instance, read Lady Blessington’s ‘Victims of Society.’ Though there is an unreal ring about this horrid book, so that one cannot accept it for a moment as a faithful picture of the times, such a book could not now be written at all; it would be impossible. [Illustration: M. Blessington -THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON-] Let us sing of lighter themes. Take, for instance, the great subject of Swagger. There is still Swagger, even in these days; cavalry officers in garrison towns are still supposed to swagger. Eton boys swagger in their own little village; undergraduates swagger. The putting on of ‘side,’ by the way, is a peculiarly modern form of swagger: it is the assumption of certain qualities and powers which are considered as deserving of respect. Swagger, fifty years ago, was a coarser kind of thing. Officers swaggered; men of rank swaggered; men of wealth swaggered; gentlemen in military frogs--there are no longer any military frogs--swaggered in taverns, clubs, and in the streets. The adoption of quiet manners; the wearing of rank with unobtrusive dignity; the possession of wealth without ostentation; of wit without the desire to be always showing it--these are points in which we are decidedly in advance of our fathers. There was a great deal of cuff and collar, stock and breastpin about the young fellows of the day. They were oppressive in their gallantry: in public places they asserted themselves; they were loud in their talk. In order to understand the young man of the day, one may study the life and career of that gay and gallant gentleman, the Count d’Orsay, model and paragon for all young gentlemen of his time. [Illustration: OFFICER OF THE DRAGOON GUARDS] They were louder in their manners, and in their conversation they were insulting, especially the wits. Things were said by these gentlemen, even in a duelling age, which would be followed in these days by a violent personal assault. In fact, the necessity of fighting a duel if you kicked a man seems to have been the cause why men were constantly allowed to call each other, by implication, Fool, Ass, Knave, and so forth. So very disagreeable a thing was it to turn out in the early morning, in order to be shot at, that men stood anything rather than subject themselves to it. Consider the things said by Douglas Jerrold, for instance. They are always witty, of course, but they are often mere insults. Yet nobody seems ever to have fallen upon him. And not only this kind of thing was permitted, but things of the grossest taste passed unrebuked. For instance, only a few years before our period, at Holland House--not at a club, or a tavern, or a tap-room, but actually at Holland House, the most refined and cultured place in London--the following conversation once passed.