The English spy

College rooms, fashionable gatherings and busy London courts supply the scenes for C. M. Westmacott's satire of English society. Published under the name Bernard Blackmantle, the work combines character sketches, anecdotes and verse with illustrations designed by Robert Cruikshank. Its contents move from Eton customs and Oxford student life to Brighton, the opera and metropolitan outings. The opening address to reviewers establishes a combative comic voice, mocking literary critics and the commercial interests behind their judgments.

The middle excerpt turns that eye for character on lawyers, weighing their appearance, wit, manners and skill in addressing a jury. A court visit then becomes a personal predicament when Tom Echo is taken into custody over an unpaid hotel debt. These shifts between social observation and incident give the book its variety. Readers interested in English customs can examine how institutions, leisure and public reputations become material for humour.