Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 by Various
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Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOL. 1.
FOR THE WEEK ENDING SEPTEMBER 5, 1841.
* * * * *
THE GENTLEMAN'S OWN BOOK.
[Illustration: O]Our consideration must now be given to those essentials
in the construction of a true gentleman--the cut, ornaments, and pathology
of his dress.
THE CUT
is to the garment what the royal head and arms are to the coin--the
insignia that give it currency. No matter what the material, gold or
copper, Saxony or sackcloth, the die imparts a value to the one, and the
shears to the other.
Ancient Greece still lives in its marble demi-gods; the vivifying chisel
of Phidias was thought worthy to typify the sublimity of Jupiter; the
master-hand of Canova wrought the Parian block into the semblance of the
sea-born goddess, giving to insensate stone the warmth and etheriality of
the Paphian paragon; and Stultz, with his grace-bestowing shears, has
fashioned West of England broad-cloths, and fancy goods, into all the
nobility and gentility of the "Blue Book," the "Court Guide," the "Army,
Navy, and Law Lists, for 1841."
Wondrous and kindred arts! The sculptor wrests the rugged block from the
rocky ribs of his mother earth;--the tailor clips the implicated "_long
hogs_"[1] from the prolific backs of the living mutton;--the toothless
saw, plied by an unweayring hand, prepares the stubborn mass for the
chisel's tracery;--the loom, animated by steam (that gigantic child of
Wallsend and water), twists and twines the unctuous and pliant fleece into
the silky Saxony.
[1] The first growth of wool.
The sculptor, seated in his _studio_, throws loose the reins of his
imagination, and, conjuring up some perfect ideality, seeks to impress the
beautiful illusion on the rude and undigested mass before him. The tailor
spreads out, upon his ample board, the happy broadcloth; his eyes scan the
"measured proportions of his client," and, with mystic power, guides the
obedient pipe-clay into the graceful diagram of a perfect gentleman. The
sculptor, with all the patient perseverance of genius, conscious of the
greatness of its object, chips, and chips, and chips, from day to day; and
as the stone quickens at each touch, he glows with all the pride of the
creative Prometheus, mingled with the gentler ecstacies of paternal love.
The tailor, with fresh-ground shears, and perfect faith in the gentility
and solvency of his "client," snips, and snips, and snips, until the
"superfine" grows, with each abscission, into the first style of elegance
and fashion, and the excited schneider feels himself "every inch a king,"
his shop a herald's college, and every brown paper pattern garnishing its
walls, an escutcheon of gentility.
But to dismount from our Pegasus, or, in other words, to cut the poetry,
and come to the practice of our subject, it is necessary that a perfect
gentleman should be cut _up_ very high, or cut _down_ very low--_i.e._, up
to the marquis or down to the jarvey. Any intermediate style is perfectly
inadmissible; for who above the grade of an attorney would wear a coat
with pockets inserted in the tails, like salt-boxes; or any but an
incipient Esculapius indulge in trousers that evinced a morbid ambition to
become knee-breeches, and were only restrained in their aspirations by a
pair of most strenuous straps. We will now proceed to details.
_The dressing-gown_ should be cut only--for the arm holes; but be careful
that the quantity of material be very ample--say four times as much as is
positively necessary, for nothing is so characteristic of a perfect
gentleman as his improvidence. This garment must be constructed without
buttons or button-holes, and confined at the waist with cable-like
bell-ropes and tassels. This elegant _deshabille_ had its origin (like the
Corinthian capital from the Acanthus) in accident. A set of massive
window-curtains having been carelessly thrown over a lay figure, or
tailor's _torso_, in Nugee's _studio_, in St. James's-street, suggested to
the luxuriant mind of the Adonisian D'Orsay, this beautiful combination of
costume and upholstery. The eighteen-shilling chintz great-coats, so
ostentatiously put forward by nefarious tradesmen as dressing-gowns, and
which resemble pattern-cards of the vegetable kingdom, are unworthy the
notice of all gentlemen--of course excepting those who are so by act of
Parliament. Although it is generally imagined that the coat is the
principal article of dress, _we_ attach far greater importance to the
trousers, the cut of which should, in the first place, be regulated by
nature's cut of the leg. A gentleman who labours under either a convex or
a concave leg, cannot be too particular in the arrangement of the
strap-draught. By this we mean that a concave leg must have the pull on
the convex side, and _vice versa_, the garment being made full, the
effects of bad nursing are, by these means, effectually "repealed."[2]
This will be better understood if the reader will describe a
parallelogram, and draw therein the arc of a circle equal to that
described by his leg, whether knock-kneed or bandy.
[2] Baylis.
If the leg be perfectly straight, then the principal peculiarity of cut to
be attended to, is the external assurance that the trousers cannot be
removed from the body without the assistance of a valet.
The other considerations should be their applicability to the promenade or
the equestriade. We are indebted to our friend Beau Reynolds for this
original idea and it is upon the plan formerly adopted by him that we now
proceed to advise as to the maintenance of the distinctions.
Let your schneider baste the trousers together, and when you have put them
on, let them be braced to their natural tension; the schneider should
then, with a small pair of scissors, _cut out_ all the wrinkles which
offend the eye. The garment, being removed from your person, is again
taken to the tailor's laboratory, and the embrasures carefully and
artistically fine-drawn. The process for walking or riding trousers only
varies in these particulars--for the one you should stand upright, for the
other you should straddle the back of a chair. Trousers cut on these
principles entail only two inconveniences, to which every one with the
true feelings of a gentleman would willingly submit. You must never
attempt to sit down in your walking trousers, or venture to assume an
upright position in your equestrians, for compound fractures in the region
of the _os sacrum_, or dislocations about the _genu patellae_ are certain
to be the results of such rashness, and then
[Illustration: "THE PEACE OF THE VALET IS FLED."]
* * * * *
SONGS FOR THE SENTIMENTAL. -- NO. 6.
Thou hast humbled the proud,
For my spirit hath bow'd
More humbly to thee than it e'er bow'd before;
But thy pow'r is past,
Thou hast triumph'd thy last,
And the heart you enslaved beats in freedom once more!
I have treasured the flow'r
You wore but an hour,
And knelt by the mound where together we've sat;
But thy-folly and pride
I now only deride--
So, fair Isabel, take your change out of that!
That I loved, and how well,
It were madness to tell
To one who hath mock'd at my madd'ning despair.
Like the white wreath of snow
On the Alps' rugged brow,
Isabel, I have proved thee as cold as thou'rt fair!
'Twas thy boast that I sued,
That you scorn'd as I woo'd--
Though thou of my hopes were the Mount Ararat;
But to-morrow I wed
Araminta instead--
So, fair Isabel, take your change out of that!
* * * * *
THE LAST HAUL.
The ponds in St. James's Park were on last Monday drawn with nets, and a
large quantity of the fish preserved there carried away by direction of
the Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests. Our talented correspondent,
Ben D'Israeli, sends us the following squib on the circumstance:--
"Oh! never more," Duncannon cried,
"The spoils of place shall fill our dishes!
But though we've lost the _loaves_ we'll take
Our last sad haul amongst the _fishes_."
* * * * *
GENERAL SATISFACTION.
Lord Coventry declared emphatically that the sons, the fathers, and the
grandfathers were all satisfied with the present corn laws. Had his
lordship thought of the _Herald_, he might have added, "and the
grandmothers also."
* * * * *
ADVERTISEMENT.
If the enthusiastic individual who distinguished himself on the O.P. side
of third row in the pit of "the late Theatre Royal English Opera House,"
but now the refuge for the self-baptised "Council of Dramatic Literature,"
can be warranted sober, and guaranteed an umbrella, in the use of which he
is decidedly unrivalled, he is requested to apply to the Committee of
management, where he will hear of something to his "advantage."
* * * * *
[Illustration]
"PUNCH'S" LITERATURE.
I. "The Hungarian Daughter," a Dramatic Poem, by George Stephens,
8vo., pp. 294. London: 1841.
II. "Introductory(!) Preface to the above," pp. 25.
III. "Supplement to the above;" consisting of "Opinions of the Press,"
on various Works by George Stephens, 8vo., pp. 8.
IV. "Opinions of the Press upon the 'Dramatic Merits' and 'Actable
Qualities' of the Hungarian Daughter," 8vo., _closely printed_,
pp. 16.
The blind and vulgar prejudice in favour of Shakspeare, Massinger, and the
elder dramatic poets--the sickening adulation bestowed upon Sheridan
Knowles and Talfourd, among the moderns--and the base, malignant, and
selfish partiality of theatrical managers, who insist upon performing
those plays only which are adapted to the stage--whose grovelling souls
have no sympathy with genius--whose ideas are fixed upon gain, have
hitherto smothered those blazing illuminati, George Stephens and his
syn--Syncretcis; have hindered their literary effulgence from breaking
through the mists hung before the eyes of the public, by a weak,
infatuated adherence to paltry Nature, and a silly infatuation in favour
of those who copy her.
At length, however, the public blushes (through its representative, the
provincial press, and the above-named critical puffs,) with shame--the
managers are fast going mad with bitter vexation, for having, to use the
words of that elegant pleonasm, the _introductory_ preface, "by a sort of
_ex officio_ hallucination," rejected this and some twenty other
exquisite, though unactable dramas! It is a fact, that since the opening
of the English Opera House, Mr. Webster has been confined to his room;
Macready has suspended every engagement for Drury-lane; and the managers
of Covent Garden have gone the atrocious length of engaging sibilants and
ammunition from the neighbouring market, to pelt the Syncretics off the
stage! Them we leave to their dirty work and their repentance, while we
proceed to _our_ "delightful task."
To prove that the "mantle of the Elizabethan poets seems to have fallen
upon Mr. Stephens" (_Opinions_, p. 11), that the "Hungarian Daughter" is
quite as good as Knowles's best plays (_Id._ p. 4, _in two places_), that
"it is equal to Goethe" (_Id._ p. 11), that "in after years the name of
Mr. S. will be amongst those which have given light and glory to their
country" (_Id._ p. 10); to prove, in short, the truth of a hundred other
laudations collected and printed by this modest author, we shall quote a
few passages from his play, and illustrate his genius by pointing out
their beauties--an office much needed, particularly by certain dullards,
the magazine of whose souls are not combustible enough to take fire at the
electric sparks shot forth _up_ out of the depths of George Stephens's
unfathomable genius!
The first gem that sparkles in the play, is where _Isabella_, the Queen
Dowager of Hungary, with a degree of delicacy highly becoming a matron,
makes desperate love to _Castaldo_, an Austrian ambassador. In the midst
of her ravings she breaks off, to give such a description of a
steeple-chase as Nimrod has never equalled.
ISABELLA (_hotly_). "Love _rides_ upon a thought,
And stays not dully to _inquire the way_,
But right _o'erleaps the fence_ unto the _goal_."
To appreciate the splendour of this image, the reader must conceive Love
booted and spurred, mounted upon a _thought_, saddled and bridled. He
starts. _Yo-hoiks_! what a pace! He stops not to "inquire the
way"--whether he is to take the first turning to the right, or the second
to the left--but on, on he rushes, clears the fence cleverly, and wins by
a dozen lengths!
What soul, what mastery, what poetical skill is here! We triumphantly put
forth this passage as an instance of the sublime art of sinking in poetry
not to be matched by Dibdin Pitt or Jacob Jones. Love is sublimed to a
jockey, Thought promoted to a race-horse!--"Magnificent!"
But splendid as this is, Mr. Stephens can make the force of bathos go a
little further. The passage continues ("_a pause_" intervening, to allow
breathing ime, after the splitting pace with which Love has been riding
upon Thought) thus:--
"Are your lips free? A smile will make no noise.
What ignorance! So! Well! _I'll to breakfast straight_!"
Again:--
ISABELLA. "Ha! ha! These forms are air--mere counterfeits
Of my _imaginous_ heart, _as are the whirling
Wainscot and trembling floor_!"
The idea of transferring the seat of imagination from the head to the
heart, and causing it to exhibit the wainscot in a pirouette, and the
floor in an ague, is highly _Shakesperesque_, and, as the _Courier_ is
made to say at page 3 of the _Opinions_, "is worthy of the best days of
that noble school of dramatic literature in which Mr. Stephens has so
successfully studied."
This well-deserved praise--the success with which the author has studied,
in a school, the models of which were human feelings and nature,--we have
yet to illustrate from other passages. Mr. Stephens evinces his full
acquaintance with Nature by a familiarity with her convulsions:
whirlwinds, thunder, lightning, earthquakes, and volcanoes--are this
gentleman's playthings. When, for instance, _Rupert_ is going to be
gallant to Queen Isabella, she exclaims:--
"Dire lightnings! Scoundrel! Help!"
_Martinuzzi_ conveys a wish for his nobles to laugh--an order for a sort
of court cachinnation--in these pretty terms:--
"_Blow it about_, ye opposite winds of heaven,
Till the loud chorus of derision shake
The world with laughter!"
When he feels uncomfortable at something he is told in the first act, the
Cardinal complains thus:--
"Ha! earthquakes quiver in my flesh!"
which the _Britannia_ is so good as to tell us is superior to Byron; while
the _Morning Herald_ kindly remarks, that "a more vigorous and expressive
line was _never_ penned. In five words it illustrates the fiercest
passions of humanity by the direst convulsion of nature:" (_Opinions_, p.
7) a criticism which illustrates the fiercest throes of nonsense, by the
direst convulsions of ignorance.
_Castaldo_, being anxious to murder the Cardinal with, we suppose, all
"means and appliances to boot," asks of heaven a trifling favour:--
"Heaven, that look'st on,
Rain thy broad deluge first! All-teeming earth
Disgorge thy poisons, till the attainted air
Offend the sense! Thou, miscreative hell,
Let loose calamity!"
But it is not only in the "sublime and beautiful that Mr. Stephens's
genius delights" (_vide Opinions_, p. 4); his play exhibits sentiments of
high morality, quite worthy of the "Editor of the Church of England
Quarterly Review," the author of "Lay Sermons," and other religious works.
For example: the lady-killer, _Castaldo_, is "hotly" loved by the
queen-mother, while he prefers the queen-daughter. The last and _Castaldo_
are together. The dowager overhears their billing and cooing, and thus,
with great moderation, sends her supposed daughter to ----. But the author
shall speak for himself:--
"Ye viprous twain!
Swift whirlwinds snatch ye both to fire as endless
And infinite as hell! May it embrace ye!
And burn--burn limbs and sinews, souls, until
It wither ye both up--both--in its arms!"
Elegant denunciation!--"viprous," "hell," "sinews and souls." Has Goethe
ever written anything like this? Certainly not. Therefore the "Monthly"
_is_ right at p. 11 of the _Opinions_. Stephens must be equal, if not
superior, to the author of "Faust."
One more specimen of delicate sentiment from the lips of a virgin
concerning the lips of her lover, will fully establish the Syncretic code
of moral taste:--
CZERINA (_faintly_). "Do breathe heat into me:
Lay thy warm breath unto my bloodless lips:
I stagger; I--I must--"
CASTALDO. "In mercy, what?"
CZERINA. "Wed!!!"
The lady ends, most maidenly, by fainting in her lover's arms.
A higher flight is elsewhere taken. _Isabella_ urges _Castaldo_ to murder
_Martinuzzi_, in a sentence that has a powerful effect upon the feelings,
for it makes us shudder as we copy it--it will cause even _our_ readers to
tremble when they see it. The idea of using _blasphemy_ as an instrument
for shocking the minds of an audience, is as original as it is worthy of
the _sort_ of genius Mr. Stephens possesses. Alluding to a poniard,
_Isabella_ says:--
"Sheath it where _God_ and nature prompt your hand!"
That is to say, in the breast of a cardinal!!
The vulgar, who set up the common-place standards of nature, probability,
moral propriety, and respect for such sacred names as they are careful
never to utter, except with reverence, will perhaps condemn Mr. Stephens
(the aforesaid "Editor of the Church of England Quarterly Review," and
author of other religious works) with unmitigated severity. They must not
be too hasty. Mr. Stephens is a genius, and cannot, therefore, be held
accountable for the _meaning_ of his ravings, be they even blasphemous;
more than that he is a Syncretic genius, and his associates, by the
designation they have chosen, by the terms of their agreement, are bound
to cry each other up--to defend one another from the virulent attacks of
common sense and plain reason. They are sworn to _stick_ together, like
the bundle of rods in AEsop's fable.
[Illustration: SYNCRETISM.]
Mr. Stephens, their chief, the god of their idolatry, is, consequently,
more mad, or, according to their creed, a greater genius, than the rest;
and evidently writes passages he would shudder to pen, if he knew the
meaning of them. Upon paper, therefore, the Syncretics are not accountable
beings; and when condemned to the severest penalties of critical law, must
be reprieved on the plea of literary insanity.
It may be said that we have descended to mere detail to illustrate Mr.
Stephens' peculiar genius--that we ought to treat of the grand design, or
plot of the _Hungarian Daughter_; but we must confess, with the deepest
humility, that our abilities are unequal to the task. The fable soars far
beyond the utmost flights of our poor conjectures, of our limited
comprehension. We know that at the end there are--one case of poisoning,
one ditto of stabbing with intent, &c., and one ditto of sudden death.
Hence we conclude that the play is a tragedy; but one which "cannot be
intended for an acting play" (_preliminary preface_, p.1,)--of course _as_
a tragedy; yet so universal is the author's genius, that an adaptation of
the _Hungarian Daughter_, as a broad comedy, has been produced at the
"Dramatic Authors' Theatre," having been received with roars of laughter!
The books before us have been expensively got up. In the _Hungarian
Daughter_, "rivers of type flow through meadows of margin," to the length
of nearly three hundred pages. Mr. Stephens is truly a most spirited
printer and publisher of his own works.
But the lavish outlay he must have incurred to obtain such a number of
favourable notices--so many columns of superlative praise--shows him to
be, in every sense--like the prince of puffers, George Robins--"utterly
regardless of expense." The works third and fourth upon our list,
doubtless cost, for the _copyright_ alone, in ready money, a fortune. It
is astonishing what pecuniary sacrifices genius will make, when it
purloins the trumpet of Fame to _puff_ itself into temporary notoriety.
* * * * *
INQUEST EXTRAORDINARY.
The Whigs, who long
Were bold and strong,
On Monday night went dead.
The jury found
This verdict sound--
"_Destroy'd by low-priced bread_."
* * * * *
AN EXCLUSIVE APPOINTMENT.
It is with the most rampant delight that we rush to announce, that a
special warrant has been issued, appointing our friend and _protege_,
the gallant and jocular Sibthorp, to the important office of beadle and
crier to the House of Commons--a situation which has been created from the
difficulty which has hitherto been found in inducing strangers to withdraw
during a division of the House. This responsible office could not have
been conferred upon any one so capable of discharging its onerous duties
as the Colonel. We will stake our hump, that half-a-dozen words of the
gallant Demosthenes would, at any time have the effect of
[Illustration: CLEARING THE STRANGER'S GALLERY.]
* * * * *
THE GREAT CRICKET MATCH AT ST. STEPHEN'S.
FIRST INNINGS.
The return match between the Reform and Carlton Clubs has been the theme
of general conversation during the past week. Some splendid play was
exhibited on the occasion, and, although the result has realised the
anticipations of the best judges, it was not achieved without considerable
exertion.
It will be remembered that, the last time these celebrated clubs met, the
Carlton men succeeded in scoring one notch more than their rivals; who,
however, immediately challenged them to a return match, and have been
diligently practising for success since that time.
The players assembled in _Lord's_ Cricket Ground on Tuesday last, when the
betting was decidedly in favour of the Cons, whose appearance and manner
was more confident than usual; while, on the contrary, the Rads seemed
desponding and shy. On tossing up, the Whigs succeeded in getting first
innings, and the Tories dispersed themselves about the field in high glee,
flattering themselves that they would not be _out_ long.
Wellington, on producing the ball--a genuine _Duke_--excited general
admiration by his position. Ripon officiated as bowler at the other
wicket. Sibthorp acted as long-stop, and the rest found appropriate
situations. Lefevre was chosen umpire by mutual consent.
Spencer and Clanricarde went in first. Spencer, incautiously trying to
score too many notches for one of his hits, was stumped out by Ripon, and
Melbourne succeeded him. Great expectations had been formed of this player
by his own party, but he was utterly unable to withstand Wellington's
rapid bowling, which soon sent him to the right-about. Clanricarde was
likewise run out without scoring a notch.
Lansdowne and Brougham were now partners at the wickets; but Lansdowne did
not appear to like his mate, on whose play it is impossible to calculate.
Coventry, _the short slip_, excited much merriment, by a futile attempt to
catch this player out, which terminated in his finding himself horizontal
and mortified. Wellington, having bowled out Lansdowne, resigned his ball
to Peel, who took his place at the wicket with a smile of confidence,
which frightened the bat out of the hands of Phillips, the next Rad.
Dundas and Labouchere were now the batmen. Labouchere is a very
intemperate player. One of Sandon's slow balls struck his thumb, and put
him out of temper, whereupon he hit about at random, and knocked down his
wicket. Wakley took his bat, but apparently not liking his position, he
hit up and caught himself out.
O'Connell took his place with a lounging swagger, but his first ball was
caught by the immortal Sibthorp, who uttered more puns on the occasion
than the oldest man present recollected to have heard perpetrated in any
given time. Russell--who, by the bye, excavated several quarts of 'heavy'
during his innings--was the last man the Rads had to put in. He played
with care, and appeared disposed to keep hold of the bat as long as
possible. He was, however, quietly disposed of by one of Peel's inexorable
balls.
Thus far the game has proceeded. The Cons have yet to _go in_. The general
opinion is, that they will not remain in so long as the Rads, but that
they will score their notches much quicker. Indeed, it was commonly
remarked, that no players had ever remained in so long, and had done so
little good withal, as the Reformites.
Betting is at 100 to 5 in favour of the Carlton men, and anxiety is on
tip-toe to know the result of the next innings.
* * * * *
The Tories are exulting in their recent victory over the poor Whigs, whom
they affirm have been _tried_, and found wanting. A _trial_, indeed, where
all the jurors were witnesses for the prosecution. One thing is certain,
that the country, as usual, will have to pay the costs, for a Tory verdict
will be certain to carry them. The Whigs should prepare a motion for a new
trial, on the plea that the late decision was that of