Collections and Recollections Part 15

It is not, I fear, in my power to make a contribution of permanent value to the "Great Servant Question." But, having given instances of insufficient qualification in people seeking to be employed, I now turn to the opposite side of the account, and, after perusing what follows, would respectfully ask, Who is sufficient for these things?

"Can any lady or gentleman recommend a MAN and WIFE (Church of England)?

Man useful indoors and out. Princ.i.p.al duties large flower-garden, small conservatory, draw bath-chair, must wait at table, understand lamps, non-smoker, wear dress suit except in garden. Clothes and beer not found. Family, lady and child, lady-help. House-parlourmaid kept. Must not object to small bedroom. Wife plain cook (good), to undertake kitchen offices, dining-room, and hall (wash clothes). Joint wages 50, all found."

Now there is really a study in exacting eccentricity which Thackeray might have made the subject of a "Roundabout Paper." In the first place, the two servants must be man and wife--unmarried people need not apply--and yet they must be contented with a small bedroom. The family consists of a lady (apparently an invalid), a child, a lady-help, and a house-parlourmaid. For these the wife must cook, and cook well, besides cleaning the dining-room, hall and offices, and was.h.i.+ng the clothes. Her husband, yet more accommodating, must attend to a large flower-garden and a small conservatory, must draw a bath-chair, wait at table and clean lamps. After all these varied and arduous labours, he is denied the refreshment of a pipe; but, as a kind of compensation, he is not obliged to wear his dress suit when he is gardening! The joint wages are 50, with all found except clothes and beer; and the lucky recipients of this overpowering guerdon must be members of the Church of England.

This last requirement reminds me of a letter from a girl-emigrant written to Lady Laura Ridding, wife of the Bishop of Southwell, who had befriended her at home. "Dear Madam,--I hope this finds you as well as it leaves me. The s.h.i.+p is in the middle of the Red Sea, and it is fearfully hot. I am in a terrible state of melting all day long. But, honoured Madam, I know you will be pleased to hear that I am still a member of the Church of England." I hope the good plain cook and her non-smoking, bath-chair drawing, large-gardening husband may be able to comfort themselves with the same reflection when the varied toils of the day are ended and they seek their well-earned repose in the "small bedroom."

From these lowly mysteries of domestic life I pa.s.s to the Debatable Land between servitude and gentility. "MAN AND WIFE, superior and active, seek, in gentleman's family, PLACE OF TRUST; country, houseboat, &c.

Wife needlewoman or Plain Cook, linen, &c.: man ride and drive, waiting, or useful. _Can teach or play violin in musical family;_ sight-reader in cla.s.sical works. Both tall, and refined appearance."

From the Debatable Land I pa.s.s on to the exalted regions of courtly life.

"The Great-niece of a Lord Chamberlain to King George III. REQUIRES a SITUATION as COMPANION to a lady, or Cicerone to young ladies. Her mind is highly cultivated. _English habits and Parisian accent._"

"Vieille ecole bonne ecole, begad!" cried Major Pendennis, and here would have been a companion for Mrs. Pendennis or a cicerone for Laura after his own heart. The austere traditions of the Court of George III.

and Queen Charlotte might be expected to survive in the great-niece of their Lord Chamberlain; and what a tactful concession to the prejudices of Mrs. Grundy in the statement that, though the accent may be Parisian, the habits are Englis.h.!.+ This excellent lady--evidently a near relation to Mrs. General in _Little Dorrit_--reintroduces us to the genteel society in which we are most at home; and here I may remark that the love of aristocracy which is so marked and so amiable a feature of our national character finds its expression not only in the advertis.e.m.e.nt columns, but in the daily notices of deaths and marriages. For example: "On the 22nd inst., at Lisbon, William Thorold Wood, cousin to the Bishop of Rochester, to Sir John Thorold of Syston Park, and brother to the Rector of Widmerpool. He was a man of great mental endowments and exemplary conduct." I dare say he was, but I fear they would have gone unrecorded had it not been for the more impressive fact that he was kinsman to a Bishop and a Baronet.

While we are on the subject of Advertis.e.m.e.nts a word must be said about the Medical branch of this fine art; and knowing the enormous fortunes which have often been made out of a casual prescription for _acne_ or _alopecia_, I freely place at the disposal of any aspiring young chemist who reads this paper the following tale of enterprise and success. A few years ago, according to the information before me, a London doctor had a lady patient who complained of an incessant neuralgia in her face and jaw. The doctor could detect nothing amiss, but exhausted his skill, his patience, and his remedies in trying to comfort the complainant, who, however, refused to be comforted. At length, being convinced that the case was one of pure hypochondria, he wrote to the afflicted lady, saying that he did not feel justified in any longer taking her money for a case which was evidently beyond his powers, but recommended her to try change of air, live in the country, and trust to that _edax rerum_ which sooner or later cures all human ills.

The lady departed in sorrow, but in faith; obeyed her doctor's instructions to the letter, and established herself not a hundred miles from the good city of Newcastle. Once established there, her first care was to seek the local chemist and to place her doctor's letter in his hands. A smart young a.s.sistant was presiding at the counter; he read the doctor's letter, and promptly made up a bottle which he labelled "_Edax Rerum_. To be taken twice a day before meals," and for which he demanded 7s. 6d. The lady rejoicingly paid, and requested that a similar bottle might be sent to her every week till further notice. She continued to use and to pay for this specific for a year and a half, and then, finding her neuralgia considerably abated, she came up to London for a week's amus.e.m.e.nt. Full of grat.i.tude, she called on her former doctor, and said that, though she had felt a little hurt at the abrupt manner in which he had dismissed so old a patient, still she could not forbear to tell him that his last prescription had done her far more good than any of its predecessors, and that, indeed, she now regarded herself as practically cured. Explanations followed; inquiries were set on foot; the chemist's a.s.sistant sailed for South Africa; and "_Edax Rerum_" is now largely in demand among the unlettered heroes who bear the banner of the Chartered Company.

That combination of pietism with money-making, which critics of our national character tell us is so peculiarly British, was well ill.u.s.trated in the _Christian Million_ of September 22, 1898:--

"BETHESDA, Hest Bank. Beautiful country home, near the sea. Christian fellows.h.i.+p, 3s. per day. Sickly persons desiring to trust the Lord will be considered financially. Apply Miss----. Stamped Envelope."

When poetry is forced into the service of advertis.e.m.e.nts, the result is peculiarly gratifying. This is an appeal for funds to repair the church in which Nelson's father officiated:--

"The man who first taught Englishmen their duty, And fenced with wooden walls his native isle, Now asks ONE s.h.i.+LLING to preserve in beauty The Church that brooded o'er his infant smile."[29]

An electioneering address is, in its essence, an advertis.e.m.e.nt; and in this peculiar branch of literature it would be difficult to excel the following manifesto recently issued by a clergyman when candidate for a benefice to which the appointment is by popular election:--

"I appeal with the utmost confidence for the full support of the IRISH AND ROMAN CATHOLICS, because I am a Son of the Emerald Isle; to FOREIGNERS, because they love Ireland; to HIGH CHURCH, LOW CHURCH, and BROAD CHURCH, because I am tolerant to all parties; to NONCONFORMISTS, because I have stated in my pamphlet on Reunion that they are "the salt of the earth and the light of the world;" to JEWS, because my love for the Children of Promise is well known; to ATHEISTS, because they have often heard me in Hyde Park telling them of the Author of Nature in its endless beauties;--to one and all I appeal with the utmost confidence, and feel sure that the whole electorate will vote for me and do themselves honour, when they consider who I am, and when a person of my social and ecclesiastical standing allowed my name at all to be mentioned for a popular election."

I am thankful to say that this "Son of the Emerald Isle" was left at the bottom of the poll.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Kindly communicated by "J.C.C."

XXVI.

PARODIES IN PROSE.

"Parody," wrote Mr. Matthew Arnold in 1882, "is a vile art, but I must say I read _Poor Matthias_ in the _World_ with an amused pleasure." It was a generous appreciation, for the original _Poor Matthias_--an elegy on a canary--is an exquisite poem, and the _World's_ parody of it is a rather dull imitation. On the whole, I agree with Mr. Arnold that parody is a vile art; but the dictum is a little too sweeping. A parody of anything really good, whether in prose or verse, is as odious as a burlesque of _Hamlet_; but, on the other hand, parody is the appropriate punishment for certain kinds of literary affectation. There are, and always have been, some styles of poetry and of prose which no one endowed with an ear for rhythm and a sense of humour could forbear to parody. Such, to a generation brought up on Milton and Pope, were the styles of the various poetasters satirized in _Rejected Addresses_; but excellent as are the metrical parodies in that famous book, the prose is even better. Modern parodists, of whom I will speak more particularly in a future chapter, have, I think, surpa.s.sed such poems as _The Baby's Debut_ and _A Tale of Drury Lane_, but in the far more difficult art of imitating a prose style none that I know of has even approached the author of the _Hamps.h.i.+re Farmer's Address_ and _Johnson's Ghost_. Does any one read William Cobbett nowadays? If so, let him compare what follows with the recorded specimens of Cobbett's public speaking:--

"Most thinking People,--When persons address an audience from the stage, it is usual, either in words or gesture, to say, 'Ladies and gentlemen, your servant.' If I were base enough, mean enough, paltry enough, and _brute beast_ enough to follow that fas.h.i.+on, I should tell two lies in a breath. In the first place, you are not ladies and gentlemen, but, I hope, something better--that is to say, honest men and women; and, in the next place, if you were ever so much ladies, and ever so much gentlemen, I am not, _nor ever will be_, your humble servant."

With Dr. Johnson's style--supposing we had ever forgotten its masculine force and its balanced ant.i.theses--we have been made again familiar by the erudite labours of Dr. Birkbeck Hill and Mr. Augustine Birrell. But even those learned critics might, I think, have mistaken a copy for an original if in some collection of old speeches they had lighted on the ensuing address:--

"That which was organized by the moral ability of one has been executed by the physical efforts of many, and DRURY LANE THEATRE is now complete.

Of that part behind the curtain, which has not yet been destined to glow beneath the brush of the varnisher or vibrate to the hammer of the carpenter, little is thought by the public, and little need be said by the Committee. Truth, however, is not to be sacrificed to the accommodation of either, and he who should p.r.o.nounce that our edifice has received its final embellishment would be disseminating falsehood without incurring favour, and risking the disgrace of detection without partic.i.p.ating the advantage of success."

An excellent morsel of Johnsonese prose belongs to a more recent date.

It became current about the time when the scheme of Dr. Murray's Dictionary of the English Language was first made public. It took the form of a dialogue between Dr. Johnson and Boswell:--

"_Boswell_. Pray, sir, what would you say if you were told that the next dictionary of the English language would be written by a Scotsman and a Presbyterian domiciled at Oxford?

"_Dr. J_. Sir, in order to be facetious it is not necessary to be indecent."

When Bulwer-Lytton brought out his play _Not so Bad as we Seem_, his friends pleasantly altered its t.i.tle to _Not so Good as we Expected_.

And when a lady's newspaper advertised a work called "How to Dress on Fifteen Pounds a Year, as a Lady. By a Lady," _Punch_ was ready with the characteristic parody: "How to Dress on Nothing a Year, as a Kaffir. By a Kaffir."

Mr. Gladstone's authority compels me to submit the ensuing imitation of Macaulay--the most easily parodied of all prose writers--to the judgment of my readers. It was written by the late Abraham Hayward. Macaulay is contrasting, in his customary vein of overwrought and over-coloured detail, the evils of arbitrary government with those of a debased currency:--

"The misgovernment of Charles and James, gross as it had been, had not prevented the common business of life from going steadily and prosperously on.

"While the honour and independence of the State were sold to a foreign Power, while chartered rights were invaded, while fundamental laws were violated, hundreds of thousands of quiet, honest, and industrious families laboured and traded, ate their meals, and lay down to rest in comfort and security. Whether Whig or Tories, Protestants or Jesuits were uppermost, the grazier drove his beasts to market; the grocer weighed out his currants; the draper measured out his broadcloth; the hum of buyers and sellers was as loud as ever in the towns; the harvest-home was celebrated as joyously as ever in the hamlets; the cream overflowed the pails of Ches.h.i.+re; the apple juice foamed in the presses of Herefords.h.i.+re: the piles of crockery glowed in the furnaces of the Trent; and the barrows of coal rolled fast along the timber railways of the Tyne."

This reads like a parody, but it is a literal transcript of the original; and Hayward justly observes that there is no reason why this rigmarole should ever stop, as long as there is a trade, calling, or occupation to be particularized. The pith of the proposition (which needed no proof) is contained in the first sentence. Why not continue thus?--

"The apothecary vended his drugs as usual; the poulterer crammed his turkeys; the fishmonger skinned his eels; the wine merchant adulterated his port; as many hot-cross buns as ever were eaten on Good Friday, as many pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, as many Christmas pies on Christmas Day; on area steps the domestic drudge took in her daily pennyworth of the chalky mixture which Londoners call milk; through area bars the feline tribe, vigilant as ever, watched the arrival of the cat's-meat man; the courtesan flaunted in the Haymarket; the cab rattled through the Strand; and, from the suburban regions of Fulham and Putney, the cart of the market gardener wended its slow and midnight way along Piccadilly to deposit its load of cabbages and turnips in Covent Garden."

Twice has Mr. Gladstone publicly called attention to the merits of this "effective morsel of parody," as he styles it; and he judiciously adds that what follows (by the late Dean Hook) is "a like attempt, but less happy." Most people remember the attack on the const.i.tution of the Court of Chancery in the preface to _Bleak House_. Dean Hook, in a laudable attempt to soothe the ruffled feelings of his old friend Vice-Chancellor Page Wood, of whom d.i.c.kens in that preface had made fun, thus endeavours to translate the accusation into Macaulayese:--

"REIGN OF VICTORIA--1856.

"THE COURTS OF JUSTICE.

"The Court of Chancery was corrupt. The guardian of lunatics was the cause of insanity to the suitors in his court. An attempt at reform was made when Wood was Solicitor-General. It consisted chiefly in increasing the number of judges in the Equity Court. Government was pleased by an increase of patronage; the lawyers approved of the new professional prizes. The Government papers applauded. Wood became Vice-Chancellor. At the close of 1855 the Equity Courts were without business. People had become weary of seeking justice where justice was not to be found. The state of the Bench was unsatisfactory. Cranworth was feeble; Knight Bruce, though powerful, sacrificed justice to a joke; Turner was heavy; Romilly was scientific; Kindersley was slow; Stuart was pompous; Wood was at Bealings."

If I were to indulge in quotations from well-known parodies of prose, this chapter would soon overflow all proper limits. I forbear, therefore, to do more than remind my readers of Thackeray's _Novels by Eminent Hands_ and Bret Harte's _Sensation Novels_, only remarking, with reference to the latter book, that "Miss Mix" is in places really indistinguishable from _Jane Eyre_. The sermon by Mr. Jowett in Mr.

Mallock's _New Republic_ is so perfect an imitation, both in substance and in style, that it suggested to some readers the idea that it had been reproduced from notes of an actual discourse. On spoken as distinguished from written eloquence there are some capital skits in the _Anti-Jacobin_, where (under the name of Macfungus) excellent fun is made of the too mellifluous eloquence of Sir James Mackintosh.

The differentiating absurdities of after-dinner oratory are photographed in Thackeray's _Dinner in the City_, where the speech of the American Minister seems to have formed a model for a long series of similar performances. d.i.c.kens's experience as a reporter in the gallery of the House of Commons had given him a perfect command of that peculiar style of speaking which is called Parliamentary, and he used it with great effect in his accounts of the inaugural meeting of the "United Metropolitan Improved Hot m.u.f.fin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company" in _Nicholas Nickleby_ (where he introduces a capital sketch of Tom Duncombe, Radical Member for Finsbury); and in the interview between Mr. Gregsbury, M.P., and his const.i.tuents in a later chapter of the same immortal book.

The parliamentary eloquence of a later day was admirably reproduced in Mr. Edward Jenkins's prophetic squib (published in 1872) _Barney Geoghegan, M.P., and Home Rule at St. Stephen's_. As this clever little book has, I fear, lapsed into complete oblivion, I venture to cite a pa.s.sage. It will vividly recall to the memory of middle-aged politicians the style and tone of the verbal duels which, towards the end of Mr.

Gladstone's first Administration, took place so frequently between the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition. Mr. Geoghegan has been returned, a very early Home Ruler, for the Borough of Rashkillen, and for some violent breaches of order is committed to the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms. On this the leader of the House rises and addresses the Speaker:--

"Sir,--The House cannot but sympathize with you in the eloquent and indignant denunciation you have uttered against the painful invasion of the decorum of the House which we have just witnessed. There can be no doubt in any mind, even in the minds of those with whom the hon. member now at the bar usually acts, that of all methods of argument which could be employed in this House, he has selected the least politic. Sir, may I be permitted, with great deference, to say a word upon a remark that fell from the Chair, and which might be misunderstood? Solitary and anomalous instances of this kind could never be legitimately used as arguments against general systems of representation or the course of a recent policy. I do not, at this moment, venture to p.r.o.nounce an opinion upon the degree of criminality that attaches to the hon. member now unhappily in the custody of the Officer of the House. It is possible--I do not say it is probable, I do not now say whether I shall be prepared to commit myself to that hypothesis or not--but it is not impossible that the hon. member or some of his friends may be able to urge some extenuating circ.u.mstances--(Oh! oh!)--I mean circ.u.mstances that, when duly weighed, may have a tendency in a greater or less degree to modify the judgment of the House upon the extraordinary event that has occurred. Sir, it becomes a great people and a great a.s.sembly like this to be patient, dignified, and generous. The honourable member, whom we regret to see in his present position, no doubt represents a phase of Irish opinion unfamiliar to this House. (Cheers and laughter.) ... The House is naturally in a rather excited state after an event so unusual, and I venture to urge that it should not hastily proceed to action. We must be careful of the feelings of the Irish people. (Oh! oh!) If we are to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas, we must make allowance for personal, local, and transitory ebullitions of Irish feeling, having no general or universal consequence or bearing.... The course, therefore, which I propose to take is this--to move that the hon. member shall remain in the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, that a Committee be appointed to take evidence, and that their report be discussed this day month."

To this replies the Leader of the Opposition:--

"The right hon. gentleman is to be congratulated on the results of his Irish policy. (Cheers and laughter.) ... Sir, this, I presume, is one of the right hon. gentleman's contented and pacified people! I deeply sympathize with the right hon. gentleman. His policy produces strange and portentous results. A policy of concession, of confiscation, of truckling to ecclesiastical arrogance, to popular pa.s.sions and ignorant prejudices, of lenity to Fenian revolutionists, has at length brought us to this, that the outrages of Galway and Tipperary, no longer restricted to those charming counties, no longer restrained to even Her Majesty's judges, are to reach the interior of this House and the august person of its Speaker. (Cheers.) Sir, I wash my hands of all responsibility for this absurd and anomalous state of things. Whenever it has fallen to the Tory party to conduct the affairs of Ireland, they have consistently pursued a policy of mingled firmness and conciliation with the most distinguished success. All the great measures of reform in Ireland may be said to have had their root in the action of the Tory party, though, as usual, the praise has been appropriated by the right hon. gentleman and his allies. We have preferred, instead of truckling to prejudice or pa.s.sion, to appeal, and we still appeal, to the sublime instincts of an ancient people!"