takingairs

Gossip Edification Masquerade Taking Airs Decorum Celebrity Conversation/Wit Women's Beauty Men's Beauty and Fashionability Marriage and Courtship War of the Sexes

Taking Airs

Mrs. Crackenthorpe establishes herself and her family as models of genteel frugality, prudence, and tasteful restraint, and she occasionally derides the excess of certain members of the wealthy classes: "Extravagance in men of distinction, to outvie in dress, equipage, and luxurious entertainments, discover an empty pride and groundless ostentation, which makes 'em slighted by those in business" (no. 17). Though she takes the opportunity to mock the extravagance of the rich, she reserves her greatest hostility for those who take on airs. Indeed, the Female Tatler consistently urges individuals to dress their part and scorn those who do otherwise. Readers are advised not only to guard against those who do not have the breeding to accompany their dress, but to despise those who act and dress above their station and to actively discourage such behavior. Mrs. Crackenthorpe encapsulates the position of the magazine on this issue when she states, "what is splendour, sumptuousness and magnificence in people of quality, is, in private men, extravagance, folly, and impertinence" (no. 24).

Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn. By William Hogarth.⁴⁶

Mrs. Crackenthorpe concerns herself here not with those who outright pretend to be of a higher class (see Masquerade for a discussion of such behavior), but with those newly moneyed individuals who attempt to make the luxuries and customs of persons of condition part of their own routines. In this sense, the Female Tatler reflects the anxiety that clearly accompanies the establishment of new, moderately wealthy merchant and trade classes in Britain. Families prospering from commercial enterprises begin to have the resources to mimic the leisured class in dress and custom, and Mrs. Crackenthorpe emphasizes the silliness of such behavior: "Nothing can be more diverting to those of birth and education . . . than to see a parcel of rough-hewn tradesmen swell at a little prosperous knavery, set up coaches on being made deputies o' the ward, and put their wives and daughters into so strange a ferment that they run into a thousand monstrous affectations . . ." (no. 24). In a set of amusing examples, she reports: "We have quality midwives that keep coaches, quality mantua-makers that carry home jumps in chairs, nay, even quality waiting women that won't stir without a Hackney and a footman." She calls these individuals "mock-genteels" and finds them "no small diversion," with their "talk of what horrid company there was at the play, what an ungenteel supper my lady Fussock gave them, that salt spoons are out of fashion, and shovels are come in . . ." (no. 39). The way in which the up-and-coming imitate those of long- standing quality clearly provides discomfort to Mrs. Crackenthorpe and her readers, but she passes such behavior off as comical in attempts to discourage and denigrate it through ridicule.

The Female Tatler indicates that the lower sorts should not even attempt to dress fashionably, in part because they simply cannot pull it off (a notable tension within the periodical, since elsewhere we see the suggestion that it is becoming impossible to distinguish between the poor and rich). Mrs. Crackenthorpe paints a farcical portrait of a tradesman's daughters, the two Mrs. Bustles, whose "dress was as extravagantly particular as their behaviour . . . their gowns pinn'd so fantastically high, that you could hardly see their heads for their tails, their under-petticoats longer than their upper, and their shifts below both." These "bacon beauties" are "the reverse of everything that's well bred, the burlesque of every new fashion, and the gaze of ev'ry body that knows what's decent and regular, yet they pretend to wit, having perus'd the covering of several band-boxes, and talk of plays and operas, when 'twould be more commendable in 'em to study weights and scales, debtor and creditor, and manage their father's shop, with an obliging and submissive carriage to his customers" (no. 24).

Clearly at play in Mrs. Crackenthorpe's condemnation of the "airs" of these young women stands her belief that class divisions are essential and that money alone does not qualify one to participate in the customs of persons of longstanding condition (no. 17). (See Decorum.) The danger of countenancing the affectations of the "the prosperous vulgar" who "take so much upon them in dress, air, equipage and visiting" is that "people of rank are hardly distinguished from upstart pretenders" (no. 39). As such, persons of quality have difficulty identifying others of their class and may accidentally have unfortunate associations with the merchant classes.

In a rare admission of personal failing, Mrs. Crackenthorpe even confesses to enabling the haughtiness of one member of the lower class. She claims that she made her "man" Francis "my companion rather than my servant," giving him the pleasure of her company and access to her funds and personal papers. She reports the "disaster" that ensued from her generosity: "No sooner was he got into light-coloured drugget, with long pockets and black tabby facings to his sleeves." As well, "He had a secondhand watch, a snuff box with two holes, and was steward of a three penny club." Puffed up with such fineries, Francis started spending time lounging at the ale-house and consorting with fashionable ladies. His work for Mrs. Crackenthorpe came to a halt: "From the best servants in the livery, he is now good for nothing" (no. 48). Through Mrs. Crackenthorpe's mistakes with Francis, the reader is educated into understanding that servants should be treated as servants, lest they behave as gentlefolk.

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