The system of visiting in high life is brought to perfection in this country. Were a lady to call in person upon all the numerous acquaintance whom she wishes sometimes to crowd together at her Grand Parties, her whole time would be too little to go from door to door. This, therefore, being confessedly impossible, the card-currency of etiquette was issued, and the name dropt by a servant, allowed to have the same saving virtue of civility as the real presence. But the servants began to find this a hard duty, and found out that they were working like postmen without any necessity for so doing; so they agreed at last to meet at certain pot-houses, and exchange cards, or leave them there as at a post-office, where each in turn calls to deposit all with which he is charged, and to receive all which are designed for him.
I have spoken elsewhere of the Turf, a road to fame always, and oftentimes to ruin; but for this so large a fortune is required, that the famous must always be few. A man, however, of moderate, or of no fortune, may acquire great glory by riding a score of horses almost or quite to death, for the sake of showing in how short a time he can go fifty leagues. Others, with a nobler ambition, delight in displaying their own speed. I know not whether Christoval de Mesa would have said of this sort of walking or of running, as he did of the game of pelota:
Es el que mas a la virtud se llega,
que ni entorpece, ni el ingenio embota,
antes da ligereza y exercita,
y pocos que la juegan tienen gota.[27]
I know not whether he would have said this of their exercise; but this I know, that some of the English gentlemen would make the best running footmen in the world.
Another school—to borrow a term from the Philosophers—is that of the Amateurs of Boxing, who call themselves the Fancy. They attend the academies of the two great professors Jackson and Mendoza, the Aristotle and Plato of pugilism,—bring up youths of promise from the country to be trained, and match them according to their wind, science, and bottom. But I am writing to the uninitiated,—bottom means courage, that sort of it which will endure a great deal. Too much vivacity is rather against a man; if he indulges in any flourishes or needless gesticulations he wastes his wind, and though he may be admitted to be a pleasant fighter, this is considered as a disadvantage. When the champion comes off victor, after suffering much in the contest, he is said to be much punished. There is something to be attended to besides science, which is the body: it is expedient to swallow raw eggs for the wind, and to feed upon beef as nearly raw as possible: they who do this, and practise with weights in their hands, are said to cultivate the muscles. Upon the brutality of this amusement I have already said something, nor is it needful to comment upon what is so apparent;—but it is just that I should now state what may truly be said in its defence. It is alleged, that in consequence of this custom, no people decide their quarrels with so little injury to each other as the English. The Dutch slice each other with their snickersnees; we know how deadly the knife is employed in our country;—the American twists the hair of his enemy round his thumb, and scoops out an eye with his finger;—but in England a boxing-match settles all disputes among the lower classes, and when it is over they shake hands, and are friends. Another equally beneficial effect is the security afforded to the weaker by the laws of honour, which forbid all undue advantages; the man who should aim a blow below the waist, who should kick his antagonist, strike him when he is down, or attempt to injure him after he had yielded, would be sure to experience the resentment of the mob, who, on such occasions, always assemble to see what they call fair play, which they enforce as rigidly as the Knights of the Round Table did the laws of chivalry.
The next persons to be noticed are those who seek notoriety by more respectable means; but, following wise pursuits foolishly, live in a sort of intellectual limbo between the worlds of Wisdom and Folly. The fashionable agriculturists are of this class: men who assume, as the creed of their philosophical belief, a foolish saying of some not very wise author, "That he who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, is the greatest benefactor to his species." With these persons, the noblest employment of human intellect is to improve the size of turnips and cabbages, and for this they lay aside all other studies. "When my friends come to see me in the summer," said one of these gentlemen, "I like to hear them complain that they have not been able to sleep in their beds for heat, because then I know things are growing out of doors." Quicquid amat valde amat, may truly be said of the Englishman; his pursuit always becomes his passion; and, if great follies are oftentimes committed in consequence of this ardour, it must not be forgotten that it leads also to great actions, and to important public benefits.
Of this class the breeders are the most remarkable, and least useful. Their object is to improve the cattle of the country, for which purpose they negotiate with the utmost anxiety the amours of their cows and sheep. Such objects, exclusively pursued, tend little to improve either the intellect or the manners:—these people will apply to a favourite pig, or a Herefordshire bull, the same epithets of praise and exclamations of delight, which a sculptor would bestow upon the Venus de Medici, or the Apollo Belvidere. This passion is carried to an incredible degree of folly: the great object of ambition is to make the animal as fat as possible, by which means it is diseased and miserable while it lives, and of no use to any but the tallow-chandler when dead. At this very time there is a man in London belonging to a fat ox, who has received more money for having fattened this ox than Newton obtained for all his discoveries, or Shakspeare for all his works. Crowds go to see the monster, which is a shapeless mass of living fat. A picture has been painted both of man and beast, a print engraved from it in order that the one may be immortalized as the fattest ox that ever was seen, and the other, as the man that fed him to that size; and two thousand persons have subscribed for this at a guinea each. A fat pig has been set up against him, which, I know not why, does not seem to take. The pig is acknowledged to be a pig of great merit, but he is in a manner neglected, and his man complains of the want of taste in the public.