University of Virginia Library

1. I.
Being Historical and Personal.

THE Fudge family is large. Where it originated,
I cannot well say. Many lady members
of the family are of opinion that it is very old, and
can be traced back to some of the bravest of those
Norman knights who did battle against Harold.
They have adopted the crest of some of those heroes
in support of this belief, and wear the same upon
their fingers. I can hardly conceive of a prettier
argument, or one more prettily handled. Reverence
for antiquity is a delightful trait of the female character.

A romantic admiration for knights and
men-at-arms is a charming characteristic of the sex.

It would be unwise to discredit openly a lady's
statement in respect to her paternity, or to make
light of any argument by which she supports the
dignity of her family. My own opinion is, however,
that it is much more probable that the Fudge
family would find its true origin in the more humble
antiquity dating with the Restoration. This limit
would throw out at once all Puritanic taint, which
I observe it is becoming quite fashionable to discard,
and would furthermore be strengthened by a host
of probabilities, in view of the great increase of
family names which grew up under the pleasant
auspices of Charles the Second and his court.

I would by no means impugn the motives of those
members of the family who wish to go farther back,
or question the taste of such crests as they have
adopted. The Miss Fudges, my excellent cousins,
Bridget and Jemima by name, are particularly tenacious
on this point; their tenacity, moreover, is well
sustained by the use of signets, and a very creditable
air of hauteur.

I am sorry to say that I cannot learn that our
family was ever much distinguished; and I have
been shocked to find the name of Fudge among the
humblest purveyors for King Charles's camp, before

the battle of Worcester. This, however, is proof
of a strong royalist feeling, which still obtains to a
very considerable degree among the lady members
of the family, particularly one or two interesting
spinsters, who divided a season, two years ago,
between Homberg and Wiesbaden.

Upon the Newgate Calendar I find, on close
inspection, only two entries of the name. I regard
this as a very flattering circumstance.

The first is that of Johnny Fudge, who, in the
reign of Queen Anne, was convicted of horse-stealing
at a June term of the York Assizes, and was
condemned (III. Ph. and M. c. 12) to the gallows.
The second appears to have been a criminal of much
more character and consideration. It appears that
in the first half of the reign of George III. one
Solomon Fudge was indicted for seditious and treasonable
acts. What the precise nature of the acts
were, does not appear upon the calendar; I cannot
doubt that they were worthy of the reputation of
the family. We learn, that after a royal reprieve,
Solomon was a second time the victim of the law,
and expiated his offences, in the year of grace 1760,
upon Tower Hill.

Miss Bridget Fudge, indeed, who is of kin with
the present Mr. Solomon Fudge, and who has latterly
worked a very brilliant ancestral tree in pink and

yellow chenil, on silk canvas, insists that the name
of these culprits was spelt Foodge; and that they
could not therefore have been connected, even
remotely, with Jacques de Fudge, Baron de La Bien
Aimée, who lost a spur or two at the battle of
Hastings. It certainly is an open question, well
worthy of a doubt, if not of discussion, at the hands
of the Historical Society.

For my own taste, I would much prefer to leave
ancestral inquiries in the dark; and feel confident
that if the same trepidation and fear of issues
belonged to most of our ancestral inquirers about
town, they would wear much safer names, and
infinitely better repute. Hap-hazard will do very
much more for the most of them, than Heraldry;
and I have a strong suspicion that, in slighting the
claims of Hap-hazard, they are slighting the claims
of a veritable progenitor.

As for the history of the Fudges, since they have
become a portion of the American stock, little can
be said which would not apply with equal pertinency
to nearly all the first families of the country. A
stray scion has now and then, in a fit of love, demeaned
himself by intermarriage with the daughter
of some plain person; or, in an equally unfortunate
fit of policy, brought about by habits of extravagance,
he has sought to supply the “needful” by

obtaining possession of some heiress of the town,
who had little to recommend her, save a passable
grace in the dance, and a moderately taking
eye.

By these unfortunate casualties, it has happened
that the purity of the original Fudge stock has
become singularly impaired. It is even hinted, among
the knowing gossips of the family, that the late
Solomon Fudge, father to the present Solomon
Fudge, made a sad slip in this way, and contracted
an awkward-looking, left-handed marriage, very
much to the exasperation of all the spinster connections
of the family.

It appears that the old gentleman was rather
frisky in his young days, and after a certain affaire
du cœur, which threatened to create great scandal
in the family, he was fain to marry his mother's waiting-maid.
She, however, proved a most notable
house-wife, and provoked all her married kin-folk
with a swarm of the liveliest and ruddiest children
that had been known in the Fudge family for several
generations.

More attention, however, is now given to the
race. I have already alluded to the ancestral tree
worked in chenil, and to the crests. The spinster
members of the family particularly, have shown
great caution; they are waiting for “blood.”

Indeed, I may say, they have already waited for no
inconsiderable time.

Although the stock may be made nobler under
this regimen, I have my doubts whether it will
be made any purer or stronger. I have therefore
recommended to my cousin Bridget, who is
not indisposed to change her condition—seeing
that she is now verging upon her thirty-fifth
year—a comely man in the retail line, who
lives nearly opposite her house in the town, and
who has shown repeated attentions through the
medium of a small-sized ivory-mounted opera-glass.

I should hardly venture to urge the matter,
unless I knew that the gentleman alluded to is
about retiring upon a competency; and with a
slight change of name, a suit of black in place of
gaiters and plaids,—to break up any old associations
which might prove unpleasant—I really think that
he would prove a most eligible partner for Miss
Bridget. Of course, she affects, as most young
ladies do, proper disdain for any one recommended
by a gentleman-friend; but I understand that she
is by no means careful to avoid his opera-glass observation.
This is certainly a rather promising sign.

Miss Jemima, her sister, is prim and wiry, and
takes to books. I shall have more to say of her as
I get on.

As for myself, I have lived off and on, about the
town, for some twenty-odd years. Naturally, I
verge upon middle age. Very few, however, I flatter
myself, would suspect as much. I am particular
about my wig, waistcoat, and boots. My wig
has a careless, easy effect; my waistcoat is never
unbuttoned and never stained with my dinner; my
boots always fit. I am thoroughly convinced that
proper attention to these three points is essential.
They diffuse the charm of youth and grace over the
bodies of individuals otherwise mature.

I am married—only to the world; which I find
to be an agreeable spouse, something fat, and with
streaks of ill-temper; but, upon the whole, as good-natured
and yielding as a moderate man ought
to expect.

I think I might easily pass for a man of five-and-thirty;
I have been mistaken for a younger man
even than this. I profess to be a judge of chowders,
sherries, and wines generally. Sometimes I dine at
the club; sometimes with a friend; sometimes with
my esteemed uncle, Solomon Fudge; and on odd
afternoons, with the widow Fudge, Miss Jemima,
and Miss Bridget Fudge.

I admire beauty, and have had, like most men, my
tender passages.

At eighteen, I was in love with a widow of thirty-five—madly

in love. My opinion is, that if she had
not left the country unexpectedly, I should have
died at her feet, or at her fire! At twenty-one, I
was engaged to a blonde of three-and-twenty, with
very blue eyes, and of a demure countenance, which
I still remember with considerable sentiment. It
was broken off with mutual good-will, and with some
heart-burnings on both sides. She has now five
children, lives in Thompson street, and weighs, I
should guess, near upon two hundred: her husband
puts it at a figure or two less. I call her Mabel,
and she calls me Tony.

At twenty-four I was desperate. I am of opinion
than no man was ever more so. Sir Charles Grandison,
in comparison, was a tame lover. The scarlet
waistcoat, that I wore at that particular epoch,
seemed of a dingy ash color. I not unfrequently
put it on, through absence, with the back-side in
front. I lived entirely upon vegetables. I wrote
a surprising number of sonnets. I think the
number of lines in each was altogether unprecedented.

But, alas for human hopes!—she proved a
coquette. I forgave her after two weeks, during
which I suffered intensely, and forgot her in four.
It is my opinion that she forgot me about the same
time. Now, however, she is a cheerful spinster. I

sometimes take a dish of tea with her. I observe
that she begins to use hair-dye.

Since that time, I have been variously enamored
of married and single women; the latter generally
quite young. The very last could hardly have been
more than sixteen. My opinion is, that I am more
attractive to individuals of that age, than to older
girls. They are certainly more attractive to me.
The absurd fallacy that young men are more successful
lovers than the middle-aged, is now quite
clear to me. I begin to appreciate the good judgment
of the sex. Ladies are by no means so silly as
young men take them to be. I am quite confident
that my power of fascination was never so great as
since I entered upon my fortieth year. I do not
affirm that the same could be said of all bachelors
of similar age.

I have undertaken to be personal in this chapter,
and shall not therefore spare my modesty. It is not
my way to halve things: if my story is to be told at
all, it shall be fully told.

As for my more immediate family history, however,
I do not propose to enter into particulars.
Like most men about town, I am at present
my own master, and trust that nothing will interrupt
this private mastership for some time. I
rely very little upon any Fudge counsel, and am

not much in the habit of boasting of my Fudge
ancestry.

My opinion is, that in this country a man must
stand upon his own feet, and not upon the decayed
feet of any family ancestors. It is pleasant to be a
member of one of the first families, such as the
Fudges undoubtedly are, and, if assertion can
retain the place, will unquestionably continue to be.

Individuality seems to me the best stamp and
seal that a man can carry: if he cannot carry that,
it will take a great deal to carry him. If a man's
own heart and energy are not equal to the making
of his fortune, he will find, I think, a very poor
resort in what Sir Tommy Overbury calls “the
potato fields of his ancestors;” meaning, by that
cheerful figure, that all there is good about the
matter is below ground.

I shall stand then simply upon my merits and my
name: and if my cousins Bridget and Jemima
question my hardihood, my only reply will be—
Fudge!

In case the reply should not prove satisfactory,
and the hungry critics should belabor me, after their
usual fashion, as a man of no calibre and of but little
dignity, I shall still sustain my first-mentioned
position, and meet all their cavils with a single
reply; and that reply will be—Fudge!