De Libris: Prose and Verse Part 2

[9] Count Pa.s.seran was a freethinking n.o.bleman who wrote _A Philosophical Discourse on Death_, in which he defended suicide, though he refrained from resorting to it himself. Pope refers to him in the _Epilogue to the Satires_, Dialogue i. 124:--

If Blount despatch'd himself, he play'd the man, And so may'st thou, ill.u.s.trious Pa.s.seran!

_Nil admirari_ is the motto of the Man of Taste in Building, where he is naturally at home. He can see no symmetry in the Banqueting House, or in St. Paul's Covent Garden, or even in St. Paul's itself.

Sure wretched _Wren_ was taught by bungling _Jones_, To murder mortar, and disfigure stones!

"Substantial" Vanbrugh he likes-=chiefly because his work would make "such n.o.ble ruins." Cost is his sole criterion, and here he, too, seems to glance obliquely at Canons:--

_Dorick, Ionick,_ shall not there be found, But it shall cost me threescore thousand pound.

But this was moderate, as the Edgware "folly" reached 250,000. In Gardening he follows the latest whim for landscape. Here is his burlesque of the principles of Bridgeman and Batty Langley:--

Does it not merit the beholder's praise, What's high to sink? and what is low to raise?

Slopes shall ascend where once a green-house stood, And in my horse-pond I will plant a wood.

Let misers dread the h.o.a.rded gold to waste, Expence and alteration show a _Taste_.

As a connoisseur of Painting this enlightened virtuoso is given over to Hogarth's hated dealers in the Black Masters:--

In curious paintings I'm exceeding nice, And know their several beauties by their _Price_.

_Auctions_ and _Sales_ I constantly attend, But chuse my pictures by a _skilful Friend_, Originals and copies much the same, The picture's value is the _painter's name_.[10]

Of Sculpture he says--

In spite of _Addison_ and ancient _Rome_, Sir _Cloudesly Shovel's_ is my fav'rite tomb.[11]

How oft have I with admiration stood, To view some City-magistrate in wood?

I gaze with pleasure on a Lord May'r's head Cast with propriety in gilded lead,--

the allusion being obviously to Cheere's manufactory of such popular garden decorations at Hyde Park Corner.

Notes:

[10]: See _post_, "M. Ronquet on the Arts," p. 51.

[11]: "Sir _Cloudesly Shovel's_ Monument has very often given me great Offence: Instead of the brave rough English Admiral, which was the distinguis.h.i.+ng Character of that plain, gallant Man, he is represented on his Tomb [in Westminster Abbey] by the Figure of a Beau, dressed in a long Perriwig, and reposing himself upon Velvet Cus.h.i.+ons under a Canopy of State" (_Spectator_, March 30, 1711).

In Coins and Medals, true to his instinct for liking the worst the best, he prefers the modern to the antique. In Music, with Hogarth's Rake two years later, he is all for that "Dagon of the n.o.bility and gentry,"

imported song:--

Without _Italian_, or without an ear, To _Bononcini's_ musick I adhere;--

though he confesses to a partiality for the bagpipe on the ground that your true Briton "loves a grumbling noise," and he favours organs and the popular oratorios. But his "top talent is a bill of fare":--

Sir Loins and rumps of beef offend my eyes,[12]

Pleas'd with frogs frica.s.s[e]ed, and c.o.xcomb-pies.

Dishes I chuse though little, yet genteel, _Snails_[13] the first course, and _Peepers_[14] crown the meal.

Pigs heads with hair on, much my fancy please, I love young colly-flowers if stew'd in cheese, And give ten guineas for a pint of peas!

No tatling servants to my table come, My Grace is _Silence_, and my waiter _Dumb_.

He is not without his aspirations.

Could I the _priviledge_ of _Peer_ procure, The rich I'd bully, and oppress the poor.

To _give_ is wrong, but it is wronger still, On any terms to _pay_ a tradesman's bill.

I'd make the insolent Mechanicks stay, And keep my ready-money all for _play_.

I'd try if any pleasure could be found In _tossing-up_ for twenty thousand pound.

Had I whole Counties, I to _White's_ would go, And set lands, woods, and rivers at a throw.

But should I meet with an unlucky run, And at a throw be gloriously undone; My _debts of honour_ I'd discharge the first, Let all my _lawful creditors_ be curst.

Notes:

[12] As they did those of Goldsmith's "Beau Tibbs." "I hate your immense loads of meat ... extreme disgusting to those who are in the least acquainted with high life" (_Citizen of the World_, 1762, i.

241).

[13]: The edible or Roman snail (_Helix pomatia_) is still known to continental cuisines--and gipsy camps. It was introduced into England as an epicure's dish in the seventeenth century.

[14]: Young chickens.

Here he perfectly exemplifies that connexion between connoisseurs.h.i.+p and play which Fielding discovers in Book xiii. of _Tom Jones_.[15] An anecdote of C.J. Fox aptly exhibits the final couplet in action, and proves that fifty years later, at least, the same convenient code was in operation. Fox once won about eight thousand pounds at cards. Thereupon an eager creditor promptly presented himself, and pressed for payment.

"Impossible, Sir," replied Fox," I must first discharge my debts of honour." The creditor expostulated. "Well, Sir, give me your bond." The bond was delivered to Fox, who tore it up and flung the pieces into the fire. "Now, Sir," said he, "my debt to you is a debt of honour," and immediately paid him.[16]

Notes:

[15] "But the science of gaming is that which above all others employs their thoughts [i.e. the thoughts of the 'young gentlemen of our times']. These are the studies of their graver hours, while for their amus.e.m.e.nts they have the vast circle of connoisseurs.h.i.+p, painting, music, statuary, and natural philosophy, or rather _unnatural_, which deals in the wonderful, and knows nothing of nature, except her monsters and imperfections" (ch. v.).

[16] _Table Talk of Samuel Rogers_ [by Dyce], 1856, p. 73.

But we must abridge our levies on Pope's imitator. In Dress the Man of Taste's aim seems to have been to emulate his own footman, and at this point comes in the already quoted reference to velvet "inexpressibles"--(a word which, the reader may be interested to learn, is as old as 1793). His "pleasures," as might be expected, like those of Goldsmith's Switzers, "are but low"--

To boon companions I my time would give, With players, pimps, and parasites I'd live.

I would with _Jockeys_ from _Newmarket_ dine, And to _Rough-riders_ give my choicest wine ...

My ev'nings all I would with _sharpers_ spend, And make the _Thief-catcher_ my bosom friend.

In _Fig_, the Prize-fighter, by day delight, And sup with _Colly Cibber_ ev'ry night.

At which point--and probably in his cups--we leave our misguided fine gentleman of 1733, doubtless a fair sample of many of his cla.s.s under the second George, and not wholly unknown under that monarch's successors--even to this hour. _Le jour va pa.s.ser; mais la folie ne pa.s.sera pas!_

A parting quotation may serve to ill.u.s.trate one of those changes of p.r.o.nunciation which have taken place in so many English words. Speaking of his villa, or country-box, the Man of Taste says--

Pots o'er the door I'll place like Cits balconies, Which _Bently_ calls the _Gardens of Adonis_.

To make this a peg for a dissertation on the jars of lettuce and fennel grown by the Greeks for the annual Adonis festivals, is needless. But it may be noted that Bramston, with those of his day,--Swift excepted,--scans the "o" in balcony long, a practice which continued far into the nineteenth century. "Contemplate," said Rogers, "is bad enough; but balcony makes me sick."[17] And even in 1857, two years after Rogers's death, the late Frederick Locker, writing of _Piccadilly_, speaks of "Old Q's" well-known window in that thoroughfare as "Primrose balcony."

Note:

[17:]_Table Talk_, 1856, p. 248.