The Wits and Beaux of Society | Page 3

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 C?sar; 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 Life's Romance," if he cannot let himself go and enjoy himself over Gilbert Gurney's river adventure. If the revival of the Whartons' book were to serve no other purpose than to send some laughter loving souls to the heady well-spring of Theodore Hook's merriment, it would have done the mirthful a good turn and deserved well of its country.
There is scarcely