CHAPTER XV.
Remarks on costume and manners in the time of Anne—Literary men, their habits and station in society—The system of patronage—Its effects in degrading the moral character of writers—In producing not only flattery, but slander—Mrs. De la Rivière Manley—Dr. Drake—Prior—Congreve.
The manners and spirit of the period of which we treat are so fully exemplified in those periodical publications of the day, which are in the hands of every English reader, that no digression for the purpose of illustrating the mode of social life, with which we are all so familiar, appears necessary. With the costumes of the fashionable world, the pages of the “Tatler,” “Spectator,” and other works, have rendered us intimately acquainted. It is sufficient to remark, that in this last respect the customs which prevailed in the reign of William were but slightly varied when Steel and Addison handed them down to fame. Formality of manner, and decorum in dress, had already succeeded the negligence and indelicacy of the preceding century. Still there were gross absurdities creeping into vogue. As we have ever borrowed the most startling extravagances from the French, so we owed to Louis the Fourteenth the long reign of perukes, in the adoption of which we were servile copyists, until good sense drove out those disfiguring encumbrances, and left mankind free to breathe and to move untrammelled. When Anne reigned, many lived, more especially amongst the sons of the aristocracy, who could scarcely remember to have worn their own locks. Boys were quickly disguised in flowing curls—the higher the rank, the greater the profusion. Thence they rose to the dignity of a scratch for their undress, and to that of the waving flaxen peruke, called by a wag, “the silver fleece.” White wigs, frosted with powder, had succeeded the dark curling perukes which were in vogue in the reign of Charles the Second; and the use of powder had become lamentably universal. For this extravagance outraged nature was indebted, also, to that most artificial of human beings, Louis the Fourteenth, whose very statues were laden with enormous wigs; and the monarch himself wore one even in bed.[[486]]
William the Third seldom varied his dress; but, after the accession of Anne, female extravagance and male absurdity rose to their climax. Whilst the summit of each exquisite courtier was crowned with a flowing peruke, redolent of perfume, and replete with powder, on the which sat a small cocked-hat, his nether proportions were mounted aloft on high heels, affixed to varnished and stiffened boots, or to shoes garnished with large buckles. The costume of the present court dress, with its accompaniments of plain cravats and lace ruffles, completes the picture.
The ladies of the court of Anne were befitting partners for such objects. Their hair was curled and frizzed, and in the early part of the eighteenth century it rose high, surmounted by a sort of veil or lappet, but diminished to a small caul with two lappets, termed a mob. Raised heels continued in vogue to a very late period; whilst hoops, in Anne’s time, were in their infancy, commencing in what was then called a “commode,” which gently raised and set out the flowing train. In this respect our fair ancestresses resembled our modern ladies; but in one essential point they differed greatly. Modesty of attire, brought into public estimation by the example of their truly respectable Queen, was uniformly studied; and the loose and indelicate style in which Sir Godfrey Kneller and Sir Peter Lely painted the female aristocracy, was to be seen no more. With some deviations, the commendable practice of being adequately clothed, continued until after the time of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose portraits bear out the fact, that decency of apparel in his days, as it had been in those before him, distinguished a gentlewoman from a female of loose character. Unhappily for the nineteenth century, this distinction is now thoughtlessly abandoned.
Concerning the immorality of our forefathers, many hints must necessarily, in the course of this work, escape, without any intention of enlarging upon so disagreeable a subject. There is little doubt but that the free strictures of the public press, conjoined with the influence and example of the court, served greatly to check the misrule and reckless profligacy which, even in the sober days of William, had been accounted spirited and fashionable by the young nobility and their sycophants. The “Hectors,” a species of the bravo genus, were the illustrious predecessors of the “Mohawks,”[[487]] whose inglorious courses have been the subjects of so much admirable satire from Addison,[[488]] and who have gradually subsided into a description of creature less dangerous, though perhaps equally reprehensible and offensive. The female portion of the community, among the higher ranks, are described by a contemporary writer to have been the slaves of punctilio and ceremony, and to have sat, in all the stateliness of their costume, “silent as statues”[[489]] in the company of men,—amongst whom alone cultivation of the intellect, in those days, had become general.
No sooner was a settled monarchy established, and the country relieved from the dreaded dangers of a second civil war, than literature revived, and resumed the flourishing aspect, though not the sound and vigorous condition, to which, in the days of Elizabeth, it had happily attained. The impoverished state of a great portion of the country, and the decay of many ancient and once wealthy families, rendered the pursuit of literature essential as a profession to those who preferred walking in the paths of science, or following the footsteps of the Muses, to the perilous duties of a soldier, or to the service of a church torn by contentions, and threatened with hourly destruction.
The profession of letters is supposed to have been at its height of prosperity during the middle and latter part of the reign of Anne. Some unpleasant peculiarities, however, attended its exercise. Since those days, the extension of education, and the general taste for knowledge which has consequently been diffused, have gradually effected a considerable change in the position of literary men. The lettered and the scientific are now able to rise to fame independent of individual patronage, excepting in instances of extreme poverty, by which the exertions are either shackled or turned into different and inferior channels.
In the times of Anne, that approbation of literary merit which is necessary to its existence, and which gradually swells into an universal tribute to genius, originated with the higher orders of society, or, at least, if unparticipated by them, languished and died away. In our own days, on the contrary, it is the testimony of the middle classes to merits which they are now qualified to discern, and the gratification which they manifest in the productions of the lettered world, which lead the way to what is vaguely called popularity. It is not easy to define the causes of this remarkable change in one part of our social economy.
From the exclusive enjoyment of the privileges of education, which were confined to the higher classes, and by them only moderately enjoyed, arose the system of patronage which, for nearly a century, regulated the commonwealth of letters. The benefits conferred proceeded solely from the nobility and richer gentry, amongst whom literature and the arts found that protection which is now derived from the common tribute of mankind. No distinction was accounted greater, among the nobility, than the power, and disposition, to reward literary merit. To be a patron of the learned, to protect, with more effectual aids than mere empty commendations, some one, if not several, of the needy wits who came to the metropolis on speculation, was as essential a line of conduct to any young nobleman who aspired to fashionable distinction, as it is now to belong to a certain order of society, or to possess the attributes, without which gentlemen, in every age, must sooner or later sink in the estimation of their own class. There were few of the stately halls and pleasure saloons of the noblemen of that time, in which some learned dependent was not to be seen, sharing the festivities, and enhancing the social pleasures of the liberal patron, whom he failed not to repay in sonorous verse, or with dedications in prose, of lofty phraseology. The old system of remunerating dedications by sums of money, unhesitatingly offered and unblushingly received, prevailed even until the close of the eighteenth century. More solid advantages were also derived to the fortunate literati by patronage. The celebrated St. Evremond took his seat at Devonshire-house, pensioned by its high-minded and noble owner, and experienced such liberality in England, that he declined returning to France, even when not only permitted, but encouraged to dwell in his native country. Dryden had his Buckingham and his Ormonde, ducal patrons with whom he lived on terms of familiarity; and Congreve had friends no less elevated in rank, the Dukes of Marlborough and of Newcastle. Halifax, as we have seen, was “fed with dedications,” by Steele and others. Gay had his Queensberry, in whose stately abode he was absolutely domesticated. Innumerable other instances might be adduced.