The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-25 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

1026

Mr. Halliwell's derivation for " howdy " is
fantastic ; and it would be more natural, if
driven for a fanciful root, to take it from the
contraction " howd'ye," which in Johnson
follows the actual word "howdy." The deri-
vation by Jamieson settles the point.
This volume has ethnological interest, but
much of its materials may be found already in
print. It chief value is the close indication
of the similarity between the Norwegian and
Cumberland proper names. Many of the
words cited as local by the author are, we can
assure him, common to various parts of Eng-
land ; and if the volume should reach another
edition, it would be of advantage to make a
closer comparison of his Cumberland vocabu-
lary with "Todd's Johnson."

The Eighteenth Century ; or, Illustrations of the
Manners and Customs of our Grandfathers.
By Alexander Andrews. London : Chap-
man and Hall.

THERE is something peculiar in the pride
which this generation takes in fancying itself
superior to the generations of times past.
The reverse is commonly the case. The
golden age of poets is always an antique age.
There is no more frequent complaint in every
epoch of the worltrs history than tile degene-
racy of the period in which the complainers
live. If wealth has declined, fond reference is
made to the splendour of a more prosperous
day. If wealth has increased, there is an
outcry against the increase of luxury, and
sumptuary laws are passed to restrain excess.
It is amusing in our own annals to read in
Hollinushed how that luxury had so in-
creased in his time that every decent house
had come to be supplied with a chimney, and
to be furnished with silver plate instead of
woolen platters. "Alas !" says the chronicler,
" men formerly were content to dwell in houses
" built of willow, now they must have oak ;
" but see the change, for our men that were
" formerly of oak are now become willow."
Tile reputations a the present time, in letters,
arts, and statesmanship, commonly pale before
tme reputations of previous times. Augustus
dies not reign in an Augustan age. Stars do
not shine until night spreads her mantle over
the earth.

But in our day the lautlator temporis acti
exists not. It is the present, not the past,
which is lauded. Progress is deified. Society
is never weary of wondering what its fathers
would have said of this invention or that.
The people of the last age are regarded as
little better than barbarians. They had
neither gas, nor omnibuses, nor railways, nor
policemen. Steam was in its infancy. It is
we who are blessed with the happiness of
living in the maturity of the beneficent giant.
The circumstances which might modify this
admiration of the present are overlooked. In
the plenitude of useful inventions we forget
the paucity of great men. The greater coin
modiousness of life more than compensates
for the absence of intellectual stimulants

The particulars collected by Mr. Andrews
of the social life of the last century are really
curious. In reading them we can scarcely
believe that they refer to a state comparatively
so recent. It is hardly an exaggeration of the
author to state, that " were it possible for us
" to retrace but three steps [generations?) in
" the ladder of time we should alight into a
" world which we should not recognise as our
" own." The book opens with a chapter on
" Fashionable Life." Holborn in the last
century was not disdained by fashion, and
Bloomsbury was aristocratic. There is an old
hair-dresser now living in Tavistock-street,
Covent-garden, who loves to dilate on the
thriving state of his trade in his father's day,
when the street was blocked up with Court
equipages, and the youthful princesses thought
that no purchases eculd be made save in that
now dirty and neglected thoroughfare. Chel-
sea and Hampstead were thought quite far
enough off for a country residence, and
fashion resorted to Islington to " drink the
" waters

Swift, in his ".Journal to Stella," repeatedly alludes to
" Addison's country house at Chelsea ; " and, on taking
lodgings there himself, talks of the beautiful scent of tho
new•made hay around, and says he gets quite sunburnt in
his journeys to and fro, and whenever he stays late in

London, he congratulates himself on having no money, so
that he cannot be robbed on his way home. That this
was no burlesque, the following confirmatory extracts will
show : . . .

".Many persons arrived in town from their country
houses in Marybone."—Daily Journal, October 15, 1728.
" The Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole comes to
town this day from Chelsea."—lbid.
Among the advertisements of sales in the folio edition
of the Spectator, the mansion of Streatfr, junior, is de•
scribed as " his country house, being near Bolton-row, in
Piccadilly."

The \Vest-end was not then quite so expensive
as at present. In 1710 Swift wrote Stella that
he had taken lodgings in Bury-street, " the
" first, floor, a dining-room and bed chamber,"
" plaguy dear " at eight shillings a week!
A peep into the past would be gratifying in
one respect. How delightful would it be to
witness the Mull in St. James's filled with
promenaders in such dresses us are now re-
served for the Court on a birthday. We could
find it in our heart to dispense with railroads,
gas, and the rest of our civilisation for a
twelvemonth, to obtain one view of Boling-
broke in his habit as he lived :
He was dressed in the extremity of fashion, and wore a
light blue velvet coat, with immense cuffs, richly em•
brAdered with silver; amber-coloured stockings, crimson
leather shoes, fastened with diamond buckles, and a
diamond hilted sword, with a long silken tassel dangling
from the handle. His cravat was of point lace, and his
hands were almost hidden by exaggerated ruffles of the
same material ; his hat was laced with silver, and feathered
at the edges, sod he wore his own brown hair in ringlets
of some eighteen or twenty inches in length, tied behind
with a long streaming ribbon ; his handkerchief, which he
carried in his hand, was strongly perfumed, and he diffused
an odour around him as he walked, as if he had just risen
from a bath of roses.

Powder and patches were the monstrosities of
a later date. The consumption of the former
for the heads of soldiers under the Hano-
verian dynasty was sufficient to feed a city :

The consumption of powder by these soldiers was some-
thing enormous—not, gentle reader, gunpowder, but flour,
with which their hair was dressed. It was calculated that,
inasmuch as the military force of England and the colo-
nies was, including cavalry, infantry, militia, and fencibles,
2.50,000, and each man used a pound of flour per week, the
quantity consumed in this way was 6,5(N) tons per annum ;
capable of sustaining 50,000 persons on bread, and pro-
ducing 3,059,353 quartern loaves.

One of the most curious chapters is that on
"Mortgage and Funeral Customs." The an
thor is, however, incorrect in his statement
that there was little in the funeral customs
of the last century different from our own day.
The room of death was commonly converted
into a show-room. While it is observed that—
" the bodies of persons of distinction and of
"wealthy merchants and tradesmen were some-
" times lai i out amidst black velvet hangings,
" with wax candles beside the coffins, and the
" doors of their houses thrown open for the
" public and their neighbours to come and
" look at them," sufficient stress is not laid on
the fact that the corpse was usually exposed.
We have known persons who went through
the crush at the house-door of John Wesley,
to behold the venerable preacher laid out in
his shroud. George Selwyn, it is well known,
never missed an opportunity of witnessing
one of these lugubrious spectacles. Ordina-
rily the corpse seems to have been gut up
for the occasion with great care.

And Betty give this cheek a little red—
One need not sure look ugly when one's (lead,

referred to what was a common practice, as
well as the couplet quoted by our author :

When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend
The wretch who living saved a candle's end.
Croker, in the Good Natured Man, relates how
he has just been to view his old friend
in his coffin, and what a pleasant corpse
he made. A publication of 1750 speaks
of the habit of certain persons whose trade it
was to 'bedizen the dead body, and make what
" the ladies call a charming corpse." But in
that kind of " lying-in-state " there was, at
least, some reason, as the features of the de-
ceased were beheld for the last time. In
modern day the undertaker's trappings are
alone seen, and a grossly vulgar spectacle,
devoid of all meaning and reverence, is sub-
stituted for what must commonly have been
an affecting ceremony. The Fleet marriages
were one of the most curious characteristics
of the century. Shop-windows in Fleet street
and Litigate-hill often displayed a notice that
weddings were " performed within." Ladies
incautiously walking in that locality wcro

SATURDAY,

sometimes seized and married against their
will.

Running footmen lingered into the present
century, and " vital's" were common much
later. The notorious "old Q." seems to have
been one of the last who kept runners in his
service. It is said that he used to watch their
paces from his balcony in Piccadilly before he
engaged them. Their performances wero
sometimes extraordinary, " three score miles
" a day and seven miles an hour." It is rather
wonderful that sedan-chairs should have gone
out, than that they should have remained so
long. It was a great convenience to be taken
by them into the interior of houses. The
parades of Bath made their use indispensable,
and in Bath they lingered longest. They
were the ordinary mode of conveyance thirty
or forty years ago, and probably sonic few re-
main in use still. The rush among the chair-
men on the stands when " chair" was called
is one of the most amusing recollections of
our youth.
A curious story of a 'duel is related here on
the authority of the Westminster Journal, Feb.
19, 1774 :

Wednesday a duel was fought behind Montagne-
house, between two journeymen lace weavers. The com-
batants entered the field, accompanied by their seconds,
when, the usual ceremonies being gone through, one of
the parties discharged his pistol, the ball from which took
away part of the sleeve of his antagonist's coat ; and then,
like a man of courage, without waiting for the fire belly.:
returned, made the best of his way off the field. The
quarrel began at a public•house, about the mode of cooking
a dish of sprats, one insisting on having them tried, and
the other on having them broiled. With the assistance of
some friends, the sum of three shillings was raised to pro-
cure the use of pistols to decide this important contest. To
such a pitcn is the must honourable profession of duelling
arrived !
Of this practice the last instances have most
likely been witnessed in our own day. We do
not recollect a case for sonic years past.
Crime is a fertile subject, and supplies one
of the must amusing chapters. It is doubtful,
judging by recent complaints, whether we are
much safer from burglaries than householders
were in the last century, but we are, at least,
tree from highwaymen :

Colonel Landmann, in his " Adventures and Recol•
lections," relates, that on one tine Sunday afternoon,
about 1790, as a gentleman sat on his terrace at Black-
heath, among hosts of promenaders, a fashionably dressed
person, mounted on a fine horse, rode up, and exclaiming
aloud, " How are you, my dear fellow? What a ding
time it is since you gave me a call ! Come and dine
with me tomorrow ; you will meet some good fellows,"—
added, in a fierce "aside," that, if he did not quietly
deliver up his watch and purse, he was a dead man, at
the same time drawing a pistol stealthily from his pocket.
The gentleman knew that there was no resource but to
comply; and the highwayman, exclaiming aloud that he
was " a damned good fellow," cantered gaily away unsus-
pected. _ _ .

Horace Walpole relates a similar story to Mann (Sep-
tember 30th, 1750 :—" 1 was sitting in my own dining-
room on Sunday night—the clock had not struck eleven—
when I heard a loud cry of ' Stop thief!' A highwayman
had attacked a postchai,e in Piccadilly, within fitly yards
of the house The fellow was pursued, rode over the
watchman, almost killed him, and escaped."

The cowardice of the persons attacked, in so
generally complying with the highwayman's
demand, is more surprising than the audacity
of the " gentlemen of the road."
Mr. Andrews is rather too fond of exclaim-
ing in his references to the past—What bar-
barism ! What credulity ! and the like. When
relating the success of quack doctors in the
last century, he marvels at the simplicity of
our fathers. But is it certain that we are nut
as much quack-ridden as ever? Have we not
our mesmerism, table-turning, spirit-ntpping,
&c.? Modes of quackery have changed, but the
thing itself flourishes as strongly as ever. An
examination of the points on which we agree
with the people of the last century would, we
are inclined to think, disclose more curious
facts, and suggest more matter for thought,
than details of points of difference.
Another fault in Mr. Andrews's book is his
fondness for vile puns. In that respect, at
least, the last age was superior to us. The book,
however,is pleasing. It shows some research,
and agreeably indicates the transition of
manners for the last century and a half. The
second title, " Manners and Customs of our
" Grandfathers," is erroneous, as its matter, it
will be seen from our quotations, concerns
customs and manners dating from the com-
mencement of the last century.

, modern day the undertaker's trappings are least, the last age was superior to us. The book,
now dirty and neglected thoroughfare. Chel- alone seen, and a grossly vulgar spectacle, however, is It shows some research,
sea and Hampstead were thought quite far devoid of all meaning and reverence, is sub- and agreeably indicates the transition of
enough off for a country residence, and pleasMg.
stituted for what must commonly have been manners for the last century and a half. Tho
fashionl- resorted nt:l:linlgtlts: Ild—ri:k ';;" an affecting ceremony. The Fleet marriages second title, " Manners and Customs of our
" waters":—
were one of the most curious characteristics " Grandfathers," is erroneous, as its matter, it
I Swift, in his "-Journal to Stella," repeatedly alludes to
" Addison's country house at Chelsea ; " and, on taking of the century. Shop-windows in Fleet street will be seen from our quotations, concerns
lodging there himself, talks of the beautiful scent of the and Ludgate-hill often displayed a notice that customs and manners dating from the coin-
s
new-made hay around, and says he gets quite sunburnt in weddings were " performed within. Ladies mencement of the last century.
his journeys to and fro, and whenever he stays late in incautiously walking in that locality were
._,
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