Читать книгу The English Spy: An Original Work Characteristic, Satirical, And Humorous - C. M. Westmacott - Страница 36

Table of Contents

WESTERN ENTRANCE INTO THE METROPOLIS; A DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH.

General Views of the Author relative to Subject and Style—

Time and Place—Perspective Glimpse of the great City—The

Approach—Cockney Salutations—The Toll House—Western

Entrance to Cockney Land—Hyde Park—Sunday Noon—

Sketches of Character, Costume, and Scenery—The Ride and

Drive—Kensington Gardens—Belles and Beaux—Stars and

Fallen Stars—Singularities of 1824—Tales of Ton—On Dits

and Anecdotes—Sunday Evening—High Life and Low Life, the

Contrast—Cockney Goths—Notes, Biographical, Amorous, and

Exquisite.

ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE

Its wealth and fashion, wit and folly,

Pleasures, whims, and melancholy:

Of all the charming belles and beaux

Who line the parks, in double rows;

Of princes, peers, their equipage,

The splendour of the present age;

Of west-end fops, and crusty cits,

Who drive their gigs, or sport their tits;

With all the groups we mean to dash on

Who form the busy world of fashion:

Proceeding onwards to the city,

With sketches, humorous and witty.

The man of business, and the Change,

Will come within our satire's range:

Nor rank, nor order, nor condition,

Imperial, lowly, or patrician,

Shall, when they see this volume, cry—

"The satirist has pass'd us by,"

But with good humour view our page

Depict the manners of the age.

Our style shall, like our subject, be

Distinguished by variety;

Familiar, brief we could say too—

(It shall be whimsical and new),

But reader that we leave to you.

'Twas morn, the genial sun of May

O'er nature spread a cheerful ray,

When Cockney Land, clothed in her best,

We saw, approaching from the west,

And 'mid her steeples straight and tall

Espied the dome of famed St. Paul,

Surrounded with a cloud of smoke

From many a kitchen chimney broke;

A nuisance since consumed below

By bill of Michael Angelo.{1}

The coach o'er stones was heard to rattle,

1 M. A. Taylor's act for compelling all large factories,

which have steam and other apparatus, to consume their own

smoke.

The guard his bugle tuned for battle,

The horses snorted with delight,

As Piccadilly came in sight.

On either side the road was lined

With vehicles of ev'ry kind,

And as the rapid wheel went round,

There seem'd scarce room to clear the ground.

"Gate-gate-push on—how do—well met—

Pull up—my tits are on the fret—

The number—lost it—tip then straight,

That covey vants to bilk the gate."

The toll-house welcome this to town.

Your prime, flash, bang up, fly, or down,

A tidy team of prads—your castor's

Quite a Joliffe tile—my master.

Thus buck and coachee greet each other,

And seem familiar as a brother.

No Chinese wall, or rude barrier,

Obstructs the view, or entrance here;

Nor fee or passport—save the warder,

Who draws to keep the roads in order;

No questions ask'd, but all that please

May pass and repass at their ease.

In cockney land, the seventh day

Is famous for a grand display

Of modes, of finery, and dress,

Of cit, west-ender, and noblesse,

Who in Hyde Park crowd like a fair

To stare, and lounge, and take the air,

Or ride or drive, or walk, and chat

On fashions, scandal, and all that.—

Here, reader, with your leave, will we

Commence our London history.

'Twas Sunday, and the park was full

With Mistress, John, and Master Bull,

And all their little fry.

The crowd pour in from all approaches,

Tilb'ries, dennets, gigs, and coaches;

The bells rung merrily.

Old dowagers, their fubsy faces{2}

Painted to eclipse the Graces,

Pop their noddles out

Of some old family affair

That's neither chariot, coach, or chair,

Well known at ev'ry rout.

But bless me, who's that coach and six?

"That, sir, is Mister Billy Wicks,

A great light o' the city,

Tallow-chandler, and lord mayor{3};

Miss Flambeau Wicks's are the fair,

Who're drest so very pretty.

It's only for a year you know

He keeps up such a flashy show;

And then he's melted down.

The man upon that half-starved nag{4}

Is an Ex-S———ff, a strange wag,

Half flash, and half a clown.

But see with artful lures and wiles

The Paphian goddess, Mrs. G***s,{5}

2 There are from twenty to thirty of these well known relics

of antiquity who regularly frequent the park, and attend all

the fashionable routs—perfumed and painted with the

utmost extravagance: if the wind sets in your face, they may

be scented at least a dozen carriages off.

3 It is really ludicrous to observe the ridiculous pride of

some of these ephemeral things;—during their mayoralty, the

gaudy city vehicle with four richly caparisoned horses is

constantly in the drive, with six or eight persons crammed

into it like a family waggon, and bedizened out in all the

colours of the rainbow;—ask for them six months after, and

you shall find them more suitably employed, packing rags,

oranges, or red herrings.

4 This man is such a strange compound of folly and

eccentricity, that he is eternally in hot water with some

one or other.

5 Mrs. Fanny G-1-s, the ci-devant wife of a corn merchant,

a celebrated courtezan, who sports a splendid equipage, and

has long figured upon town as a star of the first order in

the Cyprian hemisphere. She has some excellent qualities,

as poor M————n can vouch; for when the fickle goddess

Fortune left him in the lurch, she has a handsome annuity

from a sporting peer, who was once the favoured swain.