We hope our readers will not be alarmed at this rather ominous title.
We assure them that we are not about to become political, neither have
we the slightest intention of being more prosy than usual—if we can
help it. It has occurred to us that a slight sketch of the general
aspect of ‘the House,’ and the crowds that resort to it on the night of
an important debate, would be productive of some amusement: and as we
have made some few calls at the aforesaid house in our time—have
visited it quite often enough for our purpose, and a great deal too
often for our personal peace and comfort—we have determined to attempt
the description. Dismissing from our minds, therefore, all that feeling
of awe, which vague ideas of breaches of privilege, Serjeant-at-Arms,
heavy denunciations, and still heavier fees, are calculated to awaken,
we enter at once into the building, and upon our subject.
Half-past four o’clock—and at five the mover of the Address will be ‘on
his legs,’ as the newspapers announce sometimes by way of novelty, as
if speakers were occasionally in the habit of standing on their heads.
The members are pouring in, one after the other, in shoals. The few
spectators who can obtain standing-room in the passages, scrutinise
them as they pass, with the utmost interest, and the man who can
identify a member occasionally, becomes a person of great importance.
Every now and then you hear earnest whispers of ‘That’s Sir John
Thomson.’ ‘Which? him with the gilt order round his neck?’ ‘No, no;
that’s one of the messengers—that other with the yellow gloves, is Sir
John Thomson.’ ‘Here’s Mr. Smith.’ ‘Lor!’ ‘Yes, how d’ye do, sir?—(He
is our new member)—How do you do, sir?’ Mr. Smith stops: turns round
with an air of enchanting urbanity (for the rumour of an intended
dissolution has been very extensively circulated this morning); seizes
both the hands of his gratified constituent, and, after greeting him
with the most enthusiastic warmth, darts into the lobby with an
extraordinary display of ardour in the public cause, leaving an immense
impression in his favour on the mind of his ‘fellow-townsman.’
The arrivals increase in number, and the heat and noise increase in
very unpleasant proportion. The livery servants form a complete lane on
either side of the passage, and you reduce yourself into the smallest
possible space to avoid being turned out. You see that stout man with
the hoarse voice, in the blue coat, queer-crowned, broad-brimmed hat,
white corduroy breeches, and great boots, who has been talking
incessantly for half an hour past, and whose importance has occasioned
no small quantity of mirth among the strangers. That is the great
conservator of the peace of Westminster. You cannot fail to have
remarked the grace with which he saluted the noble Lord who passed just
now, or the excessive dignity of his air, as he expostulates with the
crowd. He is rather out of temper now, in consequence of the very
irreverent behaviour of those two young fellows behind him, who have
done nothing but laugh all the time they have been here.
‘Will they divide to-night, do you think, Mr. ---’ timidly inquires a
little thin man in the crowd, hoping to conciliate the man of office.
‘How _can_ you ask such questions, sir?’ replies the functionary, in an
incredibly loud key, and pettishly grasping the thick stick he carries
in his right hand. ‘Pray do not, sir. I beg of you; pray do not, sir.’
The little man looks remarkably out of his element, and the uninitiated
part of the throng are in positive convulsions of laughter.
Just at this moment some unfortunate individual appears, with a very
smirking air, at the bottom of the long passage. He has managed to
elude the vigilance of the special constable downstairs, and is
evidently congratulating himself on having made his way so far.
‘Go back, sir—you must _not_ come here,’ shouts the hoarse one, with
tremendous emphasis of voice and gesture, the moment the offender
catches his eye.
The stranger pauses.
‘Do you hear, sir—will you go back?’ continues the official dignitary,
gently pushing the intruder some half-dozen yards.
‘Come, don’t push me,’ replies the stranger, turning angrily round.
‘I will, sir.’
‘You won’t, sir.’
‘Go out, sir.’
‘Take your hands off me, sir.’
‘Go out of the passage, sir.’
‘You’re a Jack-in-office, sir.’
‘A what?’ ejaculates he of the boots.
‘A Jack-in-office, sir, and a very insolent fellow,’ reiterates the
stranger, now completely in a passion.
‘Pray do not force me to put you out, sir,’ retorts the other—‘pray do
not—my instructions are to keep this passage clear—it’s the Speaker’s
orders, sir.’
‘D-n the Speaker, sir!’ shouts the intruder.
‘Here, Wilson!—Collins!’ gasps the officer, actually paralysed at this
insulting expression, which in his mind is all but high treason; ‘take
this man out—take him out, I say! How dare you, sir?’ and down goes the
unfortunate man five stairs at a time, turning round at every stoppage,
to come back again, and denouncing bitter vengeance against the
commander-in-chief, and all his supernumeraries.
‘Make way, gentlemen,—pray make way for the Members, I beg of you!’
shouts the zealous officer, turning back, and preceding a whole string
of the liberal and independent.
You see this ferocious-looking gentleman, with a complexion almost as
sallow as his linen, and whose large black moustache would give him the
appearance of a figure in a hairdresser’s window, if his countenance
possessed the thought which is communicated to those waxen caricatures
of the human face divine. He is a militia-officer, and the most amusing
person in the House. Can anything be more exquisitely absurd than the
burlesque grandeur of his air, as he strides up to the lobby, his eyes
rolling like those of a Turk’s head in a cheap Dutch clock? He never
appears without that bundle of dirty papers which he carries under his
left arm, and which are generally supposed to be the miscellaneous
estimates for 1804, or some equally important documents. He is very
punctual in his attendance at the House, and his self-satisfied
‘He-ar-He-ar,’ is not unfrequently the signal for a general titter.
This is the gentleman who once actually sent a messenger up to the
Strangers’ gallery in the old House of Commons, to inquire the name of
an individual who was using an eye-glass, in order that he might
complain to the Speaker that the person in question was quizzing him!
On another occasion, he is reported to have repaired to Bellamy’s
kitchen—a refreshment-room, where persons who are not Members are
admitted on sufferance, as it were—and perceiving two or three
gentlemen at supper, who, he was aware, were not Members, and could
not, in that place, very well resent his behaviour, he indulged in the
pleasantry of sitting with his booted leg on the table at which they
were supping! He is generally harmless, though, and always amusing.
By dint of patience, and some little interest with our friend the
constable, we have contrived to make our way to the Lobby, and you can
just manage to catch an occasional glimpse of the House, as the door is
opened for the admission of Members. It is tolerably full already, and
little groups of Members are congregated together here, discussing the
interesting topics of the day.
That smart-looking fellow in the black coat with velvet facings and
cuffs, who wears his _D’Orsay_ hat so rakishly, is ‘Honest Tom,’ a
metropolitan representative; and the large man in the cloak with the
white lining—not the man by the pillar; the other with the light hair
hanging over his coat collar behind—is his colleague. The quiet
gentlemanly-looking man in the blue surtout, gray trousers, white
neckerchief and gloves, whose closely-buttoned coat displays his manly
figure and broad chest to great advantage, is a very well-known
character. He has fought a great many battles in his time, and
conquered like the heroes of old, with no other arms than those the
gods gave him. The old hard-featured man who is standing near him, is
really a good specimen of a class of men, now nearly extinct. He is a
county Member, and has been from time whereof the memory of man is not
to the contrary. Look at his loose, wide, brown coat, with capacious
pockets on each side; the knee-breeches and boots, the immensely long
waistcoat, and silver watch-chain dangling below it, the wide-brimmed
brown hat, and the white handkerchief tied in a great bow, with
straggling ends sticking out beyond his shirt-frill. It is a costume
one seldom sees nowadays, and when the few who wear it have died off,
it will be quite extinct. He can tell you long stories of Fox, Pitt,
Sheridan, and Canning, and how much better the House was managed in
those times, when they used to get up at eight or nine o’clock, except
on regular field-days, of which everybody was apprised beforehand. He
has a great contempt for all young Members of Parliament, and thinks it
quite impossible that a man can say anything worth hearing, unless he
has sat in the House for fifteen years at least, without saying
anything at all. He is of opinion that ‘that young Macaulay’ was a
regular impostor; he allows, that Lord Stanley may do something one of
these days, but ‘he’s too young, sir—too young.’ He is an excellent
authority on points of precedent, and when he grows talkative, after
his wine, will tell you how Sir Somebody Something, when he was
whipper-in for the Government, brought four men out of their beds to
vote in the majority, three of whom died on their way home again; how
the House once divided on the question, that fresh candles be now
brought in; how the Speaker was once upon a time left in the chair by
accident, at the conclusion of business, and was obliged to sit in the
House by himself for three hours, till some Member could be knocked up
and brought back again, to move the adjournment; and a great many other
anecdotes of a similar description.
There he stands, leaning on his stick; looking at the throng of
Exquisites around him with most profound contempt; and conjuring up,
before his mind’s eye, the scenes he beheld in the old House, in days
gone by, when his own feelings were fresher and brighter, and when, as
he imagines, wit, talent, and patriotism flourished more brightly too.
You are curious to know who that young man in the rough great-coat is,
who has accosted every Member who has entered the House since we have
been standing here. He is not a Member; he is only an ‘hereditary
bondsman,’ or, in other words, an Irish correspondent of an Irish
newspaper, who has just procured his forty-second frank from a Member
whom he never saw in his life before. There he goes again—another!
Bless the man, he has his hat and pockets full already.
We will try our fortune at the Strangers’ gallery, though the nature of
the debate encourages very little hope of success. What on earth are
you about? Holding up your order as if it were a talisman at whose
command the wicket would fly open? Nonsense. Just preserve the order
for an autograph, if it be worth keeping at all, and make your
appearance at the door with your thumb and forefinger expressively
inserted in your waistcoat-pocket. This tall stout man in black is the
door-keeper. ‘Any room?’ ‘Not an inch—two or three dozen gentlemen
waiting down-stairs on the chance of somebody’s going out.’ Pull out
your purse—‘Are you _quite_ sure there’s no room?’—‘I’ll go and look,’
replies the door-keeper, with a wistful glance at your purse, ‘but I’m
afraid there’s not.’ He returns, and with real feeling assures you that
it is morally impossible to get near the gallery. It is of no use
waiting. When you are refused admission into the Strangers’ gallery at
the House of Commons, under such circumstances, you may return home
thoroughly satisfied that the place must be remarkably full indeed.
[122]
Retracing our steps through the long passage, descending the stairs,
and crossing Palace-yard, we halt at a small temporary doorway
adjoining the King’s entrance to the House of Lords. The order of the
serjeant-at-arms will admit you into the Reporters’ gallery, from
whence you can obtain a tolerably good view of the House. Take care of
the stairs, they are none of the best; through this little
wicket—there. As soon as your eyes become a little used to the mist of
the place, and the glare of the chandeliers below you, you will see
that some unimportant personage on the Ministerial side of the House
(to your right hand) is speaking, amidst a hum of voices and confusion
which would rival Babel, but for the circumstance of its being all in
one language.
The ‘hear, hear,’ which occasioned that laugh, proceeded from our
warlike friend with the moustache; he is sitting on the back seat
against the wall, behind the Member who is speaking, looking as
ferocious and intellectual as usual. Take one look around you, and
retire! The body of the House and the side galleries are full of
Members; some, with their legs on the back of the opposite seat; some,
with theirs stretched out to their utmost length on the floor; some
going out, others coming in; all talking, laughing, lounging, coughing,
oh-ing, questioning, or groaning; presenting a conglomeration of noise
and confusion, to be met with in no other place in existence, not even
excepting Smithfield on a market-day, or a cock-pit in its glory.
But let us not omit to notice Bellamy’s kitchen, or, in other words,
the refreshment-room, common to both Houses of Parliament, where
Ministerialists and Oppositionists, Whigs and Tories, Radicals, Peers,
and Destructives, strangers from the gallery, and the more favoured
strangers from below the bar, are alike at liberty to resort; where
divers honourable members prove their perfect independence by remaining
during the whole of a heavy debate, solacing themselves with the
creature comforts; and whence they are summoned by whippers-in, when
the House is on the point of dividing; either to give their
‘conscientious votes’ on questions of which they are conscientiously
innocent of knowing anything whatever, or to find a vent for the
playful exuberance of their wine-inspired fancies, in boisterous shouts
of ‘Divide,’ occasionally varied with a little howling, barking,
crowing, or other ebullitions of senatorial pleasantry.
When you have ascended the narrow staircase which, in the present
temporary House of Commons, leads to the place we are describing, you
will probably observe a couple of rooms on your right hand, with tables
spread for dining. Neither of these is the kitchen, although they are
both devoted to the same purpose; the kitchen is further on to our
left, up these half-dozen stairs. Before we ascend the staircase,
however, we must request you to pause in front of this little bar-place
with the sash-windows; and beg your particular attention to the steady,
honest-looking old fellow in black, who is its sole occupant. Nicholas
(we do not mind mentioning the old fellow’s name, for if Nicholas be
not a public man, who is?—and public men’s names are public
property)—Nicholas is the butler of Bellamy’s, and has held the same
place, dressed exactly in the same manner, and said precisely the same
things, ever since the oldest of its present visitors can remember. An
excellent servant Nicholas is—an unrivalled compounder of
salad-dressing—an admirable preparer of soda-water and lemon—a special
mixer of cold grog and punch—and, above all, an unequalled judge of
cheese. If the old man have such a thing as vanity in his composition,
this is certainly his pride; and if it be possible to imagine that
anything in this world could disturb his impenetrable calmness, we
should say it would be the doubting his judgment on this important
point.
We needn’t tell you all this, however, for if you have an atom of
observation, one glance at his sleek, knowing-looking head and face—his
prim white neckerchief, with the wooden tie into which it has been
regularly folded for twenty years past, merging by imperceptible
degrees into a small-plaited shirt-frill—and his comfortable-looking
form encased in a well-brushed suit of black—would give you a better
idea of his real character than a column of our poor description could
convey.
Nicholas is rather out of his element now; he cannot see the kitchen as
he used to in the old House; there, one window of his glass-case opened
into the room, and then, for the edification and behoof of more
juvenile questioners, he would stand for an hour together, answering
deferential questions about Sheridan, and Percival, and Castlereagh,
and Heaven knows who beside, with manifest delight, always inserting a
‘Mister’ before every commoner’s name.
Nicholas, like all men of his age and standing, has a great idea of the
degeneracy of the times. He seldom expresses any political opinions,
but we managed to ascertain, just before the passing of the Reform
Bill, that Nicholas was a thorough Reformer. What was our astonishment
to discover shortly after the meeting of the first reformed Parliament,
that he was a most inveterate and decided Tory! It was very odd: some
men change their opinions from necessity, others from expediency,
others from inspiration; but that Nicholas should undergo any change in
any respect, was an event we had never contemplated, and should have
considered impossible. His strong opinion against the clause which
empowered the metropolitan districts to return Members to Parliament,
too, was perfectly unaccountable.
We discovered the secret at last; the metropolitan Members always dined
at home. The rascals! As for giving additional Members to Ireland, it
was even worse—decidedly unconstitutional. Why, sir, an Irish Member
would go up there, and eat more dinner than three English Members put
together. He took no wine; drank table-beer by the half-gallon; and
went home to Manchester-buildings, or Millbank-street, for his
whiskey-and-water. And what was the consequence? Why, the concern
lost—actually lost, sir—by his patronage. A queer old fellow is
Nicholas, and as completely a part of the building as the house itself.
We wonder he ever left the old place, and fully expected to see in the
papers, the morning after the fire, a pathetic account of an old
gentleman in black, of decent appearance, who was seen at one of the
upper windows when the flames were at their height, and declared his
resolute intention of falling with the floor. He must have been got out
by force. However, he was got out—here he is again, looking as he
always does, as if he had been in a bandbox ever since the last
session. There he is, at his old post every night, just as we have
described him: and, as characters are scarce, and faithful servants
scarcer, long may he be there, say we!
Now, when you have taken your seat in the kitchen, and duly noticed the
large fire and roasting-jack at one end of the room—the little table
for washing glasses and draining jugs at the other—the clock over the
window opposite St. Margaret’s Church—the deal tables and wax
candles—the damask table-cloths and bare floor—the plate and china on
the tables, and the gridiron on the fire; and a few other anomalies
peculiar to the place—we will point out to your notice two or three of
the people present, whose station or absurdities render them the most
worthy of remark.
It is half-past twelve o’clock, and as the division is not expected for
an hour or two, a few Members are lounging away the time here in
preference to standing at the bar of the House, or sleeping in one of
the side galleries. That singularly awkward and ungainly-looking man,
in the brownish-white hat, with the straggling black trousers which
reach about half-way down the leg of his boots, who is leaning against
the meat-screen, apparently deluding himself into the belief that he is
thinking about something, is a splendid sample of a Member of the House
of Commons concentrating in his own person the wisdom of a
constituency. Observe the wig, of a dark hue but indescribable colour,
for if it be naturally brown, it has acquired a black tint by long
service, and if it be naturally black, the same cause has imparted to
it a tinge of rusty brown; and remark how very materially the great
blinker-like spectacles assist the expression of that most intelligent
face. Seriously speaking, did you ever see a countenance so expressive
of the most hopeless extreme of heavy dulness, or behold a form so
strangely put together? He is no great speaker: but when he _does_
address the House, the effect is absolutely irresistible.
The small gentleman with the sharp nose, who has just saluted him, is a
Member of Parliament, an ex-Alderman, and a sort of amateur fireman.
He, and the celebrated fireman’s dog, were observed to be remarkably
active at the conflagration of the two Houses of Parliament—they both
ran up and down, and in and out, getting under people’s feet, and into
everybody’s way, fully impressed with the belief that they were doing a
great deal of good, and barking tremendously. The dog went quietly back
to his kennel with the engine, but the gentleman kept up such an
incessant noise for some weeks after the occurrence, that he became a
positive nuisance. As no more parliamentary fires have occurred,
however, and as he has consequently had no more opportunities of
writing to the newspapers to relate how, by way of preserving pictures
he cut them out of their frames, and performed other great national
services, he has gradually relapsed into his old state of calmness.
That female in black—not the one whom the Lord’s-Day-Bill Baronet has
just chucked under the chin; the shorter of the two—is ‘Jane:’ the Hebe
of Bellamy’s. Jane is as great a character as Nicholas, in her way. Her
leading features are a thorough contempt for the great majority of her
visitors; her predominant quality, love of admiration, as you cannot
fail to observe, if you mark the glee with which she listens to
something the young Member near her mutters somewhat unintelligibly in
her ear (for his speech is rather thick from some cause or other), and
how playfully she digs the handle of a fork into the arm with which he
detains her, by way of reply.
Jane is no bad hand at repartees, and showers them about, with a degree
of liberality and total absence of reserve or constraint, which
occasionally excites no small amazement in the minds of strangers. She
cuts jokes with Nicholas, too, but looks up to him with a great deal of
respect—the immovable stolidity with which Nicholas receives the
aforesaid jokes, and looks on, at certain pastoral friskings and
rompings (Jane’s only recreations, and they are very innocent too)
which occasionally take place in the passage, is not the least amusing
part of his character.
The two persons who are seated at the table in the corner, at the
farther end of the room, have been constant guests here, for many years
past; and one of them has feasted within these walls, many a time, with
the most brilliant characters of a brilliant period. He has gone up to
the other House since then; the greater part of his boon companions
have shared Yorick’s fate, and his visits to Bellamy’s are
comparatively few.
If he really be eating his supper now, at what hour can he possibly
have dined! A second solid mass of rump-steak has disappeared, and he
eat the first in four minutes and three quarters, by the clock over the
window. Was there ever such a personification of Falstaff! Mark the air
with which he gloats over that Stilton, as he removes the napkin which
has been placed beneath his chin to catch the superfluous gravy of the
steak, and with what gusto he imbibes the porter which has been
fetched, expressly for him, in the pewter pot. Listen to the hoarse
sound of that voice, kept down as it is by layers of solids, and deep
draughts of rich wine, and tell us if you ever saw such a perfect
picture of a regular _gourmand_; and whether he is not exactly the man
whom you would pitch upon as having been the partner of Sheridan’s
parliamentary carouses, the volunteer driver of the hackney-coach that
took him home, and the involuntary upsetter of the whole party?
What an amusing contrast between his voice and appearance, and that of
the spare, squeaking old man, who sits at the same table, and who,
elevating a little cracked bantam sort of voice to its highest pitch,
invokes damnation upon his own eyes or somebody else’s at the
commencement of every sentence he utters. ‘The Captain,’ as they call
him, is a very old frequenter of Bellamy’s; much addicted to stopping
‘after the House is up’ (an inexpiable crime in Jane’s eyes), and a
complete walking reservoir of spirits and water.
The old Peer—or rather, the old man—for his peerage is of comparatively
recent date—has a huge tumbler of hot punch brought him; and the other
damns and drinks, and drinks and damns, and smokes. Members arrive
every moment in a great bustle to report that ‘The Chancellor of the
Exchequer’s up,’ and to get glasses of brandy-and-water to sustain them
during the division; people who have ordered supper, countermand it,
and prepare to go down-stairs, when suddenly a bell is heard to ring
with tremendous violence, and a cry of ‘Di-vi-sion!’ is heard in the
passage. This is enough; away rush the members pell-mell. The room is
cleared in an instant; the noise rapidly dies away; you hear the
creaking of the last boot on the last stair, and are left alone with
the leviathan of rump-steaks.