I insist on this point a little, because the moral and virtuous ladies and gentlemen of the Victorian era are in the habit of averting their faces from the lamentable depravity of former ages, as if it were some once rampant monster now defunct, and because the change in our manners is vulgarly attributed to the influence of the Court. The latter delusion arises from the common error of mistaking cause for effect; the open profligacy of former reigns is discarded in the same way as that of our literature and theatre; the modus vivendi of the Georges is archæological; if such doings and sayings are any longer, they are under the rose.
But it is a pharisaical absurdity to give out that there is no such matter as low life upstairs nowadays. Alas! it is too rife; and, it being so, we have surely no right to be so very hard on Whitechapel and the New Cut. That the general tone of the British community is higher and purer proceeds from the influential preponderance of the middle class; and the court, and in general the aristocracy, conform to the march of civilisation.
Queer stories must be inter nos. Altered circumstances have rendered it impracticable to bring them into print or to introduce them upon the boards. Be thankful for small mercies; but do not, my dear contemporaries, flatter yourselves that you are, warp and woof, much better than those who read on their first appearance the Hundred Merry Tales and the Merry Tales and Quick Answers, or that by reading them you would be made much worse!
CHAPTER XV.
Facetious Biographies.
LEAVING behind us these two admirable productions, we encounter an interesting group of compilations, which differ essentially from them in structure and treatment. They constitute a sort of family of books, and are of a biographical cast, with an imperfect attempt at chronological sequence. I shall enumerate some of them:—
The Jests of the Widow Edith.
The Merry Tales of Skelton.
The Jests of Scogin.
Tarlton’s Jests.
The Merry Conceited Jests of George Peele.
The Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson.
Dobson’s Dry Bobs.