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Title: The 'Season' In Song
Author: William Davenport Adams [
More Titles by Adams]
'To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die,' and the Season, when 'dead,' yet speaks to many through the mouths of the men who have given it perennial life in verse. Its first laureate, one may say, was Mackworth Praed, whose 'Good-night' to it still remains the most brilliant epitome of its characteristics ever written. Nothing was omitted from that remarkable series of coruscating epigrams. From
'The breaches and battles and blunders
Performed by the Commons and Peers,'
we are taken to 'the pleasures which fashion makes duties'--'the dances, the fillings of hot little rooms,' 'the female diplomatists, planners of matches for Laura and Jane,' 'the rages, led off by the chiefs of the throng,' the ballet, the bazaar, the horticultural fete, and what not. Of later years the Season, as a whole, has been celebrated only by Mr. Alfred Austin, who published, more than a quarter of a century ago, a satire which was indeed formidable in its tone. Mr. Austin was severe about everybody--about the
'Unmarketable maidens of the mart,
Who, plumpness gone, fine delicacy feint,
And hide their sins in piety and paint;'
about the Gardens, where
'The leafy glade
Prompts the proposal dalliance delayed;'
about the ballrooms, where
'Panting damsels, dancing for their lives,
Are only maidens waltzing into wives;'
about the theatre, where
'Toole or Compton, perfect in his part,
Touches each sense, except the head and heart;'
and about a number of other things too censurable to be mentioned here.
And, in truth, when one thinks of the Season in song, one thinks less of the satire than of the sarcasm, less of the cynicism than of the sympathy, with which it has been treated by its poets. Take, for example, that most conspicuous feature of the Season--the walking, riding, driving in the Row. It was Tickell who made a woman of fashion of his day tell how she
'Mounted her palfrey as gay as a lark,
And, followed by John, took the dust in Hyde Park,'
and how
'On the way she was met by some smart Macaroni,
Who rode by her side on a little bay pony.'
In our own time the glories and the humours of the Row have been described with geniality by Mr. Frederick Locker and Mr. Ashby-Sterry, with point by Mr. Austin Dobson, and with smartness by H. S. Leigh. Says Mr. Locker:
'Forsooth, and on a livelier spot
The sunbeam never shines;
Fair ladies here can talk and trot
With statesmen and divines.
'What grooms! what gallant gentlemen!
What well-appointed hacks!
What glory in their pace, and then,
What beauty on their backs!'
Mr. Dobson, in a different mood, assures his Roman prototype that the world to-day is very much what it was in the time of 'Q. H. F.':
'Walk in the Park--you'll seldom fail
To find a Sybaris on the rail
By Lydia's ponies;
Or hap on Barrus, wigged and stayed,
Ogling some unsuspecting maid.
'Fair Neobule, too! Is not
One Hebrus here--from Aldershot?
Aha, you colour!
Be wise. There old Canidia sits;
No doubt she's tearing you to bits.'
The Eton and Harrow match, like lawn-tennis, caret vate sacro; but the delights of Henley and Hurlingham have been sung in verse, and the Inter-University Boat-race was the subject of some admirable lines by Mortimer Collins and G. J. Cayley:
'Sweet amid lime-trees' blossom, astir with the whispers of springtide,
Maiden speech to hear, eloquent murmur and sigh
Ah! but the joy of the Thames when, Cam with Isis contending,
Up the Imperial stream flash the impetuous Eights!
Sweeping and strong is the stroke, as they race from Putney to Mortlake,
Shying the Crab Tree bight, shooting through Hammersmith Bridge;
Onward elastic they strain to the deep low moan of the rowlock;
Louder the cheer from the bank, swifter the flash of the oar!'
Pretty again, in its way, is the better-known 'Boat-race Sketch,' by Mr. Ashby-Sterry, whose heroine
'Twines her fair hair with the colours of Isis,
Whilst those of the Cam glitter bright in her eyes.'
The joys of Epsom and of Goodwood have not, I believe, been versified by any prominent rhymer, and, concerning those of Ascot, I know of but one elaborate celebration--that which describes, among other things,
'Tall bottles passing to and fro,
And clear-cut crystal's creamy flow,
Where vied with velvet Veuve Clicquot,
Moet and Chandon;'
as well as
'The homeward drive that came too soon
By parks and lodges bright with June,
And how we mocked the afternoon
With lazy laughter.'
Nothing, of course, is more peculiar to the Season than the devotion displayed by Society at the shrine of Art. The Academy and the Grosvenor are institutions without which the Season would not be itself. The latter has not figured very conspicuously in song, but at least it has managed to creep into one of the Gilbert-Sullivan operas, in the shape of a rhyme to 'greenery-yallery.' Mr. Andrew Lang, too, has told us of the critic who had
'Totter'd, since the dawn was red,
Through miles of Grosvenor Gallery;'
and, in another of his 'verses vain,' has practically limned the Gallery itself under the guise of 'Camelot':
'In Camelot, how gray and green
The damsels dwell, how sad their teen;
In Camelot, how green and gray
The melancholy poplars sway.
I wis I wot not what they mean,
Or wherefore, passionate and lean,
The maidens mope their loves between.'
The character of Burne-Jonesian art is here very happily hit off. Happy, too, is Mr. Lang's sketch of the Philistian features of the Academy:
'Philistia! Maids in muslin white
With flannelled oarsmen oft delight
To drift upon thy streams, and float
In Salter's most luxurious boat;
In buff and boots the cheery knight
Returns (quite safe) from Naseby fight.'
But did not Praed long ago address 'The Portrait of a Lady at the Exhibition of the Royal Academy'? Has not Mr. Ashby-Sterry addressed 'Number One' in the said exhibition--also 'the portrait of a lady'? And, moreover, has not Mr. Austin Dobson made the Academy the scene of one of his brightly-written dialogues?--that in which the lady says:
'From now until we go in June
I shall hear nothing but this tune:
Whether I like Long's "Vashti," or
Like Leslie's "Naughty Kitty" more;
With all that critics, right or wrong,
Have said of Leslie or of Long.'
Among the events of every season are the fashionable marriages, one of which is described for us by Mr. Frederick Locker in his 'St. George's, Hanover Square.' On the subject of the belles of the season I need not dwell. Praed's 'Belle of the Ballroom' was a provincial beauty; but not so, assuredly, was Pope's and Lord Peterborough's Mrs. Howard, Congreve's Miss Temple, Lord Chesterfield's Duchess of Richmond, Fox's Mrs. Crewe, Lord Lytton's La Marquise, Mr. Aide's Beauty Clare, or Mr. Austin Dobson's Avice. Of London balls and routs the poets have been many, including Edward Fitzgerald, C. S. Calverley, and Mr. Dobson again. The opera, so far as I know, has had very few celebrants in rhyme. The 'Monday Pops' figure in 'Patience' with the Grosvenor Gallery, but have not otherwise, I fancy, been distinguished in song. On the whole, however, the Season has received poetic tributes at once numerous and interesting.
[The end]
William Davenport Adams's essay: 'Season' In Song
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