University of Virginia Library

BACHELORS.

Evans' Old Ballads.

There is no character in the comedy of human
life that is more difficult to play well, than
that of an old bachelor. When a single gentleman
therefore arrives at that critical period when
he begins to consider it an impertiment question
to be asked his age, I would advise him to look
well to his ways. This period, it is true, is much
later with some men than with others; I have
witnessed more than once the meeting of two
wrinkled old lads of this kind, who had not seen
each other for several years, and have been
amused by the amicable exchange of compliments
on each other's appearance, that takes

place on such occasions. There is always one
invariable observation. “Why, bless my soul!
you look younger than when last I saw you!”
Whenever a man's friends begin to compliment
him about looking young, he may be sure that
they think he is growing old.

I am led to make these remarks, by the conduct
of Master Simon and the general, who have
become great cronies. As the former is the
youngest by many years, he is regarded as quite
a youthful blade by the general, who moreover
looks upon him as a man of great wit and prodigious
acquirements. I have already hinted
that Master Simon is a family beau, and considered
rather a young fellow by all the elderly ladies
of the connexion, for an old bachelor in an old
family connexion, is something like an actor in
a regular company; who seems to “flourish in
immortal youth,” and will continue to play the
Romeos and Rangers for half a century together.

Master Simon, too, is a little of the camelion,
and takes a different hue with every different
companion. He is very attentive and courteous,

and somewhat sentimental with Lady Lillycraft;
copies out little namby pamby ditties and love
songs for her, and draws quivers, and doves, and
darts, and Cupids, to be worked on the corners
of her pocket handkerchiefs. He indulges, however,
in very considerable latitude with the other
married ladies of the family, and has many sly
pleasantries to whisper to them, that provoke an
equivocal laugh and a tap of the fan. But when
he gets among the young company, such as
Frank Bracebridge, the Oxonian, and the general,
he is apt to put on the mad-wag, and to talk
in a very bachelor-like strain about the sex.

In this he has been encouraged by the example
of the general, whom he looks up to as a
man of the ton, that has seen the world. The
general, in fact, tells shocking stories after dinner,
when the ladies are gone, which he gives as
some of the choice things that are served up at
a knot of bon vivants in London, called the Mulligatawney
Club. He also repeats a great many
fat jokes of old Major Slingsby, the wit of the
club, which the general can hardly relate for

laughing, though they always make the Squire
look grave, who has a great antipathy to a bawdy
jest. In a word, the general is a complete instance
of that declension in gay life, by which a
young man of pleasure is apt to cool down into
an obscene old gentleman.

I saw him and Master Simon, an evening or
two since, conversing with a buxom milkmaid in
a meadow; and from their elbowing each other
now and then, and the general's shaking his
shoulders, blowing up his cheeks, and breaking
out into a short fit of irrepressible laughter, I had
no doubt that they were playing the mischief
with the girl.

As I looked at them through a hedge, I could
not but think they would have made a tolerable
group for a modern picture of Susannah and the
two elders; it is true, the girl seemed in no wise
alarmed at the force of the enemy, and I question,
had either of them been alone, whether she
would not have been more than they would have
ventured to encounter. Such veteran roysters
are daring wags when together, and will put

any female to the blush with their jokes, but they
are as quiet as lambs, when they fall singly into
the clutches of a fine woman.

In spite of the general's years, he evidently
is a little vain of his person, and ambitious of
conquests. I have observed him on Sunday in
church, eying the country girls most suspiciously,
and have even seen him leer upon them, with a
downright amorous look, even when he has been
gallanting Lady Lillycraft with great ceremony
through the church-yard. The general, in fact,
is a veteran in the service of Cupid, rather than
Mars, having signalized himself in all the garrison
towns and country quarters, and seen service
in every ball room of England. Not a celebrated
beauty but he has laid siege to; and if his
word may be taken in a matter wherein no man
is apt to be veracious, it is incredible the success
he has had with the fair. At present he is like a
worn-out warrior retired from service, but who
still cocks his beaver with a military air, and
talks stoutly of fighting whenever he comes
within the smell of gunpowder.

I have heard him speak his mind very freely
over his bottle, about the folly of the captain in
taking a wife, as he thinks a young soldier should
care for nothing but his “bottle and kind landlady;”
but, in fact, he says the service on the
continent has played the mischief with the young
men; they have been ruined by light wines and
French quadrilles. They've nothing, he says, of
the spirit of the old service. There are none of
your six-bottle men left, that were the souls of a
mess dinner, and used to play the very deuce
among the women.

As to a bachelor, the general affirms, that he
is a free and easy man, with no baggage to take
care of but his portmanteau; but a married
man, with his wife hanging on his arm, always
puts him in mind of a chamber candlestick, with
its extinguisher hitched to it.

I should not mind all this if it were merely
confined to the general; but I fear he will be
the ruin of my friend Master Simon, who already
begins to echo his heresies, and to talk in the
style of a gentleman that has seen life, and

lived upon the town. Indeed, he seems to have
taken Master Simon in hand, and talks of showing
him the lions in London next season, and of
introducing him to the Mulligatawney Club. As
he is continually quoting the sayings of this
club, I have been curious to learn something
about it. I find it is composed of a knot of old
nabobs, officers, and other choice spirits that
have seen service in India, and been burnt out
with curry, and touched with the liver complaint.
They meet regularly to eat Mulligatawney soup,
smoke the Hookah, talk about Tippoo Saib
and Seringapatam, and be tediously agreeable
in each others' company.