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Title: The Works of Thomas Hood; Vol. I (of XI) - Comic and Serious, in Prose and Verse, With All the Original - Illustrations
Author: Hood, Thomas
Language: English
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Transcriber’s Notes
This e-text is based on ‘The Works of Thomas Hood, Vol. I,’
published in 1882. Inconsistent and uncommon spelling and
hyphenation have been retained; punctuation and typographical
errors have been corrected. Footnotes have been moved to the end
of the sections in which their respective footnote anchors are
situated.
Small caps have been changed to uppercase letters.
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THE WORKS
OF
THOMAS HOOD.
COMIC AND SERIOUS, IN PROSE AND VERSE, WITH ALL
THE ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
EDITED, WITH NOTES,
BY HIS SON AND DAUGHTER.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
WARD, LOCK, & CO., WARWICK HOUSE,
SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C.
NEW YORK: 10 BOND STREET.
PREFACE.
It is now many years ago, nay, more than half a century, since Thomas
Hood first began to wield the pen which was to do such good service
to literature. The first scrap of his boyish versifying that can now
be traced, consists of a sort of rhyming description of Dundee, after
the manner of Anstey’s Bath Guide, and this is dated 1815.[1] That he
was prematurely cut off by disease, accelerated by overwork while in
the very prime of his mental powers, is now well known. The Works he
left behind have gradually but steadily risen in popular esteem and
circulation ever since his death,--in other countries besides his own,
and on both sides of the Atlantic,--so that there are now few writers
of this century better appreciated and becoming more widely known than
Thomas Hood.
I believe that one part at least of the secret of this great and
increasing value for his writings, lies in the fact, that like our
great Shakespeare, and even another deep writer and thinker of our own
time,--Thackeray,--he wrote such pure, vigorous, intelligible English.
He speaks in his works to the great mass of the people in a tongue they
can understand and thoroughly feel. However far his abundant fancy and
versatile humour may lead him from the track, there is no obscurity
to puzzle as well as dazzle. And this almost severe plainness of
expression serves him well in such poems, for instance, as the “Song
of the Shirt,” where the repetition of the homeliest phrases make the
intensity of the suffering stand out in a more appalling reality.
It is with a view to meeting the wants of all classes of readers and
spreading the knowledge of Thomas Hood’s Works still farther, that the
present edition has been planned, in a cheap form that will place it
within everybody’s reach. The publishers have already issued editions
of all the Works, either complete, or in separate volumes, to suit
every taste.
The present edition embraces the complete Works with the original
illustrations, and also includes some hitherto unpublished dramatic
fragments. It will be issued in a convenient periodical form, to be
obtained at the option of the purchaser either in Monthly Parts, or
Quarterly Volumes. The last generation will no doubt welcome in the old
familiar form the Author’s quaint wood-cut illustrations, as well as
the humorous illustrations of George Cruickshank to the “Epping Hunt,”
with those by Harvey to “Eugene Aram;” and the present generation are
still too recently mourning the loss of John Leech’s graceful pencil,
to pass carelessly by his admirable drawings in the “Whimsicalities.”
The completeness and low price of this edition will, it is hoped, place
it in the hands of most readers.
FRANCES FREELING BRODERIP.
[1] See “Memorials of Thomas Hood,” 2nd Edition.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The present arrangement of my Father’s works for a complete and uniform
edition has not been determined on without due deliberation. It
appeared to me that for the requirements of those--who do not care to
trace his career as a writer from his first connection with Literature,
and to note the gradual development of a genius which, at the time of
his death, had not arrived at its fulness--enough is to be found in
the edition of the “Serious Poems;” of those of “Wit and Humour;” of
the “Whims and Oddities;” and of two volumes of “Hood’s Own,” already
published by Messrs. Moxon.
I have therefore considered it best, when called upon to prepare a
complete and uniform series of his writings, to throw the materials
collected into a form which shall be of interest to more than the
general reader. By republishing his works in the order in which they
were written, as far as my most diligent search and most earnest
endeavours can establish it, I believe I shall meet the wishes of
many of my Father’s admirers and readers, who have contracted, from
the perusal of his works, an almost friendlike interest, that will be
gratified by tracing step by step the bent of his mind, the progress of
his intellect, and the maturing of his powers.
It may be urged that I have reprinted fugitive articles that might well
have been omitted without detriment to the Series. To this I might
answer by pleading that it is only natural that I should place greater
store by what my Father has written, than one not so nearly related to
him would do.
But believing, as I do, that the less laboured writings of an author
are among the surest indices of his thought and the best tests of his
genius, I have omitted nothing that I thought would assist the real
student of Literature, and its ministers--literary men--to a true
estimate of my Father--whether as an author or a man; holding always
in recollection that quaint wise saying of Selden’s, anent similar
trifles--“Take a straw, and throw it up into the air, you may see by
that which way the wind is; which you shall not do by casting up a
stone.”
Wherever I have been able to find anything of interest bearing upon the
works, I have added it as briefly as possible in my notes--giving any
alterations of the text, any fragments connected with or relating to
portions of it and such explanations of allusions contained in it, as
seemed advisable.
As far as lies in my power, I have left out nothing that may interest
the thoughtful and studious, while I have endeavoured not to weary the
cursory reader with long annotations.
I have no wish, and indeed no need to deprecate criticism--for whenever
it has been my task to prepare anything connected with my Father for
publication, I have always met with a reception that proved to me
how fully my critics have understood the difficulties which I have
encountered. The kindly spirit in which the “Memorials” of my Father
were received, encourages me to hope that my sincere desire to perform
what I really feel as a sacred duty and responsibility, will be looked
on with the same indulgence; for it should be remembered that many, nay
most of those contemporaries of my Father, who could have pointed out
where his scattered writings were to be found, are dead.
To those intimate acquaintances of his who survive, and who have
assisted me most materially in my arduous yet most grateful
undertaking, as well as to numerous friends,--many unknown to me in the
flesh,--who have so readily answered my appeals, through the public
press, for information and assistance, I tender my most heartfelt
thanks,
And am,
Very truly theirs,
THOMAS HOOD.
[Illustration: THE MERRY THOUGHT.]
PREFACE:
BEING AN INAUGURAL DISCOURSE ON A CERTAIN SYSTEM OF PRACTICAL
PHILOSOPHY.
COURTEOUS READER!
Presuming that you have known something of the Comic Annual from its
Child-Hood, when it was first put into half binding and began to run
alone, I make bold to consider you as an old friend of the family, and
shall accordingly treat you with all the freedom and confidence that
pertain to such ripe connexions.
How many years is it, think you, “since we were first acquent?”
“By the deep _nine_!” sings out the old bald _Count Fathom_ with the
lead-line: no great lapse in the world’s chronology, but a space of
infinite importance in individual history. For instance, it has wrought
a serious change on the body, if not on the mind, of your very humble
servant;--it is not, however, to bespeak your sympathy, or to indulge
in what Lord Byron calls “the gloomy vanity of drawing from self,”
that I allude to my personal experience. The Scot and lot character of
the dispensation, forbids me to think that the world in general can
be particularly interested in the state of my Household Sufferage, or
that the public ear will be as open to my Maladies as to my Melodies.
The simple truth is, that, being a wiser but not sadder man, I propose
to admit you to my Private View of a system of Practical Cheerful
Philosophy, thanks to which, perchance, the cranium of your Humorist
is still secure from such a lecture as was delivered over the skull of
Poor Yorick.
In the absence of a certain thin “blue-and-yellow” visage, and
attenuated figure,--whose effigies may one day be affixed to the
present work,--you will not be prepared to learn that some of
the merriest effusions in the forthcoming numbers have been the
relaxations of a gentleman literally enjoying bad health--the carnival,
so to speak, of a personified Jour Maigre. The very fingers so
aristocratically slender, that now hold the pen, hint plainly of the
“_ills_ that _flesh_ is heir to:”--my coats have become great coats, my
pantaloons are turned into trousers, and, by a worse bargain then Peter
Schlemihl’s, I seem to have retained my shadow and sold my substance.
In short, as happens to prematurely old port wine, I am of a bad colour
with very little body. But what then? That emaciated hand still lends
a hand to embody in words and sketches the creations or recreations
of a Merry Fancy: those gaunt sides yet shake heartily as ever at the
Grotesques and Arabesques and droll Picturesques that my Good Genius
(a Pantagruelian Familiar) charitably conjures up to divert me from
more sombre realities. It was the whim of a late pleasant Comedian, to
suppose a set of spiteful imps sitting up aloft, to aggravate all his
petty mundane annoyances; whereas I prefer to believe in the ministry
of kindlier Elves, that “nod to me and do me courtesies.” Instead of
scaring away these motes in the sunbeam, I earnestly invoke them, and
bid them welcome; for the tricksy spirits make friends with the animal
spirits, and do not I, like a father romping with his own urchins,--do
not I forget half my cares whilst partaking in their airy gambols? Such
sports are as wholesome for the mind as the other frolics for the body.
For on our own treatment of that excellent Friend or terrible Enemy the
Imagination, it depends whether we are to be scared and haunted by a
Scratching Fanny, or tended by an affectionate Invisible Girl--like an
unknown love, blessing us with “favours secret, sweet, and precious,”
and fondly stealing us from this worky-day world to a sunny sphere of
her own.
This is a novel version, Reader, of “Paradise and the Pen,” but it is
as true as it is new. How else could I have converted a serious illness
into a comic wellness--by what other agency could I have transported
myself, as a Cockney would say, from _Dull_age to _Grin_age? It was
far from a practical joke to be laid up in ordinary in a foreign land,
under the care of Physicians quite as much abroad as myself with the
case; indeed the shades of the gloaming were stealing over my prospect;
but I resolved, that, like the sun, so long as my day lasted, I
would look on the bright side of everything. The raven croaked, but
I persuaded myself that it was the nightingale: there was the smell
of the mould, but I remembered that it nourished the violets. However
my body might cry craven, my mind luckily had no mind to give in. So,
instead of mounting on the black long-tailed coach horse, she vaulted
on her old Hobby that had capered in the Morris-Dance, and began to
exhort from its back. To be sure, said she, matters look darkly enough;
but the more need for the lights. Allons! Courage! Things may take a
turn, as the pig said on the spit. Never throw down your cards, but
play out the game. The more certain to lose, the wiser to get all the
play you can for your money. Come--give us a song! chirp away like that
best of cricket-players, the cricket himself. Be bowled out or caught
out, but never throw down the bat. As to Health, it’s the weather of
the body--it hails, it rains, it blows, it snows, at present, but it
may clear up by-and-by. You cannot eat, you say, and you must not
drink; but laugh and make believe, like the Barber’s wise brother at
the Barmecide’s feast. Then, as to thinness, not to flatter, you look
like a lath that has had a split with the carpenter and a fall out with
the plaster; but so much the better! remember how the smugglers trim
the sails of the lugger to escape the notice of the cutter. Turn your
edge to the old enemy, and mayhap he won’t see you! Come--be alive! You
have no more right to slight your life than to neglect your wife--they
are the two better halves that make a man of you! Is not life your
means of living? so stick to thy business and thy business will stick
to thee. Of course, continued my mind, I am quite disinterested in this
advice--for I am aware of my own immortality but for that very reason,
take care of the mortal body, poor body, and give it as long a day as
you can!
Now, my mind seeming to treat the matter very pleasantly as well as
profitably, I followed her counsel, and instead of calling out for
relief according to the fable, I kept along on my journey, with my
bundle of sticks,--_i.e._ my arms and legs. Between ourselves, it would
have been “extremely inconvenient,” as I once heard the opium-eater
declare, to pay the debt of nature at that particular juncture; nor
do I quite know, to be candid, when it would altogether suit me to
settle it, so, like other parties in narrow circumstances, I laughed,
and gossiped, and played the agreeable with all my might; and as
such pleasant behaviour sometimes obtains a respite from a human
creditor, who knows but that it may prove successful with the Universal
Mortgagee? At all events, here I am, humming “Jack’s Alive!” and my
own dear skilful native physician gives me hopes of a longer lease
than appeared from the foreign reading of the covenants. He declares
indeed, that, anatomically, my heart is lower hung than usual--but what
of that? _The more need to keep it up!_ So huzza! my boys! Comas and
Momus for ever! No Heraclitus! Nine times nine for Democritus! And here
goes my last bottle of Elixir at the heads of the Blue Devils--be they
Prussian blue or indigo, powder-blue or ultramarine!
Gentle reader, how do you like this Laughing Philosophy? The joyous
cheers you have just heard, come from a crazy vessel that has clawed,
by miracle, off a lee-shore, and I, the skipper, am sitting down to
my grog, and recounting to you the tale of the past danger, with the
manœuvres that were used to escape the perilous Point. Or rather,
consider me as the Director of a Life Assurance, pointing out to you a
most beneficial policy, whereby you may eke out your natural term. And,
firstly, take precious care of your precious health,--but how, as the
housewives say, to make it keep? Why, then, don’t care and smoke-dry
it--or pickle it in everlasting acids--like the Germans. Don’t bury it
in a potato-pit, like the Irish. Don’t preserve it in spirits, like
the Barbadians. Don’t salt it down, like the Newfoundlanders. Don’t
pack it in ice, like Captain Back. Don’t parboil it in Hot Baths.
Don’t bottle it, like gooseberries. Don’t pot it--and don’t hang it. A
rope is a bad Cordon Sanitaire. Above all, don’t despond about it. Let
not anxiety “have thee on the hyp.” Consider your health as your best
friend, and think as well of it, in spite of all its foibles, as you
can. For instance, never dream, though you may have a “clever hack,” of
galloping consumption, or indulge in the Meltonian belief, that you are
going the pace. Never fancy every time you cough, that you are going
to coughy-pot. Hold up, as the shooter says, over the heaviest ground.
Despondency in a nice case is the over-weight that may make you kick
the beam and the bucket both at once. In short, as with other cases,
never meet trouble half-way, but let him have the whole walk for his
pains; though it should be a Scotch mile and a bittock. I have even
known him to give up his visit in sight of the house. Besides, the best
fence against care is a ha! ha!--wherefore take care to have one all
round you wherever you can. Let your “lungs crow like Chanticleer,”
and as like a GAME cock as possible. It expands the chest, enlarges the
heart, quickens the circulation, and “like a trumpet makes the spirit
dance.”
A fico then for the Chesterfieldian canon, that laughter is an
ungenteel emotion. Smiles are tolerated by the very pinks of
politeness; and a laugh is but the full-blown flower of which a smile
is the bud. It is a sort of vocal music--a glee in which everybody can
take a part:--and “he who bath not laughter in his soul, let no such
man be trusted.” Indeed, there are two classes of Querists particularly
to be shunned; thus when you hear a Cui Bono? be sure to leave the
room; but if it be Quid Rides? make a point to quit the house, and
forget to take its number. None but your dull dogs would give tongue in
such a style,--for, as Nimrod says in his “Hunt after Happiness,” “A
single _burst_ with Mirth is worth a whole season of _full cries_ with
Melancholy.”
Such, dear reader, is the cheerful Philosophy which I practise as well
as preach. It teaches to “make a sunshine in a shady place,” to render
the mind independent of external foul weather, by compelling it, as
old Absolute says, to get a sun and moon of its own. As the system has
worked so well in my own case, it is a duty to recommend it to others;
and like certain practitioners, who not only prescribe but dispense
their own medicines, I have prepared a regular course of light reading,
whereof I now present the first packet, in the humble hope that your
dull hours may be amused, and your cares diverted, by the laughing
lucubrations which have enlivened Hood’s Own.
[Illustration: DOCTORS’ COMMONS.]
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface iii
The Pugsley Papers 1
An Ancient Concert; by a Venerable Director 19
A Letter from an Emigrant 23
Sonnet on Steam; by an Under-Ostler 27
A Report from Below 28
The Last Shilling 32
Ode to M. Brunel 38
The Death of the Dominie 41
Over the Way 44
A Plan for Writing Blank Verse in Rhyme, in a Letter to
the Editor 48
A Letter from a Market Gardener to the Secretary of the
Horticultural Society 52
Domestic Asides; or Truth in Parenthesis 55
Black, White, and Brown 57
Epigrams--
Composed on Reading a Diary lately published 64
The Last Wish 65
The Devil’s Album 65
The Schoolmaster Abroad 66
The Lost Heir 74
Sketches on the Road--
The Observer 81
The Contrast 82
John Day; a pathetic ballad 85
The Parish Revolution 89
The Furlough; an Irish anecdote 101
Number One; versified from the prose of a Young Lady 104
The Drowning Ducks 107
An Assent to the Summut of Mount Blank 111
Sally Simpkin’s Lament; or John Jones’s Kit-Cat-Astrophe 115
A Horse-Dealer 117
The Fall 120
The Illuminati 122
Sonnet 130
The Steam Service 131
A Lay of Real Life 136
A Valentine. The Weather--To P. Murphy, Esq., M.N.S. 137
The Elland Meeting 139
Poem,--from the Polish 150
A Step-father 154
Conveyancing 157
A Letter from a Settler for Life in Van Diemen’s Land 160
Sonnet 164
A Serio-Comic Reminiscence 165
Epicurean Reminiscences of a Sentimentalist 169
Saint Mark’s Eve--A tale of the olden time 172
I’m not a Single Man 180
A Greenwich Pensioner 184
The Burning of the Love Letter 186
Sketches on the Road 187
The Apparition 191
The Discovery 193
Little O’P.--An African Fact 197
The Debutante 199
The Angler’s Farewell 206
Popping the Question 208
Sea Song 214
The Black and White Question 216
Stanzas on Coming of Age 229
The Pillory 235
A singular Exhibition at Somerset House 239
The Yeomanry 243
An Unfavourable Review 247
I’m going to Bombay 256
Look before you Leap 260
Ode--To the Advocates Removal of Smithfield
Market 264
Drawn for a Soldier 269
Ode for St. Cecilia’s Eve 272
Reflections on Water 279
A Blow-up 284
The Wooden Leg 290
The Ghost--A very Serious Ballad 295
A Tale of the Great Plague 298
Ode to Madame Hengler, Firework-maker to Vauxhall 304
Rhyme and Reason 308
The Double Knock 310
A Foxhunter 311
Bailey Ballads 314
Lines to Mary--No. I 317
No. II. 319
No. III. 320
Letter--from a Parish Clerk in Barbadoes to one in
Hampshire, with an Enclosure 321
French and English 326
Our Village 329
The Scrape Book 335
A True Story 339
The Sorrows of an Undertaker 343
The Carelesse Nurse Mayd 347
To Fanny 349
The Fancy Fair 352
Poems, by a Poor Gentleman 357
Stanzas--written under the Fear of Bailiffs 360
Sonnet--written in a Workhouse 360
Sonnet--A Somnambulist 361
Fugitive Lines on Pawning my Watch 361
The Life of Zimmerman (by Himself) 364
The Portrait; being an apology for not making an
Attempt on my own Life 369
The Compass, with Variations 375
Summer--A Winter Eclogue 382
Pair’d _not_ match’d 390
The Duel--A Serious Ballad 394
The Rope Dancer--An Extravaganza, after Rabelais 397
Sonnet to Vauxhall 410
Ode to Mr. Malthus 411
A Good Direction 416
The Pleasures of Sporting 418
There’s no Romance in that 424
The Abstraction 429
A Waterloo Ballad 435
Miller Redivivus 440
A Zoological Report 444
Literary Reminiscences 448
Shooting Pains 458
The Schoolmaster’s Motto 462
HOOD’S OWN:
OR, LAUGHTER FROM YEAR TO YEAR.
[Illustration: A PASTORALE IN A FLAT.]
THE PUGSLEY PAPERS.
How the following correspondence came into my hands must remain
a Waverley mystery. The Pugsley Papers were neither rescued from
a garret, like the Evelyn,--collected from cartridges, like the
Culloden,--nor saved, like the Garrick, from being shredded into a
snow storm at a Winter Theatre. They were not snatched from a tailor’s
shears, like the original parchment of Magna Charta. They were neither
the Legacy of a Dominie, nor the communications of My Landlord,--a
consignment, like the Clinker Letters, from some Rev. Jonathan
Dustwich,--nor the waifs and strays of a Twopenny Post Bag. They were
not unrolled from ancient papyri. They were none of those that “line
trunks, clothe spices,” or paper the walls of old attics. They were
neither given to me nor sold to me,--nor stolen,--nor borrowed and
surreptitiously copied,--nor left in a hackney coach, like Sheridan’s
play,--nor misdelivered by a carrier pigeon,--nor dreamt of, like
Coleridge’s Kubla Khan,--nor turned up in the Tower, like Milton’s
Foundling MS.,--nor dug up,--nor trumped up, like the eastern tales of
Horam harum Horam, the son of Asmar,--nor, brought over by Rammohun
Roy,--nor translated by Doctor Bowring from the Scandinavian, Batavian,
Pomeranian, Spanish, or Danish, or Russian, or Prussian, or any other
language dead or living. They were not picked from the Dead Letter
Office, nor purloined from the British Museum. In short, I cannot, dare
not, will not, hint even at the mode of their acquisition: the reader
must be content to know, that, in point of authenticity, the Pugsley
Papers are the extreme reverse of Lady L.’s celebrated Autographs,
which were all written by the proprietor.
No. I.--_From Master_ RICHARD PUGSLEY, _to Master_ ROBERT
ROGERS, _at Number 132, Barbican_.
DEAR BOB,
Huzza!--Here I am in Lincolnshire! It’s good-bye to Wellingtons and
Cossacks, Ladies’ double channels, Gentlemen’s stout calf, and ditto
ditto. They’ve all been sold off under prime cost, and the old Shoe
Mart is disposed of, goodwill and fixtures for ever and ever. Father
has been made a rich Squire of by will, and we’ve got a house and
fields, and trees of our own. Such a garden, Bob!--It beats White
Conduit.
Now, Bob, I’ll tell you what I want. I want you to come down here for
the holidays. Don’t be afraid. Ask your Sister to ask your Mother to
ask your Father to let you come. It’s only ninety mile. If you’re out
of pocket money, you can walk, and beg a lift now and then, or swing
by the dickies. Put on cordroys, and don’t care for cut behind. The
two prentices, George and Will, are here to be made farmers of, and
brother Nick is took home from school to help in agriculture. We like
farming very much, it’s capital fun. Us four have got a gun, and go
out shooting: it’s a famous good un, and sure to go off if you don’t
full cock it. Tiger is to be our shooting dog, as soon as he has left
off killing the sheep. He’s a real savage, and worries cats beautiful.
Before Father comes down, we mean to bait our bull with him.
There’s plenty of New Rivers about, and we’re going a fishing as soon
as we have mended our top joint. We’ve killed one of our sheep on the
sly to get gentles. We’ve a pony, too, to ride upon when we can catch
him, but he’s loose in the paddock, and has neither mane nor tail to
signify to lay hold of. Isn’t it prime, Bob? You must come. If your
Mother won’t give your Father leave to allow you,--run away. Remember,
you turn up Goswell Street to go to Lincolnshire, and ask for Middlefen
Hall. There’s a pond full of frogs, but we won’t pelt them till you
come, but let it be before Sunday, as there’s our own orchard to rob,
and the fruit’s to be gathered on Monday.
If you like sucking raw eggs, we know where the hens lay, and mother
don’t; and I’m bound there’s lots of birds’ nests. Do come, Bob,
and I’ll show you the wasps’ nest, and everything that can make you
comfortable. I dare say you could borrow your father’s volunteer
musket of him without his knowing of it; but be sure anyhow to bring
the ramrod, as we have mislaid ours by firing it off. Don’t forget
some bird-lime, Bob--and some fish-hooks--and some different sorts
of shot--and some gut and some gunpowder and a gentle box, and some
flints,--some May flies, and a powder horn,--and a landing net and
a dog-whistle--and some porcupine quills, and a bullet mould--and a
trolling-winch, and a shot-belt and a tin can. You pay for ’em, Bob,
and I’ll owe it you.
Your old friend and schoolfellow,
RICHARD PUGSLEY.
No. II.--_From the Same to the Same._
DEAR BOB,
When you come, bring us a ’bacco-pipe to load the gun with. If you
don’t come, it can come by the waggon. Our Public House is three mile
off, and when you’ve walked there it’s out of everything. Yours, &c.,
RICH. PUGSLEY.
No. III.--_From Miss_ ANASTASIA PUGSLEY, _to Miss_ JEMIMA MOGGRIDGE,
_at Gregory House Establishment for Young Ladies, Mile End_.
MY DEAR JEMIMA,
Deeply solicitous to gratify sensibility, by sympathising with our
fortuitous elevation, I seize the epistolary implements to inform
you, that, by the testamentary disposition of a remote branch of
consanguinity, our tutelary residence is removed from the metropolitan
horizon to a pastoral district and its congenial pursuits. In futurity
I shall be more pertinaciously superstitious in the astrological
revelations of human destiny. You remember the mysterious gipsy at
Hornsey Wood?--Well, the eventful fortune she obscurely intimated,
though couched in vague terms, has come to pass in minutest
particulars; for I perceive perspicuously, that it predicted that
papa should sell off his boot and shoe business at 133, Barbican, to
Clack and Son, of 144, Hatton Garden, and that we should retire, in a
station of affluence, to Middlefen Hall, in Lincolnshire, by bequest of
our great-great maternal uncle, Pollexfen Goldsworthy Wrigglesworth,
Esq., who deceased suddenly of apoplexy at Wisbeach Market, in the
ninety-third year of his venerable and lamented age.
At the risk of tedium, I will attempt a cursory delineation of our
rural paradise, altho’ I feel it would be morally arduous, to give any
idea of the romantic scenery of the Lincolnshire Fens. Conceive, as far
as the visual organ expands, an immense sequestered level, abundantly
irrigated with minute rivulets, and studded with tufted oaks, whilst
more than a hundred windmills diversify the prospect and give a
revolving animation to the scene. As for our own gardens and grounds,
they are a perfect Vauxhall--excepting, of course, the rotunda, the
orchestra, the company, the variegated lamps, the fire-works, and those
very lofty trees. But I trust my dear Jemima will supersede topography
by ocular inspection; and in the interim I send for acceptance a
graphical view of the locality, shaded in Indian ink, which will
suffice to convey an idea of the terrestrial verdure and celestial
azure we enjoy, in lieu of the sable exhalations and architectural
nigritude of the metropolis.
[Illustration: CINDERELLA.]
You who know my pastoral aspirings, and have been the indulgent
confidant of my votive tributes to the Muses, will conceive the refined
nature of my enjoyment when I mention the intellectual repast of this
morning. I never could enjoy Bloomfield in Barbican,--but to-day he
read beautifully under our pear-tree. I look forward to the felicity of
reading Thomson’s Summer with you on the green seat, and if engagements
at Christmas permit your participation in the bard, there is a bower of
evergreens that will be delightful for the perusal of his Winter.
I enclose, by request, an epistolary effusion from sister Dorothy,
which I know will provoke your risible powers, by the domesticity of
its details. You know she was always in the homely characteristics a
perfect Cinderella, though I doubt whether even supernatural agency
could adapt her foot to a diminutive vitrified slipper, or her hand
for a prince of regal primogeniture. But I am summoned to receive,
with family members, the felicitations of Lincolnshire aristocracy;
though whatever necessary distinctions may prospectively occur between
respective grades in life, they will only superficially affect the
sentiments of eternal friendship between my dear Jemima and her
affectionate friend,
ANASTASIA PUGSLEY.
No. IV.--_From Miss_ DOROTHY PUGSLEY _to the Same_.
MY DEAR MISS JEMIMA,
Providence having been pleased to remove my domestic duties from
Barbican to Lincolnshire, I trust I shall have strength of constitution
to fulfil them as becomes my new allotted line of life. As we are
not sent into this world to be idle, and Anastasia has declined
housewifery, I have undertaken the Dairy, and the Brewery, and the
Baking, and the Poultry, the Pigs and the Pastry,--and though I feel
fatigued at first, use reconciles to labours and trials, more severe
than I at present enjoy. Altho’ things may not turn out to wish at
present, yet all well-directed efforts are sure to meet reward in the
end, and altho’ I have chumped and churned two days running, and it’s
nothing yet but curds and whey, I should be wrong to despair of eating
butter of my own making before I die. Considering the adulteration
committed by every article in London, I was never happier in any
prospect, than of drinking my own milk, fattening my own calves, and
laying my own eggs. We cackle so much I am sure we new-lay somewhere,
tho’ I cannot find out our nests; and I am looking every day to have
chickens, as one pepper-and-salt-coloured hen has been setting these
two months. When a poor ignorant bird sets me such an example of
patience, how can I repine at the hardest domestic drudgery! Mother
and I have worked like horses to be sure, ever since we came to the
estate; but if we die in it, we know it’s for the good of the family,
and to agreeably surprise my Father, who is still in town winding
up his books. For my own part, if it was right to look at things so
selfishly, I should say I never was so happy in my life; though I own I
have cried more since coming here than I ever remember before. You will
confess my crosses and losses have been unusual trials, when I tell
you, out of all my makings, and bakings, and brewings, and preservings,
there has been nothing either eatable or drinkable; and what is more
painful to an affectionate mind,--have half poisoned the whole family
with home-made ketchup of toadstools, by mistake for mushrooms. When I
reflect that they are preserved, I ought not to grieve about my damsons
and bullaces, done by Mrs. Maria Dover’s receipt.
Among other things, we came into a beautiful closet of old china,
which, I am shocked to say, is all destroyed by my preserving. The
bullaces and damsons fermented, and blew up a great jar with a violent
shock that smashed all the tea and coffee cups, and left nothing but
the handles hanging in rows on the tenter-hooks. But to a resigned
spirit there’s always some comfort in calamities, and if the preserves
work and ferment so, there’s some hope that my beer will, as it has
been a month next Monday in the mash tub. As for the loss of the
elder wine, candour compels me to say it was my own fault for letting
the poor blind little animals crawl into the copper; but experience
dictates next year not to boil the berries and kittens at the same time.
I mean to attempt cream cheese as soon as we can get cream,--but as yet
we can’t drive the Cows home to be milked for the Bull--he has twice
hunted Grace and me into fits, and kept my poor Mother a whole morning
in the pigsty. As I know you like country delicacies, you will receive
a pound of my fresh butter when it comes, and I mean to add a cheese as
soon as I can get one to stick together. I shall send also some family
pork for Governess, of our own killing, as we wring a pig’s neck on
Saturday. I did hope to give you the unexpected treat of a home-made
loaf, but it was forgot in the oven from ten till six, and so too black
to offer. However, I hope to surprise you with one by Monday’s carrier.
Anastasia bids me add she will send a nosegay for respected Mrs.
Tombleson, if the plants don’t die off before, which I am sorry to say
is not improbable.
[Illustration: VERY FOND OF GARDENING.]
It’s really shocking to see the failure of her cultivated taste, and
one in particular, that must be owned a very pretty idea. When we
came, there was a vast number of flower roots, but jumbled without any
regular order, till Anastasia trowelled them all up, and set them in
again, in the quadrille figures. It must have looked sweetly elegant,
if it had agreed with them, but they have all dwindled and drooped like
deep declines and consumptions. Her dahlias and tulips too have turned
out nothing but onions and kidney potatoes, and her ten week stocks
have not come up in twenty. But as Shakspeare says, Adversity is a
precious toad--that teaches us Patience is a jewel.
Considering the unsettled state of coming in, I must conclude, but
could not resist giving your friendliness a short account of the happy
change that has occurred, and our increase of comforts. I would write
more, but I know you will excuse my listening to the calls of dumb
animals. It’s the time I always scald the little pigs’ bread and milk,
and put saucers of clean water for the ducks and geese. There are the
fowls’ beds to make with fresh straw, and a hundred similar things that
country people are obliged to think of.
The children, I am happy to say, are all well, only baby is a little
fractious, we think from Grace setting him down in the nettles, and
he was short-coated last week. Grace is poorly with a cold, and
Anastasia has got a sore throat, from sitting up fruitlessly in the
orchard to hear the nightingale; perhaps there may not be any in the
Fens. I seem to have a trifling ague and rheumatism myself, but it
may be only a stiffness from so much churning, and the great family
wash-up of everything we had directly we came down, for the sake of
grass-bleaching on the lawn. With these exceptions, we are all in
perfect health and happiness, and unite in love, with
Dear Miss Jemima’s affectionate friend,
DOROTHY PUGSLEY.
No. V.--_From_ MRS. PUGSLEY _to_ MRS. MUMFORD, _Bucklersbury_.
MY DEAR MARTHA,
In my ultimatum I informed of old Wrigglesworth paying his natural
debts, and of the whole Middlefen estate coming from Lincolnshire to
Barbican. I charged Mr. P. to send bulletings into you with progressive
reports, but between sisters, as I know you are very curious, I am
going to make myself more particular. I take the opportunity of the
family being all restive in bed, and the house all still, to give an
account of our moving. The things all got here safe, with the exception
of the Crockery and Glass, which came down with the dresser, about an
hour after its arrival. Perhaps if we hadn’t overloaded it with the
whole of our breakables, it wouldn’t have given way,--as it is, we
have only one plate left, and that’s chipt, and a mug without a spout
to keep it in countenance. Our furniture, &c., came by the waggon, and
I am sorry to say a poor family at the same time, and the little idle
boys with their knives have carved and scarified my rosewood legs,
and, what is worse, not of the same patterns; but as people say, two
Lincolnshire removes are as bad as a fire of London.
The first thing I did on coming down, was to see to the sweeps going
up,--but I wish I had been less precipitous, for the sooty wretches
stole four good flitches of bacon, as was up the kitchen chimbly,
quite unbeknown to me. We have filled up the vacancy with more, which
smoked us dreadfully, but what is to be cured must be endured. My next
thing was to have all holes and corners cleared out, and washed, and
scrubbed, being left, like bachelor’s places, in a sad state by old
single W.; for a rich man, I never saw one that wanted so much cleaning
out. There were heaps of dung about, as high as haystacks, and it
cost me five shillings a load to have it all carted off the premises;
besides heaps of good-for-nothing littering straw, that I gave to the
boys for bonfires. We are not all to rights yet, but Rome wasn’t built
in St. Thomas’s Day.
It was providential I hampered myself with cold provisions, for except
the bacon there were no eatables in the house. What old W. lived upon
is a mystery, except salads, for we found a whole field of beet-root,
which, all but a few plants for Dorothy to pickle, I had chucked away.
As the ground was then clear for sowing up a crop, I directed George
to plough it up, but he met with agricultural distress. He says as
soon as he whipped his horses, the plough stuck its nose in the earth,
and tumbled over head and heels. It seems very odd when ploughing is
so easy to look at, but I trust he will do better in time. Experience
makes a King Solomon of a Tom Noddy.
I expect we shall have bushels upon bushels of corn, tho’ sadly pecked
by the birds, as I have had all the scarecrows taken down for fear of
the children dreaming of them for Bogies. For the same dear little
sakes I have had the well filled up, and the nasty sharp iron spikes
drawn out of all the rakes and harrows. Nobody shall say to my teeth,
I am not a good Mother. With these precautions I trust the young ones
will enjoy the country when the gipsies have left, but till then, I
confine them to round the house, as it’s no use shutting the stable
door after you’ve had a child stole.
[Illustration: THE RAKE’S PROGRESS.]
We have a good many fine fields of hay, which I mean to have reaped
directly, wet or shine; for delays are as dangerous as pickles in
glazed pans. Perhaps St. Swithin’s is in our favour, for if the
stacks are put up dampish they won’t catch fire so easily, if Swing
should come into these parts. The poor boys have made themselves
very industrious in shooting off the birds, and hunting away all the
vermin, besides cutting down trees. As I knew it was profitable to fell
timber, I directed them to begin with a very ugly straggling hollow
tree next the premises, but it fell the wrong way, and knocked down the
cow-house. Luckily the poor animals were all in the clover-field at
the time. George says it wouldn’t have happened but for a violent sow,
or rather sow-west,--and it’s likely enough, but it’s an ill wind that
blows nothing to nobody.
Having writ last post to Mr P., I have no occasion to make you a
country commissioner. Anastasia, indeed, wants to have books about
everything, but for my part and Dorothy’s we don’t put much faith in
authorised receipts and directions, but trust more to nature and common
sense. For instance, in fatting a goose, reason points to sage and
onions,--why our own don’t thrive on it, is very mysterious. We have a
beautiful poultry yard, only infested with rats,--but I have made up a
poison, that, I know by the poor ducks, will kill them if they eat it.
I expected to send you a quantity of wall-fruit, for preserving, and
am sorry you bought the brandy beforehand, as it has all vanished in
one night by picking and stealing, notwithstanding I had ten dozen
of bottles broke on purpose to stick a-top of the wall. But I rather
think they came over the pales, as George, who is very thoughtless,
had driven in all the new tenter-hooks with the points downwards. Our
apples and pears would have gone too, but luckily we heard a noise in
the dark and threw brickbats out of window, that alarmed the thieves
by smashing the cowcumber frames. However, I mean on Monday to make
sure of the orchard, by gathering the trees,--a pheasant in one’s
hand is worth two cock sparrows in a bush. One comfort is, the house
dog is very vicious, and won’t let any of us stir in or out after
dark--indeed, nothing can be more furious, except the bull, and at me
in particular. You would think he knew my inward thoughts, and that I
intend to have him roasted whole when we give our grand house-warming
regalia. With these particulars, I remain, with love, my dear Dorcas,
your affectionate sister,
BELINDA PUGSLEY.
[Illustration: WALL FRUIT.]
P.S.--I have only one anxiety here, and that is, the likelihood
of being taken violently ill, nine miles off from any physical
powers, with nobody that can ride in the house, and nothing but an
insurmountable hunting horse in the stable. I should like, therefore,
to be well doctor-stuff’d from Apothecaries’ Hall, by the waggon or any
other vehicle. A stitch in the side taken in time saves nine spasms.
Dorothy’s tincture of the rhubarb stalks in the garden, doesn’t answer,
and it’s a pity now they were not saved for pies.
[Illustration: A COOLNESS BETWEEN FRIENDS.]
No. VI.--_From Mrs._ PUGSLEY _to Mrs._ ROGERS.
MADAM,
Although warmth has made a coolness, and our having words has caused
a silence--yet as mere writing is not being on speaking terms, and
disconsolate parents in the case; I waive venting of animosities till
a more agreeable moment. Having perused the afflicted advertisement in
the _Times_ with interesting description of person, and ineffectual
dragging of New River, beg leave to say that Master Robert is safe and
well, having arrived here on Saturday night last, with almost not a
shoe to his foot, and no coat at all, as was supposed to be with the
approbation of parents. It appears that not supposing the distance
between the families extended to him, he walked the whole way down
on the footing of a friend, to visit my son Richard, but hearing the
newspapers read, quitted suddenly, the same day with the gipsies, and
we haven’t an idea what is become of him. Trusting this statement will
relieve of all anxiety, remain, Madam, your humble Servant,
BELINDA PUGSLEY.
No. VII.--_To Mr._ SILAS PUGSLEY, _Parisian Dépôt, Shoreditch_.
DEAR BROTHER,
My favour of the present date, is to advise of my safe arrival
on Wednesday night, per opposition coach, after ninety miles of
discomfort, absolutely unrivalled for cheapness, and a walk of five
miles more, through lanes and roads, that for dirt and sludge may
confidently defy competition,--not to mention turnings and windings,
too numerous to particularise, but morally impossible to pursue on
undeviating principles. The night was of so dark a quality as forbade
finding the gate, but for the house-dog flying upon me by mistake for
the late respectable proprietor, and almost tearing my clothes off my
back by his strenuous exertions to obtain the favour of my patronage.
Conscientiously averse to the fallacious statements so much indulged
in by various competitors, truth urges to acknowledge that on arrival,
I did not find things on such a footing as to ensure universal
satisfaction. Mrs. P., indeed, differs in her statement, but you know
her success always surpassed the most sanguine expectations. Ever
emulous to merit commendation by the strictest regard to principles
of economy, I found her laid up with lumbago, through her studious
efforts to please, and Doctor Clarke of Wisbeach in the house
prescribing for it, but I am sorry to add--no abatement. Dorothy is
also confined to her bed, by her unremitting assiduity and attention
in the housekeeping line, and Anastasia the same, from listening for
nightingales, on a fine July evening, but which is an article not
always to be warranted to keep its virtue in any climate,--the other
children, large and small sizes, ditto, ditto, with Grace too ill to
serve in the nursery,--and the rest of the servants totally unable to
execute such extensive demands. Such an unprecedented depreciation in
health makes me doubt the quality of country air, so much recommended
for family use, and whether constitutions have not more eligibility to
offer that have been regularly town-made.
Our new residence is a large lonely Mansion, with no connexion with any
other House, but standing in the heart of Lincolnshire fens, over which
it looks through an advantageous opening: comprising a great variety of
windmills, and drains, and willow-pollards, and an extensive assortment
of similar articles, that are not much calculated to invite inspection.
In warehouses for corn, &c., it probably presents unusual advantages
to the occupier, but candour compels to state that agriculture in this
part of Lincolnshire is very flat. To supply language on the most
moderate terms, unexampled distress in Spitalfields is nothing to the
distress in ours. The corn has been deluged with rain of remarkable
durability, without being able to wash the smut out of its ears; and
with regard to the expected great rise in hay, our stacks have been
burnt down to the ground, instead of going to the consumer. If the
hounds hadn’t been out, we might have fetch’d the engines, but the
hunter threw George on his head, and he only revived to be sensible
that the entire stock had been disposed of at an immense sacrifice.
The whole amount I fear will be out of book,--as the Norwich Union
refuses to liquidate the hay, on the ground that the policy was voided
by the impolicy of putting it up wet. In other articles I am sorry I
must write no alteration. Our bull, after killing the house-dog, and
tossing William, has gone wild, and had the madness to run away from
his livelihood, and, what is worse, all the cows after him--except
those that had burst themselves in the clover field, and a small
dividend, as I may say, of one in the pound. Another item, the pigs,
to save bread and milk, have been turned into the woods for acorns,
and is an article producing no returns--as not one has yet come back.
Poultry ditto. Sedulously cultivating an enlarged connexion in the
Turkey line, such the antipathy to gipsies, the whole breed, geese
and ducks inclusive, removed themselves from the premises by night,
directly a strolling camp came and set up in the neighbourhood. To
avoid prolixity, when I came to take stock, there was no stock to
take--namely, no eggs, no butter, no cheese, no corn, no hay, no bread,
no beer--no water even--nothing but the mere commodious premises,
and fixtures and goodwill--and candour compels to add, a very small
quantity on hand of the last-named particular.
To add to stagnation, neither of my two sons in the business nor the
two apprentices have been so diligently punctual in executing country
orders with despatch and fidelity, as laudable ambition desires, but
have gone about fishing and shooting--and William has suffered a loss
of three fingers, by his unvarying system of high charges. He and
Richard are likewise both threatened with prosecution for trespassing
on the Hares in the adjoining landed interest, and Nick is obliged to
decline any active share, by dislocating his shoulder in climbing a
tall tree for a tom-tit. As for George, tho’ for the first time beyond
the circumscribed limits of town custom, he indulges vanity in such
unqualified pretensions to superiority of knowledge in farming, on the
strength of his grandfather having belonged to the agricultural line
of trade, as renders a wholesale stock of patience barely adequate
to meet its demands. Thus stimulated to injudicious performance he
is as injurious to the best interests of the country, as blight and
mildew, and smut and rot, and glanders, and pip, all combined in one
texture. Between ourselves, the objects of unceasing endeavours,
united with uncompromising integrity, have been assailed with so much
deterioration, as makes me humbly desirous of abridging sufferings,
by resuming business as a Shoe Marter at the old established House.
If Clack & Son, therefore, have not already taken possession and
respectfully informed the vicinity, will thankfully pay reasonable
compensation for loss of time and expense incurred by the bargain
being off. In case parties agree, I beg you will authorise Mr. Robins
to have the honour to dispose of the whole Lincolnshire concern, tho’
the knocking down of Middlefen Hall will be a severe blow on Mrs. P.
and Family. Deprecating the deceitful stimulus of advertising arts,
interest commands to mention,--desirable freehold estate and eligible
investment--and sole reason for disposal, the proprietor going to
the continent. Example suggests likewise, a good country for hunting
for fox-hounds--and a prospect too extensive to put in a newspaper.
Circumstances being rendered awkward by the untoward event of the
running away of the cattle, &c., it will be best to say--“The Stock
to be taken as it stands;”--and an additional favour will be politely
conferred, and the same thankfully acknowledged, if the auctioneer will
be so kind as bring the next market town ten miles nearer and carry the
coach and the waggon once a day past the door. Earnestly requesting
early attention to the above, and with sentiments of, &c.
R. PUGSLEY, Sen.
P.S. Richard is just come to hand dripping and half dead out of the
Nene, and the two apprentices all but drowned each other in saving him.
Hence occurs to add, fishing opportunities among the desirable items.
[Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT:--MADAME PASTY.]
AN ANCIENT CONCERT.
BY A VENERABLE DIRECTOR
“Give me _old_ music--let me hear
The songs of _days_ gone by!”--H. F. CHORLEY.
Oh! come, all ye who love to hear
An ancient song in ancient taste,
To whom all by-gone Music’s dear
As verdant spots in Memory’s waste!
Its name “The Ancient Concert” wrongs,
And has not hit the proper clef,
To wit, Old Folks, to sing Old Songs,
To Old Subscribers rather deaf.
Away, then, Hawes! with all your band;
Ye beardless boys, this room desert!
One youthful voice, or youthful hand,
Our concert-pitch would disconcert!
No Bird must join our “vocal throng,”
The present age beheld at font:
Away, then, all ye “Sons of Song,”
Your Fathers are the men we want!
Away, Miss Birch, you’re in your prime!
Miss Romer, seek some other door!
Go, Mrs. Shaw! till, counting time,
You count you’re nearly fifty-four!
Go, Miss Novello, sadly young!
Go, thou composing Chevalier,
And roam the county towns among,
No Newcome will be welcome here!
Our Concert aims to give at _night_
The music that has had its _day_!
So, Rooke, for us you cannot write
Till time has made you Raven gray.
Your score may charm a modern ear,
Nay, ours, when three or fourscore old,
But in this Ancient atmosphere,
Fresh airs like yours would give us cold!
Go, Hawes, and Cawse, and Woodyat, go!
Hence, Shirreff, with those native curls;
And Master Coward ought to know
This is no place for boys and girls!
No Massons here we wish to see;
Nor is it Mrs. Seguin’s sphere,
And Mrs. B----! Oh! Mrs. B----,
Such Bishops are not reverend here!
What! Grisi, bright and beaming thus!
To sing the songs gone gray with age!
No, Grisi, no,--but come to us
And welcome, when you leave the stage!
Off, Ivanhoff!--till weak and harsh!--
Rubini, hence! with all the clan!
But come, Lablache, years hence, Lablache,
A little shrivell’d thin old man.
Go, Mr. Phillips, where you please!
Away, Tom Cooke, and all your batch;
You’d run us out of breath with Glees,
And Catches that we could not catch.
Away, ye Leaders all, who lead
With violins, quite modern things;
To guide our Ancient band we need
Old fiddles out of leading strings!
But come, ye Songsters, over-ripe,
That into “childish trebles break!”
And bring, Miss Winter, bring the pipe
That cannot sing without a shake!
Nay, come, ye Spinsters all, that spin
A slender thread of ancient voice,
Old notes that almost seem call’d in;
At such as you we _shall_ rejoice!
No thund’ring Thalbergs here shall balk,
Or ride your pet _D-cadence_ o’er,
But fingers with a little chalk
Shall, moderato, keep the score!
No Broadwoods here, so full of tone,
But Harpsichords assist the strain:
No Lincoln’s pipes, we have our own
Bird-Organ, built by Tubal-Cain.
And welcome! St. Cecilians, now
Ye willy-nilly, ex-good fellows,
Who will strike up, no matter how,
With organs that survive their bellows!
And bring, oh bring, your ancient styles
In which our elders lov’d to roam,
Those flourishes that strayed for miles,
Till some good fiddle led them home!
Oh come, ye ancient London Cries,
When Christmas Carols erst were sung!
Come, Nurse, who dron’d the lullabies,
“When Music, heavenly Maid, was young!”
No matter how the critics treat,
What modern sins and faults detect
The Copy-Book shall still repeat,
These Concerts must “Command respect!”
[Illustration: A RACE TO BE FIRST FIDDLE.]
A LETTER FROM AN EMIGRANT.
_Squampash Flatts, 9th November, 1827._
DEAR BROTHER,
Here we are, thank Providence, safe and well, and in the finest country
you ever saw. At this moment I have before me the sublime expanse of
Squampash Flatts--the majestic Mudiboo winding through the midst--with
the magnificent range of the Squab mountains in the distance. But the
prospect is impossible to describe in a letter! I might as well attempt
a Panorama in a pill-box!
We have fixed our Settlement on the left bank of the river. In
crossing the rapids we lost most of our heavy baggage and all our
iron work, but by great good fortune we saved Mrs. Paisley’s grand
piano and the children’s toys. Our infant city consists of three log
huts and one of clay, which, however, on the second day, fell in to
the ground landlords. We have now built it up again;--and, all things
considered, are as comfortable as we could expect--and have christened
our settlement New London, in compliment to the Old Metropolis. We
have one of the log houses to ourselves--or at least shall have when
we have built a new hog-sty. We burnt down the first one in making a
bonfire to keep off the wild beasts, and for the present the pigs are
in the parlour. As yet our rooms are rather usefully than elegantly
furnished. We have gutted the Grand Upright, and it makes a convenient
cupboard,--the chairs were obliged to blaze at our bivouacs, but thank
Heaven we have never leisure to sit down, and so do not miss them.
My boys are contented, and will be well when they have got over some
awkward accidents in lopping and felling. Mrs. P. grumbles a little,
but it is her custom to lament most when she is in the midst of
comforts. She complains of solitude, and says she could enjoy the very
stiffest of stiff visits.
[Illustration: A STIFF VISIT.]
The first time we lighted a fire in our new abode, a large serpent came
down the chimney, which I looked upon as a good omen. However, as Mrs.
P. is not partial to snakes, and the heat is supposed to attract those
reptiles, we have dispensed with fires ever since. As for wild beasts,
we hear them howling and roaring round the fence every night from dusk
till daylight, but we have only been inconvenienced by one Lion. The
first time he came, in order to get rid of the brute peaceably, we
turned out an old ewe, with which he was well satisfied;--but ever
since he comes to us as regular as clock-work for his mutton; and if
we do not soon contrive to cut his acquaintance, we shall hardly have
a sheep in the flock. It would have been easy to shoot him, being well
provided with muskets, but Barnaby mistook our remnant of gunpowder
for onion seed, and sowed it all in the kitchen garden. We did try to
trap him into a pitfall; but after twice catching Mrs. P., and every
one of the children in turn, it was given up. They are now, however,
perfectly at ease about the animal, for they never stir out of doors
at all, and to make them quite comfortable, I have blocked up all the
windows and barricaded the door.
We have lost only one of our number since we came; namely, Diggory, the
market gardener, from Glasgow, who went out one morning to botanise,
and never came back. I am much surprised at his absconding, as he
had nothing but a spade to go off with. Chippendale, the carpenter,
was sent after him, but did not return; and Gregory, the smith, has
been out after them these two days. I have just despatched Mudge,
the Herdsman, to look for all three, and hope he will soon give a
good account of them, as they are the most useful men in the whole
settlement, and, in fact, indispensable to its existence.
[Illustration: EMIGRATION--MEETING A SETTLER.]
The river Mudiboo is deep, and rapid, and said to swarm with
alligators, though I have heard but of three being seen at one
time, and none of those above eighteen feet long; this however, is
immaterial, as we do not use the river fluid, which is thick and dirty,
but draw all our water from natural wells and tanks. Poisonous springs
are rather common, but are easily distinguished by containing no fish
or living animal. Those, however, which swarm with frogs, toads, newts,
efts, &c., are harmless, and may be safely used for culinary purposes.
In short, I know of no drawback but one, which, I am sanguine, may be
got over hereafter, and do earnestly hope and advise, if things are
no better in England than when I left, you, and as many as you can
persuade, will sell off all, and come over to this African Paradise.
The drawback I speak of is this: although I have never seen any one of
the creatures, it is too certain that the mountains are inhabited by a
race of Monkeys, whose cunning and mischievous talents exceed even the
most incredible stories of their tribe. No human art or vigilance seems
of avail; we have planned ambuscades, and watched night after night,
but no attempt has been made; yet the moment the guard was relaxed, we
were stripped without mercy. I am convinced they must have had spies
night and day on our motions, yet so secretly and cautiously, that no
glimpse of one has yet been seen by any of our people. Our last crop
was cut and carried off, with the precision of an English Harvesting.
Our spirit stores--(you will be amazed to hear that these creatures
pick locks with the dexterity of London burglars)--have been broken
open and ransacked, though half the establishment were on the watch;
and the brutes have been off to their mountains, five miles distant,
without even the dogs giving an alarm. I could almost persuade myself
at times, such are their supernatural knowledge, swiftness, and
invisibility, that we have to contend with evil spirits. I long for
your advice, to refer to on this subject, and am,
Dear Philip, Your loving brother,
AMBROSE MAWE.
P.S. Since writing the above, you will be concerned to hear the body
of poor Diggory has been found, horribly mangled by wild beasts. The
fate of Chippendale, Gregory, and Mudge, is no longer doubtful. The old
Lion has brought the Lioness, and the sheep being all gone, they have
made a joint attack upon the Bullock-house. The Mudiboo has overflowed,
and Squampash Flatts are a swamp. I have just discovered that the
Monkeys are my own rascals, that I brought out from England. We are
coming back as fast as we can.
SONNET ON STEAM.
BY AN UNDER-OSTLER.
I wish I livd a Thowsen year Ago
Wurking for Sober six and Seven milers
And dubble Stages runnen safe and slo
The Orsis cum in Them days to the Bilers
But Now by means of Powers of Steam forces
A-turning Coches into Smoakey Kettels
The Bilers seam a Cumming to the Orses
And Helps and naggs Will sune be out of Vittels
Poor Bruits I wunder How we bee to Liv
When sutch a change of Orses is our Faits
No nothink need Be sifted in a Siv
May them Blowd ingins all Blow up their Grates
And Theaves of Oslers crib the Coles and Giv
Their blackgard Hannimuls a Feed of Slaits!
[Illustration: SOAP-ORIFICS AND SUB-ORIFICS.]
A REPORT FROM BELOW!
“Blow high, blow low.”--SEA SONG.
As Mister B. and Mistress B.
One night were sitting down to tea,
With toast and muffins hot--
They heard a loud and sudden bounce,
That made the very china flounce,
They could not for a time pronounce
If they were safe or shot--
For Memory brought a deed to match,
At Deptford done by night--
Before one eye appeared a Patch,
In t’other eye a Blight!
To be belabour’d out of life,
Without some small attempt at strife,
Our nature will not grovel;
One impulse mov’d both man and dame,
He seized the tongs--she did the same,
Leaving the ruffian, if he came,
The poker and the shovel.
Suppose the couple standing so,
When rushing footsteps from below
Made pulses fast and fervent;
And first burst in the frantic cat,
All steaming like a brewer’s vat,
And then--as white as my cravat--
Poor Mary May, the servant!
Lord, how the couple’s teeth did chatter!
Master and Mistress both flew at her,
“Speak! Fire? or Murder? What’s the matter?”
Till Mary, getting breath,
Upon her tale began to touch
With rapid tongue, full trotting, such
As if she thought she had too much
To tell before her death:--
“We was both, Ma’am, in the wash-house, Ma’am, a-standing at our
tubs,
And Mrs. Round was seconding what little things I rubs;
‘Mary,’ says she to me, ‘I say’--and there she stops for coughin’,
‘That dratted copper flue has took to smokin’ very often,
But please the pigs,’--for that’s her way of swearing in a passion,
‘I’ll blow it up, and not be set a coughin’ in this fashion!’
Well, down she takes my master’s horn--I mean his horn for loading,
And empties every grain alive for to set the flue exploding.
Lawk, Mrs. Round! says I, and stares, that quantum is unproper.
I’m sartin sure it can’t not take a pound to sky a copper;
You’ll powder both our heads off, so I tells you, with its puff,
But she only dried her fingers, and she takes a pinch of snuff.
Well, when the pinch is over--‘Teach your grandmother to suck
A powder horn,’ says she--Well, says I, I wish you luck.
Them words sets up her back, so with her hands upon her hips,
‘Come,’ says she, quite in a huff, ‘come, keep your tongue inside
your lips;
Afore ever you was born, I was well used to things like these;
I shall put it in the grate, and let it burn up by degrees.’
So in it goes, and Bounce--O Lord! it gives us such a rattle,
I thought we both were cannonised, like Sogers in a battle!
Up goes the copper like a squib, and us on both our backs,
And bless the tubs, they bundled off, and split all into cracks.
Well, there I fainted dead away, and might have been cut shorter,
But Providence was kind, and brought me to with scalding water.
I first looks round for Mrs. Round, and sees her at a distance,
As stiff as starch, and looked as dead as any thing in existence;
All scorched and grimed, and more than that, I sees the copper slap
Right on her head, for all the world like a percussion copper cap.
Well, I crooks her little fingers, and cramps them well up together,
As humanity pints out, and burnt her nostrums with a feather;
But for all as I can do, to restore her to her mortality,
She never gives a sign of a return to sensuality.
Thinks I, well there she lies, as dead as my own late departed
mother.
Well, she’ll wash no more in this world, whatever she does in
t’other.
So I gives myself to scramble up the linens for a minute,
Lawk, sich a shirt! thinks I, it’s well my master wasn’t in it;
Oh! I never, never, never, never, never see a sight so shockin’;
Here lays a leg, and there a leg--I mean, you know, a stocking--
Bodies all slit and torn to rags, and many a tattered skirt,
And arms burnt off, and sides and backs all scotched and black with
dirt;
But as nobody was in ’em--none but--nobody was hurt!
Well, there I am, a-scrambling up the things, all in a lump,
When, mercy on us! such a groan as makes my heart to jump.
And there she is, a-lying with a crazy sort of eye,
A-staring at the wash-house roof, laid open to the sky:
Then she beckons with her finger, and so down to her I reaches,
And puts my ear agin her mouth to hear her dying speeches,
For, poor soul! she has a husband and young orphans, as I knew;
Well, Ma’am, you won’t believe it, but it’s Gospel fact and true,
But these words is all she whispered--‘Why, where _is_ the powder
blew?’”
[Illustration: “SKYING A COPPER.”]
[Illustration: “IF THE COACH GOES AT SIX PRAY WHAT TIME GOES THE
BASKET?”]
THE LAST SHILLING.
He was evidently a foreigner, and poor. As I sat at the opposite corner
of the Southgate stage, I took a mental inventory of his wardrobe.
A military cloak much the worse for wear,--a blue coat, the worse
for tear,--a napless hat--a shirt neither white nor brown--a pair of
mud-colour gloves, open at each thumb--gray trousers too short for his
legs--and brown boots too long for his feet.
From some words he dropt, I found that he had come direct from Paris,
to undertake the duties of French teacher, at an English academy; and
his companion, the English classical usher, had been sent to London, to
meet and conduct him to his suburban destination.
Poor devil, thought I, thou art going into a bitter bad line
of business; and the hundredth share which I had taken in the
boyish persecutions of my own French master--an emigré of the old
noblesse--smote violently on my conscience. At Edmonton the coach
stopped. The coachman alighted, pulled the bell of a mansion inscribed
in large letters, Vespasian House; and deposited the foreigner’s trunks
and boxes on the footpath. The English classical usher stepped briskly
out, and deposited a shilling in the coachman’s anticipatory hand.
Monsieur followed the example, and with some precipitation prepared to
enter the gate of the fore-garden, but the driver stood in the way.
“I want another shilling,” said the coachman.
“You agreed to take a shilling a-head,” said the English master.
“You said you would take one shilling for my head,” said the French
master.
“It’s for the luggage,” said the coachman.
The Frenchman seemed thunderstruck; but there was no help for
it. He pulled out a small weasel-bellied, brown silk purse, but
there was nothing in it save a medal of Napoleon. Then he felt his
breast-pockets, then his side-pockets, and then his waistcoat-pockets;
but they were all empty, excepting a metal snuff-box, and that was
empty too. Lastly he felt the pockets in the flaps of his coat, taking
out a meagre would-be white handkerchief, and shaking it; but not a
dump. I rather suspect he anticipated the result--but he went thro’ the
operations _seriatim_, with the true French gravity. At last he turned
to his companion, with a “Mistare Barbiere, be as good to lend me one
shilling.”
Mr. Barber, thus appealed to, went through something of the same
ceremony. Like a blue-bottle cleaning itself, he passed his hands over
his breast--round his hips, and down the outside of his thighs,--but
the sense of feeling could detect nothing like a coin.
“You agreed for a shilling, and you shall have no more,” said the man
with empty pockets.
“No--no--no--you shall have no more,” said the moneyless Frenchman.
By this time the housemaid of Vespasian House, tired of standing with
the door in her hand, had come down to the garden-gate, and, willing to
make herself generally useful, laid her hand on one of the Foreigner’s
trunks.
“It shan’t go till I’m paid my shilling,” said the coachman, taking
hold of the handle at the other end.
The good-natured housemaid instantly let go of the trunk, and seemed
suddenly to be bent double by a violent cramp, or stitch, in her right
side,--while her hand groped busily under her gown. But it was in vain.
There was nothing in that pocket but some curl-papers, and a brass
thimble.
The stitch or cramp then seemed to attack her other side; again she
stooped and fumbled, while Hope and Doubt struggled together on her
rosy face. At last Hope triumphed,--from the extremest corner of
the huge dimity pouch she fished up a solitary coin, and thrust it
exultingly into the obdurate palm.
“It won’t do,” said the coachman, casting a wary eye on the metal, and
holding out for the inspection of the trio a silver-washed coronation
medal, which had been purchased of a Jew for twopence the year before.
The poor girl quietly set down the trunk which she had again taken up,
and restored the deceitful medal to her pocket. In the meantime the
arithmetical usher had arrived at the gate in his way out, but was
stopped by the embargo on the luggage. “What’s the matter now?” asked
the man of figures.
“If you please, Sir,” said the housemaid, dropping a low courtesy,
“it’s this impudent fellow of a coachman will stand here for his
rights.”
“He wants a shilling more than his fare,” said Mr. Barber.
“He does want more than his fare shilling,” reiterated the Frenchman.
“Coachman! what the devil are we waiting here for?” shouted a
stentorian voice from the rear of the stage.
“Bless me, John, are we to stay here all day?” cried a shrill voice
from the stage’s interior.
“If you don’t get up shortly I shall get down,” bellowed a voice from
the box.
At this crisis the English usher drew his fellow-tutor aside, and
whispered something in his ear that made him go through the old manual
exercise. He slapped his pantaloons--flapped his coat tails--and felt
about his bosom--“I haven’t got one,” said he, and with a shake of the
head and a hurried bow, he set off at the pace of a twopenny postman.
“I a’n’t going to stand here all day,” said the coachman, getting out
of all reasonable patience.
“You’re an infernal scoundrelly villain,” said Mr. Barber, getting out
of all classical English.
“You are a--what Mr. Barber says,” said the Foreigner.
“Thank God and his goodness,” ejaculated the housemaid, “here comes the
Doctor;” and the portly figure of the pedagogue himself came striding
pompously down the gravel-walk. He had two thick lips and a double
chin, which all began wagging together.
“Well, well; what’s all this argumentative elocution? I command
taciturnity!”
“I’m a shilling short,” said the coachman.
“He says he has got one short shilling,” said the Foreigner.
“Poo--poo--poo,” said the thick-lips and double-chin. “Pay the fellow
his superfluous claim, and appeal to magisterial authority.”
“It’s what we mean to do, Sir,” said the English usher, “but”--and he
laid his lips mysteriously to the Doctor’s ear.
“A pecuniary bagatelle,” said the Doctor. “It’s palpable
extortion,--but I’ll disburse it,--and you have a legislatorial
remedy for his avaricious demands.” As the man of pomp said this,
he thrust his fore finger into an empty waistcoat-pocket--then into
its fellow--and then into every pocket he had--but without any other
product than a bunch of keys, two ginger lozenges, and the French mark.
“It’s very peculiar,” said the Doctor. “I had a prepossession of having
currency to that amount. The coachman must call to-morrow for it at
Vespasian House--or stay--I perceive my housekeeper. Mrs. Plummer! pray
just step hither and liquidate this little commercial obligation.”
Now, whether Mrs. Plummer had or had not a shilling, Mrs. Plummer only
knows; for she did not condescend to make any search for it,--and if
she had none, she was right not to take the trouble. However, she
attempted to carry the point by a _coup de main_. Snatching up one of
the boxes, she motioned the housemaid to do the like, exclaiming in
a shrill treble key,--“Here’s a pretty work indeed, about a paltry
shilling! If it’s worth having, it’s worth calling again for,--and I
suppose Vespasian House is not going to run away!”
“But may be I am,” said the inflexible coachman, seizing a trunk with
each hand.
“John, I insist on being let out,” screamed the lady in the coach. “I
shall be too late for dinner,” roared the Thunderer in the dickey. As
for the passenger on the box, he had made off during the latter part of
the altercation.
“What shall we do?” said the English Classical Usher.
“God and his goodness only knows!” said the housemaid.
“I am a stranger in this country,” said the Frenchman.
“You must pay the money,” said the coachman.
“And here it is, you brute,” said Mrs. Plummer, who had made a trip to
the house in the meantime; but whether she had coined it, or raised it
by a subscription among the pupils, I know no more than
[Illustration: THE MAN IN THE MOON.]
[Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT:--M. BRUNEL.]
ODE TO M. BRUNEL.
“Well said, old Mole! canst work i’ the dark so fast? a worthy
pioneer!”--HAMLET.
Well!----Monsieur Brunel,
How prospers now thy mighty undertaking,
To join by a hollow way the Bankside friends
Of Rotherhithe, and Wapping,--
Never be stopping,
But poking, groping, in the dark deep making
An archway, underneath the Dabs and Gudgeons,
For Collier men and pitchy old Curmudgeons,
To cross the water in inverse proportion,
Walk under steam-boats under the keel’s ridge,
To keep down all extortion,
And without sculls to diddle London Bridge!
In a fresh hunt, a new Great Bore to worry,
Thou didst to earth thy human terriers follow,
Hopeful at last, from Middlesex to Surrey,
To give us the “View hollow.”
In short it was thy aim, right north and south,
To put a pipe into old Thames’s mouth;
Alas! half-way thou hadst proceeded, when
Old Thames, through roof, not water-proof,
Came, like “a tide in the affairs of men;”
And with a mighty stormy kind of roar,
Reproachful of thy wrong,
Burst out in that old song
Of Incledon’s, beginning “Cease, rude Bore”--
Sad is it, worthy of one’s tears,
Just when one seems the most successful,
To find one’s self o’er head and ears
In difficulties most distressful!
Other great speculations have been nursed,
Till want of proceeds laid them on a shelf;
But thy concern was at the worst,
When it began to liquidate itself!
But now Dame Fortune has her false face hidden,
And languishes Thy Tunnel,--so to paint,
Under a slow incurable complaint,
Bed-ridden!
Why, when thus Thames--bed-bother’d--why repine!
Do try a spare bed at the Serpentine!
Yet let none think thee daz’d, or craz’d, or stupid;
And sunk beneath thy own and Thames’s craft;
Let them not style thee some Mechanic Cupid
Pining and pouting o’er a broken shaft!
I’ll tell thee with thy tunnel what to do;
Light up thy boxes, build a bin or two,
The wine does better than such water trades;
Stick up a sign--the sign of the Bore’s Head;
I’ve drawn it ready for thee in black lead,
And make thy cellar subterrane,--Thy Shades!
[Illustration: THE BROKEN SHAFT.]
THE DEATH OF THE DOMINIE.
“Take him up, says the master.”--OLD SPELLING BOOK.
My old Schoolmaster is dead. He “died of a stroke;” and I wonder
none of his pupils have ever done the same. I have been flogged by
many masters, but his rod, like Aaron’s, swallowed up all the rest.
We have often wished that he whipped on the principle of Italian
penmanship,--up strokes heavy and down strokes light; but he did it in
English round hand, and we used to think with a very hard pen. Such was
his love of flogging, that for some failure in English composition,
after having been well corrected I have been ordered to be revised.
I have heard of a road to learning, and he did justice to it; we
certainly never went a stage in education without being well horsed.
The mantle of Dr. Busby descended on his shoulders, and on ours. There
was but one tree in the play-ground--a birch, but it never had a twig
or leaf upon it. Spring or summer it always looked as bare as if the
weather had been cutting at the latter end of the year. Pictures they
say are incentives to learning, and certainly we never got through a
page without cuts; for instance, I do not recollect a Latin article
without a tail-piece. All the Latin at that school might be comprised
in one line--
“Arma virumque cano.”
An arm, a man, and a cane. It was Englished to me one day in school
hours, when I was studying Robinson Crusoe instead of Virgil, by a
storm of bamboo that really carried on the illusion, and made me think
for the time that I was assaulted by a set of savages. He seemed to
consider a boy as a bear’s cub, and set himself literally to lick him
into shape. He was so particularly fond of striking us with a leather
strap on the flats of our hands that he never allowed them a day’s
rest. There was no such thing as a Palm Sunday in our calendar. In one
word, he was disinterestedly cruel, and used as industriously to strike
for nothing as other workmen strike for wages. Some of the elder boys,
who had read Smollett, christened him Roderick, from his often hitting
like Random, and being so partial to Strap.
His death was characteristic. After making his will he sent for Mr.
Taddy, the head usher, and addressed him as follows: “It is all over,
Mr. Taddy--I am sinking fast--I am going from the terrestrial globe--to
the celestial--and have promised Tomkins a flogging--mind he has
it--and don’t let him pick off the buds--I have asked Aristotle”--(here
his head wandered)--“and he says I cannot live an hour--I don’t like
that black horse grinning at me--cane him soundly for not knowing
his verbs--Castigo te, non quod odio habeam--Oh, Mr. Taddy, it’s
breaking up with me--the vacation’s coming--There is that black horse
again--Dulcis moriens reminiscitur--we are short of canes--Mr. Taddy,
don’t let the school get into disorder when I am gone--I’m afraid,
through my illness--the boys have gone back in their flogging--I feel
a strange feeling all over me--Is the new pupil come?--I trust I have
done my duty--and have made my will--and left all”--(here his head
wandered again)--“to Mr. Souter, the school bookseller--Mr. Taddy, I
invite you to my funeral--make the boys walk in good order--and take
care of the crossings.--My sight is getting dim--write to Mrs. B. at
Margate--and inform her--we break up on the 21st.--The school-door
is left open--- I am very cold--where is my ruler gone--I will make
him feel--John, light the school lamps--I cannot see a line--Oh Mr.
Taddy--venit hora--my hour is come--I am dying--thou art dying--he--is
dying.--We--are--dying--you--are--dy”----The voice ceased. He made
a feeble motion with his hands, as if in the act of ruling a
copy-book--“the _ruling_ passion strong in death”--and expired.
An epitaph, composed by himself, was discovered in his desk,--with an
unpublished pamphlet against Tom Paine. The Epitaph was so stuffed
with quotations from Homer and Virgil, and almost every Greek or Latin
author beside, that the mason who was consulted by the Widow declined
to lithograph it under a Hundred Pounds. The Dominie consequently
reposes under no more Latin than HIC JACET;--and without a single
particle of Greek, though he is himself a Long Homer.
[Illustration: IT MAY BE MY OWN CASE TO-MORROW.]
[Illustration: OVER THE WAY.]
OVER THE WAY.
“I sat over against a window where there stood a pot with very
pretty flowers; and I had my eyes fixed on it, when on a sudden
the window opened and a young lady appeared whose beauty struck
me.”--ARABIAN NIGHTS.
Alas! the flames of an unhappy lover
About my heart and on my vitals prey;
I’ve caught a fever that I can’t get over,
Over the way!
Oh! why are eyes of hazel? noses Grecian!
I’ve lost my rest by night, my peace by day,
For want of some brown Holland or Venetian
Over the way!
I’ve gazed too often, till my heart’s as lost
As any needle in a stack of hay:
Crosses belong to love, and mine is crossed
Over the way!
I cannot read or write, or thoughts relax--
Of what avail Lord Althorp or Earl Grey?
They cannot ease me of _my_ window-tax
Over the way!
Even on Sunday my devotions vary,
And from St. Bennet Fink they go astray
To dear St. Mary Overy--the Mary
Over the way!
Oh! if my godmother were but a fairy,
With magic wand, how I would beg and pray
That she would change me into that canary
Over the way!
I envy everything that’s near Miss Lindo,
A pug, a poll, a squirrel or a jay--
Blest blue-bottles! that buzz about the window
Over the way!
Even at even, for there be no shutters,
I see her reading on from grave to gay,
Some tale or poem, till the candle gutters
Over the way!
And then--oh! then--while the clear waxen taper
Emits, two stories high, a starlike ray,
I see twelve auburn curls put into paper
Over the way!
But how breathe unto her my deep regards,
Or ask her for a whispered ay or nay,--
Or offer her my hand, some thirty yards
Over the way!
Cold as the pole she is to my adoring;--
Like Captain Lyon, at Repulse’s Bay,
I meet an icy end to my exploring
Over the way!
Each dirty little Savoyard that dances
She looks on--Punch--chimney sweeps in May.
Zounds! wherefore cannot I attract her glances
Over the way?
Half out she leans to watch a tumbling brat,
Or yelping cur, run over by a dray;
But I’m in love--she never pities that!
Over the way!
I go to the same church--a love-lost labour;
Haunt all her walks, and dodge her at the play;
She does not seem to know she has a neighbour
Over the way!
At private theatres she never acts;
No Crown-and-Anchor balls her fancy sway;
She never visits gentlemen with tracts
Over the way!
To billets-doux by post she shows no favour--
In short, there is no plot that I can lay
To break my window-pains to my enslaver
Over the way!
I play the flute--she heeds not my chromatics--
No friend an introduction can purvey;
I wish a fire would break out in the attics
Over the way!
My wasted form ought of itself to touch her;
My baker feels my appetite decay;
And as for butchers’ meat--oh! she’s my butcher
Over the way!
At beef I turn; at lamb or veal I pout;
I never ring now to bring up the tray;
My stomach grumbles at my dining out
Over the way!
I’m weary of my life; without regret
I could resign this miserable clay
To lie within that box of mignonette
Over the way!
I’ve fitted bullets to my pistol-bore;
I’ve vowed at times to rush where trumpets bray,
Quite sick of number one--and number four
Over the way!
Sometimes my fancy builds up castles airy,
Sometimes it only paints a ferme orneé,
A horse--a cow--six fowls--a pig--and Mary
Over the way!
Sometimes I dream of her in bridal white,
Standing before the altar, like a fay;
Sometimes of balls, and neighbourly invite
Over the way!
I’ve coo’d with her in dreams, like any turtle,
I’ve snatch’d her from the Clyde, the Tweed, and Tay;
Thrice I have made a grove of that one myrtle
Over the way!
Thrice I have rowed her in a fairy shallop,
Thrice raced to Gretna in a neat “poshay,”
And showered crowns to make the horses gallop
Over the way!
And thrice I’ve started up from dreams appalling
Of killing rivals in a bloody fray--
There is a young man very fond of calling
Over the way!
Oh! happy man--above all kings in glory,
Whoever in her ear may say his say,
And add a tale of love to that one story
Over the way!
Nabob of Arcot--Despot of Japan--
Sultan of Persia--Emperor of Cathay--
Much rather would I be the happy man
Over the way!
With such a lot my heart would be in clover--
But what--oh horror!--what do I survey!
Postillions and white favours!--all is over
Over the way!
[Illustration: A RUNAWAY MATCH.]
A PLAN FOR
WRITING BLANK VERSE IN RHYME,
IN A LETTER TO THE EDITOR.
RESPECTED SIR,
In a morning paper justly celebrated for the acuteness of its
reporters, and their almost prophetic insight into character and
motives--the Rhodian length of their leaps towards results, and the
magnitude of their inferences, beyond the drawing of Moux’s dray
horses,--there appeared, a few days since, the following paragraph.
“Mansion House. Yesterday, a tall emaciated being, in a brown coat,
indicating his age to be about forty-five, and the raggedness of
which gave a great air of mental ingenuity and intelligence to his
countenance, was introduced by the officers to the Lord Mayor. It was
evident from his preliminary bow that he had made some discoveries in
the art of poetry, which he wished to lay before his Lordship, but the
Lord Mayor perceiving by his accent that he had already submitted his
project to several of the leading Publishers, referred him back to the
same jurisdiction, and the unfortunate Votary of the Muses withdrew,
declaring by another bow, that he should offer his plan to the Editor
of the Comic Annual.”
The unfortunate above referred to, Sir, is myself, and with regard to
the Muses, indeed a votary, though not a £10 one, if the qualification
depends on my pocket--but for the idea of addressing myself to the
Editor of the Comic Annual, I am indebted solely to the assumption
of the gentlemen of the Press. That I have made a discovery is true,
in common with Hervey, and Herschell, and Galileo, and Roger Bacon,
or rather, I should say, with Columbus,--my invention concerning a
whole hemisphere, as it were, in the world of poetry--in short, the
whole continent of blank verse. To an immense number of readers this
literary land has been hitherto a complete terra incognita, and from
one sole reason,--the want of that harmony which makes the close
of one line chime with the end of another. They have no relish for
numbers that turn up blank, and wonder accordingly at the epithet of
“Prize,” prefixed to Poems of the kind which emanate in--I was going
to say from--the University of Oxford. Thus many very worthy members
of society are unable to appreciate the Paradise Lost, the Task, the
Chase, or the Seasons,--the Winter especially,--without rhyme. Others,
again, can read the Poems in question, but with a limited enjoyment;
as certain persons can admire the architectural beauties of Salisbury
steeple, but would like it better with a ring of bells. For either
of these tastes my discovery will provide, without affronting the
palate of any other; for although the lover of rhyme will find in it
a prodigality hitherto unknown, the heroic character of blank verse
will not suffer in the least, but each line will “do as it likes with
its own,” and sound as independently of the next as “milkmaid,” and
“water-carrier.” I have the honour to subjoin a specimen--and if,
through your publicity, Mr. Murray should be induced to make me an
offer for an Edition of Paradise Lost on this principle, for the Family
Library, it will be an eternal obligation on,
Respected Sir, your most obliged, and humble servant,
* * * * * * *
A NOCTURNAL SKETCH.
Even is come; and from the dark Park, hark,
The signal of the setting sun--one gun!
And six is sounding from the chime, prime time
To go and see the Drury-Lane Dane slain,--
Or hear Othello’s jealous doubt spout out,--
Or Macbeth raving at that shade-made blade,
Denying to his frantic clutch much touch;--
Or else to see Ducrow with wide stride ride
Four horses as no other man can span;
Or in the small Olympic Pit, sit split
Laughing at Liston, while you quiz his phiz.
Anon Night comes, and with her wings brings things
Such as, with his poetic tongue, Young sung;
The gas up-blazes with its bright white light,
And paralytic watchmen prowl, howl, growl,
About the streets and take up Pall-Mal Sal,
Who, hasting to her nightly jobs, robs fobs.
Now thieves to enter for your cash, smash, crash.
Past drowsy Charley, in a deep sleep creep,
But frightened by Policeman B. 3, flee,
And while they’re going, whisper low, “No go!”
Now puss, while folks are in their beds, treads leads,
And sleepers waking, grumble--“Drat that cat!”
Who in the gutter caterwauls, squalls, mauls
Some feline foe, and screams in shrill ill-will.
[Illustration: A-LAD-IN, OR THE WONDERFUL LAMP.]
Now Bulls of Bashan, of a prize size, rise
In childish dreams and with a roar gore poor
Georgy, or Charley, or Billy, willy-nilly;--
But Nursemaid in a nightmare rest, chest-press’d,
Dreameth of one of her old flames, James Games,
And that she hears--what faith is man’s--Ann’s bans
And his, from Reverend Mr. Rice, twice, thrice:
White ribbons flourish, and a stout shout out,
That upward goes, shows Rose knows those bows’ woes!
[Illustration: WHITE FAVOURS.]
A LETTER FROM A MARKET GARDENER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE HORTICULTURAL
SOCIETY.
SIR,
The Satiety having Bean pleasd to Complement Me before I beg Leaf to
Lie before Them agin as follow in particullers witch I hop They will
luck upon with a Sowth Aspic.
Sir--last year I paid my Atentions to a Tater, & the Satiety was
pleasd to be gratifid at the Innlargement of my Kidnis. This ear I
have turnd my Eyes to Gozberris.--I am happy to Say I have allmost
sucksidid in Making them too Big for Bottlin. I beg to Present sum of
itch kind--Pleas obsarve a Green Goose is larger in Siz then a Red
Goosebry. Sir as to Cherris my atention has Bean cheafly occupid by
the Black Arts. Sum of them are as big as Crickt Balls as will be seen
I send a Sample tyed on a Wauking-stick. I send lickwise a Potle of
strayberris witch I hop will reach. They air so large as to object to
lay more nor too in a Bed. Also a Potle of Hobbies and one of my new
Pins, of a remarkably sharp flaviour. I hop they will cum to Hand in
Time to be at your Feat. Respective Black red & White Currency I have
growd equely Large, so as one Bunch is not to be Put into a Galley Pot
without jamming. My Pitches has not ben Strong, and their is no Show
on My Walls of the Plumb line. Damsins will Be moor Plentifle & their
is no Want of common Bullies about Lunnon. Please inform if propper to
classify the Slow with the creepers.
Concerning Graps I have bin recommanded by mixing Wines with Warter
Mellons, the later is improved in its juice--but have douts of the
fack. Of the Patgonian Pickleing Coucumber, I hav maid Trial of, and
have hops of Growing one up to Markit by sitting one End agin my front
dore. On account of its Proggressiveness I propos calling it Pickleus
Perriginatus if Approved of.
Sir, about Improving the common Stocks.--Of Haws I have some hops but
am disponding about my Hyps. I have quite faled in cultuvating them
into Cramberris. I have allso atempted to Mull Blackberis, but am
satisfid them & the Mulberris is of diferent Genius. Pleas observe
of Aples I have found a Grafft of the common Crab from its Straglin
sideways of use to Hispalliers. I should lick to be infourmd weather
Scotch Granite is a variety of the Pom Granite & weather as sum say
so pore a frute, and nothing but Stone Sir,--My Engine Corn has been
all eat up by the Burds namely Rocks and Ravines. In like manner I had
a full Shew of Pees but was distroyd by the Sparers. There as bean
grate Mischef dun beside by Entymollogy--in some parts a complet Patch
of Blight. Their has bean a grate Deal too of Robin by boys and men
picking and stealing but their has bean so many axidents by Steel Traps
I don’t like setting on ’em.
[Illustration: “TOE HO!”]
Sir I partickly wish the Satiety to be called to considder the Case
what follows, as I think mite be maid Transaxtionable in the next
Reports:--
[Illustration: “TOM’S A-COLD!”]
My Wif had a Tomb cat that dyd. Being a torture Shell and as Grate
feverit, we had Him berrid in the Guardian, and for the sake of
inrichment of the Mould I had the carks deposeted under the roots of
a Gosberry Bush. The Frute being up till then of the Smooth kind. But
the next Seson’s Frute after the Cat was berrid, the Gozberris was all
hairy,--& moor Remarkable the Catpilers of the same bush, was All of
the same hairy Discription. I am Sir Your humble servant,
THOMAS FROST.
DOMESTIC ASIDES; OR, TRUTH IN PARENTHESES
“I really take it very kind,
This visit, Mrs. Skinner!
I have not seen you such an age--
(The wretch has come to dinner!)
“Your daughters, too, what loves of girls--
What heads for painters’ easels!
Come here and kiss the infant, dears,--
(And give it p’rhaps the measles!)
“Your charming boys I see are home
From Reverend Mr. Russel’s;
’Twas very kind to bring them both,--
(What boots for my new Brussels!)
“What! little Clara left at home?
Well, now, I call that shabby:
I should have loved to kiss her so,--
(A flabby, dabby babby!)
“And Mr. S., I hope he’s well;
Ah! though he lives so handy,
He never now drops in to sup,--
(The better for our brandy!)
“Come, take a seat--I long to hear
About Matilda’s marriage;
You’re come of course to spend the day!--
(Thank Heav’n I hear the carriage!)
“What, must you go? next time I hope
You’ll give me longer measure;
Nay--I shall see you down the stairs--
(With most uncommon pleasure!)
“Good-bye! good-bye! remember all,
Next time you’ll take your dinners!
(Now, David, mind, I’m not at home
In future to the Skinners!”)
[Illustration: A MODERATE INCOME.]
BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN.
All at once Miss Morbid left off sugar.
She did not resign it as some persons lay down their carriage, the
full-bodied family-coach dwindling into a chariot, next into a fly, and
then into a sedan-chair. She did not shade it off artistically, like
certain household economists, from white to white-brown, brown, dark
brown, and so on, to none at all.--She left it off, as one might leave
off walking on the top of a house, or on a slide, or on a plank with
a further end to it, that is to say, slapdash, all at once, without a
moment’s warning. She gave it up, to speak appropriately, in the lump.
She dropped it--as Corporal Trim let fall his hat,--dab. It vanished,
as the French say, _toot sweet_. From the 30th of November, 1830, not
an ounce of sugar, to use Miss Morbid’s own expression, ever “darkened
her doors.”
The truth was she had been present the day before at an Anti-Slavery
Meeting; and had listened to a lecturing Abolitionist, who had drawn
her sweet tooth, root and branch, out of her head. Thenceforth sugar,
or as she called it “shugger,” was no longer white, or brown, in her
eyes, but red, blood-red--an abomination, to indulge in which would
convert a professing Christian into a practical Cannibal. Accordingly
she made a vow, under the influence of moist eyes and refined feelings,
that the sanguinary article should never more enter her lips or her
house; and this petty parody of the famous Berlin Decree against our
Colonial produce was rigidly enforced. However others might countenance
the practice of the Slave Owners by consuming “shugger,” she was
resolved, for her own part, that “no suffering sable son of Africa
should ever rise up against her out of a cup of Tea!”
In the mean time, the cook and housemaid grumbled in concert at the
prohibition: they naturally thought it very hard to be deprived of a
luxury which they enjoyed at their own proper cost; and at last only
consented to remain in the service, on condition that the privation
should be handsomely considered in their wages.
With a hope of being similarly remembered in her will, the poor
relations of Miss Morbid continued to drink the “warm without,”
which she administered to them every Sunday, under the name of Tea:
and Hogarth would have desired no better subject for a picture than
was presented by their physiognomies. Some pursed up their lips,
as if resolved that the nauseous beverage should never enter them;
others compressed their mouths, as if to prevent it from rushing out
again. One took it mincingly, in sips,--another gulped it down in
desperation,--a third, in a fit of absence, continued to stir very
superfluously with his spoon; and there was one shrewd old gentleman,
who by a little dexterous by-play, used to bestow the favour of his
small souchong on a sick geranium. Now and then an astonished Stranger
would retain a half cupful of the black dose in his mouth, and stare
round at his fellow guests, as if tacitly putting to them the very
question of Mathews’s Yorkshireman in the mail coach--“Coompany!--oop
or doon?”
The greatest sufferers, however, were Miss Morbid’s two nephews, still
in the morning of their youth, and boy-like, far more inclined to
“sip the sweets” than to “hail the dawn.” They had formerly looked on
their Aunt’s house as peculiarly a Dulce Domum. Prior to her sudden
conversion she had been famous for the manufacture of a sort of hard
bake, commonly called Toffy or Taffy,--but now, alas! “Taffy was not
at home,” and there was nothing else to invite a call. Currant tart
is tart indeed without sugar; and as for the green gooseberries,
they always tasted, as the young gentlemen affirmed, “like a quart
of berries sharpened to a pint.” In short it always required six
pennyworth of lollipops and bullseyes, a lick of honey, a dip of
treacle, and a pick at a grocer’s hogshead, to sweeten a visit at Aunt
Morbid’s.
To tell the truth, her own temper soured a little under the
prohibition. She could not persuade the sugar-eaters that they were
Vampyres;--instead of practising, or even admiring her self-denial,
they laughed at it; and one wicked wag even compared her, in allusion
to her acerbity and her privation, to a crab without _the nippers_.
She persevered notwithstanding in her system; and to the constancy
of a martyr added something of the wilfulness of a bigot:--indeed,
it was hinted by patrons and patronesses of white charities, that
European objects had not their _fair_ share in her benevolence. She
was pre-eminently the friend of the blacks. Howbeit, for all her
sacrifices, not a lash was averted from their sable backs. She had
raised discontent in the kitchen, she had disgusted her acquaintance,
sickened her friends, and given her own dear little nephews the
stomach-ache, without saving Quashy from one cut of the driver’s
whip, or diverting a single kick from the shins of Sambo. Her grocer
complained loudly of being called a dealer in human gore, yet not one
hogshead the less was imported from the Plantations. By an error common
to all her class she mistook a negative for a positive principle; and
persuaded herself that by _not_ preserving damsons, she preserved the
Niggers; that by _not_ sweetening her own cup, she was dulcifying the
lot of all her sable brethren in bondage. She persevered accordingly in
setting her face against sugar instead of slavery; against the plant
instead of the planter; and had actually abstained for six months from
the forbidden article, when a circumstance occurred that roused her
sympathies into more active exertions. It pleased an American lady
to import with her a black female servant, whom she rather abruptly
dismissed, on her arrival in England. The case was considered by the
Hampshire Telegraph of that day, as one of GREAT HARDSHIP; the
paragraph went the round of the papers and in due time attracted the
notice of Miss Morbid. It was precisely addressed to her sensibilities,
and there was a “Try Warren” tone about it that proved irresistible.
She read--and wrote--and in the course of one little week, her domestic
establishment was maliciously but truly described as consisting of “two
white Slaves and a black Companion.”
The adopted protégé was, in reality, a strapping clumsy Negress, as
ugly as sin, and with no other merit than that of being of the same
colour as the crow. She was artful, sullen, gluttonous, and above
all so intolerably indolent, that if she had been literally “carved
in ebony,” as old Fuller says, she could scarcely have been of less
service to her protectress. Her notion of Free Labour seemed to
translate it into laziness, and taking liberties; and, as she seriously
added to the work of her fellow-servants, without at all contributing
to their comfort, they soon looked upon her as a complete nuisance.
The housemaid dubbed her “a Divil,”--the cook roundly compared her to
“a mischivus beast, as runs out on a herd o’ black cattle;”--and both
concurred in the policy of laying all household sins upon the sooty
shoulders--just as slatterns select a colour that hides the dirt.
It is certain that shortly after the instalment of the negress in
the family a moral disease broke out with considerable violence, and
justly or not, the odium was attributed to the new comer. Its name was
theft. First, there was a shilling short in some loose change--next,
a missing half-crown from the mantelpiece--then there was a stir with
a tea-spoon--anon, a piece of work about a thimble. Things went,
nobody knew how--the “Divil” of course excepted. The Cook _could_, the
Housemaid _would_, and Dinah _should_, and _ought_ to take an oath,
declaratory of innocence, before the mayor; but as Dinah did not
volunteer an affidavit like the others, there was no doubt of her guilt
in the kitchen.
Miss Morbid, however, came to a very different conclusion. She thought
that whites who could eat sugar, were capable of any atrocity, and
had not forgotten the stand which had been made by the “pale faces,”
in favour of the obnoxious article. The cook especially incurred
suspicion; for she had been notorious aforetime for a lavish hand in
sweetening, and was accordingly quite equal to the double turpitude of
stealing and bearing false witness. In fact the mistress had arrived
at the determination of giving both her white hussies their month’s
warning, when unexpectedly the thief was taken, as the lawyers say,
“in the manner,” and with the goods upon the person. In a word the
ungrateful black was detected, in the very act of levying what might be
called her “Black Mail.”
The horror of Emilia, on discovering that the Moor had murdered
her mistress, was scarcely greater than that of Miss Morbid! She
hardly, she said, believed her own senses. You might have knocked
her down with a feather! She did not know whether she stood on her
head or her heels. She was rooted to the spot; and her hair, if it
had been her own, would have stood upright upon her head! There
was no doubt in the case. She saw the transfer of a portion of her
own bank stock, from her escritoire into the right-hand pocket of
her protégé--she heard it chink as it dropped downwards--she was
petrified!--dumbfounded!--thunderbolted!--“annilliated!” She was as
white as a sheet, but she felt as if all the blacks in the world had
just blown in her face.
Her first impulse was to rush upon the robber, and insist on
restitution--her second was to sit down and weep,--and her third was
to talk. The opening as usual was a mere torrent of ejaculations
intermixed with vituperation--but she gradually fell into a lecture
with many heads. First, she described all that she had done for the
Blacks, and then, alas! all that the Blacks had done for her. Next she
insisted on the enormity of the crime, and, anon, she enlarged on the
nature of its punishment. It was here that she was most eloquent. She
traced the course of human justice, from detection to conviction, and
thence to execution, liberally throwing dissection into the bargain:
and then descending with Dante into the unmentionable regions, she
painted its terrors and tortures with all the circumstantial fidelity
that certain very Old Masters have displayed on the same subject.
“And now, you black wretch,” she concluded, having just given the
finishing touch to a portrait of Satan himself; “and now, you black
wretch, I insist on knowing what I was robbed for. Come, tell me what
tempted you! I’m determined to hear it! I insist, I say, on knowing
what was to be done with the wages of iniquity!”
She insisted, however, in vain. The black wretch had seriously inclined
her ear to the whole lecture, grinning and blubbering by turns. The
Judge with his black cap, the Counsel and their wigs, the twelve
men in a box, and Jack Ketch himself--whom she associated with that
pleasant West Indian personage, John Canoe--had amused, nay, tickled
her fancy; the press-room, the irons, the rope, and the Ordinary, whom
she mistook for an overseer, had raised her curiosity, and excited
her fears; but the spiritualities, without any reference to Obeah,
had simply mystified and disgusted her, and she was now in a fit of
the sulks. Her mistress, however, persisted in her question; and not
the less pertinaciously, perhaps, from expecting a new peg whereon to
hang a fresh lecture. She was determined to learn the destination of
the stolen money; and by dint of insisting, cajoling, and, above all,
threatening--for instance, with the whole Posse Comitatis--she finally
carried her point.
“Cuss him money! Here’s a fuss!” exclaimed the culprit, quite worn out
at last by the persecution. “Cuss him money! here’s a fuss! What me
’teal him for? What me do wid him? What anybody ’teal him for? Why, for
sure, _to buy sugar_!”
[Illustration: “LAWK! HOW THE BLACKS ARE FALLING.”]
[Illustration: SHORT OF BAIT.--GIVE ME A WORM.]
EPIGRAMS.
COMPOSED ON READING A DIARY LATELY PUBLISHED.
That flesh is grass is now as clear as day,
To any but the merest purblind pup;
Death cuts it down, and then, to make her hay,
My Lady B---- comes and rakes it up.
THE LAST WISH.
When I resign this world so briary,
To have across the Styx my ferrying,
Oh, may I die without a DIARY!
And be interr’d without a BURY-ing!
* * * * *
The poor dear dead have been laid out in vain,
Turn’d into cash, they are laid out again!
THE DEVIL’S ALBUM.
It will seem an odd whim
For a Spirit so grim
As the Devil to take a delight in;
But by common renown
He has come up to town,
With an Album for people to write in!
On a handsomer book
Mortal never did look;
Of a flame-colour silk is the binding!
With a border superb,
Where through flow’ret and herb,
The old serpent goes brilliantly winding!
By gilded grotesques,
And emboss’d arabesques,
The whole cover, in fact, is pervaded;
But, alas! in a taste
That betrays they were traced
At the will of a Spirit degraded!
As for paper--the best,
But extremely hot-pressed,
Courts the pen to luxuriate upon it,
And against ev’ry blank
There’s a note on the Bank,
As a bribe for a sketch or a sonnet.
Who will care to appear
In the Fiend’s Souvenir,
Is a question to mortals most vital;
But the very first leaf,
It’s the public belief,
Will be fill’d by a Lady of Title!
THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD.
I once, for a very short time indeed, had the honour of being a
schoolmaster, and was invested with the important office of “rearing
the tender thought,” and “teaching the young idea how to shoot;” of
educating in the principles of the Established Church, and bestowing
the strictest attention to morals. The case was this; my young friend
G----, a graduate of Oxford, and an ingenious and worthy man, thought
proper, some months back, to establish, or endeavour to establish,
an academy for young gentlemen, in my immediate vicinity. He had
already procured nine day-pupils to begin with, whom he himself
taught,--prudence as yet prohibiting the employment of ushers,--when
he was summoned hastily to attend upon a dying relative in Hampshire,
from whom he had some expectations. This was a dilemma to poor G----,
who had no one to leave in charge of his three classes; and he could
not bear the idea of playing truant himself so soon after commencing
business. In his extremity he applied to me as his forlorn hope, and
one forlorn enough; for it is well-known among my friends that I
have little Latin, and less Greek, and am, on every account, a worse
accountant. I urged these objections to G----, but in vain, for he
had no “friend in need,” learned or unlearned, within any reasonable
distance, and, as he said to comfort me, “in three or four days merely
the boys could not _unlearn_ much of anything.”
[Illustration: A BRANCH COACH.]
At last I gave way to his importunity. On Thursday night, he started
from the tree of knowledge by a branch coach; and at nine on Friday
morning, I found myself sitting at his desk in the novel character of
pedagogue. I am sorry to say, not one of the boys played truant, or
was confined at home with a violent illness.--There they were, nine
little mischievous wretches, goggling, tittering, pointing, winking,
grimacing, and mocking at authority, in a way enough to invoke two
Elisha bears out of Southgate Wood. To put a stop to this indecorum,
I put on my spectacles, stuck my cane upright in the desk, with the
fool’s-cap atop--but they inspired little terror; worn out at last,
I seized the cane, and rushing from my dais, well flogged--I believe
it is called flogging--the boy, a Creole, nearest me; who, though far
from the biggest, was much more daring and impertinent than the rest.
So far my random selection was judicious; but it appeared afterwards,
that I had chastised an only son, whose mother had expressly stipulated
for him an exemption from all punishment. I suspect, with the moral
prudence of fond mothers, she had informed the little imp of the
circumstance, for this Indian-Pickle fought and kicked his preceptor
as unceremoniously as he would have scuffled with Black Diana or
Agamemnon. My first move, however, had a salutary effect; the urchins
settled, or made believe to settle, to their tasks; but I soon
perceived that the genuine industry and application belonged to one,
a clever-looking boy, who, with pen and paper before him, was sitting
at the further end of a long desk, as great a contrast to the others,
as the Good, to the Bad Apprentice in Hogarth. I could see his tongue
even at work at one corner of his mouth,--a very common sign of boyish
assiduity,--and his eyes never left his task but occasionally to glance
towards his master, as if in anticipation of the approving smile,
to which he looked forward as the prize of industry. I had already
selected him inwardly for a favourite, and resolved to devote my best
abilities to his instruction, when I saw him hand the paper, with a sly
glance to his neighbour, from whom it passed rapidly down the desk,
accompanied by a running titter, and sidelong looks, that convinced
me the supposed copy was, indeed, a copy not of “Obey your superiors,”
or “Age commands respect,” but of the head of the college, and, as a
glimpse showed, a head with very ludicrous features. Being somewhat
fatigued with my last execution, I suffered the cane of justice to
sleep, and inflicted the fool’s-cap--literally the fool’s--for no clown
in pantomime, the great Grimaldi not excepted, could have made a more
laughter-stirring use of the costume. The little enormities, who only
tittered before, now shouted outright, and nothing but the enchanted
wand of bamboo could flap them into solemnity. Order was restored, for
they saw I was, like Earl Grey, resolved to “stand by my order;” and
while I was deliberating, in some perplexity, how to begin business,
the two biggest boys came forward voluntarily, and standing as much
as they could in a circle, presented themselves, and began to read as
the first Greek class. Mr. Irving may boast of his prophets as much as
he will; but in proportion to the numbers of our congregations, I had
far more reason to be proud of my gabblers in an unknown tongue. I,
of course, discovered no lapsus lingui in the performance, and after
a due course of gibberish, the first class dismissed itself, with a
brace of bows and an evident degree of self-satisfaction at being so
perfect in the present after being so imperfect in the past. I own
this first act of our solemn farce made me rather nervous against the
next, which proved to be the Latin class, and I have no doubt to an
adept would have seemed as much a Latin comedy as those performed at
the Westminster school. We got through the second course quite correct,
as before, and I found, with some satisfaction, that the third was a
dish of English Syntax, where I _was_ able to detect flaws, and the
heaps of errors that I had to arrest made me thoroughly sensible of the
bliss of ignorance in the Greek and Latin. A general lesson in English
reading ensued, through which we glided smoothly enough, till we came
to a sandbank in the shape of a Latin quotation, which I was requested
to English. It was something like this:--“Nemo mortalius omnibus hora
sapit,” which I rendered, “No mortal knows at what hour the omnibus
starts”--and with this translation the whole school was perfectly
satisfied. Nine more bows.
[Illustration: A SECOND COURSE.]
My horror now approached: I saw the little wretches lug out their
slates, and begin to cuff out the old sums, a sight that made me wish
all the slates at the roof of the house. I knew very well that when
the army of nine attacked my Bonnycastle, it would not long hold out.
Unluckily, from inexperience, I gave them all the same question to
work, and the consequence was, each brought up a different result--nor
would my practical knowledge of Practice allow me to judge of their
merits. I had no resource but, Lavater-like, to go by Physiognomy, and
accordingly selected the solution of the most mathematical-looking boy.
But Lavater betrayed me. Master White, a chowder-headed lout of a lad,
as dull as a pig of lead, and as mulishly obstinate as Muley Abdallah,
persisted that his answer was correct, and at last appealed to the
superior authority of a Tutor’s Key, that he had kept by stealth in
his desk. From this instant my importance declined, and the urchins
evidently began to question, with some justice, what right I had to
rule nine, who was not competent to the Rule of Three. By way of a
diversion, I invited my pupils to a walk; but I wish G---- had been
more circumstantial in his instructions before he left. Two of the boys
pleaded sick headaches to remain behind; and I led the rest, through
my arithmetical failure, under very slender government, by the most
unfortunate route I could have chosen,--in fact, past the very windows
of their parents, who complained afterwards, that they walked more like
bears than boys, and that if Mr. G---- had drawn lots for one at a
raffle, he could not have been more unfortunate in his new usher.
[Illustration: DRAWING LOTS.]
To avoid observation, which I did not court, I led them aside into a
meadow, and pulling out a volume of Paradise Lost, left the boys to
amuse themselves as they pleased. They pleased, accordingly, to get up
a little boxing match, à la Crib and Molineux--between Master White and
the little Creole, of which I was informed only by a final shout and
a stream of blood that trickled, or treacled, from the flat nose of
the child of colour. Luckily, as I thought, he was near home, whither
I sent him for washing and consolation, and in return for which, in
the course of a quarter of an hour, while still in the field, a black
footman, in powder blue turned up with yellow, brought me the following
note:--
“Mrs. Col. Christopher informs Mr. G----’s Usher, that as the
vulgar practice of pugilism is allowed at Spring Grove Academy,
Master Adolphus Ferdinand Christopher will in future be educated at
home; particularly as she understands Master C. was punished in the
morning, in a way that only becomes blacks and slaves.--To the new
Usher at Mr. G----’s.”
Irritated at this event and its commentary, I resolved to punish Master
White, but Master White was nowhere to be found, having expelled
himself and run away home, where he complained to his parents of the
new usher’s deficiencies, and told the whole story of the sum in
Practice, begging earnestly to be removed from a school where, as he
said, it was impossible for him to improve himself. The prayer of
the petition was heard, and on the morrow, Mr. White’s son was minus
at Spring Grove Academy. Calling in the remainder, I ordered a march
homewards, where I arrived just in time to hear the sham headaches of
the two invalids go off with an alarming explosion--for they had thus
concerted an opportunity for playing with gunpowder and prohibited
arms. Here was another discharge from the school, for no parents think
that their children look the better without eyebrows, and accordingly,
when they went home for the night, the fathers and mothers resolved to
send them to some other school, where no powder was allowed, except
upon the head of the master. I was too much hurt to resume schooling
after the boys’ bad behaviour, and so gave them a half-holiday; and
never, oh never did I so estimate the blessing of sleep, as on that
night when I closed my eyelids on all my pupils! But, alas! sleep
brought its sorrows:--I saw boys fighting, flourishing slates, and
brandishing squibs and crackers in my visions; and through all,--such
is the transparency of dreams,--I beheld the stern shadow of G----
looking unutterable reproaches.
[Illustration: “COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE.”]
The next morning, with many painful recollections, brought one of
pleasure; I remembered that it was the King’s Birthday, and in a fit
of very sincere loyalty, gave the whole school, alas! reduced by one
half, a whole holiday. Thus I got over the end of the week, and Sunday,
literally a day of rest, was spent by the urchins at their own homes.
It may seem sinful to wish for the death of a fellow-creature, but
I could not help thinking of G----’s relative along with what is
called a happy release; and he really was so kind, as we learned by
an express from G----, as to break up just after his arrival, and
that G---- consequently would return in time to resume his scholastic
duties on the Monday morning. With infinite pleasure I heard this good
bad news from Mrs. G----, who never interfered in the classical part
of the house, and was consequently all unconscious of the reduction
in the Spring Grove Establishment. I forged an excuse for immediately
leaving off school; “resigned I kissed the rod” that I resigned, and
as I departed, no master but my own, was overwhelmed by a torrent of
grateful acknowledgments of the service I had done the school, which,
as Mrs. G---- protested, could never have got on without me. How it
got on I left G---- to discover, and I am told he behaved rather like
Macduff at the loss of his “little ones”--but luckily, I had given
myself warning before his arrival, and escaped from one porch of the
Academy at that nick of time when the Archodidasculus was entering by
another, perfectly convinced that, however adapted to “live and learn,”
I should never be able to live and teach.
THE LOST HEIR.
“Oh, where, and oh where
Is my bonny laddie gone?”--OLD SONG.
One day, as I was going by
That part of Holborn christened High,
I heard a loud and sudden cry
That chill’d my very blood;
And lo! from out a dirty alley,
Where pigs and Irish wont to rally,
I saw a crazy woman sally,
Bedaub’d with grease and mud.
She turn’d her East, she turn’d her West,
Staring like Pythoness possest,
With streaming hair and heaving breast
As one stark mad with grief.
This way and that she wildly ran,
Jostling with woman and with man--
Her right hand held a frying pan,
The left a lump of beef.
At last her frenzy seem’d to reach
A point just capable of speech,
And with a tone almost a screech,
As wild as ocean birds,
Or female Ranter mov’d to preach,
She gave her “sorrow words.”
[Illustration: A LOST CHILD ITS OWN CRIER.]
[Illustration: A MONSTER OF INIQUITY.]
“Oh Lord! oh dear, my heart will break, I shall go stick stark,
staring wild!
Has ever a one seen any thing about the streets like a crying
lost-looking child?
Lawk help me, I don’t know where to look, or to run, if I only knew
which way--
A Child as is lost about London streets, and especially Seven Dials,
is a needle in a bottle of hay.
I am all in a quiver--get out of my sight, do, you wretch, you
little Kitty M’Nab!
You promised to have half an eye to him, you know you did, you dirty
deceitful young drab.
The last time as ever I see him, poor thing, was with my own blessed
Motherly eyes,
Sitting as good as gold in the gutter, a playing at making little
dirt pies.
I wonder he left the court where he was better off than all the
other young boys,
With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster-shells, and a dead kitten
by way of toys.
When his Father comes home, and he always comes home as sure as ever
the clock strikes one,
He’ll be rampant, he will, at his child being lost; and the beef and
the inguns not done!
La bless you, good folks, mind your own consarns, and don’t be
making a mob in the street;
Oh Serjeant M’Farlane! you have not come across my poor little boy,
have you, in your beat?
Do, good people, move on! don’t stand staring at me like a parcel of
stupid stuck pigs;
Saints forbid! but he’s p’r’aps been inviggled away up a court for
the sake of his clothes by the prigs;
He’d a very good jacket, for certain, for I bought it myself for a
shilling one day in Rag Fair;
And his trousers considering not very much patch’d, and red plush,
they was once his Father’s best pair.
His shirt, it’s very lucky I’d got washing in the tub, or that might
have gone with the rest;
But he’d got on a very good pinafore with only two slits and a burn
on the breast.
He’d a goodish sort of hat, if the crown was sew’d in, and not quite
so much jagg’d at the brim.
With one shoe on, and the other shoe is a boot, and not a fit, and
you’ll know by that if it’s him.
Except being so well dress’d my mind would misgive, some old beggar
woman in want of an orphan,
Had borrow’d the child to go a begging with, but I’d rather see him
laid out in his coffin!
Do, good people, move on, such a rabble of boys! I’ll break every
bone of ’em I come near,
Go home--you’re spilling the porter--go home Tommy Jones, go along
home with your beer.
This day is the sorrowfullest day of my life, ever since my name was
Betty Morgan,
Them vile Savoyards! they lost him once before all along of
following a Monkey and an Organ.
Oh my Billy--my head will turn right round--if he’s got kiddynapp’d
with them Italians,
They’ll make him a plaster parish image boy, they will, the
outlandish tatterdemalions.
Billy--where are you, Billy?--I’m as hoarse as a crow, with
screaming for ye, you young sorrow!
And sha’n’t have half a voice, no more I sha’n’t, for crying fresh
herrings to-morrow.
Oh Billy, you’re bursting my heart in two, and my life won’t be of
no more vally,
If I’m to see other folks’ darlins, and none of mine, playing like
angels in our alley.
And what shall I do but cry out my eyes, when I looks at the old
three-legged chair
As Billy used to make coach and horses of, and there a’n’t no Billy
there!
I would run all the wide world over to find him, if I only know’d
where to run,
Little Murphy, now I remember, was once lost for a month through
stealing a penny bun,--
The Lord forbid of any child of mine! I think it would kill me
raily,
To find my Bill holdin’ up his little innocent hand at the Old
Bailey.
For though I say it as oughtn’t, yet I will say, you may search for
miles and mileses
And not find one better brought up, and more pretty behaved, from
one end to t’other of St. Giles’s.
And if I called him a beauty, it’s no lie, but only as a Mother
ought to speak;
You never set eyes on a more handsomer face, only it hasn’t been
washed for a week;
As for hair, tho’ its red, its the most nicest hair when I’ve time
to just show it the comb;
I’ll owe ’em five pounds, and a blessing besides, as will only bring
him safe and sound home.
He’s blue eyes, and not to be call’d a squint, though a little cast
he’s certainly got;
And his nose is still a good un, tho’ the bridge is broke, by his
falling on a pewter pint pot;
He’s got the most elegant wide mouth in the world, and very large
teeth for his age;
And quite as fit as Mrs. Murdockson’s child to play Cupid on the
Drury Lane Stage.
And then he has got such dear winning ways--but oh I never never
shall see him no more!
O dear! to think of losing him just after nursing him back from
death’s door!
Only the very last month when the windfalls, hang ’em, was at twenty
a penny!
And the threepence he’d got by grottoing was spent in plums, and
sixty for a child is too many.
And the Cholera man came and whitewash’d us all and, drat him, made
a seize of our hog.
It’s no use to send the Crier to cry him about, he’s such a
blunderin’ drunken old dog;
The last time he was fetched to find a lost child, he was guzzling
with his bell at the Crown,
And went and cried a boy instead of a girl, for a distracted Mother
and Father about Town.
Billy--where are you, Billy, I say? come Billy, come home, to your
best of Mothers!
I’m scared when I think of them Cabroleys, they drive so, they’d run
over their own Sisters and Brothers.
Or may be he’s stole by some chimbly sweeping wretch, to stick fast
in narrow flues and what not,
And be poked up behind with a picked pointed pole, when the soot has
ketch’d, and the chimbly’s red hot.
Oh I’d give the whole wide world, if the world was mine, to clap my
two longin’ eyes on his face.
For he’s my darlin of darlins, and if he don’t soon come back,
you’ll see me drop stone dead on the place.
I only wish I’d got him safe in these two Motherly arms, and
wouldn’t I hug him and kiss him!
Lauk! I never knew what a precious he was--but a child don’t not
feel like a child till you miss him.
Why there he is! Punch and Judy hunting, the young wretch, it’s that
Billy as sartin as sin!
But let me get him home, with a good grip of his hair, and I’m blest
if he shall have a whole bone in his skin!”
[Illustration: POTTED SHRIMPS.]
SKETCHES ON THE ROAD.
THE OBSERVER.
“It’s very strange,” said the coachman,--looking at me over his left
shoulder--“I never see it afore--but I’ve made three observations
through life.”
Bat--so called for shortness, though in feet and inches he was rather
an Upper Benjamin--was anything but what Othello denominates “a puny
whipster.” He had brandished the whip for full thirty years, at an
average of as many miles a day; the product of which, calculated
according to Cocker, appears in a respectable sum total of six figures
deep.
Now an experience picked up in a progress of some three hundred
thousand miles is not to be slighted; so I leaned with my best ear over
the coachman’s shoulder, in order to catch every syllable.
“I have set on the box, man and boy,” said Bat, looking straight ahead
between his leaders, “a matter of full thirty year, and what’s more,
never missing a day--barring the Friday I was married; and one of my
remarks is--I never see a sailor in top-boots.”
“Now I think of it, Bat,” said I, a little disconcerted at my windfall
from the tree of knowledge, “I have had some experience in travelling
myself, and certainly do not recollect such a phenomenon.”
“I’ll take my oath you haven’t,” said Bat, giving the near leader a
little switch of self-satisfaction. “I once driv the Phenomenon myself.
There’s no such thing in nature. And I’ll tell you another remarkable
remark I’ve made through life--I never yet see a Jew Pedlar with a
Newfoundland dog.”
“As for that, Bat,” said I, perhaps willing to retort upon him a
little of my own disappointment, “though I cannot call such a sight
to mind--I will not undertake to say I have never met with such an
association.”
“If you have, you’re a lucky man,” said Bat, somewhat sharply, and with
a smart cut on the wheeler; “I belong to an association too, and we’ve
none of us seen it. There’s a hundred members, and I’ve enquired of
every man of ’em, for it’s my remark. But some people see a deal more
than their fellows. Mayhap you’ve seen the other thing I’ve observed
through life, and that’s this--I’ve never observed a black man drive a
long stage.”
“Never, Bat,” said I, desiring to conciliate him, “never in the whole
course of my stage practice; and for many years of my life I was a
daily visitant to Richmond.”
“And no one else has ever seen it,” said Bat. “That’s a correct remark,
anyhow. As for Richmond, he never drove a team in his life, for I asked
him the question myself, just after his fight with Shelton.”
THE CONTRAST.
“I hope the Leviathan is outward-bound,” I ejaculated, half aloud, as
I beheld the Kit-Kat portion of the Man-Mountain occupying the whole
frame of the coach-window. But Hope deceived as usual; and in he came.
I ought rather to have said he essayed to come in,--for it was only
after repeated experiments upon material substances, that he contrived
to enter the vehicle edgeways,--if such blunt bodies may be said to
have an edge at all. As I contemplated his bulk, I could not help
thinking of the mighty Lambert, and was ready to exclaim with Gratiano,
“A Daniel! a second Daniel!”
The Brobdignaggian had barely subsided in his seat, when the opposite
door opened, and in stepped a Liliputian! The conjunction was
whimsical. Yonder, thought I, is the Irish Giant, and the other is the
dwarf, Count Borulawski. This coach is their travelling caravan--and
as for myself, I am no doubt the showman.
I was amusing myself with this and kindred fancies, when a hand
suddenly held up something, at the coach window. “It’s my luggage,”
said the Giant, with a small penny-trumpet of a pipe, and taking
possession of a mere golden pippin of a bundle.
“The three large trunks and the biggest carpet-bag are _my_ property,”
said the Dwarf, with a voice as unexpectedly stentorian.
[Illustration: THE GREAT MAIL CONTRACTOR.]
“Warm day, Sir,” squeaked the Giant, by way of small talk.
“Prodigious preponderance of caloric in the atmosphere,” thundered the
Dwarf, by way of big talk.
“Have you paid your fare, gentlemen?” asked the coachman, looking in at
the door.
“I have paid half of mine,” said the Stupendous, “and it’s booked. My
name is Lightfoot.”
“Mine is Heavyside,” said the Pigmy, “and I have disbursed the sum
total.”
The door slammed--the whip cracked--sixteen horse-shoes made a clatter,
and away bowled the New Safety; but had barely rolled two hundred
yards, when it gave an alarming bound over some loose paving stones,
followed by a very critical swing. The Dwarf, in a tone louder than
ever, gave vent to a prodigious oath; the Giant said, “Dear me!”
There will something come of this, said I to myself; so, feigning
I sleep, I leaned back in a corner, with a wary ear to their
conversation. The Gog had been that morning to the Exhibition of
Fleas, in Regent Street, and thought them “prodigious!” The Runtling
had visited the Great Whale at Charing-Cross, and “thought little of
it.” The Goliath spoke with wonder of the “vast extent of view from
the top of the Monument.” The David was “disappointed by the prospect
from Plinlimmon.” The Hurlothrumbo was “amazed by the grandeur of St.
Paul’s.” The Tom Thumb spoke slightingly of St. Peter’s at Rome. In
theatricals their taste held the same mathematical proportion. Gog
“must say he liked the Minors best.” The “Wee Thing” declared for the
Majors. The Man-Mountain’s favourite was Miss _Foote_ = twelve inches.
The Manikin preferred Miss _Cubitt_ = eighteen.
The conversation, and the contrast, flourished in full flower through
several stages, till we stopped to dine at the Salisbury Arms, and
then--
The Folio took a chair at the ordinary--
The Duodecimo required “a room to himself.”
The Puppet bespoke a leg of mutton--
The Colossus ordered a mutton-chop.
The Imp rang the bell for “the loaf”--
The Monster called for a roll.
A magnum of port was decanted for the Minimum.
A short pint of sherry was set before the Maximum.
We heard the Mite bellowing by himself, “The Sea! the Sea! the open
Sea!”
The Mammoth hummed “The Streamlet.”
The Tiny, we learned, was bound to Plimpton Magna.
The Huge, we found, was going to Plimpton Parva.
A hundred other circumstances have escaped from Memory through the
holes that time has made in her sieve: but I remember distinctly, as we
passed the bar in our passage outwards, that while
The Pigmy bussed the landlady--a buxom widow, fat, fair, and forty--
The Giant kissed her daughter--a child ten years old, and remarkably
small for her age.
[Illustration: THE GREAT DESERT--HALT OF THE CARAVAN.]
JOHN DAY.
A PATHETIC BALLAD.
“A Day after the Fair.”--OLD PROVERB.
John Day he was the biggest man
Of all the coachman-kind,
With back too broad to be conceived
By any narrow mind.
The very horses knew his weight
When he was in the rear,
And wished his box a Christmas-box
To come but once a year.
Alas! against the shafts of love
What armour can avail?
Soon Cupid sent an arrow through
His scarlet coat of mail.
The bar-maid of the Crown he loved,
From whom he never ranged,
For tho’ he changed his horses there,
His love he never changed.
He thought her fairest of all fares,
So fondly love prefers;
And often, among twelve outsides,
Deemed no outside like hers.
One day as she was sitting down
Beside the porter-pump--
He came, and knelt with all his fat,
And made an offer plump.
Said she, my taste will never learn
To like so huge a man,
So I must beg you will come here
As little as you can.
But still be stoutly urged his suit,
With vows, and sighs, and tears,
Yet could not pierce her heart, altho’
He drove the Dart for years.
In vain he wooed, in vain he sued;
The maid was cold and proud,
And sent him off to Coventry,
While on his way to Stroud.
He fretted all the way to Stroud,
And thence all back to town;
The course of love was never smooth,
So his went up and down.
At last her coldness made him pine
To merely bones and skin;
But still he loved like one resolved
To love through thick and thin.
Oh, Mary, view my wasted back,
And see my dwindled calf;
Tho’ I have never had a wife,
I’ve lost my better half.
Alas, in vain he still assailed,
Her heart withstood the dint;
Though he had carried sixteen stone
He could not move a flint.
Worn out, at last he made a vow
To break his being’s link;
For he was so reduced in size
At nothing he could shrink.
Now some will talk in water’s praise
And waste a deal of breath,
But John, tho’ he drank nothing else--
He drank himself to death.
The cruel maid that caused his love,
Found out the fatal close,
For, looking in the butt, she saw
The butt-end of his woes.
Some say his spirit haunts the Crown,
But that is only talk--
For after riding all his life,
His ghost objects to walk.
[Illustration: THE BOX SEAT.]
[Illustration: THE SUBLIME AND THE RIDICULOUS.]
THE PARISH REVOLUTION.
“From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.”
_Alarming news from the country--awful insurrection at Stoke Pogis--The
Military called out--Flight of the Mayor._
We are concerned to state, that accounts were received in town at a
late hour last night, of an alarming state of things at Stoke Pogis.
Nothing private is yet made public; but report speaks of very serious
occurrences. The number of killed is not known, as no despatches have
been received.
_Further Particulars._
Nothing is known yet; papers have been received down to the 4th of
November, but they are not up to anything.
_Further further Particulars_ (_Private Letter_).
It is scarcely possible for you, my dear Charles, to conceive the
difficulties and anarchical manifestations of turbulence, which
threaten and disturb your old birth-place, poor Stoke Pogis. To the
reflecting mind, the circumstances which hourly transpire afford ample
food for speculation and moral reasoning. To see the constituted
authorities of a place, however mistaken or misguided by erring
benevolence, plunging into a fearful struggle with an irritated,
infuriated, and I may say, armed populace, is a sight which opens a
field for terrified conjecture. I look around me with doubt, agitation,
and dismay; because, whilst I venerate those to whom the sway of a
part of a state may be said to be intrusted, I cannot but yield to
the conviction that the abuse of power must be felt to be an overstep
of authority in the best intentioned of the Magistracy. This even you
will allow. Being on the spot, my dear Charles, an eye-witness of
these fearful scenes, I feel how impossible it is for me to give you
any idea of the prospects which surround me. To say that I think all
will end well, is to trespass beyond the confines of hope; but whilst
I admit that there is strong ground for apprehending the worst, I
cannot shut my eyes to the conviction, that if firm measures, tempered
with concession, be resorted to, it is far from being out of the pale
of probability that serenity may be re-established. In hazarding this
conclusion, however, you must not consider me as at all forgetting
the responsibilities which attach to a decidedly formed opinion. Oh,
Charles! you who are in the quiet of London, can little dream of the
conflicting elements which form the storm of this devoted village. I
fear you will be wearied with all these details; but I thought at this
distance, at which you are from me, you would wish me to run the risk
of wearying you rather than omit any of the interesting circumstances.
Let Edward read this; his heart, which I know beats for the Parish,
will bleed for us.
I am, &c.
H. J. P.
P.S.--Nothing further has yet occurred, but you shall hear from me
again to-morrow.
_Another Account._
Symptoms of disunion have for some time past prevailed between the
authorities of Stoke Pogis, and a part of the inhabitants. The primum
mobile or first mobbing, originated in an order of the Mayor’s, that
all tavern doors should shut at eleven. Many complied, and shut,
but the door of the Rampant Lion openly resisted the order. A more
recent notice has produced a new and more dangerous irritation on our
too combustible population. A proclamation against Guy Fauxes and
Fireworks was understood to be in preparation, by command of the chief
Magistrate. If his Worship had listened to the earnest and prudential
advice of the rest of the bench, the obnoxious placard would not have
been issued till the 6th, but he had it posted up on the 4th, and by
his precipitation has plunged Stoke Pogis into a convulsion, that
nothing but Time’s soothing syrup can alleviate.
_From another quarter._
We are all here in the greatest alarm! a general rising of the
inhabitants took place this morning, and they have continued in a
disturbed state ever since. Everybody is in a bustle and indicating
some popular movement. Seditious cries are heard! the bell-man is going
his rounds, and on repeating “God save the King!” is saluted with
“Hang the crier!” Organised bands of boys are going about collecting
sticks, &c., whether for barricades or bonfires is not known; many of
them singing the famous Gunpowder Hymn, “Pray remember,” &c. These
are features that remind us of the most inflammable times. Several
strangers of suspicious gentility arrived here last night, and
privately engaged a barn; they are now busily distributing hand-bills
amongst the crowd: surely some horrible tragedy is in preparation!
_A later account._
The alarm increases. Several families have taken flight by the waggon,
and the office of Mr. Stewart, the overseer, is besieged by persons
desirous of being passed to their own parish. He seems embarrassed
and irresolute, and returns evasive answers. The worst fears are
entertaining.
_Fresh Intelligence._
The cause of the overseer’s hesitation has transpired. The pass-cart
and horse have been lent to a tradesman, for a day’s pleasure, and
are not returned. Nothing can exceed the indignation of the paupers!
they are all pouring towards the poor-house headed by Timothy Gubbins,
a desperate drunken character, but the idol of the Workhouse. The
constables are retiring before this formidable body. The following
notice is said to be posted up at the Town-hall: “Stick No Bills.”
_Eleven o’clock._
The mob have proceeded to outrage--the poor poor-house has not a
whole pane of glass in its whole frame! The Magistrates, with Mr.
Higginbottom at their head, have agreed to call out the military; and
he has sent word that he will come as soon as he has put on his uniform.
A terrific column of little boys has just run down the High-street,
it is said to see a fight at the Green Dragon. There is an immense
crowd in the Market-Place. Some of the leading shopkeepers have had a
conference with the Mayor, and the people are now being informed by a
placard of the result. Gracious Heaven! how opposite is it to the hopes
of all moderate men--“The Mare is Hobstinate--He is at the Roes and
Crown--But refuses to treat.”
_Twelve o’clock._
The military has arrived, and is placed under his own command. He has
marched himself in a body to the market-place, and is now drawn up one
deep in front of the Pound. The mob are in possession of the walls, and
have chalked upon them the following proclamation; “Stokian Pogians be
firm! stick up for bonfires! stand to your squibs!”
_Quarter past Twelve._
Mr. Wigsby, the Master of the Free School, has declared on the side of
Liberty, and has obtained an audience of the Mayor. He is to return in
fifteen minutes for his Worship’s decision.
_Half past Twelve._
During the interval, the Mayor has sworn in two special constables, and
will concede nothing. When the excitement of the mob was represented to
him by Mr. Wigsby, he pointed to a truncheon on a table and answered,
“They may do their worsest.” The exasperation is awful--the most
frightful cries are uttered, “Huzza for Guys! Gubbins for ever! and
no Higginbottom!” The military has been ordered to clear the streets,
but his lock is not flinty enough, and his gun refuses to fire on the
people.
* * * * *
The constables have just obtained a slight advantage; they made a
charge altogether, and almost upset a Guy. On the left-hand side of the
way they have been less successful; Mr. Huggins, the beadle, attempted
to take possession of an important street post, but was repulsed by a
boy with a cracker. At the same moment Mr. Blogg, the churchwarden, was
defeated in a desperate attempt to force a _passage_ up a _court_.
_One o’clock._
The military always dines at one, and has retreated to the Pig and
Puncheon. There is a report that the head constable is taken with all
his staff.
_Two o’clock._
A flying watchman has just informed us that the police are victorious
on all points, and the same has been confirmed by a retreating
constable. He states that the Pound is full--Gubbins in the stocks, and
Dobbs in the cage. That the whole mob would have been routed, but for a
very corpulent man, who rallied them on running away.
[Illustration: GOOD ENTERTAINMENT FOR MAN AND HORSE.]
_Half-past Three._
The check sustained by the mob proves to have been a reverse, the
constables are the sufferers. The cage is chopped to faggots, we
haven’t a pound, and the stocks are rapidly falling. Mr. Wigsby has
gone again to the Mayor with overtures, the people demand the release
of Dobbs and Gubbins, and the demolition of the stocks, the pound, and
the cage. As these are already destroyed, and Gubbins and Dobbs are at
large, it is confidently hoped by all moderate men, that his Worship
will accede to the terms.
Four o’clock.
The Mayor has rejected the terms. It is confidently affirmed that after
this decision, he secretly ordered a post-chaise, and has set off with
a pair of post horses as fast as they can gallop. A meeting of the
principal tradesmen has taken place, and the butcher, the baker, the
grocer, the cheesemonger, and the publican, have agreed to compose a
Provisional Government. In the mean time the mob are loud in their
joy,--they are letting off squibs and crackers, and rockets, and devils
in all directions, and quiet is completely restored.
We subjoin two documents,--one containing the articles drawn up by the
Provisional Government and Mr. Wigsby; the other, the genuine narrative
of a spectator.
DEAR CHARLES,
The events of the last few hours, since I closed my minute narration,
are pregnant with fate; and no words that I can utter on paper will
give you an idea of their interest. Up to the hour at which I closed
my sheet, anxiety regulated the movement of every watchful bosom; but
since then, the approaches to tranquillity have met with barriers
and interruptions. To the meditative mind, these popular paroxysms
have their desolating deductions. Oh, my Charles, I myself am almost
sunk into an Agitator--so much do we take the colour from the dye in
which our reasoning faculties are steeped. I stop the press--yes,
Charles--I stop the press of circumstances to say, that a dawn of the
Pacific is gleaming over the Atlantic of our disturbances; and I am
enabled, by the kindness of Constable Adams, to send you a Copy of the
Preliminaries, which are pretty well agreed upon, and only wait to be
ratified. I close my letter in haste. That peace may descend on the
Olive Tree of Stoke Pogis, is the earnest prayer of, &c.
H. J. P.
P.S.--Show the articles to Edward. He will, with his benevolence, at
once see that they are indeed precious articles for Stoke Pogis.
CONDITIONS.
1. That for the future, widows in Stoke Pogis shall be allowed their
thirds, and Novembers their fifths.
2. That the property of Guys shall be held inviolable, and their
persons respected.
3. That no arson be allowed, but all bonfires shall be burnt by the
common hangman.
4. That every rocket shall be allowed an hour to leave the place.
5. That the freedom of Stoke Pogis be presented to Madame Hengler, in a
cartridge box.
6. That the military shall not be called out, uncalled for.
7. That the parish beadle, for the time being, be authorised to stand
no nonsense.
8. That his Majesty’s mail be permitted to pass on the night in
question.
9. That all animosities be buried in oblivion, at the Parish expense.
10. That the ashes of old bonfires be never raked up.
(_Signed_) { WAGSTAFF, High Constable.
{ WIGSBY.
[Illustration: AN ANTI-CLIMAX.]
_Narrowtiv of a High Whitness who seed everything proceed out of a
Back-winder up Fore Pears to Mrs. Humphris._
O Mrs. Humphris! Littel did I Dram, at my Tim of Life, to see Wat is
before me. The hole Parrish is throne into a pannikin! The Revelations
has reeched Stock Poggis--and the people is riz agin the King’s Rain,
and all the Pours that be. All this Blessed Mourning Mrs. Griggs and
Me as bean siting abscondingly at the tiptop of the Hows crying for
lowness. We have lockd our too selves in the back Attical Rome, and
nothing can come up to our Hanksiety. Some say it is like the Frentch
Plot--sum say sum thing moor arter the Dutch Patten is on the car-pit,
and if so we shall Be flored like Brussels. Well, I never did like them
Brown holland brum gals!
Our Winder overlooks all the High Street, xcept jest ware Mister
Higgins jutts out Behind. What a prospectus!--All riotism and
hubbub.--There is a lowd speechifying round the Gabble end of the Hows.
The Mare is arranging the Populous from one of his own long winders.
Poor man!--for all his fine goold Cheer, who wood Sit in his shews!
I hobserve Mr. Tuder’s bauld Hed uncommon hactiv in the Mobb, and so
is Mister Waggstaff the Constable, considdering his rhummatiz has only
left one Harm disaffected to shew his loyalness with. He and his men
air staving the mobb’s heds to make them Suppurate. They are trying to
Custardise the Ringleders. But as yet hav Captivated Noboddy. There
is no end to accidence. Three insensible boddis are Carrion over the
way on Three Cheers, but weather Naybers or Gyes is dubbious. Master
Gollop, too, is jest gone By on one of his Ant’s Shuters, with a Bunch
of exploded Squibs gone off in his Trowsirs. It makes Mrs. G. and Me
tremble like Axle trees, for our Hone nevvies. Wile we ware at the open
Winder they sliped out. With sich Broils in the Street who nose what
Scraps they may git into.
Mister J. is gon off with his muskitry to militate agin the mobb; and
I fear without anny Sand Witches in his Cartrich Box. Mrs. Griggs is
in the Sam state of Singularity as meself. Onely think, Mrs. H., of
two Loan Wimin looken Down on such a Heifervescence, and as Hignorant
as the unbiggotted Babe of the state of our Husbandry! to had to our
Convexity, the Botcher has not Bean. No moor as the Backer, and We
shold here Nothing if Mister Higgins handn’t hollowed up Fore Storys.
What news he brakes! That wicked Wigsby as reffused to Reed the Riot
Ax, and the Town Clark is no Schollard! Isn’t that a bad Herring!
[Illustration: BREAKING THE NEWS.]
O Mrs. Humphris! It is umpossible to throe one’s hies from one End
of Stock Poggis to the other, without grate Pane. Nothing is seed
but Wivs asking for Huzbinds--nothing is heard but childerin looking
for Farthers. Mr. Hatband the Undertacker as jist bean squibed and
obligated for safeness to inter his own Hows. Mr. Higgins blames the
unflexable Stubbleness of the Mare and says a littel timely Concussion
wood have been of Preventive Servis. Haven nose! For my Part I don’t
believe all the Concussion on Hearth wood hav prevented. the Regolater
bein scarified by a Squib and runnin agin the Rockit--or that it could
unshatter Pore Master Gollop, or Squentch Wider Welsh’s rix of Haze
witch is now Flamming and smocking in two volumes. The ingins as been,
but could not Play for want of Pips witch is too often the Case with
Parrish inginuity. Wile affares are in this friteful Posture, thank
Haven I have one grate comfit. Mr. J. is cum back on his legs from
Twelve to won tired in the extreams with being a Standing Army, and his
Uniformity spatterdashed all over. He says his hone saving was onely
thro leaving His retrenchments.
[Illustration: THE EAGLE ASSURANCE.]
Pore Mr. Griggs has cum In atter his Wif in a state of grate
exaggeration. He says the Boys hav maid a Bone Fire of his garden fence
and Pales upon Pales can’t put it out. Severil Shells of a bomastic
nater as been picked up in his Back Yard and the old Cro’s nest as bean
Perpetrated rite thro by a Rockit. We hay sent out the def Shopmun to
here wait he can and he says their is so Manny Crackers going he dont
no witch report to Belive, but the Fishmongerers has Cotchd and with
all his Stock compleatly Guttid. The Brazers next Dore is lickwise
in Hashes,--but it is hopped he as assurance enuf to cover him All
over.--They say nothing can save the Dwellins adjourning. O Mrs. H.
how greatful ought J and I to bee that our hone Premiss and propperty
is next to nothing! The effex of the lit on Bildings is marvulous. The
Turrit of St. Magnum Bonum is quit clear and you can tell wat Time it
is by the Clock verry planely only it stands!
The noise is enuf to Drive won deleterious! Too Specious Conestabbles
is persewing littel Tidmash down the Hi Street, and sho grate
fermness, but I trembel for the Pelisse. Peple drops in with New News
every Momentum. Sum say All is Lost--and the Town Criar is missin.
Mrs. Griggs is quite retched at herein five littel Boys is throwd
off a spirituous Cob among the Catherend Weals. But I hope it wants
cobbobboration. Another Yuth its sed has had his hies Blasted by sum
blowd Gun Powder. You Mrs. H. are Patrimonial, and may supose how these
flying rummers Upsetts a Mothers Speerits.
O Mrs. Humphris how I envy you that is not tossing on the ragging
bellows of these Flatulent Times, but living under a Mild Dispotic
Govininent in such Sequestrated spots as Lonnon and Padington. May
you never go thro such Transubstantiation as I hav bean riting in!
Things that stood for Sentries as bean removed in a Minuet--and the
verry effigis of wat was venerablest is now burning in Bone Fires.
The Worshipfull chaer is emty. The Mare as gon off clandestiny with a
pare of Hossis, and without his diner. They say he complanes that his
Corperation did not stik to him as it shold have dun But went over
to the other Side. Pore Sole--in sich a case I dont wunder he lost
his Stommich. Yisterday he was at the summut of Pour. Them that ours
ago ware enjoying parrish officiousness as been turnd out of there
Dignittis! Mr. Barber says in futer all the Perukial Authoritis will be
Wigs.
Pray let me no wat his Magisty and the Prim Ministir think of Stock
Poggis’s constitution, and believe me conclusively my deer Mrs.
Humphris most frendly and trully
BRIDGET JONES.
[Illustration: TUMULTUM IN PARVO.]
THE FURLOUGH.
AN IRISH ANECDOTE.
“Time was called.”--BOXIANA.
In the autumn of 1825, some private affairs called me into the sister
kingdom; and as I did not travel, like Polyphemus, with my eye out,
I gathered a few samples of Irish character, amongst which was the
following incident.
I was standing one morning at the window of “mine Inn,” when my
attention was attracted by a scene that took place beneath. The
Belfast coach was standing at the door, and on the roof, in front, sat
a solitary outside passenger, a fine young fellow in the uniform of
the Connaught Rangers. Below, by the front wheel, stood an old woman,
seemingly his mother, a young man, and a younger woman, sister or
sweetheart; and they were all earnestly entreating the young soldier to
descend from his seat on the coach.
“Come down wid ye, Thady,”--the speaker was the old woman--“come down
now to your ould mother. Sure it’s flog ye they will, and strip the
flesh off the bones I give ye. Come down, Thady, darlin!”
“It’s honour, mother,” was the short reply of the soldier; and with
clenched hands and set teeth he took a stiffer posture on the coach.
“Thady, come down--come down, ye fool of the world--come along down wid
ye!” The tone of the present appeal was more impatient and peremptory
than the last; and the answer was more promptly and sternly pronounced:
“It’s honour, brother!” and the body of the speaker rose more rigidly
erect than ever on the roof.
“Oh Thady, come down; sure it’s me, your own Kathleen, that bids ye.
Come down, or ye’ll break the heart of me, Thady, jewel; come down
then!” The poor girl wrung her hands as she said it, and cast a look
upward, that had a visible effect on the muscles of the soldier’s
countenance. There was more tenderness in his tone, but it conveyed the
same resolution as before.
“It’s honour, honour bright, Kathleen!” and as if to defend himself
from another glance, he fixed his look steadfastly in front, while the
renewed entreaties burst from all the three in chorus, with the same
answer.
“Come down, Thady, honey!--Thady, ye fool, come down!--Oh Thady, come
down to me!”
“It’s honour, mother!--It’s honour, brother!--Honour bright, my own
Kathleen!”
Although the poor fellow was a private, this appeal was so public, that
I did not hesitate to go down and enquire into the particulars of the
distress. It appeared that he had been home, on Furlough, to visit his
family,--and having exceeded as he thought the term of his leave, he
was going to rejoin his regiment, and to undergo the penalty of his
neglect. I asked him when the Furlough expired.
“The First of March, your honour--bad luck to it of all the black days
in the world,--and here it is come sudden on me like a shot!”
“The first of March!--why, my good fellow, you have a day to spare
then,--the first of March will not be here till to-morrow. It is Leap
Year, and February has twenty-nine days.”
The soldier was thunderstruck.--“Twenty-nine days, is it--You’re sartin
of that same!--Oh, Mother, Mother!--the Divil fly away wid yere ould
Almanack--a base cratur of a book, to be deceaven one, afther living so
long in the family of us!”
His first impulse was to cut a caper on the roof of the coach, and
throw up his cap, with a loud Hurrah!--His second was to throw himself
into the arms of his Kathleen, and the third, was to wring my hand off
in acknowledgment.
“It’s a happy man I am, your Honour, for my word’s saved, and all by
your Honour’s manes--Long life to your Honour for the same!--May ye
live a long hundred--and lape-years every one of them!”
[Illustration: SINGLE BLESSEDNESS.]
NUMBER ONE.
VERSIFIED FROM THE PROSE OF A YOUNG LADY.
It’s very hard!--and so it is,
To live in such a row,
And witness this that every Miss
But me, has got a Beau.
For Love goes calling up and down,
But here he seems to shun;
I’m sure he has been asked enough
To call at Number One!
I’m sick of all the double knocks
That come to Number Four!
At Number Three, I often see
A Lover at the door:
And one in blue, at Number Two,
Calls daily like a dun,--
It’s very hard they come so near
And not to Number One!
Miss Bell I hear has got a dear
Exactly to her mind,
By sitting at the window pane
Without a bit of blind;
But I go in the balcony,
Which she has never done,
Yet arts that thrive at Number Five
Don’t take at Number One!
’Tis hard with plenty in the street,
And plenty passing by,--
There’s nice young men at Number Ten,
But only rather shy;
And Mrs. Smith across the way
Has got a grown-up son,
But la! he hardly seems to know
There is a Number One!
There’s Mr. Wick at Number Nine,
But he’s intent on pelf,
And though he’s pious, will not love
His neighbour as himself.
At Number Seven there was a sale--
The goods had quite a run!
And here I’ve got my single lot
On hand at Number One!
My mother often sits at work
And talks of props and stays,
And what a comfort I shall be
In her declining days.
The very maids about the house
Have set me down a nun;
The Sweethearts all belong to them
That call at Number One!
Once only when the flue took fire,
One Friday afternoon,
Young Mr. Long came kindly in
And told me not to swoon:
Why can’t he come again without
The Phœnix and the Sun!
We cannot always have a flue
On fire at Number One!
I am not old! I am not plain!
Nor awkward in my gait--
I am not crooked, like the bride
That went from Number Eight:
I’m sure white satin made her look
As brown as any bun--
But even beauty has no chance,
I think, at Number One!
At Number Six they say Miss Rose
Has slain a score of hearts,
And Cupid, for her sake, has been
Quite prodigal of darts.
The Imp they show with bended bow,
I wish he had a gun!
But if he had, he’d never deign
To shoot with Number One.
It’s very hard, and so it is
To live in such a row!
And here a ballad singer comes
To aggravate my woe.
Oh take away your foolish song
And tones enough to stun--
There is “Nae luck about the house,”
I know, at Number One!
A DOUBLE KNOCK.
THE DROWNING DUCKS.
Amongst the sights that Mrs. Bond
Enjoyed, yet grieved at more than others--
Were little ducklings in the pond,
Swimming about beside their mothers--
Small things like living water lilies,
But yellow as the daffo-_dillies_.
“It’s very hard,” she used to moan,
“That other people have their ducklings
To grace their waters--mine alone
Have never any pretty chucklings.”
For why!--each little yellow navy
Went down--all downy--to old Davy!
She had a lake--a pond I mean--
Its wave was rather thick than pearly--
She had two ducks, their napes were green--
She had a drake, his tail was curly,--
Yet spite of drake, and ducks, and pond,
No little ducks had Mrs. Bond!
The birds were both the best of mothers--
The nests had eggs--the eggs had luck--
The infant D.’s came forth like others--
But there, alas! the matter stuck!
They might as well have all died addle,
As die when they began to paddle!
For when, as native instinct taught her,
The mother set her brood afloat,
They sank ere long right under water,
Like any overloaded boat;
They were web-footed too to see,
As ducks and spiders ought to be!
No peccant humour in a gander
Brought havoc on her little folks,--
No poaching cook--a frying pander
To appetite,--destroyed their yolks,--
Beneath her very eyes, Od’ rot ’em!
They went like plummets to the bottom.
The thing was strange--a contradiction
It seemed of nature and her works!
For little ducks, beyond conviction,
Should float without the help of corks:
Great Johnson it bewildered him!
To hear of ducks that could not swim.
Poor Mrs. Bond! what could she do
But change the breed--and she tried divers,
Which dived as all seemed born to do;
No little ones were e’er survivors--
Like those that copy gems, I’m thinking,
They all were given to die-sinking!
In vain their downy coats were shorn:
They floundered still,--Batch after batch went!
The little fools seemed only born
And hatched for nothing but a hatchment!
Whene’er they launched--oh sight of wonder!
Like fires the water “got them under!”
No woman ever gave their lucks
A better chance than Mrs. Bond did;
At last quite out of heart and ducks,
She gave her pond up and desponded;
For Death among the water lilies,
Cried “_Duc_ ad me,” to all her dillies.
But though resolved to breed no more,
She brooded often on this riddle--
Alas! twas darker than before!
At last, about the summer’s middle,
What Johnson, Mrs. Bond, or none did,
To clear the matter up the sun did!
The thirsty Sirius, dog-like, drank
So deep his furious tongue to cool,
The shallow waters sank and sank,
And lo, from out the wasted pool,
Too hot to hold them any longer,
There crawled some eels as big as conger!
I wish all folks would look a bit,
In such a case below the surface;
But when the eels were caught and split
By Mrs. Bond, just think of _her_ face,
In each inside at once to spy
A ducking turned to giblet pie!
The sight at once explained the case.
Making the Dame look rather silly,
The tenants of that _Eely Place_
Had found the way to _Pick a dilly_,
And so by under-water suction,
Had wrought the little ducks’ abduction.
[Illustration: A POACHER.]
[Illustration: TOO COLD TO BEAR.]
AN ASSENT TO THE SUMMUT OF MOUNT BLANK.
It was on the 1st of Augst,--I remember by my wags cumming dew, and
I wanted to be riz,--that Me and master maid our minds up to the
Mounting. I find Master as oppend an acount with the Keep Sack--but as
that is a cut abov, and rit in by only Lords and Laddies, I am reduced
to a Peer in the pagis of the Comick Anual--Mr H giving leaves.
Wile we waited at Sham Money, our minds sevral tims misgiv, but
considdring only twelve Gentelmen and never a footmun had bin up,
we determind to make ourselves particler, and so highered gides to
sho us up. For a long tim the whether was dout full weather--first
it snew--then thew--and then friz--and that was most agreeabil for a
tempting. The first thing I did was to change my blew and wite livry,
as I guest we shood hav enuf of blew and wite on the mounting--but put
on a dred nort for fear of every thing--takin care to hav my pockets
well cramd with sand witches, and, as proved arterwards, they broke
my falls very much when I slipd on my bred and ams. The land Lord was
so kind as lend me His green gaws tap room blind for my eyes, and I
recumend no boddy to go up any Snowhill without green vales--for the
hice dazls like winkin. Sum of the gides wanted me to ware a sort of
crimpt skaits, but thoght my feet would be the stifer for a cramp
on--and declind binding any think xcept my list garters round my Shews.
I did all this by advize of John Maly Cuthay the Chief Gide, who had
bin 8 tims up to every think. Thus a tired we sit out, on our feat,
like Capting Paris, with our Nor poles in our hands,--Master in verry
good sperrits, and has for me I was quit ellivatted to think what a
figger the Summut of Mount Blank wood cut down the airys of Portland
Plaice.
Arter sliping and slidding for ours, we cum to the first principle
Glazier. To give a correct noshun, let any won suppose a man in
fustions with a fraim and glass and puttey and a dimond pensel, and its
quit the revers of that. It’s the sam with the Mare of Glass. If you
dont think of a mare or any think maid of glass you have it xactly. We
was three ours gitting over the Glazier, and then come to the Grand
Mullets, ware oar beds was bespoak--that is, nothing but clean sheats
of sno,--and never a warmin pan. To protect our heds we struck our
poles agin the rock, with a cloath over them, but it looked like a
verry little tent to so much mounting. There we was,--all Sno with us
Sollitory figgers atop. Nothink can give the sublime idear of it but a
twelf Cake.
The Gides pinted out from hear the Pick de Middy, but I was too cold to
understand Frentch--and we see a real Shammy leeping, as Master sed,
from scrag to scrag, and from pint to pint, for vittles and drink--but
to me it looked like jumpin a bout to warm him self. His springs in the
middel of Winter I realy beleave as uncredible. Nothink else was muving
xcept Havelaunches, witch is stupendus Sno balls in high situations,
as leaves their plaices without warnin, and makes a deal of mischief in
howses and famlies. We shot of our pistle, but has it maid little or no
noise, didnt ear the remarkbly fine ekko.
We dind at the Grand Mullets on cold foul and a shivver of am, with
a little O de Colon, agen stomical pans. Wat was moor cumfortble we
found haf a bottel of brandey, left behind by sum one before, and by
way of return we left behind a littel crewit of Chilly Viniger for the
next cummer, whoever he mite be or not. Alter this repass’d we went to
our sublime rests, I may say, in the Wurld’s garrits, up 150 pare of
stares. As faling out of Bed was dangerus, we riz a wal of stons on
each side. Knowing how comfortble Master sleeps at Home, I regretted
his unaccommodation, and partickly as he was verry restless, and every
tim he stird kickd me about the Hed. I laid awack a good wile thinking
how littel Farther, down in Summerset Sheer, thoght I was up in Mount
Blank Sheer; but at long and last I went of like a top, and dremt of
Summuts. Won may sleep on wus pillers than Nap Sacks.
Next mornin we riz erly, having still a good deal to git up, and
skrambled on agin, by crivises and crax as maid our flesh crawl on
hands and nees to look at. Master wanted to desend in a crack, but
as he mite not git up in a crack agin, his letting himself down was
unrecomended. Arter menny ours works, we cum to the Grand Plato. Master
called it a vast Amphi-Theater; and so it is, except Du-Crow and the
Horses and evry thing. Hear we brekfisted, but was surprizd at our
stomicks not having moor hedges, Master only eting a Chickin wing,
and me only eting all the rest. We had littel need to not eat,--the
most uneasy part to go was to cum. In about too ours we cum to a Sno
wall, up rite as high as St. Paul’s; that maid us cum to an alt, and
I cood not help saying out, Wat is only too human legs to 200 feet!
Howsumever, after a bottel of Wine we was abel to proceed in a zig zag
direxion,--the Gides axing the way, and cutting steps afore. After a
deal of moor white slavery, we sucsided in gitting up to the Mounting’s
top, and no body can hav a distant idea of it, but them as is there.
Such Sno! And ice enuf to serve all the Fish Mungers, and the grate
Routs till the end of the Wurld!
I regrets my joy at cumming to the top maid me forget all I ment to do
at it; and in partickler to thro a tumble over hed and heals, as was
my mane object in going up. Howsumever, I shall allways be abel to say
Me and Master as bin to the Summut of Mount Blank, and so has a little
butterfly. I ought to mension the curiousness of seeing one there, but
we did not ketch it, as it was too far abov us.
We dissented down in much shorter time, and without anny axident xcept
Masters sliding telliscope, witch roled of the ice. Wen we cum agin to
Sham Money, the Land Lord askd our names to be rit in the book, as was
dun, by Mr. W. in prose, but by me in poetry--
“Mount Blank is very hard to be cum at,
But Me and Master as bin to its Summut.”
“JOHN JONES.”
[Illustration: FIGURING IN THE ALBUM OF MONT BLANC.]
[Illustration: SEA CONSUMPTION--WAISTING AWAY.]
SALLY SIMPKIN’S LAMENT.
OR, JOHN JONES’S KIT-CAT-ASTROPHE.
“He left his body to the sea,
And made a shark his legatee.”
BRYAN AND PERENNE.
“Oh? what is that comes gliding in,
And quite in middling haste?
It is the picture of my Jones,
And painted to the waist.
“It is not painted to the life,
For where’s the trowsers blue?
Oh Jones, my dear!--oh dear! my Jones,
What is become of you?”
“Oh! Sally dear, it is too true,--
The half that you remark
Is come to say my other half
Is bit off by a shark!
“Oh! Sally, sharks do things by halves,
Yet most completely do!
A bite in one place seems enough,
But I’ve been bit in two.
“You know I once was all your own,
But now a shark must share!
But let that pass--for now to you
I’m neither here nor there.
“Alas! death has a strange divorce
Effected in the sea,
It has divided me from you,
And even me from me!
“Don’t fear my ghost will walk o’ nights
To haunt as people say;
My ghost _can’t_ walk, for, oh! my legs
Are many leagues away!
“Lord! think, when I am swimming round,
And looking where the boat is,
A shark just snaps away a _half_,
Without ‘a _quarter’s_ notice.’
“One half is here, the other half
Is near Columbia placed;
Oh! Sally, I have got the whole
Atlantic for my waist.
“But now, adieu--a long adieu!
I’ve solved death’s awful riddle,
And would say more, but I am doomed
To break off in the middle!”
[Illustration: NO BANKRUPT, THOUGH I BREAKS.]
A HORSE-DEALER
Is a double dealer, for he dealeth more in double meanings than your
punster. When he giveth his word it signifieth little, howbeit it
standeth for two significations. He putteth his promises like his
colts in a break. Over his mouth, Truth, like the turnpike man, writeth
up No Trust. Whenever he speaketh, his spoke hath more turns than the
fore-wheel. He telleth lies, not white only, or black, but likewise
gray, bay, chestnut-brown, cream, and roan--piebald and skewbald. He
sweareth as many oaths out of court as any man, and more in; for he
will swear two ways about a horse’s dam. If, by God’s grace, he be
something honest, it is only a dapple, for he can be fair and unfair
at once. He hath much imagination, for he selleth a complete set of
capital harness, of which there be no traces. He advertiseth a coach,
warranted on its first wheels, and truly the hind pair are wanting to
the bargain. A carriage that hath travelled twenty summers and winters,
he describeth well-seasoned. He knocketh down machine horses that
have been knocked up on the road, but is so tender of heart to his
animals that he parteth with none for a fault; “for,” as he sayeth,
“blindness or lameness be misfortunes.” A nag, proper only for dog’s
meat, he writeth down, but crieth up, “fit to go to any hounds;” or,
as may be, “would suit a timid gentleman.” String-halt he calleth
“grand action,” and kicking, “lifting the feet well up.” If a mare
have the farcical disease, he nameth her “out of Comedy,” and selleth
Blackbird for a racer because he hath a running thrush. Horses that
drink only water, he justly warranteth to be “temperate,” and if dead
lame, declareth them “good in all their paces,” seeing that they can
go but one. Roaring he calleth “sound,” and a steed that high bloweth
in running, he compareth to Eclipse, for he oustrippeth the wind.
Another might be entered at a steeplechase, for why--he is as fast as
a church. Thoroughpin with him is synonymous with “perfect leg.” If a
nag cougheth, ’tis “a clever hack.” If his knees be fractured, he is
“well broke for gig or saddle.” If he reareth, he is “above sixteen
hands high.” If he hath drawn a tierce in a cart he is a good fencer.
If he biteth, he shows good courage; and he is playful merely, though
he should play the devil. If he runneth away, he calleth him “off the
Gretna Road, and has been used to carry a lady.” If a cob stumbleth, he
considereth him a true goer, and addeth “The proprietor parteth from
him to go abroad.” Thus, without much profession of religion, yet is
he truly Christian-like in practice, for he dealeth not in detraction,
and would not disparage the character even of a brute. Like unto Love,
he is blind unto all blemishes, and seeth only a virtue, meanwhile he
gazeth at a vice. He taketh the kick of a nag’s hoof like a love token,
saying only, before standers-by, “Poor fellow,--he knoweth me!”--and
is content rather to pass as a bad rider, than that the horse should
he held restive or over-mettlesome which discharges him from its back.
If it hath bitten him beside, and moreover bruised his limb against a
coach-wheel, then, constantly returning good for evil, he giveth it but
the better character, and recommendeth it before all the studs in his
stable. In short, the worse a horse may be, the more he chanteth his
praise, like a crow that croweth over Old Ball, whose lot it is on a
common to meet with the Common Lot.
[Illustration: REAR ADMIRAL.]
[Illustration: THE FALL OF ST. LAWRENCE.]
THE FALL.
“Down, down, down, ten thousand fathoms deep.”
COUNT FATHOM.
Who does not know that dreadful gulf, where Niagara falls,
Where eagle unto eagle screams, to vulture vulture calls;
Where down beneath, Despair and Death in liquid darkness grope
And, upward on the foam there shines a rainbow without Hope;
While, hung with clouds of Fear and Doubt, the unreturning wave
Suddenly gives an awful plunge, like life into the grave;
And many a hapless mortal there hath dived to bale or bliss;
One--only one--hath ever lived to rise from that abyss!
Oh, Heaven! it turns me now to ice with chill of fear extreme,
To think of my frail bark adrift on that tumultuous stream!
In vain with desperate sinews, strung by love of life and light,
I urged that coffin, my canoe, against the current’s might:
On--on--still on--direct for doom, the river rushed in force,
And fearfully the stream of Time raced with it in its course.
My eyes I closed--I dared not look the way towards the goal;
But still I viewed the horrid close, and dreamt it in my soul.
Plainly, as through transparent lids, I saw the fleeting shore,
And lofty trees, like winged things, flit by for evermore;
Plainly,--but with no prophet sense--I heard the sullen sound,
The torrent’s voice--and felt the mist, like death-sweat gathering
round.
Oh agony! Oh life! My home! and those that made it sweet:
Ere I could pray, the torrent lay beneath my very feet.
With frightful whirl, more swift than thought, I passed the dizzy
edge,
Bound after bound, with hideous bruise, I dashed from ledge to
ledge,
From crag to crag,--in speechless pain,--from midnight deep to deep;
I did not die,--but anguish stunned my senses into sleep.
How long entranced, or whither dived, no clue I have to find
At last the gradual light of life came dawning o’er my mind;
And through my brain there thrilled a cry,--a cry as shrill as
birds’
Of vulture or of eagle kind, but this was set to words:--
“It’s Edgar Huntley in his cap and nightgown, I declares!
He’s been a walking in his sleep, and pitched all down the stairs!”
[Illustration: A CATARACT.]
THE ILLUMINATI.
“Light, I say, light.”--OTHELLO.
Those who have peeped into the portfolios of Mr. Geoffrey Crayon,
will easily remember his graphic sketches of a locality called Little
Britain--and his amusing portraits of its two leading families,
the Lambs and the Trotters. I imagine the deserved popularity of
the draughtsman made him much in request at routs, soirées, and
conversazioni, or so acute an observer would not have failed to notice
a nocturnal characteristic of the same neighbourhood,--I mean the
frequent and alarming glares of light that illuminate its firmament;
but in spite of which, no parish engine rumbles down the steps of
St. Botolph, the fire-ladders hang undisturbed in their chains, and
the turn-cock smokes placidly in the tap-room of the Rose-and-Crown.
For this remarkable apathy, my own more domestic habits enable me to
account.
It is the fortune, or misfortune, of the house where I lodge to
confront that of Mr. Wix, “Wax and Tallow Chandler to his Majesty;” and
certainly no individual ever burned so much to evince his loyalty. He
and his windows are always framing an excuse for an illumination.
The kindling aptitude ascribed to Eupyrions, and Lucifers, and Chlorate
Matches, is nothing to his. Contrary to Hoyle’s rules for loo,--a
single court card is sufficient with him for “a blaze.” He knows and
keeps the birthdays of all royal personages, and shows by tallow
in tins how they wax in years. As sure as the Park guns go off in
the morning, he fires his six-pounders in the evening; as sure as a
newsman’s horn is sounded in the street, it blows the same spark into
a flame.--In some cases his inflammability was such, he has been known
to ignite, and exhibit fire, where he should have shed water. He was
once--it is still a local joke--within an ace of rejoicing at Marr’s
Murder.
During the long War he was really a nuisance, and what is worse, not
indictable. For one not unused to the melting mood, he was strangely
given to rejoicing. Other people were content to light up for the great
victories, but he commemorated the slightest skirmishes. In civil
events the same, whether favourable to Whig or Tory. Like the lover
of Bessy Bell, and Mary Gray, he divided his flame between them.--He
lighted when the administration of the Duke of Wellington came in, and
he lighted when it went out,--in short, it seemed, as with the Roman
Catholics, that candle-burning was a part of his religion, and that he
had got his religion itself from an illuminated missal.
To aggravate this propensity, Mr. Sperm, the great oil merchant, lives
nearly opposite to Mr. Wix, and his principle and his interest coincide
exactly with those of his neighbour. Mr. Sperm possesses a very large
star,--and, like certain managers, he brings it forward as often as he
can. He is quite as lax in his political creed as the chandler, and
will light up on the lightest occasions,--for instance, let there be
but a peal of bells, and the Genius of the Ring directly invokes the
Genius of the Lamp. In short, Mr. Wix and Mr. Sperm both resemble the
same thing--a merchant-man getting rid of goods by means of lighters.
As the other inhabitants do not always choose to follow the example of
these two--I have known our illuminations to be very select--the great
oil and tallow establishments blazing all alone in their glory. On
other occasions--for instance, the rejoicings for that bill which Lord
L. calls a Bill of Panes and Penalties--I have seen our street assume
the motley appearance of a chessboard, alternately dark and bright--to
say nothing of Mrs. Frampton’s lodging-house, where every tenant was
of a different sentiment,--and the several floors afforded a striking
example of the Clare Obscure.
Among general illuminations, I remember none more so than the one on
the accession of his late Majesty--but what so universally brightened
the Great Britain might be expected to light the Little one. It was in
reality an unrivalled exhibition of its kind, and I propose therefore
to give some account of it, the situation of my apartment having
afforded unusual opportunities--for it is at the angle of a corner
house and thus while its easterly windows stare into those of the
Rumbold family, its northern ones squint aside into the sashes of that
elderly spinster Miss Winter.
It must have been an extreme fit of loyalty that put such a thought
into the penurious mind of Miss W., but she resolved for once in her
life to illuminate. I could see her at a large dining-table--so called
by courtesy, for it never dined--reviewing a regiment of glass custard
cups, so called also by courtesy, for they never held custard--and
another division of tall jelly glasses, equally unknown to jellies.
I might have thought that she meant for once to give a very light
supper, had I not seen her fill them all with oil from a little tin
can, and afterwards she furnished them with a floating wick. They were
then ranged on the window-frame, alternately tall and short; and after
this costly preparation, which, by the heaving of her neckerchief, she
visibly sighed over, she folded her arms demurely before her, and, by
the light of her solitary rush taper, sat down to await the extravagant
call of “Light-up!”
The elder Miss Rumbold--the parents were out of town--was not idle
in the mean time. She packed all the little R.’s off to bed--(I did
not see them have any supper)--and then, having got rid of the family
branches, began on the tin ones. She had fixed her head quarters in
the drawing-room, from whence I saw Caroline and Henry detached, with
separate parcels of tins and candles, to do the same office for the
floors above and below. But no such luck! After a while, the street
door gently opened, and forth sneaked the two deserters, of course to
see better illuminations than their own. At the slam of the door behind
them Miss Rumbold comprehended the full calamity: first, she threw up
her arms, then her eyes, then clenched her teeth and then her hands;
going through all the pantomime for distress of mind--but she had no
time for grieving, and indeed but little for rejoicing. Mr. Wix’s was
beginning to glitter. Tearing up and down stairs like a lamplighter on
his ladder, she furnished all the blank windows, and then returned to
the drawing-room; and what was evidently her favourite fancy, she had
completed and hung up two festoons of artificial flowers; but alas!
her stock on hand fell short a whole foot of the third window--I am
afraid for want of the very bouquet in Caroline’s bonnet. Removing the
unfortunate garlands, she rushed out full speed, and the next moment I
saw her in the story above, rapidly unpapering her curls, and making
herself as fit as time allowed, to sit in state in the drawing-room, by
the light of twenty-seven long sixes.
[Illustration: ALL AT SIXES AND SEVENS.]
A violent uproar now recalled my attention to Number 29, where the mob
had begun to call out to Miss Winter for her Northern Lights. Miss W.
was at her post, and rushed with her rush to comply with the demand;
but a sudden twitter of nervousness aggravating her old palsy, she
could not persuade her wavering taper to alight on any one of the
cottons. There was a deal of coquetting indeed between wick and wick,
but nothing like a mutual flame. In vain the thin lover-like candle
kept hovering over its intended, and shedding tears of grease at every
repulse; not a glimmer replied to its glance, till at last, weary of
love and light, it fairly leaped out of its tin socket, and drowned its
own twinkle in a tall jelly-glass. The patience of the mob, already
of a thin texture, was torn to rags by this conclusion; they saw that
if she would, Miss Winter never _could_ illuminate: but as this was
an unwelcome truth, they broke it to her with a volley of stones that
destroyed her little Vauxhall in a moment, and in a twinkle left her
nothing to twinkle with!
Shocked at this catastrophe, I turned with some anxiety to Miss
Rumbold’s, but with admirable presence of mind she had lighted
every alternate candle in her windows, and was thus able to present
a respectable front at a short notice. The mob, however, made as
much uproar as at Miss Winter’s, though the noise was different in
character, and more resembled the boisterous merriment which attends
upon Punch. In fact Miss Rumbold had a Fantoccini over head she little
dreamt of. Awakened by the unusual light, the younger Rumbolds had
rushed from bed to the window, where, exhilarated by childish spirits
and the appearance of a gala, they had got up an extempore Juvenile
Ball, and were dancing with all their might in their little nightcaps
and nightgowns. In vain the unconscious Matilda pointed to her candles,
and added her own private pair from the table to the centre window; in
vain she wrung her hands, or squeezed them on her bosom: the more she
protested in dumb show, the more the mob shouted; and the more the mob
shouted, the wilder the imps jigged about. At last Matilda seemed to
take some hint; she vanished from the drawing-room like a Ghost, and
reappeared like a Fury in the nursery--a pair of large hands vigorously
flourished and flogged--the heels of the Corps de Ballet flew up higher
than their heads--the mob shouted louder than ever--and exeunt omnes.
This interlude being over, the rabble moved on to Mr. Wix’s, whose
every window, as usual, shone “like nine good deeds in a naughty
world,” and he obtained nine cheers for the display. Poor Mr. Sperm
was not so fortunate. He had been struggling manfully with a sharp
nor-wester to light up his star, but one obstinate limb persisted in
showing which way the wind blew. It was a point not to be gained,
and though far from red hot, it caused a hiss that reached even to
Number 14, and frightened all the Flowerdews. Number 14, as the Clown
expresses it in Twelfth Night, was “as lustrous as ebony.” In vain Mrs.
Flowerdew pleaded from one window, and Mr. Flowerdew harangued from
the other, while Flowerdew junior hammered and tugged at the space
between; the glaziers and their friends unglazed everything; and I hope
the worthy family, the next time they have a Crown and Anchor, will
remember to have them the right side uppermost. Green and yellow lamps
decline to hang upon hooks that are topsy-turvy, and the blue and red
are just as particular.
I forgot to say that during the past proceedings, my eyes had
frequently glanced towards Number 28. Its occupier, Mr. Brookbank, was
in some remote way connected with the royal household, and had openly
expressed his intention of surprising Little Britain. And in truth
Little Britain was surprised enough, when it beheld at Mr. Brookbank’s
nothing but a few sorry flambeaux: he talked to the mob, indeed, of
a transparency of Peace and Plenty, but as they could see no sign of
either, and they had plenty of stones, they again broke the peace. I am
sorry to say that in this instance the mob were wrong, for there _was_
a transparency, but as it was lighted from the outer side, Mr. B.’s
Peace and Plenty smiled on nobody but himself.
There was only one more disorder, and it occurred at the very house
that I help to inhabit. Not that we were dim by any means, for we had
been liberal customers to Mr. Sperm and to Mr. Wix: the tallow of one
flared in all our panes, and the oil of the other fed a brilliant W. P.
Alas! it was these fiery initials, enigmatical as those at Belshazzar’s
banquet, that caused all our troubles. The million could make out the
meaning of the W, but the other letter, divided in conjecture among
them, was literally a split P. Curiosity increased to furiosity, and
what might have happened nobody only knows, if my landlady had not
proclaimed that her W had spent such a double allowance of lamps, that
her R had been obliged to retrench.
[Illustration: IGNIS FATUUS.]
To aid her oratory, the rabble were luckily attracted from our own
display by a splendour greater even than usual at Number 9. The
warehouseman of Mr. Wix--_like Master like Man_--had got up an
illumination of his own, by leaving a firebrand among the tallow, that
soon caused the breaking out of an insurrection in Grease, and where
candles had hitherto been lighted only by Retail, they were now ignited
by Wholesale; or as my landlady said,--“All the fat was in the fire!”
I ventured to ask her when all was over, what she thought of the
lighting-up, and she gave me her opinion in the following sentiment, in
the prayer of which I most heartily concur. “Illuminations,” she said,
“were very pretty things to look at, and no doubt new Kings ought to be
illuminated; but what with the toil, and what with the oil, and what
with the grease, and what with the mob, she hoped it would be long,
very long, before we had a new King again!”
SONNET.
Along the Woodford road there comes a noise
Of wheels, and Mr. Rounding’s neat postchaise
Struggles along, drawn by a pair of bays,
With Rev. Mr. Crow and six small Boys;
Who ever and anon declare their joys,
With trumping horns and juvenile huzzas,
At going home to spend their Christmas days,
And changing Learning’s pains for Pleasure’s toys.
Six weeks elapse, and down the Woodford way,
A heavy coach drags six more heavy souls,
But no glad urchins shout, no trumpets bray;
The carriage makes a halt, the gate-bell tolls,
And little Boys walk in as dull and mum
As six new scholars to the Deaf and Dumb.
THE STEAM SERVICE.
“Life is but a _kittle_ cast.”--BURNS.
[Illustration: THE JACK OF HEARTS.]
The time is not yet come--but come it will--when the masts of our Royal
Navy shall be unshipped, and huge unsightly chimneys be erected in
their place. The trident will be taken out of the hand of Neptune, and
replaced by the effigy of a red hot poker; the Union Jack will look
like a smoke-jack; and Lambtons, Russels, and Adairs, will be made
Admirals of the Black; the forecastle will be called the Newcastle,
and the cockpit will be termed the coal-pit; a man-of-war’s tender
will be nothing but a Shields’ collier: first lieutenants will have to
attend lectures on the steam-engine, and midshipmen must take lessons
as climbing boys in the art of sweeping flues. In short, the good old
tune of “Rule Britannia,” will give way to “Polly put the Kettle on;”
while the Victory, the Majestic, and the Thunderer of Great Britain
will “paddle in the burn,” like the Harlequin, the Dart, and the Magnet
of Margate.
It will be well for our song writers to bear a wary eye to the Fleet,
if they would prosper as Marine Poets. Some sea Gurney may get a seat
at the Admiralty Board, and then farewell, a long farewell, to the old
ocean imagery; marine metaphor will require a new figure-head. Flowing
sheets, snowy wings, and the old comparison of a ship to a bird, will
become obsolete and out of date! Poetical topsails will be taken aback,
and all such things as reefs and double reefs will be shaken out of
song. For my own part, I cannot be sufficiently thankful that I have
not sought a Helicon of salt water; or canvassed the Nine Muses as a
writer for their Marine Library; or made Pegasus a sea-horse, when
sea-horses as well as land-horses are equally likely to be superseded
by steam. After such a consummation, when the sea service, like the
tea service, will depend chiefly on boiling water, it is very doubtful
whether the Fleet will be worthy of anything but plain prose. I have
tried to adapt some of our popular blue ballads to the boiler, and
Dibdin certainly does not steam quite so well as a potato. However, if
his Sea Songs are to be in immortal use, they will have to be revised
and corrected in future editions thus:--
I _steamed_ from the Downs in the Nancy,
My jib how she _smoked_ through the breeze.
She’s a vessel as tight to my fancy
As ever _boil’d_ through the salt seas.
* * * * *
When up the _flue_ the sailor goes
And ventures on the _pot_,
The landsman, he no better knows,
But thinks hard is his lot.
Bold Jack with smiles each danger meets,
Weighs anchor, lights the log;
_Trims up the fire, picks out the slates_,
And drinks his can of grog.
* * * * *
Go patter to lubbers and swabs, do you see,
’Bout danger, and fear, and the like;
But a _Boulton and Watt_ and good _Wall’s-end_ give me;
And it an’t to a little I’ll strike.
Though the tempest our _chimney_ smack smooth shall down smite,
And shiver each _bundle_ of wood;
Clear the wreck, _stir the fire_, and stow everything tight,
And _boiling a gallop_ we’ll scud.
I have cooked Stevens’s, or rather Incledon’s Storm in the same way;
but the pathos does not seem any the tenderer for stewing.
Hark, the boatswain hoarsely bawling,
By shovel, tongs, and poker stand;
Down the scuttle quick be hauling,
Down your bellows, hand, boys, hand;
Now it freshens,--blow like blazes;
Now unto the coal-hole go;
Stir, boys, stir, don’t mind black faces,
Up your ashes nimbly throw.
Ply your bellows, raise the wind, boys,
See the valve is clear of course;
Let the paddles spin, don’t mind, boys,
Though the weather should be worse.
Fore and aft a proper draft get,
Oil the engines, see all clear;
Hands up, each a sack of coal get,
Man the boiler, cheer, lads, cheer.
Now the dreadful thunder’s roaring,
Peal on peal contending clash;
On our heads fierce rain falls pouring,
In our eyes the paddles splash.
One wide water all around us,
All above one smoke-black sky:
Different deaths at once surround us;
Hark! what means that dreadful cry?
[Illustration: ALL UP.]
The funnel’s gone! cries ev’ry tongue out,
The engineer’s washed off the deck:
A leak beneath the coal-hole’s sprung out
Call all hands to clear the wreck.
Quick, some coal, some nubbly pieces;
Come, my hearts, be stout and bold;
Plumb the boiler, speed decreases,
Four feet water getting cold.
While o’er the ship wild waves are beating,
We for wives or children mourn;
Alas! from hence there’s no retreating;
Alas! to them there’s no return.
The fire is out--we’ve burst the bellows,
The tinder-box is swamped below;
Heaven have mercy on poor fellows,
For only that can serve us now!
Devoutly do I hope that the kettle, though a great vocalist, will never
thus appropriate the old Sea Songs of England. In the words of an old
Greenwich pensioner--“Steamin and biling does very well for _Urn_ Bay,
and the likes;” but the craft does not look regular and shipshape to
the eye of a tar who has sailed with Duncan, Howe, and Jarvis--and who
would rather even go without _port_ than have it through a _funnel_.
[Illustration: FOR CORK.]
A LAY OF REAL LIFE.
“Some are born with a wooden spoon in their mouths, and some with a
golden ladle.”--GOLDSMITH.
“Some are born with tin rings in their noses, and some with silver
ones.”--SILVERSMITH.
Who ruined me ere I was born,
Sold every acre, grass or corn,
and left the next heir all forlorn?
My Grandfather.
Who said my mother was no nurse,
And physicked me and made me worse,
Till infancy became a curse?
My Grandmother.
Who left me in my seventh year,
A comfort to my mother dear,
And Mr. Pope, the overseer?
My Father.
Who let me starve, to buy her gin,
Till all my bones came through my skin,
Then called me “ugly little sin?”
My Mother.
Who said my mother was a Turk,
And took me home--and made me work,
But managed half my meals to shirk?
My Aunt.
Who “of all earthly things” would boast,
“He hated others’ brats the most,”
And therefore made me feel my post?
My Uncle.
Who got in scrapes, an endless score,
And always laid them at my door,
Till many a bitter bang I bore?
My Cousin.
Who took me home when mother died,
Again with father to reside,
Black shoes, clean knives, run far and wide?
My Stepmother.
Who marred my stealthy urchin joys,
And when I played cried “What a noise”--
Girls always hector over boys--
My Sister.
Who used to share in what was mine,
Or took it all, did he incline,
’Cause I was eight, and he was nine?
My Brother.
Who stroked my head, and said “Good lad,”
And gave me sixpence, “all he had;”
But at the stall the coin was bad?
My Godfather.
Who, gratis, shared my social glass,
But when misfortune came to pass,
Referr’d me to the pump? Alas!
My Friend.
Through all this weary world, in brief,
Who ever sympathised with grief,
Or shared my joy--my sole relief?
Myself.
A VALENTINE.
THE WEATHER. To P. MURPHY, Esq., M.N.S.
These, properly speaking, being esteemed the three arms of Meteoric
action.
Dear Murphy, to improve her charms,
Your servant humbly begs;
She thanks you for her leash of arms,
But wants a brace of legs.
Moreover, as you promise folks
On certain days a drizzle;
She thinks, in case she cannot rain,
She should have means to _mizzle_.
Some lightning too may just fall due,
When woods begin to moult;
And if she cannot “fork it out,”
She’ll wish to make a _bolt_!
[Illustration: WETHER WISE.]
[Illustration: BID ME DISCOURSE.]
THE ELLAND MEETING.
_Benedict._ “Here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure my lady
Tongue.”--MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
“Do you hear the rumour? They say the women are in insurrection,
and mean to make a----.”--THE WOMAN’S PRIZE.
“Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues.”--K. HENRY IV.
“In a word, the Tartars came on.”--ROBINSON CRUSOE.
In my M. S. days,--and like many bookish bachelors of the same
standing,--I was a member of a private literary society, with a name
whereof I only remember that it began in Greek and ended in English.
This re-union was framed on the usual plan of such institutions;
except that the gallantry of the founders had ruled that half the
members might be of the female sex, and accordingly amongst our
“intellectual legs,” we numbered a fair proportion of the hose that are
metaphorically blue. We assembled weekly at the house of some Fellow
that had a house, where an original essay was first read by the author,
and then submitted to discussion, much as a school-boy first spins his
top and then lays it down to be pegged at by the rest of the company.
The subjects, like Sir Roger de Coverley’s picture, generally left a
great deal to be said on both sides, nor were there wanting choppers,
not to say hackers of logic, to avail themselves of the circumstance;
and as we possessed, amongst others, a brace of Irish barristers, a
Quaker, a dissenter to everything, an author who spoke volumes, a
geologist who could find sermons in stones, and one old man eloquent,
surnamed for his discursiveness the rambler, we had usually what Bubb
Doddington has called “a multiplicity of talk.”
It is worthy of record, however, and especially as running counter
to the received opinion of the loquacity of the sex, that no female
member was ever known to deliver or attempt to deliver a sentence on
the subject in debate. Now and then, perchance, a short clearing cough
would flatter us that we were going to benefit by feminine taste and
delicacy of sentiment; but the expectation invariably fell to the
ground, and we might as well have expected an opinion to transpire from
the wax work of Mrs. Salmon or Madame Tussaud. I have since learned, it
is true, from one of the maturest of the she-fellows, that she did once
actually contemplate a few words to the matter in hand, but that at the
very first stitch she lost her needle, by which she meant her tongue,
and then in seeking for her needle she lost the thread of her ideas,
and so gave up the task, she said, as not being “woman’s work.”
It would seem therefore, that a set discourse in company is altogether
incompatible with the innate diffidence and shrinking timidity
of the sex. Milton, indeed, makes this silent modesty a peculiar
characteristic of perfect womanhood, as evinced in the demeanour of
“accomplished Eve.” To mark it the more strongly, he liberally endows
our general mother with fluency of speech in her colloquies with Adam,
so as even to “forget all time” in conversing with him; whereas in
the presence of a third party,--the Angel Visitor for instance, whom
she less bids than makes welcome to her dessert,--she seldom opens
her lips. Nor is this an overstrained picture: the same matronly, or
spinsterly reserve, having survived the Fall, and the confusion of
Babel, and the more womanly of her daughters, however good at what the
Scotch call “a two-handed crack,” in a corner or behind a curtain will
still evince a paradisiacal hesitation, amounting to an impediment, in
addressing the most limited audience. In fact up to a comparatively
recent period, the Miltonic theory was practically acknowledged and
acted upon, at the theatre, the female characters of the Drama being
always represented by proxies of men or boys.
Even in the present age, the début of an actress, having so many
“lengths” to deliver in public, is reckoned one of the severest ordeals
that womanly modesty can undergo. The celebrated Mrs. Siddons described
it as a “fiery trial,”--a “terrible moment,”--and any play-goer who has
witnessed the first appearance of a young lady on any stage will easily
give credit for its agonies. The late Mrs. ---- once described to me
very vividly her sufferings on a like awful occasion:--“The voice that
would not come, and the tremor that would not go--the frame inclining
to sink, and the head determined to swim,--the distinct consciousness
of the presence of the body, with the indistinct impression of the
absence of the mind. Thank Heaven,” she concluded, “that I had not to
‘extort’ the people, as Mawworm calls it, out of my own head--that I
had not to furnish the speech, as well as the courage to utter it; for
I protest that I could not have put together a sentence of my own, for
the saving of my life!”
[Illustration: A FIRST APPEARANCE ON ANY STAGE.]
With such experience and impressions of the inaptitude of the sex for
popular orators, my profound amazement may be conceived when on lately
glancing over the columns of a morning journal, my eye was arrested by
the extraordinary heading of
PUBLIC MEETING OF WOMEN AGAINST THE POOR LAWS.
In the first tumult of my agitation I pitched my Morning Herald, where
Parson Adams threw his Æschylus, namely, behind the fire; but the very
next instant, with a vague notion that it would _blow_ up, I snatched
it out again. I am not certain,--being in weak health and spirits,
and more than commonly nervous,--that I did not cry murder!--My first
sensation, indeed, was a physical one, a complication of acuteness
of earache, with the numbness of lock-jaw:--and then came the moral
consciousness of some stunning domestic calamity, that seemed dilating
every instant from a family into a national visitation. In fact I
recollect nothing at all approaching the first bodily shock, except
once, on the explosion of some neighbouring powder-mills, when a few
highly condensed moments of intense silence were followed by the sudden
burst of an imaginary peal, from a bell assembly of all the steeples
in England; nor can I recall any experience equal to my mental horror
afterwards, unless a certain delirious dream of being run away with by
four gray mares, in the York mail!
It was a considerable time before I could muster resolution to peruse
the speeches, the tone of which my prophetic soul forestalled as
less resembling the notes of the feminine dulcimer, or piano, or
hurdy-gurdy, than those of the masculine brazen trumpet. And should
this seem a _harsh_ anticipation, it must be remembered that I had been
prepared by no previous rehearsals for such a burst of female oratory.
If I had met with a paragraph hinting that certain females had been
observed in rough weather, mysteriously haunting the sea-beach, say of
Scarborough for instance, and gesticulating, as if on speaking terms
with the billows, my classical reminiscences might have recalled the
system by which Demosthenes braced himself against the murmurs and
roarings of a popular assembly--and I might have comprehended that the
hoarse waves were resorted to as oratorical _breakers-in_. But there
was no such warning; and consequently the report came upon me with
all the startling suddenness and crash of a sempstress’s splitting a
piece of stout calico. There was something astounding in the bare idea
of a female voice, so commonly requiring a high pressure to induce
it to sing in private circles, volunteering in public assembly to
spout! A maiden speech even in a man is apt to excite a maidenly fever
of nervousness; and many a rough and tough old sea-commander, who
would have returned a broadside without flinching, has been converted
physiognomically into an admiral of the blue, white, and red, and has
found a bung in his speaking-trumpet, on having to reply to a volley
of thanks. The very subject, so steeped in party spirit,--for alas! it
is undeniable that the woes and wants of the poor have become a party
question,--the very subject so steeped in party spirit, always a raw
unrectified article, and at the present time distilled particularly
above proof, seemed peculiarly unfit for womanly lips. In short I
concluded primâ facie, that a female who could come forward, without
a rehearsal all along shore, or practise on provincial boards, as a
public orator, and on political topics, must needs be what some old
writer calls “a mankind woman,”--and akin to the Hannah Snells and Mary
Ann Talbots, that have heretofore enlisted in our army and navy. How
far I was justified in these forebodings a few extracts will serve to
show.
“Mrs. Susan Fearnley having been voted into the chair, opened the
business of the meeting by exhorting the females present _to take
the question of a repeal of this bill into their own hands_, and
not to rely on the exertions of others, _least of all on the House
of Commons_, but at once to assert _the dignity and equality of the
sex_, and as the chief magistrate of the realm was now a female,
to approach her _respectfully_, and lay their grievances before
her; and, should their application be unsuccessful, she would then
call upon them to resist the enforcement of this cruel law, _even
unto the death_--(loud cheers). Mrs. Grasby said, the new Poor
Law was not concocted by men, but by fiends in the shape of men;
it had been hatched and bred in the bottomless pit--(cheers). She
could wish the authors of this law to be sent to St. Helena, where
Napoleon was sent to, and remain till their bodies were wet with
the dew of heaven, and their hair as long as eagles’ feathers.
She would oppose that law, and she called upon her sisters now
before her to follow her example--(tremendous cheering). Mrs.
Hanson alluded to the personal disfiguration of the hair cutting
off, which excited much disapprobation; this was followed by a
description of the grogram gowns of shoddy and paste in which
the inmates of the bastiles are attired.” The address said, “We
approach your Majesty, and pray that you will exercise your
prerogative, and remove from your councils those heartless men who
are attempting to place us under this horrible law. _We beg leave
to remind your Majesty that allegiance is due only when protection
is extended to the subject._
“Signed on behalf of the Meeting,
“SUSAN FEARNLEY, _Chairwoman_.”
And the report said, “Thanks were then voted with loud cheering to Earl
Stanhope, Mr. J. Fielden, to the Chairwoman, Mrs. Grasby, and Mrs.
Hanson, for their eloquent speeches, and to the other females, who had
got up and managed the meeting. Three groans were then given for the
Whigs, and all who support the Poor Law Bill.”
I have purposely omitted an astounding declaration of the wives and
mothers in the address, about their daughters, hoping that it is only
founded on local scandal; and now, if such another merry meeting may
be wished, what right-thinking Benedict or Bachelor but will join with
me and Dogberry in a “God prohibit it?” When the Steam Washing Company
was first established, there was a loud and shrill outcry against
what were facetiously called the Cock Laundresses, who were roundly
accused of a shameful invasion of woman’s provinces, and favoured
with many sneering recommendations to wear mob caps, and go in stuff
petticoats and pattens. But if Hercules with the distaff be but a sorry
spectacle, surely Omphale with the club cuts scarcely a better figure.
The he-creatures may now fairly retort, that it is as consistent
with manhood to go out washing, as for womanhood to do chairing at
a public meeting. If it be out of character for a fellow in a coat
and continuations to be firsting and seconding linen, it is equally
anomalous for a creature in petticoats to be firsting and seconding
political resolutions; and for my own part, as a matter of taste, I
would rather see a Gentlemen blowing up a copper flue than a Lady
blowing up the foulness of the Poor Law.
In the mean time, there is reason to apprehend that the infection is
gaining ground; the last post having brought me the following letter on
the subject from a country correspondent.
_To the Editor of Hood’s Own, &c., &c._
HONOURED SIR,
I don’t know whether you be married or likely to be in the way of
courting, but whether or not, most likely you have a mother or sister,
or aunt, or she-cousin, or some such connexion of the female sex; as
such will be interested in the following, as a matter that concerns
us all, and particularly men like myself of a quiet turn and domestic
habits.
By station I am only a plain, family man in the farming line, but to my
misfortune, as turns out, I am locally situated in the county of York,
and what’s worse, a great deal too nigh Elland, and where the women
got up the spouting meeting again the Poor Laws that made such a noise
in the country. I’m not a political character myself, and as such have
nothing to object for or against public meetings and speechifyings,
so long as it’s confined to the male kind; but with as good nerves
as most men that can ride to hounds, nothing since incendiarism has
given them such a shook as the breaking out of female elocution, for
in course like the rick burnings and the influenzy, or any other new
kick, it will go through the whole country. My own house has catched
for one, and I will inform you the symptoms it begins with. The Elland
Meeting, you see, was on a Tuesday, and between you and me and the
post, it’s my belief that my mistress was present, though she do say,
it were a visit to her mother. Otherwise I cannot think what could put
her teeth into her head on the Wednesday for the first time, by which
I mean to say her spelling for a new set, if it was not to assist her
parts of speech. Agricultural distress has made gold much more scarce
among farmers than formerly, and I don’t mind saying it’s more than I
could afford comfortably at most times to lay out twenty guineas in
ivory for the sake of a correct pronouncing. However I made no remark,
except to myself, namely, that they wasn’t wanted to keep her tongue
between. For my own part I have always found she could speak plain
enough, and particularly when I couldn’t--by reason of dining at the
ordinary on market days and the like. Any way she always contrived to
speak her mind, but ever since the meeting she seems to have had more
mind to speak; for instance, a long confabbing with every beggar at the
gate, instead of sending off as formerly with nothing but a flea in
their ear, as the saying is. In short, many more things struck me as
suspicious, and amongst the rest, her making an errand again to Eland
for a piece of stuff and a little fustian--in pint of fact, that visit
seemed to set her more agog than before, so as to start a new notion of
going up to London about Betsy’s impediment, and says she, I can kill
two birds, and get my new teeth at the same time. If that don’t look
oratorical, thinks I to myself, then I don’t know what does. However,
last Sunday was a week lets the whole cat out of the bag, as the saying
is as near as may be as follow. It was just after dinner, and only our
two selves quite domestically, Betsy being gone to grandmother’s, and
me going to take my first glass of wine, and so as usual, I nodded to
my good woman, with a “Here’s to ye, Kate!” according to custom--when
lo! and behold, up jumps Madam regularly on her legs opening like a
hound that has just hit the scent, and begins a return thanks, and
delivery of sentiments and so forth, before I knew where I was. Where
she got the knack of it without practice, Lord knows, for it’s more
than ever I was competent to, as for instance, when I’ve been publicly
drunk at our Coursing Club, and the like. However she was five good
minutes long afore she broke down, or recollected herself, I don’t know
which, and I’m free to say, left me so dumbfounded in a mizmaze that I
hadn’t presence of mind to argue the point. However, before going to
bed, I thought best to open gently on the subject, but as might be
expected, the more we differed, the more we debated, which in course
was just what Madam wanted, till at long and at last, seeing that I
was only being practised upon, like Betsy’s piano, I thought proper to
adjourn myself off to roost, but from the nature of my dreams, have
reason to think she continued the argument in her sleep.
And now, honoured Sir, what is to be done to stop such a national
calamity as hangs over us like a thundercloud, unless it’s put down
by the powerful voice of the public press? Not wishing to connect
myself with politics, which all newspapers are more or less inclined
to, and your periodical being mentioned to me by our doctor as an
impartial vehicle, am induced to the liberty of this communication, to
be made use of at your discretion. My own sentiments are very strong
on the subject, but more than I can express by penmanship. We have a
saying here in the north about a crowing hen that seems quite pat to
the case. And if you keep live stock, what can cut a foolisher figure
than a great gawksome hen, leaving her eggs to addle in the neat, or
her chicks, if so be, to the care of the kite, to go a spurring and
sparring about the yard with her hackle up, and trying to crow like
a cock of the walk? So it is with the mistress of a house leaving
her helpless babes, or what is worse, her grown-up girls, to their
own cares and looking after, to go ranting and itineranting all over
the country, henpecking at the heads of the nation, and cackling up
on tables, or in waggons, or on the hustings. It’s my opinion nature
intended the whole sex to be more backward in coming forward, let alone
tattle at tea-drinkings, or gossiping at christenings, or laying-in,
but to be totally unaccustomed to public speaking. As to state affairs,
some do think there’s more talking than doing already, and in course
it will be no cure for it, to match the House of Lords with a House of
Ladies. In the mean time, I don’t mean to come down the money for the
new teeth or the impediment, and hoping that the speeches at Elland
may prove the last dying speeches of female elocution,
I remain, Honoured Sir,
Your very humble Servant to command,
RICHARD PAYNE PILGRIM.
[Illustration: AUDIENCE FIT, THOUGH FEW.]
[Illustration: DISCOVERING THE POLE.]
POEM,--FROM THE POLISH.
Some months since a young lady was much surprised at receiving,
from the Captain of a Whaler, a blank sheet of paper, folded in the
form of a letter, and duly sealed. At last, recollecting the nature
of sympathetic ink, she placed the missive on a toasting fork, and
after holding it to the fire for a minute or two, succeeded in
thawing out the following verses.
From seventy-two North latitude,
Dear Kitty, I indite;
But first I’d have you understand
How hard it is to write.
Of thoughts that breathe and words that burn,
My Kitty, do not think,--
Before I wrote these very lines,
I had to melt my ink.
Of mutual flames and lover’s warmth,
You must not be too nice;
The sheet that I am writing on
Was once a sheet of ice!
The Polar cold is sharp enough
To freeze with icy gloss
The genial current of the soul,
E’en in a “Man of Ross.”
Pope says that letters waft a sigh
From Indus to the Pole;
But here I really wish the post
Would only “post the _coal_.”
So chilly is the Northern blast,
It blows me through and through.
A ton of Wallsend in a note
Would be a billet-doux!
In such a frigid latitude
It scarce can be a sin,
Should Passion cool a little, where
A Fury was iced in.
I’m rather tired of endless snow,
And long for coals again;
And would give up a Sea of Ice,
For some of Lambton’s Main.
I’m sick of dazzling ice and snow,
The sun itself I hate;
So very bright, so very cold,
Just like a summer grate.
For opodeldoc I would kneel,
My chilblains to anoint;
Oh Kate, the needle of the north
Has got a freezing point.
Our food _is_ solids,--ere we put
Our meat into our crops,
We take sledge-hammers to our steaks
And hatchets to our chops.
So very bitter is the blast,
So cutting is the air,
I never have been warm but once
When hugging with a bear.
One thing I know you’ll like to hear,
Th’ effect of Polar snows,
I’ve left off snuff--one pinching day--
From leaving off my nose.
I have no ear for music now;
My ears both left together;
And as for dancing, I have cut
My toes--it’s cutting weather.
I’ve said that you should have my hand
Some happy day to come;
But, Kate, you only now can wed
A finger and a thumb.
Don’t fear that any Esquimaux
Can wean me from my own;
The Girdle of the Queen of Love
Is not the Frozen Zone.
At wives with large estates of snow
My fancy does not bite;
I like to see a Bride--but not
In such a deal of white.
Give me for home a house of brick,
The Kate I love at Kew!
A hand unchopped--a merry eye,
And not a nose of blue!
To think upon the Bridge of Kew,
To me a bridge of sighs;
Oh, Kate, a pair of icicles
Are standing in my eyes!
God knows if I shall e’er return,
In comfort to be lulled;
But if I do get back to port,
Pray let me have it mulled.
[Illustration: KEW BRIDGE.]
[Illustration: A STEP-FATHER.]
A STEP-FATHER.
“Follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow me.”--OLD SONG.
I know not what friend, or fiend, or both together, put such a folly
into the head of my maternal parent; but, like Hamlet’s mother, she set
her widow’s cap at the sex, and re-married. A second marriage is seldom
a favourable alteration of state; it is like changing a sovereign
twice over; first into silver, and then into copper. My mother’s step
was of this description! My first father was a plump, short, and
rather Dutch-built little person; but the most merry, good-humoured,
and kind-hearted, yet withal the slowest goer of the human race. His
successor was saturnine in spirit, and stern in temper, a tall bony
figure, remarkable for the length of his nether limbs; he was, to adopt
a school-boy phrase, a Walker by name, and a walker by nature; and
the exercise of this propensity taught me painfully to appreciate the
difference between my dear first Daddy and my Daddy-Long-legs.
My father Heavy-sides was what is called slow and sure: which means
sure to be left behind. He had a solemn creak in his shoes, that
declared how deliberately his toes turned on their hinges; his movement
through life was a minuet de la cour. My Step-father Walker’s was a
galopade. Considered as Foot Soldiers, or adverse parties of infantry,
before one had well marched into his position, the other would have
turned his right flank, cut off his left wing, charged his centre,
harassed his rear, and surrounded his whole body. They were, alas!
literally the quick and the dead, causing between them a race of my
toes against my tears, and, if anything, my toes ran the fastest and
farthest.
There has been lately a good deal of speculation as to the ownership
of a certain poem; but I feel assured that my Step-father was the
practical author of the “Devil’s Walk.” The March of Mind might
possibly have kept up with him, but no March of body could do it; least
of all, such a body as mine, naturally heavy, and furnished with a pair
of lower limbs, very different from those of the son of Scriblerus,
who made his legs his compasses for measuring islands and continents.
Strain them as I would in pursuit of my Step-father, I seemed to
take nothing by my motion; those hopeless coat-flaps were always in
front; like Doctor Johnson’s great Shakspeare, with little Time at his
heels, I panted after him in vain. The pace, as the jockeys say, was
severe. It was literally a flight of steps, for he seemed to fly; if
any gentleman could be in two places at once, like a bird, that man
was my Step-father, or rather Fore-father, for he was always in front.
His stride was that of the Colossus of Rhodes; like Robinson Crusoe,
you could discern one foot-print in the sand, but the other was beyond
discovery. My infatuated mother was nevertheless continually holding
him out to me as an example, and recommending me to “tread in his
steps!”--I wish I had been able! When his friends, or creditors, have
been informed at the door, that he “had just stept out,” how little did
they dream that it meant he was a mile off!
It was his pleasure, whenever my Step-father walked, that I should
accompany him; such accompaniment as flute adagio is sometimes heard
to give to piano prestissimo. He seemed to pride himself, like some
pompous people, in constantly having a poor foot-boy trotting it his
heels: often did I beg to be left at home; often, but vainly, address
him in the language of old Capulet’s domestic--“Good thou, save me a
piece of _march-pane_.” The descriptive phrase of “rocky fastnesses,”
was but too typical of his speed and temper; he had no more pity for
me, than the great striding Ogre, in the Seven-leagued Boots, for
little Hop-o’-my-Thumb.
The day of retribution at last came, for, according to the clown’s
doctrine, the whirligig of time always brings round its revenges. My
poor mother died, and had a walking funeral, and my Step-father felt
more for her than I had expected; but he suffered most in his legs and
feet: the measured pace of the procession afflicted him beyond measure;
he longed to give sorrow strides, but was forbidden; and he walked
and grieved like a fiery horse upon the fret. The slow pace seemed
as a slow poison: it has been affirmed that he caught cold upon the
occasion; but whether he did or not,--from that day he took ill, went
off rapidly, as he always did, in a galloping consumption, and died,
leaving me, as usual, behind him. In compliance with his last wish,
he was furnished with a walking funeral, and, as decency dictated, I
followed him to the grave; though in truth it was sacrificing the only
opportunity I ever had in the world, of getting before him.
I have been told that, the evening of his decease, his apparition
appeared to a first cousin at Penryn, and the same night to his brother
at Appleby. I have no particular faith in Ghosts, but this I do most
firmly believe, that if any Body had the Spirit to do the distance, in
the time, it was the very Spirit of my Step-father Walker.
[Illustration: FOUR INSIDE.]
CONVEYANCING.
Oh, London is the place for all
In love with loco-motion!
Still to and fro the people go
Like billows of the ocean;
Machine or man, or caravan,
Can all be had for paying,
When great estates, or heavy weights,
Or bodies want conveying.
There’s always hacks about in packs,
Wherein you may be shaken,
And Jarvis is not always _drunk_,
Tho’ always _overtaken_;
In racing tricks he’ll never mix,
His nags are in their last days,
And _slow_ to go, altho’ they show
As if they had their _fast days_!
Then if you like a single horse,
This age is quite a _cab-age_,
A car not quite so small and light
As those of our Queen _Mab_ age;
The horses have been _broken well_,
All danger is rescinded,
For some have _broken both their knees_,
And some are _broken winded_.
If you’ve a friend at Chelsea end,
The stages are worth knowing--
There is a sort, we call ’em short,
Although the longest going--
For some will stop at Hatchett’s shop
Till you grow faint and sicky,
Perched up behind, at last to find
Your dinner is all _dickey_!
Long stages run from every yard;
But if you’re wise and frugal,
You’ll never go with any Guard
That plays upon the bugle,
“Ye banks and braes,” and other lays,
And ditties everlasting,
Like miners going all your way,
With _boring_ and with _blasting_.
Instead of _journeys_, people now
May go upon a _Gurney_,
With steam to do the horses’ work,
By _powers of attorney_;
Tho’ with a load it may explode,
And you may all be _un_-done!
And find you’re going _up to Heav’n_,
Instead of _up to London_!
To speak of every kind of coach,
It is not my intention;
But there is still one vehicle
Deserves a little mention;
The world a sage has called a stage,
With all its living lumber,
And Malthus swears it always bears
Above the proper number.
The law will transfer house or land
For ever and a day hence,
For lighter things, watch, brooches, rings,
You’ll never want conveyance:
Ho! stop the thief! my handkerchief!
It is no sight for laughter--
Away it goes, and leaves my nose
To join in running after.
[Illustration: VAN DEMON’S LAND.]
A LETTER FROM A SETTLER FOR LIFE IN VAN DIEMEN’S LAND.
_To Mary, at No 45 Mount Street Grosvenor Square._
DEAR MARY
Littel did I Think wen I advertisd in the Tims for annother Plaice
of taking wan in Vandemin’s land. But so it his and Hear I am
amung Kangerooses and Savidges and other Forriners. But goverment
offering to Yung Wimmin to Find them in Vittles and Drink and
Close and Husbands was turms not to be sneazed at, so I rit to the
Outlandish Seckertary and he was so Kind as Grant.
Wen this cums to Hand go to Number 22 Pimpernel Plaice And mind
and go betwixt Six and sevin For your own Sake cos then the
fammilys Having Diner give my kind love to betty Housmad and Say
I am safe of my Jurney to Forrin parts And I hope master as never
Mist the wine and brought Them into trubble on My accounts. But I
did not Like to leav for Ever And Ever without treeting my Frends
and feller servents and Drinking to all their fairwells. In my
Flury wen the Bell rung I forgot to take My own Key out of missis
Tekaddy but I hope sum wan had the thought And it is in Good hands
but shall Be obleeged to no. Lickwise thro my Loness of Sperrits
my lox of Hares quite went out of My Hed as was prommist to Be
giv to Gorge and Willum and the too Futmen at the too Next dores
But I hop and Trust betty pacifid them with lox of Her hone as I
begd to Be dun wen I rit Her from dover. O Mary wen I furst see
the dover Wite clifts out of site wat with squemishnes and Felings
I all most repentid givin Ingland warning And had douts if I was
goin to better my self. But the stewerd was verry kind tho I could
make Him no returns xcept by Dustin the ship for Him And helpin
to wash up his dishes. Their was 50 moor Young Wimmin of us and
By way of passing tim We agread to tell our Histris of our selves
taken by Turns But they all turned out Alick we had All left on
acount of Testacious masters And crustacious Mississis and becos
the Wurks was too much For our Strenths but betwixt yew and Me the
reel truths was beeing Flirted with and unprommist by Perfidus
yung men. With sich exampils befour there Minds I wunder sum of
them was unprudent enuff to Lissen to the Salers whom are coverd
with Pitch but famus for Not stiking to there Wurds. has for Me
the Mate chose to be verry Partickler wan nite Setting on a Skane
of Rops but I giv him is Anser and lucky I did for Am infourmd he
as Got too more Marred Wives in a sate of Biggamy thank Goodness
wan can marry in new Wurlds without mates. Since I have bean in My
pressent Sitiation I have had between too and three offers for My
Hands and expex them Evry day to go to fistcufs about Me this is
sum thing lick treeting Wimmin as Wimmin ought to be treetid Nun of
your sarsy Buchers and Backers as brakes there Prommissis the sam
as Pi Crust wen its maid Lite and shivvry And then laffs in Your
face and say they can hav anny Gal they lick round the Square. I
dont menshun nams but Eddard as drives the Fancy bred will no Wat
I mean. As soon as ever the Botes rode to Land I dont agrivate the
Truth to say their was haf a duzzin Bows apeace to Hand us out to
shoar and sum go so Far as say they was offered to thro Specking
Trumpits afore they left the Shipside. Be that as it May or may
Not I am tould We maid a Verry pritty site all Wauking too and
too in our bridle wite Gownds with the Union Jacks afore Us to
pay humbel Respex to kernel Arther who behaived verry Gentlemanny
and Complementid us on our Hansom apearances and Purlitely sed
he Wisht us All in the United States. The Salers was so gallaunt
as giv three chears wen We left there Ship and sed if so be they
had not Bean without Canons they Wood have salutid us all round.
Servents mite live Long enuff in Lonnon without Being sich persons
of Distinkshun. For my hone Part, cumming amung strangers and Pig
in Pokes, prudence Dicktatid not to be askt out At the verry furst
cumming in howsumever All is setteld And the match is aproved
off by Kernel Arther and the Brightish goverment, who as agread
to giv me away. thems wat I call Honners as we used to Say at
wist. Wan thing in My favers was my voice and my noing the song
of the Plane Gould Ring witch the Van Demons had never Herd afore
I wood recummend all as meens curnming to Bring as menny of the
fashingable Songs and Ballets as they Can--and to get sum nolliges
of music as fortnately for me I was Abel to by meens of praxtising
on Missis Piney Forty wen the fammily Was at ramsgit. of Coarse
you and betty Will xpect Me to indulge in Pearsonallitis about my
intendid to tell Yew wat he is lick he is Not at All lick Eddard
as driv the Faney bred and Noboddy else yew No. I wood send yew His
picter Dun by himself only its no more lick Him then Chork is to
Cheas. In spit of the Short Tim for Luv to take Roots I am convinst
he is verry Passionet of coarse As to his temper I cant Speek As
yet as I hav not Tride it. O mary littel did I think too Munth ago
of sending yew Brid Cake and Weddin favers wen I say this I am only
Figgering in speach for Yew must Not look for sich Things from this
Part of the Wurld I dont mean this by Way of discurridgement Wat I
meen to say is this If so be Yung Wimmin prefers a state of Silly
Bessy they Had better remane ware they was Born but as far as Reel
down rite Coarting and no nonsens is concarnd This is the Plaice
for my Munny a Gal has only to cum out hear And theirs duzzens
will jump at her like Cox at Gusberris. it will be a reel kindnes
to say as Much to Hannah at 48 and Hester Brown and Peggy Oldfield
and partickler poor Charlotte they needent Fear about being Plane
for Yew may tell Them in this land Faces dont make stumblin Blox
and if the Hole cargo was as uggly As sin Lots wood git marrid.
Deer Mary if so Be you feel disposed to cum Out of Your self I will
aford evry Falicity towards your hapiness. I dont want to hurt your
Felines but since the Cotchman as giv yew up I dont think Yew have
annother String to your Bo to say nothink of Not being so young As
yew was Ten Yeer ago and faces Will ware out as well as scrubbin
brushes. theirs a verry nice yung man is quit a Willin to offer to
Yew providid you cum the verry Next vessle for He has Maid up his
mind not to Wait beyond the Kupid and Sikey. as the ship is on the
Pint of Saling I cant rite Moor at pressent xcept for them has as
shily shalying sweat harts to Thretten with cumming to Vandemins
And witch will soon sho wether its Cubbard love or true Love I hay
seen Enuff of Bows droping in at supertime and falling out the next
morning after borrowin Wans wags. Wen yew see anny Frends giv my
Distant love to Them and say My being Gone to annother wurld dont
impear my Memmery but I often Thinks of Number 22 and the two Next
Dores. yew may Disclose my matterymonial Prospex to betty as we
hav always had a Deal of Confidens. And I remane with the Gratest
asurance
Your affexionat Frend
Susan Gale--as his to be Simco.
P.S. Deer mary my Furst Match beeing broke off short hope Yew will
not take it Ill but I have Marrid the yung Man as was to Hav waited
for Yew but As yew hav never seen one Annother trusts yew will Not
take Him to hart or abrade by Return of Postesses he has behaved
Perfickly honnerable And has got a verry United frend of his Hone
to be atacht to Yew in lew of Him. adew.
[Illustration: RING-DOVES.]
SONNET.
Allegory--A moral vehicle.--DICTIONARY.
I had a Gig-Horse, and I called him Pleasure,
Because on Sundays, for a little jaunt,
He was so fast and showy, quite a treasure;
Although he sometimes kicked, and spied aslant.
I had a Chaise, and christened it Enjoyment,
With yellow body, and the wheels of red,
Because ’twas only used for one employment,
Namely, to go wherever Pleasure led.
I had a wife, her nickname was Delight;
A son called Frolic, who was never still:
Alas! how often dark succeeds to bright!
Delight was thrown, and Frolic had a spill,
Enjoyment was upset and shattered quite,
And Pleasure fell a splitter on _Paine’s Hill_!
A SERIO-COMIC REMINISCENCE.
It seems but the other day--instead of nearly ten years ago--that
my drawing-room door opened, and the female servant, with a very
peculiar expression of countenance, announced a memorable visitor.
Shakspeare has enquired “What is there in a name?” But most assuredly
he would have withdrawn the question could he have seen the effect of
a patronymic on our Sarah’s risible muscles. To render the phenomenon
more striking, she was a maiden little addicted to the merry mood: on
the contrary, she was rather more sedate than her age warranted. Her
face was of a cast decidedly serious--quiet brow--steady eyes--sober
nose--precise mouth, and solemn chin, which she doubled by drawing
it in demurely against her neck. The habitual expression of her
physiognomy was as grave, short of actual sadness, as human face could
assume, reminding you of those set, solid, composed, very decorous
visages, that indifferent persons put on for the day at a funeral: her
very complexion was uniformly colourless--pale yet not clear--that
_slack-baked_ look which forbids the idea of levity. When she smiled,
which was rarely, and in cases where most females of her years would
have indulged in a titter, or excusable laugh, it was the faintest
possible approach to hilarity--the corners of her mouth curving, if
anything a little downwards. Nothing, in fact, less than galvanism,
which “sets corpses a-grinning,” seemed likely to shock her features
into any broad demonstration of jocularity, and yet, lo! there she was,
her face shortened by half its length--her mouth stretching from ear to
ear, and hardly able, for a suppressed giggle, to articulate its brief
announcement.
[Illustration: PLEASE, SIR! HERE’S MR. GRIMALDI!!!!]
I have always considered the above physiognomical miracle--the lighting
up of that seemingly impracticable countenance--as the best criticism I
have ever _seem_ of the performances of the great Pan of Pantomime:--a
most eloquent retrospective review of the triumphs of his genius. It
was a glorious illustration of the Pleasures of Memory, to behold
that face so like the stain a dead calm on a dull day burst suddenly
into ripples and radiance, like the brook that laughs in the sun. What
recollections of exquisite fooling must have rushed into her fancy
to convert that Quakerly maiden, as by a stage metamorphosis, into a
perfect figure of fun! What grotesque fantastic shapes must have come
tumbling, rolling, crawling, dangling, dancing, prancing, floundering,
flopping, striding, sliding, ambling, shambling, scrambling,
stumbling, bundling, and trundling into her mind’s eye, to so startle
her features from their propriety! What face-making faces, with
telegraphic brows--rolling, reeling, goggling, ogling, hard-winking,
and soft-blinking eyes--and grinning, gaping, pinching, puckering
mouths must have grimaced at her to put her steady countenance so out
of countenance! What is there in a name? Why magic! A serious, quiet,
decrepid man had but to announce himself, and Presto! Prestissimo!
before an engineer could cry “Ease her! stop her! back her!” our Sarah
had retraced her course up the stream of time to the bright wintry
gallery nights at the Lane, or the Garden, or the Midsummer Night’s
Dream at the Wells. Talk of magnetisers! when did Baron Dupotet, or any
of his sect, without pass or manipulation, thus throw a sedate, orderly
maiden, into an ecstasy, and set her looking through the back of her
head at the pantomimical experiences of the past? Talk of Laughing Gas!
when was there a facetious fluid so potent that the mere sight of the
empty bottle--(for such, alas! the ex-clown was become)--could throw
the ticklesome muscles into merry convulsions?
I have often speculated since on Sarah’s deportment, when, having
ushered “Mr. Grimaldi, alias Joe,” into the drawing-room, she returned
to her kitchen. Of course, in the first flutter and frisk of her animal
spirits, she postponed all domestic duties; or, at best, obliviously
broke the eggs into the flower tub, popped the lump of butter into
the oven, and secured the rolling-pin in the safe. More probably she
dropped herself into the first chair that offered; and throwing her
apron over her head to shut out the daylight, indulged in a lamplight
vision of the drolleries of Mother Goose, or the Sleeping Beauty; when
the frolics of funny Joe had cheated her for awhile of the sorrows of
servitude, low wages, a crustaceous mistress, a _perfidus_ young man,
and a hard place, with perhaps the bodily pains of a recent scald, a
bad bruise, and tight shoes. No doubt it had been one of her wishes,
born of wonder and curiosity, to see the popular Motley off the stage
“in his habit as he lived;” and lo! beyond her hope, she had met him
face to face without his paint, and been on speaking terms with that
marvellous voice, so sparingly heard, even on the stage.
For my own part, I confess to have been somewhat unsettled as well as
the bewildered maid by pantomimical associations. Slowly and seriously
as my visitor advanced, and with a decided stoop, I could not forget
that I had seen the same personage come in with two odd eyebrows, a
pair of right-and-left eyes, a wry nose, a crooked mouth, two wrong
arms, two left legs, and a free and easy body without a bone in it, or
apparently any centre of gravity. I was half prepared to hear that rare
voice break forth smart as the smack of a waggoner’s whip, or richly
stick and chuckling, like the utterance of a boy laughing, talking, and
eating custard, all at once, but a short interval sufficed to dispel
the pleasant illusion, and convinced me that the Grimaldi was a total
wreck.
“Alas! how changed from him,
The life of humour, and the soul of whim.”
The lustre of his bright eye was gone--his eloquent face was passive
and looked thrown out of work--and his frame was bowed down by no
feigned decrepitude. His melancholy errand to me related to a Farewell
Address, which at the invitation of his staunch friend Miss Kelly--for
it did not require a request--I had undertaken to indite. He pleaded
earnestly that it might be brief, being, he said, “a bad study,” as
well as distrustful of his bodily strength. Of his sufferings he spoke
with a sad but resigned tone, expressed deep regret at quitting a
profession he delighted in, and partly attributed the sudden breaking
down of his health to the superior size of one particular stage,
which required of him a jump extra in getting off. That additional
bound, like the bittock at the end of a Scotch mile, had, he thought,
overtasked his strength. His whole deportment and conversation
impressed me with the opinion that he was a simple, sensible,
warm-hearted being, such indeed as he appears in his Memoirs--a Joseph
after Parson Adams’s own heart. We shook hands heartily, parted, and
I never saw him again. He was a rare practical humorist, and I never
look into Rabelais, with its huge-mouthed Gargantua and his enormous
appetite for “plenty of links, chitterlings, and puddings,” in their
season, without thinking that in Grimaldi and _his_ pantomime I have
lost my best set of illustrations of that literary extravaganza.
EPICUREAN REMINISCENCES OF A SENTIMENTALIST.
“My _Tables_! _Meat_ it is, _I set it_ down!”--HAMLET
I think it was Spring but--not certain I am--
When my passion began first to work;
But I know we were certainly looking for lamb,
And the season was over for pork.
’Twas at Christmas, I think, when I met with Miss Chase,
Yes,--for Morris had asked me to dine,--
And I thought I had never beheld such a face,
Or so noble a turkey and chine.
Placed close by her side, it made others quite wild,
With sheer envy to witness my luck;
How she blushed as I gave her some turtle, and smiled
As I afterwards offered some duck.
I looked and I languished, alas, to my cost,
Through three courses of dishes and meats;
Getting deeper in love--but my heart was quite lost,
When it came to the trifle and sweets!
With a rent-roll that told of my houses and land,
To her parents I told my designs--
And then to herself I presented my hand,
With a very fine pottle of pines!
I asked her to have me for weal or for woe,
And she did not object in the least;--
I can’t tell the date--but we married, I know,
Just in time to have game at the feast.
We went to ----, it certainly was the sea-side;
For the next, the most blessed of morns,
I remember how fondly I gazed at my bride,
Sitting down to a plateful of prawns.
Oh! never may mem’ry lose sight of that year,
But still hallow the time as it ought;
That season the “grass” was remarkably dear,
And the peas at a guinea a quart.
So happy, like hours all our days seemed to haste,
A fond pair, such as poets have drawn,
So united in heart--so congenial in taste,
We were both of us partial to brawn!
A long life I looked for of bliss with my bride,
But then Death--I ne’er dreamt about that!
Oh! there’s nothing is certain in life, as I cried
When my turbot eloped with the cat!
My dearest took ill at the turn of the year,
But the cause no physician could nab;
But something it seemed like consumption, I fear;
It was just after supping on crab.
In vain she was doctored, in vain she was dosed,
Still her strength and her appetite pined;
She lost relish for what she had relished the most.
Even salmon she deeply declined!
For months still I lingered in hope and in doubt,
While her form it grew wasted and thin!
But the last dying spark of existence went out,
As the oysters were just coming in!
She died, and she left me the saddest of men
To indulge in a widower’s moan;
Oh! I felt all the power of solitude then,
As I ate my first natives alone!
But when I beheld Virtue’s friends in their cloaks,
And with sorrowful crape on their hats,
Oh! my grief poured a flood; and the out-of-door folks
Were all crying--I think it was sprats!
[Illustration: “THE CITY REMEMBRANCER.”]
SAINT MARK’S EVE.
A TALE OF THE OLDEN TIME.
“The Devil choke thee with un!”--as Master Giles, the Yeoman, said
this, he banged down a hand in size and colour like a ham, on the
old-fashioned oak table;--“I do say the Devil choke thee with un!”
The Dame made no reply: she was choking with passion and a fowl’s
liver--the original cause of the dispute. A great deal has been said
and sung of the advantage of congenial tastes amongst married people,
but true it is, the variances of our Kentish couple arose from this
very coincidence in gusto. They were both fond of the little delicacy
in question, but the Dame had managed to secure the morsel for herself,
and this was sufficient to cause a storm of very high words--which
properly understood, signifies very low language. Their mealtimes
seldom passed over without some contention of the sort,--as sure as the
knives and forks clashed, so did they--being in fact equally greedy and
disagreedy--and when they did pick a quarrel--they picked it to the
bone.
[Illustration: BOXER AND PINCHER.]
It was reported, that on some occasions they had not even contented
themselves with hard speeches, but they had come to scuffling--he
taking to boxing, and she to pinching--though in a far less amicable
manner than is practised by the takers of snuff. On the present
difference, however, they were satisfied with “wishing each other dead
with all their hearts”--and there seemed little doubt of the sincerity
of the aspiration, on looking at their malignant faces,--for they made
a horrible picture in this frame of mind.
Now it happened that this quarrel took place on the morning of St.
Mark,--a Saint who was supposed on that Festival to favour his Votaries
with a peep into the Book of Fate. For it was the popular belief in
those days, that if a person should keep watch towards midnight, beside
the church, the apparitions of all those of the parish who were to be
taken by Death before the next anniversary, would be seen entering the
porch. The Yeoman, like his neighbours, believed most devoutly in this
superstition--and in the very moment that he breathed the unseemly
aspiration aforesaid, it occurred to him, that the Even was at hand,
when by observing the rite of St. Mark, he might know to a certainty
whether this unchristian wish was to be one of those that bear fruit.
Accordingly, a little before midnight he stole quietly out of the
house, and in something of a Sexton-like spirit set forth on his way to
the Church.
In the mean time the Dame called to mind the same ceremonial; and
having the like motive for curiosity with her husband, she also put on
her cloak and calash, and set out, though by a different path, on the
same errand.
The night of the Saint was as dark and chill as the mysteries he was
supposed to reveal, the moon throwing but a short occasional glance,
as the sluggish masses of cloud were driven slowly across her face.
Thus it fell out that our two adventurers were quite unconscious of
being in company, till a sudden glimpse of moonlight showed them to
each other, only a few yards apart; both, through a natural panic, as
pale as Ghosts, and both making eagerly towards the church porch. Much
as they had just wished for this vision, they could not help quaking
and stopping on the spot, as if turned to a pair of tombstones, and in
this position the dark again threw a sudden curtain over them, and they
disappeared from each other.
It will be supposed the two came only to one conclusion, each
conceiving that St. Mark had marked the other to himself. With this
comfortable knowledge, the widow and widower elect hied home again
by the roads they came; and as their custom was to sit apart after a
quarrel, they repaired, each ignorant of the other’s excursion, to
separate chambers.
[Illustration: SECOND SIGHT.]
By-and-by, being called to supper, instead of sulking as aforetime,
they came down together, each being secretly in the best humour, though
mutually suspected of the worst: and amongst other things on the table,
there was a calf’s sweetbread, being one of those very dainties that
had often set them together by the ears. The Dame looked and longed,
but she refrained from its appropriation, thinking within herself that
she could give up sweetbreads _for one year_: and the Farmer made a
similar reflection. After pushing the dish to and fro several times,
by a common impulse they divided the treat; and then having supped,
they retired amicably to rest, whereas until then, they had never gone
to bed without falling out. The truth was, each looked upon the other
as being already in the church-yard mould, or quite “moulded to their
wish.”
On the morrow, which happened to be the Dame’s birthday, the Farmer was
the first to wake, and _knowing what he knew_, and having besides but
just roused himself out of a dream strictly confirmatory of the late
vigil, he did not scruple to salute his wife, and wish her many happy
returns of the day. The wife, _who knew as much as he_, very readily
wished him the same, having in truth but just rubbed out of her eyes
the pattern of a widow’s bonnet that had been submitted to her in her
sleep. She took care, however, to give the fowl’s liver at dinner to
the doomed man, considering that when he was dead and gone, she could
have them, if she pleased, seven days in the week; and the Farmer, on
his part, took care to help her to many tid-bits. Their feeling towards
each other was that of an impatient host with regard to an unwelcome
guest, showing scarcely a bare civility while in expectation of his
stay, but overloading him with hospitality when made certain of his
departure.
In this manner they went on for some six months, and though without
any addition of love between them, and as much selfishness as ever,
yet living in a subservience to the comforts and inclinations of each
other, sometimes not to be found even amongst couples of sincerer
affections. There were as many causes for quarrel as ever, but every
day it became less worth while to quarrel; so letting by-gones be
by-gones, they were indifferent to the present, and thought only of the
future, considering each other (to adopt a common phrase) “as _good_ as
dead.”
[Illustration: “LET BY-GONES BE BY-GONES.”]
Ten months wore away, and the Farmer’s birthday arrived in its turn.
The Dame, who had passed an uncomfortable night, having dreamt, in
truth, that she did not much like herself in mourning, saluted him as
soon as the day dawned, and with a sigh wished him many years to come.
The Farmer repaid her in kind, the sigh included; his own visions
having been of the painful sort for he had dreamt of having a headache
from wearing a black hatband, and the malady still clung to him when
awake. The whole morning was spent in silent meditation and melancholy
on both sides, and when dinner came, although the most favourite
dishes were upon the table, they could not eat. The Farmer, resting his
elbows upon the board, with his face between his hands, gazed wistfully
on his wife,--scooping her eyes, as it were, out of their sockets,
stripping the flesh off her cheeks, and in fancy converting her whole
head into a mere Caput Mortuum. The Dame, leaning back in her high
arm-chair, regarded the Yeoman quite as ruefully,--by the same process
of imagination picking his sturdy bones, and bleaching his ruddy visage
to the complexion of a plaster cast. Their minds travelling in the
same direction, and at an equal rate, arrived together at the same
reflection; but the Farmer was the first to give it utterance:
“Thee’d be missed, Dame, if thee were to die!”
The Dame started. Although she had nothing but Death at that moment
before her eyes, she was far from dreaming of her own exit, and at
this rebound of her thoughts against herself, she felt as if an extra
cold coffin-plate had been suddenly nailed on her chest; recovering,
however, from the first shock, her thoughts flowed into their old
channel, and she retorted in the same spirit.--“I wish, Master, thee
may live so long as I!”
The Farmer, in his own mind, wished to live rather longer; for, at the
utmost, he considered that his wife’s bill of mortality had but two
months to run. The calculation made him sorrowful; during the last
few months she had consulted his appetite, bent to his humour, and
dove-tailed her own inclinations into his, in a manner that could never
be supplied; and he thought of her, if not in the language, at least in
the spirit of the Lady in Lalla Rookh--
“I never taught a bright Gazelle
To watch me with its dark black eye,
But when it came to know me well,
And love me, it was sure to die!”
His wife, from being at first useful to him, had become agreeable,
and at last dear; and as he contemplated her approaching fate, he
could not help thinking out audibly, “that he should be a lonesome
man when she was gone.” The Dame, this time, heard the survivorship
foreboded without starting; but she marveled much at what she thought
the infatuation of a doomed man. So perfect was her faith in the
infallibility of St. Mark, that she had even seen the symptoms of
mortal disease, as palpable as plague spots, on the devoted Yeoman.
Giving his body up, therefore, for lost, a strong sense of duty
persuaded her, that it was imperative on her, as a Christian, to
warn the unsuspecting Farmer of his dissolution. Accordingly, with
a solemnity adapted to the subject, a tenderness of recent growth,
and a Memento Mori face, she broached the matter in the following
question--“Master, how bee’st?”
“As hearty, Dame, as a buck,”--the Dame shook her head,--“and I wish
thee the like,”--at which he shook his head himself.
A dead silence ensued: the Farmer was as unprepared as ever. There
is a great fancy for breaking the truth by dropping it gently,--an
experiment which has never answered any more than with Ironstone China.
The Dame felt this, and thinking it better to throw the news at her
husband at once, she told him in as many words, that he was a dead man.
It was now the Yeoman’s turn to be staggered. By a parallel course of
reasoning, he had just wrought himself up to a similar disclosure,
and the Dame’s death-warrant was just ready upon his tongue, when he
met with his own despatch, signed, sealed and delivered. Conscience
instantly pointed out the oracle from which she had derived the
omen, and he turned as pale as “the pale of society”--the colourless
complexion of late hours.
St. Martin had numbered his years; and the remainder days seemed
discounted by St. Thomas. Like a criminal cast to die, he doubted if
the die was cast, and appealed to his wife:--
“Thee hast watched, Dame, at the church porch, then?”
“Ay, Master.”
“And thee didst see me spirituously?”
“In the brown wrap, with the boot hose. Thee were coming to the
church, by Fairthorn Gap; in the while I were coming by the Holly
Hedge”--For a minute the Farmer paused--but the next, he burst into a
fit of uncontrollable laughter; peal after peal--and each higher than
the last,--according to the hysterical gamut of the hyæna. The poor
woman had but one explanation for this phenomenon--she thought it a
delirium--a lightening before death, and was beginning to wring her
hands, and lament, when she was checked by the merry Yeoman:--
“Dame, thee bee’st a fool. It was I myself thee seed at the church
porch. I seed thee too,--with a notice to quit upon thy face--but,
thanks to God, thee bee’st a-living, and that is more than I cared to
say of thee this day ten-month!”
The Dame made no answer. Her heart was too full to speak, but throwing
her arms round her husband, she showed that she shared in his
sentiment. And from that hour, by practising a careful abstinence from
offence, or a temperate sufferance of its appearance, they became the
most united couple in the county,--but it must be said, that their
comfort was not complete till they had seen each other, in safety, over
the perilous anniversary of St. Mark’s Eve.
[Illustration: BEAR AND FOR-BEAR.]
I’M NOT A SINGLE MAN.
“Double, single, and the rub.”--HOYLE.
“This, this is Solitude.”--BYRON.
I.
Well, I confess, I did not guess
A simple marriage vow
Would make me find all womenkind
Such unkind women now!
They need not, sure, as _distant_ be
As Java or Japan,--
Yet every Miss reminds me this--
I’m not a single man!
II.
Once they made choice of my bass voice
To share in each duett;
So well I danced, I somehow chanced
To stand in every set:
They now declare I cannot sing,
And dance on Bruin’s plan;
Me draw!--me paint!--me anything!--
I’m not a single man!
III.
Once I was asked advice, and tasked
What works to buy or not,
And “would I read that passage out
I so admired in Scott?”
They then could bear to hear one read;
But if I now began,
How they would snub “My pretty page!”
I’m not a single man!
IV.
One used to stitch a collar then,
Another hemmed a frill;
I had more purses netted then
Than I could hope to fill.
I once could get a button on,
But now I never can--
My buttons then were Bachelor’s,--
I’m not a single man!
V.
Oh how they hated politics
Thrust on me by papa:
But now my chat--they all leave that
To entertain mamma.
Mamma, who praises her own self,
Instead of Jane or Ann,
And lays “her girls” upon the shelf--
I’m not a single man!
VI.
Ah me, how strange it is the change,
In parlour and in hall!
They treat me so, if I but go
To make a morning call.
If they had hair in papers once,
Bolt up the stairs they ran;
They now sit still in dishabille--
I’m not a single man!
VII.
Miss Mary Bond was once so fond
Of Romans and of Greeks,
She daily sought my cabinet,
To study my antiques.
Well, now she doesn’t care a dump
For ancient pot or pan,
Her taste at once is modernised--
I’m not a single man!
VIII.
My spouse is fond of homely life,
And all that sort of thing;
I go to balls without my wife,
And never wear a ring:
And yet each Miss to whom I come,
As strange as Genghis Khan,
Knows by some sign, I can’t divine,--
I’m not a single man!
IX.
Go where I will, I but intrude;
I’m left in crowded rooms,
Like Zimmerman on Solitude,
Or Hervey at his Tombs.
From head to heel, they make me feel
Of quite another clan;
Compelled to own, though left alone,
I’m not a single man!
X.
Miss Towne the toast, though she can boast
A nose of Roman line,
Will turn up even that in scorn
Of compliments of mine:
She should have seen that I have been
Her sex’s partisan,
And really married all I could--
I’m not a single man!
XI.
’Tis hard to see how others fare,
Whilst I rejected stand,--
Will no one take my arm because
They cannot have my hand?
Miss Parry, that for some would go
A trip to Hindostan,
With me don’t care to mount a stair--
I’m not a single man!
XII.
Some change, of course, should be in force,
But, surely, not so much--
There may be hands I may not squeeze,
But must I never touch?--
Must I forbear to hand a chair
And not pick up a fan?
But I have been myself picked up--
I’m not a single man!
XIII.
Others may hint a lady’s tint
Is purest red and white--
May say her eyes are like the skies,
So very blue and bright,--
_I_ must not say that she _has eyes_;
Or, if I so began,
I have my fears about my ears,--
I’m not a single man!
XIV.
I must confess I did not guess
A simple marriage vow,
Would make me find all womenkind
Such unkind women now;--
I might be hashed to death, or smashed
By Mr. Pickford’s van,
Without, I fear, a single tear.
I’m not a single man!
[Illustration: A BACHELOR OF HEARTS.]
A GREENWICH PENSIONER
Is a sort of stranded marine animal, that the receding tide of life has
left high and dry on the shore. He pines for his element like a Sea
Bear, and misses his briny washings and wettings. What the ocean could
not do, the land does, for it makes him sick: he cannot digest properly
unless his body is rolled and tumbled about like a barrel-churn. Terra
firma is good enough he thinks to touch at for wood and water, but
nothing more. There is no wind, he swears, ashore--every day of his
life is a dead calm,--a thing above all others he detests--he would
like it better for an occasional earthquake. Walk he cannot, the ground
being so still and steady that he is puzzled to keep his legs; and ride
he will not, for he disdains a craft whose rudder is forward and not
astern.
Inland scenery is his especial aversion. He despises a tree “before
the mast,” and would give all the singing birds of Creation for a
Boatswain’s whistle. He hates prospects, but enjoys retrospects.
An old boat, a stray anchor, or decayed mooring ring, will set him
dreaming for hours. He splices sea and land ideas together. He reads
of “shooting off a tie at Battersea,” and it reminds him of a ball
carrying away his own pigtail. “Canvassing for a situation,” recalls
running with all sails set for a station at Aboukir. He has the
advantage of our Economists as to the “Standard of Value,” knowing it
to be the British ensign. The announcement of “an arrival of foreign
vessels, with our ports open,” claps him into a Paradise of prize
money, with Poll of the _Pint_. He wonders sometimes at “petitions
to be discharged from the Fleet,” but sympathises with those in the
Marshalsea Court, as subject to a Sea Court Martial. Finally, try
him even in the learned languages, by asking him for the meaning of
“Georgius Rex,” and he will answer, without hesitation, “The wrecks of
the Royal George.”
[Illustration: A GREENWICH PENSIONER.]
[Illustration: ENJOYING THE “TAILS OF MY LANDLORD.”]
THE BURNING OF THE LOVE LETTER.
“Sometimes they were put to the proof, by what was called the Fiery
Ordeal.”--HIST. ENG.
No morning ever seemed so long!--
I tried to read with all my might:
In my left hand “My Landlord’s Tales,”
And threepence ready in my right.
’Twas twelve at last--my heart beat high!--
The Postman rattled at the door!--
And just upon her road to church,
I dropt the “Bride of Lammermoor!”
I seized the note--I flew up stairs--
Flung-to the door, and locked me in--
With panting haste I tore the seal--
And kissed the B in Benjamin!
’Twas full of love--to rhyme with dove--
And all that tender sort of thing--
Of sweet and meet--and heart and dart--
But not a word about a ring!
In doubt I cast it in the flame,
And stood to watch the latest spark--
And saw the love all end in smoke--
Without a Parson and a Clerk!
SKETCHES ON THE ROAD.
THE DILEMMA
“Read! it’s very easy to say read.”--THE BURGOMASTER.
“I have trusted to a reed.”--OLD PROVERB.
“Hoy!--Cotch!--Co-ach!--Coachy!--Coachee--hullo!--holloo!--woh!--wo-hoay!--wough-hoaeiouy!”--for
the last cry was a waterman’s, and went all through the vowels.
The Portsmouth Rocket pulled up, and a middle-aged, domestic-looking
woman, just handsome enough for a plain cook at an ordinary, was
deposited on the dicky; two trunks, three bandboxes, a bundle, and a
hand-basket, were stowed in the hind boot. “This is where I’m to go
to,” she said to the guard, putting into his hand a slip of paper. The
guard took the paper, looked hard at it, right side upwards, then
upside down, and then he looked at the back; he in the mean time seemed
to examine the consistency of the fabric between his finger and thumb;
he approached it to his nose as if to smell out its meaning; I even
thought that he was going to try the sense of it by tasting, when by
a sudden jerk, he gave the label with its direction to the winds, and
snatching up his key-bugle began to play “Oh where, and oh where,” with
all his breath.
I defy the metaphysicians to explain by what vehicle I travelled to the
conclusion that the guard could not read, but I felt as morally sure
of it as if I had examined him in his a--b--ab. It was a prejudice not
very liberal; but yet it clung to me, and fancy persisted in sticking a
dunce’s cap on his head. Shakspeare says that “he who runs may read,”
and I had seen him run a good shilling’s worth after an umbrella that
dropped from the coach; it was a presumptuous opinion therefore to
form, but I formed it notwithstanding--that he was a perfect stranger
to all those booking-offices where the clerks are schoolmasters.
Morally speaking, I had no earthly right to clap an ideal Saracen’s
Head on his shoulders; but, for the life of me, I could not persuade
myself that he had more to do with literature than the Blue Boar.
Women are naturally communicative: after a little while the female
in the dicky brought up, as a military man would say, her reserve,
and entered into recitative with the guard during the pauses of the
key-bugle. She informed him in the course of conversation, or rather
dicky gossip, that she was an invaluable servant, and, as such,
had been bequeathed by a deceased master to the care of one of his
relatives at Putney, to exert her vigilance as a housekeeper, and
to overlook everything for fifty pounds a year. “Such places,” she
remarked, “is not to be found every day in the year.”
The last sentence was prophetic!
“If it’s Putney,” said the guard, “it’s the very place we’re going
through. Hold hard, Tom, the young woman wants to get down.” Tom
immediately pulled up; the young woman did get down, and her two
trunks, three bandboxes, her bundle, and her hand-basket, were
ranged round her. “I’ve had a very pleasant ride,” she said, giving
the fare with a smirk and a courtesy to the coachman, “and am very
much obliged,”--dropping a second courtesy to the guard,--“for other
civilities. The boxes and things is quite correct, and won’t give
further trouble, Mr. Guard, except to be as good as pint out the house
I’m going to.” The guard thus appealed to, for a moment stood all
aghast; but at last his wits came to his aid, and he gave the following
lesson in geography.
“You’re all right--ourn a’n’t a short stage, and can’t go round setting
people down at their own doors; but you’re safe enough at Putney--don’t
be alarmed, my dear--you can’t go out of it. It’s all Putney, from the
bridge we’ve just come over, to that windmill you almost can’t see
t’other side of the common.”
“But, Mr. Guard, I’ve never been in Putney before, and it seems a
scrambling sort of a place. If the coach can’t go round with me to the
house, can’t you stretch a pint and set me down in sight of it?”
“It’s impossible--that’s the sum total; this coach is timed to a
minute, and can’t do more for outsides if they was all kings of
England.”
“I see how it is,” said the female, bridling up, while the coachman,
out of patience, prepared to do quite the reverse; “some people are
very civil, while some people are setting beside ’em in dickies; but
give me the paper again, and I’ll find my own ways.”
“It’s chucked away,” said the guard as the coach got into motion; “but
just ask the first man you meet--anybody will tell you.”
“But I don’t know who or where to ask for,” screamed the lost woman
after the flying Rocket; “I can’t read; but it was all down in the
paper as is chucked away.”
A loud flourish of the bugle to the tune of “My Lodging is on the Cold
Ground” was the only reply: and as long as the road remained straight,
I could see “the Bewildered Maid” standing in the midst of her baggage,
as forlorn as Eve, when, according to Milton,
“The world was all before her, where to choose
Her _place_--”
[Illustration: THE OPENING OF MILTON’S PARADISE LOST.]
[Illustration: THE MOON IS ON THE WAIN.]
THE APPARITION.
In the dead of the night, when from beds that are turfy,
The spirits rise up on old cronies to call,
Came a shade from the shades on a visit to Murphy,
Who had not foreseen such a visit at all.
“Don’t shiver and shake,” said the mild Apparition,
“I’m come to your bed with no evil design;
I’m the Spirit of Moore, Francis Moore the Physician,
Once great like yourself in the Almanack line.”
Like you I was once a great prophet on weather,
And deemed to possess a more prescient knack
Than dogs, frogs, pigs, cattle, or cats, all together,
The donkeys that bray, and the dillies that quack.
With joy, then, as ashes retain former passion,
I saw my old mantle lugg’d out from the shelf,
Turn’d, trimmed, and brushed up, and again brought in fashion,
I seem’d to be almost reviving myself!
But, oh! from my joys there was soon a sad cantle--
As too many cooks make a mull of the broth--
To find that two Prophets were under my mantle,
And pulling two ways at the risk of the cloth.
Unless you would meet with an awkwardish tumble,
Oh! join like the Siamese twins in your jumps;
Just fancy if Faith on her Prophets should stumble,
The one in his clogs, and the other in pumps!
But think how the people would worship and wonder,
To find you “hail fellows, well met,” in your hail,
In one tune with your rain, and your wind and your thunder,
“’Fore God,” they would cry, “they are both in a tale!”
Consider the hint.
[Illustration: RATHER OUT IN THE WEATHER.]
THE DISCOVERY.
“It’s a nasty evening,” said Mr. Dornton, the stockbroker, as he
settled himself in the last inside place of the last Fulham coach,
driven by our old friend Mat--an especial friend in need, be it
remembered, to the fair sex.
“I wouldn’t be outside,” said Mr. Jones, another stockbroker, “for a
trifle.”
“Nor I, as a speculation in options,” said Mr. Parsons, another
frequenter of the Alley.
“I wonder what Mat is waiting for,” said Mr. Tidwell, “for we are full
inside and out.”
Mr. Tidwell’s doubt was soon solved,--the coach-door opened and Mat
somewhat ostentatiously enquired, what indeed he very well knew--“I
believe every place is took up inside?”
“We’re all here,” answered Mr. Jones, on behalf of the usual complement
of old stagers.
“I told you so, Ma’am,” said Mat, to a female who stood beside him,
but still leaving the door open to an invitation from within. However,
nobody spoke--on the contrary, I felt Mr. Hindmarsh, my next neighbour,
dilating himself like the frog in the fable.
“I don’t know what I shall do,” exclaimed the woman; “I’ve nowhere to
go to, and it’s raining cats and dogs!”
“You’d better not hang about, anyhow,” said Mat, “for you may ketch your
death,--and I’m the last coach,--aint I, Mr. Jones?”
“To be sure you are,” said Mr. Jones, rather impatiently; “shut the
door.”
“I told the lady the gentlemen couldn’t make room for her,” answered
Mat, in a tone of apology,--“I’m very sorry, my dear” (turning towards
the female), “you should have _my_ seat, if you could hold the
ribbons--but such a pretty one as you ought to have a coach of her own.”
He began slowly closing the door.
“Stop, Mat, stop!” cried Mr. Dornton, and the door quickly unclosed
again; “I can’t give up my place for I’m expected home to dinner; but
if the lady wouldn’t object to sit on my knees----”
“Not the least in the world,” answered Mat, eagerly; “you won’t object,
will you, Ma’am, for once in a way, with a married gentleman, and a wet
night, and the last coach on the road?”
“If I thought I shouldn’t uncommode,” said the lady, precipitately
furling her wet umbrella, which she handed in to one gentleman, whilst
she favoured another with her muddy pattens. She then followed herself,
Mat shutting the door behind her, in such a manner as to help her in.
“I’m sure I’m obliged for the favour,” she said, looking round; “but
which gentleman was so kind?”
“It was I who had the pleasure of proposing, Madam,” said Mr. Dornton;
and before he pronounced the last word she was in his lap, with an
assurance that she would sit as lightsome as she could. Both parties
seemed very well pleased with the arrangement; but to judge according
to the rules of Lavater, the rest of the company were but ill at ease.
For my own part, I candidly confess I was equally out of humour with
myself and the person who had set me such an example of gallantry. I,
who had read the lays of the Troubadours--the awards of the old “Courts
of Love,”--the lives of the “preux Chevaliers”--the history of Sir
Charles Grandison--to be outdone in courtesy to the sex by a married
stockbroker! How I grudged him the honour she conferred upon him--how I
envied his feelings!
I did not stand alone, I suspect, in this unjustifiable jealousy.
Messrs. Jones, Hindmarsh, Tidwell, and Parsons, seemed equally
disinclined to forgive the chivalrous act which had, as true knights,
lowered all our crests and blotted our scutcheons, and cut off our
spurs. Many an unfair gibe was launched at the champion of the fair,
and when he attempted to enter into conversation with the lady, he
was interrupted by incessant questions of “What is stirring in the
Alley?”--“What is doing in Dutch?”--“How are the Rentes?”
To all these questions Mr. Dornton incontinently returned business-like
answers, according to the last Stock Exchange quotations; and he was in
the middle of an elaborate enumeration, that so and so was very firm,
and so and so very low, and this rather brisk, and that getting up,
and operations, and fluctuations, and so forth, when somebody enquired
about Spanish Bonds.
“They are looking up, _my dear_,” answered Mr. Dornton, somewhat
abstractedly; and before the other stockbrokers had done tittering the
stage stopped. A bell was rung, and whilst Mat stood beside the open
coach-door, a staid female in a calash and clogs, with a lantern in her
hand, came clattering pompously down a front garden.
“Is Susan Pegge come?” enquired a shrill voice.
“Yes, I be,” replied the lady who had been dry nursed from town;--“are
you, Ma’am, number ten, Grove Place?”
“This is Mr. Dornton’s,” said the dignified woman in the hood advancing
her lantern,--“and--mercy on us! you’re in master’s lap!”
A shout of laughter from five of the inside passengers corroborated the
assertion, and like a literal cat out of the bag, the ci-devant lady,
forgetting her umbrella and her pattens, bolted out of the coach, and
with feline celerity rushed up the garden, and down the area, of number
ten.
“Renounce the woman!” said Dr. Dornton, as he scuttled out of the
stage--“Why the devil didn’t she tell me she was the new cook?”
[Illustration: AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.]
[Illustration: A DAY’S SPORT ON THE MOORS.]
LITTLE O’P.--AN AFRICAN FACT.
It was July the First, and the great hill of Howth
Was bearing by compass sow-west and by south,
And the name of the ship was the Peggy of Cork,
Well freighted with bacon and butter and pork.
Now, this ship had a captain, Macmorris by name,
And little O’Patrick was mate of the same;
For Bristol they sailed, but by nautical scope,
They contrived to be lost by the Cape of Good Hope.
Of all the Cork boys that the vessel could boast,
Only little O’P. made a swim to the coast;
And when he revived from a sort of a trance,
He saw a big Black with a very long lance.
Says the savage, says he, in some Hottentot tongue,
“Bash Kuku my gimmel bo gumborry bung!”
Then blew a long shell, to the fright of our elf,
And down came a hundred as black as himself.
They brought with them _guattul_, and pieces of _klam_,
The first was like beef, and the second like lamb;
“Don’t I know,” said O’P., “what the wretches are at?
They’re intending to eat me as soon as I’m fat!”
In terror of coming to pan, spit, or pot,
His rations of _jarbul_ he suffer’d to rot;
He would not touch _purry_ or _doolberry-lik_,
But kept himself _growing_ as thin as a stick.
Though broiling the climate, and parching with drouth,
He would not let _chobbery_ enter his mouth,
But kicked down the _krug_ shell, tho’ sweetened with _natt_,--
“I an’t to be pisoned the likes of a rat!”
At last the great _Joddry_ got quite in a rage,
And cried, “O mi pitticum dambally nage!
The _chobbery_ take, and put back on the shelf,
Or give me the _krug_ shell, I’ll drink it myself!
The _doolberry-lik_ is the best to be had,
And the _purry_ (I chew’d it myself) is not bad;
The _jarbul_ is fresh, for I saw it cut out,
And the _Bok_ that it came from is grazing about.
My _jumbo_! but run off to Billery Nang,
And tell her to put on her _jigger_ and _tang_,
And go with the _Bloss_ to the man of the sea,
And say that she comes as his _Wulwul_ from me.”
Now Billery Nang was as Black as a sweep,
With thick curly hair like the wool of a sheep,
And the moment he spied her, said little O’P.,
“Sure the Divil is dead, and his Widow’s at me!”
But when, in the blaze of her Hottentot charms,
She came to accept him for life in her arms,
And stretched her thick lips to a broad grin of love,
A Raven preparing to bill like a Dove,
With a soul full of dread he declined the grim bliss,
Stopped her Molyneux arms, and eluded her kiss;
At last, fairly foiled, she gave up the attack,
And _Joddry_ began to look blacker than black;
“By Mumbo! by Jumbo!--why here is a man
That won’t be made happy, do all that I can;
He will not be married, lodged, clad, and well fed,
Let the _Rham_ take his _shangwang_ and chop off his head!”
THE DEBUTANTE.
“Inside or out, Ma’am?” asked the coachman, as he stood civilly with
the door in his hand.
“If you please, I’ll try _in_ first,” answered the woman, poking in
an umbrella before her, and then a pair of pattens--“I’m not used to
coaching, and don’t think I could keep myself on the top.”
In she came, and after some floundering, having first tried two
gentlemen’s laps, she found herself in the centre of the front seat,
where she composed herself, with something of the air of a Catherine
Hayes, getting into a sledge for a trip to Tyburn. Except for her
fear, which literally made a fright of her, I should have called her
a pretty-looking woman,--but the faces she pulled were horrible. As
the cad enclosed her luggage in the hind-boot with a smart slam,
her features underwent an actual spasm; and I heard her whisper to
herself, “somethink broke.” As she spoke thus, she started on her feet,
and the horses doing the same thing at the same moment, the timid
female found herself suddenly hugging the strange gentleman opposite,
for which she excused herself by saying, “she wasn’t accustomed to be
so carried away.”
Down she plumped again in her old place, but her physiognomy didn’t
improve. She seemed in torture, as if broken, not upon one wheel, but
upon four. Her eyes rolled, her eyebrows worked up and down, as if
trying to pump out tears that wouldn’t come,--her lips kept going like
a rabbit’s, though she had nothing to eat, and I fancied I could hear
her grinding her teeth. Her hands, meanwhile, convulsively grasped
a bundle on her lap, till something like orange-juice squeezed out
between her fingers. When the coach went on one side, she clutched
the arm of whichever of her neighbours sat highest, and at a _pinch_
she laid hold of both. At last she suddenly turned pale, and somewhat
hastily I suggested that she perhaps did not prefer to ride backwards.
“If it’s all the same to _you_, Sir, I should really be glad to change
seats.”
The removal was effected, not without some difficulty, for she
contrived to tread on all our feet, and hang on all our necks, before
she could subside. It was managed, however, and there we sat again,
vis-a-vis, if such a phrase may be used where one visage was opposed to
visages innumerable; for if her face was her fortune, she screwed as
much out of it as she could. She hardly needed to speak, but she did so
after a short interval.
“I hope you’ll excuse, but I can’t ride forrards neither.”
“The air’s what you wan’t Ma’am,” said a stout gentleman in the corner.
“Yes, I think that _would_ revive me,” said the female, with what the
musicians call a veiled voice, through her handkerchief.
“Let the lady out!” squealed a little man, who sat on her left,
whilst a stout gentleman on her right, after looking in vain for a
check-string, gave a pull at the corner of the skirt of a great-coat
that hung over the window, almost pulling the owner off the roof. The
Chronometer stopped.
“It’s the lady,” said the little man to the coachman, as the latter
appeared at the door; “she wants to be inside out.”
“It’s as the gentleman says,” added the female; “I an’t quite myself,
but I don’t want to affect the fare. You shan’t be any loser, for I’ll
discharge in full.”
“There’s the whole dicky to yourself, Ma’am,” said the coachman, with
something like a wink, and after some scuffling and scrambling, we felt
her seating herself on the “backgammon board” as if she never meant to
be taken up.
“It seems ungallant,” said the little man, as we got into motion again;
“but I think women oughtn’t to travel, particularly in what are called
short stages, for they’re certain to make them long ones. First of all,
they have been told to make sure of the right coach, and they spell it
all over, from ‘Horne and Co.’ and ‘licensed to carry,’ to No. nine
thousand, fourteen hundred and nine. Then they never believe the cads.
If one cries ‘Hackney,’ they say ‘that means Camberwell, and I’ve had
enough of getting into wrong stages.’ Then they have to ascertain it’s
the first coach, and when it will start exactly, and when they’re
sure of both points, they’re to be hunted for in a pastry-cook’s
shop, and out of that into a fruiterer’s. At last you think you have
’em--but no such thing. All the luggage is to be put in under their
own eyes--there’s a wrangle, of course, about that,--and when they’re
all ready, with one foot on the step, they’ve been told to make their
bargain with the coachman before they get in.”
“My own mother to a T,” exclaimed the fat man; “she agreed with a
fly-man, at Brighton, to convey her to the Devil’s Dyke for twelve
shillings; but when it came to setting off, she couldn’t resist the
spirit of haggling. Says she, ‘What’ll you take me to the Devil for,
without the Dyke?’”
A loud scream interrupted any further illustration of female
travelling, and again the Chronometer stopped, losing at the rate of
ten miles in the hour. We all had a shrewd guess at the cause, but
the little man nevertheless thought proper to pop his little head out
of the window, and enquire with a big voice “What the plague we were
stopping for?”
“It’s the _lady_ agin, Sir,” said the coachman, in a dissatisfied tone.
“She says the dicky shakes so, she’s sure it will come off: but it’s
all right now--I’ve got her in front.”
“It’s very well,” said the little man, “but if I travel with a woman
again in a stage----”
“Poo! poo!--consider your own wife,” said the stout man; “women can’t
be stuck in garden-pots and tied to sticks; they must come up to London
now and then. She’ll be very comfortable in front.”
“I wish she may,” said the little man, rather tartly, “but it’s hard to
suit the sex;”--and, as if to confirm the sentence, the coach, after
proceeding about a mile, came again to a full stop.
“I’m very sorry, gentlemen,” said the coachman, with a touch of his
hat, as be looked in at the window, “but she won’t do in front!”
“Just like ’em!” muttered the little man, “the devil himself can’t
please a woman.”
“I should think,” suggested the stout man, “if you were to give her the
box seat, with your arm well round her waist.”
“No, I’ve tried that,” said the coachman, shaking his head; “it did
pretty well over the level, but we’re coming on a hill, and she can’t
face it.”
“Set her down at once, bag and baggage,” said the little man; “I’ve an
appointment at one.”
“And for my part,” said a gentleman in black, “if there’s any delay, I
give you legal notice I shall hire a chaise at the expense of the coach
proprietors.”
“That’s just it, curse her,” said the perplexed coachman, deliberately
taking off his hat, that he might have a scratch at his head; “she’s
had her pick, outside and in, back and front, and it’s no use of course
to propose to her to sit astride on the pole.”
“Oh Eve! Eve! Eve!” exclaimed the little man, who seemed to owe the sex
some peculiar grudge.
The man in black looked at his watch.
The coachman pulled out a handful of silver, and began to count out a
portion, preparatory to offering to return the woman her fare if she
would get down--when a cheering voice hailed him from above.
“It’s all right, Tom--jump up--the lady’s creeping into the boot.”
“She won’t like that, I guess,” muttered Tom to himself, but in a
second the money jingled back into his pocket, and he was on his box
in the twinkling of an eye. Away went the coach over the brow of the
hill, and began to spin down the descent with an impetus increasing at
every yard. The wheels rattled--the chains jingled--the horse-shoes
clattered--and the maid in the boot shrieked like a maid in Bedlam.
“Poor thing!” ejaculated the stout gentleman.
The little man grinned--villanously like an ape.
The man in black pretended to be asleep.
Meanwhile her screams increased in volume, and ascended in
pitch--interrupted only by an occasional “oh Lord!” and equivalent
ejaculations. It was piteous to hear her; but there was no help for it.
To stop the coach was impossible; it had pressed upon the horses till,
in spite of all the coachman’s exertions, they broke into a gallop, and
it required his utmost efforts to keep them together. An attempt to
pull up would have upset us, as sure as fate; luckily for us all Tom
did not make the experiment, and the Chronometer, after running down
one hill and half way up another, was stopped without accident.
“How’s the lady?” asked the stout man, anxiously thrusting his head and
shoulders out at one window, whilst I acted the same part at the other;
and, as the sufferer got down on my side of the coach, my curiosity was
first gratified. Never was figure more forlorn: her face was as pale as
ashes, and her hair hung about it in all directions through heat and
fright--her eyes as crazy as her hair, and her mouth wide open.
“How’s the lady?” repeated the stout gentleman.
As for her straw bonnet, it was like Milton’s Death, of no particular
shape at all, flat where it should have been full, square where it
ought to have been round, turned up instead of down, and down instead
of up--it had as many corners and nubbles about it as a crusty loaf.
Her shawl or scarf had twisted round and round her like a snake, and
her pelisse showed as ruffled and rumpled and all awry as if she had
just rolled down Greenwich Hill.
“How’s the lady? I say,” bellowed the big man.
One of her shoes had preferred to remain with the boot, and as the road
was muddy, she stood like a Numidian crane, posturing and balancing on
one leg; whilst Tom, hunting after the missing article, which declined
to turn up till everything else had been taken out of “the leathern
conveniency,” and as it was one of the old-fashioned boots it held
plenty of luggage.
“How is the lady?” was shouted again with no better success.
It was evident she had not escaped with the fright merely; her hands
wandered from her ribs to the small of her back, and then she rubbed
each knee. It was some time before she could fetch her breath freely,
but at last she mustered enough for a short exclamation.
“Oh them trunks!”
“How’s the lady?” shouted the fat man for the last time; for finding
that it obtained no answer, he opened the door and bolted out, just
in time to have the gratification of putting on the woman’s one shoe,
whilst she clung with both her arms round his short neck.
“There, my dear,” he said with a finishing slap on the sole. “Bless my
heart, though, it’s a distressing situation! Coachman, how far is she
from London?”
“A good nine mile,” answered Tom.
“Gracious Heaven!” exclaimed the stout man. “She can’t _do_ it!”
“It’s only nine mile,” said the woman, with a sort of hysterical
giggle;--“and I’m fond of walking.”
“Give her her luggage, then, at once,” cried the little man from the
coach. The dark man held out his watch. A passenger on the top swore
horribly, and threatened to get down, and Tom himself, as well as his
horses, were on the fret.
“There is no remedy,” sighed the fat man, as he resumed his old seat in
the corner of the coach. The whip smacked--I leaned out for a parting
look.
There she stood nursing three bundles, each as big as a baby, and as we
rolled off I heard her last words in this soliloquy:
“How _ham_ I to _hever_ to get to York by the mail?”
[Illustration: THE “SHORT STAGE,” A MILE END OMNIBUS.]
[Illustration: GENTLE AND SIMPLE.]
THE ANGLER’S FAREWELL.
“Resign’d, I kissed the rod.”
Well! I think it is time to put up!
For it does not accord with my notions,
Wrist, elbow, and chine,
Stiff from throwing the line,
To take nothing at last by my motions!
I ground-bait my way as I go,
And dip in at each watery dimple;
But however I wish
To inveigle the fish,
To my _gentle_ they will not play _simple_!
Though my float goes so swimmingly on,
My bad luck never seems to diminish;
It would seem that the Bream
Must be scarce in the stream,
And the _Chub_, tho’ it’s chubby, be _thinnish_!
Not a Trout there can be in the place,
Not a Grayling or Rud worth the mention,
And although at my hook
With _attention_ I look,
I can ne’er see my hook with _a Tench on_!
At a brandling once Gudgeon would gape,
But they seem upon different terms now;
Have they taken advice
Of the “_Council of Nice_,”
And rejected their “_Diet of Worms_,” now?
In vain my live minnow I spin,
Not a Pike seems to think it worth snatching;
For the gut I have brought,
I had better have bought
A good _rope_ that was used to _Jack-ketching_!
Not a nibble has ruffled my cork,
It is vain in this river to search then;
I may wait till it’s night,
Without any bite,
And at _roost-time_ have never a _Perch_ then!
No Roach can I meet with--no Bleak,
Save what in the air is so sharp now;
Not a Dace have I got,
And I fear it is not
“Carpe diem,” a day for the Carp now!
Oh! there is not a one pound prize
To be got in this fresh-water lottery!
What then can I deem
Of so fishless a stream
But that ’tis--like St. Mary’s--_Ottery_!
For an Eel I have learned how to try,
By a method of Walton’s own showing,--
But a fisherman feels
Little prospect of Eels,
In a path that’s devoted to towing!
I have tried all the water for miles,
Till I’m weary of dipping and casting;
And hungry and faint,--
Let the Fancy just paint
What it is _without Fish_, to be _Fasting_!
And the rain drizzles down very fast,
While my dinner-time sounds from a far bell,--
So, wet to the skin,
I’ll e’en back to my Inn,
Where at least I am sure of a _Bar-bell_!
POPPING THE QUESTION.
My friend Walker is a great story-teller. He reminds me of the
professional tale-bearers in the East, who, without being particularly
requested by the company, begin reciting the adventures of Sinbad, or
the life, death, and resurrection of Little Hunchback. No sooner does
conversation flag for a few minutes, than W. strikes up, with some such
prelude as, “I told you about the Flying Fish affair before,--but as
you wish me to refresh your memory, you shall have it again.” He then
deliberately fills his glass, and furnishes himself with a cork, a bit
of orange-peel, or an apple-paring, to be shredded and sub-shredded
during the course of narration. Many Scotchmen, by-the-way, and most
Canadians, are given to the same manual propensity. A lady located
towards the Back Settlements informed me, that at a party she gave, the
mantelshelf, chairs, tables, and every wooden article of furniture, was
nicked and notched by the knives of her guests, like the tallies of
our Exchequer. It is most probably an Indian peculiarity, and derived
by intercourse or intermixture with the Chipaways--but to return to W.
The other day, after dinner, with a select few of my friends, there
occurred one of those sudden silences, those verbal armistices, or
suspensions of words, which frequently provoke at irresistible allusion
to a Quaker’s meeting. Of this pause W. of course availed himself.
[Illustration: FISHING--A RISE.]
“You were going, Sir,” addressing the gentleman opposite, “to ask me
about the Pop business,--but I ought first to tell you how I came to be
carrying ginger-beer in my pocket.”
The gentleman thus appealed to, a straightforward old drysalter, who
had never seen W. in his life before, naturally stared at such a bold
anticipation of his thoughts; but before he could find words to reply,
W. had helped himself to a dozen almonds, which he began mincing, while
he set off at a steady pace in his story.
“The way I came to have ginger-beer in my pocket, was this. I don’t
know whether you are acquainted with Hopkins, Sir, of the Queen’s
Arms in the Poultry,” the drysalter shook his head; “it’s the house
I frequent, and a very civil obliging sort of fellow he is--that is
to say, was, two summers ago. The season was very sultry, and says I,
Hopkins, I wonder you don’t keep ginger pop--it’s a pleasant refreshing
beverage at this season, and particularly wholesome. Well, Hopkins
was very thankful for the hint, for he likes to have everything that
can be called for, and he was for sending off an order at once to the
ginger-beer manufactory, but I persuaded him better. None of their
wholesale trash, said I, but make your own. I’ll give you a recipe for
it--the best ever bottled. But I couldn’t gain my point. Hopkins hum’d
and haw’d, and thought nobody could make it but the makers. There was
no setting him right, so at last I determined to put him to the proof.
I’ll tell you what, Hopkins, said I, you don’t like the trouble, or I’d
soon convince you that a man who isn’t a maker can make it as well as
anyone--perhaps better. You shall have a sample of mine--I’ve got a few
bottles at my counting-house, and it’s only a step. Of course, Hopkins
was very much obliged, and off I went. In confidence between you and
me, Sir,--though I never had the pleasure of seeing you before--I
wanted to introduce ginger-beer at the Queen’s Arms as a public
benefit.”
“I am sure, Sir--I’m very much obliged,” stammered the drysalter, at a
loss what to say. “Ginger-beer, I’ve no doubt, is very efficacious, and
particularly after fruit or lobsters, for I observe you always see them
at the same shops.”
“The best drink in the dog-days all to nothing,” returned W., “but
ought to be amazingly well corked and wired down--and I’ll tell you
why--it will get vapid and maybe worse. Well, I’d got it in my coat
pocket, and was walking back, just by Bow Church, no more thinking of
green silk pelisses than you are, Sir, at this moment--upon my honour
I wasn’t--when something gave a pop and a splash, and I heard a female
scream. I was afraid to look round and when I did, you might have
knocked me down with a straw. You know, Tom (addressing me,) I’m not
made of brass,--for the minute I felt more like melted lead--heavy and
hot. Two full kettles seemed poured over me--one warm within, and the
other cold without. You never saw such an object! There she stood,
winking and gasping, and all over froth and foam, like a lady just
emerged out of the sea only they don’t bathe in green silk pelisses
and satin bonnets. You might have knocked me down with a hair. What I
did or said at first I don’t know; I only remember that I attempted to
wipe her face with my handkerchief, but she preferred her own. To make
things worse, the passengers made a ring round us, as if we had been
going to fight about it, and a good many of ’em set up a laugh. I would
rather have been surrounded by banditti. I don’t tell a lie if I say I
would gladly have been tossed out of the circle by a mad bull. How I
longed to jump like a Harlequin into a twopenny post-box, or to slip
down a plug like an eel!”
“Very distressing, indeed,” said the drysalter.
“I don’t think,” resumed W., “I felt as much when my poor mother
died--I don’t, upon my soul! _She_ was expected for years, but the
lady in green came like a thunderbolt!--When I saw the ginger-beer
weltering down her, I would almost as soon have seen blood. I felt
little short of a murderer. How I got her into Tweedie’s shop, Heaven
knows! I suppose I pulled her in, for I cannot remember one word of
persuasion. However, I got her into Tweedie’s, and had just sense
enough to seat her in a chair, and to beg for a few dry cloths. To do
the dear creature justice, she bore it all angelically,--but every
smile, every syllable making light of her calamity, went to my heart.
You don’t know my original old friend, Charles Mathews, do you, Sir?”
[Illustration: BANDITTI SEIZING BOOTY.]
The drysalter signified dissent.
“No matter--his theory is right all over--it is as true as gospel!”
exclaimed W., with an asseverating thump upon the table. “There _is_
an infernal, malicious, aggravating little demon, hovers up aloft
about us, wherever we go, ready to magnify any mischief, and deepen
every disaster. Sure I am he hovered about me! The cloths came--but
as soon as I began to wipe briskly, bang again went ‘t’other bottle,’
and uncorked itself before it was called for. I shall never forget the
sound! Pop, whiz, fiz, whish--ish--slish--slosh--slush--guggle, guggle,
guggle: I’d rather have been at the exploding of the Dartford Powder
Mills! At the first report I turned hastily round, but by so doing,
I only diverted the _jet_ from the open cases on the counter, to the
show-trays in the shop window, filled with Tweedie’s choicest cutlery;
and as I completed the pirouette, I favoured Tweedie himself with the
tail of the spout!”
“Very unpleasant, indeed,” said the drysalter, with a hard wink, as if
the fussy fluid had flown in his own face.
“Unpleasant!” ejaculated W., “it was unendurable! I could have cut my
throat with one of the wet razors--I could have stabbed myself with a
pair of the splashed scissors! The mess was frightful--bright steel
buckles, buttons, clasps, rings, all cut and polished--I saw Tweedie
himself shake his head as he looked at the chains and some of the
delicate articles. It wasn’t a time to stand upon words, and I believe
I cursed and swore like a trooper. I know I stamped about, for I went
on the lady’s foot, and that made me worse than ever. Tweedie says I
raved; and I do remember I cursed myself for talking of ginger-beer,
as well as Hopkins for not keeping it in his house. At last I got
so rampant, that even the lady began to console me, and as she had
a particularly sweet voice and manner, and Tweedie too, trying to
make things comfortable, I began to hear reason: but if ever I carry
ginger-beer again in my pocket, along Cheapside----”
“Till you’re a widower,” said I.
“I was coming to that, Sir,” continued W., still addressing the
drysalter. “I insisted on putting the lady into a coach, and by that
means obtained her address, and as common politeness dictated, I
afterwards called and was well received. A new green silk dress was
graciously accepted, and a white one afterwards met with the same kind
indulgence, when the lady condescended to be Mrs. Walker. Our fortunes,
Sir, in this world, hinge frequently on trifles. Through an explosion
of pop I thus popped into a partner with a pretty fortune; but for all
that, I would not have any man, like the Persian in Hajji Baba, mistake
a mere accident for the custom of the country. For Cœlebs in Search of
a Wife to walk up and down Cheapside with a bottle of ginger-beer in
his pocket, would be Quixotic in the extreme.”
[Illustration: MILL’S HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES.]
SEA SONG.
AFTER DIBDIN.
Pure water it plays a good part in
The swabbing the decks and all that--
And it finds its own level for sartin--
For it sartinly drinks very flat:--
For my part a drop of the creature
I never could think was a fault,
For if Tars should swig water by nature
The sea would have never been salt!--
Then off with it into a jorum,
And make it strong, sharpish, or sweet,
For if I’ve any sense of decorum
It never was meant to be neat!--
One day when I was but half sober,--
Half measures I always disdain--
I walk’d into a shop that sold Soda,
And ax’d for some Water Champagne;--
Well, the lubber he drew and he drew, boys,
Till I’d shipped my six bottles or more,
And blow off my last limb but it’s true, boys,
Why, I warn’t half so drunk as afore!--
Then off with it into a jorum,
And make it strong, sharpish, or sweet,
For if I’ve any sense of decorum
It never was meant to be neat.
[Illustration: A BOTTLE JACK.]
[Illustration]
THE BLACK AND WHITE QUESTION.
“The game is made, gentlemen, choose your colour.”
Amongst the many important topics which at present excite a popular
interest, must be reckoned the great question whether the West Indian
apprentices ought or ought not to be considered ought of their time?
A subject presenting such very strong lights and shadows, necessarily
produces a powerful and Rembrandt-like effect on the public mind;
nevertheless, it is only lately and accidentally, that I have been
induced to look critically into the colouring and handling of the
picture. It is not my wont to walk wilfully on Debatable Ground; but in
the present instance, I was seduced involuntarily into the dangerous
confines of “all we love and all we hate,” the borderland, where party
contends with party.
A few days ago, I was giving an order to a tradesman in the
Strand--_not far from Warren’s_--when, to the utter surprise and
disconcertment of the master of the shop, a poor African stepped in
from the street, and, with an obsequious bow, made an offer of his
sable services for a term of years.
[Illustration: “MASSA, YOU WANT A ’PRENTICE?”]
It would require a far better artist than myself to do justice to the
scene which ensued on so unusual an application. The late Elia, in his
Essay on “Imperfect Sympathies,” has alluded to the natural repugnance
of the pale faces to the dark ones. “In the negro countenance,” he
says, “you will often meet with strong traits of benignity. I have
felt yearnings of tenderness towards some of these faces, or rather
masks, that have looked out kindly upon one in casual encounters in
the streets and highways. I love what Fuller beautifully calls ‘these
images of God cut in ebony.’ But I should not like to associate with
them--to share my meals and my good-nights with them--because they are
black.” Such a feeling is truly an imperfect sympathy, but my Strand
shopkeeper evidently went beyond the essayist, and regarded “the
nigger” with a positive antipathy. “A good horse,” says the proverb,
“cannot be of a bad colour,” but I could not help feeling that a good
man might be of an unfortunate complexion, howbeit, of a hue which
wears well, washes well, does not fly, and, moreover, hides the dirt.
So far from being able to endure a moor as his companion, the master
tradesman could not look upon him as fit to be his subordinate. The
mere possibility of such a connexion had never occurred to him, or
assuredly, to the advertisement in the window for an apprentice, he
would have added “a White will be preferred,” or “No African need
apply.” In the meantime, it was sufficiently obvious that, even if
indentured, a Hottentot would never be “treated as one of the family.”
Whilst the master stared an unequivocal rejection, his wife looked
over his shoulder at the applicant, with all the _physical_ expression
in her countenance, of the anticipation of a black dose; the little
boy took fright and tried to bolt; the baby even set its infantine
face against the adoption, and the very dog barked and growled at the
intruder as at a breed that was vermin. The result of such a scrutiny
needs hardly to be told; the poor candidate was unanimously blackballed
to his face, and recommended, unceremoniously, to make himself as
scarce as a swan of the same complexion.
It will do me no credit, I fear, with our active Abolitionists, to
confess, that the above little incident set me seriously thinking, for
the first time, on the condition of the Negro Apprentices. In addition
to my dread of becoming a _sidesman_--and there is a spirit abroad
which can convert even a black suit into a party-coloured one--I
am too apt to take matters upon trust, and to suppose that the name
stands for the thing. Thus, in my simple belief, the outward-bound and
the homeward-bound apprentices, conformed to the same or nearly the
same articles; and if I thought at all of the sable ones, it was as
walking abroad on Sundays, drest in all their best, only with Phœbe
or Miss Diana, instead of “Sally in our Alley.” A common sense of
the eternal principles of justice helped, beside, to mislead me; for
who, with a drachm of philosophy, or a scruple of Christianity, could
suppose, that whilst the accidents of colour are overlooked in a good
horse, the moral qualities of a human being were weighed down by such
skin-deep casualties as occur every day in a baker’s oven? The scene
in the Strand, however, aroused certain misgivings; and for the mere
repose of my mind, it became necessary to procure further information,
in order to come to a settled opinion on the subject. To this end, it
was desirable to obtain the sentiments of a Black Apprentice, or at
least of a Black, and of an Apprentice, and fortune favoured me in the
search. Having delivered my instructions to the tradesman, it occurred
to me to pay an overdue visit to a decayed kinswoman in the same
neighbourhood, and in whose family affairs I took a friendly interest.
She happened to be at home; and after a preliminary conversation on the
weather, and Mr. Murphy, and the current news of the day, the discourse
turned on her son Richard, whom she had recently articled to an
architect; she had doubts, she said, of his being exactly comfortable
in his situation, but it was no fault of hers, as he had been placed in
it at his own urgent instances, in proof whereof she handed to me the
following letter:--
MY DEAR MOTHER,
This is to say I am in good health and quite comfortable, and as
happy as can be expected away from home. I like being an architect
very much. All the work I have had to do for the last fortnight,
has been to copy a drawing of a gate for a Porter’s Lodge, and to
look over portfolios of nice prints. My master is very kind, and
lets me fill up my time at over-hours how I like. I always dine
with him and Mrs. G., and have plenty to eat of whatever I prefer.
Last Sunday we had leg of lamb and asparagus, and a pigeon pie,
and a tart, besides a glass of wine afterwards. I’m allowed to sit
up to supper because I said I liked music, for Mr. G. plays on the
flute, and Mrs. G. sings to the piano. He is a very good man, and
she is a very motherly good woman; and the other night, because it
was so cold, I had a tumbler of hot elder wine. For the present I
sleep in the best spare bed till my own is got ready for me--and
when company comes I’m not sent off to it, but played last night
with the visitors till twelve o’clock, and they won all my pocket
money. I do hope and pray you won’t forget to send me some more, as
there’s another party next week. Altogether, I could not be better
off for food, or amusement, or any thing, so that I needn’t be any
longer on liking, as I like it very much, and am agreeable to be
bound as soon as you and master think proper; and I do hope you
won’t stick about the premium, as you seemed to think it a great
deal--but consider the treatment. Give my kind love to everybody,
and accept the same yourself, from, dear mother, your dutiful and
affectionate son,
RICHARD RUGGLES.
P.S.--Mr. and Mrs. G. desire their best compliments--they are
always asking about you in the most friendly way. Pray remember
what I said about the premium, as I could never be so happy
anywhere else, or make such progress in my profession.
It may be supposed that I did not read the above effusion throughout,
without a smile on my countenance; but the mother gravely shook her
head, and said she had now to submit to me a very different statement,
whereupon with a sigh, and a reflection on the duplicity of the world
in general, and of architects in particular, she placed in my hands,
Protocol No. 2.
DEAR MOTHER,
I am very sorry to trouble your mind with anything unpleasant,
but a great change has taken place since the articles were signed
and the premium paid down. All the being on liking has come to
a sudden end. Mr. and Mrs. G. have thrown off their masks, and
he is a cruel tyrant; and instead of being another mother to me,
she is quite the reverse. I little thought the moment I became an
apprentice I should be a complete slave, and work like a horse.
Nothing but drawing, drawing, drawing, as long as it’s light--and
next week we begin lamps. I’ve no over-hours at all except in bed,
and that’s up in the back garret, and nothing but an old flock as
hard as wood. My being a parlour boarder is all over; and as to
sitting up to music and supper, I can’t repeat, but I’m d--d up at
night that I may be down in the morning. They have not sent me as
yet to take my meals in the kitchen, but I would almost as soon,
for I’m snubb’d if I open my lips at table; and the moment the
wine comes on I’m expected to be off, and am reminded if I don’t.
As for the visitors, they take no more notice of me than they do
of the foot-boy; but what goes most to my heart is, Mr. and Mrs.
G. never ask now after your delicate health. It’s very ungrateful
after paying so handsomely, but it’s my belief he doesn’t know
anything about architecture, and only takes in young gentlemen for
the sake of their premiums. I can t help feeling very unhappy, when
I think I’ve got to run seven years to come, and do wish you would
ask Uncle William, as he’s a lawyer, whether I can’t be turned
over by legal law, or cancelled and left to my liberty. Next to
an architect, I should like, if was unbound, to be an author,
and write books; which I hope you will approve of, as it doesn’t
require any premium. But perhaps you would like to have me at home,
and to be nothing at all, with which I remain,
My dear mother, your dutiful and affectionate son,
RICHARD RUGGLES.
As the above letters are genuine, it is probable that many of my
readers, who are parents or guardians, have received similar epistles
from their sons or wards before or after their being articled to a
trade or a profession; at least there is reason to believe that the
above case is one of ordinary occurrence. Taking it, therefore, as a
fair sample of the practice in England, I was anxious to compare it
with the course of a negro apprenticeship in the colonies; and with
this view my next visit was paid to my old friend Colonel C., who had
recently arrived from Jamaica with a black “turn-over” in his service.
Having described the scene at the shop in the Strand, and explained my
errand, which, of course, subjected me to some raillery, my request was
acceded to, and Sambo was ordered to attend me to a private conference
in the study. He was a stout good-humoured African, with rather more
than the twilight intelligence allowed to the race by the late Monk
Lewis; but with all the characteristic relish for a talk with Massa,
ascribed to his brethren by the same pleasant authority. He entered
therefore into the discussion with the greatest good-will; and the
following, divested of his outlandish jargon, is the substance of his
evidence.
[Illustration: APPRENTICE ON LIKING.]
To my first question, whether he had ever betrayed any original
inclination to go into the rice, sugar, and tobacco line, he gave
a decided negative. He had no occasion, he said, to labour for a
livelihood, having been in his own country an independent black
prince, and heir-apparent, as I understood him, to the king of the
Eboes. He acknowledged, however, that he could neither read nor
write, and consequently had never applied personally, or by letter,
post paid, to any Transatlantic A. B. C. or X. Y. Z., in answer to
an advertisement for an “Articled Pupil.” He was taken, he affirmed,
at unawares, and he was positive that no premium was required with
him. It appeared, however, that he had been regularly bound, but on
explanation it turned out that it had been done with rope-yarn, and the
only indentures he knew of, were on his wrists and ankles, from the
pressure of his fetters. He had a decided impression that his parents
or guardians were never applied to for their concurrence; indeed he had
no recollection of being asked for his own assent to the arrangement.
He would “take his dam” he was never carried before the Chamberlain
or any official personage invested with similar functions, and denied
ever having received the slightest hint that the binding him was
necessary to entitle him to take up his freedom. In short, contrary
to the experience of Richard Ruggles, his very first step appeared to
have been into slavery, and it was only after a long term of severe
service in the rice-field and the cane-piece that he was constituted
an apprentice. This being the point to which the public interest is
mainly directed, my enquiries here became naturally more minute, and
the evidence was proportionably circumstantial. Taking the Ruggles
letters for my guide, I was at great pains to make out something
analogous to the state of being what is called “upon liking,” but I
failed to elicit anything of the sort; and from the solemnity, not to
say awfulness, of Sambo’s asseverations, there appeared no reason to
suspect his veracity. He denied most positively and repeatedly his
dining, in any one solitary instance, with his master and mistress,
and by consequence the pleasure of taking wine with them after the
social repast. He was equally firm in disclaiming any invitation to
sit up to supper; and instead of being asked if he liked music, he
declared indignantly that his favourite instruments the kitty-katty and
the ganby had been continually broken over his own head. He totally
repudiated the notion of playing at Pope Joan with the company that
came to his master’s house; and insisted that the only notice he ever
obtained from the visitors was his being “larrupped” by every gentleman
that got drunk, and none of them ever went away sober. On the whole he
would not allow himself to have received any personal benefit from his
metamorphosis by Act of Parliament into an apprentice; no, not even
to the extent of sparing him one single cut of the cowhide. He rather
thought, on the contrary, that the prospect of his being out of his
time in so many years had operated to the prejudice of the negro, by
tempting the owner in the interim to get as much out of him, and pitch
as much into him, as possible. To conclude, I charged Sambo very home
with a question which has been much dwelt upon by certain members of
both Houses; namely, whether the blacks were “properly prepared” to
enter into a state of liberty? to which he answered very candidly,
that he had not formally examined them on the subject, but judging by
himself he should say they were quite as fit and prepared for freedom
as they had been for slavery, to which they had mostly been introduced
at an unfashionably short notice. For his own part he had been rather
suddenly emancipated by simply stepping on English ground; but the only
effect had been to inspire him with profound feelings of veneration and
gratitude towards the soil, and a most fervent wish that he could send
over a barrowful of the same earth for Black Juno and de pickaninnies
to put him foot upon in Jamakey.
Such was the result of my conference with Sambo; and it served to
account for the conduct of the tradesman in the Strand, by proving,
that instead of being treated as one of the family, in a limited sense,
the Negro is hardly looked upon as a member of that great domestic
circle which has a circumference of 360 degrees. It appears from the
facts, that an apprenticeship in Jamaica or Barbadoes has little or
nothing in common except the name, with an apprenticeship on our own
side of the Atlantic;--that under the same title there exists two
diametrically opposite systems, literally as different as light and
dark; and of course, as the hand said of the pair of gloves, “They
cannot _both_ be right.” As the collective wisdom of the country has
decided that the Black style of _binding_ is the correct pattern,
and that the Negroes are properly “done up,” it necessarily follows,
that our home-made articles are very loosely stitched, and without
a due provision for rough usage and durability. Assuming the sable
race to be subject to only a wholesome severity, it results that our
London Prentices and their kind, are held by indentures shamefully
lax in their conditions, and are allowed a most culpable latitude
and indulgence. To place this gross partiality in the strongest light
and shade, let the servitude of the born Blacks be compared with that
of those “Africans of our own growth,” as Elia calls them, who derive
their nigritude not from nature but from soot. Simply because they
have once been whites, and are still white, or nearly white, once a
year, like the hawthorns in May, they are protected and even pampered
by laws, the framers of which have assuredly considered their own
crows as the fairest. Let any one turn to the Statute Anno Quarto et
Quinto Gulielmi IV. Regis, cap. 35, intituled “An Act for the Better
Regulation of Chimney Sweepers and their Apprentices,” and he will find
that the Climbing Boy, compared with the African, is almost a spoiled
child. Instead of allowing him to be nabbed or grabbed, anyhow and
willynilly, like our friend Sambo, the statute insists, by article 9,
that the binding shall not take place without the concurrence of “a
parish officer, or the parent, or next friend.” Article 10 provides,
that instead of rope-yarn, as in the case of Sambo aforesaid, the
binding shall only be effected with “paper or parchment,” and even
before enduring such very mild ligatures, article 13 declares, that
the boy is to be regularly “asked out,” before two Justices of the
Peace, and in case such boy shall be unwilling to be bound with “paper
and parchment,” “such Justices shall, and they are hereby required to
refuse, to sanction or approve of such binding.” The 12th clause allows
the practice of “liking,” or what, in electioneering cases, would be
called “treating;” and before any boy shall be bound as an apprentice,
“it shall be lawful for the intended master of such boy to have, and
receive such boy in such master’s house, on trial--or ‘liking’--for
any time not exceeding two calendar months.” In plain English, it
shall be lawful for the said master elect to tempt and bribe the said
apprentice, like Richard Ruggles, during eight weeks, by dinners
of “delicate cow-heel, with the sauce His Grace is so fond of,” and
suppers of hot sausages. And that the cow-heel and sausages may not be
too minutely subdivided, clause 14 enacts, that Mr. or Mrs. Chimney
Sweeper shall not have more than two apprentices on trial or “liking”
at the same time. The same considerate clause forbids Mr. or Mrs. C.
S. to have more than four apprentices at once, so that nothing like
the close packing, which so often incommodes the race of Africa in a
ship’s hold, may inconvenience the favoured sooterkins in the cellar. A
taste for music is not specially mentioned or protected: but as clause
17 empowers any two or more magistrates to hear “all complaints” of
hard or ill usage, the breaking of a fife or his pan’s pipes, over the
head of an apprentice, would be certain to be listened to, and in all
probability entail on the master a forfeit, fixed, by clause 16, at
“not exceeding 10_l._ nor less than 40_s._” The 18th clause enjoins,
on all builders and bricklayers, under extremely heavy penalties, to
construct safe and comfortable chimneys that shall not be “hard to
climb;” and finally, as if a sweeper on such very eligible terms could
have anything to weep for, article 15 forbids, somewhat superfluously,
his crying about the streets!!! The incredulous reader who may wish
to verify this statement by reference to the Act itself, will find it
at full length, and shown “all up” in a well-conceived little volume,
called “The Mechanics of Law Making,” by a Member of Symond’s Inn.
He will there find too truly that, compared with the genuine black,
the sweeper is treated by law with as much tenderness as if each
climbing-boy were, like the stolen Montague, a well-born white young
gentleman in disguise. The tendency of such over-indulgent enactments
to spoil the youth of this country is evidenced in the fact, that
whilst the planter will give a considerable sum for a black assistant,
a white articled pupil is hardly acceptable as a present, and in most
cases, like Richard Ruggles, must have a handsome premium given
along with him to purchase him a master. As a mere matter of economy,
therefore, the matter is worth the consideration of parents and
guardians, and parish officers; whilst the advocates of equal justice
to all will imperatively insist that if the blacks cannot be treated
like whites, the whites ought to be treated as blacks. For my own part,
as a simple admirer of consistency, I cannot help thinking that the
whole system of apprenticeship, as regards its home practice, requires
to undergo a rigorous revision, and above all, that the act Anno Quarto
et Quinto Gulielmi IV. Regis, cap. 35, with all its sweeping clauses,
ought to be immediately repealed.
[Illustration: SNIFFING A BIRTHDAY.]
STANZAS ON COMING OF AGE.
“Twiddle’em, Twaddle’em, Twenty-one.”
_Nurse._ O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day!
Most lamentable day! most woeful day
That ever, ever, I did yet behold!
O day! O day! O day! O hateful day
Never was seen so black a day as this!
O woeful day! O woeful day!
* * * * *
_Musician._ Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.
_Nurse._ Honest good fellows, ah! put up, put up!
For well you know this is a pitiful case.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
To-day it is my natal day,
Three ’prenticeships have past away,
A part in work, a part in play,
Since I was bound to life!
This first of May I come of age,
A man, I enter on the stage
Where human passions fret and rage,
To mingle in the strife.
It ought to be a happy date,
My friends, they all congratulate
That I am come to “Man’s Estate,”
To some, a grand event;
But ah! to me descent allots
No acres, no paternal spots
In Beds, Bucks, Herts, Wilts, Essex, Notts,
Hants, Oxon, Berks, or Kent.
From John o’Groat’s to Land’s End search,
I have not one rod, pole, or perch,
To pay my rent, or tithe to church,
That I can call my own.
Not common-right for goose or ass;
Then what is Man’s Estate? Alas!
Six feet by two of mould and grass
When I am dust and bone.
Reserve the feast! The board forsake!
Ne’er tap the wine--don’t cut the cake,
No toasts or foolish speeches make,
At which my reason spurns.
Before this happy term you praise,
And prate about returns and days,
Just o’er my vacant rent-roll gaze,
And sum up my returns.
I know where great estates descend
That here is Boyhood’s legal end,
And easily can comprehend
How “Manors make the Man,”
But as for me, I was not born
To quit-rent of a peppercorn,
And gain no ground this blessed morn
From Beersheba to Dan.
No barrels broach--no bonfires make!
To roast a bullock for my sake,
Who in the country have no stake,
Would be too like a quiz;
No banners hoist--let off no gun--
Pitch no marquee--devise no fun--
But think when man is Twenty-One
What new delights are his!
What is the moral legal fact--
Of age to-day, I’m free to act
For self--free, namely, to contract
Engagements, bonds, and debts:
I’m free to give my I O U,
Sign, draw, accept, as majors do;
And free to lose my freedom too
For want of due assets.
I am of age, to ask Miss Ball,
Or that great heiress, Miss Duval,
To go to church, hump, squint, and all,
And be my own for life.
But put such reasons on their shelves,
To tell the truth between ourselves,
I’m one of those contented elves
Who do not want a wife.
What else belongs to Manhood still?
I’m old enough to make my will
With valid clause and codicil
Before in turf I lie.
But I have nothing to bequeath
In earth, or waters underneath,
And in all candour let me breathe,
I do not want to die.
Away! if this be Manhood’s forte,
Put by the sherry and the port--
No ring of bells--no rustic sport--
No dance--no merry pipes!
No flowery garlands--no bouquet--
No Birthday Ode to sing or say--
To me it seems this is a day
For bread and cheese and swipes.
To justify the festive cup
What horrors here are conjured up!
What things of bitter bite and sup,
Poor wretched Twenty-One’s!
No landed lumps, but frumps and humps,
(Discretion’s Days are far from trumps)
Domestic discord, dowdies, dumps,
Death, dockets, debts, and duns!
If you must drink, oh drink “the King,”
Reform--the Church--the Press--the Ring,
Drink Aldgate Pump--or anything,
Before a toast like this!
Nay, tell me, coming thus of age,
And turning o’er this sorry page,
Was young Nineteen so far from sage?
Or young Eighteen from bliss?
Till this dull, cold, wet, happy morn--
No sign of May about the thorn,--
Were Love and Bacchus both unborn?
Had Beauty not a shape?
Make answer, sweet Kate Finnerty!
Make answer, lads of Trinity!
Who sipp’d with me Divinity,
And guaff’d the ruby grape!
No flummery then from flowery lips,
No three times three and hip-hip-hips,
Because I’m ripe and full of pips--
I like a little green.
To put me on my solemn oath,
If sweep-like I could stop my growth
I would remain, and nothing loth,
A boy--about nineteen.
My friends, excuse me these rebukes!
Were I a monarch’s son, or duke’s,
Go to the Vatican of Meux
And broach his biggest barrels--
Impale whole elephants on spits--
Ring Tom of Lincoln till he splits,
And dance into St. Vitus’ fits,
And break your winds with carols!
But ah! too well you know my lot,
Ancestral acres greet me not,
My freehold’s in a garden-pot,
And barely worth a pin.
Away then with all festive stuff!
Let Robins advertise and puff
My “Man’s Estate,” I’m sure enough
I shall not buy it in.
[Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT, “MR. ROBINS.”]
THE PILLORY.
“Thro’ the wood, laddie.”--SCOTTISH SONG.
I never was in the pillory but once, which I must ever consider a
misfortune. For looking at all things, as I do, with a philosophical
and enquiring eye, and courting experience for the sake of my
fellow-creatures, I cannot but lament the short and imperfect
opportunity I enjoyed of filling that elevated situation, which so few
men are destined to occupy. It is a sort of Egg-Premiership; a place
above your fellows, but a place in which your hands are tied. You are
not without the established political vice, for you are not absolved
from turning.
Let me give a brief description of the short irregular glimpse I had of
men and things, while I was in Pillory Power. I was raised to it, as
many men are to high stations, by my errors. I merely made a mistake
of some sort or other in an answer in Chancery, not injurious to my
interests, and lo! the Recorder of London, with a suavity of manner
peculiar to himself, announced to me my intended promotion, and in due
time I was installed into office!
It was a fine day for the pillory; that is to say, it rained in
torrents. Those only who have had boarding and lodging like mine, can
estimate the comfort of having washing into the bargain.
It was about noon, when I was placed, like a statue, upon my wooden
pedestal; an hour probably chosen out of consideration to the innocent
little urchins then let out of school, for they are a race notoriously
fond of shying, pitching, jerking, pelting, flinging, slinging--in
short, professors of throwing in all its branches. The public officer
presented me first with a north front, and there I was--“God save
the mark!”--like a cock at Shrovetide, or a lay-figure in a Shooting
Gallery!
The storm commenced. Stones began to spit--mud to
mizzle--cabbage-stalks thickened into a shower. Now and then came a
dead kitten--sometimes a living cur: anon an egg would hit me on the
eye, an offence I was obliged to wink at. There is a strange appetite
in human kind for pelting a fellow-creature. A travelling China-man
actually threw away twopence to have a pitch at me with a pipkin; a
Billinsgate huckster treated me with a few herrings, not by any means
too stale to be purchased in St. Giles’s; while the weekly halfpence
of the schoolboys went towards the support of a Costermonger and his
Donkey, who supplied them with eggs fit for throwing, and for nothing
else. I confess this last description of missiles, if missiles they
might be called that never miss’d, annoyed me more than all the rest;
however, there was no remedy. There I was forced to stand, taking up
my livery, and a vile livery it was; or, as a wag expressed it, “being
made free of the Peltmongers.”
[Illustration: WHAT MUST BE--MUST.]
It was time to appeal to my resources. I had read somewhere of an
Italian, who, by dint of mental abstraction, had rendered himself
unconscious of the rack, and while the executioners were tugging,
wrenching, twisting, dislocating, and breaking joints, sinews, and
bones, was perchance in fancy only performing his diurnal Gymnastics,
or undergoing an amicable Shampooing. The pillory was a milder
instrument than the rack, and I had naturally a lively imagination; it
seemed plausible, therefore, that I might make shift to be pelted in my
absence. To attain a scene as remote as possible from pain, I selected
one of absolute pleasure for the experiment; no other, in truth, than
that Persian Paradise, the Garden of Gul, at the Feast of Roses.
Flapping the wings of Fancy with all my might, I was speedily in those
Bowers of Bliss, and at high romps with Houri and Peri,--
“Flinging roses at each other.”
But, alas, for mental abstraction! The very first bud hit me with
stone-like vehemence; my next rose, of the cabbage kind, breathed only
a rank cabbage fragrance; and in another moment the claws of a flying
cat scratched me back into myself; and there I was again, in full pelt
in the pillory!
My first fifteen minutes, the only quarter I met with, had now elapsed,
and my face was turned towards the East. The first object my one eye
fell upon was a heap of Macadamisation, and I confess I never thought
of calculating the number of stones in such a hillock, till I saw the
mob preparing to cast them up!
I expected to be lithographed on the spot! Instinct suggested to me
that the only way to save my life was by dying; so dropping my head and
hands, and closing my last eye with a terrific groan, I expired for
the present. The _ruse_ took effect. Supposing me to be defunct, the
mob refused to kill me. Shouts of “Murder! Shame! Shame! No Pillory!”
burst from all quarters. The Pipkin-monger abused the Fishwoman, who
rated the Schoolboys; they in turn fell foul of the Costermonger,
who was hissing and groaning at the whole assembly; and, finally,
a philanthropic Constable took the whole group into custody. In the
mean time I was taken down, laid with a sack over me in a cart, and
driven off to a Hospital, my body seeming a very proper present to
St. Bartholomew’s or St. Thomas’s, but my clothes fit for nothing but
_Guy’s_.
[Illustration: A “CONSTABLE’S MISCELLANY.”]
[Illustration: MOVING IN THE FIRST CIRCLES.]
A SINGULAR EXHIBITION AT SOMERSET HOUSE.
“Our Crummie is a dainty cow.”--SCOTCH SONG.
On that first Saturday in May,
When Lords and Ladies, great and grand,
Repair to see what each R. A.
Has done since last they sought the Strand,
In red, brown, yellow, green, or blue,
In short, what’s called the private view,
Amongst the guests--the deuce knows how
She got in there without a row--
There came a large and vulgar dame
With arms deep red, and face the same,
Showing in temper not a Saint;
No one could guess for why she came,
Unless perchance to “scour the Paint.”
From wall to wall she forc’d her way,
Elbow’d Lord Durham--pok’d Lord Grey--
Stamp’d Stafford’s toes to make him move,
And Devonshire’s Duke received a shove;
The great Lord Chancellor felt her nudge,
She made the Vice, his Honour, budge,
And gave a pinch to Park the Judge.
As for the ladies, in this stir,
The highest rank gave way to her.
From number one and number two,
She search’d the pictures through and through.
On benches stood, to inspect the high ones,
And squatted down to scan the shy ones.
And as she went from part to part,
A deeper red each cheek became,
Her very eyes lit up in flame,
That made each looker-on exclaim,
“Really an ardent love of art!”
Alas, amidst her inquisition,
Fate brought her to a sad condition;
She might have run against Lord Milton,
And still have stared at deeds in oil,
But ah! her picture-joy to spoil,
She came full butt on Mr. Hilton.
The Keeper mute, with staring eyes,
Like a lay-figure for surprise,
At last thus stammer’d out, “How now?
Woman--where, woman, is your ticket,
That ought to let you through our wicket?”
Says woman, “Where is David’s Cow?”
Said Mr. H----, with expedition,
“There’s no Cow in the Exhibition.”
“No Cow!”--but here her tongue in verity,
Set off with steam and rail celerity--
“No Cow! there an’t no Cow, then the more’s the shame and pity.
Hang you and the R. A.’s, and all the Hanging Committee!
No Cow--but hold your tongue, for you needn’t talk to me--
You can’t talk up the Cow, you can’t, to where it ought to be--
I haven’t seen a picture high or low, or any how,
Or in any of the rooms to be compared with David’s Cow!
You may talk of your Landseers, and of your Coopers, and your Wards,
Why hanging is too good for them, and yet here they are on cords!
They’re only fit for window frames, and shutters, and street doors,
David will paint ’em any day at Red Lions or Blue Boars,--
Why Morland was a fool to him, at a little pig or sow--
It’s really hard it an’t hung up--I could cry about the Cow!
But I know well what it is, and why--they’re jealous of David’s
fame,
But to vent it on the Cow, poor thing, is a cruelty and a shame.
Do you think it might hang by-and-by, if you cannot hang it now?
David has made a party up, to come and see his Cow.
If it only hung three days a week, for an example to the learners,
Why can’t it hang up, turn about, with that picture of Mr. Turner’s?
Or do you think from Mr. Etty, you need apprehend a row,
If now and then you cut him down to hang up David’s Cow?
I can’t think where their tastes have been, to not have such a
creature,
Although I say, that should not say, it was prettier than Nature;
It must be hung--and shall be hung, for Mr. H----, I vow,
I daren’t take home the catalogue, unless it’s got the Cow!
As we only want it to be seen, I should not so much care,
If it was only round the stone man’s neck, a-coming up the stair,
Or down there in the marble room where all the figures stand,
Where one of them three Graces might just hold it in her hand--
Or may be Bailey’s Charity the favour would allow,
It would really be a charity to hang up David’s cow.
We haven’t no where else to go if you don’t hang it here,
The Water-Colour place allows no oilman to appear--
And the British Gallery sticks to Dutch, Teniers, and Gerrard Douw,
And the Suffolk Gallery will not do--it’s not a Suffolk Cow:
I wish you’d seen him painting her, he hardly took his meals
Till she was painted on the board correct from head to heels;
His heart and soul was in his Cow, and almost made him shabby,
He hardly whipp’d the boys at all, or help’d to nurse the babby.
And when he had her all complete and painted over red,
He got so grand, I really thought him going off his head.
Now hang it, Mr. Hilton, do just bang it any how,
Poor David, he will hang himself, unless you hang his Cow.--
And if it’s unconvenient and drawn too big by half--
David shan’t send next year except a very little calf.”
[Illustration: BEEF A-LA-DAUBE.]
[Illustration: A FIELD OFFICER.]
THE YEOMANRY.
Amongst the agitations of the day, there is none more unaccountable
to a peaceable man in a time of peace, than the resistance to the
disbanding of the Yeomanry. It is of course impossible for anyone so
unconnected with party as myself, to divine the ministerial motives for
the measure; but judging from my own experience, I should have expected
that every private at least, would have mounted his best hunter to make
a jump at the offer. It appears, however, that a part of the military
body in question betrays a strong disinclination to dismiss; and
certain troops have even offered their services gratuitously, and been
accepted, although it is evident that such a troop, to be consistent,
ought to refuse, when called upon to act, to make any charge whatever.
[Illustration: “I VISH VE COULD BE DISBANDY’D.”]
Amongst my Scottish reminiscences, I have a vivid recollection of once
encountering, on the road from Dundee to Perth, a party of soldiers,
having in their custody a poor fellow in the garb of a peasant, and
secured by handcuffs. He looked somewhat melancholy, as he well might,
under the uncertainty whether he was to be flogged within an inch
of his life, or shot to death, for such were the punishments of his
offence, which I understood to be desertion, or disbanding himself
without leave. It was natural to conclude, that no ordinary disgust
at a military life would induce a man to incur such heavy penalties.
With what gratitude would _he_ have accepted his discharge! He would
surely have embraced the offer of being let off with the alacrity of
gunpowder! And yet he was a regular, in the receipt of pay, and with
the prospect and opportunity, so rare to our yeomanry, of winning
laurels, and covering himself with glory!
It has been argued, on high authority, as a reason for retaining the
troops in question, that they are the most _constitutional_ force that
could be selected; and truly of their general robustness there can be
but one opinion. However, if a domestic force of the kind ought to be
kept up, would it not be advisable, and humane, and fair, to give the
manufacturing body a turn, and form troops of the sedentary weavers and
other artisans, who stand so much more in need of out-of-door exercise?
The farmer, from the nature of his business, has _Field_ Days enough,
to say nothing of the charges and throwings off he enjoys in hunting
and coursing, besides riding periodically to and from market, or the
neighbouring fairs. Indeed, the true English yeoman is generally,
thanks to these sports and employments, so constantly in the saddle,
that instead of volunteering into any cavalry, it might be supposed he
would be glad to feel his own legs a little, and enjoy the household
comforts of the chimney-corner and the elbow-chair. As regards their
effectiveness, I have had the pleasure of seeing a troop fire at a
target for a subscription silver cup; and it convinced me, that if I
had felt inclined to _roast_ them, their own _fire_ was the very best
one for my purpose. On another occasion I had the gratification of
beholding a charge, and as they succeeded in dispersing themselves, it
may be inferred that they might possibly do as much by a mob. Still
there seemed hardly excitement enough or amusement enough, except
to the spectators, in such playing at soldiers, to induce honest,
hearty, fox-hunting farmers, to wish to become veterans. To tell the
truth, I have heard before now, repentant grumblings from practical
agriculturists, who had too rashly adopted the uniform, and have seen
even their horses betray an inclination to back out of the line. The
more therefore is my surprise, on all accounts, to hear that the
Yeomanry are so unwilling to be dispensed with, and relieved from
inactive service; for though the song tells us of a “Soldier tir’d of
war’s alarms,” there is no doubt that to a soldier of spirit, the most
tiresome thing in the world is to have no alarms at all.
In the mean time I have been at some pains to ascertain the sentiments
of the yeowomanry on the subject, and if they all feel in common
with Dame, the disbanding will be a most popular measure amongst the
farmers’ wives. I had no sooner communicated the news, through the
old lady’s trumpet, than she exclaimed, that “it was the best hearing
she had had for many a long day! The Sogering work unsettled both
men and horses--it took her husband’s head off his business, and it
threw herself off the old mare, at the last fair, along of a showman’s
trumpet. Besides, it set all the farm servants a-sogering too, and
when they went to the Wake, only old Roger came back again to say they
had all ’listed. They had more sense, however, than their master, for
they all wanted to be disbanded the next morning. As for the master,
he’d never been the same man since he put on the uniform; but had
got a hectoring swaggering way with him, as if everybody that didn’t
agree in politics, and especially about the Corn Bill, was to be bored
and slashed with sword and pistol. Then there was the constant dread
that in his practising, cut six would either come home to him, or
do a mischief to his neighbours; and after a reviewing there was no
bearing him, it put him so up in his stirrups, and on coming home he’d
think nothing of slivering off all the hollyoaks as he brandished and
flourished up the front garden. Another thing, and that was no trifle,
was the accidents; she couldn’t tell how it was, whether he thought too
much of himself and too little of his horse, but he always got a tumble
with the yeomanry, though he’d fox-hunt by the year together without
a fall. What was worse, a fall always made him crusty, and when he
was crusty, he made a point to get into his cups, which made him more
crusty still. Thank God, as yet he had never been of any use to his
country, and it was her daily prayer that he might never be called
out, as he had so many enemies and old grudges in the neighbourhood,
there would be sure to be murder on one side or the other. For my own
part,” she concluded, “I think the Parliament is quite right in these
hard times to turn the farmers’ swords again into ploughshares, for
they have less to care about the rising of rioters than the falling
of wheat.” The old lady then hunted out what she called a yeomanry
letter from her husband’s brother, and having her permission to make it
public, I have thought proper to christen it.
AN UNFAVOURABLE REVIEW.
“You remember Philiphaugh, Sir?”
“Umph!” said the Major, “the less we say about that, John, the
better.”
OLD MORTALITY.
_To Mr. Robert Cherry, the Orchard, Kent._
DEAR BOB,--It’s no use your making more stir about the
barley. Business has no business to stand before king and country,
and I couldn’t go to Ashford Market and the Review at the same
time. The Earl called out the Yeomanry for a grand field day at
Bumper Daggle Bottom Common, and to say nothing of its being my
horse duty to attend I wouldn’t have lost my sight for the whole
barley in Kent. Besides the Earl, the great Duke did us the honour
to come and see the troops go through everything, and it rained all
the time. Except for the crops, a more unfavouring day couldn’t
have been picked out for man or beast, and many a nag has got a
consequential cough.
The ground was very good, with only one leap that nobody took, but
the weather was terribly against. It blew equinoxious gales, and
rained like watering pots with the rose off. But as somebody said,
one cannot always have their reviews cut and dry.
[Illustration: “POUR ON, I WILL ENDURE.”]
We set out from Ashford at ten, and was two hours getting to Bumper
Daggle Bottom Common, but it’s full six mile. The Bumper Daggle’s
dress is rather handsome and fighting like--blue, having a turn-up
with white, and we might have been called cap-a-pee, but Mr. P.,
the contractor of our caps, made them all too small for our heads.
Luckily the clothes fit, except Mr. Lambert’s, who couldn’t find
a jacket big enough; but he scorned to shrink, and wore it loose
on his shoulder like a hussar. As for arms, we had all sorts, and
as regards horses, I am sorry to say all sorts of legs--what with
splints, and quitters, and ring-bone, and grease. The Major’s, I
noticed, had a bad spavin, and was no better for being fired with
a ramrod, which old Clinker, the blacksmith, forgot to take out of
his piece.
[Illustration: SEEING A REVIEW.]
We mustard very strong,--about sixty--besides two volunteers, one
an invalid, because he had been ordered to ride for exercise, and
the other because he had nothing else to do, and he did nothing
when he came. We must have been a disagreeable site to eyes as is
unaffected towards Government,--though how Hopper’s horse would
behave in putting down riots I can’t guess, for he did nothing
but make revolutions himself, as if he was still in the thrashing
mill. But you know yeomanry an’t reglers, and can’t be expected
to be veterans all at once. The worst of our mistakes was about
the cullers. Old Ensign Cobb, of the White Horse, has a Political
Union club meets at his house, and when he came to unfurl, he had
brought the wrong flag: instead of “Royal Bumper Daggle,” it was
“No Boromongers.” It made a reglar horse laugh among the cavalry;
and old Cobb took such dudgeon at us, he deserted home to the White
Horse, and cut the concern without drawing a sword. The Captain
ordered Jack Blower to sound the recall to him, but some wag on the
rout had stuck a bung up his trumpet; and he gallopped off just as
crusty about it as old Cobb. Our next trouble was with Simkin, but
you know he is anything but Simkin and Martial. He rid one of his
own docked waggon-horses--but for appearance sake had tied on a
long regulation false tale, that made his horse kick astonishing,
till his four loose shoes flew off like a game at koits. Of course
nobody liked to stand nigh him, and he was obliged to be drawn up
in single order by himself, but not having any one to talk to, he
soon got weary of it, and left the ground. This was some excuse
for him--but not for Dale, that deserted from his company,--some
said his horse bolted with him, but I’ll swear I seed him spur.
Up to this we had only one more deserter, and that was Marks, on
his iron-gray mare, for she heard her foal whinnying at home, and
attended to that call more than to a deaf and dumb trumpet. Biggs
didn’t come at all; he had his nag stole that very morning, as it
was waiting for him, pistols and all.
What with these goings off and gaps our ranks got in such disorder
that the Earl, tho’ he is a Tory, was obliged to act as a rank
Reformer. We got into line middling well, as far as the different
sizes of our horses would admit, and the Duke rode up and down us,
and I am sorry to say was compelled to a reprimand. Morgan Giles
had been at a fox-hunt the day before, and persisted in wearing the
brush as a feather in his cap. As fox tails isn’t regulation, his
Grace ordered it out, but Morgan was very high, and at last threw
up his commission into a tree and trotted home to Wickham Hall,
along with private Dick, who, as Morgan’s whipper in, thought he
was under obligations to follow his master.
We got thro’ sword exercise decent well,--only Barber shaved
Croft’s mare with his saber, which he needn’t have done, as she was
clipt before; and Holdsworth slashed off his cob’s off ear. It
was cut and run with her in course; and I hope he got safe home.
We don’t know what Hawksley might have thrusted, as his sword
objected to be called out in wet weather, and stuck to its sheath
like pitch; but he went thro’ all the cuts very correct with his
umbrella. For my own part, candour compels to state I swished off
my left hand man’s feather; but tho’ it might have been worse,
and I apologised as well as I could for my horse fretting, he was
foolish enough to huff at, and swear was done on purpose, and so
gallopped home, I suspect, to write me a calling out challenge.
Challenge or not, if I fight him with anything but fists, I’m not
one of the Yeomanry. An accident’s an accident, and much more
pardonable than Hawksley opening his umbrella plump in the face of
the Captain’s blood charger; and ten times more mortifying for an
officer to be carried back willy-nilly to Ashford, in the middle
of the Review. Luckily before Hawksley frightened any more, he was
called off to hold his umbrella over Mrs. H., as Mrs. Morgan had
taken in nine ladies, and could not accommodate more in her close
carriage, without making it too close.
After sword exercise we shot pistols, and I must say, very well
and distinct; only, old Dunn didn’t fire; but he’s deaf as a post,
and I wonder how he was called out. Talking of volleys, I am sorry
to say we fired one before without word of command; but it was all
thro’ Day on his shooting pony putting up a partridge, and in the
heat of the moment letting fly, and as he is our fugleman we all
did the same. Lucky for the bird it was very strong on the wing,
or the troop must have brought it down; howsomever the Earl looked
very grave, and said something that Day didn’t choose to take from
him, being a qualified man, and taking out a reglar license, so
he went off to his own ground, where he might shoot without being
called to account. Contrary to reason and expectation, there was
very few horses shied at the firing; but we saw Bluff lying full
length, and was afraid it was a bust; but we found his horse,
being a very quiet one, had run away from the noise. He was throwd
on his back in the mud, but refused to leave the ground. Being a
man of spirit, and military inclind, he got up behind Bates; but
Bates’s horse objecting to such back-gammon, reared and threw
doublets. As his knees was broke, Bates and Bluff was forced to
lead him away, and the troop lost two more men, tho’ for once
against their own wills.
As for Roper he had bragged how he could stand fire, but seeing a
great light over the village, he set off full Swing to look after
his ricks and barns.
The next thing to be done was charging, and between you and me, I
was most anxious about that, as many of us could only ride up to
a certain _pitch_. As you’ve often been throwd you’ll know what I
mean: to tell the truth, when the word came, I seed some lay hold
of their saddles, but Barnes had better have laid hold of anything
else in the world, for it turn’d round with him at the first
start. Simpkin fell at the same time insensibly, but the doctor
dismounted and was very happy to attend him without making any
charge whatever. All the rest went off gallantly, either gallopping
or cantering, tho’ as they say at Canterbury races, their was
some wonderful tailing on account of the difference of the nags.
Grimsby’s mare was the last of the lot, and for her backwardness in
charging we called her the Mare of Bristol, but he took the jest
no better than Cobb did, and when we wheel’d to the right he was
left. Between friends, I was not sorry when the word came to pull
up,--such crossing, and josling, and foul riding; but two farmers
seemed to like it, for they never halted when the rest did, but
gallopped on out of sight. I have since heard they had matched
their two nags the day before to run two miles for a sovereign;
I don’t think a sovereign should divert a man from his king: but
I can’t write the result as they newer came back,--I suppose on
account of the wet. The rains, to speak cavalry like, had got
beyond bearing rains; and when we formed line again it was like a
laundress’s clothes line, for there wasn’t a dry shirt on it. One
man on a lame horse rode particularly restive, and objected in such
critical weather to a long review. He wouldn’t be cholera morbus’d,
he said, for Duke or Devil, but should put his horse up, and go
home by the blue Stage; by way of answer he was ordered to give up
his arms and his jacket, which he did very off hand, as it was wet
thro’. Howsomever it was thought prudent to dispense with us till
fine weather, so we was formed into a circle--9 bobble square, and
the Duke thanked us in a short speech for being so regular, and
loyal, and soldier-like, after which every man that had kept his
seat gave three cheers.
[Illustration: AN OBJECTION TO CROSSING THE LINE.]
On the whole the thing might have been very gratifying, but on
reviewing the Field day, the asthmas and agues are uncommonly
numerous, and to say nothing of the horses that are amiss with
coffs and colds--there are three dead and seven lame for life. The
Earl has been very much blamed under the rose among the privates,
for fixing on a Hunting day, which I forgot to say, carried away a
dozen that were mounted on their hunters. I am sorry to say there
was so few left at the end of all, as to suffer themselves to be
hissed into the town by the little boys and gals, and called the
Horse Gomerils; and that consequently the corpse, as a body, is as
good as defunct. Not that there were many resign’d at the end of
the review, as his Lordship gave a grand dinner on the following
day to the troop: but I am sorry to say, a great many was so
unhandsome as to throw up the very day after. The common excuse
among them was something of not liking to wet their swords against
their countrymen.
For my own part as the yomanry cannot go on, I shall stick to it
honorably, and as any man of spirit would do in my case; but dont
be afraid of my attending Market, come what will, and selling the
barley at the best quotation.
I am, dear Brother,
Your’s and the Colonel’s to command,
JAMES CHERRY.
P.S.--I forgot to tell what will make you laugh. Barlow wouldn’t
ride with spurs, because, he said, they made his horse prick his
ears. Our poor corps, small as it is, I understand is like to act
in divisions. Some wish to be infantry instead of cavalry; and the
farmers from the hop grounds want to be Polish Lancers.
I have just learned Ballard, and nine more of the men, was ordered
to keep the ground; but it seems they left before the Troop came on
it. They say in excuse, they stood in the rain till they were ready
to drop; and as we didn’t come an hour after time, they thought
everything was postponed. “None but the brave,” they said, “deserve
the fair;” and till it _was_ fair, they wouldn’t attend again.
The mare you lent Ballard, I am sorry to say, got kicked in
several places, and had her shoulder put out; we was advised to
give her a swim in the sea, and I am still more sorry to say, in
swimming her we drowned her. As for my own nag, I am afraid he has
got string-halt; but one comfort is, I think it diverts him from
kicking.
[Illustration: PEACE OFFICERS.]
[Illustration: “SHE WALKS THE WATERS LIKE A THING OF LIFE.”]
I’M GOING TO BOMBAY.
“Nothing venture, nothing have.”--OLD PROVERB.
“Every Indiaman has at least two mates.”
FALCONER’S MARINE GUIDE.
I.
My hair is brown, my eyes are blue,
And reckon’d rather bright;
I’m shapely, if they tell me true,
And just the proper height;
My skin has been admired in verse,
And called as fair as day--
If I _am_ fair, so much the worse,
I’m going to Bombay!
II.
At school I passed with some éclât;
I learned my French in France;
De Wint gave lessons how to draw,
And D’Egville how to dance;--
Crevelli taught me how to sing,
And Cramer how to play--
It really is the strangest thing--
I’m going to Bombay!
III.
I’ve been to Bath and Cheltenham Wells,
But not their springs to sip--
To Ramsgate--not to pick up shells,--
To Brighton--not to dip.
I’ve tour’d the Lakes, and scour’d the coast
From Scarboro’ to Torquay--
But tho’ of time I’ve made the most,
I’m going to Bombay!
IV.
By Pa and Ma I’m daily told
To marry now’s my time,
For though I’m very far from old,
I’m rather in my prime.
They say while we have any sun,
We ought to make our hay--
And India has so hot an one,
I’m going to Bombay!
V.
My cousin writes from Hyderapot
My only chance to snatch,
And says the climate is so hot,
It’s sure to light a match.--
She’s married to a son of Mars,
With very handsome pay,
And swears I ought to thank my stars
I’m going to Bombay!
VI.
She says that I shall much delight
To taste their Indian treats,
But what she likes may turn me quite,
Their strange outlandish meats.--
If I can eat rupees, who knows?
Or dine, the Indian way,
On doolies and on bungalows--
I’m going to Bombay!
VII.
She says that I shall much enjoy,--
I don’t know what she means,--
To take the air and buy some toy,
In my own palankeens,--
I like to drive my pony-chair,
Or ride our dapple gray--
But elephants are horses there--
I’m going to Bombay!
VIII.
Farewell, farewell, my parents dear,
My friends, farewell to them!
And oh, what costs a sadder tear,
Good-bye to Mr. M!--
If I should find an Indian vault,
Or fall a tiger’s prey,
Or steep in salt, it’s all _his_ fault,
I’m going to Bombay!
IX.
That fine new teak-built ship, the Fox,
A, 1--Commander Bird,
Now lying in the London Docks,
Will sail on May the Third;
Apply for passage or for freight,
To Nichol, Scott, and Gray--
Pa has applied and seal’d my fate--
I’m going to Bombay!
X.
My heart is full--my trunks as well;
My mind and caps made up,
My corsets shap’d by Mrs. Bell,
Are premised ere I sup;
With boots and shoes, Rivarta’s best,
And dresses by Ducé,
And a special license in my chest--
I’m going to Bombay!
[Illustration: “THE COURT OF AN INDIAN PRINCE.”]
“LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP.”
“Fallen, fallen, fallen.”--DRYDEN.
My father being what is called a serious tallow-chandler, having
supplied the Baptist Meeting-house of Nantwich with _dips_ for many
years, intended to make me a field-preaching minister. Alas! _my_ books
were plays, _my_ sermons soliloquies. You would not have wondered, had
you seen me then, with my large dark eyes, my permanent nose, and a
mouth to which my picture does but scanty justice. In large theatres
these may be but secondary considerations; but a figure symmetrical as
mine must have been seen through all space. Accordingly, I eloped with
the young lady who used to rehearse my heroines with me, and came to
London, where, after we had studied together till I was in debt, and
she, as “ladies wish to be who love their lords,” I began applying to
the managers for leave to make my _debût_. I will not describe to you
the neglect and rudeness I experienced! It did not abate my enthusiasm:
but so true it is, “while the grass grows”--the proverb is somewhat
musty,--that I had soon nothing but musty bread on which to feed my
hopes, and hopeful wife. One burning spring day I roved as far as the
fields near Greenwich, and, book in hand, went through Romeo, though
but to a shy audience, for the sheep all took to their trotters, and
the crows to their wings, and not without _caws_. (That joke _was_
mine, let who will have claimed it.)
[Illustration: PRIVATE THEATRICALS.]
[Illustration: NEGLECTING TO JOIN IN A CATCH.]
Suddenly somebody hissed; it could not be the sheep, and no geese
were near. At that instant a very elegant man, stepping from behind
a tree, thus accosted me:--
“Sir, I have heard you with delight. I can procure you an engagement,
not perhaps for the Romeos, but all great actors have risen by slow
degrees, and the best of them has, at his outset, been attacked by
some snake in the grass.” He now pointed out the reptile, who slunk
away, looking heartily ashamed of himself. The gentleman continued,
“Mr. Richardson and Company are now acting at the fair. I am his
scene-painter; see here, I have sketched you in your happiest attitude.
Come with me.” We went to the booth. I was hired; but unluckily, my
powers being suited for a larger stage, so overpowered my present
audience, that I was taken out of all speaking parts, for fear of
fatal consequences. Nevertheless, my grace in processions soon raised
so much jealousy against me, that in the autumn Master recommended me
to one of the Minors in town, where, for twice as much salary, I was
never expected to appear before the curtain, but to make myself useful
among the carpenters and scene-shifters. That Christmas, during the
rehearsal of a Pantomime, four of us were set to catch an Harlequin,
each to hold the corner of a blanket, and be ready for his jump
through the scene. Alas! one gentleman brought his pot, and one his
pipe, and the third an inclination for a snooze. Two were asleep, and
one draining the last drops of stout from the pewter. I alone upheld
my corner from the boards, when the awful leap came on us, like a
star-shoot. I still see the momentary gleam of that strait, spangled,
fish-like, head-long figure. Can, candle, bottle, pipes, all crashed
beneath the heavy tumbler. With a torrent of apologies, we scrambled
up in the dark, to raise the fallen hero; but there he lay, on his
face, with legs and arms outspread, as we could feel, without sense,
or sound, or motion, cold, stiff, and _dead_! For an instant all was
horrid silence; we were as breathless as he. I resolved to give myself
up to justice, yet found voice in the boldness of innocence to shout
“Help! Lights! All his bones are broken!” “And all yours _shall_ be,
ye dogs!” cried a voice. We looked up; there stood one Harlequin over
us alive; there lay another under us, without a chance of ever more
peeping through the blanket of the dark. That the speaker was no ghost
we were soon convinced, as his magic bat battered us. The truth was, he
had thrown at us the stuffed Harlequin used in flying ascents, to try
our vigilance, before he risked his own neck. I felt, however, that I
_might_ have been of a party who had killed a man. It was a judgment
on me for being in such a place, with any less excuse than that of
acting Romeo. I took my wife and babe back to Cheshire. We knelt at my
father’s feet, promising to serve in the shop; fortunately it was one
of his melting days: he raised us to his arm;--we formed a _tableau
generale_--and the curtain dropped.
[Illustration]
ODE
TO THE ADVOCATES FOR THE REMOVAL OF SMITHFIELD MARKET.
“Sweeping our flocks and herds.”--DOUGLAS.
O philanthropic men!--
For this address I need not make apology--
Who aim at clearing out the Smithfield pen,
And planting further off its vile Zoology--
Permit me thus to tell,
I like your efforts well,
For routing that great nest of Hornithology!
Be not dismay’d although repulsed at first,
And driven from their Horse, and Pig, and Lamb parts,
Charge on!--you shall upon their hornworks burst,
And carry all their _Bull_-warks and their _Ram_-parts.
Go on, ye wholesale drovers!
And drive away the Smithfield flocks and herds
As wild as Tartar-Curds,
That come so fat, and kicking, from their clovers,
Off with them all!--those restive brutes, that vex
Our streets, and plunge, and lunge, and butt, and battle;
And save the female sex
From being cow’d--like Iö--by the cattle!
Fancy,--when droves appear on
The hill of Holborn, roaring from its top,--
Your ladies--ready, as they own, to drop,
Taking themselves to Thomson’s with a _Fear-on_!
Or, in St. Martin’s Lane,
Scared by a Bullock, in a frisky vein,--
Fancy the terror of your timid daughters
While rushing souse
Into a coffee-house,
To find it--Slaughter’s.
Or fancy this:--
Walking along the street, some stranger Miss,
Her head with no such thought of danger laden,
When suddenly ’tis “Aries Taurus Virgo!”
You don’t know Latin, I translate it ergo,
Into your Areas a Bull throws the Maiden!
Think of some poor old crone
Treated, just like a penny, with a toss!
At that vile spot now grown
So generally known
For making a Cow Cross!
[Illustration: I SEE CATTLE!]
Nay, fancy your own selves far off from stall,
Or shed, or shop--and that an Ox infuriate
Just pins you to the wall,
Giving you a strong dose of _Oxy-Muriate_!
Methinks I hear the neighbours that live round
The Market-ground
Thus make appeal unto their civic fellows--
“’Tis well for you that live apart--unable
To hear this brutal Babel,
But our _firesides_ are troubled with their _bellows_.
“Folks that too freely sup
Must e’en put up
With their own troubles If they can’t digest;
But we must needs regard
The case as hard
That _others’_ victuals should disturb our rest,
That from our sleep _your_ food should start and jump us!
We like, ourselves, a steak,
But, Sirs, for pity’s sake!
We don’t want oxen at our doors to _rump-us_!
“If we _do_ doze--it really is too bad!
We constantly are roar’d awake or rung,
Through bullocks mad
That run in all the ‘Night Thoughts’ of our Young!”
Such are the woes of sleepers--now let’s take
The woes of those that wish to keep _a Wake_
Oh think! when Wombwell gives his annual feasts,
Think of these “Bulls of Basan,” far from mild ones;
Such fierce tame beasts,
That nobody much cares to see the Wild ones!
Think of the Show woman, “what shows a Dwarf,”
Seeing a red Cow come
To swallow her Tom Thumb,
And forc’d with broom of birch to keep her off!
Think, too, of Messrs. Richardson and Co.,
When looking at their public private boxes,
To see in the back row
Three live sheep’s heads, a porker’s, and an Ox’s!
Think of their Orchestra, when two horns come
Through, to accompany the double drum!
Or, in the midst of murder and remorses,
Just when the Ghost is certain,
A great rent in the curtain,
And enter two tall skeletons--of Horses!
Great Philanthropics! pray urge these topics!
Upon the Solemn Councils of the Nation,
Get a Bill soon, and give, some noon,
The Bulls, a Bull of Excommunication!
[Illustration: A BULL OF EXCOMMUNICATION.]
Let the old Fair have fair-play as its right,
And to each show and sight
Ye shall be treated with a Free List latitude,
To Richardson’s Stage Dramas,
Dio--and Cosmo--ramas,
Giants and Indians wild,
Dwarf, Sea Bear, and Fat Child,
And that most rare of Shows--a Show of Gratitude!
[Illustration: “Arma Virumque _Canoe_.”]
DRAWN FOR A SOLDIER.
I was once--for a few hours only--in the militia. I suspect I was in
part answerable for my own mishap. There is a story in Joe Miller of
a man, who, being _pressed_ to serve his Majesty on another element,
pleaded his polite breeding, to the gang, as a good ground of
exemption: but was told that the crew being a set of sad unmannerly
dogs, a Chesterfield was the very character they wanted. The
militia-men acted, I presume, on the same principle. Their customary
schedule was forwarded to me, at Brighton, to fill up, and in a moment
of incautious hilarity--induced, perhaps, by the absence of all
business or employment, except pleasure--I wrote myself down in the
descriptive column as “_Quite a Gentleman_.”
The consequence followed immediately. A precept, addressed by the High
Constable of Westminster to the Low ditto of the parish of St. M*****,
and endorsed with my name, informed me that it had turned up in that
involuntary lottery, the Ballot.
At sight of the Orderly, who thought proper to deliver the document
into no other hands than mine, my mother-in-law cried, and my wife
fainted on the spot. They had no notion of any distinctions in military
service--a soldier was a soldier--and they imagined that, on the very
morrow, I might be ordered abroad to a fresh Waterloo. They were
unfortunately ignorant of that benevolent provision which absolved the
militia from going out of the kingdom--“except in case of an invasion.”
In vain I represented that we were “locals;” they had heard of local
diseases, and thought there might be wounds of the same description. In
vain I explained that we were not troops of the line;--they could see
nothing to choose between being shot in a line, or in any other figure.
I told them next that I was not obliged to serve myself; but they
answered, “’twas so much the harder I should be obliged to serve any
one else.” My being sent abroad, they said, would be the death of them;
for they had witnessed, at Ramsgate, the embarkation of the Walcheren
expedition, and too well remembered “the misery of the soldiers’ wives
at seeing their husbands in _transports_!”
I told them that, at the very worst, if I _should_ be sent abroad,
there was no reason why I should not return again; but they both
declared, they never did, and never would believe in those “Returns of
the Killed and Wounded.”
The discussion was in this stage when it was interrupted by another
loud single knock at the door, a report equal in its effects on us to
that of the memorable cannon-shot at Brussels; and before we could
recover ourselves, a strapping Serjeant entered the parlour with a huge
bow, or rather rain-bow, of party-coloured ribbons in his cap. He came,
he said to offer a substitute for me; but I was prevented from reply by
the indignant females asking him in the same breath, “Who and what did
he think _could_ be a substitute for a son and a husband?”
The poor Serjeant looked foolish enough at this turn; but he was still
more abashed when the two anxious Ladies began to cross-examine him
on the length of his services abroad, and the number of his wounds,
the campaigns of the Militia-man having been confined doubtless to
Hounslow, and his bodily marks militant to the three stripes on his
sleeve. Parrying these awkward questions he endeavoured to prevail upon
me to see the proposed proxy, a fine young fellow, he assured me, of
unusual stature; but I told him it was quite an indifferent point with
me whether he was 6-feet-2 or 2-feet-6, in short whether he was as tall
as the flag or “under the standard.”
The truth is, I reflected that it was a time of profound peace, that a
civil war, or an invasion, was very unlikely; and as for an occasional
drill, that I could make shift, like Lavater, to right-about-face.
Accordingly I declined seeing the substitute, and dismissed the
Serjeant with a note to the War-Secretary to this purport:--“That
I considered myself _drawn_; and expected therefore to be well
_quarter’d_. That, under the circumstances of the country, it would
probably be unnecessary for militia-men ‘to be mustarded;’ but that
if his Majesty did ‘_call me out_,’ I hoped I should ‘_give him
satisfaction_.’”
The females were far from being pleased with this billet. They talked
a great deal of moral suicide, wilful murder, and seeking the bubble
reputation in the cannon’s mouth; but I shall ever think that I took
the proper course, for, after the lapse of a few hours, two more of
the General’s red-coats, or General postmen, brought me a large packet
sealed with the War-office Seal, and superscribed “Henry Hardinge;” by
which I was officially absolved from serving on Horse, or on Foot, or
on both together, then and thereafter.
And why, I know not--unless his Majesty doubted the handsomeness of
discharging me in particular, without letting off the rest;--but so it
was, that in a short time afterwards there issued a proclamation, by
which the services of all militia-men were for the present dispensed
with,--and we were left to pursue our several avocations,--of course,
all the lighter in our _spirits_ for being _disembodied_.
[Illustration: SHARP, FLAT, AND NATURAL.]
ODE FOR ST. CECILIA’S EVE.
“Look out for squalls.”--THE PILOT.
O come, dear Barney Isaacs, come,
Punch for one night can spare his drum
As well as Pipes of Pan!
Forget not, Popkins, your bassoon,
Nor, Mister Bray, your horn, as soon
As you can leave the Van;
Blind Billy, bring your violin;
Miss Crow, you’re great in Cherry Ripe!
And Chubb, your viol must drop in
It’s bass to Soger Tommy’s pipe.
Ye butchers, bring your bones:
An organ would not be amiss;
If grinding Jim has spouted his,
Lend yours, good Mister Jones.
Do, hurdy-gurdy Jenny,--do
Keep sober for an hour or two,
Music’s charms to help to paint.
And, Sandy Gray, if you should not
Your bagpipes bring--O tuneful Scot!
Conceive the feelings of the Saint!
Miss Strummel issues an invite,
For music, and turn-out to-night
In honour of Cecilia’s session;
But ere you go, one moment stop,
And with all kindness let me drop
A hint to you, and your profession:
Imprimis then: Pray keep within
The bounds to which your skill was born,
Let the one-handed let alone
Trombone,
Don’t--rheumatiz! seize the violin,
Or Ashmy snatch the horn!
Don’t ever to such rows give birth,
As if you had no end on earth,
Except to “wake the lyre;”
Don’t “strike the harp,” pray never do,
Till others long to strike it too;
Perpetual harping’s apt to tire;
Oh I have heard such flat-and-sharpers,
I’ve blest the head
Of good King Ned,
For scragging all those old Welsh Harpers!
Pray, never, ere each tuneful doing,
Take a prodigious deal of wooing;
And then sit down to thrum the strain,
As if you’d never rise again--
The least Cecilia-like of things:
Remember that the saint has wings.
I’ve known Miss Strummel pause an hour,
Ere she could “Pluck the Fairest Flower,”
Yet without hesitation, she
Plunged next into the “Deep Deep Sea,”
And when on the keys she _does_ begin,
Such awful torments soon you share,
She really seems like Milton’s “Sin,”
Holding the keys of--you know where!
Never tweak people’s ears so toughly,
That urchin-like they can’t help saying--
“O dear! O dear--you call this playing,
But oh, it’s playing very roughly!”
Oft, in the ecstasy of pain,
I’ve cursed all instrumental workmen,
Wish’d Broadwood Thurtell’d in a lane,
And Kirke White’s fate to every Kirkman--
[Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT:--KIRKE WHITE.]
I really once delighted spied
“Clementi Collard” in Cheapside.
Another word,--don’t be surprised,
Revered and ragged street Musicians,
You have been only half-baptised,
And each name proper, or improper,
Is not the value of a copper,
Till it has had the due additions,
Husky, Rusky,
Ninny, Tinny,
Hummel, Bummel,
Bowski, Wowski,
All these are very good selectables;
But none of your plain pudding-and-tames--
Folks that are called the hardest names
Are music’s most respectables.
Ev’ry woman, ev’ry man,
Look as foreign as you can,
Don’t cut your hair, or wash your skin,
Make ugly faces and begin.
Each Dingy Orpheus gravely hears,
And now to show they understand it!
Miss Crowe her scrannel throttle clears.
And all the rest prepare to band it.
Each scraper ripe for concertante,
Rozins the hair of Rozinante:
Then all sound A, if they know which,
That they may join like birds in June:
Jack Tar alone neglects to tune,
For he’s all over concert-pitch.
A little prelude goes before,
Like a knock and ring at music’s door
Each instrument gives in its name;
Then sitting in
They all begin
To play a musical round game.
Scrapenberg, as the eldest hand,
Leads a first fiddle to the band,
A second follows suit;
Anon the ace of Horns comes plump
On the two fiddles with a trump.
Puffindorf plays a flute.
This sort of musical revoke,
The grave bassoon begins to smoke
And in rather grumpy kind
Of tone begins to speak its mind;
The double drum is next to mix,
Playing the Devil on Two Sticks--
Clamour, clamour,
Hammer, hammer,
While now and then a pipe is heard,
Insisting to put in a word,
With all his shrilly best,
So to allow the little minion
Time to deliver his opinion,
They take a few bars rest.
Well, little Pipe begins--with sole
And small voice going through the _hole_,
Beseeching,
Preaching,
Squealing,
Appealing,
Now as high as he can go,
Now in language rather low,
And having done--begins once more,
Verbatim what he said before.
This twiddling twaddling sets on fire
All the old instrumental ire,
And fiddles for explosion ripe,
Put out the little squeaker’s pipe;
This wakes bass viol--and viol for that,
Seizing on innocent little B flat,
Shakes it like terrier shaking a rat--
They all seem miching malico!
To judge from a ramble unawares,
The drum has had a pitch down stairs;
And the trumpet rash,
By a violent crash,
Seems splitting somebody’s calico!
The viol too groans in deep distress,
As if he suddenly grew sick;
And one rapid fiddle sets off express,--
Hurrying,
Scurrying,
Spattering,
Clattering,
To fetch him a Doctor of Music.
This tumult sets the Haut-boy crying
Beyond the Piano’s pacifying,
The cymbal
Gets nimble,
Triangle
Must wrangle,
The band is becoming most martial of bands,
When just in the middle,
A quakerly fiddle,
Proposes a general shaking of hands!
Quaking,
Shaking,
Quivering,
Shivering,
Long bow--short bow--each bow drawing:
Some like filing,--some like sawing;
At last these agitations cease,
And they all get
The flageolet,
To breathe “a piping time of peace.”
Ah, too deceitful charm,
Like light’ning before death,
For Scrapenberg to rest his arm,
And Puffindorf get breath!
Again without remorse or pity,
They play “The Storming of a City.”
Miss S. herself compos’d and plann’d it--
When lo! at this renew’d attack,
Up jumps a little man in black,--
“The very Devil cannot stand it!
And with that,
Snatching hat,
(Not his own,)
Off is flown,
Thro’ the door,
In his black,
To come back
Never, never, never more?”
Oh Music! praises thou hast had,
From Dryden and from Pope,
For thy good notes, yet none I hope,
But I e’er praised the bad,
Yet are not saint and sinner even?
Miss Strummel on Cecilia’s level?
One drew an angel down from heaven!
The other scar’d away the Devil!
[Illustration: A GRAND UPRIGHT.]
REFLECTIONS ON WATER.
“When the butt is out, we will drink water: not a drop
before.”--TEMPEST.
I have Stefano’s aversion to Water. I never take any by chance into
my mouth, without the proneness of our Tritons and Dolphins of the
Fountain,--to spout it forth again. It is, on the palate, as in tubs
and hand-basins, egregiously washy. It hath not for me, even what
is called “an amiable weakness.” For the sake only of quantity, not
quality, do I sometimes adulterate my Cogniac or Geneva with the
flimsy fluid. Aquarius is not my sign; at the praises heaped on Sir
Hugh Myddelton, for leading his trite streamlet up to London,--my lip
curleth. Methinks if such a sloppy labour could at one time more than
another betray a misguided taste, it was in those days, when we are
told,--“The Grete Conduict, in Chepe, did runne forth Wyne.” And then
to hear talk withal of the New River _Head_,--as if, forsooth, the weak
current poured even from Ware unto London, were capable of that goodly
headed capital, the _caput_, of Stout Porter, or lusty Ale.
The taste for aquatics is none of mine. I laugh at Cowes’--it should
be Calves’--Regattas; it passeth my understanding, to conceive the
pleasure of contending with all your sail and sea, your might and
main, for a prize cup of water. Gentle reader, if ever we two should
encounter at good-men’s feasts, say not before me, that “your mouth
waters,” for fear of my compelled rejoinder, “The more pump you!”
[Illustration: THE ARCH-ENEMY.]
I am told--_Dic mihi_--by Sir Lauder Dick, that the great floods is
Morayshire destroyed I know not how many Scottish bridges,--and I
believe it. The element was always our Arch-Enemy. Witness the Deluge,
when the whole human-kind would have perished, with water on the
chest, but for Noah’s chest on the water. Drowning--by some called
Dying made Easy--is to my notions horrible. Conceive an unfortunate
gentleman--not by any means thirsty--compelled to swill gulp after gulp
of the vapid fluid, even to swelling, “as the water you know will swell
a man.” If I said I would rather be hanged, it would be but the truth;
although “Veritas in _Puteo_” hath given me almost a disrelish for
truth itself.
Excepting their imaginary Castaly, I should be glad to know what poet
hath sung ever in the praise of Water? Of wine, many. “Tak _Tent_,”
saith the Scottish Burns; “O, was ye at the _Sherry_?”--singeth
another. The lofty Douglas, in commending Norval, thus hinteth his
cellar; “His _Port_ I like.” Shakspeare discourseth eloquently of both
as “Red and white,” and addeth,--“with sweet and cunning hand _laid
on_;”--i.e. laid on in pipes. For Madeira, see Bowles of it; and the
Muse of Pringle luxuriates in the Cape. Then is there also Mountain
celebrated by Pope,--“The Shepherd loves the mountain,”--to Moslem,
forbidden draught; yet which Mahomet would condescend to fetch himself,
if it failed in coming to hand. Sack, too,--as dear to Oriental
Sultanas as his Malmsey to Clarence,--is by Byron touched on in his
Corsair; but then, through some Koran-scrupulousness perchance, they
take it--in Water!
Praise there hath been of water; but, as became the subject, in prose;
M. hath written a volume, I am told, in its commendation, and above
all of its nutritive quality; and truly to see it floating the Victory
with all her armament and complement of guns, and men, one must confess
there is some _support_ in it--at least as an outward application! but
then taken internally, look at the wreck of the Royal George!
The mention of Men-of-War, bringeth to mind, opportunely, certain
marine reminiscences, pertinent to this subject, referring some
years backward, when, with other uniform than my present invariable
sables, I was stationed at * * *, on the coast of Sussex. Little
as my present-tense habits and occupations savour of the past
sea-service,--yet, reader, in the Navy List amongst the Commanders, or
years by-gone in the Ship’s Books of H.M.S Hyperion, presently lying
in the sequestered harbour of Newhaven, thou wilt find occurring the
surname of Hood; a name associated by friends, marine and mechanic,
with a contrivance, for expelling the old enemy, water, by a novel
construction of Ships’ pumps.
[Illustration: RUNNING SPIRITS.]
Stanchest of my sect--the Adam’s-Ale-shunners--wert thou, old
Samuel Spiller! in the muster-roll charactered an Able Seaman; but
most notable for a Landsman’s aversion to unmitigated Water, hard,
or soft--fresh or salt! A petty Officer wert thou in that armed
band _versus_ contraband, the Coast Blockade, by some miscalled
the Preventive Service, if service it be to prevent the influx of
wholesome spirits. To do the smuggler bare justice, no seaman,
Nelson-bred, payeth greater reverence, or obedience to that signal
sentence,--“England expects every man to _do_ his _duty_!” than he.
Thine, Spiller, was done to the uttermost. Spirits, legal or illegal,
in tub or flask, or pewter measure, didst thou inexorably seize, and
gauger-like try the depth thereof,--thy Royal Master, His Majesty, at
the latter end of the seizures, faring no better than thy own begotten
sea-urchin, of whom, one day remarking that--“he took after his
father,” the young would-be Trinculo retorted, “Father never leaveth
none to take.” There were strange rumours afloat, and ashore--Samuel!
of thy unprofitable vigilance. Many an illicit _Child_, i.e. a small
keg, hath been laid at thy door. Thou hadst a becoming respect for
thy comrades, as brave men and true, who could stand fire, but the
smugglers, I fear, were ranked a streak higher, as men who could stand
treat. Still were thy misdeeds like much of thy own beverage--beyond
proof. Even as those delinquent utterers of base notes, who swallow
their own dangerous forgeries, so didst thou gulp down whatever
might else have appeared against thee in evidence. There was no
entrapping thee, like rat, or weasel in that Gin, from which deriving a
sea-peerage, thou wert commonly known--with no offence, I trust, to the
Noble Vassal of Kensington--as Lord Hollands.
It was by way of water-penance for one of these Cassio-like
derelictions of Mine Ancient, that one evening--the evening succeeding
the Great Sea Tempest of 1814--I gave him charge of a boat’s crew, to
bring in sundry fragmental relics of some shipwreckt Argosy, that were
reported to be adrift in our offing. In two hours he returned, and like
Venator and Piscator, we immediately fell into dialogue,--Piscator,
i.e. Spiller, “for fear of dripping the carpet,” standing aloof, a vox
et preterea nihil, in a dark entry.
“Well, Spiller,”--my phraseology was not then inoculated with the
quaintness it hath since imbibed from after lecture--“Well, Spiller,
what have you picked up?”
“A jib-boom, I think, Sir, a capital spar; and part of a Ship’s starn.
The ‘Planter of Barbadies’--famous place for rum, Sir.”
“Was there any sea--are you wet?”
“Only up to my middle, Sir.”
“Very well--stow away the wreck, and go to your grog. Tell Bunce to
give you all double allowance.”
“Thank your honour’s honour!”
The voice ceased: and a pair of ponderous sea-soles, with tramp audible
as the marble foot of the Spectre in Giovanni, went hurrying down our
main-hatchway. Certain misgivings of a discrepancy between the imputed
drenching and the weather, an appeal askance of the rum cask, joined
with a curiosity perchance, to inspect the ship-fragments--our flottsom
and jettsom, led me soon afterwards below, and there, in the mess-room,
sate mine officer, high and dry, with a huge tankard in his starboard
hand. I made an obvious remark on it, and had an answer--for Michael
Spiller was no adept in the Chesterfieldian refinements--from the
interior of the drinking-vessel--
“Your Honour’s right, and I ax your Honour’s pardon. I warn’t wet! but
I was _very_ dry!”
A BLOW UP.
“Here we go up, up, up.”--THE LAY OF THE FIRST MINSTREL.
Near Battle, Mr. Peter Baker
Was Powder-maker,
Not Alderman Flower’s flour,--the white that puffs
And primes and loads heads bald, or gray, or chowder,
Figgins and Higgins, Fippins, Filby,--Crowder,
Not vile apothecary’s pounded stuffs,
But something blacker, bloodier, and louder,
Gun-powder!
This stuff, as people know, is _semper
Eadem_; very hasty in its temper--
Like Honour that resents the gentlest taps,
Mere semblances of blows, however slight;
So powder fires, although you only p’rhaps
Strike light.
To make it therefore, is a ticklish business
And sometimes gives both head and heart a dizziness,
For as all human flash and fancy minders,
Frequenting fights and Powder-works well know,
There seldom is a mill without a blow
Sometimes upon the grinders.
But then--the melancholy phrase to soften,
Mr. B.’s mill _transpir’d_ so very often!
And advertised--than all Price Currents louder,
“Fragments look up--there is a rise in Powder.”
So frequently, it caused the neighbours’ wonder,--
And certain people had the inhumanity
To lay it all to Mr. Baker’s vanity,
That he might have to say--“That was _my_ thunder!”
One day--so goes the tale,
Whether, with iron hoof,
Not sparkle-proof,
Some ninny-hammer struck upon a nail,--
Whether some glow-worm of the Guy Faux stamp,
Crept in the building, with Unsafety Lamp--
One day this mill that had by water ground,
Became a sort of windmill and blew round.
With bounce that went in sound as far as Dover, it
Sent half the workmen sprawling to the sky;
Besides some visitors who gained thereby,
What they had asked--permission “to go over it!”
Of course it was a very hard and high blow,
And somewhat differed from what’s called a fly-blow.
At Cowes’ Regatta as I once observed,
A pistol-shot made twenty vessels start;
If such a sound could terrify oak’s heart,
Think how this crash the human nerve unnerved
In fact, it was a very awful thing,--
As people know that have been used to battle,
In springing either mine or mill, you spring
A precious rattle!
The dunniest heard it--poor old Mr. F.
Doubted for once if he was ever deaf;
Through Tunbridge town it caused most strange alarms;
Mr. and Mrs. Fogg,
Who lived like cat and dog,
Were shocked for once into each other’s arms.
Miss M. the milliner--her fright so strong,
Made a great gobble-stitch six inches long;
The veriest quakers quaked against their wish;
The “Best of Sons” was taken unawares,
And kick’d the “Best of Parents” down the stairs;
The steadiest servant dropped the China dish;
A thousand started, though there was but one
Fated to win, and that was Mr. Dunn,
Who struck convulsively, and hooked a fish!
Miss Wiggins, with some grass upon her fork,
Toss’d it just like a hay-maker at work;
Her sister not in any better case,
For taking wine,
With nervous Mr. Pyne,
He jerked his glass of Sherry in her face.
Poor Mistress Davy,
Bobb’d off her bran-new turban in the gravy:
While Mr. Davy at the lower end,
Preparing for a Goose a carver’s labour,
Darted his two-pronged weapon in his neighbour,
As if for once he meant to help a friend.
The nurse-maid telling little “Jack-a-Norey,”
“Bo-peep” and “Blue-cap” at the house’s top,
Scream’d, and let Master Jeremiah drop
From a fourth story!
Nor yet did matters any better go
With Cook and Housemaid in the realms below;
As for the Laundress, timid Martha Gunning,
Expressing faintness and her fear by fits
And starts,--she came at last but to her wits,
By falling in the ale that John left running.
Grave Mr. Miles, the meekest of mankind,
Struck all at once deaf, stupid, dumb, and blind,
Sat in his chaise some moments like a corse,
Then coming to his mind,
Was shocked to find,
Only a pair of shafts without a horse.
Out scrambled all the Misses from Miss Joy’s!
From Prospect House, for urchins small and big,
Hearing the awful noise,
Out rushed a flood of boys,
Floating a man in black, without a wig;--
Some carried out one treasure, some another,--
Some caught their tops and taws up in a hurry,
Some saved Chambaud, some rescued Lindley Murray,
But little Tiddy carried his big brother!
[Illustration: A NON SEQUITUR.]
Sick of such terrors,
The Tunbridge folks resolv’d that truth should dwell
No longer secret in a Tunbridge Well,
But to warn Baker of his dangerous errors;
Accordingly to bring the point to pass,
They call’d a meeting of the broken glass,
The shatter’d chimney pots, and scatter’d tiles,
The damage of each part,
And packed it in a cart,
Drawn by the horse that ran from Mr. Miles;
While Doctor Babblethorpe, the worthy Rector,
And Mr. Gammage, cutler to George Rex,
And some few more, whose names would only vex,
Went as a deputation to the Ex
Powder-proprietor and Mill-director.
Now Mr. Baker’s dwelling-house had pleased
Along with mill-materials to roam,
And for a time the deputies were teased,
To find the noisy gentleman at home;
At last they found him with undamaged skin,
Safe at the Tunbridge Arms--not out--but Inn.
The worthy Rector, with uncommon zeal,
Soon put his spoke in for the common weal--
A grave old gentlemanly kind of Urban,--
The piteous tale of Jeremiah moulded,
And then unfolded,
By way of climax, Mrs. Davy’s turban;
He told how auctioneering Mr. Pidding
Knock’d down a lot without a bidding,--
How Mr. Miles, in fright, had giv’n his mare
The whip she wouldn’t bear,--
At Prospect House, how Doctor Oates, not Titus,
Danc’d like Saint Vitus,--
And Mr. Beak, thro’ Powder’s misbehaving,
Cut off his nose whilst shaving;--
When suddenly, with words that seem’d like swearing,
Beyond a Licenser’s belief or bearing--
Broke in the stuttering, sputtering Mr. Gammage--
“Who is to pay us, Sir,”--he argued thus,
“For loss of cus-cus-cus-cus-cus-cus-cus--
Cus-custom, and the dam-dam-dam-damage?”
Now many a person had been fairly puzzled
By such assailants, and completely muzzled;
Baker, however, was not dash’d with ease--
But proved he practised after their own system,
And with small ceremony soon dismiss’d ’em,
Putting these words into their ears like fleas;
“If I do have a blow, well, where’s the oddity?
I merely do as other tradesmen do,
You, Sir,--and you--and you!
I’m only puffing off my own commodity!”
[Illustration: URGING THE SAIL OF YOUR OWN WORK.]
THE WOODEN LEG.
“Peregrine and Gauntlet heard the sound of the stump ascending the
wooden staircase with such velocity, that they at first mistook
it for the application of drum-sticks to the head of an empty
barrel.”--PEREGRINE PICKLE.
Ever since the year 1799, I have had, in the coachman phrase, an off
leg and a near one; the right limb, thanks to a twelve-pounder, lies
somewhere at Seringapatam, its twin-brother being at this moment under
a table at Brighton. In plain English, I have a wooden leg. Being thus
deprived of half of the implements for marching, I equitably retired,
on half-pay, from a marching regiment, and embarked what remained
of my body, for the land of its nativity, literally fulfilling the
description of man, “with one foot on sea and one on shore,” in the
Shakspearian song.
A great deal has been said and sung of our wooden walls and hearts of
oak, but legs of ditto make but an inglorious figure on the ocean. No
wrestler from Cornwall or Devonshire ever received half so many fair
back-falls as I, the least roll of the vessel--and the equinoctial
gales were in full blow--making me lose, I was going to say, my feet.
I might have walked in a dead calm, and as a soldier accustomed to
exercise, and moreover a foot soldier, and used to walking, I felt a
great inclination to pace up and down the deck, but a general protest
from the cabins put an end to my promenade. As Lear recommends, my
wooden hoofs ought to have been “shod with felt.”
At last the voyage terminated, and in my eagerness to land, I got
into a fishing-boat, which put me ashore at Dungeness. Those who
have enjoyed a ramble over its extensive shingle, will believe that
I soon obtained abundance of exercise in walking with a wooden leg
among its loose pebbles; in fact, when I arrived at Lydd, I was, as
the cricketers say, “stumped out.” It was anything but one of Foote’s
farces.
The next morning saw me in sight of home,--as a provincial bard says--
“But when home gleams upon the wanderer’s eye,
Quicken his steps--he almost seems to fly.”
But I wish he had seen me doing my last half mile over Swingfield Hill.
I found its deep sand anything but a quicksand, in spite of a distinct
glimpse of the paternal roof. I am convinced, when “Fleet Camilla
scours the plain,” she does not do it with sand. At last I stood at
the lodge-gate, which opened, and let me into a long avenue, the path
of which had been newly gravelled, but not well rolled; accordingly,
I cut out considerable work for myself and the gardener, who, as he
watched the holes I picked in his performance, seemed to look on my
advance much as Apollyon did on Pilgrim’s Progress. By way of relief,
I got upon the grass, but my wooden leg, though it was a blackleg,
did not thrive much upon the turf. Arrived at the house door, filial
anxiety caused me to forget to scrape and wipe, and I proceeded to make
a fishy pattern of soles and dabs up the stair carpet. The good wife in
the Scotch song says--
“His very foot has music in’t,
As he comes up the stair.”
If there was any music in mine, it was in the stump, which played a
sort of “Dead March in Saul,” up to the landing-place, where the sound
and sight of my Birnam wood coming to Dunsinane threw my poor mother
into a Macbeth fit of horror, for the preparatory letter which should
have broken my leg to her, had been lost on its passage. As for my
father, I will not attempt to describe his transport, for I came upon
him,
“As fools rush in where angels fear to tread;”
and Gabriel or Michael would not have escaped a volley for treading on
his gouty foot. At the same moment, Margaret and Louisa, with sisterly
impetuosity, threw themselves on my neck, and not being attentive to my
“outplay or loose leg,” according to Sir Thomas Parkyn’s “Instructions
for Wrestling,” the result was a “hanging trippet.” “A hanging trippet
is when you put your toe behind your adversary’s heel, on the same
side, with a design to hook his leg up forwards, and throw him on his
back.”
The reader will guess my satisfaction when night came, and allowed
me to rid myself of my unlucky limb. Fatigued with my walk through
dry sand and wet gravel, exhausted by excessive emotion, and, maybe,
a little flustered by dipping into the cup of welcome, I literally
tumbled into bed, and was soon dreaming of running races and leaping
for wagers, gallopading, waltzing, and other feats of a biped, when I
was suddenly aroused by shrill screams of “Thieves!” and “Murder!” with
a more hoarse call for “Frank! Frank!” There were burglars, in fact,
in the house, who were packing and preparing to elope with the family
plate, without the consent of parents. It was natural for the latter to
call a son and a soldier to the rescue, but son or soldier never came
in time to start for the plate; not that I wanted zeal or courage, or
arms, but I wanted that unlucky limb, and I groped about a full half
hour in the dark, before I could lay my hand upon my leg.
The next morning I took a solitary stroll before breakfast to look at
the estate; but during my absence abroad, some exchanges of land had
taken place with our neighbour, Sir Theophilus. The consequence was, in
taking my wood through a wood of his, but which had formerly been our
own, and going with my “best leg foremost,” as a man in my predicament
always does, I popped it into a man-trap. Thus my timber failed me at a
pinch when it might really have stood my friend. Luckily the trap was
one of the humane sort;--but it was far from pleasant to stand in it
for two hours calling out for Leg Bail.
I could give many more instances of scrapes, besides the perpetual
hobble which my wooden leg brought me into, but I will mention only
one. At the persuasion of my friends, a few years ago, I stood for Rye,
but the electors, perhaps, thought I only half stood for it, for they
gave me nothing but split votes. It was perhaps as well that I did not
go into the House, for with two such odd legs I could never properly
have “paired off.” The election expenses, however, pressed, heavily on
my pocket, and to defray them, and all for one Wooden Leg, I had to cut
down some thousand loads of timber.
[Illustration: “TIMBER TOO FOR HIS KNEES.”]
THE GHOST.
A VERY SERIOUS BALLAD.
“I’ll be your second.”--LISTON.
In Middle Row, some years ago,
There lived one Mr. Brown;
And many folks considered him
The stoutest man in Town.
But Brown and stout will both wear out,
One Friday he died hard,
And left a widow’d wife to mourn
At twenty pence a yard.
Now widow B. in two short months
Thought mourning quite a tax;
And wished, like Mr. Wilberforce,
To _manumit_ her blacks.
With Mr. Street she soon was sweet;
The thing thus came about,
She asked him in at home, and then
At church he asked her out!
Assurance such as this the man
In ashes could not stand;
So like a Phœnix he rose up
Against the Hand in Hand.
One dreary night the angry sprite
Appeared before her view;
It came a little after one,
But she was after two!
“Oh Mrs. B., oh Mrs. B.!
Are these your sorrow’s deeds,
Already getting up a flame,
To burn your widow’s weeds?
“It’s not so long since I have left
For aye the mortal scene;
My memory--like Roger’s,
Should still be bound in green!
“Yet if my face you still retrace
I almost have a doubt--
I’m like an old For-get-me-Not,
With all the leaves torn out!
“To think that on that finger-joint,
Another pledge should cling;
O Bess! upon my very soul,
It struck like ‘Knock and Ring.’
“A ton of marble on my breast
Can’t hinder my return;
Your conduct, Ma’am, has set my blood
A-boiling in my urn!
“Remember on! remember how
The marriage rite did run--
If ever we one flesh should be,
’Tis now--when I have none!
“And you, Sir--once a bosom friend--
Of perjured faith convict,
As ghostly too can give no blow,
Consider you are kick’d.
“A hollow voice is all I have,
But this I tell you plain,
Marry come up!--you marry, Ma’am,
And I’ll come up again.”
More he had said, but chanticleer
The spritely shade did shock
With sudden crow, and off he went,
Like fowling-piece at cock!
[Illustration: COCK OF THE WALK.]
[Illustration: “THE GREAT PLAGUE OF LONDON.”]
A TALE OF THE GREAT PLAGUE.
“This is one of the _pest_ discretions.”--SIR HUGH EVANS.
About five or six years after that deplorable great Plague of London,
there befel a circumstance which, as it is not set forth in Defoe his
history of the pestilence, I shall make bold to write down herein, not
only on account of the strangeness of the event, but also because it
carries a moral pick-a-back, as a good story ought to do.
It is a notoriously known fact, as collected from the bills of
mortality, that there died of the plague in the mere metropolis
a matter of some hundreds of thousands of human souls; yet
notwithstanding this most awful warning to evil doers, the land did
nevertheless bring forth such a rank crop of sin and wickedness,
that the like was never known before or after; the City of London,
especially, being overrun with bands of thieves and murtherers, against
whom there was little or no check, the civical police having been
utterly disbanded and disrupt during the ravages of the pestilence.
Neither did men’s minds turn for some time towards the mere safeguard
of property, being still distracted with personal fears, for although
the pest had, as it were, died of the excess of its own violence, yet
from time to time there arose flying rumours of fresh breakings out of
the malady. The small-pox and the malignant fever being the prolific
parents of such like alarms. Accordingly many notable robberies and
divers grievous murthers having been acted with impunity during the
horrible crisis of the pest, those which had before been wicked were
now hardened, and became a thousand times worse, till the city and the
neighbourhood thereof seemed given in prey to devils, who had been
loosened for a season from the everlasting fetters of the law.
Now four of these desperadoes having met together at the Dolphin in
Deptford, they laid a plot together to rob a certain lone mansion house
which stood betwixt the Thames marshes and the Forest of Hainault, and
which was left in the charge of only one man, the family being gone
off to another mansion house in the county of Wiltshire, for the sake
of a more wholesome air. And the manner of the plot was this: one of
the villains going in a feigned voice was to knock at the front-door
and beg piteously for a night’s shelter, and then the door, being
opened, the other knaves were to rush in and bind the serving-man, or
murther him, as might seem best, and so taking his keys they were to
ransack the house, where they expected to find a good store of plate.
Accordingly, one Friday, at the dead of the night, they set forth,
having for leader a fellow that was named Blackface, by reason of a
vizard which he wore always on such errands, diverting themselves by
the way with laying out each man his share of the booty in the manner
that pleased him best, wine and the women of Lewkener’s Lane coming
in you may be sure for the main burthen of the song. At last they
entered the fore-court of the house which they were to rob, and which
was as silent as death, and as dark, excepting a glimmer from one
window towards the top. Blackface then, as agreed upon, began to beat
at the door, but being flushed with drink, instead of entreating for
an entrance, he shouted out to the serving-man, bidding him with many
terrible oaths to come down and to render up his keys, for that they
were come to relieve him of his charge.
“In the name of God, my masters,” cried the serving-man from the
window, “what do you want here?”
“We are come,” returned Blackface, “to relieve you of your trust, so
throw us down your keys.”
“An that be all,” said the serving-man, whose name was Adams, “wait but
a little while and you shall have the keys and my place to boot. Come
again but a few hours hence, and you shall find me dead, when you may
do with me and my trust as you list.”
“Come, come,” cries Blackface, “no preaching, but come down and open,
or we will bring fire and faggot to the door.”
“Ye shall not need,” answered Adams, “hearken only to what I say, and
you shall have free passage; but I give you fair warning, though I
be but a single man, and without weapon, and sick even unto death,
yet shall your coming in cost you as many lives as ye bear amongst
you, for within these walls there is a dismal giant that hath slain
his thousands, even the plague.” At these dreary words the courage of
the robbers was taken somewhat aback, but Blackface spirited them on,
saying it was no doubt an invention to deter them from the spoil.
“Alas,” answered Adams, who overheard their argument, “what I say is
the solemn and sorrowful truth, and which I am speaking for the last
time, for I shall never see to-morrow’s blessed sun. As for the door,
I will open it to you with my own hands, beseeching you for your own
sakes to stand a little apart, and out of the taint of my breath, which
is sure destruction. There is one child herein a dead corpse, as you
shall behold if you have so much courage, for it lieth unburied in the
hall.” So saying he descended, and presently flung open the hall door,
the villains withdrawing a little backward, and they saw verily by the
light of a rush wick which he carried, that he was lapt only in a white
sheet, and looking very pale and ghost-like, with a most dismal black
circle round each of his eyes.
[Illustration: THE COMMON LOT.]
“If ye disbelieve me still,” he said, “look inwards when I draw back
from the door, and ye shall see what was a living child this day, but
is now a corpse hastening to corruption. Alas! in the midst of life we
are in death: she was seized at play.” With these words he drew aside,
and the robbers looking through the door, perceived it was even as
he said, for the dead body of the child was lying on the hall table,
with the same black ring round its eyes, and dressed in brocade and
riband as though death had carried it off, even as he said, in its
holiday clothes. “Now,” said Adams, after they had gazed awhile, “here
be the keys,” therewithal casting towards them a huge bunch; but the
villains would now no more meddle with them than with so many aspics or
scorpions, looking on them in truth as the very keys of death’s door.
Accordingly, after venting a few curses on their ill luck, they began
to depart in very ill humour, when Adams again called to them to hear
his last words.
“Now,” said he, “though ye came hither with robbery, and perchance
murder in your hearts, against me, yet as a true Christian will I
not only forgive your wicked intents, but advise you how to shun
that miserable end which my own life is coming to so very suddenly.
Although your souls have been saved from sin, yet, doubtless ye have
not stood so long in this infected air without peril to the health of
your bodies, wherefore, by the advice of a dying man, go straightway
from this over to Laytonstone, where there be tan pits, and sit there
for a good hour amidst the strong smell of the tan, and which hath
more virtue as a remedy against the infection of the plague, than even
tobacco or the odour of drugs. Do this and live, for the poison is
strong and subtle, and seizeth, ere one can be aware, on the springs
of life.” Thereupon he uttered a dismal groan, and began yelling so
fearfully that the robbers with one accord took to flight, and never
stopped till they were come to Laytonstone, and into the tanner’s
very yard, where they sat down and stooped over the pit, snuffing up
the odours with all the relish of men in whose nostrils it was as the
breath of life. In which posture they had been sitting half an hour,
when there entered several persons with a lantern, and which they took
to be the tanner and his men, and to whom, therefore, they addressed
themselves, begging pardon for their boldness, and entreating leave to
continue awhile in the tan-yard to disinfect themselves of the plague;
but they had hardly uttered these words, when lo! each man was suddenly
seized upon, and bound in a twinkling, the constables, for such they
were, jeering them withal, and saying the plague had been too busy to
come itself, but had sent them a gallows and a halter instead, which
would serve their turn. Whereupon, most of the rogues became very
chop-fallen, but Blackface swore he could die easy but for one thing
upon his mind, and that was, what had become of the dead child and the
man dying of the plague, both of which he had seen with his own eyes.
Hereupon, the man with a lantern turned the light upon his own face,
which the rogues knew directly to be the countenance of Adams himself,
but without any of those black rings round the eyes, and for which
he explained he had been indebted to a little charcoal. “As for the
dead child,” he said, “you must enquire, my masters, of the worshipful
company of Barber Surgeons, and they will tell you of a certain waxen
puppet of Hygeia, the Goddess of Health, which used to be carried at
their pageants, and when it fell into disuse was purchased of them by
my Lady Dame Ellinor Wood, for a plaything to her own children. So one
head you see is worth four pair of hands, and your whole gang, tall,
and strong knaves though you be, have been overmatched by one old man
and a doll.”
[Illustration: LA TRAPPE.]
[Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT--MADAME HENGLER.]
ODE TO MADAME HENGLER,
FIREWORK-MAKER TO VAUXHALL.
Oh, Mrs. Hengler! Madame,--I beg pardon,
Starry Enchantress of the Surrey Garden!
Accept an Ode not meant as any scoff--
The Bard were bold indeed at thee to quiz,
Whose squibs are far more popular than his;
Whose works are much more certain to go off.
Great is thy fame, but not a silent fame;
With many a bang the public ear it courts;
And yet thy arrogance we never blame,
But take thy merits from thy own reports.
Thou hast indeed the most indulgent backers,
We make no doubting, misbelieving comments,
Even in thy most bounceable of moments;
But lend our ears implicit to thy crackers!--
Strange helps to thy applause too are not missing,
Thy Rockets raise thee,
And Serpents praise thee,
As none beside are ever praised--by hissing!
Mistress of Hydropyrics,
Of glittering Pindarics, Sapphics, Lyrics,
Professor of a Fiery Necromancy,
Oddly thou charmest the politer sorts
With midnight sports,
Partaking very much of _flash_ and _fancy_!
What thoughts had shaken all
In olden time at thy nocturnal revels,--
Each brimstone ball,
They would have deem’d an eyeball of the Devil’s,
But now thy flaming Meteors cause no fright;
A modern Hubert to the royal ear,
Might whisper without fear,
“My Lord, they say there were five moons to-night!”
Nor would it raise one superstitious notion
To hear the whole description fairly out:--
“One fixed--which t’other four whirl’d round about
With wond’rous motion.”
Such are the very sights
Thou workest, Queen of Fire, on earth and heaven,
Between the hours of midnight and eleven,
Turning our English to Arabian Nights,
With blazing mounts, and founts, and scorching dragons,
Blue stars and white,
And blood-red light,
And dazzling Wheels fit for Enchanters’ waggons.
Thrice lucky woman! doing things that be
With other folks past benefit of parson;
For burning, no Burn’s Justice falls on thee,
Altho’ night after night the public see
Thy Vauxhall palaces all end in Arson!
Sure thou wast never born
Like old Sir Hugh, with water in thy head,
Nor lectur’d night and morn
Of sparks and flames to have an awful dread,
Allowed by a prophetic dam and sire
To play with fire.
O didst thou never, in those days gone by
Go carrying about--no schoolboy prouder--
Instead of waxen doll a little Guy;
Or in thy pretty pyrotechnic vein,
Up the parental pigtail lay a train,
To let off all his powder?
Full of the wildfire of thy youth,
Did’st never in plain truth,
Plant whizzing Flowers in thy mother’s pots,
Turning the garden into powder plots?
Or give the cook, to fright her,
Thy paper sausages well stuffed with nitre?
Nay, wert thou never guilty, now, of dropping
A lighted cracker by thy sister’s Dear,
So that she could not hear
The question he was popping?
Go on, Madame! Go on--be bright and busy
While hoax’d Astronomers look up and stare
From tall observatories, dumb and dizzy,
To see a Squib in Cassiopeia’s Chair!
A serpent wriggling into Charles’ Wain!
A Roman Candle lighting the Great Bear!
A rocket tangled in Diana’s train,
And Cracker’s stuck in Berenice’s Hair!
There is a King of Fire--Thou shouldst be Queen!
Methinks a good connexion might come from it;
Could’st thou not make him, in the garden scene,
Set out per Rocket and return per comet;
Then give him a hot treat
Of Pyrotechnicals to sit and sup,
Lord! how the world would throng to see him eat.
He swallowing fire, while thou dost throw it up.
One solitary night--true is the story,
Watching those forms that Fancy will create
Within the bright confusion of the grate,
I saw a dazzling countenance of glory!
Oh Dei gratias!
That fiery facias
’Twas thine, Enchantress of the Surrey Grove;
And ever since that night,
In dark and bright,
Thy face is _registered_ within my _stove_!
Long may that starry brow enjoy its rays;
May no untimely _blow_ its doom forestall;
But when old age prepares the friendly pall,
When the last spark of all thy sparks decays,
Then die lamented by good people all,
Like Goldsmith’s _Madam Blaize_!
RHYME AND REASON.
_To the Editor of the Comic Annual._
SIR,
In one of your Annuals you have given insertion to “A Plan for
Writing Blank Verse in Rhyme;” but as I have seen no regular long
poem constructed on its principles, I suppose the scheme did not
take with the literary world. Under these circumstances I feel
encouraged to bring forward a novelty of my own, and I can only
regret that such poets as Chaucer and Cottle, Spenser and Hayley,
Milton and Pratt, Pope and Pye, Byron and Batterbee, should have
died before it was invented.
The great difficulty in verse is avowedly the rhyme. Dean
Swift says somewhere in his letters, “that a rhyme is as hard
to find with him as a guinea,”--and we all know that guineas
are proverbially scarce among poets. The merest versifier that
ever attempted a Valentine must have met with this Orson, some
untameable savage syllable that refused to chime in with society.
For instance, what poetical Foxhunter--a contributor to the
Sporting Magazine--has not drawn all the covers of Beynard Ceynard,
Deynard, Feynard, Geynard, Heynard, Keynard, Leynard, Meynard,
Neynard, Peynard, Queynard, to find a rhyme for Reynard? The spirit
of the times is decidedly against Tithe; and I know of no tithe
more oppressive than that poetical one, in heroic measure, which
requires that every tenth syllable shall pay a sound in kind. How
often the Poet goes up a line, only to be stopped at the end by
an impracticable rhyme, like a bull in a blind alley! I have an
ingenious medical friend, who might have been an eminent poet by
this time, but the first line he wrote ended in ipecacuanha, and
with all his physical and mental power, he has never yet been able
to find a rhyme for it.
The plan I propose aims to obviate this hardship. My system is, to
take the bull by the horns; in short, to try at first what words
will chime, before you go farther, and fare worse. To say nothing
of other advantages, it will at least have one good effect,--and
that is, to correct the erroneous notion of the would-be poets and
poetesses of the present day, that the great _end_ of poetry is
rhyme. I beg leave to present a specimen of worse, which proves
quite the reverse, and am, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
JOHN DRYDEN GRUBB.
[Illustration: REFUSING TITHE.]
THE DOUBLE KNOCK.
Rat-tat it went upon the lion’s chin
“That hat, I know it!” cried the joyful girl:
“Summer’s it is, I know him by his knock,
Comers like him are welcome as the day!
Lizzy! go down and open the street-door,
Busy I am to anyone but _him_
Know him you must--he has been often here;
Show him up stairs, and tell him I’m alone.”
Quickly the maid went tripping down the stair;
Thickly the heart of Rose Matilda beat;
“Sure he has brought me tickets for the play--
Drury or Covent Garden--darling man!--
Kemble will play--or Kean who makes the soul
Tremble; in Richard or the frienzied Moor--
Farren, the stay and prop of many a farce
Barren beside--or Liston, Laughter’s Child--
Kelly the natural, to witness whom
Jelly is nothing to the public’s jam--
Cooper, the sensible--and Walter Knowles
Super, in William Tell--now rightly told.
Better--perchance, from Andrews, brings a box,
Letter of boxes for the Italian stage--
Brocard! Donzelli! Taglioni! Paul!
No card--thank Heaven--engages me to-night!
Feathers, of course, no turban, and no toque--
Weather’s against it, but I’ll go in curls.
Dearly I dote on white--my satin dress,
Merely one night--it won’t be much the worse--
Cupid the New Ballet I long to see--
Stupid! why don’t she go and ope the door!”
Glisten’d her eye as the impatient girl
Listen’d, low bending o’er the topmost stair.
Vainly, alas! she listens and she bends,
Plainly she hears this question and reply:
“Axes your pardon, Sir, but what d’ye want?”
“Taxes,” says he, “and shall not call again!”
[Illustration: BARKER’S PANORAMA.]
A FOXHUNTER
Is a jumble of paradoxes. He sets forth clean though he comes out of
a kennel, and returns home dirty. He cares not for cards, yet strives
to be always with the pack. He loves fencing, but without carte or
tierce, and delights in a steeplechase, though he does not follow
the Church. He is anything but litigious, yet is fond of a certain
suit, and retains Scarlet. He keeps a running account with Horse,
Dog, Fox, and Co., but objects to a check. As to cards, in choosing a
pack he prefers Hunt’s. In Theatricals, he favours Miss Somerville,
because her namesake wrote the Chase, though he never read it. He is
no great dancer, though he is fond of casting off twenty couple; and
no great Painter, though he draws covers, and seeks for a brush. He
is no Musician, and yet is fond of five bars. He despises Doctors,
yet follows a course of bark. He professes to love his country, but
is perpetually crossing it. He is fond of strong ale and beer, yet
dislikes any purl. He is good-tempered, yet so far a Tartar as to
prefer a saddle of Horse to a saddle of Mutton. He is somewhat rough
and bearish himself, but insists on good breeding in horses and dogs.
He professes the Church Catechism, and countenances heathen dogmas, by
naming his hounds after Jupiter and Juno, Mars and Diana. He cares not
for violets, but he doats on a good scent. He says his wife is a shrew,
but objects to destroying a Vixen. In Politics he inclines to Pitt, and
runs after Fox. He is no milksop, but he loves to Tally. He protects
Poultry, and preserves Foxes. He follows but one business, and yet has
many pursuits. He pretends to be knowing, but a dog leads him by the
nose. He is as honest a fellow as need be, yet his neck is oftener
in danger than a thief’s. He swears he can clear anything, but is
beaten by a fog. He is no landlord of houses, but is particular about
fixtures. He studies “Summering the Hunter,” but goes Huntering in
the Winter. He esteems himself prosperous, and is always going to the
dogs. He delights in the Hunter’s Stakes, but takes care not to stake
his hunter. He praises discretion, but would rather let the cat out of
the bag than a fox. He does not shine at a human conversazione, but is
great among dogs giving tongue. To conclude, he runs as long as he can,
and then goes to earth, and his Heir is in at his death. But his Heir
does not stand in his shoes, for he never wore anything but boots.
[Illustration: “STAND AND DELIVER.”]
[Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT--“I’D BE A BUTTERFLY.”]
BAILEY BALLADS.
To anticipate mistake, the above title refers not to Thomas Haynes--or
F. W. N.--or even any Publishers--but the original old Bailey. It
belongs to a set of Songs composed during the courtly leisure of what
is technically called a Juryman in Waiting--that is, one of a _corps
de reserve_, held in readiness to fill up the gaps which extraordinary
mental exertion--or sedentary habits--or starvation, may make in the
Council of Twelve. This wrong box it was once my fortune to get into.
On the 5th of November, at the 6th hour, leaving my bed, and the
luxurious perusal of Taylor on Early Rising--I walked from a yellow fog
into a black one, in my unwilling way to the New Court, which sweet
herbs even could not sweeten, for the sole purpose of making criminals
uncomfortable. A neighbour, a retired sea Captain with a wooden leg,
now literally a jury-mast, limped with me from Highbury Terrace on the
same hanging errand--a personified Halter. Our legal drill Corporal
was Serjeant Arabin, and when our muster roll without butter was over,
before breakfast, the uninitiated can form no idea of the ludicrousness
of the excuses of the would-be Nonjurors,--aggravated by the solemnity
of a previous oath, the delivery from a witness-box like a pulpit, and
the professional gravity of the Court. One weakly old gentleman had
been ordered by his physician to eat little, but often, and apprehended
even fatal consequences from being locked up with an obstinate eleven;
another conscientious demurrer desired time to make himself master
of his duties, by consulting Jonathan Wild, Vidocq, Hardy Vaux, and
Lazarillo de Tormes. But the number of deaf men who objected the
hardness of their hearing criminal cases was beyond belief. The
Publishers of “Curtis on the Ear” and “Wright on the Ear”--(two popular
surgical works, though rather suggestive of Pugilism)--ought to have
stentorian agents in that Court. Defective on one side myself, I was
literally ashamed to strike up singly in such a chorus of muffled
double drums, and tacitly suffered my ears to be boxed with a common
Jury. I heard, on the right hand, a Judge’s charge--an arraignment
and evidence to match, with great dexterity, but failing to catch the
defence from the left hand, refused naturally to concur in any sinister
verdict. The learned Serjeant, I presume, as I was only half deaf,
only half discharged me,--committing me to the relay-box, as a juror
in Waiting,--and from which I was relieved only by his successor, Sir
Thomas Denman, and to justify my dulness, I made even his stupendous
voice to repeat my dismissal twice over!
It was during this compelled attendance that the project struck me
of a Series of Lays of Larceny, combining Sin and Sentiment in that
melo-dramatic mixture which is so congenial to the cholera morbid
sensibility of the present age and stage. The following are merely
specimens, but a hint from the Powers that be--in the Strand,--will
promptly produce a handsome volume of the remainder, with a grateful
Dedication to the learned Serjeant.
[Illustration: “DESCEND YE NINE.”]
LINES TO MARY.
(AT NO. 1, NEWGATE, FAVOURED BY MR. WONTNER.)
O Mary, I believ’d you true,
And I was blest in so believing;
But till this hour I never knew--
That you were taken up for thieving!
Oh! When I snatch’d a tender kiss
Or some such trifle when I courted,
You said, indeed, that love was bliss,
But never owned you were transported!
But then to gaze on that fair face--
It would have been an unfair feeling,
To dream that you had pilfered lace--
And Flints had suffered from your stealing!
Or when my suit I first preferr’d,
To bring your coldness to repentance,
Before I hammered out a word,
How could I dream you’d heard a sentence,
Or when with all the warmth of youth
I strove to prove my love no fiction,
How could I guess I urged a truth
On one already past conviction!
How could I dream that ivory part,
Your hand--where I have look’d and linger’d,
Altho’ it stole away my heart,
Had been held up as one light-finger’d!
In melting verse your charms I drew,
The charms in which my muse delighted--
Alas! the lay I thought was new,
Spoke only what had been _indicted_!
Oh! when that form, a lovely one,
Hung on the neck its arms had flown to,
I little thought that you had run
A chance of hanging on your own too.
You said you pick’d me from the world,
My vanity it now must shock it--
And down at once my pride is hurl’d,
You’ve pick’d me--and you’ve pick’d a pocket.
Oh! when our love had got so far,
The bans were read by Dr. Daly,
Who asked if there was any _bar_--
Why did not some one shout “Old Bailey?”
But when you rob’d your flesh and bones
In that pure white that angel garb is,
Who could have thought you, Mary Jones,
Among the Joans that link with _Darbies_?
And when the parson came to say,
My goods were yours, if I had got any,
And you should honour and obey,
Who could have thought--“O Bay of Botany.”
But, oh,--the worst of all your slips
I did not till this day discover--
That down in Deptford’s prison ships,
Oh, Mary! you’ve a hulking lover!
[Illustration: “’T WERE WELL IF WE HAD NEVER MET.”]
No. II.
“Love, with a witness.”
He has shav’d off his whiskers and blacken’d his brows,
Wears a patch and a wig of false hair,--
But it’s him--Oh it’s him!--we exchanged lovers’ vows,
When I lived up in Cavendish Square.
He had beautiful eyes, and his lips were the same,
And his voice was as soft as a flute--
Like a Lord or a Marquis he look’d when he came
To make love in his master’s best suit.
If I lived for a thousand long years from my birth,
I shall never forget what he told;
How he lov’d me beyond the rich women of earth,
With their jewels and silver and gold!
When he kissed me and bade me adieu with a sigh,
By the light of the sweetest of moons,
Oh how little I dreamt I was bidding good-bye
To my Missis’s tea-pot and spoons!
No. III.
“I’d be a Parody.”--BAILEY.
We met--’twas in a mob--and I thought he had done me--
I felt--I could not feel--for no watch was upon me;
He ran--the night was cold--and his pace was unalter’d,
I too longed much to pelt--but my small-boned legs falter’d.
I wore my bran new boots--and unrivall’d their brightness,
They fit me to a hair--how I hated their tightness!
I call’d, but no one came, and my stride had a tether;
Oh _thou_ hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather!
And once again we met--and an old pal was near him,
He swore a something low--but ’twas no use to fear him;
I seized upon his arm, he was mine and mine only,
And stept--as he deserv’d--to cells wretched and lonely:
And there he will be tried--but I shall ne’er receive her,
The watch that went too sure for an artful deceiver;
The world may think me gay--heart and feet ache together,
Oh _thou_ hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather.
[Illustration: STOP HIM!]
[Illustration: THE SOURCE OF THE NIGER.]
LETTER
FROM A PARISH CLERK IN BARBADOES TO ONE IN HAMPSHIRE, WITH AN ENCLOSURE.
“Thou mayest conceive, O reader, with what concern I perceived the eyes
of the congregation fixed upon me.”--MEMOIRS OF P. P.
MY DEAR JEDIDIAH,
Here I am safe and sound--well in body, and in fine voice for my
calling--though thousands and thousands of miles, I may say, from
the old living Threap-Cum-Toddle. Little did I think to be ever
giving out the Psalms across the Atlantic, or to be walking in the
streets of Barbadoes, surrounded by Blackamoors, big and little;
some crying after me, “There him go--look at Massa Amen!” Poor
African wretches! I do hope, by my Lord Bishop’s assistance, to
instruct many of them, and to teach them to have more respect for
ecclesiastic dignitaries.
Through a ludicrous clerical mischance, not fit for me to mention,
we have preached but once since our arrival. Oh! Jedidiah, how
different from the row of comely, sleek, and ruddy plain English
faces, that used to confront me in the Churchwarden’s pew, at the
old service in Hants,--Mr. Perryman’s clean, shining, bald head;
Mr. Truman’s respectable powdered, and Mr. Cutlet’s comely and
well-combed caxon!--Here, such a set of grinning sooty faces, that
if I had been in any other place, I might have fancied myself at a
meeting of Master Chimney-sweeps on May-Day. You know, Jedidiah,
how strange thoughts and things will haunt the mind, in spite of
one’s self, at times the least appropriate:--the line that follows
“The rose is red, the violet’s blue,” in the old Valentine, I am
ashamed to say, came across me I know not how often. Then after
service, no sitting on a tombstone for a cheerful bit of chat
with a neighbour--no invitation to dinner from the worshipful
Churchwardens. The jabber of these Niggers is so outlandish or
unintelligible, I can hardly say I am on speaking terms with any
of our parishioners, except Mr. Pompey, the Governor’s black,
whose trips to England have made his English not quite so full of
Greek as the others. There is one thing, however, that is so great
a disappointment of my hopes and enjoyments, that I think, if I
had foreseen it, I should not have come out even at the Bishop’s
request. The song in the play-book says, you know, “While all
Barbadoes bells do ring!”--but alas, Jedidiah, there is not a
ring of bells in the whole island!--You who remember my fondness
for that melodious pastime, indeed I may say my passion, for a
Grandsire Peel of Triple Bob-Majors truly pulled, and the changes
called by myself, as when I belonged to the Great Tom Society of
Hampshire Youths,--may conceive my regret that, instead of coming
here, I did not go out to Swan River--I am told they have a Peel
there.
[Illustration: BLACK BARBERISM.]
I shall write a longer letter by the Nestor, Bird, which is the
next ship. This comes by the Lively, Kidd,--only to inform you that
I arrived here safe and well. Pray communicate the same, with my
love and duty, to my dear parents and relations, not forgetting
Deborah and Darius at Porkington, and Uriah at Pigstead. The same
to Mrs. Pugh, the opener,--Mr. Sexton, and the rest of my clerical
friends. I have no commissions at present, except to beg that you
will deliver the enclosed, which I have written at Mr. Pompey’s
dictation, to his old black fellow servant, at Number 45, Portland
Place. Ask for Agamemnon down the area. If an opportunity should
likewise offer of mentioning in any quarter that might reach
administration, the destitute state of our Barbarian steeples,
and belfries, pray don’t omit; and if, in the mean time, you could
send out even a set of small handbells, it might prove a parochial
acquisition as well as to me,
Dear Jedidiah,
Your faithful Friend and fellow Clerk,
HABAKKUK CRUMPE.
P.S.--I send Pompey’s letter open, for you to read--You will see
what a strange herd of black cattle I am among
[THE ENCLOSURE.]
I say, Aggy!--
You remember me?--Very well.--Runaway Pompey, somebody else.
Me Governor’s Pompey. You remember? Me carry out Governor’s
piccaninny a walk. Very well. Massa Amen and me write this to say
the news. Barbadoes all bustle. Nigger-mans do nothing but talkee
talkee. [_Pompey’s right, Jedidiah._] The Bishop is come. Missis
Bishop. Miss Bishop--all the Bishops. Very well. The Bishop come
in one ship, and him wigs come out in other ship. Bishop come one,
two, three, weeks first. [_It’s too true, Jedidiah._] Him say no
wig, no Bishop. Massa Amen, you remember, say so too. Very well.
Massa Amen ask me everything about nigger-man, where him baptises
in a water. [_So I did._] Me tell him in the sea, in the river,
any wheres abouts. You remember. Massa Amen ask at me again, who
’ficiates. Me tell him de Cayman. [_What man, Jedidiah, could
he mean?_] Very well. The day before the other day Bishop come
to dinner with Governor and Governess, up at the Big House. You
remember,--Missis Bishop too. Missis Bishop set him turban afire at
a candle, and me put him out. [_With a kettle of scalding water,
Jedidiah._] Pompey get nothing for that. Very well.
[Illustration: “BY GUM HIM TURBAN AFIRE.”]
I say, Aggy,--You know your Catechism? Massa Amen ask him at me
and my wife, Black Juno, sometimes You remember. Massa Amen say,
you give up a Devil? very well. Then him say, you give up all
work? very well. Then him say again, Black Juno, you give up your
_Pompeys_ and vanities? Black Juno shake her head, and say no.
Massa Amen say you must, and then my wife cry ever so much. [_It’s
a fact, Jedidiah, the black female made this ridiculous mistake._]
Very well. Governor come to you in three months to see the King.
Pompey too. You remember. Come for me to Blackwall. Me bring you
some of Governor’s rum. Black Juno say, tell Massa Agamemnon, he
must send some fashions, sometimes. You remember? Black Juno very
smart. Him wish for a Bell Assembly. [_Jedidiah, so do I._] You
send him out, you remember? Very well.
Massa Amen say write no more now. I say, O pray one little word
more for Agamemnon’s wife. Give him good kiss from Pompey.
[_Jedidiah, what a heathenish message!_] Black Diana a kiss too.
You remember? Very well. No more.
[Illustration: SHIP LETTERS.]
FRENCH AND ENGLISH.
“Good Heaven! Why even the little children in France speak
French!”--ADDISON.
I.
Never go to France
Unless you know the lingo,
If you do, like me,
You will repent by jingo.
Staring like a fool,
And silent as a mummy,
There I stood alone,
A nation with a dummy.
II.
Chaises stand for chairs,
They christen letters _Billies_,
They call their mothers _mares_,
And all their daughters _fillies_;
Strange it was to hear,
I’ll tell you what’s a good ’un,
They call their leather _queer_,
And half their shoes are wooden.
III.
Signs I had to make
For every little notion,
Limbs all going like
A telegraph in motion;
For wine I reel’d about,
To show my meaning fully,
And made a pair of horns,
To ask for “beef and bully.”
IV.
Moo! I cried for milk;
I got my sweet things snugger,
When I kissed Jeannette,
’Twas understood for sugar.
If I wanted bread,
My jaws I set a-going,
And asked for new-laid eggs,
By clapping hands and crowing?
V.
If I wish’d a ride,
I’ll tell you how I got it;
On my stick astride,
I made believe to trot it;
Then their cash was strange,
It bored me every minute,
Now here’s a _hog_ to change,
How many _sows_ are in it?
VI.
Never go to France,
Unless you know the lingo;
If you do, like me,
You will repent, by jingo;
Staring like a fool,
And silent as a mummy,
There I stood alone,
A nation with a dummy!
[Illustration: “Allons! Vîte! Vîte! Vîte! Vîte!”
“No, Mounseer, not veat--them’s whoats!”]
OUR VILLAGE.
“Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain.”--GOLDSMITH.
I have a great anxiety to become a topographer, and I do not know that
I can make an easier commencement of the character, than by attempting
a description of our village. It will be found, as my friend the
landlord over the way says, that “things are drawn _mild_.”
I live opposite the Green Man. I know that to be the sign, in spite of
the picture, because I am told of the fact in large gilt letters, in
three several places. The whole-length portrait of “_l’homme verd_” is
rather imposing. He stands plump before you, in a sort of wrestling
attitude, the legs standing distinctly apart, in a brace of decided
boots, with dun tops, joined to a pair of creole-coloured leather
breeches. The rest of his dress is peculiar; the coat, a two-flapper,
green and brown, or, as they say at the tap, _half-and-half_; a cocked
hat on the half cock; a short belt crossing the breast like a flat
gas-pipe. The one hand stuck on the greeny-brown hip of my friend, in
the other a gun with a barrel like an entire butt, and a butt like a
brewer’s whole stock. On one side, looking up at the vanished visage of
his master, is all that remains of a liver-and-white pointer--seeming
now to be some old dog from India, for his white complexion is turned
yellow, and his liver is more than half gone!
The inn is really a very quiet, cozy, comfortable inn, though the
landlord announces a fact in larger letters, methinks, than his
information warrants, viz., that he is “_Licensed to deal in Foreign
Wines and Spirits_.” All innkeepers, I trust, are so licensed; there is
no occasion to make so brazen a brag of this sinecure permit.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE LADY OF “OUR VILLAGE.”]
I had written thus far, when the tarnished gold letters of the Green
Man seemed to be suddenly re-gilt; and on looking upwards, I perceived
that a sort of sky-light had been opened in the clouds, giving entrance
to a bright gleam of sunshine, which glowed with remarkable effect on
a yellow post-chaise in the stable-yard, and brought the ducks out
beautifully white from the black horse-pond. Tempted by the appearance
of the weather, I put down my pen and strolled out for a quarter of
an hour before dinner to inhale that air, without which, like the
chameleon I cannot feed. On my return, I found, with some surprise,
that my papers were a good deal discomposed; but, before I had time
for much wonder, my landlady entered with one of her most obliging
courtesies, and observed that she had seen me writing in the morning,
and it had occurred to her by chance, that I might by possibility
have been writing a description of the village. I told her that I had
actually been engaged on that very subject. “If that is the case, of
course, Sir, you would begin, no doubt, about the Green Man, being
so close by; and I dare say, you would say something about the sign,
and the Green Man with his top boots, and his gun, and his Indian
liver-and-white pointer, though his white to be sure is turned yellow,
and his liver is more than half gone.” “You are perfectly right, Mrs.
Ledger,” I replied, “and in one part of the description, I think I
have used almost your own very words.” “Well, that _is_ curious, Sir,”
exclaimed Mrs. L., and physically, not arithmetically, casting up
all her hands and eyes. “Moreover, what I mean to say, is this; and
I only say that to save trouble. There’s a young man lodges at the
Green Grocer’s over the way, who has writ an account of the village
already to your hand. The people about the place call him the Poet,
but, anyhow, he studies a good deal, and writes beautiful; and, as I
said before, has made the whole village out of his own head. Now, it
might save trouble, Sir, if you was to write it out, and I am sure I
have a copy, that, as far as the loan goes, is at your service, Sir.”
My curiosity induced me to take the offer; and as the poem really
forestalled what I had to say of the Hamlet, I took my landlady’s
advice and transcribed it,--and here it is.
OUR VILLAGE.--BY A VILLAGER.
Our village, that’s to say not Miss Mitford’s village, but our
village of Bullock Smithy,
Is come into by an avenue of trees, three oak pollards, two elders,
and a withy;
And in the middle, there’s a green of about not exceeding an acre
and a half;
It’s common to all, and fed off by nineteen cows, six ponies, three
horses, five asses, two foals, seven pigs, and a calf!
Besides a pond in the middle, as is held by a similar sort of common
law lease,
And contains twenty ducks, six drakes, three ganders, two dead dogs,
four drown’d kittens, and twelve geese.
Of course the green’s cropt very close, and does famous for bowling
when the little village boys play at cricket;
Only some horse, or pig, or cow, or great jackass is sure to come
and stand right before the wicket.
There’s fifty-five private houses, let alone barns and workshops,
and pig-sties, and poultry huts, and such-like sheds;
With plenty of public-houses--two Foxes, one Green Man, three Bunch
of Grapes, one Crown, and six King’s Heads.
The Green Man is reckon’d the best, as the only one that for love or
money can raise
A postillion, a blue jacket, two deplorable lame white horses, and a
ramshackled “neat post-chaise.”
There’s one parish church for all the people, whatsoever may be
their ranks in life or their degrees,
Except one very damp, small, dark, freezing-cold, little Methodist
chapel of Ease;
And close by the church-yard, there’s a stone-mason’s yard, that
when the time is seasonable
Will furnish with afflictions sore and marble urns and cherubims
very low and reasonable.
There’s a cage, comfortable enough; I’ve been in it with Old Jack
Jeffrey and Tom Pike;
For the Green Man next door will send you in ale, gin, or any thing
else you like.
I can’t speak of the stocks, as nothing remains of them but the
upright post;
But the pound is kept in repairs for the sake of Cob’s horse, as is
always there almost.
There’s a smithy of course, where that queer sort of a chap in his
way, Old Joe Bradley,
Perpetually hammers and stammers, for he stutters and shoes horses
very badly.
There’s a shop of all sorts, that sells every thing, kept by the
widow of Mr. Task;
But when you go there it’s ten to one she’s out of every thing you
ask.
You’ll know her house by the swarm of boys, like flies, about the
old sugary cask.
There are six empty houses, and not so well paper’d inside as out,
For bill-stickers won’t beware, but sticks notices of sales and
election placards all about.
That’s the Doctor’s with a green door, where the garden pots in the
windows is seen;
A weakly monthly rose that don’t blow, and a dead geranium, and a
tea-plant with five black leaves and one green.
As for hollyoaks at the cottage doors, and honeysuckles and
jasmines, you may go and whistle;
But the Tailor’s front garden grow two cabbages, a dock, a ha’porth
of pennyroyal, two dandelions, and a thistle.
There are three small orchards--Mr. Busby’s the schoolmaster’s is
the chief--
With two pear-trees that don’t bear; one plum and an apple, that
every year is stripped by a thief.
There’s another small day-school too, kept by the respectable Mrs.
Gaby;
A select establishment, for six little boys and one big, and four
little girls and a baby.
There’s a rectory, with pointed gables and strange odd chimneys that
never smokes,
For the rector don’t live on his living like other Christian sort of
folks;
There’s a barber’s, once a-week well filled with rough black-bearded
shock-headed churls,
And a window with two feminine men’s heads, and two masculine ladies
in false curls;
There’s a butcher’s and a carpenter’s and a plumber’s and a small
green-grocer’s, and a baker,
But he won’t bake on a Sunday, and there’s a sexton that’s a
coal-merchant besides, and an undertaker;
And a toy-shop, but not a whole one, for a village can’t compare
with the London shops;
One window sells drums, dolls, kites, carts, bats, Clout’s balls,
and the other sells malt and hops.
And Mrs. Brown, in domestic economy not to be a bit behind her
betters,
Lets her house to a milliner, a watchmaker, a rat-catcher, a
cobbler, lives in it herself, and it’s the post-office for
letters.
Now I’ve gone through all the village--ay, from end to end, save and
except one more house,
But I haven’t come to that--and I hope I never shall--and that’s the
Village Poor-House!
[Illustration: AN UNFORTUNATE BEE-ING.]
THE SCRAPE-BOOK.
“Luck’s all!”
Some men seem born to be lucky. Happier than kings, Fortune’s wheel
has for them no revolutions. Whatever they touch turns to gold,--their
path is paved with the philosopher’s stone. At games of chance they
have no chance; but what is better, a certainty. They hold four suits
of trumps. They get windfalls, without a breath stirring--as legacies.
Prizes turn up for them in lotteries. On the turf, their horse--an
outsider--always wins. They enjoy a whole season of benefits. At the
very worst, in trying to drown themselves, they dive on some treasure
undiscovered since the Spanish Armada; or tie their halter to a hook,
that unseals a hoard in the ceiling. That’s their luck.
There is another kind of fortune, called ill-luck; so ill, that you
hope it will die;--but it don’t. That’s my luck.
Other people keep scrap-books; but I, a scrape-book. It is theirs to
insert bon-mots, riddles, anecdotes, caricatures, facetiæ of all kinds;
mine to record mischances, failures, accidents, disappointments; in
short, as the betters say, I have always a bad book. Witness a few
extracts, bitter as extract of bark.
April 1st. Married on this day: in the first week of the honeymoon,
stumbled over my father-in-law’s beehives! He has 252 bees; thanks
to me, he is now able to check them. Some of the insects having an
account against me, preferred to _settle_ on my calf. Others swarmed
on my hands. My bald head seemed a perfect humming-top! Two hundred
and fifty-two stings--it should be “stings--and arrows of outrageous
fortune!” But that’s my luck. Rushed bee-blind into the horse-pond,
and _torn out_ by Tiger, the house dog. Staggered incontinent into
the pig-sty, and collared by the sow--sus. per coll. for kicking her
sucklings; recommended oil for my wounds, and none but lamp ditto in
the house; relieved of the stings at last--what luck! by 252 operations.
9th. Gave my adored Belinda a black eye, in the open street, aiming at
a lad who attempted to snatch her reticule. Belinda’s part taken by a
big rascal, as deaf as a post, who wanted to fight me “for striking a
woman.” My luck again.
12th. Purchased a mare, warranted so gentle that a lady might ride
her, and, indeed, no animal could be quieter, except the leather one,
formerly in the Show-room, at Exeter Change. Meant for the first time
to ride with Belinda to the Park--put my foot in the stirrup, and found
myself on my own back instead of the mare’s. Other men are thrown by
their horses, but a saddle does it for me. Well, nothing is so hard as
my luck--unless it be the fourth flag or stone from the post at the
north corner of Harley Street.
14th. Run down in a wherry by a coal-brig, off Greenwich, but
providentially picked up by a steamer, that burst her boiler directly
afterwards. Saved to be scalded!--But misfortunes with me never came
single, from my very childhood. I remember when my little brothers and
sisters tumbled down stairs, they always hitched halfway at the angle.
_My_ luck invariably turned the corner. It could not bear to bate me a
single bump.
17th. Had my eye picked out by a pavior who was _axing_ his way, he
didn’t care where. Sent home in a hackney chariot that upset. Paid
Jarvis a sovereign for a shilling. My luck all over!
1st of May. My flue on fire. Not a sweep to be had for love or
money!--Lucky enough _for me_--the parish engine soon arrived, with
all the charity school. Boys are fond of playing--and indulged their
propensity by playing into my best drawing-room. Every friend I had
dropped in to dinner. Nothing but Lacedemonian black broth. Others have
pot-luck, but I have not even pint-luck--at least of the right sort.
8th. Found, on getting up, that the kitchen garden had been stripped by
thieves, but had the luck at night to catch some one in the garden, by
walking into my own trap. Afraid to call out, for fear of being shot at
by the gardener, who would have hit me to a dead certainty--for such is
my luck!
10th. Agricultural distress is a treat to mine. My old friend Bill--I
must henceforth call him Corn-bill--has, this morning, laid his
unfeeling wooden leg on my tenderest toe, like a thresher. In spite of
Dibdin, I don’t believe that oak has any heart; or it would not be such
a walking tread-mill!
[Illustration: A CORNISH MAN.]
12th. Two pieces of “my usual.” First knocked down by a mad bull.
Secondly, picked up by a pick-pocket. Anybody but me would have found
one honest humane man out of a whole crowd; but I am born to suffer,
whether done by accident or done by design. Luckily for me and the
pick-pocket, I was able to identify him, bound over to prosecute,
and had the satisfaction of exporting him to Botany Bay. I suppose I
performed well in a court of justice, for the next day--“_Encore un
coup_!”--I had a summons to serve with a Middlesex jury, at the Old
Bailey, for a fortnight.
14th. My number in the lottery has come up a capital prize. Luck at
last--if I had not lost the ticket.
A TRUE STORY.
Whoe’er has seen upon the human face
The yellow jaundice and the jaundice black,
May form a notion of old Colonel Case
With nigger Pompey waiting at his back.
Case,--as the case is, many time with folks
From hot Bengal, Calcutta, or Bombay,
Had tint his tint, as Scottish tongues would say,
And show’d two cheeks as yellow as eggs’ yolks.
Pompey, the chip of some old ebon block,
In hue was like his master’s stiff cravat,
And might indeed have claimed akin to _that_,
Coming, as _he_ did, of an old _black stock_.
Case wore the liver’s livery that such
Must wear, their past excesses to denote,
Like Greenwich pensioners that take too much,
And then do penance in a yellow coat.
Pompey’s, a deep and permanent jet dye,
A stain of nature’s staining--one of those,
We call _fast_ colours--merely, I suppose,
Because such colours never _go_ or _fly_.
Pray mark this difference of dark and sallow,
Pompey’s black husk, and the old Colonel’s yellow.
The Colonel, once a penniless beginner,
From a long Indian rubber rose a winner,
With plenty of pagodas in his pocket,
And homeward turning his Hibernian thought,
Deem’d _Wicklow_ was the very place that ought
To harbour one whose _wick_ was in the socket.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN ROCK.]
Unhappily for Case’s scheme of quiet,
Wicklow just then was in a pretty riot,
A fact recorded in each day’s diurnals,
Things, Case was not accustomed to peruse,
Careless of news;
But Pompey always read these bloody journals,
Full of Kilmany and Killmore work,
The freaks of some O’Shaunessy’s shillaly,
Of morning frays by some O’Brien Burke,
Or horrid nightly outrage by some Daly;
How scums deserving of the Devil’s ladle,
Would fall upon the harmless scull and knock it,
And if he found an infant in the cradle
Stern Rock would hardly hesitate to rock it;--
In fact, he read of burner and of killer,
And Irish ravages, day after day,
Till, haunting in his dreams, he used to say,
That “Pompey could not sleep on _Pompey’s Pillar_.”
Judge then the horror of the nigger’s face
To find--with such impressions of that dire land--
That Case,--his master, was a packing case
For Ireland!
He saw in fearful reveries arise,
Phantasmagorias of those dreadful men
Whose fame associate with Irish plots is,
Fitzgeralds--Tones--O’Connors--Hare--and then
“Those _Emmetts_,” not so “little in his eyes”
As Doctor Watts’s!
He felt himself piked, roasted--carv’d and hack’d,
His big black burly body seemed in fact
A pincushion for Terror’s pins and needles,--
Oh, how he wish’d himself beneath the sun
Of Afric--or in far Barbadoes--one
Of Bishop Coleridge’s new _black beadles_.
Full of this fright,
With broken peace and broken English choking,
As black as any raven and as croaking,
Pompey rushed in upon his master’s sight,
Plump’d on his knees, and clasp’d his sable digits,
Thus stirring Curiosity’s sharp fidgets--
“O Massa!--Massa!--Colonel!--Massa Case,--
Not go to Ireland!--Ireland dam bad place;
Dem take our bloods--dem Irish--every drop--
Oh why for Massa go so far a distance
To have him life?”----Here Pompey made a stop,
Putting an awful period to existence.
“Not go to Ireland--not to Ireland, fellow,
And murder’d--why should I be murder’d, Sirrah?”
Cried Case, with anger’s tinge upon his yellow,--
Pompey, for answer, pointing in a mirror
The Colonel’s saffron, and his own japan,--
“Well, what has that to do--quick--speak outright, boy?”
“O Massa”--(so the explanation ran)
“Massa be killed--’cause Massa _Orange Man_,
And Pompey killed--’cause Pompey not a _White Boy_!”
[Illustration: POMPEY’S PILLAR.]
[Illustration: “O, NOTHING IN LIFE CAN SADDEN US.”]
THE SORROWS OF AN UNDERTAKER.
To mention only by name the sorrows of an Undertaker, will be likely to
raise a smile on most faces,--the mere words suggest a solemn stalking
parody of grief to the satiric fancy;--but give a fair hearing to my
woes, and even the veriest mocker may learn to pity an Undertaker who
has been unfortunate in all his undertakings.
My Father, a Furnisher and Performer in the funeral line, used to say
of me,--noticing some boyish levities--that “I should never do for an
Undertaker.” But the prediction was wrong--my Parent died, and I did
for him in the way of business. Having no other alternative, I took
possession of a very fair stock and business. I felt at first as if
plunged in the Black Sea--and when I read my name upon the shop door,
it threw a crape over my spirits, that I did not get rid of for some
months.
Then came the cares of business. The scandalous insinuated that the
funerals were not so decorously performed as in the time of the Late. I
discharged my mutes, who were grown fat and jocular, and sought about
for the lean and lank visaged kind. But these demure rogues cheated and
robbed me--plucked my feathers and pruned my scarfs, and I was driven
back again to my “merrie men,”--whose only fault was making a pleasure
of their business.
[Illustration: FAIRY LAND.]
Soon after this, I made myself prominent in the parish, and obtained
a contract for Parochial Conchology--or shells for the paupers. But
this even, as I may say, broke down on its first tressels. Having as my
first job to inter a workhouse female--Ætat. 96--and wishing to gain
the good opinion of the parish, I had made the arrangements with more
than usual decency. The company were at the door. Placing myself at
the head, with my best burial face, and my slowest solemnity of step,
I set forward, and thanks to my professional deafness,--induced by
the constant hammering--I never perceived, till at the church gates,
that the procession had not stirred from the door of the house. So
good a joke was not lost upon my two Mutes, who made it an excuse for
chuckling on after occasions. But to me the consequence was serious.
A notion arose amongst the poor that I was too proud to walk along
with their remains, and the ferment ran so high, that I was finally
compelled to give up my contract.
So much for foot funerals. Now for coach work. The extravagant charges
of the jobbers at last induced me to set up a Hearse and Mourning
Coaches of my own, with sleek ebony long-tailed horses to match. One
of these--the finest of the set--had been sold to me under warranty of
being sound and free from vice; and so he was, but the dealer never
told me that he had been a charger at Astley’s. Accordingly on his
very first performance, in passing through Bow,--at that time a kind
of Fairy Land,--he thought proper, on hearing a showman’s trumpet, to
dance a cotillion in his feathers! There was nothing to be done but to
travel on with three to the next stage, where I sold the caperer at a
heavy loss, and to the infinite regret of my merry mourners, with whom
this exhibition had made him a great favourite. From this period my
business rapidly declined, till instead of five or six demises, on an
average, I put in only two defuncts and a half per week.
In this extremity a “black job” was brought to me that promised to make
amends for the rest. One fine morning a brace of executors walked into
the shop, and handing to me the following extract of a will, politely
requested that I would perform accordingly--and with the pleasing
addition that I was to be regardless of the expense. The document ran
thus: “Item, I will and desire that after death, my body be placed in
a strong leaden coffin, the same to be afterwards enclosed in one of
oak, and therein my remains to be conveyed handsomely to the village
of *** in Norfolk, my birth-place; there to lie, being duly watched,
during one night, in the Family mansion now unoccupied, and on the
morrow to be carried thence to the church, the coffin being borne by
the six oldest resident and decayed parishioners, male or female, and
for the same they shall receive severally the sum of five pounds, to be
paid on or before the day of interment.”
It will be believed that I lost no time in preparing the last solid
and costly receptacles for the late Lady Lambert; and the unusual
bulk of the deceased seemed in prospective to justify a bill of
proportionate magnitude. I was prodigal of plumes and scutcheons, of
staves and scarfs, and mourning coaches; and finally, raising a whole
company of black cavalry, we set out by stages, short and sweet, for
our destination. I had been prudent enough to send a letter before me
to prepare the bearers, and imprudent enough to remit their fees in
advance. But I had no misgivings. My men enjoyed the excursion, and so
did I. We ate well, drank well, slept well, and expected to be well
paid for what was so well done. At the last stage it happened I had
rather an intricate reckoning to arrange, by which means being detained
a full hour behind the cavalcade, I did not reach the desired village
till the whole party had established themselves at the Dying Dolphin;
a fact I first ascertained from hearing the merriment of my two mutes
in the parlour. Highly indignant at this breach of decorum, I rushed
in on the offending couple; and let the Undertaking Reader conceive my
feelings, when the following letter was put into my hands, explaining
at once the good joke of the two fellows, or rather, that of the whole
village.
“Sir,--We have sought out the six oldest of the pauper parishioners of
this place, namely as follows:--
Margaret Squires, aged 101, blind and bed-rid.
Timothy Topping, aged 98, paralytic and bed-rid.
Darius Watts, aged 95, with loss of both legs.
Barbara Copp, 94 years, born without arms.
Philip Gill, about 81, an Idiot.
Mary Ridges, 79, afflicted with St. Vitus.
“Among whom we have distributed your Thirty Pounds according to desire,
and for which they are very grateful.
JOHN GILLS, }
SAM. RACKSTROW, } Overseers.”
Such were the six bearers who were to carry Lady Lambert to the church,
and who could as soon have carried the church to Lady Lambert. To crown
all, I rashly listened to the advice of my thoughtless mutes, and in an
evil hour deposited the body without troubling any parishioner, old or
young, on the subject. The consequence is, the Executors demur to my
bill, because I have not acted up to the letter of my instructions. I
have had to stand treat for a large party on the road, to sustain all
the charges of the black cavalry, and am besides minus thirty pounds in
charity, without even the merit of a charitable intention!
THE CARELESSE NURSE MAYD.
I sawe a Mayd sitte on a Bank,
Beguiled by Wooer fayne and fond;
And whiles His flatterynge Vowes She drank,
Her Nurselynge slipt within a Pond!
All Even Tide they Talkde and Kist,
For She was fayre and He was Kinde;
The Sunne went down before She wist
Another Sonne had sett behinde!
With angrie Hands and frownynge Browe,
That deemed Her owne the Urchine’s Sinne,
She pluckt Him out, but he was nowe
Past being Whipt for fallynge in.
She then beginnes to wayle the Ladde
With Shrikes that Echo answerde round--
O! foolishe Mayd to be soe sadde
The Momente that her Care was drownd!
[Illustration: “ACCUSTOMED TO THE CARE OF CHILDREN.”]
[Illustration: FANNY.]
TO FANNY.
“Gay being, born to flutter!”--SALE’S GLEE.
Is this your faith, then, Fanny!
What, to chat with every Dun?
I’m the one, then, but of many,
Not of many but the _One_!
Last night you smil’d on all, Ma’am,
That appear’d in scarlet dress;
And your Regimental Ball, Ma’am,
Look’d a little like a _Mess_.
I thought that of the Sogers
(As the Scotch say) one might do
And that I, slight Ensign Rogers,
Was the chosen man and true.
But ’Sblood! your eye was busy
With that ragamuffin mob;--
Colonel Buddell--Colonel Dizzy--
And Lieutenant-Colonel Cobb.
General Joblin, General Jodkin,
Colonels--Kelly, Felly, with
Majors--Sturgeon, Truffle, Bodkin,
And the Quarter-master Smith.
Major Powderum--Major Dowdrum--
Major Chowdrum--Major Bye--
Captain Tawney--Captain Fawney,
Captain Any-one--but I!
Deuce take it! when the regiment
You so praised, I only thought
That you lov’d it in abridgment,
But I now am better taught!
I went, as loving man goes,
To admire thee in quadrilles;
But Fan, you dance fandangoes
With just any fop that wills!
I went with notes before us,
On the lay of Love to touch;
But with all the Corps in chorus,
Oh! it is indeed too much!
You once--ere you contracted
For the Army--seem’d my own;
But now you laugh with all the Staff,
And I may sigh alone!
I know not how it chances,
When my passion ever dares,
But the warmer my advances,
Then the cooler are your airs.
I am, I don’t conceal it,
But I am a little hurt;
You’re a Fan, and I must feel it,
Fit for nothing but a _Flirt_!
I dreamt thy smiles of beauty
On myself alone did fall;
But alas! “Cosi Fan Tutti!”
It is thus, Fan, thus with all!
You have taken quite a mob in
Of new military flames;--
They would make a fine Round Robin
If I gave you all their names!
[Illustration: A ROUND ROBIN.]
THE FANCY FAIR.
“It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where it
is kept is ‘lighter than vanity;’ and also because all that is
there sold, or that cometh thither, is vanity.”--PILGRIM’S
PROGRESS.
“I named this place Boothia.”--CAPTAIN ROSS.
“A Fancy Fair,” said my friend L., in his usual quaint style, “is a
fair subject for fancy; take up your pen and try. For instance, there
was one held at the Mansion House. Conceive a shambling shock-headed
clodpole, familiar with the wakes of Bow, Barnet, and Bartlemy,
elbowing his awkward way into the Egyptian Hall, his round eyes and
mouth all-agape in the ludicrous expectation of seeing the Lord Mayor
standing on his very Worshipful head, the Lady Mayoress lifting
a hundred weight by her Right Honourable hair, the Sword-Bearer
swallowing his blade of state, the Recorder conjuring ribands from his
learned and eloquent mouth, and the Senior Alderman with a painted
York-and-Lancaster-face, dancing a _saraband_ à la Pierrot! Or fancy
Jolterhead at the fair of the Surrey Zoological, forcing his clumsy
destructive course through groups of female fashionables, like a hog in
a tulip bed, with the equally laughable intention of inspecting long
horns and short horns, prime beasts and lean stock, of handling the
porkers and coughing the colts. Nay, imagine our bumpkin at the great
Fancy Fair of all, blundering up to a stall kept by a Royal Duchess,
and enquiring perseveringly for a gilt gingerbread King and Queen--a
long-promised fairing to brother Bill at Leighton Buzzard!”
[Illustration: A ROUND OF BEEF.]
Little did L. dream during this flourish of fancy, that his whimsical
fiction had been forestalled by fact; and a deep shade of vexation
passed over his features while he perused the following hints from
Hants, as conveyed in a _bonâ fide_ letter to the Editor of the Comic
Annual.
HONNORD SUR,
Dont no if you Be a Hamshire man, or a man atacht to the fancy, but
as Both such myself, have took the libberty to write about what is
no joke. Of coarse allude to being Hoaxt up to Lonnon, to sea a
fair no fair at all and About as much fancy as you mite fancy on
the pint of a pin.--
Have follerd the Fancy, ever since cumming of Age, and bean to
every Pugilistical fite, from the Gaim Chicking down to the fite
last weak. Have bated Buls drawd Baggers, and Kild rats myself
meening to say with my Hone Dogs. Ought to no wot Fancy his. Self
prays is no re-comendation But have bean at every Fair Waik or
Revvle in England. Ought to no then wot a Fare is.
Has for the Lonnon job--could Sea nothin like Fancy and nothing
like fare. Only a Toy shop out of Town with a gals skool looking
after it, without a Guvverness and all oglein like Winkin. Lots
of the fare sects but no thimbel rig, no priking in the garter no
nothing. Am blest if our hone little Fare down at Goos Grean don’t
lick it all to Styx. Bulbeating, Baggerdrawing, Cuggleplaying,
Rastlin, a Sopped pigtale, a Mane of Cox Jackasreacing jumpin in
Sax, and a Grand Sire Peal of Trouble Bobs puld by the Collige
youths by way of givin a Bell’s Life to the hole. Call that Fancy.
Too wild Best Shoes, fore theaters besides a Horseplay a Dwarft a
She Giant, a fat Child a prize ox five carriboo savidges, a lurned
Pigg an Albany with wite Hares, a real See Murmad a Fir Eater and
lots of Punshes and Juddis. Call that a Fare.
[Illustration: FAIR PLAY’S A JEW--]
Now for Lonnon. No Sanderses--no Richardsens no wumwills menageris
no backy boxis to shy for--no lucky Boxis. No poster makin no
jugling or Dancing. Prest one yung laidy in ruge cheaks and
trowsers verry civelly For a bit of a caper on the tite rop--But
miss got on the hi rop, and call’d for a conestubble. Askt annother
in a ridding habbit for the faver of a little horsemunship and got
kicked out of her Booth. Goos Grean for my munny! Saw a yung laidy
there that swallerd a Sord and wasn’t too Partickler to jump threw
a hoop. Dutchesses look dull after that at a Fare. Verry dignified,
but Prefer the Wax Wurk, as a Show. Dont sea anny think in Watch
Pappers cut out by Countisses that have been born with all their
harms and legs--not Miss Biffins.
[Illustration: FANCY FAIRINGS.]
Must say one thing for Goos Grean. Never got my pockit pict xcept
at Lonnon--am sorry to say lost my Reader and Ticker and every Dump
I had let alone a single sovran. And lost the best part of that
besides to a Yung Laidy that nevver gave change. Greenish enuf says
you for my Tim of Day but I was gammund by the baggidge to bye five
shillin Pin Cushins. Wish Charrity had stayd at Hoam! The ould Mare
got a coald by waiting outside. And the five Charrity pincushins
hadn’t bran enuf in their hole boddys to make her a Mash.
Am told the Hospittle don’t clear anny grate proffits after all is
dun and Like enuff. A Fare should be a Fare and fokes at Room oght
to do as Room does. Have a notion Peeressis that keep Booths wood
take moor Munny if they wasn’t abuv having the dubble drums and
speakin trumpets and gongs. There’s nothin like goin the hole Hog!
Shall be happy, sur, to sea You at Goos Green next Fare and pint
out the Difference. Maybe in Flurtashun and Matchmacking and
getting off Dorters along with the dolls we ar a littel cut out,
but for Ginuen Fancy and Fun and Fair Play its a mear Green Goos to
Goos Green.
Remain Sur,
Your humbel tu command,
JACOB GILES.
P.S. Think Vallintins day wood be a Good fixter for next Fancy
Fare. Shan’t say why. Sniff sumthing of the kind going on amung
our hone Gals--Polly as just begd a sak of bran and she dont keap
rabits. Pincushins and nothin else. Tother day cum across a large
Watchpokit and suspect Mrs. G is at the Bottom of it. No churnin
butter, no packin egs, no setten Hens and crammin Turkis--All
sniping ribbins folding papper sowin up satten and splitting hole
trusses of straw. Am blest if its for litterin down Horsis. Dont no
how its all to be got to markit at Lonnon, the nine Gals and all
’xcept its by a Pickfurd Van.
[Illustration: HUNGERFORD MARKET.]
POEMS BY A POOR GENTLEMAN.
There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,
The Muse found Scroggins stretched beneath a rug.--GOLDSMITH.
Poetry and poverty begin with the same letter, and in more respects
than one, are “as like each other as two P’s.”--Nine tailors are
the making of a man, but not so the nine Muses. Their votaries are
notoriously only water drinkers, eating mutton cold, and dwelling in
attics. Look at the miserable lives and deaths recorded of the poets.
“Butler,” says Mr. D’Israeli, “lived in a cellar, and Goldsmith in
a Deserted Village. Savage ran wild,--Chatterton was carried on St.
Augustine’s Back like a young gipsy; and his half-starved _Rowley_
always said Heigho, when he heard of gammon and spinach. Gray’s day’s
were ode-ious, and Gay’s gaiety was fabulous. Falconer was shipwrecked.
Homer was a blind beggar, and Pope raised a subscription for him, and
went snacks. Crabbe found himself in the poor-house, Spenser couldn’t
afford a great-coat, and Milton was led up and down by his daughters to
save the expense of a dog.”
It seems all but impossible to be a poet, in easy circumstances.
Pope has shown how verses are written by Ladies of Quality--and what
execrable rhymes Sir Richard Blackmore composed in his chariot; in a
hay-cart he might have sung like a Burns.
As the editors of magazines and annuals (save one) well know, the truly
poetical contributions which can be inserted, are not those which
come post free, in rose-coloured tinted paper, scented with musk, and
sealed with fancy wax. The real article arrives by post, unpaid, sealed
with rosin, or possibly with a dab of pitch or cobbler’s wax, bearing
the impression of a halfpenny, or more frequently of a button,--the
paper is dingy, and scant--the hand-writing has evidently come to
the author by nature--there are trips in the spelling, and Priscian
is a little scratch’d or so--but a rill of the true Castalian runs
through the whole composition, though its fountain-head was a broken
tea-cup, instead of a silver standish. A few years ago I used to be
favoured with numerous poems for insertion, which bore the signature
of Fitz-Norman; the crest on the seal had probably descended from the
Conquest, and the packets were invariably delivered by a Patagonian
footman in green and gold. The author was evidently rich, and the
verses were as palpably poor; they were declined, with the usual
answer to correspondents who do not answer, and the communications
ceased--as I thought for ever, but I was deceived; a few days back one
of the dirtiest and raggedest of street urchins delivered a soiled
whity brown packet, closed with a wafer, which bore the impress of a
thimble. The paper had more the odour of tobacco than of rose leaves,
and the writing appeared to have been perpetrated with a skewer dipped
in coffee-grounds; but the old signature of Fitz-Norman had the honour
to be my “very humble servant” at the foot of the letter. It was
too certain that he had fallen from affluence to indigence, but the
adversity which had wrought such a change upon the writing implements,
had, as usual, improved his poetry. The neat crowquill never traced on
the superfine Bath paper any thing so unaffected as the following:--
[Illustration: “YOUR VERY HUMBLE SERVANT.”]
STANZAS.
WRITTEN UNDER THE FEAR OF BAILIFFS.
Alas! of all the noxious things
That wait upon the poor,
Most cruel is that Felon-Fear
That haunts the “Debtor’s Door!”
Saint Sepulchre’s begins to toil,
The Sheriffs seek the cell:--
So I expect their officers,
And tremble at the bell!
I look for _beer_, and yet I quake
With fright at every _tap_;
And dread a _double-knock_, for oh!
I’ve not a _single rap_!
SONNET.
WRITTEN IN A WORKHOUSE.
Oh, blessed ease! no more of heaven I ask:
The overseer is gone--that vandal elf--
And hemp, unpick’d, may go and hang itself,
While I, untask’d, except with Cowper’s Task,
In blessed literary leisure bask,
And lose the workhouse, saving in the works
Of Goldsmiths, Johnsons, Sheridans, and Burkes;
Eat prose and drink of the Castalian flask;
The themes of Locke, the anecdotes of Spence,
The humorous of Gay, the Grave of Blair--
Unlearned toil, unletter’d labours hence!
But, hark! I hear the master on the stair
And Thomson’s Castle, that of Indolence,
Must be to me a castle in the air.
SONNET.--A SOMNAMBULIST.
“A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.”--BYRON.
Methought--for Fancy is the strangest gadder
When sleep all homely Mundane ties hath riven--
Methought that I ascended Jacob’s ladder,
With heartfelt hope of getting up to Heaven:
Some bell, I knew not whence, was sounding seven
When I set foot upon that long one-pair;
And still I climbed when it had chimed eleven,
Nor yet of landing-place became aware;
Step after step in endless flight seem’d there;
But on, with steadfast hope, I struggled still,
To gain that blessed haven from all care,
Where tears are wiped, and hearts forget their ill,
When, lo! I wakened on a sadder stair--
Tramp--tramp--tramp--tramp--upon the Brixton Mill!
FUGITIVE LINES ON PAWNING MY WATCH.
“Aurum _potabile_:”--Gold biles the pot.--FREE TRANSLATION.
Farewell then, my golden repeater,
We’re come to my Uncle’s old shop;
And hunger won’t be a dumb-waiter,
The Cerberus growls for a sop!
To quit thee, my comrade diurnal,
My feelings will certainly scotch;
But oh! there’s a riot internal,
And Famine calls out for the Watch!
Oh! hunger’s a terrible trial,
I really must have a relief,--
So here goes the plate of your dial
To fetch me some Williams’s beef!
As famish’d as any lost seaman,
I’ve fasted for many a dawn,
And now must play chess with the Demon,
And give it a _check_ with a _pawn_.
I’ve fasted, since dining at Buncle’s,
Two days with true Perceval zeal--
And now must make up at my Uncle’s.
By getting a _duplicate_ meal.
[Illustration: “OH MY PROPHETIC SOUL--MY UNCLE!”]
No Peachum it is, or young Lockit,
That rifles my fob with a snatch;
Alas! I must pick my own pocket,
And make gravy-soup of my watch!
So long I have wander’d a starver,
I’m getting as keen as a hawk;
Time’s long hand must take up a carver,
His short hand lay hold of a fork.
Right heavy and sad the event is,
But oh! it is Poverty’s crime;
I’ve been such a Brownrigg’s Apprentice,
I thus must be “out of my Time.”
Alas! when in Brook Street the Upper,
In comfort I lived between walls,
I’ve gone to a dance for my supper;
But now I must go to Three Balls!
Folks talk about dressing for dinner,
But I have for dinner undrest;
Since Christmas, as I am a sinner,
I’ve eaten a suit of my best.
I haven’t a ram or a mummock
To fetch me a chop or a steak;
I wish that the coats of my stomach
Were such as my uncle would take!
When dishes were ready with garnish
My watch used to warn with a chime--
But now my repeater must furnish
The dinner in lieu of the time!
My craving will have no denials,
I can’t fob it off, if you stay,
So go,--and the old Seven Dials
Must tell me the time of the day.
Your chimes I shall never more hear ’em,
To part is a Tic Douloureux!
But Tempus has his edax rerum,
And I have my Feeding-Time too!
Farewell then, my golden repeater,
We’re come to my Uncle’s old shop--
And Hunger won’t be a dumb-waiter,
The Cerberus growls for a sop!
THE LIFE OF ZIMMERMANN.
(BY HIMSELF).
“This, this, is solitude.”--LORD BYRON.
I was born, I may almost say, an orphan; my Father died three months
before I saw the light, and my Mother three hours after--thus I was
left in the whole world alone, and an only child, for I had neither
Brothers nor Sisters; much of my after passion for solitude might be
ascribed to this cause, for I believe our tendencies date themselves
from a much earlier age, or rather, youth, than is generally imagined.
It was remarked that I could go alone at nine months, and I have had
an aptitude to going alone all the rest of my life. The first words
I learnt to say, were “I by myself, I”--or thou--or he--or she--or
it--but I was a long time before I could pronounce any personals in the
plural; my little games and habits were equally singular. I was fond of
playing at Solitary or at Patience, or another game of cards of my own
invention, namely, whist, with _three_ dummies. Of books, my favourite
was Robinson Crusoe, especially the first part, for I was not fond of
the intrusion of Friday, and thought the natives really were Savages
to spoil such a solitude. At ten years of age I was happily placed
with the Rev. Mr. Steinkopff, a widower, who took in only the limited
number of six pupils, and had only me to begin with; here I enjoyed
myself very much, learning in a first and last class in school hours,
and playing in play time at hoop, and other pretty games not requiring
partners. My playground was, in short, a garden of Eden, and I did not
even sigh for an Eve, but, like Paradise, it was too happy to last.
I was removed from Mr. Steinkopff’s to the University of Göttingen,
and at once the eyes of six hundred pupils, and the pupils of twelve
hundred eyes, seemed fastened upon me: I felt like an owl forced into
day-light; often and often I shammed ill, as an excuse for confining
myself to my chamber, but some officious would-be friends, insisting
on coming to sit with me, as they said, to enliven my solitude, I
was forced as a last resource to do that which subjected me, on the
principle of Howard’s Prison Discipline, to solitary confinement.
But even this pleasure did not last; the heads of the College found
out that solitary confinement was no punishment, and put another
student in the same cell; in this extremity I had no alternative but
to endeavour to make him a convert to my principles, and in some days
I succeeded in convincing him of the individual independence of man,
the solid pleasures of solitude, and the hollow one of society,--in
short, he so warmly adopted my views, that in a transport of sympathy
we swore an eternal friendship, and agreed to separate for ever,
and keep ourselves to ourselves as much as possible. To this end we
formed with our blanket a screen across our cell, and that we might
not even in thought associate with each other, he soliloquised only
in French, of which I was ignorant, and I in English, to which he was
equally a stranger. Under this system my wishes were gratified, for
I think I felt more intensely lonely than I ever remember when more
strictly alone. Of course this condition had a conclusion; we were
brought out again unwillingly into the common world, and the firm
of Zimmermann, Nobody, and Co., was compelled to admit--six hundred
partners. In this extremity, my fellow prisoner Zingleman and myself
had recourse to the persuasions of oratory. We preached solitude, and
got quite a congregation, and of the six hundred hearers, four hundred
at least became converts to our Unitarian Doctrine; every one of these
disciples strove to fly to the most obscure recesses, and the little
cemetery of the College had always a plenty of those who were trying
to make themselves scarce. This of course was afflicting; as in the
game of puss in a corner, it was difficult to get a corner unoccupied
to be alone in; the defections and desertions from the College were
consequently numerous, and for a long time the state gazette contained
daily advertisements for missing gentlemen, with a description of their
persons and habits, and invariably concluding with this sentence: “of a
melancholy turn,--calls himself a Zimmermanian, and affects solitude.”
In fact, as Schiller’s Robbers begot Robbers, so did my solitude
beget solitudinarians, but with this difference, that the dramatist’s
disciples frequented the Highways, and mine the Byeways!
The consequence was what might have been expected, which I had
foreseen, and ardently desired. I was expelled from the University of
Göttingen. This was perhaps the triumph of my life. A grand dinner was
got up by Zingleman in my honour, at which more than three hundred
were present, but in tacit homage to my principles, they never spoke
nor held any communication with each other, and at a concerted signal
the toast of “Zimmermann and Solitude” was drunk, by dumb show, in
appropriate solemn silence. I was much affected by this tribute, and
left with tears in my eyes, to think, with such sentiments, how many of
us might be thrown together again. Being thus left to myself, like a
vessel with only one hand on board, I was at liberty to steer my own
course, and accordingly took a lodging at Number One, in Wilderness
Street, that held out the inviting prospect of a single room to let for
a single man. In this congenial situation I composed that my great work
on Solitude, and here I think it necessary to warn the reader against
many spurious books, calling themselves “Companions to Zimmermann’s
Solitude,” as if solitude could have society. Alas, from this work I
may date the decline which my presentiment tells me will terminate
in my death. My book, though written against populousness, became so
popular, that its author, though in love with loneliness, could never
be alone. Striving to fly from the face of man, I could never escape
it, nor that of woman and child into the bargain. When I stirred
abroad mobs surrounded me, and cried, “Here is the Solitary!”--when
I staid at home I was equally crowded; all the public societies of
Göttingen thought proper to come up to me with addresses, and not even
by deputation. Flight was my only resource, but it did not avail, for
I could not fly from myself. Wherever I went Zimmermann and Solitude
had got before me, and their votaries assembled to meet me. In vain
I travelled throughout the European and Asiatic continent: with an
enthusiasm and perseverance of which only Germans are capable, some of
my countrymen were sure to haunt me, and really showed by the distance
they journeyed, that they were ready to go all lengths with me and my
doctrine. Some of these Pilgrims even brought their wives and children
along with them, in search of my solitude; and were so unreasonable
even as to murmur at my taking the inside of a coach, or the cabin of a
packet-boat to myself.
From these persecutions I was released by what some persons would call
an unfortunate accident, a vessel in which I sailed from Leghorn, going
down at sea with all hands excepting my own pair, which happened to
have grappled a hen-coop. There was no sail in sight, nor any land to
be seen--nothing but sea and sky; and from the midst of the watery
expanse it was perhaps the first and only glimpse I ever had of real
and perfect solitude, yet so inconsistent is human nature, I could
not really and perfectly enter into its enjoyment. I was picked up
at length by a British brig of war, and, schooled by the past, had
the presence of mind to conceal my name, and to adopt the English one
of Grundy. Under this _nom de guerre_, but really a name of peace,
I enjoyed comparative quiet, interrupted only by the pertinacious
attendance of an unconscious countryman, who, noticing my very retired
habits, endeavoured by daily lectures from my own work, to make me
a convert to my own principles. In short, he so wore me out, that
at last, to get rid of his importunities, I told him in confidence
that I was the author himself. But the result was anything but what I
expected; and here I must blush again for the inconsistency of human
nature. While Winkells knew me only as Grundy, he painted nothing but
the charms of Solitude, and exhorted me to detach myself from society;
but no sooner did he learn that I was Zimmermann, than he insisted on
my going to Lady C----’s rout and his own conversazione. In fact,
he wanted to make me, instead of a Lion of the Desert, a Lion of the
Menagerie. How I resented such a proposition may be supposed, as
well as his offer to procure for me the first vacancy that happened
in the situation of Hermit at Lord P----’s Hermitage; being, as he
was pleased to say, not only able to bear solitude, but well-bred
and well-informed, and fit to _receive company_. The effect of this
unfortunate disclosure was to make me leave England, for fear of
meeting with the fate of a man or an ox that ventures to quit the
common herd. I should immediately have been declared mad, and mobbed
into lunacy, and then put into solitary confinement, with a keeper
always with me, as a person beside himself, and not fit to be left
alone for a moment. As such a fate would have been worse to me than
death, I immediately left London, and am now living anonymously in an
uninhabited house,--prudence forbids me to say where.
[Illustration:
“Sare, I am at where?--”
“Well, I know you be!”
]
THE PORTRAIT:
BEING AN APOLOGY FOR NOT MAKING AN ATTEMPT ON MY OWN LIFE.
The late inimitable Charles Mathews, in one of his amusing
entertainments, used to tell a story of a certain innkeeper, who made
it a rule of his house, to allow a candle to a guest, only on condition
of his ordering a pint of wine. Whereupon the guest contends, on the
reciprocity system, for a light for every half-bottle, and finally
drinks himself into a general illumination.
Something of the above principle seems to have obtained in the case of
a Portrait and a Memoir, which in literary practice have been usually
dependent on each other--a likeness and a life,--a candle and a pint of
wine. The mere act of sitting, probably suggests the idea of hatching;
at least an author has seldom nestled in a painter’s chair, without
coming out afterwards with a brood of Reminiscences, and accordingly,
no sooner was my effigy about to be presented to the Public, than I
found myself called upon by my Publisher, with a finished proof of the
engraving in one hand, and a request for an account of myself in the
other. He evidently supposed, as a matter of course, that I had my
autobiography in the bottle, and that the time was come to uncork and
pour it out _with a Head_.
To be candid, no portrait, perhaps, ever stood more in need of such an
accompaniment. The figure opposite has certainly the look of one of
those practical jokes whereof the original is oftener suspected than
really culpable. It might pass for the sign of “The Grave Maurice.” The
author of Elia has declared that he once sat as substitute for a whole
series of British Admirals,[2] and a physiognomist might reasonably
suspect that in wantonness or weariness, instead of giving my head I
had procured myself to be painted by proxy. For who, that calls himself
stranger, could ever suppose that such a pale, pensive, peaking,
sentimental, sonneteering countenance--with a wry mouth as if it always
laughed on its wrong side--belonged bonâ fide to the Editor of the
Comic--a Professor of the Pantagruelian Philosophy, hinted at in the
preface to the present work? What unknown who reckons himself decidedly
serious, would recognise the head and front of my “offending,” in a
visage not at all too hilarious for a frontispiece to the Evangelical
Magazine! In point of fact the owner has been taken sundry times, ere
now, for a Methodist Minister, and a pious turn has been attributed
to his hair--lucus a non lucendo--from its having no turn in it at
all.[3] In like manner my literary contemporaries who have cared to
remark on my personals, have agreed in ascribing to me a melancholy
bias; thus an authority in the New Monthly Magazine has described me
as “a grave anti-pun-like-looking person,” whilst another--in the Book
of Gems--declares that “my countenance is more grave than merry,” and
insists, therefore, that I am of a pensive habit, and “have never
laughed heartily in company or in rhyme.” Against such an inference,
however, I solemnly protest, and if it be the fault of my features,
I do not mind telling my face to its face that it insinuates a false
Hood, and grossly misrepresents a person notorious amongst friends
for laughing at strange times and odd places, and in particular when
he has the worst of the rubber. For it is no comfort for the loss of
points, by his theory, to be upon thorns. And truly what can be more
unphilosophical, than to sit ruefully as well as whistfully, with your
face inconsistently playing at longs and your hand at shorts,--getting
hypped as well as pipped,--“talking of Hoyle,” as the City lady said,
“but looking like winegar,” and betraying as keen a sense of the profit
and loss, as if the _pack_ had turned you into a _pedlar_.
[Illustration: “ON THE CARD-RACK.”]
But I am digressing; and turning my back, as Lord Castlereagh would
have said, on my face. The portrait, then, is genuine--“an ill-favoured
thing, Sir,” as Touchstone says, “but mine own.” For its quarrel with
the rules of Lavater there is precedent. I remember seeing on Sir
Thomas Lawrence’s easel, an unfinished head of Mr. Wilberforce, so
very merry, so rosy, so good-fellowish, that nothing less than the Life
and Correspondence recently published could have persuaded me that
he was really a serious character. A memoir, therefore, would be the
likeliest thing to convince the world that the physiognomy prefixed
to this number is actually Hood’s Own:--indeed a few of the earlier
chapters would suffice to clear up the mystery, by proving that my face
is only answering in the affirmative, the friendly enquiry of the Poet
of all circles--“Has sorrow thy young days shaded?”--and telling the
honest truth of one of those rickety constitutions which, according to
Hudibras, seem
“---- as if intended
For nothing else but to be mended.”
To confess the truth, my vanity pricked up its ears a little at the
proposition of my Publisher. There is something vastly flattering in
the idea of appropriating the half or quarter of a century, mixing it
up with your personal experience, and then serving it out as your own
Life and Times. On casting a retrospective glance, however, across
Memory’s waste, it appeared so literally a waste that vanity herself
shrank from the enclosure act, as an unpromising speculation. Had I
foreseen, indeed, some five-and-thirty years ago, that such a demand
would be made upon me, I might have laid myself out on purpose, as
Dr. Watts recommends, so as “to give of every day some good account
at last.” I would have lived like a Frenchman, for effect, and made
my life a long dress rehearsal of the future biography. I would have
cultivated incidents “pour servir,” laid traps for adventures, and
illustrated my memory like Rogers’s, by a brilliant series of Tableaux.
The earlier of My Seven Stages should have been more Wonder Phenomenon
Comet and Balloon-like, and have been timed to a more Quicksilver
pace than they have travelled; in short, my Life, according to the
tradesman’s promise, should have been “fully equal to bespoke.” But
alas! in the absence of such a Scottish second-sight, my whole course
of existence up to the present moment would hardly furnish materials
for one of those “bald biographies” that content the old gentlemanly
pages of Sylvanus Urban. Lamb, on being applied to for a Memoir of
himself, made answer that it would go into an epigram; and I really
believe that I could compress my own into that baker’s dozen of lines
called a sonnet. Montgomery, indeed, has forestalled the greater part
of it, in his striking poem on the “Common Lot,” but in prose, nobody
could ever make anything of it, except Mr. George Robins. The lives of
literary men are proverbially barren of interest, and mine, instead of
forming an exception to the general rule, would bear the application
of the following words of Sir Walter Scott, much better than the
career of their illustrious author. “There is no man known at all in
literature, who may not have more to tell of his private life than I
have. I have surmounted no difficulties either of birth or education,
nor have I been favoured by any particular advantages, and my life
has been as void of incidents of importance as that of the weary
knife-grinder--‘Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, Sir.’”
Thus my birth was neither so humble that, like John Jones, I have been
obliged amongst my lays to lay the cloth, and to court the cook and
the muses at the same time; nor yet so lofty, that, with a certain
lady of title, I could not write without letting myself down. Then,
for education, though on the one hand I have not taken my degree, with
Blucher; yet on the other, I have not been rusticated, at the Open Air
School, like the poet of Helpstone. As for incidents of importance, I
remember none, except being drawn for a soldier, which was a hoax, and
having the opportunity of giving a casting vote on a great parochial
question, only I didn’t attend. I have never been even third in a duel,
or crossed in love. The stream of time has flowed on with me very like
that of the New River, which everybody knows has so little romance
about it, that its head has never troubled us with a Tale. My own story
then, to possess any interest, must be a fib.
Truly given, with its egotism and its barrenness, it would look too
like the chalked advertisements on a dead wall. Moreover, Pope has read
a lesson to self-importance in the Memoirs of P.P., the Parish Clerk,
who was only notable after all amongst his neighbours as a swallower of
loaches. Even in such practical whims and oddities I am deficient,--for
instance, eschewing razors, or bolting clasp-knives, riding on painted
ponies, sleeping for weeks, fasting for months, devouring raw tripe,
and similar eccentricities, which have entitled sundry knaves, quacks,
boobies, and brutes, to a brief biography in the Wonderful Magazine.
And, in the absence of these distinctions, I am equally deficient in
any spiritual pretensions. I have had none of those experiences which
render the lives of saintlings, not yet in their teens, worth their own
weight in paper and print, and consequently my personal history, as a
Tract, would read as flat as the Pilgrim’s Progress without the Giants,
the Lions, and the grand single combat with the Devil.
To conclude my life,--“upon my life,”--is not worth giving or taking.
The principal just suffices for me to live upon; and of course, would
afford little interest to anyone else. Besides, I have a bad memory;
and a personal history would assuredly be but a middling one, of which
I have forgotten the beginning and cannot foresee the end. I must,
therefore, respectfully decline giving my life to the world--at least
till I have done with it--but to soften the refusal, I am willing,
instead of a written character of myself, to set down all that I can
recall of other authors, and, accordingly, the next number will contain
the first instalment of
MY LITERARY REMINISCENCES.
[2] He perhaps took the hint from Dibdin, who lays down the rule in
his Sea Songs, that a Naval Hero ought to be a Lion in battle,
but afterwards a Lamb.
[3] On a march to Berlin, with the 19th Prussian Infantry, I could
never succeed in passing myself off as anything but the
Regimental Chaplain.
THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS.
“The Needles have sometimes been fatal to Mariners.”
PICTURE OF ISLE OF WIGHT.
One close of day--’twas in the Bay
Of Naples, bay of glory!
While light was hanging crowns of gold
On mountains high and hoary,
A gallant bark got under weigh,
And with her sails my story.
For Leghorn she was bound direct,
With wine and oil for cargo,
Her crew of men some nine or ten,
The Captain’s name was Iago;
A good and gallant bark she was,
La Donna (call’d) del Lago.
Bronzed mariners were hers to view,
With brown cheeks clear or muddy,
Dark, shining eyes, and coal-black hair,
Meet heads for painter’s study;
But ’midst their tan their stood one man,
Whose cheek was fair and ruddy.
His brow was high, a loftier brow
Ne’er shone in song or sonnet,
His hair a little scant, and when
He doff’d his cap or bonnet,
One saw that Grey had gone beyond
A premiership upon it.
His eye--a passenger was he,
The cabin he had hired it,--
His eye was gray, and when he look’d
Around, the prospect fired it--
A fine poetic light, as if
The Appe-Nine inspired it.
His frame was stout, in height about
Six feet--well made and portly;
Of dress and manner just to give
A sketch, but very shortly,
His order seem’d a composite
Of rustic with the courtly.
[Illustration: A STORM IN TABLE BAY.]
He ate and quaff’d, and joked and laugh’d,
And chatted with the seamen,
And often task’d their skill and ask’d
“What weather is’t to be, man?”
No demonstration there appear’d
That he was any demon.
No sort of sign there was that he
Could raise a stormy rumpus,
Like Prospero, make breezes blow,
And rocks and billows thump us,--
But little we supposed what he
Could with the needle compass!
Soon came a storm--the sea at first
Seemed lying almost fallow--
When lo! full crash, with billowy dash,
From clouds of black and yellow,
Came such a gale, as blows but once
A cent’ry, like the aloe!
Our stomachs we had just prepared
To vest a small amount in;
When, gush! a flood of brine came down
The skylight--quite a fountain,
And right on end the table rear’d,
Just like the Table Mountain.
Down rush’d the soup, down gush’d the wine,
Each roll, its rôle repeating,
Roll’d down--the round of beef declar’d
For parting--not for meating!
Off flew the fowls, and all the game
Was “too far gone for eating!”
Down knife and fork--down went the pork,
The lamb too broke its tether;
Down mustard went--each condiment--
Salt--pepper--all together!
Down everything, like craft that seek
The Downs in stormy weather.
Down plunged the Lady of the Lake,
Her timbers seemed to sever;
Down, down, a dreary derry down,
Such lurch she had gone never;
She almost seem’d about to take
A bed of down for ever!
Down dropt the captain’s nether jaw,
Thus robb’d of all its uses,
He thought he saw the Evil One
Beside Vesuvian sluices,
Playing at dice for soul and ship
And throwing _Sink_ and _Deuces_.
Down fell the steward on his face,
To all the Saints commending;
And candles to the Virgin vow’d,
As save-alls ’gainst his ending.
Down fell the mate, he thought his fate,
Check-mate, was close impending!
Down fell the cook--the cabin boy,
Their beads with fervour telling,
While alps of serge with snowy verge,
Above the yards came yelling.
Down fell the crew, and on their knees
Shuddered at each white swelling!
Down sunk the sun of bloody hue,
His crimson light a cleaver
To each red rover of a wave:
To eye of fancy-weaver,
Neptune, the God, seemed tossing in
A raging scarlet fever!
Sore, sore afraid, each Papist pray’d
To Saint and Virgin Mary;
But one there was that stood composed
Amid the waves’ vagary;
As staunch as rock, a true game cock
’Mid chicks of Mother Cary!
His ruddy cheek retain’d its streak,
No danger seemed to shrink him;
His step still bold,--of mortal mould
The crew could hardly think him:
The Lady of the Lake, he seem’d
To know, could never sink him.
[Illustration: A ROUGH SEA.]
Relax’d at last the furious gale,
Quite out of breath with racing;
The boiling flood in milder mood,
With gentler billows chasing;
From stem to stern, with frequent turn,
The Stranger took to pacing.
And as he walk’d to self he talked,
Some ancient ditty thrumming,
In under tone, as not alone--
Now whistling, and now humming--
“You’re welcome, Charlie,” “Cowdenknowes,”
“Kenmure,” or “Campbells’ Coming.”
Down went the wind, down went the wave,
Fear quitted the most finical;
The Saints, I wot, were soon forgot,
And Hope was at the pinnacle:
When rose on high, a frightful cry--
“The Devil’s in the binnacle!”
“The Saints be near,” the helmsman cried,
His voice with quite a falter--
“Steady’s my helm, but every look
The needle seems to alter;
God only knows where China lies,
Jamaica, or Gibraltar!”
The captain stared aghast at mate,
The pilot at th’ apprentice;
No fancy of the German Sea
Of Fiction the event is:
But when they at the compass look’d,
It seem’d non compass mentis.
Now north, now south, now east, now west,
The wavering point was shaken,
’Twas past the whole philosophy
Of Newton, or of Bacon;
Never by compass, till that hour
Such latitudes were taken!
With fearful speech, each after each
Took turns in the inspection;
They found no gun--no iron--none
To vary its direction;
It stem’d a new magnetic case
Of Poles in Insurrection!
Farewell to wives, farewell their lives,
And all their household riches;
Oh! while they thought of girl or boy,
And dear domestic niches,
All down the side which holds the heart,
That needle crave them stitches.
With deep amaze, the Stranger gaz’d
To see them so white-liver’d:
And walk’d abaft the binnacle,
To know at what they shiver’d;
But when he stood beside the card,
St. Josef! how it quiver’d!
No fancy-motion, brain-begot,
In eye of timid dreamer--
The nervous finger of a sot
Ne’er show’d a plainer tremor;
To every brain it seem’d too plain,
There stood th’ Infernal Schemer!
Mix’d brown and blue each visage grew,
Just like a pullet’s gizzard;
Meanwhile the captain’s wandering wit,
From tacking like an izzard,
Bore down in this plain course at last,
“It’s Michael Scott--the Wizard!”
A smile past o’er the ruddy face;
“To see the poles so falter,
I’m puzzled, friends, as much as you,
For with no fiends I palter;
Michael I’m not--although a Scott--
My Christian name is Walter.”
Like oil it fell, that name, a spell
On all the fearful faction;
The Captain’s head (for he had read)
Confess’d the Needle’s action,
And bow’d to Him in whom the North
Has lodged its main attraction!
[Illustration: A STAR OF THE FIRST MAGNETUDE.]
SUMMER--A WINTER ECLOGUE.
A Back Parlour at Camberwell. Sylvanus is seated at the
breakfast-table, and greeteth his friend Civis.
SYL.--A good morrow to you, friend Civis, and a hearty
welcome!--How hath sleep dealt with you through the night?
CIV.--Purely indeed, and with rare pastoral dreams. I have
done nothing but walk through pleasant groves, or sit me down under
shady boughs, the whole livelong night. A foretaste, my friend, of the
rural delights yet to come, in strolling with you amongst the dainty
shades of this your verdant retreat. How have I yearned all through the
month of June, to be a Jack-i’-the-Green again amidst your leaves here!
You know my prospect in town.
SYL.--Aye, truly; I did once spend, or rather misspend a whole
week there in the dog-days. You looked out opposite on a scorching
brick front of six stories, with a south aspect--studded with I know
not how many badges of Assurance from fire, and not without need--for
the shop windows below seemed all a-blaze with geranium-coloured silks,
at that time the mode, and flamme d’enfer. The left-hand shop, next
door, was all red, likewise, with regiments of lobsters, in their new
uniforms; beyond that, a terrible flaring Red Lion, newly done up with
paint. At the next door, a vender of red morocco pocket-books--my eyes
were in a scarlet fever, the whole time of my sojourning.
CIV.--A true picture, I confess. We are, indeed, a little
strong in the warm tints; but they give the more zest to your suburban
verdure. All the way down overnight, I thought only of the two tall elm
trees beside your gate, and which have always been to my city optics as
refreshing as a pair of green spectacles. Surely of all spots I have
seen, Camberwell is the greenest, as the poet says, that ever laid hold
of Memory’s waist.
SYL.--It hath been greener aforetime. But I pray you sit down
and fall to.--Shall I help you to some of this relishing salted fish?
CIV.--By your good leave, Sylvanus, I will first draw up these
blinds. My bed-room, you know, looks out only to the road, and I am
longing to help my eyes, to a little of what, as a citizen, I may truly
call the green fat of nature.
SYL.--Nay, Civis--I pray you let the blinds alone. The rolls
are getting cold. This ham is excellently well cured, and the eggs are
new-laid. Come, take a seat.
CIV.--I beseech your patience for one moment. There the
blind is up. What a brave flood of sunshine--and what a glorious blue
sky!--What a rare dainty day to roam abroad in, dallying with the
Dryads!--But what do I behold! Oh, my Sylvanus, the Dryads are stripped
of their green kirtles--stark naked! The trees are all bare, God help
me! as bare as the “otamies in Surgeons’ Hall!”
SYL.--You would take no forewarning--I bade you not pull up
the blind. It was my intent to have broken the truth to you, after you
had made a full meal; but now you must to breakfast with what appetite
you may!
CIV.--As I hope to see Paradise--there is not a green bough
between this and Peckham!
SYL.--No, truly, not a twig! I would not advise any forlorn
Babes to die in our woods, for Cock Robin would be painfully perplext
to provide them with a pall. Alas! were a Butterfly to be born in our
bowers, there is not a leaf to swaddle it in.
[Illustration: BABES IN THE WOOD.]
CIV.--Miserable man that I am, to have come down so late, or
rather that winter should have arrived thus early! Ungenial climate!
untimely Boreas!
SYL.--Blame not Boreas, nor winter neither. Boiling heat had
more part than freezing point in this havoc. To think that even summer
nowadays should go by steam!
CIV.--You speak in Sphynxian riddles! Oh, my Sylvanus, tell
me in plain English prose what has become of the green emeralds of the
forest?
SYL.--Destroyed in one day by a swarm of locusts. Not the
locusts of Scripture, such as were eaten by St. John in the wilderness,
but a new species. I caught one in the fact, on the very elm tree you
wot of, and which it had stripped to the bone, saving one bough.
[Illustration: A NEW LOCUST.]
CIV.--I am glad, with all my heart, that you have him secure,
for I delight to gaze on the wonders of nature, even of the destructive
kinds. You shall show me your new locust. Of course you thrusted a pin
through the body, and fixed it down to a cork after the manner of the
entomologists.
SYL.--No, truly; for it knocked me down after the manner of
the pugilists, and so made its escape.
CIV.--How! be they so huge, then? To my fancy, they seem more
like flying dragons than locusts.
SYL.--It is true, notwithstanding. Some of them which I have
seen, measured nearly six feet in length; others, that were younger,
from three to five. One of these last, the Minimi, or small fry, I
likewise took captive, though not without some shrewd kicking and
biting, and striking with its fore-paws.
CIV.--The smallest of animals will do so to escape from
bondage. I take for granted you knocked him on the head, for the sake
of peace.
SYL.--No, indeed. I had not the heart; the visage was so
strangely human, ape or monkey could not look more like a man in the
face; and then it cried and whined for all the world like a mere boy.
CIV.--It would have been a kind of petty murder to slay him.
I do not think I could commit Monkeycide myself. They look, as Lady
Macbeth says, so like our Fathers. To kill an ape would plant the
whole stings of an apiary in my conscience. I pray you go on with the
description.
SYL.--Willingly, and according to the system of the great
Linnæus. Antennæ or horns he had none, thus differing from the common
locust, but in lieu thereof, sundry bunches and tufts of coarse red
hair; eyes brown, and tending inwards towards the proboscis or snout.
Two fore-legs or arms terminating in ten palpi or feelers, and the same
number of toes or claws on the hinder feet. On grasping truncus, or the
trunk, it was cased in a loose skin resembling corduroy, the same being
most curiously furnished with sundry bags or pouches, into which, like
the provident pelican, it stuffed the forage it had collected from the
trees.
CIV.--With submission, Sylvanus, to your better judgment, I
should have taken this same Locust, from your description, to have been
actually a mere human boy.
SYL.--Between ourselves, he was--though of what nation or
parentage I know not. To use his own heathenish jargon, he was doing “a
morning fake on the picking lay for a cove wot add a tea-crib in the
monkery.”
CIV.--A strange gibberish, but I do remember that Peter the
Wild Boy was wont to discourse in the same uncouth fashion. Poor savage
of the woods! I do feel for his pitiful estate; but what could move him
to pluck off all-the green emeralds of the Forest?
SYL.--To make sham Hyson and mock Souchong. Even in June you
would have deemed it was November, there were so many ragged Guys
collecting gunpowder. Oh, Civis, thou hast no notion of the tea-trade
that hath been carried on in these parts. Many times I have believed
myself to be dwelling in Canton, and that my name was Hum. Thrice I
have caught myself marvelling at the huge feet of Mrs. S., and have
groped behind my nape for the national pigtail.
CIV.--Sylvanus, spare me. I have but one green week in the
year, and here it is all blotted out of the calendar. I pray you do not
jest with me. What hath become of the leaves of yon sycamore?
SYL.--Plucked by a Blackamoor, who preferred it to the
climbing of chimneys.
CIV.--And yonder Ashes, which I could mourn for in appropriate
sackcloth?
SYL.--Stripped by the select young gentleman of Seneca-house,
who left the politer branches of education for the purpose. Scholars,
you know, will play truant gratis, and these had the opportunity of
performing it at twopence the hour. One Saturday they did turn their
half-holiday into a whole one, and were found by the geographical
master picking Chinese Pekoe and Padre on the sloe bushes and willows
of Peckham Rye.
CIV.--Oh, my Sylvanus, such then is the cause of the
desolation I survey. To think that I may have myself helped to swallow
the verdure that I should now be sitting under. That the green
Druidical leaves, instead of clothing the Dryads, should be assisting
in the sweeping of my own Kidderminster carpets!
SYL.--Verily so it is. The great god Pan is dead, and Pot will
reign in his stead.
CIV.--Such a misfortune was never before read in a tea-cup!
Oh, my Sylvanus, what is to become of patriotism or love of the
country, when the best part of the country is turned to grouts?
SYL.--I have heard by way of rumour, that Mistress Shakerly
of our village, attributes her palsy to a dash of aspen in her British
Congo; indeed there be shrewd doubts abroad whether the great Projector
hath been at all reforming by turning over a new leaf. Mr. Fairday, the
notable chemist, hath sworn solemnly on his affidavit, that the tea is
strongly emetical, having always acted upon his stomach as tea and turn
out.
[Illustration: A GREAT PROJECTOR.]
CIV.--Of a verity it ought to be tested by the doctors.
SYL.--They have tested it, and tasted it to boot. Dr. Budd,
the Pennyroyal Professor of Botany, hath ranked it with the rankest
of poisons, after experimenting its destructive virtues on select tea
parties of his relations and friends.
CIV.--And I doubt not Dr. Rudd, of the same Royal College,
hath added a confirmation to this christening.
SYL.--You know the proverb. Doctors’ opinions do not keep
step, or match together, better than their horses. Dr. Rudd hath given
this beverage with cream of tartar and sugar of lead to consumptives,
and hath satisfied himself morally and physically that phthisic does
not begin with tea.
[Illustration: SLOE POISON.]
CIV.--Dr. Rudd is an ass! Oh, my Sylvanus, I am sick at heart!
Only two days since I did purchase a delectable book of poems, called
“Foliage,” purposely to read under your trees, but how can I enjoy
it, when the very foliage of nature is, as the booksellers say, out of
print! “Bare ruined quires where late the sweet birds sung.”
SYL.--My friend, take comfort. This tea-tray will not be
brought up another year, for the counterfeit herb hath all been seized,
and condemned to be burnt in the yard of the Excise.
CIV.--I am glad on’t, for it will be, as the French say, “a
feu-de-joie;” and verily all the little singing birds ought to collect
on the chimney-pots to chaunt a Tea Deum. In the mean time I must
borrow Job’s patience under my boils, though they be of the size of
kettles, and have boiled away my summer at a gallop. Possibly you may
have fewer locusts another season; but by way of precaution, the next
time I come down by the stage I shall attend to an old stage direction
in Macbeth, namely, “Enter the army with their green boughs in their
hands.”
PAIR’D _NOT_ MATCH’D.
Of wedded bliss
Bards sing amiss,
I cannot make a song of it;
For I am small,
My wife is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it.
When we debate
It is my fate
To always have the wrong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
And when I speak
My voice is weak,
But hers--she makes a gong of it!
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
[Illustration: RUNNING COUNTER.]
She has, in brief,
Command in Chief,
And I’m but Aide-de-camp of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
She gives to me
The weakest tea,
And takes the whole Souchong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
[Illustration: LONG COMMONS AND SHORT COMMONS.]
She’ll sometimes grip
My buggy whip,
And make me feel the thong of it!
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
Against my life
She’ll take a knife,
Or fork, and dart the prong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
I sometimes think
I’ll take to drink,
And hector when I’m strong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
O, if the bell
Would ring her knell,
I’d make a gay ding-dong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
[Illustration:
“Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.”
]
[Illustration: PROTECTING THE FARE.]
THE DUEL.
A SERIOUS BALLAD.
“Like the two Kings of Brentford smelling at one nosegay.”
In Brentford town of old renown,
There lived a Mister Bray,
Who fell in love with Lucy Bell,
And so did Mr. Clay.
To see her ride from Hammersmith,
By all it was allow’d,
Such fair outsides are seldom seen,
Such Angels on a Cloud.
Said Mr. Bray to Mr. Clay,
You choose to rival me,
And court Miss Bell, but there your court
No thoroughfare shall be.
Unless you now give up your suit,
You may repent your love;
I who have shot a pigeon match,
Can shoot a turtle dove.
So pray before you woo her more,
Consider what you do;
If you pop aught to Lucy Bell,--
I’ll pop it into you.
Said Mr. Clay to Mr. Bray,
Your threats I quite explode;
One who has been a volunteer,
Knows how to prime and load.
And so I say to you unless
Your passion quiet keeps,
I who have shot and hit bulls’ eyes,
May chance to hit a sheep’s.
Now gold is oft for silver changed,
And that for copper red;
But these two went away to give
Each other change for lead.
But first they sought a friend a-piece,
This pleasant thought to give--
When they were dead, they thus should have
Two seconds still to live.
To measure out the ground not long
The seconds then forbore,
And having taken one rash step
They took a dozen more.
They next prepared each pistol-pan
Against the deadly strife,
By putting in the prime of death
Against the prime of life.
Now all was ready for the foes,
But when they took their stands,
Fear made them tremble so they found
They both were shaking hands.
Said Mr. C. to Mr. B.,
Here one of us may fall,
And like St. Paul’s Cathedral now,
Be doom’d to have a ball.
I do confess I did attach
Misconduct to your name;
If I withdraw the charge, will then
Your ramrod do the same?
Said Mr. B., I do agree--
But think of Honour’s Courts!
If we go off without a shot,
There will be strange reports.
But look, the morning now is bright,
Though cloudy it begun;
Why can’t we aim above, as if
We had call’d out the sun?
So up into the harmless air,
Their bullets they did send;
And may all other duels have
That upshot in the end!
[Illustration: EXCHANGING--RECEIVING THE DIFFERENCE.]
THE ROPE DANCER.
AN EXTRAVAGANZA,--AFTER RABELAIS.
I am going, my masters, to tell you a strange romantic, aye,
necromantic, sort of story--and yet every monosyllable of it is as true
as the Legend of Dumpsius. If you should think otherwise, I cannot help
it. All I can say is, you are not experte credo, or expert at believing.
You must know, then, that on a certain day, of a certain year, certain
officers went on certain information, to a certain house, in a certain
court, in a certain city, to take up a certain Italian for a certain
crime. What gross fools are they who say there is nothing certain in
this world! However, in they went, with a crash and a dash, and a
grip and a grapple, and if they did not take him by the scruff of the
neck, like a dog, there is no truth in St. Winifred’s Well. He made
no resistance, not so much as a left-hander, though he was by trade a
smasher. As for any verbal defence, he never so much as attempted to
lay a lie, much less to hatch one. There he was, caught in the very
thing, act and fact, as poor a devil as need be to be making money.
He was as dead as any die he had about him: as sure of a gallows and
a rope, as if he had paid for them down on the nail of before-hand.
Oh, ye City Crœsuses, what think ye of a man having his quantum
suffocate of twisted hemp for making money! For my own part, if I was
to swing for saying so, I’d cry out like a Stentor, that one of God’s
images ought not to be made worm’s meat of for only washing the King’s
face. ’Twould be a very hard-boiled case, and yet, ’fore Gog and Magog,
so it was. For gilding a brass farthing he was to change twelve stone
of good human flesh to a clod of clay; to change a jolly, laughing,
smiling, grinning, crying, wondering, staring, face-making face for a
mere caput mortuum; to change prime tripe, delicate cow-heel, succulent
trotters, for a mouthful of dust; to change a garret for a grave; to
change a neckcloth for a halter. Zounds! what a deal of change for a
bad half sovereign! Well, there he was, caught like a rat, and going
for a tit-bit to the furr’d Law-Cats, and without so much as giving a
squeak for his life. The counterfeits were on him, so he had nothing to
utter. I verily believe, if you had found him in twice as many melting
pots, and crucibles, and dies, and white or brown gravy to boot, he
could not have coined an excuse. As I said before, he was found _with
the mould upon him_, and that, as the sexton of St. Sepulchre will
tell you, is as good as a burial to you any day of your life. He was
legally dead, and could not look, like other men, upon the sun as his
sun-in-law, so he wisely shook hands with himself, and bade good-bye to
himself, and did not attempt with his tongue to lick the cub of guilt
into a child of grace. All he asked, was to be allowed to take with
him a little reptile, or insect of some sort that he had brought over
from Italy, belike to be a solace to his captivity; for Baron Trenck,
you know, made a bon-camarade of a prison rat, and Monsieur F., in
the Bastile, as you know equally, made a long-standing friend of a
daddy-longlegs. We live in a world of whims. We eat them, and drink
them, and court them, and marry them, take them to bed and board with
us, and why not to prison? So Tonio begged for his whim to keep him
company, and as it was a small gentle-looking whim, neither so fierce
as a lion, nor so huge as an elephant, and moreover as it was a whim no
ways dangerous to Church or State, he was allowed to take it with him
in a little box, which he carried in his bosom.
Now, if curiosity should itch to know what his whim was like, let it
be known, once for all, that it was like neither a toad, nor a spider,
nor a viper, nor a snail, nor a black beetle, nor a newt, but something
between the size of a crocodile and a cricket. And as for the manner of
its going, it either flew, or swam, or hopped, or crawled, or lay still
like an oyster, for the Newgate Calendar does not say which. Why it
was not a monkey, or a tortoise, or a marmot, Tonio being an Italian,
you must ask of the Foreign Secretary at the Court of the King of the
Beggars.
May I transmigrate--when Brahma passes my soul into the parish of St.
Brute--may I transmigrate, I say, into a butcher’s daughter’s pet-lamb,
if it was not a piteous sight to see Tonio going off between the two
law terriers to have an hour’s wearing of that last cravat, which never
goes to a laundress, but always hangs upon a line of its own. It must
be owned, that he had his whim, but for all the whims that ever were
whimmed I wouldn’t have had his crick i’ the neck. Let me, I say, stand
on terra firma; I’m content with the look-out I have of life without
coveting a bird’s-eye view. Old Haman, when he was forty cubits high,
had not a better prospect of this world than I have from the ground
floor. Poor Tonio! It was a sorry sight; and if I didn’t pity him, from
my soul, may I be an hour behind time for seeing the next hanging bout,
and all through getting, by mistake, into a blunderbus. A blunderbus,
my masters, is the wrong omnibus.
[Illustration: A LEGAL CONVEYANCE.]
Well, law took its course as usual, that is to say, like a greyhound
after a hare. Tony was put up, so-ho’d, run after, run over, run
before, turned, tumbled and mumbled, scud and scut, and gripped by
the jugulars. But that’s a scurvy simile to another I have, lapped up
in pancakes, so give the calendar a shove backwards, and suppose it
Shrovetide, and poor Tony stuck up in dock by way of a shy-cock for the
law limbs to shy at. You never saw such pelting in your life; no, not
even when St. Swithin took it into her watery head to rain cats and
dogs! First, the Foreman of the Grand Jury jerked a true bill at him,
that took effect on his head. Thereupon the Clerk of Arraigns pitched a
heavy indictment in his very teeth, so that it shivered into thirteen
separate counts. Then the Council for the Crown heaved a brief of forty
folios into the pit of his stomach; anon opening a masked battery, he
threw in sworn witnesses in a volley like bombshells, and when they
exploded there flew out from them two melting pots, four moulds, nine
bulls, and seven-and-twenty hogs, and every hog of them weighed in
evidence upwards of ninety stone. Finally, the Chief Pitcher himself
pitched at him his great wig, and his fur gown, and his gold chain,
and his mace, and his great inkstand, and the King’s crown, and the
lion and the unicorn, everything in short he could catch up, and then,
taking both hands, he heaved at him the Statutes at Large; not content
with which he took next to pelt him with pairs of missiles at once. For
instance, a horse and a hurdle, a gallows and a halter, a shovel-hat
and a condemned sermon, a last dying speech and an elm coffin, and,
last of all, may I die of the pip the next time I eat oranges, if he
didn’t cast at him the whole steeple of St. Sepulchre, death-bell and
all, as if it had been only a snow-ball.
[Illustration: THROWING THE LASSO.]
Never was St. Stephen so pelted. No wonder in the world, that under
such a huge heap of rubbish, he became utterly dumbfounded, bamboozled,
obfuscated, mizmazed, spifflicated, flummockst, and flabbergasted;
seeing which the Chief Pitcher, as usual, enquired whether he had
the infinitesimal of a word to say against being strangled into a
blackamoor, with the very eyes of his head giving notice to quit.
What matter that Tony had a bramble in his mind, that bore reasons
like blackberries, and ripe ones too; as for example, that a tight
rope round the gullet is very bad for the health, and particularly
when one’s health requires to take pills, or even boluses, three
times a day? I say, he might have given a thousand such reasonable
reasons against hanging, but the very momentous minute of opening his
mouth, the Chief Pitcher pitched into it a prodigious great bung,
as dab and apt and cleverly as if he had played at nothing else but
chuck-farthing and pitch-in-the-hole ever since he was fourteen. So
the mummy of silence being preserved, the Merlinising began, and hey
presto! before you could say Herman Boaz, the big wig was turned into
a black cap! After that you may tell the world that our Judges are no
conjurors. Thus the trial ended, and Tony’s sentence, as taken in the
hieroglyphical short-hand, ran thus: namely, “that he was to be sent on
a Black Monday to the Deaf and Dumb School that is kept in a coffin.”
All this time, mark you, he had the whim with him in the dock, and
to look at it now and then seemed his only comfort in life,--how it
whisked and frisked, and looked about it, and fed heartily, as if there
had been no such thing as law or law-cats in the blessed world; and
when Tony went back, like a volume of felony, to be bound in stone,
the whim still went with him to his cell, and from his cell to the
press-room, and from the press-room to the debtor’s door, and from the
debtor’s door to death’s door itself, which opens on the scaffold, as
you turn off to the right hand or the left, in your way to nobody knows
where. To take such a whim of a reptile with one to the gallows, seems
whimsical enough; but the Emperor Adrian, if you read the classics,
had such a vagabondish, blandish, little animal, his animula vagula
blandula, to be with him on his death-bed.
Well, Friday came, and Saturday, and Sunday, and Sunday’s night; he was
posting to eternity with four bolters. I will bet the whole national
debt he would have given eighteen-pence a mile, and half-a-crown to the
boy, to have been posting on any other road. All the favour the law
allowed him was to have an Ordinary at eight instead of an ordinary at
one, a very ordinary favour to a man who was about to leave off dining.
But the devil ought to have his due, and so should the Lord Mayor and
the Sheriffs. As they had neglected Tony a little, by not being with
the other gossips at his christening, to usher him into this world,
they attended very ceremoniously to show him out of it, each in his
gilt coach; and, with regard to the coachmen, the footmen, and even
the very horses themselves, they were all Malthusians. Of course the
Recorder brought the hanging-warrant, and if you would know what the
hanging-warrant was like, it was like a map of _Cheshire_ with the
_Mersey_ left out.
I forgot to tell you, that before it came to this pass, the Ordinary
came oftentimes to the cell where Tony was, to pray, besides whom there
was an Extraordinary, who examined him on his points of faith. And the
points of faith were these; namely, whether he believed the moon to be
of green cheese, and as to the size of the mites thereon. Secondly, if
he believed the puppet-play of Punch and Judy to be a type of the fall
of Nineveh; and, thirdly, concerning the lions in Pilgrim’s Progress,
whether they were bred at Mr. Wombwell’s or Mr. Cross’s, or at the
Tower of London. To all of which Tony giving decidedly serious answers,
he was pronounced fit to die, and quite prepared to have his neck
stretched, as long as the throttle of a claret-bottle when the wine is
ropy.
Accordingly, on the morning of Monday, Time laid his long hand upon
Tony’s collar, and gave him eight distinct hints that his hour was
come for being ornithologised by sentence of the great Law Bird, genus
Black-cap, into jail bird, genus Wryneck. Never was there such mobbing
to see a hanging. Half the Londoners that morning went without their
breakfasts to be in time for the Old Bailey. Trot, trot, trot, canter
and full gallop; away through Piccadilly; push on there, in the Strand,
hey down Holborn Hill, with a yoicks in Cheapside, and a hark forward
in Newgate Street, and a tally ho! in West Smithfield. They all meant
to be in at the death. Never was there such a race, to see a man whose
race was run losing it by a neck. And the order of the running was
thus:--The Royal Humane Society got in first at the Drop, and had an
excellent front row. The Society for Preventing Cruelty to Animals
was a good second; and may I die, if the Law Life Assurance hadn’t
the assurance to come third. Next came the Philanthropic Society,
with the Society of Good Samaritans barely a length behind; and then
the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, neck and neck with the
London Benevolent Society; all racing till they panted again, to see
Tony put out of breath. You never saw such a chevy! Luckily there was
no Anniversary at St. Paul’s, so the Sons of the Clergy cantered in
with all the children of all the parishes that had any charity, to see
an execution put in for the debt of Nature. Also the Medical Society
came to see one die by the New Dropsy; and all the Knights of the
Garter, with their orders, _it being a collar-day_, wherefore they wore
their garters according to the fashion of Miss Bailey; and all the
Foreign Ambassadors. Seeing which, Tony put on a good face, and walked
stoutly up the ladder, saying softly to himself, “the eyes of Europe
are upon you.” All being ready, with the Ordinary on the right hand,
and the Extraordinary on the left, and the Great Constrictor a little
behind, Tony (who had his whim with him) was asked how he felt himself,
and how his father and mother did, and all his little brothers and
sisters; to which he answered thankfully, that they were all very well,
and that for his own part, he felt very comfortable, and died in the
faith of St. Vitus. Now the faith of St. Vitus is not exactly the faith
of the Church of England, nor, in faith, do I well know what faith
it is; but the Ordinary took no objection to it, for he was a man in
favour of universal toleration, remembering the saying of the heathen
Priest of Apollo to the Bishop of Magnum Bonum, “You have _your_
thology, and let me have _my_thology.” So the Ordinary held his peace,
but the Extraordinary would fain have argued the point regularly and
methodically, according to the dogmatical manner of Cerberus, namely,
in a discourse with three heads; and if he had once begun to spin the
triple yarn of controversy, prosyversy, and viceversy into a cable,
there is no saying on oath whether the other rope might have been used
to this day. Seeing, therefore, how matters stood, Master Strangulator
pushed in, with an elbowing manner, and began begging pardon of Tony
for the part he was about to perform, who forgave him very readily,
requesting him moreover to shake hands, and by Gog and Magog, such a
shake was never shaked since the Shakers became a sect!
At the first grapple of their fingers, the Strangulator pulled away his
hand with a jerk, as if a bear’s palm had been palmed upon him instead
of a human paw. Then, after making a frightful face, he gave a mighty
great spring or vault upwards, a deal higher than the gallows, when,
on coming down, he alighted with his legs a-straddle upon the beam,
where he kept posturing for some five minutes; now rowing with his
arms and legs, like a fish, now hanging with his head downwards, first
by one leg and then by the other, then by one hand, and then again
by his chin; you never saw a rope-dancer or tumbler of them all, at
Bartlemy’s or Astley’s, more nimble. Then coming down to the stage with
a bound, he threw three summersets forward, and then three backwards,
as quick as thought. Anon, after standing for a minute in the first
position, he fell a-dancing with all his might and main, and as fast
as he could lift his feet, like a bear upon a hotted floor. Never was
such a spring danced round about the gallows-tree; Gilderoy was a fool
to him. You may guess how the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, and the Ordinary
and Extraordinary, stared at such a caper, till their eyes grew as big
as owls’; and still more when they saw Tony, after making a round O
of his mouth, fall to bouncing and bounding like another Oscar Byrne!
Shade of Holbein, what a Dance of Death! Only think of Jack Ketch and
the condemned dancing face to face on the drop, now poussetting, now
setting to each other, now allemanding, now waltzing, and then, Father
of Vestris, what a tableau! Tony figuring, opera-fashion, on one leg,
with Cheshire poising on tip-toe on the calf of the other! As for his
whim, it was jerked out of the box at the first frisk, and had enough
to do, you may be sure, to scuttle out of the way of the skipping and
hopping; as it was, the poor reptile got more kicks than ha’pence.
In the meantime the Humanes, and the Samaritans, and the
Benevolents, and the rest of the mob, did not stand and look on
quite as mum as if it had been an overbrimming Quaker’s meeting,
with a collection afterwards at the door for the Deaf and Dumb.
They chuckled, and crowed, and laughed till they brayed again;
and roared, and bellowed, and shouted, and shrieked like hyænas
in hysterics. “Huzza! huzzaw! Go it, Jack! That’s your sort
encore--ancore--anker--ancoore,--bravo--brawvo--bravoo--brawvoo!
Well done Tony--Tony for ever--Tony for my money!--keep it up! It’s
better than dancing upon nothing.” If Laporte had been there, who
knows what offer he might have made them; for Taglioni herself never
danced so--that is to say, gratis, and without music. On they jigged,
however, without let or stint, and may I hang my hat up for ever, if
the same whim did not suddenly take the marshal, janitor, or head
gaoler, however unfit for dancing, seeing that one of his legs was
made of the same flesh as my oak table. Timber or not, he balanced on
it for a whole minute, while the other foot’s great toe, far above his
hip, pointed exactly at the clock of St. Sepulchre, and then swinging
his arms like a horizontal windmill, he spun off into a whirlwind of
pirouettes that made one giddy to look at. That done, he struck in
between the other two with a real step, and they immediately began to
work out a dancing sum in the rule of three, which requires only one
figure, namely, a figure of eight. Scuffle, shuffle, in and out, the
three Kirk Alloway witches could not have footed it better. In fact,
there was no resisting it. The whim took the very Ordinary himself,
though less boisterously at first, by reason of the gravity of his
calling, wherefore, taking a graceful grip with either hand of his
cassock, he only glided off, to begin with, into the minuet de la
cour. However, as the dancing grew more fast and furious, he gradually
danced, in spite of himself, having been classically bred, into the
College Hornpipe, and I defy anyone to say they ever saw it better
danced, or more briskly, by the very Doctors of Oxford and Cambridge.
Mother of Almack’s, what a quadrille! What a ball! The three Fates,
though winders of thread, and spinsters in ordinary, had never seen
such a Cotton ball! It was the strangest capriccio, the rarest mad
morrice that ever was danced; one minute a mazurka, then a polonaise,
then a gallopade, then a fandango, then a bolero, then a saraband,
then a guaracha, then a Highland fling! Sometimes the Strangulator, by
help of the halter which he waved this way and that, seemed executing
the shawl dance; anon, he doubled shuffled like Dusty Bob. One minute
Tony appeared as measuring his steps with a duchess dowager of the time
of Louis the Fourteenth; the next he was snapping his fingers with
Maggie Lauder to the tune of Tullochgorum. You fancied one minute, that
the Ordinary was dancing a pas seul, to the music of Haydn’s slow
movement, and before you could say Jack Robinson (now Earl of Ripon)
he started off into as grotesque a burlesque as ever was flung, and
floundered, and flounced, and bounced, and shuffled, and scuffled,
and draggled, and wiggle-waggled, shambled, gambolled, scrambled, and
skimble-skambled by Grimaldi, in Mother Goose. Blessed were they who
were born to behold it, though but from the mother’s arms. It was
worth going five miles to see, the first mile trundling a coach-wheel,
the second picking up eggs, the third hopping on one leg, the fourth
backwards, and the fifth jumped in a sack. If any man think otherwise,
may he dance, that is to say, in a ten-acre meadow, with a mohawking
bully of a bull for a partner.
[Illustration: A HIGHLAND FLING.]
The whim next seized the Extraordinary, and he danced like a dancing
Fakir. He jumped, and thumped, and twirled, and whirled, and so did
the rest, till the great drops rolled down their foreheads, for it
was in the very middle of the dog-days, and verily if Sirius did not
become a dancing dog it was not for want of masters. The clock struck
nine, and still they were at it, cross hands, down the middle, and back
again--’twas a mercy the bolt held. Chassez-croisez, dos-a-dos!--it was
getting on for ten, and yet they never called a fresh set! high time,
my masters, for authority to interfere; but the Head of the Corporation
had no sooner set the foot of the corporation on the scaffold, than the
whole of the corporation gave way to the whim, and was carried off with
a swagger into the medley, as if it had been the great ball at Easter.
There, I say, was the Mayor of London, scarlet cloak, and fur, and gold
chain and all, capering like a climbing boy, on the first of May. If
you had seen that morris danced, ’tis long odds, Londoners, you would
not have known your own May’r from a Hobbyhorse.
The Sheriffs came next, and they gave in to the same whim and danced,
and so did three Phrenologists who were in waiting to take a cast of
the skull, and another old woman who had got upon the scaffold to
be stroked on the neck for a wen. Though her dancing day was over,
she hobbled her best, and so did a Jew who came up to haggle for the
criminal’s clothes, and likewise an amateur in hangings, who meant to
bid high for a piece of the rope. These all danced, and God knows how
many more might have joined the corps de ballet, but for a certain
leap that was leaped by the Lord Mayor, and which knocked the whim on
the head. Now the Lord Mayor’s weight in the City, in mere flesh, was
a matter of sixteen stone (on the 10th of November a little more) and
his gold chain was seventy-five pounds, as good Troy weight as if Priam
had weighed it himself. He had besides in his pocket, two hundred and
fifty thousand pounds in gold, ninety-five thousand pounds in silver,
and five thousand seven hundred pounds in copper; moreover in his fob
was an old family watch, formerly the clock of St. Dunstan, equal to
ninety-five pounds and a half. Lastly, he carried on his person a
huge bunch of keys, house keys, warehouse keys, shop keys, cellar
keys, and particularly wine cellar keys, cupboard keys, and especially
pantry keys, and above all the Master Key of the City, which at any old
iron shop, would have been reckoned at a hundred pounds. Only think,
my masters, when such a corporate body jumped, only think, I say,
with what a confounding, astounding, crashing, smashing, flattening,
pancake-making sole of a foot it would come down on any reptile short
of a crocodile. No wonder, then, that Tony’s whim was completely
atomised, obliterated, and annihilated, which it was so utterly, that
if you were to search on the gallows to-morrow, with a solar microscope
to help you, I don’t believe, on my soul, that you would find the least
article or particle of the cuticle of
[Illustration: A TARANTULA.]
SONNET TO VAUXHALL.
“The English Garden.”--MASON.
The cold transparent ham is on my fork--
It hardly rains--and hark the bell!--ding-dingle--
Away! Three thousand feet at gravel work,
Mocking a Vauxhall shower!--Married and Single
Crush--rush;--Soak’d Silks with wet white Satin mingle.
Hengler! Madame! round whom all bright sparks lurk,
Calls audibly on Mr. and Mrs. Pringle
To study the Sublime, &c.--(vide Burke)
All Noses are upturned!--Whish--ish!--On high
The rocket rushes--trails--just steals in sight--
Then droops and melts in bubbles of blue light--
And Darkness reigns--Then balls flare up and die--
Wheels whiz--smack crackers--serpents twist--and then
Back to the cold transparent ham again!
[Illustration: “A CHILD’S _call_ TO BE DISPOSED OF.”]
ODE TO MR. MALTHUS.
My dear, do pull the bell,
And pull it well,
And send those noisy children all up stairs,
Now playing here like bears--
You George, and William, go into the grounds,
Charles, James, and Bob are there,--and take your string,
Drive horses, or fly kites, or anything,
You’re quite enough to play at hare and hounds,--
You little May, and Caroline, and Poll,
Take each your doll,
And go, my dears, into the two-back pair,
Your sister Margaret’s there--
Harriet and Grace, thank God, are both at school,
At far off Ponty Pool--
I want to read, but really can’t get on--
Let the four twins, Mark, Matthew, Luke and John,
Go--to their nursery--go--I never can
Enjoy my Malthus among such a clan!
[Illustration: LAYING THE FIRST STONE OF AN HOSPITAL.]
Oh Mr. Malthus, I agree
In everything I read with thee!
The world’s too full, there is no doubt,
And want’s a deal of thinning out,--
It’s plain--as plain as Harrow’s Steeple--
And I agree with some thus far,
Who say the Queen’s too popular,
That is,--she has too many people.
There are too many of all trades,
Too many bakers,
Too many every-thing-makers,
But not too many undertakers,--
Too many boys,--
Too many hobby-de-hoys,--
Too many girls, men, widows, wives and maids,--
There is a dreadful surplus to demolish,
And yet some Wrongheads,
With thick not long heads,
Poor Metaphysicians!
Sign petitions
Capital punishment to abolish;
And in the face of censuses such vast ones
New hospitals contrive,
For keeping life alive,
Laying first stones, the dolts! instead of last ones!--
Others, again, in the same contrariety,
Deem that of all Humane Society
They really deserve thanks,
Because the two banks of the Serpentine,
By their design,
Are Saving Banks.
Oh! were it given but to me to weed
The human breed,
And root out here and there some cumbering elf.
I think I could go through it,
And really do it
With profit to the world and to myself,--
For instance, the unkind among the Editors,
My debtors, those I mean to say
Who cannot or who will not pay,
And all my creditors.
These, for my own sake, I’d destroy;
But for the world’s, and every one’s,
I’d hoe up Mrs. G--’s two sons,
And Mrs. B--’s big little boy,
Call’d only by herself an “only joy.”
As Mr. Irving’s chapel’s not too full,
Himself alone I’d pull--
But for the peace of years that have to run,
I’d make the Lord Mayor’s a perpetual station,
And put a period to rotation,
By rooting up all Aldermen but one,--
These are but hints what good might thus be done!
But ah! I fear the public good
Is little by the public understood,--
For instance--if with flint, and steel, and tinder,
Great Swing, for once a philanthropic man
Proposed to throw a light upon thy plan,
No doubt some busy fool would hinder
His burning all the Foundling to a cinder.
Or, if the Lord Mayor, on an Easter Monday,
That wine and bun-day,
Proposed to poison all the little Blue-coats
Before they died by bit or sup,
Some meddling Marplot would blow up,
Just at the moment critical,
The economy political
Of Saving their fresh yellow plush and new coats.
Equally ’twould be undone,
Suppose the Bishop of London,
On that great day
In June or May,
When all the large small family of charity,
Brown, black, or carroty,
Walk in their dusty parish shoes,
In too, too many two-and-twos,
To sing together till they scare the walls
Of old St. Paul’s,
Sitting in red, grey, green, blue, drab, and white,
Some say a gratifying sight,
Tho’ I think sad--but that’s a schism--
To witness so much pauperism--
Suppose, I say, the Bishop then, to make
In this poor overcrowded world more room,
Proposed to shake
Down that immense extinguisher, the dome--
Some humane Martin in the charity _Gal_-way
I fear would come and interfere,
Save beadle, brat, and overseer,
To walk back in their parish shoes,
In too, too many two-and-twos,
Islington--Wapping--or Pall Mall way!
Thus people hatch’d from goose’s egg,
Foolishly think a pest a plague,
And in its face their doors all shut,
On hinges oil’d with cajeput--
Drugging themselves with drams well spiced and cloven,
And turning pale as linen rags
At hoisting up of yellow flags,
While you and I are crying “Orange Boven!”
Why should we let precautions so absorb us,
Or trouble shipping with a quarantine--
When if I understand the thing you mean,
We ought to _import_ the Cholera Morbus!
[Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT--MR MALTHUS.]
A GOOD DIRECTION.
A certain gentleman, whose yellow cheek
Proclaimed he had not been in living quite
An Anchorite--
Indeed, he scarcely ever knew a well day;
At last, by friends’ advice, was led to seek
A surgeon of great note--named Aberfeldie.
A very famous Author upon Diet,
Who, better starr’d than Alchemists of old,
By dint of turning mercury to gold,
Had settled at his country house in quiet.
Our Patient, after some impatient rambles
Thro’ Enfield roads, and Enfield lanes of brambles,
At last, to make enquiry had the _nous_,--
“Here, my good man,
Just tell me if you can,
Pray which is Mr. Aberfeldie’s house?”
The man thus stopp’d--perusing for a while
The yellow visage of the man of bile,
At last made answer, with a broadish grin:
“Why, turn to right--and left--and right agin,
The road’s direct--you cannot fail to go it.”
“But stop! my worthy fellow!--one word more--
From other houses how am I to know it?”
“How!--why you’ll see _blue pillars_ at the door!”
[Illustration: “AN ANCHORITE.”]
[Illustration: A LEADING ARTICLE.]
THE PLEASURES OF SPORTING.
The consulter of Johnson’s Dictionary under the term of Sport, or
Sporting, would be led into a great mistake by the Doctor’s definition.
The word, with the great Lexicographer, signifies nothing but
Diversion, Amusement, Play:--but I shall submit to the reader, with a
few facts, whether it has not a more serious connexion, or to speak
technically, whether it should be Play or Pay.
[Illustration: SWEEPSTAKES:--“EVERY JENNY HAS A JOCKEY.”]
When I was a young man, having a good deal of ready money, and little
wit,--I went upon the Turf. I began cautiously, and as I thought,
knowingly. I studied the studbook, and learnt the pedigree of every
new colt--yet somehow, between sire and dam, continually losing “the
pony.” My first experiment was at Newmarket. By way of securing a
leading article, I backed the Duke of _Leeds_, but the race came off,
and the Duke was not placed. I asked eagerly who was _first_, and
was told _Fourth_. The winner was a slow but strong horse, and I was
informed had got in front by being a _laster_. This was a _puzzle_, but
I paid for my Riddlesworth, and prepared for the Derby. By good luck
I selected an excellent colt to stand upon--he had been tried--it was
a booked thing--but the day before the Derby there was a family wash,
and the Laundress hung her wet linen on his _lines_. I paid again.
I took advice about the Oaks, and instead of backing a single horse,
made my stand, like Ducrow, upon four at once. No luck. Terror did not
start--Fury came roaring to the post--Belle was told out, and Comet
was tail’d off. I paid again--and began dabbling in the Sweepstakes,
and burning my fingers with the Matches. Amongst others, a bet offered
that I conceived was peculiarly tempting, 20,000 to 20 against Post
Obit--a bad horse indeed, yet such odds seemed unjustifiable, even
against “an outsider.” But I soon found my mistake. The outsider was in
reality an insider,--filling the stomachs of somebody’s hounds.--Pay
again! I resolved however to retaliate, and the opportunity presented
itself. I had been confidently informed that Centipede had not a leg to
stand on, and accordingly laid against him as thick as it would stick.
The following was the report of the race: “Centipede jumped off at a
tremendous pace,--had it all his own way--and justified his name by
coming in a hundred feet in front.”--Pay again! These “hollow” matters
however fretted me little, save in pocket. They were won easy, and lost
to match--but the “near things” were unbearable. To lose only by half
a head,--a few inches of horse-flesh! I remember two occasions when
Giraffe won by “a neck,” and Elephant by “a nose.” I was almost tempted
to blow out my brains by the nose, and to hang myself by the neck!
On one of those doubtful occasions, when it is difficult to name the
winner, I thought I could determine the point, from some peculiar
advantage of situation, and offered to back my opinion. I laid that
Cobbler had won, and it was taken; but a signal from a friend decided
me that I was wrong, and by way of hedge, I offered to lay that Tinker
was the first horse. This was taken like the other, and the Judges
declared a dead rob--I mean to say a dead heat.--Pay again!
A likelier chance next offered. There was a difference of opinion,
whether Bohea would start for the Cup, and his noble owner had
privately and positively assured me that he would. I therefore betted
freely that he would _run_ for the Plate, and he _walked_ over!--Pay
again! N.B. I found, when it was too late, that I should not have paid
in this case, but I did.
The Great St. Leger was still in reserve. Somewhat desperate, I betted
round, in sums of the same shape, and my best winner became first
favourite at the start. Never shall I forget the sight! I saw him come
in ten lengths a-head of everything--hollow! hollow! I had no voice to
shout with, and it was fortunate. Man and horse went, as usual, after
the race, to be weighed, and were put into the scale. They rose a
little in our eyes, and sunk proportionably in our estimation. Roguery
was sniffed--the Jockey Club was appealed to, and it gave the stakes to
the second horse. All bets went with the stakes, and so--Pay again!
It was time to cut the turf--and I was in a mood for burning it too.
I was done by Heath, but the impression on my fortune was not in the
finished style. I now turned my attention to aquatics, and having been
unfortunate at the One Tun, tried my luck in a vessel of twenty. I
became a member of a Yacht Club, made matches which I lost--and sailed
for a Cup at the Cowes’ Regatta, but carried away nothing but my own
bowsprit. Other boats showed more speed, but mine most bottom; for
after the match it upset, and I was picked up by a party of fishermen,
who spared my life and took all I had, by way of teaching me, that a
preserving is not a saving.--Pay again!
[Illustration: THE COWS’ REGATTA.]
It was time to dispose of The Lucky Lass. I left her to the mate,
with peremptory orders to make a sale of her;--an instruction he
fulfilled by making all the sail on her he could, and disposing of
her--by contract--to a rock, while he was threading the Needles. In
the meantime I betook myself to the chase. Sir W. W. had just cut
his pack, and I undertook to deal with the dogs:--but I found dog’s
meat a dear item, though my friends killed my hunters for me, and I
boil’d my own horses. The subscribers, moreover, were not punctual,
and whatever differences fell out, I was obliged to make them up.--Pay
again! At last I happened to have a dispute with a brother Nimrod as
to the capability of his Brown and mine, and we agreed to decide their
respective rates, as church rates, by a Steeple Chase. The wager was
heavy. I rode for the wrong steeple--leapt a dozen gates--and succeeded
in clearing my own pocket.--Pay again!
[Illustration: A PARTY OF PLEASURE.]
It was now necessary to retrench. I gave up hunting the county, lest
the county should repay it in kind, for I was now getting into its
debt. I laid down my horses and took up a gun, leased a shooting-box,
and rented a manor, somewhat too far north for me, for after a few
moves, I ascertained that the game had been drawn before I took to it.
It was useless therefore to try to beat--the dogs, for want of birds,
began to point at butterflies. My friends, however, looked for grouse,
so I bought them and paid the carriage.--Pay again!
Other experiments I must abridge. I found Pugilistic Sporting, as
usual--good with both hands at receiving:--at Cocking the “in-goes”
were far exceeded by the “out-goes:”--and at the gaming table, that
it was very difficult to pay my way--particularly in coming back.
In short I learned pages of meanings at school without trouble, but
the signification of that one word Sporting, in manhood has been a
long, and an uncomfortable lesson, and I have still an unconquerable
relish of its bitterness, in spite of the considerate attentions of my
Friends----
[Illustration: “POINTER AND DISAPPOINTER.”]
“From Sport to Sport they hurry me
To banish my regret,
And when they win a smile from me
They think that I forget.”
[Illustration: A STEEPLE CHASE.]
[Illustration: A POLITICAL UNION.]
THERE’S NO ROMANCE IN THAT!
“So while I fondly imagined we were deceiving my relations, and
flattered myself that I should outwit and incense them all; behold,
my hopes are to be crushed at once, by my aunt’s consent and
approbation, and I am myself the only dupe. But here, Sir,--here is
the picture!”--LYDIA LANGUISH.
O days of old, O days of Knights,
Of tourneys and of tilts,
When love was balk’d and valour stalk’d
On high heroic stilts--
Where are ye gone?--adventures cease,
The world gets tame and flat,--
We’ve nothing now but New Police--
There’s no Romance in that!
I wish I ne’er had learn’d to read,
Or Radcliffe how to write;
That Scott had been a boor on Tweed,
And Lewis cloister’d quite!
Would I had never drunk so deep
Of dear Miss Porter’s vat;
I only turn to life, and weep--
There’s no Romance in that!
No Bandits lurk--no turban’d Turk
To Tunis bears me off--
I hear no noises in the night
Except my mother’s cough,--
No Bleeding Spectre haunts the house
No shape,--but owl or bat,
Come flitting after moth or mouse,--
There’s no Romance in that!
I have not any grief profound,
Or secrets to confess,
My story would not fetch a pound
For A. K. Newman’s press;
Instead of looking thin and pale,
I’m growing red and fat,
As if I lived on beef and ale--
There’s no Romance in that!
It’s very hard, by land or sea
Some strange event I court,
But nothing ever comes to me
That’s worth a pen’s report:
It really made my temper chafe,
Each coast that I was at,
I vow’d, and rail’d, and came home safe,--
There’s no Romance in that!
The only time I had a chance
At Brighton one fine day,
My chestnut mare began to prance,
Took fright, and ran away;
Alas! no Captain of the Tenth
To stop my steed came pat;
A Butcher caught the rein at length,--
There’s no Romance in that!
Love--even love--goes smoothly on
A railway sort of track--
No flinty sire, no jealous Don!
No hearts upon the rack;
No Polydore, no Theodore--
His ugly name is Mat,
Plain Matthew Pratt and nothing more--
There’s no Romance in that!
He is not dark, he is not tall,--
His forehead’s rather low,
He is not pensive--not at all,
But smiles his teeth to show;
He comes from Wales and yet in size
Is really but a sprat;
With sandy hair and grayish eyes--
There’s no Romance in that!
[Illustration: TOM BOWLING.]
He wears no plumes or Spanish cloaks
Or long sword hanging down;
He dresses much like other folks,
And commonly in brown;
His collar he will not discard,
Or give up his cravat,
Lord Byron-like--he’s not a Bard--
There’s no Romance in that!
He’s rather bald, his sight is weak,
He’s deaf in either drum;
Without a lisp he cannot speak,
But then--he’s worth a plum.
He talks of stocks and three per cents.
By way of private chat,
Of Spanish Bonds, and shares, and rentes,--
There’s no Romance in that!
I sing--no matter what I sing,
Di Tanti--or Crudel,
Tom Bowling, or God save the King
Di piacer--All’s well;
He knows no more about a voice
For singing than a gnat--
And as to Music “has no choice,”--
There’s no Romance in that!
Of light guitar I cannot boast,
He never serenades;
He writes, and sends it by the post,
He doesn’t bribe the maids:
No stealth, no hempen ladder--no!
He comes with loud rat-tat,
That startles half of Bedford Row--
There’s no Romance in that!
He comes at nine in time to choose
His coffee--just two cups,
And talks with Pa about the news,
Repeats debates, and sups.
John helps him with his coat aright,
And Jenkins hands his hat;
My lover bows, and says good-night--
There’s no Romance in that!
I’ve long had Pa’s and Ma’s consent,
My aunt she quite approves,
My Brother wishes joy from Kent,
None try to thwart our loves;
On Tuesday reverend Mr. Mace
Will make me Mrs. Pratt,
Of Number Twenty, Sussex Place--
There’s no Romance in that.
[Illustration: SOMETHING ABOVE THE COMMON.]
THE ABSTRACTION.
---- “draws honey forth that drives men mad.”--LALLA ROOKH.
The speakers were close under the bow-window of the inn, and as
the sash was open, Curiosity herself could not help overhearing
their conversation. So I laid down Mrs. Opie’s “Illustrations of
Lying,”--which I had found lying in the inn window--and took a glance
at the partners in the dialogue.
One of them was much older than the other, and much taller; he seemed
to have grown like quick-set. The other was thick-set.
“I tell you, Thomas,” said Quickset, “you are a flat. Before you’ve
been a day in London, they’ll have the teeth out of your very head. As
for me, I’ve been there twice, and know what’s what. Take my advice:
never tell the truth on no account. Questions is only asked by way of
pumping; and you ought always to put ’em on a wrong scent.”
“But aunt is to send her man to meet me at the Old Bailey,” said
Thickset, “and to show me to her house. Now if a strange man says to
me, ‘young man, are you Jacob Giles,’--an’t I to tell him?”
“By no manner of means,” answered Quickset; “say you are quite another
man. No one but a flat would tell his name to a stranger about London.
You see how I answered them last night about what was in the waggon.
Brooms, says I, nothing else. A flat would have told them there was the
honey-pots underneath; but I’ve been to London before, and know a thing
or two.”
“London must be a desperate place,” said Thickset.
“Mortal!” said Quickset, “fobs and pockets are nothing! Your watch is
hardly safe if you carried it in your inside, and as for money----”
“I’m almost sorry I left Berkshire,” said Thickset.
“Poo--poo,” said Quickset, “don’t be afeard. I’ll look after ye; cheat
me, and they’ve only one more to cheat. Only mind my advice. Don’t say
anything of your own head, and don’t object to anything _I_ say. If I
say black’s white, don’t contradict. Mark that. Say everything as I
say.”
“I understand what you mean,” said Thickset; and with this lesson in
his shock head, he began to busy himself about the waggon, while his
comrade went to the stable for the horses. At last Old Ball emerged
from the stable-door with the head of Old Dumpling resting on his
crupper; when a yell rose from the rear of the waggon, that startled
even Number 55, at the Bush Inn, at Staines, and brought the company
running from the remotest box in its retired tea-garden.
[Illustration: A TEA GARDEN.]
“In the name of everything,” said the landlord, “what’s the matter?”
“It’s gone--all gone, by goles!” cried Thickset, with a bewildered look
at Quickset, as if doubtful whether he ought not to have said it was
_not_ gone.
“You don’t mean to say the honey-pots!” said Quickset, with some
alarm, and letting go the bridle of Old Ball, who very quietly led
old Dumpling back again into the stable; “you don’t mean to say the
honey-pots?”
“I _don’t_ mean to say the honey-pots,” said Thickset, literally
following the instructions he had received.
“What made you screech out then?” said Quickset, appealing to Thickset.
“What made me screech out, then?” said Thickset, appealing to Quickset,
and determined to say as he said.
“The fellow’s drunk,” said the landlord; “the ale’s got into his head.”
“Ale,--what ale has he had?” enquired Quickset rather anxiously.
“Ale,--what ale have I had?” echoed Thickset, looking sober with all
his might.
“He’s not drunk,” shouted Quickset; “there’s something the matter.”
“I’m not drunk; there _is_ something the matter,” bellowed Thickset,
and with his fore-finger he pointed to the waggon.
“You don’t mean to say the honey,” said Quickset, his voice falling.
“I _don’t_ mean to say the honey,” said Thickset, his caution rising.
The gesture of Thickset, however, had conveyed some vague notion of
danger to his companion. With the agility of a cat he climbed on the
waggon, and with the superhuman activity of a demon, soon pitched down
every bundle of besoms. There is a proverb that new brooms sweep clean,
and they certainly seemed to have swept every particle of honey clean
out of the waggon.
Quickset was thunderstruck; he stood gazing at the empty vehicle in
silence; while his hands wandered wildly through his hair, as if in
search of the absent combs.
When he found words at last, they were no part of the Litany. Words,
however, did not suffice to vent his passion; and he began to stamp and
dance about, till the mud of the stable-yard flew round like anything
you like.
“A plague take him and his honey-pots, too,” said the chambermaid, as
she looked at a new pattern on her best gingham.
“It’s no matter,” said Quickset. “I won’t lose it. The house must stand
the damage. Mr. Bush, I shall look to you for the money.”
“He shall look to you for the money,” da-capo’d Thickset.
“You may look till doomsday,” said the landlord. “It’s all your own
fault; I thought nobody would steal brooms. If you had told me there
was honey, I would have put the waggon under lock and key.”
“Why, there _was_ honey,” said Quickset and Thickset.
“I don’t know that,” said Mr. Bush, “you said last night in the kitchen
there was nothing but brooms.”
“I heard him,” said John Ostler; “I’ll take my oath to his very words!”
“And so will I,” roar’d the chambermaid, glancing at her damaged gown.
“What of that?” said Quickset, “I know I said there was nothing but
brooms.”
“I know,” said Thickset, “I’m positive, he said there was nothing but
brooms.”
“He confesses it himself,” said the landlady.
“And his own man speaks agin him,” said the chambermaid.
“I saw the waggon come in, and it didn’t seem to have any honey in it,”
said the head waiter.
“May be the flies have eaten it,” said the postillion.
“I’ve seen two chaps the very moral of them two at the bar of the Old
Bailey,” said Boots.
“It’s a swindle, it is,” said the landlady, “and Mr. Bush shan’t pay a
farthing.”
“They deserve tossing in a blanket,” said the chambermaid.
“Duck ’em in the horsepond,” shouted John Ostler.
“I think,” whispered Thickset, “they are making themselves up for
mischief!”
There was no time to be lost. Quickset again lugged Old Ball and Old
Dumpling from the stable, while his companion tossed the brooms into
the waggon. As soon as possible they drove out of the unlucky yard, and
as they passed under the arch, I heard for the last time the voice of
Thickset:
“You’ve been to London before, and to be sure know best; but somehow,
to my mind, the telling the untruth don’t seem to answer.”
The only reply was a thwack, like the report of a pistol, on the
crupper of each of the horses. The poor animals broke directly into
something like a canter: and as the waggon turned a corner of the
street, I shut down the sash, and resumed my “Illustrations of Lying.”
[Illustration: STAGE EFFECT.]
[Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT: THE DUKE OF WELL---- AND PRINCE OF
WATER--.]
A WATERLOO BALLAD.
To Waterloo, with sad ado,
And many a sigh and groan,
Amongst the dead, came Patty Head,
To look for Peter Stone.
“O prithee tell, good sentinel,
If I shall find him here?
I’m come to weep upon his corse,
My Ninety-Second dear!
“Into our town a serjeant came
With ribands all so fine,
A-flaunting in his cap--alas!
His bow enlisted mine!
“They taught him how to turn his toes,
And stand as stiff as starch;
I thought that it was love and May,
But it was love and March!
“A sorry March indeed to leave
The friends he might have kep’,--
No March of Intellect it was,
But quite a foolish step.”
[Illustration: “THE IDES OF MARCH ARE COME!”]
“O prithee tell, good sentinel,
If hereabouts he lies?
I want a corpse with reddish hair,
And very sweet blue eyes.”
Her sorrow on the sentinel
Appear’d to deeply strike:--
“Walk in,” he said, “among the dead,
And pick out which you like.”
And soon she picked out Peter Stone,
Half turned into a corse;
A cannon was his bolster, and
His mattress was a horse.
“O Peter Stone, O Peter Stone,
Lord, here has been a skrimmage;
What have they done to your poor breast
That used to hold my image?”
“O Patty Head, O Patty Head,
You’re come to my last kissing;
Before I’m set in the Gazette
As wounded, dead, and missing!”
[Illustration: WAR DANCE.--THE OPENING OF THE BALL.]
“Alas! a splinter of a shell
Right in my stomach sticks;
French mortars don’t agree so well
With stomachs as French bricks.
“This very night a merry dance
At Brussels was to be;--
Instead of opening a ball,
A ball has open’d me.
“Its billet every bullet has,
And well it does fulfil it;--
I wish mine hadn’t come so straight,
But been a ‘crooked billet.’
“And then there came a cuirassier
And cut me on the chest;--
He had no pity in his heart,
For he had _steel’d his breast_.
“Next thing a lancer, with his lance,
Began to thrust away;
I call’d for quarter, but, alas!
It was not Quarter-day.
“He ran his spear right through my arm,
Just here above the joint:--
O Patty dear, it was no joke,
Although it had a point.
“With loss of blood I fainted off,
As dead as women do--
But soon by charging over me,
The _Coldstream_ brought me to.
“With kicks and cuts, and balls and blows,
I throb and ache all over;
I’m quite convinc’d the field of Mars
Is not a field of clover!
“O why did I a soldier turn
For any royal Guelph?
I might have been a butcher, and
In business for myself!
“O why did I the bounty take
(And here he gasp’d for breath).
My shillingsworth of ’list is nail’d
Upon the door of death!
“Without a coffin I shall lie
And sleep my sleep eternal:
Not e’en a _shell_--my only chance
Of being made a _Kernel_!
“O Patty dear, our wedding bells
Will never ring at Chester!
Here I must lie in Honour’s bed,
That isn’t worth a _tester_!
“Farewell, my regimental mates,
With whom I used to dress!
My corps is changed, and I am now
In quite another mess.
“Farewell, my Patty dear, I have
No dying consolations,
Except when I am dead, you’ll go
And see th’ illuminations.”
[Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT:--MR. HOBLER.]
MILLER REDIVIVUS.
“He is become already a very promising miller.”--_Bell’s Life in
London._
I was walking very leisurely one evening down Cripplegate, when I
overtook--who could help overtaking him?--a lame elderly gentleman,
who, by the nature of his gait, appeared to represent the Ward. Like
certain lots at auctions, he seemed always going, but never gone: it
was that kind of march that, from its slowness, is emphatically called
halting. Gout, in fact, had got him into a sad hobble, and, like
terror, made his flesh creep.
There was, notwithstanding, a lurking humorousness in his face, in
spite of pace, that reminded you of Quick or Liston in _Old Rapid_.
You saw that he was not slow, at least, at a quirk or quip,--not
backward at repartee,--not behind-hand with his jest, in short, that he
was a great wit though he could not jump.
There was something, besides, in his physiognomy, as well as his dress
and figure, that strongly indicated his locality. He was palpably a
dweller, if not a native, of that clime distinguished equally by “the
rage of the vulture and the love of the turtle,”--the good old City of
London. But an accident soon confirmed my surmises.
In plucking out his handkerchief from one of his capacious coat
pockets, the Bandana tumbled out with it a large roll of manuscript;
and as he proceeded a good hundred yards before he discovered the
loss, I had ample time before he struggled back, in his Crawly Common
pace, to the spot, to give the paper a hasty perusal, and even to make
a few random extracts. The MS. purported to be a Collection of Civic
Facetiæ, from the Mayoralty of Alderman * * * * up to the present time:
and, from certain hints scattered up and down, the Recorder evidently
considered himself to have been, for wise saws or witty, the Top
Sawyer. Not to forestal the pleasure of self-publication, I shall avoid
all that are, or may be, his own sayings, and give only such _jeux de
mots_ as have a distinct parentage.
EXTRACTS FROM THE MS.
“Alderman F. was very hard of hearing, and Alderman B. was very hard
on his infirmity. One day, a dumb man was brought to the Justice-room
charged with passing bad notes. B. declined to enter upon the case. ‘Go
to Alderman F.,’ he said: ‘when a dumb man _utters_, a deaf one ought
to hear it.’”
* * * * *
“B. was equally hard on Alderman V.’s linen-drapery. One day he came
late into Court. ‘I have just come,’ said he, ‘from V.’s villa. He had
family prayers last night, and began thus--Now let us read the Psalm
Nunc _Dimities_.’”
* * * * *
“Old S., the tobacconist of Holborn Hill, wore his own hair tied behind
in a queue, and had a favourite seat in the shop, with his back to the
window. Alderman B. pointed him out once to me. ‘Look! there he is, as
usual, advertising his _pigtail_.’”
* * * * *
“Alderman A. was never very remarkable for his skill in orthography. A
note of his writing is still extant, requesting a brother magistrate
to preside for him, and giving, _literatim_, the following reason
for his own absence:--‘Jackson the painter is to take me off in my
Rob of Office, and I am gone to give him a _cit_.’ His pronunciation
was equally original. I remember his asking Alderman C., just before
the 9th of November, whether he should have any men in armour in his
_shew_.”
* * * * *
“Guildhall and its images were always uppermost with Alderman A. It was
he who so misquoted Shakspeare--‘A Parish Beadle, when he’s trod upon,
feels as much corporal suffering as Gog and Magog.’”
* * * * *
“A well-known editor of a morning paper enquired of Alderman B.,
one day, what he thought of his journal. ‘I like it all,’ said the
Alderman, ‘but its _Broken English_.’ The editor stared and asked for
an explanation. ‘Why, the _List of Bankrupts_, to be sure!’”
* * * * *
“When Alderman B. was elected Mayor, to give greater éclat to his
banquet, he sent for Dobbs, the most celebrated cook of that time,
to take the command of the kitchen. Dobbs was quite an enthusiast in
his art, and some culinary deficiencies on the part of the ordinary
Mansion-House professors driving him at least to desperation, he
leapt upon one of the dressers, and began an oration to them, by this
energetic apostrophe,--‘Gentlemen! do you call yourselves cooks!’”
* * * * *
“One of the present Household titles in the Mansion-House establishment
was of singular origin. When the celebrated men in armour were first
exhibited, Alderman P., who happened to be with his Lordship previous
to the procession, was extremely curious in examining the suits of
mail, &c., expressing, at the same time, an eager desire to try on one
of the helmets. The Mayor, with his usual consideration, insisted on
first sending it down to the kitchen to be aired, after which process
the ambition of the Alderman met with its gratification. For some
little time he did not perceive any inconvenience from his new beaver,
but by degrees the enclosure became first uncomfortably, and then
intolerably warm; the confined heat being aggravated by his violent
but vain struggles to undo the unaccustomed fastenings. An armourer
was obliged to be sent for before his face could be let out, red and
rampant as a Brentford Lion from its iron cage. It appeared, that in
the hurry of the Pageant, the chief Cook had clapped the casque upon
the fire, and thus found out a recipe for stewing an Alderman’s head
in its own steam, and for which feat he has retained the title of the
Head-Cook, ever since!”
* * * * *
“G. the Common-council-man, was a Warden of his own Company, the
Merchant Tailors’. At one of their frequent Festivals, he took with
him, to the dinner, a relation, an officer of the tenth foot. By some
blunder, the soldier was taken for one of the fraternity, but G.
hastened to correct the mistake:--‘Gentlemen, this isn’t one of the
Ninth parts of a man--he’s one of the Tenth!’”
“One day there was a dispute, as to the difficulty of Catch-Singing,
Alderman B. struck in, ‘Go to Cheshire the Hangman--he’ll prove to you
there’s a good deal of _Execution_ in a _Catch_.’”
[Illustration: “A REPORT ON THE FARM.”]
A ZOOLOGICAL REPORT.
_To Harvey Williams, Esq., Regent’s Terrace, Portland Park._
HONNERED SUR,
Being maid a Feller of the Zoological Satiety, and I may say by
your Honner’s meens, threw the carrachter your Humbel was favered
with, and witch provd sattisfacktry to the Burds and Bests,
considring I was well quailifid threw having Bean for so menny
hears Hed Guardner to your Honner, besides lookin arter the Pigs
and Poltry. Begs to axnolige my great fullness for the Sam, and
ham quit cumfittable and happy, sow much sow as wen I ham amung
the Anymills to reckin myself like Addam in Parodies, let alone my
Velvoteens.
Honnerd Sur,--awar of your parshalty for Liv Stox and Kettle
Breading, ham indust to faver with a Statement of wat is dun at the
Farm, havin tacken provintial Noats wile I was at Kings-ton with
a Pekin elefunt for chainges of Hair. As respex a curacy beg to
say, tho the Sectary drawd up his Report from his hone datums and
memmorandusses, and never set his eyes on my M.E.S.S., yet we has
tallys to our tails in the Mane.
Honnerd Sir,--I will sit out with the Qadripids, tho weave add the
wust lux with them. Scarse anny of the Anymills with fore legs
has moor nor one Carf. Has to the Wappity Dears, hits wus then
the Babby afore King Sollyman, but their his for one littel Dear
betwin five femail she hinds. The Sambo Dear as was sent by Mr.
Spring was so unnatral has to heat up her Forn and in consequins
the Sing-Sing is of no use for the lullabis. Has for Corsichan hits
moor Boney nor ever, But the Axis on innqueries as too littel Axes
about a munth hold. The Neil Gow has increst one Carf, but their
his no Foles to the Quaggys. Their his too littel Zebry but one as
not rum to grow; the Report says, “the Mail Owen to the Nessessary
Confinement in regard to Spaice is verry smal.”
Honnerd Sur, the Satiety is verry rich in Assis, boath Commun assis
and uncommon assis, and as the Report recumends will do my Inndever
to git the Maltese Cross for your Honner. The Kangroses as reerd up
a large smal fammily but looks to be ill nust and not well put to
there feat, and at the surjesting of a femail Feller too was put
out to the long harmd Babboon to dry nus, but she was too violent
and dandled the pure things to deth. The infunt Zebew is all so
ded owen to Atemps with a backbord to prevent groing out of the
sholders, boath parrents being defourmd with umphs; but the spin as
is suposed was hert in the exspearment, and it sudenly desist. Mr.
Wallack will be glad to here the Wallachian Sheap has add sicks
lams, but one was pisend by eating the ewes in the garden witch is
fattle to kattle. Has to gots we was going on prospus in the Kiddy
line, but the Billy gots becum so vishus and did so menny butts a
weak we was obleeged to do away with the Entire. As regards Rabits
a contiguous dissorder havin got into the Stox, we got rid of the
Hole let alone one Do and Brewd, witch was all in good Helth up to
Good Fridy wen the Mother brekfisted on her bunnis. The increas in
the Groth of Hairs as bean maid an object, and the advice tacken
of Mr. Prince and Mr. Roland, who recumendid Killin one of the
Bares for the porpus of Greece. We hav a grate number of ginny
pigs--their is moor than twenty of them in one Pound.
About Struthus Burds the Ostreaches is in in perfic helth and full
of Plums. The femail Hen lade too egs wile the Committy was sittin
and we hop they will atch, as we put them under a she Hemew as
was sittin to Mr. Harvy. We propos breading Busturds xept we hav
not got a singel specieman of the specious Galnatious Burds. I am
sory to say The Curryso has not bread. Hits the moor disapinting
as we considder these Birds as our Crax. We sucksided in razing a
grate menny Turkys and some intresting expearimints was maid on
them by the Committy and the Counsel on Crismus day. Lickwise on
Poltry Fouls with regard to there being of Utility for the Tabel
and “under the latter head” the report informs “sum results hav
bean obtained witch air considdered very satisfactry,” but their
will be more degested trials of the subjex as the Report says “the
expeariments must be repetid in order to istablish the accuracy
of the deduckshuns.” Wat is remarkable the hens pressented by Mr.
Crockford hav not provd grate layers tho provided with a Better
Yard and plenty of Turf. We hav indevourd to bread the grate Cok
of the Wud onely we have no Wud for him to be Cok of--and now
for aquotic Warter Burds we hav wite Swons but they hav not any
cygnitures, and the Black is very unrisenable as to expens but Mr.
Hunt has offerd to black one very lo on condishun hits not aloud
to go into the Warter. The Polish swons wod hav bread onely they
did not lay. The Satiety contanes a grate number of Gease and witch
thriv all most as well as they wood on a commun farm and the Sam
with Dux. We wonted to have dukelings from the Mandereen Dux but
they shook there Heds. Too ears a go a qantitty of flownders and
also a quantitty of heals of witch an exact acount is recordid
wear turned into one of the Ponds but there State as not bean
looked into since they wear plaiced their out of unwillingnes to
disturb the Hotter. At pressent their exists in one Pond a stock
of Karps and in too others a number of gould fish of the commun
Sort. The number left as bean correcly tacken and the ammount
checkt by the Pellycanes and Herrins and Spun-bills and guls and
other piskiverous Burds. Looking at the hole of the Farm in one
Pint of Vue we hav ben most suckcesful with Rabits and Poltry and
Piggins and Ginny Pigs but the breading of sich being well none to
Skullboys, I beg as to their methodistical principals to refer your
Honner to Master Gorge wen he cums home for the Holedays. I furgot
to say the Parnassian Sheap was acomidated with a Pen to it self
but produst nothin worth riting. But the attemps we hav maid this
here, will be prosycutid next here with new Vigors.
Honnerd Sur,--their is an aggitating Skeam of witch I humbly aprove
verry hiley. The plan is owen to sum of the Femail Fellers,--and
that is to make the Farm a Farm Ornay. For instances the Buffloo
and Fallo dears and cetra to have their horns Gilded and the
Mufflons and Sheaps is to hav pink ribbings round there nex. The
munkys is to ware fancy dressis and the Ostreaches is to have their
plums stuck in their heds, and the Pecox tales will be always
spred out on fraim wurks like the hispaliers. All the Bares is to
be tort to Dance to Wippert’s Quadrils and the Lions mains is to
be subjective to pappers, and the curling-tongues. The gould and
silver Fesants is to be Pollisht evry day with Plait Powder and the
Cammile and Drumdearis and other defourmd anymills is to be paddid
to hide their Crukidnes. Mr. Howerd is to file down the tusks of
the wild Bores and Peckaris and the Spoons of the Spoonbills is
to be made as like the Kings Patten as posible. The elifunt will
be himbelisht with a Sugger candid Castle maid by Gunter and the
Flaminggoes will be toucht up with Frentch ruge and the Damisels
will hav chaplits of heartifitial Flours. The Sloath is proposd to
hav an ellegunt Stait Bed--and the Bever is to ware one of Perren’s
lite Warter Proof Hats--and the Balld Vulters baldnes will be hided
by a small Whig from Trewfits. The Crains will be put into trousirs
and the Hippotomus tite laced for a waste. Experience will dictait
menny more imbellishing modes, with witch I conclud that I am
Your Honners
Very obleeged and humbel former Servant,
STEPHEN HUMPHREYS.
LITERARY REMINISCENCES.
“Commençons par le commencement.”
The very earliest of one’s literary recollections must be the
acquisition of the alphabet; and in the knowledge of the first
rudiments I was placed on a par with the Learned Pig, by two maiden
ladies that were called Hogsflesh. The circumstance would be scarcely
worth mentioning, but that being a day boarder, and taking my dinner
with the family, I became aware of a Baconian brother, who was never
mentioned except by his Initial, and was probably the prototype of
the sensitive “Mr. H.” in Lamb’s unfortunate farce. The school in
question was situated in Token-house Yard, a convenient distance for a
native of the Poultry, or Birchin-lane, I forget which, and in truth
am not particularly anxious to be more certainly acquainted with my
parish. It was a metropolitan one, however, which is recorded without
the slightest repugnance: firstly, for that, practically, I had no
choice in the matter; and secondly, because, theoretically, I would
as lief have been a native of London as of Stoke Pogis or little
Pedlington. If such local prejudices be of any worth, the balance
ought to be in favour of the capital. The Dragon of Bow Church, or
Gresham’s Grasshopper, is as good a terrestrial sign to be born under
as the dunghill cock on a village steeple. Next to being a citizen
of the world, it must be the best thing to be born a citizen of the
world’s greatest city. To a lover of his kind, it should be a welcome
dispensation that cast his nativity amidst the greatest congregation of
the species; but a literary man should exult rather than otherwise that
he first saw the light--or perhaps the fog--in the same metropolis as
Milton, Gray, De Foe, Pope, Byron, Lamb, and other town-born authors,
whose fame has nevertheless triumphed over the Bills of Mortality. In
such a goodly company I cheerfully take up my livery; and especially as
Cockneyism, properly so called, appears to be confined to no particular
locality or station in life. Sir Walter Scott has given a splendid
instance of it in an Orcadian, who prayed to the Lord to bless his own
tiny ait, “not forgetting the neighbouring island of Great Britain:”
and the most recent example of the style I have met with, was in the
Memoirs of Sir William Knighton, being an account of sea perils and
sufferings during a passage across the Irish Channel by “the First
Gentleman in Europe.”
Having alluded to my first steps on the ladder of learning, it may
not be amiss in this place to correct an assertion of my biographer
in the Book of Gems, who states, that my education was finished at a
certain suburban academy. In this ignorant world, where we proverbially
live and learn, we may indeed leave off school, but our education only
terminates with life itself. But even in a more limited sense, instead
of my education being finished, my own impression is, that it never
so much as progressed towards so desirable a consummation at any such
establishment, although much invaluable time was spent at some of those
institutions where young gentlemen are literally boarded, lodged, and
_done for_. My very first essay was at one of those places, improperly
called _semi_-naries, because they do not half teach anything; the
principals being probably aware that the little boys are as often
consigned to them to be “out of a mother’s way,” as for anything else.
Accordingly, my memory presents but a very dim image of a pedagogical
powdered head, amidst a more vivid group of females of a composite
charter-part dry-nurse, part housemaid, and part governess,--with a
matronly figure in the back ground, very like Mrs. S., allegorically
representing, as Milton says, “our universal mother.” But there is
no glimpse of Minerva. Of those pleasant associations with early
school days, of which so much has been said and sung, there is little
amongst my retrospections, excepting, perhaps, some sports which, like
charity, might have been enjoyed at home, without the drawback of
sundry strokes, neither apoplectic nor paralytic, periodical physic,
and other unwelcome extras. I am not sure whether an invincible
repugnance to early rising may not be attributable to our precocious
wintry summonses, from a warm bed into a dim damp school-room, to play
at filling our heads on an empty stomach; and perhaps I owe my decided
sedentary habits to the disgust at our monotonous walks, or rather
processions, or maybe to the sufferings of those longer excursions
of big and little, where a pair of compasses had to pace as far and
as fast as a pair of tongs. Nevertheless, I yet recall, with wonder,
the occasional visits of grown-up ex-scholars to their old school,
all in a flutter of gratitude and sensibility at recognising the spot
where they had been caned, and horsed, and flogged, and fagged, and
brimstone-and-treacled, and blackdosed and stickjawed, and kibed, and
fined,--where they had caught the measles and the mumps, and been
overtasked, and undertaught--and then, by way of climax, sentimentally
offering a presentation snuff-box to their revered preceptor, with an
inscription, ten to one, in dog Latin on the lid!
For my own part, were I to revisit such a haunt of my youth, it
would give me the greatest pleasure, out of mere regard to the
rising generation, to find Prospect House turned into a Floor Cloth
Manufactory, and the playground converted to a bleachfield. The
tabatière is out of the question. In the way of learning, I carried off
nothing in exchange for my knife and fork, and spoon, but a prize for
Latin without knowing the Latin for prize, and a belief which I had
afterwards to unbelieve again, that a block of marble could be cut in
two with a razor.
To be classical, as Ducrow would say, the Athenians, the day before
the Festival of Theseus, their Founder, gratefully sacrificed a ram,
in memory of Corridas the schoolmaster, who had been his instructor:
but in the present day, were such offerings in fashion, how frequently
would the appropriate animal be a donkey, and especially too big a
donkey to get over the Pons Asinorum!
From the preparatory school, I was transplanted in due time to what is
called by courtesy, a finishing one, where I was immediately set to
begin everything again at the beginning. As this was but a backward way
of coming forward, there seemed little chance of my ever becoming what
Mrs. Malaprop calls “a progeny of learning;” indeed my education was
pursued very much after the plan laid down by that feminine authority.
I had nothing to do with Hebrew, or Algebra, or Simony, or Fluxions, or
Paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches; but I obtained a supercilious
knowledge of accounts, with enough of geometry to make me acquainted
with the contagious countries. Moreover, I became fluent enough in
some unknown tongue to protect me from the French Mark; and I was
sufficiently at home (during the vacations) in the quibbles of English
grammar, to bore all my parents, relations, friends, and acquaintance,
by a pedantical mending of their “cakeology.” Such was the sum total
of my acquirements; being, probably, quite as much as I should have
learned at a Charity School, with the exception of the parochial
accomplishment of hallooing and singing of anthems.
I have entered into these personal details, though pertaining rather
to illiterate than to literary reminiscences, partly because the
important subject of Education has become of prominent interest, and
partly to hint that a writer may often mean in earnest what he says
in jest. One of my readers at least has given me credit for a serious
purpose. A schoolmaster called, during the vacation, on the father of
one of his pupils, and in answer to his announcement of the re-opening
of his establishment, was informed that the young gentleman was not to
return to the academy. The worthy parent declared that he had read the
“Carnaby Correspondence” in the Comic Annual, and had made up his mind.
“But, my dear Sir,” expostulated the pedagogue, “you cannot be serious;
why the Comic Annual is nothing but a book full of jokes!” “Yes, yes,”
returned the father, “but it has let me into a few of your tricks. I
believe Mr. Hood. James is not coming again!”
And now, it may be reasonably asked, where I did learn anything if not
at these establishments, which promise Universal Knowledge--extras
included--and yet unaccountably produce so very few Admirable
Crichtons?[4] It may plausibly be objected, that I did not duly avail
myself of such overflowing opportunities to dabble, dip, duck in, and
drink deeply of the Pierian spring, that I was an Idler, Lounger,
Tatler, Rambler, Spectator, anything rather than a student. To which
my reply must be, first, that the severest punishment ever inflicted
on my shoulders was for a scholar-like offence, the being “fond of my
book,” only it happened to be Robinson Crusoe; and secondly, that I did
go ahead at another guess sort of academy, a reference to which will
be little flattering to those Houses which claim Socrates, Aristotle,
Alfred, and other _Learnedissimi Worthii_, as their Sponsors and
Patron Saints. The school that really schooled me being comparatively
of a very humble order--without sign--without prospectus--without
ushers--without ample and commodious premises--in short, without
pretension, and consequently, almost without custom.
The autumn of the year 1811, along with a most portentous comet, “with
fear of change perplexing monarchs,” brought, alas! a melancholy
revolution in my own position and prospects, by the untimely death of
my father; and my elder brother shortly following him to the grave, my
bereaved mother naturally drew the fragments of the family more closely
around her, so that thenceforward her dearest care was to keep her
“only son, myself, at home.” She did not, however, neglect my future
interest, or persuade herself by any maternal vanity that a boy of
twelve years old could have precociously finished his education; and
accordingly the next spring found me at what might have been literally
called a High School, in reference to its distance from the ground.
In a house, formerly a suburban seat of the unfortunate Earl of
Essex--over a grocer’s shop--up two pair of stairs, there was a very
select day-school, kept by a decayed Dominie, as he would have been
called in his native land. In his better days, when my brother was his
pupil, he had been master of one of those wholesale concerns in which
so many ignorant men have made fortunes, by favour of high terms, low
ushers, gullible parents, and victimised little boys. As our worthy
Dominie, on the contrary, had failed to realise even a competence,
it may be inferred, logically, that he had done better by his pupils
than by himself; and my own experience certainly went to prove that
he attended to the interests of his scholars, however he might have
neglected his own. Indeed, he less resembled, even in externals, the
modern worldly trading Schoolmaster, than the good, honest, earnest,
olden Pedagogue--a pedant, perchance, but a learned one, with whom
teaching was “a labour of love,” who had a proper sense of the dignity
and importance of his calling, and was content to find a main portion
of his reward in the honourable proficiency of his disciples. Small as
was our College, its Principal maintained his state, and walked gowned
and covered. His cap was of faded velvet, of black, or blue, or purple,
or sad green, or as it seemed, of all together, with a _nuance_ of
brown. His robe, of crimson damask, lined with the national tartan. A
quaint, carved, highbacked, elbowed article, looking like an _émigré_,
from a set that had been at home in an aristocratical drawing-room,
under the _ancien régime_, was his Professional Chair, which with his
desk was appropriately elevated on a dais, some inches above the common
floor. From this moral and material eminence, he cast a vigilant yet
kindly eye over some dozen of youngsters; for adversity, sharpened by
habits of authority, had not soured him, or mingled a single tinge
of bile with the peculiar red-streak complexion, so common to the
healthier natives of the North. On one solitary occasion, within my
memory, was he seriously yet characteristically discomposed, and that
was by his own daughter, whom he accused of “forgetting all regard for
common decorum;” because, forgetting that he was a Dominie as well
as a Parent, she had heedlessly addressed him in public as “Father,”
instead of “Papa.” The mere provoking contrariety of a dunce never
stirred his spleen, but rather spurred his endeavour, in spite of the
axiom, to make Nihil fit for anything. He loved teaching for teaching’s
sake; his kill-horse happened to be his hobby: and doubtless, if he had
met with a penniless boy on the road to learning, he would have given
him a lift, like the charitable Waggoner to Dick Whittington--for love.
I recall, therefore, with pleasure, the cheerful alacrity with which I
used to step up to recite my lesson, constantly forewarned--for every
true schoolmaster has his stock joke--not to “stand in my own light.”
It was impossible not to take an interest in learning what he seemed
so interested in teaching; and in a few months my education progressed
infinitely farther than it had done in as many years under the listless
superintendence of B. A., and L. L. D. and Assistants. I picked up
_some_ Latin, was a tolerable English Grammarian, and so good a French
scholar, that I earned a few guineas--my first literary fee--by
revising a new edition of “Paul et Virginie” for the press. Moreover,
as an accountant, I could work a _summum bonum_--i.e. a good sum.
In the mean time,--so generally unfortunate is the courtship of that
bashful undertoned wooer, Modest Merit, to that loud, brazen masculine,
worldly heiress, Success--the school did not prosper. The number
of scholars diminished rather that increased. At least no new boys
came--but one fine morning, about nine o’clock, a great “she gal,”
of fifteen or sixteen, but so remarkably well grown that she might
have been “any of our mothers,” made her unexpected appearance with
bag and books. The sensation that she excited is not to be described!
The apparition of a Governess, with a Proclamation of a Gynecocracy
could not have been more astounding! Of course SHE instantly formed a
class; and had any form SHE might prefer to herself:--the most of us
being just old enough to resent what was considered as an affront on
the corduroy sex, and just young enough to be beneath any gallantry
to the silken one. The truth was, sub rosa, that there was a plan
for translating us, and turning the unsuccessful Boys’ School into a
Ladies’ Academy; to be conducted by the Dominie’s eldest daughter--but
it had been thought prudent to be well on with the new set before being
off with the old. A brief period only had elapsed, when, lo! a leash of
female school _Fellows_--three sisters, like the Degrees of Comparison
personified, Big, Bigger, and Biggest--made their unwelcome appearance,
and threatened to push us from our stools. They were greeted,
accordingly, with all the annoyances that juvenile malice could
suggest. It is amusing, yet humiliating, to remember the nuisances
the sex endured at the hands of those who were thereafter to honour
the shadow of its shoe-tie--to groan, moan, sigh, and sicken for its
smiles--to become poetical, prosaical, nonsensical, lack-a-daisical,
and perhaps even melodramatical for its sake. Numberless were the
desk-quakes, the ink-spouts, the book-bolts, the pea-showers, and
other unregistered phenomena, which likened the studies of those four
unlucky maidens to the “Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties,”--so
that it glads me to reflect, that I was in a very small minority
against the persecution; having already begun to read poetry, and
even to write something which was egregiously mistaken for something
of the same nature. The final result of the struggle in the academic
nest--whether the hen-cuckoos succeeded in ousting the cock-sparrows,
or vice versa--is beyond my record; seeing that I was just then removed
from the scene of contest, to be introduced into that Universal School
where, as in the preparatory ones, we have very unequal shares in the
flogging, the fagging, the task-work, and the pocket-money; but the
same breaking-up to expect, and the same eternity of happy holidays to
hope for in the Grand Recess.
In brief, a friend of the family having taken a fancy to me, proposed
to initiate me in those profitable mercantile mysteries which enabled
Sir Thomas Gresham to gild his grasshopper; and like another Frank
Osbaldestone, I found myself planted on a counting-house stool, which
nevertheless served occasionally for a Pegasus, on three legs, every
foot, of course, being a dactyl or a spondee. In commercial matters,
the only lesson imprinted on my memory is the rule that when a ship’s
crew from Archangel, come to receive their L. S. D., you must lock up
your P. Y. C.
[Illustration: THE WINNER OF THE LEDGER.]
[4] In spite of hundreds of associates, it has never happened to
me, amongst the very many distinguished names connected with
science or literature, to recognise _one_ as belonging to a
school-fellow.
[Illustration: SHOOTING WITH ROVER AND RANGER.]
SHOOTING PAINS.
“The charge is prepared.”--MACHEATH.
If I shoot any more I’ll be shot,
For ill-luck seems determined to star me,
I have march’d the whole day
With a gun--for no pay--
Zounds, I’d better have been in the army!
What matters Sir Christopher’s leave?
To his manor I’m sorry I came yet!
With confidence fraught,
My two pointers I brought,
But we are not a point towards game yet!
And that gamekeeper too, with advice!
Of my course he has been a nice chalker,
Not far, were his words,
I could go without birds:
If my legs could cry out, they’d cry “Walker!”
Not Hawker could find out a flaw,--
My appointments are modern and Mantony,
And I’ve brought my own man,
To mark down all he can,
But I can’t find a mark for my Antony!
The partridges,--where can they lie?
I have promised a leash to Miss Jervas,
As the least I could do;
But without even two
To brace me,--I’m getting quite nervous!
To the pheasants--how well they’re preserved!
My sport’s not a jot more beholden,
As the birds are so shy,
For my friends I must buy,
And so send “silver pheasants and golden.”
I have tried ev’ry form for a hare,
Every patch, every furze that could shroud her,
With toil unrelax’d,
Till my patience is tax’d,
But I cannot be taxed for hare-powder.
I’ve been roaming for hours in three flats
In the hope of a snipe for a snap at;
But still vainly I court
The percussioning sport,
I find nothing for “setting my cap at!”
A woodcock,--this month is the time,--
Right and left I’ve made ready my lock for,
With well-loaded double,
But spite of my trouble,
Neither barrel can I find a cock for!
A rabbit I should not despise,
But they lurk in their burrows so lowly;
This day’s the eleventh,
It is not the seventh,
But they seem to be keeping it hole-y.
[Illustration: CANVASSING A BURROW--“COME TO THE POLE.”]
For a mallard I’ve waded the marsh,
And haunted each pool, and each lake--oh!
Mine is not the luck,
To obtain thee, O Duck,
Or to doom thee, O Drake, like a Draco!
For a field-fare I’ve fared far a-field,
Large or small I am never to sack bird,
Not a thrush is so kind
As to fly, and I find
I may whistle myself for a black-bird!
I am angry, I’m hungry, I’m dry,
Disappointed, and sullen, and goaded,
And so weary an elf,
I am sick of myself,
And with Number one seem overloaded.
As well one might beat round St. Paul’s,
And look out for a cock or a hen there;
I have search’d round and round
All the Baronet’s ground,
But Sir Christopher hasn’t a wren there!
[Illustration: A DOUBLE BARREL.]
Joyce may talk of his excellent caps,
But for nightcaps they set me desiring,
And it’s really too bad,
Not a shot I have had
With Hall’s Powder, renown’d for “quick firing.”
If this is what people call sport,
Oh! of sporting I can’t have a high sense.
And there still remains one
More mischance on my gun--
“Fined for shooting without any license.”
[Illustration: PALMAM QUI MERUIT FERAT.]
THE SCHOOLMASTER’S MOTTO.
“The Admiral compelled them all to strike.”--LIFE OF NELSON.
Hush! silence in School--not a noise!
You shall soon see there’s nothing to jeer at,
Master Marsh, most audacious of boys!
Come!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”
So this morn in the midst of the Psalm,
The Miss Siffkins’s school you must leer at,
You’re complained of--Sir! hold out your palm,--
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”
You wilful young rebel, and dunce!
This offence all your sins shall appear at,
You shall have a good caning at once--
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”
You are backward, you know, in each verb,
And your pronouns you are not more clear at,
But you’re forward enough to disturb,--
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”
You said Master Twigg stole the plums,
When the orchard he never was near at,
I’ll not punish wrong fingers or thumbs,--
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”
You make Master Taylor your butt,
And this morning his face you threw beer at,
And you struck him--do _you_ like a cut?
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”
Little Biddle you likewise distress,
You are always his hair, or his ear at,--
He’s my _Opt_, Sir, and you are my _Pess_:
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”
Then you had a pitcht fight with young Rous,
An offence I am always severe at!
You discredit to Cicero-House!
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”
You have made too a plot in the night,
To run off from the school that you rear at!
Come, your other hand, now, Sir,--the right,
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”
I’ll teach you to draw, you young dog
Such pictures as I’m looking here at!
“Old Mounseer making soup of a frog,”
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”
You have run up a bill at a shop,
That in paying you’ll be a whole year at,--
You’ve but twopence a week, Sir, to stop!
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”
Then at dinner you’re quite cock-a-hoop,
And the soup you are certain to sneer at--
I have sipped it--it’s very good soup,--
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”
T’other day when I fell o’er the form,
Was my tumble a thing, Sir, to cheer at?
Well for you that my temper’s not warm,--
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”
Why, you rascal! you insolent brat!
All my talking you don’t shed a tear at,
There--take that, Sir! and that! that! and that!
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”
THE END OF VOL I.
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