MANNERS AND RELIGION OF THE ATHENS.

“This present world six days they seek,

They seek the next for one day:

They run their scores up all the week,

And sponge them out on Sunday.”

Before you can at all characterize the manners of the Athenians, you must have known them long and intimately, and even then it is difficult to be correct. In most things they are so extremely changeful, if not contradictory, that in half the time you would take to describe them in one aspect, they pass into another; and they do so without any cause which you can discover. At one time you would think them all openness and heart, but in a moment they start away, and look exceedingly cold, stiff, and repulsive. They are a hospitable people, certainly, or rather perhaps it is more correct to say that they are entertainment-giving people; but even in the most ostentatious and prolonged of their hospitalities, you always have the impression that they are acting a part—that there is more show than substance in their courtesies. You feel that you are received with more parade than welcome; and if the sederunt be continued, you find that there is more hilarity than heart. They give you your dinner, and they shun neither the quantity nor the praise of their liquor, but they are not so much disposed to give you your share of the conversation, of which themselves and their city form, not the unvarying, but the inexhaustible subject; and, taking for granted that, in consequence of its primary importance and celebrity, you, if you know any thing, cannot fail to be acquainted with it even to the minutest particular, they rattle away without ever giving you the least preparation, and if you shew, or even hint ignorance of the shufflings of their politics, the cases before their courts, or the tattle of their coteries, the utmost contempt is expressed at you, and the most summary vengeance taken for your daring to be ignorant of that which alone is worth knowing.

From the peculiar kind and manner of education which I have noticed, the young men of the Athens are more impertinent and self-sufficient than those of any other place that I have seen. They know not much, and the little that they do know is far from being accurate; but they state their opinions with a forwardness, and support even their ignorance and their errors with a pertinacity at which you are quite astonished. Perhaps it is this precocity in assertion which renders the Athenians so querulous and dogmatical after they grow up.

As the sums of money which can be afforded to be spent or squandered away in the Athens are not great, there is not much deep playing or costly dissipation in the city. But though the immorality of the Athens costs less than that of a wealthier place, there is not proportionally the less of it upon this account; and though the number of what may be termed gentleman-like indiscretions be very limited, yet there is perhaps no place of equal proportion which rivals the Athens in low vice. Indeed, the vices of her people are almost all equally low, or if there be any who strive to outdo their fellows, it is by a deeper plunge in downright beastliness.

Among the dashing bloods of the Athens, the squalor of a house is no objection whatever. Scotch economy prompts them to get everything cheap, and hence there are in the Athens sinks of vice, supported and frequented by those who call themselves gentlemen, that would hardly be tolerated, or even supposed, in the very lowest neighbourhood of any other place. I have been told that nothing can be more shocking either to morality or taste, than the midnight orgies of certain clubs of the Athenian esprits forts; and among all ranks of the Athenians—I mean among all the ranks of those who wear the dress and assume the name of gentlemen,—the practice of drinking is both habitual and deep.

The real state of taste and civilization in any place is perhaps better known from the vices of the inhabitants, than from their virtues; and if the Athens is to be judged by this standard, she has not much of which she can boast, as the broad and vulgar debaucheries of her people, not only occupy much more of their time, but engross much more of their conversation, than is the case in the British metropolis. There is a cause for every thing, and perhaps a reasonable part of the cause of this may be found in that peculiarity of the Athenian education which I noticed in a former chapter. The purity, the ignorance, and the simplicity of the number of young men and boys who are annually added to the mass of the Athens, the novelty of their having all restraint taken off, and the example and encouragement with which they naturally meet, dispose them to proceed to greater lengths in dissipation than if their introduction were more gradual. The limited nature of their finances, too, and the operation of those lessons of thrift and parsimony, which no parents are fonder of inculcating than the Scotch, lead them to cheapness rather than elegance in their pleasures; and the debased and vulgar taste which they thus acquire in their boyhood, clings to them after they are men, and not only gives the tone to their vices, but in some measure also to their whole character. Accordingly, in no place that I have visited is there more license of conversation, more general freedom from all manner of restraint, and a more total absence of scruples of any kind, than among the scribes of the Athens. Still, to a certain extent, they are pleasant companions; but they are so only to a certain extent. In times not very remote, each of the pleaders before the Supreme Courts in the Athens had his “whiskey-shop,” in which he met with clients and solicitors, received fees, and fortified himself in the spirit, for appearing before the “fifteen.” Nor were these grave personages themselves prone to forget the lessons which they had learned during their noviciate as students or clerks, and their probation as members of the Faculty of Advocates. Whatever was or is the talents or the connexions of those persons, they were, and among the specimens that remain still are, democrats in their drink. It seems to be an Athenian maxim, that the bottle raises or lowers all people to the same level; and the Athenians still tell with a sort of pride, that when a celebrated Judge, who flourished in the latter half of the eighteenth century, had been missing for three days, and was wanted to aid in the decision of a very important cause, he was at length found upon the top of the steeple of St. Giles’, where he had been carousing and playing at cards with two or three members of that illustrious and accommodating fraternity, the Caddies.

Nothing strikes a stranger more than the difference between the business streets and business men of the Athens, and the corresponding streets and men of London, or even of Glasgow. In Bond Street, Oxford Street, or Ludgate Hill, all is bustle and activity,—you cannot stand still, though you would; and within the shop, every one is completely occupied. The Athenian streets, more especially the High Street, present quite another spectacle. At every few yards you find upon the pavement a knot of idlers, concealing their hands in the pockets of their inexpressibles, and alternately settling the affairs of the world, (that is, of the Athens,) and criticising any stranger that passes. Every shop-door too is a sort of rostrum from which the occasional vender of brimstone or blue bonnets, is often found vending Athenian politics to customers of another description; while, almost during the whole morning, bevies of slip-shod damsels stand giggling together at the entrances of the closes, in which innumerable mops and slop-pails are exposed, but not for sale.

Ever since the days of Allan Ramsay, an Athenian bookseller has been a sort of oracle; and, as the tribe have increased, their oracular powers have become rich and varied. Constable, to whom, by the way, the literary world is as much indebted as to any man living, and who is a remarkable instance of success against the whole current of Athenian prejudice and opposition, has indeed too much sense, as well as too much business, for lounging and lecturing in a public shop; but even Constable is obliged occasionally to submit to the contact of that chaos of philosophic fragments, which, like the atoms of Epicurus, reel and wrangle on the benches by his counter. Blackwood too has a sort of den; but still, when there is nobody in it to gossip, you find his hard face poking out at his shop-door, just as the tongue of a church-bell pokes out at the mouth of that instrument of noise and brass. Manners and Miller—one who is said to be the only genuine species of the nightingale north of the Tweed, keeps a saloon for the accommodation of the Edinburgh blue stockings, in which sins, and sentiments, and silks, are, by turns, expatiated upon, in a style and manner which are truly Athenian. Not far from the Tron Kirk, there is perhaps the most wonderful of them all,—the Œdipus of all mysteries and riddles, as touching law, and learning, and politics—to the junior clerks who attend the parliament-house; the fag end of the Athenian company of comedians, and of the satellites of opposition in Athenian politics. Œdipus believes that the whole world rests upon his shoulders; and, whether he be haranguing from behind his counter, or trotting along the street, he is constantly hitching up his shoulders as if he were alarmed lest that world should go off its poise. But to see this little man in the zenith of his glory, you must see him in the parliament-house, where he is regularly found, as soon as the clerks have gone to the desk, and the players to the rehearsal, running about with so much eagerness and appearance of wisdom, that, until he speaks, you would mistake him for Jeffery, or rather for Henry Cockburn, to whom he has one similitude—that of a naked poll. As he has previously argued or decided every cause that can come before any of the courts, he comes, not to profit by the wisdom of the more express organs of the law, but to tell how far they deflect from the right, by swerving from his institutes.

Each bookseller has, not only his levee as well-attended as ever that of Sir Richard Phillips in his glory was by ten-shilling-a-sheet overpaid authors, but his evening party, in which he shines. Thus Constable dines with deep-going politicians, Blackwood frequents prayer-meetings, Manners and Miller whistle,—this one associates with fiddlers, and that takes the unprotected females under the folds of his calf-skin mantle.

But, although each of the notable Athenians has his peculiar place and way of holding forth, there is a regular intercourse among them all; and accounts current of praise or censure are as regular and frequent among the Athenians, as those of cash are among other people. Indeed, if it were not for this curious banking system, it is very doubtful whether the intellectual “patrimony or conquest” of any one Athenian would be sufficient to set him up in business as a regular and everyday subject of conversation. Thus, whenever you find an Athenian cutting his first figure, no matter what sort of figure it is, in one part of the city, you are sure to hear somebody making a great deal of noise either for or against that figure in another part.

But manners are, however, somewhat like the mind itself,—we can observe their phenomena, and trace their effects; but, as they are in themselves nothing more than the various states of an ever-changing something which we can never exactly comprehend, no abstract disquisition upon them, even as they are found in the Athens, would bear to be read, although one should be at the trouble of writing it. When we grapple with them in real flesh and blood, and can say that this is Archy Campbell, or this his Majesty’s Advocate,—that this is Mrs. Macspine, who studies the Differential Calculus,—or that Lady Macfidget, who calculates differences, or makes them for other people’s calculation,—then the gentle readers draw their chairs together, and prepare for that most delectable of all entertainments,—the dissection of an individual character; but when we treat of the disembodied virtues or vices, we are allowed the sole and exclusive benefit of our lucubrations.

Still, it is impossible to overlook the rapidity with which all sorts of things whisk about in the Athens, and how cleverly her ladies and gentlemen creep into the nut-shells of science, or the whispering-corners of scandal; or how dextrously they contrive to make one thing answer many purposes. It is impossible that any people, and more especially a people so ardent and so educated as the Athenians, can be without a reasonable commodity of love; but the talking apparatus is so sensitive to the slightest touch, and vibrates so instantaneously over the whole city, that this commodity cannot be brought into action in the ordinary way. Accordingly, the various systems of philosophy which have from time to time warmed and gladdened the Athenians, have been, in a great measure, a succession of bows and quivers for the artillery of Cupid. Sometimes they were awkward enough for this purpose; and the barbs and feathers of those instruments of man’s mischief, sticking out at the ends of arguments against revelation, or disquisitions upon cause and effect, had rather a ludicrous appearance. When Smellie brought the philosophy of beasts into vogue, matters mended a little; and youths and virgins sauntered away into the fields for the pure and intellectual purposes of investigating the origin and progress of lambs and linnets. The day of the botanists was equally favourable for erotic purposes; and when the researches of Doctor Hutton had made the fairy-rings upon Arthur’s Seat matter of philosophy, thither winded the philosophic fair of the Athens, under the soft beams of the chaste moon, just to see whether they could catch a glimpse of the green elves, capering and dancing to the tune of “Catherine Ogie,” as Scotch fairies had been known to do from time immemorial.

But the best system that ever came into general practice and belief, has proved to be that of the skull-men,—a system which, though the Athenians gainsayed it a little at the outset, they have subsequently fallen deeper into than any other people upon the earth or moon; and in a truly-bred Athenian company, you are sure to have your cranium thumbed over by every lady and gentleman. This is an excellent system, if there be truth in it; and indeed, whether there be truth in it or not, it brings the papillÆ of the fingers, whose very use is the receiving of impressions, into contact as it were with the very elements of the soul; and when the delicate fingers of a lady are measuring the base and altitude of No. 1. in a gentleman’s neck, there is every chance that the embers of the tender passion, if they have not previously been charred to incineration, shall blaze or burn.

Nor is this the only use to which the Athenians apply this philosophy. They are so quick in their perception, that they instantly know the strong and the weak points of your character, and they regulate their proceedings accordingly. If, for instance, your indications of combativeness be strongly developed, they are sure never to offer the least insult; but if you be wanting in those indications, they make you feel it. If your forehead shows wit, they are exceedingly humdrum and metaphysical; but if the contrary, they treat you with quips and puns without end. Knowing from the peculiar structure and exercise of their own admiration, that people admire the most that in which they excel the least, they make sure of shining by turning the conversation to those subjects of which, judging from your organization, you have the least.

The religion of the Athenians is, perhaps, one of their greatest peculiarities: they,—meaning the people of consideration, and not the populace,—are the most religiously irreligious people that one can imagine. A few years ago, when it was the fashion to be sceptical, the very name of going to church stamped a man as belonging to the veriest vulgar; but the kirk has again come into vogue, and it is now just as much a mark of vulgarity not to go there, as it then was to go. If, however, the value of their church-going were to be tried by their conduct during the week, its moral advantages would not be found great. But it answers many purposes: the official men find their interest in being kirk-elders; ladies and gentlemen see each other; and after so pious and praise-worthy a thing as church-going, there can be little harm in an assignation, or an adjournment to a tavern-dinner,—occurrences which are very frequent upon the evenings of Athenian Sundays. When you have witnessed the deep and prolonged potations of some Athenian worthy upon the Saturday night, when you have heard the racy jokes and anecdotes with which he enlivened his cups, and when you have marked how small store he set by the principles as well as the practices of religion, you wonder at the calm face that he puts on as he stands at the church-door, watching the pence and sixpences that are thrown into the charity-plate. It is all a cloak, however, and like other cloaks, the more cumbrous that it is, it is the sooner cast off. One cause of its being put on at all, may be, that the fashion of the higher classes going to church carries the lower classes there also; and nobody can pass the receiving hoard, which is watched by a provost or a judge, without contributing something to the increase of voluntary charity; which being thus obtained from the poor, prevents the necessity of levying so large contributions on the rich. I have stated this reason, not only because it is both pleasurable and profitable, but because, whatever it may be in its primary intention, in its ultimate result it is good. Every thing which tends to place the labouring classes, if but for a moment, or during the performance of a single act, upon the same level with those who do not labour, is highly advantageous to them; and thus, admitting that the Athenians go to church as well to save their pockets as to compound for the doings of the week, the said Athenians do, upon that account, deserve nothing but praise.

Leaving the church-going, and subsequent feasting and flirtation out of the question, there is something peculiar in an Athenian Sabbath: it seems as though useful labour and innocent amusements were the only things that deserve to be suspended. The advocates are a privileged class, and it is no scandal in them to drudge at their cases. As little is there any harm whatever in oral discussion of any subject imaginable; but if a maid-servant were to hum a tune, an advocate’s wife to give a thump to the piano-forte, or a boarding-school miss to peep into a new novel, the Athens would be in the utmost jeopardy of sinking in the Forth, in which the sinner would have some chance of being ducked. It must not, however, be supposed that among such a people as the Athenians, the Sunday is a day of idleness. It is no such thing; for with both men and women, it is the choice and chosen day of the week, set apart to all manner of gossip and enjoyment; and though it be not the fashion for the people to listen to the music of instruments, or read profane books, yet the music of woman’s tongue is soft and sweet, and the book of fate is opened. Whether the present church-going propensity of the Athens shall continue, is a question that it would be difficult to solve; but that the Athens will continue to enjoy herself upon Sunday nights, may be received into the catalogue of truths that are demonstrated.