^ 
 
HOOD'S 
 WIT AND HUMOUR, 
 
 IN 
 
 PROSE AND VERSE. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS HOOD. 
 
 
 FOND OF BATHING. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 WARD, LOCK & BOWDEN, LIMITED, 
 
 WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.G. 
 
 NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE. 
 

dh 
 
 x£'' 
 
 I' .j/W^ 
 
 ,v-^ 
 
 J^-^ 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 The Boy at the Norc. , . « » 
 
 PAGB 
 1 
 
 The Run-Over .. . . 
 
 4 
 
 Johnso.niana , , 
 
 11 
 
 Tlie Great Earthquake at Marylebono 
 
 . 10 
 
 Ode to St. Swithiu . . . , . . 
 
 20 
 
 The Apparition. A True Story . , . 
 
 24 
 
 A Blind Man. . , , . 
 
 . 28 
 
 The Supper Superstition. A Pathetic Ballad 
 
 Zl 
 
 A Snake-Snack ..... 
 
 P,3 
 
 A Storm at Hastings, and the Little Unknown 
 
 36 
 
 Lines to a Lady on her Departure for India 
 
 45 
 
 The Nelson 
 
 48 
 
 Sonnet to a Scotch Girl Washing Linen after her Country 
 
 
 Fashion 
 
 • i^i 
 
 My Apology . . 
 
 52 
 
 Sonnet to a Decayed Seaman 
 
 . 54 
 
 The Great Conflagration .... 
 
 55 
 
 Huggins and Duggins . . . . 
 
 97 
 
 Domestic Didactics. By an Old Servant . 
 
 lo: 
 
 Pain in a Pleasure-Boat. A Sea Eclogue . 
 
 107 
 
 A Spent Ball 
 
 111 
 
 Literary and Literal . . , . . 
 
 113 
 
 M181521 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The Accident. .... 
 
 Sonnet to Lord Wharncliffe. no his Game Bill 
 
 Literary Reminiscences. No. 1. 
 
 Ode to Perry, the Inventor of the Patent Perryan 
 
 ricetches on the R )ad . . , 
 
 The Undying One .... 
 
 A Gipsy Party .... 
 
 Cockle V. Cackle . , . , 
 
 A Lawyer's Letter .... 
 
 The Sweep's Complaint . . t 
 
 Letter from an Old Sportsman , 
 
 The Sub-Marine .... 
 
 The Island . ' . 
 
 Dog-grel Verses. By a poor Blind. 
 
 The Kangaroos. A Fable . 
 
 Literary Reminiscences. No. 11. . 
 
 The Domestic Dilemma. A True Story from tne 
 
 of Jean Paul Nemand 
 Ode for the Ninth of November 
 Sonnet ..... 
 
 Rondeau. (Extracted from a Well-known Annua 
 London Fashions for November. Remarks 
 Symptoms of Ossification 
 The Poacher. A Serious Ballad 
 Sketches on the Road. The Sudden Death 
 I cannot Bear a Gun. 
 
 Trimmer's Exercise for the Use of Children 
 Some Account of William Whiston. 
 The Fox and the Hen. A Fable . 
 The Comet. An Astronomical Anecdote . 
 Literary Reminiscences. No. III. 
 The Ocean. Considered per se 
 Love and Lunacy .... 
 T/iose Evening Bells. "I'd be a Parody." 
 Lines to a Friend at Cobham . • 
 
 uermau 
 
 Pen 
 
 1) 
 
 120 
 123 
 124 
 132 
 idD 
 144 
 148 
 157 
 162 
 167 
 173 
 179 
 182 
 188 
 193 
 195 
 
 201 
 222 
 228 
 229 
 230 
 233 
 234 
 237 
 252 
 267 
 259 
 263 
 267 
 270 
 .^75 
 295 
 331 
 333 
 
COMTfiNTS. T 
 
 rAOS 
 The Quakers' CDnversaziono .... 333 
 
 Sketches on the Road. The Morning Call.. . . 344 
 
 The Lament of Toby, the Learned Pig . . .348 
 
 To a Bad Rider 351 
 
 My Son and Heir . . . . . .352 
 
 Literary Reminiscences. No. IV. . . . 358 
 
 The Carnaby Correspondence .... 395 
 
 A Rise at the Father of Angling .... 425 
 
 Right and Wrong. A Sketch at Sea . . . 431 
 
 Patronage ...... 440 
 
 Animal Magnetism ...... 452 
 
 The Forlorn Shepherd's Complaint. An Unpublished 
 Poem, from Sidney ..... 4fi4 
 
 Anacreontic, Bv a Footman .... 468 
 
 "have I A WOTE FgH gRiNw.vefB; 
 
HOOD'S OWN: 
 
 OR, LAUGHTER FfiOI YEAR TO YEAR. 
 
 THE ISLE OF MAN. 
 
 THE BOY AT THE NORE. 
 
 'Alone I did it !— Boy ! "— Coriolanus. 
 
 I SAT, little Boy at the Nore, 
 
 Do you come from the small Isle of Man 1 
 Why, your history a mystery must be, — 
 
 Come tell us as much as you can, 
 
 Little Boy at the Nore ! 
 
THE BOY AT THE NOEB. 
 
 You live it seems wholly on water, 
 
 Which your Gambler calls living in clover \ — 
 But how comes it, if that is the case, 
 
 You*re eternally half seas over, — 
 
 Little Boy at the NoreP 
 
 While you ride — while you dance — while you float- 
 Never mind your imperfect orthography ; — 
 But give us as well as you can. 
 Your watery auto-biography. 
 
 Little Boy at the Nore ! 
 LITTLE BOY AT THE NORE LOQUITUR. 
 I'm the tight little Boy at the Nore, 
 
 In a sort of sea negus I dwells ; 
 Half and half 'twixt saltwater and Port, 
 I'm reckon'd the first of the swells — 
 
 I'm the Boy at the Nore ! 
 
 I lives with my toes to the flounders. 
 
 And Avatches through long days and nights ; 
 Yet, cruelly eager, men look — 
 
 To catch the first glimpse of my lights — 
 
 I'm the Boy at the Nore. 
 I never gets cold in the head, 
 
 So my life on salt water is sweet, — 
 I think I owes much of my health 
 
 To being well used to wet feet — 
 
 As the Boy at the Nore. 
 
 There's one thing, I'm never in debt : 
 
 Nay ! —I liquidates more than I oughtor * ; 
 
 80 the man to beat Cits as goes by. 
 In keeping the head above water, 
 
 Is the Boy at the Nore. 
 ♦ A word caught from some American Trader in passing 
 
iHE BOY AT THE NORE 
 
 I've seen a good deal of distress, 
 
 Lots of Breakers in Ocean's Gazette ; 
 
 They should do as I do — rise o'er all ; 
 Aye, a good floating capital get. 
 
 Like the Boy at the Nore ! 
 
 THE BUOY AT THE NOK£. 
 
 I'm a'ier the sailor's own heart, 
 
 And cheers him, in deep water rolling ; 
 
 And the friend of all friends to Jack Junk, 
 Ben Backstay, Tom Pipes, and Tom Bowling, 
 Is the Boy at the Nore ! 
 
 Could I e'er but grow up, I'd be off 
 
 For a week to make love with my wheedles ; 
 
 If the tight little Boy at the Nore 
 
 Could but catch a nice girl at the Needles, 
 
 "We'd have two at the Nore 1 
 1—2 
 
THE RUN-OVER. 
 
 They thinks little of sizes on water, 
 
 On big waves the tiny one skulks, — • 
 While the river has Men of War on it^ 
 
 Yes — the Thames is oppress'd with great Hulks, 
 And the Boy's at the Nore ! 
 But I've done — for the water is heaving 
 
 Round my body, as though it would sink it ! 
 And I've been so long pitching and tossing. 
 
 That sea-sick — you'd hardly now think it — 
 Is the Boy at the Nore ! 
 
 AS SXTIt ASIBK BAITK. 
 
 THE RUN-OVER. 
 
 " Do you see that 'ere gentleman in the buggy, with the dipt 
 un ? " enquired Ned Stocker, as he pointed with his whip at a 
 chaise, some fifty yards in advance. " Well, for all he's driving 
 there so easy like, and comfortable, he once had a gig-shaft, 
 and that's a fact, driv right through his body ! " 
 
 " Rather him than me," drawled a passenger on the box, 
 without removing his cigar from his mouth. 
 
 " It's true for all that," returned Ned, with anod of his head 
 equal to an affidavit. " The shaft run in und^r one armpit, 
 right up to the tug, and out again at t'other besides pinning him 
 
THE RUN-OVER. « 
 
 to the wall of the, stable — and that's a thing such as don't 
 happen every day." 
 
 " Lucky it don't," said the smoker, between two puffs of his 
 cigar. 
 
 " It an't likely to come often," resumed Ned, *' let alone the 
 getting over it afterwards, which is the wonderfullest part of it 
 all. To see him bowling along there, he don't look like a man 
 pinned to a stable-wall with the rod through him, right up to 
 the tug— do he ? " 
 
 *• Can't say he does," said the smoker. 
 
 " For my part," said Ned, " or indeed any man's part, most 
 people in such a case would have said, it's all up with me, and 
 good reason why, as I said afore, with a shaft clean through 
 your inside, right up to the tug — and two inches besides into 
 the stable wall, by way of a benefit. But somehow he always 
 stuck to it — not the wall, you know — but his own opinion, that 
 he should get over it — he was as firm as flints about that — and 
 sure enough the event came off exactly." 
 
 " The better for him," said the smoker. 
 
 " I don't know the rights on it," said Ned, " for I wam*t 
 there — but they do say when he was dextricated from the rod, 
 there was a regular tunnel through him, and in course the 
 greatest danger was of his ketching cold in the lungs from the 
 thorough draught." 
 
 ** Nothing more likely," said the fumigator. 
 
 *• Howsomever," continued Ned, " he was cured by Dr. 
 Maiden of Stratford, who give him lots of physic to provoke his. 
 stomach, and make him eat hearty ; and by taking his feeds 
 well, — warm mashes at first, and then hard meat, in course of 
 time he filled up. Nobody hardly believed it, though, when they 
 see him about on his legs again — myself for one — but he always 
 said he would overcome it, and he was as good as his word. If 
 that an't game, I don't know what is." 
 
e THE RUN.OYER. 
 
 " No more do T," said the man with the Havannah. 
 
 "I don't know the philosophy on it," resumed Ned, 
 " but it's a remark of mine about recovering, if a man says 
 he will, he will, — and if he says he won't, he won't — 
 you may book that for certain. Mayhap a good pluck helps 
 the wounds in healing kindly, — but so it is, for I've ob- 
 served it. You'll see one man with hardly a scratch on 
 his face, and says he, I'm done for — and he turns out 
 quite correct — while another as is cut to ribbons will say 
 — never mind, — I'm good for another round, and so he proves, 
 particularly if he's one of your small farmers. I'll give you a 
 reason why." 
 
 "Now then," said the smoker. 
 
 " My reason is," replied Ned, " that they're all as hard as 
 nails — regular pebbles for game. They take more thrashing 
 than their own com, and that's saying something. They're all 
 fortitude, and nothing else. Talk about punishment ! nothing 
 comes amiss to 'em, from butt-ends of whips and brickbats 
 down to bludgeons loaded with lead. You can't hurt their 
 feelings. They're jist like badgers, the more you welt 'em the 
 more they grin, and when it's over, maybe a turn-up at a cattle 
 fair, or a stop by footpads, they'll go home to their missises all 
 over blood and wounds as cool and comfortable as cowcumbers, 
 with holes in their heads enough to scarify a whole hospital of 
 army surgeons." 
 
 "The very thing Scott has characterised," I ventured to 
 observe, " in the person of honest Dandie." 
 
 " Begging your pardon. Sir," said Ned, " I know Fanner 
 Scott very well, and he's anything but a dandy. I was just a 
 going to bring forward, as one of the trumps, a regular out- 
 and-outer. We become friends through an axident. It was a 
 darkish night, you see, and bim a little lushy or so, making a 
 bit of a swerve in his going towards the middle of the road.? 
 
THE RUN.OVEB. 7 
 
 before you could cry Snacks ! I was over him with the old 
 Regulator." 
 
 " Good God ! " exclaimed my left-hand companion on the 
 roof. " Was not the poor fellow hurt ? " 
 
 " Why, not much for him," answered Ned, with a very de- 
 cided emphasis on the pronoun. " Though it would have been 
 a quietus for nine men out of ten, and, as the Jews say. Take 
 your pick of the basket. But he looked queer at first, and 
 shook himself, and made a wryish face, like a man that hadn't 
 got the exact bit of the joint he preferred." 
 
 " Looked queer ! " ejaculated the compassionate passenger, 
 " he must have looked dreadful ! I remember the Regulator, 
 one of the oldest and heaviest vehicles on the road. But of 
 course you picked him up, and got him inside, and " 
 
 " Quite the reverse," answered Ned, quietly, " and far from 
 it ; he picked himself up, quite independent, and wouldn't even 
 accept a lift on the box. He only felt about his head a bit, and 
 then his back, and his arms, and his thighs, and his lines, and 
 after that he guv a nod, and says he, ' all right,* and away he 
 toddled." 
 
 " I can't credit it," exclaimed the man on the roof. 
 
 " That's jist what his wife said,'* replied Ned, with consider- 
 able composure, in spite of the slur on his veracity. Let alone 
 two black eyes, and his collar bone, and the broke rib, he'd a 
 hole in his head, with a flint sticking in it bigger than any one 
 you can find since Macadaming. But he made so light on it all, 
 and not being very clear besides in his notions, I'm blest if he 
 didn't tell her he'd only been knockt down by a man with a truck ! " 
 
 " Not a bad story," said the smoker on the box. 
 
 I confess I made internally a parallel remark. Naturally ro- 
 bust as my faith is, I could not, as Hamlet says, let " Belief lay 
 hold of me," with the coachman's narrative in his hand, like a 
 copy of a writ. I am no stranger, indeed, to the peculiar 
 
» THE BUN-OYEE. 
 
 hardihood of our native yeomanry; but Ned, in his zeal for 
 their credit, had certainly overdrawn the truth. As to his 
 doctrine of presentiments, it had never been one of the subjects 
 of my speculations ; but on a superficial view, it appeared to me 
 improbable that life or death, in cases of casualty, could be pre- 
 determined with such certainty as he had averred ; and parti- 
 cularly as I happen to know a certain lady, who has been accept- 
 ing the Bills of Mortality at two months' date, for many years 
 past — ^but has never honoured them when due. It was fated, 
 however, that honest Ned was to be confirmed in his theories 
 and corroborated in his facts. 
 
 We had scarcely trotted half a mile in meditative silence, 
 when we overtook a sturdy pedestrian, who was pacing the 
 breadth as well as the length of the road, rather more like a land 
 surveyor than a mere traveller. He evidently belonged to the 
 agricultural class, which Ned had distinguished by the title of 
 Small Farmers. Like Scott's Liddesdale yeoman, he wore a 
 shaggy dreadnought, below which you saw two well-fatted 
 calves, penned in a pair of huge top-boots — the tops and the 
 boots being of such different shades of brown as you may ob- 
 serve in two arable fields of various soil, a rich loam and a clay. 
 In his hand he carried a formidable knotted club-stick, and a 
 member of the Heralds' College would have set him down at 
 once a tenant of the Earl of Leicester, he looked so like a bear 
 with a ragged staff. 
 
 I observed that Ned seemed anxious. One of his leaders was 
 a bolter, and his wheelers were far from steady ; and the man 
 ahead walked not quite so straightly as if he had been plough- 
 ing a furrow. We were almost upon him — Ned gave a sharp 
 halloo — the man looked back, and wavered. A minute decided 
 the matter. He escaped Scylla, but Charybdis yawned for him — 
 in plain prose, he cleared the Rocket, but contrived to get under 
 the broad wheel of a Warwickshire waggon, which was passing 
 
THE RUN-OVER. 9 
 
 in the opposite direction. There was still a chance, — even a 
 fly-waggon may be stopped without much notice — but the 
 waggoner was inside, sweethearting with three maids that were 
 going to Coventry. Every voice cried out Woh ! but the right 
 one. The horses plodded on — the wheels rumbled — the bells 
 jingled — we all thought a knell. 
 
 Ned instantly pulled up, with his team upon their haunches — 
 we all alighted, and in a moment the sixteen the Rocket was 
 Hcensed to carry were at the fatal spot. In the midst of the 
 circle lay, what we considered a bundle of last linen just come 
 home from the mangle. 
 
 " That's a dead un," said the smoker, throwing awajr as he 
 spoke the butt-end of a cigar. 
 
 *' Poor wretch," exclaimed the humane man from the roof, 
 " what a shocking spectacle ! " 
 
 " It's over his chest," said I. 
 
 ** It's all over," said the passenger on my right. 
 
 " And a happy release," said a lady on my left ; "he must 
 have been a cripple for life." 
 
 " He can't have a whole rib in his body," said a man from 
 the dicky. 
 
 " Hall to hattums," said a gentleman from the inside. 
 
 " The worst I ever see, and I've had the good luck to see 
 many," said the guard. 
 
 " No, he can't get over that," said Ned himself. 
 
 To our astonishment, however, the human mass still breathed. 
 After a long sigh it opened one eye — the right — then the other 
 — the mouth gasped — the tongue moved — and at la&t even 
 spoke, though in disjointed syllables. 
 
 " We're nigh — band — an't we— the nine — niilestnn ? " 
 
 " Yes — yes — close to it," answered a dozen voices, and one 
 in its bewilderment asked, " Do you live there ? " but was set 
 right by the sufferer himself. 
 
10 
 
 THE RUN-OVES. 
 
 " No — a mile fudder." 
 
 "Where is there a surgeon?" asked the humane man, "I 
 will ride off for him on one of the leaders.'* 
 
 "Better not," said the phlegmatic smoker, who had lighted a 
 fresh cigar with some German tinder and a lucifer — " not used 
 to saddle — may want a surgeon yourself." 
 
 " Is there never a doctor among the company ? " inquired the 
 guard. 
 
 " I am a medical man," replied a squat vulgar- looking per- 
 sonage. " I sell Morison's pills — but I haven't any about me.* 
 
 " Glad of it," said the smoker, casting a long puif in the 
 other's fice. 
 
 THIS IS THE TIMK WHKK CHCBCH-YABD8 YAWK. ' 
 
 " Poor wretch ! " sighed the compassionate man. " He is 
 beyond human aid. Heaven help the widow and the fatherless 
 — he looks like a family man I " 
 
 " I were not to blaame," said the waggoner. *• The woife and 
 childerin can't coom upon 1.'* 
 
JOHNSONIANA. 11 
 
 " l^oes anyone know who he is ? " inquired the coachman, but 
 there was no answer. 
 
 " Maybe the gemman has a card or summut," said the gentle- 
 man from the inside. 
 
 " Is there no house near ? " inquired the lady. 
 
 " Por to get a shutter off on," added the gentleman. 
 
 " Ought we not to procure a postchaise/' inquired a gentle- 
 man's footman. 
 
 " Or a shell, in case," suggested the man from the dicky. 
 
 ** Shell be hanged ! " said the sufferer, in a tone that made us 
 all jump a yard backward, " Stick me up agin the milestun — 
 there, easy does it — that's comfortable — and now tell me, and 
 no nonsense, — be I flat ? " 
 
 •* A little pancakey," said the man with the cigar. 
 
 "I say," repeated the sufferer, with some earnestness, 
 "be I flat — quite flat — as flat like as a sheet of paper ? Yes or 
 no?" 
 
 " No, no, no," burst from sixteen voices at once, and the as- 
 surance seemed to take as great a load off his mind as had 
 lately passed over his body. By an effort he contrived to get 
 up and sit upon the milestone, from which he waved us a good- 
 bye, accompanied by the following words : — 
 
 " Gentlefolk, my best thanks and my sarvice to you, and a 
 pi easant j oumey. Don't consam yourselves about me, for there's 
 nothing dangerous. I shall do well, I know I shall ; and I'll 
 tell you what I'll go upon — -if I bean't flat I shall get round." 
 
 JOHNSONIANA. 
 " None despise puns but those who cannot make them." — Swift. 
 To the Editor of the Comic Annual. 
 Sir, 
 
 As I am but an occasional reader in the temporary in- 
 dulgence of intellectual relaxation, I have but recently become 
 
12 JOHNSONIANA. 
 
 cognizant of the metropolitan publication of Mr. Murray's Mr. 
 Croker's Mr. Bos wells Dr. Johnson : a circumstance the more 
 to be deprecated, for if I had been simultaneously aware of that 
 amalgamation of miscellaneous memoranda I could have contri- 
 buted a personal quota of characteristic colloquial anecdotes to 
 the biographical reminiscences of the multitudinous lexicographer, 
 which although founded on the basis of indubitable veracity, has 
 never transpired among the multifarious effusions of that stupen- 
 dous complication of mechanical ingenuity, which, according to 
 the technicalities in usage in our modern nomenclature, has ob- 
 tained the universal cognomen of the press. Expediency im- 
 periously dictates that the nominal identity of the hereditary 
 kinsman, from whom I derive my authoritative responsibility, 
 shall be inviolable and umbrageously obscured ; but in future 
 variorum editions his voluntary addenda to the already inestim- 
 able concatenation of circumstantial particularisation might 
 typographically be discriminated from the literary accumulations 
 of the indefatigable Boswell and the vivacious Piozzi, by the 
 significant classification of Boz, Poz, and Coz. 
 
 In posthumously eliciting and philosophically elucidating the 
 phenomena of defunct luminaries, whether in reference to cor- 
 poreal, physiognomical, or metaphysical attributes, justice de- 
 mands the strictest scrupulosity, in order that the heterogeneous 
 may not preponderate over the homogeneous in the critical 
 analysis. Metaphorically speaking, I am rationally convinced 
 that the operative point I am about to develop will remove a 
 pertinacious film from the eye of the biographer of the memor- 
 able Dr. Johnson ; and especially with reference to that reiterated 
 verbal aphorism so preposterously ascribed to his conversational 
 inculcation, namely, that " he who would make a pun would 
 pick a pocket ; " however irrelevant such a doctrinarian maxim 
 to the irrefragable fact, that in that colossal monument of 
 etymological erudition erected by the stupendus Doctor himself 
 (of course implying his inestimable Dictionary), the paramount 
 
JOHNSONIANA. 18 
 
 js^ist, scope, and tendency of his laborious researches was obviously 
 to give as many meanings as possible to one word. In order, 
 however, to place hypothesis on the immutable foundation of 
 fact, I will, with your periodical permission, adduce a few John- 
 sonian repartees from my cousin's anecdotical memorabilia, which 
 will perspicuously evolve the synthetical conclusion, that the in- 
 imitable author of Rasselas did not dogmatically predicate such 
 an aggravated degree of moral turpitude in the perpetration of a 
 double entendre. 
 
 Apologistically requesting indulgence for the epistolary laxity 
 of an unpremeditated effusion, I. remain. Sir, 
 
 Your very humble obedient seiTant, 
 
 Septimus Eeardon. 
 LkhfieU, October 1, 1833. 
 
 "Do you really believe. Dr. Johnson," said a Lichfield lady, 
 "in the dead walking after death?" — "Madam," said John- 
 son, " I have no doubt on the subject ; I have heard the Dead 
 March in Saul." " You really believe then, Doctor, in ghosts ? '* 
 — " Madam," said Johnson, " I think appearances are in their 
 favour." 
 
 The Doctor was notoriously very superstitious. The same 
 lady once asked him — " if he ever felt any presentiment at a 
 winding-sheet in the candle." — " Madam," said Johnson, " if a 
 mould candle, it doubtless indicates death, and that somebody 
 will go out like a snuff; but whether at Hampton Wick or in 
 Greece^ must depend upon the graves.'^ 
 
 Dr. Johnson was not comfortable in the Hebrides. " Pray, 
 Doctor, how did you sleep ? " inquired a benevolent Scotch hos- 
 tess, who was so extremely hospitable that some hundreds al- 
 ways occupied the same bed. — " Madam," said J'ohnson, " I had 
 not a wink the whole night long ; sleep seemed to flee from my 
 eyelids, and to hug from all the rest of my body." 
 
 The Doctor and Boswell once lost themselves in the Isle of 
 
14 
 
 JOHNSONIANA. 
 
 Muck, and the latter said they must '* spier their way at the first 
 Dody they met." "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, "you're a scoun- 
 drel : you may spear anybody you like, but I am not going to 
 * run a-Muck and tilt at all I meet.' " 
 
 AN ILLUMINATED MS. 
 
 " What do you think of whiskey, Dr. Johnson ? " hiccupped 
 Boswell after emptying a sixth tumbler of toddy. " Sir," said 
 the Doctor, " it penetrates my very soul like ' the small-still voice 
 of conscience,' and doubtless the worm of the still is the * w^orm 
 that never dies.'" Boswell afterwards inquired the Doctor's 
 opinion on illicit distillation, and how the great moralist would 
 act in an affray between the smugglers and the Excise. " If 1 
 went by the lette?- of the law, I should assist the Customs, but 
 according to the spirit I should stand by the contrabands." 
 
 The Doctor was always very satirical on the want of timber 
 in the North. " Sir," he said to the young Laird of Icombally, 
 who was going tojoin his regiment, " may Providence preserve 
 you in battle, and especially your netherlimbs. You may grow 
 
JOHNSONIANA. 15 
 
 a walking-stick here, but you must import a wooden leg." At 
 Dunsinane the old prejudice broke out. " Sir," said he to Bos- 
 well, " Macbeth was an idiot ; he ought to have known that 
 every wood in Scotland might be carried in a man's hand. The 
 Scotch, Sir, are like the frogs in the fable : if they had a Log 
 they would make a King of it." 
 
 Boswell one day expatiated at some length on the moral and 
 religious character of his countrymen, and remarKed trium- 
 phantly that there was a Cathedral at Kirkwall, and the remains 
 of a Bishop's Palace. ** Sir," said Johnson, " it must have been 
 the poorest of Sees : take your Rum and Egg and Mull altogether, 
 and they won't provide for a Bishojp" 
 
 East India company is the worst of all company. A Lady 
 fresh from Calcutta once endeavoured to curry Johnson's favour 
 by talking of nothing but howdahs, doolies, and bungalows, till 
 the Doctor took, as usual, to ti-ffin. *' Madam," said he, in a 
 tone that would have scared a tiger out of a jungle, *' India's 
 very well for a rubber or for a bandana, or for a cake of ink, 
 but what with its Bhurtpore, Pahlumpore, Barrackpore, Hydera- 
 pore, Singapore, and Nagpore, its Hyderabad, Astrabad, Bundle- 
 bad, Sindbad, and Guzzaratbadbad, it's a poor and bad country 
 altogether." 
 
 Master M., after plaguing Miss Seward and Dr. Darwin, and 
 a large tea party at Lichfield, said to his mother that he would 
 be good if she would give him an apple. " My dear child," said 
 the parent, feeling herself in the presence of a great moralist, 
 " you ought not to be good on any consideration of gain, for 
 * virtue is its own reward.' You ought to be good disinterestedly, 
 and without thinking what you are to get for it.'* *' Madam,'* 
 said Dr. Johnson, "you are a fool; would you have the boy 
 good for notJiing ? '* 
 
 The same lady once consulted the Doctor on the degree of 
 turpitude to be attached to her son's robbing an orchard. 
 
16 THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE. 
 
 " Madam," said Johnson, " it all depends upon the weight of 
 the boy. I remember my schoolfellow Davy Garrick, who was 
 always a little fellow, robbing a dozen of orchards with impunity, 
 but the very first time I climbed up an apple tree, for I was al- 
 ways a heavy boy, the bough broke with me, and it was called a 
 judgment. I suppose that's why Justice is represented with a 
 pair of scales." 
 
 Caleb Whitefoord, the famous punster, once inquired seriously 
 of Dr. Johnson whether he really considered that a man ought 
 to be transported, like Barrington, the pickpocket, for being 
 guilty of a double meaning. " Sir," said Johnson, " if a man 
 means well, the more be means the better." 
 
 THE GREAT EAETHQUAKE AT MARY-LE-BONE. 
 
 " Do you never deviate ? " — John Bull. 
 
 It was on the evening of the 7 th of November, 18 — , that I 
 went by invitation to sup with my friend P., at his house in High- 
 street, Mary-le-bone. The only other person present was a Por- 
 tuguese, by name Senor Mendez, P.'s mercantile agent at Lisbon, 
 a person of remarkably retentive memoiy, and most wonderful 
 power of description. The conversation somehow turned upon 
 the memorable great earthquake at Lisbon, in the year of our 
 
 Lord , and Senor Mendez, wlio was residing at that time in 
 
 the Portuguese capital, gave us a very lively picture — if lively 
 it may be called — of the horrors of that awful convulsion of 
 nature. The picture was dreadful ; the Senor's own house, a 
 substantial stone mansion, was rent from attic to cellar : and the 
 steeple of his parish church left impending over it at an angle 
 surpassing that of the famous Leaning Tower of Bologna ! 
 
THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE. 
 
 17 
 
 The Portuguese had a wonderfully expressive countenance, with 
 a style of narration indescribably vivid ; and as I listened with 
 the most intense interest, every dismal circumstance of the 
 calamity became awfully distinct to my apprehension. I could 
 hear the dreary ringing of the bells, self-tolled from the rocking 
 of the churches ; the swaying to and fro of the- steeples them- 
 selves, and the unnatural heavings and swellings of the Tagus, 
 were vividly before me. As the agitations increased, the voice 
 of the Senor became awfully tremulous, and his seat seemed 
 literally to rock under him. I seemed palsied, and could see 
 from P.'s looks that he was similarly affected. To conceal his 
 disorder, he kept swallowing large gulps from his rummer, and 
 I followed his example. 
 
 I>0 TUY SrlBITIWe OBMXLY." 
 
 This was only the first shock ; — the second soon followed, and, 
 to use a popular expression, it made us both " shake in our 
 
 Vol. II. 
 
 2 
 
18 THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE. 
 
 shoes." TeiTific, however, as it was, the third was more tre- 
 mendous ; the order of nature seemed reversed ; the ships in the 
 Tagus sank to the bottom, and then* ponderous anchors rose to 
 the surface ; volcanic fire burst forth from the water, and water 
 trom dry ground ; the air, no longer elastic, seemed to become a 
 stupendous solid ; swaying to and fro, and irresistibly battering 
 Qown the fabrics of ages ; hollow rumblings and moanings as 
 from the very centre of the world, gave warning of deafening 
 explosions, which soon followed, and seemed to shake the very 
 stars out of the sky. All this time the powerful features of the 
 feenor kept working, in frightful imitation of the convulsion he 
 was describing, and the effect was horrible ; I saw P. quiver 
 like an aspen — there seemed no such thing as terra firma. Our 
 chairs rocked under us ; the floor tossed and heaved ; the candles 
 wavered, the windows clattered, and the teaspoons rang again, 
 as our tumblers vibrated in our hands. 
 
 Senor Mendez at length concluded his narrative, and shortly 
 took leave ; I staid but a few minutes after him, just to make a 
 remark on the appalling character of the story, and then de- 
 parted myself, — little thinking, that any part of the late descrip- 
 tion was to be so speedily realised by my own experience ! 
 
 The hour being late, and the servants in bed, ?. himself ac- 
 companied me to the door. I ought to remark here that the 
 day had been uncommonly serene — not a breath stirring, as was 
 noticed on the morning of the great catastrophe at Lisbon ; how- 
 ever, P. had barely closed the door, when a sudden and violent 
 motion of the earth threw me from the step on which I was 
 standing, to the middle of the pavement ; I had got partly up 
 when a second shock, as smart as the first, threw me again on 
 the ground. With some difficulty I recovered my legs a second 
 time, the earth in the mean time heaving about under me like 
 the deck of a ship at sea. The street lamps, too, seemed 
 violently agitated, and the houses nodded over me as if they 
 
THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE. 19 
 
 would fall every instant, I attempted to run, but it was im- 
 possible ; 1 could barely keep on my feet. At one step I was 
 dashed forcibly against the wall ; at the next I was thrown into the 
 road ; as the motion became more violent I clung to a lamp-post, 
 but it swayed with me like a rush. A great mist came suddenly 
 on, but 1 could perceive people hurrying about, all staggering like 
 drunken men ; some of them addressing me, but so confusedly 
 as to be quite unintelligible ; one — a lady — passed close to me 
 in evident alarm : seizing her hand, 1 besought her to fly with 
 me from the falling houses, into the open fields ; what answer 
 she made I know not, for at that instant, a fresh shock threw 
 me on my face with such violence as to render me quite insen- 
 
 WELL 1 I JTEVKB COULD KKKP MY LEGS I " 
 
 sible. Providentially, in this state I attracted the notice of some 
 of the night police, who humanely deposited me, for safety, in 
 St. Anne's watch-house, till the following morning ; when being 
 sufficiently recovered to give a collected account of that event- 
 ful evening, the ingenious Mr. W., of the Morning Herald, was 
 so much interested by my narrative that he kindly did me the 
 favour of drawing it up for publication in the following form. 
 Police Intelligence. — Bow Street. 
 " This morning a stout country gentleman, in anew suit of 
 2—2 
 
20 ODE TO ST. SWITHIN. 
 
 mud, evidently town made, was charged with having walked 
 Waverly over-night till he got his Kennelworth in a gutter in 
 Mary-le-bone. The Jack-o'-lanthorn who picked him up could 
 make nothing out of him, but that he was soir.e sort of a 
 Quaker, and declared that the whole country was in a shocking 
 state. He acknowledged having taken rather too much Lisbon ; 
 but according to Mr. Daly, he sniffed of whiskey * as strong as 
 natur.' The defendant attempted with a sotto voce (Anglice, a 
 tipsy voice), to make some excuse, but was stopped and fined in 
 the usual sum, by Sir Richard. He found his way out of the 
 office, muttering that he thought it very hard to have to pay Jive 
 hogs for being only as drunk as one.'* 
 
 ODE TO ST. SWITHIN. 
 
 " The rain it raineth every day. 
 
 The Dawn is overcast, the morning low'rs. 
 On ev'ry window-frame hang beaded damps 
 Like rows of small illumination lamps, 
 To celebrate the Jubilee of Show'rs ! 
 A constant sprinkle patters from all leaves. 
 The very Dryads are not dry, but soppers. 
 
 And from the Houses' eaves 
 
 Tumble eaves-droppers. 
 
 The hundred clerks that live along the street. 
 Bondsmen to mercantile and City schemers. 
 With squashing, sloshing, and galoching feet, 
 Go paddling, paddling, through the wet, like steamers. 
 Each hurrying to earn the daily stipend — 
 Umbrellas pass of every shade of green, 
 And now and then a crimson one is seen. 
 Like an Umbrella ripen' d. 
 
ODE TO ST. SWITHIN. 
 
 Over the way a waggon 
 Stand with six smoking horses, shrinking, blinking, 
 
 While in the George and Dragon 
 The man is keeping himself dry — and drinking ! 
 The Butcher's boy skulks underneath his tray, 
 
 Hats shine — shoes don't — and down droop collars. 
 And one blue Parasol cries all the way 
 
 To school, in company with four small scholars ! 
 
 21 
 
 PBIUE AKD HUMILITY. 
 
 Unhappy is the man to-day who rides. 
 Making his journey sloppier, not shorter ; 
 Aye, there they go, a dozen of outsides. 
 Performing on " a Stage with real water ! " 
 A dripping Pauper crawls along the way. 
 
 The only real willing out-of-doorer 
 
 And says, or seems to say, 
 •* Well, I am poor enough — but here's a pourerJ 
 
22 ODE TO ST. S WITHIN. 
 
 The scene in water colours thus I paint, 
 Is your own Festival, you Sloppy Saint ! 
 Mother of all the Family of Rainers ! 
 
 Saint of the Soakers ! 
 
 MaKiiig all people croakers, 
 Like frogs in swampy marshes, and complainers 1 
 And why you mizzle forty days together, 
 Giving the earth your water-soup to sup, 
 I marvel — Why such wet, mysterious weather ? 
 
 I wish you'd clear it up ! 
 
 Why cast such cruel dampers 
 On pretty Pic Nics, and against all wishes 
 Set the cold ducks a-swimming in the hampers, 
 And volunteer, unask'd, to wash the dishes '^ 
 Why drive the Nymphs from the selected spot, 
 To cling like lady-biids around a tree — 
 Why spoil a Gipsy party at their tea, 
 By throwing your cold water upon hot ? 
 
 Cannot a rural maiden, or a man. 
 
 Seek Hornsey-Wood by invitation, sipping 
 
 Their green with Pan, 
 But souse you come, and show their Pan all diipping ! 
 Why upDn snow-white table-cloths and sheets, 
 That do not wait, or want a second washing. 
 
 Come squashing ? 
 Why task yourself to lay the dust in streets. 
 As if there were no Water-Cart contractors. 
 No pot-boys spilling beer, no shop-boys niddy 
 
 Spooning out puddles muddy. 
 Milkmaids, and other slopping benefactors ! 
 
 A Queen you are, raining in your own right. 
 Yet oh ! how little flatter'd by report ! 
 
ODE TO ST. SWITHIN. 
 
 28 
 
 Even by those that seek the Court, 
 Pelted with every terra of spleen and spite. 
 Folks rail and swear at you in every place ; 
 They say you are a creature of no bowel ; 
 They say you're always washing Nature's tace, 
 And that you then supply her. 
 
 With nothing drier, 
 Than some old wringing cloud by way of towel 1 
 The whole town wants you duck'd, just as you duck it, 
 They wish you on your own mud porridge supper' d, 
 They hope that you may kick your own big bucket. 
 Or in your water-butt go sous ! heels up'ard ! 
 They are, in short, so weary of your drizzle, 
 They'd spill the water in- your veins to stop it — 
 Be warn'd ! You are too partial to a mizzle — 
 
 Pray drop it ! 
 
 IT NEVER RAINS BUT IT POURS. 
 
24 
 
 A FIGirEE OF SPEKCH : — A BROAD SCOTCHMAN. 
 
 THE APPAEITION. 
 
 A TRUE STORY. 
 
 " To keep without a reef in a gale of wind like that — Jock 
 was the only boatman on the Pirth of Tay to do it ! " — 
 
 " He had sail enough to blow him over Dundee Law." — 
 
 " She's emptied her ballast and come up again, — with hei 
 sails all standing — every sheet was belayed with a double turn." 
 
 1 give the sense rather than the sound of the foregoing 
 speeches, for the speakers were all Dundee ferry-boatmen, and' 
 broad Scotchmen, using the extra-wide dialect of Angus-shire 
 and Fife. 
 
 At the other end of the low-roofed room, under a coarse white 
 sheet, sprinkled with sprigs of rue and rosemary, dimly lighted 
 by a small candle at the head, and another at the feet, lay the 
 
THE APPARITION. 25 
 
 object of their comments — a corpse of startling magnitude. In 
 life, poor Jock was of unusual stature, but stretching a little, 
 perhaps, as is usual in death, and advantaged by the narrow 
 limits of the room, the dimensions seemed absolutely superna- 
 tural. During the warfare of the Allies against Napoleon, Jock, 
 a fellow of some native humour, had distinguished himself by 
 ringing about the streets of Dundee, ballads, I believe his own, 
 against old Boney. The nick-name of Ballad-Jock was not his 
 only reward ; the loyal burgesses subscribed among themselves, 
 and made him that fatal gift, a ferry-boat, the management of 
 which we have just heard so seriously reviewed. The catastrophe 
 took place one stormy Sunday, a furious gale blowing against 
 the tide, down the river — and the Tay is anything but what the 
 Irish call " weak tay," at such seasons. In fact, the devoted 
 Nelson, with all sails set, — fair-weather fashion, — caught aback 
 in a sudden gust, — after a convulsive whirl capsized, and went 
 down in forty fathoms, taking with her two-and-twenty persons, 
 the greater part of whom were on their way to hear the cele- 
 brated Dr. Chalmers, — even at that time highly popular, — 
 though preaching in a small church at some obscure village, I 
 forget the name, in Fife. After all the rest had sunk in the 
 waters, the huge figure of Jock was observed clinging to an 
 oar, barely afloat, — when some sufferer probably catching hold 
 of his feet, he suddenly disappeared, still grasping the oar, 
 which afterwards springing upright into the air, as it rose again 
 to the surface, showed the fearful depth to which it had been 
 carried. The body of Jock was the last found ; about the fifth 
 Jay, it was strangely enough deposited by the tide almost at 
 the threshold of his own dwelling, at the Craig, a small pier or 
 jetty, frequented by the ferry-boats. It had been hastily caught 
 up, and in its clothes laid out in the manner just described, 
 lying as it were in state, and the public, myself one, being freely 
 admitted, as far as the room would hold, it was crowded by 
 
2ifi? THE APPARITION. 
 
 fish-wives, mariners, and other shore-haunters, except a few feet 
 next the corpse, which a natural awe towards the dead kept 
 always vacant. The narrow death's door was crammed with 
 eager listening and looking heads, and by the buzzing without, 
 there was a large surplus crowd in waiting before the dwelling 
 for their turn to enter it. 
 
 On a sudden, at a startling exclamation from one of those 
 nearest the bed, all eyes were directed towards that quarter- 
 One of the candles was guttering and sputtering near the sockets 
 — the other just twinkling out, and sending up a stream of rank 
 smoke, — but by the light, dim as it was, a slight motion of the 
 sheet was perceptible just at that part where the hand of the 
 dead mariner might be supposed to be lying at his side ! A 
 scream and shout of horror burst from all within, echoed, though 
 ignorant of the cause, by another from the crowd without, A 
 general rush was made towards the door, but egress was impos- 
 sible. Nevertheless horror and dread squeezed up the company 
 in the room to half their former compass : and left a far wider 
 blank between the living and the dead 1 I confess at first I 
 mistrusted my sight ; it seemed that some twitching of the 
 nerves of the eye, or the flickering of the shadows, thrown by 
 the unsteady flame of the candle, might have caused some opti- 
 cal delusion ; but after several minutes of sepulchral silence 
 and watching, the motion became more awfully nMnifest,'now 
 proceeding slowly upwards, as if the hand of the deceased, still 
 beneath the sheet, was struggling up feebly towards his head. 
 It is possible to conceive, but not to describe, the popular con- 
 sternation, — the shrieks of women, — the shouts of men — the 
 struggles to gain the only outlet, choked up and rendered im- 
 passable by the very eflbrts of desperation and fear ! — Clinging 
 to each other, and with ghastly faces that dared not turn from 
 the object of dread, the whole assembly backed with united 
 force against the opposite wall, with a convulsive energy that 
 
THE APPARITION. 27 
 
 threatened to force out the very side of the dwelling — when, 
 startled before by silent motion, but now by sound, — with a 
 smart rattle something fell from the bed to the floor, and dis- 
 entangling itself from the death drapery, displayed — a large 
 pound Crab ! — The creature, with some design, perhaps sinister, 
 had been secreted in the ample clothes of the drowned seaman, 
 but even the comparative insignificance of this apparition gave 
 but little alleviation to the superstitious horrors of the spectators, 
 who appeared to believe firmly, that it was only the Evil One 
 himself, transfigured. — Wherever the crab straddled sidelong, 
 infirm beldame and sturdy boatman equally shrank and retreated 
 before it, — aye, even as it changed place, to crowding closely 
 round the corpse itself, rather than endure its diabolical contact. 
 The crowd outside, warned by cries from within, of the pre- 
 sence of Mahound, had by this time retired to a respectful dis- 
 tance, and the crab, doing what herculean sinews had failed to 
 effect, cleared itself a free passage through the door in a twink- 
 ling, and with natural instinct began crawling as fast as he could 
 clapperclaw, down the little jetty before mentioned that led into 
 his native sea. The Satanic Spirit, how^ever disguised, seemed 
 everywhere distinctly recognised. Many at the lower end of the 
 Craig lept into their craft ; one or two even into the water, 
 whilst others crept as close to thevergeof the pieras they could, 
 leaving a thoroughfare — wide as ** the broad path of honour," 
 — to the Infernal Cancer. To do him justice, he straddled 
 along with a very unaffected unconsciousness of his own evil 
 importance. He seemed to have no aim higher than salt water 
 and sand, and had accomplished half the distance towards them, 
 when a little decrepit poor old sea-roamer, generally known as 
 "* Creel Katie," made a dexterous snatch at a hind claw, and 
 before the Crab-Devil was aware, deposited him in her patch- 
 work apron, with an " Hech, Sirs, what for are ye gaun to let 
 gang siccan a braw partane ? " In vain a hundred voices shouted 
 
^6 A BLIND MAN. 
 
 out, " Let him bide, Katie, — he's no cannie ; '* fish or fiend, 
 the resolute old dame kept a fast clutch of her prize, promising 
 him, moreover, a comfortable simmer in the mickle pat, for the 
 benefit of herself and that " puir silly body the gudeman : " and 
 she kept her word. Before night the poor Devil was dressed in 
 his shell, to the infinite horror of all her neighbours. Some even 
 said that a black figure, with horns, and wings, and hoofs, and 
 forky tail, in fact old Clooty himself, had been seen to fly out of 
 the chimney. Others said that unwholesome and unearthly 
 smells, as of pitch and brimstone, had reeked forth from the 
 abominable thing, through door and window. Creel Kate, how- 
 ever, persisted, aye, even to her dying day and on her deathbed, 
 that the Crab was as sweet a Crab as ever was supped on ; and 
 that it recovered her old husband out of a very poor low way, — 
 adding, ** And that was a thing, ye ken, the Deil a Deil in the 
 Dub of Darkness wad hae dune for siccan a gude man, and kirk- 
 going Christian body, as my ain douce Davie." 
 
 A BLIND MAN * 
 
 is a BlacKamoor turned outside in. His skin is fair, but his 
 lining is utter dark; his eyes are like shotten stars, — mere 
 jellies ; or like mock-painted windows since the tax upon day- 
 light : what his mind's eye can be, is yet a mystery with the 
 learned, or if he hath a mental capacity at all — for, " out of sight 
 is out of mind." 
 
 Wherever he stands, he is antipodean, with his midnight to 
 your noon. The brightest sunshine serves only to make him 
 the gloomier object ; like a dark house at a general illumination. 
 When he stirs, it is like a Venetian blind, being pulled up and 
 down by a string ; he is a human kettle tied to a dog's tail, and 
 with much of the same tin twang in his tone. With botanists 
 he is a species of solanum, or night-shade, whereof the berries 
 
A BLIND MAN. 
 
 are in his eyes ; — amongst painters he is only contemned, for 
 his ignorance of clare-obscure ; but by musicians marvelled at 
 
 A MISGUIDED MAN. 
 
 for playing, ante-sight, on an invisible fiddle. He stands 
 against a wall with his two blank orbs, like a figure in high re- 
 lief, howbeit but seldom relieved ; and though he is fond of get- 
 ting pence, yet he is confessedly blind to his own interest. 
 
 In his religion he is a materialist, putting no faith but in 
 things palpable. In politics, no visionary ; in his learning a 
 smatterer, his knowledge of all being superficial ; in his age a 
 child, being yet in leading-strings ; in his life immortal, for 
 death may lengthen his night, but can put no end to his days ; in 
 his courage, heroic, for he winks at no danger ; in his preten- 
 sions humble, confessing that he is nothing, even in his own 
 eyes ; in his malady hopeless, for eyes of looking-glass would not 
 
m THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION. 
 
 help him to see. To conclude— he is pitied by the rich, relieved 
 by the poor, oppressed by the beadle, and horse-whipped by the 
 fox-hunter, for not givini^ the view holloa ! 
 
 BE TO THEIR FAULTS A LITTLE BLIND.' 
 
 THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION. 
 
 A PATHETIC BALLAD. 
 
 Oh flesh, flesh how art thou fishified." — Mercutio. 
 
 I. 
 Twas twelve o'clock by Chelsea chimes, 
 
 When all in hungry trim, 
 Good Mister Jupp sat down to sup 
 
 With wife, and Kate, and Jim. 
 
 n 
 Said he, " Upon this dainty cod 
 
 How bravely I shall sup," — 
 When, whiter than the table-cloth, 
 
 A GHOST came rising up ! 
 
THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION. 31 
 
 III. 
 •* O, father dear, 0, mother dear, 
 
 Dear Kate, and brother Jim, — 
 You know when some one went to sea. — 
 
 Don't cry — but I am him ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 •' You hope some day with fond embraee 
 
 To greet your absent Jack, 
 Bat oh, I am come here to say 
 
 I'm never coming back ! 
 
 V. 
 
 " From Alexandria we set sail, 
 
 With corn, and oil, and figs. 
 But steering ' too much Sow,' we sinick 
 
 Upon the Sow and Pigs ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 " The Ship we pump'd till we could see , 
 
 Old England from the tops ; 
 When down she went with all our hands, 
 
 Right in the Channel's Chops. 
 
 VII. 
 
 " Just give a look in Norey's chart. 
 
 The very place it tells ; 
 I think it says twelve fathom deep. 
 
 Clay bottom> mixed with shells. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " Well, there we are till ' hands aloft, 
 
 We have at last a call ; 
 The pug i had for brother Jim, 
 
 Kate's parrot too, and all. 
 
32 . THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION. 
 
 IX. 
 " But oh, my spirit cannot rest, 
 
 In Davy Jones's sod, 
 Till I've appear'd to you and said, — 
 
 Don't sup on that 'ere Cod ! 
 
 X. 
 
 '* You live on land, and little think 
 
 What passes in the sea ; 
 Last Sunday week, at 2 p.m.. 
 
 That cod was picking me ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 " Those oysters too, that look so plumjp, 
 
 And seem so nicely done. 
 They put my corpse in many shells, 
 
 Instead of only one. 
 
 XII. 
 
 " 0, do not eat those oysters then, 
 And do not touch the shrimps ; 
 
 When I was in my briny grave. 
 They suck'd my blood like imps ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 " Don't eat what brutes would never eat, 
 
 The brutes I used to pat, 
 They'll know the smell they used to smell ; 
 
 Just try the dog and cat ! " 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The Spirit fled — they wept his fate, 
 
 And cried, Alack, alack ! 
 At last up started brother Jim. 
 
 " Let's try if Jack was Jack ! " 
 
A SNAKE.SNACK. 
 
 XT. 
 
 They caU'd the Dog, they call'd the Cat, 
 
 And little Kitten too, 
 And down they pnt the Cod and sauce. 
 
 To see what brutes would do. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Old Tray lick'd all the oysters up, 
 
 Puss never stood at crimps, 
 But munch'd the Cod — and little Kit 
 
 Quite feasted on the shrimps 1 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The thing was odd, and minus Cod 
 And sauce, they stood like posts ; 
 
 O, prudent folks, for fear of hoax, 
 Put no belief in Ghosts ! 
 
 rSI£KDS JLWAITIira i. 8AILOB S BETUBV. 
 
 A SNAKE-SNACK. 
 
 " Twine ye, twine ye." — Sir W. Scott, 
 
 It was my good fortune once, at Charing Cross, to witness 
 
 the feeding of the Boa Constrictor ; rather a rare occurrence, 
 
 and difficult of observation, the reptile not being remarkable for 
 VOL .II. 3 
 
34 
 
 A SNAKE-SNACK. 
 
 the regularity of its dinner-hour ; and a very considerable in- 
 terval intervenes, as the world knows, between Gorge the First, 
 and Gorge the Second, Gorge the Third, and Gorge the Fourth. 
 I was not in time to see the serpent's first dart at the prey ; she 
 
 TBB BO^ XnKB A. UIAI.. 
 
 had already twisted herself round her victim, — a living \VTiit« 
 Eabbit — who with a large dark eye gazed piteously through 
 one of the folds, and looked most eloquently that line in 
 Hamlet — 
 
 " O could I shuffle off this mortal coil ! " 
 
 The Snake evidently only embraced him in a kill-him-when-I- 
 want-him manner, just firmly enough to prevent an escape — but 
 her lips were glued on his, in a close " Judas' kiss.** So long 
 a time elapsed, in this position, both as marble-still as poor old 
 Laocoon with his leaches on, that I really began to doubt the 
 tale of the Boa's ability in swallowing ; and to associate the 
 hoax before me, with that of the Bottle Conjuror. The head 
 of the snake, in fact, might have gone without difficulty into a 
 wine-glass, and the throat, down which the rabbit was to pro- 
 
A SNAKE-SNACK. 35 
 
 ceed whole, seemed not at all thicker than ray thumb. In 
 short, I thought the reported cram was nothing but stuffs and 
 the only other visitor declared himself of my opinion : " If that 
 *ere little wiper swallows up the rabbit, I'll bolt um both ! " 
 and he seemed capable of the feat. He looked like a personifi- 
 cation of what Political Economists call the Public Consumer ; 
 or, Geoffrey Crayon's Stout Gentleman, seen through Carpen- 
 ter's Solar Microscope ; a genuine Edax Rerum ; one of your 
 devourers of legs of mutton and trimmings, for wagers : the 
 delight of eating-houses, and the dread of ordinaries. The con- 
 trast was whimsical, between his mountain of mummy, and the 
 slim Macaroni figure of the Snake, the reputed Glutton. How- 
 ever, the Boa began at last to prepare for the meal, by lubricat- 
 ing the muzzle of the Rabbit with her slimy tongue, and then 
 commenced in earnest. 
 
 As far as in her lay to take him in, 
 A stranger d\ ing with so fair a skin. 
 
 The process was tedious — " one swallow makes a summer " — 
 but it gradually became apparent, from the fate of the head, 
 that the whole body might eventually be " lost in the Serpentine." 
 The Reptile, indeed, made ready for the rest of the interment by 
 an operation rather horrible. On a sudden, the living cable was 
 observed, as a sailor would say, to haul in her slack, and with a 
 squeeze evincing tremendous muscular power, she reduced the 
 whole body into a compass that would follow the head with per- 
 fect ease. It was like a regular smash in busmess : — the poor 
 rabbit was completely broken — and the wily winder-up of his 
 affairs recommenced paying herself in fuU. It was a sorry sight 
 and sickening. As for the Stout Gentleman, he could not con- 
 trol his agitation. His eyes rolled and watered ; his jaws con- 
 stantly yawned like a panther's ; and his hands with a convul- 
 sive movement were clasped every now and then on his stomach ; 
 — but when the whole rabbit was smothered in snake, he could 
 
ae 
 
 A STOEM AT HASTINGS. 
 
 restrain himself no longer, and rushed out of the menagerie as if 
 he really expected to be called upon to fulfil his rash engagement. 
 Anxious to ascertain the true nature of the impulse, I hurried in 
 pursuit of him, and after a short but sharp chase, I saw him 
 dash into the British Hotel, and overheard his familiar voice — 
 the same that had promised to swallow both Snake and Snack — 
 bellowing out, guttural with hunger — " Here ! — waiter !^ 
 Quick ! — Eabbits in onions for two ! " 
 
 THB GEEAT SEA SERPENT DISCOVBBED FBOM THE MAST-HKAD. 
 
 A STORM AT HASTINGS 
 
 AND THE LITTLE UNKNOWN. 
 
 'TwAS August — Hastings every day was filling — 
 Hastings, that " greenest spot on memory's waste ! 
 With crowds of idlers willing or unwilling 
 To be bedipped — be noticed — or be braced, 
 And all things rose a penny in a shilling. 
 Meanwhile, from window and from door, in haste 
 •• Accommodation bills " kept coming down, 
 frladding " the world of letters " in that town. 
 
A STORM AT HASTINGS. HT 
 
 Each day pour'd in new coach-fulls of new cits, 
 Flying from London smoke and dust annoying, 
 Unmarried Misses hoping to make hits. 
 And new-wed couples fresh from Tunbridge toyiug. 
 Lacemen and placemen, ministers and wits. 
 And Quakers of both sexes, much enjoying 
 A morning's reading by the ocean's rim, 
 That sect delighting in the sea's broad brim. 
 
 Ur ABEIDGMKWT or ALL THAT IS PLEASANT IW MAIf. 
 
 And lo ! amongst all these appear'd a creature, 
 So small, he almost might a twin have been. 
 With Miss Crachami — dwarfish quite in stature. 
 Yet well proportion'd — neither fat nor lean. 
 His lace of mai-vellously pleasant feature. 
 ISo short and sweet a man was never seen — 
 All thought him charming at the first beginning- 
 A la«. ere long they found him far too winaino: i 
 
SS A STORM AT HASTINGS. 
 
 He seem*d in love with chance — and chance repairt 
 
 His ardent passion with her fondest smile, 
 
 The sunshine of good luck, without a shade, 
 
 He staked and won — and won and staked — the bik 
 
 It stirr*d of many a man and many a maid, 
 
 To see at every venture how that vile 
 
 Fmall gambler snatch'd — and how he won them too— 
 
 A living Pam, omnipotent at loo ! 
 
 A TIDK-WAITEB, 
 
 Miss Wiggins set her heart upon a box, 
 
 *Twas handsome, rosewood, and inlaid with brass, 
 
 And dreamt three times she garnish'd it with stocks, 
 
 Of needles, silks, and cottons — but alas ! 
 
 She lost it wide awake. — We thought Miss Cox 
 
 Was lucky — but she saw three caddies pass 
 
 To that small imp : — no living luck could loo him I 
 
 Sir Stamford would have lost his Baffle« to him ! 
 
A STORM AT HASTINGS, 39 
 
 And so lie ciimb'd — and rode, and won — and walk'd^ 
 The wondrous topic of the curious swarm 
 That haunted the Parade. Many were balk'd 
 Of notoriety by that small form 
 Pacing it up and down ; — some even talk'd 
 Of ducking liim — when lo ! a dismal storm 
 Stepp'd in — one Friday, at the close of day — 
 And every head was tum*d another way — 
 
 Watching the grander guest. It seem'd to rise 
 Bulky and slow upon the southern brink 
 Of the horizon — fann'd by sultry sighs — 
 So black and threatening, I cannot think 
 Of any simile, except the skies 
 Miss Wiggms sometime shades in Indian ink — 
 Jfm-shapen blotches of such heavy vapour, 
 They seem a deal more solid than her paper. 
 
 As for the sea, it did not fi-et, and rave. 
 And tear its waves to tatters, and so dash on 
 The stony-hearted beach ; — some bards would have 
 It always rampant, in that idle fashion, — 
 Whereas the waves roll'd in, subdued and grave. 
 Like schoolboys, when the master's in a passion. 
 Who meekly settle in and take their places. 
 With a very quiet awe on all their faces. 
 
 Some love to draw the ocean with a head, 
 Like troubled table-beer, — and make it bounce, 
 And froth and roar, and fling — but this, I've said. 
 Surged in scarce rougher than a lady's flounce : — 
 But then, a grander contrast thus it bred . 
 
 With the wild welkin, seeming to pronounce 
 Something more awful in the serious ear, 
 As one would whisper that a lion's near — 
 
A STORM AT HASTINGS. 
 
 Who just begins to roar j so the hoarse thunder 
 Growl'd long — but low — a prelude note of death, 
 As if the stifling clouds yet kept it under, 
 But still it rautter'd to the sea beneath 
 Such a continued peal, as made us wonder 
 It did not pause more oft to take its breath. 
 Whilst we were panting with the sultry weather, 
 And hardly cared to wed two words together, 
 
 But watch'd the surly advent of the storm, 
 Much as the brown-cheek'd planters of Barbadoes 
 Must watch a rising of th^ Negi'o swarm : — 
 Meantime it steer'd, like Odin's old Armadas, 
 Right on our coast; — a dismal, coal-black form; — 
 Many proud gaits were quell'd — and all bravadoes 
 Of folly ceased — and sundry idle jokers 
 Went home to cover up their tongs and pokers. 
 
 So fierce the lightning flashed. In all their days 
 The oldest smugglers had not seen such flashing. 
 And they are used to many a pretty blaze. 
 To keep their Hollands from an awkward clashing 
 With hostile cutters in our creeks and bays ; — 
 And truly one could think without much lashing 
 The fancy, that those coasting clouds so awful 
 And black, were fraught ^vith spirits as unlawful. 
 
 The gay Parade grew thin — all the fair crowd 
 Vanish'd — as if they knew their own attractions,— 
 For now the lightning through a near hand cloud 
 Began to make some very crooked fractions — 
 Only some few remain'd' that were not cow*d, 
 A few rough sailors, who had been in actions. 
 And sundry boatmen, that with quick yeo's, 
 Lest it should blow, — were pulling up the Rose : 
 
A STORM AT HASTINGS. 
 
 (No flower, but a boat) — some more hauling 
 The Regent by the head : — another crew 
 With that same cry peculiar to their callimj — 
 Were heaving up the Ho^pe : — and as they knew 
 The very gods themselves oft get a mauling 
 In their own realms, the seamen wisely drew 
 The Neptune rather higher on the beach. 
 That he might lie beyond his billows' reach. 
 
 And now the storm, with its despotic power 
 Had all usurp 'd the azure of the skies, 
 Making our daylight darker by an hour, 
 And some few drops — of an unusual size — 
 Pew and distinct — scarce twenty to the shower. 
 Fell like huge tear-drops from a Giant's eyes — 
 But then this sprinkle thicken'd in a trice 
 And rain'd much harder — in good solid ice. 
 
 Oh ! for a very storm of words to show 
 How this fierce crash of hail came rushing o'er us 
 Handel would make the gusty organs blow 
 Grandly, and a rich storm in music score us ! — 
 But ev'n his music seem'd composed and low, 
 When we were handled by this Hailstone Chorus ; 
 Whilst thunder rumbled, with its awful sound. 
 And frozen comfits roU'd along the ground — 
 
 As big as bullets : — Lord ! how they did batter 
 Our crazy tiles : — And now the lightning flash'd 
 Alternate with the dark, until the latter 
 Was rarest of the two : — the gust too dash'd 
 So terribly, I thought the hail must shatter 
 Some panes, — and so it did — and first it smash'd 
 The very square where I had chose my station 
 To watch the general illumination. 
 
45 A STOEM AT HASTINGS. 
 
 Another, and another, still came in, 
 
 And fell in jingling ruin at my feet, 
 
 Making transparent holes that let me win 
 
 Some samples of the storm : — Oh ! it was sweet 
 
 To think I had a shelter for my skin. 
 
 Culling them through these " loopholes of retreat "— 
 
 Which in a little we began to glaze — 
 
 Chiefly with a jacktowel and some baize I 
 
 Ey which, the cloud had pass'd o'erhead, but play*d 
 
 Its crooked fires in constant flashes still, 
 
 Just in our rear, as though it had array'd 
 
 Its heavy batteries at Fairlight Mill, 
 
 So that it lit the town, and grandly made 
 
 The rugged features of the Castle HiU 
 
 Leap, like a birth, from chaos, into light, 
 
 And then relapse into the gloomy night — 
 
 As parcel of the cloud: — the clouds themselves, 
 Like monstrous crags and summits everlasting. 
 Piled each on each in most gigantic shelves, 
 That Milton's devils were engaged in blasting. — 
 We could e'en fancy Satan and his elves 
 Busy upon those crags, and ever casting 
 Huge fragments loose — and that we felt the sound 
 They made in falling to the startled ground. 
 
 And so the tempest scowl'd away, — and soon. 
 Timidly shining through its skirts of jet. 
 We saw the rim of the pacific moon. 
 Like a bright fish entangled in a net, 
 Flashing its silver sides, — how sweet a boon, 
 Seem'd her sweet light, as though it would beget. 
 With that fair smile, a calm upon the seas — 
 Peace in the sky — and coolness in the breeze ! 
 
A STORM AT HASTINGS. 
 
 Meantime the hail had ceased : — and all the brood 
 Of glaziers stole abroad to count their gains ; — 
 At every window, there were maids who stood 
 Lamenting o*er the glass's small remains, — 
 Or with coarse linens made the fractious good, 
 Stanching the wind in all the wounded panes, — 
 Or, holding candles to the panes, in doubt : 
 The wind resolved — blowing the candles out. 
 
 No house was whole that had a southern front, — 
 No green-house but the same mishap befell : — 
 ^02r-windows and bell-glasses bore the brunt, — 
 
 No sex in glass was spared ! ^For those who dwell 
 
 On each hill side, you might have swam a punt 
 In any of their parlours ; — Mrs. Snell 
 Was slopp'd out of her seat, — and Mr. Hitch in 
 Had a^fwV-garden wash'd into a Kitchen. 
 
 43 
 
 SBB VRon ocBAir Risiira 
 
 But still the sea was mild, and quite disclaimed 
 The recent violence. — Each after each 
 
A STORM AT HASTINGS. 
 
 The gentle waves a gentle murmur framed, 
 Tapping, like Woodpeckers, the hollow beach. 
 Howbeit his weather eye the seaman aim'd 
 Across the calm, and hinted by his speech 
 A gale next morning — and when morning broke 
 There was a gale — " quite equal to bespoke." 
 
 Before high water — (it were better far 
 To christen it not water then, but waiter^ 
 For then the ti^e is serving at the bar) 
 Kose such a swell — I never saw one greater ! 
 Black, jagged billows rearing up in war 
 Like ragged roaring bears against the baiter, 
 With lots of froth upon the shingle shed. 
 Like stout pour'd out with a fine beachy head. 
 
 No open boat was open to a fare, 
 Or launch' d that morn on seven-shilling trips ; 
 No bathing woman waded — none would dare 
 A dipping in the wave — but waived their dips ; 
 No seagull ventured on the stormy air, 
 And all the dreary coast was clear of ships ; 
 For two lea shores upon the river Lea 
 Are not so perilous as one at sea. 
 
 Awe-struck we sat, and gazed upon the scene 
 Before us in such horrid hurly-burly, — 
 A boiling ocean of mix'd black and green, 
 A sky of copper colour, grim and surly, — 
 When lo, in that vast hoUow scoop'd between 
 Two rolling Alps of water, — white and curly I 
 We saw a pair of little arms a-skimming. 
 Much like a first or last attempt at swimming ! 
 
LINES. 45 
 
 Sometimes a hand — sometimes a little shoe — 
 Sometimes a skirt — sometimes a hank of hair, 
 Just like a dabbled seaweed, rose to view, 
 Sometimes a knee, sometimes a back was bare— 
 At last a frightful summerset he t^irew 
 Eight on the shingles. Any one could swear 
 The lad was dead — without a chance of perjury, 
 And batter' d by the surge beyond all surgery I 
 
 However, we snatch'd up the corse thus thrown. 
 Intending, Christian-like, to sod and turf it, 
 And after venting Pity's sigh and groan. 
 Then Curiosity began with her fit ; 
 And lo ! the features of the Small Unknown ! 
 'Twas he that of the surf had had this surfeit ! — 
 And in his fob, the cause of late monopolies ! 
 We found a contract signed Mephistopheles ! 
 
 A bond of blood, whereby the sinner gave 
 
 His forfeit soul to Satan in reversion. 
 
 Providing in this world he was to have 
 
 A lordship over luck, by whose exertion 
 
 He might control the course of cards, and brave 
 
 All throws of dice, — but on a sea excursion 
 
 The juggling Demon, in his usual vein. 
 
 Seized the last cast — and Nick'd him in the maiti J 
 
 LINES 
 
 TO A LADY ON HER DEPAETURE FOR INDIA, 
 
 Go where the waves run rather Holbom-hilly, 
 And tempests make a soda-water sea, 
 Almost as rough as our rough Piccadilly, 
 
 And think of me I 
 
LINES. 
 
 Go where the mild Madeira ripens Tier juice,- 
 A wme more praised that it deserves to oe \ 
 Gk) pass the Cape, just capable of ver-juice, 
 And think of me ! 
 
 KBTUiliJXU ITS PBKY. 
 
 Go where the Tiger in the darkness prowletb 
 Making a midnight meal of he and she ; 
 Go where the Lion in his hunger howleth, 
 And think of me ! 
 
 Go where the serpent dangerously coileth, 
 Or lies along at full length like a tree. 
 Go where the Suttee in her own soot broileth, 
 And think of me ! 
 
 Go where with human notes the Parrot dealeth 
 In mono-poZ^y-logue with tongue as free, 
 And like a woman, all she can reveaietn, 
 
 And think of me ! 
 
LINES, 
 
 Go to the land of muslin and nankeening:, 
 And parasols of straw wliere hats should be. 
 Go to the land of slaves and palankeening, 
 And think of me ! 
 
 Go to the land of Jungles and of vast hills, 
 And tall bamboos — may none bamboozle thee ! 
 Go gaze upon their Elephants and Castles, 
 And think of me ! 
 
 Go where a cook must always be a currier. 
 And parch the pepper'd palate like a pea. 
 Go where the fierce musquito is a worrier, 
 And think of me ! 
 
 A sow WESTEE OFF THE CAPE: — PIGS Z.TS THB TBOUGH OF THE SKA. 
 
 Go where the maiden on a marriage plan goes, 
 Consign'd for wedlock to Calcutta's quay, 
 YHiere woman goes for mart, the same as mangoes, 
 And think of me ! 
 
48 THE NELSON. 
 
 Go where the sun is very not and fervent, 
 Go to the land of pagod and rupee, 
 Where every black will be your slave and servant, 
 And ihink of me ! 
 
 THE NELSON. 
 
 TLis here, yoijr honour, upon vrheels, is the true genuine real NehofCs Cat 
 
 Guide to Greenwich Hospital. 
 
 " The Nelson," I repeated to myself, as I read that illus- 
 trious name on the dicky of the vehicle — " the Nelson." My 
 fancy instantly converted the coach into a first-rate, the leaders 
 and wheelers into sea-horses, the driver into Neptunus, brand- 
 ishing a trident, and the guard into a Triton blowing his 
 wreathed shell. There was room for one on the box, so I 
 climbed up, and took my seat beside the coachman. " Now, 
 clap on all sail," said I, audibly, *' I am proud to be one of 
 the crew of the great Nelson, the hero of Aboukir." 
 
 ** Begging your pardon," Sir, said the coachman, " the Hero 
 ain't a booker at Mrs. Nelson's : it goes from some other yard." 
 Gracious powers ! what a tumble down stairs for an idea ! As 
 for mine, it pitched on its head, as stunned and stupefied as if 
 it had rolled down the whole flight at the Monument. *' I have 
 made a Bull, indeed," I exclaimed, as the noted inn at Aldgate 
 occurred to my memory; *'but we are the slaves of association," 
 I continued, addressing the coachman, " and the name of Nelson 
 idenj^fied itself with the Union Jack." 
 
 "I really can't say," replied the coachman, very civilly, 
 " whether the name of Mrs. Nelson is down to the Slave Asso- 
 ciations or not : but as for Jack, if you mean Jack Bunce, he's 
 been off the Union these six months. Too fond of the Bar, 
 Sir '* (here he tipped me the most significant of winks), ** to 
 keep his seat on the Bench'* 
 
THE NELSON. 49 
 
 " I alluded, my good fellow, to Nelson, the wonder of the 
 maritime world — the dauntless leaderwhen yard was opposed 
 to yard, and seas teemed with blood." 
 
 " We're all right — as right as a trivet," said the coachman, 
 after a pause of perplexity; " I thought our notions were getting 
 rather wide apart, and that one of us wanted putting straight ; 
 but I see what you mean, and quite go along with your opinion, 
 step for step. To be sure, Mrs. Nelson has done the world and 
 all for coaching; and the Wonder is the crack of all the drags 
 in London, and so is the Dauntless, letyard turn out agin yard, 
 as you say, any day you like. And as for leaders, and teams 
 full of blood, there's as pretty a sprinkling of blood in the tits 
 I'm now tooling of — " 
 
 " The vehicles of the proprietress, and the appearance of the 
 animals, with their corresponding caparisons," said I, " have 
 often gratified my visual organs and elicited my mental plaudits." 
 
 " That's exactly what / says," replied the coachman, very 
 briskly, " there's no humbug nor no nonsense about Mrs. Nelson. 
 You never see her a standing a-foaming and fretting in front o* 
 the Bank, with a regular mob round her, and looking as if she'd 
 bolt with the Quicksilver. And you never see her painted all 
 over her body, wherever there's room for 'em, with Saracen 
 Heads, and Blue Boars, and Brown Bears, from her roller bolts 
 to her dicky and hind boot. She's plain and neat, and 
 nothin' else — and is fondest of having her body of a claret 
 colour, pick'd out with white, and won't suffer the Bull, no 
 where, except on the back-gammon board.'* 
 
 I know not how much further the whimsical description might 
 have gone, if a strapping, capless, curly-headed lass, running 
 with all her might and main, had not addressed a screaming re- 
 tainer to the coachman. With some difi&culty he pulled up, for 
 he had been tacitly giving me a proof that the craft of Ai's Nelson 
 was a first-rate, with regard to its rate of travelling. 
 
 VOL. II. 4 
 
00 
 
 THE NELSON. 
 
 '* If you please, Mr. Stevens,'* said the panting damsel, hold- 
 ing up something towards the box — ** if you please, Mr. Stevens, 
 mother's gone to Lonnon — in the light cart — and will you be so 
 kind as to give her — her linchpin.'* 
 
 Mr. Stevens took the article with a smile, and I fancied with 
 a sly squeeze of the hand that delivered it. 
 
 " If such a go had been anyone's but your mother's, Panny,'* 
 he slyly remarked, " I should have said it was somebody in love." 
 The Dispatch was too strictly timed to allow of further parley ; 
 the horses broke, or were rather broken, into a gallop, in pur- 
 suit of the mother of "Fanny, the Plower of Waltham ; and the 
 pin secretly acting as a spur, we did the next five miles in 
 something like twenty minutes. 
 
 In spite, however, of this 
 unusual speed, we never 
 overtook Mrs. Menyweathor 
 and her cart till we arrived 
 at the Basing-House, where 
 we found her chirping over 
 a cup of ale; as safe and 
 sound as if linchpins had 
 never been invented; in 
 fact, she made as light of 
 the article, when it was 
 handed to her, as if it had 
 been only a pin out of her 
 gown! 
 
 " Well, I must say one fancy portrait— mks. nelsou-. 
 
 thing for Mrs. Nelson," said our coachman, as he resumed his 
 seat on the box, *' and that's this. There's no pinning at the 
 Bull. She sets her face against everything but the patent boxes. 
 She may come to a runaway with a bolter — or drop the ribbons 
 —or make a mistake in clearing a gate, by being a little lushy 
 
SONNET. 
 
 51 
 
 — but you'll never see Mrs. Nelson lying flat on her side in the 
 middle of the road, with her insides gone to smash, and her 
 outsides well distributed, because she's been let go out of the 
 yard without one of her pins." 
 
 THB STAMP DUTY OW SCOTCH LIITISN. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 TO A SCOTCH GIUL, WASHING LINEN AFTER HER COUNTRV 
 FASHION. 
 
 Well done and wetly, thou Fair Maid of Perth, 
 
 Thou mak'st a washing picture well deserving 
 
 The pen and pencilling of Washington Irving : 
 
 Like dripping Naiad, pearly from her birth, 
 4—2 
 
52 MY APOLOGY. 
 
 Dashing about the water of the Pirth, 
 To cleanse the calico of Mrs. Skirving, 
 And never from thy dance of duty swervinjr 
 
 As there were nothing else than dirt on earth ! 
 
 Yet what is thy reward ? Nay, do not start 1 
 I do not mean to give thee a new damper. 
 
 But while thou fillest this industrious part 
 Of washer, wearer, mangier, presser, stamper, 
 
 Deserving better character — thou art 
 
 What Bodkin would but call — ** a common tramper.' 
 
 MY APOLOGY. 
 
 Gentle Readers, 
 
 For the present month, there must be what Dr. John- 
 son called a solution of continuity in my " Literary Eeminis- 
 cences." Confined to my chamber by what ought to be termed 
 roomaiism — then attacked by my old livery complaint — and 
 finally, by a minor, but troublesome malady, the Present has too 
 much prevailed over the Past, to let me indulge in any retro- 
 spective reviews. In such cases, on the stage, when a Performer 
 is unable to support his character, a substitute is usually found 
 to read the part ; but, unfortunately, in the present case there is 
 no part written, and consequently it cannot be read. But 
 apropos of theatricals — there is an anecdote on point. 
 
 In the Olympic days of the great Elliston, there was one 
 evening a tremendous tumult at his Theatre, in consequence of 
 the absence of a favourite performer. One man in the pit — a 
 Butcher — was especially vociferous in his cry for " Carl ! Carl ! 
 Carl ! " Others called for the Manager, who duly made his ap- 
 pearance, and black as the weather looked, he was the very sort 
 of pilot to weather the storm. . With one of his princely bowa 
 
MY APOLOGY. Si 
 
 he proceeded to address the House. " Ladies and Gentlemen — 
 but by your leave I wi]l address myself to a single individual. 
 I will ask that gentleman (pointing to the vociferous Butcher) 
 what right he has to demand the appearance of Mr. Carl ? " 
 ** 'Cos," said the Butcher, " 'cos he's down in the Bill." Such 
 an undeniable answer would have stao-gered any other Manager 
 than Elliston, but he was not easily to be disconcerted. " Be- 
 cause he is down in the bill ! " he echoed, in a tone of the 
 loftiest indignation : *' Ladies and Gentlemen, the Mr. Carl, so 
 unseasonably, so vociferously and so unfeelingly called for, is at 
 this very moment labouring under severe illness — he is in bed. 
 And let me ask, is a man, a fellow- creature, a human being, to 
 be torn from his couch, from his home, on a cold night, from 
 the affectionate attentions of his wife and family, at the risk of 
 his valuable life perhaps, to go through a fatiguing part because 
 he happens to be DOWN LNf THE BILL ? " [Cries of " Shame, 
 shame ! " from all parts of the house.J " And yet, ladies and 
 gentlemen, there stands a man — if I may call him so — a Butcher, 
 that for his own selfish gratification — the amusement of a few 
 short hours — would risk the very existence of a deserving mem- 
 ber of society, a good husband, father, friend, and one of your 
 fiivourite actors, and all, forsooth, because he is DOWN IN THE 
 BILL I " [Universal hooting, with cries of '* Turn him out."] 
 " By all means," acquiesced the Manager, with one of his best 
 bows — and the indignant pittites actually hooted and kicked 
 their own champion out of the theatre, as something more than 
 a Butcher, and less than a Christian. 
 
 Now I am myself, gentle readers, in the same predicament 
 with Mr. Carl. Like him I am an invalid — and like him I am 
 unfortunately down in the Bill. It would not bt come me to set 
 forth mv own domestic oi* social vii'tues, or to hint what sort of 
 gap my loss would make in society — still less would it consist 
 Yiith modesty to compare myself with a favourite actor — but as 
 
54 
 
 SONNET TO A DECAYED SEAMAN. 
 
 a mere human being I throw myself on your mercy, and ask, in 
 common charity, would you have had me leave my warm bed, to 
 shiver in a printer's damp sheets, at the risk of my reputation 
 perhaps, and for the mere amusement of some half hour, or more 
 probably for no amusement at all — simply because I was *' down 
 in the Bill?'' 
 
 But there is no such Butcher, or Butcheress, or little Butcher- 
 ling, amongst you ; and by your good leave and patience, the 
 instalment of my Eeminiscences that is over due, shall be paid 
 with interest in the NEXT NUMBER. 
 
 THK TOP or HIS PEOKHSSIOIT. 
 
 SONNET TO A DECAYED SEAMAN. 
 
 Hail ! seventy-four cut down ! Hail, Top and Lop ! 
 
 Unless I'm much mistaken in my notion, 
 Thou wast a stirring Tar, before that hop 
 
 Became so fatal to thy locomotion ; — 
 
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. ^ 
 
 Now, thrown on shore, like a mere weed of ocean, 
 
 Thou readest still to men a lesson good. 
 To King and Country showing thy devotion. 
 
 By kneeling thus upon a stump of wood ! 
 Still is thy spirit strong as alcohol ; 
 
 Spite of that limb, begot of acorn-egg, — 
 Methinks, — thou Naval History in one Vol. — 
 
 A virtue shines, e'en in that timber leg, 
 For unlike others that desert their Poll, 
 
 Thou walkest ever with thy *' Constant Peg ! *' 
 
 THE GKEAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 Dreadful Fire — Destruction of botJi Houses of Parliament — The 
 Speaker* s House gutted — Reports of Incendiarism. 
 
 It is our unexpected lot to announce that the Houses of Lords 
 and Commons, so often threatened with combustion, are in a 
 state of actual ignition. At this moment, both fabrics are furi- 
 ously burning. We are writing this paragraph without the aid 
 of lamp or candles ; by the mere reflection of the flames. No- 
 thing is known of the origin of the fire, although it is throwing 
 a light upon everything else. — Evening Star. 
 
 The devouring element which destroyed Covent Garden and 
 Drury Lane, the Eoyalty and the Pantheon, has made its ap- 
 pearance on a new stage, equally devoted to declamatory elocu- 
 tion. St. Stephen's Chapel is in flames ! The floor which was 
 trodden by the eloquent legs of a Fox, a Burke, a Pitt, and a 
 Sheridan, is reduced to a heap of ashes ; and the benches which 
 sustained the Demosthenic weight of a Wyndham, a Whitbread, 
 and a Wilberforce, are a mere mass of charcoal. The very roof 
 that re-echoed the classicalities of Canning is nodding to its fall. 
 In Parliamentary language, Fire is in possession of the House : 
 
56 THE GEE AT CONFLAGEATION. 
 
 the Destructive spirit is on its legs, and the Conservative prin- 
 ciple can oifer but a feeble opposition. — Daily Post. 
 
 The blow is struck. What we have long foreseen has come 
 to pass. Incendiarism triumphs ! The whole British Empire, 
 as represented by the three estates, is in a blaze ! The Throne, 
 the Lords, and the Commons, are now burning. The cycle is 
 complete. The spirit of Guy Fawkes revives in 1834 ! 
 
 England seems to have changed places with Italy ; London 
 with Naples. We stand hourly on the brink of a crater ; every 
 step we take is on a solfaterra — not a land of Sol Fa, as some 
 musical people would translate it; but a frail crust, with a 
 treacherous subsoil of ardent brimstone ! At length the eyes of 
 our rulers are opened ; but we must ask, could nothing short of 
 such an eruption awaken them to a sense of the perilous state of 
 the country ? For weeks, nay, months past, at the risk of being 
 considered alarmists, we have called the attention of the legisla- 
 ture and magistracy to a variety of suspicious symptoms and 
 signs of the times, and in particular to the multiplied chemical 
 inventions, for the purpose of obtaining instantaneous lights. 
 Well are certain matches or fire-boxes called Lucifers, for they 
 may be applied to the most diabolical purposes ! The origin of 
 the fire cannot raise the shadow of a doubt in any reasonable 
 mind. Accident is out of the question. Tell us not of tallies. 
 We have just tried our milk- woman's, and it contained so much 
 water, that nothing could make it ignite. — Britannic Guardian. 
 
 The Houses of Parliament are in flames. We shall stop the 
 press to give full particulars. Our reporters are at the spot, 
 
 and Mons. C , the celebrated Salamander, is engaged to 
 
 give a description of the blazing interiors, exclusively for this 
 journal. — Daily Times. 
 
 From a Correspondent. ' 
 
 On Thursday evening, towards seven o'clock, I was struck by 
 the singular appearance of the moon silvering the opposite 
 
THE GEEAT CONFLAGRATION. jB? 
 
 cliimneys with a blood-red light, a lunar phenomenon, which I 
 conceived belonged only to our theatres. It speedily occurred 
 to me that there must be a conflagration in my vicinity, and 
 after a little hunting by scent as well as sight, I found myself 
 in front of the Houses of Lords and Commons, which were 
 burning with a rapidity and brilliancy that I make l)old to say 
 did not always characterise their proceedings. J5y favour of my 
 natural assurance, which seemed to identify me with the firemen, 
 I was allowed to pass through the lines of guards and police- 
 men, who surrounded the blazing pile, and was thus enabled to 
 select a favourable position for overlooking the whole scene. It 
 was an imposing sight. The flames rose from the Peers' in a 
 volume, as red as the Extraordinary Red Book, and the House 
 of Commons was not at ell behind-hand in voting supplies of 
 timber and other combustibles. Westminster Hall reminded me 
 vividly of a London cry, " Hall hot, Hall hot," that was familial 
 in our childhood — and the Gothic architecture of the Abbey 
 seemed unusually Jlorid. Instead of dingy stone, the venerable 
 pile appeared to be bwilt of the well-baked brick of the Eliza- 
 bethan age. Indeed, so red-hot was its aspect, that it led to a 
 ludicrous misapprehension on the part of the populace. A pro- 
 cession, bearing several male and female figures in a state of in- 
 sensibility, naturally gave rise to the most painful conjectures, 
 inferring loss of human life by the devouring element, but I have 
 reason to believe it was only the Dean and Chapter saving the 
 Wax-Work. As far as my own observation went, the first object 
 carried out certainly bore a strong resemblance to General 
 Monk. 
 
 In the meantime a select party had effected an entrance into 
 the Hall, but not without some serious delay, occasioned, 1 
 believe, by somebody within bringing the wrong key, that be- 
 longed to a tea-caddy. However, at last they entered, and I 
 followed their example. The first person I beheld was the 
 
1^ 
 
 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 ▼eteran Higginbottom, so unfairly, but facetiously, put to death 
 by the authors of the Kejected Addresses ; for no man is more 
 •live to his duty. But he was sadly hampered. First came one 
 
 PLAYIITG AT HAZABD. 
 
 Hon. Gent, said to be Mr. Morrison, and insisted on directing 
 the Hose department; and next arrived a noble Lord from 
 Crockford's, who wouldn't sit out, but persisted in taking a 
 hand, and playing, though every body agreed that he played too 
 high. I mention this, because some of the journals have im- 
 puted mismanagement to the engines, and have insinuated that 
 the pipes wanted organising ; indeed, I myself overheard a noble 
 director of the Academy of Music lamenting that the firemen did 
 not "play in concert." 
 
 The same remark applies with greater force to the House of 
 Commons. Here all was confusion worse confounded, and 
 Higginbottom*s station was enviable, compared with that of 
 
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 58 
 
 some of the poor fellows in St. Stephen's Chapel. A consider- 
 able number of members had arrived, and without anj'^ attention 
 to their usual parliamentary rules, were all making motions at 
 once, which nobody seconded. The most prominent, I was in- 
 formed, were Mr. Hume, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Attwood, Mr. 
 Buckingham, Mr. Pease, Sir Andrew, and Mr. Buxton — the 
 latter almost covered with blacks. The clamour was teiTific, 
 and I really expected that the poor foremen who held the pipes 
 would be torn in pieces. Every body wanted to command the 
 Coldstream. Nothing but shouts of " Here ! here ! here ! " 
 answered like an Irish echo by cries of " There ! there ! there ! '* 
 " Oh, save my savings ! " — " My poor. Poor Bill ! " *' More 
 water — more water for my Drunkenness ! " *' Work awa, lads, 
 work awa — it's no the Sabbath, and ye may just play at what 
 ye like!" 
 
 In pleasing contrast to this tumult, was the unusual and cor- 
 dial unanimity of the members of both Houses, in rescuing 
 whatever was portable from the flames. It was a delightful 
 novelty to see the Lords helping the Commons in whatever they 
 moved or carried. No party spirit — no Whig, pulling at one 
 leg of the table, whilst a Tory tugged at another in the opposite 
 direction. They seemed to belong to the Hand-in- Hand. Peers 
 and Commoners were alike seen burthened with loads of papers 
 or furniture. Mr. Calvert, in particular, worked like any porter. 
 Of course, in rescuing the papers and parchments, there was no 
 time for inspecting their contents, and some curious results 
 were the consequence. Every body remembers the pathetic 
 story in the Tatler, of the lover who saved a strange lady from a 
 burning theatre, under the idea that he was preserving the mis- 
 tress of his affections, and some similar mistakes are currently 
 reported to have occun-ed at the late conflagration — and equally 
 to the chagrin of the parties. I go by hearsay, and cannot 
 vouch for the facts, but it is said that the unpopular Six Acts, 
 
60 
 
 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 including what I believe is called the Gagging Act, were actually 
 preserved by Mr. Cobbett. Mr. O'Connell saved the Irish 
 Coercion Bill, whilst the Eeform Bill was snatched like "a 
 brand out of the fire," by a certain noble Duke, who resolutely 
 set his face against it in all its stages ! Amongst others, Mr. 
 Eicardo saved an old tattered flag, which he thought was " the 
 standard of value." 
 
 However deficient in general combination, and concentration 
 of energies, individual efforts were beyond all praise. The in- 
 stances of personal exertion and daring were numerous. Mr. 
 Kice worked amidst the flames till he was nearly baked; and 
 everybody expected that Mr. Pease would be pai'ched. The 
 
 HJBUl 
 
 CHIBBAQB :— OWE JOB HIS WOB AKD TWO FOB HIS HEELS, 
 
 greatest danger was from the melted metal pouring down from 
 the windows and roof. The heads of some of the Hon. Gentle- 
 
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. n. 
 
 men were literally nothing but lead. Great apprehensions were 
 entertained of the falling in of one of the walls, which eventually 
 gave way, but fortunately everybody had retreated on the timely 
 warning of a gentleman, Mr. O'Connell, I believe, who declared 
 that he saw a Rent in it. 
 
 I did not enter the House of Lords, which was now one mass 
 of glowing fire, but directed my attention towards the Speaker's 
 mansion, which was partially burning. The garden behind was 
 nearly filled with miscellaneous property — and numbers of well- 
 dressed gentlemen were every moment rushing into the house, 
 from which they issued again, laden with spits, sauce-pans, and 
 other culinary implements. I, myself, saw one zealous indi- 
 vidual thus encumbered — with a stew-pan on his head, the meat- 
 screen under one arm, the dripping-pan under the other, the fry- 
 ing-pan in his right hand, the grid-iron in his left, and the 
 rolling-pin in his mouth. Indeed, it is said that every article 
 in the kitchen was saved down to the salt-box ; and the cook 
 declares that such was the anxiety to save her she was " cotched 
 up in twelve gentlemen's arms, and never felt her feet till the 
 corner of Abingdon Street." 
 
 The whole of the Toot Guards were in attendance, as well as 
 a great number of the police, but the thieves had mustered in 
 great force, and there was a good deal of plundering, which was 
 however checked temporarily by a gentleman said to be one of 
 the members and magistrates for Essex, who jumped up on a 
 railing and addressed the populace to the following efiect, *' How 
 do you hall dare ! ** 
 
 The origin of the fire is involved in much mystery ; nor is it 
 correctly ascertained by whom it was first discovered. Some 
 say that one of the seijeants, in taking up the insignia, was 
 astonished to find the mace as hot as ginger. Others relate 
 that a Mr. Spell, or Shell, or Snell, wliilst viewing the House, 
 although no dancer, began suddenly, and in his boots, to the 
 
68 THE GREAT CONFLA GEATION. 
 
 utter amazement of his companions and Mrs. Wright, the house- 
 keeper, to jump and caper like a bear upon a hotted floor. 
 This story certainly seems to countenance a report that the 
 mischief originated in the warming apparatus, an opinion that is 
 very current, but, for*my own part, I cannot conceive that the 
 Collective Wisdom, which knows how to lay down laws for us 
 all, should not know how to lay down flues. Rumours of 
 Incendiarism are also very generally prevalent, and stories 
 are in circulation of the finding of half-burnt matches 
 and other combustibles. But these facts rest on very frail 
 foundations. The links said to have been found in the Speaker's 
 garden have turned out to be nothing but German sausages ; 
 and anotlier cock-and-a-bull that has got abroad will probably 
 come to no better end. A Mr. Dudley affirms that he smelt the 
 fire before it broke out, at Cooper's Hill ; but such olfactories 
 are too much like manufactories to be believed. 
 
 I am, Sir, your most obedient Servant, 
 
 X. Y. Z. 
 
 Another Account. 
 
 The writer of these lines, who resides in Lambeth, was first 
 awakened to a sense of conflagration by a cry of " Pire " from 
 a number of persons who were running in the direction of 
 Westminster Bridge. Owning myself a warm enthusiast on the 
 subject of ignition, and indeed not having missed a fire for the 
 last fifty years, except one, and that was only a chimney, it may 
 be supposed the exclamation in question had an electric effect. 
 We are all the slaves of some physical bias, strange as it may 
 appear to others with opposite tendencies. It is recorded of 
 some great marshal that he disliked music, but testified the 
 liveliest pleasure at a salvo of artillery or a roll of thunder, and 
 the rumble of an engine has the same effect on the author of 
 these lines. To say I am a guebre, or fire-worshipper, is only 
 to confess the truth. I have a sort of observatory erected on 
 
THE GEEAT CONFLAGEATION. 
 
 63 
 
 the roof of my house, from which, if there be a break-out within 
 the circuit of the metropolis, it may be discovered, and before 
 going to bed I invariably visit this look-out. 
 
 Every man lias his hobby-horse, and, figuratively speaking, 
 mine was always kept harnessed and ready to run to a fire with 
 the first engine. Many a time I have arrived before the turn- 
 cocks, though I perhaps had to traverse half London, and I 
 scarcely remember an instance that I did not appear long before 
 the water. Habit is second nature — I verily believe I could sniff a 
 conflagration by instinct ; and if I was not, I ought to have 
 been, the trainer of the firemen's dog, which at present attracts 
 so much of the public attention, by his eager running along 
 with the Sun, the Globe, the British, and the Hand-in- 
 Hand. 
 
 Of course I have 
 seen a great many 
 fires in my time — 
 Rotherhithe, the the- 
 atres, the Custom- 
 house, &c. &c. I 
 remember in the 
 days of Thistle- 
 wood and Co., when 
 the metropolis was 
 expected to be set 
 on fire, I slept for 
 three weeks in my 
 clothes in order to 
 be ready for the 
 first alarm; for I 
 
 Qad the good tor- «« '^g distance lends enchantment to thb view. 
 
 tune to witness the great riots of 1780, when no less than eight 
 fires were blazing at once, and a lamentable sight it was. 
 
54 THE GEE AT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 I say lamentable, because it was impossible to be present at them 
 all at the same time ; but my good genius directed me to Lang- 
 dale's the Distiller, which made (excuse the vulgar popular 
 phrase) a very satisfiictory flare-up. 
 
 The Eotherhithe fire, not the recent little job, but some fifteen 
 or twenty years ago, was also on a grand scale, and very lasting. 
 The engine-pipes were wilfully cut ; and I remember some of 
 my friends rallying me on uiy well-known propensity, jocularly 
 accusing me of lending my knife and my assistance. The 
 Custom-house was a disappointment ; it certainly cleared itself 
 effectually, but it was done by day-Kght, and consequently the 
 long-room fell short of my anticipations. Drury-lane and 
 Covent-garden were better : but I have observed generally 
 that theatres burn with more attention to stage effect. They 
 avoid the noon ; a dark night to a fire is like the black letters 
 in ^ benefit-bill, setting off the red ones. 
 
 The destruction of the Kent Indiaman I should like to have 
 witnessed, but contrary to the opinion of many experienced 
 amateurs I conceive the Dartford Mills must have been a failure. 
 Powder magazines make very indifferent conflagrations; they 
 are no sooner on fire than they are oft', — all is over before you 
 know where you are, and there is no getting under, which quite 
 puts you out. But fires, generally, are not what they used to 
 be. What with gas, and new police, steam, and one cause or 
 other, they have become what one might call slow explosions. 
 A body of flame bursts from all the windows at once, and before 
 B 25 can call fi-er in two syllables, the roof falls in, and all is 
 over. It was not so in my time. First a little smoke would 
 issue from a window-shutter, like the puft' of a cigar, and after 
 a long sprmg of his rattle, the rheumatic watchman had time to 
 Knock double and treble knocks, from No. 9 to ^No. 35, before a 
 spark made its appearance out of the chimney-pot. The "Vol- 
 unteers had time to assemble under arms, and muffle their 
 
THE GEEAT CONFLAGBATION. 65 
 
 drums, and the bell-ringers to collect in the belfry, and pnll au 
 aiarm peal backwards. The parish engines even, although 
 pulled along by the pursy chui'ch wardens, and the paralytic 
 paupers, contrived to arrive before the fire fairly broke out in 
 the shape of a little squib-like eruption from the garret- window. 
 The affrighted family, fourteen in number, all elaborately drest 
 in their best Sunday clothes, saved themselves by the street- 
 door, according to seniority, the furniture was carefully re- 
 moved, and after an hour's pumping, the fire was extinguished 
 without extending beyond the room where it originated, namely 
 a bed-room on the second floor. Such was the progress in my 
 time of a fire, but it is the fashion now to sacrifice everything 
 to jpcxe. Look at our race-horses, and look at our fox-hounds, 
 — and 1 will add look at our conflagrations. AU that is cared 
 for is a burst — no matter how short, if it be but rapid. The 
 devouring element never sits down now to a regular meal — it 
 pitches on a house and holU it. 
 
 But I am wandering from the point. The announcement of 
 both Houses of Parliament being in flames thrilled through 
 every fibre. It seemed to promise what I may call a crowning 
 event to the Conflagrationary Eeminiscences of an Octogenarian. 
 I snatched up my hat, and rushed into the street, at eighty years 
 of age, with the alacrity of eighteen, when I ran from Highgate 
 to Horselydown, to be present at the gutting of a ship chandkr's. 
 As the bard says — 
 
 " Ev'q in our ashes live their wonted ^res," 
 and I could almost have supposed myself a fireman belonging 
 to the Phoenix. My first step into the street discouraged me, 
 the moonlight was so brilliant, and in such cases the most 
 splendid blaze is somewhat ** shorn of its beams." But a few 
 steps reassured me. Even at the Surrey side of the river the 
 sparks and burning particles were falling like flakes of snow — I 
 mean of course the red snow formerly discovered by Captain 
 
 VOL. II. 5 
 
66 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION, 
 
 Ross, and the light was so great that I could have read the 
 small print of the Police Gazette with the greatest ease, only I 
 don't take it in. I of course made the best of my way towards 
 the scene, but the crowd was already so dense that I could only 
 attain a situation on the Strand opposite Cotton Gardens, up 
 to my knees in mud. Both Houses of Parliament were at this 
 time in a blaze, and no doubt presented as striking objects of 
 conflagration as the metropolis could offer. I say, "no doubt," 
 — forgetting jammed against abarge with raybacktowards the 
 fire, I am unable to state anything on my own authority as an 
 eye-witness, excepting that the buildings on the Surrey side ex- 
 hibited a glowing reflection for some hours. At last the flowing 
 of the tide caused the multitude to retreat, and releasing me 
 from my retrospective position allowed me to gaze upon the 
 ruins. By what I hear, it was a most imposing sight — but in 
 spite of my Lord Aliliorpe, I cannot help thinking that West- 
 minster Hall, with its long range, would have made up an ad- 
 mirable fire. Neither can I agree with the many that it was an 
 Incendiary Act, that passed through both houses so rapidly. 
 To enjoy the thing, a later hour and a darker night would cer- 
 tainly have been chosen. "Fire-light and moon-light do not 
 mix well : — they are best neat. 
 
 I am, Sir, Yours, 8:c. 
 
 Senex. 
 Variom Accounts. 
 
 We are concerned to state that Sir Jacob Jubb the new 
 member for Shrops was severely burnt, by taking his seat in the 
 House, on a bench that was burning under him. The danger 
 of his situation was several times pointed out to him, but he 
 replied that his seat had cost him ten thousand pounds, and he 
 wouldn't quit. He was at length removed by force. — Morning/ 
 Ledger. 
 
 A great many foolish anecdotes 9f the fire are in cii'cuLtion. 
 
THE GEEAT CONFLAGEATION. 
 
 67 
 
 One of our contemporaries gravely asserts that the Marquis of 
 Culpepper was the last person who left the South Turret, a fact 
 we beg leave to question, for the exquisite reason that noble 
 lord alluded to is at present at Constantinople. — The Real Sun, 
 We are enabled to 
 
 state that the indivi- 
 dual who displayed so 
 muoh coolness in the 
 South Turret was 
 Captain Back. — The 
 Public Journal. 
 
 It is said that con- 
 siderable interest was 
 evinced by the mem- 
 bers of the House of 
 Commons who were 
 present at the fire, as 
 to the fate of their re- 
 spective ijlllS. Une FAirCY POBTEAIT :— CAPTAIlf BACK. 
 
 honourable gentleman, in particular, was observed anxiously 
 watching the last scintillations of some burnt paper. " Oh, my 
 Sabbath Observances ! " he exclaimed, " There's an end of re- 
 ligion ! There go the Parson and Clerk ! " — Public Diary. 
 
 The Earl of M. had a very narrow escape. His lordship was 
 on the point of kicking a bucket when a labourer rushed forward 
 and snatched it out of the way. The individual's name is 
 M'Farrel. We understand he is a sober, honest, hard-working 
 man, and has two wives, an i a numerous family ; the eldest not 
 above a year old. — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 The exclamation of a noble lord, high in office, who was very 
 
 active at the fire, has been very incorrectly given. The wordi 
 
 were as follows : — " Blow the Commons ! let 'em flare up — bur 
 
 oh, — for a save-all ! a save-all." — Morning News. 
 5—2 
 
eS THE GEE AT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 The public attention has been greatly excited by the extra- 
 ordinary statement of a commercial gentleman, that he smelt the 
 fire at the Cock and Bottle, in Coventry. He asserts that he 
 mentioned the fact in the commercial room to a deaf gentleman, 
 and likewise to a dumb waiter, but neither have any recollection 
 of the circumstance. He has been examined before the Common 
 Council, who have elicited that he actually arrived at Coventry 
 on the night in question, by the Tallyho, and the near leader of 
 that coach has been sent for by express. —New Monitor. 
 
 We were in error in stating that the Atlas was the first engine 
 at the scene of action. So early as five o'clock Mr. Alderman 
 A. arrived with his own garden engine, and began immediately 
 to play upon the Thames. — British Guardian. 
 
 It must have struck everyone who witnessed the operations in 
 the House of Commons, that there was a lamentable want of 
 " order ! oiiier ! order ! " A great many gentlemen succeeded in 
 making pumps of themselves, without producing any check on 
 the flames. The conduct of the military also was far from un- 
 exceptionable. On the arrival of the Coldstream at the fire they 
 actually refused to fall in. Many declined to stand at ease on 
 the burning rafters — but what is the public interest to a private ? 
 — Public Advertiser. 
 
 Monsieur C.*s Account. (Exclusive.) 
 
 When I am come first to the fire it was not long burnt up ; 
 and I was oblige to walk up and down the floor to keep myself 
 warm. At last, I take my seat on the stove, quite convenient 
 to look about. In the House of Commons there was nobody, 
 anu I am all alone. The first thing I observe was a great many 
 rats, ratting about — but they did not known which way to turn. 
 So they were all burnt dead. The flames grew very fast ; and I 
 am interested very much with the seats, how they burned, quite 
 different from one another. Some seats made what you call a 
 great splutter, and popped and bounced, and some other seats 
 
THE GEEAT CONFLAGRATION. 69 
 
 made no noise at all. Mr. Bulvver's place burned of a blue 
 colour ; Mr. Buckstone's turned quite black ; and there was one 
 made a flame the colour of a drab. I observe one green flame 
 and one orange, side by side, and they hiss and roar at one 
 another very furious. The gallery cleared itself quite quickly, 
 and the seat of Messieurs the reporters, exploded itself like a 
 cannon of forty-eight pounds. The speaking chaii' burnt with- 
 out any sound at all. 
 
 When everything is quite done in the Commons I leave them 
 off", and go to the House of Lords, where the fire was all in one 
 sheet, and almost the whole of its inside burnt out. I was able 
 in this room to take off my great coat. I could find nothing to 
 be saved except one great ink-stand, that was red hot, and 
 which I carry away in my two hands. Likewise here, as well 
 as in the Commons, I bottled up several bottles of smoke, to 
 distribute afterwards, at five guineas a-piece, and may be more ; 
 for I know the English people admire such things, and are fond 
 after reliques, like a madness almost. I did not make a long 
 stop, for whenever I was visible, the pompiers was so foolish as 
 play water upon me, and I was afraid of a catch-cold. In fact, 
 when I arrive at home, I find myself stuffed in my head, and 
 fast in my chest, and my throat was a little horse. I am going 
 for it into a bath of boiling v/ater, and cannot write any more at 
 full length. 
 
 A Letter to a Labouring Man. 
 
 BUSHELL, 
 
 When you made a holiday last Whitsuntide to see the 
 Sights of London, in your way to the Waxwork and Westminster 
 Abbey, you probably noticed a vast pile of buildings in Palace 
 Yard, and you stood and scratched that shock head of yours, 
 and wondered whose fine houses they were. Seeing you to be a 
 country clodpole, no doubt some well-dressed vagabond, by way 
 of putting a hoax upon the hawbuck, told you that in those 
 
70 
 
 lilE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 buildings congregated all the talent, all the integrity and publi« 
 spirit of the country — that beneath those roofs the best and 
 wisest, and the most honest men to be found in three kingdoms, 
 met to deliberate and enact the most wholesome, and just, and 
 judicious laws for the good of the nation. He called them the 
 oracles of our constitution, the guardians of our rights, and the 
 assertors of our liberties. Of course, Bushell, you were told all 
 this ; but nobody told you, I dare say, that fvithia those walls 
 your master had lifted up his voice, and delivered the only sound, 
 rational, and wholesome, upright, and able sj)eeches that were 
 
 o- 
 
 ** OUB cokstxtction'b gowb 1 " 
 
 ever uttered in St. Stephen's Chapel. No, nobody told you 
 that. But when I come home, Bushell, I will lend you all my 
 printed speeches, and when you have spelt them, and read them, 
 and studied them, and got them by heart, bumpkin as you are. 
 
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 71 
 
 Busliell, you will know as much of legislation as all our precious 
 members together. 
 
 Well, Bushell, the fine houses you stood gaping at are burnt 
 down, gutted, as the vulgar call it, and nothing is left but the 
 bare walls. You saw Earmer Gubbins* house, or, at least, the 
 shell of it, after the fire there : well, the Parliament Houses are 
 exactly in the same state. There is news for you ! and now, 
 Bushell, how do you feel ? Why, if the well-dressed vagabond 
 told you the truth, you feel as if you had had a stroke — for all 
 the British Constitution is affected, and you are a fraction of it, 
 that is to say, a British subject. Your bacon grows rusty in 
 your mouth, and your table-beer turns to vinegar on your palate. 
 You cannot sleep at night, or work by day. You have no heart 
 for anything. You can hardly drag one clouted shoe after an- 
 other. And how do you look ? Why, as pale as a parsnip, and 
 as thin as a hurdle, and your carroty locks stand bolt upright 
 as if you had just met old Lawson's ghost with his head under 
 his arm. I say thus you must feel and look, Bushell, if what 
 the well-dressed vagabond told you is the truth. But is that 
 the case ? No. You drink your small-beer with a sigh and 
 smack of delight ; and you bolt your bacon with a relish, as if, 
 as the virtuous Americans say, you could " go the whole hog.'* 
 Your clouted shoes clatter about as if you were counting hob- 
 nails with the Lord Mayor, and you work like a young horse, or 
 an old ass, and at night you sncv?e like an oratorio of jews' harps. 
 Your face is as bold and ruddy as the Eed Lion's. Your carroty 
 locks lie sleek upon your poll, and as for poor old Lawson's 
 ghost, you could lend him flesh and blood enough to set him up again 
 in life. But what, say you, does all this tend to ? I will tell 
 you, Bushell. There are a great many well-dressed vagabonds, 
 besides the one you met in Palace Yard, who would persuade a poor 
 man that a House of Lords or Commons is as good to him as his 
 bread, beer, beef, bacon, bed, and breeches; and therefore I 
 
72 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 address this to you, Bushell, to set sucli notions to rights by an 
 appeal to your own back and belly. And now I will tell you 
 what you shall do. You shall go three nights a week to the Red 
 Lion (when your w^ork is done), and you may score up a pint of 
 beer, at my cost, each time. And when the parson, or the ex- 
 ciseman, or the tax-gatherer, or any such gentry, begin to talk 
 of that deplorable great burning, and the national calamity, and 
 such-like trash, you shall pull out my letter and read to them — 
 I say, Bushell, you shall read this letter to them, twice over, 
 loudly and distinctly, and tell them from me, that the burning 
 of twenty Parliament Houses wouldn't be such a national 
 calamity as a fire at No. 1, Bolt Court. 
 
 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 To Main/ Price, Fenny Hall, Lincolnshire. 
 Mary, — I am writing in such a quiver, with my art in my 
 mouth, and my tung sticking to it. Eor too hole hours Ive bean 
 Doin nothink but taking on and going off, I mean into fits, or 
 crying and blessing goodness for my miraclus escape. This day 
 week I wear inwallopped in flams, and thinkin of roth to cum, 
 and fire evverlasting. But thenks to Diving Providings, hear I 
 am, althowgh with loss of wan high brew scotched off, a noo 
 cap and my rite shew. But I hav bean terrifid to deth. Wen 
 I was ate, or it mite be nine, I fell on the stow, and hav had 
 a grate dred of fire ewer since. Gudge then how low 1 felt 
 at the idear of burning along with the Lords and Communer's. 
 It as bean a Warnin, and never, no, never never never agin will 
 I go to Clandestiny parties behind Mississis backs. I now see 
 my errer, but temtashun prevaled, tho the clovin fut of the 
 Wicked Wan had a hand in it all : Oh Mary, down on yure 
 marrybones, and bless yure stars for sitiating you in a loanly 
 stooped poky place, wear you cant be lead into liteness and 
 gayty, if you was ewer so inclind. Pore wipping willies and h 
 
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 73 
 
 windmill is a dullisli luck out, shtire enuff, but its better then 
 moor ambishus prospex, and stairing at a grate fire, like a suckiu 
 pig, till yure eyes is reddy to drop out of yure hed ! 
 
 You no wen Lady Manners is absent, a certin person allways 
 givs a good rowt : — and I had a card in Coarse. I went verry 
 ginteel, my Cloke cost I wont say Wot, and a hat and fethers to 
 match. But it warnt to be. After takin off my things, I had 
 barely set down, wen at the front dore there cums a dubble nock 
 without any end to it, and a ring of tlie bell at the saim time, 
 like a triangle keepin curapany with a big drum. As soon as 
 the door were opened a man with a pail face asked for the buck- 
 its, and that was the fust news we had of the fire. Oh Mary, 
 never trust to the mail sects 1 They are all Alick from the 
 Botcher and Backer that flurts at the front dore, down to the 
 deer dissevers you throw away yure arts upon. For all their 
 fine purfessions, they are only filling your ears with picrust, they 
 make trifles of yure afections, and destroy yure comfits for life. 
 They think no moore 
 of parjuring themselvs 
 then I do of sweeping 
 the earth. If yure wise 
 you will sit yure face 
 agin all menkind and 
 luv nonsense, as I meen 
 to in futer, or may be, 
 wen you are dreeming 
 of biid cake and wite 
 fevers, you may find 
 yureself left with no- 
 think but breeches of 
 prommis. John Fut- 
 man is a proof in pint. 
 Menny tims Tve give him a hiding at number fore, and he all- 
 
 WHY don't the mew PBOPOSB ? ' 
 
H THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 ways had the best of the lardur at our stolin meatings, and God 
 nose Ive offun alloud him to idelize me wen I ort to have bean 
 at my wurks, besides laming to rite for his sack. Twenty housis 
 afire ort not to hav abaited his warmth, insted of witch to jump 
 up at the fust allurm and run away, leaving me to make my 
 hone shifts. A treu luver wood have staid to shear my fat. O 
 Mary, if ever there was a teiTyfickle spectikle that was won. 
 Flams before and flams behind, and flams overhead. Sich 
 axing and hollowing out, and mobbing and pumpin, and cus- 
 sing and s waring, and the peple's rushes into the Hous pur- 
 vented all gitting out. For my hone parts, I climed up the 
 dresser, and skreeked, but nobbody was man enuff to purtect. 
 Men ant what they was. I am sick of the retches ! It used 
 to be femails fust, but now its furniter. I fully thort one gintle- 
 man was comin to cotch me up in arms, but he prefered the fish 
 kettle. As for the sogers they marcht off to the wind seller 
 and the pantry, ware they maid beleave to preserve the gus- 
 berry gam How I was reskewd at last Lord nose, for my hed 
 was unsensible tell I found meself setten on the pickid pinted 
 ralings of St. Margret's Church, with my fethers all frizzild, 
 and a shew off*. But of all lossis, my ridicule was most serins, 
 for it had my puss in it. 
 
 How and ware it broke out is a mistery. Sum say both 
 Howses was under minded. Sum say the Common members 
 got over heatid in there fluency. A grate deal of property was 
 burned, in spit of Lord Allthorp, who ingaged every cotch, 
 cab, and gobbing porter as conveyancers. Westmunster may 
 thenk his Lordship it did not lose its All. They say the Lords 
 and Communs was connectid with a grate menny historicle 
 associashuns, wich of coarse will hav to make good all dammage. 
 
 Fortnately, the Speker's mornin, noon, and evning sei-vices of 
 plait was not at home, or it mite hav sufferd, for they say goold 
 %nd silver as stud the fire verry well, melted down when it got 
 
THE GREAT CONFLAGEATION. 
 
 76 
 
 furthur off. Tanking of plait a gentilman, who giv his card, 
 Mr. William Soames, were verry kind and partickler in his 
 inquerries efter Mr. Speker's vallybles. I hope he will hav a 
 place givn him for his indevvers. 
 
 Ware the poor burnt-out creturs will go noboddy nose. Sum 
 say Exter Hall, sum say the Eefudge for the Destitut, and sum 
 say the King will lend them his Bensh to set upon ! All I no 
 is, I've had a frite that w^ill go with me to my grave. I am all- 
 ways snifing fire by day and dreeming on it by nite. Ony last 
 Fryday I allarmd the hole naberhood by screaching out of 
 winder for the warter to be plugged up. Liting fires, or striking 
 lite, or making tindur, throes me into fits. 
 
 A BKFIKED WOMAIT. 
 
 I shall newer be the womman I was ; but that is no excus 
 for John's unconstancy. I don't dare to take my close off to 
 go to bed, and I practice clambering up and down by a rop in 
 case, and I giv police M 25 a shillin now and than to keep a 
 specious eye to number fore, and be reddy to ketch anny won 
 
f6 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 in his harms. But it cums to munny, and particly givin the 
 ingin keeper a pint of bear from lime to time, and drams to 
 the turncox : where there's nabers fires will happen, howevver 
 cerefull and precocius you may be youreself. I dred our too 
 nex dores ; number three is a Gurmin faramily, and them orrid 
 fciTiners think nothink of smocking siggars in bed, witch will 
 ketch sum day to a curtainty. Number fiv is wus ; since his 
 wifs deth Mr. Sanders has betuck himself to comicle studis, 
 and oflfin has a littel bio up amung his pistles and morters. ! 
 Mary, how happy is them as livs lick you, as the song says, 
 "Pur from the buzzy aunts of men." If yu're inflarad its 
 nobbody's folt but youre hone. Pray take the gratest car. Have 
 sure eyes about you, and luck out for sparks ; watever the men may 
 say, don't allow backerpips or long snufs, and let evvery boddy be 
 thurrowly put out. Don't neglect to rake out evvery nite, see 
 that evvery sole in the hows is turnd down or xtinguished, and 
 allways bio yureself out befour you go to yure piller. Thenk 
 gudness you newer larnd to reed, and therefor will not lake 
 anny bucks to bed with you. Allways ware stuff or wooUin, 
 insted of lite cottons and gingums, in case of the coles throwin 
 out coffens or pusses, by witch menny persons gains their ends. 
 In case of yure pettycots catchin don't forgit standin on yure 
 hed, as recommended by the Human Society, becoz fire burns 
 uppards, but its a posishun as requiers practis. Have yure 
 chimbly swept reglar wonce a munth, and wen visiters cum 
 neveer put hot coles in the warmin pan, for fear you forgit and 
 leave it in the spair bed., Eemember fire is a good sarvent but 
 a bad master, and sure enuff wen it is master it never gives a 
 sarvent a munth's notis. To be shure we have won marSy in 
 town that is unbenone in the country, and that is Swingeing; 
 there is no cornstax or heyrix in St. Jims's Square. That is 
 yure week pint, and I trembil for the bams ; a rockite or a 
 loaniing candle mite set you in a blaze. But I hop and trust 
 
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 77 
 
 wnt I say will never pruve the truth. Oppydildock is good for 
 bums, and I am, dear Mary, 
 
 Yure old and afexionate feller sarvent, 
 
 Ann Gale. 
 
 THB SWELL MOB, 
 
 THE JUBB LETTERS. 
 
 Trom Lady Juhb to Mrs. PJiipps, Housekeeper at the SJiruhbery^ 
 
 Shrewsbury^ Shrops. 
 Mrs. Phipps, 
 
 You will prepare the house directly for the family's return, 
 not that our coming back is absolutely certain, but events have 
 happened to render our stay in Portland Place very precarious. 
 All depends upon Sir Jacob. In Parliament or out of Pailia- 
 ment his motions must guide ours. By this time what has 
 happened will be known in Shropshire, but I forbid youi 
 talking. Politics belong to people of property, and those who 
 have no voice in the country ought not to speak. In your in- 
 ferior situations it's a duty to be ignorant of what you know. 
 The nation is out of your sphere, and besides, people out of 
 town cannot know the state of the country. I want to put you 
 on your guard ; thanks to the press, as Sir Jacob says, pubUc 
 
78 
 
 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 affairs cannot be kept private, and the consequence is, the 
 ignorant ai-e as well informed as their betters. The burning of 
 both Houses of Parliament I am afraid cannot be hushed up — 
 but it is not a subject for servants, that have neither upper nor 
 lower members amongst them, and represent nobody. I trust to 
 you, Mrs. Phipps, to discourage all discussions in the kitchen, 
 which isn't the place for parliamentary canvassing. The most 
 ridiculous notions are abroad. I should not be surprised even 
 to hear that Sir Jacob had lost his seat, because the benches 
 were burnt, but we have been deprived of none of our dignities 
 or privileges. You wiU observe this letter is franked ; the fire 
 made no difference to your master, he is not dissolved, whatever 
 the Blues may wish — he is still Sir Jacob Jubb, Baronet, M.P. 
 
 
 THE LIGHT HOKSK. 
 
 The election of Sir Jacob at such a crisis was an act of 
 Providence. His firmness at the fire affords an example to 
 posterity ; although the bench was burning under him he re- 
 fused to retreat, replying emphatically, " I will sit by my 
 order." As far as this goes you may mention, and no more. I 
 enjoin upon all else a diplomatic silence. Sir Jacob himself wil( 
 write to the bailiff, and whatever may be the nature of his direc- 
 tions, I desire that no curiosity may be indulged in, and above 
 
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 79 
 
 all, that you entertain no opinions of your own. You cannot 
 square with the upper circles. I would write more, but I am 
 going to a meeting, I need not say where, or upon what subject. 
 I rely, Mrs. Phipps, on your discretion, and am, &c. 
 
 Arabella Anastasia Jubb. 
 
 To T, Craicfurd, junior. Esquire, the Beeches, near Shrewsbury, 
 
 Shrops, 
 Dear Tom, 
 
 Throw up your cap and huzza. There's glorious news, 
 
 and so you'll say when I tell you. I could almost jump out of 
 
 my skin for joy ! Father's dismembered ! The House of 
 
 Commons caught fire, and he was dissolved along with the rest. 
 
 " THE LAST DAYS OP POMP — ." 
 
 I've never been happy since we came up to London, and all 
 through Parliament. The election was good sport enough. I 
 liked the riding up and down, and carrying a flag ; and the 
 
so , THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION 
 
 battle, with sticks, between the Blues and the Yellows, was 
 famous fun; and I huzza'd myself hoarse at our getting the 
 day at last. But after that came the jollup, as we used to say 
 at Old Busby's. Theme writing was a fool to it. If father 
 composed one maiden speech he composed a hundred, and he 
 made me knuckle down and copy them all out, and precious 
 stupid stuff, it was. A regular physicker, says you, and I'd 
 worse to take after it. He made us all sit down and hear him 
 spout them, and a poor stick he made. — Dick Willis, that we 
 used to call Handpost, was a dab at it compared to him. He's 
 no better hand at figures, so much the worse for me. Did you 
 ever have a fag, Tom, at the national debt ? I don't know who 
 owes it, but I wish he'd pay it, or be made bankrupt at once. 
 I've worked more sums last month than ever I did at school in 
 the half year, — geography the same. I had to hunt out Don 
 Carlos and Don Pedro, all over the maps. I came in for a regu- 
 lar wigging one day, for wishing both the Dons were well pep- 
 pered, as Tom Tough says. I've seen none of the sights I 
 wanted to see. He wouldn't let me go to the play, because he 
 says the theatres are bad schools, and would give me a vicious 
 style of elocution. The only pleasure he promised me was to 
 sit in the gallery at the Commons and see him present his peti- 
 tions. Short-hand would have come next, that I might take 
 down his speechifying — for he says the reporters all garble. 
 An't I well out of it all — and a place he was to get for me be- 
 sides, from the Prime Minister ? I suppose the Navy Pay, to 
 sit on a high stool and give Jack Junk one pound two and 
 ninepence twice a year. I'd rather be Jack Junk himself, 
 wouldn't you, Tom ? But father's lost his wicket, and huzza 
 for Shropshire ! In hopes of our soon meeting, I remain, my 
 dear Tom, 
 
 Your old chum and schoolfellow, 
 Feedeeick Jubb. 
 
THE GEEAT CONFLAGRATION. 81 
 
 P.S. — A court gentleman has just come in, witli a knock-me- 
 d own-again. He says there's to 
 be a new election. I wish you'd 
 do something ; it would be a real 
 favour, and I will do as much for 
 you another time. What I want 
 of you is, to get your father to set 
 up against mine. Do try, Tom — 
 there's a good fellow. I will ask 
 every body I know to give your 
 side a plumper. aij addkr up. 
 
 To Mr. Roger Davis, Bailiff y the Shrubbery y near Shrewsbury. 
 Davis, 
 
 I hope to God this will find you at home — I am writing in 
 a state of mind bordering on madness. I can't collect myself to 
 give particulars — you will have a newspaper along with this — 
 read that, and your hair will stand on end. Incendiarism has 
 reached its height like the flaming thing on the top of the Monu- 
 ment. Our crisis is come. To my mind — political suicide — ^is 
 as bad as felo de se. Oh Whigs, Whigs, Whigs — what have you 
 brought us to ! As the Britannic Guardian well says— England 
 is gone to Italy — London is at Naples — and we are all standing 
 on the top of Vesuvius. I have heard — and I believe it — that an 
 attempt has been made to choke Aldgate Pump. A Waltham 
 Abbey paper says positively that the mills were recently robbed 
 of 513 barrels of powder, the exact number of the members for 
 England and Wales. What a diabolical refinement — to blow up 
 a government with its own powder ! I can hardly persuade 
 myself I am in England. God knows where it will spread to — 
 I mean the incendiary spirit. The dry season is frightful — I 
 suppose the springs are all dry. Keep the engine locked in the 
 stable for fear of a cut at the pipes. I'll send you down two 
 more. Let all the labourers take a turn at them, by way ot 
 vol . II. 6 
 
82 
 
 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 practice. I*m persuaded the Parliament houses were burnt ou 
 purpose. The flue story is ridiculous. Mr. Cooper's is a great 
 deal more to the point. I believe everything I hear. A bunch 
 of matches was found in the Speaker's kitchen. I saw something 
 suspicious myself — some said treacle, but I say tar. Have your 
 eyes about you — lock all the gates, day as well as night • — an I 
 above all, watch the stacks. One Tiger is not enough — get 
 
 THK MOVliMKNT PAKTT. 
 
 three or four more, I should have said Csesar, but you know I mean 
 the house-dog. Good mastiffs, — the biggest and savagest you 
 can get. The gentry will be atu rnpted first — beginning with 
 the M.P.'s. You and Barnes and Sara must sit up by turns — 
 and let the maids sit up too — women have sharp ears and 
 sharp tongues. — If a mouse stirs I would have them squall — 
 danger or no danger. It's the only way to sleep in security — 
 and comfort. I have read that the common goose is a vigilant 
 creature — and saved Rome. Get a score of them at the next 
 market — don't stand about price — but choose them with good 
 cackles. Alarm them now and then to keep them watchful. 
 
THE GEEAT CONFLAGRATION. 83 
 
 Fire the blunderbuss off every night, and both fowling pieces 
 and all the pistols. If all the Gentry did as much, it might keep 
 the country quiet. If you were to ring the alarm-bell once or twice 
 in the middle of the night, it would be as well — ^you would know 
 then what help to depend upon. Search the house often from the 
 garret to the cellar, for combustibles — if you could manage 
 to go without candles, or any sort of light, it would be better. 
 
 You'd find your way about in the dark after a little practice. 
 Pray don't allow any sweethearts; they may be Swings and 
 Captain Eocks in disguise, and their pretended flames turn out 
 real. I've misgivings about the maids. Tie them up and taste 
 their liver, before they eat it themselves — I mean the house- 
 dogs ; but my agitation makes me unconnected. The scoundrels 
 often poison them, before they attempt robbery and arson. Keep 
 the cattle in the cowhouse for fear of their being houghed and 
 hamstrung. Surely there were great defects somewhere. The 
 Houses could not have been properly protected — if they had 
 been watched as well as they were lighted — but it is too late to 
 cast any blame on individuals. A paltry spirit of economy has 
 been our bane. A few shillings would have purchased a watch- 
 dog ; and one or two geese in each house might have saved the 
 capitol of the constitution I But the incendiary knew how to 
 choose his time — an adjournment when there were none sitting. 
 
 I say incendiary, because no doubt can exist in any cool 
 mind, that enters into the conflagration. I transcribe conclusive 
 extracts from several papers, the editors of which I know to be 
 upright men, and they all write on one side. 
 
 "We are confidently informed," says the Beacon, ** that a 
 quantity of tar-barrels was purchased at No. 2, High-street, 
 Shadwell, about ten o'clock on the morning of the fire. There 
 was abundant time before six a.m., for removing the combusti- 
 bles to Westminster. The purchaser was a short, squat, down- 
 looking man, and the name on his cart was I. Burns.** 
 6—2 
 
84 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 "Trifling circumstances," says the Sentinel, "sometimes point 
 to great results. Our own opinion is formed. We have made it our 
 business to examine the Guys in preparation for the impending 
 anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, and we affirm that every 
 one of the effigies bore a striking resemblance to some member 
 or other of assemblies we need not name. These are signs 
 of the times." 
 
 * We should be loth," says the Detector, " to impute the late 
 calamity to any particular party : but we may reasonably inquire 
 what relative stake in the country is possessed by the Whigs and 
 the Tories. The English language may be taken as a fair stan- 
 dard. The first may lay claim to perri-«r«^, scmich-wif/, iie-wiff, 
 hoh-wifjf, in short, the whole family of the perruques, with whiff- 
 maleery. The latter, not to mention other good things, have a 
 vested right in ora^o/y, history^ ternto7y, and y'lctory. Can a 
 man of common patriotism have a doubt which side it is his in- 
 terest to adhere to ? " 
 
 That last paragraph, Davis, is what I call sound argument. 
 Indeed I don't see how it is to be answered. You see they are 
 all nem. con. as to our danger, and decidedly reckon fire an in- 
 flammatory agent. Take care what you read. Very pernicious 
 doctrines are abroad, and especially across the Western Channel. 
 The Irish are really frightful. I'm told they tie the cows' tails 
 together, and then saw off their horns for insurrectionary bugles, 
 The foundations of society are shaken all over the world — the 
 Whiteboys in Ireland, and the Blacks in the West Indies, all 
 seem to fight under the same colours. It's time for honest 
 men to rally round themselves — but I'm sorry to say public spirit 
 and love of one's country are at a low ebb. There's too much 
 Americanism. One writer wants us to turn all our English wheat 
 to Indian corn, and to grow no sort of apples but Eranklin pip- 
 pins. We want strong measures against associations and unions. 
 lnere*s demagogues abroad — and they wear white hats, By- 
 
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 85 
 
 t he-bye, I more than half suspect that fellow Johnson is a dele- 
 gate. Take him to the ale-house, and treat him freely — it may 
 warm him to blab something. Besides, you will see what sort 
 of papers the public-houses take in. You may drop 5\ hint about 
 their licenses. Give my compliments to Dr. Garratt, and tell him 
 I hope he will preach to the times, and take strong texts. I wish 
 I could be down amongst you, but I cannot desert my post. You 
 may tell the tenantry, and electors — I'm burnt out and gutted — 
 but my heart's in the right place— and devoted to constituents. 
 Come what may, I will be an unshaken pillar on the basis of my 
 circular letter. Don't forget any of my precautions. I am sorry 
 I did not bring all the plate up to town — but at the first alarm 
 bury it. Take in no letters or notices ; for what you know they 
 may be threatenings. If any Irishman applies for vv^ork, dis- 
 charge him instantly. All the old spring-guns had better be set 
 again, they are not now legal, but I am ministerial, and if they 
 did go off, the liigher powers would perhaps wink at them. Bat 
 it's fire that I am afraid of, fire that destroyed my political roof, 
 
 and may now assail my 
 paternal one. Walk, as 
 I may say, bucket i 
 hand, and be readj 
 every moment for a 
 breakout. You may set 
 fire to the small fag- 
 got stack, and try your 
 hands at getting it un- 
 der — there's nothing 
 worse than being taken 
 by surprise. Eead this 
 letter frequently, and 
 impress these charges 
 on your mind. It is a sad change for England to have become, 
 
 **WHKH SHALL WE THKEB HEBT AGAIN 7 
 
86 THE GEEAT CONFLAGKATION. 
 
 I may say, this fiery furnace. I have not the least doubt, if 
 properly traced, the burning clitf at Weymouth would be found 
 to be connected with Incendiarism, and the Earthquakes at 
 Chichester with our political convulsions. Thank Providence in 
 your prayers, Davis, that your own station forbids your being an 
 M.P., for a place in parliament is little better than sitting on a 
 barrel of gunpowder. Honour forbids to resign, or I should 
 wish I was nothing but a simple country gentleman. Eemember, 
 and be vigilant. Once more I cry Watch, Watch, Watch ! By 
 adopting the motions I propose, a conflagration may be adjourned 
 sine die, which is a petition perpetually presented by 
 Your anxious but uncompromising Master, 
 
 Jacob Jubb, M.P. 
 
 To Lady Juhb^ at 4:^, Portland Place. 
 Eespected Madam, 
 
 I received your Ladyship's obliging commands, and have 
 used my best endeavours to conform to the wishes condescended 
 therein. In respect to political controversy, I beg to say I have 
 imposed a tacit silence on the domestic capacities as far as with- 
 in the sphere of my control, but lament to say the Bailiff, Mr 
 Davis, is a party unamenable to my authority, and as such has 
 taken liberties with decorum quite unconsistent with propriety 
 and the decency due. However reluctant to censoriousness, 
 duty compels to communicate subversive conduct quite uncon- 
 formable to decency's rules and order in a well-regulated esta- 
 blishment. I allude to Mr. Davis's terrifically jumping out 
 from behind doors and in obscure dark corners, on the female 
 domestics, for no reasonable purpose I can discover, except to 
 make them exert their voices in a very alarming manner. The 
 housemaid, indeed, confirms me by saying in her own words, 
 *' he considered her skreek the best skreek in the family." If 
 impropriety had proceeded no further, I should have hesitated to 
 
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 87 
 
 trouble your Ladyship with particulars; but Mr. Davis, not 
 satisfied with thus working on the unsophisticated terrors of ig- 
 norant females, thought proper to hon'ify with inflammatory 
 reports. 
 
 A MAltKKD MAN. 
 
 One niglit, as a prominent instance, about twelve o'clock, he 
 rang the alarm bell so violently, at the same time proclaiming 
 conflagration, that the law of preservation became our paramount 
 duty, and, as a consequence, we all escaped in a state of disha- 
 bille only to be ambiguously hinted at, by saying that time did 
 not allow to put on my best lutestring to meet the neighbouring 
 gentry — and must add, with indignation, in the full blaze of a 
 heap of straw, thought proper to be set on tire by Mr. Davis in 
 the fore-court. I trust your Ladyship will excuse a little warmth 
 of language, in saying it was highly reprehensible ; but I have 
 not depictured the worst. I, one evening, lighted up what I 
 conceived to be a mould candle, and your Ladyship will imagine 
 my undescribable fright when it exploded itself like a missile of 
 the squib description, an unwarrantable mode, T must say, of 
 
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 convincing me, as Mr. Davis had the audaciousness to own to, 
 that we may be made to be actors in our own combustion. 
 To suppose at my years and experience, I can be unsensible of 
 the danger of fire, must be a preposterous notion ; but all his 
 subsequent acts partake an agreeable character. For fear of 
 being consumed in our beds, as he insidiously professed, he 
 exerted all his influential arguments to persuade the females to set 
 up nocturnally all night, a precaution of course declined, as well as 
 his following scheme, being almost too much broached with ab- 
 surdity to enumerate. I mean every retiring female reposing her 
 confidence on a live goose in her chamber, as were purchased for 
 the express purpose, but need not add were dispensed with by 
 rational beings. I trust your ladyship will acquit of uncharita- 
 bleness if T suspect it was out of vindictive feelings at their op- 
 position to the geese that Mr. Davis insinuated a strict inquiry 
 into every individual that came into the house, as far even as 
 requiring to be per- ^-=;:=5^ 
 
 son ally present at /^^v^'"-^^^^ 
 
 all that passed be- 
 tween the dairymaid 
 and her cousin. It es- 
 caped memory to say 
 that when the femi- 
 nine department re- 
 fused to be deprived 
 of rest, the male 
 servants were equal- 
 ly adverse to go to 
 bed, being spirited 
 up by Mr. Davis to 
 spend the night to- 
 gether, and likewise 
 
 "WAPPING OLD STAKES. 
 
 being furnished with the best strong ale in the cellar by his ira- 
 
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 89 
 
 perious directions, which, by way of climax to assurance, was al- 
 leged to be by order of Sir Jacob himself. I say nothing reflectively 
 on his repeatedly discharging his artillery at unseasonable hours, 
 the shock principally concerning my own nervous constitution, 
 which was so vibrated as to require calling in physical powers : 
 and Doctor Tudor, considering advanced age and infirmity, is of 
 opinion I may require to be under his professional hands for an 
 ensuing twelvemonth. Of startling effects upon other parties I 
 may make comments more unreserved, and without harsh ex- 
 tenuation must say, his letting off reports without due notice, 
 frequently when the females had valuable cut glass and china in 
 their hands, or on their trays, was blamable in the extreme, to 
 express the least of it. Another feature which caused much un- 
 pleasantness, was Mr. Davis persisting to scrutinise and rum- 
 mage the entire premises from top to bottom, but on this cha- 
 racteristic tediousness forbids to dwell, and more particularly as 
 mainly affecting himself, such as the flow of blood from his nose, 
 and two coagulated eyes, from the cellar door, through a pecu- 
 liar whim of looking for every thing in a state of absolute ob- 
 scurity. I may add, by way of incident, that Mr. Davis walks 
 lame from a canine injury in the calf of his leg, which I hope 
 will not prove rabid in the end, — but the animals he has on his 
 own responsibility introduced on the premises, really resemble, 
 begging your Ladyship's pardon for the expression, what are 
 denominated D.'s incarnate. 
 
 Such, your Ladyship, is the unpropitious posture of domestic 
 afi"airs at the Shmbbery, originating, I must say, exclusively 
 from the unprecedented deviations of Mr. Davis. A mild con- 
 struction would infer, from such extraordinary extravagance ol 
 conduct, a flightiness, or aberration of mind in the individual, 
 but I deeply lament to say a more obvious cause exists to put a 
 negative on such a surmise. For the last week Mr. Davis has 
 betrayed an unusual propensity to pass his evenings at the 
 
90 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 George Tavern, and in consequence has several times exhibited 
 himself in a Bacchanalian character to our extreme discomfor- 
 ture, and on one occasion actually trespassed so far beyond the 
 bounds of modesty, as to offer me the rudeness of a salute. I 
 blush to imp irt such details to your Ladyship ; but justice de- 
 mands an explicit statement, however repulsive to violated 
 resei-ve and the rules of virtue. Amongst less immoral actions, 
 T must advert to the amval of two new engines with a vast 
 number of leathern buckets, I fear ordered by Mr. Davis at my 
 honoured master's expense, and which are periodically exercised 
 in pumping every day, by the gardeners and the hinds, bein^ 
 induced thereto by extra beverages of strong beer. By such 
 means the aquatic supply of the well is frequently exhausted by 
 playing upon nothing, — and at this present moment I am 
 justified in stating we have not sufficient water to fulfil culinary 
 purposes, or the demands of cleanliness. I feel ashamed to say 
 there is not a strictly clean cap in the whole household. 
 
 THJC rWlIED SEEVICB. 
 
 In short, Madam, we labour under an aggravated complication 
 of insubordination, deprivation, discomfort, and alarm, daily and 
 nightly, such as to shock my eyes whilst it grieves my heart, 
 and I may almost say turns my head to be present at, without 
 sufficient authority to dictate or power to enforce a course 
 
THE GEEA.T CONFLAGEATION. 91 
 
 more consistent with the line of rectitude. As my sway does 
 not extend to Mr. Davis, I humbly beseech your Ladyship's 
 interference and influence in the proper quarter, in behalf, 1 
 may sa*', of a body of persecuted females, some of whom pos- 
 sess cultivated minds and sensitive feelings beyond their 
 sphere. 
 
 I remain, respected Madam, 
 Your Ladyship's most obliged and very humble Servant, 
 
 Amelia Phipps. 
 
 P.S. — One of Mr. Davis's savage bull-baiting dogs has just 
 rushed witli a frightful crash into the china-closet, in pursuit of 
 the poor cat. 
 
 To Sir Jacob Juhh, Baronet, M.P. 
 
 HONNERD SUR, 
 
 Yure faver enclosin the Ruings of the Parlimint houses 
 cam dully to hand, and did indeed put up all the hares on my 
 hed. It cam like the bust of a thunder bolt. You mite hav 
 nockt me down with the fether of a ginny ren. My bran swum. 
 I seamed rooted to the hearth — and did not no weather I was 
 a slip or a wack, on my hed or my heals. I was perfecly un- 
 conshunable, and could no more kollect meself then the Hirish 
 tiths. I was a long Tim befor I cud perswade meself that 
 the trooth was trew. But sich a dredful fire is enuff to un- 
 settil wons resin. A thowsend ears mite role over our beds, 
 and not prodeuce sich a bio to the constitushun. I was barley 
 sensible. The Currier dropt from my hands wen I cam to the 
 perrygraft witch says " Our hops are at an end. The Hous of 
 Communs is a boddy of Plams, and so is the Hous of Pears ! 
 The Lords will be dun ! " 
 
 Honnerd Sur, I beg to kondole as becums on yure missin 
 vure seat. It must have bean the suddinest of shox, & jest wen 
 goin to sit after standin for the hole county, on yure hone futt- 
 
99 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 ing, at your sole expens. But I do hop and trust it will not 
 be yure dissolusliun, as sum report ; I do hop it is onely an 
 emty rummer pict up at sum publick Hous. At such an 
 encindery crisus our wust frend wood be General Elixion, by 
 stin-in up inflametory peple, particly if there was a long pole. 
 You see, Sir Jacob, I konker in ewery sentashus sentemint in 
 yure respected Letter. The Volkano you menshun I can enter 
 
 GEITERAL ELECTIOH. 
 
 into. Theres a great deal of combustibul sperits in the country 
 that onely wants a spark to convart them into catarax : — and 1 
 greave to say ewery inflammetory little demy Gog is nust, and 
 has the caudle support of certin pappers. Im alludin to the 
 Press. From this sort of countenins the nashunal aspec gits 
 moor friteful ewery day. I see no prospex for the next ^en- 
 nerashun but rocking and swinging. I hav had a grate menny 
 
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 03 
 
 low thorts, for wat can be moor dispiritin then the loss of our 
 two gratest Publick Housis! There is nothin cumfoiiable. 
 There is a Vesuvus under our feat, and ewery step brings us 
 nearer to its brinks. Ewery reflective man must say we are a 
 yirgin on a precipus. 
 
 Honnerd Sur ! In the mean tim I hav pade atenshuns to 
 yure letter, and studid its epistlery derecshuns, witch I hav made 
 meself very particler in fulfiling to the utmost xtent. If the 
 most zellus effuts have not sucksedid to wish I humbly beg to 
 blame but wat is dew may fall on me, and hope other peples 
 shears wiU visit their hone beds. The axident with the spring 
 gun was no neglex of mine. After Barnes settin it himself, his 
 tumblin over the wier must be lade to his hone dore along with 
 his shot legs. I sent for two surgings to sea to him, and they 
 cauld in too moor, so that he is certin of a good dressin, but he 
 was very down-harted about gitting a livin, till I tolled him yure 
 honnerwood settle on him for the rest of his days. I may say 
 the lik of the other axident to Sanders and Sam, who got badly 
 woundid wile wotchin the stax, by apprehendin won another after 
 a sanguine conflic by mistake for incinderies. I have promist in 
 yure honners nam to reword them boath hansumly for their 
 vigilings, but they stediistly rel'us to padrol anny moor after dusk, 
 tho they ar agi'eble by daylit, which leavs me at my whits ends 
 for Firegards, as strange men wood not be trusswurthy. 
 
 Honnered Sur — I am sorry I cood not git the mad servents 
 to set up for theaves, even for wun nite runnin. I tried the 
 Currier on them, but it didn't vvurk on there minds ; they tuck 
 lites in their hands and waukd to there pillers as if they hadn't 
 a car on there heds, and wen I insistid on their allarinin me they 
 all give me warnin. As for the swetharts there's a duzzen 
 domesticatted lavers in the kitchen, and I'm sorry to say I can't 
 give them all a rowt. I ketchd the cook's bo gettiu in at a 
 winder, and sercht his pockets for feer of fosfrus, but he contaned 
 
94 
 
 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 nothin xcept a cruckid sixpens, a taler's thimbel, and a tin backy- 
 box, with a lock of hare witch did not match with cook's. It is 
 dangerus wurk. Becus I luck after the mades candels they tie 
 strings to the banesters to ketch my fut, and I have twice pitcht 
 from the hed to the futt of the stars. I am riting with ray fonid 
 brandid and brown pepperd, and my rite hand in a poltus from 
 gropping in the dark for cumbustibils in the cole seller, and uls- 
 kivering nothin but the torturous kat and her kittings. 
 
 ' TWO HEADS AEB BETTEB THAN ONE. 
 
 Honnerd Sur — I got six capitol gees a bargin, but am verry 
 dubbius weather they possess the propperty that ort to make 
 them wakful and weary of nites. The old specious may be lost. 
 The Roman gees you menshun wood certinly hav newer sufFerd 
 themselves to be stolen without a cakeling, as our hone did too 
 nites ago. As for the wotch dogs, to be candied, they were all 
 errors in gudgmeut. There waste much Bui in the bread. The 
 verry fust nite they were let lose they flew in a nig, and began to 
 venttheircaningpropensities oneach other's curcases. I regret 
 
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 95 
 
 to say too was wurrid to deth before the next mourning, and 
 the rest were so full of bad bits and ingeries in there vitties 
 they were obligated to be kild. In shutting Seazer with the 
 blunderbush, I lament to ad it hung fire, and in liftin it up it 
 went oif of its hone hed and shot the bucher's horse at the gait, and 
 he has thretind to tak the law if he isn't made good, as he was 
 verry vallyble. 
 
 Honnerd Sur — Accordin to orders I tuck Johnson the suspishus 
 man evvery nite to the Gorge, and told him to caul for wat 
 ne likt, witch was allways an ot suppir and Punch. As yet he 
 as diskivered nothin but sum lov nonsins about a deary-made, so 
 that its uncertin weather he is a dillygate or not ; but I shood 
 say a desinin won, for by sum artful meens he allways manniged 
 to make me drunk fust, and gennerally lent a hand to carry me 
 home. I told the landlord to let him have aney thing he wantid 
 and yure Honner wood pay the skore, but I think it was un- 
 prudent of Mr. Tapper to let him run up to ten pound. But it 
 Isn't all drink, but eating as well — Johnson has a very glutinous 
 appetit, and always stix to the tabel as long as there is meet. 
 
 Honnerd Sur — Last fridy morning there was grate riotism 
 and sines of the populus risin, and accordin I lost no time in 
 berryin the plait as derected by yure ordirs. I am gratifid to 
 say the disturbans turned out onely a puggleistical fit ; but owen 
 to our huiTy and allarm, the spot ware the plait was berrid went 
 out of our heads. We have since dug up the hole srubbery, but 
 without turnin up anny thing in its shape. But it cant be lost, 
 tho' it isnt to be found. The gardner swares the srubs will all 
 di from being transplanted at unpropper sesin — but I trust it is 
 onely his old grumblin stile witch he cannot git over. 
 
 Honnerd Sur — The wust is to cum. In casis of Fire the 
 trooth is shure to brake out suner or latter, so I may as well cum 
 to the catstrophy without any varnish on my tail. This morning 
 according to yure order, 1 higiiiited the littel faggit stak, fust 
 
96 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 takin the precawshuny meshure of drawin up a line of men 
 with buckits, from the dux-pond to the sene of combusting. 
 Nothin can lay therefor on my sholders : it all riz from the men 
 strikin for bear, wen they ort to hav bean handin waiter to won 
 another. I felt my deuty to argy the pint, which I trust will be 
 apruved, and wile we were cussin and diseussin the fire got a lied 
 that defide all our unitted pours to subdo. To confess the fax, 
 the fire inguns ware all lokt up in a stabble with a shy key that 
 had lost itself the day before, and was not to be had wen we 
 wantid to lay hands on it. Not that we could have wurkd the 
 inguns if they had faverd with their presens, for want of hands. 
 Evvery boddy had run so ofFen at the allarm bell that they got no- 
 boddy to go in there steed. It was an hawful site ; the devowring 
 ellemint swallerd won thing after another as sune as cotched, 
 and rushed along roring with friteful violins. Were the finger 
 of Providins is the hand as does we must not arrange it, but as 
 the him says, " we must submit and humbel Bee." Heavin 
 direx the winds, and not us. As it blue towards the sow the 
 piggry sune ootchd, and that cotchd the foul housis, and then 
 the barn cotchd with all the straw, and thegranery cotchd also, 
 witch it wood not have dun if we had puld down the hay stax 
 that stud between. That was all the cotching excep the hay 
 stax, from Jenkins runnin about with a flaimin tale to his smoak 
 frock. At last, by a blessin, when there was no moor to bum 
 it was got under and squentched itself, prays be given without 
 loss of lif or lim. Another comfit is all bein inshured in the Sun, 
 enufF to kiver it ; and I shud hop they will not refus to make 
 gud on the ground that it was dun wilful by our hone ax and 
 deeds. But fire officis are sumtimes verry unlibberal, and will 
 ketch hold of a burning straw, and if fax were put on their oths 
 I couldn't deni a bundil of rags, matchis, candel ends, and other 
 combustibils pokt into the fagsjits, and then litin up with my 
 hone hand. Tim will sho. In the meenwhile I am consienshusiy 
 
HUCfGlNS AND DUGGINS. 97 
 
 easy, it was duu for the best, though turned out for the 
 wust, and am gratified to reflect that I hav omitted nothin, 
 but have scruppleusly fulfild evvery parti cler of yure 
 honner's instruxions, and in hop of approval of the saim, 
 await the faver of furthir commands, and am, 
 Honnerd Sur Jacob, 
 Your humbel, faithful, and obedient Servint, 
 Roger Davis. 
 
 LIGHT- FINffiKKBD. 
 
 HUGGINS AND DUGGINS. 
 
 A PASTORAL AFTER POPE. 
 
 Two swains or clowns — but call them swains 
 While keeping flocks on Salisbury Plains, 
 For all that tend on sheep as drovers, 
 Are turned to songsters, or to lovers, 
 Each of the lass he called his dear. 
 Began to carol loud and clear. 
 
 First Huggins sang, and Duggins then, 
 In the w^ay of ancient shepherd men ; 
 Who thus alternate hitch'd in song, 
 "All things by turns, and nothing long." 
 
 VOL. II. 7 
 
99 
 
 HUGGINS AND DUGGINS. 
 HUGGINS. 
 
 Of all the girls about our place, 
 There's one beats all in form and face ; 
 Search through all Great and Little Bumpstead, 
 You'll only find one Peggy Plumpstead. 
 
 yOLLOW MT LKADBd. 
 
 PUGGINS. 
 
 To groves and streams I tell my flame, 
 I make the cliffs repeat her name : 
 When I*m inspired by gills and noggins, 
 The rocks re-echo Sally Hoggins I 
 
HUGGINS AND DUG GINS. 99 
 
 HU6GINS. 
 
 When I am walkinj^ in the grove, 
 I think of Peggy as I rove. 
 I'd carve her name on every tree, 
 But I don't know my A, B, C. 
 
 DUGGINS. 
 
 Whether I walk in hill or valley, 
 I think of nothing else but Sally. 
 I'd sing her praise, but I can sing 
 No song, except " God save the King,"" 
 
 nUGGINS. 
 
 My Peggy does all nymphs excel, 
 And all confess she bears the bell, — 
 Where'er she goes swains flock together, 
 Like sheep that follow the bellwether. 
 
 DUGGINS. 
 
 Sally is tall and not too straight, — 
 Those very poplar shapes I hate ; 
 But something twisted like an S, — 
 A crook becomes a shepherdess. 
 
 HUGGINS. 
 
 When Peggy's dog her arms imprison, 
 I often wish my lot was hisn ; 
 How often I should stand and turn, 
 To get a pat from hands like hern. 
 
 DUGGINS. 
 
 I tell Sail's lambs how blest they be, 
 
 To stand about and stare at she ; 
 
 But when I look, she turns and shies, 
 
 And won't bear none but their sheep's-eyes ! 
 
100 HUGGINS AND DUGGINS- 
 
 HUGGINS. 
 
 Love goes with Peggy where she goes. — 
 Beneath her smile the garden grows •, 
 Potatoes spring, and cabbage starts, 
 *Tatoes have eyes, and cabbage hearts ! 
 
 DUGGINS. 
 
 Where Sally goes it's always spring, 
 
 Her presence brightens every thing : 
 
 The sun smiles bright, but where her grm is, 
 
 It makes brass farthings look like guineas. 
 
 HUGGINS. 
 
 For Peggy I can have no joy, 
 She's sometimes kind, and sometimes coy, , 
 And keeps me, by her wayward tricks. 
 As comfortless as sheep with ticks. 
 
 BA.MSAT'S GENTLB SHBfEBBI). 
 
 DUGGINS. 
 
 Sally is ripe as June or May, 
 And yet as cold as Christmas day ; 
 Tor '-vhen she's asked to change her lot, 
 Lamb's wool, — but Sallv, she wool not 
 
DOMESTIC DIDACTICS. lOl 
 
 IIUGGINS. 
 
 Only with Peggy and with health, 
 I'd never wish for state or wealth ; 
 Talking of having health and more pence, 
 I'd drink her health if I had fourpence. 
 
 D13GGINS. 
 
 Oh, how that day would seem to shine, 
 If Sally's banns were read with mine ; 
 She cries, when such a wish I carry, 
 " Marry come up 1" but will not marry. 
 
 DOMESTIC DIDACTICS. 
 
 BY AN OLD SERVANT. 
 
 It is not often when the Nine descend that they go so low as 
 into areas; it is certain, nevertheless, that they were in the 
 habit of visiting John Humphreys, in the kitchen of No. 189, 
 Portland Place, disguised, no doubt, from mortal eye, as seam- 
 stresses or charwomen — at all events, as Winifred Jenkins says, 
 " they were never ketch'd in the fact." Perhaps it was the rule 
 of the house to allow no followers, and they were obliged to 
 come by stealth, and to go in the same manner ; indeed, from 
 the fragmental nature of John's verses, they appear to have often 
 left him very abruptly. Other pieces bear witness of the severe 
 distraction he suffered between his domestic duty to the Umphra- 
 villes, twelve in family, with their guests, and his own secret 
 visitors from Helicon. It must have been provoking, when 
 seeking for a simile, to be sent in search of a sait-cellar; or 
 when hunting for a rhyme, to have to look for a missing tea- 
 spoon. By a whimsical peculiarity, the causes of tftese lets and 
 hindrances are recorded in his verses, by way of parenthesis : 
 
102 
 
 DOMESTIC DIDACTICS. 
 
 and though John's poetry was of a decidedly serious and moralis. 
 ing turn, these little insertions give it so whimsical a character, 
 ae to make it an appropriate offering in the present work. Poor 
 John ! the grave has put a period to his didactics, and the pub- 
 lication of his lays in " Hood's Own," therefore, cannot give him 
 
 SOX UP YET. 
 
 pain, as it certainly would have done otherwise, for the MSS 
 were left by last will and testament *' to his very worthy master, 
 Joshua Umphraville, Esq., to be printed in Elegant Extracts, or 
 Flowers of English Poetry." The Editor is indebted to the 
 Kindness of that gentleman for a selection from the papers; 
 which he has been unable to arrange chronologically, as John 
 dlways wrote in too great a hurry to put dates. Whether he 
 ever sent any pieces to the periodicals is unknown, for he kept 
 his authorship as secret as Junius*s, till his death discovered his 
 
DOMESTIC DIDACTICS. 103 
 
 propensity for poetry, and happily cleared up some points in 
 John's character, which had appeared to his disadvantage. 
 Thus when his eye was " in fine frenzy rolling," bemused only 
 with Castalian water, he had been suspected of being ** bemused 
 with beer ; " and when he was supposed to indulge in a morning 
 sluggishness, he \vas really rising with the sun, at least with 
 Apollo. He was accused occasionally of shamming deafness, 
 whereas it was doubtless nothing but the natural difficulty of 
 hearing more than Nine at once. Above all, he was reckoned 
 almost wilfully unfortunate in his breakage ; but it appears that 
 when deductions for damage were made from his wages, the 
 poetry ought to have been stopped, and not the money. The 
 truth is, John's master was a classical scholar, and so accustomed 
 to read of Pegasus, and to associate a Poet with a Horseman, 
 that he never dreamt of one as a Pootman. 
 
 The Editor is too diffident to volunteer an elaborate criticism 
 of the merits of Humphreys as a Bard — but he presumes to say 
 thus much, that there are several Authors, of the present day, 
 whom John ought not to walk behind. 
 
 THE BROKEN DISH. 
 What's life but full of care and doubt, 
 
 With all its fine humanities, 
 With parasols we walk about, 
 
 Long pigtails and such vanities. 
 
 We plant pomegranite trees and things, 
 
 And go in gardens sporting, 
 With toys and fans of peacocks' wings. 
 
 To painted ladies courting. 
 
 We gather flowers of every hue. 
 
 And fish in boats for fishes. 
 Build summer-houses painted blue, — 
 
 But life's as frail as dishes. 
 
104 DOMESTIC DIDACTICS. 
 
 Walking about their groves of trees. 
 
 Blue bridges and blue rivers, 
 How little thought them two Chinese 
 
 They'd both be smash'd to shiverr. 
 
 ODB TO PEACE. 
 
 WRITTEN ON THE NIGHT OF MY MISTRESS's 
 GRAND ROUT. 
 
 Oh Peace ! oh come with me and dwell — 
 
 But stop, for there's the bell. 
 Oh Peace ! for thee I go and sit in churches, 
 On Wednesday, when there's very few 
 
 In loft or pew — 
 Another ring, the tarts are come from Birch's. 
 Oh Peace ! for thee I have avoided marriage — 
 
 Hush ! there's a carriage. 
 Oh Peace ! thou art the best of earthly goods — 
 
 The five Miss Woods. 
 Oh Peace ! thou art the Goddess I adore — 
 
 There come some more. 
 Oh Peace I thou child of solitude and quiet — 
 That's Lord Drum's footman, for he loves a riot. 
 
 Oh Peace 1 
 
 Knocks will not cease. 
 Oh Peace ! thou wert for human comfort plann*(I- 
 
 That's Weippert's band. 
 Oh Peace ! now glad I welcome thy approaches- - 
 
 I hear the sound of coaches. 
 Oh Peace ! oh Peace ! — another carriage stops — 
 
 It's early for the Blenkinsops. 
 
DOMESTIC DIDACTICS. 105 
 
 Oh Peace ! with thee 1 love to wander, 
 
 But wait till 1 haye show'd up Lady Squander, 
 
 And now I've seen her up the stair, 
 
 Oh Peace ! — but here comes Captain Hare. 
 
 Oh Peace ! thou art the slumber of the mind. 
 
 Untroubled, calm and quiet, and unbroken, — 
 
 If that is Alderman Guzzle from Portsoken, 
 
 Alderman Gobble won't be far behind ; 
 
 Oh Peace ! serene in worldly shyness, — 
 
 Make way there for his Serene Highness ! 
 
 Oh Peace ! if you do not disdain 
 
 To dwell amongst the menial train, 
 
 I have a silent place, and lone. 
 
 That you and I may call our own ; 
 
 ^yhere tumult never makes an entry — 
 
 Susan, what business have you in my pantry ? 
 
 Oh Peace ! but there is Major Monk, 
 At variaMce with his wife — Oh Peace ! 
 And that great Gennan, Vander Trunk, 
 And that great talker. Miss Apreece ; 
 Oh Peace ! so dear to poets' quills — 
 They're just beginning their quadrilles — 
 Oh Peace ! our greatest renovator ; — 
 I wonder where I put my waiter— 
 Oh Peace! — ^but here my Ode I'll cease; 
 I have no peace to write of Peace. 
 
 A FEW LINES ON COMPLETING FORTY-SEVEN. 
 When I reflect with serious sense, 
 
 While years and years run on, 
 How soon I may be sur:.moned hence — 
 
 There's cook a-call'^g John. 
 
106 DOMESTIC DIDACTICS. 
 
 Our lives are built so frail and poor, 
 On sand and not on rocks, 
 
 We're houi'ly standing at Death's door — 
 There's some one double-knocks. 
 
 All human days have settled terms^ 
 Our fates we cannot force ; 
 
 This flesh of mine will feed the worms — 
 They're come to lunch of course. 
 
 And when my body's turn'd to clay. 
 And dear friends hear my knell, 
 
 let them give a sigh and say — 
 I hear the upstairs bell. 
 
 TO MAEY HOUSEMAID, 
 
 OS VALKNTIirB'S DAY. 
 
 Mary, you know I've no love-nonsense. 
 And, though I pen on such a day, 
 
 I don't mean flirting, on my conscience. 
 Or writing in the courting way. 
 
 Though Beauty hasn't form'd your feature. 
 It saves you, p'rhaps, from being vain, 
 
 And many a poor unhappy creature 
 May wish that she was half as plain. 
 
 Your virtues woidd not rise an inch, 
 
 Although your shape was two foot taller. 
 
 And wisely you let others pinch 
 
 Great waists and feet to make them smaller. 
 
PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT. W! 
 
 You never try to spare your hands 
 
 From getting red by household duty, 
 But, doing all that it commands, 
 
 Their coarseness is a moral beauty. 
 
 Let Susan flourish her fair arms 
 
 And at your odd legs sneer and scoff. 
 But let her laugh, for you have charms 
 
 That nobody knows nothing of. 
 
 WHAT ODD LEGS 
 
 PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT. 
 
 A SEA ECLOGUE. 
 
 I apprehend you ! " — School of Eeform. 
 
 ! - Boatman. 
 
 Shove off there! — ship the rudder, Bill — cast off! she's under 
 way ! 
 
 Mrs. F. ' ' • 
 
 She's under what ? — 1 hope she's not ! good gracious, what a 
 spray ! 
 
108 
 
 PAIN TN A PLEASUEE.BOAT. 
 
 Boatman. 
 
 Run out the jib, and rig the boom ! keep clear or those two 
 
 bri^s ! 
 
 Mrs. F. 
 
 I hope they don't intend some joke by running of their rigs ! 
 
 SKE-VIKW: — BS01.D SrAEKS. 
 
 Boatman. 
 Bill, shift them bags of ballast aft — she's rather out of trim ! 
 
 Mrs. F. 
 
 Great bags of stones ! they're pretty thini^s to help a boat to 
 
 swim ! 
 
 Boatman. 
 
 The wind is fresh — if she don't scud, it's not tbp breeze's fault ' 
 
 Mrs. F. 
 Wind fresh, indeed, I never felt the air so full of salt ! 
 
PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT. 109 
 
 Boatman. 
 
 That Schooner, Bill, harn't left the roads, with oranges and 
 
 nuts! 
 
 Mrs. F. 
 
 If seas have roads, they're very rough — I never felt such ruts ! 
 
 Boatman. 
 It's neap, ye see, she's heavy lade, and couldn't pass the bar. 
 
 Mrs. F. 
 
 The bar! what, roads with turnpikes too? 1 wonder where 
 
 they are ! 
 
 Boatman. 
 
 Ho ! brig ahoy ! hard up ! hard up ! that lubber cannot steer ! 
 
 Mrs. p. 
 Yes, yes, — hard up upon a rock ! I know some danger's near 1 
 Lord, there's a wave ! it's coming in ! and roaring like a bull ! 
 
 Boatman. 
 
 Nothing, Ma'am, but a little slop ! go large, Bill ! keep her 
 
 full! 
 
 Mrs. F. 
 
 What, keep her full ! what daring work ! when full, she must 
 
 go down ! 
 
 Boatman. 
 
 Why, Bill, it lulls ! ease oif a bit — ^it's coming off the town ! 
 
 Steady your helm ! we'll clear the Fint / lay right for yonder 
 
 pink! 
 
 Mrs. p. 
 
 Be steady — well, I hope they can ! but they've got a pint of 
 
 drink ! 
 
 Boatman. 
 
 Bill, give that sheet another haul — shell fetch it up this reach. 
 
 Mrs. p. 
 I'm getting rather pale, I know, and they see it by that speech ! 
 I wonder what it is, now, but ^I never felt so queer ! 
 
no 
 
 PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT. 
 
 Boatman. 
 
 Bill, mind your lufF — ^why Bill, I say, she's yawing — keep "her 
 
 near! 
 
 Mrs. F. 
 
 Keep near! we're going further oflF; the land's behind our 
 
 backs. 
 
 STKKNK'S UABIA. 
 
 Boatman. 
 Be easy, Ma'am, it's all correct, that's only 'cause we tacks : 
 We shall have to beat about a bit, — Bill, keep her out to sea. 
 
 Mrs. F. 
 Beat who about 1 keep who at sea 1 — how black they look at 
 me ! 
 
A SPENT BALL. Ill 
 
 Boatman. 
 
 It's veering round — I knew it would ! off with her head I stand 
 
 by! 
 
 Mrs. F. 
 
 Off with her head! whose? where? what with? — an axe I 
 
 seem to spy ! 
 
 Boatman. 
 
 She can't not keep her own, you see ; we shall have to pull her 
 inl 
 
 Mrs. p. 
 They'll drown me, and take all I have 1 my life's not worth a 
 pin! 
 
 Boatman. 
 Look out you know, be ready. Bill — just when she takes the 
 sand ! 
 
 Mrs. F. 
 The sand — Lord ! to stop my mouth I how every thing is 
 
 planned ! 
 
 Boatman. 
 The handspike, Bill — quick, bear a hand I now Ma'am, just step 
 ashore ! 
 
 Mrs. F. 
 What ! an't I going to be kill'd — and welter'd in my gore ? 
 Well, Heaven be praised ! but I'll not go a sailing any more ! 
 
 A SPENT BALL. 
 
 " The flying ball."— Gray. 
 
 A Ball is a round, but not a perpetual round, of pleasure. 
 It spends itself at last, like that from the cannon's mouth ; or 
 rather, like that greatest of balls, " that great globe itself," is 
 •* dissolved with all that it inherits." 
 
 Four o'clock strikes. The company are all but gone, and the 
 
112 
 
 A. SPENT BALL. 
 
 musicians ** put up " with their absence. A few "figures* 
 however, remain, that have never been danced, and the hostess, 
 who is all urbanity and turbanity, kindly hopes that they will 
 stand up for " one set more." The six figures jump at the 
 offer; they "wake the Harp," get the fiddlers into a fresh 
 
 scrape, and "the Lancers" are put through their exercise. 
 This may be called the Dance of Death, for it ends every thing. 
 The band is disbanded, and the Ball takes the form of a family 
 circle. It is long past the time when church-yards yawn, but 
 the mouth of Mamma opens to a bore, that gives hopes of the 
 Thames Tunnel. Papa, to whom the Ball has been anything 
 but a force-meat one, seizes eagerly upon the first eatables he 
 can catch, and with his mouth open and his eyes shut, declares, 
 in the spirit of an " Examiner " into such things, that a " Party 
 is the madness of many for the gain of a few." The son, heartily 
 tired of a suit of broad cloth cut narrow, assents to the pro- 
 
LITEEARY AND LITERAL. 113 
 
 position, and having no furtlier use for his curled head, lays it 
 quietly on the shelf. The daughter droops ; art has had her 
 Almack's, and nature establishes a Free and Easy. Grace throws 
 herself, skow-wow any-how, on an ottoman, and Good Breeding 
 crosses her legs. Hoses begin to relax, and Curls to unbend 
 themselves ; the very Candles seem released from the restraints 
 of gentility, and getting low, some begin to smoke, while others 
 indulge in a gutter. Muscles and sinews feel equally let loose, 
 and by way of a joke, the cramp ties a double-knot in Clarinda's 
 calf. 
 
 Clarinda screams. To this appeal the maternal heart is more 
 awake than the maternal eyes, and the maternal hand begins 
 hastily to bestow its friction, not on the leg of suffering, but on 
 the leg of the sofa. Tn the mean time, paternal hunger gets 
 satisfied ; he eats slower, and sleeps faster, subsiding, like a 
 gorged Boa Constrictor, into torpidity ; and in this state, grasp- 
 ing an extinguished candle, he lights himself up to bed. Clarinda 
 follows, stumbling through her steps in a doze-a-doze ; tbe 
 brother is next, and Mamma having seen with half an eye, OB 
 something less, that all is safe, winds up the procession. 
 
 Every Ball, however, has its rebound, and so has this in their 
 dreams — with the mother who has a daughter, as a Golden. 
 Ball ; ^vith the daughter, who has a lover, as an eye-ball ; with 
 his son, who has a rival, as a pistol-ball ; but with the iatheF, 
 who has no dreams at all, as nothing but the blacking-ball of 
 oblivion. 
 
 LITERAEY AND LITERAL. 
 
 The March of Mind upon its mighty stilts, 
 
 (A spirit by no means to fasten mocks on,) 
 
 In travelling through Berks, Beds, Notts, and Wilts, 
 
 Hants — Bucks, Herts, Oxon, 
 VOL. II. 8 
 
114 LITERARY AND LITERAL. 
 
 vjrot up a tiling our ancestors ne'er thought OB* 
 A thing that, only in our proper youth. 
 We should have chuckled at — in sober trutb, 
 A Conversazione at Hog's Norton 1 
 
 A place whose native dialect, somehow, 
 Has always by an adage been affronted. 
 And that it is all gutturaUy is now 
 Taken for grunted. 
 
 Conceive the snoring of a greedy swine, 
 The slobbering of a hungry Ursine Sloth — 
 If you have ever heard such creature dine — 
 And — for Hog's Norton, make a mix of both 1 — 
 
 shades of Shakspeare ! Chaucer ! Spenser ! 
 
 Milton! Pope! Gray! Warton! 
 Colraan 1 Kenny ! Planche ! Poole ! Peake ! 
 
 Pocock! Eeynolds! Morton! 
 Grey ! Peel ! Sadler ! Wilberforce ! Burdett I 
 
 Hume ! Wilmot Horton ! 
 Think of your prose and verse, and worse — delivered iB 
 Hog's Norton ! — 
 
 The founder of Hog's Norton Athenaeum 
 
 Pramed her society 
 
 With some variety 
 From Mr. Roscoe's Liverpool museum ; 
 Not a mere pic-nic, for the mind's repast, 
 But tempting to the solid knife-and-forker, 
 It held its sessions in the house that last 
 
 Had killed a porker. 
 
LITEEARY AND LITERAL. 
 
 It chanced one Friday, 
 One Farmer Gray ley stuck a very big hog, 
 A perfect Gog or Magog of a pig-hog. 
 Which made of course a literary high day, — 
 Not that our Farmer was a man to go 
 With literary tastes — so far from suiting 'em, 
 When he heard mention of Professor Crowe, 
 
 ni 
 
 'tis pleasakt sueb to seb oite's self in pbint." 
 
 Or Lalla-i2oOi?r/^, he always was for shooting 'em ! 
 
 In fact in letters he was quite a log, 
 
 With him great Bacon 
 
 Was literally taken. 
 8—2 
 
^16 LITERARY AND LITERAL. 
 
 And Hogg — the Poet — nothing but a Hog ! 
 
 As to all others on the list of Fame, 
 
 Although they were discuss'd and mention'd daily, 
 
 He only recognised one classic name, 
 
 And thought that she had hung herself — Mm BaillisJ 
 
 To balance this, our Farmer's only daughter 
 Had a great taste for the Castalian water — 
 A Wordsworth worshipper — a Southey wooer, — 
 (Though men that deal in water-colour cakes 
 May disbelieve the fact — yet nothing's truer) 
 
 She got the bluer 
 The more she dipped and dabbled in the Lakes. 
 The secret truth is, Hope, the old deceiver. 
 At future Authorship was apt to hint, 
 Producing what some call the Type-m Fever, 
 Which means a burning to be seen in print. 
 
 Of learning's laurels — Miss Joanna Baillie— 
 
 Of Mrs. Hemans— Mrs. Wilson— daily 
 
 Dreamt Anne Priscilla Isabella Grayley ; 
 
 And Fancy hinting that she had the better 
 
 Of L.E.L. by one initial letter, 
 
 She thought the world would quite enraptur'd see 
 
 " LoTE Lays and Lyrics 
 
 BY 
 
 A P I G." 
 
 Accordingly^ with very great propriety, 
 
 She joined the H. N. B. and double S., 
 
 That is^— Hog's Norton Blue Stocking Society ; 
 
 And saving when her Pa his pigs prohibited, 
 
 Contributed 
 Her pork and poetry towards the mess. 
 
LITEEAKY AND LITERAL. I17 
 
 This feast, we said, one Friday was the case 
 When farmer Graylej — from Macbeth to quote — 
 Screwing his courage to the " sticking place, '* 
 Stuck a large knife into a grunter's throat ; — 
 A kind of murder that the law's rebuke 
 Seldom condemns by shake of its peruke, 
 Showing the little sympathy of hig-wigs 
 With pig -wigs I 
 
 The swine — poor wretch ! — with nobody to speak for it, 
 And beg its life, resolved to have a squeak for it ; 
 So — like the fabled swan — died singing out. 
 And, thus, there issued from the farmer's yard 
 A note that notified without a card, 
 An invitation to the evening rout. 
 
 BRBAKINQ (7F, KO HOLIDAY* 
 
 And when the time came duly, — " At the close of 
 The day," as Beattie has it, " when the ham—" 
 Bacon and pork were ready to dispose of, 
 A-nd pettitoes and chit'lings too, to cram. — 
 
118 LITERAEY AND LITERAL. 
 
 Walked in the H. N. B. and double S.'s, 
 All in appropriate and swinish dresses, 
 For lo ! it is a fact, and not a joke, 
 Although the Muse might fairly jest upon it. 
 They came — each " Pig-faced Lady," in that bonnet 
 We call a poke. 
 
 The Members all assembled thus, a rare woman 
 At pork and poetry was chosen chairwoman ; — 
 In fact, the bluest of the Blues, Miss Ikey, 
 Whose whole pronunciation was so oiggy, 
 She always named the authoress of " Psyche " — 
 As Mrs. Tifff/ey / 
 
 And now arose a question of some moment, — 
 
 What author for a lecture was the richer, 
 
 Bacon or Hogg ? there were no votes for Beaumont, 
 
 But some for Flitcher ; 
 While others, with a more sagacious reasoning. 
 
 Proposed another work. 
 
 And thought their pork 
 Would prove more relishing from Thomson's Season-ing I 
 
 But, practised in Shakspearian readings daily — - 
 
 ! Miss Macaulay ! Shakspeare at Hog's Norton ! — 
 
 Miss Anne Priscilla Isabella Grayley 
 
 Selected him that evening to snort on. 
 
 In short, to make our story not a big tale, 
 
 Just fancy her exerting 
 
 Her talents, and converting 
 The Winter's Tale to something like a pig-tale ! 
 
 Her sister auditory 
 All sitting round, with grave and learned faces, 
 
 Were very plauditory, 
 Of course, and clapped lier at the proper places ; 
 
LITERAEY AND LITERAL. 
 
 Till fanned at once by fortune and the Muse, 
 She thought herself the blessedest of Blues. 
 But Happiness, alas I has blights of ill, 
 And Pleasure's bubbles in the air explode; — 
 There is no travelling through life but still 
 The heart will meet with breakers on the road i 
 
 With that peculiar voice 
 Heard only from Hog's Norton throats and noses, 
 Miss G., with Perdita, was making choice 
 Of buds and blossoms for her summer posies, 
 When coming to that line, where Proserpine 
 Lets fall her flowers' from the wain of Dis ; 
 
 Imagine this — 
 Uprose on his hind legs old Farmer Grayley, 
 Grunting this question for the club's digestion, 
 " Do Dis'8 Waggon go from the Ould Baaley ? " 
 
 110 
 
120 THE ACCIDENT. 
 
 THE ACCIDENT. 
 
 *' We thought she never would ride it out, and expected her every 
 moment to go to pieces." — Naval Sketch Book. 
 
 *' There you go, you villain — that's the way to run over 
 people ! There's a little boy in the road — you'd better run over 
 him, for you won't call out to him, no, not you, for a brute as 
 you are ! You think poor people an't common Christians, — 
 you grind the faces of the poor, you do. Ay, cut away, do — 
 you'll be Wilful Murdered by the Crowner some day ! I'll keep 
 up with you and tell the gentlemen on the top ! Women wasn't 
 created for you to gallop over like dirt, and scrunch their bones 
 into compound fractions. — Don't get into his coach. Ma'am ! 
 he's no respect fo-r the sects— he'll lay you up in the hospital for 
 months and months, he will, the inhuman hard-hearted 
 varmin ! " 
 
 The speaker, a little active old woman, had run parallel with 
 the coach some fifty yards, when it stopped to take up a lady 
 who was as prompt as ladies generally are, in giving dinner in- 
 structions to the cook, and setting domestic lessons to the 
 housemaid, besides having to pack a parcel, to hunt for her clogs, 
 to exchange the cook's umbrella for her own, and to kiss all her 
 seven children. Mat, thus reduced to a door-mat, was unable to 
 escape the volley which the Virago still poured in upon him ; 
 but he kept a most imperturbable face and silence till he was 
 fairly seated again on the box. 
 
 " There, gentlemen," said he, pointing at the assailant with 
 his whip ; " that's what I call gratitude. Look at her figure 
 now, and look at what it was six months ago. She never had a 
 waist till 1 run over her." 
 
THE ACCIDENT. 124 
 
 *• I hope, friend, thee art not very apt to make these experi- 
 ments on the human figure," said an elderly Quaker on the roof. 
 " Not by no means," answered Mat ; " I have done very little 
 in the accidental line — nothing worth mentioning. All the years 
 I've been on the road, I've never come to a kill on the spot ; 
 them sort o'things belongs to Bun'owes, as drives over one with 
 the Priend in Need, and he's got quite a name for it. He's 
 called * Fatal Jack.' To be sure, now I think of it, I was the 
 innocent cause of death to one person, and she was rather out of 
 the common^" " You fractured her limbs, p'r'aps ? " inquired 
 one of the outsides. " No such thing," said Mat, " there was 
 nothing fractious in the case ; as to running over her limbs, it 
 was the impossible thing with a woman bom without legs and 
 arms." " You must allude to Miss Biffin," said the outsider — 
 " the Norfolk phenomenon." 
 
 "Begging your pardon," said Mat, "it was before the 
 Phenomenon was started. It was one of the regular old long- 
 bodied double- coaches, and I drove it myself. Very uneasy 
 they were ; for springs at tliat time hadn't much spring in 'em ; 
 and nobody on earth had thought of Macadaming Piccadilly. 
 You could always tell whether you were on the stones, or oif, 
 and no mistake. I was a full hour behind time — for coaches in 
 them days wasn't called by such names as Chronometers and 
 Regulators, and good reason why. So I'd been plying a full 
 hour after time, without a soul inside, except a barrel of natives 
 for a customer down the road : at last, a hackney-coach pulls 
 up, and Jarvey and the waterman lifts Miss Biffin into my 
 drag. Well, off I sets with a light load enough, and to fetch 
 up time astonished my team into a bit of a gallop — and it 
 wasn't the easiest thing in the world to keep one's seat on the 
 box, the coach jumped so over the stones. Well, away I goes, 
 springing my rattle till I come to the gate at Hyde Park 
 Corner, where one of mv insides was waiting for me— and not 
 
123 
 
 TEE ACCIDENT. 
 
 very sorry to pull up, for the breath was almost shook out oi 
 my bellows. Well, I opens the door, and what do I see lying 
 
 iAKCr POBTBAIT— OLD 8A.EU11. 
 
 together at the bottom of the coach, but Miss Biffin bruised un- 
 sensible, and the head out of the barrel of oysters I " 
 
 *'l do hope, friend,'* said the elderly Quaker, **that thou 
 didst replace them on their seats." 
 
 " To be sure I did," answered Mat, " and the oysters took it 
 quietly enough, without opening their mouths ; but it didn't go 
 quite so smooth with Miss B. She talked of an action for 
 damages, and consulted counsel ; but. Lord bless you, when it 
 came to taking steps agin us, she hadn't a leg to stand upon I " 
 
SONNET. 
 
 123 
 
 DICKY BIBDS. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 TO LORD WHARNCLTFFE, ON HIS GAME-BILL. 
 
 I*M fond of partridges, I'm fond of snipes, 
 I'm fond of black cooks, for they're very good cocks — » 
 I'm fond of wild ducks, and I'm fond of woodcocks — 
 And grouse that set up such strange moorish pipes. 
 Fm fond of pheasants with their splendid stripes — 
 I'm fond of hares, whether from Whig or Tory — 
 I'm fond of capercailzies in their glory, — 
 Teal, widgeons, plovers, birds in all their types : 
 
121 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 All these are in your care, Law-giving Peer, 
 And when you next address your Lordly Babel, 
 Some clause put in your Bill, precise and clear. 
 With due and fit provision to enable 
 A man that holds all kinds of game so dear 
 To keep, like Crockford, a good Gaming Table. 
 
 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 No. I. 
 
 Time was, I sat upon a lofty stool, 
 
 At lofty desk, and with a clerkly pen 
 
 Began each morning, at the stroke of ten, 
 
 To write in Bell and Co.'s commercial school ; 
 
 In Warnford Court, a shady nook and cool, 
 
 The favourite retreat of merchant men ; 
 
 Yet would my quill turn vagrant even then, 
 
 And take stray dips in the Castalian pool. 
 
 Now double entry — now a flowery trope — 
 
 Mingling poetic honey with trade wax — 
 
 Blogg, Brothers— -Milton — Grote and Prescott — Pope — 
 
 Bristles — and Hogg — Glyn Mills and Halifax — 
 
 Rogers — and Towgood — ^Hemp — the Bard of Hope — 
 
 Barilla — Byron — Tallow — Burns — and Flax ! 
 
 My commercial career was a brief one, and deserved only a 
 sonnet in commemoration. The fault, however, lay not with 
 the muses. To commit poetry indeed is a crime ranking next 
 to forgery in the counting-house code ; and an Ode or a song 
 dated Copthall Court, would be as cei'tainly noted and pro- 
 tested as a dishonoured bill. I have even heard of an unfortunate 
 clerk, who lost his situation through being tempted by the jingle 
 to subscribe under an account current 
 
 " Excepted all errors 
 Made by John Ferrers," 
 
 his employer emphatically declaring that Poetry and Logwood 
 could never coexist in the same head. The principal of ottr 
 film on the contRiry had a turn for the Belles Lettres, and 
 would have winked with both eyes at verses which did not in- 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 125 
 
 trude into an invoice or confuse their figures with those of the 
 Ledger. The true cause of my retirement from Commercial 
 afi'airs was more prosaic. My constitution, though far from 
 venerable, had begun to show symptoms of decay : my appetite 
 faUed, and its principal creditor, the stomach, received only an 
 Dunce in the pound. My spirits daily became a shade lower — 
 my flesh was held less and less firmly — in short, in the language 
 of the price cun*ent, it was expected that I must " submit to a 
 decline." The Doctors who were called in, declared impera- 
 tively that a mercantile life would be the death of me — that by 
 so much sitting, I was hatching a whole brood of complaints, 
 and that no Physician would insure me as a merchantman from 
 the Port of London to the next Spring. The Exchange, they 
 said, was against me, and as the Exchange itself used to ring 
 with " Life let us Cherish," there was no resisting the advice. 
 I was ordered to abstain from A-shes, Bristles, and Petersburg 
 yellow candle, and to indulge in a more generous diet — to take 
 regular country exercise instead of the Russia Walk, and to go 
 to bed early even on Eoreign Post nights. Above all I was 
 recommended change of air, and in particular the bracing 
 breezes of the North. Accordingly I was soon shipped as per 
 advice, in a Scotch Smack, which '* smacked through the breeze," 
 as Dibdin sings so men-ily, that on the fourth morning we were 
 in sight of the prominent old Steeple of " Bonny Dundee." 
 
 My Biographer, in the Book of Gems, alludes to this voyage, 
 and infers from some verses — " Gadzooks ! must one swear to 
 the truth of a song?" — that it sickened me of the sea. No- 
 thing can be more unfounded. The marine terrors and dis- 
 agreeables enumerated in the poem, belong to a Miss Oliver, and 
 not to me, who regard the ocean with a natural and national 
 partiality. Constitutionally proof against that nausea which 
 extorts so many wave-offerings from the afflicted, I am as con- 
 stant as Capta'n Basil Hall himself, in my regard "for the 
 
126 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 element that never tires." Some washy fellows, it is true, 
 Fresh-mtii from Cambridge and the Hke, affect to prefer river or 
 even pond water for their aquatics — the tame ripple to the 
 wild wave, the prose to " the poetry of motion." But give me 
 "the multitudinous sea," resting or rampant, with all its 
 variable moods and changeable colouring. Methought, when 
 pining under the maladie du pays, on a hopeless, sick bed, in- 
 land, in Germany, it would have relieved those yearnings but 
 to look across an element so instinct with English associations, 
 that it would seem rather to unite me to than seyer me from 
 my native island. And, trulv, wHen I did at last stand on the 
 brink of the dark blue sea, my home-sick wishes seemed already 
 half fulfilled, and it was not till many months afterwards that 1 
 actually crossed the Channel. But I am, besides, personally 
 under deep obligations to the great deep. Twice, indeed, in a 
 calm, and in a storm, has my life been threatened with a salt- 
 water catastrophe ; but that quarrel has long been made up, and 
 forgiven, in gratitude for the blessing and bracing influence ol 
 the breezes that smack of the ocean brine. Dislike the sea ! — 
 With what delight aforetime used I to swim in it, to dive in it, 
 to sail on it ! Ask honest Tom Woodgate, of Hastings, who 
 made of me, for a landsman, a tolerable boatsman. Even now, 
 when do I feel so easy in body, and so cheerful in spirit, as 
 when walking hard by the surge, listening, as if expecting some 
 whisperings of friendly but distant voices, in its eternal mur- 
 muring. Sick of the sea ! If ever I have a water- drinking 
 fancy, it is a wish that the ocean brine had been sweet, or sour 
 instead of salt, so as to be potable ; for what can be more 
 tempting to the eye as a draught, than the pure fluid, almost 
 invisible with clearness, as it lies in some sandy scoop, or rocky 
 hollow, a true " Diamond of the Desert," to say nothing of the 
 same living liquid in its effervescing state, when it sparkles up, 
 hissing and bubbling in the ship's wake — ^the very Champaign© 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 127 
 
 of water! Above all what intellectual solar and soothing 
 syrup have I not derived from the mere contemplation of the 
 boundless main, — the most effectual and innocent of mental 
 sedatives, and often called in aid of that practical philosophy it 
 has been my wont to recommend in the present work, Por 
 whenever, owing to physical depression, or a discordant state of 
 the nerves, my personal vexations and cares, real or imaginary, 
 become importunate in my thoughts, and acquire, by morbid 
 exaggeration, an undue prominence and importance, what 
 remedy then so infallible as to mount to my solitary seat in the 
 look-out, and thence gaze awhile across the broad expanse, till 
 in the presence of that vast horizon, my proper troubles shrink 
 to their true proportions, and I look on the whole race of men, 
 with their insignificant pursuits, as so many shrimpers ! But 
 this is a digression — We have made the harbour of Dundee, and 
 it is time to step ashore in " stout and original Scotland," as it 
 is called by Doctor Adolphus Wagner, in his German edition of 
 Burns*. 
 
 Like other shipments, I had been regularly addressed to the 
 
 ♦ The Baron Dupotet de Sennevoy and Doctor EUiotson, will doubtless 
 1)6 glad to be informed, that the inspired Scottish Poet was a believer in 
 their magnetismal mysteries — at least in the article of reading a book be- 
 hind the back. In a letter to Mr. Robert Ainslie, is the following passage 
 in proof. *' I have no doubt but scholarcraft may be caught, as a Scotch- 
 man catches the itch — by friction. How else can you account for it that 
 born blockheads, by mere dint of handling books, grow so wise tbat even 
 they themselves are equally convinced of and surprised at their own 
 parts ? I once carried that philosophy to that degree, that in a knot of 
 country folks, who had a library amongst them, and who, to the honour of 
 their good sense, made me factotum in the business ; one of our members, 
 a little wiselook, squat, upright, jabbering body of a tailor, I advised him 
 instead of turning over the leaves, to hind the book on his hack. Johnnie 
 took the hint, and as our meetings were every fourth Saturday, and Prick- 
 lou^e having a good Scots mile to walk in coming, and of course another 
 in returning, Bodkin was sure to lay his hand on some heavy quarto or 
 ponderous folio; with and under which, wrapt up in his gray plaid, he 
 grew wise as he grew weary all the way home. He carried this so far, 
 that an old musty Hebrew Concordance, which we had in a present fronri a 
 neighbouring priest, hy mere dint of applying it as doctors do a hlistering 
 plaster, hetween his shoulders, Stitch, in a dozen pilgrimages, acquired aa 
 much rational theology as the said priest had done by forty years' perusal 
 « its pages." 
 
128 LITERAEY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 care of a consignee : — but the latter, not anxious, probably, to 
 take charge of a hobbledehoy, yet at the same time unwilling to 
 incur the reproach of having a relative in the same town and 
 not under the same roof, peremptorily declined the office. Nay, 
 more, she pronounced against me a capital sentence, so far as 
 returning to the place from whence I came, and even proceeded 
 to bespeak my passage and reship my luggage. Judging from 
 such vigorous measures the temper of my customer, instead of 
 remonstrating, I affected resignation, and went with a grave 
 face through the farce of a formal leave-taking ; I even went on 
 board, but it was in company with a stout fellow who relanded 
 ^y baggage ; and thus, whilst my transporter imagined, good easy 
 soul ! that the rejected article was sailing round St. Abb's 
 Head, or rolling off the Bass, he was actually safe and snug in 
 Dundee, quietly laughing in his sleeve with the Law at his 
 back. I have a confused recollection of meeting, some three or 
 four days afterwards, a female cousin on her road to school, who 
 at sight of me turned suddenly round, and galloped off towards 
 home with the speed of a scared heifer. 
 
 My first concern was now to look out for some comfortable 
 roof, under which "for a consideration'' one would be treated 
 as one of the family. I entered accordingly into a treaty with a 
 respectable widower, who had no sons of his own, but in spite 
 of the most undeniable references, and a general accordance as 
 to terms, there occurred a mysterious hitch in the arrangement, 
 arising from a whimsical prepossession which only came after- 
 wards to my knowledge — namely, that an English laddie, in- 
 stead of supping parritch, would inevitably require a rump- 
 steak to his breakfeast ! My next essay was more successful ; 
 and ended in my being regularly installed in a boarding-house, 
 kept by a Scotchwoman, who was not so sure of my being a 
 beefeater. She was a sort of widow, with a seafaring husband 
 ** as good as dead," and in her appearance not unlike a persouL 
 
LITERAEY REMINISCENCES. 129 
 
 fication of rouge et noir, with her red eyes, her red face, her 
 yellow teeth, and her black velvet cap. The first day of my 
 term happened to be also the first day of the new year, and on 
 stepping from my bed-room, I encountered our Hostess — like a 
 witch and her familiar spirit — with a huge bottle of whiskey in 
 one hand, and a glass in the other. It was impossible to de- 
 cline the dram she pressed upon me, and very good it proved, 
 and undoubtedly strong, seeing that for some time I could only 
 muse its praise in expressive silence, and indeed, I was only 
 able to speak with " a small still voice " for several minutes 
 afterwards. Such was my characteristic introduction to the 
 Land of Cakes, where I was destined to spend the greater part 
 of two years, under circumstances likely to materially influence 
 the colouring and filling up of my future life. 
 
 To properly estimate the dangers of my position, imagine a 
 boy of fifteen, at the Nore, as it were, of life, thus left depen- 
 dent on his own pilotage for a safe voyage to the Isle of Man ; 
 or conceive a juvenile Telemachus, without a Mentor, brought 
 suddenly into the perilous neighbourhood of Calypso and her 
 enchantments. It will hardly be expected, that fi'om some half- 
 dozen of young bachelors, there came forth any solemn voice 
 didactically warning me in the strain of the sage Imlac to the 
 Prince of Abyssinia. In fact, I recollect receiving but one 
 solitary serious admonition, and that was from a she cousin of 
 ten years old, that the Spectator I was reading on a Sunday 
 morning, " was no the Bible." Por there was still much of 
 this pious rigour extant in Scotland, though a gentleman was 
 no longer committed to Tolboothia Infelix, for an unseasonable 
 promenade during church time. It was once, however, my for- 
 tune to witness a sample of the ancien regime at an evening 
 party composed chiefly of young and rather fashionable persons, 
 when lo! like an Anachronism confounding times past with 
 times present, there came out of some corner an antique figure, 
 VOL. II 9 
 
18C LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 with quaintly cut blue suit and three-cornered hat, not unlike a 
 very old Greenwich Pensioner, who taking his stand in front of 
 the circle, deliberately asked a blessing of formidable length on 
 the thin bread and butter, the short cake, the marmalade, and 
 the Pekoe tea. And here, en passant, it may be worth while to 
 remark, for the benefit of our Agnews and Pluratres, as illus- 
 trating the intrinsic value of such sanctimonious pretension, 
 that the elder Scotland, so renowned for armlong graces, and re- 
 dundant preachments, and abundant psalm-singing, has yet be- 
 queathed to posterity a singularly liberal collection of songs, 
 tlie reverie of Divine and Moral, such as " can only be sung 
 when the punch-bowl has done its work and the wild wit is set 
 free*.'* 
 
 To return to my boarding-house, which with all its chairs, 
 Imd none appropriated to a Professor of Moral Philosophy. In 
 the absence of such a monitor, nature, fortunately for myself, 
 had gifted me with a taste for reading, which the languor of ill- 
 health, inclining me to sedentary habits, helped materially to en- 
 courage. Whatever books, good, bad, or indiflferent, happened 
 to come within my reach, were perused with the greatest avidity, 
 and however indiscriminate the course, the balance of the impres- 
 sions thence derived was decidedly in favour of the allegorical lady, 
 so wisely perfen'ed by Hercules when he had to make his elec- 
 tion between Virtue and Vice. Of the material that ministered 
 to this appetite, I shall always regret that I did not secure, as a 
 literary curiosity — a collection of halfpenny Ballads, the property 
 of a Grocer's apprentice, and which contained, amongst other 
 matters, a new version of Chevy Chase, wherein the victory was 
 transferred to the Scots. In the mean time, this bookishness 
 acquired for me a sort of reputation for scholarship amongst my 
 comrades, and in consequence my pen was sometimes called into 
 requisition, in divers and sometimes delicate cases. Thus for 
 * A. Cunningham. 
 
LITERABY REMINISCENCES. Ml 
 
 one party, whom the Gods had not made poetical, I composed a 
 love-letter in verse; for another, whose education had been 
 neglected, I earned on a correspondence with reference to a 
 tobacco manufactory in which he was a sleeping partner ; whilst, 
 on a graver occasion, the hand now peacefully setting down 
 these reminiscences, was employed in penning a most horrible 
 peremptory invitation to pistols and twelve paces, till one was 
 nicked. The facts were briefly these. A spicy-tempered captain 
 of Artillery, in a dispute with a superior officer, had rashly 
 cashiered himself by either throwing up or tearing up his com- 
 mission. In this dilemma he arrived at Dundee, to assume a 
 post in the Customs, which had been procured for him by the 
 interest of his friends. To his infinite indignation, however, he 
 found that instead of a lucrative survey orship, he had been 
 appointed a simple tide-waiter ! and magnificent was the rage 
 with which he tore, trampled, and danced on the little official 
 paper book wherein he had been set to tick off, bale by bale, a 
 cargo of " infernal hemp." Unluckily, on the very day of this 
 revelation, a forgery wds perpetrated on the local Bank, and 
 those sapient Dogberries, the town officers, saw fit to take up 
 our persecuted ex-captain, on the simple ground that he was the 
 last stranger who had entered the town. Rendered almost 
 frantic by this second insult, nothing would serve him in his 
 paroxysm but calling somebody out, and he pitched at once on 
 the cashier of the defrauded Bank. As the state of his nerves 
 would not permit him to write, he entreated me earnestly to 
 draw up a defiance, which I performed, at the expense of an 
 agony of suppressed laughter, merely to imagine the effect of 
 such a missive on the man of business — a respectable powdered, 
 bald, pudgy, pacific little body, with no more idea of " going 
 out " than a cow in a field of clover. I forget the precise 
 result — but certainly there was no duel. 
 
 9—2 
 
132 ODE TO PERRY. 
 
 ODE TO PEREY, 
 
 THE INVENTOR OP THE PATENT PEREYAN PEN. 
 
 " In this good work, Penn appears the greatest, usefullest of God's instru- 
 ments. Firm and unbending when the exigency requires it — soft and yield- 
 ing when rigid inflexibility is not a desideratum, fluent and flowing, at 
 need, for eloquent rapidity — slow and retentive in cases of deliberation — 
 never spluttering or bv amplification going wide of the mark — never 
 splitting, if it can be helped, with any one, but ready to wear itself out 
 rather in their service — ^all things as it were with all men, ready to embrace 
 the hand of Jew, Christian or Mahometan, — heavy with the German, light 
 with the Italian, oblique with the English, upright with the Roman, back- 
 ward in coming forward with the Hebrew, — in short, for flexibility, amia- 
 bility, constitutional durability, general ability, and universal utility, it 
 would be hard to find a parallel to the great Penn." 
 
 Perry's Characteristics of a Settler. 
 
 ! Patent, Pen-inventing Perrian Perry ! 
 
 Friend of the Goose and Gander, 
 That now unplucked of their quill-feathers wander, 
 Cackling, and gabbling, dabbling, making merry. 
 
 About the happy Fen, 
 Untroubled for one penny-worth of pen, 
 For which they chant thy praise all Britain through. 
 
 From Goose-Green unto Gander-Cleugh I — 
 
 II. 
 
 Friend to all Author-kind — 
 Wliether of Poet or of Proser, — 
 Thou art composer unto the composer 
 Of pens, — ^yea, patent vehicles for Mind 
 To carry it on jaunts, or more extensive 
 
 Perr^grinations through the realms of Thought ; 
 Each plying from the Ccftnic to the Pensive, 
 
 An Omnibus of intellectual sort ! 
 
ODE TO PERRY. 133 
 
 III. 
 
 Modem Improvements in their course we feel ; 
 And while to iron-railroads heavy wares. 
 Dry goods, and human bodies, pay their fares, 
 
 Mind flies on steel. 
 To Penrith, Penrhyn, even to Penzance. 
 
 Nay, penetrates, perchance. 
 To Pennsylvania, or without rash vaunts, 
 To where the Penguin haunts I 
 
 IV. 
 
 In times bygone, when each man cut his quill 
 
 With little Perryan skill, 
 What horrid, awkward, bungling tools of trade 
 Appear'd the writing implements home-made ! 
 What Pens were sliced, hew'd, hack'd, and haggled out, 
 Slit or unslit, with many a various snout. 
 Aquiline, Roman, crooked, square, and snubby. 
 
 Stumpy and stubby ; 
 Some capable of ladye-billets neat, 
 Some only fit for Ledger-keeping Clerk, 
 And some to grub down Peter Stubbs his mark, 
 Or smudge through some illegible receipt ; 
 Others in florid caligraphic plans. 
 Equal to Ships, and wiggy Heads, and Swans I 
 
 V. 
 
 To try in any common inkstands, then. 
 With all their miscellaneous stocks. 
 
 To find a decent pen, 
 Was like a dip into a lucky box : 
 
 You drew, — and got one very curly. 
 And split like endive in some hurly-burly ; 
 
131 OUfl TO PEllRr. 
 
 The next, unslit, and square at end, a spade; 
 The third, incipient pop-gun, not yet made ; 
 The fourth a broom ; the fifth of no avail, 
 Tum'd upwards, like a rabbit's tail ; 
 And last, not least, by way of a relief, 
 A stump that Master Richard, James, or John. 
 Had tried his candle-cookery upon, 
 Making " roast-beef! " 
 
 VI. 
 
 Not so thy Perryan Pens ! 
 Ti-ue to their M's and N*s, 
 They do not with a whizzing zig-zag split. 
 Straddle, turn up their noses, sulk, and spit. 
 Or drop large dots, 
 Huge fuUstop blots, 
 Where even semicolons were unfit. 
 They will not frizzle up, or, broom-like, drudge 
 
 In sable sludge — 
 Nay, bought at proper " Patent PeiTyan " shops, 
 They write good grammar, sense, and mind their stops ; 
 Compose both prose and verse, the sad or merry — 
 For when the Editor, whose pains compile 
 The grown-up Annual, or the Juvenile, 
 Vaunteth his articles, not women's, men's. 
 But lays *' by the most celebrated Pens,'* 
 What means he but thy Patent Pens, my Perry ? 
 
 VII. 
 
 Pleasant they are to feel ! 
 So firm ! so flexible ! composed of steel 
 So finely temper'd — fit for tenderest Miss 
 
 To give her passion breath, 
 Or Kings to sign the warrant stem of death — 
 
ODE TO PERRY. 135 
 
 But their supremest merit still is this, 
 
 Write with them all your days, 
 Tragedy, Comedy, all kinds of plays — 
 (No Dramatist should ever be without 'em) — 
 
 And, just conceive the bliss, — 
 There is so little of the goose aboot 'em, 
 
 One's safe from any hiss ! 
 
 VIIL 
 
 Ah ! who can paint that first great awful night, 
 
 Big with a blessing or a blight, 
 When the poor Dramatist, all fume and fret, 
 Fuss, fidget, fancy, fever, funking, fright, 
 Ferment, fault-fearing, faintness — more f 's yet : 
 Flushed, frigid, flurried, flinching, fitful, flat, — 
 Add famished, fuddled, and fatigued, to that ; 
 Funeral, fate-foreboding— sits in doubt, 
 Or rather doubt with hope, a wretched marriage, 
 To see his Play upon the stage come out ; 
 No stage to him ! it is Thalia's carriage. 
 And he is sitting on the spikes behind it, ' 
 
 Striving to look as if he didn't mind it I 
 
 IX. 
 
 Witness how Beazley vents upon his hat 
 His nervousness, meanwhile his fate is dealt ; 
 He kneads, moulds, pummels it, and sits it flat. 
 Squeezes and twists it up, until the felt 
 That went a Beaver in, comes out a Rat ! 
 Miss Mitford had mis-givings, and in fright, 
 
 Upon Rienzi's night, 
 Gnaw'd up one long kid glove, and all her bag, 
 
 Quite to a rag. C 
 
136 ODE TO PERRY. 
 
 Knowles has confess'd he trembled as for life 
 
 Afraid of his own "Wife;" 
 Poole told me that he felt a monstrous pail 
 Of water backing him, all down his spine, — 
 "The ice-brook's temper" — ^pleasant to the chine! 
 For fear that Simpson and his Co. should fail. 
 Did Lord Glengall not frame a mental pray'r. 
 Wishing devoutly he was Lord knows where ? 
 Nay, did not Jerrold, in enormous drouth, 
 While doubtful of Nell Gwynne's eventful luck. 
 
 Squeeze out and suck 
 More oranges with his one fevered mouth. 
 Than Nelly had to hawk from North to South? 
 Yea, Buckstone, changing colour like a mullet. 
 Refused, on an occasion, once, twice, thrice, 
 From his best friend, an ice. 
 Lest it should hiss in his own red-hot gullet. 
 
 Doth punning Peake not sit upon the points 
 Of his own jokes, and shake in all his joints. 
 
 During their trial ? 
 
 'Tis past denial. 
 And does not Pocock, feeling, like a peacock, 
 AH eyes upon him, turn to very meacock ? 
 And does not Planche, tremulous and blank. 
 Meanwhile his personages tread the boards. 
 
 Seem goaded by sharp swords. 
 And call'd upon himself to " walk the plank ? ** 
 As for the Dances, Charles and George to boo*^, 
 
 What have they more 
 Of ease and rest, for sole of either foot, 
 Than bear that capers on a hotted floor ? 
 
ODE TO PERRY. 187 
 
 XI. 
 
 Thus pending — does not Mathews, at sad shift 
 For voice, croak like a frog in waters fenny ? — 
 Serle seem upon the surly seas adrift ? — 
 And Kenny think he's going to Kilkenny ? — 
 Haynes Bayly feel Old ditto, with the note 
 Of Cotton in his ear, a mortal grapple 
 
 About his arms, and Adam's apples 
 Big as a fine Dutch codling in his throat ? 
 Did Rodwell, on his chimney-piece, desire 
 Or not to take a jump into the fire ? 
 Did Wade feel as composed as music can ? 
 And was not Bernard his own Nervous Man ? 
 Lastly, don't Farley, a bewildered elf. 
 Quake at the Pantomime he loves to cater, 
 And ere its changes ring, transform himself?-— 
 
 A frightful mug of human delf ? 
 A spirit-bottle — empty of " the cratur " P 
 
 A leaden-platter ready for the shelf? 
 
 A thunderstruck dumb-waiter ? 
 
 XII. 
 
 To clench the fact, 
 Myself once guilty, of one small rash act, 
 Committed at the Surrey 
 
 Quite in a hurry, 
 
 Felt all this flurry, 
 
 Corporal worry, 
 And spiritual scurry, 
 Dram-devil — attic curry ! 
 
 All going well 
 
 From prompter's bell, 
 
 Until befel 
 
IBS ODE TO PERRY. 
 
 A hissing at some dull imperfect dunce — 
 
 There's no denying, 
 I felt in all four elements at once ! 
 My head was swimming, while my arms were flying, 
 My legs for running — all the rest was frying ! 
 
 HIS-T11IONIC3. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Thrice welcome, then, for this peculiar use, 
 
 Thy pens so innocent of goose ! 
 For this shall Dramatists, when they make merry, 
 Discarding Port and Sherry, 
 Drink— "Perry!" 
 Perry, whose fame, pennated, is let loose 
 
 To distant lands, 
 PeiTy, admitted en all hands, 
 
SKETCHES ON THE EOAD. 
 
 Text, running, German, Koman, 
 For Patent Perryans approach'd by no man ! 
 And when, ah me ! far distant be the hour 1 
 Pluto shall call thee to his gloomy bow'r. 
 
 Many shall be thy pensive mourners, many ! 
 
 And Penury itself shall club its penny, 
 
 To raise thy monument in lofty place ; 
 
 Higher than York's, or any son of War ; 
 
 Whilst Time all meaner effigies shall bury, 
 On due pentagonal base. 
 
 Shall stand the Parian, Perryan, perriwig'd Perry 
 
 Perch'd on the proudest peak of Penman Mawr ! 
 
 189 
 
 PBNNSYIiVANIA; 
 
 SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 
 
 THE CHECK-STRING. 
 
 Those who have travelled much, as inside passengers in a 
 long stage-coach, whilst they admired the facility of starting cfif 
 
140 SKETCHES ON THE EOAD. 
 
 with one, must have occasionally remarked the difficulty of stop- 
 ping with it, just at the point where it would be convenient to 
 be set down. An ailing man may not have voice enough to lock 
 all the four wheels at once ; and should he be, as is probable, a 
 nervous man besides, he will not without some hesitation make 
 up his mind to request of some stentorian neighbour the loan of 
 a set of lungs. In a six-inside coach, the timid occupier of a 
 middle seat has no chance whatever, unless to take advantageof 
 the first casual halt, or an upset. Even in the four-inside 
 vehicle, a weakly, shy traveller's case is equally hopeless, suppos- 
 ing the passengers on the roof to have properly tucked up the 
 skirts of their great and little coats. To a bold, brassy fellow 
 even, with a tongue like a trumpet, it is anything but an easy 
 affair to say woh ! with any effect to a Dart that is flying at 
 twelve miles within the hour. The coachman, who ought to 
 hear, will not : the horses hear but do not understand : the coach 
 cannot hear : the outsiders admire the pace too much to hear 
 anything but the patter of the hoofs. At last, when he has suc- 
 ceeded, the stout gentleman with the big voice, who wants to run 
 home, finds generally that he has a good hundred yards or two 
 allowed him of law, measured, as the Irish always mete it out, 
 hachwards» 
 
 It was after a more serious dilemma, — for a little nervous 
 bashful man with a little squeaking voice like Punch's, though he 
 was not so fond of exhibiting it, after suffering himself to be 
 carried two miles beyond his house, had at last fractured the 
 small bone of his leg, by opening the door in despair and jump- 
 ing out, — that a discussion ensued in the Brighton " Age " as to 
 the best means of being let out to order. Many different 
 methods had been proposed before the little florid plump gentle- 
 man in black delivered his opinion, with his back to the horses. 
 
 " For my own part, ratiocinating on hackney-coaches, I should 
 hypothetically propose check-strings." 
 
SKETCHES ON TEE ROAD. 141 
 
 •* Lord forbid ! " exclaimed a voice from the other seat, on the 
 same side. Nobody remembered to have heard that voice before, 
 from London to Crawley Common. 
 
 The friend to check-strings seemed thunderstruck by the ex- 
 plosion. He screwed himself round to take a look at his neigh- 
 bour — didn't like him at all — turned back again — stole another 
 look — liked him worse than before — then looked for the third 
 time, and hated him. His seat became uneasy — he had found a 
 choke-pear, very like a hedgehog, and very like a bull terrier, he 
 could neither kill it nor let it alone. It clung to him like a burr 
 which you pull off your hat that it may stick on your right-hand 
 glove, thence to be transferred to the left-hand one, and so on 
 alternately till you finally get rid of it on your pantaloons. The 
 " Lord forbid," like Macbeth's " Amen," stuck in his throat — 
 it buzzed in his head like a fly in a horse's ear. However, he 
 held his uncomfortable peace till silence itself became insupport- 
 able. At last he broke out : 
 
 " Humph ! Doubtful as I am whether common coach con- 
 versation ought to be tied by strict rules of logic, still I cannot 
 suppress the remark, that when one gentleman syllogistically 
 brings forward a proposition of check- strings, for another gentle- 
 man to cry * Lord forbid,* does not appear to my mind to be 
 following a regular line of argument. But perhaps the forbid- 
 ding gentleman will have the goodness to explain the colloquial 
 anomaly." 
 
 The forbidding gentleman thus appealed to, good-humouredly 
 apologised. It was a mere slip of the tongue, he said : the 
 words escaped from him involuntarily ; but his fellow-traveller 
 would probably excuse him, in consideration of the fact, that on 
 account of a check-string he had lost the only hope of affluence 
 he ever had in his life. 
 
 " Indeed, Sir ! why then I excuse the colloquial irregularity 
 with all my heart," said the warm man, putting both his hands 
 
142 
 
 SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 
 
 into his pockets ; " but, upon my life, Sir, it must have been a 
 very extraordinary consequence." 
 
 " A very simple one, Sir," returned the other. " The facts 
 are briefly these : my maternal uncle had lately returnetl from 
 India with an immense fortune, a handsome portion of which was 
 my own in expectance, on no worse authority than his own pro- 
 mise. He was a widower with an only daughter, with whom, 
 and himself, I one evening found myself in the carriage, on our 
 way to a dinner-party given by a nobleman, then intimately con- 
 
 A CHINESB PDZZLB. 
 
 nected with East Indian affairs. We were very late : and my 
 uncle, the Nabob, who rode backward, was extremely fidgety, 
 insisting that we were going beyond our destination. Every 
 other minute he was thrusting his head out of the front window 
 to dispute with the coachman, who. in truth, was a little less 
 
SKETCHES ON THE EOAD. 143 
 
 sober, and more obstinate, than became him. And so we went 
 onwards, till my uncle's temper, always irritable, was worked up 
 almost to combustion. In such moods he was rather apt to give 
 vent to serio-comic ebullitions ; and my ill-fortune has gifted me 
 with risible muscles of exquisite sensibility. I was in the very 
 midst of an ill-smothered laugh, when my fair cousin, giving me 
 a sudden push, and then clasping her hands, exclaimed that we 
 were going past the house. I instantly jumped up and made 
 for tlie check-string, but with no more effect than if I had pulled 
 at anything else. Gracious Heaven ! I had better have pulled 
 the string of a shower-bath, full of scalding hot water, to pour 
 itself on my devoted head ! — By that one infernal pull, Sir, I 
 pulled myself out of half a plum ! " 
 
 " A sad pull, indeed, Sir ! " said the florid plump man in 
 black. "But — humpi — begging your pardon, Sir, I cannot 
 really derive any such deduction from the premises." 
 
 A SPLIT WITQ DUCEOW. 
 
 " A moment's patience. Sir," continued the unfortunate coach- 
 stopper. " Lord forbid check-strings, — Lord forbid all strings 
 whatever ! I was in despair, Su:. I could have sunk through 
 the bottom of the carriage! — I believe I went down on ray 
 
144 THE UNDYING ONE. 
 
 knees. I said everything I could think of — and begged fifty 
 thousand pardons, but my uncle was obdurate. * Pray don't 
 mention it,' he said, in his most caustic tone — * it has saved me 
 fifty thousand pounds. It's a very good practical joke, although 
 it will not read quite so well in my will.' " 
 
 "But surely, Sir," objected the plump man, "your uncle 
 never acted on a conclusion, jumped to, as I may say, by such 
 very imperfect inferences ? " 
 
 ** You did not know my uncle. Sir," answered the unfortunate 
 kinsman, with a deep sigh. " But you shall judge of his character 
 from the clause itself : — Item, I give and bequeath to my jocose 
 nephew, Arthur Carruthers OliTphant, for jmllin^ his tmcle'spiff- 
 tailj the sum of one shilling, sterling." 
 
 THE UNDYING ONE. 
 
 " He shall not die."— i7nofe Tobf/. 
 
 I. 
 
 Of all the verses, grave or gay, 
 That ever whiled an hour, 
 
 I never knew a mingled lay 
 At once so sweet and sour, 
 
 As that by Ladye Norton spun. 
 
 And christened "The Undying One.' 
 
 II. 
 
 I'm very certain that she drew 
 A portrait, when she penn'd 
 
 That picture of a perfect Jew, 
 Whose days will never end : 
 
 I'm sure it means my Uncle Lunn, 
 
 for he is an Undying One. 
 
THE UNDYING ONE. 
 
 III. 
 Those twenty years he's been the same, 
 
 And may be twenty more ; 
 But Memory's Pleasures only claim 
 
 His features for a score; 
 
 Yet in that time the change is Bone 
 
 The image of th' Undying One ! 
 
 ' ** ¥ 'J A'^D DKOWN^D 
 
 lis 
 
 Air INN-QCEST. 
 
 IV. 
 
 They say our climate's damp and cold, 
 And lungs are tender things ; 
 
 My uncle's much abroad and old. 
 But when " King Cole " he sings, 
 
 A Stentor's voice, enough to stun, 
 
 Declares him an Undying One. 
 VOL. II 10 
 
146 THE UNDYING ONE. 
 
 Others have died from needle-pricks, 
 
 And very slender blows ; 
 From accidental slips or kicks. 
 
 Or bleedings at the nose ; 
 Or choked by grape-stone, or a bun — 
 But he is the Undying One 1 
 
 VI. 
 
 A soldier once, he once endurM 
 
 A bullet in the breast — 
 It might have kill'd — ^but only cured 
 
 An asthma in the chest ; 
 He was not to be slain with gun, 
 For he is the Undying One. 
 
 VII. 
 
 In water once too long he diveil, 
 And all supposed him beat. 
 
 He seem'd so cold — but he revived 
 To have another heat. 
 
 Just when we thought his race was run. 
 
 And came in fresh — th* Undving One ! 
 
 Tin. 
 
 To look at Meux's once he went. 
 
 And tumbled in the vat — 
 And greater Jobs their lives have spent 
 
 In lesser boils than that, — 
 He left the beer quite underdone. 
 No bier to the Undying One I 
 
THE UNDYING ONE W 
 
 IX. 
 
 He's been from strangulation black, 
 
 From bile, of yellow hue. 
 Scarlet from fever's hot attack, 
 
 From cholera morbus blue ; 
 Yet with these dyes — to use a pun — 
 He still is the Undying One, 
 
 He rolls in wealth, yet has no wife 
 His three per Cents, to share ; 
 
 He never married in his life, 
 Or flirted with the fair ; 
 
 The sex he made a point to shun, 
 
 For beauty an Undying One, 
 
 XL 
 
 To judge him by the present signs. 
 
 The future by the past. 
 So quick he lives, so slow declines, 
 
 The Last Man won't be last, 
 But buried underneath a ton 
 Of mould by the Undying One ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 Next Friday week, his birth-day boast, 
 His ninetieth year he spends, 
 
 And I shall have his health to toast 
 Amongst expectant friends. 
 
 And wish — it really sounds like fun — 
 Long life to the Undying One ! 
 10—2 
 
148 A GIPSY PARTY. 
 
 A GIPSY PARTY. 
 
 " Come stain your cheeks with nut or berry, 
 You'll find a gipsy's life is merry." — Gipsy Glee. 
 
 I DO not know what imp of mischief could have put such a 
 fancy into the dreaming head of Mrs. Uarnaoy, except Puck — 
 but on a fine morning in August she awoke with a determination 
 to get up a ginsy party, and have a day's pleasure " under the 
 
 green- wood tree." She opened her mind therefore to Mr. C , 
 
 as soon as he had opened his eyes, and before breakfast they had 
 arranged the whole affair. Hornsey Wood was stale, and Nor- 
 wood was rejected, for the very paradoxical reason that it was 
 such a haunt for Gipsies ; and Mrs. Camaby meant to take even 
 her youngest children. After a good deal of debating, Hainault 
 was the Forest fixed upon ; — it lay so handy to Whitechapel, 
 and tne redletter day was marked to be the Wednesday in the 
 following week, because then Master Carnaby would only lose 
 half a day's schooling. 
 
 Accordingly, on the Wednesday, the Dryads of Wanstead were 
 startled by the rumble of a well-laden tax-cart up that avenue 
 which once led to a princely mansion ; and the vehicle at last 
 stopped, and set down its insides and outsides just where the 
 lines of trees branch off into another verdant alley. ** It was," 
 Mrs. Carnaby remarked, "a delicious green spot, and very 
 
 handy to the Green Man for getting porter." Mrs. was 
 
 assisted out of the cart ; and then Miss C was lifted out by 
 
 Mr. Hodges; and then the children were lifted out by the 
 Mother ; and then the nursemaid, an awkward plainlooking girl 
 that nobody helped, tumbled out. In the mean time. Master 
 
 C jumped out, all agog after blackberrying and birdnesting ; 
 
 and had swarmed half up a tree before his mother's vigilance 
 discovered, at a single glance, that be was tearing his trowsers, 
 
A GIPSY PAETY. 149 
 
 ind had his best clothes on. This was a bad setting out for 
 the boy ; and the horse was not better, for directly he got out 
 of harness, and felt himself free and at grass, after two or three 
 preliminary kicks and plunges, it occmred to him to indulge 
 in a roll, and so he rolled over a pigeon pie that was unfor- 
 tunately unpacked, and finished by getting very much up with 
 his fore-legs in a basket of ginger beer. But it was only a 
 moment of enthusiasm; and, like other old nags, he betook 
 himself to eating his green grass salad as gravely as a judge. 
 None of the performers were fortunate in their debut. The first 
 thing Mrs. Camaby did in her hurry to save the pop, was to pop 
 down one of the children on the basket of knives and forks ; but 
 it was a sharp child and soon got up again : and the first thing 
 the other twin did was to trip over a stump, and fall, as Betty 
 nursemaid said, " with its face in a fuz." The fiisst thing Mr. 
 Hodges did, was to take Miss Carnaby round the waist and 
 give her a smacking kiss ; in return for which, as her first act, 
 she gave him a playful push, that sent him, with his white 
 ducks, into a muddy miniature pond, that had recently been 
 stirred up by a cow in search of a cold bath. The first thing that 
 
 Mr. C did was to lecommend some brandy as a preventive 
 
 against catching cold; but the last thing the brandy bottle had 
 done had been to stay at home in the cupboard. Mr. Hodges, 
 therefore, walked off" to the Green Man for his health's sake ; 
 and Master Carnaby sneaked off, nobody knew where, for the 
 sake of blackberries; — while the Nursemaid, for the sake of 
 society, took a romantic walk with the two twins, and a strange 
 footman. Gipsies are a wandering race, and all the performers 
 topped their parts ; the very horse roamed away like a horse 
 that had neither parish nor settlement : and Mr. Carnaby would 
 have gone roaming after him, if his Wife and Daughter had 
 not hung round his neck and made him swear not to leave *em 
 till the others returned, which was afterwards softened dcwn to 
 
150 
 
 A GIPSY PAHTY. 
 
 taking a little walk, provided he didn't go out of sight and 
 
 hearing. In the mean time Mrs. and Miss C laid the 
 
 cloth, and began to review the eatables, not without lamenting 
 over the smash of the pigeon pie ; and when they came to plan 
 their second course they found that the chief remove, a cold 
 round of beef, had been pinned on the way down by a 
 favourite bull-dog, that Master Carnaby had smuggled into the 
 party. Luckily for the dog, he had also gone roving, with the 
 whole forest before him, as naturally as if he had belonged to 
 Bampfylde Moore Carew, the King of the Gipsies. 
 
 Mrs. Carnaby was one of those characters emphatically called 
 fidgets ; she never rested till each individual came back, and she 
 never rested when they did. Mr. C. was the first to return, and 
 not in the first of tempers. He had been done out of his long- 
 anticipated rural walk by setting his foot, before he had gone a 
 hundred yards, on a yard of snake, and it had frightened him so 
 that Mrs. Carnaby ex- 
 pected "it would turn 
 his whole mash of 
 blood, and give him 
 the yellow jaundice." 
 Mr. Hodges came in 
 second, but to the im- 
 patient eye of Miss 
 C. certainly did not 
 proceed from the 
 Green Man with the 
 straightness of a bul- 
 let from a rifle. 
 Master Carnaby was 
 a good third, for he 
 had been well horse- 
 whipped, just as he had got three little red blackberries and 
 
 COIL AND BECOII,. 
 
A GIPSY PAETY. 
 
 151 
 
 five thorns in his fingers, by a gentleman who did not 
 approve of his trespassing upon his grounds. Boxer the 
 bull-dog was fourth ; he came back on three-legs, with 
 his brindle well peppered with number six by the game- 
 keeper, to cure him of worrying park rabbits. In fact, poor 
 
 DKADLT NIGHTSHADE. 
 
 Boxer, as Mrs. C. exclaimed, " was bleeding like a pig," and 
 the grateful animal acknowledged her compassionate notice by 
 going and rubbing his shot hide against her shot silk, in return 
 for which he got a blow quite hard enough to shiver tiie stick of 
 something between a parasol and an umbrella. As for the 
 nurse-maid and the twins they did not return for an hour, to the 
 »nfi it horror of the mother; but just as they were all sitting 
 
152 A GIPSY PARTY. 
 
 (town to dinner Betsey appeared with her charge, walked oft 
 their feet, with their " pretty mouths all besmeared " with blue 
 and red juice ; but no one of the party was botanist enough to 
 tell whether the berries they were munching were hips and 
 haws, or bilberries^ or deadly nightshade, but maternal anxiety 
 made sure it was the "rank pison." Accordingly dinner was 
 postponed, and they set to get up an extempore fire to make the 
 kettle hot, and as soon as the water was warm enough, these 
 " two pretty babes " were well drenched, and were soon as per- 
 fectly uncomfortable as they had been two months before in a 
 rough steam trip to Margate. As soon as peace was restored it 
 transpired, from an examination of the children, and a very 
 cross examination of the nurse-maid, that they had met with a 
 real gipsy woman in the forest who had told Betty's fortune, but 
 had omitted to prognosticate that her mistress would give her 
 warning on the spot, and that her gipsying would end, as it 
 actually did, in finding herself suddenly out of place in the 
 middle of a forest. Like other servants, when they lose a com- 
 fortable situation, "some natural tears she shed," but did not 
 wipe them soon, as did "our general mother," for the very 
 excellent reason that she had spread her pocket handkerchief on 
 the ground to sit upon, somewhere between Wanstead and 
 Walthamstow, ajid had left it as a waif to the lord of the 
 jnanor. 
 
 Dinner time then came again, to the especial delight of the 
 two empty children, though, thanks to the horse and dog, it 
 was principally broken victuals. But on sitting down and 
 counting heads Master C. had a second time absconded 
 during the last bustle ; and, as his mother could not touch a 
 morsel for anxiety, Mr. Carnaby was obliged to set out fasting 
 to look for him, and had soon the satisfaction of finding him sit- 
 ting hatless crying in a wet ditch, and scraping a suit of brown 
 oflF a suit of blue with an old oyster shell. His father, in the 
 
A GIPSY PARTY. 
 
 15J 
 
 first transport of anger and hunger, gave him what boys call 
 " a regular larruping," then a good rubbing down with a bunch 
 of fern, and then brought him back to the cold collation, with 
 the comfortable threat that he should go without his dinner. 
 As soon as the culprit could explain for sobbing, he told them 
 that ** he had gone for a little walk, like, and saw the most 
 capital donkey with a saddle and bridle feeding wild about the 
 forest as if he belonged to nobody, and he just got on him like, 
 like they used to do at Margate ; and then the donkey set off 
 
 ■ACKiNS oxrr ov going to maekkt. 
 
 foil tear, and never stopped till he came to a tent of gipsies in 
 the middle of the wood ; and they all set upon him, and swore 
 at him like anything for running away with their donkey ; and 
 then all of a sudden he lost his hat and his handkerchief, and his 
 money out of his pockets like conjuring ; then they told him to 
 
154 A GIPSY PAETY. 
 
 run for his life, and so lie did, and as for the mud it was all 
 along of jumping over a hedge that had no other side to it.' 
 This intelligence threw Mrs. Carnaby into an agony of horror 
 which could only be pacified by their immediately packing up 
 and removing, eatables and all, to a less lonesome place by the 
 side of the road, an operation that was performed by their all 
 pulling and pushing at the cart, as the horse had taken French 
 leave of absence. 
 
 It was now Miss Carnkby's turn to be discomfited: her 
 retiring disposition made her wince under the idea of 
 dining in public; for being market day at Romford, 
 they were over-looked by plenty of farmers and pig 
 butchers : consequently, after a very miffy dialogue with her 
 mother, the young lady took herself off, as she was desired, 
 with " her romantical notions," to a place of more solitude, and 
 Mr. Hodges, as in gallantry bound, postponed his dinner till his 
 tea to keep her company. In the mean time, Betsey, who had 
 been sent up to the Green Man for the porter, returned with 
 the empty tankard, and a terrified tale of bei-ng " cotch'd hold 
 on by a ruffian i-n the wood, that had drunk up all the beer to 
 all their very good healths." The first impulse of Mr. Carnaby 
 
 was to jump up to do justice on the vagabond, but Mrs. C 
 
 had the presence of mind to catch hold of his coat-flaps so 
 abruptly, that before he cuuld well feel his legs, he found him- 
 self sitting in a large plum pie, which the children had just set 
 their hearts upon ; of course it did not mend his temper to hear 
 the shout from a dozen ragged boys who were looking on ; and 
 in the crisis of his vexation, he vented such a fervent devil's 
 blessing on gipsy parties, and all that proposed them, that Mrs. 
 Carnaby was obliged to take it up, and to tell him sharply, 
 what in reality was true enough, that "if people did have gipsy 
 parties, it didn't follow that their stupid husbands was to sit 
 
A GIPSY PAETY. 155 
 
 down on plum pies." Heaven knows to what size and shape 
 this little quarrel might have ripened, but for the appearance of 
 Miss Carnaby, who, with a terrified exclamation sat herself down, 
 and after a vain attempt to recover, went off into a strong fit of 
 what her mother called " kicking hysterics." The cause was 
 soon explained by the appearance of Mr. Hodges, with one eye 
 poached black, and a dog-bite in the calf of his leg, because ** he 
 had only stood looking on at two men setting wires for rabbits, 
 thinking to himself if he watched them well he could learn how 
 to do it." Fortunately, Miss Carnaby came to just in time to 
 concur with her father and Mr. Hodges in the opinion, that the 
 best thing they could all do was to pack up and go home, but 
 which was stoutly combated by Mrs. Carnaby, who insisted that 
 she was resolved to take tea in a wood for once in her life, and 
 
 she was seconded by the children and Master C , who said 
 
 they hadn't had any pleasure yet. It was an unanswerable 
 argument; sticks were collected, a fire was made, the kettle 
 boiled, the tea-things were set in order, the bread and butter 
 was cut, and pleasure began to smile on the gipsy party so 
 placidly that Mr. Hodges was encouraged to begin playing " In 
 my Cottage near a Wood," on the key bugle, but was obliged 
 to break off in the middle, on finding that it acted as a bugle 
 call to a corps of observation, who came and stood round to 
 see "Eural Felicity." Mrs. Carnaby, however, was happy; 
 but " there is many a slip between the tea-cup and the lip." 
 She was in the triumphant fact of pouring the hot water on her 
 best souchong, in her best china tea-pot, when a very well- 
 charged gun went off just on the other side of the park palings, 
 and Mrs. Carnaby had not been born like her Grace, old Sarah 
 of Marlborough, " before nerves came in fashion." The tea- 
 Kettle dropped from her hand upon the tea-pot, which it dashed 
 to atoms, and then lay on its side, hot watering the daisies and 
 
156 
 
 A GIPSY PARTY. 
 
 the dandelions that had the luck to grow near it. " Misfortunes 
 never come single," and the gun, therefore, acted like a double 
 one in its inflictions ; for no sooner did Boxer recognise its 
 sound than he jumped up, and with an alarming howl dashed 
 through the rest of the tea service, as if he had absorbed another 
 ounce of number six : a fresh shout from the bystanders wel- 
 comed this new disaster, and with the true spirit of " biting a 
 bitten cur," they began to heap embarrassments on the dis- 
 concerted gipsyers. They kept pitching sticks into the fire till 
 it grew a bonfire, and made cockshies of the remaining crockery ; 
 some audacious boys even helped themselves to bread and butter, 
 as if on the principle that the open air ought to keep open house. 
 As there were too many assailants to chastise, the only remedy 
 was to pack up and take to the road as fast as tliey could, with 
 a horse which they found with tvvo broken knees, the conse- 
 quence of his being too curious in the construction of a gravel- 
 pit. •' You may say what you like," said Mr. Carnaby, in his 
 summing up, " but for my part I must say of gipsying, that 
 it's impossible to take to it without being regularly * done 
 brown.' " 
 
 IHK FOSTUVE HnirXEB. 
 
COCKLE V. CACKLE. 167 
 
 COCKLE ». CACKLE. 
 
 Those who much read advertisements and bills, 
 Must have seen puffs of Cockle's Pills. 
 
 Call'd Anti-bilious — 
 Which some Physicians sneer at, supercilious, 
 But which we are assured, if timely taken. 
 
 May save your liver and bacon ; 
 Whether or not they really give one ease, 
 
 I, who have never tried, 
 
 Will not decide ; 
 But no two things in union go like these — 
 Viz. — Quacks and Pills— save Ducks and Pease, 
 
 Now Mrs. W. was getting sallow, 
 
 Her lilies not of the white kind, but yellow. 
 
 And friends portended was preparing for 
 
 A human Pate Perigord ; 
 She was, indeed, so very far from well, 
 Her Son, in filial fear, procured a box 
 Of those said pellets to resist Bile's shocks, 
 And — tho' upon the ear it strangely knocks — 
 To save her by a Cockle from a shell ! 
 
 But Mrs. W., just like Macbeth, 
 Who very vehemently bids us " throw 
 Bark to the Bow-wows," hated physic so, 
 It seemM to share " the bitterness of Death ; " 
 
158 COCKLE V. CACKLK 
 
 Rhubarb — Magnesia — Jalap, and the kind — 
 Senna — Steel — A ssa-foetida, and Squills — 
 Powder or Draught — but least her throat inclined 
 To give a course to Boluses or Pills : 
 No — not to save her life, in lung or lobe, 
 Por all her lights or all her liver's sake, 
 Would her convulsive thorax undertake, 
 Only one little uncelestial globe ! 
 
 'Tis not to wonder at, in such a case, 
 If she put by the pill-box in a place 
 Por linen rather than for drugs intended — 
 Yet for the credit of the pills let's say 
 
 After they thus were stow'd away, 
 
 Some of the linen mended ; 
 But Mrs. W. by disease's dint, 
 Kept getting still more yellow in her tint. 
 When lo ! her second son, like elder brother. 
 Marking the hue on the parental gills, 
 Brought a new charge of Anti-tumeric Pills, 
 To bleach the jaundiced visage of his Mother — 
 Who took them — in her cupboard — like the other. 
 
 ** Deeper and deeper, still," of course. 
 The fatal colour daily grew in force ; 
 Till daughter W. newly come from Rome, 
 Acting the self-same filial, pillial, part, 
 To cure Mamma, another dose brought home 
 Of Cockles ; — not the Cockles of her heart ! 
 These going where the others went before. 
 Of course she had a very pretty store ; 
 
COCKLE V. CACKLE. 159 
 
 And then — some hue of health her cheek adorning, 
 
 The Medicine so good must be, 
 
 They brought her dose on dose, which she 
 Gave to the upstairs cupboard, "night and morning." 
 Till wanting room at last, for other stocks. 
 Out of the window one fine day she pitch'd 
 The pillage of each box, and quite enrich'd 
 The feed of Mister Burrell's hens and cocks, — 
 
 A. little Barber of a by-gone day, 
 Over the way 
 Whose stock in trade, to keep the least of shops, 
 Was one great head of Kemble, — that is, John, 
 Staring in plaster, with a Brutus on, 
 And twenty little Bantam fowls — with croj)8. 
 Little Dame W. thought when through the sasb 
 
 She gave the physic wings, 
 
 To find the very things 
 So good for bile, so bad for chicken rash. 
 For thoughtless cock, and unreflecting pullet ! 
 But VN'hile they gathered up the nauseous nubbles, 
 Each peck'd itself into a peck of troubles. 
 And brought the hand of Death upon its gullet. 
 
 They might as well have addled been, or ratted, 
 For long before the night — ah woe betide 
 The Pills ! each suicidal Bantam died 
 Unfatted I 
 
 Think of poor Burrell's shock, 
 Of Nature's debt to see his hens all payers. 
 And laid in death as Everlasting Layers, 
 With Bantam's small Ex-Emperor, the Cock, .; 
 
IGO COCKLE V. CACKLE. 
 
 In ruffled plumage and funereal hackle, 
 Giving, undone by Cockle, a last Cackle I 
 To see as stiff as stone, his unlive stock, 
 It really was enough to move his block. 
 Down on the floor he dash'd, with horror big, 
 Mr. Bell's third wile's mother's coachman's wig : 
 And with a tragic stare like his own Kemble, 
 Burst out with natural emphasis enough. 
 
 And voice that grief made tremble. 
 Into that very speech of sad Macduff — 
 " What ! — all my pretty chickens and their dain» 
 
 At one fell swoop ! — 
 
 Just when I'd bought a coop 
 To see the poor lamented creatures cram ! " 
 
 After a little of this mood, 
 And brooding over the departed brood, 
 With razor he began to ope each craw, 
 Already turning black, as black as coals ; 
 When lo ! the undigested cause he saw— 
 " Pison'd by goles ! " 
 
 To Mrs. W.'s luck a contradiction, 
 Her window still stood open to conviction ; 
 And by short course of circumstantial labour. 
 He fix'd the guilt upon his adverse neighbour; — 
 Lord ! how he rail'd at hpr : declaring now. 
 He'd bring an action ere next Term of Hilary, 
 Then, in another moment, swore a vow. 
 He'd make her do pill-penance in the pillory ! 
 She, meanwhile distant from the dimmest dreair 
 Of combating with guilt, yard-arm or arm-yard, 
 Lapp'd in a paradise of tea and cream ; 
 
COCKLE V. CACKLE. 
 
 161 
 
 When up ran Betty with a dismal scream — 
 " Here's Mr. Burrell, Ma'am, with all his farm-yard !" 
 Straight in he came, unbowing and unbending, 
 With all the warmth that iron and a barber 
 Can harbour ; 
 To dress the head and front of her offending, 
 The fuming phial of his wrath uncorking ; 
 In short, he made her pay him altogether, 
 In hard cash, very hard, for ev'ry feather. 
 Charging of course, each Bantam as a Dorking ; 
 Nothing could move him, nothing make him supple, 
 So the sad dame unpocketing her loss, 
 Had nothing left but to sit hands across, 
 And see her poultry, " going down ten couple," 
 
 HALFPENNT HATCH. 
 
 Now birds by poison slain. 
 
 As venom'd dart from Indian's hollow cane, 
 
 Are edible ; and Mrs. W.'s thrift, — 
 
 She had a thrifty vein, — 
 Destined one pair for supper to make shift, — 
 Supper as usual at the hour of ten : 
 But ten o'clock amved and quickly pass'd, 
 Eleven— twelve — and one o'clock at last, 
 
 VOL. II. 11 
 
# 
 
 162 A LAWYER'S LETTER. 
 
 Without a sign of supper even then ! 
 
 At length, the speed of cookery to quicken, 
 
 Betty was called, and with reluctant feet, 
 
 Came up at a white heat — 
 " Well, never I see chicken like them chicken ! 
 My saucepans, they have been a pretty while in 'em I 
 Enough to stew them, if it comes to that. 
 To flesh and bones, and perfect rags ; but drat 
 Those Anti-biling Pills ! there is no bile in 'em ! " 
 
 A LAWYEE'S LETTER. 
 
 To Mr. Richard Walton^ 32, Lincoln* s Inn. 
 Dear Dick, 
 In re Pedro — Pike, Eow, Badgery, and Crump, Mr. 
 Theodore Hook's attorneys, offered three years ago, and con- 
 tinued the allowance up to last Easter Term, to give me, with 
 unexampled liberality, eighteen shillings per week as copying 
 clerk, and to undertake the management of the Common Law — 
 attend to the Chancery Department — do the out -door business 
 — make out Bills of Costs — and make myself generally useful 
 — which I have been doing as long as my health permitted. 
 Not being strong, though with an attachment to the profes* 
 sion, I have been compelled to withdraw my record, and to 
 sue out a Writ of Certiorari to carry my line of life into an- 
 other court. Hearing that Don Pedro was about to bring an 
 action against Don Miguel and Company, and that lots of John 
 Does and Richard Roes were wanted, I took a retainer from an 
 agent of the great Portuguese professional gentleman, and have 
 really embarked in the cause. Being out here on the circuit, as 
 one might call it (Mr. Chief Justice Sartorius goes it), and 
 knowing the interest you take in. my verdicts, I shall write at 
 
A LAWYER'S LETTEB. 163 
 
 intervals the particulars of plaintiff's demand, and account of 
 set-off on the part of the enemy's fleet, or Defendant. Pray 
 call on Mr. Wilson, the Common Law Clerk at Pike, Eow, and 
 Co., and tell him I have four hours to myself and a chance of 
 being paid, but do this if possible without the knowledge of 
 the Principals. White of the same office, when I enlisted, wa» 
 to have taken the benefit of the act, but on mustering at 
 Gravesend, he did not attend the roll call, and was struck off 
 the Polls. I can't but say, putting Truth on het oath in the 
 Admiralty Court, that when the Blue Peter gave legal notice to 
 quit, I felt some regret at leaving a land where I might have 
 been, so to speak, a tenant at will. Nor was it much better 
 when I came to the Nore. I heartily wished, with Mr. Mat- 
 thews, that if Britannia does rule the waves, she would rule 
 them evener ! but it was " rule refused." The sea ran very 
 rough, and you will understand me when I say I took nothing 
 by my motion. There was the thought of my mother, besides, 
 and the numberless feelings for which, though matters of every- 
 day practice, it is difficult to show cause. 
 
 You remember Sugden with Hart & Co., and will not be 
 sui-prised to hear that he volunteered to convince Don Miguel 
 of his defective title. A few hours, however, sufficed to disgust 
 him with conveyancing, as it is practised in the Marine Courts ; 
 and 1 heard him, by a verbal instrument, assign over with 
 technical formality, the whole ship to the Devil, his Heirs, 
 Executors, Administrators, and Assigns. 
 
 As for Butterworth, the Captain gave instructions with' re- 
 gard to the stays, and Butterworth in going aloft fell overboard. 
 We thought for some tiir.e that he was dead, but after rubbing, 
 and other means of revival, we had the satisfaction of seeing 
 him moving for a new trial, and that he was beginning de novo. 
 
 You may conceive, professionally, our joy at entering the 
 
 Douro with a prospect of being invited within the Bar,— but 
 11—2 
 
164 A LAWYER'S LETTER. 
 
 the anchors were instructed to stay proceedings, and we stayed 
 the same. As I took notes of what happened afterwards, I will 
 give you a rongh draft. 
 
 Michaelmas Term^ Oct. 31. Admiral took Counsel's opinion 
 with regard to the Fort of St. Michael. Held that an 
 action would lie. Judgment affirmed. 
 
 Nov. 2. Action of assault and battery. Admiral's ship openea 
 the case, and the others followed on the same side. Hills 
 crowded with witnesses. Enemy's damages laid at a 
 hundred and fifty men. Tax off a hundred. 
 
 SBAEE DISPSBSIirS TBB ABUABA.. 
 
 8. Discovering flaws and amending same. At intervals 
 tenn reports. Pollock died of his wounds, and was struck 
 off the paper. Gave him an undertaking. 
 
 4. A dies non. Poor Home seized with lockjaw, and prepar- 
 ing for the long vacation. 
 
A LAWYER'S LETTER. 165 
 
 ^. Notice of action. Enemy's Fleet put in an appearance, 
 but non pros. Home demised. 
 
 G. Joined issue with enemy's flag ship. Wetherell killed by 
 a ball lodging in the Inner Temple, and Denman subpoe- 
 naed by a bullet out of the main-top. Enemy attempted 
 to put an oificer and fifty men in possession — but we 
 served them with an ejectment. Night coming on, agreed 
 to withdraw a juror. 
 
 7. A violent storm, and a sail under a distress. Taken in 
 execution by a wave, — levied on longboat and three men, 
 and all the hen-coops. 
 
 8. Fell in with a Portuguese brig, and lodged a detainer. 
 Have not received my share of prize, but have got a 
 cognovit. 
 
 9. Enemy moved for a new trial. Bore up and fired a broad- 
 side; replied to same. Admiral endeavoured, by intercept- 
 ing the rear-most ships, to cut off the entail. Boarding 
 again, — obliged to fight with all my Power of Attorney. 
 Gave quarter to one man, he was such a special pleader. 
 Verdict — drawn battle. 
 
 10. Chitty fell overboard from the mizen chains. Action of 
 trover failed. Filed a bill of him in Ocean's Chancery, 
 and sent an office copy to his Widow. 
 
 11. Enemy brought a fresh action. Boarding again, and 
 obliged to defend in person. Enemy nonsuited with costs. 
 
 To abbreviate pleadings, you will see that our time has been 
 Term time. Plenty of work at overhours, and I am sorry to 
 say no extra charge. But I am not going to take a bill of 
 exceptions. I comfort myself for the loss of my arm — I have 
 lost that limb of the law, Dick— by reflecting that I am now 
 like Nelson, except the blind eye, and that I do not follow the 
 Hamiltonian system. Sometimes, however, as I look homeward, 
 
166 A LAWYER'S LETTER. 
 
 and remember " dear Morton," I sigh to join you by a Surrey- 
 joinder, and to taste your Surrey-butter. I think that is the 
 legal mode of expressing it. 
 
 Nothing can behave better than our men — from the principals 
 down to the juniors. They fight as if they belonged to Lyon's 
 Inn. However, a good many have been ticked off, — including 
 Tyndale, Thessiger, Phillips, Spankie, Scarlett, Gurney, Wilde, 
 Burney, and some others of our acquaintance, who have received 
 a general release. Por my own part 
 
 [letter enclosing the above.] 
 Sib, 
 
 Am sorry to Say the man as writ the Inclosed letter, with 
 a bit of a log, fell Down the Main Hatchway on the 16th 
 instant at 2 P. M. Was carried down to Cockpit. But the 
 Doctor pronounced it a Bad Job, and after saying O Law three 
 times was a Corps. He left no Will nor no property, and was 
 Sowed up and heaved overboard, same day in lat. 41, 5 N., long. 
 8, 50 W. 
 
 I take the Liberty of writing This that you may inform 
 Parents, provided there's father or mother, as well as to his 
 widow and children, if so be. Should you be encouraged to 
 come out to us in your friend's Place, you will be heartily wel- 
 come, and lots of as jolly good fighting as hearts can wish. So 
 no more at present from 
 
 Your Humble Sei-vant 
 
 Thomas Benyon. 
 
 N.B. Go to the Duncan's Head in Wapping, and Captain 
 Bligh will tell you aii about the Bounty. Tnat's if you mean to 
 list. 
 
THE SWEEP'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 167 
 
 HA\K A SILENT SOBBOW HEBE. 
 
 THE SWEEP'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 " I like to meet a sweep — such as come forth with the dawn, or some- 
 what earlier, with their little professional notes, sounding like the peep^ 
 peep, of a young sparrow." — Essays of Elia. 
 
 ** A voice cried Sweep no more ! 
 
 Macbeth hath murdered sweep." — Shakspeake. 
 
 One morning ere my usual time 
 I rose, about the seventh chime, 
 When little stunted boys that climb 
 
 Still linger in the street : 
 And as I walked, I saw indeed 
 A sample of the sooty breed, , 
 
168 THE SWEEP'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 Though he was rather run to seed, 
 
 In height above five feet. 
 A mongrel tint he seem'd to take, 
 Poetic simile to make, 
 DdLY through his Martin 'gan to break. 
 
 White overcoming jet. 
 From side to side he cross'd oblique, 
 Like Frenchman who has friends to seek, 
 And yet no English word can speak, 
 
 He walk'd upon the fret : 
 And while he sought the dingy job. 
 His lab'ring breast appear'd to throb 
 And half a hiccup half a sob « 
 
 Betray'd internal woe. 
 To cry the cry he had by rote 
 He yeam'd, but law forbade the note, 
 Like Chanticleer with roupy throat. 
 
 He gaped — but not a crow ! 
 I watch'd him, and the glimpse I snatch'd 
 Disclosed his sony eyelids patch'd 
 With red, as if the soot had catch'd 
 
 That hung about the lid ; 
 And soon I saw the tear-drop stray. 
 He did not care to brush away ; 
 Thought I the cause he will betray — 
 And thus at last he did. 
 Wei], here's a pretty go ! here's a Gagging Act, if ever there 
 
 was a gagging ! 
 But I'm bound the members as silenced us, in doing it had 
 
 plenty of magging. 
 Thev had better send us all off, they had, to the School for the 
 
 Deaf and Dumb, 
 To unlarn us our mother tongues, and to make signs and be 
 regularly mum. 
 
THE SWEEP'S COMPLAINT. 169 
 
 But they can't undo natur — as sure as ever the morning 
 
 begins to peep, 
 Directly I open my eyes, I can't help calling out Sweep 
 As natural as the sparrows among the chimbley-pots that 
 
 say Cheep ! 
 For my own part I find my suppress'd voice very uneasy, 
 And comparable to nothing but having your tissue stopt 
 
 when you are sneezy. 
 Well, it's all up with us! tho' I suppose we mustn't cry all up. 
 Here's a precious merry Christmas, I'm blest if I can earn 
 
 either bit or sup ! 
 If crying Sweep, of mornings, is going beyond quietness's 
 
 border. 
 Them as pretends to be fond of silence oughtn't to cry hear, 
 
 hear, and order, order. 
 I wonder Mr. Sutton, as we've sut-on too, don't sympathise 
 
 with us 
 As a Speaker what don't speak, and that's exactly our own cus. 
 God help us if we don't not cry, how are we to pursue our 
 
 callings 1 
 I'm sure we're not half so bad as other businesses with their 
 
 bawlings. 
 For instance, the general postmen, that at six o'clock go 
 
 about ringing, 
 And wake up all the babbies that their mothers have just 
 
 got to sleep with singing. ' 
 
 Greens oughtn't to be cried no more than blacks — to do the 
 
 un partial job, 
 If they bring in a Sooty Bill, they ought to have brought in 
 
 a Dusty Bob. 
 Is a dustman's voice more sweet than ourn, when he comes 
 
 a seeking arter the cinders, 
 Instead of a little boy like a blackbird in spring, singing 
 
 merrily under your windows ] 
 
170 
 
 THE SWEEP'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 TLere*8 the omnibus cads as plies in Cheapside, and keeps calling 
 
 out Bank and City ; 
 '^et his Worship, the Mayor, decide if our call of Sweep is not 
 
 just as pretty, 
 I can't see why the Jews should be let go about crying Old 
 
 Close thro their hooky noses, 
 
 A WIND-FALL. 
 
 And Christian laws should be ten times more hard than the old 
 
 stone laws of Moses. 
 Why isn't the mouths of the muffin-men compell'd to be equally 
 
 shut? 
 Why, because Parliament members eat muffins, but they never 
 
 eat no sut. 
 Nf xt year there won't be any May-day at all, we shan't have no 
 
 heart to dance, 
 
THE SWEEP'S COMPLAIN^, 171 
 
 And Jack in ihe Green will go in black like mourning for our 
 
 mischance ; 
 If we live as long as Ma}^ that's to say, thiough the hard winter 
 
 and pinching weather, 
 For I don't see how we're to earn enough to keep body and soul 
 
 together. 
 I only wish Mr. Wilberforce or some of them tb;»t pities the 
 
 niggers, 
 Would take a peep down in our cellars, and look at our misera- 
 ble starving figures, 
 A-sitting idle on our empty sacks, and all ready to eat each 
 
 other. 
 And a brood of little ones crying for bread to a heart-breaking 
 
 Father and Mother. 
 They haven't a rag of clothes to mend, if their mothers had 
 
 thread and needles, 
 But crawl naked about the cellars, poor things, like a swarm of 
 
 common black beadles. 
 If they'd only inquired before passing the Act and taken a few 
 
 such peeps, 
 I don't think that any real gentleman would have set his face 
 
 against sweeps. 
 Climbin's an ancient respectable art, and if History's of any 
 
 vally, 
 Was recommended by Queen Elizabeth to the great Sir Walter 
 
 Ealeigh, 
 When he wrote on a pane of glass how I'd climb, if the way I 
 
 only knew, 
 And she writ beneath, if your heart's afeard, don't venture up 
 
 the flae. 
 As for me I was always loyal, and respected all powers that are 
 
 higher, 
 But how can I now say God save the King, if I an't to be a 
 Crver? 
 
172 
 
 THE SWEEP'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 There's Lomlon milk, that's one of the cries, even on Sunday tne 
 
 law allows. 
 But ought black sweeps, that are human beasts, to be worser oft 
 
 than black cows ? 
 Do toe go calling about, when it's church time, like the noisy 
 
 Billingsgate vermin. 
 And disturb the parson with " All alive !" in the middle of 
 
 a funeral sermon ? 
 But the fish won't keep, not the mackarel won't, is the cry of the 
 
 Parliament elves. 
 Every thing, except the sweeps 1 think, is to be allowe<J to 
 
 keep themselves! 
 
 A B£V£RSE IN BUSIITESS. 
 
 Lord help us ! what's to become of us if we mustn't cry no 
 
 more? 
 We shan't do for black mutes to go a standing at a death's 
 
 aoor. 
 And we shan't do to emigrate, no not even to the Hottentot 
 
 nations, 
 
LETTER FEOM AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 173 
 
 For as time wears on, our black will wear off, and then think of 
 
 our situations ! 
 And we should not do, in lieu of black-a-moor footmen, to serve 
 
 ladies of quality nimbly. 
 For when we we're drest in our sky-blue and silver, and large 
 
 frills, all clean and neat, and white silk stockings, if they 
 
 pleased to desire us to sweep the hearth, we couldn't 
 
 resist the chimbley. 
 
 LETTER FROM AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 I RECEATED your's of the first last, wich I should have 
 anser'd it sooner, only I have ad the Roomatiz in my fingers, so 
 you must Pleas to excus my crampd hand. 
 
 As to my Sporting Reminis-cences, as you are pleasd to say, I 
 have look'd them out in the dixenary, and kno verry well what 
 it is. I beg leaf to Say, I have forgot all my recolections, and 
 can not bring to mind any of my old Rememberances. 
 
 As for Hunting, I shall never take a fence at it agen, altho I 
 Bumtims Ride to cover on the old Gray, wich is now be come 
 quite Wite. The last tim I went out, we dru Hazelmere copses 
 down to Broxley wood; then we dru Broxley wood over to Fox 
 thorp; then we dru Fox thorp over to Middle ford, and then we 
 dru Middle ford, in short, it was all drawing and no painting for 
 want of a brush. 
 
 Sir William Chase cuming to be his father's hare, he set up a 
 coarsing club, but being short of bng dogs, and there hairs fall- 
 ing of, it was obleged to discourse, and is now turned into a 
 conversasiony. 
 
 In regard to shuting, I have never dun anny thing Since per- 
 
174 
 
 LETTER FROM AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 
 
 cussion Captiousness cum up, wich I am Told they are sliarpei 
 then Flints. The last hare I kild was 2 long ears ago, and the 
 
 WHICH WAY DID THE FOX GO? 
 
 Last fezzant, But there's a long tail belonging to that, wich vou 
 shall have when you cum over, as I hop you wil, with your 
 Horse's ; I have good entertainment for boath, as the french Say, 
 at my table D' oats. The lads go out after Burds now and 
 then, but I seldum cum at the rites of there shuting — ^you kno 
 
 Wat is Hits is Histery, 
 But what is mist is mistery. 
 
 Talking of shuting, hav you seen Ubbard's new guns like 
 wauking sticks — there a cappital defence agin cappital offences ; 
 as you may ether stick a feller or Shute him ; or boath together 
 I wish farmer Gale had can-id one last friday, for he was Rob*d 
 cuming from markit by a foot paddy Irish man, that knockd him 
 
LETTER FROM AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 
 
 176 
 
 down to make him Stand. Luctly lie had nothing on him when 
 Stopd but sum notes of the Barnsby bank that had bin stood 
 the weak afore. 
 
 In the fishing line I . ^ 
 
 am quite Dead bait, 
 tho I have had manny 
 a Good run in my tim, 
 Partickler when the 
 keeper spide me out 
 were I hadent got 
 Leaf. The last tim I 
 went I could hardly 
 un do my rod for 
 roomatiz in my joints, 
 and I got the Lum- 
 bago verry bad wen I 
 cum back, and its atax 
 I doant like. Beside 
 wich I found very 
 Little big fish on a 
 count of the pochers, ^^^ fishing. 
 
 who Kil em al in colde blood. I used sumtiras to float and 
 sumtims to fli, but our waters is so over fished theres no fish to 
 be had, and as I am very musicle, I dont like trolling without a 
 catch, the last jack I caut was with my boot, and was only a 
 foot long. 
 
 As for raceing, I never cared much a bout it, and in regard of 
 betting, I am Better with out it, tho I al ways take the feeld 
 wen I am Able, and suport the Farmer's Plate with al my 
 Mite. 
 
 Our Wist club is going of, Some of the members go on so ; 
 two of em are perpetuly quareling like anny thing but double 
 dummies,, fori one plays like Hoyle and the other like Vinegar. 
 
17G LETTER FROM AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 
 
 The young men hav interduced Shorts, but i doant think theyle 
 Last long. They are al so ven-y Sharp at the Pints, and as for 
 drinking, I never se sich Liquorish Chaps in my life. They are 
 al ways laying ods, even at Super, when theyle Bet about the 
 age of a Boosted foul, wich they cal Chicken hazzard, or about 
 the Wait of a Curran py, wich they cal the Currancy question. 
 They al so smoke a grat« ^anny seagars, but they cant Put the 
 old men's pips out, wich it Wood be a Burning shame if they 
 did. I am sorry to say politicks has Crept in ; Sum is al for re- 
 form, and some is al for none at al, and the only thing they agre 
 in is, that the Land lord shant bring in no Bil. There is be 
 sides grate dis-cushins as to the new game laws, sum entertan - 
 ing douts wen sum peple go out a shuting, wether even acts of 
 Parliament will inable them to shute anny game. 
 
 The crickit Club is going on uncomon wel. They are 36 
 members with out rekoning the byes ; our best man at Wickit is 
 Captin Batty — he often gets four notches running ; and our bes-t 
 boler is Use Ball, tho we sumtims get Dr. Pilby to bolus. A s 
 for the crickit Bal, it is quit wore out, wich the gals say they are 
 verry Sory for it, as they took a grate intrest in our matches. 
 
 My lads are boath of em man-ed, wich mayhap you have 
 Herd, — and if the gals are not, I Believe its no fait of theres. 
 They hope youle cum to the Wake, wich is next Sunday weak, 
 for they Say there will be High fun, al tho I think it is Eathej 
 Low. The only use of waking that I can See, is to pervent 
 folkes Sleeping, and as for there jumping and throwing up thci' 
 Heals, I see no Pleasur in it. If they had the Eoomatiz as Ba( 
 as I have, they woudent be for Dancing there fandangoes at that 
 rat, and Kicking for partners. 
 
 Our county Member, Sir William Wiseacre, is going to bring 
 in a bil " for the supression of the Barbarus past-time of bul 
 beating, and for the better incorigement of the nobul art of 
 Oockin," by wich al buls, wether inglish or Irish, are to be Made 
 
LETTER FROM AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 
 
 177 
 
 g-ame of no longer, and al such as are found at anny ring or 
 stake are libel to be find. They cal it here the Cock and Bui 
 Act, wich I think is a very good name. It has causd grate diver- 
 sion in manny peple's opinions, but most of us Think the cocks 
 is quite as Bad as the buls. The same Barrownet as tried tr» 
 
 wherb's YOUB HAWKKB'S lICBirSB? 
 
 interduce Forkenry, but the first atempts as been verry Hawk- 
 ward. The forkens flu at a herin, who tried to be above there 
 atax, for the more they pecked him the more they maid him sore, 
 but a boy flying a Kite skared em al away togither. 
 
 Last week was our grand archery Meetin, and the first prize 
 w^as won by Little Master Tomkins, of grove House. I supose 
 his fondnes for lolli pops made him ame best at bulls Eyes. The 
 Miss Courtenays were there as usul, and in comparison of arch 
 
 Angleslookralyarcher. — The wagspropposed miss Emilyshood 
 VOL. II. 12 
 
178 LETTER FROM AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 
 
 have the second prize for shuting in too a cows Eye that came to 
 nere the target ; she says she wos so nervus, it put her arrow into 
 a quiver. In the middle of the meeting we herd a Bad playd 
 Key buggle, and out of the shrubbery, were they had bin hiding, 
 Jumpd Eevd. Mister Crumpe and assistants ; he is Hector of 
 Bow and Curat of Harrow, and was disgised in every thing 
 green, as Robin Hood and his mery Men ; after geting Little 
 John to string his bow for him, I am sorry to say, Robin Hood 
 shot Worst of every Body, for he did not even hit the target, 
 and we should have never Seen wear his arrow went, but by hereing 
 it smash in to the conservatorry. When we came to look for 
 the prize, a silver Arrow, every Body had lost it, for it had dropt 
 out of the case, and would never have been found, but for Revd. 
 mister Crumpe sittin downe on the lawne, and wich made Him 
 jump up agen, as miss Courtenay said out of Byron, like " a 
 warrior bounding from its Barb." The Toxophilus Club is very 
 flurrishing, but talk of expeling sum members for persisting in 
 wereing peagreen insted of lincon, and puttin on there Spanish 
 Hats and fethers the rong side before. 
 
 Thank you for the Hoisters, wich was verry good. Mary has 
 took the shels to make her a groto, of wdch I think is very 
 shameful, as I wanted them to Friten the Burds. Old Mark 
 Lane, the man as Cheated you out of them oats, has bean sent 
 to jail for Stealing barly. I am sadly Afearde old Marks corn 
 will give Him 14 ears of Bottany. 
 
 Pleas to Remember me to al inquiring friends, if they should 
 think it woth wile to Ask after me. 
 
 Prom your Humbel servant, 
 Andrew Axeltree. 
 
 P.S. I forgot to menshun the subskripshon Stag hounds kep 
 by the same members as the wist club, and its there wim to have 
 fifty too dogs to the pack If old Bil, the huntsman, was drest 
 
THE SUB.MARINE. 179 
 
 like Para, theyd be complet. They have had sum cappital runs 
 dooring the season. As you write for the sporting Maggazins, 
 you may like to notice an apereance rather noo in the felde, I 
 mean the Grate Creol Curnel Brown, who is very pompus, and 
 hunts with Pompey, his black servant, after him. I have got a 
 Deal more to Say, but carnt for want of Eoom. Mary says I 
 should Cros it, wich I wood, but I doant Wish to put you to the 
 expense of a Bubble leter. 
 
 THE SUB-MAEINE. 
 
 It was a brave and jolly wight. 
 His cheek was baked and brown, 
 
 For he had been in many climes 
 With captains of renown. 
 
 And fought with those who fought so well 
 At Nile and Camperdown. 
 
 His coat it was a soldier coat, 
 
 Of red with yellow faced. 
 But (merman-like) he look'd marine 
 
 All downward from the waist ; 
 His trousers were so wide and blue, 
 
 And quite in sailor taste I 
 
 He put the rummer to his lips. 
 
 And drank a jolly draught ; 
 
 He raised the rummer many times — 
 
 And ever as he quaff'd, 
 
 The mwe he drank the more the ship 
 
 Seem'd pitching fore and aft ! 
 12—2 
 
180 THE SUB-MAEINE. 
 
 The ship seemed pitching fore ana aft. 
 
 As in a heavy squall ; 
 It gave a lurch and down he went. 
 
 Head-foremost in his fall I 
 Three times he did not rise, alas !: 
 
 He never rose at all I 
 
 But down he went right down at once. 
 Like any stone he dived, 
 
 He could not see, or hear, or feel — 
 Of senses all deprived ! 
 
 At last he gave a look around 
 To see where he arrived ! 
 
 And all that he could see was green. 
 Sea-green on every hand ! 
 
 And then he tried to sound beneath. 
 And all he felt was sand ! 
 
 There he was fain to lie, for he 
 Could neither sit nor stand \ 
 
 And lo ! above his head thei*e beat 
 A strange and staring lass; 
 
 One hand was in her yellow hair, 
 The other held a glass ; 
 
 A mermaid she must surely be 
 If ever mermaid was ! 
 
 Her fish-like mouth was opened wide^ 
 Her eyes were blue and pale. 
 
 Her dress was of the ocean green. 
 When ruffled by a gale ; 
 
 Thought he " beneath that petticoat 
 She hides a salmon-tail ! " 
 
THE SUB-MAEINE, 1^1 
 
 She looked as siren ought to look, 
 
 A sharp and bitter shrew, 
 To sing deceiving lullabies 
 
 For mariners to rue, — 
 But when he saw her lips apart. 
 
 It chill'd him through and through! 
 
 With either hand he stopp'd his ears 
 
 Against her evil -cry ; 
 Alas, alas, for all his care. 
 
 His doom it seem'd to die. 
 Her voice went ringing through his head 
 
 It was so sharp and high ! 
 
 He thrust his fingers farth^ ia 
 
 At each unwilling ear. 
 But still in very spite of ail, 
 
 The words were plain and clear; 
 " I can't stand here the whole day lo»^:5. 
 
 To hold your glass of beer 1 " 
 
 With open'd mouth and open'd eyes. 
 
 Up rose the sub-marine. 
 And gave a stare to find the sands 
 
 And deeps where he had been : 
 There was no siren with her glass I 
 
 No waters ocean-green ! 
 
 ■ A 
 
 The wet deception from his eyes 
 
 Kept fading more and more, 
 He only saw the bar-maid stand 
 
 With pouting lip before — 
 The small green parlour of the Ship, 
 
 And little sanded floor. 
 
183 
 
 THE ISLAN ». 
 
 BOAEDIKG-SCHOOL. 
 
 THE ISLAND. 
 
 " Oh had I some sweet little Isle of my own t "—Moore. 
 
 If the author of the Irish Melodies had ever had a little Isle so 
 much his own as I have possessed, he might nok have found it 
 so sweet as the song anticipates. It has been my fortune, like 
 Robinson Crusoe, and Alexander Selkirk, to be thrown on such 
 a desolate spot, and I felt so lonely, though I had a follower, 
 that I wish Moore had been there. I had the honour of being 
 in that tremendous action off Finisterre, which proved an end of 
 the earth to many a brave fellow. I was ordered with a board- 
 ing party to forcibly enter the Santissima Trinidada, but in the 
 
THE ISLAND. 
 
 188 
 
 act of climbing into tlie quarter-gallery, which, however, gave no 
 quarter, was rebutted by the butt-end of a marine's gun, who 
 remained the quarter-master of the place. I fell senseless into 
 the sea, and should no doubt have perished in the waters of 
 oblivion, but for the kindness of John Monday, who packed me 
 up to go adrift with him in one of the ship's boats. All cur oars 
 were carried away, that is to say we did not carry away any 
 oars, and while shot was raining, our feeble hailing was un- 
 heeded. In short, as Shakspeare says, we were drifting off by 
 " the current of a heady fight." As may be supposed, our boat 
 
 THB POUND OF FLKSH. 
 
 was anything but the jolly-boat, for we had no provisions to 
 spare in the middle of an immense waste. We were, in fact, 
 adrift in the cutter with nothing to cut. We had not even jimk 
 for junketing, and nothing but salt-water, even if the wind 
 should blow fresh. Famine indeed seemed to stare each of us 
 
184 THE ISLAND. 
 
 in the ace; that is we stared at one another; but if men turn 
 cannibals, a great allowance must be made for a short ditto. 
 We were truly in a very disagreeable pickle, with oceans of 
 brine and no beef, and, like Shylock, I fancy we would have ex- 
 changed a pound of gold for a pound of flesh. The more we 
 drifted Nor, the more sharply we inclined to gnaw, — but when 
 we drifted Sow, we found nothing like pork. No bread rose in 
 the east, and in the opposite point we were equally disappointed. 
 We could not compass a meal anyhow, but got mealy-mouth'd 
 notwithstanding. We could see the Sea mews to the eastward, 
 flying over what Byron calls the Gardens of Gull. We saw 
 plenty of Grampus, but they were useless to all intents and 
 porpusses, and we had no bait for catching a bottle-nose. 
 
 CATCHING A BOTTLE-SOSE. 
 
 Time hung heavily ou our hands, for our fast days seemed to 
 pass very slowly, and our strength was rapidly sinking from 
 being so much afloat. Still we nourished Hope, though we had 
 nothing to give her. But at last we lost all prospect of land, if 
 one may so say when no land was in sight. The weather got 
 thicker as we were getting thinner; and though we kept a sharp 
 watch, it was a very bad look-out. We could see nothing before 
 us but nothing to eat and drink. At last the fog cleared off, 
 
THE ISliAND. 185 
 
 and we saw something like land right a-head, but alas, the wind 
 was in our teeth as well as in our stomachs. We could do 
 nothing but keep her near, and as we could not keep ourselves 
 full, we luckily suited the coiu-se of the boat; so that after a 
 tedious beating about — for the wind not only gives blows, but 
 takes a great deal of beating — we came incontinently to an 
 island. Here we landed, and our first impulse on coming to 
 dry land was to drink. There was a little brook at hand to 
 which we applied ourselves till it seemed actually to murmur at 
 our inordinate thirst. Our next care was to look for some food, 
 for though our hearts were full at our escape, the neighbouring 
 region was dreadfully empty. We succeeded in getting some 
 natives out of their bed, and ate them, poor things, as fast as 
 they got up, but with some difficulty in getting them open ; a 
 common oyster-knife would have been worth the price of a 
 sceptre. Our next concern was to look out for a lodging, and 
 at last we discovered an empty cave, reminding me of an old in- 
 scription at Portsmouth, " The whole of this place to let." We 
 took the precaution of rolling some great stones to the entrance, 
 for fear of last lodgers, — that some bear might come home from 
 business, or a tiger to tea. Here, under the rock, we slept with- 
 out rocking, and when, through the night's failing, the day broke, 
 we saw with the first instalment of light that we were upon a 
 small desert isle, now for the first time an Isle of Man. Ac- 
 cordingly, the birds in this wild solitude were so little wild, that 
 a number of boobies and noddies allowed themselves to betaken 
 by hand, though the asses were not such asses as to be caught. 
 There was an abundance of rabbits, which we chased unremit- 
 tingly, as Hunt runs WaiTen ; and when coats and trousers fell 
 short, we clothed our skins with theirs, till, as Monday said, we 
 each represented a burrow. In this work Monday was the tailor, 
 for like the maker of shadowy rabbits and cocks upon the wall, 
 he could turn his hand to anything. He became a potter, a 
 
18& 
 
 THE ISLAND. 
 
 carpenter, a butcher, and a baker — that is to say, a master 
 butcher and a master bater, for I became merely his journeyman, 
 lleduced to a state of nature, Monday's favourite phrase for our 
 condition, I found my being an officer fulfilled no office; to 
 confess the truth, I made a very poor sort of savage, whereas 
 Monday, I am persuaded, would have been made a chief by any 
 tribe whatever. Our situations in life were completely reversed ; 
 he became the leader and I the follower, or rather, to do justice 
 to his attachment and ability, he became like a strong big 
 brother to a helpless little one. 
 
 IX BMBABBISIBD CIBCUM3TANCBS. 
 
 We remained in a state of nature five years, when at last a 
 whaler of Hull — ^though the hull was not visible — showed her 
 masts on the horizon, an event which was telegraphed by Mon- 
 day, who began saying his prayers and dancing the College 
 
THE ISLAND. 
 
 187 
 
 Hornpipe at the same time with equal fervour. We contrived 
 by lighting a fire, literally difeu-de-joie, to make a sign of distress, 
 and a boat cime to our signal deliverance We had a prosper- 
 ous passage home, where the reader may anticipate the happiness 
 that awaited us ; but not the trouble that was in store for me 
 and Monday. Our parting was out of the question ; we would 
 both rather have parted from our sheet anchor. We attempted 
 to return to our relative rank, but we had lived so long in a kind 
 of liberty and equality, that we could never resume our grades. 
 The state of nature remained uppermost with us both, and Mon- 
 day still watched over and tended me like Dominie Sampson 
 with the boy Harry Bertram ; go where I would, he followed 
 with the dogged pertinacity of Tom Pipes ; and do what I might, 
 he interfered with the resolute vigour of John Dory in Wild 
 Oats. This disposition involved us daily, nay, hourly, in the 
 most embarrassing circumstances ; and how the connexion might 
 have terminated I know not, if it had not been speedily dissolved 
 in a very unexpected manner. One morning poor Monday was 
 found on his bed in a sort of convulsion, which barely enabled 
 him to grasp my hand, and to falter out, " Good-bye, I am go 
 — going — back — to a state of nature." 
 
 A GOOD ACTION MEETS ITS OWX REWAKD. 
 
188 DOG-GREL VEESES, BY A POOR BLIIOJ. 
 
 DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND, 
 
 ' Hark ! hark ! the dogs do bark. 
 The beggars are coming , . . " — Old Ballad 
 
 Oh what shall I do for a dog 1 
 Of sight I have not got a particle, 
 
 Globe, Standard, or Sun, 
 
 Times, Chronicle — none 
 Can give me a good leading article. 
 
 A Mastifif once led me about, 
 
 But people appeared so to fear him — 
 I might have got pence 
 Without his defence. 
 But Charity would not come near him. 
 
 A Blood-hound was not much amiss. 
 But instinct at last got the upper ; 
 And tracking Bill Soames, 
 And thieves to their homes, 
 
 I never could get home to supper. 
 
 A Fox-hound once served me as guide, 
 A good one at hill and at valley \ 
 But day after day 
 He led me astray, 
 >i\> follow a milk-w^oman's tally. 
 
 A turnspit once did me good turns 
 At going and crossing, and stopping ; 
 
 Till one day his breed 
 
 Went off at full speed, 
 To spit at a great fire in Wapping. 
 
DOG.GEEL VERSES, BY A POOE BLIND. 
 
 A Pointer once pointed my way. 
 
 But did not turn out quite so pleasant, 
 Each hour I'd a stop 
 At a Poulterer's shop 
 To point at a very high pheasant. 
 
 189 
 
 txa BATH ouisa. 
 
 A Pug did not suit me at all. 
 The feature unluckily rose up ; 
 And folks took oifence 
 "When offering pence, 
 Because of his turning his nose up. 
 
190 DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND. 
 
 A Butcher once gave me a dog, 
 
 That turn'd out the worst one of any ; 
 A Bull dog's own pup, 
 I got a toss up, 
 Before he had brought me a penny. 
 
 My next was a Westminster Dog, 
 From Aistrop the regular cadger ; 
 
 But sightless, I saw 
 
 He never would draw 
 A blind man so well as a badger. 
 
 A greyhound I got by a swop, 
 But, Lord ! we soon came to divorces : 
 He treated my strip 
 Of cord like a slip. 
 And left me to go my own courses. 
 
 A poodle once tow'd me along. 
 
 But always we came to one harbour 
 To keep his curls smart, 
 And shave his hind part, 
 
 He constantly call'd on a barber^ 
 
 My next was a Newfoundland brute, 
 As big as a calf fit for slaughter ; 
 
 But my old cataract 
 
 So truly he back'd 
 I always fell into the water. 
 
 I once had a sheep-dog for guide. 
 His worth did not value a button ; 
 I found it no go, 
 A Smithfield Ducrow, 
 To stand on iour saddles of mutton. 
 
DOa-GREL VEESES, BY A POOR BLIND. 191 
 
 My next was an Esquimaux dog, 
 
 A dog that my bones ache to talk on. 
 For picking his ways 
 On cold frosty days 
 He pick'd out the slides for a walk on, 
 
 Bijou was a lady-like dog, 
 
 But vex'd me at night not a little, 
 
 When tea-time was come 
 
 She would not go home, 
 Her tail had once trail'd a tin kettle. 
 
 I once had a sort of a Shock, 
 
 And kiss*d a street post like a brother, 
 
 And lost every tooth 
 
 In learning this truth — 
 One blind cannot well lead another. 
 
 A terrier was far from a trump, 
 He had one defect, and a thorough, 
 
 I never could stir, 
 
 'Od rabbit the cur ! 
 Without going into the Borough. 
 
 My next was Dalmatian, the dog ! 
 And led me in danger, oh crikey ! 
 
 By chasing horse heels. 
 
 Between carriage wheels, 
 Till I came upon boards that were spiky. 
 
 The next that I had was from Cross, 
 And once was a favourite spaniel 
 
 With Nero, now dead, 
 
 And so I was led 
 Right up to his den like a Daniel. 
 
192 DOG.GEEL VEESES, BY A POOR BLII^D 
 
 A mongrel I tried, and he did. 
 As far as the profit and lossing, 
 
 Except that the kind 
 
 Endangers the blind. 
 The breed is so fond of a crossing. 
 
 A setter was quite to my taste. 
 In alleys or streets broad or narrow 
 
 Till one day I met 
 
 A very dead set. 
 At a veiy dead horse in a barrow. 
 
 BOO-BSBBr. 
 
 I once had a dog that went mad, 
 And sorry I was that I got him ; 
 
 It came to a run, 
 
 And a man witli a g^un 
 Pepper'd me when he ought to have shot him. 
 
THE KANGAROOS. 193 
 
 My profits have gone to the dogs, 
 My trade has been such a deceiver, 
 I fear that my aim 
 Is a mere losing game. 
 Unless I can find a Retriever. 
 
 THE KANGAEOOS. 
 
 A FABLE. 
 
 A PAIR of married kangaroos 
 
 (The case is oft a human one too) 
 Were greatly puzzled once to choose 
 
 A trade to put their eldest son to : 
 A little brisk and busy chap, 
 
 As all the little K.'s just then are — 
 About some two months off the lap, — 
 
 They're not so long in arms as men are. 
 
 A twist in each parental muzzle 
 Betray'd the hardship of the puzzle — 
 
 So much the flavour of life's cup 
 Is framed by early wrong or right, 
 And Kangaroos we know are quite 
 
 Dependent on their " rearing up." 
 The question, with its ins and outs, 
 Was intricate and full of doubts ; 
 
 And yet they had no squeamish caiings 
 Por trades unfit or fit for gentry, 
 Such notion never had an entry, 
 
 For they had no armorial bearings. 
 
 Howbeit they're not the last on earth 
 
 That might indulge in pride of birth ; 
 VOL. II. 13 
 
194 THE KANGAEOOS. 
 
 Whoe'er has seen their infant young 
 Bob in and out their mother's pokes. 
 
 Would own, with very ready tongue, 
 They are not born like common folks. 
 Well, thus the serious subject stood, 
 
 It kept the old pair watchful nightly, 
 Debating for young hopeful's good, 
 That he might earn his livelihood. 
 
 And go through life (like them) uprightly. 
 Arms would not do at all ; no, marry. 
 In that line all his race raiscaiTy ; 
 
 And agriculture was not proper, 
 Unless they meant the lad to tarry 
 
 For ever as a mere clod-hopper. 
 He was not well cut out for preaching, 
 
 At least in any striking style ; 
 
 And as for being mercantile — 
 lie was not form'd for over-reaching. 
 The law — why there still fate ill-stan*d him, 
 And plainly from the bar debaiT'd him : 
 A doctor — who would ever fee him ? 
 
 In music he could scarce engage. 
 
 And as for going on the stage 
 In tragic socks I think I see him ! 
 
 He would not make a rigging-mounter ; 
 
 A haberdasher had some merit, 
 But there the counter still ran counter, 
 
 For just suppose 
 
 A lady chose 
 To ask him for a yard of ferret ! 
 
 A gardener digging up his beds, 
 
 TUfe puzzled parents^ shook their heads. 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 19$ 
 
 " A tailor would not do because — '* 
 
 They paused and glanced upon his paws. ; 
 
 Some parish post, though fate should place it 
 Before him, how could he embrace it ? 
 
 In short each anxious Kangaroo 
 Discuss'd the matter through and throiigb> 
 By day they seem'd to get no nearer, 
 
 'Twas posing quite — 
 
 And in the night 
 Of course they saw their way no clearer^ 
 At last thus musing on their knees — 
 Or hinder elbows if you please — 
 It came — no thought was ever brighter .! 
 In weighing every why and whether, 
 They jump'd upon it both together — 
 " Let's make the imp a short-hand wriur / " 
 
 MORAL. 
 
 I wish all human parents so 
 
 Would argue what their sons are fit for ; 
 ♦Some would-be critics that I know 
 
 Would be in trades they have more wit for. 
 
 LITEEARY EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 NO. II. 
 
 To do justice to the climate of "stout and original Scotland,** 
 
 it promised to act kindly by the constitution committed to its 
 
 care. The air evidently agreed with the natives; and auld 
 
 Robin Grays and John Andersons were plenty as blackberries, 
 
 and Auld Lang Syne himself seemed to walk, bonneted, amongst 
 13—2 
 
1S6 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 these patriarchal figures in the likeness of an old man covered 
 with a mantle. The eifect on myself was rather curious — for 1 
 seemed to have come amongst a generation that scarcely be- 
 longed to my era; mature spinsters, waning bachelors, very 
 motherly matrons, and experienced fathers, that I should have 
 set down as uncles and aunts, called themselves my cousins ; 
 reverend personages, apparently grandfathers and grandmothers, 
 were simply great uncles and aunts : and finally I enjoyed an 
 interview with a relative oftener heard of traditionally, than en- 
 countered in the body — a great-great grandmother — still a tall 
 woman and a tolerable pedestrian, going indeed down the hill, 
 but with the wheel well locked. It was like coming amongst 
 the Struldbrugs ; and truly, for any knowledge to the contrary, 
 many of these Old Mortalities are still living, enjoying their 
 sneeshing, their toddy, their cracks, and particular reminiscences. 
 The very phrase of being " Scotch'd, but not killed," seems to 
 refer to this Caledonian tenacity of life, of which the well-known 
 Walking Stewart was an example : he was an annuitant in the 
 County-oSice, and as the actuaries would say, died very hard. 
 It must be difficult for the teatotallers to reconcile this longevity 
 with the imputed enormous consumption of ardent spirits beyond 
 the Tweed. Scotia, according to the evidence of Mr. Bucking- 
 ham's committee, is an especialy drouthie bodie, who drinks 
 whiskey at christenings, and at buryings, and on all possible 
 occasions besides. Her sons drink not by the hour or by the 
 day, but by the week, — witness Souter Johnny : — 
 
 " Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither, 
 They had been fou for weeks thegither." 
 
 Swallowing no thin washy potation, but a strong overproof spirit, 
 with a smack of smoke — and " where there is smoke there is 
 fire," yet without flashing oft', according to temperance theories, 
 by spontaneous combustion. On the contrary, the canny 
 northerns are noted for soundness of constitution and clearness 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 197 
 
 of liead, with such a strong principle of vitality as to justify the 
 poetical prediction of C***, that the world's longest liver, or 
 Last Man, will be a Scotchman. 
 
 All these favourable signs I duly noted ; and prophetically re- 
 frained from delivering the letter of introduction to Doctor 
 
 C , which was to place me under his medical care. As the 
 
 sick man said, when he went into the gin-shop instead of the 
 hospital, I " trusted to natur." Whenever the weather per- 
 mitted, therefore, which was generally when there were no new 
 books to the fore, I haunted the banks and braes, or paid flying 
 visits to the burns, with a rod intended to punish that rising 
 generation amongst fishes called trout. But I whipped in vain. 
 Trout there were in plenty, but like obstinate double teeth, 
 with a bad operator, they would neither be pulled out nor come 
 out of themselves. Still the sport, if so it might be called, had 
 its own attractions, as, the catching excepted, the whole of the 
 Waltonish enjoyments were at my command, the contemplative 
 quiet, the sweet wholesome country air, and the picturesque 
 scenery— not to forget the relishing the homely repast at the 
 shealing or the mill ; sometimes I went alone, but often we were 
 a company, and then we had for our attendant a journeyman 
 tobacco-spinner, an original, and literary withal, for he had a 
 reel in his head, whence ever and anon he unwound a line of 
 Allan Eamsay, or Beattie, or Burns. Methinks I still listen, 
 trudging homewards in the gloaming, to the recitation of that 
 appropriate stanza, beginning — 
 
 " At the close of the day when the hamlet was still," 
 
 delivered with a gusto perhaps only to be felt by a day-labour- 
 ing mechanic, who had " nothing but his evenings to himself.** 
 Methinks I still sympathise with the zest with which he dwelt 
 on the pastoral images and dreams so rarely realised, when a 
 chance holiday gave him the fresh-breathing fragrance of the 
 
198 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 living flower in lieu of the stale odour of the Indian weed ; and 
 pliilosophically I can now understand why poetry, with its lofty 
 aspirations and sublimed feelini^s, seemed to sound so grate- 
 fully to the ear from the lips of a " squire of low degree." There 
 is something painful and humiliating to humanity in the abject- 
 ness of mind, that too often accompanies the sordid condition of 
 the working classes ; whereas it is soothing and consolatory to 
 find the mind of the poor man rising superior to his estate, and 
 compensating by intellectual enjoyment for the physical pains 
 and privation that belong to his humble lot. Whatever raises 
 him above the level of the ox in the garner, or the horse in the 
 mill, ought to be acceptable to the pride, if not to the charity, of 
 the fellow creature that calls him brother; for instance, music 
 and dancing, but against which innocent unbendings some of our 
 magistracy persist in setting their faces, as if resolved that a low 
 neighbourhood should enjoy no dance but St. Vitus's, and no 
 fiddle but the Scotch. 
 
 To these open-air pursuits, sailing was afterwards added, 
 bringing me acquainted with the boatmen and fishermen of The 
 Craig, a hardy race, rough and ready-witted, from whom per- 
 chance was first derived my partiality for all marine bipeds and 
 sea-craft, from Plag Admirals down to Jack Junk, the proud 
 first-rate to the humble boatie that " wins the bairns' bread." 
 The Tay at Dundee is a broad noble river, with a racing tide, 
 which, when it differs with a contrary wind, will get up "/«?•« " 
 (Anglice waves) quite equal to those of a family manufacture. 
 It was at least a good preparatory school for learning the rudi- 
 ments of boat craft ; whereof I acquired enough to be able at 
 need to take the helm without either going too near the wind or 
 too distant from the port. Not without some boyish pride I oc- 
 casionally found myself intrusted with the guidance of the Coach- 
 Boat — so called from its carrying the passengers by the Edin- 
 burgh Mail — particularly in a calm, when the utmost exertions 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 199 
 
 of the crew, four old man-of-war's-m n, were required at the 
 oars. It not unfrequently happened, however, that *' the laddie " 
 was unceremoniously ousted by the unanimous vote, and some- 
 times by the united strength, of the ladies, who invariably 
 pitched upon the oldest old gentleman in the vessel to 
 
 " Steer her up and baud her gaun." 
 
 The consequence being the landing with all the baggage, some 
 half-mile above or below the town — and a too late conviction, 
 that the Elder Brethren of our Trinity House were not the best 
 Pilots. 
 
 It was during one of these brief voyages, that I witnessed a 
 serio-comic accident, at which the reader will smile or sigh ac- 
 cording to his connexion with the Corporation of London. I 
 forget on what unconscious pilgrimage it was bound, but 
 amongst the other passengers one day, there was that stock- 
 dove of a gourmand's aifection, a five lively turtle. Rich and 
 rare as it was, it did not travel unprotected like Moore's heroine, 
 but was under the care of a vigilant guardian, who seemed as 
 jealous of the eyes that looked amorously at his charge, as if the 
 latter had been a ward in Chancery. So far — namely, as far as 
 the middle of the Tay — so good ; when the spirit of mischief, or 
 curiosity, or humanity, suggested the convenience of a sea-bath, 
 and the refreshment the creature might derive from a taste of its 
 native element. Accordingly, Testudo was lifted over the side, 
 and indulged with a dip and a wallop in the wave, which actually 
 revived it so powerfully, that from a playful flapping with its 
 fore-fins it soon began to struggle most vigorously, like a giant 
 refreshed with brine. In fact, it paddled with a power which, 
 added to its weight, left no alternative to its guardian but to go 
 with it, or without it. The event soon came off". The man 
 tumbled backward into the boat, and the turtle plunged forward 
 into the deep. There was a splash — a momentary glimpse of 
 
200 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the broad back-shell — the waters closed, and all was over — or at 
 least under ! In vain one of the boatmen aimed a lunge with 
 his boat-hook, at the fatal spot in particular — in vain another 
 made a blow with his oar at the Tay in general — whilst a 
 third, in his confusion, heaved a coil of rope, as he would, could, 
 should, might, or ought to have done to a drowning Christian. 
 The Amphibious was beyond their reach, and no doubt, making 
 westward and homeward with all its might, with an instinctive 
 feeling that 
 
 " The world was all before it where to choose 
 Its place of rest, and Providence its guide." 
 
 Never shall I forget, whilst capable of reminiscences, the face of 
 that mourning mate thus suddenly bereaved of his turtle ! The 
 unfortunate shepherd. Ding-dog, in Eabelais, could hardly have 
 looked more utterly and unutterably dozed, crazed, mizmazed, 
 and flabbergasted, when his whole flock and stock of golden- 
 fleeced sheep suicidically sheepwashed themselves to death, by 
 wilfully leaping over-board ! He said little in words, but more 
 eloquently clapped his hands to his waistcoat, as if the loss, as 
 the nurses say, had literally " flown to his stomach." And 
 truly, after promising it both callipash and callipee, with the 
 delicious green fat to boot, what cold comfort could well be 
 colder than the miserable chilling reflection that there was 
 
 " Cauld kail in Aberdeen ? ** 
 
THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 201 
 
 THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA ; 
 
 A TRUE STORY, 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF JEAN PAUL NEMAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " I AM perfectly at my wits' ends ! " 
 
 As Madame Doppeldick said this, she thrust both her fat 
 hands into the pockets of her scarlet cotton apron, at the same 
 time giving her head a gentle shake, as if implying that it was a 
 case in which heads and hands could be of no possible avail. 
 She was standing in a little dormitory, exactly equidistant from 
 two beds, between which her eyes and her thoughts had been 
 alternating some ten minutes past. They were small beds, — 
 pallets, — cots, — cribs, troughs upon four legs, such as the old 
 painters represent the manger in their pictures of the Nativity. 
 Our German beds are not intended to carry double, and in such 
 an obscure out-of-the way village as Kleinewinkel, who would 
 think of finding any thing better in the way of a couch than a 
 sort of box just too little for a bed, and just too large for a 
 coffin ? It was between two such bedlings, then, that Madame 
 Doppeldick was standing, when she broke out into the aforesaid 
 exclamation — *' I am perfectly at my wits' ends ! " 
 
 Now, the wits' ends of Madame Doppeldick scarcely extended 
 farther from her scull than the horns of a snail. They sel- 
 dom protruded far beyond her nose, and that was a short 
 one ; and moreover they were apt to recede and draw in from 
 the first obstacle they encountered, leaving their proprietor to 
 feel her own way, as if she had no wits' ends at all. Thus, 
 having satisfied themselves that there were only two beds in the 
 rooms, they left the poor lady in the lurch, and absolutely 
 
?02 THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 at a nonplus, as to how she was to provide for the accommo- 
 dation of a third sleeper, who was expected to arrive the 
 same evening. There was only one best bed-room in the 
 house, and it happened to be the worst bed-room also ; all for 
 Gretchen, the maid-servant, went home nightly to sleep at her 
 mother's. To be sure a shake-down might be spread in the 
 parlour ; but to be sure the parlour was also a shop of all sorts ; 
 and to be sure the young officer would object to such accommo- 
 dations; and to be very sure, Mr. Doppeldick would object 
 equally to the shake-down, and giving up the two beds overhead 
 to his wife and the young officer. 
 
 " God forgive me," said the perplexed Madame Doppeldick 
 as she went slowly down the stairs ; — " but I wish Captain 
 Schenk had been killed at the battle of Leipzig, or had got 
 a bed of glory anywhere else, before he came to be billeted 
 on us! " 
 
 I LL TAKB A BED WITH YOU. 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 In extenuation of so unchristian-like an aspiration as the one 
 which escaped from the lips of Madame Doppeldick at the end 
 of the last chapter, it must be remembered that she was a woman 
 
THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 203 
 
 of great delicacy for her size. She was so corpulent, that she 
 might safely have gone to court without a hoop, her arms were 
 too big for legs ; and as for her legs, it passed for a miracle of 
 industry, even amongst the laborious hard-working inhabitants 
 of Kleinewinkel, that she knitted her own stockings. It must 
 be confessed, that she ate heartily, drank heartily, and slept 
 heartily ; and all she ate, drank, and slept, seemed to do her 
 good, for she never ceased growing, at least horizontally, till 
 she did ample justice to the name which became her own by 
 marriage. Still, as the bulk of her body increased, the native 
 shrinking, unobtrusive modesty of her mind remained the same ; 
 or rather it became even more tremulously sensitive. In spite 
 of her huge dimensions, she seemed to entertain the Utopian 
 desire of being seen by no eyes save those of her husband ; of 
 passing through life unnoticed and unknown ; in short she was 
 
 I WISH I WAS WELL THKOUGH IT. 
 
 a globe-peony with the feelings of a violet. Judge then what a 
 shock her blushing sensibilities Kiceived from the mere idea of 
 the strange captain intruding on the shadiest haunts of domestic 
 privacy ! Although by birth, education, and disposition, as loY5d 
 
204 THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 as the sunflower to the sun, in the first rash transports of her 
 trepidation and vexation she wished anything but well to her 
 liege sovereign the King of Prussia — wondei ing bitterly why 
 his majesty could not contrive to have his reviews and sham- 
 fights in Berlin itself; or at least in Posen, where there were 
 spare beds to be had, and lodgings to let for single men. Then 
 again, if the Quarter-master had but condescended to give a quar- 
 ter's notice, why, Mr. Doppeldick might have run up an extra 
 room, or they might have parted off a portion of their own 
 chamber with lath and plaster — or they might have done a 
 thousand things ; for instance, they might have sold their house 
 and left the country, instead of being thus taken unawares in 
 their own sanctorum by a strange gentleman, as suddenly as if 
 he had tumbled through the roof. " It was too bad — it was 
 really too bad — ^and she wondered what Mr. Doppeldick would 
 Bay to it when he came home." 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 Mr. Doppeldick did come home — and he said nothing to it at 
 all. He only pulled his tobacco-bag out of one coat-pocket, and 
 his tobacco-pipe out of the other, and then he struck a light, 
 and fell to smoking, as complacently as if there had been no 
 Captain Schenk in the world. The truth was, he had none of 
 that nervous nicety of feeling, which his partner possessed so 
 eminently, and, accordingly, he took no more interest in her 
 domestic dilemma, than the walnut-wood chair that he sat upon. 
 Moreover, when he once had in his mouth his favourite pipe, 
 with a portrait of Kant on the bowl of it, he sucked through its 
 tube a sort of Transcendental Philosophy which elevated him above 
 all the ills of human life, to say nothing of such little domestic 
 inconveniences as the present. If the house had been as big as 
 the hotel de Nassau, at Schlangenbad, with as many chambers and 
 
THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 205 
 
 spare beds in it — or a barrack, with quarters for the captain and 
 his company to boot — he could not have puffed on more con- 
 tentedly. The very talk about beds and bedding appeared to lull 
 him into a sort of sleep with his eyes open ; and even when the 
 voice and words of his helpmate grew a little sharp and queru- 
 
 "WE ALL SMOKE IK GEKMAWX." 
 
 lous in detailing all her doubts, and difficulties, and disagree 
 ables, they could not raise even a ripple in the calm placid ex- 
 panse of his forehead. How should they ? His equable German 
 good humour might well be invulnerable to all outward attacks, 
 which had so long withstood every internal one, — ay, in Tem- 
 per's very citadel, the stomach. For instance, the better part 
 of his daily diet was of sours. He ate " sauer-kraut," and 
 " sauer-braten," with sour sauce and " sauer-ampfer " by way of 
 salad, and pickled plums by way of dessert, and " sauer-milch " 
 with sourish brown bread — and then, to wash these down, he 
 
206 
 
 THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 drank sourish " Essigberger" wine, and " sauer-wasser," of which 
 the village of Kleinewinkel had its own peculiar brunnen. Still, 
 I say, by all these sours, and many others not mentioned be- 
 sides, his temper was never soured — nor could they turn one 
 drop of the milk of human kindness that flowed in his bosom. 
 Instead, therefore, of his round features being ever rumpled and 
 crumpled, and furrowed up by the plouo:h- share of passion, you 
 never saw any thing on his face but the same everlasting sub- 
 smile of phlegmatic philanthropy. In spite of the stream of 
 complaint that kept pouring into his ear, he forgave Captain 
 Schenk from the bottom of his soul for being billeted on him ; 
 and entertained no more spleen towards the King of Prussia 
 and the Quarter-master, than he did towards the gnat that bit 
 him last year. At length, his pipe wanting replenishing, he 
 dropped a few comfortable words to his wife, meanwhile he re- 
 filled the bowl, and brought the engine again into play : — 
 
 THE LAST IK BED TO PUT OUT THE LIGHT." 
 
 " As for undressing, Malchen — ^before the strange man — puff 
 — why can't we go to bed, — puff — before lie does,— puff — puff 
 %nd so put an end to the matter — puff — puff — puff ! " 
 
THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 207 
 
 " As I live upon damsons and bullases ! " (for it was the 
 plum season,) exclaimed Madame Doppeldick, clapping her fat 
 hands with delight, *' I never thought of that ! Gretchen, my lass, 
 get the supper ready immediately, for vour good master is mor- 
 tal hungry, and so am I ! — and then, my own Dietrich dear, 
 we'll bundle off to bed as fast as we can ! " 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The best of plots may come to the worst of ends. It was 
 no fault, however, of Gretchen's ; for being in a hurry of her 
 
 TEAVBLLEES SEEING TH 
 
 own to meet Ludwig Liedeback, she clapped the supper upon 
 the table in no time at all. The transcendental pipe, with the 
 head of Kant upon it, instantly found kself deposited in a by 
 
208 THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 corner ; for Mr. Doppeldick, like his better half, was a person 
 of substance, keeping a good running account with Messer and 
 Gabel. Besides, amongst other delicacies, the board actually 
 displayed those rarest of all inland rarities, oysters, — a bag of 
 which the warm-hearted Adam Kloot had sent, by way of a 
 token of remembrance, to his old friend Dietrich; forgetting 
 utterly that it was full a hundred leagues from the nearest high 
 water-mark of the sea to the village of Kleinewinkel. Of 
 course they came like other travellers, with their mouths wide 
 agape, to see the wonders of the place, — but, then, so much the 
 easier they were to open; and as the worthy couple did not 
 contemplate any such superfluous nicety as shaving them before 
 they swallowed them, there was a fair chance that the delicious 
 morsels would all be devoured before the inauspicious arrival of 
 Captain Schenk. Some such speculation seemed to glimmer in 
 the eyes of both Mr. and Mrs. Doppeldick — when, lo ! just as 
 the sixth dead oyster had been body-snatched out of its shell, 
 and was being flavoured up with lemon and vinegar, the door 
 opened, and in walked a blue cap with a red band, a pair of 
 mustachios, and a grey cloak without any arms in its sleeves. 
 Had Madame Doppeldick held any thing but an oyster in her 
 mouth at that moment it would infallibly have choked her, the 
 flutter of her heart in her throat was so violent. 
 
 " Holy Virgin !— Captain Schenk ! " 
 
 "At your service, Madame," answered a voice through the 
 mustachios. 
 
 *' You are welcome. Captain ! " said the worthy master of the 
 house, at the same time rising, and placing a chair for his guest 
 at that side of the table v/hich was farthest from the oysters. 
 The officer, without any ceremony, threw himself into the seat, 
 and then, resting his elbows upon the table, and his cheeks 
 between his palms, he fixed his dark eyes on the blushing face of 
 Madame Doppeldick in 4 long and steady stare. It is true that 
 
THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 209 
 
 lie was only mentally reviewing the review ; or, possibly, cal- 
 culating the chances he had made in favour of an application he 
 had lately forwarded to Berlin, to be exchanged into the Eoyal 
 Guards ; but the circumstance sufficed to set every nerve of 
 Madame Doppeldick a-vibrating, and in two minutes from his 
 arrival, she had made up her mind that he was a very bold, for- 
 ward, and presuming young man. 
 
 O HAM— WH.VT A FILLING OFF WAS THESE, 
 
 It is astonishing, when we have once conceived a prejudice, 
 
 how rapidly it grows, and how plentifully it finds nutriment ! 
 
 Like the sea polypus, it extends its thousand feelers on every 
 
 side, for anything they can lay hold of, and the smallest particle 
 
 afloat in the ocean of conjecture cannot escape from the tenacity 
 
 of their grasp. So it was with Madame Doppeldick. From 
 
 mistnisting the captain's eyes, she came to suspect his nose, his 
 
 mustachios, his mouth, his chin, and even the slight fuiTow of a= 
 VOL II. 14 
 
210 THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 sabre cut that scarred his forehead just over the left eyebrow. 
 She felt morally sure that he had received it in no battle-field, 
 but in some scandalous duel. Luckily she had never seen 
 Mozart's celebrated opera, or she would inevitably have set 
 down Captain Schenk as its libertine masquerading hero, Don 
 Giovanni himself ! 
 
 **A FIPIK& BULLFINCH." 
 
 ** You will be sharp-set for supper. Captain," said the hospit- 
 able host, pushing towards his guest a dish of lean home-made 
 bacon ; but the Captain took no more notice of the invitation 
 than if he had been stunned stone-deaf by the artillery at the 
 sham-fight in the morning. Possibly he did not like bacon, or, 
 at any rate, such bacon as was set before him ; for to put the 
 naked Truth on her bare oath, the Kleinewinkel pigs always 
 looked as if they got their living, like cockroaches, by creeping 
 through cracks. However, he never changed his posture, but 
 kept his dark intolerable eyes still fixed on his hostess's full and 
 flushed face. He might just as well have stared, — if he must 
 stare — at the shelves- full of old family china (some of it elabor- 
 ately mended and riveted) in the corner cupboard, the door of 
 
THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 211 
 
 which she had left open on purpose ; but he had, apparently, no 
 such considerate respect for female modesty. 
 
 " Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand be near us ! '* said 
 the disquieted Madame Doppeldick to herself. "It is hard 
 enough for people of our years and bulk to be obliged to lie 
 double; — but to have a strange, wild, rakish, staring young 
 fellow in the same chamber — I do wish that Dietrich would 
 make more haste with his supper, that we may get into bed 
 first ! " 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 Honest Dietrich was in no such hurry. A rational, moral, 
 pious man, with a due grateful sense of the sapidity of certain 
 gifts of the Creator, ought not to swallow them with the post- 
 haste indifference of a sow swilling her wash ; and as Dietrich 
 Doppeldick did not taste oysters once in ten years, it was a sort 
 of religious obligation, as well as a positive secular temptation, 
 that the relish of each particular fish should be prolonged as 
 far as possible on the palate by an orderly, decorous, and de- 
 liberate deglutition. Accordingly, instead of bolting the oysters 
 as if he had been swallowing them for a wager, he sate soberly, 
 with his eyes fixed on the two plumpest, as if only awaiting the 
 " good-night " of his guest to do ample and Christian-like justice 
 to the edible forget-me-nots of his good friend Adam Kloot. In 
 vain his wife looked hard at him, and trod on his toes as long 
 as she could reach them, besides being seized with a short hectic 
 cough that was any thing but constitutional — 
 
 " Loi^, help me ! " said Mrs. Doppeldick in her soul, too 
 
 fluttered to attend to the correctness of her metaphors — " It's as 
 
 easy to catch the eye of a post ! — He minds me no more than if 
 
 I trod on the toes of a stock-fish ! I might as well cough into 
 
 the ears of a stone wall." 
 14—2 
 
2V. 
 
 THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 In fact, honest Dietrich had totally forgotten the ■ domestic 
 dilemma. 
 
 " He will never take his eyes off," thought Madame Doppel- 
 dick, stealing a glance across the table ; " I was never so stared 
 at, never since I was a girl and wore pigtails ! I expect 
 every moment he will jump and embrace me." Whereas 
 nothing could be further from the Captain's thought. The 
 second battalion had joined that very morning, and accordingly 
 
 KISSING GOES BY FATOUE, 
 
 he had kissed, or been kissed by, all its eight-and-twenty officers, 
 tall or short, fat or lean, fair or swarthy, — which was quite 
 kissing enough for a reasonable day's ration. The truth is, he 
 was staring at himself. He had just, mentally, put on a new 
 uniform, and was looking with the back of his eyes at his own 
 brilliant figure, as a Captain in the Eoyal Guards. It was, 
 however, a stare, outwardly, at Madame Doppeldick, who took 
 
THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 213 
 
 everytliing to herself, frogs, lace, bullion, buttons, cuffs, collars, 
 epaulettes, and the Deuce knows what besides. 
 
 ** I would to Heaven ! " she wished, " he had never thought of 
 going into the army, — or at least that the Quarter-master had 
 never taken it into his stupid head to quarter him on us. Young 
 gay Captains are very well to flirt with, or to waltz with, but at 
 my years and bulk waltzing is quite out of the question ! " 
 
 WALTZIMG TO A NEW AIB. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 At last Captain Schenk changed his posture, and averted Ms 
 familiar eyes from the face of Madame Doppeldick ; but it was 
 only to give her a fresh alarm with his free-and-easy mouth. First 
 of all he clenched his lists — then he raised his arms at full stretch 
 
214 
 
 THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 above liis liead, as if he wanted to be crucified, and then turning 
 his face upwards towards the ceiling, with his eyes shut, and 
 his jaws open — he yawned such a yawn, as panther never 
 yawned after prowling all day without prey, in a ten-foot cage — 
 " Auw-yauw-au-ya-augh-auwayawauwghf ! " 
 
 HOB AlTD KOB. 
 
 *' By all the Saints," thought the terrified Madame Doppeldick, 
 " he will be for packing off to bed at once ! " — and in the vain 
 hope of inducing him to sup beforehand, she seized, yes, she 
 actually seized the devoted dish of oysters, and made them relieve 
 guard, with the home-made bacon, just under the Captain's 
 nose. It was now honest Dietrich's turn to try to catch the 
 eyes of posts, and tread on the toes of stock-fish ; however, for 
 this time the natives were safe. 
 
 " By your leave, Madame," said the abominable voice through 
 the moustachios, " I will take nothing except a candle. What 
 
THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 215 
 
 with tlie heavy rain at first, and then the horse artillery plough- 
 ing up our marching ground, I am really dog-tired with my 
 day's work. If you will do me the favour, therefore, to show me 
 to my chamber " 
 
 "what next?" as the feog said when his tail fell opr. 
 
 " Not for the whole world ! " exclaimed the horrified Madam« 
 Doppeldick — " not for the whole world, I mean, till you have 
 hob-and-nobbed wdth us — at least with the good man " — and, 
 like a warm-hearted hostess, jealous of the honour of her hospi- 
 tality, she snatched up the spare-candle, and hurried ofiF to the 
 barrel. If she could but set them down to drinking, she calcu- 
 lated, let who would be the second, she would herself be the 
 first in bed, if she jumped into it with all her clothes on. It 
 was a likely scheme enough, — but alas ! it fell through, like the 
 rest ! — Before she had drawn half a flask of Essigberger, or 
 Holzapfelheimer, for I forget which — she was alarmed by the 
 
216 
 
 THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 double screech of two chairs pushed suddenly back on the uu- 
 carpeted floor. Then came a trampling of light and heavy feet 
 — and although she dropped the bottle — and forgot to turn the 
 spigot — and carried the candle without the candlestick — and 
 left her left sHpper behind her, — still, in spite of all the haste she 
 could make, she only reached the stair-foot just in time to see 
 two Prussian-blue coat-tails, turned up with red, whisking in at 
 the bed-room door ! 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 " Oh the cruel, the killing ill-luck that pursues us ! " ex- 
 claimed the forlorn Madame Doppeldick, as her husband re- 
 turned, with his mouth watering, to the little parlour, where, by 
 some sort of attraction, he was drawn into the Captain's vacant 
 chair, instead of his own. In a few seconds the plumpest of 
 Adam Kloofs tender souvenirs, of about the size and shape of a 
 penny bun, was sliding over his tongue. Then another went — 
 and another — and another. They were a little gone or so, and 
 no wonder ; for they had travelled up the Eliine and the Moselle, 
 in a dry " schiff," not a " dampschiff," towed by real horse- 
 powers, instead of steam-powers, against the stream. To tell 
 the naked truth, there were only four words in the world that a 
 respectably fresh Cod's head could have said to them, namely — 
 
 HONB OF XOUB SAUCE.' 
 
THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 217 
 
 No matter : down they went glibly, glibly. The lemon-juice 
 did something for them, and the vinegar still more, by making them 
 seem sharp instead of flat. Honest Dietrich enjoyed them as 
 mightily as Adam Kloot could have wished; and was in no 
 humour, you may be sure, for spinning prolix answers or long- 
 winded speeches. 
 
 *' They are good — very ! — excellent ! Malchen ! — Just eat a 
 couple." 
 
 But the mind of the forlorn Malchen was occupied with any 
 thing but oysters ; it was fixed upon things above, or at least 
 overhead. " I do not think I can sit up all night," she mur- 
 mured, concluding with such a gape that the tears squeezed out 
 plentifully between her fat little eyelids. 
 
 " I've found only one bad one — and that was full of black 
 mud — schloo — oo — oo — ooop ! " — slirropped honest Dietrich. 
 N. B. There is no established formula of minims and crotchets 
 on the gamut to represent the swallowing of an oyster : so the 
 aforesaid syllables of schloo — oo — oo — ooop," must stand in 
 their stead. 
 
 " As for sleeping in my clothes," continued Madame Doppel- 
 dick, " the weather is so very warm, — and the little window 
 won't open — and with two in a bed — " 
 . " The English do it, Malchen, — schloo — oo — ooop ! " 
 
 " But the English beds have curtains," said Madame Doppel- 
 dick, "thick stuff or canvas curtains, Dietrich, — all round, 
 and over the top — ^just like a general's tent." 
 
 " We can go — schloo — ooop — to bed in the dark, Malchen." 
 
 " No — no," objected Madam Doppeldick, with a grave shake 
 of her head. •* We'll have no blindman's-.buff work, Dietrich, — • 
 and maybe blundering into wrong beds." 
 
 " Schloo — 00 — 00 — 00 — ooop." 
 
 " And if ever I saw a wild, rakish, immoral, irreligious-looking 
 young man, Dietrich, the Captain is one ! " 
 
218 THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 " Schloo — 00 — 00 — 00 — ooop." 
 
 " Did you observe, Dietrich, how shamefully he stared at me P " 
 
 " Schloo — ooop." 
 
 " And the cut on his forehead, Dietrich, I'll be bound he got 
 it for no good ! '* 
 
 *' Schloo — 00 — 00 — 00 — ooop." 
 
 " Confound Adam Kloot and his oysters to boot ! *' exclaimed 
 the offended Madame Doppeldick, irritated beyond all patience 
 at the bovine apathy of her connubial partner. " I wish, I do, 
 that the nets had burst in catching them ! " 
 
 '* Why, what can one do, Malchcn? " asked honest Dietrich, 
 looking up for the first time from the engrossing dish, whence 
 the one-a-penny oysters had all vanished, leaving only the two- 
 a-penny ones behind. 
 
 ** Saint Ursula only knows ! " sighed Madame Doppeldick, 
 her voice relapsing into its former tone of melancholy. " I only 
 know that I will never undress in the room ! " 
 
 " Then you must undress out of it, Malchen. Schloo — oop. 
 Schloo — 00 — 00 — 00 — ooop.*' 
 
 "I believe that must be the way after all," said Madame 
 Doppeldick, on whose mind her husband's sentence of transcen- 
 dental philosophy had cast a new light. " To be sure there is a 
 little landing-place at the stair-head, and our bed is exactly op- 
 posite the door — and if one scuttled briskly across the room, 
 and jumped in — But are you sure, Dietrich, that you explained 
 every thing correctly to the Captain? Did you tell him that 
 his was the one next the window — with the patchwork 
 coverlet?" 
 
 "Not a word of it ! " answered honest Dietrich, who like all 
 other Prussians had served his two years as a soldier, and was 
 therefore moderately interested in military manoeuvres. " Not 
 a word of it — we talked all about the review. But I did what 
 was far better, my own Malchen, for I saw him get into the bed 
 
THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 2L9 
 
 wiih the patchwork coverlet, with my own eyes, and then took 
 away his candle — Schloo — oo — oop ! '* 
 
 *' It was done like my own dear, kind Dietrich," exclaimed 
 the delighted Madame Doppeldick, and in the sudden revulsion 
 of her feelings, she actually pulled up his huge round bullet-head 
 from the dish, and kissed him between the nose and chin. 
 
 The Domestic Dilemma was disarmed of its horns, Madame 
 Doppeldick saw her way before her, as clear and open as the 
 Rhine three months after the ice has broken up. From that 
 moment, as long as the dish contained two oysters, the air of 
 " Schloo — 00 — 00 — 00 — ooop " was sung, " as " arranged for a 
 duet." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ** All is quiet, ihank Heaven ! the Captain is as fast as a 
 church," thought Madame Doppeldick, as she stood in nocturnal 
 dishabille, on the little landing-place, at the stair-head. " Now 
 then, my own Dietrich," she whispered, " are you ready to run ? " 
 For like the best of wives, as she was, she did not much care to 
 go anywhere without her husband. 
 
 But the deliberate Dietrich was not prepared to escort her. 
 He had chosen to undress as usual, with his transcendental pipe 
 in his mouth ; indeed it was always the last thing that he took 
 off before getting into bed, so that till all his philosophy was 
 burned to ashes, his mind would not consent to any active cor- 
 poreal exertion, especially to any locomotion so rapid as a race. 
 At last he stood balancing, made up for the start ; his eyes 
 staring, his teeth clenched, his fists doubled, and his arms 
 swinging, as if he were about to be admitted a burgess of An- 
 dernach — that is to say, by leaping backwards over a winnowing 
 fan, with a well poised pail of water in his arms, in order to 
 show if he accomplished it neatly. 
 
890 THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 " Tlie night-light may be left burning where it is, Dietrich." 
 
 *' Now then, Malchen ! " 
 
 " Now then Dietrich, — and run gently — on your toes ! " 
 
 No sooner said than done. The modest Malchen with the 
 speed of a young wild elephant made a rush across the room, 
 and, with something of a jump and something more of a scramble, 
 plunged headlong into the bed. The phlegmatic Dietrich was a 
 
 thought later, from having included the whole length of the 
 landing-place in his run, to help him in his leap, so that just as his 
 bulk came squash ! upon the coverlet, his predecessor was tum- 
 bling her body, skow-wow, bow-wow, any-how, over the side of 
 the bedstead. 
 
 " San eta Maria ! " sobbed Madame Doppeldick, as she settlea 
 inio hysterics upon the floor. 
 
THE DOMESTIC DILEMMA. 
 
 221 
 
 •* Potz-tausend ! " said Mr. Doppeldick, as he crawled back- 
 wards out of the bed like a crab. 
 
 *• Ten thousand devils ! " bellowed Captain Schenk — a sup- 
 pressed exclamation that the first shock had driven from his 
 mouth into his throat, from his throat into his lungs, and from 
 thence into his stomach ; but which the second shock had now 
 driven out again in full force. 
 
 lisAKKU OF TilE GKKAT 8KAL. 
 
 " Why, 1 thought, Mister Jean Paul Nemand (says the reader), 
 that we left the Captain safe and sound, in his own bed, next 
 the window, with the patch-work coverlet ? " 
 
 "And so we did. Mister Carl Wilhelm Jemand (says the 
 author,) but it was so rJiort, that in five minutes he caught the 
 cramp. Wherefore, as there was a second spare bed in the 
 room, and as honest Dietrich had said nothing of other lodgers, 
 
222 ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER. 
 
 wad as of all blessings we ought to choose the biggest, the Crd- 
 tain determined to give it a trial — and between you and me he 
 liked the bed well enough, till he felt a sort of smashing pain 
 all over his body, his eyes squeezing out of his face, his nose 
 squeezing into it, and his precious front teeth, at a gulp, going 
 uninvited down his gullet ! " 
 
 " WHY DID YOO SUP OW POBK ? ' 
 
 ODE rOR THE NINTH OE NOVEMBER. 
 
 LuD ! O Lud 1 Lud ! 
 I mean of course that venerable town, 
 Mention'd in stories of renown, 
 
 Built formerly of mud ; — 
 Lud, I say, why didst thou e'er 
 
 Invent the office of a Mayor, 
 An office that no useful purpose crowns, 
 But to set Aldermen against each other. 
 That should be Brother unto Brother, — 
 Risters at least, by virtue of their gowns? 
 
ODE FOR THE NI-NTH OF NOVEMBER. 
 
 But still if one must have a Mayor 
 To fill the Civic chair, 
 O Lud, I say. 
 Was there no better day 
 To fix on, than November Ninth so shivery 
 And dull for showing off the Livery's livery ? 
 
 223 
 
 vun>iNG i. hat'b's nbst. 
 
 Dimming, alas! 
 The Brazier's brass. 
 Soiling th' Embroiderers and all the Saddlers, 
 Sopping the Purriers, 
 Draggling the Curriers, 
 And making Merchant Tailors dirty paddlers : 
 Drenching the Skinners' Company to the skin, 
 Making the crusty Vintner chiller, 
 And turning the Distiller 
 To cold without instead of warm within ; — 
 Spoiling the bran-new beavers 
 Of Wax-chandlers and Weavers, 
 
 Plastering the Plasterers and spotting Mercers, 
 Hearty November-cursers — 
 
5524 ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER 
 
 And showing Cordwainers and dapper Drapers 
 
 Sadly in want of bnishes and of scrapers ; 
 
 Making the Grocer's company not fit 
 Por Company a bit ; 
 
 Dying the Dyers with a dingy flood, 
 Daubing incorporated Bakers, 
 And leading the Patten-makers, 
 
 Over their very pattens in the mud, — 
 O Lud ! O Lud ! Lud ! 
 
 " This is a sorry sight," 
 To quote Macbeth — but oh, it grieves me quite, 
 To see your Wives and Daughters in their plumes-^ 
 White plumes not white — 
 Sitting at open windows catching rheums. 
 Not " Angels ever bright and fair," 
 But angels ever brown and sallow. 
 With eyes — you cannot see above one pair, 
 
 Por city clouds of black and yellow — 
 And artificial flowers, rose, leaf, and bud. 
 Such sable lilies 
 And grim daffbdilies 
 Drooping, but not for drought, Lud ! Lud ! 
 
 I may as well, while I'm inclined. 
 
 Just go through all the faults I find : 
 
 Oh Lud ! then, with a better air, say Jur^e, 
 Could'st thou not find a better tune 
 To sound with trumpets, and with drums. 
 Than " See the Conquering Hero comes,*' 
 
 When he who comes ne'er dealt in blood t 
 Thy May'r is not a War Horse, Lud, 
 That ever charged on Turk or Tartar, 
 
ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER. 
 
 And yet upon a march you strike 
 
 That treats him like — 
 
 A little French if I may martyr — 
 Lewis Cart-Horse or Henry Carter ! 
 
 22A 
 
 ARKS FOUVD. 
 
 O Lud ! I say 
 
 Do change your day 
 To some time when your Show can really show ; 
 When silk can seem like silk, and gold can glow. 
 
 Look at your Sweepers, how they shine in May 
 Have it when there's a sun to gild the coach, 
 And sparkle in tiara — bracelet — brooch- 
 Diamond — or paste — of sister, mother, daughter ; 
 When grandeur really may be grand — 
 But if thy Pageant's thus obscured by land — 
 O Lud ! it's ten times worse upon the water I 
 
 VOL. II. 15 
 
526 ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER. 
 
 Suppose, O Lud, to show its plan, 
 I call, like Blue Beard's wife, to sister Anne. 
 Who's gone to Beaufort Wharf with niece and aunt 
 To see what she can see— rand what she can't ; 
 Chewing a saffron bun by way of cud, 
 To keep the fog out of a tender lung, 
 While perch' d in a verandah nicely hung 
 Over a margin of thy own black mud, 
 OLud! 
 
 Now Sister Anne, I call to thee, 
 Look out and see : 
 Of course about the bridge you view them rally 
 And sally. 
 
 With many a wherry, sculler, punt, and cutter ; 
 The Pishmongers' grand boat, but not for butter. 
 
 The Goldsmiths' glorious galley, — 
 Of course you see the Lord Mayor's coach aquatic, 
 With silken banners that the breezes fan. 
 In gold all glowing. 
 And men in scarlet rowing. 
 Like Doge of Venice to the Adriatic ; 
 Of course you see all this, Sister Anne 1 
 ** No, I see no such thing ! 
 I only see the edge of Beaufort Wharf, . 
 
 With two coal lighters fasten'd to a ring : 
 
 And, dim as ghosts. 
 Two little boys are jumping over posts ; 
 
 And something farther off. 
 That's rather like the shadow of a dog. 
 
 And all beyond is fog. 
 If there be any thing so fine and brii^Vt. 
 To see it I must see by second sight. 
 
ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBEB, 227' 
 
 Call tfiis a Show ? It is not worth a pia I 
 
 I see no barges row. 
 
 No banners blow ; 
 The show is merely a gallanty-show. 
 Without a lamp or any candle in." 
 
 But sister Anne, my dear. 
 Although you cannot see, you still may hear? 
 Of course you hear, I'm very sure of that, 
 
 The " Water parted from the Sea " in C, 
 Or " Where the Bee sucks," set in B > 
 Or Huntsman's chorus from the Freyschutz frightfulj 
 Or Handel's Water Music in A flat. 
 
 Oh music from the water comes delightful! 
 It sounds as no where else it can : 
 
 You hear it first, 
 
 In some rich burst, 
 
 Then faintly sighing. 
 
 Tenderly dying 
 Away upon the breezes. Sister Anne. 
 
 " There is no breeze to die on ; 
 And all their drums and trumpets, flutes and harps> 
 Could never cut their way with ev'n three sharps 
 
 Through such a fog as this, you may rely on. 
 I think, but am not sure, I hear a hum. 
 
 Like a very muffled double drum. 
 
 And then a something faintly shrill. 
 
 Like Bartlemy Pair's old buz at Pentonville. 
 
 And now and then hear a pop, 
 
 As if from Pedley's Soda Water shop. 
 15—2 
 
828 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 I'm almost ill with the strong scent of mud. 
 And, not to mention sneezing, 
 My cough is, more than usual, teasing ; 
 I really fear that I have chill'd my blood, 
 OLud! OLud! OLudI OLudI OLud!*' 
 
 SHS HOCSS ADJOUBKKD. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 The sky is glowing in one ruddy sheet ; — 
 A cry of fire ! resounds from door to door ; 
 And westward still the thronging people pour ;- 
 The turncock hastens to P. P. 6 feet, 
 
EONDBAU. 
 
 And quick unlocks the fountains of the street ; 
 While rumbling engines, with increasing roar. 
 Thunder along to luckless Number Four, 
 Where Mr. Dough makes bread for folks to eat. 
 And now through blazing frames, and fiery beams. 
 The Grlobe, the Sun, the Phoenix, and what not. 
 With gushuig pipes throw up abundant streams, 
 On burning bricks, and twists, on rolls — too hot — 
 And scorching loaves, — as if there were no shorter 
 And cheaper way of making toast-and- water I 
 
 KONDEAU. 
 [extracted from a well-known annual.] 
 
 O CURIOUS reader, didst thou ne'er 
 Behold a worshipful Lord May*r 
 Seated in his great civic chair 
 
 So dear P 
 Then cast thy longing eyes this way, 
 It is the ninth November day, 
 And in his new-born state survey 
 
 One here ! 
 To rise from little into great 
 Is pleasant ; but to sink in state 
 From high to lowly is a fate 
 
 Severe. 
 Too soon his shine is overcast, 
 Chill*d by the next November blast ; 
 His blushing honours only last 
 
 One year i 
 
aaO LONDON FASHIONS FOR NOVEMBEB. 
 
 He casts his fur and sheds his chains. 
 And moults till not a plume remains — 
 The next impending May'r distrains 
 
 His gear. 
 Ee slips like water through a sieve — 
 Ah, could his little splendour live 
 Another twelvemonth — he would give 
 
 One ear ! 
 
 JAirCT POBTBAIT :— THB LOBD MA.TOB. 
 
 LONDON PASHIONS EOR NOVEMBER. 
 
 EEMARKS. 
 
 No season has offered such variHh in costume as the earlj 
 part of the present month. Fancy dresses of the most outre 
 description have appeared, even in the streets. Short waist* 
 
LONDON FASHIONS FOR NOVEMBER. 
 
 231 
 
 and long, full sleeves and empty, broad skirts «nd naiTOw, 
 whole skirts, half skirts, and none at all, have been indifferently 
 worn. For the Promenade, rags and tatters of all kinds have 
 been in much favour ; very few buttons are worn ; and the 
 coats, waistcoats, and pantaloons, have been invariably padded 
 and stuffed with hay or straw. We observed several exquisites 
 making morning calls in scare- crow great-coats; the skirts, 
 lappels, collars, and cuffs, picturesquely, but not too formally, 
 
 jagged d la Vandyke. The prevailing colours — all colours a< 
 once. Wigs have been very general — both en buzz and frizzc ; 
 these have been commonly composed of deal shavings ; but in 
 some cases of tow, and sometimes horse-hair. For the evening 
 party, a few squibs and crackers are stuck in the perruque or 
 hat, and the boots and shoes are polished up with a little pitch 
 or tar ; sometimes a Catherine wheel has been added en coquarde. 
 Frills, collars, and ruffles, of papier coupe, have entirely super- 
 seded those of cambric or lace, and shirts of every description 
 are quite discarded. Paint has been in much request, and 
 ruddle seems to have been preferred to rouge; patches are also 
 
232 LONDON FASHIONS FOR NOVEMBER. 
 
 much woni, not on the countenance, but on the clothes ; for 
 these the favourite materiel is tartan, plush of any colour, or 
 corduroy. Several dandies appeared on the 5 th with gloves, 
 but they are not essential requisites to be in the ton : canes are 
 discarded; even a riding-whip would be reckoned to evince 
 maiivais gout, but a half-penny bunch of matches ** d la 
 main" is indispensable to a fashionable aspirant. The old 
 practice of being carried abroad in chairs has been universally 
 revived ; and it must be confessed, that it exhibits the Figure to 
 much advantage. 
 
 Amongst the Nouveautes, we observed the following Caracteret 
 as making a felicitous debut. The coast was d-la-militaire, of 
 the colour formerly so much in vogue under the name offumee de 
 Londres, turned up viiih-flamme d'enfer. It was garni with very 
 dead gold ; and slashed d VEspagnole, back and front. The pan- 
 taloons were equally bizarre ; one leg being composed of Scotch 
 tartan, and the other of blue striped bed -ticking, made very full, 
 en matelot, in compliance with the prevailing taste for navals. 
 The wig was made of green and white willow shavings, with a 
 large link for a queue^ tied on with a nceud of red tape. The 
 hat, brown, somewhat darker than the Devonshire beaver, but 
 disinclining to black. It had no brim, and was without a crown. 
 A tarnished badge of the Phoenix Pire Office, on the bust, gave 
 a distingue air to the whole Figure, which was going down Bond- 
 street, and excited a sensation quite d-V envie by its appearance 
 in the World of Fashion. 
 
 N.B. — We are requested to state that the above described 
 figure was entirely invented and manufactured by little Solomon 
 Levy, of Hollywell-street, Strand, who has a variety always on 
 show, about the metropolis. 
 
SYMPTOMS OF OSSIFICATION. 233 
 
 SYMPTOMS OF OSSIFICATION. 
 
 " An indifference to tears, and blood, and human suffering, that could wily 
 belong to a Boney-parte.*" — Life of Napoleon. 
 
 Time was, I always had a drop 
 
 For any tale or sigh of sorrow ; 
 
 My handkerchief I used to sop 
 
 Till often I was forced to borrow ; 
 
 I don't know how it is, but now 
 
 My eyelids seldom want a drying ; 
 
 The doctors, p'rhaps, could tell me how — 
 
 I fear my heart is ossifying ! 
 
 O'er Goethe how I used to weep. 
 
 With turnip cheeks and nose of scarlet. 
 
 When Werter put himself to sleep 
 
 With pistols kiss'd and clean'd by Charlotte ; 
 
 Self-murder is an awful sin, 
 
 No joke there is in bullets flying, 
 
 But now at such a tale I grin — 
 
 I fear my heart is ossifying ! 
 
 The Drama once could shake and thrill 
 My nerves, and set my tears a stealing. 
 The Siddons then could turn at will 
 Each plug upon the main of feeling ; 
 At Belvidera now I smile. 
 And laugh while Mrs. Haller's crying ; 
 *Tis odd, so great a change of style — 
 I fear my heart is ossifying I 
 
234 THE POAOHEE. 
 
 That heart was such — some years ago. 
 To see a beggar quite would shock it, 
 And in his hat I used to throw 
 The quarter's savings of my pocket : 
 I never wish — as I did tlien ! — 
 The means from my own purse supplying. 
 To turn them all to gentlemen — 
 I fear my heart is ossifying I 
 
 We've had some serious things of late. 
 Our sympathies to beg or borrow, 
 New melo-drames, of tragic fate, 
 And acts and songs, and tales of sorrow ; 
 Miss Zouch's case, our eyes to melt. 
 And sundry actors sad good-bye-ing. 
 But Lord ! — so little have 1 felt, 
 I'm sure my heart is ossifying ! 
 
 ^ THE POACHES. 
 
 A SEEIOUS BALLAD. 
 
 But a bold pbeasantry, their country's pride, 
 "When once destroyed can never be supplied. 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 Bill Blossom was a nice young man, 
 And drove the Bury coach ; 
 
 But bad companions were his bane. 
 And egg*d him on to poach. 
 
 They taught him how to net the birds. 
 And how to noose the hare ; 
 
 And with a wiry terrier. 
 He often set a snare. 
 
THE POACHEK. 23n 
 
 Each '' shiny night " the moon was bright, 
 
 To park, preserve, and wood 
 He went, and kept the game alive, 
 
 By killing all he could. 
 
 \ BUCE-AITEBB ! 
 
 Land-owners, who had rabbits, swore 
 That he had this demerit — 
 
 Give him an inch of warren, he 
 Would take a yard of ferret. 
 
 At partridges he was not nice ; 
 
 And many, large and small. 
 Without Hall's powder, without lead. 
 
 Were sent to Leaden-Hall. 
 
THE POACHEB. 
 
 He did not fear to take a deer, 
 From forest, park, or lawn ; 
 
 And without courting lord or duke. 
 Used frequently to fawn. 
 
 Folks who had hares discovered snares- 
 His course they could not stop : 
 
 No barber he, and yet he made 
 Their hares a perfect crop. 
 
 To pheasant he was such a foe, 
 He tried the keeper's nerves ; 
 
 They swo~e he never seem'd to have 
 Jam satis oi preserves. 
 
 The Shooter went to beat, and found 
 
 No sporting worth a pin. 
 Unless he tried the covers made 
 
 Of silver, plate, or tin. 
 
 In Kent the game was little worth. 
 
 In Surrey not a button ; 
 The Speaker said he often tried 
 
 The Manors about Sutton, 
 
 No county from his tricks was safe r 
 
 In each he tried his lucks. 
 And when the keepers were in Bect4. 
 
 He often was at Bucks. 
 
 And when he went to Bucks^ alas ! 
 
 They always oame to Herta ; 
 And even Oxon used to wish 
 
 That he had his deserts. 
 
SKETCHES ON THE KOAD. 837 
 
 But going to his usual Hants^ 
 
 Old CJieshire laid his plots : 
 He got entrapp'd by legal Berks, 
 
 And lost his life in Notts, 
 
 LUNAB CA.VSTIC. 
 
 SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 
 
 THE SUDDEN DEATH. 
 
 There are several objections to one-horse vehicles. With 
 two wheels, they are dangerous ; with four, generally cruel in- 
 ventions, tasking one animal with the labour of two. And, in 
 either case, should your horse think proper to die on the roa^. 
 you have no survivor to drag your carriage through the rest of 
 the stage; or to be sent off galloping with the coachman on his 
 back for a coadjutor. 
 
 That was precisely Miss Norman's dilemma. 
 
 If a horse could be supposed to harbour so deadly a spite 
 against his proprietor, I should believe that the one in question 
 chose to vent his animosity by giving up the ghost just at the 
 spot where it would cause most annoyance and inconvenience. 
 For fourteen months past he had drawn the Lady in daily 
 
238 
 
 SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 
 
 airings to a point just short of the Binn Gate ; — because that 
 fifty yards further would have cost sixpence ; a sum which Miss 
 Norman could, or believed she could, but ill spare out of a limited 
 income. At this very place, exactly opposite the tall elm which 
 usually gave the signal for turning homeward, did Plantagenet 
 prefer to drop down stone dead : as if determined that his mis- 
 tress should have to walk every inch of it, to her own house. 
 But Miss Norman never walked. 
 
 "takb caee of thb pence, and thb pounds will take oabb of themselves. ** 
 
 Pedestrianism was, in her opinion, a very vulgar exercise, un- 
 avoidable with the poor, and to some people, as Postmen, 
 Bankers' clerks. Hawkers, and the like, a professional mode of 
 progression, but a bodily exertion very derogatory to persons of 
 birth and breeding. So far was this carried, that she was once 
 heard to declare, speaking of certain rather humblfr obsequies, 
 
SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 239 
 
 "she would rather live for ever than have a walking funeral !" 
 On another occasion, when the great performance of Captain 
 Barclay, in walking a thousand miles in a thousand hours, 
 was submitted to her opinion, she said " it was a step she 
 did not approve." 
 
 SESCEirBED 7B0U THB CONQUEKOB. 
 
 It might be surmised from such declarations, that she was 
 incapable of personal locomotion, through some original in- 
 firmity, for instance, such as results from the rickets ; whereas, 
 so far from allowing any deficiency on the part of her nurse or 
 parents, in putting her to her feet, Miss Norman professed to 
 have the perfect command of all her limbs, and would have felt 
 extremely offended at a hint that she could not dance. It was 
 quite another weakness than any bodily one which restricted 
 her promenades, and made her feet almost as useless to her as 
 
240 SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 
 
 those of the female Chinese. Pride was in fault ; and partly 
 her surname, for suggesting to one of her ancestors that he was 
 a descendant of William the First of England : a notion, which, 
 after turning his own head, had slightly crazed those of his 
 successors, who all believed, as part and parcel of their inherit- 
 ance, on the strength of the " Norman " and some dubious old 
 pedigree, that the Conqueror was their great Progenitor. 
 
 The hereditary arrogance engendered by this imaginary dis- 
 tinction, had successively displayed itself by outbreaks of dif- 
 ferent character, according to the temperament of the individual 
 who happened to be head of the family : with Miss Norman, 
 the last of Twir line, it took the form of a boast that every branch 
 and twig of her illustrious tree had always ridden " in their own 
 carriage.'* I am not quite sure whether she did not push this 
 pretension further back than the date of the invention of " little 
 houses on wheels " would warrant ; however, it held good, in 
 local tradition, for several generations, although the family 
 vehicle had gradually dwindled down from an ample coach to a 
 chariot, a fly, and, finally, the one-inside sedan-chair upon 
 wheels, which the sudden death of Plantagenet left planted fifty 
 yards short of the Binn Gate. To glance at the whole set-out, 
 nobody would ever have attributed high birth and inherent 
 gentility to its owner. *Twas never of a piece. For once that 
 the body was new-painted, the arms were thrice refreshed and 
 touched up, till the dingy vehicle, by the glaring comparison, 
 looked more ancient than the quarterings. The crest was much 
 oftener renewed than the hammer-cloth ; and Humphrey, the 
 coachman, evidently never got a new suit all at once. He had 
 always old drab to bran-new bright sky-blue plush; or vice 
 versd. Sometimes a hat in its first gloss got the better of its 
 old tarnished band; sometimes the fresh gold lace made the 
 brown beaver look still more an antique. The same with the 
 harness and the horse, which was sometimes a tall spanking 
 
SKETCHES ON THE KOAD. 
 
 241 
 
 brute, who seemed to have outgrown the concern ; at other 
 times, a short pony-like animal, who had been put into the 
 shafts by mistake. In short, the several articles seemed to be- 
 long the more especially to Miss Norman because they belongeif 
 so little to each other. A few minutes made a great change in 
 her possessions, instead of a living horse, hight Plantagenet, she 
 was proprietor of certain hundred-weights of dogs'-me*it. 
 
 "WAEBA.NTED QUIET TO RIDE OE DBIVE." 
 
 It was just at this moment that I came up with my gig ; and 
 knowing something of the lady's character, I pulled up in ex- 
 pectation of a scene. Leaving my own bay, who would stand 
 as steady as a mute at death's door, I proceeded to assist the 
 coachman in extricating his horse; but the nag of royal line 
 was stone dead : and I accompanied Humphrey to the carriage- 
 door to make his report. 
 
 A recent American author has described as an essential 
 
 attribute of high birth and breeding in England, a certain sort 
 
 of quakerly composure, in all possible sudden emergencies, such 
 
 as an alarm of the house on fire, or a man falling into a fit by 
 
 one's side ; in fact, the same kind of self-command which Pope 
 VOL, II. 16 
 
242 SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 
 
 praises in a lady who is " mistress of herself, thoiigh China fall." 
 In this particular Miss Norman's conduct justified her preten- 
 sions. She was mistress of herself, though her horse fell. She 
 did not start — exclaim — put her head out of the window, or 
 even let down the front glass : she only adjusted herself more 
 exactly in the middle of the seat, drew herself bolt upright, and 
 fixed her eyes on the back of the coach-box. In this posture 
 Humphrey found her. 
 
 " If you please. Ma'am, Planty-ginit be dead." The lady ac- 
 quiesced with the smallest uod ever made. 
 
 " I've took off the collar, and the bit out, and got un out o* 
 harness entirely ; but he be as unanimate as his own shoes ; " 
 and the informant looked earnestly at the lady to observe 
 the effect of the communication. But she never moved a 
 muscle; and honest Humphrey was just shutting the coach- 
 door, to go and finish the laying out of the corpse, when he was 
 recalled. 
 
 " Humphrey ! " 
 
 " What's your pleasure. Ma'am ? " 
 
 " Esmember, another time '* 
 
 "Yes, Ma'am." 
 
 *' When a horse of mine is deceased " 
 
 " Yes, Ma'am." 
 
 "Touch your hat." 
 
 The abashed coachman instantly paid up the salute in arrear. 
 Unblessed by birthright with self-possession, he had not even the 
 advantage of experience in the first families, where he might 
 have learned a little from good example ; he was a raw uncouth 
 country sen'ant, with the great merit of being cheap, whom Miss 
 Norman had undertaken to educate; but he was still so far 
 from proficient, that in the importance of breaking the death to 
 his mistress, he had omitted one of those minor tokens of respect 
 which she always rigorously exacted. 
 
SKETCHES ON THE EOAD. 
 
 243 
 
 It was now my own turn to come forward, and as deferen- 
 tially as if she had been indeed the last of the Conqueror's 
 V Normandy pippins, I tendered a seat in my chaise, which she 
 tacitly declined, with a gracious gesture of head and hand. 
 
 "If you please, Ma'am," said Humphrey, taking care to 
 touch his hat, and shutting his head into the carriage so that 
 I might not overhear him, *' he's a respectable kind of gentleman 
 enough, and connected with some of the first houses." 
 
 " The gentleman's name ? " 
 
 *' To be sure, Ma'am, the gentleman can't help his name," 
 answered Humphrey, fully aware of the peculiar prejudices of 
 his mistress ; " but it be Huggins." 
 
 \ 
 
 ONK KAT OO FABIHBB AND FABE WORSE — AS THE HOBSE SAI£ 
 
 " Shut the door." 
 
 It appeared, on explanation with the coachman, that he had 
 
 mistaken me for a person in the employ of the opulent firm of 
 16—2 
 
24i SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 
 
 Nay lor and Co., whose province it was to travel throughout 
 Britain with samples of hardware in the box-seat of his gig. I 
 did not take the trouble to undeceive him, but determining to see 
 the end of the affair, I affected to hope that the lady would 
 change her mind ; and accordingly I renewed, from time to time, 
 my offer of accommodation, which was alwciys stiffly declined. 
 After a tolerably long pause on all sides, my expectation was 
 
 excited by the appearance of the W coach coming through 
 
 the Binn Gate, the only public vehicle that used tlie road. At 
 sight of the dead horse, the driver (the noted Jem Wade) 
 pulled up — alighted — and standing at the carriage-door with his 
 hat off, as if he knew his customer, made an offer of his services. 
 But Miss Norman, more dignified than ever, waved him off with 
 her hand. Jem became more pressing, and the lady more rigid. 
 " She never rode," she condescended to say, " in public vehicles." 
 Jem entreated again ; but "she was accustomed to be driven by 
 her own coachman." It was in vain that in answer he praised 
 the quietness of his team, the safety of his patent boxes, besides 
 promising the utmost steadiness and sobriety on his own part. 
 Miss Norman still looked perseveringly at the back of her 
 coach-box; which, on an unlucky assurance that "he would 
 take as much care of her as of his own mother," she exchanged 
 for a steady gaze at the side-window, opposite to the coachman, 
 so long as he remained in the presence. 
 
 " By your leave. Ma'am," said Humphrey, putting his hand 
 to his hat, and keeping it there, " Mr. Wade be a very civil- 
 spoken careful whip, and his coach loads very respectable society. 
 There's Sir Vincent Ball on the box." 
 
 " If Sir Vincent Ball chooses to degrade himself, it is no rule 
 for we," retorted the lady, without turning her head ; when, lo i 
 Sir Vincent appeared himself, and politely endeavoured to 
 persuade her out of her prejudices. It was useless. Miss 
 Norman's ancestors had one and all expressed a very decided 
 
SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 
 
 245 
 
 opinion against stage-coaches, by never getting into one ; and 
 " she did not feel disposed to disgrace a line longer than com- 
 mon, by riding in any carriage but her own." Sir Vincent 
 bowed and retreated. So did Jem Wade, without bowing, 
 fervently declaring *' he would never do the civil thing to the 
 old female sex affain ! " 
 
 JACK'd AS GOOD AS HIS MASTEE. 
 
 The stage rattled away at an indignant gallop ; and we were 
 left once more to our own resources. By way of passing the 
 time, I thrice repeated my offers to the obdurate old maiden, and 
 endured as many rebuffs. I was contemplating a fourth trial, 
 when a signal w^as made from the carriage window, and Hum- 
 phrey, hat in hand, opened the door. 
 
 " Procure me a post-chaise." 
 
 " A po-shay ! " echoed Humphrey, but, like an Irish echo, 
 with some variation from his original — " Lord help ye, Ma'am, 
 
246 SKETCHES ON THE EOAD. 
 
 there bean't such a thing to be had ten miles round — no, not 
 for love nor money. Why, bless ye, it be election time, and 
 there bean't coach, cart, nor dog-barrow, but what be gone 
 to it ! " 
 
 " No matter," said the mistress, drawing herself up with an 
 air of lofty resignation. " I revoke my order ; for it is far, 
 very far from the kind of riding that I prefer. And Hum- 
 phrey " 
 
 "Yes, Ma'am." 
 
 " Another time — '* 
 
 "Yes, Ma'am." 
 
 " Eemember once for all — " 
 
 " Yes, Ma'am." 
 
 " I do not choose to be blest, or the Lord to help me." 
 
 Another pause in our proceedings, during which a company 
 of ragged boys, who had been black-berrying, came up, and 
 planted themselves, with every symptom of vulgar curiosity, 
 around the carriage. Miss Norman had now no single glass 
 through which she could look without encountering a group of 
 low-life faces staring at her with all their might. Neither could 
 she help hearing some such shocking ill-bred remarks as, " Vy 
 don't the frizzle-vigged old Guy get into the gemman's drag ? " 
 Still the pride of the Normans sustained her. She seemed to 
 draw a sort of supplementary neck out of her bosom, and sat 
 more rigidly erect than ever, occasionally favouring the circle, 
 like a mad bull at bay, with a most awful threatening look, ac- 
 companied ever by the same live words : 
 " I CHOOSE to be alone." 
 
 It is easy to say choose, but more difficult to have one's 
 choice. The blackberry boys chose to remain ; and in reply to 
 each conge only proved by a general grin how very much teeth 
 are set off to advantage by pui'ple mouths. I confess I took 
 pity on the pangs even of unwarrantable pride, and urged my 
 
SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 247 
 
 proposal again with some warmth; but it was repelled with 
 absolute scorn. 
 
 " Fellow, you are insolent." 
 
 " Quis Deus vult perdere," thought I, and I determined to 
 let hfcr take her fate, merely staying to mark the result. After 
 a tedious interval, in which her mind had doubtless looked 
 abroad as well as inward, it appeared that the rigour of the con- 
 dition, as to riding only in her own carriage, had been some- 
 what rekxed to meet the exigency of the case. A fresh tapping 
 at the window summoned the obsequious Humphrey to receive 
 orders. 
 
 " Presnt my compliments at the Grove — and the loan of the 
 chariot will be esteemed a favour." 
 
 " By your leave, Ma*am, if I may speak — " 
 " Tou may not" 
 
 Humphrey closed the door, but remained for a minute gazing 
 on Ihe panel, at a blue arm, with a red carving-knife in its hand, 
 definding a black and white rolling-pin. If he meditated any 
 expstulation, he gave it up, and proceeded to drive away the 
 bojs, one of whom was astride on the dead Plantagenet, a 
 second grinning through his collar, and two more preparing to 
 piy at horses with the reins. It seemed a strange mode 
 erough that he took to secure the harness, by hanging it, collar 
 aid all, on his own back and shoulders ; but by an aside to me, 
 h< explained the mystery, in a grumble, 
 
 " It be no use in the world. I see the charrot set off for 
 Lonnon. I shan't go compli»eew^ng no Grove. I'se hang 
 about a bit at the George, and o^owc^Ximent a pint o' beer." 
 
 Away he went, intending, no doubt, to be fully as good as 
 his word : and I found the time grow tedious in his absence. I 
 had almost made up my mind to follow his example, when hope 
 revived at the sound of wheels , and up came a tax-cart carry- 
 ing four insides, namely, two well-grown porkers, Master 
 
248 SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 
 
 Bardell the pig-butcher, and his foreman Samuel Slark, or, as he 
 was more commonly called, Sam the Sticker. They were both a 
 trifle " the worse for liquor," if such a phrase might honestly be 
 applied to men who were only a little more courageous, more 
 generous, and civil and obliging to the fair sex, than their wont 
 when perfectly sober. The Sticker, especially — in his- most 
 temperate moments a perfect sky-blue-bodied, red-faced, bowing 
 and smirking pattern of politeness to females, was nov, under 
 the influence of good ale, a very Sir Calidore, ready to comfort 
 and succour distressed damsels, to fight for them, live or die for 
 them, with as much of the chivalrous spirit as remaijis in our 
 times. They inquired, and I explained in a few words /he lady's 
 dilemma, taking care to forewarn them, by relating the issue of 
 my own attempts in her behalf. 
 
 " Mayhap you warn't half purlite or pressing enough," ob- 
 served Sam, with a side wink at his master. " It an't a Ht of 
 a scrape, and a civil word, as will get a strange lady up iito a 
 strange gemman's gig. It wants warmth-like, and makina on 
 her feel at home. Only let me alone with her, for a persualer, 
 and I'll have her up in our cart — my master's that is to sa[ — 
 afore you can see whether she has feet or hoofs." 
 
 In a moment the speaker was at the carnage- door, strokijg 
 down his sleek forelocks, bowing, and using his utmost eloquenfe, 
 even to the repeating most of his arguments twice over. 9ie 
 would be perfectly safe, he told her, sitting up between him aid 
 master, and quite pleasant, for the pigs would keep themselves 
 to themselves at the back of the cart, and as for the horse, he 
 was nothing but a good one, equal to twelve mile an hour — 
 with much more to the same purpose. It was quite unnecessary 
 for Miss Norman to say she had never ridden in a cart with two 
 pigs and two butchers ; and she did not say it. She merely 
 turned away her head from the man, to be addressed by the 
 master, at the other window, the glass of which she had just let 
 
SKETCHES ON THE EOAD. 
 
 249 
 
 down for a little air. " A taxed cart, Madam," he said, 
 " mayn't be exactly the wehicle, accustomed to, and so forth ; 
 but thereby, considering respective ranks of life, why, the more 
 honour done to your humbles, which, as I said afore, will take 
 every care, and observe the respectful ; likewise in distancing 
 the two hogs. Whereby, every thing considered, namely, 
 necessity and so foilh, I will make so bold as hope. Madam, 
 excusing more pressing, and the like, and dropping ceremony 
 for the time being, you will embrace us at once, as you shall be 
 most heartily welcome to, and be considered, by your humbles, 
 as a favour besides. 
 
 NONE BUT THJS BEATK liKSEBVE THE FAIR 
 
 The sudden drawing up of the window, so violently as to 
 shiver the glass, showed sufficiently in what light Miss Norman 
 viewed Master Bard ell's behaviour. It was an unlucky smash, 
 for it afforded what the tradesman would have called " an ad- 
 
250 SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 
 
 vantageous opening " for pouring in a fresh stream of eloquence ; 
 and the Sticker, who shrewdly estimated the convenience of the 
 breach, came round the back of the carriage, and as junior 
 counsel " followed on the same side." But he took nothing by 
 the motion. The lady was invincible, or, as the discomfited pail 
 mutually agreed, *• as hard for to be convinced into a cart, as any 
 thing on four legs.'* The blackbeiTy boys had departed, the 
 evening began to close in, and no Humphrey made his appearance. 
 The butcher's horse was on the fret, and his swine grumbled at 
 the delay. The master and man fell into consultation, and 
 favoured me afterwards with the result, the Sticker being the 
 orator. It was man's duty, he said, to look after women, pretty 
 or ugly, young or old ; it was what we all came into the world 
 to do, namely, to make ourselves comfortable and agreeable to 
 the fair sex. As for himself, purtecting females was his nature, 
 and he should never lie easy agin, if so be he left the lady on 
 the road ; and providing a female wouldn't be purtected with 
 her own free will, she ought to be forced to, like any other 'live 
 beast unsensible of its own good. Them was his sentiments, and 
 his master followed 'em up. They knowed Miss Norman, name 
 and fame, and was both well-known respectable men in their 
 lines, and I might ax about for their characters. Whereby, 
 supposing I approved, they'd have her, right and tight, in their 
 cart, afore she felt herself respectfully off her legs. 
 
 Such were the arguments and the plan of the bull-headed pair. 
 I attempted to reason with them, but my consent had clearly 
 been only asked as a compliment. The lady herself hastened the 
 catastrophe. Whether she had overheard the debate, or the 
 amount of long pent-up emotion became too overwhelming for 
 its barriers, I know not, but Pride gave way to Nature, and a 
 short hysteric scream proceeded from the carriage. Miss 
 Norman was in fits ! We contrived to get her seated on the step 
 of the vehicle, where the butchers supported her, fanning her 
 
SKETCHES ON TEE ROAD. 
 
 251 
 
 with their hats, whilst I ran off to a little pool near at hand for 
 some cold water. It was the errand only of some four or five 
 minutes, but when I returned, the lady, only half conscious, had 
 been caught up, and there she sate, in the cart, right and tight, 
 between the two butchers, instead of the two Salvages, or 
 Griffins, or whatever they were, her hereditary supporters. They 
 were already on the move. I jumped into my own gig, and put 
 my horse to his speed ; but I had lost my start, and when I 
 
 came up with them, they were already galloping into W . 
 
 Unfortunately her residence was at the further end of the town, 
 and thither I saw her conveyed, struggling in the bright blue, 
 and somewhat greasy, arms of Sam the Sticker, screaming in 
 concert with the two swine, and answered by the shouts of the 
 whole rabblement of the place, who knew Miss Ncrraan quite as 
 well, by sight, as *' her own carriage I ** 
 
 IM AFRAID 1 M IN LOW C03U'ANY ! 
 
252 
 
 I CANNOT BEAR A GUN. 
 
 A MINOE CANON. 
 
 I CANNOT BEAR A GUN. 
 
 " Timidity is generally reckoned an essential attribute of the fair sex, 
 and this absurd notion gives rise to more false starts than a race for the 
 Leger. Hence screams at mice, fits at spiders, faces at toads, jumps at 
 lizards, flights from daddy longlegs, panics at wasps, sauve qui pent at sight 
 of a gun. Surel}', when the military exercise is made a branch of education 
 at so many ladies' academies, the use of the musket would only be a 
 judicious step further in the march of mind. I should not despair, in a 
 month's practice, of making the most timid British female fond of small- 
 arms." — Hints by a Corporal. 
 
 It can't be minced, I*m quite convinced 
 
 All gjii'ls are full of flam, 
 Their feelings fine and feminine 
 
 Are nothing else but sham. 
 On all their tricks I need not fix, 
 
 I'll only mention one, 
 How many a Miss will tell you this. 
 
 " I cannot bear a gun ! " 
 
I CANNOT BEAR A GUN. 253 
 
 There's cousin Bell can't 'bide the smell 
 
 Of powder — horrid stuff ! 
 A single pop will make her drop, 
 
 She shudders at a puff. 
 My Manton near, with aspen fear 
 
 Will make her scream and run : 
 " It*s always so, you brute, you know 
 
 I cannot bear a gun ! " 
 
 About my flask I must not ask, 
 
 I must not wear a belt, 
 I must not take a punch to make 
 
 My pellets, card or felt ; 
 And if I just allude to dust, 
 
 Or speak of number one, 
 " I beg you'll noi — don't talk of shot, 
 
 I cannot bear a gun ! " 
 
 Percussion cap 1 dare not snap, 
 
 I may not mention Hall, 
 Or raise my voice for Mr. Joyce, 
 
 His wadding to recall ; 
 At Hawker's book I must not look, 
 
 All shooting I must shun, 
 Or else — " It's hard, you've no regard, 
 
 I cannot bear a gun ! '* 
 
 The very dress I wear no less 
 
 Must suit her timid mind, 
 A blue or black must clothe my bacK, 
 
 With swallow-tails behind ; 
 By fustian, jean, or velveteen, 
 
 Her nerves are overdone : 
 " Oh do not, John, put gaiters on, 
 
 I cannot bear a gim !" 
 
264 I CA2JN0T BEAB A GUN. 
 
 E'en little James she snubs, and blames 
 
 His Liliputian train, 
 Two inches each from mouth to breach, 
 
 And charged with half a grain — 
 His crackers stopp'd, his squibbing dropp'd 
 
 He has no fiery fun. 
 And all thro' her " How dare you, Sir? 
 
 I cannot bear a gun ! " 
 
 JAHES S POWDEB. 
 
 let Major Plint,— the Devil's in't! 
 
 May talk from morn to night. 
 Of springing mines, and twelves and mnes, 
 
 And volleys left and right. 
 Of voltigeurs and tirailleurs. 
 
 And bullets by the ton : 
 She never dies of fright, or cries 
 
 «* I cannot bear a gun ! " 
 
I CANNOT BEAE A GUN. 255 
 
 It stirs my bile to see her smile 
 
 At all his bang and whiz, 
 But if I talk of morning walk, 
 
 And shots as good as his, 
 I must not name the fallen game : 
 
 As soon as I've begun. 
 She's in her pout, and crying out, 
 
 " I cannot bear a gun ! " 
 
 Yet, underneath the rose, her teeth 
 
 Are false, to match her tongue : 
 Grouse, partridge, hares, she never spares. 
 
 Or pheasants, old or young — 
 On widgeon, teal, she makes a meal, 
 
 And yet objects to none : 
 « What have I got, it's fuU of shot ! 
 
 I cannot bear a gun I *' 
 
 At pigeon-pie she is not shy, 
 
 Her taste it never shocks. 
 Though they should be from Battersea, 
 
 So famous for blue rocks ; 
 Yet when I bring the very thing 
 
 My marksmanship has won. 
 She cries " Lock up that horrid cup, 
 
 I cannot bear a gun ! " 
 
 Like fool and dunce I got her once 
 
 A box at Drury Lane, 
 And by her side I felt a pride 
 
 I ne'er shall feel again : 
 • To read the bill it made her ill. 
 
 And this excuse she spun, 
 "Per Freyschiitz, oh, seven shots; you know, 
 
 I cannot bear a gun I " 
 
256 I CANNOT BEAR A GUN. 
 
 Yet at a hint from Major Flint, 
 
 Her very hands she rubs, 
 And quickly drest in all her best, 
 
 Is off to Wormwood Scrubbs, 
 The whole review she sits it through. 
 
 With noise enough to stun, 
 And never wints, or even thinks, 
 
 " I cannot bear a gun ! " 
 
 WOOLWICH WAKKEIf. 
 
 She thus may blind the Major's mind 
 
 In mock-heroic strife, 
 But let a bout at war break out, 
 
 And where's the soldier's wife, 
 To take his kit and march a bit 
 
 Beneath a broiling sun ? 
 Or will she cry, " My dear, good-bye, 
 
 I cannot bear a gun ? " 
 
TEIMMER'S EXERCISE. 2^7 
 
 If thus she doats on array coats, 
 
 And regimental cuffs, 
 The yeomanry might surely be 
 
 Secure from her rebuffs ; 
 But when I don my trappings on. 
 
 To follow Captain Dunn, 
 My carbine's gleam provokes a scream, 
 
 •' I cannot bear a gun." 
 It can't be minced, I'm quite convinced. 
 
 All girls are fall of flam, 
 Their feelings fine, and feminine, 
 
 Are nothing else but sham ; 
 On all their tricks I need not fix, 
 
 I'll only, mention one, 
 How many a Miss will tell you this, 
 
 *' I cannot bear a gun ! " 
 
 TRIMMEE'S EXERCISE, 
 
 FOR THE USE OF CHILDREN. 
 
 Here, come. Master Timothy Todd, 
 Before we have done you'll look grimmer. 
 
 You've been spelling some time for the rod. 
 And your jacket shall know I'm a Trimmer, 
 
 You don't know your A from your B, 
 So backward you are in your Primer ; 
 
 Don't kneel — you shall go on my knee, 
 For I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer. 
 
 This morning you hinder'd the cook. 
 
 By melting your dumps in the skimmer ; 
 
 I ti stead of attending your book, — 
 But I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer. 
 VOL. 11. 17 
 
258 TKIMMER'S EXEKCISE 
 
 To-day, too, you went to the pond, 
 
 And bathed, though you are not a swimmer t 
 
 And with parents so doting and fond — 
 But I'll have you to know I*m a Trimmer. 
 
 After dinner you went to the wine, 
 
 And help'd youi-seli— yes, to a brimmer ; 
 
 You couldn't walk, straight in a line, 
 But I'll make you to know I'm a Trimmer. 
 
 PASCY POEXUAIT— MBS. TEIMMKB 
 
 You kick little Tomkins about, 
 Because he is slighter and slimmer ; 
 
 Are the weak to be thump'd by the stout ? 
 But I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer. 
 
 Then you have a sly pilfering trick, 
 
 Your school-fellows call you the nimmer, — 
 
 I will cut to the bone if you kick ! 
 For I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer. 
 
SOME ACCOUNT OF WILLIAM WHISTON. 259 
 
 To-day you made game at my back ; 
 
 You think that my eyes are grown dimmer. 
 But I watch'd you, I've got a sly knack ! 
 
 And I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer. 
 
 Pon't think that my temper is hot, 
 
 It's never beyond a slow simmer ; 
 I'll teach you to call me Dame Trot, 
 
 But I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer, 
 
 Miss Edgeworth, or Mrs. Chapone, 
 
 Might melt to behold your tears glimmer ; 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld would let you alone. 
 
 But I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer. 
 
 I.ITTLB JACK AND HIS TBIlfHBB. 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF WILLIAM WHISTON. 
 
 "That boy is the brother of Pam ." — Joseph Andrews. 
 
 *' William certainly is fond of whist ! " 
 
 This was an admission drawn, or extracted, as Cartwright 
 
 would say, like a double tooth from the mouth of William's 
 
 mother; an amiable and excellent lady, who ever reluctantly 
 17—2 
 
260 SOME ACCOUNT OF WILLIAM WHISTON. 
 
 confessed foibles in her family, and invariably endeavoured to 
 exhibit to the world the sunny side of her children. 
 
 There can be no possibility of doubt that William was fond of 
 whist. He doted on it. Whist was his first passion — his first 
 love ; and in whist he experienced no disappointment. The two 
 were made for each other. 
 
 CAEDY MUMS. 
 
 William was one of a large bunch of children, and he never 
 grew up. On his seventh birthday a relation gave him a minia- 
 ture pack of cards, and made him a whist-player for life. Our 
 bias dates much earlier than some natural philosophers suppose. 
 I remember William, a mere child, being one day William of 
 Orange, and objecting to a St. M''chaers because it had no pips. 
 
 At school he was a total failure ; except in reckoning the odd 
 
SOME ACCOUNT OF WILLIAM WHISTON. 261 
 
 tricks. He counted nothing by honours, and the schoolmaster 
 said of his head what he has since said occasionally of his hand 
 that " it held literally nothing." 
 
 At sixteen, after a long maternal debate between the black 
 and red suits, William was articled to an attorney : but instead 
 of becoming a respectable land-shark, he played double- dummy 
 with the Common-Law Clerk, and was discharged on the 6th of 
 November. The principal remonstrated with him on a breach 
 of duty, and William imprudently answered that he was aware 
 of his duty, like the ace of spades. Mr. Bitem immediately 
 banged the door against him, and William, for the first time in 
 his life — to use his own expression, " got a slam." 
 
 William having seiTcd his time, and, as he calls it, followed suit 
 for five years, was admitted as an attorney, and began to play at 
 that finessing game, the Law. SJwrt-hand he still studied and 
 practised ; though more in parlours than in court. 
 
 William at one period admired Miss Hunt, or Miss Creswick, 
 or Miss Hardy, or Miss Reynolds; a daughter of one of the 
 great card-makers, I forget which — and he cut for partners, but 
 without " getting the Lady." His own explanation was that he 
 *' was discarded.'' He then paid his addresses to a Scotch girl, 
 a Miss MacNab, but she professed religious scruples about cards, 
 and he revoked. I have heard it said that she expected to match 
 higher ; indeed William used to say she " looked over his hand." 
 
 William is short, and likes shorts. He likes nothing of lon^s, 
 but the St. John of them : and he only takes to him, because 
 that saint is partial to a rubber. Whist seems to influence his 
 face as well as well as form ; ii is like a knave of clubs. I some- 
 times fancy whist could not go on without William, and cer- 
 tainly William could not go on without whist. His whole con- 
 versation, except on cards, is wool-gathering; and on that 
 subject is like wool — carded. He " speaks by the card," and 
 never gives equivocation a chance. At the Olympic once 
 
262 SOME ACCOUNT OF WILLIAM WHISTON. 
 
 he had a quarrel with a gentleman about the lead erf Madame 
 Vestris or Miss Sydney : he was required to give his card, and 
 he gave the " Deuce of Hearts." This was what he termed 
 " calling out." 
 
 Of late years William only goes out like a bad rushlight, 
 earlyish of anight, and quits every table that is not covered with 
 green baize with absolute disgust. The fairies love by night to 
 ** gambol on the green,'' and so does William, and he is con- 
 stantly humming with great gusto, 
 
 *• Come unto these yellow sands, 
 And then take hands." 
 
 The only verses, by the way, he ever got by heart. He never 
 cared to play much with the Muses. They stick, he used to 
 say, at Nine. 
 
 "William can sit longer — drink less — say as little — pay or re- 
 ceive as much — shuffle as well — and cut as deeply as any man 
 on earth. You may leave him safely after dinner, and catch him 
 at breakfast time without alteration of attitude or look. He is 
 a small statue erected in honour of whist, and like Eloquence, 
 "holds his hand well up." He is content to ring the changes 
 on thirteen cards a long Midsummer night; for he does noi pla^ 
 at cards — ^he works at them, and considering the returns, for very 
 low wages. William never was particularly lucky ; but he bears 
 the twos and threes with as much equanimity as any one, and 
 seems, horticulturally speaking, to have grafted Patience upon 
 Whist, I do not know whether it is the family motto, but he 
 has upon his seal — with the great Mogul for a crest — the in- 
 scription of "Packs in Bello." 
 
 William is now getting old (nearly fifty-two), with an asth- 
 ma; which he says makes him rather " weak in trumps." He 
 is preparing himself accordingly to "take down his score," and 
 has made his will, bequeathing all he has or has not, to a whist 
 club. His funeral he directs to be quite private, and his grave- 
 
THE FOX AND THE HEN. 
 
 263 
 
 stone a plain one, and especially " that there be no cherubims 
 carved thereon, forasmuch," — says this characteristic document, 
 ** that they never hold Honours." 
 
 A DOlUBLK AT LONG'S. 
 
 THE FOX AND THE HEN. 
 
 A FABLE. 
 
 Speaking within compass, as to fabulousness I prefer Southcdie to Norihcott. 
 
 PiGROGROMlTUS. 
 
 One day, or night, no matter where or when, 
 
 Sly Eeynard, like a foot-pad, laid his pad 
 Right on the body of a speckled Hen, 
 Determined upon taking all she had ; 
 And like a very bibber at his bottle, 
 Began to draw the claret from her throttle ; 
 Of course it put her in a pretty pucker. 
 And with a scream as high 
 As she could cry. 
 She called for help — she had enough of sucker. 
 
 Dame Parllet's scream 
 Waked, luckily, the house-dog from his dream. 
 
264 
 
 THE FOX AND THE HEN. 
 
 And with a savage growl 
 
 In answer to the fowl, 
 He bounded forth against the prowling sinner. 
 And, uninvited, came to the Fox Dinner. 
 
 NATIVES OF THE SILLY ISLANDS. 
 
 Sly Eeynard, heedful of the coming doom. 
 
 Thought, self-deceived, 
 
 He should not be perceived, 
 Hiding his brush within a neighbouring broom ; 
 But quite unconscious of a Poacher's snare, 
 
 And caught in copper noose. 
 
 And looking like a goose, 
 Found that his fate " had hung upon a Mre ; " 
 His tricks and turns were rendered of no use to liim, 
 Ani, worst of all, he saw old surly Tray 
 
 Coming to play 
 
 Tray-Deuce with him. 
 
THE FOX AND THE HEN. 265 
 
 Tray, an old Mastiff bred at Dunstable, 
 Under his Master, a most special constable, 
 Instead of killing Keynard in a fury, 
 Seized him for legal trial by a Jury ; 
 But Juries — iEsop was a sheriff then — 
 Consisted of twelve Brutes and not of Men. 
 
 But first the Elephant sat on the body — 
 
 I mean the Hen — and proved that she was dead, 
 
 To the veriest fool's head 
 
 Of the Booby and the Noddy. 
 
 Accordingly, the Stork brought in a bill 
 
 Quite true enough to kill ; 
 And then the Owl was call'd — for mark, 
 The Owl can witness in the dark. 
 To make the evidence more plain. 
 The Lynx connected all the chain. 
 In short there was no quirk or quibble 
 At which a legal Eat could nibble ; 
 The Culprit was as far beyond hope's bounds, 
 As if the Jury had heen^x^^ed — of hounds. 
 
 Ileynard, however, at the utmost nick. 
 Is seldom quite devoid of shift and trick j 
 
 Accordingly our cunning Pox, 
 Through certain influence, obscurely channel'd, 
 A friendly Camel got into the box, 
 When 'gainst his life the Jury was impanel'd. 
 
 Now, in the Silly Isles such is the law, 
 
 If Jurors should withdraw. 
 They are to have no eating and no drinking, 
 TiU all are starved into one way of thinking. 
 
THE FOX AND THE HE^^. 
 
 Thus Keynard's Jurors, who could not agree. 
 Were lock'd up strictly, without bit or mummock, 
 Till every beast that only had one stomach, 
 Bent to the Camel who was blest with three. 
 
 To do them justice, they debated 
 From four till ten, while dinner waited 
 When thirst and hunger got the upper. 
 And each inclined to mercy, and hot supper : 
 *' Not guilty " was the word, and Master Fox 
 Was freed to murder other hens and cocks. 
 
 MORAL. 
 
 What moral greets us by this tale's assistance 
 But that the Solon is a sorry Solon, 
 
 Who makes the full stop of a Man's existence 
 Depend upon a Colon ? 
 
 PKO BOirO PUBLICO. 
 
THE COMET. J267 
 
 THE COMET. 
 
 AN ASTRONOMICAL ANECDOTE. 
 
 *' I cannot fill up a blank better than with a short history of this self- 
 same Storling."— Sterne's Sentimental Journey. 
 
 Amongst professors of astronomy, 
 Adepts in the celestial economy. 
 
 The name of H*******rs very often cited. 
 And justly so, for he is hand and glove 
 With ev*ry bright intelligence above ; 
 Indeed, it was his custom so to stop. 
 Watching the stars upon the house's top. 
 
 That once upon a time he got be-knighted. 
 
 In his observatory thus coquetting 
 
 With Venus — or with Juno gone astray, 
 All sublunary matters quite forgetting 
 In his ilirtations with the winking stars. 
 Acting the spy — it might be upon Mars — 
 
 A new Andre ; 
 Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping. 
 At Dian sleeping ; 
 Or ogling thro' his glass 
 Some heavenly lass 
 Tripping with pails along the Milky Way ; 
 Or looking at that W^ain of Charles the Martyrs :- 
 
 Thus he was sitting, watchman of the sky, 
 When lo ! a something with a t.ail of flame 
 
 Made him exclaim, 
 " My stars !" — he always put that stress on my — 
 " My stars and garters ! " 
 
2G8 THE COMET. 
 
 " A comet, sure as I'm alive ! 
 
 A noble one as I should wisn to view ; 
 
 It can't be Halley's though, that is not aue 
 Till eighteen thirty-five. 
 
 Magnificent ! — how fine his fiery trail ! 
 
 Zounds ! 'tis a pity, though he comes unsought 
 
 Unask'd — unreckon'd, — in no human thought- 
 He ought — he ought — he ought 
 To have been caught 
 
 With scientific salt upon his tail ! " 
 
 " POSSS COMKTATIS.' 
 
 " I look'd no more for it, I do declare, 
 Than the Great Bear ! 
 
 As sure as Tycho Brahe is dead, 
 It really enter'd in my head 
 No more than Berenice's Hair ' " 
 
THE COMET. 269 
 
 Thus musing, Heaven's Grand Inquisitor 
 
 Sat gazing on the uninvited visitor 
 
 Till John, the serving-man, came to the upper 
 
 Regions, with " Please your Honour, come to supper." 
 
 " Supper ! Good John, to-night I shall not sup 
 
 Except on that phenomenon — look up ! " 
 
 " Not sup ! " cried John, thinking with consternation 
 
 That supping on a star must be staryoiion. 
 
 Or ev'n to batten 
 On Ignes Patui would never fatten, 
 His visage seem'd to say, — that very odd is, — 
 But still his master the same tune ran on, 
 " I can't come down, — go to the parlour, John, 
 And say I'm supping with the heavenly bodies," 
 
 " The heavenly bodies ! " echoed John, " Ahem ! " 
 
 His mind still full of famishing alarms, 
 
 " 'Zooks, if your Honour sups with them, 
 
 In helping, somebody must make long arms ! " 
 
 He thought his master's stomach was in danger, 
 
 But still in the same tone replied the Knight, 
 
 " Go down, John, go, I have no appetite; 
 Say I'm engaged with a celestial stranger." — 
 Quoth John, not much au fait in such affairs, 
 " Wouldn't the stranger take a bit down stairs ? " 
 
 ** No," said the master, smiling, and no wonder. 
 
 At such a blunder, 
 ** The stranger is not quite the thing you think, 
 He wants no meat or drink, 
 And one may doubt quite reasonably whether 
 
 He has a mouth. 
 Seeing his head and tail are joined together. 
 Behold him, — there he is, John, in the South.** 
 
570 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 John look'd up with his portentous eyes, 
 Each rolling like a marble in its socket. 
 At last the fiery tad-pole spies, 
 And, full of Vauxhall reminiscence, cries, 
 " A rare good rocket ! " 
 
 " A what ! A rocket, John ! Par from it I 
 What you behold, John, is a comet ; 
 One of those most eccentric things 
 
 That in all ages 
 
 Have puzzled sages 
 
 And frighten'd kings ; 
 With fear of change that flaming meteor, Jolui, 
 Perplexes sovereigns, throughout its range" — 
 
 "Do he? "cried John; 
 
 " Well, let him flare on, 
 I haven't got no sovereigns to change ! " 
 
 THE HARVEST MOON. 
 
 LITEEAEY REMINISCENCES. 
 No. III. 
 
 My first acquaintance with the press — a memorable event in 
 an author's experience — took place in Scotland. Amongst the 
 temporary sojourners at our boarding-house, there came a legal 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 271 
 
 antiquarian who had been sent for from Edinburgh, expresslv 
 to make some unprofitable researches amongst the mustiest c* cfie 
 civic records. It was ray humour to think, that in Political as 
 well as Domestic Economy, it must be better to sweep the 
 Present than to dust the Past ; and certain new brooms were 
 recommended to the Town Council in a quizzing letter, which 
 the then editor of the Dundee Advertiser or Chronicle, thought 
 fit to favour with a prominent place in his columns. " 'Tis 
 pleasant sure," sings Lord Byron, " to see one's self in print," 
 and according to the popular notion I ought to have been quite 
 up in my stirrups, if not standing on the saddle, at thus seeing 
 myself, for the first strange time, set up in type. Memory 
 recals, however, but a very moderate share of exaltation, which 
 was totally eclipsed, moreover, by the exuberant transports of 
 an accessory before the fact, whom, methinks, I still see in my 
 mind's eye, rushing out of the printing- office with the wet sheet 
 steaming in his hand, and fiuttering all along the High Street, 
 to announce breathlessly that " we were in." But G. was an 
 indiflFerent scholar, even in English, and therefore thought the 
 more highly of this literary feat. It was this defective education, 
 and the want of a proper vent for his abundant love nonsense 
 in prose or verse, that probably led to the wound he subsequently 
 inflicted on his own throat, but which was luckily remedied by 
 " a stitch in time." The failure of a tragedy is very apt to pro- 
 duce something like a comedy, and few afterpieces have amused 
 me more than the behaviour of this Amicus Eedivivus, when, 
 thus dramatising the saying of " cut and come again," he made 
 what ought to have been a posthumous appearance amongst his 
 friends. In fact, and he was ludicrously alive to it, he had 
 placed himself for all his supplementary days in a false position. 
 Like the old man in the fable, after formally calling upon Death 
 to execute a general release, he had quietly resumed his fardel, 
 which he bore about, with exactly the uneasy ridiculous air of a 
 
272 LITERAKY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 fine-would be gei-t eman, who is sensitively conscious that he is 
 carrying a bundle. For the sake of our native sentimentalists 
 who profess dying for love, as well as the foreign romanticists 
 who affect a love for dying, it may not be amiss to give a slight 
 sketch of the bearing of a traveller who had gone through half 
 the journey. I had been absent some months, and was conse- 
 quently ignorant of the affair, when lo ! on my return to the 
 town, the very first person who accosted me in the market-place 
 was our felo-de-se; and truly, no Bashful Man, "with all his 
 blushing honours thick upon him," in the presence of a damp 
 stranger, could have been more divertingly sheepish, and awk- 
 wardly backward in coming forward as to manner and address. 
 Indeed, something of the embarrassment of a fresh introduction 
 might naturally be felt by an individual, thus beginning again, 
 as the lawyers say, de now, and renewing ties he had virtually 
 cast off. The guilty hand was as dubiously extended to me as if 
 it had been a dyer's, — its fellow meanwhile performing sundry 
 involuntary motions and manipulations about his cravat, as if 
 nervously mistrusting the correctness of the ties or the stability 
 of a buckle. As for his face, there was a foolish, deprecatory 
 smile upon it that would have puzzled the pencil of Wilkie ; and 
 even Listen himself could scarcely have parodied the inde- 
 scribable croak with which, conscious of an unlucky notoriety, 
 he inquired " if 1 had heard " — here, a short husky cough — 
 " of anything particular ? " 
 
 " Not a word," was the answer. 
 
 •'• Then you don't know "( — more fidgeting about the neck, the 
 smile rather sillier, the voice more guttural, and the cough worse 
 than ever) — " then you don't know " — but, like Macbeth's 
 amen, the confession literally stuck in the culprit's throat ; and 
 I was left to learn, an hour afterwards, and from another source, 
 
 at " Jemmy G * * * had fouglit a duel with himself, and cut 
 his own weazand, about a lady." 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 273 
 
 For my own part, with the above figure, and all its foolish 
 features vividly imprinted on my memory, I do not think that I 
 could ever seriously attempt " what Cato did, and Addison ap- 
 proved," in ray own person. On the contrary, it seems to me 
 that the English moralist gave but an Irish illustration of " a 
 brave man struggling with the storms of fate," by representing 
 him as wilfully scuttling his own hold, and going at once to the 
 bottom. As for the Censor, he plainly laid himself open to 
 censure, when he used a naked sword as a stomachic — a very 
 sorry way, by the way, when weary of conjectures, of enjoying 
 the benefit of the doubt, and for which, were I tasked to select 
 an inscription for his cenotaph, it should be the exclamation of 
 Thisby, in the Midsummer Night's Dream — 
 
 " This is old Ninny's tomb." 
 
 Mais revenons a nos moutons, as the wolf said to her cubs. 
 The reception of my letter in the Dublin Newspaper encouraged 
 me to forward a contribution to the Dundee Magazine, the 
 Editor of which was kind enough, as Winifred Jenkins says, to 
 " wrap my bit of nonsense under his Honour's Kiver," without 
 charging anything for its insertion. Here was success sufficient 
 to turn a young author at once into " a scribbling miller," and 
 make him sell himself, body and soul, after the German fashion, 
 to that minor Mephistopheles, the Printer's Devil! Never- 
 theless, it was not till years afterwards, and the lapse of term 
 equal to an ordinary apprenticeship, that the Imp in ques- 
 tion became really my Familiar. In the meantime, I con- 
 tinued to compose occasionally, and, like the literary perform- 
 ances of Mr. Weller Senior, my lucubrations were generally 
 committed to paper, not in what is commonly called written 
 hand, but an imitation of print. Such a course hints suspiciously 
 of type and antetype, and a longing eye to the Row, whereas, 
 \t was adopted simply to make the reading more easy, and thujs 
 VOL. II. 18 
 
«74 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 enable me the more readily to form a judgment of the effect of 
 my little efforts. It is more difficult than may be supposed to 
 decide on the value of a work in MS., and especially when the 
 handwriting presents only a swell mob of bad characters, that 
 must be severally examined and re-examined to arrive at the 
 merits or demerits of the case. Print settles it, as Coleridge 
 used to say ; and to be candid, I have more than once reversed, 
 or greatly modified a previous verdict, on seeing a rough proof 
 from the press. But, as Editors too well know, it is next to 
 impossible to retain the tune of a stanza, or the drift of an argu- 
 ment, whilst the mind has to scramble through a patch of scribble 
 scrabble, as stiff as a gorse cover. The beauties of the piece 
 will as naturally appear to disadvantage through such a medium 
 as the features of a pretty woman through a bad pane of glass ; 
 and without doubt, many a tolerable article has been consigned 
 hand over head to the Balaam Box for want of a fair copy. 
 Wherefore, O ye Poets and Prosers, who aspire to write in Mis- 
 cellanies, and above all, ye palpitating Untried, who meditate 
 the offer of your maiden essays to established periodicals, take 
 care, pray ye take care, to cultivate a good, plain, bold, round 
 text. Set up Tomkins as well as Pope or Dryden for a model, 
 and have an eye to your pothooks. Some persons hold that the 
 best writers are those who write the best hands, and I have 
 known the conductor of a magazine to be converted by a crabbev^ 
 MS. to the same opinion. Of all things, therefore, be legible ; 
 and to that end, practise in penmanship. If you have never 
 learned, take six lessons of Mr. Carstairs. Be sure to buy the 
 best paper, the best inK, the best pens, and then sit down and 
 do the best you can ; as the schoolboys do — put out your tongue, 
 and take pains. So shall ye haply escape the rash rejection of 
 a jaded editor ; so, having got in your hand, it is possible that 
 your head may follow ; and so, last not least, ye may fortunately 
 avert those awful mistakes of the press which sometimes ruin 
 
THE OCEAN. 275 
 
 a poet's sublime-st effusion, by pantomimically transforming his 
 roses into noses., his angels into angles, and all his happiness 
 into pappiness. 
 
 THE OCEAN. 
 
 CONSIDERED PER SE. 
 
 " A man whom both the waters and the wind, in that vast tennis-court 
 have made the ball lor them to play upon, entreats you pity him." 
 
 Pericles, 
 
 It was during a voyage to Margate, many summers ago — 
 before steam was — that the little episode occurred which I am 
 going to relate, by way of text, to some observations on the 
 ocean. 
 
 The importance of the Mariner's Compass to the sailor is as 
 well known universally as the utility of the little one-eyed in- 
 strument, for which Whitechapel is so famous, to the tailor : but 
 its mode of action, and the manner of its application, must be 
 far less generally understood. Whether the plougher of the deep 
 mends his checked shirts with the Needle, or sews the canvas 
 into sails with it, or uses it, after a battle, to extract the splinters 
 from his hard tarry hand, are speculations likely enough to be 
 entertained by the plougher of the land ; at least by those clod- 
 compelling turners of the furrows, mid-county born and bred, 
 who, despite of their predilection for such naval ballads as Tom 
 Bowling and Jack Junk, have never set their simple eyes on 
 ship or sailor, or the sea which they subdue. To many 
 Londoners even, who jostle the tar in the streets, and behold 
 tier after tier of masted vessels from their lower Bridge, — who 
 have perchance stood and stared at the Compass itself in some 
 shop-window of Leadenhall, or the still more maritime Minories, 
 
 the Card with its Card-vadX Points, is an undeciphered hierogly- 
 18— » 
 
^76 THE OCEAN. 
 
 phic. It did not violently surprise me, therefore, to see a 
 simple-looking creature of this latter class go and take a long 
 wondering look into the binnacle, like a child peeping at the 
 tortoise in an Italian's show-box ; and doubtless, to his callow 
 apprehension, the veering Guide was as much a thing of life and 
 instinct as the outlandish reptile to the urchin. It was not until 
 after a tedious poring at it — long enough, if there w^re any truth 
 in animal magnetism, for the Needle and the Man to have under- 
 stood one another by mutual sympathy — that the wonderer 
 made up to the steersman, and begged for an elucidation of the 
 marine mystery. Fortunately for the querist, the helmsman, 
 along with all the characteristic good-nature of his fraternity, 
 had none of the coyness, as to the secrets of the craft, with which 
 the ripe sailor is apt to treat the raw voyager ; perhaps not 
 without cause. The nautical truths, masonic, may deserve to be 
 obtained by degrees of probation : in the present case the un- 
 reserved communication of occult knowledge led to anything but 
 a satisfactory result. No one could take more pains — call them 
 pleasures rather — than the honest man at the wheel, to explain 
 the use and properties of the Compass : he boxed it again and 
 again for the benefit of the gaping neophyte ; a benevolent 
 smile, and the twinkling of his blue eyes, declaring that he felt 
 amply repaid by the supposed proficiency of his pupil, — when, 
 all of a sudden, his well-earned pride was dashed to the deck by 
 the pupil's turning away on his heel, with a hunch of his 
 shoulders, a blank look, and a dissatisfied grunt, exclaiming, 
 
 " Well, arter all, I don't see how the turning round of that 
 'ere little needle can move about the rudder ! " 
 
 I should have been no Christian man, but a brute beast, had 
 I not sympathised with the feelings of the steersman. Con- 
 tempt took the lead. All *' the dismal hiss of universal scorn," 
 ascribed to Milton's devils, seemed condensed into his whistle. 
 Next came Kesentment, wishing back the Cockney-Tailor to his 
 
THE 0CEA2J, 277 
 
 shop-board, sitting on his own needle — and then came Pity, in- 
 ducing the milder reflection, 
 
 " I wonder the poor gentleman's friends allows him to go 
 about by himself ! '* 
 
 I doubt whether the force of contempt and pity could furtlier 
 go : and yet— to confess a truth — shall I ? — dare I ? — say, that 
 to the intense sea-ignorance which incurred the scorn, anger, 
 and compassion of our Palinurus, I look back with Envy ? 
 
 Methinks, every British Heart of Oak recoils, and every 
 British head of the same material shakes itself, at such an 
 avowal ! Every lip that ever helped to chorus Rule Britannia, 
 curls itself up — noses which never sniffed sea- weed tacitly snub 
 me, — eyes which never glimpsed the ocean avert themselves in 
 disgust. I am bespattered with salt-water oaths and tobacco- 
 juice. The Thames Yacht Clubs, on the strength of having 
 learned to bellow " Elm a-lee ! " — " Ard-hup ! " and " Oist- 
 away ! " agree to run me down. The very clerks of the Navy 
 Pay Office propose to seize me up to the dingy fresh- water 
 Neptune in their fore-court. Captain Basil Hall swears, on his 
 best anchor-button, to keel-haul me daily, for six months, in 
 *' the element which never tires." The last of the Dibdins asks 
 for my card. Campbell flares up with the " Meteor Flag of 
 England," and vows to knock me down with its staff ;— nay, 
 our Sailor King himself repudiates me, as a subject, for not re- 
 lishing his High Seas ! 
 
 It can't be helped. When one is confessing, there is no place 
 under the sun like the Ocean for " making a clean breast of it:" 
 — and am not I here staggering and tumbling — soberly tipsy — 
 aboard a lubberly Dutch-built hull, becalmed in a heavy swell 
 — dreaming, when I can sleep, that I am a barrel-churn, re- 
 volving with my inside full of half-turned cream or incipient 
 butter ; — and finding, when I awake, that dreams do not go so 
 altogether by contraries P 
 
278 THE OCEAN. 
 
 If this perpetual motion hold, the cargo of cheeses \fe 
 shipped at Dordrecht, flat as single Glo'sters, will be delivered 
 in London spherical as bowls ! The Jung Vrouw herself, be- 
 fore she reaches the Nore, will be a washing-tub ! I have 
 doubts whether the salt beef, produced at this day's luncheon, 
 was, originally, a round. The leathern conveniency that I 
 brought aboard, a fair and square trunk, is already almost a 
 portmanteau ; — and, what is worse, every several morsel I have 
 swallowed this blessed day without bliss, seems rolling itself 
 into a bolus or a pill, — whether of opium or ipecacuanha, I 
 leave you to divine. If the calm should continue, I may become 
 — who knows ? — a Ball myself — a Master Biffin ! Every half- 
 hour, on feeling my knees and elbows, I find joints by this 
 friction losing some of their asperities, and getting obtuser. A 
 little more, and I shan't have a good point about me ! 
 
 Is such as this a season to be squeamishly retentive in de- 
 livering one's sentiments? Or, rather, is not open candour 
 inevitable ; seeing that you cannot have any reserve even with 
 the merest stranger ? It is impossible to keep your feelings to 
 yourself. In spite, then, of Britannia, the Yacht Club, the 
 Navy Pay, — of Dibdin, Campbell, and Basil Hall, — of the 
 Lords of the Admiralty, with Portsmouth, Devonport, and 
 Gosport, to boot — in spite of the Royal William, nay, in spite 
 of my very self, the truth will out ! — not sneaking out, or step- 
 ping out, or backing out, but bolting out, in a plain unequivocal 
 straightforward style. I do envy the simple man, with his sheer 
 ignorance about rudders and compasses. I do detest and 
 abominate the ocean — or to phrase it more mildly — the sea and 
 I cannot agree with each other — there is sure to be falling-out 
 between us — we can never be bosom friends. 
 
 The Marine Society must despise me for it ; my Elder 
 Brethren of the Trinity House will long to dispose of me as 
 Joseph was made away with by Jih elder Brethren ; Boatswain 
 
THE OCEAN. 
 
 279 
 
 Smith will preach, write Tracts and distribute them, against 
 me : the Greenwich Pensioners will bind themselves by a round 
 robin to kick me with me with their knottiest legs ; Long Tom 
 Coffin himself will be for fetching me, with a shroud in one 
 hand, and a dead-light in the other ; but I cannot eat my words. 
 It is no time, when you cannot keep your legs, to " stand 
 bandying compliments with your sovereign," that is, Neptune. 
 If he were present at this moment, in this cabin, I would tell 
 
 him, from this my seat on its floor, that he might very mucn 
 improve his paternal estate, to wit, by levelling, and still more 
 by draining it. I would flatly say to him, lying flat on my face 
 as it now happens, that a few little gravel walks, merely across 
 and across it, would be of rare advantage both for show and 
 use. For 'tis a sorry pleasure-garden that is all fish-pond ; and, 
 finally, I would broadly hint to him, from the broad of mj' 
 
 back, as I am at this present But this is bullying Taurus 
 
 behind his back. There is no sea-god present, only the Skipper. 
 How he skips in such weather, give him his pick of all the 
 ropes in the ship, is a miracle I would fain see ere I believe in 
 
28tr THE OCEAN. 
 
 it. For my own part I cannot even step deliberately over a 
 thread. Perhaps, without going too curiously into the Doctrine 
 of Predestination, as regards the soul, it may hold good as con- 
 cerns the body. Undoubtedly there be some men born to sit 
 fast upon horses ; others to fall off therefrom as if they had 
 soaped saddles. Some to slide and skate upon the ice ; others 
 only to slip, straddle, and sprawl upon it. Some to walk, or at 
 least waddle, on ships' decks ; others to flop, flounder, wallow, 
 and grovel thereon. That is my destiny. None can be more 
 safe on the Serpentine, or sure in the saddle; — but Pate, long be- 
 fore my great-great-great-grandfather was put to his feet, forbade 
 me sea-legs. An average pedestrian on land, on the caulked 
 plank I am a born cripple, hopeless of cure. Put me apprentice 
 to the Goodwin, or the Dudgeon Light, at the end of my term 
 you shall find me as unsafe on my soles as when I first paid 
 my footing. Even now, whilst Hans Vandergroot and his crew 
 are comfortably promenading, I rock and totter, balancing one 
 end against the other, like a great rickety babe, until, after 
 some posturing and scrambling, I trip up over nothing, and fall 
 flat on everything. An earthquake in London, when its streets 
 are what is called greasy, could not more puzzle my centre of 
 gravity ; if, indeed, I was not born a mathematical monster, 
 devoid of th^t material point ! 
 
 By way of clincher. Pate, who never does things by halves, 
 whilst foredooming me incapable of standing my ground at sea, 
 has also denied me the power of settling it. A camp-stool is 
 sure to decamp with me ; a chair, as if it stood on Siberian ice, 
 suddenly throws itself on its back, and behold me in an ex- 
 tempore sledge ! Barrels roll from under me ; coils of rope 
 shuffle me oft". Even on the plain bare hard deck, or cabin floor, 
 I throw demi- summersets, as if I had been returned to Parlia- 
 ment to represent the Antipodes by sitting on the back of my head. 
 
 To complete the Sea Curse, — there are three Pates, and each 
 
THE OCEAN. 281 
 
 had a boon for me at my birth — it was ordained that, like the 
 great Nelson, I should never sail from fresh water into salt, 
 without knowing it by a general rising and commotion, which 
 might be called figuratively, a Mutiny at the Nore. 
 
 Like the standing and sitting infirmity, it is incurable. On 
 my voyage outwards I tried every popular recipe; the hard 
 ones first, to wit, raw carrots, raw onions, sailors' biscuit with 
 Dutch cheese, hard-boiled eggs, hard dumplings, raw stockfish. 
 Next the easy ones: namely, cream cheese, Welsh rabbits, 
 maccaroni, very hasty pudding, and insupportable soup. Then 
 the neutrals : such as chewed blotting-paper, dry oatmeal, 
 pounded egg-shells, scraped chalk, and unbaked dough. 
 
 To wash these down, I took, by prescription, tea without 
 milk, coffee without sugar, bark without wine, water without 
 brandy ; and these formulae all failing, I then tried them, as 
 witches pray, backwards ; brandy without water, wine without 
 bark, and so forth. The experimental combinations followed ; 
 rum and milk, and mustard ; eggs and wine, and camomile tea ; 
 gin and beer, and vinegar; sea-water and salad-oil, mulled, with 
 sugar and nutmeg. Of which last, I drank by advice most 
 prodigiously, the Doctors of the Marine College dispensing 
 always on the Homoeopathic principle, that a large dose of any- 
 thing, whereof a little would set you wrong on the land, will set 
 you right on the sea. 
 
 I need hardly say that, with my predisposed necessitarian 
 viscera, all these infallible remedies failed of any efi'ect, except 
 to aggravate my case. Nothing short of liquid lead, maybe, or 
 potable plaster of Paris, would have proved a settler. 
 
 Happy the man who hath never been driven in his despair to 
 test, detest, invoke, evoke, swallow, and unswallow, such 
 drugs and draughts of the naval Pharmacopoeia I Thrice happy 
 civic simpleton who hath never learned how the rudder revolveth, 
 at the risk of turning round himself ! 
 
282 THE OCEAN. 
 
 Vandergroot is visibly in course of transformation. At every 
 visit to the cabin he looks more and more like a Dutch-pin. He 
 talks to me roundly, and gets blunter and blunter ! The last 
 time I felt, I had no small to my back. If I may guess at my 
 own figure, it is now about an oval. I must look like one of 
 Leda's babies, just emerged, with their insignificant buds of legs 
 and arms, from the egg I Prom an oval to a circle is but a 
 step. Heaven help me when I get landed, round and sound, as 
 they say of chen'ies ! How shall I get home — how get up — 
 (there will be a short way down) — mine own stairs ? How shall 
 I sit ? Instead of my old library chair, I must borrow its three- 
 legged stool of the terrestrial globe ! 
 
 Either my head swims, or the cabin is getting circular ! I 
 shall roll about in it like a b.olus in its box ! If I am not merely 
 giddy, I am already as spherical as the earth ; a little flatted, or 
 so, that is, towards the poles. What a horrible rough calm ! I 
 will down on my knees, if I have knees, and with clasped hands, 
 if hands remain to me, pray, beg, and supplicate for a dismal 
 storm to batter me into shape again, though it be but nine- 
 bobble-square ! 
 
 I get more and more candid and communicative every moment. 
 I can keep nothing to myself : you shall have my whole heart. 
 I abhor, loathe, execrate, the sea ! If I could throw up my hat, 
 my cry would be "Land for ever ! " A fico for Tom Tough ! 
 Down with Duncan Howe, and Jervis ! No Dibdin ! 
 
 If ever I get ashore, able to chalk upon a wall, you shall read 
 — Ask for Stoke Pogis ! Try Lupton Parva ! If ever I get to a 
 dry desk again, to write verse upon, — and the poetry of the 
 ocean is aU on the land, its prose only upon the sea, you shall 
 /lave a rare new melody, published by Power, to some such 
 strain as this : — 
 
 The sea! the D ! 
 
 The terrible horrible sea ! 
 
THE OCEAN. 283 
 
 The stormy, tumbling, 
 
 Qualmy-j umbling, 
 
 Spirit-humbling, 
 
 Shingle-stumbling, 
 
 Sea- weed fumbling. 
 
 Wearing, crumbling, 
 
 Mischief-mumbling, 
 
 Growling, grumbling. 
 
 Like thunder far off rumbling 
 
 That last line halteth in its feet, as well it may, when the poet 
 cannot keep his legs. Oh ! it is well for Cornwall, born per- 
 
 HOW AKE YOU OFF FOR MONEY ? " 
 
 WHY I'm off with all my masteb's. 
 
 chance " with one foot on sea and one foot on shore " at the 
 Land's End, — I have seen a picture of it by Turner, a bare 
 bleak rocky promontory, with some nineteen gulls and cormor- 
 
284 THE OCEAN. 
 
 ants sitting thereon, each with its tail turned contemptuously to- 
 wards the barren granite, feldspar, and like sordid soils which 
 there represent land. — It is well enough for him to chaunt lauda- 
 tions of the briny element, and cry up those amphibia, his first 
 cousins almost, the Nereids and Tritons. Or it may become 
 those others, born in a berth, and christened in brine, with Nep- 
 tune for sponsor, to sing slightingly of the dry ground, on which 
 they cannot claim even a parish. But my nativity was otherwise 
 cast — I am a grass lamb, yeaned on the green sward — oh sweet 
 sweet sweet Cropton-le-Moor, down in dear dear Wiltshire ! 
 
 That pastoral reminiscence hath made me worse. It has given 
 me an appetite — for acres. Methinks I yearn and long and 
 crave for nice clay, delicious mould, and crisp pebbles, in a par- 
 oxysm of that strange bulimy that attacks the African Dirt 
 Eater. Something of Nebuchadnezzar's grazing propensity 
 comes along with it. Gracious Heaven ! can it be possible that, 
 after having been battered and shaken out of all shape, — a mere 
 mass of living flesh, like the unlicked ursine cub, — this same 
 Circean Jung Vrouw has taken it into her figure-head to beat, 
 bang, bump, and rumbledy-thump me into another form, a horse, 
 a ram, or a brindled bull ! 
 
 Thrice brute and beast-hyaena ! Were- wolf ! Dragon ! horned 
 Devil ! that thou wast, my Land-steward, Peter Stuckey ! after 
 counselling me before thy last audit to abate my rents, to volun- 
 teer to reduce them thyself by absconding, across sea, with the 
 whole receipt! Thrice Soland goose, booby, noddy, sea-calf, 
 iand-donkey, and loggerhead turtle was I, thus impoverished, 
 instead of economising, to pursue thee on an element where I 
 cannot control my out-goings ! 
 
 Donner and Blitzen ! what a crash ! my rash prayer was 
 heard : there is a storm coming — as the Powers proposed to 
 storm Anglers in King John's days — from all the four quarters 
 at once ! I must needs turn in : but how vilely this bed is made 
 
THE OCEAN. 285 
 
 with the foot two yards higher than the head ! No, the head is 
 highest — perpendicular. I designed to lie down, and here 1 am 
 standing bolt erect on my heels — no, on my head. It must be 
 getting cold : the very trunks, stools and tables are making a 
 move towards the stove — nay, now we are in some sudden peril, 
 for they are all doing their best to rush up the cabin-stair. Whew 
 — that sea last shipped must needs have put all the Dutchmen's 
 pipes out. Another plunge ; and a flood of brine soaks me 
 through, shirt, sheet, and blankets. There is no washing put 
 out here, I perceive ; 'tis all done at home. What a complex, 
 chaotic motion, — the ship tosses and flings like a wild desert- 
 born horse, that is trying to rear, kick up behind, turn round 
 and round, and roll on his back at one and the same moment 
 This is no Dutch ship, but a Dutch fair — with the druma 
 gongs, speaking-trumpets, and other discords, all braying to 
 gather ; and I am on the rocking-horse, the round-about, in the 
 up-and-down, and each of the swings, all at once ! Another 
 crash! The Jung Vrouw is bereaved of her little one, alias 
 the long-boat. How kind of Vandergroot to come down to tell 
 me of it, direct through the sky-light, instead of going round by 
 the stair ! How kind of that table, lying on its back, to catch 
 him in its legs ! Angels of grace be near us ! He tells me, as 
 he sways up and down, partly in High, partly in Low Dutch, 
 that the Jung Vrouw herself is washed overboard ! But no — 
 I misconstrued him. 'Tis only her great ruddy staring figure-head 
 — which the blundering Holland shipwrights had stuck astern, 
 on the crown of the tiller — that is gone adrift. Oh how I wish 
 from my soul of souls that I could see the Commodore of the 
 Thames Yachts now pulling, within hail, in the Wenus ! Or, 
 the last Dibdin taking a chair — or the chair taking him — in this 
 cabin ! Or, Campbell essaying to write down a new sea-song 
 on yon topsy-turvy table! And oh! to behold the author of 
 "The deep deep Sea" sitting on the poop, singing to that 
 
286 THE OCEAN. 
 
 floating Young Woman's head and bust, taken by mistake for a 
 mermaid's ! 
 
 Another shout. Pieter Pietersoon, in heaving the lead, hatb 
 chucked himself in along with it ! I do not wonder ; he heaveth 
 after my own fashion, by wholesale. Have I not within the last 
 two hours rejected, discharged, and utterly cast from me in dis- 
 gust, the whole ocean, nay all the oceans, German, Atlantic, 
 Pacific — the Arctic last, its solid calms, the next best things to 
 Terra Pirma, not so violently disagreeing with me as the rest. 
 And do I not know and feel that I am now about to give up 
 Neptune, trident and all, with the whole salt-water mythology? 
 I warrant, ere ten minutes to come, there shall not remain within 
 me so much as a syren's mirror, or her tortoise-shell comb : — 
 not one solitary Triton will be left on my stomach. Some un- 
 savoury odour about the cabin — marvellously like the smell of 
 oil paint — ^hath just given me a new turn, by conjuring up all 
 the nauseous pictures of marine allegories, which even on steady 
 dry land, used to stir and provoke my spleen. 
 
 Oh ! that they were all here, President, E.A., and A.K.A., in 
 a string, climbing after me up this perilous slippery stair, to the 
 more perilous slippery deck, there to crawl on all-fours to the 
 ship's side, and clinging like cats or monkeys to the quarter 
 boards, take a trembling peep at what Vandergroot calls " den 
 wild zee ! " Wliat an awful sight ! The tempest- tost sky is as 
 troubled as the ocean : whilst betwixt the jagged base of the low 
 black cloud, and the still jaggeder crest of the sea, the red angry 
 lightning restlessly darts to and fro, as if in search of whatever 
 presuming mortal dares fare between them ! Oh tell me, Mister 
 Elias Martin — if you a'nt dead — is the tossing crest of yonder 
 mad black billow, that comes racing after us, at all like the black 
 worsted fringe which your brethren are apt to hang on the necks 
 of their marine Arabians ? But hush, yonder comes Neptune 
 himself, in his state-coach — aye, hats off — the wind hath taught 
 
THE OCEAN. 2S7 
 
 ye manners. Lo ! yonder he stands, — Pshaw ! no, no, no, — 
 Zounds ! you are all gaping at honest Hans Vandergroot. Look 
 to starboard — to the left hand ! That's the gentleman, without 
 his castor, nor indeed over well togged otherwise for wet weather — 
 with his beard lather'd but not shaved — standing up in an oyster- 
 shell drag, and attempting, like a sorry whip as he is, to tool his 
 team of bokickers with a potato-fork. Did you ever see four 
 such unbroke brutes as he hath to keep together — ^neither reined- 
 up, nor down, nor indeed, any ribbons to hold at all — and as I 
 would have laid a pony to nothing, there they go, no pace at all, 
 cause why ? they are just come to some invisible sea obelisk, and 
 each horse is for going down a road of his own. Did you ever 
 set eyes on such action ? No stepping out — but all pawing and 
 prancing and putting their feet down again where they picked 
 them up, like Ducrow's dancing stud ; as sure as I'm a judge, 
 they have all got the string-halt in their fore-legs, because 
 they can't have it in their hinder ones ! You may swear safely 
 that they have four bad colds besides, and look what a rabble of 
 naked postillions are hanging on by their manes, because they 
 have no saddles, and if they had, they would never be able to 
 sit in them with those salmon tails ! Between ourselves, Elias, 
 'tis no great shakes of a show ; the Lord Mayor's pageant on 
 the water beats it all to sticks ; and if you make a picture of it, 
 you will be a fool for your pains. Yet have I seen paintings by 
 first-rate hands as like to this same trumpery Sadlers' Wells 
 
 water spectacle 
 
 Murder! murder! Help ! help ! O Lord! A surgeon and a 
 shutter, if there be such comfortable things in this unneighbourly 
 neighbourhood. O ! oh ! oh ! oh ! Woe is me ! I am not — I am 
 now certain and sure I am not a Ball ! I have limbs and 
 members! legs and arms! like other people's, only they're 
 broke ; and a very distinct back. My head ! Oh ! my head, my 
 head J there are nine lumps thereon, and there are nine cabin stairs. 
 
288 TUB OCEAN. 
 
 The real Sea-King, in resentment, I suppose, of my un- 
 timely caricature of him and his state-coach, after spitting nine 
 gallons of foam in my face, knocked me flat with a wave, and 
 then kicked me down stairs ; and here I am again trying to 
 anoint my bruises with trunks, and bind them up with stools 
 and tables, on the har.i-hearted oak planks of the cabin-floor. 
 Yet is it easier with me than I first feared. My legs are not 
 broken but merely bent. I am only bandy and not lame for life ; 
 but my sea-sickness is not cured. Am I likly to put up, better 
 or worse, think you, with Neptune and his satellites, for this 
 unhandsome usage? 
 
 " FRIEND ! DOST THEE CALL THIS THE PACIFIC?" 
 
 The Jung Vrouw, meanwhile, is as giddy as ever, nay, worse 
 ten times told. She bath taken a tinge of high-flying, deep- 
 living, German Romanticism into her wooden bead, and is try 
 
THE OCEAN. 289 
 
 ing, plunge after plunge, to drown herself, and to make me com- 
 mit wilful suicide along with her, whether I will or not. After 
 that, there is no hope ; but oh ! yet oh, my Fates, let me die 
 upon land. I have a horror of shipboard ! The idea of sever- 
 ing all ties in this cabin is trebly agonising. Why, the very 
 table is tied to the floor, the candlestick to the table, the 
 snuffers to the candlestick, the extinguisher to the snuffers 
 Only the burning candle is unattached, and there — there it 
 jumps into bed ! No matter ; it could as soon set fire to the 
 Thames. Another squall ! How she groans, creaks, squeaks, 
 strains, grinds, and squeezes, like a huge walnut in Neptune's 
 crackers ? Accursed Jung Vrouw ! thou wilt be the widowing of 
 my poor dear old one ! Accursed Peter Stuckey, thou wilt be 
 the murdering of my poor deaf old self! 
 
 I know not, for a surety, by reason that everything about me 
 is quaking and shaking, but I suspect I am trembling like an 
 aspen. It is impossible to hear, in the midst of this universal 
 hubbub, but methinks, I am wailing and weeping aloud. But 
 one may as well make a manly exit. Like other men, in such 
 sea extremities, I would fain betake me to the rum-cask ; but 
 either Hans Vandergroot sails on Temperance principles, or I 
 have looked in the wrong place. I will try a stave or two 
 instead. 
 
 •• Full fathom five—" 
 
 Alas ! it will not go down. I am too much out of sorts for 
 even the " delicate Ariel." It was one thing for Shakspeare, 
 sailing, hugging the shore, never out of sight of land, on the 
 safe serene coasts of Bohemia, to compose such a sea song for 
 the wood and canvas Tempests of the stage ; but it is another 
 guess thing to hear it, as I do, howled through hoarse ship- 
 ropes, by Boreas himself, in a real storm. What comfort to me 
 that everything about me shall suffer a sea-change ? — that my 
 bones shall turn, forsooth, into coral ? I would not give a bad 
 VOL. II. 19 
 
290 
 
 THE OCEAIT. 
 
 doit, with some of these poor metacarpal bones of mine to be 
 rubbing the gums of the Royal Infant of Spain. I am not so 
 blindly ambitious as to wish that these two precious useful balls 
 of mine, turned into pearls, should shine in the British crown 
 itself, or, what is more tempting, in the hair of the beautiful 
 
 THE BEST BOWEE ANCHOR, 
 
 Countess of B. What if some economical jeweller — I think T 
 feel him at it — should take it into his head to split them, for 
 setting in a ring ? As for the Syren's knell, I would as lief 
 have it as long hereafter as may be, from the plain prosaic old 
 sexton of St. Sepulchre's. I have no depraved yearning to be 
 fiist wet-nursed to death, and then "lapped in Elysium," by 
 Mermaids, the most cold, flabby, washy, fishy, draggletails ever 
 invented to give any human fancy the ague — half-and-half 
 monsters, neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring. A whole 
 cargo of them, nay a glut of them, leaping alive, unfit for loving^ 
 
THE OCEAN. 291 
 
 or eating, is not worth one loveable real woman at Billingsgate, 
 or one of the eatable maids on her stall. I could never imagine 
 the boldest and gallantest boatswain encountering such a sea- 
 witch, on a lone beach — combing the shrimps out of her wet 
 sandy mud-coloured hair, and wriggling her foolish tail about, 
 curling, or stretching it, or trying to put it into her pocket, for- 
 getting that she has no pockets, as a shy man in company does 
 not know what to do with his hands — I could never fancy him 
 looking on such a creature, however attached to the fair sex, 
 without his recoiling till he tumbled over his own pigtail, sing- 
 ing out, with a slight variation of a line of Dibdin's, 
 " Avert yon 'oman, gracious Heaven ! " 
 
 Por other sea-temptations, I would not give my old white 
 pony, that stumbles over every stone in his road, and some out 
 of it, to ride like that Lord Godolphin Arion over the seas on 
 the fairest fish that was ever foaled. Speaking under fear of 
 death, I would rather, waving all the romance, ride in a rill by 
 a roadside on a stickle-back. On my solemn word, I would far 
 liefer bestride even a pond perch with his dorsal fin erect. But 
 hark ! What means that dreadful cry ? Our death-bell is toll- 
 ing in Dutch — "Del, del, is verlooreu ! " 
 
 I must scramble, crawl, haul myself, spite of my sprained 
 ankles, up unto the deck how I may. Next best unto witness- 
 ing our own funeral is the seeing how we are done to death. 
 
 "What a sight ! Here is the tiller tied hard a-port, or hard 
 a-lee, as hard as they can tie it. Further back is the Skipper 
 himself, entangled dismally by some cord or other to the stern- 
 rails ; and yonder is his mate, with a hundred and fifty turns of 
 rope round himself and the mizen-mast, which he seems trying 
 to strengthen. The gunner, as I take him to be, with a pre- 
 posterous superfluity of breeching, is made fast to look through 
 a hole, which seems to have been meant for a window to a 
 cannon; and the carpenter, well pinioned and tethered by a 
 19—2 
 
292 THE OCEAN. 
 
 stout rope to the back-stay, is sheepishly dangling therefrom, 
 whenever his side of the ship is uppermost, like unto the Lamb 
 of the Order of the Golden rieeee. The cook, having given 
 away both his hands, is spliced, as if for life, unto the capstan. 
 Adam Vaart is double-turned and double-knotted to the main- 
 mast, and Hendrick his brother is belayed down, on the broad 
 of his back, in the place of the lost long-boat. Should the 
 anchor be dropped, Jan Bart is sure, even from head to foot, to 
 go along with it. Poor little Yacob Tops, the apprentice, hath 
 been turned over, and re-bound into a ring-bolt, by articles 
 which are called rope-yarns ; and lo, up yonder, lashed by his 
 legs to the rattlines, hangs Diedrick Dumm-Kopf, head down- 
 wards, like a split cod left there to dry, in the main shrouds ! 
 
 Oh ! that I were bound myself round and round all the ribs, 
 from the top to the bottom, with good six-twist, lest even thus, 
 in articulo mortis, I burst, split my sides, and die with excess 
 of laughter. The Skipper, honest Hans, with much difficulty, 
 for he grievously mistrusts his breathing to the beating of the 
 wave, opening his mouth when it comes, and sealing up his 
 lips when it is gone, hath let me into the whole secret. Con- 
 sidering the wild sea, he saith, and that no man can tie himself 
 so surely as another man can, to some more steadfast substance, 
 they had been all fastened, at their own special wish and agree- 
 ment, to such hold-fasts as pleased them best, by Diedrick 
 Dumm-Kopf, who was afterwards to provide for his safety as 
 he judged surest, in order that he might liberate them again 
 when the storm should be blown over. That accordingly, after 
 first tying them all as securely as he was able, the said Diedrick 
 betook himself to the main rigging, about half way up, to which 
 he lashed himself by the ankles, holding on likewise with his 
 hands, and his great clasp-knife in his mouth. That the Jung 
 Vtouw driving before the wind and sea, they made shift, as they 
 were, to navigate her pretty comfortably for some twenty minutes 
 
THE OCEAN. 293 
 
 or thereby, when all of a sudden they saw Diedrick, being seized 
 with a vertigo, let go his hold and drop into his present posture, 
 from which he could never recover himself; and it was that 
 dismal sight which had extorted the universal outcry that I 
 heard. 
 
 I am sicker of the sea than ever ! Is the safety of a Chris- 
 tian man's life, and soul maybe, of no more interest than to be 
 gambled away by such a set of Dutch Bottoms with Asses* 
 heads on their shoulders ! Oh ! that the worthy Chairman and 
 all the Underwriters of Lloyd's were here present on this deck 
 — the mere sight of the Skipper's countenance there, with not 
 60 much meaning in it as a smoked pig's face, for that means to 
 be eaten, would scare them from all sea-risks for ever ! 
 
 Thanks be to Heaven ! yonder's a sail. It makes straight 
 tow'ar-ds us — they come aboard. A Pilot ? — well said ! Oh, 
 honest, good, dear Pilot, as you love a distressed poor country- 
 man — as you understand the compass and how rudders are 
 turned — if you know what a rope's end is, — take the biggest 
 bit of a cable you can pick, and give yonder Dutch sea-calves a 
 round dozen a piece ; 'twill cost you no great pains, seeing they 
 are tied up ready to your hand. Pish! never mind their 
 offence; they have mutinied against themselves. Smite, and 
 spare not. I will go ashore meanwhile, in your boat. Hollo 
 there ! help me down. Take heed to my footing. Catch me, 
 all of you, in your arms. Now I am in. No, I an't ! I an't ! 
 I an't ! 
 
 If ye had not hauled me in again with that same boat-hook, 
 I was drown'd. My shoulder bleeds for it, but I forgive. Never 
 heed me : look to your helms and sails. 'Tis only a gallon or 
 two of sea-water, just swallowed, that is indisposed to go on 
 shore with me. I am used to it, indeed I am. Pray, what is 
 the name of this blessed boat ? The Lively Nancy. Lively 
 indeed I The Jung Vrouw was a Quakeress to her ! At every 
 
294 
 
 THE OCEAN. 
 
 jump she takes, my heart leaps also. Pray, pray, pray take in 
 some canvas. You think you be sailing, but you are commit- 
 ting suicide. They mind me no more than stones. Oh ! oh ! 
 I am out of Danger's frying •pan into its fire! Peter Stuckey 
 will be a murtherer after all ! 
 
 What a set of dare-devils ! They grin like baboons whilst 
 she is driving with half her deck under water ! I will shut 
 mine eyes and hold fast by something. I am worse than ever. 
 I give myself up. Oh ! oh ! what an awful roaring, hissing, 
 grinding noise we are come into ! The bottom of the sea is 
 coming out, or else the bottom of the boat ! Hah I Help I 
 help I I am heels upward ! Why did not some kindly soul 
 forewarn me that she was going to stop short on the beach ? 
 Stand all aside, and let me leap upon the sand. Ah ! I have 
 made my nose spout gore in my over-haste to kiss my native 
 land! 
 
 WHY don't tou look odt pob woek?' 
 
 Blessed be dry ground ! j^'arewell, ocean ! farewell, Jung 
 Vrouw and Lively Nancy ! Take my advice, and get married 
 both of you to young farmers. Parewell, ye hang-dogs that 
 saved me ! Share my blessing amongst you ; 'tis all I have 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 295 
 
 upon me or in me. Farewell, Neptune ! We'll part friends. 
 If you ever come to Cropton-le-Moor, I shall be glad to see 
 you, and not till then. Hans 1 Jan 1 Pieter ! farewell one and 
 all of you ; *' and if a merry meeting may be wished, God pro- 
 hibit it." Now for a sweet, safe, still, silent land-bed ! Set 
 me but within a run and a jump of one, and in two clipped 
 current minutes I will be fast asleep in it, even like the Irish- 
 man who forgot to say his prayers, but remembered to say 
 amen. 
 
 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 The Moon — who does not love the silver moon, 
 In all her fantasies and all her phases ? 
 
 Whether full-orb 'd in the nocturnal noon, 
 Shining in all the dewdrops on the daisies. 
 To light the tripping Fairies in their mazes, 
 
 Whilst stars are winking at the pranks of Puck ; 
 Or huge and red, as on brown sheaves she gazes j 
 
 Or new and thin, when coin is turn'd for luck ; 
 
 Who will not say that Dian is a Duck ? 
 
 But, oh ! how tender, beautiful and sweet. 
 
 When in her silent round, serene and clear, 
 By assignation loving fancies meet. 
 
 To recompense the pangs of absence drear ! 
 
 So Ellen, dreaming of Lorenzo, dear. 
 But distant from the city mapp'd by Mogg, 
 
 Still saw his image in that silver sphere. 
 Plain as the Man with lantern, bush, and dog, 
 That used to set our ancestors a-gog. 
 
296 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 And so she told him in a pretty letter. 
 That came to hand exactly as Saint Meg's 
 Was striking ten — eleven had been better ; 
 Eor then he might have eaten six more eggs, 
 And both of the bedevill'd turkey-legs, 
 With relishes from East, West, North, and Soutli, 
 
 Draining, beside, the teapot to the dregs ; 
 Whereas a man, whose heart is in his mouth, 
 Is rather spoilt for hunger and for drouth. 
 
 
 ▲BSTBi.CTION. 
 
 And SO the kidneys, broiling hot, were wasted ; 
 
 The brawn — it never enter'd in his thought ; 
 The grated Parmesan remained untasted ; 
 
 The potted shrimps were left as they were bought, 
 
 The capelings stood as merely good for nought. 
 The German sausage did not tempt him better, 
 
 "\i\Tiilst Juno, licking her poor lips, was taught 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 2i)7 
 
 There's neither bone nor skin about a letter, 
 Gristle, nor scalp, that one can give a setter. 
 Heav'n bless the man who first devised a mail ! 
 
 Heav'n bless that public pile which stands concealing 
 The Goldsmiths' front with such a solid veil ! 
 
 Heav'n bless the Master, and Sir Francis ^reeling. 
 
 The drags, the nags, the leading or the wheeeling, 
 The whips, the guards, the horns, the coats of scarlet. 
 
 The boxes, bags, those evening bells a-pealing ! 
 Heav'n bless, in short, each posting thing, and varlet 
 That helps a Werter to a sigh from Charlotte. 
 
 So felt Lorenzo as he oped the sheet, 
 
 Where, first, the darling signature he kiss'd, 
 
 And then, recurring to its contents sweet 
 With thirsty eyes, a phrase I must enlist. 
 He gulped the words to hasten to their gist ; 
 
 In mortal ecstasy his soul was bound — 
 When, lo ! with features all at once a-twist. 
 
 He gave a whistle, wild enough in sound 
 
 To summon Paustus's Infernal Hound ! 
 
 Alas ! what little miffs and tiffs in love, 
 
 A snubbish word, or pouting look mistaken. 
 Will loosen screws with sweethearts hand and glove, 
 
 Oh ! love, rock firm when chimney-pots were shaken, 
 
 A pettish breath will into huffs awaken. 
 To spit like hump-back'd cats, and snarling Towzers ! 
 
 Till hearts are wreck'd and founder'd, and forsaken, 
 As ships go to Old Davy, Lord knows how. Sirs, 
 While heav'n is blue enough for Dutchmen's trowsers ! 
 
 ** The moon's at full, love, and I think of you " — 
 Who would have thought that such a kind P.S, 
 
S&8 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 Could make a man tiu-n white, then red, then blue, 
 Then black, and knit his eyebrows and compress 
 His teeth, as if about to effervesce 
 
 Like certain people when they lose at whist ! 
 So look'd the chafed Lorenzo, ne'ertheless. 
 
 And, in a trice, the paper he had kiss'd 
 
 Was crumpled like a snowball in his fist ! 
 
 Ah ! had he been less versed in scientifics, 
 
 More ignorant, in short, of what is what : 
 He ne*er had flared up in such calorifics ; 
 
 But he would seek societies, and trot 
 
 To clubs, Mechanics' institutes, and got 
 With Birkbeck — Bartley — Combe — George Robins — Rennie, 
 
 And other lecturing men. And had he not 
 That work, of weekly parts, which sells so many. 
 The Copper-bottomed Magazine — or " Penny ? " 
 
 But, of all learned pools whereon, or in, 
 
 Men dive like dabchicks, or like swallows skim. 
 Some hardly damp'd, some wetted to the skin. 
 Some drown'd like pigs when they attempt to swim, 
 Astronomy was most Lorenzo's whim, 
 
 ('Tis studied by a Prince amongst the Burmans) ; 
 He loved those heavenly bodies which, the Hymn 
 
 Of Addison declares, preach solemn sermons, 
 
 While waltzing on their pivots like young Germans. 
 
 Night after night, with telescope in hand, 
 Supposing that the night was fair and clear. 
 
 Aloft, on the house-top, he took his stand, 
 
 Till he obtained to know each twinkling sphere 
 Better, I doubt, than Milton's " Starry Vere ; " 
 
 Thus, reading thro' poor Ellen's fond epistle, 
 He soon espied the flaw — the lapse so sheer 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 299 
 
 That made him raise his hair in such a bristle. 
 And like the Boatswain of the Storm-Ship whistle. 
 
 " The moon*s at full, love, and I think of thee," — 
 
 *' Indeed ! I'm very much her humble debtor, 
 But not the moon-calf she would have me be. 
 
 Zounds ! does she fancy that I know no better ? *' 
 
 Herewith, at either comer of the letter 
 He gave a most ferocious, rending, pull ; — 
 
 '* O woman ! woman ! that no vows can fetter, 
 A moon to stay for three weeks at the full ! 
 By Jove ! a very pretty cock-and-bull ! 
 
 " The moon at full ! 'twas very finely reckon'd ! 
 
 "Why so she wrote me word upon the first — 
 The twelfth, and now upon the twenty-second — 
 
 Full ! — yes — it must be full enough to burst ! 
 
 But let her go — of all vile jilts the worst "— 
 Here with his thumbs he gave contemptuous snaps, 
 
 Anon he blubber'd like the child that's nurs'd, 
 And then he hit the table frightful raps. 
 And stamped till he had broken both his straps. 
 
 " The moon's at full — and I am in her thought — 
 
 No doubt ; I do believe it in my soul ! " 
 Here he thi'ew up his head, and gave a snort 
 
 Like a young horse first harness'd to a pole : 
 
 The moon is full — aye, so is this d — d bowl ! " 
 And, grinning like the sourest of curmudgeons. 
 
 Globe — water — fishes — he dash'd down the whole, 
 Strewing the carpet witb the gasping gudgeons ; 
 Men do the strangest things in such love-dudgeons. 
 
 ** I fill her thoughts — her memory's vicc-gerent ? 
 No, no, — some paltry puppy — three weeks old — 
 
300 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 And round as Norvars sliield " — thus incoherent 
 His fancies grew as he went on to scold ; 
 So stormy waves are into breakers roll'd, 
 Work'd up at last to mere chaotic wroth — 
 
 This — that — heads — tails — thoughts jumbled uncontroira 
 As onions, turnips, meat, in boiling broth, 
 By turns bob up, and splutter in the froth. 
 
 HOKE 8 DOUGIiAfl. 
 
 ** Fool that I was to le-* a baby face — 
 
 A full one — like a hunter's — round and red — 
 Ass that I am, to give her more a place 
 
 Within this heart " — and here he struck his head. 
 
 " 'Sdeath are the Almanack-compilers dead ? 
 But no — 'tis all an artifice — a trick. 
 
 Some newer face — some dandy under-bred — 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 301 
 
 Well — ^be it so — of all the sex I*m sick ! " 
 Here Juno wonder'd why she got a kick. 
 
 " * The moon is full ' — where's her infernal scrawl ? 
 
 * And you are in my thought : that silver ray 
 Will ever your dear image thus recall ' — 
 
 My image ? Mine ! She'd barter it away 
 
 For Pretty PolFs on an Italian's tray ! 
 Three weeks, full weeks, — it is too plain — ^too bad— 
 
 Too gross and palpable ! Oh cursed day ! 
 My senses have not crazed — but if they had — 
 Such moons would worry a Mad Doctor mad ! 
 
 *• Oh Nature ! wherefore did you frame a lip 
 
 So fair for falsehood ? Wherefore have you (kest 
 
 Deceit so angel-like ? " With sudden rip 
 He tore six new buff buttons from his vest 
 And groped with hand impetuous at his breast. 
 
 As if some flea from Juno's fleecy curls 
 Had skipp'd to batten on a human chest, 
 
 But no — the hand comes forth, and down it hurls 
 
 A lady's miniature beset with pearls. 
 
 Yet long upon the floor it did not tarry, 
 
 Before another outrage could be plann'd : 
 Poor Juno, who had learn'd to fetch and carry, 
 
 Pick'd up and brought it to her master's hand. 
 
 Who seized it, and the mimic feature scanu'd ; 
 Yet not with the old loving ardent drouth. 
 
 He only saw in that fair face, so bland. 
 Look how he would at it, east, west, north, south. 
 A moon, a full one, with eyes, nose, and mouth. 
 
 " I'll go to her," — herewith his hat he touch'd. 
 And gave his arm a most heroic brandish ; 
 
802 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 " But no— I'll write " — and here a spoon he clutch'd, 
 
 And ramm'd it with such fury in the standish, 
 
 A sable flood, like Niger the outlandish, 
 Came rushing forth — Oh Antics and BuflFoons ! 
 
 Te never danced a caper so ran-dan-dish ; 
 He jump'd, thump'd — tore — swore, more than ten dragoons, 
 
 At all nights, noons, moons, spoons, and pantaloons ! 
 
 But soon ashamed, or weary, of such dancing, 
 Without a Collinet's or Weippert's band, 
 
 His rampant arms and legs left off their prancing. 
 And down he sat again, with pen in hand, 
 Not fiddle-headed, or King's-pattern grand, 
 But one of Bramah's patent Caligraphics ; 
 And many a sheet it spoil' d before he planned 
 
 A likely letter. Used to pure seraphics. 
 
 Philippics sounded strangely after Sapphics. 
 
 Long while he rock'd like Yankee in his chair, 
 
 Staring as he would stare the wainscot through. 
 And then he thrust his fingers in his hair. 
 
 And set his crest up like a cockatoo ; 
 
 And trampled with his hoofs, a mere Yahoo : 
 At last with many a tragic frown and start. 
 
 He penn'd a billet, very far from doux, 
 *Twas sour, severe — but think of a man's smart 
 Writing with lunar caustic on his heart 1 
 
 The letter done and closed, he lit his taper, 
 And sealing, as it were, his other mocks, 
 
 He stamped a grave device upon the paper, 
 No Cupid toying with his Pysche's locks, 
 But some stern head of the old Stoic stocks — 
 
 Then, fiercely striding through the staring streets, 
 He dropt the bitter missive in a box, 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 308 
 
 Beneath the cakes and tarts, and sugarM treats. 
 In Mrs. Smelling*s window full of sweets. 
 
 )BOE£ BT i. FALL OF THB STOCKS. 
 
 Soon sped the letter — thanks to modern plans, 
 Our English mails run little in the style 
 
 Of those great German wild-beast caravans, 
 Ml-w&gens — tho' they do not " go like He,** — 
 But take a good twelve minutes to the mile — 
 
 On Monday morning, just at ten o'clock, 
 
 As Ellen humm'd '* The young May Moon " the while, 
 
 Her ear was startled by that double knock 
 
 Which thrills the nerves like an electric shock 1 
 
304 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 Her right hand instantly forgot its cunning, 
 
 And down into the street it dropt, or flung, 
 Right on the hat and wig of Mr. Gunning, 
 
 The jug that o*er her ten- week stocks had hung ; 
 
 Then down the stairs by twos and threes she sprung, 
 And through the passage like a burglar darted. 
 
 Alas ! how sanguine are the fond and young — 
 She little thought, when with the coin she parted, 
 She paid a sixpence to be broken-hearted ! 
 
 WHEN WILL IT BEACH LOKDOtf ? 
 
 Too dear at any price — had she but paid 
 Nothing and taken discount, it was dear ; 
 
 Yet, worthless as it was, the sweet-lipped maid 
 Oft kissed the letter in her brief career 
 Between the lower and the upper sphere, 
 
 Where, seated in a study bistre-brown. 
 She tried to pierce a mystery as clear 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 305 
 
 As that I saw once puzzling a young clown — 
 " Beading Made Easy," but turned upside down. 
 
 Yet Ellen, like most Misses in tlie land, 
 
 Had sipped sky blue, through certain of her teens, 
 At one of those establishments which stand 
 
 In highways, byeways, squares, and village greens ; 
 
 'Twas called " The Grove," — a name that always means 
 Two poplars stand like sentries at the gate — 
 
 Each window had its close Venetian screens 
 And Holland blind, to keep in a cool state 
 The twenty-four Young Ladies of Miss Bate. 
 
 But when the screens were left unclosed by chance, 
 
 The blinds not down, as if Miss B. were dead, 
 Each upper window to a passing glance 
 
 Ke^ealed a little dimity white bed; 
 
 Each lower one a cropp'd or curly head ; 
 And thrice a week, for soul's and health's economies, 
 
 Along the road the twenty four were led, 
 Like coupled hounds, whipped in by two she-dominies 
 With faces rather graver than Melpomene's. 
 
 And thus their studies they pursued : — On Sunday, 
 
 Beef, collects, batter, texts from Dr. Price ; 
 Mutton, French, pancakes, grammar — of a Monday ; 
 
 Tuesday — hard dumplings, globes, Chapone's Advice ; 
 
 Wednesday — fancy-work, rice-milk (no spice) ; 
 Thursday — pork, dancing, currant-bolsters, reading ; 
 
 Eriday — beef, Mr. Butler, and plain rice ; 
 iSaturday — scraps, short lessons and short feeding, 
 Stocks, back-boards, hash, steel-collars, and good breeding 
 
 From this repertory of female learning. 
 Came Ellen once a quarter, always fatter I 
 VOL. U. 20 
 
806 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 To gratify the eyes of parents yearning. 
 'Twas evident in bolsters, beef, and batter, 
 Hard dumplings, and rice-milk, she did not smatter, 
 
 But heartily, as Jenkins says, " demollidge ; " 
 But as for any learning, not to flatter. 
 
 As often happens when girls leave their college. 
 
 She had done nothing but grow out of knowledge. 
 
 PBACTICE 3)EITE6 ME MAD, 
 
 At Long Division sums she had no chance, 
 And History was quite as bad a balk ; 
 
 Her French it was too small for Petty France, 
 And Priscian suffered in her English talk : 
 Her drawing might be done with cheese or chalk : 
 
 As for the globes — the use of the terrestrial 
 She knew when she went out to take a walk, 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 307 
 
 Or take a ride ; but, touching the celestial, 
 Her knowledge hardly soared above the bestial. 
 
 Nothing she learned of Juno, Pallas, Mars ; 
 
 Georgiura, for what she knew, might stand for Burgo, 
 Sidus, for Master : then, for northern stars. 
 
 The Bear she fancied did in sable fur go. 
 
 The Bull was Parmer Giles's bull, and, ergo, 
 The Ham the same that butted at her brother; 
 
 As for the Twins, she only guessed that Virgo, 
 Prom coming after them, must be their mother ; 
 The Scales weighed soap, tea, figs, like any other. 
 
 As ignorant as donkeys in Gallicia, 
 
 She thought that Saturn, with his Belt, was but 
 A private, may be, in the Kent Militia ; 
 
 That Charles's Wain would stick in a deep rut. 
 
 That Venus was a real West-End slut — 
 Oh, Gods and Goddesses of Greek Theogony ! 
 
 That Berenice's Hair would curl and cut. 
 That Cassiopeia's Chair was good Mahogany, 
 Nicely Prench-polished, — such was her cosmogony ! 
 
 Judge, then, how puzzled by the scientifics 
 
 Lorenzo's letter came now to dispense ; 
 A lizard, crawling over hieroglyphics. 
 
 Knows quite as much of their Egyptian sense ; 
 
 A sort of London fog, opaque and dense, 
 Hung over verbs, nouns, genitives, and datives. 
 
 In vain she pored and pored, with eyes intense ; 
 As well is known to oyster-operatives. 
 Mere looking at the shells won't open natives. 
 
 Yet mixed with the hard words, so called, she found 
 
 Some easy ones that gave her heart the staggers ; 
 i>0— 2 
 
308 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 Words giving tongue against her, like a hound 
 
 At picking out a fault — words speaking daggers. 
 
 The very letters seemed, in hostile swaggers, 
 To lash their tails, but not as horses do, 
 
 Nor like the tails of spaniels, gentle waggers, 
 But like a lion's, ere he tears in two 
 
 A black, to see if he is black all through. 
 
 With open mouth, and eyeballs at full stretch. 
 She gazed upon the paper sad and sorry. 
 
 No sound — no stir — quite petrified, poor wretch ! 
 As when Apollo, in old allegory, 
 Down-stooping like a falcon, made his quarry 
 
 Of Niobe, just turned to Purbeck stone ; 
 
 In fact, since Cupid grew into a worry, 
 Judge if a suing lover, let alone 
 A lawyer, ever wrote in such a tone . 
 
 A POUTER. 
 
 " Ellen, I will no longer call you mine. 
 
 That time is past, and ne'er can come again 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 309 
 
 However other lights undimmed may shine, 
 And undiminishing, one truth is plain, 
 Which I, alas! have learned, — that love can wane. 
 
 The dream is ptiss'd away, the veil is rent, 
 1 our heart was not intended for my reign ; 
 
 A sphere so full, I feel, was never meant 
 
 With one poor man in it to be content. 
 
 '* It must, no doubt, be pleasant beyond measure, 
 To wander underneath the whispering bough 
 
 With Dian, a perpetual round of pleasure. 
 Nay, feai* not, — I absolve of every vow, — 
 Use, — use your own celestial pleasure now, 
 
 Your apogee and perigee arrange. 
 
 Herschel might aptly stare and wonder how, 
 
 To me that constant disk has nothing strange — 
 
 A counterfeit is sometimes 'hard to change. 
 
 " Oh Ellen ! I once little thought to write 
 Such words unto you, with so hard a pen ; 
 
 Yet outraged love will change its nature quite, 
 And turn like tiger hunted to its den — 
 How Falsehood trips in her deceits on men ! 
 
 And stands abash'd, discover'd, and forlorn! 
 Had it been only cusp'd — but gibbous — then 
 
 It had gone down — ^but Paith dTew back in scorn, 
 
 And would not swallow it — without a horn ! 
 
 " I am in occultation,^^that is plain : 
 
 My culmination's past, — that's quite as clear. 
 But think not I will suffer your disdain 
 
 To hang a lunar rainbow on a tear. 
 
 Whate'er my pangs, they shall be buried here ; 
 No murmur, — not a sigh, — shall thence exhale : 
 
 Smile on, — and for your own peculiar sphere 
 
8!> 
 
 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 Choose some eccentric path, — you cannot fail, 
 And pray stick on a most portentous tail ! 
 
 " Farewell ! I hope you are in health and gay ; 
 
 Tor me, I never felt so well and merry — 
 As for the bran-new idol of the day, 
 
 Monkey or man, I am indifferent — very I 
 
 Nor e'en will ask who is the Happy Jerry ; 
 My jealousy is dead, or gone to sleep, 
 
 But let me hint that you will want a wherry, 
 Three weeks' spring-tide, and not a chance of neaj), 
 Your parlours will be flooded six feet deep J 
 
 POND'S ASTKONOTIT. 
 
 " Oh Ellen ! how delicious was that light 
 Wherein our plighted shadows used to blend, 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 311 
 
 Meanwhile the melancholy bird of night — 
 
 No more of that the lover's at an end. 
 
 Yet if I may advise you, as a friend, 
 
 Before you next pen sentiments so fond, 
 Study your cycles — I would recommend 
 
 Our Airy — and let South be duly conn*d, 
 
 And take a dip, I beg, in the great Pond. 
 
 •' Farewell again ! it is farewell for ever I 
 
 Before your lamp of night be lit up thrice, 
 I shall be sailing, haply, for Swan Eiver, 
 
 Jamaica, or the Indian land of rice, 
 
 Or Boothia Felix — happy clime of ice ' 
 For Trebizond, or distant Scanderoon, 
 
 Ceylon, or Java redolent of spice, 
 Or settling, neighbour of the Cape baboon, 
 Or roaming o'er — The Mountains of the Moon 1 
 
 *' "VVliat matters where ? my world no longer owns 
 
 That dear meridian spot from which I dated 
 Degrees of distance, hemispheres, and zones, 
 
 A globe all blank and barren and belated. 
 
 What matters where my future life be fated ? 
 With Lapland hordes, or Koords or Afric peasant, 
 
 A squatter in the western woods located, 
 What matters where ? My bias, at the present, 
 Leans to the country that reveres the Crescent ! 
 
 " Farewell ! and if for ever, fare thee w^ell ! 
 
 As wrote another of my fellow-martyrs : 
 I ask no sexton for his passing-bell, 
 
 I do not ask your tear-drops to be starters. 
 
 However I may die, transfix'd by Tartars, 
 By Cobras poisoned, by Constrictors strangled. 
 
 By shark or cayman snapt above the garters. 
 
312 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 By royal tiger or Cape lion mangled, 
 
 Or starved to death in the wild woods entangled, 
 
 ** Or tortured slowly at an Indian stake. 
 Or smother*d in the sandy hot simoom, 
 
 Or crush'd in Chili by earth's awful quake, 
 Or baked in lava, a Vesuvian tomb, 
 Or dirged by syrens and the billows' boom 
 
 Or stifien'd to a stock mid Alpine snows. 
 
 Or stricken by the plague with sudden doom, 
 
 Or suck'd by Vampyres to a last repose. 
 
 Or self-destroy 'd, impatient of my woes, 
 
 " Still fare you well, however I may fare, 
 A fare perchance to the Lethean shore. 
 
 Caught up by rushing whirlwinds in the air. 
 Or dash'd down cataracts with dreadful roar : 
 Nay, this warm heart, once yours unto the core, 
 
 This hand you should have claim'd in church or minster 
 Some cannibal may gnaw " — she read no more — • 
 
 Prone on the carpet fell the senseless spinster. 
 
 Losing herself, as 'twere, in Kidderminster ! 
 
 Of course of such a fall the shock was great. 
 
 In rush'd the father, panting from the shop, 
 In rush'd the mother, without cap or tete, 
 
 Pursued by Betty Housemaid with her mop ; 
 
 The cook to change her apron did not stop. 
 The charwoman next scrambled up the stair, — 
 
 All help to lift, to haul, to seat, to prop, 
 And then they stand and smother round the chair. 
 Exclaiming in a chorus, *' Give her air ! " 
 
 One sears her nostrils with a burning feather, 
 Another rams a phial up her nose ; 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 313 
 
 A third crooks all her finger-joints together, 
 A fourth rips her up laces and her bows, 
 While all by turns keep trampling on her toes, 
 
 And, when she gasps for breath, they pour in plump 
 
 " she's black in thk face 1 " 
 
 A sudden drench that down her thorax goes, 
 As if in fetching her — some wits so jump — 
 She must be fetched with water like a pump ! 
 
 No wonder that thus drench'd, and wrench'd, and gallM, 
 
 As soon as possible from syncope's fetter 
 Her senses had the sense to be recall'd, 
 
 " I'm better — that will do — indeed I*m better," 
 
 She cried to each importunate besetter; 
 Meanwhile, escaping from the stir and smother, 
 
 The prudent parent seized the lover's letter, 
 (Daughters should have no secrets with a Mothei) 
 And read it thro' from one end to the other. 
 
 From first to last she never skipp'd a word — 
 For young Lorenzo of all youths was one 
 
3U I.OVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 So wise, so good, so moral she averr'd, 
 So clever, quite above the common run — 
 She made him sit by her, and call'd him son, 
 
 No matrimonial suit, e'en Duke's or Earl's, 
 So flatter'd her maternal feelings — none ! 
 
 For mothers always think young men are pearls 
 
 Who come and throw themselves before their girls. 
 
 DECAPITATION. 
 
 And now, at warning signal from her finger, 
 The servants most reluctantly withdrew, 
 
 But list'ning on the stairs contrived to linger ; 
 For Ellen, gazing round with eyes of blue, 
 At last the features of her parent knew. 
 
 And summoning her breath and vocal pow'rs, 
 " Oh, mother ! " she exclaimed — " Oh, is it true- 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 815 
 
 Our dear Lorenzo " — the dear name drew sliow'rs — 
 " Ours,'' cried the mother, "pray don't call him ours! 
 
 " I never liked him, never, in my days ! " 
 
 [" Oh yes — you did " — said Ellen with a sob,] 
 " There always was a something in his ways — " 
 
 [" So sweet — so kind," said Ellen, with a throb,] 
 
 " His very face was what I call a snob. 
 And, spite of West-end coats and pantaloon5, 
 
 He had a sort of air of the swell mob ; 
 1 'm sure when he has come of afternoons 
 'Jo tea, I've often thought — I'll watch my spoons I ' 
 
 *' The spoons ! " cried Ellen, almost with a scream, 
 
 " Oh cruel — false as cruel — and unjust ! 
 He that once stood so high in your esteem ! " 
 
 " He ! " cried the dame, grimacing her disgust, 
 
 " I like him ? — ^yes — as any body must 
 An infidel that scoffs at God and Devil : 
 
 Didn't he bring you Bonaparty's bust? 
 Lord ! when he calls I hardly can be civil— 
 Mj/ favoui'ite was always Mr. Neville. 
 
 •' Lorenzo ? — I should like, of earthly things, 
 
 To see him hanging forty cubits high ; 
 Doesn't he write like Captain Rocks and Swings ? 
 
 Nay, in this very letter bid you try 
 
 To make yourself particular, and tie 
 A tail on — a prodigious tail ! — Oh, daughter ! 
 
 And don't he ask you down his area — fie ! 
 And recommend to cut your being shorter. 
 With brick-bats round your neck in ponds of water ? " 
 
 ilas ! to think how readers thus may vary 
 A writer's sense ! — What mortal would have thought 
 
816 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 Lorenzo's hint about Professor Airy 
 
 And Pond to such a likeness could be brought ! 
 Who would have dreamt the simple way he taught 
 
 To make a comet of poor Ellen's moon, 
 
 Could furnish forth an image so distraught, 
 
 As Ellen, walking Regent Street at noon, 
 
 Tail'd — like a fat Cape sheep, or a racoon I 
 
 STICK AS TOir BB — THAT S THE COMET. 
 
 And yet, whatever absurdity the brains 
 
 May hatch, it ne'er wants wet-nurses to suckle it ! 
 Or dry ones, like a hen, to take the pains 
 
 To lead the nudity abroad, and chuckle it ; 
 
 No whim so stupid but some fool will buckle it 
 To jingle bell-like on his empty head, 
 
 No mental mud — but some will knead and knuckle it, 
 
LOVE AlTD LUNACY. 
 
 And fancy they are making fancy-bread ; — 
 No ass has written, but some ass has read. 
 
 No dolts could lead if others did not follow *em. 
 
 No Hahnemann could give decillionth drops, 
 If any man could not be got to swallow 'em ; 
 
 But folly never comes to such full stops. 
 
 As soon, then, as the Mother made such swaps 
 Of all Lorenzo's meanings, heads and tails. 
 
 The Father seized upon her malaprops — 
 " My girl down areas — of a night ! *Ods nails ! 
 I'll stick the scoundi-el on his area-rails ! 
 
 317 
 
 TAILS OF THE HAUL BY CBAB. 
 
 ** I will ! — as sure as I was christen'd John ! 
 
 A girl — well bom — and bred, — and school'd at Diltou- 
 Accomplish'd — handsome — with a tail stuck on ! 
 
318 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 And chuck'd, Zounds ! chuck'd in horseponds like a kitten 
 I wish I had been by when that was written ! " — 
 
 And doubling to a fist each ample hand, 
 The empty air he boxed with, a-la-Bitton, 
 
 As if in training for a fight, long plann'd, 
 
 "With Nobody— for love — at No Man's Land ! 
 
 A FOWL WIKD. 
 
 " I'll pond — I'll tail him ! "—In a voice of thunder 
 He recommenced his fury and his fuss, 
 
 Loud, open-mouth'd, and wedded to his blunder, 
 Like one of those great guns that end in buss, 
 ** I'll teach him to write ponds and tails to us ! ** 
 
 But while so menacing this-that-and-t'others, 
 His wife broke in with certain truths, as thus : 
 
 " Men are not women — fathers can't be mothers, — 
 
 Females are females " — and a few such others. 
 
 So saying, with rough nudges, willy-nilly, 
 She hustled him outside the chamber-door, 
 
 Looking, it must be own'd, a little silly ; 
 And then she did as the Carinthian boor 
 Serves (Goldsmith says) the traveller that's poor 1 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 319 
 
 Id estt 8he shut him in the outer space, 
 
 With just as much apology — no more — 
 As Boreas would present in such a case, 
 
 For slamming the street door right in your face. 
 
 And now, the secrets of the sex thus kept, 
 
 What passed in that important tete-a-tete 
 *Twixt dam and daughter, nobody except 
 
 Paul Pry, or his Twin Brother, could narrate — 
 
 So turn we to Lorenzo, left of late, 
 In front of Mrs. Snelling's sugar'd snacks, 
 
 In such a very waspish stinging state, 
 But now at the Old Dragon, stretch'd on rack?, 
 Fretting, and biting down his nails to tacks ; 
 
 Because that new fast four-inside — the Comet, 
 
 Instead of keeping its appointed time. 
 Had deviated some few minutes from it, 
 
 A thing with all astronomers a crime, 
 
 And he had studied in that lore sublime ; 
 Nor did his heat get any less or shorter 
 
 For pouring upon passion's unslaked lime 
 A well-grown glass of Cogniac and water, 
 Mix'd stiff as starch by the Old Dragon's daugliter. 
 
 At length, " Fair Ellen " sounding with a flourish. 
 The Comet came all bright, bran new, and smart : 
 
 Meanwhile the melody conspired to nourish 
 The hasty spirit in Lorenzo's heart. 
 And soon upon the roof he *' topped his part," 
 
 Which never had a more impatient man on. 
 Wishing devoutly that the steeds would start 
 
 Like lightning greased, — or, as at Ballyshannon 
 
 Sublimed, '* greased lightning shot out of a cannon. 
 
323 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 For, ever since the letter left his hand, 
 His mind had been in vacillating motion. 
 
 Dodge-dodging like a fluster'd crab on land, 
 That cannot ask its way, and has no notion 
 If right or left leads to the German Ocean — 
 
 Hatred and Love by turns enjoy 'd monopolies. 
 Till, like a Doctor following his own potion, 
 
 Before a learned pig could spell Acropolis, 
 
 He went and booked himself for our metropolis. 
 
 ** Oil, for a horse," or rather four, — " with wings ! " 
 Tor so he put the wish into the plural — 
 
 No relish he retained for country things, 
 He could not join felicity with rural, 
 His thoughts were all with London and the mural, 
 
 Where architects — not paupers — heap and pile stones ; 
 Or with the horses' muscles, called the crural, 
 
 How fast they could macadamize the milestones 
 
 Which pass'd as tediously as gall or bile stones. 
 
 Blind to the picturesque, he ne'er perceived 
 
 In Nature one artistical fine stroke ; 
 For instance, how that purple hill relieved 
 
 The beggar-woman in the gipsy-poke. 
 
 And how the red cow carried off her cloak ; 
 Or how the aged horse, so gaunt and grey, 
 
 Threw off a noble mass of beech and oak I 
 Or, how the tinker's ass, beside the way. 
 Came boldly out from a white cloud — to bray ! 
 
 ^uch things have no delight for worried men, 
 That travel full of care and anxious smart : 
 
 Coachmen and horses, are your artists then : 
 Just try a team of draughtsmen with the Dart, 
 Take Shee, for instance, Etty, Jones, and Hart, 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 Let every neck be put into its noose, 
 
 Then tip *em on the flank to make 'em start, 
 And see how they will draw ! — Pour screws let loose 
 Would make a difference — or I'm a goose ! 
 
 Nor cared he more about the promised crops, 
 If oats were looking up, or wheat was laid, 
 
 For flies in turnip?, or a blight in hops, 
 Or how the barley prosper'd or decay'd ; 
 In short, no items of the farming trade. 
 
 881 
 
 LORD, JOHN, HEBB'S A BURBOW 1 ' 
 
 Peas, beans, tares, 'taters, could his mind beguile ; 
 
 Nor did he answer to the servant maid, 
 That always asked at every other mile;, 
 •* Where do we change. Sir ? " with her sweetest smile. 
 
 Nor more he listened to the Politician, 
 
 Who lectured on his left, a formal prig, 
 VOL. II. 21 
 
822 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 Of Belgium's, Greece's, Turkey's sad condition, 
 Not worth a cheese, an olive, or a fig ; 
 Nor yet unto the critic, fierce and big, 
 
 "Who, holding forth, all lonely, in his glory, 
 Called one a sad bad Poet — and a Whig, 
 
 And one, a first-rate proser — and a Tory ; 
 
 So critics judge, now, of a song or story. 
 
 Nay, when the coachman spoke about the 'Leger, 
 Of Popsy, Mopsy, Bergamotte, and Civet, 
 
 Of breeder, trainer, owner, backer, hedger, 
 And nags as right, or righter than a trivet, 
 The theme his crack'd attention could not rivet, 
 
 Though leaning forward to the man of whips. 
 He seem'd to give an ear, — but did not give it, 
 
 Tor Ellen's moon (that saddest of her slips) 
 
 Would not be hidden by a " new Eclipse." 
 
 THK HEAD WAITER AT HATCHETX'S. 
 
 If any thought e'er flitted in his head 
 
 Belonging to the sphere of Bland and Crocky, 
 
 It was to wish the team all thorough-bred, 
 And every buckle on their backs a jockey : 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 323 
 
 When spinning down a steep descent, or rocky, 
 He never watch'd the wheel, and long'd to lock it, 
 
 He liked the holters that set off so cocky : 
 Nor did it shake a single nerve or shock it 
 Because the Comet raced against the Rocket. 
 Thanks to which rivalry, at last the journey 
 
 Finish'd an hour and a quarter under time. 
 Without a case for surgeon or attorney, 
 
 Just as St. James's rang its seventh chime, 
 Ar,d now, descending from his seat sublime, 
 
 Behold Lorenzo, weariest of wights. 
 
 In that great core of brick, and stone, and lime, 
 Call'd England's Heart — but which, as seen of nights. 
 Has rather more th* appearance of its lights. 
 
 FREE TllADE. 
 
 Away he scudded — elbowing, perforce. 
 
 Thro' cads, and lads, and many a Hebrew worrier, 
 21—2 
 
324 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 With fruit, knive?, pencils, — all dirt cheap of course, 
 Coachmen, and hawkers of the Globe and " Currier ; *' 
 Away ! — the cookmaid is not such a skurrier, 
 
 "When, fit to split her gingham as she goes. 
 With six just striking on the clock to hurry her. 
 
 She strides along with one of her three beaux. 
 
 To get well placed at *' Ashley's " — now Ducrow's. 
 
 " I wonder if her moon is full to-night ! " 
 
 He mutter'd, jealous as a Spanish Don, 
 When, lo ! — to aggravate that inward spite. 
 
 In glancing at a board he spied thereon 
 
 A play-bill for dramatic folks to con. 
 In letters such as those may read, who run, 
 
 " ' KING JOHN '—oh yes,— I recollect King John ! 
 ' My Lord, they say five moons '—Jive moons ! — well done ! 
 I wonder Ellen was content with one I 
 
 " Five moons — all full ! — and all at once in heav'n ! 
 
 She should have lived in that prolific reign ! " 
 Here he aiTived in front of number seven, i 
 
 Th' abode of all his joy and all his pain ; 
 
 A sudden tremor shot through every vein. 
 He wish'd he'd come up by the heavy waggon. 
 
 And felt an impulse to turn back again. 
 Oh, that he ne'er had quitted the Old Dragon ! 
 Then came a sort of longing for a flagon. 
 
 His tongue and palate seem'd so parch'd with drouth, — 
 The very knocker fill'd his soul with dread, 
 
 As if it had a living lion's mouth, 
 
 With teeth so terrible, and tongue so red, 
 In which he had engaged to put his head. 
 
 The bell-pull turn'd his courage into vapour, 
 As though 't would cause a shower-bath to shed 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. 325 
 
 Its thousand shocks, to make him sigh and caper—- 
 He look'd askance, and did not like the scraper. 
 
 * What business have I here ? (he thought) a dunce 
 
 A hopeless passion thus to fan and foster. 
 Instead of putting out its wick at once ; 
 
 She's gone — it's very evident I've lost her, — 
 
 And to the wanton wind I should have toss'd her — 
 Pish ! I will leave her with her moon, at ease. 
 
 To toast and eat it, like a single Gloster, 
 Or cram some fool with it, as good green cheese, 
 Or make a honey-moon, if so she please. 
 
 " Yes — here I leave her," and as thus he spoke, 
 
 He plied the knocker with such needless force, 
 It almost split the panel of sound oak ; 
 
 And then he went as wildly through a course 
 
 Of ringing, till he made abrupt divorce 
 Between the bell and its dumfounded handle, 
 
 Whilst up ran Betty, out of breath and hoarse, 
 And thrust into his face her blown-out candle. 
 To recognise the author of such scandal. 
 
 Who, presto ! cloak, and carpet-bag to boot. 
 
 Went stumbling, rumbling, up the dark one pair, 
 
 With other noise than his whose " very foot 
 Had music in't as he came up the stair : ** 
 And then with no more manners than a bear. 
 
 His hat upon his head, no matter how. 
 No modest tap his presence to declare, 
 
 He bolted in a room, without a bow. 
 
 And there sat Ellen, with a marble brow I 
 
 Like fond Medora, watching at her window, 
 Yet not of any Corsair bark in search — 
 
826 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 The jutting lodging-house of Mrs. Lindo, 
 
 •' The Cheapest House in Town" of Todd and Sturch. 
 The private house of Eeverend Doctor Birch, 
 
 The public-house, closed nightly at eleven, 
 
 And then that house of prayer, the parish church, 
 
 Some roofs, and chimneys, and a glimpse of heaven, 
 
 Made up the whole look-out of Number Seven. 
 
 Yet something in the prospect so absorbed her. 
 
 She seemed quite drowned and dozing in a dream ; 
 As if her own belov'd full moon still orb'd her, 
 
 'meet MB BT MOONLIGHT AtONB.** 
 
 Lulling her fancy in some lunar scheme. 
 With lost Lorenzo, may be, for its theme^ 
 Yet when Lorenzo touch'd her on the shoulder, 
 She started up with an abortive scream, 
 
1.0VE AND LUNACYi 327 
 
 As if some midnight ghost, from regions colder, 
 Haxl come within his bony arms to fold her. 
 
 " Lorenzo ! " '' Ellen ! " then came « Sir ! " and " Madam !*' 
 They tried to speak, but hammer'd at each word, ' 
 
 As if it were a flint for great Mac Adam : 
 Such broken English never else was heard, 
 Eor like an aspen leaf each nerve was stirr'd, 
 
 A chilly tremor thrill'd them through and through. 
 Their efforts to be stiff were quite absurd, 
 
 They shook like jellies made without a due 
 
 And proper share of common joiner's glue. 
 
 *' Ellen ! I'm come — to bid you — fare — farewell ! " 
 They thus began to fight their verbal duel ; 
 
 *' Since some more hap — hap — happy man must dwell — " 
 " Alas — Loren — Lorenzo ! — cru — cru — cruel ! " 
 For so they split their words like grits for gruel. 
 
 At last the Lover, as he long had plann'd, 
 Drew out that once inestimable jewel, 
 
 Her portrait, which was erst so fondly scann'd. 
 
 And thrust poor Ellen's face into her hand. 
 
 '•'• There — take it, Madam — take it back, I crave. 
 The face of one — but I must now forget her, 
 
 Bestow it on whatever hapless slave 
 
 Your art has last enticed into your fetter — 
 And there are your epistles — there ! each letter ! 
 
 I wish no record of your vow's infractions, 
 
 Send them to South — or Children — you had better — 
 
 They will be novelties — rare benefactions ! 
 
 To shine in Philosophical Transactions I 
 
 ** Take them — pray take them — I resign them quite I 
 And there's the glove you gave me leave to steal-— 
 
828 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 And there's the handkerchief, so pure and white. 
 Once sanctified by tears, when Miss O'Neill — 
 But no — ^you did not — cannot — do not le^l 
 A Juliet's faith, that time could only harden ! 
 
 Fool that 1 was, in my mistaken zeal ! 
 I should have led you, — by yom* leave and pardon- 
 To Bartley's OiTery, not Covent Garden 1 
 
 *'l BAW IT THKO' E'EN FROM MX BOYISH DATS." 
 
 **And here's the birth-day ring — nor man nor devil 
 Shoidd once have torn it from my living hand. 
 
 Perchance 'twill look as well on Mr. Neville ; 
 And that — and that is all — and now I stand 
 Absolved of each dissever'd tie and band — 
 
 And so farewell, till Time*s eternal sickle 
 Shall reap our lives ; in this, or foreign land 
 
 Some other may be found for truth to stickle 
 
 Almost as fair— and not so false and fickle ! '* 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY. S29 
 
 And there he ceased : as truly it was time, 
 Por of the various themes that left his mouth. 
 
 One half surpass'd her intellectual climb : 
 
 She knew no more than the old Hill of Howth 
 About that *' Children of a larger growth,'* 
 
 Who notes proceedings of the P. E. S.'s ; 
 
 Kit North, was just as strange to her as South, 
 
 Except the south the weathercock expresses, 
 
 Nay, Bartley's Orrery defied her guesses. 
 
 Howbeit some notion of his jealous drift 
 
 She gather' d from the simple outward fact, 
 That her own lap contained each slighted gift ; 
 
 Though quite unconscious of his cause to act 
 
 So like Othello, with his face unblack'd ; 
 ••Alas ! " she sobbed, "your cruel course I see 
 
 These faded charms no longer can attract ; 
 Your fancy palls, and you would wander free. 
 And lay your own apostacy on me ! 
 
 " J, false ! — unjust Lorenzo ! — and to you ! 
 
 Oh, all ye holy gospels that incline 
 The soul to truth, bear witness I am true ! 
 
 By all that lives, of earthly or divine — 
 
 So long as this poor throbbing heart is mine — 
 / false ! — the world shall change its course as soon ! 
 
 True as the streamlet to the stars that shine — 
 True as the dial to the sun at noon. 
 True as the tide to * yonder blessed moon ' 1 " 
 
 And as she spoke, she pointed through the window, • 
 Somewhere above the houses' distant tops, 
 
 Betwixt the chimney-pots of Mrs. Liudo, 
 And Todd and Sturch's cheapest of all shops 
 
330 LOVE AND LUNACY. 
 
 For ribbons, laces, muslins, silks, and fops : — 
 Meanwhile, as she upraised her face so Grecian, 
 
 And eyes suffused with scintillating drops, 
 Lorenzo looked, too, o'er the blinds Venetian, 
 To see the sphere so troubled with repletion. 
 
 " The Moon ! " he cried, and an electric spasm 
 Seem'd all at once his features to distort, 
 
 And fix'd his mouth, a dumb and gaping chasm — 
 His faculties benumb'd and all amort — 
 At last his voice came, of most shrilly sort. 
 
 Just like a sea-gull's wheeling round a rock — 
 * Speak ! — Ellen ! — is your sight indeed so short ? 
 
 The Moon ! — Brute ! savage that I am, and block ! 
 
 The Moon ! (0, ye Romantics, what a shock !) 
 
 Why that's the new Illuminated Clock ! '* 
 
THOSE EVENING BELLS. 
 
 331 
 
 THOSE ETENINQ BELLS.' 
 
 THOSE EVENING BELLS. 
 "I'd be a parody." 
 
 Those Evening Bells, those Evening Bells, 
 How many a tale their music tells, 
 Of Yorkshire cakes and crumpets prime, 
 And letters only just in time ! — 
 
 The Muffin-boy has pass'd away, 
 The Postman gone — and I must pay, 
 iFor down below Deaf Mary dwells. 
 And does not hear those Evening Bella, 
 
 And so *t will be when she is gont*. 
 That tuneful peal will still ring on. 
 And other maids with timely yells 
 Forget to stay those Evening Bells. 
 
332 
 
 LINES. 
 
 LINES 
 
 TO A FRIEND AT COBHAM, 
 
 *Tis pleasant, when we've absent friends. 
 Sometimes to hob and nob *em 
 "With Memory's glass — at such a pass 
 Remember me at Cobham ! 
 
 Have pigs you will, and sometimes kiU, 
 But if you sigh and sob 'em, 
 And cannot eat your home-grown meat, 
 Eemember me at Cobham I 
 
 Of hen and cock, you'll have a stock, 
 And death will oft unthrob *em, — 
 A country chick is good to pick — ' 
 Eemember mr at Cobham ! 
 
 Some orchard trees of course you'll lease 
 And boys will sometimes rob 'em, 
 A friend (you know) before a foe— 
 Kemember me at Cobham 1 
 
THE QUAKERS' CONVERSAZIONE. 
 
 You'll sometimes have wax-lighted rooms, 
 And friends of course to mob 'em, 
 Should you be short of such a sort, 
 Remember me at Cobham ! 
 
 THE QUAKERS' CONVERSAZIONE. 
 
 *' Dost thou love silence, deep as that before the winds were made? Go 
 hot into the wilderness ; descend not into the profundities of the earth ; 
 shut not up thy casements ; nor pour wax into the cells of thine ears, with 
 little-faith'd, self -mistrusting Ulysses. Retire with me into a Quakers' 
 Meeting."— Essays of Elia. 
 
 It may not, or rather it cannot, be generally known, that an 
 attempt was made last winter, by certain influential members of 
 the Society of Priends, to establish a Conversazione at Tottenham, 
 a neighbourhood especially favoured by that respectable and 
 substantial sect. The idea originated with a junior female 
 branch of the opulent family of the Mumfords, which has been 
 seated, time out of mind, in the vicinity of Bruce Castle ; the 
 notion was broached to a select few of the sisterhood, during a 
 Sabbath walk homewards from the conventicle : the suggestion 
 was relished ; and a conference was called, at which the scheme 
 was seriously brought forward, and gravely considered. At first 
 there was a little boggling at the proposed title, as savouring, it 
 was thought, of Loquacity ; but the objection was dropped, on 
 an explanation that although the word implied conversation, no 
 one would be bidden to discourse against their own inclination ; 
 nay that, even amongst other persuasions, the conversazioni were 
 Frequently as distant as possible from a Negro " Talk," or a Red 
 Indian *• Palaver." This little demur excepted, the plan went 
 on swimmingly, and was finally adopted with the subdued hum 
 which, in that quiec-loving community, is equivalent to acclama- 
 
334 THE QUAKERS' CONVERSAZIONE. 
 
 tions. A secretary was formally proposed, and tacitly cliosen 
 unanimously J being no other than the fair Foundress herself, the 
 mild-spoken and meek-eyed Ruth Muraford. A few brief rules 
 were then drawn up, and, after no debate, agreed to — some of 
 them, considering the constitutional taciturnity of the sect, being 
 sufficiently superfluous, as guarding against what Bubb Dodding- 
 ton called " a multiplicity of talk." For instance, the 9th ruie 
 provided, that " no brother or sister should indulge in rambling 
 irrelevant discourse, embracing a profusion of topics, wide of th» 
 matter in hand.'* The 10th, that "no two or more Friends 
 should disburden themselves of speech at one and the same 
 time;" and the 12th, that "no member of this society shall 
 deliver himself or herself with unreasonable continuity, to the 
 prevention of other Friends who might desire to speak to the 
 matter." From the list of subjects to be " spoken to " politics 
 and polemics were excluded ; but poetry was allowed, or at least 
 connived at, the excellent example of Bernard Barton and the 
 Howitts having happily relaxed the primitive rigour of that 
 proscription. Besides, it was well known, between Friends, that 
 several of the younger female members, the fair secretary included, 
 occasionally struck, or rather, as Quakers ought not to strike any- 
 thing, twanged the lyre. For the rest, the society was modelled 
 after other private literary associations; it was to meet twice 
 weekly, visiting the houses of the members in rotation, when 
 original essays or papers were to be read, and afterwards dis- 
 cussed; provided always, that they afforded any Debateable 
 Land to make a stand upon, seeing that at the end of the rules 
 and regulations, a special article earnestly recommended, that in 
 the selection of subjects all such topics should be avoided " as 
 might lead to differences of opinion amongst the brethren." 
 
 Such was — for it is defunct — the Tottenham Friends' Con- 
 versazione ; of whose existence I became aware but by accident. 
 It was my good fortune, till lately, to live next door to a family 
 
THE QUAKEES' CONVERSAZIONE. S35 
 
 of Quakers, and to make acquaintance witli the eldest daughter, 
 a young lively maiden just wearing out the last of her teens. I 
 am afraid in the austere brown eyes of her parents she was not 
 strictly considered as the flower of their flock, being a sort of 
 nonconformist among nonconformists, as was especially to be 
 seen in comparing her with her younger sisters, who seemed to 
 have been brought up, or stuck up, under the most starched 
 discipline. Instead of tlieir plain close caps, — mere casts of 
 their skulls taken in muslin, — she wore an airy fanciful structure 
 of blonde and white ribbon, that a Parisian woman might have 
 put on — at least of a morning. In lieu of their sleek mohair 
 braids, her auburn ringlets flowed down her neck in all the 
 *' Unloveliness of Love-locks." To her star-like hazel eyes she 
 allowed a little planetary liberty of circulation ; whereas it 
 seemed the object of the others, to keep their demure brown 
 orbs as immoveable in their faces, as bad halfpence nailed to 
 counters. Instead of screwing up her lips, as if she had just 
 come, minus a masticator, out of Cartwright's into an east wind, 
 she sometimes gave her ivory teeth an airing, by smiling at some 
 innocent fancy, to which she would give utterance, without trying 
 to send her clear sweet voice, by a New North- West Passage, 
 through her nose. As for her figure, it was none of those 
 shapes which have no shape, and may be swaddled up without 
 detriment in dingy drabs, olives, slates, and snuffy browns, — 
 shapes which nature makes on her basin-pudding days, instead 
 of using her best jelly-moulds— shapes like the bonnet-shapes 
 which balance baskets of live mackerel. To see the symmetrical 
 Hachel standing near either of her sisters, you would think you 
 beheld (borrowing a local image) Tottenham High Cross, beside 
 the Waithman Obelisk. Accordingly, the orthodox wai-p of 
 her glossy satin was always shot with a woof of some one of 
 those gayer prismatic tints, to wear which is reckoned, among 
 the severer Poxites, " a profanation of the Kainbow, deserving a 
 
336 THE QUAKERS' CONYERSAZIONB. 
 
 second deluge." As will be seen hereafter, she put a little blu». 
 into her superfine silken hose ; sometimes I even fancied that 1 
 detected a tinge of the more fleshy pink — in short, she was a 
 Quakeress, but not of the sad-brown sort-^only a brunette. 
 
 DISCOTEBT Ot OBOAITIC BEMAIITS. 
 
 With the old Priends, her parents, I cannot boast that I was 
 even on speaking terms ; but with the lovely and lively Eachel my 
 acquaintance had ripened even to the calling her by her Christian 
 name ; and the reciprocation of her thou and thee, to which I 
 was led, not as a convertite, but from learning, in my French 
 and German Grammars, that the use of the second persor 
 singular was an especial token of intimacy and affection. It 
 this our neighbourly intercourse, a system of mutual accommoda- 
 tion sprang up between us, not by bills, but by books; for 
 which she drew upon me by pretty Kttle notes of hand, that I 
 duly honoured, making them payable over the back garden 
 
THE QUAKERS' CONVERSAZIONE. 337 
 
 wall. Drawings and pieces of new music were equally negoti- 
 able. If I remember rightly, it was in return for Moore's 
 Melodies — the exchange at the time being against me — that I 
 received " Pox's Martyrs." It was rather a ponderous tome for 
 a lover of light reading ; and if St. Swithin's Festival had not 
 fallen on a very wet Sunday in the country, I might never have 
 opened its leaves, — if indeed they did not open of themselves, — 
 thus letting fall certain MSS. intrusted to their custody, and 
 which I now proceed to make public. In a new edition of the 
 " Curiosities of Literature " they would deserve a distinguished 
 place. 
 
 MINUTES OF THE TOTTENHAM FRIENDS' CONVER- 
 SAZIONE i 
 
 Established with a view to sober, Intellectual, and Literary 
 unbendings. Now first held, namely, on the fourteenth day of 
 the eleventh month, one thousand eight hundred thirty and 
 four. Brother Mumford, the Father of the present humble Pen, 
 in the chair. 
 
 A most powerful and worthy setting forth, both in regard of 
 numbers and our proceedings. Firstly, a word in season from 
 Friend Oliver. Secondly, a draft of the rules. Thirdly, an 
 opening poem ; meditation thereon until the tenth hour, when 
 our sitting was completed. Many congratulations between the 
 brethren on the order, quiet, and decency thereof ; myself as its 
 humble founder, very joyously elevated — even unto the shedding 
 of tears. 
 
 17. Some awkwardness on this night, arising out of the pre- 
 sentation of nine several Negroes' Complaints to be read forth. 
 Precedence yielded unto Sister Skeldrum's complaint, in respect 
 of her being so ancient, namely three-score and ten. After 
 which, Sister Panyer's was gone thi'ough, detaining us nearhand 
 
 until cm* hour of dissolution. Friend Black in the chair. 
 VOL. TI. 22 
 
338 
 
 THE QUAKERS' GONVEKSAZIONB, 
 
 21. The Negro Complaints resumed, whereof three more were 
 gotten over, Sister Fagg kindly taking turn about with me in 
 the deliverance thereof. Friend Thome in the chair. 
 
 24. A spare meet- 
 ing. The Negro Com- 
 plaints brought to an 
 end, save one; Sister 
 Rumble consenting, on 
 much persuasion, to 
 reserve the Sorrows of 
 Sambo for the Aboli- 
 tion Anniversary. 
 Friend WooUey in the 
 chair. 
 
 28. Friend Great- 
 head read forth an 
 original paper on the 
 Manners of the 
 Beavers. Much medi- 
 tation thereon. Friend 
 Stillfox in the chair. 
 
 1-12. Friend Seagrave in the chair. Sister Meeking read 
 forth her Essay on Silence, but in so humble a tone, that little 
 thereof was taken inward at our ears. No debate thereon. 
 Dorcas Fysche, a visitor, craved to know whether Friends, not 
 being members, were permitted to speak on the subject, and 
 was replied to in the affirmative. Whereupon she held her 
 peace. 
 
 5. Sister Knight read forth a self-composed addressing of 
 herself unto Sleep. To whidh no objection was made by any 
 present. Friend Knapp in the chair. 
 
 8. On this night I plucked up courage, and essayed to read 
 forth *;'Jne own Stanzas on Universal Love ; but my voice failing 
 
 '*BEAB ABOUT THB MOCKEBX Of WOB." 
 
THE QUAKERS' CONVERSAZIONE. 389 
 
 me in the midst, it was completely finished for me by Friend 
 Thicknesse, who did perversely continue to pronounce Jewi 
 instead of Dews, whereof came absurdity. Above all in the 
 line which singeth, — '* Descend ye Dews on this my head." And 
 again, — " Ye painted Flies that suck the Dews.'* 
 
 12. No other member being prepared with originality. Sister 
 Rumble read forth her Sorrows of Sambo. Much silent com- 
 ment thereon. Brother Kersey in the chair, who shamefully 
 suffered himself to be surprised with sleep. 
 
 15. No lecturing, and, by course, no debate ; only medita- 
 tion. A call made to order against Friend Dilly, who was in 
 the chair, for untimeliness in asking the price of Anglo-Mexicans 
 at a quarter before ten. 
 
 19. Sister Fetterlock being a visitor in expectancy, every one 
 confined themselves unto Newgate. Several of the brethren 
 declared their convictions. Friend Roper in the chair. 
 
 22. No lecturing. Sister Rumble distributed Sambo's Sor- 
 rows amongst us, one unto each ; the which she had caused to 
 be imprinted at her own risk and cost. Friend Boulter was the 
 chair. 
 
 26. No lecturing. It pleased our worthy Brother XJpham, at 
 his House of Welcome, to spread before us the creature com- 
 forts most abundantly, with a great out-pouring of the foreign 
 luxury, which is called Champagne ; the which was greatly dis- 
 cussed ; and Brother Upham thereafter rebuked for the same, 
 for that it was not of the kind which is still. 
 
 29. Friend Stock read forth a narrative of his own Life and 
 Personal Adventures, the which held us for half an hour. Some 
 debate touching the imprinting of the same, at the cost of the 
 Society, in the shape of a Tract ; which was agreed to, but put 
 off at the instance of Friend Stock himself, in order to give him 
 time to live into the shape of a pamphlet. Friend Smallbones 
 
 went through the chair. 
 22—2 
 
810 
 
 THE QUAKERS' CONVERSAZIONE. 
 
 2-1-35. No assembly, by reason of the outrageous wind and 
 tail, excepting Sister Eumble, with a new original poem, called 
 " The Moral Gipsy." The which she did read forth from the 
 chair to my humble self and family, and our serving-man, 
 Simon Dunny. 
 
 iiifflj 
 
 TiiiiUMitiir 
 
 HOPE DKF£££EU. 
 
 5. Friend Broadbent read forth, in part, an Essay on Inno- 
 cent Jocularity ; the which, in sundry passages, provoked dis- 
 sentients, as tending to a defence of levity. A stiflp debate 
 thereon, in which all the brethren were agreeable to censure. 
 Great merriment at T!riend Sexton in his rebuking, saying, 
 ** Christian gravy," instead of gravity, by a slip of the tongue. 
 
 9* The remains of Innocent Jocularity brought on again in a 
 decidedly grave way, and nothing, savouring of oflfensive. Fol- 
 lowed with silence. 
 
THE QUAKERS' CONVERSAZIONE. 
 
 341 
 
 12. There were not suflficient friends to make a sitting, and 
 no chair. 
 
 IT CAir T BB 'HBLPBD. 
 
 16. At Sister Bumble's by cou'rse of rotation. No other 
 
 member present, save mine own self, as by duty bound. A 
 
 deplorable falling away from the cause. Whereof more here- 
 after. 
 
 The Record here breaks off. The society probably did not 
 proceed farther, but died on the spot, of a complication of 
 Innocent Jocularity and Sister Eumble, and was buried tacitly, 
 with the fair Euth Mumford for its chief mourner. The other 
 papers are in verse, and a reading of them will certainly per- 
 suade the reviewers that they were premature in applying the 
 designation of '* Quaker Poetry " to foregone lays and lyrics. 
 The first is a genuine brown study after nature ; the second a 
 hint how Peace ought not to be proclaimed. 
 
842 THE QUAKERS' CONVERSAZIONE. 
 
 SONNET. 
 BY R. M. 
 
 How sweet thus clad, in Autumn's mellow Tone, 
 Witli serious Eye, the russet Scene to view I 
 No Verdure decks the Forest, save alone 
 The sad green Holly, and the olive Yew. 
 The Skies, no longer of a garish Blue, 
 Subdued to Dove-like Tints, and soft as Wool, 
 Reflected show their slaty Shades anew 
 In the drab Waters of the clayey Pool. 
 Meanwhile yon Cottage Maiden wends to School, 
 In Garb of Chocolate so neatly drest. 
 And Bonnet puce, fit object for the Tool, 
 And chasten'd Pigments, of our Brother West ; 
 Yea, all is silent, sober, calm, and cool. 
 Save gaudy Robin with his crimson Breast. 
 
 LINES 
 
 ON THE CELEBRATION OP PEACE. 
 BY PORCAS DOVE. 
 
 And is it thus ye welcome Peace, 
 
 From Mouths of forty-pounding Bores ? 
 
 Oh cease, exploding Cannons, cease ! 
 Lest Peace, affrighted, shun our shores ! 
 
 Not so the quiet Queen should come ; 
 
 But like a Nurse to still our Fears, 
 With Shoes of List, demurely dumb. 
 
 And Wool or Cotton in her Ears ! 
 
THE QUAKERS' CONVERSAZIONE. 348 
 
 She asks for no triumphal Arch ; 
 
 No Steeples for their ropy Tongues ; 
 Down, Drumsticks, down, She needs no March, 
 
 Or blasted Trumps from brazen Lungs* 
 
 She wants no Noise of mobbing Throats 
 
 To tell that She is drawing nigh : 
 Why this Parade of scarlet Coats, 
 
 When War has closed his bloodshot Eye P 
 
 Betuming to Domestic Loves, 
 
 When War has ceased with all its Ills, 
 
 Captains should come like sucking Doves, 
 With Olive Branches in their Bills. 
 
 A GE»££i.I< PBACXL. 
 
 No need there is of vulgar Shout, 
 
 Bells, Cannons, Trumpets, Fife, and Drum, 
 And Soldiers marching all about. 
 
 To let Us know that Peace is come. 
 
344 SKETCHES ON THE EOAD. 
 
 Oh mild should be the Signs and meek, 
 Sweet Peace's Advent to proclaim ! 
 
 Silence her noiseless Toot should speak, 
 And Echo should repeat the same. 
 
 Lo ! where the Soldier walks, alas ! 
 
 With Scars received on Poreign Grounds ; 
 Shall we consume in Coloured Glass 
 
 The Oil that should be pour'd in Wounds P 
 
 The bleeding Gaps of War to close. 
 Will whizzing Rocket-Plight avail ? 
 Will Squibs enliven Orphans' Woes ? 
 Or Crackers cheer the Widow's Tale P 
 
 SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 
 
 THE MORNING CALL. 
 
 I CANNOT conceive any prospect more agreeable to a weary 
 traveller than the approach to Bedfordshire. Each valley re- 
 minds him of Sleepy Hollow, the fleecy clouds seem like 
 blankets, the lakes and ponds are clean sheets ; the setting sun 
 looks like a warming-pan. He dreams of dreams to come. 
 His travelling-cap transforms to a night-cap, the coach lining- 
 feels softlier squabbed ; the guard's horn plays " Lullaby." 
 Every flower by the road-side is a poppy. Each jolt of the 
 coach is but a drowsy stumble up stairs. The lady opposite is 
 the chamber-maid; the gentleman beside her is Boots. He 
 slides into imaginary slippers ; he winks and nods flirtingly at 
 Sleep, so soon to be his own. Although the wheels may be 
 rattling into vigilant Wakefield, it appears to him to be sleepy 
 Ware, with its great Bed, a whole County of Down, spread 
 *• all before him where to choose his place of rest." 
 
SKETCHES ON THE EOAD. Sio 
 
 It was in a similar mood, after a long dusty droughty dog- 
 day's journey, that I entered the Dolphin, at Bedhampton. I 
 nodded in at the door, winked at the lights, blinked at the com- 
 pany in the coffee-room, yawned for a glass of negus, swallowed 
 it with my eyes shut, as though it had been " a pint of nappy," 
 surrendered my boots, clutched a candlestick, and blundered, slip- 
 shod, up the stairs to number nine. 
 
 Blessed be the man, says Sancho Panza, who first invented 
 sleep : and blessed be heaven that he did not take out a patent* 
 and keep his discovery to himself. My clothes dropped off me : 
 I saw through a drowsy haze the likeness of a four-poster: 
 " Great Nature's second course " was spread before me ; and I 
 fell to without a long grace ! 
 
 Here's a body — there's a bed ! 
 Tnere's a pillow — here's a head ! 
 There's a curtain — here's a light 1 
 There's a puff — and so Good Night ! 
 
 It would have been gross improvidence to waste more words 
 on the occasion ; for I was to be roused up again at four o'clock 
 the next morning to proceed by the early coach. I determined, 
 therefore, to do as much sleep within the interval as I could ; 
 and in a minute, short measure, I was with that mandarin, Mor- 
 pheus, in his Land of Nod. 
 
 How intensely we sleep when we are fatigued ! Some as 
 sound as tops, others as fast as churches. For my own part I 
 must have slept as fast as a Cathedral, — as fast as Young Rapid 
 wished his father to slumber : nay as fast as the French veteran 
 who dreams over again the whole Russian campaign while dozing 
 in his sentry-box. I must have slept as fast as a fast post- 
 coach in my four-poster — or rather I must have slept "like 
 winkin," for I seemed hardly to have closed my eyes, when & 
 voice cried " Sleep no more 1 " 
 
Slfi SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 
 
 It was that of Boots, calling and knocking at the door, whilst 
 through the keyhole a ray of candlelight darted into my chamber. 
 
 "Who*s there?" 
 
 " It's me, your honour, I humbly ax pardon — but somehow 
 IVe oversleeped myself, and the coach be gone by ! " 
 
 " The devil it is ! — then I have lost my place ! " 
 
 " No, not exactly, your honour. She stops a bit at the 
 Dragon, t'other end o' the town ; and if your honour wouldn't 
 object to a bit of a run — " 
 
 " That's enough — come in. Put down the light — and take 
 up that bag — my coat over your arm — and waistcoat with it — 
 and that cravat." 
 
 Boots acted according to orders. I jumped out of bed — 
 pocketed my nightcap — screwed on my stockings — plunged into 
 my trowsers — rammed my feet into wrong right and left boots 
 — tumbled down the back stairs — burst through a door, and 
 found myself in the fresh air of the stable-yard, holding a lantern, 
 which, in sheer haste, or spleen, I pitched into the horsepond. 
 Then began the race, during which I completed my toilet, run- 
 ning and firing a verbal volley at Boots, as often as T could spare 
 breath for one. 
 
 " And you call this waking me up — for the coach. My waist- 
 coat! — Why I could wake myself — too late — without being 
 called. Now my cravat — and be hanged to you! — Confound 
 that stone ! — and give me my coat. A nice road — for a run ! — 
 I suppose you keep it — on purpose. How many gentlemen — 
 may you do a week ? — I'll tell you what. If I — run — a foot — 
 further—" 
 
 I paused for wind; while Boots had stopped of his own 
 accord. "We had turned a corner into a small square; and on 
 the opposite side, certainly stood an inn with the sign of the 
 Dragon, but without any sign of a coach at the door. Boots 
 stood beside me aghast, and surveying the house from the top 
 
SKETCHES ON THE ROAD. 317 
 
 to the bottom ; not a wreath of smoke came from a chimney ; 
 the curtains were closed over every window, and the door was 
 closed and shuttered. I could hardly contain my indignation 
 when I looked at the infernal somnolent visage of the fellow, 
 hardly yet broad awake — he kept rubbing his black-lead eyes 
 with his hands, as if he would have rubbed them out. 
 
 •* Yes, you may well look — ^you have overslept yourself with a 
 vengeance. The coach must have passed an hour ago — and they 
 have all gone to bed again ! " 
 
 *' No, there be no coach, sure enough," soliloquised Boots, 
 slowly raising his eyes from the road, where he had been search- 
 ing for the track of recent wheels, and fixing them with a depre- 
 cating expression on my face. " No, there's no coach — I ax a 
 thousand pardons, your honour — but you see. Sir, what with 
 waiting on her, and talking on her, and expecting on her, and 
 giving notice on her, every night of my life, your honour — why 
 I sometimes dreams on her — and that's the case as is now ! '* 
 
 'TOP VK WAKKD ME TOO BOOK, 
 I MUST SLUMBKB AGAIN." 
 
348 
 
 THE LAMENT OF TOBY. 
 
 A STUFFED BIRD. 
 
 THE LAMENT OE TOBY, 
 
 THE LEARNED PIG. 
 
 * A little learning is a dangerous thing." — Pope. 
 
 O HEAVY day ! oh day of woe ! 
 
 To misery a poster, 
 Why was I ever farrow'd — why 
 
 Not spitted for a roaster ? 
 
 In this M'orld, pigs, as well as men. 
 Must dance to fortune's fiddlings, 
 
 But must I give the classics up, 
 For barley-meal and middlings ? 
 
THE^ LAMENT OF TOBY. 849 
 
 Of what avail that I could spell 
 
 And read, just like ray betters, 
 If I must come to this at last, 
 
 To litters, not to letters ? 
 
 0, why are pigs made scholars of? 
 
 It baffles my discerning, 
 What griskins, fry, and chitterlings 
 
 Can have to do with learning. 
 
 Alas ! my learning once drew cash. 
 
 But public fame's unstable, 
 So I must turn a pig again, 
 
 And fatten for the table. 
 
 To leave my literary line 
 
 My eyes get red and leaky ; 
 But Giblett doesn't want me blue, 
 
 But red and white, and streaky 
 
 Old MuUins used to cultivate 
 
 My learning like a gard'ner ; 
 But Giblett only thinks of lard, 
 
 And not of Doctor Lardner ! 
 
 fle does not care about my brain 
 
 The value of two coppers. 
 All that he thinks about my head 
 
 Is, how I'm off for choppers. 
 
 Of all my literary kin 
 
 A farewell must be taken, 
 Good-bye to the poetic Hogg ! 
 
 The philosophic Bacon I 
 
360 THE LAMENT OF TOBY. 
 
 Day after day my lessons fade, 
 
 My intellect gets muddy ; 
 A trough I have, and not a desK, 
 
 A sty — and not a study ! 
 
 Another little month, and then 
 My progress ends like Bunyan's ; 
 
 The seven sages that I loved 
 Will be chopp'd up with onions I 
 
 Then over head and ears in brine 
 
 They'll souse me, like a salmon. 
 My mathematics turned to brawn, 
 My logic into gammon. 
 
 My Hebrew will all retrograde, 
 
 Now I'm put up to fatten ; 
 My Greek, it will all go to grease ; 
 
 The Dogs will have my Latin ! 
 
 Earewell to Oxford ! — and to Bliss ! 
 
 To Milman, Crowe, and Glossop, — 
 I now must be content with chats. 
 
 Instead of learned gossip I 
 
 Farewell to " Town ! " farewell to " Gown ! " 
 I've quite outgrown the latter, — 
 
 Instead of Trencher-cap my head 
 Will soon be in a platter ! 
 
 O why did I at Brazen-Nose 
 
 Eout up the roots of knowledge ? 
 
 A butcher that can't read will kill 
 A pig that's been to college ! 
 
TO A BAD RIDER. 851 
 
 For sorrow I could stick myself, 
 
 But conscience is a dasher ; 
 A thing that would be rash in man, 
 
 In me would be a rasher ! 
 
 One thing I ask when I am dead. 
 
 And past the Stygian ditches — 
 And that is, let my schoolmaster 
 
 Have one of my two flitches : 
 *Twas he who taught my letters so 
 
 I ne'er mistook or miss*d *em. 
 Simply by ringing at the nose. 
 
 According to BelVi system. 
 
 LBABirBI> PIO OEOWir OUT OF ENOWLBX^OB. 
 
 TO A BAD EIDER. 
 
 Why, Mr. Rider, why 
 
 Tour nag so iU indorse, man ? 
 To make observers cry. 
 
 You're mounted, but no horseman ? 
 
352 MY SON AND HEIR. 
 
 II. 
 With elbows out so far, 
 
 This thought you can't debar me — 
 Though no Dragoon — Hussar — 
 
 You're surely of the army ! 
 
 OUT XT ELBOWS. 
 III. 
 
 I hope to turn M.P. 
 
 You have not any notion, 
 So awkward you would be 
 
 At " seconding a motion ! " 
 
 MY SON AND HEIR. 
 
 1. 
 My mother bids me bind my heir, 
 But not the trade where I should bind ; 
 To place a boy — the how and where — 
 It is the plague of parent-kind 1 
 
MY SON AND HEIR. 
 
 869 
 
 II. 
 
 She does not hint the slightest plan, 
 Nor what indentures to endorse ; 
 Whether to bind him to a man, — 
 Or, like Mazeppa, to a horse. 
 
 .,S-^l^S= 
 
 SON AfD HAll 
 
 III. 
 
 What line to choose of likely rise. 
 To something in the Stocks at last, — 
 " Fast bind, fast find," the proverb erics, 
 I find I cannot bind so fast ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 A Statesman James can never be ; 
 
 A Tailor ? — there I only learn 
 
 His chief concern is cloth, and he 
 
 Is always cutting his concern. 
 TOL. II. 23 
 
854 MY SON AND HEIB. 
 
 V. 
 
 A Seedsman ? — I'd not have him so ; 
 A Grocer's plum might disappoint ; 
 A Butcher ? — no, not that — although 
 I hear " the times are out of joint 1 " 
 
 VI. 
 
 Too many of all trades there be. 
 Like Pedlars, each has such a pack , 
 A merchant selling coals ? — we see 
 The buyer send to cellar back. 
 
 VII. 
 
 A Hardware dealer ? — that might please- 
 But if his trade's foundation leans 
 On spikes and nails, he won't have ease 
 When he retires upon his means. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A Soldier ? — there he has not nerves 
 A Sailor seldom lays up pelf : 
 A Baker ? — no, a baker serves 
 His customer before himself. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Dresser of hair ? — ^that's not the sort ; 
 
 A joiner jars with his desire — 
 
 A Churchman ? — James is very short. 
 
 And cannot to a church aspire. 
 
 X. 
 
 A Lawyer? — that's a hardish term ! 
 A Publisher might give him ease, 
 If he could into Longman's firm 
 Just plunge at once " in medias Kees." 
 
MY SON AND HJSIB. 355 
 
 XI. 
 A shop for pot, and pan, and cup, 
 Such brittle Stock I can't advise ; 
 A Builder running houses up. 
 Their gains are stories — may be lies I 
 
 XII. 
 
 A Coppersmith I can't endure — 
 
 Nor petty Usher A, B, C-ing ; 
 
 A Publican no father sure, < 
 
 Would be the author of his being ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A Paper-maker ? — come he must 
 To rags before he sells a sheet — 
 A Miller? — all his toil is just 
 To make a meal — he does not eat. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 A Currier ? — that by favour goes — 
 A Chandler gives me great misgiving— 
 An Undertaker ? — one of those 
 T/iat do not hope to get their living 1 
 
 XV. 
 
 Three Golden Balls ?— I like them not ; 
 An Auctioneer I never did — 
 The victim of a slavish lot, 
 Obliged to do as he is bid I 
 
 XVI. 
 
 A Broker watching fall and rise 
 Of Stock? — I'd rather deal in stone,— 
 A. Printer ? — there his toils comprise 
 Another's work beside his own. 
 23—2 
 
856 
 
 MY SON AND HEIE. 
 
 XVII. 
 A Cooper?— neitlier I nor Jem 
 Have any taste or turn for that, — 
 A fish retailer ?— but with him, 
 One part of trade is always flat. 
 
 piiiai liiiMiB 
 
 LE IA.MILY LIBRA Bt. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 A Painter?— long he would not live,-— 
 An Artist's a precarious craft— 
 In trade Apothecaries give, 
 But very seldom take, a draught. 
 
UY SON AND HEIR. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 A Glazier ? — what if he should smash I 
 A Crispin he shall not be made — 
 A Grazier may be losing cash, 
 
 Although he drives 
 
 a roaring trade. 
 
 357 
 
 XX. 
 
 Well, something must be done I to look 
 On all my little works around — 
 James is too big a boy, like book. 
 To leave upon the shelf unbound. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 But what to do ? — my temples ache 
 From evening's dew till morning's pearl. 
 What course to take my boy to make — 
 Oh could I make my boy — a girl ! 
 
 SON AND SHADE. 
 
358 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 LITEEAEY REMINISCENCES. 
 No. IV. 
 
 " And are ye sure the news is true ? 
 
 And are ye sure he's weel ? " — Old Scotch Song. 
 
 The great Doctor Johnson — himself a sufferer — has patheti- 
 cally described, in an essay on the miseries of an infirm con- 
 stitution, the melancholy case of an Invalid, with a willing mind 
 in a weak body. *' The time of such a man," he says, '* is spent 
 in forming schemes which a change of wind prevents him from 
 executing ; his powers fume away in projects and in hope, and 
 the day of action never arrives. lie lies down delighted with 
 the thoughts of to-morrow ; but in the night the skies are over- 
 cast ; the temper of the air is changed j he wakes in languor, 
 impatience, and distraction ; and has no longer any wish but for 
 ease, nor any attention but for misery.*' In short the Rambler 
 describes the whole race of Valetudinarians as a sort of great 
 Bitumen Company, paving a certain nameless place, as some of 
 the Asphalticals have paved Oxford Street, with not very durable 
 good intentions. In a word, your Invalid promises like a 
 Hogamy, and performs like a Pigamy. 
 
 To a hale hearty man, a perfect picture of health in an oaken 
 frame, such abortions seem sufficiently unaccountable. A great 
 hulking fellow, revelling as De Quincey used empLalically tc 
 say, "in rude bovine health, — a voracious human animal 
 camel-stomached and iron-built, who could all but devour and 
 digest himself like a Kilkenny cat, — can neither sympathise with 
 nor understand those frequent failures and down-breakings 
 which happen to beings not so fortunately gifted with indelicate 
 constitutions. Such a half-horse half-alligator monster cannot 
 judge, like a Puny Judge, of a case of feebleness. The broad- 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 359 
 
 chested cannot allow for the narrow-breasted ; the robust for the 
 no-bust. Nevertheless, even the stalwart may sometimes fall 
 egregiously short of their own designs — as witness a case in 
 point. 
 
 Amongst my fellow passengers, on a late sea-voyage, there 
 was one who attracted my especial attention. A glance at his 
 face, another at his figure, a third at his costume, and a fourth 
 at his paraphernalia, sufficed to detect his country : by his light 
 hair, nubbly features, heavy frame, odd-coloured dressing-gown, 
 and the national meerschaum and gaudy tobacco-bag, he was 
 undeniably a German. But, besides the everlasting pipe, he was 
 provided with a sketching apparatus, an ample note book, a gun, 
 and a telescope ; the whole being placed ready for immediate 
 use. He had predetermined, no doubt, to record his German 
 sentiments on first making acquaintance with the German Ocean ; 
 to sketch the picturesque craft he might encounter on its sur- 
 face ; to shoot his first sea-gull ; and to catch a first glimpse of 
 the shores of Albion, beyond the reach of the naked eye. But 
 alas I all these intentions fell — if one may correctly say so with 
 only sky and water — to the ground. He ate nothing — drank 
 nothing — smoked nothing — drew nothing — wrote nothing — shot 
 nothing — spied nothing — nay, he merely stared, but replied 
 nothing to my friendly inquiry (I am ill at the German tongue 
 and its pronunciation) " Wie befinden sea sick ? " 
 
 Now, my own case, gentle reader, has been precisely akin to 
 that of our unfortunate Cousin German, Like him I have 
 promised much, projected still more, and done little. Like him, 
 too, I have been a sick man, though not at sea, but on shore — 
 and in excuse of all that has been left undone, or delayed, with 
 other Performers, when they do not perform, I must proifer the 
 old theatrical plea of indisposition. As the Eambler describes, 
 I have erected schemes which have been blown down by an ill 
 wind ; I have formed plans, and been weather-beaten, like 
 
360 LITERAEY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 anothjer Murphy, by a change in the weather. For instance, the 
 Comic Annnal for 1839 ought properly to have beer, published 
 some forty days earlier ; but was obliged, as it were, to perform 
 quarantine, for want of a clean Bill of Health. Thus, too, the 
 patron of the present Work who has taken the trouble to peruse 
 certain chapters under the title of Literary Reminiscences, will 
 doubtless have compared the tone of them with an Apology in 
 Number Six, wherein, declining any attempt at an Auto-biog- 
 raphy, a promise was made of giving such anecdotes as a bad 
 memory and a bad hearing might have retained of my literary 
 friends and acquaintance. Hitherto, however, the fragments in 
 question have only presented desultory glimpses of a go»se quill 
 still in its green-gosling-hood, instead of any recollections of 
 '• celebrated pens." The truth is that my malady forced me to 
 temporise : — wherefore the kind reader will be pleased to con- 
 sider the aforesaid chapters but as so many " false starts," and 
 that Memory has only now got away, to make play as well as 
 she can. 
 
 Whilst I am thus closeted in the Confessional, it may be as 
 well, as the Pelican said, to make a clean breast of it, and at 
 once plead guilty to all those counts — and some from long- 
 standing have become very Old Bailey counts — that haunt my 
 conscience. The most numerous of these crimes relate to letters 
 that would not, could not, or at least did not answer. Others 
 refer to the receipt of books, and as an example of their heinous- 
 ness it misgives me that I was favoured with a little volume by 
 W. and M. Howitt, without ever telling them how-it pleased 
 me. A few offences, concern engagements which it was impossi- 
 ble to fulfil, although doubly bound by principle and interest. 
 Seriously I have perforce been guilty of many, many, and still 
 many sins of omission : but Hope, reviving with my strength, 
 promises, granting me life, to redeem all such pledges. In the 
 mean time, in extenuation, I can only plead particularly that 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 361 
 
 deprecation which is offered up, in behalf of all Christian de- 
 faulters every Sunday, — "We have left undone those things 
 which we ought to have done, — And there is no Health 
 in us." 
 
 It is pleasant after a match at Chess, particularly if we have 
 won, to try back, and reconsider those important moves which 
 have had a decisive influence on the result. It is still more in- 
 teresting, in the game of Life, to recall the critical positions 
 which have occuiTcd during its progress, and review the false or 
 judicious steps that have led to our subsequent good or ill for- 
 tune. There is, however, this difference, that chess is a matter 
 of pure skill and calculation, whereas, the chequered board of 
 human life is subject to the caprice of Chance — the event being 
 sometimes determined by combinations which never entered into 
 the mind of the player *. To such an accident it is perhaps at- 
 tributable that the hand now tracing these reminiscences is 
 holding a pen instead of an etching-point ; jotting down these 
 prose pleasures of memory, in lieu of furnishing articles 
 " plated-on-steel," for the pictorial periodicals. 
 
 It will be remembered that my mental constitution, however 
 weak my physical one, was proof against that type-us fever 
 which parches most scribblers till they are set up, done up, and 
 may-be, cut-up, in print and boards. Perhaps I had read, and 
 trembled at the melancholy annals of those unfortunates who, 
 rashly undertaking to write for bread, had poisoned themselves, 
 like Chatterton, for want of it, or choked themselves, like Ot- 
 way, on obtaining it. Possibly, having learned to think humbly 
 of myself — there is nothing like early sickness and sorrow for 
 
 * To borrow an example from fiction, there is that slave of circumstances, 
 Oliver Twist. There are ibTV authors whom one would care to see running 
 two heats with the same horse. It is intended therefore as a compliment, 
 that I wish Boz would re- write the history in question from page 122, sup- 
 posing his hero not to have met with the Artful Dodger on his road to seek 
 bis fortune. 
 
362 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 "taking the conceit " out of one — ray vanity did not presume to 
 think, with certain juvenile Tracticians, that I " had a call " to hold 
 forth in print for the edification of mankind. Perchance, the very 
 deep reverence my reading had led me to entertain for our 
 Eards and Sages, deterred me from thrusting myself into the 
 fellowship of Beings that seemed only a little lower than the 
 angels. However, in spite of that very common excuse for 
 publication, " the advice of a friend," who seriously recom- 
 mended the submitting of my MSS. to a literary authority, with 
 a view to his imprimatur, my slight acquaintance with the press 
 was pushed no farther. On the contrary, I had selected a 
 branch of the Fine Arts for my serious pursuit. Prudence, the 
 daughter of Wisdom, whispering perhaps, that the engraver, 
 Pye, had a better chance of a beefsteak inside, than Pye the 
 Laureate ; not that the verse-spinning was quite given up. 
 Though working in aqua fortis, I still played with Castaly, now 
 writing — all monkeys are imitators, and all young authors are 
 monkeys — now writing a Bandit, to match the Corsair, and anon, 
 hatching a Lalla Crow, by way of companion to Lalla Eookh. 
 Moreover, about this time, I became a member of a private select 
 Literary Society (alluded to at page 97 of the present work) 
 that " waited on Ladies and Gentlemen at their own houses." 
 Our Minerva, allegorically speaking, was a motley personage, in 
 blue stockings, a flounced gown, Quaker cap, and kerchief, French 
 flowers, and a man's hat. She held a fan in one hand, and a 
 blowpipe in the other. Her votaries were of both sexes, old and 
 young, married and single, assenters, dissenters, High Church, 
 Low Church, No Church ; Doctors in Physics, and Apothecaries 
 in Metaphysics ; dabblers in Logic, Chemistry, Casuistry, So- 
 phistry, Natural and unnatural History, Phrenology, Geology, 
 Conchology, Demonology ; in short, all kinds of Colledgy-Know- 
 ledgy-Ology, including " Cakeology," and tea and coffee. Like 
 other Societies, we had our President — a sort of Speaker who never 
 
LITERAKY REMINISCENCES. 363 
 
 spoke ; at least within my experience he never unbosomed him- 
 self of anything but a portentous shirt frill. According to ths 
 usual order of the entertainment, there was — first, Tea and 
 Small Talk; secondly, an original Essay, which should have 
 been followed, thirdly, by a Discussion, or Great Talk ; but nine 
 times in ten, it chanced, or rather mum chanced, that, between 
 those who did not know what to think, and others, who did not 
 know how to deliver what they thought, there ensued a dead 
 silence, so " very dead indeed," as Appollo Belvi says, that it 
 seemed buried into the bargain. To make this awkward pause 
 more awkward, some misgiving voice, between a whisper and a 
 croak, would stammer out some allusion to a Q.uaker's Meeting, 
 answered from right to left by a running titter, the speaker hav- 
 ing innocently, or perhaps wilfully forgotten, that one or two 
 friends in drab coats, and as many in slate-coloured gowns, were 
 sitting, thumb-twiddling, in the circle. Not that the Friends 
 contented themselves with playing dumhy at our discussions. 
 They often spoke, and very characteristically, to the matter in 
 hand. For instance, their favourite doctrine of non-resistance 
 was once pushed — if Quakers ever push — a little " beyond be- 
 yond." By way of clencher, one fair, meek, sleek Quakeress, 
 in dove colour, gravely told a melodramatical story of a con- 
 scientious Friend, who rather than lift even his little finger 
 against a Foe, passively, yea, lamblike, suffered himself to be 
 butchered in bed by an assassin, and died consistently, as he 
 thought, with Fox principles, very like a Goose. As regards 
 my own share in the Essays and Arguments, it misgives me 
 that they no more satisfied our decidedly serious members, than 
 they now propitiate Mr. Eae Wilson. At least, one Society 
 night, in escorting a female Fellow towards her home, she sud- 
 denly stopped me, taking advantage perhaps of the awful locality, 
 and its associations, just in front of our chief criminal prison, 
 and looking earnestly in my face, by the light of a Newgate 
 
864 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 lamp, inquired somewhat abruptly, " Mr. Hood ! are you not an 
 Infidel*?" 
 
 In the mean time, whilst thus playing at Literature, an event 
 was ripening which was to introduce me to Authorship m 
 earnest, and make the Muse, with whom I had only flirted, my 
 companion for life. It had often occurred t») me that a striking, 
 romantical, necromantical, metaphysical, melodramatical, Ger- 
 raanish story, might be composed, the interest of which should 
 turn on the mysterious influence of the fate of A over the destiny 
 of B, the said parties having no more natural or apparent con- 
 nexion with each other than Tenterden Steeple and the Goodwin 
 Sands. An instance of this occult contingency occurred in my 
 own case; for I did not even know by sight the unfortunate 
 gentleman on whose untimely exit depended my entrance on the 
 literary stage. In the beginning of the year 1821, a memorable 
 duel, originating in a pen-and-ink quarrel, took place at Chalk 
 Farm, and terminated in the death of Mr. John Scott, the able 
 Editor of the London Magazine. The melancholy result excited 
 great interest, in which I fully participated, little dreaming that 
 his catastrophe involved any consequences of importance to 
 myself. But on the loss of its conductor, the Periodical passed 
 into other hands. The new Proprietors were my friends ; they 
 sent for me, and after some preliminaries, I was duly installed as 
 a sort of sub-Editor of the London Magazine. 
 
 It would be affectation to say, that engraving was resigned 
 with regret. There is always something mechanical about the 
 art — moreover it is as unwholesome as wearisome to sit copper- 
 fastened to a board, with a cantle scooped out to accommodate 
 your stomach, if you have one, painfully ruling, ruling, and still 
 ruling lines straight or crooked, by the long hundred to the 
 
 * In justice to the Society, it ought to be recorded, that two of its 
 membeis have since distinguished themselves in print: the authoress of 
 '• London in the Olden Time," and the author of a " History of Moral 
 Science." 
 
LITERAEY REMINISCENCES. 365 
 
 square inch, at the doubly hazardous risk which Wordsworth so 
 deprecates, of " growing double." So farewell WooUett ! Strange ! 
 Bartolozzi ! I have said, my vanity did not rashly plunge me 
 into authorship ; but no sooner was there a legitimate opening 
 than I jumped at it, a la Grimaldi, head foremost, and was 
 speedily behind the scenes. 
 
 To judge by my zeal and delight in my new pursuit, the bowl 
 had at last found its natural bias*. Not content with taking 
 articles, like candidates for holy orders — with rejecting articles 
 like the Belgians — I dreamt articles, thought articles, wrote ar- 
 ticles, which were all inserted by the editor, of course, with the 
 concurrence of his deputy. The more irksome parts of author- 
 ship, such as the correction of the press, were to me labours of 
 love. I received a revise from Mr. Baldwin's Mr. Parker, as if 
 it had been a proof of his regard ; forgave him all his slips, and 
 really thought that printers' devils were not so black as they are 
 painted. But my top-gallant glory was in " our Contributors ! " 
 How I used to look forward to Elia ! and backward for Hazlitt, 
 and all round for Edward Herbert, and how I used to look up 
 to Allan Cunningham ! for at that time the London had a goodly 
 list of writers — a rare company. It is now defunct, and perhaps 
 no ex-periodical might so appropriately be apostrophized with 
 the Irish funereal question — " Arrah, honey, why did you die ? " 
 Had you not an editor, and elegant prose writers, and beautiful 
 poets, and broths of boys for criticism and classics, and wits and 
 humorists. — Elia, Gary, Procter, Cunningham, Bowring, Bar- 
 ton, Hazlitt, Elton, Hartley Coleridge, Talfourd, Soane, Horace 
 Smith, Reynolds, Poole, Clare, and Thomas Benyon, with a 
 
 * There was a dash of ink in my blood. My father wrote two novels, 
 and my brother was deciaedly of a literary turn, to the great disquietude 
 for a time of an anxious parent. She suspected him, on the strength of 
 several amatory poems of a very desponding cast, of being the victim of a 
 hopeless attachment; so he was caught, closeted, and catechised, and after 
 a deal of delicate and tender sounding, he confessed, not with the anticipa- 
 ted sighs and tears, but a very unexpected burst of laughter, that he had 
 been guilty of translating some fragments of Petrarch. 
 
866 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 power besides. Hadn't you Lions' Heads with Traditional 
 Tales ? Hadn't you an Opium Eater, and a Dwarf, and a Giant, 
 and a Learned Lamb, and a Green Man? Had not you a 
 regular Drama, and a Musical Report, and a Report of Agricul- 
 ture, and an Obituary, and a Price Current, and a current price, 
 of only half-a-crown ? AiTah, why did you die ? Why, some- 
 bow the contributors fell away — the concern went into other 
 hands — worst of all, a new editor tried to put the Belles Lettres 
 in Utilitarian envelopes ; whereupon, the circulation of the Mis- 
 cellany, like that of poor Le Fevre, got slower, slower, slower, — 
 and slower still — and then stopped for ever ! It was a sorry 
 scattering of those old Londoners ! Some went out of the 
 country : one (Clare) went into it. Lamb retreated to Cole- 
 brooke. Mr. Cary presented himself to the British Museum. 
 Reynolds and Barry took to engrossing when they should pen a 
 stanza, and Thomas Benyon gave up literature. 
 
 It is with mingled feelings of pride, pleasure, and pain, that 
 I revert to those old times, when the writers I had long known 
 and admired in spirit were present to me in the flesh — when I 
 had the delight of listening to their wit and wisdom from their 
 own lips, of gazing on their faces, and grasping their right hands. 
 Familiar figures rise before me, familiar voices ring in my ears, 
 and alas ! amongst them are shapes that I must never see, sounds 
 that I can never hear, again. Before my departure from Eng- 
 land, I was one of the few who saw the grave close over the re- 
 mains of one whom to know as a friend was to love as a rela- 
 tion. Never did a better soul go to a better world ! Never 
 perhaps (giving the lie direct to the common imputation of envy, 
 malice, and hatred, amongst the brotherhood), never did an 
 author descend — to quote his favourite Sir T. Browne — into 
 " the land of the mole and the pismire " so hung with golden 
 opinions, and honoured and regretted with such sincere eulogies 
 and elegies, by his contemporaries. To him, the first of these, 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 357 
 
 my reminiscences, is eminently due, for I lost in liim not only a 
 dear and kind friend, but an invaluable critic ; one whom, were 
 such literary adoptions in modern use, I might well name, ag 
 Cotton called Walton, my "father." To borrow the earnest 
 language of old Jean Bertaut, as Englished by Mr. Gary — 
 
 "Thou, chiefly, noble spirit, for whose loss 
 Just grief and mourning all our hearts engross, 
 Who seeing me devoted to the Nine, 
 Didst hope some fruitage from those buds of mme; 
 Thou didst excite me after thee t' ascend 
 The Muses' sacred hill; nor only lend 
 Example, but inspirit me to reach 
 The far-off summit bj' thy friendh'' speech. 
 * * * iH * 
 
 May gracious Heaven, O honour of our age i 
 Make the conclusion answer thy presage. 
 Nor let it only for vain fortune stand. 
 That I have seen thy visage— touched thy hand !" 
 
 I was sitting one morning beside our Editor, busily correcting 
 proofs, when a visitor was announced, whose name, grumbled by 
 a low ventriloquial voice, like Tom Pipes calling from the hold 
 through the hatchway, did not resound distinctly on my 
 tympanum. However, the door opened, and in came a stranger, 
 — a figure remarkable at a glance, with a fine head, on a small spare 
 body, supported by two almost immaterial legs. He was 
 clothed in sables, of a bygone fashion, but there was something 
 wanting, or something present about him, that certified he was 
 neither a divine, nor a physician, nor a schoolmaster : from a 
 certain neatness and sobriety in his dress, coupled with his 
 sedate bearing, he might have been taken, but that such a 
 costume would be anomalous, for a Quaker in black. He 
 looked still more like (what he really was) a literary Modern 
 Antique, a New-Old Author, a living Anachronism, con- 
 temporary at once with Burton the Elder, and Colman the 
 Younger. Meanwhile he advanced with rather a peculiar gait, 
 his walk was plantigrade, and with a cheerful " How d'ye," and 
 one of the blandest, sweetest smiles that ever brightened a manly 
 countenance, held out two fingers to the Editor. The two gen- 
 
868 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 tlemen in black soon fell into discourse ; and whilst they con- 
 ferred, the Lavater principle within me, set to work upon the 
 interesting specimen thus presented to its speculations. It was 
 a striking intellectual face, full of wiry lines, physiognomical 
 quips and cranks, that gave it great character. There was 
 much earnestness about the brows, and a deal of speculation in 
 the eyes, which were brown and bright, and " quick in turn- 
 ing; " the nose, a decided one, though of no established order; 
 and there was a handsome smartness about the mouth. Al- 
 together it was no common face — none of those willow-pattern 
 ones, which Nature turns out by thousands at her potteries ; — 
 but more like a chance specimen of the Chinese ware, one to the 
 set — unique, antique, quaint. No one who had once seen it, 
 could pretend not to know it again. It was no face to lend 
 its countenance to any confusion of persons in a Comedy 
 of Errors. You might have dworn to it piecemeal, — a 
 separate affidavit for every feature. In short his face was as 
 original as his figure ; his figure as his character ; his character 
 as his writings; his writings the most original of the age. 
 After the literary business had been settled, the Editor invited 
 his contributor to dinner, adding " we shall have a hare — " 
 "And — and — and — and many Friends ! " 
 The hesitation in the speech, and the readiness of the illusion, 
 were alike characteristic of the individual, whom his familiars 
 will perchance have recognised already as the delightful Essayist, 
 the capital Critic, the pleasant Wit and Humorist, the delicate- 
 minded and large-hearted Charles Laml) ! He was shj like 
 myself with strangers, so that, despite my yearnings, our first 
 meeting scarcely amounted to an introduction. We were both 
 at dinner, amongst the hare's many friends, but our acquaint- 
 ance got no farther, in spite of a desperate attempt on my part 
 to attract bis notice. His complaint of the Decay of Beggars 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 8G9 
 
 presented another chance : I wrote on coarse paper, and in 
 ragged English, a letter of thanks to him as if from one of his 
 mendicant clients, but it produced no effect. I had given up all 
 hope, when one night, sitting sick and sad, in my bed-room, 
 racked with the rheumatism, the door was suddenly opened, the 
 well-known quaint figure in black walked in without any 
 formality, and with a cheerful '* Well, boy, how are you ? " and 
 the bland sweet smile, extended the two fingers. They were 
 eagerly clutched of course, and from that hour we were firm 
 friends.. 
 
 Thus characteristically commenced my intimacy with C. Lamb. 
 He had recently become my neighbour, and- in a few days called 
 again, to ask me to tea, " to meet Wordsworth.'* In spite of 
 any idle jests to the contrary, the name had a spell in it that 
 drew me to Colebrooke Cottage* with more alacrity f than 
 consisted with prudence, stiff joints and a North wind. But I 
 was willing to run, at Jeast hobble, some risk, to be of a party 
 in a parlour with the Author of Laodamia and Hartleap Well. 
 As for his Betty Poy-bles, he is not the first man by many, who 
 has met with a simple fracture through riding his theory-hack so 
 far and so fast, that it broke down with him. If he has now 
 and then put on a nightcap, so have his own next-door moun- 
 tains. If he has babbled, sometimes, like an infant of two years 
 
 * A cottafje of Ungentilit3% for it had neither double coach-house nor 
 wings. Like it8 tenant, it stood alone. He said, glancing at the Paternoster 
 one, that he did not like *' the Row." There was a bit of a garden, in which, 
 being, as he professed, more fond of Men Stcts than of Insect?," he made 
 probably his first and last observation in Entomology. He had been watch- 
 ing a spider on a gooseberry bush, entrapping a fly. " Good God," he said, 
 " I never saw such a thing ! Directly he was caught in her fatal spinning, 
 she darted down upon him, and in a minute turned him out, completely 
 lapped in a shroud ! It reminded me of the Fatal Sisters in Gray." 
 
 f A sort of rheumatic celerity, of which Sir W. Scott's favourite drama- 
 tiser seemed to have a very accurate notion. Those who remember " poor 
 Terry's " deliberate delivery, will be able to account for the shout of 
 laughter which once rang throughout the Adelphi green-room, at hia 
 emphatic manner of giving, from a manuscript-play, the stage direction of 
 
 " Enter , with — a — lack — ri — ty ! " 
 
 VOL. II. 24 
 
•870 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 old, he has aiso thought, and felt, and spoken, the beautiful 
 fancies and tender affections, and artless language, of the children 
 who can say " We are seven." Along with food for babes, he 
 has furnished strong meat for men. So I put on my great coat 
 and in a few minutes found myself, for the first time at a door, 
 that opened to me as frankly as its master's heart ; for, without 
 any preliminaries of hall, passage, or parlour, one smgle step 
 across the threshold brought me into the sitting-room, and in 
 sight of the domestic hearth. The room looked brown with 
 "old bokes," and beside the fire sate Wordsworth, and his 
 sister, the hospitable Elia, and the excellent Bridget. As for 
 the bard of Rydal, his outward man did not, perhaps, disappoint 
 one ; but the palaver y as the Indians say, fell short of my antici- 
 pations. Perhaps my memory is in fault ; 'twas many years 
 ago, and, unlike the biographer of Johnson, I have never 
 made Bozziness my business. However, excepting a discussion 
 on the value of the promissory notes issued by our younger 
 poets, wherein Wordsworth named Shelley, and Lamb took John 
 Keats for choice, there was nothing of literary interest brought 
 upon the carpet. But a book man cannot always be bookish. 
 A poet, even a Rydal one, must be glad at times to descend 
 from Saddleback, and feel his legs. He cannot, like the Girl in 
 the Fairy Tale, be always talking diamonds and pearls. It is a 
 " Vulgar Errour " to suppose that an author must be always 
 authoring, even with his feet on the fender. Nevertheless, it 
 is not an uncommon impression, that a writer sonnetises his 
 wife, sings odes to his children, talks essays and epigrams to his 
 friends, and reviews his servants. It was in something of this 
 spirit that an official gentleman to whom I mentioned the pleasant 
 literary meetings at Lamb's, associated them instantly with his 
 parochial mutual instruction evening schools, and remarked, 
 ** Yes, yes, all very proper and praiseworthy — of course, you go 
 there to improve your minds. ' 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 371 
 
 Xm\ very pleasant and improving, though not of set purpose, 
 to both mind and heart, were those extempore assemblies at Cole- 
 brooke Cottage. It was wholesome for the soul but to breathe 
 its atmosphere. It was a House of Call for All Denominations. 
 Sides were lost in that circle. Men of all parties postponed their 
 partisanship, and met as on a neutral ground. There were but 
 two persons, whom L. avowedly did not wish to encounter 
 beneath his roof, and those two, merely on account of private 
 and family differences. For the rest, they left all their hostilities 
 at the door, with their sticks. This forbearance was due to the 
 truly tolerant spirit of the Host, which influenced all within its 
 sphere. Lamb, whilst he willingly lent a crutch to halting 
 Humility, took delight in tripping up the stilts of Pretension. 
 Anybody might trot out his Hobby ; but he allowed nobody to 
 ride the High Horse. If it was a High German, one like those 
 ridden by the Devil and Doctor Faustus, he would chaunt 
 
 " Geuty Geuty 
 Is a great Beauty,** 
 
 till the rider moderated his gallop. He hated anything like 
 Cock-of-the-Walk-ism ; and set his face and his wit against all 
 Ultraism, Transcendentalism, Sentimentalism, Conventional 
 Manncnsm, and above all, Separatism. In opposition to the 
 Excliisives, he was emphatically an Inclusive. 
 
 As he once owned to me, he was fond of antagonising. In- 
 deed in the sketch of himself, prefacing the Last Essays of Elia 
 — a sketch for its truth to have delighted Mason the Self- 
 Knowledge man — he says, *' with the Eeligionist I pass for a 
 Eree-thinker, while the other faction set me down for a Bigot.'* 
 In fact, no politician ever laboured more to preserve the Balance 
 of Power in Europe, than he did to correct any temporary pre- 
 ponderances. He was always trimming in the nautical, not in 
 the political, sense. Thus in his " magnanimous letter," as 
 
 Hazlitt called it, to High Church Southey, he professed himself 
 24—2 
 
372 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 a Unitarian*. With a Catholic he would probably have called 
 himself a Jew ; as amongst Quakers, by way of a set-oif against 
 their own formality, he would indulge in a little extra levity. I 
 well remember his chuckling at having spirited on his cor- 
 respondent Bernard Barton, to commit some little enormities, 
 such as addressing him as C. Lamb, Esquire. 
 
 My visits at Lamb's were shortly interrupted by a sojourn to 
 unrheumatize myself at Hastings ; but in default of other in- 
 tercourse I received a letter in a well-known hand, quaint as the 
 sentences it conveyed. 
 
 "And what dost thou at the Priory? CucuUus non facit 
 Monachum. English me that, and challenge old Lignum Janua 
 to make a better. 
 
 " My old New Kiver has presented no extraordinary novelties 
 lately. But there hope sits day after day speculating upon 
 traditionary gudgeons. I think she has taken the fisheries. I 
 now know the reason why our forefathers were denominated 
 East and West Angles. Yet is there no lack of spawn, for I 
 wash my hands in fishets that come through the pump every 
 morning, thick as motelings — little things that perish untimely, 
 and never taste the brook. You do not tell me of those romantic 
 Land Bays that be as thou goest to Lovers' Seat, neither of that 
 little Churchling in the midst of a wood (in the opposite direc- 
 tion nine furlongs from the town), that seems dropt by the 
 Angel that was tired of carrying two packages ; marry, with the 
 other he made shift to pick his flight to Loretto. Inquire 
 out and see my little Protestant Loretto. It stands apart from 
 trace of human habitation, yet hath it pulpit, reading-desk, and 
 trim front of massiest marble, as if Eobinson Crusoe had reared 
 
 * As regards his Unitarianism, it strikes me as more probable that he 
 was what the unco guid people call " Nothing at all," which means that he 
 was every thing but a Bigot. As he was in spirit an Old Author, so was he in 
 faith an Ancient Christian, too ancient to belong to any of the modern sub- 
 hubbub-divisions of — Ists, — Arians, and — Inians. 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 5,5 
 
 it to sootlie himself with old church-going images. I forget its 
 Xti.an name, and what She Saint was its gossip. 
 
 "You should also go to No. 13, Standgate Street, a Baker, who 
 has the finest collection of marine monsters in ten sea counties ; 
 sea-dragons, polypi; mer-people, most fantastic. You Imve only 
 to name the old Gentleman ia black (not the Devil), that lodged 
 "with him a week (he'll remember) last July, and he will show 
 courtesy. He is by far the foremost of the Savans. His wife 
 is the funniest thwarting little animal ! They are decidedly the 
 Lions of green Hastings. Well, I have made an end of my say ; 
 — my epistolary time is gone by when I could have scribbled as 
 long (I will not say as agreeable) as thine was to both of us. I 
 am dwindled to notes and letterets. Eut in good earnest I shall 
 be most happy to hail thy return to the waters of old Sir Hugh. 
 There is nothing like inland murmurs, fresh ripples, and our 
 native minnows. 
 
 *' He sang in meads how sweet the brooklets ran, 
 . To the rough ocean and red restless sands. 
 
 I design to give up smoking ; but I have not yet fixed upon tlie 
 equivalent vice. I must have quid pro quo, or quo pro quidy as 
 Tom Woodgate would correct me. My service to him. 
 
 "C. L." 
 
 The letter came to hand too late for me to hunt the " Lions ; " 
 but on a subsequent visit to the same Cinque Port with my wife, 
 though we verified the little Loretto, we could not find the Baker, 
 or even his man, howbeit we tried at every shop that had the 
 least sign of bakery or cakery in its window. The whole was a 
 batch 0^ fancy bread ; one of those fictions which the writer was 
 apt to pass off upon his friends. 
 
 The evening meetings at Colebrooke Cottage — where some- 
 body, who was somebody, or a literary friend, was sure to drop 
 in — were the more grateful to me, as the London Magazine was 
 
374 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 now in a rapid decline ; some of its crack contributors liad left 
 it off, and the gatherings of the clan to eat, drink, and be merry, 
 were tew and far between. Tiiere was indeed one Venison Peast 
 whereat, I have heard, the scent lay more than breast high, and 
 the sport was of as rich a quality ; but it was my chance to be ab- 
 sent from the pack. At former dinners, however, I had been a 
 guest, and a sketch of one of them may serve to introduce some 
 of the principal characters of our " London in the Olden Time." 
 On the right hand then of the Editor sits Elia, of the plea- 
 sant smile, and the quick eyes — Procter said of them that *' they 
 looked as if they could pick up pins and needles " — and a wit as 
 quick as his eyes, and sure, as Hazlitt described, to stammer out 
 the best pun and the best remark in the course of the evening. 
 Next to him, shining verdantly out from the grave- coloured 
 suits of the literati, like a patch of turnips amidst stubble and 
 fallow, behold our Jack i' the Green — John Clare ! In his 
 bright, grass-coloured coat, and yellow waistcoat (there are 
 greenish stalks too, under the table), he looks a very Cowslip, 
 and blooms amongst us as Goldsmith must have done in his 
 peach-blossom. No wonder the door-keeper of the Soho Bazaar, 
 seeing that veri/ countrijied suit, linked arm-in-arm with the 
 Editorial sables, made a boggle at admitting them into his re- 
 pository, having seen, perchance, such a made-up Peasant 
 "playing at playing" at thimble-rig about the Square. No 
 wonder the gentleman's gentleman, in the drab-coat and sealing- 
 wax smalls, at W 's, was for cutting off our Green Man, 
 
 who was modestly the last in ascending the stairs as an inter- 
 loper, though he made amends afterwards by waiting almost ex- 
 clusively on the Peasant, perfectly convinced that he was some 
 eccentric Notable of the Corinthian order, disguised in Rnstic. 
 Little wonder either, that in wending homewards on the same 
 occasion through the Strand, the Peasant and Elia, S^hanus et 
 UrhaHy linked comfortably together; there arose the frequent 
 
LITEEARy REMINISCENCES. 375 
 
 3ry of " Look at Tom and Jeny — there goes Tom and Jerry ! " 
 for truly, Clare in his square-cut green coat, and Lamb in his 
 black, were not a little suggestive of Hawthorn and Logic, in 
 the plates to "Life in London." 
 
 But to return to the table. Elia — much more of House 
 Lamb than of Grass Lamb — avowedly caring little or nothing 
 for Pastoral ; cottons, nevertheless, very kindly to the Northamp- 
 tonshire Poet, and still more to his ale, pledging him again and 
 again as '* Clarissimus," and " Princely Clare," and sometimes 
 so lustily, as to make the latter cast an anxious glance into his 
 tankard. By his bright happy look, the Helpstone Visitor is 
 inwardly contrasting the unlettered country company of Clod, 
 and Hodge and Podge, with the delights of " London " society 
 Elia, and Barry, and Herbert, and Mr. Table Talk, cum muUis — 
 aliis — i.e. a multiplicity of all. But besides the tankard, the 
 two "drouthie neebors " discuss Poetry in general*, and Mont- 
 gomery's " Common Lot " in particular. Lamb insisting on the 
 beauty of the tangental sharp turn at " ! she was fair ! " 
 
 thinking, mayhap, of his own Alice W , and Clare swearing 
 
 "Dal" (a clarified d—n) '*Dal! if it isn't like a Dead Man 
 preaching out of his coffin ! " Anon, the Humorist begins to 
 banter the Peasant on certain " Clare-obscurities " in his own 
 verses, originating in a contempt for the rules of Priscian, where- 
 upon the accused, thinking with Burns, 
 
 " What ser'es their grammars? 
 They'd better ta'en up spades and shools, 
 Or knappin hammers," 
 
 vehemently denounces all Philology as nothing but a sort of 
 man-trap for authors, and heartily dais Lindley Murray for " in- 
 venting it ! " 
 
 * Talking of Poetry, Lamb told me one day that he had just met with 
 the moat vigorous line he had ever read. " Where? " " Out of the Camden'a 
 Head, all in one line — 
 
 '' To One nundred Pots of Porter . .,£218" 
 
576 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 It must have been at such a time, that Hilton conceived his 
 
 clever portrait of C , when he was " C in alt." He was 
 
 hardy, rough, and clumsy enough to look truly rustic — like an 
 Ingram's rustic chair. There was a slightness about his frame, 
 with a delicacy of features and complexion, that associated him 
 more with the Garden than with the Pield, and made him look 
 the Peasant of a Ferme Ornee. In this respect he was as much 
 beneath the genuine stalwart bronzed Plough-Poet, Burns, as 
 above the Farmer's Boy, whom I remember to have seen in my 
 childhood, when he lived in a miniature house, near the Shepherd 
 and Shepherdess, now the Eagle tavern, in the City lload, and 
 manufactured ^olian harps, and kept ducks. The Suffolk 
 Giles had very little of the agricultural in his appearance; he 
 looked infinitely more like a handicraftsman, town-made. 
 
 Poor Clare ! — It would greatly please me to hear that he was 
 happy and well, and thriving ; but the transplanting of Peasants 
 and Farmers' Boys from the natural into an artificial soil, does 
 not always conduce to their happiness, or health, or ultimate 
 well doing. I trust the true Friends, who, with a natural 
 hankering after poetry, because it is forbidden them, have ven- 
 tured to pluck and eat of the pastoral sorts, as most dallying 
 with the innocence of nature, — and who on that account patron- 
 ised Capel Lofft's protege — I do trust and hope they took off 
 whole editions of the Northamptonshire Bard. There was much 
 about Clare for a Quaker to like ; he was tender-hearted, and 
 averse to violence. How he recoiled once, bodily-taking his chair 
 along with him, — from a young surgeon, or surgeon's friend, 
 who let drop, somewhat abruptly, that he was just come " from 
 seeing a child skinned ! " — Clare, from his look of horror, evi- 
 dently thought that the poor infant, like Marsyas, had been 
 flayed alive ! He was both gentle and simple. I have heard 
 that on his first visit to London, his publishers considerately 
 *ent their porter to meet him at the inn ; but when Thomas 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 377 
 
 necessarily inquired of the gentleman in green, " Are you Mr. 
 Clare ? " the latter, willing to foil the traditionary tricks of 
 I-ondon sharpers, replied to the suspicious query with " a posi- 
 tive negative." * 
 
 The Brobdignagian next to Clare, overtopping him by the 
 whole head and shoulders — a physical " Colossus of Literature," 
 the grenadier of our corps— is Allan, not Allan Earasay, '* no, 
 nor Barbara Allan neither," but Allan Cunningham, — "a 
 credit," quoth Sir Walter Scott (he might have said a long 
 credit) "to Caledonia." He is often called "honest Allan," 
 to distinguish him, perhaps, from one AUan-a-Dale, who was 
 apt to mistake his neighbours' goods for his own — sometimes, 
 between ourselves, yclept the " C. of Sol way," in allusion to 
 that favourite " Allan Water," the Solway Sea. There is some- 
 thing of the true moody poetical weather observable in the baro- 
 meter of his face, alternating from Variable to Showery, from 
 Stormy to Set Pair. At times he looks gloomy and earnest and 
 traditional — a little like a Covenanter — but he suddenly clears 
 up and laughs a hearty laugh that lifts him an inch or two from 
 his chair, for he rises at a joke when he sees one, like a trout at 
 a fly, and finishes with a smart rubbing of his ample palms. He 
 has store, too, of broad Scotch stories, and shrewd sayings ; and 
 he writes — no, he wrote rare old-new or new-old ballads. Why 
 not now ? Has his Pegasus, as he once related of his pony, run 
 from under him ? Has the Mermaid of Galloway left no little 
 onos ? Is Bonnie Lady Ann married, or May Morison dead ? 
 Thou wast formed for a poet, Allan, by nature, and by stature 
 too, according to Pope — 
 
 "To snatch a grace beyond the reach of Art" 
 And are there not Longman, or Tallboys, for thy Publishers ? 
 But alas ! we are fallen on evil days for Bards and Barding, and 
 
 * Somebody happened to say that the Teasant ought to figure in the 
 Percv Anecdote*, as an example o1 uncultivated genius. "And whf-re will 
 they 'stick me? ' asked Clare, " will they stick me in the instinct? " 
 
378 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 nine tailors do more for a man than the Nine Muses. The only 
 Lay likely to answer now-a-days would be an Ode (with the 
 proper testimonials) to the Literary Pund ! 
 
 The Reverend personage on the Editor's right, with the 
 studious brow, deep-set eyes, and bald crown, is the mild and 
 modest Gary — the same who turned Dante into Miltonic English 
 blank verse. He is sending his plate towards the partridges, 
 which he will relish and digest as though they were the Birds of 
 Aristophanes. He has his eye, too, on the French made-dishes*. 
 Pity, shame and pity, such a Translator found no better trans- 
 lation in the Church ! Is it possible that, in some no-popery 
 panic, it was thought by merely being Dragoman to Purgatory 
 he had Romed from the true faith ? 
 
 A very pleasant day we "Londoners" once spent at a Chis- 
 wick parsonage, formerly tenanted by Hogarth, along with the 
 hospitable Gary, and, as Elia called them, his Garyatides ! f 
 The last time my eyes rested on the Interpreter (of the House 
 Beautiful as well as of the Inferno), he was on the Library steps 
 of the British Museum. Ere this, I trust he hath reached the 
 tiptop — nay, hath perhaps attained, being a Literary Worthy, 
 even unto a Trusteeship, and had to buy, at Ellis's, a few yards 
 of the Blue Ribbon of Literature ! 
 
 Procter, — alias BaiTy Cornwall, formerly of the Marcian 
 Colonnade, now of some prosaical Inn of Court — the kindly 
 Procter, one of the foremost to welcome me into the Brother- 
 hood, with a too-flattering Dedication (another instance against 
 the jealousy of authors), is my own left-hand file. But what he 
 says shall be kept as strictly confidential ; for he is whispering 
 it into my Martineau ear. On my other side, when I turn that 
 
 * I once cut out from a country newspaper Avhat seemed to me a very 
 good old English poem. It proved to be a naturalization, by Gary, ol a 
 French Song to April, by Kemy Belleau. 
 
 t The father expressing an uncertainty to what profession he should de- 
 vote a younger Cary, Lamb said, " Make him an Apothe-Cary." 
 
LITERAEY REMINISCENCES. 379 
 
 way, I see a profile, a shadow of which ever confronts me on 
 opening my writing-desk, — ^a sketch taken from memory, the 
 day after seeing the original*. In opposition to the *' extra 
 man's size " of Cunningham, the party in question looks almost 
 boyish, partly from being in bul"k somewhat beneath Monsieur 
 Quetelet's " Average Man," but still more so from a peculiar 
 delicacy of complexion and smallness of features, which look all 
 the smaller from his wearing, in compliment, probably, to the 
 Samsons of Teutonic Literature, his locks unshorn. Neverthe- 
 less whoever looks again. 
 
 Sees more than marks the crowd of common men. 
 There is speculation in the eyes, a curl of the lip, and a general 
 character in the outline, that i*eminds one of some portraits of 
 Voltaire. And a Philosopher he is every inch. He looks, thinks, 
 writes, talks and walks, eats and drinks, and no doubt sleeps 
 philosophically — i.e. deliberately. There is nothing abrupt 
 about his motions, — he goes and comes calmly and quietly — 
 like the phantom in Hamlet, he is here — he is there — he is 
 gone ! So it is with his discourse. He speaks slowly, clearly, 
 and with very marked emphasis — the tide of talk flows like 
 Denham's river, "strong without rage, without overflowing, 
 full." When it was my frequent and agreeable duty to call on 
 Mr. De Quincey (being an uncommon name to remember, the 
 servant associated it, on the Memoria Technica principle, with a 
 sore throat and always pronounced it Quinsy), and I have found 
 him at home, quite at home, in the midst of a German Ocean of 
 Idterahire, in a storm, — flooding all the floor, the table and the 
 chairs, — billows of books tossing, tumbling, surging open, — on 
 such occasions I have willingly listened by the hour whilst the 
 
 * Unable to make any thing " like a likeness " of a sitter for the purpose, 
 I have a sort of Irish faculty for taking faces behind their backs. But my 
 pencil has not been guilty of half the personalities attributed to it ; amon^ist 
 others " a formidable likeness of a Lombard Street Banker." Besides that 
 one would rather draw on a Banker than at him, I have never seen the 
 Gentleman alluded to, or even a portrait of him in my life. 
 
•80 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Philosopher, standinof, with his eyes fixed on one side of th^^ 
 room, seemed to be less speaking than reading from a " hand- 
 writing on the wall." Now and then he would diverge, for a 
 Scotch mile or two, to the right or left, till I was tempted to 
 inquire with Peregrine in John Bull (Colman's not Hook's), 
 *' Do you never deviate ? " — but he always came safely back to 
 the point where he had left, not lost the scent, and thence 
 hunted his topic to the end. But look ! — we are in the small 
 hours, and a change comes o'er the spii'it of that " old familiar 
 face." A faint hectic tint leaves the cheek, the eyes are a degree 
 dimmer, and each is surrounded by a growing shadow — signs of 
 the waning influence of that Potent Drug whose stupendous 
 Pleasures and enormous Pains have been so eloquently described 
 by the English Opium Eater. Marry, I have one of his Con- 
 fessions with his own name and mark to it : — an apology for a 
 certain stain on his MS., the said stain being a large purplish 
 ring, — "Within that circle none durst drink but he," — in fact 
 the impression, coloured, of "a tumbler of laudanum negus, 
 warm, without sugar."* 
 
 That smart active person opposite with a game-cock-looking 
 head, and the hair combed smooth, fighter fashion, over his fore- 
 head — with one finger hooked round a glass of champagne, not 
 that he requires it to inspirit him, for his wit bubbles up oi 
 itself — is our Edwaid Herbert, the Author of that true piece of 
 Biography, the Life of Peter Corcoran. He is " good with 
 both hands," like that Nonpareil Randall, at a comic verse or a 
 serious stanza — smart at a repartee — sharp at a retort, and not 
 
 * On a visit to Norfolk, I was much surprised to find that Opium, or 
 Opie, as it was vulgarly cilled, was quite in common use in the form of 
 pills amongst the lower classes, in ihe viciniti/ of the Fens. It is not probable 
 ihat persons in such a rank of life had read the Confessi'»ns, — or, might not 
 one suspect that as Dennis Brulgruddery was driven to drink by the st»«le, 
 flat and unprofitable prospects of Muckslush Heath, so the Fen-People in 
 the dreary foggy cloggy boggy wastes of Cambridge and Lincolnshire, bad 
 flown to the Drug for the sake of the magnificent scenery that filled the 
 splendid visions of its Historian ? 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 381 
 
 averse to a bit of mischief. 'Twas he who gave the runaway 
 ring at Wordsworth's Peter Bell. Generally, his jests, set off 
 by a happy manner, are only ticklesome, but now and then they 
 are sharp-flavoured, — like the sharpness of the pine-apple. 
 Would I could give a sample. Alas ! What a pity it is that sc 
 many good things uttered by Poets, and Wits, and Humorists, 
 at chance times — and they are always the best and brightest, 
 like sparks struck out by Pegasus' own hoof, in a cuiTet 
 amongst the flints — should be daily and hourly lost to the 
 world for want of a recorder ! But in this Century of Inven- 
 tions, when a self-acting drawing-paper has been discovered fur 
 copying visible objects, who knows but that a future Niepce, or 
 Daguerre, or Herschel, or Pox Talbot, may find out some sort 
 of Boswellish writing-paper to repeat whatever it hears ! 
 
 There are other Contributors — poor Hazlitt for instance — 
 whose shades rise up before me : but I never met with them at 
 the Entertainments just described. Shall we ever meet any- 
 where again ? Alas ! some are dead ; and the rest dispersed ; 
 and the days of Social Clubs are over and gone, when the Pro- 
 lessors and Patrons of Literature assembled round the same 
 steaming bowl, and Johnson, always best out of print, exclaimed, 
 " Lads ! who's for Poonch ! " 
 
 Amongst other notable men who came to Colebrooke Cottage, 
 I had twice the good fortune of meeting with S. T. Coleridge. 
 The first time he came from Highgate with Mrs. Gilman, to 
 dine with " Charles and Mary." What a contrast to Lamb was 
 the full-bodied Poet, with his waving white hair, and his face 
 round, ruddy, and unfurrowed as a holy Priar's ! Apropos to 
 which face he gave us a humorous description of an unfinished 
 portrait, that served him for a sort of barometer, to indicate the 
 »tate of his popularity. So sure as his name made any temporary 
 
882 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 stir, out came the canvas on the easel, and a request from the 
 artist for another sitting : down sank the Original in the public 
 notice, and back went the copy into a corner, till some fresh 
 publication or accident again brought forward the Poet; and 
 then forth came the picture for a few more touches. I sincerely 
 hope it has been finished ! What a benign, smiling face it was I 
 What a comfortable, respectable figure ! What a model, me- 
 thought, as I watched and admired the " Old Man eloquent," 
 for a Christian bishop ! But he was, perhaps, scarcely orthodox 
 enough to be trusted with a mitre. At least, some of his 
 voluntaries would have frightened a common everyday con- 
 gregation from their propriety. Amongst other matters of dis- 
 course, he came to speak of the strange notions some literal- 
 minded persons form of the joys of Heaven; joys they as- 
 sociated with mere temporal things, in which, for his own part, 
 finding no delight in this world, he could find no bliss hereafter, 
 without a change in his nature, tantamount to the loss of his 
 personal identity. For instance, he said, there are persons who 
 place the whole angelical beatitude in the possession of a pair 
 of wings to flap about with, like " a sort of celestial poultry.'* 
 After dinner he got up, and began pacing to and fro, with his 
 hands behind his back, talking and walking, as Lamb laugh- 
 ingly hinted, as if qualifying for an itinerant preacher; now 
 fetching a simile from Loddiges' garden, at Hackney ; and then 
 flying off for an illustration to the sugar-making in Jamaica. 
 With his fine, flowing voice, it was glorious music, of the 
 *' never-ending, still-beginning " kind ; and you did not wish it 
 to end. It was rare flying, as in the Nassau Balloon ; you 
 knew not whither, nor did you care. Like his own bright- 
 eyed Marinere, he had a spell in his voice that w^ould not let 
 you go. To attempt to describe my own feeling afterward, I 
 had been carried, spiralling, up to heaven by a whirlwind inter- 
 twisted with sunbeams, giddy and dazzled, but not displeased. 
 
tlTilRAEY REMINISCENCES. 383 
 
 and had then been rained down again with a shower of mundane 
 stocKs and stones that battered out of me ail recollection of 
 what I had heard, and what I had seen ! 
 
 On the second occasion, the author of Christabel was ac- 
 companied by one of his sons. The Poet, talking and walking 
 as usual, chanced to pursue some argument, which drew from 
 the son, who had not been introduced to me, the remark, " Ah, 
 that's just like your crying up those foolish Odes and Ad- 
 dresses ! " Coleridge was highly amused with this mal-apropos, 
 and, without explaining, looked slily round at me, with the 
 sort of suppressed laugh one may suppose to belong to the 
 Bey of littery. The truth was, he felt naturally partial to a 
 book he had attributed in the first instance to the dearest of 
 his friends. 
 
 " My dear Charles, — This afternoon, a little, thin, mean- 
 looking sort of a foolscap, sub-octavo of poems, printed on 
 very dingy outsides, lay on the table, which the cover informed 
 rae was circulating in our book-club, so very Grub Streetish in 
 all its appearance, internal as well as external, that I cannot ex- 
 plain by what accident of impulse (assuredly there was no 
 motive in play) I came to look into it. Least of all, the title, 
 Odes and Addresses to Great Men, which connected itself in my 
 head with Rejected Addresses, and all the Smith and Theodore 
 Hook squad. But, my dear Charles, it was certainly written 
 by you, or under you, or una cum you. I know none of your 
 frequent visitors capacious and assimilative enough of your con- 
 verse to have reproduced you so honestly, supposing you had 
 left vourself in pledge in his lock-up house. Gillman, to whom 
 I read the spirited parody on the introduction to Peter Bell, the 
 Ode to the Great Unknown, and to Mrs. Fry ; he speaks doubt- 
 fully of Eeynolds and Hood. But here come Irving and BasU 
 Montagu. 
 
384 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 " TViursday night, 10 o'clock. — No! Charles, itisyo?^ Ihave 
 read them over again, and I understand why you have anorCd 
 the book. The puns are nine in ten good — many excellent — 
 the Newgatory transcendent. And then the exemplum sine 
 axemplo of a volume of personalities and contemporaneities, 
 without a single line that could inflict the infinitesimal of an 
 unpleasance on any man in his senses ; saving and except per- 
 haps in the envy-addled brain of the despiser of your Lays. If 
 not a triumph over him, it is at least an ovation. Then, more- 
 over, and besides, to speak with becoming modesty, excepting 
 my own self, who is there but you who could write the musical 
 lines and stanzas that are intermixed ? 
 
 " Here Gillman, come up to my garret, and driven back by the 
 guardian spirits of four huge flower-holders of omnigenous 
 roses and honeysuckles — (Lord have mercy on his hysterical 
 olfactories ! what will he do in Paradise ? I must have a pair 
 or two of nostril-plugs, or nose-goggles laid in his cofiin) — 
 stands at the door, reading that to M'Adam, and the washer- 
 woman's letter, and he admits the facts. You are found in the 
 manner^ as the lawyers say ! so, Mr. Charles ! hang yourself up, 
 and send me a line, by way of token and acknowledgment. My 
 dear love to Mary. God bless you and your Unshamabramizer, 
 
 " S. T. Coleridge." 
 
 It may be mentioned here, that instead of feeling " the in- 
 finitesimal of an unpleasance " at being Addressed in the Odes, 
 the once celebrated Mr. Hunt presented to the Authors a bottle 
 of his best *' Permanent Ink," and the eccentric Doctor 
 Kitchiner sent an invitation to (dinner. 
 
 Prom Colebrooke, Lamb removed to Enfield Chase, — a pain- 
 ful operation at all times^ for as he feelingly misapplied Words- 
 worth, " the moving accident was not his trade." As soon as 
 he was settled, I called upon him, and found him in a bald- 
 
LITEKABY REMIXISCENCES. 885 
 
 looking yellowish house, with a bit of a garden, and a wasp's 
 nest convanient, as the Irish say, for one stung my pony as he 
 stood at the door. Lamb laughed at the fun ; but, as the clown 
 says, the whirligig of time brought round its revenges. He 
 was one day bantering my wife on her dread of wasps, when all 
 at once he uttered a horrible shout, — a wounded specimen of 
 the species had slily crawled up the leg of the table, and stung 
 him in the thumb. I told him it was a refutation well put in, 
 like Smollett's timely snowball. *' Yes," said he, " and a sting- 
 ing commentary on Macbeth — 
 
 " By the pricking of my thumbs^ 
 Something wicked this way comes." 
 
 There were no pastoral yearnings concerned in this Enfield re- 
 moval. There is no doubt which of Captain Morris's Town and 
 Country Songs would have been most to Lamb's taste. "The sweet 
 shady side of Pail-Mall," would have carried it hollow. In 
 courtesy to a friend, he would select a green lane for a ramble, 
 but left to himself, he took the turnpike road as often as other- 
 wise. " Scott," says Cunningham, " was a stout walker." Lamb 
 was a porter one. He calculated Distances, not by . Long 
 Measure, but by Ale and Beer Measure. " Now I have walked 
 a pint." Many a time I ha^ve accompanied him in these 
 matches against Meux, not without sharing in the stake, and 
 then, what cheerful and profitable talk! Por instance, he once 
 delivered to me orally the substance of the Essay on the Defect 
 of Imagination in Modern Artists, subsequently printed in the 
 Athenaeum. But besidies the criticism, there were snatches of 
 old poems, golden lines and sentences culled from rare books, 
 and anecdotes of men of note. Marry, it was like going a 
 ramble with gentle Izaak Walton, minus the fishing. 
 
 To make these excursions more delightful to one of my tem- 
 perament. Lamb never affected any spurious gravity. Neithei 
 
 did he ever act the Grand Senior. He did not exact that coin- 
 VOL. II. 25 
 
886 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 mon copy-book respect, which some asinine persons would fair 
 command on account of the mere length of their years. As it', 
 forsooth, what is bad in itself, could be the better for keeping ; 
 as if intellects already motliery, got anything but grandmotliery by 
 lapse of time ! In this particular, he was opposed to Southey, 
 or rather (for Southey has been opposed to himself) to his Poem 
 on the Holly Tree. 
 
 *' So serious should my youth appear among 
 The thoughtless throng ; 
 So would I seem among the young and gay 
 More grave than they^ 
 
 There was nothing of Sir Oracle about Lamb. On the con- 
 trary, at sight of a solemn visage that " creamed and mantled 
 like the standing pool," he was the first to pitcb a mischievous 
 stone to disturb the duck-weed. " He was a boy-man," as he 
 truly said of Elia ; " and his manners lagged behind hi« years." 
 He liked to herd with people younger than himself. Perhaps, 
 in his fine generalizing way, he thought that, in relation to 
 Eternity, we are all contemporaries. However, without reckon- 
 ing birthdays, it was always "Hail fellow, well met;" and al- 
 though he was my elder by a quarter of a century, he never 
 made me feel, in our excursions, that I was " taking a walk with 
 the schoolmaster." I remember, in one of our strolls, being 
 called to account, very pompously, by the proprietor of an Enfield 
 Villa, who asserted that my dog Dash, who never hunted any- 
 thing in his dog-days, had chased the sheep ; whereupon, Elia 
 taking the dog's part, said very emphatically, " Hunt Lambs, 
 Sir? Why he has never hunted me!'* But he was always 
 ready for fun, intellectual or practical — now helping to pelt 
 D * * * * *, a modern Dennis, with puns ', and then to persuade 
 his sister, God bless her ! by a vox et preterea nihil, that she 
 was as deaf as an adder. In the same spirit, being requested 
 by a young Schoolmaster to take charge of his flock for a day, 
 " during the unavoidable absence of the Principal," he willingly 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 387 
 
 undertook the charge, but made no other use of his brief author- 
 ity than to give the boys a whole holiday. 
 
 As Elia supplied the place of the Pedagogue, so once I was 
 substitute for Lamb himself. A prose article in the Gem, was 
 not from his hand, though it bore his name. He had promised 
 a contribution, but being unwell, his sister suggested that I 
 should write something for him, and the result was the " Widow'* 
 in imitation of his manner. It will be seen that the forgery was 
 taken in good part. 
 
 "Dear Lamb, — You are an impudent varlet, but I will keep 
 your secret. We dine at Ayrton's on Thursday, and shall try 
 to find Sarah and her two spare beds for that night only. Miss 
 
 M. and her tragedy may be d d, so may not you and your 
 
 rib. Health attend you. Yours, 
 
 ''FrnfieU. T. Hood, Esq. 
 
 " Miss Bridget Hood sends love." 
 
 How many of such pleasant reminiscences revive in my 
 memory, whilst thinking of him, like secret writing brought out 
 by the kindly warmth of the fire ! But they must be deferred to 
 leave me time and space for other attributes — for example, his 
 charity, in its widest sense, the moderation in judgment which, 
 as Miller says, is " the Silken String running through the Pearl 
 Chain of all Virtues." If he was intolerant of anything, it was 
 of Intolerance. He would have been (if the foundation had 
 existed, save in the fiction of Eabelais,) of the Utopian order of 
 Thelemites, where each man under scriptural warrant did what 
 seemed good in his own eyes. He hated evil speaking, carping, 
 and petty scandal. On one occasion having slipped out ao 
 anecdote, to the discredit of a literary man, during a very confi- 
 dential conversation, the next moment, with an expression of 
 remorse, for having impaired even my opinion of the party, he 
 
 bDund me solemnly to bury the story in my own bosom. In 
 25—2 
 
388 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 another case he charajceristically rebuked . the backbiting spirit 
 of a censorious neighbour. Some Mrs. Candour telling him, in 
 expectation of an ill-uatured comment, that Miss ***, the 
 teacher at the Ladies' School, had married a publican, " Has 
 she so ? " said Lamb, " then I'll have my beer there ! " 
 
 As to his liberality in a pecuniary sense, he passed (says 
 Lamb of Elia) with some people, through having a settled but 
 moderate income, for a great miser. And in truth he knew the 
 value of money, its power, its usefulness. One January night he 
 told me with great glee that at the end of the late year he had 
 been able to lay by — and thence proceeded to read me a serio- 
 comic lecture on the text, of " Keep your hand out of your 
 Pocket." The truth is. Lamb, like Shakspeare in the univer- 
 sality of his sympathies, could feel, pro tempore, what belonged 
 to the character of a Gripe-all. The reader will remember his 
 capital Note in the " Dramatic Specimens," on " the decline of 
 Misers, in consequence of the Platonic nature of an affection for 
 Money," since Money was represented by ^^fiimms^^ instead of 
 substantial coin, the good old solid sonorous dollars and doubloons, 
 and pieces of eight, that might be handled, and hugged, and 
 rattled, and perhaps kissed. But to this passion for hoarding 
 he one day attributed a new origin. "A Miser," he said, "is 
 sometimes a grand personification of Fear. He has a fine horror 
 of Poverty. And he is not content to keep Want from the door, 
 or at arm's length, — but he places it, by heaping wealth upon 
 wealth, at a sublime distance ! " Such was his theory : now for 
 his practice. Amongst his other guests, you occasionally saw 
 an elderly lady, formal, fair, and flaxen-wigged, looking remai'k- 
 ably like an animated wax doll, — and she did visit some friends or 
 relations, at a toyshop near St. Dunstan's. When she spoke, it 
 was as if by an artificial apparatus, through some defect in her 
 palate, and she had a slight limp and a twist in her figure, oc- 
 casioned — what would Hannah More have said ! — by running 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 389 
 
 down Greenwich Hill ! This antiquati^d personage had been 
 Lamb's Schoolmistress — and on this retrospective consideration, 
 though she could hardly have taught him more than to read his 
 native tongue — he allowed her in her decline, a yearly sura, 
 equal to — what shall I say ? — to the stipend which some persons 
 of fortune deem sufficient for the active services of an all-accom- 
 plished gentlewoman in the education of their children. Say, 
 thirty pounds per annum. 
 
 Such was Charles Lamb. To sum up his character, on his 
 own principle of antagonism, he was, in his views of human 
 nature, the opposite of Crabbe; in Criticism, of Gilford ; in 
 Poetry, of Lord Byron ; in Prose, of the last new Novelist ; in 
 Philosophy, of Kant ; and in Eeligion, of Sir Andrew Agnew. 
 Of his wit I have endeavoured to give such samples as occurred 
 to me ; but the spirit of his sayings was i oo subtle and too much 
 married to the circumstances of the time to survive the occasion. 
 They had the brevity without the levity of wit — some of his puns 
 contained the germs of whole essays. Moreover, like FalstaflP, 
 he seemed not only witty himself but the occasion of it by exam- 
 ple in others. " There is M******" said he, " who goes 
 about dropping his good things as an Ostrich lays her eggs, 
 without caring what becomes of them." It was once my good 
 fortune to pick up one of Mr. M.'s foundlings, and it struck me 
 as particularly in Lamb's own style, containing at once a pun 
 and a criticism. " What do you think," asked somebody, " of 
 the book called 'A Day in Stowe Gardens?' " Answer: — "A 
 Day ill-bestowed." 
 
 It is now some years ago, since I stood with other mourners 
 in Edmonton Church Yard, beside a grave in which all that was 
 mortal of Elia was deposited. It may be a dangerous confes- 
 sion to make, but I shed no tear-; and scarcely did a sigh es- 
 cape from my bosom. There were many sources of comfort, 
 lie had not died young. He had happily gone before that 
 
890 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 noble sister, who not in selfishness, but the devotion of a 
 unique affection, would have prayed to survive him but for a day, 
 lest he should miss that tender care which had watched over 
 him upwards from a little child. Finally he had left behind 
 him his works, a rare legacy ! and above all, hovvever much of 
 him had departed, there was still more of him that could not die 
 — for as long as Humanity endures and man owns fellowship 
 with man, the spirit of Charles Lamb will still be extant ! 
 
 On the publication of the Odes and Addresses, presentation 
 copies were sent at the suggestion of a friend, to Mr. Canning 
 and Sir Walter Scott. The minister took no notice of the little 
 volume ; but the novelist did, in his usual kind manner. An 
 eccentric friend in writing to me, once made a number of colons, 
 semicolons, &c., at the bottom of the paper, adding 
 
 "And these are my points that I place at the foot, 
 That you may put stops that I can't stop to put." 
 
 It will surprise no one, to observe that the author of Waverley 
 had as little leisure for punctuation. 
 
 " Sir Walter Scott has to make thankful acknowledgments 
 for the copy of the Odes to Great People with which he was 
 favoured and more particularly for the amusement he has received 
 from the perusal. He wishes the unknown author good health 
 good fortune and whatever other good things can best support 
 and encourage his lively vein of inoffensive and humorous 
 satire 
 
 Abbotsford Meh'ose Wi May'* 
 
 The first time I ever saw the Great Unknown, was at the pri- 
 vate view of Martin's Picture of " Nineveh," when by a striking 
 coincidence, one of our most celebrated women, and one of our 
 
LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 391 
 
 greatest men, Mrs. Siddons and Sir Walter Scott, walked simul- 
 taneously up opposite sides of the room, and met and shook 
 hands in front of the painting. As Editor of the Gem, I had 
 afterwards occasion to write to Sir Walter, from whom I received 
 the following letter, which contains an allusion to some of his 
 -characteristic partialities : — 
 
 ** My DEAii Mr. Hood, — It was very ungracious in me to 
 leave you in a day's doubt whether I was gratified or otherwise 
 with the honour you did me to inscribe your Whims and Oddities 
 to me I received with great pleasure this new mark of your 
 kindness and it was only my leaving your volume and letter in 
 the country which delayed my answer as I forgot the address 
 
 I was favoured with Mr. Cooper's beautiful sketch of the 
 heart-piercing incident of the dead greyhound which is executed 
 with a force and fancy which I flatter myself that I who was in 
 my younger days and in part still am a great lover of dogs and 
 horses and an accurate observer of their habits can appreciate, 
 I intend the instant our term ends to send a few verses if I can 
 make any at my years in acknowledgment. I will get a day's 
 leisure for this purpose next week when I expect to be in the 
 country. Pray inform Mr. Cooper of my intention though I 
 fear I will be unable to do anything deserving of the subject. 
 I am very truly your obliged humble servant, 
 
 Edmhwgh 4 March Walter Scott." 
 
 At last, during one of his visits to London, I had the honour 
 of a personal interview with Sir Walter Scott at Mr. Lockhart's 
 in Sussex Place. The number of the house had escaped my 
 memory ; but seeing a fiije dog down an area, 1 knocked with- 
 out hesitation at the door. It happened however to be the 
 wrong one. I afterwards mentioned the circumstance to Sir 
 Walter. It was not a bad point, he said, for he was very fond 
 of dogs ; but he did not care to have his owti animals with him. 
 
S92 LITERARY REMimsCENCES. 
 
 about London, *• for fear he should be taken for Bill Gibbons." 
 T then told him I had lately been reading the Fair Maid of 
 Perth, which had reminded me of a very pleasant day spent 
 many years before, beside the Linn of Campsie, the scene of 
 Conachar's catastrophe. Perhaps he divined what had really 
 occurred to me, — ^that the Linn, as a cataract, had greatly disap- 
 pointed me ; for he smiled, and shook his head archly, and said 
 he had since seen it himself, and was rather ashamed of it. 
 *• But I fear, Mr. Hood, I have done worse than that before 
 now, in finding a Monastery where there was none to be found ; 
 though there was plenty (here he smiled again) of Carduus 
 Benedictus, or Holy Thistle." 
 
 In the meantime he was finishing his toilet, in order to dine 
 at the Duchess of Kent's ; and before he put on his cravat I 
 had an opportunity of noticing the fine massive proportions of his 
 bust. It served to confirm me in my theory that such mighty 
 men are, and must be, physically, as well as intellectually, gifted 
 beyond ordinaiy mortals ; that their strong minds must be 
 backed by strong bodies. Remembering all that Sir Walter 
 Scott had done, and all that he had suffered, methought he had 
 been in more than one sense " a Giant in the Land." After 
 some more conversation, in the course of which he asked me if 
 I ever came to Scotland, and kindly said he should be glad to 
 see me at Abbotsford, I took my leave, with flattering dreams 
 in my head that never were, and now, alas! never can be, 
 realised ! 
 
 And now, not to conclude in too melancholy a tone, allow 
 me, gentle reader, to present to you the following genuine letter, 
 the names, merely, for obvious reasons, being disguised. 
 
LTTEEART REMINISCENCES. id'i 
 
 To T. Hood, Esq. 
 
 ** Thou*rt a comical chap — so am I ; but thou possessest 
 brains competent to write what I mean ; — I don't — therefore, 
 Brother Comic, wilt thou oblige me (if 'twas in my power I 
 would you) — I'll tell you just what I w^ant, and no more. Of 
 late. Lord * * * has been endeavouring to raise a body of 
 yeomanry in this county. Now there's a man at Bedfont — a 
 compounder of nauseous drugs — and against whom I owe a 
 grudge, who wishes to enter, but w^ho's no more fit for a lighter 
 than I for a punster. Now if you will just give him a palpable 
 hit or two in verse, and transmit them to me by post, directed 
 to A. B., Post Office, Bedfont, your kindness shall ever be 
 remembered with feelings of the deepest sincerity and gratitude. 
 His name is 'James Booker, Chemjst,' Bedfont ofcou?'se. If 
 you disapprove of the above, I trust you will not abuse the con- 
 fidence placed in you, by * splitting.' You'll say, how can I ? 
 — by showing this letter to him. He knows the handwriting 
 full well — but you'll not do so, I hope. Perhaps, if you feel a 
 disposition to oblige me, you will do so at your first convenience, 
 ere the matter will be getting stale. 
 
 " Youis iruly, 
 
 "A. B. 
 
 " Perhaps you will be kind enough to let me have an answer 
 from you, even if you will not condescend to accede to my 
 wish. 
 
 •* Perhaps you've not sufficient particulars. He's a little fellow, 
 flushed face, long nose, precious ugly, housekeeper as ugly, lives 
 between the two Peacock Inns, is a single man, very anxious to 
 get possession of Miss Boltbee, a ward in Chancery with some- 
 thing like £9000 (wish he may get it), is famous for his Gout 
 Medicine, sells jalap (should like to make him swallow an 
 ounce), always knows other people's business better than his 
 
S94 
 
 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 own, used to go to church, now goes to chapel, and in the 
 whole, is a great rascal. 
 
 "Bedfont is thirteen miles from London." 
 
 PBKSERVED IN SPIRITS. 
 
IITE CARNABY COREESPONDENCE. 
 
 896 
 
 A LEADING ARTICLE. 
 
 THE CAUxXABY CORKESPONDENCE. 
 
 There is no estimate more ludicrous than that which is 
 formed by unthinking persons of the powers of Authors. Thus 
 when a gentleman has once written a Book, say, on Domestic 
 Medicine, it is popularly supposed that he is competent to com- 
 pose a work on any subject whatever, from Transcendental 
 Philosophy down to Eive Minutes' Advice on the Teeth. Some- 
 thing of the kind is observable in the Autobiography of Bras- 
 bridge, the Silversmith, of Fleet Street, who tells us that after 
 the publication of his Memoirs, he was hailed by a fellow-citizen 
 with " So you have written a book ! — why, for the future I sliall 
 call vou Shakspeare ! " as if the recorder of a set of *' fiddle- 
 
896 THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 headed " anecdotes became, ipso facto, on a par with the creator 
 of Othello. Por another instance I can refer to my own humble 
 experience. The anti-antiquarian nature of my literary re- 
 searches is sufficiently well known; yet it did not prevent a 
 grave retrospective-looking gentleman from one day concluding 
 an account of some inedited architectural remains near White- 
 hall, with—" I wonder now that you, as a writer, have never taken 
 up the subject ! " The worthy F.A.S. might as well have sug- 
 gested a plot for a Parce to Sylvanus Urban ; — but such is the 
 general opinion of the universality of a genius that prints. 
 Bearing this tendency in mind, it will not seem so extraordinary 
 that the following correspondence should be placed in the hands 
 of the Editor of the Comic Annual by a respectable tradesman, 
 who affirmed with tears in his eyes, that *' it was a grave sub- 
 ject, worthy of the serious consideration of the Public.'* 
 
 No. I. — To Muter Benjamin Carnaby, 7, Brigantine Row^ 
 Deptford, London. (With Spead.) 
 
 Deer Bruther, 
 I am trully sory to arrow up yure relativ felings But it do 
 seam to Me as my deer Bob is beeing shamfully Iltretid at his 
 Skull. Inclosd is the pore fellars too letters the last jist cum 
 to hand, And were sich a bio to fathurly felings I have newer 
 bean my hone Man ewer sins. Id appeer he hav wel ni bin 
 Stai-vd. Prays God his pore Mutlier is coald under the Hearth, 
 it wud spile the rest of hir hashes if so be she cood read his tail 
 of pewtered meet. If she ad a delite hear abuv it were 
 childrins legs strate And there Bellis well fild partickly groin up 
 Yuths — and She wood av run creazy to think of the Constitushun 
 bein rewind for ewer and ever with turnd tabil Bear. And you 
 too I no you will blead at art for the mizriz of yure pore Nevy 
 But 1 hop you will old up under it tho it be as it war a thunder- 
 
THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 397 
 
 boult on us boath. In respex of Larning it seam his mind hav 
 bin reglectid to be nurrisht np as well as is bodely Fram even 
 to cumpare the too Leters my Bob rite a sit^ better gud Inglish 
 nor his Master witch lo my mind He mite hav dun grates at 
 Home in loo of paing sich mints of Munny for Skulling But wat 
 disapints me Most next to his fammishin is the Greek and Lattin 
 as I did sit my Art upon to hav won clasicle Skollard bransh in 
 the famely. Them too hushers desaryes a wiping at a carts tale, 
 
 THKKE's a DKFICIENCY ON THE QUAHTER. 
 
 and so do that mawks with hir luv gamraux in juvenal presents 
 Much gud it wur my sendin him abuv a duzzin mile off from 
 Lunnun to uncorrup his morrils. Has for the Dockter I cud find 
 in my hart to strip his dipplomer over his years with my hone 
 ands wen I think that in loo of techin the yung idear how to 
 shut he has mayhap stunted the Pore boys grotli for his lif to 
 cum. But overpourin felings forebids my drawin moor picters 
 of Bobs suffrin. I have had no stummuck ever sins the Post 
 
8d8 THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 nockt me down with the Nus. But it wood not be becurarain 
 a parrent and a Farthe to be revealing in lucksriz wile the Sun 
 of his hone lines ware revealing in fliblod beaf and vargis. To 
 be sure these is felings that you as an unmarred man cant enter 
 into at full lenth, but as hone Unkil by fleash and blud you 
 will enter into the hard boord partickly as yure hone coarse of 
 lif as had its scrimps and cum shorts and tort you what it is to be 
 pincht in youre Fud. Wi i mite as well hav sent him to a short 
 communing Yorksheer Skull at twenty pound per anum a yeer and 
 had his close chuckt in to his Bed and bord. In the interium 
 I hav forwardid him a cumfitting letter with a Won Pun Not 
 to treet himself to sumat moor stayin and suportin nor 
 stal pastery. But I do hop and beg Deer Bruther to hav your 
 sentimints on the cas as you be moor caperble to advize 
 me than I am, and not to delay riting if so be yure of- 
 ficious dutis purvent pearsonally quitin the yard. I wud 
 have tuck a place on the Eumfud Stag and sit off at 
 wons but Gowt forebid my cotching and so do Missis Bumsey 
 for as yusial wen my felings is Frustratid all my Nervs is flone 
 to my Fut. Pore Missis Rumsey simperthizes at evvery thing 
 and is quit as upsit in her spemts for as she say altho but 
 Houskeper her Bowls yarns to Bob all as one with an hone 
 hoffspring. She do say as Bobs a littel piggin brested and shoes 
 simtoms of pullmary afection she trembil for fear pourness of 
 blud sows seeds of sumthink fatle in his lunges. Indeed her 
 mutherly hangsity ofFen remind a lass of her as lies volting in 
 AH allows barking. With witch I conclud with all brutherly 
 luv, hopping to here by return of Poast. I no you seldim or 
 newer anser peples favers partickly mine but I do hop as this 
 hear is a matter of vittle importins you will devot a few 
 minuets to 
 
 Yuie luving but aflicted Bruther 
 
 John Carnabt. 
 
THE CARNABT CORRESPONDENCE. 399 
 
 P. S. If so be you thort best to poshay off xpressivly to Bob, 
 watever is disburstid out of pockit my Puss shall kiver tbe hole. 
 Praps you may lick him to be tuck away at wons for it wud be 
 a thowsend pitis to brake his sperrit and he is rayther tender 
 artid as you may gudge by wat he rite of his pore late muther. 
 Well, hevin nose I war never in faver of turning Cots but if so 
 be they wood reform the Skulls I v/ood jine the "VVigs. 
 
 Enclosure, No. I. — To John Carnaby, Esquire. Number 
 49, Polyanthus Places Mile End Road, London. 
 Honoured Parent, 
 
 As the sight of his native Terra Pirma to the hardy Mariner 
 on the pathless waste of the vast expanse of Ocean, so are the 
 filial affections of a Son and School boy to inform we break up 
 on Priday the 21st Instant; when I hope to find Yourself, com- 
 prising all my Eelations and Priends, enjoying that greatest of 
 Blessings, a state of salubrity. 
 
 When we add to this the pleasing Sensation of scholastic 
 Duties fulfilled with Attention, Industry, and Diligence, accom- 
 panied by a preponderating Progress in all juvenile Studies, Ob- 
 jects, and Pursuits, a sanguine expectation is indulged that the 
 parental Sentiments of Satisfaction will be spontaneously con- 
 ferred on the present half Year, participating however with a 
 due regard to health, comfort, and morals. Indeed it would be 
 precocious to anticipate otherwise by the unrelenting Vigilance 
 and Inculcation evinced by our Guide, Philosopher, and Friend, 
 Doctor Darby and Assistants, as likewise the more than maternal 
 Solicitude betrayed by Mrs. Doctor D. who begs Leave to 
 cordially unite with the Same in Respectful Compliments. 
 
 I am happy to say the improvement I have made in the Latin 
 and Greek Tongues, including Prench and Italian, has been very 
 great and such as I trust to deserve and obtain his Parent's. 
 Master's, Priend's and Wellwisher's warmest approbation and 
 
400 THE CAENABY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Esteem. And this Reflection will be enhanced to reflect, that 
 by being impressed upon by pious, virtuous, and loyal Princi- 
 ples, every juvenile Member of the Establishment is a firm and 
 uncompromising Supporter and Defender of King, Church and 
 State. 
 
 I will now conclude by giving my best Love to all Relations 
 and Friends, and accept the Same from 
 
 Honoured Parent, 
 Your Dutiful and Affectionate Son, 
 
 Robert Carnaby. 
 
 Enclosure No. II. — Irom the Same to the Same. 
 
 Dear Father, 
 I hope you wont be angry at writing of my own Acord and 
 if you like you may stop the postage out of what you mean to 
 give me next time, but the other letter was all a flam and didnt 
 speak my real mind. The Doctor frumpt it all up out of his 
 own head, and we all copied it out for all our fathers. What 
 I want to tell you is as the holidays is so nigh, I do wish you 
 would make up your mind for me to be took away for good and 
 all. I dont like the victuals for one thing and besides I am 
 allmost sure we are not well teached. The table beer always 
 gives me the stomach ake if I don't tie a string tight round it 
 and I only wish you see some of Mr. Murphy's ruling when he 
 smells so of rum Another thing is the batter pudcKngs which the 
 fellows call it putty, because it sticks pains in our insides, and 
 sometimes we have stinking beef. Tom Spooner has saved a bit 
 on the sly to show parents, but it's so stiong we are afeard it 
 ivont keep over the three weeks to the holidays, and we are 
 treated like gaily slaves, and hare and hounds is forbid because 
 1. st time the hare got up behind the Chelmsford Coach and 
 went home to his friends in Leadenhal] Market. As for sura* 
 
THE CARNABY COEEESPONDENCE. 
 
 401 
 
 we know the ciphering Master has got a Tutors Key because 
 tlieres a board at the bottom of his desk comes out with a little 
 coaxing, and more than that hes a cruel savage and makes love 
 to Masters daughter, and shes often couried in the school room 
 because its where her father don't come so much as anywheres 
 else. The new Footman is another complaint. The Doctor 
 dont allow him nothing a year for his wages except his profits 
 out of the boys with fruit and pastery, and besides being rotten 
 and stale, hes riz burnt almonds twice since Micklemas. Then 
 we are almost quite sure Monseur Le Smith dont know Italian 
 
 mm 
 
 J)EAWING UP AETICLES OF SEPAEATION. 
 
 at least we have always observed he never talks to the image 
 boys, and the old Cook never favours no one now except Carter 
 with sop in pans ever since his Mother come to see him. And thats 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 26 
 
402 THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 why I do hope at my next school you will raise my pocket 
 money, its unpossible to tip handsome out of sixpence a wecK, 
 Jackson saved enough to buy a Donkey and then divided him 
 into shares and I had a shilling share but the Doctor were so 
 unjust as seize on him altho there was no law agin bringing 
 asses to the school. It was the same on Guy Fox day with our 
 squibs and rockets which we was more mortified to hear them 
 going off after we were in bed. I am certain sure we should 
 have had a barring out in our school room long and long ago 
 only the Doctor hardly ever wants to come in. Thats the way the 
 ushers do just as they like in school hours and Mr. Huckings 
 does a leathersellers bookkeeping and Mr. Snitch makes poetry 
 for the newspapers. Its not my fault then if I am backwards 
 in my Greek and Latin though I have got a Prize for Spelling 
 and Grammer but we all have prizes for something to please our 
 parents when we go home. The only treat we have is reddishes 
 out of the garden when they are got old and burning hot and 
 popgunny and them wont last long as masters going to keep 
 pigs. I suppose then we shall have measely pork to match the 
 stinking beef. The fellows say its because the Doctor swops 
 Stokes's schooling agin butchers meat and as the edication is so 
 very bad old Stokes on his part wont send in any better quality. 
 Thats whats called mutual accommodation in the newspapers. 
 Give my love to Mrs. Rumsey with thanks for the plum cake 
 only next time more sweetmeat, and say I am almost sure I 
 sometimes sleep in a damp bed. I am certain sure Mrs. 
 Kumsey woulc advise you the same as I do, namely for me to 
 be took away, without running more risks, if it was only for fear 
 of Mac Kenzie, for lies a regular tyrant and hectors over us all. 
 Hes three parts a nigger and you cant punch his head so as to 
 do any good, and only last Monday he was horsed for wanting 
 to googe little Jones's eyes out and for nothing at all but just 
 looking at his towel to see if the black come off. I am readv to 
 
THE CAENABY CORRESPONDENCE, 
 
 403 
 
 take my drop down dead if it is not all faithfully true, Mac 
 Kenzie and the beef and the Pootman and all, and I do hope 
 you will trust to my word and be agreeable to my offer to be 
 took away and I do hope it will be before next Saturday for 
 that's Mr. Paynes visiting day, the Drawing Master as I call 
 
 THE OLD OEIGINAL EAILWAT. 
 
 him, but some of the fellows have nick named him Sinbad be- 
 cause he hunted the elephants so for their teeth. Philip Prank 
 says theres a capital school at Eichmond where the Master per- 
 mits fishing and boating and cigars and gunpowder and poney 
 chaises for only sixty guineas a year. I often think if my poor 
 dear late Mother was alive it is just the genteel sort of School 
 she would like me to be finished off at. But thats as you prefer 
 and if you will only promise upon your honour to remove me I 
 
 wont run awav. I forgot to say I have very bad bead akes some- 
 26—2 
 
404 THE CAKNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 times besides the stomach akes and last week I was up in the 
 nussery for being feverish and spotty, and I had to take anti- 
 monious wine but nothing made me sick except the gruei. Pre- 
 cious stuff it is and tastes like slate pencil dust and salt. I was 
 in great hopes it was scarlet fever or something catching that I 
 might be sent home to you, but the fisician said my rash was 
 only chickings or stinging nettles. Altogether lam so unhappy 
 at not getting on in my learning that I do beg and pray to be 
 took away, and I will be very dutiful and grateful all the rest of 
 my days. Do, pray, do, and consider me down on my bended 
 knees. And I will wish you every comfort in life if you will 
 only provide for mine, and I will pray for your gout to go away 
 for ever and ever, and then I will nurse your last days and be 
 such a good son to you as never was except me. And in that 
 case I owe three shillings to the footman and shouldn't like to 
 leave the school in debt. I shall expect to see you come in all 
 the coaches that go the road or at least that you will fetch me in 
 a letter, and if I am disappointed I really do believe I shall go off 
 my head or something. With which I remain 
 
 Dear Father, 
 Your dutiful and affectionate Son, 
 
 Robert Carnaby. 
 
 No. II. — To Mister John Carnaby, Nmnhei- 49, Folifanthua 
 
 FlacBy Mile End, London. 
 
 Dear Brother, 
 
 This is to acknowledge the favour of your family letter with 
 
 enclosures, which came to hand as pleasant and welcome as a 
 
 4-inch shell, that is no great treat of itself, and discharges a 
 
 worse lot of botheration from its inside. Between both I got as 
 
 Port Eoyal a headache as a man need desire from a bottle of 
 
 new rum, for which, as it-s not unbrotherly to swear at a nevy. 
 
THE CAENABY CORRESPONDENCE. 403 
 
 " dear Bob " and his school be d — d. As to my not answering 
 letters, I always do, provided tliey are either saucy or challeng- 
 ing ; in which case, like answering a broadside, it's a point of 
 duty and honour to return as good as you get j — but for swop- 
 ping sweet civil lollipop letters, lick for lick, it's more than [ 
 would do with any female alive, let alone a man. And when 
 yours are not loUipopping, they're snivelling, or else both toge- 
 ther, as the case is now. However blood's blood : and so for 
 once I will commit what you want, rather than accept your in- 
 vite, and go up to help you and that old dry red cow, Mother 
 Kumsey, to chew the cud of the matter all over again by word 
 of mouth. As for harrowing up my feelings, or ploughing them 
 up either, thank my stars it's a stiffer soil than that comes to. 
 Why, my feelings are as tough — and not without need — as a 
 bull-beef steak fresh killed, and take quite as much pitching into 
 before they're as tender as you suppose. Likely it is, that a man 
 who has rammed his head, as I have in Africa, into a stuck 
 camel for a secondhand swig at his cistern, would come within 
 sixty degrees of the notion of pitying a lubberly school-boy for 
 having as much as ever he could swill of sour swipes ! Then 
 for bad food, the stinkingest beef I ever met with was none to 
 be had, good or bad, except the smell of the empty ^barrel. 
 That's something like what you call being pin(^t in my fud ; 
 and so it was I reckon when I gave my watch, and a good seven 
 shilling piece besides, for about a pound of pork cartridges. So 
 I'm not going to pipe my eye at dear Bob's short commons 
 neither. It's all very well for pap-boating mothers to admire 
 fat babbies while they're on the lap ; but the whole human 
 breed wou?d be spoiled, if Mother J^ature did not unspoil it 
 again by sending us now and then to the School of Adversity, 
 without a knife and fork and a spoon. I came in for a quarter's 
 learning there myself, in the Desart as aforesaid, and one of the 
 lessons I learnt was from the ostriches; namely, when you 
 
408 THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 can't get a regular cai-go of food, you must go in ballast with 
 old shoes, leather caps, or any other odd matters you can pick 
 up. There's nothing in life like bringing chaps up hardy, if 
 they're to stand the hammering we're all born to, provided we 
 are born alive. I once heard a clever Yankee arguing to the 
 same point. " Rear up your lads," says he, " like nails ; and 
 then they'll not only go through the world, but you may clench 
 'em on t'other side." And for my part, if I was a father, which 
 thank God I am not, to my knowledge, I would mark down a 
 week of Banyan days to every month in the Almanack, just to 
 accustom the youngsters to take in and let out their bread bags, 
 till it came natural ; like the Laps and Esquimaux, who spend 
 their lives in a feast and a fast, turn and turn about, whereby 
 their in sides get as elastic as India rubber, and accommodate 
 themselves to their loading, chock full or clean, as falls out. 
 I've known the time I would have given all my prize-money for 
 a set of linings of the same conveniency, as when it was coming 
 to the toss-up of a cowry whether I was to eat Tom Pike, or Tom 
 Pike was to eat me. Just read the North Pole Voyages, and 
 you will see that pampering bellies is not the exact course to 
 make Captain Backs. So for all that's been made on that tack, 
 hitherto, you owe nothing but a higher rating to Doctor Darby, 
 provided there's any step above Doctor in his semce ; I'll even 
 go so far as stand my share towards a bit of plate to him, for 
 not making my nevy a loblolly milk-sop. That's my notion 
 about hard fare. To be sure there was Mother Brownrigg was 
 hung for going a little too near the wind in her 'prentices' in- 
 sides ; but if the balance was squared, a few of the other old 
 women would be run up to the yard-arm, for slow poisoning the 
 rising generation with sugar-plum cakes and kickshaw tarts. 
 And that your dear Bob has got a rare sweet tooth of his own 
 is as plain as the Pike of Teneriffe, for it sticks out like a Bar- 
 bary wild boar's tusks all through his precious complaints. 
 
THE CAKNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 407 
 
 Whereby you liad belter clap a stopper on in time, unless ipay- 
 hap you want him to grow up in the fashion, which seems now- 
 a-days for our young men to know, and think, and talk, aye and 
 write too, about kitchen craft, — with their pull;i/ olays and volley 
 vongs — as if they was so many cook's mates at a French hotel. 
 There's no disputing likings, but rather than be such a macaroni 
 dishclout dandy, as delicate as a lap-dog, I'd be a turnspit's 
 
 .-cv,-^^. 
 
 LAYING DOWJT THE LAW. 
 
 whelp at once, and sit up on my hind legs a-begging for the 
 sop in the pan. Now if you're for his being one of those 
 unabled-bodied objects of creation, I've no more to say ; 
 for you have got the right bearings, and have only to stand 
 on till you bring dear Bob and Molly Coddle into one. But if 
 so be on the contrary you have gumption enough to want to 
 claw off that point, then down helm at once, and cut Mother 
 
408 THE CARNABT CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Kumsey adrift, plum cakes and all. I've long had on my mind 
 to urop you a word of advice against that old catamaran, who 
 knows fast enough that two bears' heads are never so likely to 
 rub together as when they're a-licking the same cub. 33y the cub 
 I mean my nevy, and the two old ones are you and Mother K. 
 Besides it's been my observation through life. Many's the 
 young man and woman will live for years together in the same 
 house, or make the India voyage together in the same ship, 
 without hooking on, or even coming in sight of such a notion ; 
 but neither I, nor anybody else, ever saw two old ones, he and 
 she, in the like case, without their coming at long and at last 
 to a splice in church. So it is with an old cat and dog, that 
 while they had a tooth in their heads could hardly abide in the 
 same parish, whereas when they get on the superannuated list, 
 you will see them as thick as thieves, and messing together in 
 the same dish. The philosophy of it is more than I pretend to 
 know, unless it be they're past fighting, and fit for no active sort 
 of work ; — but so it is, as sure as the sea is salt. You had 
 best then part company at once, if you don't want to see dear 
 Bob mast-headed up to the back garret, or cooped down in the 
 coal-cellar, on monkey's allowance ; such being the first steps a 
 stepmother always takes in any story-book I ever read. I'm for 
 my nevy having fair-play after all. So as I've subscribed to 
 the bit of plate to Dr. Darby for case-hardening the fellow's 
 carcass, you may set me down towards the spitefuUest boat- 
 swain's cat that ever was handled, in case it turns out he has 
 neglected the boy's mind. I've seen a man seized up for a much 
 smaller offence than crimping and inveigling a long hundred of 
 lads at a time to a Sham Abram school, and swindling them out 
 of the best part of the property about them, namely their 
 juvenile time. It is only a streak above kidnapping, seeing that 
 for any profit in learning the youngsters might as well spend 
 their best years in the Plantations. Not but that Parents de- 
 
THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 409 
 
 serve a cobbing themselves for putting a boy under a master 
 without asking to look at his certificates. As for the Latin and 
 Greek, mayhap they're no loss to take on about. The dead and 
 gone tongues for a tradesman's son, that's going behind a 
 counter, is much of a muchness with fitting up a Newcastle 
 collier's cabin after the pattern of a Leith smack's ; only that 
 the gilding and polishing may be grimed and grubbed off again 
 in the course of trade. Still, considering they were paid for as 
 work done, in common honesty my nevy ought to have liad them 
 put in his head ; or at least something in lieu, such as Naviga- 
 tion or the like. His own mother tongue is quite a different 
 matter; and thereupon I'll give you my mind, upright and 
 downright, of the two School-letters. To be sure the Doctor 
 likes weight of metal, and fires away with the high-soundingest 
 words he can get, whereby his meaning is apt to loom bigger 
 than it is, like a fishing-boat in a fog ; and where there's such 
 a ground swell of language, a seaman is apt to think there's no 
 great depth of ideas ; but bating that, there's nothing to shake 
 a rope's end at, but quite the reverse, especially as to teaching the 
 youngsters to give three cheers for their king and country. Now, 
 Dear Bob's letter-work on the other hand, with its complaints of 
 hard fare, is only fit to be sung by a snivelling Swiss beggar boy 
 to his hurdy gurdy ; besides many a chafe in the grammar and 
 orthography, and being writ in such a scrambling up and down 
 fist as a drunken purser might scrawl in a gale of wind. Now 
 it's my opinion a landsman that hasn't his hands made as hard 
 as horn with hauling home sheets nor his fingers as stiff and 
 sticky as pitch can make 'em, has it in his power to write as fine 
 penmanship as copperplate except for the want of good will. 
 So that the fault may be set down to my nevy's own account, 
 and mayhap many of the rest, for no doubt there are skulkers at 
 school as well as on board ship. My advice then is this, 
 namely, just throw a shot across Dr. Darby's forefoot, to let him 
 
410 THE CARNABY COERfcSPONDENCE. 
 
 know ) ou mean to overhaul him, and demand a sight of the 
 school log, and so foiih ; by which you will have satisfaction 
 one way or another ; and putting the case he has gone to lee- 
 ward of his duty, why, then come hammer and tongs, and blaze 
 away at him to your heart's content. The next step in course 
 will be to take my nevy from under his orders, and find him a 
 berth in a well officered ship ; and 1 am ready so far to do an 
 uncle's part by the lad, as help to look out for a proper well- 
 appointed craft. That's my advice whether you steer by it or 
 not — and so no more at present, and not sorry to belay — from 
 Dear John, Your loving Brother, 
 
 Ben Carnaby. 
 
 No. III. — To Mr. Benjamin Carnaby, Brigantine Eoio, 
 Beptfordf London. 
 Deer Bruther, 
 This is to acnolidge the faver of your verry hash letter as I 
 am complld to call it, both as regard deer Bob and that veiTy wur- 
 thy sole, pore Mrs. Rumsey. I am sory to find you can bare a grug 
 so long, for I am shure she is too obleeging and civil spokin to 
 hav disagred to your smokin in the parler if so be she had none 
 you maid it sich a int. As for her inwigglin me into becummin 
 a step farther to my one child watever old brut bares and cats 
 and dogs may do, I hop my Virtu will purtect me from infid- 
 dlety to a former ti. As for pore Bob, he hav no more sweat 
 toth then all boys is born with, and if he do rite with 
 a bad hand, i newer cud rite any grate shacks myself on an 
 emti stumraach. But that's what you can't or won't inter into, 
 no more than I can inter into cammil's insids or hostridge? 
 eating their old shues and lether caps. In regard to yure advis 
 thanking you all the sam, but meen to foller my hone, not 
 but wat it ware nateral for you to recumend acording to yui-.e 
 
THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 411 
 
 one line of lif, to worn filing and dueling is sekonand nater. 
 As such hammer and tonges and blazin away pistles wood 
 be quit in yure spear, but as for my wantin satisfaxion of 
 Doctor Darby, and shuting his fore feet, or his hind feet 
 ither, or inded any wares els, is moor than I coud promis tho no 
 
 BUTT AND BEN. 
 
 dout ment kindly, but I am nun of yure wingin amers. Besids 
 being agin the Bibil and Gospil and only fit for gentilmen born. 
 Still I tak as frendly ment, as well as yure offir to git yure nevy 
 a siteation on bord ship witch Avood be a shure way to hurry my 
 dissent to the Tom. The see always was a haw to my mind, 
 and if it litind or a grate hewy gal came, I shud transpire with 
 frite ; or be thinkin on fogie nites of the ship lossing her way and 
 gittin out of her depth. Howsumever I feal grateful for the 
 horible idear, tho I cant xcept, and in meen time have rit to Dr. 
 
412 
 
 THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 D. to remonsterit and ask him to say candiddle wether he hav 
 starvd deer Bob andruind his mind or no. Ifaver with a coppy 
 of mine and will fore ward hisn wen it cum, and as my gowt is 
 mendin, mayhap I may go down to rumfud sura of thes days, 
 and luck into every think with my one ize. 
 
 I am Deer Benjamin 
 
 Yure luving Bruther 
 
 John Carnaby. 
 
 /Copy.) 
 
 To Br. Darby Socraiis Horn School Mtablismint, Rumfud 
 
 Essex. 
 
 DocTER Darby Sur. 
 
 If so be a farther and a Parrint may tak so grate a libberty, 
 
 its my wish to rite about my Sun. Not bein a skoUard, oing 
 
 '• WE don't know what we can do till we try." 
 
 to neglected genus in yuth, I am uncompitent to be a Gudge 
 and war indust toshothe skull letter to my Bruther Benjamin, 
 of the late Rial Navy who had moor buck laming for his Sheers, 
 
THE OARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 413 
 
 besids seein foiTen parts and he do say wot give grate concern 
 to All as is concarned, namely my Suns edication is fur from a 
 thurro nollige of evvei-y thing, and partickly his hostifografy or 
 summat to that effect. As such is hily blammabil to yureself or 
 tooters whos provins war to propergit wot they had in their 
 hone heds into them under them, insted of witch his unkel say 
 he hav bin teecht moorignorans then anny think else. Witch is 
 verry ard considring mints of munny lad out, and hevin nose I 
 have not bin sparring with him, but pade away at a grate rat, 
 ever sins he war britchd. Hunderds cant kiver him from fust 
 to last And nothin but blited hops arter all. Cirkimstancis 
 purvented my having moor nor one acomplishraent and that war 
 my farthers bisness, but tho brort up hill miself I no the Valley of 
 edicashun. Warefor if it be no offens I wish to no candiddle 
 from your hone Mouth wether you hav so unedicatted him as his 
 Unkil suspex. At sam tim will esteam a faver to no if he con- 
 tinny in gud helth witch ware always a littel dellicat and pecking, 
 but I trust as how Eumfud hare and gud beaf and muttin and 
 holesum wit bred and milk hav made him quit fat. His pore 
 late muther lickwise made a pint of gud unturnd tabel bear, as 
 all assiduities is injurus to yuth. As she used to say, pore sole, 
 fud and flanning saves fisick. Allso I hop and trust you disa- 
 low the boys of advanst years tirenizing over the weekly wons, 
 or savedge tooters as is apt to sho lickings and dislickings. The 
 tooters morrils in course is a car not overluckd, but sweetharting 
 demand constant vigilings to gard agin its cumming in clandes- 
 tiny where it ort not. Mrs. Eumsey also begs to apollogiz for 
 naming damp beds, but in coarse Misses Doctor Darby have a 
 muther's feelings about damp lining for boys boddis. All witch 
 will give grate sattisfaxun to here, as in case of the revers par- 
 rintel duty will feal hobbligated to remov afore the mischief go 
 to fur. I shall luck eggerly for your anser and trust you will 
 emorace all the queerys. I ashore it will giv grate pleshure not 
 
414 
 
 THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 to hav to remove ray custom, with witch and respective com- 
 pliments, 
 
 I remane Dr. Darby Sur 
 
 Your verry humbel Servant 
 
 John Caknabit. 
 
 there's a eight way akd a wrong for bvkby thing." 
 
 No. IV. — To Mister Benjamin Carnaby, Briganti7ie Row, 
 Deptford. 
 
 Deer Benjamin, 
 Inclosd is Dr. Darby's explainative Not, witch for anny 
 thing 1 no to the contrairy is evvery thing as we cud luck for, 
 without going into the retales. He apear to hav no douts of a 
 
THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 415 
 
 misscomprehenshun on our parts, witch prove us to be boath 
 in the rong as will be a grate comfit to you and deer Benjamin. 
 
 Yure luving Bruther 
 
 John Carnaby. 
 
 (The Enclosure.) — To John Carnaby, Esquire. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 In ancient Greece and Rome, so celebrated for their classical 
 Attainments, it would have been considered derogatory to the 
 Academical Dignity, for Scholastic Discipline to be subject to 
 Animadversion from a Civic Character, professedly unconversant 
 with Polite Literature in all its Branches. As the Principal of 
 a Pedagogical Establishment, I might, therefore, objurgate with 
 Propriety any iiTelevant Discussion to be deprecated from such 
 a superfluous source. Conscious, however, of standing on the 
 Basis of an undeniable Prospectus, which professes to embrace 
 Universal Knowledge, throughout the Circle of the Arts and 
 Sciences, I am prepared to assert that a more Comprehensive 
 System of Education could not be devised than that which is 
 ascribed to the Establishment of Socrates House. If further 
 Testimonials were necessary, I might triumphantly appeal to 
 the Mental Cultivation of flourishing Members of Society, 
 evinced in the successful Pursuit of Affluence, in the Eastern 
 and Western Hemispheres, so advantageous to the Commerce, 
 Wealth, and Power, of the United Kingdom. Such Testimonies, 
 it is presumed, are sufficiently obvious to the most Unprejudiced 
 Mind, to demand those unerring Principles of fosteiing Talent, 
 inviting Emulation, and stimulating Enquiry, combined with 
 Moral, Intellectual, and Dieteiical qualities, such as to command 
 the unreserved Approbation and Confidence of all parties engaged 
 in the important Task of Juvenile Tuition. Trusting that the 
 Prolixity of this explanatorv Statement will propitiate the 
 
416 THE CAKNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 most Paternal Solicitude, with sentiments in accordance with the 
 rapid Progress of Human Civilization, permit me to subscribe 
 myself, with every feeling of respect, 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 Your most obedient, faithful, humble servant, 
 
 Simon Darby, LL.D. 
 
 .VNv^wrai 
 
 IlIMiMiiSTirilllllllll'' 
 
 No. V. — To Mr. John Carnaby, 49, Polyanthus Place, 
 Mile End Road, London. 
 
 Dear Brother, 
 If I was to write what comes uppermost, I should stand a 
 chance of a place I won't name. But you always was a you- 
 know-what, and as the proverb says, there's never a one like 
 you now you are old. As for the school, it's the nest of a land 
 pirate ; and for any good to his mind, dear Bob might as well 
 be in the Hulks. However it won't do to let you go and make 
 a so-and-so of yourself all over the country — whereby, luckily 
 for you, there's an old shipmate of mine laid up at Rumford, 
 
THE OARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 417 
 
 and so I can kill him and my Nevy with the same stone. So 
 lot Mister Doctor Darby look out for squalls, and that'sallfrom 
 
 Your loving Brother, 
 
 Ben Carnaby, 
 
 JLBSS MB, HOW BALD YOU ARB ! " 
 YES — I WAS PLUCKED AT COLLEGE.' 
 
 No. VI. — {Fi'om, the Same to the Same.) 
 
 Dear Brother, 
 
 This is to say I made this place, namely Rumford, yester- 
 day morning about 10 a.m., and immediately bore away to 
 Socrates House, and asked for my nevy, — but you shall have 
 it logged down all fair and square. 
 
 Well, after a haul at the bell, andso forth, I was niloted into 
 VOL. II. 27 
 
US THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 a room, on the ground tier, by the footman, and a pastryfac«tl 
 son of a land cook he looked sure enough. Where, as soon as 
 may be, Mrs. Doctor Darby joins company, a tight little bodv 
 enough, all bobbing up and down with courtesy s like the 
 buoy at the Nore, and as oily tongued as any rat in the Green- 
 land Docks. By her own account, she rated a step above 
 Mother to six score of boys, big and little, and every man jack 
 of them more made of, and set store by, than if they had been 
 parts of her own live stock. All which flummery would go 
 down with you, and the marines, mayhap, but not with old 
 sailors like me. As for dear Bob, she buttered him of both 
 sides, thick and threefold, as the best, sweetest, darlingest, and 
 what not young gentleman of the whole kit, besides finding out 
 a family likeness between him and his uncle, which if it's any 
 feature at all, is all my eye. Next she enquired after you, the 
 worthiest parent she ever knew, not excepting her own father, 
 whereby I blest my stars you were not within hail; or you 
 would have been flabbergasted in no time, with your eyes run- 
 ning like scuppers, and your common senses on their beam 
 ends. At long and last in comes my Nevy himself, as smooth 
 and shining as a new copper; whereby says she, " I hope you 
 will excuse untidiness, and so forth, because of sending for him 
 just as he slood." That's how he came no doubt in his 
 Sunday's breeches; besides twigging the wet soap-suds in his 
 ears. " Here my sweet love," she sings out, " here's your dear 
 kind uncle so good as to come to enquire after your welfare." 
 So dear Bob, heaves ahead, and gets a kiss, not from me tho, 
 and a liquorish lozenge for what she called his nasty hack. No- 
 thing however but a colic with parched peas, as he owned to 
 afterwards. *' Now, then, Nevy," says I, " what cheer — how 
 do you like your berth?" when up jumps Madam like a scalded 
 cat; and no or yes, I must drink the favour of a glass of Sherry 
 Rank Cape, John, as ever was shipped. Then Master Robert, 
 
THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE^ 419 
 
 bless him, must have a leetle glass too, but provided I approve, 
 and a ration of sweet cake. Whereby says she, " Now I will 
 leave you to your mutual confidences " — as looked all fair and 
 above board enough, if I had not made out a foot near the 
 door. And in the twinkling of a handspike in sails Dr. Darby 
 himself, with as many scrapes to me as if I was Port Admiral; 
 and as anxious about ray old gout, — for I've got an easy shoe 
 for a bunion — as if he'd been intimate with it in my great- 
 grandfather's time. Well, we palavered a bit about the French 
 news, and the weather, and the crops, whatever you like, let 
 alone book learning ; but that was not my course, and impatient 
 to see Tom Pike, besides, so 1 r^n slap aboard him at once 
 with an ask to see the school. As I looked for, he was took 
 all aback; however Madam wasn*t thrown so dead in the 
 wind, but jumped up to the bell tackle, and after a bit of a 
 whisper with the servant, we got under way for the school; 
 but contrived to land somehow in the kitchen, with a long row 
 of quartern loaves drawn up on a dresser to receive us, like a 
 file of marines. Then Madam begins to spin a long yarn about 
 plain food, but plenty of it, for growing youths — dear Bob's 
 very lathy, John, for all that— and then comes the Doctor's 
 turn to open with a preachment on animal foods, and what 
 will digest, and what won't ; tho' for my own part, I never met 
 with any meat but would do it in time, more or less. So by 
 way of clapping a stopper I made bold to remind that time is 
 short tho' life is long, and thereby luffing slap up to my Nevy, 
 " Bob," says I, *' what's the variation of the compass ? " So 
 Master Bob turns it about a bit, and then says he, " Why, it's 
 one leg shorter than t'other." Which is about as nigh it, 
 Brother, as you are to Table Bay ! And how it gave the Doctor 
 a bad fit of coughing, which his wife caught of him as natural 
 as if it had been the hooping sort — at last says she, " Maybe 
 
 Master Robert has not progressed yet into navigation." " May- 
 27—2 
 
420 THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 be not. Ma'am," says I, " and so we'll try on another tack — 
 Nevy, what's metaphysics ? " ** Brimstone and Treacle," says 
 Bob, as ready as gunpowder, and the lady looked as satisfied as 
 Bob did — but the Doctor had another bad fit, and good reason 
 why, for there's no more physic in metaphysics than a baby 
 might take in its pap. By this time we were going up stairs, 
 but lay-to awhile alongside a garden pump on the landing, to 
 have a yarn about dowsing glims, and fire guards, and going" 
 the rounds at night ; and as dear Bob hung astarn, I yawed, 
 and let fly at him again with " What's religion ? " ** The colic 
 on Sundays,*' says he, as smart as you like ; tho' what he meant 
 by colic the Old Gentleman knows. However both the Doctor 
 and Madam pulled a pleasant face at him, and looked as pleased 
 as if he had found out the longitude ; but that was too fine 
 weather to last, for thinks I, in course he can carry on a little 
 further on that board, so says I, " What's the main-top-gallant 
 rule of Christianity ? " ** Six weeks at Christmas," says he, 
 as bold as brass from getting encouraged before. So you see, 
 John, he don't know his own persuasion. In course we were 
 all at wry faces again ; but the Doctor had the gumption to 
 shove his out of a window, and sing out an order to nobody in 
 the back yard. As for Madam, she shot ahead into the sleeping 
 rooms, where I saw half a hundred of white dimity cots, two 
 warming-pans, and nine clothes baskets — Master Robert's berth 
 among the rest. Next we bore away by a long passage to the 
 kitchen again, where two rounds of boiled beef had been put to 
 officer the quartern loaves, and so through the washery and pot- 
 and-pannery into the garden ground, where I came in for as 
 long a yarn about the wholesomeness of fresh vegetables and 
 salads, as if the whole crew of youngsters had been on the books 
 with the scurvy. Erom the cabbages we got to the fiower- 
 beds ; and says the Doctor, *• I don't circumscribe, or cii'cum- 
 vent, one or t'other ; I don't circumvent my pupils to scholasti- 
 
THE CARNABY COREESPONDENCE. 421 
 
 cal works, but encourage perusing the book of Nature." — 
 *' That's very correct, then, Doctor," said I, "and my own 
 sentiment exactly. Nevy, what's Natural Philosophy?" — 
 "Keeping rabbits," says Bob; which sounds likely enough, 
 but it's not the thing by sixty degrees. I can't say but I felt 
 the cats'-paws coming over my temper ; but I kept it under till 
 we fetched the paddock, to look at the cows ; and that brought 
 up another yarn about milk-dieting ; and says Madam, " when 
 summer comes, our Doctor is so good as to permit the young 
 gentlemen to make his hay." — " No doubt alive. Ma'am," says 
 I ; " saves hands, and good fun too, eh, nevy ? — What's Agricul- 
 ture ? " However this time dear Bob chose to play sulky, and 
 wouldn't answer good or bad ; whereby the Doctor crowds up, 
 with a fresh question. " Now then. Master Kobert," says he 
 pretty sharp, " I will ask you something you do know. What 
 is Algebra, — Al — gebra ? " — " Please Sir," says Bob, " it's a 
 wild donkey all over stripes." — *' There's a dear boy ! " cries 
 Madam, the more fool she ; but old Darby looked as black as 
 thunder at midnight. " I'm afraid," says he, letting go the 
 toplifts, as one may say, of his eyebrows ; " I'm afraid there has 
 been a little slackness here with the cat ; but, by your leave, 
 Sir, and so forth, I will investigate a little into it myself. Now 
 Master Kobert, take a pull at your mental tackle, for I'm going 
 to overhaul your Mathematics: — How do you describe a tri- 
 angle ? " — *' Please Sir," says Bob, " it's the thing that tingle- 
 tangles to the big drum." Well, there was the devil to pay 
 again, and no pitch hot ! Old Darby looked as if he meant 
 either to drop down dead on the spot of apoplexy, or to murder 
 dear Bob ; he swelled and reddened up so about the wattles 
 without hoisting out a word. Por my own part, nevy as he 
 was, I couldn't help serving him out a back-handed slap of the 
 head, and then I turned-to at the .schoolmaster. " So, Mister 
 Doctor," says I, " this is what you call a liberal education in 
 
422 
 
 THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 your manifest ? " — " Sir," says he, looking as stiff as a corporal 
 just made, " whatever your, some cursed long hard word may 
 be, 1 cannot consider myself liable for the lagging astern of, I 
 must say, the dullest sailor in my whole convoy." — "Why, 
 blood and thunder ! " said I, for old Nick could not have helped 
 
 " IS FOR A PENNY — IN FOE A POUND." 
 
 It — " you told me that Bob, my nevy there, was the handiest 
 and smartest of the whole kit ! " — " That was me. Sir," says 
 the lady hauling in between us — " and then I only spoke as to 
 temper, as Greek and Latin are beyond a female's provinces" — 
 which was true enough ; so I felt bound to beg her pardon, 
 which was granted : and we had smooth water again till we 
 neared the school-room. Now then, thought I, look out for 
 squalls, for my mind was made up to stand no nonsense from 
 the petty officers, that is to say, gentlemen ushers. So I ranged 
 
THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. 423 
 
 up alongside the most mathematical looking one I could pick 
 out, by way of having a bout with him at trigonometry ; but he 
 chose to be as shy, and deaf and dumb, as a Gibraltar monkey 
 just grabbed. " With submission, my good Sir," says the 
 Doctor, putting in bis oar, "Mr. Huckin may consider it a 
 work of supereror-something, and a going beyond ourselves, to 
 re-examine him after the very satisfactory certificates that 
 satisfied me myself." — "That's to say," says I, "in plain 
 English, that I'm to get nothing but what I can screw out of 
 my nevy ? " — " My dear Sir," says the Doctor, " you mis- 
 construct me entirely — the whole of the juvenile pupils are open 
 to oandid scrutiny. Suppose we begin with the classics. 
 Master Bush, Sir, you will English me Mc, liac, hoc'' — " This, 
 that, and t'other," says Master Bush ; no great shakes of an 
 answer, I guess, but it seemed to serve for a come-off. Then 
 came my turn, so I asked who was the discoverer of America ? 
 and may I never break biscuit again, if he didn't say " Yankee 
 Doodle ! " Well, to cut off the end of a long yarn, this was as 
 good as there was to be got out of the best of them. One told 
 me that Guy Eox found out gunpowder; and another that a 
 solar eclipse was along of the sun's standing in its own light. 
 What else I might have learned, that I never knew before, must 
 be left over for a guess ; for in the middle of the next ask, it 
 was all hats aloft ! and three cheers for a half holiday ; but if I 
 had any hand in begging it, may I die ashore in a dry ditch ! 
 However that was too much of a dog's trick to be took quietly, 
 so I prepared a broadside, with a volley of oaths to it, by way of 
 small arms ; but before I could well bring it to bear, the Doctor 
 hauls out his watch, and says he, " It's extremely bad luck, but 
 there's a voting this morning for a parish beadle, and I make a 
 point not to let my private duties get to windward of my 
 public ones." So saying, with a half-and-half sort of a bow, to 
 me, he cut and run ; Madam getting athwart hawse so as to cover 
 
424 THE CARNABY COERESPONDENCE. 
 
 his getting off. In course it was no use to waste speech upon 
 
 her ; but I made bold to d n the whole covey of under- 
 
 masters, in the lump, as a set of the sharkingest, loggerheaded, 
 flute-playing, skulking, lubberly sons of grinning weavers and 
 
 EECBIMINATIOir. 
 
 tailors that ever broke bread. So the finish over all is, that I 
 took my nevy away, traps and all ; and not an hour too soon ; 
 and with Bob in tow I made Tom Pike's, who was as glad 
 to see his old messmate as I was to see him; and what's 
 more, when he heard the bit of a brush I had enjoyed, he in- 
 formed me that Doctor Darby, LL.D., and what not, was all 
 one and the same with Darby the shipchandler, that went to 
 pieces down at Wapping. You see then, as the chaplain says, 
 that all's for the best either here or hereafter ; and so no more, 
 till Monday, when I shall bring my nevy Bob to you, to make 
 what vou will of him, which I hope will be as like a man as 
 possible. If otherwise, I won't promise not to change my name 
 bv act of parliament, and so be no relation to dear Bob, nor to 
 you neither ; and that's the real mind of 
 
 Your loving Brother, 
 
 Bkn Ca-RNabt. 
 
A EISE AT THE FATHER OF ANGLING. 425 
 
 BLIWD HOOKEY. 
 
 A RISE AT THE FATHER OP ANGLING. 
 
 The memory of Izaak Walton has hitherto floated down the 
 stream of time without even a nibble at it ; but, alas ! where 
 is the long line so pure and even that does not come sooner or 
 later to have a weak length detected in it ? The severest critic 
 of Moliere was an old woman ; and now a censor of the same 
 sex takes upon herself to tax the immortal work of our Piscator 
 with holding out an evil temptation to the rising generation. 
 Instead of concurring in the general admiration of his fascinat- 
 ing pictures of fishing, she boldly asserts that the rod 
 has been the spoiling of her child, and insists that in calling 
 the Angler gentle and inoflPensive, the Author was altogether 
 
42G A RISE AT THE FATHER OF ANGLING. 
 
 wrong in his dubbing. To render her strictures more attractive 
 she has thrown them into a poetical form ; having probably 
 learned by experience that a rhyme at the end of a line is a very 
 taking bait to the generality of readers. Hark ! how she rates 
 the meek Palmer whom Winifred Jenkins would have called " an 
 angle upon earth ! " 
 
 To Mr. IzAAK Walton, at Mr. Major's the Bookseller's in 
 Fleet Street. 
 
 Mr. Walton, it's harsh to say it, but as a Parent I can't help 
 
 wishing 
 You'd been hung before you publish'd your book, to set all the 
 
 young people a fishing ! 
 There's my Robert, the trouble I've had with him it surpasses a 
 
 mortal's bearing, 
 And all thro' those devilish angling works — the Lord forgive 
 
 me for swearing ! 
 I thought he were took with the Morbus one day, I did with his 
 
 nasty angle ! 
 For ** oh dear," says he, and burst out in a cry, " oh my gut 
 
 is all got of a tangle ! " 
 It's a shame to teach a young boy such words — whose blood 
 
 wouldn't chill in their veins 
 To hear him, as I overheard him one day, a-talking of blowing 
 
 out brains ? * 
 And didn't I quarrel with Sally the cook, and a precious scold- 
 ing I give her, 
 " How dare you," says I, '* for to stench the whole house by 
 
 keeping that stinking liver? " 
 'Twas enough to breed a fever, it was ! they smelt it next door 
 
 at the Bagots', — 
 
 * Chewing and spitting out bullock's brains into the water for ground- 
 Vait is called blowing of brains. Salter's Angler's Guide. 
 
A RISE AT THE FATHER OF ANGLING. 
 
 427 
 
 But it wasn't breeding no fever — not it ! *twas my son a-breed- 
 
 ing of maggots ! 
 I declare that I couldn't touch meat for a week, for it all seemed 
 
 tainting and going, 
 And after turning my stomach so, they turned to blueflies, all 
 
 buzzing and blowing ; 
 Boys are nasty enough, goodness knows, of themselves, without 
 
 putting live things in their craniums; 
 Well, what next ? but he pots a whole cargo of worms along 
 
 with my choice geraniums. 
 
 •'thb great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissoltbI" 
 
 And another fine trick, tho' it wasn't found out, till the house- 
 maid had given us warning, 
 
 lie fished at the golden fish in the bowl, before we were up and 
 down in the morning. 
 
428 A RISE AT THE FATHER OP ANGLING. 
 
 I'm sure it was lucky for Ellen, poor thing, that she'd got so 
 
 attentive a lover. 
 As brinff her fresh fish when the others deceas'd, which they did 
 
 a dozen times over ! 
 Then a whole new loaf was short I for I know, of course, when 
 
 our bread goes faster, — 
 And I made a stir with the bill in my hand, and the man was 
 
 sent off by his master ; 
 But, oh dear, I thought I should sink thro' the earth, with the 
 
 weight of my own reproaches, 
 Por my own pretty son had made away with the loaf, to make 
 
 pastry to feed the roaches ! 
 I vow I've suffered a martyrdom — with all sorts of flights and 
 
 terrors surrounded ! 
 For I never saw him go out of the doors but I thought he'd 
 
 come home to me drovvnded. 
 And, sure enough, I set out one fine Monday to visit ray married 
 
 daughter. 
 And there he was standing at Sadler's Wells, a-performing with 
 
 real water. 
 It's well he was off on the further side, for I*d have brain'd him 
 
 else with my patten, 
 For I thought he was safe at school, the young wretch ! a study- 
 ing Greek and Latin, 
 And my ridicule basket he had got on his back, to carry his 
 
 fishes and gentles ; 
 With a belt I knew he'd made from the belt of his father's regi- 
 mentals — 
 Well, I poked his rods and lines in the fire, and his father gave 
 
 him a birching, 
 Uut he'd gone too far to be easy cured of his love for chubbing 
 
 and perching. 
 One night he never came home to tea, and altho' it was dark 
 
 and dripping, 
 
A RISE AT THE FATHER OF ANGLING. 429 
 
 His father set off to Wapping, poor man ! for the boy had a 
 
 turn for shipping ; 
 As for me I set up, and I sobbed and I cried for all the world 
 
 like a babby, 
 Till at twelve o'clock he rewards my fears with two gudging 
 
 from Waltham Abbey ! 
 And a pretty sore throat and fever he caught, that brought me 
 
 a fortnight's hard nussing, 
 Till I thought I should go to my grey-hair'd grave, worn out 
 
 with the fretting and fussing ; 
 But at last he was cur'd, and we did have hopes that the fishing 
 
 was cured as well. 
 But no such luck ! not a week went by before we'd have another 
 
 such spell. 
 Tho' he never had got a penny to spend, for such was our strict 
 
 intentions. 
 Yet he was soon set up in tackle agin, for all boys have such 
 
 quick inventions : 
 And I lost my Lady's Own Pocket Book, in spite of all my 
 
 hunting and poking. 
 Till I found it chuck full of tackles and hooks, and besides it 
 
 had had a good soaking. 
 Then one Friday morning, I gets a summoning note from a sort 
 
 of a law attorney, 
 Por the boy had been trespassing people's grounds while his 
 
 father was gone a journey, 
 And I had to go and hush it all up by myself, in an oflBice at 
 
 Hatton Garden ; 
 And to pay for the damage he'd done, to boot, and to beg some 
 
 strange gentleman's pardon. 
 And wasn't he once fished out himself, and a man had to dive to 
 
 find him, 
 And I saw him brought home with my motherly eyes and a mob 
 
 of people behind him ? 
 
4S0 A RISE AT THE FATHER OP ANGLING. 
 
 Tes^ it took a full hour to rub him to life — whilst I was a- 
 
 screaming and raving, 
 And a couple of guineas it cost us besides, to reward the hu 
 
 mane man for his saving, 
 And didn't Miss Crump leave us out of her will, all along of her 
 
 taking dudgeon 
 At her favourite cat being chok'd, poor Puss, with a hook sow*d 
 
 up in a gudgeon ? 
 And old Brown complain'd that he pluck'd his live fowls, and 
 
 not without show of reason, 
 Por the cocks looked naked about necks and tails, and it wasn't 
 
 their moulting season ; 
 And sure and surely, when we came to enquire, there was cause 
 
 for their screeching and cackles. 
 For the mischief confess'd he had picked them a bit, for I think 
 
 he called them the hackles. 
 A pretty tussle we had about that ! but as if it warn't picking 
 
 enough. 
 When the winter comes on, to tlie muff-box I goes, just to shake 
 
 out my sable muff — 
 " mercy ! " thinks I, " there's the moth in the house 1 " for 
 
 the fur was all gone in patches ; 
 And then at Ellen's chinchilly 1 look, and its state of destruction 
 
 just matches — 
 But it wasn't no moth, Mr. Walton, but flies — sham flies to go 
 
 trolling and trouting, 
 For his father's great coat was all safe and sound, and that first 
 
 set me a-doubting. 
 A plague, say I, on all rods and lines, and on young or old 
 
 watery danglers ! 
 And after all that you'll talk of such stuff as no harm in the 
 
 world about anglers ! 
 And when all is done, all our worry and fuss, why, we've never 
 
 had nothing worth dishing ; 
 
RIGHT AND WRONG. 481 
 
 So you see, Mister Walton, no good comes at last of your fa- 
 mous book about fishing. 
 As for Robert's, I burnt it a twelvemonth ago ; but it turned up 
 
 too late to be lucky, 
 For he'd got it by heart, as I found to the cost of 
 
 Your servant, 
 Jane Elizabeth Stuckey. 
 
 THEBK'S KEVKE A WHALK WITHOUT A BLUBBKB. 
 
 EIGHT AND WRONG. 
 
 A SKETCH AT SEA. 
 
 The Rights of Man, — whether abstract or real, divine or 
 vulgar, vested or contested, civil or uncivil, common or uncom- 
 mon — ^have been so fully and so frequently discussed, that one 
 would suppose there was nothing new to be felt or expressed on 
 the subject. I was agreeably surprised, therefore, during a late 
 passage from Ireland, to hear the rights of an individual asserted 
 in so very novel a manner as to seem worthy of record. The in- 
 jured party was an involuntary fellow-passenger ; and the first 
 glance at him as he leisurely ascended the cabin stairs, bespoke 
 
432 
 
 KIGHT A^h WRONG. 
 
 him an original. His face, figure, dress, gait, and gestures, 
 were all more or less eccentric ; yet, without any apparent affec- 
 tation of singularity. His manner was perfectly earnest and 
 business-like, though quaint. On reaching the deck, his first 
 movement was towards the gangway, but a moment sufficed to 
 acquaint him with the state of the case. The letter-bags having 
 been detained an hour beyond the usual time of departure, the 
 steam had been put on at a gallop, and Her Majesty's mail 
 
 HE S A-GOING TO TAKE A TOWKE.' 
 
 packet the Guebre had already accomplished some hundred 
 fathoms of her course. This untoward event, however, seemed 
 rather to surprise than annoy our Original, who quietly stepped 
 up to the Captain, with the air of demanding what was merely 
 a matter of course : 
 
BIGHT AND WRONG. 
 
 433 
 
 •* Hollo, Shipper ! Off she goes, eh ? But you must turn 
 about, my boy, and let me get out." 
 
 " Let you get out ! " echoed the Skipper, and again repeating 
 it, with what the musicians call a staccato — " Let — you — get — 
 out ! " 
 
 " Exactly so. I'm going ashore." 
 
 " I'm rather afraid you are not. Sir," said the Skipper, looking 
 decidedly serious, *' unless you allude to the other side ! " 
 
 AN AQUATIC IBIP. 
 
 •* The other side 1 " exclaimed the Oddity, involuntarily turn- 
 ing towards England. ** Poo ! poo ! nonsense, man, — I only 
 came to look at your accommodations. I'm not going across 
 with you — I'm not, upon my word ! " 
 
 " I must beg your pardon, Sir ; " said the Captain, quite 
 VOL. II. 28 
 
434 RIGHT AND WRONG. 
 
 solemnly. " But it is my firm opinion tliat you are ' going 
 across.* '*' 
 
 " Poo, poo ! all gammon. — 1 till you I am going back to 
 Dublin." 
 
 " Upon my soul, then," said the Skipper, rather briskly, "you 
 must swim back like a grampus, or borrow a pair of wings from 
 the gulls." 
 
 The man at the helm grinned his broadest at what he thought 
 a good joke of his officer's — while the Original turned sharply 
 round, parodied a hyena's laugh at the fellow, and then returned 
 to the charge. 
 
 " Come, come. Skipper — it's quite as far out as I care for — if 
 you want to treat me to a sail ! " 
 
 " Treat you to a sail ! " roared the indignant officer. " Zounds ! 
 Sir, I'm in earnest — as much in eai'nest as ever I was in my 
 life." 
 
 "So much the better," answered the Original. ** I'm not 
 joking myself, and I have no right to be joked upon." 
 
 " Joke or no joke," said the Captain — " all I know is this. 
 The mail bags are on board — and it's more than my post is 
 worth to put back." 
 
 " Eh? What ? How? " exclaimed the Oddity, with a sort of 
 nervous dance. "You astonish me! Do — ^you — really — mean 
 to say — I'm obligated to go — whether I've a right or 
 not?" 
 
 " I do indeed, Sir — I'm sorry for it, but it can't be helped. 
 
 My orders are positive. The moment the mail is on board I 
 must cast off." 
 
 " Indeed ! — well — but you know — why, that's your duty, not 
 mine. I have no right to be cast off ! I've no right to be here 
 at all. I've no right to be anywhere — except in Merrion 
 Square ! '* 
 
 The Captain was bothered. He shrugged up his shoulders, then 
 
EIGHT AND WRONG. 
 
 4B5 
 
 gave a low whistle, then plunged his hands in his pockets — then 
 gave a loud order to somebody, to do something, somewhere or 
 other ; and then began to walk short turns on the deck. His 
 Captive, in the meantime, made hasty strides towards the stern, 
 as if intending to leap overboard ; but he suddenly stopped short, 
 and took X bewildered look at the receding coast. The original 
 wrong was visibly increasing in length, breadth, and depth, 
 every minute j and he again confronted the Captain. 
 
 DBBP DISTBESS PRODUCED BY UACHINEBY. 
 
 " Well, Skipper — you've thought better of it — I've no right 
 
 in the world, have I ? — You will turn her round ? " 
 
 " Totally impossible. Sir — quite out of my power," 
 
 *• Very well, very well, very well indeed ! " the Original's 
 
 temper was getting up as well as the sea. " But mind, Sir — I 
 2S— 2 
 
43« EIGHT AND WRONG. 
 
 protest. I protest against you. Sir — and against the ship — and 
 the ocean, Sir — and everything! I'm getting further and 
 further out — but, remember, I've no riglit ! You will take the 
 consequences. I have no right to be kidnapped — ask the Crown 
 lawyers, if you think fit ! " 
 
 After this denouncement, the Speaker began to pace up and 
 down like the Captain, but at the opposite side of the deck. He 
 was on the boil, however, as well as the engine, — and every time 
 that he passed near the man whom he considered as his Sir 
 Hudson Lowe, he gave vent to the inward feeling in a jerk of 
 the head, accompanied by a short pig-like grunt. Now and then 
 it broke out in words, but always the same four monosyllables, 
 '• This — is — too — bad " — with a most emphatic fall of the foot 
 to each. At last it occurred to a stout pompous-looking per^ 
 sonage to interpose as a mediator. He began by dilating on the 
 immense commercial importance of a punctual delivery of letters 
 —thence he insisted on the heavy responsibility of the Captain ; 
 with a promise of an early return packet from Holyhead — and 
 he was entering into a congratulation of the fineness of the 
 weather, when the Original thought it was time to cut him 
 short. 
 
 *• My good Sir — ^j-ou'U excuse me. The case is nobody's but 
 my own. You are a regular passenger. You have a right to 
 be in this packet — you have a right to go to Holyhead — or to 
 Liverpool — or to Gibraltar, — or to the world's end — if— you 
 — like. But / choose to be in Dublin. What right have 
 I to be here then ? Not — one — atom ! I've no right to be in 
 this vessel — and the Captain there knows it. I've no right 
 (stamping) to be on this deck ! I have no more right to be 
 tossing at sea (waving his arms up and down) than the 
 Pigeon House ! " 
 
 " It is a very unpleasant situation, I allow, Sir," said the 
 Captain to the stout Passenger. " But, as I have told the 
 
RIGHT AND WRONG. 437 
 
 gentleman, my hands are tied. I can do nothing — though no- 
 body is more sorry for his inconvenience." 
 
 "Inconvenience be hano^ed!" exclaimed the Oddity, in a 
 passion at last. ** It is no inconvenience, Sir ! Not— the — 
 smallest. But that makes no difference as to my being nere. 
 It*3 that— and that alone, — I dispute all right to ! " 
 
 SEA BIDDLE. ** DO YOU GIVE It UP? 
 
 " Well, but my dear, good Sir," expostulated the pompous 
 man; "admitting the justice of your premises, the hardship is 
 confessedly without remedy." 
 
 "To be sure it is," said the Captain, "every inch of it. All 
 I can say is, that the gentleman's passage shall be no expense to 
 him I" 
 
 " Thankee — of course not," said the Original with a sneer. 
 "I've no right to put my hand in my pocket 1 Not that I mind 
 
iV. 
 
 438 
 
 EIGHT AND WEONG. 
 
 expense. But it*s my right I stand up for, and I defy you both 
 to prove that I have any right — or any shadow of a right — to be 
 in your company ! I'll tell you what, Skipper " — but before he 
 could finish the sentence, he turned suddenly pale, made a most 
 grotesque wry face, and rushed forward to the bow of the vessel. 
 The Captain exchanged a significant smile with the stout gen- 
 tleman ; but before they had quite spoken their minds of the 
 absent character, he came scrambling back to the binnacle, upon 
 which he rested with both hands, while he thrust his working 
 visage within a foot of the skipper's face. 
 
 "CHABMIWa SPOTS ABOTTC THIS PABT OV THE EIVEH." 
 
 " There, Skipper ! — now, Mr. What d'ye call — What do you 
 both say to that ? What right have I to be sick — as sick as a 
 dog ? I've no right to be squeamish 1 I'm not a passenger. 
 
EIGHT AND WRONG. 
 
 439 
 
 Tvc no right to ^o tumbling over ropes and pails and what not 
 to the ship's head ! " 
 
 " But my good Sir," — began the pompous man. 
 
 " Don't Sir me, Sir ! Fou took your own passage. You have 
 a ri^ht to be sick — Tou've a right to go to the side every five 
 minutes — ^you've a right to die of it ! But it's the reverse with 
 me — I have no riffht of the sort 1 " 
 
 WHAT EIGHT HAVB TOI7 IN VX 8TKEL TRAP?" 
 
 " certainly not, Sir," said the pomposity, offended in his 
 turn. ** You are indubitably the best judge of your own privi- 
 leges. I only beg to be allowed to remark, that where I felt 
 I had so little right, I should hesitate to intrude myself." So 
 saying, he bowed very formally, and commenced his retreat to 
 the cabin, while the Skipper pretended to examine the compass 
 very minutely. In fact our Original had met with a chokepear. 
 The fat man's answer was too much for him, being framed on a 
 principle clean contrary to his own pecidiar system of logic. 
 The more he tried to unravel its meaning, the more it got en- 
 tangled. He didn't like it, without knowing why j and he quite 
 disagreed with it, though ignorant of its purport. He looked 
 up at the funnel — and at the flag — and at the deck, — and down 
 the companion stairs, — and then he wound up all by a long 
 shake of his head, as mysterious as Lord Burleigh's, at the as- 
 
410 
 
 PATKONAGE. 
 
 tonislied man at the wheel. His mind seemed made up. He 
 buttoned his coat up to the very chin, as if to secure himself to 
 himself, and never opened his lips again till the vessel touched 
 the quay at Holyhead. The Captain then attempted a final 
 apology — but it was inteiTupted in the middle. 
 
 ** Enough said, Sir — quite enough. If you've only done your 
 duty, you've no right to beg pardon — end I've no right to ask 
 it. All I mean to say is, here am I in Holyhead instead of 
 Dublin. I don't care what that fet fellow says — who don't un- 
 derstand his own rights. I stick to all I said before. I have 
 no right to be up in the Moon, have I ? Of course not — and I've 
 no more right to stand on this present quay, than I have to be 
 up in the Moon ! " 
 
 PATEONAGE. 
 
 The authenticity of the following letter will, probably, be dis- 
 puted. The system of patronage to which it refers, is. one very 
 
 likely to shock the prejudices of 
 serious sober-minded persons, 
 who will naturally refuse to 
 credit such practical anachro- 
 nisms as the superannuation of 
 sucklings. Goldsmith, it is true, 
 has mentioned certain Portuna- 
 tuses as being born with silver 
 ladles in their mouths; but it 
 would be easier to suppose a 
 child thus endowed with a whole 
 service of plate than to fancy one 
 invested with a service of years. 
 JACK pcDDiiTG. The most powerful imagination 
 
 \»ould be puzzled to reconcile an Ex-Speakership with an Infant 
 untaught to lisp ; or to recognise a retired Bow-street runner 
 
PATRONAGE. 441 
 
 in a nursling unable to walk. The existence of such very ad- 
 vanced posts for the Infantry is, however, affirmed ; but with 
 what truth, from my total want of political experience, I am un- 
 able to judge. Mr. Wordsworth, indeed, who says that "the 
 child is father of the man," seems to aim a quiz at the practice ; 
 and possibly the nautical phrase of " getting a good hirth''' may 
 refer to such prosperous nativities. Por the rest, grown gentle- 
 men have unquestionably been thrust, sometimes, into public 
 niches to which they were as ill adapted as Mr. D. ; the mea- 
 sures taken by Patrons not leading invariably, like Stultz's, to 
 admirable fits. But the Lady waits to speak her mind. 
 
 (Copy). 
 
 To the Eight Honourable Lord Viscount * ♦ * *, ^c., <$•(?., <J*c., 
 
 Whitehall, 
 May it please your Lordship, 
 
 I humbly beg a thousand pardons hnd apologies for 
 so great a liberty, and taking up time so valuable to the nation 
 with the present application. Nothing short of absolute ne- 
 cessity could compel to such a course ; but I make bold to say, 
 a case of greater hardship never had the honour to be laid before 
 official eyes. My poor husband, however, is totally unaware of 
 my writing ; as he would certainly forbid any such epistolary 
 step, whether on my part or his own; though in point of 
 fact the shattered state of his nerves is such as to preclude 
 putting pen to paper if ever so inclined. But as a wife and a 
 mother, it would not become me to preserve silence, with my 
 husband perishing by inches before my eyes ; and particularly 
 when a nobleman of your Lordship's rank would be sure to 
 sympathise for an unfortunate gentleman, of birth and breeding, 
 that after waiting above forty odd years for his rights, has only 
 come at last into a public post that must, and will be his death ! 
 To favour with the particulars, my husband has the honour to 
 
442 
 
 PATRONAGE. 
 
 be related very distantly to the Peerage ; and as Your Lordship 
 knows, it is the privilege of Aristocracy to provide for all their 
 connexions by comfortable public situations, which are sometimes 
 enjoyed very early in life. To such Mr. D. had a hereditary 
 
 right from his cradle, for his noble relative the Duke of , 
 
 was so condescending as to stand sponsor by proxy ; and in- 
 stead of the usual spoons, or a silver mug, made a promise to the 
 Infant of some office suited to its tender age ; for instance a 
 superannuation, or the like, where there is nothing to do, but 
 
 " ONE BLACK BALL KXCLXTDES." 
 
 the salary to receive. In point of fact, the making the Baby a 
 retired King's Messenger was verbally undertaken at the font : 
 but before the child could come into office His Grace unfortu- 
 nately went out of power, by dying of apoplexy, leaving nothing 
 Jbut a promise, which a new ministry was unjust and ungrateful 
 
PATRONAGE. 443 
 
 enough not to malce good. In this shocking manner, Your 
 Lordship, was my husband thrown upon the world, without 
 proper provision according to his station and prospects, and 
 was degraded to the necessity of his own exertions for support, 
 till his fortieth year, when the new Duke thought proper to stir 
 in his behalf. The truth is, a severe illness had left Mr. D.'s 
 mind and nerves in such a pitiful shattered state, as to make 
 him unfit for any business whatever, except public affairs ; and 
 accordingly it became the duty of his friends to procure him 
 some post under government. So a proper application was 
 made to his Grace, and through his influence and the fortunate 
 circumstance of an election at the time, Mr. D. was appointed 
 to the dreadful situation he at present enjoys. Of course we 
 entirely acquit His Grace, who never set eyes on my husband in 
 his life, and therefore could not be expected to know the precise 
 state of his constitution; but I appeal to Your Lordship, 
 whether it was proper patronage for a man shattered in mind 
 and nerves, and subject to tremors, and palpitations, and bodily 
 shocks of all sorts, to be made a Superintendent of Powder- 
 Mills, with the condition of living attached to the works ? 
 
 For my own part. Your Lordship, I looked on the Duke's 
 letter of congratulations as neither more nor less than my poor 
 husband's death-warrant. Indeed he was so dreadfully alarmed 
 himself, as to be quite distressing to witness. He did nothing, 
 the whole afternoon, but walk up and down the room, shaking 
 his head at himself in the looking-glass, or looking up at the 
 ceiling, and muttering, as if he was already exploding sky high 
 along with the Mills. But a refusal was out of the question, as 
 it would have aff'orded his Grace too good an excuse for neglect* 
 ing our interests for the future. To aggravate the case, the very 
 day after our taking possession, there was what is called a blow at 
 the works, and though so trifling as only to carry a roof off a 
 shed, it struck a cord on Mr. D.'s nerves that has never done 
 
444 PATRONAGE. 
 
 vibrating ever since. I do not exaggerate to say, that if he had 
 been struck with the palsy and St. Vitus, both at once, he could 
 not have showed more corporeal agitation. He trembled in every 
 limb like an aspen tree ; while his eyes rolled, and his head 
 went from side to side, like the China Mandarin's; besides 
 scouring up and down stairs, and rushing out of doors and in 
 again, and trying all the chairs but could not sit any where, and 
 stamping, and muttering, and dancing about, till I really ex- 
 pected he would scramble up the walls of the room, and fly across 
 the ceiling, like our tortoiseshell cat in her fits. If I lived 
 to Methusalem, Your Lordship, I should never forget it! 
 Unluckily, being new to his office, a mistaken notion of duty 
 possessed him that he ought not to quit the spot; indeed 
 he solemnly declared, that if a blow was to take place in his 
 absence, he would rather commit his own suicide than face 
 the report of it in the newspapers, which had already indulged 
 in some seditious sneers at his appointment. All that could 
 be done, therefore, was to pack off Lucy, and Emily and Eliza, 
 on week's visits among friends; myself remaining behind, as a 
 wife's proper post, near my poor husband ; but on the discom- 
 fortable condition of keeping under ground in the cellar, because 
 gunpowder in convulsions always blasts upwards. What my 
 feelings were, as we are troubled with rats. Your Lordship may 
 suppose ; particularly when Mr. D. was officially called upon to 
 inspect the damage; and never shall 1 forget his gashly appear- 
 ance when he returned from his awful task ! He was Hteraliv 
 as white as a sheet ; and totally incapable to get out a word, till 
 he had swallowed three whole glasses of brandy ! That settled 
 his reason, — but it was only to tell me that he nad scraped and 
 grazed the skin off every nubble of his back-bone, by a bad fall 
 from a ladder, which he had attempted to come down in wooden 
 safety shoes. Such, Your Lordship, was our miserable day ; 
 and it brought as wretched a night, Bed would not be heard 
 
PATRONAGE. 445 
 
 of — and we set up in two easy chairs, shuddering with fright 
 and cold, being December, and every door and window thrown 
 wide open, to give a thorough vent through the house, in case 
 of another shock. For Mr. D. was unfortunately possessed 
 that one blow always leads to another ; and what with fancying 
 flying sparks, for it was starlight, and sniffing fire, he had 
 worked himself up, before morning, into a high fever and a light 
 head. The nearest medical man was obliged to be called in — 
 and he had to give frightful doses of laudanum before Mr. D.'s 
 nerves could be lulled into a startlish sort of doze ; — and at 
 waking, he was ordered to drink the strongest stimuluses ; as 
 indeed are in use to the present time. But this continual 
 brandy, brandy, brandy, as Your Lordship knows, is a dreadful 
 remedy ; though, as my poor husband says, he cannot fill up his 
 place without its help. At times I could almost believe, tho' I 
 would not breathe such a thing except to Your Lordship, that 
 between the stimuluses, and the delirium, and the whole shock 
 to the system, Mr. D. is a little beside his senses. The mad 
 Doctors do say, that we are all, every one of us, crazy on a cer- 
 tain subject ; and if such is the case, there can be no doubt that 
 ray husband's weak point is explosions, the extravagance of his 
 precautions making him an everlasting torment to himself as 
 well as to all about him. Of course it is to his disadvantage, and 
 magnifies his terrors, not to have been brought regularly up to 
 the business ; not that he receives much comfort from those who 
 have, for he says custom and habit have made them so daring 
 and hardened, that they would not mind playing at snap-dragon 
 in the Magazine, or grinding their knives on the millstone that 
 crushes the gunpowder into grains. 
 
 Since the above accident we have had, thank goodness, no 
 more blows ; but, as Your Lordship is aware, a first impression 
 will stick by us for all our lives to come. At the best of times, 
 let my husband be reading, or writing, or eating his dinner, or 
 
446 
 
 PATEONAGE. 
 
 m bed, or what not, the exploding notion will come across him 
 like a flash of lightning j as for instance last Friday was a week. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Trotter had dropped in to tea ; after which we 
 had a rubber ; and were all very comfortable, my husband and 
 
 BAT AND BAWL. 
 
 me just in the nine holes, when all of a sudden there was a fall 
 of something and a scream. Up jumps Mr. D. of course, chuck- 
 ing his cards here, there, and every where, and calling a blow . 
 a blow ! — and as usual Emily and Lucy and Eliza and me 
 rushed off to the coal-cellar, while Mrs. T. went into a fit. It 
 is true, by the blessing of Providence, it was only the House- 
 maid letting her pail fall to screech at a bat ; but what is very dis- 
 agreeable, the Trotters are old friends, and have declined to set 
 another foot within our doors. As for servants, it is next to 
 impossible to keep one about me j and as Your Lordship's owix 
 
PATRONAGE. 447 
 
 Lady will confirm, there is notliing more unpleasant to a Mistress 
 of a House than to be continually changing. But nine out of 
 ten prefer giving warning, to attending to so many punctiliums 
 as are laid down; and those that are willing to stay, break 
 through so many of the rules, that I am obliged to discharge 
 them, to prevent Mr. D. being ruffled by doing it himself. Be- 
 sides it adds considerably to servants' work, to have chimneys 
 swept so often as once a week, — and moreover, Mr. D. insists 
 on keeping all flints and steels, and tinder, and matches, in his 
 own bed-room, so that the housemaid has to go to him every 
 morning for her lights. He is just as particular about extin- 
 guishing at night ; and I lost the best cook I ever had, through 
 her sitting up in her bed-room to mend her stays, though she 
 might have known Mr. D. would come in to put her out — all of 
 which is extremely unpleasant, and to me in particular. 
 
 These, Your Lordship, are serious domestic evils ; and 1 wish 
 I could say they were confined to the house. But the workmen 
 at the Mills are so ungrateful as to hate my husband for the 
 over care he obliges them to take of their own lives ; and make 
 no secret of wanting his removal, by trying to torment him into 
 resignation. Not a day passes without squabbles about smoking, 
 for Mr. D. is apt to sniff tobacco, and insists on searching 
 pockets for pipes, which the labourers one and all decline ; and 
 besides scuffles, there have been several pay otFs on the spot. 
 The consequence is ill will and bad blood to their superior, 
 and it is become a standing practical joke to play upon the 
 family feelings and fears. I have twice sufiered all the disagree* 
 ables of escaping from nothing at all in my night dress, exposed 
 to rheumatism, and the natives of a low neighbourhood ; indeed 
 only last Sunday the fire bell was rung by nobody, and no wind 
 at all to speak of. Another party at enmity is Doctor Worral 
 and all his establishment ; because Mr. D. felt it his public duty 
 to have the Doctor up before a Justice, for allowing his Young 
 
448 
 
 PATRONAGE. 
 
 Grentlemen to send up fire-balloons. We had one day of dreadful 
 excitement on my husband's part, through a wicked little wretch 
 of a pupil flashing the sunshine into the Mill with a bit of look- 
 ing-glass ; and of course we are indebted for the Swing letters 
 we receive to the same juvenile quarters. To make bad worse, 
 Mr. D. takes them all for Gospel, and the extra watchings, and 
 
 PBE88UE1 FSOH WITHOUT. 
 
 patrollings, and precautions, after getting a threatening notice, 
 are enough to wear out all our heai-ts. As regards the School, 
 I am ready to agree that it is too near the Works ; and to tell 
 the truth, I shake in my shoes as much as Mr. D., every fifth of 
 November, at each squib and cracker that goes off. On the same 
 score our own sons are an everlasting misery to us when they 
 are at home ; which they seldom are, poor fellows, on that ac« 
 count. But if there is one thing above a *her that boys delight 
 
PATRONAGE. 449 
 
 to play with, it is gunpowder ; and being at the very fountain- 
 head, Your Lordship may conceive the constant care it is to pre- 
 vent their getting at it, and what is worse, not always crowned 
 with success. Indeed even more innocent playthings are obliged 
 to be guarded against ; for as their father says, " a little brat, 
 just breeched, may strike light enough to blow up a whole neigh- 
 bourhood, through only spinning a peg-tog in a paved yard.'* 
 
 Such, your Lordship, is our present melancholy state. I have 
 not dwelt, as I might do, on expenses, such as the dresses that 
 are spoiled in the coal-cellar ; the paying months' wages instead 
 of warnings ; nor the trays upon trays of glass and china that 
 are chucked down, as the way the servants always empty their 
 hands when making their escapes from my husband's false 
 alarms. Sometimes it's a chair faHs overhead; or the wind 
 slams the back door ; or a smell of burnt wood from the kitchen ; 
 or the ironing-blanket; or fat catched; or fall of soot; or a 
 candle-snuff ; or a smoky coal ; or, as I have known before now, 
 only the smell of the drains ; with a hundred other little things 
 that will spring up in families, take what care you will. I ought 
 not to forget thunder-storms, which are another source of 
 trouble ; for, besides seeing a dozen fanciful flashes for one real 
 one, it is the misfortune of Mr. D. not to put faith in conductors, 
 or, to use his own words, " in Franklin, philosophy, and fiddle- 
 sticks, — and a birch rod as likely to frighten away lightning as 
 an iron one." In the meantime, through the constant frights 
 and flurries, I begin to find my own nerves infected by bad 
 example, and getting into startlish habits; and my daughter 
 Lucy, who was always delicate, seems actually going into a poor 
 low way. Agreeable society might do much to enliven our 
 spirits ; but my husband is become very shy of visitors, ever 
 since Captain Gower was so inconsiderate as to walk in, one 
 foggy night, with a lighted cigar in his mouth. In fact he quite 
 
 sets his face against the male sex : for, if they do not smoke 
 VOL. II. 29 
 
450 
 
 PATKONAGE. 
 
 cigars, he says, and carry lucifers, they strut on their iron heels 
 and flourish about with iron-pointed walking-sticks and um- 
 brellas. All which, Your Lordship, is extremely hard en my- 
 self and daughters, who, like all young people, are fond of a little 
 gaiety ; but the very utmost they are allowed, is a single quad- 
 rille party at Christmas, and then they are all obliged to dance 
 in list shoes. 
 
 
 -OFF IN ACCOUKT, 
 
 I humbly trust to Your Loi'dship's liberality, and goodness of 
 heart, to view the particulars of the above melancholy statement 
 with attentive consideration. As it may occur to inquire how 
 we have suffered so* long without complaining, I beg to inform 
 Your Lordship, that, being such a time of profound peace, we 
 Live lived on from year to year in the hope that no more ammu- 
 nition would be required ; and consequently the place would be- 
 
PATRONAGE. 451 
 
 come a comfortable sinecure. But it appears that Spain and 
 Portugal, and other countries, have gone to war on condition of 
 being supplied with gunpowder; and accordingly, to our bitter dis- 
 appointment, the works are as vigorous as ever. Your Lordship 
 will admit the hardship of such a cruel position to a man of Mr. D.'s 
 very peculiar constitution ; and I do hope and trust will also re- 
 gard his interests with a favourable eye, in consideration of his 
 long-standing claims upon the country. What his friends most 
 desire for him is, some official situation, — of course with a 
 sufficient income to support his consequence, and a numerous 
 family, — but without any business attached to it, or only as 
 much as might help to amuse his mind for one or two hours in 
 the day. Such a removal, considering my husband's unfitness 
 for anything else, could occasion no sort of injury to the public 
 service ; particulai'ly as his vacancy would be so easy to fill up. 
 There are hundreds and thousands of land and sea officers on 
 half pay, who have been used to popping, and banging, and 
 blowing up rockets and bomb-shells, all their lives ; and would, 
 therefore, not object to the Powder Mills; especially as the 
 salary is handsome, with a rent-free house and garden, coal and 
 candles, and all the other little perquisites that belong to public 
 posts. As regards ourselves on the contrary, any interest is 
 preferable to the gunpowder interest ; and I take upon myself 
 to say, that Mr. D. would be most proud and happy to receive 
 any favour from Your Lordship's administration; as well as 
 answering for his pursuing any line of political principles, con- 
 servative or unconservative, that might be chalked out. Any 
 such act of patronage would command the eternal gratitude of 
 Mr. D., self, and family ; and, repeating a thousand apologies 
 for thus addressing, I beg leave to remain 
 
 Y^our Lordship's most humble, obedient, and devoted servant, 
 
 Lucy Emily Dexter. 
 29-2 
 
452 ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 
 
 P.S. — Since writing the above, I am sorry to inform your 
 Lordship, that wc have had another litfle blow, and Mr. D.'s 
 state is indescribable. He is more shaken than ever, and par- 
 ticularly through going all down the stairs in three jumps. He 
 was sitting reading at the time, and, as he thinks, in his spec- 
 tacles ; but as they are not to be found, he is possessed that 
 they have been driven into his head. 
 
 LOBD, HOW YOU MADE MB JUMP. 
 
 ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 
 
 " Charlatan is rising in public favour, and has many backers who book 
 him to win." — Sporting Intelligence. 
 
 Of all the signs of the times — considering them literally as 
 si(/?is, and the public literally as " a public " — there are none 
 more remarkable than the Hahnemann's Head, — the Crown and 
 Compasses, devoted to Gall and Spurzheim's entire, — and the 
 Cock and Bull, that hangs out at the House of Call for Animal 
 Magnetizers. The last concern, especially — a daring, glaring, 
 flaring, gin-palaee-like establishment — is a moral phenomenon. 
 
ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 453 
 
 That a tap dispensing a raw, heady, very unrectified article, 
 should obtain any custom whatever, in a reputed genteel and 
 well-lighted neigbourhood, seems quite impossible ; yet such is 
 the incomprehensible fact ; — respectable parties, scientific men, 
 and even physicians, in good practice in all other respects, have 
 notoriously frequented the bar, from which they have issued 
 
 again, walking all sorts of ways at onee, or more frequently 
 falling asleep on the steps, but still talking such "rambling 
 skimble-skamble stuff " as would naturally be suggested by the 
 incoherent visions of a drunken man. Such exhibitions, how- 
 ever, are comparatively rare in London to their occurrence in 
 Paris, which city has always taken the lead of our own 
 capital in matters of novelty. It is asserted by a good 
 authority, that at a French concern, in the same line, no 
 
454 
 
 ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 
 
 less than seventy-eight " medical men, and sixty-three other 
 very intelligent individuals," became thoroughly muzzy and 
 mystified, and so completely lost all " clairvoyance " of 
 their own, that they applied to an individual to read 
 a book and a letter to them ; to tell them the hour on their own 
 watches; to mention the pips on the cards; and by way of 
 putting the state of their " intuitive foresight " beyond question, 
 they actually appealed to the iac^sight of a man who was sound 
 asleep ! A bout on so large a scale has not been attempted, 
 
 WAS TOLD I SHOULD FIND HEBE SOME TRAP BOCKS 1 
 
 hitherto, in the English metropolis ; but as all fashions trans- 
 planted from Paris flourish vigorously in our soil, it is not im- 
 probable that we may yet see a Meeting of the College of Physi- 
 
ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 455 
 
 cians rendered very how-come-you-so indeed by an excess of 
 Mesmer's "particular." The influence of such an example 
 could not fail to have a powerful influence on all classes ; and a 
 pernicious narcotic would come into general use ; the notorious 
 effect of which is to undermine the reason of its votaries, and rob 
 them of their common senses. To avert such a national evil, 
 surely demands the timely efforts of our philanthropists ; and 
 above all, of those persons who have set their faces against the 
 Old Tom — not of Lincoln, but of London — and in their zeal for 
 the public sobriety, aim at even converting the brewers' kilder- 
 kins into pumpkins. — Seriously, might not the Temperance 
 Societies extend the sphere of their operations by a whole hemi- 
 sphere, and perhaps with equal advantage to mankind, by attack- 
 ing mental dram-drinking, as well as the bodily tippling of 
 ardent spirits? The bewildered rollings, reelings, and idiotic 
 effusions of mere animal drunkenness can hardly be more de- 
 grading to rational human beings, than the crazy toddlings and 
 twaddlings of a bemused mind, whether only maudlin with infi- 
 nitesimal doses of quackery, or rampant to mad staggers with the 
 luskions compounds and Devil's Elixirs of the Mesmerian Distil- 
 lery. Take the wildest freaks of the most fuddled, muddled, 
 bepuddled soaker, — such as "trying to light his pipe at a 
 pump," — attempting to wind up a plug with his watch-key, — 
 or requesting, from a damp bed in the gutter, to be tucked in, — 
 and are they a bit, or a whit, or a jot, or a what-not, more ab- 
 surd, more extravagant, or more indicative of imbecility of 
 reason, than the vagary of a somnambulist, gravely going through 
 the back-gammon of reading Back's Journal, or a back-number 
 of the Retrospective Eeview, through the back of his head ? 
 
 Tn case the Great Water Companies alluded to should think 
 proper to adopt the foregoing suggestions, the following genuine 
 letters are placed very much at their service, as materials to be 
 worked up into Tracts : — 
 
456 ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 
 
 (Copy.) 
 
 To Mr. Robert Holland, Linen-Draper, No. 194, Tottenham 
 
 Court Roady London. 
 Dear Bob, 
 
 Hoping you are well, and well-doing, we have heard such 
 wonderful accounts in our parts lately about animal magnetizing, 
 without any clear notion what it is. 
 
 My own notion is, it must be something new of my Lord 
 Spenser's— Althorp as was — who was always very curious about 
 his beasts. 
 
 Others do say the Duke of Bedford, with a fresh cattle show 
 — nobody knows. 
 
 Now you are just at the fountain-head to learn, and as most 
 of us down here is more or less engaged in breeding stock, it 
 would be a main thing to be put up to the secret at its first start. 
 
 ■WBINOIKG OUT THE OLD TEAK. 
 
 Also whether it is expensive to buy — and who found it out — 
 and if likely to do away with oilcake and mangel-wurzel, and 
 such like particulars. 
 
 Praise be blest, we are all stout and hearty, except your poor 
 aunt, who died three year ago. Which is all the news at present 
 from, Dear Bob, 
 
 Your loving Uncle, 
 
 Reuben Oxenham. 
 
ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 
 
 457 
 
 (Copy.) 
 
 To Mr, Reuben Oxen ham, Grazier ^ Grasslands, near 
 
 Lincolns/iire. 
 Dear Uncle, 
 
 I was agreeably surprised by your breaking silence ; for I had 
 made up my mind you was a distrest farmer gone off swan hop- 
 ping (excuse the joke) to Swan River, or to get settled among 
 the Dutch boars and lions at the Cape of Good Hope. Thank 
 
 SWAN-HOPPIIfG. 
 
 heaven such is not the case ; though damped with my dear aunt's 
 going off. I little thought, poor soul ! the why and wherefore 
 my goose three Christraases ago was the last ! But we must all 
 be cut off some day or other, which is a religious consolation for 
 the remnants that are left behind. 
 
458 ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 
 
 T have examined, as you desired, a sample of animal magnet- 
 ism ; which turns out to be the reverse of every thing you ex- 
 pect. Indeed such might have been anticipated by a little fore- 
 thought on the subject. There is nothing to describe about 
 animals to such as you, that deal in them of all qualities ; but 
 it is quite likely that you have forgot all about magnets, since 
 the days of your youth. But perhaps, when they are named to 
 you, your memory may seiTC to recollect little bone boxes, at 
 sixpence a piece, with a blackamoor's head atop, and a little bar 
 of philosopher's steel inside, that points out the north, and sets 
 a needle dancing like mad. It likewise picks up emery, and 
 sticks fast to the blade of a knife. But that is all its powers 
 are competent to — and of course on too small a scale to have 
 any dancing, or lifting, or sticking effect on objects so big as 
 bullocks, or even a pig, or a sheep. Accordingly, you will not 
 be surprised to hear that animal magnetism has nothing at all 
 to do with beasts or load-stones either, but is all of a piece 
 with juggling, quacksalving, and mountebanking, such as uni.- 
 versal physic, spitting Coventry ribbons, tumbling, and postur- 
 ing, thimble-rig, and the like fabrics. One of the principal 
 tricks is sending people off to sleep against their wills ; not so 
 new a trick though, but it has been heard of years and years 
 ago at Bow Street ; and easy enough to perform any day, with 
 a pint of porter, — provided one was rogue enough to want to 
 hocus-pocus the money out of other people's pockets into one's 
 own. To come to the point, there's an outlandish Count set up 
 in it at the west end ; and no doubt will realise a fortune. He 
 has his carriage-people for customers, as well as Howel and 
 James ; indeed, I have heard of the Somebodies as well as No- 
 bodies running after common fortune-tellers' tales, and not too 
 high to be above going up into their back garrets. Some say 
 he is a Prenchman, others say a German; but the last for 
 choice, for he smokes enough to drive all the rats out of the 
 
ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 459 
 
 neighbourhood. Besides, the Germans, I'm told, will believe 
 anything, provided it's impossible ; which is some excuse for 
 their wanting other people to give the same long credits ; and 
 besides, Germans as well as French, and indeed all other 
 foreigners, for that matter, though ever such honest people in 
 the main ; yet when they do turn rogues at English expense, 
 they invariably go more than the whole hog, namely, boar, sow, 
 sucking pigs and all. So I determined to go wide awake, and 
 \o keep my eyes open, too, by not taking bit or sup in the house, 
 S. offered ever so politely. It is surely not showing disrespect 
 to hospitality, to object to hocussed victuals and drinks. I 
 might have spared my fears, however; for there was nothing 
 provided but the ledgerdemain, &c., and that was charged a 
 guinea for, which you can repay at convenience. I preferred to 
 see somebody else conjured before me ; so another patient was 
 taken first. She was a fine strapping young woman enough, 
 dressed half and half between a fine lady and a servantraaid; 
 but as sly-looking a baggage as you could select from an assort- 
 ment of gypseys ; and unless her face belied her, quite capable 
 of scratching a Cock Lane ghost. Indeed something came 
 across me that I had seen her before; and if memory don't de- 
 ceive, it was at some private theatricals contrary to law. For 
 certain she could keep her countenance ; for if the outlandish 
 figure of a doctor, with his queer faces, had postured, and pawed, 
 and poked towards me, with his fingers, for all the world like 
 the old game of ** My grandmother sends you a staff, and you're 
 neither to smile nor to laugh," as he did to her, I should have 
 bursted, to a dead certainty ; instead of going off, as she did, 
 into an easy sleep. As soon as she was sound, the Count turned 
 round to me and the company with his broken English — 
 " Ladies and gentlemens," says he, " look here at dis yoong 
 maidens, Mizz Chariot Ann Elizabet Martin " — for that is his 
 way of talking. " Wid my magnetismuses I tro her into von 
 
460 ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 
 
 state of sorabamboozleism " — or something to that effect. " Mizz 
 Chariot Ann, dou art a slip." "As fast as a church, Mister 
 Count,'* says she, talking and hearing as easy as broad awake. 
 " Perry goot," says he. " Now I take dis boke, — Missis Glasse 
 Cokery, — and I shall make de maidens read som little of him 
 wid her back. Dere he is bytween her sholders. Mizz Chariot 
 Ann, what you see now mit your eyes turned de wrong way for 
 to look ? " " Why, then," says she, " Mr. Count, I see quite 
 plain a T, and an 0. Then comes R, and 0, and S, and T — 
 and the next word is H, and A, and I, and R." "Ferry goot," 
 tries the Count over again. ** Dat is to rost de hare. Ladies 
 and gentlemens, you all here? As Gott is my sliudge, so 
 is here in de boke. Now den, Mizz Chariot Ann, vons 
 more. Vot you taste in your mouse ? " " Why, then. 
 Master," says Charlotte Ann, "as sure as fate, I taste 
 sweet herbs chopped up small ! " " Ferry goot indeed ! — bot 
 what mor by sides de sweet herrubs ? " " Why," says she, 
 '*it's a relish of salt, and pepper, and mace, — and, let 
 me see — there's a flavour of currant jelly." " Besser and 
 besser ! " cries the Count. " Ladies and gentlemens,. are not 
 dese voonderfools ? You shall see every wart of it in de print. 
 Mizz Chariot Ann, vot you feel now ? " " Lawk a mercy. 
 Mister Count," says she, " there's a sort of stuffy feel, so there 
 is, in my inside ! " " Yaw ! like van fool belly ! Ferry goot ! 
 Now you feel vot?" "Feel! Mister Count?" says she — 
 " why I don't feel nothing at all — the stuffiness is gone clean 
 away ! " " Yaw, my shild ! '* says he. " Dat is by cause I 
 take avay de cokery boke from your two sholders. Ladies and 
 gentlemens, dese is grand powers of magnetismus ! Ach himmel I 
 As Hamlet say, dere is more in our philosofies dan dere is in 
 de heaven or de earth ! Our mutter Nature is so fond to hide 
 her face ! Bot von adept, so as me, can lift up a whale ! '* 
 ' . To shorten a long story, the sombamboosleism lasted for two 
 
ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 
 
 461 
 
 hours ; while Miss Chariot Ann told fortunes in her sleep, and 
 named people's inward complaints, and prescribed for them with 
 her eyes shut. Mine was dropsy ; and I was to take antimoni- 
 ous wine three times a-day, to throw the water off my stomach. 
 So, if you like to ask your apothecary, or the parish doctor, they 
 will be able to tell you whether it looks like proper practice oi 
 the reverse. For my own part, I mean to suspend myself till I 
 feel more symptoms ; and in the meantime I have experimented 
 
 8LBBPIN& DKATJGHT8, 
 
 on myself so far as to try behind my back with the Ready 
 Reckoner. Bwt I could not even see the book, much less make 
 out a figure. To be sure I was broad awake, but it stands to 
 reason that the circumstance only gave the better chance in its 
 favour — at least it has always been reckoned so with a book held 
 the proper natural way. I was the more particular with the 
 
462 ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 
 
 book-work, because it looked like the master-key to let you into 
 the whole house : — for no doubt, if you can do that trick, you 
 can do all the rest, and have a hare dressed between your shoul- 
 ders as easily as a blister. But to my mind it is all sham Abra- 
 ham ; or the little boys that go every day with whole satchels full 
 of books at their backs would know rather more about them than 
 they do generally at leaving off school. 
 
 And now. Uncle, I have explained to you all about Animal 
 Magnetism ; and, says you, there are many things that come 
 by names they have no right to, without going to Scotland, 
 where you know they call a pitcher a pig. So it is 
 very lucky on the whole, that you wrote to me, instead 
 of posting up to London on a fool's errand, — as did a 
 respectable Lancashire grazing gentleman, the other day, 
 in the newspapers, who was hoaxed all the way up to town, by 
 a false notion that Animal Magnifying, as he called it, was some 
 new, cheap, and quick way of fatting cattle. It will maybe turn 
 out quite as deceitful an article as to its other qualities ; and in 
 that case, if I had the luck to be a magistrate, I would cold pig 
 the sleeping partners witli Cold Bath Fields and send off the 
 active ones, to take a walk at a cart's tail, with something they 
 could feel, if they could not read it, on their backs and shoulders. 
 That's how I would measure out the law, if I was Lord Chief 
 Justice. In which sentiments I conclude, with love to yourself* 
 and all my cousins, if I have any living — with my best condo- j 
 lences for my poor late Aunt. As to business, I have only 
 broken twice as yet ; which is doing pretty well, considering the 
 hard times and the state of trade. Wishing you the like pros- 
 perity, with health, and every other blessing, I remain, dear 
 Uncle, 
 
 Your affectionate nephew, 
 
 Egbert Holland. 
 
ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 
 
 463 
 
 P.S. Since the foregoing, I have discussed the subject with 
 a neighbour, a Veterany Surgeon ; and he says it is all very well 
 for the old men and women Physicians, but won't go down with 
 the Horse Doctors. " However," says he, " if you are bent on 
 trying it, I will give you a receipt. Take a two-year old full 
 blood colt, half broke, or not broke at all — if vicious, so much 
 the better. Shoe him behind with a couple of stout horse-shoe 
 loadstones, and then stand convenient, and take a tug or two at 
 his tail, till you feel him begin to operate. That's Animal Mag- 
 netism, and will do you quite as much good or harm as the other 
 new kick, and save vou all the fees besides. 
 
 SOMNAMBULISM. 
 
464 
 
 THE FORLOKN SHEPHERD'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 A AtAlDKW ASSl^jr, 
 
 THE rOELORN SHEPHERD'S COMPLAINT, 
 
 AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, FROM SIDNEY. 
 
 It may be necessary to bespeak the indulgent consideration 
 of the reader, for the appearance of the following Curiosity in 
 such a work. The truth is, the pages of the Comic Annual 
 naturally present to me the most obvious means of making the 
 Poem known ; besides, as it were, offering personal security for 
 my own belief in its authenticity. And, considering my literary 
 credit as so pledged, I do not hesitate to affirm that I think the 
 effusion in question may confidently be referred to Sidney : and 
 
THE FORLORN SHEPHERD'S COMPLAINT. 465 
 
 even — on the internal evidence of its pastoral character — to tlie 
 Arcadia. The verses have never till now appeared in print. 
 TJie lover of Old English Poetry would vainly hunt for it in any 
 edition extant of the works of Sir Philip ; and, probably, the 
 family records and remains at Penshurst might be searched to as 
 little pui-pose for a copy in MS. From the extreme quaintness. 
 of the original, which would have required the help of a glossary 
 to render it generally intelligible, I have thought it advisable to 
 translate many of the phrases into more current language ; but 
 scrupulously preserving the sense of the text. Enough of the 
 peculiar style, however, still remains, to aid in forming a judg- 
 ment of the author's aera. As for the apparent incongruity of 
 the double vocation ascribed to tlie tuneful Swain in the Poem, 
 besides abundant classical evidence that the Corydons of ancient 
 times were often, also, heroes, or wamors, or adventurers, we 
 have the positive contemporary testimony of modern travellers, 
 that in those very pastures where the scene is laid, it is at this 
 day the practice to entrust the charge of the flocks to per- 
 sonages who have formerly been engaged in the same perilous 
 career as the " Eorlora Shepherd." His lament, it will be seen, 
 is full of regrets and stealing tears for the stirring times of Aukl 
 Lang Syne. 
 
 THE FORLORN SHEPHERD'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 " Veil ! Here I am — no Matter how it suits, 
 A-keeping Company with them dumb Brutes, 
 Old Park vos no bad Judge — confound his vig ! 
 Of vot vood break the Sperrit of a Prig ! 
 
 " The like of Me, to come to New Sow Wales 
 To go a-tagging arter Vethers' Tails 
 And valk in Herbage as delights the Plock, 
 But stinks of Sweet Herbs vorser nor the Dock \ 
 VOL. II. 30 
 
4m THE FORLORN SHEPHERD'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 "To go to set this solitary Job 
 To Von whose Vork vos alvay in a Mob ! 
 It's out of ail our Lines, for sure I am 
 Jack Shepherd even never kep a Lamb ! 
 
 A PUBLIC DINWBH. 
 
 *• I am't ashamed to say I sit and veep 
 To think of Seven Year of keepin Sheep, 
 The spooniest Beasts in Nater, all to Sticks, 
 And not a Votch to take for all their Ticks ! 
 
 " If I'd fore-seed how Transports vould turn out 
 To only Baa ! and Botanize about, 
 I'd quite as leaf have had tlie t'other Pull, 
 And come to Cotton as to all this Vool ! 
 
 ** Von only happy moment I have had 
 Since here I come to be a Farmer's Cad, 
 And then I cotch'd a vild Beast in a Snooze, 
 And pick'd her Pouch of three young Kangaroos! 
 
 " Vot chance have I to go to Race or Mill ? 
 Or show a sneaking Kindness for a Till ; 
 And as for Vashings, on a hedge to dry, 
 I'd put the Natives' Linen in ray Eye 1 
 
THE FORLORN SHEPHERD'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 " If this wliole Lot of Mutton I could scrag, 
 And find a Fence to turn it into S\Vag, 
 I'd give it all in Lonnon Streets to stand, 
 And if I had my pick, I'd say the Strand ! 
 
 " Eut ven I goes, as maybe vonce I shall, . 
 'To my old crib to meet with Jack, and Sal, 
 I've been so gallows honest in this Place, 
 I shan't not like to show my sheepish Face. 
 
 "It's wery hard for nothing but a Box 
 "Of Irish Blackguard to be keepin' Flocks, 
 'Mong naked Blacks, sich Savages to hus. 
 They've nayther got a Pocket nor a Pus. 
 
 *' But Folks may tell their Troubles till they're sick- 
 To dumb brute Beasts, — and so I'll cut my Stick ! 
 And vot's the Use a Feller's Eyes to pipe 
 Tere von can't borrow any Gemman's Vipe ? " 
 
 467 
 
 30—! 
 
 OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF MIND. 
 
4C3 ANACEEONTIC. 
 
 ANACREONTIC. 
 
 BY A FOOTMAN. 
 
 It's wery well to talk in praise 
 Of Tea and Water-drinking ways. 
 
 In proper time and place ; 
 Of soler draughts, so clear and cool, 
 Dipp'd out of a transparent pool 
 
 Keflecting heaven's face. 
 
 Of babbling brooks, and purling rills. 
 And streams as gushes from the hills, 
 
 It's wery well to talk ; — 
 But what becomes of all sicli schemes, 
 With ponds of ice, and running streams,. 
 
 As doesn't even walk ? 
 When Winter comes with piercing cold* 
 And all the rivers, new or old. 
 
 Is frozen far and wide ; 
 And limpid springs is solid stuff, 
 And crystal pools is hard enough 
 
 To skate upon and slide ; — 
 
 What then are thirsty men to do. 
 But drink of ale, and porter too. 
 
 Champagne as makes a fizz ; 
 Port, sheiTy, or the Rhenish sort. 
 And p'rhaps a drop of summut short— 
 
 The water-pipes is friz ! 
 
 li-15.68D-l-83. 
 
 ^ 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
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 JUL 2 5 1963 
 
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