Long since at the commencement of the reign of her present Gracious
Majesty, it chanced 'on a fair summer evening,' as Mr. James would say,
that three or four young cavaliers were drinking a cup of wine after
dinner at the hostelry called the 'King's Arms,' kept by Mistress
Anderson, in the royal village of Kensington. 'Twas a balmy evening,
and the wayfarers looked out on a cheerful scene. The tall elms of
the ancient gardens were in full leaf, and countless chariots of
the nobility of England whirled by to the neighbouring palace, where
princely Sussex (whose income latterly only allowed him to give
tea-parties) entertained his royal niece at a state banquet. When the
caroches of the nobles had set down their owners at the banquethall,
their varlets and servitors came to quaff a flagon of nut-brown ale in
the 'King's Arms' gardens hard by. We watched these fellows from our
lattice. By Saint Boniface 'twas a rare sight!
The tulips in Mynheer Van Dunck's gardens were not more gorgeous than
the liveries of these pie-coated retainers. All the flowers of the field
bloomed in their ruffled bosoms, all the hues of the rainbow gleamed
in their plush breeches, and the long-caned ones walked up and down the
garden with that charming solemnity, that delightful quivering swagger
of the calves, which has always had a frantic fascination for us. The
walk was not wide enough for them as the shoulder-knots strutted up and
down it in canary, and crimson, and light blue.
Suddenly, in the midst of their pride, a little bell was rung, a side
door opened, and (after setting down their Royal Mistress) her Majesty's
own crimson footmen, with epaulets and black plushes, came in.
It was pitiable to see the other poor Johns slink off at this arrival!
Not one of the honest private Plushes could stand up before the Royal
Flunkeys. They left the walk: they sneaked into dark holes and drank
their beer in silence. The Royal Plush kept possession of the garden
until the Royal Plush dinner was announced, when it retired, and we
heard from the pavilion where they dined, conservative cheers, and
speeches, and Kentish fires. The other Flunkeys we never saw more.
My dear Flunkeys, so absurdly conceited at one moment and so abject
at the next, are but the types of their masters in this world. HE WHO
MEANLY ADMIRES MEAN THINGS IS A SNOB--perhaps that is a safe definition
of the character.
And this is why I have, with the utmost respect, ventured to place The
Snob Royal at the head of my list, causing all others to give way before
him, as the Flunkeys before the royal representative in Kensington
Gardens. To say of such and such a Gracious Sovereign that he is a Snob,
is but to say that his Majesty is a man. Kings, too, are men and Snobs.
In a country where Snobs are in the majority, a prime one, surely,
cannot be unfit to govern. With us they have succeeded to admiration.
For instance, James I. was a Snob, and a Scotch Snob, than which the
world contains no more offensive creature. He appears to have had not
one of the good qualities of a man--neither courage, nor generosity,
nor honesty, nor brains; but read what the great Divines and Doctors of
England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not
a Snob; whilst Louis XIV., his old squaretoes of a contemporary,--the
great worshipper of Bigwiggery--has always struck me as a most undoubted
and Royal Snob.
I will not, however, take instances from our own country of Royal Snobs,
but refer to a neighbouring kingdom, that of Brentford--and its monarch,
the late great and lamented Gorgius IV. With the same humility with
which the footmen at the 'King's Arms' gave way before the Plush Royal,
the aristocracy of the Brentford nation bent down and truckled before
Gorgius, and proclaimed him the first gentleman in Europe. And it's a
wonder to think what is the gentlefolks' opinion of a gentleman, when
they gave Gorgius such a title.
What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be
generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities,
to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman
to be a loyal son, a true husband, and honest father? Ought his life to
be decent--his bills to be paid--his tastes to be high and elegant--his
aims in life lofty and noble? In a word, ought not the Biography of a
First Gentleman in Europe to be of such a nature that it might be read
in Young Ladies' Schools with advantage, and studied with profit in the
Seminaries of Young Gentlemen? I put this question to all instructors
of youth--to Mrs. Ellis and the Women of England; to all schoolmasters,
from Doctor Hawtrey down to Mr. Squeers. I conjure up before me an awful
tribunal of youth and innocence, attended by its venerable instructors
(like the ten thousand red-cheeked charity-children in Saint Paul's),
sitting in judgment, and Gorgius pleading his cause in the midst. Out of
Court, out of Court, fat old Florizel! Beadles, turn out that bloated,
pimple-faced man!--If Gorgius MUST have a statue in the new Palace which
the Brentford nation is building, it ought to be set up in the Flunkeys'
Hall. He should be represented cutting out a coat, in which art he is
said to have excelled. He also invented Maraschino punch, a shoe-buckle
(this was in the vigour of his youth, and the prime force of his
invention), and a Chinese pavilion, the most hideous building in the
world. He could drive a four-in-hand very nearly as well as the Brighton
coachman, could fence elegantly, and it is said, played the fiddle well.
And he smiled with such irresistible fascination, that persons who were
introduced into his august presence became his victims, body and soul,
as a rabbit becomes the prey of a great big boa-constrictor.
I would wager that if Mr. Widdicomb were, by a revolution, placed on
the throne of Brentford, people would be equally fascinated by his
irresistibly majestic smile and tremble as they knelt down to kiss his
hand. If he went to Dublin they would erect an obelisk on the spot where
he first landed, as the Paddylanders did when Gorgius visited them.
We have all of us read with delight that story of the King's voyage to
Haggisland, where his presence inspired such a fury of loyalty and where
the most famous man of the country--the Baron of Bradwardine--coming
on board the royal yacht, and finding a glass out of which Gorgius had
drunk, put it into his coatpocket as an inestimable relic, and went
ashore in his boat again. But the Baron sat down upon the glass and
broke it, and cut his coat-tails very much; and the inestimable relic
was lost to the world for ever. O noble Bradwardine! what old-world
superstition could set you on your knees before such an idol as that?
If you want to moralise upon the mutability of human affairs, go and
see the figure of Gorgius in his real, identical robes, at the
waxwork.--Admittance one shilling. Children and flunkeys sixpence. Go,
and pay sixpence.