Boards. Debrett, &c. 1800.1
These volumes contain a variety of miscellaneous matter, divided into chapters. They
commence with a description of Bon-Ton Hall, where we are rather surprised to meet
with only those shades of fashion who are now walking
in the Elysian fields. It is long, very long, since the
Duchess of Queensberry dressed like a beggar woman, with a tucked up linen gown and
an old black bonnet, diverting herself and the world by going about in
masquerade:2 —but we have no other objection to renewing our acquaintance with
this whimsical but worthy Duchess, than that she is here completely out of her place,
because, when we look to the title, we expect to meet with fashionables of the present day, not those of antiquity. The great
personages who formed the circle at Bon-Ton Hall, and whom we recollect by the
initials of their names, having exhibited themselves on a theatre on which the scenes
have long been closed, the curtain let down, and the actors and actresses
disappeared, we can say no more to them than "peace be to their manes."
The indecorous freedoms, also, introduced through the familiarity of the stay maker
and the hair dresser, no longer make us tremble for our young people; though, as
every age has its peculiar incentives to vice and folly, the present times may have
other fashions of an equally objectionable nature. In the dedication to Fashion, however, which is written with spirit, we question whether Mrs. T. be not rather too severe on the
reigning goddess: since, after the scenes described at Bon-Ton hall, it appears that
she was as much "the demon of impudence" at that period as at the present, with
scarcely any exception even of Grecian drapery.
As this miscellany is detailed in rather a desultory manner, it produces a sensation
on the reader similar to that which we have occasionally experienced from great
talkers, whose discourse consists of disjointed materials, and who, by rapidly
passing from one subject
7[Page 431] to another, leave the hearer's attention at a remote distance, unless
he be a very good listener.—Euterpe's travels on the continent, furnished (we
apprehend) from the late Mr. T.'s
common place book, abound with such very extraordinary anecdotes, that they must
often impose a hard task on the reader, in requiring him to find credulity sufficient
for the occasion: yet, in general, we have been amused by them; and they merit praise
for some pertinent and sensible remarks.