CHAPTER XXXIX.
Dic--si grave non est--Quae prima iratum ventrem placaverit esca.--Horace.
I did not remain above a day or two in town. I had never seen much ofthe humours of a watering-place, and my love of observing charactermade me exceedingly impatient for that pleasure. Accordingly, the firstbright morning I set off for Cheltenham. I was greatly struck with theentrance to that town: it is to these watering-places that a foreignershould be taken, in order to give him an adequate idea of themagnificent opulence, and universal luxury, of England. Our country has,in every province, what France only has in Paris--a capital, consecratedto gaiety, idleness, and enjoyment. London is both too busy in one classof society, and too pompous in another, to please a foreigner, whohas not excellent recommendations to private circles. But at Brighton,Cheltenham, Hastings, Bath, he may, as at Paris, find all the gaietiesof society without knowing a single individual.
My carriage stopped at the--Hotel. A corpulent and stately waiter, withgold buckles to a pair of very tight pantaloons, showed me up stairs. Ifound myself in a tolerable room facing the street, and garnishedwith two pictures of rocks and rivers, with a comely flight of crows,hovering in the horizon of both, as natural as possible, only they werea little larger than the trees. Over the chimney-piece, where I hadfondly hoped to find a looking-glass, was a grave print of GeneralWashington, with one hand stuck out like the spout of a tea-pot. Betweenthe two windows (unfavourable position!) was an oblong mirror, to whichI immediately hastened, and had the pleasure of seeing my complexioncatch the colour of the curtains that overhung the glass on each side,and exhibit the pleasing rurality of a pale green.
I shrunk back aghast, turned, and beheld the waiter. Had I seen myselfin a glass delicately shaded by rose-hued curtains, I should gently andsmilingly have said, "Have the goodness to bring me the bill of fare."As it was, I growled out, "Bring me the bill, and be d--d to you."
The stiff waiter bowed solemnly, and withdrew slowly. I looked round theroom once more, and discovered the additional adornments of a tea-urn,and a book. "Thank Heaven," thought I, as I took up the latter, "itcan't be one of Jeremy Bentham's." No! it was the Cheltenham Guide. Iturned to the head of amusements--"Dress ball at the rooms every--" someday or other--which of the seven I utterly forget; but it was the sameas that which witnessed my first arrival in the small drawing-room ofthe--Hotel.
"Thank Heaven!" said I to myself, as Bedos entered with my things, andwas ordered immediately to have all in preparation for "the dressballat the rooms," at the hour of half-past ten. The waiter entered with thebill. "Soups, chops, cutlets, steaks, roast joints, birds."
"Get some soup," said I, "a slice or two of lion, and half a dozenbirds."
"Sir," said the solemn waiter, "you can't have less than a whole lion,and we have only two birds in the house."
"Pray," asked I, "are you in the habit of supplying your larder fromExeter 'Change, or do you breed lions here like poultry?"
"Sir," answered the grim waiter, never relaxing into a smile, "we havelions brought us from the country every day."
"What do you pay for them?" said I.
"About three and sixpence a-piece, Sir."
"Humph!--market in Africa overstocked," thought I.
"Pray, how do you dress an animal of that description?"
"Roast and stuff him, Sir, and serve him up with currant jelly."
"What! like a hare?"
"It is a hare, Sir."
"What!"
"Yes, Sir, it is a hare! [Note: I have since learned, that this customof calling a hare a lion is not peculiar to Cheltenham. At that timeI was utterly unacquainted with the regulations of the Londoncoffee-houses.]--but we call it a lion, because of the Game Laws."
'Bright discovery,' thought I; 'they have a new language in Cheltenham:nothing's like travelling to enlarge the mind.' "And the birds," said I,aloud, "are neither humming birds, nor ostriches, I suppose?"
"No, Sir; they are partridges."
"Well, then, give me some soup; a cotelette de mouton, and a 'bird,' asyou term it, and be quick about it."
"It shall be done with dispatch," answered the pompous attendant, andwithdrew.
Is there, in the whole course of this pleasant and varying life, whichyoung gentlemen and ladies write verses to prove same and sorrowful,--isthere, in the whole course of it, one half-hour really and genuinelydisagreeable?--if so, it is the half-hour before dinner at a strangeinn. Nevertheless, by the help of philosophy and the window, I managedto endure it with great patience: and though I was famishing withhunger, I pretended the indifference of a sage, even when the dinner wasat length announced. I coquetted a whole minute with my napkin, before Iattempted the soup, and I helped myself to the potatory food with a slowdignity that must have perfectly won the heart of the solemn waiter. Thesoup was a little better than hot water, and the sharp sauced cotelettethan leather and vinegar; howbeit, I attacked them with the vigour ofan Irishman, and washed them down with a bottle of the worst liquor everdignified with the venerabile nomen of claret. The bird was tough enoughto have passed for an ostrich in miniature; and I felt its ghost hoppingabout the stomachic sepulchre to which I consigned it, the whole of thatevening and a great portion of the next day, when a glass of curacoalaid it at rest.
After this splendid repast, I flung myself back on my chair with thecomplacency of a man who has dined well, and dozed away the time tillthe hour of dressing.
"Now," thought I, as I placed myself before my glass, "shall I gentlyplease, or sublimely astonish the 'fashionables' of Cheltenham? Ah, bah!the latter school is vulgar, Byron spoilt it. Don't put out that chain,Bedos--I wear--the black coat, waistcoat, and trowsers. Brush my hair asmuch out of curl as you can, and give an air of graceful negligence tomy tout ensemble."
"Oui, Monsieur, je comprends," answered Bedos.
I was soon dressed, for it is the design, not the execution, of allgreat undertakings which requires deliberation and delay. Action cannotbe too prompt. A chair was called, and Henry Pelham was conveyed to therooms.