THE SNOB ROYAL
Long since at the commencement of the reign of her present Gracious Majesty, it chanced 'on a fair summer evening,' as Mr.James would say, that three or four young cavaliers were drinking a cup of wine after dinner at the hostelry called the 'King's Arms,' kept by Mistress Anderson, in the royal village of Kensington.
'Twas a balmy evening, and the wayfarers looked out on a cheerful scene.The tall elms of the ancient gardens were in full leaf, and countless chariots of the nobility of England whirled by to the neighbouring palace, where princely Sussex (whose income latterly only allowed him to give tea-parties) entertained his royal niece at a state banquet.When the caroches of the nobles had set down their owners at the banquethall, their varlets and servitors came to quaff a flagon of nut-brown ale in the 'King's Arms' gardens hard by.We watched these fellows from our lattice.By Saint Boniface 'twas a rare sight!
The tulips in Mynheer Van Dunck's gardens were not more gorgeous than the liveries of these pie-coated retainers.
All the flowers of the field bloomed in their ruffled bosoms, all the hues of the rainbow gleamed in their plush breeches, and the long-caned ones walked up and down the garden with that charming solemnity, that delightfull quivering swagger of the calves, which has always had a frantic fascination for us.The walk was not wide enough for them as the shoulder-knots strutted up and down it in canary, and crimson, and light blue.
Suddenly, in the midst of their pride, a little bell was rung, a side door opened, and (after setting down their Royal Mistress) her Majesty's own crimson footmen, with epaulets and black plushes, came in.
It was pitiable to see the other poor Johns slink off at this arrival! Not one of the honest private Plushes could stand up before the Royal Flunkeys.They left the walk: they sneaked into dark holes and drank tbeir beer in silence.The Royal Plush kept possession of the garden until the Royal Plush dinner was announced, when it retired, and we heard from the pavilion where they dined, conservative cheers, and speeches, and Kentish fires.The other Flunkeys we never saw more.
My dear Flunkeys, so absurdly conceited at one moment and so abject at the next, are but the types of their masters in this world.HE WHO MEANLY ADMIRES MEAN THINGS IS ASNOB--perhaps that is a safe definition of the character.
And this is why I have, with the utmost respect, ventured to place The Snob Royal at the head of my list, causing all others to give way before him, as the Flunkeys before the royal representative in Kensington Gardens.To say of such and such a Gracious Sovereign that he is a Snob, is but to say that his Majesty is a man.Kings, too, are men and Snobs.In a country where Snobs are in the majority, a prime one, surely, cannot be unfit to govern.
With us they have succeeded to admiration.
For instance, James I.was a Snob, and a Scotch Snob, than which the world contains no more offensive creature.
He appears to have had not one of the good qualities of a man--neither courage, nor generosity, nor honesty, nor brains; but read what the great Divines and Doctors of England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not a Snob; whilst Louis XIV., his old squaretoes of a contemporary,--the great worshipper of Bigwiggery--has always struck me as a most undoubted and Royal Snob.
