104 Reasons for Retirement. QAugust' 



How different are the enjoyments of a man of rank, of fortune, or of 

 fashion, who is obliged, from peculiar circumstances, to retire to the 

 continent and leave his estate at nurse. He exists upon a small provi- 

 sion allowed him by the liberality of his agent, cursing his creditors, and 

 envying his more foi'tunate friends. He detests Boulogne, and abhors 

 Brussels. He avoids Paris, from the fear of coming in contact with his 

 fashionable associates, refrains from entering Italy from a similar cause, 

 and stops short in some out-of-the-way place in Switzerland, where his 

 incognito may be kept sacred. Here he lives in a state of most unen- 

 viable existence — half the day in sleep, the other half in cursing his 

 unlucky stars, or his bad fortune at the gaming table, that he cannot 

 enjoy the delicious strains of Pasta, or the inimitable graces of Taglioni. 

 At times the prospect of an intrigue with some coquettish rustic ap- 

 pears to give him new life, but the impetus soon dies off without pro- 

 ducing any effect; and he thunders imprecations against the fickle 

 countess and the avaricious figurante who left him — the one for a more 

 fashionable, and the other for a more wealthy lover. A maggot-race 

 has no charms for him ; throwing stones, or firing pistols at a mark, soon 

 becomes tiresome ; viewing scenery he has observed before gets exceed- 

 ingly dull ; his guitar is out of tune, and his numerous collection of 

 musical snuff-boxes, though the chcf-d'ceuvres of Geneva, he has heard 

 too often to wish to hear again. He exists in a state of purgatory to 

 which he considers Dante's a paradise, and he only refrains from putting 

 an end to so miserable a life by the pleasing prospect of an early con- 

 clusion of his exile. 



There are many who, after having amassed a considerable fortune, 

 or, by some other equally lucky circumstance, find themselves enabled 

 to retire from their professions. We will take the stage as an instance, 

 although professions of retirement in such a quarter are sometimes 

 suspicious. Kean's have long become a standing joke; Grimaldi tried 

 it on more than once, but trickery was his trade, and his physiognomy 

 was ii'resistible. We pardon him and others their farewells ; they were 

 gratuitous on their parts, and as people generally know the value of 

 things which are offered for nothing, they now-a-days attract very little 

 attention. Actresses, from the days of Nell Gwynne to those of St. 

 Albans, have b?en a fortunate race. Their retirements come occasion- 

 ally ; the cause being either marriages or money. Our peerage has 

 lately become much ennobled by a few unsophisticated pieces of purity, 

 for whom a coronet hns been the reward of their acknowledged mo- 

 desty and virtue. Fiddlers, figurantes, prima-donnas, and other artistes, 

 may be considered as of the same class, but are exotics which, having 

 been carefully cultivated in our hot-houses, as soon as they come to per- 

 fection are sent back to flourish in their own country. In one season 

 they frequently realise what is considered on the Continent an amazing- 

 sum. None of this is spent in the land from whence they received it. 

 It frequently goes to the purchase of a German barony, or an Italian 

 palazzo, where the fortunate musicians are proud of shewing their new 

 dignity to their astonished countrymen, and induce shoals of others to 

 seek those golden shores where such riches are so easily procured. 

 Englishmen who pay for this, wrap themselves up Avith the idea that 

 they are considered, on the Continent, as possessors of exceeding great 

 taste, and that the hearts of these foreigners are overflowing with grati- 

 tude for the liberal treatment they have received from so hospitable a 



