OF CERTAIN GENTS IN SOCIETY.
ONCE, when like Mr. Tennyson we were “waiting for the train at
Coventry,” and thinking of Lady Godiva—the Gents would like to have
peeped at Godiva—we saw a penny show on the ground floor of an empty
house in a principal street of that good city. It consisted of “A Happy
Family”—a collection of various animals, of different natures, in one
cage—like the travelling menagerie opposite the National Gallery, but on
a much larger scale. The members of the “family” were quietly enjoying
the pleasure of each other’s society, with the exception of two monkeys,
one of whom sat sullenly scowling at some mice, as he hugged himself up
into a ball in every body’s way; and the other created much discomfort,
from time to time, by rushing about in a frantic manner, running over
his neighbours, performing totally useless feats of agility, and
deporting himself generally in an absurd and unseemly fashion.
Now, taking monkeys to be the Gents of the animal kingdom, we were
pleased to see how closely they resemble their human brethren:—for the
Gents you encounter in society are of two kinds. Taking an assembly as
the place where you would be most likely to come upon them, you will
find them either endeavouring to “do the grand,” by not joining in the
current amusements of the evening; or overstepping all bounds of
ordinary behaviour—“going it,” to use their own words—and committing
every kind of preposterous and silly offence against the received rules
of society.
If you talk to the first of these, whom we may call the dreary Gent, you
will always find that he has been “dining with some fellows he knows;”
or “having a weed with a man;” and you will be reminded of cigars. He
affects a drawling indifferent tone of voice, which he considers cool
and fashionable; and he prefers keeping outside the drawing-room door,
upon the landing, because “he don’t want to be bored to dance.” He wears
broad tails to his coat, and most probably the buttonholes are brought
together over his chest by a small snaffle; whilst, hanging by a bit of
chain from his waistcoat pocket, is a little broquet key, made like a
dog’s head, the nose of which winds up his watch. His stock is of
figured satin, very gay, and very narrow, and with long twisted ends, in
which is stuck a large pin—usually a claw holding a stone, as big and as
white as a pea of Wenham ice from a sherry cobbler. He will ask you, “if
you were up at Putney on Tuesday;” and if you were not, and do not even
know what great event took place on that day, be sure that he regards
you with great contempt. Like all Gents, he has a great notion of
champagne, which at supper he drinks by himself from a tumbler as he
would drink it at a night tavern, as aforesaid, from a tankard.
Very opposite to him is the joyous Gent, whom we may term the Perrot of
private life. He always gives us the notion of a ballet-dancer spoiled,
especially in Pastorale or the Polka; in which latter dance, if he does
not happen to have for his partner a young lady of determined spirit,
and a keen discrimination of right and wrong, he will launch off into
all sorts of toe-and-heel tomfooleries, such as simple people used to
perpetrate when the Polka first broke out—such as you may still see,
after supper, at Jullien’s and Vauxhall, or at the “Gothics,” and other
ten-and-sixpenny demi-public hops, of the same genus, even at the
Hanover Square Rooms. The joyous Gent is very great indeed in cheap
dancing-academy figures. He knows the “Caledonians” and the “Lancers;”
he loves the “Spanish dance,” and patronises the gloomy, and almost
extinct “Cellarius.” And we will make any reasonable wager, that before
the quadrille begins, he will bow to his partner, and then to the corner
lady, or the one on his left.
The social acquirements of the joyous Gent are many, and he delights in
every opportunity of exhibiting them. His strongest points are his
imitations of popular performers, especially Buckstone, in whose manner
he says, “well I never!—did you ever!—oh never!—oh wlaw!” in a manner
that elicits the loudest applause. Next he attempts Macready, as
follows:—
“Nay—dearest—nay—if thou—wouldst have—me paint
The home—to which—could love—fulfil—its prayers,—
This hand—would lead—thee—listen.”
Then Mr. T. P. Cooke, when he pitches his voice in a low falsetto,
hitches his trowsers, says, “My dear eyes! what! Sewsan!” and affirms
that “no true heart is altered by the gilt swabs on the shoulders, but
is ever open to the cry of a female in distress.”
Possibly the next will be Mr. Paul Bedford, when he rolls his _r_
and says, “Come along, my r-r-r-r-rummy cove; come along
comealong-comealong! how are you? how d’ye do? here we are! I’m a
looking at you like bricksywicksywicksies—I believe you my
boy-y-y-y-y!”
And directly afterwards he turns up his nose with his forefinger, and
looks like Mr. Wright, as he exclaims, “Come, I say you know, guv’nor,
none o’ them larks eh! you didn’t ought to was.”
All these are sure to be received with the greatest enthusiasm: and as
he usually gives the name of the actor he is about to imitate, before he
commences, he is spared the unpleasantry attendant upon the remark of
some guest, who says “Capital! famous! it’s Keeley himself,” when the
ingenious Gent is attempting an impersonation of Farren.
But after all his surest card is Buckstone.
[Illustration]
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