-THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON-
Let us sing of lighter themes. Take, for instance, the great subject of Swagger. There is still Swagger, even in these days; cavalry officers in garrison towns are still supposed to swagger. Eton boys swagger in their own little village; undergraduates swagger. The putting on of ‘side,’ by the way, is a peculiarly modern form of swagger: it is the assumption of certain qualities and powers which are considered as deserving of respect. Swagger, fifty years ago, was a coarser kind of thing. Officers swaggered; men of rank swaggered; men of wealth swaggered; gentlemen in military frogs—there are no longer any military frogs—swaggered in taverns, clubs, and in the streets. The adoption of quiet manners; the wearing of rank with unobtrusive dignity; the possession of wealth without ostentation; of wit without the desire to be always showing it—these are points in which we are decidedly in advance of our fathers. There was a great deal of cuff and collar, stock and breastpin about the young fellows of the day. They were oppressive in their gallantry: in public places they asserted themselves; they were loud in their talk. In order to understand the young man of the day, one may study the life and career of that gay and gallant gentleman, the Count d’Orsay, model and paragon for all young gentlemen of his time.
OFFICER OF THE DRAGOON GUARDS
They were louder in their manners, and in their conversation they were insulting, especially the wits. Things were said by these gentlemen, even in a duelling age, which would be followed in these days by a violent personal assault. In fact, the necessity of fighting a duel if you kicked a man seems to have been the cause why men were constantly allowed to call each other, by implication, Fool, Ass, Knave, and so forth. So very disagreeable a thing was it to turn out in the early morning, in order to be shot at, that men stood anything rather than subject themselves to it. Consider the things said by Douglas Jerrold, for instance. They are always witty, of course, but they are often mere insults. Yet nobody seems ever to have fallen upon him. And not only this kind of thing was permitted, but things of the grossest taste passed unrebuked. For instance, only a few years before our period, at Holland House—not at a club, or a tavern, or a tap-room, but actually at Holland House, the most refined and cultured place in London—the following conversation once passed.
They were asking who was the worst man in the whole of history—a most unprofitable question; and one man after the other was proposed. Among the company present was the Prince Regent himself. ‘I,’ said Sydney Smith—no other than Sydney Smith, if you please—‘have always considered the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France, to have been the worst man in all history; and he,’ looking at the illustrious guest, ‘was a Prince.’ A dead silence followed, broken by the Prince himself. ‘For my own part,’ he said, ‘I have always considered that he was excelled by his tutor, the Abbé Dubois; and he was a priest, Mr. Sydney.’ Considering the reputation of the Prince, and the kind of life he was generally supposed to be leading, one can hardly believe that any man would have had the impudence and the bad taste to make such a speech.
Alfred d Orsay
-COUNT d’ORSAY-
We still constantly hear, in the modern School for Scandal, remarks concerning the honour, the virtue, the cleverness, the ability, the beauty, the accomplishments of our friends. But it is behind their backs. We no longer try to put the truth openly before them. We stab in the back; but we no longer attack in front. One ought not to stab at all; but the back is a portion of the frame which feels nothing. So far the change is a distinct gain.