As they came to be ornamented, fashion adopted them. The Cavaliers of Charles the First's time were a sticked race, as well as the apostolic divines and puritans, who appear to have carried staves, because they read of them among the patriarchs. Charles the First, when at his trial, held out his stick to forbid the Attorney-General's proceeding. There is an interesting little story connected with a stick, which is related of Andrew Marvell's father (worthy of such a son), and which, as it is little known, we will repeat; though it respects the man more than the machine. He had been visited by a young lady, who in spite of a stormy evening persisted in returning across the Humber, because her family would be alarmed at her absence. The old gentleman, high-hearted and cheerful, after vainly trying to dissuade her from perils which he understood better than she, resolved in his gallantry to bear her company. He accordingly walked with her down to the shore, and getting into the boat, threw his stick to a friend, with a request, in a lively tone of voice, that he would preserve it for a keepsake. He then cried out merrily, "Ho-hoy for heaven!" and put off with his visitor. They were drowned. As commerce increased, exotic sticks grew in request from the Indies. Hence the Bamboo, the Whanghee, the Jambee which makes such a genteel figure under Mr. Lilly's auspices in the Tatler; and our light modern cane, which the Sunday stroller buys at sixpence the piece, with a twist of it at the end for a handle. The physicians, till within the last few score of years, retained among other fopperies which they converted into gravities, the wig and gold-headed cane. The latter had been an indispensable sign-royal of fashion, and was turned to infinite purposes of accomplished gesticulation. One of the most courtly personages in the Rape of the Lock is Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain, Sir Richard Steele, as we have before noticed, is reproached by a busy-body of those times for a habit of jerking his stick against the pavement as he walked. When swords were abolished by Act of Parliament, the tavern-boys took to pinking each other, as injuriously as they could well manage, with their walkingsticks. Macklin the player was tried for his life for poking a man's eye out in this way. Perhaps this helped to bring the stick into disrepute; for the use of it seems to have declined more and more, till it is now confined to old men, and a few among the younger. It is unsuitable to our money-getting mode of rushing hither and thither. Instead of pinking a man's ribs or so, or thrusting out his eye from an excess of the jovial, we break his heart with a bankruptcy. 66 Canes became so common before the decline of the use of sticks, that whenever a man is beaten with a stick, let it be of what sort it may, it is still common to say that he has had a caning" which reminds us of an anecdote more agreeable than surprising; though the patient doubtless thought the reverse. A gentleman, who was remarkable for the amenity of his manners, accompanied by a something which a bully might think it safe to presume upon, found himself compelled to address a person who did not know how to "translate his style," in the following words, which were all delivered in the sweetest tone in the world, with an air of almost hushing gentility :"Sir, I am extremely sorry-to be obliged to say,-that you appear to have a very erroneous notion of the manners that become your situation in life ;-and I am compelled with great reluctance to add" (here he became still softer and more delicate) "that, if you do not think fit, upon reflection, to alter this very extraordinary conduct towards a gentleman, I shall be under the necessity of caning you." The other treated the thing as a joke; and to the delight of the bystanders, received a very grave drubbing. There are two eminent threats connected with caning, in the history of Dr. Johnson. One was from himself, when he was told that Foote intended to mimic him on the stage. He replied, that if "the dog" ventured to play his tricks with him, he would step out of the stage-box, chastise him before the audience, and then throw himself upon their candor and common sympathy. Foote desisted, as he had good reason to do. The Doctor would have read hin a stout lesson, and then made a speech to the audience as forcible; so that the theatrical annals have to regret, that the subject and Foote's shoulders were not afforded him to expatiate upon. It would have been a fine involuntary piece of acting,-the part of Scipio by Dr. Johnson.-The other threat was against the Doctor himself from Macpherson, the compounder of Ossian. It was for denying the authenticity of that work; a provocation the more annoying, inasmuch as he did not seem duly sensible of its merits. Johnson replied to Macpherson's letter by one of contemptuous brevity and pith; and contented himself with carrying about a large stick, with which he intended to repel Macpherson in case of an assault. Had they met, it would have been like "two clouds over the Caspian;" for both were large-built men. We recollect another bacular Johnsonian anecdote. When he was travelling in Scotland, he lost a huge stick of his in the little treeless island of Mull. Boswell told him he would recover it but the Doctor shook his head. "No no," said he; "let anybody in Mull get possession of it, and it will never be restored. Consider, sir, the value of such a piece of timber here." The most venerable sticks now surviving are the smooth amber-colored canes, in the possession of old ladies. They have sometimes a gold head, but oftener a crook of ivory. But they have latterly been much displaced by light umbrellas, the handles of which are imitations of them; and these are gradually retreating before the young parasol, especially about town. The old ladies take the wings of the stage-coaches, and are run away with by John Pullen, in a style of infinite convenience. The other sticks in use are for the most part of cherry, oak, and crab, and seldom adorned with more than a leathern tassel: often with nothing. Bamboo and other canes do not abound, as might be expected from our intercourse with India; but commerce in this as in other respects has overshot its mark. People cannot afford to use sticks, any more than bees could in their hives. Of the common sabbatical cane we have already spoken. There is a sufficing little manual, equally light and lissoni, yclept an ebony switch; but we have not seen it often. That sticks, however, are not to be despised by the leisurely; any one who has known what it is to want words, or to slice off the head of a thistle, will allow. The utility of the stick seem divisible into three heads; first, to give a general consc ousness of power; second, which may be called a part of the first, to help the demeanor; and third, which may be called a part of the second, to assist a man over the gaps of speech—the little awkward intervals, called want of ideas. Deprive a man of his stick, who is accustomed to carry one, and with what a diminished sense of vigor and gracefulness he issues out of his house! Wanting his stick, he wants himself. His self-possession, like Acres's on the duel-ground, has gone out of his fingers' ends; but restore it him, and how he resumes his energy! If a common walking-stick, he cherishes the top of it with his fingers, putting them out and back again, with a fresh desire to feel it in his palm! How he strikes it against the ground, and feels power come back to his arm! How he makes the pavement ring with the ferule, if in a street; or decapitates the downy thistles aforesaid, if in a field! Then if it be a switch, how firmly he jerks his step at the first infliction of it on the air! How he quivers the point of it as he goes, holding the handle with a straight-dropped arm and a tight grasp! How his foot keeps time to the switches! How he twigs the luckless pieces of lilac or other shrubs, that peep out of a garden railing! And if a sneaking-looking dog is coming by, how he longs to exercise his despotism and his moral sense at once, by giving him an invigorating twinge! But what would certain men of address do without their cane or switch? There is an undoubted Rhabdosophy, Sceptrosophy, or Wisdom of the Stick, besides the famous Divining Rod, with which people used to discover treasures and fountains. It supplies a man with inaudible remarks, and an inexpressible number of graces. Sometimes, breathing between his teeth, he will twirl the end of it upon his stretched-out toe; and this means, that he has an infinite number of easy and powerful things to say, if he had a mind. Sometimes he holds it upright between his knees, and tattoos it against his teeth or underlip, which implies that he meditates coolly. On other occasions he switches the side of his boot with it, which announces elegance in general. Lastly, if he has not a bon-mot ready in answer to one, he has only to thrust his stick at your ribs, and say, "Ah! you rogue!" which sets him above you in an instant, as a sort of patronising wit, who can dispense with the necessity of joking. At the same time, to give it its due zest in life, a stick has its inconveniences. If you have yellow gloves on, and drop it in the mud, a too hasty recovery is awkward. To have it stick between the stones of a pavement is not pleasant, especially if it snap the ferule off; or more especially if an old gentleman or lady is coming behind you, and after making them start back with winking eyes, it threatens to trip them up. To lose the ferule on a country road, renders the end liable to the growth of a sordid brush, which, not having a knife with you, or a shop in which to borrow one, goes pounding the wet up against your legs. In a crowded street you may have the stick driven into a large pane of glass; upon which an unthinking tradesman, utterly indifferent to a chain of events, issues forth and demands twelve and sixpence. |