Regency Culture and Society: Introduction to the Fashionable World

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ABLE WORLD 260 Knowledge of the Fashionable World KNOWLEDGE OF THE FASHION implies your very existence to de pend upon the initantaneous execution of your commands Wber AVING escaped from College they are minutely obeyed then is fors phenomenas of univertal bril display of your fuperiority deliliancy and family admiration your berately collect yourself for one geembarkation musi be made by mak neral exertion to produce a grand ing of all obedience to parental au effect In fhort find fault with thority fingle excepleading point will be best carried tion do the waiter at almost reby being drive n into town post to gular stated periods and never let the door of some Hotel the more him ftand one moment still but expensive the house and its accom keep him eternally moving so modations the more will your name that the more abuse he has from be blazoned as a new and fuperla you the greater will be bis admitive devutee to the dictates of fa ration of your fuperior abilities shion and Gentleman like qualifications At the moment of arrival you Confirm bim in tliis opinion by will undergo a kind of regeneration swearing the fifh is not warm through and absolutely begin a new life the the poultry is old and a tough as servility of your poftillions the de your grandmother the pastry is ceptive adulation of the waiter and made with buiter rank Irith the the politesse of Boniface all serve cheese which they call Stilton is most powerfully to convince you nothing but pale Suffolk the malt lihow great your weight is already quor damnable a mere infufion become in the scale of society Con mait tobacco and coculus Indicus ducted to your apartment equally the port musty the Berry sour and calculated for ease and admirarion that the whole of the dinner and you instantly become the Adonis of refert were infernally infamous your own imagination Nature beand of course not fit for the en ing intended to enjoy a gratification tertainment of a Gentleman Conof every with it becomes imme clude the lecture with a hint that diately the determination of a Man without better accommodations and of Fashion to deny himielt no one more ready attention you fhall be pleasure comfort or happiness under the neceflity of leaving the ihat power can procure or influence house This spirited declaration at obtain As pecuniary compensation starting will answer a variety of purwith Brilliants of the first water poses but none fo effential as an is only a secondary confideration it anticipated objection to the payis very much below your attention ment of your bill whenever it may that will of course become much be presented With no imall demore the province of the Maitre gree of personal ostentation give al Hotel whose care it must be in the waiter your name because future to dun and not your's to pay you have ordered your letters there Tiis confideration making its pro and as they will be of importance per impreffion upon your refined beg they may be taken care of parfenfibility and perfectiy satisfied of ticularly those written by a female the friet propriety of your conduct hand of which description many you proceed to order a profusion of may be expected every delicacy and enjoin the Having thus fixed you recruit whole to be got ready with that like in good quarters I consider it kind of poft hafte expedition which almost unnecessary to say however bad
bad you may imagine the wine I pavement the fun of driving fine doubt not your own prudence will women aid old dons into the gutier point out the characteristic necef is exquisite and of course confti firy for drinking enough not only rutes a laugh of the most humane to afford you the credit of reeling re fibiity Never make these ex to bed by the help of the bannisters cursions without spurs it will afford but the collateral comfort of calling not only pretumptive proof of your yourself damned queer in the really keeping a horse but the lucky morning owing entirely to the opportunity of hooking a fine girl by villainous adulteration of the wine the gown apron or perticoat aud for when mild and genuine you whilst Qie is under the distresling can rake off three bottles without mortification of dihntangling herself winking or blinking When rour you and your companions can add ing from your last fomniferous re to her dilemma by some indelicate verie in the morning ring the bell inuendo anci in the moment of with no small degree of energy extrication walk off with an exult which will serve to convince the ฤฏ ing exclamation of having cracked whole family you are awake wipon the mullin Let it be a fixed rule the entrance of either chamberlain vever to be seen in the lounge withor chambermaid vociferate halt a out a stick or cane this dangling dozen questions in fucceffion with in a string may accidentally get out waiting for a single reply As betireen the frer of any female in what morning is it Does it hail pafii g if he falls in consequence rain or thine Is it a frost Is my ihat can he no fault of yours but breakfast ready Has any body the effect of her indiscretinni in not enquired for me Is my groom here keeping her legs closer together & c & c And here it becomes By wav of reliet to the fameness directly in point to observe that a of the lcene throw yourlelf lounggroom is become lo evidently necef ingly into a chair at Owen's cut up sary to the ton of the present day a pine with the greatest fang froid that a great number of gentlemen amuse yourself with a jelly or two keep a groom who cannot keep a and after viewing with a happy borfe but then they are always upon indifference whatever may present the so look out for horses itself throw down a guinea with The trilling ceremonies of the out condelcending to ask a ques morning gone through you will tion and walk off this will not sally forth in search of adventures only be politically inculcating an making that great mart of every idea of your seeming liberality virtue Bond ftreet in your way lipon the presene but paving the Here it will be impossible for you way to credit upon a future occa between the hours of twelve and fon I had hitherto omitted to four to remain even a few minutes mention the necessity for previously without falling in with various providing yourself with a glafs ruf feathers of your wing so true itpended from your button hole by is in the language of Row VOU a Atring the want of which will herd together that you cannot fear inevitabl brand you with vulgarity being long alone So soon as three if not with indigence for the truc of you are met adopt a Knight of and formerly uniophisticated breed the Bath's motio and become lite of Old John Bull is so very much rally tria juntia in uno or in altered by bad croles and a defin orher words link your arms so as to ciency in constirutional stamina engross the whole breadth of the equally affecting the optic nerves that

of the nose a that there are very few men of fashion can see clear beyond the tip At the breaking up of the pa rade stroll as it were accidental ya into the Prince of Wales's Coffee house in Conduit street walk up with the greatest ease and confum confidence to every box in rotacion look at every body with certain inexplicable hauteur bordering upon contempt for al though it is most likely you will know little or nothing of them great object is that they hould have a perfect knowledge of you Having repeatedly and vociferously called the waiter when he is most and at each time asked him various questions equally frivo and insignificant stem to skim the furface of the Morning Poft or Sporting Magazine humming the march in Blue Beard to lhew the versality of your genius when finding you have made yourself fuf ficiently conspicuous and an obje & t of general attention suddenly leave the room but not without such an emphatical mode of fhutting the door as may afford to the various companies and individuals a most striking proof of your departure

This article with hints for the gentleman new to Town was featured in the February 1800 issue of The Sporting Magazine.

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One Response to Regency Culture and Society: Introduction to the Fashionable World

  1. JOhn Cragg says:
    July 24, 2022 at 9:45 am

    What a marvelous, if satirical, depiction of the worst sort of late Georgian “gentleman.”