But Sir Paul Snarl is of the offensive species, the wasp dandy to the drone dandy. He is a cleverish man: he has read books and can quote dates, if need be, to spoil a good joke by proving an anachronism. He drawls when he speaks, and raises his eyebrows superciliously.

Sir Paul is a man of second-rate family, and moderate fortune. He has had to make his way in the world, by studying to be amiable?, no:, By studying to be disagreeable. Always doubtful of his own position, he has endeavoured to impose upon you by pretending not to care a farthing about you. He has wished to rise by depreciating others, and to become a great man, by showing that he thinks you an exceedingly small one. Strange to say, he has succeeded.

He is one, indeed, of the most numerous class of successful dandies; a specimen of a common character. People suppose a man who seems to think so little of them, must be thought a great deal of himself. The honourable mistresses say to their husbands, “We must have that odious Sir Paul to dinner; it is well to conciliate him, he says such ill-natured things; besides, as he is so very fine, he will meet, you know, my dear, the Duke of Haut-ton; and we must have Crack to dress the dinner! Thus, Sir Paul, clever dog!, is not only asked everywhere, but absolutely petted and courted, because he is so intolerably unpleasant!

Sir Paul Snarl is one of the dandies, but, mistake not the meaning of the word, dandy does not only signify a man who dresses well; a man may be a sloven, and yet a dandy. A man is called a dandy who lives much with persons à  la mode, is intimate with the dandy clique, and being decently well-born and rich, entertains certain correct, general notions about that indefinable thing, “good taste.”*

Sir Paul Snarl dresses like other people. Among very good dressers he would be called rather ill-dressed; among the oi polloi, he would be considered a model. At all events, he is not thorough-bred in his appearance; he lacks the senatorius decor; you might take him for a duke’s valet, without being much to blame for inexperience.
Sir Paul and his class are the cutters in society. Lord Mute rarely cuts, unless you are very ill-dressed indeed; he knows his own station by instinct; he is not to be destroyed by “Who’s your fat friend ?” But Sir Paul is on a very different fooling; his whole position is false , he can’t afford to throw away an acquaintance, he knows no “odd people;” if he the least doubts your being comme il faut, he cuts you immediately. Ho is in perpetual fear of people finding out what he is: his existence depends on being thought something better than he is – a policy effected by knowing everybody higher and nobody lower than himself; that is exactly the definition of Sir Paul’s consequence!

Sir Paul’s vanity is to throw a damp on the self-love of everybody else. If you tell a good story, he takes snuff, and turns to his neighbour with a remark about Almack’s; if you fancy you have made a conquest of Miss Blank, he takes an opportunity of telling you, par paranthèse, that she says she can’t bear you: if you have made a speech in the House of Lords,he accosts you with an exulting laugh, and a “Well, nevermind, you’ll do better next time:” if you have bought a new horse at an extravagant price, and are evidently vain of it, he smiles languidly, and informs you that it was offered to him for half what you gave for it, but he would not have it for nothing: when you speak, he listens with a vacant eye: when you walk, he watches you with a curled lip: if he dines with you, he sends away your best hock with a wry face. His sole aim is to wound you in the sorest place. He is a coxcomb of this age and nation peculiarly; and does that from foppery which others do from malice. There are plenty of Sir Paul Snarls in the London world; men of sense are both their fear and antipathy. They are animals easily slain, by a dose of their own insolence. Their sole rank being fictitious, they have nothing to fall back upon, if you show in public that you despise them.

* Good taste it а vегу favourite phrase with the English aristocracy; they carry it to the pulpit and the House of Commons, “Such a man preached in very good taste,” or “In what excellent taste So-and-so’s speech was!”, Good taste applied to legislation and salvation!, what does the phrase mean? Heaven knows what it means in the pulpit; in the House of Commons it always means flattering the old members, and betraying impudence modestly.

From: Edward Bulwer Lytton: England and the English. Paris: Baudry’s, 1836: 48-50.