Digitizec 1 by the Internet Archive in ^ui4 https://archive.org/details/proseverse01hood PAET FIEST. PROSE AND VERSE. NEW YORK: GEO. P. PUTNAM & CO., 10 PARK PLACE. M . DCCC . LIII. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by WILEY & PUTNAM, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST PART. PAOB. Editor's Preface . vii I. Preface to Hood's Own. 1839 . . 1 BE. The Pugsley Papers ... . 7 III. The Dream of Eugene Aram . 21 IV. Black, White and Brown . . 28 V. I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER . . , 34 VI. The Portrait; being an apology for not making AN ATTEMPT ON MY OWN LIFE ... 36 VII. Literary Reminiscences.— Introductory. 1839 41 VIII. My Apology .... .49 IX. Literary Reminiscences, no. i. 51 X. " " no. ii. 59 XI. " " no. in. 64 XII. « « no. iv. 68 XIII. The Lost Heir . 101 XIV An Undertaker . 106 XV, Miss Killmansegg and her Precious Leg 109 HER PEDIGREE ... it). HER BIRTH . . . . Ill HER CHRISTENING 116 HER CHILDHOOD . 120 HER EDUCATION . 122 HER ACCIDENT ' . 126 HER PRECIOUS LBS „ 130 CONTENTS. PAGE HI& FAME . .... 133 UKB FIRST STEP . ...... 135 SCR FANCY BALL 137 HER DREAM 145 HSR COURTSHIP ... . . 150 HKR MARRIAQE . ..... 154 HER HONEYMOON . 162 HER MISERY , ..... ICS HER LAST WILL ■ • • . 173 HER DEATH i ....... . 175 HER MORAL ...... . 179 XVI. Fair Inks 180 XVII. Ballad . ....... 182 XVIII. Ruth . .... 183 XIX. Autumn . 184 XX. Song 185 XXI. Ode to Melancholy • 186 CONTENTS OF THE SECOND PART. PA«B- XXII. The Great Conflagration ..... 1 XXIII. A Tale of, a Trumpet .... 32 XXIV. Boz in America 57 XXV. Copyright and Copywrong, Letter i. . 73 XXVI. Letter ii. . . 83 XXVII. Letter hi. . . 92 XXVIII. Letter iv. . . 103 XXIX. Letter v. . . 113 XXX. Prospectus to Hood's Magazine . . . 123 XXXI. The Haunted House 126 XXXII. Life in the Sick Room 133 XXXIII. An Autograph .149 XXXIV Domestic Mesmerism 153 XXXV. The Elm Tree J 67 XXXVI. Lay of the Laborer 183 XXXVII. The Bridge of Sighs 202 XXXVIII. The Lady's Dream ...... 206 XXXIX. Song of the Shirt ...... 210 EDITOR'S PREFACE. It is designed to embrace in the present collection of the writings of Thomas Hood, a miscellany which shall include his more serious and earnest writings — those which were written most directly from the heart, which reflect most faithfully his life and opinions, which may be emphatically called (as he himself gave name to a book which has con- tributed largely to these pages) Hood's Own, and not the bookseller's own, the magazine's own, or the newspaper's own. If a pension had been given to Hood earlier in his life, it would have probably added much to his fame. He would have had the opportunity of writing only when his better genius prompted him ; he would not have been com- pelled for ever to glean a scanty crop from the surface ; he might oftener with time and labor have penetrated to the ore beneath. He might have been less of a Punster, but he would have been more of a Wit. The Poet — the higher title — might have been better known than the prose writer. With the exception of a few of his later poems — the Bridge of Sighs, the Song of a Shirt, and his earlier Eu- gene Aram — the writings of Hood which have been circu- lated in America have been his puns and jests, comic verses viii PREFACE. from his annuals, farcical letters of servants and others, after the manner of Winifred Jenkins — clever extrava- gances, seldom deficient in literary merit, but which oftener conceal the man from the reader than lead the latter to suspect the tender heart, the delicate fancy, hidden be- neath. There are whole volumes of Hood's writings which ap- pear mere whimsicality and grotesqueness ; there are pages which indicate the genius of the man, and will be worth more to posterity than the volumes. Frequently since his recent death Hood has been called a great author, a phrase used not inconsiderately or in vain. He will take his place among the English classics. How he was great is a ques- tion which will not be fully answered till his Life, his Cor- respondence, his Complete Writings — his Poetical works especially — have been given to the world. Many good men and great men among his friends will add their tribute of recollections ; and the next generation will see the man, twin brother in heart and mind to Elia whom he loved. That this volume, undertaken in a spirit of reverence for the author, in admiration of his genius, with the desire that he should be wisely known, will be cordially received, cannot be doubt- ed ; but it is sent forth accompanied by a sigh of regret. The task of the editor and critic seems an impertinence, a piece of bitter hypocrisy, while the rights of the author (in his representatives) to the profits of his own labor are de- nied. Hood died poor, and his widow was anticipating the small pittance of her next quarter's government pension to pay the undertaker while the American public was laugh- ing over his latest jest. No man with a soul capable of enjoying the honest, heartfelt appeals of this truly humorous writer can deny the injustice of a system by which Hood PREFACE. was deprived of the least participation in the profits of his own works in America. In the second part of this Miscel- lany will be found his own views of this matter, simply, manfully stated, as it is incumbent upon every man to as- sert, in whatever case may come under his experience or observation, the laws of Justice. Self-respect, self-inte- rest no less than a sense of justice, require the recognition, on our statute book, of the rights of the foreign author. The present system has reached that point in the develop- ment of evil where a wrong being committed, every one suffers, no one is benefited. It is the nature of wrong to end in precisely this predicament. The foreign author con- fessedly is injured ; the American author (where the sys- tem allows such a person to exist at all) is at a disadvan- tage at every turn ; the bookselling interest is deprived of that security of property, based upon right, which is essen- tial to give honor and dignity to trade ; and the public are not the gainers. In what respect is the nation better or wiser for the floods of reprints of every kind and quality which have been poured over the land ? In every respect the people are worse for this deluge — less beneficial, more destructive than the natural rain. In the physical world there are laws, which, if violated, would destroy the har- vest. If it were all rain or all sunshine, the crops would cease. A similar law governs our intellectual and moral well-being. Property is a blessing, but it is only so when acquired righteously and honestly. Riches are valuable by the stamp which virtue and privation set upon them. The grand law of morality which protects the rights of the author, and distributes his works to the world in ac- cordance with those rights, will be found to be the just measure by which his writings can be received with any PREFACE. advantage. A complicated system of checks and counter- checks — all of them necessary — depends upon the recogni- tion of that primary right. The due responsibility of the author, the force of his character depend upon it. A just competition, the sacred right to be " free and equal " be- tween the native and the foreign author, depend upon it. A proper Nationality in our case depends upon it. Follow out the system where you will, it will be found here as elsewhere, that only the just and right are profitable. Jtri/sr 1, 1845. PROSE AND VERSE. PREFACE TO HOOD'S OWN. BEING AN INAUGURAL DISCOURSE ON A CERTAIN SYSTEM OF PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. Courteous Reader ! Presuming that you have known something of the Comic Annual from its Child-Hood, when it was first put into half binding and began to run alone, I make bold to consider you as an old friend of the family, and shall accordingly treat you with all the freedom and confidence that pertain to such ripe connexions. How many years is it, think you, "since we were firsl acquent V "By the deep nineV sings out the old bald Count Fathom with the lead-line : no great lapse in the world's chronology, but a space of infinite importance in individual history. For in- stance, it has wrought a serious change on the body, if not on the mind, of your very humble servant ; — it is not, however, to be- speak your sympathy, or to indulge in what Lord Byron calls " the gloomy vanity of drawing from self," that I allude to my personal experience. The Scot and lot character of the dis- pensation forbids me to think that the world in general can be particularly interested in the state of my Household Sufferage, or that the public ear will be as open to my Maladies as to my Melodies. The simple truth is, that, being a wiser but not sad- der man, I propose to admit you to my Private View of a sys- 2 a PROSE AND VERSE. tern of Practical Cheerful Philosophy, thanks to which, perchance, the cranium of your Humorist is still secure from such a lec- ture as was delivered over the skull of Poor Yorick. In the absence of a certain thin " blue-and-yellow " visage, and attenuated figure, — whose effigies may one day be affixed to the present work, — you will not be prepared to learn that some of the merriest effusions in the forthcoming numbers have been the relaxations of a gentleman literally enjoying bad health — the carnival, so to speak, of a personified Jour Maigre. The very fingers so aristocratically slender, that now hold the pen, hint plainly of the " ills that flesh is heir to :" — my coats have become great coats, my pantaloons are turned into trowsers, and by a worse bargain than Peter Schlemihl's, I seem to have retained my shadow and sold my substance. In short, as hap- pens to prematurely old port wine, I am of a bad color with very little body. But what then ? That emaciated hand still lends a hand to embody in words and sketches the creations or recre- ations of a Merry Fancy : those gaunt sides yet shake heartily as ever at the Grotesques and Arabesques and droll Picturesques that my Good Genius (a Pantagruelian Familiar) charitably conjures up to divert me from more sombre realities. It was the whim of a late pleasant Comedian, to suppose a set of spiteful imps sitting up aloft, to aggravate all his petty mundane annoy- ances ; whereas I prefer to believe in the ministry of kindlier Elves that " nod to me and do me courtesies. " Instead of scar- ing away these motes in the sunbeam, I earnestly invoke them, and bid them welcome ; for the tricksy spirits make friends with the animal spirits, and do not I, like a father romping with his own urchins, — do not I forget half my cares whilst partaking in their airy gambols ? Such sports are as wholesome for the mind as the other frolics for the body. For on our own treatment of that excellent Friend or terrible Enemy the Imagination, it de- pends whether we are to be scared and haunted by a Scratching Fanny, or tended by an affectionate Invisible Girl — like an un known Love, blessing us with " favors secret, sweet, and pre- cious," and fondly stealing us from this worky-day world to a 6unny sphere of her own. PREFACE TO HOOD'S OWN. 3 This is a novel version, Reader, of " Paradise and the Peri," but it is as true as it is new. How else could I have conveited a serious illness into a comic wellness — by what other agency could I have transported myself, as a Cockney would say, from Dullage to Grinnage ? It was far from a practical joke to be laid up in ordinary in a foreign land, under the care of Physi- cians quite as much abroad as myself with the case ; indeed the shades of the gloaming were stealing over my prospect ; but I resolved that, like the sun, so long as my day lasted, I would look on the bright side of everything. The raven croaked, but I persuaded myself that it was the nightingale : there was the smell of the mould, but I remembered that it nourished the vio- lets. However my body might cry craven, my mind luckily had no mind to give in. So, instead of mounting on the black long-tailed coach horse, she vaulted on her old Hobby that had capered in the Morris-Dance, and began to exhort from his back. To be sure, said she, matters look darkly enough ; but the more need for the lights. Allons ! Courage ! Things may take a turn, as the pig said on the spit. Never throw down your cards, but play out the game. The more certain to lose, the wiser to get all the play you can for your money. Come — give us a song ! chirp away like that best of cricket-players, the cricket himself. Be bowled out or caught out, but never throw down the bat. As to Health, it 's the weather of the body — it hails, it rains, it blows, it snows, at present, but it may clear up by-and-by. You cannot eat, you say, and you must not drink ; but laugh and make believe, like the Barber's wise brother at the Barme- cide's feast. Then, as to thinness, not to flatter, you look like a lath that has had a split with the carpenter and a fall out with the plaster ; but so much the better : remember how the smug- glers trim the sails of the lugger to escape the notice of the cutter. Turn your edge to the old enemy, and mayhap he won't see you ! Come — be alive ! You have no more right to slight your life than to neglect your wife — they are the two better halves that make a man of you ! Is not life your means of living ? so stick to thy business and thy business will stick to thee. Of course, continued my mind, I am quite disinterested in this advice — for I am aware of my own immortality — but for 4 PROSE AND VERSE. that very reason, take care of the mortal body, poor body, and give it as long a day as you can ! Now, my mind seeming to treat the matter very pleasantly as well as profitably, 1 followed her counsel, and instead of calling out for relief according to the fable, I kept along on my journey, with my bundle of sticks, — i. e. my arms and legs. Between ourselves it would have been " extremely inconvenient," as I once heard the opium-eater declare, to pay the debt of nature at that particular juncture ; nor do I quite know, to be candid, when it would altogether suit me to settle it, so, like other parties in narrow circumstances, I laughed, and gossipped, and played the agreeable with all my might, and as such pleasant behavkr sometimes obtains a respite from a human creditor, who knows but that it may prove successful with the Universal Mortgagee ? At all events, here I am, humming " Jack's Alive !" and my own dear skilful native physician gives me hopes of a longer lease than appeared from the foreign reading of the covenants. He declares indeed, that, anatomically, my heart is lower hung than usual — but what of that % The more need to keep it up ! So huzza ! my boys ! Comus and Momus for ever ! No Hera- clitus ! Nine times nine for Democritus ! And here goes my last bottle of Elixir at the heads of the Blue Devils — be they Prussian blue or indigo, powder-blue or ultramarine ! Gentle reader, how do you like this Laughing Philosophy ? The' joyous cheers you have just heard, come from a crazy vessel that has clawed, by miracle, off a lee-shore, and I, the skipper, am sitting down to my grog, and re-counting to you the tale of the pas* danger, with the manoeuvres that were used to escape the perilous Point. Or rather, consider me as the Director of a Life Assurance, pointing out to you a most beneficial policy, whereby you may eke out your natural term. And, firstly, take precious care of your precious health, — but how, as the house- wives say, to make it keep ? Why then, don't cure and smoke- dry it — or pickle it in everlasting acids — like the Germans. Don't bury it in a potato-pit, like the Irish. Don't preserve it in spirits, like the Barbadians. Don't salt it down, like the New. foundlanders. Don't pack it in ice, like Captain Back. Don't parboil it in Hot Baths. Don't bottle it, like gooseberries. Don't PREFACE TO HOOD'S OWN. 5 pot it — and don't hang it. A rope is a bad Cordon Sanitaire. Above all, don't despond about it. Let not anxiety " have thee on the hyp." Consider your health as your best friend, and think as well of it, in spite of all its foibles, as you can. For instance, never dream, though you may have a " clever hack," of galloping consumption, or indulge in the Meltonian belief, that you are going the pace. Never fancy every time you cough, that you are going to coughypot. Hold up, as the shooter says, over the heaviest ground. Despondency in a nice case is the over-weight that may make you kick the beam and the bucket both at once. In short, as with other cases, never meet trouble half-way, but let him have the whole walk for his pains ; though it should be a Scotch mile and a bittock. I have even known him to give up his visit in sight of the house. Besides, the best fence against care is a ha ! ha ! — wherefore take care to have one all round you wherever you can. Let your " lungs crow like Chanticleer," and as like a Game cock as possible. It expands the chest, enlarges the heart, quickens the circula- tion, and " like a trumpet makes the spirits dance." A fico then for the Chesterfieldian canon, that laughter is an ungenteel emotion. Smiles are tolerated by the very pinks of politeness ; and a laugh is but the full-blown flower of which a smile is the bud. It is a sort of vocal music — a glee in which everybody can take a part : — and " he who hath not laughter in his soul, let no such man be trusted." Indeed, there are two classes of Querists particularly to be shunned ; thus when you hear a Cui Bono ? be sure to leave the room ; but if it be Quid Rides ? make a point to quit the house, and forget to take its number. None but your dull dogs would give tongue in such a style ; — for, as Nimrod says in his " Hunt after Happiness," " A single hurst with Mirth is worth a whole season of full cries with Melancholy." Such, dear reader, is the cheerful Philosophy which I practise as well as preach. It teaches to " make a sunshine in a shady place," to render the mind independent of external foul weather, by compelling it, as old Absolute says, to get a sun and moon of its own. As the system has worked so well in my own case, it is a duty to recommend it to others : and like certain practi- 6 PROSE AND VERSE. doners, who not only prescribe but dispense their own medicines, I have prepared a regular course of light reading, whereof I now present the first packet, in the humble hope that your dull hours may be amused, and your cares diverted, by the laughing lucubrations which have enlivened Hood's Own. THE PUGSLEY PAPERS. 7 THE PUGSLEY PAPERS. How the following correspondence came into my hands must remain a Waverley mystery. The Pugsley Papers were neither rescued from a garret, like Evelyn, — collected from cartridges like the Culloden, — nor saved, like the Garrick, from being shredded into a snow storm at a Winter Theatre. They were not snatched from a tailor's shears, like the original parchment of Magna Charta. They were neither the Legacy of a Dominie, nor the communications of My Landlord, — a consignment, like the Clinker Letters, from some Rev. Jonathan Dustwich, — nor the waifs and strays of a Twopenny Post Bag. They were not unrolled from ancient papyri. They were none of those that ** line trunks, clothe spices," or paper the walls of old attics. The} T were neither given to me nor sold to me, — nor stolen, — nor borrowed and surreptitiously copied, — nor left in a hackney coach, like Sheridan's play, — nor misdelivered by a carrier pigeon, — nor dreamt of, like Coleridge's Kubla Khan, — nor turned up in the Tower, like Milton's Foundling MS., — nor dug up, — nor trumped up, like eastern tales of Horam harum Horam the son of Asmar, — nor brought over by Rammohun Roy, — nor translated by Doctor Bowring from the Scandinavian, Batavian, Pomeranian, Spanish, or Danish, or Russian, or Prus- sian, or any other language dead or living. They were not picked from the Dead Letter Office, nor purloined from the British Museum. In short, I cannot, darii not, will not, hint even at the mode of their acquisition : the reader must be con- tent to know, that, in point of authenticity, the Pugsley Papers are the extreme reverse of Lady L.'s celebrated Autographs, wjiich were all written by the proprietor. 8 PROSE AND VERSE. No. I. — From Master Richard Pugsley, to Master Robert Rogers, at Number 132, Barbican. Dear Bob, Huzza! — Here I am in Lincolnshire ! It's good-bye to Wel- lingtons and Cossacks, Ladies' double channels, Gentlemen's stout calf, and ditto ditto. They've all been sold off under prime cost, and the old Shoe Mart is disposed of, goodwill and fixtures, for ever and ever. Father has been made a rich Squire of by will, and we've got a house and fields, and trees of our own. Such a garden, Bob ! — It beats White Conduit. Now, Bob, I'll tell you what I want. I want you to come down here for the holidays. Don't be afraid. Ask your Sister to ask your Mother to ask your Father to let you come. It's only ninety miles. If you're out of pocket money, you can walk, and beg a lift now and then, or swing by the dickeys. Put on cordroys, and don't care for cut behind. The two prentices, George and Will, are here to be made farmers of, and brother Nick is took home from school to help in agriculture. We like farming very much, it's capital fun. Us four have got a gun, and go out shooting : it's a famous good un, and sure to go off if you don't full cock it. Tiger is to be our shooting dog as soon as he has left off killing the sheep. He's a real savage, and worries cats beautiful. Before Father comes down, we mean to bait our bull with him. There's plenty of New Rivers about, and we're going a fishing as soon as we have mended our top joint. We've killed one of our sheep on the sly to get gentles. We've a pony too, to ride upon when we can catch him, but he's loose in the paddock, and has neither mane nor tail to signify to lay hold of. Isn't it prime, Bob ? You must come. If your Mother won't give your Father leave to allow you, — run away. Remember, you turn up Goswell Street to go to Lincolnshire, and ask for Middlefen Hall. There's a pond full of frogs, but we won't pelt them till you come, but let it be before Sunday, as there's our own orchard to rob, and the fruit's to be gathered on Mon day. If you like sucking raw eggs, we know where the hens lay, THE PUGSLEY PAPERS 9 and mother don't ; and I'm bound there's lots of birds' nests. Do come. Bob, and I'll show you the wasps' nest, and every- thing that can make you comfortable. I dare say you could borrow your father's volunteer musket of him without his know- ing of it; but be sure anyhow to bring the ramrod, as we have mislaid ours by firing it ofF. Don't forget some bird-lime, Bob — and some fish-hooks — and some different sorts of shot — and some gut and some gunpowder — and a gentle-box, and some flints.—* some May flies, — and a powder horn, — and a landing net and a dog-whistle — and some porcupine quills, and a bullet mould — and a trolling-winch, and a shot-belt and a tin can. You pay for 'em, Bob, and I'll owe it you. Your old friend and schoolfellow, Richard Pugsley. No. II. — From the Same to the Same. Dear Bob, When you come, bring us a 'bacco-pipe to load the gun with. If you don't come, it can come by the wagon. Our Public House is three mile off, and when you've walked there it's out of everything. Yours, &c, Rich. Pugsley. No. III. — From Miss Anastasia Pugsley, to Miss Jemima Moggridge, at Gregory House Establishment for Young Ladies, Mile End. My dear Jemima, Deeply solicitous to gratify sensibility, by sympathizing with our fortuitous elevation, I seize the epistolary implements to inform you, that, by the testamentary disposition of a remote branch of consanguinity, our tutelary residence is removed from the metropolitan horizon to a pastoral district and its con- JO PROSE AND VERSE. genial pursuits. In futurity I shall be more pertinaciously superstitious in the astrological revelations of human destiny. You remember the mysterious gipsy at Hornsey Wood? — Well, the eventful fortune she obscurely intimated, though couched in vague terms, has come to pass in the minutest particulars ; for I perceive perspicuously, that it predicted that papa should sell off his boot and shoe business at 133, Barbican, to Clack & Son, of 144, Hatton Garden, and that we should retire, in a station of affluence, to Middlefen Hall, in Lincolnshire, by be- quest of our great-great maternal uncle, Pollexfen Goldsworthy Wrigglesworth, Esq., who deceased suddenly of apoplexy at Wisbeach Market, in the ninety-third year of his venerable and lamented age. At the risk of tedium, I will attempt a cursory delineation of our rural paradise, altho' I feel it would be morally arduous, to give any idea of the romantic scenery of the Lincolnshire Fens. Conceive, as far as the visual organ expands, an immense seques- tered level, abundantly irrigated with minute rivulets, and stud- ded with tufted oaks, whilst more than a hundred wind-mills diversify the prospect and give a revolving animation to the scene. As for our own gardens and grounds they are a perfect Vauxhall — excepting of course the rotunda, the orchestra, the company, the variegated lamps, the fire-works, and those very lofty trees. But I trust my dear Jemima will supersede topography by ocular inspection ; and in the interim I send for acceptance a graphical view of the locality, shaded in Indian ink, which will suffice to convey an idea of the terrestrial verdure and celestial azure we enjoy, in lieu of the sable exhalations and architectural nigritude of the metropolis. You who know my pastoral aspirings, and have been the indulgent confidant of my votive tributes to the Muses, will con- ceive the refined nature of my enjoyment when I mention the intellectual repast of this morning. I never could enjoy Bloom- field in Barbican, — but to-day he read beautifully under our pear-tree. I look forward to the felicity of reading Thomson's Summer with you on the green seat, and if engagements at Christ- mas permit your participation in the bard, there is a bower of evergreens that will be delightful for the perusal of his Winter. THE PUGSLEY PAPERS. 11 I enclose, by request, an epistolary effusion from sister Dorothy, which I know will provoke your risible powers, by the domes- ticity of its details. You know she was always in the homely characteristics a perfect Cinderella, though I doubt whether even supernatural agency could adapt her foot to a diminutive vitri- fied slipper, or her hand for a prince of regal primogeniture. But I am summoned tc receive, with family members, the felici- tations of Lincolnshire aristocracy ; though whatever necessary distinctions may prospectively occur between respective grades in life, they will only superficially affect the sentiments of eternal friendship between my dear Jemima and her affectionate friend, Anastasia Pugsley. No. IV. — From Miss Dorothy Pugsley to the Same. My dear Miss Jemima, Providence having been pleased to remove my domestic duties from Barbican to Lincolnshire, I trust that I shall have strength of constitution to fulfil them as becomes my new allotted line of life. As we are not sent into this world to be idle, and Anas- tasia has declined housewifery, I have undertaken the Dairy, and the Brewery, and the Baking, and the Poultry, the Pigs and the Pastry, — and though I feel fatigued at first, use reconciles to labors and trials, more severe than I at present enjoy. Altho' things may not turn out to wish at present, yet all well-directed efforts are sure to meet reward in the end, and altho' I have chumped and churned two days running, and it's nothing yet but curds and whey, I should be wrong to despair of eating but- ter of my own making before I die. Considering the adultera- tion committed by every article in London, I was never happier in any prospect, than of drinking my own milk, fattening my own calves, and laying my own eggs. We cackle so much I am sure we new-lay somewhere, tho' I cannot find out our nests ] and I am looking ev3ry day to have chickens, as one pepper-and- salt-colored hen has been sitting these two months. When a 12 PROSE AND VERSE. poor ignorant bird sets me such an example of patience, how can I repine at the hardest domestic drudgery ! Mother and I have worked like horses to be sure, ever since we came to the estate ; but if we die in it, we know it's for the good of the family, and to agreeably surprise my Father, who is still in town winding up his books. For my own part, if it was right to look at things so selfishly, I should say I never was so happy in my life ; though I own I have cried more since coming here than I ever remember before. You will confess my crosses and losses have been unusual trials, when I tell you, out of all my makings, and bakings, and brewings, and preservings, there has been nothing either eatable or drinkable ; and what is mo;e painful to an affectionate mind, — have half poisoned the whole family with home-made ketchup of toadstools, by mistake for mush- rooms. When I reflect that they are preserved, I ought not to grieve about my damsons and bullaces, done by Mrs. Maria Dover's receipt. Among other things we came into a beautiful closet of old China, which, I am shocked to say, is all destroyed by my pre- serving. The bullaces and damsons fomented, and blew up a great jar with a violent shock that smashed all the tea and coffee cups, and left nothing but the handles hanging in rows on the tenter-hooks. But to a resigned spirit there's always some com- fort in calamities, and if the preserves work and foment so, there's some hope that my beer will, as it has been a month next Mon- day in the mash tub. As for the loss of the elder wine, candor compels me to say it was my own fault for letting the poor blind little animals crawl into the copper ; but experience dictates next year not to boil the berries and kittens at the same time. I mean to attempt cream cheese as soon as we can get cream, — but as yet we can't drive the Cows home to be milked for the Bull — he has twice hunted Grace and me into fits, and kept my poor Mother a whole morning in the pigstye. As I know you like country delicacies, you will receive a pound of my fresh butter when it comes, and I mean to add a cheese as soon as I can get one to stick together. I shall send also some family pork for Governess, of our own killing, as we wring a pig's neck on Saturday. I did hope to give you the unexpected treat of a THE PUGSLEY PAPERS. 13 home-made loaf, but it was forgot in the oven from ten to six, and so too black to offer. However, I hope to surprise you with one by Monday's carrier. Anastasia bids me add she will send a nosegay for respected Mrs. Tombleson, if the plants don't die off before, which I am sorry to say is not improbable. It's really shocking to see the failure of her cultivated taste, and one in particular, that must be owned a very pretty idea. When we came, there was a vast number of flower roots, but jumbled without any regular order, till Anastasia trowelled them all up, and set them in again, in the quadrille figures. It must have looked sweetly elegant, if it had agreed with them, but they have all dwindled and drooped like deep declines and consumptions. Her dahlias and tulips too have turned out nothing but onions and kidney potatoes, and her ten-week stocks have not come up in twenty. But as Shakspeare says, Adver- sity is a precious toad — that teaches us Patience is a jewel. Considering the unsettled state of coming in, I must conclude, but could not resist giving your friendliness a short account of the happy change that has occurred, and our increase of com- forts. I would write more, but I know you will excuse my listening to the calls of dumb animals. It's the time I always scald the little pigs' bread and milks, and put saucers of clean water for the ducks and geese. There are the fowls' beds to make with fresh straw, and a hundred similar things that country peo- ple are obliged to think of. The children, I am happy to say, are all well, only baby is a little fractious, we think from Grace setting him down in the net- tles, and he was short-coated last week. Grace is poorly with a cold, and Anastasia has got a sore throat, from sitting up fruit- lessly in the orchard to hear the nightingale ; perhaps there may not be any in the Fens. I seem to have a trifling ague and rheumatism myself, but it may be only a stiffness from so much churning, and the great family wash-up of everything we had directly we came down, for the sake of grass bleaching on the lawn. With these exceptions, we are all in perfect health and happ'ness, and unite in love, with Dear Miss Jemima's affectionate friend, Dorothy Pugslet. 14 PROSE AND VERSE. No. V. — From Mrs. Pugsley to Mrs. Mumford, Bucklersbury. My dear Martha, In my ultimatum I informed of old Wrigglesworth paying his natural debts, and of the whole Middlefen estate coming from Lincolnshire to Barbican. I charged Mr. P. to send bulletings into you with progressive reports, but between sisters, as I know you are very curious, I am going to make myself mere particu- lar. I take the opportunity of the family being all restive in bed, and the house all still, to give an account of our moving. The things all got here safe, with the exception of the Crockery and Glass, which came down with the dresser, about an hour after its arrival. Perhaps if we hadn't overloaded it with the whole of our breakables, it wouldn't have given way, — as it is, we have only one plate left, and that's chipt, and a mug without a spout to keep }t in countenance. Our furniture, &c, came by the wagon, and I am sorry to say a poor family at the same time, and the little idle boys with their knives have carved and scari- fied my rosewood legs, and, what is worse, not of the same pat- terns : but as people say, two Lincolnshire removes are as bad as a fire of London. The first thing I did on coming down, was to see to the sweeps going up, — but I wish I had been less precipitous, for the sooty wretches stole four good flitches of bacon, as was up the kitchen chimbly, quite unbeknown to me. We have filled up the vacan- cy with more, which smoke us dreadfully, but what is to be cured must be endured. My next thing was to have all holes and corners cleared out, and washed, and scrubbed, being left, like bachelor's places, in a sad state by old single W. ; for a rich man, I never saw one that wanted so much cleaning out. There were heaps of dung about, as high as haystacks, and it cost me five shillings a load to have it all carted ofT the premises ; besides heaps of good-for-nothing littering straw, that I gave to the boys for bonfires. We are not all to rights yet, but Rome wasn't built in St. Thomas's day. It was providential I hampered myself with cold provisions, for except the bacon there were no eatables in the house. What old W. lived upon is a mystery, except salads, for we found a THE PUGSLEY PAPERS. 15 whole field of beet-root, which, all but a few plants for Dorothy to pickle, I had chucked away. As the ground was then clear for sowing up a crop, I directed George to plough it up, but he met with agricultural distress. He says as soon as he whipped his horses, the plough stuck its nose in the earth, and tumbled over head and heels. It seems very odd when ploughing is so easy to look at, but I trust he will do better in time. Experience makes a King Solomon of a Tom-noddy. I expect we shall have bushels upon bushels of corn, tho' sadly pecked by the birds, as I have had all the scarecrows taken down for fear of the children dreaming of them for Bogies. For the same dear little sakes I have had the well filled up, and the nasty sharp iron spikes drawn out of all the rakes and harrows. Nobody shall say to my teeth, I am not a good Mother. With these precautions I trust the young ones will enjoy the country when the gipsies have left, but till then, I confine them to round the house, as it's no use shutting the stable door after you've had a child stole. We have a good many fine fields of hay, which I mean to have reaped directly, wet or shine ; for delays, are as dangerous as pickles in glazed pans. Perhaps St. Swithin's is in our favor, for if the stacks are put up dampish they won't catch fire so easily, if Swing should come into these parts. The poor boys have made themselves very industrious in shooting off the birds, and hunting away all the vermin, besides cutting down trees. As I knew it was profitable to fell timber, I directed them to begin with a very ugly straggling old hollow tree next the pre- mises, but it fell the wrong way, and knocked down the cow- house. Luckily the poor animals were all in the clover-field at the time. George says it wouldn't have happened but for a vio- lent sow, or rather sow- west, — and it's likely enough, but it's an ill wind that blows nothing to nobody. Having writ last post to Mr. P., I have no occasion to make you a country commissioner. Anastasia, indeed, wants to have books about everything, but for my part and Dorothy's we don't put much faith in authorized receipts and directions, but trust more to nature and common sense. For instance, in fatting a goose, reason points to sage and oniorjs, — why our own don't 16 PROSE AND VERSE. thrive on it, is very mysterious. We have a beautiful poultry yard, only infested with rats, — but I have made up a poison, that I know by the poor ducks, will kill them if they eat it. I expected to send you a quantity of wall-fruit, for preserving, and am sorry you bought the brandy beforehand, as it has all vanished in one night by picking and stealing, notwithstanding I had ten dozen of bottles broke on purpose to stick a top of the wall. But I rather think they came over the pales, as George, who is very thoughtless, had driven in all the new tenter-hooks with the points downwards. Our apples and pears would have gone too, but luckily we heard a noise in the dark, and threw brickbats out of window, that alarmed the thieves by smashing the covvcumber frames. However, I mean on Monday to make sure of the orchard, by gathering the trees, — a pheasant in one's hand is worth two cock-sparrows in a bush. One comfort is, the house-dog is very vicious, and won't let any of us stir in or out after dark — indeed, nothing can be more furious, except the bull, and at me in particular. You would think he knew my inward thoughts, and that I intend to have him roasted whole when we give our grand house-warming regalia. With these particulars, I remain, with love, my dear Dorcas, your affectionate sister, Belinda Pugsley. P. S. — I have only one anxiety here, and that is, the likelihood of being taken violently ill, nine miles off from any physical powers, with nobody that can ride in the house, and nothing but an insurmountable hunting horse in the stable. I should like, there- fore, to be well doctor-stuff'd from Apothecaries' Hall, by the wagon or any other vehicle. A stitch in the side taken in time saves nine spasms. Dorothy's tincture of the rhubarb stalks in the garden doesn't answer, and it's a pity now they weie not saved for pies. THE PUGSLEY PAPERS. No. VI. — From Mrs. Pugsley to Mrs. Rogers. Madam, Although warmth has made a coolness, and our having words has caused a silence — yet as mere writing is not being on speak- ing terms, and disconsolate parents in the case ; I waive venting of animosities till a more agreeable moment. Having perused the afflicted advertisement in the Times, with interesting descrip- tion of person, and ineffectual dragging of New River, — beg leave to say that Master Robert is safe and well, — having arrived here on Saturday night last, with almost not a shoe to his foot, and no coat at all, as was supposed to be with the approbation of parents. It appears, that not supposing the distance between the families extended to him, he walked the whole way down on the footing of a friend, to visit my son Richard, but hearing the news- papers read, quitted suddenly, the same day with the gipsies, and we haven't an idea what is become of him. Trusting this state- ment will relieve of all anxiety, remain, Madam, your humble servant, Belinda Pugsley. No. VII. — To Mr. Silas Pugsley, Parisian Depot, Shoreditch. Dear Brother, My favor of the present date is to advise of my safe arrival on Wednesday night, per opposition coach, after ninety miles of discomfort, absolutely unrivalled for cheapness, and a walk of five miles more, through lanes and roads, that for dirt and sludge may confidently defy competition, not to mention turnings and wind- ings, too numerous to particularise, but morally impossible to pursue on undeviating principles. The night was of so dark a quality as forbade finding the gate, but for the house-dog flying upon me by mistake for the late respectable proprietor, and almost tearing my clothes off my back by his strenuous exertions to obtain the favor of my patronage. Conscientiously averse to the fallacious statements, so much indulged in by various competitors, truth urges to acknowledge that on arrival, I did not find things on such a footing as to ensure 3 PROSE AND VERSE. universal satisfaction. Mrs. P., indeed, differs in her statement, but you know her success always surpassed the most sanguine expectations. Ever emulous to merit commendation by the strict- est regard to principles of economy, I found her laid up with lum- bago, through her studious efforts to please, and Doctor Clarke of Wisbeach in the house prescribing for it, but I am sorry to add — no abatement. Dorothy is also confined to her bed, by her unre- mitting assiduity and attention in the house-keeping line, and Anastasia the same, from listening for nightingales, on a fine July evening, but which is an article not always to be warranted to keep its virtue in any climate, — the other children, large and small sizes, ditto, ditto, with Grace too ill to serve in the nurse- ry, — and the rest of the servants totally unable to execute such extensive demands. Such an unprecedented depreciation in health makes me doubt the quality of country air, so much recommended for family use, and whether constitutions have not more eligibility to offer that have been regularly town-made. Our new residence is a large lonely Mansion, with no connex- ion with any other House, but standing in the heart of Lincoln- shire fens, over which it looks through an advantageous opening : comprising a great variety of windmills, and drains, and willow- pollards, and an extensive assortment of similar articles, that are not much calculated to invite inspection. In warehouses for corn, &c, it probably presents unusual advantages to the occupier, but candor compels to sta*fe that agriculture in this part of Lincoln- shire is very flat. To supply language on the most moderate terms, unexampled distress in Spitalfields is nothing to the dis- tress in ours. The corn has been deluged with rain of remarka- ble durability, without being able to wash the smut out of its ears ; and with regard to the expected great rise in hay, our stacks have been burnt down to the ground, instead of going to the con- sumer. If the hounds hadn't been out, we might have fetch'd the engines, but the hunter threw George on his head, and he only revived to be sensible that the entire stock had been disposed of at an immense sacrifice. The whole amount I fear will be out of book, — as the Norwich Union refuses to liquidate the hay, on the ground that the policy was voided by the impolicy of putting it up wet. In other articles I am sorry I must write no altera- PROSE AND VERSE. 19 tion. Our bull, after killing the house-dog, and tossing William, has gone wild and had the madness to run away from his liveli- hood, and, what is worse, all the cows after him — except those that had burst themselves in the clover field, and a small divi- dend, as I may say. of one in the pound. Another item, the pigs, to save bread and milk, have been turned into the woods for acorns, and is an article producing no returns — as not one has yet come back. Poultry ditto. Sedulously cultivating an enlarged connexion in the Turkey line, such the antipathy to gypsies, the whole breed, geese and ducks inclusive, removed themselves from the premises by night, directly a strolling camp came and set up in the neighborhood. To avoid prolixity, when I came to take stock, there was no stock to take — namely, no eggs, no butter, no cheese, no corn, no hay, no bread, no beer — no water even — nothing but the mere commodious premises, and fixtures, and good will — and candor compels to add, a very small quantity on hand of the last-named particular. To add to stagnation, neither of my two sons in the business nor the two apprentices have been so diligently punctual in exe- cuting country orders with despatch and fidelity, as laudable ambition desires, but have gone about fishing and shooting — and William has suffered a loss of three fingers, by his unvarying system of high charges. He and Richard are likewise both threatened with prosecution for trespassing on the Hares in the adjoining landed interest, and Nick is obliged to decline any active share, by dislocating his shoulder in climbing a tall tree for a tom-tit. As for George, tho' for the first time beyond the circumscribed limits of town custom, he indulges vanity in such unqualified pretensions to superiority of knowledge in farming, on the strength of his grandfather having belonged to the agricul- tural line of trade, as renders a wholesale stock of patience barely adequate to meet its demands. Thus stimulated to injudicious performance he is as injurious to the best interests of the country, as blight and mildew, and smut and rot, and glanders, and pip, all combined in one texture. Between ourselves, the objects of unceasing endeavors, united with uncompromising integrity, have been assailed with so much deterioration, as makes me humbly desirous of abridging sufferings, by resuming business as a Shoe 20 PROSE AND VERSE. Marter at the old established House. If Clack & Son, therefore, have not already taken possession and respectfully informed the vicinity, will thankfully pay reasonable compensation for loss of time and expense incurred by the bargain being off. In case parties agree, I beg you will authorize Mr. Robins to have the honor to dispose of the whole Lincolnshire concern, tho' the knocking down of Middlefen Hall will be a severe blow on Mrs. P. and Family. Deprecating the deceitful stimulus of advertis- ing arts, interest commands to mention, — desirable freehold estate and eligible investment — and sole reason for disposal, the proprietor going to the continent. Example suggests likewise, a good country for hunting for fox-hounds — and a prospect too extensive to put in a newspaper. Circumstances being rendered awkward by the untoward event of the running away of the cattle, dec, it will be best to say — " The Stock to be taken as it stands ;" — and an additional favor will be politely conferred, and the same thankfully acknowledged, if the auctioneer will be so kind as bring the next market town ten miles nearer, and carry the coach and the wagon once a day past the door. Earnestly requesting early attention to the above, and with sentiments of, R. Pugsley, Sen. P. S. Richard is just come to hand dripping and half dead out of the Nene, and the two apprentices all but drowned each other in saving him. Hence occurs to add, fishing opportunities among the desirable items. THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 21 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM.* 'Twas in the prime of summer time, An evening calm and cool, When four-and-twenty happy boys Came bounding out of school ; There were some that ran, and some that leapt, Like troutlets in a pool. Away they sped, with gamesome minds And souls untouch'd by sin ; To a level mead they came, and there They drave the wickets in : Pleasantly shone the setting sun Over the town of Lynn. Like sportive deer they coursed about, And shouted as they ran- — Turning to mirth all things of earth, As only boyhood can : But the usher sat remote from all, A melancholy man ! * The late Admiral Burney went to school at an establishment where the unhappy Eugene Aram was usher, subsequent to his crime. The Admiral stated that Aram was generally liked by the boys ; and that he used to dis- course to them about murder, in somewhat of the spirit which is attributed to him in this poem. PROSE AND VERSE. His hat was off, his vest apart, To catch Heaven's blessed breeze ; For a burning thought was on his brow, And his bosom ill at ease : So he leaned his head on his hands, and read The book between his knees. Leaf after leaf he turn'd it o'er, Nor ever glanced aside ; For the peace of his soul he read that book, In the golden eventide : Much study had made him very lean And pale and leaden-eyed. At last he shut the ponderous tome; With a fast and fervid grasp — He strained the dusky covers close, And fixed the brazen hasp ; " O God ! could I so close my mind, And clasp it with a clasp." Then leaping on his feet upright, Some moody turns he took — Now up the mead, then down the mead, And past a shady nook — And, lo ! he saw a little boy That pored upon a book. " My gentle lad, what is 't you read — Romance, or fairy fable ! Or is it some historic page, Of kings and crowns unstable ?" The young boy gave an upward glance — " It is the Death of Abel." The usher took six hasty strides, As smit with sudden pain — Six hasty strides beyond the place, THE DREAM OE EUGENE ARAM. Then slowly back again ; And down he sat beside the lad, And talked with him of Cain. * And long since then, of bloody men, Whose deeds tradition saves; Of* lonely folk, cut off unseen, And hid in sudden graves ; Of horrid stabs in groves forlorn, And murders done in caves ! And how the sprites of injured men Shriek upward from the sod — And how the ghostly hand will point To show the burial clod ; And unknown facts of guilty acts Are seen in dreams from God ! He told how murderers walked the earth Beneath the curse of Cain — With crimson clouds before their eyes, And flames about their brain ; For blood had left upon their souls Its everlasting stain ! " And well," quoth he, " I know, for truth, Their pangs must be extreme — Wo, wo, unutterable wo — Who spill life's sacred stream ! For why ? Methought, last night, I wrought A murder in a dream ! " One that had never done me wrong — A feeble man and old ; I led him to a lonely field, The moon shone clear and cold ; Now here, said I, this man shall die, And I will have his gold ! PROSE AND VERSE. " Two sudden blows with a ragged stick. And one with a heavy stone, One horrid gash with a hasty knife — And then the deed was done ; There was nothing lying at my feet, But lifeless flesh and bone ! " Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone, That could not do me ill ; And yet I feared him all the more, For lying there so still ; There was a manhood in his look, That murder could not kill ! " And lo ! the universal air Seemed lit with ghastly flame — Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes Were looking down in blame ; I took the dead man by the hand, And called upon his name ! " Oh God ! it made me quake to see Such sense within the slain ! But when I touched the lifeless clay, The blood gushed out amain ! For every clot, a burning spot Was scorching in my brain ! My head was like an ardent coal, My heart was solid ice ; My wretched, wretched soul, I knew. Was at the Devil's price ; A dozen times I groan'd ; the dead Had never groan'd but twice ! " And now from forth the frowning sky. From the heaven's topmost height I heard a voice — the awful voice THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. Of the blood-avenging sprite ; * Thou guilty man ! take up thy dead, And hide it from my sight !' " I took the dreary body up, And cast it in a stream — A sluggish water, black as ink, The death was so extreme (My gentle boy, remember this Was nothing but a dream). " Down went the corse with a hollow plunge And vanish'd in a pool ; Anon I cleaned my bloody hands, And wash'd my forehead cool, And sat among the urchins young That evening in the school. " Oh heaven ! to think of their white souls, And mine so black and grim ! I could not share in childish prayer, Nor join in evening hymn ; Like a devil of the pit I seem'd 'Mid holy cherubim. " And peace went with them one and all, And each calm pillow spread ; But Guilt was my grim chamberlain That lighted me to bed, And drew my midnight curtains round, With fingers bloody red ! " All night I lay in agony, From weary chime to chime, With one besetting horrid hint, That racked me all the time, A mighty yearning, like the first, Pierce impulse unto crime ! PROSE AND VERSE. " One stern, tyrannic thought, that made All other thoughts its slave ; Stronger and stronger every pulse Did that temptation crave — Still urging me to go and see The dead man in his grave ! Heavily I rose up — as soon As light was in the sky — And sought the black, accursed pool, With a wild misgiving eye, And I saw the dead in the river bed, For the faithless stream was dry ! " Merrily rose the lark, and shook The dew-drop from its wing ; But I never marked its morning flight, I never heard it sing : For I was stooping once again Under the horrid thing. e< With breathless speed, like a soul in chi I took him up and ran — There was no time to dig a grave Before the day began ! In a lonesome wood with heaps of leaves, I hid the murdered man ! " And all that day I read in school, But my thought was otherwhere ; As soon as the mid-day task was done, In secret I was there : And a mighty wind had swept the leaves, And still the corse was bare ! " Then down I cast me on my face, And first began to weep, For I knew my secret then was one THE DREAM OP EUGENE ARAM. That Earth refused to keep ; Or land or sea, though he should be Ten thousand fathoms deep ! c So wills the fierce avenging sprite Till blood for blood atones ! Ay, though he 7 s buried in a cave, And trodden down with stones, And years have rotted off his flesh — The world shall see his bones ! " Oh God, that horrid, horrid dream Besets me now awake ! Again — again, with a dizzy brain, The human life I take ; And my red right hand grows raging hot,* Like Craniner's at the stake. " And still no peace for the restless clay Will wave or mould allow ; The horrid thing that pursues my soul — It stands before me now !" The fearful boy looked up and saw Huge drops upon his brow ! That very night, while gentle sleep The urchin's eyelids kissed, Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, Through the cold and heavy mist ; And Eugene Aram walked between, With gyves upon his wrist. 28 PROSE AND VERSE. BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN. All at once Miss Morbid left off sugar. She did not resign it as some persons lay down their carriage, the full-bodied family coach dwindling into a chariot, next into a fly, and then into a sedan-chair. She did not shade it off artistically, like certain household economists, from white to whitey brown, brown, dark-brown, and so on, to none at all. She left it off, as one might leave off walking on the top of a house, or on a slide, or on a plank with a further end to it, that is to say, slapdash, all at once, without a moment's warning. She gave it up, to speak appropriately, in the lump. She dropped it, — as Corporal Trim let fall his hat, — dab. It vanished, as the French say, toot sweet. From the 30th of November, 1830, not an ounce of sugar, to use Miss Morbid's own expression,' ever " darkened her doors." The truth was she had been present the day before at an Anti- Slavery Meeting ; and had listened to a lecturing Abolitionist, who had drawn her sweet tooth, root and branch, out of her head. Thenceforth sugar, or as she called it " snugger," was no longer white, or brown, in her eyes, but red, blood-red — an abomination, to indulge in which would convert a professing Christian into a practical Cannibal. Accordingly, she made a vow, under the influence of moist eyes and refined feelings, that the sanguinary article should never more enter her lips or her house ; and this pretty parody of the famous Berlin decree against our Colonial produce was rigidly enforced. However others might counte- nance the practice of the Slave Owners by consuming "shugger," she was resolved for her own part, that " no suffering sable son of Africa should ever rise up against her out of a cup of Tea V* In the mean time, the cook and house-maid grumbled in concert BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN. 29 at the prohibition : they naturally thought it very hard to be deprived of a luxury which they enjoyed at their own proper cost ; and at last only consented to remain in the service, on condition that the privation should be handsomely considered in their wages. With a hope of being similarly remembered in her will, the poor relations of Miss Morbid continued to drink the " warm without," which she administered to them every Sunday, under the name of Tea : and Hogarth would have desired no better subject for a picture than was presented by their physiognomies. Some pursed up their lips, as if resolved that the nauseous beverage should never enter them ; others compressed their mouths, as if to prevent it from rushing out again. One took it mincingly, in sips, — another gulped it down in desperation, — a third, in a fit of absence, continued to stir very superfluously with his spoon ; and there was one shrewd old gentleman, who, by a little dexterous by-play, used to bestow the favor of his small souchong on a sick geranium. Now and then an astonished Stranger would retain a half cupful of the black dose in his mouth, and stare round at his fellow guests, as if tacitly putting to them the very question of Matthews's York- shireman, in the mail-coach — " Coompany ! — oop or doon ?" The greatest sufferers, however, were Miss Morbid's two nephews, still in the morning of their youth, and boy-like, far more inclined to " sip the sweets " than to " hail the dawn." They had formerly looked on their Aunt's house as peculiarly a Dulce Domum. Prior to her sudden conversion, she had been famous for the manufacture of a sort of hard bake, commonly called Toffy or Taffy, — but now, alas ! " Taffy was not at home," and there was nothing else to invite a call. Currant* tart is tart indeed without sugar ; and as for the green goose- berries, they always tasted, as the young gentlemen affirmed, " like a quart of berries sharpened to a pint." In short, it always required six pennyworth of lollipops and bulls'-eyes, a lick of honey, a dip of treacle, and a pick at a grocer's hogs- head, to sweeten a visit at Aunt Morbid's. To tell the truth, her own temper soured a little under the prohibition. She could not persuade the Sugar-eaters that they were Vampyres ; — instead of practising, or even admiring her 30 PROSE AND VERSE. self-denial, they laughed at it ; and one wicked wag even com- pared her, in allusion to her acerbity and her privation, to a crab, without the nippers. She persevered notwithstanding in her system ; and to the constancy of a martyr added something of the wilfulness of a bigot : — indeed, it was hinted by patrons and patronesses of white charities, that European objects had not their fair share in her benevolence. She was pre-eminently the friend of the blacks. Howbeit, for all her sacrifices, not a lash was averted from their sable backs. She had raised dis- content in the kitchen, she had disgusted her acquaintance, sick- ened her friends, and given her own dear little nephews the stomach-ache, without saving Quashy from one cut of the driver's whip, or diverting a single kick from the shins of Sambo. Her grocer complained loudly of being called a dealer in human gore, yet not one hogshead the less was imported from the Plant- ations. By an error common to all her class she mistook a negative for a positive principle ; and persuaded herself that by not preserving damsons, she preserved the Niggers ; that by not sweetening her own cup, she was dulcifying the lot of all her sable brethren in bondage. She persevered accordingly in setting her face against sugar instead of slavery ; against the plant, instead of the planter ; and had actually abstained for six months from the forbidden article, when a circumstance occurred that roused her sympathies into more active exertions. It pleased an Amer- ican lady to import with her a black female servant, whom she rather abruptly dismissed, on her arrival in England. The case was considered by the Hampshire Telegraph of that day, as one of great hardship ; the paragraph went the round of the papers — and in due time attracted the notice of Miss Morbid. It was precisely addressed to her sensibilities, and there was a " Try Warren " tone about it, that proved irresistible. She read — and wrote, — and in the course of one little week, her domestic es- tablishment was maliciously but truly described as consisting of " two white Slaves and a black Companion."" The adopted protegee was, in reality, a strapping clumsy Negress, as ugly as sin, and with no other merit than that of being of the same color as the crow. She was artful, sullen, gluttonous, and, above all, so intolerably indolent, that if she BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN. 31 had been literally " carved in ebony," as old Fuller says, she could scarcely have been of less service to her protectress. Her notion of Free Labor seemed to translate it into laziness, and taking liberties; and, as she seriously adaed to the work of her fellow-servants, without at all contributing to their comfort, they soon looked upon her as a complete nuisance. The house-maid dubbed her " a Divil," — the cook roundly compared her to "a mischivus beast, as runs out on a herd o' black cattle — and both concurred in the policy of laying all household sins upon the sooty shoulders — just as slatterns select a color that hides the dirt. It is certain that shortly after the instalment of the negress in the family, a moral disease broke out with considerable violence, and justly or not, the odium was attributed to the new comer. Its name was theft. First, there was a shilling short in some loose change — next, a missing half-crown from the mantel-piece — then there was a stir with a tea-spoon — anon, a piece of work about a thimble. Things went, nobody knew how — the " Divil " of course excepted. The Cook could, the House- maid would, and Diana should, and ought to take an oath, de- claratory of innocence, before the mayor ; but as Diana did not volunteer an affidavit, like the others, there was no doubt of her guilt, in the kitchen. Miss Morbid, however, came to a very different conclusion. She thought that whites who could eat sugar, were capable of any atrocity, and had not forgotten the stand which had been made by the " pale faces," in favor of the obnoxious article. The cook especially incurred suspicion ; for she had been noto- rious aforetime for a lavish hand in sweetening, and was accor- dingly quite equal to the double turpitude of stealing and bearing false witness. In fact, the mistress had arrived at the determi- nation of giving both her white hussies their month's warning, when unexpectedly the thief was taken, as the lawyers say, " in the manner," and with the goods upon the person. In a word, the ungrateful black was detected in the very act of levying what might be called her "Black Mail." The horror of Emilia, on discovering that the Moor had mur- dered her mistress, was scarcely greater than that of Miss Morbid ! She hardly, she said, believed her own senses. You o2 PROSE AND VERSE. might have knocked her down with a feather ! She did not know whether she stood on her head or her heels. She was rooted to the spot ! and her hair, if it had been her own, would have stood upright upon her head ! There was no doubt in the case. She saw the transfer of a portion of her own bank-stock, from her escritoire into the right-hand pocket of her protegee — she heard it chink as it dropped downwards, — she was petrified ! — dumb-founded ! — thunder-bolted ! — " annilliated She was as white as a sheet, but she felt as if all the blacks in the world had just blown in her face. Her first impulse was to rush upon the robber, and insist on restitution — her second was to sit down and weep, — and her third was to talk. The opening, as usual, was a mere torrent of ejaculations intermixed with vituperation — but she gradually fell into a lecture with many heads. First, she described all she had done for the Blacks, and then, alas ! all that the Blacks had done for her. Next she insisted on the enormity of the crime, and, anon, she enlarged on the nature of its punishment. It was here that she was most eloquent. She traced the course of human justice, from detection to conviction, and thence to execution, liberally throwing dissection into the bargain : and then descending with Dante into the unmentionable regions, she painted its terrors and tortures with all the circumstantial fidelity that certain very Old Masters have displayed on the same subject. "And now, you black wretch," she concluded, having just given a finishing touch to a portrait of Satan himself ; " and now, you black wretch, I insist on knowing what I was robbed for. Come, tell me what tempted you ! I'm determined to hear it ! I insist, 1 say, on knowing what was to be done with the wages of iniquity ! " She insisted, however, in vain. The black wretch had seri- ously inclined her ear to the whole lecture, grinning and blub- bering by turns. The Judge with his black cap, the Counsel and their wigs, the twelve men in a box, and Jack Ketch himsell — whom she associated with that pleasant West Indian personage, John Canoe — had amused, nay, tickled her fancy ; the press- room, the irons, the rope, and the Ordinary, whom she mistook BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN. 33 for an overseer, had raised her curiosity, and excited her fears ; but the spiritualities, without any reference to Obeah, had simply mystified and disgusted her, and she was now in a fit of the sulks. Her mistress, however, persisted in her question ; and not the less pertinaciously, perhaps, from expecting a new peg whereon to hang a fresh lecture. She was determined to learn the destination of the stolen money ; and by dint of insisting, cajoling, and, above all, threatening — for instance, with the whole Posse Comitatus — she finally carried her point. " Cuss him money ! Here's a fuss !" exclaimed the culprit, quite worn out at last by the persecution. " Cuss him money ! here's a fuss ! What me 'teal him for ? What me do wid him ? What anybody 'teal him for ? Why, for sure, to ouy sugar !" PROSE AND VERSE. I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER. I remember, I remember, The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn : He never came a wink too soon, Nor brought too long a day ; But now, I often wish the night Had borne my breath away. I remember, I remember, The roses — red and white ; The violets and the lily-cups, Those flowers made of light ! The lilacs where the robin built, And where my brother set The laburnum on his birth-day, — The tree is living yet ! I remember, I remember, Where I was used to swing ; And thought the air must rush as fresh To swallows on the wing : My spirit flew in feathers then, That is so heavy now, And summer pools could hardly cool The fever on my brow ! I remember, I remember, The fir trees dark and high ; I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER. I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky : It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tis little joy- To know I'm farther off from heaven Than when I was a boy. 3d PROSE AND VERSE. THE PORTRAIT: BEING AN APOLOGY FOR NOT MAKING AN ATTEMPT ON MY OWN LIFE The late inimitable Charles Mathews, in one of his amusing en- tertainments, used to tell a story of a certain innkeeper, who made it a rule of his house, to allow a candle to a guest, only on condition of his ordering a pint of wine. Whereupon the guest contends, on the reciprocity system, for a light for every half- bottle, and finally drinks himself into a general illumination. Something of the above principle seems to have obtained in the case of a Portrait and a Memoir, which in literary practice have been usually dependent on each other — a likeness and a life, — a candle and a pint of wine. The mere act of sitting probably suggests the idea of hatching ; at least an author has seldom nested in a painter's chair, without coming out afterwards with a brood of Reminiscences, and accordingly, no sooner was my effigy about to be presented to the Public, than I found myself called upon by my Publisher, with a finished proof of the en- graving in one hand, and a request for an account of myself in the other. He evidently supposed, as a matter of course, that I had my auto-biography in the bottle, and that the time was come to un-cork and pour it out with a Head. To be candid, no portrait, perhaps, ever stood more in need of such an accompaniment. The figure has certainly the look of one of those practical jokes whereof the original is oftener suspected than really culpable. It might pass for the sign of " The Grave Maurice." The author of Elia has de- clared that he once sat as substitute for a whole series of British Admirals,* and a physiognomist might reasonably suspect that * He perhaps took the hint from Dibdin, who lays down the rule in his Sea Songs, that a Naval Hero ought to be a Lion in battle, but afterwards a Lamb. THE PORTRAIT. 37 in wantonness or weariness, instead of giving my head I had pro. cured myself to be painted by proxy. For who, that calls him- self stranger, could ever suppose that such a pale, pensive, peak- ing, sentimental, sonneteering countenance — with a wry mouth as if it always -laughed on its wrong side — belonged bona fide to the Editor of the Comic — a Professor of the Pantagruelian Phi- losophy, hinted at in the preface of the present work ? What unknown who reckons himself decidedly serious, would recog- nize the head and front of my "offending," in a visage not at all too hilarious for a frontispiece to the Evangelical Magazine ! In point of fact the owner has been taken sundry times, ere now, for a Methodist Minister, and a pious turn has been attributed to his hair — lucus a non lucendo — from its having no turn in it at all.* In like manner my literary contemporaries who have cared to remark on my personals, have agreed in ascribing to me a melancholy bias ; thus an authority in the New Monthly Maga- zine has described me as " a grave anti-pun-like-looking .per- son," whilst another — in the Book of Gems — declares that " my countenance is more grave than merry," and insists, therefore, that I am of a pensive habit, and "have never laughed heartily in company or in rhyme." Against such an inference, however, I solemnly protest, and if it be the fault of my features, I do not mind telling my face to its face that it insinuates a false Hood, and grossly misrepresents a person notorious amongst friends for laughing at strange times and odd places, and in particular when he has the worst of the rubber. For it is no comfort for the loss of points, by his theory, to be upon thorns. And truly what can be more unphilosophical, than to sit ruefully as well as whist- fully, with your face inconsistently playing at longs and your hand at shorts, — getting hypped as well as pipped, — " talking of Hoyle," as the city lady said, "but looking like winegar," and betraying as keen a sense of the profit and loss, as if the pack had turned you into a pedlar. But I am digressing; and turning my back, as Lord Castle- reagh would have said, on my face. The portrait, then, is gen- uine — " an ill-favored thing, Sir," as Touchstone says, " but * On a march to Berlin, with the 19th Prussian Infantry, I could never succeed in passing myself off as anything but the Regimental Chaplain. 38 PROSE AND VERSE. mine own." For its quarrel with the rules of Lavater there is precedent. I remember seeing on Sir Thomas Lawrence's easel, an unfinished head of Mr. Wilberforce, so very merry, -so rosy, so good-fellowish, that nothing less than the Life and Cor- respondence recently published could have persuaded me that he was really a serious character. A memoir, therefore, would be the likeliest thing to convince the world that the physiognomy alluded to, is actually Hood's own : — indeed a few of the earlier chapters would suffice to clear up the mystery, by proving that my face is only answering in the affirmative, the friendly in- quiry of the Poet of all circles — " Has sorrow thy young days shaded ?" — and telling the honest truth of one of those rickety constitutions which, according to Hudibras, seem " as if intended For nothing else but to be mended." To confess the truth, my vanity pricked up its ears a little at the proposition of my publisher. There is something vastly flat- tering in the idea of appropriating the half of a quarter of a century, mixing it up with your personal experience, and then serving it out as your own Life and Times. On casting a retro- spective glance however across Memory's waste, it appeared so literally a waste, that vanity herself shrank from the enclosure act, as an unpromising speculation. Had I foreseen indeed, some flve-and-thirty years ago, that such a demand would be made upon me, I might have laid myself out on purpose, as Dr. Watts recommends, so as " to give of every day some good ac- count at last." I would have lived like a Frenchman, for effect, and made my life a long dress rehearsal of the future biography. I would have cultivated incidents " pour servir," laid traps for adventures, and illustrated my memory like Rogers's, by a bril- liant series of Tableaux. The earlier of my Seven Stages should have been more Wonder Phenomenon Comet and Balloon-like, and have been timed to a more Quicksilver pace than they have travelled ; in short, my Life, according to the tradesman's pro- mise, should have been " fully equal to bespoke." But, alas ! in the absence of such a Scottish second-sight, my whole course of existence up to the present moment would hardly furnish ma. THE PORTRAIT. 39 terials for one of those " bald biographies " that content the old gentlemanly pages of Sylvanus Urban. Lamb, on being applied to for a Memoir of himself, made answer that it would go into an epigram ; and I really believe that I could compress my own into that baker's dozen of lines called a sonnet. Montgomery, indeed, has forestalled the greater part of it, in his striking poem on the " Common Lot," but in prose, nobody could ever make anything of it, except Mr. George Robins. The lives of litera- ry men are proverbially barren of interest, and mine, inste&d of forming an exception to the general rule, would bear the appli- cation of the following words of Sir Walter Scott, much better than the career of their illustrious author. " There is no man known at all in literature, who may not have more to tell of his private life than I have. I have surmounted no difficulties either of birth or education, nor have I been favored by any particular advantages, and my life has been as void of incidents of impor- tance as that of the weary knife-grinder — ' Story ! bless you, 1 have none to tell, sir.' " Thus my birth was neither so humble that, like John Jones, I have been obliged amongst my lays to lay the cloth, and to court the cook and the muses at the same time ; nor yet so lofty, that, with a certain lady of title, I could not write without letting myself down. Then, for education, though on the one hand I have not taken my degree, with Blucher ; yet, on the other, I have not been rusticated, at the Open Air School, like the Poet of Helpstone. As for incidents of importance, I remember none, except being drawn for a soldier, which was a hoax, and having tne opportunity of giving a casting vote on a great paro- chial question, only I didn't attend. I have never been even third in a duel, or crossed in love. The stream of time has flowed on with me very like that of the New River, which everybody knows has so little romance about it, that its Head has never troubled us with a Tale. My own story then, to pos- sess any interest, must be a fib. Truly given, with its egotism and its barrenness, it would look too like the chalked advertisements on a dead wall. Moreover, » Pope has read a lesson to self-importance in the Memoirs of P. P., the parish Clerk, who was only notable after all amongst 40 PROSE AND VERSE. his neighbors as a shallower of loaches. Even in such prac- tical whims and oddities I am deficient, — for instance, eschewing razors, or bolting clasp-knives, riding on painted ponies, sleeping for weeks, fasting for months, devouring raw tripe, and similar eccentricities, which have entitled sundry knaves, quacks, boobies, and brutes, to a brief biography in the Wonderful Maga- zine. And, in the absence of these distinctions, I am equally deficient in any spiritual pretensions. I have had none of those experiences which render the lives of saintlings, not yet in their teens, worth their own weight in paper and print, and conse- quently my personal history, as a Tract, would read as flat as the Pilgrim's Progress without the Giants, the Lions, and the grand single combat with the Devil. To conclude, my life, — " upon my life," — is not worth giving, or taking. The principal just suffices for me to live upon ; and of course, would afford little interest to any one else. Besides, 1 have a bad memory ; and a personal history would assuredly be but a middling one, of which I have forgotten the beginning and cannot foresee the end. I must, therefore, respectfully de- cline giving my life to the world — at least till I have done with it — but to soften the refusal, I am willing, instead of a written character of myself, to set down all that I can recall of other authors, and, accordingly, the next number will contain the first instalment of MY LITERARY REMINISCENCES. LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 41 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. " Commen§ons par le commencement." The very earliest of one's literary recollections must be the ac- quisition of the alphabet; and in the knowledge of the first rudi- ments I was placed on a par with the Learned Pig, by two maiden ladies that were called Hogsflesh. The circumstance would be scarcely worth mentioning, but that being a day- boarder, and taking my dinner with the family, I became aware of a Baconian brother, who was never mentioned except by his Initial, and was probably the prototype of the sensitive " Mr. H.," in Lamb's unfortunate farce. The school in question was situ- ated in Token-house Yard, a convenient distance for a native of the Poultry, or Birchin-lane, I forget which, and in truth am not particularly anxious to be more certainly acquainted with my parish. It was a metropolitan one, however, which is recorded without the slightest repugnance ; firstly, for that, practically, I had no choice in the matter ; and secondly, because, theoreti- cally, I would as lief have been a native of London as of Stoke Pogis or Little Pedlington. If such local prejudices be of any worth, the balance ought to be in favor of the capital. The Dragon of Bow Church, or Gresham's Grasshopper, is as good a terrestrial sign to be born under as the dunghill cock on a village steeple. Next to being a citizen of the world, it must be the best thing to be born a citizen of the world's greatest city. To a lover of his kind, it should be a welcome dispensation that cast his nativity amidst the greatest congregation of the species ; but a literary man should exult rather than otherwise that he first saw the light — or perhaps the fog — in the same metropolis as Milton, Gray, De Foe, Pope, Byron, Lamb, and other town- born authors, whose fame has nevertheless triumphed over the 42 PROSE AND VERSE. Bills of Mortality. In such a goodly company I cheerfully take up my livery ; and especially as Cockneyism, properly so called, appears to be confined to no particular locality or station in life. Sir Wajter Scott has given a splendid instance of it in an Orca- dian, who prayed to the Lord to bless his own tiny ait, " not forgetting the neighboring island of Great Britain;" and the most recent example of the style I have met with, was in the Memoirs of Sir William Knighton, being an account of sea perils and sufferings during a passage across the Irish Channel by " the First Gentleman in Europe." Having alluded to my first steps on the ladder of learning, it may not be amiss in this place to correct an assertion of my biographer in the Book of Gems, who states, that my education, was finished at a certain suburban academy. In this ignorant world, where we proverbially live and learn, we may indeed leave off school, but our education only terminates with life itself. But even in a more limited sense, instead of my educa- tion being finished, my own impression is, that it never so much as progressed towards so desirable a consummation at any such establishment, although much invaluable time was spent at some of those institutions where young gentlemen are literally boarded, lodged, and done for. My vary first essay was at one of those places improperly called semi-naries, because they do not half teach anything ; the principals being probably aware that the little boys are as often consigned to them to be " out of a mother's way," as for anything else. Accordingly, my memory presents but a very dim image of a pedagogical powdered head, amidst a more vivid group of females of a composite charter-part dry- nurse, part housemaid, and part governess, — with a matronly figure in the back-ground, very like Mrs. S., allegorically repre- senting, as Milton says, " our universal mother." But there is no glimpse of Minerva. Of those pleasant associations with early school days, of which so much has been said and sung, there is little amongst my retrospections, excepting, perhaps, some sports which, like charity, lriight have been enjoyed at home, without the drawbacks of sundry strokes, neither apoplectic nor paralytic, periodical physic, and other unwelcome extras. I am not sure whether an invincible repugnance to early rising LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 43 may not be attributable to our precocious wintry summonses, from a warm bed into a dim damp school-room, to play at filling our heads on an empty stomach ; and perhaps I owe my decided sedentary habits to the disgust at our monotonous walks, or rather processions, or maybe to the sufferings of those longer excur- sions of big and little, where a pair of compasses had to pace as far and as fast as a pair of tongs. Nevertheless, I yet recall, with wonder, the occasional visits of grown-up ex-scholars to their old school, all in a flutter of gratitude and sensibility at recognizing the spot where they had been caned, and horsed, and flogged, and fagged, and brimstone-and-treacled, and black- dosed, and stick-jawed, and kibed, and fined, — where they had caught the measles and the mumps, and been overtasked, and undertaught — and then, by way of climax, sentimentally offer- ing a presentation snuff-box to their revered preceptor, with an inscription, ten to one, in dog Latin on the lid ! For my own part, were I to revisit such a haunt of my youth, it would give me the greatest pleasure, out of mere regard to the rising generation, to find Prospect House turned into a Floor Cloth Manufactory, and the playground converted to a bleach- field. The tabatiere is out of the question. In the way of learn- ing, I carried off nothing in exchange for my knife and fork, and spoon, but a prize for Latin without knowing the Latin for prize, and a belief which I had afterwards to unbelieve again, that a block of marble could be cut in two with a razor. To be classical, as Ducrow would say, the Athenians, the day before the Festival of Theseus, their Founder, gratefully sacrificed a ram, in memory of Corridas the schoolmaster, who had been his instructor ; but in the present day, were such offer- ings in fashion, how frequently would the appropriate animal be a donkey, and especially too big a donkey to get over the Pons Asinorum ! From the preparatory school, I was transplanted in due time to what is called by courtesy, a finishing one, where I was im- mediately set to begin everything again at the beginning. As this was but a backward way of coming forward, there seemed little chance of my ever becoming what Mrs. Malaprop calls " a progeny of learning;" indeed my education was pursued very 44 PROSE AND VERSE. much after the plan laid down by that feminine authority. I had nothing to do with Hebrew, or Algebra, or Simony, or Flux- ions, or Paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches ; but I ob- tained a supercilious knowledge of accounts, with enough of geometry to make me acquainted with the contagious countries. Moreover, I became fluent enough in some unknown tongue to protect me from the French Mark ; and I was sufficiently at home (during the vacations) in the quibbles of English gram- mar, to bore all my parents, relations, friends, and acquaintance, by a pedantical mending of their " cakeology." Such was the sum total of my acquirements ; being, probably, quite as much as I should have learned at a Charity School, with the exception of the parochial accomplishment of hallooing and singing of an- thems. I have entered into these personal details, though pertaining rather to illiterate than to literary reminiscences, partly because he important subject of Education has become of prominent in terest, and partly to hint that a writer may often mean in earnest what he says in jest. One of my readers at least has given me credit for a serious purpose. A schoolmaster called, during the vacation, on the father of one of his pupils, and in answer to his announcement of the re-opening of his establishment, was in- formed that the young gentleman was not to return to the aca- demy. The worthy parent declared that he had read the " Car- naby Correspondence," in the Comic Annual, and had made up his mind. " But, my dear Sir," expostulated the pedagogue, " you cannot be serious ; why the Comic Annual is nothing but a book full of jokes !" " Yes, yes," returned the father, " but it has let me into a few of your tricks- I believe Mr. Hood. James is not coming again !" And now it may be reasonably asked, where I did learn any- thing if not at these establishments, which promise Universal Knowledge — extras included — and yet unaccountably produce so very few Admirable Crichtons ? * It may plausibly be objected, that I did not duly avail myself of such overflowing * In spite of hundreds of associates, it has never happened to me, amongst the very many distinguished names connected with science or literature, to recognize one as belonging to a school-fellow. LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 40 opportunities to dabble, dip, duck in, and drink deeply of, the Pierian spring, that I was an Idler, Lounger, Tatler, Rambler, Spectator, anything rather than a student. To which my reply must be, first, that the severest punishment ever inflicted on my shoulders was for a scholar-like offence, the being " fond of my book," only it happened to be Robinson Crusoe ; and secondly, that I did go ahead at another guess sort of academy, a reference to which will be a little flattering to those Houses which claim Socrates, Aristotle, Alfred, and other Leamedissimi Woithii, as their Sponsors and Patron Saints. The school that really schooled me being comparatively of a very humble order — without sign — without prospectus — without ushers — without am- ple and commodious premises — in short, without pretension, and, consequently, almost without custom. The autumn of the year 1811, along with a most portentous comet, " with fear of change perplexing monarchs," brought, alas ! a melancholy revolution in my own position and prospects, by the untimely death of my father ; and my elder brother shortly following him to the grave, my bereaved mother naturally drew the fragments of the family more closely around her, so that thenceforward her dearest care was to keep her " only son, myself, at home." She did not, however, neglect my future interest, or persuade herself by any maternal vanity that a boy of twelve years old could have precociously finished his educa- tion ; and, accordingly, the next spring found me at what might have been literally called a High School, in reference to its dis- tance from the ground. In a house, formerly a suburban seat of the unfortunate Earl of Essex — over a grocer's shop — up two pair of stairs, there was a very select day-school, kept by a decayed Dominie, as he would have been called in his native land. In his better days, when my brother was his pupil, he had been master of one of those wholesale concerns in which so many ignorant men have made fortunes, by favor of high terms, low ushers, gullible parents, and victimized little boys. As our worthy Dominie, on the contrary, had failed to realize even a competence, it may be inferred logically, that he' had done better by his pupils than by himself; and my own experience certainly went to prove that 46 PROSE AND VERSE. he attended to the interests of his scholars, however he might have neglected his own. Indeed, he less resembled, even in externals, the modern worldly trading Schoolmaster than the good, honest, earnest, olden Pedagogue — a pedant, perchance, but a learned one, with whom teaching was " a labor of love," who had a proper sense of the dignity and importance of his call- ing, and was content to find a main portion of his reward in tlv honorable proficiency of his disciples. Small as was our Col- lege, its Principal maintained his state, and walked gowned an;l covered. His cap was of faded velvet, of black, or blue, or purple, or sad green, or as it seemed, of all together, with a nuance of brown. His robe, of crimson damask, lined with the national tartan. A quaint, carved, high-backed, elbowed article, looking like an emigre*, from a set that had been at home in an aristocratical drawing-room, under the ancien regime, was his Professional Chair, which, with his desk, was appropriately ele- vated on a dais, some inches above the common floor. From this moral and material eminence, he cast a vigilant yet kindly eye over some dozen of youngsters ; for adversity, sharpened by habits of authority, had not soured him, or mingled a single tinge of bile with the peculiar red-streak complexion, so common to the healthier natives of the North. On one solitary occasion, within my memory, was he seriously, yet characteristically dis- composed, and that was by his own daughter, whom he accused of "forgetting all regard for common decorum," because, for- getting that he was a Dominie as well as a Parent, she had heed- lessly addressed him in public as " Father," instead of " Papa." The mere provoking contrariety of a dunce never stirred his spleen, but rather spurred his endeavor, in spite of the axiom, to make Nihil fit for anything. He loved teaching for teaching's sake ; his kill-horse happened to be his hobby : and doubtless, if he had met with a penniless boy on the road to learning, he would have given him a lift, like the charitable Waggoner to Dick Whittington — for love. I recall, therefore, with pleasure, the cheerful alacrity with which I used to step up to recite my lesson, constantly forewarned — for every true schoolmaster has his stock joke — not to "stand in my own light." It was im- possible not to take an interest in learning what he seemed LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 47 so interested in teaching ; and in a few months my education progressed infinitely farther than it had done in as many years under the listless superintendance of B. A., and LL. D. and Assistants. I picked up some Latin, was a tolerable English Grammarian, and so good a French scholar, that I earned a few guineas — my first literary fee — by revising a new edition of " Paul et Virginie" for the press. Moreover, as an accountant, I could work a summum oonum — i. e., a good sum. In the meantime, — so generally unfortunate is the courtship of that bashful undertoned wooer, Modest Merit, to that loud, brazen masculine, worldly heiress, Success — the school did not prosper. The number of scholars diminished rather than increased. At least no new boys came — but one fine morning, about nine o'clock, a great " she gal," of fifteen or sixteen, but so remarka- bly well grown that she might have been " any of our mothers," made her unexpected appearance with bag and books. The sensation that she excited is not to be described ! The apparition of a Governess, with a Proclamation of a Gynecocracy, could not have been more astounding ! Of course SHE instantly formed a class ; and had any form SHE might prefer to herself : — the most of us being just old enough to resent what was considered as an affront on the corduroy sex, and just young enough to be beneath any gallantry to the silken one. The truth was, sub rosa, that there was a plan for translating us, and turning the unsuccessful Boys' School into a Ladies' Academy, to be con- ducted by the Dominie's eldest daughter — but it had been thought prudent to be well on with the new set before being off with the old. A brief period only had elapsed, when, lo ! a leash of female school Fellows — three sisters, like the Degrees of Com- parison personified, Big, Bigger, and Biggest — made their un- welcome appearance, and threatened to push us from our stools. They were greeted, accordingly, with all the annoyances that juvenile malice could suggest. It is amusing, yet humiliating, to remember the nuisances the sex endured at the hands of those who were thereafter to honor the shadow of its shoe-tie — to groan, moan, sigh, and sicken for its smiles, — to become poetical, prosaical, nonsensical, lack-a-daisical, and perhaps even melo- dramatical for its sake. Numberless were the desk-quakes, the 4 b PROSE AND VERSE. ink-spouts, the book-bolts, the pea-showers, and other unregis- tered phenomena, which likened the studies of those four unlucky maidens to the " Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties,"' — so that it glads me to reflect, that I was in a very small minority against the persecution ; having already begun to read poetry, and even to write something which was egregiously mistaken for something of the same nature. The final result of the strug- gle in the academic nesl — whether the hen-cuckoos succeeded in ousting the cock-sparrows, or vice versa — is beyond my record ; seeing that I was just then removed from the scene of contest, to be introduced into that Universal School, where, as in the pre- paratory one, we have very unequal shares in the flogging, the fagging, the task-work, and the pocket-money ; but the same breaking up to expect, and the same eternity of happy holidays to hope for in the Grand Recess. In brief, a friend of the family having taken a fancy to me, proposed to initiate me in those profitable mercantile mysteries which enabled Sir Thomas Gresham to gild his grasshopper ; and like another Frank Osbaldestone, I found myself planted on a counting-house stool, which nevertheless served occasionally for a Pegasus, on three legs, every foot, of course, being a dactyl or a spondee. In commercial matters, the only lesson imprinted on my memory is the rule, that when a ship's crew from Arch- angel come to receive their L. S. D., you must lock up your P. Y. C. MY APOLOGY. 49 MY APOLOGY. Gentle Readers, For the present month, there must be what Dr. John- son called a solution of continuity in my " Literary Reminiscen- ces." Confined to my chamber by what ought to be termed roo?7iatism — 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 retrospec- tive 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 in 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 favorite 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 appearance, and black as the weather looked, he was the very sort of pilot to weather the storm. With one of his princely bows he proceeded to address the House. " Ladies and Gentlemen — but by your leave I will 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 unde- niable answer would have staggered any other Manager than Elliston, but he was not easily to be disconcerted. " Because he is down in the bill !" he echoed, in a tone of the loftiest indig- nation : " Ladies and Gentlemen, the Mr. Carl, so unseasonably, so vociferously, and so unfeelingly called for, is at this very 5 50 PROSE AND VERSE. moment laboring 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 affec- tionate attention of his wife and family, at the risk of his valua- ble life perhaps, to go through a fatiguing part because he happens to be DOWN IN THE BILL ?" [Cries of " Shame ! shame !" from all parts of the house.] " 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 member of society, a good husband, father, friend, and one of your favorite actors', and all, forsooth, because he is DOWN IN THE BILL »" [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 owntham- pion 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 become me to set forth my own domestic or social virtues, or to hint what sort of gap my loss would make in society — still less would it consist with modesty to compare myself with a favorite actor — but as 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 Reminiscences that is over due, shall be paid with interest ir. the next number. LITERARY REMINISCENCES 51 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 favorite 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 — Mjngling 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 certainly noted and protested as a dishonored 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 our firm on the contrary had a turn for the Belles Lettres, and would have 52 PROSE AND VERSE. winked with both eyes at verses which did not intrude into an invoice or confuse their figures with those of the Ledger. The true cause of my retirement from Commercial affairs was more prosaic. My constitution, though far from venerable, had begun to show symptoms of decay : my appetite failed, and its princi- pal creditor, the stomach, received only an ounce 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 current, it was expected that I must " submit to a decline." The Doctors who were called in, declared imperatively that a mercantile life would be the death of me — that by so much sitting, I was hatch- ing 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 Ashes, 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 Foreign 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 merrily, 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. Nothing can be more unfounded. The marine terrors and disagreeables 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 constant as Captain Basil Hall himself, in my regard " for the element that never tires." Some washy fellows, it is true, Fresh-men from Cam- bridge and the like, 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 mu 1 itudinous sea," LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 5^ resting or rampant, with all its variable moods and changeable coloring. Methought, when pining under the maladie du pays, on a hopeless, sick bed, inland, 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 sever me from my native island. And, truly, 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 I actually crossed the Channel. But J am, besides, personally under deep obligations to the great deep. Twice, indeed, in a calm and in a storm, has my life been threat- ened with a salt-water catastrophe ; but that quarrel has long been made up, and forgiven, in gratitude for the blessing and bracing influence of 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 expect- ing some whispering of friendly but distant voices, in its eternal murmuring. 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 tempt- ing 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 Champaigne 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. For whenever, owing to physical depression, or a discordant state of the nerves, my per- sonal vexations and cares, real or imaginary, become importu- nate in my thoughts, and acquire, by morbid exaggeration, an undue prominence and importance, what remedy then so infalli- ble as to mount to my solitary seat in the look-out, and thence 54 PROSE AND VERSE. 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 pur- suits, as so many shrimpers ! But this is a digression — we have made the harbor of Dundee, and it is time to step ashore in " stout and original Scotland," as it is called by Doctor Adol- phus Wagner, in his German edition of Burns.* Like other shipments, I had been regularly addressed to the 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 * The Baron Dupotet de Sennevoy and Doctor Elliotson will doubtless be 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 behind 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 Scotchman catches the itch — by friction. How else can you account for it that born blockheads, by mere dint of handling books, grow so wise that 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 honor of their good sense, made me facto- tum 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 bind the book on his back. Johnnie took the hint, and as our meetings were every fourth Saturday, and Pricklouse 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 grey 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 from a neighboring priest, by mere dint of applying it as doctors do a blistering plaster, between his shoulders, Stitch, in a dozen pilgrimages, acquired as much rational theology as the said priest had done by forty years' perusal of its pages." LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 55 my 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 to- wards 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 breakfast ! 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 personi- fication of rouge et noir, with her red eyes, her red face, her yel- low 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 step- ping 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 decline the dram she pressed upon me, and very good it proved, and un- doubtedly 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 coloring 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 depend- 56 PROSE AND VERSE. ent on his own pilotage for a safe voyage to the Isle of Man : or conceive a juvenile Telemachus, without a Mentor, brought sud- denly into the perilous neighborhood of Calypso and her en- chantments. It will hardly be expected, that from 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 soli- tary serious admonition, and that was from a she cousin of ten years old, that the Spectator I was reading on a Sunday morn- ing, " was not the Bible." For there was still it uch of this pious rigor 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 fortune to wit- ness a sample of the ancien regime at an evening party com- posed 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, 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 Plumtres, as illus- trating the intrinsic value of such sanctimonious pretension, that the elder Scotland, so renowned for armlong graces, and redun- dant preachments, and abundant psalm-singing, has yet be- queathed to posterity a singularly liberal collection of songs, the reverse 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, had 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 encourage. Whatever books, good, bad, or indifferent, happen * A. Cunningham, LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 57 ed to come within my reach, were perused with the greatest avidity, and however indiscriminate the course, the balance of the impressions thence derived was decidedly in favor of the allegorical lady, so wisely preferred by Hercules when he had to make his election between Virtue and Vice. Of the mate- rial 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 con- tained, amongst other matters, a new version of Chevy Chase, w T herein 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 one party, whom the Gods had not made poetical, I composed a love-letter in verse ; for another, whose education had been neglected, I carried on a correspon- dence 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 oenning 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 su- perior officer, had rashly cashiered himself by either throwing up or tearing up his commission. In this dilemma he arrived at Dundee, to assume a post in the Customs, which had been pro- cured for him by the interest of his friends. To his infinite in- dignation, however, he found that instead of a lucrative survey- orship. he had been appointed a simple tide-waiter ! and magni- ficent 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 was 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. Ren- dered 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 58 PROSE AND VERSE. his nerves would not permit him to write, he entreated me earn estly to draw up a defiance, which I performed, at the expense of an agony of suppressed laughter, merely to imagine the ef- fect 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 olover. I forget the pre- cise result — but certainly there was no duel. LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 59 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 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 these patriarchal figures in the likeness of an old man covered with a mantle. The effect on myself was rather curious — for I seemed to have come amongst a generation that scarcely belonged- 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 inter- view with a relative oftener heard of traditionally, than encoun- tered 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 reminiscen- ces. 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-office, 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 60 PROSE AND VERSE. Mr. Buckingham's committee, is an especially 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 : — " Tarn 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 otf, according to temperance theories, by spontaneous combustion. On the contrary, the canny north- erns are noted for soundness of constitution and clearness of head, with such a strong principle of vitality as U justify the poetical prediction of Q***, that the world's longest liver, or Last Man, will be a Scotchman. All these favorable signs I duly noted ; and prophetically refrained 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 hos- pital, " I trusted to natur." Whenever the weather permitted, 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 genera- tion 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 oi themselves. Still the sport, if so it might be called, had its own attractions, as, the catching excepted, the whole of the Walton- ish 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-spin- ner, an original, and literary withal, for he had a reel in his head, whence ever and anon he unwound a line of Allan Ram- say, or Beattie, or Burns. Methinks I still listen, trudging homeward in the gloaming, to the recitation of that appropriate stanza, beginning — LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 61 v At the close of the day when the hamlet was still," delivered with a gusto, perhaps only to be felt by a day-laboring mechanic, who had " nothing but his evenings to himself." Methinks I still sympathize with the zest with which he dwell on the pastoral images and dreams so rarely realized, when a chance holiday gave him the fresh-breathing fragrance of the living flower in lieu of the stale odor of the Indian weed : and philosophically I can now understand why poetry, with its lofty aspirations and sublime feelings, seemed to sound so gratefully to the ear from the lips of a " squire of low degree." There is something painful and humiliating to humanity in the abjectness 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 com- pensating 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 neighborhood should enjoy no dance but St. Vitus's, and no fid- dle 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 Flag 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 raging tide, which, when it differs with a contrary wind, will get up "jars " (Anglice waves) quite equal to those of a family manu facture. It was at least a good preparatory school for learning the rudiments 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 occasionally found myself intrusted with the guidance of 62 PROSE AND VERSE. the Coach-Boat, — so called from its carrying the passengers by the Edinburgh Mail — particularly in a calm, when the utmost exertions of the crew, four old man-of-war's-men, were required at the oars. It not unfrequently happened, however, that " the laddie " was unceremoniously ousted by the unanimous vote, and sometimes by the united strength, of the ladies, who invari- ably pitched upon the oldest old gentleman in the vessel to Steer her up and haud her gaun " The consequence being the landing with all the baggage, some 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. 1 forget on what unconscious pilgrimage it was bound, but amongst the other passengers one day, there was that stock-dove of a gourmand's affection, a fine 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 mid- dle of the Tay — so good ; when the spirit of mischief, or curi- osity, 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 actu- ally 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 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 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 63 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-dong, in Rabelais, could hardly have looked more utterly and unutterably dozed, crazed, miz- mazed, and flabbergasted, when his whole flock and stock of golden-fleeced sheep suicidally sheepwashed themselves to death, by wilfully leaping overboard ! 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 ?" 64 PROSE AND VERSE IITERAR1 REMINISCENCES No. III. My first acquaintance with the press — a memorable event in an author's experience — took place in Scotland. Amongst the tem- porary sojourners at our boarding-house, there came a legal antiquarian who had been sent for from Edinburgh, expressly to make some unprofitable researches amongst the mustiest of the civic records. It was my humor 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 recom- mended to the Town Council in a quizzing letter, which the then editor of the Dundee Advertiser or Chronicle thought fit to favor 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 recalls, however, but a very moderate share of exaltation, which was totally eclipsed, moreover, by the exuberant transports of an accessary 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 fluttering all along the High Street, to announce breath- lessly that " we were in." But G. was an indifferent 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 of 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 produce some LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 89 thing like a comedy, and few afterpieces have amused me more than the behavior of this Amicus Redivivus, when, thus drama- tising 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 would-be fine gentleman, who is sensitively conscious that he is carrying a bundle. For the sake of our native sentimentalists who pro- fess 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 jour- ney. I had been absent some months, and was consequently 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 honors thick upon him," in the presence of a damp stranger, could have been more divertingly sheepish, and awkwardly 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 novo, 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 Liston himself could scarcely have parodied the inde- scribable croak with which, conscious of an unlucky notoriety, he inquired " if I had heard " — here, a short husky cough — " of anything particular ?" " Not a word," was the answer. " Then you don't know " — (more fidgetting 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 6 66 PROSE AND VERSE. amen, the confession literally stuck in the culprit's throat ; and I was left to learn, an hour afterwards, and from another source, that " Jemmy G * * * had fought a duel with himself, and cut his own weazand, about a lady." For my own part, with the above figure, and all its foolish features vividly imprinted on my memory, I do not think that I jould ever seriously attempt " what Cato did, and Addison ap- proved," in my 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 xepresent- ing 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 Edi- tor of which was kind enough, as Winifred Jenkins says, to " wrap my bit of nonsense under his Honor'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 Mephistophiles, the Printer's Devil ! Neverthe- less, it was not till years afterwards, and the lapse of term equal to an ordinary apprenticeship, that the Imp in question became really my Familiar. In the meantime, I continued to compose occasionally, and, like the literary performances 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 ante- type, and a longing eye to the Row, whereas, it was adopted simply to make the reading more easy, and thus enable me the LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 07 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 pre- sents 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 argument, 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 ap- pear 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 Miscellanies, and above all, O 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 crabbed 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 pa- per, 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 fortu- nately avert those awful mistakes of the press which sometimes j'uin a poet's sublimest effusion, by pantomimically transforming his roses into noses, his angels into angles, and all his happi- ness into pappiness. PROSE AND VERSE. LITERARY REMINISCENCES. No. IV. " And are ye sure the news is true ? And are ye sure he's well ?" — Old Scotch Song. The great Doctor Johnson — himself a sufferer — has pathetically described, in an essay on the miseries of an infirm constitution, 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. He 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 ; 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 dura- ble good intentions. In a word, your Invalid promises like a Hogmy, and performs like a Pigmy. 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 emphatically to 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 sympathize with nor understand those frequent failures and down-breakings which happen to beings not so fortunately gifted with indelicate consti LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 60 tutions. Such a half-horse half-alligator monster cannot judge, like a Puny Judge, of a case of feebleness. The broad-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 covftume, and a fourth at his paraphernalia, sufficed to detect his country : by his light hair, nubbly features, heavy frame, odd-colored 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 imme- diate use. He had predetermined, no doubt, to record his Ger- man sentiments on first making acquaintance with the German Ocean ; to sketch the picturesque craft he might encounter on its surface ; 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 ! all these intentions fell — if one may cor- rectly 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 Ger- man tongue and its pronunciation), " Wie befinden sea sick V Now, my own case, gentle reader, has been precisely akin to that of our unfortunate Cousin German. Like him I have pro- mised 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 proffer the old theatrical plea of indisposition. As the Rambler describes, I have erected schemes which have been blown down by an ill wind ; I have formed plans and been weather-beaten, like another Murphy, by a change in the weather. For instance, the Comic Annual for 1839 ought properly to have been 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 70 PROSE AND VERSE. 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-biogra- phy, 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 goose-quill still in its green-gosling-hood, instead of any recollections of "cele- brated pens." The truth is that my malady forced me to tempo rise : — wherefore the kind reader will be pleased to consider 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-stand- ing, have become very Old Baily counts — that haunt my con- science. 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 hein- ousness, it misgives me that I was favored 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 impos- sible 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 meantime, in extenuation, I can only plead particularly that deprecation which is offered up, in behalf of all Christian default- ers 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 interesting, in the game of Life, to recal the critical positions which have occurred 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 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 71 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, attributable, 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 furnisiiing 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 them- selves, like Chatterton, for want of it, or choked themselves, like Otway, on obtaining it. Possibly, having learned to think hum- bly of myself — there is nothing like early sickness and sorrow for "taking the conceit" out of one — my vanity did not pre- sume to think, with certain juvenile Tracticians, that I " had a call " to hold forth in print for the edification of mankind. Per- chance, the very deep reverence my reading had led me to entertain for our Bards 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 recommended 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 beef-steak inside, than Pye the Laureate ; not that the verse-spinning was quite given up. * To borrow an example from fiction, there is that slave of circumstances, Oliver Twist. There are few authors whom one would care to see running two heats with the same J*orse. 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 his fortune. 72 PROSE AND VERSE. Though working in aqua fords, 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 com- panion to Lalla Rookh. Moreover, about this time, I became a member of a private select Literary Society that " waited on Ladies and Gentlemen at their own houses." Our Miner- va, 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 5 Doctors in Physics, and Apotheca- ries in Metaphysics ; dabblers in Logic, Chemistry, Casuistry, Sophistry, 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 spoke ; at least within my experience he never unbosomed himself of anything but a portentous shirt frill. According to the 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 mumchanced, that, be- tween 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 Apollo 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 Quaker's Meeting, answered from right to left by a running titter, the speaker having innocently, or perhaps wilfully forgotten, that one or two friends in drab coats, and as many in slate-colored gowns, were sitting, thumb-twiddling, in the circle. Not that the Friends contented themselves with playing dumby at our discussions They often spoke, and very characteristically, to the matter in hand. For instance, their favorite doctrine of non-resistance was once pushed — if Quakers ever push — a little " beyond be- LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 73 yond." By way of clencher, one fair, meek, sleek Quakeress, in dove color, gravely told a melo-dramatic story of a conscien- tious Friend, who, rather than lift even his finger against a Foe, passively, yea, lamb-like, 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. Rae Wilson. At least, one Society night, in escorting a /emale Fellow towards her home, she suddenly stopped me, taking advantage, perhaps, of the awful locality, and its associa- tions, just in front of our chief criminal prison, and looking earnestly in my face, by the light of a Newgate lamp, inquired somewhat abruptly, " Mr. Hood ! are you not an Infidel ?"* In the meantime, whilst thus playing at Literature, an event was ripening which was to introduce me to Authorship in ear- nest, and make the Muse, with whom I had only flirted, my companion for life. It had often occurred to me, that a striking, romantical, necromantical, metaphysical, melo-dramatical, Ger- manish story, might be composed, the interest of which should turn on the mysterious influences of the fate of A over the des- tiny of B, the said parties having no more natural or apparent connection with each other than Tenterden Steeple and the Goodwin Sands. An instance of this occult contingency occur- red in my own case ; for I did not even know by sight the unfor- tunate gentleman on whose untimely exit depended my entrance on the literary stage. In the beginning of the year 1S21, 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, * In justice to the Society, it ought to be recorded, that two of its mem- bers have since distinguished themselves in print: the authoress of " Lon- don in the Olden Tirre," and the author of a " History of Moral Science " 74 PROSE AND VERSE. I was duly installed as a sort of sub-Editor of the Londor 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-fas- tened 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 square inch, at the doubly-hazardous risk which Wordsworth so deprecates, of " growing double." So farewell Woollett ! 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 articles, which were all inserted by the editor, of course with the concurrence of his deputy. The more irksome parts of authorship, such as the correction of the press, were to me labors 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 appropri- ately be apostrophized with the Irish funereal question — "Arrah, * There was a dash of ink in -my blood. My father wrote two novels, and my brother was decidedly 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 antici- pated sighs and tears, but a very unexpected burst of laughter, that he hao Deen guilty of translating some fragments of Petrarch. LITER ARY REMINISCENCES. lo honey, why did you die V Had not you an editor, and elegant prose writers, and beautiful poets, and broths of boys for criti- cism and classics, and wits and humorists. — Elia, Cary, Procter, Cunningham, Bowring, Barton, Hazlitt, Elton, Hartley Cole- ridge, Talfourd, Soane, Horace Smith, Reynolds, Poole, Clare, and Thomas Benyon, with a 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 Agriculture, and an Obituary and a Price Cur- rent, and a current price, of only half-a-crown ? Arrah, why did you die ? Why, somehow 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 Miscellany, 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 Colebrooke. 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 litera- ture. 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 England, I was one of the few who saw the grave close over the remains of one whom to know as a friend was to love as a relation. 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 favorite Sir T. Browne — into " the land of the mole and the pismire " so hung with golden opinions, and honored and regretted with such sincere eulogies 76 PROSE AND VERSE. and elegies, by his contemporaries. To him, the first of these, my reminiscences, is eminently due. for I lost in him not only a dear and kind friend, but an invaluable critic ; one whom, were such literary adoptions in modern use, I might well name, as Cotton called Walton, my " father." To borrow the earnest language of old Jean Bertaut, as Englished by Mr. Cary — " Thou, chiefly, noble spirit, for whose loss Just grief and mourning all our hearts engross, Who seeing me devoted to the Nine, Did'st hope some fruitage from those buds of mine ; Thou did'st excite me after thee t'ascend The Muses' sacred hill ; nor only lend Example, but inspirit me to reach The far-off summit by thy friendly speech. ***** May gracious Heaven, O honor of our age ! Make the conclusion answer thy presage, Nor let it only for vain fortune stand, That I have seen thy visage — toucKd thy hand P* 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 by-gone 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, contemporary at once with Burton the Elder, and Colman the Younger. Meanwhile he advanced with rather a peculiar gait, his walk was planti- grade, and with a cheerful " How d'ye," and one of the bland- est, sweetest smiles that ever brightened a manly countenance, held out two fingers to the Editor. The two gentlemen in black LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 77 soon fell into discourse ; and whilst they conferred, the Lavatei 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 turning the nose, a decided one, though of no established order ; and there was a handsome smartness about the mouth. Altogether 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 per- sons in a Comedy of Errors. You might have sworn to it piece- meal, — 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 allusion, were alike characteristic of the individual, whom his familiars will perchance have recognized already as the delightful Essay- ist, the capital Critic, the pleasant Wit and Humorist, the deli- cate-minded and large-hearted Charles Lamb ! He was shy 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 ac- quaintance got no farther, in spite of a desperate attempt on my part to attract his notice. His complaint of the Decay of Beg- gars 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 78 PROSE AND VERSE well-known quaint figure in black walked in without any for- mality, 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 neighbor, 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 least hobble, some risk, to be of a party in a parlor with the Author of Laodamia and Hartleap Well. As for his Betty Foy-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 mountains. If he has babbled, sometimes, like an infant of two. years old ; he has also 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 ; * A cottage of Ungentility, for it had neither double coach-house nor wings. Like its tenant, it stood alone. He said, glancing at the Paternos- ter 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 Sects than of Insects," he made probably his first and last observation in Entomology. He had been watching a spider on a gooseberry bush, entrapping a fly. " I never saw such a thing," he said. " 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 Sis- ters in Gray." f A sort of rheumatic celerity, of which Sir W. Scott's favorite 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 laugh- ter which once rang throughout the Adelphi green-room, at his emphatic manner of giving, from a manuscript play, the stage direction of " Enter , with — a— lack— ri— ty !" LITERARY REMINISCENCES. TO for, without any preliminaries of hall, passage, or parlor, one single 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, as the Indians say, fell short of my an- ticipations. Perhaps my memory is in fault ; 't was 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 Keate 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 Saddle- back, and feel his legs. He cannot, like the Girl in the Fairy Tale, be always talking diamonds and pearls. It is a " Vulgar Error " to suppose that an author must be always authoring, even with his feet on the fender. Nevertheless, it is not an un- common impression, that a writer sonnetizes his wife, sings odes to his children, talks ?ssays and epigrams to his friends, and re- views 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." And very pleasant and improving, ,/CUgh not of set purpose, to both mind and heart, were those extempore assemblages at Colebrooke Cottage. It was wholesome for the soul but to breathe its atmosphere. It was a House of Call for All Denom- inations. Sides were lost in that circle, Men of all parties post- poned their partizanship, and met as on a neutral ground. There were but two persons whom L. avowedly did not wish to en- counter 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 PROSE AND VERSE. within its sphere. Lamb, whilst he willingly lent a crutch to halting Humility, took delight in tripping up the stilts of Pre- tension. 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 Mannerism, and above all, Separatism. In opposition to the Exclusives, 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 Religionist I pass for a Free-Thinker, while the other faction set me down for a Bigot." In fact, no politician ever labored 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 a Unitarian.* With a Catholic he would probably have called himself a Jew ; as amongst Quakers, by way of a set-off against their own formality, he would indulge in a little extra levity. I well remember his chuckling at having spirited on his corres- pondent 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 inter- course, I received a letter in a well-known hand, quaint as the sentences it conveyed. * 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 everything but a Bigot. As he was in spirit an Old Author, so he was in faith an Ancient Christian, too ancient to belong to any of the modern sub- hubbub-divisions of — Ists,— Arians, and — Inians. LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 61 "And what dost thou at the Priory? Cucullus non faci Monachum. English me that, and challenge old Lignum Janua to make a better. " My old New River has presented no extraordinary novelties lately. But there Hope sits every day speculating upon tradi- tionary 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 :ny hands in fishets that come through the pump every mornings 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 Lover's Seat, neither of that little Churchling in the midst of a wood (in the opposite direction 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 Robinson Crusoe had reared it to soothe himself with old church-going images. I forget its Xtian 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 have only to name the old Gentleman in 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. But 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. 7 82 PROSE AND VERSE. I design to give up smoking; but I have not yet fixed upon the equivalent vice. I must have quid pro quo, or quo pro quid, 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 of 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 now in a rapid decline ; some of its crack contributors had left it off, and the gatherings of the clan to eat, drink, and be merry, were few and far between. There was indeed one Venison Feast 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 absent from the pack. At former dinners, how- ever, 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 pleasant 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-colored 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-colored 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 very countrified suit, linked arm-in-arm with the Editorial sables, made a boggle at admitting them into his repository, having seen. LITERARY REMINISCENCES. S3 perchance, such a made-up Peasant "playing at playing" at thimble-rig about the Square. No wonder the gentleman's gen- tleman, 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 interloper, though he made amends afterwards by waiting almost exclusively on the Peasant, per- fectly convinced that he was some eccentric Notable of the Corinthian order, disguised in Rustic. Little wonder, either, that in wending homewards on the same occasion through the Strand, the Peasant and Elia, Sylvanus et Urban, linked com- fortably together ; there arose the frequent cry of " Look at Tom and Jerry — 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 tp " 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 multis 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 " O ! she was fair !" think- ing, mayhap, of his own Alice W , and Clare swearing " Dal !" (a clarified oath) "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 * Talking of Poetry, Lamb told me one day that he had just met with the most vigorous line he had ever read. " Where ?" " Out of the Camden's Head, all in one line — " To One Hundred Pots of Porter . . . . £2 15" 84 PROSE AND VERSE. 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 " inventing it." 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 Field, 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 Road, and manufactured iEolian 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 han- kering after poetry, because it is forbidden them, have ventured to pluck and eat of the pastoral sorts, as most dallying with the innocence of nature, — and who on that account patronised Capt. Lotffs protege — 1 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 ho ror, evidently LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 85 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 sent their porter to meet him at the inn ; but when Thomas necessarily inquired of the gentleman in green, " Are you Mr. Clare V the latter, willing to foil the traditionary tricks of London sharpers, replied to the suspicious query with "a positive negative.'' * The Brobdignagdian 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 Ramsay, 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 Allan-a-Dale, who was apt to mistake his neighbors' goods for his own — sometimes, between ourselves, yclept the " C. of Solway," in allusion to that favorite "Allan Water," the Solway Sea. There is something of the true moody poetical weather observable in the barometer of his face, alternating from Variable to Showery, from Stormy to Set Fair. 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 ones ? Is Bonnie Lady Ann married, or May Morison dead ? Thou wast formed for a poet, Allan, by nature, and by stature too, accord- ing to Pope — " To snatch a grace beyond the reach of Art." And are there not Longman, or Tallboys, for thy Publishers ? * Somebody happened to say that the Peasant ought to figure in the Percy Anecaotes, as an example of uncultivated genius " And where will they stick me," asked Clare ; " will they stick me in the instinct ?" 86 PROSE AND VERSE. But, alas ! we are fallen on evil days for Bards and Barding, and 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 Fund ! The Reverend personage on the Editor's right, with the stu- dious brow, deep-set eyes, and bald crown, is the mild and modest Cary — 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 Tianslator 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 Homed 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 Cary, and, as Elia called them, his Caryatides ! j" 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 Barry 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 Brotherhood, 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 way, I see a profile, a shadow of which ever confronts me on opening my writing-desk, — a sketch taken from memory, the * I once cut out from a country newspaper what seemed to me a very good old English poem. It proved to be a naturalization, by Cary, of a French Song to April, by Remy Belleau. f The father expressing an uncertainty to what profession he should de- vote a younger Cary, Lamb said, " Make him an Apothe-Cary. ' LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 87 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 bulk 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 Sampsons 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 reminds 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 quickly — like the phantom of 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 Den- ham'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 Literature, 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 Philosopher, standing, with his eyes fixed on one side of the room, seemed to be less speaking than reading from a " handwriting on the wall." Now and then he would diverge, for a Scotch * Unable to make anything "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 ; amongst 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 Gen- tleman alluded to, or even a portrait of him in my life. 88 PROSE AND VERSE. 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 spirit of that " old famifiar face." A faint hec- tic tint leaves the cheek, the eyes are a degree dimmer, and each is surrounded by a growing shadow — signs of the waning influ- ence of that Potent Drug whose stupendous Pleasures and enor- mous Pains have been so eloquently described by the English Opium Eater. Marry, I have one of his Confessions 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, colored, of " a tumbler of laudanum negus, warm, without su- gar." * 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 champaigne, not that he requires it to inspirit him, for his wit bubbles up of itself — is our Edward Herbert, the Author of that true piece of Bio- graphy, the life of Peter Corcoran. He is "good with both hands," like that Nonpareil Randall, at a comic verse or a seri- ous stanza — smart at a repartee — sharp at a retort, — and not 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-flavored, — like the sharpness of the pine-apple. Would I could give a sample. Alas ! What a pity it is that so many good things uttered by Poets, and Wits, and Humorists, * On a visit to Norfolk, I was much surprised to find that Opium, or Opie, as it was vulgarly called, was quite in common use in the form of pills amongst the lower classes, in the vicinity of the Fens. It is not probable that persons in such a rank of life had read the Confessions, — or, might not one suspect that as Dennis Brulgruddery was driven to drink by the stale, flat and unprofitable prospects of Muckslush Heath, so the Fen-People in the dreary foggy cloggy boggy wastes of Cambridge and Lincolnshire, had flown to the Drug for the sake of the magnificent scenery that filled the splendid visions of its Historian ? LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 89 at chance times — and they are always the best and brightest, like sparks struck out by Pegasus' own hoof, in a curvet amongs the flints — should be daily and hourly lost to the world for want of a recorder ! But in this Century of Inventions, when a self- acting drawing-paper has been discovered for copying visible objects, who knows but that a future Niepce, or Daguerre, or Herschel, or Fox 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 days of Social Clubs are over and gone, when the Professors 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 Friar's ! Apropos to which face he gave us a humorous description of an unfinished por- trait, that served him for a sort of barometer, to indicate the state of his popularity. So sure as his name made any tempo- rary 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 ! What a comfortable, respectable figure ! What a model, methought, 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 o'f his voluntaries would have frightened a common everyday con- gregation from their propriety. Amongst other matters of dis- 00 PROSE AND VERSE. course, he came to speak of the strange notions some literal, minded persons form of the joys of Heaven ; joys they asso- ciated 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 per- sonal 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." Af- ter dinner he got up, and began pacing to and fro, with his hands behind his back, talking and walking, as Lamb laughingly 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 would not let you go. To at- tempt to describe my own feeling afterward, I had been carried, spiralling, up to heaven by a whirlwind intertwisted with sun- beams, giddy and dazzled, but not displeased, and had then been rained down again with a shower of mundane stocks and stones that battered out of me all recollection of what I had heard, and what I had seen ! On the second occasion, the author of Christabel was accom- panied 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 Addresses !" Coleridge was highly amused with this mal-apropos, and, with- out explaining, looked slily round at me, with the sort of sup- pressed laugh one may suppose to belong to the Bey of Titfery. The truth was, he felt naturally partial to a book he had attri- buted 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 me LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 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 mo- tive 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 converse to have reproduced you so honestly, supposing you had left your- self 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 doubtfully of Reynolds and Hood. But here come Irving and Basil Montagu. " Thursday Night, 10 o'clock. — No ! Charles, it is you. I have read them over again, and I understand why you have anon'd the book. The puns are nine in ten good — many excellent — the Newgatory transcendant. And then the exemplum sine exem- plo 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 perhaps in the envy-addled brain of the despiser of your Lays. If not a tri- umph over him, it is at least an ovation. Then, moreover, 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 olfacto- ries ! what will he do in Paradise ? I must have a pair or two of nostril plugs, or nose-goggles laid in his coffin) — stands at the door, reading that to M'Adam, and the washerwoman'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." 92 PROSE AND VERSE. It may be mentioned here, that instead of feeling " the infini tesimal of an unplcasance " at being Addressed in the Odes, the once celebrated Mr. Hunt presented to the Authors, a boctle of his best " Permanent Ink," and the eccentric Doctor Kitchiner sent an invitation to dinner. From Colebrooke, Lamb removed to Enfield Chase, — a pain- ful operation at all times, for, as he feelingly misapplied Words- worthj " the moving accident was not his trade." As soon as he was settled, I called upon him, and found him in a bald-looking yellowish house, with a bit of a garden, and a wasp's ntst con- vanient, 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. Fie 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 Smollet's timely snowball. " Yes," said he, " and a stinging commentary on Macbeth — "By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.'* There were no pastoral yearnings concerned in this Enfield removal. 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 Pall-Mall" would have carried it all 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 otherwise. " 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 have accompanied him in these matches against Meux, not without sharing in the stake, and then, what cheerful and profitable talk ! For instance, he once delivered to me orally the substance of the Essay on the Defect of Imagination in Modern Artists, subsequently printed in the Athenoeum. But besides the criticism, there were snatches LITERARY REM IN i SCEN CES. of old poems, golden lines and sentences culled from rare books, and anecdotes of men of note. Marry, it was like going a ram- ble with gentle Izaak Walton, minus the fishing. To make these excursions more deligi^ful to one of my tem- perament, Lamb never affected any spurious gravity. Neither did he ever act the Grand Senior. He did not exact that com- mon copy-book respect, which some asinine persons would fain command on account of the mere length of their years. As if, forsooth, what is bad in itself, could be the better for keeping , as if intellects already mothery, got anything but grandmothery 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 a standing pool," he was the first to pitch a mischievous stone to disturb the duck-weed. "He was a boy-man," as he truly said of Elia ; " and his manners lagged behind his years." He liked to herd with people younger than himself. Perhaps, in his fine generalizing way, he thought that, in relation to Eter- nity, we are all contemporaries. However, without reckoning birthdays, it was always "Hail fellow, well met;" and although 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 94 PROSE AND VERSE. 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 undertook the charge, but made no other use of his " brief authority" 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 *hat 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 dished, so may not you and your rib. Health attend you. Yours, Enfield. 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 ex- isted, save in the fiction of Rabelais) 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 an anec- dote, to the discredit of a literary man, during a very confiden- tial conversation, the next moment, with an expression of remorse, for having impaired even my opinion of the party, he bound me solemnly to buiy the story in my own bosom. In another case he characteristically rebuked the backbiting spirit of a censori- LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 95 ous neighbor. Some Mrs. Candor telling him, in expectation of an ill-natured 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 trvth 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 then 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 "flimsies " instead of substantial coin, the good old solid sonorous dollars and doub- loons, and pieces of eight, that might be handled, and hugged, and rattled, and perhaps kissed. But to this passion for hoard- ing 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 re- markably 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, occasioned — what would Hannah More have said ! — -by running down Greenwich Hill ! This antiquated personage had been Lamb's Schoolmistress — and on this retrospective conside- ration, though she could hardly have taught him more than to read his native tongue — he allowed her in her decline, a yearly sum, equal to — what shall I say ? — to the stipend which some persons of fortune deem sufficient for the active services of an i>6 PROSE AND VERSE. all-accomplished 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 antagonising, he was, in his views of human nature, the opposite of Crabbe ; in Criticism, of GifFord ; in Poetry, of Lord Byron ; in Prose, of the last new Novelist ; in Philosophy, of Kant ; and in Religion, of Sir Andrew Agnew. Of his wit I have endeavored to give such samples as occurred to me ; but the spirit of his sayings was too 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 Falstaff, he seemed not only witty himself but the occasion of it by exam- ple in others. " There i s M******" said he, "who goes about dropping his good things as an ostrich lays her eggs with- out caring what becomes of them." It was once my good for- tune 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 V " Answer : " A Day ill be-stowed." It is now some five years ago, since I stood with other mourn- ers in Edmonton Church Yard, beside a grave in which all that was mortal of Elia was deposited. It may be a dangerous con- fession to make, but I shed no tear ; and scarcely did a sigh escape from my bosom. There were many sources of comfort. He had not died young. He had happily gone before that noble sister, who not in selfishness, but the devotion of a unique affec- tion, would have prayed to survive him but for a day, lest he should miss that tender care which had watched over him up- wards from a little child. Finally he had left behind him his works, a rare legacy ! — and above all, however 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 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 97 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 cant 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 favored and more particularly for the amusement he has re- ceived 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 humor- ous satire "Abbotsford Melrose 4th May " The first time I ever saw the Great Unknown, was at the private view of Martin's Picture of " Nineveh," — when, by a striking coincidence, one of our most celebrated women, and one of our 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 ihe painting. As Editor of the Gem, I had afterwards occasion to write to Sir Walter, from whom I received the fol- lowing letter, which contains an allusion to some of his charac- teristic partialities : — " My dear Mr. Hood, — It was very ungracious in me to leave you in a day's doubt whether I was gratified or otherwise with the honor 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 favored 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 8 98 PROSE AND VERSE. 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 " Edinburgh 4 March Walter Scott." At last, during one of his visits *o London, I had the h.nor ot 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 fine dog down an area, I knocked without 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 own animals with him, about London, " for fear he should be taken for Bill Gibbons." I 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 Cona- char's catastrophe. Perhaps he divined what had really occur- red 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 mean time 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 ordinary 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 LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 99 been in more than one sense " a Giant in the Land." After some more conversation, in the course of which he asked rne 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, realized ! ***** 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. 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 want, and no more. Of late, Lord * * * has been endeavoring to raise a body of yeomanry in this coun- ty. Now there's a man at Bedfont — a compounder of nauseous drugs — and against whom I owe a grudge, who wishes to enter, but who's no more fit for a fighter than I for a punster. Now if you will just give him a palpable hit or two in verse, and trans- mit 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 1 Jambs Booker, Chemist,' Bedfont of course. If you disapprove of the above, I trust you will not abuse the confidence placed in you, by ' split- ting.' You'll say, how can I ? — by showing this letter to him. He knows the hand-writing 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. Yours truly, 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 fel- low, flushed face, long nose, precious ugly, housekeeper as ugly, lives between the two Peacock Inns, is a single man, very anx- 100 PROSE AND VERSE. ious to get possession of Miss Boltbee, a ward in Chancery with something like 9000Z. (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 own, used to go to church, now goes to chapel, and in the whole is a great rascal. " Bedfont is thirteen miles from London." THE LOST HEIR. 101 THE LOST HEIR. •* Oh where, and oh where, Is my bonny laddie gone ?"— Old Song. One day, as I was going by That part of Hoi born christened High, I heard a Joud and sudden cry That chilPd my very blood ; And lo ! from out a dirty alley, Where pigs and Irish wont to rally, I saw a crazy woman sally, Bedaub'd with grease and mud. She turn'd her East, she turn'd her West, Staring like Pythoness possest, With streaming hair and heaving breast, As one stark mad with grief. This way and that she wildly ran, Jostling with woman and with man — Her right hand held a frying-pan, The left a lump of beef. At last her frenzy seem'd to reach A point just capable of speech, And with a tone almost a screech, As wild as ocean birds, Or female Ranter mov'd to preach, She gave her " sorrow words." " O Lord ! O dear, my heart will break, I shall go stick stark staring wild ! 102 PROSE AND V ERSE. Has ever a one seen anything about the streets like a crying lost-looking child ? Lawk help me, I don't know where to look, or to run, if I only knew which way — A Child as is lost about London streets, and especially Seven Dials, is a needle in a bottle of hay. I am all in a quiver — get out of my sight, do, you wretch, you little Kitty M'Nab! You promised to have half an eye to him, you know you did, you dirty deceitful young drab. The last time as ever I see him, poor thing, was with my own blessed Motherly eyes, Sitting as good as gold in the gutter, a playing at making little dirt pies. I wonder he left the court where he was better off than all the other young boys, With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster-shells, and a dead kitten by way of toys. When his Father comes home, and he always comes home as sure as ever the clock strikes one, He'll be rampant, he will, at his child being lost ; and the beef and the inguns not done ! La bless you, good folks, mind your own consarns, and don't be making a mob in the street ; O serjeant M'Farlane ! you have not come across my poor little boy, have you, in your beat 1 Do, good people, move on ! don't stand staring at me like a parcel of stupid stuck pigs ; Saints forbid ! but he 's p'r'aps been inviggled away up a court for the sake of his clothes by the prigs ; He'd a very good jacket, for certain, for I bought it myself for a shilling one day in Rag Fair ; And his trowsers considering not very much patch'd, and red plush, they was once his Father's best pair. His shirt, it 's very lucky I 'd got washing in the tub, or that might have gone with the rest ; But he 'd got on a very good pinafore with only two slits and a burn on the breast. THE LOST HEIR 103 He 'd a goodish sort of hat, if the crown was sew'd in, and not quite so much jagg'd at the brim. With one shoe on, and the other shoe is a boot, and not a fit, and you '11 know by that if it 's him. Except being so well dress'd, my mind would misgive, some old beggar woman in want of an orphan, Had borrow'd the child to go a begging with, but I 'd rather see him laid out in his coffin ! Do, good people, move on, such a rabble of boys ! I'll break every bone of 'em I come near, Go home — you 're spilling the porter — go home — Tommy Jones, go along home with your beer. This day is the sorrowfullest day of my life, ever since my name was Betty Morgan, Them vile Savoyards ! they lost him once before all along of following a Monkey and an Organ : O my Billy — my head will turn right round — if he's got kid- dynapp'd with them Italians, They '11 make him a plaster parish image boy, they will, the outlandish tatterdemalions. Billy — where are you, Billy ? — I'm as hoarse as a crow, with screaming for ye, you young sorrow ! And shan't have half a voice, no more I shan't, for crying fresh herrings to-morrow. Billy, you 're bursting my heart in two, and my life won't be of no more vally, If I'm to see other folks' darlins, and none of mine, playing like angels in our alley, And what shall I do but cry out my eyes, when I looks at the old three-legged chair As Billy used to make coach and horses of, and there a'n't no Billy there ! 1 would run all the wide world over to find him, if I only know'd where to run, Little Murphy, now I remember, was once lost for a month through stealing a penny bun, — The Lord forbid of any child of mine ! I think it would kill me raily, 104 PROSE AND VERSE. To find my Bill holdin' up his little innocent hand at the Old Baily. For though I say it as oughtn't, yet I will say, you may search for miles and mileses And not find one better brought up, and more pretty behaved, from one end to t'other of St. Giles's. And if I called him a beauty, it's no lie, but only as a Mother ought to speak ; You never set eyes on a more handsomer face, only it hasn't been washed for a week ; As for hair, tho' it's red, it's the most nicest hair when I've time to just show it the comb ; I'll owe 'em five pounds, and a blessing besides, as will only bring him safe and sound home. He's blue eyes, and not to be call'd a squint, though a little cast he's certainly got ; And his nose is still a good un, tho' the bridge is broke, by his falling on a pewter pint pot ; He's got the most elegant wide mouth in the world, and very large teeth for his age ; And quite as fit as Mrs. Murdockson's child to play Cupid on the Drury Lane Stage. And then he has got such dear winning ways — but O I never, never shall see him no more ! O dear ! to think of losing him just after nussing him back from death's door ! Only the very last month when the windfalls, hang 'em, was at twenty a penny ! And the threepence he'd got by grottoing was spent in plums, and sixty for a child is too many. And the Cholera man came and whitewash'd us all and, drat him, made a seize of our hog. — It's no use to send the Cryer to cry him about, he's such a blunderin' drunken old dog ; The last time he was fetched to find a lost child, he was guzzling with his bell at the Crown, And went and cried a boy instead of a girl, for a distracted Mother and Father about Town. THE LOST HEIR. 105 Billy — where are you, Billy, 1 say . come Billy, come home, to your best of Mothers ! Vm scared when I think of them Cabroleys, they drive so, they'd run over their own Sisters and Brothers. Or may be he's stole by some chimbly sweeping wretch, to stick fast in narrow flues and what not, And be poked up behind with a picked pointed pole, when the soot has ketch'd, and the chimbly's red hot. Oh I'd give the whole wide world, if the world was mine, to clap my two longin* eyes on his face, For he's my darlin of darlins, and if he don't soon come back, you'll see me drop stone dead on the place. I only wish I'd got him safe in these two Motherly arms, and wouldn't I hug him and kiss him ! Lauk ! I never knew what a precious he was — but a child don't not feel like a child till you miss him. Why there he is ! Punch and Judy hunting, the young wretch, it's that Billy as sartin as sin ! But let me get him home, with a good grip of his hair, and I'm blest if he shall have a whole bone in his skin ! 106 PROSE AND VERSE / AN UNDERTAKER, Is an illwiller to the Human Race. He is by Profession an Enemy to his Species, and can no more look kindly at his Fel- lows than the Sheriff's Officer ; for why, his Profit begins with an arrest for the Debt of Nature. As the Bailiff looks on a failing Man, so doth he, and with the same Hope, namely, to take the Body. Hence hath he little Sympathy with his Kind, small Pity for the Poor, and least of all for the widow and the orphans, whom he regards Planter like, but as so many Blacks on his Estate. If he have any Community of Feeling, it is with the Sexton, who has likewise a Per Centage on the Bills of Mortality, and never sees a Picture of Health but he longs to ingrave it. Both have the same quick Ear for a Churchyard Cough, and both the same Relish for the same Music, to wit, the Toll of Saint Sepulchre. Moreover both go constantly in black — howbeit 'tis no Mourning Suit but a Livery — for he grieves no more for the Defunct than the Bird of the same Plumage, that is the Under- taker to a dead Horse. As a Neighbor he is to be shunned. To live opposite to him is to fall under the Evil Eye. Like the Witch that fbrespeaks other Cattle, he would rot you as soon as look at you, if it could be done at a Glance ; but that Magic being out of Date, he contents himself with choosing the very Spot on the House Front that shall serve for a Hatchment. Thenceforward he watches your going out and your coming in : your rising up and your lying down, and all your Domestic Imports of Drink and Victual, so that the veriest She Gossip in the Parish is not more familiar with vour Modes and Means of Living, nor knows AN UNDERTAKER. 107 so certainly whether the Visitor, that calls daily in his Chariot, is a mere Friend or a Physician. Also he knows your Age to a Year, and your Height to an Inch, for he hath measured you with his Eye for a Coffin, and your Ponderosity to a Pound, for he hath an Interest in the Dead Weight, and hath so far inquired into your Fortune as to guess with what Equipage you shall travel on your last Journey. For, in professional Curiosity, he is truly a Pall Pry. Wherefore to dwell near him is as melan- choly as to live in view of a Churchyard ; to be within Sound of his Hammering is to hear the Knocking at Death's Door. To be friends with an Undertaker is as impossible as to be the Crony of a Crocodile. He is by Trade a Hypocrite, and deals of Necessity in Mental Reservations and Equivoques. Thus he drinks to your good Health, but hopes, secretly, it will not endure. He is glad to find you so hearty — as to be Apoplec- tic ; and rejoices to see you so stout — with a short Neck. He bids you beware of your old Gout — and recommends a Quack Doctor. He laments the malignant Fever so prevalent — and wishes you may get it. He compliments your Complexion — when it is Blue or Yellow : admires your upright Carriage, — and hopes it will break down. Wishes you good Day, but means everlasting Night ; and commends his Respects to your Father and Mother — but hopes you do not honor them. In short, his good Wishes are treacherous ; his Inquiries are suspicious ; and his Civilities are dangerous ; as when he proffereth the Use of his Coach — or to see you Home. For the rest, he is still at odds with Humanity ; at constant issue with its Naturalists, and its Philanthropists, its Sages, its Counsellors, and its Legislators. For example, he praises the Weather — with the Wind at East ; and rejoices in a wet Spring and Fall, for Death and he reap with one Sickle, and have a good or a bad Harvest in common. He objects not to Bones in Bread (being as it were his own Diet), nor to ill Drugs in Beer, nor to Sugar of Lead or arsenical Finings in Wine, nor to ardent Spirits, nor to interment in Churches. Neither doth he discountenance the Sitting on Infants ; nor the Swallowing of Plum Stones ; nor of cold Ices at Hot balls, — nor the drinking of Embrocations, nay he hath been known to contend 108 PROSE AIND VERSE. that the wrong Dose was the right one. He approves, contra the Physicians, of a damp Bed, and wet Feet. — of a hot Head and cold Extremities, and lends his own Countenance to the Natural Small Pox, rather than encourage Vaccination — which he calls flying in the Face of Providence. Add to these, a free Trade in Poisons, whereby the Oxalic Crystals may currently become Proxy for the Epsom ones ; and the corrosive Sublimate as common as Salt in Porridge. To the same End he would give unto every Cockney a Privilege to shoot, within ten miles round London, without a Taxed License, and would never concur in a Fine or Deodand for Fast Driving, except the Vehicle were a Hearse. Thus, whatever the popular Cry, he runs counter : a Heretic in Opinion, and a Hypocrite in Practice, as when he pretends to be sorrowful at a Funeral ; or, what is worse, affects to pity the ill-paid Poor, and yet helpeth to screw them down. To conclude, he is a Personage of ill presage to the House of Life : a Raven on the Chimney Pot — a Dead-watch in the Wainscot, — a Winding Sheet in the Candle. To meet with him is ominous. His looks are sinister ; his Dress is lugubrious ; his Speech is prophetic ; and his Touch is mortal. Neverthe- less he hath one Merit, and in this our World, and in these our Times, it is a main one ; namely, that whatever he Undertakes he Performs. MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 109 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. A GOLDEN LEGEND. " What is here ? Gold ! yellow, glittering, precious gold ?" Timon of Athens. HER PEDIGREE, To trace the Kilmansegg pedigree, To the very root of the family tree, Were a task as rash as ridiculous : Through antediluvian mists as thick As London fog such a line to pick Were enough, in truth, to puzzle Old Nick, Not to name Sir Harris Nicholas. It wouldn't require much verbal strain To trace the Kill-man, perchance, to Cain ; But waving all such digressions, Suffice it, according to family lore, A Patriarch Kilmansegg lived of yore, Who was famed for his great possessions. Tradition said he feather'd his nest Through an Agricultural Interest In the Golden Age of Farming ; When golden eggs were laid by the geese, And Colchian sheep wore a golden fleece, And golden pippins — the sterling kind Of Hesperus — now so hard to find — Made Horticulture quite charming ! PROSE AND VERSE. A Lord of Land, on his own estate, He lived at a very lively rate, But his income would bear carousing ; Such acres he had of pasture and heath, With herbage so rich from the ore beneath, The very ewe's and lambkin's teeth Were turn'd into gold by browsing. He gave, without any extra thrift, A flock of sheep for a birthday gift To each son of his loins, or daughter : And his debts — if debts he had — at will He liquidated by giving each bill A dip in Pactolian water. 'Twas said that even his pigs of lead, By crossing with some by Midas bred, Made a perfect mine of his piggery. And as for cattle, one yearling bull Was worth all Smithfield-market full Of the Golden Bulls of Pope Gregory. The high-bred horses within his stud, Like human creatures of birth and blood, Had their Golden Cups and flagons : And as for the common husbandry nags, Their noses were tied in money-bags, When they stopp'd with the carts and wagons. Moreover, he had a Golden Ass, Sometimes at stall, and sometimes at grass, That was worth his own weight in money— And a golden hive, on a Golden Bank, Where golden bees, by alchemical prank, Gather'd gold instead of honey. Gold ! and gold ! and gold without end ! He had gold to lay by, and gold to spend, Gold to give, and gold to lend, MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 11 1 And reversions of gold infuturo. In wealth the family revell'd and roll'd, Himself and wife and sons so bold ; — And his daughters sang to their harps of gold " O bella eta del' oro !" Such was the tale of the Kilmansegg Kin, In golden text on a vellum skin, Though certain people would wink and grin, And declare the whole story a parable — That the ancestor rich was one Jacob Ghrimes, Who held a long lease, in prosperous times, Of acres, pasture and arable. That as money makes money, his golden bees Were the five per cents, or which you please, When his cash was more than plenty — That the golden cups were racing affairs ; And his daughters, who sang Italian airs, Had their golden harps of Clementi. That the Golden Ass, or Golden Bull, Was English John, with his pockets full, Then at war by land and water : While beef, and mutton, and other meat, Were almost as dear as money to eat, And Farmers reaped Golden Harvests of wheat At the Lord knows what per quarter ! HER BIRTH. What different dooms our birthdays bring ! For instance, one little manikin thing Survives to wear many a wrinkle ; While Death forbids another to wake, And a son that it took nine moons to make Expires without even a twinkle ! Into this world we come like ships, Launch'd from the docks, and stocks, and slips ; PROSE AND VERSE. For fortune fair or fatal ; And one little craft is cast away In its very first trip to Babbicome Bay, While another rides safe at Port Natal. What different lots our stars accord ! This babe to be hail'd and woo'd as a Lord ! And that to be shunned like a leper ! One to the world's wine, honey and corn, Another, like Colchester native, born To its vinegar, only, and pepper. One is litter'd under a roof Neither wind nor water proof, — That's the prose of Love in a Cottage — A puny, naked, shivering wretch, The whole of whose birthright would not fetch, Though Robins himself drew up the sketch, The bid of " a mess of pottage." Born of Fortunatus's kin, Another comes tenderly usher'd in To a prospect all bright and burnishM : No tenant he for life's back slums — He comes to the world as a gentleman comes To a lodging ready furnish'd. And the other sex — the tender — the fair — What wide reverses of fate are there Whilst Margaret, charm' by the Bulbul rare, In a garden of Gul reposes — Poor Peggy hawks nosegays from street to street, Till — think of that, who find life so sweet ! — She hates the smell of roses ! Not so with the infant Kilmansegg ! She was not born to steal or beg, Or gather cresses in ditches ; To plait the straw, or bind the shoe, MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. Or sit all day to hem and sew, As females must, and not a few — To fill their insides with stitches ; She was not doom'd, for bread to eat, To be put to her hands as well as her feet — To carry home linen from mangles — Or heavy-hearted, and weary-limb'd, To dance on a rope in a jacket trimm'd With as many blows as spangles. She was one of those who by Fortune's boon Are born, as they say, with a silver spoon In her mouth, not a wooden ladle : To speak according to poet's wont, Plutus as sponsor stood at her font, And Midas rock'd the cradle. At her first dtbut she found her head On a pillow of down, in a downy bed, With a damask canopy over. For although by the vulgar popular saw All mothers are said to be " in the straw," Some children are born in clover. Her very first draught of vital air It was not the common chamelion fare Of plebeian lungs and noses, — No — her earliest sniff Of this world was a whiff Of the genuine Otto of Roses ! When she saw the light it was no mere ray Of that light so common — so everyday — That the sun each morning launches — But six wax tapers dazzled her eyes, From a thing — a gooseberry bush for size — With a golden stem and branches. 9 114 PROSE AND VERSE. She was born exactly at half-past two, As witness'd a timepiece in or-molu That stood on a marble table — Showing at once the time of day. And a team of Gildings running away As fast as they were able, With a golden God, with a golden Star, And a golden Sp©ar, in a golden Car, According to Grecian fable. Like other babes, at her birth she cried ; Which made a sensation far and wide, Ay, for twenty miles around her ; For though to the ear 'twas nothing more Than an infant's squall, it was really the roar Of a Fifty-thousand Pounder ! It shook the next heir In his library chair, And made him cry, " Confound her V Of signs and omens there was no dearth, Any more than at Owen Glendower's birth, Or the advent of other great people : Two bullocks dropp'd dead, As if knock'd on the head, And barrels of stout And ale ran about, And the village-bells such a peal rang out, That they crack'd the village-steeple. In no time at all, like mushroom spawn. Tables sprang up all over the lawn ; Not furnish'd scantly or shabbily, But on scale as vast As that huge repast, With its loads and cargoes Of drink and botargoes, At the Birth of the Babe in Rabelais. MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. Hundreds of men were turn'd into beasts, Like the guests at Circe's horrible feasts, By the magic of ale and cider ; And each country lass, and each country lad, Began to caper and dance like mad, And even some old ones appear'd to have had A bite from the Naples Spider. Then as night came on, It had scared King John, Who considered such signs not risible, To have seen the maroons, And the whirling moons, And the serpents of flame, And wheels of the same, That according to some were " whizzable." Oh, happy Hope of the Kilmanseggs ! Thrice happy in head, and body, and legs, That her parents had such full pockets ! For had she been born of Want and Thrift, For care and nursing all adrift, It's ten to one she had had to make shift With rickets instead of rockets ! And how was the precious Baby drest ? In a robe of the East, with lace of the West, Like one of Croesus's issue — Her best bibs were made Of rich gold brocade, And the others of silver tissue. And when the Baby inclined to nap She was lull'd on a Gros de Naples lap, By a nurse in a modish Paris cap, Of notions so exalted, She drank nothing lower than Curaqoa, Maraschino, or pink Noyau, And on principle never malted. PROSE AND VERSE. From a golden boat, with a golden spoon, The babe was fed night, morning, and noon ; And altho' the tale seems fabulous, 'Tis said her tops and bottoms were gilt, Like the oats in that Stable-yard Palace built For the horses of Heliogabalus. And when she took to squall and kick — For pains will wring and pins will prick E'en the wealthiest nabob's daughter — They gave her no vulgar Dalby or gin, But liquor with leaf of gold therein, Videlicet, — Dantzic Water. In short, she was born, and bred, and nirrst, And drest in the best from the very first, To please the genteelest censor — And then, as soon as strength would allow, Was vaccinated, as babes are now, With virus ta'en from the best-bred cow Of Lord Althorp's — now Earl Spencer. HER CHRISTENING. Though Shakspeare asks us, " What's in a name (As if cognomens were much the same), There's really a very great scope in it. A name ? — why, wasn't there Doctor Dodd, That servant at once of Mammon and God, Who found four thousand pounds and odd, A prison — a cart — and a rope in it 1 A name ? — if the party had a voice, What mortal would be a Bugg by choice ? As a Hogg, a Grubb, or a Chubb rejoice ? Or any such nauseous blazon ? Not to mention many a vulgar name, - That would make a door-plate blush for shame, If door-plates were not so brazen ! MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 117 A name ? — it has more than nominal worth, And belongs to good or bad luck at birth — As dames of a certain degree know, In spite of his Page's hat and hose, His Page's jacket, and buttons in rows, Bob only sounds like a page of prose Till turn'd into Rupertino. Now to christen the infant Kilmansegg, For days and days it was quite a plague, To hunt the list in the Lexicon : And scores were tried, like coin, by the ring, Ere names were found just the proper thin For a minor rich as a Mexican. Then cards were sent, the presence to beg Of all the kin of Kilmansegg, White, yellow, and brown relations : Brothers, Wardens of City Halls, And Uncles — rich as three Golden Balls From taking pledges of nations. Nephews, whom Fortune seem'd to bewitch, Rising in life like rockets — Nieces whose dowries knew no hitch — Aunts as certain of dying rich As candles in golden sockets — Cousins German, and cousins' sons, All thriving and opulent — some had tons Of Kentish hops in their pockets ! For money had stuck to the race through life (As it did to the bushel when cash so rife Pozed Ali Baba's brother's wife) — And down to the Cousins and Coz-lings, The fortunate brood of the Kilmanseggs, As if they had come out of golden eggs, Were all as wealthy as " Goslings." 118 PROSE AND VERSE It would fill a Court Gazette to name What East and West End people came To the rite of Christianity : The lofty Lord, and the titled Dame, All di'monds, plumes, and urbanity : His Lordship the May'r with his golden chain And two Gold Sticks, and the Sheriffs twain, Nine foreign Counts, and other great men With their orders and stars, to help M or N To renounce all pomp and vanity. To paint the maternal Kilmansegg The pen of an Eastern Poet would beg, And need an elaborate sonnet ; How she sparkled with gems whenever she stirred, And her head niddle-noddled at every word, And seem'd so happy, a Paradise Bird Had nidificated upon it. And Sir Jacob the Father strutted and bow'd, And smiled to himself, and laugh'd aloud, To think of his heiress and daughter — . And then in his pockets he made a grope, And then, in the fulness of joy and hope, Seem'd washing his hands with invisible soap, In imperceptible water. He had roll'd in money like pigs in mud, Till it seemed to have enter'd into his blood By some occult projection : And his cheeks, instead of a healthy hue, As yellow as any guinea grew, Making the common phrase seem true About a rich complexion. And now came the nurse, and during a pause, Her dead-leaf satin would fitly cause A very autumnal rustle — So full of figure, so full of fuss, MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG As she carried about the babe to buss, She seemed to be nothing but bustle. A wealthy Nabob was God-papa, And an Indian Begum was God-mamma, Whose jewels a Queen might covet — And the Priest was a Vicar, and Dean withal Of that Temple we see with a Golden Ball, And a Golden Cross above it. The Font was a bowl of American Gold, Won by Raleigh in days of old, In spite of Spanish bravado ; And the Book of Prayer was so overrun With gilt devices, it shone in the sun Like a copy — a presentation one — Of Humboldt's " El Dorado." Gold ! and gold ! and nothing but gold ! The same auriferous shrine behold Wherever the eye could settle ! On the walls — the sideboard — the ceiling-sky— On the gorgeous footmen standing by, In coats to delight a miner's eye With seams of the precious metal. Gold ! and gold ! and besides the gold, The very robe of the infant told A tale of wealth in every fold, It lapp'd her like a vapor ! So fine ! so thin ! the mind at a loss Could compare it to nothing except a cross Of cobweb with bank-note paper. Then her pearls — 'twas a perfect sight, forsooth, To see them, like " the dew of her youth," In such a plentiful sprinkle. Meanwhile, the Vicar read through the form, And gave her another, not over-warm, That made her little eyes twinkle. 120 PROSE AND VERSE. Then the babe was cross'd and bless'd amain ; But instead of the Kate, or Ann, or Jane, Which the humbler female endorses — Instead of one name, as some people prefix, Kilmansegg went at the tails of six, Like a carriage of state with its horses. Oh, then the kisses she got and hugs ! The golden mugs and the golden jugs That lent fresh rays to the midges ! The golden knives, and the golden spoons, The gems that sparkled like fairy boons, It was one of the Kilmansegg's own saloons, But looked like Rundell and Bridge's ! Gold ! and gold ! the new and the old ! The company ate and drank from gold, They revelPd, they sang, and were merry, And one of the Gold Sticks rose from his chair, And toasted " the Lass with the golden hair," In a bumper of golden Sherry. Gold ! still gold ! it rain'd on the nurse, Who, unlike Danae, was none the worse ; There was nothing but guineas glistening ! Fifty were given to Doctor James, For calling the little Baby names, And for saying, Amen ! The Clerk had ten, And that was the end of the Christening. HER CHILDHOOD. Our youth ! our childhood ! that spring of springs ! 'Tis surely one of the blessedest things That nature ever invented ! When the rich are wealthy beyond their wealth, And the poor are rich in spirits and health, And all with their lots contented ! MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. There's little Phelim. he sings like a thrush, In the selfsame pair of patchwork plush, With the selfsame empty pockets, That tempted his daddy so often to cut His throat, or jump in the water-butt — But what cares Phelim ? an empty nut Would sooner bring tears to their sockets. Give him a collar without a skirt, That's the Irish linen for shirt, And a slice of bread, with a taste of dirt, That's Poverty's Irish butter, And what does he lack to make him blest ? Some oyster-shells, or a sparrow's nest, A candle-end and a gutter. But to leave the happy Phelim alone, Gnawing, perchance, a marrowless bone, •For which no dog would quarrel — Turn we to little Miss Kilmansegg, Cutting her first little toothy-peg With a fifty guinea coral — A peg upon which About poor and rich Reflection might hang a moral. Born in wealth, and wealthily nursed, Capp'd, papp'd, napp'd and lapp'd from the first On the knees of Prodigality, Her childhood was one eternal round Of the game of going on Tickler's ground Picking up gold — in reality. With extempore carts she never play'd, Or the odds and ends of a Tinker's trade, Or little dirt pies and puddings made, Like children happy and squalid ; The very puppet she had to pet, Like a bait for the " Nix my Dolly J ' set Was a Dolly of gold — and solid I PROSE AND VERSE. Gold ! and gold ! 'twas the burden still ! To gain the Heiress's early goodwill There was much corruption and bribery — The yearly cost of her golden toys Would have given to half London's Charity Boys And Charity Girls the annual joys Of a holiday dinner at Highbury. Bon-bons she ate from the gilt cornet ; And gilded queens on St. Bartlemy's day ; Till her fancy was tinged by her presents — And first a goldfinch excited her wish, Then a spherical bowl with a Golden fish, And then two Golden Pheasants. Nay, once she squall'd and scream'd like wild — And it shows how the bias we give to a child Is a thing most weighty and solemn : — But whence was wonder or blame to spring If little Miss K., — after such a swing — Made a dust for the flaming gilded thing On the top of the Fish Street column ? HER EDUCATION. According to metaphysical creed, To the earliest books that children read For much good or much bad they are debtors — But before with their ABC they start, There are things in morals, as well as art, That play a very important part — " Impressions before the letters." Dame Education begins the pile, Mayhap in the graceful Corinthian style, But alas for the elevation ! If the Lady's maid or gossip the Nurse With a load of rubbish, or something worse, Have made a rotten foundation. MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. Even thus with Little Miss Kilmansegg, Before she learnt her E for egg, Ere her Governess came, or her Masters — Teachers of quite a different kind Had "cramm'd" her beforehand, and put her mind In a go-cart on golden castors. Long before her A B and C, They had taught her by heart her L. S. D., And as how she was born a great Heiress ; And as sure as London was built of bricks, My Lord would ask her the day to fix, To ride in her fine gilt coach and six, Like her Worship the Lady May'ress. Instead of stories from Edgeworth's page, The true golden lore for our golden age, Or lessons from Barbauld and Trimmer, Teaching the worth of Virtue and Health, All that she knew was the Virtue of Wealth, Provided by vulgar nursery stealth, With a Book of Leaf Gold for a Primer. The very metal of merit they told, And praised her for being as " good as gold !" Till she grew as a peacock haughty : Of money they talk'd the whole day round, And weigh'd desert like grapes by the pound, Till she had an idea from the very sound That people with naught were naughty. They praised — poor children with nothing at all ! Lord ! how you twaddle and waddle and squall Like common-bred geese and ganders ! What sad little bad little figures you make To the rich Miss K., whose plainest seed-cake Was stuff' d with corianders ! They praised her falls, as well as her walk, Flatterers make cream cheese of chalk, 124 PROSE AND VERSE. They praised — how they praised — her very small talk, As if it fell from a Solon ; Or the girl who at each pretty phrase let drop A. ruby comma, or pearl full-stop, Or an emerald semi-colon. They praised her spirit, and now and then, The Nurse brought her own little " nevy " Ben, To play with the future May'ress, And when he got raps, and taps, and slaps, Scratches, and pinches, snips, and snaps, As if from a Tigress or Bearesa, They told him how Lords would court that hand, And always gave him to understand, While he rubb'd, poor soul, His carroty poll, That his hair had been pull'd by " a Hairess." Such were the lessons from maid and nurse, A Governess help'd to make still worse, Giving an appetite so perverse Fresh diet whereon to batten — Beginning with A. B. C. to hold Like a royal playbill printed in gold On a square of pearl-white satin. The books to teach the verbs and nouns, And those about countries, cities, and towns, [nstead of their sober drabs and browns, Were in crimson silk, with gilt edges : — Her Butler, and Enfield, and Entick — in short Her " Early Lessons " of every sort, Look'd like Souvenirs, Keepsakes, and P hedges. Old Johnson shone out in as fine array As he did one night when he went to the play ; Chambaud like a beau of King Charles's day — Lindley Murray in like conditions — MISS KILMANSEGG AKD HER PRECIOUS LEG. Each weary, unwelcome, irksome task, Appear'd in a fancy dress and a mask — If you wish for similar copies ask For Howell and James's Editions. Novels she read to amuse her mind, But always the affluent match-making kind That ends with Promessi Sposi, And a father-in-law so wealthy and grand, He could give cheque-mate to Coutts in the Strand So, along with a ring and posy, He endows the Bride with Golconda off-hand, And gives the Groom Potosi. Plays she perused — but she liked the best Those comedy gentlefolks always possess'd Of fortunes so truly romantic — Of money so ready that right or wrong It always is ready to go for a song, Throwing it, going it, pitching it strong — They ought to have purses as green and long As the cucumber called the Gigantic. Then Eastern Tales she loved for the sake Of the Purse of Oriental make, And the thousand pieces they put in it — But Pastoral scenes on her heart fell cold, For Nature with her had lost its hold, No field but the field of the Cloth of Gold Would ever have caught her foot in it. What more ? She learnt to sing, and dance, To sit on a horse, although he should prance, And to speak a French not spoken in France Any more than at Babel's building — And she painted shells, and flowers, and Turks, But her great delight was in Fancy Works That are done with gold or gilding. PROSE AND VERSE. Gold ! still gold ! — the bright and the dead, With golden beads, and gold lace, and gold thread. She work'd in gold, as if for her bread ; The metal had so undermined her, Gold ran in her thoughts and fill'd her brain, She was golden-headed as Peter's cane With which he walk'd behind her. HER ACCIDENT. The horse that carried Miss Kilmansegg, And a better never lifted leg, Was a very rich bay, called Banker — A horse of a breed and a mettle so rare, — By Bullion out of an Ingot mare, — That for action, the best of figures, and air, It made many good judges hanker. And when she took a ride in the Park, Equestrian Lord, or pedestrian Clerk, Was thrown in an amorous fever, To see the Heiress how well she sat, With her groom behind her, Bob or Nat, In green, half smother'd with gold, and a hat With more gold lace than beaver. And then when Banker obtain'd a pat, To see how he arched his neck at that ! He snorted with pride and pleasure ! Like the Steed in the fable so lofty and grand, Who gave the poor Ass to understand, That he didn't carry a bag of sand, But a burden of golden treasure. A load of treasure ? — alas ! alas ! Had her horse been fed upon English grass, And sheltered in Yorkshire spinneys, Had he scour'd the sand with the Desert Ass, Or where the American whinnies — MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 127 But a hunter from Erin's turf and gorse, A regular thorough-bred Irish horse, Why, he ran away, as a matter of course, With a girl worth her weight in guineas ! Mayhap 'tis the trick of such pamper'd nags To shy at the sight of a beggar in rags, But away, like the bolt of a rabbit, Away went the horse in the madness of fright, And away went the horsewoman mocking the sight — Was yonder blue flash a flash of blue light, Or only the skirt of her habit 1 Away she flies, with the groom behind, — It looks like a race of the Calmuck kind, When Hymen himself is the starter : And the Maid rides first in the fourfooted strife, Riding, striding, as if for her life, While the lover rides after to catch him a wife, Although it's catching a Tartar. But the Groom has lost his glittering hat ! Though he does not sigh and pull up for that — Alas ! his horse is a tit for Tat To sell to a very low bidder — His wind is ruin'd, his shoulder is sprung, Things, though a horse be handsome and young, A purchaser will consider. But still flies the Heiress through stones and dust. Oh, for a fall, if fall she must, On the gentle lap of Flora ! But still, thank Heaven ! she clings to her seat — Away ! away ! she could ride a dead heat With the dead who ride so fast and fleet, In the Ballad of Leonora ! Away she gallops ! — it's awful work ! It's faster than Turpin's ride to York PROSE AND VERSE. On Bess that notable clipper ! She has circled the Ring ! — she crosses the Park ! Mazeppa, although he was stripp'd so stark, Mazeppa couldn't outstrip her ! The fields seem running away with the folks I The Elms are having a race for the Oaks ! At a pace that all Jockeys disparages ! All, all is racing ! the Serpentine Seems' rushing past like the " arrowy Rhine,"" The houses have got on a railway line, And are off like the first-class carriages ! She'll lose her life ! she is losing her breath £ A cruel chase, she is chasing Death, As female shriekings forewarn her : And now — as gratis as blood of Guelph — She clears that gate, which has clear 'd itself Since then, at Hyde Park Corner ! Alas ! for the hope of the Kilmanseggs ! For her head, her brains, her body, and legs, Her life's not worth a copper ! Willy-nilly, In Piccadilly, A hundred hearts turn sick and chilly, A hundred voices cry, " Stop her !" And one old gentleman stares and stands, Shakes his head and lifts his hands, And says, " How very improper !" On and on ! — what a perilous run ! The iron rails seem all mingling in one, To shut out the Green Park scenery I And now the Cellar its dangers reveals, She shudders — she shrieks — she's doom'd, she feels, To be torn by powers of horses and wheels, Like a spinner by steam machinery ! MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 129 Sick with horror she shuts her eyes, But the very stones seem uttering cries, As they did to that Persian daughter, When she climb'd up the steep vociferous hill, Her little silver flagon to fill With the magical Golden Water ! " Batter her ! shatter her ! Throw and scatter her'" Shouts each stony-hearted clatterer — " Dash at the heavy Dover ! Spill her ! kill her ! tear and tatter her ! Smash her ! crash her !" (the stones didn't flatter her !) " Kick her brains out ! let her blood spatter her ! Roll on her over and over !" For so she gather'd the awful sense Of the street in its past unmacadamized tense, As the wild horse overran it, — His four heels making the clatter of six, Like a Devil's tattoo, played with iron sticks On a kettle-drum of granite ! On ! still on ! she's dazzled with hints Of oranges, ribbons, and color'd prints, A Kaleidoscope jumble of shapes and tints, And human faces all flashing, Bright and brief as the sparks from the flints, That the desperate hoofs keep dashing ! On and on ! still frightfully fast ! Dover-street, Bond-street, all are past ! But — yes — no — yes ! — they're down at last ! The Furies and Fates have found them ! Down they go with a sparkle and crash, Like a Bark that's struck by the lightning flash— There's a shriek — and a sob — And the dense dark mob Like a billow close around them I 10 PROSE AND VERSE * * * * * * * * * " She breathes !" "She don't!" " She'll recover !" " She won't !" " She's stirring ! she's living, by Nemesis V Gold, still gold ! on counter and shelf ! Golden dishes as plenty as delf ! Miss Kilmansegg's coming again to herself On an opulent Goldsmith's premises ! Gold ! fine gold ! — both yellow and red, Beaten, and molten — polish'd, and dead — To see the gold with profusion spread In all forms of its manufacture ! But what avails gold to Miss Kilmansegg, When the femoral bone of her dexter leg Has met with a compound fracture ? Gold may soothe Adversity's smart ; Nay, help to bind up a broken heart ; But to try it on any other part Were as certain a disappointment, As if one should rub the dish and plate, Taken out of a Staffordshire crate — In the hope of a Golden Service of State — With Singleton's " Golden Ointment." HER PRECIOUS LEG. k< As the twig is bent, the tree 's inclined," Is an adage often recall'd to mind, Referring to juvenile bias: And never so well is the verity seen, As when to the weak, warp'd side we lean, While Life's tempests and hurricanes try us Even thus with Miss K. and her broken limb, By a very, very remarkable whim, MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 131 She show'd her early tuition : While the buds of character came into blow With a certain tinge that served to show The nursery culture long ago, As the graft is known by fruition ! For the King's Physician, who nursed the case, His verdict gave with an awful face, And three others concurr'd to egg it ; That the Patient to give old Death the slip, Like the Pope, instead of a personal trip, Must send her Leg as a Legate. The limb was doom'd — it couldn't be saved ! And like other people the patient behaved, Nay, bravely that cruel parting braved, Which makes some persons so falter, They rather would part, without a groan, With the flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone, They obtain'd at St. George's altar. But when it came to fitting the stump With a proxy limb — then flatly and plump She spoke, in the spirit olden ; She couldn't — she shouldn't — she wouldn't have wood ! Nor a leg of cork, if she never stood, And she swore an oath, or something as good, The proxy limb should be golden ! A wooden leg ! what, a sort of a peg, For your common Jockeys and Jennies ! No, no, her mother might worry and plague — Weep, go down on her knees, and beg, But nothing would move Miss Kilmansegg ! She could — she would have a Golden Leg, If it cost ten thousand guineas ! Wood indeed, in Forest or Park, With its sylvan honors and feudal bark, PROSE AND VERSE. Is an aristocratical article : But split and sawn, and hack'd about town, Serving all needs of pauper or clown, Trod on ! stagger'd on ! Wood cut down Is vulgar — fibre and particle ! And Cork ! — when the noble Cork Tree shades A lovely group of Castilian maids, 'Tis a thing for a song or sonnet ! — But, cork, as it stops the bottle of gin, Or bungs the beer — the small beer — in, It pierced her heart like a corking pin, To think of standing upon it ! A Leg of Gold — solid gold throughout, Nothing else, whether slim or stout, Should ever support her, God willing I She must — she could — she would have her whii Her father, she turn'd a deaf ear to him — He might kill her — she didn't mind killing I He was welcome to cut off her other limb — He might cut her off with a shilling ! All other promised gifts were in vain, Golden Girdle, or Golden Chain, She writhed with impatience more than pain, And utter'd " pshaws !" and " pishes!' 7 But a Leg of Gold ! as she lay in bed, It danced before her — it ran in her head I It jump'd with her dearest wishes ! « Gold — gold — gold ! Oh, let it be gold P Asleep or awake that tale she told, And when she grew delirious : Till her parents resolved to grant her wish, If they melted down plate, and goblet, and dish, The case was getting so serious. So a Leg was made in a comely mould, Of Gold, fine virgin glittering gold, MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. As solid as man could make it — Solid in foot, and calf, and shank, A prodigious sum of money it sank ; In fact 'twas a Branch of the family Bank, And no easy matter to break it. All sterling metal — not half-and-half, The Goldsmith's mark was stamp'd on the calf— 'Twas pure as from Mexican barter ! And to make it more costly, just over the knee, Where another ligature used to be, Was a circle of jewels, worth shillings to see, A new-fangled Badge of the Garter ! 'Twas a splendid, brilliant, beautiful Leg, Fit for the Court of Scander-Beg, That Precious Leg of Miss Kilmansegg ! For, thanks to parental bounty, Secure from Mortification's touch, She stood on a member that cost as much As a Member for all the County ! HER FAME. To gratify stern ambition's whims, What hundreds and thousands of precious limbs On a field of battle we scatter ! Sever'd by sword, or bullet, or saw, Off they go, all bleeding and raw, But the public seems to get the lock-jaw, So little is said on the matter ! Legs, the tightest that ever were seen, The tightest, the lightest, that danced on the green, Cutting capers to sweet Kitty Clover ; Shatter'd, scatter'd, cut, and bowl'd down, Off they go, worse off for renown, A line in the Times, or a talk about town, Than the leg that a fly runs over ! PROSE AND VERSE. But the Precious Leg of Miss Kilmansegg, That gowden, goolden, golden leg, Was the theme of all conversation ! Had it been a Pillar of Church and State, Or a prop to support the whole Dead Weight, It could not have furnish'd more debate To the heads and tails of the nation ! East and west, and north and south, Though useless for either hunger or drouth, — The Leg was in everybody's mouth, To use a poetical figure, Rumor, in taking her ravenous swim, Saw, and seized on the tempting limb, Like a shark on the leg of a nigger. Wilful murder fell very dead ; Debates in the House were hardly read ; In vain the Police Reports were fed With Irish riots and rumpuses — The Leg ! the Leg ! was the great event, Through every circle in life it went, Like the leg of a pair of compasses. The last new Novel seem'd tame and flat, The Leg, a novelty newer than that, Had tripp'd up the heels of Fiction ! It Burked the very essays of Burke, And, alas ! how Wealth over Wit plays the Turk ! As a regular piece of goldsmith's work, Got the better of Goldsmith's diction. " A leg of gold ! what of solid gold V Cried rich and poor, and young and old, — And Master and Miss and Madam — 'Twas the talk of 'Change — the Alley — the Bank— And with men of scientific rank It made as much stir as the fossil shank Of a Lizard coeval with Adam ! m: ;.s kilmansegg and HER PRECIOUS LEG. 135 Of course with Greenwich and Chelsea elves, Men who had lost a limb themselves, Its interest did not dwindle — But Bill, and Ben, and Jack, and Tom, Could hardly have spun more yarns therefrom, If the leg had been a spindle. Meanwhile the story went to and fro, Till, gathering like the ball of snow, By the time it got to Stratford-le-Bow, Through Exaggeration's touches, The Heiress and Hope of the Kilmanseggs Was propp'd on two fine Golden Legs, And a pair of Golden Crutches ! Never had Leg so great a run ! 'Twas the " go " and the " Kick " thrown into one ! The mode — the new thing under the sun, The rage — the fancy — the passion ! Bonnets were named, and hats were worn, A la Golden Leg instead of Leghorn, And stockings and shoes Of golden hues, Took the lead in the walks of fashion ! The Golden Leg had a vast career, It was sung and danced — and to show how near Low Folly to lofty approaches, Down to society's very dregs, The Belles of Wapping wore " Kilmanseggs," And St. Giles's Beaux sported Golden Legs In their pinchbeck pins and brooches ! HER FIRST STEP Supposing the Trunk and Limbs of Man Shared on the allegorical plan, By the Passions that mark humanity, Whichever might claim the head, or heart. PROSE AND VERSE. The stomach, or any other part, The Legs would be seized by vanity. There's Bardus, a six-foot column of fop, A lighthouse without any light atop, Whose height would attract beholders, If he had not lost some inches clear By looking down at his kerseymere, Ogling the limbs he holds so dear, Till he got a stoop in his shoulders. Talk of Art, of Science, or Books, And down go the everlasting looks, To his cruel beauties so wedded ! Try him, wherever you will, you find His mind in his legs, and his legs in his mind, All prongs and folly — in short a kind Of Fork — that is Fiddle-headed. What wonder, then, if Miss Kilmansegg, With a splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg, Fit for the court of Scander Beg, Disdain'd to hide it like Joan or Meg, In petticoats stuff'd or quilted ? Not she ! 'twas her convalescent whim To dazzle the world with her precious limb, — Nay, to go a little high-kilted. So cards were sent for that sort of mob Where Tartars and Africans hob-and-nob, And the Cherokee talks of his cab and cob To Polish or Lapland lovers — Cards like that hieroglyphical call To a geographical Fancy Ball On the recent Post-Office covers. For if Lion-hunters — and great ones too — Would mob a savage from Latakoo, Or squeeze for a glimpse of Prince Le Boo, MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 131 That unfortunate Sandwich scion — Hundreds of first-rate people, no doubt, Would gladly, madly, rush to a rout, That promised a Golden Lion ! HER FANCY BALL. Of all the spirits of evil fame, That hurt the soul, or injure the frame, And poison what's honest and hearty, There's none more needs a Mathew to preach A cooling, antiphlogistic speech, To praise and enforce A temperate course, Than the Evil Spirit of Party. Go to the House of Commons, or Lords, And they seem to be busy with simple words In their popular sense or pedantic — But, alas ! with their cheers, and sneers, and jeers, They're really busy, whatever appears, Putting peas in each other's ears, To drive their enemies frantic ! Thus Tories love to worry the Whigs, Who treat them in turn like Schwalbach pigs, Giving them lashes, thrashes, and digs, With their writhing and pain delighted — - But after all that's said, and more, The malice and spite of Party are poor To the malice and spite of a party next door, To a party not invited. On with the cap and out with the light, Weariness bids the world good-night, At least for the usual season ; But hark ! a clatter of horses' heels ; And Sleep and Silence are broken on wheels, Like Wilful Murder and Treason ! PROSE AND VERSE. Another crash — and the carriage goes — Again poor Weariness seeks the repose That Nature demands imperious ; But Echo takes up the burden now, With a rattling chorus of row-de-dow-dow, Till Silence herself seems making a row, Like a Quaker gone delirious ! 'Tis night — a winter night — and the stars Are shining like winkin' — Venus and Mars Are rolling along in their golden cars Through the sky's serene expansion — But vainly the stars dispense their rays, Venus and Mars are lost in the blaze Of the Kilmanseggs' luminous mansion ! Up jumps Fear in a terrible fright ! His bedchamber windows look so bright, With light all the Square is glutted ! Up he jumps, like a sole from the pan, And a tremor sickens his inward man, For he feels as only a gentleman can, Who thinks he's being " gutted." Again Fear settles, all snug and warm ; But only to dream of a dreadful storm From Autumn's sulphurous locker ; But the only electric body that falls, Wears a negative coat, and positive smalls, And draws the peal that so appals From the Kilmanseggs' brazen knocker ! 'Tis Curiosity's Benefit night — And perchance 'tis the English Second-Sight, But whatever it be, so be it — As the friends and guests of Miss Kilmansegg Crowd in to look at her Golden Leg, As many more MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. Mob round the door To see them going to see it ! In they go — in jackets, and cloaks, Plumes, and bonnets, turbans, and toques, As if to a Congress of Nations : Greeks and Malays, with daggers and dirks Spaniards, Jews, Chinese, and Turks — Some like original foreign works, But mostly like bad translations. In they go, and to work like a pack, Juan, Moses, and Shacabac, Tom, and Jerry, and Spring heel'd Jack, For some of low Fancy are lovers — Skirting, zigzagging, casting about, Here and there, and in and out, With a crush, and a rush, for a full-bodied rout Is one of the stifFest of covers. In they went, and hunted about, Open-mouth'd, like chub and trout, And some with the upper lip thrust out, Like that fish for routing, a barbel — While Sir Jacob stood to welcome the crowd, And rubb'd his hands, and smiled aloud, And bow'd, and bow'd, and bow'd, and bow'd, Like a man who is sawing marble. For Princes were there, and Noble Peers ; Dukes descending from Norman spears; Earls that dated from early years ; And Lords in vast variety — Besides the Gentry, both new and old — For people who stand on legs of gold, Are sure to stand well with society. " But where — where — where ?" with one accord Cried Moses and Mufti, Jack and my Lord, 140 PROSE AND VERSE. Wang-Fong and II Bondocani — When slow, and heavy, and dead as a dump, They heard a foot begin to stump, Thump ! lump ! Lump ! thump ! Like the Spectre in " Don Giovanni !" And lo ! the Heiress, Miss Kilmansegg, With her splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg, In the garb of a Goddess olden — Like chaste Diana going to hunt, With a golden spear — which of course was blun And a tunic loop'd up to a gem in front, To show the Leg that was Golden ! Gold ! still gold ! her Crescent behold, That should be silver, but would be gold ; And her robe's auriferous spangles ! Her golden stomacher — how she would melt ! Her golden quiver, and golden belt, Where a golden bugle dangles ! And her jewell'd Garter? Oh, Sin! Oh, Shame! Let Pride and Vanity bear the blame, That bring such blots on female fame ! But to be a true recorder, Besides its thin transparent stuff, The tunic was loop'd quite high enough To give a glimpse of the Order ! But what have sin or shame to do With a Golden Leg — and a stout one too ? Away with all Prudery's panics ! That the precious metal, by thick and thin. Will cover square acres of land or sin, Is a fact made plain Again and again, In morals as well as Mechanics. MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 141 A few, indeed, of her proper sex, Who seem'd to feel her foot on their necks, And fear'd their charms would meet with checks From so rare and splendid a blazon — A few cried " fie !"— and " forward "—and " bold \" And said of the Leg it might be gold, But to them it looked like brazen ! 'Twas hard they hinted for flesh and blood, Virtue, and Beauty, and all that's good, To strike to mere dross their topgallants — But what were Beauty, or Virtue, or Worth, Gentle manners, or gentle birth, Nay, what the most talented head on earth To a Leg worth fifty Talents ! But the men sang quite another hymn Of glory and praise to the precious Limb — Age, sordid Age, admired the whim, And its indecorum pardon'd — - While half of the young — ay, more than half — Bow'd down and worshipp'd the Golden Calf, Like the Jews when their hearts were harden'd. A Golden Leg ! what fancies it fired ! What golden wishes and hopes inspired ! To give but a mere abridgment — What a leg to leg-bail Embarrassment's serf! What a leg for a Leg to take on the turf! What a leg for a marching regiment ! A Golden Leg ! — whatever Love sings, 'Twas worth a bushel of " Plain Gold Rings 99 With which the Romantic wheedles. 'Twas worth all the legs in stockings and socks — 'Twas a leg that might be put in the Stocks, N.B. — Not the parish beadle's ! And Lady K. nid-nodded her head, Lapp'd in a turban fancy-bred, 142 PROSE AND VERSE. Just like a love-apple, huge and red, Some Mussul- womanish mystery ; But whatever she meant To represent, She talk'd like the Muse of History. She told how the filial leg was lost ; And then how much the gold one cost ; With its weight to a Trojan fraction : And how it took off, and how it put on ; And call'd on Devil, Duke, and Don, Mahomet, Moses, and Prester John, To notice its beautiful action. And then of the Leg she went in quest ; And led it where the light was best ; And made it lay itself up to rest In postures for painters' studies : It cost more tricks and trouble by half, Than it takes to exhibit a Six-Legg'd Calf To a boothful of country Cuddies. Nor yet did the Heiress herself omit The arts that help to make a hit, And preserve a prominent station. She talk'd and laugh'd far more than her share j And took a part in " Rich and Rare Were the g3ms she wore " — and the gems were there, Like a Song with an Illustration. She even stood up with a Count of France To dance — alas ! the measures we dance When Vanity plays the Piper ! Vanity, Vanity, apt to betray, And lead all sorts of legs astray, Wood, or metal, or human clay, — Since Satan first play'd the Viper ! But first she dofT'd her hunting gear, And favor'd Tom Tug with her golden spear, MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. To row with down the river — A Bonze had her golden bow to hold, A Hermit her belt and bugle of gold ; And an Abbot her golden quiver. And then a space was clear'd on the floor, And she walk'd the Minuet de la Cour, With all the pomp of a Pompadour ; But although she began andante^ Conceive the faces of all the Rout, When she finish'd off with a whirligig bout, And the Precious Leg stuck stiffly out Like the leg of a Figurante i So the courtly dance was goldenly done, And golden opinions, of course, it won From all different sorts of people — Chiming, ding-dong, with flattering phrase, In one vociferous peal of praise, Like the peal that rings on Royal days From Loyalty's parish-steeple. And yet, had the leg been one of those That dance for bread in flesh-color'd hose, With Rosina's pastoral bevy, The jeers it had met, — the shouts ! the scoff! The cutting advice to " take itself off," For sounding but half so heavy. Had it been a leg like those, perchance, That teach little girls and boys to dance, To set, poussette, recede, and advance, With the steps and figures most proper, — Had it hopp'd for a weekly or quarterly sum, How little of praise or grist would have come To a mill with such a hopper ! But the Leg was none of those limbs forlorn — Bartering capers and hops for corn — PROSE AND VERSE. That meet with public hisses and scorn, Or the morning journal denounces — Had it pleas'd to caper from morn till dusk, There was all the music of " Money Musk 99 In its ponderous bangs and bounces. But hark ! — as slow as the strokes of a pump, Lump, thump ! Thump, lump I As the Giant of Castle Otranto might stump To a lower room from an upper — Down she goes with a noisy dint, For taking the crimson turban's hint, A noble Lord at the Head of the Mint Is leading the Leg to supper ! But the supper, alas ! must rest untold, With its blaze of light and its glitter of gold, For to paint that scene of glamor, It would need the Great Enchanter's charm, Who waves over Palace, and Cot, and Farm, An arm like the Goldbeater's Golden Arm That wields a Golden Hammer. He — only HE — could fitly state THE MASSIVE SERVICE OF GOLDEN PLATE, With the proper phrase and expansion — The Rare Selection of FOREIGN WINES— The ALPS OF ICE and MOUNTAINS OF PINES, The punch in OCEANS and sugary shrines, The TEMPLE OF TASTE from GUNTER'S DE- SIGNS— In short, all that WEALTH with A FEAST com- bines, In a SPLENDID FAMILY MANSION. Suffice it each mask'd outlandish guest Ate and drank of the very best, According to critical conners — MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. And then they pledged the Hostess and Host, But the Golden Leg was the standing toast, And as somebody swore, Walk'd off with more Than its share of the " Hips !" and honors! " Miss Kilmansegg ! — Full glasses I beg ! — Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg P 5 And away went the bottle careering ! Wine in bumpers ! and shouts in peals ! Till the Clown didn't know his head from his heels, The Mussulman's eyes danced two-some reels, And the Quaker was hoarse with cheering ! HER DREAM. Miss Kilmansegg took oft' her leg, And laid it down like a cribbage-peg, For the Rout was done and the riot : The Square was hush'd ; not a sound was heard ; The sky was grey, and no creature stirr'd, Except one little precocious bird, That chirp'd — and then was quiet. So still without, — so still within ; — It had been a sin To drop a pin — So intense is silence after a din, It seem'd like Death's rehearsal ! To stir the air no eddy came ; And the taper burnt with as still a flame, As to flicker had been a burning shame, In a calm so universal. The time for sleep had come at last ; And there was the bed, so soft, so vast, Quite a field of Bedfordshire clover ; Softer, cooler, and calmer, no doubt, 11 PROSE AND VERSE. From the piece of work just ravell'd out, For one of the pleasures of having a rout Is the pleasure of having it over. No sordid pallet, or truckle mean, Of straw, and rug, and tatters unclean ; But a splendid, gilded, carved machine, That was fit for a Royal Chamber. On the top was a gorgeous golden wreath ; And the damask curtains hung beneath, Like clouds of crimson and amber. Curtains, held up by two little plump things, With golden bodies and golden wings, — Mere fins for such solidities — Two Cupids, in short, Of the regular sort, But the housemaid call'd them " Cupidities." No patchwork quilt, all seams and scars, But velvet, powder'd with golden stars, A fit mantle for iV7g7ii(-Commanders ! And the pillow, as white as snow undimm'd, And as cool as the pool that the breeze has skimm'd, Was cased in the finest cambric, and trimm'd With the costliest lace of Flanders. And the bed — Of the Eider's softest down, 'Twas a place to revel, to smother, to drown In a bliss inferr'd by the Poet ; For if ignorance be indeed a bliss, What blessed ignorance equals this, To sleep — and not to know it ? Oh, bed ! oh, bed ! delicious bed ! That heaven upon earth to the weary head ; But a place that to name would be ill-bred, To the head with a wakeful trouble — 'Tis held by such a different lease ! MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 147 To one, a place of comfort and peace, All stuff'd with the down of stubble geese, To another with only the stubble ! To one, a perfect Halcyon nest, All calm, and balm, and quiet, and rest, And soft as the fur of the cony — To another, so restless for body and head, That the bed seems borrowed from Nettlebed, And the pillow from Stratford the Stony ! To the happy, a first-class carriage of ease, To the Land of Nod, or where you please ; But, alas ! for the watchers and weepers, Who turn, and turn, and turn again, But turn, and turn, and turn in vain, With an anxious brain, And thoughts in a train That does not run upon sleepers ! Wide awake as the mousing owl, Night-hawk, or other nocturnal fowl. — But more profitless vigils keeping, — Wide awake in the dark they stare, Filling with phantoms the vacant air, As if that Crook-Back'd Tyrant Care Had plotted to kill them sleeping. And oh ! when the blessed diurnal light Is quench'd by the providential night, To render our slumber more certain, Pity, pity the wretches that weep, For they must be wretched who cannot sleep When God himself draws the curtain ! The careful Betty the pillow beats, And airs the blankets, and smoothes the sheets, And gives the mattress a shaking — But vainly Betty performs her part, PROSE AND VERSE. If a ruffled head and a rumpled heart As well as the couch want making. There's Morbid, all bite, and verjuice, and nerves, Where other people would make preserves, He turns his fruits into pickles : Jealous, envious, and fretful by day, At night, to his own sharp fancies a prey, He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way, Tormenting himself with his prickles. But a child — that bids the world good night In downright earnest and cuts it quite — A Cherub no Art can copy, — 'Tis a perfect picture to see him lie As if he had supp'd on dormouse pie (An ancient classical dish by the by) With a sauce of syrup of poppy. Oh, bed ! bed ! bed ! delicious bed ! That heav'n upon earth to the weary head, Whether lofty or low its condition ! But instead of putting our plagues on shelves, In our blankets how often we toss ourselves, Or are tossed by such allegorical elves As Pride, Hate, Greed, and Ambition ! The independent Miss Kilmansegg Took off her independent Leg And laid it beneath her pillow, And then on the bed her frame she cast, The time for repose had come at last, But long, long, after the storm is past Rolls the turbid, turbulent billow. No part she had in vulgar cares That belong to common household affairs — Nocturnal annoyances such as theirs Who lie with a shrewd surmising MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 149 That while they are couchant (a bitter cup !) Their bread and butter are getting up, And the coals — confound them ! — are rising. No fear she had her sleep to postpone, Like the crippled Widow who weeps alone, And cannot make a doze her own, For the dread that mayhap on the morrow, The true and Christian reading to balk, A broker will take up her bed and walk, By way of curing her sorrow. No cause like these she had to bewail : For the breath of applause had blown a gale. And winds from that quarter seldom fail To cause some human commotion ; But whenever such breezes coincide With the very spring-tide Of human pride, There's no such swell on the ocean ! Peace, and ease, and slumber lost, She turn'd, and roll'd, and tumbled, and toss'd, With a tumult that would not settle : A common case, indeed, with such As have too little, or think too mucli, Of the precious and glittering metal. Gold ! — she saw at her golden foot The Peer whose tree had an olden root, The Proud, the Great, the Learned to boot, The handsome, the gay, and the witty — The Man of Science — of Arms — of Art, The man who deals but at Pleasure's mart, And the man who deals in the City. Gold, still gold — and true to the mould ! In the very scheme of her dream it told ; For, by magical transmutation, PROSE AND VERSE. From her Leg through her body it seem'd to go, Till, gold above, and gold below, She was gold, all gold, from her little gold toe To her organ of Veneration ! And still she retain'd, through Fancy's art, The Golden Bow, and the Golden Dart, With which she had played a Goddess's part In her recent, glorification. And still, like one of the self-same brood, On a Plinth of the self-same metal she stood For the whole world's adoration. And hymns and incense around her roll'd, From Golden Harps and Censers of Gold, — For Fancy in dreams is as uncontrolPd As a horse without a bridle : What wonder, then, from all checks exempt, If, inspired by the Golden Leg, she dreamt She was turn'd to a Golden Idol ? HER COURTSHIP. When leaving Eden's happy land The grieving Angel led by the hand Our banish'd Father and Mother, Forgotten amid their awful doom, The tears, the fears, and the future's gloom, On each brow was a wreath of Paradise bloom, That our Parents had twined for each other. It was only while sitting like figures of stone, For the grieving Angel had skyward flown, As they sat, those Two, in the world alone, With disconsolate hearts nigh cloven, That scenting the gust of happier hours, They look'd around for the precious flow'rs, And lo ! — a last relic of Eden's dear bow'rs— The chaplet that Love had woven ! MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. And still, when a pair of Lovers meet, There's a sweetness in air, unearthly sweet, That savors still of that happy retreat Where Eve by Adam was courted : Whilst the joyous thrush, and the gentle Dove, Woo'd their mates in the boughs above, And the Serpent, as yet, only sported. Who hath not felt that breath in the air, A perfume and freshness strange and rare, A warmth in the light, and a bliss everywhere. When young hearts yearn together ? All sweets below, and all sunny above, Oh ! there's nothing in life like making love, Save making hay in fine weather ! Who hath not found amongst his flow'rs A blossom too bright for this world of ours, Like a rose among snows of Sweden ? But to turn again to Miss Kilmansegg, Where must love have gone to beg, If such a thing as a Golden Leg Had put its foot in Eden ! And yet — to tell the rigid truth — Her favor was sought by Age and Youth — For the prey will find a prowler ! She was follow'd, flatter'd, courted, address'd, Woo'd, and coo'd, and wheedled, and press'd, By suitors from North, South, East, and West, Like that Heiress, in Song, Tibbie Fowler ! But, alas ! alas ! for the Woman's fate, Who has from a mob to choose a mate ! 'T is a strange and painful mystery ! But the more the eggs, the worse the hatch ; The more the fish, the worse the catch ; The more the sparks, the worse the match ; Is a fact in Woman's history. PROSE AND VERSE. Give her between a brace to pick, And, mayhap, with luck to help the trick, She will take the Faustus, and leave the Old Nick — But her future bliss to baffle, Amongst a score let her have a voice, And she'll have as little cause to rejoice, As if she had won the " Man of her choice " In a matrimonial raffle ! Thus, even thus, with the Heiress and Hope, Fulfilling the adage of too much rope, With so ample a competition, She chose the least worthy of all the group, Just as the vulture makes a stoop, And singles out from the herd or troop The beast of the worst condition. A Foreign Count — who came incog., Not under a cloud, but under a fog, In a Calais packet's fore-cabin, To charm some lady British-born, With his eyes as black as the fruit of the thorn, And his hooky nose, and his beard half-shorn, Like a half-converted Rabbin. And because the Sex confess a charm In the man who has slash'd a head or arm, Or has been a throat's undoing, He was dress'd like one of the glorious trade, At least when Glory is off parade, With a stock, and a frock, well trimm'd with braid, And frogs — that went a-wooing. Moreover, as Counts are apt to do, On the left-hand side of his dark surtout, At one of those holes that buttons go through (To be a precise recorder), A ribbon he wore, or rather a scrap, About an inch of ribbon mayhap, MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. That one of his rivals, a whimsical chap, Described as his " Retail Order." And then — and much it help'd his chance — He could sing, and play first fiddle, and dance, Perform charades, and Proverbs of France — Act the tender, and do the cruel ; For amongst his other killing parts, He had broken a brace of female hearts, And murder'd three men in a duel f Savage at heart, and false of tongue, Subtle with age, and smooth to the young, Like a snake in his coiling and curling — Such was the Count — to give him a niche — Who came to court that Heiress rich, And knelt at her foot — one needn't say which— Besieging her castle of Sterling. With pray'rs and vows he open'd his trench, And plied her with English, Spanish, and French In phrases the most sentimental : And quoted poems in High and Low Dutch, With now and then an Italian touch, Till she yielded, without resisting much, To homage so continental. And then the sordid bargain to close, With a miniature sketch of his hooky nose, And his dear dark eyes, as black as sloes, And his beard and whiskers as black as those, The lady's consent he requited — And instead of the lock that lovers beg, The count received from Miss Kilmansegg A model, in small, of her Precious Leg — And so the couple were plighted ! But, oh ! the love that gold must crown ! Better — better, the love of the clown, PROSE AND VERSE. Who admires his lass in her Sunday gown, As if all the fairies had dress'd her ! Whose brain to no crooked thought gives birth, Except that he never will part on earth With his true love's crooked tester ! Alas ! for the love that's link'd with gold ! Better — better, a thousand times told — More honest, happy and laudable, The downright loving of pretty Cis, Who wipes her lips, though there's nothing amiss, And takes a kiss, and gives a kiss, In which her heart is audible ! Pretty Cis, so smiling and bright, Who loves as she labors, with all her might, And without any sordid leaven ! Who blushes as red as haws and hips, Down to her very finger-tips, For Roger's blue ribbons — to her, like strips Cut out of the azure of Heaven ! HER MARRIAGE. 'T was morn — a most auspicious one ! From the Golden East, the Golden Sun Came forth his glorious race to run, Through clouds of most splendid tinges ; Clouds that lately slept in shade, But now seem'd made Of gold brocade, With magnificent golden fringes. Gold above, and gold below, The earth reflected the golden glow, From river, and hill, and valley : Gilt by the golden light of morn, The Thames — it look'd like the Golden Horn, And the Barge, that carried coal or corn, Like Cleopatra's Galley ! MISS K1LMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 155 Bright as clusters of Golden-rod, Suburban poplars began to nod, With extempore splendor furnish'd ; While London was bright with glittering clocks, Golden dragons, and Golden cocks, And above them all, The dome of St. Paul, With its Golden Cross and its Golden Ball. Shone out as if newly burnish'd ' And lo ! for Golden Hours and Joys, Troops of glittering Golden Boys Danced along with a jocund noise, And their gilded emblems carried ! In short, 't was the year's most Golden Day, By mortals call'd the First of May, When Miss Kilmansegg, Of the Golden Leg, With a Golden Ring was married ! And thousands of children, women, and men, Counted the clock from eight till ten, From St. James's sonorous steeple ; For next to that interesting job, The hanging of Jack, or Bill, or Bob, There's nothing so draws a London mob As the noosing of very rich people. And a treat it was for a mob to behold The Bridal Carriage that blazed with gold ! And the Footmen tall, and the Coachman bold, In liveries so resplendent — Coats you wonder'd to see in place, They seem'd so rich with golden lace, That they might have been independent. Coats that made those menials proud Gaze with scorn on the dingy crowd, From their gilded elevations ; PROSE AND VERSE. Not to forget that saucy lad (Ostentation's favorite cad), The Page, who look'd, so splendidly clad, Like a Page of the " Wealth of Nations." But the Coachman carried off the state, With what was a Lancashire body of late Turn'd into a Dresden Figure ; With a bridal Nosegay of early bloom, About the size of a birchen broom, And so huge a White Favor, had Gog been Groom He would not have worn a bigger. And then to see the Groom ! the Count ! With Foreign Orders to such an amount, And whiskers so wild — nay, bestial ; He seem'd to have borrow'd the shaggy hair As well as the Stars of the Polar Bear, To make him look celestial ! And then — Great Jove ! — the struggle, the crush, The screams, the heaving, the awful rush, The swearing, the tearing, and fighting, The hats and bonnets smash'd like an egg — To catch a glimpse of the Golden Leg, Which, between the steps and Miss Kilmansegg, Was fully displayed in alighting I From the Golden Ankle up to the Knee There it was for the mob to see ! A shocking act had it chanced to be A crooked leg or a skinny : But although a magnificent veil she wore, Such as never was seen before, In case of blushes she blush'd no more Than George the First on a guinea ! Another step, and lo I she was launch'd ! All in white, as Brides are bianch'd. MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. With a wreath of most wonderful splendor — Diamonds, and pearls, so rich in device, That, according to calculation nice, Her head was worth as royal a price As the head of the Young Pretender. Bravely she shone — and shone the more As she sail'd through the crowd of squalid and poor, Thief, beggar, and tatterdemalion — Led by the Count, with sloe-black eyes Bright with triumph, and some surprise, Like Anson on making sure of his prize The famous Mexican Galleon ! Anon came Lady K., with her face Quite made up to act with grace, But she cut the performance shorter ; For instead of pacing stately and stiff, At the stare of the vulgar she took a miff, And ran, full speed, into Church, as if To get married before her daughter. But Sir Jacob walk'd more slowly, and bow'd Right and left to the gaping crowd, Wherever a glance was seizable ; For Sir Jacob thought he bowd like a Guelph, And therefore bow'd to imp and elf, And would gladly have made a bow to himself, Had such a bow been feasible. And last — and not the least of the sight, Six " Handsome Fortunes," all in white Came to help in the marriage rite, — And rehearse their own hymeneals ; And then the bright procession to close, They were followed by just as many Beaux, Quite fine enough for Ideals. Glittering men and splendid dames, Thus they enter'd the porch of St. James', 158 PROSE AND VERSE. Pursued by a thunder of laughter : For the Beadle was forced to intervene, For Jim the Crow, and his Mayday Queen, With her gilded ladle, and Jack V the Green, Would fain have follow'd after ! Beadle-like he hush'd the shout ; But the temple was full " inside and out," And a buzz kept buzzing all round about, Like bees when the day is sunny — A buzz universal that interfered With the rite that ought to have been revered, As if the couple already were smear'd With Wedlock's treacle and honey ! Yet wedlock's a very awful thing ! 'Tis something like that feat in the ring Which requires good nerve to do it — When one of a " Grand Equestrian Troop " Makes a jump at a gilded hoop, Not certain at all Of what may befall After his getting through it ! But the Count he felt the nervous work No more than any polygamous Turk, Or bold piratical schipper, Who, during his buccaneering search, Would as soon engage "a hand " in church As a hand on board his clipper ! And how did the bride perform her part ? Like any Bride who is cold at heart, Mere snow with the ice's glitter ; What but a life of winter for her ! Bright but chilly, alive without stir, So splendidly comfortless, — just like a Fir When the frost is severe and bitter. MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 169 Such were the future man and wife ! Whose bale or bliss to the end of life A few short words were to settle — Wilt thou have this woman ? I will — and then, Wilt thou have this man ? I will, and Amen — And those Two were one Flesh, in the Angels' ken. Except one Leg — that was metal. Then the names were signed — and kiss'd the kiss • And the Bride, who came from her coach a Miss, As a Countess walk'd to her carriage — Whilst Hymen preen'd his plumes like a dove, And Cupid flutter'd his wings above, In the shape of a fly — as little a Love As ever look'd in at a marriage ! Another crash — and away they dash'd, And the gilded carriage and footmen flash'd From the eyes of the gaping people — Who turn'd to gaze at the toe-and-heel Of the Golden Boys beginning a reel, To the merry sound of a wedding peal From St. James's musical steeple. Those wedding-bells ! those wedding-bells ! How sweetly they sound in pastoral dells From a tow'r in an ivy-green jacket ! But town-made joys how dearly they cost ; And after all are tumbled and tost, Like a peal from a London steeple, and lost In town-made riot and racket. The wedding-peal, how sweetly it peals With grass or heather beneath our heels, — For bells are Music's laughter ! — But a London peal, well mingled, be sure, With vulgar noises and voices impure, 160 PROSE AND VERSE. What a harsh and discordant overture, To the Harmony meant to come after ! But hence with Discord — perchance, too soon To cloud the face of the honeymoon With a dismal occultation ! Whatever Fate's concerted trick, The Countess and Count, at \he present nick, Have a chicken and not a crow to pick At a sumptuous Cold Collation. A Breakfast — no unsubstantial mess, But one in the style of Good Queen Bess, Who, — hearty as hippocampus, — Broke her fast with ale and beef, Instead of toast and the Chinese leaf, And in lieu of anchovy — grampus ! A breakfast of fowl, and fish, and flesh, Whatever was sweet, or salt, or fresh ; With wines the most rare and curious — Wines, of the richest flavor and hue ; With fruits from the worlds both Old and New ; And fruits obtained before they were due At a discount most usurious. For wealthy palates there be that scout What is in season, for what is out, And prefer all precocious savor : For instance, early green peas, of the sort That costs some four or five guineas a quart : Where the Mint is the principal flavor. And many a wealthy man was there, Such as the wealthy City could spare, To put in a portly appearance — Men whom their fathers had help'd to gild : And men who had had their fortunes to build, And — much to their credit — had richly filPd Their purses by pursy-verance. MISS KlLMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 161 Men, by popular rumor at least. Not the last to enjoy a feast ! And truly they were not idle ! Luckier far than the chestnut tits, Which, down at the door, stood champing their bitts, At a different sort of bridle. For the time was come — and the whisker'd Count Help'd his Bride in the carriage to mount, And fain would the Muse deny it, But the crowd, including two butchers in blue (The regular killing Whitechapel hue), Of her Precious Calf had as ample a view, As if they had come to buy it ! Then away ! away ! with all the speed That golden spurs can give to the steed, — Both Yellow Boys and Guineas indeed, Concurr'd to urge the cattle — Away they went, with favors white, Yellow jackets, and pannels bright, And left the mob, like a mob at night, Agape at the sound of a rattle. Away ! away ! they rattled and roll'd, The Count, and his Bride, and her Leg of Gold — That faded charm to the charmer ! Away, — through Old Brentford rang the din, Of wheels and heels, on their way to win That hill, named after one of her kin, The Hill of the Golden Farmer ! Gold, still Gold — it flew like dust ! It tipp'd the post-boy, and paid the trust ; In each open palm it was freely thrust ; There was nothing but giving and taking I And if gold could ensure the future hour, What hopes attended that Bride to her bow'r, But alas ! even hearts with a four-horse pow'r Of opulence end in breaking ! 19 PROSE AND VERSE. HER HONEYMOON. The moon — the moon, so silver and cold, Her fickle temper has oft been told, Now shady — now bright and sunny — But of all the lunar things that change, The one that shows most fickle and strange, And takes the most eccentric range Is the moon — so called — of honey ! To some a full-grown orb reveal'd, As big and as round as Norval's shield, And as bright as a burner Bude-lighted ; To others as dull, and dingy, and damp, As any oleaginous lamp, Of the regular old parochial stamp, In a London fog benighted. To the loving, a bright and constant sphere, That makes earth's commonest scenes appear All poetic, romantic and tender : Hanging with jewels a cabbage-stump, And investing a common post, or a pump, A currant-bush, or a gooseberry clump, With a halo of dreamlike splendor. A sphere such as shone from Italian skies, In Juliet's dear, dark, liquid eyes, Tipping trees with its argent braveries — And to couples not favor'd with Fortune's boons, One of the most delightful of moons, For it brightens their pewter platters and spoons Like a silver service of Savory's ! For all is bright, and beauteous, and clear, And the meanest thing most precious and dear When the magic of love is present : Love, that lends a sweetness and grace To the humblest spot and the plainest face — MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. Lfg Love that sweetens sugarless tea, And makes contentment and joy agree With the coarsest boarding and bedding : Love that no golden ties can attach, But nestles under the humblest thatch, And will fly away from an Emperor's match To dance at a Penny Wedding ! Oh, happy, happy, thrice happy state, When such a bright Planet governs the fate Of a pair of united lovers ! 'Tis theirs, in spite of the Serpent's hiss, To enjoy the pure primeval kiss, With as much of the old original bliss As mortality ever recovers ! . There's strength in double joints, no doubt, In double X Ale, and Dublin Stout, That the single sorts know nothing about— And a fist is strongest when doubled — And double aqua-fortis, of course, And double soda-water, perforce, Are the strongest that ever bubbled ! There's double beauty whenever a Swan Swims on a Lake, with her double thereon : And ask the gardener, Luke or John, Of the beauty of double-blowing — A double dahlia delights the eye ; And it 's far the loveliest sight in the sky When a double rainbow is glowing I There's warmth in a pair of double soles ; As well as a double allowance of coals — In a coat that is double-breasted — [n double windows and double doors ; And a double U wind is blest by scores For its warmth to the tender-chested. 164 PROSE AND VERSE There's a two-fold sweetness in double pipes. And a double barrel and double snipes Give the sportsman a duplicate pleasure : There's double safety in double locks ; And double letters bring cash for the box ; And all the world knows that double knocks Are gentility's double measure. There's a double sweetness in double^ rhymes, And a double at Whist and a double Times In profit are certainly double — By doubling, the Hare contrives to escape : And all seamen delight in a doubled Cape, And a double-reef'd topsail in trouble. There's a double chuck at a double chin, And of course there's a double pleasure therein, If the parties were brought to telling : And however our Dennises take offence, A double meaning shows double sense : And if proverbs tell truth, A double tooth Is Wisdom's adopted dwelling ! But double wisdom, and pleasure, and sense, Beauty, respect, strength, comfort, and thence Through whatever the list discovers, They are all in the double blessedness summ'd, Of what was formerly double-drumm'd, The Marriage of two true Lovers ! Now the Kilmansegg Moon — it must be told — Though instead of silver it tipp'd with gold — Shone rather wan, and distant, and cold And before its days were at thirty, Such gloomy clouds began to collect, With an ominous ring of ill effect, As gave but too much cause to expect Such weather as seamen call dirty f MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. And yet the moon was the " Young May Moon," And the scented hawthorn had blossom'd soon, And the thrush and the blackbird were singing — The snow-white lambs were skipping in play, And the bee was humming a tune all day To flowers as welcome as flowers in May, And the trout in the stream was springing ! But what were the hues of the blooming earth, Its scents — its sounds — or the music and mirth Of its furr'd or its feather'd creatures, To a Pair in the world's last sordid stage, Who had never look'd into Nature's page, And had strange ideas of a Golden Age, Without any Arcadian features ? And what were joys of the pastoral kind To a Bride — town-made — with a heart and mind With simplicity ever at battle ? A bride of an ostentatious race, Who, thrown in the Golden Farmer's place, Would have trimm'd her shepherds with golden lace, And gilt the horns of her cattle. She could not please the pigs with her whim, And the sheep wouldn't cast their eyes at a limb For which she had been such a martyr : The deer in the park, and the colts at grass, And the cows unheeded let it pass; And the ass on the common was such an ass, That he wouldn't have swapp'd The thistle he cropp'd For her Leg, including the Garter ! She hated lanes, and she hated fields — She hated all that the country yields — And barely knew turnips from clover ; She hated walking in any shape, And a country stile was an awkward scrape, PROSE AND VERSE. Without the bribe of a mob to gape At the Leg in clambering over ! O blessed nature, "O rus ! O rus !' Who cannot sigh for the country thus, Absorbed in a worldly torpor — Who does not yearn for its meadow-sweet breath Untainted by care, and crime, and death, And to stand sometimes upon grass or heath — That soul, spite of gold, is a pauper ! But to hail the pearly advent of morn, And relish the odor fresh from the thorn, She was far too pamper'd a madam — Or to joy in the daylight waxing strong, While, after ages of sorrow and wrong, The scorn of the proud, the misrule of the strong, And all the woes that to man belong, The lark still carols the self-same song That he did to the uncurst Adam ! The Lark ! she had given all Leipsic's flocks For a Vauxhall tune in a musical box ; And as for the birds in the thicket, Thrush or ousel in leafy niche, The linnet or finch, she was far too rich To care for a Morning Concert to which She was welcome without any ticket. Gold, still gold, her standard of old, All pastoral joys were tried by gold, Or by fancies golden and crural — Till ere she had pass'd one week unblest, As her agricultural Uncle's guest, Her mind was made up and fully imprest That felicity could not be rural ! And the Count ? — to the snow-white lambs at play, And all the scents and the sights of May, MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. And the birds that warbled their passion, His ears, and dark eyes, and decided nose, Were as deaf and as blind and as dull as those That overlook the Bouquet de Rose, The Huile Antique, And Parfum Unique, In a Barber's Temple of Fashion. To tell, indeed, the true extent Of his rural bias so far it went As to covet estates in ring fences — And for rural lore he had learn'd in town That the country was green, turn'd up with brown, And garnish'd with trees that a man might cut down Instead of his own expenses. And yet had that fault been his only one, The Pair might have had few quarrels or none, For their tastes thus far were in common ; But faults he had that a haughty bride With a Golden Leg could hardly abide — Faults that would even have roused the pride Of a far less metalsome woman ! It was early days indeed for a wife, In the very spring of her married life, To be chill'd by its wintry weather — But instead of sitting as Love-Birds do, Or Hymen's turtles that bill and coo — Enjoying their " moon and honey for two" They were scarcely seen together ! In vain she sat with her Precious Leg A little exposed, a la Kilmansegg, And roll'd her eyes in their sockets ! He left her in spite of her tender regards, And those loving murmurs described by bards, For the rattling of dice and the shuffling of cards, And the poking of balls into pockets ! PROSE AND VERSE. Moreover he loved the deepest stake And the heaviest bets the players would make ; And he drank — the reverse of sparely, — And he used strange curses that made her fret : And when he play'd with herself at piquet She found, to her cost, For she always lost, That the Count did not count quite fairly. And then came dark mistrust and doubt, Gather'd by worming his secrets out, And slips in his conversations — Fears, which all her peace destroy'd, That his title was null — his coffers were void — And his French Chateau was in Spain, or enjoy'd The most airy of situations. But still his heart — if he had such a part — She — only she — might possess his heart, And hold his affections in fetters — Alas ! that hope, like a crazy ship, Was forced its anchor and cable to slip When, seduced by her fears, she took a dip In his private papers and letters. Letters that told of dangerous leagues ; And notes that hinted as many intrigues As the Count's in the " Barber of Seville " — In short such mysteries came to light, That the Countess-Bride, on the thirtieth night, Woke and started up in affright, And kick'd and scream'd with all her might, And finally fainted away outright, For she dreamt she had married the Devil r HER MISERY. Who hath not met with home-made bread, A heavy compound of putty and lead— MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 169 And home-made wines that rack the head, And home-made liqueurs and waters ? Home-made pop that will not foam, And home-made dishes that drive one from home, Not to name each mess, For the face or dress, Home-made by the homely daughters ? Home-made physic, that sickens the sick ; Thick for thin and thin for thick ; — In short each homogeneous trick For poisoning domesticity ? And since our Parents, called the First, A little family squabble nurst, Of all our evils the worst of the worst Is home-made infelicity. There's a Golden Bird that claps its wings, And dances for joy on its perch, and sings With a Persian exultation : For the Sun is shining into the room, And brightens up the carpet-bloom, As if it were new, bran new from the loom, Or the lone Nun's fabrication. And thence the glorious radiance flames On pictures in massy gilded frames — Enshrining, however, no painted Dames, But portraits of colts and fillies — Pictures hanging on walls which shine, In spite of the bard's familiar line, With clusters of " gilded lilies." And still the flooding sunlight shares Its lustre with gilded sofas and chairs, That shine as if freshly burnish'd — And gilded tables, with glittering stocks Of gilded china, and golden clocks, 70 PROSE AND VERSE. Toy, and trinket, and musical box, That Peace and Paris have furnish'd. And lo ! with the brightest gleam of all The glowing sunbeam is seen to fall On an object as rare as splendid — The golden foot of the Golden Leg Of the Countess — once Miss Kilmansegg — But there all sunshine is ended. Her cheek is pale, and her eye is dim, And downward cast, yet not at the limb, Once the centre of all speculation ; But downward drooping in comfort's dearth, As gloomy thoughts are drawn to the earth — Whence human sorrows derive their birth — By a moral gravitation. Her golden hair is out of its braids, And her sighs betray the gloomy shades That her evil planet revolves in — And tears are falling that catch a gleam So bright as they drop in the sunny beam, That tears of aqua regia they seem, The water that gold dissolves in ! Yet, not in filial grief were shed Those tears for a mother's insanity ; Nor yet because her father was dead, For the bowing Sir Jacob had bow'd his head To Death — with his usual urbanity : The waters that down her visage rill'd Were drops of unrectified spirit distill'd From the limbeck of Pride and Vanity. Tears that fell alone and uncheckt, Without relief, and without respect, Like the fabled pearls that the pigs neglect, When pigs have that opportunity — MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. And of all the griefs that mortals share, The one that seems the hardest to bear Is the grief without community. How bless'd the heart that has a friend A sympathizing ear to lend To troubles too great to smother ! For as ale and porter, when flat, are restored, Till a sparkling bubbling head they afford, So sorrow is cheer'd by being pour'd From one vessel into another. But friend or gossip she had not one To hear the vile deeds that the Count had done, How night after night he rambled ; And how she had learn'd by sad degrees That he drank, and smoked, and worse than these That he " swindled, intrigued, and gambled." How he kiss'd the maids, and sparr'd with John And came to bed with his garments on ; With other offences as heinous — And brought strange gentlemen home to dine, That he said were in the Fancy Line, And they fancied spirits instead of wine, And calFd her lap-dog " Wenus." Of " making a book " how he made a stir, But never had written a line to her, Once his idol and Cara Sposa : And how he had storm'd, and treated her ill, Because she refused to go down to a mill, She didn't know where, but remember'd still That the Miller's name was Mendoza. How often he waked her up at night, And oftener still by the morning light, Reeling home from his haunts unlawful ; Singing songs that shouldn't be sung, 172 PROSE AND VERSE. Except by beggars and thieves unhung— Or volleying oaths, that a foreign tongue Made still more horrid and awful ! How oft, instead of otto of rose ; With vulgar smells he offended her nose, From gin, tobacco, and onion ! And then how wildly he used to stare ! And shake his fist at nothing, and swear, — And pluck by the handful his shaggy hair, Till he look'd like a study of Giant Descair For a new Edition of Bunyan ! For dice will run the contrary way, As well is known to all who play, And cards will conspire as in treason : And what with keeping a hunting-box, Following fox — Friends in flocks, Burgundies, Hocks, From London Docks; Stultz's frocks, Manton and Nock's Barrels and locks, Shooting blue rocks, Trainers and jocks, Buskins and socks, Pugilistical knocks, And fighting-cocks, [f he found himself short in funds and stocks, These rhymes will furnish the reason ! His friends, indeed, were falling away — Friends who insist on play or pay — And he fear'd at no very distant day To be cut by Lord and by cadger, As one who was gone or going to smash, For his checks no longer drew the cash, MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. Because, as his comrades explain'd in flash, " He had overdrawn his badger." Gold, gold — alas ! for the gold Spent where souls are bought and sold In Vice's Walpurgis revel ! Alas ! for muffles, and bulldogs, and guns, The leg that walks, and the leg that runs, All real evils, though Fancy ones, When they lead to debt, dishonor, and duns, Nay, to death, and perchance the devil ! Alas ! for the last of a Golden race ! Had she cried her wrongs in the market-place, She had warrant for all her clamor — For the worst of rogues, and brutes, and rakes, Was breaking her heart by constant aches, With as little remorse as the Pauper who breaks A flint with a parish hammer ! HER LAST WILL. Now the Precious Leg while cash was flush, Or the Count's acceptance worth a rush, Had never excited dissension ; But no sooner the stocks began to fall, Than, without any ossification at all, The limb became what people call A perfect bone of contention. For alter'd days brought alter'd ways, And instead of the complimentary phrase, So current before her bridal — The Countess heard, in language low, That her Precious Leg was precious slow, A good 'un to look at but bad to go, And kept quite a sum lying idle, That instead of playing musical airs, Like Colin's foot in going up-stairs — PROSE AND VERSE As the wife in the Scottish ballad declares — It made an infernal stumping, Whereas a member of cork, or wood, Would be lighter and cheaper and quite as good, Without the unbearable thumping. P'rhaps she thought it a decent thing To show her calf to cobbler and king, But nothing could be absurder — While none but the crazy would advertise Their gold before their servants' eyes, Who of course some night would make it a prize, By a Shocking and Barbarous Murder. But spite of hint, and threat, and scoff, The Leg kept its situation : For legs are not to be taken off By a verbal amputation. And mortals when they take a whim, The greater the folly the stiffer the limb That stands upon it or by it — So the Countess, then Miss Kilmansegg, At her marriage refused to stir a peg, Till the Lawyers had fastened on her Leg, As fast as the Law could tie it. Firmly then — and more firmly yet — With scorn for scorn, and with threat for threat, The Proud One confronted the Cruel : And loud and bitter the quarrel arose, Fierce and merciless — one of those, With spoken daggers, and looks like blows, In all but the bloodshed a duel ! Rash, and wild, and wretched, and wrong, Were the words that came from Weak and Strong, Till madden'd for desperate matters, Fierce as tigress escaped from her den, MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 175 She flew to her desk — 'twas open'd — and then, In the time it takes to try a pen, Or the clerk to utter his slow Amen, Her Will was in fifty tatters ! But the Count, instead of curses wild, Only nodded his head and smiled, As if at the spleen of an angry child ; But the calm was deceitful and sinister ! A lull like the lull of the treacherous sea — For Hate in that moment had sworn to be The Golden Leg's sole Legatee, And that very night to administer ! HER DEATH. 'Tis a stern and startling thing to think How often mortality stands on the brink Of its grave without any misgiving : And yet in this slippery world of strife, In the stir of human bustle so rife, There are daily sounds to tell us that Life Is dying, and Death is living ! Ay, Beauty the Girl, and Love the Boy, Bright as they are with hope and joy, How their souls would sadden instanter, To remember that one of those wedding bells, Which ring so merrily through the dells, Is the same that knells Our last farewells, Only broken into a canter ! But breath and blood set doom at naught- How little the wretched Countess thought, When at night she unloosed her sandal, That the Fates had woven her burial-cloth, \nd that Death, in the shape of a Death's Head Moth, Was fluttering round her candle ! 176 PROSE AND VERSE. As she look'd at her clock of or-molu, For the hours she had gone so wearily through At the end of a day of trial — How little she saw in her pride of prime The dart of Death in the Hand of Time- That hand which moved on the dial ! As she went with her taper up the stair, How little her swollen eye was aware That the Shadow which follow'd was double ! Or when she closed her chamber door, It was shutting out, and for evermore, The world — and its worldly trouble. Little she dreamt, as she laid aside Her jewels — after one glance of pride — They were solemn bequests to Vanity — Or when her robes she began to doff, That she stood so near to the putting off Of the flesh that clothes humanity. And when she quench'd the taper's light, How little she thought as the smoke took flight That her day was done — and merged in a night Of dreams and duration uncertain — Or, along with her own, That a Hand of Bone Was closing mortality's curtain ! But life is sweet, and mortality's blind, And youth is hopeful, and Fate is kind In concealing the day of sorrow ; And enough is the present tense of toil — For this world is, to all, a stifnsh soil — And the mind flies back with a glad recoil From the debts not due till to-morrow. Wherefore else does the Spirit fly And bid its daily cares good-bye, MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 177 Along with its daily clothing ? Just as the felon condemned to die — With a very natural loathing — Leaving the Sheriff to dream of ropes, From his gloomy cell in a vision elopes, To caper on sunny greens and slopes, Instead of the dance upon nothing. Thus, even thus, the Countess slept, While Death still nearer and nearer crept, Like the Thane who smote the sleeping — But her mind was busy with early joys, Her golden treasures and golden toys, That flash'd a bright And golden light 1 Under lids still red with weeping. The golden doll that she used to hug ! Her coral of gold, and the golden mug ! Her godfather's golden presents ! The golden service she had at her meals, The golden watch, and chain, and seals,. Her golden scissors, and thread, and reels, And her golden fishes and pheasants ! The golden guineas in silken purse — And the Golden Legends she heard from her nurse, Of the Mayor in his gilded carriage — And London streets that were paved with gold — And the Golden Eggs that were laid of old — With each golden thing To the golden ring At her own auriferous Marriage ! And still the golden light of the sun Through her golden dream appear'd to run Though the night that roar'd without was one To terrify seamen or gipsies — While the moon, as if in malicious mirth, 13 178 PROSE AND VERSE. Kept peeping down at the ruffled earth, As though she enjoyed the tempest's birth, In revenge of her old eclipses. But vainly, vainly, the thunder fell, For the soul of the Sleeper was under a spell That time had lately embitter'd — The Count, as once at her foot he knelt— That Foot which now he wanted to melt I But — hush ! — 'twas a stir at her pillow she felt — And some object before her glitter'd. 'Twas the Golden Leg ! — she knew its gleam ! And up she started, and tried to scream, — But ev'n in the moment she started — Down came the limb with a frightful smash, ' And, lost in the universal flash That her eyeballs made at so mortal a crash, The Spark, called Vital, departed ! * * * * Gold, still gold ! hard, yellow, and cold, For gold she had lived, and she died for gold — By a golden weapon — not oaken ; In the morning they found her all alone — Stiff, and bloody, and cold as a stone — But her Leg, the Golden Leg was gone, And the " Golden Bowl was broken !" Gold — still gold ! it haunted her yet — At the Golden Lion the Inquest met — Its foreman, a carver and gilder — And the Jury debated from twelve till three What the Verdict ought to be, And they brought it in as Felo de Se, " Because her own Leg had killed her !" MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. HER MORAL. Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold, Molten, graven, hammer'd, and roll'd ; Heavy to get, and light to hold ; Hoarded, barter'd, bought, and sold, Stolen, borrow'd, squander'd, doled : Spurn'd by the young, but hugg'd by the old To the very verge of the churchyard mould ; Price of many a crime untold ; Gold ! Gold ! Gold ! Gold : Good or bad a thousand- fold ! How widely its agencies vary — To save — to ruin — to curse — to bless — As even its minted coins express, Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess, And now of a Bloody Mary ! PROSE AND VERSE. FAIR INES. O saw ye not fair Ines ? She's gone into the West, To dazzle when the sun is down, And rob the world of rest : She took our daylight with her, The smiles that we love best, With morning blushes on her cheek, And pearls upon her breast. ii. turn again, fair Ines, Before the fall of night, For fear the moon should shine alone, And stars unrivall'd bright ; And blessed will the lover be That walks beneath their light, And breathes the love against thy cheek 1 dare not even write ! in. Would I had been, fair Ines, That gallant cavalier, Who rode so gaily by thy side, And whisper'd thee so near ! Were there no bonny dames at home, Or no true lovers here, That he should cross the seas to win The dearest of the dear ? FAIR INES. IV. I saw thee, lovely Ines, Descend along the shore, With bands of noble gentlemen, And banners wav'd before ; And gentle youth and maidens gay, And snowy plumes they wore ; It would have been a beauteous dream, — If it had been no more ! v. Alas, alas, fair Ines, She went away with song, With Music waiting on her steps, And shoutings of the throng ; But some were sad and felt no mirth, But only Music's wrong, In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell, To her you've loved so long. VI. Farewell, farewell, fair Ines, That vessel never bore So fair a lady on its deck, Nor danced so light before,— Alas for pleasure on the sea, And sorrow on the shore ! The smile that blest one lover's heart Has broken many more ! PROSE AND VERSE. BALLAD Spring it is cheery, Winter is dreary, Green leaves hang, but the brown must fly ; When he's forsaken, Wither'd and shaken, What can an old man do but die ? Love will not clip him, Maids will not lip him, Maud and Marian pass him by ; Youth it is sunny, Age has no honey, — What can an old man do but die ? June it was jolly, O for its folly ! A dancing leg and a laughing eye $ Youth may be silly, Wisdom is chilly, — What can an old man do but die ? Friends they are scanty, Beggars are plenty, If he has followers, I know why ; Gold's in his clutches (Buying him crutches !) — What can an old man do but die ? RUTH. 183 RUTH. She stood breast high amid tne corn, Clasp'd by the golden light of morn, Like the sweetheart of the sun, Who many a glowing kiss had won. On her cheek an autumn flush Deeply ripened ; — such a blush In the midst of brown was born, Like red poppies grown with corn. Round her eyes her tresses fell, Which were blackest none could tell, But long lashes veiPd a light, That had else been all too bright. And her hat, with shady brim, Made her tressy forehead dim ; — Thus she stood amid the stooks, Praising God with sweetest looks : — Sure, I said, heav'n did not mean, Where I reap thou shouldst but glean, Lay thy sheaf adown and come, Share my harvest and my home. PROSE AND VERSE. AUTUMN. The Autumn is old, The sere leaves are flying ;— He hath gather'd up gold, And now he is dying ; Old age, begin sighing ! The vintage is ripe, The harvest is heaping ; But some that have sow'd Have no riches for reaping Poor wretch, fall a weeping ! The year's in the wane, There is nothing adorning The night has no eve, And the day has no morning Cold winter gives warning. The rivers run chill, The red sun is sinking, And I am grown old, And life is fast shrinking ; Here's enow for sad thinking SONG. SONG. lady, leave thy silken thread And flowery tapestrie : There's living roses on the bush, And blossoms on the tree ; Stoop where thou wilt, thy careless hand Some random bud will meet ; Thou canst not tread, but thou wilt find The daisy at thy feet. 'Tis like the birthday of the world, When earth was born in bloom ; The light is made of many dyes, The air is all perfume ; There's crimson buds, and white and blue — The very rainbow show'rs Have turned to blossoms where they fell, And sown the earth with flowers. There's fairy tulips in the East, The garden of the sun ; The very streams reflect the hues, And blossom as they run : While Morn opes like a crimson rose, Still wet with pearly showers ; Then, lady, leave the silken thread Thou twinest into flowers ! PROSE AND VERSE. ODE TO MELANCHOLY. Come, let us set our careful breasts, Like Philomel, against the thorn, To aggravate the inward grief, That makes her accents so forlorn ; The world has many cruel points, Whereby our bosoms have been torn, And there are dainty themes of grief, In sadness to outlast the morn, — True honor's dearth, affection's death, Neglectful pride, and cankering scorn, With all the piteous tales that tears Have water'd since the world was born. The world !— it is a wilderness, Where tears are hung on every tree ; For thus my gloomy phantasy Makes all things weep with me ! Come let us sit and watch the sky, And fancy clouds, where no clouds be ; Grief is enough to blot the eye, And make heaven black with misery. Why should birds sing such merry notes, Unless they were more blest than we ? No sorrow ever chokes their throats, Except sweet nightingale ; for she Was born to pain our hearts the more With her sad melody. Why shines the sun, except that he ODE TO MELANCHOLY. Makes gloomy nooks for Grief to hide, And pensive shades for Melancholy, When all the earth is bright beside ? Let clay wear smiles, and green grass wave, Mirth shall not win us back again, Whilst man is made of his own grave, And fairest clouds but gilded rain ! I saw my mother in her shroud, Her cheek was cold and very pale ; And ever since I've look'd on all As creatures doom'd to fail ! Why do buds ope, except to die ? Ay, let us watch the roses wither, And think of our loves' cheeks ; And oh ! how quickly time doth fly To bring death's winter hither ! Minutes, hours, days, and weeks, Months, years, and ages, shrink to naught ; An age past is but a thought ! Ay, let us think of Him a while, That, with a coffin for a boat, Rows daily o'er the Stygian moat, And for our table choose a tomb : There's dark enough in any skull To charge with black a raven plume ; And for the saddest funeral thoughts A winding sheet hath ample room, Where Death, with his keen-pointed style, Hath writ the common doom. How wide the yew tree spreads its gloom, And o'er the dead lets fall its dew, As if in tears it wept for them, The many human families That sleep around its stem ! How could the dead have made these stones, With natural drops kept ever wet I PROSE AND VERSE. Lo ! here the best, the worst, the world Doth now remember or forget, Are in one common ruin hurl'd, And love and hate are calmly met ; The loveliest eyes that ever shone, The fairest hands, and locks of jet. Is 't not enough to vex our souls, And fill our eyes, that we have set Our love upon a rose's leaf, Our hearts upon a violet ? Blue eyes, red cheeks, are frailer yet ; And sometimes at their swift decay Beforehand we must fret : The roses bud and bloom again ; But love may haunt the grave of love, And watch the mould in vain. O clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art mine, And do not take my tears amiss ; For tears must flow to wash away A thought that shows so stern as this : Forgive, if somewhile I forget, In wo to come, the present bliss. As frighted Proserpine let fall Her flowers at the sight of Dis, Ev'n so the dark and bright will kiss. The sunniest things throw sternest shade, And there is ev'n a happiness That makes the heart afraid ! Now let us with a spell invoke The full-orb'd moon to grieve our eyes ; Not bright,- not bright, but, with a cloud Lapp'd all about her, let her rise All pale and dim, as if from rest The ghost of the late buried sun Had crept into the skies. The Moon ! she is the source of sighs, ODE TO MELANCHOLY. The very face to make us sad ; If but to think in other times The same calm quiet look she had, As if the world held nothing base, Of vile and mean, of fierce and bad ; The same fair light that shone in streams, The fairy lamp that charm'd the lad ; For so it is, with spent delights She taunts men's brains, and makes them mad. All things are touch'd with Melancholy, Born of the secret soul's mistrust, To feel her fair ethereal wings Weigh'd down with vile degraded dust ; Even the bright extremes of joy Bring on conclusions of disgust, Like the sweet blossoms of the May, Whose fragrance ends in must. O give her, then, her tribute just, Her sighs and tears, and musings holy . There is no music in the life That sounds with idiot laughter solely ; There's not a string attuned to mirth, But has its chords of Melancholy. THE END OF PART I. PART SECOND. PROSE AND VERSE. THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. DREADFUL FIRE — DESTRUCTION OF BOTH 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 furiously burning. We are writing this paragraph without the aid of lamp or candles ; by the mere reflection of the flames. Nothing 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 Royalty and the Pantheon, has made its appear- ance on a new stage, equally devoted to declamatory elocution. 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 : the Destructive spirit is on its legs, and the Conservative principle can ofFer 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 com- plete. The spirit of Guy Fawkes revives in 1834 ! Part ii. 2 2 PROSE AND VERSE. England seems to have changed places with Italy ; London 1 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 legislature and magistracy to a variety of suspicious symptoms and signs of the times, and in particular to the multiplied chemi- cal 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 chim- neys with a blood-red light, a lunar phenomenon, which I con- ceived 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 bold to say did not always characterize their proceedings. By favor of my natural assur- ance, which seemed to identify me with the firemen, I was allowed to pass through the lines of guards and policemen, who surrounded the blazing pile, and was thus enabled to select a THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 3 favorable 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 Com- mons was not at all behind-hand in voting supplies of timber and other combustibles. Westminster Hall reminded me vividly of a London cry, " Hall hot, flail hot," that was familiar in our child- hood — and the Gothic architecture of the Abbey seemed unusu- ally jlorid. Instead of dingy stone, the venerable pile appeared to be built of the well-baked brick of the Elizabethan age. Indeed, so red-hot was its aspect, that it led to a ludicrous mis- apprehension on the part of the populace. A procession, bearing several male and female figures in a state of insensibility, natu- rally 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 cer- tainly bore a strong resemblance to General Monk. In the mean time a select party had effected an entrance into the Hall, but not without some serious delay, occasioned, I believe, by somebody within bringing the wrong key, that belonged to a tea-caddy. However, at last they entered, and I followed their example. The first person I beheld was the vete- ran Higginbottom, so unfairly, but facetiously, put to death by the authors of the Rejected Addresses ; for no man is more alive to his duty. But he was sadly hampered. First came one 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 play- ing, though everybody agreed that he played too high. I men- tion this, because some of the journals have imputed mismanage- ment to the engines, and have insinuated that the pipes wanted organizing ; 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 Hig- ginbottom's station was enviable, compared with that of some of the poor fellows in St. Stephen's Chapel. A considerable num.. 4 PROSE AND VERSE. ber of members had arrived, and without any attention to their usual parliamentary rules, were all making motions at once, which nobody seconded. The most prominent, I was informed, were Mr. Hume, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Attwood, Mr. Bucking- ham, Mr. Pease, Sir Andrew and Mr. Buxton — the latter almost covered with blacks. The clamor was terrific, and I really expected that the poor foremen who held the pipes would be torn in pieces. Everybody 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 what- ever 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 Com- moners were alike seen burthened with loads of papers or furni- ture. 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. Everybody 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 mistress of his affections, and some similar mistakes are currently reported to have occurred 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, 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 Reform 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. Ricardo saved an old tattered flag, which he thought was "the standard of value." However deficient in general combination, and concentration THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. of energies, individual efforts were beyond all praise. The instances of personal exertion and daring were numerous. Mr. Rice worked amidst the flames till he was nearly baked ; and everybody expected that Mr. Pease would be parched. The greatest .danger was from the melted metal pouring down from the windows and roof. The heads of some of the Hon. Gentle- 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, saucepans, and other culinary implements. I, myself, saw one zealous individual thus encumbered — with a stew-pan on his head, the meat-screen under one arm, the dripping-pan under the other, the frying-pan in his right hand, the gridiron 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 gen- tlemen's arms, and never felt her feet till the corner of Abingdon Street." The whole of the Foot 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 effect, " 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 Serjeants, 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, whilst viewing the House, 8 PROSE. AND VERSE. although no dancer, began suddenly, and in his boots, to the 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 Col- lective Wisdom, which knows how to lay down laws for us all. should not know how to lay down flues. Rumors of Incendia- rism are also very generally prevalent, and stories are in circu- lation of the finding of half-burnt matches and other cembusti- bles. 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 another 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 manu- factories 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 " Fire " from a number of persons who were running in the direction of West- minster Bridge. Owning myself a warm enthusiast on the sub- ject 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 Bad 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 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 7 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 1 invariably visit this look-out. Every man has 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 be- fore 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 — Ro- therhithe. the theatres, 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 had the good for- tune to witness the great riots of 1780, when no less than eight fires were blazing at once, and a lamentable sight it was. 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 satisfactory flare-up. The Rotherhithe fire, not the recent little job, but some fifteen or twenty years ago, was also on a grand scale, and very last- ing. The engine-pipes were wilfully cut ; and I remember some of my friends rallying me on my 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-light, 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 a benefit-bill, setting off the red ones. The destruction of the Kent Indiaman I should like to have & I'iiOSE AND VERSE. witnessed, but contrary to the opinion of many experienced ama- teurs 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 off, — 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 be- fore 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 puff of a cigar, and after a long spring 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 Volunteers had time to assemble under arms, and muffle their drums, and the bell-ringers to collect in the belfry, and pull an alarm peal backwards. The parish engines even, al- though pulled along by the pursy churchwardens, and the para- lytic paupers, contrived to arrive before the fire fairly broke out in the shape of a little squib-like eruption from the garret-win- dow. 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 removed, and after an hour's pumping, the fire was extinguished without extending beyond the room where it originated, namely a bedroom on the second floor. Such was the progress in my time of a fire, but it is the fashion now to sacrifice everything to pace. Look at our race-horses, and look at our fox-hounds, — and I will add look at our conflagrations. All that is cared for is a burst — no matter how short, if it be but rapid. The de- vouring element never sits down now to a regular meal — it pitches on a house and holts 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 Reminiscences of an Octogenarian. I snatched up my hat, and rushed into the street, at eighty years THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 9 of age, with the alacrity of eighteen, when I ran from Highgate to Horsleydown, to be present at the gutting of a ship chan- dler's. As the bard says — " Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires" 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 splen- did blaze is somewhat "shorn of its beams." But a few steps re-assured 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 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," — for getting jammed against a barge with my back towards the fire, I am unable to state anything on my own authority as an eye-witness, excepting that the buildings on the Surrey side exhibited a glow- ing reflection for some hours. At last the flowing of the tide caused the multitude to retreat, and releasing me from my re- trospective position allowed me to gaze upon the ruins. By what I hear, it was a most imposing sight — but in spite of my Lord Althorp, I cannot help thinking that Westminster Hall, with its long range, would have made up an admirable 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 certainly have been chosen. Fire-light and moon-light do not mix well : — they are best neat. I am, Sir, Yours, &c, Senex. 10 PROSE AND VERSE VARIOUS ACCOUNTS. We are concerned to state that Sir Jacob Jubb the new mem- ber 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 re- plied 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 of the fire are in circulation. 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 the noble Lord alluded to is at present at Constantinople. — The Real Sun. We are enabled to state that the individual who displayed so much coolness in the South Turret was Captain Back. — The Public Journal. It is said that considerable interest was evinced by the mem- bers of the House of Commons who were present at the fire, as to the fate of their respective Bills. One honorable gentleman, in particular, was observed anxiously watching the last scintil- lations of some burnt paper. " Oh, my Sabbath Observance !" he exclaimed, " There 's an end of religion ! 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 laborer rushed forward and snatched it out of the way. The individual's name is M'Farrel. We understand he is a sober, honest, hard-work- ing man, and has two wives, and 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 words were as follows : — " Blow the Commons ! let 'em flare up — but oh, — for a save-all ! a save-all." — Morning News. The public attention has been greatly excited by the extraor- dinary statement of a commercial gentleman, that he smelt the fire at the Cock and Bottle, in Coventry. He asserts that he THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 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 Tally-ho ! 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 every one who witnessed the operations in the House of Commons, that there was a lamentable want of "order! order! 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 unexceptionable. 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 pri- vate ? — Public Advertiser. MONSIEUR C.'S ACCOUNT. (EXCLUSIVE.) When lam 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, and I am all alone. The first thing I observe was a great many rats, ratting about — but they did not know 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 made no noise at all. Mr. Bulwer's place burned of a blue color ; Mr. Buck- stone's turned quite black ; and there was one made a flame the color of a drab. I observe one green flame and one orange, side by side, and they hiss and roar at one another very furious. 12 PROSE AND VERS£. The gallery cleared itself quite quickly, and the seat of Mes- sieurs the reporters exploded itself like a cannon of forty-eight pounds. The speaking chair burnt without any sound at all. When everything is quite done in the Commons I leave them off, ahd 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 greatcoat. 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 7 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 water, and cannot write any more at full length. A LETTER TO A LABORING MAN. BUSHELL, When you made a holiday last Whitsuntide to see the Sights of London, in your way to the Waxwork and Westmin- ster Abbey, you probably noticed a vast pile of buildings in Palace Yard, ard 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 buildings congregated all the talent, all the integrity and public 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 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 13 assertors of our liberties. Of course, Bushell, you were told all this ; but nobody told you, I dare say, that within those walls your master had lifted up his voice, and delivered the only sound, rational, and wholesome, upright, and able speeches, that were ever uttered in St. Stephen's Chapel. No, nobody told you that. But when I come dome, 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, Bushell, you will know as much of legislation as all our precious members together. Well, Bushell, the fine houses you stood gaping at are burnt lown, gutted, as the vulgar call it, and nothing is left bu. the □are walls. You saw Farmer 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 another. And how do you look ? Why, as pale as a parsnip, and as thin as a hurdle, and your carrotty locks stand bolt up- right, 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 a"bout 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 snore like an oratorio of jews' harps. Your face is as bold and ruddy as the Red Lion's. Your car- rotty 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 vaga- L4 PROSE AND VERSE. bonds, besides the one you met in Palace Yard, who would per- suade a poor man that a House of Lords or Commons is as gooa to him as his bread, beer, beef, bacon, bed, and breeches ; and therefore I address this to you, Bushell, to set such 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 w eek to the Red Lion (when your work is done), and you may score by a pint of beer, at my cost, each time. And when the parson, or the exciseman, or the tax-gatherer, or any such gen- try, begin to talk of the 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 Mary Price, Fenny Hall, Lincolnshire. O Mary, — I am writing in such a quiver, with my art in my mouth, and my tung sticking to it. For too hole hours I've bean Doin nothink but taking on and going off, I mean into fits, or cry- ing 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 1 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 might be nine, I fell on the stow, and hav had a grate dred of fire ewer since. Gudge then how low I 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 Clan- destiny parties behind Missisis 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 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 15 you can't be lead into liteness and gayty, if you was ever so inclind. Fore wipping willies and a windmill is a dullish luck out, shure enuff, but its better then moor ambishus prospex, and stairing at a grate fire, like a suckin pig, till yure eyes is reddy to drop out of yure hed ! You no wen Lady Manners is absent, a certin person always gives a good rowt : — and I had a card in Coarse. I went very 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 the bell at the saim time, like a triangle keepin cumpany with a big drum. As soon as the door were opened, a man with a pail face asked for the buckits, and that was the fust news we had of the fire. Oh Mary, never trust to the mail sects ! 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 yure ears with picrust, they make trifles of yure afections, and destroy your comfits for life. They think no more of perjur- ing themselves 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 brid cake and wite fevers, you may find yureself left with nothink but breeches of prommis. John Futman is a proof in pint. Menny tims Ive give him a hiding at number fore, and he always had the best of the lardur at our stolin meatings, and God nose Ive offun alloud him to idelize me when I ort to have bean at my wurks, besides larning to rite for his sack. Twenty housis afire ort not to have a baited his warmth, insted of witch to jump up at the first 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 terryfickle spectikle that was won ! Flams before and flams behind, and flams over-head. Sich axing and hollowing out, and mobbing and pumpin, and cussing and swaring, and the peple's rushes into the Hous purvented all gitting out. For my hone parts, I climed up the dresser, and skreeked, but nobbody was man enufT to purtect. Men ant what they was. I am sick of the retches ! It used to be femails fust, but now its furniter, I 16 PROSE AND VERSE. fully thort one gintleman was comin to cotch me up in arms, bul he preferred the fish kettle. As for the sogers they march* off to the wind seller, and the pantry, ware they maid beleave to preserve the gusberry 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. Margaret's Church, with my fethers all frizzild, and a shew off. But cf all iossis, my ridicule was most serius, for it had my puss in it. How and ware it broke out is a mistery. Sum say both Howses was unuer minded. Sum say the Common members got over heatid in their 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 asso- ciashuns, wich of coarse will hav to make good all dammage. Fortnately, the Speker's mornin, noon, and evning services of plait was not at horn, or it mite hav sufferd, for they say goold and silver as stud the fire verry well, melted down when it got furthur off. Tauking 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 Refudge 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 will go with me to my grave. I am allways 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, 01 making tindur, throes me into fits. I shall newer be the womman I was ; but that is no excus for Tohn'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 in his harms. But it cums to munny, and particly given the ingin keeper a pint of bear from time to time, and drams to the turn- THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. cox ; where there's nabers fires will happen, howevver cerefull and precocius you may be youreself. I dred our two nex dores ; number three is a Gurmin fammily, and them orrid forriners think nothink of smocking siggars in bed, witch will ketch sum day to a certainty. Number fiv is wus ; since his wif's death Mr. Sanders has betuck himself to cornicle studis, and offin has a littel bio up amung his pistles and morters. O ! Mary, how happy is them as livs lick you, as the song says, " Fur from the buzzy aunts of men." If you're inflamd its nobbody's folt but yure hone. Pray take the greatest car. Have yure eyes about, you, and luck out for sparks ; watever the men may say, don't allow backer pips or long snufs, and let evvery boddy be thur- rowly put out. Don't neglect to rake out evvery nite, see that evvery sole in the hows is turned down xtinguished, and allways bio yureself out befour you go to yure piller. Thenk gudness you newer larnd to reed, and therefor will not take anny bucks to bed with you. Allways ware stuff or woollin, insted of lite cottons and gingums, in case of the coles throvvin out cofFens or pusses, by witch menny persons gains their ends. In case of yure pettycots catchin don't forgit standin on yure head, as re- commended by the Human Society, becoz fire burns uppards, but its a posishun as requiers practis. Have yure chimbly swept reglar wonce a munth, and w 7 en visiters cum newer put hot coles in the warmin pan, for fear you forgit and leave it in the spair bed. Remember fire is a good sarvent but a bad mas- ter, 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 tne country, and that there is Swingeing ; is no cornstax or heyrix in St. Jims's Square. That is yure weeL pint, and I trembil for the barns ; a rockite or a roaming candel rnite set you in a blaze. But I hop and trust wat I say will newer pruve the truth. Oppydildock is good for burns, and 1 am, dear Mary, Yure old and afexionate feller sarvent, Ann Gale. Part n. 3 Id I'ROSE AND VERSE THE JUBB LETTERS. From Lady Jubb to Mrs. Phipps, Housekeeper at the Shrubbery, 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 Parlia- ment his motions must guide ours. By this time what has hap- pened will be known in Shropshire, but I forbid your talking, Politics belong to people of property, and those who have no voice in the country ought not to speak. In your inferior situa- tions it's a duty to be ignorant of what you know. The nation is out of youi sphere, and besides, people out of town cannot know the state of the country. I want to put you on your guard j thanks to the press, as Sir Jacob says, public affairs cannot be kept private, and the consequence is, the ignorant are as well informed as their betters. The burning of both Houses of Parliament 1 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 wi! observe this letter is franked ; the fire made no difference to your master, he is not dissolved, whatever the Blues may wish — lie is still Sir Jacob Jubb, Baronet, M. P. The election of Sir Jacob at such a crisis was an act of Provi- dence. His firmness at the fire affords an example to posterity ; although the bench was burning under him he refused 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 will write to the bailiff, and whatever may be the nature of his directions, I desire that • THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. L9 no curiosity may be indulged in, and above all, that you enter- tain no opinions of your own. You cannot square with the upper circles. I would write more, but I am going to a meet ing, I need not say where, or upon what subject. I rely^ Mrs Phipps, on your discretion, and am, &c, Arabella Anastasia Jubb To T. Crawfurd, junior, Esquire, the Beeches, near Shrewsoury^ 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 Com- mons caught fire, and he was dissolved along with the rest. 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 bat- tle, 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 regular wigging one day, for wish- ing both the Dons were well peppered, 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 20 PROSE AND VERSE. pleasure he promised me was to sit in the gallery at the Com- mons and see him present his petitions. 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 besides, from the Prime Minister ? I sup- pose the Navy Pay, to sit on a high stool and give Jack Junk one pound two and nine pence twice a year. I'd rather be Jack 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, Frederick Jubb. P. S. — A court gentleman has just come in, with a knock-me- down-again. He says there's to be a new election. I wish you'd do something ; it would be a real favor, 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. To Mr. Roger Davis, Bailiff, the Shrubbery, near Shrewsbury. Davis, I hope to God this will find you at home — I am wnting 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 GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 2i the members for England and Wales. What a diabolical re- finement — 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 laborers take a turn at them, by way of practice. I'm persuaded the Parliament houses were burnt on purpose. The flue story is ridiculous. Mr. Cooper's is a great deal more to the point. I believe everything [ 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 — and above all, watch the stacks. One Tiger is not enough — get three or four more, I should have said Cresar, but you know I mean the house-dog. Good mastiffs, — the biggest and savagest you can get. The gentry will be at- tempted first — beginning with the M. P.'s. You and Barnes and Sam 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. Fire the blunderbuss off every night, and both fowling-pieces and 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 Rocks in disguise, and their pretended flames turn out real. I've misgivings about the maids. Tie them up, and taste 22 PROSE AND VERSE. iheir liver, before they eat it themselves — I mean the housedogs ; 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 ! 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 ex- tracts 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, Shad well, 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." " 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 standard. The first may lay claim to perl-wig, scratch-wig, tie-wig, bob-wig, in short, the whole family of peruques, with whigmaleery . The latter, not to mention other good things, have a vested right in oratory, history, territory, and victory. THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. aa Can a man of common patriotism have a doubt which side it is his interest to adhere to V 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 inflammatory agent. Take care what you read. Very per- nicious doctrines are abroad, and especially across the Western Channel. The Irish are really frightful. T 'm told they tie the cows' tails together, and then saw off their horns for insurrec- tionary 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 colors. 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 Franklin pippins. We want strong measures against associa- tions and unions. There's demagogues abroad — and they wear white hats. By-the-bye, I more than half suspect that fellow Johnson is a delegate. 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 a 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 1 cannot desert my post. You may tell the tenantry, and elec- tors — 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 plaie up to town — but at the first alarm bury it. Take in no letters or notices ; for what you know they may be threaten- ings. If any Irishman applies for work, discharge him instantly. All the old spring-guns had better be set again, they are not now legal, but I am ministerial, and if they dyd go off, the highei powers would perhaps wink at them. But it's the fire that I'm afraid of, fire that destroyed my political roof, and may now assail my paternal one. Walk, as I may say, bucket in hand 24 PROSE AND VERSE. and be ready every moment for a break out. You may set fire to the small faggot-stack, and try your hands at getting it under — there's nothing worse than being taken by surprise. Read this letter frequently, and impress these charges on your mind. It is a sad change for England to have become, I may say, this fiery furnace. I have not the least doubt, if properly traced, the burning cliff 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 gun- powder. Honor forbids to resign, or I should wish I was nothing but a simple country gentleman. Remember, and be vigilant. Once more I cry Watch, Watch, Watch ! By adopting the motions I propose, a N conflagration may be adjourned sine die, which is a petition perpetually presented by Your anxious but uncompromising Master, Jacob Jubb, M.P. To Lady Jubb, at 45, Portland Place. Respected Madam, I received your Ladyship's obliging commands, and have used my best endeavors 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 within 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 estab- lishment. I allude to Mr. Davis's terrifically jumping out from behind doors and in obscure dark corners, on the female domes- tics, for no reasonable purpose I can discover, except to make them exert their voices in a very alarming manner. The house- THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 25 maid, indeed, confirms me by saying in her own words, " he con- sidered her skreek the best skreek in the family." If impropriety had proceeded no further, I should have hesitated to trouble your Ladyship with particulars ; but Mr. Davis, not satisfied with thus working on the unsophisticated terrors of ignorant females, thought proper to horrify with inflammatory reports. One night, 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 dishabille only to be ambiguously hinted at, by saying that time did not allow to put on my best lutestring to meet the neighboring gentry— rand must add, with indignation, in the full blaze of a heap of straw, thought proper to be set on fire 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 1 conceived to be a mould candle, and your Ladyship will imagine my undescriba- ble fright when it exploded itself like a missile of the squib des- cription, an unwarrantable mode, I must say, of 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 par- take an agreeable character. For fear of being consumed in our beds, as he insidiously professed, he exerted all his influen- tial arguments to persuade the females to sit up nocturnally all night, a precaution of course declined, as well as his following scheme being almost too much broached with absurdity to enu- merate. I mean every retiring female reposing her confidence on a live goose in her chamber, as were purchased for the ex- press purpose, but need not add were dispensed with by rational beings. I trust your Ladyship will acquit of uncharitableness if I suspect it was out of vindictive feelings at their opposition 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 personally present at all that passed between the dairymaid and her cousin. It escaped memory to say that when the femi- 28 THOSE AND VERSE. nine department refused to be deprived of rest, the male servants were equally adverse to go to bed, being spirited up by Mr. Davis to spend the night together, and likewise being furnished with the best strong ale in the cellar, by his imperious directions, which, by way of climax to assurance, was alleged 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 1 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 blameable in the extreme, to express the least of it. Another feature which caused much unpleasantness, was Mr. Davis persisting to scrutinize and rum- mage the entire premises from top to bottom, but on this charac- teristic 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 everything in a state of absolute obscu- rity. 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 affairs at the Shrubbery, originating, I must say, exclusively from the unprecedented deviations of Mr. Davis. A mild con- struction would infer, from such extraordinary extravagance of 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 George Tavern, and in consequence has several times exhibited himself THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 27 in a Bacchanalian character to our extreme discomforture, 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 im- part such details to your Ladyship ; but justice demands an ex- plicit statement, however repulsive to violated reserve and the rules of virtue. Amongst less immoral actions, I must advert to the arrival of two new engines with a vast number of leathern buckets, I fear ordered by Mr. Davis at my honored master's ex- pense, and which are periodically exercised in pumping every day, by the gardeners and the hinds, being 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. In short. Madam, we labor 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 suffi- cient authority to dictate or power to enforce a course more con- sistent 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, I may say, of a body of persecuted females, some of whom possess 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 with a frightful crash into the china-closet, in pursuit of the poor cat. To Sir Jacob Jubb, 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 2S PROSE AND VERSE. 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 uncon- sh unable, and could no more kollect meself than the Hirish tiths. I was a long Tim befor I cud perswade meself that the trooth was trew. But sich a dredful fire is enufTto unsettil wons resin. A thowsend ears mite role over our heds, 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 Flams, and so is the Hous of Pears ! The Lords will be dun I" Honnerd Sur, I beg to kondole as becums on yure missin yure seat. It must have bean the suddinest of shox, & jest wen goin to sit after standin for the hole county, on yure hone futting, at your sole expens. But I do hop and trust it will not be yure dissolu- shun, 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 stirrin up inflametory peple, particly if there was a long pole. You see, Sir Jacob, I konker in evvery sentashus sentemint in yure respected Letter. The Volkano you menshun I can enter into. Theres a great deal of combustibul sperits in the country that onely wants a spark to convart them into catarax : — and I greave to say evvery inflametory 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 evvery day. I see no prospex for the next generashun but rocking and swinging. I hav had a grate menny low thorts, for wat can be moor dis- piritin then the loss of our two gratest Public Housis ! There is nothin cumfortable. There is a Vesuvus under our feat, and evvery step brings us nearer to its brinks. Evvery reflective man must say we are a virgin on a precipus. Honnerd Sur ! In the mean tim I hav pade attenshuns to yure letter, and studid its epistlery direcshuns, witch I hav made meself very particlar in fulfiling to the utmost xtent. If the most zellus effuts have not sucksedid to wish I humbly beg no blame but wat is dew may fall on me, and hope other peples THE GRSlH CONFLAGRATION 29 shears will visit their hone heds. 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 Math 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 gittin a livin, till I tolled him yure honner wood 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 vigi- iings, but they stedfistly refus to padrol anny moor after dusk, tho they ar agreble by daylit, which leaves me at my whits ends for Fi regards, as strange men would not be trussworthy. Honnerd 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 wurk 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 allarmin me they all give me warnin. As for the swetharts there's a duzzen domesticat- ted luvers in the kitchen, and I'm sorry to say I can't give them all a rowt. I ketchd the cook's bo gettin in at a winder, and sercht his pockets for feer of fosfrus, but he contaned 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 dan- gerus wurk. Becos 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 fut of the stars. I am riting with my forrid brandid and brown pepperd, and my rite hand in a poltus from gropping in the dark for cumbustibils in the cole seller, and dis- kivering nothin but the torturous kat and her kittings. Honnerd Sur — I got six capitol gees a bargin, but am verry dubbius weather they possess the property 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 themselvs to be stolen without a cakeling as our hone did too nites ago. As for the wotch dogs, to be candied, they were all errers in gudgment. There was to much Bui in the bread. The 30 prose and verse verry fust nite they were let lose they flew in a rag. and began to vent their caning propensites on each other's curcases. I re- gret to say too was wurried to deth before the next mourning, and the rest were so full of bad bits and ingeries in there vittles the3 r were obligated to be kild. In shutting Seazer with the blunderbush, I lament to ad it hung fire, and in liftin it went off 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 he 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 unpru- dent 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 ap- petit, 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 hurry and allarm, the spot ware the plait was berrid went out of our heads. We have since dug up the hole srub- bery, 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 unproper 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 sunner or latter, so I may as well cum to the catstrophy without any varnish on my tail. This morning, according to yure order, I hignitted the littel faggit stak, fust takin the precawshuny meshure of drawin up a line of men with buckits, from the dux-pond to the sene of combusting. Nothing can lay therefor on my sholders : it all riz from the THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 31 men striking for bear, wen they ort to hav bean handin warter to won another. I felt my deuty to argy the pint, which I trust will be apruved, and wile we were eussin and discussin the fire got a hed that defide all our unitted pours to subdo. To con- fess 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 wurked 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 noboddy to go in there steed. It was an haw- ful site ; the devowring ellemint swallerd won thing after ano- ther 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 cotchd, and that cotchd the foul housis, and then the barn cotchd with all the straw, and the granery cotched next, witch it wood not have dun if we had puld down the Cow Hous that stud between. That was all the cotching, excep the hay-stax, from Jenkins runnin about with a flamin tale to his smoak-frock. At last, by a blessin, when there was no moor to burn 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 faggits, and then litin up with my hone hand. Tim will sho. In the meen- while I am consienshusly easy, it was dun for the best, though turned out for the wust, and am gratifid to reflect that I hav omitted nothin, but have scruppleusly fulfild evvery particler of yure honner's instruxions, and in hap of approval of the saim, await the faver of furthir commands, and am, Honnerd Sur Jacob, Your humbel, faithful, and obedient Servint, Roger Davis. PROSE AND VERSE A TALE OF A TRUMPET. " Old woman, old woman, will you gc &-shearing ? Speak a little louder, for I'm very hard of hearing." Old Bai/las Of all old women hard of hearing, The deafest, sure, was Dame Eleanor Spearing I On her head it is true, Two flaps there grew, That served for a pair of gold rings to go through^ But for any purpose of ears in a parley, They heard no more than ears of barley. No hint was needed from D. E. F. You saw in her face that the woman was deaf: From her twisted mouth to her eyes so peery Each queer feature ask'd a query ; A look that said in a silent way, " Who ? and What ? and How ? and Eh ? I'd give my ears to know what you say !" And well she might ! for each auricular Was deaf as a post — and that post in particular That stands at the corner of Dyott Street now, And never hears a word of a row ! Ears that might serve her now and then As extempore racks for an idle pen ; Or to hang with hoops from jewellers' shops With coral, ruby, or garnet drops ; Or, provided the owner so inclined, A TALE OF A TRUMPET. Ears to stick a blister behind ; But as for hearing wisdom, or wit, Falsehood, or folly, or tell-tale-tit, Or politics, whether of Fox or Pitt, Sermon, lecture, or musical bit, Harp, piano, fiddle, or kit, They might as well, for any such wish, Have been butter'd, done brown, and laid in a dish She was deaf as a post, — as said before — And as deaf as twenty similes more, Including the adder, that deafest of snakes, Which never hears the coil it makes. She was deaf as a house — which modern tricks Of language would call as deaf as bricks — For her all human kind were dumb, Her drum, indeed, was so muffled a drum, That none could get a sound to come, Unless the Devil who had Two Sticks ! She was deaf as a stone — say one of the stones Demosthenes sucked to improve his tones ; And surely deafness no further could reach Than to be in his mouth without hearing his speech She was deaf as a nut — for nuts, no doubt, Are deaf to the grub that's hollowing out — As deaf, alas ! as the dead and forgotten — (Gray has noticed the waste of breath, In addressing the " dull, cold ear of death "), Or the Felon's ear that was stufF'd with Cotton — Or Charles the First, in statue quo ; Or the still-born figures of Madame Tussaud, With their eyes of glass, and their hair of flax, That only stare whatever you " ax," For their ears, you know, are nothing but wax. She was deaf as the ducks that swam in the pond, And wouldn't listen to Mrs. Bond, — Part ii. 4 PROSE AND VERSE. As deaf as any Frencnrnan appears, When he puts his shoulders into his ears ; And — whatever the citizen tells his son — As deaf as Gog and Magog at one ! Or, still to be a simile-seeker, As deaf as dogs'-ears to Enfield's Speaker ! She was deaf as any tradesman's dummy, Or as Pharaoh's mother's mother's mummy ; Whose organs, for fear of our modern sceptics, Were plugg'd with gums and antiseptics. She was deaf as a nail — that you cannot hammer A meaning into, for all your clamor — There never was such a deaf old Gammer ! So formed to worry Both Lindley and Murray, By having no ear for Music or Grammar V Deaf to sounds, as a ship out of soundings, Deaf to verbs, and all their compoundings, Adjective, noun, and adverb, and particle, Deaf to even the definite article — No verbal message was worth a pin, Though you hired an earwig to carry it in ! In short, she was twice as deaf as Deaf Burke, Or all the Deafness in Yearsley's Work, Who in spite of his skill in hardness of hearing, Boring, blasting, and pioneering, To give the dunny organ a clearing, Could never have cured Dame Eleanor Spearing. Of course the loss was a great privation, For one of her sex — whatever her station — And none the less that the Dame had a turn For making all families one concern, And learning whatever there was to learn In the prattling tattling Village of Tringham — A TALE OF A TRUMPET. As who wore silk ? and who wore gingham ? And what the Atkins's shop might bring 'em ? How the Smiths contrived to live ? and whether The fourteen Murphys all pigg'd together ? The wages per week of the Weavers and Skinners, And what they boil'd for their Sunday dinners 1 What plates the Bugsbys had on the shelf, Crockery, china, wooden, or delf? And if the parlor of Mrs. O'Grady Had a wicked French print, or Death and the Lady ? Did Snip and his wife continue to jangle ? Had Mrs. Wilkinson sold her mangle ? What liquor was drunk by Jones and Brown ? And the weekly score they ran up at the Crown ? If the Cobbler could read, and believed in the Pope ? And how the Grubbs were off for soap ? If the Snobbs had furnished their room up-stairs, And how they managed for tables and chairs, Beds, and other household affairs, Iron, wooden, and Staffordshire wares ; And if they could muster a whole pair of bellows ? In fact, she had much of the spirit that lies Perdu in a notable set of Paul Prys, By courtesy called Statistical Fellows — A prying, spying, inquisitive clan, Who have gone upon much of the self-same plan, Jotting the Laboring Class's riches ; And after poking in pot and pan, And routing garments in want of stitches, Have ascertained that a working man Wears a pair and a quarter of average breeches ! But this, alas ! from her loss of hearing, Was all a sealed book to Dame Eleanor Spearing ; And often her tears would rise to their founts — Supposing a little scandal at play 'Twixt Mrs. O'Fie and Mrs. Au Fait — That she couldn't audit the Gossips' accounts. PROSE AND VERSE. 'T is true, to her cottage still they came, And ate her muffins just the same, And drank the tea of the widow'd Dame, And never swallowed a thimble the less Of something the reader is left to guess, For all the deafness of Mrs. S., Who saw them talk, and chuckle, and cough, But to see and not share in the social flow, She might as well have lived, you know, In one of the houses in Owen's Row, Near the New River Head, with its water cut off? And yet the almond-oil she had tried, And fifty infallible things beside, Hot, and cold, and thick, and thin, Dabb'd, and dribbled, and squirted in : But all remedies fail'd ; and though some it was clear (Like the brandy and salt We now exalt) Had made a noise in the public ear, She was just as deaf as ever, poor dear! At last — one very fine day in June — Suppose her sitting, Busily knitting, And humming she did n't quite know what tune ; For nothing she heard but a sort of a whizz, Which, unless the sound of the circulation, Or of Thoughts in the Process of fabrication, By a Spinning-Jennyish operation, It 's hard to say what buzzing it is, However, except that ghost of a sound, She sat in a silence most profound — The cat was purring about the : at, But her Mistress heard no more of that Than if it had been a boatswain's cat, And as for the clock the moments nicking, The Dame only gave it credit for ticking. The bark of her dog she did not catch ; A TALE OF A TRUMPET. Nor yet the click of the lifted latch ; Nor yet the creak of the opening door ; Nor yet the fall of a foot on the floor — But she saw the shadow that crept on her gown And turn'd its skirt of a darker brown. And lo ! a man ! a Pedlar ? ay, marry, With the little back-shop that such tradesmen carry, Stock'd with brooches, ribbons, and rings, Spectacles, razors, and other odd things, For lad and lass, as Autolycus sings ; A chapman for goodness and cheapness of ware, Held a fair dealer enough at a fair, But deem'd a piratical sort of invader By him we dub the " regular trader," Who luring the passengers in as they pass By lamps, gay pannels, and mouldings of brass, And windows with only one huge pane of glass, And his name in gilt characters, German or Roman, If he is n't a Pedlar, at least is a Showman ! However, in the stranger came, And, the moment he met the eyes of the Dame, Threw her as knowing a nod as though He had known her fifty long years ago ; And presto ! before she could utter " Jack " — Much less " Robinson " — open'd his pack — And then from amongst his portable gear, With even more than a Pedlar's tact, — (Slick himself might have envied the act) — Before she had time to be deaf, in fact — Popped a Trumpet into her ear. " There, Ma'am ! try it ! You need n't buy it — The last New Patent — and nothing comes nigh it For affording the Deaf, at little expense, The sense of hearing, and hearing of sense ! A Real Blessing — and no mistake, PROSE .\SD VERSE. Invented for poor Humanity's sake ; • For what can be a greater privation Than playing Dumby to all creation, And only looking at conversation — Great Philosophers talking like Platos, And members of Parliament moral as Catos, And your ears as dull as waxy potatoes ! Not to name the mischievous quizzers, Sharp as knives, but double as scissors, Who get you to answer quite by guess Yes for No, and No for Yes." (" That's very true," says Dame Eleanor S.) " Try it again ! No harm in trying — Pm sure you'll find it worth your buying, A little practice — that is all — And you '11 hear a whisper, however small, Through an Act of Parliament party-wall, — Every syllable clear as day, And even what people are going to say — I would n't tell a lie, I would n't, But my Trumpets have heard what Solomon's could n't And as for Scott he promises fine, But can he warrant his horns like mine Never to hear what a Lady should n't — Only a guinea — and can't take less." (" That 's very dear," says Dame Eleanor S.) " Dear ! — Oh dear, to call it dear ! Why it is n't a horn you buy, but an ear ; Only think, and you'll find on reflection You 're bargaining, Ma'am, for the Voice of Affection ; For the language of Wisdom, and Virtue, and Truth, * And the sweet little innocent prattle of youth ; Not to mention the striking of clocks — Cackle of hens — crowing of cocks — Lowing of cow, and bull, and ox — Bleating of pretty pastoral flocks — Murmur of waterfall over the rocks — A TALE Of A TRUMPET. Every sound that Echo mocks — Vocals, fiddles, and musical-box — And zounds ! to call such a concert dear ! But I must n't swear with my horn in your ea/. Why in buying that trumpet you buy all those That Harper, or any trumpeter, blows At the Queen's Levees or the Lord Mayor's Shows, At least as far as the music goes, Including the wonderful lively sound Of the Guards' key-bugles all the year round Come — suppose we call it a pound I Come," said the talkative Man of the Pack, " Before I put my box on my back, For this elegant, useful Conductor of Sound, Come — suppose we call it a pound ! " Only a pound ! it's only the price Of hearing a Concert once or twice, It 's only the fee You might give Mr. C, And after all not hear his advice, But common prudence would bid you stump it ; For, not to enlarge, It 's the regular charge At a Fancy Fair for a penny trumpet. Lord ! what 's a pound to the blessing of hearing !" (" A pound 's a pound," said Dame Eleanor Spearing. " Try it again ! no harm in trying ! A pound 's a pound there 's no denying ; But think what thousands and thousands of pounds We pay for nothing but hearing sounds : Sounds of Equity, Justice and Law, Parliamentary jabber and jaw, Pious cant and moral saw, Hocus-pocus, and Nong-tong-paw, And empty sounds not worth a straw ; Why it costs a guinea, as I'm a sinner, 40 PROSE AND VERSE. To hear the sounds at a Public Dinner ! One pound one thrown into the puddle, To listen to Fiddle, Faddle, and Fuddle ! Not to forget the sounds we buy From those who sell their sounds so high, That, unless the Managers pitch it strong, To get a Signora to warble a song You must fork out the blunt with a haymaker's prong ! " It 's not the thing for me — I know it, To crack my own Trumpet up and blow it ; But it is the best, and time will show it. There was Mrs. F. So very deaf, That she might have worn a perc.ussion cap, And been knock'd on the head without hearing it snap, Well, I sold her a horn, and the very next day She heard from her husband at Botany Bay ! Come — eighteen shillings — that 's very low, You '11 save the money as shillings go, And I never knew so bad a lot, By hearing whether they ring or not ! Eighteen shillings ! it 's worth the price, Supposing you 're delicate-minded and nice, To have the medical man of your choice, Instead of the one with the strongest voice — Who comes and asks you how 's your liver, And where you ache, and whether you shiver, And as to your nerves so apt to quiver, As if he was hailing a boat on the river ! And then, with a shout, like Pat in a riot, Tells you to keep yourself perfectly quiet ! " Or a tradesman comes — as tradesmen will — Short and crusty about his bill, Of patience, indeed, a perfect scorner, And because you 're deaf and unable to pay, Shouts whatever he has to say, In a vulgar voice that goes over the way, A TALE OF A TRUMPET. Down the street and round the corner, Come — speak your mind — it 's 1 No or Yes' " (" I've half a mind," said Dame Eleanor S.) " Try it again — no harm in trying, Of course you hear me, as easy as lying ; No pain at all, like a surgical trick, To make you squall, and struggle, and kick, Like Juno, or Rose, Whose ear undergoes Such horrid tugs at membrane and gristle, For being as deaf as yourself to a whistle ! " You may go to surgical chaps if you choose, Who will blow up your tubes like copper flues, Or cut your tonsils right away, As you 'd shell out your almonds for Christmas-day ; And after all a matter of doubt, Whether you ever would hear the shout Of the little blackguards that bawl about, 1 There you go with your tonsils out !' Why I knew a deaf Welshman who came from Glamorg On purpose to try a surgical spell, And paid a guinea, and might as well Have called a monkey into his organ ! For the Aurist only took a mug, And pour'd in his ear some acoustical drug, That instead of curing deafen'd him rather, As Hamlet's uncle served Hamlet's father ! That 's the way with your surgical gentry f And happy your luck If you don't get stuck Through your liver and lights at a royal entry, Because you never answer'd the sentry ! Try it again, dear Madam, try it ! Many would sell their beds to buy it. I warrant you often wake up in the night, Ready to shake to a jelly with fright, PROSE AND VERSE. And up you must get to strike a light, And down you go, in you know what, Whether the weather is chilly or not, — That 's the way a cold is got, — To see if you heard a noise or not ! " Why, bless you, a woman with organs like yours Is hardly safe to step out of doors ! Just fancy a horse that comes full pelt, But as quiet as if he was 1 shod with felt/ Till he rushes against you with all his force, And then I needn't describe of course, While he kicks you about without remorse, How awkward it is to be groomed by a horse, Or a bullock comes, as mad as King Lear, And you never dream that the brute is near, Till he pokes his horn right into your ear, Whether you like the thing or lump it, — And all for want of buying a trumpet ! H I 'm not a female to fret and vex, But if I belonged to the sensitive sex, Exposed to all sorts of indelicate sounds, I wouldn't be deaf for a thousand pounds. Lord ! only think of chucking a copper To Jack or Bob with a timber limb, Who looks as if he was singing a hymn, Instead of a song that 's very improper ! Or just suppose in a public place You see a great fellow a-pulling a face, With his staring eyes and his mouth like an O, — And how is a poor deaf lady to know, — The lower orders are up to such games — If he 's calling ' Green Peas,' or calling her names V (" They 're tenpence a peck !" said the deafest of Dames. " 'Tis strange what very strong advising, By word of mouth, or advertising, A TALE OF A TRUMPET. By chalking on walls, or placarding on vans, With fifty other different plans, The very high pressure, in fact, of pressing, It needs to persuade one to purchase a blessing Whether the Soothing American Syrup, A safety Hat, or a Safety Stirrup, — Infallible Pills for the human frame, Or Rowland's O-don't-o (an ominous name) ! A Doudney's suit which the shape so hits That it beats all others into jits ; A Mechi's razor for beards unshorn, Or a Ghost-of-a- Whisper- Catching Horn \ " Try it again, Ma'am, only try !" Was still the voluble Pedlar's cry ; " It's a great privation, there's no dispute, To live like the dumb unsociable brute, And to hear no more of the pro and con, And how Society's going on, Than Mumbo Jumbo or Prester John, And all for want of this sine qud non ; Whereas, with a horn that never offends, You may join the genteelest party that is, And enjoy all the scandal, and gossip, and quiz And be certain to hear of your abser_„ friends Not that elegant ladies, in fact, In genteel society ever detract, Or lend a brush when a friend is black'd, — At least as a mere malicious act, — But only talk scandal for fear some fool Should think they were bred at charity school. Or, maybe, you like a little flirtation, • Which even the most Don Juanish rake Would surely object to undertake At the same high pitch as an altercation. It 's not for me, of course, to judge How much a Deaf Lady ought to begrudge ; But half-a-guinea seems no great matter — 44 PROSE AMD VERSE. Letting alone more rational patter — Only to hear a parrot chatter : Not to mention that feather'd wit, The Starling, who speaks when his tongue is slit ; The Pies and Jays that utter words, And other Dicky Gossips of birds, That talk with as much good sense and decorum As many Beaks who belong to the quorum. " Try it — buy it — say ten and six, The lowest price a miser could fix : I don't pretend with horns of mine, Like some in the advertising line, To { magnify sounds ' on such marvellous scales, That the sounds of a cod seem as big as a whale's ; But popular rumors, right or wrong, — Charity Sermons, short or long, — Lecture, speech, concerto, or song, All noises and voices, feeble and strong, From the hum of a gnat to the clash of a gong, This tube will deliver distinct and clear ; Or, supposing by chance You wish to dance, Why, it 's putting a Horn-pipe into your ear ! Try it — buy it ! Buy it — try it ! The last New Patent, and nothing comes nigh it, For guiding sounds to proper tunnel : Only try till the end of June, And if you and the Trumpet are out of tune, I '11 turn it gratis into a Funnel !" In short, the pedlar so beset her, — Lord Bacon couldn't have gammon'd her bettei, — With flatteries plump and indirect, And plied his tongue with such effect, — A tongue that could almost have butter'd a crumpet,— The deaf Old Woman bought the Trumpet. A TALE OF A TRUMPET. ***** * * * * * The Pedlar was gone. With the Horn's assistance, She heard his steps die away in the distance ; And then she heard the tick of the clock, The purring of puss, and the snoring of Shock ; And she purposely dropped a pin that was little, And heard it fall as plain as a skittle ! 'Twas a wonderful Horn, to be but just ! Nor meant to gather dust, must, and rust ; So in half a jiffy, or less than that, In her scarlet cloak and her steeple-hat, Like old Dame Trot, but without her Cat, The Gossip was hunting all Tringham thorough, As if she meant to canvass the borough, Trumpet in hand, or up to the cavity ; — And, sure, had the horn been one of those The wild Rhinoceros wears on his nose, It couldn't have ripp'd up more depravity ! Depravity ! mercy shield her ears ! 'Twas plain enough that her village peers In the ways of vice were no raw beginners ; For whenever she raised the tube to her drum, Such sounds were transmitted as only come From the very Brass Band of human sinners ! Ribald jest and blasphemous curse (Bunyan never vented worse), With all those weeds, not flowers, of speech Which the Seven Dialecticians teach ; Filthy Conjunctions, and Dissolute Nouns, And Particles pick'd from the kennels of towns, With Irregular Verbs for irregular jobs, Chiefly active in rows and mobs, Picking Possessive Pronouns' fobs, PROSE AND VERSE. And Interjections as bad as a blight, Or an Eastern blast, to the blood and the sight ; Fanciful phrases for crime and sin, And smacking of vulgar lips where Gin, Garlic, Tobacco, and offals go in — A jargon so truly adapted, in fact, To each thievish, obscene, and ferocious act, So fit for the brute with the human shape, Savage Baboon, or libidinous Ape, From their ugly mouths it will certainly come Should they ever get weary of shamming dumb 1 Alas ! for the voice of Virtue and Truth, And the sweet little innocent prattle of youth ! The smallest urchin whose tongue could tang, Shock'd the Dame with a volley of slang, Fit for Fagin's juvenile gang ; While the charity chap, With his muffin-cap, His crimson coat, and his badge so garish, Playing at dumps, or pitch in the hole, Cursed his eyes, limbs, body, and so-ul, As if they didn't belong to the Parish ! 'Twas awful to hear, as she went along, The wicked words of the popular song ; Or supposing she listen'd — as gossips will — At a door ajar, or a window agape, To catch the sounds they allow'd to escape, Those sounds belong'd to Depravity still ! The dark allusion, or bolder brag Of the dexterous " dodge," and the lots of " swag," The plunder'd house — or the stolen nag — The blazing rick, or the darker crime That quench'd the spark before its time — The wanton speech of the wife immoral — The noise of drunken or deadly quarrel, — With savage menaces, which threaten'd the life, A TALE OF A TRUMPET. ■11 Till the heart seem'd merely a strop " for the knife ;" The human liver, no better than that Which is sliced and thrown to an old woman's cat ; And the head, so useful for shaking and nodding, To be punch'd into holes, like " a shocking bad hat " That is only fit to be punch'd into wadding ! In short, wherever she turn'd the horn, To the highly bred, or the lowly born, The working man who look'd over the hedge, Or the mother nursing her infant pledge, The sober Quaker, averse to quarrels, Or the Governess pacing the village through, With her twelve Young Ladies, two and two- Looking, as such young ladies do, Truss'd by Decorum and stufPd with morals— Whether she listen'd to Hob or Bob, Nob or Snob, The Squire on his cob, Or Trudge and his ass at a tinkering job, To the Saint who expounded at " Little Zion n — Or the " Sinner who kept the Golden Lion " — The man teetotally wean'd from liquor — The Beadle, the Clerk, or the Reverend Vicar — Nay, the very Pie in its cage of wicker — She gather'd such meanings, double or single, That like the bell With muffins to sell, Her ear was kept in a constant tingle ! But this was naught to the tales of shame, The constant runnings of evil fame, Foul, and dirty, and black as ink, That her ancient cronies, with nod and wink, Pour'd in her horn like slops in a sink : While sitting in conclave, as gossips do, With their Hyson or Howqua, black or green, And not a little of feline spleen 48 PROSE AND VERSE. Lapp'd up in " Catty packages," too, To give a zest to the sipping and supping ; For still by some invisible tether, Scandal and Tea are link'd together, As surely as Scarification and Cupping ; Yet never since Scandal drank Bohea — Or sloe, or whatever it happen'd to be, For some grocerly thieves Turn over new leaves Without much amending their lives or their tea — No, never since cup was fill'd or stirr'd Were such vile and horrible anecdotes heard, As blacken'd their neighbors, of either gender, Especially that which is call'd the Tender, But instead of the softness we fancy therewith, As harden'd in vice as the vice of a smith. Women ! the wretches ! had soil'd and marr'd Whatever to womanly nature belongs ; For the marriage tie they had no regard, Nay, sped their mates to the sexton's yard (Like Madame Laffarge, who with poisonous pinches Kept cutting off her L by inches), And as for drinking, they drank so hard That they drank their flat-irons, pokers, and tongs ! The men — they fought and gambled at fairs ; And poach'd — and didn't respect grey hairs — Stole linen, money, plate, poultry, and corses ; And broke in houses as well as horses ; Unfolded folds to kill their own mutton, And would their own mothers and wives for a button — But not to repeat the deeds they did, Backsliding in spite of all moral skid, If all were true that fell from the tongue, There was not a villager, old or young, But deserved to be whipp'd, imprison'd, or hung, Or sent on those travels which nobody hurries To publish at Colburn's, or Longman's, or Murray's. A TALE OF A TRUMPET. Meanwhile the Trumpet, con amore, Transmitted each vile diabolical story ; And gave the least whisper of slips and falls, As that Gallery does in the Dome of St. Paul's, Which, as all the world knows, by practice or print, Is famous for making the most of a hint. Not a murmur of shame, Or buzz of blame, Not a flying report that flew at a name, Not a plausible gloss, or significant note, Not a word in the scandalous circles afloat Of a beam in the eye or diminutive mote, But vortex-like that tube of tin Suck'd the censorious particle in ; And, truth to tell, for as willing an organ As ever listen'd to serpent's hiss, Nor took the viperous sound amiss, On the snaky head of an ancient Gorgon ! The Dame, it is true, would mutter " shocking \" And give her head a sorrowful rocking, And make a clucking with palate and tongue, Like the call of Partlett to gather her young, A sound, when human, that always proclaims At least a thousand pities and shames, But still the darker the tale of sin, Like certain folks when calamities burst, Who find a comfort in " hearing the worst," The farther she poked the Trumpet in. Nay, worse, whatever she heard, she spread East and West, and North and South, Like the ball which, according to Captain Z Went in at his ear, and came out at his mouth. What wonder between the horn and the Dame, Such mischief was made wherever they came, That the Parish of Tringham was all in a flame ! For although it requires such loud discharges, Pakt ii. 5 PROSE AND VERSE. Such peals of thunder as rumbled at Lear, To turn the smallest of table-beer, A little whisper breathed into the ear Will sour a temper " as sour as varges." In fact such very ill blood there grew, From this private circulation of stories, That the nearest neighbors the village through, Look'd at each other as yellow and blue As any electioneering crew Wearing the colors of Whigs and Tories. Ah ! well the Poet said, in sooth, That whispering tongues can poison Truth, — Yea, like a dose of oxalic acid, Wrench and convulse poor Peace, the placid, And rack dear Love with internal fuel, Like arsenic pastry, or what is as cruel, Sugar of lead, that sweetens gruel, At least such torments began to wring 'em From the very morn When that mischievous Horn Caught the whisper of tongues in Tringham. j The Social Clubs dissolved in huffs, And the Sons of Harmony came to cuffs, While feuds arose, and family quarrels, That discomposed the mechanics of morals, For screws were loose between brother and brother, While sisters fasten'd their nails on each other. Such wrangles, and jangles, and miff, and tiff, And spar, and jar — and breezes as stiff As ever upset a friendship or skiff! The plighted Lovers, who used to walk, Refused to meet, and declined to talk ; And wish'd for two moons to reflect the sun, That they mightn't look together on one ; While wedded affection ran so low, That the oldest John Anderson snubbed his Jo — A TALE OF A TRUMPET. And instead of the toddle adown the hill, Hand in hand, As the song has planned, Scratch'd her, penniless, out of his will ! In short, to describe what came to pass In a true, though somewhat theatrical way, Instead of " Love in a Village " — alas ! The piece they perform'd was " The Devil to Pay However, as secrets are brought to light, And mischief comes home like chickens at night ; And rivers are track'd throughout their course, And forgeries traced to their proper source ; — And the sow that ought By the ear is caught, — And the sin to the sinful door is brought ; And the cat at last escapes from the bag — And the saddle is placed on the proper nag ; And the fog blows off, and the key is found — And the faulty scent is pick'd out by the hound — And the fact turns up like a worm from the ground — And the matter gets wind to waft it about ; And a hint goes abroad, and the murder is out — And the riddle is guess'd — and the puzzle is known— So the truth was sniff 'd, and the Trumpet was Mown ******* 'Tis a day in November — a day of fog — ■ But the Tringham people are all agog ; Fathers, Mothers, and Mothers' Sons, — With sticks, and staves, and swords, and guns, — As if in pursuit of a rabid dog; But their voices — raised to the highest pitch — Declare that the game is " a Witch ! — a Witch !" Over the Green, and along by the George — Past the Stocks, and the Church, and the Forge, PROSE AND VERSE. And round the Pound, and skirting the Pond, Till they come to the whitewash'd cottage beyond, And there at the door they muster and cluster, And thump, and kick, and bellow, and bluster — Enough to put Old Nick in a fluster ! A noise, indeed, so loud and long, And mix'd with expressions so very strong, That supposing, according to popular fame, " Wise Woman " and Witch to be the same, No Hag with a broom would unwisely stop, But up and away through the chimney-top ; Whereas, the moment they burst the door, Planted fast on her sanded floor, With her Trumpet up to her organ of hearing, Lo and behold ! — Dame Eleanor Spearing ! Oh ! then arises the fearful shout — Bawl'd and scream'd, and bandied about — " Seize her ! — Drag the old Jezebel out !" While the Beadle — the foremost of all the ban&> Snatches the Horn from her trembling hand — And after a pause of doubt and fear, Puts it up to his sharpest ear. " Now silence — silence — one and all !" For the Clerk is quoting from Holy Paul I But before he rehearses A couple of verses The Beadle lets the Trumpet fall ; For instead of the words so pious and humble, He hears a supernatural grumble. Enough, enough ! and more than enough ; Twenty impatient hands and rough, By arm, and leg, and neck, and scruff, Apron, 'kerchief, gown of stuff — Cap, and pinner, sleeve, and cuff — Are clutching the Witch wherever they can, A TALE OF A TRUMPET. With the spite of Woman and fury of Man ; And then — but first they kill her cat, And murder her dog on the very mat — And crush the Infernal Trumpet flat ; — And then thiy hurry her through the door She never, never, will enter more ! Away ! away ! down the dusty lane They pull her, and haul her, with might and main And happy the hawbuck, Tom or Harry, Dandy, or Sandy, Jerry, or Larry, Who happens to get " a leg to carry !" And happy the foot that can give her a kick, And happy the hand that can find a brick — And happy the fingers that hold a stick — Knife to cut, or pin to prick — And happy the Boy who can lend her a lick , — Nay, happy the Urchin — Charity-bred, Who can shy very nigh to her wicked old head ! Alas ! to think how people's creeds Are contradicted by people's deeds ! But though the wishes that Witches utter Can play the most diabolical rigs — Send styes in the eye — and measle the pigs — Grease horses' heels — and spoil the butter ; Smut and mildew the corn on the stalk — And turn new milk to water and chalk, — Blight apples — and give the chickens the pip — And cramp the stomach — and cripple the hip — And waste the body — and addle the eggs — And give a baby bandy legs ; Though in common belief a Witch's curse Involves all these horrible things, and worse — As ignorant bumpkins all profess, No Bumpkin makes a poke the less At the back or ribs of old Eleanor S. ! As if she were only a sack of barley ; PROSE AND VERSE Or fvives her credit for greater might Than the Powers of Darkness confer at night On that other old woman, the parish Charley! Ay, now's the time for a Witch to call On her Imps and Sucklings one and all — Newes, Pyewacket, or Peck in the Crown (As Matthew Hopkins has handed them down;, Dick, and Willet, and Sugar-and Sack, Greedy Grizel, Jarmara.the Black, Vinegar Tom and the rest of the pack — Ay, now's the nick for her friend Old Harry To come " with his tail " like the bold Glengarry, And drive her foes from their savage job As a mad Black Bullock would scatter a mob :— But no such matter is down in the bond ; And spite of her cries that never cease, But scare the ducks and astonish the geese, The Dame is dragg'd to the fatal pond ! And now they come to the water's brim — And in they bundle her — sink or swim ; Though it 's twenty to one that the wretch must d With twenty sticks to hold her down ; Including the help to the self-same end, Which a travelling Pedlar stops to lend. A Pedlar ! — Yes ! — The same ! — the same f Who sold the Horn to the drowning Dame ! And now is foremost amid the stir, With a token only reveal'd to her; A token that makes her shudder and shriek, And point with her ringer, and strive to speak — But before she can utter the name of the Devil, Her head is under the water-level ! MORAL. There are folks about town — to name no names — Who much resemble that deafest of Dames ; A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 55 And over their tea, and muffins, and crumpets, Circulate many a scandalous word, And whisper tales they could only have heard Through some such Diabolical Trumpets ! Note. The following curious passage is quoted for the bei^ent of such Readers as are afflicted, like Dame Spearing, with Deaf- ness, and one of its concomitants, a singing or ringing in the head. The extract is taken from "Quid Pro Quo; or, A The- ory of Compensations. By P. S." (perhaps Peter Shard), folio edition. " Soe tenderly kind and gratious is Nature, our Mother, that She seldom or never puts upon us any Grievaunce without making Us some Amends, which, if not a full and perfect Equivalent, is yet a great Solace or Salve to the Sore. As is notably displaid in the Case of such of our Fellow Creatures as undergoe the Loss of Heering, and are thereby deprived of the Comfort and Entertainment of Natural Sounds. In lew where- of the Deaf Man, as testified by mine own Experience, is re- galed with an irward Musick that is not vouchsafed unto a Person who hath the compleet Usage of his Ears. For note, that the selfsame Condition of Boddy which is most apt to bring on a Surdity, — namely, a general Relaxing of the delicate and subtile Fibres of the Human Nerves, and mainly such as be- long and propinque to the Auricular Organ, this very Unbracing which silences the Tympanum, or drum, is the most instrumental Cause in producing a Consort in the Head. And, in particular, that affection which the Physitians have called Tinnitus, by reason of its Resemblance to a Ring of Bells. The Absence of which, as a National Musick, would be a sore Loss and Dis- comfort to any Native of the Low Countryes, where the Steeples and Church-Towers with their Carillons maintain an allmost endlesse Tingle ; seeing that before one quarterly Chime of the Cloke hath well ended; another must by Time's Command strike 56 PROSE AND VERSE up its Tune. On which Account, together with its manye waterish Swamps and Marshes, the Land of Flandres is said by the Wits to be Ringing Wet. Such campanulary Noises would alsoe be heavily mist and lamented by the Inhabitants of that Ringing Island described in Rabelais his Works, as a Place con- stantly filled with a Corybantick Jingle Jangle of great, middle- sized, and little Bells : wherewith the People seem to be as much charmed as a Swarm of Bees with the Clanking of brazen Ket- tles and Pans. And which Ringing Island cannot of a surety be Barbadoes, as certain Authors have supposed, but rather our own tintinnabulary Island of Brittain, where formerly a Saxon could not soe much as quench a Fire or a Candle but to the tune of a Bell. And even to this day, next to the Mother Tongue, the one mostly used is in a Mouth of Mettal, and withal so loosely hung, that it must needs wag at all Times and on all Topicks. For your English Man is a mighty Ringer, and be- sides furnishing Bells to a Bellfry, doth hang them at the Head of his Horse, and at the Neck of his Sheep — on the Cap of his Fool, and on the Heels of his Hawk. And truly I have known more than one amongst my Country Men, who would undertake more Travel, and Cost besides, to hear a Peal of Grandsires, than they would bestow to look upon a Generation of Grandchild- ren. But alack ! all these Bells with the huge Muscovite, and Great Tom of Lincoln to boot, be but as Dumb Bells to the Deaf Man : wherefore, as I said, Nature kindly steps in with a Compensation, to wit a Tinnitus, and converts his own Head into a Bellfry, whence he hath Peals enow, and what is more without having to pay the Ringers." BOZ IN AMERICA. 57 BOZ IN AMERICA. Since the voyages of Columbus in search of the New W.rld, and of Raleigh in quest of El Dorado, no visit to America has excited so much interest and conjecture as that of the author of " Oliver Twist." The enterprise was understood to be a sort of Literary Expedition, for profit as well as pleasure: and many and strange were the speculations of the reading public as to the nature and value of the treasures which would be brought home by Dickens on his return. Some persons expected a philosophi- cal comparison of Washington's Republic with that of Plato ; others anticipated a Report on the Banking System and Com- mercial Statistics of the United States ; and some few, perhaps, looked for a Pamphlet on International Copyright. The general notion, however, was that the Transatlantic acquisitions of Boz would transpire in the shape of a Tale of American Life and Manners — and moreover that it would appear by monthly instal- ments in green covers, and illustrated by some artist with the name of Phiz, or Whiz, or Quiz. So strong indeed was this impression, that certain blue-stock- inged prophetesses even predicted a new Avatar of the celebrated Mr. Pickwick in slippers and loose trousers, a nankeen jacket, and a straw-hat, as large as an umbrella. Sam Weller was to re-appear as his help, instead of a footman, still full of droll sayings, but in a slang more akin to that of his namesake, the Clock-maker : while Weller, senior, was to revive on the box of a Boston long stage, — only calling himself Jonathan, instead of Tony, and spelling it with a G. A Virginian widow Bardell was a matter of course — and some visionaries even foresaw a 56 PROSE AND yERSE. slave-owning Mr. Snodgrass, a coon- hunting Mr. Winkle, a wide- . awake Joe, and a forest-clearing Bob Sawyer.* The fallacy of these guesses and calculations was first proved by the announcement of " American Notes for General Circu- lation," a title that at once dissipated every dream of a Clock- case, or a Club, and cut off all chance of a tale. Encouraged by the technical terms which seemingly had some reference to their 9\vn speculations, the money-mongers still held on faintly by their former opinions : — but the Romanticists were in despair, and reluctantly abandoned all hopes of a Pennsylvanian Nicholas Nickleby affectionately darning his mother — a new Yorkshire Mr. Squeers flogging creation — a black Smike — a brown Kate, and a Bostonian Newman Noggs, alternately swallowing a cock- tail and a cobbler. f Still there remained enough in the announcement of American Notes, by C. Dickens, to strop the public curiosity to a keen edge. Numerous had been the writers on the land of the stars and stripes — a host of travelled ladies and gentlemen, liberals and illiberals, utilitarians and inutilitarians — human bowls of every bias had trundled over the United States without hitting, or in the opinion of the natives, even coming near the jack. The Royalist, missing the accustomed honors of Kings and Queens, saw nothing but a republican pack of knaves ; the High Church- man, finding no established church, declared that there was no religion — the aristocrat swore that all was low and vulgar, be- cause there were no servants in drab turned up with blue, or in green turned down with crimson — the radical was shocked by the caucus, the enthralment of public opinion, and the timidity of the preachers — the metaphysical philosopher was disgusted with the preponderance of the real over the ideal — the adventurer took fright at Lynch law, and the saintly abolitionist saw nothing but black angels and white devils. An impartial account of America and the Americans was still to seek, and accordingly the reading public on both sides of the Atlantic looked forward with anxiety * With the wishes of these admirers of Boz', we can in some degree sym- pathize : for what could be a greater treat in the reading way than the perplexities of a squatting Mr. Pickwick, or a settling Mrs. Nickleby ? f Not a horse and shoe-maker, but two sorts of American drink BOZ IN AMERICA. 59 and eagerness for the opinions of a writer who had proved by a series of wholesome fictions that his heart was in the right place, that his head was not in the wrong one, and that his hand was a good hand at description. One thing at least was certain, that nothing would be set down in malice ; for, compared with modern authors in general, Boz is remarkably free from sectarian or anti- social prejudices, and as to politics he seems to have taken the long pledge against party spirit. And doubtless one of the causes of his vast popularity has been the social and genial tone of his works, — showing that he feels and acts on the true principle of the " homo sum " — a sum too generally worked as one in long Division instead of Addition. In the mean time the book, after long budding in advertise- ment, has burst into a full leaf, and however disconcerting to those persons who had looked for something quite different, will bring no disappointment to such as can be luxuriously content with good sense, good feeling, good fun, and good writing. In the very first half-dozen of pages the reader will find an example of that cheerful practical philosophy which makes the best of the worst — that happy healthy spirit which, instead of morbidly resenting the deception of a too flattering artist, who had litho- graphed the ship's accommodations, joined with him in converting a floating cup-board into a state-room, and a cabin " like a hearse with windows in it," into a handsome saloon. But we must skip the voyage, though pleasantly and graphically described, and at once land Boz in Boston, where, suffering from that true ground swell which annoys the newly landed, he goes rolling along the pitching passages of the Tremont hotel "with an involuntary imitation of the gait of Mr. T. P. Cooke in a new nautical melo- drama." Now, Boston is the modern Athens of America. Its inhabit- ants, many of them educated in the neighboring university of Cambridge, are decidedly of a literary turn, and of course were not indifferent to the arrival of so distinguished an author in their city. Modesty, however, prevents him from recording in print the popular effervescence — the only fact which transpires is, that the first day being Sunday he was offered pews and sittings in churches and chapels, " enough for a score or two of GO PROSE AND VERSE. grown up families." These courtesies, one and all, the traveller is obliged to decline for want of a change of dress, — a fortunate circumstance so far, that whilst the curious but serious Boston- ians were congregated elsewhere, he was enabled, accompanied by only a score or so of little boys and girls of no particular persuasion, to take a survey and a clever sketch (p. 59) of the city. On Monday, the case was evidently altered ; for, after a visit to the State-House (p. 61), he was compelled to take refuge from the mob, in a place where he could not be made a sight or a show of — the Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind. Here he ^aw the interesting Laura Bridgman, a poor little girl, blind, deaf, dumb, destitute of the sense of smell, and almost of that of taste, yet, thanks to a judicious and humane education, not altogether dark within, nor hapless without. The following picture is deeply touching ; a mist comes over the clear eye in reading it. * Like other inmates of the house she had a green ribbon bound over her eyelids. A doll she had dressed lay near upon the ground. I took it up and saw that she had made a green fillet such as she wore herself, and fastened it about its mimic eyes." But the mob has dispersed ; at least the bulk of it, for not counting the children, there remain but fourteen autograph- hunters, six phrenologists, four portrait-painters, seven book- sellers, five editors, and nineteen ladies, with handsomely-bound books in their hands or under their arms, on the steps and about the door of the Blind Asylum. And there they may be still, for somehow Boz has given them the slip, and in the turning of a leaf is at South Boston, in the state hospital for the insane — not however as a patient — for he was once deranged by proxy in some other person's intellects, — but witnessing and admiring the rational and humane mode of treatment which, as at our own Han well Asylum, has replaced the brutal, brainless practice of the good old times when insanity was treated as a criminal offence, — the tortures abolished for felons were retained for lunatics, and their poor over-heated brains had as much chance of cooling as under the Plombieres of the Inquisition. Let the reader who has a mother turn to page 176 for a peep at a whim- BOZ IN AMERICA. 61 sical old lady, in the Hartford establishment, and then let him think that some fifty years ago the poor dear old soul would have been fettered, perhaps scourged, for only fancying herself an antediluvian ! But to lighten a sad subject, let us smile at a characteristic interview between Boz and an Ophelia, in the same house. " As we were passing through a gallery on our way out, a well-dressed lady, of quiet and composed manners, came up, and proffering a slip of paper and a pen, begged that I would oblige her with an autograph. I complied, and we parted. I hope she is not mad (quoth the visitor) for I think I remember having had a few interviews like that with ladies out of doors." Huzza ! whoo-oop ! A mob has gathered again, and before he has gone a page, Boz is obliged to get into the Boston House of Industry, thence into the adjoining Orphan Institution, and from that, but not mortally crushed, into the Hospital, all highly creditable establishments, except in one iron feature, "the eternal, accursed, suffocating, redhot demon of a stove, whose breath would blight the purest air under heaven :" and so it does — parching the lungs with baked air. We have had some expe- rience of the nuisance in Germany ; and never saw it lighted without wishing for a washerwoman, exorbitant in her charges, to blow it up. But we must push on, or the observed of all observers will be divided from us by a square mile of the Lowell Factory Millicents, "all dressed out with parasols and silk- stockings," not white or flesh-color, but blue, for these young women are decidedly literary, and besides subscribing to the cir- culating libraries, actually get up a periodical of their own ! " The large class of readers, startled by these facts, will exclaim with one voice, ' How very preposterous !' On my deferentially inquiring why, they will answer, ' These things are above their station.' In reply to that observation I would beg leave to ask what that station is." What ? — why, according to some of our moral stationers, the proper station for such people is the station-house, to which actors, singers, and dancers have so often been consigned in this country for acting, singing, and dancing upon too moderate terms. But better times seem to dawn — the licensing Justices begin to out- PROSE AND VERSE. vote the Injustices, and perhaps some day we shall have Playing and Dancing as well as Singing for the Million. Why not ? Why should not the cheerful, amusing treatment which has proved so beneficial to the poor mad people, be equally advantageous to the poor sane ones ? But to return to the Lowell lasses. — Pshaw ! cries a literary fine gentleman, carelessly penning a sonnet, like Sir Roger de Coverly's ancestor, with his glove on, "they are only a set of scribbling millers." No such thing. In the opinion of a very competent judge they write as well as most of our gifted crea- tures and talented pens, and their " Offering " may compare advantageously with a great many of the English Annuals. An opinion not hastily formed, be it noted, but after the reading of " 400 solid pages from the beginning to the end." No wonder the gratified Authoresses escorted the Critic — as of course they did, to the Worcester railway, which on the 5th of February, 1842, was beset of course by an unusual crowd, behaving, of course, as another mob did afterwards at Baltimore, but which Boz evidently mistook for only an every-day ebullition of na- tional curiosity. " Being rather early, those men and boys who happened to have nothing particular to do, and were curious in foreigners, came (according to custom) round the carriage in which I sat, let down all the windows ; thrust in their heads and shoulders ; hooked themselves on conveniently by their elbows ; and fell to comparing notes on the subject of my personal appearance, with as much indifference as if I were a stuffed figure. I never gained so much uncompromising information with reference to my own nose and eyes, the various impressions wrought by my mouth and chin on different minds, and how my head looks when it's viewed from behind, as on these occasions. Some gentlemen were only satisfied by exercising their sense of touch; and the boys (who are surprisingly precocious in America) were seldom satisfied, even by that, but would return to the charge over and over again. Many a budding President has walked into my room with his cap on his head and his hands in his pockets, and stared at me for two whole hours : occasionally refreshing himself with a tweak at his nose, or a draught from the water-jug, or by walking to the windows and inviting other boys in tiie street below, to corne up and do likewise: crying, 'Here he is! — Come on! — Bring all your brothers !' with other hospitable entreaties of that nature." Here is another speculator on the Phenomenon, who evidently BOZ IN AMERICA. 63 could not make up his mind whether the hairy covering of Boz was that of a real, or of a metaphorical Lion, p. 56. " Finding that nothing would satisfy him, I evaded his questions after the first score or two, and in particular pleaded ignorance respecting the fur whereof my coat was made. I am unable to say whether this was the reason, but that coat fascinated him ever afterwards ; he usually kept close behind me when I walked, and moved as I moved, that he might look at it the better ; and he frequently dived into narrow places after me. at the risk of his life, that he might have the satisfaction of passing his hand up the back and rubbing it the wrong way." From Worcester, still travelling like a Highland chieftain with his tail on, or a fugitive with a tribe of Indians on his trail, the illustrious stranger railed on to Springfield ; but there his voluntary followers were fixed. The Connecticut river being luckily unfrozen, Boz embarked, designedly, as it appears, in a steam-boat of about " half-a-pony power," and altogether so diminutive, that the few passengers the craft would carry "all kept in the middle of the deck, lest the boat should unexpectedly tip over." But some buzz about Boz had certainly got before him, for at a small town on the way, the tiny steamer, or rather one of its passengers, was saluted by a gun considerably bigger than the funnel ! (p. 174.) At Hartford, however, thanks to the Deaf and Dumb School, the common Gaol, the State Prison, and the Lunatic Asylum, the Dickens enjoyed four quiet days, and then embarked for New York in the New York, — " Infinitely less like a steam-boat than a huge floating bath. I could nardly persuade myself indeed, but that the bathing establishment off Westminster Bridge, which I had left a baby, had suddenly grown to an enormous size ; run away from home ; and set up in foreign parts for a steamer." At New York, in the Broadway, an ordinary man may find elbow-room ; but Boz is no ordinary man, and accordingly for a little seclusion is glad to pay a visit to the famous Prison called the Tombs. But the mob, the male part at least, again separates, and the gaol visitor ventures forth, as it appears, a little pre- maturely. '< Once more in Broadway ! Here are the sarr e ladies in bright colors, 64 PROSE AND VERSE. walking to and fro, in pairs and singly; yonder the very same light blue parasol which passed and repassed the hotel window twenty times while we were sitting there." Heavens ! what a prospect for a modest and a married man ! Popularity is no doubt pleasant, and Boz is extremely popular, but popularity in America is no joke. It is not down in the book, but we happen to know, that between 8 and 10 a. m., it was as much as Dickens could do, wi h Mrs. Dickens's assistance, to write the required autographs. It was more than he could do, between ten and twelve, to even look at the hospitable albums that were willing to take the stranger in. And now, not to forget the blue ladies in the Broadway, and the sulphur-colored parasol, if he should happen to be recognized by yonder group of admi- rers and well-wishers, he will have, before one could spell tem- perance, to swallow sangaree, ginsling, a mint julep, a cocktail, a sherry cobbler, and a timber doodle ! In such a case the only resource is in flight, and like a hunted lion, rushing into a difficult and dangerous jungle, Boz plunges at once into the most inaccessible back-slums of New York. " This is the place : these narrow ways, diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruits here as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors, have counterparts at home, and all the wide world over. Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays. Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright in lieu of going on all fours ? and why they talk instead of grunting ?" But what are " these pigs V Why, the very swine whence, under the New Tariff, we are to derive American pork and bacon ; and accordingly Boz considerately furnishes his country- men with a sketch of the breed. " They are the city scavengers, these pigs. Ugly brutes they are ; having for the most part, scanty, brown backs, like the lids of old horse-hair trunks, spotted with unwholesome black blotches. They have long gaunt legs, too, and such peaked snouts, that if one of them could be persuaded to sit for his portrait, nobody would recognize it for a pig's likeness." No — for they have no choppers. We know the animals well, BOZ IN AMERICA. 65 or at least their German cousins and Belgian brothers-in-law ; and moreover, have tasted the bacon, which only wants fat to be streaky. But here is a livelier sample of a pig, who seems to have had a notion of Lynch Law. " As we were riding along this morning, I observed a little incident be- tween two youthful pigs, which were so very human as to be inexpressibly comical and grotesque at the time, though I dare say in telling, it is tame enough. " One young gentleman (a very delicate porker with several straws sticking about his nose, betokening recent investigations in a dunghill) was walking deliberately on, profoundly thinking, when suddenly his brother, who was lying in a miry hole unseen by him, rose up immediately before his startled eyes, ghostly with damp mud. Never was a pig's whole mass of blood so turned. He started back at least three feet, gazed for a moment, and then shot off as hard as ever he could go : his excessively little tail vibrating with speed and terror like a distracted pendulum. But before he had gone very far, he began to reason with himself as to the nature of this frightful appearance; and as he reasoned, he relaxed his speed by gradual degrees, until at last he stopped, and faced about. There was his brother with the mud upon him glazing in the sun, yet staring out of the very same hole, per- fectly amazed at his proceedings. He was no sooner assured of this, and he assured himself so carefully, that one may almost say he shaded his eyes with his hand to see the better, than he came back at a round trot, pounced upon him, and summarily took off a piece of his tail, as a caution to him to be careful what he was about for the future, and never to play tricks with his family any more." But as usual, Boz was not allowed exclusively to please the pigs ; and being hunted all along shore, he was obliged, like a deer fort couru, to take to the water, and was carried to the Long Island Jail, by a boat belonging to the establishment, and rowed by a crew of prisoners M dressed in a striped uniform of black and buff, in which they looked like faded tigers." Not a bad retinue, by the way, for a black and white Lion. In the Gaol, the Madhouse, and the Refuge for the Destitute, he again found a temporary repose, but even these retreats becoming at last uncomfortably crowded, he set off by railway for Philadelphia, with a longing eye, of course, to its Solitary Prison. But that he did not enjoy much wnpopularity on this journey, we may guess, when the travelling in the same carriage with Boz was too much Part ii. 6 66 PROSE AND VERSE. for even Foxite taciturnity, and a Friend made such a desperate effort, as follows, to become an Acquaintance : " A mild and modest young Quaker, who opened the discourse by in- forming me, in a grave whisper, that his grandfather was the inventor of cold-drawn castor-oil. I mention the circumstance here, thinking it pro- bable that this is the first occasion on which the valuable medicine in question was ever used as a conversational aperient." The genuine drab color of this anecdote is as true in tone as the tints of Claude, and gives a renewed faith in the artist. The following picture seems equally faithful, though reminding us of some of the Author's fancy pieces. Look at it, gentle reader, and then cry with us, " God forgive the inventor of the system of burying criminals alive in stone coffins !" " The first man I saw was seated at his loom at work. He had been there six years, and was to remain, I think, three more. He had been convicted as a receiver of stolen goods, but denied his guilt, and said he had been hardly dealt by. It was his second offence. " He stopped his work when we went in, took off his spectacles, and an- swered freely to everything that was said to him, but always with a strange kind of pause first, and in a low thoughtful voice. He wore a paper hat of his own making, and was pleased to have it noticed and commended. He had very ingeniously manufactured a sort of Dutch clock from some disre- garded odds and ends ; and his vinegar-bottle served for the pendulum. Seeing me interested in this contrivance, he looked up at it with a good deal of pride, and said that he had been thinking of improving it, and that he hoped the hammer and a little piece of Droken glass beside" it ' would play music ere long.' " He smiled as I looked at these contrivances to while away the time : but when I looked from them to him, I saw that his lip trembled, and could have counted the beating of his heart. I forgot how it came about, but some allusion was made to his having a wife. He shook his head at the word, turned aside, and covered his face with his hands. " ' But you are resigned now !' said one of the gentlemen, after a short pause, during which he had resumed his former manner. " » Oh yes, oh yes ! I am resigned to it.' " * And are a better man, you think ?' " 4 Well, I hope so : I'm sure I may be.' " ' And time goes pretty quickly ?' ** ' Time is very long, gentlemen, between these four walls !' " He gazed about him — Heaven only knows how wearily ! as he said these words ; and in the act of doing so, fell into a strange stare, as if he BOZ IN AMERICA. 67 had forgotten something. A moment afterwards he sighed heavily, put on his spectacles, and resumed his work." ******** " On the haggard face of every man among these prisoners the same expression sat. I know not what to liken it to. It had something of that strained attention which we see upon the faces of the blind and deaf, mingled with a kind of horror, as though they had all been secretly terrified. In every little chamber that I entered, and at every grate through which I looked, I seemed to see the same appalling countenance. It lives in my me.nory with the fascination of a remarkable picture. Parade before my eyes a hundred men, with one of them newly released from this solitary suffering, and I would point him out." ******** " That it makes the senses dull, and by degrees impairs the bodily facul- ties, I am quite sure. I remarked to those who were with me in this very establishment at Philadelphia, that the criminals who had been there long were deaf." Of course they were ; and all more or less advanced towards a state (to adapt a new word) of idiosyncrasy. Again we say, Heaven forgive the inventors of such a course of slow mental torture ! who could reduce a fellow-creature to become such a clock-maker ! The truth is, no Solitary System is consonant with humanity or Christianity. Whenever there shall be persons too good for this world, they may have a right to thus excom- municate those who are too bad for it — but as Porson said, not till then ! Nevertheless to a gentleman mobbed, elbowed, jammed, stared at, and shouted after, a few hours in such a quiet hermitage would be a relief: nay, Boz tells us that it was once found en- durable for a much longer term, by a voluntary prisoner, who, unable to resist the bottle, applied, as a favor, for a solitary cell. The Board refused, and recommended total abstinence and the long pledge, but the toper, to make sure of temperance, en- treated to be put in the stone jug. " He came again, and again, and again, and was so very earnest and im- portunate, that at last they took counsel together, and said, 'He will cer- tainly qualify himself for admission, if we reject him any more. Let us Bhut him up. He will soon be glad to go away, and then we shall get rid of him.' So they made him sign a statement, which would prevent his ever sustaining an action for false imprisonment, to the effect that his in- 68 PROSE AND VERSE. carceration was voluntary, and of his own seeking ; they requested him to take notice that the officer in attendance had orders to release him at any hour of the day or night, when he might knock upon his door for that purpose ; but desired him to understand that, once going out, he would not be admitted any more. These conditions agreed upon, and he still remain- ing in the same mind, he was conducted to the prison, and shut up in one of the cells. " In this cell, the man who had not the firmness to leave a glass of liquor standing untasted on a table before him — in this cell, in solitary confine- ment, and working every day at his trade of shoe-making, this man remained nearly two years. His health beginning to fail at the expiration of that time, the surgeon recommended that he should work occasionally in the garden ; and as he liked the notion very much, he went about this new oc- cupation with great cheerfulness. " He was digging here one summer-day very industriously, when the wicket in the outer gate chanced to be left open : showing, beyond, the well- remembered dusty road and sun-burnt fields. The way was as free to him as to any man living, but he no sooner raised his head and caught sight of it, all shining in the sun, than, with the involuntary instinct of a pris- oner, he cast away his spade, scampered off as fast as bis legs would carry him, and never once looked back." At Washington Boz had an interview with the American President, and, as might be expected, the great drawing-room, and the other chambers on the ground-floor, were " crowded to excess.-' No wonder that as soon as released from the throng, our traveller turned his thoughts towards the wilds and forests of the Far West ; with a vague hankering after the vast soli- tude and quiet of a Prairie ! But such delights are to be reached by a course no smoother than that of true love, — as witness the coaching on a Virginian road, with an American Mr. Weller. " He is a negro — very black indeed. He is dressed in a coarse pepper- and-salt suit excessively patched and darned (particularly at the knees), grey stockings, enormous unblacked high-low shoes, and very short trousers. He has two odd gloves : one of parti-colored worsted, and one of leather. He has a very short whip, broken in the middle, and bandaged up with string. And yet he wears a low-crowned, broad-brimmed, black hat: faintly shad- owing forth a kind of insane imitation of an English coachman ! But somebody in authority cries ' Go ahead !' as I am making these observa- tions. The mail takes the lead, in a four-horse wagon, and all the coaches follow in procession headed by No. 1. " By the way, whenever an Englishman would cry ' All right !' an Amer- BOZ IN AMERICA. 69 ican cries ' Go ahead !' which is. somewhat expressive of the national character of the two countries. "The first half mile of the road is over bridges made of loose planks laid across two parallel poles, which tilt up as the wheels roll over them, and in the river. The river has a clayey bottom, and is full of holes, so that half a horse is constantly disappearing unexpectedly, and can't be found again for some time. " But we get past even this, and come to the road itself, which is a series of alternate swamps and gravel-pits. A tremendous place is close before us, the black driver rolls his eyes, screws his mouth up very round, and looks straight between the two leaders, as if he were saying to himself, 4 We have done this before, but now I think we shall have a crash.' He takes a rein in each hand ; jerks and pulls at both ; and dances on the splash- board with both feet (keeping his seat of course), like the late lamented Ducrow on \wo of his fiery coursers. We come to the spot, sink down in the mire nearly to the coach-window, tilt on one side at an angle of forty- five degrees, and stick there. The insides scream dismally ; the coach stops ; the horses flounder ; all the other six coaches stop ; and their four and twenty horses flounder likewise ; but merely for company, and in sym- pathy with ours. Then the following circumstances occur. " Black Driver (to the horses). — < Hi !' " Nothing happens. Insides scream again. " Black Driver (to the horses). — ' Ho !' " Horses plunge, and splash the black driver. " Gentleman inside (looking out). — ' Why, what on airth — ' " Gentleman receives a variety of splashes and draws his head in again, without finishing his question, or waiting for an answer. " Black Driver (still to the horses). — ' Jiddy ! Jiddy " Horses pull violently, drag the coach out of the hole, and draw it up a bank ; so steep, that the black driver's legs fly up into the air, and he goes back among the luggage on the roof. But he immediately recovers himself, and cries (still to the horses), " c pill i> " No effect. On the contrary, the coach begins to roll back upon No. 2, which rolls back upon No. 3, which rolls back upon No. 4, and so on until No. 7 is heard to curse and swear, nearly a quarter of a mile behind. " Black Driver (louder than before). — ( Pill !' " Horses make another struggle to get up the bank, and again the coach rolls backward. " Black Driver (louder than before). — * Pe-e-e-ill !' " Horses make a desperate struggle. " Black Driver (recovering spirits). — ' Hi, Jiddy, Jiddy, pill." " Horses make another effort. " Black Driver (with great vigcr). — c Ally Loo ! Hi, Jiddy, Jiddy, Pill. Ally Loo !' f Horses almost do it. 70 PROSE AND VERSE. " Black Driver (with his eyes starting out of his head).—' Lee, den. Lee, dere. Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy. Pill. Ally Loo. Lee-e-e-e-e !' " They run up the bank, and go down again on the other side at a fearful pace. It is impossible to stop them, and at the bottom there is a deep hollow, full of water. The coach rolls frightfully. The insides scream. The mud and water fly about us. The black driver dances like a madman. Suddenly, we are all right, by some extraordinary means, and stop to bieathe. " A black friend of the driver is sitting on a fence. The black driver recognizes him by twirling his head round and round like a harlequin, rolling his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, and grinning from ear to ear. He stops short, turns to me, and says : " ' We shall get you through, sa, like a fiddle, and hope a please you when we get you through, sa. Old 'ooman at home, sir,' chuckling very much. ' Outside gentleman, sa, he often remember old 'ooman at home, sa,' grinning again. " ' Ay, ay, we'll take care of the old woman. Don't be afraid.' " The black driver grins again, but there is another hole, and beyond that another bank, close before us. So he stops short : cries (to the horses again), 'Easy — easy den — ease — steady — hi — Jiddy — pill — Ally — Loo," but never ' Lee !' until we are reduced to the very last extremity, and are in the midst of difficulties, extrication from which appears to be all but impos- sible. " And so we do the ten miles or thereabouts in two hours and a half, breaking no bones, though bruising a great many ; and in short, getting through the distance ' like a fiddle.' " The next conveyance was by the Harrisburg Canal, on which there are two passage-boats, the Express and the Pioneer. For some reason, however, the Pioneers would come into the other boat, in which Boz was a passenger — an addition that drew out a certain thin-faced, spare-figured man, of middle age and stature, dressed in a dusty, drabbish-colored suit, and up to that moment as quiet as a lamb. " ' This may suit you, this may, but it don't suit me. This may be all very well with Down Easters, and men of Boston raising, but it won't suit my figure, no how ; and no two ways about that ; and so I tell you. Now, I'm from the brown forests of the Mississippi, I am; and when the sun shines on me, it does shine — a little. It don't glimmer where / live, the sun don't. No. I'm a brown forester, I am. I an't a Johnny Cake. There are no smooth skins where I live. We're rough men, there. Rather. If Down Easters and men of Boston raising are like this, I'm glad of it, but I'm none of that raising or of that breed. No. This company wants a little fixing — it does. I'm the wrong sort of a man for 'em, / am. They BOZ IN AMERICA 71 won't like me, they won't. This is piling of it up a little too mountainous, this is.' "At tha end of every one of these short sentences he turned upon his heel, and walked the other way ; checking himself abruptly when he had finished another short sentence, and turning back again. It is impossible for me to say what terrific meaning was hidden in the words of this brown forester, but I know that the other passengers looked on in a sort of admir- ing horror, and that presently the boat was put back to the wharf, and as many of the Pioneers as could be coaxed or builied into going away were got rid of." It was perfectly natural, after this " touch of the earthquake," to desire to see the Shakers, whose peculiar delirium tremens had been reported as unspeakably absurd : but the elders had clearly received a hint of a chield coming, like Captain Grose, to make Notes and print them. " Presently we came to the beginning of the village, and alighting at the door of a house where the Shaker manufactures are sold, and which is the head-quarters of the elders, requested permission to see the Shaker worship. " Pending the conveyance of this request to some person in authority, we walked into a grim room, where several grim hats were hanging on grim pegs, and the time was grimly told by a grim clock, which uttered every tick with a kind of struggle, as if it broke the grim silence reluctantly and under protest. Ranged against the wall were six or eight stiff, high-backed chairs, and they partook so strongly of the general grimness that one would much rather have sat on the floor than incurred the smallest obligation to any of them. " Presently there stalked into this apartment a grim old Shaker, with eyes as hard, and dull, and cold, as the great round metal buttons on his coat and waistcoat: a sort of calm goblin. Being informed of our desire, he pro- duced a newspaper wherein the body of elders, whereof he was a member, had advertised but a few days before, that, in consequence of certain un- seemly interruptions which their worship had received from strangers, the chapel was closed for the space of one year." The chapel will now be opened : for the chield is in England, and his Notes are not only printed but published, and by this time have been abundantly circulated, read, quoted, and criti- cised. Many of them, that will be canvassed elsewhere, are here left untouched, for obvious reasons ; and various desirable extracts are omitted through want of space ; for example, a pretty episode of a little woman with a little baby at St. Louis, 72 PROSE AND VERSE. and sundry sketches of scenery, character, and manners, as superior as " chicken fixings " to " common doings." We have nevertheless worked out our original intention. The political will discuss the author's notions of the republican institutions ; the analytical will scrutinize his philosophy ; the critical his style, and the hypocritical his denunciations of cant. Our only aim has been, according to the heading of this article, to give the reader a glimpse of Boz in America. COPYRIGHT AND COPY WRONG. 73 COPYRIGHT AND COPYWRONG. LETTER L To the Editor of the Athenjetjm : My dear Sir, — I have read with much satis/action the occa- sional exposures in your Journal of the glorious uncertainty of the Law of Copyright, and your repeated calls for its revision. It is high time, indeed, that some better system should be esta- blished ; and I cannot but regret that the legislature of our own country, which patronizes the great cause of liberty all over the world, has not taken the lead in protecting the common rights of Literature. We have a national interest in each ; and their lots ought not to be cast asunder. The French, Prussian, and American governments, however, have already got the start of us, and are concerting measures for suppressing those piracies, which have become, like the influenza, so alarmingly prevalent. It would appear, from the facts established, that an English book merely transpires in London, but is published in Paris, Brussels, or New York. 'Tis but to sail, and with to-morrow's sun The pirates will be bound. Mr. Bulwer tells us of a literary gentleman, who felt himself under the necessity of occasionally going abroad to preserve his self-respect ; and without some change, an author will equally be obliged to repair to another country to enjoy his circulation. As to the American reprints, I can personally corroborate your assertion, that heretofore a transatlantic bookseller " has taken 74 PROSE AND VERSE. five hundred copies of a single work," whereas he now> orders none, or merely a solitary one, to set up from. This, I hope, is a matter as important as the little question of etiquette, which, according to Mr. Cooper, the fifty millions will have to adjust. Before, however, any international arrangements be entered into, it seems only consistent with common sense that we should begin at home, and first establish what copyright is in Britain, and provide for its protection from native pirates or Book-aneen*, I have learned, therefore, with pleasure, that the sUte of the law is to be brought under the notice of Parliament by Mr. Ser- jeant Talfourd, who, from his legal experience and literary tastes, is so well qualified for the task. The grievances of au- thors have neither been loudly nor often urged on Lords or Com- mons ; but their claims have long been lying on the library table, if not on the table of the House, — and mcthinks their wrongs have only to be properly stated to obtain redress. I augur for them at least a good hearing, for such seldom and low-toned appeals ought to find their way to organs as " deaf to clamor " as the old citizen of Cheapside, who said that " the more noise there was in the street, the more he didn't hear it." In the meantime, as an author myself, as well as proprietor of copyrights in " a small way," I make bold to offer my own feel- ings and opinions on the subject, with some illustrations from what, although not a decidedly serious writer, I will call my experiences. And here I may appropriately plead my apology for taking on myself the cause of a fraternity of which I am so humble a member; but, in truth, this very position, which for- bids vanity on my own account, favors my pride on that of others, and thus enables me to speak more becomingly of the deserts of my brethren, and the dignity of the craft. Like P. P. the Clerk of the Parish, who with a proper reverence for his calling, confessed an elevation of mind in only considering him- self as " a shred of the linen vestment of Aaron," I own to an inward exultation at being but a Precentor, as it were, in that worship, which numbers Shakspeare and Milton amongst its priests. Moreover, now that the rank of authors, and the nature and value of literary property, are about to be discussed, and I hope established for ever, it becomes the duty of every literary I OPYRIGHT AND COPY WRONG. 75 man — as much as of a Peer when his Order is in question — to assert his station, and stand up manfully for the rights, honors, and privileges of the Profession to which he belongs. The ques- tion is not a mere sordid one — it is not a simple inquiry in what way the emoluments of literature may be best secured to the author or proprietors of a work ; on the contrary, it involves a prin- ciple of grave importance, not only to literary men, but to those who love letters,^-and, I will presume to say, to society at large. It has a moral as well as commercial bearing ; for the Legislature will not only have to decide directly, by a formal act, whether the literary interest is worthy of a place beside the shipping interest, the landed interest, the funded interest, the manufacturing, and other public interests, but also it will have indirectly to deter- mine whether literary men belong to the privileged class, — the higher, lower, or middle class, — the working class, — productive or unproductive class, — or, in short, to any class at all.* " Lite- rary men," says Mr. Bulwer, " have not with us any fixed and settled position as men of letters." We have, like Mr. Cooper's American lady, no precedence. We are, in fact, nobodies. Our place, in turf language, is nowhere. Like certain birds and beasts of difficult classification, we go without any at all. We have no more caste than the Pariahs. We are on a par — ac- cording as we are scientific, theologic, imaginative, dramatic, poetic, historic, instructive, or amusing — with quack doctors, street-preachers, strollers, ballad-singers, hawkers of last dying speeches, Punch-and-Judies, conjorers, tumblers, and other " di- varting vagabonds." We are as the Jews in the East, the Africans in the West, or the gipsies anywhere. We belong to those to whom nothing can belong. I have even misgivings — heaven help us — if an author have a parish ! I have serious doubts if a work be a qualification for the workhouse ! The law apparently cannot forget, or forgive, that Homer was a va- grant, Shakspeare a deer-stealer, Milton a rebel. Our very cracks tell against us in the statute ; Poor Stoneblind, Bill the Poacher, and Radical Jack have been the ruin of our gang. We have neither character to lose nor property to protect. We * At a guess, I should say we were classed, in opposition to a certain literary sect, as Inutilitarians TO PROSE AND VERSE. are by law — outlaws, undeserving of civil rights. We may be robbed, libelled, outraged with impunity, being at the same time liable, for such offences, to all the rigor of the code. I will not adduce, as I could do, a long catalogue of the victims of thi? system which seems to have been drawn up by the " Lord of Misrule," and sanctioned by the " Abbot of Unreason." I will select, as Sterne took his captive, a single author. To add to the parallel, behold him in a prison ! He is sentenced to remain there during the monarch's pleasure, to stand three times in the pillory, and to be amerced besides in the heavy sum of two hundred marks. The sufferer of this threefold punishment is one rather deserving of a triple crown, as a man, as an author, and as an example of that rare commercial integrity which does not feel discharged of its debts, though creditors have ac- cepted a composition, till it has paid them in full. It is a literary offence — a libel, or presumed libel, which has incurred the se- verity of the law ; but the same power that oppresses him, refuses or neglects to support him in the protection of his literary character and his literary rights. His just fame is depreciated by public slanderers, and his honest, honorable earnings are forestalled by pirates. Of one of his performances no less than twelve surreptitious editions are printed, and 80,000 copies are disposed of at a cheap rate in the streets of London. I am writ- ing no fiction, though of one of fiction's greatest masters. That captive is — for he can never die — that captive author is Scott's, Johnson's, Blair's, MarmontePs, Lamb's, Chalmers's, Beattie's — good witnesses to character these ! — every Englishman's, Bri- tain's, America's, Germany's, France's, Spain's, Italy's, Ara- bia's ; all the world's Daniel De Foe ! Since the age of the author of Robinson Crusoe, the law has doubtless altered in complexion, but not in character, towards his race. It no longer pillories an author who writes to the dis- taste, or like poor Daniel, above the comprehension of the Pow- ers that be, because it no longer pillories any one ; but the imprisonment and the fines remain in force. The title of a book is, in legal phrase, the worst title there is. Literary pro- perty is the lowest in the market. It is declared by law worth only so many years' purchase, after which the private right be COPYRIGHf AND COPYWRONG. 77 comes common ; and in the meantime, the estate being notori- ously infested with poachers, is as remarkably unprotected by game laws. An author's winged thoughts, though laid, hatched, bred, and fed within his own domain, are less his property than is the bird of passage that of the lord of the manor, on whose soil it may happen to alight. An author cannot employ an armed keeper to protect his preserves ; he cannot apply to a pindar to arrest the animals that trespass on his grounds ; — nay, he cannot even call in a common constable to protect his purse on the King's highway ! I have had thoughts myself of seeking the aid of a policeman, but counsel, learned in the law, have dissuaded me from such a course ; there was no way of defending myself from tbe petty thief but by picking my own pocket ! Thus I have been compelled to see ny own name attached to catchpenny works, none of mine, hawked about by placard-men in the street ; I, who detest the puffing system, have apparently been guilty of the gross forwardness of walking the pavement by proxy for admirers, like the dog Bashaw ! I have been made, nominally, to ply at stage-coach windows with my wares, like Isaac Jacobs with his cheap pen- cils, and Jacob Isaacs with his cheap pen-knives, to cut them with : — and without redress, for, whether I had placed myself in the hands of the law, or taken the law in my own hands, as any bumpkin in a barn knows, there is nothing to be thrashed out of a man of straw. Now, with all humility, if my poor name be any recommendation of a book, I conceive I am en- titled to reserve it for- my own benefit. What says the pro- verb ? — " When your name is up you may lie abed ;" but what says the law ? — at least, if the owner of the name be an au- thor. Why, that any one may steal his bed from under him and sell it; that is to say, his reputation, and the revenue which it may bring. In the meantime, for other street frauds there is a summary process : the vender of a flash watch, or a razor made to sell, though he appropriates no maker's name, is seized without ceremony by A 1, carried before B 2, and com- mitted to C 3, as regularly as a child goes through its alphabet and numeration. They have defrauded the public, forsooth, and the public has its prompt remedy ; but for the literary 7s PROSE AND VERSE. man, thus doubly robbed, of his money and his reputation, what is h:s redress but by injunction, or action against walking sha- dows, — a truly homoeopathic remedy, which pretends to cure by aggravating the disease. I have thus shown how an author may be robbed ; for if the works thus offered at an unusually low price be genuine, they must have been dishonestly ob- tained — the brooms were stolen ready made ; if, on the con- trary, they be counterfeit, I apprehend there will be little diffi- culty in showing how an author may be practically libelled with equal impunity. For anything I know, the Peripatetic Philosophy ascribed to me by the above itinerants, might be he- retical, damnable, libellous, vicious, or obscene ; whilst, for any- thing they knew to the contrary, the purchasers must have held me responsible for the contents of the volumes which went abroad so very publicly under my name. I know, indeed, that parties thus deceived have expressed their regret and aston- ishment that I could be guilty of such prose, verse, and worse, as they had met with under my signature. I believe I may cite the well-known Mr. George Robins as a purchaser of one of the counterfeits ; and if he, perhaps, eventually knocked me down as a street-preacher of infidelity, sedition, or immorality, it was neither his fault nor mine. I may here refer, en passant — for illustrations are plenty as blackberries — to a former corres- pondence in the Athenceum, in which I had, in common with Mr Poole and the late Mr. Colman, to disclaim any connexion with a periodical in which I was advertised as a contributor. There was more recently, and probably still is, one Marshall, of Hol- born Bars, who publicly claims me as a writer in his pay, with as much right to the imprint of my name, as a print collector has to the engravings in another man's portfolio ; but against this man I have taken no rash steps, otherwise called legal, knowing that I might as well appear to Martial Law versus Marshall, as to any other. As a somewhat whimsical case, I may add the following : — Mr. Chappell, the music- seller, agreed to give me a liberal sum for the use of any ballad I might publish ; and an- other party, well known in the same line, applied to me for a formal permission to publish a little song of mine, which a lady had done me the -honor of setting to an original melody. Here COPYRIGHT AND COPYWRONG. seemed to be a natural recognition of copyright, and the moral sense of justice standing instead of law ; but in the meantime a foreign composer — I forget his name, but it was set in G , took a fancy to some of my verses, and without the semiquaver of a right, or the demisemiquaver of an apology, converted them to his own use. I remonstrated, of course ; and the re- ply, based on the assurance of impunity, not only admitted the fact, but informed me that Monsieur, not finding my lines agree with his score, had taken the liberty of altering them at my risk. Now, I would confidently appeal to the highest poets in the land, whether they do not feel it quite responsibility enough to be accountable for their own lays in the mother tongue ; but to be answerable also for the attempts in Eng- lish verse by a foreigner — and, above all, a Frenchman — is really too much of a bad thing ! Would it be too much to request of the learned Serjeant who has undertaken our cause, that he would lay these cases before Parliament ? Noble Lords and Honorable Gentlemen come down to their respective Houses, in a fever of nervous excite- ment, and shout of " Privilege ! Breach of Privilege !" because their speeches have been erroneously reported, or their meaning garbled in perhaps a single sentence ; but how would they relish to see whole speeches, — nay, pamphlets, — they had never uttered or written, paraded, with their names, styles, and titles at full length, by those placarding walkers, who, like fathers of lies, or rather mothers of them, carry one staring falsehood pickaback, and another at the bosom ? How would those gentlemen like to see extempore versions of their orations done into English by a native of Paris, and published, as the pig ran, down all sorts of streets ? Yet to similar nuisances are authors exposed without adequate means of abating them. It is often better, I have been told, to abandon one's rights than to defend them at law, — a sen- tence that will bear a particular application to literary grievan- ces. For instance, the law would have something to say to a man who claimed his neighbor's umbrella as his own parasol, Decause he had cut off a bit round the rim : yet, by something of a similar process, the better part of a book may be appropriated — and this is so civil an offence, that any satisfaction at law is only 80 FKuSE AND VERSE to be obtained by a very costly and doubtful course. There was even a piratical work, which, — to adopt Burke's paradoxical style, — disingenuously ingenuous and dishonestly honest, assumed the plain title of " The Thief," professing, with the connivance of the law, to steal all its materials. How this Thief died I know not ; but as it was a literary thief, I would lay long odds that the law was not its finisher. These piracies are naturally most injurious to these authors whose works are of a fugitive nature, or on topics of temporary interest ; but there are writers of a more solid stamp — of a higher order of mind, or nobler ambition, who devote themselves to the production of works of permanent value and utility. Such works often creep but slowly into circulation and repute, but then become classics for ever. And what encouragement or reward does the law hold forth to such contributors to our Standard National Literature ? Why, that after a certain lapse of years, coinciding probably with the term requisite to establish the ster- ling character of the work, or, at least, to procure its general recognition — then, aye, just then, when the literary property is realized, when it becomes exchangeable against the precious metals which are considered by some political and more practi- cal economists as the standard of value — the law dedrees that then all right or interest in the book shall expire in the author, and by some strange process, akin to the Hindoo transmigrations, revive in the great body of the booksellers. And here arises a curious question. After the copyright has so lapsed, suppose that some speculative publisher, himself an amateur writer, should think fit to abridge or expand the author's matter — exten- uate or aggravate his arguments — French polish his style — John- sonize his phraseology — or even, like Winifred Jenkins, wrap his own " bit of nonsense under his Honor's kiver," — is there any legal provision extant to which the injured party could appeal for redress of such an outrage on all that is left to him, his reputation % I suspect there is none whatever. There is yet another singular result from this state of the law, which I beg leave to illustrate by my own case. If I may modestly appropriate a merit, it is that, whatever my faults, I have at least been a decent writer. In a species of composition, where, like the ignis fatuus COPYRIGHT AND COPY WRONG. 81 that guides into a bog, a glimmer of the ludicrous is apt to lead the fancy into an indelicacy, I feel some honest pride in remem- bering that the reproach of impurity has never been cast upon me by my judges. It has not been my delight to exhibit the Muse, as it has tenderly been called, "high-kilted." I have had the gratification, therefore, of seeing my little volumes placed in the hands of boys and girls ; and as I have children of my own, to, I hope, survive me, I have the inexpresb/ble comfort cf think- ing that hereafter they will be able to cast their eyes over the pages inscribed with my name, without a burning blush on their young cheeks to reflect that the author was their father. So whispers Hope, with the dulcet voice and the gofden hair; but what thunders Law, of the iron tone and the frizzled wig ? " Decent as thy Muse may be now — a delicate Ariel — she shall be indecent and indelicate hereafter ! She shall class with the bats and the fowls obscene ! The slow reward of thy virtue shall be the same as the prompt punishment of vice. Thy copyright shall depart from thee — it shall be everybody's and anybody's, and ' no man shall call it his own !' " Verily, if such be the proper rule of copyright, for the sake of consistency two very old copywriters should be altered to match, and run thus : — " Virtue is its own punishment." — " Age commands disrespect f" To return to the author, whose fame is slow and sure — to be its own reward, — should he be dependent, as is often the case, on the black and white bread of literature — should it be the profes- sion by which he lives, it is evident that under such a system he must beg, run into debt, or starve. And many have been beg- gars — many have got into debt ; it is hardly possible to call up the ghost of a literary hero, without the apparition of a catchpole at his elbow, for, like Jack the Giant-killer, our elder worthies, who had the Cap of Knowledge, found it equally convenient to be occasionally invisible, as well as to possess the Shoes of Swift- ness, — and some have starved ! Could the " Illustrious Dead " arise, after some Anniversary Dinner of the Literary Fund, and walk in procession round the table, like the resuscitated objects of the Royal Humane Society, what a melancholy exhibition they would make ! I will not marshal them forth in order, but Part ii, 8 PROSE AND VERSE. leave the show to the imagination of the reader. I doubt whether the Illustrious Living would make a much brighter muster. Sup. posing a general summons, how many day-rules — how many incognitos from abroad — how many visits to Monmouth Street would be necessary to enable the members to put in an appear- ance ! I fear, heaven forgive me ! some of our nobles even would show only Three Golden Balls in their coronets ! If we do not actually starve or die by poison in this century, it is, perhaps, owing partly to the foundation of the Literary Fund, and partly to the invention of the Stomach Pump ; but the truly abject state of Literature may be gathered from the fact, that, with a more accurate sense of the destitution of the Professors, than of the dignity of the Profession, a proposal has lately been brought for- ward for the erection of alms-houses for paupers of " learning and genius," who have fallen into the sere and yellow leaf, under the specious name of Literary Retreats, or, as a military man would technically and justly read such a record of our failures, Literary Defeats. Nor is this the climax : the proposal names half a dozen of these humble abodes to " make a beginning " with — a mere brick of the building — as if the projector, in his mind's eye, saw a whole Mile End Road of one-storied tenements in the shell, stretching from Number Six — and " to be continued !" Visions of paupers, spare my aching sight, Ye unbuilt houses, crowd not on my soul ! I do hope, before we are put into yellow-leather very small- clothes, muffin-caps, green-baize coats and badges, — and made St. Minerva's charity-boys at once, — for that must be the first step, — that the Legislature will interfere, and endeavor to pro- vide better for our sere and yellow leaves, by protecting our black and white ones. Let the law secure to us a fair chance of getting our own, and perhaps, with proper industry, we may be able — who knows ? — to build little snuggeries for ourselves. Under the present system, the chances are decidedly against a literary man's even laying a good foundation of French bricks. To further illustrate the nature of a copyright, we will suppose that an author retains it, or publishes, as it is called, on his own account. He will then have to divide amongst the trade, in the COPYRIGHT AND COPYWRONG. 83 shape of commission, allowances, &c, from 40 to 45 per cent, of the gross proceeds, leaving the Stationer, Printer, Binder, Adver- tising, and all other expenses to be paid out of the remainder. And here arise two important contingencies. 1st. In order that the author may know the true number of the impression, and, consequently, the correct amount of the sale, it is necessary that his publisher should be honest. 2dly. For the author to duly receive his profits, his publisher must be solvent. I intend no disrespect to the trade in general by naming these conditions ; but I am bound to mention them, as risks adding to the insecurity of the property : as two hurdles which the rider of Pegasus mty have to clear in his course to be a winner. If I felt inclined to reflect on the trade, it would be to censure those dishonest mem- bers of it, who set aside a principle in which the interests of authors and booksellers are identical — the inviolability of copy- right. I need not point out the notorious examples of direct piracy at home, which have made the foreign offences comparatively venial ; nor yet those more oblique plagiarisms, and close paro- dies, which are alike hurtful in their degree. Of the evil of these latter practices I fear our bibliopoles are not sufficiently aware ; but that man deserves to have his head published in foolscap, who does not see that whatever temporary advantages a system of piracy may hold out, the consequent swamping of Literature will be ruinous to the trade, till eventually it may dwindle down to Four-and-Twenty Booksellers all in a Row, — and all in " the old book line," pushing off back-stock and bartering remainders. But my letter is exceeding all reasonable length, and I will reserve what else I have to say till next post. LETTER II. To the Editor of the Athenaeum : My Dear Sir, — I have, perhaps, sufficiently illustrated the state of copyright, bad as it is, without the help of Foreign in- tervention : not, however, without misgivings that I shall be sus- 94 PROSE AND VERSED. pected of quoting from some burlesque code, drawn up by a R,abelais in ridicule of the legislative efforts of a community of ourang-outangs — or a sample by Swift, of the Constitution of the Sages of Laputa. I have proved that literary property might almost be defined, reversing the common advertisement, as some- thing of use to everybody but the owner. To guard this preca- rious possession I have shown how the law provides, 1st, That if a work be of temporary interest it shall virtually be free for any Bookaneer to avail himself of its pages and its popularity with impunity. 2dly. That when time has stamped a work as of permanent value, the copyright shall belong to anybody or nobody. I may now add, — as if to " huddle jest upon jest," — that the mere registry of a work, to entitle it to this precious protection, incurs a fee of eleven copies— in value, it might hap- pen, some hundreds of pounds! Then to protect the author, — " aye, such protection as vultures give to lambs," — I have in- stanced how he is responsible for all he writes — and subject, for libel and so forth, to fines and imprisonments — how he may libel by proxy — and how he may practically be libelled himself with- out redress. I have evidenced how the law, that protects his brass-plate on the door, will wink at the stealing of his name by a brazen pirate ; howbeit the author, for only accommodating himself by a forgery, might be transported beyond seas. I have set forth how, though he may not. commit any breach of privi- lege, he may have his own words garbled, Frenchified, trans- mogrified, garnished, taken in or let out, like old clothes, turned, dyed and altered. I have proved, in short, according to my first position, that in the evil eye of the law, " we have neither charac- ter to lose nor property to protect," — that there is " one law for the rich and another for the poor " (alias authors) — and that the weights and scales which Justice uses in literary matters ought to be broken before her face by the petty jury. And now let me ask, is this forlorn state — its professors thus degradingly appreciated, its products thus shabbily appraised — the proper condition of literature ? The liberty of the press is boasted of as a part of the British constitution : but might it not be supposed that, in default of a censorship, some cunning Machiavel had devised a sly underplot for the discouragement COPYRIGHT AND COPYWRONG. 85 of letters — an occult conspiracy to present " men of learning and genius " to the world's eye in the pitiful plight of poor devils, starvelings, mumpers, paupers, vagrants, loose fish, jobbers, needy and seedy ones, nobodies, ne'er-do-weels, shy coves, strol- lers, creatures, wretches, objects, small debtors, borrowers, de- pendents, lackpennies, half-sirs, clapper-dudgeons, scamps, in- solvents, maunderers, blue-gowns, bedesmen, scarecrows, fellows about town, sneaks, scrubs, shabbies, rascal deer of the herd, animals " wi' letter'd braw brass collars " — but poor dogs for all that ? Our family tree is ancient enough, for it is coeval with knowledge ; and Mythology, the original Herald's College, has assigned us a glorious blazonry. But would not one believe that some sneering Mephistopeles, willing to pull down " God Al- mighty's gentlemen," had sought to supply the images of their heraldry with a scurvier gloss ; e. g. a Lady Patroness with an segis, that gives more stones than bread : a Patron who dispenses sunshine in lieu of coal and candle : nine elderly spinsters, who have never married for want of fortune : a horse with wings, that failing oats he may fly after the chaff that is driven before the wind : a forked mount, and no knife to it : a lot of bay- leaves — and no custards : a spring of Adam's ale ! In fact, all the standing jests and taunts at authors and authorship, have their point in poverty : such as Grub-street — first floors down the chimney — sixpenny ordinaries — second hand suits — shabby blacks, holes at the elbow — and true as epaulette to the shoulder the hand of the bumbailiff! Unfortunately, as if to countenance such a plot as I have hy- pothetically assumed above, there is a marked disproportion, as compared with other professions, in the number of literary men who are selected for public honors and employments. So far in- deed from their having, as a body, any voice in the senate, they have scarcely a vote at the hustings ; for the system under which they suffer is hardly adapted to make them forty- shilling free- holders, much less to enable them to qualify for seats in the House. A jealous-minded person might take occasion to say, that this was but a covert mode of effecting the exclusion of men whom the gods have made poetical, and whose voices might sound more melodious and quite as pregnant with meaning as 86 PROSE AND VERSE. many a vox et pralerea nihil that is lifted up to Mr. Speaker. A literary man, indeed, — Sheridan, — is affirmed by Lord Byron to have delivered the best speech that was ever listened to in Par- liament, — and it would even add force to the insinuation that the rotten boroughs, averred to be the only gaps by which men merely rich in learning and genius could creep into the Com- mons, have been recently stopped up. Of course such a ploi cannot be entertained ; but in the meantime the effect ; -s the same, and whilst an apparent slight is cast upon literature, the senate has probably been deprived of the musical wisdom of many wonderful Talking Birds, through the want of the Golden Waters. For instance, it might not only be profitable to hear such a man as Southey, who has both read history and written history, speak to the matter in hand, when the affairs of nations are discussed, and the beacon lights of the past may be made to reflect a guiding ray into the London-like fogs of the future. I am quite aware that literary genius per se is not reckoned a suffi- cient qualification for a legislator : — perhaps not — but why is not a poet as competent to discuss questions concerning the public welfare, the national honor, the maintenance of morals and re- ligion, or the education of the people, as a gentleman, without a touch of poetry about him, who had been schooling his intellects for the evening's debate by a course of morning whist ? Into some of these honorary memberships, so to speak, a few distin- guished men of letters might be safely franked — and if they did not exactly turn up trumps — I mean as statesmen, — they would serve to do away with an awkward impression that literature, which as a sort of Natural religion is the best ally of the Re- vealed one, has been kindly denied any share in that affectionate relationship which obtains between Church and State. As for the Upper House, I will not presume to say whether the dignity of that illustrious assembly would have been impaired or other- wise by the presence of a Baron with the motto of Poeta nascitur, non Jit; supposing Literature to have taken a seat in the person of Sir Walter Scott beside the Lords of law and war. It is not for me to decide whether the brain-bewitching art be worthy of such high distinction as the brain-bewildering art, or that other one described by a bard, himself a Peer; but in the ah- COPYRIGHT AND COPYWRONG 87 sence of such creations it seems a peculiar hardship that men of letters should not have been selected for distinctions; the " Blue Ribbon of Literature " for instance, most legitimately their due. Finally, as if to aggravate these neglects, literary men have not been consoled, as is usual, for the loss of more airy gratifications by a share in what Justice Greedy would call "the substantials, Sir Giles, the substantial. " They have been treated as if they were unworthy of public employments, at least with two exceptions — Burns, who held a post very much under Government, and Wordsworth, who shares the reproach of "the ioaves^and fishes" for penny rolls and sprats. The want of business-like habits, it is true, has been alleged against the fra- ternity ; but even granting such deficiency, might not the most practical Idlers, Loungers and Ramblers of them all fill their posts quite as efficiently as those personages who are paid for having nothing to do, and never neglect their duty ? Not that I am an admirer of sinecures, except in the Irishman's accepta- tion of the word ;* but may not such bonuses to gentlemen who write as little as they well can, viz., their names to the receipts, appear a little like a wish to discountenance those other gentle- men who write as much as they well can, and are at the expense of printing it besides ? I had better here enter a little protest against these remarks being mistaken for the splenetic and wrathful ebullitions of a morbid or addled egotism. I have not " deviated into the gloomy vanity of drawing from self;" I charge the State, it is true, with backing literature as the champion backed Cato — that is to say, tail foremost — but I am far from therefore considering my- self as an overlooked, underkept, wet-blanketed, hid-under-a- bushel, or lapped-in-a-napkin individual. I have never, to my knowledge, displayed any remarkable aptitude for business, any decided predilection for politics, or unusual mastery in political economy — any striking talent at " a multiplicity of talk," — and * One Patrick Maguire. He had been appointed to a situation the re- verse of a place of all work ; and his friends, who called to congratulate him, were very much astonished to see his face lengthen on receipt of the news. " A sinecure is it !" exclaimed Pat. " The divil thank them for that same. Sure I know what a sinecure is. It's a place where there's nothing to do, and they pay ye by the piece." 88 PROSE AND VERSE. withal, I am a very indifferent hand at a rubber. I nave never, like Bubb Doddington, expressed a determined ambition " to make a public figure — I had not decided what, but a public figure I was resolved to make." Nay, more, in a general view, I am not anxious to see literary men " giving up to a party what was meant for mankind," or hanging like sloths on the " branches of the revenue," or even engrossing working situations, such as gauger-ships, to the exclusion of humbler individuals, who, like Dogberry, have the natural gifts of reading and writing, and nothing else. Neither am I eager to claim for them those other distinctions, titles and decorations, the dignity of which requires a certain affluence of income for its support. A few orders in- deed, domestic or foreign, conferred through a bookseller, hang not ungracefully on an author, at the same time that they help to support his slender revenue ; but there would be something too ludicrous even for my humor, in a star — and no coat ; a Garter — and no stocking ; a coronet — and no nightcap ; a col- lar — and no shirt ! Besides, the creatures have, like the glow- worm and the firefly (but at the head instead of the tail), a sort of splendor of their own, which makes them less in need of any adventitious lustre. If I have dwelt on the dearth of state patronage, public employments, honors and emoluments, it was principally to correct a Vulgar Error, not noticed by Sir Thomas Browne ; namely, that poets and their kind are " marigolds in the sun's eye," — the world's favorite and pet children ; whereas they are in reality its snubbed ones. It was to show that Litera- ture, neglected by the government, and unprotected by the law, was placed in a false position ; whereby its professors present such anomalous phenomena as high priests of knowledge — with- out a surplus ; enlarged minds in the King's Bench ; schoolmas- ters obliged to be abroad ; great scholars without a knife and fork and spoon ; master minds at journey work ; moral magis- trates greatly unpaid ; immortals without a living ; menders of the human heart breaking their own ; mighty intellects be- grudged their mite ; great wits jumping into nothing good ; or- naments to their country put on the shelf ; constellations of ge- nius under a cloud; eminent pens quite stumped up; great lights of the age with a thief in them ; prophets to booksellers ; — COPYRIGHT AND COPYWRONG. 89 my ink almost blushes from black to red whilst marking such associations of the divine ore with the earthly — but, methinks, 'tis the metal of one of the scales in which we are weighed and found wanting. Poverty is the badge of all our tribe, and its reproach. There is, for instance, a well-known taunt against a humble class of men, who live by their pens, which, girding not at the quality of their work, but the rate of its remunera- tion, twits them as penny-a-liners ! Can the world be aware of the range of the shaft ? What pray, was glorious John Milton, apon whom rested an after-glow of the holy inspiration of the sacred writers, like the twilight bequeathed by a mid-summer sun ? Why he was, as you may reckon any time in his divine Para- dise Lost, not even a ha'penny-a-liner ! We have no proof that Shakspeare, the high priest of humanity, was even a farthing-a- liner, and we know that Homer not only sold his lines " gratis for nothing," but gave credit to all eternity ! If I wrong the world I beg pardon — but I really believe it invented the phrase of the republic of letters, to insinuate that taking the whole lot of authors together, they have not got a sovereign amongst them ! I have now reduced Literature, as an arithmetician would say, to its lowest terms. I have shown her like Misery, — For Misery is trodden on by many, And, being low, never relieved by any, — fairly ragged, beggar'd, and down in the dust, having been robbed of her last farthing by a pickpocket (that's a pirate). There she sits, like Diggon Davie — " Her was her while it was daylight, but now her is a most wretched wight," or rather like a crazy Kate ; a laughing-stock for the mob (that's the world); unprotected by the constable (that's the law), threatened by the beadle (that's the law too), repulsed from the workhouse by the overseer (that's the government), and denied any claim on the parish funds. Agricultural distress is a fool to it! One of 'those counterfeit cranks, to quote from " The English Rogue," " such as pretend to have the falling sickness, and by putting a piece of white soap into the corner of their mouths will make the froth come boiling forth, to cause pity in the beholders." 90 PROSE AND VERSE. If we inquire into the causes of this depression, some must un- doubtedly be laid at the doors of literary men themselves ; but perhaps the greater proportion may be traced to the want of any definite ideas amongst people in general, on the following par- ticulars : — 1. How an -author writes. 2. Why an author writes. 3. What an author writes. And firstly, as to how he writes, upon which head there is a wonderful diversity of opinions ; one thinks that writing is " as easy as lying," and pictures the au- thor sitting carefully at his desk " with his glove on," like Sir Roger de Coverley's poetical ancestor. A second holds that "the easiest reading is d — d hard writing," and imagines Time himself beating his brains over an extempore. A third believes in inspiration, i. e., that metaphors, quotations, classical allusions, historical illustrations, and even dramatic plots — all come to the waking author by intuition ; whilst ready-made poems, like Coleridge's Kubla Khan, are dictated to him in his sleep. Of course the estimate of his desert will rise or fall according to the degree of learned labor attributed to the composition : he who sees in his mind's eye a genius of the lamp, consuming gallons on gallons of midnight oil — will assign a rate of reward, regu- lated probably by the success of the Hull whalers ; whilst the believer in inspiration will doubtless conceive that the author ought to be fed as well as prompted by miracle, and accordingly bid him look up, like the apostle on the old Dutch tiles, for a bullock coming down from heaven in a bundle. 2dly. Why an author writes ; and there is as wide a patchwork of opinions on this head as on the former. Some think that he writes for the present — others, that he writes for posterity — and a few, that he writes for antiquity. One believes that he writes for the benefit of the world in general — his own excepted — which is the opinion of the law. A second conceives that he writes for the benefit of booksellers in particular — and this is the trade's opinion. A third takes it for granted that he writes for nobody's benefit but his own— which is the opinion of the green-room. He is sup- posed to write for fame— for money— for amusement— for politi- cal en ds and, by certain schoolmasters, " to improve his mind." Need it be wondered at, that in this uncertainty as to his mo- tives, the world sometimes perversely gives him anything but COPYRIGHT AND COPYWRONG. 91 the thing he wants. Thus the rich author, who yearns for fame, gets a pension ; the poor one, who hungers for bread, receives a diploma from Aberdeen ; the writer for amusement has the plea- sure of a mohawking review in a periodical ; and the gentleman in search of a place has an offer from a sentimental milliner ! 3dly. What an author writes. The world is so much of a Champollion, that it can understand hieroglyphics, >if nothing else ; it can comprehend outward visible signs, and grapple with a tangible emblem. It knows that a man on a table stands for patriotism, a man in the pulpit for religion, and so on, but it is a little obtuse as to what it reads in King Cadmus's types. A book hangs out no sign. Thus persons will go through a chap- ter, enforcing some principal duty of man towards his Maker or his neighbor, without discovering that, in all but the name, they have been reading a sermon. A solid mahogany pulpit is want- ing to such a perception. They will con over an essay, glowing with the most ardent love of liberty, instinct with the noblest patriotism ? and replete with the soundest maxims of polity, with- out the remotest notion that, except its being delivered upon pa- per instead of viva voce, they have been attending to a speech. As for dreaming of the author as a being who could sit in Par- liament, and uphold the same sentiments, they would as soon think of chairing an abstract idea. They must see a bond fide wagon, with its true blue orange or green flag, to arrive at such a conclusion. The material keeps the upperhand. Hence the sight of a substantial Vicar may suggest the necessity of a par- sonage and a glebe ; but the author is, according to the proverb, " out of sight, out of mind " — a spirituality not to be associated with such tangible temporalities as bread and cheese. He is condemned par contumace, to dine, tete-a-tete, with the Barme- cide or Duke Humphrey, whilst, for want of a visible hustings, or velvet cushion, the small still voice of his pages is never con- ceived of as coming from a patriot, a statesman, a priest, or a prophet. As a case in point : there is a short poem by Southey, called the " Battle of Blenheim," which from the text of some poor fellow's skull who fell in the great victory — For many a thousand bodies there Lay rotting in the sun —