Sketches of Young Gentlemen | Page 9

at night, when the performances are by
command of Colonel Fitz-Sordust and the officers of the garrison- what
a splendid sight it is! How sternly the defenders of their country look
round the house as if in mute assurance to the audience, that they may
make themselves comfortable regarding any foreign invasion, for they
(the military young gentlemen) are keeping a sharp look-out, and are
ready for anything. And what a contrast between them, and that
stage-box full of grey-headed officers with tokens of many battles
about them, who have nothing at all in common with the military
young gentlemen, and who-but for an old-fashioned kind of manly
dignity in their looks and bearing- might be common hard-working
soldiers for anything they take the pains to announce to the contrary!
Ah! here is a family just come in who recognise the flaxen-headed
young gentleman; and the flaxen-headed young gentleman recognises
them too, only he doesn't care to show it just now. Very well done
indeed! He talks louder to the little group of military young gentlemen
who are standing by him, and coughs to induce some ladies in the next
box but one to look round, in order that their faces may undergo the
same ordeal of criticism to which they have subjected, in not a wholly
inaudible tone, the majority of the female portion of the audience. Oh!
a gentleman in the same box looks round as if he were disposed to
resent this as an impertinence; and the flaxen-headed young gentleman

sees his friends at once, and hurries away to them with the most
charming cordiality.
Three young ladies, one young man, and the mamma of the party,
receive the military young gentleman with great warmth and politeness,
and in five minutes afterwards the military young gentleman,
stimulated by the mamma, introduces the two other military young
gentlemen with whom he was walking in the morning, who take their
seats behind the young ladies and commence conversation; whereat the
mamma bestows a triumphant bow upon a rival mamma, who has not
succeeded in decoying any military young gentlemen, and prepares to
consider her visitors from that moment three of the most elegant and
superior young gentlemen in the whole world.

THE POLITICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN

Once upon a time-NOT in the days when pigs drank wine, but in a
more recent period of our history-it was customary to banish politics
when ladies were present. If this usage still prevailed, we should have
had no chapter for political young gentlemen, for ladies would have
neither known nor cared what kind of monster a political young
gentleman was. But as this good custom in common with many others
has 'gone out,' and left no word when it is likely to be home again; as
political young ladies are by no means rare, and political young
gentlemen the very reverse of scarce, we are bound in the strict
discharge of our most responsible duty not to neglect this natural
division of our subject.
If the political young gentleman be resident in a country town (and
there ARE political young gentlemen in country towns sometimes), he
is wholly absorbed in his politics; as a pair of purple spectacles
communicate the same uniform tint to all objects near and remote, so
the political glasses, with which the young gentleman assists his mental
vision, give to everything the hue and tinge of party feeling. The
political young gentleman would as soon think of being struck with the
beauty of a young lady in the opposite interest, as he would dream of
marrying his sister to the opposite member.
If the political young gentleman be a Conservative, he has usually some
vague ideas about Ireland and the Pope which he cannot very clearly

explain, but which he knows are the right sort of thing, and not to be
very easily got over by the other side. He has also some choice
sentences regarding church and state, culled from the banners in use at
the last election, with which he intersperses his conversation at
intervals with surprising effect. But his great topic is the constitution,
upon which he will declaim, by the hour together, with much heat and
fury; not that he has any particular information on the subject, but
because he knows that the constitution is somehow church and state,
and church and state somehow the constitution, and that the fellows on
the other side say it isn't, which is quite a sufficient reason for him to
say it is, and to stick to it.
Perhaps his greatest topic of all, though, is the people. If a fight takes
place in a populous town, in which many noses are broken, and a few
windows, the young gentleman throws down the newspaper with a
triumphant air, and