THOUGH I do not undertake to write a geographical account of the
Fashionable World, yet I should think myself highly culpable were I to
pass over this interesting part of the subject wholly in silence. My
readers must be at the same time cautioned, not to form their
expectations of the geography of Fashion from that of other countries.
The fact is, that the whole community which sustains this appellation,
extensive as it is, can scarcely be treated as having any peculiar or
exclusive locality. The individuals who compose it, are not, it is true,
absolute wanderers, like the tribes of Arabia; nor yet are they regular
settlers, like the convicts at Botany Bay: but moveable and migratory to
a certain degree, and to a certain degree stationary and permanent, they
live among the inhabitants of the parent country; neither absolutely
mixing with them, nor yet actually separated from them.
This paradoxical state of the people renders it not a little difficult to
reduce their territory within the rules of geographical description.
They have, it is true, their _degrees_ and their _circles_; but these
terms are used by people of Fashion in a sense so different from that
which geographers have assigned them, that they afford no sort of
assistance to the topographical enquirer. It is, I presume, on this
account, that in all the improvements which have been made upon the
globe, nothing has been done towards settling the meridian of Fashion;
and though the Laplanders, the Hottentots, and the Esquimaux, have places
assigned them, no more notice is taken of the people of Fashion, than if
they either did not exist, or were not worthy of being mentioned.
The only expedient, therefore, to which a writer can resort, in this
dearth of geographical materials, is that of designating the territory of
Fashion by the ordinary names of the several places through which it
passes. And this is, in fact, strictly conformable to that usage which
prevails in the language and communication of the people themselves: for
London, Tunbridge, Bath, Weymouth, &c. are, in their mouths, names for
little else than the lands and societies of Fashion which they
respectively contain.
Now, the portion of each place to which Fashion lays claim, is neither
definite as to its dimensions, nor fixed as to its locality. In London,
a small proportion of the whole is Fashionable; in Bath, the proportion
is greater; and in some watering-places of the latest creation, Fashion
puts in her demand for nearly the whole. The locality of its domains is
also contingent and mutable. Various circumstances concur in
determining, when a portion of ground shall become Fashionable, and when
it shall cease to be such. The only rule of any steadiness with which I
am acquainted, and which chiefly relates to the metropolis, is that which
prescribes a _western_ latitude: {5} if this be excepted, (which indeed
admits of no relaxation,) events of very little moment decide all the
rest. If, for example, a Duchess, or the wife of some
bourgeois-gentilhomme, who has purchased the privileges of the order,
should open a suite of rooms for elegant society in any new quarter, the
soil is considered to receive a sort of consecration by such a
circumstance; and an indefinite portion of the vicinity is added to the
territory of Fashion. If, on the other hand, a shop be opened, a sign
hung out, or any symptom of business be shewn, in a quarter that has
hitherto been a stranger to every sound but the rattling of carriages,
the thunder of knockers, and the vociferation of coachmen and servants,
it is ten to one but the privileges of Fashion are withdrawn from that
place; and the whole range of buildings is gradually given up to those,
who are either needy enough to keep shops, or vulgar enough to endure
them. Now, it happens as a consequence from this adoption of new soil
and disfranchisement of old, that the territory of Fashion is extremely
irregular and interrupted. A traveller, determined to pursue its
windings, would soon be involved in a most mysterious labyrinth; his
track would be crossed by portions of country which throw him repeatedly
out of his beat: insomuch that his progress would resemble that of a
naturalist, who, in tracing the course of a mineral through the bowels of
the earth, encounters various breaks and intersections, and often finds
the corresponding parts of the same stratum unaccountably separated from
each other.
It would be only fatiguing the reader to say more upon the topographical
part of my subject. It is obvious, from what has been stated, that the
regions of Fashion, considered as a whole, are rather numerous than
compact: and, indeed, such difference of opinion subsists among the
people themselves upon the territories which are entitled to that name,
that no correct judgment can be pronounced upon a question of so great
controversy. Thus much, however, may be affirmed, that there is scarcely
a market-town in the kingdom, in which some portion of land is not
invested with Fashionable privileges; and designated by such terms, as
mark the wish of the inhabitants, to have it considered as forming part
and parcel of the demesnes of Fashion.
The _Climate_ of Fashion is almost entirely factitious and artificial;
and consequently differs in many material respects from the natural
temperature of those several places over which its jurisdiction extends.
Though changes from heat to cold, and vice versa, are very common among
these people, yet heat may be said to be the prevailing character of the
climate. They appear to me to have but two Seasons in the year; these
they call, in conformity to ordinary language, rather than to just
calculation, Winter and Summer. Of Summer little is known: for it seems
to be a rule among this people, to disband and disperse at the approach
of it; and not to rally or re-unite, till the Winter has fairly
commenced. Though, therefore, they exist somehow or somewhere, {10}
during the Summer months; they wish it to be considered, that they do not
exist under their Fashionable character. They wash themselves in the
sea, drink laxative waters, lose a little money at billiards, or catch a
few colds at public rooms; but all these things they do as individuals,
and wholly out of their corporate capacity as members of the community of
Fashion. So that in their mode of disposing of the Summer, they invert
the standing rule of most other animals; they choose the fair season for
their torpid state, and shew no signs of life but during the Winter. It
is not easy to say exactly when the Winter _begins_ in the Fashionable
World; an inhabitant of Bath would have one mode of reckoning, and an
inhabitant of London another. To do justice to the subject, the
commencement of Winter ought to be regulated by the former of these
places, and the close of it by the latter. Supposing, therefore, that it
begins some time in November, there can be no difficulty in settling its
duration; for the 4th of June {12} is, by a tacit yet binding ordinance,
considered as a limit, which a Fashionable Winter can seldom, if ever,
exceed.
There are many circumstances in which the Climate of Fashion stands
peculiarly distinguished from every other. It has already been intimated
that heat is its prevailing characteristic: it is, moreover, not a little
remarkable, that this heat is at its highest point in the Winter season;
and that the inhabitants often perspire more freely when the snow is upon
the ground, than they do in the dog-days. The truth is, that, as was
before said, the Climate is wholly created by artificial circumstances,
and the natural temperature of the air is completely done away. The sort
of communication which these people keep up with each other, is
considered to require a species of apparatus which fills their atmosphere
with an immoderate degree of phlogiston. Besides this, they are
notoriously fond of assembling in insufferable crowds; and travellers
have assured us, that they have often witnessed from ten to twelve
hundred persons suffocating each other, within a space which would
scarcely have afforded convenient accommodation for a dozen families.
And this may enable us in some measure to account for the little benefit
which modish invalids are said to derive from their frequent removals to
the healthiest spots in the universe. The original object of such a
prescription was doubtless to change the air; and certainly no expedient
could have been better imagined for bracing a constitution relaxed by too
intense application to the business of a Fashionable life. But the
usages of the order render a change of air, to any salutary purpose,
utterly impracticable: for the weakest members of the community consider
themselves bound to kindle a flame wherever they go; and thus they
breathe the same phlogisticated air all over the world.
They profess to adopt the ordinary divisions of time; and they talk like
other people of _Day_ and _Night_: but their mode of computing each is so
vague and unnatural, that inhabitants of the same meridian with
themselves scarcely understand what they mean by the terms. A great part
of this difficulty may possibly arise from the very small portion of
solar light with which they are visited. For certain it is, that no
people upon earth have less benefit from the light of the sun than the
people of Fashion; so that if it were not for torches, candles, and
lamps, they would scarcely ever see each other’s faces.
With regard to the constitutions of these people, I have been inclined to
think them naturally robust, from observing the astonishing heat and
fatigue which they are accustomed to endure. And in this respect the
women have appeared to evince an uncommon degree of hardiness: for,
besides that they wear on every occasion a lighter species of clothing
than the men, I have been confidently told that many among them will
appear, in the severest part of the season, with dresses of such
transparency and scantiness, as convince every beholder that they who
wear them are utter strangers to the weaknesses of the sex. There is,
however, some room for doubting, whether the air which this people
breathe, and the usages which prevail among them, are favorable to the
constitution. Their patience of fatigue has been thought to be wholly
the result of habit, and their hardiness has been conjectured to be
little more than an air of extravagance and bravado. The frequent
transitions which they make from heat to cold, and back again from cold
to heat; perhaps half-a-dozen times in as many hours; must very
materially diminish the physical strength of their bodies. Certain it
is, that their natural countenances do not betray the usual symptoms of
health; and it is, I believe, admitted, that instances of extraordinary
longevity are not very common among them.