It is well known that a considerable distinction was always maintained, by the aristocracy of France, between a noblesse d’epée and a noblesse de robe; more especially towards the female representatives of these acquired honours. ‘Madame la Présidente,’ for instance, was as legitimate an object of the satires of the stage as a fermier général! To a certain extent, this has been the case in England; and although some of the highest honours of the profession of the law have been represented by men equally eminent in birth and merit,, Mansfields, Erskines, and Norths,, it has necessarily and fortunately happened, that ability, learning, and integrity, have raised, both to the Woolsack and the Bench, men of inferior station and low connections. In our own times, indeed, a noblesse de robe has been the means of introducing among the female aristocracy individuals little qualified, by birth or breeding, to do honour to the greatness ‘ thrust upon them.’ But women are not indispensably dragged forth to figure on a public stage ; and, with the exception of her occasional appearance at the Drawing-room, Lady Demurrer may still perform the duties of her sex in her respectable residence in Bedford square, cast up her weekly bills, and christen an annual olive-branch, without provoking ridicule or feeling herself misplaced.
It is not so with the men., At Court, as will as in Court,, at a Ministerial dinner, no less than in his place in Parliament,, a law Lord must be a gentleman; and the high capacities which have elevated him to his high estate, if they do not absolutely confer the highest polish of the Chesterield school, are pretty sure to place him on a par with his new associates. A man of genius often offends through eccentricity, or indifference to the forms of society ;, a man of sense, even if deficient in personal address, can never be a vulgar man. A sober dignity, or still more admirable simplicity, invests his every action with a grace superior to the utmost refinements of conventional etiquette.
There may, however, exist (there does exist, for it exists in Modax) a man, who, by dint of mental dexterity and studious application, incited by the cupidities of personal ambition, attains the highest professional distinctions, without being able to cast aside his abject consciousness of inferior origin ;, a man, who, without greatness of mind to feel himself a gentleman, has resolved, in defiance of nature and art, to become a fine gentleman ;, a man, who would be a Lycurgus all the morning, and a fribble from dinner-time till night;, the Corydon of the Dowagers,, l’invalide de Cythere !, the ‘aimable président’ of a coterie.
Modax loves to discourse fustian with the elderly Marchionesses who eat his dinners, and whose dinners he eats;, to throw aside his robes and his dignity together; , to play his cards (literally and figuratively) with the ladies instead of ‘ the Lords;’, having missed the Woolsack, he is content to take up with the pin-cushion. A Malaprop dilettante, like the puppet-show man in Goldsmith’s comedy, ‘ his bear dances only to the genteelest of tunes,, Water parted, or the Minuet in Ariadne.’ He loves the Ancient Music,, for ’tis a thing that women like to hear who love their lords;, he frequents the opera,, for ’tis a place where dandies love to prate of Shakspeare and the Musical Glasses:, it is part of his laborious vocation, as an homme de baton campagnie, to play the amateur. Having been compelled, by infirmities of health, to write himself down among the ‘ English Courtiers’ who swim in a gondola and see the Louvre, Modax if somewhat apt to babble of the ‘Correggiescity of Corregio,’ of Raphael’s second manner, and the ondolezze of Giorgione; he seems to have taken a rule to show cause why the knowledge and love of art are to be imbibed with the atmosphere, while trotting in a post-chaise between the Po and Parma.
Modax is a man of talent;, else how should he have compassed the ascent from plebeian apprenticeship to ermine ?, But is it for such a man to look contemptuously upon the crowd, or take refuge in the success of his professional dexterity from the common sympathies of nature?, Should he not, rather, rejoice with rising ability,, foster the ambition of aspiring genius,, and leave the gossamer clique of May Fair to the flimsy beings born to disport in its fruitless sunshine?, The conceit of exclusivism is offensive in those whose delegated duties should incite them to enrol their names in the records of history, rather than the assembly lists of the Morning Post; and what honor did Modax secure in his mincing reply to an enquiry respecting the late Mrs H. T, , (an estimable wife and mother, and accomplished woman),, ‘ Pray, was Mrs T–. a nice woman ?’, ‘ I am sorry to say she was an extremely nasty woman.’, That he could but appreciate the nastiness of egotism and mental foppery !
Yet Modax is a man of many friends. He has a great deal to say,, a great deal to spend,, both in time and money. He belongs to society ; and society makes the most of its property. Others, occupying his place in the community, have had statues decreed them; but the pedestal on which he has chosen to erect his fame, is of too slight a texture for the maintenance of brass or marble. Modax must content himself with being enshrined, like a shepherd in biscuit china, among the curiosities of Dowager-boudoirs;, and, instead of a tributary oration from the conscript fathers, to be immortalized by a biographical notice in the polite necrology of the Court Magazine!
From: The Court Journal or Gazette of the Fashionable World. June 29, 1833, No. 218.