J. W. Mackail.

The grand manner has gone from the world, and the world seems little put out at its departure. Time was when it was the token at once of breeding and education. Scholarship unadorned with it was held up to scorn as naked pedantry; manners, with no touch of the grand air, could not pass muster in polite circles; literature saw in it the sum and substance of its being. It did duty for a whole lexicon of qualities, but its outward aspect was unmistakable, depending upon a very simple theory of society and human life. There are two classes of men, it held-those who attain and those who fail. It is for the latter to struggle, and complain, and show marks of the conflict; but, for the former, it is the first duty to preserve an untroubled mien, an elegant composure, an aristo- * cratic nonchalance. A man is more than his work, especially if that man be a gentleman. Therefore, let him describe himself by no narrow profession, but shine in twenty spheres with a fine neglect of each. It is for the great lawyer to be a wit, the wit to be a statesman, the scholar a man of fashion. To specialize is to confess oneself

incompetent. Let the rank-and-file make a fuss about their work, but for the master spirits the grand manner is the counsel of perfection, and with it came the chance for a real art of society. If men are to wear honors and successes lightly, the background of ease will come into prominence, and they will study to amuse. And so came that social finesse which our greatgrandmothers adored, those bowings and smirkings which their grandchildren scoffed at, and the whole pleasing science of the beau monde. The doctrine was both a theory of human conduct and a social law, preaching at once the arts of success and amusement; and the "grand manner" became the fine flower of accomplished gentility.

The tear of sensibility may be dropped over its tomb, but there can be no question of its revival. The most its admirers can do is to write the history of its floruit. It belonged to an age when wealth, leisure, culture and all the good things of life were confined to a class, and it drooped and withered at the advent of democracy. Our modern seriousness and our mod

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ern business-like air killed it, and they chose the cruellest of weapons. might have survived frank opposition, it could not endure being made to look ridiculous. Like Aristotle's magnificent man, who smiled little and walked with slow and dignified step, our gentleman with the grand air could, at times, be almost comic. Your Sir Willoughby Patterne still stalked triumphant through the world, but a more modest person, at a suggestion of farce, shrivelled up like a gourd. Then people asked awkward questions. Were not these often elderly, and generally erudite, butterflies an anachronism, wanting in earnestness, in purpose, in a philosophy of life? Even its practical side was denied it. Specialists came to look askance at the scholar who professed to be a man of the world; constituencies suspected a politician with a taste for letters; and attorneys jibed at the lawyer who had the dangerous trick of style. The populace lost its admiration for the fine gentleman; and the capitalist, in seeking to copy his ways, corrupted the model. Lace and brocade were (metaphorically) exchanged for broadcloth and mackintoshes, and the world looked complacently on the change, and complimented itself on its good

sense.

But with the rubbish went much that was admirable. At its best this grand manner meant an exuberant vitality, a genuine zest for life. Its exponents might fail, but they failed gallantly. It all worked out to a kind of intense self-respect, which might be ludicrous, but was rarely ignoble. The scholar who spends his life on a text-book may be a finer scholar, but we question if he is so fine a man as his predecessor, who had a dozen other accomplishments. It is better, of course, that a politician should study the housing of the poor, or the drink question, than annotate Horace or write a treatise on taste;

but the result is too often a poor shrivelled creature, crammed with details, but thin in blood and weak in energy. It is all, perhaps, a gain for us, but are the men themselves the equal of their forefathers? Once specialization, if carried to an extreme, was accounted a sin against good taste; now it is the only sure way of salvation. Of course, the old school was wrong; we live in a stirring, practical age, and we should know better. But they had, at least, some philosophy to justify their foolishness, and the loss is apparent, if not on the market highways, at least in the by-paths of life.

The history of English society, which some day the Germans may undertake, will be a study of the decline and fall of the grand manner. Originally an Elizabethan product, and nobly typified in Sidney and Raleigh, it came to maturity in the seventeenth century. A man like Sir Thomas Urquhart in Scotland, with his craze for distinction and his mania for versatility, is the manner carried to an extreme; and the Suckling and the Lovelace school, who were at once cavaliers and poets, and a Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who was philosopher, poet, physicist, soldier and bravo in one, are shining instances of its best. But the eighteenth century was its hey-day. In that modish world of Ranelagh and St. James's, Brookes's and the Cocoa Tree, we have a thousand instances of its perfection. Let it be clearly understood what we mean. was versatility followed as a fashion and joined with an affectation of ease and indifference, a manner, and not necessarily a character. Most great men have been many-sided, but with the gentlemen of the grand air it was a social duty, and all traces of the process must be hidden from sight. A whole hierarchy of statesmen-Carteret, Bolingbroke, Charles Townshend-were also wits and scholars. A large school, from Wilkes to Fox, were also rakes.

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When the city apprentice went down St. James's Street of a morning, and saw, in the clear sunshine through the open window, Fox at cards in his shirtsleeves, and reflected that this man, the afternoon before, had made an epochmaking speech in the Commons, and had, during the night, in all likelihood, lost a fortune, he recognized the grand manner, and, we trust, shook his head at its folly. A better instance is Lord Mansfield. One of the greatest of English Judges, he was, perhaps, also, since Bacon, the most accomplished. The keen eyes, massive brows, and tart, humorous mouth of the Reynolds portrait reveal a man as versed in letters and the arts of the polite world as in the common law. He was a great lawyer, and, what is rarer, a scholar in law, a man of the widest learning, a wit, a lover of poetry, a man of fashion, and one of the first Parliamentary debaters of his day. Some, too, would call him a statesman, but the matter is doubtful. He was the only man whom Boswell thought worthy of admission into the company of general officers who had seen service. Dr. Johnson, who did not favor the Lord Chief Justice's countrymen, shared the prevalent admiration, as witness this fragment of dialogue. Boswell: "Lord Mansfield is not a mere lawyer." Johnson: "No, Sir, I never was in Lord Mansfield's company. But Lord Mansfield was distinguished at the University. Lord Mansfield, when he first came to town, drank champagne with the wits. He was the friend of Pope." And Pope has given us his own testimony:

How sweet an Ovid, Murray, was our boast!

How many Martials were in Pulteney lost!

But the most typical story is that of the would-be biographer who asked for materials for his life. Mansfield de

clared that his life was in no way remarkable, for he had always been a man of rank and fashion with every opportunity. "Take Lord Hardwicke," he said; "he was the son of a peasant, and he made himself Chancellor." The peasant happened to be a leading London attorney, and Mansfield's father was a poverty-stricken Scotch Peer suspected of Jacobitism. As far as success at the Bar went, the former had all the advantages; but the grand manner could not stoop to consider them.

It is the word "mere" in Boswell's question which is the ground of the whole difference. To Raleigh or Lord Herbert, Wordsworth would have been a "mere" poet, Mr. Spencer a "mere" philosopher. Gibbon, when he declared that he was not a historian but a gentleman, and Disraeli, when, before his great Oxford speech in '64, he sauntered into the theatre in a shootingcoat and a wideawake, each in his own absurd way protested against professional limitations. Nowadays, we would have a parson be a parson, and a statesman be a statesman; when the grand manner flourished, a gentleman was insulted by being labelled with a single name. To be sure, the results were often disastrous, and fools, who might have done decently had their aspirations been small, made bids for greatness and had lamentable falls. But the art never professed to be for the rank-and-file, but for the masterspirits; and much of the criticism proceeded from the incompetents. "It is with genius as with a fine fashion," wrote Pope; "all those are displeased at it who are not able to follow it."

But whatever the cause be, the grand manner is discredited. Disraeli was almost the last of its disciples, and the abuse of him which was current for so long shows how people had come to regard the affectation. For an affectation it was, though a charming and sometimes a noble one. Versatility can