June 1897.
XXIV.
FLATTERERS AND BORES.
Can a flatterer be flattered? Does he instinctively recognize the commodity in which he deals? And if he does so recognize it, does he enjoy or dislike the application of it to his own case? These questions are suggested to my mind by the ungrudging tributes paid in my last chapter to Lord Beaconsfield's pre-eminence in the art of flattery.
"Supreme of heroes, bravest, noblest, best!"
No one else ever flattered so long and so much, so boldly and so persistently, so skilfully and with such success. And it so happened that at the very crisis of his romantic career he became the subject of an act of flattery quite as daring as any of his own performances in the same line, and one which was attended with diplomatic consequences of great pith and moment.
It fell out on this wise. When the Congress of the Powers assembled at Berlin in the summer of 1878, our Ambassador in that city of stucco palaces was the loved and lamented Lord Odo Russell, afterwards Lord Ampthill, a born diplomatist if ever there was one, with a suavity and affectionateness of manner and a charm of voice which would have enabled him, in homely phrase, to whistle the bird off the bough. On the evening before the formal opening of the Congress Lord Beaconsfield arrived in all his plenipotentiary glory, and was received with high honours at the British Embassy. In the course of the evening one of his private secretaries came to Lord Odo Russell and said, "Lord Odo, we are in a frightful mess, and we can only turn to you to help us out of it. The old chief has determined to open the proceedings of the Congress in French. He has written out the devil's own long speech in French and learnt it by heart, and is going to fire it off at the Congress to-morrow. We shall be the laughing-stock of Europe. He pronounces épicier as if it rhymed with overseer, and all his pronunciation is to match. It is as much as our places are worth to tell him so. Can you help us?" Lord Odo listened with amused good humour to this tale of woe, and then replied: "It is a very delicate mission that you ask me to undertake, but then I am fond of delicate missions. I will see what I can do." And so he repaired to the state bedroom, where our venerable Plenipotentiary was beginning those elaborate processes of the toilet with which he prepared for the couch. "My dear Lord," began Lord Odo, "a dreadful rumour has reached us." "Indeed! Pray what is it?" "We have heard that you intend to open the proceedings to-morrow in French." "Well, Lord Odo, what of that?" "Why, of course, we all know that there is no one in Europe more competent to do so than yourself. But then, after all, to make a French speech is a commonplace accomplishment. There will be at least half a dozen men at the Congress who could do it almost, if not quite, as well as yourself. But, on the other hand, who but you can make an English speech? All these Plenipotentiaries have come from the various Courts of Europe expecting the greatest intellectual treat of their lives in hearing English spoken by its greatest living master. The question for you, my dear Lord, is—Will you disappoint them?" Lord Beaconsfield put his glass in his eye, fixed his gaze on Lord Odo, and then said, "There is much force in what you say. I will consider the point." And next day he opened the proceedings in English. Now the psychological conundrum is this —Did he swallow the flattery, and honestly believe that the object of Lord Odo's appeal was to secure the pleasure of hearing him speak English? Or did he see through the manoeuvre, and recognize a polite intimation that a French speech from him would throw an air of comedy over all the proceedings of the Congress, and perhaps kill it with ridicule? The problem is well fitted to be made the subject of a Prize Essay; but personally I incline to believe that he saw through the manoeuvre and acted on the hint. If this be the true reading of the case, the answer to my opening question is that the flatterer cannot be flattered.
We saw in my last chapter how careful Lord Beaconsfield was, in the great days of his political struggles, to flatter every one who came within his reach. To the same effect is the story that when he was accosted by any one who claimed acquaintance but whose face he had forgotten he always used to inquire, in a tone of affectionate solicitude, "And how is the old complaint?" But when he grew older, and had attained the highest objects of his political ambition, these little arts, having served their purpose, were discarded, like the green velvet trousers and tasselled canes of his aspiring youth. There was no more use for them, and they were dropped. He manifested less and less of the apostolic virtue of suffering bores gladly, and though always delightful to his intimate friends, he was less and less inclined to curry favour with mere acquaintances. A characteristic instance of this latter manner has been given to the world in a book of chit-chat by a prosy gentleman whose name it would be unkind to recall.
This worthy soul narrates with artless candour that towards the end of Lord Beaconsfield's second Administration he had the honour of dining with the great man, whose political follower he was, at the Premier's official residence in Downing Street. When he arrived he found his host looking ghastly ill, and apparently incapable of speech. He made some commonplace remark about the weather or the House, and the only reply was a dismal groan. A second remark was similarly received, and the visitor then abandoned the attempt in despair. "I felt he would not survive the night. Within a quarter of an hour, all being seated at dinner, I observed him talking to the Austrian Ambassador with extreme vivacity. During the whole of dinner their conversation was kept up; I saw no sign of flagging. This is difficult to account for." And the worthy man goes on to theorize about the cause, and suggests that Lord Beaconsfield was in the habit of taking doses of opium which were so timed that their effect passed off at a certain moment!
This freedom from self-knowledge which bores enjoy is one of their most striking characteristics. One of the principal clubs in London has the misfortune to be frequented by a gentleman who is by common consent the greatest bore and buttonholer in London. He always reminds me of the philosopher described by Sir George Trevelyan, who used to wander about asking, "Why are we created? Whither do we tend? Have we an inner consciousness?" till all his friends, when they saw him from afar, used to exclaim, "Why was Tompkins created? Is he tending this way? Has he an inner consciousness that he is a bore?"
Well, a few years ago this good man, on his return from his autumn holiday, was telling all his acquaintances at the club that he had been occupying a house at the Lakes not far from Mr. Ruskin, who, he added, was in a very melancholy state, "I am truly sorry for that," said one of his hearers. "What is the matter with him?" "Well," replied the buttonholer, "I was walking one day in the lane which separated Ruskin's house from mine, and I saw him coming down the lane towards me. The moment he caught sight of me he darted into a wood which was close by, and hid behind a tree till I had passed. Oh, very sad indeed." But the truly pathetic part of it was one's consciousness that what Mr. Ruskin did we should all have done, and that not all the trees in Birnam Wood and the Forest of Arden combined would have hidden the multitude of brother-clubmen who sought to avoid the narrator.
The faculty of boring belongs, unhappily, to no one period of life. Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety. Middle life is its heyday. Perhaps infancy is free from it, but I strongly suspect that it is a form of original sin, and shows itself very early. Boys are notoriously rich in it; with them it takes two forms—the loquacious and the awkward; and in some exceptionally favoured cases the two forms are combined. I once was talking with an eminent educationist about the characteristic qualities produced by various Public Schools, and when I asked him what Harrow produced he replied, "A certain shy bumptiousness." It was a judgment which wrung my Harrovian withers, but of which I could not dispute the truth.
One of the forms which shyness takes in boyhood is an inability to get up and go. When Dr. Vaughan was Head Master of Harrow, and had to entertain his boys at breakfast, this inability was frequently manifested, and was met by the Doctor in a most characteristic fashion. When the muffins and sausages had been devoured, the perfunctory inquiries about the health of "your people" made and answered, and all permissible school topics discussed, there used to ensue a horrid silence, while "Dr. Blimber's young friends" sat tightly glued to their chairs. Then the Doctor would approach with Agag-like delicacy, and, extending his hand to the shyest and most loutish boy, would say, "Must you go? Can't you stay?" and the party broke up with magical celerity. Such, at least, was our Harrovian tradition.
Nothing is so refreshing to a jaded sense of humour as to be the recipient of one of your own stories retold with appreciative fervour but with all the point left out. This was my experience not long ago with reference to the story of Dr. Vaughan and his boy-bores which I have just related. A Dissenting minister was telling me, with extreme satisfaction, that he had a son at Trinity College, Cambridge. He went on to praise the Master, Dr. Butler, whom he extolled to the skies, winding up his eulogy with, "He has such wonderful tact in dealing with shy undergraduates." I began to scent my old story from afar, but held my peace and awaited results. "You know," he continued, "that young men are sometimes a little awkward about making a move and going away when a party is over. Well, when Dr. Butler has undergraduates to breakfast, if they linger inconveniently long when he wants to be busy, he has such a happy knack of getting rid of them. It is so tactful, so like him. He goes up to one of them and says, 'Can't you go? Must you stay?' and they are off immediately." So, as Macaulay says of Montgomery's literary thefts, may such ill-got gains ever prosper.
My Dissenting minister had a congener in the late Lord P----, who was a rollicking man about town thirty years ago, and was famous, among other accomplishments, for this peculiar art of so telling a story as to destroy the point. When the large house at Albert Gate, which fronts the French Embassy and is now the abode of Mr. Arthur Sassoon, was built, its size and cost were regarded as prohibitive, and some social wag christened it "Gibraltar, because it can never be taken." Lord P---- thought that this must be an excellent joke, because every one laughed at it; and so he ran round the town saying to each man he met—"I say, do you know what they call that big house at Albert Gate? They call it Gibraltar, because it can never be let. Isn't that awfully good?" We all remember an innocent riddle of our childhood—"Why was the elephant the last animal to get into the Ark?"—to which the answer was, "Because he had to pack his trunk." Lord P---- asked the riddle, and gave as the answer, "Because he had to pack his portmanteau," and was beyond measure astonished when his hearers did not join in his uproarious laughter. Poor Lord P----! he was a fellow of infinite jest, though not always exactly in the sense that he intended. If he had only known of it, he might with advantage have resorted to the conversational device of old Samuel Rogers, who, when he told a story which failed to produce a laugh, used to observe in a reflective tone, "The curious part of that story is that stupid people never see the point of it," and then loud, though belated, guffaws resounded round the table.
XXV.
ADVERTISEMENTS.
Lately, when hunting for some notes which I had mislaid, I came upon a collection of Advertisements. No branch of literature is more suggestive of philosophical reflections. I take my specimens quite at random, just as they turn up in my diary, and the first which meets my eye is printed on the sad sea-green of the Westminster Gazette:—
"GUARDIAN, whose late ward merits the highest encomiums, seeks for him the POSITION of SECRETARY to a Nobleman or Lady of Position: one with literary tastes preferred: the young gentleman is highly connected, distinguished-looking, a lover of books, remarkably steady, and exceptionally well read, clever and ambitious: has travelled much: good linguist, photographer, musician: a moderate fortune, but debarred by timidity from competitive examination."
I have always longed to know the fate of this lucky youth. Few of us can boast of even "a moderate fortune," and fewer still of such an additional combination of gifts, graces, and accomplishments. On the other hand, most of us, at one time or another in our career, have felt "debarred by timidity from competitive examination." But, unluckily, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and college dons who forced us to face the agonies of the Schools, instead of an amiable guardian who bestowed on us "the highest encomiums," and sought to plant us on Ladies of Position, "with literary tastes preferred."
Another case, presenting some points of resemblance to the last, but far less favoured by fortune, was notified to the compassionate world by the Morning Post in 1889:—
"Will any rich person TAKE a gentleman and BOARD him? Of good family: age 27: good musician: thoroughly conversant with all office-work: no objection to turn Jew: lost his money through dishonest trustee: excellent writer."
I earnestly hope that this poor victim of fraud has long since found his desired haven in some comfortable Hebrew home, where he can exercise his skill in writing and office-work during the day and display his musical accomplishments after the family supper. I have known not a few young Gentiles who would be glad to be adopted on similar terms.
The next is extracted from the Manchester Guardian of 1894:—
"A Child of God, seeking employment, would like to take charge of property and collect rents; has a slight knowledge of architecture and sanitary; can give unexceptionable references; age 31; married."
What offers? Very few, I should fear, in a community so shrewdly commercial as Manchester, where, I understand, religious profession is seldom taken as a substitute for technical training. The mention of that famous city reminds me that not long ago I was describing Chetham College to an ignorant outsider, who, not realizing how the name was spelt, observed that it sounded as if Mr. Squeers had been caught by the Oxford Movement and the Gothic Revival, and had sought to give an ecclesiastical air to his famous seminary of Dotheboys Hall by transforming it into "Cheat'em College."
That immortal pedagogue owed much of his deserved success to his skill in the art of drawing an advertisement:—
"At Mr. Wackford Squeers's Academy, Dotheboys Hall, at the delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge, in Yorkshire, Youth are boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries, instructed in all languages, living and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry, astronomy, trigonometry, the use of the globes, algebra, singlestick (if required), writing, arithmetic, fortification, and every other branch of classical literature. Terms, twenty guineas per annum. No extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled."
Now, mark what follows. Wackford Squeers the younger was, as we all know, destined by his parents to follow the schoolmaster's profession, to assist his father as long as assistance was required, and then to take the management of the Hall and its pupils into his own hands. "Am I to take care of the school when I grow up a man, father?" said Wackford junior. "You are, my son," replied Mr. Squeers in a sentimental voice. "Oh, my eye, won't I give it to the boys!" exclaimed the interesting child, grasping his father's cane—"won't I make 'em squeak again!" But we know also that, owing to the pressure of pecuniary and legal difficulties, and the ill-timed interference of Mr. John Browdie, the school at Dotheboys Hall was at any rate temporarily broken up. So far we have authentic records to rely on; the remainder is pure conjecture. But I am persuaded that Wackford Squeers the younger, with all the dogged perseverance of a true Yorkshireman, struggled manfully against misfortune; resolved to make a home for his parents and sister; and, as soon as he could raise the needful capital, opened a private school in the South of England, as far as possible from the scene of earlier misfortune. Making due allowance for change of time and circumstances, I trace a close similarity of substance and style between the advertisement which I quoted above and that which I give below, and I feel persuaded that young Wackford inherited from his more famous father this peculiar power of attracting parental confidence by means of picturesque statement. We have read the earlier manifesto; let us now compare the later:—
"Vacancies now occur in the establishment of a gentleman who undertakes the care and education of a few backward boys, who are beguiled and trained to study by kind discipline, without the least severity (which too often frustrates the end desired). Situation extremely healthy. Sea and country air; deep gravelly soil. Christian gentility assiduously cultivated on sound Church principles. Diet unsurpassed. Wardrobes carefully preserved. The course of instruction comprises English, classics, mathematics, and science. Inclusive terms, 30 guineas per annum, quarterly in advance. Music, drawing, and modern languages are extras, but moderate. Address--------, Chichester." Was it Vivian Grey or Pelham who was educated at a private school where "the only extras were pure milk and the guitar"?
I believe that there is no charitable institution which more thoroughly deserves support than the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants, affectionately contracted by its supporters into the "MABYS." Here is one of its advertisements, from which, I am bound to say, the alluring skill displayed by Mr. Squeers is curiously absent:—
"Will any one undertake as SERVANT a bright, clean, neat girl, who is deceitful, lazy, and inclined to be dishonest? Address, Hon. Secretary, M.A.B.Y.S., 21 Charlotte Street, S.E."
I remember some years ago an advertisement which sought a kind master and a pleasant home for a large, savage dog; and I remember how admirably Punch described the kind of life which the "large, savage dog" would lead the "kind master" when he got him. But really the vision of a bright maid-servant who is "deceitful, lazy, and inclined to be dishonest," and the havoc which she might work in a well-ordered household, is scarcely less appalling. A much more deserving case is this which I append:—
"Under-Housekeeper, under-Matron, desired by a Young Woman, age 22. Energetic, domesticated. Great misfortune in losing right arm, but good artificial one. Happy home, with small remuneration."
It is not, I fear, in my power to make a contribution of permanent value to the "Great Servant Question." But, having given instances of insufficient qualification in people seeking to be employed, I now turn to the opposite side of the account, and, after perusing what follows, would respectfully ask, Who is sufficient for these things?
"Can any lady or gentleman recommend a MAN and WIFE (Church of England)? Man useful indoors and out. Principal duties large flower-garden, small conservatory, draw bath-chair, must wait at table, understand lamps, non-smoker, wear dress suit except in garden. Clothes and beer not found. Family, lady and child, lady-help. House-parlourmaid kept. Must not object to small bedroom. Wife plain cook (good), to undertake kitchen offices, dining-room, and hall (wash clothes). Joint wages £50, all found."
Now there is really a study in exacting eccentricity which Thackeray might have made the subject of a "Roundabout Paper." In the first place, the two servants must be man and wife—unmarried people need not apply—and yet they must be contented with a small bedroom. The family consists of a lady (apparently an invalid), a child, a lady-help, and a house-parlourmaid. For these the wife must cook, and cook well, besides cleaning the dining-room, hall and offices, and washing the clothes. Her husband, yet more accommodating, must attend to a large flower-garden and a small conservatory, must draw a bath-chair, wait at table and clean lamps. After all these varied and arduous labours, he is denied the refreshment of a pipe; but, as a kind of compensation, he is not obliged to wear his dress suit when he is gardening! The joint wages are £50, with all found except clothes and beer; and the lucky recipients of this overpowering guerdon must be members of the Church of England.
This last requirement reminds me of a letter from a girl-emigrant written to Lady Laura Ridding, wife of the Bishop of Southwell, who had befriended her at home. "Dear Madam,—I hope this finds you as well as it leaves me. The ship is in the middle of the Red Sea, and it is fearfully hot. I am in a terrible state of melting all day long. But, honoured Madam, I know you will be pleased to hear that I am still a member of the Church of England." I hope the good plain cook and her non-smoking, bath-chair drawing, large-gardening husband may be able to comfort themselves with the same reflection when the varied toils of the day are ended and they seek their well-earned repose in the "small bedroom."
From these lowly mysteries of domestic life I pass to the Debatable Land between servitude and gentility. "MAN AND WIFE, superior and active, seek, in gentleman's family, PLACE OF TRUST; country, houseboat, &c. Wife needlewoman or Plain Cook, linen, &c.: man ride and drive, waiting, or useful. Can teach or play violin in musical family; sight-reader in classical works. Both tall, and refined appearance."
From the Debatable Land I pass on to the exalted regions of courtly life.
"The Great-niece of a Lord Chamberlain to King George III. REQUIRES a SITUATION as COMPANION to a lady, or Cicerone to young ladies. Her mind is highly cultivated. English habits and Parisian accent."
"Vieille école bonne école, begad!" cried Major Pendennis, and here would have been a companion for Mrs. Pendennis or a cicerone for Laura after his own heart. The austere traditions of the Court of George III. and Queen Charlotte might be expected to survive in the great-niece of their Lord Chamberlain; and what a tactful concession to the prejudices of Mrs. Grundy in the statement that, though the accent may be Parisian, the habits are English! This excellent lady—evidently a near relation to Mrs. General in Little Dorrit—reintroduces us to the genteel society in which we are most at home; and here I may remark that the love of aristocracy which is so marked and so amiable a feature of our national character finds its expression not only in the advertisement columns, but in the daily notices of deaths and marriages. For example: "On the 22nd inst., at Lisbon, William Thorold Wood, cousin to the Bishop of Rochester, to Sir John Thorold of Syston Park, and brother to the Rector of Widmerpool. He was a man of great mental endowments and exemplary conduct." I dare say he was, but I fear they would have gone unrecorded had it not been for the more impressive fact that he was kinsman to a Bishop and a Baronet.
While we are on the subject of Advertisements a word must be said about the Medical branch of this fine art; and knowing the enormous fortunes which have often been made out of a casual prescription for acne or alopecia, I freely place at the disposal of any aspiring young chemist who reads this paper the following tale of enterprise and success. A few years ago, according to the information before me, a London doctor had a lady patient who complained of an incessant neuralgia in her face and jaw. The doctor could detect nothing amiss, but exhausted his skill, his patience, and his remedies in trying to comfort the complainant, who, however, refused to be comforted. At length, being convinced that the case was one of pure hypochondria, he wrote to the afflicted lady, saying that he did not feel justified in any longer taking her money for a case which was evidently beyond his powers, but recommended her to try change of air, live in the country, and trust to that edax rerum which sooner or later cures all human ills.
The lady departed in sorrow, but in faith; obeyed her doctor's instructions to the letter, and established herself not a hundred miles from the good city of Newcastle. Once established there, her first care was to seek the local chemist and to place her doctor's letter in his hands. A smart young assistant was presiding at the counter; he read the doctor's letter, and promptly made up a bottle which he labelled "Edax Rerum. To be taken twice a day before meals," and for which he demanded 7s. 6d. The lady rejoicingly paid, and requested that a similar bottle might be sent to her every week till further notice. She continued to use and to pay for this specific for a year and a half, and then, finding her neuralgia considerably abated, she came up to London for a week's amusement. Full of gratitude, she called on her former doctor, and said that, though she had felt a little hurt at the abrupt manner in which he had dismissed so old a patient, still she could not forbear to tell him that his last prescription had done her far more good than any of its predecessors, and that, indeed, she now regarded herself as practically cured. Explanations followed; inquiries were set on foot; the chemist's assistant sailed for South Africa; and "Edax Rerum" is now largely in demand among the unlettered heroes who bear the banner of the Chartered Company.
That combination of pietism with money-making, which critics of our national character tell us is so peculiarly British, was well illustrated in the Christian Million of September 22, 1898:—
"BETHESDA, Hest Bank. Beautiful country home, near the sea. Christian fellowship, 3s. per day. Sickly persons desiring to trust the Lord will be considered financially. Apply Miss----. Stamped Envelope."
When poetry is forced into the service of advertisements, the result is peculiarly gratifying. This is an appeal for funds to repair the church in which Nelson's father officiated:—
"The man who first taught Englishmen their duty,
And fenced with wooden walls his native isle,
Now asks ONE SHILLING to preserve in beauty
The Church that brooded o'er his infant smile."[29]
An electioneering address is, in its essence, an advertisement; and in this peculiar branch of literature it would be difficult to excel the following manifesto recently issued by a clergyman when candidate for a benefice to which the appointment is by popular election:—
"I appeal with the utmost confidence for the full support of the IRISH AND ROMAN CATHOLICS, because I am a Son of the Emerald Isle; to FOREIGNERS, because they love Ireland; to HIGH CHURCH, LOW CHURCH, and BROAD CHURCH, because I am tolerant to all parties; to NONCONFORMISTS, because I have stated in my pamphlet on Reunion that they are "the salt of the earth and the light of the world;" to JEWS, because my love for the Children of Promise is well known; to ATHEISTS, because they have often heard me in Hyde Park telling them of the Author of Nature in its endless beauties;—to one and all I appeal with the utmost confidence, and feel sure that the whole electorate will vote for me and do themselves honour, when they consider who I am, and when a person of my social and ecclesiastical standing allowed my name at all to be mentioned for a popular election."
I am thankful to say that this "Son of the Emerald Isle"
was left at the bottom of the poll.
NOTES:
Kindly communicated by "J.C.C."
XXVI.
PARODIES IN PROSE.
"Parody," wrote Mr. Matthew Arnold in 1882, "is a vile art, but I must say I read Poor Matthias in the World with an amused pleasure." It was a generous appreciation, for the original Poor Matthias—an elegy on a canary— is an exquisite poem, and the World's parody of it is a rather dull imitation. On the whole, I agree with Mr. Arnold that parody is a vile art; but the dictum is a little too sweeping. A parody of anything really good, whether in prose or verse, is as odious as a burlesque of Hamlet; but, on the other hand, parody is the appropriate punishment for certain kinds of literary affectation. There are, and always have been, some styles of poetry and of prose which no one endowed with an ear for rhythm and a sense of humour could forbear to parody. Such, to a generation brought up on Milton and Pope, were the styles of the various poetasters satirized in Rejected Addresses; but excellent as are the metrical parodies in that famous book, the prose is even better. Modern parodists, of whom I will speak more particularly in a future chapter, have, I think, surpassed such poems as The Baby's Début and A Tale of Drury Lane, but in the far more difficult art of imitating a prose style none that I know of has even approached the author of the Hampshire Farmer's Address and Johnson's Ghost. Does any one read William Cobbett nowadays? If so, let him compare what follows with the recorded specimens of Cobbett's public speaking:—
"Most thinking People,—When persons address an audience from the stage, it is usual, either in words or gesture, to say, 'Ladies and gentlemen, your servant.' If I were base enough, mean enough, paltry enough, and brute beast enough to follow that fashion, I should tell two lies in a breath. In the first place, you are not ladies and gentlemen, but, I hope, something better—that is to say, honest men and women; and, in the next place, if you were ever so much ladies, and ever so much gentlemen, I am not, nor ever will be, your humble servant."
With Dr. Johnson's style—supposing we had ever forgotten its masculine force and its balanced antitheses—we have been made again familiar by the erudite labours of Dr. Birkbeck Hill and Mr. Augustine Birrell. But even those learned critics might, I think, have mistaken a copy for an original if in some collection of old speeches they had lighted on the ensuing address:—
"That which was organized by the moral ability of one has been executed by the physical efforts of many, and DRURY LANE THEATRE is now complete. Of that part behind the curtain, which has not yet been destined to glow beneath the brush of the varnisher or vibrate to the hammer of the carpenter, little is thought by the public, and little need be said by the Committee. Truth, however, is not to be sacrificed to the accommodation of either, and he who should pronounce that our edifice has received its final embellishment would be disseminating falsehood without incurring favour, and risking the disgrace of detection without participating the advantage of success."
An excellent morsel of Johnsonese prose belongs to a more recent date. It became current about the time when the scheme of Dr. Murray's Dictionary of the English Language was first made public. It took the form of a dialogue between Dr. Johnson and Boswell:—
"Boswell. Pray, sir, what would you say if you were told that the next dictionary of the English language would be written by a Scotsman and a Presbyterian domiciled at Oxford?
"Dr. J. Sir, in order to be facetious it is not necessary to be indecent."
When Bulwer-Lytton brought out his play Not so Bad as we Seem, his friends pleasantly altered its title to Not so Good as we Expected. And when a lady's newspaper advertised a work called "How to Dress on Fifteen Pounds a Year, as a Lady. By a Lady," Punch was ready with the characteristic parody: "How to Dress on Nothing a Year, as a Kaffir. By a Kaffir."
Mr. Gladstone's authority compels me to submit the ensuing imitation of Macaulay—the most easily parodied of all prose writers—to the judgment of my readers. It was written by the late Abraham Hayward. Macaulay is contrasting, in his customary vein of overwrought and over-coloured detail, the evils of arbitrary government with those of a debased currency:—
"The misgovernment of Charles and James, gross as it had been, had not prevented the common business of life from going steadily and prosperously on.
"While the honour and independence of the State were sold to a foreign Power, while chartered rights were invaded, while fundamental laws were violated, hundreds of thousands of quiet, honest, and industrious families laboured and traded, ate their meals, and lay down to rest in comfort and security. Whether Whig or Tories, Protestants or Jesuits were uppermost, the grazier drove his beasts to market; the grocer weighed out his currants; the draper measured out his broadcloth; the hum of buyers and sellers was as loud as ever in the towns; the harvest-home was celebrated as joyously as ever in the hamlets; the cream overflowed the pails of Cheshire; the apple juice foamed in the presses of Herefordshire: the piles of crockery glowed in the furnaces of the Trent; and the barrows of coal rolled fast along the timber railways of the Tyne."
This reads like a parody, but it is a literal transcript of the original; and Hayward justly observes that there is no reason why this rigmarole should ever stop, as long as there is a trade, calling, or occupation to be particularized. The pith of the proposition (which needed no proof) is contained in the first sentence. Why not continue thus?—
"The apothecary vended his drugs as usual; the poulterer crammed his turkeys; the fishmonger skinned his eels; the wine merchant adulterated his port; as many hot-cross buns as ever were eaten on Good Friday, as many pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, as many Christmas pies on Christmas Day; on area steps the domestic drudge took in her daily pennyworth of the chalky mixture which Londoners call milk; through area bars the feline tribe, vigilant as ever, watched the arrival of the cat's-meat man; the courtesan flaunted in the Haymarket; the cab rattled through the Strand; and, from the suburban regions of Fulham and Putney, the cart of the market gardener wended its slow and midnight way along Piccadilly to deposit its load of cabbages and turnips in Covent Garden."
Twice has Mr. Gladstone publicly called attention to the merits of this "effective morsel of parody," as he styles it; and he judiciously adds that what follows (by the late Dean Hook) is "a like attempt, but less happy." Most people remember the attack on the constitution of the Court of Chancery in the preface to Bleak House. Dean Hook, in a laudable attempt to soothe the ruffled feelings of his old friend Vice-Chancellor Page Wood, of whom Dickens in that preface had made fun, thus endeavours to translate the accusation into Macaulayese:—
"THE COURTS OF JUSTICE.
"The Court of Chancery was corrupt. The guardian of lunatics was the cause of insanity to the suitors in his court. An attempt at reform was made when Wood was Solicitor-General. It consisted chiefly in increasing the number of judges in the Equity Court. Government was pleased by an increase of patronage; the lawyers approved of the new professional prizes. The Government papers applauded. Wood became Vice-Chancellor. At the close of 1855 the Equity Courts were without business. People had become weary of seeking justice where justice was not to be found. The state of the Bench was unsatisfactory. Cranworth was feeble; Knight Bruce, though powerful, sacrificed justice to a joke; Turner was heavy; Romilly was scientific; Kindersley was slow; Stuart was pompous; Wood was at Bealings."
If I were to indulge in quotations from well-known parodies of prose, this chapter would soon overflow all proper limits. I forbear, therefore, to do more than remind my readers of Thackeray's Novels by Eminent Hands and Bret Harte's Sensation Novels, only remarking, with reference to the latter book, that "Miss Mix" is in places really indistinguishable from Jane Eyre. The sermon by Mr. Jowett in Mr. Mallock's New Republic is so perfect an imitation, both in substance and in style, that it suggested to some readers the idea that it had been reproduced from notes of an actual discourse. On spoken as distinguished from written eloquence there are some capital skits in the Anti-Jacobin, where (under the name of Macfungus) excellent fun is made of the too mellifluous eloquence of Sir James Mackintosh.
The differentiating absurdities of after-dinner oratory are photographed in Thackeray's Dinner in the City, where the speech of the American Minister seems to have formed a model for a long series of similar performances. Dickens's experience as a reporter in the gallery of the House of Commons had given him a perfect command of that peculiar style of speaking which is called Parliamentary, and he used it with great effect in his accounts of the inaugural meeting of the "United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company" in Nicholas Nickleby (where he introduces a capital sketch of Tom Duncombe, Radical Member for Finsbury); and in the interview between Mr. Gregsbury, M.P., and his constituents in a later chapter of the same immortal book.
The parliamentary eloquence of a later day was admirably reproduced in Mr. Edward Jenkins's prophetic squib (published in 1872) Barney Geoghegan, M.P., and Home Rule at St. Stephen's. As this clever little book has, I fear, lapsed into complete oblivion, I venture to cite a passage. It will vividly recall to the memory of middle-aged politicians the style and tone of the verbal duels which, towards the end of Mr. Gladstone's first Administration, took place so frequently between the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition. Mr. Geoghegan has been returned, a very early Home Ruler, for the Borough of Rashkillen, and for some violent breaches of order is committed to the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms. On this the leader of the House rises and addresses the Speaker:—
"Sir,—The House cannot but sympathize with you in the eloquent and indignant denunciation you have uttered against the painful invasion of the decorum of the House which we have just witnessed. There can be no doubt in any mind, even in the minds of those with whom the hon. member now at the bar usually acts, that of all methods of argument which could be employed in this House, he has selected the least politic. Sir, may I be permitted, with great deference, to say a word upon a remark that fell from the Chair, and which might be misunderstood? Solitary and anomalous instances of this kind could never be legitimately used as arguments against general systems of representation or the course of a recent policy. I do not, at this moment, venture to pronounce an opinion upon the degree of criminality that attaches to the hon. member now unhappily in the custody of the Officer of the House. It is possible—I do not say it is probable, I do not now say whether I shall be prepared to commit myself to that hypothesis or not—but it is not impossible that the hon. member or some of his friends may be able to urge some extenuating circumstances—(Oh! oh!)— I mean circumstances that, when duly weighed, may have a tendency in a greater or less degree to modify the judgment of the House upon the extraordinary event that has occurred. Sir, it becomes a great people and a great assembly like this to be patient, dignified, and generous. The honourable member, whom we regret to see in his present position, no doubt represents a phase of Irish opinion unfamiliar to this House. (Cheers and laughter.) ... The House is naturally in a rather excited state after an event so unusual, and I venture to urge that it should not hastily proceed to action. We must be careful of the feelings of the Irish people. (Oh! oh!) If we are to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas, we must make allowance for personal, local, and transitory ebullitions of Irish feeling, having no general or universal consequence or bearing.... The course, therefore, which I propose to take is this—to move that the hon. member shall remain in the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, that a Committee be appointed to take evidence, and that their report be discussed this day month."
To this replies the Leader of the Opposition:—
"The right hon. gentleman is to be congratulated on the results of his Irish policy. (Cheers and laughter.) ... Sir, this, I presume, is one of the right hon. gentleman's contented and pacified people! I deeply sympathize with the right hon. gentleman. His policy produces strange and portentous results. A policy of concession, of confiscation, of truckling to ecclesiastical arrogance, to popular passions and ignorant prejudices, of lenity to Fenian revolutionists, has at length brought us to this, that the outrages of Galway and Tipperary, no longer restricted to those charming counties, no longer restrained to even Her Majesty's judges, are to reach the interior of this House and the august person of its Speaker. (Cheers.) Sir, I wash my hands of all responsibility for this absurd and anomalous state of things. Whenever it has fallen to the Tory party to conduct the affairs of Ireland, they have consistently pursued a policy of mingled firmness and conciliation with the most distinguished success. All the great measures of reform in Ireland may be said to have had their root in the action of the Tory party, though, as usual, the praise has been appropriated by the right hon. gentleman and his allies. We have preferred, instead of truckling to prejudice or passion, to appeal, and we still appeal, to the sublime instincts of an ancient people!"
I hope that an unknown author, whose skill in reproducing an archaic style I heartily admire, will forgive me for quoting the following narrative of certain doings decreed by the General Post Office on the occasion of the Jubilee of the Penny Post. Like all that is truly good in literature, it will be seen that this narrative was not for its own time alone, but for the future, and has its relevancy to events of the present day:[30]
"1. Now it came to pass in the month June of the Post-office Jubilee, that Raikes, the Postmaster-General, said to himself, Lo! an opening whereby I may find grace in the sight of the Queen!
"2. And Raikes appointed an Executive Committee; and Baines, the Inspector-General of Mails, made he Chairman.
"3. He called also Cardin, the Receiver and Accountant-General; Preece, Lord of Lightning; Thompson, the Secretarial Officer; and Tombs; the Controller.
"4. Then did these four send to the Heads of Departments, the Postmasters and Sub-Postmasters, the Letter-Receivers, the Clerks-in-Charge, the Postal Officers, the Telegraphists, She Sorters, the Postmen; yea from the lowest even unto the highest sent they out.
"5. And the word of Baines and of them that were with him went forth that the Jubilee should be kept by a conversazione at the South Kensington Museum on Wednesday the second day of the month July in the year 1890.
"6. And Victoria the Queen became a patron of the Jubilee Celebration; and her heart was stirred within her; for she said, For three whole years have I not had a Jubilee.
"7. And the word of Baines and of them that were with him went forth again to the Heads of Departments; the Postmasters and Sub-Postmasters, the Letter-Receivers, the Clerks-in-Charge, the Postal Officers and Telegraphists, the Sorters and the Postmen.
"8. Saying unto them, Lo! the Queen is become Patron of the Rowland Hill Memorial and Benevolent Fund, and of the conversazione in the museum; and we the Executive Committee bid you, from the lowest even to the highest, to join with us at the tenth hour of the conversazione in a great shouting to praise the name of the Queen our patron.
"9. Each man in his Post Office at the tenth hour shall shout upon her name; and a record thereof shall be sent to us that we may cause its memory to endure for ever.
"10. Then a great fear came upon the Postmasters, the Sub-Postmasters, and the Letter-Receivers, which were bidden to make the record.
"11. For they said, If those over whom we are set in authority shout not at the tenth hour, and we send an evil report, we shall surely perish.
"12. And they besought their men to shout, aloud at the tenth hour, lest a worse thing should befall.
"13. And they that were of the tribes of Nob and of Snob rejoiced with an exceeding great joy, and did shout with their whole might; so that their voices became as the voices of them that sell tidings in the street at nightfall.
"14. But the Telegraphists and the Sorters and the Postmen, and them that were of the tribes of Rag and of Tag, hardened their hearts, and were silent at the tenth hour; for they said among themselves, 'Shall the poor man shout in his poverty, and the hungry celebrate his lack of bread?'
"15. Now Preece, Lord of Lightning, had wrought with a cord of metal that they who were at the conversazione might hear the shouting from the Post Offices.
"16. And the tenth hour came; and lo! there was no great shout; and the tribes of Nob and Snob were as the voice of men calling in the wilderness.
"17. Then was the wrath of Baines kindled against the tribes of Rag and Tag for that they had not shouted according to his word; and he commanded that their chief men and counsellors should be cast out of the Queen's Post Office.
"18. And Raikes, the Postmaster-General; told the Queen all the travail of Baines, the Inspector-General, and of them that were with him, and how they had wrought all for the greater glory of the Queen's name.
"19. And the Queen hearkened to the word of Raikes, and lifted up Baines to be a Centurion of the Bath; also she placed honours upon Cardin, the Receiver-General and Accountant-General; upon Preece, Lord of Lightning; upon Thompson, the Secretarial Officer; and upon Tombs, the Controller, so that they dazzled the eyes of the tribe of Snob, and were favourably entreated of the sons of Nob.
"20. And they lived long in the land; and all men said pleasant things unto them.
"21. But they of Tag and of Rag that had been cast out were utterly forgotten; so that they were fain to cry aloud, saying, 'How long, O ye honest and upright in heart, shall Snobs and Nobs be rulers over us, seeing that they are but men like unto us, though they imagine us in their hearts to be otherwise?'
"22. And the answer is not yet."
NOTES: