Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/248

 240 NOTES ON DANDIES.

word is a sort of foundling; its origin veiled in obscurity, its position equivocal, its destiny defying prediction. It may never emerge from the gloom in which it first made itself heard, or it may rise in the world surely and steadily, becoming in process of time absorbed among the reputable classes of words: a wealthy parvenu, which has so enriched and benefited society, that it is convenient to forego all particularity concerning pedigree— may ultimately reach drawing-rooms, and parliament houses, and palaces, its right of entry everywhere thoroughly acknowledged. The philologists who constitute themselves heralds or pursuivants to inquire into the gentle birth and pure worth of words, and ascertain, as it were, which among them is entitled to bear coat-armour, have not an easy time of it. There is a fashion in language which seems to over-ride rule; and accident has to be taken into the account. The world of our language, like the world of society, is made up of English and alien, of old and new, of unquestionable and doubtful. "Words often ride very slackly at anchor on their etymologies," says Dean Trench. Under the manipulations of time, particular meanings are often altered almost to positive reversal Old terms of compliment become methods of abuse. Phrases of accepted currency in the polite circles of Shakespeare's age are now regarded as wholly inadmissible in modern conversation. Words of respectable position enough in a colloquial way have emigrated to the colonies, and on their return home are refused recognition among the brethren they left behind them years before. Thus many terms which are now looked upon as pertaining absolutely to American slang are, in truth, of old English origin, parts of the language the Pilgrim Fathers took with them across the Atlantic; coming back to us again, they are as so many Rip Van Winkles; they have been asleep a hundred years and more; they are out of date, unknown, forgotten altogether; they have lost all footing in their native country; they have to begin over again, like the veriest of foundling or rogue and vagabond slang words, to try and work their way and re-establish themselves in the language. Other words again, mostly slang by birth, have a sort of short-lived popularity: only an ephemeral existence. They are lifted out of ob- scurity, freely used, made much of for a period, and then are suffered to sink gradually back again into oblivion.

Among these last we may count the word Dandy. It is now falling into desuetude, as though it had served a particular purpose, and there were therefore no further occasion for it. Also it may be noted, that the sort of creature it was presumed to describe no longer exists among us: the Dandies have disappeared. But tho word was quite a modern one, and of course slang in its origin. It is not easy, however, to discover with exactness when it came first into general use. By-and-by it will be some one's duty to inquire when the present fa- vourite word, Swell, was promoted from the street to the salon. Let us see a little about the elder term, Dandy.

Mr. Pierce Egan, the author of "Life in London," who is generally regarded as a writer of some authority upon questions of slang, says the word was first used in the year 1820. Another author of the same class, John Bad- cock, who, under the name of "John Bee,” wrote a "Dictionary of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, the Pit, the Bon Ton, and the Varieties of Life," fixes 1816 as the date. The word was in use some time before, how- ever. In 1817 Lord Byron was at Venice, writing "Beppo.;" in that poem occur the lines:—

In 1822, Lord Glenbervie published a translation of Forteguerri's "Ricciardetto," and in his preface considered it necessary to make some apology for his use of the words blue-stocking and dandy, which he thought might furnish matter for the learning of a commentator at some future period, though every English reader of that date would understand them. "Our present ephemeral dandy," he writes, "is akin to the maccaroni of my earlier. days." For blue-stocking he claims classicality by reason of Mrs. Hannah More's poem of "Bas Bleu ;" his apology for dandy consists in the previous use of the word by Lord Byron, as above, in "Beppo." As to both words, he suggests that their day may not be long :"

There is an entry, moreover, in Byron's diary, under date of February, 1814;—"I wonder how the deuce anybody could make such a world for what purpose dandies, for instance, were ordained, and kings, and fellows of colleges, and women of a certain age, and many men of any age, and myself most of all," &c.

De Quincey (born in 1785), in his "Auto-biographical Recollections," relates pleasantly how, when quite a lad he was walking with his elder brother in the neighbourhood of Greenhays, the paternal mansion on the out-