There is a class of travelling oddities--the dandy _voyageurs_ of
Britain, who, teeming with the proud consciousness of their excellence in
comparison with the rest of human kind, swoln with self-sufficiency, float
like empty bubbles on the water's surface, and who seem as if they would
break and be dissolved by contact with a vulgar touch. They contrive to
swim by means of their air-blown vanity until they come into concussion
with some material object, and are at once reduced to their proper level,
and for ever annihilated. Their country is London; their domicile
Regent-street; thence they would never travel, had they their wills,--not
but they would like to see Paris, and move at Longschamps, or admire its
beauties in an equipage _à D'Aumont_; but the horrors attendant upon
such an enterprise are too formidable gratuitously to be encountered. It
is only when a dip at the Fishmonger's has been rather too often tried, or
Stultz's _billets-doux_ have been repeated with increasing ardour on
the part of the Tailor-lover until he delegates the maintenance of his
_baronial_ purse to some dandy-detesting attorney, that they feel it
expedient to brave the dangers of sea and land, and, unscrewing their
brass spurs, folding up their mustachios in a _port-feuille_, they
hasten them from life and love, and London, and set them down at
Meurice's, the creatures of another element; not less new to all things
around them, than all things there are new to them. It was not long since
I met one at the _table-d'hote_ of Mr. Money, the hospitable but
expensive owner of Les Trois Couronnes, at Vevay, in Switzerland. A large
party had assembled, composed of almost every European nation; and we had
just commenced our dinner, when we were intruded upon by an Exquisite--a
creature something between the human species and a man-milliner--a seven
months' child of fashion--one who had been left an orphan by manliness and
taste, and no longer remembered his lost parents. Never can I forget the
stare of Baron Pougens, (a Swiss by birth, but a Russian noble) as this
specimen of elegance, with mincing step and gait, moved onward, something
like a new member tripping it to the table to take his oaths. How he had
got so far from Grange's, I really cannot say; but he had the policy of
assurance in his favour; and in his own idea, at the least, was what I
heard a poor devil of a candle-snuffer once denominate George Frederic
Cooke, the tragedian,--"a rare specimen of exalted humanity;" and the
actor was certainly in a rare spirit of exaltation at the moment. His
delicate frame was enveloped by a dandy harness, so admirably ordered and
adjusted, that he moved in fear of involving his Stultz in the danger of a
plait; his kid-clad fingers scarcely supported the weight of his
yellow-lined Leghorn; all that was man about him, was in his spurs and
mustachios; and, even with them, he seemed there a moth exposed to an
Alpine blast,--some mamma's darling, injudiciously and cruelly abandoned
to the risk of cold, in a land where Savory and Moore were yet unheard of,
"Beppo in London" wholly unknown, Hoby unesteemed, Gunter misprized, and
where George Brummell had never, never trod. After having bestowed a wild
inexpressive stare at the cannibals assembled, male and
female,--depositing his Vyse, running his digits through his perfumed
hair, raising his shirt-collar so as to form an angle of forty-five with
his purple _Gros de Naples_ cravat, and applying his gold-turned
snuff-box to his nose, Money (who has lived long in England, and speaks
its language well) ventured to address him, by demanding if he should
place a cover for him. "Sar!--your--appellation--if--you please?" the
drawling and affected response of the fop. "Money, Sir." "the sign of the
place--the thing--the _auberge_?" "The Three Crowns, Sir." "Money of
the country, I presume!--Good--stop--put that down--Mem:" and he took his
tablets from his pocket. "Money--Three Crowns--Capital that--will do for
Dibdin,--if not, give it Theodore Hook. And the name of your--your town,
my man?" "Vevay, Sir!" "And that liquid concern I see from the
wind_ar_?" "The Lake, Sir--the Lake of Geneva." "Good gracious!
_all_ Geneva?" "Otherwise termed the Leman, Sir." "Lemon! ha! a sort
of gin-punch, I presume--acidulated blue-ruin--Vastly vulgar, by
Petersham--only fit for the Cider-cellar, Three Crowns--And
that--that--white thing there on the other side of the punch-bowl, Money?"
"That is Gin-goulph, Sir." "Gin-gulp! appropriate certainly, but
de-ci-ded-ly--low." "Will you please, Sir, to dine? dinner is on the
table." "Din_nar_! Crockford, be good to us!--Why--why--it is
scarcely more than noon, Crowns.--What would Lady Diana say?--But true! I
rose at eight--so, I think, I will patronize you, my good
fell_ar_--Long journey that from _Low_san--queer name for a
place so high;--Vastly bad country this of yours, Crowns.--What are all
those stunted poles, like _cerceau_ sticks, placed in the ground?
What do you cultivate, Crowns?" "The vine, Sir." "Wine! wine! dear me!
never knew wine grew before. In England it is a manufactory. One
moment--pardon--Mem:--Wine grows in--in--" "The Canton de Vaud, Sir." "In
the Canton de Vo,--Tell that to Carbonel and Charles Wright when I go
back. Is it Port, pray?" "No, Sir, a thin white wine." "Thin--white
--wine--runs up sticks in said Vo." "Will you permit me to help you, Sir?"
demanded Money, rather impatiently. "What have you, may I ask?"
"_Bouilli_, Sir." "Bull, what? have you no other beef?--Mem: people
living near punch-bowl eat bull beef," "There is a very nice
_culotte_, Sir, if you prefer it." "_Cu_--what, Three Crowns?
_Culotte_!--why, in France, that is--is--inexpressibles--Mem: eat
inexpressibles roasted--Breaches of taste, by Reay--the savages!--that
will do for the Bedford--mention it to Joy--the brutes!--Neither bull nor
breeches, thank you inexpressibly, Money." "A _Blanquette de Veau_,
then, if you like, Sir." "Blanket de Vo! a cover to lay, indeed, Crowns.
Mem: inhabitants of Gin stew blankets of the country, and then eat
them--the Alsatians!" "Poultry, Sir, if you desire it." "Ah! some hopes
there, Money--What is that you hold?" "A _Poularde_, Sir." "Obliged,
Crowns--no Pull-hard thank you, devilish tough I doubt--Mem: fowl called
Pull-hard at Gin--Try again, my man." "A _Dindon_ and _dans son
jus_, Sir." "Ding dong and a dancing Jew!--sort of stewed Rothschild, I
suppose--Well! if I don't mean exactly to starve, I fear I must even
venture on the Jew.--Not bad, by Long--Mem: Dancing Jews in sauce
capital--mention that to young G----, of the Tenth." The business of
mastication arrested for a moment the sapient remarks of the
_Impayable_, until our notice was again attracted by his leaping from
his chair, and cutting divers capers around the room, which, if they did
honour to his agility, harmonized but ill with the precisian starchness of
his habiliments, the order whereof was grievously _derangé_ by his
antics.--"Water! water! Crowns.--I have emptied the vinegar cruet by
mistake--Oh Lud! can scarcely breathe--Water! Crowns, water! in mercy."
"It was the Vin du Pays, I assure you, Sir,--nothing else upon my word."
"Water! water! oh--here--here I have it." "No, Sir; I beg--that is _Eau
de Cerises--Kirschen-wasser_--Cherry water."--"Any--any water will
do,"--and, ere Money could arrest his hand, the water-sembling but fiery
fluid, the ardent spirit of the cherry, had been swallowed at a draught.
He gaped and gasped for breath--he groaned and writhed in torment--and,
borne out in the arms of Crowns and his men, the spirit-stirring Dandy was
removed to bed, whence he arose to return, without delay, to London by the
shortest possible road, even with the fear of another _fieri facias_
before his eyes, to descant on vinous acidities, Gin Lakes, and the
liver-consuming Spa of Vo.--_New Monthly Mag._
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