Out and About London - Thomas Burke

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he has shown us, in those "Bulletins," how to turn advertising into one of the minor arts. Perhaps of all the enormities which the nineteenth century perpetrated in its efforts to make life unbearable, the greatest was the debasing of trade. In the eighteenth century trade was a serene occupation, as you may see by glancing at the files of the old Gentleman's Magazine, Mirror, Spectator, where announcements of goods and merchandise were made in fine flowing English. Advertisement was then a matter of grace, of flourish and address; for people had leisure in which to receive gradual impressions. The merchants of that day did not scream at you; they sat with you over the fire, and held you in pleasant converse, sometimes, in their talk, throwing off some persiflage or apothegm that has become immortal. There was a Mr. George Farr, a grocer, circa 1750, who issued some excellent trade tickets from the "Beehive and Three Sugar Loaves"; little cards, embellished with dainty woodcuts that bring to mind an Elzevir bookplate; the pictures a sheer joy to look upon, the prose a delicate pomp of words that delights the ear. Then there were the trade cards of the Goldsmiths' and Silversmiths' Company of the eighteenth century, each one the production of a true artist (Hogarth did several), as well as the tobacco advertisements of the same period. In the latter case, not only were the cards works of art, but poetry was wooed and won for the cause. Near the old Surrey Theatre lived one John Mackey, who sang the praise of his wares in rhyme and issued playbills purporting to announce new tragedies under such titles as My Snuff-Box, The Indian Weed, The True Friend, or Arrivals from Havannah, The Last Pinch, and so on. The cabinet-makers of the eighteenth century also found time to indite delicious morsels of prose and prepare quaint and harmonious pictures for the delight of their patrons. Mr. Chippendale and Mr. Heppelwhite were most industrious in this direction, and the Society of Upholsterers and Cabinet Makers issued, in 1765, a work now very much sought after: The Cabinet and Chair Makers' Real Friend and Companion.

      But then, snorting and hustling like a provincial alderman, in came the nineteenth century, with its gospel of Speed-up; and the result was that fair fields and stately streets scream harshly in your ears at every turn: —

Drink BingoIt is the BestEat DinkyduxYou'll hate it at First

      This sort of thing continued for many decades, when, happily, its potency became attenuated, and some genius discovered that people were not always responsive to screams; that, after all, the old way was better.

      Thus literature returned and linked arms once again with trade. Partly, the circularizing dodge was responsible for this, since, in the circular, the bald statement was hardly good enough. It was found that subtle means must be employed if you are striving to catch a man's attention at the breakfast-table, when sleep still crawls like a slug about the brain and temper is uncertain. Nothing is so riling to the educated person as to have ungrammatical circulars dropped in his letter-box. Their effect is that he heartily detests the article advertised, not because he has tried it and found it wanting, but because of the split infinitive or the infirm phrase. So the whoop and the yell gave place to the full-flowered essay sprigged with the considered phrase. And to my mind the best of all contemporary efforts in this direction are "Mr. Downman's" "Bulletins," of which I have a complete set. Here a fastidious pen is delightfully employed; and not the pen only, but the taste of the book-lover. Indeed, they are lovable productions, having all the gracious response to the eye and the touch of Mr. Arthur Humphreys' anthologies of seventeenth-century poetry. Everything – format, type, paper, and Elian style – breathes an air of serendipity.

      The first part of each "Bulletin" consists of a number of essays on questions pertaining to wine and wine-drinking; the second half is a catalogue of "Mr. Downman's" wines and their current prices, with specimen labels, which are such gentle harmonies of line and colour that one is tempted to start collecting them. "Mr. Downman" opens his addresses in the grand manner: —

My Lords, Reverend Fathers, Ladies and Gentlemen

      And if you love your Elia, then you must read "Mr. Downman" on Decanters and Decanting, On Corkscrews, On How to Drink Wine, On Bottling, On Patriotism and Wines, On the Suiting of Food to Wine, On Wines at Picnics. His sharp-flavoured prose, full of sly nuances and coquettish conceits, has all the tone of the best claret. Hear him on salads: —

      This is the time of salads. And a good salad means good oil. It also means good vinegar, or a fresh and juicy lime or lemon. Now the Almighty has given us better tools for salad-making than any wooden fork or spoon. In conditions of homely intimacy, a salad-maker, when all is ready, will wash his hands well and long as the moment approaches for serving the bowl. He will shun common or perfumed soaps, and will use nothing but a soap made from olive oil. Having dried his hands perfectly on a warm, clean towel, he will finally whisk the cup of dressing into homogeneity, will pour its contents over the salad, and will immediately proceed to wring the leaves in the liquid as a washerwoman wrings clothes in soapy water. (How horrid!) In doing this he will spoil the appearance of come of the leaves, but he will have a salad fit for the gods.

      After sampling a noble Madeira in his cellar cool, in William and Mary Yard, we resumed our crawl, and in the black evening made a tour of other of the old places. At the Café de l'Europe, Mr. Jacobs, leader of the band, played for us a few old waltzes and morceaux reeking of the spirit of 1912; but even he did not handle the fiddle, or seem to care to handle it, in his old happy manner. Like the rest of us, I suppose, he felt that it wasn't worth while; it didn't matter. We called at the "Gambrinus," now owned by a Belgian; at the old "Sceptre," for a coupon's worth of boiled beef; and so to the Café Royal.

      Here we received a touch or two from the old times. War has killed many lovely things, but, though it maim and break, it cannot wholly kill the things of the spirit, and in the "Royal" we found that art was still a living thing; ideas were still being discussed as though they mattered. Epstein and Augustus John, both in uniform, were there, and Austin Harrison had his usual group of poets. It was reassuring to see the old domino-playing Frenchmen, who seem part of the fixtures of the place, in their accustomed corner. The girls seemed to have packed away their affrighting futurist gowns, and were arrayed more soberly. That night they seemed to be more like human creatures, and less like deliberate Bohemians.

      I am not overfond of the Café Royal, but it is one of the West End shows which visitors feel they must see; and when any provincial visitors wonder: "Why is the Café Royal?" I have one answer for them: "Henri Murger."

      It is certain that, but for Murger, there would be no Chelsea and no Café Royal. That man has a lot to answer for. I doubt if any one man (I'm not including kings) has wrought so much havoc in young lives. He meant to warn youth of danger; he actually drove youth towards it.

      Any discussion which seeks to name the most dangerous book in the world is certain to bring mention of Rousseau's Confessions, of Paine's Age of Reason, of Artzibashef's Sanine, of Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal, and other works of subversive tendency. The one book which has really done more harm to young people than any other is seldom remembered in this connection. That book is Scènes de la Vie de Bohême; and it is dangerous, not that it contains a line of obscenity or blasphemy, not that it teaches evil as higher than good, but because it founded a cult and taught young people how to ruin their lives. Bohemianism has, of course, existed since the world began; rebels have always been; but it remained for Murger to find a name for it and make a cult of it.

      The dangers of this cult to young people lay not in its being an evil cult, but in its being perhaps as fine a cult as any of the world's great creeds: the cult of human sympathy and generosity. The Bohemian makes friends with all kinds and all creeds – sinners and saints, rich and poor; he cares nothing so long as they be kindly. And there lay the danger, for the blood of youth, freed from all restraint, was certain to overdo it. It became a cult of excess. Murger died, but he left behind him a very bitter legacy to the coming generation. As that legacy passed through the years it gathered various adhesions – such as Wilde's "In order to be an artist it is first necessary to ruin one's health," and Flaubert's "Nothing succeeds like excess"; so that very soon art colonies became things discredited, unpleasant to the nostrils of the righteous.

      Murger himself saw the life very clearly, for he described it as "Vie gai et terrible"; and he takes no pains to present to us only the lighter, warmer side of it. He shows us everything; yet, so diabolical

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