% ■>-: .,nFrfi' ■"UfxMl IMI^hE d» OSAMCElGu > nec^ni a 9M » .^ ^ si I : ^lOSANCElCn> JNIVER% ^ •V o invDJO^" rpi 1^ s e ^ IINIVER%, avIO! C3 ee T O UNIVER% 31 Boston, 135 Washington Street, March, 1851. NEW BOOKS AND TJEW EDITIONS PUBLISHED BY TICKNOE, HEED, AND FIELDS. HENRY W. LONGFELLOW'S WRITINGS. Complete Poetical Works. This edition contains the six Volumes menlioned below, and is the only complete cullectiun in the marliet. In two volumes, ICmo, $2.00. In separate Volumes, each 75 cents. VOICES OF THE NIGHT. BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS. SPANISH STUDENT ; A Play in Three Acts. BELFRY OF BRUGES and OTHER POEMS. EVANGELINE; a Tale of Acadie. THE SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE. THE WAIF. A Collection of Poems. Edited by Longfellow. THE ESTRAY. A Collection of Poems. Edited by Longfellow. MR. Longfellow's prose works. Hyperion. A Romance. In one volume, 16mo, price $1.00. Outre-Mer. a Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea. In one volume, 16mo, price $1.00. Kavanagh. a Tale. Lately published. 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It may not be inappropriate to mention here, that among the distinguished literary and i)olitical individuals whose initials only appear in the original editions, the following names are easily recognized. 'VVilliam Gilford : Wash- ington Irving : William Wordsworth : James Hogg : Leigh Hunt -. Charles Mills : Christopher North : Uobert Southey : Barry Cornwall : Lord Byron : S. T. Coleridge : Sir Walter Scott : Thomas Bloore : Edward Irving : Mr. Hume : Lord Palmerston : Sir Francis Burdett : 'Lord Brougham : Mr. Can- ning : Sir James Mackintosh : Mr. AVilberforce, and Jlr. Hobhouse. Black- wood's Magazine, The New Monthly Magazine, John Bull (newspaper), and the Reporter of the Tunes, are also conspicuous in the following pages. WAHRENIANA: WITH NOTES, CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY, BY THE EDITOE OF A QUARTERLY REVIEW. I hare even been accused of writing pufTs for Warren'a Blacking. — Lord BrRO.\. ' . ' o - . .J.J BOSTON: TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS MDCCCLI. Nothing can cover his hi?h fame but heaven ; No pj-ramids set ofif his memory But tlie eternal substance of his greatness, To wliich I leave him. —Beaumont & Fletcher. ' K -' "■..■'; ' BorroN ; ' THL'SSTON, TORSy, & EMERSON, Printers, Devonshire Street. PR TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. Sire, A UEVOUT admirer of church and state presumes '^ to lay the following pages with characteristic propriety '^ at your feet. By this act, he would be understood to ^ waive his consideration of the monarch, and to address s himself exclusively to the munificent Mecsenas of the "^ fine arts. Deign then, O best of Princes, to justify his appeal, that posterity may learn how Warren enlarged the bounds of science, and his Sovereign plowed approval. Periander, O King, yet survives in 1 connection with the sages whom he upheld, and long V after the trophies of a Wellino:ton shall have floated «J down the Lethe of oblivion, the name of Guelph, eternized by the gratitude of Warren, shall flourish to after ages, the Medici of modern art. That as yet this mighty Manufacturer has lived comparatively unnoticed, he casts no reflection on Your Majesty ; vi DEDICATION. he resigns that office to his Blacking, but feels with the sensitiveness of neglected genius, that intellect, like the oak, is but tardy in the attainment of its honors. But his hour hath at last arrived, the sun of his fortunes is high in heaven, and its full meridian effidgence he here dedicates to the sei-vice of Your Majesty. In a kindred spirit of unexampled loyalty, his Editor ventures to subscribe himself, Your Majesty's most dutiful. Most zealous, Most affectionate, And most obsequious, humble servant, W. G. \ C ONTE NTS. Introduction. By W. G. .... 9 Warren. W. I. . . . . • 17 Old Cumberland Pedler. W. AV. . . . 24 Warren in Fairy Land. J. M. . • .31 A Nursery Ode. L. H. . . . • 39 Digression on the Family of Warren at the Time of THE Crusades. C. M. . . . .44 Carmen Triumphale. R. S., P. L. . . . 51 The Triumph of Warren, a Cambridge Prize Poem, C. H. T. 58 The Girl of Saint Mary-Axe. B. C. . . 62 The Sable School of Poetry. B. M. . . 75 The Childe's Pilgrimage. Lord B. . . .83 The Dream, a Psychological Curiosity. S. T. C. 93 Annus Mirabilis. The N. M. M. . . . 106 Warren at Saint Stephen's. The R. of the T. 115 Battle of Brentford Green. Sir W. S. . . 139 A Letter to the Editor of Warreniana. J. B. 154 Song. J. B. . . . • . .157 Appendix. W. G. . " . . . . 163 Notes, Critical and Explanatory. W. G. . . 177 WARRENIANA. INTRODUCTION. Bt W. G. In order to account for my connection with this volume, it is necessary to revert to a favorite and leading episode in my early life. This is ail egotistical, but, as my friends all assure me, a requisite duty, and one the mere mention of which will plead, I trust, my best apology with the public. At any rate it shall have brevity* to recommend it. The reader who is at all acquainted with my trans- lation of the Roman satirist will remember, that in the memoirs prefixed to that volume I alluded to the fact of my having been sent to a little day-school at A n. * As I have already written my memoirs at full length in my translation of the Satirist of Aquinum, it is superfluous to repeat more in this place than bears directly on the point. — G-. 2 10 INTRODUCTION. To this I have to add, that I had continued but a short time in a state fluctuating between the extremes of de- spondency and hope, when a boy, by name Warren, was dispatched to the same academy. This boy was the present celebrated manufacturer of the Strand. He was many years my junior, ardent and speculative in his turn of mind, warm-hearted and sincere in his disposition, and eccentric in his general demeanor. There was, in fact, a something about him that excited while it riveted attention, and inspired me with the proud hope of one day becoming his associate. I was not deceived in my conjectures ; a sympathy of situa- tion seemed to draw us with the force of a magnet towards each other, till from mere school companions we became bosom friends. But these halcyon days were not long to last. A summons from his father, who was a wholesale manu- facturer of blacking, recalled young Warren to London, and I was bound apprentice to a shoemaker at A n. In this situation I languished away six dreary years, with no earthly amusement to divert ennui but occa- sional correspondence with my friend. Time, mean- while, rolled over both our heads ; by the kindness of friends, more especially by that of the late Lord G r, I was enabled to prosecute my studies at INTRODUCTION. 11 Exeter College, Oxford ; while my friend continued his slow but certain career under the fostering patron- age of the metropolis. Still, notwithstanding the difference of our pursuits, our attachment remained unabated ; so much so, indeed, that when I ever meditated a few days' retirement from the fatigue of literary pursuits, my inclinations had always a refer- ence to the Strand. It was during one of these later visits in the autumn of 1820, when both (shall I be excused the expression?) had acquired some little celebrity, that my friend pro- posed to me the Editorship of the present volume. He was pleased to add, that the circumstance of my previous apprenticeship to a shoemaker peculiarly fitted me for the task, and that he would diminish what remained of difficulty by his own immediate co- operation. It appeared, when I catechised him on the subject, that in order to increase his connection he had been for years in the habit of retaining the services of eminent literaiy characters. This joined to his own poetical * abilities, which displayed themselves in per- petual advertisements, had considerably enhanced the * For an ingenious criticism on the merits of Mr. Warren, as a poet, the reader is referred to the article entitled ' The Sable School of Poetry.' 12 INTRODUCTION. value of his profession. Still a something seemed wanting ; one complete edition of ' Warreniana,' to which tlic public might refer as certificates of his merit. With this view he had lately engaged all the intellect of England in his behalf; each author fur- nishing a modicum of praise in the style to which he was best adapted, and receiving in return a recompense proportioned to his worth. There were some, however, who from the circumstance of their residing abroad, (as in the instance of Lord B ,) found no little difficulty in complying with this application. In such case their own bookseller was appointed the agent through whom their communications v/ere conveyed. On being informed of these particulars, I assented to my friend's proposal, and forthwith applied myself to the Editorship of his ' Warreniana.' I began by sifting the ditferent MSS. confided to my inspection, and ascertaining, in the next place, their claims to authenticity and respect. My researches, in short, were attended with as severe mental labor as my late Memoirs of Ben Jonson. Occasionally I found the text obscure, either from the difficulty of its local allusions or the hieroglyphic confusion of its characters. Not unfrequently I discovei-ed a fact set forth on the flimsiest and most apocryphal testimony, or an ex- INTRODUCTION. 13 pression that was to all appearance doubtful, where, in point of fact, it was merely obsolete. To these verbal or local difficulties I affixed both critical and explana- toiy notes, which the reader will find methodically arranged at the close of the volume. He need not be alarmed at their bulk, for I can assure him that in the selection I have been principally influenced by my regard for a pertinent brevity. Among the numerous contributors, to whose articles these annotations are appended, may be found the names of my opponents both in politics and literature. I mention this, in order to avoid the charge of incon- sistency ; for surely in a work like the present, whose sole intention is to advertise the merits of one indi- vidual, such asperities are altogether irrelevant. — Sometimes, however, these articles exhibit a marked difference (as in the instance of the ' psychological curiosity,) to the style usually adopted by their author. This would naturally induce my readers to consider them as fictitious : far from it, they are nothing more than dexterous disguises by which he endeavors to excite an anonymous curiosity. In a few instances they may appear inapplicable, as is the case with the ' Nursery Ode,' and the ' Girl of St. Mary Axe.' This, too, is an artful contrivance on the part of their 14 INTRODUCTION. respective authors, who wisely thought that it was better to insinuate praise, than to thrust it under the reader's nose in bold and palpable panegyric. Dis- cretion is assuredly as much the better part of com- pliment as of valor. I am apprehensive, however, that the occasional warmth of their language may somewhat affect their claims to this latter quality. I shall not attempt to extenuate the defect. Poets are an imaginative race, and a license is permitted to their fancies, which we should deny to the soberer realities of prose. But a few of them lie under a far more serious charge than the mere exuberance of their praises ; and if Mr. S — T — C — , when he next puts forth ' a psychological curiosity,' would deign to render it somewhat less curious in point of absurdity, both Warren and the world would be his debtors. Before I close this introduction, I must not omit to notice the generous assistance of the few friends to whom I explained the nature of my connection with ' Warreniana.' Mr. D'Israeli, in particular, claims my eternal thanks for the valuable light that he has enabled me to throw (vide Note 6), on the nature and origin of the ' lollipop.' To the reporter of the Times, INTRODUCTION. 15 I for the zeal with which he proffered to my assistance the parliamentary debate upon Warren, I confess equal obligation. Nor must Mr. Farley be forgotten, when I reflect that, to his unwearied researches, I am indebted for the pantomime, to whose use I have alluded in the notes. I have yet to mention my earliest and most revered friend, the manufacturer of Blacking. Though here- tofore noticed as an associate, he is now to be com- memorated as a coadjutor. Avocations of a peculiar but promising character engross his present leisure ; yet no one acquainted with any publication of mine can require to be told, that no part of the present work has passed the press without his anxious revision. But with what rapture do I trace the words, Robert Warre7i ! Five and forty springs have now passed over my head since I first found my friend in our little school at his spelling-book. During this long period our attachment has been without a cloud ; the pride of my youth, the delight of my declining years. I have followed, with an interest that few can feel and none can know, the progress of my friend from the humble state of a refail manufacturer, to the elevated situation which he has now attained, and have beheld each successive advancement endeared by the approbation 16 INTRODUCTION. of the |)ul)lic. But the golden virtues of his character will be the theme of other times and other pens ; it is sufficient for my happiness, to have witnessed at the close of a career, prolonged far beyond my expecta- tions, the friend and companion of my youth in his present dignified capacity, as the Coiyphseus of mod- ern manufacturers. WARREN. By \S: I. The elements are so mixed up in Iiim, That nature may stand boldly forth and say, This is a man. — Shakspeare. The metropolis of England to a stranger, and more especially an American, exhibits the varied wonders of a fairy-land. Its hoaiy cathedrals at Westminster and Cheapsidc ; its richly foliaged groves of Kensington and Hyde Park, carpeted with the freshest verdure, and reflecting in added beauty the dazzling hues of morn, or the mellowed effulgence of twilight, — these and a hundred objects of similar attraction, present each to the mind of the traveller a theme for unbounded admiration. For the first week of his arrival he betrays a wondering ignorance at the alternate grace and grandeur of each scene or edifice he beholds, and broods, with the tenacious eagerness of a child, over every fresh source of amusement. He visits, with intensest interest, the rival temples of Melpomene and Thalia, recalls the 18 WARREN, Quirinal Hill in contemplating the majestic Achilles, and paces, with kingly step, the tessellated pavements of Regent Street. In a few weeks, however, this feverish ecstasy subsides, and he has then sufficient soberness of temperament to pay his passing tribute of applause to those sweet but unobtrusive nestling places, which are consecrated by the recollection of living or departed genius. Then it is that he visits the Boar's Head at Eastcheap, and, in fancy, quaffs his sack with FalstafF; or, with feelings of equal enthusiasm, bows before the shrine of Warren, the manufacturer and minstrel of the Strand. As for this reverential purpose I was once buying a pot of Blacking at Number 30, my attention was attracted to a person who was seated in a state of deep abstraction behind the counter. He was advanced in life, tall, and of a form that might once have been commanding, but it was a little bowed by care, perhaps by business. He had a noble Roman style of countenance, a head that would have pleased a painter ; and though some slight furrows on either side his nose showed that snuff and sorrow had been busy there, yet his eye still beamed with the fire of a poetic soul. There was something m his whole appearance, that indicated a being of a WARKEN. 19 different order from the bustling shop-boys around him. I inquired his name, and was informed that it was Warren. I drew back with an involuntary feeling of veneration. This, then, was an artist of celebrity ; this was one of those imaginative spirits, whose newspaper advertisements have gone forth to the ends of the earth, and with whose blacking I have cleaned my shoes, even in the solitudes of America. It was a moment pregnant with emotion ; and though the popular graces of his poetry had made me familiar with the name of Warren, yet it could not diminish the reverence which his immediate presence inspired. As I quitted his abode, the recollection of this great man gave a tone of deep meditation to my mind. I recalled what I had heard of his character, his lowly origin and subsequent elevation, his uncon- querable diligence and rich poetic fancy. Nature, I internally exclaimed, appears to have disseminated her bounties with a more impartial profusion than our vanity is willing to allow. If to one favorite she has assigned the glittering endowments of rank and fortune, she has compensated the want of them in 20 WARREN. another by an intellect of superior elevation. Such has been the case with Mr. Warren. Though humble in origin, and suckled amid scenes repulsive to the growth of mind, he has yet contrived to hew himself a path to the Temple of Fame, and having become the poetical paragon of the Strand, has turned the whole force of his genius to manufacture and to eulogize his blacking. This prudent concentration of his faculties has been attended with the most felicitous consequences. The stream of his fancy, that before flowed over a wide ungrateful surface, by contracting its channel has deepened its power, and now rolls onward to the ocean of eternity, reflecting on its bosom the rich lights of poesy and wit. Independently, however, of his imagination, this mighty manufacturer has shown how much may be effected by diligence alone, and how attractive it may present itself in the columns of a newspaper, the placards of a pedestrian, or the sides of a churchyard wall. The memoranda of his name and profession display themselves in alphabetical beauty, at every department of the metropolis. They have elbowed Doctor Solomon's Elixir, pushed Day and Martin from their stools, and taken the wall of that interesting anomaly, the Mermaid. Such is the WARREN. 21 triumph of genius. Doctor Solomon is dead and gone, and there is no bahn in Gilead ; but Warren's Blacking will be immortal. Its virtues will insure it eternity ; for not only doth it irradiate boots, shoes, and slippers with a gentle and oleaginous refulgence, but while it preserves the leather, it cherishes, like piety, the old and stricken sole. In America we know Mr. Warren only as the tradesman ; in Europe, Asia, and Africa, he is spoken of as the poet : and at the Canaries, on my voyage to England, I was told by a Hottentot of his having been unfortunate in love.^ I was sensibly afflicted at the intelligence, but felt that the illustrious invalid was far, far above the reach of pity. There are some lofty minds that soar superior to calamity, as the Highlands of the Hudson tower above the clouds of earth. Warren has a soul of this stamp. His majestic spirit may feel, but will not bow before the strong arm of adversity. The blighting winds of care may howl around him in their fury, but like the oak of the forest he will stand unshaken to the last. Besides, it may, perhaps, be to this very accident, that his advertisements owe their charm ; for the mind, when breathed over l^y the scathing mildew of calamity, naturally turns for refreshment to its own healing stores of intellect. 22 WARREN. I do not wish to censure, but surely — surely, if the commercial residents of the Strand had been properly sensible of what was due to Mr. Warren and themselves, they would have evinced some public mark of sympathy with his misfortune. They would have shown him those gentle and unobtrusive atten- tions, which win their way in silence to the heart, when the more noisy professions of esteem stick like Amen in the lary^nx of Macbeth. Even I, stranger and sojourner as I am in the land, can heave the sigh of pity for his sorrows ; what then should be the sensibility of those who have seen him grow up a bantling, as it were, of their own ; who have marked the plant put forth its first tender blossoms, and watched its growing luxuriance, until the period when it overshadowed the Strand with the matured abundance of its foliage t •Q- But it is an humbling reflection for the pride of human intellect, that the value of an object is seldom felt until it be for ever lost. Thus, when the grave has closed around him, the name of Warren may be possibly recalled with sentiments of sincerest affection. At present, while yet in existence, he is undervalued by an invidious vicinity. But the man of letters who speaks of the Strand, speaks of it as WARREN. 23 the residence of Warren. The intelligent traveller who visits it, inquires where Warren is to be seen. He is the literary landmark of the place, indicating its existence to the distant scholar. He is like Pompey's column at Alexandria, towering alone in classic dignity. OLD CUMBERLAND PEDLER. By W. W. summary of contents. A summer afternoon. The Solitary (i. e. author) seats himself on a bank of buttercups with Johanna, Goody Blake, Tims, Stokes, and some others beside him ; informs them that he shall not drink tea till half-past eight, and that as it is now only seven o'clock, he has got one hour and a half left for con- versation. Solitary accordingly describes his excubsiox some years ago among the mountains, where he saw Warren's name engraved among the rocks. Philosophical reflections upon Warren's Blacking. Solitary then commences the tale of Peter Bell ; describes how he blew his nose among the mountains, and how the mountains sent back an echo — Catalogue of mountains engaged in the chorus. Solitary proceeds to detail the particulars of his interview with Bell, who, it seems, was a travelling pedler to the firm of Kobert Warren, 30, Strand. Eulogium on Fiobert and his Blacking. Solitary goes on to say that Bell and himself walked together towards Rydal, but that on the road he was bitten on the nose by a gnat. Meditations on a gnat-bite. Solitary closes his account of the Pedler, and gives good advice to his little friends, Goody Blake, Johanna, Stokes & Co. Stokes indecent.3 SoUtary admonishes hmi to tie up the knee-strings of his breeches, and informs him that Goody Blake has been peeping for the last half-hour. Stokes ties up his knee-strings, and the poem is concluded by the SoUtary exhorting the juvenile audience to ' but Warkes's Blacking.' George Fisher, Goody Blake, and Betty Foy, Johanna, Matthew, Tims, and you too, Stokes, OLD CUMBERLAND PEDLER. 25 J Come, sit ye down upon this bank of fresh But bihous buttercups : 't is scarcely seven, And I shall not drink tea till half-past eight, Or peradventure nine, so that one hour. One sober hour remains for converse sweet. You all knew Peter Bell, the pedler, he Was a hale man and honest, and each spring What time the cuckoo carolled in the hedge, Would seek our simple villages, to vend His patron's wares — of him I now would speak : And while yon grave, 'neath which his ashes sleep, Feeds in the fattening twilight, I will tell ' An incident that once befell us both Among the rocks by steep Helvellyn's side. It chanced one summer morn I passed the clefts Of Silver-llow, and turning to the left, Fast by the blacksmith's shop, two doors beyond Old Stubb's, the tart-woman's, approached a glen Secluded as a coy nun from the world. Beauteous it was but lonesome, and while I Leaped up for joy to think that earth was good And lusty in her boyhood, I beheld Graven on the tawny rock these magic words, ' Buy Warren's Blacking;' then in tliuught I said, My stars, how we improve ! "^ Amid these scenes 3 26 OLD CUMBERLAND PEDLER. Wlicrc hermit nature, jealous of the world, Guards from profane approach her solitude ; E'en here, despite each fence, adventurous art Thrusts her intrusive puffs ; as though the rocks And waterfalls were mortals, and wore shoes. That morn I lost my breakfast, but returning Home through the New Cut by Charles Fleming's field Westward of Rydal Common, and below The horse-pond, where our sturdy villagers Duck all detected vagrants, I espied A solitary stranger ; like a snail He wound along his narrow course with slow But certain step, and lightly as he paced, Drew from the deep Charybdis of his coat. What seemed to my dim eyes a handkerchief. And forthwith blew his nose : the adjacent rocks, Like something starting from a hurried sleep, Took up the snuffling twang and blew again. That ancient woman seated on Helm-crag Was ready with her cavern ; Hammar-scar, And the tall steep of Silver-How sent back Their nasal contributions ; Loughrigg heard, And Fair-field answered with a mountain tone. The old man paused to listen, but when ceased OLD CUMBERLAND PEDLER. 27 This mountainous bravura, on his staff He bowed his palsied head in compHment To my approach ; ' My God ! 't is Peter Bell,' I cried aloud ; ' how fare you, my good friend ? ' Then thus the pedler spake : ' Oddsniggers, sir,' I use his very words, ' fidl twenty years Have past since you and I held talk together. So now let 's chat a bit.' With that he spake Familiarly of me and of old times. And of grand sights that he had seen since last We roved through Hammar-scar ; how he had dwelt Long with a mighty merchant in the Strand, Hight Warren, and was travelling to grave His name upon each rock, that when the hinds Passed by that way, their speculative eyes Might linger on the carved advertisement. He added, that this merchant was a man. Like those of Tyre and Sidon, glorified By the wide universe, and that his name Was honored among nations ; he was one Who sprang from nothing, like a mountain rill, Till widening in its course, the ambitious stream Of his good fortune poured a tide of wealth Into the sea of Number thirty. Strand. , When Peter ended, I proposed a walk To Rydal, for the day was fresh with youth, 28 OLD CUMBERLAND PEDLER. And thousand burnished insects on the wins, The bee, the butterfly, and humming gnat, Flew swift as years of childhood o'er our heads. Touching these gnats, I could not choose but feel. When I had walked, perhaps, some minute's space, The venomous superficies of a pimple. On the left side my nose : 't was streaked with hues Of varied richness, like a summer eve ; And edged, as is the thunder-cloud, with tints Albescent, and alarming to the eye. It was a gnat-bite ! On the previous eve, When, rapt in thought by lone Helvellyn's side, My fancy slept ; this unrelenting insect Marking his hour, had borne me company. And tweaked a memorandum on my nose. Thus nature warns her sons, and when their thoughts Aspire too boldly, or their soaring minds Elope with truant fancy from the flesh, Their lawful spouse, she spurns the gross affront, And sends a gnat to tell them they are clay. My spirit owned her chastening hand, and gazed On heath and hill, and sunless glen and rock, In lowliness of heart, while pitying heaven. As it approved the offcndci-'s penitence. Looked down upon me with an eye of love — An eye of love it was, but Peter Bell, OLD CUMBERLAND PEDLER. 29 (Antique pedestrian,) felt the gracious charm O'erflow his soul no longer ; he was clad In thick buff waistcoat, cotton pantaloons r th' autumn of their life, and wore beside A drab great coat, on whose pearl buttons beamed The beauty of the morning ; as we strolled, I could not choose but ask his age, assured That he was seventy-five at least, and though He did not own it, I 'm convinced he was. That hour hath long since past, and the old man Peter is with his fathers ; but at eve. When mid the deepening hush of winds I rove Along that mountain glen, where erst he blew His vocal nose, the memory of his talk Floodeth my spirit with a freshening stream Of bygone thoughts ; then too I call to mind The fame of Warren, and reflect how wit, Albeit in commerce, will attain respect And glory from the nations ; therefore, friends — (Tie up the knee-strings of your breeches, Stokes, For shocked am I that Betty Foy should see Coy nature peeping through your ragged hose) — Still be the name of Warren in your mouths, His blacking in your cottages, and still Let the example of his industry - . 30 OLD CUMBERLAND PEDLER. Fall, like a genial shadow from the West, Upon your minds ; and when in after years You strive to prison Mammon in your purse By various traffic, think how Warren rose By punctual payments ; for believe me, friends, That in commercial contact with the world, A tradesman's tick, is a tick-doulotjreux, Incurable by all, save those who bear. Like Henrj' Hase, a sovereign remedy. WARREN IN FAIRY LAND. By J. H. Bonnie Rob Warren gaed up the king glen — 'T was on Saturday last, at a quarter to ten — The morn was still, and the sky was blue. And the clouds were robed in their simmer hue, And the leaf on the elm looked green as the sea When it sleepeth in brief tranquillity ; And over and under, o'er muirland and grove, Earth whispered o' peace, and heaven o' love. Drowsy wi' porter, and scant o' breath, Warren reclined him on Hampstead Heath ; The lark in mid-air douce melody made, And the wind through the bushes in silence strayed ; And the cuckoo, herald of infant spring. Soothed his car wi' her welcoming ; Till rapt in reverie strange and deep, Bonnie Rob Warren fell fast asleep. He dreamed that fairies beside him lay, And beckoned him on to a far pathway. 32 WARREN IN FAIRY LAND. AVhar the earth was paved wi' gowd and gems, And clustering jewels hung wild on their stems ; Whar birds frae the blossom, and sylphs frae the sky. Carolled his name as they past him by ; And fairv maidens o' dazzling sheen, Sae gentle in nature and peerless in mien, Sune as they kenned hirn, began to speir, Wi' ' Bonnie Rob Warren, you 're welcome here.' Then fluttered they round him in mazy rings, Ilk to the sound of her rustling wings, Frae their light foot-fall wee flowers arose, And buttercups blossomed aneath their nose ; And a fountain welled at their awfu' call ; Through caller pavilion and magic hall. And anon shot up, frae its sonsie brink, Showers of blacking as sable as ink. Then turned they to left, and turned they to right, Breastina; the breeze frae a sense o' delight. Then shot they through air like a thought through the brain — Hurrah ! hurrah ! they are trooping amain ; Warren and wizard in ebon car, Wi' faces as fierce as a whiskered hussar. Day closed ere they reached their journey's end, And wi' buirdly footsteps 'gan to ascend WARREN IN FAIRY LAND. 33 A palace as crowded as Fleet-street mart, And called in heaven ' the Palace of Art,' Whar the grit in science on earth below, Make, as the pugilists term it, ' a show,' And enjoy unfading in heaven again The honors they reaped 'mid the sons o' men. Sune as the fairies and Warren drew near. Shouts rung through the magical atmosphere, The gates o' the palace flew open and wide, And weird manufacturers side by side, Welcomed the tradesman wi' trumpet and ca', And throned him aloft in the midst o' them a'. Abune him an elfin empress shone. The fairest that ever the earth looked on. She gave him a telescope winsome and bright, And cannily bade him recruit his sight, Wi' the fame he wad gain in after times. For the strength of his blacking and force of his rhymes. He looked, and aneath him lay merrie England ; Men rushed frae a' quarters towards the Strand, For close whar as yet Saint Clement's is seen, A temple superb, and refulgent o' mien. Arrested the c'e wi' these words on its gate, ' Erected in honor of Warren the great ;' 34 WARREN IN FAIRY LAND. Then bowed at tliis modern Saint Becket's shrine, Prince, peasant, and peer, as to something divine ; The organ struck up, you might hear it a mile, And chiels in white surplices chorussed the while Wee Braham's great grandson an anthem concocted, Whilk the feelings of a' maist affectingly shock did ; For virgins and widows, wives, peasants, and peers. Were up to their knees in a deluge o' tears. He looked again, and the scene was new — Lang African deserts rose high on his view, And he kenned beneath him a winding Cape With its Hottentot callants sae matchless in shape ; The Cape it was peopled wi' city and town, The Hottentots adepts in fashion were grown ; And bucks frae the Nile wi' braw coats on their backs," And douce inexpressibles lengthy and lax. Like those whilk o'night may be seen at Almack's ; J Through the towns o'the Cape strutted deftly alang, Beguiling their lounge with an opera sang, Whilk the Nile echoed back, as if proud to impart To the praises o' Warren the tunes o' Mozart. The tradesman beheld a' these dandy adults, Wi' their hessians of Hoby and trousers of Stultz, And knew that his blacking, more black than the berry, Lent grace to the boots of each Cape Tom and Jerry. ^ \yARREN IN FAIRY LAND. 35 He looked again, and the scene was new — The Moslem dominions rose high on his view ; But the domes o' the prophet, the glittering mosk, The temples o' Mecca, Medina's kiosk, Nae longer the soul o' devotion attacking. Were changed to bazaars for Rob Warren's jet black- ing ; Each Turk too eschewed his red slippers and sandals, Mair fit for the ancles o' Goths or o' Vandals, And wore in their stead our trim protestant suits, Pause collars and high polished Wellington boots. He looked again, and the scene was new — Spitzbergen's mirk regions rose high on his view ; But sullen as death was ilk ice-girdled coast. For winter walked o'er it wi' tempest and frost, And the wind in reply to the hollow wave's moan. Sate on his rock and gave groan for groan. Rob Warren glow'red over the warld wi' dismay. Till far frae the distance in gallant array, A merchantman's bark shot along the blue sea, Like a wean in the height of its innocent glee. Oh! brawly she danced o'er the billows sae bright. And flashed on the eye like a thing o' delight ; While the natives rushed doon frae their hills to the shore, 36 WARREN IN FAIRY LANP. To buy the rich freightage that brave vessel bore. 'T was Warren's jet blacking the merchantmen brought, 'Twas Warren's jet blacking they puffed (as they ought) ; Ilk Esquimaux rubbed it o'er sandal and shoon, Whilk it polished as bright as the braw harvest moon ; And roared, as he rubbed it, wi' barbarous glee, ' Hey, Sirs, a douce chiel this Rob Warren maun be.' The vision ceased, and the elfin queen Upturned to the tradesman her bonny blue e'en, And bade ilka stainless and sylphid miss Welcome him hame wi' a dance and a kiss. They caught him fast by the breeches and coat, As spiders a blue-bottle grasp by the throat ; They caught him fast by the coat and the breeches. As holy Saint Anthony fingered the witches, And tauld him wi' unco' smiles and glee How time, as yet unborn, wad be When Turner and daft Day and Martin suld fall, And bonnie Rob Warren be all in all. Then danced they around him, each beautiful one ; Their raiments o' siller shone bright in the sun ; WARREN IN FAIRY LAND. ^ 37 For the women were clad in star-colored frocks, And the men in black silk stockings and clocks. Wae's me that I canna, I maunna reveal, How fondly they kissM him, lad, lassie, and chiel, How lang they caressed him and pressed him to stay. Until, as dun night saddened over the day, Each sweet fairy countenance faded away. Then Warren awoke frae his awfu' sleep, The shadows abune him grew dusky and deep, Where tinsell'd wi' twilight and gemmed wi' dew, Lay the heath primrose and the violet blue. Fresh as the spring, and as beautiful too. The humming-bee slept in the apple bloom. The whistling hind sought his cottage home. And the west wind, purest of a' that blows. Made fond acquaintance wi' lily and rose ; For under the rose and aneath the night's shade. Sounds sweetest the music o' love's serenade. . i When mony an hour had come and gone, Frae half past ten till a quarter to one, When the dinner had waited baith roast and boiled, And the cauld leg o' mutton and turnips were spoiled ; Late, late in the gloaming when a' was still. But the tramp o' night-leddies up Ludgate-hill, 38 WARREN IN FAIRY LAND. Frae Hampstead Heath, i' the flush of his fame, To the Strand, Number 30, Rob Warren came hame, And oh ! his heauty was fair to see. And gay was his spirit and lightsome his e'c. As he spak o' the wonderful things he had seen, In' a land whar sorrow had never been ; Whar, spite o' the fairies, in palace or hall. He was the fairest abune them all ; And sweet to feel and blythe to say, Suld thrive in the warld's esteem for aye. Now lang live a' those whac hae money to lend, And lang live a' those wha have ony to spend ; And lang live a' those wha hae gowd to receive, And ditto to those wha have ony to give ; Provided, that lang as 'tis likely to sell, They HI buy Warreii's Blacking, and puff it as well. A NURSERY ODE. By L. H. X. B. The following Nursery Ode was originally written for private circula- tion, and transmitted, together with an ounce of crisp gingerbread-nuts, to niy little acquaintance, John Warren, junior, by way of a birth-day present. As, however, the Editor of this Volume, to whom it was shown by the ftither, imagined that it might be serviceable in promoting the inter- ests of his AVork, it is here numbered among the collection. Ah, little ranting Johnny ! For ever blythe and bonny, And singing heigho, nonny ! ) Come, you rogue, to me now, And sit upon my knee now, While in thought we rove Through clipsome Lisson Grove, Where the blackbird singeth And the daisy springeth, And the Naiads tie, All underneath the sky, Their garters with crisp posies Of daffodils and roses. 40 A NURSERY ODE. Johnny, Johnny, Johnny ! Fie ! oil fie upon ye ! Thus to tease your nunkey, You good-for-nothing monkey ; Thus to pull and swale His periwig and tail, And throw, with cunning glee, Tobacco in his tea. There — but words are vain, John — There you go again, John ; Now perked up in a corner. Like jaunty Jacky Horner ; Now clambering up the chimney With springy step and slim knee, Till, open-mouthed, you whip down An ounce of soot ; then slip down, And run to daddy, crying — ' Odzooks, papa, I'm dying ; ' ^ Or else, with glib intention, You puzzle your invention To joke us ; first you weep, John, And snore as if asleep, John ; Then up you jump and cry out — . ' Oh Christ, I've poked my eye out ! ' When lo ! directly after. You turn us into laughter. A NURSERY ODE. 41 Well, poppet, though you bore us With one eternal chorus ; Of harum scarum divo, Tag rag and genitivo ; And though, you tricksy wizard, You daily stuff your gizzard With sugar-plumbs of full size, And lollipops and bulls'-eyes, ^ The Muse, through me, shall shed, now. Her blessings on your head, now. May your hours of childhood, Like roses in a wild wood, Shed native sweets around you ; Till sunny thoughts surround you ; And when by twilight still You roam o'er Primrose-Hill, Or when, by midnight dark. You cross the Regent's Park, May Pan, with eye so brightsome, And cock-up nose so lightsome, Tell you talcs of tree-gods. Of river and of sea-gods ; As how from lover's lay Daphne stole away ; 4 42 A NURSERY ODE. How by Tempe's fountain She ran, and Pindus' mountain, While chestnut, vine, and hop-leaf Rung aloud with " Stop thief ! " And, to love a martyr, Apollo followed arter ; "^ Or how that Colchian witch, In Jason's friendship rich, Her father dared to whip in A monstrous earthen pipkin, 8 To boil him up with lamb And caper-sauce and ham, And then, as I 'm a sinner, To dish him up for dinner ! Your father, too, my own John, We '11 not let him alone, John, But, with prophetic glee, Declare how time will be When nations shall proclaim The ti-iumphs of his fame, And story pile on stoiy In honor of his gloiy. So now good night, my Johnny ; Put your night-cap on ye ; ^ A NURSERY ODE. 43 And mind, you little jewel, Mind you drink your gruel, Or else, despite your tears, John, Papa will box your ears, John. DIGRESSION ON THE FAMILY OF WARREN By C. M. The encounter between the Latin and the Moslem world, which for several centuries darkened the moral and political aspect of society, is relieved by few glim- merings of intellectual lis-ht. Nature recoils with horror from the cruelties, and with shame from the habitual folly and senselesness, which marked the prosecution of the sanguinary and vain-glorious contest. Yet, in wandering over the gloomy expanse of fanaticism and crime, the diligent historian may discover some fairer traces of the human mind ; and his philosophic eye will contemplate with pleasure, at least one episode in the first crusade. I imitate, with pride and satisfaction, the example of a great authority in rescuing from oblivion the early fortunes of a noble house, whose foundations were planted on the shores of Asia. But I am, in one respect, happier than my great precursor in the subject of the present digression, which I pro- pose to append to the next edition of my work : I am FABIILY OF WARREN. 45 not called upon to blush for the degeneracy of the family whose founder has engaged my attention. My labors are refreshed by the conviction, that while his achievements ennoble my task, the immortality of my pages will neither be sullied nor depreciated by the disgrace and decay of his illustrious descendants. I pretend not to develop the origin of Michael de la Warene, but I can collect from a jejune and anony- mous chronicler, that he had filled with spotless in- tegrity a station in the household of Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy. The voluptuous Robert has been commended or reproached for the luxurious hospitality of his board, and a long train of culinary vassals swelled the wasteful extravagance of his palace. The classical reader will be interested in the fact that the Apician precepts were understood and practised by his cook, Peter de la Warene : and Michael, the friend and cousin of Peter (they were brother's sons), fol- lowed his lord to the East. But the careless Robert was unable (so great was his poverty) to arm his retainers, and the gravity of history is disturbed by the' assurance that Michael de la Warene was equipped from the armory of the kitchen. But the cousin of the cook was superior to the caprices of accident, and the stewpan, the jack-chain, and the s|)it, were con- verted by the resources of genius into the helmet, the 46 DIGRESSION ON THE chain armor, and the lance of knighthood. Before the towers of Antioch the follower of Curthose proved the gallantry of his spirit and the excellence of his burnished arms, and the admiration of the croises acknowledged with plaudits the merit of Michael the Polisher. I shall not pause to repeat my narrative of the suf- ferings of the Franks in their passage through Asia Minor ; but I may be permitted to relate a melancholy instance of the extent of their misery. In the march over the burning deserts of Phrygia, the army were oppressed with the accumulated horrors of drought and hunger. Food was utterly extinct : bare extremi- ties were preferred to starvation, and the leather breeches and boots of the horsemen were sacrificed to the common necessities of the host. The polisher condescended with tears to his pristine vocation. His culinary skill was employed in converting his own boots into a meal for his lord, and Curthose, regarding with unfeeling merriment the naked legs of his vassal, declared his wonder that leather could furnish so exquisite a repast. But fidelity to a liege lord was regarded by the simplicity of the times as the highest exertion of virtue, and Michael (I repeat the language of the chronicler) was comforted by St. George in a dream, with the promise that the leather which he had FAMILY OF WARREN. 47 sacrificed should become the type of greatness to his latest descendants. His faithful dog, once the turnspit of the ducal palace, and now the carrier of his bag- gage,* slept by his side ; and the astonished Norman beheld him flayed by the knife of the saint, and felt his own legs wrapped in the reeking hide of the sufferer. But the vision of the booted warrior was disturbed by rude alarums, and, waking on the ciy that the foe were at hand, he sprang on his destrier to await the hostile shock. Countless myriads of the infidels rival- led in immensity the sands of the desert before him, and the wearied and unshodden croises despaired of their safety and cause. The wisdom of the pious God- frey, the daring of Tancred, and the skill of the wily Bohamond were not seconded by the courage of their trembling followers. The foot-soldiers concealed their cowardice by the pretence that they were unable to march without shoes. Peter the Hermit declared that he had vowed to proceed only as far as his sandals might carry him ; and they were no more. Walter the Pennyless (he, too, was bootless) appealed to the wear of his soles * See my enumeration of the sumpter animals of the Cru- saders, vol. i. p. 147, ' goats, hogs, and dogs.' But I cannot discover that these last were generally turnspits. 48 DIGRESSION ON THE to excuse his pusillanimity ; and the army were scandalized by the report that Curthose himself was detained in his tent by feigned indigestion. ' Be- hold ! ' exclaimed the Polisher aloud to the degene- rate and astonished Latins, ' Behold the boots of St. George !, Do you fear to follow the saint ? ' The army caught the animating cry ; courage was renovated by superstition ; St. George himself was recognised in the hairy and unearthly apparition which rushed on the infidel host, and thousands of the slaughtered Moslems attested the belief that his aid had effected the victoiy of the croises. The lance of the Polisher was im- pelled with terrific vigor ; but his valor was not tempered with the gentler virtue of mercy to the vanquished. One hundred and twenty-three infidels knelt for pity before him, but he cruelly put them all to death, and afterwards roasted them alive.* The soul of Michael was cast in the mould of honor, and he did not conceal from the army that if the saint had booted him, the turnspit at least had provided the materials. The information was fatal to the dogs ; the crosiers were once more supplied with leather, and * We have found that Bohamond went even farther than this : — he pursued the same singular plan of roasting the dead alive, and afterwards ate them. See my first edition, vol. i. p. 175. I repent that I have since altered this striking passage. FABIILY OF WARREN. 49 the march was joyfully resumed. But the Polisher had reaped the fruits of experience ; and when hunger again overtook the camp, and Curthose supplicated for a second dinner at his hands, he respectfully protested that his conscience would not permit him to expose his lord to the repeated pains of indigestion, and the loss of martial renown. But we are assured by his simple chronicler that in this he designed, not to preserve his boots, but to save the reputation of his superior, I regret that I cannot follow the honorable career of the Polisher to the consummation of the great Latin expedition. He died in the arms of victory before its conclusion; but his memory was embalmed by the tears of the Latin kingdom of Palestine, and three sons, the offspring of his union with a noble Greek, valiantly maintained the reputation of his house. Of these the eldest entered the order of the Hospitallers, the second married and settled in the East, but the youngest, Robert, the inheritor of his father's virtues and boots, and the progenitor of the illustrious line of the English Warrens, returned with Curthose to Europe, and final- ly established himself in our island. The toilsome march through Italy and France deprived his boots of their hair, but he discovered in the latter country the new and extraordinary art of preserving tlicm from tlic destroying hand of time by a black and shining 50 FAMILY OF WARREN. external preparation. Enriching the paternal distinc- tion with a new sir-name, Robert Black-boots, the Polisher, obtained from our first Henry the grant of lands on the present site of the Strand of the British metropolis, and bequeathed to his childi'en as a com- mon heir-loom the dogskin leather of St. George. We may hesitate to adopt the belief of a rude age that Black-boots was indebted to the saint himself for the discovery of the composition which had preserved this proud relic to his modern descendants ; but the historian will not be justified in concealing from the curious inquirer the existence of a singular tradition. On his death-bed Robert Black-boots the Polisher anticipated the present grandeur of his house, and foretold that a Robert de la Warene, (the Warren of the corruption or change of our tongue,) should benefit and surprise the world witli the discoveiy that boots in general may be rendered as dark and as polished — perhaps too as durable — as the Black-boots of St. George himself. CARMEN TRIUMPHALE. By R. S. Last eve as I sate in my room that looks o'er the church of Saint Clement, {Nota Bene : I had but of late arrived in town upon business,) I ordered my boots for a walk, my boots that polished and pointed. Bright on their surface display the beauty of Warren's jet blacking : Now you must know that my man, in his speed to reply to my summons. Brought me my Wellington boots, but never once thought of the boot-hooks ; So to allay my spleen by calm and ennobling reflec- tions. Such as might wile the time disturb'd by my valet's omission, I sate me down in a chair, and thus apostrophized Warren. 52 CAKMEN TRIITMPHALE. ' PontifT of modern art ! whose name is as noted as mine is, Noted for talent and skill, and the cardinal virtues of manhood, Receive this tribute of praise from one whose applause is an honor. I am he who sang of Roderick, the last of the Goths, and Gothic enough it was, I'm told, in metre and meaning ; Thalaba too was mine, that wild and wondrous effusion, Madoc and Joan of Arc, and the splendid Curse of Kehama ; If I then, the author of these and other miraculous volumes, And a laureird bard to boot, laud thee, oh my Warren in epic Verse, both peasant and peer will echo thy name o'er the West end, And thus shall it be with the man whom S y delighteth to honor. Already I hear thy puffs discussed in the circle at Almack's, Dusking with sable shade the light of the Scotch Ariosto ; Already I hear them arranged for the violincello by Smart, and Melting on syren lips in lieu of Italian bravuras : CARMEN TRIUMPHALE. 53 Braham at Drury Lane, the Stephens at proud Covent Garden, Dwell on each soul-stirring rhyme as a lover dwells on the moonlight. When by its virgin beam his nymph hurries onward to kiss him. ' Through thee in the season of spring, oh pride of the modern creation ! ! ! Beauty sets off by night each grace of her whirligig ankle. When to the music of harps in dulcet symphonies sounding, She waltzes with twinkling twirl, and butterfly bucks hover round her ; Thee she hails as a friend, while her pumps, in the pride of their polish. Illume the ball-room floor like the slippers of famed Cinderella. In Brighton thy name is known, and waxeth important at Cheltenham ; Travels per coach to Bath, that exceedingly beautiful city; Thence crossing the channel to Wales, it stirs up attention at Swansea ; Or flees with the speed of a dove o'er the mountainous ridges of Snowden, 54 CARMEN TRIUMPHALE. Till valley, and rock, and glen, ring aloud with " Buy Warren's Blackina;." ' But not unto Britain alone is thy fame, Robert Warren, confined : o'er The civilized regions of Europe, believe me 'tis equally honored ; For when, as proof of the fact, I rambled through Switzerland lately, And, spent with the labor of travel, put up in the vale of Chamouny, My boots by the waiter were bathed in the luminous dew of thy blacking : This, as you well may guess, astonished my nerves not a little ; So, flaming with zeal, I said, "Now tell me, oh waiter, I pray thee, Th' extent of this tradesman's fame in the vales of the Switzcr, that straight I May note it down as a hint for some future edition of travels ? " Then blythe the waiter assured me, that through Chamouny, the splendor Of Warren's name beamed joy, as the snow on the summit of Jura, Tinged by tlie Occident ray, sheds glory and gladness around it. CARMEN TRIUMPHALE. 55 While villages bask in its smiles : — meantime I con- tinue my carmen. Thrice honored artist, who hast a minstrel like me to commend thee ! Year upon year may roll, but you never will get such another ; For I am the bard of time, the puffer of peer or of peasant. Whether Russ, German, or French, Whig, Radical, Ultra, or Tory, Provided my sack-hutt is paid with a butt of sack for each bouncer. Hence, nobles are proud to bow to my laurelled head at Saint James's, Deeming his majesty's grace dispensed through me, for they well know His majesty loves hi his heart my political creed. {Not a Bene^ I will not swear that he docs ; but is it not likely, oh Europe ?) ' Here I concluded my stave, for my valet returned with my boot-hooks ; So taking my hat in my hand, a rcmarkal)ly requisite practice, I sought that widening gulf where the Strand with a murmur susurrous 56 CARMEN TRIUMPHALE. Flows into Pall Mall cast, like Thames at the Norc into ocean ; Here I stood rapt awhile, commending the buildings around me, Especially Waterloo Place, with which I was highly delighted; e- Till hearing the clock strike eight, I returned to my Strand habitation, ', And heard the bell from St. Clement's toll, toll through the silence of evening. THE TRIUMPH OF WARREN. a cambridge prize poem. By C. H. T. As when young day first blushes in the skies, Each virgin flowret starts with glad surprise, Thus when the name of Warren greets the eye Thrills with angelic bliss each passer-by, More proud than king Belshazzar to recal The scroll inscribed on Media's festive wall. Illustrious sage ! thy name from pole to pole Darts from the eye electric to the soul ; Star, Post, and Globe, the Courier, and the Times, Attest thy fame, and circulate thy rhymes ; While in thy deep pactolian pockets glow Rich streams of gold, that jingle as they flow. Descend, yc Nine ! inspire this classic verse, As Warren's rise enraptured I rehearse ; Paint in apt phrase his scientific mind — Ah, bootless task ! The muse, in wing confined, 5 58 THE TRIUMPH OF WARREN. Resigns th' ambitious essay with a sigh, For vain thy task, impossibility. Thus when the two straight lengthened lines, A B, Pant to incarcerate an inner C, A chases B, and B flies after A, As bailiff hunts poetic runaway ; But vain their points ud infinitum race, For two straight lines can ne'er inclose a space. ^^ Here halt we. Muse, nor alien themes prolong, Alien alike to Warren and to song. Time was when dulness, with Baiotian sway, Dimmed the faint sun of Albion's earlier day, Checked art's advance, and bade aspiring worth Unhonored fade like things of baser earth ; Then fashion's radiance scorn'd tli' ignoble heel. And sable shoes twirl'd darkling in the reel ; No prurient polish lit the ball-room floor, With fatuus flash from instep of threescore ; All — all was gloom, and dandies in the dumps Danced in responsive dulness to their pumps. Like some town hack, that spavined, old, and blind, Trots to the music of his broken wind. Thus art's dun night hung cloudy o'er the times. When famed alike for virtue and for rhymes. THE TRIUMPH OF WARREN. 59 Warren arose from science' lengtliencd sleep, A Phcebus towering o'er the subject deep ; Slow to applaud his worth, the world awoke. And faint in tone its early praises spoke : Awhile the sable spirit of his jet Neglected shone — an embryo Mahomet ; No rapt enthusiast hailed its fostus flame, No Strand Msecsenas spurr'd it on to fame, Gradual, as time, it won its silent way, From grim Spitzbergen's coast to far Cathay, Till stung with sudden shame from shore to shore, Repentant worlds with floods of praise ran o'er. So when some spinster, with seductive art, Blockades a bachelor's pi-edestined heart. Each tempting bait with varied wiles she tries, To lure her prey, as spiders bob for flies ; In vain her victim chafes in angered mood. Love's sudden glow inflames his rebel blood, Till round his heart a viewless web is spun. And fleshes twain resolve themselves to one. Genius of Solomon ! awake, arise ; Speed on angelic pinion from your skies ; For lo. Eternal Warren's Jet divine, Dusks the proud lustre of thine anodyne ! 60 THE TRIUMPH OF WARREN. E'en Granta's steed-compelling sons rehearse, In classic praise," his eulogistic verse ; E'en Isis' thriftless youths uphold his trade, (Ah wondrous luck if ever he be paid !) Till, as clear streams reflect the tippling ass, His wide-spread fame adorns this age of brass. Thrice honored age of churches and of quacks, Of Scotch orations, Listen, and Almack's : Each summer gale or winter blast that roars, Puffs some new folly to thy guileless shores : See, graced by fashion. Petersham's cravats, Hoby's spring boots, and Dando's dandy hats ; On wings of gas see jeronauts arise. The Captain Cooks of undiscovered skies. Explore new clouds, and coast around the moon. Till burst at once the bubble and balloon ; See lottery crews, our national corsairs. Proffer their golden sheaves, but yield the tares ; While quackery's genius, hovering o'er her isle. Prompts each aspiring folly with a smile. But halt, my Muse ; not thine in vengeful verse The countless dupes of fashion to rehearse ; Not thine to hurl a cannonading scribe. The bolt of war on quackery's mushroom tribe ; THE TEIUMPH OF WARREN. 61 A gentler theme invites thy willing lays ; — 'Mid Granta's meads, where bloom poetic bays, 'Tis thine to pluck a berry from each bough, And twine the wreath round Warren's classic brow. THE GIRL OF SAINT MARY-AXE. By B. C. The melancholy catastrophe on which the following tale is founded, occiuTed but a few years since, in the sequestered purlieus of Saint Mary-Axe. That gentle Jewess, Ruth Isaacson, who is my unfortunate heroine, and who, as it seems from the record, was the interesting and only child of a tinker, actually died in the manner I have represented, amid the embowering shades of Ilamp- stead. It is i)roper, however, to observe, that the latter part of my poem only is historical. Saint Mary- Axe ! thy boast hath passed away Of beauty (oh ! how peerless) and of love ; For hushed to stillness is the Doric lay Of her whose gentlest breathings once could move Thy sons to tears, as erst Dodona's grove, Hymned strains divine (so fame the legend weaves) While listening winds sate mourning 'mid its leaves. THE GIRL OF SAINT MARY-AXE. 63 2. ^anta Maria ! thou hast seen, of yore, Ruth pace in virgin pride adown thy street, As Pyrrha paced of EkI Thessalia's shore, Or those young Memphian maids who, with wliite feet, (Like things enamored) trod 'mid incense sweet. And princely shapes, all radiant as the sun, The supreme walls of famous Babylon. 3. And thou hast seen her when the evening bells Piped their soft music (soft as maiden's sleep) To Hampstead's breezy hills and deep cool dells, Bidding its winds melodious harvest reap : Hast seen her on the fresh sward pause and weep, Till the dwarf oak, upreared to mimic height. Grew a crav ffiant in the shades of night. 4. While thus I write : lo, through my casement peers Crescented Dian, pale as when beneath Her smile White Galatea, child of tears, Sought the boy Acis over hill and heath ; But she is gone, and round her name the wreath Of poesy is twined : so shall it be. Young daughter of Saint Mary-Axe, with thee. 64 THE GIRL OF SAINT MARY-AXE. 5. Her (Ruth's) life flowed unnoticed as the rill That hymns sweet fetches in the ear of May, When, amid forests lone, (while winds are still,) Its gentle waves keep tuneful holiday. Oh radiant creature ! well may poet's lay Attune thy praise : for ne'er in Phrygian shade, The lusty Pan kissed a so dainty maid. 6. Oft in her father's' shop, (he was a tinker,) This sylph would sit and read the livelong day ; Until each casual customer would think her Mad (or at least a little touched that way) ; But she nought heeded their derisive say, But honied verse perused, and tale of pathos Tinged with no slight infusion of the bathos. 7. She read how Faunus wooed impassioned maids In the hushed twilight of Sicilian groves ; And how, 'mid Tempo's amaranthine shades, (Beautiful Tempo ! where those blue-eyed loves. The wood-nymphs, stray o'night,) meek Hylas roves. Mourning his girl with fever-frenzied brain. And worshipping ever her divine disdain. THE GIRL "of SAINT MARY-AXE. 65 8. Oh, then her fair full bosom's ample flow Would heave like billows on a summer sea ; And her fond heart, inflamed with kindi'ed glow, Would sigh for climes where witching spirits be ; And thus years came and vanished, until she : (Ruth) shone a female gem of purest water. Like Amphitrite, the great Neptune's daughter. '^ 9. 'Twas then that, one May morn, when woods be green, And wanton winds make love to Lisson Grove, There came a stranger of majestic mien, To purchase (mercenary thought !) a stove ; Towards the counter Euth beheld him move, Proud as when Dardon Paris first espied Coy Venus 'mid the flowering woods of Ide. 10. They blushed (this beauteous twain), in sure collison Nature had struck from them a mutual fire ; Each esteemed each a rare and matchless vision, And lit the burning match of young desire ; Like the famed bird that fans its funeral pyre. Passion, self-nursed, inflamed their fevered brain. Till the hot blood ran burnino; through each vein. 66 THE GIRL OF SAINT ' MARY-AXE. 11. I"^ sentimental phrase, that maiden loves, The stranger roved through city, camp, and court ; Discoursed of sunny climes and sable groves, And stars, and sylphid forms that stream athwart The floor of heaven, where skiey souls resort, And beauty's violet veins, which, full and fresh. Flow like spring-rills through bloomy meads of flesh. 12. Then, too, he spake of swains who died in youth, . Nipped by the frost of virgin's sharp disdain. Till, by such tale subdued, enamored Ruth Showered from her eyes (twin-stars) an April rain ; But vain the passionate fever of her brain : Despite each glance the stranger bade adieii, Shouldered his stove, (oh, ingrate !) and withdrew, 13. And who is he, the eloquent, the proud — The stranger idol of Saint Mary's maid .'' None could declare ; like silvery summer-cloud, That wraps the mighty Dian in its shade, He passed. Oh, love ! thy hopes in distance fade, As, from the young mind's fancy-peopled halls, Wane nereids, sylphs, and tipsy bacchanals. THE GIRL OF SAINT MARY-AXE. 67 14. Twilight is come, and to her couch hath crept, In tears, this love-sick, delicate-visaged child : Strange visions gleamed around her while she slept, Of broken hearts that pined in deserts wild ; . Beautiful, innocent ladies, with their mild And wedded lords, rose shrouded from the dead. {Mem. Each mild lord wore antlers on his head.) 15. Anon the dream was changed ; she seemed to walk Over far hills and orange meads and flowers, While by her side, enwrapt in dreamy talk. Stood the beloved stranger : the swift hours Flew lightly o'er their heads, as summer showers ; And their fresh bridal bed, 'mid odorous vales. Heard the voluptuous plaint of nightingales. 16. Then blushes fired their cheeks, and scorching sighs Breathed the warm spirit of the nuptial night ; The stars winked blithely from th' o'erarching skies, And the young moon, fast flashing into light. Reeled in her orb ; then waning from the sight. Went veiled o'er hill and dale, like maiden coy. To kiss the pale cheek of her Latmos boy. 68- THE GIRL OF SAINT MARY-AXE. 17, But soon the vision fades, and morn again Climbs the blue-vaulted staircase of the sky ; The lark sings farewell to stream, wood, and plain, But Rutk nought heeds its matin psalmody — Alone she loves to sit, alone to sigh In maiden shame, or with weak eye-sight follow The dying bravery of the god Apollo. 18. Thus summer fled, and yellow autumn bowed To earth the auburn tresses of the grove — Old Boreas blew his brazen trump aloud, And called on winter fi'om his halls above ; He came, and Ruth (white creature !) joyed to rove Beneath his frown, when wild winds, in their flight, Howled shrill December to the ear of night. 19. And thus she faded, very like a whale Struck by some northern fisherman's harpoon ; None (no, not e'en the tinker !) knew her tale — For love is delicate as the rose of June ; But to that lady of the sky (the moon) She told how soon, beneath the flushing sod, She (Ruth) should slumber for her stranger god. THE GIRL OF SAINT MARY-AXE. 69 20. There is a story that some lady came To th' Exhibition ; and while she (last May) Was gazing at the portraits and the fame Of color that flashed o'er them, that same day A tall girl entered : through the fair array ' She passed ; then sudden with emphatic nod, Faltered aloud, ' The Stranger Youth, by G— d.' , 21. Yes, Ruth, 't is he, th' all perfect portrait glows 'Neath the bland smile of innocence and love ; Rich, pure, Elysian, as in beauty flows Pactolus (moon-lit) through Thessalian grove ; Oh, king Apollo ! oh Saturnian Jove ! Oh Momus, Mars, Mercurius and the rest, Ye wane before this day-star of the West. 22. Grace on his brow, and grandeur in his eye, Sits throned in triumph ; the warm portrait speaks, And from his sturdy figure, (six foot high,) And from his square broad shoulders, and his cheeks, Flushed like Sicilian skies with ruby streaks, A sentiment breathes out; while, firm as rocks, His mutton fists seem born to fell an ox. 70 THE GIRL OF SAINT MARY-AXE. 23. Tlic tall girl blushed in rapturous modesty, To view this strapping stranger youth again ; And on the catalogue her hungry eye Fed (for a distraught impulse fired her brain), And lo ! the stranger stands revealed ; for plain She sees writ down, as if by Love's command, ' Portrait of Warren, Number 30, Strand ! ' ■24. Adown that Strand she rushed with printless speed. As coy Camilla scoured the Dardan vales. And felt her passionate bosom inly bleed With doubt, that strongest amid hope prevails. Sensitive, beautiful child ! Ah, what avails Thy love ! too soon its ardor hath miscarried. For he (de Varenne *) has been three years married. 25.- Yet still she gazed on his averted face, Cowed 'neath the spell of its stem witcheiy ; And ' Oh, let love thy harsher thoughts erase ! * De Yarenne is the Provenijal translation of AVarren. Yide my Poem on Eva de Yarenne, ' The Girl of Provence.' — B. C. THE GIRL OF SAINT MARY-AXE. 71 And, while impassioned Ruth stands weeping by, Smile, (sweet one !) from the winter of thine eye Yon chilly blast,' she cried, with heart o'erfull ; But he replied, ' No, blast me if I wool! ! ' ^^ 26. She heard and sighed in hopeless anguish deep, And never more at mellow eve or morn. With punctual pathos failed for hours to weep — She stood in tears like maiden all forlorn. Who milked (fond wench) the cow with crumpled horn, And on her paling cheek, by woe bespent. Decay sat throned in divine blandishment. 27. At times, in sunset silence, she would sit And pick a rose to pieces, and, while lay The ruins on the floor, her pensive fit Would joy to mark its colors fade away ; ' And thus,' she cried, ' will this here soul decay.' ^^ Then, bending her sweet form in mute disti*ess, Would weep (ah me !) from very gentleness. 28. Anon, within her luminous kid shoes, Bright with her lover's blacking, she would see {Faithfully imaged) her wan countenance lose •fS THE GIRL OF SAINT MARY-AXE. Its early lustre, and the innocent glee That once illumed her eye with sunshine, flee Like light, when (summer past) each despot cloud Cofiins the long November in its shroud. 29. And if she chanced to walk, each heartless wall Brought back her lover's image to her mind ; For, chalked on church-yard, lane, and Hicks's Hall, ' Buy Warren's Blacking ' whitened in the wind ; Each newspaper evinced his gifted mind. And oft his puffs, thick-set in dainty rhymes, Flamed (like Provencal star-light) in the Times. 30. The Courier too, the Herald, and the Post, Bell's Weekly Messenger, the Real John Bull, Puffed his jet goods (four times a month at most) In Poesy, which the laurel wreath might pull From Tasso's or divine Boccacio's skull ; And these fond Ruth would read, while gentle sighs Heaved her white breast, and tears bedimmed her eyes. 31. This must have end ; and like a dream she passed. Passed from the threshold of her native home : No mother mourn'd her loss when, downward cast. THE GIRL OF SAINT MARY-AXE. 73 The dry dust rattled on her virgin tomb : Alone she lived, alone within the gloom Of death she slumbers, never more to rove, A martyred outcast, through the world of love. 32. She died at day-break, in her white chemise ; At half-past two o'clock, (it might be three,) The doctor came and found her on her knees, Warbling aloud a Hebrew melody ; She ceased on his approach, and, with faint glee, Hymned a low tunc, (sung partly through her nose,) And Warren's Blacking was the theme she chose. 33. She died, and lovely in her sleep she lay, As lies Apollo in his golden hour Of rest ; no slow disease, no dull decay. With mildewy withering finger, passed her o'er ; But swift and sudden as a summer flower, (Cut for some beautiful breast,) or mountain rill, Life's spirit ebbed — then lay for ever still. 34. • Thus perished Israel's pride, but o'er her waves Spring's first-born daisy ; the lone bird is there, The bird who loves to mourn at eve o'er graves 6 / 74 THE GIRL OF SAINT MARY-AXE. Where beauty sleeps, the gentle and the fair ; And whispering as it goes, the tremulous air. With voice of girlish fondness, seems to cry, ' Buy Warren's Blacking ! ' to each passer-by. THE SABLE SCHOOL OF POETRY.* By B. M. We are desirous, my public, of talking with you on two subjects of infinite national importance, to wit, ourselves and Warren's Blacking. As our rheuma- tism (thanks to the Odontist) is somewhat abated, and we are now seated at Ambrose's, with a jug of hot toddy on one side of us, and our beloved O'Do- herty on the other, ^^ we intend to be exceedingly amiable, eloquent, and communicative. But by the bye, when were we ever otherwise ? Our disposi- tions, like our alimentary organs, are always gently open ; and though some pluckless flutterings of Cock- aigne may wince at the occasional effervescence of our Tory bile, yet the majority of the civilized world will bear witness to our benevolent genius. And well, indeed, may they do so, for with our sweeping * We have just received a bale of Mr. Warren's poetical advertisements, which we shall take an early opportunity of noticing. — C. N. 76 THE SABLE SCHOOL OF POETRY. besom of reform we have stirred up a revolution not only in periodical literature, but in every department of science. Sir Humphrey Davy and Sir Thomas Lawrence owe their reputation especially to us. We and Bonaparte were among the first to point out the talents of the one, and we introduced the other to the notice of his present Majesty. Standing then as we do upon the very pinnacle of popularity, and aware that every man of talent we encourage is immediately received at court, we are cautious in disseminating our patronage. But when such scientific characters as Pierce Egan, rcgius pro- fessor of pugilism, or Robert Warren, poet and manu- facturer, solicit our aid, we are nervously alive to their interests. The latter gentleman in particular we have long marked, as Doctor Johnson observed of Milton, ' stealing his way in a sort of subterranean current thi'ough fear and silence,' and we determined to take the earliest opportunity of encouraging his virtuous perseverance. This intention we communi- cated to him last year, but as month after month rolled on without a notice, he resolved to remind us of it in the following delicate manner. It seems that Mr. Blackwood is in the daily habit of opening his own shop-windows, and on going the other morning for that express purpose, he was astonished to see THE SABLE SCHOOL OF POETRY. 77 chalked up on the left-hand shutter, ' Buy Warren's Blacking.' Now could any hint, my public, be more modestly characteristic than this ? Not ' Puff War- ren's Blacking,' or ' Write an article on Warren's Blacking,' but simply and negatively, ' Buy War- ren's Blacking ; ' thus connecting us in exhorta- tion with the uninterested majority of his patrons. And this delicate remembrancer is a Cockney ! One who makes use of his grandmother's shin-bone for a switch, bedecks himself in yellow breeches, and dis- penses with the luxury of a cravat. But no, we beg his pardon, Robert Warren is no Cockney ; he is of the land of William Wallace and Christopher North ; and for any man to assert that he is not, is about as ridiculous as to assert that Doctor Parr performed Harlequin in the late pantomime. In directing, then, the attention of the universe to Mr. Warren, we are anxious that it should consider him not merely as a manufacturer of blacking, but as the FOUNDER OF A NEW SCHOOL OF VERSE, an opinion which we boldly rest on the ground of his poetical advertisements. With the exception of ourselves, and a few of the Lake writers, he is the most accom- plished versifier of his day. Byron may, perhaps, be more gloomily magnificent, but Warren has a purer invention full even to overflowing of those 78 THE SABLE SCHOOL OF POETRY. fanciful humanities which shed a sweet and holy charm over the poetry of Wordsworth and Wilson. In opening a subject, he steps into it as he would into his shoes, with the familiarity of an acquaintance ; and whatever character of feeling he may describe, whether it be a cock mistaking a pair of boots for a looking-glass, or a gentleman adrasing his beard by the same sort of luminous dumb-waiter, till you feel that the mighty minstrel draws his every charm from the intense sensibility of self. But it is in delineating the sober feelings of humanity, that Mr. Warren is more immediately successful ; he is the Wordsworth of commerce, and revolts from scenes of liorror to dwell with affectionate interest on subjects of familiar nature. In this respect he resembles the Lake writers ; but as their characters and descriptions are all drawn from the country, while those of Warren are confined in their localities to the Strand, and in their incidents to commerce, a sufficient difference exists to warrant us in holding him out as the founder of a new school. In tlie poetry of things in general, his genius is equally felicitous. Even a pair of boots become in his eye creatures of loveliness and life, like the con- secrated white doe of Rylstone. Thus, too, in walk- ing the Strand, if he comes in sudden contact with a gutter, he does not vulgarly avoid it for its capacity THE SABLE SCHOOL OF POETRY. 79 of bespattering his pantaloons, but connects it with the streams of his native land, where the rivers glide ' at their own sweet will,' unless, like the Caledonian canal, they are taught to glide at the ' will ' of others. On the same ideal principle a sow is not to him a mere guttling porker ; it is either the ' savage of the wild ' or the ' sovereign of the sty.' In the latter case he associates it in thought with images of royal magnificence. Its bristles are the sceptres of its majesty, its grunt the thunders of its voice, and even its salt bacon recalls the attic salt of the philosophic Verulam. This is the true secret of imagination, of that ' divine faculty,' which enables its owner to see deeper into things in general than the less gifted majority of mankind ; to discover philosophy in a pedler, poetry in a travelling tinker, and in the intes- tines of the buttercup, ' thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.' In a word, this is the sole secret of genius, and hence it follows that many of our most imaginative but neglected authors have been enabled by its exercise to detect a bailiff in every stranger that accosts them. The only fault we have to find with Mr. Warren consists in his excessive egotism. Though his genius, like some coy maid, loves to wander among scenes igO THE SABLE SCHOOL OF POETKY. of congenial gentleness, amid the groves of Lisson, and the umbrageous walls of Kensington and London, yet he would have his walls inscribed with exhorta- tions to ' Buy Warren's Blacking,' and teach his groves to lisp its praise. In spite, however, of this defect, which he shares in common with the choicest spirits of the age, his advertisements are peculiarly popular ; and knowing, as we do, the sympathetic sensibilities of their minds, we can conceive nothing more pregnant with advantage to literature, than a matrimonial alliance between the rival schools of Warren and Wordsworth. Of Byron we say nothing, he is decidedly inferior to both ; but it is clear that the suburban fancy of Warren would blend beautifully with the slyvan imagination of Wordsworth ; their homely dialect would meet in exact accordance, and the pedlers and jackasses of the one prove an inter- esting counterpart to the cock and boots of the other. We must now suspend our criticism, and say a few words upon Robert in his well known capacity of manufacturer. His blacking, then, upon which he principally plumes himself, merits every commenda- tion that his poetry has so eloquently bestowed on it. To boots, shoes, and all the family of the leathers, it answers the purpose of aqua-vit03, by strengthening them with a spirit of rejuvenescence that it is truly THE SABLE SCHOOL OF POETRY. 81 refreshing to behold. It would suit Saint Leon to a T. With the alchymist's eUxir for himself in one pocket, and Warren's elixir for his boots in the other, he might still wear imperishable apparel. Even Africa is now becoming sensible of its merits, for O'Dohcrty assures us, that when he was' with his regiment at the Cape, he messed with a corps of Hottentots, who were all dressed in Hessian boots, and solemnly assured him, that they needed no better looking-glasses. In Europe, we are happy to observe, that its cir- culation is equally marvellous. Wherever Black- wood's Magazine goes, (et qucc carent nostra ora libra?) Warren's blacking accompanies it; and our kind Cossack correspondent, who dates from the Wolga, informs us, that he saw them both slum- bering in peaceful fellowship togetlier on the borders of Crim Tartary. Conceive, then, its enormous cir- culation ! We sell about 30,000 magazines monthly, and Warren must be hard at our heels. So astonish- ing indeed is his present popularity, that at Holland House he is said to be the great unknown. This, however, is a falsehood of the whigs, for we have every reason to believe, that Sir William Curtis is the author of the Scotch novels. '^ Thus much by way of eulogium on Warren ; but before we conclude, we cannot help reverting to 82 THE SABLE SCHOOL OF POETRY. ourselves in the instance of a recent calumny, which was evidently intended to ruin us in the eyes of Europe. It has been whispered in the upper circles, that we have accepted the office of prime minister, on condition of colleaguing with Lord Grey. This blood-thirsty bouncer we have traced to the same wretches who accused his Majesty of being a sylph, and can only say in answer, that like Csesar we have three several times refused the seals ; for after the backsliding of our once honored contributor Tims, who (we are shocked to say) has married his grandmother, we have felt little inclination to enter into public life. But could we ever do so without compromising our principles, Robei-t Warren should be our poet-laureate. THE CHILDE'S PILGRIMAGE. Bt Lord B ■. 1. Whilome in Limehouse docks there dwelt a youth, Childe Higgins hight, the child of curst ennui, Despair, shame, sin, with aye assailing tooth, Had worn his beauty to the bone. Ah me ! A lone unloving libertine was he ; For reft of health and hope's delusive wiles, And tossed in youth on passion's stormy sea, He stood a wreck 'mid its deserted isles. Where vainly pleasure wooes and syren woman smiles. 2. He was a merchant, 'till ennui'd with toil Of counting-house turned but to small account, Sated of home, and Limehouse' leaden soil. Nee more to his dried heart a freshening fount Of kindly feelings ; he aspired to mount 84 THE childe's pilgrimage. To intellectual fame, for when the brain Is dulled by thoughts aye fearful to surmount, When youth, hope, love, essay their charms in vain, The rake-hell turns a blue as doth his sky again. 3. Thus turned the Childe, when in the Morning Post, The Herald, Chronicle, and eke the Times, He read with tasteful glee a daily host Of the Strand bard's self-eulogistic rhymes ; He read, and fired with zeal, resolv'd betimes A pilgrim to that minstrel's shrine to move. As Allah's votaries in Arabian climes To far Medina's hallowed altar rove, There low to bend before the idol of their love. 4. He left his home, his wife, without a sigh, And trod with pilgrim-pace the Limehouse road ; The morn beamed laughing in the dark blue sky, And warm the sun on post and pavement glowed : Each varied mile new charms and churches showed, But sceptic Higgins jeered the sacred band ; For his full tide of thought with scorn o'erflowed, Or deep immersed in objects grave and grand. Dwelt on the Warren's fame, at Number Thirty, Strand. THE childe's pilgrimage. 85 5. He passed Whitechapel in such ireful mood, Where murdered muttons bob to every wind ; He saw the runnels red with bestial blood, Their lazy streams through street and alley wind : He saw and sickened in his inmost mind, ; Felt how the heart with savage spleen ycrammed. In blood alone can strange endearment find ; But such is man, (each pure affection shammed,) Mean, heartless, lawless, dull, detestable, and damned. 6. A truce to thought, for attic Billingsgate Already lures the pilgrim from his road ; Awe-struck he sees each naiad and her mate, Haggling for halfpence with some river god, Her Doric dialect, beautiful as broad, Her plump cheek redolent of ancient grease^ Her fleecy hose with yellow worsted sewed, Eecall proud Athen's days, its golden fleece, Its academic wits, and fame that nee shall cease. 7. Not so thy street, Boeotian Leadenhall ! Famed for new novels, leaden all and dull ; Though wags thy library " Minerva" call, 86 THE childe's pilgrimage. Yet very British is Minerva's skull. Her brainless books seem'd doom'd to gather wool, Or sold to vile cheesemongers by the pound, To scour the soulless sculleries of John Bull, While pots and pans (not sylvan) aye surround Each panic-stricken tome, despite its lore profound. 8. And this is fame, that covetous cooks' shops Should form the graves of every martyr'd work. That Southey's strains should wrap up mutton chops, Or Cheshire cheese anoint the leaves of Burke. That Theodore Ducas — Catiline — should lurk 'Mid Granger's sweets, with Wordsworth's Peter Bell, Or Chalmers' Lecture on the Scottish kirk Sleep with its fathers in some London hell. Some fruiterer's fruitful shelf, where dirt and dullness dwell. 9. But, lo, th' Exchange ! a busy world is here, — A world of knaves in wide confusion blent ; Here beams the smile, there falls th' unheeded tear, For stock well-purchased, or for gold ill-spent, All are on one fool's errand madly bent, THE childe's pilgrimage. 87 And Turk and Christian pass unnoticed by, While Israel's sons nee more to discontent A prey, — the new Jerusalem espy. In this barbaric booth, this fair of vanity. 10. Ah me ! how grovelling is the mind of man ! How fixed on perishable;hopes, and mean ! Wealth, honor, pride, engross his paltry span Of life, — then leave him scathed in heart as mien. Here, where I stand, the spirit of the scene Enchains all hearts with talismanic spell ; In vain aspiring youth, with blossoms green, Bedeck'd comes forth ; here Mammon tolls his knell, — And round him weaves the chain of avarice and of hell. 11. Th' Exchange is past, the Mansion House appears, Surpris'd the Childe surveys its portly site. Dim dreams assail him of convivial years, And keener waxes his blunt appetite. Luxurious visions whelm his fancy quite. Of calipash and eke of calipee, While sylphs of twenty stone steal o'er his sight, 88 THE childe's pilgrimage. Smiting their tljig})s with blythe Apician glee, And licking each his lips right beautiful to see. 12. 'Twas here they tucked, — these unctuous city sprites ; 'Twas here like geese they fattened and they died, Here turtle reared for them her keen delights. And forests yielded their cornuted pride. But all was vain, 'mid daintiest feasts they sighed ; Gout trod in anger on each hapless toe ; Stern apoplexy pummelled each fat side, And dropsy seconded his deadly blow. Till floored by fate they sunk to endless sleep below. 13. But hark, the hum of multitudes, the roar Of carts and coaches, and the various squalls Or cries, that pierce the ear-drum's inmost core. Have roused the Childe's attention at Saint Paul's. Cheapside to near Guildhall in thunder calls, Guildhall replies, of lungs with justice proud : Milk-street and Lothbury, glad to join the brawls. Have found a tongue, while Wood-street from her shroud Re-bellows to Lad-lane, who calls to her aloud. THE childe's pilgrimage. 89 14. And in the midst, as leader of the band, Stands the magnificent Saint Paul's ; — he towers Sublime to heaven, by winnowing bi'eezes fanned, Unknown on lower earth ; the rattling showers, The storm, the whirlwind that in vengeance lowers, Pass him unharm'd ; he lifts his giant brow, As if in mockery of their puny powers. Or wrapt in clouds like conscious guilt in woe, Soars from the vulgar ken a mystery as now. 15. Something too much of this ; but now 'tis past, And Fleet-street spreads her busy vale below : Lo ! proud ambitious gutters hurry past, To rival Thames in full continuous flow ; The Inner Temple claims attention now, That Golgotha of thick and thread-bare skulls, Where modest merit pines in chambers low. And impudence his oar in triumph pulls Along the stream of wealth, and snares its rich sea- gulls. 16. Hail to this shrine of barristers and brass ! Of wigs and wags of learning and of lead ! Solomon's brazen temple — but alas! 7 90 THE childe's pilgrimage. VVitli old king Log, king Solomon instead, Yc gifted spirits of the legal dead, Will none arise to grace degraded law ? Vain hope, despite the lore of each long head, Satan hath found their lives a moral flaw. And on them, bailiff-like, hath laid his ebon paw. 17. And thus the world is rife alone with fools, ' Who clank in chains while fashion holds the noose ; Court, camp, and church, — what are they but the tools Of sin, shame, slang, buffoonery, and abuse ? Momus with man has made a lasting truce. And hence our patriots puff, — our warriors bray, — Hence critics flood us with a muddy sluice Of maudlin prose, — hence cant holds sovereign sway, And sinless saints are spurn'd, while sainted sinners pray. ■ 18. Our life is one fierce fever — death the leech Who lulls each throb ; the has been, and to be, — The sole divine whose welcome aid can teach The mysteries of u dread futurity. Come when he may, his advent will to me THE CHILDE\s pilgrimage. 91 Be spring and sunshine, for my soul is dark, And o'er the billows of life's shoreless sea, A sea uncheer'd by hope's celestial ark, Cradled in storms and winds floats lone my little bark. 19. Thus mused the Childc, as thoughtful he drew near The sacred shrine of Number Thirty, Strand, And saw bright gUttering in the hemisphei'e — Like stars on moony nights — a sacred band Of words that formed the bard's cognomen — grand Each letter shone beneath the eye of day. And the proud sign-boot, by spi-ing breezes fanned. Shot its deep brass reflections o'er the way, As shoots the ti'opic mom o'er meads of Paraguay. 20. Childe Higgins hied him to this bless'd abode — Not forked Parnassus — Crete's Olympian hill — Not Ilium's plain — by kings and warriors trod — Calypso's cavern, Aganippe's rill. Or Circe's isle famed for enchantment still — Ere thrilled his soul with such intense delight As thrilled it now when Warren's ma^ic till o 92 THE childe's pilgrimage. Thro' each shop-whidovv gleamed upon his sight, Clear as Italian dawn that gilds the brow of night. 21. But I forget — my pilgrim's shrine is won — And he himself — the lone unloving Childe — His Limehouse-birth, his name, his sandal-shoon, And scallop shell, are dreams by fancy piled : His dull despairing thoughts alone — once mild As love — now dark as fable's darkest hell, Are stern realities ; but o'er the wild Drear desert of their blight, the soothing spell Of Warren's verse flits rare as sun-beams o'er Pall Mall. 22. Farewell — a word tliat must be and hath been — Ye dolphin dames who turn from blue to gray, Ye dandy drones who charm each festive scene With brainless buzz, and frolic in your May, Ye ball-room bards who live your little day. And ye who flushed in purse parade the town. Booted or shod — to you my Muse would say, ' Buy Warren's Blacking,' as ye hope to crown Your senseless souls or soulless senses with renown. THE DREAM, A PSYCHOLOGICAL CURIOSITY. By S. T. C. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER. The following ' wild and singularly original and beautiful poem' was written at the instigation of Mr. Warren, who was desirous of enrolling me among the number of his panegyrists. The circumstances that led to its original composition are as follows : I had been considering in what way 1 might best intro- duce the subject, when suddenly falling asleep over a provincial newspaper which detailed the battle between Cribb and Molineux, the thoughts of my waking hours assumed the aspect of the present poetical reverie. This to an unidead ' reading public ' may appear incredible, but minds of imaginative temperament are ever most active during the intervals of repose, as my late poem, entitled ' The Pains of Sleep,' will sufficiently attest. 94 ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER. Dreams, in fact, are to be estimated solely in proportion to their wildness ; and hence a friend of mine, who is a most magnificent dreamer, imagined but the other night that he invited a flock of sheep to a musical party. Such ajlocci, nauci, nihili absur- dity will, I am afraid, puzzle even our transcendental philosophers to explain, although Kant, in his ti-eatise on the Phsenomena of Dreams, is of opinion that the lens or focus of intestinal light ascending the oesopha- gus at right angles, a juxta-position of properties takes place, so that the nucleus of the diaphragm, reflecting on the cerebellum the prismatic visions of the pilorus, is made to produce that marvellous operation of mind upon matter better known by the name of dreaming. To such simj)le and satisfactory reasoning what an- swer can be made ? Before I conclude I think it but right to observe, that the poem, with the exception of a few lines sub- sequently added to suit the immediate purposes of its publication, was written on the first of April, A. D. 1812,1''' at Nether Stowey, a small village in Somerset- shire, about two miles from All Foxden, on the high western road, a little on this side of Bath, and about eighteen miles and a half from Bristol. THE DREAM, A PSYCHOLOGICAL CURIOSITY. Ten minutes to ten by Saint Dunstan's clock, And the owl has awakened the crowing cock : Cock-a-doodle-doo, Cock-a-doodle-doo. If he crows at this rate in so thrilling a note, Jesu Maria ! he '11 catch a sore throat. Warren the manufacturer rich Hath a spectral mastiff bitch ; To Saint Dunstan's clock, tho' silent enow, She barketh her chorus of bow wow, wow : Boiv for the quarters, and wow for the hour ; Naught cares she for the sun or the shower ; But when, like a ghost all arrayed in its shroud. The wheels of the thunder are muffled in cloud, When the moon, sole chandelier of night, Bathes the blessed earth in light, As wizard to wizard, or witch to witch, Howleth to heaven this mastiff bitch. 96 THE DREAM. Buried in thought O' Warren lay, Like a village queen on the birth of May ; He listed the tones of Saint Dunstan's clock, Of tlie mastiff bitch and the crowing cock. But louder, far louder, he listed a roar. Loud as the billow that booms on the shore ; Bang, bang, witli a pause between. Rung the weird sound at his door, I ween. Up from his couch he leaped in affright. Oped his gray lattice and looked on the night. Then put on his coat, and with harlequin hop Stood like a phantom in midst of the shop ; In midst of his shop he stood like a sprite, Till peering to left and peering to right, Beside his counter, with tall in hand, He saw a spirit of darkness stand ; I guess 'twas frightful there to see A lady so scantily clad as she. Ugly and old exceedingly. In height her figure was six feet two, In breadth exactly two feet six. One eye as summer skies was blue. The other black as the waves of Styx. Her bloodless lips did aught but pair, For one was brown and one was fair, THE DREABI. 97 And clattered like maid in hysteric fit, Or jack that turneth a kitchen spit ; Jesu Maria ! with awe, I trow, O' Warren beheld this worricow. For dreary and dun the death-hue came O'er her cheek, as she traced the words of flame ; The words of flame that with mystic fuss Are hatched from a still-born incubus, And doom each wight who reads, to dwell Till the birth of day in the caves of hell. Oh ! read thee not, read thee not, lord of the Strand, The spell that subjects thee to elfin command ; Vain hope ! the bogle hath marked her hour, ^^ And Warren hath read the words of power ; Letter by letter he traced the spell. Till the sullen toll of Saint Dunstan's bell, And the midnight howl of the mastiff" bitch. Announced his doom to the Hallowmass witch. Still in her grandeur she stood by. Like an oak that uplooketh to sun and sky ; ' Then shouted to Warren with fitful breath ; ' I 'm old mother Nightmare-life-in-death ; ^^ ' Halloo ! halloo ! we may not stay, Satan is waiting ; away, away ; Halloo ! halloo ! we 've far to go. Then hey for the devil ; jee-up ! jce-hoe ' '•9S THE DREAM. O'Warren requested a little delay, But the evil one muttered ' too late, by my fay ; ' So he put on his breeches and scampered away. And here mote I tell how they rode on the wind, The witch before and the Warren behind ; How they passed in a twinkling the haunts of man. And the proud pagodas of Kubla Khan ; How they peeped at the planets like AUan-a-room, And supped on green cheese with the man in the moon ; Or listed the dulcimer's tremulous notes, Or the voice of tlie wind through the azure that floats, Till pillar and palace and arching sky Rung to the mingled melody. The eye of night is veiled in cloud, Like a nun apparelled in sable shroud ; But the twain have past her starry dome, And are bound to the realms of eternal gloom ; They have past the regions of upper air, Whei'e zephyr is born amid music rare. And the shadows of twilight featly fall On starry temple and cloudy hall, Whose floors by spirits are paced, and ring With the harp's seraphic murmuring. Away, away, through the thunder-cloud. Where tempest and ruin sit laughing aloud ; THE DREAM. 99 Away, away, through the fields of air, Where the night-wind howls to the falling star ; This amiable couple have past, and now They gain the swart regions of darkness and woe. O'Warren beheld them, and shrunk with awe, Like a client held fast in the grasp of law, Then hymned to the Virgin for aid and for pity, A highly correct and devotional ditty : ' Miserere Maria,' he cried in despair. While the bullet-nosed bogle drew back at the prayer, For Mary, sweet Mary, hath power to fright, And palsy the souls of the daemons of night ; ' Miserere Maria,' he bellowed again, And the worricow dropt her eye-tooth at t!ic strain, But spite of her teeth, she eschewed complaint, Till troubled in spirit, and cowed and faint. She collared the tradesman with horrible yell. Then plunged with him head over heels into hell. Oh, how its wild waves bellowed and boomed ! ! Oh, how its vapors the air perfumed ! ! As Warren with timid and stifled breath. And followed by old Mrs. Life-in-death, Moved to where Satan reclined alone. In the silence of thought on his ebon throne. His brow was dark as death, for care Had heavily laid her impress there, THE DREAM. And throned, like a king, in his hollow eye Sate the ghost of a sullen dignity ; His look was of hate, but grand and still As the pine that frowns on an Alpine hill. His figure majestic, and formed for braving, Battle or blood — and he wanted shaving. '^ Proudly he strode to his palace gate, Which the witch and the Warren approached in state, But paused at the threshold as onward they came. And thus, with words of fever and flame. The tradesman addressed, ' Your name, Sir, is known As a vender of sables wide over the town ; But in hell with proviso this praise we must mix. For though brilliant your blacking, the water of Styx Is blacker by far, and can throw, as it suits, A handsomer gloss o'er our shoes and our boots.' Answered the Warren, with choleric eye, ' Oh, king of the cock-tailed incubi ! '° The sneer of a fiend to your puffs you may fix. But if, what is worse, you assert that your Styx Surpasses my blacking, ('twas clear he was vexed,) By Jove ! you will ne'er stick at any thing next. 1 have dandies who laud me at Paine's and Almacks, -i Despite Day and Martin, those emulous quacks, THE DREAM. 101 And they all in one spirit of concord agree, That my blacking is better than any black sea Which flows thro' your paltry Avernus, I wis,' — ' Pshaw,' Satan replied, ' I'll be damned if it is.' The tradesman he laughed at this pitiful sneer, And drew from his pocket, unmoved by the jeer Of the gathering dsemons, blue, yellow, and pink, A bottle of blacking more sable than ink ; With the waves of the Styx in a jiffey they tried it. But the waves of the Styx looked foolish beside it ; ' You mote as well liken the summer sky,' Quoth Warren the bold, ' with an Irish sty ; The nightingale's note with the cockatoo's whine, As your lily-white river with me or mine.' Round the brow of Abaddon fierce anger played. At the Strand manufacturer's gasconade ; And lifting a fist that mote slaughter an ox. He wrathfuUy challenged his foeman to box ; Then summoned each da;mon to form a ring. And witness his truculent triumphing. The ring was formed and the twain set to, Like little Puss with Belasco the Jew. ~- Satan was seconded in a crack. By Molineux, the American black. 102 THE DKEAM. (Who sported an oath as a civil Salam,) While Warren was backed by the ghost of Dutch Sam. Gentles, who fondly peruse these lays, Wild as a colt o'er the mooi'land that strays, Who thrill at each wondrous rede I tell, As fancy roams o'er the floor of hell, Now list ye with kindness, the whiles I rehearse In shapely pugilistic verse, (Albeit my fancy preferreth still The quiet of nature,) this desperate Mill. -^ cije mm. Both men on peeling showed nerve and bone. And weighed on an average fourteen stone ; Doffed their silk f ogle, for battle agog, Ycllowman, castor and white upper tog ; Then sparred for a second their ardor to cool, And rushed at each other like bull to bull. ISounUs. 1. Was a smasher, for Brummagem Bob* Let fly a topper on Beelzebub's noh ; * It is currently reported at Carlton House, and the higher circles of fashion, that Robert Warren, Esq. is a native of Birmingham. ' On this hint I spake.' THE DKEAM. 103 Then followed him up over the ring with ease, And doubled him uj) by a blow in the squeeze. 2. Satan was cautious in making play, But stuck to his sparring and pummelled away ; Till the ogles of Warren looked queer in their hue, (Here, bets upon Beelzebub, three to two.) 3. Fihhings, and facers, and toppers abound, But Satan, it seems, hath the worst of the round. 4. Satan was floored by a lunge in the hip, And the blood from his peepers, went drip, drip, drip,24 Like fat from a goose in the dripping pan, Or ale from the brim of a flowing can ; His hox of dominos chattered aloud, (Here, ' Go it, Nick !' from an imp in the crowd,) And he dropped with a Lancashire jmrr on his back,"^-^ While Bob with a clincher fell over him, whack. 5. Both men piping came up to the scratch, But Bob for Abaddon was more than a match ; He tapped his claret, his mug he rent. And made him so groggy with funishment. 104 THE DREAM. That he gladly gave in at the close of the round, And Warren in triumph was led from the ground. Then trumpet, and timbrel, and deafening shout, Like wind through a ruin rung lustily out. High o'er the rocks that jut over the deep, Where the souls of the damned to eternity weep ; Echo threw forward her answer of fear. Dull as the dust that clanks over a bier. Or death-watch that beats in a sick man's ear. From the gulph where they howl to the lead-colored night. The shadowless spectres leaped up with delight. And ' Buy Warren's Blacking ' they shouted aloud, As the night-wind sighs through a coffinless shroud. The evil one frowned while they bellowed amain, But ' Buy Warren's Blacking,' he chorussed again ; For tho' worsted in fight, yet, by order of fate, The vanquished must temper the pulse of his hate. And yield to the victor (his will's despite) Unbridled sway o'er the fiends of night. 'T is done, and sore with his recent thwacking, Abaddon had purchased O'Warren's blacking ; Fate stood by while the bargain was made, Signed a receipt when the money was paid. THE DREAM. 105 Then summoned her sprites, an exemplary band, To kneel in respect to the Lord of the Strand. They came with harp and timbrel, And dulcimer and lute, With double-drum and cymbal, Fife, flageolet and flute ; There was one o'er the ocean Sate singing and lone, While the Styx in commotion, Re-echoed each tone. He sate in his beauty on billows of flame, And marshalled the daemons as onward they came ; Till at once they struck up at his tuneful command, ' Whack for O'Warren, the Pride of the Strand ! ! ' But hark, 't is the voice of the crowing cock ! And hark, 't is the toll of Saint Dunstan's clock ! The morn rides higli in the Eastern sky. And the little birds carol it merrily : Already have waned at the gladsome sight, Each scene of darkness, each goblin sprite ; Abaddon to whit, and the whole of his crew, Pink, yellow, or rosy, green, purple, or blue. For cheered by the rays thro' his lattice that peep. The bard hath awoke from the ' Pains of Sleep.' 8 ANNUS MIRABILIS; OR, A PARTHIAN GLANCE AT 1823. SHOWING, AMOJfG OTHER MEMORABLE MINTTTI^, THE PROGRESSIVE POPULARITY OF WARREN's BLACKING. / By the X. M. M. January. — Intense frosts, and the Surpentine unusu- ally thronged with skaiters. Mr. Horner published a series of engravings taken from the summit of Saint Paul's ; built an attic above the cross, and made divers domestic discoveries with his telescope. A Major Paull, of the Bombay establishment, was caned by his black servant ; a wag observed on the occasion, that the negro appeared to have followed Virgil's advice of ' Paullo majora canamus ; ' the trial came on at Cal- cutta. A lady in Dyott Street stirred up her husband with a poker. Four pair of old bachelors committed matrimony at Saint George's, Hanover Square. — Verdict, Lunacy. Warren's Blacking increased in circulation, by means of 50 additional Agents. ANNUS MIRABILIS. 107 February. — Tom and Jerry mania on the decline ; only four Charlies with black eyes to be found in all Piccadilly ; some of them with no eye at all, except to their own interest. Mr. Pope enacted the ghost of Banquo in Macbeth : he made a very spirited and live- ly apparition. Valentine's day ; postmen oppressed with a weight of delicate embarrassments, and shops pleasantly replete with bleeding hearts, and Cupids in buckskin breeches. Lord v. Lady Portsmouth at the Court of Chancery ; his Lordship convicted of black jobs and bell-ringings ; Mr. Bell rung the changes in his (the Plaintiff's) favor; expenses of the whole suit only 30,OOOZ, Pioneers, an American novel, publish- ed by Murray ; exceedingly interesting to those who can comprehend it. Lord Clanmorris failed in his attempts to become a fashionable Corinthian — ' Non cuivis homini contingit adirc Corinthum.' Warren's Blacking much circulated in Scotland. March. — London rapidly improving in the number of its fashionable arrivals. Mr. Bochsa highly attrac- tive as usual in the oratorios at Drury Lane. Symptoms of modesty in Blackwood's Magazine ; utterly disbe- lieved by Mr. Hazlitt. Only one novel from the author of Waverlcy, A Scotch apothecary in Street invited a friend to dinner, and sate him down to a 108 ANNUS MtRABILIS. bottle of castor-oil ; observing, by way of consolation, that the welcome was every thing. Sheridan's comedy of the School for Scandal revived at Drury Lane ; the part of Charles Surface exquisitely performed by Mr, EUiston, in every respect but that of resemblance to the character. ' Buy Warren's Blacking ' discovered written up on the ruins of the Coliseum, a picturesque proof of its popularity. April. — All Fools' day.^s — Mrs. Siddons did an abridgment of Paradise Lost, and left out the charac- ter of Satan, to prove her abhorrence of Mr. Southey's ' Satanic School.' The Lord Chancellor came to a decision. John Bull Newspaper accused Lord Holland of being a Zephyr. A shipload of Peverils of the Peak landed at the Custom House. An Irish bog took a fancy to see the world, and eloped from the country where it was born and educated ; Mr. Martin's estates went with it. Exhibition of water colors opened with some splendid masterpieces by Glover. Heliacal ris- ing of Thomas Moore and his three angels, but being somewhat defective in point of wings, they shared the fate of Icarus, and dropped into the waters of oblivion. ' Buy Warren's Blacking ' chalked up on every wall of the metropolis. ANNUS MIEABILIS. 1C9 May. — High season of fashion at the west end. Exhibition at Somerset House, much discussed to the imminent neglect of the weather. Marriage Act uni- versally deprecated, in consequence of the generality of females being averse to see their weakness made manifest on the church doors. Hay don put forth his picture of the Raising of Lazarus, but found it more difficult to raise the wind than to raise the dead ; scanty show of visitors, though the artist is of first-rate celebrity, and wears no cravat.-^ Grand fight for the championship of England between Spring and Neate. Meeting at the Free-Mason's tavern in favor of the Spaniards, and consequent altercation between Mes- sieurs Hunt and Rowcroft. A masquerade at the Opera House, where a nobleman, in making love to a masked lady, kissed his own wife by mistake ; he has been a sincere penitent ever since. Discoveiy of a witch in Devonshire. Almack's and Warren's Blacking in their zenith of fashionable notoriety. June. — Elegant display of female equestrians in the Park. Mrs. Coutts still a widow. Subscription in behalf of the Spaniards, towards which one patriot contributed a pair of old shoes. Treadmill and Mr. Scarlett in equal practice. New number of The Liberal made its appearance in the literary tid ANNUS MIRABILIS. horizon, but proved to be a star shorn of its beams : ' How are the miglily fallen ! ' Horrible effects of gluttony — a hog belonging to Mr. Bath, of Reading School, being overcome by hunger, walked into the school-room, and deliberately devoured the writing- master. A ship-load of Warren's Blacking sailed for Kensington, Jamaica, by order of the governor. 4 "N ■ July. — Mrs. Olivia Serres, soi-disant Princess of Cumberland, accused by Mr. Peel in the House of Commons of having a brown spot under her fifth rib. Three new cantos of Don Juan published, and proscribed according to law. Symptoms of desertion at the west end. Sir Robert Wilson wounded at Corunna, and Prince Hilt threatened with an explo- sion. A farmer at Egham accused our gracious Sovereign of being an ' old chap : ' Stocks fell IJ per cent, in consequence. Prince Hohenlohe commenced a series of miracles for the season ; began his entertainments by causing a dumb Irish- woman to speak, but forgot the most miraculous part, to make her hold her tongue again. Reverend Edward Irving attempted an imitation of the famous apostrophe of Demosthenes ^^ to the shades of the Marathonian dead : he made a very Scotch Demos- thenes. Orders received at the India House for a ANNUS MIRABILIS. Ill supply of Warren's Blackincr : intelligence reached No. 30, Strand, by a special messenger from the court of directors. August. — Saint Swithin rehearsing daily for the winter ; much improved in his performances, but too persevering in the display. Three new cantos of Don Juan appeared, — obliged to Htmt for a pub- lisher. Melancholy solitude in the neighborhood of Portman Square. ' Desolate is the dwelling of Moina.' A good thing discovered in the Gentleman's Maga- zine. Not more than twenty pairs of boots on a daily average heard clattering up Bond Street. Novel of Frankenstein diaholized at the English Opera House. A cockney met Lord Byron at Genoa, and having heard that he was a complete devil, was astonished to find him only a man. Returns for Warren's Blacking during the last month, twelve hundred pounds, exclusive of foreign agen- cies. September. — Shooting season commenced: three old gentlemen had their wigs shot off by a party of cockney sportsmen, while smoking in their wigwams at Hornsey Wood tavern : an old lady, who was passing in the neighborhood, just bobbed in time to save the lilt ANNUS MIRABILIS. penultima of her nose. Astonishing abundance of phimbs, and other stone fruit ; hence Horace has not inaptly termed this season ' Plumbeus Auctumnus. ' Romeo Coates, Esquire, personated the character of Benedict, at Saint George's church, to the life : after the comedy, he set off with his fair heroine for Ports- ^ mouth, where the happy couple are engaged to perform the ' honey-moon ' for a limited number of nights. Vauxhall Gardens closed for the season with only 80,000 additional lamps — ovdev tXa/nns. Warren's Blacking and consols still looking up. October. — The Fonthill fever eradicated, in conse- quence of its fashionable victims being inoculated instead with the Hatton Garden influenza. The fol- lowing advertisement made its appearance in the Englishman : ' Mr. Smallwood's Academy for young gentlemen, Laurence Lane, Exeter ; price of tuition 2d. per week : them as lams manners pays 2d. more.' King of Spain restored to his throne,^^ proscribed one half of his subjects, and arrested the other : highly complimented on his disinterested impartiality. Heral- dic discovery : — a special messenger arrived from Paris with intelligence that Warren was proved to be the grandson of Rousseau, by Madame de Warrenne. This goes a great way to account for the sentimental ANNUS MIKABILIS. 113 beauty of his rhythmical advertisements, which as well as his blacking, are at present, in great vogue among the Parisian dilletanti. November. — Three square yards of blue sky dis- covered within a mile of Eastcheap. The crowd was incalculable. Private theatricals projected at Devon- shire House for the ensuing spring ; among the nume- rous histrionic performers, Lord G e, it is said, has kindly condescended to perform Bottom in the Midsummer Night's Dream ; while the Duke of B volunteers the character of Ariel in the Tempest. A fine day. Eight hundred suits of old clothes exported from Monmouth Street as court dresses for the German princes. Apothecaries' boys discovered flying about the city in busy anticipation of the Lord Mayor's dinner. Autumnal sky said to be unusually beautiful ; very true, if one could but see it. Official dispatches received at Warren's warehouse for a supply of Black- ing for the use of the United States. Decemher. — Taylors' bills of the young London swells drawing to a precipitate close, somewhere about the fourth page of the largest sized foolscap paper. No assassination of private character in the John Bull. A true statement discovered in Cobbett's 114 ANNUS MIRABILIS. Register.^'' The Bond Street loungers in a state of awful suspense respecting the shape of the next spring coat. A young lady shot her lover, as he stood in a sentimental attitude behind the counter of a grocer's shop in the Borough : she is reported to have done it for the purpose of proving that love can take as sure aim with a pistol as with a bow and arrow. Warren closed his accounts for the year with a prodigious balance in his favor. Grand fete given on the occasion at No. 30, Strand, where the guests continued till a late hour, toasting (as the rest of the world is here invited to do), ' Success to Warren's Blacking.' WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. By the R. of the T 1st of April, 1823. The gallery doors were opened at twelve. The rush was prodigious, and the house more crowded than on any night since Mr. Burke's celel'rated motion on Economical Reform. The speaker took the chair at the usual hour. After the routine business was disposed of, the hour for commencing public matters arrived, and he then called on Mr. H e. That gentleman arose, and spoke as follows, attention holding the rest of the members mute, as of old it did when the person called by Dr. Johnson 'the first "Whig,' addi-essed a certain Stygian council. ' Mr. Speaker, ' In proposing a reduction of the expenses attending Mr. Warren's Blacking, as it is used for the army, and more particularly for the regiments of Horse Guards, I feel it but right to state, that I am swayed by no interested motive whatever. For Mr. Warren, indeed, though personally a stranger to him, I feel the highest respect ; and when I reflect on the. benefits that have accrued to society from the use of his invaluable com- modity, that respect is increased almost to veneration. 116 WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. {Cries of hear, hear.) Still less, Sir, am I averse to the necessary expenditure of the army ; I look upon it as an exceedingly useful institution, and should be Sony, even for an instant, to speak against it. But when England is manifestly going to ruin, when the most unprincipled waste prevails in every department of government {loud cheers from the Opposition), when, as on a late melancholy occasion, the state- room of a deceased queen is hung with black velvet, though broadcloth would have been handsome enough, I feel it my bounden duty to protest against such profli- gate extravagance. Upon this principle I shall to-night bring forward my long-promised motion relative to the estimates of Mr. Warren's Blacking, firmly persuaded that the expenses attending it may be greatly reduced. I shall begin by enumerating the sum total of the whole of what is technically termed the Horse Guards. On examination it will be found, I believe, that the regiments properly so called, are four, and if we allow each regiment, on a hasty calculation, to be 800 strong, (to say nothing of the band,) and multiply this 800 by four, we shall have a clear product of no less than 3200 men, all of whom are in the constant habit of using Warren's Blacking. This, Sir, to say the least of it, and provided that only shoes were the articles WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. 117 polished, would be an intolerable expense ; but what shall we say when told that the ministry, as if in mockery of reform, {hear, hear, from Sir F. B 1,) compel the four regiments to wear jack-boots. Now the motion I have the honor to make, regards these very articles, and proposes that they be henceforth cleaned but twice a week, on a presumption that the country would be materially benefited by the altera- tion. This presumption is much strengthened by the following statements, by which it appears that 3200 pairs of jack-boots are at present daily polished, and that the consequent expenses, (allowing one pot of blacking, price sixpence, to be used between three pairs,) are 9733Z. ^s. 8d. per annum. But if we restrict this extravagance to twice a week, the expend- iture would then be 2771/. 12s., whereby there would be an annual saving of 696 IZ. 14s. M. Again on a supposition that the jack-boots are abridged to Wel- lingtons, and these Wellingtons cleaned in like manner but twice a week, to wit, on Fridays and Sundays, the expenses would then be 923?. 17s. M., making on the whole a reduction of 8809/. 9s. per arwum. I must not, however, forget to mention, that in this statement there is an odd sixpence over, which, after every neces- sary retrenchment has been made, may be fairly divided between the Chancellor and Lord Liverpool. 118 WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. I am far from meaning offence to Mr. Warren by any proposal to reduce the sale of his article ; I acknowledge its unrivalled merit, and comparative cheapness, but still I have a paramount duty to per- form, to which I feel that I must sacrifice all private affections. And here, in passing, I cannot refrain from noticing a fresh instance of the profligacy of govern- ment. The allowance that they make to the officers of the Guards, {hear, hear, from Lord P n,) is ruinous beyond all bounds. Not content with a whole- some and sensible repast,^' they must needs give them coffee, ham, eggs, chocolate, orange marmalade, and gooseberry jam, according even to their own bill of fare, which I have seen, and which actually measures 36 feet 9 inches, and 7-8ths in length, by 2 feet 7 inches, and 3-4ths in breadth. In the patriotic days of England, in the days of Elizabeth and Burleigh, our military would have scorned such effeminate luxuries ; but on the simplest and cheapest species of food, would have cherished a stomach fit either for fighting or for feasting. Now, however, the case is altered, and if our Guards ever condescend to eat heef, they cut it from the sides of John Bull himself. I call upon the house then to desist from these ravenous attacks ; 1 call upon them to do justice, though late, to an impover- ished nation, and by way of commencement, to limit WAKREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. 119 the Guards to one pound of fresh meat and one pint of porter per diem, convinced that none but a shark or an alderman could possibly digest more. Having thus noticed the unprincipled breakfast of the soldiery, I shall once again revert to the especial extravagance of their jack-boots and blacking. The house will see throughout my speech, that I have link- ed these two latter items together, and my reason for so doing is because I consider them like man and wife, so inseparably united in interest, that if one falls, the other must follow. The observation I have to make respecting them is, that during his Majesty's late levees at Holyrood House, there was not one jack-boot visible, although the flower of the kingdom was in attendance, and even the sovereign himself was pleased to declare that the Scotch were a nation of gentlemen. This clearly proves that the most accomplished personage in the realm, considers jack-boots in no wise essential to gentility ; and that they are much less elegant than Wellingtons, all who hear me will, I am sure, be wil- ling to admit. In furtherance, then, of their immediate abridgment, I shall beg leave to introduce the fol- lowing series of resolutions ; all of which, however unconnected they may appear, tend to the same grand cause of retrenchment. {Mr. H e then read the following statement.) 120 WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. 1. Tlmt it seems, by returns to this house, that the expenses attending the use of Warren's Blacking in four regiments alone, are 9733/. 6s. 8d. j)er annum, and that a great part of this expense is occasioned by the jack-boots of the Horse Guards. 2. That from the size of these jack-boots, the time of the Horse Guards must be necessarily employed in cleaning them, whereby a spirit of vanity is encour- aged, to the neglect of good order and discipline. 3. That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, imploring him to order an inquiry to be made into the estimates of Warren's Blacking, for the pur- pose of ascertaining how far they are influenced by these jack-boots. 4. That his Majesty will graciously command these jack-boots to be abridged into Wellingtons, to be worn only on field days, and to be cleaned only twice a week. 5. That by and through the advice of the lords spiritual and temporal, and his own faithful commons, his Majesty will propose a premium to any who will undertake to clean these jack-boots by steam. WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. 121 6. That the house considers all these resolutions essential to the dignity of the crown, and the glory and happiness of the people. ( Towards the close of this speech^ the major'ity of the commons awoke from a deep sleeps which the hon. memher''s eloquence had occasioned. All parties rub- hed their eyes, and among other singular appearances that the house at this moinent exhibited, our reporter says that it was quite beautiful to see Mr. B m and Mr. C g nodding to each other like two sisters, from different sides of the house. He adds, that Mr. B wi's countenance displayed an air of the most touching resignation, and formed a striking contrast to the brazen beauties of Mr. C g. Even the Speaker appeared to have caught the general infection, till starting up tvith an air of jJrofound attention, he exclaimed, ' Is this motion seconded 7 ' tqwn ivhich Mr. B m rose and addressed the house. The following is a tolerably correct report of his speech, although candor compels us to assert that he was occasionally inaudible in the galleries.) In seconding the motion which my hon. friend has t])is night th(niglit proper to bring forward, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of doing justice to his public 9 122 WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. services in the cause of retrenchment and reform. On the present occasion, these services have been truly unprecedented, and he has laid before us such atrocious proofs of profligacy, — of a profligacy un- equalled in the corruptest ages of the world, when the world itself was sunk in the very lowest abyss of all possible corruption, the corruption of the Roman Nero, {hear, hear, from Mr. D «,) that the human mind literally shudders to detail them. In this distressing predicament, I shall once more ofTer an appeal to the common sense of the house, well aware that though, by so doing, I appeal to an alarming minority, I still speak the indignant language of a prostituted, insulted and inconceivably impoverished nation. (Loud cheers from the Opposition.) My hon. friend has contented himself by question- ing the propriety of this singular and superlative extravagance ; but I shall descend to more minute particulars, by showing its positive and pernicious consequences. It is a well accredited fact, Sir, that Warren's Blacking possesses the lucid properties of a mirror, and when rightly applied to leather, lends it an inexpressible polish. Now supposing that our Horse Guards have already made this discovery, — a discovery as palpable as the characteristic activity WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. 123 of our chancellor, — is it not highly probable that, from motives of economy, they will forthwith dis- pense with mirrors ? And if this omission is to take place in four full regiments of Guards alone, — to say nothing of the band, as my hon. friend observed, and a more accomplished band of brigands never yet dis- turbed the patience of an insulted nation, a patience equalled only by the identical animal that chews the thistle ; — if, I repeat, this diabolical omission is to take place, is it not as notorious as the corruption of Parliament, — (and what can be more notoriously cor- rupt?) — that the glass manufacturers must be ruined ? We all know the contemptible caprice of that sense- less idol, fashion ; and I make no doubt, that if War- ren's Blacking be encouraged among these Praetorian Guards to its present extent, — an extent destructive alike 'to the country and the crown, to the country from its precedent, and to the crown from its absur- dity, — we shall see mirrors universally discarded. Let me entreat this house then to reflect, solemnly reflect, ere it sanction such notable injustice. Every manufacturer, be he who or what he may, merits equally the encouragement of Parliament ; but why sacrifice hundreds to the interests of one individual ? Did the house, let me ask, ever sec the individual for whose gains it is thus shamefully solicitous > ^- If \ 124 WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. they did, tlioy will not easily forget him, for a more horrible and hoary wretch exists not on the face of the earth. The ne\^r-to-bc forgotten expression of that eye — that nose — that mouth, — the muddy channels of those checks, — channels to which Fleet ditch were a river of paradise, and a horse-pond a fountain of the Nile, — all — all betoken the pander to public prodigality. Yet this is the man, — this the Eblis, — this the Juggernaut of commerce, under whose overwhelming influence its very life-blood must be crushed out. Oh ! let it not be said that the corrupt partialities which taint our political constitu- tion could, even in this humble instance, so effectually blight its character as to sink it in eternal condem- nation at the tribunal of after ages. ( The awful solemnity of this address dreiv thunders of applause from all pai'ts of the house.) But despite the opposition of government, — op- posed as it is from some curious obliquity of principle, that is to say, if extravagance can be called principle, to every motion that savors of reform — despite, I say, this most brazen-faced opposition, I am not with- out hopes that one at least of my hon. friend's resolu- tions may succeed. In the highest quarter, whence all gentility derives its origin, an amiable predilection has lately been evinced in favor of tight shoes. This WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. 125 predilection, influenced no doubt by motives of patri- otic economy, is evidently intended for imitation, and I move, in consequence, that our soldiery be compelled to follow the discreet example, with an assurance to the house — if the house yet feel an interest in the prosperity of the kingdom — that at the end of the year there will be a truly astonishing reduction. I do not address myself to Lord Liverpool on the subject, because I consider him a staunch member of the opposition ; and still less do I apply to the honorable secretary for foreign affairs, when I reflect that in every — even the most trifling instance of his diplo- macy, — he has exhibited more monstrous specimens of incredible truckling than the whole history of Par- liamentary tergiversation — fruitful as it is in such obliquities — can parallel. Mr. C g. — That's a lie. (Here the confusion and cries of ^ order, order,'' iecame general ; Mr. B in rose to depart, and the whole business seemed likely to have a hostile termina- tion. Anxious, however to restore harmony, the mem- her for Corfc Castle modestly projiosed, that the disputants should cool themselves hy perusing each two chapters of his ' Constitutional History of Rome.^ 126 WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. ApunishmeiU so heavily dispropor Honed to the offence alarmed the compassionate justice of the whole house ; and Sir J. M /(, /// /ones of the kindest syinpathy, was heard to whisper something about the Criiiiinal Code a7id the Laiv of Nations. An awful pause en- sued, during which Mr. W e slipped behind Mr. B w«, and thrust into his hand the ^ Whole Duty of Man,' while Mr. B—tt—h presented Mr. C g with ' Baxter''s Call to the Unconverted.'* Order being at length restored by an indirect apology from Mr. C g, and a few words respecting the rules of the house melodiously expounded by Mr. W n, and enforced with equal beauty of intonation by his brother. Sir W. W. W n, Mr. B m thus proceeded :) The more deeply I reflect on the notable proceed- ings of our all-accomplished ministry, the more I feel impressed with the necessity of severest retrenchment. Had Mr. Burke been still alive, he would have agreed with me, I am persuaded, in opinion, and by way of commencement would have pulled off the jack-boots of our Horse Guards — with or without boot-jacks, as it may have suited the emergency of the case, — if indeed, any case was ever before reduced to so deplor- able an emergency, an emergency proceeding from WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'^. 127 the superlative follies of government, of a government notorious for every species of gratuitous infamy — Mr. Burke, I repeat,-^^ would have commenced his labors by abridging, in the first place, the above- mentioned extravagance of our Guards ; secondly, by applying his cauteiy to the diseased members of our city institutions — provided at least, that precious body corporate be not already too far advanced in the lovv^- est stages of political putrefaction ; — and, thirdly, by a radical overthrow of that carnivorous band of corpu- lence and voracity, the beef eaters, (a groan from Sir W. C s,) who under the present delectable regime are kept, like hyaenas at Brookes's, to eat up the gar- bage of government. To the members of this house then, individually and collectively, I address myself, earnestly hoping that they will commence a similar task of retrenchment — if indeed retrenchment be not yet too late, too late, I mean, in allusion to the time that has elapsed since it was first found to be necessary, necessary, I would obsei-ve, both to the two houses of Parliament and the nation in general, general, I would add, in the most extended meaning of the term — and I here pour forth my fer- vent supplications at the throne of mercy, {hear, hear^ from Messrs. W e and B—lt — /(,) that the strong arm of government may be palsied, and its late intol- 128 WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. erant acts — acts fit only for a Ferdinand or a fiend — be forcibly crammed down the icsophagus of the bungling artisans who framed them. (Mr. B m concluded his speech amid loud cheers from all parts of the house, during which the Speaker retired. On his return, Mr. C g rose, and ad- dressed the house as follows ;) As the lateness of the hour prevents me from enter- ing into any specific detail on the subject of this night's debate, I shall make but a temporary trespass on the indulgent attention of the house. The topic in fact requires no support from the flimsy fulcrum of adven- titious argument, for, like the sacred edifice that was erected on the rock, {hear, hear, from Messrs. W e and B — tt — h,) it rests upon the adamantine basis of strict political expediency. Every plan, however, is more or less the victim of insidious misconstruction, and as the watchful member for Aberdeen has cackled his apprehensions to the nation, it may be expected that I should enumerate my reasons for refusing to acquiesce in the justice of his anserine alarum. In the first place. Sir, I have held repeated consultations with the law officers on the subject, [here Mr. H — h — e snapped his fingers contemptxiously,) and though the hon. member for Westminster, with wit at his fingers' WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. 129 ends, (a laugh,) expends it on my Egcrian advisers, yet I can assure him that the judgment of a solicitor- general is in no respect deserving of the contumely which his Furo7' DigUaUs would imply. He (the solicitor-general) informs me, that any reduction in the expenditure of Warren's Blacking, or any abridg- ment in the perpendicular altitude of the jack-boots, would involve our colossal dominions in the inextri- cable horrors of anarchy, rebellion, and revolution. (Hear, hear, from the country rnemhers.) That if the army, for instance, ever insisted on the wear of a clean shirt but once during the vicissitudes of a month, they would justify the innovation on good manners by the penurious precedent of Warren's Blacking. That if, by any caprice inherent in the peccant nature of mortality, they were desirous to curtail the luxuriant abundance of their coat-flaps, or, dispensing with the etiquette of breeches, permit them to be worn solely by their wives, {a laugh,) they would plead in excuse the corresponding abridgment of the jack-boots. Now Sir, although in days of yore, when the gathering gloom of his country's fortunes adumbrated the Athe- nian lustre of his politeness, it might be pardonable in the Greek warrior Isadas to rush unattired to battle, yet wo must all allow that a regiment of sucli denuded patriots would be an object more notorious for the 130 WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. quaintness of its effect than the propriety of its insti- tution. Ah ! Corydon, Corydon, quae te dementia cepit ? In discussing the enormous expenditure attendant, as he assures us, on Wari'en's Blacking, the hon. member for Winchelsea has compelled its most decided recom- mendation to assume the unfavorable aspect of a defect. Like the scorpion of suicidal notoriety, he has committed murder on his cause by the destructive infelicity of his argument. He has objected to it on the score of its lucid and reflective capabilities, and informed us, with a pathos peculiar to himself, that it has encroached on the province of a mirror, to the detriment of glass manufacturers. Waiving every topic of private grievance, which, however impor- tant to individuals, is yet of insufficient weight to attract the attention of the legislature, I am prepared to prove, that by thus emulating the properties of glass, it has withdrawn from the shoulders of the nation an exhausting Atlas of expense. According to the mili- tary regulations, as laid down in the stat. Geo. III. cap. 12, eveiy barrack is placed under the superin- tending providence of a master, who is directed to supply it with furniture, in which mirrors are espe- cially included, at the cost of the British nation WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. 131 That arrangement, I am happy to inform the house, has now gone to the sepulchral abode of all the Capulets, for jack-boots, anomtcd with the refreshing dew of Warren's Blacking, are found to answer every purpose of a suitable and successful equivalent. la order to corroborate my statement, I have the author- ity of Colonel W , of the Guards, who informed me but yesterday, that for three uninterrupted weeks he had mown the adhesive thistles of his chin through the enlightened medium of his jack-boots, and that the whole mess had put on their black stocks and stays by the same luminous assistance. {Loud cheers.) The process of my speech has now brought me to that particular branch of the hon. mover's philippic, in which he proposes that, for the purpose of facili- tating business, the boots of the Horse Guards should be polished by the intervention of steam. And here I beg it to be observed, that, as I am a partisan of qualified innovation, I will cheerfully add my vote to the resolution, with the proviso that its boasted advan- tages be previously, positively and practically estab- lished. But why docs the hon. member for Aberdeen restrict the terms of his proposition to the individual article of jack-boots ? If the operation of steam be so speedy as he would seem to insinuate, in the name 132 WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. of heaven, {hear, hear, from Messrs. W e and B — //. — /i,) let liiiii apply its energies to liis own eternal orations, and I will answer, that, provided it accelerates their utterance, it will he carried hy a triumphant majority. {Loud laughter.) I do not, however, wish to damp his amiable enthusiasm ; far from it, Sir, 1 applaud it to the very echo, hut stren- uously exhort him to confine his speculations to himself, instead of attempting, by the chaotic con- fusion of his logic, to transform the Metropolitan barracks into museums of animal curiosities. In the course of his professional career, the hon. mover may probably recollect the well-known theory of the trans- fusion of blood from one body to another by means of a pipe or quill, or some such circulating medium. Upon this principle, the fluid of a fox transfused into the veins of a goose or a common-council man, would endow them with its vulpine accomplishments, and I have heard that a late member of the opposition, being vaccinated with the blood of one of the ' long-eared brethren,' brayed an eloquent oration to. the astonish- ment of both houses of Parliament. {A laugh.) Now, Sir, however apocryphal it may appear, I can scarcely refrain from hazarding my conjecture, that the hon. mover has been inoculated with the blood of a beaver, {loud laughter,) and that this very transfusion has WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. 133 inspired him with a corresponding mania for con- structing architectural sophisms. He has this even- ing in particular erected a Pons asinorum, {a laugh,) for the use of the opposition, over which he anticipates a free passage to the Treasury Bench. But let me assure him, that the piles of argument on which he has erected his bridge, have an imbecile foundation in the sand, and when the rains come and the floods descend, {hear, hear, from Messrs. W e aiid B — it—h,) Shall melt into air, into thin air, And, like the baseless fabric of a vision. Leave not a wreck behind. I shall detain the house no longer than to return my thanks for the indulgence with which I have been honored, and to request its unanimous support in outvoting the resolutions of the hon. member for Aberdeen, convinced as I am, that, although ' Fun- dit humus floros,' [a laugh,) although he pour forth the blossoms of his logic with more than ordinary profusion, yet it is the "deadly blossom of the upas which festers in the brain of the unguarded novice who ventures within its pestilential circumference. Even now, its envenomed odor impregnates the 134 WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. atmosplicre around us, and we sliould be worse than traitors to our country and our king were we to pause in the hour of our peril. As a national blessing, Warren's Blacking is entitled to our gratitude, and as the scientific Archimedes of England, its manu- facturer enforces our veneration. In the name of justice, then, be he loved, in the name of genius honored, and in the name of Britain reverenced ! Long be his illustrious patronymic the symbol of virtue and of art ; and while from clime to clime, from the restive regions of the Eastern Ind to the hybernal hemisphere of either Pole, the nations of the earth uplift their voices in his praise, let England echo back the strain, till one wide acclamatory chorus rings, a millenial trumpet, through the world. {Loud cheering from aU j>arts of the house, fulloioed the conclusion of the hon. Secrctary''s speech, after which Sir W — m C s rose, and addressed the house to the following effect :) I can't for the life of me help saying a small matter upon the subject of this night's debate, but at the same time as I ani't over nice in point of tongue, I shall say it as speedy and as soon as pos- sible. Fine words butter no parsnips, and if so be WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. 135 Pm a bit behindhand in flummery, I will at least make up for it in common sense. What hoots it, as the shoemaker said, how we talk, if we talk to the point ? For my part, I stand only on facts, and quite blush for the hon. members of the opposition, when, not content with cutting up the jack-boots of the Horse Guards, they bother us about the expenses of blacking them. Now, the long and short of the business is, that Warren's Blacking is dirt-cheap, for it not only saves scores of pounds in the matter of the mirrors, but stirs up other manufacturers besides. For instance now, the success of Robert Warren has lately brought forward another one, who goes and poaches, as it were, in the same Warren, and then comes and takes a house under the very nose of his rival. {Loud laughter.) And what, you'll ask, is the consequence of such opposition .'' Why, that by this here Warren trying to outdo that there Warren, both Warrens are obliged to mind their P's and Q's ; which we all know they need not do, if so be that there was never no opposition. Opposition, Sir, except in Parliament, is the very life of trade, and is just as necessary as marriage, (a pensive smile from Mr. C e of Nor- folk,) to propagate business. I entreat the house then to do away with the resolutions of the hon. member for Aberdeen. The country is in a nation flourishing 136 WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. State, for our Aldermen were never so fat as now, and in my last voyage to Ramsgate, I was pleased to see as how the Corporation of the different towns where I stopped to lay in provisions, seemed some pounds fatter than the year before. But independent of all this, let the house look at the charming appear- ance of things in general. Let them only looktat the swinging stock of turtles as is daily sold, and see the high price as venison fetches. Not but what I can bring a thousand other proofs of our increasing trade, besides the mere matter of eating ; only as I feel myself more at home in that ere line of argument, I feel more justified in using it. {Laughter Jroni all sides of the house.) By the bye, this reminds me of the hon. member for Winchelsea's proposal to dish the city feasts. My God, what an idea ! Do away with the city feasts, and you does away with govern- ment, for the constitution of England requires every bit as much nourishment as the constitution of Alder- men. For my part, Sir, I have only to pray [hear, hear, from Messrs. W c and B — tt — /;) that I may never live to see that ere awful hour when turtle-soup shall cease to be the crack dish at Guildhall. ( The touching emphasis with which the hon. Baronet deliv- ered this sentence, drew tears from the eyes of many of the country gentlemen.) I come now to the subject WAKREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. 137 of our national poverty. And, first, the hon. mover assures us as how England is ruined ; a fact, however, that sticks in my throat like Amen in Macbeth's, which, as far as I can learn, was nothing more than a piece of dry toast as had gone the wrong way. Moreover, he (Mr. H e) says, that Reform alone can save us ; to which I reply, in the words of Homer, ' Credat Judy ; ' that may be Judy's creed, but I thank Heaven it arn't mine. Once again, then, I beseech the house to vote against the reduction of Warren's Blacking. We have no need of reduction in no shape. John Bull, as I showed just now, is better off than ever ; the tread- mill and the new churches are as full as they can hold ; the Orphan's Fund is turned into a sort of Sinking Fund, for the use of them as can dip deep enough for she ; good wholesome water may be had at Aldgatc Pump for nothing; the beggars (thank God) arc all hanged, and a new Old Bailey is being built for the rest ; and, in short, the whole country resembles the place de- scribed by those charming authors, ' The Elegant Extracts,' where The turtle wantons -uilh the ape, The deer frisks in the dell, And vineyards with the tender grape. Give out a goodly smell. 10 138 WARREN AT SAINT STEPHEN'S. Upon a duo consideration of these advantages, I think it but right to vote against the reduction of Warren's Blacking. ( When the hon. Baronet had finished, Mr. H e hriefiy replied, after which the galleries were cleared for a division. The Numbers were as follow : For Mr. H e's proposition to reduce Warren'' s Black- ing, 32 Against it, 153 Majority against it, 121 Tlie other Orders of the Day were then disposed of, and the house adjourned at 2 o''clock. THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN, A POEM, IN TWO CANTOS. By Sir W. S. A few years since, in the autumn of 1818, a serious affray took place between those illustrious rivals, Warren, and Day & Martin,'' ■* on the subject of their respective pre-eminence. The parties, as I learn from the black-letter record of the fray, met at Brentford, and after ' a well-foughten field,' vic- tory was decided in favor of the former chieftain. In the present commem- oration of that chivah-ous event, I have taken the liberty of adding a few particulars and persons, for the purpose of elevating my subject, a principle which induced me to raise a fictitious superstructure on the historical ground- work of Marmion. With respect to localities, it may be proper to observe, that the scene of Canto I. is laid in the refectory, or banquet-hall of No. 30, Strand ; while the operations of the Second are carried on in the vicinity of Brentford. The time of action employed m each Canto occupies one day. CANTO FIRST. 1. Day set on Regent Street, Pall Mall, Bathed Westminster's emblazoned hall In one wide ruddy glow ; 140 THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN. Lit up the brazen Hand-in-Hand Fire-office, eastward of the Strand, And gilt Saint George's Row ; The Warren's sign boot erst so gay, Slow darkled as the darkling day, Less wide and less was flung ; Each weary gale its task gave o'er, And failed to wave it o'er the door. So heavily it hung, Suspended in sepulchral state. As knave from Newgate's donjon grate. 2. Within his hall the Warren stood. In raiment trim bedight. Arranging in reflective mood. The wassail of the night : Meantime his friends yspeed them down From each far quarter of the town. Those sister ditches, Houns and Shore, Rival Saint Giles in choicest store Of guests, a motley band. And Bunhill Fields, and Rotten Row, The Hills of Saffl-on and of Snow, From Newgate Street, to Church of Bow, Join issue in the Strand. THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN. 141 Smiles the gray eve, an infant yet, On many a squad complete, Of gig, cart, coach, and cabriolet. Loud thundering down the street ; Starts the pedestrian with surprise. Condemns the tar his hapless eyes, While on the passing pageant hies To where the Warren's name,* Dim shadowed 'neath the twilight pale, Appears (strange paradox) to veil Its hrazen charms for shame. The band approached its Strand abode ; The street door slogan clattered loud, And many a beauteous border maid, 3^ Stole cautious peep from palisade. As one by one each guest drew nigh The Warren's rich refectory. 3. Eight and thirty stalwart wights Sate within his banquet hall, Eight and thirty flickering lights Streamed around each chequered wall ; * Mr. Robert "Warren's name and address, carved in brass letters on the proud front of his abode, exhibits a remarkable feature in the alphabetical beauties of the Strand. 142 THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN. Flaunted their rays on spangled can, Like cannon flash on Barbican, Or Dian in her summer mood ; And bathed in rich effulgent flood, Sofa, settee, and wickered chair, Till bursting forth in radiance rare. Henchman and host, and wassail wight, Shone beautiful beneath the light. 4. 'Tis fit that I should tell you what These gentles had to eat, How ale went round, and how, God wot, The tables groaned with meat. Suffice to say, that trim sirloin Of bullock proud in death to join. With raddish of the horse ; Flanked by a soup's embossed tureen. And eke by cauliflower of mien, Winsome and white as e'er was seen From Hounslow Heath to Turnham Green, Adorned the firstling course ; While ale in mantling goblets glowed. And furnished frolic as it flowed. THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN. 143 5. ' Now tune me a stave,' quoth Robert Warren, To an. elder at his side, And stoutly as he gave the call, Each guest the vv^assail plied ; Uprose that elder at the call, A tuneful wight was he. As ever startled London Wall With vigorous harmonic ; He sang how he of Eld had been On pilgrimage to Richmond Green How Highgate tunnel he had seen. And trod the Brixton Mill ; Had roamed o'er Windsor's castle steep, Saint George's tower, and Donjon keep. Had paced the walls that round it sweep. And rolled down Greenwich hill. 6. The whiles he sang, with needless din, A stalworth stranger clatter'd in, Right valiant was his tread ; No time for summons or for call, For stark he stood amid them all, Like warlock from the dead. He looked disturbed and pale as death, But this mote be from want of breath ; 144 THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN. He looked as scant as Ettrick witches, •^'^ But this mote be from want of breeches : Thoughtful he stood, and while a shout Rung through the hall of ' Turn him out,' With scorn he eyed each clamorous guest, And fearless, thus the host addressed : 7. ' What, ho, sir Knight, attend thy doom. For terrible in wrath I come. To tell thee here within thine home. That though by advertising, Hast dulled the Day and Martin's fame. Descried their worth, .assailed their name, And puffed, — I say it to thy shame, — With impudence surprising. Thus quoth each angered chieftain then. Go, beard the robber in his den, Joe Higgins, (meaning me,) And challenge him to feudal fight. On Monday morn, all in the sight Of Brentford's chivalrie.' 8. On Warren's cheek the flush of rage, O'ercame the look of wisdom sage ; Fierce he broke forth, ' And dar'st thou then To brave the lion in his den, THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN. 145 The Warren in his hall ? And hop'st thou hence unthreshed to go ? No, by Saint George of England, no ! Up, gemmen, up, what, shop-boy, ho ! Let the street-door bar fall.' Too late it fell, for Higgins flew, Like goblin elf, the passage through ; While thus with changing cheek and eye. The Warren closed his grim reply, ' Back, craven, to your chieftains hie. Ill-favored wights, and say that I, I, Robert of the sable hand, And Lord of Number 30, Strand, Obey their summons to the fight, And will on Monday morn, despite Their mercenary mob, Like cataract on their squadrons rush, With banner, broom, and blacking brush ; I will, so help me Bob ! ' 9. He ceased, and light as summer vapor, The Higgins vanished in a caper, Then hied him on his way, And at thy bars. High Holborn, told The bluff reply of Warren bold. To Martin and to Day. 146 THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN. Meanwhile the guests sat quaffing, till Saint Paul's, far over Ludgatc hill. Knelled forth the deep midnight, But when again its lengthening sound, The wide metropolis around, From Hampstead to Saint Giles's pound. Thence to Bayswater burying-ground, Struck the first hour of light, They parted each with wine ymanned. And silence brooded o'er the Strand. CANTO SECOND. I Et)e €oinl)at. 1. 'Tis merry — 'tis merry on Brentford Green, When the holiday folk are singing, When the lasses flaunt with lightsome mien, And the Brentford bells are ringing ; Well armed in stern unyielding mood. High o'er that green the Warren stood ; A burly man was he. Girt round the waist with kerchief blue. And clad in waistcoat dark of hue. And thick buff jerkin gay to view. And breeches of the knee : THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN. 147 Beside him stood his trusty band, With hat on head, and club in hand, Loud shouting to the fight ; Till answering shrill, street, alley, lane, O'er hill and heather, wood and plain. Sent forth the deepened sounds again. With voice of giant might. 2. : Charge, Warren, charge ! yon battle Green, Glitters afar with silvery sheen. The lightning of the storm ; Where bands of braggarts bluff in mien, With ragged Irishmen are seen. Dreadful and drunken all, I ween, A phalanx fierce to form : ^ Saint George ! It was a gallant sight, To ken beneath the morning light. The shifting lines sweep by ; In mailed and measured pace they sped, The earth gave back their hollow tread, Till you mote think the charnelled dead Were howling to the sky. ' Hark, rolls the thunder of the drum. The foe advance — they come, they come ! Lay on them,' quoth the Day ; ' God for the right ! on Brentford Heath, 148 THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN. Our bugle's stern and stormy breath, Summons to victory or to death ; Hurrah then for the fray ! ' 3. Hurrah, hurrah ! from rear to flank, In vengeance rung along each rank ; And the red banners (formed by hap Of two old shh'ts stitched flap to flap,) 37 Waved lordlier at the cry ; Till every proud and painted scrap. Shivered like plume in 'prentice cap. Or cloud in winter sky. The Warren first this squad espied, Ranged man to man in ruffian pride, f And to each warrior at his side In vaunting phrase began, ' Rush on, ye ragamuffins, rush, All Brentford to a blacking brush. My foeman leads the van.' • 4. On rushed each lozel to the fight. Ruthless as flood from mountain height, The bludgeons clattered fierce and fast, And dealt destruction as they past. While high as some tall vessel's mast, THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN. 149 Warren overlooked the shock ; Thence bore him back with might and main ; Brickbats and bludgeons fell like rain, Stones, sticks, and stumps, all, all in vain, He stemmed them like a rock : His foeman chief with wary eye, • : The flickering of the fight could spy. And shouted as his bands he led. To Pat O'Thwackum at their head, 38 ' Thwackum, press on — ne'er mind your scars, Press on, — they yield — and oh, my stars ! Each nose is bleeding fast ; Strike, strike, — their skulls like walnuts cracking, For Day, for Martin, and his blacking. The battle cannot last.' 5. Vain charge ! the Warren dauntless stood. Though ankle deep flowed seas of blood. Till Thwackum fierce towards him flies. His breast with choler glows. Rage flashes fi'om his mouth and eyes, And claret from his nose. The foemen meet, — they thump, they thwack.! Hark ! burst the braces on their back ! And, hark ! their skulls in concert crack ! 150 THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN. And, hark ! their cudgels clatter, whack ! With repercussive shocks ; See, see they fall, — down, down they go, Warren above, his foe below, While high o'er all ascends the cry Of ' Warren,' ' Warren,' to the sky, And ' Thwackum ' to the stocks. 6. Oh ! for a blast of that tin horn, Through London streets by newsmen borne. That tells the wondering host How murder, rape, or treason dread. Deftly concocted, may be read In Courier, Times, or Post ; Then in dramatic verse and prose, f The martial muse should tell How Warren triumphed o'er his foes, How Thwackum fought and fell, And how, despite his cartel, Day Hied him, like recreant, from the fray. ■?. 'Tis done, — the victors all are gone. And fitfully the sun shines down On many a bruised and burly clown, THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN. 151 The flowers of whose sweet youth is mown, To blossom ne'er again ; For e'en as grass cut down is hay, So flesh when drubbed to death, is clay, As proved each hind who slept that day On Brentford's crimson plain. Sad was the sight, for Warren's squad Bravely lay sprawling on the sod ; They scorned to turn their tails, — for why ? They had no tails to turn awry. So dropped each where he stood. 8. First Ned of Greenwich kissed the ground, Then Figgins from Whitechapel pound, Mark Wiggins from Cheapside, Whackum and Thwackum from Guildhall, The two O'Noodles from Black wall, ^3 Noggins the Jew from London Wall, And Scroggins from Saint Bride : Tim Bobbin tumbled as he rose. To join the motley chase, Joe Abbott, spent by Warren's blows, " Lay snug ensconced, and Danson's nose Was flattened to his face : Stubbs too, of Brentford Green the rose, ^^ 152 THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN. Would have essayed to pour On one — on all, his wrath red-hot As blacksmith's anvil, had he not Been hanged the day before. 9. Illustrious brave ! if muse like mine May bid for aye, your memories shine In fame's recording page ; Each wounded limb, each fractured head. Albeit tucked up in honor's bed, Shall live from age to age ; And still on Brentford's Green while springs The daisy, while the linnet sings Her valentine to May, The sympathizing hind shall tell Of those who fought and those who fell, At Brentford's grim foray. 10. i'SEnfaoii to ti)e llcntifv. Now, gentles, fare ye well, my rede Hath reached an end, nor feel I need To add to Warren's fame, my meed Of laudatory rhymes ; THE BATTLE OF BRENTFORD GREEN. 153 Far loftier bards his praise rehearse, And prouder swells his daily verse In Chronicle or Times. Enough for me on summer day, To pipe some simple oaten lay, Of goblin page or border fra}'. To rove in thought through Teviotdale, Where Melrose wanes a ruin pale, (The sight and sense with awe attacking,) Or skim Loch Kattrine's burnished flood. Or wave through Grampian moor and mud. In boots baptized with Warren's Blacking. 11 A LETTER , #' TO THE EDITOR OF WARRENIANA. Johnson's Court, April 1, 1623. Sir, In answer to your polite application for a song in praise of Warren, we beg leave to inclose the following choice eulogium. Before, however, we ventured to do so, we made inquiries, as our duty to church and state demanded, into the private and public character of the object of our praise. The result has been prodigiously gratifying. We hear that he is a staunch admirer of our all-accomplished ministry, holds the bench of bishops in orthodox veneration, and thinks the Morning Chronicle an absurdity. As a drawback, however, to these vir- tues, we regret to state, that he suffered his health to be drank at Lord Waithman's late dinner party. To be sure, there are degrees in moral obliquity, but if he had gone the extreme length of calling the Whigs patriots, we should assuredly have given him up. There was one man, we remember, who A LETTEU TO THE EDITOR OF WARRENIANA. 155 (lid SO, — but he was hanged. The fact is, Sir, we are decided enemies to Whigism, and still more to humbug. Plain sailing is our motto ; candor and openness the talismans of our success. We think, for instance, that England is more flourishing than ever, and that Alderman Wood is decidedly not the author of Wood's Algebra. ' Non ex quovis ligjio fit Mercurius.' Still less. Sir, do we think, that Lord Waithman is fit (in the coachman's phrase) to handle the ribands of government. God forbid, however, that we should dispute his right to handle them in his own shop. These opinions have of late subjected us to a host of ridiculous charges, and, among others, to the malice of attacking ' the sanctities of private life.' We scout the calumny. We were never yet ma- licious ; and as for attacking private character, it is what we especially eschew. We should be broken- hearted if we thought we could do so. We really think we should. The plain fact is, Sir, that we have put our hook into the gills of the great leviathan of Whigism, and the brute, being somewhat tickled, naturally spouts a vast quantity of his loasluj fluid upon us. Having thus laid down our principles, you may guess with what enthusiasm we praised a gen- 158 A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF WARRENIANA. tleman who thought in accordance with ourselves. Apollo seemed to inspire our pen, and on casting up our accounts with Parnassus, we found that the sum total of the whole, as Joseph Hume would say, was the following choice product, or production, or whatever other alias you may please to affix. If it renders any service to Warren, we shall be amply repaid ; for, as we have said a hundred times, we would do any thing for so great and good a man. He takes in our newspaper, this proves his taste ; he despises ' the bloody old Times,' this evinces his loyalty; he adores ministers, — ergo, he must be a patriot. Such being the case, we address to him the following song. His popularity it cannot well in- crease ; for the man who, if we may believe report, is sitting to Sir Thomas Lawrence for his portrait, and to his neighbor Sievier for his bust, is already as famous as we can possibly make him ; almost as much so, indeed, as Doctor Squintum himself. We are, Mr. Editor, Your sincere well-wishers, J— B— . SONG. 157 SONG. Air. — ' The tight little Island.' By J. B. 1. Come, gentles, attend, 'tis the voice of a friend, So up, let us make a bold stand now. And drink while we sing, huzza for the king, And Warren the pride of the Strand now ; Huzza ! for the pride of the Strand now. Success to the pride of the Strand now. We'll all to a man sing as loud as we can. Huzza for the pride of the Strand now. 2. Caledonian Hume, and Westmoreland Brougham Are famous, if men would but heed 'em, And Mister Grey Bennett, so fond of his dennett. Looks grey in the service of freedom ; Oh ! these are a talented band. Sir, A remarkably talented band. Sir, But shed a faint spark, like a cat in the dark, Compared with the sun of the Strand, Sir. 158 SONG. 3. T'other day Doctor Gall, in the Free-mason's hall, Took a cast of our artizan's cranium,* And found that each bump stuck out like the stump Of an overgrown summer geranium ; So he drew up a treatise for Bumpus, t The great bibliopolist Bimipus, And a sovereign we'll stake, that his treatise will make A craniological rumpus. * The craniological discoveries of those twin-stars, Doctors Gall and Spurzheim, -who undertake, it seems, to detect our moral and intellectual qualities by some corresponding bone of the cerebellum, are likely to become a bone of contention among the scientific literati of the day. All who have vir- tuous bumps believe in the truth of their system, while those who have not, make no bones (probably fi-om their cerebral deficiency) of opposing it. It appears, according to Doctor Gall's late lectures, that both the corporeal and intellectual harmony of our natures is occasioned by certain organs of the skull, which are tuned by the hand of fate. That if a man, for instance, be found full in the organ of ' adhesiveness,' it is fair to conclude, that destiny intends him for a Lord Chan- cellor, and that if he be deficient in ' conscientiousness,' he may calculate on success as a Whig. The organ of ' size ' indicates his fitness for an alderman, while that of ' construc- tivcness,' unusually developed in the skull of Mr. Warren, f The name of a retail bookseller in Holborn. — J. B. SONG. 159 4. Doctor Parr hath a wig horrific and big, As the spectre 's in Milton of sin, Sir, Yet though full roundabout is his noddle without, 'T is terribly vacant within. Sir ; But Warren's is quite the reverse now, Only look for a proof at his verse now, How his Pegasus stalks through Helicon's walks. As solemn as steeds at a hearse now. points to matters of mechanism or science. Innumerable, therefore, must be the people who are either hanged or trans- ported from the mere size of their organs of ' destructiveness/ and ' acquisitiveness.' The accidents, however, such as mur- der, or theft, which result from these iniquitous hillocks, are not the fault of their owners, but are simply the result of destiny. Every thing, in short, is the work of fate. The discoveries of our chemists, and the verses of our minstrels, are nothing more than the necessary development of' bumps nm to seed. Mr. "Wordsworth consequently deserves no praise for his poem of the Excursion, for the organ of ' weight,' being unusually prominent in his skull, was destined to show- its effects in the production of a heavy quarto. The organ of ' benevolence,' on the same principle, prevents ^Mr. John Gait from punishing us with any more tragedies ; ' love of appro- bation' curtails the parliamentary orations of Mr. Horatio Twiss ; and if the ancestors of Lord Byron, instead of devel- oping the organ of ' combativeness ' in their country's cause^ IfiO SONG. 5. Old Castaly's fountain, high up on the mountain Of Pindus, lends choice inspiration, But then you must drink, or your readers will sink In suspended (awhile) animation ; A fig for a liquor so racking. Brain, bladder, and bowels attacking, A far better fount to turn to account, Is Warren's Elixir of Blacking. had possessed some more mechanical hump, their descendant might have inherited the same characteristics, and instead of being now a lord, might have been a cheese-monger. Considering, therefore, that all moral and intellectual qual- ities, whether good, bad, or indifTerent, are the necessary results of a particular formation of the brain, we think it but right that a committee should be appointed to examine the skulls of the rising generation. That all who are full in the organ of ' destructiveness ' should be instantly put to death with as little inconvenience as possible to the sufferers, while those who are only distinguished for the size of their organs of ' acquisitiveness,' ' secretiveness,' or any less obnoxious bump, may be sent to expiate their embryo delinquencies at the tread-mill. Thus, crime would be crushed in the egg, and the proprietors of virtuous bumps would be allowed to develope their valuable deformities for the common benefit of themselves and the community. — J. B. SONG, 161 6. They talk about Southey and Coleridge so mouthy, And verse 5oroM^/i-mongering Crabbe, Sir, But by Warren's side placed, their muses defaced, Look mere Cinderellas in drab. Sir : Other bards raise their wind but in fiction, Are wealthy as Jews but in diction. While Warren can raise the wind a I'Anglaise, Still better in fact than in fiction. 7. Oh mighty magician ! oh learned logician ! Each minstrel to thee's but an ass now. E'en the verses of Byron seem formed of cast-iron. While thine are the essence of brass now ; The image of Hyde Park Achilles, Who brass from the head to the heel is. Thy sole rival stands, though surely the Strand's Paragon beats Piccadilly's. 8. But halt! lads, 'tis time to finish our rhyme, For the jorum is quite at a stand now. So pass it and sing, — huzza for the king, And Warren the pride of the Strand now : SONG. Huzza ! too for administration, No matter who governs the nation, Like Bray's patent vicar, we'll bray o'er our liquor, In laud of all administration. APPENDIX. By W. G. While this volume was yet in the progress of pub- lication, the interest that it excited was unprecedented. The first literary characters of England expressed the most affectionate anxiety for its success. Contribution followed contribution, hint succeeded to hint, and criti- cism to criticism, till enthusiasm, quickened beyond its wonted pace, made sanguine strides towards perfection. But there are certain boundaries affixed to human intellect, and Warreniana was still incomplete. A few of the great authors, to whom application had been made, delayed their contributions until there no longer remained a possibility of inserting them in the body of the work. In addition to this, their authenticity in some parts appeared questionable, and as the editor had little or no time left for inquiries, he determined to introduce those passages only which bore the stamp 164 APPENDIX. of genuineness. The task of selection, however, was more difficult than he had imagined. The indisputably legitimate were so mixed up with the probably apocry- phal paragraphs, that analysis became a matter of as much nicety as the resolution of chemical compounds. Nevertheless he persisted in his task, which, having at last brought to a close, he has here ventured to arrange in one general appendix, in order that by so doing he may stop up every ' loop-hole ' through which criticism could possibly intrude itself. The first contribution that suggests itself is the fol- lowing delectable dittv. It reached the editor but four days since, when the last sheet of the ' Battle of Brent- ford Green ' had been worked off, and the ' Notes ' were already in the compositor's hands. From the nature of the subject, he could have little doubt re- specting its legitimate owner, were not the sparkling scintillations of the verse somewhat unusually bedim- med. Such, however, as the poein is, he offers it to the notice of criticism, and need scarcely add, that the small irrelevant portions here presented to the public, stand precisely the same as in the original MS. APPENDIX. , 165 THE LIST OF LOVES. Bt T. M. ' List, list, oh list ! ' — IIamlet. 1. Come, fill high the bowl, 'tis in vain to repine That the sun of life's summer is o'er, 'Mid the autumn of age this Elixir* of mine Shall each moment of freshness restore ; E'en now its bright glow by acquaintance improved. Suns o'er each past ecstasy frozen, Till fancy recalls the few friends 1 have loved, And the girls I have kissed by the dozen. 2. By the dozen, oh monstrous mistake of the press ! For dozen read hundreds, beginning With Fanny of Timmol,'*! ^^ sylph whose caress First set my weak spirit a sinning : I met her by night in the Liverpool stage, ' Ere the stage of my youth was resigned, Ah Fan ! thy sole guard in that passionate age. Was the guard on the dickey behind. * Supposed to have been the identical Elixir with which Saint Leon preserved his immortality. Vide Travels of Saint Leon, by Godwin. — T. M. WS APPENDIX. 3. ***** * * * * . * 4. Pretty Sophy stood next on the lists of my love, Till I found (but it might not be so) That her tendcrest transports were tendered above, While mine were all centered below : So I left her on Midsummer eve with a kiss, For I ne'er could from kissing refrain. But honestly mean, when we next meet in bliss. To give her the kiss back again. 5. Oh, Kate was then all that a lover could seek, With an eye whose least spark full of soul Would madden a dozen young sparks in a week. Though, like Parry, they lived at the Pole : In the fulness of bliss she would whisper so coy, ' We were born, love, to bill and to coo.' Oh Kitty, I ne'er paid a bill with such joy. As I paid my addresses to you. The poet, or more properly speaking, his interpo- lator, then proceeds to detail his amours with one ' Bessv,' whom he calls, in an affectionate parenthesis. APPENDIX. 167 ' bewitchingly simple' He describes her as a native of Erin's ' green isle,' and discusses the merits of her ' delicate slim feet,' in language of impassioned but apocryphal voluptuousness. It seems that her graceful dancing first captivated his fancy, an exercise to which the splendor resulting from the use of Warren's Black- ing, (which she applied profusely to her pumps,) lent additional elegance. ' Her feet,' quoth our animated minstrel, 'flashed fire as she waltzed, and her dear little eyes shone reflected in their sable mirror like the westering sunbeams on the ocean.' He then addi-esses himself to Warren, whose blacking he panegyrizes as the chief object of Miss Elizabeth's attraction. As this part, however, is, in the editor's opinion, heterodox, he rejects it for the closing stanza, which bears the undoubted impress of orthodoxy. The poet, it must be premised, has been specially recommending War- ren's Blacking, and thus winds up his apostrophe. 8. But away with regret — while the suns of my youth Shall gild the gray eve of my age, While memory shall borrow the pencil of truth To illumine life's desolate page ; While my heart, like some moon-silvered abbey, shall stand, 168 APPENDIX. All ruined, tliougli decked in a smile ; I 'll drink to O'Warrcn tlic lord of the Strand, And the pride of the Emerald Isle. The next contrihution savors strongly of the cockney school, being written by a young 'gentleman who seems far gone in a confirmed admiration of Leigh Hunt. It is entitled ' The Apotheosis of Warren, a Pastoral Mask ; ' and is, of course, well manured with the requisite modicum of daffodils, eglantines, and cherubs. Even the 'great Boreas' himself is pressed into the service, (a great hore he is, by the bye,) and trained to blow over the Regent's Canal with very pretty effect. The bard commences his pastoi'al by supposing himself lying ' one prankish summer's eve ' in a cart- rut at tlie foot of Primrose Hill. While thus prostrated, he suddenly falls asleep, and is forthwith visited by some half dozen shepherds and shepherdesses, whom he describes as being busied in toying with ' the perked up haycocks' of Fairy-land. On a sudden the scene changes to 'The Temple of Art and Science' on Mount Parnassus, where a ' glorious genius ' is dis- covered lying dead. This glorious genius is no other than Warren, over whose corpse a set of sylphs are strewing flowers, consisting, for the most part, of the following poetic plants : APPENDIX. 169 f Cowslips, buttercups, and roses, Thyme with dulcet dewdrops wet, Sage and onions, pinks and posies. Cauliflower and mignionet. While this is going forward, Oberon, king of the fairies, enters, and desires the pastoral worthies to pay their last respects to the defunct and gifted manufac- turer. No sooner said than done ; the monarch waves his gossamer spear, and instantly a select abundance of cherubs walk two by two, like young ladies in a Sloane Street boarding school, around the body. First come Oberon and Titania hand in hand, and then the following peculiarly appropriate individuals, all of whom, it must be observed, have got pocket-handker- chiefs, ' woven of aspen leaves,' applied to their eyes ; Mab and Melibaeus ; Pease-blossom and Theocritus; Pan, Puck, and Priapus ; Vertumnus, Veshnoo, and Virgil ; Ruth, Boaz, and Bottom ; Gessner and Metas- tasio ; Adonis and Caliban ; Spenser and Proserpine ; Flora, Faunus, and a Glendoveer in corduroy shorts ; Amaryllis, Arethusa, and Ambrose Phillips ; Chloe, Comus, and Corydon ; Florizel, Perdita, a warlock, two kelpies and a bogle ; Bion and Moschus ; Ariel in top-boots ; Endymion and John Keats ; Actaeon and a wood nymph in short petticoats ; iEnone and Leigh 12 170 APPENDIX. Hunt, (tliis last in yellow breeches) ; Hesiod, James Hogg, Charles Lamb, and the Faithful Shepherdess ; and lastly, the poet himself, with an ass's head for a hat, which ho says was given him by Oberon, ' the jealous and jaunty fay-king.' When tliis procession is concluded, Mab, ' she of the witching tongue,' is called on for a speech, which, as it is a long one, the editor forbears to insert. It con- sists wholly of compliments to Warren, whose black- ing is characterized as the light of the modern world, as that light by which mortals pick their way through the ' swaling snares of life,' as an Irishman picks his way through the ' flowerless bog of Allan.' At this period, the bard awakes, but finding (naturally enough) that his slumbers in the cart-rut have given him a rheu- matism, he goes home with the resolution to beguile its pain by an account of what ' happ'd him in slumber.' As a specimen of his poetry, the editor contents him- self with the above brief extract, partly from the spurious, and partly from the mediocre character of the rest. He may observe, however, that the whole is the production of Mr. C W , whose mind, though somewhat deteriorated by the maudlin affecta- tions of the cockney school, is yet not devoid of fancy. The next contribution is from the pen of the reve- rend orator of H G , and is rather quaintly APPENDIX. ni entitled, ' For Warren's Blacking, an Oration in one part.' In it Mr. I observes, that by reason of his time being so fully taken up with the cure of souls, he is unable to do that full-length justice to Warren that his genius requires, and has therefore been obliged to content himself with an abridged, or miniature contri- bution. This contribution, it seems, is intended ' to be after the manner of the ancient oi-ation, the best vehicle,' adds Mr. I , ' for addressing the minds of man that the world hath seen,' and is fashioned into a letter to the editor, (in answer to one that he wrote respecting an article of Warreniana,) which is thus headed. Hatton Garden, April 1st, 1823. MY nONORED FRIEND, The lusts of the masters of this thoughtless, godless generation, (like generation like masters,) whose vile and filthy speculations, engendered in the limbo of vanity, are hatched by the suns of sin upon the quick- sands of this ball of earth, engross the leisure that I had set apart for the consideration of thine artless appliance. Much it dispiriteth me to think of thy discomfiture, but the flush and flashy spirit of the age claimeth exclusive attention, and I thank Heaven that hath ordained me by signs unequivocal to sit in judg- ment upon it. Of a verity, my mind likeneth it to a huge temple erected in honor of iniquity, and the sons 172 APPENDIX. of men to the hardened brickbats wherewith it is built up. For, behold, they are given to sordid and slavish sensuaUties, and aye continue reckless of the hole that mammon daily puncheth in their souls, as though it were but a hole in their nether garments. I can testify — I can testify that they are crusted all over with lep- rous iniquities, — that they feed on virginity as though (oh shocking !) it were a mutton chop, and no more heed the voice of wisdom that crieth in Hatton Garden, than they heed the voice of the Israelite who crieth ' old clothes ' in the street. Men and brethren ! is this always to continue, or is it to have an end ? If, obliv- ious of your spiritual interests, ye resolve to brave it out, then look well to yourselves, for even now I behold vou bound, one and all, to the ocean of dark- ness, the steamboat of sin awaiteth to carry ye across, the wind sits fair for Tophet, and the pilot. Death, stands sniggering for very joy upon the deck. But, yet amid the sins and the snares and the sneers of this stifTneckcd shameless generation, there is one man who hath eschewed the cud of iniquity like a cow, and, addressing himself to a godlike life of science, hath dwelt alone amid the crowded chaos of the Strand, like some bashful blossom in the wilder- ness. And he hath been rewarded with many new scientific discoveries, for behold he hath made, in the stillness of his retreat, divers tons of precious jet black APPENDIX. 173 liquid, the which he hath put forth in comely stone bottles. But mark the invidious soul of this degraded age ! They have jeered and backbitten and insulted his pure and poetic advertisements. All for what? For daring to make them simple and scientific in expression, and grafting thereon sweet and salutary commendations of his blacking. Had he sent his advertisements forth among courts and palaces, with portraitures by Westall or Wolnooth affixed thereto, his musings had been more welcome ; but because the man hath valued modesty and common household truth, therefore is he designated a quack. It is not for me (albeit a devout admirer), to attempt any first-rate advocation of his cause, but thus much I may be per- mitted to add, that before the fame of the man Warren shall expire, the ' heartless Childe ' shall take unto himself the editorship of the Evangelical Magazine ; his staves forgotten and forgiven of all, shall be in- gulphed in the sestuary of oblivion, and mine own immortal orations be sent to keep them company on the voyage. I could add divers pleasant things touch- ing these last, which I dedicate, my dear G , to you, but that the occupations of life arc so many, and the first of April so ominous. Wherefore, in, much haste, I am, my honored friend, Yours, in the bonds of fraternity, E I . 174 APPENDIX. P. S. I have just room enough left in this sheet of paper to request that you will look well to yourself, and have mercy upon your own soul.* The following and last contribution is from the pen of the accomplished author of the ' Knife Grinder,' a parody which made its appearance some years since in the Anti-Jacobin. The metre, like its prototype, is Sapphic, and consists of an imaginary dialogue be- tween a friend of science, and an apprentice of our illustrious manufacturer. The conversation is supposed to take place in the great hall of the Society of Arts at the Adelphi, by the philosopher's requesting to know the nature of a particular patent which the apprentice holds in his hand. On being told that it was for a new discovery in blacking, he enters into a minute catechism respecting its manufacturer, which induces a panegyric upon Warren, in the course of which his menial incidentally exclaims, addressing himself to the friend of science : — We shall be glad to have your honor's custom ; Sixpence per pot we charges for our best jet Blacking, but if you give us back the pot, we Makes an allowance. * Vide Preface to my Orations. APPENDIX. 175 This touching appeal is naturally successful with the philosopher, who profFers his immediate patronage. Then follows a glorious, but ungrammatical burst of enthusiasm from the apprentice, which is thus effect- ively wound up : — Sing then, oh sing his praises ; and may London, Hampstead, and tlighgate echo back the ditty, While every night-wind whistles to the tunc of ' Buy Warren's Blacking.' This ' Sapphic dialogue ' is, as the reader will not fail to remark, a mere skeleton, like the sermons of Mr. Simeon. It will serve, however, to show the interest that is excited by ' Warreniana,' when even our first statesman, amid the combined toils of the cabinet and the gout, can afford time and inclination to befriend it. The editor has purposely omitted some parts, from the reasons stated at the commencement of his Appendix, thinking it far better to be scanty but select, than superabundant but spurious in his contri- butions. He retires, however, from the field, to use the language of the Great Unknown, (on a far less important occasion,) conscious that there remains be- hind, not only a large harvest, but laborers capable of gathering it into the granary of ' Warkeniana.' • NOTES. By W. G. Note 1. Page 21. I mas told hy a Hotleyitot of his having been unfortunate in love. The gentleman who volunteered this information appears, like other barbarians, to have been more poetical in his prose than the respect due to veracity would warrant. The whole circumstances of the amour I have discovered, after a long and laborious search, to be purely fictitious. What opinion, then, must such a brazen calumniator have formed of the capacity of his readers ? But he was right. For the personal description of ' Warren,' vide ' Roscoe ' in the Sketch Book, vol. i. Note 2. Page 24. Stokes indecent. I object to the word indecent in its present tortured accepta- tion of immorality. Ben Jonson, Massinger, and indeed most of our old dramatists, apply it in contra-dislinction to the word ornament. Now it was without doubt inelegant in Stokes to sit beside Elizabeth Foy with his knee-strings laxatively pen- dulous, but by no means indecent ; and though I venture not an apology for his conduct as ungraceful, I altogether dismiss it as i7idecent. For indecent then, read (meo periculo) inele- gant. 178 NOTES. Note 3. Page 25. My stars .' horn rve improve. There is something abhorrent to my mind in this profane and familiar use of the word ' stars.' To connect the crude improvements of mortality with the all-perfect works of the divine nature, is in itself defective as a simile ; but to call upon the constellations to attest that improvement is a blas- phemy so utterly unprincipled, that my mind staggers in an abortive attempt to express its adequate reprehension. The devout reader is referred to my note on 'ray stars' in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humor, Act I, scene 1. For the catalogue of mountains, vide ' Johanna ' in W 's poems. Note 4. Page 34. Tom and Jerry. This passage alludes, I presume, to a dramatic non-descript of the same name, which was performed for two successive seasons to the crowded (of course) and enlightened audiences of the Adelphi. I merely mention the thing as a curious specimen of the most singular and superlative stupidity, that the thrice-sodden brains of a hireling scribbler ever yet inflicted on the patience of the public. Note 5. Page 40. Odzooks, papa, Tm dying. I have been long puzzled to ascertain the primitive meaning of this anomalous exclamation, 'odzooks.'" Tooke (vide Div. Purl.) supposes it to have been a monkish epithet of wonder. Todd takes fire at this ' random,' so he terms it, conjecture j and the wretched Malone, in that farrago of drivelling malig- nity, the Commentary on Shakspeare, dismisses it with his Vis\x:x\ felicitous flippancy. But Todd and Tooke — et viluLi tu dignus et hie — are alike mistaken in their opinions, for the phrase is simply interjectional, and as such was much used by the wet nurses of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. NOTES. 179 Note 6. Page 41. JVith sugar-plums of full size, And lollipops and bulVs eyes. The ever activ^e kindness of Mr. D'Israeli has succeeded in furnishing me with the loan of a lollipop, similar to the one mentioned in the text. It is oval in person, and from the saccharine lubricity of its flavor seems peculiarly adapted to the palate of a stripling. The poet has therefore happily associated it with the BuwTiig or Bull's-eye of sweet and succulent notoriety. My own opinion, which I conjecture to be right, from the simple circumstance of its differing from Mr. Malone's, is, that the lollipop was a species of stick liquorish, in which sense I find it respectfully mentioned by the authors of 'Eastward Hoe' and the 'Merry Devil of Edmonton.' Note 7. Page 42. Apollo followed arter. The word arter or a^ter, as it is sometimes syncopated with a broad inflection of the first syllable, I find to be the Doric dialect of Cockaigne ; a dialect in frequent use among those enlightened members of society, the washer-women. In pro- nunciation it claims analogy with the broad unirav ano naaav of Pindar. N. B. Since the above notice was sent to press, I acciden- tally discovered, through the kindness of Mr. Farley, the valuable MS. of an obsolete pantomime, the production of one Shiels, a Scotchman, in which I find the phrase ' What are you at, what are you arter?' The expression, therefore, had an evident theatrical origin, and I am proud to find my opinion backed by the authority of Mr, George Soane, a dramatist of considerable ability. Note 8. Page 42. • Her father dared to rvhip in, A monstrous earthen pip-kin. The poet is here mistaken ; it was not a pip-kin that the old 180 NOTES. gentleman was stewed in, but a brass kettle, which, as Medea was a powerful enchantress, she probably manufactured from the face of her insolent and aspiring lover. Moreover, it was not .^son that was thus barbarously parboiled, but Pelias, and that by his own daughters. Assuredly cool impudence could go no further than this. Note 9. Page 42. » So now good night, my Johnny, Put your night cap on ye. The origin of night-caps is lost in the remoteness of anti- quity. The classic writers of Greece and Eome are silent on this important topic, unless, indeed, the crowns of laurel with which their authors, sometimes even the humblest in intellect, were honored, may be considered as a metaphorical symbol. Certain it is, that as deep and efficient slumbers have been caused by the ancient fillet as the modern night-cap. Wigs, too, are not wholly without blame, for a flowery pomp of frizz is frequently found to conceal an equal pomp of verbiage. Par nobile fratrum. I have never ceased to lament that the messenger who drew Priam's curtains in the dead of night and awoke him from his ' curtained sleep,' left us no record of the old gentleman's head-dress. The subject, at such a crisis, would have been deeply interesting. Note 10. Page 44. A digression on the family of Warren, (fc. A term used by Gibbon to distinguish an episode of his history. Mr. C M -, the author of this digression, appears to have imbibed no inconsiderable share of the great Classic's vigor and splendid march of diction. Arcades Ambo. Note II. Page 38. For two straight lines can ne\r inclose a space. An axiom in Euclid. As Cambridge is a mathematical uni- versity, this poetic allusion to its pursuits was received with NOTES. 181 much applause in the senate house. It evinces besides great alphabetical research. Note 12. Page 65. Like Amphitrite, the great Neptune'' s daughter. Amphritite was the wife, not the daughter of Neptune ; but this mistake of course from the author of that elaborate absur- dity, ' The Deluge ' — Majora Canamus. Note 13. Page 71 . But he replied, No, blast me, if I wool. Wool, the ..^olic dialect for rvill. Note 14. Page 71. And thus she cried, will this h£re soul decay. The phrase ' here ' possesses great expletive pathos, and appears synon^^mous with the ' sui ipsius ' of the most ap- proved Latin writers. In circumstances of urgent distress, I know no expression that appeals more simply yet touchingly to the heart, and the reader who can unmoved peruse the similar lament of the dying robber in Don Juan, ' Oh, Jack ! I'm floored by that ere bloody P'renchman,' must be more or less than man. The language is truly Virgilian. Note 15. Page 75. Our beloved O^Doherty on the other. This gentleman, together with Dr. Scott the Odontist, Mr. Tims, the Reverend Christopher North, and others mentioned in the same article, are contributors (fictitious or not) to that amusing Miscellany, Blackwood's Magazine. Note 16. Page 81. We have every reason to believe that Sir William Curtis is the author of the Scotch novels. I derive a proud satisfaction from being able to coincide with the conjectures of the Reverend Mr. North on this important literary topic. My reasons for such agreement, 182 NOTES. which have long engaged my earnest and undivided attention, I shall beg leave to class under the following heads, each ol which contains some strong presumptive proof. I. The author of the Scotch novels is a zealous lover of good cheer, as his character of Dalgetty and his descriptions of the revelries in Quentin Durward and Kenilworth suffi- ciently betoken. Sir William Curtis is notorious for his similar partialities, and has been often heard to depict the festivals at Guildhall in language of at least equal beauty. II. The novelist is an evident partizan of Ministry. Ditto Sir AVilliam Curtis. III. The novelist is in the frequent habit (particularly in the Introduction to Quentin Durward) of alluding to his property and intiuence, which proves him to be a man of wealth. On this point of close resemblance, vide the Rent-roll of Sir W. Curtis. IV. The novelist is fond of using the Scotch idiom, which he manifestly affects for the purpose of concealing his super- ficial acquaintance with English. The scenes of his earlier works are all laid in Scotland, and it is not, until by frequent practice he has habituated himself to the language, that he attempts to shift his subjects to England. Sir William Curtis labors under similar grammatical deficiencies, and would natu- rally have recourse to the facile barbarisms of the Gaelic, under whose protecting mantle his defects might pass unnoticed. V. In his Introduction to Peveril of the Peak, the novelist describes himself as ' a stout elderly gentleman.' Sir W. Curtis answers to this description with an almost miraculous resemblance. VI. The novelist is singularly fond of analyzing the char- acter of royalty, as for instance, in his Elizabeth, King James, Queen Mary, Louis XI., Charles II., Queen Caroline, Charles of Burgundy, Chevalier Saint George, Richard Coeur de Lion. This faculty could only have been acquired by a long and extreme intimacy with courts, and the warm friendship of our present gracious monarch for Sir William Curtis is proverbial in the fashionable world. NOTES. 183 VII. The language of the novelist is never so happy, as when descriptive of a sea voyage ; his details, for instance, of the vessel which conveyed Morton from Scotland, and that which bore Queen Mary to the shores of England, are two of the most splendid passages in Old Mortality and the Abbot. The romantic love of Sir W. Curtis for sea voyages, and his frequent excursions in his yacht to the Isle of Wight, closely corespond with the similar attachments of the novelist. VIII. The characters of ihe novelist, with few exceptions, are remarkable for their conversational tact, which prove that he must have passed his time in some great metropolis, where alone such tact can be acquired. Sir W. Curtis, for many years of his life, has been resident in London and Ramsgate, places alike notorious for the number, variety, and conversa- tional ability of their inhabitants. IX. The novelist is fond of enthusiastic allusions to the graces of the Highland dress. Sir W. Curtis, during the late royal visit to Scotland, appeared at court in the full costume of a Highlander, thus practically proving that his own par- tialities corresponded with those of the novelist. X. The novelist seems peculiarly at home in drawing the characters of wealthy burgesses and citizens, as in the case of Pavilion, the Burgess of Liege, and Nicol Jarvie, the Baillie, or Alderman of Glasgow. This affords a fair presumption that he himself belongs to the body corporate of some great city ; and the close connection of Sir AV. Curtis with the city insti- tutions of London, strengthens his claim to the composition of the Scotch novels. To these convincing arguments I have yet one to add. The novelist, it seems, is everywhere desirous of showing him- self an arrant Scotchman. Were he really one, he would be in no hurry to mention his misfortune ; but it is evident by this very assertion, that he is some Englishman, desirous, from motives of emolument, of preserving an anonymous notoriety. The fact of his residence in London, being once authenticated, detection must ensue ; he is well aware of this, so identifies his local interests with Edinburgh, and thus gets 184 NOTES. the start of conjecture by at least four hundred miles. That our illustrious city baronet should wish to prolong this strict anonimily I can well conceive, when I remember the unpre- cedented sums that his incognito procures him. Still the debateable land of conjecture is a common open to all, and, de. spite his assertions to the contrary, I feel m . self justified in pronouncing Sir W. Curtis to be the sole author of the Scotch novels. N. B. Since the above note was written, I have learned with great satisfaction that Sir W. Curtis is travelling in Italy for the purpose of collecting materials for a philosophical dissertation on the suppers of LucuUus. Note 17. Page 94. Before T conchide, I think it but right to observe that the poem, rvith the exception of a fen luies, ^fC. was written on the First of April, A.D. 1812. Mr. C e has chosen a most appropriate day for the com- position of his ' Psychological Curiosity.' By a similar coin- dence, his Christabel, I understand, was both conceived and executed on the Twenty-ninth of September, (Michaelmas day,) A. D. 1796. Note 18. Page 97. Then shouted to Warren with fitful breath, Tm old Mother Nightmare Life-in-death. This old gentlewoman is the same who figures in Mr. C e's ' Rime of the Auncientte Marinere.' She is there introduced as playing at Cribbage with a fiend or incubus. Note 19. Page 100. His fgure viajestic, and formed for braving, Battle or blood — and he wanted shaving. A striking and instructive illustration of the bathos : for other equally choice specimens, the reader is referred to Mar- tinus Scriblerus mni Babovq, or Hazlitt's Table-talk, passim. NOTES. 185 Note 20. Page 100. Oh, king of the cock-tailed incubi ! It is perfectly nauseating to record the unprincipled plagia- risms of our modern witlings. Like the leaden-headed com- mentators on Shakspeare, one laborious blunderer follows another through the same eternal routine of dull and drivelling imitation. The present delectable plagiarism is diluted from the ' coctilibus muris ' of Ovid ; not, however, without sus- taining some damage from clumsy distillation. Note 21. Page 100. I have dandies rvho laud me at Paint's and Almack^s. This is a gratuitous assumption ; but Mr. C e is always positive in proportion to his ignorance. Mr. Warren (however he may deserve it) is not the theme of commendation at Al- mack's. Who ever heard of genius being the object of admi- ration in a Ball-room ? Had that inconceivably fatuitous Boeotian, Malone, whose no rank in literature entitles him to similar regard, made this stupid assertion, I should have passed it, as I do the pages of those twin-stars, Chalmers and Steevens, with befitting contempt, but the intellect of Mr. C e entitles him to (at least) consideration. Note 22. Page 101. Like little Puss with Belasco the Jem. The Biography of 'little Puss,' like the four missing books of Tacitus, has been shrouded in the Lethe of time. I have consulted with my friend the Dean of \V r, in whose Chapter, I am told, he resided, with very inefficient success. The epithet ' little,' however, implies that like ' lucus a non lucendo' he must have been a pugilist of gigantic make, for I find a similar term applied to one John, a favorite page of Bobin Hood. 13 186 NOTES. Note 23. Page 102. This desperate Mill. I was for some months puzzled to ascertain the precise meaning of this ambiguous term. My mind first conjectured that it alluded simply to a wind-mill ; and secondly, that it meant a tread-mill. But here I found myself treading upon ticklish ground, so, as a last resource, I applied to Mr. John Eandall, who informed me with prompt politeness, that ' Mill ' was the generic denomination of a fight. For ' Mill,' then, read ' fight.' Note 24. Page 103. And the blood from his peepers went drip, drip, drip. Vide a well known parallel passage in the tragedy of Remorse, ' drip, drip, drip, there's nothing here but dripping.' I think it a justice due to Mr. C , to state that it is not a cook who puts forth this pleasing remark, but a Moor : nof does it allude to the dripping-pan, but to the lapsing flow of a fountain. Ben Jonson is ils original owner. Note 25. Page 103. And he dropped with a Lancashire Pitrr on his back. ' Little Puss,' according to the few scattered accounts I have been enabled to glean, was famous for his Lancashire Purr ; which is nothing more than a North country fashion, by which the pugilist runs his head into the body of his antag- onist. The shock from so leaden and thick a substance must be attended, one would conceive, like a cannon-ball, with instant annihilation. Note 26. Page 103. All-Fool's Day. This is the oldest and most generally received feast-day in NOTES. 187 the annals of the world. All religions agree in holding it with equal enthusiasm. Note 27. Page 109. Though the artist is of first-rate celebrity, and wears no cravat. To wear no cravat is an indisputable sign of genius among our pastoral and poetic scribblers. A rope, methinks, would suit a choice few of them with more appropriateness than a neckerchief, and I see no reason why a man who perpetrates a publication (on the mere score of eccentricity) should escape, when the wretch who commits a forgery is hanged. To affront the sensibility of the pocket is surely less atrocious than to volunteer an assault on the understanding. Note 28. Page 110. Reverend Edward Irving attempted an imitation of the famous Apostrophe of Demosthenes, ^-c. Of this Dagon of the Philistines, it is impossible to speak in terms of praise. He is a dissenter, it seems, and of course unworthy the consideration of the orthodox. Still, notwith- standing his heresies, Hatton Garden is eternally thronged, while our churches — but it is useless to say more, for who can sound the depths of human folly ? Note 29. Page 112. King of Spain restored to his throne. The cause of kings is a divine cause. Those radical fac- tions, misnamed ' constitutional,' may oppose it, but it is the cause of justice, and as such must eventually triumph. Vide a Quarterly Review, passim. Note 30. Page 114. A true statement discovered in Cobbett's Register. An impudent and unqualified falsehood. The character of 188 NOTES. this hoary anarchist, this Erostratus of the grand fabric of our constitution, is too well established to excuse even a doubt. He may drivel his specious slaver over truth, but even truth turns to falsehood at his touch. ' Hie Niger est, hunc tu Romane, caveto.' Note 31. TageUS. Not content with a wholesome and sensible repast, they must needs give them coffee, ham, eggs, chocolate, orange, marmalade, and gooseberry jam, <|-c. The complaints of these unimportant extravagances, and of the gooseberry jam in particular, are truly ludicrous, and merit for their sole reply, the answer which a Roman states- man made to the questions of a meddlesome and mischievous financier. ' Ohe, jam satis.' Note 32. Page 123. Did the House, let me ask, ever see the individual for whose gains it is thus shamefully solicitous ? Vide I\Ir. B m's sarcastic allusion to Cuchi the waiter of Trieste, in his speech on the memorable occasion of the Queen's trial. I need not point out to the reader's abhorrence this false and calumnious description of my friend. It speaks for itself. Note 33. Page 127. Had Mr. Burke been still alive, he would have agreed with me, I am persuaded, in opinion, and by way of commencement would have pulled off the Jack-boots of our Horse Guards — with or without Boot-Jacks, as it may have suited the emergency of the case, if indeed any case was ever before reduced to so deplorable an emergency, an emergency proceeding from the follies of Gov- ernment, of a Government notorious for every species of gratui- tous infamy. Mr. Burke I repeat, (f-c. This involution of sentence upon sentence is a favorite NOTES. 1S9 feature in Mr. B m's oratory, as the following passage will attest. ' Their lordships, for reasons best known to them- selves — but for reasons, he doubted not, that were dictated by consummate wisdom, and which they had not proceeded on till fully enlightened by experience and a careful review of all the precedents that could bear upon the present case, — their lordships,' he repeated, ' had prevented him,' &c. &c. Vide the Report of BIr. E m's speech on the subject of the Queen's trial. Note 34. Page 139. A few years siiice, ^-c. a serious affray took place between those illustrious rivals, Warren, and Day and Martin. I am happy to say, that after much laborious investigation, I have ascertained the correct date of this battle. The gen- erous friendship of Mr. D'Israeli has induced him to consult an old barrow-woman who lives at Brentford, on the subject ; and from whom he learns that the skirmish took place a month previous to the demise of her first husband. Now her first husband, as I learn from Mr. Crabbe's Parish Register, died in the autumn of 1818. To this date then the point in question must be referred. Note 35. Page 141. And many a beauteous Border maid. So called from the circumstance of her residing in the neigh- bourhood. Palisade ; a somewhat distorted definition of a window. Note 36. Page 144. He looked as scant as Ettrick witches. e> Ettrick forest is a sort of boarding school for youn witches, where they keep holiday on moonlight nights. ' A truly respectable academy i' faith.' 190 NOTES. Note 37. Page 148. And the red banners (^formed hy hap Of two old shirts stichedjlap tojlap.) The indefatigable researches of my friend Mr. Francis Pouce, have at last enabled hira to procure me one of these celebrated banners. It is quartered according to the most leceived military practices, and in the midst appears a por- trait which I at first mistook for the effigy of a goose and trimmings ; but now find to compose the head and wig of ray friend Robert Warren. On either side are blazoned two lilacking brushes rampant, armed and langued gules, with a pair of top-boots argent. The whole forms a striking heraldic curiosity, and is now deposited in the British Museum. Note 38. Page 149. And shouted as his bands he led, To Pat 0' Thwackum at their head. ' Of Patrick 0"Thwackum,' to use the language of Doctor Johnson, ' thus presented to my mind, let me here indulge the remembrance.' Though an Irishman he was constant in his attachments, and formed one of our little school at A n. In temper he was peculiarly irascible, and it was doubtless this latter accomplishment that engaged him in the wars of Day and Martin, under whose banners he lost a considerable quantity of teeth, together with no slight portion of nose. I have not crossed his path since we last parted at A n, but even at this distance, I cherish his memory with more than fraternal fondness. Note 39. Page 151. The tn-o 0' Noodles from Blackwall. The O'Noodles, a flourishing family in Ireland, are noto- rious for the magnitude of their organs of combativeness. NOTES. 191 The two young men mentioned in the text form a part of this hopeful and prolific stock. They are, or rather were, apprentices to Day and Martin, and were honored with a crown of martyrdom on Brentford Green. Note 40. Page 151. Stubbs too, of Brentford Green the rose. How this gentleman could be the rose of Brentford, when it was well known in the private circle of his acquaintance, that he was a Creole in complexion, transcends the comprehension of criticism. I profess not to unravel the paradox ; it rests between the author and his conscience. With respect to his biography, tradition records that Stubbs was hanged the morn- ing previous to the battle ; which, if true, affords a satisfac- tory reason for his absence. Of the rest of the skirmishers, little remains to be told. Their names have either passed down the stream of time, or moulder on the records of the marble ; and all that is now known of them is, that they once existed. Sic transit gloria mundi. Note 41. Page 165. With Fanny of Tlmmol. See a smart Little Bijou, entitled ' Fanny of Timmol, a mail-coach adventure.' The kindness of the proprietor of the Bull and Mouth Inn, London, has furnished me with the following particulars respecting this ' young lady. A Miss Frances Timmol (as appears by his day books of the time) took an inside place in the Union stage for Liverpool, A. D. 1799. Her luggage consisted of two bandboxes, a poodle dog, and a basket. Mr. M , then a gentleman ' in the flower of his youth,' happened to be the only passenger besides her- self in the coach, so that the innocent flirtations to which he alludes in the text, must have taken place on the road. I am far from being a friend to such amusements, for they not only give a character of levity to the vehicle in which they occur. 198 NOTES. but do infinite damage to the morals of the coachman. Miss Timmol, however, appears by tradition to have been a young gentlewoman of very respectable acquirements, and as such is entitled to the good opinion of the commentator. CD %i 'm\ 1 d '^s t « * \ ^OF-0^ OK g ] .IfWE-UNIVERy// «§ A University Of California, Los Angeles L 007 388 326 6 ^m iA UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 369 114