The Fashionable World Displayed
Date: 2020-05-26T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century

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Title: The Fashionable World Displayed

Author: John Owen

Release date: May 26, 2020 [eBook #62238]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Transcribed from the L. B. Seeley 1817 (eighth) edition by David Price, using scans made available by the British Library

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FASHIONABLE WORLD DISPLAYED ***

Transcribed from the L. B. Seeley 1817 (eighth) edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org, using scans made available by the British Library.

THE
Fashionable World
DISPLAYED.

BY THE
REV. JOHN OWEN, A.M.

LATE FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE;
AND RECTOR OF PAGLESHAM, ESSEX.

VELUTI IN SPECULUM.

THE STAGE.

Eighth Edition.

LONDON:
PRINTED
FOR L. B. SEELEY, FLEET STREET.
1817.

TO
THE RIGHT REVEREND
BEILBY PORTEUS, D.D.
LORD BISHOP OF LONDON,
NOT MORE DISTINGUISHED
BY
HIS ELOQUENCE AS A PREACHER,
HIS VIGILANCE AS A PRELATE,
HIS SANCTITY AS A CHRISTIAN,
AND
HIS VARIOUS ACCOMPLISHMENTS
AS
A SCHOLAR AND A MAN,
THAN BY
HIS INDEFATIGABLE EXERTIONS
TO DETECT THE ERRORS,
REBUKE THE FOLLIES,
AND
REFORM THE VICES,
OF THE
FASHIONABLE WORLD,
THE FOLLOWING ATTEMPT
TO BENEFIT THAT PART OF SOCIETY,
BY MEANS TOO FREQUENTLY EMPLOYED
TO CORRUPT IT,
IS
RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,
BY
HIS LORDSHIP’S FAITHFUL
AND
DUTIFUL SERVANT,

The AUTHOR.

Fulham.

ADVERTISEMENT
TO THE
EIGHTH EDITION.

The following little Work was originally published in the Spring of 1804, under the assumed name of Theophilus Christian, Esq.  From the high commendation bestowed on it by the late Bishop Porteus, the Author was induced to avow himself in the second impression, and to prefix a Dedication, in which he endeavoured to do some justice to the merits of that Prelate, whose character he united with the public in revering, and whose patronage and friendship he had the honour to enjoy.

The Author is not insensible to the degree of improvement in the general tone of society, which has rendered certain strictures on the grosser qualities of a Fashionable character, somewhat less appropriate than they were at the period of their first publication.  He wishes, however, he could convince himself, that the improvement to which he alludes, and of which he desires to speak with becoming respect, were not to be interpreted as originating more in humour than in principle, and as indicating rather the progress of refinement than the influence of virtue.  The peccant evil, he is sorry to observe, continues to exist; and, however the form of its operation may have been varied, its spirit remains the same.  On this account, it did not appear to the Author expedient to tamper with his text.  He felt persuaded that its application will be found sufficiently accurate for every practical purpose; and he could not consent to weaken its force by over-scrupulous concessions to the pleadings of candour, or the requirements of temporary accommodation.

If an apology should be thought necessary for the little place which has been allowed for remarks of a purely religious description, that apology will be furnished by the nature and design of the Work.  To produce a disaffection to a life of sense, with all its blandishments, and under all its modifications, was the end which the Author proposed to himself; and his means were chosen with a reference to that end.  In whatever degree he may succeed in effecting it, he will think that he has gained no ordinary point; inasmuch as they who despair of happiness in the ways of sin, are so far prepared to embrace that godliness, which is “profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.”

Fulham, February 28, 1817.

INTRODUCTION.

I have often been surprised, that among the many descriptions which ingenious writers have given of places and people comparatively insignificant, no complete and systematic account has yet been written of the Fashionable World.  It is true, that our poets and caricaturists have honoured this people with a great share of their notice, and many particulars, not a little edifying, have been made known, through the medium of their admirable publications.  It is also true, that our prose-writers have occasionally cast a very pertinent glance over this fairy ground.  Some of these latter have even gone so far, as to write absolute treatises upon certain parts of the Fashionable character.  Mrs. More, for example, has delineated the religion, and Lord Chesterfield the morals, of this singular people with the greatest exactness and precision.  Nor would it be just to overlook the very acceptable labours of those writers who, in their Court-calendars and Court-almanacks, bring us acquainted, from time to time, with the modes of dress which prevail in the Fashionable World, and the names of its most distinguished inhabitants.  But after all that has been done, towards exhibiting the manners, and unfolding the character, of this splendid community, much remains to be done: for though certain details have been well enough handled, yet I repeat, that a complete and systematic account of the Fashionable World, is still a desideratum in Cosmography.

I am far from pretending to either the ability or the design of supplying this deficiency.  The utmost that I propose to myself, is to bring more particulars into a group, than former writers have done; and to exhibit an outline, upon which others of more enlarged experience may improve.  It seems to me of great importance to the interests of society, that its members should be known to each other: and of this I am persuaded, that if there be one description of people, the knowledge of whose genuine character would be more edifying to mankind than another, it is—the people of Fashion.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. I.—PAGE 1.
Situation—Boundaries—Climate—Seasons.

CHAP. II.—PAGE 19.
Government—Laws, &c.

CHAP. III.—PAGE 46.
Religion and Morality.

CHAP. IV.—PAGE 73.
Education.

CHAP. V.—PAGE 89.
Manners—Language.

CHAP. VI.—PAGE 108.
Dress—Amusements.

CHAP. VII.—PAGE 127.
Happiness of the People estimated.

CHAP. VIII.—PAGE 142.
Defect of the System—Plans of Reform—Conclusion.

CHAP. I.

SITUATION—BOUNDARIES—CLIMATE—SEASONS.

Though I do not undertake to write a geographical account of the Fashionable World, yet I should think myself highly culpable were I to pass over this interesting part of the subject wholly in silence.  My readers must be at the same time cautioned, not to form their expectations of the geography of Fashion from that of other countries.  The fact is, that the whole community which sustains this appellation, extensive as it is, can scarcely be treated as having any peculiar or exclusive locality.  The individuals who compose it, are not, it is true, absolute wanderers, like the tribes of Arabia; nor yet are they regular settlers, like the convicts at Botany Bay: but moveable and migratory to a certain degree, and to a certain degree stationary and permanent, they live among the inhabitants of the parent country; neither absolutely mixing with them, nor yet actually separated from them.

This paradoxical state of the people renders it not a little difficult to reduce their territory within the rules of geographical description.  They have, it is true, their degrees and their circles; but these terms are used by people of Fashion in a sense so different from that which geographers have assigned them, that they afford no sort of assistance to the topographical enquirer.  It is, I presume, on this account, that in all the improvements which have been made upon the globe, nothing has been done towards settling the meridian of Fashion; and though the Laplanders, the Hottentots, and the Esquimaux, have places assigned them, no more notice is taken of the people of Fashion, than if they either did not exist, or were not worthy of being mentioned.

The only expedient, therefore, to which a writer can resort, in this dearth of geographical materials, is that of designating the territory of Fashion by the ordinary names of the several places through which it passes.  And this is, in fact, strictly conformable to that usage which prevails in the language and communication of the people themselves: for London, Tunbridge, Bath, Weymouth, &c. are, in their mouths, names for little else than the lands and societies of Fashion which they respectively contain.

Now, the portion of each place to which Fashion lays claim, is neither definite as to its dimensions, nor fixed as to its locality.  In London, a small proportion of the whole is Fashionable; in Bath, the proportion is greater; and in some watering-places of the latest creation, Fashion puts in her demand for nearly the whole.  The locality of its domains is also contingent and mutable.  Various circumstances concur in determining, when a portion of ground shall become Fashionable, and when it shall cease to be such.  The only rule of any steadiness with which I am acquainted, and which chiefly relates to the metropolis, is that which prescribes a western latitude: [5] if this be excepted, (which indeed admits of no relaxation,) events of very little moment decide all the rest.  If, for example, a Duchess, or the wife of some bourgeois-gentilhomme, who has purchased the privileges of the order, should open a suite of rooms for elegant society in any new quarter, the soil is considered to receive a sort of consecration by such a circumstance; and an indefinite portion of the vicinity is added to the territory of Fashion.  If, on the other hand, a shop be opened, a sign hung out, or any symptom of business be shewn, in a quarter that has hitherto been a stranger to every sound but the rattling of carriages, the thunder of knockers, and the vociferation of coachmen and servants, it is ten to one but the privileges of Fashion are withdrawn from that place; and the whole range of buildings is gradually given up to those, who are either needy enough to keep shops, or vulgar enough to endure them.  Now, it happens as a consequence from this adoption of new soil and disfranchisement of old, that the territory of Fashion is extremely irregular and interrupted.  A traveller, determined to pursue its windings, would soon be involved in a most mysterious labyrinth; his track would be crossed by portions of country which throw him repeatedly out of his beat: insomuch that his progress would resemble that of a naturalist, who, in tracing the course of a mineral through the bowels of the earth, encounters various breaks and intersections, and often finds the corresponding parts of the same stratum unaccountably separated from each other.

It would be only fatiguing the reader to say more upon the topographical part of my subject.  It is obvious, from what has been stated, that the regions of Fashion, considered as a whole, are rather numerous than compact: and, indeed, such difference of opinion subsists among the people themselves upon the territories which are entitled to that name, that no correct judgment can be pronounced upon a question of so great controversy.  Thus much, however, may be affirmed, that there is scarcely a market-town in the kingdom, in which some portion of land is not invested with Fashionable privileges; and designated by such terms, as mark the wish of the inhabitants, to have it considered as forming part and parcel of the demesnes of Fashion.

The Climate of Fashion is almost entirely factitious and artificial; and consequently differs in many material respects from the natural temperature of those several places over which its jurisdiction extends.  Though changes from heat to cold, and vice versa, are very common among these people, yet heat may be said to be the prevailing character of the climate.  They appear to me to have but two Seasons in the year; these they call, in conformity to ordinary language, rather than to just calculation, Winter and Summer.  Of Summer little is known: for it seems to be a rule among this people, to disband and disperse at the approach of it; and not to rally or re-unite, till the Winter has fairly commenced.  Though, therefore, they exist somehow or somewhere, [10] during the Summer months; they wish it to be considered, that they do not exist under their Fashionable character.  They wash themselves in the sea, drink laxative waters, lose a little money at billiards, or catch a few colds at public rooms; but all these things they do as individuals, and wholly out of their corporate capacity as members of the community of Fashion.  So that in their mode of disposing of the Summer, they invert the standing rule of most other animals; they choose the fair season for their torpid state, and shew no signs of life but during the Winter.  It is not easy to say exactly when the Winter begins in the Fashionable World; an inhabitant of Bath would have one mode of reckoning, and an inhabitant of London another.  To do justice to the subject, the commencement of Winter ought to be regulated by the former of these places, and the close of it by the latter.  Supposing, therefore, that it begins some time in November, there can be no difficulty in settling its duration; for the 4th of June [12] is, by a tacit yet binding ordinance, considered as a limit, which a Fashionable Winter can seldom, if ever, exceed.

There are many circumstances in which the Climate of Fashion stands peculiarly distinguished from every other.  It has already been intimated that heat is its prevailing characteristic: it is, moreover, not a little remarkable, that this heat is at its highest point in the Winter season; and that the inhabitants often perspire more freely when the snow is upon the ground, than they do in the dog-days.  The truth is, that, as was before said, the Climate is wholly created by artificial circumstances, and the natural temperature of the air is completely done away.  The sort of communication which these people keep up with each other, is considered to require a species of apparatus which fills their atmosphere with an immoderate degree of phlogiston.  Besides this, they are notoriously fond of assembling in insufferable crowds; and travellers have assured us, that they have often witnessed from ten to twelve hundred persons suffocating each other, within a space which would scarcely have afforded convenient accommodation for a dozen families.  And this may enable us in some measure to account for the little benefit which modish invalids are said to derive from their frequent removals to the healthiest spots in the universe.  The original object of such a prescription was doubtless to change the air; and certainly no expedient could have been better imagined for bracing a constitution relaxed by too intense application to the business of a Fashionable life.  But the usages of the order render a change of air, to any salutary purpose, utterly impracticable: for the weakest members of the community consider themselves bound to kindle a flame wherever they go; and thus they breathe the same phlogisticated air all over the world.

They profess to adopt the ordinary divisions of time; and they talk like other people of Day and Night: but their mode of computing each is so vague and unnatural, that inhabitants of the same meridian with themselves scarcely understand what they mean by the terms.  A great part of this difficulty may possibly arise from the very small portion of solar light with which they are visited.  For certain it is, that no people upon earth have less benefit from the light of the sun than the people of Fashion; so that if it were not for torches, candles, and lamps, they would scarcely ever see each other’s faces.

With regard to the constitutions of these people, I have been inclined to think them naturally robust, from observing the astonishing heat and fatigue which they are accustomed to endure.  And in this respect the women have appeared to evince an uncommon degree of hardiness: for, besides that they wear on every occasion a lighter species of clothing than the men, I have been confidently told that many among them will appear, in the severest part of the season, with dresses of such transparency and scantiness, as convince every beholder that they who wear them are utter strangers to the weaknesses of the sex.  There is, however, some room for doubting, whether the air which this people breathe, and the usages which prevail among them, are favorable to the constitution.  Their patience of fatigue has been thought to be wholly the result of habit, and their hardiness has been conjectured to be little more than an air of extravagance and bravado.  The frequent transitions which they make from heat to cold, and back again from cold to heat; perhaps half-a-dozen times in as many hours; must very materially diminish the physical strength of their bodies.  Certain it is, that their natural countenances do not betray the usual symptoms of health; and it is, I believe, admitted, that instances of extraordinary longevity are not very common among them.

CHAP. II.

GOVERNMENT—LAWS, &c.

The History of the Fashionable World is a sort of undertaking, which, to be accurately executed, would require abundantly more leisure and diligence than I could afford to bestow upon it: and I very much doubt, whether, after all, one reader out of a hundred would be at the pains of perusing it.  The fact is, that the members of this community are not sufficiently substantial to form historical pictures.  Their employments are not of a nature to make their memory an object with mankind.  Hence, though they make a splendid appearance in a ball-room, they appear to little advantage in a record; and, like the dancing figures in a magic-lantern, they seem to have answered the end of their being, when they have afforded an evening’s amusement.  For these and other reasons which might be assigned, I shall content myself with giving a brief account of their Polity and Laws; referring those of my readers who are desirous of further information upon their history, to Novels and Romances, and to such Chronicles of antiquity, as have preserved the memorials of obsolete and superannuated manners.

It is a task of no ordinary difficulty to convey any tolerable idea of this people, in their aggregate or national capacity.  Consisting, as they do, of various and detached societies, they are yet considered to possess a sort of federal relation among each other; and to unite into an imaginary whole, under the collective denomination of the Fashionable World.  It is under this aggregate character that they take their rank in society; and the appellation which denotes their community, is recognised by the tradesmen who advertise for their custom, and the politicians who discourse of their affairs.  A very handsome proportion of the daily newspapers is devoted to their service; and intelligence from their drawing-rooms is reported with as much regularity as that which is derived from the first cabinets in Europe.  Indeed, the minuteness with which their routs and dances, their dresses and dainties, the expressions they utter, the company they keep, and the excesses they commit, are detailed, is at once an evidence that these people are considered to have a corporate existence; and that no little consequence is attached to their proceedings.  I wish, with all my heart, that they thought a little more of this; they would then scarcely run into such extravagancies, as make them, on too many occasions, objects of ridicule to one part of society, and dangerous examples to the other.

Their Population is more fluctuating and uncertain than that of any people upon the face of the earth.  There are among them certain tribes, or families, distinguished by different descendable titles, who are said to claim a sort of prescriptive right to the name of Fashionables.  In these the federal appellation continues hereditary; and it is an axiom among the body, that people of Quality (for this is the term by which they designate the titled gentry) can never be out of Fashion.

This is, it must be observed, their own representation of the matter; and I am inclined to suspect that there is no little management at the bottom of it.  There is something, no doubt, very splendid in the idea of including all the families of rank within the limits of Fashion; and it is a mark of no contemptible policy, to have constructed an axiom which so effectually cuts off their retreat.  But surely, it would be but decent to allow the gentry of the realm to have a voice in the business.  There have been times, in which many of our Nobles would have thought themselves dishonoured by being presumed of course to sustain a Fashionable character.  I cannot but think, that if the modern nobility were fairly consulted, several of them would still be found to entertain the same opinion; and that persons of the first distinction in the country would be among that number.

However that be, these dignified families are, according to Fashionable computation, almost the only standing members of the community; and, if these be excepted, all the rest of their body is mutable in the extreme.

There is a perpetual reciprocation of numbers between them and the society in which they reside.  Scarcely an hour passes without some interchange.  The gossip of every day announces that some have migrated from the region of Fashion, and that others have made their appearance within it for the first time.  The causes which produce these variations, and the reasons by which they are defended, are in some instances too mysterious, and in others too frivolous, to become subjects of recital.  In general it may be affirmed, that though persons become Fashionable with the concurrence of their will, they cease to be such against it.  For, if a few accidental converts to plain sense and sober piety be excepted, the greater part of those who retire have been superseded; and resign their places, only because they cannot any longer retain them.  However that be, the fluctuation thus occasioned in the numbers and characters of those who compose this Fashionable Community, diversifies its complexion daily; and renders a precise account of its population and totality utterly impossible.

The form of government subsisting among this people, so far as it can be traced out, is Oligarchical, and the spirit of it is absolute and despotical.  The few in whose hands the supreme authority resides, do not consist of any regular or definite number, nor are they confined to any particular sex.  In general, they are composed of persons out of both sexes, who, while they exercise a separate influence in things relating to the sexes respectively, possess also a common jurisdiction in matters of universal concern.

The governing few are not invested with their authority by any formalities of law; nor do they obtain their station by any specific qualifications.  The magistracy which they hold, appears to be neither hereditary nor elective, but contingent.  The term of their continuance in power is also as indefinite and capricious, as the right by which they acquire it.  One thing, however, is certain, that as a moral reputation has no influence in recommending them to the stations they fill, so the forfeiture of it in no degree weakens the stability, or abridges the duration of their power.  That a government of this independent description should exist in the heart of the British empire, an imperium in imperio, will appear scarcely credible to my reader.  He may, however, rely upon it, that the fact is as I have stated it; and if he should express his wonder, that such contempt of the sovereign authority as it eventually leads to, has not been properly resisted, he will only do what thousands have done before him.

But to return:—The laws by which the government of Fashion is administered, like the common law of England, are unwritten; and derive their force, as that does, from usage and prescription.  The only code of any note among this people, is that which they distinguish by the collective appellation of the LAW of HONOUR.  This extraordinary code has been defined to be—“a system of rules constructed by people of Fashion, and calculated to facilitate their intercourse with one another.” [29]  Now if this definition be a just one, (and I presume it is, from the high authority by which it is given,) it will afford us no indifferent help, towards unfolding the mysteries of Fashionable jurisprudence.

It seems, then, that the Law of Honour, by which people of Fashion are said to be governed, is wholly and exclusively designed to make them acceptable to each other.  Now, not to mention other things, persons in a Fashionable sphere cannot be strictly agreeable to each other, unless they are well dressed; nor can that intercourse which they chiefly value, be pleasantly maintained, without splendid equipages, choice wines, and sumptuous entertainments.  As, therefore, the necessity of the case requires such accommodations, the Law of Honour, to say the least, does not look very nicely into the means by which they may have been procured.  Hence it follows, by the fairest inference, that a man of Fashion is not at all the less respectable in his own circle, merely because he is what the rest of the world calls unjust.  For, whatever may be the law elsewhere, a man of Fashion can owe nothing to his inferiors: and his character will therefore suffer no stain, though he should have broken his word a thousand times with the reptile that made his clothes, built his carriage, or furnished his table.

This law is also distinguished by many other features of toleration, which well account for the respect and influence that it possesses in the Fashionable World.  By a spirit of accommodation, of which there is no other example, it overlooks, if it does not even encourage, a variety of actions, which in the mouth of a moralist would be absolute vices; and which, to say the truth, are scarcely deserving of a much better name.  Thus, a man may debauch his tenant’s daughter, seduce the wife of his friend, and be faithless, and even brutal to his own, and yet be esteemed a man of honour, (which is the same as a man of Fashion,) and have a right to make any man fight him who says he is not.  In like manner, a man may blaspheme God, and encourage his children and servants to do the same; he may neglect the interests, and squander the property, of his family; he may be a tyrant in his house, and a bully in the streets; he may lie a-bed all day, and drink and game all night; and yet be a most dutiful subject of the Law of Honour, and a shining character in the society of Fashion.

There is, I own, much convenience in all this, and some consistency.  Persons who live only for this world, should have a proportionable latitude allowed them for the employment of their animal propensities; and the law which provides for the regulation of their conduct, should have a special reference to this consideration.  Supposing, therefore, that people of Fashion ought to exist, they must have such a law as that which they possess.  So that, taking the Law of Honour in this connexion, I cannot but think it a master-piece of political contrivance.

At the same time, I cannot agree with those who have been led to consider this table of Fashionable jurisprudence as deserving a place in the temple of Morality.  Into this error a celebrated writer appears to have fallen, in his Treatise of Moral Philosophy.  For, having defined morality to be “that science which teaches men their duty, and the reasons of it,” he proceeds to cite the Law of Honour as one of the three rules by which men are governed.  That respectable writer has, indeed, admitted that this law is defective, because it does not provide for the duties to God and to inferiors; he has also proclaimed that it is bad, by stating, that it allows of fornication, adultery, drunkenness, prodigality, duelling, &c.  Still, however, he has rather left us to infer, that it ought wholly to be rejected, than absolutely told us so.  By classing it with the law of the land and the Scriptures, he has (undesignedly no doubt) prevented its utter condemnation; and afforded ground for considering it as a moral rule, to which men owe a qualified obedience.

Having specified the sort of practices which the Law of Honour allows, I shall take some brief notice of the duties which it exacts.  The principal of these, and that upon which its tone and spirit are most peremptory, is the resentment of injuries.  Now it must be observed, that the term injury, in the use of people of Fashion, is of a very wide and comprehensive signification.  It not only means such an act of outrage as amounts to a manifest and palpable wrong, but extends to every dubious point of conduct, from which a Fashionable sophist could find scope to infer an injurious intention.  Thus a sister seduced, and then abandoned, and a word or a look not satisfactorily explained, are all equally injuries; and constitute, in the spirit of this code, so many obligations to the most lively and implacable resentment.  It may be, that the offended person is of a peaceable disposition, and would rather endure a moderate injury than revenge it; or he may have too much respect for the laws of the parent state, to require or accept redress in any other than the legal way; or he may know, that the offending party is a man disposed to seek a quarrel, and that he desires nothing so much as to provoke the innocent person, whom he has purposely insulted, to claim satisfaction; or, lastly, it may be, that the supposed injury is founded wholly on mistake, and that the reputed aggressor will not believe or own himself to have offended, and will therefore make no atonement.  In all these cases, personal resentment might as well be waved; but this the Law of Honour positively forbids: and he who should conscientiously decline to pursue a personal quarrel, upon these, or even higher motives, might be a better father, a better husband, a better subject, and a better Christian, for so doing; but he would certainly be a worse man of honour.

It is worthy of remark, that these reputed injuries are sometimes so minute and transitory, or so remote and obscure, that, if every thing depended upon the aggressor and the aggrieved, they would either remain wholly undiscovered, or, at least, be speedily forgotten.  But each of these consequences is not unfrequently defeated by the officious industry of some kind-hearted being, who, though he loves his friend too well to let him be insulted, can govern his feelings well enough to stand by and see him murdered.  This is, certainly, a refinement upon the theory of friendship, which may be fairly set down among the most extraordinary achievements of the Law of Honour.  Indeed, this bloody code has many such refinements.  For, proceeding, as it does, upon principles of its own invention, it must necessarily clash with many antecedent obligations.  These, however, it contrives, by the help of a little sophistry, so to supersede, that neither affinity nor attachment may impede the progress of honourable revenge: and hence we see, in compliance with its rigid edicts, the warmest friends sacrifice to resentment with as little reserve as the bitterest enemies; and that, perhaps, to settle a tavern dispute, or to avenge a play-house quarrel!

Having said so much of the principal duty enjoined by the Law of Honour, I shall offer a few observations upon the sort of punishment which it inflicts.  I trust I shall be excused, if, in treating this part of my subject, I employ the term punishment in a sense not strictly similar to that in which it is ordinarily used.  The fact is, that this singular law makes the parties both judges in their own cause, and executioners of their own sentence.  The universal award against every convicted offender is, that he shall fight a duel with the offended party.  So that, if that may be set down as punishment, which is ultimate in a controversy, and which is exacted as a satisfaction to the law; death, or exposure to it, is the lowest punishment which honour inflicts upon the least offender; and the highest which it enforces upon the greatest.

And this is, I confess, a political incongruity, which I have not a little difficulty in reconciling with the good sense of many who have undertaken to defend it.  The law of England has often been blamed (and I think with justice) as unreasonably sanguinary.  In answer to this charge it has been said, that, though nearly two hundred offences of almost as many degrees of guilt, are made equally punishable with death; yet justice is administered with so much discretion and mercy, that the penalty is inflicted only on a few.  Feeble as this excuse is, for a law that deals in blood, it would be well for the law of Honour if it admitted of such a palliation.  But the truth is, that in the latter case there is nothing to abate the demand for blood—the prosecution of every difference is both summary and vindictive: there is no tribunal to enquire into the original matter of the quarrel; no judicature to determine the real merits of the controversy: if the judgment be erroneous, there is no court of equity to reverse the verdict; if rigorous, there is no arm of mercy to withdraw the victim from suffering.

It must be evident from this view which has been presented of the law, that, as an injury may be created by the most trivial incident, so punishment may be inflicted with the most preposterous and unequal retribution.  I cannot better illustrate the frivolous foundation upon which an injury may be erected, than by adverting to an occurrence of very recent date, and of sufficient notoriety in the Fashionable World.  Two men of Fashion, incensed against each other by an accidental quarrel between their respective dogs, dropped, in their warmth, certain expressions which rendered them amenable to the bloody code: duel was declared indispensable: and in less than twelve hours, one of the two was dispatched into eternity, and the other narrowly escaped the same fate. [42]

The inequality of the retribution is, indeed, an inevitable consequence of that article of the code which compels men of Fashion, without distinction, to decide their differences by fighting a duel.  It results from this promiscuous injunction, that the peaceable man must fight the quarrelsome; that the heir of a noble family must meet the ruined esquire; and that the man who has never drawn a trigger in his life, must encounter the Fashionable ruffian, who has all his life been doing little else.  This inequality is further manifest, from the different circumstances and connexions of life under which the combatants may be found.  The son of many hopes may be matched against the worthless prodigal; the virtuous parent against the unprincipled seducer; and the man of industry, usefulness, and beneficence, against the miscreant who only lives to pamper his lusts, and to corrupt his fellow-creatures.  Nothing has here been said of the indiscriminate manner in which judgment is executed.  The innocent and the guilty must both be involved in the same awful contingency; each must put his life to hazard: and the probability is, that, if one of the two should fall, it will be the man whose conduct least entitled him to punishment, and whose life was most worth preserving.

I forbear to enter further into the system of Fashionable government, or to meddle with the inferior points of legislation.  What has been said of the Law of Honour, will apply, with little variation, to every other institution of minor concern.  To facilitate polite intercourse, and to exclude, as much as may be, duties to God and inferiors, is a considerable object in every regulation; and it is but justice to this people to say, that, in this respect, they are at once consistent and successful.

CHAP. III.

RELIGION AND MORALITY.

In attempting to give an account of the Religion of the people of Fashion, I feel myself not a little embarrassed.  It were, indeed, very much to be wished, that one of their own number would, in the name of the rest, draw up a confession of their faith.  This is, perhaps, expecting too much; and yet I cannot but think that it would be a very good employment for some of those modish priests, who pass so much of their time in the circles of Fashion.  They give every proof that they have leisure for the undertaking: and the access which they have to these people, by attending them so familiarly at their theatres, their operas, and their routs, must render them perfectly masters of the subject.  However, as I am not aware that any thing of this nature is yet taken in hand, I shall lay before my reader such observations as I have been able to make; partly because it seems necessary to the perfection of my work, that something should be said on the subject, and partly because I should be unwilling to afford by my silence any ground for suspicion—that there is no religion in the Fashionable World.

I am, then, in the first place, decidedly of opinion, that people of Fashion are not Atheists; though I am sufficiently aware, that some strict religionists have entertained an opposite conviction.  It has been contended by the latter, in support of their hypothesis, that people who believed in a God would have some scruple about taking such liberties with his name, and his attributes, and his threatenings, and, generally, with all his moral prerogatives, as people of Fashion are accustomed to do.  There is certainly something plausible in this sort of reasoning, and I must candidly confess, that I have never yet seen it fairly overthrown; but then I cannot think, that it proves their disbelief of a God, though it certainly does prove their want of reverence for him.  It seems to me, at the same time, probable, that the ideas of this people, and those of stricter Christians, upon the subject of that reverence which is due to the Deity, may differ sufficiently, to account for these offensive liberties, without having recourse to the hypothesis of atheism.  Indeed, when I consider the spirit and construction of that law by which these people are bound, I can find other reasons for their conduct in this respect, besides that which these theorists have assigned.  For, to say the truth, those obnoxious expressions from which so much has been inferred, are in perfect unison with the exclusion of a Deity from the rules which regulate their intercourse with each other.  The more therefore I reflect on this subject, the more I am confirmed in my opinion, that the charge of Atheism against them is without any just foundation; and that their appeals to God in levity, earnestness, and anger, are designed to shew their contempt of His authority, and not their denial of his being.

I was for a long time of opinion, that these people were believers in Christ; for I had observed, that his name was found in their formularies of devotion, associated with their baptismal designation, and frequently appealed to in their conversation with each other.  There were, I confess, many things at the time which staggered me.  Having taken up my ideas of the Saviour from those Scriptures which they profess to receive as well as myself, I was not a little astonished at the ultimate difference between us.  Their belief of a God was, I knew, inevitable, and forced upon them by every thing in nature and experience; I could therefore conceive, without much difficulty, how they could subscribe to his being, and yet not hallow his name; but I could not with equal facility conceive, that people should go out of their way to embrace a solemn article of revealed religion, only that they might have an opportunity of trifling with the holy name of Him, who was the author and the object of that revelation.

I had, besides, occasion to remark, that this name was seldom appealed to, but by the ladies; and it did not appear in the first instance probable, that the gentlemen would leave them in exclusive possession of a mode of imprecation by which any thing was meant.  These and other circumstances excited in my mind a great deal of speculation.  I will not, however, trouble my readers with the many conclusions which I drew from them; since an event has occurred, which affords no indifferent evidence, that belief in a Saviour does not form an article of Fashionable religion.  The event to which I refer, is the publication of a Memoir of the late Lord Camelford.  In this Memoir the author professes to acquaint the world with the last moments of a Fashionable young man who had received a mortal wound in an affair of honour.  In perusing this extraordinary narrative, I was much surprised at finding, that neither the dying penitent (for such he is represented to have been) nor his spiritual confessor ever once mentioned the name of Christ.  But when, on further attention, I found his Lordship expressing a hope, that his own dying sufferings would expiate his sins, and placing his dependance upon the mercy of his Creator; [53] I had only to conclude, that the Divine was deterred from mentioning a name with which his office must have made him familiar, out of respect for that Fashionable creed from which it is excluded.

There is some reason for supposing that these people believe in the immortality of the soul, the existence of an evil spirit, and a place of future torment.  It must, at the same time, be acknowledged, that their ideas on each of these points are so loose and confused, that it is difficult to determine in what sense they apprehend them.

In subscribing, for example, to the immortality of the soul, they give it a value which infinitely exceeds that of the corruptible body: the inference from this, in a fair train of reasoning, would be, that the care of the former is of infinitely more importance than that of the latter.  And yet this is manifestly not the inference they draw: for the experience of every week proves, that if they give three hours to the soul, they think it too much; while they will give six days and nights to the body, and think it too little.  This is, I confess, a part of their character, of which no satisfactory explanation has ever been given.

I have no other evidence of their belief in an evil Spirit, and a place of future Torment, than the report of their Prayer-books, and the tenor of their conversation.  I must, at the same time, acknowledge, that the looseness and frequency with which they refer to Hell and the Devil, on the most ordinary occasions, have excited my doubts whether they use these awful terms in the same religious sense in which orthodox Christians are accustomed to employ them.  These doubts have been greatly encouraged by that sceptical facetiousness with which they apply the name of the evil spirit to their Fashionable amusements, and make the place of torment a subject of scenic representation.  I will not say that these people do not believe what they thus caricature; but I think it must be obvious that they cannot have any very exact notions of their scriptural import, while they continue to employ them as terms of merriment, and sources of diversion. [57]

Religious worship, though not inculcated as absolutely necessary in the Fashionable World, is yet neither prohibited nor renounced.  Certain persons of considerable influence among them, and whose connexion with them arose out of the incidental circumstances of birth, or office, or elevation, have carried into the societies of Fashion some principles which operate as a check upon the natural libertinism of the community.  I impute it to this circumstance, rather than to any sober consideration of duty, that religious worship, though it is not esteemed essential to a Fashionable character, is yet not regarded as any impeachment of it.  My reason, in a word, for ascribing their conformity in this particular to influence rather than principle, is the difficulty of reconciling it, on any hypothesis besides, to the other parts of their conduct.  For it would be a contradiction of ideas to suppose, that persons can seriously mean to worship a God whom they habitually blaspheme; or to pray against a devil, whom they are accustomed to hold out as a bugbear or a joke.

Their mode of worship is generally that which prevails in the country in which they live: they like the credit of an Establishment, and the convenience of taking things as they find them.  There are, I am told, some members of Fashion among those who dissent from the established religion.  These I shall leave to the care of their Pastors; and proceed to animadvert upon the Fashionable adherents to the religion of the State.

In their manner of observing the rites of public worship, nothing is so remarkable as the degree of refinement they contrive to introduce into every part of it which is capable of being refined upon.  Chapels are, for the most part, preferred to Churches; and the reason, among others, for this preference, appears to be, that the modernness of their structure, and their exemption from parochial controul, render them better adapted to such elegant improvements as are requisite for Fashionable piety.  Hence that variety of ingenious accommodations, and fanciful ornaments, which gives to their favourite place of devotion the air of a drawing-room: so that a stranger, introduced to their religious assemblies, might be excused for doubting, whether he was about to worship the Deity, or to pay a Fashionable visit.  The conduct of their service is, in many cases, marked by an attention to mechanical effect, which is more nearly allied to the parade of the theatre, than to the simplicity of the church.  The orators who fill their pulpits, are generally preferred in proportion as they display the captivating attractions of a graceful exterior, and a liberal theology.  These preachers have, indeed, a task to execute of no ordinary difficulty.  By the tyranny of custom they are compelled to take their text, and to produce their authorities, from the canon of Scripture; and I think it is much to the praise of their dexterity, that so often as they have occasion to discourse from those offensive writings, they yet contrive to give so little offence.  How they manage this, I am at a loss to know; unless it be by blinking every question that involves a moral application; or else by allowing their audience the benefit of that Fashionable salvo, that the company present is always excepted.

It has also been remarked by scrupulous observers, that this people perform almost the whole of their public devotions in a posture which rather accommodates their indolence, than expresses their respect for the object of their worship.  If this be the fact, it is not a little extraordinary; since they use a liturgy which prescribes kneeling and standing, as well as sitting; and which contains distinct instructions, when each is to be used.  I can, indeed, account, without much difficulty, for the disuse of kneeling; because the structure of the pews does not always admit of it: besides that, it is a posture into which people cannot be expected readily to fall in public, who have not much practice in private.  But I cannot so easily account for their refusing to stand: for this is notoriously an attitude to which they are sufficiently accustomed.  And that they do not consider the posture in which a thing is done, indifferent, is manifest from the zeal with which they rise from their seats, and expect others to do the same, when about to join in a loyal chorus.  I wonder it has not occurred to them, that there is some indecency, not to say impiety, in rising from their seats to sing the praises of their King, and keeping them while they sing the praises of their God.

I have before delivered it as my opinion, that this people comply with the custom of public worship, rather from influence than from conviction; and this opinion receives some confirmation from the pains they take to remove those impressions which the offices of religion may have made upon their minds.  In the metropolis, the visit to the house of God is succeeded, as soon as may be, by the drive into the Park.  Here they meet with a prodigious concourse of persons of their own description; and have the most charming opportunities of seeing the world, exhibiting themselves, and conversing upon the opera of the preceding evening, or the parties for the ensuing week.  The effect of this drive, upon their animal spirits and the whole frame of their mind, is just what might have been expected.  Though they have so recently assisted at the most awful solemnities, they can now relax into the most idle levity or the most boisterous mirth; and satisfying themselves that they have done their duty, by remembering the Almighty in the first part of the day, they take no common pains to forget him during the remainder.

In the vicinity of the metropolis, and in other places of Fashionable residence, other expedients are resorted to, in order to produce the same happy effect.  No sooner has the priest pronounced his Morning benediction, than the carriage which has conveyed the family to church must be driven round the neighbourhood; and the bells and knockers of twenty doors announce, that the restraints of public worship are at an end.  This pleasant divertisement is not lost upon the great body of the inhabitants.  Persons the farthest removed from all Fashionable pretensions, rejoice with their superiors at this speedy termination of the Sabbath; and, with a servile imitation of their example, pursue their pleasures in some house of entertainment, instead of seeking a second blessing in the house of God. [66]

Though there is something very lively and ingenious in this method of dissipating religious impressions, yet I think it might be an improvement upon the plan, not to allow them to be made at all.  Experiments to this effect have been actually tried by some persons of no mean condition, in the Fashionable World, who have wholly renounced the habit of public worship; and these experiments would probably have been tried upon a much larger scale, had it not been for the consideration of setting a pernicious example: for it seems to be a maxim among many of them, that persons in a dependent state may really be benefited by the offices of devotion.  With a charity, therefore, that does them honour, they make a sacrifice of their feelings and their time to the interests of their inferiors; and when it is considered, how much whirling in a carriage, gaping, gadding, and gossiping, it takes them, to recover the true tone of dissipation, it will be seen that the sacrifice is not inconsiderable.

In observing thus largely upon the religion of the Fashionable World, I have furnished a sufficient clue to their moral character.  If, from some hints which have been thrown out in this and the preceding chapter, rigid Christians should be led to infer, that it is no better than it should be, they must be reminded, that people of Fashion have a standard peculiar to themselves; and that, therefore, what are deviations from our standard, are very often near approximations to theirs.  In fact, they have acted in this respect with the same convenient policy by which they have been guided in framing every other part of their system.  Pleasure being the object upon which a life of Fashion terminates, it was sagaciously enough foreseen, that an unbending morality would be utterly incompatible with the modes, and habits, and plans, of such a career.  There remained therefore no alternative, but that of frittering away the strength and substance of the morality of the Gospel, till it became sufficiently tame and pliable for the sphere of accommodation in which it was to act.  The consequence has been, that while they employ the same terms to denote their moral ideas, as are in use among Christians in general, yet they limit, or enlarge, their signification, as expediency requires.  Thus modesty, honesty, humanity, and sobriety—names, with stricter moralists, for the purest virtues—are so modified and liberalized by Fashionable casuists, as to be capable of an alliance with a low degree of every vice to which they stand opposed.  A woman may expose her bosom, paint her face, assume a forward air, gaze without emotion, and laugh without restraint, at the loosest scenes of theatrical licentiousness; and yet be, after all,—a modest woman.  A man may detain the money which he owes his tradesman, and contract new debts for ostentatious superfluities, while he has neither the means nor the inclination to pay his old ones; and yet be, after all,—a very honest fellow.  A woman of Fashion may disturb the repose of her family every night, abandon her children to mercenary nurses, and keep her horses and her servants in the streets till day-break,—without any impeachment of her humanity.  So the gentleman of Fashion may swallow his two or three bottles a-day, and do all his friends the kindness to lay them under the table as often as they dine with him; yet, if constitution or habit secure him against the same ignominious effects, he claims to be considered—a sober man.

There would be no end of going over all the eccentricities of Fashionable morality.  To those who exact that truth which allows of no duplicity, that honour which scorns all baseness, and that virtue which wars with every vice, I question but every thing in the morals of this people would appear anomalous and extraordinary: but to those who consider, how necessary a certain portion of wickedness is to such a life of sense as these people must necessarily lead, it will not be matter of surprise that there should be so little genuine morality among them; the wonder will rather be—that there should be any at all.

CHAP. IV

EDUCATION.

No people in the universe expend larger sums upon the education of their children than people of Fashion.  It is a maxim with them to commence the great business of instruction in the very earliest period of life; and if the system of education corresponded with the pains bestowed upon it, and the price at which it is purchased, no persons would do more honour to society than the subjects of the Fashionable World.  As it is, they are not a little ornamental to a nation.  They are not, it is true, either the columns or the base of the building; they neither support nor strengthen it: but they supply the place of reliefs, and hangings, and other superadded decorations.

Religion is allowed a respectable place among the studies of the nursery.  All those useful tables of instruction are assiduously employed, which teach, who was the first, the wisest, the meekest, and the strongest man; and the nursling is carefully conducted, by a catechetical process, into the theory and practice of a Christian.  As, however, the child advances to boyish or girlish years, this religious discipline is pretty generally relaxed, in order to allow sufficient scope for the cultivation of those modish pursuits, which mark the man and the woman of Fashion.

And here I cannot help remarking, how anxious the greater part of Fashionable parents are, to guard the minds of their children against the permanent influence of that religion, which they yet have caused them to be taught.  The fact is, that they would have them acquainted with the technical language, and expert in the liturgical formalities of Christianity; for these acquirements can neither disparage their character, nor impede their pleasures: but a serious impression of its truths upon their hearts, might disaffect them to the follies and vices which they are destined to practise; and therefore is the thing, of all others, that is most to be dreaded.  The parents are, to say the truth, not a little hampered by the engagements under which they have bound the child, on the one part; and the character which they wish him to sustain, on the other.  To leave him in ignorance of a covenant in which he has been involuntarily included, would be a fraud upon his conscience; and yet, to have him renounce the devil, the world, and the flesh, would be the utter ruin of his Fashionable reputation.  What other course, then, can parents thus circumstanced pursue, than that of inculcating these lessons before they can be understood, and removing their impression before they can be practised?

It is, I presume, upon the principle of precaution already mentioned, that our Fashionable young men are not always intrusted to the care of persons distinguished for the practice of piety.  It is not impossible, indeed, that, either from the conversation, the connexions, or the example of the preceptor, the pupil may contract certain habits, which it was not the precise object of his education to produce.  But then the evil is not so great as fastidious moralists would insinuate.  For, as the youth is to figure in the circles of Fashion, he will only have learnt, a little before the time, those practices which are to form a part of his manly character: and though it might, perhaps, be as well, if he did not learn to swear and rake quite so soon; yet it is some consolation, that he has escaped those methodistical impressions, which would have prevented him from swearing and raking as long as he lived.

It may also be considered as some confirmation of the reasoning above employed, that parents introduce their children as early as possible to the amusements of the theatre.  Now, though swearing, and raking, and gaming, when carried to excess, are blamed even by persons of Fashion themselves; yet it is notorious, that a reasonable proportion of each is indispensably requisite to a popular character in the circles of refinement.  Habits of this sort must not be precipitately taken up.  There must be a schooling for the man of pleasure, as well as for the man of letters: and certainly no school exists, in which the elements of modish vice can be studied with greater promise of proficiency, than the public theatres.  When it is considered, at what pains the managers of the stage are, to import the seducing dramas of Germany, as well as to get up the loose productions of the English Muse; when it is further considered, how studious the actors and actresses are to do justice, and even more than justice, to the luscious scenes of the piece; to give effect to the equivoques, by an arch emphasis; and to the oaths, by a dauntless intonation:—when to all this is added, how many painted strumpets are stuck about the theatre, in the boxes, the galleries, and the avenues; and how many challenges to prostitution are thrown out in every direction: it will, I think, be difficult to imagine places better adapted, than the theatres at this moment are, to teach the theory and practice of Fashionable iniquity.

What has been observed on the subject of education, though said principally with reference to the male branches of Fashionable families, will yet, with a few changes, be found applicable to the youth of the other sex.  The principal points upon which their scheme of education is brought to bear, are those of dissipation and display.  A brilliant finger on the piano, wanton flexions in the dance, a rage for operas, plays, and parties, and the faculty of undergoing the fatiguing evolutions of a Fashionable life, without compunction of conscience, sense of weariness, or indications of disgust, are qualifications which she who has acquired, will be considered as wanting little of a perfect education.

The same assiduity is discovered on the part of the parents, to train their girls for the sphere of polite life, as has been already observed with respect to the boys; and the methods that are pursued to accomplish this end, are very nearly the same.  The blush of virgin-modesty (it is naturally foreseen) would be extremely inconvenient, not to say absolutely indecorous, in a woman of Fashion; and therefore it is wisely resolved, that such steps shall be taken upon the girl’s growing into life, as may most effectually destroy it.  The theatre seems principally to be resorted to for this purpose; and it must be manifest, from what has been already advanced, that no expedient could have been better chosen.  As intrigue is the life of the drama, and this cannot be carried on, without expressions, attitudes, and communications between the sexes, of a very particular nature, there is every reason for regarding the stage as a sovereign remedy for the infirmity of blushing.

There are other things to be said on behalf of the theatre, as a school of polite morality.

It has already appeared, that the system of Ethics which prevails among people of Fashion, differs materially from the received system of unfashionable Christians.  Now, I know not any means by which a stranger, anxious to ascertain, wherein that difference consists, could better satisfy his enquiries, than by visiting the theatres.  The doctrine of the stage, therefore, exhibiting (as nearly as possible) the standard morality of polite society, nothing could be better imagined, than to give the embryo woman of Fashion the earliest opportunity of learning to so much advantage, those lessons which she is afterwards to practise through life.  What she has imbibed in the nursery, and what she hears in the church, would inspire her with a dread—perhaps a dislike—of many things upon which she must learn hereafter to look with familiar indifference, if not with absolute complacency.  She might thus (if some remedy were not provided) be led to take up with certain melancholy principles, which would either shut her out from the society of her friends, or make her miserable among them.  But the stage corrects all this; and more than counterbalances the impressions of virtue, by stratagems of the happiest contrivance.

It is worthy of attention, how much ingenuity is displayed in bringing about that moral temperament, which is necessary for the meridian of Fashion.  The rake, who is debauching innocence, squandering away property, and extending the influence of licentiousness to the utmost of his power, would (if fairly represented) excite spontaneous and universal abhorrence.  But this result would be extremely inconvenient; since raking, seduction, and prodigality, make half the business, and almost all the reputation, of men of Fashion.  What, then, must be done?—Some qualities of acknowledged excellence must be associated with these vicious propensities, in order to prevent them from occasioning unmingled disgust.  We may, I presume, refer it to the same policy, that in dramas of the greatest popularity, the worthless libertine is represented as having at the bottom some of those properties which reflect most honour upon human nature; while—as if to throw the balance still more in favour of vice—the man of professed virtue is delineated as being in the main a sneaking and hypocritical villain.  Lessons such as these are not likely to be lost upon the ingenuous feelings of a young girl.  For, besides the fascinations of an elegant address and an artful manner, the whole conduct of the plot is an insidious appeal to the simplicity of her heart.  She is taught to believe, by these representations, that profligacy is the exuberance of a generous nature, and decorum the veil of a bad heart: so that having learnt, in the outset of her career, to associate frankness with vice, and duplicity with virtue, she will not be likely to separate these combinations during the remainder of her life.

To enter further into the minute details of a Fashionable education, would only be to travel over ground which has been often and ingeniously explored by writers of the greatest eminence.  Enough has been said to show, that the system of education adopted by this people, like every other branch of their economy, is adapted to qualify the parties for that polite intercourse with each other, which seems to constitute the very end of their being.  And if it be considered, of what nature that intercourse is, it will occasion no surprise, that the education which prepares for it should be expressly adapted to confound the distinctions of virtue and vice; and to inculcate, with that view,—duplicity in religion, and prevarication in morals.

CHAP. V.

MANNERS—LANGUAGE.

The Manners of this people are remarkably artificial.  They appear to do every thing by rule; and not a word, a look, or a movement escapes them, but what has at one time or other been studied.  In every part of their demeanour they have reference to some invisible standard, which they call the Ton, or the Fashion, (from which latter term they have derived their appellation;) and by this mysterious talisman their manners, their dress, their language, and the whole of their behaviour, are tried.  It is singular enough, that this standard which is to fix every thing, is itself the most variable of all things.  The changes which it undergoes are so rapid, that it requires a sort of telegraphic communication to become acquainted with them: and though there is no regular way by which they may be known, yet nothing is considered so disgraceful as not to know them.

The fluctuations to which this standard is subject, render it difficult to catch the features of people of Fashion, or to speak with any precision upon the exterior of their character.  They are, in fact, moulded and modified by such capricious and indefinable circumstances, that he who would exhibit a true picture of their manners, must write a history of the endless transmutations through which they are compelled to pass.  It has, indeed, been remarked by nice observers, that a dissimulation of their sentiments and their feelings, is a feature in the character of this people, which never forsakes them; and that amidst all the revolutions which their other habits experience, this master-principle preserves an unchanging uniformity.  Nor is it sufficient to overthrow this reasoning, that, among the innovations of recent times, the manners of people of Fashion have been brought into an affected resemblance to those of their inferiors.  The cropped head, and groomish dress of the men, and the noisy tone and vulgar air of the women, would almost persuade a stranger that these are blunt and artless people, and that they love nothing so much as honesty and plain-dealing.  The fact, however, is, that though the mode of playing is varied, yet the game of dissimulation is still going on.  This condescension to vulgarity is, after all, the disguise of pride, and not the dress of simplicity; and is as remote from the sincerity which it imitates, as from the refinement which it renounces.

An exaggerated opinion of their own importance is, in reality, a prevailing characteristic of the Fashionable World.

The Greeks and Romans were thought to have gone too far, when they called all nations but their own barbarians; but people of Fashion go a step farther: for they consider themselves every body, and the rest of the world nobody.  The influence of this sentiment is sufficiently discernible over the whole of their character.  It dictates to their affections, and robs them, in many instances, of their spontaneity, their sweetness, and their force.  It results from this conceit, that their love is often artificial, their friendship ceremonious, and their charity ungracious.  In a word, the whole of their demeanour is such as might be expected from a people, who idolize the most frivolous or the most vicious propensities of human nature; and estimate as nothing, the talents, and industry, and virtue, which adorn it.

Their Language would afford great scope for discussion; but the limits which I have prescribed to my work, will not allow me to embrace it.  I shall, however, throw together such remarks as may enable the reader to form some judgment of it; and refer him, for more extended information upon it, to those modish compositions in which it is conveyed, and to the circles in which it is spoken.

Their language, then, is generally a dialect of the people among whom they reside.  They do, it is true, intersperse their conversational dialogue with scraps of French and Italian; they also construct their complimentary phrases with singular dexterity; they have, besides, certain epithets; such as dashing, stylish, &c. which may be considered as perfectly their own:—but if these be excepted, the rest of their language is, to the best of my judgment, wholly vernacular.

It must not, however, be supposed, that because these people use the terms of the country in which they live, they therefore use them in their ordinary and received acceptation.  Nothing can be farther from the fact.  I verily believe, that if the whole nomenclature of Fashion were examined from beginning to end, scarcely twenty words would be found, which in passing over to the regions of Fashion, have not left their native and customary sense behind them.

In support of this observation I shall cite, for the reader’s satisfaction, a brief extract from a private memorandum, which I had originally made with a design of constructing a Fashionable glossary.

Vernacular Terms.

Fashionable Sense.

Age

An infirmity which nobody owns.

Buying

Ordering goods without present purpose of payment.

Conscience

Something to swear by.

Courage

Fear of man.

Cowardice

Fear of God.

Day

Night.

Debt

A necessary evil.

Decency

Keeping up appearances.

Dinner

Supper.

Dressed

Half-naked.

Duty

Doing as other people do.

Economy

(Obsolete.)

Enthusiasm

Religion in earnest.

Fortune

The chief-good.

Friend

(Meaning not known.)

Home

Every body’s house but one’s own.

Honour

The modern Moloch, worshipped with licentious rites and human victims.

Knowing

Expert in folly and vice.

Life

Destruction of body and soul.

Love

(Meaning not known.)

Modest

Sheepish.

New

Delightful.

Night

Day.

Nonsense

Polite conversation.

Old

Insufferable.

Pay

Only applied to visits.

Play

Serious work.

Protection

Keeping a mistress.

Religion

Occupying a seat in some church or chapel.

Spirit

Contempt of decorum and conscience.

Style

Splendid extravagance.

Thing (the)

Any thing but what a man should be.

Time

Only regarded in music and dancing.

Truth

(Meaning uncertain).

Virtue

Any agreeable quality.

Vice

Only applied to servants and horses.

Undress

Complete clothing.

Wicked

Irresistibly agreeable.

Work

A vulgarism.

I am far from pretending to have assigned the precise significations in which the words above cited are employed by people of Fashion.  Perhaps I have done as much towards fixing the sense, as will be expected of one who cannot pretend to be perfectly in their confidence.  In fact, the transmutation of terms is an operation to which this people are most devoutly addicted.  It is daily making some advances among them; and keeps pace with the progress of their ideas, from the correct and authentic notions of truth and virtue, to those loose and spurious ones by which they are superseded.

In proof of this statement, I need only adduce those phrases in which they are accustomed to pronounce the eulogium of their deceased associates.

For example,—Is reference made to an unthinking profligate who has lately been hurried from the world?  His vices are glanced at, and cursorily condemned: but still it is affirmed, that, with all his faults, he always meant well; he had a good heart at the bottom; and he was nobody’s enemy but his own.

And for whom is this apology offered, and this praise indirectly solicited?  For the man who, if he ever meant any thing, meant nothing more or better, than to gratify his lusts, pursue his vicious pleasures, drink his wine, shake his dice, shuffle his cards; and thus waste his existence, and destroy his soul.  Of such a man it is gravely affirmed, that—he always meant well.

And of whom is it said, that he had a good heart?—Of the man who rarely manifested, through the whole of his life, any other symptoms than those which indicate a bad one.  His mouth was full of cursing and bitterness; his humour was choleric and revengeful; his feet moved swift to shed blood; there was no conscience in his bosom, and no fear of God before his eyes; and yet, because he was occasionally charitable, and habitually convivial, no doubt is entertained but that—he had a good heart at the bottom.

Lastly, he is said to have been nobody’s enemy but his own, who has wasted the earnings of an industrious ancestor, and bequeathed beggary and shame to his innocent descendants.  The wretch has distressed his family by his prodigality, and corrupted thousands by his example; and yet, because he has been the dupe of his lusts, and fallen a martyr to his vices, he is pronounced to have been—nobody’s enemy but his own.

These instances will serve to throw some light upon the sort of idiom employed by people of Fashion; and the manner in which they have wrested expressions of no little importance, from their natural and legitimate signification.

But before I quit the consideration of their language, I think it my duty to point out another peculiarity; of which, to the best of my knowledge, no satisfactory account has yet been given.  Whether it arise from the paucity of their words, the confusion of their ideas, or any other cause distinct from each of these, so it is, that they have but one term by which they are accustomed to express their strong emotions both of pleasure and pain.  On this term you will find them ringing perpetual changes; and, strange to say, it is to be heard, under one or other of its grammatical inflections, [104] in almost every sentence which falls from their lips.  The master has recourse to it in scolding his servants, the officer in reprimanding his men.  The traveller employs it in recounting his adventures, and the man of pleasure in describing his intrigues.  It is heard in the house, and in the field; in moments of seriousness, and of levity; in expressions of praise, and of blame.  In short, it is used on occasions the most dissimilar, under impressions the most contradictory, and for purposes the most opposite; and is, in fact, the sine quâ non of every energetic and emphatical period.

Now it happens, unfortunately, that this catholicon in Fashionable phraseology is, of all terms, that to which sober Christians annex the most awful ideas; and from the use of which they as scrupulously abstain, as they do from that of the Great Being whose vengeance it so tremendously expresses.  And it may be worthy of consideration, whether this familiar and unfeeling employment, by people of Fashion, of a term which imports infernal punishment, does not strengthen those doubts which have been already suggested, of their real belief in a place of future torment.

It ought not at the same time to be overlooked, that, in this respect, they bear a close resemblance to the vulgarest part of the community; and it would furnish a subject of curious investigation, why two classes in society, respectively the highest and the lowest, should exhibit so striking an agreement in a material branch of language.  I know it has been said, that extremes meet; and the fact before us is so much proof that the remark is just: but that by no means solves the difficulty.  For, after all, the question returns upon us, why such a fact should exist?  I confess, for my own part, I know no answer that can be given to it; and I very much wish that some one of their number would undertake to explain their real motives for courting a resemblance in one respect with that description of society, from which they make it their pride to differ in every other.

CHAP. VI.

DRESS—AMUSEMENTS.

There are, in the Dress of this people, many singularities, upon which, he who wished to say every thing that could be said, might say a great deal.  The peculiarity which a stranger would be most apt to remark, is that of their striving to be as unlike as possible to the rest of the world.  This appears, indeed, to be the parent of almost every other peculiarity; and certainly gives birth to many changes not a little ridiculous and prejudicial.

It being a sort of fundamental maxim with them, that superiority consists in dissimilitude, they become engaged in a perpetual competition with the world at large, and to a certain degree with each other.  In order to maintain this struggle for pre-eminence, they are compelled to vary the modes and materials of their dress in all the ways which a fanciful imagination can suggest.  It happens, through some strange infatuation, that those who affect to despise the man or woman of Fashion, yet ape their dress and air with the most impertinent and vexatious perseverance.  What is to be done in this case?—Similitude is not to be endured.  In order therefore to throw out their pursuers, these monopolizers of the mode are compelled to run into such eccentricities, as nothing could justify or palliate, but the distress to which they are reduced.  If, for example, short skirts and low capes are copied by the herd of imitators, the Fashionables seek their remedy in the opposite extreme; their skirts are drawn down to the calves of their legs, and their capes pulled over their ears with as much solemnity and dispatch, as if their existence depended upon the measure.  So if full petticoats and high kerchiefs are adopted by the misses of the crowd, the dressing-chambers of Fashion are all bustle and confusion:—the limbs are stripped, and the bosom laid bare, though the east wind may be blowing at the time; and coughs, rheumatisms, and consumptions, be upon the wings of every blast.

This rage for dissimilitude in the affairs of the wardrobe, is allowed an indefinite scope.  Unfortunately, as far as I can learn, there are no determinate points, beyond which it would be esteemed indecent or imprudent to indulge it.  The consequence is, that the groom and the gentleman may be often mistaken for each other; and he who is recognised to-day as a man of Fashion, may to-morrow be confounded with one of the people.

I confess I have always regarded this part of their conduct as an impeachment of their political wisdom.  I should have thought à priori, that a people who are so jealous of their pre-eminence in society, would not have overlooked the degree in which dress contributes to uphold it.  Many a Fashionable man must depend for the whole of his estimation, upon the cut of his coat, and the selection of his wardrobe.  A frivolous or preposterous taste may therefore prove fatal to the only sort of reputation which it was in his power to obtain.  But besides, an interchange of dress between people of Fashion and those whom they consider their inferiors, may eventually produce very serious mischiefs.  The distinctions of rank and condition are manifestly matters of external regulation, and consequently cannot be kept up without a due attention to external appearances.  He therefore who makes himself vulgar or ridiculous, is guilty of an act of self-degradation; and the fault will be his own, if he is displaced or despised; since he has renounced that appropriate costume, which proclaimed at once his station in society, and his determination to maintain it.

The fair-sex appear also on their part to set all limits and restraints at defiance.  They seem to feel themselves at perfect liberty to follow the prevailing mode, whatever that mode may be.  The consequence is, that modesty is often the last thing considered by the young, and propriety as completely neglected by the old.  And this latter circumstance may serve to account in some measure for the little respect which is said to be paid to age in the Fashionable World.  To judge from the histories of all nations, it seems impossible, that length of days, if accompanied with those characteristics which denote and become it, should not excite spontaneous veneration.  But if the shrivelled arm must be bound in ribbands and bracelets, if the withered limbs must be wrapped in muslins and gauzes, and the wrinkled face be decorated with ringlets and furbelows, the silly veteran waves the privilege of her years; and since she disgusts the grave, without captivating the gay, she must not be surprized if she meets with respect from neither.

A fondness for amusements is one of the strongest characteristics of this people.—They may almost be said to live for little else.  They pass the whole of that short day which they allow themselves, in making arrangements for spending the ensuing night.  Indeed, their preference of night to day is such, that they seem to consider the latter as having no other value than as it leads to the former, and affords an opportunity of preparing for its enjoyment.  And hence I suppose it is, that such multitudes among them dine by candle-light, and go to bed by day-light.

This passion for diversions renders the Sunday particularly irksome to persons of any sort of ton in the Fashionable World.  A dose of piety in the morning is well enough, though it is somewhat inconvenient to take it quite so early; but then it wants an opera, or a play, or a dance, to carry it off.  There are indeed some esprit-forts among the ladies, who are trying with no little success to redeem a portion of the Sabbath from the insufferable bondage of the Bible and the sermon-book; and to naturalize that continental distribution of the day, which gives the morning to devotion, and the evening to dissipation.  It is but justice to the gentlemen to say, that they discover no backwardness in supporting a measure so consonant to all their wishes.  It is therefore not impossible that some considerable changes in this respect may soon be brought about.  That good-humoured legislature which has allowed a Sunday newspaper, [116] will perhaps not always refuse a Sunday opera, or play.  People of Fashion will then no longer have to torture their invention for expedients to supply the absence of their diurnal diversions.  They may then let their tradesmen go quietly to their parish-churches, instead of sending for them to wear away the sabbath-hours in some supervacaneous employment.  In short, Sunday may be set at liberty from its primitive bondage, and exhibit as happy a union of morning solemnity and evening licentiousness, as it has ever displayed among the dissolute adherents of Fashionable Christianity.

But to return:—The rage for amusements [119] is so strong in this people, that it seems to supersede all exercise of judgment in the choice and the conduct of them.  To go every where, see every thing, and know every body, are, in their estimation, objects of such importance, that, in order to accomplish them, they subject themselves to the greatest inconveniences, and commit the very grossest absurdities.  Hence they will rush in crowds, to shine where they cannot be seen, to dance where they cannot move, and to converse with friends whom they cannot approach; and, what is more, though they cannot breathe for the pressure, and can scarcely live for the heat, yet they call this—enjoyment.

Nor does this passion suffer any material abatement by the progress of time.  Many veterans visit, to the last, the haunts of polite dissipation; they lend their countenance to those dramas of vanity in which they can no longer act a part; and show their incurable attachment to the pleasures of this world, by their unwillingness to decline them.  The infirmities which attend upon the close of life are certainly designed to produce other habits; and it should seem, that when every thing announces an approaching dissolution, the amusements of the drawing-room might give place to the employments of the closet.  Persons, however, of this description are of another mind; and as every difficulty on the score of teeth, hoariness, and wrinkles, can be removed by the happy expedients of ivory, hair-caps, and cosmetics, there is certainly no physical objection to their continuing among their Fashionable acquaintance, till they are wanted in another world.

I cannot illustrate this part of my subject better than by presenting my readers with the following Ode on the Spring, supposed to have been written by a man of Fashion; it expresses, with so much exactness, the sentiments and taste of that extraordinary people, that it will stand in the place of a thousand observations upon their character.

ODE ON THE SPRING.

SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN BY A MAN OF FASHION.

I.

LO! where the party-giving dames,
Fair Fashion’s train, appear;
Disclose the long-expected games,
And wake the modish year:
The opera-warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the actor’s note,
The dear-bought harmony of Spring;
While, beaming pleasure as they fly,
Bright flambeaus through the murky sky
Their welcome fragrance fling.

II.

Where’er the rout’s full myriads close
The staircase and the door,
Where’er thick files of belles and beaus
Perspire through ev’ry pore:
Beside some faro-table’s brink,
With me the Muse shall stand and think,
(Hemm’d sweetly in by squeeze of state,)
How vast the comfort of the crowd,
How condescending are the proud,
How happy are the great!

III.

Still is the toiling hand of Care,
The drays and hacks repose;
But, hark, how through the vacant air
The rattling clamour glows!
The wanton Miss and rakish Blade,
Eager to join the masquerade,
Through streets and squares pursue their fun:
Home in the dusk some bashful skim;
Some, ling’ring late, their motley trim
Exhibit to the sun.

IV.

To Dissipation’s playful eye,
Such is the life for man;
And they that halt, and they that fly,
Should have no other plan:
Alike the busy and the gay
Should sport all night till break of day,
In Fashion’s varying colours drest;
Till seiz’d for debt through rude mischance,
Or chill’d by age, they leave the dance,
In gaol or dust—to rest.

V.

Methinks I hear, in accents low,
Some sober quiz reply,
Poor child of Folly! what art thou?
A Bond-Street Butterfly!
Thy choice nor Health nor Nature greets,
No taste hast thou of vernal sweets,
Enslav’d by noise, and dress, and play:
Ere thou art to the country flown,
The sun will scorch, the Spring be gone,—
Then leave the town in May.

CHAP. VII.

HAPPINESS OF THE PEOPLE ESTIMATED.

I trust my reader is by this time sufficiently acquainted with the general outline of Fashionable life: it would only be accumulating observations unnecessarily to enter further into the subject: I shall therefore devote the present chapter to a brief investigation of the state of happiness among a people who, it must be observed, claim to be considered—the happiest of their species.

Happiness is, as moralists agree, a relative expression; and indicates the excess of the aggregate of good over that of evil in any given condition.  The foundation of happiness therefore must be traced to the ideas which those, upon whose condition the question turns, are accustomed to entertain, of good and evil.  So that if we wished to ascertain the amount of happiness in a life of Fashion, we must make our calculation out of those things, which constitute respectively good and evil in a Fashionable estimation.  I have had occasion to observe before, that a Fashionable life is a life of sense; consequently all the sources of happiness in such a condition must be confined to the pleasures of sense.  Now, it must be considered, that the pains of sense are at least as numerous as its pleasures; and that, by a law of Providence subject to very few exceptions, those who will have the one, must take their proportion of the other with them.

This observation is abundantly confirmed by what occurs in the experience of the parties under consideration.  The pleasures which men of Fashion derive from the gratification of their animal appetites at the table, the gaming-house, and the brothel, have a very ample set-off in the inconveniences which they suffer from arthritic, nervous, and a thousand other, painful and retributive complaints.  Nor are the gay and dissipated of the other sex exempted from the same contingency of constitutional suffering.  Beside the common lot of human nature, they have a class of evils of their own procuring; and, by excesses as imprudent as they are immoral, they bring upon themselves a variety of diseases, for which neither a name nor a remedy can be found.  There are those, it is true, who avoid much of this inconvenience, by mixing some discretion with their folly, and setting some bounds to their favourite gratifications: but then it is to be remembered, that these are restraints which render persons of licentious minds singularly uneasy; and they may therefore be considered as administering to pain, nearly in proportion as they abridge indulgence.

But supposing that we were to throw these severer items out of the calculation: there would still remain evils enough in a Fashionable condition, to keep the scale from preponderating on the side of pleasure.  To shine in a ball-room, is, no doubt, a high satisfaction; but then to be outshone by another, (which is just as likely to happen,) is at least as great a mortification: to be invited to many modish parties, is really delightful; but then to know those who are invited to more than ourselves, is certainly vexatious: to find one’s-self surrounded by people of the first Fashion, is charming; but then to be dying with heat all the time, is something in the opposite scale; to wear a coat or a head-dress of the newest invention, is indeed a pleasure of the highest order; but then to see, by accident, articles of the same mode on the back of a man-milliner, or the head of a lady’s maid, is a species of vexation not easily endured.  An opera, a play, a party, a night passed at a dance, or at a cassino, or a faro-table, are all events, to be sure, of the happiest occurrence; but then, to be disappointed of one, makes a deeper impression on the side of pain, than to be gratified with three, does on that of pleasure: and disappointments will happen, where many objects are pursued, and where the concurrence of many instruments is necessary to their accomplishment.  A drunken coachman, a broken pannel, a sick horse, a saucy footman, a mistaken message, a dull play, indifferent company, a head-ach, a heart-burn, an epidemical disease, or the dread of it, a death in the family, Sunday, Fast-day, Passion week, and a thousand other provoking casualties, either deprive these entertainments of their power of pleasing, or even set them wholly aside.  I should only weary my reader were I to lay before him in detail half the catalogue of those minor distresses which embarrass the idea of a modish life: he must however perceive, from the little which has been said, that every pleasure has its countervailing pain; and that every sacrifice to diversion and splendour has its correspondent chastisement in vexation and disgrace.

Hitherto those principles have been assumed as the basis of calculation, upon which people of Fashion have some advantages in their favour; but there is another ground upon which (to say the whole truth) it ought to be put, and on which all the advantages are against them.

Man (it is notorious) is a reflecting being; and, do what he will, he must reflect.  He may choose an habitual career of sense; but still he must have, whether he seek or shun them, moments of Reflection.  This is I admit, extremely inconvenient; but then it is without a remedy.  My business, however, is, neither to impugn, nor to vindicate the existence of such a principle; but to show its bearings upon the sort of life which people of Fashion must necessarily lead.  Not to enter into particulars, what can constitute a heavier affliction, than for a man of Fashion (or, which is the same thing, a man of the world) to be obliged to think over again the events of his licentious career?  To be persecuted with recollecting the property he has squandered, the wine he has drunk, the seduction he has practised, and the duels he has fought?  These things were well enough at the time; they had their humour and their reputation, and they were not without their pleasure: but then they were designed to be acted, and not reflected upon.  The woman of Fashion is under the same law, and is therefore exposed to the same mental torments.  She, too, must trace back (though she would give the world to be excused) the steps she has trodden in the enchanting walks of dissipation.  She must live over again every portion of a life which, though too fascinating to be declined, is yet too shocking to be thought of.  Her memory, also, must be haunted with frightful scenes, which remind her, at the expence of how much health, and property, and time, and virtue, she has sustained the figure which made her so talked of, and the gaieties which rendered her so happy.  Now these are real afflictions; and that Reflection from which they result is, not without reason, felt and acknowledged as the scourge of their existence, by the ingenuous part, at least, of the Fashionable World.

Many expedients have indeed been suggested for laying this busy principle asleep, and many plans struck out for rendering its pangs supportable; but hitherto without success.  For though it has been proposed to laugh it away, dance it away, drink it away, or travel it away; yet not one of these projects has answered the end: and Fashionable casuists are as far as ever from finding out a remedy of sufficient potency, to cure, or even abate, in any material degree, the pains of Reflection.

And here I cannot but remark, how grievously the seat of this disease (for such it is considered) has been mistaken by those who have so lightly undertaken to prescribe for its removal.  They have manifestly considered it as a disorder of the nerves; and hence all the remedies which they have recommended, are calculated to promote, either by change of scene, or by some other mechanical impulse, a brisker circulation of the animal spirits.  The ill success with which each has been attended, sufficiently proclaims the fallacy upon which they all are founded.  If Reflection had been only a nervous disturbance, if it had arisen out of any disarrangement of the animal economy, some, at least, of the Fashionable nostrums would have dispersed the complaint: whereas it is notorious, that, under every regimen which has been tried, while the stronger symptoms have disappeared, the disorder has remained in the system; and neither Bath, nor Weymouth, nor Tunbridge, nor Town, has ever effected a cure.

The plain truth is, (whatever may be insinuated to the contrary by these Médecins à-la-mode,) that the disease is altogether moral; and, consequently, the seat of it is not in the nerves, but in the Conscience.  There is, in fact, nothing new in the complaint: it is inseparably connected with a Fashionable career; and has been more or less the scourge of all, in every age, who have declined the duties which they owe “to God and their inferiors.”  I take it to have been a malady of the very same description which afflicted Herod in his communication with the Baptist, and which made Felix tremble under the reasoning of Paul.  It is not a little remarkable, that both these men of Fashion (for such no doubt they were) fell into the error which has been condemned, in the treatment of their disease; and each, there is reason to believe, carried it with him to his grave.

If my reader now adverts to the particulars which have been stated, he will be compelled to draw conclusions not a little humbling to the lofty pretensions of a Fashionable life.  In few states of society, under its present imperfection, is happiness very high: and it might not perhaps be easy to assign the particular condition which embraces it in the greatest proportion.  But surely after the discoveries which this discussion has made, we run no risk in affirming, that a life of Fashion is not that condition.  The lot of mankind would be wretched indeed, if those were the happiest of the species, who, without exemption from the pains of sense, are excluded from the pleasures of Reflection: and who, as the price of enjoyments derived from the one, become subject to the chastisement inflicted by both.

CHAP. VIII.

DEFECT OF THE SYSTEM—PLANS OF REFORM—CONCLUSION.

A system which does so little for the happiness of its members, as that which has been unfolded in the course of this work, must have some radical defect; and it is worthy of consideration, whether some steps should not be speedily taken, in order to discover the nature of that defect, and to provide a competent remedy for it.

I am perfectly aware, that it would be most decorous, to let such a measure of enquiry originate in the community to which it primarily relates; and if I thought there was any chance of the affair being taken up by the body, I should satisfy myself with having intimated the necessity of such a procedure, and leave the people of Fashion to reform themselves.

But I will honestly confess, that I see not at present any prospect of such an event.  It has not, so far as I can understand, been hinted, in those assemblies which legislate for the body, that the system of Fashion requires any revision: nor can I discover, among the projected arrangements for future seasons, any thing like a committee of reform.  There is, on the contrary, every reason to believe, that designs of a very different nature occupy the minds of those who influence the community.  I very much mistake, if it is not their intention, to carry the system more extensively into effect; to make still further conquests upon the puny domains of Wisdom and Virtue; and to evince, by new modes of dissipation and new excuses for adopting them, the endless perfectibility of Folly and Vice.  Under such circumstances, it will scarcely be imputed to me as a trespass upon their privileges, if I venture to perform that office for them, which they are never likely to do for themselves.

I scruple not then to affirm, that INCONSISTENCY is the radical fault of the Fashionable system.  This truth is demonstrated by every thing that has been said upon their polity and laws, their religion and morals, their plans of education, and their institutes of life.  Under every view which has been taken of this people, they have exhibited appearances truly paradoxical; and been found involved, from the beginning to the end of their career, in the most palpable and extraordinary contradictions.  The fact indeed is, as their history has shown, that the principles upon which they act, are essentially at variance with each other; and the effect which these principles have upon their conduct and their feelings, is only such as might be expected, from an everlasting struggle for mastery among them.  The hand of this people is given to Self-denial, but their heart to Sensuality; and the manner in which they are obliged to equivocate with both, will not allow them the complete enjoyment of either.  The libertinism they practise shows them nothing but this world, the piety they profess hides every thing from them but the world to come: thus alternately impelled and restrained, deluded and undeceived, they follow what they love, and condemn what they follow: neither blind enough to be wholly led, nor discerning enough to see their path;—with too much religion to let them be happy here, and too little to make them so hereafter.

Now I see but two ways by which this INCONSISTENCY can be removed; and as I wish to make my work of some use to the people of whom it treats, I shall briefly propose them in their order.

1.  The first plan of melioration which I would submit to the Fashionable World, is that of renouncing the Christian religion.  In recommending this step, I proceed upon a supposition, that the government and laws and manners which now prevail, must at all events be retained: and upon such a supposition, I contend, that renouncing the Christian religion is a measure of indispensable necessity.  For surely if duels must be fought, what can be so preposterous as to swear allegiance to a law which says—“Thou shalt not kill?”  If injuries must not be forgiven, where is the propriety of employing a prayer in which the petitioner declares, that he does forgive them?  If the passions are to be gratified, what end is answered by doing homage to those Scriptures which so peremptorily declare, that they must be mortified?  In a word, if swearing, prevarication, and sensuality; if a neglect of “the duties to God and inferiors,” be necessary, or even allowable, parts of a Fashionable character; where is the policy, the virtue, or even the decency, of connecting it with a religion which stamps these several qualities with the deepest guilt, and threatens them with the severest retribution?  If a religion of some sort be absolutely necessary, let such an one be chosen as may possess a correspondence with the other parts of the system: let it be a religion in which pride, and resentment, and lust, may have their necessary scope; a religion, in short, in which the God of this world may be the idol, and the men of this world the worshippers.  Such an arrangement will go a great way towards establishing consistency: it will dissolve a union by which both parties are sufferers; and liberate at once the people of Fashion from a profession which involves them in contradiction, and Christianity from a connexion which covers her with disgrace.

2.  If, on the contrary, it should be thought material (as I trust it will) to retain Christianity at all events, the plan of reform must be exactly inverted; and the sacrifices taken from those laws, and maxims, and habits, which interfere with the spirit and the injunctions of that holy religion.  It is altogether out of the character of Christianity to act a subservient or an accommodating part.  Her nature, her office, and her object, are all decidedly adverse to that base alliance into which it has been attempted to degrade her.  Pure and spotless as her native skies, she delights in holiness; because God, from whose bosom she came, is holy.  Girt with power, and designed for dominion, she claims the heart as her throne, and all the affections as the ministers of her will: nor does she consider her object accomplished until she has cast down every lofty imagination, extinguished every rebellious lust, and brought into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.  It is obvious, therefore, that if she is to be retained at all, it must be upon her own terms; and those terms will manifestly require an utter renunciation of every measure which, under the former plan, it was proposed to retain.  Duels must now no longer be fought, nor injuries resentfully pursued, nor licentious passions deliberately gratified.  Swearing must be banished from the lips, prevarication from the thoughts, sensuality from the heart; and that law be expunged, which dispenses with “the duties to God and inferiors,” in order to make way for that immutable statute which enjoins them.

It must not be dissembled, that, in the progress of such a reform, certain inconveniences will be unavoidably encountered; but these will be speedily and effectually compensated by an influx of real and permanent advantages.  The pangs which accompanied the “death unto sin,” will soon be forgotten in the pleasures which result from a “life unto righteousness;” and the peace and hope which abound in the way, will efface the recollection of those agonistic efforts by which it was entered.

In the mean time, all things will be done with decency and order.  The whole economy of life and conduct will be scrupulously consulted; and such arrangements introduced, as will make the several parts and details correspond and harmonize with each other.  Duty and recreation will have their proper characters, and times, and places, and limits.  Every thing, in short, will be preserved in the system, which can facilitate intercourse without impairing virtue; and nothing be struck out but what administers to vanity, duplicity, and vice.

Whether changes of such magnitude as those which I have described, will ever take place upon an extensive scale, I cannot pretend to conjecture; but certain I am, that, if ever they should, not only the Fashionable World, but society at large, will be very much the better for them.  Greatly as I wish the “Reformation of Manners,” and “the Suppression of Vice,” I see insuperable obstacles to each of these events, while rank, and station, and wealth, throw their mighty influence into the opposite scale.  Then—and not till then—will Christianity receive the homage she deserves, and produce the blessings she has promised—when “the makers of our manners” shall submit to her authority; and the PEOPLE of Fashion become the PEOPLE of God.

THE END.

Lately published by the same Author,

THE CHRISTIAN MONITOR for the LAST DAYS; or a Caution to the professedly Religious, against the Corruptions of the latter Times, in Doctrine, Discipline, and Morals.  Second Edition, corrected.—8vo. 6s.

ALSO,

THE HISTORY of the ORIGIN and FIRST TEN YEARS of the BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.  2 Vols.  Extra Boards.  Demy, 1l. 4s.  Royal, 1l. 15s.

This Work contains an Authentic Account of the Origin of the Institution, and of the several Societies in connection with it: together with a Chronological View of the Controversy concerning it, and other Matters of an interesting Nature, not before made Public.

The following are some of the Testimonies borne to the Work.

“The general Narrative is clear and manly, and in many parts rises into true eloquence.

“There is one department, especially, of the Work, which is entirely new, and that is the History of the Origin of the various Societies.  We do not hesitate to consider it as in the highest degree interesting and valuable.”  Christ. Observ. for Nov. 1816.

“Mr. Owen, in detailing the History of the British and Foreign Bible Society, has conferred an obligation, not only on the particular Patrons of it, but on Literature in general.”  Gent. Mag. for Oct. 1816.

“We trust that every one of our Readers, who can afford to purchase the Work, will possess himself of this intellectual treat.”  Christ. Guard. for Feb. 1817.

See also British Review, No. XV.

Sold by the same Booksellers; of whom may be had the other Works of the Author.

Tilling and Hughes, Printers, Chelsea.

FOOTNOTES.

[5]  For the geographical solecism of “a western latitude,” the author has only to plead, that the people of whom he treats, acknowledge no points of the compass but those of east and west; and that the term longitude has scarcely any place in their language.

[10]  This somehow and somewhere existence of people of Fashion might lead a stranger to suppose, that they have no permanent dwelling-place.  He must, however, be told, that, while they are thus migrating from place to place, without comfort, and without respect, many of them are actually turning their backs upon the conveniences of a family mansion, and the consequence of a dependent tenantry.  This disposition to emigration in persons of distinction, has been so admirably noticed in a late elegant and interesting work, that I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of transcribing the passage.

“That there exists at present amongst us a lamentable want of rural philosophy, or of that wisdom which teaches a man at once to enjoy and to improve a life of retirement, is, I think, a point too obvious to be contested.  Whence is it else, that the ancient mansions of our nobility and gentry, notwithstanding all the attractions of rural beauty, and every elegance of accommodation, can no longer retain their owners, who, at the approach of winter, pour into the metropolis, and even in the summer months wander to the sea-coast or to some other place of Fashionable resort?  This unsettled humour, in the midst of such advantages, plainly argues much inward disorder, and points out the need as well as the excellency of that discipline which can inspire a pure taste of nature, furnish occupation in the peaceful labours of husbandry, and, what is nobler still, open the sources of moral and intellectual enjoyment.”—Preface to Rural Philosophy, by Ely Bates, Esq. p. 9.

[12]  His Majesty’s Birth-Day.

[29]  Vide Paley’s Mor. Philos. vol. i. p. 1.

[42]  For an account of this transaction, see the trial of Captain Macnamara for the murder of Colonel Montgomery; in which it will appear, that though the Captain admitted the fact, yet the jury acquitted him of the crime.  Such complaisance on the part of juries is particularly favourable to this summary mode of terminating differences.  Fatal duels are now become almost as common as highway robberies, and make almost as little impression upon the public mind.  The murdered is carried to his grave, and the murderer received back into society, with the same honour, as if the one had done his duty in sacrificing his life, and the other had only done his in taking it away.

[53]  “In the worst moments of his pain he cried out, that he sincerely hoped, the agonies he then endured might expiate the sins he had committed.” * * * * “I wish with all my soul (says the writer of the Memoir) that the unthinking votaries of dissipation and infidelity could all have been present at the death-bed of this poor man; could have heard his expressions of contrition for his past misconduct, and of reliance upon the mercy of his Creator.”—Vide Memoir of the late Lord Camelford, by the Rev. —, &c.

[57]  Vide the titles of certain country-dances, the Pantomime of Don Juan, and the ballets at the Opera House, on the vigils of the Sabbath.

[66]  The Bishop of Durham animadverts (with just severity) upon “the great neglect of church in the Sunday afternoons, when the duties of religion are deserted for the fashions or friendship if the world.”  Vide Charge for 1801.

[104]  If the reader should have a difficulty in discovering the full import of this remark, he is requested to consider that the peculiar term appropriated to swearing is capable of becoming either a verb, a substantive, a participial adjective, or an adverb: and he will find that it is used under all these forms by people of Fashion.

[116]  How much the Fashionable World are indebted to the legislature for refusing to accede to Lord Belgrave (now Earl Grosvenor’s) motion against Sunday newspapers, in 1799, may be learnt (among other things) from the following advertisement which appeared in the Morning Post for October 26, 1805:

“The British Neptune, or Naval, Military, and Fashionable Sunday Advertiser, will always contain real critiques upon Theatrical Performances.”

Such entertaining publications as these, issued and hawked about on the Lord’s Day, are a concession to the Fashionable infirmities of the age, for which those who are wearied of their Bibles, cannot be sufficiently thankful.

If any of my readers wish to see this subject seriously discussed, he will find something to his purpose in the 6th chapter of “The Christian Monitor for the last Days.”

N.B.  While this note was passing through the press, a Sunday Evening Paper was announced for publication: and, as if it were not sufficient to break the laws, without at the same time libelling them, this “Sunday Evening Gazette,” which is to employ compositors, pressmen, venders, hawkers, &c. on the Lord’s Day, is to be called—The Constitution!!!

[119]  A distinguished Prelate, who gained the ear of the Fashionable World to a degree beyond all former example, has adverted to this “rage for amusement” with such apostolical earnestness, at the close of a lecture delivered to perhaps the greatest number of Fashionable people that ever assembled for a similar purpose within the walls of a church, that I shall avail myself of the passage, as well to confirm my statement as to embellish my pages.

“When I consider that the time of the year is now approaching, in which the gaieties and amusements of this vast metropolis are generally engaged in with incredible alacrity and ardour, and multitudes are pouring in from every part of the kingdom to take their share in them; and when I recollect further, that at this very period in the last year, a degree of extravagance and wildness of pleasure took place, which gave pain to every serious mind, and was almost unexampled in any former times, I am not, I confess, without some apprehensions that the same scenes of levity and dissipation may again recur; and that some of those who now hear me (of the younger part more especially) may be drawn too far into this Fashionable vortex, and lose, in that giddy tumult of diversion, all remembrance of what has passed in this sacred place.”  Bp Porteus on St. Matthew, Vol. II. Lect. 18, p. 161.

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Table of Contents

- THE Fashionable World DISPLAYED.

- ADVERTISEMENT TO THE EIGHTH EDITION.

- INTRODUCTION.

- CONTENTS.

- CHAP. I.

- CHAP. II.

- CHAP. III.

- CHAP. IV

- CHAP. V.

- CHAP. VI.

- ODE ON THE SPRING.

- CHAP. VII.

- CHAP. VIII.

- Lately published by the same Author,

- FOOTNOTES.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE