The reader may find out hereafter, that had Mark Antony declined the offer of the rat-catcher, he might have pointed a moral, by “going further and faring worse.” Indeed, it would have been well for me had I the good luck of falling into as honest company, and short as the succeeding chapter is, I think it will establish that fact.
CHAPTER XV. LIFE IN LONDON.
“A plague upon this London! I shall have no luck in it.”
“Your town’s a damned good-for-nothing town,
I wish Î never had come into it.”
The West indian.
In one of those half-forgotten modes of transport, a sailing packet, denominated the Eclipse, I departed from the Pigeon House, and with a fair and steady breeze landed at Holyhead, after a short passage of nine hours. In those days this feat was accounted respectable; for in their transits from the emerald isle to the land of shopkeepers, it was no uncommon circumstance for ill-starred gentlemen to pass so many days and nights at sea, as to induce a belief that, in mistake, they had booked themselves in the Flying Dutchman, and consequently, had the pleasing prospect of sailing to eternity. I was still further fortunate in securing a seat in the London mail. In due time I reached the modern Babylon, transferred my person and effects from the White Horse Cellar to a Bond-street hotel, and there, for a limited period, established my household gods.
At this memorable epoch of my history, my first visit to the great metropolis, life in London was very different to what it is at present. Theatres were frequented by the upper classes, and Vauxhall was in all its glory. An English singer was then listened to; it was not considered disreputable to keep a native servant; and without loss of caste, a lady might submit her head to the curling irons of an artiste, who had been actually born and indoctrinated within sound of Bow bell. The clubs were few and exclusive. People resided in lodgings and hotels adapted to their ranks and pockets; in their mode of life a gentlemanly consistency was maintained: and a man who in noontide was the occupant of an edifice, erected with the costly expense formerly bestowed upon a palace, would not, on an alarm of fire at midnight, have been unkennelled from the back attic of a stay-maker, tenanted for the moderate consideration of three shillings and sixpence, “paid weekly and in advance.” Indeed, a sort of John Bullish principle pervaded society at large. If men staked large sums on questionable events, it was generally expected that they would pay, should their speculations prove unfortunate. The guards were frequently relieved to music not Rossini’s. Tailors who had never seen the Palais Royale, received instructions in bookkeeping from divers of the nobility; and a bootmaker—tell it not in Gath—was considered absolutely fashionable, albeit the unhappy man was afflicted with the desperate patronymic of O’Shaughnessy.