The Wits and Beaux of Society | Page 3

in London for women
and women only, has just so far relaxed its rigid rule as to allow men
upon its premises between certain hours, and this relaxation we are told
has been conceded in consequence of the demand of numerous ladies.
Well, well, if men can on the whole get on better without the society of
women than women can without the society of men it is no doubt
because they are rougher creatures, moulded of a coarser clay, and are
more entertained by eating and drinking, smoking and the telling of
tales than women are.

If all the men whom the Whartons labelled as wits and beaux of society
could be gathered together they would make a most excellent club in
the sense in which a club was understood in the last century. Johnson
thought that he had praised a man highly when he called him a
clubbable man, and so he had for those days which dreamed not of vast
caravanserai calling themselves clubs and having thousands of
members on their roll, the majority of whom do not know more than
perhaps ten of their fellow members from Adam. In the sense that Dr.
Johnson meant, all these wits and beaux whom our Whartons have
gathered together were eminently clubbable. If some such necromancer
could come to us as he who in Tourguenieff's story conjures up the
shade of Julius Cæsar; and if in an obliging way he could make these
wits and beaux greet us: if such a spiritualistic society as that described
by Mr. Stockton in one of his diverting stories could materialise them
all for our benefit: then one might count with confidence upon some
very delightful company and some very delightful talk. For the people
whom the Whartons have been good enough to group together are
people of the most fascinating variety. They have wit in common and
goodfellowship, they were famous entertainers in their time; they add
to the gaiety of nations still. The Whartons have given what would in
America be called a "Stag Party". If we join it we shall find much
entertainment thereat.
Do people read Theodore Hook much nowadays? Does the generation
which loves to follow the trail with Allan Quatermain, and to ride with
a Splendid Spur, does it call at all for the humours of the days of the
Regency? Do those who have laughed over "The Wrong Box," ever
laugh over Jack Brag? Do the students of Mr. Rudyard Kipling know
anything of "Gilbert Gurney?" Somebody started the theory some time
ago, that this was not a laughter-loving generation, that it lacked high
spirits. It has been maintained that if a writer appeared now, with the
rollicking good spirits, and reckless abandon of a Lever, he would
scarcely win a warm welcome. We may be permitted to doubt this
conclusion; we are as fond of laughter as ever, as ready to laugh if
somebody will set us going. Mr. Stevenson prefers of late to be thought
grim in his fiction, but he has set the sides shaking, both over that
"Wrong Box" which we spoke of, and in earlier days. We are ready to

laugh with Stockton from overseas, with our own Anstey, with
anybody who has the heart to be merry, and the wit to make his mirth
communicable. But, it may be doubted if we read our Lever quite as
much as a wise doctor, who happened also to be a wise man of letters,
would recommend. And we may well fancy that such a doctor dealing
with a patient for whom laughter was salutary--as for whom is it not
salutary--would exhibit Theodore Hook in rather large doses.
Undoubtedly the fun is a little old fashioned, but it is none the worse
for that. Those who share Mr. Hardcastle's tastes for old wine and old
books will not like Theodore Hook any the less, because he does not
happen to be at all "Fin de Siècle". He is like Berowne in the comedy,
the merriest man--perhaps not always within the limits of becoming
mirth--to spend an hour's talk withal. There is no better key to the age
in which Hook glittered, than Hook's own stories. The London of that
day--the London which is as dead and gone as Nineveh or Karnak or
Troy--lives with extraordinary freshness in Theodore Hook's pages.
And how entertaining those pages are. It is not always the greatest
writers who are the most mirth provoking, but how much we owe to
them. The man must have no mirth in him if he fail to be tickled by the
best of Labiche's comedies, aye and the worst too, if such a term can be
applied to any of the enchanting series; if he refuse to unbend over "A
Day's Journey and a