The Press.
London, England, 1853-11-05 00:00:00

THE PRESS

NOVEMBER 5, 1853.

SKETCHES OF RADICALS.
4. THE RADICAL 3EsTER.
DID you ever reflect philosophically on the spectacle of a (illy Faux
on Gunpowder-day ? What a ludicrous large-nosed Puneli of au
object it is—and how the little ragamuffins run halloaiiig round it.
like will things ! Yet Guido Fawkes, the historian, Was one of the
Fawkeses of Farnley, an old Yorkshire family, and was personally a
stern, solemn, enthusiastic gentleman. I can't help thinking that the
wags of the day are about as civilised and reasonable in their treat-
ment of the Constitution, as correct in their general views of it, in
short, as are the aforesaid little fellows in their notions of Guido.
A good type of this class is Ponto Sparks, who wrote in the
" Cud " that paper on the Peerage and Attain which I mentioned in a
previous essay, and of which (owing to the kindness of a butterman)
I possess a copy. Au immense deal of our jocose talent is in the
Radical ranks just now, and " Waggish Histories of England," " The
Comic Delolme," ficc., testify to its activity. I admire the agility,
though I question the reasonableness, of Ponto Sparks. He even pro-
vokes me when he gets angry, for he sometimes gets inflammatory ;
as chimneys catch fire, not by native liveliness, but front an accumula-
tion of soot in them which ought to have been swept away. False in•
formation and false reasoning lead to false and dangerous pleasantry.
It is the staple Radical philosophy which of course forms the
mental groundwork of Ponto ; and this I have defined to depend
mainly on an over-estimation of modern influences. A commercial
community, governed by what is called common sense, must, of
course, find history a curious sultiect to explain. Hence the attempt
of such persons as our friend Nlawker to apply the rule of three to the
affairs of England, apropos of everything. Thus, I remember a calcu-
lation of his, that, taking the rental of the aristocracy at so much per
annum, and that of the moneyed classes proper at so much, you would
find such and such a proportion against the aristocracy, eryo—(the
remainder of the sentence was drowned in the applause of the
" Ponderers," and one old gentleman thumped his pewter pot on the
table and nearly went into a tit !) Here it was, "ass is to 3," &e.
But the fatal error in this rule of three (which, however, 1 despair of
making Ponto comprehend) may be instantly exposed in an illustra-
tion. The number (say 3) called inferior is not only a 3, but, even as
numbers with the Pythagoreans had a mystic force, so it has a symbolic
power besides its ordinary numerical one ! This element is the secret
but potent one which ruins so many of these counnon-sense cabada-
tions. Let argument do what it will—Mawker doesn't only bury his
grandmother because she would decompose disagreeably, but under a
deeper feeling than ho would find it. easy to explain! A crown is not
only a circlet of bright metal. A political body is not powerful only
by the material power, but by the sentiment, by the ideas, by the
memories, by the romance which it represents.
From his point of view, then, our friend Ponto makes strange
work. All his pleasantry depends upon a contrast between any given
object, and a cockney standard of knowingness and fitness. In the
oa4/, I remember, he was universally facetious on antiquity. "If
" Socrates were to come into the market-places, in our day, to talk phi-
" losophy, the policeman would tell him to move on!"—said Polito. So
happy as notion deserved working up, and he did us a history on the
principle—the whole fun consisting in treating Om. de Lion in print
as Wright would treat him at the Adelphi; and judging St. Thomas
of Canterbury by the fun of the contrast between his costume and
that of a modern parson.
This pleasantry, however, has a decided purpose and bent.
Ponto's squibs are parts of the " enlightenment' of the day. It is
not without a meaning that he is so facetious about Adam, or that
he made that waggish inquiry into the relative proportions of iron in
old blood and new ! (I thought Mawker would have choked himself
with laughing at this sally !I When he threw off that paper called
" Tom Cribb at a Tournament." the dog had his eye on producing
more than a laugh in time ; and all those jokes, burlesques, and
buffooneries about the classics, the middle ages, and the peerage, were
intended to help the general cause effectually enough. Pont() des-
pises. with all the zest of a lively man, your ordinary, boring, reason-
able Radical, who expends dreary hours in showing that a man who
reforms the sanitary evils of his day, or has a large factory going, is
one of " Nature's noblemen " . . . . " a noble who has his patent from
Nature," &e., &c. ; but in the long run his cause is the same with that
prodigy of sober commonplace. His jokes about Adam are all honey
to the new-fledged aristocrats of gold ; all jealous of the great world,
and sick to be into it; scornful of high life, and sycophantic of its out-
siders ; ranting about social freedom, while intriguing for admission
into fashionable clubs; and ending generally by out-heralding heralds,
and having nothing to say to their poor relations but sending them oc
casional old clothes! Ponto's humour helps a potentate of this sort—
who buys the estates of the old Jacobite families, and tries to get the
peerages of Nithsdade, or Kenmure, or Derwentwater, restored to him.
It would ben shame to bring solemn artillery to bear on these
light-bob skirmishers; but Ido think Ponto should undertake a little
serious reflection on sonic of his pet subjects. There is one pleasantry
about Adam, for example, and one perennial gaiety about the Landed
Interest. This lust is a stock subject, and but for top boots, and the

637

agricultural shows. and " Squire Western," I seareele know what the
eat! would have done, except what it ultimately did do. Of course.
the beaux esprit* of the suburbs are highly capable of judging of the
habits and manner% of such a class. and can't be expected to reflect
that even ua old " Squire Western" days the bosom of the " landed
interest" could produce such men as Evelyn (and we may add Sir
Roger de Coverley), and Marshal Stair : and has in our time nourished
a man or two like Landon Bulwe'r. Apure of Caldwell, Aubrey de
N't re, and so On.
We will not come down upon Ponto at present with such an
inquiry as how the aristocracies of Europe turned out such fellows as
they did, from Alfred to Elizabeth, and from Dante to Bacon, and
Cervantes and Calderon. But it is a little too hard of lam to be play-
ing with that desolating wit of his so specially always on the peerage.
who, as they don't generally write in comic journals, bay° no chimes
of taking their own part ! But that's the way of that unreasonable
lively dog Ponto—who, too, is always somewhat narrow in fixing all
merit, in writing For after all, a book is only so much sense
and pluck in one form. and these qualities can be shown elsewhere--
in the army, or navy. or in the government of a great estate—and can
be shown quietly and silently too (perhaps to most etreet after all 9.
Then here again it is cruel of Potato to demand all the greatness
from the one gentleman who is the eldest brother and head of the
family. We present Pouto with " Hume's history." and he insists on
having it from the " Earl of Hume." We call his attention to
" Waverley," but nothing will satisfy him but haying a " Waverley " from
the Duke of Bueelench. We remind him of "'font Jones," and ha
roars out that it should have been done by the Earl of Denbigh. Yet
surely flume. Scott, and Fielding had precisely the Sarni' amount of
the blood of their families as the gentlemen at the head of theta, anti
must be debited to the aristocratic account. The little handful of
men, out of the twenty four millions of population, who wear coronets
eannot be all Bynms. Is every fisherman a Mamaniello, or every
peasant a William Tell ? Was Sir Charles Napier less nn " aristocrat'
because he had not the coronet of his grandfather?
Besides, my dear Ponto (without making any unpleasant and
odious compinisons between your style and Lord Lindsay's), do you
always argue this delicate question quite fairly The new lord. who is
such an able nuts, was the sills of a tobacconist you say. Compare him
to Front de Bta'uf, the 14th baron. " opposite." I lout you forget that the
new lord's ancestors have been of the tobacconist stamp sine,. Adam
till our able friend: whereas there have been half a dozen Front de
Bonds (if the family is really a patrician one) between this and the
Conqueror, who have ranked with the great spirits of their times.
Families, like fruit-trees, have good crops and bad crops. Pity the old
tree with the barren branches this summer, but don't. cut it down,
don't pelt it with mud ! But may space, I observe, is 1.1111 out.