ADDRESS TO YOUNG STUDENTS.
Young Gentlemen,
Having attentively perused the foregoing pages, you will be desirous, it is to be presumed, of carrying still further those comical pursuits in which, with both pleasure and profit to yourselves, you have been lately engaged. Should such be your laudable intention, you will learn, with feelings of lively satisfaction, that it is one, in the accomplishment of which, thanks to Modern Taste, you will find encouragement at every step. The literature of the day is professedly comic, and of the few works which are not made ludicrous by the design of their authors, the majority are rendered so in spite of it. In the course of your reading, however, you will be frequently brought into contact with hackney-coachmen, cabmen, lackeys, turnkeys, thieves, lawyers’ clerks, medical students, and other people of that description, who are all very amusing when properly viewed, as the monkeys and such like animals at the Zoological Gardens are, when you look at them through the bars of their cage. But too great familiarity with persons of this class is sure to breed contempt, not for them and their manners, but for the usages and modes of expression adopted in parlours and drawing-rooms, that is to say, in good society. Nay, it is very likely to cause those who indulge in it to learn various tricks and eccentricities, both of behaviour and speech, for “It is certain, that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught, as men take diseases, one of another.” Shakspere.
Beset thus, as you will necessarily be, by perils and dangers in your wanderings amid the fields of Comicality, you will derive great advantage from knowing before-hand what you are likely to meet with, and what it will be incumbent on you to avoid. It is to furnish you with this information that the following hints and instructions are intended.
Be careful, when you hear yourself called by name, to reply “Here I am,” and not “Here you are,” an error into which you are very likely to be led by the perusal of existing authors.
When you partake, if it be your habit to do so, of the beverage called porter, drink it as you would water, or any other liquid. Do not wink your eye, or nod sideways to your companion; such actions, especially when preceded by blowing away the foam which collects on the top of the vessel, being exceedingly inelegant: and in order that you may not be incommoded by this foam or froth, always pour the fluid gently into a tumbler, instead of drinking it out of the metallic tankard in which it is usually brought to you.
In asking for malt liquor generally, never request the waiter to “draw it mild;” and do not, on any occasion, be guilty of using the same phrase in a metaphorical sense, that is to say, as a substitute, for “Do it quietly.” “Be gentle,” and the like.
Never exhort young ladies, during a quadrille, to “fake away,” or to “flare up,” for they, being unacquainted with the meaning of such terms, will naturally conclude that it is an improper one.
Call all articles of dress by their proper names. What delight can be found by a thinking mind in designating a hat as a tile, trousers, kickseys, a neckerchief, a fogle, or a choker; or a great coat, an upper Benjamin? And never speak of clothes, collectively, as togs or toggery.
Avoid inquiries after the health of another person’s mother, using that word synonymously with Mamma, to denote a female parent. Though you may be really innocent of any intention to be rude, your motives may very possibly be misconstrued. Remember, also, on no account to put questions, either to friends or strangers, respecting the quantity of soap in their possession.