The newspapers, a few years since, contained an instance of folly such as we seldom meet with, even in this foolish generation. Two young men—gents, we presume—one Sunday evening promenading Regent Street, the admired of all beholders, met two young ladies of equally genteel manners, and equally fashionable exterior. It is said,
“When Greek meet Greek, then comes the tug of war.”
In this case, however, the adage was reversed. The encounter, so far from being hostile, was friendly in the extreme. Our gay Lotharios, neither bashful nor prudent, learned that their fascinating enchantresses were the daughters of a Count, whose large estates were situated neither in the moon, nor in the New Atlantic, nor in the “golden Ingies,” nor in the lands remote, where a Gulliver travelled or a Sinbad sailed, but in France itself. That they had come to England, bringing with them simply their two hundred pounds a quarter, that they might, in calm retirement—without the
annoyances to which their rank, if known, would subject them—judge for themselves what manner of men we were. The tale was simple, strange, yet certainly true. Ladies of charming manners, and distinguished birth—young—lovely—each with two hundred pounds a quarter—cast upon this great Babylon, without a friend—no man with the heart of an Englishman could permit such illustrious strangers to wander unprotected in our streets. Accordingly an intimacy was commenced—letters written behind the counter, but dated from the Horse Guards, signed as if the composer were a peer of the realm, were sent in shoals to Foley-place. The result was, that after our Regent Street heroes were bled till no more money could be had, the secret was discovered, and they found themselves, not merely miserably bamboozled, but a laughing-stock besides.
But this tale has a moral. Ellam—he of the ill-spelt letters and the Horse Guards—was a shopman somewhere in Piccadilly. No person of any education could have been taken in by so trumpery a tale. Did the young men in our shops have time for improvement, could they retire from business at a reasonable hour, could they be permitted to inform and strengthen the mind, such a remarkable instance of folly as that to which we have alluded could not possibly occur.
The gent of the Regent Street style, of whom poor Wright used to sing to an Adelphi audience, was evidently a very badly-dressed and ill-bred-fellow in spite of the fact that his vest was of the last cut, that
his tile was faultless, that his boots were ditto, and that none could more gracefully
“puff a cigar.”
The gents of to-day are the same. I was amused by hearing of a party of them, connected with one of the city houses, who went into the country one Easter Monday to enjoy themselves; they did enjoy themselves, as all young fellows should, thoroughly, but from their enjoyment they were recalled to a sense of dignity, by a characteristic remark of one of them, as he saw passers by, “Hush, hush!” he exclaimed, “They will think we are retail.” A writer in the Builder remarking the degeneracy of regular cocknies attributes it to the want of good air, the expensive nature of a good education, the sedentary employment of many of them. And no doubt these reasons are the true ones, and of considerable force. Well might Coleridge anticipate for his son as prosperous career as compared with his own.
“I was reared
In the great city, pent ’mid cloister dim,
And saw naught lovely but the sky and stars;
But thou, my babe, shall wander in the breeze,
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountains; beneath the clouds
Which image in their arch both lakes and shores,
And mountain crags, so shall thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds unchangeable,
Of that eternal language which thy God utters.”