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Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m6thode. -1 ■ - ^ ' 1 2 3 4 5 6 / ^r I'' O.. V L-.' 1 it #> £. r' ( /C -c, Storr^V' M-< W ^ ■ ^ii. W Mi •»•«*< vkOo'V ij (t y\ M O s A Q A .1/ M O N • OR. HINTS ON HVML N. / GAMOS AG AMMON ; oil, HINTS OIM IIYMEK FOR THE USE OF PARTIES ABOUT TO CONNUBIAI.IZE. ' BY,T«t;HoN. HUGH ROWLEY, . ** ■• • ' Editor of '' Puniana." ' Nemo nic in punnuuj laoesalt."- ."■ •'. ,;■•■■ U. R. and another. TORONTO : THE CANADIAN NEWS AND PUBLISHING COMPANY, 187 1. )feu // /oon / t\ "-•"•VL^ TO THE READER. TTIIS now the very witching hour of night, — JL when shops are shut, and "got up " snobs delight — in swaggering, dancing, Terpsichor-ing — cheap ivceds smoking, and in songs an-koring — when they ought to be in bed — and snoring. Now, in the slumber-hush'd and silent streets, — the "thirsty " pleecemen tread accustom'd beats, — and nought the stillness of the hour disturbs, — save Cree-morns cabs which rattle i)ast the kerbs, — or the " Lul-lul-i-e-ty " of some gent, — who his excessive humor thus gives vent ; — his " chafit* and crow " may now be plainly heard, — as, feeling cocky, he would emulate that bird. — This is the hour that baby . . . Duckadumpling — who's slept till now, not e'en his tucker rumpling ! — wakes the house, tremendous, clarion shrill I — and lets you Vlll rO THE RKAlUiR. Im know he iiK'niis to yell and u'//// "I'is now tlic highly odorous W Hat phc — leads fc>rlh his little flats to graze J ome fair -\x\i\ sleei)ing beauty's living "hills of snow"! — Insitlious beast! li'hat seiTets you must know! -T is now that j)arhas list the liulbul's sighs —now i)Lelers's down the "airy's" ope bulls'-eyes ; — now burglars hate the night in jail ["stone jug.'J — Yes, 't is now of night the hour most witchin', - when beetles black hold revels in the kitchen ! — and anxious cats are out each other calling- in language termed confound 'em, - caterwauling ! — whilst dogs, who ou\:;ht to scare the thief with growling — keep instead the ndi;hhorhood awake with howling ! — "1' is now the ine- briate " rolls home ",.... tight ; — now Super- stition shivers, i)ale with fright; — it's much fear that in )'our brain runs riot : — pshaw ! tnorQ-phca would soon make much-ftar quiet ! — Now bobbies bid the tramp "move Hon!" and off he is; — and now the truck with penny pies and coffee is — being l)ut, 'gainst daylight comes, in order — for nl fresco use near i)avement border. — 'T is now the hour when, stuffy, stifling hot — at parties, balls, some fe^ta who knows what !— the " buttonhole " you 've in your coat's got seedy ; — your hair is tousel'd, and your face looks Aveedy; — your eyes are heavy, '/•(; THE R I'] A PER \\ licavicr slill your head:- you want one 'baci y, I' and S, and l)cd. — Now naughty swelld( )ni, on down bcils reclining, dreams of ** To-morrow " with its Ihrting, (litiing ;— its (ireenwidi dinners, diners fins in Taris— with another man or fair-hair'd "Mrs. Harris ;"— its Ricl.i. ^nd (hnnersi dinners to force hunger — \\itli oldi. ii wives or l)'faj)s wiili something ^ « ung<.'r ; its/7//y soupcrs you know we go all 'ii so -with Ihio^jne \\'\\\\-out the man Alonzo. — Ihi.^ is the liour i»ale Indigestion's crew — ma}' visit nil, or him, or me, or you ; — now dire Dyspepsia, o\\ her Uiurc of night, — on knighted mayor, or aldemanic v.ighl, — rides heaviest ; as on his back or chest, — or either side he sleeps, yet yet no rest : — his brain's a Maelstrom. Pandemonium ; it seems — he i)asses many life-times as he dreams — of men he 'd met at dinner, what he'd heard, — of tales he told, of cram- mers they averr'd; — these in his dreams get somehow jumbled up — with vampires, phan- toms, goblin' girls, and cup — with red-hot ice, cock's eggs, straight books, and eyes — whose glare is Mad ! He dreams of giant ilies, — of spiders, creepers, unnateral blue roses ! — of trunkless heads with most appalling noses!- of being where .... but 'twould ill beseem us — to name it . . . where . . . . dwells old Nicholas; — of being black, an : I M X TO TIfE READER, Etliiopian ! — of trying to wash white, becoming such a soapy 'iin ! — of men in armour, l)andits, Bucklers-swash ! — of tallcing to them, ah, such utter ///A';- bosh ! — of playing "Faust'' with some most lovely " Gretchen ;" — of smaU-pox, measles, every- thing that's catchin' ! — of moon and star heat, mad'ning calculations ; — of steamboat journeys RdcJi's ill-ustrations ! — of, on his chest, some bird, and worst of all absurdities !— of feeling the beast there, but knowing not avhat bird it is ! — of loving madly hideous hags and frights ; — of of op'ra pages in the pinkest, tightest tights ! — of drowning, sinking in a sticky sea — com})osed of coffee, wines, liqueurs, and tea ; — of Spiers and Pond, so greatly changed by sleep : — the one got sharp, the other aAvful deep ! — instead of steaks and chops from beeves or shee}),— in\iting stab- bing or the suicidal leap ; — of being bitten on the legs by leeches, and then prom'nading mitius his sixteen shilling continuations ; — of falling headlong from some height, a cropper, or — the wierdest ghost scene from the opera, — where Robert, Douk of Normandy "TheDevir' — by help of bad Bertramo, for a revel — the corpse dc ballet raises, charming creatures ! — personating nuns oh! such legs and feet-tures !* — * We really beg " Messrs, Bertram and Roberts' " pardon for making so free with their names. Next time we go to the Crystal Palace will make it all riu'ht. n 70 THE READER. XI they don't talk, those ghost-nun female dancers, — never talk [Ha! ha! yet iiov.- "the ballet" afiswrrsf] — but each dumb belle makes her legs a-i)air-ent — [l)'r'aps not hers .... no more than her back hair ain't ; — for oft sham ones, perfect ballet niollcts — are worn by Sarah, 'Melia, Jane, and Polly ;] — their chermidg abbess . . . some young belle de Eranee, who's — artistic going "s made hi^x premiere danseuse, — leans and poses 'gainst Roberto's shoulder, — tempting him, as also each beholder. — Oh ! were HE Robert with this muslin treasure, — he dreams he'd play "the Devir' too . . . with pleasure Yes, "tis the 'very witching hour of night — 'tis, in fact, the very witchinest period of the whole even- ing — that we sit down to address a fe\v_words, as a sort of lei'er du rideau, to our critic, to our reader, to o'lr friend, and to assure them, individually and collectively, how happy we shall be can we but make sure of a friend as our reader, that reader our critic, that critic our friend. Arist.'irchus"and all his omnipotent fraternity, will no doubt pronounce this cftbrt — which, by-the-bye hardly attains to the dignity of bookhood — to be simply Bosh ! — bosh poor et simple!! Quite so : and the funniest part of the business is — that we enthusiastically agree with Aristarchus and Co. No one — no, no one — can be more alive to the xu 10 THE READER. supreme absurdity of the olla podrida of nonsense contained in this Ijookling than its poor writer, whose unfortunate cacothcsscribendi^Q^ixow he looks upon as a real currentecalamoty ; but, dear A. and Co., — Ha! ha! that's the joke- tliat's the point — that's just it--t]"!at"s wliy it vas written ! — as Horace once so beautifuUy ])ut it to a l)arking mongrel in his own style of Latin, ^''Id est ciir."' — "that is why." As we told you in a preface to a former effort, we like desiperc-\Y\g in /oco, wnd we trust not to bore you thereby, but to dcsennuyer you, to w//bore you, as — though there are already lots of people with sense to write clever books and wear your life out — tliere are very few who, as we do, really go in for rubbish ; and you can't want every book to be a detp-ro/n/./dis — now, caii you? Of course not. Hooray! — we knew it I We are rather afraid }^ou may disapprove of our way of calling a spade a spade, and digging with it ; of our want of the Zoucrc'c-itcr in niodo, and of our using too much the Eort-hitier — as ifwewerea great gun — /// re \ of our vile syntax, bad spelling, and so on ; but we really don't mean any harm, and, as for our English ! if we are weak in our — " if it wases," and our " if it weres," in our " if it ises," and our "if it bes,'' and dread the use of " whom," we can't help it : life is so short that what TO THE READER. Xlll would this world be if one were fettered by paltry rules of orthography, syntax, etc., etc. etc. I — in- deed, all rules are — a bore, a horrid bore ; but, whatever our innumerable fiiults may doubtless l)e, we rather tbink we are — original : we flatter ourself that we do not belong to the " scrvuni pcciis'^ of imitators ; but you will see this as you get on, and can pitch into us if we do, and welcome, — not that we're changed by Robert Hood-in from a punster bold to a beefsteak-puddin', that we want to be much cut up, and so on ; not in the least ; but we knov/ it's the fashion to say of every ;;/."/, of every pun, " Ah, that's old ; we've heard that before ;" therefore we have avoided — carefully avoided — every one's puns except our very own, so we don't v»'ant you to say this time that you've heard it before, because you haven't — at any rate, we haven't, do you see ? Ah ! thank you, we thought you would. What a diversity of opinion there is about pun- punning. Some people doubt whether punning be wit or not, or rather they don't doubt at all, because they say point-blank — it isn't ! They can't do it, so of course it can't be worth doing — certainly not. Some severe critics — not Aristarchus, but Zoilus and Co., — accuse punsters — (we don't mean the ordinary small jokers one meets out at dinner sometimes, who, when you make a really brilliant XIV TO THE READER. mot, tliink it witty to cap you with — " You ought to be/z/zz-ished :" wc don't mean them: they are simply iml)ecile bores ; but punsters of the first force) — some severe critics, we say, accuse i/uvn of — ha I ha 1 it's too good ! — of fishing tlieir puns — out of the dictionary ! (miglit just as well say out of the dust-hole), and affect to look dovvU upon the whole thing. Some punning swell — forget who — was once sneeringly told — " Punning was a very low form of wit." " Very," he replied, " very low indeed, for it is \.\\{i foundation of all wit." Good, eh ? — had him there I When a man abuses pun- ning to us, we simply ask him one question : "Are you fond of music, painting, etc. ?" He may answer, " Yes, old fellar, awfully fond of 'em !" Bnt for goodness sake don't ask him to whistle you a tune, or to speak French or Italian before you ; it's too diabolical for his utter want of ear — and as for his love of painting, why, he will fearlessly wear a blue coat with a green cravat, or a blue-striped shirt with a violet tie, and, what is more, be happy therein ! He is much to be pitied ! Sydney Smith observed that " some people require to have a sur- gical operation performed on them to make them see a joke." He was right: they do. But why? ic'/iy .should t/icy be the people to criticise pun- ning ? However, whether a man enjoys punning TO THE READER. XV or not, he cannot deny that cmoUit mores, does joking, and breeds good temper, smiles, and laughter. However, assez, enough ! we pun when it suits us, and hereby give you notice of the fact, we go in for it — nostra pcriculo. If you like it — • there you are ; if you don't, there you ain't I ^^ Das istmc'uic geic'o/ui/idt ,'' as the lady (diet) called her nV//;/i,''-hal)it at the (ierrnan custom-house : punning, /;/ season, is our liabit. If you don't like it, Lord Macaulay, Lord Lytton, Mr. (lladstone, Mr. Long- fellow, Mr. Tupper, and others have publised seve- ral works, we believe, free from any such disgust- ing ribalry ; and, as they are for sale eh ? Of course ! There is one thing, however, you may be glad of: We haven't spun our book out; there is no padding in it ; we've tried our best to be luminous light, without being voluminous — heavy, though we may not always^ consume our own smoke. We could have easily wade a much thicker book, but, you see, thickness was not our object ; and, be- sides, our subject has already been — Ikithetically and Pathetically — written out ! We haven't en- larged on our themes, but have only suggested sub- jects for you to work out for yourself; we have not praised anybody, but have simply shown you what to Flee, Shrink, and Avoid, and you have to XVI TO THE READER. do the fleeing and shrinking, please : we've done our share of it now. One word more, and up goes the . . . the . . . curtain. Dear Aristarchus, benevolent Zoilus, if you do not appreciate us, please do not^ on that account, write us down an ass, unless, as our friendly Damon, you admire us as a sort of pithy- ass ; a donkey who gets on the spot — sometimes : look lipon us, if you will so highly honour us, as your ame danuic but please not as an aiic daniui^ and a fool, as there may be a certain small amount of method in our donkeyb.ood. ]}e good enough to remember, though you may not talk Russian with absolute freedom from all Teutonic accent, and with that amount of fluency you could wish, that there are one or two people on the globe who do ; in Russia, for instance, it is astonishing how popular is that difiicult but musical tongue. So it is with us : if you don't like mots^ jokes, puns, or if your car or brain is not sufficiently organized to see them, permit us to assure you of the existence of a large number of persons who do, and can. You may not like currant and raspberry tart with a bloater, or a spoonful of caviare to follow ; but you know there are your antitheses in taste ; there- fore please, O Aristarcus — please, Zoilus — be kind enough to do as you would be done b}\ and, as you are strong be merciful ! \i. R. Westfield House, Brighton. November 1870. GAMOSAGAil/MON ; OR HINTS ON HYMEN. CHAP. I. OCRATES' Xantippethy was his wife ; fel yes, Socrates' antipathy was his better half: you may quote his story and say she wasn't, and declare he loved her awfully, and so on ; but, bel hemmo, if he did so adore her, how comes it that he stated his opinion to his friend, Quivis Quilibet, so very plainly, thus ? — " My dear old man, if you ask me my opinion concerning Marriage, I can only say that I am perfectly certain that whether you marry, or do fiot marry, you will inevitably regret it !" How can you reconcile this with the theory of his adoring his Xantippe ? You don't loant to 1 Mii I 2 GAMOSAGAmMON ; reconcile it, you say ; you don't care a snuff for Socrates and his advice, nor for Punch and his justly celel)rated Judy-z/z^?/ — " Don't !" nor for any- body else with their counsels, nor for any advice of any sort or kind, and you don t want to be both- ered. Of course not ; Ha ! ha ! do you think we don't know that? do you think that we are not perfectly aware that giving any kind of advice is sim[)ly the most imbecile thing known out of Bed- ulam ? My dear reader, we know it quite as well as you do — we know that advice invariably bores the recipient to death, especially — N.B., very espe- cially — advice about marriage, and that — nobody ever even dreams of taking it. Nothing can be more weak — except doing it yourself, that would be more weak — than holding up A and B to C as doleful examples of the utter wretchedness, the undying bother caused by some vafi^-alliance or other ; pointing them out to him as social buoys, moored for evermore in troubled, muddy, quick- sandified waters ; as living finger-posts — monstrari digito — inscribed The way to the Dooce. C likes — oh ! shade of Tintoretto — the fast cheeky colours, the lem^rn-coloured hair, and other ir- Rachelnal proceedings of the demi-monde: he prefers the Naughtycultural to the " Daughticultu- ral " exhibition, and don't care two straws for all OK, HINTS OX IIY.MI':N. the examples in Europe, and will marry some lace-bedizencd lazy Lais, some Timandraously swell Phrync, some fearful very sow-sow Phffia, to-morrow — or his cook — in spite of all the years of male cursing and female penitential weepings that^iave come under his own very nose for as long as he can remember. There are those who say that " Marrying a j-^^^;//^/ wife is the triumph of Hope over Experi- ence ; " but in C's case, marrying a Jirsf one is quite as much so, and therefore when a man tells us, as a clever joke, that running after a railway train with a wheelbarrow to pick up honse-shoes is THE height of Folly, we tell him he knows nothing about it and deny his statement in toto ; for thk height of Folly is — plunging into Matrimony with- out minding what you are at ! If you doubt us, do it and see, and let us hear from you on the subject in, say, two months and a-half from our present speaking. Though we know perfectly the absurdity, the monstrous absurdity, of giving advice, and how everybody invariably hates the generous giver — for who is a greater bore than the man who when he meets you always begins with his " I say, old feller, 'pon my word if I were you I really wouldn't," etc., etc., etc. ? — we nevertheless suppose, as we have ;,.' 4 OAMOSAOAMMOy ; Started out on the war-patli, that we may as well get on, and at once, by inforniing you that Socrates and Punch, the subHme and the Charivari, go per- haps rather further than we do ; the former in l)re(hcting certain misery, and the latter in advo- cating celibacy. Our creed is — that it all tleitends on yourself whether your Marriage speculation turn out an earthly Paradise, or simply f/ie very ! Reverse. To hope for success, a man who purposes enter- ing into the Holy Joyous Bonds of Hymen, should — take it easy, and look a good long time and well ahead of him — before lie leai)s ! He won't ; we know he won't ; he 'II see us something'd first ; nevertheless he will kindly permit us to say — he ought to. Does the man who purposes entering into the H. J. bonds of H. know that 710 man is ever a hero to his valet or — his wife ? Ah ! he means to change all that, he thinks ; /le'W see that he is a hero to both of them. Alas ! insensate one ! — Booby ! ! Does the prospective connubialiser ever think, though there are as charm- ingly delicious fish in the sea as ever came out of it, that there are as ///-delicious ones, and that the difficulty of distinguishing which is which before it is too late for the knowledge to be of any use is almost insurmountable ? If he /las heard that it is (Hi, HL\TS ON HYMEN. 9 a remarkably wise child who knows his etc., etc., etc., is he aware that the task ot propliesying how his future wile viiiy turn tnit rei^uires a still more remarkably wise child — in Tact, that it is impossible? Is he aware of tiiis? No, he is not, and he does not believe it now. \V'e fancy we can hear him pooh poohing. — " \Vhat 1" he snecringly remarks, " not feel certain about that sweet angel, etc., etc., etc. Hah !" Dear reader, ' twas ever thus from youthhood's hour. Some one says, " Pray be careful," and the advised one instantly recjuires — a special train to bear liim to his love, one engine on before to pull, and one l)ehind to shovh ! 'T is sad, but so. Let us call the attenti(jn of this youthful intend- ing marryer to the fact that a free male bird in the bush is considered by other knounng birds — male ANj) female — worth any amount of caught birds in the hand. We would remind this probable future parent of lawfully begotten twins that the value of a hen bird in the hand depends exceedingly on the style of bird he has got hold of. A darling dove — an un- soiled one — for instance, would be a delightful spe- cimen to do a little bill-ing for, and a trifle of coo- ing with ; but that if, through any oversight on his part, or sham feathers on hers, he catch a Tartar in G a AM OS AG AM MON; i the form of a hcn-vulture or she-eagle, the holding her in hand- with any prospect of kcephi^ her in hand-would be painfuT, even premising it were possible. * Again, their peacockification has so much to do with hen birds. When the feathers drop out — as an Italian would put it, niolt-o — very much, there is often but a crow — a scare-crow — left behind. Re- member, O monseigneur the marrying man, that you are, if not amnio, a martyr ; wed-lock is a dead- lock ; it's a blessing or — a curse, for life — irrevoca- ble. FacUis dcccnsus, and so on. The courtship, etc., is delightful, it is quite charming. Scd rcrocare, etc., that's the job : your partner won't let you re- voke, and my Lord Draco, the lawgiver, is the tu- telar drag-on ! Every one who is at all acquainted with the pre- sent geograi)hy and history of these isles knows as well as w^e do, that the more the tempest rages in their own homes, the more the — the Sciily people will go to Penzance I ! Why ? Because the Sciily men have married the wrong women, and the silly women have done ditto to the wrong men. Again why? Because the mistake is that one-half the world will NOT take warning from the example of the other half, but insists on steadily shutting its eyes to the daily wrinkles it might pick up, would OR, HINTS ON IIYMEX. T it but keep its — eyes open. Pco])le fondly imagine t/h'ir married life mi/sf turn out all right ; that it will indubitably for ever remain a sort of Arcadian existence ; that they will have in their own en- chanted grot — with nothing in the waterworks way about their own particular Kgeria — a cheerier fate than t)oor 1) and 1^, who came so fearfully to grief last \\ ek or last year. It is quite possible. But renieml)er 1) and E — unless they were slobbering, mumbling, drivelling « idiots — must have thought the same, l.ook, if you will be so very good, at the result. How has the little game c:i\\(id yanos — that game which only two can play at — thriven with them ? Ah ! had they but had power to simply decline ^i^amos, ga?non, s^a- moi, gammon — and spinidge, they might very well have done without their separate visits to — to — to — Cornwall ! Alas ! poor D ! e/iett ! unhappy Y. ! D — rich young nobody — married Miss Kmailey Rougeington — fit wife for a silly man, as she was a second Celimene — when he had known her about a month, and had had time in about another to find out his mistake — to find out that his wedding garment was a sort of Nessus' shirt ; imnessus- hairy, even fatal, to his comfort. E, poor ycung swell, elegant pauper, whose creed — unauthodox to the last degree, but not an usual one — was that 11 ' 1 ( ♦ ! a 8 G AMOS A GA^l MON ; whatever the devil may be, A devil — of a lot of money is an agreeable companion, espoused Mrs. Highwey Rattecliffe — aged— for her ample figure — at her banker's, and, after a very short time, differ- ed with her excessively on the subject of Mad'moi- selle Celestine Aglae de Montmoverywrongci's establishment, an bois de St. Jean ! Consequences : E's wife took herself to herself and her money with her, and invoked the Dragon I D's wife, after wearing the most wonderful boots that ever were seen, and after making a terrible legshibition, a fearful X^g^posc of her ankles, ended by — entirely taking to her heels ! Eheu ! forsaken D ! Alas ! deceiver P> ! Oh, — I.e-Roi A-mor, vive k Roi If OR, HINTS ON HYMEN, 9 CHAPTER II. IKELY enough — O prcux c/iei'alicr — whilst reading some of the passages and opinions in this bookHng, you may erroneously be led to imagine that we do not adore the whole female sex, that we do not idolize them from their arched insteps, tcr- etesqiic suras, to their arched eyebrows and still archer eyes. If you //rzrr any such idea, you are mistook. Were we a Disraeli, a (Gladstone, or a modern Mezzofanti, no language we should eve-n then be master of could tell you with sufficient force, ana truth, how we worshi}) the Beautiful, in the shape of woman and girl-hood ; this, in fact, is the only thing in which we remember Solomon ! Do you think that we don't know that there are sweet, sweet women as well as you do ? Do you I 1 ! -• ill 1:^1 i M il ii * 10 GAMOSAGAUMON ; for one instant imagine that we are not aware that there are dear women whose pure natures and sunny gladness shed a halo of happiness around them and all who know them ? Do you think we don't know them ? We do, and we thank God for it. The flirts and otherwise selfish heartless coquet- terices we allude to and feebly chaff are, we most firmly believe, only the exceptions to a superlatively delicious rule ! ! t Do you think we mean any dis-respect to the beau sexe — of which we are one of the most encom- iastic admirers — by what we say ? Not a bit of it. If we mildly remonstrate with women and not with men, about paint, powder, wadding, teeth, instep, complexion, Loi'c, etc., do you think we mean all women ? or that v/e are quite blind to your vani- ties, O Dandy ^ Do jou flatter yourself that we don't know men to be as great flirts, coquets, etc., etc., etc., as girls? Do you suppose if we think women have dcdges, that we are ignorant about men's Machiavillanous resources ? Do you think we don't know that many, and many, and many a man lives but for admiration — dyes his hair, greas- es his eyebrows, paints his flice, poses to look pretty, and, wearing stays, fights daily over again the battle — not of " Moncontours" — but of son- contour? Of course we do ! If we advise you OR, HINTS ON IIl'MEN. 11 that in every deal there are only thirteen trumps in the pack, or recommend you to light a candle be- fore you leap in the dark, don't you think we give the same advice to women ? We can tell vou we do, sincerely. Do you imagine that, though using the ridiculous — though necessary — conventional- isms of Society, and calling you " a charming per- son," we are ignorant of the foct that, truthfully speaking, you may be the greatest humbug and bore out ? Bah ! we know all about it. You yourself, for instance, beau sire, may be //// Dc-mou : hope not ; as your faithful Damon we trust it is not so ; but if it is, if you are the bad-tempered, grumpy, sulky, peevish, vulgar-idea'd, obstinate creature you MAY be, you must be particularly cautious in choos- ing a wife. If it is so, all the more reason for your 7iot garnishing your town home for a female speci- men of diablerie to make her home and beget little imps in as your wife. You don't want some sly vSatanella, you poor dear old feller, to teach you a " Power of Love ;" not a bit of it. You want, you unfortunate Me- phisto, not a diablcsse, but a clear bless-ing, another Heloise ; somethmg very good, very calm, very soothing ; a very nice lady indeed I Seek her ; seek l-^r well : fmd her, and r.f k us to meet her at dinner. ■tiiri mm tmiiMy^i :r"^ 1. ,.! f I 12 GAMOSAGAMMOy; But, whether you are good or bad, Satan (in a Pickwickian sense) or Ithuriel, we want you to thoroughly understand that our " Hints on Hymen" are not intended for those wlio set themselves uj) for straight-lacing, for being .... perfect ! f(^r we don't mind telling you frankly that we prefer addressing those who are capable of enjoying our delightful little planet v.hile they may, and as it evidently was intended to be enjoyed. No : we speak to the happy /Az//^///' ; " the oil'd and curled Assyrian bulls'' of foshionable life ; the Hyperion of the upperest ten, and the ambitious Icarus of a slightly lower upper ten ; we write for the youthful and thoughtless party who, though he may be an orphan, nevertheless drives his />air in his phaeton, and his ma/r in his cab ; we would interest the easy-going sort of man who can either go to church with his sisters, or to see a Cancan a la Rigolboche, in the same contented frame of mind ; we address, in fact, the man who has heard and read more of airy op'ra tights than Arcopagites, and who, con- tented with the bays in his brougham, seeks no other laurels. To the man who uses Religion as a sort of sad- coloured raiment in which he may, so to speak, enjoy himself unseen and in safety ; to the man who wishes to have the credit of being an Agathos, OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 13 and as nearly an angel as mundane possibility per- mits, 7vithout being either the one or the other, we simply have nothing to say on our subject : noth- ing. No, respectable Chadband, nothing. We have far, oh ! far too much of the world, the flesh, and Mephistopheles about us, we are fartoo frankly earthly, to either interest or amuse you : after your ordinary private "meditations" ("Gustave" — "Boc- cacio" — or " Les Contes Drolatiques") we should be fearfully flat. Don't buy us, but send the money instead to purchase nince warm flannel waistcoats for people who live with the thermometer never be- low eight hundred, and mind your name appears as its generous donor in all the newspapers ! don't think of assisting some poor vagrant starving child under your own very nose in London — that would be weak, and probably wouldn't be advertised in " The Times." No, no, don't waste your money like that, but continue subscribing for providing the Squashyboo Islanders with brandy and revolvers ; go on going to sleep as usual in the most uncom- fortable positions possible every Sunday in church, or remain awake if you like, with that expression of fixed melancholy on your sublime features, that religious — Manfredy- Wandering- Jewified-r;/^/////^';/- cM look, which is peculiar to yourself, and which foreigners always so much admire in this country on T^ I 14 GAMOSAOAMMON ; li Sundays ; keep your volume of sermons — upside- down or otherwise — publicly before you ; distribute your tracts — you, h€\x\g perfect^ have of course the right to insult everybody else by imagining them to be vile ; quote Scripture — we presume, to show your power of memory — at every instant ; be High Church or Low ; get a step nearer to heaven by Purchas from Brighton, or as it suits you best, and marry saint or sinner — 20 to i on the sinner freely offered — as you prefer ! and when married, O Stig- gins, carefully avoid being the same sort of angel a certain " Abaddon" was, never rebel, but — cunning rogue I — knowing submission to be victory, simply pretend to allow the angel wings you have so often used for mundane experiments-— and which then folded you up so comfortably — to be clipped, and accept your married fate in a proper spirit, whether it be happy with some dear woman — whom you don't deserve, you thorough humbug I — or wretch- ed, one deathless miserere^ with some — some — untiring knagger ! ! \ ■■• \ .\. '1 OR, HINTS ON in MEN. 15 CHAPTER III. 1^ -. HAT a phi-toothpic — pshaw ! — lippic, '- we mean — what a philippic we might write — on knagging ! Prodigious ! v,What a diatribe on the whole dire tribe of knaggers ! Why ? oh, why ? — can any one tell us why a knagger invariably looks upon herself as — a martyr ? And not an agree- able martyr either, like the lady in the opera of Flotow's, with the last rose, but a dayvlish unplea- sant female. We really cannot — no, we really can NOT imagine how a woman, perhaps a mother, a m^re, can go on nag — nag — nag till she's horse, and her husband can get consolation from the grey, pony — yes, incredil^le as it sounds, from the grape on'y. Why charming — in every other way- -Regi na Judes ren(n\%re dolorcm ? Wjiy will a woman knag mmmmmM MP ill I I llt^ I 16 aAMOSAG.mMOy; until her poor husband, when absent, don't want to regina ever any more, and when at liome, feels in- clined to go and pitch himself head over heels into the very wettest water he can find ? O sweetest Regina, you ought to know, and remember, that knagging a man away from his household, aris ct focis, even supposing yourself to represent the heir- ess, is a dangerous game for you, for are we not told that " Absence makes the heart grow fonder" — (of — of — somebody else) ? We air. Some rather jolly widower, one of those who — though he mourns for decency's sake — does not re- fuse to be comforted, once wrote on his dead wife's tombstone — " Tears will not restore her, therefore I weep 1" This was good. Ha ! ha ! very good. She was a knagger — frequently hysterical — was ordered brandy — had a reddish nose — often very poorly — in one word, a Knagger, from whom he suffered an knag- gerny. If so, he was quite right, the widower, to weep crocodilely, for my Jewpeter ! the irony rail- ing, etc., on her grave can't keep her faster now, than she with her irony, railing, etc., kept him down during her life ! He was a very clever man, mind you, this weepin' W ; perhaps the very party who was so fond of his wife — at first — that he .wanted to OR, UiyTS ON 11 y MEN. If — to — eat her, and who had since so much regretted that he had not — ah I — eaten her ; was he by any chance the originator of that deHghtfiil joke about the difference between a honey-comb and a honey- moon, he having discovered that marriage was not a lot of little cells, but one Trcmenduous sell only. Can't you fancy his delight ? — in i)rivate — oh, strictly in private — his saying to himself, perhaps with a new young lady — different sort this time — in his eye, " Ha ! ha ! ma wife is morie, vivc 7noii wife ! La reign is over, vive le nine ! /" Can't you fancy it ? He's not, swan-like, going to sing at his own death, so he does it at his wife's, the kiici^cr's who cut him up so mercilessly. ]]ut busta ! eno'igh on this most painful theme. Dc ?nortieis, etc., etc., etc. : she is dust; she has left her as/ies beliind her, and with them — her miserable cinuer-ease f ViWd is gone, gone, as Theodore Douglas Hook Jerrold Smith or somebody said, to tliat place wiicre the lireworks are even on a more extensive scale than at the Cristial Palace ? O reader, dear reader, may we be permitted feel- ingly to observe — " requiescai in pace" — No, no, we don't mean the defunct lady, but — the — the — widower, with his second ! ! Hi' mI ! 18 a AM OS AG All M ON ; CHAPTER IV. \m\ I GST men, we take it, remember those Jours si beaux of innocence and boy- hood when sucked lollipops were a treat, Bath buns a joy, and tarts ex- cited greediness ; when they took dancing lessons of Miss Geary, and a girl of fourteen could make them blush all over I Most men, we fancy, can go even further back than this, and perhaps still remember one of the songs of the never-sufficiently-to-be- regretted happy hours of childhood — that classic of the nursery — which described how " Froggy went a-wooing " — playing croaky, perhaps, as shown in our croquis — and generally making an ass of him- self, as amorous frogs and toads of larger growth do en to:\.des partes, as the Spaniard says it, every- where, in every land under the stars. \\c hope, OR^ IITXTS OiV IIYMEX It () reader, tliis frog song isf nicht to-Xilt^ is not dead, in your memory, with its tragic finale ; " How froggy was crossing it over a brook," Heigho ! says — says — your author, " when a Hly-wliite (hick came and gobbled him up " — with a very delicious pudding and a tremendous lot of gammon and spinach besides. We do hope you have not forgotten this, because — it so exceedingly reminds us of what goes on round us every day. Man, like froggy, is so apt to be led a-wooing, and to follow as closely as possible his lovely Leader — not the celebrated bare-leda of the Jove-ial Swan — but the leader who is dux to him — his lily-white dux^ his love, that he runs more or less danger, according to his lily- white duck's veracity nnd voracity, of his l.-w.d. turning round and gobbling him up, and " taking him in," morally, if not corporeally. How many love-matches are there, for instance, which would have turned out pretty well — as well as a small income would have alloAvcd them to turn out — broken to smash by the l.-w. duck because The Most Noble the Martjuis of Watercroesus, or some other equally green but rich parti — feeling what some wit has termed " an insane desire to keep somebody else's daughter " — comes in, and, with the l.-w. d.'s jilty, guilty consent, sends to the Ill: ij' 20 OAMOSA(JA},lMOX ; right-a1)0iit the l.-w. d.'s liithcrto liai)i)y and ('on- fu ling lovier ! Here is a man — g<)l)l)le(l up, taken in, and- if lie really loved his l.-w. d. — done for ! — like froggy, gobbled up through going a-wooing ! () 'I'ruth ! why don't you put on some clothes, come out of your well, and make yourself useful ? () Fidelity I why don't you leave off hugging that Cross for a little, and come and look after' a few of us that want looking up ? O Cupid ! cupidinous, erotic, and erratic, v/hat are you worth — in flict, what is love? We are not alluding to the love of the antique sort, to the Philemonish Baucisified l)assian, to the epicene loves of the gods and the goddesses, who must have had, before the Christian era, a B.C., even a 7rry busy, time of it, nor to the love of the middle-aged knights — knights of the middle ages, we mean — and warriors, sans pair ct sans rcprochc^ who did kiK;w how to love ; v/e are not even alluding to the much later time, when a man knew that if he did co in for love it was about o even betting whether it cost him his life or not. No : we allude to the washed-out nimby-namby, frozen, i:A\^\y -chalet^ selfish, half-and-half, emasculate, feeble-knee'd, lumbago-back'd sentiment, called "Love" by Society of to-day. Call that love? Bah ! Love, we are told, laughs at locks and bolts OR, II r NTS ox IIYMEX. tl air.I bars, and ironmongery in general ; of eoiirsc he does, and at everything else too — he can alTord to laugh, because nowadays when he becomes co- respondent or jilt, he has no chance of getting any damage done him ; he may ha\'e to nay damages, Init won't get any in the shape of a thorough good horse-whipi)ing, or a shot through the lungs in the cool of the morning, from the husband or brother; No, no. The 1870 husband — Jhe IJayard — instead of anything of that sort, takes it comfortably, employs — what somebody ternieda crimconometer, a detective, goes calmly into the Divorce Court, meets his once-friend-now-only-his-wife's -.(if even that) — at the club, passes him on an average twenty-nine times every day in the Row or Picca- dilly, sits next him unmoved at the Play, aiid if it were not that perhaps it wouldn't be (/uiic the thing, would ask him to dinner and forget tl.e whole beastly business. Do you think the present idiotic Lord Watercroesus — who was a fool at Kton and funked football, a fool in his regiment and funked hunting, and always will be a fool ai^d funk everything — would have darid to " cut anybody out " if he had lived fifty or sixty years ago ? not a bit of it ! Dear reader, duelling maybe murder, it may be; but — when duelling went oui^ and the l)i\orce il' asas 22 GAMOSAGA^JION ; Court came in, Love, the inspirer of heroes, the hero of heroines, the soul of every book that ever was written — except perhaps the dictionary— Love, the real business, went out too. Do you think if Philemon and his l.-w. d. Baucis had had a Watercroesus — any amount, in fact, of scented, wristbandcd, gilded youths of the period — come between them, it would have prevented //wir earning their tlitch of pork, and — saving it? Do you imagine Baucis would have thought the amantium iron in a-mantium of the Belgrave Scjuare of her time with Watercroesus, preferable to happi- ness with poor Phil in their cottage by the subur- ban Dead Sea, the Mort-lake of the period ? Do you believe she would ? Wc don't one bit. May\ Monsewer, noos avong shongjey two slar. We've got our 1870 sort of Love, and a beauty he is ! 1 His mother Venus was born of a Sea-ripple ; by Jingo ! he's got rather the look of a C-ripple him- self ! ^ .^tmis^m^ OR, HINTS ON HYMEN 23 CHAPTER V. - ISELY or foolishly, you cannot yet tell which, you are about to take the tremendous plunge. • Unlike two " Dears ex mac/iiniV^ taking a plunge there is no question of your pausing on the brink : you have proposed to your idol— -you have been accepted ! She has no money, bi; vou know that her hair is her own, not by purchase, but by gift of Mother Nature. You \..'Ay that her figure does not come from Paddington ... that was the reason .>.ic told you she could swim, and — let you see her do it; and you — you love her, and now you are engaged, and as we have said, about to take the trcr lendous plunge, the leap in the dark, nnd — iria, ry her. Securo. Let us, permit us, to suppc.e, clear I oy, that you I aAMOSAUAMMOy ; are sitting in some secluded spot, sitting about the hour of sunset, sunset glowrious, golden, mellow, the hour for bliss, for rapchar ! and — your love approaches you — the adored of your Soul ! the Archdarling of your future hopes I I With what joy do you not v.atch her light foot- fall, elastic as the step of one of the almelis of Esne, as it brings her towards you ! She is one of those " ' " Creatures so blight that the same lips and eyes Thoy wear on earth will ?ervc in Paradise ! " Your arm, sinuous as a snake, glides round her and crushes her to your heart. You //ore realize the truth of the assertion that kissing her you love is like eating soup with a fork, for — you can 7iof get enough of it. You gaze into and see yourself mir- rored in her glorious eyes, " Eyes which flash love to eyes which flash again." and you thank Goodness for giving you such pupils to instruct in the " art of Love." You gaze into these pellucid wells of truth, look adoringly through them — so to speak — into what you fondly imagine, perhaps justly, possibly not — to be the depths of a pure soul beyond ; you inhale her every perfumed breath, and dream of — of — Peace and Lubbin' ; ng on every cadence of sound whi ft you ripp OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 25 ipils into )ugh yiiie, of a bied )in' ; pies K from oMl tliat — that " Foutarnhcr dee tootey la- mcrotcsey dolc/iettzseyPAe,r ruby mouth. You passion- ately say to her " Its nectar and ambrosia to be next yer and embrace yer ! " You drink in, with 7i'/uit ecslacy ! every loving murmur that siglis from between those two scarlet rose-leaves which form that luscious mouth. Ah ! dear Strephon, those rose-leaves with the crystal dew on them I Those cherries, which one does not want to make tico bites at, but two hun- dred ! Ah ! those two4ips, those rosebuds, those heart-seizers (Hke Telemachus, we are used to Call- ip-so) — are they not sv/eet? What can ec^ual their flavour ? You note, as only a man who has got to the soup-ladle stage of spooniness can, the thousand indefinable somethings which, to yoi^f, make up the '; .phic whole ; the pressure of her hand is a 'leucious delirium tremens ; the touch of a tress of (vT bear's or im-bear's-greased hair, of a fold of her dress even, is sufficient to start the bloodjr running races from the crown of your head to the end of your biggest doi^t de pied ; you feel, in fact, adora- tion, /^^r^7/-onate love ; and straightway, my gentle Narcissus, my poss'^^V prize idiot, you think "it's all right ; " your vanity — for a beneficent Providence :iah ^iO beautifiilly tempered the wind to the shorn lamb, that we All think ourselves lovely, everyone 26 GAMOSAQAUMON ; III! is vain — your vanity flatters you with the certainty that she, in her turn, feels all thls gushing style .of thing, this agreeable form of mumbling imbesil- lyty, for you. You ne-, pause to think, especially at such a moment a- ' ' * that perchance she would much rather you were " Vnother," who has got his conge from Pa and Ma for the sake of your money or name ; you never dream it likely that in heart your hclle ange belle ange to some one else ; you have never heard of any Rupture, and, with Her near, are happy. Ah ! unhappy day ! alas ! insensate one ! why will you not try and see if her angel face be a true index to her mind, temper, etc., etc., etc. ; or if it be a volto sciolto with its pensieri stretti kept well in the background, simply, simperingly, allowing you to worship it ? why 7i'on''t you make certain that you are 7iot about to make a phool of yourself? " Nought," O amorous frog, " '* Nought hut love can answer love And render bliss secure," SO says Thomson ; and the party from Algiers, Dante, evidently was pretty much of the same ill \ OR, HINTS ON HYMEN 27 mind when he said in his comprehensively clastic Italian, " Amor a nuUo amato amar pcniona^^ which means, exactly translated word for word, ** You are an ass if you marry a woman who don't caro for you, and you'd better look precious sliarp to see that she does before you put your foot in it.' He was very clever, Dante. The advertising tailors and others, having faith in Keats, tell us that " A thing of beauty is a joy for ever :" they mean overalls, vests, garments, diamonds, statues, marble women, and other articles of " virtue and bigotry ; " but if you would be happy after the first — say three months — of your marriage, don't apply this Keatysfication to flesh and blood women : they may be " things of beauty," but they are not — invariably — "joys for ever," that is — to their hus- bands. However, as we don't want to turn your hair — from the exquisite black or golden brown which it is now at present — grey in half an hour with fright, rasserenez vous. We will take it for granted that she docs love you — in her way. Yes, it must be !■' i: •28 GAMOSAGAUMON ; so ; she adores you—/;/ /ler luay, the very mnd you walk llu'ough, and (v/liich is important) never did, and Vv'iiich is luo/r important never 7C'i//, care one farthing for tha'c !)east "Another." Yet, tliough you are a most charming person (have you not bought our book?), it is Just possible, mind, Just (with a big J ) possible, that you make no more imjM'ession on the dear object's heart than the rainbow ti.... thrown by some prism do on the wall they glance over. O Love, • -o\ u 1 you are not only rather like a cripple, but as the wit has said, how fearfully are you deformed \A\cn — v/hen — you are all on one side ! () Amor gig^iif amorefn ! What a humbug you are ! How unreliable, and, and — not a fact ! But by the bones of the eleven thousand miser- able unmarried women, a girl who consents, no matter under what circumstances, to marry one man whilst loving, or even tenderly regretting, "another," deserves all the inextinguishable misery such an union is pretty nearly sure to bring her ; for this houri is guilty of purjhouri ! she is a — cheat, a false jilt ; and between jilt and guilt the difference is but small. Zoological parties may, if it so please them, call the female cheetah the most graceful animal that lives under the sun of India : it is not impossible ; on, IJWTS 0\ HYMEN. ,9 we don't know; „.o never had .„ i„dia„ o„,__. , >ou for a pony, or any j.art of one, to fnid a vrv :::;■ ;:r ^"■^"■"' ^"^'^■•-^■^ - -- -"-- '^^--l * * • • ■ in Knghiid ! H^ ** ■ w 5* 30 OAMOSAGAMMOX; 4 ^ 1 ;; i m CHAPTER VI. RETCHED reader, we are going to ask you a question. Like the adver- tisements in the newspapers, we want to know something. No, no ; not that ; and we don't want to know if you bruise your oats ; — we don't care a straw whether you do or not, nor for your carpets, nor your camp-stool-icon for your floors, nor your cacoa, nor your starch, nor whether you double up your babies or your perambulators, nor for your "Hunt on your skin," nor for any thing but one thing, which is arrre you burrowken — (it's awfully tragic, by-the-bye) — arrre you burrowken of yourr rest with — ah ! — with — with .... No, v/ait a minute ; we'll put it another way. Arrre you turnibled with — ^with — Jealousy ? jealiosity? Ha ! ha ! Are you troubled with jeali- osity ? Are you ? OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 31 ijeali- If you are — Poi^cro viendicantc ! poor beggar ! — there is no syrup, no specific, which can minister to the heart diseased ; no ointment, though rubbed in for one kniar month, will cure this effect of excessive love ; pills won't touch the cockles of your heart ; Maddle. Panacea even cannot moder- ate this jaundiced affection ; all the doctors in I>ondon may drug you, pill you, physic you, poison you, lance you, bleed you, cut you, cup you, probe you, poultice you, blister you, run seatons through you and hold a/ite-niorfcm examinations on you, unless they give you the loved one like a poultice round your neck, or apply her as a blister to your heart, or, better still, give her to you and you only, simply to be taken — neat. " It is a waste of their tin7e and yours ! it is all useless I ! No . . . good . . . what . . . ever ! So also as regards your modern Philters, they are powerless too ; they can't make the loved one's Lips-come to yours ; they prci'cnt, dont assist you to cholera ! No. Philters, physics, ointments, throw the Whole — away — but not to the dogs, as we have one or two of them we are not anxious to — dispose of Of course you know as well as we do that there are fifty different sorts of Jealousy : jealousy of a woman you don't even know to speak to ; jealousy % Ill I I i;^ L:!. I < i 32 GAMOSAOAllMON ; of your fmuci'c ; jealousy of your wife; jealousy even when you dislike a woman, born of your own wounded amour propre ; jealously of one particular man only ; jealously of the entire creation ; jeal- ousy — but, good gracious I we are not going to give you a treat-ise on this subject ; it would fill an immense book by itself; suflicc it to say that all the Varieties are nearly ecjually hardy, are war- ranted to grow very rapidly with much or little dressing, and to become inured to any soil or climate they take root in. Let us suppose, O gentle gentlemanly manly swain, that you are much in love, that you have fallen in that state with no chance of getting up again, and that you are very jealious, in the simple ordinary acceptation of the term : as Moses' poet would put it You love her laughing roguish eye, her juicy lips, her instep high, her rounded limbs, her swelling bust ; your latest love, or p'raps your f//st ; her satin skin, her gold and pearls — the pearls her teeth, the gold her curls, — that tiny waist, the 7t€z retrousse, her tout ensemble's Perfect you say ! . . Of course : we'll grant all that ; she's the acme of transcendentalism ! ! ! Go on Moses .... 'Twas torture, common in the days gone by, to have the lid cut quiv'ring from your eye [they did it muchly ! nh\ HINTS (L\ m MEX 33 at Pompo-eyc-eyc], and then be lasten'd facing t'wards the sun, with nought to drink, for eating, — not a bun. Or the drip, drip, on your soon bald cranium of the small ^\ii////a" a la Herculaneum for days together I ah ! what anguish, pain ! Douche take, we say, such water on the brain. And 't is torture when you'd take a header in bright waters, if you take instead — ah I — we've named it, sir, above, this splash in Latin ; in English we could not^ no, not put that in ! Or when, with back to fire, and lifted coat, you feel come stealing o'er a place remote — a warmth so soft, so soothing — pleasing ; kept thus enjoyable, by simply easing the too hot tweed from with thee junction ; oh ! to thy back what balmy unction ! But scorching thus, if sitting thoughtless down, it does not to thy brow raise quick one frown, why, then you'd stand the heat of shot and shell, if thus you take the fiery breech, O swell : for torture 't is as are mof- quitoes, corns, street bands, sea-sickness, duns, and shaking strong men's hands when you wear i"),>; so ' tis to loose your keys (or teeth), or strange babes dandle on your knees, who don't smell sweet, or when the wanted sneeze won't come, or bed and black Sicilian fleas, or from a Cairo donkey-boy — flat B's [they run eight to the ounce, and smell most beas — tly] they're called in history " Little m I 34 (;A.)f()SA(j.mMf>y ; i ; r^'hi ; I ■ 1! i.'i Kasc "! [N. l>.--()iily takes eleven of ihem if ounding liuff Buffellow of the Malarian Mounts ! It's simply mania to remain near her : it's insanity, a bad form — by Jupiter Tonans I the worst form — of dementia to have anything t( do with a jealous woman : in-evitable grief must follow. The afnrest cura that ever did the pillion business behind the horseman will stick to you evermore. You recpiire in marriage precisely the same qual- ity that you require in eating sausages : you want — Confidence, absolute Confidence ; not distrust. And yet they tell you there is no love ivithout jealousy. Boo-hoo ! After, for only taking oft' your hat very politely perhaps to poor old Miss Waulle Flowherre, you've been driven mad for nearly a fortnight, your wife apologizes for the anguish she has caused you, on the score that it is her Love for you which gives rise to her anger ! ! Ach Gott ! how we feel on this subject ! No one knows, as a Gennan would put it, how much 7vie iicl! Dear reader, row is the game worth the candle il m : t '4 ■ ' 'I! ( ne GA3IOSAGAM3fON ; — the illumination — the — the — hang it ! the Flare np? If one can ?/o^ have Love lii'ithout Jealousy, take our word for it, chcj- ami,, you are forty-seven thousand billion times better off without it ! Are you a veritable Joseph ? Mashalla I the jealous wife will treat you as what Lever calls " a gay Lutherian," as an incontinent Don Juan, and wish to shut you up in a domestic Don-John accord- ingly ! Are you a very dove, a cooing dove ? Caramba ! you'll be treated as though you were an eagle, and all your thoughts ill-eagle ! 'Ave you the timid 'abbits of the 'are? Diantre ! you'll get all the credit of being the roaringest of lions going about seeking whom you may devour ; you'll have six-ail d-a-quarter kids set down to you, O lion, every day, though you may only have had a chop wi'^h Spooner at the club, and not at Brompton with Una ! And, by the living Jingo I this is fiot the worst of it, for ike most wretched part of the business is, that the jealous woman, though she may perfectly well know her husband to be a Joseph, pos . . i . . . tive . . . ly to be a Joseph, treats every other woman, married and single, young and old, with whom he is brought in contact en fefnnie de Potiphar ! ! Yes, en femitie de Potiphar\ Which, don't you know, to say the very least of it, goes OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 37 potiphar towards making a husband feel, oh - so limp-so done for-so iin-utterably Done for 1 ' If, avnw, you are heavily hit, very spooney about a woman who is afflicted witi, the green-eyed monster, smother your love, not Jike Othello the black-amour, but in ,-our own private boo^om- your boozom is your own to do as you like with if you have strength of mind and pluck enough- herefore smother it, oh ! some-other it 'ere it be too late, alas ! too late. Smash Cpid, the bipen- nated buooooy, the little /„r««-, whilst he is yet a child ; smother him before he has time to become a tremendous T.tan in the plentitude of his power to do for you; smother him, oh ! some-other him and hve to see how jolly miserable your light ot other days will make some other man' i ' ' I 38 UAMOSAGAUMON; I ij i ; i ■ \ ij • ] 'i t< -' i:^ ' ■ ■ W^ t Hv,' I i'} , i i. i,; *'■ .- kI CHAP. VII. OKINCl apart, Jealousy is the very Jiiice. There is no doubt about it. To the jea- lous being it is the bete ?iohr, the great ' bore, the white elephant who, with slow *^MW^'^ but equal foot, tramples out all chance of ''iMite^ married confidence and happiness. Yes, indeed, jealousy is a bad business, and a jealous wife who — ahem ! — loves you too much, and insists on having you home by — at the very latest — the elephant-hour, by sixty minutes to twelve p. m., is a badder ; but there is another phase of — of — " Love"' which is equally nearly dis- mal ; it is madly adoring seme Seraphina who don't love you enough ; who, not to put too fine a point upon it, don't care a ha'penny for you; who, in fact, cares not one single brass farthing whether you start to-morrow for a ten year's tour in the I on, IIINT.^ ON HYMEN. 89 m '51 t t Scilly or Lip-hairy Iskuids, stay at home, or go for a twenty-seven year's cruise among (and with) the modern — Sickladies I ^''Anner .u,„^ nuiour est anicr^ The poet was right. It is indeed; and if, poor youth, your all- absorbing, devouring passion is not answered by more i)assion, if, Pig-male-iones(iuely, yov love a ''''fillc dc niarbrc^' it is a great hoar; in fact, there is not a doubt but that for you. it is Ainoris sacra fames (not auri) such a losing game is ali love when .it is not return'd, \\\\q.\'\ bouquets, gloves, and things are spurn'd, all letters, lines, acrostics burn'd, your milk of human kindness churn'd into anything but " the vStilton " by her your fondest hopes are built on. Then Paradise is lost (see Milton.) Without her you feel (piite use- less, like an orange when 't is juiceless ; vvithout her you can not slumber, of your frame the prize cu-cumber. To you th' Elysium of her love 'd be what the Ark was to the dove ; you'd make of her your Juggernaut ; you feel you'd die to hug her ; not for one short lifetime, but for a most tremen- juous long time afterwards, and even longer ; and so, in the middle of a barren world, of which she, Seraphina, Amaranthia, (Iwendoline, Sojjhonisba, Ibzilia, or whatever her loved name may be — though she refuses your (green) f^agcs (f amour, and ill h I ill il . 40 GAMOSAOAnMON ; won't have anything to do with you — is neverthe- less the loved, the green oasis, which you cannot reach, you feel thoroughly miserable, out of sort^. and done for. You comi)lain of «H sorts of things ; your feet are ^Kvays cold, your tongue always parched, you have lost your appetite, and "the ballet" no longer— as the (iermans say — "ms/" you as of yore. What nonsense ! If you have cold feet, it's those stupid silk socks : wear nice thick woollen ones. As for your tongue, put it out at a doctor, and he will also bring you back your appe- tite. As regards your want of interest in the ballet, that is strange, for its nearer approach to nature — (in costume) — is impossi]:)le, as each young lady, if not exactly not taking the part of " The Lady o^ Lyons," and appearing as a Pauline Deschappelles, certainly {/(?cs appear /// appallin' deshabille ! But, no ; we won't chaff you. If, dear boy, you are veritably fallen \\\ luve — with a woman who won't fall in, but will only tall out, with you — get up again like a man. Though you are only tread- ing in a well-worn track, in the old, old rut, it's very weak, it's childish, going on like this. If she has made up her mind, 7iW/'/ have you, let her be love- ly as a Jewess of Morocco, let her be a direct lineal descendent of Venus herself, purified as to nature and in no wise deteriorated as to beauty, should '^1 ■la t J % I OR, HINTS ON //VMf'JN 41 she be Hebe even, if she don't love Vo//, what is the use of giving yourself up to despair ? As the poet sings " If thus early yon arc done for, What on earth were you begun for ?" You must get over it : look upon the damsel simply AS a damsell, and be jolly ; it won't do to mope, love minor music, make bad verses, look as blue as if you had passed a year in the Blue Grotto, and spend a bad celibaceous time of it because o/ie woman won't have you. Bah ! cr/ibacy is all our eye, begins with a sell and ends with a sigh ! " Wo- man ! without her, man would be a monster"!! Quite so, but " Woman without her man would be a monster" too ; so, we say again, celibacy is all your eye, and you needn't be so very pootygirlar about o/ie pootygirlar pooty girl ; there are others — lots, hundreds ; or you can go away, to Margate for instance, and lorget your love for three or four months — a long enough perfourmonths to try any one's constancy — and leave off stimulants, feeding up, and smoking, tor " si//t' cercrc et tobacco frti^d Vcfiiis/^ and you will be as riglit as possible when you come back, and know, realize, and appreciate liow mucli better off you are, how much greater a swell you are, single, than you would have been married. 1 : ii li F 42 (JA.UOSAaAUMON Unless, //(>/(! hcrii\ unless )-our cruel one had a (quarter of a million or so ; then of course we can readily understand you taking her loss very mucli to heart, and bjing — niillioncholy. For, dear Spooney youth, you are better fun, far better fun, and have better fun as a marriageable man than the other way. Look at all those dc- jeimers, nice little (finers /res intimes^ those dinner- parties, lav/n and croquet-parties, five o'clock tea- parties, and other parties, etc. etc., (^/-cetera, that the Lady Godiva Barebacke and Mrs. Malachite Greane, and otlier cijually sv/ell Vv-ome'i (\\'ho have daughters to marry) will ask you to. Then look at the lovely opportunities the younger female branches of these noble families will give you of becoming a meml^er of their " cocoa-tree " — their witching coquclferie! Look at the capital shooting and hunting, etc., etc., etc., you will get as an eligible bachelor from the Fathers and Co. of these young damosels. Look how vejy nice all this is ; and, you know, you are not absolutely forced to marry anybody. You are better oft than the Mor- mon gentleman's friend, who, when he proposed visiting Utah, was informed that he was " not obliged to have more than one wife." Here — though v/e sometimes have the gnashing of teeth — we are not in Utah darkness, and there is no ahso- 1 '^ OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 43 lute compulsion for you to have even one wife if your inclinations do not lead you into that Via Appia, Appyissima, or, that Via — Unhappyissi- mest! All this is very agreeable, very agreeable indeed, and having returned from Margate, cured, you will think so too ; but it has its drawbacks. The male single state, like the female single ditto, has its bores. The Bachelor, who like an anchorite, her- mit-ically seals himself up, and keeps the Ceyl-on, intending to pass his life as a Single-he ; the Bache- lor who spends his every holiday by his holidayry self — we do not allude only to a city clerk's ascetic larks, but to every one — will now and then get a touch of the confounded black care, which you can so easily recognize in every place, in every heart, in every face, in the hovel, in the palace, on the boat 'twixt here and Calais, in four-wheel'd cabs, on fours-in-hand, in English homes or foreign strand, in cottage whether or no onice; — iVJ, where-er you were you have " Cum" Care, Bother, Fuss, anxie- ty ; you do indeed, — married or single, who is there without it? But, if Lady Godiva's " At Hemes," and Mrs. Malachite Greane's dinner cards, never reach as far as you ; if you are one of those who are lonely alone, and lonelier still in a crowil, naturally miser- I 41 GAMOSAOAMMON ; I able and down in the mouth everywhere, with no one to take what you call "a real interest" in you, no one to look after you, no one to warm your slip, pers, or save you the trouble when you come in late of having to hunt everywhere for your blue pills, or for your sober- water in the pantry, or some other soup-tureeneous place, then, bachelor, you have much to gain and but little to lose by matrimony, so we must also advise you to try a wife, it only as a stimulant to wake you up a little; and she un- doubtedly 7uoidd be one, especially when you are c.-d., when, as Tennyson — we think it was Tenny- son — so plaintively puts it, you sit — II >! ; ': With chilly tot-s and tallowed dos«, A'd skid id state call'd goosey, With honth a'd tug of taste bereft,- A'd braid bewilder'd boosey ; With throat bu'g'd up, a'd eyelids red, With head that's digh a-bustid ; • With achig bodes a'd husky todes, A'd feet warb water thrust id," only think what a comfort she'd be then ; but hov/ much greater a comfort if, poor Cingalee, if you are really ill ! However, as this is getdng too pathetic, we will pass on further, the more so, as the Sanscrit poet has so perfectly and exquisitely embodied our a^ery OR, HINTS ON Ul'MEN. At idea on this unhappy subject in his comprehensive and truly poetical line ; and really we must say the manner in which he touches upon some of the joys and sorrows, the pros and cons of married life, the delicate way he alludes to the true girl and the flilse curl, to the fastness of the hare's foot compared to the staying powers ot the tortoise sheldom if ever is equalled; it has tort-us a lesson, at any rate, which we shall not easily forget ! ^ This is the Sanscrit sage's touching view of the situation ; need we say it is ours also ! 11 f I ) i 1-1 '■% m f ? 4G GAMOSAGAMMOy ; \ m CHAP. VIII. EAR reader, are you a swell who swag- gers through life in an Orientally mag- nificent manner ? is your existence passed idly in scenes of almost Eastern manner? Are you, in fact, O peruser, a living and walking Peru, sir, — Rich? or are you an agreeable Paupah — poor ? If you are poor, oh ! if you but stop a minute. We have spoken to you of Bad-jealousy, we have spoken to you of Bachelorsy, and of various other matters ; but now, about this time, we almost flmcy we can hear the intelligent reader, rich or poor, say, " Well, Scribblerus, aj>rcs ? wliat next ? All, everything on this worn-out subject has been told us before in every language, and in every idiom of that language, from the days of the Anguish in herba who tempted Eve I" ». lili OR, HINTS (K\ IIYMEX. •IV (^iiite so, intclligciUest of critics, quite so ; you've heard it all before ; o^ course you have. \Vhat is there whicli your " Sturdy Review," or your otlier papers or your Hbrary doseu't tell you ? what is there, we ask you, not already told ad i^/iarc-sca- //(U/i, as tlie sailor termed eating' his salt pork ? I'here is but one thing dew under the sun — which, by-the-bye, is very old — for us to write about and explain, and that is only what is usually termed — a New-sance ! We don't think there can be much doubt, not- withstanding opinions differ so much on almost every subject, but that the most aggravated and indestructible form of nuisance is — an unhappy marriage ! That, we rather should imagine, will be universally adiii'tted to be the most decided form of nuisance extant ; therefore it is to prevent your performing this silly little caper that in what follows, dear Apollos, we spoil so much nice paper. O gallant bird who saved Rome ! ! * We don't allude to the celebrated Horatius, whose remark, apropos of the bitter pill he made the Etrurian king swallow, " One Cockles is worth any amount of poor Senna," has been handed down to us by history and immortalized by Macaulay. No, we leave Cockles and Porsena to abler pens \ we apostrophise the real iiTepressible goose who 1" i ■■ ! 11 M« A-'t**'*'-'- 4t GAMOSAG.mMON; saves Roiuc over and over again in four out of five of all the books which are published in the Knglish language. O great bird ! O glorious guce ! how elated must you not have been with you.r cackling ! how ])roud of your noble goose-stej) after the achieve- ment I how your goose-flesh must have quivered with exultation I how your pens must have fluttered with joy ! There is no question of our saving Rome, but the most humble instruments are sometimes capa- ble of very great effects, and if we could only hin- der one youthful gander out of a million ganders from playing with fire — however warm and beauti- fully tinted it may be — and from having for the rest of his days to think and speak of women m enfant braie, how glad we should be ! If we could only act like that Capitc;! goose before mentioned, we promise to go capering round the Zoo some Sunday head over heels with joy, and we can pro- mise it safely, because we perfectly well knov/ that nothing that was ever written, done, or spoken, ever did or ever will save one donkey in a thor sand from coming to grief if he wish to, nor ]) \ent his doing pre-cisely as he likes. However, ;.s we mean to try, here goes, and we return at once to our last question. Vivandiere — pshaw ! OH, IIIXTS ()\ nVMEX. 49 '< J not vivaiulicie, — wc mean wc wonder, yes, wo won- der if you are poor? Oh, say, are you impecuni- ous ? If so, don't oh I let us implore you do not go and fall in love with some fair but penniless girl, and waste two lives, utterly waste them, by bringing her to yearn — and yourself too — for what she will never get in Poverty — Conifort, J^oiiis- sancc, Content ! No, no ; what y6u want in a wife, if you are poor, is good looks and— please observe the conjunction — a?iii Money ! I Youth and l)eau- ty certainly, by all means, but youth and — and — Booty, let us call it, is the thing, depend upon it; it's simply a certainty. Have your lamb as young, playful, tender, and as nicely dressed as you like, but the Mint sauce is the thing which* improves •her. What is she without Mint sauce? Oh! please, please have plenty of Mint sauce ! It is not so much the Love-llying-away business when poverty comes in at the door— for real love does not fly, only dwindles away — as it is the utter want oi eomfortyow can see with your own eyes for vour- self in all poor nienanges, even supposing the love to last, the wife to remain :ia angel, and yourself — young. Major Pendennis — you know, Thackeray — said, as nearly as we can quote liim from memory — and he, we take it was no fool — "That it was quite as liii M u )*i! T 50 aAMOSAGAMJION; lit ' ill 1 I ::;' ■: i: hM €^ ii easy for a man to many a ricli woman as a poor one, and that it was a dooced deal picasanter liav- ing a nice little dinner properly cooked than that same perpetual something'd cold leg of mutton ar.d potatoes ; and that there was no greater ann.oyance than always being forced to look so precious sharp to make both ends meet !" Certainly, Major Pendennis v/as right. Your dinner in purple and fine linen, v/ith turtle and fine living, with your sup-ernes dc this, your niayojuiaiscs lie that, and your turkeys full of chestnuts, is better than the cold shoulder at home, and consequently the dittoest of dittos from Society at large. Poverty is never comfortable : Seal -skin is, oh 1 a so much pleasanter wear than Bare skin. How much jollier it is being able to give a bolus to IjcH- sarius, than wanting one for yourself! Is it not much nicer having yotir cstoniac well risoicd than being forced to have it done to old boots ? It is very agreeable to warm your back and ha^'e your coat-roti by your own bright fireside ; to have nothing sham about you but Champagne, nothing mock but clear turtle, to make a mull o( nothing but something nice to drink, to do nothing sh.ab'ly except your wine with your oysters ! Ah, most in- teresting LucuUus, most volupshous volu[)tuary, it's oh ! $0 much m'cer to get a souffle from your cook OR, IIIXTS ON HYMEN. 51 than a soiiffld from the world ; for, let us ask you, without your necessarily being a positive Smindry- des, or one of those " Quorum dcus venter est,^^ what beats a really good dinner, a diner jin^ pro- perly served ? Well, remember if you are poor and married yon not only can't order one, but you'll never be asked to one, and then the want of that same dinner will be a real easus l)e/li, in more senses than one, between you and your rich happycurean acquaint- ance. Only imagine what a confounded bore it is when tradesmen refuse to serve you with anything more, except perhaps — a writ. Only tliink how you would swear on being obliged to give up your little comforts — extravagancies if you like — A\hich as a bachelor you can only just aftbrd; having to say — Adieu tr, your Raleigh or Rag, to stalls in the flme of Apollo — Gye, the manager, 'd fain have you there ; you know you must send an apolo-gy. Adieu to your swell cabr'olet, t' your boy with his leathers so white, t' your high-stepping horse for the day, t' your brougham and night mare for night ! Yes, you'll have to give up cab, l)rougham, eighteen- penny cigars, etc., and must sacrifice lavender kids on the altar of hymen ; )'ou '11 never more go in opera boxes, but must learn instead to ride in om- jii III ■ifj ■3-..\'V 111 I k 52 GAMOSAGAUJION ; niboxes, and that, you know, is deadly. Only con- sider the immense difference to you — a gentleman — between the ombinus box at the opera in White kids, and the box of an omnibus in the uproar of White-chapel; between being pleasantly "full in- side " yourself, or only the omnibus being so ?///- pleasantly; between seeing the agreeable conductor of the one — Arditi, and the disagreeable conduc- tors of the other — Are-dirty ; between waiting for the curtain to go up for — Norma's strain, or for the coachman to go down for an enormous drain ; oh ! the vast difference between that drop-scene, and his drop — smcU as he 7C'i7/, patronizingly and fami- liarly, breathe over you, hotly, the foul fumes of his — his — ginny sais quoi. One can, indeed one viust sometimes, become familiar with Poverty, but by Heaven ! it is painful to have Poverty become familiar with you. i i m OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 53 i'*i CHAPTER IX. ' i HE theory of '" Love in a cottage" sounds well, but a man who has been f'^l accustomed to Love, and all the other good things of this very nice little world, not in a cottage, will find the usual dif- ference between theory and practice. Leaving his Worship of Vacuna, the dolce-QSi of farnientcs, mooning in some club win- dow, y?^//^r-ing in the Row, and generally dawdling with vapid insouciance through life, literally nothing out of the atmosphere of swelldom, for married life on a moderate income, is — simply a mistake. Love in a cottage with creepers ! (creepers ! Ha, ha ! and to spare sometimes) may possibly sound desirable ; Love in a garden does sound charming, though tlowers are very expensive, and summer is short : you may, if very Mark Tajjleyish, be rather 1 i; i m 54 OAMOSAQAliMON ; ■, happy yet, not miss your former idle life, and be now and then entitled to sing " Oh ! happy day ! Oh ! jaw-no fcliciP'' like the villagers in the " Son- nambula," and you will certainly be sure to have many a feel-itchy notte in your cottage with the creepers ; but the Adam and Eve, Love and Eden, fig-urative simplicity, H. H. H. — Husband Home and Happiness — business, is not found to answer here nor in lodgings ; it's but a very one-horse happiness after all, enguir-lander your wife with cliarms — real or imaginary — as you will. Ah I the Purgatory of " Eodgings," kept by some stout harpy perhnps; a harpy, with the claws and vulture's digestion, perfect in all except the virgin's face ; as our lodging-house lady — that is land-lady — has a face generally vergin' on the antique, with a somewhat Medusa-ish property of making you feel stony — hearted at any rate. She bullies you, she steals your sherry wine, she has two keys to your cupboard, so that your Curacoa is two keysily ; and she walks about the house when you think she is in bed, and blows out candles which smell badly enough to give you — dip — theria. Ah ! this Tisi- phone — who isn't funny — of a landlady, she is one of the ills of Poverty, one of the Eumenides who costs You many d's and other curses : who makes your politeness give place aux dam! s and every I OR, HINTS ON IIVMEN. ■ I' 1 other naughty word before you've done with her. Then again you may get into a liouse kept by some lean lady in mittens, some modern Mitty- lean-can, who has seen better days, but, — awful, Ikit I — she wears a wig, has a nose and an eye at variance as to which of them can run the fastest— although her teeth have long ago won the race, as they have got clean (?) out of sight altogether, she never by any chance washes even her face, and — and — does the cooking — makes — Pastry ! ! Oh, impecuniosity, you are trying, you are disagreeable, your are dampingly disheartening — hang it ! you're killing ! Some people, if you arc poor, may recommend you to simply marry for money, and never to mind one bit whether you even hate its possessor — the Donna dona f evens — or not. In their case what the woman is like is not studied one individual atom. She may be a Gorgon from Gorgona, and smell of 'errings, or as illiterate and elderly as Mrs. Partington for all they care — if she have much gold; it's for the kudos a rich marriage will bring them that they connubialize. These fellers are cleverer than Mahomet : they can make the mountain they want come to them — Mount Hecla — and what is more, they carry their «"i Jit J(: i n\ I'll III ' m- 50 rM.Vr^S'.4r,MM.l/f9JV; mountain — their Ttc/a^ — about with them wherever they go, and are most part-r, aAMOSAGAlslMON; .1 m If' newly shiny ! likewise scent on his miichworc at fourpence a 1)ottle as ])er invaice, a wonderful chemical, strong, which fully answers its desired purpose, however, as — it makes him smell well, and Mary Jane or Sarah Anne thinks it most "elegant" and " truly genteel." Well, now, Solan has got hold of this book, and thinks us an in/ernal ass for saying you can't have comfort if poor, and can not for the life of him make out v/hy we dislike riding on omnibuses. Does lie even, we ask him, does he like having a shoemaker's journeyman sitting alongside of him with a dirly bag full of new boots and shoes which do not smell of — of — sandal wood ? — is there any nice charm, any agreeable Feet-ish in thatl or does he enjoy the company of laundresses' assistants, with bundles of soiled linen? or how would he like this? — One day, going to Fulham, we got into a most cleanly-looking A\hite omnibus, occupied by several highly respectable members of society, with amongst them one very decent-looking old woman with a largeish bundle on her knees, to whom, bundle and woman, fortune made us vis-a-vis^ but it not being a quadrille, we did not feel ourselves absolutely called upon to make advances to her. She, how- ever, on the contrary, aj^j^arently did feel tempted i'i * 1 OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 67 I \\ :..i a d i g 1 fy 1 to bestow her confidence on us, and so, with tear- ful eye, never removed from our manly pliace, slie informed us, she was now "a lone woman.'' \W expressed sorrow at this information, and she then- went on to tell us, — "You see, my dear genelman, 1 'ad a buoy who was a private soljer in the Bellews, which he were as fine a made young man, sir, tlio' T am 'is mother which bore "im as ses it, as any man in the ole redgyment, not excej^tin' the ofiizzers. Well, sir, 'e was took wiUi colory morebus yesterday morning as ever was, at eleven a. /la/i., and ^^as a ceorj)se this here very blessed day at two o'clock ; and these 'ere" (pointing to the bundle) ''these 'ere /s tJie elosc as 'e died in ' ! ! ! We can hardly expect Solan to believe this col- ory vi\oxQbus story, nor to care much for it if he does. No, his omnibus ride to and from his place of business in 'Ounsditch is t/ie thing of his day : if he can only get the seat on the box, not the father of the Gods, Jove Imperator himself, ever held his thunderbolts with more pride, power, and savoir fiiire, than does he the reins for the few minutes he, perhaps, may do so to oblige the descending coach- man ! No Don Giovanni ever ogled more daringly, promiscuously, and patronizingly than ('oes he tlie Duchess and the dairymaid ; and now he is critici- ♦ 1 K 'r ■i 1 1 1 1 ■ •i 1 1 68 aAMOSAGAM3fOA; 1% ': ':iL \ zing us, and, as wc said before, considers us an in/ernal ass for our jjains. O untubbed one! O Metropolitan Cockney! v.e are not addressing ) ou. No : but yet do you know, O Higlipeerion, that we are not at all sure, no, positively not at all sure, that this form of man is not one of the happiest creatures in creation, be- cause — he is content ; because *he Uiinks himself A I, and — knows no better ! Yoii^ you know, would become a hopeless lunatic if you hadn^t left London in .Viigust and September and Knock'dober a lot of magnipheasant pheasants later on ; you kick up an av.-ful row if your claret is too cold or your curried lobster is too h.ot, if your champagne is over-iced or there's not enough green stuff in your Badminton ; your servant has an un- commonly niowvy kardoocr of it if your " Standard" or "Saturday" is at all damp, or the tobacco of your chibouque is too dry; but, remember, the man who has never tasted Latakia— -N.B., in Egypt — nor inhaled sheraz in Damascus, is quite happy with shag and^returns/^vTo Solan, who has never sledged over snow, a 'bue is e is)" as the car of Phoebus, and, as he is like a certain old Dangle- tassle, who, when met by some swell friend in St. James's Street about th.e middle of October, with tlie unfailing "Ah! How do, iJangletassle? how OR, mxTS oy idmi^n. GO t. h long have you been in town?" calmly replied, "For fourteen \ears;" as .Solan, in fact, has jiever yet left his nalixe 'f'.ath ('Am])*stead), hiis Latlierland, and never wili, wlial does he want wiili abroad? Ikit- tersea Park is far more in his line than lioulogne and Paris; the "P. R." than the '-Pally Rile;" he loves Hammersmith, he don't miss Homberg ; he doats <)X\ (ireenwich. he never heard of Cirenada; his AlhAmbra is in Pcicester Sf.}uare; for all /ic knows, 'Am[)stead 'Eath licks 'Amsterdam, Prim- rose Hill the Pinchyun, and tlie Trafalgar Square fountains the Palls of 'Perni or 'Prollluittan. He knows iai more of Moses and Son than Mount Sinai ; content widi Putney, iie wants no I'ekin, for Chinese Pagodas are fools to tlie Chrystial Pal- lis. Tie knows the Minories and Whitecliapel of I.ondori, but nothing of the Minnareis and White Mosques of the Letant; so long as he can. get to O by boat or rail, he don't want Ics O, nor M's, no, nor Aches /cs ba/n-:^, as a good slap froni his mother is the only Ar/zv' dc' jjiirc he has ever experienced any benefit from as yet. Gi\e him some comfort- able "public" to enjoy himself in — the " P>ell," at Fulham, lev us say — and lie wants no Piren/i !a Irl/a ; for //".s--Beer not lUar-it/, Pyramids of Steak, not P)ramids of Cheops, lii[uorr,-Passy, noi Pasi- licos, 7/6' adores; it 's foaming streams of old ale, not i m t ttl. H ft M IC Itf; 70 6'M.)/0.S'^C;ylM,^/0A'; cataracts of Nu-l)ia, he revels in; it's "Miles" the l>ritish tailor, and not Mi-les the foreign soldier, he requires; his sivtcen shilling breeches are the for- tifications he likes to sit down in, none of your nasty damp Quadrilaterals and lAixhuml)ugs for him; he can take it out of the refreshing Sjners and Pond at liome, without having the fatiguing Spires and Pictures take it out of him ; and he is })rouder of [get than a Cairene of his Schoobra Avenue, than a Petersburger of his Newskoi Prospect, a Neapolitvin of his Toledo, or than a ]\Iadrileno of his Puerto del Sol. His j)erfect ignorance is his perfect bliss, and he is (|uite independent, for, pro- vided he arrives — as he would say in Seven Dials' dialect — " hin 'Ounsditch hat the proper hower, nobody hexpex henything helse hof 'im." Beaius silly ille! Ah! happy Cad, thou artest, indeed, much to be envied in many things. Yes, he is much to be envied ; and now we are, at last, come to the point : he is to be envied because he c?r., if lie choose, do anyth'uif^, without having immaculate Society down \\\)o\\ him. He can, if he like, liave one wife and fifteen sets of twins, all skipping about, at Tget, and another wife and more twins in the 'Ounsditchian neighborhood, and pro- vided ~ nota as bene as possible— provided neither lady find the other out ; provided la belle (fOu/is- I W' on^ irrxTs on uymf.n. n (leech don't come across /a bcllc iV Rebate, or that his 'Iget female don't stunible across liis 'Ounsditch missus, he 's — all right! What do ivv/ care ? Not one ra}) if he marries a room-full of women; but if His Grace the Duke of Ditchwater, K.C.P., S.P.Q.R., A.S.S., etc., etc., etcetera, were so far to forget himself, wouldn't he precious soon be found out, and wouldn't you stand thunderstruck, bouchc bea/ife, flabbergastek, on receiving the news? You know you would. Don't please, t7^^7'est jouvenccan^ for one instant imagine that we are recommending your slyly going in for a few odd nuptials or so, three or four nice young wives at a time. Mcrci! one is enough: the more the merrier hardly applies here, unless, as a Mormon and foUoAver of Young, you go in for Brighamy ; then, if you have Moremoney than you well know what to do with, as well as Mormony tastes, tie-yeb, as the Arab says, it's all right, only — you must go to Utah. ^Ve, however, remember too well Monsignor Eoccacio's uncjuotable but true remarks about certain hens, to advise any such proceeding, and the not ver}' bad Yankee story : how cne^ man got into an avvful mess froni nuptial- izing two wives at a time ; how another got into (|uite as great a mess, rather greater, in fact, from connubializing only one; how another came sig; I ■ (i I ^ 1 !' 1 1' ' ' f ': 4 B .'1 t ■V i If Li, 72 (lAMO^AC.mMnK; nally to grief llirougli sim])]}' "])roniising to marry," and going no furtlier ; and how yet another came rather more signally to grief than cither of the others from simply being fouiid with another man's wife. No, no ; we rocommei^.d notliing so stiii)id as niarrying two women at one time : vre are sim- ply tryhii^ to state, in the most roimdabout way,' our conviction that nobkssi\ and also ric/wssc, ol'/n^r, and (>/>//\r /'I'd// -cv.vj'^. 'The Duke of Ditchwat^.', or young Billums of the eminent firm of J]illums, I'ro- ther and Coz, can //(• /// /oiw witli half a dozen wo- men if he pleases ; but he can marry —only one, or — he is done for. Although, as we have already said several times, we think there is nothing to e([ual £ s. t/., or ^ s. even, without the ^/., or y£ even, without the s. — (0//1, c'es' bkii £, qui est P objct de noire adorarccon ) we repeat thnt our 'Iget Solan is a happy, a vciy happy sort of man. Ha[)py in not caring two straws what any member ot Society — provided, N.B., it isn't the 'Ounsditch Guvner — sees him do- ing ; happy in being able to be happy untubbed ; happy in being able to i)e h;ip})y with a lady who is likewise ditto, happy in not missing those dc/icts he never enjoyed ; and hapt)y, doubly happy, in being, content — because he knows no better. OR, IIIXTS ON IiniEX, 73 CHAP. XII. liappy In all the female race : Truth, (larhii'r of a hea ippcar rt sine ere ii ypoci-isy, deceit, and pride, In woman n evei' did resiQv What to]i,o:ue is a])l Th e lo nil fold e wortii in woman we i^ehold? The failings that in woman dwell Are almost imperceptibh 'ill 4^ !l II':; i- ! ■j 74 OAMOSAGAM.VON ; Confusion take the men, T say, Who no regard to woman pay ; Who make the women tlieir delight Keep always reason in their sight. The point of these very clever lines is, that yon, dear reader, may peruse them either as they arc printed — in which form, you see, they are most flattering to the married state — or you may read the fu-st and thirtl lines, and then the second and fourth, of each \ erse, when )'ou will discover their signification to be monstrously altered I They may have been written by some thrice-hai)py ])en-or- Dick, or by some iiiiscro M'hose manhood, begun with a reckless marriage, has been spent in ever- regretting the same. \Ve transcribe them as an example of the vast difference of opinion which is known to exist on the subject of matrimony. There are so many people who ought to marry, and so many who certainly ought not ; so many people who wished they had married, and such a very large numljer who wish tliey had NOT ; we so frequently fmd Smyijth married to the very woman Robbynsohne has hunted after for years — and who, by-the-bye, doesn't at all suit Smyijth — and vice vers-l, that one really can't tell what peoi)le i/o want : the}' are so accustomed to look upon the oh\ HINTS ON iiymi:n. same tiling in such uUcrlyditTorciU lights, that what Smyijlh woiiltl doat upon, R()])l)ynsohntj thinks positively disgusting and disgraceful. Robbyn- sohne's love is perpetually in ajjogee with a pudgy person — he doats on light and airy forms; Sm\ijth, ait contra'uw loves solidity in a woman : he likes a woman "somewhat large and languishing and lazy,'' with plenty of her. As the gentleman's ser- vant said of the Nile -'• JJeggarly affair! not a gentleman's place to be seen anywhere I^' — so it is with women's admirers ; what is one man's filct saiifd, is another man's l)elladonna ! Some men see 1 'rains, others — Hoots. Some men apparently enjoy being bullied, and sitting under their wives' thumbs, ([uivering like what Mrs. I*ar- tington would call — the ash[)an ; others like to treat their wives as if" the husband and wife being one, the husband ic'crc that . IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) '«/ :/i 1.0 I.I 1.25 1^ 112.2 12.0 111= 1-4 ill 1.6 y. ^ m /. om m /A Photographic Sciences Corporation \ « ^ w<^ "% V *« ^ < «^. -. ^ 33 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 ^.y ^s M-P. y. \ o^ 76 OAMOSAaAUMfhX ; •111 moitnifiil feelings, tliey encourage tlieni t(^ wear low gowns of the low-gov.-niest, boots of the booti- est, etc., etc., etc., in order that, through their wife's charnis, they rna}- shine witli ])orrowed lustre. All this will bring its own punishment, never fear. We don't want to say anything too pointed or spiteful, and stick moral ])ins in you ; we are not like the little street urchins who, encouraged by their Pas and Mas, play that diabolic game of knocking about a piece of wood pointed at both ends, which, we are rather incliiied to imagine, is called "tip-cat;'' we know that in tlicir game if they can only break a window it scores ten, whilst, we are credibly informed, should they be so very fortunate as to make a t/toroug/i/y good stroke, and knock their pointed business into some elderly lady or gentleman's eye, it absolutely scores — twenty-five ; no, we are not like them, we are not spiteful, we are not going to knock things into your eye ; but we must say we think this 7curs Brouwne's line of business, jjrouwne, you know, used his wife simi)ly as a sort of moral — oh, (piite moral I — decoy-darling, to get himself — a position. The ily in the amber isn't much m himself, it's his being there that makes him the swell he is, cunningly reflected Brouwne ; so, being rich, he determined to purchase a very swell-born female, who would OR, niNTS ON HYMEN. 77 l)lay a sort of moral tip-cat with other men's feel- ings, breaking into tlieir hearts, etc., and by her sirenification enable him more surely to gain his end, than if he were to rely solely on his money and his dinners. So, some ten or fifteen years ago, he married a very fast woman, who had lots o[ c'-ic and cheek, l)ut not a shilling, who was already a lovely semi-sinner, with, not a watery little mote, but a very well-developed though charming beam, in her eye, which she used impitoyahlctncnt to knock over her admirers w^ith. The Lady Bandoline Fitcurlingtongs — the Lady ilandoline Brouwne that is — one of those women who whilst not positively having as yet gone — too far, likes nevertheless a little healthy excitement, and is therefore so per- fectly described by the wit when, in alluding to some other ladies of the same near-the-wind-sailing style, he said "That although they daily pray Not to be led into temptation, they would be exceed- ingly sold if their prayer was granted." Yes, Brouwne espoused this charming creature, not in the very least because he loved her, but for the reason that in doing it he did his duty to "Society," he did — " the thing ;" she would put him in amber, amuse his guests, gracefully take the head of his table, and become the most admired and beflirted, with ornamental mistress of a house already filled with other ornaments ! M 11 t )■ ..! 78 GAMOSAGAMMON ; illii Ah, reader ! In ten years how much beauty is decade ! and oil, reader ! when two people marry for domesticapfjHtical reasons of their own, without caring one snuff for each other, what result can you expect? Look at IJrouwne. Where is Brouwne now? Why, he has got a/assee very mal-cou sendee woman for his wife, who is tat, not fair, and forty- four, if she's a day. What has become of the Lady BandoUne's frankness, freshness, and, pour ainsi dire, fifteenness ? Tlie transparent crencaux in her musUn fortifications no more tantalize with peeps of budding charms; no longer is her crinoline able, at the wearer's fancy, to allow glimpses of a faultless fairy foot, or an ecstatic ankle. Where are those undulating outlines? where those flowing sunny tresses ? where the sylph-like form which ravished the senses, and made one feel that had she been P^-e and we Adam, we should unhesitatingly have eaten every apple in Eden without caring a fig, or even a fig-leaf, for the consequences. AVhere, we ask, are all these allurements now? Why, all turned into vinegar and sourness to Brouwne, and to-day she only plays "tip-cat'* with some of his rarest Dresden cups which he has spent a Mint-on, in a manner which — though it makes capital cracked china of them — Sevres much more of Billingsgate than Belgraveyah! OR, HINTS ON HVMEN 79 Robbynsohne's case is quite different. Like Brouwne, he rather wanted a fast and entertaining wife; but "to keep the money in the family" (how any man can be such a never mind) " to keep the money in the family " he married a very slow woman indeed, and so he set to work to make her faster and more entertaining, and now — where is Robbynsohne ? Ha! ha! where is /te? It's a wonder some kind old cancanien\ some benevolent old twaddling mauvaisc hiiigiie, or some kind friend or other, has not thought it his or her/^z/Vz/iv/di'.ly, etc., to enlighten him — for his wife is fast enough, and certainly entertaining enough, if he . . . only knew it. Then look at Jones. As he always told every- body that he wanted a nice quiet, sedate, church- going, pious person of mature age — none of your bread-and-butter misses and giddy-girlyfication for him — he of course ended by falling madly, hope- lessly, inextricably in love with another Lady Ban- doline, and then, instead of allowing himself to go with the stream, and making the best of his young wife's lovelarkian philosophy, he idiotically began to try and — ease her, stop her, back her a-stam— to, in fact, nmke her — slow. And what has /r done ? why, simply succeeded in making both her and himself most thoroughly uncomfortable and miserable. ^ 80 OAMOSAGAMMON ; I ill:: tiiii! Mill" What could Jones expect? Here is a girl, a thorough clipper, whose whole life since she left the school-room, has been one endless unceasing round of gaities, larks, flirtations, Eton and Harrow matches, pic-nics, croquet-ing, Hurlingham-ing, Rotten Row-ing, lunching, Zoo-ing, strawberry /(Z/^- ing, driving, shopping, buying, sellings country- house-ing, Brighton-ing, Ryde-ing, Torquay-ing, Rome-ing, Paris-ing, five-balls-a-night-ing, Rich- mond-ing, Greenwich-ing, concert-ing, theatre-ing, churchinnewbonnet-ing, opera-ing, and being-ever- surrounded - by-twenty - ;/^;/ - marrying - admirers - i:ig ! What could Jones expect ? Good-natured fellows, these admirers [N.B., reader, admirers — not lovers], who always do everything a pooty woman wants, almost before she does know she wants it, as if it was a happy privilege to be allowed to do it, because, like the bees with the sweet peas, they have all to get from the flower and nothing to give it ; and who, by-the- bye, become more than ever admirers when the woman gets married, and then they can't be expect- ed to have any intentions^ and young married women are more — the thing ! How, we ask it now seriously, can Jones expect a girl like this to give up all these accustomed and necessary -become pleasures, for the immense, OR, HINTS ON HYMEN 81 though sole, advantage to be gained from sitting a huts dos, in four walls staring at him, and Not expect her to suffer (rom—yazon-nin? Pooh! it's absurd ! is*: :l l! ^' 82 GAMOSAOAUMON; CHAPTER XIII. ■ 11 :i. , jl! i I i i E observe again, Pooh ! it's absard. But it's all your own faults, you fel- lows, Brown, Smith, Robinson, cum multis others. Que aiable I why didn't you find it out before you asked Papa's consent and went in for matrimony ? If you are an ass, why didn't you marry a greater donkey than yourself, and she wouid have said Brayvo to all you brayed, and have thought it the music of the spears ; for we have frequently, very frequently, met such happy pairs of donkeys that went so well in double harness, and who were, oh ! so contented with each other and — and— themselves ! The eerie dreary weary fool, of the same genus as Dickens's imbecilly young man " who couldn't OR, liLXTS ON lllMEX. 83 the ^ery [ere, d— tnus In't imagine anyihing, and was monotonous company," ought not to look for respect, love, passion, admir- ation, and the juice knows what all, from some thundering clever woman, who, to use one of Solan's pet expressions,. " has forgotten more than he ever did or will know :" he may marry her ; she may be all that she ought in every way ; l)ut her private opinion of him, if made public, would be delicious : the amount of patronage and poor- dear-old-manification there would be in it would be impayable ! Why should the funny man " feel hurt," feel " wounded," and dine at his club with a tear in his eye, because if he stays at home his happiest mots fall flat upon, and he has to explain his best jokes to, some heavy, dull, empty-headed female, who couldn't swear whether it was creasote or clear soup which some one recommended her for the toothache, much less — see a pun. Why is he dis- appointed, now that it is too late, at her lack of intelligence and non-appreciation of his superior brains ? why didn't he use that collection of vessels and organs under his skull in finding a woman equally gifted, a woman with as fine a collection of vessels and organs under her skull a ; his own, in- stead of going in for a small waist, a neat foot and ankle, and an uncle an Earl ! We observe once more. Pooh ! it's absard ! \ 5. . •1. ? U 1 -H' : Ik r iUiM 1 !'l ' : 1 ^ H i ;;: i: i ' !' i ': Ki 'l|li; 84 O.DK^SAOAMJfOy ; IjooIi !^])loasc let us remark, rv/ piurnthl'ji\ llooli I — how we hate asnol) who marries a woman with an unrle an l^arl ! We despise lh(j would be swell, Init v.'c pity the imcle the Ivarl tremendcnisly. Poor old lOarl ! Ilanji; it I it is too had to luake an emetic of him like that, and nun him down e\ cry- body's throat till they are sick oi' him, and his niece, and her husband, and, in fact, of toiitc la boi(ti(]U>:. However, the ]'l,arl, you see, is a comfort to the husband of the F.arl's niece ; that's one blessing for //////, at any rate. 'I'he small v.aist may be no longer small, nor the foot, nor the ank4e, init there's the imcle left to fall always back upon. Reader, without that h'.arl as liis stupid v/ifc's uncle, goodness only knows what would happen to this earl-admiring toady I Then again, look at I)e Smyijthe. You know De Smyijthe, the celebrated amateur rose and tulip-grower, whose gardener takes all the prizes everywhere ? AVell, he, you know, v/as married the other day, and after the hymeneal iioney-spoon- moon was over, of course the first thing he did was to take his adored Belinda de Smyijthe down to his place to show her all his lovely prize produc- tions — as her own. Ah ! poor De S. ; he little thought how his wife's three dogs and two Angora cats — which domestic Eastern animal, hy-the-bye, man ai)c uslv. J :e an vcry- l his ir la in fort I one ; may c, but .i[)on. ' wife's n to :no\v and »rizcs irricd |)()on- WclS to )duc- I little io;ora -bye, n OR, ///\rs n\ //)•.)/ /v'.V. 3;*) nuiUiplies — would rake his tlower-beds and luiny the " coming up " of his l)ulbs, etc., for him. \\'h:it are llic lonsecjucnees? Rows, awful rows. Lady says, *' Love me, love my dogs aud c:ats.'' Cientleman says, " — : — 1 your dogs, iivi], oh I sixteen times ditto your cats !'' Consequences again. More rows. Lad)- "I'.v/V have dogs sliot, sold, nor given away, m)r cats drowned, sold, nor given away, not even a kitten. De SmyijtlK' won't have his tea-guinea tulii)s pulled up for nothing, Cur/a/n'? Toby or not Toby? And yet, do you know, that humbugging Belinda, l^./orc marriage, protested there was nothing in the world she so much adored as roses, but tliat if any- thing could surpass roses, perhaps tuli[)::; — might. Ah! poor old De Smyijthe! don't you by this time wish that dogged Pusseyite your uxor v.-as at Luxor, that your once-adored Belinda was again but back in her native Baker Street ? !i! 1 I- r hiii ! i !i I 80 f,\\MOSA(;AUMOi\' ; CHAPTER XIV. il ARDON us, O youth, pardon us ! You are wrong, very wrong — in fact, you make one of the greatest mistakes you ever made in your life, if you sneer at this part of our teaching ; for, believe us, the seeds of tribulation are sown by trifles light as air, which, in the end, become heavier than lead. As the penny makes the " robert," and the shilling the pound, so do the small knaggeries of domestic life make the sufferin' ; so do they by slow degrees lead to mutual con- tempt, dislike, aversion, in fact, they lead to — to — Penzance and the (happy) Land's End ! Little knaggeries are the drops that by often falling wear away the stone of happiness; little knaggeries^ petty bothers, believe us, friend 'Cherubino, are the OR, UINTS ON HYMEN. 87 tenn ; ll con- to— Little wear jerieSj \re the drops that in falling extinguish, one by one, all the coloured lamps in the Teni})le of Jollity ! For instance : Are you an 1870 Antxas, who prefers the neighing horse or braying ass to the ptaying force of braying brass bands? do you not only dislike ItaliMi organ men, P//fferari, boy-bands, etc., etc., etc., but every sort of music? in fact, is music } Mr beie nc'rel — if so, avoid a very musical wife ; for th marvellous mechanism, the exquisi<-e playing of Arabella (ioddard, or the voice of Philomela htiself, would fall flat on your ear if you have no sym-Patti for melody : you would be affected no more by '* Car- tnina digna Dca.'" than by the songs Pickford's carmen are now singing in the street. If music is your detestation, our pet Titiens would fail to charm you, and your perpetual pet-titions would be . . . Please stop that row, that grandc tapage, that shrieking, etc., etc., etc., ci cetera/ Or, are you musical yourself? Do you perform on the flute, the fiddle, the corney, or the violent- yellow ? do you exhibit on the piano, or, as Mrs. Partington would say, do you play upon the am- monia ? If so, dp you spend any time in practising your instrument ? because if so it would perhaps be as well to have a sposa whose tastes lie somewhat in the same direction, or she may come to find the J » I 88 OAMOSAGAMMON ; \]\ scales weigh rather heavy on yoi/r side. Or even supposing you are not musical, but only play — the fool, you ought, if you wish for happiness, to find a wife who will be fond of any such dcsipcrcmg, or as Mrs. Partington again would say, disappearing^ in loco as it may please you to indulge in. Again : Do you frequently feel the divine inspi- ration of the Poet ? do you wear your hair long and your collars dov/n, and imagine yourself quite the Rhymer ? because if so you should certainly choose a lady with something in the divine poetess way about her too ; for it's a Bore when in your pato is Tiio 'jliiwi of the vates^ to be told your hair wants cutting, or that you've a pimple on your nose, or to be asked if you wish the mutton hashed or minced, and so on ; and it will prevent disputes, and your being desilliisionid about the un-poetical fact that it is the French fish-wife only who is accustomed to Ilareng! ! For, O poet, though the fable of the lady— not Echo, she only spoke when spoken to — who was changed into " a Voice" may sound most poetical, the reality would be un-poetical to the last degree. Besides, the poetical woman would cull your flowers of speech, your honied words, and appreciatingly bouquetify % I : Oh\ HINTS ON HYMEN. HO a them far, oh ! (:xx,far more than some hard-headed, plain-deaHng woman, whose soul is not above, if even it be u}) to, the requirements of her nursery, or the necessity of Yorlcshire pudding witli lier beef ! Once more : If you are a rich but stupid swinky sort of muffy stufty snuffy party, and never open your mouth but to yawn or eat, we imp-/^vr yoi; do //<>/ marry a girl Hke the liearty-Miss, the Diana, who loves tubbing, laughing, shooting, chatting, hunting, driving, riding, and open windows ; who, in fact, lives in tlie open air. No : find a muffier, stuffier, if not a snuffier, woman, than you are as a man, for your dulVcc leniwomvin, or it will be a case of pull demon pull baker between you whether you are to be made salubrious, clean, and jolly, or she is to become a female Muffy-stuffy-lass, perhaps not without .... a Faust I O beloved reader ! if you have any crochet, any hobby, any all-absorbing occupation, do be good enough just to see, ere it is too late, that the woman with whom you propose passing the entire remain- der of your stay on this planet has some trifli/i!^, some slight correspondence of taste with you, or until the Parsees — pshaw ! the Parcse — or until the Parcse cut your hair for the last time, and put up your mortal shutter, you will never cease to regret I HI hi i-\n 90 GAMOSAGAMMON ; it ; no, never ; no if you live to the great age of — Kafoozelum ! We don't know you, O peruser ; we most prob- ably have »of that advantage, and of course can not call strangers names ; it would be bad taste, bad form ; but, if you do not do as we recommend, you are but a stupid blind puppy after all. OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 91 CHAPTER XV. vlj ATRIMONY presents to the ideal view of virtuous people in love — a blissful vision !!!!!! It presents to the ideal view of virtuous people in love a vision of reciprocity of sentiment ; of an atmo- sphere made soft and balmy by the continual presence of the adored one in what we may term Love's sweet pate d pate ; of a state of never-wavering sympathy ; of a total absence of all sordid feelings ; and of life gently unrolling and revealing itself as a beautiful and divine poem ! This is what spooney ladies and gentlemen will rapturously tell you they look forward to with ecstatic certainty ! We simply observe .... don't tliey wish they may get it ! Honest women, outspoken ladies, will a'dd, that ill 1 02 OAMOSAGAMMON; I I i i' to perfect the above blissful vision they have also certain charming ideas of somebody else of the male gender becoming responsible for — all their bills, their house-rent, and their taxes. This lasl is plain fact : they 7c>i7/ get that ; all the rest of their gushing ideal vision may or may not come to pass ; and, unfortunately, as this world is not ideal but a deal too real, the latter possibility is the more probable of the two. To the enlarged vision of a woman who is mar- ried—not for money but for love — matrimony simply sinks itself trom her original ideal into a stern, a very stern, reality with many heads, — the two most prominent and not-to-be-denied of wliich are — Household duties (dinners, not so much the eating them as the bother they give, etc., etc.. etc.,), and Babies ! Infants ! Twins ! Trins ! a family of little red, damp, squally things^ that take much and give in exchange — nothing. We are not going to bore you with the subject of Babes ; it is written bare ; we merely wish to observe that, though Britons may decline being slaves, and though slavery may be equally objection- able to the Britoness, f/iar it is, in every poor menage. If the Wife is to be wifely and the Home homely, there is a juice of a lot of slavery to be done and seen done by her. And then, let us ask OIL lliXTS ON niMEN. \)\\ las I >eing [tion- |poor [ome be ask you, what female mind can retain any amount of serenity or e(]uililjriuni, and ha\e time and tem[)er for love-making and cooing — the husband does the bill-ing — if enveloped in perpetual squalls, e\en though the scpiialls dj come from tiie loved lungs of her own offsjjring. Again, later on, haviiig to teach the young idea how to shoot is Jio joke, not by any manner of means a joke. Ah ! dear peruser, the German instructress was not 7'cry far Avrong when she stated that " Gover- nesses were the real parties who most recpiired praying for in our Litany, as being undeniably— all vimen labouring vidi shild." NoAv^, v.hat we can not understand is, why any poor young X-caly /leed ever marry a poor man, unless she does it with both her charming eyes wide open, and is thoroughly prepared for the coj^sequences, be they what they may : why she should do it and subject herself to all sorts of future specimens of boredom we do not know, for our dehberate opinion is — that any nice, any even moderately nice w^oman, can marry any man she likes, and what's more — it's not necessary for her to be " a beauty" to do it ! There are very few men, very few men indeed, who couldn't be flattered, pleased, and, in fact, made asses of, by any w^oman who would take the 1 it m 94 OAMOSAGAllMON; ! ii !!' trouble to do it ; who would look at and admire them, whether with real admiration or the reverse. Those women — like the celebrated material which looked like coal, smelt like coal, and felt like coal, but which no earthly power could ever niake burn, or even set on fire — who can look like love, smile like love, and go on like love, and yet not love one little bit, they are the women — vraisemblahles but not vraics — who make men admire them because — they make men happy with themselves. Which of the two girls is it that gets most of your thoughts after you have left them ? Acknow- ledge, now : is it that most lovely girl, Miss Sar- castic, who turns up her exquisitely chiselled nose at everybody — but herself, or is it bashful Miss Undertone, who, when she does raise her mild eyes to meet your bolder looks, gives you one timid yet flashing glance that makes you positively think she could die for love of you ? Say now, is it not the girl who makes you think yourself irresistable, killing, that you admire most ? are you not always most anxious to get introduced to that girl at a ball who looks as if she would like to be introduced to you ? Whom do you dislocate your neck at the theatre to stare at most, the lovely, really lovely girl, or the girl who looks as if she thought you lovely ? Of course the latter ; don't deny it \ there's OR, J/INTS ON IIYMKN. 96 : of lOW- Sar- lose vliss yes yet she the ble, ays ball Id to the |vely I you jre's nothing to be ashamed of; it's only human nature, that's all ; it's done equally by Adonis in ihe House- hold troops and the man with the polypusque nose. Some women 7fiay perhaps admire polyi)i — or pre- tend to. Well, in our opinion, these ladies are the real modern Circes and Sirens who can change men into asses, etc., and the operation, the having it done, is very pleasant, is monstrously agreeable, after all. Mr. Samuel Slick says : " If a woman was to put a Bramah lock on her heart, a skilful man would find his way into it, if he wanted to. That con- trivance is set to a particular word ; find the letters that compose it, and it opens at once." This is only what we are telling you, except that 7c>c believe a woman will far more easily open the male Bramah, than 2>ice versa. You may tell us, and with great truth in many cases, that many men i-eqiiire snubbing to bring them to the matrimonial scratch ; that it is the very fact of a thing being not easily obtainable that makes that thing most desirable ; that so much depends upon whether a man can get a woman easily or not, whether he want her or not, and that when a rich man knows he can have a girl for the asking he won't ask her ; you may say that Smith is only in love with Mrs. Brown because she is i! I { i'' 86 GAMOSAGAMMON ; i : Mrs. lirown and ;/(;/ Mrs. Smilh, and that if she 7C'n'e Mrs. Smith he wouldn't care a rap for her, Ijiit do ... . the other thing. T/^//* is quite so ; but as a rule we maintain our theory, as ap])lied to unmarried girls, and widows with their delicious " 7C'/ii/e bait^' their charming caps, to be the correct one. Yes, we repeat it ; a clever woman can marry any man she makes up her mind to marry, if she goes the right way to work; but it is just in this that girls, i)retty ones especially, as a rule fail ; . . . • they do 7iot go the right way to work ! Though it is with matrimony as the much-desired happy end of their third volume that girls go through Society— their world— dressing, dancing, and prome- nading, putting themselves and all their people to enormous trouble and expense, yet they neglect the very alpha of the whole affair ; and the reason of this is, not any very virtuous sentiment, not any prudish reserve nor maidenly bashfulness on their part ; it is that they simply make the immense mistake of — thinking too much of themselves ! That is it. Women know they are nice, and take adoration as a right. It is their right, the delicious creatures ! it is their right ) but it's a pity they show they knoio it so perfectly; it is a pity their vce victisihed expression is not a little more toned down. OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 97 Pretty girls, as a rule, instead of going the right way to lasso any desirable man with Hymen's pliant but unbreakable bond, simply kindly allow him to admire them ; or, they shoulder and eyelash every man indiscriminately, and thereby choke off V and W — marrying men — because they, V and W, see X and Y — admiring butterflies who only fli(r)t from flower to flower — received with as much c?igouemefit and kind attention as i/iey are. This is weak, O my Curristian sisters, this is very weak. If you have been brought up — as seven out of every ten well-born girls are — to look forward to a rich marriage as your ult'unat^X thule of happiness, why, oh ! why snub and neglect the ' Croesus who could easily be brought to your sweet tootsicums, and would instantly heap up there your much- longed-for splendour ? If he don't like this sort of thing — Croesus expects to be made much of — and marries somebody else, where will be your di'monds, op'ra-box, your India shawls, your horses, dinners, " at homes," balls, your evening drums your morning calls, your house in town, your coun- try seat, your winter parties, 'livening even sleet, your settlements, and ample pin-tin, int' which your lord will ne'er be squintin' to see how you may spend it, or, if extravagant you are, to end it. — Think of the " Presentation on your Marriage," 4 ■| 98 GAMOSAQAHIMON I !^ your gorgeous gems, your bran-new carriage, — hoiv jolly to have lots of carridges ! how jolly spending months at Claridge's ! — Think of Paris, Baden, Florence, Russia ; in either place you'd be a " crusher." — Think of your welcome home to lordly halls, the tenants hat in hand, with shouts and bawls go on in joy till they the welkin crack it; you bow in grace, and — in a seal-skin jacket. Then neighbouring swells 7m/l leave their cards, and praise be sung by county paper bards. So take our advice dear young ladies and the trouble to marry some thundering rich swell some spooner, you'll have all these, and p'r'aps a schooner to go and cruise in, or in't to stay at Ryde, and let it in the offing be the R.Y.S.'s pride. Think of these things, and hundreds more, which don't you wish you'll get if you are poor ! This simple "muffin worry" of domestic bliss, with, now and theft, the poor but lov'd one's kiss, in place of these good things will come amiss «-miss ! ten or a dozen, perhaps, to say nothing of boys, for it is one of the greatest misfortunes of poor married life that you can not count your chickens before they are hatched and at-hached to you, but you can't, you can not. Oh, young ladies ! oh, beyoucheeous youthful she-males ! all our remarks in former chapters apply quite as much to you as to your adorato. We are OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. yy not quite such an ass as fn « but if you do not choo" TXX\ '° ''^"^^'^ "^' you. can afford to pay y^jt' '''''f''' '"^'"g better remain-singe far bL'-^°" '''""^ "'"''' the chance of marrld wt, . f '^'""^'^^hood than ^■nd the grand burl^'^tr: '"^ '^'"^ '" you just now, and don't nh,T ""''•'"■'^'' 'o admiration- o lurse ' ^ ^°'" ^^^ "" your Parvenu-succeed .''' ""^ '^"'' ^^«^ and S I 1 if r I'l i i'V; 100 "ill! i llli GAMOSAQAHiMON; CHAP. XVI. HEN we behold in the illustrated papers, or elsewhere, some terrific engraving of a ship all on one side, and coming awfully to grief in a fear- ful hurricane off Cape Thingumbob, and read gravely printed under it, "Position of the steamer 'Whatyoumaycallit' on the 28th ult.; from a drawing by one of the passen- gers,^^ then we marvel exceedingly! Knowing as we do, so well, the immense difference between seeing a ship and shipping a sea, and all the other painful inequalities of the surface of the ocean, we naturally enough wonder how the dooce this draw- ing passenger could possibly have been so extraor- dinarily clever as to make his sketch in such un- satisfactory weather. Now, my dear sir, it is /r«:isely the same with OR, HINTS OX IIYMEX. 101 it, on \sen' as ieen ther we [aw- laor- un- ath one sort of stormy sciually marriage, i^s with this enthusiastickly artistic passenger ; to really see it as it is, in all its stu[)endous force, you ought to be there in the thick of it, in 7nt'iiias /rs, "all there!" Oh, rnay you never see one of them in all its stew- pandous force ! If you would avoid seeing one of them in all its stewpandous force, shun what is termed^an " unequal match." - y the term an " unequal match," we mean a gentleman ''of refinement" espousing a soiled dove — who, but this is quite a secret, began life as a bar or housemaid — or a lady "of refinement" marry- ing one of her footmen ! The ci-da'ant housemaid, the bona roba, may be lovely and a " reel lady," the footman, in strength and sinew, simply superb ; but is the magnificence of the animal all that is neces- sary? is it? oh! is it? As Jeames would say, "Sirtingly knot!" What is to be done with the soiled dove when you have marrried her ? and how does Jeames look in long clothes with with .... his legs hidden ! 1 Nothing, however, is more sudden and surprising than this sort of match. It may generally be war- ranted not " to light only on the box," but with the very softest friction — anywhere : nothing is more dangerous ; it goes off and comes off, and you get let in for one before you, or any other person I . I ) 102 I ; I ■ • : J i i .1:11 GAMOSAGAM.MON ; know where you are, or can call upon our dear friend " Jack Robinson ;" and it invariably burns the fingers of people who play with it, as, by Lucifer ! nothing is so certain, so morally certain, to end in a flare up. No doubt you have seen the play of "The Un- equal Match " at the Haymarket, in which the lady, a dairymaid — Ic.irns to play the piano like Liszt or our admired friend Herr Willem Coenen, the harp like Chatterton, and to speak eight languages — to say nothing of dancing and " ladylike deport- ment" — in about two months, by way of becoming worthy of and winning back her much-loved but unfaithful spouse. This of course — on the stage — ends happily ; but in real life the instincts of the dairymaid would remain in a very much over- dressed body, the polish — like the lazy housemaid's with the furniture oil — would most probably be put on over the dirt, and the match would end in noth- ing but mutual disilii'^ionment and — it is possible — di::gu5t. < )f course there are exceptions to our rule ; who suys there are not ? — lots, happy and jolly as pos- sible , but for one happy contented exception how many examples of ////happy and ///Vcon tented un- equal matches can not you and Dick, Tom, and Harry, produce? \ OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 103 loth- [who [pos- how un- and Dear reader, whether you are a lively gentleman or a lovely lady, whatever other idiotcy you may choose to indulge in, don't, if you are refined, marry a vulgar or an uneducated person ; you ca?i^t fetch them up to your level, but they can mill-stone you down to theirs. Vulgarity is bad enough, but not as bad as ignorance. The young lady who described her gown as fitting her "as if she had been melted and poured in " was simply a vulgar slangstress, who could, however, let us hope, talk English without slang when she chose ; but ignor- ance — which does not know it is ignorant — in satin or velvet, or shiny sticking-plastery-looking frock coats, is the veryd evil to put up with from a strange lady or geut for even an hour or so in a railway carriage ; what it must therefore be when taken for life we leave you to imagine. By-the-bye,. though, apropos of slang, etc., we hope you don't particularly admire this sort of thing in women ; some men do : do you ? One never knows, one can't be certain of any similarity of tastes or ideas on any one subject. You remember the story ol a man in a cricket match who hit a ball into a tree, underneath which, after it had tumbled from branch to branch, it was caught by the man fielding there ] well, no one could have for one instant anticipated that the umpire, on be- llMiiil ll '''■' 104 GAM0SA0AM3WN ; ing appealed to, would give that batsman "Out, /eg before laickcf,'^ but he did; so it is in other matters : people see the same thing in such different ways, from such utterly different points of view, that we may be now abusing the very thing that you like best ; but never mind, we must risk it, not care what you think, and fearlessly state, that, though vulgarity is very bad, \Ye are sure, positive, if you are a second Porson — or that way inclined — you are an idiot if you marry miss Orson : this sort of match is imbecile ; DEADLY ; FATAL ! To hide your wife's ignorance becomes your cup- board skelington evermore, and to see that her gaucherie is not discupboard by your friends your ever-anxious task. Let two vulgarians mate together, let two igno- rami do the same, but don't you marry a barmaid ; she 's been accustomed to have the ///// on her side quite enough with the beer without your giving her this immense pull over you. And what for ? Oh, my young friend, do please think this out. What for ! ! For what ! ! ! WHAT FOR ! ! ! ! We suppose there never was a man who sat down to write a book with a much more /^perfect know- ledge of English than your present un-authordox author. Your slave of the lamp (yes, it wants much attention) is no more a gram-mdindiXi than a I OR, HINTS ON HYMEN.. 105 tide Iher hat )wn low- lox mts In a grey Mary Anne. We live in a perfect Crystal Palace for glassiness ; and yet, here we are bung- ling away with the biggest stones we can find at other fellow and sister ignorami. Where we were brought up — and occasionally '^ taken down " — they didn't consider it necessary to teach that rather useful language, English, only dead and foreign tungs ; but, bad and vilely syn-taxed as we are, there are men who arc even worse, who wouldn't know if this — I ham, thou artist, he hisses, V.R., years, there — were really the correct tense of " To be " or not. The groom who rode oft' with his master's daughter, and — by the kind permission of the sensible (!) young lady — married her, who had sense enough ever after to wear a perfectly plain black coat and never to open his mouth — except to eat — before anybody but his wife, was a rr//6»7C' complexion ; and 'I :! 81! r; ( 108 GAMOSAOAMMON ; :l! that " Si, Signor " is 7iof, in the best Italian society, pronounced — see sick'ner ! No ; you don't mind /ler blunders ; you have not to blush for them, for s/te .... is not your wife ! And you, de//e dame, whether a high-pressure Hy- patia, a moderate " Blue," or a simple English lady would be awfully disgusted if your husband trans- lated after the fashion of the celebrated military scholar with the line, " cegrotat animo majis qiiam corpore r — " cegrotat, he didn't care a groat, animo, any more, maji^, for the major, quam, than, corpone for the corporal ! I" — if you saw other men laughing at him. Directly you have to blush for the loved object, the loved object becomes less loved ; blush twice, and the love grows still less, and so on; but have to blush e\'ery live minutes — as you certainly will have, if you marry beneath you, make an un- equal match — and love is gone to the dooce in no time. Remember this, and if we were to write three volumes on this subject (at 31s. 6d.), we couldn't put it more plainly — nor more truly ! Whilst deeply spooney you may hope for the best, that it will all come right after marriage, that love will do this, that, and the other ; but you are mis- taken : marriage may possibly do much, but still, but still, what a disappointing spescious humbug is Spes, is Hope ! OR, ULVrS ON m-MKX. ,09 O Hope, how you do not W.lead us all on, how do you not deceive- your trusting sons ! O Spes ! O Hymen , when /<;<,.-///.^ fooling a man, ,„/uit a a . . Speshymen do you not lead him on to make ot himself ! I; .( H !. r -. no (iAM(KSAGAUJJON ; CHAPTER XVII. :i: 1' 1 1 ::!') bh I' 8i^' ^w OYS are often boobies ; men are often "^ ^ quite as big boobies as boys : bigger. We allude to their being so given to that greatest of all boobeyisms, namely, proposing to girls in such a dooce of a hurry, when they have known them a fortnight or three weeks or so, and when they consequently know nothing whatever of them. Fellars walk about Society's drawing-rooms and garden parties, visit operas and theatres, with an hymeneal rib-stone pippin inside their waistcoats, inscribed " I?e^iir pulchriori^' " for the fairest," and nothing can det/^r them from chucking it into the lap of the first pretty girl who takes their fancy, without in the least first caring to ascertain, as certain, anything about her ; whether so?i cceur amiable x^i^^y is amiable or marble only ; not credit- OR, HINTS ON n YMEN. Ill 'J J to ing the possibility of her being bad tempered, sulky, or spiteful with that angel's lace, or, as we have said before, worse still, of her having a sneak- ing preference for somebody else — "Another," — for some poor but good-looking younger son — in mamma's language a scorpion — marriage with whom is entirely out of the question, and who therefore^ though perhaps but a hollow Apollo, a stupid Cupid, a conceited Narcissus who deserves no missus, directly a woman can not get him, becomes — poor aifisi dear — deified ! Don't be in such a confounded hurry about i*. A great deal comes to him who knows how to wait . • . . at table, but a great deal more comes 'o him who knows how to wait ... for the right moment to take it. Like the man in the cricket match, who hit the ball into a pond and ran 113 whilst they were fishing it out again, make the most of a good opportunity when it arrives, but don't — do not be flurried about finding it. If the elected one is fond of you, love you as she ought to love you, she will wait a few minutes, if not, she's not worth hurrying or worrying about. The thing, the great thing, in the choice of a wife is to BEWARE of THE IMPULSE of the MOMENT ! Oh ! beware of the I. of the M. ! We know its charms as well as you do : it is delicious, delirious I *^"l 112 OAMOSAOAMMON ; il !! 1^; its joys is intoxicating I but ... it makes a phool of you. Don't let it make a phool of you, ^^//7 poj) the momentous question after a valse, or at a picnic : it is not fair to yourself with that horrid thirty-two-and-sixpenny fiz working about you. Corpo di Bacco I do you think mamma doesn't know and calculate upon the effect of bright eyes and liellini, low gowns and champagne, Mad'mo'- selle and bad Moselle, transparent muslin and tranquility, on Seeuecks as well as on Juvenis ? Of course she does. Be where you may, Beware ! especially of balls and picnics. Companion ladders on yachts are rather man-trappy, and help to make fellars sea-nymph-sick, but on Somebody's ship you can't be alone enough. No, no ! Balls and picnics are the real rocks ahead you split on : it is not so much the dancing, as we never knew a man who proposed in a quadrille or a valse, as it is the calm perfumed chiar^ oscuro of some cool conservatory : it is not the eating pigeon tart and currant pie, lobster salads and mayoonaiscs of chicken, sitting on an ants' nest with a wasp or two in your cham- pagne, that is dangerous to your future, whatever it may be to your present if you should swallow a — a — hornet ; no, it is the pursuing faun-like into leafy shades, tranquil and spooneyficating to tiie last degree, some lovely tripping Dryad, who flies (Hi, HINTS ON HYMEN. ii;{ tiie ies but to be followed, and don't in the least mean to turn into a laurel when she's caught : not a bit of it. Ah ! dear boy — "The time tliut's lost in wooing In watching and pursuing The light tliat lies III woman's eyes, Ilath been man's heart undoing." If you Avould only look about ten years ahead — hang it ! say five — instead of keeping all your thoughts so precious tightly fixed on the HONEY- MOON, how much better off you would be in the long run, to say nothing of the short one. If you would only take the trouble to find out 7C'/iat the adored one is ... . when she is at home when YOU are not there ; what she is to her own people when ?iot en grande tcnuc ; figuratively speaking, when she has her back hair and her boots off, what cause for tribulation you might save yourself . . . and her ! Does your angel bully her mother, or her maid, or worry her dog ? We have seen the most de-li-ci-ous little foot, with the most arabesque of insteps and the most rounded ankle, viciously kick a little sickly pet dog from one side of the room to the other ; and she who would do that to her dog f '; n 114 OAMOSAOA^^MON ; would like to do it to you some day, you may nearly depend upon it, though we must acknow- ledge that we have met men, and women too, who wouldn't tread on a worm, whether he turns or not — about which fact, by-the-bye, we have our doubts — who wouldn't injure a fly, who would sit upon you pretty severely in a jiffey, it they but got a — a — favourable opportunity. However, one of the best criteria in choosing your future helpmate, and upon the certainty of which you may rely, is, finding out how your inamorata has been . - brought up I — if well or badly ; for, believe us, O juvenile, the bad- ly brought-up girl, like asparagus in January, how- ever fresh and nice her appearance may be, will nevitably retain rather more than a soupgon of the — the — the — fnould she was raised in ! OR, HINTS OA HYMEN. US CHAP. XVIII. N OTHER mistake fellars so often make is being so given to take from the pari- ent stem the flower they t/iink they want to wear in their bosoms, before they have found out for certain if there is not one more fragrant or less blown, or of a more rare variety, which would suit them better. This comes of picking your blossom in a hurry. Why ? Because you will overlook the un- pleasantly stale fact that — Love is blind, obstinately blind : it is So ! Callaghan is powerless ; Dixey can do nothing for him. If you, amico, are in love, remember you are blind too, therefore it would perhaps be as .well for your own valuable sake if you were to put love behind you for a day or two, whilst you make sure before proposing to your donzella that you have learnt to see her as she is — IIG GAMOJSAaA^UIO^' ; u good, bad, or indifferent — and ;/o/ as beatified through the mists of your own Honeymoon-antici- pating imaginations. Do this if you can, though, as it is so sweet sit- ting at, not GamaUels', but Gameha's feet, and as we are always so anxious, so idiotically anxious to believe things to be precisely what we wish them to be, and as some women — as well as men — have such talent in that confounded ars celarc heart-em as well as arfcm^ and are mistresses of such exqui- sitively . . . naive " company manners," it is not always easy, but is in fact always difficult, and yet, alas I it is indispensible. But even supposing you have made sure of her being to a certain extent a mundane angel, there are nevertheless various different sorts of women you ought to look twice at before you commit your- self too far. Amongst others let us mention the frisky, the virtuously frisky female, the severe Minerva, the exceedingly tall woman, the peculiarly short ditto, and the lady who is more advanced in life — ahem ! — older than you are. The frisky female, we have noticed^ has one most unpleasant trick ; it is that of tiarlinging and duckeying and otherwise spooneying her husband . . . . in public. He is invariably, invariably set down as an ass, without its being in the least his fault, OR, HINTS ON HYME^. 117 ied in one and Iband \iably least Mrs. Minerva, on the contrary, has a still more objectionable manner with her husband, as she simply treats him like an upper servant ; and when this line of conduct is added to a tremendous show oi engouemmt for strangers, it becomes harrowing to hear the remarks that get passed upon Mr. and Mrs. M. ; and need we say any such rema/k is not disimproved upon in the telling ? Again, why exceedingly tall men, Chang-like men, have A-nack of always marrying some little fairy- like creature who could walk under their arm with her parasol up, we never could discover. Do they wish their wives to look up to them ^ Do they imagine that a little mnliercida will have less spirit than a woman of larger growth, be less mule-ier than the full-sized 7nulier ? Who knows ? And then to see these dear little creatures give them- selves say four iiich' ^ -^xtra height with inside and outside heels fc^ their pretty boots, which inches, by-the-bye, they Icse again, as they can't stiaighten their knees wi h these boots on, it is delightful ! However, this is better, O Poverino, if you are very small, short, tiny, than your runtjiiig after and marryiag the longest lady you cin fviiC : let us see a long husband nnd a short wrie, bat iiot an coti- traire, when the wife ia pre!:ty sure to look down d '••.s ; 3 ■■ h; i ■t PI 118 0A3I0SA0AMM0N ; on her sJ>oso — at least we suppose so — in all senses. As regards the lady who is — ahem ! — older than you are, it is perhaps rather a delicate subject to touch upon. Though no one admires ladies of a certain, or uncertain, age more than we do, to talk to, take down to dinner, accompany driving, on foot, on the piano, and so on ; yet, you see, as we unfortunately all get older every day, she will prob- ably get old before you do, and as the lady you marry is yours and you are hers and nobody ease's — eternally, and no other can therefore be so. and you mus^ — it is the law — make the best of whatever matrimonial bargain you may make, we strongly advise you to find some thoroughly nice domestic gir/, who is of an age to allow herself to be moulded on your private model of what a wite should be, who, in fact, is Young, with the beaute du dlablc still on her peach-bloom cheeks ; and, if she be what the French term " awful-lcan^^ tong vieiv poor voo^ as then you'll have no mother nor father-in-law. We thus recommend a young wife in preference to a lady who is older than yourself, as it is im- portant to remember that a woman at twenty-five is, as regards age, as far advanced as a man is at thirty-five. If you, at twenty-five, marry a matured and full-blown rose of thirty-eight or forty, though her beauty, conversation, savoirfalre^ etc., etc., etc , OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 119 voo, ence im- e is, at may then be at its best, its very best, by the time you at five and forty are in the prime of life, why, hang it ! she's 200 ! This won't do. Beauty is perishable goods ; it may be thine, but is never amaranthine ; women are like peas, best when young and tender, and then, oh ! so much more likely to fall easily into your ways. ' - You do Not want — don't say you do, you don't — you do not want to be for ever studying your wife's every glance, that you may anticipate her most fleeting thought, her every passing whim : con- ventionally speaking — using the fine old crusted humbug of Society — perhaps you do ; but speaking truly, fearlessly, you don't ; and it is much pleasanter — we hold to it, turn up your fond and uxorious eyes as you may — it is very xn\xc\-\ pleasanter tc iiave a youngish wife to fall into your habits, customs, etc., than for you to have perpetually ' - OR, HINTS ON imiEN. jj, S"L°'i ™"'' T""' ""dertaki„gs-he is allow- ed to know-s>mply nothing, until it is of no use too much J hen his knowledge is indeed worse thanvaluless ; then 't is indeed worse than ^11^^ be w,se ; for, he may not move for a new triaT he can NOT cancel his indentures ! ^' > "e ■I, ![ 3l' Si f^^" : 122 GAMOSAGAMMON ; CHAPTER XIX. E can ?iof conclude this part of the performances, O young gentlemen, without first — after the manner and fashion of our admired contemporary, Mr. Tarquin Martyr Fupper — giving you a few aphorisms. Were we to call them platitudes, or flatitudes even, we perhaps should be still nearer the mark ; but, though they are thus stupid, you must not mind that ; for notwithstanding we hear that there's nothing true and nothing new, and that what's true isn't new, and what's new isn't true, and that it's all bother, some of our sa7i's are true, have double teeth, and cut both ways tremenjuously ; so, like a wise child who knows what is good for him, pick up the early worm of information by reading them and laying them to heart. Have the good- ness to go on and prosper. OR, HINTS ON HYMEN 123 it's ling )od- *• She treated him like a dawg, sir r We often hear this said, but there is no such luck for the man they speak of : the dog is petted, caressed, and gets delicious laps to lie in, milk of cows and human kindness, biscuits, sugar, jtc. How often does many a husband get as much from his wife ! Loving a woman who won't have anything to do with you is like rook shooting with a mitrailleuse : it entails great expense, trouble, waste of ammu- nition, and brings .... no results. You must off with the old glove before you are on with the new, or you can't get it on : if this were so with loves as well as gloves, how many angry tears might be spared man — and woman — kind. P.S. — Apropos of gloves, how lucky the race of Gyges, the hundred-handed one, has become ex- tinct ! Fancy a female Gyges, fifty new pairs — say, four dozen — of gloves every day ! Fancy the glover's job stretching and powdering them ! It's indeed lucky Gyges is gone. Ladies wear out quite enough gloves as it is. fi ^I • 124 GAMOSAGAMMON ; i I ^1 i-n When the poet said, " All men havo lots of faults, The women have but (wo : There's nothing right they say, And nothing right they rfo," he might have added with the greatest truth, that men, as a rule, are never so happy as when doing their utmost to make women have — one more ! Ydu can in time, if you wish to, make the shy woman bold, but never the bold woman shy : — that is, not in the way you would /i^e — ahem ! — candlesticks, boot-jacks, etc. The greatest proof that flattery is agreeable to ourselves is — that we do it when we wish to be agreeable to others ! o Society is a blotter with a very hard roe. Marriage is like whist : you may " ask for trumps," but — will you get them ? It is a mistake spoiling your children ; they will live to hate you for it. If your son does wrong, let the hainbino bam^^L\ IIIM'S (L\ IIYMKX. i:r |e or and , it's ou'd letter eyes two. day our After giving you all these Roche/iV/cauklisnis, nil these valual)le hints to enanle yuu to see dearly wliat you are about, it ought not to be \'ery ditticult for you to find exactly the woman tt) suit you. If you are determined to marr)-, if you have made up your mind to be one of tlv jse \\\\o say to tlie State of Single lUessedi-.ess "" Marryltiri tc salutaiif^' you may as well have a nice wife as a not nice one, Heloise is still to the fore ; the breed of C\\^sar's wife is not extinct ; there are plenty of sweet girls, and charming young widows, wingless angels, to be found, who could and would \y^ the home fountains of every joy ; women who were likened by the wit (P).C. 1,798,365) to the snail, because they were contented with their own house, and took " Home' with them wherever they v/ent ; only, our reader, you must not make any mistake about it, but be (juite sure, indisputably certain, when enhammered, that it is the right nail you intend .... DRIV- ING HOME ! When you have eureka'd this treasure, when you have had sufficient acumen to find this earthly Paradise-maker, when you have a^profondi^ jdumb- ed the depths of her gentle nature, and can feel certain that your launch your matrimonial Argosy on safe waiers, then goodness knows we wish all kind wishes to go with you along life's stream, as 138 OAMOSAdAMMOX; ;i .: you paddle your joint canoe in a happy canoebial. manner. You'll see lots ot people clutching at straws, lots of earthen pitchers banging themselves against the most brazen ones : leave them to them- selves ; be as sorry for your earthly friends who come to grief as you like ; imitate Alnaschar when he smashed his crockery in showing grief for the porcelain, for the poor slain in Love's battle if you please ; but v. hat you have to do is, to prize, pet, make happy, coo dove-like with, and sweetly cherish your loving and domestic wife. Oh 1 my Curistian furrend, value HER above rewbies — )'ea, purrize //er eving aboNe toepasses and emmathysts ! oh ! value /ut most much. You will never thoroughly know her inestimable worth until you have lost her ; for it is not till some cold morning when you have to button your boots with your fingers, that you thoroughly, yes, thoroughly appreciate your mislaid button- hook ! OH, HINTS ON HYMEN. W CHAP. XX. AVING talked to you, dear reader, for some time— "like a father,^' we are now gomg to talk to you— like a fool ! If your are unkind you may perhaps con- sider that we have done this all along— Ha ! ha I— good ! It may be so ; never _ mind, we're not a bit angry ; iVemo me m punnmg lacessit is our motto, as you are already aware, and we are content to suppose that you know best. However, there is no doubt about what we are going to do now, none whatever- we are gomg to talk to you like a p.hool, an awful fool this time, and here goes. Have you, O gentle Croydon-beg pardon, Corydon ; left out an o, stupid :~have you O gentle Corydon, ever considered the question, What's in a name ?" If you never have, read i,-- 1 f 1 ■ : » 140 aAM(i>sAaAM.y(fN i r u the following furtlier pages of *' advice to those about to marry," and you will discover that there is an immense deal in a name ; we don't mean in a good or in a bad one, but simply /// a name. You will find that we have made every one fish for Q-pid's net, and you will also find that we have provided everybody, we believe almost everybody, from the Dooke to the Dustman, with the helpmate evidently appointed for him not so much, perhaps, by Providence as — by Punning. When we say everybody — though we hope our l)Ookling will be read i)er Mary d Theresa, prr man' d tcrra^ sir — we only address our advice, in the i)resent instance, to the male sex, as we do not in this volmne give ladies husbands : we are keeping their '"'' promcssi sposi"" for a future occasion. No ; here we simply speak to gentlemen of ladies, and — what cm be nicer? what more delightful subject can there pos- sibly be to talk about ? There can Not be any ! We are so impressed with the certainty of this fact that we won't even call our chapters " chaps." any more, but instead, we will group galaxies of beauties round every sort of man, and call them " Clals," delightful Gals; Gal I., Gal II., and so on: Gal. short for galaxy, same as Cicely is short for Cecilia, pre-Cicely 1 — apropos of Cecilia, we do not think that you will an} where see-sillier things than we are OR, IIIXTS 'LV ID'Mk'X. m about to write, but remember our iboling \\ill i;i\e you an opportunity of making lots of jokes wiih your lady ac(|uaintance, v.'ith your " lady friends,'' for you can alter our way of putting it if you like, and ask — Who should so-and-so marry ? Mary Anne Amelia. Why ? Because Ac's a thingumbob, or because s/ic'^s a whatshername ; and as \\e ha\e — we flatter ourseif — mentioned every well known name, there you are: there slie is. Therefore "r// /os coc/tcs, sc/iojrs^^' as the guanls say on the Sj^anish railways, and on we go, faster, ^\e trust, than the said railwa}s, or }ou v»'ill find us, as we fouiKl them, An-dalusian and a snare ! We can only a( ill, () estee.ned traveller, that if yjii are disappointed as ) on go a.long, v\v shadl be — disappointeder. With which exquisite remark, \WQ leave you in die company of .... of ... . our Gals. !• i i 142 OAMOSAGAMMOA ; m ) GAL. I. EATJ.Y and truly, wc don't know, we can't tell, why sailormen, as Ingoldsby calls them, should wear their trowsers so very large ; wc hardly like to drawer them. However, if they comfort them, and 7C'c haven't got to wear them, what is it to us ? Nothing ; we have simply to name a fisher's wife for him, which we unhesitat- ingly do, for he will find in a-net, yes, in Annette, all he can wish for. She ought not by rights to be popped in the sea, she ought not to be put u/K/a the wave, billow the billow, as a wife is a thing to dip-lower only when she has diparted for ever However, he must use his own judgment '•"> .is matter, simply remembering, O fisher, th. -lUgh we recommend you a-net, we by no meavi rocom mend you a woman who is a little lobster- net ; certainly not ! f>/.', lll.XTS ON IIYMILY. 1 I.: \ FISHMONOKR will 1)0 (Hiilo sure to love a — Roe-Salmoii-(l early ; yes, most dearly. -o- TpOR a " loose fish" a loose eel ! awfully npi)ro- -A- priate, a faicille ! /Ipro/^os o^(\s\mv^, there is rather a good old story toltl of a dialogue between a man who had caught a fifteen-pound pike, and a navvy. Seeing tlie fish on the bank, the navvy wanted to know " What d'yer call that 'ere, maister ?" " Pike," answered the angler. " Will 'e boit, maister?" asked the navvy. " Put your finger in his mouth and try," joked the fishing swell. " Noa, I woan't, but Til put pup's tail in," re- torted the navvy, and, suiting the action to the word, he caught up his dog, a largish bull, and pro- ceeded to do as he said : no sooner was " pup's tail" in the pike's mouth than the jaws closed on it, and away went the dog cross country with the pike after him. * " Hullo ! I say, you fellow," said the angry angler, " call back your something'd dog !" " Noa, I woan't," laughed the navvygaitor : " you CALL BACK YOUR FUSH ! ! " If you haven't heard this before, it's good ; if you have, don't read it. f.f^"* 1>I! „ ^,^^.c.;^t^-!m»mtMlf^MMlk !ii: 'A 14 '," 1 y- i 1 1 Si h 1 W ii !i 1 u GAMOSAGAMMi'JV ; A N ni)()[>lcclic .siibjccl- (nlcasc pay aUciUion, -^^ tins /s iuii)ortani) — an aijoplectic subject luul l)CLlcr choose (7//y ^w^; rather than Katherine, as we feel most perfectly convinced he never co/z/d — suffer-Kate witli any degree of comfort to himself ! -o- TT^OR a savage — a Molly would mollyfy hnn ! -L () Savidge, as Ulysses was fortified against drunkenness, etc., by a herb called " moly," so may you be against all excesses by your Molly. Nowa- days, unfortunately, nnany men don't require a Circe to change them into animals, etc., as they so often manage to make such thorough pigs, asses, and beasts of thcuisdvcs. However, if IMolly has no effect, a Ruth will prevent any ill-conditioned bar- barian, during her lifetime at any rate, from being — Ruthless. o T O a man who wishes iiis wife to p.;: enouah haughty to play the Pc-enough-haughty (piite composedly before a room full of people, we em- phatically state that no vroman can do so unless she is a Teresa ! Wwt if she is at-her-ease-sir, she's capable of anything ! Why it should be so is one of the Miss Thcrese of life. P.S. — Advice to ladies on, /iJiVTs (>\ //yM/:y. 14 r> who sing and play, or who do either singly : Never allow the man whom you wish to please with your musie or your hand and arm, or your profile, or your eyelashes — to have the job of " turning over;"' we mean the musie, of eourse. Let him sit by the instrument and, fondly gazing, admire, but do not ask him to turn your pages, or it's twenty to one he's so anxious to do it right at the exact moment, and /lo/ two at a time, that he don't hear one note, nor see one charm. It's bad enough when he i/ors read music, but when he doesn't, the agony of his mind to turn o\er as if he (//(^ is simply fearful. We have seen men transpircr under the dread duty until their nervousness was painful — even to witness. o )ugh luite em- rriO a man who perspires profusely we simply say -*- — get a Fan, to be sucur^ as the l''rench say, that is if you souhaitcz hope, to get cool, as if you go on doing it too much it mus' kill yer, h.uwever muskillyer yotir present development may be. \\'hat fun it is in foreign places going up things to get bird's-eye views of the country, etc., isn't it? Wonder if our hot friend likes going up steej) steeples and spires till lie per.s[)ires, and over the Pyrenees till it makes him — apyrcneesy, makes him j f i 'I . * wim\ 14() OAMOS.u,\nLyo\ ; even — appear-z'^/^v-iineasy ? However, Fan will see to this. Poor Fan ! 'she gets awfully flirted with, and looked over, and shut up. But in some women's hands a fan has tremendous effect : when they take a fan for an aid in flirting, the effect is generally something to make a fanfaronade about, for it is a dangerous gal-fan-izing weapon. Doesn't the poet say it " Gives coolness to tlie matchless damo, To every other breast — a flame"? He does, and he's right. Have a fan-kneel ice. We quench our flame in seltzer and sherry, but it's all a selsir, it's all fanity, useless vanity ! -0- A PRIZE-FIGHTER can choose any one but — Mill-dred. A Floorer or a Lowerer would either of them be far more adapted for — the Ring ! -o- XnOR a barrister or a physician — Fee-me ! if, -o- F OR an umbrella maker — Rene' whether he will believe us or not time only can show. / n will flirted 1 some ; when ffect is about, doesn't OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 147 i eel ice. but it's )ne but would Ring ! ''PHE wife for a man who pursues the wily forx or timid 'are — in fact, for a hunting man — is Adela ! as he will appreciate, more perhaps than any other man, all the good qualities his-Adela may possess ; in fact, ivithout his Saddler, where is he? But we feel convinced that all horsey men as a rule have i?icIton moments, when they will not object to any lady who has a Diana air and a dye on her hair, as they like fast colours. Nevertheless — though we merely mention it as a harrier pensei Apropos of hare dyeing and hunting — we must say we think it is a great pity to see our charmingly delicious and uatiirally fair English girls are so often a-paintin' and — like Hindoos riding on elephants in India — up-howda-m' ! ! Bother that powder, we wish it was dangerous, and would — go off ; and as lor the paint, how can girls expect to keep their " spoons" as they should be, if they use all the rouge on their own faces I The use of it is enough not to India women to you, and so Hindoo yer with love for them, but to 'India from even looking at them ! her m', he i i 148 G AMOS A GA'SlMON ; IM GAL. II. JnHE Roman Catholic Priest is beyond our advice ; he is already wedded to Sally-Bessy, yes, quite wedded to celi- bacy : at least we believe so, thougli we may be making a gross Sarah in stating so much, as of course our know- ledge on the subject is neces-Sarahly limited. The Priest may, or may not, be given jr' amourachcr with any body, but we should say that he was quite occupied enough with " the Fathers" without bothering himself much widi "the daughters !" Monasteries may, or may not, be all right or all wrong ; we don't know anything at all al^out them ; we never had one, never lived in one, except ins en />assant for a night or so in the East, when all we found out was diat the scandal and cope and the s beyond sdcled to ;d to celi- , though Sarah in )iir know- ;s-Sarahly be given lould say ith " the vldi "the ^ht or all lit them ; cept ifis len all we and the OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 140 candle and soap were allwell known, ^?// of them— except the soap, and that was not at a/l known. As for Nunneries, Ladies' Convents, etc., they may, or they may not, be all "hotbeds of un- tempted sin :" as we never tempted them we can't say; but we can and do most distinctly say we conr.ider them—collectively and singly— as an im- mense and most disgraceful— waste of the Raw Material ! — 0- F' 'OR a Master of the Ceremonies— Hetty-Kit ! Oh, when you kiss her, may it, for both your sakes, be done to a nice-Hetty. F^hould you ever be angry, waxy, remember .... Spare-Miss- Hetty ! -0- ^^ MAN who does not expect ever to 1)e obeyed, or, in any one thing, to have his own way| we don't think can object to A-re])eller .'-strong- minded Arabella. Jj^OR a man writing a long-winded, stiij^i.!, dry book, we sincerely reconnnend him to a-Bridget ! . .It B * i m I. 1/ .^ 1'^ lifi I i;- 150 0AM0SA0AM.3I0N ; TJ^OR a giiml:)ler at " rouge et noir'' — this is a cert tainty — Win-if-red turns up ! How all the gamblers, demireps, nobilities, etc., bolted from Baden the other day ; and well they might, as hey had got between two fires — the ^^ rouge et noir'^ and the Proosian war ; two, perhaps, of the most destructive elements of individual and national peace ever met with. -o- A LODGING-HOUSE keeper we are certain will feel delighted to offer an " elegant apartemcnt " garni a — Loui, or to say to some other charmer " Oh, live here ;" or, again, if he has never yet known the joys of Hymen, he will get into a perfect Firenzi, yes, a frenzy, of love with his first — Floor-rents ! May he get on cap-Italy ! -o- XpOR a mountebank, as a second self, a Charlotte- Ann ! TT^OR a man fond of keeping birthdays, wedding days, etc., etc., etc., if to Anne averse, Sarey perhaps will keep each annaversesarey with him. on, niJSTs oy hymen. ir>i s a cert all the i from ght, as et noir''' e most lational certam elegant le other never into a his first arlotte- 'edding :, Sarey him. Ij^OR a man who does not know wliat sort of a woman he wants, we recommend, as an inde- finite article, An ! Jj^OR a smoker — the .Savonarola, yes, this Havan- nah roler of 1870 — our advice is so very plain that you can no doubt make a cheroot guess, a very shrc\\d guess, as to its nature — it is simply. Have Annah ! Cigarter her — yes, seek arter her; and when you have found her, stick to her : don't have any curly pipes, hookahs, etc. : you should have seen the scrape we got into with our first narghile' : talk about the Laocoon — pshaw ! However, if this is too expensive for you, there are plenty of Penelopes to be found — vevay fin ones, — who won't be jealous of your other penny-Lopez', secrets — your fearful ci-grettes — etc. : so Pickwick — that is, look shap — and find one, and, may you nci'cr have .... T'rabuca ! ! Apropos of this nonsense about smoking, we will really put you up to a delicious wrinkle in the way of coffee. It is a Hungarian idea, and we wish people would introduce it — with the Hungarian chardash, too, the most rollicking jolly dance you ever heard or saw — into England. This is the idea : Get some cream whipped to a foam, and i " 1 i "ft 1^ ^ ir 152 r,'J.;/r>^MCMM.l/OiV; when you arc just going to drink your t'df/e an lait — which ouglu to be (juite hot — pile up three or four spoontuls of your cold foam on the top of your cup, and drink a little of your hot coffee through and with your cold whipped stuff ! Oh, Anathema ! Maryanne Arthur ! how good it is ! Try it, and live to bless us. A MAN very fond of eating onions had better take a Charlotte (shalot) ; and if she be a Heeland larssie who always talks " Oarlic," all the better, as then her spouse will lind her voice sweet as Honeyuns. Most Scotchmen, however, must deeply regret Horace's young lady, as a " Canny- dear " or anything else canny is what they so much admire. o A SCOTCHMAN, some modern male Andrew MTvay, will, like the valiant Hector of old, enjoy being protHector to a modern Miss Andrew M'Kay ! and willingly make her Mrs. Andro- mache^ ! P.S. and N.B. Answer to correspondent. — Yes, they do wear them ! ffe an lait three or )p of your I through natheina ! y it, and ad better she be a :,," all the )ice sweet -er, must '* Canny- ' so much 'c Andrew )r of old, s Andrew . Andro- nt. — Yes, OR, lllNTH ON IIYMEX, (lAL. III. H 1 all ye yacliting men, — who, we are mformed, so often get ''sewn up'' l)y "tlic Needles,"'— what do you say to your Adfe being— sicky ! Yes, we yacht to thank }'ou : you are quite riglu, we might have (v)omitted that horrid word, and written it properly, Psyche, the more so as, not to deseaview you., the sigh-key is so appropriate to the tone of voice of those who dis- like the dancing of the Terpsickhurryin' waves. Apropos of yachting, you know the story, of course, of the man who, on coming up on deck tlie first morning after starting on his hrst cruise as owner of the ship, was asked by the steersman, "Beg pardon, my Lord, will you take the helm?'' "No, thankee," answered \' swe llship. take anytliing between breakfast and di never nnar 154 GAMOSAGAUMON; ! I h \ MAN who has lots of debtors, we recommend to— Sue I lint, Creditor, when fondly bend- ing o'er her as she takes your loving arm, don't tell lier her tliat you feel k'/// on Sue's side ! it might frighten her if she didn't see the joke ; and never take her out in the rain, 't would be the act of a butcher to have Sue wet, dripping, on your arm. What a beast our butclier is ! ! I to-day though he's more like an iskmd than anything else, for we ordered a /i7:f loin of mutton, and now he's Sent-a- leaner ! every part is the l)0ney-part : too bad, isn't it ? wish we were going to dine with you. FOR a man with a glass optic — I.oose-eye ! If she presume on his defective vision and flirt on his " blind side," and " make eyes," which eyes> by-the-bye, are never of use to a husband, it will be very Lucifer, exceedingly loose of her ; she will be no safe match for him, and he should avoid her and the pangs of Jellucy she would cause him, as — to quote the old joke — he has plenty of subjects to " feellossofeyes " about without that. Take our advice, or you will probably sacrifice yourself and your happiness, O unwise Squintus Curtius. 1 1 OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. inr) mmend y bend- on't tell it might id never Lct of a iiir arm. ugh he's for we s Sent-a- too bad, you. ye! If and flirt ich eyes> , it will she will void her him, as subjects 'ake our rself and \ Tj^OR a good Samaritan, a charming little Aider. Take her during the "honeymoon to Bal- moral, if you like, but don't take her to Paris and those bals im-moral, where she would certainly be- come — or wish to — a masquer-ada ! She may enjoy hopping as much as any cic-ada^ or rather any healthy Ada, but we certainly advise her and her husband to avoid any such '"''can-cans du diable^' and " cutty-sarks "^ as they would witness there! n^HE poor but honest youth will, no doubt, look forward \\ith feelings of joy to Karn-his-tin ! Yes, and may Ernestine (Hear, hear) make her nest in (cheers) his poor but 'onest 'ome a happy one (renewed cheering from all parts of the house), and not only act to him (Hear, hear, and IJravo !) in his struggling days, the part of wife, but as friend, as- sister ! (ironical laughter, and Hear, hear). And now, dear boy, apropos of this fine senti- ment, we 'II act as assister and a brother too to you, and put you up to a nice little winter game or two for practice in country houses : we have found them most successful ; astonishingly so. Play them when you and two or three nice girls find yourselves in a conservatory, or the billiard room, or anywhere I no i < (MMOSAGAMMON ; It cozy, and iiiiiid }ou arc the only man in tlic game, or the other dufier ruakes up another party nf the same game on the other side of the room and spoils yours; but, rcuu:)nbc}\ to play our game successfully^ always conunence it by asking the plainest girl or woman first ; this is most important, as, if she begins, all the others follow. To play our games, you must have first provided yourself with a ribl)on yard-measure. Bon. Then our first game is- — measuring waists : you measure 'em ; don't i)art with your ribbon, or they'll measure themselves ; — that's not tlie game. It is very agreeable. Our second game is, — taking heights against the wall : see for yourself that they are not on tip-toes ; make sure of this ; it's not fair. (Jur third game is — over- taki?ig, let us say three or lour girls out walking, and then — swinging 'em on gates : you have to lift them on, hold them on, and lift them off! ! Oh ! y a-t-il quclque thing de plus nice ct dc plus delicious que this ? Can anything be more sclricarmcrisc/i, more unexplainably charming than what we describe? No, not nofkifig can't. We like these games very much. !lii' (Hr HINTS ON HYMEN. 1 • ►* 3 game, of the d spoils mfuU)\ girl or if she games, , rib])on le is — II 't part Ives ; — ^ Our le wall : ; make s — ovcr- ing, and ift them y a-t-il LOUS que /i, more Liscribe? (;at. IV. N Irisliman, if be ffiusf emigrate, we re- commend to go to Switzerhiiid, where he will most certainly fmd Jane-i^va capital, and ready to receive him with a charming welcome. Did (leneva see the Swiss mountains, Paddy? — Then go by all means. -0- ¥ OR a conjuror who desires a little con-iuLrde love .... ]'e-at-trix ! -0- Tj^OR a military widower, who has tasted happi- ness with one dear woman, let liim marry An-Cora, once more, again. No? ah, you have " buried " one Ann — a fat one— (}uite so ; then we recommend you this time, if only for the sake o^ I ; I i. 'W I Mi* i ■; r/: [ff^F k.*ttUM»^ -liv^^^u^ultk ■f ' IH j tif 158 ^;^#0>,S'^(?.4iM.V0iNr ; variety, to try a-Lcaner — a ^^i(lo^v, unless you wish to run the chance of getting a Miss-Helena. If, however, you neither re(|uire, nor like tlie idea of, a lean woman, some flit Emily may, [)erhiaps, be foand, a facs-emily of your first, with emily-tarry taste for soldiers. -0- A MAN who suffers from tic douloureux (wlio doesn't?) or nevreralgiers, or toothache, or or other sore-rows, ought to take Amelia to nurse him, to be sore-eye for him, and so ameliarate his ■|)ains ; after which he will no longer have to hold his handkerchief to his tooth, but will have tooth- handkerchiefly, his dear Amelia, for his relief from pain. TT'OR a French confectioner — Patisserie ! That -*- is what he would call her ; you would pro- nounce it harder, Patty Sarey, which isn't half as pretty. Apropos of confectioners, we wonder if you have ever heard this bit of logic — it 's confusing if not amusing ; we could tell it you very well, but it's a bore writing it : however, here it is. Man — gen- •oil wish ilia. If, idea of, laps, l)e lily-tarry :iix (who ache, or to nurse arate his to hold .^e tooth- ief from ! That Lild pio- ; half as 'Oil have ig if not lit it's a m- ^geii- on, uixTi^ ON nvjiiEx. 159 tiemaii; if you like : cool hand, any way— went into confectioner's shop, and taking up a roll inquired, ' "How much?'' " One penny, sir," replied the Officiating Vestal of the Temple. '• Ah, that's for too dear," said he, giving it back to the O. V. of the T., and taking up a jam tartulet. Having eaten his tartlet with a great deal of gusto, he proceeded to leave the shop ; but " I beg your parding, sir," insinuated the O. V. of the T., "you 'ave not settled for that tartulet." "Certainly not,'^ replied the gentleman; "J gave you the roll for it.'' " Yes, sir," urged the O. V. of the T., " but you a'd notpaidfor thit." "Why should I?" answered he, why on earth should I? Ycu'vE GOT ir!" ■0- J^OR a musician .... Leonora, for the over- whelming reason that there is no living musi- cian who would not be overjoyed to write an " Overture to Leonora !!" M>fa in the most baic manner that you can note —The reader ought to be much Jk'cthoven to us n, 'If IP PI |l: i 1 ml iff Hi- i lit i!. IGO (j'AJIOSAOA^lJION ; for this piece of information, but we beg to assure him he is J\lozart-ily n'elcome ! ■0- i j^OR a tinker, we should think Katinka ! -0-- Tj^OR a juryman who attends inquests, a Coroner -^ — as some i^eople will insist upon calling Co- rinna — is indispensable, that you may take your jurymcii-to — as the Italians call an oath. Do you doubt it ? go to Rome and see if they don't ! -0- TO a Boozom which is a magistrate's, Madge's traits will, v;e venture to hope, be not un- pleasing. -o- \ SWEEP — who ought to fix his nupshuUs for ■^^^ the First of May — will make money by A- may-belle. P.S. — How precious lucky for sweeps' widows that the India)! "Sutty" has never (^(>!ne into fashion over here, eh ? OR, JIIXTS OX IIVMEX. Kil ssurc )roDer ig Co- ; your >o you 1 aclge's rjt un- lills for jby A- I }j^OR a coT!(Iu( tor of classical music, J.cda. Poor Lcda nowadays, we imagine, is rather rara ai'is, but the Swan is all right. We don't mean the Sw^an of Avon, but an a-von Swan by whom Jupiter is ([uite eclipsed nnd cut out; and he's a useful bird, too. How many ledas — of io/i, fashion, does this Swan not supply with all sorts of extra-ordinary bargains ? You know the Swan we mean : Piccadilly. You may picca-dilly-cious thing up in cra\'ats, sorcks, or pockytaPigkerchers there if you try: do. Say we sent )ou. It's all riglit ; but if they throw somethmg at you, eh ? what'U you do ? throw it back again ? yes, as hard as you can, or l^etter still, keep it. But apropos of swans and leaders, etc., we want to know this : if lux is Letin for light, does Pollux mean poUight ? if so, can a man take off his Castor in a l^ollux manner } It isn't for ourself we ask, but for eh ? — where? — sssssssshhhh at midnight I silent as the grave ! not for the ivorld — you may rely upon it — one egg beaten up with a little rum well rubbed in to the roots — never ! i^ooooQt(\ evening ! m U^i '■, I. m I'M i! ■ I 162 F GAXOSAGAUMoy; GAL. V. . K venture to think that the inteUigent African, Uncle Tom, the rnan and hoihci\ cannot possibly do better than — Be-at-rice. T^OR a miller, we presume to tliink Camilla eminently suitable. Tj^OR a man cook, -ix piqiiantc Flavia o- ~n^OR a rifleman everydiing is in an aim, so we must be careful. What does our volunteer say to a Minnie, one of the right sort ? — in fact, there is only one sort of Minnie to avoid : they're all darlings but igno-minnie 1 I'^h ? what ? Vou say OR, HINTS OX nVM/wV. ir>:\ you should prefer something a Httle newer, a sort of double-barrelled weapon, a rille and the '' S(7dre of your Pcrc'^ in one — a Schneider for instance ! Ha ! ha ! good, O volunteer ! but ne vooly voo par cur you may get it ; that's all our eye and Henry- Martini ! o jj^OR a railway porter — Carry, simply Carry. -0- Iso we lunteer foot, they're lou say A REAPER will of course readily conjugate Jiaymow avuis^ " 1 love a lass," and probably get on as far as a ma re ; and as we are told women don't learn Latin because they can't bring them- selves to decline amaiis loving ; when, therefore, he finds a Mary, may he prove himself not a muff, not look sheepish like amandnni to love, but speak up, and go in and win her. Do all that is right and proper for Mary, propria quce maribus, etc., and, oh ! may Mary's heir never turn out what the French call Polly s-son ! TJHOR an M.A. an Emnif? is preEmmanently suited ; in flict, the only Emma to avoid is a dil-emma ! N-B. — We are thus pointed in our mm ■,::: 'I ii; ( i1 r^ '«:' II? :' 1(J4 GAMOSAGAMMON ; rcf [nesting you to call her M-A in order that >oii may never get into the trick of calling her Emm//r ; nothing is so disagreeably vulgar. Yon know the story of the " party" with this style of j)ronunc'ation, who gave another " j)arty " into custody for an assault, with the following exfjuisite articulation : " This 'ere fell/zr upset the soGr and broke our windtT with his unibrelhT, and it isabell,f I No, no ; a proper minded iinentor of the Unique Curly business, we are sure, is readv to well-comb any nice curl to his home, therefore we d IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) /. {./ y «^ r/. .< '^^> Ar ^ ^ 1.0 t^ ^ I.I 2.2 L25 i 1.4 2.0 1.6 V] ^ /a em. ^% ^ V y ."^^ Photographic Sciences Corporation ,\ ?v ■1>^ :\ \ LV o"^ m ^b riT-- ^^ 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 <' ^:%' y 4 if Ls ? ^o c^- u. Mp ^ x9 170 aAM0SAGAM3I0N; simply advise him to go on, with her assistance, paying that same strict attention to his forcing pro- cesses, which has hitherto been so successful in keeping his comb full of hair, ;iot — his home full of care -o A MAN who has a deaf wife — that is, a wife ■^^ deaf-ficient in hearing, should call her Oc- tavia, as then her name may remind him to pitch his voice an octave 'igher when addressing her, and prevent his giving Act a false tjuantity of sound, as we do j'cfu in our joke, O reader. Tj^OR a greengrocer, Sarah Adela : familiarly, by -^ the waggish greengrocer, made into — Sal-Ad ! N. Beany. — Rules to be observed by all wise green- grocers. Be sage enough to put off till to-marrow what might have been done yesterday ! Call a spade a spade if its spade for, and don't be a choujicur in any of your dealings ; no, be a shuffler in nothing I AMien your wife asks if you will take her to 'Amptcn Court, don't say — Fotater, as the French term perhaps ! Eschew Hops ! (entrance, including refreshment, 6d.) Always beetroot to OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 171 your promise I Pay your just debts with celeryty ! Never treat your wife with endiverence ! Train up your sprouts in the way they should go, and send them early to the precarrotary school ! " Latst afigiiis in herbd — the snake lies hid in the grass," therefore look most carefully through every bundle of your " grass," to make sure that the reptile don't go home to one of your customers ! And, oh ; lettuce implore you, make your wife avoid too much green stuff, or, like — the unfortunate lady of Grinidgc, of a highly respectable linidge, whose face, once all dimples, became nought but pimples, from inordinate eating of spinipge — her beauty will be gone ! for, remember — beauty is onion the sur- face ! 1 Keep these rules, O grocer of greenery, and Water Croesus you will grow, sir ! I « >: Tj^OR a man anxious for his family, anxious that -^ his wife should soon become a good mother, a Bertha, we believe, to be equal to any. P.S. N.B. — If any of y owx Jiiioii, your babes ever, by any chance, should require a black dose, sing, whilst giving it, " Happy Land."' Oh, yes ! it's quite correct, don't be afraid, happy land a black dose are most highly recommended by the quack, that is fac-ulty ! n: GAMOSAGAUMON ; TT^OR the jockey, amateur or professional, the racing swell, amateur or professional, et hoc genus ()mm\ — liet : a bet is a dow-wager, so that if you should unfortunately lose her, you may bear the loss of your dow-wnger with ec^uanimity, and get over it more " like a bird ' than you otherwise would. \ 1 if \^ hi I OR, HINTS ON in'MFX 173 le Of if ■ ar id se (iAL. VIII. I'', venture to suggest to a man wlio suffers from gout or rheumatism — and wlio is, therefore, a sort of red in- flamed-looking toe-martyr, and any- thing l)ut one of the au-tomata tribe, without feehng,— to make his ag'nies feel easier, Agnes Fehcia ! Do tliis O sufferer ; find and marry her : thou lookest as if thou wouldst make any woman happy : " To see Mm is to love him, love but him, and love him ever !" » Do this if thou wishest f/iii^/i pains, ///v shocking pains, to ]3e Q:-femoraL Yes, find some nice middle-aged stout Agnes, and may she not deceive thee, not turn out — an A^^;ncs fatuus ! %% liM: 174 OAMOSAGA^IMON ; Tj^OR a diner out. Dinah ; and may your offspring — your Dinahsty — have health, wealth, and the years of Nestor ! 11 \' h ' TT^OR a man of Mr. Paul JJedford's physique, as a contrast, a Paul-lean, and may the contrast be not a-paul-lean! r- I : \ N old Jew clothesman x\ ill find any old Chlo-e "^^ picked up anywhere, quite out of fashion. No amount of Clo-reform will make her nappy; therefore we recommend him to another woman, whom we think we may call Jew'd ; or, he might, perhaps, prize a filthy Lucre-tia, if only for the spell in her name. At any rate, if the old Jew be a bad miserly man, it is devoutly to be wished he may not show himself to his wife, an' or — in, 'is- re-al-light I A BANKRUPT will probably find out what a Judy-Kate is like before he has finished his business. OR, UISTS ON 111 MEN. 175 "EpOR a waterman— a mnn who rows on the river, and lias an innate power of seeing everything couleur dc rows — Rose ; and she must be pretty and fresh-looking, for when a man is healthy, he likes to see his wife look so too : and he bein^^ used to row scullers on the river when he is out, will be sure to want two Rose colours on her cheeks when he is cJwz /in, as, ha\ing already a nice oar on the water, he won't want an eye sore on the land ; nor, having one river already, will he ever recjuire to find the Missis-hippy at home. And, () Water-part}', - though we hope to see you a dozen times a day earn eighteen pence civilly from your fare on tlie water, — may we never sec you-eighteen pence-ively for the smile that don't come from your foir at home ! The want of this smile is more wet-blanketish and damping to the spirits than any amount of riveis. -0- A N "habitual drunkard" had better marry a lean Maud to look after him when he's Maudlean himself; although, j^erhaps, a Jane, who will be always Ginny, will be more to his taste ; but we advise him to take the Russian Emperor as his examjl. — llie finn, straight, erect Sober C';ar. Ill I' t;- i' I II i 170 O'AMOSAa.mMOy ; Bless the Solio Bazaar I Hut, nonsense and joking apart, wliat term can possibly express a more dis- gusting state of things than "an habitual drunkard''? What sight can be more sickening than the bloated toper's coloured face, and idiotic eye of the down- right sot ? Do you, our swizzling friend, never by any chance meet in your so/frr moments another drunkard ? If you do, what, now, what do you think of him ? Do you flatter yourself that you look one atom less bestial and foolish than he does ? We can tell you you certainly do not : you look precisely the same. You may argue that a man very much in love looks as great a fool as a man very much in lic^uor ; well, we grant it, he does look silly, but is a god compared to you ; be- sides, marriage will sober him and bring him to his senses, however Quixottish he m.ay now be ; where- as, it appears, O not quick l)ut slow-sottish beery one ! that nothing can of ale with you. We think if the friends of an "habitual drunkard'' would only have his photograph taken when " tighter' than usual, he might, perhaps he mi^^ht^ on seeing it when he had recovered his reason, be made to feel thereby one pang of remorse and — shame. Ah ! drink, fatal gin to catch the human beast ! Oh ! gin, fountain and horridgin of what an amount of grief ! Ah I Blue Ruin^ fons ori^o maloet thou- OR, HIXTS (K\ HVMHX. 177 -'•////// Ma y/( ';•/////, do wc say? It incvital)ly uv// lower 'cm. Oh ! \\\ki si)irits, had .{,-^£7///, well may you be called " 6-7//," for how many London Arabs, Bohemian girls, etc., etc., et cetera, bow down literally — nay, tumble down, in your abominable worship ! i ;l i: 178 aAMOSAGAMMOX; w : GAL. IX. HE New Zealand settler — we beg to re- mind him of the tact — can have the 'I choice of lots of Maoris, charming Marys, when he gets there. -0- h ■ ¥ if ISv^l A RE you a ballooner, are you a perfect Coxwell, or as venturesome even as the celebrated Glaisyer, who went up as high as possible to look at the windows of heaven ? Where will you be without your . . Car ! your swell saf-in Car, to finish off your si//e baloon ? Nowhere. Get as strong a one as possible. :f* OIL HINTS Oy HYMEN. ' 9 170 A MAN accustomed to liaving his own way, and who therefore Ikis done nothing ])Ut vainly sigh for a woman who will he a cypher in his house, can tind an F.-K. or an L.-N., but we wont promise them to be cyphers in action. J.-L. was a cypher of this sort, yet she killed Sisera, and this-is-a-ra-ther important fact to remember, for it shows that a woman may be a cypher, a nonentity, m so/zwiiuiys, and yet capable of doing the greatest mischief, caj),il)le even of— using her nails. 'I'his way of looking at the nail may be useful — keep it in your head. P.S. — Once more wc are reminded by the mention of Jael's hammer to hope that Mr. Jael Toole keeps his health, by the kind permission of the lesiee of the Ckiiety, Escj. ! ! A PROPER minded clergman, whose B.-A.- viour is invariably M.-A.-culate, can only be really happy in company with no blas-phcmy ; yes, with th' noble lass Phemy ! -o- riiO a lonely man who requires a ^////cq lemmen to cheer him up, we simply say. Take a bright Selina, man, and have done with it. 180 GAMOSAaA^^lMOX ; A 1»AWM5R()KKR will no douht look upon his wife as a P()i)|)ct, and ever (?/ on the jjlcdgcs — of affection sheniaygi\e him poppetually, with a i)oi)aje\vel, yes, a i)erpetiial and ever-increas- ing love and— and- interest. If h m: ii i j^OR a dancing-master — Grace. rpHlO lady's shoemaker who is a marrying man, ••• and looks uj-on himself as a charming and fitting si//(>r for any woman, had belter make up his mind to try a nice stout Jane, and he ma\- rely upon us, that after he has shoehorn at tlie altar to love and cherish her, etc., he will find her unnews- hoeally handy and ap})ropriatc, so much so that we have no doubt that when spooney with his Jane, he will, like Neptune, be frequently a-heaving Jinny a slow sigh, yes, a heaving genius loci ! N., rather B. — We do wish ladies wouldn't show their darling tootsicums coming out of church. How are we to keep our thoughts fixed on things above, with such earthly attractions twinkling about under our very eyes ? VVe have heard a story of a clergyman who M k upon on tlic ctually, incrcas- OR, HINTS OX I/y.VEX ISl said that tlircc pretty girls in conspicuous positions in a church in ordinary summer transparent muslin gowns were (piite sulticient to spoil the ''Itect, on the male i>art of the congregation, of ti jest ser- mon ever preached. He was perhaps right— but the boots afterwards settle the (lueslion altogether ! ig man, ng and 2 Up his ay rely iltar to mnews- that we i Jane, g Jinny , rather darling ■e we to th such ur very lan who A SPANIARD, we feel convin- od, will never object to sec Lster ? N. H. -'( his, () Spanish party, is so neat, so rrry neat, that ^^e really don't think we can possibly recommend you a neuter — sweet Yoii-a-)mta ! bright Juanital We blow her one kiss, however, for all that ! 182 OAMOSAGAUMON ; I GAL. X. t,'i\> g can't think of any one who would " do for" a jolly archer. His talk's of a light-hearted nature, as vvell as his toxopholite amusement, and we really think he had better remain single, as most women are archer than he is, and have ever so many deaux to one string ; and his wife might be an arrow-minded girl, who would only run through the gold instead of his doing it, and not improbably })ut him in a quiver instead of his arrows, or say he treated her with barbarrowty. Barbara would never do for him, and so he had better look about him for himself for a rose without a thorn. But in the meantime it would perhaps be as well if those two Miss Crackerys — you know, daughters of old JimCrack- ery, who was in the Fifteenth — would only leave OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 183 off shooting whilst he is collecting the arrows, or one of the Miss C.'s will "do for" him — and at once. "C^OR a man who wants to get to the end of this great work — Patience. . ho would s talk's of ell as his we really single, as he is, and ne string; girl, who id of his a quiver her with for him, •r himself meantime ;wo Miss im Crack- nly leave "U^OR a man given to say " Hullo !" "Bless my ^ heart !" " De-ar me !" " Ciood gracious !" etc., etc., etc., perhaps Heyday, some lovely dark- eyed Haidee, will do better than any other. -o- TpOR a dancing doll proprietor — Mary-Annette ! -0 T^OR a pilgrim, Ann ; who, of course, will be quite the cheese when she's a Pahiier's Ann. However, we are informed that Palm.ers have be- come obsolete, therefore our advice is useless, and the Palmer's Ann is not — still ton ! 184 GAMOSAGAMMON ; TJ^OR a crier — Bell-owner — o — L^OR a regular John Bull — A Roarer Tj^OR a Reform Leaguer — a great big, enormous, -*■ dirtv Gatherin' ! -o- \ MAN who writes for the press, //;/ Mousicur qui "7'^ a Paicrc^'' an author in fact, if he be engaged a great deal with his manuscripts, will often find any Missis a Nemesis in reality, as a;/ M.S. is considered by many women rather a bore than otherwise, it they wish its manufacturer to take them out shopping, etc., etc., etc. A MAN with a wooden leg would perhaps like to be able to say to his wife — Oh I limp here ! It would be very spiteful of him, but peo- ple are spiteful, tho' being a cripple himself, he would be much more sensible if he were to look out for an — Infirm-Mary ! normous, Monsieur let, if he 4pis, will y, as a;/ r a bore er to take laps like )h I limp )ut peo- iself, he to look OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 185 F OR a linendraper, hook-an'-eye recommend better than Nar-scissar ? -0- \XTH0 wouldn't be charmed with a loving, ten- der, pretty, soft, smaii Amy? Biit who dares go in for her large ? Who will — let us hear his answer — who will be bold enough to venture on — BIG-AMY? -0- A REVOLUTIONIST we sincerely advise to '^^ only imagine a riot, for it's much jjleasanter Emma Jane-ing it at home by a comfortable fire- side, than being knocked down in the street in reality. -0- A N M.P. after a big division will care for Estella only ; yes, for 'tis teller only. -0- T O a lover of the awful, we can recommend — The-awfuller ; yes, Theophila ! 18G GAMOSAGAiiMON ; \ OARDENER is a very lucky man, as he has ■'^^ a variety of the sweetest and choicest speci- mens to take his pick of. He can have a full-blown open Rose, or a close prim Rose, or a Rose Mary, or a lot of Weeders offering to take the greenness out of his path in life ; or he can have a sweet de- lightful Minnie Annette, to water his coffee-plants with boiled milk, and sprinkle sugar and cream on his strawberry-beds, so that the sparrows may be ^////(S* contented. Then, lucky dog I he and his chosen bride, be she who she may, can mutually help to make their bread, and Buddha will no doubt be their idol. We drink his bride's very good health in " Sherry Wine," Xeres to her JoUe good health ! ! A N Eastern traveller we recommend to the care-of-Ann ! or, if he prefer a wife with two names, who can give him a shelter, to the caravan- Sarey. By-the-bye, Ann Sarey is certainly the bet- ter ot the two, as she will accustom him most to the Sarahs-Anns and other infidels he will find in those parts. P.S. — We advise you to have a trip to the East. You will find " Lhomme qui riz" and "Z^i" Mees Arabes^' the rice-eater and the Arab misses, very agreeable ! OR, IlfNTS ON HYMEy. 187 1, as he has cest speci- full-blown lose Mary, greenness I sweet de- )ftee-plants cream on s may be i and his mutually I no doubt ^ery good j'ohe good id to the J with two ; caravan- y the bet- most to ill find in ve a trip m," and the Arab GAL. XI. -^ffC OR a naval officer our advice is most im- portant : he can-^when he has sailor- brated his nuptials, and is at home and idol— make a war-ship of his wife ; but you must always remember, na'cr for- get, O commodore, that life and death have been known to— to— hang on hang on Bianca ! to pos-i-tively hang on by anchor ! ^ ^O the simple sailor we say, take Ellen alone, take no .... one ... . but .... Ellen, as then your son must turn out a Nell's-son : ! 188 GAMOSAQAUMON ; TT'OR an auctioneer, Lottie or Biddie ! -*- N.B. — Good name for an knocktioneer him- self, Oh !-bid-higher ! Apropos of auctioneers, did you ever hear the story of the old gentleman who, one very wet morning, as he had nothing very particular to do, entered an auction room for shelter, where, just as he went in, he heard the presiding genius say, "At twopence — at twopence — going at /ri'^pence — I'WOpence — for the last time at /rc^^pence." The old party, knowing he had twopence halfpenny somewhere about him, nodded his head and bid that sum. Can you fancy his dismay, his utter mental annihilation, when, later on, he discovered he had purchased two thousand eight hundred and forty-seven tons seventeen and a half hundred- weights of . . . damaged tobacco, at twopence half- penny . . . PER POUND ! ! Alas ! pooar old man. TTOW does a jeweller like this sketch : A silvier -■--■- chain, yes, a sweet kissable Silvia Jane, with ruby lips, masses of red gold hair (valuable carats nowadays), teeth like pearls, turquoise eyes, i-vory, though not very 'igh, shoulders, and withotit any OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 189 neer him- hear the very wet lar to do, re, just as > say, "At vpence — :e." The halfpenny :1 and bid his utter iscovered idred and hundred- ence half- A silvier ane, with 3le carats s, i-vory, hout any relations, carb-uncles, enamel, or other drawbacks. Is not this picture perfect? Don't you long to look into those bluely flashing eyes, which have a look in them which instantly kindles sn|)phire of love? Don't you pine to listen to each precious stone of the voice of this charmer and to trinket it in as sham pain with real pleasure ? eh ? You don't? You mean to say you won't have her? What ; not have our beautiful hand-maid Chain ? You won't ? Then find an Emmer in a green old age for yourself, and may you look green with your .... emmer-old. A FOREIGN savant (sar'a/ft, not sa7wi, they •^^ have nothing in common), a foreign savanti we say, who has a lot of Aristoi)]ianes cheeks, upper lip, and chin, like the busts of Hairy-stufif- on-his have, as he himself may in slang l)e termed Hairy beggar, will moustache-suredly like his wife to be 'Airybeggar also ; and more so still if the young lady be not only A-rebecca, but also a rich Aris-to-phan-es brow when 't is with study heated ! s 190 a AMOS AO AM M ON; Tj^OR a dustman, a Liicinda ! certainly, for who or what can possibly be more appropriate for a scavenger than a loose cinder ! -0- nno a man who has a boozom which can feel for another, to a man, in flict, who has a feline heart, we say, take a nice playful young Kitty, not an old cat of a Tabitha — M/e dame and beldam are not at all the same — or perhaps, when too late, alas! you'll find out that your Tabitha's Claw'd-yer! -0- TT^OR an artilleryman — one who 'S-a-firer. Sophia -^ away ! We hope the artilleryman don't think this joke too p-arsenal 1 -o- rr^O a very mean man, though w^e hate him like -*- poison, we don't mind saying you can easily find a woman w^ho is Mina still. May she bully you well. Very odd it is, that the meanest people we meet invariably have large incomes. We hate the demina of Mr. Mean and the Lady Amina for who riate for feel for a feline tty, not iam arc te, alas! er! OR, niNTS ON HYMEN. loi thoroughly ; hope you do. We never meet or hear of stmgy people without remembering the Yankee story of the half-starved looking negro, who, upon being asked what he had eaten for breakfast, re- plied, " Oh, missus she biled four eggs for he'rsef dis morning, and she gabe me de brof!" it i Sophia I't think im like II easily le bully people Ve hate Amina i 192 GAMOSAVAUMON ; 'I GAL. THF. DOZENTH. HE troubabour can join company with a serene Ada I or a Lilv — of the Prai- rie. N.B. — He'll find it a true-bad- hour for liim if he comes luider inor window, unless he's waterproof How men ever could make such fools of themselves ! Troubadour indeed ! pshaw ! A MAN who wishes his home to be a perfect earthly Paradise had better marry — a Lizzie, and as she is ever to be found in Elizzieum, hadn't ju-piter look sharp about finding her, eh? as she will injupiterbly make you joveial, don't ju-know ! OK, IIII^TS ON UYMEN. 193 rriHE nice, fresh, hearty, clean tubbing-man will ■*- very naturally recjuire a lady equally given to v/ater. May we remind you, O clean one, that Loo is the girl for you? The most celebrated Loo that ever was has entirely derived all her celebrity from her indivisible connection with water. You Water- loos no time in securing her. F OR a man who lives on Cornhill . . Corn-hillia! A MAN who purposes changing his name ought •^^ not to marry ; however, the lady would " B flat " to marry him^ as she also might have to be- come " An^awful — c-oward ! A SCEPTIC in religion — one of those shocking •^^^ heathens who don't one bit mind letting you know that he prefers the evening her to the even- 7 11 194 QAMOSAdASlMON; ing hymn, and who is therefore the exact opposite of the very rehgious man who even refused to use his psalms for any other than holy purposes — had better think it over, and for the future let his faith be— in Violet ! Oh, rapture I only imagine the delicious warmih of a Fire-lit ! P.S. — Might not the n'/ija^ious man we have just alluded to spend a trille of his time in relieving the absolute necessities of a few of the wretched speci- mens of grease and dirt, of Sue-wet and wSal muddy we daily see, instead of devoting himself to psal- mody alone ? If instead of rolling his eyes he were to roll their mouths^ he wouldn't get any flirther from the destination he makes such a parade of wishing to arrive at. -o- A TRAGEDIAN, if he promise not to make a •"^^ Garrickature of himself, we advise to Avonia girl whose name is Avonia. P.S. — Apropos of actors, amytwoers, etc., do you know these char- ades ? We are not aware whether they are very old and well known, or not : if they are, they deserve to be ; if not, here they are : 0/V, HINTS ON JIYMKN. lU.") CHARADE I. Scene — A Street. Gentlemam comes in, and when half-way across the stage is met by another gentleman, who, after hailing with How d' do, etc., feels his pulse, looks at his tongue, punches him in the ribs, and docs the regular medical business, then off they go. Curtain — Whole word of six syllables. Metra-Phy-si-cian 1 II?. rii 'I ; ll t ] 196 OAMOSAOAMMOy; I .'1 . CHARADE II. Same scene, same men, same thing gone through aga'.n, doctor and tongue and pulse business. Cur- tain. — Whole word of three sylables. Met-a-fore! These are not bad ; neither are these : ll OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 197 CHARADE III. Scene, an entirely unfurnished room, except in the middle of it stands a common white wooden towel screen. Curtain. — ^Whole word of two sylla- bles, an island. Deayoss. i« »«?•>#)(»* -trjw- w 198 GAMOSAGAUMON; CHARADE IV. Precisely the same thing over again. Curtain. — Whole word of two syllables, an island again. « - Same-'oss ! We think these good ; and then you might, on stretch, sell your deal-'oss, make another charade of three syllables of it, and call it — A buy'd-'oss ! ^ OR, HINTS ON HYMEN. 199 irtain. in. It, on arade T>ENJAMIN,our esteemed Benjamin, has already -*-^ been advised by other pens than ours to marry an Annie, that he in his union may become Bennie-fitted and the lady Annie-mated ! Good, quite so. We wish, nevertheless, to add one word, to impress o?ie ?iame on his mind. When annie- mated and joyous, as time goes on, if you ever feel disposed to — to — sup from home, don't do it ! Have ever before you the wretched operatic fate of poor Mr. Stanley : Oh ! think of the sad end of — " Don Giovanny " and — dongiovanny, no, don't- yer-'ave-any ! ! for, to say nothing of its being ex- ceedingly wrong, if your wife discover your peccad- illos, you will certainly be worse off than Don Giovanni, for she will " make it warm '' for you before your time, and provide you with the most superior set of blue and green devils in this world, who will stick to you, and not lei you go through a trap-door home to supper like Mr. Stanley, but never lose sight of you. Benjamin, did you ever take the measure of an ell upon earth ? No ? Then eschew Don Giovarnyism and Zampaism, 200 i I! GAMOSAOAMMON; and, perhaps, you never will ! To the married man, whether Bencharmin' or ugly Ben, who neglects our caution, we simply and poetically remark — If some dire and dread calamity Don't come and make him " * " it, ho May think himself most lucky 1 , :t \:^ i h^ OR, HINTS ON HYMEN 201 . And LASTLY, O poor, good-natured, gentle reader — which, by-the-bye, we hope you are, or, as the man with the axe said, " We shall cahatchet !" — lastly, O long long-suffering friend, from whom we are about to part, as a final piece of advice — as the ultimate mot we shall pen, let us, on knended bees, implore you to reco-member and bear in mind — that a man may not have three wives at one time. No, the law is so strict that he may not even — have two; the law is so absurd that he may not have more than one, for the law has harem-edy of its own against pollygamyficationary practices. Yes, you are right, it is ridiculous : your two wives could quarrel so nicely with each other, and act so, well as safety-valves to let each other^s steam off, upon^ and quarrelling with, you, but — it may not be! Yes, we agree with you the law is ridiculous, but — it is so ! Try, and see if it is not, and you will very soon find yourself transported for instead of by your wives, which, to say the least of it, would be a most internal nuisance. 202 GAMOSAGAllMON ; Now, as you walk about in your manly boots and varnished beauty — pshaw ! in your varnished boots and manly beauty — a bachelor, free — you hear the maternal bird, the old bird, sing as you pass — " Oh, come, choose for a wife !" This is inviting : it is flattering : it is charming ; but, be tempted by more than one elderly sighren to carry off the young bird she appears to be so anxious to get rid of, and the eye and the arm of the law, in the form of Policeman B 17, immediately don^t refrain from joining in the old bird's song with their version of it, which unfortunately is fiot *' Oh, come c/ioose for a wife," Imt " Oakum pick for a wife," and you — you are done for, shut up — teles- copickleey, operahat-ically — shut up at once ! Oh, dear neighbour, we have bored you — ah ! how have we not bored you with our non-sense — we've bored ourself even over it ; but — and we ask it at the moment of saying (we hope) An revoir. inly boots varnished REE — you ig as you This is ; but, be 1 to carry nxious to le law, in tely dofi't long with not " Oh, 'yick for a ip — teles- ce ! ^ou — ah ! i-sense — -and we ope) An TALKS ABOUT HEALTH. BT DIG LEWIS, A.M., MD- 7 AUTHOR OP •• 0UR0IRL8." 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