Page images
PDF
EPUB

still. Or perhaps it turns out that the marine villa is full: somehow or other, like the course of true love, the way of the tourist rarely runs smooth. The plans then have all to be changed, and the very porter's book searched for a dear friend whose house does not lie too far a-field for a bivouac, or perhaps for an encampment.

This may seem strange, considering that the aristocracy all know each other; and that it is but to step beyond the pale, and a lord is at all times, a welcome guest every where. But the matter is not simply to find houseroom, but to kill the condemned time tolerably; and a country-house is a prison, if all things are not convenables. It generally turns out, then, in making these arrangements, that Lord this is so violent in his politics, Lord that is so particular about his preserves, Sir Harry is such a bore, Lady Betty has turned serious, or Lord Charles's wife (whose house is really delectable), is a divorcée. With such drawbacks, who would be shut up any where for a fortnight? It were better to go home at once,— the last place in the world to seek amusement in, unless one should be a regular prig, and dote on the hat-worship of tenants, the importance attached to justice work, or the incense of the family apothecary, and the parson with his long family to provide for.

Descending a step in the hierarchy of rank and fashion, we come to those who have a less command of friends and resources, and for these the watering-places are open;—that is, as soon as the summer is over, and the south-westers set in-when the houses become water-courses, and the sea-beach ceases to be tenable. Before that time, Ramsgate and Brighton are in the hands of the London shopkeepers, and "no decent person can show his face in them." Leamington is bearable, if you hunt, and are not up to Melton: for whatever our station, non cuivis homini contingit, to attain to that distinction. But if you do not relish the pitting your own neck against a fox's brush, if you would rather ride through a gate than over it, and prefer passing over a river to going through it (and de gustibus non est disputandum), there is nothing left for it, in the way of amusement at Leamington, but dyspepsia and a course of mutton-chops. Under all circumstances, Cheltenham is a disqualified retreat, and is abandoned to East Indian nabobs, to West India planters, and to city aldermen with ventral protuberances, and indurated livers. The fact is that exclusiveness has ruined the wateringplaces. If any one doubts how much pleasure has lost by this sacrifice to pride, let him consult Count Hamilton's ever delightful memoirs, and compare the Tonbridge of Charles II.'s days, with the dreary, deserted Pantiles, of modern times. Then, it was all fun and no accommodation; now, there are palaces in plenty, and very great people to inhabit them: but as for fun, you might as well look for it in a methodist meeting. Whatever else you do with your time, no one goes to the wells; save a few pale-faced girls-for the waters alone remain unchanged amidst the general revolution of all things Tonbridgean. Then, again, there is Bath-a second Nineveh. What a pity that no stand has been made in favour of Bath, the seat of all that was charming, from Bladud to Anstey. Who ever listened to Lady Rodolpha Lumbercourt's delicious description of the rooms, without longing for a visit? Not even smellfungus Smollett can make the place otherwise than delightful. Why, then, might not its fashion be revived, though but for a season? Why might it not once more be rendered exclusive, at least

till the Great Western railroad shall be completed, and Cornwall itself taken in as a tea-garden to the metropolis?

At best, however, watering-places must be but second-rate affairs, "cheap repositories" for dowager notabilities, asylums of refuge for those who can do no better. A Morning Post celebrity they may have for a while; and whim and caprice may give them a temporary vogue: but not even royalty could fix their destinies, or make them desirable retreats for the real élite. Most people, therefore, are really enchanted when they have done this portion of their out-of-town task.

Christmas, as the children say, comes but once a year, but sooner or later, it does come; that is later to schoolboys and tradesmen in want of ready money, and sooner to the men of "lands and beeves," to whom it is an epoch of obligations and necessities. At Christmas, the estated gentry must do the hospitable: and for that purpose they must go home. Then it is that electioneering duties fall heavily; that the county is to be invited, the mayor and jurats to be feasted, and even the town-clerk to be asked-once. Then aunts, cousins, and younger brothers must be assembled, and the whole host of family dependants treated with common civility. Then, too, come the annual settling with the steward, the signing of bonds and mortgages, for a provision to be made for the expenses of the last season; and last of all, after having made a common hotel of the mansion, it becomes converted to an hermitage, the festivities (!) are over, and the innkeeper is left and abandoned by his velvet friends to a six weeks tête-à-tête with his lady wife or the gamekeeper.

Time, however, passes on, pass it ever so slowly; and the season arrives when it is decent to leave the country and repair to Paris. This, in fact, is the only endurable retreat for such as cannot be in town; for with a little management, Paris may be made very like London. Yet, out alas! how fallen off is Paris since the Faubourg has been deserted, and the citizen king tabooed as mauvais ton. To apply Talleyrand's joke on himself, the revolution of 1830, was the vingt de Mars of the English exclusives in Paris. Things, however, are now beginning to take up; and if the court still retains some teinture de Bourgeoisie, what between Russian princes, German high transparencies, a travelling sovereign or so, in a plain frock-coat, and a pseudonyme, and the British embassy, with half a dozen gregarious London top-sawyers, Paris may still be endurable for the short period, till parliament meets, and the Italians return to the Haymarket.

It might be imagined with all these resources, clogged as they may be with drawbacks, that time need not hang heavily on the hands of the most désauvés: but then the non-season of London recurs every year. This vast routine is all very well for once in a life, but decies repetita, we cannot say placebit. To a man of fashion who has passed his thirtieth year, there is not a milestone in Europe unknown, there's not a capital unexplored. Nay, if he be given to yachting, he is familiar with every port in the Mediterranean and the Baltic. He is as intimate with Cheops, as with the Speaker of the house of commons,-with Pompey's Pillar, as with that in Carlton-gardens. The Atmeidan at Constantinople is to him but another Tattersall's, and he is as sick of the Parthenon at Athens, as of the architectural flat-candlestick in Langhamplace. The Rhine to such a man is as stale, and unprofitable as his

own cabbage-garden; Munich and Dresden are scarcely a thought better than the exhibition in Trafalgar-square; and as for St. Petersburg-nobody goes there twice. Besides, if a man be saddled with a family, he must stick to the highways, and then a mill-horse has more variety. To such a degree has the whole habitable world been ransacked for something to visit, that it has become fashionable to go even to Ireland; and during the autumnal months, the viceroy's court is thronged with the British aristocracy, and with rising young members in search of an idea and a speech. Nay, if the steam-packets have not opened America to the frequenters of Margate, and if Captain Marryat has not. written it down, we should not be surprised to see an united service club rise up in the Broadway of New York, or a chapel of ease to Crockford's opened at New Orleans.

Under such circumstances, the end of the season is no joke; the necessity of going somewhere no luxury.-The tournament was a bright thought in the way of novelty; but its rain is over; and there's nothing more to be hoped for in that quarter. Neither can we indulge in the expectation of an early repetition of the coronation at Milan, or a congress of sovereigns at Toplitz. The poor Sultan, too, is no more; and it is all over with the chance of a rendezvous in the opera-house, that was to be, on the banks of the Bosphorus. We must therefore press it forcibly on the attention of our readers to dedicate some portion of the remainder of the present non-season, to a mature reflection on what shall be done in next August. Let an inquiry be forthwith set on foot as to where people think of going, and what the city which shall be the place of banishment. Dreadful is the embarrassment which every one feels for want of this forethought. It is a mystery quite inexplicable how an agreement is at last effected on this point, or how the matter is settled, and the place assigned where a room in an hotel shall not be had for love or money, where the prices of all the necessaries of life shall be doubled, and the natives driven away to make room for the English. We never see the road to Dover covered with coronetted chariots, and family coaches and four, without wondering who told the occupants which road to take. Yet there they are, in due season, as regular as the woodcocks. "Methinks I see them now," as Lady Grace says, hurrying, as if heaven-directed, to a fixed point, with the lady's maid and valet before, the bloated butler and pursy coachman squeezed into the rumble behind-a —a pile of imperials on the roof (a Pelion upon Ossa), hatboxes and necessaries slung from every " coin of 'vantage," a leather soupente under the body of the vehicle, and an iron shoe swinging below, by a chain that would close an harbour. There they go, helter-skelter, like Trinculo and his companions, in pursuit of an ignis futuus, and “a tune played by the picture of nobody;"-Heaven send them a good deliverance !

THE WIDOW MARRIED.*

BY MRS. TROLLOPE.

CHAP. XVIII.

NATURAL ANTIPATHY, AND STRONG AFFECTION-NECESSITY OWNS NO LAWS BUT HER OWN-THE MISS PERKINSES OWN THIS SOLEMN TRUTH, AND PREPARE TO LEAVE BRIGHTON-FRIENDSHIP MAKES AN EFFORT TO PREVENT IT, BUT FAILS-LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF LOVE.

NOTWITHSTANDING the sudden departure of General Hubert and his family, the memory of their greatness, like the light-diffusing tail of a comet, remained behind them, and Mrs. O'Donagough continued to be a person of unquestionable importance with all her Brighton acquaintance. The circle, indeed, was not a large one; her affections, as she observed to every member of it, having been too much centred on her own relations to leave her leisure for cultivating the miscellaneous friendship of the world at large.

"I know this is not right," said she, "I am quite aware that it is one's duty to be condescending and civil to every body; but with me it is always the heart that speaks, and it would be in vain to attempt struggling with my affection for my darling niece, Mrs. Hubert, and her dear family-they have made me positively neglect every body else; but I cannot help it! Those who know her, will appreciate the attraction, and forgive me; while by those who do not, I must submit to be accounted fastidious, exclusive, and most abominably proud."

Mr. O'Donagough, who when he was not meditating on matters more important would frequently derive considerable amusement from listening to his wife, now and then indulged in a little quiet quizzing at her expense; but she had too much good sense to take a great deal of notice of it, and generally contrived, indeed, to end by having much the best of it in her own opinion.

One point on which he particularly liked to attack her, was on the change in their relative positions, as to their intercourse with the Stephenson family. He remembered their first visit, and the secondary part he had acted upon that occasion, which he loved to contrast with the one now allotted him.

"I cannot think how it is, my dear, that you see so very little of your own near connexion, Mrs. Stephenson, while I am got so pleasantly intimate with her husband; but it seems really as if you counted for nothing with them," said he.

"The reason for that is plain enough, Mr. O'Donagough—I cannot abide that little idiot woman; in fact I perfectly hate the sight of her, odious doll! lolling almost at full length in her open carriage, just to make every body stare at her, with a dozen children like so many monkeys stuck up behind and before, to make up the show."

"Don't agitate yourself, my dear!" resumed the gentleman, in a

Continued from No. ccxxvi., page 229.

[graphic][ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »