SUNDRY QUALITIES OF THE ATHENS, IN SUPPLEMENT.
“In Ethiopia there is a lizard,
Green on the grass, but golden on the sand,
Of slender form and many-tinctured skin:
Of this, when you suppose that you have counted
The tints and glosses, straight the creature turns,
Or you but step aside, when lo, it seems
As new and strange as ever. What you noted
Is all errata, and your task of telling
Is never at an end.”
THE wonderful agility with which the Athenians skip about from opinion
to opinion in other matters, and the great faculty which they show in
altering the attitude and aspect of that everlasting subject, their
own city, render it next to impossible to give a likeness of them that
shall be accurate for one moment beyond the time that you are taking
it. Indeed, if you be not all the readier at your pencil, the chance
is that there shall be no congruity or keeping among the features and
limbs that you sketch. What you begin with as a Jupiter, you have a
chance of ending with as a Vulcan; your Apollo glides into a satyr,
and your Venus becomes a hag under your hands. If you would paint a
philosopher, however limber or however large you design him, he changes
to a driveller or a dandy before you know what you are about; and
when you follow him to his home, in order to contemplate the progress
of those great things with which he is to enlighten and astonish the
world, you find the whole of his mighty mind occupied in fitting false
shoulders to his waistcoat, or dipping his whiskers in the essence of
Tyne, till the tale run down his cheeks in purple demonstration as he
flounders along in the ball-room. Under such circumstances, I ought not
to be blamed, although the light in which I have attempted to represent
the Athenians be not that in which they may have appeared to others;
nor ought they who fancy that their picture is more accurate than
mine, to allow themselves to fall into that idolatrous worship of the
Athenian gods; for they may rest assured that there can be more than
two pictures of the Athens, all very unlike each other, and yet all
very like the original.
The _wit_ of the Athenians may be considered as one of their
“fundamental features,” for many reasons, and for this among the rest,
that it mainly consists of punning, which is accounted the lowest
stratum, and therefore the foundation of all wit whatsoever. It is of
various kinds and degrees, according to the class of persons among whom
it passes current; but still the basis of every Athenian witticism is
a pun, and every Athenian, though he should be nothing else, is sure
to be a punster. There are two original species of Athenian pun,--the
legal and the learned: the first is said to have been introduced
by the late Henry Erskine, and the second is contested by the late
Professor Hill, Dr. Brewster, and others. Whether this be true at all,
and if true, how far the truth of it extends, I am not either bound
or prepared to say, but certain it is that those learned and humorous
persons get more of it laid at their door than do any others now in
existence; and the “gentleman of the Dunciad” who was “determined
that every good thing should be Shakspeare’s,” has many praise-worthy
imitators in the Gem of the North. You cannot meet with an idle draper
yawning at the door of a shop, who has not some good thing of Harry
Erskine to tell you; nor is there a student within the Athenian college
who has not John Hill by rote. Brewster, indeed, is not so often
quoted; but Brewster is still alive, and what is more, he holds no
public function or situation of any great consequence.
I went to view the Advocates’ Library, in company with two of that
faculty; and they edified me with sundry choice sayings of the immortal
Harry. I remarked, that it was singular that the advocates, the most
illustrious body within the Scotch seas, should have been the last to
have a hall in which to contain their collection of books. “The same
remark was made,” said my conductor, “to the late Honourable Henry
Erskine, and he said a very clever thing upon the subject.” I very
naturally gave him that wishing and inquiring look, which brings out
a good thing without any preamble; and he, after working a-while at
his ears, hemming, and rubbing his spectacles, said, “Why, Sir, I must
condescend, _in limine_, that the Dean of Faculty, (Mr. Erskine was
once Dean, and the title continues longer than the office,) was a great
wit, and that ‘a mortification,’ according to our vocabulary, means a
bequest of money or property of any kind; and, having given in this
condescendence, I will proceed to the argument of the case. Well, Sir,
a gentleman was remarking to the Dean, the shame that it was to the
faculty, that they had not a better apartment for their library. ‘We
shall get it some time, and get it in a Christian way,’ said the Dean,
with that happy look which always indicated that there was something
to come. ‘Why in a Christian way?’ said the gentleman. ‘Because,’ said
the Dean, ‘we shall get it through the _mortification of our members_,’
at which the gentleman laughed very heartily.” I, of course, had no
choice but to laugh also, although the wit ran a little too slow for
me; but my laugh was taken with more cordiality than I had grace to
give it with, and that was a signal for more of the same kind, of which
I may mention a specimen or two. A case was argued one day before Lord
Braxfield, in which the counsel had rather exposed a position which
that hasty judge had laid down a few days previous; and his lordship
was so much irritated, that he snatched up a ruler, and brandished it
at the counsel, as much as to say, “if I had you out of court, I would
cudgel you.” “What does he mean by that?” said an English barrister
who happened to be present. “He is doing that which you must have
done often,” said Erskine, “he is _taking a rule to show cause_.”
“Why that is rather a novel rule to take in a court of justice,” said
the Englishman. “Not at all,” replied Erskine, “it is merely a rule
_nisi_.” One of the latest of Erskine’s witticisms that were repeated
to me was that of the two Macnabs, father and son,--the first of whom
was chief of that sept of the Celts, and the other the author of a
system of the universe, too sublime even for Athenian comprehension.
The chief was the most patriarchal as well as the most powerful man of
his day, and the number of his sons and daughters rivalled that of some
of the illustrious patriarchs of olden time. Harry Erskine said, that
“these two Macnabs were the two greatest men that ever had lived, for
the one could make a world, and the other could people it.” Another
saying of his was very often repeated to me, but I confess I never
could see the point of it. A Tory lawyer, of feeble body and feebler
mind, was elevated to the bench, and the Athenians supposed that a
Whig, remarkable alike for his talents and the slowness of his motions,
had been improperly overlooked, while the little Tory was promoted. It
was remarked to Erskine, that they “had put the cart before the horse.”
“No,” said Harry, “they have not done that, they have only put the
ass before the elephant.” Another time, when a client was hesitating
into which of the hands of two writers to the signet he should throw
himself, somebody said, he was like the ass between the two bundles
of hay. “No,” said Erskine, “he is like the bundle of hay between the
two asses; for, whichever way he goes, he will be eaten up.” This
species of pun is mostly confined to Whigs, or gentlemen who have some
pretensions to literature or taste; and in as far as intellectuality
can be predicated of such matters, it may be called the _pun
intellectual_. From Harry Erskine, the intellectual pun of the Athenian
barristers does not appear to have descended full and entire to any
one individual. A small piece fell to the share of George Cranstoun;
but he is too independent for using it, and therefore he is said to
have laid it out at interest for the benefit of the next generation.
John Archibald Murray got a slice, but it was from the side upon which
the article had lain for some time, and thus it is said to be somewhat
musty. Jeffrey got a choice cut, but he is said to have carried it so
long in his breeches-pocket, among slips of the Review, that it is as
hard as granite. Cockburn got a large piece out of the very middle, but
he is reported as having stuck it over so thickly with sugar-plums,
that the original owner would have great difficulty in knowing it. The
kissing-crust, and a dainty crust it is, fell to the share of John
Clerk, but John is said to have soaked it so much in butter, that
delicate stomachs are unable to bear it. After such a distribution, it
seems exceedingly doubtful whether the whole can be again reunited; and
while one laments the cutting up of the thing itself, one is amused
at the more slender Whiglings, who run about showing, boasting, and
smacking the waste-paper in which it was originally wrapped up.
There is another species of legal pun, which first came to maturity
under M’Queen, of Braxfield. This may be styled the pun _ad hominem_,
and is calculated to depress the spirits in the same ratio as the other
is calculated to raise them. While I was in the Athens it was by no
means common in the Parliament-House, but I was told that it forms a
standard dish at all loyal and official feasts, and that upon ordinary
occasions it lies in Blackwood’s shop for the inspection of the curious.
The learned pun is of several kinds, according to the class by whom it
is used. That which was brought to perfection by Professor Hill was a
sort of polyglot. For instance, in order to indicate learning, and wit,
and tea, the Professor inscribed his tea-chest with the word “_doces_,”
and when upon a cold winter day, one of his students kept bawling
“_claude ostium_;” so loud as to give annoyance, the Professor turned
upon him with “_claude os tuum_,” which gained him more admiration with
the Athenians than if he had rivalled Porson himself.
None of those kinds of punning are, however, to be regarded as purely
Athenian. They were all invented or improved by strangers; and if
one wishes to become acquainted with the genuine Athenian pun in
all its simplicity, one must seek it at those coteries of small
philosophers and blue-stockings, which are found at Athenian suppers,
more especially on Sunday evenings, for it is by much too delicate and
weakly a thing for lasting even till the day following.
The whole sports and amusements that are peculiar and congenial to
the Athenians seem to be regulated by a kind of Salique Law. They
being such as females can neither join in nor, in most instances,
witness. They are of two kinds: the amusements of the tavern, and the
amusements of the turf. In the former, “high jinks,” and the other
harmless fooleries of the olden time, have given place to the orgies
of hell-fire clubs, and others that are better undescribed; but in
the latter, “golf” and “curling” continue to divide the year, and the
wisdom of the Athens may be seen during the summer exercising itself
daily in urging the ball upon Bruntsfield-Links, and during the winter
in hurling large stones along the ice upon the Loch of Duddingstone.
Although there be many good places for walking in the vicinity of the
Athens, no such thing is known as a public promenade--that is forbidden
on Sunday, and, except a trot along Princes Street, and a moon-light
turn around the Calton, the gentlemen of the Athens are too busy,
either in doing something, or in doing nothing, for promenading during
the week. Drive there is none, and it is not much to be regretted, for
there is absolutely nothing to be driven.
Another small feature in the character of the Athenians is the high
and supercilious disdain with which they affect to look down, not
merely upon their fellow-Scotchmen, but upon all the world. How they
originally came by this quality, it would not be easy to determine, and
therefore it is, perhaps, needless to inquire; but, as it is permanent
and general, it must have something upon which it permanently feeds.
It is by no means peculiar to those who are born in the Athens; for no
sooner does a Lowland clown take up his locality there as a writer’s
clerk, than he begins to toss up his head at the land which produced
and fed him, and “writes himself _armigero_; in any bill, warrant,
quittance, or obligation, _armigero_.” And no sooner does a tattered
and trowserless _Rorie_ escape from the wilds of Sutherland, or the
woods of Rannoch, to lug half an Athenian fair one from tea-party to
tea-party, than “she is a shentlemans, and teuks her whisky wi’ a ‘Cot
tam’ like a loört;” and, in fact, it seems a contest between those
two sets of worthies, which shall take the lead in Athenian dandyism.
Indeed, in personal grace at least, the “shentlemans” must be allowed
to have much the better of the “armigero.” Light food and long
journeys give to the former great buoyancy of spirits, and elasticity
of muscle; and it is wonderful to notice, with what a dignified and
chieftain-like air, they thumb a pitch-black pack of cards, or “teuk
oot the linin’” of a quart pot of small beer, or quartern of the dew of
the mountains, as they hold their morning levee at a corner in Queen
Street or Abercrombie Place. The “armigero,” on the other hand, is as
gawky-looking an article as it is possible to meet with, or even to
conceive. His feet, which probably not six weeks previous were dragging
a stone weight of shoes and mud, through the clay of Gowrie, or the
tough loam of Lothian or Fife, are squeezed into a pair of boots, upon
which they are taking vengeance, by stretching the leg an inch and a
half over every side of the heel; his great red hands, put you more in
mind of lobsters than of any thing human, and they are dangling from
his shoulders as if each articulation were strung with wire; and when
his deep and dismal Doric is drawled out into what is reckoned the
fashionable accent in the Athens, you can liken it to nothing but a
duet composed of the love songs of Jack Ass and Tom Cat. In consequence
of the number of those two classes of Athenian dandies, dandyism of a
higher order is banished. I mentioned formerly that there is no such
thing either as a drive or an article driven (quills always excepted,)
anywhere about the Athens; and therefore no fashionable gentlemen
could endure the association of the Athenian pavé. If such men should
by accident get there, he would not be eclipsed, but he would be
absolutely buried under the thick mass of the turf of the mountains,
and the clods of the valleys.
Perhaps it is this total absence of every thing elegant in the shape of
man from the public streets and walks of the Athens, that has given so
singular a twist to the minds and manners of the Athenian fair. Those
dandies, instead of being objects for admiration, are subjects for
criticism; and when an Athenian belle first quits her bread and butter,
and flits forth to conquer the world--heedless of the fact, that such
was the condition of a dear papa ere he _booed_ himself into some
government office, “processed” (I do not use that word in the Yankee
meaning,) into the management of some laird’s estate, or the estate
itself--she curls up her nose at these, the only “creatures” that she
meets, with so much force as to give it, as Dr. Barclay would say, “a
sidereal aspect” for life. For a long time she holds fast her aversion;
but though her nose be elevated, her fortunes do not rise along with
it. Time drives the wheels of his curricle across her countenance,
and there is no filling up the ruts which they leave. Meanwhile the
despised clerks become wigged advocates, or wily solicitors; and the
lady stretches her neck over her six-pair-of-stairs window, to catch a
glance of the bustling man of business whom she despised and contemned
when he was a Princes-street walking boy, and would have accounted her
society and countenance the very choicest thing in the world. Time,
who is the most delightful of all visitors during the early stage
of his acquaintance, gradually introduces his friends; and at last,
old hobbling Despair is admitted into his coterie. In some places,
the ladies to whom he has been introduced seek their quietus at the
card-table; in others, they abandon this world for the next, and very
frequently choose the by-paths to heaven--because a way thronged with
dissenting ministers is always a sort of love-lane, in which a lady may
at least gather the dry stalks of those flowers which she neglected
to pull while they were in season. But in the Athens they go another
way to work,--they dip their stockings in heaven’s azure, pass through
the hoops of small philosophy to the heaven-ward attic, (from which,
perchance, the Athens takes its name,) and thence launch the bolts of
their criticism against all the world below--that is, all the world of
their own sex, and below their own age.
Thus have I with, as an Athenian _Literatus_ would say, “the softest
feather dipt in mildest ink” and with uniform watchfulness against
unmerited praise and undeserved censure, noted down a few of those
features and traits which stamp upon the Modern Athens, the isolation
and individuality of her character, as she stands away from other
cities, and appears in herself. Had I followed her own _modus
operandi_,--had I torn in pieces the private characters of all to
whom I found it necessary to advert for the purposes of illustration,
and sported with the mangled fragments in the open streets,--had I
dug into their family vaults, and wantonly exposed the bones of their
ancestors to the gaze of every passer by,--and had I set the signet of
my approbation or disapprobation upon them, not on account of what they
were in themselves, but of whence they sprung, what they possessed, and
how they were connected,--then, assuredly, the spirit of my writing
would have been more in accordance with the Athenian spirit, and I
would have been loved, lauded, and adopted as a worthy and hopeful son
of the aspiring attic of the _Græcia mendax_. But such honour is not my
ambition; and therefore my study has been to describe things with all
the simplicity of truth, and, as in whatever bearing the semblance of
censure I have written, I have wished and attempted to be corrective
rather than caustic--to go to the causes of evil rather than to play
with the symptoms of it, I must conclude, that if any shall blame me
for the freedom of my words, they must do it because their hearts are
smitten, and not because their deeds are misrepresented. The Athens
boasts of herself as a model of elegance and of taste: I found her a
compound of squalour and of vulgarity. She boasts of her philosophy: I
found it pursuing thistle-down over the wilderness. She boasts of her
literary spirit: I found her literature a mere disjointed skeleton, or
rather the cast-skin of a toothless serpent. She boasts of her public
spirit: I found almost every man pursuing his own petty interests, by
the most sinister and contemptible means; and, perchance, the most
noisy of her patriots standing open-mouthed, if so that the very
smallest fragment of place or pension might drop into them. She boasts
of the encouragements that she has given to genius: I looked into the
record, and I found that every man of genius who had depended upon her
patronage, had been debauched and starved. She boasts of the purity of
her manners: I found the one sex engaged in slander as a trade, and the
other in low sensuality as a profession. Under those findings--and they
required not to be sought--I had no alternative for my judgment. When
she redeems herself from them, and becomes in reality even something
like what she would call herself in name, let her then make comparisons
with the Gem of ancient Greece. Let her give some proof that Minerva
Parthenon is her tutelar goddess; when she has done so, let her build
the temple to that divinity; and, as she finishes the sculpture of
the last metope, with deeds of her own worthy of being recorded, I
(as the Turk did when her countrymen completed the spoliation of the
ancient Athena,) shall to the completion of the merit which she claims,
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