The Speaker of the English House of Commons is a man destined to be bored. Doomed to sit in a chair all night long—night after night—month after month—year after year—being bored. No relief for him but crossing and uncrossing his legs from time to time. No respite. If he sleep, it must be with his eyes open, fixed in the direction of the haranguing bore. He is not, however, bound, bonâ fide to hear all that is said. This, happily, was settled in the last century. “Mr. Speaker, it is your duty to hear me,—it is the undoubted privilege, Sir, of every member of this house to be heard,” said a bore of the last century to the then Speaker of the House of Commons. “Sir,” replied the Speaker, “I know that it is the undoubted right of every member of this house to speak, but I was not aware that it was his privilege to be always heard.”
The courtier-bore has sometimes crept into the English parliament.—But is common on the continent: infinite varieties, as le courtisan propre, courtisan homme d’état, and le courtisan philosophe—a curious but not a rare kind in France, of which M. de Voltaire was one of the finest specimens.
Attempts had been made to naturalize some of the varieties of the philanthropic and sentimental French and German bores in England, but without success. Some ladies had them for favourites or pets; but they were found mischievous and dangerous. Their morality was easy,—but difficult to understand; compounded of three-fourths sentiment—nine-tenths selfishness, twelve-ninths instinct, self-devotion, metaphysics, and cant. ‘Twas hard to come at a common denominator. John Bull, with his four rules of vulgar arithmetic, could never make it out; altogether he never could abide these foreign bores. Thought ‘em confounded dull too—Civilly told them so, and half asleep bid them “prythee begone”—They not taking the hint, but lingering with the women, at last John wakening out-right, fell to in earnest, and routed them out of the island.
They still flourish abroad, often seen at the tables of the great. The demi-philosophe-moderne-politico-legislativo-metaphysico-non-logico-grand philanthrope still scribbles, by the ream, pièces justificatives, projets de loi, and volumes of metaphysical sentiment, to be seen at the fair of Leipzig, or on ladies’ tables. The greater bore, the courtisan propre, is still admired at little serene courts, where, well-dressed and well-drilled—his back much bent with Germanic bows; not a dangerous creature—would only bore you to death.
We come next to our own blue bores—the most dreaded of the species,—the most abused—sometimes with reason, sometimes without. This species was formerly rare in Britain—indeed all over the world.—Little known from the days of Aspasia and Corinna to those of Madame Dacier and Mrs. Montague. Mr. Jerningham’s blue worsted stockings, as all the world knows, appearing at Mrs. Montague’s conversaziones, had the honour or the dishonour of giving the name of blue stockings to all the race; and never did race increase more rapidly than they have done from that time to this. There might be fear that all the daughters of the land should turn blue.—But as yet John Bull—thank Heaven! retains his good old privilege of “choose a wife and have a wife.”
The common female blue is indeed intolerable as a wife—opinionative and opinionated; and her opinion always is that her husband is wrong. John certainly has a rooted aversion to this whole class. There is the deep blue and the light; the light blues not esteemed—not admitted at Almacks. The deep-dyed in the nine times dyed blue—is that with which no man dares contend. The blue chatterer is seen and heard every where; it no man will attempt to silence by throwing the handkerchief.
The next species—the mock blue—is scarcely worth noticing; gone to ladies’ maids, dress-makers, milliners, &c., found of late behind counters, and in the oddest places. The blue mocking bird (it must be noted, though nearly allied to the last sort) is found in high as well as in low company; it is a provoking creature. The only way to silence it, and to prevent it from plaguing all neighbours and passengers, is never to mind it, or to look as if you minded it; when it stares at you, stare and pass on.
The conversazione blue, or bureau d’esprit blue. It is remarkable that in order to designate this order we are obliged to borrow from two foreign languages.—a proof that it is not natural to England; but numbers of this order have been seen of late years, chiefly in London and Bath, during the season. The bureau d’esprit, or conversazione blue, is a most hard-working creature—the servant of the servants of the public.—If a dinner-giving blue (and none others succeed well or long), Champagne and ice and the best of fish are indispensable. She may then be at home once a week in the evening, with a chance of having her house fuller than it can hold, of all the would-be wits and three or four of the leaders of London. Very thankful she must be for the honour of their company. She had need to have all the superlatives, in and out of the English language, at her tongue’s end; and when she has exhausted these, then she must invent new. She must have tones of admiration, and looks of ecstasy, for every occasion. At reading parties,—especially at her own house, she must cry—“charming!”—“delightful!” “quite original!” in the right places even in her sleep.—Awake or asleep she must read every thing that comes out that has a name, or she must talk as if she had—at her peril—to the authors themselves,—the irritable race!—She must know more especially every article in the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews; and at her peril too, must talk of these so as not to commit herself, so as to please the reviewer abusing, and the author abused; she must keep the peace between rival wits;—she must swallow her own vanity—many fail in this last attempt—choke publicly, and give it up.
I am sorry that so much has been said about the blues; sorry I mean that such a hue and cry has been raised against them all, good, bad, and indifferent. John Bull would have settled it best in his quiet way by just letting them alone, leaving the disagreeable ones to die off in single blessedness. But people got about John, and made him set up one of his “No popery” cries; and when becomes to that pitch be loses his senses and his common sense completely. “No blues!” “Down with the blues!”—now what good has all that done? only made the matter ten times worse. In consequence of this universal hubbub a new order of things has arisen.
The blue bore disguised, or the renegade blue. These may be detected by their extraordinary fear of being taken for blues. Hold up the picture, or even the sign of a blue bore before them, and they immediately write under it, “‘Tis none of me.” They spend their lives hiding their talent under a bushel; all the time in a desperate fright lest you should see it. A poor simple man does not know what to do about it, or what to say or think in their company, so as to behave himself rightly, and not to affront them. Solomon himself would be put to it, to make some of these authoresses unknown, avow or give up their own progeny. Their affectation is beyond the affectation of woman, and it makes all men sick.