WHIMS AND ODDITIES, M ^rose anU Vtru; WITH FORTY ORIGINAL DESIGNS, BY THOMAS HOOD, ONE OK THK AUTHORS OF ODES AND ADDPvESSES TO (JKEAT PEOPLE, AND THE DESIGNER OF THE PROGRESS OF CANT. "O Cicero! Cicero! if to pun be a crime, 'tis a crime I liave learned of thee : O Bias ! Bias ! if to pun be a crime, by thy example I was biassed !" SCRIBLERUS. LONDON : LUPTON RELFE, 13, CORNHILL. 1826. LONDON: Printed -bv T). S. Maurice, Fenohiirch Street, DEDICATION, What is a modern Poet's fate ? To write his thoughts upon a slate :- The Critic spits on what is done,- — Gives it a wipe^ — and all is gone. v:mzm^ In presenting his Whims and Oddities to the Pubhc, the Author desires to say a few words, which he hopes will not swell into a Memoir. It happens to most persons, in occasional lively moments, to have their little chirping fancies and brain-crotchets, that skip out of the ordinary meadow-land of the mind. The Author has caught his, and clapped them up in paper and print, like grasshoppers in a cage. The judicious reader will look upon the trifling creatures accord- ingly, and not expect from them the flights of poetical winged horses. Mil PREFACE. • At a future time, the Press may ])e troubled witli some tilings of a more vserious tone and purpose, — which the Author has resolved u}X)n publishing, in despite of the advice of certain critical friends. His forte, they are pleased to say, is decidedly humourous ; but a gentleman cannot always be breathing his comic vein. It will be seen, from the illustrations of the present work, that the Inventor is no artist ; — in fact, he was never " meant to draw" — any more than the tape-tied curtains mentioned by Mr. Pope. Those who look at his designs, with Ovid's Love of Art, will therefore be disappointed ; — his sketches are as rude and artless to other sketches, as Ingram's rustic manufacture to the polished chair. The designer is quite aware of their de- fects : but when Raphael has bestowed seven odd legs upon four Apostles, and Fuseli has stuck in a great goggle head without an owner ; — when Michael Angelo has set on a foot the wrong way, and Hogarth has painted in defiance of all the laws of nature and perspective , he does hope PREFACE. , ].\ tliat his own little enormities may be forgiven — that his sketches may look interesting, like Lord Byron's Sleeper, — " with all their errors." Such as they are, the Author resigns his pen- and-ink fancies to the public eye. He has more designs in the wood ; and if the present sample should be relished, he will cut more, and come again, according to the pi-overb, with a New Series. CONTENTS. Page. Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Preface .. .. .. .. .. .. .. vii Moral Reflections on the Cross of St. Paul's . . . . 1 The Prayse of Ignorance . . . . . . . . . . 4 A Valentine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Love . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Please to ring the lielle .. ., .. ..13 A Recipe — for Civilization .. .. .. ..14 On the Popular Cupid .. .. .. ..21 The Last Man . . . . . . . . . . 23 The Ballad of "Sally Brown and Ben the Carpenter." .. 33 Backing the Favourite . . . . . . . . 38 A Complaint against Greatness . . . . . . 40 The Mermaid of Margate .. .. .. ..44 My Son, Sir .. .. .. .. ..50 " As it fell upon a day," .. .. .. ..52 A Fairy Tale . . . . . . . . . . 54 The Spoil'd Child .. .. .. .. 59 The Fall of the Deer .. .. .. .. 63 December and May . . . . . • • . <>5 A Winter Nosegay . . . . . . • • 18 A RECIPE rOlJ CIVILIZATION. Whereas a cook would soon unseat him And make his own churchwardens eat him. Not Irving could convert those vermin Th' Anthropophages, by a sermon ; Whereas your Osborne,* in a trice, Would '' take a shin of beef and spice/' — And raise them such a savoury smother No Negro would devour his brother, But turn his stomach round as loth As Persians, to the old black broth, — For knowledge oftenest makes an entry. As well as true love, thro' the pantry. Where beaux that came at first for feeding Grow gallant men and get good breeding ; — Exempli gratia — in the West, Ship-traders say there swims a nest Lin'd with black natives, like a rookery. But coarse as carrion crows at cookery. — This race, though now call'd O. Y. E. men, (To show they are more than A. B. C. men,) Was once so ignorant of our knacks They laid their mats upon their backs. And grew their quartern loaves for luncheon On trees that baked them in the sunshine. As for their bodies, they were coated, (For painted things are so denoted ;) * Cook lo the late Sir Joseph Bankes. A RECrPK — FOR CTVILTZATION. 19 But, the naked truth is, stark primeval s. That said their prayers to timber devils. Allow' d polygamy — dwelt in wig-wams. And, when they meant a feast, ate big yams. — And why ? — because their savage nook Had ne'er been visited by Cooke, — And so they fared till our great chief Brought them not methodists, but beef In tubs, — and taught them how to live. Knowing it was too soon to give. Just then, a homily on their sins, (For cooking ends ere grace begins) Or hand his tracts to the untractable Till they could keep a more exact tables — For nature has her proper courses. And wild men must be back'd like horses. Which, jockeys know, are never fit. For riding till theyVe had a bit I' the mouth ; but then, with proper tackle. You may trot them to a tabernackle ; Ergo (I say) he first made changes In the heathen modes, by kitchen ranges. And taught the king's cook, by convincing Process, that chewing was not mincing, And in her black fist thrust a bundle Of tracts abridg'd from Glasse and Rundle, Where, ere she had read beyond Welsh rabbits She saw the spareness of her habits 20 A HECIPE FOR CIVILIZATION. And round her loins put on a striped Towel^ where fingers might be wiped. And then her breast clothed like her ribs (For aprons lead of course to bibs) And, by the time she had got a meat- Screen, veil'd her back, too, from the heat- As for her gravies and her sauces, (Tho' they reform'd the royal fauces,) Her forcemeats and ragouts, — I praise not, Because the legend further says not, Except, she kept each Christian high-day. And once upon a fat good Fry-day Ran short of logs, and told the Pagan, That turn'd the spit, to chop up Dagon ! — > . > ^■--- •' Tell me, my heart, can this be Love ?" ON THE POPULAR CUPID. The figure opposite was copied, by permission, from a lady's Valentine. To the common apprehension, it represents only a miracle of stall-feeding — a babe- Lambert — a caravan-prodigy of grossness, — but, in the romantic mythology, it is the image of the Divinity of Love. — In sober verity, — does such an incubus oppress the female bosom ? Can such a monster of obesity be coeval Avith the gossamer natures of Sylph and Fairy in the juvenile faith? Is this he — the buoyant Camdeo, — that, in the mind's eye of the poetess, drifts adown the Ganges in a lotus — " Pillow' d in a lotus flow'r Gather'd in a summer hour. Floats he o'er the mountain wave. Which would be a tall ship's grave ? ' — Is this personage the disproportionate partner for whom Pastorella sigheth, — in the smallest of cots? — Does the platonic Amanda (who is all soul) refer, in 2'2 ON TlIK POPULAK CUPID. her discourses on love, to this palpable being, who is all body ? Or does Belinda, indeed, believe that such a substantial Sagittarius lies ambush'd in her perilous blue eye? It is in the legend, that a girl of Provence was smitten once, and died, by the marble Apollo: but did impassioned damsel ever dote, and wither, beside the pedestal of this preposterous effigy ? or, rather, is not the unseemly emblem accountable for the coyness and proverbial reluctance of maidens to the ap- proaches of Love ? I can believe in his dwelling alone in the heart — seeing that he must occupy it to repletion ; — in his constancy, because he looks sedentary and not apt to roam. That lie is given to melt — from his great pinguitude. That he burneth with a flame, for so all fat burneth — and hath languishings — like other bodies of his tonnage. That he sighs — from his size — I dispute not his kneeling at ladies' feet — since it is the posture of elephants, — nor his promise that the homage shall remain eternal. I doubt not of his dying, — being of a corpulent habit, and a short neck. Of his blindness — with that inflated pig's cheek. — But for his lodging in Belinda's blue eye, my whole faith is heretic — -for she hath never a sty in it. '* The Last Man." THE LAST MAN. 'TwAS in the year two thousand and one, A pleasant morning of May, I sat on the gallows-tree, all alone, A chaunting a merry lay, — To think how the pest had spared my lilc. To sing with the larks that day ! When up the heath came a jolly knave. Like a scarecrow, all in rags : It made me crow to see his old duds All abroad in the wind, like flags ; — So up he came to the timbers' foot And pitch'd down his greasy bags. — Good Lord ! how blythe the old beggar was ! At pulling out his scraps, — The very sight of his broken orts IMade a work in his wrinkled chaps : " Come down," says he, " you Newgate-bird, And have a taste of my snaps !'" — 24 THE LAST MAN. Then down tlie rope, like a tar from the mast, I slided, and by him stood: But I wish'd myself on the gallows again When I smelt that beggar's food, — A foul beef-bone and a mouldy crust ; — " Oh!" quoth he, '-the heavens are good !" Then after this grace he cast him down: Says I, " You'll get sweeter air A pace or two off, on the windward side" — For the felons' bones lay there — But he only laugh'd at the empty skulls. And offer'd them part of his fare. " I never harm'd them, and they v/on't harm me : Let the proud and the rich be cravens !" I did not like that strange beggar man, He look'd so up at the heavens — Anon he shook out his empty old poke; — "There's the crums," saith he, "for the ravens !" It made me angry to see his face. It had such a jesting look ; But while I made up my mind to speak, A small case-bottle he took : Quoth he, "though I gather the green water-cress. My drink is not of the brook !" THE LAST MAN. 25 Full manners-like he tender'd the dram ; Oh it came of a dainty cask ! But, whenever it came to his turn to pull, '' Your leave, good sir, I must ask ; But I always wipe the brim with my sleeve. When a hangman sups at my flask !" And then he laugh' d so loudly and long, The churl was quite out of breath ; I thought the very Old One was come To mock me before my death. And wish'd I had buried the dead men's bones That were lying about the heath ! But the beggar gave me a jolly clap — '' Come, let us pledge each other. For all the wide world is dead beside. And we are brother and brother — I've a yearning for thee in my heart, As if we had come of one mother. " I've a yearning for thee in my heart That almost makes me weep. For as I pass'd from town to town The folks were all stoce-asleep, — But when I saw thee sitting aloft, It made me both laugh and leap !" 26 THE r>AST iMAX. Now .1 curse (I thought) be on his love. And a curse upon his mirth, — An' it were not for that beggar man I'd be the King of the earth, — But I promis'd myself, an hour should come To make him rue his birth ! — So down we sat and bous'd again Till the Sim was in mid-skv, When, just as the gentle west- wind came, We hearken'd a dismal cry : " Up, up, on the tree," quoth the beggar man, " Till those horrible dogs go by !" And, lo ! from the forest's far-off skirts. They came all yelling for gore, A hundred hounds pursuing at once. And a panting hart before, Till he sunk adown at the gallows' foot, And there his haunches they tore ! His haunches they tore, without a horn To tell when the chase was done ; And there was not a single scarlet coat To flaunt it in the sum ! — I turn'd, and look'd at the beggar man. And his tears dropt one by one ! THK LAST 31 AN. ^7 And with curses sore he chid at the houmls, Till the last dropt out of sight. Anon saithhe, "let's down again. And ramble for our delight. For the world's all free, and we may choose A right cozie barn for to-night !" With that, he set up his staff on end. And it fell with the point due West ; So we far'd that way to a city great. Where the folks had died of the pest — It was fine to enter in house and hall, Wherever it liked me best ! — For the porters all were stiff and cold. And could not lift their heads ; And when we came where their masters lay, The rats leapt out of the beds : — The grandest palaces in the land Were as free as workhouse sheds. But the beggar man made a mumping face. And knocked at every gate : It made me curse to hear how he whined. So our fellowship turn'd to hate. And I bade him walk the world by himself. For I scorn'd so humble a mate ! 28 THK I-AST MAS. So /ic turn'd riglit nnd / tum'd left. As if we had never met ; And I chose a fair stone house for myself, For the city was all to let ; And for three brave holydays drank my fill ' Of the choicest that I could get. And because my jerkin was coarse and worn, I got me a properer vest ; It was purple velvet, stitch'd o'er with gold, And a shining star at the breast, — 'Twas enough to fetch old Joan from her grave To see me so purely drest ! — But Joan was dead and under the mould. And every buxom lass ; In vain T watch'd, at the window pane, For a Christian soul to pass ; — But sheep and kine wander d up the street. And browz'd on the new-come grass. — When lo ! I spied the old beggar man. And lustily he did sing ! — His rags were lapp'd in a scarlet cloak. And a crown he had like a King ; So he stept right up before my gate And danc'd me a saucy fling ! THE LAST MAN. 29 Heaven mend us all ! — but, within my mind, I had kiird him then and there ; To see him lording so braggart-like That was born to his beggar's fare. And how he had stolen the royal crown His betters were meant to wear. But God forbid that a thief should die Without his share of the laws ! So I nimbly whipt my tackle out. And soon tied up his claws, — I was judge, myself, and jury, and all. And solemnly tried the cause. But the beggar man would not plead, but cried Like a babe without its corals. For he knew how hard it is apt to go When the law and a thief have quarrels, — There was not a Christian soul alive To speak a word for his morals. Oh, how gaily I dofTd my costly gear, And put on my work-day clothes ; — I was tired of such along Sunday life, And never was one of the sloths ; But the beggar man grumbled a weary deal. And made many crooked moutlis. 30 THE LAST MAN. So I haul'd liiin off to tlie gallows* foot, And blinded him in his bags ; 'Twas a weary job to heave him up, For a doom'd man always lags ; But by ten of the clock he w^as off his legs In the wind and airing his rags ! So there he hung, and there I stood The LAST IMAN left alive. To have my own will of all the earth : Quoth I, now I shall thrive ! But when was ever honey made With one bee in a hive ! My conscience began to gnaw my heart Before the day was done. For other men's lives had all gone out. Like candles m the sun ! — But it seem'd as il I had broke, at last, A thousand necks in one ! So I went and cut his body down To bury it decentlie ; — God send there were any good soul alive To do the like by me ! But the wild dogs came with terrible speed, And bay'd me up the tree ! *' Pigmy and Crane." THE LAST MAN. 31 My sight was like a drunkard's sight. And my head began to swim. To see their jaws all white with foam, Like the ravenous ocean brim ; — But when the wild dogs trotted away Their jaws were bloody and grim ! Their jaws were bloody and grim, good Lord ! But the beggar man, where was he ? — There was nought of him but some ribbons of rags Below the gallows' tree ! — I know the Devil, when I am dead, Will send his hounds for me ! — I've buried my babies one by one. And dug the deep hole for Joan, And cover'd the faces of kith and kin, And felt the old churchyard stone Go cold to my heart, full many a time. But I never felt so lone ! For the lion and Adam were company, And the tiger him beguil'd ; But the simple kine are foes to my life, And the household brutes are wild. If the veriest cur would lick my hand, I could love it like a child ! 32 THE LAST MAN. Antl the beggar man's ghost besets my dreams. At night, to make me madder, — And ray wretched conscience, within my breast. Is like a stinging adder ; — I sigh when I pass the gallows' foot. And look at the rope and ladder ! — For hanging looks sweet, — but, alas ! in vain. My desperate fancy begs, — I must turn my cup of sorrows quite up. And drink it to the dregs, — For there is not another man alive, In the world, to pull my legs ! 33 THE BALLAD OF " SALLY BROWN, AND BEN THE CARPENTER. ' I HAVE never been vainer of any verses than of my part in the following Ballad. Dr. Watts^ amongst evangelical nurses, has an enviable renown — and Campbell's Ballads enjoy a snug genteel popularity. " Sally Brown" has been favoured, perhaps, with as wide a patronage as the Moral Songs, though its circle may not have been of so select a class as the friends of " Hohenlinden." But I do not desire to see it amongst what are called Elegant Extracts. The lamented Emery, — drest as Tom Tug, sang it at his last mortal Benefit at Covent Garden ; — and, ever since, it has been a great favourite with the watermen of Thames, who time their oars to it, as the wherry- men of Venice time theirs to the lines of Tasso. With the watermen, it went naturally to Vauxhall: — and over land, to Sadler's Wells. The Guards — not the mail coach, but the Life Guards, — picked it out from a fluttering hundred of others — all going to one air — ^against the dead wall at Knightsbridge. I) .'J4 TlIK BALLAD OF C'hca}) Printers of Slioe Lane, and Cow-cross, (all pirates!) disputed about the Copyright, and published their own editions, — and, in the mean time, the Au- thors, to have made bread of their song, (it was poor old Homer's hard ancient case!) must have sung it about the streets. Such is the lot of Literature ! the profits of " Sally Brown" were divided by the Ballad jMon- gers : — it lias cost, but has never brought me, a half- penny. PWITHLESS SALLY BROWN. AN OLD BALLAD. Young Ben he was a nice young man, A carpenter by trade ; And he fell in love with Sally Brown, That was a lady's maid. But as they fetch'd a walk one day. They met a press-gang crew ; And Sally she did faint away. Whilst Ben he was brought to. The Boatswain swore with wicked words. Enough to shock a saint, That though she did seem in a fit, 'Twas nothing but a feint. Christmas Pantomime. SALLY BROWN, AND BEN THK CARPENTER. 35 '' Come, girl/' said he, " hold up your head, He'll be as good as me ; For when your swain is in our boat, A boatswain he will be." So when they'd made their game of her. And taken off her elf, She roused, and found she only was A coming to herself. " And is he gone, and is he gone ?" She cried, and wept outright : " Then I will to the water side. And see him out of sight." A waterman came up to her, — " Now, young woman," said he, " If you weep on so, you will make Eye-water in the sea." " Alas ! they've taken my beau, Ben, To sail with old Benbow ;" And her woe began to run afresh. As if she had said Gee woe ! Says he, " they've only taken him To the Tender ship, you see ;" — " The Tender- ship," cried Sally Brown, " What a hard-ship that must be ! .*i(> THE BALLAD OP " O ! would I were a mermaid now. For then I'd follow him ; But, Oh ! I'm not a fish-woman. And so I cannot swim. " Alas ! I was not born beneath ' The virgin and the scales. So I must curse my cruel stars. And walk about in Wales." Now Ben had sail'd to many a place That's underneath the world ; But in two years the ship came home, And all the sails were furl'd. But when he call'd on Sally Brown, To see how she went on. He found she'd got another Ben, Whose Christian-name was John. " O Sally Brown, O Sally BroAvn, How could you serve me so, I've met with many a breeze before. But never such a blow !" Then reading on his bacco box. He heaved a heavy sigh. And then began to eye his pipe. And then to pipe his eye. SALLY BROWN, AND BEN THE CARPENTER. 37 And then he tried to sing " All's Well, But could not, though he tried ; His head was turn'd, and so he chew'd His pigtail till he died. His death, which happen'd in his birth. At forty-odd befell : They went and told the sexton, and The sexton toU'd the bell. 38 BACKING THE FAVOURITE. Oh a pistol, or a knife ! For I'm weary of my life, — ]\Iy cup has nothing sweet, left, to flavour it 3 My estate is out at nurse. And my heart is like my purse — And all thro' backing of the Favourite ! At dear O'Neill's first start, I sported all my heart, — Oh, Becher he never marr'd a braver hit ! For he cross'd her in her race. And made her lose her place. And there was an end of that Favourite ! Anon, to mend my chance, For the Goddess of the Dance* I pin'd, and told my enslaver it ; — * The late favourite of the King's Theatre, who left the pas seul of life, for a perpetual Ball. Is not that her effigy, now commonly borne about by the Italian image vendors — an ethereal form, holding a wreath with both hands above her head — and her husband, in emblem, beneath her foot. " O, my bounie bonnie Bet !" BACKING THE FAVOURITE. 30 But she wedded in a canter. And made me a Levanter, In foreign lands to sigh for the Favourite ! Then next Miss M. A. Tree I adored, so sweetly she Could warble like a nightingale and quaver it; — But she left that course of life To be Mr. Bradshaw's wife. And all the world lost on the Favourite ! But out of sorrow's surf Soon I leap'd upon the turf, Where fortune loves to wanton it and waver it ; — But standing on the pet, " Oh my bonny, bonny, Bet !" Black and yellow pull'd short up with the Fa- vourite ! Thus flung by all the crack, I resolv'd to cut the pack, — The second-raters seem'd then a safer hit ! — So I laid my little odds Against JMemnon — Oh, ye Gods ! Am I always to be floor d by the Favourite ! 40 A COMPLAINT AGAINST GREATNESS. I am an unfortunate creature^ the most wretched of all that groan under the burthen of the flesh. I am fainting, as they say of kings, under my oppres- sive greatness. A miserable Atlas — I sink under the world of — myself. But the curious will here ask me for my name. I am then, or they say I am, " The Reverend Mr. Farmer, a four-years' old Durham Ox, fed by himself, upon oil cake and mangel- v/urzel :" but I resemble that worthy agricultural Vicar only in my fat living. In plain truth, I am an unhappy candidate for the show at Sadler's, not "the Wells," but the Repository. They tell me I am to bear the bell, (as if I had not enough to bear already !) by my surpassing tonnage — and, doubtless, the prize-emblem will be proportioned to my uneasy merits. With a great Tom of Lincoln about my neck — alas ! what will it comfort me to have been "commended by the judges." Wearisome and painful was my Pilgrim-like pro- gress to this place, by short and tremulous steppings. « O, that this too too solid flesh would melt A COMPLAINT AGAINST GREATNESS. 41 like the digit's march upon a dial. My owner, jealous of my fat, procured a crippled drover, with a withered limb, for my conductor ; but even he hurried me be- yond my breath. The drawling hearse left me labouring behind ; the ponderous fly- waggon passed me like a bird upon the road, so tediously slow is my pace. It just sufficeth. Oh, ye thrice happy Oysters ! that have no locomotive faculty at all, to distinguish that I am not at rest. Wherever the grass grew by the way-side, how it tempted my natural longings — the cool brook flowed at my very foot, but this short thick neck forbade me to eat or drink ; nothing but my redundant dewlap is likely ever to graze on the ground ! If stalls and troughs were not extant, I must perish. Nature has given to the Elephant a long flexible tube, or trunk, so that he can feed his mouth, as it were, by his nose : but is man able to furnish me with such an implement } Or would he not still withhold it, lest I should prefer the green herb, my natural delicious diet, and reject his rank, unsavoury condiments ? — What beast, with free will, but would repair to the sweet meadow for its pasture ; and yet how grossly is he labelled and libelled.'* Your bovine servant, in the catalogue, is a " Durham Ox, fed by himself, (as if he liad any election,) upon oil-cake." I wonder what rapacious Cook, with an eye to her insatiable grease-pot and kitchen perquisites, gave 42 A COMPLAINT AGA1N8T GREATNESS. the hint of this system of stall-feeding ! What Linctiious Hull INIerchant, or candle-loving INIiiscovite, made this grossness a desideratum? If mine were, indeed, like the fat of the tender sucking pig, that delicate gluten ! there would be reason for its un- bounded promotion ; but to see the prize steak, loaded with that rank yellow abomination, (the lamplighters know its relish,) might wean a man from carnivorous habits for ever. Verily, it is an abuse of the Christmas holly, the emblem of Old English and wholesome cheer, to plant it upon such blubber. A gentlemanly entrail must be driven to extreme straits, indeed, (Davis's Straits,) to feel any yearnings for such a meal ; and yet I am told that an assembly of gentry, with all the celebrations of full bumpers and a blazing chimney-pot, have honoured the broiled slices of a prize bullock, a dishfull of stringy fibres, an animal cabbage-net, and that rank even hath been satisfied with its rankness. Will the honourable club, whose aim it is thus to make the beastly nature more beastly, consider of this matter ? Will the humane, when they provide against the torments of cats and dogs, take no notice of our condition ? Nature, to the whales, and creatures of their corpulence, has assigned the cool deeps; but we have no such refuge in our meltings. At least, let the stall-feeder confine his system to the uncleanly swine which chews not the cud: for let the worthy members conceive on the palate of ima- A COMPLAINT AGAINST GREATNESS. 43 gination, the abominable returns of the refuse-linseed in our after ruminations. Oh, let us not suffer in vain ! It may seem presumption in a brute^ to question the human wisdom ; but, truly, I can perceive no bene- ficial ends, worthy to be set-off against our sufferings. There must be, methinks, a nearer way of augmenting the perquisites of the kitchen-wench and the fire-man, — of killing frogs, — than by exciting them, at the ex- pense of us poor blown-up Oxen, to a mortal inflation. 44 THE MERMAID OF INIARGATE. " Alas! what perils do environ The man that meddles with a siren ?" HUDIEKAS. On Margate beach, where the sick one roams. And the sentimental reads ; Where the maiden flirts, and the widow comes Like the ocean — to cast her weeds ; — Where urchins v/ander to pick up shells. And the Cit to spy at the ships, — Like the water gala at Sadler's Wells ; — And the Chandler for watery dips ; — There's a maiden sits by the ocean brim, As lovely and fair as Sin ! But woe, deep water and woe to him. That she snareth like Peter Fin ! Her head is crown' d with pretty sea wares, And her locks are golden and loose : " All's well that ends well." THE MERMAID OF MARGATE. 45 And seek to her feet, like other folks' heirs. To stand, of course, in her shoes ! And, all day long, she combeth them well. With a sea-shark's prickly jaw ; — And her mouth is just like a rose-lipp'd shell, The fairest that man e'er saw ! And the Fishmonger, humble as love may be. Hath planted his seat by her side ; — " Good even, fair maid ! Is thy lover at sea. To make thee so watch the tide ?" She turn'd about with her pearly brows. And clasp'd him by the hand : — " Come, love, with me ; I've a bonny house On the golden Goodwin Sand." And then she gave him a siren kiss, — No honeycomb e'er was sweeter : Poor wretch ! how little he dreamt for this That Peter should be salt-Peter ! And away with her prize to the wave she leapt. Not walking, as damsels do, — With toe and heel, as she ought to have stept — But she hopt like a Kangaroo ! 46 THE MERiMAII) OK MARGATE. One plunirc, and then the victim was blind, Wliilst they gallop' d across the tide ; At last, on the bank, he waked m his mind, And the Beauty was by his side. One half on the sand, and half in the sea, But his hair all began to stiffen ; — For, when he look'd where her feet should be, She had no more feet than Miss Biffen ! But a scaly tail, of a dolphin*s growth. In the dabbling brine did soak : At last, she open d her pearly mouth, Like an oyster, and thus she spoke : — " You crimpt my father, who was a skate ; And my sister, you sold — a maid ; — So here remain for a fishery fate. For lost you are, and betray'd !" And away she went, with a seagull's scream. And a splash of her saucy tail : In a moment, he lost the silvery gleam That shone on her splendid mail ! The sun went down with a blood-red flame. And the sky grew cloudy and black. And the tumbling billows like leap-frog came. Each over the other's back ! THE MERMAID OF MARGATE. 47 Ah, me ! it had been a beautiful scene, With the safe terra-firma round ; But the green water hillocks all seem'd to him, Like those in a church-yard ground ; And Christians love in the turf to lie, Not in watery graves to be ; — Nay, the very fishes will sooner die On the land than in the sea — And whilst he stood, the watery strife Encroach'd on every hand. And the ground decreas'd, — his moments of life Seem'd measur'd, like Time's, by sand ; And still the waters foam'd in, like ale. In front, and on either flank, — He knew that Goodwin and Co. must fail. There was such a run on the bank. A little more, and a little more, The surges came tumbling in ; — He sang the evening hymn twice o'er. And thought of every sin ! Each flounder and plaice lay cold at his heart. As cold as his marble slab ; And he thought he felt, in every part. The pinchers of scalded crab ! 48 THE MKRMAII) OP MARGATE. The squealing lobsters tliat he had boil'd, And the little potted shrimps, All the horny prawns, he had ever spoil'd. Gnawed into his soul, like imps ! And the billows were wandering to and fro, And the glorious sun was sunk. And Day, getting black in the face, as tho' Of the night- shade she had drunk ! Had there been but a smuggler's cargo adrift. One tub, or keg, to be seen, It might have given his spirits a lift. Or an anker where Hope might lean ! But there was not a box or a beam afloat. To raft him from that sad place ; Not a skiff, not a yawl, or a mackarel boat. Nor a smack upon Neptune's face. At last, his lingering hopes to buoy. He saw a sail and a mast. And called " Ahoy !" — but it w as not a hoy. And so the vessel went past. And with saucy wing that flapp'd in his face. The wild bird about him flew. With a shrilly scream, that twitted his case, " Why, thou art a sea-gull too ! THE MERMAID OP MARGATE. And lo ! the tide was over his feet ; Oh ! his heart began to freeze, And slowly to pulse : — in another beat The wave was up to his knees ! He was deafen' d amidst the mountain- tops. And the salt spray blinded his eyes. And wash'd away the other salt-drops That grief had caused to arise : — But just as his body was all afloat. And the surges above him broke. He was saved from the hungry deep by a boat, Of Deal-^(but builded of oak.) The skipper gave him a dram, as he lay, And chafed his shivering skin; And the Angel return d, that was flying away With the spirit of Peter Fin ! 49 50 MY SON, SIR. It happened, the other evening, that, intending to call in L Street, I arrived a few minutes before Hyson ; when W * * * * *, seated beside the Urn, his eyes shaded by his hand, — was catechising his learned prodigy, the Master Hopeful, as if for a tea-table degree. It was a whimsical constrast, between the fretful pouting visage of the urchin, having his gums rubbed, so painfully to bring forward his wisdom- tooth — and the parental visage, sage, solemn, and satisfied, and appealing ever and anon, by a dramatic side look, to the circle of smirking auditors. W ^ * * * * was fond of this kind of display, eternally stirring up the child for exhibition with his troublesome long pole, — besides lecturing him through the diurnal vacations so tediously, that the poor urchin was fain, — for the sake of a little play, — to get into school again. I hate all forcing-frames for the young intellect, — and the Locke system, which after all is but a Canal system for raising the babe-mind to unnatural levels. 'My son, Sir.' MY SON, SIR. 51 J pity the poor child, that is learned in alpha beta, but ignorant of top and taw, — and was never so maliciously gratified, as when, in spite of all his promptings and leading questions, I beheld W * * * * * reddening, even to the conscious tips of his tingling earsj at the boy's untimely inaptitude. Why could he not rest contented, when the poor imp had answered him already, " What was a Roman Emperor ?" — without requiring an interpretation of the Logos ? 52 " AS IT FELL UPON A DAY." I WONDER that W , tlie Ami des Enfans^ has never written a sonnet, or ballad, on a girl that had broken her pitcher. There are in the subject the poignant heart's anguish for sympathy and descrip- tion ; — and the brittleness of jars and joys, with the abrupt loss of the watery fruits — (the pumpkins as it were) of her labours, for a moral. In such childish accidents there is a world of woe ; — the fall of earth- enware is to babes, as, to elder contemplations, the Fall of Man. I have often been tempted myself to indite a didactic ode to that urchin, in Hogarth, with the ruined pie- dish. What a lusty agony is wringing him — so that all for pity he could die ; — and then, there is the instan- taneous falling on of the Beggar Girl, to lick up the fragments — expressively hinting how universally want and hunger are abounding in this miserable world, — and ready gaping at every turn, for such windfalls and stray Godsends. But, hark ! — what a shrill, feline cry startleth the wide Aldgate ! " As it fell upon a day. " AS IT FELL UPON A DAY." 53 Oh ! what's befallen Bessy Brown^ She stands so squalling in the street ; She's let her pitcher tumble down, And all the water's at her feet ! The little school boys stood about, And laugh'd to see her pumping, pumping ; Now with a curtsey to the spout. And then upon her tiptoes jumping. Long time she waited for her neighbours. To have their turns : — but she must lose The watery wages of her labours, — Except a little in her shoes ! Without a voice to tell her tale, And ugly transport in her face ; All like a jugless nightingale. She thinks of her bereaved case. At last she sobs — she cries — she screams ! And pours her flood of sorrows out. From eyes and mouth, in mingled streams, Just like the lion on the spout. For well poor Bessy knows her mother Must lose her tea, for water's lack. That Sukey burns — and baby-brother Must be dry rubbd with liuck-a-back ! 54 A P^AIRY TALE. On Hounslow heath — and close beside the road. As western travellers may oft have seen^ — A little house some years ago there stood, A minikin abode ; And built like Mr. Birkbeck's, all of wood ; The walls of white, the window shutters green ; — Four wheels it had at North, South, East, and West, (Tho' now at rest,) On which it used to wander to and fro'. Because its master ne'er maintain'd a rider. Like those who trade in Paternoster Row ; But made his business travel for itself. Till he had made his pelf. And then retired — if one may call it so. Of a roadsider. Perchance, the very race and constant riot Of stages, long and short, which thereby ran. Made him more relish the repose and quiet Of his now sedentary caravan ; A FAIRY TALE. i)0 Perchance, he loved the ground because 'twas common, And so he might impale a strip of soil. That furnished, by his toil. Some dusty greens, for him and his old woman ; — And five tall hollyhocks, in dingy flower, Howbeit, the thoroughfare did no ways spoil His peace, — unless, in some unlucky hour, A stray horse came and gobbled up his bow'r ! But tir'd of always looking at the coaches. The same to come, — when they had seen them one day! And, used to brisker life, both man and wife Began to suffer N U E's approaches. And feel retirement like a long wet Sunday, — So, having had some quarters of school breeding. They turn'd themselves, like other folks, to reading ; But setting out where others nigh have done. And being ripen'd in the seventh stage. The childhood of old age. Began as other children have begun, — Not with the pastorals of Mr. Pope, Or Bard of Hope, Or Paley, ethical, or learned Porson, — But spelt, on Sabbaths, in St. Mark, or John, And then relax'd themselves with Whitting-ton, Or Valentine and Orson — But chiefly fairy tales they loved to con. 56 A FA IKY TALK. And being easily melted, in their dotage, Slobber' d, — and kept Reading, — and wej)t Over the White Cat, in their wooden cottage. Thus reading on — the longer They read, of course, their childish faith grew stronger In Gnomes, and Hags, and Elves, and Giants grim, — If talking Trees and Birds reveal'd to him. She saw the flight of Fairyland's, fly-waggons, And magic-fishes swim In puddle ponds, and took old crows for dragons, — Both were quite drunk from the enchanted flaggons ; When as it fell upon a summer's day. As the old man sat a feeding On the old babe-reading. Beside his open street-and-parlour door, A hideous roar Proclaim'd a drove of beasts was coming by the way. Long-horned, and short, of many a different breed. Tall, tawny brutes, from famous Lincoln-levels Or Durham feed ; With some of those unquiet black dwarf devils, From nether side of Tweed, Or Firth of Forth ; Looking half wild with joy to leave the North, — With dusty hides, all mobbing on together, — When,' — whether from a fly's malicious comment A FAIRY TALK. i> / Upon his tender flank, from which he shrank ; Or whether Only in some enthusiastic moment, — However, one brown monster, in a frisk. Giving his tail a perpendicular whisk, Kick'd out a passage thro' the beastly rabble ; And after a pas seul, — or, if you will, a Horn-pipe before the Basket -maker's villa, Leapt o'er the tiny pale, — Back'd his beef-steaks "against the wooden gable. And thrust his brawny bell-rope of a tail Right o'er the page. Wherein the sage Just then was spelling some romantic fable. The old man, half a scholar, half a dunce, Could not peruse, who could? — two tales at once ; And being hufF'd At what he knew was none of Riquet's Tuft ; Bang' d-to the door, But most unluckily enclosed a morsel Of the intruding tail, and all the tassel : — The monster gave a roar. And bolting off with speed, encreased by pain. The little house became a coach once more. And, like iMacheath, " took to the road" .-iirain ' Just then, by fortune's whimsical decree. The ancient woman stooping with her crupper ;>8 A FAIRY TALE. Towards sweet home, or where sweet home sliould he. Was getting up some household herbs for supper; Thouglitful of Cinderella,, in the tale. And quaintly wondering if magic shifts Could o'er a common pumpkin so prevail, To turn it to a coach ; — what pretty gifts IMight come of cabbages, and curly kale ; Meanwhile she never heard her old man's wail. Nor turn'd, till home had turn'd a corner, quite Gone out of sight ! At last, conceive her, rising from the ground. Weary of sitting on her russet cloathing ; And looking round Where rest was to be found. There was no house — no villa there — no nothing ! No house ! The change was quite amazing ; It made her senses stagger for a minute. The riddle's explication seem'd to harden ; But soon her superannuated 7ious Explained the horrid mystery ; — and raising Her hand to heaven, with the cabbage in it. On which she meant to sup, — " Well ! this is Fairy Work ! I'll bet a farden. Little Prince Silverwings has ketch'd me up. And set me down in some one else's garden !" " The Spoiled Child." 50 THE SPOILED CHILD. My Aunt Shakerly was of an enormous bulk. I have not done justice to her hugeness in my sketch, for my timid pencil declined to hazard a sweep at her real dimensions. — There is a vastness in the out- line, of even moderate proportions, 'till the mass is rounded- off by shadows, that makes the hand hesi- tate, and apt to stint the figure of its proper breadth ; how, then, should I have ventured to trace — like mapping in a Continent — the surpassing boundaries of my Aunt Shakerly ! — What a visage was hers ! — the cheeks, a pair of hemispheres : — her neck literally swallowed up by a supplementary chin. — Her arm cased in a tight sleeve, was as the bolster, — her body like the feather bed, of Ware. The waist, which, in other trunks, is an isthmus, was in hers only the middle zone, of a conti- nuous tract, of flesh; — her ankles overlapped her shoes. With such a figure, it may be supposed that her habits were sedentary. — When she did walk, the 60 THK SPOILED (IIILI), Tower Quay, lor the sake of the fresh river breeze, was lier favourite resort. But never, in all her water- side promenades, vcas she hailed by the uplifted finger of the Waterman. With looks purposely averted he declined, tacitly, such a Fairlopian Fair. — The Hackney-coach driver, whilst she halted over against him, mustering up all her scanty puffings for an exclamation, drove off to the nether pavement, and pleaded a prior call. The chairman, in answer to her signals — had just broken his poles. — Thus, her goings were crampt within a narrow circle : many thorough- fares, besides, being strange to her and inaccessible, such as Thames Street, through the narrow pavements ; — others, like the Hill of Holborn, — from their im- practicable steepness. — How she was finally to master a more serious ascension, (the sensible incumbrance of the flesh clinging to her even in her spiritual aspi- rations) was a matter of her serious despondency — a picture of Jacob's Ladder, by Sir F. Bourgeois, con- firming her, that the celestial staircase was without a landing. For a person of her elephantine proportions, my Aunt was of a kindly nature — for I confess a prejudice against such Giantesses. She was cheerful, and emi- nently charitable to the poor, — although she did not condescend to a personal visitation of their very limited abodes. If she had a fault, it was in her coji- diict towards children — not spoiling them by often THE SPOILED CHILD. ()l repeated indulgences, and untimely severities, the common practice of bad mothers ; — it was by a shorter course that the latent and hereditary virtues of the infant Shakerly were blasted in the bud. — Oh, my tender cousin * * ! (for thou wert yet unbap- tized.) Oh ! would thou had'st been, — my little babe- cousin, — of a savager mother born ! — For then, having thee comfortably swaddled, upon a backboard, with a hole in it, she would have hung thee up, out of harm's way, above the mantel shelf, or behind the kitchen door — whereas, thy parent was no savage, and so, having her hands full of other matters, she laid thee down, helpless, upon the parlour chair ! — In the meantime, the "Herald" came. — Next to an easy seat, my Aunt dearly loved a police news- paper ; — when she had once plunged into its columns, the most vital question obtained from her only a ran- dom answer ; — the world and the roasting jack stood equally still, — So, without a second thought, she drop- ped herself on the nursing . chair. One little smo- thered cry — my cousin's last breath, found its way into the upper air, — but the still small voice of the reporter engrossed the maternal ear. My Aunt never skimmed a newspaper, according to some people's practice. She was as solid a reader, as a sitter, and did not get up, therefore, till she had scone through the " Herald" from end to end. When she did rise, — which was suddenly, — the earth t>2 THE SPOILED CHILD, quaked — the windows rattled — the ewers splashed over — the crockery fell from the slielf — and tlie cat and rats ran out together, as they are said to do from a falling house. '^Heyday!" said my uncle, above stairs, as he staggered from the concussion — and, with the usual curiosity, he referred to his pocket-book for the Royal Birthday. But the almanack not accounting for the explosion, he ran down the stairs, at the heels of the housemaid — and there lay my Aunt, stretched on the parlour-floor, in a fit. At the very first glimpse, he explained the matter to his own satisfaction, in three words — " Ah — the apoplexy !" Now the housemaid had done her part to secure him against this error, by holding up the dead child ; but as she turned the body edge-ways, he did not perceive it. When he did see it — but T must draw a curtain over the parental agony — -X- -X: * -X- * * -)t * -X- About an hour after the catastrophe, an inquisitive she-neighbour called in, and asked if we should not have the Coroner to sit on the body : — but my uncle replied, " There was no need." — " But in cases, Mr. Shakerly, where the death is not natural." — '' My dear Madam," interrupted my uncle, — " it was a natural death enough." G3 THE FALL OF THE DEER. [From an oldiMS.] Now the loud Crye is up, and harke ! The barky e Trees give back the Bark ; The House Wife heares the merrie rout, And runnes, — and lets the beere run out, Leaving her Babes to weepe, — for why ? She likes to heare the Deer Dogges crye, And see the wild Stag how he stretches The naturall Buck-skin of his Breeches, Running like one of Human kind Dogged by fleet Bailiffes close behind — As if he had not payde his Bill For Ven'son, or was owing still For his two Homes, and soe did get Over his Head and Ears in Debt ; — Wherefore he strives to paye his Waye With his long Legges the while he maye :- But he is chased, like Silver Dish, As well as anye Hart wish. t)4 THK KAI.L OK THE DKEK. Except that one whose Heart doth beat So faste it hasteneth his Feet ; — And runninge soe, he holdeth Death Four Feet from him ; — till his Breath Faileth, and slacking Pace at last. From runninge slow he standeth faste. With hornie Bayonettes at baye To baying Dogges around, and they Pushing him sore, he pusheth sore. And goreth them that seeke his Gore, — Whatever Dogge his Home doth rive Is dead — as sure as he's alive ! Soe that courageous Hart doth fight With Fate, and calleth up his might. And standeth stout that he maye fall Bravelye and be avenged of all. Nor like a Craven yield his Breath Under tlie Jawes of Dogges and Death ! Muster Gralidtn. 65 DECEMBER AND MAY. Crabbed Age and Youth cannot live together." SllAKSPEARE. Said Nestor, to his pretty wife, quite sorrowful one day, " Why, dearest, will you shed in pearls those lovely eyes away ? You ought to be more fortified ;" — " Ah, brute, be quiet, do, I know I'm not so fortified, nor fiftyfied, as you !" " Oh, men are vile deceivers all, as T have ever heard. You'd die for me, you swore, and I — I took you at your word. I was a tradesman's widow then — a pretty change I've made ; To live, and die the wife of one, a widower by trade !' ¥ CO DECEMBER AND MAY. " Come, come, my dear, these flighty airs declare, in sober truth. You want as much in age, indeed,, as I can want in youth ; Besides, you said you liked old men, though now at me you huff. " *^ Why, yes," she said, ^' and so I do — but you're not old enough !" " Come, come, my dear, let's make it up, and have a quiet hiv^e ; I'll be the best of men, — I mean, — I'll be the best alive ! Your grieving so will kill me, for it cuts me to the core." — " I thank ye, sir, for telling me — for now I'll grieve the more!" Winter Nosegay. (57 A WINTER NOSEGAY. O, wither'd winter Blossoms, Dowager-flowers, — the December vanity. In antiquated visages and bosoms, — What are ye plann'd for Unless to stand for Emblems, and peevish morals of humanity ? There is my Quaker Aunt, A Paper-Flower, — with a formal border No breeze could e'er disorder, — Pouting at that old beau — the Winter Cherry, A pucker' d berry ; And Box, like a tough-liv'd annuitant. Verdant alway — From quarter-day even to quarter-day ; And poor old Honestj'^, as thin as want. Well named — God-wot ! Under the baptism of the water-pot, The very apparition of a plant ! 68 A WINTER NOSEGAY. And why, Dost hold thy head so high, Old Winter-Daisy ! — Because thy virtue never was infirm, Howe'er thy stalk be crazy ? That never wanton fly, or blighting worm, ]\Iade holes in thy most perfect indentation ? 'Tis likely that sour leaf. To garden thief, Forcepp'd or wingd, was never a temptation; — Well, — still uphold thy wintry-reputation ; Still shalt thou frown upon all lovers' trial : And when, like Grecian maids, young maids of ours Converse with flow'rs. Then thou shalt be the token of denial. Away ! dull weeds. Born without beneficial use or needs ! Fit only to deck out cold winding-sheets; And then not for the milkmaids' funeral-bloom, Or fair Fidele's tomb To tantalize, — vile cheats ! Some prodigal bee, with hope of after-sweets. Frigid, and rigid. As if ye never knew One drop of dew, Or the warm sun resplendent ; A WINTER NOSEGAY. 69 Indifferent of culture and of care, Giving no sweets back to the fostering air. Churlishly independent — I hate ye, of all breeds ! Yea, all that live so selfishly — to self. And not by interchange of kindly deeds — Hence! — from my shelf!. 70 EQUESTRIAN COURTSHIP. It was a young maiden went forth to ride. And there was a wooer to pace by her side ; Plis horse was so little, and hers so high. He thought his Angel was up in the sky. His love was great, tho' his wit was small ; He bade her ride easy — and that was all. The very horses began to neigh, — Because their betters had nought to say. They rode by elm, and they rode by oak. They rode by a church-yard, and then he spoke : "^My pretty maiden, if you'll agree You shall always amble through life with me." The damsel answer'd him never a word, But kick'd the grey mare, and away she spurr'd. The wooer still follow'd behind the jade. And enjoy 'd — like a wooer — the dust she made. EQUESTRIAN COURTSHIP. 71 They rode thro' moss, and they rode thro' more, — The gallant behind and the lass before ; — At last they came to a miry place. And there the sad wooer gave up the chase. Quoth he, ^' If my nag was better to ride, I'd follow her over the world so wide. Oh, it is not my love that begins to fail. But I've lost the last glimpse of the grey mare's tail!" 72 -SHE IS FAR FROM THE LAND." It has been my fortune, or misfortune, sometimes to witness the distresses of females upon shipboard ; — that is, in such fresh- victual passages as to Ramsgate — or to Leith. How they can contemplate or execute those longer voyages, beyond Good Hope's Cape, — even with the implied inducements of matrimony, — is one of my standard wonders. There is a natural shrinking — a catlike antipathy, — to water, in the lady- constitution, — (as the false Argonaut well re- membered when he shook off Ariadne) — that seems to forbid such sea-adventures. Betwixt a younger daughter, in Hampshire for example, — and a Judge's son of Calcutta, there is, apparently, a great gulf fixed : — How have I felt, and shuddered, for a timid, shrink- ing, anxious female, full of tremblings as an aspen, — about to set her first foot upon the stage — but it can be nothing to a maiden's debut on the deck of an East Indiaman. Handkerchiefs waving — not in welcome, but in farewell. Crowded boxes, — not filled with living >• She is far from the land. PHE IS FAR PROI\I THE LAND. 7'*^ Beauty and Fashion — but departing luggage. Not the mere noisy Gods of the gallery to encounter^, — but those, more boisterous, of the wind and wave. And then, all before her, — the great salt-water Pit ! — As I write this, the figure of Miss Oliver rises up before me, — just as she looked on her first introduc- tion, by the Neptune, to the Ocean. It was her first voyage, — and she made sure would be her last. Her storms commenced at Gravesend, — her sea began much higher up. She had qualms at Blackwall. At the Nore, she came to the mountain-billows of lier imagination ; for however the ocean may disappoint the expectation, from the land, — on shipboard, to the uninitiated, it hath all its terrors. — The sailor's capfull of wind was to her a North-wester. Every splash of a wave shocked her, as if each brought its torpedo. The loose cordage did not tremble and thrill more to the wind than her nerves. At every tack of the ves- sel, — on all-fours, for she would not trust to her own feet, and the out-stretched hand of courtesy, — she scrambled up to the higher side. Her back ached with straining against the bulwark, to preserve her own, and the ship's, perpendicular : — her eyes glanced right, left, above, beneath, before, behind — with all the alacrity of alarm. She had not organs enough of sight, or hearing, to keep watch against all her ima- gined perils : her ignorance of nautical matters, in the meantime, causing her to mistake the real sea- dangers for subjects of self-congratulation. It delighted her 74 SHE IS FAR FROM THE LAND. to understand that there were barely three fathoms of water between the vessel and the ground ; — her notion had been, that the whole sea was bottomless. — When the ship struck upon a sand, and was left there high and dry by the tide, her pleasure was, of course, com- plete. " We could walk about," she said, " and pick , up shells." I believe, she would have been as well contented, if our Neptune had been pedestalled upon a rock, — deep water and sea-room were the only sub- jects of her dread. When the vessel, therefore, got afloat again, the old terrors of the landswoman re- turned upon her with the former force. All possible marine difficulties and disasters were huddled, like an auction medley, in one lot, into her apprehension ; — Cables entangling her, Shipspars for mangling her, Ropes, sure of strangling her. Blocks over-dangling her ; Tiller to batter her. Topmast to shatter her. Tobacco to spatter her ; Boreas blustering, Boatswain quite flustering. Thunder clouds mustering To blast her with sulphur — If the deep don't engulf her ; Sometimes fear's scrutiny Pries out a mutiny, SHE IS FAR FROM THE LAND. 7«'> Sniffs conflagration, Or hints at starvation ;- — All the sea-dangers Buccaneers, rangers. Pirates and Sallee-men, Alorerine ffallevmen. Tornadoes and typhons. And horrible syphons. And submarine travels Thro' roaring sea-navels ; Every thing w^rong enough, Long-boat not long enough. Vessel not strong enough ; Pitch marring frippery. The deck very slippery. And the cabin — built sloping, The Captain a-toping. And the INIate a blasphemer. That names his Redeemer, — With inward uneasiness ; The cook known, by greasiness. The victuals beslubber'd. Her bed — in a cupboard ; Things of strange christening, Snatch'd in her listening. Blue lights and red lights And mention of dead-lights. And shrouds made a theme of. Things horrid to dream of, — SHE IS FAR FROM THE LAND. And biioijs in tlie water To fear all exhort her ; Her friend no Leander, Herself no sea gander. And ne'er a cork jacket On board of the packet ; The breeze still a stiffening, The trumpet quite deafening ; Thoughts of repentance. And doomsday and sentence ; Every thing sinister. Not a church minister, — Pilot a blunderer, Coral reefs under her. Ready to sunder her ; Trunks tipsy-topsy. The ship in a dropsy ; Waves oversurging her. Syrens a-dirgeing her ; Sharks all expecting her. Sword-fish dissecting her. Crabs with their hand-vices Punishing land vices ; Sea-dogs and unicorns. Things with no puny horns. Mermen carnivorous — " Good Lord, deliver us \" The rest of the voyage was occupied, — excepting " Come o'er the sea !" SHE IS PAR FROM THE LAND. 77 one bright interval, — with the sea-malady and sea- horrors. We were off Flamborough Head. A heavy swell, the consequence of some recent storm to the Eastward, was rolling right before the wind upon the land : — and, once under the shadow of the bluff pro- montory, we should lose all the advantage of a saving Westerly breeze. Even the seamen looked anxious : but the passengers, (save one,) were in despair. They were, already, bones of contention, in their own mis- givings, to the myriads of cormorants and waterfowl inhabiting that stupendous cliff. Miss Oliver alone was sanguine. She was all nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles ; — her cheeriness increased in propor- tion with our dreariness. Even the dismal pitching of the vessel could not disturb her unseasonable levity ; — it was like a' lightening before death — but, at length, the mystery was explained. She had springs of comfort that we knew not of. Not brandy, — for that we shared in common ; nor supplications, — for those we had all applied to ; — but her ears, being jealously vigilant of whatever passed between the mariners, she had overheard from the captain, — and it had all the sound, to her, of a comfortable promise, — that " if the wind held, we should certainly go on shore." 78 FANCIES ON A TEA-CUP. I LOVE to pore upon old china — and to speculate, from the images, on Cathay. I can fancy that the Chinese manners betray themselves, like the drunk- ard's, in their cups. — How quaintly pranked and patterned is their ves- sel ! — exquisitely outlandish, yet not barbarian. — How daintily transparent ! — It should be no vulgar earth, that produces that superlative ware, nor does it so seem in the enamell'd landscape. There, are beautiful birds ; there — rich flowers and gorgeous butterflies, and a delicate clime, if we may credit the porcelain. There be also horrible mon- sters, dragons, with us obsolete, and reckoned fabu- lous ', the main breed, doubtless, having followed Fohi (our Noah,) in his wanderings thither from the Mount Ararat. — But how does that impeach the loveliness of Cathay ? — There are such creatures even in Fairy-land. I long often to loiter in those romantic Paradises — studded with pretty temples — holiday pleasure FANCIES ON A TEA-CUP.'^ 79 j^rounds — tlie true Tea-Gardens. I like those mean- tiering waters, and the abounding little islands. And here is a Chinese nurse-maid, — Ho-Fi, chid- ing a fretful little Pekin child. The urchin hath just such another toy, at the end of a string, as might be purchased at our own Mr. Dunnett's. It argues an advanced state of civilization, where the children have many playthings ; and the Chinese infants, wit- ness their flying fishes and whirligigs, sold by the stray natives about our streets, are far-gone in such juvenile luxuries. But here is a better token. — The Chinese are a polite people: for they do not make household, much less husbandry, drudges of their wives. You may read the women's fortune in their tea-cups. In nine cases out of ten, the female is busy only in the Jady-like toils of the toilette. Lo ! here, how sedu- lously the blooming Hy-son is pencilling the mortal arches, and curving the cross-bows of her eye-brows. A musical instrument, her secondary engagement, is at her almost invisible feet. Are such little extre- mities likely to be tasked with laborious offices? — Marry, in kicking, they must be ludicrously im- potent, — but then she hath a formidable growth of nails. By her side, the obsequious Hum is pouring his soft flatteries into her ear. When she walketh abroad, (here it is on another sample) he shadeth her at twi>K. To both t>i'us, it' wc remain ; tor not 111 silence will I bear my altered lot^, To have you merry, sir, at my expense : No man of any sense. No true great person (and we both are great In our own ways) would tem]>t another's fate. I would myself depart In Mr. Cross's cart; But, like Othello, '' am not easily moved," There's a nice house in Tottenham Court, they say. Fit for a single gentleman's small play ; And more conveniently near your home ; You'll easily go and come. Or get a room in the City — in some street — Coachmaker's Hall, or the Paul's Head, Cateaton Street ; Any large place, in short, in which to get your bread ; But do not stay, and get Me into the Gazette ! 4. Ah ! The Gazette ; I press my forehead with my trunk, and wet ]\Iy tender cheek wuth elephantine tears. Shed of a walnut size From my wise eyes. To think of ruin after prosperous years. What a dread case would be For me — large me ! How happy could 1 be with either l / UEMONSTRATORY ODK. \i)b To meet at Basinghall Street, the fiibt and seventh And the eleventh ! To undergo (D n !) IMy last examination ! To cringe, and to surrender, Like a criminal offender. All my effects — my bell-pull, and my bell, ]My bolt, my stock of hay, my new deal cell. To poal my ivory. Sir ! And have some curious commissioner Very irreverently search my trunk ; 'Sdeath ! I should die With rage, to find a tiger in possession Of my abode ; up to his yellow knees In my old straw ; and my profound profession Entrusted to two beasts of assignees ! The truth is simply this, — if you will stay Under my very nose. Filling your rows Just at my feeding time, to see jjoiir x^lay. My mind's made up. No more at nine I sup, Except on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Sundays, From eight to eleven. As I hope for heaven. On Thursdays', and on Saturdays, and Mondays, 101) UEMONSTRATOKY OJ)E. I'll squeak and roar, and grunt without cessation, And utterly confound your recitation. And, mark me ! all my friends of the furry snout Shall join a chorus shout, fVe will be heard — we '11 spoil Your wicked ruination toil. Insolvency must ensue To you, sir, you ; Unless you move your opposition shop, And let me stop. 6. I have no more to say : — I do not write In anger, but in sorrow ; I must look How^ever to my interests every night. And they detest your *' Memorandum-book." If we could join our forces — I should like it ; You do the dialogue, and I the songs. A voice to me belongs ; (The Editors of the Globe and Traveller ring With praises of it, when I hourly sing God save the King.) If such a bargain could be schemed, I'd strike it ! I think, too, I could do the Welch old man In the Youthful Days, if dress'd upon your plan ; And the attorney in your Paris trip, — I'm large about the hip ! Now think of this ! — for we cannot go on As next door rivals, that my mind declares Take, O take those lips away ! RBMONSTHATORY ODE. 107 I must be penny less, or you be gone ! We must live separate, or else have shares. I am a friend or foe As you take this. Let me your profitable hubbub miss. Or be it '' Mathews, Elephant, and Co. \" J 08 A NEW LIFE-PRESERVER. " Of hairbreadth 'scapes." — Othello. I HAVE read somewhere of a Traveller, who carried with him a brace of pistols, a carbine, a cutlass, a dagger, and an umbrella, but was indebted for his preservation to the umbrella ; it grappled with a bush, when he was rolling over a precipice. In like manner, my friend W , though armed with a sword, rifle, and hunting-knife, owed his existence — to his wig ! He was specimen-hunting (for W is a first- rate naturalist,) somewhere in the back woods of America, when, happening to light upon a dense co- vert, there sprang out upon him, — not a panther or catamountain, — but, with terrible whoop and yell, a wild Indian, — one of a tribe then hostile to our set- tlers. W 's gun was mastered in a twinkling, himself stretched on the earth, the barbarous knife, destined to make him balder than Granby's celebra- ted Marquis, leaped eagerly f roni its sheath. A NEW LIFE-PRESERVER. 109 Conceive the horrible weapon making its prelimi- nary flourishes and circumgyrations ; the savage fea- tures, made savager by paint and ruddle, working themselves up to a demoniacal crisis of triumphant malignity ; his red right hand clutching the shearing- knife ; his left, the frizzled top-knot ; and then, the artificial scalp coming off in the Mohawk grasp ! W says, the Indian catchpole was, for some moments, motionless with surprise : recovering, at last, he dragged his captive along, through brake and jungle, to the encampment. A peculiar whoop soon brought the whole horde to the spot. The Indian addressed them with vehement gestures, in the course of which, W was again thrown down, the knife, again, performed its circuits, and the whole transaction was pantomimically described. All Indian sedateness and restraint were overcome. The assem- bly made every demonstration of wonder ; and the wig was fitted on, rightly, and askew, and hind part before, by a hundred pair of red hands. Captain Gulliver's glove was not a greater puzzle to the Houhyhnms. From the men, it passed to the squaws ; and from them, down to the least of the urchins ; W 's head, in the meantime, frying in a mid- summer sun. At length, the phenomenon returned into the hands of the chief — a venerable grey-beard : he examined it afresh, very attentively, and, after a long deliberation, maintained with true Indian silence and gravity, made a speech in his own tongue, that 110 A NEW LIFE-PRESERVER. procured for the anxious trembling captive very unex- ]iected honours. In fact, the whole tribe of women and warriors danced round him, with such unequi- vocal marks of homage, that even W compre- hended that he was not intended for a sacrifice. He was then carried in triumph to their wigwams, his body daubed with their body colours of the most honourable patterns ; and he was given to understand, that he might choose any of their marriageable mai- dens for a squaw. Availing himself of this privilege, and so becoming, by degrees, more a proficient in their language, he learned the cause of this extraordi- nary respect. — It was considered, that he had been a great warrior ; that he had, by mischance of war been overcome and tufted; but, that, whether by valour or stratagem, each equally estimable amongst the savages, he had recovered his liberty and his scalp. As long as W kept his own counsel, he was safe ; but trusting his Indian Dalilah with the secret of his locks, it soon got wind amongst the squaws, and from them, became known to the warriors and chiefs. A solemn sitting was held at midnight, by the chiefs, to consider the propriety of knocking the poor wig- owner on the head ,• but he had received a timely hint of their intention, and, when the tomahawks sought for him, he was far on his way, with his Life-pre- server, towards a British settlement. -iJ^ A Dream. IJi A DREAM. In the figure opposite, — (a medley of human faces, wherein certain features belong in common to dif- ferent visages, the eyebrow of one, for instance, form- ing the mouth of another,) — I have tried to typify a common characteristic of dreams, namely, the en- tanglement of divers ideas, to the waking mind dis- tinct or incongruous, but, by the confusion of sleep, inseparably ravelled up, and knotted into Gordian intricacies. For, as the equivocal feature, in the em- blem, belongs indifferently to either countenance, but is appropriated by the head that happens to be pre- sently the object of contemplation ; so, in a dream, two separate notions will mutually involve some convert- ible incident, that becomes, by turns, a symptom of both in general, or of either in particular. Thus are begotten the most extravagant associations of thoughts and images, — unnatural connexions, like those mar- riages of forbidden relationships, where mothers be- come cousins to their own sons or daughters, and 1J2 A DREAM. quite as bewildering as such s^enealogical embarrass- ments. I had a dismal dream, once, of this nature, that "vvill serve well for an illustration, and which originated in the failure of my first, and last, attempt as a drama- tic writer. IMany of my readers, if I were to name the piece in question, would remember its signal con- demnation. As soon as the Tragedy of my Tragedy was completed, I got into a coach and rode home. My nerves were quivering with shame and mor- tification. I tried to compose myself over '^Paradise Lost," but it failed to soothe me. I flunff mvself into bed, and at length slept ; but the disaster of the night still haunted my dreams : I was again in the accursed theatre, but with a difference. It was a compound of the Drury Lane Building, and Pandemonium. There were the old shining green pillars, on either side of the stage, but, above, a sublimer dome than ever overhung mortal playhouse. The wonted fami- liars were in keeping of the fore-spoken seats, but tlie first companies they admitted were new and strange to the place. The first and second tiers, " "With dreadful &ces thronged, and fiery arms," showed like those purgatorial circles sung of by the ancient Florentine. Satan was in the stage-box. The pit, dismally associated with its bottomless name-sake, was peopled Avith fiends. Mehu scowled from the critics* seat. Belial, flushed with wine, led on with A DREAM. 113 shout and catcall the uproar of the one-shilling infer- nals. My hair stood upright with dread and horror ; I had an appalling sense, that more than my dramatic welfare was at stake : — that it was to be not a purely literary ordeal. An alarming figure, sometimes a newspaper reporter, sometimes a devil, so prevarica- ting are the communications of sleep, was sitting, with his note book, at my side. My play began. As it proceeded, sounds indescribable arose from the infernal auditory, increasing till the end of the first Act. The familiar cry of " Chuse any oranges I" was then intermingled with the murmurings of demons. The tumult grew with the progress of the play. The last act passed in dumb show, the horned monsters bellowing, throughout, like the wild bulls of Bashan. Prongs and flesh-hooks showered upon the stage. Mrs. Siddons — the human nature thus jumbling with the diabolical — was struck by a brimstone ball. Her lofty brother, robed in imperial purple, came forward towards the orchestra, to remonstrate, and was received like the Arch-devil in the Poem : -he hears On all sides, from innumerable tongues, A dismal universal hiss, the sound Of public scorn. He bowed to the sense of the house, and withdrew. My doom was sealed; the recording devil noted down my sentence. A suffocating vapour, now smelling of 11 4 A DREAM. sulphur, and now of gas, issued from the unquench- able stage lamps. The flames of the Catalonian Castle, burning in the back scene, in compliance with the catastrophe of the piece, blazed up with horrible import. INIy flesh crept all over me. I thought of the everlasting torments, and, at the next moment, of the morrow's paragraphs. I shrank at once from the comments of the IMorning Post, and the hot marl of INIalebolge. The sins of authorship had confounded themselves, inextricably, with the mortal sins of the law. I could not disentangle my own from my play's perdition. I was damned : but whether spiritually or cb*amatically, the twilight intelligence of a dream was not clear enough to determine. Another sample, wherein the preliminaries of the dream involved one portion, and implicitly forbade the other half of the conclusion, was more whimsical. It occurred when I was on the eve of marriage, a sea- son, when, if lovers sleep sparingly, they dream pro- fusely. A very brief slumber sufficed to carry me in the night-coach to Bognor. It had been concerted, between Honoria and myself, that we should pass the honeymoon at some such place upon the coast. The purpose of my solitary journey was to procure an ap- propriate dwelling, and which, we had agreed, should be a little pleasant house, with an indispensible look- out Upon the sea. I chose one, accordingly ; a pretty villa, with bow-windows, and a prospect delightfully marine. The ocean murmur sounded incessantly from " Oh, breathe not his name !" A DREAM. lir> the beach. A decent elderly body, in decayed sa- bles, undertook, on lier part, to promote the comforts of the occupants by every suitable attention, and, as she assured me, at a very reasonable rate. So far, the nocturnal faculty had served me truly. A day-dream could not have proceeded more orderly ; but alas ! just here, when the dwelling was selected, the sea view secured, the rent agreed upon, when every thing was plausible, consistent, and rational, the inco- herent fancy crept in and confounded all, — by jnarry- ing me to the old woman of the house ! A large proportion of my dreams have, like the preceding, an origin, more or less remote, in some actual occurrence. But, from all my observation and experience, the popular notion is a mistaken one, that our dreams take their subject and colour from the business or meditations of the day. It is true, that sleep frequently gives back real images and actions, like a mirror ; but the reflection returns at a longer interval. It extracts from pages of some standing, like the " Retrospective Review." The mind, released from its connexion with external associations, flies off, gladly, to novel speculations. The soul does not carry its tasks out of school. The novel, read upon the pil- low, is of no more influence than the bride-cake laid beneath it. The charms of Di. Vernon have faded with me, into a vision of Dr. Faustus ; the bridal dance and festivities, into a chase by a mad bullock. The sleeper, like the felon, at the putting on of the IK) A DREAM. niglit-cap, is about to be turned off from the affairs of this world. The material scaffold sinks under him ; he drops — as it is expressively called — asleep ; and the spirit is transported, we know not whither ! I should like to know, that, by any earnest applica- tion of thought, we could impress its subject upon the midnight blank. It would be worth a day's devo- tion to Milton, — ''^from morn till noon, from noon till dewy eve," — to obtain but one glorious vision from the " Paradise Lost ;" to Spenser, to purhcase but one magical reflection — a Fata Morgana, of the '' Faery Queen !" I have heard it affirmed, indeed, by a gentleman, an especial advocate of Early Rising, that he could procure whatever dream he wished ; but I disbelieve it, or he would pass far more hours than he does in bed. If it w^ere possible, by any process, to bespeak the night's entertainment, the theatres, for me, might close their uninviting doors. Who would care to sit at the miserable stage parodies of " Lear,*' '^ Hamlet," and '' Othello ;" to say nothing of the " Tempest," or the ^' Midsummer Night's Phantasy," - — that could command the representation of either of those noble Dramas, with all the sublime personations, the magnificent scenery, and awful reality of a dream ? For horrible fancies, merely, nightmares and iricubi, there is a recipe extant, that is currently attributed to the late Mr. Fuseli. I mean, a supper of raw pork ; but, as I never slept after it, I cannot speak as to the effect. " My nature is subdued to what it works in." A DREAJf. 117 OpiuiYi;, I have never tried, and, therefore, have never experienced such magnificent visions as are de- scribed by its eloquent historian. I have never been buried for ages under pyramids ; and yet, methinks, have suffered agonies as intense as his could be, from the common-place inflictions. For example, a night spent in the counting of interminable numbers, — an Inquisitorial penance, — everlasting tedium — the JMind s treadmill ! Another writer, in recording his horrible dreams, describes himself to have been sometimes an animal, pursued by hounds ; sometimes a bird, torn in pieces by eagles. They are flat contradictions of my Theory of Dreams. Such Ovidian Metamorphoses never yet entered into my experience. I never translate my- self. I must know the taste of rape and hempseed, and have cleansed my gizzard with small gravel, be- fore even Fancy can turn me into a bird. I must have another nowl upon my shoulders, ere I can feel a longing for " a bottle of chopt hay, or your good dried oats." My own habits and prejudices, all the symptoms of my identity, cling to me in my dreams. It never happened to me to fancy myself a child or a woman, dwarf or giant, stone-blind or deprived of any sense. And here, the latter part of the sentence reminds me of an interesting question, on this subject, that has greatly puzzled me; and of which I should be glad to obtain a satisfactory solution, viz.— How does^ blind 118 A DREAM. man dream ? I mean a person with the opaque chrys- tal from his birth. He is defective in that very fa- culty, which, of all others, is most active in those night-passages, thence emphatically called Visions. He has had no acquaintance with external images, and has, therefore, none of those transparent pictures, that, like the slides of a magic-lantern, pass before the mind's eye, and are projected by the inward spi- ritual light upon the utter blank. His imagination must be like an imperfect kaleidoscope, totally un- furnished with those parti-coloured fragments, where- of the complete instrument makes such interminable combinations. It is difficult to conceive such a man's dream. Is it, a still benighted wandering, — a pitch-dark night progress, made known to him by the conscious- ness of the remaining senses ? Is he still pulled through the universal blank, by an invisible power, as it were, at the nether end of the string ? — regaled, sometimes, with celestial voluntaries and unknown mysterious fragrances, answering to our more ro- mantic flights ; at other times, with homely voices and more familiar odours; here, of rank smelling cheeses; there, of pungent pickles or aromatic drugs, hinting his progress through a metropolitan street. Does he over again enjoy the grateful roundness of those sub- stantial droppings from the invisible passenger, — pal- pable deposits of an abstract benevolence, — or, in his night-mares, suffer anew those painful concussions and A DREAM. 119 corporeal buffetings, from that (to him) obscure evil principle, the Parish Beadle ? This question I am happily enabled to resolve, through the information of the oldest of those blind Tobits that stand in fresco against Bunhill Wall ; the same who made that notable comparison, of scarlet, to the sound of a trumpet. As I understood him, harmony, with the gravel-blind, is prismatic as well as chromatic. To use his own illustration, a wall- eyed man has a palette in his ear, as well as in his mouth. Some stone-blinds, indeed, dull dogs, with- out any ear for colour, profess to distinguish the different hues and shades, by the touch, but that, he said, was a slovenly uncertain method, and in the chief article of Paintings not allowed to be exercised. On my expressing some natural surprise at the ap- titude of his celebrated comparison, — a miraculous close likening, to my mind, of the known to the un- known, — he told me, the instance was nothing, for the least discriminative among them could distinguish the scarlet colour of the mail guards' liveries, by the sound of their horns : but there were others, so acute their faculty ! that they could tell the very features and complexion of their relatives and familiars, by the mere tone of their voices. I was miich gratified with this explanation ; for I confess, hitherto, I was always extremely puzzled by that narrative in the ** Tatler," of a young gentleman's behaviour after the operation of couching, and especially at the wonder- 120 A DREAM. ful promptness with which he distinguished his fa- ther from his mother, — his mistress from her maid. But it appears that the blind are not so blind as they have been esteemed in the vulgar notion. What they cannot get one way they obtain in another : they, in fact, realize what the author of Hudibras has ridi- culed as a fiction, for they set up communities of senses, To chop and change intelligences, As Rosicrucian Vhtuosis Can see ivith cars— and hear with noses. •ipiing and Fall. J21 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. Alack ! 'tis melancholy theme to think How Learning doth in rugged states abide. And, like her bashful owl, obscurely blink. In pensive glooms and corners, scarcely spied ; Not, as in Founders* Halls and domes of pride. Served with grave homage, like a tragic queen. But with one lonely priest compell'd to hide. In midst of foggy moors and mosses green. In that clay cabbin hight the College of Kilreen ! 2. This College looketh South and West alsoe. Because it hath a cast in windows twain ; Crazy and crack'd they be, and wind doth blow Thorough transparent holes in every pane. Which Dan, with many paines, makes whole again. With nether garments, which his thrift doth teach To stand for glass, like pronouns, and when rain Stormeth, he puts, '^ once more unto the breach,'' Outside and in, tho' broke, yet so he mendeth each. l!22 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 3; And in the midst a little door there is. Whereon a board that doth congratulate With painted letters, red as blood I wis. Thus written, " CHILDREN TAKEN IN TO BATE :" And oft, indeed, the inward of that gate. Most ventriloque, doth utter tender squeak. And moans of infants that bemoan their fate. In midst of sounds of Latin, French, and Greek, Which, all i'the Irish tongue, he teacheth them to speak. 4. For some are meant to right illegal wrongs. And some for Doctors of Divinitie, Whom he doth teach to murder the dead tongues. And soe win academical degree ; But some are bred for service of the sea, Howbeit, their store of learning is but small. For mickle waste he counteth it would be To stock a head with bookish wares at all. Only to be knock'd off by ruthless cannon ball. 5. Six babes he sways, — some little and some big, Divided into classes six ; — alsoe. THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 123 He keeps a parlour boarder of a pig. That in the College fareth to and fro. And picketh up the urchins' crumbs below. And eke the learned rudiments they scan. And thus his A, B, C, doth wisely know, — Hereafter to be shown in caravan. And raise the wonderment of many a learned man. 6. Alsoe, he schools some tame familiar fowls. Whereof, above his head, some two or three Sit darkly squatting, like Minerva's owls. But on the branches of no living tree. And overlook the learned family ; While, sometimes, Partlet, from her gloomy perch. Drops feather on the nose of Dominie, Meanwhile, with serious eye, he makes research In leaves of that sour tree of knowledge — now a birch. 7. No chair he hath, the awful Pedagogue, Such as would magisterial hams imbed, But sitteth lowly on a beechen log. Secure in high authority and dread : Large, as a dome for Learning, seems his head. And, like Apollo's, all beset with rays. Because his locks are so unkempt and red. And stand abroad in many several ways : — No laurel crown he wears, howbeit his cap is baize. 124 THK IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 8. And, underneath, a pair of shaggy brows O'erhang as many eyes of gizzard hue. That inward giblet of a fowl, which shows A mongrel tint, that is ne brown ne blue ; His nose, — it is a coral to the view ; Well nourish' d with Pierian Potheen, — For much he loves his native mountain dew ; — But to depict the dye would lack, I ween, A bottle-red, in terms, as well as bottle-green. 9. As for his coat, 'tis such a jerkin short As Spenser had, ere he composed his Tales ; But underneath he hath no vest, nor aught. So that the wind his airy breast assails ; Below, he wears the nether garb of males. Of crimson plush, but non-plushed at the knee ; — Thence further down the native red prevails. Of his own naked fleecy hosierie: — Two sandals, without soles, complete his cap-a-pee. 10. Nathless, for dignity, he now doth lap His function in a magisterial gown. That shows more countries in it than a map, — Blue tinct, and red, and green, and russet brown. THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 125 Besides some blots, standing for country-town ; And eke some rents, for streams and rivers wide ; But, sometimes, bashful when he looks adown. He turns the garment of the other side. Hopeful that so the holes may never be espied ! 11. And soe he sits, amidst the little pack, That look for shady or for sunny noon. Within his visage, like an almanack, — His quiet smile fortelling gracious boon : But when his mouth droops down, like rainy moon. With horrid chill each little heart unwarms. Knowing, that infant show'rs will follow soon. And with forebodings of near wrath and storms They sit, like timid hares, all trembling on their forms. 12. Ah ! luckless wight, who cannot then repeat " Corduroy Colloquy," — or " Ki, Koe, Kod," — Full soon his tears shall make his turfy seat More sodden, tho' already made of sod. For Dan shall whip him with the word of God, — Severe by rule, and not by nature mild. He never spoils the child and spares the rod. But spoils the rod and never spares the child. And soe with holy rule deems he is reconcil'd. 126 THE IRISH SCHOOLJIASTKR. 13. But, surely, the just sky will never wink At men who take delight in childish throe. And stripe the nether-urchin like a pink Or tender hyacinth, inscribed with woe ; Such bloody Pedagogues, when they shall know. By useless birches, that forlorn recess, Which is no holiday, in Pit below, Will hell not seem design'd for their distress, — A melancholy place that is all bbttomlesse ? 14. Yet would the Muse not chide the wholesome use Of needful discipline, in due degree. Devoid of sway, what wrongs will time produce. Whene'er the twig untrained grows up a tree. This shall a Carder, that a Whiteboy be. Ferocious leaders of atrocious bands. And Learning's help be used for infamie. By lawless clerks, that, with their bloody hands, In murdered English write Rock's murderous com- mands. 15. But ah ! what shrilly cry doth now alarm The sooty fowls that dozed upon the beam. All sudden fluttering from the brandish'd arm. And cackling chorus with the human scream ; THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 127 Meanwhile, the scourge plies that unkindly seam In Phelim's brogues, which bares his naked skin. Like traitor gap in warlike fort, I deem. That falsely lets the fierce besieger in. Nor seeks the Pedagogue by other course to win. 16. No parent dear he hath to heed his cries ; — Alas ! his parent dear is far aloof. And deep in Seven-Dial cellar lies. Killed by kind cudgel-play, or gin of proof. Or climbeth, catwise, on some London roof. Singing, perchance, a lay of Erin's Isle, Or, whilst he labours, weaves a fancy-woof. Dreaming he sees his home, — his Phelim smile ; — Ah me ! that luckless imp, who weepeth all the while ! 17. Ah ! who can paint that hard and heavy time. When first the scholar lists in Learning's train, And mounts her rugged steep, enforc'd to climb. Like sooty imp, by sharp posterior pain. From bloody twig, and eke that Indian cane. Wherein, alas ! no sugar'd juices dwell. For this, the while one stripling's sluices drain. Another weepeth over chilblains fell. Always upon the heel, yet never to be well ! 128 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 18. Anon a third, for his delicious root. Late ravish'd from his tooth by elder chit. So soon is human violence afoot, So hardly is the harmless biter bit ! Meanwhile, the tyrant, with untimely wit And mouthing face, derides the small one's moan, Who, all lamenting for his loss, doth sit. Alack, — mischance comes seldomtimes alone. But aye the worried dog must rue more curs than one. 19. For lo ! the Pedagogue, with sudden drub, Smites his scald-head, that is already sore, — Superfluous wound, — such is Misfortune's rub ! Who straight makes answer with redoubled roar. And sheds salt tears twice faster than before. That still, with backward fist, he strives to dry ; Washing, with brackish moisture, o'er and o'er. His muddy cheek, that grows more foul thereby. Till all his rainy face looks grim as rainy sky. 20. So Dan, by dint of noise, obtains a peace. And with his natural untender knack. By new distress, bids former grievance cease. Like tears dried up with rugged huckaback. All in the Downs." THE lRIi;H SCHOOL 31 ASTER. 121) That sets the mournful visage all awrack ; Yet soon the childish countenance will shine Even as thorough storms the soonest slack, For grief and beef in adverse ways incline. This keeps, and that decays, when duly soak'd in brine. 21. Now all is hushed, and, with a look profound. The Dominie lays ope the learned page ; (So be it called) although he doth expound Without a book, both Greek and Latin sage ; Now telleth he of Rome's f ude infant age. How Romulus was bred in savage wood. By wet-nurse wolf, devoid of wolfish rage ; And laid foundation-stone of walls of mud. But watered it, alas ! v/ith v/arm fraternal blood. 22. Anon, he turns to that Homeric war. How Troy was sieged like Londonderry town ; And stout Achilles, at his jaunting-car. Dragged mighty Hector with a bloody crown ; And eke the bard, that sung of their renown. In garb of Greece, most beggar-like and torn. He paints, with colly, wandering up and down. Because, at once, in seven cities bom; And so, of parish rights, was, all his days, forlorn. K I'M) THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 23. Anon, through old IVIythology he goes. Of Gods defunct, and all their pedigrees. But shuns their scandalous amours, and shows How Plato wise, and clear-ey'd Socrates, Confess'd not to those heathen lies and shes ; But thro' the clouds of the Olympic cope Beheld St. Peter, with his holy keys. And own'd their love was naught, and bow'd to Pope, Whilst all their purblind race in Pagan mist did grope ! 24. From such quaint themes he turns, at last, aside, To new philosophies, that still are green, And shows what rail-roads have been track'd, to guide The wheels of great political machine ; If English corn should grow abroad, 1 ween. And gold be made of gold, or paper sheet ; How many pigs be born, to each spalpeen ; And, ah ! how man shall thrive beyond his meat, — With twenty souls alive, to one square sod of peat ! 25. Here, he makes end ; and all the fry of youth. That stood around with serious look intense. " O ! there's nothing half so sweet in life." THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 131 Close up again their gaping eyes and mouth, Which they had opened to his eloquence. As if their hearing were a threefold sense. But now the current of his words is done. And whether any fruits shall spring from thence, In future time, with any mother's son ! It is a thing, God wot ! that can be told by none. 26. Now by the creeping shadows of the noon, The hour is come to lay aside their lore ; The cheerful pedagogue perceives it soon. And cries, "Begone \" unto the imps, — and four Snatch their two hats and struggle for the door. Like ardent spirits vented from a cask. All blythe and boisterous, — but leave tv/o more. With Reading made Uneasy for a task. To weep, whilst all their mates in merry sunshine bask, 27. Like sportive Elfins, on the verdant sod, With tender moss so sleekly overgrown, That doth not hurt, but kiss, the sole unshod. So soothly kind is Erin to her own ! And one, at Hare and Hound, plays all alone, — For Phelim 's gone to tend his step-dame's cow ; Ah ! Phelim's step-dame is a canker'd crone ! 132 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. Whilst other twain play at an Irish row, And, with shillelah small, break one another's brow ! 28. But careful Dominie, with ceaseless thrift. Now changeth ferula for rural hoe ; But, first of all, with tender hand doth shift His college gown, because of solar glow, And hangs it on a bush, to scare the crow ; JVIeanwhile, he plants in earth the dappled bean. Or trains the young potatoes all a-row. Or plucks the fragrant leek for pottage green, With that crisp curly herb, call'd Kale in Aberdeen. 29. And so he wisely spends the fruitful hours. Linked each to each by labour, like a bee ; Or rules in Learning's hall, or trims her bow'rs ; — Would there were many more such wights as he. To sw^ay each capital academic Of Cam and I sis, for, alack ! at each There dwells, I wot, some dronish Dominie, That does no garden work, nor yet doth teach. But wears a floury head, and talks in flow'ry speech ! Pandeans. 133 THE SEA-SPELL. " Caul(i\ cauld^ he lies beneath the deep." Old Scoich Ballad. \. It was a jolly mariner ! The tallest man of three^ — He loosed his sail against the wind. And turned his boat to sea : The ink-black sky told every eye, A storm was soon to be ! But still that jolly mariner Took in no reef at all. For, in his pouch, confidingly. He wore a baby's caul; A thing, as gossip-nurses know, That always brings a squall ! I'M THE SKA-yPELL. 3. His hat was new, or newly glaz'd. Shone brightly in the sun ; His jacket, like a mariner's, True blue as e'er was spun; His ample trowsers, like Saint Paul, Bore forty stripes save one. 4. And now the fretting foaming tide He steer'd away to cross ; The bounding pinnace play'd a game Of dreary pitch and toss ; A game that, on the good dry land. Is apt to bring a loss ! 5. Good Heaven befriend that little boat. And guide her on her way ! A boat, they say, has canvas wings, But cannot fly away ! Though, like a merry singing bird. She sits upon the spray ! 6. Still east by east the little boat. With tawny sail, kept beating : Now out of sight, between two waves, Now o'er th' horizon fleeting ; Like greedy swine that feed on mast, — The waves her mast seem'd eating ! " De Gustibus non est disputanduin. THE SEA-SPELL. 135 7. The sullen sky grew black above. The wave as black beneath ; Each roaring billow show'd full soon A white and foamy wreath ; Like angry dogs that snarl at first. And then display their teeth. a The boatman looked against the wind, The mast began to creak. The wave, per saltum, came and dried, In salt, upon his cheek ! The pointed wave against him rear'd, As if it own'd a pique ! 9. Nor rushing wind, nor gushing wave. That boatman could alarm. But still he stood away to sea, And trusted in his charm ; He thought by purchase he was safe, And arm'd against all harm ! 10. Now thick and tast and far aslant, The stormy rain came pouring. He heard upon the sandy bank, The distant breakers roaring, — A groaning intemiitting sound, Like Gog and Magog snoring f 136 THE SEA-SPELL. 11. The seatbwl shriek'd around the mast. Ahead the grampus tumbled, And far oft*, from a copper cloud. The hollow thunder rumbled; It would have quail' d another heart. But his was never humbled. 12. For why ? he had that infant's caul ; And wherefore should he dread ? — Alas ! alas ! he little thought. Before the ebb-tide sped, — That, like that infant, he should die. And with a watery head ! 13. The rushing brine flowed in apace ; His boat had ne'er a deck : Fate seem'd to call him on, and he Attended to her beck ; And so he went, still trusting on. Though reckless — to his wreck ! 14. For as he left his helm, to heave The ballast-bags a-weather. Three monstrous seas came roaring on^ Like lions leagued together. The two first waves the little boat Swam over like a feather, — THE SEA-SPELL. 137 15. The two first waves were past and gone, And sinking in her wake ; The hugest still came leaping on. And hissing like a snake. Now helm a-lee ! for through the midst, The monster he must take ! 16. Ah, me ! it was a dreary mount ! Its base as black as night. Its top of pale and livid green. Its crest of awful white. Like Neptune with a leprosy, — And so it rear'd upright ! 17. With quaking sails, the little boat Climb' d up the foaming heap ; With quaking sails it paused awhile. At balance on the steep ; Then, rushing down the nether slope. Plunged with a dizzy sweep ! 18. Look, how a horse, made mad with fear Disdains his careful guide ; So now the headlong headstrong boat, Unmanaged, turns aside. And straight presents her reeling flank Against the swelling tide ! 138 THE SKA-SPELL. 19. The gusty wind assaults the sail ; Her ballast lies a-lee ! The windward sheet is taught and stiff! Oh ! the Lively — where is she ? Her capsiz'd keel is in the foam, Her pennon 's in the sea ! 20 The wild gull, sailing overhead. Three times beheld emerge The head of that bold mariner. And then she screamed his dirge ! For he had sunk within his grave, Lapp'd in a shroud of surge ! 21. The ensuing wave, v/ith horrid foam. Rushed o'er and covered all, — The jolly boatman's drowning scream Was smothered by the squall. Heaven never heard his cry, nor did The ocean heed his caul ! A man's a mau fur a' that 130 FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY. A PATHETIC BALLAD. Ben Battle was a soldier bold. And used to war's alarms ; But a cannon-ball took oiFliis legs, So he laid down his arms ! Now as they bore him off the field. Said he, " Let others shoot. For here I leave my second leg, And the Forty-second Foot !" The army-surgeons made him limbs : Said he, — " They're only pegs : But there's as wooden members quite. As represent my legs !" Now Ben he loved a pretty maid. Her name was Nelly Gray ; So he went to pay her his devours. When he'd devour'd his pay ! 140 FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY. But wlien he called on Nelly Gray, She made him quite a scoff; And when she saw his wooden legs. Began to take them off ! - O, Nelly Gray ! O, Nelly Gray ! Is this your love so warm ? The love that loves a scarlet coat. Should be more uniform I" Said she, " I loved a soldier once. For he was blythe and brave ; But I will never have a man With both legs in the grave ! Before you had those timber toes. Your love I did allow. But then, you know, you stand upon Another footing now 1" " O, Nelly Gray ! O, Nelly Gray ! For all your jeering speeches. At duty's call, I left my legs - In Badajos's breaches T' " Why, then," said she, '^ you've lost the feet Of legs in war's alarms. And now you cannot wear your shoes Upon your feats of arms !" FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY. 141 ''O, false and fickle Nelly Gray ! I know why you refuse : — Though I've no feet — some other man Is standing in my shoes ! I wish I ne'er had seen your face ; But, now, a long farewell ! For you will be ray death : — alas ! You will not be my Nell /" Now when he went from Nelly Gray, His heart so heavy got — And life was such a burthen grown, It made him take a knot ! So round his melancholy neck, A rope he did entwine. And, for his second time in life. Enlisted in the Line ! One end he tied around a beam. And then removed his pegs. And, as his legs were off, — of course. He soon was off his legs ! And there he hung, till he was dead As any nail in town, — For though distress had cut him up. It could not cut him down ! H2 FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY. A dozen men sat on his corpse, To find out why he died — And they buried Ben in four cross-roads. With a stake in his inside ! The Hard of Hope. 148 FANCY-PORTRAITS. Many authors preface their works with a portrait, and it saves the reader a deal of speculation. The world loves to know something of the features of its favourites ; — it likes the Geniuses to appear bodily, as well as the Genii. We may estimate the liveliness of this curiosity, by the abundance of portraits, masks, busts, china and plaster casts, that are ex- tant, of great or would-be great people. As soon as a gentleman has proved, in print, that he really has a head, — a score of artists begin to brush at it. The literary lions have no peace to their mane«. Sir Wal- ter is eternally sitting like Theseus to some painter or other ; — and the late Lord Byron threw out more heads before he died than Hydra. The first novel of Mr. Gait had barely been announced in the second edition, when he was requested to allow himself to be taken " in one minute ;" — Mr. Geoffrey Crayon was no sooner known to be Mr. Washington Irving, than he was waited upon with a sheet of paper and a pair of scissors. 144 FANCY-PORTRAITS. The whole world, in fact, is one Lavater : — it likes to find its prejudices confirmed by the Hooke nose of the Author of Sayings and Doings — or the lines and angles in the honest face of Izaak Walton. It is gratified in dwelling on the repulsive features of a Newgate ordinary ; and would be disappointed to miss the seraphic expression on the Author of the Angel of the World. The Old Bailey jurymen are physiognomists to a fault; and if a rope can trans- form a malefactor into an Adonis, a hard gallows face as often brings the malefactor to the rope. A low forehead is enough to bring down its head to the dust. A well-favoured man meets with good coun- tenance; but when people are plain and hard-fea- tured (like the poor, for instance,) w^e grind their faces ; an expression I am convinced, that refers to physiognomical theory. For my part, I confess a sympathy with the com- mon failing. I take likings and dislikings, as some play music, — at sight. The polar attractions and repul- sions insisted on by the phrenologist, affect me not ; but I am not proof against a pleasant or villainous set of features. Sometimes, I own, T am led by the nose, (not my own, but that of the other party) — in my pre- possessions. My curiosity does not object to the disproportionate numbei of portraits in the annual exhibition, — nor grudge the expense of engraving a gentleman's head and shoulders. Like Judith, and the daughter of Mr. Crabbe. Mr. Bowles. The Author of Broad Grins. FANCY-PORTRAITS. 145 HerOflias, I have a taste for a head in a plate, and accede cheerfully to the charge of the charger. A book without a portrait of the author, is worse than anonymous. As in a church-yard, you may look on any number of ribs and shin-bones, as so many sticks merely, without interest ; but if there should chance to be a scull near hand, it claims the relics at once, — so it is with the author's head-piece, in front of his pages. The portrait claims the work. The Arca- dia, for instance, I know is none of mine — it belongs to that young fair gentleman, in armour, with a ruff! So necessary it is for me to have an outward visible sign of the inward spiritual poet or philosopher, that in default of an authentic resemblance, I cannot help forging for him. an effigy in my mind's eye, — a Fancy- Portrait. A few examples of contemporaries I have sketched down, but my collection is far from com- plete. ' How have I longed to glimpse, in fancy, the Great Unknowni ! — the Roc of Literature ! — but he keeps his head, like Ben Lomond, enveloped in a cloud. How have I sighed for a beau ideal of the author of Christabel, and the ^Vncient Marinere ! — but I have been mocked with a dozen images, confusing each other, and indistinct as water is in water. My only clear revelation was a pair of Hessian boots highly polished, or what the ingenious Mr. Warren would denominate his " Aids to Reflection !'' I was more certain of the figure at least of Dr. L ]4() FANCY-PORTRAITS. Kitchener, (p. 14,) though I had a misgiving about his features, which made me have recourse to a substitute for his head. Moore's profile struck me over a bottle after dinner, and the countenance of Mr. Bowles occurred to me, as in a mirror, — by a tea-table suggestion ; Colman's at the same service ; — and IMr. Crabbe entered my mind's eye with the supper. But the Bard of Hope — the Laureate of promise and expectation, — occurred to me at no meal-time. We all know how Hope feeds her own. I had a lively image of the celebrated Denon, in a midnight dream (p. IIG,) and made out the full length of the juvenile Grahan, from a hint of Mr. Hilton's. At a future season, I hope to complete my gallery of Fancy- Portraits. IHE ENJ;. LONDOX : Printed by D. S. Maurice, Fenchurch-s.tit'c(, Anacreon, Junior. WHIMS AND ODDITIES, In Iprose awls Verse; WITH FORTY ORIGINAL DESIGNS, BY THOMAS HOOD, ONE OF THE AUTHOIIS OF ODES AND ADDRESSES TO GREAT PEOl'LE, AND HIE DESIGNER OF THE PROGRESS OF CANT. " What Demon liatli possessed thee, that thou wilt never forsake Jliat impertinent custom of punnin»?" SCRlBLbllOS. SECOND SERIES. LONDON : CHARLES TILT, 86, FLEET STREET. MDCCCXXVII. LONDON: FEINTED BY IBOTSO.V AND PALMER, SAVOY-STRERT, STRAND. TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. In the absence of better fiddles, I have ventured to come forward again with ray little kit of fancies. I trust it will not be found an unworthy sequel to my first performance; indeed, I have done my best, in the New Series, innocently to imitate a jiractise that prevails abroad in duelling — I mean, that of the Seconds giving Satisfaction. The kind indulgence that welcomed my Volume heretofore, prevents me from reiterating the same apologies. The Public have learned, by this time, from my rude designs, that I am no great artist, and from my text, that 1 am no great author, but VI PREFACE. humbly equivocating, bat-like, between the two kinds ; — though proud to partake in any charac- teristic of either. As for the first particular, my hope persuades me that my illustrations cannot have degenerated, so ably as I have been seconded by Mr. Edward WiUis, who, like the humane Walter, has befriended my offspring in the Wood. In the literary part I have to plead guilty, as usual, to some verbal misdemeanours ; for which, I must leave my defence to Dean Swift, and the other great European and Oriental Pundits. Let me suggest, however, that a pun is somewhat like a cherry : though there may be a slight outward indication of partition — of duplicity of meaning — yet no gentleman need make two bites at it against his own pleasure. To accommodate cer- tain readers, notwithstanding, I have refrained from putting the majority in italics. It is not every one, I am aware, that can Toler-ate a pun like my Lord Norbury. CONTENTS. Bianca's Dream A Ballad-Singer Mary's Ghost The Progress of Art A School for Adults . . A Legend of Navarre The Demon-Ship Sally Holt, and the Death of John Hayloft A True Story The Decline of Mrs. Shakerly Tim Turpin The Monkey-Martyr Banditti Death's Ramble Craniology An Affair of Honour A Parthian Glance . . A Sailor's Apology for Bow-Legs " Nothing but Hearts !" Jack Hall The Wee Man Pythagorean Fancies Page 1 13 15 18 23 30 38 45 51 CO G3 67 74 77 80 85 88 91 95 99 110 113 Vlll CONTENTS. " Don't You Smell Fire?" The Volunteer A Marriage Procession The Widow A Mad Dog . . John Trot An Absentee Ode to the Cameleopard Page. 118 121 12G 130 135 140 lit 148 WHIMS AND ODDITIES. BIANCA'S DREAM. A VENETIAN STORY. BiANCA ! — lair Bianca ! — who could dwell With safety on her dark and hazel gaze, Nor find there lurk'd in it a witching spell. Fatal to balmy nights and blessed days ! The peaceful breath that made the bosom swell, She turn'd to gas, and set it in a blaze ; Each eye of her's had Love's Eupyrion in it. That he could light his link at in a minute. So that, wherever in her charms she shone, A thousand breasts were kindled into flame ; Maidens who cursed her looks forgot their own. And beaux were turn'd to flambeaux where she came ; All hearts indeed were conquer'd but her own. Which none could ever temper down or tame : In short, to take our haberdasher's hints. She might have written over it, — " from Flint's." B 2 BIANCA S DREAM. She was, in truth, the wonder of her sex. At least in Venice — where with eyes of brown Tenderly languid, ladies seldom vex An amourous gentle with a needless frown ; Where gondolas convey guitars by pecks. And Love at casements climbeth up and down. Whom for his tricks and custom in that kind. Some have considered a Venetian blind. Howbeit, this difference was quickly taught. Amongst more youths who had this cruel jailor. To hapless Julio — all in vain he sought With each new moon his hatter and his tailor ; In vain the richest padusoy he bought, And went in bran new beaver to assail her — As if to show that Love had made him snutrt All over — and not merely round his heart. In vain he laboured thro' the sylvan park Bianca haunted in — that where she came. Her learned eyes in wandering might mark The twisted cypher of her maiden name. Wholesomely going thro' a course of bark : No one was touched or troubled by his flame. Except the dryads, those old maids that grow In trees, — like wooden dolls in embryo. . ^ " SPEAK UP, SIR !" BIANCA S DREAM. In vain complaining elegies he writ. And taught his tuneful instrument to grieve, And sang in quavers how his heart was split. Constant beneath her lattice with each eve ; She mock'd his wooing with her wicked wit, And slash'd his suit, so that it matched his sleeve. Till he grew silent at the vesper star. And quite despairing, hamstring'd his guitar. Bianca's heart was coldly frosted o'er With snows unmelting — an eternal sheet. But his was red within him, like the core Of old Vesuvius, Avith perpetual heat ; And oft he longed internally to pour. His dames and glowing lava at her feet. But when his burnings he began to spout. She stopp'd his mouth, and put the crater out. Meanwhile he wasted in the eyes of men. So thin, he seem'd a sort of skeleton- key Suspended at death's door — so pale — and then He tum'd as nervous as an aspen tree ; The life of man is three score years and ten. But he was perishing at twenty-three. For people truly said, as grief grew stronger, " It could not shorten his poor life — mucli longer." b2 4 BIANCA S DREAM. For why, he neitlier slept, nor drank, nor fetl. Nor relished any kind of mirtli below ; Fire in his heart, and frenzy in his liead. Love had become his universal toe, Salt in his sugar — nightmare in his bed. At last, no wonder wretched Julio, A sorrow-ridden thing, in utter dearth Of hope, — made up his mind to cut her girth ? For hapless lovers always died of old. Sooner than chew reflection's bitter cud ; So Thisbe stuck herself, what time 'tis told. The tender-hearted mulberries wept blood ; And so poor Sappho when her boy was cold, Drown'd her salt tear drops in a salter flood. Their fame still breathing, tho' their breath be past. For those old sj(ito7's lived beyond their last. So Julio went to drown, — when life was dull. But took his corks, and merely had a bath ; And once he pull'd a trigger at his scull. But merely broke a window in his wrath ; And once his hopeless being to annul. He tied a pack-thread to a beam of lath, A line so ample, 'twas a query whether 'Twas meant to be a halter or a tether. uianca's dream. Smile not in scorn, that Julio did not thrust His sorrows thro' — 'tis horrible to die ! And come down with our little all of dust. That dun of all the duns to satisfy : To leave life's pleasant city as we must, In Death's most dreary spunging-house to lie. Where even all our personals must go. To pay the debt of nature that we owe ! So Julio liv'd : — 'twas nothing but a pet He took at life — a momentary spite ; Besides, he hoped that time would some day get The better of love's flame, however bright ; A thing that time has never compass'd yet. For love, we know, is an immortal light. Like that old fire, that, quite beyond a doubt. Was always in, — for none have found it out. Meanwhile, Bianca dream'd — 'twas once when night. Along the darken'd plain began to creep. Like a young Hottentot, whose eyes are bright, Altho' in skin as sooty as a sweep : The llow'rs had shut their eyes — the zephyr light Was gone, for it had rock'd the leaves to sleep. And all the little birds had laid their heads Under their wings — sleeping in feather beds. 6 BIANCA S DREAM. Lone in lier chamber sate the dark ey'd maid, By easy stages jaunting thro' her pray'rs. But list'ning side-long- to a serenade. That robb'd the saints a little of their shares For Julio underneath the lattice play'd His Deh Vieni, and such amorous airs. Bom only underneath Italian skies. Where every fiddle has a Bridge of Sighs. Sweet was the tune — the words were even sweeter. Praising her eyes, her lips, her nose, her hair. With all the common tropes wherewith in metre. The hackney poets overcharge their fair. Her shape was like Diana's, but completer ; Her brow with Grecian Helen's might compare : Cupid, alas ! was cruel Sagittarius, Julio — the weeping water-man Aquarius. Now, after listing to such landings rare, 'Twas very natural indeed to go — What if she did postpone one little pray'r — To ask her mirror "if it was not so?" 'Twas a large mirror, none the worse for wear. Reflecting her at once from top to toe : And there she gazed upon that glossy track. That show'd her front face tho' it " gave her back." A SPECIAL PLEADER, BIANCA S DREAM. And long her lovely eyes were held in thrall. By that dear page where first the woman reads : That Julio was no flatt'rer, none at all. She told herself — and then she told her beads ; Meanwhile, the nerves insensibly let fall Two curtains fairer than the lily breeds ; For Sleep had crept and kiss'd her unawares. Just at the half-way milestone of her pray Vs. Then like a drooping rose so bended she. Till her bow'd head upon her hand reposed ; But still she plainly saw, or seem'd to see. That fair reflexion, tho' her eyes were closed, A beauty-bright as it was wont to be, A portrait Fancy painted while she dozed : 'Tis very natural, some people say, To dream of what we dwell on in the day. Still shone her face — yet not, alas ! the same. But 'gan some dreary touches to assume, ' ^ And sadder thoughts, with sadder changes came — Her eyes resigned their light, her lips their bloom, Her teeth fell out, her tresses did the same, Her cheeks were tinged with bile, her eyes with rheum There was a throbbing at her heart within. For, oh ! there was a shooting in her chin. BIANCA S DREAM. And lo ! upon lier sad desponding brow. The cruel trenches of besieging age, With seams, but most unseemly, 'gan to show Her place was booking for the seventh stage ; And where her raven tresses used to flow. Some locks that Time had left her in his rage, And some mock ringlets made her forehead shady, A compound (like our Psalms) of tete and braidy. Then for her shape — alas ! how Saturn wrecks. And bends, and corkscrews all the frame about. Doubles the hams, and crooks the straightest necks. Draws in tiie nape, and pushes forth the snout. Makes backs and stomachs concave or convex : Witness those pensioners called In and Out, Who all day watching first and second rater. Quaintly unbend themselves — but grow no straighter. So Time with fair Bianca dealt, and made Her shape a bow, that once was like an arrow ; His iron hand upon her spine he laid. And twisted all awry her ''' winsome marrow." In truth it was a change ! — she had obey'd The holy Pope before her chest grew naiTow, But spectacles and palsy seem'd to make her Something between a Glassite and a Quaker. IN-AND-OUT PENSIONERS. BIANCA S DREAM. Her grief and gall meanwhile were quite extreme. And she had ample reason for her trouble ; For what sad maiden can endure to seem Set in for singleness, tlio' growing double. The fancy madden'd her ; but now the dream. Grown thin by getting bigger, like a bubble. Burst, — rbut still left some fragments of its size. That, like the soapsuds, smarted in her eyes. And here — just here — as she began to heed The real world, her clock chimed out its score A clock it was of the Venetian breed. That cried the hour from one to twenty-four ; The works moreover standing in some need Of workmanship, it struck some dozens more ; A warning voice that clench'd Bianca's fears, Such strokes referring doubtless to her years. At fifteen chimes she was but half a nun. By twenty she had quite renounced the veil ; She thought of .Julio just at twenty-one. And thirty made her very sad and pale. To paint that ruin where her charms would run ; At forty all the maid began to fail. And thought no higher, as the late dream cross'd her, Of single blessedness, than single Gloster. c 10 bfanca's dream. And so Bianca changed ; — the next sweet even. With Julio in a black Venetian bark, Row'd slow and stealthily — the hour, eleven. Just sounding from the tow'r of old St. Mark, She sate with eyes turn'd quietly to heav'n. Perchance rejoicing in the grateful dark That veil'd her blushing cheek, — for Julio brought her Of course — to break the ice upon the water. But what a puzzle is one's serious mind To open ; — oysters, when the ice is thick, Are not so difficult and disinclin'd ; And Julio felt the declaration stick About his throat in a most awful kind ; However, he contrived by bits to pick His trouble forth, — much like a rotten cork Grop'd from a long-neck'd bottle with a fork. But love is still the quickest of all readers ; And Julio spent besides those signs profuse That English telegraphs and foreign pleaders. In help of language, are so apt to use. Arms, shoulders, fingers, all were interceders. Nods, shrugs, and bends, — Bianca could not choose But soften to his suit with more facility. He told his story with so much agility. bianca's dream. 11 " Be thou my park, and I will l)e thy dear, (So lie began at last to speak or quote ;) Be thou my bark, and I thy gondolier, (For passion takes this figurative note ;) Be thou my light, and I thy chandelier ; Be thou my dove, and 1 will be thy cote : My lily be, and I will be thy river; Be thou my life — and I will be thy liver." This, with more tender logic of the kind. He poui-'d into her small and shell-like ear. That timidly against his lips inclined ; Meanwhile her eyes glanced on the silver sphere That even now began to steal behind A dewy vapour, which was lingering near. Wherein the dull moon crept all dim and pale. Just like a virgin putting on the veil : — Bidding adieu to all her sparks — the stars. That erst had woo'd and worshipped in her train, Saturn and Hesperus, and gallant Mars — Never to flirt with heavenly eyes again. Meanwhile, remindful of the convent bars, Bianca did not watch these signs in vain. But turn'd to Julio at the dark eclipse. With words, like verbal kisses, on her lips. c2 12 bianca's dream. He took tlie hint full speedily, and^, back'd By love, and night, and the occasion's meetness, Bestow'd a something on her cheek that smack'd (Tho' quite in silence) of ambrosial sweetness ; That made her think all other kisses lack'd Till then, but what she knew not, of completeness Being used but sisterly salutes to feel. Insipid things — like sandwiches of veal. He took her hand, and soon she felt him wring The pretty fingers all instead of one ; Anon his stealthy arm began to cling About her waist that had been clasp'd by none ; Their dear confessions 1 forbear to sing. Since cold descrijjtion would but be outrun ; For bliss and Irish watches have the pow'r. In twenty minutes, to lose half an hour ! 13 A BALLAD-SINGER Is a town-crier for the advertising of lost tunes. Hun- ger hath made him a wind instrument; his want is vocal, and not he. His voice had gone a-begging be- fore he took it up and applied it to the same trade ; it was too strong to hawk mackarel, but was just soft enough for Robin Adair. His business is to make po- pular songs unpopular, — he gives the air, like a weather- cock, with many variations. As for a key, he has but one — a latch-key — for all manner of tunes ; and as they are to pass current amongst the lower sorts of people, he makes his notes like a country banker's, as thick as he can. His tones have a copper sound, for he sounds for copper ; and for the musical divisions he hath no regard, but sings on, like a kettle, without taking any heed of the bars. Before beginning he clears his pipe with gin ; and he is always hoarse from the tliorough draft in his tliroat. He hatli but one shake, and tliat is in winter. His voice sounds Hat, from llatulcnce ; and he fctclies breatli, like a drowning kitten, wlicncver he can 14 A BALLAD-SINGER. Notwithstanding all tliis his music gains ground, lor it walks with him from end to end of the street. He is your only performer that requires not many en- treaties for a song; for he will chaunt, without asking, to a street cur or a parish post. His only backwardness is to a stave after dinner, seeing that he never dines ; for he sings for bread, and though com has ears, sings very commonly in vain. As for his country, he is an Englishman, that by his birthright may sing whether he can or not. To conclude, he is reckoned passable in the city, but is not so good off the stones. 15 MARY'S GHOST. A PATHETIC BALLAD. 1. 'TwAS in the middle of the night. To sleep young William tried. When Mary's ghost came stealing in. And stood at his bed side. 2. William dear ! O William dear ! My rest eternal ceases ; Alas ! my everlasting peace Is broken into pieces. 3. 1 tliought the last of all my cares Would end with ray last minute ; But tho' I went to my long home, I didn't stay long in it. 16 Mary's ghost. The body-snatchers (hey have come, And made a snatch at me ; It's very hard them kind of men Won't let a body be ! 5. You thought that I was buried deep. Quite decent like and chary. Cut from her grave in JNIary-bone Tliey've come and bon'd your Mary. 6. The arm that used to take your arm Is took to Dr. Vyse ; And both my legs are gone to walk The hospital at Guy's. 7. 1 vow'd that you should have my hand. But fate gives us denial ; You'll find it there, at Doctor Bell's, In spirits and a phial. 8. As for my feet, the little feet You used to call so pretty. There's one, I know, in Bedford Row, The t'other's in the city. GIN A BODY MEET A BODY. Mary's ghost. 17 10. I can't tell where my head is gone, But Doctor Carpue can : As for my trunk, it's all pack'd up To go by Pickford's van. 11. I wish you'd go to Mr. P. And save me such a ride ; 1 don't halt" like the outside place. They've took for my inside. 12. The cock it crows — 1 must begone ! My William we must part ! But I'll be your's in death, altho' Sir Astley has my heart. 13. Don't go to weep upon my grave. And think that there 1 be ; They have'nt left an atom there, Of my anatomic. 18 THE PROGRESS OF ART. O HAPPY time ! — Art's early days ! When o'er each deed^ with sweet self-praise. Narcissus-like 1 hung ! When great Rembrandt but little seem'd, And such Old Masters all were deem'd. As nothing to the young ! Some scratchy strokes — abrupt and few. So easily and swift I drew, SufBc'd for my design ; My sketchy, superficial hand. Drew solids at a dash — and spann'd A surface with a line. Not long my eye was thus content. But grew more critical — my bent Essay 'd a higher walk ; I copied leaden eyes in lead — Rheumatic hands in white and red. And gouty feet — in chalk. THE PROGRESS OF ART. 19 Anon my studious art for days Kept making faces — liappy phrase, For faces such as mine ! Accomplish'd ki the details then, I left the minor parts of men. And drew the form divine. Old Gods and Heroes — Trojan — Greek, Figures — long after the antique. Great Ajax justly feard ; Hectors of whom at night I dreamt. And Nestor, fringed enough to tempt Bird-nesters to his beard, A Bacchus> leering on a bowl, A Pallas, that out-star'd her owl, A Vulcan — very lame ; A Dian stuck about with stars. With my right hand I murder'd Mars — (One Williams did the same.) But tir'd of this dry work at last. Crayon and chalk aside 1 cast, And gave my brush a drink ! Dipping — '* as when a painter dips In gloom of earthquake and eclipse," — That is — in Indian ink. d2 20 THE PROGRESS OF ART. Oh then, what black Mont Blancs arose, Crested with soot, and not with snows ; What clouds of dingy hue ! In spite of what the Bard has penn'd, I fear the distance did not " lend Enchantment to the view." Not Radcliffe's brush did e'er design Black Forests, half so black as mine. Or lakes so like a pall ; The Chinese cake dispers'd a ray Of darkness, like the light of Day And Martin over all. Yet urchin pride sustain'd me still, I gaz'd on all with right good will. And spread the dingy tint ; "No holy Luke helped me to paint. The Devil surely, not a Saint, Had any finger in't !" But colours came !— like morning light. With gorgeous hues displacing night. Or Spring's enliven'd scene : At once the sable shades withdrew ; My skies got very, very blue ; My trees extremely green. INFANT GENIUS. THE PROGRESS OF ART. 21 And wash'd by my cosmetic brush. How Beauty's cheek began to blusli"; With locks of auburn stain — (Not Goldsmith's Auburn) — nut-brown hair. That made her loveliest of the fair ; Not '' loveliest of the plain !" Her lips were of vermillion hue ; Love in her eyes, and Prussian blue. Set all my heart in flame ! — A young Pygmalion, I ador'd The maids I made — but time was stor'd With evil — and it came ! Perspective dawn'd — and soon I saw My houses stand against its law ; And " keeping" all unkept ! My beauties were no longer things For love and fond imaginings ; But horrors to be wept ! Ah ! why did knowledge ope my eyes ? Why did I gei more artist-wise? It only serves to hint. What grave defects and wants arc mine ; That I'm no Hilton in design — In nature no Dewint ! 22 THE PROGRESS OF ART. Thrice Iiappy time ! — Art's early days ! When o'er each deed with sweet selt-praise. Narcissus-like 1 hung ! When great Rembrandt but little seem'd, And such Old Masters all were deem'd As nothing to the young ! 23 A SCHOOL FOR ADULTS. Servatit. How well you saw Your father to school to-day, knowing how apt He is to play the truant. Son. But is he not Yet gone to school ? Servant. Stand by, and you shall see. Enter three Old Men with satchels, singing. All Three. Domine, Domine, duster, Three knaves in a cluster. Son. O this is gallant pastime. Nay, come on ; Is this your school ? was that your lesson, ha ? 1st Old Man, Pray, now, good son, indeed, indeed — Son. Indeed You shall to school. Away with hira ; and take Their v/agships with him, the whole cluster of them. 2d Old Man. You shan't send us, now, so you shan't — 3d Old Man. We be none of your father, so we be'nt. — Son. Away with 'em, I say ; and tell their school- mistress What truants they are, and bid her pay 'em soundly. All Three. Oh ! oh ! oh ! Lady, Alas! will nobody beg pardon for The poor old boys ? 24 A SCHOOL FOR ADULTS. Traveller. Do men of such fair years here go to school ? Native. They would die dunces else. These were great scholars in their youth ; but when Age grows upon men here, their learning wastes, And so decays, that, if they live until Threescore, their sons send 'em to school again ; They'd die as speechless else as new-born chil- dren. Traveller. 'Tis a wise nation, and the piety Of the young men most rare and commendable : Yet give me, as a stranger, leave to beg Their liberty this day. Son. 'Tis granted. Hold up your heads ; and thank the gentleman, Like scholars, with your heels now. All Three. Gratias ! Gratias ! Gratias! [Exeunt Singing.] " The Antipodes," — By R. Brome. Amongst the foundations for the promotion of National Education, I had heard of Schools for Adults ; but I doubted of their existence. They were, I thought, merely the fancies of old dramatists^ such as that scene just quoted ; or the suggestions of philanthropists — tlie theoretical buildings of modern philosophers — benevo- lent prospectuses drawn up by warm-hearted enthusiasts, but of schemes never to be realized. They were pro- bably only the bubble projections of a junto of interested pedagogues, not content with the entrance-monies of the rising generation, but aiming to exact a premium from " BETTr.R LATE TTIAN NEVER. A SCHOOL FOR ADULTS. 25 the unlettered grey-beard. The age, 1 argued, was not ripe for such institutions, in spite of the spread of intelli- gence, and the vast power of knowledge insisted on by the public journalist. I could not conceive a set of men, or gentlemen, of mature years, if not aged, entering themselves as members of preparatory schools, and petty seminaries, in defiance of shame, humiliation, and the contumely of a literary age. It seemed too whim- sical to contemplate fathers, and venerable grandfathers, emulating the infant generation, and seeking for instruc- tion in the rudiments. My imagination refused to pic- ture the hoary abecedarian " With satchel on his back, and shining morning face, Creeping like snail unwillingly to school." Fancy grew restive at a patriarchal ignoramus with a fool's-cap, and a rod thrust down his bosom ; at a palsied truant dodging the palmy inflictions of the cane ; or a silver-headed dunce horsed on a pair of rheumatic shoulders for a paralytic flagellation. The picture not- withstanding is realized ! Elderly people seem to have considered that they will be as awkwardly situated in the other world, as here, without their alphabet, — and Schools for Grown Persons to learn to read, are no more Utopian than New Harmony. The following letter from an old gentleman, whose education had been neglected, confirms me in the fact. It is copied, ver- £ 26 A SCHOOL FOU ADULTS. I)atim and literatim from the original, which fell into my hands by accident. Black Heath, November, 1827. Deer Brother, My honnerd Parents being Both desist 1 feal my Deuty to give you Sum Acount of the Proggress I have maid in my studdys since last Vocation. You will be gratefied to hear I am at the Hed of my Class and Tom Hodges is at its Bottom^ tho He was Seventy last Burth Day and I am onely going on for Three Skore. I have begun Gografy and do exsizes on the Globs. In figgers I am all most out the fore Simples and going into Compounds next weak. In the mean time hop you will aprove my Hand riting as well as my Speling witch I have took grate panes with as you desird. As for the French Tung Mr. Legender says I shall soon get the pronounciation as w^ell as a Parishiner but the Master thinks its not ad visible to be- gin Lattin at my advancd ears. With respecks to my Pearsonal comfits I am verry happy and midling Well xcept the old Cumplant in my To — ^but the Master is so kind as let me have a Cushin for my feat. If their is any thing to cumplane of its the Vittles. Our Cook dont understand Maid dishes, her Curry s is xcrabble. Tom Hodges Foot Man brings him Evry Day Soop from Birches I wish you providid me the same. On the hole 1 wish on menny Acounts I A SCHOOL FOR ADULTS. 27 was a Day border partickly as Barlow sleeps in our Room and coffs all nite long. His brother's Ashmy is wus then his. He has took lately to snuff and 1 have wishes to do the like. Its very dull after Supper since Mr. Grierson took away the fellers Pips, and forbid smocking, and allmost raized a Riot on that hed, and sum of the Boys was to have Been horst for it. 1 am happy (to) say I have never been floged as yet and onely Caind once and that was for damming at the Cooks chops becous they was so overdun, but there was to have been fore Wiped yeaster day for Playing Wist in skool hours, but was Begd off on acount of their Lumbargo. I am sorry to say Ponder has had another Stroak of the perrylaticks and has no Use of his Lims. He is Parrs fag — and Parr has got the Roomytix bysides very bad but luckly its onely stiffind one Arm so he has still Hops to get the Star for Heliocution. Poor Dick Combs ej'^e site has quit gone or he would have a good chance for the Silvur Pen. Mundy was one of the Fellers Burths Days and we was to have a hole Holiday but he dyed sudnly over nite of the appoplxy and disappinted us verry much. Two moor was fetcht home last Weak so that we are getting very thin partickly when we go out Wauking, witch is seldom more than three at a time, their is all- ways so menny in the nusry. I forgot to say Gan*at run off a month ago he got verry Homesick ever since e2 28 A SCHOOL FOR ADULTS. his Grancliilderen cum to sea him at skool^ — Mr. Grier- son has expeld him for running away. On Tuesday a new Schollard cum. He is a very old crusty Chap and not much lick'd for that resin by the rest of tlie Boys, whom all Teas him, and call him Phig because he is a retird Grosser. Mr. Grierson de- clind another New Boy because he hadn't had the Mizzles. 1 have red Gays Fabbles and the other books You were so kind to send me — and would be fflad of moor partickly the Gentlemans with a Welsh Whig and a Worming Pan when you foreward my Closebox with my clean Lining like wise sum moor Fleasy Ho- shery for my legs and the Cardmums 1 rit for with the French Grammer &c. — Also weather I am to Dance next quarter. The Gimnystacks is being interdeuced into our Skool but is so Voilent no one follows them but Old Parr and He cant get up his Pole. I have no more to rite but hop this letter will find you as Well as me ; Mr. Grierson is in Morning for Mr, Liuly Murry of whose loss you have herd of — xcept witch he is in Quite good Helth and desires his Respective Complements with witch I reniane Your deutiful and loving Brother if. if if. if. 3f. ;fYJf.JfJJLJHJ^ S. p. Barlow and Phigg have just had a hte in the Yard about calling names and Phigg has pegged Bar- A SCHOOL FOR ADULTS. 29 lows tooth out But it was loose before. Mr. G. dont alow Puglism, if he nose it among the Boys, as at their Times of lifes it might be fatle partickly from puling their Cotes of in the open Are. Our new Husher is cum and is verry well Red in his Mother's tung, witch is the mane thing with Be- giners but We wish the Frentch Master was changed on Acount of his Pollyticks and Religun. Brassbrige and him is always Squabling about Bonnyparty and the Pop of Room. Has for Barlow we cant tell weather He is Wig or Tory for He cant express his Sentymints for Coffing. 30 A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 'TwAS in the reign of Lewis, call'd the Great, As one may read on Lis triumphal arches^, The thing- befel I'm going to relate. In course of one of those "pomposo" marches He lov'd to make, like any gorgeous Persian, Partly for war, and partly for diversion. Some wag had put it in the royal brain To drop a visit at an old chateau. Quite unexpected, with his courtly train ; The monarch liked it, — but it happened so. That Death had got before them by a post. And they were " reckoning without their host,"" Who died exactly as a child should die. Without one groan or a convulsive breath. Closing without one pang his quiet eye. Sliding composedly from sleep — to death ; A corpse so placid ne'er adorn'd a bed. He seem'd not quite — but only rather dead. A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 31 All niffht the widovv'd Baroness contriv'cl o To shed a widow's tears ; but on the morrow Some news of such unusual sort arriv'd. There came strange alteration in her sorrow ; From mouth to mouth it past, one common humming Throughout the house— the King ! the King is coming ! The Baroness, with all her soul and heart, A loyal woman, (now called ultra-royal,) Soon thrust all funeral concerns apart. And only thought about a banquet-royal ; In short, by help of earnest preparation. The visit quite dismiss'd the visitation. And spite of all her grief for the ex-mate. There was a secret hope she could not smother. That some one, early, might replace "the late" — It was too soon to think about another ; Yet let her minutes of despair be reckon'd Against her hope, which was but for a second. She almost thought that being thus bereft Just then, was one of time's propitious touches ; A thread in such a nick so nicked, it left Free opportunity to be a duchess ; Thus all her care was only to look pleasant. But as for tears— she dropp'd them— for the present. 3*2 A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. Her household, as good servants ought to try, Look'd like their lady — any thing but sad. And giggled even that they might not cry. To damp fine company ; in truth they had No time to mourn, thro' choking turkeys' throttles. Scouring old laces, and reviewing bottles. Oh what a hubbub for the house of woe ! All, resolute to one irresolution. Kept tearing, swearing, plunging to and fro. Just like another French mob-revolution. There lay the corpse that could not stir a muscle. But all the rest seem'd Chaos in a bustle. The Monarch came : Oh ! who could ever guess The Baroness had been so late a weeper ! The kingly grace and more than graciousness, Buried the poor defunct some fatiioms deeper, — Could he have had a glance — alas, poor Being ! Seeing would certainly have led to D — ing. For casting round about her eyes to find Some one to v/hom her chattels to endorse. The comfortable dame at last inclin'd To choose the cheerful Master of the Horse ; He was so gay, — so tender, — the complete Nice man, — the sweetest of the monarch's suite. nWiryWyfrnf] THE SPARE BED. A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 33 He saw at once and entered in the lists — Glance unto glance made amorous replies ; They talk'd together like two egotists. In conversation all made up of eyes ; No couple ever got so right consort-ish Within two hours — a courtship rather shortish. At last, some sleepy, some by wine opprest. The courtly company began " nid noddin ;" The Kins: first soujjht his chamber, and the rest Instanter followed by the course he trod in. I shall not please the scandalous by showing The order, or disorder of their going. The old Chateau, before that night, had never Held half so many underneath its roof; It task'd the Baroness's best endeavour. And put her best contrivance to the proof. To give them chambers up and down the stairs. In twos and threes, by singles, and by pairs. She had just lodging for the whole — yet barely ; And some, that were both broad of back and tall. Lay on spare beds that served them very sparely ; However, there were beds enough for all ; But living bodies occupied so many. She could not let the dead one take up asiy ! F 34 A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. The act was, certainly, not over decent : Some small respect, e'en after death, she ow'd him. Considering his death had been so recent ; However, by command, her servants stow'd him, (I am asham'd to think how he was slubber'd,) Stuck bolt upright within a corner cupboard ! And there he slept as soundly as a post. With no more pillow than an oaken shelf; Just like a kind accommodating host. Taking all inconvenience on himself ; None else slept in that room, except a stranger, A decent man, a sort of Forest Ranger. Who, whether he had gone too soon to bed. Or dreamt himself into an appetite, Howbeit, he took a longing to be fed. About the hungry middle of the night ; So getting forth, he sought some scrap to eat. Hopeful of some stray pasty, or cold meat. The casual glances of the midnight moon, Bright'ning some antique ornaments of brass. Guided his gropings to that corner soon. Just where it stood, the coffin-safe, alas ! He tried the door — then shook it — and in course Of time it opened to a little force. A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 35 He put one hand in;, and began to grope ; The place was very deep and quite as dark as The middle night; — when lo ! beyond his hope. He felt a something cold, in fact, the carcase ; Right overjoy'd, he laugh'd and blest his luck At finding, as he thought, this haunch of buck! Then striding back for his couteau de chasse, Determin'd on a little midnight lunching. He came again and probed about the mass. As if to find the fattest bit for munching; Not meaning wastefuUy to cut it all up, But only to abstract a little coUop. But just as he had struck one greedy stroke, His hand fell dov\'n quite powerless and weak ; For when he cut the haunch it plainly spoke As haunch of ven'son never ought to speak ; No wonder that his hand could go no further — Whose could ? — to carve cold meat that bellow'd, '^murther!" Down came the Body with a bounce, and down The Ranger sprang, a staircase at a spring. And bawl'd enough to waken up a town ; Some thought that they were murder'd, some, the King, And, like Macduff, did nothing for a season. But stand upon the spot and bellow, " Treason !" 36 A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. A hundred nightcaps gathered in a mob. Torches drew torches, swords brought swords together. It seem'd so dark and perilous a job ; The Baroness came trembling like a feather Just in the rear, as pallid as a corse, Leaning against the Master of the Horse. A dozen of the bravest up the stair. Well lighted and well watch 'd, began to clamber ; They sought the door — they found it — they were there, A dozen heads went poking in the chamber ; And lo ! with one hand planted on his hurt. There stood the Body bleeding thro' his shirt, — No passive corse — but like a duellist Just smarting from a scratch — in fierce position. One hand advanc'd, and ready to resist ; In fact, the Baron doff'd the apparition. Swearing those oaths the French delight in most, And for the second time '^ gave up the ghost!" A living miracle ! — for why ? — the knife That cuts so many off from grave grey hairs. Had only carv'd him kindly into life. How soon it changed the posture of affairs ! The difference one person more or less Will make in families, is past all guess. WHY DON T YOU GET UP BEHIND Vf A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 37 There stood the Baroness — no widow yet : Here stood the Baron — " in the body" still : There stood the Horses' Master in a pet. Choking with disappointment's bitter pill. To see the hope of his reversion fail. Like that of riding on a donkey's tail. The Baron liv'd — 'twas nothing but a trance : The lady died — 'twas nothing but a death : The cupboard-cut serv'd only to enhance This postscript to the old Baronial breath : — He soon forgave for the revival's sake, A little chop intended for a steak! 38 THE DEMON-SHIP. Stories of storm-ships and haunted vessels, of spectre- shallops, and supernatural Dutch doggers, are common to many countiies, and are well attested both in poetry and prose. The adventures of Solway sailors, with Mahound, in his bottomless barges, and the careeriugs of the phantom-ship up and down the Hudson, have hundreds of asserters besides Messrs. Cunningham and Crayon ; and to doubt their authenticity may seem like an imitation of the desperate sailing of the haunted vessels themselves against wind and tide. 1 cannot help fancying, however, that Richard Faulder was but one of those taveni-dreamers recorded by old Hey wood, who conceived " The room wherein they quaff'd to be a pinnace." And as for the Flying Dutchman, my notion is very ditlerent from the popular conception of that apparition, as 1 have ventured to show by the opposite design. THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. THE DEMON-SHiP. 39 The spectre-ship, bound to Dead Man's Isle, is almost as awful a craft as the skeleton-bark of the Ancient Mariner ; but they are both fictions^, and have not the advantage of being realities, like the dreary vessel with its dreary crew in the following story, which records an adventure that befel even unto myself. 'TwAs off the Wash — the sun went down — the sea look'd black and grim. For stormy clouds, with murky Heece, were mustering at the brim ; Titanic shades ! enormous gloom ! — as if the solid night Of Erebus rose suddenly to seize upon the light ! It was a time for mariners to bear a wary eye. With such a dark conspiracy between the sea and sky ! Down went my helm — close reef'd — the tack held freely in my hand — With ballast snug — I put about, and scudded for the land. Loud hiss'd the sea beneath her lee — my little boat flew fast. But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast. Lord ! what a roaring liurricane beset the straining sail ! What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults of had! 40 THE DEMON-SHIP. What darksome caverns yawii'd betore ! what jagged steeps behind ! Like battle-steeds, with foamy manes, wild tossing in the wind. Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the chase. But where it sank another rose and gallop'd in its place ; As black as night — they turned to white, and cast against the cloud A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturn'd a sailor's shroud : — Still flew my boat ; alas ! alas ! her course was nearly run ! Behold yon fatal billow rise — ten billows heap'd in one ! With fearful speed the dreary mass came rolling, roll- ing, fast. As if the scooping sea contain'd one only wave at last ! Still on it came, with horrid roar, a swift pursuing grave ; It seem'd as though some cloud had turn'd its hugeness to a wave ! Its briny sleet began to beat beforehand in my face — I felt the rearward keel begfin to climb its swelling- base ! 1 saw its alpine hoary head impending over mine ! Another pulse — and down it rush'd — an avalanche of brine ! Brief pause had I, on God to cry, or think of wife and home ; The waters clos'd — and when I shriek'd, I shriek'd below the foam ! THE DEMON-SHIP. 41 Beyond that rush I have no hint of any after deed — For I was tossing on the waste, as senseless as a weed. ^'^ Where am I ? in the breathing world, or in the world of death?" With sharp and sudden pang I drew another birth of breath ; My eyes drank in a doubtful light, my ears a doubtful sound — And was that ship a real ship whose tackle seem'd around ? A moon, as if the earthly moon, was shining up aloft; But were those beams the very beams that I had seen so oft? A face, that mock'd the human face, before me watch'd alone ; But were those eyes the eyes of man that look'd against my own ? Oh ! never may the moon again disclose me such a sight As met my gaze, when first 1 look'd, on tliat accursed night ! I've seen a thousand horrid shapes begot of fierce extremes Of fever ; and most frightful things have haunted in ray dreams — 42 THE DEMON-SHIP. Hyenas — cats — blood-loving bats — and apes with hate- ful stare, — Pernicious snakes, and shaggy bulls — the lion, and she-bear — Strong enemies, with Judas looks, of treachery and spite — Detested features, hardly dimm'd and banish'd by the light ! Pale-sheeted ghosts, with gory locks, upstarting from their tombs — All phantasies and images that flit in midnight glooms — Hags, goblins, demons, leraures, have made me all aghast,-— But nothing like that Grimly One who stood beside the mast ! His cheek was black — his brow w^as black — his eyes and hair as dark : His hand was black, and where it touch'd, it left a sable mark; His throat w as black, his vest the same, and when I look'd beneath. His breast was black — all, all, was black except his grinning teeth. His sooty crew were like in hue, as black as Afric slaves ! Oh, horror! e'en the ship was black that plough'd the inky waves ! THE DEMON-SHIP. 43 •^^Alas!" I cried, "for love of truth and blessed mercy's sake, Where am I ? in what dreadful ship ? upon what dread- ful lake ? What shape is that;, so very grim, and black as any coal? It is Mahound, the Evil One^ and he has gain'd my soul ! Oh, mother dear! my tender nurse! dear meadows that beguil'd My happy days, when I was yet a little sinless child, — My mother dear — my native fields, I never more shall see : Fm sailing in the Devil's Ship, upon the Devil's Sea !" Loud laugh'd that Sable Mariner, and loudly in return His sooty crew sent forth a laugh that rang from stem to stern — A dozen pair of grimly cheeks were crumpled on the nonce — • As many sets of grinning teeth came shining out at once : A dozen gloomy shapes at once enjoy'd the men'y fit. With shriek and yell, and oaths as well, like Demons of the Pit. They crow'd their fill, and then the Chief made answer for the whole : — 44 THE DEMON-SHIP. *' Our skins," said he, '' are black ye see, because we carry coal; You'll find your mother sure enough, and see your native fields — For this here ship has pick'd you up — the Mary Ann of Shields!" Fancy i'outiiait: — captain head. 45 SALLY HOLT, AND THE DEATH OF JOHN HAYLOFT. Four times in the year — twice at the season of the half-yearly dividends, and twice at the intermediate quarters, to make her slender investments — there calls at my Aunt Shakerly's, a very plain, very demure maiden, about forty, and makes her way downward to the kitchen, or upward to my cousin's chamber, as may happen. Her coming is not to do chair-work, or needle- work — to tell fortunes — to beg, steal, or borrow. She does not come for old clothes, or for new. Her simple errand is love — pure, strong, disinterested, enduring- love, passing the love of women — at least for women. It is not often servitude begets much kindliness be- tween the two relations; her's, however, grew from that ungenial soil. For the whole family of the Shaker- lies she has a strong feudal attachment, but her parti- cular regard dwells with Charlotte, the latest born of 46 SALLY HOLT, AND THE the clan. Her she doats upon — her she fondles — and takes upon her longing, loving lap. O let not the oblivious attentions of the worthy Dominie Sampson, to the tall boy Bertram, be called an unnatural working ! I have seen my cousin, a good feeder, and well grown into womanhood, sitting — two good heads taller than her dry-nurse — on the knees of the simple-hearted Sally Holt ! I have seen the huge presentation orange, unlapp'd from the homely speckled kerchief, and thrust with importunate tenderness into the bashful marriageable hand. My cousin's heart is not so artificially composed, as to let her scorn this humble affection, though she is puzzled sometimes with what kind of look to receive these honest but awkward endearments. I have seen her face quivering with half a laugh. It is one of Sally's staple hopes that, some day or other, when Miss Charlotte keeps house, she will live with her as a servant ; and this expectation makes her particular and earnest to a fault in her enquiries about sweet- hearts, and oifers, and the matrimonial chances : ques- tions which I have seen my cousin listen to with half a cry. Perhaps Sally looks upon this confidence as her right, in return for those secrets which, by joint force of igno- rance and affection, she could not help reposing in the bosom of her foster-mistress. Nature, unkind to her, as to Dogberry, denied to her that knowledge of read- DEATH OF JOHN HAYLOFT. 47 ing and writing which comes to some by instinct. A strong- principle of religion made it a darling- point with her to learn to read, that she might study in her bible : but in spite of all the help of my cousin, and as ardent a desire for learning as ever dwelt in scholar, poor Sally never mastered beyond A-B-ab. Her mind, sim- ple as her heart, was unequal to any more difficult com- binations. Writing was worse to her than conjuring. IVJy cousin was her amanuensis : and from the vague, unaccountable mistrust of ignorance, the inditer took the pains always to compare the verbal message with the transcript, by counting the number of the words. 1 would give up all the tender epistles of Mrs. Arthur Brooke, to have read one of Sally's epistles ; but they were amatory, and therefore kept sacred : for plain as she was, Sally Holt had a lover. There is an unpretending plainness in some faces that has its charm — an unaffected ugliness, a thousand times more bewitching than those would-be pretty looks that neither satisfy the critical sense, nor leave the matter of beauty at once to the imagination. We like better to make a new face than to mend an old one. Sally had not one good feature, except those which John Hayloft made for her in his dreams ; and to judge from one token, her partial fancy was equally answerable for his charms. One precious lock — no, not a lock, but rather a remnant of very short, very coarse, very yellow hair, the clippings of a military crop, for John was a 48 SALLY HOLT, AND THE corporal — stood the foremost item amongst her treasures. To her they were curls, golden, Hyperian, and cherished long after (he parent-head was laid low, with many more, on the bloody plain of Salamanca. J remember vividly at this moment the ecstasy of her grief at the receipt of the fatal news. She was standing near the dresser with a dish, just cleaned, in her dexter hand. Ninety-nine women in a hundred would have dropped the dish. Many would have flung themselves after it on the floor; but Sally put it up, orderly, on the shelf. The fall of John Hayloft could not induce the fall of the crockery. She felt the blow notwith- standing; and as soon as she had emptied her hands, began to give way to her emotions in her own manner. Affliction vents itself in various modes, with dift'erent temperaments : some rage, others compose themselves like monuments. Some weep, some sleep, some prose about death, and others poetize on it. Many take to a bottle, or to a rope. Some go to Margate, or Bath. Sally did nothing of these kinds. She neither snivel- led, travelled, sickened, maddened, nor ranted, nor canted, nor hung, nor fuddled herself — she only rocked herself upon the kitchen chair! ! The action was not adequate to her relief. She got up — took a fresh chair — then another — and another — and another, — till she had rocked on all the chairs in the kitchen. The thing was tickling to both sympathies. It was DEATH OF JOHN HAYLOFT. 49 pathetical to behold iier grief, but ludicrous that she knew no better how to grieve. An American might have thought that she was in the act of enjoyment, but for an intermitting O dear ! O dear ! Passion could not wring more from her in the way of exclamation than the tooth-ache. Her la- mentations were always the same, even in tone. By and bye she pulled out the hair — the cropped, yellow, stunted, scrubby hair ; then she fell to rocking — then O dear ! O dear ! — and then Da Capo. It was an odd sort of elegy, and yet, simple as it was, I thought it worth a thousand of Lord Littelton's ! "Heyday, Sally ! what is the matter?" was a very na- tural enquiry from my Aunt, when she came down into the kitchen ; and if she did not make it with her tongue, at least it was asked very intelligibly by her eyes. Now Sally had but one way of addressing her mistress, and she used it here. It was the same with whicli she would have asked for a holiday, except that tlie waters stood in her eyes. " If you please. Ma'am," said she, rising up from her chair, and dropping her old curtsey, " if you please. Ma'am, it's John Hayloft is deadj" and then she began rocking again, as if grief was a baby that wanted jogging to sleep. My Aunt was posed. She would fain have comforted the mourner, but her mode of grieving was so out of the common way, that she did not know how to begin. H 50 SALLY HOLT, &C. To the violent she might have brought soothing ; to the desponding, texts of patience and resignation; to the hysterical, sal volatile ; she might have asked the senti- mental for the story of her woes. A good scolding is useful with some sluggish griefs : — in some cases a cor- dial. In others — a job. If Sally had only screamed, or bellowed, or fainted, or gone stupified, or raved, or said a collect, or moped about, it would have been easy to deal with her. But with a woman that only rocked on her chair What the devil could my Aunt do ? — Why, nothing : — and she did it as well as she could. PONY-ATOWSKf. 51 A TRUE STORY. Of all our pains, since man was curst, I mean of body, not the mental. To name the worst, among the worst. The dental sure is transcendental ; Some bit of masticating bone. That ought to help to clear a shelf: But lets its proper work, alone. And only seems to gnaw itself. In fact, of any grave attack On victual, there is little danger 'Tis so like coming to the rack^ As well as going to the manger. Old Hunks — it seem'd a fit retort Of justice on his grinding ways — Possess'd a grinder of the sort. That troubled all his latter days. The best of friends fall out, and so His teeth had done some years ago. Save some old stumps with ragged root. And they took tuin about to shoot : 52 A TRUE STORY. If he drank any chilly liquor. They made it quite a point to throb ; liut if he vvarm'd it on the hob. Why then they only twitch'd the quicker. One tooth — I wonder such a tooth Had never kill'd him in his youth — One tooth he had with many fangs, That shot at once as many pangs. It had an universal sting ; One touch of that extatic stump Could jerk his limbs, and make him jump, Just like a puppet on a string ; And what was worse than all, it had A way of making others bad. There is, as many knovv^, a knack, With certain farming undertakers. And this same tooth pursued their track. By adding ackers still to ackers ! One way there is, that has been judg'd A certain cure, but Hunks was loth To pay the fee, and quite begrudg'd To lose his tooth and money both ; In fact, a dentist and the wheel Of Fortune, are a kindred cast. For after all is drawn, you feel It's paying for a blank at last ; A SHOOTING TOOTH. A TRUE STORY. 53 So Hunks went on from week to week, And kept his torment in his cheek ; Oh ! how it sometimes set him rocking, With that perpetual gnaw — gnaw — gnaw, His moans and groans, were truly shocking And loud, altho' he held his jaw. Many a tug he gave his gum. And tooth, but still it would not come, Tho' tied by string, to some firm thing. He could not draw it, do his best. By draw'rs, — altho' he tried a chest. At last, but after much debating. He joined a score of mouths in waiting, Like his, to have their troubles out. Sad sight it was to look about At twenty faces making faces. With many a rampant trick and antic. For all were very horrid cases. And made their owners nearly frantic. A little wicket now and then. Took one of these unhappy men. And out again the victim rush'd. While eyes and mouth together gush'd ; At last arrived our hero's turn, Who plunged his hands in both his pockets. And down he sat, prepar'd to learn How teeth are charm 'd to quit their sockets. 54 A TRUE STORY. Those who have felt such operations. Alone can guess the sort of ache. When his old tooth began to break The thread of old associations ; It touch'd a string in every part. It had so many tender ties ; One chord seem'd wrenching at his heart. And two were tugging at his eyes ; ^' Bone of liis bone," he felt of course. As husbands do in such divorce ; At last the fangs gave way a little. Hunks gave his head a backward jerk. And, lo ! the cause of all this work. Went — where it used to send his victual ! The monstrous pain of this proceeding. Had not so numbed his miser wit. But in this slip he saw a hit To save, at least, his purse from bleeding ; So when the dentist sought his fees, Quoth Hunks, '' Let's finish, if you please." " How, finish! why its out !" — '' Oh ! no — 'Tis you are out, to argue so ; I'm none of your before-hand tippers. My tooth is in my head no doubt. But as you say you pull'd it out, Of course it's there — between your nippers." '' Zounds ! sir, d'ye think I'd sell the truth A TRUE STORY. 55 To get a fee ? — no, wretch, I scorn it." But Hunks still ask'd to see the tooth, And swore, by gum ! he had not drawn it. His end obtain'd, he took his leave, A secret chuckle in his sleeve ; The joke was worthy to produce one. To think, by favour of his wit. How well a dentist liad been bit By one old stump, and that a loose one ! The thing was worth a laugh, but mirth Is still the frailest thing on earth ; Alas ! how often when a joke Seems in our sleeve, and safe enough. There comes some unexpected stroke. And hangs a weeper on the cuft' ! Hunks had not whistled half a mile. When, planted right against a stile. There stood his foeman, Mike Mahoney, A vagrant reaper, Irish-bom, That help'd to reap our miser's corn. But had not help'd to reap his money, A fact that Hunks remembered quickly ; His whistle all at once was quell'd, And when he saw how Michael held His sickle, he felt rather sickly. Nine souls in ten, with half his fright. Would soon have paid the bill at sight, 56 A TRUE srouv. But misers (let observers watch it) Will never part with their delight Till well demanded by a hatchet — They live hard — and they die to match it. Thus Hunks^ prepar'd for Mike's attacking, Resolv'd not yet to pay the debt. But let him take it out in hacking ; However, Mike began to stickle In words before he used the sickle ; But mercy was not long attendant : From words at last he took to blows, And aim'd a cut at Hunk's nose ; That made it what some folks are not — A member very independent. Heaven knows how far this cruel trick Might still have led, but for a tramper That came in danger's very nick. To put Mahoney to the scamper. But still compassion met a damper ; There lay the sever'd nose, alas ! Beside the daisies on the grass, " Wee, crimson-tipt" as well as they. According to the poet's lay ; And there stood Hunks, no sight for laughter Away ran Hodge to get assistance. With nose in hand^ which Hunks ran after. But somewhat at unusual distance. A TRUE STORY. 57 In many a little country place It is a very common case To have but one residing doctor, Whose practice rather seems to be No practice, but a rule of three. Physician — surgeon — drug-decocter ; Thus Hunks was forc'd to go once more Where he had ta'en his tooth before. His mere name made the learned man hot,- — ^'^ What ! Hunks again within my door ! "I'll pull his nose ;" quoth Hunks, "you cannot." The doctor look'd and saw the case Plain as the nose not on his face. " O ! hum — ha — yes — I understand." But then arose a long demur. For not a finger would he stir Till he was paid his fee in hand ; That matter settled, there they were, With Hunks well strapp'd upon liis chair. The opening of a surgeon's job — His tools, a chestfuU or a drawfull — Are always something very awful. And give the heart the strangest throb ; But never patient in his funks Look'd half so like a ghost as Hunks, 58 A TRUE STORY. Or surgeon halt" so like a devil Prepar'd tor some internal revel : His huge black eye kept rolling, rolling, Just like a bolus in a box : His fury seem'd above controlling. He bellow'd like a hunted ox : " Now, swindling wretch, I'll show thee how We treat such cheating knaves as thou ; Oh ! sweet is this revenge to sup : I have thee by the nose — it's now My turn — and 1 will turn it up." Guess how the miser liked this scurvy And cruel way of venting passion ; The snubbing folks in this new fashion Seem'd quite to turn him topsy turvy ; He utter'd pray'rs^ and groans, and curses. For things had often gone amiss And wrong with him before, but this Would be the worst of all reverses ! In fancy he beheld his snout Turn'd upward like a pitcher's spout ; There was another grievance yet, And fancy did not fail to show it. That he must throw a summerset. Or stand upon his head to blow it. A TRUE STORY. 59 And was there then no arg-ument To change the doctor's vile intent^, And move his pity ? — yes, in truth,, And that was — paying for the tooth. "Zounds! pay for such a stump! I'd rather — " But here the menace went no farther^ For with his other ways of pinching. Hunks had a miser's love of snulf, A recollection strong enough To cause a very serious flinching ; In short he paid and had the feature Replac'd as it was meant by nature ; For tho' by this 'twas cold to handle, (No corpse's could have felt more horrid,) And white just like an end of candle. The doctor deem'd and prov'd it too. That noses from the nose will do As well as noses from the forehead ; So tix'd by dint of rag and lint. The part was bandag'd up and muffled. The chair unfasten'd. Hunks arose. And shuffled out, for once unshuffled ; And as he went, these words he snuffled — " Well, this is ' paying thro' the nose.' " 60 THE DECLINE OF MRS. SHAKERLY. Towards the close of her life, my Aunt Shakerly in- creased rapidly in bulk : she kept adding growth unto her growth, " Giving a sum of more to that which had too much/* till the result w£is worthy of a Smithfield premium. It was not the triumph, however, of any systematic diet for the promotion of fat, — (except oyster-eating there is no human system of s^<7//-feeding,) — on the contrary, she lived abstemiously, diluting her food with pickle- acids, and keeping frequent fasts in order to reduce her compass ; but they failed of this desirable effect. Na- ture had planned an original tendency in her organiza- tion that was not to be overcome : — she would have fat- tened on sour krout. /My uncle, on the other hand, decreased daily ; origi- nally a little man, he became lean, shrunken, wizened. There was a predisposition in his constitution that made him spare, and kept him so : — he would have fallen oif even on brewer's grains. THE DECLINE OF MRS. SHAKERLY. 61 It was the common joke of the neighbourhood to de- signate my aunt;, my uncle, and the infant Shakerly, as, " Wholesale, Retail, and For Exportation ;" and, in truth, they were not inapt impersonations of that popular inscription, — my aunt a giantess, my uncle a pigmy, and the child being " carried abroad." Alas ! of the three departments, nothing now remains but the Retail portion— my uncle, a pennyworth, a mere sample. It is upon record, that Dr. Watts, though a puny man in person, took a fancy, towards his latter days, that he was too large to pass through a door : an error which Death shortly corrected by taking him through his own portal. My unhappy aunt, with more show of reason, indulged in a similar delusion ; she conceived herself to have grow^n inconveniently cumbersome for the small village of * * * *, and my uncle, to quiet her, removed to the metropolis. There she lived for some months in comparative ease, till at last an unlucky event recalled all her former inquietude. The Elephant of Mr Cross, a good feeder, and with a natural tendency to corpu- lence, throve so well on his rations, that, becoming too huge for his den, he was obliged to be dispatched. My aunt read the account in the newspapers, and the catastrophe with its cause took possession of her mind. She seemed to herself as that Elephant. An intolerable sense of confinement and oppression haunted her by day and in her dreams. First she had a tightness at her G2 THE DECLINE OF MRS. SHAKERLY. chest, then in her limbs, then all over ; she felt too big for her chair — then for her bed — then for her room — then for the house ! To divert her thought my uncle proposed to go to Paris ; but she w^as too huge for a boat — for a barge — for a packet — for a frigate — for a country — for a continent ! " She was too big/' she said, " for this world — but she was going to one that is boundless." Nothing could wean her from this belief: her whole talk was of *'^ cumber-grounds :" of the ^' burthen of the flesh:" and of "infinity." Sometimes her head wan- dered, and she would then speak of disposing of the •^^ bulk of her personals." In the mean time her health decayed slowly, but per- ceptibly : she was dying, the doctor said, by inches. Now my uncle was a kind husband, and meant ten- derly, though it sounded untender : but when the doctor said that she was dying by inches — " God forbid !" cried my uncle : '^ consider what a great big creature she is !" WHOLESALE — RETAIL — AND FOR EXPORTATION." THE JUDGES OF A-SIZE. 63 TIM TURPIN. \ PATHETIC BA.LLAD. Tim Turpin he was gravel blind, And ne'er had seen the skies : For Nature, when his head was made. Forgot to dot his eyes. So, like a Christmas pedagogue, Poor Tim was forc'd to do — Look out for pupils, for he had A vacancy for two. There's some have specs to help their sight Of objects dim and small : But Tim had specks within his eyes. And could not see at all. Now Tim he woo'd a servant-maid, And took her to his arms ; For he, like Pyramus, had cast A wall eve on her charms. 64 TIM TURPIN. liy clay slic led him up and down Where'er he vvish'd to jog-, A happy wife, altho' she led The life of any dog. But just when Tim had liv'd a month In honey with his wife, A surgeon ope'd his Milton eyes. Like oysters, with a knife. But when his eyes were open'd thus. He wish'd them dark again : For when he look'd upon his wife. He saw her very plain. Her face was bad, her figure worse. He could 'nt bear to eat : For she was any thing but like A Grace before his meat. Now Tim he was a feeling man : For when his sight was thick. It made him feel for every thing, — But that was with a stick. So with a cudgel in his hand — It was not light or slim — He knocked at his wife's head until It open'd unto liim. TIM TURPIN. 05 And when the corpse was stitt and cold. He took his slaughter'd spouse, And laid her in a heap witli all, The ashes of her house. But like a wicked murderer. He liv'd in constant fear From day to day, and so he cut His throat from ear to ear. The neighbours fetch'd a doctor in : Said he, this wound I dread Can hardly be sow'd up — his life Is hanging on a thread. But when another week was gone. He gave him stronger hope — Instead of hanging on a thread. Of hanging on a rope. Ah ! when he hid his bloody work, In ashes round about. How little he supposed the truth, Would soon be sifted out. But when the parish dustman came, His rubbish to withdraw. He found more dust within the heap, Than he contracted for ! 66 TIM TURPIN. A dozen men to try the fact. Were sworn that very day ; But tho* they all were jurors, yet No conjurors were they. Said Tim unto those jurymen, You need not waste your breath, For I confess myself at once. The author of her death. And, oh ! when I reflect upon The blood that I have spilt, Just like a button is my soul, Inscrib'd with double sidlt ! e>' Then turning round his head again. He saw before his eyes, A great judge, and a little judge. The judges of a-size ! The great judge took his judgment cap, And put it on his head. And sentenc'd Tim by law to hang, 'Till he was three times-dead. So he was tried, and he was hung (Fit punishment for such) On Horsham-drop, and none can say It was a drop too much. JURORS — NOT CON-JURORS. 67 THE MONKEY-MARTYR. A FABLE. " God help thee, said I, but I'll let thee out, cost what it ■will : so I turned about the cage to get to the door." — Sterne. 1. 'Tis strange, what awkward figures and odd capers Folks cut, who seek their doctrine from the papers ; But there are many shallow politicians. Who take their bias from bewilder'd journals — Turn state-physicians. And make themselves fool's-caps of the diurnals. 2. One of this kind, not human, but a monky. Had read himself at last to this sour creed — That he was nothing but Oppression's flunkey. And man a tyrant over all his breed. He could not read Of niggers whipt, or over-trampled weavers. GH THE MONKEY-M\RTYR. But lie aj)))lied their wrongs to his own seed. And nourish'd thoughts that threw him into fevers. His very dreams were full of martial beavers, And drilling Pugs, for liberty pugnacious, To sever chains vexatious : In fact, he thought that all his injured line Should take up pikes in hand, and never drop em Till they had clear 'd a road to Freedom's shrine, — Unless perchance the turn-pike men should stop 'em. Full of this rancour. Pacing one day beside St. Clement Danes, It came into his brains To give a look in at the Crown and Anchor ; Where certain solemn sages of the nation Were at that moment in deliberation How to relieve the wide world of its chains. Pluck despots down. And thereby crown A^Tiitee- as well as blackee-man-cipation. Pug heard the speeches with great approbation. And gazed with pride upon the Liberators ; To see mere coal-heavers Such perfect Bolivars — Waiters of inns sublimed to innovators. And slaters dignified as legislators — THE MONKEY-MARTYR. 69 Small publicans demanding (such their high sense Of liberty) an universal license — And patten-makers easing Freedom's clogs — The whole thing seem'd So fine, he deem'd The smallest demagogues as great as Gogs ! 4. Pug, with some curious notions in his noddle, Walk'd out at last, and turn'd into the Strand, To the left hand. Conning some portions of the previous twaddle. And striding with a step that seem'd design'd To represent the mighty March of Mind, Instead of that slow waddle Of thought, to which our ancestors inclin'd — No wonder, then, that he should quickly find He stood in front of that intrusive pile. Where Cross keeps many a kind Of bird confin'd, And free-born animal, in durance vile — A thought that stirr'd up all the monkey-bile ! 5. The window stood ajar — It was not far. Nor, like Parnassus, very hard to climb — The hour was verging on the supper-time. 70 THE MONKEY-MARTYR. And many a growl was sent through many a bar. Meanwhile Pug scrambled upward like a tar. And soon crept in, Unnotic'd in the din Of tuneless throats, that made the attics ring With all the harshest notes that they could bring ; For like the Jews, Wild beasts refuse. In midst of their captivity — to sing. 6. Lord ! how it made him chafe, Full of his new emancipating zeal. To look around upon this brute-bastille. And see the king of creatures in — a safe ! The desert's denizen in one small den. Swallowing slavery's most bitter pills — A bear in bars unbearable. And then The fretful porcupine, with all its quills Imprison'd in a pen ! A tiger limited to four feet ten ; And, still worse lot, A leopard to one spot ! An elephant enlarged. But not discharged ; (It was before the elephant was shot ;) A doleful wanderow, that wandered not ; An ounce much disproportion'd to his pound. BRUTE EMANCIPATION, THE MONKEY-MARTYR. 71 Pug"'s wrath wax'cl hot To gaze upon these captive creatures round ; Wliose claws — all scratching — gave hira full assurance They found their durance vile of vile endurance. 7. He went above — a solitary mounter Up gloomy stairs — and saw a pensive group Of hapless fowls — Cranes, vultures, owls, In fact, it was a sort of Poultry- Compter, Where feather'd prisoners were doom'd to droop : Here sat an eagle, forced to make a stoop. Not from the skies, but his impending roof; And there aloof, A pining ostrich, moping in a coop ; With other samples of the bird creation. All caged against their powers and their wills. And cramp'd in such a space, the longest bills Were plainly bills of least accommodation. In truth, it was a very ugly scene To fall to any liberator's share. To see those winged fowls that once had been Free as the wind, no freer than fix'd air. 8. His temper little mended. Pug from this Bird-cage Walk at last descended 72 THE MONKEY-MARTYR. Unto the lion and the elephant, His bosom in a pant To see all nature's Free List thus suspended. And beasts deprived of what she had intended. They could not even prey In their own way; A hardship always reckon'd quite prodigious. Thus he revolved — And soon resolved To give them freedom, civil and religious. 9. That night there were no country cousins, raw From Wales, to view the lion and his kin : The keeper's eyes were fix'd upon a saw ; The saw was fix'd upon a bullock's shin : Meanwhile with stealthy paw, Pug hasten 'd to withdraw The bolt that kept the king of brutes within. Now, monarch of the forest ! thou shalt win Precious enfranchisement — thy bolts are undone ; Thou art no longer a degraded creature. But loose to roam with liberty and nature : And free of all the jungles about London — All Hampstead's heathy desert lies before thee ! Metliinks I see thee bound from Cross's ark. Full of the native instinct that comes o'er thee. And turn a ranger THE MONKEY-MARTYR. 73 Of Hounslovv Forest, and the Reg-ent's Park — Thin Rhodes's cows — the raail-coacli steeds endanger. And gobble parish watchmen after dark : — Methinks I see thee, with the early lark. Stealing to Merlin's cave — {thy cave.) — Alas, That such bright visions should not come to pass ! Alas, for freedom, and for freedom's hero ! Alas, for liberty of life and limb ! For Pug had only half unbolted Nero, When Nero bolted him ! 74 BANDITTI. Of all the saints in the Calendar^ none has suffered less from the Reformation than St. Cecilia, the great pa- troness of Music. Lofty and lowly are her votaries — many and magnificent are her holiday festivals — and her common service is performing at all hours of the day. She has not only her regular high-priests and priest- esses ; but, like the Wesleyans, her itinerants and street-missionaries, to make known her worship in the highways and in the byeways. Nor is the homage confined to the people of one creed ; — the Protestant exalts her on his barrel-organ — the Catholic with her tambourine — the wandering Jew with his Pan's-pipe and double-drum. The groupe opposite was sketched from a company of these '' Strolling Players." It must be confessed that their service is sometimes of a kind rather to drive angels higher into heaven, than to entice them earthward ; and there are certain retired streets — near the Adelphi, for instance — where such half-hourly deductions from the natural quiet of the situation should justly be considered in the rent. Some of the choruses, in truth, are beyond any but a saintly endurance. Conceive a brace of opposition organs, a BANDITTI. 75 fife, two hurdy-gurdies, a clarionet, and a quartette of decayed mariners, all clubbing- their music in common, on the very principle of Mr. Owen's Neiv Harmony ! In the Journal of a recent Traveller through the Papal States, there is an account of an adventure with Neapo- litan robbers, that would serve, with very slight alter- ations, for the description of an encounter with our own banditti. '' To-day, Mrs. Graham and I mounted our horses and rode towards Islington. We had not proceeded far, when we heard sounds as pf screaming and groan- ing, and presently a groupe of men appeared at a turn of the road. It was too certain that we had fallen in with one of these roving bands. Escape was impossi- ble, as they extended across the road. Their leader was the celebrated Flanigan, notorious for his murder of Fair Ellen, and the Bewildered Maid. One of the fellows advanced close up to Mrs. G. and putting his instrument to her ear, threatened to blow out her brains. We gave them vvhat coppers we had, and were allowed to proceed. We were informed by the country-people, that a gentlewoman and her daughter had been detained by them, near the same spot, and robbed of their hear- ings, with circumstances of great barbarity ; Flanigan, in the meantime, standing by with his pipe in his mouth ! " Innumerable other travellers have been stopped and tortured by these wretches, till they gave up their money : 76 BANDITTI. and yet these excesses are winked at by tlie police. In the meantime, the government does not interfere, in the hope, perhaps, that some day these gangs may be broken up, and separated by discord amongst them- selves." Sometimes to the eye of fancy these wandering min- strels assume another character, and illustrate Collins's Ode on the Passions, in a way that might edify Miss Macauley. First, Fear, a blind harper, lays his be- wildered hand amongst the cords, but recoils back at the sound of an approaching carriage. Anger, with starting eye-balls, blows a rude clash on the bugle-horn ; and Despair, a snipe-faced wight, beguiles his grief with low sullen sounds on the bassoon. Hope, a con- sumptive Scot, with golden hair and a clarionet, in- dulges, like the flatterer herself, in a thousand fantastic flourishes beside the tune — with a lingering quaver at the close ; and would quaver longer, but Revenge shakes his matted locks, blows a fresh alarum on his pandeans, and thumps with double heat his double-drum. De- jected Pity at his side, a hunger-bitten urchin, applies to his silver-toned triangle ; whilst Jealousy, sad proof of his distracted state, grinds on, in all sorts of time, at his barrel-organ. With eyes upraised, pale Melancholy sings retired and unheeded at the corner of the street ; and Mirth, — yonder he is, a brisk little Savoyard, jerk- ing away at the hurdy-gurdy, and dancing himself at the same time, to render his jig-tune more jigging 77 DEATH'S RAMBLE. One day the dreary old King of Death, Inclined for some sport with the carnal. So he tied a pack of darts on his back. And quietly stole from his charnel. His head was bald of flesh and of hair. His body was lean and lank, His joints at each stir made a crack, and the cur Took a gnaw, by the way, at his shank. And what did he do with his deadly darts. This goblin of grisly bone ? He dabbled and spill'd man's blood, and he kill'd Like a butcher that kills his own. The first he slaughter'd it made him laugh, (For the man was a coffin-maker,) To think how the mutes, and men in black suits. Would mourn for an undertaker. 78 death's ramble. Death saw two Quakers sitting at church. Quoth he, " we shall not difter." And he let them alone, Kke figures ot" stone. For he could not make them stiff er. He saw two duellists going- to fight, In fear they could not smother ; And he shot one through at once — for he knew They never would shoot each other. He saw a watchman fast in his box, And he gave a snore infernal ; Said Death, " he may keep his breath, for his sleep Can never be more eternal." He met a coachman driving his coach So slow, that his fare grew sick ; But he let him stray on his tedious way, For Death only wars on the quick. Death saw a toll-man taking a toll. In the spirit of his fraternity ; But he knew that sort of man would extort. Though summon'd to all eternity. He found an author writing his life. But he let him write no further ; For Death, who strikes whenever he likes. Is jealous of all self-murther ! " DUST O !" death's p amble. 79 Death saw a patient that pull'd out his purse. And a doctor that took the sum ; But he let them be — tor he knew the " fee" Was a prelude to " taw" and " turn." He met a dustman ringing a bell, And he gave him a mortal thrust ; For himself, by law, since Adam's flaw. Is contractor for all our dust. He saw a sailor mixing his grog, And he marked him out for slaughter ; For on water he scarcely had cared for Death, And never on rum-and-water. Death saw two players playing at cards. But the game wasn't worth a dump. For he quickly laid them flat with a spade, To wait for the final trump ' 80 CRANIOLOGY. 'Tis strange how lilte a very dunce, Man — with his bumps upon his sconce, Has lived so long, and yet no knowledge he Has had, till lately, of Phrenology — A science that by simple dint of Head-combing, he should find a hint of. When scratching o'er those little pole-hills. The faculties throw up like mole-hills ; — A science that, in very spite Of all his teeth, ne'er came to light. For tho' he knew his skull had grimier s, Still there tum'd up no organ finders, Still sages wrote, and ages fled, And no man's head came in his head — Not even the pate of Erra Pater, Knew ought about its pia mater. At last great Dr. Gall bestirs him — • I don't know but it might be Spurzheim — Tho' native of a didl and slow land. And makes partition of our Poll-land ; CitANE-IOLOGY- CRANIOLOGY. 81 At our Acquisitiveness guesses. And all those necessary nesses Indicative of human habits, All burrowing in the head like rabbits. Thus Veneration, he made known. Had got a lodging at the Crown : And Music (see Deville's example) A set of chambers in the Temple : That Language taught the tongues close by, And took in pupils thro' the eye. Close by his neighbour Computation, Who taught the eyebrows numeration. The science thus — to speak in fit Terms — having^ strugf^led from its nit. Was seiz'd on by a swarm of Scotchmen, Those scientifical hotch-potch men Wlio have at least a penny dip And wallop in all doctorship, Just as in making broth they smatter By bobbing twenty things in water : These men, I say, made quick appliance And close, to phrenologic science ; For of all learned themes whatever. That schools and colleges deliver. There's none they love so near the bodies. As analyzing their own noddles ; M 8*2 CRANIOLOCY. Thus ill a trice each northern blockhead Had got his fingers in his sliock head, And of" his bumps was babbling yet worse Than poor Miss Capulet's dry wet-nurse ; Till having been suflicient rangers Of their own heads, they took to strangers', And found in Presbyterians' polls The things they hated in their souls ; For Presbyterians hear with passion Of organs join'd with veneration. No kind there was of human pumpkin But at its bumps it had a bumpkin ; Down to the very lowest gullion. And oiliest scull of oily scullion. No great man died but this they did do. They begged his cranium of his widow : No murderer died by law disaster. But they took off his sconce in plaster ; For thereon they could show depending, " The head and front of his offending, " How that his philanthropic bump Was mastered by a baser lump ; For every bump (these wags insist) Has its direct antagonist, Each striving stoutly to prevail. Like horses knotted tail to tail ; And many a stiff and sturdy battle Occurs between these adverse cattle: CRANIOLOGY. S3 The secret cause, beyond all question. Of aches ascrib'd to indigestion, Whereas 'tis but two knobby rivals Tug'g-ing together like sheer devils. Till one gets mastery good or sinister. And comes in like a new prime-minister. Each bias in some master node is : — Wliat takes M'Adam where a road is. To hammer little pebbles less ? His org-an of Destructiveness. What makes great Joseph so encumber Debate ? a lumping lump of Number : Or Malthus rail at babies so ? The smallness of his Philopro — What severs man and wife ? a simple Defect of the Adhesive pimple : Or makes weak women go astray ? Their bumps are more in fault than they. These facts being found and set in order By grave M.D.s beyond the Border, To make them for some few months eternal. Were enter'd monthly in a journal. That many a northern sage still writes in. And throws his little Northern Lights in. And proves and proves about the phrenos, A great deal more than I or he knows. 84 CRANIOLOGV. How Music Slitters, par exe7uple. By wearing- tight liats round the temple What ills great boxers have to fear From blisters put behind the ear : And how a porter's Veneration Is hurt by porter's occupation : Whether shillelaghs in reality May deaden Individuality : Or tongs and poker be creative Of alterations in th' Amative : If falls from scaffolds make us less Inclin'd to all Constructiveness ; With more such matters, all applying To heads — and therefore headifyiug. " IIOKOUR CALLb llIM TO HIE FIELD. 85 AN AFFAIR OF HONOUR. ^'^ And those were the only duels," concluded the major, ^' that ever I fought in my life." Now the major reminded me strongly of an old boat- man at Hastings, who, after a story of a swimmer that was snapped asunder by a " sea-attorney" in the West Indies, made an end in the same fashion : — " And thj^t was the only time," said he, '^ I ever saw a man bit in two by a shark." A single occurrence of the kind seemed sufficient for the experience of one life ; and so I reasoned upon the major's nine duels. He must, in the first place, have been not only jealous and swift to quarrel ; but, in the second, have met with nine intemperate spirits equally forward with himself. It is but in one aUront out often that the duellist meets with a duellist : a computation assigning ninety mortal disagreements to his single share ; whereas I, with equal irritability and as much courage perhaps, had never exchanged a card in my life. The subject occupied me all the walk homeward through the meadows : — " To get involved in nine duels," said I: "^ 'tis quite improbable !" 86 AN AFFAIll OF HONOUR. As I thoiiglit thus, I had thrust my body halfway under a rougli bar that was doing- duty for a stile at one end of a field. It was just too high to climb comfort- ably, and just low enough to be inconvenient to duck under ; but I chose the latter mode, and began to creep through with the deliberateness consistent with doubtful and intricate speculation. '' To get involved in nine duels — here my back hitched a little at the bar — 'tis quite impossible." I am persuaded that there is a spirit of mischief afoot in the world — some malignant fiend to seize upon and direct these accidents; for just at this nick, whilst I was boggling below the bar, there came up another pas- senger by the same path : so seeing how matters stood, he made an attempt at once to throw his leg over the impediment ; but mistaking the altitude by a few inches, he kicked me — where 1 had never been kicked before. '' By Heaven ! this is too bad," said I, staggering through head foremost from the concussion : my back was up, in every sense, in a second. The stranger apologised in the politest terms, — but with such an intolerable chuckle, with such a provoking grin lurking about his face, that I felt fury enough, like Beatrice, to " eat his heart in the market-place." In short, in two little minutes, from venting my conviction upon duelling, I found myself engaged to a meeting for the vindication of my honour. There is a vivid description in the History of Robin- AN AFFAIR OF HONOUR. 87 son Crusoe, of the horror of the solitary Mariner at finding the mark of a foot in the sandy beach of his Desart Island. That abominable token, in a place that he fancied was sacred to himself — in a part, he made sure, never trodden by the sole of man — haunted him wherever he went. So did mine. I bore about with me the same ideal imprint — to be washed out, not by the ocean-brine, but with blood ! As I walked homeward after this adventure, and re- flected on my former opinions, I felt that 1 had done the gallant major an injustice. It seemed likely that a man of his profession might be called out even to the ninth time — nay, that men of the peaceful cloth might, on a chance, be obliged to have recourse to mortal com- bat, As for Gentlemen at the Bar, I have shown how they may get into an Affair of Honour in a twinkling. 88 A PARTHIAN GLANCE. " Sweet Memory, wafted by thy gentle gale, Oft up the stream of time I turn my sail." Rogers. Come, my Crony, let's think upon far-away days. And lift up a little Oblivion's veil ; Let's consider the past with a lingering gaze. Like a peacock whose eyes are inclin'd to his tail. Aye, come, let us turn our attention behind. Like those critics whose heads are so heavy, I fear, Tliat they cannot keep up with the march of the mind. And so turn face about for reviewing the rear. Looking over Time's crupper and over his tail. Oh, what ages and 'pages there are to revise I And as farther our back-searching glances prevail, Like the emmets, " how little we are in our eyes !'* What a sweet pretty innocent, half-a-yard long, On a dimity lap of true nursery make ! I can fancy 1 hear the old lullaby song That was meant to compose me, but kept me awake. y\ RCTROSPECTIVE REVJEW A PARTHIAN GLANCE. 89 Metliinks I still suffer the infantine throes. When my flesh was a cushion for any long pin— Whilst they patted my body to comfort my woes. Oh ! how little they dreamt they were driving them in ! Infant sorrows are strong — infant pleasures as weak — But no grief was allow'd to indulge in its note ; Did you ever attempt a small " bubble and squeak," Thro' the Dalby's Carminative down in your throat ? 9 Did you ever go up to the roof with a bounce ? Did you ever come down to the floor with the same Oh ! 1 can't but agree with both ends, and pronounce " Head or tails" with a child, an unpleasantish game ! Then an urchin — I see myself urchin, indeed. With a smooth Sunday face for a mother's delight ; Why should weeks have an end? — I am sure there was need Of a Sabbath, to follow each Saturday-night. Was your face ever sent to the housemaid to scrub ? Have you ever felt huckaback soften'd with sand ? Had you ever your nose towell'd up to a snub. And your eyes knuckled out with the back of the hand ? Then a school-boy — my tailor was nothing in fault. For an urchin will grow to a lad by degrees, — But how well I remember that "^ pepper-and-salt" That was down to the elbows, and up to the knees ! N 90 A PARTHIAN GLANCE. What a figure it cut when as Norval I spoke ! With a lanky right leg duly planted before ; Wliilst I told of the chief that was kill'd by my stroke. And extended my arms as " the arms that he wore !" Next a Lover — Oh ! say, were you ever in love ? With a lady too cold — and your bosom too hot ! Have you bow'd to a shoe-tie, and knelt to a glove ? Like a beau that desired to be tied in a knot ? W^ith the Bride all in white, and your body in blue. Did you walk up the aisle — the genteelest of men ? When I think of that beautiful vision anew. Oh ! I seem but the biffin of what I was then ! I am witherVl and worn by a premature care. And my wrinkles confess the decline of my days ; Old Time's busy hand has made free with my hair. And I'm seeking to hide it — by writing for bays ! 91 A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS. There*s some is bom with their straight legs by natur — And some is born with bow-legs from the first — And some that should have grow'd a good deal straighter. But they were badly nurs'd, And set, you see, like Bacchus, with their pegs Astride of casks and kegs : I've got myself a sort of bow to larboard. And starboard. And this is what it was that warp'd my legs. — 'Twas all along of Poll, as I may say. That foul'd my cable when I ought to slip ; But on the tenth of May, When I gets under weigh, Down there in Hartfordshire, to join my sliip, I sees the mail Get under sail. The only one there was to make the trip. Well — I gives chase. But as she run Two knots to one, There war'nt no use in keeping on the race ! 92 A SAILORS APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS. Well — casting- round about, what next to try on. And how to spin, I spies an ensign with a Bloody Lion, And bears away to leeward for the inn. Beats round the gable. And fetches up before the coach-horse stable : Well — there they stand, four kickers in a row. And so I just makes free to cut a brown'un's cable. But ridinof is'nt in a seaman's natur — J So I whips out a toughish end of yam. And gets a kind of sort of a land-waiter To splice me, heel to heel. Under the she-mare's keel. And off I goes, and leaves the inn a-starn ! My eyes ! how she did pitch I And would'nt keep her own to go in no line, Tho' I kept bowsing, bowsing at her bow-line. But always making lee-way to the ditch. And yaw'd her head about all sorts of ways. The devil sink the craft ! And was'nt she trimendus slack in stays ! We could'nt, no how, keep the inn abaft ! Well — I suppose We had'nt run a knot— or much beyond — (What will you have on it ?) — but off she goes. Up to her bends in a fresh-water pond ! A sailor's apology for bow-legs. 93 There I am ! — all a-back ! So I looks forward for her bridle -gears. To heave her head round on the t'other tack ; But when I starts. The leather parts, And goes away right over by the ears ! What could a fellow do, Whose legs, like mine, you know, were in the bilboes. But trim himself upright for bringing-to. And square his yard-arms, and brace up his elbows. In rig all snug and clever, : Just while his craft was taking in her water ? I did'nt like my burth tho', howsomdever. Because the yam, you see, kept getting taughter, — Says I — I wish this job was rayther shorter ! The chase had gain'd a mile A-head, and still the she-mare stood a-drinkino- : Now, all the while Her body did'nt take of course to shrinking. Says I, she's letting out her reefs, I'm thinking — And so she swell'd, and swell'd. And yet the tackle held, 'Till both my legs began to bend like winkin. My eyes ! but she took in enough to founder I And there's my timbers straining every bit. Ready to split. And her tarnation hull a-growing rounder ! 94 A sailor's apology for now-LEGs. Well, there — off Hartford Ness, We lay both lash'd and water-logg'd together. And can't contrive a signal of distress ; Thinks I, we must ride out this here foul weather, Tho' sick of riding out — and nothing less ; When, looking round, I sees a man a-starn : — Hollo ! says I, come underneath her quarter ! — And hands liim out my knife to cut the yam. So I gets off, and lands upon the road. And leaves the she-mare to her own concam, A -standing by the water. If I get on another, I'll be blow'd ! — And that's the way, you see, my legs got bow'd ! 95 *< NOTHING BUT HEARTS!" It must have been the lot of every whist-playcr to ob- serve a phenomenon at the card-table as mysterious as any in nature — I mean the constant recurrence of a certain trump throughout the night — a run upon a par- ticular suit, that sets all the calculations of Hoyle and Cocker at defiance. The chance of turning-up is equal to the Four Denominations. They should alternate with each other, on the average- — whereas a Heart, perhaps, shall be the last card of every deal. King or Queen, Ace or Deuce, — still it is of the same clan. You cut — and it comes again. '^ Nothing but Hearts !" The figure over-leaf might be fancied to embody this kind of occurrence ; and, in truth, it was designed to commemorate an evening dedicated to the same red suit. I had looked in by chance at the Royal Institu- tion : a Mr. Professor Pattison, of New York, I believe, was lecturing, and the subject was — '' Nothing but Hearts !" 96 '* NOTHING BUT HEARTS !" Some hundreds of grave, curious, or scientific person- ages were ranged on the benches of the Theatre ; — every one in his solemn black. On a table in front of the Professor, stood the specimens : hearts of all shapes and sizes — man's, woman's, sheep's, bullock's, — on platters or in cloths, were lying about as familiar as household wares. Drawings of hearts, in black or blood-red, (dismal valentines!) hung around the fearful walls. Preparations of the organ in wax, or bottled, passed currently from hand to hand, from eye to eye, and re- turned to the gloomy table. It was like some solemn Egyptian Inquisition — a looking into dead men's hearts for their morals. The Professor began. Each after each he displayed the samples; the words ^^ auricle" and '^ventricle" falling frequently on the ear, as he explained how those '" so- lemn organs" pump in the human breast. He showed, by experiments with water, the operation of the valves with the blood, and the impossibility of its revulsion. As he spoke, an indescribable thrilling or tremor crept over my left breast — thence down my side — and all over. I felt an awful consciousness of the bodily pre- sence of my heart, till then nothing more than it is in song — a mere metaphor — so imperceptible are all the grand vital workings of the human frame ! Now I felt the organ distinctly. There it was ! — a fleshy core — ^ aye, like that on the Professor's plate — throbbing away, auricle, and ventricle, the valve allowing the gushing (t NOTHING BUT HEARTS'/' 97 blood at so many gallons per minute, and ever prohibit- ing 4ts return ! The Professor proceeded to enlarge on the important office of the great functionary, and the vital engine seemed to dilate within me, in proportion to the sense of its stupendous responsibility. I seemed nothing but aui'icle, and ventricle, and valve. I had no breath, but only pulsations. Those who have been present at ana- tomical discussions can alone corroborate this feeling — how the part discoursed of, by a surpassing sympathy and sensibility, causes its counterpart to become pro- minent and all-engrossing to the sense ; how a lecture on hearts makes a man seem to himself as all heart ; or one on heads causes a Phrenologist to conceive he is " all brain." Thus was I absorbed : — my " bosom's lord," lording over every thing beside. By and bye, in lieu of one solitary machine, 1 saw before me a congregation of hundreds of human forcing pumps, all awfully working together — the palpitations of hundreds of auricles and ventricles, the Happing of hundreds of valves! And anon they collapsed — mine — the Professor's — those on the benches — sl\ ! all ! — into one great auricle — one great ventricle — one vast universal heart ! The lecture ended. — 1 took up my bat and walked out, but the discourse haunted me. I was full of the subject. A kind of fluttering, which was not to be cured even by the fresh air, gave me plainly to under- o 98 " NOTHING BUT HEARTS !" stand that my heart was not *' in the Highlands/' — nor in any lady's keeping — but where it ought to be, in my own bosom, and as hard at work as a parish-pump. I plainly felt the blood — like the carriages on a birth- night — coming in by the auricle, and going out by the ventricle ; and shuddered to fancy what must ensue either way, from any '' breaking the line." Then oc- curred to me the danger of little particles absorbed in the blood, and accumulating to a stoppage at the valve, — the " pumps getting choked," — a suggestion that made me feel rather qualmish, and for relief I made a call on Mrs. W . The visit was ill-chosen and mis- timed, for the lady in question, by dint of good-nature, and a romantic turn — principally estimated by her young and female acquaintance — had acquired the repu- tation of being "^ all heart." The phrase had often provoked ray mirth, — but, alas ! the description was now over true. Whether nature had formed her in that mould, or my own distempered fancy, 1 know not — but there she sate, and looked the Professor's lecture ove^ again. She was like one of those games alluded to in my beginning — " Nothing but Hearts !" Her nose turned up. It was a heart — and her mouth led a trump. Her face gave a heart — and her cap followed suit. Her sleeves puckered and plumped themselves into a heart- shape — and so did her body. Her pincushion was a heart — the very back of her chair was a heart — her bosom was a heart. She was '' all heart" indeed ! " SHE IS ALL HEART." 99 JA(^K HALL. 'Tis very hard when men forsake This melancholy world, and make A bed of turf, they cannot take A quiet doze. But certain rogues will come and break Their " bone repose." *Tis hard we can't give up our breath, And to the earth our earth bequeath. Without Death Fetches after death, Who thus exhume us; And snatch us from our homes beneath. And hearths posthumous. The tender lover comes to rear The mournful urn, and shed his tear — Her glorious dust, he cries, is here ! Alack ! alack ! The while his Sacharissa dear Is in a sack ! 100 JACK HALL. 'Tis hard one cannot lie amid The mould, beneath a coffin-lid. But thus the Faculty will bid Their rogues break thro' it ! If they don't want us there, why did They send us to it ? One of these sacrilegious knaves. Who crave as hungry vulture craves. Behaving as the goul behaves, 'Neath church-yard wall — Mayhap because he fed on graves. Was nam'd Jack Hall. By day it was his trade to go Tending the black coach to and fro ; And sometimes at the door of woe. With emblems suitable. He stood with brother Mute, to show That life is mutable. But long before they pass'd the ferry. The dead that he had help'd to bury. He sack'd — (lie had a sack to carry The bodies off in.) In fact, he let them have a very Short fit of coffin. JACK HALL. 101 Night after night, with crow and spade, He drove this dead but thriving trade, Meanwhile his conscience never weiffh'd A single horsehair ; On corses of all kinds he prey'd, A perfect corsair ! At last — it may be. Death took spite. Or jesting only meant to fright — He sought for Jack night after night The churchyards round ; And soon they met, the man and sjjrite. In Pancras' ground. Jack, by the glimpses of the moon, Perceiv'd the bony knacker soon. An awful shape to meet at noon Of night and lonely ; But Jack's tough courage did but swoon A minute only. Anon he gave his spade a swing Aloft, and kept it brandishing. Ready for what mishaps might spring From this conjunction ; Funking indeed was quite a thing Beside his function. 102 JACK HALL. "Hollo!" cried Death, *^*^d'ye wish your sands Run out? the stoutest never stands A chance with me, — to my commands Tke strongest truckles ; But Tm your friend — so let's shake hands, I should say — knuckles." Jack, glad to see th' old sprite so sprightly, And meaning nothing but uprightly. Shook hands at once, and, bowing slightly. His mull did prolfer : But Death, who had no nose, politely Declin'd the offer. Then sitting down upon a bank. Leg over leg, shank over shank. Like friends for conversation frank. That had no check on : Quoth Jack unto the Lean and Lank, " You're Death, I reckon." The Jaw-bone grinn'd: — "I am that same. You've hit exactly on my name ; In truth it has some little fame Where burial sod is." Quoth Jack, (and wink'd,) " of course ye came Here after bodies." JACK HALL. 103 Death grinn'd again and shook his head : — ^' I've little business with the dead ; When they are fairly sent to bed I've done my turn ; Whether or not the worms are fed Is your concern. " My errand here, in meeting- you, Is nothing but a * how-d'ye-do ;' I've done what jobs I had — a few Along this way ; If I can serve a crony too, I beg you'll say." Quoth Jack, " Your Honour's very kind : And now I call the thing to mind. This parish very strict I find ; But in the next 'un There lives a very well-inclin'd Old sort of sexton." Death took the hint, and gave a wink As well as eyelet holes can blink ; Then stretching out his arm to link The other's arm, — " Suppose," says he, " we have a drink Of something warm." 104 JACK HALL. Jack nothing' loth, with friendly ease Spoke up at once : — " Why, what ye please; Hard by there is the Cheshire Cheese, A famous tap." But this suggestion seem'd to teaze The bony chap. " No, no — your mortal drinks are heady. And only make my hand unsteady ; I do not even care for Deady, And loathe your rum ; But I've some glorious brewage ready, My drink is — mum !" x\nd off ^ley set, each right content — Who knows the dreary way they went ? But Jack felt rather faint and spent, And out of breath ; At last he saw, quite evident. The door of Death. All other men had been unmann'd To see a coffin on each hand. That served a skeleton to stand By way of sentry ; In fact. Death has a very grand And awful entry. JACK HALL. 105 Throughout his dismal sign prevails. His name is writ in coffin nails. The mortal darts make area rails ; A scull that mocketh. Grins on the gloomy gate, and quails Whoever knocketh. And lo ! on either side, arise Two monstrous pillars — bones of" thighs ; A monumental slab supplies The step of stone, Wliere waiting for his master lies A dog of bone. The dog leapt up, but gave no yell. The wire was puU'd, but woke no bell. The ghastly knocker rose, and fell. But caused no riot ; The ways of Death, we all know well. Are very quiet. Old Bones stept in ; Jack stepp'd behind. Quoth Death, " I really hope you'll find The entertainment to your mind. As I shall treat ye — A friend or two of goblin kind, I've asked to meet ye." 10() JACK MALL. And lo ! a crowd of spectres tall. Like jack-a-lanterns on a wall. Were standing — every ghastly ball An eager watcher. " My friends," says Death — "friends, INlr. Hall, The body-snatcher." Lord, what a tumult it produc'd, When Mr. Hall was introduced ! Jack even, who had long been used To frightful things. Felt just as if his back was sluic'd With freezing springs ! Each goblin face began to make Some horrid mouth — ape — gorgon — snake ; And then a spectre-hag would shake An airy thigh-bone ; And cried, (or seem'd to cry,) I'll break Your bone, with my bone ! Some ground their teeth — some seem'd to spit — (Nothing, but nothing came of it,) A hundred awful brows were knit Li dreadful spite. Thought Jack — I'm sure I'd better quit. Without good night. JACK HALL. 107 One skip and hop and he was clear. And running- like a hunted deer, As fleet as people run by fear Well spurr'd and whipp'd. Death, ghosts, and all in that career Were quite outstripp'd. But those who live by death must die ; Jack's soul at last prepar'd to fly ; And when his latter end drew nigh. Oh ! what a swarm Of doctors came, — but not to try To keep him warm. No ravens ever scented prey So early where a dead horse lay. Nor vultures sniff''d so far away A last convulse ; A dozen "guests" day after day Were " at his pulse." *Twas strange, altho' they got no fees. How still they watch 'd by twos and threes : But Jack a very little ease Obtain'd from them ; In fact he did not find M. D.s Worth one D— M. 108 JACK HALL, The passing- bell with hollow toll Was in his thought — the dreary hole I Jack gave his eyes a horrid roll. And tiien a cough : — " There's something weighing on my soul I wish was otF; " All night it roves about my brains, All day it adds to all my pains. It is concerning my remains When 1 am dead ;" Twelve wigs and twelve gold-headed canes Drew near his bed. " Alas!" he sighed, "I'm sore afraid, A dozen pangs my heart invade ; But when I drove a certain trade In flesh and bone. There was a little bargain made About ray own." Twelve suits of black began to close, Twelve pair of sleek and sable hose. Twelve flowing cambric frills in rows. At once drew round; Twelve noses turn'd against his nose. Twelve snubs profound. JACK HALL. " Ten guineas did not quite suffice, And so I sold my body twice ; Twice did not do — I sold it thrice, Forg-ive my crimes ! In short I have received its price A dozen times! Twelve brows got very grim and black. Twelve wishes stretch'd him on the rack. Twelve pair of hands for fierce attack Took up position. Ready to share the dying Jack By long division. Twelve angry doctors wrangled so. That twelve had struck an hour ago. Before they had an eye to throw On the departed ; Twelve heads turn'd round at once, and lo ! Twelve doctors started. Whether some comrade of the dead. Or Satan took it in his head To steal the corpse — the corpse had fled ! 'Tis only written. That " there was nothing in tJie bed. But twelve were bitten /" 109 110 THE WEE MAN. A ROMANCE. It was a merry company. And they were just afloat. When lo ! a man of dwarfish span. Came up and hail'd the boat. " Good morrow to ye, gentle folks. And will you let me in ? — A slender space will serve my case. For I am small and thin." They saw he was a dwarfish man. And very small and thin ; Not seven such would matter much. And so they took him in. They laugh'd to see his little hat. With such a narrow brim ; They laugh'd to note his dapper coat. With skirts so scant and trim. THE WEE MAN. Ill But barely had they gone a mile. When, gravely, one and all. At once began to think the man Was not so very small. His coat had got a broader skirt. His hat a broader brim, His leg grew stout, and soon plump'd out A very proper limb. Still on they went, and as they went. More rough the billows grew, — And rose and fell, a greater swell. And he was swelling too ! And lo ! where room had been for seven. For six there scarce was space ! For five ! — for four ! — for three ! — not more Than two could find a place ! There was not even room for one ! They crowded by degrees — Aye — closer yet, till elbows met. And knees were jogging knees. *' Good sir, you must not sit a-stern. The wave will else come in !" Without a word he gravely stirr'd, Another seat to win. 1 12 THE WEE MAN. '^ Good sir, the boat has lost her trim. You must not sit a-lee !" With smiling face, and courteous grace. The middle seat took he. But still, by constant quiet growth. His back became so wide. Each neighbour wight, to left and right. Was thrust against the side. Lord ! how they ohided with themselves, That they had let him in ; To see him grow so monstrous now. That came so small and thin. On every brow a dew-drop stood. They grew so scared and hot, — " I' the name of all that's great and tall. Who are ye, sir, and what ?" Loud laugh'd the Gogmagog, a laugh As loud as giant's roar — '^ When first I came, my proper name Was Little — now I'm Moore /" DEATH S DOOll. A HARD ROW. PENN's conference with the NATIVES; 113 PYTHAGOREAN FANCIES. Of all creeds — after the Christian — I incline most to the Pythagorean. I like the notion of inhabiting the body of a bird. It is the next thing to being a cherub — at least, according to the popular image of a boy's head and wings ; a fancy that savours strangely of the Pytha- gorean. I think nobly of the soul with Malvolio, but not so meanly, as he does by implication, of a bird-body. What disparagement would it seem to shuffle oil" a crippled, palsied, languid, bed-ridden carcase, and find yourself floating above the world — in a flood of sun- shine — under the feathers of a Royal Eagle of the Andes ? For a beast-body I have less relish — and yet how many men are there who seem predestined to such an occupancy, being in this life even more than semi-brutal ! How many human faces that at least countenance, if they do not confirm this part of the Brahminical Doc- trine ! What apes, foxes, pigs, curs, and cats, walk Q 114 ' PYTHACOUEAN FANCIES. our metropolis — to say nothing of him shambling along Carnaby or Wliitechapel — A BUTCHER! Whoe'er has gone thro' London Street, Has seen a Butcher gazing at his meat. And how he keeps Gloating upon a sheep's Or bullock's personals^, as if his own ; How he admires his halves And quarters — and his calves. As if in truth upon his own legs grown ; — His fat ! his suet ! His kidneys peeping elegantly thro' it ! His thick flank ! And his thin ! His shank ! His shin ! Skin of his skin, and bone too of his bone ! With what an air He stands aloof, across the thoroughfare Gazing — and will not let a body by, Tho' buy ! buy ! buy ! be constantly his cry ; Meanwhile with arms a-kimbo, and a pair Of Rhodian legs he revels in a stare. At his Joint Stock — for one may call it so, Howbeit, without a Co. COMPARATIVE PHYSIOLOGY y PYTHAGOREAN FANCIES. 115 The dotage of self-love was never fonder Than he, of his brute-bodies all a-row ; Narcissus in the wave did never ponder Witli love so strong", On his "portrait charmant/' As our vain Butcher on his carcase yonder. Look at his sleek round skull ! How bright his cheek, how rubicund liis nose is ! His visage seems to be Ripe for beef-tea ; Of brutal juices the whole man is full — In fact, fulfilling the metempsychosis. The Butcher is already half a Bull. Surpassing the Butcher, in his approximation to the brute, behold you vagrant Hassan — a wandering ca- mel-driver and exhibitor, parading, for a few pence, the creature's outlandish hump, yet burthened himself with a bunch of flesh between the shoulders. For the sake of the implicit moral merely, or as an illustration of comparative physiology, the show is valuable ; but as an example of the Pythagorean dispensation, it is above appraisement. The retributive metamorjihosis has commenced — the Beast has set its seal upon the Human Form — a little further, and he will be .ready for a halter and a show-man. As there arc instances of men thus transmuting into 1 l() rYTHAGOREAN FANCIES. the brute ; so there are brutes^ tliat by peculiar human manners and resemblance seem to hint at a former and a better condition. Tiie ouran-outang, and the monkey, notoriously claim this relationship — and there are other tribes, and in particular some which use the erect pos- ture, that are apt to provoke such Pythagorean associa- tions. For example : — I could never read of the great William Penu's interview with the American savages, or look on the painting commemorative of that event, without dreamino; that I had seen it acted over ag-ain at the meeting of a tribe of Kangaroos and a Penguin. The Kangaroos, sharp-sighted, vigilant, cunning, wild, swift, and active, as the Indians themselves ; — the Pen- guin, very sleek, guiltless of arms, very taciturn, very sedate, except when jumping ; upright in its conduct — a perfect Quaker, It confirmed me, in this last fancy, to read of the conduct of these gentle birds when assault- ed, formerly, with long poles, by the seamen of Cap- tain Cook — buffetings which the Penguins took quietly on either cheek, or side of the head, and died as meekly and passively as tlie primitive Martyrs of the Sect ! It is difficult to say to what excesses the desire of fresh victual, after long salt junketting, may drive a mariner ; for my own part, I could not have handled a pole in that persecution, without strong Pythagorean misgivings. There is a Juvenile Poem, — " The Notorious Glutton," by Miss Taylor, of Oiigar, in which a duck falls sick THE LAST VISIT. PYTHAGOREAN FANCIES. 117 and dies in a very human-like way. I could never eat duck for some time after the perusal of those verses ; — it seemed as if in reality the soul of my grandam might inhabit such a bird. In mere tenderness to past wo- manhood, I could never lay the death-scene elsewhere than in a lady's chamber — ^with the body of the invalid propped up by comfortable pillows on a nursery chair. The sick attendant seemed one that had relished drams aforetime — had been pompously officious at human dis- solutions, and would announce that " all was over !" with the same flapping of paws and duck-like inflections of tone. As for the physician, he was an Ex-Quack of our own kind, just called in from the pond — a sort of Man-Drake, and formerly a brother by nature, as now by name, of the Author of " Winter Nights," 118 "DON'T YOU SMELL FIRE?" Run ! — run for St. Clemeiits's engine ! For the Pawnbroker's all in a blaze. And the pledges are frying and singing — Oh ! how the poor pawners will craze ! Now where can the turncock be drinking ? Was there ever so thirsty an elf? — But he still may tope on, for I'm thinking Tliat the plugs are as dry as himself. The engines ! — I hear them come rumbling ; There's the Phcenix ! the Globe ! and the Sun ! What a row there will be, and a grumbling. When the water don't start for a run ! See ! there they come racing and tearing. All the street with loud voices is fiil'd ; Oh ! it's only the firemen a-s wearing At a man they've run o\er and kill'd ! ^* don't you smell fire?" 119 How sweetly the sparks fly away now, And twinkle like stars in the sky ; It's a wonder the engines don't play now. But I never saw water so shy ! Why there isn't enough for a snipe. And the fire it is fiercer, alas ! Oh ! instead of the New River pipe. They have gone — that they have — to the gas ! Only look at the poor little P 's On the roof — is there any thing sadder ? My dears, keep fast hold, if you please. And they won't be an hour with the ladder ! But if any one's hot in their feet. And in very great haste to be sav'd. Here's a nice easy bit in the street, That M'Adara has lately unpav'd ! There is some one — I see a dark shape At that window, the hottest of all, — My good woman, why don't you escape ? Never think of your bonnet and shawl : If your dress is'nt perfect, what is it For once in a way to your hurt ? When your husband is paying a visit There, at Number Fourteen, in his shirt! 120 ''don't you smell fire'''* Only see how she throws out lier chancy ! Her basons, and teapots, and all The most brittle of her goods — or any, But they all break in breaking their fall : Such things are not surely the best From a two-story window to' throw — She might save a good iron-bound chest, For there's plenty of people below ! O dear ! what a beautiful flash ! How it shone thro' the window and door ; We shall soon hear a scream and a crash. When the woman falls thro' with the floor ! There ! there ! what a volley of flame^ And then suddenly all is obscur'd ! — Well — I'm glad in my heart that I came ; — But I hope the poor man is insur'd ! ■^^mimim don't you smell fire?" 1-21 THE VOLUNTEER. *' The clashing of my armour in my ears Sounds like a passing bell ; my buckler puts me In mind of bier ; this, my broadsword, a pickaxe To dig my grave." The Lover's Progress. 'TwAs in that memorable year France threatened to put olf in Flat-bottom'd boats, intending- each To be a British coffin. To make sad widows of our wives, And every babe an orphan ; — When coats were made of scarlet cloaks, And heads were dredg'd with flour, I listed in the Lawyer's Corps, Against the battle hour ; A perfect Volunteer — for why ? I brought my " will and pow'r." 122 THE VOLUNTEER. One dreary day — a day of dread. Like Cato's, over-cast — About the hour of six, (the morn And 1 were breaking fast,) There came a loud and sudden sound. That struck me all aghast ! A dismal sort of morning roll. That was not to be eaten ; Although it was no skin of mine. But parchment that was beaten, I felt tattooed through all my flesh;, Like any Otaheitan. My jaws with utter dread enclosed The morsel I was munching. And terror lock'd them up so tight. My very teeth went crunching All through my bread and tongue at once. Like sandwich made at lunching. My hand that held the tea-pot fast, Stiffen'd, but yet unsteady. Kept pouring, pouring, pouring o'er The cup in one long eddy, Till both my hose were mark'd with tea. As they were mark'd already. THE VOLUNTEER. 123 I felt my visage turn from red To white — from cold to hot ; But it was nothing wonderful My colour changed, I wot. For, like some variable silks, I felt that I was shot. And looking forth with anxious eye, From my snug upper story, I saw our melancholy corps. Going to beds all gory ; The pioneers seem'd very loth To axe their way to glory. The captain marcli'd as mourners march. The ensign too seem'd flagging. And many more, although they were No ensigns, took to flagging- Like corpses in the Serpentine, Methought they wanted dragging. But while I watch'd, the thought of death Came like a chilly gust. And lo ! I shut the window down. With very little lust To join so many marching men, That soon might be March dust. 124 THE VOLUNTEER. Quoth I, " since Fate ordains it so. Our foe the coast must land on ;" — I felt so warm beside the fire I cared not to abandon ; Our hearths and homes are always things That patriots make a stand on. " The fools that fight abroad for home," Thought I, '^' may get a wrong one ; Let those that have no homes at all. Go battle for a long one." The miri'or here confirm'd me this Reflection, by a strong one. For there, where I was wont to shave. And deck me like Adonis, There stood the leader of our foes. With vultures for his cronies — No Corsican, but Death himself, The Bony of all Bonies. A horrid sight it was, and sad To see the grisly chap Put on my crimson livery. And then begin to clap My helmet on — ah me ! it felt Like any felon's cap. iriE ANOEI or DKATH. THE VOLUNTEER. 125 My plume seem'd borrow'd from a hearse^, An undertaker's crest ; My epaulettes like coffin-plates ; My belt so heavy press'd. Four pipeclay cross-roads seem'd to lie At once upon my breast. My brazen breast-plate only lack'd A little heap of salt. To make me like a corpse full dress'd, Preparing for the vault — To set up what the Poet calls My everlasting halt. This funeral show inclin'd me quite To peace : — and here I am ! Whilst better lions go to war. Enjoying with the lamb A lengthen'd life, that might have been A martial epigram. U6 A MARRIAGE PROCESSION. It has never been my lot to marry — whatever I may have written of one Honoria to the contrary. My af- fair with that lady never reached beyond a very em- barrassing declaration, in return for which she breathed into my dull deaf ear an inaudible answer. It was beyond my slender assurance, in those days, to ask for a repetition, whether of acceptance or denial. One chance for explanation still remained. I wrote to her mother, to bespeak her sanction to our union, and received, by return of post, a scrawl, that, for aught I knew, might be in Sanscrit. I question whether, even at this time, my intolerable bashfulness would suiferme to press such a matter any farther. My thoughts of matrimony are now confined to oc- casional day-dreams, originating in some stray glimpse in the Prayer Book, or the receipt of bride-cake. It was on some such occurrence that I fell once, Bunyan like, into an allegory of a wedding. My fancies took the order of a procession. With flaunting banners it wound its Alexandrine way — in JOINTUS. BKiDE AND BRIDESMAID. A MARRIAGE PROCESSION. 127 the manner of some of Martinis painted pageants — to a taper spire in the distance. And first, like a band of livery, came the honourable company of Match-Makers, all mature spinsters and matrons — and as like aunts and mothers as may be. The Glovers trod closely on their heels. Anon came, in blue and gold, the parish beadle, Scarabeus Parochialis, with the ringers of the hand-bells. Then came the Banns — it was during the reign of Lord Eldon's Act — three sturdy pioneers, with their three axes, and likely to hew down sterner impe- diments than lie commonly in the path of marriage. On coming nearer, the countenance of the first was right foolish and perplext ; of the second, simpering ; and the last methought looked sedate, and as if dashed with a little fear. After the banns — ^like the Judges following the halberts— came the Joiners : no rough me- chanics, but a portly, full-blown vicar, with his clerk — both rubicund — a peony paged by a pink. It made me smile to observe the droll clerical turn of the clerk's beaver, scrubbed into that fashion by his coat, at the nape. The marriage-knot — borne by a ticket-porter — came after the divine, and raised associations enough to sadden one, but for a pretty Cupid that came on laughing and trundling a hoop-ring. The next group was a numerous one. Firemen of the Hand-in-Hand, with the Union flag — the chief actors were near. With a mixture of anxiety and curiosity, I looked out for tlie impending couple, when, how shall 1 tell 128 A MARRIAGE PROCESSION. it? I beheld, not a brace of j^oung- lovers — a Romeo and Juliet, not a " he-raoort here, and a she-sun there" — not bride and bridegroom — but the happy pear, a solitary Berganiy, carried on a velvet cushion by a little foot-page. I could have forsworn my fancy for ever for so wretched a conceit, till I remembered that it was intended, perhaps, to typify under that fi- gure, the mysterious resolution of two into one, a pair nominally, but in substance single, which belongs to marriage. To make amends, the high conti'acting par- ties approached in proper person — a duplication sanc- tioned by the practice of the oldest masters in their historical pictures. It took a brace of Cupids, with a halter, to overcome the " sweet reluctant delay," of the Bride, and make her keep pace with the procession. She was absorbed like a nun, in her veil : — tears, too, she dropped, large as sixpences, in her path ; but her attendant Bridesmaid put on such a coquettish look, and tripped along so airily, that it cured all suspicion of heart-ache in such maiden showers. The Bridegroom, drest for the Honey-moon, was ushered by Hymen — a little link-boy ; and the imp used the same importunity for his dues. The next was a motley crew. For nup- tial ode or Carmen, there walked two carters, or dray- men, with their whips ; a leash of footmen in livery indi- cated Domestic Habits; and Domestic Comfort w^as personated by an ambulating advertiser of " Hot Din- ners every Day." THE MAN IN THE HONEYMOON. A MARRIAGE PROCESSION. 129 I forget whether the Bride's Cliaracter preceded or followed her — but it was a lottery placard, and blazoned her as One of Ten Tliousand. The parents of both fa- milies had a quiet smile on their faces, hinting that their enjoyment was of a retrospective cast, and as for the six sisters of the bride, they would have wept with her, but that six young gallants came after them. The friends of the family were Quakers, and seemed to par- take of the happiness of the occasion in a very quiet and quaker-like way. I ought to mention that a band of harmonious sweet music preceded the Happy Pair. There was none came after — the veteran, Townsend, with his constables, to keep order, making up the rear of the Procession. 130 THE WIDOW. One widow at a grave will sob A little while, and weep, and sigh ; If two should meet on such a job. They'll have a gossip by and by. If three should come together — why. Three widows are good company ! If four should meet by any chance. Four is a number very nice. To have a rubber in a trice — But five will up and have a dance ! Poor Mrs. C ' (why should I not Declare her name ? — her name was Cross) Was one of those the '' common lot" Had left to weep " no common loss" — For she had lately buried then A man, the " very best of men," A lingering truth, discover'd first Whenever men " are at the worst." THE WIDOW. 131 To take the measure of her woe. It was some dozen inches deep— 1 mean in crape, and hung so low. It hid the drops she did not weep : In fact, what human life appears It was, a perfect "veil of tears." Though ever since she lost " her prop And stay," — alas ! he wouldn't stay — She never had a tear to mop. Except one little angry drop. From Passion's eye, as Moore would say ; Because, when Mister Cross took flight. It look'd so very like a spite — He died upon a washing-day ! Still Widow Cross went twice a week. As if to " wet a widow's cheek," And soothe his grave with sorrow's gravy, — 'Twas nothing but a make-believe. She might as well have hoped to grieve Enough of brine to float a navy ; And yet she often seem'd to raise A cambric kerchief to her eye — A duster ought to be the phrase. Its work was all so very dry. The springs were lock'd that ought to flow — In England or in widow- woman — As those that watch the weather know. Such " backward Springs" are not uncommon. 13*2 THE WIDOW. But why did Widow Cross take pains. To call upon the " dear remains," — Remains that could not tell a jot. Whether she ever wept or not. Or how his relict took her losses ? Oh ! my black ink turns red for shame — But still the naughty world must leani, There was a little German came To shed a tear in " Anna's Urn" At that next grave to Mr. Cross's ! For there an angel's virtues slept, '^ Too soon did Heav'n assert its claim !" But still her painted face he kept, ^^ Encompassed in an angel's frame." He look'd quite sad, and quite depriv'd. His head was nothing but a hat-band ; He look'd so lone, and so j^^wiv'd. That soon the Widow Cross contriv'd To fall in love with even that band ; And all at once the brackish juices Came gushing out thro' sorrow's sluices — Tear after tear too fast to wipe, Tho' sopp'd, and sopp'd, and sopp'd again- No leak in sorrow's private pipe. But like a bursting on the main ! Whoe'er has watch'd the window-pane — I mc/in to say in showery weather — ENCOMPASS D IN AN ANGELS FRAME. THE WIDOW. Has seen two little drops of rain, Like lovers very fond and fain. At one another creeping, creeping. Till both, at last, embrace together : So far'd it with that couple's weeping ! The principle was quite as active — Tear unto tear. Kept drawing near Their very blacks became attractive. To cut a shortish story shorter. Conceive them sitting tete a tete — Two cups, — hot muffins on a plate, — With " Anna's Urn" to hold hot water ! The brazen vessel for a while. Had lectured in an easy song, Like Abernethy — on the bile — The scalded herb was getting strong ; All seem'd as smooth as smooth could be. To have a cosey cup of tea ; Alas ! how often human sippers With unexpected bitters meet. And buds, the sweetest of tlie sweet. Like sugar, only meet the nippers ! The Widow Cross, I should have told. Had seen three husbands to the mould ; She never sought an Indian pyre. Like Hindoo wives that lose their loves. 13.3 134 THE WIDOW. But, with a proper sense of fire, Put up, instead, with " three removes:" Thus, when with any tender words Or tears she spoke about a loss. The dear departed, Mr. Cross, Came in for nothing but his thirds ; For, as cJl widows love too well. She liked upon the list to dwell. And oft ripp'd up the old disasters — She might, indeed, have been suppos'd A great ship owner, for she pros'd Eternally of her Three Masters ! Thus, foolish woman ! while she nurs'd Her mild souchong, she talk'd and reckoned What had been left her by her first. And by her last, and by her second. Alas ! not all her annual rents Could then entice the little German — Not Mr. Cross's Three Per Cents, Or Consols, ever make him her man : He liked her cash, he liked her houses. But not that dismal bit of land She always settled on her spouses. So taking up his hat and band, Said he, " You'll think my conduct odd — But here my hopes no more may linger ; I thought you had a wedding-finger. But oh ! — it is a curtain-rod !" 135 A MAD DOG Is none of my bug-bears. Of the bite of dogS;, large ones especially, 1 have a reasonable dread ; but as to any participation in the canine frenzy, I am somewhat sceptical. The notion savours of the same fanciful superstition that invested the subjects of Dr. Jenner with a pair of horns. Such was affirmed to be the eifect of the vaccine matter — and 1 shall believe what I have heard of the canine virus, when I see a rabid gentleman, or gentlewoman, with flap ears, dew-claws, and a brush-tail ! I lend no credit to the im.puted effects of a mad dog's saliva. We hear of none such amongst the West Indian Negroes — and yet their condition is always slavery, I put no faith in the vulgar stories of human beings betaking themselves, through a dog-bite, to dog-habits : and consider the smotherings and drownings, that have originated in that fancy, as cruel as the murders for witchcraft. Are we, for a few yelpings, to stifle 13() A MAD DOG. all the disciples of Loyola — Jesuits Bark — or plunge unto death all the convalescents who may take to bark and wine ? As for the Hydrophobia, or loathing of water, I have it mildly myself. My head turns invariably at thin washy potations. With a dog, indeed, the case is different — he is a water-drinker ; and when he takes to grape^juice, or the stronger cordials, may be dangerous. But I have never seen one with a bottle — except at his tail. There are other dogs who are born to haunt the li- quid element, to dive and swim — and for such to shun the lake or the pond would look suspicious. A New- foundlander, standing up from a shower at a door-way, or a Spaniel with a Parapluie, might be innocently des- troyed. But when does such a cur occur ? There are persons, however, who lecture on Hydro- phobia very dogmatically. It is one of their maggots, that if a puppy be not wormed, he is apt to go rabid. As if forsooth it made so much difference, his merely speaking or not with, what Lord Duberly calls, his " vermicular tongue !" Verily, as Izaak Walton would say, these gudgeons take the worm very kindly ! Next to a neglect of calling in Dr. Gardner, want of water is prone to drive a dog mad. A reasonable saying — but the rest is not so plausible, viz. that if you keep a dog till he is very dry, he will refuse to drink. It is a gross libel on the human-like instinct of the IIYDKOPUOJilA. A MAD DOG. 137 animal, to suppose him to act so clean contrary to human-kind. A crew of sailors, thirsting at sea, will suck their pumps or the canvas — any thing that will aftbrd a drop of moisture ; whereas a parching dog, in- stead of cooling his tongue at the next gutter, or licking his own kennel for imaginary relief, runs senselessly up and down to over-heat himself, and resents the offer of a bucket like a mortal affront. Away he scuds, straight forward like a marmot — except when he dodges a pump. A glimmering instinct guides him to his old haunts. He bites his Ex-master — grips his trainer — takes a snap with a friend or two where he used to visit — and then biting right and left at the public, at last dies — a pitchfork in his eye, fifty slugs in his ribs, and a spade at the small of his back. The career of the animal is but a type of his victim's — suppose some Bank Clerk. He was not bitten, but only splashed on the hand by the mad foam or dog- spray : a recent flea-bite gives entrance to the virus, and in less than three years it gets possession. Then the tragedy begins. The unhappy gentleman first evinces uneasiness at being called on for his New River rates. He answers the Collector snappishly, and when summoned to pay for his supply of water, tells the Com- missioners, doggedly, tliat they may cut it oft". From that time he gets worse. He refuses slops — turns up a pug nose at pump-water — and at last, on a washing-day, after flying at the laundress, rushes out, ripe for hunting, T 138 A MAD DOC. to the street. A twilight remembrance leads him to the house of his intended. He fastens on her hand — next worries his mother — takes a bit apiece out of his bro- thers and sisters — runs a-muck, " giving tongue," all through the suburbs — and finally, is smothered by a pair of bed-beaters in Moorfields. / According to popular theory the mischief ends not here. The dog's master — the trainer, the friends, hu- man and canine — the Bank clerks — the laundresses — sweetheart — mother and sisters — the two bed-beaters — all inherit the rabies, and run about to bite others. It is a wonder, the madness increasing by this ratio, that examples are not running in packs at eveiy turn : — my experience, notwithstanding, records but one instance. It was my Aunt's brute. His temper, latterly, had altered for the worse, and in a sullen, or insane fit, he made a snap at the cook's radish-like fingers. The act demanded an inquest De Lunatico Inquirendo — he was lugged neck and crop to a full bucket ; but you may bring a horse, to the water, says the proverb, yet not make him drink, and the cur asserted the same inde- pendence. To make sure, Betty cast the whole gallon over him, a favour that he received with a mood that would have been natural in any mortal. His growl was conclusive. The cook alarmed, first the family, and then the neighbourhood, which poured all its males capable of bearing arms into the passage. There were sticks, staves, swords, and a gun, a prong or two. A MAD DOG. 139 moreover, glistened here and there. The kitchen-door was occupied by the first rank of the column, their wea- pons all bristling- in advance ; and right opposite — at the further side of the kitchen, and holding all the army at bay — stood Hydrophobia — '^ in its most dreadful form !" Conceive, Mulready ! under this horrible figure of speech, a round, goggle-eyed pug-face, supported by two stumpy bandy-legs — the forelimbs of a long, pampered, sausage-like body, that rested on a similar pair of crotchets at the other end ! Not without short wheezy pantings, he began to waddle towards the guarded en- try — but before he had accomplished a quarter of the distance, there resounded the report of a musket. The poor Turnspit gave a yell — the little brown bloated body tumbled over, pierced by a dozen slugs, but not mortally ; for before the piece could be reloaded, he con- trived to lap up a little pool — from Betty's bucket — tliat had settled beside the hearth. 140 JOHN TROT. A BALLAD. John Trot he was as tall a lad As York did ever rear — As his dear Granny used to say. He'd make a grenadier. A Serjeant soon came down to York, With ribbons and a frill ; My lads, said he, let broadcast be. And come away to drill. But when he wanted John to 'list. In war he saw no fun. Where what is called a raw recruit. Gets often over-done. Let other's carry guns, said he. And go to war's alarms. But I have got a shoulder-knot Impos'd upon my arms. DRILL AND RROADCAST. JOHN TROT. 141 For John he had a footman's place To wait on Lady Wye — She was a dumpy woman, tho' Her family was high. Now when two years had past away. Her Lord took very ill. And left her to her widowhood. Of course more dumpy still. Said John, I am a proper man. And very tall to see ; Who knows, but now her Lord is low^, She may look up to me ? A cunning woman told me once^, Such fortune would turn up ; She was a kind of sorceresS;, But studied in a cup ! So he walked up to Lady Wye, And took her quite amaz'd, — She thought, tho' John was tall enough, He wanted to be rais'd. Cut John — for why ? she was a dame Of such a dwarfish sort — Had only come to bid her make Her mourning very short. 142 JOHN TROT. Said he, your Lord is dead and cold. You only cry in vain ; Not all the Cries of London now. Could call him back again ! You'll soon have many a noble beau, To dry your noble tears — But just consider this, that I Have follow'd you for years. And tho* you are above me far. What matters high degree. When you are only four foot nine. And I am six foot three ? For tho' you are of lofty race. And I'm a low-boni elf; Yet none among your friends could say. You match'd beneath yourself. Said she, such insolence as this Can be no common case ; Tho' you are in my ser-vice, sir. Your love is out of place. O Lady Wye ! O Lady Wye ! Consider what you do ; How can you be so short with me, I am not so with vou ! HiGH-BOrwK AND LOV/-BORN JOHN TROT. 143 Then ringing for her serving men, Tliey sliow'cl him to the door ; Said they, you turn out better now. Why didn't you before ? They stripp'd his coat, and gave him kicks For all his wages due ; And off, instead of green and gold. He went in black and blue. No family would take him in. Because of this discharge ; So he made up his mind to serve Tlie country all at large. Huzza ! the Serjeant cried, and put The money in his hand. And with a shilling cut him oif From his paternal land. For when his regiment went to figlit At Saragossa town, A Frenchman thought he look'd too tall. And so he cut him down ! 142 AN ABSENTEE. If ever a man wanted a flapper — no Butcher's mimosa, or catchfly, but one of those oflBcers in use at the court of Laputa — my friend W should have such a re- membrancer at his elbow. I question whether even the appliance of a bladder full of peas, or pebbles, would arouse him from some of his abstractions — fits of mental insensibility, parallel with those bodily trances in which persons have sometimes been coffined. Not that he is entangled in abstruse problems, like the nobility of the Flying Island ! He does not dive, like Sir Isaac New- ton, into a reverie, and turn up again with a Theory of Gravitation. His thoughts are not deeply engaged else- where — they are nowhere. His head revolves itself, top-like, into a profound slumber : — a blank doze with- out a dream. He is not carried away by incoherent rambling fancies, out of himself — ^he is not drunk, merely, with the Waters of Oblivion, but drowned in them, body and soul ! AN ABSENTEE. 145 There is a stoi-y, somewhere, of one of these absent persons, who stooped down, when tickled about the calf by a blue-bottle, and scratched his neighbour's leg- ; an act of tolerable forgetfulness, but denoting a state far short of W 's absorptions. He would never have felt the fly. To make W *s condition more whimsical, he lives in a small bachelor's house, with no other attendant than an old housekeeper — one Mistress Bundy, of faculty as infirm and intermitting as his own. It will be readily believed that her absent fits do not originate, any more than her master's, in abstruse mathematical speculations — a proof with me that such moods result, not from ab- stractions of mind, but stagnation. How so ill-sorted a couple contrive to get through the common-place affairs of life, I am not prepared to say : but it is comical in- deed to see him ring up Mistress Bundy to receive or- ders, which he generally forgets to deliver — or if deli- vered, this old Bewildered Maid lets slip out of her remembrance with the same facility. Numberless oc- curi'ences of this kind — in many instances more extra- vagant — are recorded by his friends ; but an evening that I spent with him recently, will furnish an abun dance of examples. In spite of going by his own invitation, I found W — within. He was too apt, on such occasions, to be denied to his visitors ; but what in others would be an unpar- donable affront, was overlooked in a man who was not 146 AN ABSENTEE. always at home to himself. The door was opened by the housekeeper, whose absence, as usual, would not allow her to decide upon that of her master. Her shrill quavering voice went echoing up stairs with its old query, — ^' INIr. W ! are you within ?" then a pause, literally for him to collect himself. Anon came his an- swer, and I was ushered up stairs, Mrs. Bundy contriv- ing, as usual, to forget my name at the*first landing- place. I had therefore to introduce myself formally to W , whose old friends came to him always as if with new faces. As for what followed, it was one of the old fitful colloquies — a game at conversation, some- times with a partner, sometimes with a dummy : the old woman's memory in the meantime growing torpid on a kitchen-chair. Hour after hour passed away : no tea- spoon gingled, or tea-cup rattled : no murmuring kettle or hissing urn found its way upward from one Haunt of Forgetfulness to the other. In short, as might have been expected with an Absentee, the Tea was absent. It happens that the meal in question is not one of my essentials ; I therefore never hinted at the In Tea Spe- ravi of my visit ; but at the turn of eleven o'clock, my host rang for the apparatus. The Chinese ware was brought up, but the herb was deficient. Mrs. Bundy went forth, by command, for a supply ; but it was past grocer-time, and we arranged to make amends by an early supper, which came, however, as proportionably late as the tea. By dint of those freedoms which you must use with an LAWK ! I'vE FORGOT THE BRANDY !" AN aUsentee. 147 entertainer who is absent at liis own table^ I contrived to sup sparely ; and W 's memory, blossoming like certain flowers to the night, reminded him that I was accustomed to go to bed on a tumbler of Geneva and water. He kept but one bottle of each of the three kinds. Rum, Brandy, and Hollands, in the house ; and when exhausted, they were replenished at the tavern a few doors oft'. Luckily, for it was far beyond the mid- night hour when, according to our vapid magistracy, all spivits are evil, the three vessels were full, and merely wanted bringing up stairs. The kettle was singing on the hob : the tumblers, with spoons in them, stood miraculously ready on the board ; and Mrs. Bundy was really on her way from below witli the one thing need- ful. Never were fair hopes so unfairly blighted! I could hear her step labouring on the stairs to the very last step, when her memory serving her just as treach- erously as her forgetfulness, or rather both betraying her together, there befell the accident which I have en- deavoured to record by the sketch opposite. I never ate or drank with the BtUinicide again! 148 ODE TO THE CAMELEOPARl). Welcome to Freedom's birth-place — and a den ! Great Anti-climax, hail ! So very lofty in thy front — but then. So dwindling at the tail ! — In truth, thou hast the most unequal legs ! Has one pair gallopp'd, whilst the other trotted Along with other brethren, leopard-spotted. O'er Afric sand, where ostriches lay eggs ? Sure thou wert caught in some hard uphill chase, Those hinder heels still keeping thee in check ! And yet thou seems't prepar'd in any case, Tho' they had lost the race. To win it — by a neck ! That lengthy neck — how like a crane's it looks ! Art thou the overseer of all the brutes ? Or dost thou browze on tip-top leaves or fruits — Or go a-birdnestiug amongst the rooks ? AFRICAN WRECKERS. WHITE BAIT. ODE TO THE CAMELEOPARD. 149 How kindly nature caters for all wants ; Thus giving unto thee a neck that stretches. And high food fetches — To some a long nose, like the elephant's ! Oh ! hadst thou any organ to thy bellows. To turn thy breath to speech in human style. What secrets thou mights't tell us, Where now our scientific guesses fail ; For instance, of the Nile, Whether those Seven Mouths have any tail — Mayhap thy luck too. From that high head, as from a lofty hill, Has let thee see the marvellous Tirabuctoo — Or drink of Niger at its infant rill ; What were the travels of our Major Denham, Or Clapperton, to thine In that same line. If thou couldst only squat thee down and pen 'em ! Strange sights, indeed, thou must have overlook'd. With eyes held ever in such vantage-stations ! Hast seen, perchance, unhappy white folks cook'd. And then made free of negro corporations ? Poor wretches saved from cast away three deckers — By sooty wreckers — 150 ODE TO THE CAMELEOPARD. From hungry waves to liave a lot still drearier. To far exceed the utmost aim of Park — And find themselves, alas ! beyond the mark^ In the insides of Africa's Interior ! Live on. Giraffe ! genteelest of raff kind ! — Adrair'd by noble, and by royal tongues ! — May no pernicious wind. Or English fog, blight thy exotic lungs ! Live on in happy peace, altho' a rarity. Nor envy thy poor cousin's more outrageous Parisian popularity ; — Whose very leopard-rash is grown contagious, And worn on gloves and ribbons all about, Alas ! they'll wear him out I — So thou shalt take thy sweet diurnal feeds — When he is stuff'd with undigested straw, Sad food that never visited his jaw ! And staring round him with a brace of beads ! UNCONSCIOUS IMITATION. {ETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT rO^^ 202 Main Library .OAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 1 -month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405 6-month loons may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW g^ JAN 2 5 199: AUG 2 4 i!UU( UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 12/80 BERKELEY, CA 94720 ®$ l^.i,£..,?,f„?'^E'-EY LIBRARIES C0S50tMmb