University of Virginia Library

TOM STRADDLE.

Will's great crony for some time was Tom Straddle,
to whom he really took a great liking. Straddle had
just arrived in an importation of hardware, fresh from
the city of Birmingham, or rather as the most learned
English would call it Brummagen, so famous for its
manufactories of gimlets, pen-knives, and pepper-boxes,
and where they make buttons and beaux enough to inundate
our whole country. He was a young man of
considerable standing in the manufactory at Birmingham;
sometimes had the honour to hand his master's daughter
into a tim-whisky, was the oracle of the tavern he frequented
on Sundays, and could beat all his associates, if
you would take his word for it, in boxing, beer-drinking,
jumping over chairs, and imitating cats in a gutter,
and opera-singers. Straddle was, moreover, a member
of a catch-club, and was a great hand at ringing bob-majors;
he was, of course, a complete connoisseur in music,
and entitled to assume that character at all performances
in the art. He was likewise a member of a spouting-club;
had seen a company of strolling actors perform in
a barn, and had even, like Abel Drugger, “enacted” the
part of Major Sturgeon with considerable applause; he
was consequently a profound critic, and fully authorized
to turn up his nose at any American performances. He
had twice partaken of annual dinners, given to the head
manufacturers at Birmingham, where he had the good
fortune to get a taste of turtle and turbot, and a smack
of Champaign and Burgundy; and he had heard a vast
deal of the roast beef of Old England;—he was therefore
epicure sufficient to d—n every dish and every glass
of wine he tasted in America, though at the same time
he was as voracious an animal as ever crossed the Atlantic.
Straddle had been splashed half a dozen times by
the carriages of nobility, and had once the superlative
felicity of being kicked out of doors by the footman of a
noble duke; he could, therefore, talk of nobility, and despise
the untitled plebeians of America. In short, Straddle
was one of those dapper, bustling, florid, round, self-important
“gemmen,” who bounce upon us half-beau,
half-button-maker; undertake to give us the true polish

of the bon-ton and endeavour to inspire us with a proper
and dignified contempt of our native country.

Straddle was quite in raptures when his employers
determined to send him to America as an agent. He
considered himself as going among a nation of barbarians,
where he could be received as a prodigy: he anticipated,
with a proud satisfaction, the bustle and confusion his
arrival would occasion; the crowd that would throng to
gaze at him as he passed through the streets; and had
little doubt but that he should excite as much curiosity
as an Indian chief or a Turk in the streets of Birmingham.
He had heard of the beauty of our women, and
chuckled at the thought of how completely he should
eclipse their unpolished beaux, and the number of despairing
lovers that would mourn the hour of his arrival.
I am even informed by Will Wizard, that he put good
store of beads, spike-nails, and looking-glasses in his
trunk, to win the affections of the fair ones as they paddled
about in their bark canoes. The reason Will gave
for this error of Straddle's respecting our ladies was, that
he had read in Guthrie's Geography that the aborigines
of America were all savages; and not exactly understanding
the word aborigines, he applied to one of his
fellow-apprentices, who assured him that it was the Latin
word for inhabitants.

Wizard used to tell another anecdote of Straddle,
which always put him in a passion:—Will swore that
the captain of the ship told him, that when Straddle
heard they were off the banks of Newfoundland, he insisted
upon going on shore there to gather some good cabbages,
of which he was excessively fond. Straddle,
however, denied all this, and declared it to be a mischievous
quiz of Will Wizard, who indeed often made himself
merry at his expense. However this may be, certain
it is he kept his tailor and shoemaker constantly employed
for a month before his departure; equipped himself
with a smart crooked stick about eighteen inches long,
a pair of breeches of most unheard-of length, a little short
pair of Hoby's white-topt boots, that seemed to stand
on tiptoe to reach his breeches, and his hat had the true
transatlantic declination towards his right ear. The fact
was—nor did he make any secret of it—he was determined
to astonish the natives a few!

Straddle was not a little disappointed on his arrival,
to find the Americans were rather more civilized than

he had imagined:—he was suffered to walk to his lodgings
unmolested by a crowd, and even unnoticed by a
single individual;—no love-letters came pouring in upon
him;—no rivals lay in wait to assassinate him;—his
very dress excited no attention, for there were many fools
dressed equally ridiculous with himself. This was mortifying
indeed to an aspiring youth, who had come out
with the idea of astonishing and captivating. He was
equally unfortunate in his pretentions to the character
of critic, connoisseur and boxer; he condemned our whole
dramatic corps, and every thing appertaining to the
theatre; but his critical abilities were ridiculed;—he
found fault with old Cockloft's dinner, not even sparing
his wine, and was never invited to the house afterwards;—
he scoured the streets at night and was cudgelled by a
sturdy watchman;—he hoaxed an honest mechanic, and
was soundly kicked. Thus disappointed in all his attempts
at notoriety, Straddle hit on the expedient which
was resorted to by the Giblets;—he determined to take
the town by storm. He accordingly bought horses and
equipages, and forthwith made a furious dash at style in
a gig and tandem.

As Straddle's finances were but limited, it may easily
be supposed that his fashionable career infringed a little
upon his consignments, which was indeed the case—for
to use a true cockney phrase, Brummagen suffered. But
this was a circumstance that made little impression upon
Straddle, who was now a lad of spirit—and lads of spirit
alway despise the sordid cares of keeping another man's
money. Suspecting this circumstance, I never could witness
any of his exhibitions of style without some whimsical
association of ideas. Did he give an entertainment
to a host of guzzling friends, I immediately fancied them
gormandizing heartily at the expense of poor Birmingham,
and swallowing a consignment of hand-saws and razors.
Did I behold him dashing through Broadway in his gig,
I saw him, “in my mind's eye,” driving tandem on a
nest of tea-boards; nor could I ever contemplate his
cockney exhibitions of horsemanship, but my mischievous
imagination would picture him spurring a cask of
hardware, like rosy Bacchus bestriding a beer-barrel, or
the little gentleman who be-straddles the world in the
front of Hutching's Almanack.

Straddle was equally successful with the Giblets, as
may well be supposed; for though pedestrian merit may

strive in vain to become fashionable in Gotham, yet a
candidate in an equipage is always recognized, and like
Philip's ass, laden with gold will gain admittance every
where. Mounted in his curricle or his gig, the candidate
is like a statue elevated on a high pedestal; his merits
are discernable from afar, and strike the dullest optics.
Oh! Gotham, Gotham! most enlightened of cities! how
does my heart swell with delight when I behold your
sapient inhabitants lavishing their attention with such
wonderful discernment!

Thus Straddle became quite a man of ton, and was
caressed, and courted, and invited to dinners and balls.
Whatever was absurd or ridiculous in him before was
now declared to be the style. He criticized our theatre,
and was listened to with reverence. He pronounced our
musical entertainments barbarous; and the judgment of
Apollo himself would not have been more decisive. He
abused our dinners; and the god of eating, if there be
any such deity, seemed to speak through his organs. He
became at once a man of taste—for he put his malediction
on every thing; and his arguments were conclusive—for
he supported every assertion with a bet. He
was likewise pronounced by the learned in the fashionable
world a young man of great research and deep observation,—for
he had sent home, as natural curiosities,
an ear of Indian corn, a pair of moccasons, a belt of
wampum, and a four-leafed clover. He had taken great
pains to enrich this curious collection with an Indian, and
a cataract, but without success. In fine, the people talked
of Straddle and his equipage, and Straddle talked of his
horses, until it was impossible for the most critical observer
to pronounce whether Straddle or his horses were
most admired, or whether Straddle admired himself or his
horses most.

Straddle was now in the zenith of his glory. He
swaggered about parlours and drawing-rooms with the
same unceremonious confidence he used to display in the
taverns at Birmingham. He accosted a lady as he would
a bar-maid; and this was pronounced a certain proof
that he had been used to better company in Birmingham.
He became the great man of all the taverns between
New-York and Harlem; and no one stood a chance of
being accommodated until Straddle and his horses were
perfectly satisfied. He d—d the landlords and waiters,
with the best air in the world, and accosted them with

gentlemanly familiarity. He staggered from the dinner-table
to the play, entered the box like a tempest, stayed
long enough to be bored to death, and to bore all those
who had the misfortune to be near him. From thence
he dashed off to a ball, time enough to flounder through
a cotilion, tear half a dozen gowns, commit a number of
other depredations, and make the whole company sensible
of his infinite condescension in coming amongst them.
The people of Gotham thought him a prodigious fine fellow;
the young bucks cultivated his acquaintance with
the most persevering assiduity, and his retainers were
sometimes complimented with a seat in his curricle, or a
ride on one of his fine horses. The belles were delighted
with the attentions of such a fashionable gentleman, and
struck with astonishment at his learned distinctions between
wrought scissors and those of cast steel: together
with his profound dissertations on buttons and horse-flesh.
The rich merchants courted his acquaintance because he
was an Englishman, and their wives treated him with
great deference because he had come from beyond seas.
I cannot help here observing that your saltwater is a
marvellous great sharpener of men's wits, and I intend to
recommend it to some of my acquaintance in a particular
essay.

Straddle continued his brilliant career for only a short
time. His prosperous journey over the turnpike of fashion
was checked by some of those stumbling-blocks in
the way of aspiring youth called creditors—or duns:—a
race of people who as a celebrated writer observes, “are
hated by the gods and men.” Consignments slackened,
whispers of distant suspicion floated in the dark, and
those pests of society the tailors and shoemakers, rose in
rebellion against Straddle. In vain were all his remonstrances;
in vain did he prove to them, that though he
had given them no money, yet he had given them more
custom, and as many promises as any young man in the
city. They were inflexible; and the signal of danger
being given, a host of other prosecutors pounced upon his
back. Straddle saw there was but one way for it: he
determined to do the thing genteely, to go to smash like
a hero, and dashed into the limits in high style; being
the fifteenth gentleman I have known to drive tandem
to the—ne plus ultra—the d—l.

Unfortunate Straddle! may thy fate be a warning to
all young gentlemen who come from Birmingham to

astonish the natives!—I should never have taken the
trouble to delineate his character, had he not been a genuine
Cockney, and worthy to be the representative of his
numerous tribe. Perhaps my simple countrymen may
hereafter be able to distinguish between the real English
gentlemen and individuals of the cast I have heretofore
spoken of, as mere mongrels, springing at one
bound from contemptible obscurity at home to daylight
and splendour in this good-natured land. The true-born
and true-bred English gentleman is a character I hold in
great respect; and I love to look back to the period when
our forefathers flourished in the same generous soil, and
hailed each other as brothers. But the Cockney!—
when I contemplate him as springing too from the same
source, I feel ashamed of the relationship, and am tempted
to deny my origin.—In the character of Straddle is
traced the complete outline of a true Cockney of English
growth, and a descendant of that individual facetious
character mentioned by Shakespeare, “who in pure
kindness to his horse, buttered his hay.”