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.