This stay-at-home lot naturally disliked all who differed from them; and their especial hatred, on whom all their vials of wrath was poured out, and who provoked their most pungent satire, was the travelled fop who had brought back with him Continental ideas and fashions. In this matter John Bull, until he began to move about a bit, has always been most conservative. Anything 'un-English' was certain of condemnation, and of course, during the war the French, and all belonging to them, were especially hated.
Our Native Speech we must forget, ere long,
To learn the French, that much more Modish Tongue.
Their Language smoother is, hath pretty Aires;
But ours is Gothick, if compar'd with theirs.
The French by Arts of smoother Insinuation,
Are now become the Darlings of the Nation;
His Lordship's Valet must be bred in France,
Or else he is a Clown without Pretence:
The English Blockheads are in Dress so coarse,
They're fit for nothing, but to rub a Horse,
Her Ladyship's ill-manner'd or ill-bred,
Whose Woman, Confident, or Chamber Maid,
Did not in France suck in her first breath'd Air,
Or did not gain hir Education there;
Our Cooks in dressing have no Skill at all.
They're only fit to serve an Hospital,
Or to prepare a Dinner for a Camp;
French Cooks are only of the Modish Stamp.[111]
These affectations offended our insularity, and, probably, the following sketch was not at all ungenerous or uncalled for:—
And he who to his Fancy puts no Stop,
Goes out a Fool, and may return a Fop;
And after he Six Months in France has been,
Comes home a most Accomplish'd Harlequin,
Drest in a tawdry Suit at Paris made,
For which he more than thrice the Value paid.
French his Attendants, French alone his Mouth
Can speak, his native Language is uncouth.
If to the Ladies he does make Advance,
His very Looks must have the Air of France,
The English are so heavy and so dull,
As if with Lead, not Brains, their Heads were full.
But the brisk Frenchman, by his subtil Art,
Soon finds Access to any Lady's Heart.
And again,[112] 'Then before they can Conster and Pearse,[113] they are sent into France with sordid illiterate Creatures, call'd Dry'd Nurses, or Governours; Engines of as little use as Pacing Saddles, and as unfit to Govern 'em as the Post Horses they ride to Paris on; From whence they return with a little smattering of that mighty Universal Language, without being ever able to write true English.'
If these descriptions be true, and they are so numerous and widely scattered as to leave little doubt of it, the young fellow came back a fribble, an emasculated nothing, except as regards his periwig, his clothes, and his snuff-box.
[114]But Art surpasses Nature; and we find
Men may be transform'd into Womankind
—a creature who 'can Sing, and Dance, and play upon the Guitar; make Wax Work, and Fillagree, and Paint upon Glass'[115]—who swore pretty little oaths—odsbodikins![116] oh me! and never stir alive! or blister me![117] impair my vigour! enfeeble me! or could say to a lady,[118] Madam, split me, you are very impertinent! who painted himself[119] 'purely to oblige the ladies,'—and who, when he met a friend, must needs fall a-kissing him, described in one old play as 'the Embracing[120] and the fulsome Trick you Men have got of Kissing one another.' Or, as in another play, one of those travelled pretty dears says,[121] 'Sir—You Kiss Pleasingly—I love to Kiss a Man, in Paris we kiss nothing else.'
MEN KISSING.