Speaking of the boys who acted on the | welcomed because they made themselves Elizabethan stage, Professor Dowden disagreeable to so many people. There is ("Shakespeare Primer," p. 10) says: "A a kind of popularity which is acquired by further refinement of art was demanded from these young actors when they were required to represent a girl who has assumed the disguise of male attire, as happens with Jessica and Portia, with Rosalind, with Imogen; it was necessary that they should at once pretend to be, and avoid becoming, that which they actually were." This the boy who took the part of Tara achieved to perfection; his disguise as a boy looked exquisitely girlish, and his manner, timid yet collected, exactly conveyed the impression of Imogen, trembling with womanly fear, and yet nerved by the consciousness that an unguarded gesture meant betrayal of her secret.

an attitude provokingly unpopular. Men
and women are attracted by the courage
which despises and disregards their feel-
ings. People whose minute perfections
and sense of their own merit make them
detested, become notorious, and conse
quently are sought after. A sage might
say to aspiring boyhood, Young man, be
a puppy." In this respect, as in others
more important, the prizes of the world
are to the impudent. Society truckles to
people who can consistently display their
conscious superiority. The very magni-
tude of their insolence and the calmness
of their fatuity excite curiosity and wel-
come analysis. People are anxious to
judge for themselves as to whether a con-
spicuously conceited fellow is in earnest
and a supreme fool, or whether he is
quietly playing a part. Thus the eccen-
tricity of imperturbable vanity, a vanity
which declares itself in peculiarity of
dress and manners, is rather a good intro-
duction to society.
A famous living

Imogen's dress as Fidele consisted of a sleeveless jacket of dark green trimmed with gold braid, above a red, gold-embroidered kilt, loose yellow knee-breeches, and white stockings. Round the head a green scarf, spangled with gold, was wound like a turban, the ends covering the ears and hanging loosely down the statesman was remarkable for his canes shoulders. A slender sword completed and waistcoats even before he was ad the equipment. The remaining charac-mired or feared for his wit or eloquence. ters call for no special remark, except the unusual one that every player, from first to last, knew his part thoroughly, and spoke it faultlessly.

This sketch of a visit to a Hindoo playhouse may be concluded by mentioning that the social position of the actor in India is at present quite as respectable as it is in England, but formerly, as in England also, his was considered a degraded calling, on account of the frequent immorality of its followers.

HAROLD LITTLEDALE.

BARODA, Jan. 19th, 1880.

From The Saturday Review. SOCIAL AND LITERARY DANDYISM.

DANDIES, like saints, are never much beloved by their fellow-creatures. Like saints, they have an ideal perfection of manner and dress, and ideals are felt to be impertinent. To be a dandy is to outrage the vanity of every one who has not the energy to be wakefully attentive to details of deportment and costume. The great dandies of old days, Brummell, Lauzun, and the rest, were everywhere

The

Dandyism was to him only a stepping-
stone, as it usually is to young people of
high ambition and real strength of char-
acter. They learn very early in life that
to be remarked is the first thing necessary
for success, and social is of course more
readily attained than literary or political
notoriety, and may lead on to these higher
prizes. It would probably be a mistake
to suppose that "the higher dandyism" is
entirely a matter of calculation.
most distinguished dandies in the history
of society have been men of great power
and ambition disguised as fops. They
have thus disguised themselves, not only
because the distinction gained by imper-
tinent perfection of dress was necessary
to their projects, but because they could
not do anything by halves, and because
they were supremely vain. Vanity, a
quality much decried, is really necessary
for some sorts of success. Without van-
ity there could scarcely be any ambition.
In the evolution of character vanity first
declares itself in the love of finery which
is remarkable in the child and the savage,
and which clings to many generals, states-
men, and divines. The gigantic tailor's
and jeweller's bills of a son do not usually
make a parent's heart sing for joy; but
these bills may, in rare cases, be more

tic

full of promise and encouragement than | last named may be recognized as literary any number of medals and first-classes. dandies because they respected the mere It is difficult, however, to get parents details of their literary labor. They were and guardians to take this hopeful view, and the young genius for dandyism, like genius for the other arts, is too often persecuted by indignant and terrified rela

tions.

not of the sect that swears by tattered old slippers that toast at the fire, and ragged old jackets perfumed with cigars. They arrayed themselves in fine linen, if not in purple, before they sat down to describe the animal kingdom or give rules for the conduct of the prince. The other writers, whose names we have taken very much at random from a crowd of the greatest authors, were dandies in style, exquisites in literary manners, precisians, who turned away from what was commonplace

30 A young man is never more certain of social success than at the moment when most other young men never mention him without saying that they "would like to kick him." As Thackeray observed in the case of Pendennis, that desire is the result of envy and of conscious humiliation awakened in manly bosoms. To in thought. They lived among slipshod provoke people so much is a token of writers, or in ages when all the world superiority, and a prize of nonchalance. scribbled, or in times when style was disNor is it social dandyism alone which thus regarded, or not invented, and they set irritates the rabble of decent fellows who themselves to seek after grace and dishave neither the vanity, nor the impu- tinction. One can imagine how the dence, nor the strength of resolution to Athenians, who were accustomed to the Ewin distinction. Literary dandyism is harsh and niggardly style of the old also excessively annoying to the rugged chroniclers, or the half-developed prose of hodmen of letters, the rapid picturesque Herodotus, laughed at Plato. That phiwriters, the half or quarter educated per- losopher, if the portrait-bust of him does sons who crowd the press, and carry their him no injustice, was very careful about farrago of ill-assorted observations to an the dressing and curling of his ambrosial uncritical public. These industrious per- locks. It is more certain that he must sons detest the literary dandy, the man have given immense labor to the perfecwho minds his periods, and regards the tion of his style, to that instrument of cadence of his sentences, and shuns stock extraordinary suppleness and grace which illustrations and old quotations, as the was derived from no model. The tradisocial dandy avoids dirty gloves and tion says that the first clause of the clumsy boots. They howl at him as the "Republic" was found written in nine little humorous street boys bully some different ways in a note-book of Plato's. small Etonian with a tall hat and a broad Whether the legend be true or not, the white collar, who has lost himself in polish of his manners and the "educated Seven Dials. This antagonism naturally insolence" of his wit sufficiently mark breeds more excess in literary dandyism, Plato as the great father and patron of all till the prose of some critics is as full of literary dandies. Catullus was not less a musk or millefleurs as the handkerchief of literary exquisite, with his airs of a spoiled a popular preacher. Both parties are wit, and his style, like his novum libelhardened in their ways; the rough and lum, arida modo pumice expolitum. He ready press-man becomes careless even of naturally takes his place among homines grammar, and trots out his quotations venustiores, among gentlemen who care from Macaulay's essays more vigorously for the attire of their thoughts, who let the than of old. The prose of the exquisite toga trail with a delicate grace, and deDegins to die away in aromatic nonsense, spise all muses inlepidæ atque inelegantes. and his great genius tires itself to death in The famous Pleiad of France, the seven the hunting for rare exotic adjectives.

Det

There have been schools of literary dandyism, there have been literary dandies, more robust than those of our time. Where we can show nothing much better (if Mr. Arnold belongs to an earlier generation) than Mr. Dowden and Mr. Pater, the great literary ages can boast of Plato, Catullus, Ronsard, Pascal, Horace Walpole, Sir Philip Sidney-nay, one might add, Buffon and Machiavelli. The two

poets and critics of the sixteenth century, was a coterie of literary dandies. They made it their business to care for the way in which thoughts were presented; they devised lace and jewelry of style and of versification; and boasted of ceste celeste manière d'escrire, a celestial transcendental manner of writing. Du Bellay ventured to discover that the old French of Froissart and Villon was scabreux et mal poly, and he and his friends were only

From The Spectator.

THE PINCH OF WEALTH.

the precursors of three or four successive schools of literary dandies in France. Who can consider the polish, the precision, the accuracy of that speech, its point MR. PAYN says, in this month's Nineand elegance, which make even dull teenth Century, that it is not easy to find writers seem witty, and fail to acknowl- the "pinch of poverty," though he admits edge that the work of the literary dandies its existence, and allows that the true has not been wholly wasted? Some ad-"grip" of poverty is very visible indeed; vantage came of the conceit and careful but it is much more difficult to find the periods even of the elder Balzac. And pinch of wealth. The prosperous always though the great Balzac of a later time is say, with grave shakes of the head, that more remarkable for vigor than elegance," money brings little happiness; yet it was at perfection that he too aimed. they seem to enjoy its possession, are Plato did not rewrite his sentences more proud of it in various ways, according to frequently; and the ruin of at least one character, use it freely as a power, and publisher, by Balzac's expensive correc- will not surrender it without the very tions of the press, proved how minutely toughest fighting. A complete surrender careful he was to have his thought draped of wealth, of the difference between subin the very best and richest language he sistence and competence or riches, is, could procure by incessant research. except in a very few cases of religious Our own revival of letters had its heroic conviction, the rarest of all forms of selfdandy in Sir Philip Sidney, with his con- sacrifice. So different, indeed, is the tempt for the slovens and grobians of disconsolate talk of the well-to-do from literature, those " paper-blurrers who, their actual condition, that the world sus"by their own disgracefulness, disgrace pects them of a little hypocrisy, or of an the most graceful of Poesy." Sidney's intention to avert envy by declaring, what censure of the dramatists of his time is a is unquestionably false, the equality of all typical example of the scorn of the liter- earthly conditions. "Dives is sad with ary dandy of the nobler sort. "Now you wealth," sighs the man with too little, shall have three ladies walk to gather "but how I wish I had a touch of his flowers, and then we must believe the complaint!" A few men, indeed, have stage to be a garden. By-and-by we hear boldly declared the regrets of wealth to news of a shipwreck in the same place; be pretences, and have asserted, with then we are to blame if we accept it not Macaulay, that every guinea they acquire for a rock. Upon the back of that comes gives them distinct and appreciable pleasout a hideous monster with fire and ure. He was the most generous of mansmoke, and then the miserable beholders kind, but he liked money, and avowed his are bound to take it for a cave; while, in liking, as he would have avowed a liking the mean time, two armies fly in, repre- for pleasant bindings for his books. sented with swords and bucklers; and There was solid truth in Macaulay's idea, then, what hard heart will not receive it particularly as to earned money; but he for a pitched field?" put his truth, as usual, a good deal too broadly, nothing being ever quite so little complex as he imagined everything to be. Very few men indeed part with wealth voluntarily, because very few have the courage to deprive themselves of any faculty or power they may hereafter want; and very few are without that pride in it which any distinction tends to raise; but we believe the constant depreciation of its value in which the well-off indulge, is not a hypocrisy. They see, or many of them see, failures in the effect of their wealth upon themselves, and even directly bad consequences springing from it, which quite justify their shakes of the head, though they are slow to explain even to themselves why the apples taste so ashy.

It would be easy to carry on the history of literary dandyism. The elegant disdain of Pascal, and his care for polished insolence of irony, might lead us to the reserved conceit and minute toil of Gray, and thence we might pass to the fine-gentlemanly literature of Walpole. Modern France had its school of dandyism under the master whom Ouida and the society journals call by the appropriate name of Beaudelaire. It might probably be demonstrated that literary dandyism has been salutary as well as irritating, that it has served as a protest against the lax language and outworn commonplace of the press-man and the poetaster, and that, like ordinary dandyism, it has made its disciples more distinguished among than beloved by their literary brethren.

We believe that rich men - we do not

e

If

mean very rich men, though we include | tion what a pity there is no short word E them, so much as the well-off, the classes for that idea! is one extra pain of the which need not work to fulfil their desires rich, and must have as depressing an suffer the pinch of wealth distinctly effect as we know the consciousness of enough, if they are thoughtful men, to rec- mental powers with no opportunity for hea ognize it for themselves at at least three their exercise usually has. The Red who separate points, the first trouble being is Red because the world gives him no nearly universal. This is impatience of chance, burns with a chagrin which the the close limits placed upon what wealth very rich must often feel. Scan do. Money can secure so much, and he gives in many directions such freedom to the will and so much of concrete reality to the fancy, that the man who possesses cit frets when he perceives that his power O will in other directions do so little. He the feels like a potentate who is stopped by Su some obstacle quite trifling, but quite we immovable; or a magician whose genius cannot obey him, except to secure ends which he is not just then seeking to obtain. Money, for example, will purchase di alleviations from pain, skilled attendance, good advice, and soft beds, but it will not purchase the dismissal of the pain itself. you have a cancer, millions are no help. A millionaire may have toothache, and in toothache feels, on account of the money which places all dentists at his command, to an additional pang. "Here am I, who can buy all the help there is, and of what use is that to my pain?" The sense that the money will aid volition in so many ways deepens the pain, when it is of the kind in which money is powerless, as it is in almost all serious questions of health. The Marquis of Steyne is not the less aggrieved by his liability to madness because he is so very rich, but the more aggrieved, as a man is who knows his own strength to be unusual and finds it just insufficient. That habitual complaint of the rich, that money will not buy affection or happiness, or even immunity from pain, has in it something of irritation as well as of pathos, and springs often from an inclination to contend, as of one who is unjustly deprived of something. The workers have need to be solicitous about

have

s d

er 20

A

This is one pinch of wealth; and there is another much more frequently quoted, -the additional difficulty which wealth creates in achieving complete success in anything. This is constantly described as a consequence of idleness or of dislike to necessary drudgery, but that is an imperfect or even unjust description. Nothing prevents a rich man from occupying himself, and he will probably drudge quite as much as the poorer man would without the whip, but the absence of desire for the gain to be earned makes the labor seem positively heavier. strength has been taken away. We can illustrate this by a comparison which everybody can test. A rich man of artistic leanings will not toil in the schools like a poor one, a rich agriculturist will not give hours and years to economies which make agriculture successful, a rich author will not display the patient research of his professional rival; but the rich politician will work like a slave or a barrister with large practice and no savings. The rich politician is no more laborious than the rich artist by nature, but his reward comes in a shape he desires; and the rich artist's does not, or at least not in the same degree. The politician desires two things, the success of his work and power, and however rich he may be, has a double stimulus; but the artist desires the success of his work and money, and, if he is rich, fully tastes only the first reward. The comparative feebleness of the stimulus which makes the rich man's work so tasteless is increased by that absence of fixed conditions which

pre health, but it is the rich who coddle them- follows on wealth, the presence of other

selves; and the reason is not so much the passion for comfort, as the additional sense of the value of health, which their inability to buy it with money brings home to them more clearly than to other men. A rich man who wanted water, say in a shipwreck, and could not get it, would feel in his riches, if he thought of them at all, an addition to the pain of his despair; and there are wants nearly as urgent as water towards which money gives just as little aid. A fretfulness born of tantaliza

to

possibilities which distract the will, till energy is impaired by half-conscious hesitations. One road, and but one, is open to the poor artist, and he advances on it rapidly. One road is open to the rich artist, and a dozen tempting lanes, the attractions of which he pauses to consider so often, that he seems, in comparison with his rival, to crawl. An increase of indecision comes to the rich from their riches as to what to do with themselves, which is supposed to be idleness, though