Dic--si grave non est--Quae prima iratum ventrem placaverit esca.
--Horace.
I did not remain above a day or two in town. I had never seen much of
the humours of a watering-place, and my love of observing character
made me exceedingly impatient for that pleasure. Accordingly, the first
bright morning I set off for Cheltenham. I was greatly struck with the
entrance to that town: it is to these watering-places that a foreigner
should be taken, in order to give him an adequate idea of the
magnificent opulence, and universal luxury, of England. Our country has,
in every province, what France only has in Paris--a capital, consecrated
to gaiety, idleness, and enjoyment. London is both too busy in one class
of society, and too pompous in another, to please a foreigner, who
has not excellent recommendations to private circles. But at Brighton,
Cheltenham, Hastings, Bath, he may, as at Paris, find all the gaieties
of society without knowing a single individual.
My carriage stopped at the--Hotel. A corpulent and stately waiter, with
gold buckles to a pair of very tight pantaloons, showed me up stairs. I
found myself in a tolerable room facing the street, and garnished
with two pictures of rocks and rivers, with a comely flight of crows,
hovering in the horizon of both, as natural as possible, only they were
a little larger than the trees. Over the chimney-piece, where I had
fondly hoped to find a looking-glass, was a grave print of General
Washington, with one hand stuck out like the spout of a tea-pot. Between
the two windows (unfavourable position!) was an oblong mirror, to which
I immediately hastened, and had the pleasure of seeing my complexion
catch the colour of the curtains that overhung the glass on each side,
and exhibit the pleasing rurality of a pale green.
I shrunk back aghast, turned, and beheld the waiter. Had I seen myself
in a glass delicately shaded by rose-hued curtains, I should gently and
smilingly have said, “Have the goodness to bring me the bill of fare.”
As it was, I growled out, “Bring me the bill, and be d--d to you.”
The stiff waiter bowed solemnly, and withdrew slowly. I looked round the
room once more, and discovered the additional adornments of a tea-urn,
and a book. “Thank Heaven,” thought I, as I took up the latter, “it
can’t be one of Jeremy Bentham’s.” No! it was the Cheltenham Guide. I
turned to the head of amusements--“Dress ball at the rooms every--” some
day or other--which of the seven I utterly forget; but it was the same
as that which witnessed my first arrival in the small drawing-room of
the--Hotel.
“Thank Heaven!” said I to myself, as Bedos entered with my things, and
was ordered immediately to have all in preparation for “the dressball
at the rooms,” at the hour of half-past ten. The waiter entered with the
bill. “Soups, chops, cutlets, steaks, roast joints, birds.”
“Get some soup,” said I, “a slice or two of lion, and half a dozen
birds.”
“Sir,” said the solemn waiter, “you can’t have less than a whole lion,
and we have only two birds in the house.”
“Pray,” asked I, “are you in the habit of supplying your larder from
Exeter ‘Change, or do you breed lions here like poultry?”
“Sir,” answered the grim waiter, never relaxing into a smile, “we have
lions brought us from the country every day.”
“What do you pay for them?” said I.
“About three and sixpence a-piece, Sir.”
“Humph!--market in Africa overstocked,” thought I.
“Pray, how do you dress an animal of that description?”
“Roast and stuff him, Sir, and serve him up with currant jelly.”
“What! like a hare?”
“It is a hare, Sir.”
“What!”
“Yes, Sir, it is a hare! [Note: I have since learned, that this custom
of calling a hare a lion is not peculiar to Cheltenham. At that time
I was utterly unacquainted with the regulations of the London
coffee-houses.]--but we call it a lion, because of the Game Laws.”
‘Bright discovery,’ thought I; ‘they have a new language in Cheltenham:
nothing’s like travelling to enlarge the mind.’ “And the birds,” said I,
aloud, “are neither humming birds, nor ostriches, I suppose?”
“No, Sir; they are partridges.”
“Well, then, give me some soup; a cotelette de mouton, and a ‘bird,’ as
you term it, and be quick about it.”
“It shall be done with dispatch,” answered the pompous attendant, and
withdrew.
Is there, in the whole course of this pleasant and varying life, which
young gentlemen and ladies write verses to prove same and sorrowful,--is
there, in the whole course of it, one half-hour really and genuinely
disagreeable?--if so, it is the half-hour before dinner at a strange
inn. Nevertheless, by the help of philosophy and the window, I managed
to endure it with great patience: and though I was famishing with
hunger, I pretended the indifference of a sage, even when the dinner was
at length announced. I coquetted a whole minute with my napkin, before I
attempted the soup, and I helped myself to the potatory food with a slow
dignity that must have perfectly won the heart of the solemn waiter. The
soup was a little better than hot water, and the sharp sauced cotelette
than leather and vinegar; howbeit, I attacked them with the vigour of
an Irishman, and washed them down with a bottle of the worst liquor ever
dignified with the venerabile nomen of claret. The bird was tough enough
to have passed for an ostrich in miniature; and I felt its ghost hopping
about the stomachic sepulchre to which I consigned it, the whole of that
evening and a great portion of the next day, when a glass of curacoa
laid it at rest.
After this splendid repast, I flung myself back on my chair with the
complacency of a man who has dined well, and dozed away the time till
the hour of dressing.
“Now,” thought I, as I placed myself before my glass, “shall I gently
please, or sublimely astonish the ‘fashionables’ of Cheltenham? Ah, bah!
the latter school is vulgar, Byron spoilt it. Don’t put out that chain,
Bedos--I wear--the black coat, waistcoat, and trowsers. Brush my hair as
much out of curl as you can, and give an air of graceful negligence to
my tout ensemble.”
“Oui, Monsieur, je comprends,” answered Bedos.
I was soon dressed, for it is the design, not the execution, of all
great undertakings which requires deliberation and delay. Action cannot
be too prompt. A chair was called, and Henry Pelham was conveyed to the
rooms.