windowed light waist-
coat. He has large coat tails, stuffed with agents' letters and
papers about companies of which he is a Director. His seals
jingle as he walks. I wish I had such a man for an uncle, and
that he himself were childless. I would love and cherish him,
and be kind to him.

At six o'clock in the full season, when all the world is ia
St. James' Street, and the carriages are cutting in and out
among the cabs on the stand, and the tufted dandies are show-
ing their listless faces out of White's, and you see respect-
able gray-headed gentlemen waggling their heads to each other
through the plate-glass windows of Arthur's, and the red-
coats wish to be Briareian, so as to hold all the gentlemen's
horses, and that wonderful red-coated royal porter is sunning
himself before Marlborough House—at the noon of London
time you see a light-yellow carriage with black horses, and a
coachman in a tight floss-silk wig, and two footmen in powder
and white and yellow liveries, and a large woman inside in
shot silk, a poodle, and a pink parasol, which drives up to the
gate of the Conflagrative, and the page goes and says to Mr,
Goldmore (who is perfectly aware of the fact, as he is looking
out of the windows with about forty other Conflagrative
bucks),'Your carriage, Sir.' G. wagshishead. 'Remember,
eight o'clock precisely,'' says he to Mulligatawney, the other
East India Director; and, ascending the carriage, plumps
down by the side of Mrs. Goldmore for a drive in the Park,
and then home to Portland Place. As the carriage whirls off,
all the young bucks in the Club feel a secret elation. It is a
part of their establishment, as it were. That carriage belongs
to their Club, and their Club belongs to them. They follow
the equipage with interest; they eye it knowingly as they see
it in the Park. But halt! we are not come to the Club Snobs yet.
Oh,my brave Snobs, what a flurry there will be among you when
those papers appear 1THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

Ill

Well, you may judge, from the above description, what sort
of a man Goldmore is. A dull and pompous Leadenhall Street
Croesus, good-natured withal, and affable—cruelly affable.
'Mr. Goldmore can never forget,' his lady used to say, 'that
it was Mrs. Gray's grandfather who sent him to India; and
though that young woman has made the most imprudent mar-
riage in the world, and has left her station in society, her
husband seems an ingenious and laborious young man, and we
shall do everything in our power to be of use to him.' So they
used to ask the Grays to dinner twice or thrice in a season,
when, by way of increasing the kindness, Buff, the butler, is
ordered to hire a fly to convey them to and from Portland Place.

Of course I am much too good-natured a friend of both par-
ties not to tell Gray of Goldmore's opinion regarding him, and
the nabob's astonishment at the idea of the briefless barrister
having any dinner at all. Indeed, Goldmore's saying be-
came a joke against Gray among us wags at the Club, and we
used to ask him when he tasted meat last; whether we should
bring him home something from dinner; and cut a thousand
other mad pranks with him in our facetious way.

One day, then, coming home from the Club, Mr. Gray coa-
veyed to his wife the astounding information that be had asked
Goldmore to dinner.

'My love,' says Mrs. Gray, in a tremor, 'how could you be
so cruel? Why, the dining room won't hold Mrs. Goldmore.*
'Make your mind easy, Mrs. Gray; her ladyship is in Paris.
It is only Croesus that's coming, and we are going to the play
afterward—to Sadler's Wells. Goldmore said at the Club
that he thought Shakspere was a great dramatic poet, and
ought to be patronized; whereupon, fired with enthusiasm, I
invited him to our banquet.

'Goodness gracious! what can we give him for dinner?
He has two French cooks; you know Mrs. Goldmore is always
telling us about them; and he dines with Aldermem every day,'

'A plain leg of mutton, ray Lucy,

I prythee get ready at three
Have it tender and smoking and juicy,

And what better meat can there be ?'

says Gray, quoting my favorite poet.

'But the cook is ill; and you know that horrible Pattypan,

the pastry cook's-'

'♦Silence, Frau!' says Gray in a deep tragedy veice. *1
will have the ordering of this repast. Do all things as I b«4
ttiee. Invite our friend Snob here to partake of the feast. Be
mine the task of procuring it, *112

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

'Don't be expensive, Raymond,' says his wife.

'Peace, thou timid partner of the briefless one. Goldmore's
dinner 6hall be suited to our narrow means. Only do thou in
all things my commands.' And seeing by the peculiar expres-
sion of the rogue's countenance that some mad waggery was
in preparation, I awaited the morrow with anxiety.

CHAPTER XXXV.

SNOBS AND MAREIAGE.

Punctual to the hour (by the way, I cannot omit here to
mark down my hatred, scorn, and indignation toward those
miserable Snobs who come to dinner at nine, when they are
asked at eight, in order to make a sensation in the company.
May the loathing of honest folks, the backbiting of others, the
curses of cooks, pursue these wretches, and avenge the society
on which they trample!)—Punctual, I say, to the hour of five,
which Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Gray had appointed, a youth
of an elegant appearance, in a neat evening dress, whose trim
"Whiskers indicated neatness, whose light step denoted activity
(for in sooth he was hungry, and always is at the dinner hour,
whatsoever that hour may be), and whose rich golden hair,
curling down his shoulders, was set off by a perfectly new
four-and-ninepenny silk hat, w,as seen wending his way down
Bittlestone Street, Bittlestone Square, Gray's Inn. The per-
son in question, I need not say, was Mr. Snob. He is never
late when invited to dine. But to proceed with my narrative:

Although Mr. Snob may have flattered himself that he made
a sensation as he strutted down Bittlestone Street with his
richly gilt knobbed cane (and indeed 1 vow I saw heads look-
ing at me from Miss Squilsby's, the brass-plated milliner op-
posite Raymond Gray's, who has three silver-paper bonnets
and two fly-blown French prints of fashion in the window),
yet what was the emotion produced by my arrival compared
to that with which the little street thrilled when at five min-
utes past five the floss-wigged coachman, the yellow hammer-
oloth and flunkeys, the black horses and blazing silver harness
of Mr. Goldmore whirled down the street! It is a very little
street, of very little houses, most of them with very large brass
plates like Miss Squilsby's. Coal merchants, architects and
surveyers, two surgeons, a solicitor, a dancing master, and of
course several house agents, occupy the houses—little two-
storied edifices with little stucco porticoes. Goldmore's
carriage overtopped the roofs almost; the first floors mightTHE BOOK OF g^OBS.

113

diake hands with Croesus as he lolled inside; all the windows
of those first floors thronged with children and women in a
twinkling. There was Mrs. Hammerly in curl papers; Mrs.
Saxby with her front awry; Mr- Wriggles peering through
the gauze curtains, holding the while his hot glass of rum and
water—-in fine, a tremendous commotion in Bittlestone Street,
astheGoldmoreoarriage droveup toMr. Raymond Gray'sdoor.

'How kind it is of him to come with both the footmen!'
says little Mrs. Gray, peeping at the vehicle too. The huge
domestic, descending from his perch, gave a rap at the door
which almost drove in the building. All the heads were out;
the sun was shining; the very organ-boy paused; the footman,
the coach, and Goldmore's red face and white waistcoat were
blazing in splendor. The herculean plushed one went back
to open the carriage door.

Raymond Gray opened his—in his shirt sleteves.

He ran up to the carriage. 'Come in, Goldmore,' says he;
'just in time, my boy. Open the door, What-d'ye-call'um,
and let your master out'—and What-d'ye-call'um obeyed
mechanically, with a face of wonder and horror only to be
equaled by the look of stupefied astonishment which orna-
mented the purple countenance of his master.

'Wawt taim will you please have the cage, sir?' says What-
d'ye-call'um in that peculiar, unspellable, inimitable,fiunkefied
pronunciation whichforms oneof the chief charms of existence,

'Best have it to the theater at night,' Gray exclaims; 'it is
but a step from here to the Wells, and we can walk there,
I've got tickets for all. Be at Sadler's Wells at eleven.'

'Yes, at eleven,' exclaims Goldmore perturbedly, and walks
with a flurried step into the house, as if he were going to ex-
ecution (as indeed he was, with that wicked Gray as a Jack
Ketch over him). The carriage drove away, followed by
numberless eyes from doorsteps and balconies; its appearance
is still a wonder in Bittlestone Street.

'Go in there, and amuse yourself with Snob,' says Gray,
opening the little drawing room door. 'I'll call out as soon as
the chops are ready. Fanny's below, seeing to the pudding.'

'Gracious mercy!' says Goldmore to me quite confident
tially, 'how could he ask us? I really had no idea of this-*
this utter destitution.'

'Dinner, dinner!' roars out Gray from the dining room,
whence issued a great smoking and frying; and entering that
apartment we find Mrs. Gray ready to receive us, and looking
perfectly like a Princess who, by some accident, had a bowl114

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

of potatoes in her hand, which vegetables she placed on the
table. Her husband was meanwhile cooking mutton chops on
a gridiron over the fire.

'Fanny has made the roly-poly pudding,' says he; * the chops
are my part. Here's a fine one; try this, Goldmore.' And he
popped a fizzing cutlet on that gentleman's plate. What
words, what notes of exclamation can describe the nabob's
astonishment?

The tablecloth was a very old one, darned in a score of
places. There was mustard in a teacup, a silver fork for Gold-
more—all ours were iron.

'I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth,' says Gray
gravely. 'That fork is the only one we have. Fanny has it
generally.'

'Raymond!' cries Mrs. Gray, with an imploring face.

'She was used to better things, you know; and I hope one
day to get her a dinner service. I'm told the electroplate is
uncommonly good. Where the deuce is that boy with the
beer? And now,' said he, springing up, 'I'll be a gentleman.*
And so he put on his coat, and sat down quite gravely, with
four fresh mutton chops which he had by this time broiled.

'We don't have meat every day, Mr. Goldmore,' he con-
tinued, 'and it's a treat to me to get a dinner like this. You
little know, you gentlemen of England, who live at home at
ease, what hardships briefless barristers endure.'

'Gracious mercy!' says Mr. Goldmore.

'Where's the half-and-half? Fanny, go over to the Keys
and get the beer. Here's sixpence.' And what was our as-
tonishment when Fanny got up as if to go!

'Gracious mercy! let me J cries Goldmore.

'Not for worlds, my dear sir. She's used to it. They
wouldn't serve you as well as they serve her. Leave her alone.
Law bless you!' Raymond said', with astounding composure.
And Mrs. Gray left the room, and actually came back with a
tray on which there was a pewter flagon of beer. Little Polly
(to whom, at her christening, I had the honor of presenting a
silver mug ex officio) followed with a couple of tobacco pipes,
and the queerest roguish look in her round little chubby face.

'Did you speak to Tapling about the gin, Fanny, my dear?'
Gray asked, after bidding Polly put the pipes on the chimney-
piece, which that little person had some difficulty in reaching.
'The last was turpentine, and even your brewing didn't make
good punch of it.

'You would hardly suspect, Goldmore, that my wife, aTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

115

Harley Baker, would ever make gin punch? I think my
mother-in-law would commit suicide if she saw her.'

'Don't be always laughing at mamma, Raymond,' says Mrs.
Gray.

4Well, well, she wouldn't die, and I don't wish she would.
And you don't make gin punch, and you don't like it either—•
and—Goldmore, do you drink your beer out of the glass, or
out of the pewter?'

'Gracious mercy!' ejaculates Crcesus once more, as little
Polly, taking the pot with both her little bunches of hands,
offers it, smiling, to that astonished Director.

And so, in a word, the dinner commenced, and was presently
ended in a similar fashion. Gray pursued his unfortunate
guest with the most queer and outrageous description of his
struggles, misery, and poverty. He described how he cleaned
the knives when they were first married; and how he used to
drag the children in a little cart; how his wife could toss
pancakes; and what parts of his dress she made. He told
Tibbits, his clerk (who was in fact the functionary who had
brought the beer from the public house, which Mrs. Fanny had
fetched from the neighboring apartment) to fetch 'the bottle
of port wine,' when the dinner was over; and told Goldmore
as wonderful a history about the way in which that bottle of
wine had come into his hands as any of his former stories had
been. When the repast was all over, and it was near time to
move to the play, and Mrs. Gray had retired, and we were sit-
ting ruminating rather silently over the last glasses of the port,
Gray suddenly breaks the silence by slapping Goldmore on the
shoulder, and saying, 'Now, Goldmore, tell me something,*"

'What?' asks Crcesus.

'Haven't you had a good dinner?'

Goldmore started, as if a sudden truth had just dawned
upon him. He had had a good dinner; and didn't know it
mntil then. The three mutton chops consumed by him were
best of the mutton kind; the potatoes were perfect of their
order; as for the roly-poly, it was too good. The porter was
frothy and cool, and the port wine was worthy of the gills of
a bishop. I speak with ulterior views; for there is more in
Gray's cellar.

'Well,' says Goldmore after a pause, during which he took
time to consider the momentous question Gray put to him,
"pon my word—now you say so—I—I have—I really have
had a monsous good dinnah—monsous good, upon my ward!
Here's your health, Gray, my boy, and your amiable ladyj116

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

and when Mrs. Goldmore comes back I hope we shall see yon
more in Portland Place.' And with this the time came for
the play, and we went to see Mr. Phelps at Sadler's Wells,

The best of this story (for the truth of every word of which
I pledge my honor) is, that after this banquet, which Gold-
more enjoyed so, the honest fellow felt a prodigious compas-
sion and regar^for the starving and miserable giver of the
feast, and determined to help him in his profession. And being
a Director of the newly established Antibilious Life Assur-
ance Company, he has had Gray appointed Standing Counsel,
with a pretty annual fee; and only yesterday, in an appeal
from Bombay (Buckmuckjee Bobbachee v. Ramchowder-
Bahawder) in the Privy Council, Lord Brougham compli-
mented Mr. Gray, who was in the case, on his curious and
exact knowledge of the Sanscrit language.

Whether he knows Sanscrit or not I can't say; but Gold-
more got him the business; and so I cannot help having a lurk-
ing regard for that pompous old Bigwig.

CHAPTER XXXYI.

SNOBS AND MARK I AGE.

€Ww Bachelors in Clubs are very much obliged to you,*
says my old school and college companion Essex Temple,4for
the opinion which you hold of us. You call us selfish, purple-
faced, bloated, and other pretty names. You state, in the
simplest possible terms, that we shall go to the deuce. Yon
bid us rot in loneliness, and deny us all claims to honesty, con-
Juct, decent Christian life. Who are you, Mr. Snob, to judge
ns so? Who are you, with your infernal benevolent smirk and
grin, that laugh at all our generation?

'I will tell you my case,' says Essex Temple; •mine and my
pister Polly's, and you may make what you like of it; and
^neer at old maids, and bully old bachelors, if you will.

'I \vill whisper to you confidentially that my sister Polly
"was engaged to Serjeant Shirker—a fellow whose talents one
cannot deny, and be hanged to them, but whom I have always
known to be mean, selfish, and a prig. However, women don't
see these faults in the men whom Love throws in their way.
Shirker, who has about as much warmth as an eel, made up to
Polly years and years ago, who was no bad match for a brief-
less^ barrister, as he was then.

iHave you ever read Lord Eldon's Life? Do you remem-
ber how the sordid old Snob narrates his going out to purchaseTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

117

twopence worth of sprats which he and Mrs. Scott fried be-
tween them? And how he parades his humility, and exhibita
his miserable poverty—he who, at that time, must have beea
making a thousand pounds a year? Well, Shirker was just as
proud of his prudence—just as thankful for his own meanness,
and of course would not marry without a competency. Who
so honorable? Polly waited, and waited faintly, from year to
year, .Zfe wasn't sick at heart; his passion never disturbed
his six hours' sleep, or kept his ambition out of mind. He
would rather have hugged an attorney any day than have
kissed Polly, though she was one of the prettiest creatures in
the world; and while she was pining alone upstairs, reading
over the stock of half a dozen frigid letters that the confounded
prig had condescended to write to her, he, be sure, was neyer
busy with anything but his briefs in chambers—always frigid,
rigid, self-satisfied, and at his duty. The marriage trailed
on year after year, while Mr. Serjeant Shirker grew to be the
famous lawyer he is.

'Meanwhile my younger brother, Pump Temple, who was in
the 120th Hussars, and had the same little patrimony which fell
to the lot of myself and Polly, must fall in love with our cousin,
Fanny Figtree, and marry her out of hand. You should have
seen the wedding! Six bridesmaids in pink, to hold the fan,
bouquet, gloves, scent bottle, and pocket handkerchief of the
bride; basketfuls of white favors in the vestry, to be pinned
on to the footmen and horses; a genteel congregation pf curious
acquaintance in the pews, a shabby one of poor on the steps;
all the carriages of all our acquaintance, whom Aunt Figtree
had levied for the occasion; and of course four horses for Mr.
Pump's bridal vehicle.

'Then comes the breakfast, or dejertner, if you please, with
a brass band in the street and policemen to keep order. The
happy bridegroom spends about a year's income in dresses for
the bridesmaids and pretty presents; and the bride must have
a trousseau of laces, satins, jewiel boxes, and tomfoolery, to
make her fit to be a lieutenant's wife. There was no hesitation
about Pump. He flung about his money as if it had been dross;
and Mrs. P. Temple, on the horse Tom Tiddler, which her hus-
band gave her, was the most dashing of military women at
Brighton or Dublin. How old Mrs. Figtree used to bore me
and Polly with stories of Pump's grandeur and the n6ble com-
pany he kept! Polly lives with the Figtrees, as I am not rich
enough to keep a home for her.

'Pump and I have always been rather distant. Not having118

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

the slighest notions about horse flesh, he has a natural contempt
for me; and in our mother's lifetime, when the good old lady
3pas always paying his debts and petting him, I'm not sure
there was not a little jealousy. It used to be Polly that kept
the peace between us.

'She went to Dublin to visit Pump, and brought back grand
accounts of his doings—gayest man about town—Aid-de-
Camp to the Lord Lieutenant—Fanny admired everywhere—
he^ Excellency godmother to the second boy; the eldest with
a string of aristocratic Christian names that made the grand-
mother wild with delight. Presently Fanny and Pump oblig-
ingly came over to London, where the third was born.

'Polly was godmother to this, and who so loving as she and
Pump now? "O Essex," says she to me, "he is so good, so
generous, so fond of his family, so handsome, who can help
loving him, and pardoning his little errors?" One day, while
Mrs. Pump was yet in the upper regions and Dr. Fingerfee's
brougham at her door every day, having business at Guildhall,
whom should I meet in Cheapside but Pump and Polly? The
poor girl looked more happy and rosy than I have seen her
these twelve years. Pump, on the contrary, was rather blush-
ing and embarrassed.

'I couldn't be mistaken in her face and its look of mischief
and triumph. She had been committing some act of sacrifice,
I went to the family stockbroker. She had sold out £2000 that
morning and given them to Pump. Quarreling was useless-
Pump had the money; he was off to Dublin by the time I
reached his mother's, and Polly radiant still. He was going
to make his fortune; he was going to embark the money in the
Bog of Allen—-I don't know what. The fact is, he was going
to pay his losses upon the last Manchester steeplechase, and I
leave you to imagine how much principal or interest poor Polly
ever saw back again.

'It was more than half her fortune, and he has had another
thousand since from her. Then came efforts to stave off ruin
and prevent exposure; struggles on all our parts, and sacri-
fices, that' (here Mr. Essex Temple began to hesitate)—'that
needn't be talked of; but they are of no more use than such
sacrifices ever are. Pump and his wife are abroad—I don't
like to ask where; Polly has the three children, and Mr. Ser-
jeant Shirker has formally written to break off an engagement
on the conclusion of which Miss Temple must herself have
speculated when she alienated the greater part of her fortune.

'And here's your famous theory of poor marriages!' Esse*THIS BOOK OP SNOBS.

Temple ories, concluding the above history. 'How do you
know that I don't want to marry myself? How do you dare
sneer at my poor sister? What are we but martyrs of the
reckless marriage system which Mr. Snob, forsooth, chooses
to advocate?' And he thought he had the better of. the argu-
ment, which, strange to say, is not my opinion.

But for the infernal Snob-worship, might not every one of
these people be happy? If poor Polly's happiness lay in link-
ing her tender arms round such a heartless prig as the sneak
who has deceived her, she might have been happy now—as
happv as Raymond Raymond in the ballad, with thestone statue
*>y his side. She is wretched because Mr. Serjeant Shirker
Worships money and ambition, and is a Snob and a coward.

If the unfortunate Pump Temple and his giddy hussy of a
wife have ruined themselves, and dragged down others into
their calamity, it is because they loved rank and horses and
plate and carriages and Court Guides and millinery, and would
sacrifice all to attain those objects.

And who misguides them? If the world were more simple,
would not those foolish people follow the fashion? Does not
the world love Court Guides and millinery and plate and
carriages? Mercy on us! Read the fashionable intelligence;
read the Court Circular/ read the genteel novels; survey
mankind from Pimlico to Red Lion Square, and see how the
Poor Snob is aping the Rich Snob; how the Mean Snob is
groveling at the feet of the Proud Snob; and the Great Snob is
lording it over his humble brother. Does the idea of equality
ever enter Dives' head? Will it ever? Will the Duchess of
Fitzbattleaxe (I like a good name) ever believe that Lady
Croesus, her next-door neighbor in Belgrave Square, is as good
a lady as her Grace ? Will Lady Croesus ever leave off pining
for the Duchess' parties, and cease patronizing Mrs. Broad-
cloth, whose husband has not got his Baronetcy yet? Will
Mrs. Broadcloth ever heartily shake hands with Mrs. Seedy,
and give up those odious calculations about poor dear Mrs,
Seedy's income? Will Mrs. Seedy, who is starving in her
great house, go and live comfortably in a little one, or in lodg-
ings? Will her landlady, Mrs. Letsam, ever stop wondering
at the familiarity of tradespeople, or rebuking the insolence
of Suky, the maid, who wears flowers under her bonnet like
a lady?

But why hope, why wish for such times? Do I wish aM
Snobs to perish? Do I wish these Snob papers to determine*
Suicidal fool, art not thou too a Snob and a brother?THE BOOK OF SNQBS.

CHAPTER XXXVIL

CLUB SKOBS.

As I wish to be particularly agreeable to the ladies (to whom
I make my most humble obeisance), we will now, if you please,
commence maligning a class of Snobs against whom, I believe,
most female minds are embittered, I mean Club Snobs. I
have very seldom heard even the most gentle and placable
woman speak without a little feeling of bitterness against those
social institutions, those palaces swaggering in St. James',
which are open to the men, while the ladies have but their
dingy three-windowed brick boxes in Belgravia or in Padding-
tonia, or in the region between the road of Edgeware and that
of Gray's Inn.

In my grandfather's time it used to be Freemasonry that
roused their anger. It was my gran daunt (whose portrait we
still have in the family) who got into the clock-case at the
Royal Rosicrucian Lodge at Bungay, Sulfolk, to spy the pro-
ceedings of the Society, of which her husband was a member,
and being frightened by the sudden whirring and striking
eleven of the clock (just as the Deputy-Grand-Master was
bringing in(the mystic gridironfor theieception of aneophyte),
rushed out into the midst of the lodge assembled; and was
elected, by a desperate unanimity, Deputy-Grand-Mistress for
life. Though that admirable and courageous female never sub-
sequently breathed a word with regard to the secrets of the
initiation, yet she inspired all our family with such a terror
regarding the mysteries of Jachin and Boaz that none of our
family have ever since joined the Society, or worn the dread-
ful Masonic insignia.

It is known that Orpheus was torn to pieces by some justly
indignant Thracian ladies for belonging to an Harmonic Lodge.
'Let him go back to Eurydice,' they said, 6whom he is pre-
tending to regret so.' But the history is given in Dr. Lena-
priere's elegant dictionary in a manner much more forcible
than any which this feeble pen can attempt. At once, then, and
without verbiage, let us take up this subject-matter of Clubs.

Clubs ought not, in my mind, to be permitted to bachelors.
If my friend of the Cuttykilts had not our Club, the Union
Jack, to go to (I belong to the U. J. and nine other similar
institutions), who knows but he never would be a bachelor at
this present moment ? Instead of being made comfortable, and
cockered up with every luxury, as they are at Chabs, bachelorsTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

121

ought to be rendered profoundly miserable, in my opinion.
Every encouragement should be given to the rendering their
spare time disagreeable. There can be no more odious object,
according to my sentiments, than young Smith, in the pride
of health,commanding his dinner of threecourses; than middle-
aged Jones wallowing (as I may say) in an easy padded arm-
chair, over the last delicious novel or brilliant magazine; or
than old Brown, that selfish old reprobate for whom mere liter-
ature has no charms, stretched on the best sofa, sitting on the
second edition of The Times, having the Morning Chronicle
between his knees, the Herald pushed in between his coat and
waistcoat, the Standard under his left arm, the Globe under
the other pinion, and the Daily News in perusal. 'I'll trouble
you for Punchy Mr. Wiggins,' says the unconscionable old
gormandizer interrupting our friend, who is laughing over the
periodical in question.

This kind of selfishness ought not to be. Ko, no. -Young
Smith, instead of his dinner and his wine, ought to be, where?
At the festive tea table, to be sure, by the side of Miss Higgs,
sipping the bohea, or tasting the harmless muffin; while old
Mrs. Higgs looks on, pleased at their innocent dalliance, and
my friend Miss Wirtr the governess, is performing Thalberg's
last sonata in treble X, totally unheeded, at the piano.

Where should the middle-aged Jones be? At his time of
life he ought to be the father of a family. At such an hour—
sAy, at nine o'clock at night—the nursery bell should have just
rung the children to bed. He and Mrs. J. ought to be, by
rights, seated on each side of the fire by the dining room table,
a bottle of port wine between them, not so full as it was an
hour since. Mrs. J. has had two glasses; Mrs. Grumble
(Jones' mother-in-law) has had three; Jones himself has fin-
ished the rest, and dozes comfortably until bedtime.

And Brown, that old newspaper-devouring miscreant, what
right has he at a club at a decent hour of night? He ought
to be playing his rubber with Miss MacWhirter, his wife, and
the family apothecary. His candle ought to be brought to him
at ten o'clock, and he should retire to rest just as the young
people were thinking of a dance. How much finer, simpler,
nobler, are the several employments I have sketched out for
these gentlemen than their present nightly orgies at the hor-
rid Club.

And, ladies, think of men who do not merely frequent the
dSning room and library, but who use other apartments of thooe
korrible dens which it is my purpose to batter down; think of132	THE BOOK OP SNOBS.

Cannon, the wretch, with his coat off, at his age and size,
clattering the balls over the billiard table all night, and mak-
ing bets with that odious Captain Spot! think of Para in a dark
room with Bob Trumper, Jack Deuceace, and Charley Yole
playing, the poor dear misguided wretch, guinea points and
fivp pounds on the rubber! above all, think—oh, think of that
den of abomination, which, I am told, has been established in
some Clubs, called the Smoking Room—think of the debauchees
who congregate there, the quantities of reeking whisky punch
or more dangerous sherry-cobbler which they consume; think
of them coming home at cockcrow and letting themselves into
the quiet house with the Chubb key; think of them, the hyp-
ocrites, taking off their insidious boots before they slink up-
stairs, the children sleeping overhead, the wife of their bosom
alone with the waning rushlight in the two-pair front—that
chamber so soon to be rendered hateful by the smell of their
stale cigars! . I am not an advocate of violence; I am not, by
nature, of an incendiary turn of mind; but if, my dear ladies,
you are for assassinating Mr. Chubb and burning down the
Clubhouses in St. James', there is one Snob at least wjao will
not think the worse of you.

The only men who, as I opine, ought to be allowed the use
of Clubs are married men without a profession. The continual
presence of these in a house %cannot be thought, even by the
most uxorious of wives, desirable. Say the girls are beginning
to practice their music, which, in an honorable English family,
ought to occupy every young gentlewoman three hours; it
would be rather hard to call upon poor papa to sit in the draw-
ing room all that time and listen to the interminable discords
and shrieks which are elicited from the miserable piano during
the above necessary operation. A man with a good ear, espe-
oially,would go mad,if compelleddaily tosubmit to this horror.

Or suppose you have a fancy to go to the milliner's or to
Howell & James', it is manifest, my dear Madam, that your
husband is much better at the Club during these operations
than by your side in the carriage, or perched in wonder upon
e»e of the stools at Shawl & Gimcrack's, while young counter
dandies are displaying their wares.

This sort of husbands should be sent out after breakfast,
amd if not Members of Parliament or Directors of a Railroad
or an Insurance Company, should be put into their Clubs, and
told to remain there until dinner time. No sight is more
agreeable to nay truly well-regulated mind than to see the nobl«
oharacters so worthily employed. Whenever I pass by St.THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

123

James^Street, having the privilege, like the rest of the world,
of looking in at the windows of Blight's, or Foodie's, or
Snook's, or the great bay at the Contemplative Club, I be-
hold with respectful appreciation the figures within—the hon-
est rosy old fogies, the moldy • old dandies, the waist belts
and glossy wigs and tight cravats of those most vacuous and
respectable men. Such men are best there during the day-
time, surely. When you part with them, dear ladies, think of
the rapture consequent on their return. You have transacted
your household affairs; you have made your purchases; yon
have paid your visits; you have aired your poodle in the Park;
your French maid has completed the toilet which renders you
so ravishingly beautiful by candlelight, and you are fit to
make home pleasant to him who has been absent all day.

Such men surely ought to have their Clubs, and we will not
class them ax»eng Club Snobs therefore; on whom let us re-
serve our attack for the next chapter.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CLUB SNOBS.

Such a sensation has been created in the Clubs by the ap-
pearance of the last paper on Club Snobs as can't but be eom-
plimentary to me who am one of their number.

I belong to many Clubs. The Union Jack, the Sash and
Marline Spike—Military Clubs. The True Blue, the No Sur-
render, the Blue and Buff, the Guy Fawkes, and the Cat*
Street—Political Clubs. The Brummel and the Regent—
Dandy Clubs. The Acropolis, the Palladium, the Areopagus,
the Pnyx, the Pentelicus, the Ilissus, and the Poluphloisboi*
Thalasses—Literary Clubs. I never could make out how the
latter set of Clubs got their names; 1 don't know Greek for one,
and I wonder howmany other membersof those institutions do?

Ever since the Club Snobs have beejn announced, I observe
a sensation created on my entrance into any one of these plaoes.
Members get up and hustle together; they nod, they scowl, as
they glance toward the present Snob. 'Infernal impudent
jackanapes! If he shows me up,' says Colonel Bludyer, 'I'M
break every bone in his skin.' 'I told you what would come
of admitting literary men into the Club,' says Ranville Ran-
ville to his colleague Spooney of the Tape and Sealing Wax
Office. 'These people are very well in their proper places, and
as a public man I make a point of shaking hands with them*
and that sort of thing; but to have one's privacy obtrader124

THE BOOK OF SNOBS,

upon by such people is really too much. Come along, Spooney,f
and the pair of prigs retire superciliously.

As I came into the coffeeroom at the No Surrender, old
Jawkins was holding out to a knot of men, who were yawn-
ing as usual. There he stood, waving the Standard, and
swaggering before the fire. 'What,' says he, 'did I tell Peel
last year? If you touch the Corn Laws, you touch the Sugar
Question; if you touch the Sugar, you touch the Tea. I am
no monopolist. I am a liberal man, but I cannot forget that I
stand 011 the brink of a precipice; and if we are to have Free
Trade, give me reciprocity. And what was Sir Robert Peel's
answer to me? "Mr. Jawkins," he said——'

Here Jawkins' eye suddenly turning on your humble serv-
ant, he stopped his sentence, with a guilty look—his stale
old stupid sentence, which every one of us at the Club has
beard over and over again.

Jawkins is a most pertinacious Club Snob. Every day he is
at that fireplace, holding that Standard, of which he reads up
the leading article, and pours it out ore rotundo, with the most
astonishing composure, in the face of his neighbor, who has
just read every word of it in the paper. Jawkins has money,
as you may see by the tie of his neckcloth. He passes the
Baorning swaggering about the City, in bankers' and brokers'
parlors, and says: 'I spoke with Peel yesterday, and his in-
tentions are so and so. Graham and I were talking over the
aaatter, and I pledge you my word of honor his opinion coin-
cides with mine; and that What-d'ye-call'um is the only
measure Government will venture on trying.' By evening-
paper time he is at the Club; 'I can tell you the opinion or
the City, my Lord,' says he, 'and the way in which Jones Loyd
looks at it is briefly this; Rothschilds told me so themselves*
In Mark Lane people's minds are quite made up.' He is con-
sidered rather a well-informed man.

He lives in Belgravia, of course, in a drab-colored genteel
kouse, and has everything about him that is properly grave,
dismal, and comfortable. His dinners are in the Morning
Herald, among the parties for the week; and his wife and
daughters make a very handsome appearance at the Drawing
Room, once a year, when he comes down to the Club in his
Deputy Lieutenant's uniform.

He is fond of beginning a speech to you by saying,' Whea
I was in the House, I,' etc.—in fact he sat for Skittlebury for
tkree weeks in the first Reformed Parliament,and was unseated
for bribery; since whi ch he has three times unsuccessfully con-
tested that honorable borough*THE BOOK OP SNOBg.

I2S

Another sort of Political Snob I have seen at most Clubs,
and that is the man who does not care so much for home politics
but is great upon foreign affairs. I think this sort of man is
scarcely found anywhere but in Clubs. It is for him the papers
provide their foreign articles, at the expense of some ten thou-
sand a year each. He is the man who is really seriously un-
comfortable about the designs of Russia, and the atrocious
treachery of Louis Philippe. He it is who expects a French
fleet in the Thames, and has a constant eye upon the American
President, every word of whose speech (goodness help him!)
he reads. He knows the names of the contending leaders in
Portugal and what they are fighting about; and it is he who
says that Lord Aberdeen ought to be impeached, and Lord
Palmerston hanged, or vice versa.

Lord Palmerston's being sold to Russia, the exact number
of rubles paid, by what house in the City, is a favorite theme
with this kind of Snob. I once overheard him—it was Cap-
tain Spitfire, R. N. (who had been refused a ship by the Whigs,
by the way)—indulging in the following conversation with
Mr. Minns after dinner:

'Why wasn't the Princess Scragamoff sky at Lady Palmers-
ton's party, Minns? Because she can't show—and why can't
she show? Shall I tell you, Minns, why she can't show? The
Princess Scragamoffsky's back is flayed alive, Minns—I tell
you it's raw, sir! On Tuesday last, at twelve o'clock, three
drummers of the Preobajinski Regiment arrived at Ashburn-
ham House, and at half-past twelve, in the yellow drawing
room at the Russian Embassy, before the ambassadress and
four ladies' maids, the Greek Papa and the Secretary of Em-
bassy, Mme. de Scragamoffsky received thirteen dozen. She
was knouted, sir,knouted in the midst of England—in Berkeley
Square, for having said that the Grand Duchess Olga's hair
was red. And now, sir, will you tell me Lord Palmerston
ought to continue Minister?'

Minns: 'Good Ged!'

Minus follows Spitfire about, and thinks him the greatest
and wisest of human beings.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

CLUB SNOBS*

Why does not some great author wrifce 'The Mysteries of
the Clubhouses; or St. James' Street Unveiled'? It would
be a fine subject for an imaginative writer. We must all, ai126

THE BOOK OF SNOBS,

boys, remember when we went to the fair, and had spent all
our money—the sort of awe and anxiety with which we loitered
round the outside of the show, speculating upon the nature of
the entertainment going on within.

Man is a Drama—of Wonder and Passion, and Mystery and
Meanness, and Beauty and Truthfulness, and Etcetera. Each
Bosom is a Booth in Vanity Fair. But let us stop this capital
style; I should die if I kept it up for a column (a pretty thing
a column all capitals would be by the way). In a Club, though
there mayn't be a soul of your acquaintance in the room, you
have always the chance of watching strangers, and speculat-
ing on what is going on within those tents and curtains of their
souls, their coats and waistcoats. This is a never-failing sport.
Indeed I am told there are some Clubs in the town where
nobody ever speaks to anybody. They sit in the coffeeroom,
quite silent and watching each other.

Yet how little you can tell from a man's outward demeanor!
There's a man at our Club—large, heavy, middle-aged—gor-
geously dressed—rather bald—withlacquered boots—anda boa
when he goes out; quiet in demeanor, always ordering and con-
suming a recherchb little dinner: whom I have mistaken for
Sir John Pocklington any time these five years and respected
as a man with £500 per diem; and I find he is but a clerk in
an office in the City, with not £200 income, and his name is
Jubber. Sir John Pocklington was, on the contrary, the dirty
little snuffy man who cried out so about the bad quality of the
beer, and grumbled at being overcharged three-halfpence for
a herring, seated at the next table to Jubber on the day when
someone pointed the Baronet out to me.

Take a different sort of mystery. I see, for instance, old
Fawney stealing round the rooms of the Club, with glassy,
meaningless eyes, and an endless greasy simper—he fawns on
everybody he meets, and shakes hands with you, and blesses
you, and betrays the most tender and astonishing interest in
your welfare. You know him to be a quack and a rogue, and
he knows you know it. But he wriggles on his way, and leaves
a track of slimy flattery after him wherever he goes. Who
can penetrate that man's mystery? What earthly good can
he get from you or me? You don't know what is working
under that leering tranquil mask. You have only the dim
instinctive repulsion that warns you you are in the presence
©f a knave—beyond which fact all Fawney's soul is a secret to
you.

I think I like to speculate on the young men best. TheirTHE BOOK OF SNOBS*

m

play is opener. You know the cards in their hand, as it were.
Take, for example, Messrs. Spavin and Cockspur.

A specimen or two of the above sort of young fellows may
be found, I believe, at most Clubs. They know nobody. They
bring a fine smell of cigars into the room with them, and they
growl together, in a corner, about sporting matters. They
recollect the history of that short period in which they have
been ornaments of the world by the names of winning horses.
As political men talk about 'the Reform year,''the year the
Whigs went out/ and so forth, these young sporting bucks
speak of Tarnation's year, or Opodeldoc's year, or the year
when Catawampus ran second for the Chester Cup. They
play at billiards in the morning, they absorb pale ale for break-
fast, and 'top up' with glasses of strong waters. They read
BelVs Life (and a very pleasant paper too, with a great deal
of erudition in the answers to correspondents). They go
down to Tattersall's, and swagger in the Park, with their hands
plunged in the pockets of their paletots.

What strikes me especially in the outward demeanor of
sporting youth is their amazing gravity, their conciseness of
speech, and careworn and moody air. In the smoking room
at the Regent, when Joe Millerson will be setting the whole
room in a roar with laughter, you hear young Messrs. Spavin
and Cockspur grumbling together in a corner. 'I'll take your
five-and-twenty to one about Brother to Bluenose,' whispers
Spavin. 'Can't do it at the price,' Cockspur says, wagging
his head ominously. The betting book is always present in
the minds of those unfortunate youngsters. I think I hate
that work even more than the 'Peerage.' There is some good
in the latter—though, generally speaking, a vain record;
though De Mogyns is not descended from the giant Hogyn
Mogyn, though half the other genealogies are equally false
and foolish, yet the mottoes are good reading—some of them;
and the book itself a sort of gold-laced and liveried lackey
to History, and in so far serviceable. But what good ever
came out of, or went into, a betting book? If I could be Caliph
Omar for a week, I would pitch every one of those despioa-
ble manuscripts into the flames; from my Lord's, who is 'in*
with Jack Snaffle's stable, and is overreaching worse-informed
rogues and swindling greenhorns, down to Sam's, the butcher-
boy's, who books eighteenpenny odds in the taproom, apd
'stands to win five-and-twenty bob.'

In a turf transaction either Spavin or Cockspur would try
to get the better of his father, and, to gain a point in the128

xhe book of snobs.

odds, victimize his best friends. One day we shall hear of one
or other levanting; an event at which, not being sporting men,
we shall not break our hearts. See—Mr. Spavin is settling
his toilet previous to departure, giving a curl in the glass
to his side-wisps of hair. Look at him! It is only at the
hulks, or among turfmen, that you ever see a face so mean,
so knowing, and so gloomy.

A much more humane being among the youthful Clubbists
is the Lady-killing Snob. I saw Wiggle just now in the dress-
ing room talking to Waggle, his inseparable.

Waggle.—"Pon my honor, Wiggle, she did.'

Wiggle.—4 Well, Waggle, as you say—I own I think she
did look at me rather kindly. We'll see to-night at the French
play.'

And having arrayed their little persons, these two harmless
young bucks go upstairs to dinner.

CHAPTER XL.

club swobs.

Both sorts of young men, mentioned in my last under the
flippant names of Wiggle and Waggle, may be fo .nd in toler-
able plenty, I think, in Clubs. Wiggle and Waggle are both
idle. They come of the middle classes. One of them very
likely makes believe to be a barrister, and the other has smart
apartments about Piccadilly. They are a sort of second-chop
dandies; they cannot imitate that superb listlessness of de-
meanor and that admirable vacuous folly which distinguishes
the noble and highborn chiefs of the race; but they lead liv^s
almost as bad (were it but for the example), and are personally
quite as useless. I am not going to arm a thunderbolt, and
launoL io	or uhose little Pall Mall butterflies.

They don't commit much public harm,or private extravagance.
They don't spend a thousand pounds for diamond earrings for
an Opera dancer, as Lord Tarquin can; neither of them ever set
tip a public-house or broke the bank of a gambling club, like the
young Earl of Martingale. They have good points, kind feel-
ings, and deal honorably in money transactions—only in their
characters of men of second-rate pleasure about town they and
their like are so utterly mean, self-contented, and absurd that
they must not be omitted in a work treating on Snobs.

Wiggle has been abroad, where he gives you to understand
that his success among the German Countesses and Italian
Princesses whom he met at the tables-'cFhdte was perfectlyTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

129

terrific. His rooms are hung round with pictures of actresses
and ballet dancers. He passes his mornings in a fine dressing
gown, burning pastilles, and reading 'Don Juan' and French
novels (by the way, the life of the author of 'Don Juan,' as de-
scribed by himself, was the model of the life of a Snob).
He has twopenny halfpenny French prints of women with
languishing eyes, dressed in dominoes, guitars, gondolas, and
so forth, and tells you stories about them.

'It's a bad print,' says he, 'I know, but I've a reason for
liking it. It reminds me of somebody—somebody I knew in
other climes. You have heard of the Principessa di Monte Pul-
ciano? I met her at Rimini. Dear,dear Francesca! That fair-
haired, bright-eyed thing in the bird of Paradise and the Turk-
ish Simar with the love-bird on her finger, I'm sure must have
been taken from—from somebody perhaps whom you don't
know—but she's known at Munich, Waggle, my boy—every-
body knows the Countess Ottilia di Eulenschreckenstein. Gad,
sir, what a beautiful creature she was when I danced with her
on the birthday of Prince Attila of Bavaria, in '44. Prince
Carloman was our vis-a-vis, and Prince Pepin danced the
same contredanse. She had a Polyanthus in her bouquet.
Waggle, 1 have it now.' His countenance assumes an
agonized and mysterious expression, and he buries his head in
the sofa cushion, as if plunging into a whirlpool of passionate
recollections.

Last year he made a considerable sensation by having on
his table a morocco miniature case locked by a gold key which
he always wore round his neck, land on which was stamped a
serpent—emblem of eternity—with the letter M in the circle.
Sometimes he laid this upon his little morocco writing table
as if it were on an altar—generally he had flowers upon it; in
th^ Twiddle of p conversation he would start up and kiss it. He
would call out from his bedroom to his valet, 'Hicks, bring
me my casket!'

'I don't know who it is,' Waggle would say. ' Who does
know that fellow's intrigues! Desborough Wiggle, sir, is the
slave of passion. I suppose you have heard the story of the
Italian Princess locked up in the Convent of St. Barbara, at
Rimini ? He hasn't told you ? Then I'm not at liberty to speak.
Or the Countess, about whom he nearly had the duel with
Prince Witikind of Bavaria? Perhaps you haven't even heard
about that beautiful girl at Pentonville, daughter of a most re-
spectable Dissenting clergyman. She broke her heart when she
found he was, engaged (to a most lovely creature of high130

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

family, who afterward proved false to him), and she's now in
Han well. *

Waggle's belief in his friend amounts to frantic adoration.
'What a genius he is, if he would but apply himself!' he
whispers to me. 'He could be anything, sir, but for his pas-
sions. His poems are the most beautiful things you ever saw.
He's written a continuation of "Don Juan," from his own ad-
ventures. Did you ever read his lines to Mary? They're
superior to Byron, sir—superior to Byron.'	*v

I was glad to hear this from so accomplished a critic as
Waggle; for the fact is I had composed the verses myself for
honest Wiggle one day, whom I found at his chambers plunged
in thought over a very dirty old-fashioned album, in which
he had not as yet written a single word.

'I can't,' says he. 'Sometimes I can write whole cantos,
and to-day not a line. O Snob! such an opportunity! Such
a divine creature! She's asked me to write verses for her
album, and I can't.'

'Is she rich?' said I. 'I thought you would never marry
any but an heiress.'

*0 Snob! she's the most accomplished, highly connected
creature! and I can't get out a line.'

'How will you have it?' says I. 'Hot, with sugar?'

'Don't, don't! You trample on the most sacred feelings,
Snob. I want something wild and tender, like Byron. I want
to tell her that among the festive halls and that sort of thing,
you know—I only think about her, you know—that I scorn
the world, and am weary of it, you know, and—something
about a gazelle, and a bulbul, you know.'

'And a yataghan to finish off with,' the present writer ob-
served, and we began:

TO MARY.

I seem, in the midst of the crowd.

The lightest of all;

My laughter rings cheery and loud
In banquet and ball.

My lip hath its smiles and its sneers
For all men to see ;

But my soul and my truth, and my tears
Are for thee, are for thee I

'Do you call that neat, Wiggle?' says I. 'I declare it almost
makes me cry myself.'

'Now suppose,' says Wiggle, 'we say that all the world is
at my feet—make her jealous, you know, and that sort of thing
—and that—that I'm going to travel, you know? That per-
haps may work upon her feelings.'THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

131

So We (as this wretched prig said) began again:

Around me they flatter and fawn—

The young and the old,

The fairest are ready to pawn
Their hearts for my gold.

They sue me—I laugh as I spurn
The slaves at my knee,

But in faith and in fondness I turn
Unto thee, unto thee !

<Now for the traveling, Wiggle, my boy!' And I began, in
a voice choked with emotion:

Away I for my heart knows no rest
Since you taught it to feel;

The secret must die in my breast
I burn to reveal;

The passion I may not-

'I say, Snob!' Wiggle here interrupted the excited bard
(just as I was about to break out into four lines so pathetic
that they would drive you into hysterics). 'I say—ahem—
couldn't you say that I was—a—military man, and that there
was some danger of my life?'

<You a military man ? danger of your life ? What the deuce
do you mean?'

'Why,' said Wiggle, blushing a good deal, *1 told her I
was going out—on—the—Ecuador—expedition.' "

4You abominable young impostor,' I exclaimed. 'Finish
the poem for yourself!' And so he did, and entirely out of
all meter, and bragged about the work at the Club as his own
performance.

Poor Waggle fully believed in his friend's genius, until one
day last week he came with a grin on his countenance to the
Club, and said, £0 Snob, I've made such a discovery!
Going down to the skating to-day, whom should I see but
Wiggle walking with that splendid woman—that lady of illus-
trious family and immense fortune, Mary, you know, whom he
wrote the beautiful verses about. She's five-and-forty. She's
red hair. She's a nose like a pump handle. Her father made
his fortune by keeping a ham and beef shop, and Wiggle's
going to marry her next week.'

4So much the better, Waggle, my young friend,' I ex-
claimed. 4 Better for the sake of womankind that this dan-
gerous dog should leave off lady-killing—this Blue-Beard give
up practice. Or better rather for his own sake. For as there
is not a word of truth in any of those prodigious love stories
which you used to swallow, nobody has been hurt except
Wiggle himself, whose affections will now center in the ham
and beef shop. There are people, Mr. Waggle, who do these132

the book. op snobs.

things in earnest, and hold a good rank in* the world too.
But these are not subjects for ridicule, an<T though certainly
Snobs, are scoundrels likewise. Their cases go up to a higher
Court.*

CHAPTER XLI.

club stfobs.

Bacchus is the divinity to whom Waggle devotes his es-
pecial worship. 6Give me wine, my boy,' says he to his friend
Wiggle, who is prating about lovely woman; and holds up
his glass full of the rosy fluid, and winks at it portentously,
and sips it and smacks his lips after it, and meditates on it,
as if he were the greatest of connoisseurs.

I have remarked this excessive wine-amateurship especially
in youth. Snoblings from college, Fledglings from the army,
Goslings from the public schools, who ornament our Clubs, are
frequently to be heard in great force upon wine questions.
*This bottle's corked,' says Snobling; and Mr. Sly, the butler,
taking it away, returns presently w ith the same wine in another
jug, which the young amateur pronounces excellent. 'Hang
champagne!' says Fledgling,4 it's only fit for gals and children.
Give me pale sherry at dinner, and my twenty-three claret
afterward.' 'What's port now?' says Gosling: 4disgusting
thick sweet stuff—where's the old dry wine one used to get?'
Until the last twelvemonth Fledgling drank small-beer at Dr.
Swishtail's; and Gosling used to get his dry old port at a gin-
shop in Westminster—till he quitted that seminary, in 1844.

Anybody who has looked at the caricatures of thirty years
ago must remember how frequently bottle noses, pimpled
faces, and other Bardolphian features are introduced by the
designer. They are much more rare no^(in nature, and in
pictures, therefore) than in those good old times; but there
are still to be found among the youth of our Clubs lads who
glory in drinking-bouts, and whose faces, quite sickly and
yellow, for the most part are decorated with those marks which
Rowland's Kalydor is said to efface. 'I was so cut last night
—old boy!' Hopkins says to Tomkins (with amiable confi-
dence). '1 tell you what we did. We breakfasted with Jack
Herring at twelve, and kept up with brandy and soda water
and weeds till four; then we toddled into the Park for an hour;
then we dined and drank mulled port till half price; then we
looked in for an hour at the Haymarket; then we came back
to the Club, and had grills and whisky punch till all was blue.
Hullo, waiter! Get me a glass of chferry brandy.' ClubTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

133

waiters, the civilest, the kindest, the patientest of men, die
under the infliction of these cruel young topers. But if the
reader wishes to see a perfect picture on the stage of this class
of young fellows I would recommend him to witness the in-
genious comedy of 'London Assurance'—the amiable heroes
of which are represented, not only as drunkards and fiTje-
o'clock-in-the-morning men, but as showing a hundred other
delightful traits of swindling, lying, and general debauchery,
quite edifying to witness.

How different is the conduct of these outrageous youths to
the decent behavior of my friend Mr. Papworthy, who says*
to Poppins, the butler at the club:

Papworthy.—'Poppins, I'm thinking of dining early; is
there any cold game in the house?'

Poppins.—'There's a game pie, sir; there's cold grouse,
sir; there's cold pheasant, sir; there's cold peacock, sir; cold
swan, sir; cold ostrich, sir,' etc., etc. (as the case may be).

Papworthy.—'Hem! What's your best claret now, Pop-
pins? in pints, I mean.'

Poppins.—'There's Cooper & Magnum's Lafite, sir; there's
Lath & Sawdust's St. Jullien, sir; Bung's Leoville is con-
sidered remarkably fine; and I think you'd like Jugger's
CMteau-Margaux.'

Papworthy.—'Hum! hah! well—give me a crust of bread
and a glass of beer. I'll only lunch, Poppins.'

Captain Shindy is another sort of Club bore. He has been
known to throw all the Club in an uproar about the quality
of his mutton chop.

'Look at it, sir! Is it cooked, sir? Smell it, sir! Is it
meat fit for a gentleman?' he roars out to the steward, who
stands trembling before him, and who in vain tells him that
the Bishop of Bullocksmithy has just had three from the same
loin. All the waiters in the Club are huddled round the Cap-
tain's mutton chop. He roars out the most horrible curses at
John for not bringing the pickles; he utters the most dread-
ful oaths because Thomas has not arrived with the Harvey
sauce; Peter comes tumbling with the water jug over Jeames*
who is bringing 'the glittering canisters with bread.' When-
ever Shindy enters the room (such is the force of character)
every table is deserted, every gentleman must dine as he best
may, and all those big footmen are in terror.

He makes his account of it. He scolds, and is better waited
upon in oonsequence. At the Club he has ten servants scud*
ding about to do his bidding.134

the book of snobs.

Poor Mrs. Shindy and the children are, meanwhile, in dingy
lodgings somewhere waited upon by a charity-girl in pattens.

CHAPTER XLII.

club snobs.

Every well-bred English female will sympathize with the
subject of the harrowing tale, the history of Sackville Maine,
I am now about to recount. The pleasures of Clubs have been
spoken of; let us now glance for a moment at the dangers of
those institutions, and for this purpose I must introduce you
to my young acquaintance Sackville Maine.

It was at a ball at the house of my respected friend Mrs.
Perkins that I was introduced to this gentleman and his charm-
ing lady. Seeing a young creature before me in a white dress,
with white satin shoes; with a pink ribbon, about a yard in
breadth, flaming out as she twirled in a polka in the arms of
M. de Springbock, the German diplomatist; with a green
wreath on her head, and the blackest hair this individual ever
set eyes on—seeing, I say, before me a charming young woman
whisking beautifully in a beautiful dance, and presenting, as
she wound and wound round the room, now a full face, then
a three-quarter face, then a profile—a face, in fine, which in
every way you saw it looked pretty and rosy and happy—I
felt (as I trust) a not unbecoming curiosity regarding the
owner of this pleasant countenance, and asked Wagley (who
was standing by, in conversation with an acquaintance) who
was the lady in question.

'Which?' says Wagley.

'That one with the coal-black eyes,' I replied.

'Hush!' says he; and the gentleman with whom he was talk-
ing moved off, with rather a discomfited air.

When he was gone Wagley burst out laughing. 6 Coal-black
eyes!' said he; 'you've just hit it. That's Mrs. Sackville
Maine, and that was her husband who just went away. H^'s
a coal merchant, Snob, my boy, and I have no doubt Mr. Per-
kins's Wallsends are supplied from his wharf. He is in a
flaming furnace when he hears coals mentioned. He and his
wife and his mother are very proud of Mrs. Sackville's family;
she was a Miss Chuff, daughter of Captain Chuff, R. N. That
is the widow: that stout woman in crimson tabinet, battling
about the odd trick with old Mr. Dumps, at the card table.'

And so, in fact, it was. Sackville Maine (whose name is a
hundred times more elegant, surely, than that of Chuff) wasfHE BOOK OP StfOBS.

135

blest with a pretty wife, and a genteel mother-in-law, both of
whom some people may envy him.

Soon after his marriage the old lady was good enough to
come and pay him a visit—just for a fortnight—at his pretty
little cottage, Kennington Oval; and, such is her affection for
the place, has never quitted it these four years. She has also
brought her son, Nelson Collingwood Chuff, to live with her;
but he is not so much at home as his mamma, going as a day
boy to Merchant Taylors' School, where he is getting a sound
classical education.

If these beings, so closely allied to his wife, and so justly
dear to her, may be considered as drawbacks to Maine's hap-
piness, what man is there that has not some things in life to
complain of? And when I first knew Mr. Maine no man
seemed more comfortable than he. His cottage was a picture
of elegance and comfort; his table and cellar were excellently
and neatly supplied. There was every enjoyment, but no os-
tentation. The omnibus took him to business of a morning;
the boat brought him back to the happiest of homes, where he
would while away the long evenings by reading out the fash-
ionable novels to the ladies as they worked; or accompany his
wife on the flute (which he played elegantly); or in any one
of the hundred pleasing and innocent amusements of the domes-
tic circle. Mrs. Chuff covered the drawing rooms with pro-
digious tapestries, the work of her hands. Mrs. Saekville had
a particular genius for making covers of tape or network for
these tapestried cushions. She could make home made wines.
She could make preserves and pickles. She had an album,
into which, during the time of his courtship, Saekville Maine
had written choice scraps of Byron's and Moore's poetry,analo-
gous to his own situation and in a fine mercantile hand. She
had a large manuscript receipt-book—every quality,in a word,
which indicated a virtuous and well-bred English female mind,

'And as for Nelson Collingwood,' Saekville would say,
laughing, 'we couldn't do without him in the house. If he
didn't spoil the tapestry we should be overcushioned in a few
months; and whom could we get but him to drink Laura's
home made wine?' The truth is, the gents who came from
the City to dine at the Oval could* not be induced to drmk
it—in which fastidiousness I myself, when I grew to be in-
timate with the family, confess that I shared.

'And yet, sir, that green ginger has been drunk by some of
England's proudest heroes,' Mrs. Chuff would exclaim. 'Ad-
miral Lord Exmouth tasted and praised it, sir, on board Cap*136

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

tain Chuff's ship the Nebuchadnezzar, 74, at Algiers; and
he had three dozen with him in the Pitchfork frigate, a part
of which was served out to the men before he went into his
immortal action with the Furibonde, Captain Choufleur, in
the Gulf of Panama.'

All this, though the old dowager told us the story every
day when the wine was produced, never served to get rid of
any quantity of it—and the green ginger, though it had fired
British tars for combat and victory, was not to the taste of us
peaceful and degenerate gents of modern times.

I see Sackville now, as on the occasion when, presented by
Wagley, I paid my first visit to him. It was in July—a Sun-
day afternoon; Sackville Maine was coming from church,with
his wife on one arm, and his mother-in-law (in red tabinet as
usual) on the other. A half-grown or hobbadehoyish foot-
man, so to speak, walked after them, carrying their shining
golden prayer books—the ladies had splendid parasols with
tags and fringes. Mrs. Chuff's great gold watch, fastened to
her stomach, gleamed there like a ball of fire. Nelson Colling-
wood was in the distance, shying stones at an old horse on
Kennington Common. 'Twas on that verdant spot we met—
nor can I ever forget the majestic courtesy of Mrs. Chuff as
she remembered having had the pleasure of seeing me at Mrs.
Perkins's—nor the glance of scorn which she threw at an un-
fortunate gentleman who was preaching an exceedingly desul-
tory discourse to a skeptical audience of omnibus cads and
nursemaids, on a tub, as we passed by. 'I cannot help it, sir,'
says she; 'I am the widow of an officer of Britain's Navy; I
was taught to honor my Church and my King; and I cannot
bear a Radical or a Dissenter.'

With these fine principlesl found Sackville Maine impressed.
c"Wagley / said Le lo my ir-troiluoer, 'if no better
why shouldn't self and friend dine at the Oval? Mr. Snob,
sir, the mutton's coming off the spit at this very minute.
Laura and Mrs. Chuff' (he said Laurar and Mrs. Chuff; but
I hate people who make remarks on these peculiarities of pro-
nunciation), £ will be most happy to see you; and I can promise
you a hearty welcome, and as good a glass of port wine as any
m England.'

'This is better than dining at the Sarcophagus,' thinks
I to myself, at which Club Wagley and I had intended to take
our meal; and so we accepted the kindly invitation, whence
arose afterward a considerable intimacy.

Everything about this family and house was so good-natured,THE BOOK OP SNOBS.

137

comfortable, and well conditioned that a cynic would have
ceased to growl there. Mrs. Laura was all graciousness and
smiles, and looked to as great advantage in her pretty morn-
ing gown as in her dress robe at Mrs. Perkins's. Mrs. Chuff
fired off her stories about the Nebuchadnezzar, 74, the action
between the Pitchfork and the Furibonde—the heroic re-
sistance of Captain Choufleur, and the quantity of snuff he
took, etc., etc.; which, as they were heard for the first time,
were pleasanter than I have subsequently iound them. Sack-
ville Maine was the best of hosts. He agreed in everything
everybody said, altering his opinions without the slighest res-
ervation upon the slightest possible contradiction. He was
not one of those beings whowould emulate a Schonbein or Friar
Bacon, or act the part of an incendiary toward the Thames,
his neighbor—but a good, kind, simple, honest, easy fellow—
in love with his wife—well disposed to all the world—content
with himself, content even with his mother-in-law. Nelson
Collingwood, I remember, in the course of the evening, when
whisky and water was for some reason produced, grew a little
tipsy. This did not in the least move Sackville's equanimity.
'Take him upstairs, Joseph,' said he to the hobbadehoy,4and
—Joseph*— don't tell his mamma.'

What could make a man so happily disposed unhappy?
What could cause discomfort, bickering, and estrangement in
a family so friendly and united? Ladies, it was not my fault-
it was Mrs. Chuff's doing—but the rest of the tale you shall
have on a future day.

CHAPTER XLIII.

club snobs.

The misfortune which befell the simple and good-natured
young Sackville arose entirely from that abominable Sar-
cophagus Club; and that he ever entered it was partly the
fault of the present writer.

For seeing Mrs. Chuff, his mother-in-law, had a taste for
the genteel (indeed, her talk was all about Lord Collingwood^
Lord Gambier, Sir Jahaleel Brenton, and the Gosport and Ply-
mouth balls), Wagley and I, according to our wont, trumped
her conversation, and^talked about Lords, Dukes, Marquises,
and Baronets as if those dignitaries were our familiar friends.

'Lord Sextonbury,' says 1,4seems to haverecovered herLady-
ship's death. He and the Duke were very jolly over their wine
at the Sarcophagus last night; weren't they, Wagley?'138

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

'Good fellow, the Duke,' Wagley replied. 'Pray, ma'am'
(to Mrs. Chuff), 'you who know the world and etiquette, will
you tell me what a man ought to do in my case? Last June
his Grace, his son Lord Castlerampant, Tom Smith, and myself
were dining at the Club,when I offered the odds against Daddy-
longlegs for the Derby—forty to one, in sovereigns only. His
Grace took the bet, and of course I won. He has never paid
me. Now can I ask such a great man for a sovereign? One
more lump of sugar, if you please, my dear madam.'

It was lucky Wagley gave her this opportunity to elude
the question, for it prostrated the whole worthy family among
whom we were. They telegraphed each other with wondering
eyes. Mrs. Chuff's stories about the naval nobility grew
quite faint; and kind little Mrs. Sackville became uneasy, and
went upstairs to look at the children—not at that young
monster Nelson Collingwood, who was sleeping off the whisky
and water—but at a couple of little ones who had made their
appearance at dessert, and of whom she and Sackville were the
happy parents.

The end of this and subsequent meetings with Mr. Maine
was that we proposed and got him elected as a member of the
Sarcophagus Club.

It was not done without a deal of opposition—the secret
having been whispered that the candidate was a coal merchant.
You may be sure some of the proud people and most of the
parvenus of the Club wero ready to blackball him. We com-
bated this opposition successfully, however. We pointed out
to the parvenus that the Lambtons and the Stuarts sold coals;
we mollified the proud by accounts of his good birth, good
nature, and good behavior, and Wagley went about on the day
of election, describing with great eloquence the action be-
tween the Pitchfork and the Fiiribonde, and the valor of
Captain Maine, our friend's father. There was a slightmis?
take in the narrative; but we carried our man, with only a
trifling sprinkling of black beans in the boxes: Byles', of
course, who blackballs everybody; and Bung's, who looks
down upon a coal merchant, having lately retired from the
wine trade.

Some fortnight afterward I saw Sackville Maine under the
following circumstances:

He was showing the Club to his family. He had brought
them thither, in the light-blue fly, waiting at the Club door,
with Mrs. Chuff's hobbadehoy footboy on the box, by the side
of the flyman, in a sham livery. Nelson Collingwood, prettyTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

139

Mrs. Sackville, Mrs. Captain Chuff (Mrs. Commodore Chuff
we call her), were all there, the latter, of course, in the ver-
milion tabinet, which, splendid as it is, is nothing in compari-
son to the splendor of the Sarcophagus. The delighted Sack-
ville Maine was pointing out the beauties of the place to them.
It seemed as beautiful as Paradise to that little party.

The Sarcophagus displays every known variety of archi-
tecture and decoration. The great library is Elizabethan;
the small library is pointed Gothic; the dining room is severe
Doric; the strangers' room has an Egyptian look; the draw-
ing rooms are Louis Quatorze (so called because the hideous
ornaments displayed were used in the time of Louis Quinze);
the cortile, or hall, is Morisco-Italian. It is all over marble,
maplewood, looking-glasses, arabesques, ormolu, and scagliola.
Scrolls, ciphers, dragons, Cupids, polyanthuses, and other
flowers writhe up the walls in «very kind of cornucopiosity.
Fancy every gentleman in Jullien's band playing with all his
might and each performing a different tune; the ornaments at
our Club, the Sarcophagus, so bewilder and affect me. Daz-
zled with emotions which I cannot describe, and which she
dared not reveal, Mrs. Chuff, followed by her children and son-
in-law, walked wondering among these blundering splendors.

In the great library (225 feet long by 150) the only man Mrs.
Chuff saw was Tiggs. He was lying on a crimson velvet
sofa, reading a French novel of Paul de Kock. It was a very
little book. He is a very little man. In that enormous hall he
looked like a mere speck. As the ladies passed breathless and
trembling in the vastness of the magnificent solitude, he threw
a knowing, killing glance at the fair strangers, as much as to
say, ' Aint I a fine fellow?' They thought so, I am sure.

6 Who is thatV hisses out Mrs. Chuff when we were about
fifty yards off him at the other end of the room.

'Tiggs!' says I in a similar whisper.

iPretty comfortable this, isn't it, my dear?' says Maine in
a free-and-easy way to Mrs. Sackville; 'all the magazines,
you see—writing materials—new works—choice library, con-
taining every work of importance—what have we here? 4'Dug-
dale's Monasticon," a most valuable and, I believe, entertain-
ing book.'

And proposing to take down one of the books for Mrs.
Maine's inspection, he selected Volume VII., to which he was
attracted by the singular fact that a brass door handle grew
out of the back. Instead of pulling out a book, however, he
pulled open a cupboard, only inhabited by a lazy housemaid's140

^ THE BOOK OF SNOBa.

broom and duster, at which he looked exceedingly discomfited;
while Nelson Collingwood, losing all respect, burst into a roar
of laughter.

'That's the rummest book I ever saw,' says Nelson. 41 wish
we'd no others at Merchant Taylors'.'

'Hush, Nelson!' cries Mrs. Chuff, and we went into the
other magnificent apartments.

How they did admire the drawing room hangings (pink
and silver brocade, most excellent wear for London), and calcu-
lated the price per yard; and reveled on the luxurious sofas;
and gazed on the immeasurable looking-glasses.

'Prettv well to shave by, eh?' says Maine to his mother-in-
law. (H<e was getting more abominably conceited every
minute.) 'Get away, Sackville,' says she, quite delighted,
and threw a glance over her shoulder, and spread out the wings
of the red tabinet and took a good look at herself; so did
Mrs. Sackville—just one, and I thought the glass reflected a
yery smiling, pretty creature.

But what's a woman at a looking-glass? Bless the little
dears, it's their place. They fly to it naturally. It pleases
them, and they adorn it. What I like to see, and watch with
increasing joy and adoration, is the Club men at the great
looking-glasses. Old Gills pushing up his collars and grin-
ning at his own mottled face. Hulker looking solemnly at his

freat person, and tightening his coat to give himself a waist.

red Minchin simpering by as he is going out to dine, and
casting upon the reflection of his white neckcloth a pleased
moony smile. What a deal of vanity that Club mirror has re-
flected, to be sure!

Well, the ladies went through the whole establishment with
perfect pleasure. They beheld the coffeerooms, and the little
tables laid for dinner, and the gentlemen who were taking
their lunch, and old Jawkins thundering away as usual; they
saw the reading rooms, and the rush for the evening papers;
they saw the kitchens—those wonders of art—where the chef
was presiding over twenty pretty kitchenmaids, and ten thou-
sand shining saucepans, and they got into the light-blue fly
perfectly bewildered with pleasure.

Sackville did not enter it, though little Laura took the back
seat on purpose, and left him the front place alongside of Mrs.
Chuff's red tabinet.

'We have your favorite dinner,' says she in a timid voice;
'won't you come, Sackville?'

'I shall take a chop here to-day, my dear,' Sackville replied.the book op snobs.

141

'Heme, James.' And he went up the steps of the Sarcopha-
gus, and the pretty face looked very sad out of the carriage
as the blue fly drove away.

CHAPTER XLIV.

CLUB SNOBS.

Why—why did I and Wagley ever do so cruel an action
as to introduce young Sackville Maine into that odious Sar-
cophagus! Let our imprudence and his example be a warning
to other gents; let his fate and that of his poor wife be re-
membered by every British female. The consequences of his
entering the Club were as follow:

One of the first vices the unhappy wretch acquired in this
abode of frivolity was that of smoking. Some of the dandies
of the Club, such as the Marquis of Macabaw, Lord Doodeen,
and fellows of that high order, are in the habit of indulging
in this propensity upstairs in the billiard rooms of the Sarcoph-
agus—and partly to make their acquaintance, partly from a
natural aptitude for crime, Sackville Maine followed them,
and became an adept in the odious custom. Where it is intro-
duced into a family I need not say how sad the consequences
are, both to the furniture and the morals. Sackville smoked in
his dining room at home, and caused an agony to his wife and
mother-in-law which I do not venture to describe.

He then became a professed billiard player, wasting hours
upon hours at that amusement, betting freely, playing toler-
ably, losing awfully to Captain Spot and Colonel Cannon. He
played matches of a hundred games with these gentlemen, and
would not only continue until four or five o'clock in the morn-
ing at this work, but would be found at the Club of a forenoon,
indulging himself to the detriment of his business, the ruin of
his health, and the neglect of his wife.

From billiards to whist is but a step—and when a man gets
to whist and five pounds on the rubber, my opinion is that it
is all up with him. How was the coal business to go on, and
the connection of the firm to be kept up, and the senior partner
always at the card table?

Consorting now with genteel persons and Pall Mall bucks,
Sackville became ashamed of his snug little residence in Keii-
nington Oval, and transported his family to Pimlico, where,
though Mrs. Chuff, his mother-in-law, was at first happy, as
the quarter was elegant and near her Sovereign, poor little
Laura and the children found a woeful difference. Where142

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

were her friends who came in with their work of a morning?
At Kennington and in the vicinity of Clapham. Where were
her children's little playmates? On Kennington Common,
The great thundering carriages that roared up and down the
drab-colored streets of the new quarter contained no friends
for the sociable little Laura. The children that paced the
squares, attended by a bonne or a prim governess, were not
like those happy ones that flew kites, or played hop-scotch, on
the well-beloved old Common. And ah! what a difference at
church too! between St. Benedict's of Pimlico, with open
seats, service in sing-song—tapers—albs—surplices—garlands
and processions, and the honest old ways of Kennington! The
footmen too attending St. Benedict's were so splendid and
enormous that James, Mrs. Chuff's boy, trembled among
them, and said he would give warning rather than carry the
books to that church any more.

The furnishing of the house was not done without expense.

And, ye gods! what a difference there was between Sack-
ville's dreary French banquets in Pimlico and the jolly dinners
at the Oval! No more legs of mutton, no more of' the best port
wine in England'; but entries on plate, and dismal twopenny
champagne, and waiters in gloves, and the club bucks for com-
pany—among whom Mrs, Chuff was uneasy and Mrs. Sack-
ville quite silent.

Not that he dined at home often. The wretch had become
a perfect epicure, and dined commonly at the Club with the
gormandizing clique there: with old Dr. Maw, Colonel Cram-
ley (who is as lean as a greyhound and has jaws like a jack),
and the rest of them. Here you might see the wretch tippling
Sillery champagne and gorging himself with French viands;
and I often looked with sorrow from my table (on which cold
meat, the Club small-beer, and a half pint of Marsala form
the modest banquet), and sighed to think it was my work.

And there were other beings present to my repentant
thoughts. Where's his wife, thought I? Where's poor, good,
kind little Laura? At this very moment—it's about the nursery
bedtime—and while yonder good-for-nothing is swilling his
wine, the little ones are at Laura's knees lisping their prayers;
and she is teaching them to say, 'Pray God bless papa.'

When she has put them to bed her day's occupation is gone;
and she is utterly lonely all night,and sad,and waiting for him.

Oh, for shame! Oh,for shame! Go home,thou idle tippler.

How Sackville lost his health; how he lost his business; how
he got into scrapes; how he got into debt; how he became aTHE BOOK OF S3TOB8.

143

railroad director; how the Pimlico house was shut up; how
he went to Boulogne—all this I could tell, only I am too much
ashamed of my part of the transaction. They returned to
England, because, to the surprise of everybody, Mrs. Chuff
came down with a great sum of money (which nobody knew
she had saved), ana paid his liabilities. He is in England;
but at Kennington. His name is taken off the books of the
Sarcophagus long ago. When we meet he crosses over to the
other side of the street; and I don't call, as I should be sorry
to see a look of reproach or sadness in Laura's sweet face.

Not, however, all evil, as I am proud to think, has been the
influence of the Snob of England upon Clubs in general: Cap-
tain Shindy is afraid to bully the waiters any more, and eats
his mutton chop without moving Acheron. Gobemouche
does not take more than two papers at a time for his private
reading. Tiggs does not ring the bell and cause the library
waiter to walk about a quarter of a mile in order to give him
Volume II., which lies on the next table. Growler has ceased
to walk from table to table in the coffeeroom, and inspect what
people are having for dinner. Trotty Yeck takes his own um-
brella from the hall—the cotton one; and Sydney Scraper's
paletot lined with silk has been brought back by Jobbins, who
entirely mistook it for his own. Waggle has discontinued
telling stories about the ladies he has killed. Snooks does
not any more think it gentlemanlike to blackball attorneys.
Snuffler no longer publicly spreads out his great red cottoa
pocket handkerchief before the fire for the admiration of two
hundred gentlemen; and if one Club Snob has been brought
back to the paths of rectitude, and if one poor John has been
spared a journey or a scolding—say, friends and brethren, if
these sketches of Club Snobs have been in vain?

CHAPTER LAST.

How it is that we have come to No. 45 of this present series
of papers, my dear friends and brother Snobs, I hardly know
—but for a whole mortal year have we been together, prat-
tling, and abusing the human race; and were we to live for a
hundred years more I believe there is plenty of subject for
conversation in the enormous theme of Snobs.

The national mind is awakened to the subject. Letters pour
in every day, conveying marks of sympathy, directing the
attention of the Snob of England to races of Snobs yet unde-
scribed. 'Where are your Theatrical Snobs; your Comnier-144

THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

cial Snobs; your Medical and Chirurgical Snobs; your Official
Snobs; your Legal Snobs; your Artistical Snobs; your Mu-
sical Snobs; your Sporting Snobs?' write my esteemed corre-
spondents. 'Surely you are not goingto miss the Cambridge
Chancellor election, and omit showing up your Don Snobs,
who are coming, cap in hand, to a young Prince of six-and-
twenty, and to implore him to be the chief of their renowned
University?' writes a friend who seals with the signet of the
Cam and Isis Club. 4Pray, pray,' cries another, inow the
Operas are opening, give us a lecture about Omnibus Snobs.'
Indeed, I should like to write a chapter about the Snobbish
Dons very much, and another about the Snobbish Dandies.
Of my dear Theatrical Snobs I think with a pang; and I can
hardly break away from some Snobbish artists, with whom I
have long, long intended to have a palaver.

But what's the use of delaying? When these were done
there would be fresh Snobs to portray. The labor is endless.
No single man could complete it. Here are but fifty-two
bricks—-and a pyramid to build. It is best to stop. As Jones
always quits the room as soon as he has said his good thing;
as Cincinnatus and General Washington both retired into pri-
vate life in the height of their popularity; as Prince Albert,
when he laid the first stone of the Exchange, left the brick-
layers to complete that edifice and went home to his royal
dinner; as the poet Bunn comes forward at the end of the
season, and with feelings too tumultuous to describe, blesses
his Jcyind friends over the footlights, so, friends, in the flush
of conquest and the splendor of victory, amid the shouts and
the plaudits of a people—triumphant yet modest—the Snob
of England bids ye farewell.

But only for a season. Not forever. No, no. There is
one Cwlobrat':::"! r^;thor "Trhtm T	rory much—who has

been taking leave of the public any time these ten years in his
prefaces, and always comes back again, when everybody is
glad to see him. How can he have the heart to be saying
good-by so often? I believe that Bunn is affected when he
blesses the people. Parting is always painful. Even the
familiar bore is dear to you. I should be sorry to shake hands
even with Jawkins for the last time. I think a well-constituted
convict, on coming home from transportation, ought to be
rather sad when he takes leave of Yan Diemen's Land. When
the curtain goes down on the last night of a pantomime, poor
old Clown must be very dismal, depend on it. Ha! with what
joy he rushes forward on the evening of the 26th of Decemberthe book of snobs. ~ ~	145

next, and says, 'How are you? Here we are!' But I am
growing too sentimental: to return to the theme.

The national mind is awakened to the subject op
Snobs. The word Snob has taken a place in our honest English
vocabulary. We can't define it, perhaps. We can't say what
it is, any more than we can define wit or humor or humbug;
but we Jcnow what it is. Some weeks since, happening to
have the felicity to sit next to a young lady at a hospitable
table, where poor old Jawkins was holding forth in a very
absurd pompous manner, I wrote upon the spotless damask

<S-B,' and called my neighbor's attention to the little

remark.

That young lady smiled. She knew it at once. Her mind
straightway filled up the two letters concealed by apostrophic
reserve, and I read in her assenting eyes that she knew Jaw-
kins was a Snob. You seldom get them to make use of the
word as yet, it is true; but it is inconceivable how pretty an
expression their little smiling mouths assume when they speak
it out. If any young lady doubts, just let her go up to her own
room, look at herself steadily in the glass, and say 'Snob.' If
she tries this simple experiment, my life for it she will smile,
and own that the word becomes her mouth amazingly. A
pretty little round word, all composed of soft letters, with a
hiss at the beginning, just to make it piquant, as it were.

Jawkins, meanwhile, went on blundering and bragging
and boring quite unconsciously. And so he will, no doubt,
go on roaring and braying to the end of time, or at least sc
long as people will hear him. You cannot alter the nature of
men and Snobs by any force of satire; as by laying ever so
many stripes on a donkey's back you can't turn him into a zebra,

But wo can warn the neighborhood that, the person whom
they and Jawkins admire is an impostor. We can apply the
Snob test to him, and try whether he is conceited and a quack,
whether pompous and lacking humility—whether uncharitable
and proud of his narrow soul. How does he treat a great man
—how regard a small one? How does he comport himself in
the presence of his Grace the Duke? and how in that of Smith,
the tradesman?

And it seems to me that all English society is cursed by this
mammoniacal superstition; and that we are sneaking and
bowing and cringing on the one hand, or bullying and scorn-
ing on the other, from the lowest to the highest. My wife
speaks with great circumspection—'proper pride,' she calls

„ THE BOOK OF SNOBS.

it—to our neighbor the tradesman's lady; and she, I mean Mrs.
Snob, Eliza—would give one of her eyes to go to court as her
cousin, the Captain's wife, did. She, again, is a good soul,
but it costs her agonies to be obliged to confess that we live
in Upper Thompson Street, Somer's Town. And though I
believe in her heart Mrs. Whiskerington is fonder of us than
of her cousins the Smigsmags, you should hear how she goes
on prattling about Lady Smigsmag, and CI said to Sir John,
My dear John,' and about the Smigsmags' house and parties
in Hyde Park Terrace.

Lady Smigsmag, when she meets Eliza, who is a sort of a
kind of a species of a connection of the family, pokes out one
finger, which my wife is at liberty to embrace in the most
cordial manner she can devise. But oh, you should see her
ladyship's behavior on her first-chop dinner party days, when
Lord and Lady Longears come!

I can bear it no longer—this diabolical invention of gentility
wbich kills natural kindliness and honest friendship. Proper
pride, indeed! Rank and precedence, forsooth! The table of
ranks and degrees is a lie, and should be flung into the fire.
Organize rank and precedence! that was well for the masters
of ceremonies of former ages. Come forward, some great
marshal, and organize Equality in society, and your rod shall
swallow up all the juggling old Court gold-sticks. If this is
not gospel truth—if the world does not tend to this—if hered-
itary-great-man worship is not a humbug and an idolatry—
let us have the Stuarts back again and crop the Free Press'
ears in the pillory.

If ever our cousins the Smigsmags asked me to meet Lord
Longears I would like to take an opportunity after dinner
and say, in the most good-natured way in the world: Sir,
Fortune makes you a present of a number of thousand pounds
every year. The ineffable Wisdom of our ancestors has placed
you as a chief and hereditary legislator over me. Our admi-
rable Constitution (the pride of Britons and envy of surround-
ing nations) obliges me to receive you as my senator, superior,
and guardian. Your eldest son, Fitz-Heehaw, is sure of a place
in Parliament; your younger sons, the De Brays, will kindly
condescend to be Post Captains and Lieutenant Colonels,
and to represent us in foreign Courts or to take a good living
when it falls convenient. These prizes our admirable Consti-
tution (the pride and envy of, etc.) pronounces to be your due;
without count of your dullness, your vices, your selfishness,
or your entire incapacity and folly. Dull as you may be [andTHE BOOK OF SNOBS.

147

we have as good a right to assume that my Lord is an ass, as
the other proposition, that he is an enlightened patriot]—dull,
I say, as you may be, no one will accuse you of such monstrous
folly as to suppose that you are indifferent to the good luck
which you possess, or have any inclination to part with it.
No—and patriots as we are, under happier circumstances,
Smith and I, I have no doubt, were we Dukes ourselves, would
stand by our order.

We would submit good-naturedly to sit in a high place.
We would acquiesce in that admirable Constitution (pride and
envy of, etc.) which made us chiefs and the world our inferiors;
we would not cavil particularly at that notion of hereditary
superiority which brought so many simple people cringing to
our knees. Maybe we would rally round the Corn Laws; we
would make a stand against the Reform Bill; we would die
rather than repeal the Acts against Catholics and Dissenters;
we would, by our noble system of class legislation, bring Ire-
land to its present admirable condition.

But Smith and I are not Earls as yet. We don't believe
that it is for the interest of Smith's army that young De Bray
should be a Colonel at five-and-twenty, of Smith's diplomatic
relations that 'Lord Longears should go Ambassador to Con-
stantinople, of our politics that Longears should put his
hereditary foot into them.

This bowing and cringing Smith believes to be the act of
Snobs; and he will do all in his might and main to be a Snob
and to submit to Snobs no longer. To Longears he says,
'We can't help seeing, Longears, that we are as good as you.
We can spell even better; we can think quite as rightly; we
will not haveyou for our master, or black your shoes any more.
Your footmen do it, but they are .paid; and the fellow who
comes to get a list of the company when you give a banquet
or a dancing breakfast at Longueoreille House gets money from
the newspapers for performing that service. But for us,
thank you for nothing, Longears, my boy, and we don't wish
to pay you any more than we owe. We will take off our hats
to Wellington because he is Wellington; but to you—who
are you?'

I am sick of Court Circulars. I loathe haut-ton intelligence.
I believe such words as Fashionable, Exclusive, Aristocratic,
and the like, to be wicked, unchristian epithets, that ought
to be banished from honest vocabularies. A Court system that
sends men of genius to the second table I hold to be a Snobbish
system, A society that sets up to be polite, and ignores Arts148

THE BOOK OP SNOBS.

and Letters, I hold to be a Snobbish society. You,who despise
your neighbor, are a Snob; you, who forget your own friends,
meanly to follow after those of a higher degree, are a Snob;
you, who are ashamed of your poverty, ,and blush for your
calling, are a Snob; as are you who boast of your pedigree,
or are proud of your wealth.

To laugh at such is Mr. Punch's business. May he laugh
honestly, hit no foul blow, and tell the truth when at his very
broadest grin—never forgetting that if Fun is good, Truth is
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Special Correspondent............Jules Verne

Silas Marner....................George Eliot

Four Georges. . .William Makepeace Thackeray

English Navigators............Mrs. Jameson

Indian Biography........... . .B. B. Thatcher

Edmond Dantes............Alexander Dumas

Captains Lewis and Clarkof U.S. Army .Paul Allen

Outward Bound......... . .......Oliver Optic

Yellow Plush Papers and Rebecca arid Rowena
............William Makepeace Thackeray

Perilous Adventures..........R. A. Davenport

FOR SALE EVERYWHEREThe Superior Series

The Best Books of the Best Authors

OUTWARD BOUND	By Oliver Optic

The experiences of the officers and
crew of the Young America, also a full
description of the routine and discipline
of the ship.

ROSAMOND	By Mary J. Holmes

A charming love story runs through
the book, told in a pleasing manner.

SILAS MARNER	By George Eliot

One of the greatest stories of modern
literature in which the characters are
portrayed with marvelous fidelity and
power of execution.

IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS

By Paul AUen

A complete story graphically told
about the discovery of the headwaters
of the Columbia River.

FOR SALE EVERYWHEREThe Superior Series

The Best Books of the Best Authors

LEILA; or The Siege of Granada

By Edward Bulwer Lytton
A thrilling tale of Moorish love and
war.

AGNES GREY	By Anne Bronte

Daughter of an English Clergyman
writes in charming style about the
home life of the English Clergy and
Aristocracy.

INDIAN BIOGRAPHY By B. B. Thatcher
A minute and graphic story of early
Indian Life in the United States; Indian
manners, customs and wars.

THE MEMOIRS OF MR. J. C. YELLOW-
PLUSH; By William Makepeace Thackeray

In which he relates his humorous and
interesting experiences as footman in
many genteel families. REBECCA
AND ROWENA; A romance upon
romance, a fascinating episode that was
the result of the marriage between Sir
Wilfrid of Ivanhoe and Lady Rowena.

GIRLS OFTHE FOREST By Mrs. L.T.Meade
The exquisitely penned lines found in
this volume make it a tribute that any
parent will delight to send to the son or
daughter.

FOR SALE EVERYWHEREThe Superior Series

The Best Books of the Best Authors

COMMODORE OLIVER HAZARD PERRY f
By Alex. Slidell Mackenzie, U. S. N.
Famous American novel hero victor
of the battle of Lake Erie, his life and
achievements.

TRUE DETECTIVE STORIES

By Cleveland Moffett
From the archives of the world
famous Pinkertons, relating the exciting
adventures, hair-breadth escapes and
bold dashes of their detectives to uphold
law and order.

CAPTAINS LEWIS AND CLARKE OF THE
U. S. ARMY	By Paul Allen

A history of the Northwest Expedi-
tion during the years 1804 to 1806, by
order of the Government of the United
States.

AYLWYN'S FRIENDS By Mrs. L. T. Meade
A clean, wholesome story of not only
delightful but profitable reading for
boys and girls and grown ups.

FOR SALE EVERYWHEREThe Superior Series

The Best Books of the Best Authors

JOHN HENRY AND OTHER STORIES

By Hugh McHugh

A humorous volume containing mirth
in every page and laughter in every line,

THE PROFESSOR By Charlotte Bronte

A delightful chronicle of a life de-
voted to study and education.

THE FOUR GEORGES

By William Makepeace Thackeray

Sketches of manners, morals, courts
and town life.

ALSO THE HISTORY OF SAM-
UEL TITM ARSH AND THE GREAT
HOGGARTY DIAMOND.

THE BOOK OF SNOBS

By William Makepeace Thackeray

A volume of satires on snobs found in
every plane of life, contained in this
volume one will find some of the most
startling examples of realistic life.

FOR SALE EVERYWHEREThis book is a preservation facsimile produced for
the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
It is made in compliance with copyright law
and produced on acid-free archival

60# book weight paper
which meets the requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (permanence of paper).

Preservation facsimile printing and binding
by

Northern Micrographics
Brookhaven Bindery
La Crosse, Wisconsin
2015