PAUL BEDFORD'S REMINISCENCES.* Tux chief interest of this book is
in illustrating that particular sort of " jollity " which appears to be derived from the mental exercise of inventing an elaborate series of equivalents for ordinary phrases, and swinging yourself along this tight-rope of strained and vulgar circumlocution, instead of moving over the ground of ordinary speech. Every one recognizes the artifice as it is commonly applied in low comedy ; and, at least to the limited extent to which it is applied in farces on the stage, people not uufrequently appear to derive sufficient stimulus from the false and absurd associations thus introduced to find in it a little sickly amusement. If, for example, the half-pay lieutenant of the navy who so often blusters about in the after-piece addresses his rival as " my jolly old cock," and speaks of himself familiarly as "this chick,"—language apparently also used by Mr. Bedford. when not upon the stage,—there are people, we have no doubt, who would accept gratefully those familiar allusions to the
poultry-yard as facetious commentaries on real life, and feel much more cheerful than they would have done if the same actor had simply addressed his enemy as " my gOod fellow " and referred to himself by the use of the first personal pronoun. What the secret of the intellectual stimulus apparently conveyed by this very simple feat is, it is not quite so easy to say. But that school-boys, and young people generally, and fast persons even when not young, are keenly alive to it, is clear from the very general adoption of elaborate special dialects by all these classes, and the fillip the use of them appears to give to the spirits. Probably when a schoolboy speaks of an old gentleman of whom he stands in great awe familiarly as an " old cove," there is some sense of humour in the discrepancy between his private language and his actual relations ; and in thieves' slang, like "jerk the tinkler" for "ring the bell," there is something in the mere parody of a conventional phrase by im tges that destroy its smooth, reticent associations, and that prick the imagination with some prominent picture, to tickle the fancy and answer to the love of excitement in trifles which belongs to exciting pro- fessions. But Mr. Bedford does not indulge much in any slang that either comedian, schoolboy, or thief, would think striking or humorous. The only object he appears to have in view is to be facetious by substituting an uncommon and roundabout phrase for every common and direct one. He feels, we suppose, that there is a sort of feeble tonic or stimulus to be derived from saying that an actor "demonstrates" instead of " acts,"—partly,it maybe, because it does not at first suggest the meaning at all, and partly because when it does, it also suggests faintly other incongruous ideas, such as the demonstration of an anatomist in a dissecting theatre or of a geometrician. Apparently there is a weak sense of hilarity con- nected with thus first throwing your reader off the scent and then supplying him with a few false cross-scents at the moment he finds the true one, At all events being altogether superfluous it sug- gests superfluous energy, and that often of itself suggests jollity. When, for instance, we read Mr. Bedford's saying of Ducrow that "so wondrous was the illustration, that the demonstrator became the world's celebrity," one feels certain that the man who made that flourish of phraseology must have gone so far out of his way from sheer superabundant spirits. So also the verb " to luxuriate" appears with Mr. Bedford synonymous with the verb " to bo.'' Wherever you are, you " luxuriate." When he is simply making a geographical note of his whereabouts he says he " luxuriated " at Southampton, Winchester, Chichester, and Portsmouth. Again, a minor theatre " luxuriates " in the Strand. We have heard a great etymologist maintain that the root of the verb " to be" in Latin and Greek (es,) and of the verb " to eat" (ed), are the same. What—he used to argue—is to the savage mind the clearest test of existence ?—of course eating. From some such association Mr. Bedford passes from " being,"—no doubt through the assumption that all being as inclusive of eating is jollity,—to the larger idea of "luxuriating."
But a true comedian's jollity appears to require a certain ele-
Riaging Wmaderings qf Peal Boa/ford Facts not Fancies. Leaden:
Boatleage.
ment of tenderness also, which forbids as much as possible the use of ordinary pronouns towards admired persons, and requires the substitution of descriptive and allusive adjectives. The surgeons who conducted the post-mortem on Edmund Kean are "the learned ones of anatomy," Kean himself is the " dear departed," Sir Walter Scott is " this modest great.one," Madame Catalani, middle-aged at the time of her death, is " our dear matured laved one," Mr. Huskisson is " the lamented oner when a manager falls ill he becomes "the-afflicted oue,"and Byron. is " the gifted one," and so forth. No doubt this language is used for the sake of flowery and spritely detours, and to relieve the- dull causeway of ordinary speech. Certainly it suggests spare sentiment much as the stationary twirls of the ballet girl on one leg suggest a good deal of spare activity. But we are inclined. to think the more broadly jocular padding gives a better concep- tion of "Jolly-nose Paul," as he calls himself from a celebrated comic song of his. The following, for example, is. quite in his, way :— " In the following anecdote are associated the names of four men of mark, two of which number have long since departed; but the other two. are with us, all alive oh I" Such is low comedy trying to keep up its reputation. off the stage. The book, short, silly, and vulgar as it is, is really a_ study, as appearing to show that some people think the lowest comedy of the theatre a mark to live up to and write up to in More serious moments, and suppose they are in good spirits themselves and the cause of good spirits in others, if they go out. of their way to substitute a slang of their own manufacture for ordinary words.
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