UC-NRLF B 3 335 fl7D WWg 9^7 . ^^/ WHIMSICALITIES: A PERIODICAL GATHERING, BY THOMAS HOOD. TO WHICH ARE ADDED ; «*YORK AND LANCASTER" AND "LOST AND FOUND »— A FRAGMENT (HITHKKTO UXPUBLI3HEI)), THE "EPPING HUNT" AND "EUGENE ARAM." WITH THE ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR, JOHN LEECH, GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, AND W. HARVEY, LO E. M O X O N, S O o£ C O M P A N Y, DORSET L^UILDINGS, SALISBURY SQUARE. « • * • PREFACE The admirers of Thomas Hood's versatile genius will, it is hoped, find the present volume an acceptable addition to those already issued, containing as it does some remarkable specimens of his writings. The " Dream of Eugene Aram " is given with the original illustrations by the late William Harvey, — and the " Epping Hunt," with those by George Cruikshank. The " Whimsicalities " are enriched by the admirable designs of the late John Leech — as well as by some of the author's own quaint drawings. The selection has been made in the belief that the re-issue of these in somewhat of their original form, and with the identical illustrations, would meet with a general welcome. To some they will be as the familiar faces of old friends long passed from sight, — while it is hoped they will be similarly appreciated by new acquaintances. 938538 PRE b ACE. To the above are added, the only two dramatic works extant of Thomas Hood. There is some reason to believe he wrote another short piece, while he materially aided, if he did not entirely write, one or two entertainments for Charles Mathews. But of these no trace remains, and they are doubtless as hopelessly lost as the " copy of the pantomime* '* for which old Godbee wrote such a pathetic request. Fragments are they, and they bear witness to the skill with which Thomas Hood could have written for the stage, had he turned more attention to it. FEANCES FREELING BRODERIP. * See " MemotialB of Thoma? Hood," Ciac*. J. PREFACE. It is proper to state that the majority of the papers in the present Volumes were contributed to the New Monthly Magazine during the Author's late Editorship of that Periodical. Whether they deserved reprinting or repress- ing, must be determined between the public and the literary Court of Review. As usual, the Reader will vainly look in my pages for any startling theological revelations, profound political PREFACE. views, philological disquisitions, or scientific discoveries. As fruitlessly will he seek for any Transcendental specu- lations, Antiquarian gossip, or Statistical Table Talk. And least of all will he find any discussion of those topics which occupy the leaders and misleaders of the daily prints : — for any enlightenment, Bude or Boccius, on the dark ways of Parliament and Downing Streets, or the dangerous crossing between the Church and the Catholic Chapel. He might as well expect to have his cigar lighted by the Sun, or his " arms found " by the " Morning Herald." As little will the anticipations be realised of the feminine reader, who seeks for love rhapsodies, higher flown than the Aerial Carriage ; for scenes of what is called Fashionable Life ; or the serious sentimentalities of that new Paradoxurus the Religious Novel. She might as well go to St. Benet Sherehog for Berlin wool ; or hope to dance, at the Ball of St. Paul's, to Weippert's last New Quadrilles. My humble aim has been chiefly to amuse ; but the liberal Utilitarian will, perhaps, discern some small at- tempts to instruct at the same time. He will, maybe, detect in " The Defaulter," a warning against rash and uncharitable judgments ; in the " Black Job," a " take care of your pockets, from the Pseudo-Philanthropists ; " in "Mr. Withering's Cure," a hint on Domestic Economy; in the " Omnibus," a lesson to Prudery ; and in the " News from China," a satire on maternal over-indulgence, and the neglect of moral culture in the young. He may, possibly, discover in the " Earth Quakers," a hit at the astrological quackery, not only of Doctor Dee, but of more modern Zadkiels ; and recognise in the " Grimsby Ghost," the cor- rection of a Vulgar Error, that Spirits come and go on very immaterial errands. In the " Schoolmistress Abroad,'* PREFACE. a deliberate design is acknowledged, to show up that system of Boarding School Education which renders a Young Lady as eligible for a wife, as a strange female would be for a Housekeeper, with only a Twelfth Night character. Here this Preface might end ; but old associations, and the approach of a season specially devoted to hospitality, good fellowship, charity, and the Christian virtues, irresist- ibly impel me to the expression of a few benevolent wishes towards the World in general, and my own Country, nay, my own County in particular. We have all an open, or sneaking kindness, for our peculiar province, as the sport- ing yeomanry well knew, and felt, when they translated Pitt's regimental motto, which they pronounced " Pro Haris et Focis," — for our Hares and Foxes. In this spirit, my kindest aspirations are offered to my Readers, and in particular to those nearest home. If there be any truth in the statistics of publication, my Comic Annuals, heretofore, have afforded some slight diversion to the cares of Man, Woman, and Middlesex, and it is my earnest hope and ambition that my " Whimsicalities " may still serve the same purpose in the same " trumpery sphere." If a word may be added, it is a good one in favour of the Artist who has supplied the illustrations ; and who promises, by his progressive improvement, that hereafter our " Leech Gatherers " shall not only collect in bags or baskets, but in portfolios. THOMAS HOOD. December Uh^ 1843. CONTENTS, rASB Preface • • . • . • . iii York and Lancaster ; or, A School without Scholars 1 Lost and Found (a Fragment). A Faroe . 28 Anacreontic. By a Footman 51 The Schoolmistress Abroad . 52 The Tower of Lahneck. A Romance 110 Epigram — On the Art-Unions 122 To my Daughter, On her Birthday. 123 Howqua . . . , 124 A Sea-Totaller 124 On a certain Locality 135 A Sketch on the Road 186 The Forge. A Romance of the Iron Age. Part L 133 Part n. 143 153 The Defaulter. " An Owre True Tale " Epigram— On Mrs. Parkes's Pamphlet 176 An Extraordinary Operation 177 The Earth-Quakers . 181 Sonnet . . . , 198 The Grimsby Ghost . 199 No 224 Epigram — On a late Cattle-show in Smithfield » . 226 A Black Job . « . 226 CONTENTS. Epigram — On Lieutenant Eyre's Narrative of tlio Die- asters at Cabul .... Mrs. Gardiner. A Horticultural Romance A Morning Thought The Repeal of the Union A Tale of Terror A Very So-So Character Laying down the Law A Custom-House Breeze Epigram — The Superiority of Machinery More Hullah-Baloo . The Flower .... Hydropathy, or the Cold Water Cure, as Practised by Vincent Priessnitz, at Grafenberg. By R. T. Claridge, Esq. .... Mr. Chubb .... Notes on Shakespeare News from China . . . New Hamorny Party Spirit .... Etching Moralised . The Happiest Man in England. A Sketch on the Road. Spring .... The Longest Hour in my Life ; an Extravaganza. An Undertaker A First Attempt in Rhyme . Horse and Foot Pirouettes .... The Season .... The University Feud A Reftection on New Year's Eve . Diabolical Suggestions A Hard Case .... An Epigram . . r r On the Portrait of a Lady, taken by the Daguerreotype TAQV The Lee Shore . 482 English Ketrogression . . . . . 483 Epigram ...... . 486 Epigram— On the Depreciated Currency . . 487 The Camberwell Beauty. A City Romance . 487 The Little Browns .... . 508 The Omnibus. A Sketch on the Road . 513 The Turtles . 519 The Confessions of a Phoenix . 525 The Epping Hunt . , .. 554 Epigram— On the Chinese Treaty . 580 Eugene Aram. . 581 The Defence of Eugene Aram . .585 The Dream of Eugene Aram . 693 Mr. Wakley and the Poeta . » • . 003 YOEK AKD LANCASTER. OR, A SCHOOL WITHOUT SCHOLARS. (original cast.) DRAMATIS PEESONiE. Jeremiah Snaffle (ex-Horsedealer at York, now a Yorkshire Schoolmaster) Jack Wilson (in love with Miss Snaffle, and residing at the School in disguise of a Mathematical Usher. Afterwards a French Usher, and finally his own Father) Old Wilson (Father of the above) Master Timothy (a decoy pupil) Mrs. Snaffle Miss Snaffle MRS. FITZ WILLI AM [The scene throughout is in the School-room.] MR. MATHEWS. MR. YATES. MR.BUCKSTONE. MR. WILKINSON. MRS. DALY. Scene. — A School-room. Timothy discovered sitting on a form playing at French and English on a large slate. After awhile he throws down ike slate. Tim. It's no use. I can't cipher by myse/f. I stick at units {comes forward). When old Snaffle set up school, my father lent me to him to begin \vith. I wish he'd pay me back ,?<..; c ;^ ' ', YORK AND LANCASTER. agin. I never see sich a school ! — There's only one class, and only one boy in it. I'm top and bottom too ! I can't bear it. I've no playfellows. There's no fun in Prisoner's Base by one's self! I've got a new kite but I can't fly it — there's no one to hold its tail up ! I can't play at horses — there's nobody to drive me ! I can't play at marlows, except right hand agin left — and right always wins ! I'm sick o' hoop ! I've got a cricket-bat, but I'm always in — for there's no one to bowl me out. My racquet's of no use, one can't play at Jives ! Leap-frog's un- possible ! So's Hare and Hounds. I tried yesterday to run a race with myself, and it was a dead Jieat. It's very disagreeable, but I CBXi'iJigM ! I'm cock over nobody ! I wish I was took away. I'd run away, only I should be so soon missed ! . Mnter Wilson as Multiply, r. h. WiL. (Timothy here— I must get rid of him.) Well, Master Timothy, have you done the sum I set you ? Tim. No. How can I all alone ? I'm by myself and can't multiply. WiL. No matter. School's up. You may go and play. Tim. That's a good 'un. I want to play at sogers. But I can't be a captain, for I've got no company. A'nt I a single boy ? WiL. You're a simple fool I What would you have? A'nt you the best cipherer, the best reader, and the best everything in the school ? And won't you get all the prizes at Christmas ? Tim. No. I shall mope to death afore Michaelmas. I wish I was at my old school at Clapham. That was a school like a school ! Song— Timothy. Air—" The Eam of Darby.'* When I was first a schoUard I went to Doctor Monk, And elephant-like I had, Sir, A cake put in my trunk {chorus ly the musk). rORK AND LANCASTER. 3 The Keverend Doctor Monk, Sir, Was very grave and prim, And a matter of six foot high, Sir, We all look'd up to him {turning up his eytm). He didn't pinch and starve us As here they do at York, For every boy was asked. Sir, To bring " a knife and fork." And then I had a chum, too. To fag, and all of that ; I made him sum up my sums, Sir, And eat up all my fat ! We had half-a-dozen ushers For Latin, French, and Greek, And all that we'd got in our heads, Sir, Was comb'd out once a week ! For goodness we had prizes. And birch for doing ill ; It was none o' the Birch that visits The Bottom of Cornhill ! And if I were at Clapham, At my old school again. In the rod I could fancy honey. And siigar in the cane I WiL. It must have been a happy school indeed, Tim ; why did you leave it ? Tim. 'Twas all mother's fault; she thought I got hard-featured from having a tin mug 1 I wish I was back again ; I'm vei'y unhappy ! WiL. Pooh I — nonsense, Tim ! 4 YORK AND LANCASTEE. Tim. All ! you've got a playfellovr. WiL. Me, Sir? Tim. Yes. Master's daughter. WiL. (The young rascal). Be off. Sir! you deserve to be well flogged. Tim. What for, now? WiL. What for ? why for the most unscholar-like of offences, for being in school in playtiyne ! Tim. I never knew that was a fault 5^org ! WiL. Take care you don't know it beJiind. Be off, I say {slaps Mm.) Tim. Oh ! oh dear ! oh dear (Jiolds his face for awhile, then slyly taps Wilson and runs off, calling out " Touch yer last ! ") WiL. What a melancholy attempt at play 1 Poor Timothy ! The first boy seems as uncomfortable a character as the Last Man ! I pity him sincerely, and his master still more. Poor Snaffle, to give up a horse repository for a boy-bazaar ; there's his misery ! The tits have gone, but have left their traces in his memory; his head teems with 'em; the nags are always coming across him, and he can't retaliate ; but here comes his sweet daughter. Enter Maeia, r. h. My dearest Maria. Mar. Hush ! where's Timothy ? WiL. Gone abroad, and by this time up in his old tree a picking lady-birds. Do you know that young imp has noticed us together, but never mind ; the pure love that is witnessed by angels may be seen by the little son of a little pin-maker. Mar. Alas 1 I have sad misgivings that the masquerade will not last. WiL. Never fear, I am a better actor than you take me for. Mar. Nay, that you cannot be ; I am sure when you played Eom!o at York, I thought you were the finest actor in the world. YORK AND LANCASTER. 5 WiL. Ah, that happy night ! my best of benefits, for it intro- duced me to your notice, thanks be to my dear determined old dad for compelling me to that character, by wishing to force me into a marriage with Miss Acres. Mar. By-the-way, Wilson, pray describe me that lady; I long to know what sort of being you have resigned for me. Was she anything particular ? WiL. ! quite unrivall'd in her way ! The youngest of her family, but looked like the oldest. She had but one natural eye, and one of glass. Tliey put you in mind of Bartley's Orrery — one, fixed like a star, the other rolling about like a planet ! Her nose, as if she had taken the first that turned up. The feature was on one side too, and if she had followed it, would have led her a mile astray. Hair — bright carrots, dyed black ; but the dye had died off, and left it a pale purple. She beat Venus in her cheeks, for they were all over dimples. And then she had a mouth, like herself, always open to an offer. Mar. And her figure — was she short or tall ? WiL. As a liare is — inclined to squat on her form. Then she was brown, as if made of the family raspings. She had a mane down her nape, and a hump on each shoulder, like a double dromedary ! Mar. What an object ! but to use one's own eyes in such matters is a sort of eye treason. Parents are very unreasonable ! WiL. Oh, very ! Talk of beauty and they chime in with duty. That's r]iym,e, not reason. And then to sacrifice the principle of love to the interest of money ; as if, when hearts are broken three per cent Consols would be at all consolatory ! Song — Maria. Air — " There's nae luck.*' Is love a trade, and woman made To go for bidder's gold ? Wed I will not ; my single lot Shall be a lot unsold. 1 o YOEK AND LANCA8TER. If I would wed, must I be led. And see thro' parents' eyes. And even thro' their glasses too ? I'd rather advertise ! Mar. But would your father really have forced you to marry Miss Acres ? WiL. Absolutely. His mind was fixed to that point like a rusty weathercock. He's a monster of obstinacy, as stiff-backed as a crocodile and as pig-headed as a mule ! It's quite a disease with him. He has a determination of determination to his head. He'd have dragged us to church on a hurdle, said *'yes" for us both, tied us together neck and heels, and made us man and wife in spite of ourselves. I had no chance with him, so I ran away, changed my name, and took refuge in the York Theatre ! Mar. Ah I there's the evil ! My step-mother was a Quaker's widow, and has that aversion to the stage that some have to the hackney coach. She thinks it a crazy vehicle for morality. She would never encourage what she calls a loto tragedian. But why not entrust her with your real character ? WiL» Not for the world ! Her high sense : of duty and decorum would at once send me on my knees to my father. We must have patience, and in the meantime, by favour of this disguise, we have the happiness of living under the same roof. Mar. But you must find your assumed character very irk- sonie ! WiL. Not at all. What can be a happier situation for an usher-of-all-work than a school without scholars ? I take a stroll when I like, that's my Walking-game ; act all 5orts of capers, that's my Antic's Dictionary, and come home quite a Ruddy-mViU, If anyone's to be pitied 'tis your father. Enter Snaffle unperceived, and stands heUnd them. Mar. Alas, poor man ! He has never held his head up YORK AND LANCASTER. 7 since his horses came to the hammer [lie shakes his head). There never was a sale under such a distress, he seemed knocked down v,iih. every lot {Snaffle clasps his Imnds). First his nags went, then his vehicles. A tandem you know was his foible, and a Tilbury was his I'orte ! All went. Every shaft entered into his soul ! every wheel gave him a turn ! They sold even his favourite set-out — ^flea-bitten horse in a buggy. WiL. Poor fellow ! to be thrown out of all his gigs at once ! Mar. It was my stepmother's doing — she insisted on a school {Snaffle- shakes his fist). He often tells her that with her new gigs, his heart is in a brake ! WiL. I don't doubt it. But we must expect him here shortly and then I must be substracted froni vou, but it sha'n't be a long division — one kiss and then— Snaff. Woh! WiL. The devil ! Mar. My father ! Snaff. So, Master Multiply, this be your ushering ! You're rf pretty Tooter, aren't ye — to be tooting to my daughter ? But come now {collaring hhn). WiL. My dear Sir — a moment's patience {struggling), r. h. Snaff. So ho, there — gently now ! — no kicking. It's no use being resty wi' me {turns him out.) There now — get a bite on the common or where ye can — and now aren't you a pretty jade ( turning toioards Maria who has run out, and Timothy has come into her place.) Down on r. h. Tim. No. la'ntagal! Snaff. Master Timothy, what do you want ? Tim. If you please, Master, I wish you'd be so good as to expel me. Snaff. Expel ye ! Tim. Yes, like Mr. Multiply. I can't stay in a school with- out ushers. 8 YORK AND LANCASTER. Snaff. There now, he's goin' unruly. Tim. Father sent me here to be teached. But IVe only had one lesson, and that was in farming ; you set me to dig taters ! Snaff. They were for your own dinner, Master Timothy, Didn't you dine on 'em ? Tim. No. They were too waxy to make any meal of. You don't half dine me. I'm often obliged to make out with a pennorth of parched peas. Snaff. If you're sarcy, you shall have liorse-beans. Master Timothy, take care o' me — I'm in a temper — a very vicious tem- per, and it keeps calling on me to cut^ cut, behind ! and I will, too, dall if I don't. You young dog, if you give tongue again I'll gi' you a switch-tail. Tim. No, you shan't; you've no right to ill-use me; you a'lit my father. Snaff. There now, that's enough. Master Tim, I'll make you more timid of me. You'd better make yourself distinctly invisi- ble I Master Tim, you'd better be off in a tim whisky ! Tim. So I will {runs out. ) Door on l. h. Snaff. There's a beautiful dutiful schollard ! and I've got a beautiful dutiful daughter ! They'll gi' me the mad staggers be- tween 'em. As for Maria, I wish she'd never been born ; I wish she'd been born a boy, at any rate. You may send them to the sea, to prevent them going to the D — . She'll never do well ; never ! there's long odds agin it ; virtue's a slippery road and females can't be rough shod ! She'll make a false step some day, and bring down my dapple gray hair to the dust (walks about mournfully^ This be a line business — a mortal fine busi- ness indeed ! Enter Mrs. Snaffle, overJiearing the last words. Door r. h. Mrs. S. Mr. Snaffle, I told you so. I knew you would be of my opinion. YCfjK AND Lancaster. a S/ifAF. AVkom ? I ? About the schoolmastering ? I'm sorry leaching were ever found out. I wish A, B, C, and the rest, were all dead letters. I wouldnH gi' a fig for figures. I wisb grammar were gone out, all the sign^or^s repealed, and geograplrj hadn't a place to bide in ! Mrs. S. Mr. Snaffle, you forget the conditions of our marriage^ Snap. No I don't. When old Broadbrim died Mks. S. Ah, that best of Quakers ! Snaf. Well, he's an Earthquaker now — dead and buried. Mrs. S. You cruel -S/ac^ reviver; to remind me so of my sables ! whilst my poor dear first lived, we had a deal of happu ness between us. Snaf. Yes, and when he died you had it all to yourself, you know. Then you took to me, provided I give up the horse dealing. It warn't genteel enough — so the livery stables war sold off, and here I am with a powdery head, and black long-tails, to break in little boys to their laming. Mrs. S. And the best business in Yorkshire ! — It's unknown the number of children that are sent for their education to these parts. Snaff. That's because we bring 'em oop so hardy, and don't spoil and indulge 'em wi' common necessaries. When I. war in my teens, that is my velveteens, I were a Yorkshire schollard myself. Mrs. S. You are then competent, of course, to manage York- shire pupils. Snaff. To be sure I be. Girth 'em up tight, and gi' 'em the run of the common. That war our place for doing our exercises. Then they clothed us. We'd b. freeze coat in winter, and baize breeches every two years. Then they boarded us upon oat-cakes and tatoes, but not extravagantly. They might Have written over our mouths " No entrance req^uired.'' Mks. S. And the terms, Mr. S. % 10 YORK AND LANCASTER. Snafp. Ten pounds a head, and no charge for taiU^ which were main liberal, considering our tails gave most trouble. That's the York system. Mrs. S. Exactly. A sort of BelVs system — for wringing all you can out of your pupils. But you know I propose to engraft on it the Lancaster system of mutual instruction. Snaff. Ay. For little boys teaching one another — and we've only got Timothy ! It won't do ; anyone may see that wi' a wall-eye. Mils. S. You want patience. By-and-by you may have a hundred under your rod. Snaff. Ah ! you're so sanguinary in your prospects. I wish I had only four-in-hand of 'em. Mrs. S. And you're like Pilgrim's Progress — always in the Toyid of Despond. I tell you we're on the high road to riches. Snaff. Like many more, and can't pay the turnpikes 1 Mrs. S. Well, when things are at the worst they'll mend. Snaff. No, they won't; you tried that, you know, on my worst worsted stockings. Mrs. S. No matter. You'll change your note by-and-by. Snaff. I wish I may have a note to change! we aren't worth our corn ! It's all feeding and no work ! we're saddled wi' helpers too, to be keeped on at rack and manger. Mrs. S. Saddled — helpers — racks and mangers ! There's ostlerism ! Schools must have ushers, Mr. S. ! We must con- tinue Mr. Multiply. Snaff. No we munna. I've discharged un. Mrs. S. What, by way of economy ? Snaff. No — ^by way o' the back door ; he war got skittish for want of work. Mrs. S. Skittish — what's that ? some indecorum, of course. Snaff. That's just it. He war got so idle, I catched 'im idleizing wi' Maria ; if I had been a horse I'd have kick'd him YOKK AND LANCASTER. 11 out, but as I were only a man I turn'd him out, and I'm happy to say it rained. Mrs. S. With Maria ! That girl will drive me wild ; she'll be the death of decorum ; she breaks all the pales of delicacy and jumps over every post of propriety ; she makes every rule of conduct ai.footrule, for she kicks at it, and every duty a stamp duty, for she tramples on it ; and she shows a sad want of rear- ing up ! Snaff. No, she don't; she rears up quite enough; she'll 'plunge us all into misery. Mrs. S. To cast her eyes on a play-actor, and now on a 'paltry usher ! Snafp. Yes, there she have put her lioof in it up to the hock ; but I'll take care how she casts her eyes about ; dall if I don't. Mrs. S. As how, Mr. Snaffle? Snafp. She shall wear hliyikers ! Mrs. S. Wear fiddlesticks ! Til take her in hand ; she shall turn over a new leaf ; she shall turn over a new sheet ; she shall turn over a new quire ; she shall go through a course of Mrs. Chapone, and I'll refresh her in Dr. Gregory. She sha'n't be the girl she has been. Snaff. No, that's right, make her somebody else ; you must keep a plaguy tight curb on her ! If she once gets the bit in her teeth. Mrs. S. There again ! Curbs and bits ; more of your low Ideas. What have females to do with your filthy bits and bridles ? You think you're in Prance, I suppose, where they call their mothers mares and their daughters fillies! You'd better introduce the stable at once to the drawing-room, turn your beaufet to a bin, and your card racks into horse mangers. You'll never be on good terms with decorum, your very table talk is stable talk ; but you were born an equestrian and you'll die one. Exit, door r. h. 12 YOKK AND LANCASTEE. Snaff. Hum ! turn the drawing-room into a stable, I wish 1 could ! I'm sick o* the boy business ; I'd rather have young horses to coUivate ! Ah, those war my hrigM days when I had the hrigM bays ! and the chestnuts and the roans ; it makes me broken-Jiearted when I think of 'em, and almost broken-winded. I sigh sometimes like a roarer ! what's the use of being at York when stable's done wi' ? I might as well be at Bun-stable. It's very hard not to mount a horse agin in a county with three ridings I I suppose I'll never hunt any more ! Good-bye to my Lord's crack-pack ! I mun hunt now wi' a pack o' schollards ; I mun draw the covers of old 'cademy books, follow a brick brushy and be in at the death o' Linly Murray ! I suppose I'll see no more racing, tho' I war mortal fond, like a skylark, o' my little bit o' turf, but my remembrances on it are worth an old song^ any how ! Song — The Eace. [At the conclusion of the race-song Snaffle, in his enthusiasm, gets astride the school-form and is riding as a jockey, working away in winning style, when he suddenly perceives Wilson, who enters in disguise of a French Usher.) li. H. Snaff. Eh ! what's that ! Dall ! he looks like a whisker colt. WiL. Serviteur, Monsieur. I demand grace for my abruptive- ness. I shall comb again, when you shall be unhorseback'd. Snafp. Never mind that ! my ride's rid. WiL. Sare, you say ? Snaff. I say, my ride's rid. You aren't oop to me, eh ? "fViL. No, Sare, your tongue is not my tongue. Snaff. I know it beant. Every man to his own. WiL. Pardonnez-moi — I have not goot phrases. I shall give you bad words. My English is broken very. Snaff. Broke ! I wonder it a*nt Macadamised. "You ham-- mer at everv word. YORK AND LANCASTER. 13 WiL. Do you not spik French ? Snaff. No. I once tried the French tongue and couldn't make a hand of it ; I couldn't bear it ! 1 had a rooted dislike to the root and a mortal antipathy to the tip. WiL. C'est dommage ! In dis country I am unspeakable. I am overcome from Paris, two days backwards, to live upon some young gentlemen. Snaff. 0, the Parishiner I bespoke in the newspaper. Well ! I suppose you're well up to the Parish language. Did you always teach it for your French bread ? WiL. Ah ! que non. Eefore dis time I am bin in de Grande Armee. I was, what you call it? a man of war on horseback. Snaff. 0, a dragooner. Why, then you know summut about horses ! Mounseer — I'm very glad to see you. — You're very welcome, Mounseer {shaking hands very heartily). You're just the sort of kind of person for a Prench usher. WiL. Ah, Sare, you flatter at me. Snaff. Why, mun, I've been in the cavalry-like myself : — had a deal to do wi' the tits. I suppose, now, you spoilt lots o* pretty nags in the campaigning. War's a desperate Knacker. WiL. 0, surement. In Flandets two-tree-tousand horses of de French Armee go lame in deir hoofs. Snaff. Hum. — You French had been at their /ro^5, eh? WiL. In battles I have tree shargers shooted under me, my- self ! I cry for dem like as tree shildren ! Snaff. I'm bound ye did ! Mounseer, I can enter into your feelings. I can go along wi' em ! I, know what it is ! I could cry like three children too ! Do you know, mun, I've lost a hundred horses from under me. WiL. One hundert ! — all killed wiz a ball ? Snaff. No — all knock'd down wi' a hammer. Peace be to their manes, poor things ! 1 hope they a'nt none of 'em got into the po-chaises, or the hacks about in Lonnon! I'm a 14 YORK AND LANCASTER. grievous man about 'em — judge if I beant. I keeped a stable for fourteen year, and bad the prettiest lot o' cattle — But they're all gone, short and long tail ! — I haven't a single horse left to me, and life's a drag. AViL. I symphorise wiz you — Sare, I do, from my souVs bottom. Snaff. That's kind of you. I like ye, I like ye, mun, for a French usher, very much ! Consider yourself hir'd — from this present day, Anno Domino. WiL. Ah ! quel bonheur ! I shall make ready to aim to dls- charge my duty. You shall see my grammaire ! I have made a book of my tongue. Snaff. That be main clever of ye then, tho' I be no judge of grammaires; but bide here a bit. I'll send Maria to you: she'll understand it. She can talk foreign languages like a bird.' Exit, door r. h. WiL. Send Maria to me ? How very obliging ! Good easy Snaffle ! I thought the dragoon would take with him. If any- one would creep ujp his sleeve they must go on horseback. Timothy comes in quietly behind, door l. h. Tim. O, there's the frog-eater ! I hope he won't give me the French Mark. I've nobody to pass it to ! WiL. (Timothy, confound him ! ) Leetle boy, be very good and make away wid yourself (Tim sulks). Yon must make a scarcity in dis room, or I shall get some bamboo for you to be bamboozled (Tim makes faces at him). Enter Maria, door r. h. Mar. I am sent to you. Sir, by my father. WiL. Ah, oui ! I have a ting to say, but it is one secret and must be keep'd for one ear. Mar. a secret ! Begone, Master Timothy. Go to your play. YOEK AND LANCASTER. 15 Tim. No I sli'a'nt ; you a'nt my missis. I can go to my play without your orders. Mar. a pert monkey ! Be off, Sir, or you shall have no dinner. Tim. Ah, that's the way. You pick a quarre^ with me at meal-times. You stopp'd my vittles t'other day, and I was obliged to cook my tame mouse. It's very hard ! You all won't let me stay anywheres. By-and-by I shall he nowhere at all. Mdt L. H. WiL. He is no more here. Mademoiselle, you have seen'd me befor? Mar. Kever, Sir, to my remembrance. WiL. Non ? Look at my face ; will you say so to it ? Is my eyes quite out of your head ? Is my nose grow'd so far out of knowledge ? Have you forgotten what my mouse did ratify ? Mar. What do I hear ! Wilson, by all that's happy. WiL. Yes, your real beau come to teach Chamhaud. An English original done hastily into French. Mar. Yes, and as usual not recognisable in the translation. Now I have hopes of your disguise ! Deceive the sharp quick sight of Love, and you may defy Argus himself, tho' he has lynx eyes by the long hundred ! like WhitecTiapel sharps. WiL. O, never fear, we shall not part again in a hurry. Your father takes to me wonderfully. I've won him, like dijlute-player^ by a little double tonguing. I've got an engagement for ever, with a century's notice. Come, wish me joy of it. Nay, can there be any harm in a little embrace on either side ? Mar. Why, really, I think there must be arm^ on both sides. {They embrace). Enter Mrs. Snaffle. Mrs. S. What do I see ? Have I eyes in my head ? A.ra 1 awake ? I'm petrified into a stone figure in statu quo. 16 YOEK AND LANCASTER. WiL. 0, 'tis noting but noting ; dat is all de way of i^iy country. I am one natif of France. Mrs. S. Then France ought to be ashamed of you : you ought to be a naiive of nowhere. Song — FiiENCH Usher. Air — " Saw ye Johnny cominV* What have I done ? -D ( Where's de harm of kissing at her ? ( What's de harm of kissing ? Wizout kissing what would matter If her lips was missing at her ? If her Hps was missing ? Turtles bill and coo so lonely In one grove of myrtle, Turtles bill and coo so lonely In on-e grove of myrtle. What haf I been doing ? only Giving her som turtle, only Giving her som turtle. WiL. Is not this a land of freedoms ? Mrs. S. But not where you're to take liberties ! you're in- decorous. Sir! WiL. I am not in de chorus! De noise is your noise. You are in a chorus all by yourself. Mrs. S. The wretch ! but begone ! Go ! leave my presence. WiL. To where am I to go to ? I am come here to make a full stop ; I am engaged here for a prominency ; I am to live here, and to sleep here, and to be boarded here, and to be washed here ! Mrs. S. But you are not ! You are to be turned out, and washed out, and boarded out, and bolted out ! You shall quit the house. YORK AND LANCASTER. 17 WiL. (I see I must). I sliall he quits wid your house mo- mently ! but you sliall yare of dis ! I sliall sew you up in a court of laws; year fingers shall be burnt; dere shall be some coals, and you shall be called over dem ! dere shall be a fire and all your fat shall be in it ! make a mark on me ; I am a wrong . pig and you have got hold of my ear. Exit as in a rage, L. ii. Mks. S. The monster ! and you, Miss, to be so forward too ! [ shall never teach you to be backward in your advances to the sex! Mak. I'm sure you can't say I encouraged him. Mrs. S. How? Didn't I see him j9w^ his face to yours? Mar. And didn't you see me set my face against it ? Mrs. S. I did indeed ! A foreign stranger creature you'd never set your eyes on before. Mar. La 1 you make so little allowance for foreign customs. Mrs. S. Foreign fiddlesticks ! Tell me, hussy, would you allow other foreign customs ? Would you rub noses with a Hot- tentot ? Mar. Why, if the feature happened to be a fine Roman Mrs. S. Well, what then, hussy ? Mar. Why then I believe one must do as the Romans do. Exit. Mrs. S. Abominable ! there's lax principles ! But she sha'n't belong to me ! she sha'n't belong to the sex 1 she sha'n't belong to human nature, and she sha'n't be an animal, for she'd be a disgrace to 'em ! Enter Snaffle. Snaff. Wei], how d'ye like my French ush — Eh! where's the Parishiner ? Mrs. S. Gone. Discharged. Banished ! Snaff. Banished ! What for ? Mrs. S. For ever ! The old story. I caught him with Maria ! ilugging like two immoral hears. Mr. SnaflOi^^ — and kissing . 18 YORK AND LANCASTER. Snaff. Kissing again ! 0, she have a hard mouth. Mrs. S. What has that to do, pray ? Snaff. I mean she be hard to be guided. She'll never go steady, never ! I'll tell ye what, we've been a driving on the wrong side o' the road wi' her. Mrs. S. Wrong sides of roads ! Snaff. It's the way wi' womankind. She war crossed and jostled in love. Mrs. S. Crossed and jostled ! Snaff. Ay, and that makes her bolt out o* the course. We'd better give her her head a bit ! Mrs. S. Give her her head indeed. Snaff. xind we will, too. Harkye, now. You may be wheeler in this house, but I'll be leader. We'll go abreast, any- how, and it's your place to keep step wi' me, and lay to collar ! there now! Mrs. S. There's horse-jargon. There's high words in loio language. There's diction. Snaff. No matter. Your diction be contradiction I I've a mind to speak, and I'll speak my mind! We'd better have match'd Maria wi' the play-fellow at York ! Timothy, l. h. door. Tim. a play-fellow at York ! I wish I had him ! Mrs. S. Drat that bi^at ! Master Timothy, what do you want? Tim. / want to he amused. Snaff. Why doan't ye go and play, then ? Tim. Because there can't be no play with only one performer. I want to play at horses ! Snaff. \^So do I — mor fellow). Tim. I can't get anything I want. 1 wish I had the mumps I Mrs. S- The mumps, child I . YOKK AND LANCASTER. 19 Tim. Yes, or tlie measles ; for then I should be sent home with them to my little brothers and sisters ! It's very unkind of father to lend me so long to you ! Mrs. S. Master Timothy, Sir, be more filial. Your father's a very good father, and a very judicious father, and a wise father, and a very liberal father, and allows you twopence a week ! Tim, He knows there's no use here for pocket-money. A'nt we in the middle of Tadlin Moor, and I don't know how many more moors ? There's plenty of Commons to be had ; but no Parliament. I'm ten miles from the nearest loUypop ! I've never had any sweet things but once since I come here, and that was only briTnstone and treacle ! Mrs. S. That ungrateful boy ! It's unknown what I've done for him ! I've wash'd him, and mark'd him, and darn'd him — taken pieces out of him, and put pieces into him, and cut his legs off to new-foot him with, and he can't be thankful. Have you no punishment for him, Mr. Snaffle ? Can't you flog him ? Snaff. No : I have nobody to hofse him. He must wait for a hacker; and I can't send him into splitary confinement. Tim. No : I'm confin'd to that already. Mrs. S. No matter, I'll punish him ! I'll retrench his meals. He shall go without bread and water ! Tim. Yes, you all agree in that. It's a shame how stingy you are to me in vittles. I wish mother knew it ! You keep me so short you'll stop my growth ! I'm worse off than the wild leasts ! Nobody'd give a farthing to see me dine or si^p. Snaff. MasLei Timothy, you'd better branch off and make your how, or you shall be well twigg'd ! Tim. Well, there's my bow {hows), and I wish ] was going for good. I wish I was howing away for ever. Exit L. H. Mrs. S. There's a ipreiiy pattern for other pupils I He must be made an example of I 20 YOEK AND LANCASTER. Snaff. No he munna ; my mind's made up. I'll let Timothy loose, pull down the sign-board, and take in no more schollards to stand here ! It shall be all parted wi' ! I'll sell the seJiool benches to an ale-home, and the use o' the globes to the howling- green ! Mrs. S. Mr. Snaffle, are you serious, or only playing on my feelings ? Snaff. No, I axen't playing a tune on your feelings. I'm in downright amest. Look at me, now ; don't you see ruination staring you in your face ? Don't you feel we can't keep our legs ? We'd better lock our wheel afore we go further down hill — afore we get smash'd to bits, and has to repeat the Beggar's Petition to the Society for Enlarging Little Debtors / You woan'tlike to undergo an operation wi' the ^^^solvent ax ! Mes. S. Insolvence, indeed — with my fortune ! But you'll talk differently when scholars come pouring in to us (a loud knocking). There, now, you may say I'm a prophet. Snaff. I wish I could ; but I'm not goin' yet to be boy'd up wi' young gentlemen ! Gi' me a few in my hand, I don't care for boys in bushes ! JEnter Wilson, disguised as Wilson Senior. Young W. (Now for a last attempt. Filial piety, forgive me, but I must mock my own father). Mr. Snaffle, eh? (/le bows). My name's Wilson ; Wilson Senior, Sir, of Headstrong HaU. You've heard of me, eh ? Snaff. To be sure. Sir. You be a great farmer, and keeps racers. You won a plate at our last meeting, when Catch-me- who-can war distanced, and No-vere-I-know war the only colt placed. Young W. Drop the colts. I'm come about a son o' mine — a son, Sir. Mrs. S. {Therey Mr. S. — a new scholar). Your son, Sir, YORK AND LANCASTKR. 21 shall meet with maternal attention. It's my ambition to have a hundred boys. Sir, and to be a mother to ^em all ! I'm ac- customed to a large, small family. I pursue a rigid system of morals with them, and am particularly particular as io comfort and cleanliness, you shall see I am, Sir. Here, Timothy ! Timothy, I say ! — Master Timothy. I^nter Timothy, with his pinafore torn and stained with black- berries, face and hands ditto. Tim. What's the matter ? Am I fetch'd ? Mks. S. There's a figure ! He'd bring a discredit on St. Giles's. Where have you been. Sir ? Tim. In the churchyard a blacJcberrying . It's all I've had to eat, like the babes in the wood. Snaff. Ay — and you've garm'd yourself like the robin red- breast {pointing to his jpinafore). Mrs. S. a young ragamuffin in effigy ! Here's pretlj be- haviour when you're going to have a better companion. Tim. a little un — how big ? Mrs. S. Have patience, Sir. Pray, wlien may we look for the young gentleman ? Young W. You're absurd, Madam — ABsurd ! I've come to look for him myself. He's here — in this house — came a month ago — a calendar month, Madam — Mrs. S. Here's juvenile depravity ! He's never been here. Sir — never ! What a wicked long time to play truant. Snaff. Ay, we'll have plague enough wi' him, if he runs away from school afore coming to it ! Young W. You talk nonsense, Sir— you both talk nonsenses. lie's run away from me. Sir — me — me ! me ! I wanted to marry him to a fortune — one Miss Acres — one Acres — an agri- cultural beauty, with charms —charms, Sir. Both pasture and arable 1 '2 22 YORK AND LANCASTER. Snafp. 0, he be fond of his wild oats ! Once I were fond o* tcild oats myself, but now I'm one o' the have beens. We're all rakes, you know, in our hay days. Young W. But 1 wanted to settle him — settle him, Sir — Snaff. And to bar that ! he bolted, eh ? Young W. To York, Sir. York Theatre ! play'd Eoraec, a dog! — I wish I'd been the apothecary — the apothecary — I'd have poison'd him in earnest. I would ! I would ! I would ! Mrs. S. Komeo at York ! why then, Sir, the low tragedian is your son ? Young W. That depends on me — on me, Madam. I won't be his father unless I like i at present I chuse him to be my son — I chuse it — Mrs. S. To be sure, parents ought to have every control over their children I Snaff. Mrs. Snaffle, hold hard. Mr. Wilson, I don't know if you don't know it, but your son have had an accident wi' Miss S. — had a fall in love, you know, and got the shafts driv into him. Young W. I know it. I traced him to York, and I've traced him here — here, the reprobate, he's been figuring o'S.— figuring. Sir, as a multiplying usher. Mrs. S. a disguised usher ! here's hypocrisy ! here's in- triguing ! Maria shall account for this ! I'll see whether mystery shall get the mastery. Exit R. H. Snaff. And now, sqtdre, what's to be done ? The young folks have got tangled, you see ; they have laid an attachment on each other. Young W. It's settled, settled, Sir. I mean him to have her, and I mean her to have him. No words ; I don't mind your nay to it — your nay. Sir. Snaff. I aren't going to nay ! If the young uns eawpiit up their horses together, they've my good will to't, and dall YORK AND LANCASTEE. 23 if they sha'n't have the good will o' the 'cademy into the bargain ! Young W. Drop the academy ! I'll provide for Jack — for Jack, Sir ; he sJiall have all I have. Snaff. Done and done, squire ! It's a match ! there be only one stumbling stone in the road. Your son be lost, stolen, or strayed somewhere. I war forced to turn him out to common — for making free wi' Maria. Tim. Ah ! I see 'em, playing at forfeits ! Young W. No matter, he'll turn up — turn up. Sir. But harkye, the wedding must be private — quite private, stolen, Sir, against my will, Sir. Tell the rascal I'm obdurate, implacable ; I don't want him to think I'll show him my countenance^ my countenance. Sir, after \ns,Jlying so in my face ! Snaff. It shall be kept snug ! I won't be a tit myself, and I'll take care my wife beant a tit either ! Young W. Ay, and a license instanter — instanter, Sir. Re- member Macbeth, " What you do do — do quickly." Delay's the devil. Sir — the devil ; take the nick of time, Sir, the nick before it's an old nick ! Snaff. It shall be donej^os^, mun; they shall go to the altar in a gaUop ! there shall be no bar to it, and if there be, I be so light-hearted I'll clear all the gates. Young W. (So am I if he knew all). I wish you joy — joy. Sir. And myself joy, myself Sir ; and Maria, Maria too, Sir ; and Jack and Jack {a loud knock and voice without). {My father's voice. Then the game's all up — he trumps everything, Jack and all). Enter Old Wilson. Young Wilson avoids him and retires to the hack of the stage. Old W. Mr. Snaffle, eh ! Snaff. At your service. Sir ; bv the day, month, or year. Old W. Drop ceremony ; I'm blunt, Sir, hlunt, and come to a point at once. Your daughter has seduced my son. 24 YOaK AND LANCASTER. Snafp. (O, this be father father of t'other usher.') It be a bad job, sure enough. My daughter be a gypsy I Old W. a gypsy ! a great gypsy, Sir, for she inveigles great children. Where's my rascal? where? where? where? Sir? Snaff. He be departed — departed alive, I mean. Tim. Yes, I see him go, with a large flea in his ear ! Old W. a humbug, a humbug. Sir. He's lurking here — I've proof of it, full proof, above proof — as a Trench usher. Snaff. Ay, but "Mrs. S. have given him French leave. He beant in the house, I'll take my oath on't afore all the mares in Yorkshire, thoro'bred or halfbred! Young W. Aside. (He'd better not do that, though.) Old W. Gone, eh ! There's a dog ! to go off when I want to marry him to who he likes ; ay, to who he likes, Sir ! Snaff. What, not go his own way wi' the reins on his neck / Set up an opposition to himself on his own road ! Old W. Let me see him in opposition to himself ! I'll disin- herit him ! a son in opposition is a Whig, a Wliig, Sir, and can't be natural heir to anybody. Snaff. But be ye in arnest about giving him his head ? Old W. Absolute ! resolute ! Harkye, the girl I meant to have him has had the assurance, the assurance. Sir, to have somebody else ! Young W. (What do I hear ? Miss Acres married !) Old W. But I'll be revenged of her — revenged, Sir ; I meant to make him have hei — make him. Sir ; but now he shall have who he likes ; he shall have a will of his own ; I'll make him have a will of his own ; I will, I will, I will ! I'll force him to have his own inclinations ; he shall marry your daughter now if he pleases. Sxaff. My daughter? No, Sir; she be equal to bespoke. I've promised her. Old W. Then you shall ««promisc her, that's my dctermina- YORK AND LANCASTER. 25 tion. I'm a decided character — decided, Sir ; and who dares to ask for her ? who ? who, Sir ? Snaff. Why, Sir, this other very decided character (Snaffle 'puts forward Young Wilson and presents him full front to Old Wilson). Old W. You, Sir ; you, you, you, you, you ! Young W. Yes, Sir ; rne, 'me, me, me, me ! Enter Mrs. Snaffle, dragging in Maria. Mrs. S. Now Miss, now hussy, here's the indignant parent. What ! two indignant parents ? Maria. Wilson again, as I live ! Young W. {Hush ! Tm not myself! Tm my own father^ Old W. And pray what pretensions have you to Miss Snaffle, Snaffle, Sir ? Young W. The same pretensions as your son, your son. Sir. Old W. Miss Snaffle shall have who / like. Sir — I. I. I. ! Young W. And who I like too. Sir — too, too, too ! Snaff. She be like to have two sure enough ; but you know, raun, matrimony don't carry double ! (to Young W.); that would be bigamy. Sir, great bigamy, big bigamy (to Old W.) Mrs. S. Here's decorum ! to let the altar raise an altercdXion. Old W. No matter. Harkye, Sir ; I'm used to my own way, so used to it I can go it in the dark. My son shall have Miss Snaffle ; if I say he shall, he shall, Sir. Young W. You are bent on that point ? Old W. Bent, bent double. Sir ; it shall be so ; it shall ; it shall as sure as my name's Wilson, Wilson Senior. Young W. Why, then, let Wilson Junior have her {kneels down and pulls off his wig), and your pardon with her! Old W. What Jack, Jackanapes, Jack, you dog ! No, Sir, no. I won't forgive you ! I won't forgive you till I like, that I won't. I won't forgive you till this day week at one d'clock — one precisely. 26 YOllK AND LANCASTER. Young W. My dear father, that shall be a red letter day for ever ; I'll be on my knees punctually to a minute ! Old W. There take her {gives Maria). Snaffle, you shall drop the school, you shall farm a farm o' mine, and look after my stud, my stud. Sir. Snaff. Ay, that'll suit me to a hair, to a horsehair ! Then I shall fit my harness ! Mrs. S., you're agreeable (he's a young squire y you knoWy it'll be a good start in life for Maria). Mrs. S. Why, as there is a difference between a stud and a stable, and provided everything's done with decorum. Snaff. That's enough ! we have broke the back o' the *cademy. Huzza ! (Timothy runs forward and throws up his hat.) Tim. Hooray ! hooray ! hooray ! A breaking up ! a breaking up! Snaff. Ay, Master Timothy ! there be only one thing more to do ; the prizes of merit must be awarded, and it's for the pre- sent company to say whether the author of this piece deserves a silver ^^en for his writing, and we a silver star for our elocution. Ay, ay. Master Timothy, come forward and make your bow for a whole holiday. We have done 'cademising for the present, but the school is out. I trust we shall find our kind friends willing to meet us again in this our playground. Finale — " Come now all ye social powers." Tim. Omni bene, sine pene, Tempus est, ludendi. Snafp. Venit horsum, tandem, gigum, Drivum et rideudi ! Masia. We've done with school, And usher's nde. And I must lose my suitor I YORK AND LANCASTER. 27 Young W. No, let that pass, My dearest lass ; I'll be your private tutor. Mrs. S. Theu now we go without a woe, To spend a short vacation ; But sometime hence We'll recommence, With parents' approbation I All repeat the last verse together. LOST AND EOUND.-A FEAGIENT. A FARCE, CHAEACTERS. The Earl op Kavensdale. Jonas {his steward). Old Spriggs {a linendraper at Bodmin), Richard Spriggs {alias Travers). Sam Spriggs. Snap {servant to TraverSy brother of Sally), Lady Beldragon. The Hon. Miss Deloraine {her niece), Sally Perkins {Miss D.'s maid). ACT I. Scene I. Jn apartment at Lady Beldragon's. Miss Deloraine Im discovered writing at her desk. Enter Lady Beldragon. Lady B. So, niece, more of the epistolary, I must say I de- test so much corresponding ! Miss D. Now really, aunt, considering it is the only letter I have written for three days Lady B. And that is more than, at your age, I should have written in three weeks I LOST AND FOUND. 29 Miss D. Ah, but consider the improvement since then in our manufactures ! instead of a clumsy goose-quill — carved into a pen of no particular pattern — in lieu of a black puddle, called ink, thickened with cotton, and dried with sand — in the place of a rough half converted substance, in texture between a linen sheet and a sheet of paper ! Lady B. Go on. Miss D. Instead of these coarse contrivances, just fancy a limpid fluid of sky-blue, or rose colour, to match the com- plexion of your thoughts, a smooth vellum paper, over which the metallic pen glides as easily as a skate on the ice ; then the tinted blotting paper, the elegant fancy wax or the pretty medallions, and the neat envelope — in short, all the modern materials so beautiful to look at and so delightful to use, that if you had no better correspondent you would write to yourself and request an answer. Lady B. Indeed! But by your leave, my notions of pro- priety are not quite so dependent on the quality of my sta- tionery. In my time it was thought low and mercantile to be always corresponding, and it is not a little superlative pen, ink, and paper that will induce me to become a clerk in petti- coats ! Miss D. Oh, aunt ! Lady B. Oh, niece ! I tell you I am sick of this eternal write, write, writing, as if it were for your bread, like one of the scribbling blue stockings ! Miss D. Aunt, these injurious expressions — but I know their source. It is not my correspondence, but my corres- pondent that displeases you. In mentioning Mr. Travers I trace the origin of your spleen. Lady B. And in mentioning my spleen, pray trace the origin of Mister Travers ! Miss D. I understand that emphasis. It is true that Mr. 30 LOST AND FOUND. Travels cannot boast of an ancient pedigree ; his ancestors might not come over with the Normans, but by his genius and merit he has attained to eminence in an honourable profession. Lady B. A roll of parchment, a walking blue bag I Miss D. Lady Beldragon — you forget yourself. Lady B. And it's enough to make me forget myself, when I remember who I am ! a Beldragon descended from the Con- quest — one whose ancestors did come over with King William. Miss D. Pray hear me ! Lady B. a branch of one of the oldest houses in Europe ! A family with royal blood in their veins ! Miss D. My dear aunt, I know the pedigree by heart, and set a due value, I hope, on our hereditary honours. Lady B. Yes, so great a value that you would engraft a sprig of the law on the family tree ! Miss D. My dear, dear aunt — if you have ever loved, if you ever felt that mysterious attraction towards a living object, as if ail human pairs were actually predestined for each other, you would own in your heart Lady B. What ? Miss D. That its affections are beyond our own control. Lady B. And not fit they should be ! Tour afi'ections ought to be controlled by your relation*. They are the proper persons to choose for you. And indeed we have selected. Miss D. You have selected ! Lady B. Pray make yourself easy, the match has had the maturest consideration. It was made up, as I may say, at the baptismal font. Miss D. What, give me one name, and propose to change the. other all in a breath ! Lady B. Exactly so. Your noble godfather. Lord Eavens- dale, had a son christened at the same time. The coincidence of LOST AND FOUND. 31 your ages, the equality of your birth and fortune, suggested the match, and, in short, from that hour we fixed your affections on each other. ' Miss D. And till now you have not thought it necessary to acquaint me with the state of my heart. Lady B. Eidiculous ! As if the fulfilment of such a contract would be contemplated under the circumstances. The yery year after the ceremony Lord Kavensdale, for a political offence, was obliged suddenly to quit the country. But that proscription is at an end, and his lordship is hourly expected in England. Miss D. And I shall welcome my noble godfather with pleasure, but if more is expected from me towards the son Lady B. How ! do you mean to say you will not prefer him ? Miss D. Why reall}"^, aunt, considering I have never seen the gentleman, to insist on my preferring him to all the agreeable, handsome, and interesting single men whom I have looked upon, is a little unreasonable ! Lady B. O, the perversity of the present age ! In my time young people were mad after romantic attachments, and if loving at first sight be romantic, I presume that loving before sight must be still more so. Miss D. No doubt. And to some persons such a romance might be attractive, but for my own part I confess a prejudice against such hasty prepossessions. Lady B. And let me teU you, niece, your relations are as much above prejudice and prepossessions as you are. As for myself, nobody can be more impartial, for I have never seen his young lordship from the cradle. Miss D. Is it possible ! And with no more knowledge of his character and disposition than of his invisible person, you would assign me to him for life ! Lady B. Certainly. The urgency of Lord Eavensdale's flight, the long war, and the vigilance of his enemies, prevented all 32 LOST AND FOUND. intercourse with his friends. What became of the infant heir we have hitherto been unable to discover. But a few hours will clear up the mystery, and then, niece, it will become you to remember what I expect from you as well as what you expect from me. Miss D. Then I must be explicit. Left to your care, as an orphan, I owe to you the love and respect of a daughter. Against your wishes, therefore, it is painful, deeply painful to re- solve. But my heart already belongs to Eichard Travers, and as long as this living hand is obedient to my impulse, whilst it opens and shuts at will and thus rises {lifting it heavenwards) and thus falls {dropping it) it shall never be given to another ! JExit hastily. Lady B. How ! What ! Can I believe my senses ? This comes of her independent fortune, of her money in her own right — but no matter. If she brings that pettifogger into the family, I'm no Beldragon — ACT L Scene IL A square^ or quiet street. Enter Sam Spriggs with a bundle, Sam. Well, here I am in Lonnon, and a precious big place it is ! I never see a town run so long and wide in my life, let alone the outskirts and selvages. I suppose I must be near the fag end of ray walk— but if I know which way to turn I'll be hanged. Oh, here comes a passenger ! Enter Sally. My good young *oman, would you be so kind as to direct m'e to the hand post ? Sally. The handpost ! What do I see ? A face of famili- arity. Sam Spriggs ! Sam. What, Sally Perkins, my old sweetheart! LOST AND FOUND. 33 Sally. Why I heard you was drawn for a soldier, and gone to militate against the French. Sam. Not a yard of it — never stirr'd from the counter. Sally. Then that was a false report. La ! Sam, how hearty you look. Your cheeks are quite rubicon. Sam. And yours, too, all Avarranted fast colour, eh ? {going to kiss Tier). Sally. No, no. Consider the publicity. Besides, that is ail over now. Ah, Sam, if you had kept to your old connubbial promis — > Sam. Well, well, better late nor never. I'm took into the firm at last, and provided trade keeps briskish and the books wind up well at the end of the year, we'll come together like hook and eye. Sally. Ah ! Sam, Sam. Promises, you know, are like pie- crust, and if yours are to turn out as culinary Sam. Not for th« whole stock in trade ! You shall have it in writing, Sal, like a bill. A regular promise in black and white, and then if I break off, you know, you can set your own vally on me and proceed for the amount. Sally. Well, that does seem like sincereness, and so I will trust you once more. But remember, Sam, delays are danger- ous, and if you procrustinate again Sam. Never you fear. I'm determined to settle in life, and you're the woman. So that's booked. Only let the new year come in, and we'll both be throwed into one like two next doors ! Sally. And how is your father, Sam, and Master Richard ? Sam. What, Dick ? Dick Spriggs as was ? Bless you, run away years and years ago, and gone into the law line somewhere about Lonnon. Sally. Law ! how glad he'll be at your visitation ! Sam. Ah, don't be too sure o' that ! Dick never took to me, never since we was miuikcns. He was always ashamed of poor / 3i LOST AND FOUND. Sam. Bless you, he didn't treat me like the same fabric ; you*d have thought I was his brother by another father and mother. Sally. Yes, he was always a little upstartish and suppercilious ! Sam. always ; stuck up as stiff as a bit of buckram; and then so bookish, and sich a schollard ! That's the way he left the poor little shop at Bodmin. He never could stomach the cheap calico and dimities. There was I haggling maybe about a yard of flannin, and there was Dick, proud Dick, wouldn't lay his hand on a piece of velvet, I don't think he knowed a yard from a nail, or ever swept shop in his life. Sally. never, and I remember the shop was once shoplifted for want of his putting up his shutters. To be sure he was as proud as Lucifer. Sam. Lord ! as proud as a whole box on 'em ! And as snap- pish too, if you rubbed him harder than agreeable. Sally. And so he has degenerated away from you altogether? Sam. Yes, throwed up his indentures and us too. Cut all the branches of the Spriggs ; unbrothered me, and unfathered his father, and goes by quite another name and family ! Sally. The shocking creature! to disown one's relative ties for a little greatness, shows great littleness. Sam. It's true, howsomever. He has sent us all to Coventry (famous place for ribbons, you know), but I'll hunt him out, if I call on all the Traverses in Lonnon. Sally. Travers ! Here's a dev'Uopement ! To think I did not know him in spite of his incognitoes. Yes, yes, he's a lawyer, sure enough. Why, Sam, he's in love with the lady I live with, and comes suiting her every day of his life ! Sam. What, Dick and your Missis ! Sally. Yea, the Eight Honourable Miss Deloraine. She lives with her aunt, Lady Beldragon — a Dissenter from the Conquest. Sam. a Eight Honourable, and Dick a courting her; you're sure o' that ? LOST AND FOUND. ti Sally. certain. I know it by liis particularity as to figu- rative appearance, and the acidity of his attentions. Besides, he's always presenting her. The very last week he gave her the most beautiful foreign birds — a Virgilian nightingale, and a whole cage full of affidavits. Sam. Is it possible ? But he was always uppish in his no- tions, and wore three shirts a day, like a lord. Sally. It's true, however; and wliat's more, he lives here close by. Sam. What, Dick ! The dickens he does ! Come, show us the way ! O Dick, Dick, if you've forgot what's natural affection I haven't. Come along, Sal. I'm on an ounce of mixed pins till I see him ! Exeunt, ACT I. Scene III. Travers's Chambers. Travers is discovered reading. He lays down his hook, and comes forward. Travers. Yes, Shakespeare is light. " There is a tide in the affairs of men, that taken at the flood leads on to fortune." Nothing more true. There was such a tide in my own affairs, and I took it at the flood when I ran away from Bodmin and the counter. Prom that hour all has gone well with me : thriving in my fortune, happy in my love, and prosperous in my ambi- tion ! My income is large, an earl's daughter smiles on my suit, and to-morrow I shall be one of his Majesty's Serjeants y the stuff that judges are made of; and why not! The same auspi- cious influences that have raised meat the Bar, may elevate me to the Bench. The same propitious destiny that confers on me the silk gown and the coif may hereafter invest me with the scarlet robe and the ermine ! As he stands in rather a pompous attitude, tJie door hastily opens, and enter Sam Spriggs. Sam. Ah, Dick ! how are ye, boy ? Found ye out for all your alibi. What ! won't you shake hands ? 36 tiOST AND FOUND Tb AVERS. Sir ! really you have the advantage of me. Sam. Well, that's a good un ! So you don't remember Sam, nor the old shop down at Bodmin ! Ah, Dick, don't ye mind how we used to fence with the yard measures {poking Mm.) Tbavees. It's my brother ! What brings him to London ! Sam. I knew you'd be surprised, Dick, but the shop wanted tsew stocking. For example — poplins and bombazines, sheetings all widths, brown holiands, muslins book and mull, gentlemen's stout hose, ladies' ditto ditto ; so I thought I'd just come up to town and look you all out together, you know. Travers. Very kind indeed, Sam; I am delighted to see you (/ wish I were on the Northern Circuit /) Sam. Shall I sit down ? Travers. yes, do. Pray be seated. I beg your pardon, but these great law cases, involving the fortunes of whole families, the interests as I may say of the babe unborn, are apt to make one a little absent. Sam. Why, yes; you've been absent a goodish number of years. Travers. I mean to say — the truth is, my dear Sam — a bar- rister, that is to say a barrister in full practice, has very little spare time on his hands, very little indeed. The fact is I ought at this moment to be in the Common Pleas. Sam. Won't ye ask after father ? Travers. True, Sam, true. How is he ? SAM. Middlin, very middlin, as yaller as nankeen and wasting away to a tape. We're afeard the gout's going upwards to his stomach, and when once his vittles turn to chalk, you know — why he's as good as cut off the piece. And how be you yourself, Dick? Travers. Why, so so; rather poorly ; in fact, very unwell. A sort of return of an old family complaint. Sam. Ah ! the rheumatiz. I thought you seemed a little LOST AND FOUND. 37 stiffish like ! and besides, you was always rather consumptious. You should wear flannin, Dick, the best Welsh at two-and-six, and take care of your lungs. They're a delicate texter, you know; and if once you get a hackin' cough, they'll fray out like a sieezy sarsnet ! Travers. True, as you remark. Wliat was I going to say ? When do you go back, Sam ? Sam. Not afore Christmas, Dick. I mean to be a gentleman till the new year. Travers. There's a month of it ! I mean for you, Sam, to come when I am so busy — just term time, you know — and my briefs in the Common Pleas. Sam. Yes, yes, you're a lawyer, I know; but you a'nt always lawfully engaged for all that. You can't be always Common Pleasing. I say, Dick, you'll show me the sights o* Lonnon ? Travers. The sights, my dear Sam, the sights ! The truth is, you have been quite misinformed. There are no sights now in London. Sam. Come, now, Dick, that's a good un. A'nt there the lions ? Travers. No. All turned actors and gone to play in the country. Sam. That's true; it was in the papers. There's Saint Paul's, though. Travers. It's shut up for repairs. So is the Monument. Sam. The Tower, then ? Travers. Lock'd up since Waddington tried to take it. Sam. Well, the Wax-work ? Travers. Melted by a great fire at the next door. Sam. The great Bazaar ? Travers. Removed last quarter-day, and not unpacked yet. Sam. That's unluckv. Well Dick, I must stick by you instead. .^ 38 LOST AND FOUND. Traveus. (So he ivill). Now I think of it, Sam, there's the Horse Guards, and the Regent's Bomb, and G og and Magog, and London Stpne, and the Chelsea Water-works. Sam. ! I can see them, can I? Travers. Yes, all gratis, and without a guide ; and the new bridges and the new churches, and the new Palace, and the new Post-office, and the New Cut, and the New Eiver. Then there are King Charles at Charing Cross, and the Duke of York's column, and Nelson's column, and the Waillman column — and — and — all the obelisks. Sam. Well, that's a good un agin. I thought there was no sich sight of sights in Lonnon ! But I know how it is — you always did fight shy on me ; bat no matter, if you give me up, I won't give you up. I'll get a lodging close by, Dick— a top floor, and I'll drop in on ye whenever I can {going). Travers. My dear Sam, stop ! I can save you some trouble. There is not a place to let near the square — not a dog-hole. Sam. Then why do they ticket up their cheap rooms in the windows ? It's the old thing. You won't own to me {weeps). O, Dick, Dick, where's your nateral affection ? where's your brotherly love ? It's all washed out like a cheap printed cotton. Travers. {Here will he a scene /) My dear Sam, you mistake me ! Sam. No I don't. O, Dick ! you're a hash quality. Your relations is gone out o' fashion, and you want to cut me the cross way ! Travers. My dear Sam, you do me injustice ! Sam. No, I know ye, Dick, length and breadth ; but blood's blood, and if you don't stick to me, I'll stick to you. So if you're busy now, I'll come agin. I sha'n't grudge calling if it's a hundred times a day ; and if so be you're gone out, I sha'n't mind going arter ye. O, Dick, Dick, Dick, you wanted to untie all ties to me, but you've only drawed 'em into a double net [going). LOST AND FOUND. 39 Travers. Nay, my dear Sam. Sam. Don't Sam me, call me Mister at once. Travers. My dear brother, then — Sam. Well, that's more like the colour. Homsumever, here goes to try you, and if so be you do feel like a brother, you won't object. Travers. Well, Sam ? Sam. Why, then, take me to court. Travers. To court? Sam. Yes. I know you're not proud of me, but I'm proud of you ; and of all the sights in Lonnon, I should like to say down at Bodmin I seed Dick in court in his bag-wig and gownd ! Travers. Ridiculous ! impossible ! My good fellow, the courts, at least some of them, are not public thoroughfares. Sam. What, not open to everybody, like our shop ? Travers. No. Sam. Well, that's a fob off, anyhow ! for I've been to our 'sizes. O, Dick, you're ketched out. But no matter ; you may tear your- self off, but you belong to the same ticket ; a brother's a brother, and though you neglect me, I won't neglect you. I'll haunt ye like a ghost — I'H follow arter ye like a faithful dog, and the more you cut me the more I'll come agin. Exit Travers. Travers. But Sam, Sam, I say ! He's gone. Follow me like a dog, and haunt me like a ghost — there's a promise — and he will too, to shock me with his vulgarity and distress me with an affection I cannot reciprocate. With self-reproach I confess it, but I never could feel towards poor Sam as a brother ; our tastes, pursuits, pastimes, everything were always widely asunder. He preferred put — I liked piquet — ^he played on the Jew's harp, and I studied the German flute — to conclude, he fell in love with a maidservant, and I am engaged to a lady of noble family. Ah, there it is ! If Julia, or Lady Beldragon should obtain a glimpse of him, I am ruined ! 40 LOST AND FOUND. He rings. Enter Snap. Snap. I am going to Harley Street, and if that strange gentleman calls again Snap. Yes, that very strange gentleman. Tr AVERS. I mean the country person, a client from Wiltshire. Snap. yes, Su*, a rustical snobbish sort of fellow. Travers (testily). Zounds ! Sirrah, will you hear me ? I say if he calls again, I am gone out, gone into the country, gone abroad, and shall not be back for six months. Exit. Snap. Ha! ha! ha! a client from Wiltshire. The strange gentleman. Yes, a very strange gentleman indeed. Why, I know his face as well as Georgius Eex's on a shilling ; many a good game at put I've had with him on his father's counter. We had a battle too for Sally Perkins. She was our toast. I must look sharp or they'll be making up their old match again, egad ! I'll persuade her that Sam is married already, and has a wife and children down at Eodmin. Let me see, two boys and a girl, the eldest ten years old, the next eight, and a baby on the lap, for a good lie, like good Madeira, ought always to be parti- cular. Scene IV. At Lady Beldeagon's. Enter Miss Deloeaine attended by Sally. Miss D. And you actually met his brother in the street. Are you sure you know his person ? Sally. What, Sam ? I should say, Mr. Samuel Spriggs ? ! certain ; I could indentify him on oath before a judge and jury. Miss D. Travers the son of a country linendraper I a father and a brother alive ! — I will never believe it I Sally. As you please. Miss, but only ask anybody down at Bodmin, and you will find ewery jparticiple of my statistics to be religiously acurate. LOST AND POUND. 41 Miss D. It is incredible ! And yet, Sally, you would haxdly tell me so gratuitous a falsehood. Sally. never, Miss ! I wouldn't tell a gratuitous false- hood for a guinea ! Miss D. In Bodmin, did you say ? Sally. Yes, Miss, in the county of Cornwall. Miss D. And a linendrapery establishment ! Sally. Yes, Miss ; that is to say not an emporium, such as in Eegent Street, with India shawls, and china punchbowls, and ivory chestmen, and birds of paradise in the winder. Not the place one would go to for a sumptious velvet, or rich silk, but for such things as printed cottons and ginghams, a very good assortment, and as to remnants of ribbon, quite without its parallelogram for cheapness. Miss D. Enough, Sally. Sally. Then, as to serving, one couldn't expect such multi- plicitus' young men as at Ludgate Hill, or Holborn, but as far as one or two could be civil and obsequs to a customer, if it was only a servant for a piece of tape Miss D. Enough, enough, Sally ; you may go (exit Sally). Travers the son of a little country shopkeeper ! If Lady Bel- dragon should hear the story ! her intolerable raillery could desire no better topic ! Unter Lady Beldragon. Lady B. So, niece ! I have heard all, and beg leave to wish you joy on your new prospects in life. I can truly say they are such as your best friends coidd never have hoped for. Miss D. Madam, if these expressions are meant to mortify and wound me Lady B. O, quite the reverse. I intended only to congratu- late. Everybody must rejoice at your choosing a station in life that will afford you an opportunity of serving your friends. 42 LOST AND FOUND. Miss D. As I expected. Lady B. Por my own part, I have every reason to be satis- fied with the change, for instead of opposing my simple wishes as at present, you will perhaps, by-and-by, be solicitous for my orders. Miss D. This is cruel. Madam, but according to your custom. Lady B. I beg pardon ; I presume that my custom would be now desirable. Miss D. I can bear it no longer ! Lady Beldragon, pray recollect that the report you allude to may be founded in error. I expect Mr. Travers immediately, and till we have heard his explanation, it would be but just to suspend your remarks. Understand me, however ; no mere accident of birth or fortune could diminish my regard and respect for Mr. Travers, but to disown a brother and a father argues a bad heart, and only let that point be once established, not by the gossip of menials, but from his own lips (a hnocJc) — But here he is — Lady B. (retiring into the back room). And therefore, by your leave, I will make myself free of the Drapers' Company. Exit. Travees is announced. Travers. My dearest Julia — Miss D. Sir, your servant. Travers. What a freezing manner {aside). If I did not come, Julia, by your own appointment, I should fancy that this visit was mistimed. Miss D. 0, not at all ! On the contrary, it is more desirable than ever {they take chairs). So I find, Mr. Travers, that you have a relation. Travers {mmping up). Sam again! I beg pardon {sits down). Then you have seen him ? Miss D. No, I have not enjoyed that pleasure, but merely LOST AND FOUND. 43 heard of him — a relation of some kind, but not of the same name, something beginning I think with an S — Stretch, or Spring, or Spragg. Travers. Yes — something of that kind. The truth is, Julia, when I told you that I had no relations, I forgot a sort of cousin or half cousin, a quarter cousin, something as near as that — ^but very distant. Miss D. O, make yourself easy. I merely meant to request as you have such a relation in town that you would afford me the pleasure of an introduction. Travers. Introduce you — to Sam — impossible. Miss D. How, Sir ? Travers. That is to say, he is so very diffident — so shy, so reserved — never goes anywhere— a perfect Zimmermann. Miss D. Ha ! Ha ! What a strange creature. Travers. O, very ! always was from a child. Moped away from everyone — in the grotto — or up in a tree. We used to call him the hermit ! Miss D. Is it possible ? Well, really, I am dying to see this strange shy cousin of yours. You must bring him. Travers. My dear Julia. I should be very proud — that is if he would come — but — but — the fact is I do not know where he is. MissD. No? Travers. At least not exactly. London is a very large place, very — and then, there are all the suburbs. Miss D. True; and really one may lose a relation in a much smaller place — one's own heart, for instance. Travers (alarmed). What does she mean ? Julia, the truth is, I have a suspicion, merely a suspicion, where he is. Miss D. So have I, Sir (rises). Poor Samuel Spriggs ! Travers (Jumping up). Distraction ! she knows all ! Julia ! hear me ! 44 LOST AND FOUND. Miss D. I need not, Sir. Your conscience speaks in your face. To disavow your own brother — your own father 1 ! Travers, Travers, I thought you had more heart {going). Travers. Nay, but hear me — Julia — Julia {she retreats into the back roomy and bolts the door). I am lost — ruined, my dearest hopes blighted for ever ! And all through Sam. I do disown him ! He shall be no brother of mine, no friend, no acquaintance — 0! my mind foretold all this. I knew it when I saw him. Misfortune has cut his face upon her seal, and will stamp my fate with it for ever ! Exit, ACT I. Scene V. At Lord Eavensdale's. Enter Lord Eavensdale in a travelling dress, attended by Jonas. Lord E. Jonas, my trusty Jonas, your hand, the first I grasp in England. A moment to collect myself {takes a turn to and fro). And now — where is my son ? Jonas {gloomily). Humph I Lord E. {alarmed). How ! Merciful Heaven, grieving only at distance, have I forgotten that death might come between us ? Jonas. He's alive. Lord E. {impatiently). Why then, where? why not here {Jonas shrugs his shoulders). Jonas, you doubt my fortitude —but I am calm, quite calm. 'S death ! why don't you bring him to me? Jonas. I can't. Lord E. Pshaw ! Pool that I was to send you on such an errand ; a dog indeed in fidelity, but almost as dumb an animal. Jonas, Jonas, you have stood by me in exile, and brooded over my wrongs and misfortunes into this very sullenness, but do for once relax those stubborn jaws, and be silent, if you will, ever after. Where is my son ? LOST AND FOUND. 45 Jonas. Don't know. Lord R. No ? Have you not been, then, to Lady Eeldragon ? Jonas. She don't know. Lord E. How ! what ! This is worse than Indian torture ! A word would ease me, and you keep me on the rack. Jonas, you are a savage. Jonas. I've been to Bodmin. Lord K. 'Twas well done ! , Forgive me, Jonas ! You were always more ready in deeds than in words. And what of my son? Jonas. Old Spriggs is a villain. Lord R. Ha ! he has not dared to abuse his^trust ! Speak — quick — what has he done with my boy ? Jonas. Been a father to him. Lord R. Pish! why so I hoped. In the exigency of my flight he was entrusted perforce with the infancy of Richard Ravensdale. Jonas. Alias Spriggs. LordR. How? What? Jonas. Alias Spriggs. Lord R. His own plebeian name ! 0, I conceive you now. What, dare to appropriate my son, the heir of Ravensdale, a Spriggs — ^next to the earldom — a Spriggs — Richard Spriggs ? Jonas. Draper and haberdasher. Lord R. His own infernal trade ! Fire and furies ! Jonas ! But my poor boy, you took him instantly from the counter ? Jonas. No, took himself. Ran away years ago. Lord R. Our own spirit ; and that arch villain — you secured him, Jonas? Jonas. No, secured himself; absconded on my arrival. Lord R. But a halter shall catch him yet ! And my son. Tell me all, in your own way, Jonas. Where is my dear son ? Jonas. Somewhere in London, in the law. I've been seek • ing him. 46 LOST AND FOUND. Lord K. And seek still. A lawyer I search the law list ; haunt all the courts ; hunt every inn, every chamber ; enquire everywhere for Jonas. Eichard Spriggs. Lord E. Curse the name ! But do it 1 For myself, London is not so vast but a father's love shall hunt it through. Yes, from street to street, from house to house. I'll knock from door to door till I find him. Exeunt. ACT L— Scene VI. Snap discovered sitting in Travers's chambers. Snap. Aw, yaw {-yawns). This law is a very dry business, even at second-hand; for master follows the law, and I follow him. I wish his old parchments covered a drum ; they wouldn't be half so humdrum. The army's the place for gallantry, but here in the law, we've plenty of gown but no petticoat. Enter Servant. Servant. A young woman enquiring for you, Mr. Snap. Snap. Send her up. I'm at home to all the sex. Exit Servant* Enter Sally. Sally. Good-morning, Mr. Snap; I expected to find Mr. Samuel Spriggs here. Snap. He did call, but he's gone again. Ah, Sally, bad fel-t low that Sam. Sally. Mr. Snap — but I know your motives. You have a preposition against him, because I'm prejudicial in his favoun Not that I am unconscientious of his defections.; he's gayish* and has his fables like other folks. Snap. Poor creature ! so unsuspecting ! thinks he*s better than he ought to be, and it's quite the reverse ! Sally. Y^'ou want to impose on my crudelity I LOST AND FOUND. 47 Snap. Your credulity ! Not for the world ! I want to warn you. I was bound to secrecy, and Honour held the indentures, but the time is out, when you ought to know all. Sally. Mr. Snap, your induenduses have put me in a state of violent suspension, and I beg you will put me out of sufferance as soon as you can. Snap. Why then — ^ut mind, if I open your eyes, you must shut your mouth. Sally. O involubly 1 What is told me under tlie rose I keep in violet. Snap. Well, then. You remember the shop down at Bodmin; it had some goods in it once. Well, Sam has sold all, sold omni- um, and when old Spriggs wanted to take stock, there was no stock to take. But that's not the worst ; his poor wife Sally {almost with a scream.) His what? Snap. His poor wife, took her to be a help meet to him, but gave her no meat to help, and one day after dinner he deserted her. Sally. Deserted her ! Snap. Yes, consigned an abandoned woman of angelic virtue to a wide world and a narrow income ; left three naked children to a bare subsistence, with their mouths open at their tender years — in short, left the whole family to go to pot, and nothing to boil it with. Sally. Sam manied ! Snap. Fact; by the Eev. Charles Dempsey Waterworth, Vicar of St. Magnum Bonura. I've seen the certificate. Sally. The monster ! and to promise matrimoneously to me! why, I might have been conjuggled into bigamy. I'm petrified like Stone Hinge, and do not know which way to turn ! O ! Mr. Snap, how shall I ever reward you for saving me from such a precipus ? Snap. Don't mention it. Virtue Days its own reward on 48 LOST AND FOUND. conviction. Now I think of it, though, as there will be a vacancy in your heart {knocking) — The deuce ! there's my master. I always know Latitat by his rat-tat-tat (Sally attempts to escape). No, not that way, he'll meet you on the stairs ; nor that way, he'll catch you in his bed-room. Here in this closet ; there's only old Coke and Lyttelton in it. Sally. Mercy on us! Why, then, the two old gentlemen have heard the converse of everything ? Snap. Nonsense — they're only books, and haven't even dogs* ears [pusJies her in) ! Here he comes, in a pretty storm {knocking), I know his thunder. ^nter Travers, disordered and heated. Travers. Phew! a pretty run I've had. Hunted thro' the public streets like a pickpocket. Dick, Dick, Dick'd, till half the town knows my Christian name, at any rate {sees Snap). You here ? Who has called, Snap ? Snap. Only two young gentlemen in black, Sir. Sprigs, I take it. Travers. What do you mean, Sirrah ? Smap. Sprigs of the law. Sir — young scions. Travers. Well, well, you may go. Why the devil don't ye go. Sir? Snap, {glancing at the closet). I beg pardon, Sir, but are you going to sit in ? Travers. Yes. Snap. All day. Sir? Travers. Yes. What then? Snap. Nothing, Sir ; only in that case, there'll be no sallying out. Travers. And what is that to you? Snap. Nothing, Sir ; only, as the man said of the members of parliament, if they didn't sit so much, it would be better for the constitution. LOST AND FOUND. 49 Travers. Pshaw! as if I were in the humour to listen to your puns {exit Snap.) That fellow becomes intolerable. I would part with him on the spot, but that I am disposed to part with myself. Such another day can only end with a brace of bullets ! Euined with Lady Beldragon ! broken with Julia — and all thro' Sam ! Hunted by him thro' the streets — haunted by him in my chambers — nothing but Sam, Sam, Sam (a noise of hooks falling). A noise, and in the closet (opens it and pulls out Sally). A woman, too {brings her forward). Sally ! and now, in the devil's name, what brought you here ? Sally. O, Sir, don't be impassioned with me! The truth is, we heard your foot coming up stairs — and so — and so — Mr, Snap transformed me into the closet. Travers. Aye ! I guessed it was one of his precious amours. Sally. O, Sir, it was none of Mr. Snap that was sought for on my part. Travers. No ? Who then ? Sally. If you please, Sir {courtesy ing)^ it was Mr. Samiuel Spriggs. Travers. Sam again ! and making assignations in my own chambers. I shall go mad ! Hence ! Out — out of my way {Sally run^ out terrified) . Another turn of the evil genius that pursues me ! and Snap again with the demon of punning. Enter Snap. Snap. A stranger. Sir, won't be denied. Exit Snap, Travers. He must, he shall. Eun ! fly ! Say I can't, won't see him ! If you let him in The devil ! here he is. Enter Jonas. Jonas. Servant, Sir. By your leave, I want to enquire Travers. To the point, Sir, to the point! Jonas, If you know a young man from the West of England 60 LOST AND FOUND. Travers. Quick, Sir — his name. Jonas. Spriggs. Travers. Sam again ! Pellow, begone while you're safe. I'm frantic — a madman ! — a savage ! Jonas. Nay, hut one word — only one — your name, Sir ? Travers. Why then, Satan ! Lucifer ! Beelzebub ! {Jonas escapes). Snap ! I say, Snap ! Enter Snap. I'm ill. Sirrah, and must lie down. Shut all the shutters — take off the door plate — ^muffle the bell, pull off the knocker, and deny me — deny me till you're black in the face ! Say I don't live here — never lived here. Zounds I — never lived anywhere — a mere man of straw. Ikii, HOOD^S WHIMSICALITIES. ANACREONTIC. BY A FOOTMAN. It's wery well to talk in praise Of Tea and Water- drinking ways, In proper time and place ; Of sober draughts, so clear and cool, Dipp'd out of a transparent pool Eeflecting heaven's face. Of babbling brooks, and purling riUs, And streams as gushes from the hills. It's wery well to talk ; — But what becomes of all sich schemes, With ponds of ice, and running streams. As doesn't even walk ? When Winter comes with piercing cold. And all the rivers, new or old, Is frozen far and wide ; And limpid springs is solid stuff. And crystal pools is hard enough To skate upon and slide ; — AVhat then are thirsty men to do. But drink of ale, and porter too. Champagne as makes a fizz ; Port, sherry, or the Rhenish sort. And p'rhaps a drop of summut short — The water-pipes is friz ! 52 THE SCHOOLMISTEESS ABROAD. ' AND TELEMACHUS KWBW IHAT HE BEHELD MIlfEEVA." THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. AN EXTRAVAGANZA. " She tawht 'hem to sew and marke, All manner of sylkyn werke, Of her they were ful fayne." — Romance ofEmare. CHAPTER I. A Schoolmistress ought not to travel — "No, Sir I" No, Madam — except on the map. There, indeed, she may- skip from a blue continent to a green one — cross a pink isthmus — traverse a Red, Black, or Yellow Sea — land in a purple island, or roam in an orange desert, without danger or indecorum. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 53 There she may ascend dotted rivers, sojourn at capital cities, scale alps, and wade through bogs, without soiling her shoe, rumpling her satin, or showing her ankle. But as to practical travelling, — real journeying and voyaging, — oh, never, never, never ! " How, Sir ! "Would you deny to a Preceptress all the ex- cursive pleasures of locomotion ? " By no means, Miss. In the summer holidays, when the days are long, and the evenings are light, there is no objection to a little trip by the railway — say to Weybridge or Slough — pro- vided always — "Well, Sir?" That she goes by a special train, and in a first-class carriage. *' Eidiculous ! " Nay, Madam — consider her pretensions. She is little short of a Divinity ! — Diana, without the hunting ! — a modernised Minerva ! — the Representative of Womanhood in all its purity ! Eve, in full dress, with a finished education — a Model of Morality — a Pattern of Propriety — the Puglewoman of her Sex ! As such she must be perfect. No medium performance — no ordinary good-going, like that of an eight-day clock or a Dutch dial — will suffice for the character. She must be as correct as a prize chronometer. She must be her own Pros- pectus personified. Spotless in reputation, immaculate in her dress, regular in her habits, refined in her manners, elegant in her carriage, nice in her taste, faultless in her phraseology, and in her mind like — like "Pray what. Sir?" Why, like your own chimney-ornament. Madam — a pure crystal fountain, sipped by little doves of alabaster. "A sweet pretty comparison 1 Well, go on. Sir." Now, look at travelling. At the best, it is a rambling, scrambling, shift-making, strange-bedding, irregular-mealing, 4 54 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. foreign-habiting, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy sort of pro- cess. At the very least, a female must expect to be rumpled and dusted ; perhaps draggled, drenched, torn and roughcasted — and if not bodily capsized or thrown a summerset, she is likely to have her straitest-laced prejudices upset, and some of her most orthodox opinions turned topsyturvy. An accident of little moment to other women, but to a schoolmistress productive of a professional lameness for life. Then she is certain to be stared at, jabbered at, may be jeered at, and poked, pushed, and hauled at, by curious or officious foreigners — to be accosted by perfect and imperfect strangers — in short, she is liable to be revolted in her taste, shocked in her religious principles, dis- turbed in her temper, disturbed in her dress, and deranged in her decorum. But you shall hear the sentiments of a School- mistress on the subject. " Oh, a made-up letter." No, Miss — a genuine epistle, upon my literaiy honour. Just look at the writing — the real copybook running-hand — not a t uncrossed — not an i undotted — not an illegitimate flourish of a letter, but each j and g and y turning up its tail like the pug dogs, after one regular established pattern. And pray observe her capitals. No sprawling K with a kicking leg — no trouble- some W making a long arm across its neighbour, and especially no great vulgar D unnecessarily sticking out its stomach. Her H, you see, seems to have stood in the stocks, her I to have worn a backboard, and even her S is hardly allowed to be crooked. CHAPTER II. " Phoo ! phoo ! it's all banter," exclaims the Courteous Header. Banter be hanged ! replies the Courteous Writer. But possibly, my good Sir, you have never seen that incomparable schoolinis- THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 55 Iress, Miss Crane, for a Miss she was, is, and would be, even if Campbell's Last Man were to offer to her for the preservation of the species. One sight of her were, indeed, as good as a thousand, seeing that nightly she retires into some kind of mould, like a jelly shape, and turns out again in the morn- ing the same identical face and figure, the same correct, ceremonious creature, and in the same costume to a crinkle. But no — you never can have seen that She-Mentor, stiff as starch, formal as a Dutch hedge, sensitive as a Daguerreotype, and so tall, thin, and upright, that supposing the Tree of Know- ledge to have been a poplar, she was the very Dryad to have fitted it! Other- wise, remembering that unique image, all fancy and fi'ost work — so incrusted with crisp and brit- tle particularities — so bedecked alleg- orically with the primrose of pru- dence, the daisy of decorum, the violet of modesty, and the A woTB OF ADMiEATioir. Hly of puHty, you would confess at once that such a Schoolmistress was as unfit to travel — unpacked — as a Dresden China figure ! ** Excuse, me. Sir, but is there actually such a real personage ? " "Real ! Are there real Natives — Real Blessinofs to Mothers— 56 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. — Eeal Del Monte shares, and Keal Water at the Adelphi ? Only call her * * * * * instead of Crane, and she is a living, breathing, flesh and blood, skin and bone individual ! Why, there are dozens, scores, hundreds of her Ex-Pupils, now grown women, who will instantly recognise their old Governess in the form with which, mixing up Grace and Gracefulness, she daily prefaced their rice-milk, batter-puddings, or raspberry-bolsters. As thus : "For what we are going to receive — elbows, elbows! — the Lord make us — backs in and shoulders down — truly thankful — and no chattering — amen." CHAPTER III. " But the letter, Sir, the letter '* " Oh, I do so long," exclaims one, who would be a stout young woman, if she did not wear a pinafore, " oh, I do so long to hear how a governess writes home ! " ** The professional epistle," adds a tall, thin Instructress, genteelly in at the elbows, but shabbily out at the fingers' ends, for she has only twenty pounds per annum, with five quarters in arrear. '* The schoolmistress's letter," cries a stumpy Teacher — only a helper, but looking as important as if she were an educational coachwoman, with a team of her own, some five-and-twenty skittish young animals, without blinkers, to keep straight in the road of propriety. *• The letter. Sir," chimes in a half-boarder, looking, indeed, as if she had only half-dined for the last half-year. " Come, the letter you promised us from that paragon, Miss Crane." That's true. Mother of the Muses, forgive me ! I had for- gotten my promise as utterly as if it had never been made. If THE SCHOOLMISTKESS ABROAD 57 AHD MO CHATTBBIN-G— AMKzr. 58 THE SCHOOLMISTKESS ABROAD. any one had furnished the matter with a file and a rope-ladder it could not have escaped more clearly from my remembrance. A loose tooth could not more completely have gone out of my head. A greased eel could not more thoroughly have slipped my memory. But here is the letter, sealed with pale blue wax, and a device of the Schoolmistress's own invention — namely, a note of interrogation (?) with the appropriate motto of " an answer required." And in token of its authenticity, pray ob- serve that the cover is duly stamped, except that of the foreign postmark only the three last letters are legible, and yet even from these one may swear that the missive has come from Holland ; yes, as certainly as if it smelt of Dutch cheese, pickle- herrings, and Schie * * * ! But hark to Governess ! •*I DO SO LONG TO HiiAB HOW Jk. GOVitUMiSS WRlTlii HOME." THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 59 My dear Miss Parfitt, Under the protection of a superintending Providence, we have arrived safely at this place, which as you know is a sea- port in the Dutch dominions — chief city Amsterdam. For your amusement and improvement I did hope to compose a journal of our continental progress, with such references to Guthrie and the School Atlas as might enable you to trace our course on the Map of Europe. But unexpected vicissitudes of mind and body have totally incapacitated me for the pleasing task. Some social evening hereafter I may entertain our little juvenile circle with my locomotive miseries and disagreeables ; but at present my nerves and feeling are too discomposed for the correct flow of an epistolary correspondence. Indeed, from the Tower-stair to Rotterdam I have been in one universal tremor A DUTCH 8TKAMEB. and perpetual blush. Such shocking scenes and positions, that make one ask twenty times a day, is Ibis decorum ? — can this be 60 THE SCIIOOLMISTEESS ABROAD. morals ? But I must not anticipate. Suffice it, tliat as regards foreign travelling it is my painful conviction, founded on per- sonal experience, that a woman of delicacy or refinement cannot go out of England without going out of herself ! The very first step from an open boat up a windy shipside is an alarm to modesty, exposed as one is to the officious but odious attentions of the Tritons of the Thames. Nor is the steamboat itself a sphere for the preservation of self-respect. If there is any feature on which a British female prides herself, it is a correct and lady-like carriage. In that particular I quite coin- cide with Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Hannah More, and other writers on the subject. But how — let me ask — how is a dignified deport- ment to be maintained when one has to skip and straddle over cables, ropes, and other nautical ho7's d'oeuvres — to scramble up and down impracticable stairs, and to clamber into inaccessible beds ? Not to name the sudden losing one's centre of gravity, and falling into all sorts of unstudied attitudes on a sloppy and slippery deck. An accident that I may say reduces the elegant and the awkward female to the same level. You will be con- cerned, therefore, to learn that poor Miss Kuth had a fall, and in an unbecoming posture particularly distressing — namely, by losing her footing on the cabin flight, and coming down with a destructive launch into the steward's pantry. For my own part, it has never happened to me within my re- membrance to make a false step, or to miss a stair : there is a certain guarded carriage that preserves one from such sprawling denouements — but of course what the bard calls the " poetry of motion," is not to be preserved amidst the extempore rollings of an ungovernable ship. Indeed, within the last twenty-four hours, I have had to perform feats of agility more fit for a monkey than one of my own sex and species. Par example : getting down from a bed as high as the copy-book board, and, what really is awful, with the sensation of groping about with THE SCHOOLMISTEESS ABROAD. 61 your feet and legs for a floor that seems to have no earthly ex- istence. I may add, the cabin-door left ajar and exposing you to the gaze of an obtrusive cabin-boy, as he is called, but quite big enough for a man. Oh, je ne jamais ! As to the Mer Maladie, delicacy forbids the details ; but as Miss Ruth says, it is the height of human degradation ; and to add to the climax of our letting down, we had to give way to the most humiliating impulses in the presence of several of the rising generation — dreadfully rude little girls who had too evidently enjoyed a bad bringing-up. To tell the truth, your poor Governess was shockingly indis- posed. Not that I had indulged my appetite at dinner, being too much disgusted with a public meal in promiscuous society, and as might be ex- pected, elbows on ta- ble, eating with knives, and even picking teeth with forks ! And then no grace, which as- suredly ought to be said both before and after, whether we are to re- tain the blessings or not. But a dinner at sea and a school din- ner, where we have even our regular beef and batter days, are two very different things. Then to allude to mdiscriminate conversation, a great part of which is in a foreign language, and accordingly places one in the cruel position of hearing, without understanding a word of, the most libertine THB PAXB 01' CIVIlISATIoa-. 62 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. and atheistical sentiments. Indeed, I fear I have too often been smiling complacently, not to say engagingly, when I ought rather to have been flashing with virtuous indignation, or even administering the utmost severity of moral reproof. I did en- deavour, in one instance, to rebuke indelicacy ! but unfortunately from standing near the funnel, was smutty all the while I was talking, and as school experience confirms, it is impossible to command respect with a black on one's nose. Another of our Cardinal Virtues, personal cleanliness, is totally impracticable on ship-boai'd : but without particularising, I will only name a general sense of grubbiness ; and as to dress, a rumpled and tumbled tout ensemble^ strongly indicative of the low and vulgar pastime of rolling down Greenwich-hill ! And then, in such a costume to land in HoUand, where the natives get up linen with a perfection and purity, as Miss Ruth says, quite worthy of the primeval ages ! That^ surely is bad enough — but to have one's trunks rummaged like a suspected menial — to see aU the little secrets of the toilette, and all the mysteries of a female wardrobe exposed to the searching gaze of a male official — 0, shocking ! shocking ! In short, my dear, it is my candid impression, as regards foreign travelling, that except for a masculine tallyhoying female of the Di Vernon genus, it is hardly adapted to our sex. Of this at least I am certain, that none but a born romp and hoydon, or a girl accustomed to those new-fangled pulley-hauley exer- cises, the Calisthenics, is fitted for the boisterous evolutions of a sea-voyage. And yet there are creatures calling themselves Women, not to say Ladies, who will undertake such long marine passages as to Bombay in Asia, or New York, in the New World ! Consult Arrowsmith for the geographical degrees. Affection, however, demands the sacrifice of my own personal feelings, as my Eeverend Parent and my Sister are still inclined to prosecute a Continental Tour. I forgot to tell you that during THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 63 tlie voyage, Miss Euth endeavoured to parlez Fran^ais with some of the foreign ladies, but as they did not understand her, they must all have been Germans. My paper warns to conclude. I rely on your superintending vigilance for the preservation of domestic order in my absence. The horticultural department I need not recommend to your cai6, knowing your innate partiality for the offspring of "Flora — and the dusting of the fragile ornaments in the drawing-room you will assuredly not trust to any hands but your own. Blinds down of course — the front-gate locked regularly at 5 p.m. — and I must particularly beg of your musical penchant a total abstinence on Sundays from the pianoforte. And now adieu. The Keverend T. C. desires his compliments to you, and Miss Euth adds her kind regards, with which believe me. My dear Miss Parfitt, Your affectionate Friend and Preceptress, Priscilla Crane. P.S. — I have just overheard a lady describing, with strange levity, an adventure that befell her at Cologne. A foVeign post- man invading her sleeping-apartment, and not only delivering a letter to her on her pillow, but actually staying to receive his money, and to give her the change ! And she laughed and called him her Bed Post I Y\ done ! Pi done I CHAPTEE IV. Well — there is the letter — *' And a very proper letter too," remarks a retired Seminarian, Mrs. Grove House, a faded, demure-looking old lady, with a set face so like wax, that any strong emotion would have cracked it to pieces. And never, except on a doll, was there a face with such a miniature set of features, or so crowned with a chaplet of little string- coloured curls. 64 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. •* A proper letter ! — what with all that fuss about delicacy and decorum ! *' Yes, Miss. At least proper for the character. A School- mistress is a prude by profession. She is bound on her reputa- tion to detect improprieties, even as he is the best lawyer who discovers the most flaws. It is her cue, where she cannot find an indecorum, to imagine it ; — just as a paid Spy is compelled, in a dearth of High Treason, to invent a conspiracy. In fact, it was our very Miss Crane who poked out an objection, of which no other woman would have dreamt, to those little button-mush- rooms called Pages. She would not keep one, she said, for his weight in gold. " But they are all the rage," said Lady A. " Everybody has one," said Mrs. B. " They are so showy ! " said Mrs. C. " And so interesting ! " lisped Miss D. " And so useful ! " suggested Miss E. " I would rather part with half my servants,'' declared Lady A, *' than with my handsome Cherubino ! " " Not a doubt of it,*' replied Miss Crane, with a gesture of the most profound acquiescence. "But if T were a married woman, I would not have such a boy about me for the world — no, not for the whole terrestrial globe. A Page is unquestion- ably very d la mode^ and very dashing, and very pretty, and may be very useful — but to have a youth about one, so beauti- fully dressed, and so indulged, not to say pampered, and yet not exactly treated as one of the family — I should certainly expect that everybody would take him- " " For what, pray, what ? " " Why, for a natural son in disguise" THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 65 CHAPTEE V. But to return to the Tour. — It is a statistical fact, that since 1814 an unknown number of persons, bearing an indefinite proportion to the gross total of the population of the British empire, have been more or less "abroad." Not politically, or metaphysically, or figuratively, but literally out of the kingdom, or, as it is called, in foreign parts. In fact, no sooner was the Continent opened to us by the Peace, than there was a general rush towards the mainland. An Alarmist, like old Croaker, might have fancied that some of our "bibds of a featheb- disaifected Merthyr Tydvil miners or underminers were scut- tling the Island, so many of the natives scuttled out of it. The outlandish secretaries, who sign passports, had hardly leisure to take snufF. 66 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. It was good however for trade. Carpet-bags and portmanteaus rose one hundred per cent. All sorts of Guide-books and Journey Works went off like wildfire, and even Sir Humphry Davy's "Consolations in Travel" was in strange request. Servants, who had " no objection to go abroad " were snapped up like fortunes — and as to hard-riding " Curriers," — there was nothing like leather. It resembled a geographical panic — and of all the Country and Banks in Christendom, never was there such a run as on the Banks of the Rhine. You would have thought that they BA.BBLT Civil.. were going to break all to smash — of course making away be- forehand with their splendid furniture, unrivalled pictures, and capital cellar of wines ! However, off flew our countrymen and countrywomen, like migrating swallows, but at the wrong time THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 67 of year ; or rather like shoals of salmon, striving up, up, up against the stream, except to spawn Tours and Eeminiscences, hard and soft, instead of roe. And would that they were going up, up, up still — for when they came down again, Ods, Jobs, and patent Grizels ! how they did bore and Germanise us, like so many flutes. It was impossible to go into Society without meeting units, tens, hundreds, thousands of Ehenish Tourists — travellers in Ditchland, and in Deutchland. People who had seen Nimagen and Nim- Again — who had been at Cologne, and at Koeln, and at Colon — at Cob-Longs and Coblence — at Swang Gwar and at Saint Go-er — at Bonn — at Bone — and at Bong ! Then the airs they gave themselves over the untravelled ! How they bothered them with Bergs, puzzled them with Bads, deaf- ened them with Dorfs, worried them with Heims, and pelted them with Steins ! How they looked down upon them, as if from Ehrenbreitstein, because they had not eaten a German sausage in Germany, sour krout iu its own country, and drunk seltzer water at the fountain-head ! What a donkey they deemed him who had not been to Assmanshausen — what a cockney who had not seen a Rat's Castle besides the one in St. Giles's ! He was, as it were, in the kitchen of society, for to go " up the Rhine," was to go up stairs ! Now this very humiliation was felt by Miss Crane ; and the more that in her establishment for Young Ladies she was the Professor of Geography, and the Use of the Globes. Moreover, several of her pupils had made the trip with their parents during the vacations, and treated the travelling part of the business so lightly, that in a rash hour the Schoolmistress determined to go abroad. Her junior sister. Miss Ruth, gladly acceded to the scheme, and so did their only remaining parent, a little, sickly, querulous man, always in black, being some sort of dissenting minister, as the " young ladies " knew to their cost, for they 68 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. had always to mark his new shirts, in cross-stitch, with the Reverend T. C. and the number — "the Reverend" at full length. Accordingly, as soon as the Midsummer holidays set in, there was packed — in I don't know how many trunks, bags, and cap- boxes, — I don't know what luggage, except that for each of the party there was a silver spoon, a knife and fork, and six towels. ** And pray, Sir, how far did your Schoolmistress mean to go?" To Gotha, Madam. Not because Bonaparte slept there on his flight from Leipsic — nor yet from any sentimental recollec- tions of Goethe^not to see the palace of Friedenstein and its museum — nor to purchase an " Almanach de Gotha," nor even because His Royal Highness Prince Albert, of Saxe Gotha, was the Husband Elect of our Gracious Queen. " Then what for, in the name of patience ? " Why, because the Berlin wool was dyed there, and so she could get what colour and shades she pleased. CHAPTER VI. " Now of aU things," cries a Needlewoman — one of those to whom Parry alludes in his comic song of " Berlin Wool " — " I should like to know what pattern the Schoolmistress meant to work ! " And so would say anyone — for no doubt it would have been a pattern for the whole sex. AU I know is, that she once worked a hearthrug, with a yellow animal, couchant, on a green ground, that was intended for a panther in a jungle : and to do justice to the performance, it was really not so very unlike a carroty-cat in a bed of spinach. But the face was a dead failure. It was not in the gentle womanly nature, nor indeed consistent with the professional principles of Miss Crane, to let a wild, rude, ungovernable creature go out of her hands ; and accord- THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 69 iugly the feline physiognomy came from her fingers as round, and mild, and innocent as that of a Baby. In vain she added whiskers to give ferocity — 'twas a Baby still — and though she put a circle of fiery red around each staring ball, still, still it was a mild, innocent Baby — but with very sore eyes. And besides the hearthrug, she embroidered a chair-cushion, for a seat devoted to her respectable parent — a pretty, ornitho- logical design — so that when the Eeverend T. C. wanted to sit, there was ready for him a little bird's-nest, with a batch of speckled eggs. And moreover, besides the chair-bottom but, in short, between ourselves, there was so much Jancy work done at Lebanon House, that there was no time for any real. 70 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABEOAD. CHAPTER VII. There are two Newingtons, Butts and Stoke ; — ^but the last has the advantage of a little village-green, on the north side of which stands a large brick-built, substantial mansion, in the comfort- able old Elizabethan livery, maroon-colour, picked out with white. It was anciently the residence of a noble family, whose ciest, a deer's head, carved in stone, formerly ornamented each pillar of the front gate : but some later proprietor has removed the aristocratical emblems, and substituted two great white balls, that look like petrified Dutch cheeses, or the ghosts of the Celestial and Terrestrial Globes. The house, nevertheless, would still seem venerable enough, but that over the old panelled door, as if taking advantage of the fanlight, there sit, night and day, two very modern plaster of Paris little boys, reading and writing with all their might. Girls, however, would be more appropriate ; for, just under the first floor windows, a large board intimates, in tarnished gold letters, that the mansion is •' Lebanon House, Establishment for Toung Ladies. By the Misses Crane." Why it should be called Lebanon House appears a mystery, seeing that the building stands not on a mountain, but in a flat : but the truth is, that the name was bestowed in allusion to a remarkably fine Cedar, which tradi- tionally stood in the fore court, though long since cut down as a tree, and cut up in lead pencils. The front gate is carefully locked, the hour being later than 5 P. M., and the blinds are all down — but if anyone could peep through the short Venetians next the door, on the right hand, into the Music Parlour, he would see Miss Parfitt herself stealthily playing on the grand piano (for it is Sunday) but with no more sound than belongs to that tuneful whisper commonly called " the ghost of a whistle." But let us pull the bell. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 71 " Sally, are the ladies at home ? " "Lawk I Sir! — why haven't you heard? Miss Crane and Miss Euth are a-pleasuring on a Tower up the Eind — and the Eeverend Mr. C. is enjoying hisself in Germany along with them." Alas ! poor Sally ! Alas I for poor short-sighted human nature ! "Why in the name of all that's anonymous, what is the matter?" Lies ! lies ! lies ! But it is impossible for Truth, the pure Truth, to exist, save with Omnipresence and Omniscience. As for mere mortals, they must daily vent falsehoods in spite of themselves. Thus at the very moment, while Sally was telling us — but let Truth herself correct the Errata. Por — " The Eeverend Mr. C. enjoying himself in Ger- many — " Eead — " Writhing with sjpasms^ in a miserable Frmsian inn." For — " Miss Crane and Miss Euth a-pleasuring on a Tour up the Ehine — " Eead — " Wishing themselves home again with all their hearts and souls." XSD BEAUTX DRAWS US WITil A SINGLE HAIB." 72 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. CHAPTER VIII. It was a grievous case ! After all the troubles of the Reverend T. C. by sea and land — his perplexities with the foreign coins at Rotterdam — with the passports at Nimeguen — with the Douane at Arnheim — and with the Speise-Karte at Cologne To be taken ill, poor gentleman, with his old spasms, in such a place as the road between Todberg and Grabheim, six good miles at least from each, and not a decent inn at either ! And in such weather too — unfit for anything with the semblance of humanity to be abroad — a night in which a Christian farmer would hardly have left out his scarecrow ! '•<«^:>5f9g3.. -ij>-» THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. . 73 The groans of the sufferer were pitiable — but what could be done for his relief? on a blank desolate common without a house in sight — no, not a hut ! His afflicted daughters could only try to soothe him with words, vain words — assuasive per- haps of mental pains, but as to any discourse arresting a phy- sical ache, — ^you might as well take a pin to pin a bull with. Besides, the poor women wanted comforting themselves. Gra- cious Heaven ! Think of two single females, with a sick, per- haps an expiring parent — shut up in a hired coach, on a stormy night, in a foreign land — ay, in one of its dreariest places. The sympathy of a third party, even a stranger, would have been some support to them, but all they could get by their most earnest appeals to the driver was a couple of unintelligible syl- lables. If they had only possessed a cordial — a flask of eau de vie ! Such a thing had indeed been proposed and prepared, but alas ! Miss Crane had wilfully left it behind. To think of Propriety producing such a travelling accompaniment as a brandy-bottle was out of the question. You might as well have looked for claret from a pitcher-plant ! In the meantime the sick man continued to sign and moan — his two girls could feel him twisting about between them. " Oh, my poor dear papa ! " murmured Miss Crane, for she did not " father " him even in that extremity. Then she groped again despairingly in her bag for the smelling-bottle, but only found instead of it an article she had brought along with her, Heaven knows why, into Germany — the French mark ! " Oil — ah — ugh ! — hah ! " grumbled the sufferer, " Am I — ^to — die — on — the road ? " " Is he to die on the road ? " repeated Miss Crane through the front window to the coachman, but with the same result as before ; namely, two words in the unknown tongue. " Kuth, what is yar vole ? " 74 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. Kuth shook her head in the dark. " If he would only drive faster ! " exclaimed Miss Crane, and again she talked through the front window. " My good man — " (aeJUlUg?) "Euth, what's gefallish?" But Miss Euth was as much in the dark as ever. " Do, do, do, make haste to somewhere — " (Ja wold!) That phlegmatic driver would drive her crazy ! Poor Miss Crane ! Poor Miss Euth ! Poor Eeverend T. C. ! My heart bleeds for them — and yet they must remain perhaps for a full hour to come in that miserable condition. But no — hark — ^that guttural sound which like a charm arrests eveiy horse in Germany as soon as uttered — " Burr-r-r-r-r ! " BODB's VARIATIOirS. The coach stops ; and looking out on her own side through the rain Miss Crane perceives a low dingy door, over which by help of a lamp she discovers a white board, with some great THE SCHOOLMISTEESS ABROAD. 75 black fowl painted on it, and a word underneath that to her English eyes suggests a difficulty in procuring fresh eggs. Whereas the Adler, instead of addling, hatches brood after brood every year, till the number is quite wonderful, of little red and black eagles. However, the Eoyal Bird receives the distressed travellers under its wing ; but my pen, though a steel one, shrinks from the labour of scrambling and hoisting them from the Lohn Kutsch into the Gast Haus. In plump, there they are — in the best inn's best room, yet not a whit preferable to the last chamber that lodged the *' great Villiers." But hark ! they whisper, Gracious powers ! Euth ! Gracious powers ! Priscilla ! ( What a wretched hole ! O LIST U»TO MY TALB OF WOE 1 CHAPTER IX. I TAKE it for granted that no English traveller would will- ingly lay up — unless particularly inndisposed — at an Inn. Still less at a German one ; and least of all at a Prussian public- house, in a rather private Prussian village. To be far from well, and far from well lodged — to be ill, and ill attended — to be poorly, and poorly fed — to be in a bad way, and a bad bed — But let us pull up, with ideal reins, an imaginary nag, at such 76 tTHB SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. an outlandish Hostelrie, and take a peep at its " Entertainment for Man and Horse." Bur-r-r-r-r-iTrr ! Tlie nag stops as if charmed — and as cool and comfortable as a cucumber — at least till it is peppered — for your German is so tender of his beast that he would hardly allow his greyhound to turn a hair — Now then, for a shout ; and remember that in Kleinewinkel, it will serve just as well to cry " Boxkeeper ! " as " Ostler ! " but look, there is some one coming from the inn-door. *Tis Katchen herself — with her bare head, her bright blue gown, her scarlet apron — and a huge rye loaf under her left arm. Her right hand grasps a knife. How plump and plea- sant she looks ! and how kindly she smiles at everybody, in- cluding the horse ! But see — she stops, and shifts the position of the loaf. She presses it — as if to sweeten its sourness — against her soft palpitating bosom, the very hemisphere that holds her maiden heart. And now she begins to cut — or rather haggle — for the knife is blunt, and the bread is hard ; but she works with good will, and still hugging the loaf closer and closer to her comely self, at last severs a liberal slice from KEADS OF THE SAXOxVB. the mass. Nor is she content to merely give it to her client, but holds it out with her own hand to be eaten, till the last morsel is taken from among her ruddy fingers by the lips • THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 77 of a sweet little chubby urchin ? — ^no — of our big, bony, iron- gray post-horse ! Now then, Courteous Reader, let us step into the Stube, or Travellers' Room ; and survey the fare, and the accommodation prepared for us bipeds. Look at that bare floor — and that dreary stove — and those smoky dingy walls — and for a night's lodging, yonder wooden trough — far less desirable than a shake- down of clean straw. Then for the victualling, pray taste that Pythagorean soup — and that drowned beef — and the rotten pickle- cabbage — and those terrible Hog- Cartridges — and that lump of white soap, flavoured with caraways, alias ewe-milk cheese — And now just sip that Essigberger, sharp and sour enough to provoke the " dura ilia Messorum " into an Iliac Passion — and the terebinthine Krug Bier ! Would you not rather dine at the cheapest ordinary at one, with all its niceties and nastities, plain cooked in a London cellar ? And for a night's rest would you not sooner seek a bed in the Bedford Nursery ? So much for the " Entertainment for Man and horse " — a clear proof, ay, as clear as the Author's own proof, with the date under his own hand Of what, Sir? Why that Dean Swift's visit to Germany — if ever he did visit Germany — must have been prior to his inditing the Fourth Voyage of Captain Lemuel Gulliver, — namely to the Land of the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos, where the horses were better boarded and lodged than mankind. CHAPTER X. To return to the afflicted trio — the horrified Miss Crane, the desolate Ruth, and the writhing Reverend T. C. — in the small, sordid, smoky, dark, dingy, dirty, musty, fusty, dusty best room at the Adler. The most miserable " party in a parlour " 78 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. "*Twas their own faults ! " exclaims a shadowy Personage, with peculiarly hard features — and yet not harder than they need to be, considering against how many things, and how violently she sets her face. But when did Prejudice ever look prepossessing ? Never — since the Prench wore shoes d la Dryade ! "'Twas their own faults," she cries, "for going abroad. Why couldn't they stay comfortably at home, at Laburnam House ? " "Lebanon, Ma'am." " Well, Lebanon. Or they might have gone up the Wye, or up the Thames. I hate the K-hine. What business had they in Prussia ? And of course they went through Holland. I hate flats!" BBIOGE OS SIGHS. ** Nevertheless, Madam, I have visited each of those countries, and have found much to admire in both. For example " " Oh, pray don't ! I hate to hear you say so. I hate every body who doesn't hate every thing foreign." THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 79 " Possibly, Madam, you have never been abroad ? " *' Oh, yes ! I once went over to Calais — and have hated my- self ever since. I hate the Continent ! " " For what reason. Madam ? " " Pshaw ! I hate to give reasons. I hate the Continent — because it is so large." " Then you would, perhaps, like one of the Hebrides ? " " No — I hate the Scotch. But what has that to do with your Schoolmistress abroad ? — I hate governesses — and her Eeverend sick father with his ridiculous spasms — I hate Dissenters — They are not High Church," "Nay, my dear Madam, you are getting a little uncharitable." " Charity ! I hate its name. It's a mere shield thrown over hateful people. How are we to love those we like properly, if we don't hate the others ? As the Corsair says, " My very love to thee is hate to them." "But I hate Byron." " As a man, Ma'am, or as an author ? " " Both. But I hate all authors — except Dr. Johnson." " True — he liked a ' good hater.' " " Well, Sir, and if he did ! He was quite in the right, and I hate that Lord Chesterfield for quizzing him. But he was only a lord among wits. Oh, how I hate the aristocracy ! " " You do. Madam ! " " Yes — they have such prejudices. And then they are so fond of going abroad. Nothing but going to Paris, Rome, Naples, Old Jerusalem, and New York — I hate the Americans — don't you ? " " Why, really. Madam, your superior discernment and nice taste may discover national bad qualities that escape less vigilant observers." " Phoo, phoo — I hate flummery. You know as well as I do what an American is called — and if there's one name I hate more THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. than another, it's Jonathan. Eut to go back to Germany, and those that go there. Talk of Pilgrims of the Ehine ! — I hate that Bulwer. Yes, they set out, indeed, like Pilgrim's Progress, and see Lions and Beautiful Houses, and want Interpreters, and spy at Delectable Mountains — but there it ends ; for what with queer caps and outlandish blouses — I hate smock-frocks— they come back hardly like Christians. There's my own husband, Mr. P.— I quite hate to see him ! " " Indeed ! " " Yes — I hate to cast my eyes on him. He hasn't had his hair cut these twelvemonths — I hate long hair — and when he shaves he leaves two little black tails on his upper lip, and another on his chin, as if he was real ermine." " A moustache, Madam, is in fashion." *' Yes, and a oeard, too, like a Rabbi — but I hate Jews. And then Mr. P. has learnt to smoke — I hate smoke — I hate tobacco — and I hate to be called a Prow — and to be spun round and round till I am as sick as a dog — for I hate waltzing. Then don't he stink the whole house with decayed cabbage for his sour krout — I hate German cookery — and will have oiled melted butter be- cause they can't help it abroad? — and there's nothing so hateful as oiled butter. What next? Why, he won't drink my home- made wine — at least if I don't call it Hock, or Rude-something, THE SCHOOLMIbTRESS ABROAD. 81 and give it him in a green glass. I hate such nonsense. As for conversing, whatever we begin upon, if it's Harfordshire, he's sure to get at last to the tiptop of Herring-Brightshine — I hate such rambling. But that's not half so hateful as his Monoma- nium." " His what, Madam ? " " Why his hankc^ring so after suicide (I do hate Charlotte and Werter), that one can't indulge in the least tiif but he threatens to blow out his brains ! " " Seriously ? " " Seriously, Sir. I hate joking. And then there are his hor- rid noises ; for since he was in, Germany, he fancies that every body must be musical — I hate such wholesale notions — and so sings all day long, without a good note in his voice. So much for Poreign Touring ! But pray go on. Sir, with the story of your Schoolmistress Abroad. I hate suspense." CHAPTEE XI. Now the exclamation of Miss Crane — " Gracious heavens, Ruth, what a wretched hole ! " — was not a single-horse power too strong for the occasion. Her first glance round the squalid room at the Adler convinced her that whatever might be the geo- graphical distance on the map, she was morally two hundred and thirty-seven thousand miles from Home. That is to say, it was about as distant as the Earth from the Moon. And truly had she been transferred, no matter how, to that Planet, with its no-atmosphere, she could not have been more out of her ele- ment. In fact, she felt for some moments as if she must sink on the floor — just as some delicate flower, transplanted into a strange soil, gives way in every green fibre, and droops to the mould in a vegetable fainting-fit, from which only time and the watering-pot can recover it. Her younger sister, Miss Kuth, was somewhat less discon- 82 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. certed. She had by her position the greater share in the active duties at Lebanon House: and under ordinary circumstances, would not have been utterly at a loss what to do for the comfort INN-OLBMJENOX. or relief of her parent. But in every direction in which her in- stinct and habits would have prompted her to look, the materials she sought were deficient. There was no easy chair — no fire to wheel it to — no cushion to shake up — no cupboard to go to — no female friend to consult — no Miss Parfitt — no Cook — no John to send for the Doctor. No English — no French — nothing but that dreadful '* Gefallig " or " Ja Wohl " and the equally in- comprehensible " Gnadige Frau ! " As for the Eeverend T. C, he sat twisting about on his hard wooden chair, groaning, and making ugly faces, as much from peevishness and impatience as from pain, and indeed sometimee THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. plainly levelled his grimaces at the simple Germans who stood round, staring at him, it must be confessed, as unceremoniously as if he had been only a great fish, gasping and wriggling on dry land. In the meantime, his bewildered daughters held him one by the right hand, the other by the left, and earnestly watched his changing countenance, unconsciously imitating some of its most violent contortions. It did no good of course ; but what else was to be done ? In fact they were as much puzzled with their patient as a certain worthy tradesman, when a poor shattered creature on a shutter was carried into his Pioor-cloth Manufac- tory by mistake for the Hospital. The only thing that occurred to either of the females was to op- pose every motion he made, — for fear it should be wrong, and accordingly whenever he attempted to lean towards the right side, they invariably bent him as much to the left. "Der Herr," said the German coachman, turning towards Miss Priscilla, with his pipe hanging from his teeth, and venting a puff of smoke that made her re- coil three steps backward — "Der Herr ist sehr krank." The last word had occurred so frequently, on the organ of the Schoolmistress, that it had acquired in her mind some important sig- nificance. " Ruth, what is krank ? " *' How should I know ? " retorted Euth, with an asperity apt to ac- company intense excitement and perplexity. " In English, it's a thing that helps to pull the bell. But look at papa — do help to support him — you're good for nothing." A STITCH IN TIME. 84 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. " I am indeed," murmured poor Miss Priscilla, with a gentle shake of her head, and a low, slow, sigh of acquiescence. Alas ! as she ran over the catalogue of her accomplishments, the more she remembered what she could do for her sick parent, the more helpless and useless she appeared. For instance, she could have embroidered him a night-cap — Or netted him a silk purse — Or plaited him a guard-chain — Or cut him out a watch-paper — Or ornamented his braces with bead-work — Or embroidered his waistcoat — Or worked him a pair of slippers — Or open-worked his pocket-handkerchief. She could even — if such an operation would have been comfort- ing or salutary— have rough-casted him with shell-work — Or coated him with red or black seals — Or encrusted hirn with blue alum — Or stuck him all over with coloured wafers— Or festooned him But alas ! alas ! alas ! what would it have availed her poor dear papa in the spasmodics, if she had even festooned him, from top to toe, with little rice-paper roses ! CHAPTER XII. " Mercy on me ! '* [N.B. Not on Me, the Author, but on a little dwarfish, "smooth-legged Bantam." of a woman, with a sharp nose, a shrewish mouth, and a pair of very active black eyes — and withal as brisk and bustling in her movements as any Partlet with ten chicks of her own, and six adopted ones trom another hen.] " Mercy on me ! Why the poor gentleman would die while them lumpish foreigners and his two great helpless daughters were looking on ! As for that Miss Priscilla — she's like a born idiot. Panc^woik him, indeed ! I've no patience THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 85 — as it' with ali her Berlin wools and patterns, she could fancywork him into a picture of health. "Why didn't he think of something comforting for his inside, instead of embellishing his out — something as would agree, in lieu of filagree, with his case ? A little good hot brandy-and- water with a grate of ginger, or some nice red-wine negus with nutmeg and toast— and then get him to bed, and send off for the doctor. I'll warrant if I'd been there, I'd have unspasm'd him in no time. Fd have whipped off his shoes and stock- ings, and had his poor feet in hot water afore he knew where he was." There can be no doubt, Ma'am, of the warmth of youi humanity. UKQOMAHTiiii. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. " Wanntli ! it's every thing. I'd have just given him a touch of the warming-pan, and then smothered ^im in hlanlcpts. Stiek him all over with little roses! stuff and non- sense — stick him into his grave at once! Miss Crane ? Miss Goose, rather. A poor helpless JSavviiev ! I wonder what women come into the world for, if it isn't to be good nusses. For my part, if he had been my sick father, I'd have had him on his legs again in a jiffy — and then he might have got crusty with blue alum or whatever else he pre- ferred." " But Madam— " " Such perfect apathy ! Needlework and embroidery, for- sooth ! " ♦'But Madam—" " To have a dying parent before her eyes — and think of no- thing but trimming his jacket ! " "But—" " A pretty Schoolmistress, truly, to set such an example to the rising generation ! As if she couldn't have warmed him a soft flanning ! or given him a few Lavender Drops, or even got down a little real Turkey or calcined Henry." •' Of course. Madam — or a little Moxon. And in regard to Conchology." " Conk what ? " A. BUBGOillSTUESS. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 87 " Or as to Chronology. Could you have supplied the Patient with a few prominent dates ? '* " Dates ! what those stony things — for a spasmodic stomaca " Are you really at home in Arrowsmith ? " " You mean Arrow-root." "Are you an adept in Butler's Exercises ? " *' What, drawing o' corks ? " •• Could you critically examine him in his parts of speecn — ► the rudiments of his native tongue ? " " To be sure I could. And if it was white and furry, tnere s fever." " Are you acquainted, Madam, with Lindley Murray ? " " Why no — I can't say I am. My own medical man is Mr. Prodgers." " In short, could you prepare a mind for refined intellectual intercourse in future life, with a strict attention to religious duties?" " Prepare his mind — religious duties ? — Phoo, phoo ! he wam't come to that ! " " Excuse me, I mean to ask. Ma'am, whether you consider yourself competent to instruct Young Ladies in all those branches of knowledge and female accomplishments " " Me ! What, me keep a 'Cademy ? Why, I've hardly had any edecation myself, but was accomplished in three quarters and a bit over. Lor bless you, Sir ! I should be as much at sea, as a finishing-ofF Governess, as a bear in a boat ! " Exactly, Madam. And just as helpless, useless, and power- less as you would be in a school-room, even so helpless, useless, and powerless was Miss Crane whenever she happened to be out of one. — Yea, as utterly flabbergasted when out of her own element, as a Jelly Fish on Brighton beach ! 88 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. CHAPTER XIII. Relief at last ! It was honest Hans the hired Coachman, with a glass of something in his hand, which after a nod towards the invalid, to signify the destination of the dose, he held out to Miss Priscilla, at the same time uttering certain gutturals, as if asking her ap- proval of the prescription. " Ruth— what is Snaps ? " " Take it and smell it," replied Miss Ruth, still with some asperity, as if annoyed at the imbecility of her senior: but secretly worried by her own deficiency in the tongues. The truth is, that the native who taught French with the Parisian accent at Lebanon House, the Italian Mistress in the Prospectus IU£ NICK Oe TXMJi. and Miss Ruth who professed English Grammar and Poetry, were all one and the same person : not to name a lady, not so distinctly put forward, who was supposed to know a little of the language which is spoken at Berlin. Hence her annoyance, " 1 think," said Miss Priscilla, holding the wine-glass at a THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 89 discreet distance from her nose, and rather prudishly sniffing the liquor, "it appears to me that it is some sort of foreign Gr.'* So saying, she prepared to return the dram to the kindly Kutscher, but her professional delicacy instinctively shrinking from too intimate contact with the hand of the strange man, she contrived to let go of the glass a second or two before he got hold of it, and the Schnapps fell, with a crash, to the ground. The introduction of the cordial had, however, served to direct the mind of Miss Euth to the propriety of procuring some re- freshment for the sufferer. He certainly ought to have something, she said, for he was getting quite faint. What the something ought to be was a question of more difficulty — but the scholastic memory of Miss Priscilla at last supplied a suggestion. " What do you think, Ruth, of a little horehound tea ? " " Well, ask for it," replied Ruth, not indeed from any faith in the efficacy of the article, but because it was as likely to be obtained for the asking for — in English — as anything else. And tmly, when Miss Crane made the experiment, the Germans, one and all, man and woman, shook their heads at the remedy, but seemed unanimously to recommend a certain something else. *' Ruth — what is forstend nix ? " But Ruth was silent. " They all appear to think very highly of it, however," con- tinued Miss Priscilla, "and I should like to know where to find it." " It will be in the kitchen, if any where," said Miss Ruth, while the invalid — whether from a fresh access of pain, or only at the tantalising nature of the discussion — gave a low groan. " My poor dear papa ! He will sink — he will perish from exhaustion I " exclaimed the terrified Miss Priscilla ; and with a desperate resolution, quite foreign to her nature, she volun- teered on the forlorn hope, and snatching up a candle, made her way without thinking: of the impropriety into the strange kitchen. 90 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. The housewife and her maid slowly followed the Schoolmistress, and whether from national phlegm or intense curiosity, or both together, offered neither help nor hindrance to the foreign lady, but stood by, and looked on at her operations. And here be it noted, in order to properly estimate the dif- ficulties which lay in her path, that the governess had no distinct recollection of having ever been in a kitchen in the course of her VOB BVRLB OK WOBSB. life. It was a Terra Incognita — a place of which she literally knew less than of Japan. Indeed, the laws, customs, ceremonies, mysteries and utensils of the kitchen were more strange to her than those of the Chinese. For aught she knew the cook herself was the dresser ; and a rolling pin might have a head at one end and a sharp point at the other. The Jack, according to Natural History, was a fish. The flour-tub, as Botany suggested, might contain an orange-tree, and the range might be that of the THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABEQAD. ^^ " IT'S VA.STB— COMMON PASXB." 92 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. Barometer. As to the culinary works, in which almost every female dabbles, she had never dipped into one of them, and knew no more how to boil an egg than if she had been the hen that laid it, or the cock that cackled over it. Still a natural turn for the art, backed by a good bright fire, might have surmounted her rawness. But Miss Crane was none of those natural geniuses in the art who can extemporise Plint Broth — and toss up something out of nothing at the shortest notice. It is doubtful if, with the whole Midsummer holidays before her, she could successfully have un- dertaken a pancake — or have got up even a hasty-pudding with- out a quarter's notice. For once, however, she was impelled by the painful exigency of the hour to test her ability, and finding certain ingredients to her hand, and subjecting them to the best or simplest process that occurred to her, in due time she re- turned, cup in hand, to the sick room, and proffered to her poor dear papa the result of her first maiden effort iu cookery. " What is it ? " asked Euth, naturally curious, as well as anxious as to the nature of so novel an experiment. " Pah ! puh ! poof — phew ! chut ! " spluttered the Reverend T. C, unceremoniously getting rid of the first spoonful of the mixture. "It's paste — common paste ! " CHAPTER XIV. Poor Miss Crane ! . The failure of her first little culinary experiment reduced her again to despair. If there be not already a Statue of Disappoint- ment, she would haVe served for its model. It would have melted an Iron Master to have seen her with her eyes fixed in- tently on the unfortunate cup of paste, as if asking herself, mentally, was it possible that what she had prepared with such pains for the refreshment of a sick parent, was only fit for — what? — Why, for the false tin stomach of a healthy bill sticker? THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 93 Dearly as she rated her professional accomplishments and acquirements, I verily believe that at that cruel moment she would have given up all her consummate skill in Fancy Work, to have known how to make a basin of gruel ! Proud as she was of her embroidery, she would have exchanged her cunning in it for that of the plainest cook, — for oh ! of what avail her Tent Stitch, Chain Stitch, German Stitch, or Satin Stitch, to relieve or soothe a suffering father, afflicted with back stitch, front stitch, side stitch, and cross stitch into the bargain ? Nay, of what use was her solider knowledge ? — for example, in History, Geography, Botany, Conchology, Geology, and Astronomy ? Of what effect was it that she knew the scientific names for coal and slate, — or what comfort that she could tell him how many stars there are in Cassiopeia's Chair whilst he was twisting with agony on a hard wooden one ? *' It's no use talking ! " exclaimed Miss Ruth, after a long silence, '* we must have medical advice." But how to obtain it ? To call in even an apothecary, one must call in his own language, and the two sisters between them did not possess German enough. High or Low, to call for a Doctor's boy. The hint, however, was not lost on the Reverend T. C, who, with a perversity not unusual, seemed to think that he could diminish his own sufferings by inflicting pain on those about him. Accordingly, he no sooner overheard the wish for a Doctor, than with renewed moanings and contor- tions he muttered the name of a drug that he felt sure would re- lieve him. But the physic was as difficult to procure as the physician. In vain Miss Ruth turned in succession to the Host, the Hostess, the Maid, the Waiter, and Hans the Coachman, and to each separately repeated the word " Ru-bub." The Host, the Hostess, the Maid, the Waiter, and Hans the Coachman, only shook their heads in concert, and uttered in chorus the old " forstend nicht." 94 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. *' Oh, I do wish," exclaimed Miss Crane, with a tone and a gesture of the keenest self-reproach, " how I do wish that 1 had brought Buchan's Domestic Medicine abroad with me, instead of Thomson's Seasons ! " "And of what use would that have been without the medicine- chest ? " asked Miss Ruth ; " for I don't pretend to write pre- scriptions in German." " That's very true," said Miss Crane, with a long deep sigh — whilst the sick man, from pain or wilfulness, Heaven alone knew which — gave a groan, so terrific that it startled evea the phlegmatic Germans. *• My papa ! — my poor dear papa ! '* shrieked the agitated governess ; and with some confused notions of a fainting-fit — for he had closed his eyes, — and still conscious of a cup in her hand, though not of its contents, she chucked the paste — that twice unfortunate paste ! — into the face of her beloved parent ! CHAPTER XV. ** And serve him right, too ! " cries the little smart bantam- like woman alreadv introrlnced to the Courteous Reader. "An •' IW FOB IX \ " old good-for-nothing ! to sham worse than he was, and play on the tender feelings of two affectionate daughters! I'd have THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 95 pasted him myself if lie had been fifty fathers ! Not that I think a bit the better of that Miss Crane, who after all, did not do it on purpose. She's as great a gawky as ever. To think with all her schooling she couldn't get a doctor fetched for the old gentleman ! " *' But, my dear Madam, she was ignorant of the language." " Ignorant of fiddlesticks ! How do the deaf and dumb people do? If she couldn't talk to the Germans she might have made signs. Impossible ! Pray remember that Miss Crane was a school- mistress, and of the ancien regime^ in whose code all face- making, posturing, and gesticulations, were high crimes and misdemeanors. Many a little Miss Gubbins or Miss Wiggins she had punished with an extra task, if not with the rod itself, for nodding, winking, or talking with their fino^ers ; and is it likely that she would personally have had recourse to signs and signals for which she had punished her pupils with such severity? Do you think that with her rigid notions of pro- priety, and her figure, she would ever have stooped to what she would have called buffoonery ? " Why to be sure, if you haven't high-coloured her pic- ture she is starched and frumpish enough, and only fit for a place among the wax-work ! " And besides, supposing physiognomical expression as weU as gesticulation to be included in sign-making, this Silent Art re- quires study and practice, and a peculiar talent ! Pray did you ever see Grimaldi ? M TUB GBBMaX. 96 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. " What Joey ! Did I ever see Lonnon ! Did I ever go to the Wells ! " rare Joe Grimaldi ! Great as was my admiration of the genius of that inimitable clown, never, never did it rise to its true pitch till I had been cast all abroad in a foreign country without any knowledge of its language ! To the richness of his fun— to his wonderful agility — to his unique singing and hi^ grotesque dancing, I per- haps had done ample justice — but never, till I had broken down in fifty pantomimical attempts of my own — nay, in twice fifty experiments in dumb show — did I properly ap- preciate his extraordinary power of making himself understood without being thk jugqi.br. on speaking terms with his company. His performance was never, like mine, an Acted Riddle. A living Telegraph, he never failed in conveying his intelligence, but signalled it with such distinctness, that his meaning was visible to the dullest capacity. " And your own attempts in the line, Sir ? '* Utter failures. Often and often have I gone through as many physical manoeuvres as the Englishman in "Rabelais," who argued by signs ; but constantly without explaining my meaning, and consequently without obtaining my object. From all which, my dear Madam, I have derived this moral, that he who visits a foreign country, without knowing the language, ought to be prepared beforehand either to act like a Clown, or to look like a Fool. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 97 CHAPTER XVI. It was a good-natured act of honest Hans the Coachman— and especially after the treatment of his Schnapps— but seeing the Englishers at a dead lock, and partly guessing at the cause of theii- distress — he quietly went to the stable, saddled one of his own horses, and rode off in quest of a medical man. Luckily he soon met with the personage he wanted, whom with great satisfaction he ushered into the little, dim, dirty parlour at the Black Eagle, and introduced, as well as he could, to the Foreigners in Distress. Now the Physician who regularly visited at Lebanon House was, of course, one of the old school ; and in correct- ness of costume and profes- sional formality was scarcely inferior to the immaculate lady who presided over that establishment. There was no mistaking him, like some modern practitioners, for a merchant or a man abou; town. He was as carefully made up as a prescription — and between the customary sables, and a Chesterfieldian courtesy, appeared as a doctor of the old school always used to do — like a piece of sticK- ing-plaster — black, pohshed, THE VlSIOir OF DOM BODBBIUK. aud hcaliUff. Judge then of tlie horror and amazement of the School- mistress, when she saw bclore her a great clumsy-built M.D,, 98 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. enveloped in a huge gray cloak, with a cape that fell below his elbows, and his head covered with what she had always under- stood was a jockey- cap ! " Gracious Heaven ! — why, he's a horse-doctor ! " " Doctor ? — ja wohl," said Hans, with a score of affirmative Kttle nods ; and then he added the professional grade of the party, which happened to be one of a most uncouth sound to an English ear. " Kuth, what's a medicine rat ? " "Lord knows," answered Miss Euth; "the language is as barbarous as the people ! " In the mean time the Medicin Rath threw off his huge cloak and displayed a costume equally at variance with Miss Crane's notions of the proper uniform of his order. No black coat, no black smalls, no black silk stockings — why, any undertaker in London would have looked more like a doctor ! His coat was a bright brown frock, his waistcoat as gay and variegated as her own favourite parterre of larkspurs, and his trowsers of plum colour ! Of her own accord she would not have called him in to a juvenile chicken-pock or a nettlerash — and there he was to to treat full-grown spasms in an adult ! "Je suis medecin. Monsieur, a votre service," said the stranger, in French more guttural than nasal, and with a bow to the sick gentleman. " Mais, docteur," hastily interposed Miss Ruth, " vous etes un docteur a cheval." This translation of " horse-doctor " being perfectly unintelli- gible to the German, he again addressed himself to his patient, and proceeded to feel his pulse. " Papa is subject to spasms in his chest," explained Miss Crane. "Pshaw — nonsense!" whined the Reverend T. C, "they're in my stomach." THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 99 " They're in his stomach," repeated Miss Crane, delicately laying her own hand, by way of explanation, on her sternum. " Monsieur a mange du diner ? " " Only a little beef," said Miss Crane, who " understood ** French, but " did not speak it." " Seulement un petit boeuf," translated Miss Ruth, who spoke French, but did not understand it. •' Oui — c'est une indigestion, sans doute," said the Doctor. CHAPTEE XVII. Hark ! " It's shameful ! abominable ! atrocious ! It's a skit on all the schoolmistresses — a wicked libel on the whole profession ! " But my dear Mrs. " Don't * dear ' mey Sir ! I consider myself personally in- sulted. " Manger un petty boof ! As if a governess couldn't speak better French than that ! Why, it means eating a little bullock ! " Precisely. Bceiif, singular, masculine, a bullock or ox. *' Ridiculous ! And from one of the heads of a seminary ! Why, Sir, not to speak of myself or the teachers, I have a pupil at Prospect House, and only twelve years of age, who speaks French like a native." Of where, Madam ? ** Of where, Sir? — why, of all France, to be sure, and Paris in particular ! " And with the true accent ? " Yes, Sir, with all the accents — sharp, grave, and circum- bendibus — I should have said circumflex, but you have put me in a fluster. French ! why it's the comer-stone of female educa- tion. It's universal. Sir, from her ladyship down to her cook. We could neither dress ourselves nor our dinners without it I 100 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. And that the Miss Cranes know French I am morally certain, for I have seen it in their Prospectus." No doubt of it. Madam. But you are of course aware that there are two sorts — French French and English French — and which are as different in quality as the foreign Cognac and the British Brandy. •* I know nothing about ardent spirits, Sir. And as to the French language, I am acquainted with only one sort, and that is what is taught at Prospect House — at three guineas a quarter." And do all your young ladies, Ma'am, turn out such proficients in the language as the prodigy you have just mentioned ? " Proficient, Sir ? — they can't help it in my establishment. Let me see — there's Chambaud on Mondays — Wanostrocht on Wed- nesdays — Telemaque on Fridays, and the French mark every day in the week." Madam, I have no doubt of the ^^^^B excellence of your system. Never- theless it is quite true that the wubstobine. younger Miss Crane made use of the very phrase which I have quoted. And what is more, when the doctor called on his patient the next morning, he was treated with quite as bad language. For example, when he inquired after her papa — " 11 est tres mauvais,*' replied Miss Ruth with a desponding shake of her head. ** 11 a avale son medecin — et il n'est pas mieux.*' THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ,ABkOAD. 101 CHAPTER XVIII. To return to the sick chamber. Imagine the Rev. T. C. still sitting and moaning in his un- easy chair, the disconsolate Miss Crane helplessly watching the parental grimaces, and the perplexed Miss Ruth standing in a brown study, with her eyes intently fixed on a sort of overgrown child's crib, which occupied one dark corner of the dingy apart- ment. " It's very well," she muttered to herself, " for a foreign doctor to say * laissez le coucher," but where is he to coucher ? " Not surely in that little crib of a thing, which will only add the cramp in Ids poor legs to the spasms in his poor stomach ! The Mother of Invention was however at her elbow, to suggest an expedient, and in a trice the bedding was dragged from the bedstead and spread upon the floor. During this manoeuvre Miss Crane of course only looked on; she had never in her life made a bed, even in the regular way, and the touzling of a shakedown on the bare boards was far too Margery Dawish an operation for her precise nature to be concerned in. Moreover, her thoughts were fuUy occupied by a question infallibly as- sociated with a strange bed, namely, whether it had been aired. A speculation which had already occurred to her sister, but whose more practical mind was busy in contriving how to get at the warming-pan. But in vain she asked for it by name of every German, male or female, in the room, and as vainly she sought for the utensil in the inn kitchen, and quite as vainly might she have hunted for it throughout the village, seeing that no such arjcie had ever been met with by the oldest inhabitant. As a last resource she caught up a walking-stick, and thrusting one end under the blanket, endeavoured pantomimically to im- itate a chamber-maid in the act of warming a bed. But alas 1 'It)^ ' TBE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABEOAD. she " took nothing by her motion " — the Germans only turned tow aids each other, and shrugging their shoulders and grinning, ren?arked in their own tongue, " What droll people they were tlose Eimliaiicrs ! " GEEMAIT CAPTtVATIOlf. CHPECH AECHITKCTUEB." A GJEEMAK WOEK The sensitive imagination of Miss Crane had in the interim conjured up new and more delicate difficulties and necessities, amongst which the services of a chamberlain were not the least urgent. " Who was to put her papa to bed ? Who was to un- dress him?" But from this perplexity shew as unexpectedly delivered by that humble friend in need, honest Hans, who no sooKcr saw the bed free from the walking-stick, than without any bidding, and in spite of the resistance of the patient, he fairly stripped him to his shirt, and then taking him up in his arms like a baby, deposited him, willy niliy, in the nest that had been prepared for him. The females, during the first of these operations, retired to the kitchen — but not without a certain order in their going. Miss Crane went off simultaneously with the coat, her sister with the small clothes and the shoes and stockings. And when, alter THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 103 ^^-^JLC^ T^JlD £S£irOH) 104 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. a due and decent interval, the two governesses returned to the sick chamber — for both had resolved on sitting up with the uivaiid — lo ! there lay the Keverend T. C, regularly littered down by the coachman with a truss of clean straw to eke out the bedding, — no longer writhing or moaning, but between surprise and anger as still and silent as if his groans had been astonished away like the " hiccups 1 " You may take a horse to the water, however, but you cannot make him drink, — and even thus, the sick man, though bedded perforce, refused obstinately to go to sleep. " Et Monsieur a bien dormi ? '* inquired the German doctor the next morning. " Pas un — '* begun Miss Crane, but she ran aground for the next word, and was obliged to appeal to the linguist of Lebanon House. " Ruth— what's a wink ? " " I don't know," replied Miss Ruth, who was absorbed in some active process. " Do it with your eye." The idea of winking at a strange gentleman was however so obnoxious to all the schoolmistress's notions of propriety that she at once resigned the explanation to her sister, who accord- ingly informed the physician that her ** pauvre pere n'avoit paB dormi un mor(,*eau toute la nuit longue. THE SCflOOLMISTKESS ABROAD, 105 CHAPTER XIX. ** Stop, Sir ! Pray change the subject. By your leave we have had quite enough of bad French." As you please, Madam — and as the greatest change I can devise, you shall now have a little bad English. Please, then, lend your attention to Monsieur De Bourg — the subject of his discourse ought indeed to be of some interest to you, namely, the education of your own sex in your own country. •' Well, Sir, and what does he say of it ? " Listen, and you shall hear. Pro- ceed, Monsieur. " Sare, I shall tell you my im- THF, GEHMAN MU8B. prcssious whcu I am come first from Paris to London. De English Ladies, I say to myself, must be de most best educate women in de whole world. Dere is schools for dem every wheres — in a hole and in a corner. Let me take some walks in de Fauxbourgs, and what do I see all round my- self ? When I look dis way I see on a white house's front a large bord wid some gilded letters, which say Seminary for Young Ladies. When I look dat way, at a big red house, I see anoder bord which say Establishment for Young Ladies by Miss Someones. And when I look up at a little house, at a little window, over a barber-shop, I read on a paper Ladies' School. Den I see Prospect House, and Grove House, and de Manor House — so many I cannot call dem names, and also all schools for de young females. Day Schools besides. And in my walks, always I meet some Schools of Young Ladies, eight, nine, ten 106 THE SCHOOLMISTEESS ABROAD. times in one day, making dere promenades, two and two and two. Den I come home to my lodging's door, and below the knocker I see one letter — I open it, and I find a Prospectus of a Lady School. By-and-bye I say to my landlady, where is your old- est of daughters, which used to bring to me my breakfast ? and she tell me she is gone out a governess. Next she notice me I must quit my appartement. What for ? — I say. What have I done ? Do I not pay you all right like a weekly man of hon- our ? certainly, Mounseer, she say, you are a gentleman quite, and no mistakes — but I wants my whole of my house to myself for to set it up for a Lady School. Noting but Lady Schools 1 — and de widow of de butcher have one more over de street. Bless my soul and my body, I say to myself, dere must be no- body born'd in London except leetle girls ! " CHAPTEE XX. There is a certain poor word in the English language which of late years has been exceedingly ill-used — and, it must be said, by those who ought to have known better. To the disgrace of our colleges, the word in question was first perverted from its real significance at the very head-quarters of learning. The initiated, indeed, are aware of its local sense, — but who knows what cost and inconvenience the duplicity of the term may have caused to the more ignorant members of the com- munity ? Just imagine, for instance, a plain, down-right En- glishman who calls a spade a spade — induced perhaps by the facilities of the railroads — making a summer holiday, and re- pairing to Cambridge or Oxford, may be with his whole family, to see he does not exactly know what — whether a Collection of Pictures, Wax- Work, Wild Beasts, Wild Indians, a Fat Ox, or a Fat Child — but at any rate an " Exhibition ! " More recently the members of the faculty have taken it into their heads to misuse the unfortunate word, and by help of its THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 107 misapplication, are continually promising to the ear what the druggists really perform to the eye — namely, to " exhibit " their medicines. If the Doctors talked of hiding them, the phrase would be more germane to the act : for it would be difficult to conceal a little Pulv. Eliei — Magnes. Sulphat. — Tinct. Jalapaj, more effectually than by throwing it into a man's or woman's stomach. And pity it is that the term has not amongst medical men a more literal significance ; for it is certain that in many diseases, and especially of the hypochondriac class — it is certain, I say, that if the practitioner actually made " a show " of his materiel, the patient would recover at the mere sight of the «' Exhibition." THa BA.TTLK Oil KAUOUKff. This was precisely the case with the Kev. T. C. Had he fallen into the hands of a Homceopathist with his infinitesimal doses, only fit to be exhibited like the infinitesimal insects, 108 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. through a solar microscope, his recovery would have been hope- -. But his better fortune provided otherwise. The German «!iciii Kath who prescribed for him, was in theory diametric- iii\ op|)osed to Hahnemann, and in his tactics he followed Na- poleon, whose leading principle was to biingj masses of all arms, horse, foot, and artillery to bear on a given point. In accord- ance with this system, he therefore prescribed so liberally that the following articles were in a very short time comprised in his ** Exhibition : " A series of powders to be taken every two hours. A set of draughts to wash down the powders. A box of pills. A bag full of certain herbs for fomentations. A large blister, to be put between the shoulders. Twenty leeches, to be applied to the stomach. As Macheath sings, " a terrible show ! " — but the doctor, in common with his countrymen, entertained some rather exagger- ated notions as to English habits, and our general addiction to high feeding and fast living — an impression that materially ag- gravated the treatment. " He must be a horse-doctor ! " thought INIiss Crane, as she looked over the above articles ; at any rate she resolved — as if governed by the proportion of four legs to two — that her parent should only take one half of each dose that was ordered. But even these reduced quantities were too much for the Eev. T. C. The first instalment he swallowed- the second he smelt, and the third he merely looked at. To tell the truth, he was fast trans- forming from a Malade Imaginaire into a Malade Malgre Lui. In short, the cure proceeded with the rapidity of a Hohenlohe miracle — a result the doctor did not fail to attribute to the energy of his measures, at the same time resolving that the next English patient he might catch should be subjected to the same decisive treatment. Heaven keep the half, three-quarters, and THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 109 whole lengths of my dear countrymen and countrywomen from his " Exhibitions ! " His third visit to the Englishers at the Adler was his last. He found the Convalescent in his travelling dress, — Miss Ruth engaged in packing, — and the Schoolmistress writing the letter which was to prepare Miss Parfitt for the speedy return of the family party to Lebanon House. It was of course a busy time ; and the Medicin Rath speedily took his fees and his leave. There remained only the account to settle with the landlord of the Adler; and as English families rarely stopped at that wretched inn, the amount of the bill was quite as extraordinary. Never was there such a realieation of the *' large reckoning in a little room." A BEOAD JOKE. •* Well, I must say," murmured the Schoolmistress, as the coach rumbled off towards home, " I do wish we had reached Gotha, that I might have got my shades of wool." " Humph ! " grunted the Rev T. C, still sore from the recent disbursement. " They went out for wool, and thev re- turned shorn." 110 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. " We went abroad for pleasure," grumbled Miss Ruth, " and have met with nothing but pain and trouble." " And some instruction too," said Miss Crane, with even more than her usual gravity. " For my own part I have met with a lesson that has taught me my own unfitness for a Gover- ness. For I cannot think that a style of education which has made me so helpless and useless as a daughter, can be the proper one for young females, who are hereafter to become wives and mothers, a truth that every hour has impressed on me since I have been a Schoolmistress Abroad." THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. A ROMANCE. Amongst the many castled crags on the banks of the Ehine, one of the most picturesque is the ruin of Lahneck, perched on a conical rock, close to that beautiful little river the Lahn. The Castle itself is a venerable fragment, with one lofty tower rising far above the rest of the building — a characteristic feature of the feudal stronghold — being in fact the Observatory of the Robber-Baron, whence he watched, not the motions of the heavenly bodies, but the movements of such earthly ones as might afford him a booty, or threaten him with an assault. And truly, Lahneck is said to have been the residence of an order of Teutonic Knights exactly matching in number the famous band of Thieves in the Arabian Tale. However, when the sun sets in la broad blaze behind the heights of Capellen, and the fine ruin of Stokenfels on the opposite banks of the Rhine, its last rays always linger on the lofty tower of Lahneck. Many a time, while standing rod in bond on one or other of the brown rocks which, narrowing the channel of the river, form a small rapid, very favourable to the fishermen —many a time have I watched THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. j^^ the warm light burning beaconlike on the very summit of that solitary tower, whilst all the river lay beneath in deepest shadow, save the golden circles that marked where a fish rose to the surface, or the bright coruscations made by the screaming swallow as it sportively dipped its wing in the dusky water, like a gay friend breaking in on the cloudy reveries of a moody mind. And as these natural lights faded away, the artificial ones of the village of Lahnstein began to twinkle — the glowing windows of Duquet's hospitable pavilion, especially, throwing across the stream a series of dancing reflections that shone the brighter for the sombre shadows of a massy cluster of acacias in the tavern-garden. Then the myriads of chafers, taking to wing, filled the air with droning — whilst the lovely fire-flies with their fairy lamps began to flit across my homeward path, or hovered from osier to osier, along the calm waterside. But a truce to these ipersonal reminiscences. It was on a fine afternoon, towards the close of May, 1830, that two ladies began slowly to climb the winding path which leads through a wild shrubbery to the ruined Castle of Lahneck. They were unaccompanied by any person of the other sex; but such rambles are less perilous for unprotected females in that country than in our own — and they had enjoyed several similar excursions without accident or offence. At any rate, to judge from their leisurely steps, and the cheerful tone of their voices, they apprehended no more danger than might accrue to a gauze or a ribbon from an overhanging branch or a stray bramble. The steepness of the ascent forced them occasionally to halt to take breath, but they stopped quite as frequently to gather the wild flowers, and especially the sweet valley lilies — there so abundant — to look up at the time- stained Ruin from a new point, or to comment on the beauties of the scenery. 112 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. The elder of the ladies spoke in English, to which heif companion replied in the same language, but with a foreign accent, and occasional idioms, that belonged to another tongue. In fact, she was a native of Germany, whereas the other was one of those many thousands of British travellers whom the long peace, the steamboat, and the poetry of Byron had tempted to visit the "blue and arrowy" river. Both were young, handsome, and accomplished; but the Fraulein Von B. was unmarried ; whilst Mrs. was a wife and a mother, and with her husband and her two children had occupied for some weeks a temporary home within the walls of Coblenz. It was in this city that a friendship had been formed between the German Girl and .he fair Islander — the gentle pair who were now treading so ceely and fearlessly imder the walls of a castle where vomanly beauty might formerly have ventured as safely **'' the doe near the den of the lion. But those days are happily gone by — the dominion of Brute Force is over — and the Wild Baron who doomed his victims to the treacherous abyss, has dropped into an Oubliette as dark and as deep as his own. At last the two ladies gained the summit of the mountain, and for some minutes stood still and silent, as if entranced by the beauty of the scene before them. There are eleva- tions at which the mind loses breath as well as the body — • and pants too thickly with thought upon thought to find ready utterance. This was especially the case with the Englishwoman, whose cheek flushed, while her eyes glistened with tears ; for the soul is touched by beauty as well as melted by kindness, and here Nature was lavish of both — at once charming, cheering, and refreshing her with a magni- ficent prospect, the brightest of sunshine, and the balmiest air. Her companion, in the meantime, was aJmost ai THE TOWER OP LAHNECK. 113 taciturn, merely uttering the names of the places — Ober- Lahnstein — Capellen — Stolzenfels — Nieder-Lahnstein — St John's Church — to which she successively pointed with her little white finger. Following its direction, the other lady slowly turned round till her eyes rested on the Castle itself, but she was too near to see the ruin to advantage, and her neck ached as she strained it to look up at the lofty tower whsch rose almost from her feet. Still she continued to gaze upward, till her indefinite thoughts grew into a wish that she could ascend to the top, and thence, as if suspended in air, enjoy an uninterrupted view of the whole horizon. It was with delight, therefore, that on turning an angle of the wall she discovered a low open arch which admitted her to the interior, where, after a little groping, she perceived a flight of stone steps, winding, as far as the eye could trace, up the massy walls. The staircase, however, looked very dark, or rather dismal, after the bright sunshine she had just quitted, but the whim of the moment, the spirit of adventure and curiosity, induced her to proceed, although her companion, who was more phlegmatic, started several difficulties and doubts as to the practicability of the ascent. There were, however, no obstacles to surmount beyond the gloom, some trifling heaps of rubbish, and the fatigue of mounting so many gigantic steps. But this weariness was richly repaid, whenever through an occasional loophole she caught a sample of the bright blue sky, which, like samples in general, appeared of a far more intense and beautiful colour than any she hsi ever seen in the whole piece. No, never had heaven seemei. so heavenly, or earth so lovely, or water so clear and pure, as through those narrow apertures — never had she seen any views so charming as those exquisite snatches of landscape, framed by the massive masonry into little cabinet piutiu-es, of 114 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. a few inches square — so small, indeed that the two friends, pressed cheek to cheek, could only behold them with one eye apiece ! The Englishwoman knew at least a dozen of such tableaux, to be seen through particular loopholes in certain angles of the walls of Coblenz — but these " pictures of the Lahneck gallery," as she termed them, transcended them all ! Nevertheless it cost her a sigh to reflect how many forlorn captives, languishing perhaps within those very walls, had been confined to such glimpses of the world without — nay, whose every prospect on this side the grave had been framed in stone. But such thoughts soon pass away from the minds of the young, the healthy, and the happy, and the next moment the fair moralist was challenging the echoes to join with her in a favourite air. Now and then, indeed, the song abruptly stopped, or the voice quavered on a wrong note, as a fragment of mortar rattled down to the basement, or a disturbed bat rustled from its lurking-place, or the air bieathed through a crevice with a sound so like the human sigh, as to revive her melancholy fancies. But these were transient terrors, and only gave rise to peals of light-hearted merriment, that were mocked by laughing voices from each angle of the walls. At last the toilsome ascent was safely accomplished, and the two friends stood together on the top of the tower, draw- ing a long, delicious breath of the fresh free air. For a time they were both dazzled to blindness by the sudden change from gloom to sunshine, as well as dizzy from the unaccus- tomed height ; but these effects soon wore off, and the whole splendid panorama, — variegated with mountains, valleys, rocks, castles, chapels, spires, towns, villages, vineyards, corn- fields, forests, and rivei-s, was revealed to the delighted sense. As the Englishwoman had anticipated, her eye could now travel unimpeded round the entire horizon, which it did THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 115 again and again and again, while her hps kept repeating all the superlatives of admiration. " It is mine Faderland," murmured the German girl with a natural tone of triumph in the beauty of her native country. " Speak — did I not well to persuade you to hero, by little bits, and little bits, instead of a stop at Horcheim]" " You did indeed, my dear Amanda. Such a noble pros- pect would well repay a much longer walk." " Look ! — see — dere is Rhense — and de Marxberg" — ^but the finger was pointed in vain, for the eyes it would have guided continued to look in the opposite direction across the Lahn. ** Is it possible, from here," inquired the Englishwoman, « to see Coblenz 1 " Instead of answering this question, the German girl looked up archly in the speaker s face, and then smiling and nodding her head, said slily, " Ah, you do think of a somebody at home ! " "I was thinking of him indeed," replied the other, "and regretting that he is not at this moment by my side to enjoy ^" She stopped short — for at that instant a tremendous peal, as of the nearest thunder, shook the tower to its very foun* dation. The German shrieked, and the ever ready "Ach Gott ! " burst from her quivering lips ; but the English- woman neither stirred nor spoke, though her cheek turned of the hue of death. Some minds are much more apprehensive than others, and hers was unusually quick in its conclusions, — the thought passed from cause to consequence with the rapidity of the voltaic spark. Ere the sound had done rumbling, she knew the nature of the calamity as distinctly as if an evil spirit had whispered it in her ear. Nevertheless, an irresistible impulse, that dreadful attraction which draws 116 THE TOWER OF LAHNECiL us ill spite of ourselves to look on what is horrible and approach to the very verge of danger, impelled her to seek the very sight she most feared to encounter. Her mind indeed recoiled, but her limbs, as by a volition superior to her own, dragged her to the brink of the abyss she had pro- phetically painted, where the reality presented itself with a startling resemblance to the ideal picture. Yes, there yawned that dark chasm, unfathomable by the human eye, a great gulf fixed — perhaps eternally fixed — between herself and the earth, with all it contained of most dear and precious to the heart of a wife and a mother. Three — only the three uppermost steps of the gigantic stair- case still remained in their place, and even these, as she gazed at them, suddenly plunged into the dreary void ; and after an interval which indicated the frightful depth they had to plumb, reached the bottom with a crash that was followed by a roll of hollow echoes from the subterranean vaults ! As the sound ceased, the Englishwoman turned away, with a gasp and a visible shudder, from the horrid chasm. It was with the utmost difficulty that she had mastered a mechanical inclination to throw herself after the falling mass — an impulse very commonly induced by the unexpected descent of a large body from our own level. But what had she gained ? Per- haps but a more lingering and horrible fate — a little more time to break her heart in — so many more wretched hours to lament for her lost treasures — her cheerful home — her married felicity — her maternal joys, and to look with unavailing yearnings towards Coblenz. But that sunny landscape had become intolerable ; and she hastily closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. Alas ! she only beheld the more vividly the household images, and dear familiar faces that distractingly associated the happiness of the past with the misery of the present — for out of the very sweetaosg of THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 117 her life came intenser bitterness, and from its brightest phases an extremer darkness, even as the smiling valley beneath her had changed into that of the Shadow of Death ! The Destroyer had indeed assumed almost a visible presence, and like a poor trembling bird, conscious of the stooping falcon, the devoted victim sank down and cowered on the hard, cold, rugged roof of the fatal Tower ! The German girl, in the meanwhile, had thrown herself on her knees, and with her neck at full stretch over the low parapet, looked eagerly from east to west for succour — but from the mill up the stream to the ferry down below, and along the road on either side of the river, she could not descry a living object. Yes — ^no — yes — there was one on the mountain itself, moving among the brushwood, and even approaching the castle ; closer he came — and closer yet, to the very base of the Tower. But his search^ whatever it was, tended earthwards, for he never looked up. " Here ! — come ! — gleich ! — quick ! " and the agitated speaker hurriedly beckoned to her companion in misfortune — "we must make a cry both togeder, and so loud as we can," and setting the example she raised her voice to its utmost pitch; but the air was so rarified that the sound seemed feeble even to herself At any rate it did not reach the figure below — nor woidd a far louder alarm, for that figure was little Kranz, the deaf and dumb boy of Lahnstein, who was gathering bunches of the valley-lillies for sale to the company at the inn. Accord ingly, after a desultory ramble round the ruins, he descended to the road, and slowly proceeded along the waterside towards the ferry, where he disappeared. *' Lieber Gott ! " exclaimed the poor girl ; " it is too far to make one hear ! " So saying she sprang to her feet, and with her white hand- 8 118 THE TOWER OF LaHNECK. kerchief kept waving signals of distress, till from sheer exhaustion her arms refused their office. But not one of those pleasure-parties so frequent on fine summer days in that favourite valley had visited the spot. There was a Kirch- Weih at Neundorf, down the Rhine, and the holiday- makers had all proceeded with their characteristic imiformity in that direction. " Dere is nobody at all,'* said the German, dropping her arms and head in utter despondence, " not one to see us ! " " And if there were," added a hollow voice, " what hxmian help could avail us at this dreadful height ! " The truth of this reflection was awfully apparent; but who when hfe is at stake can resign hope, or its last tearful contingency, though frail as a spider's thread encumbered with dewdrops i The German, in spite of her misgivings, resumed her watch ; till after a long, weary, dreary hour, a solitary figure issued from a hut a little lower down on the opposite side of the Lahn, and stepping into a boat propelled it to the middle of the stream. It was one of the poor fishermen who rented the water, and rowing directly to the rapid, he made a cast or two with his net, immediately within the reflection of the Castle. But he was too distant to hear the cry that appealed to him, and too much absorbed in the success or failure of his peculiar lottery to look aloft. Like the deaf and dumb boy, he passed on, but in the opposite direction, and gradually " It will never be seen ! " ejaculated the German girl^ again dropping her arm — a. doubtful prophecy, however, for immediately afterwards the Rhenish steamboat crossed the mouth of the lesser river, and probably more than one tele- scope was pointed to the romantic ruin of Lahneck. But the distance was great, and even had it been less, the waving oi THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 119 a white handkerchief would have been taken for a merry or a friendly salute. In the roeantime the steamboat passed out of sight behind the high ground ; but the long streamer of smoke was still visible, hke a day-meteor, swiftly flying along, and in a direction that made the Englishwoman stretch out her arms after the fleeting vapour as if it had been a thing sensible to human supplication. " It is gone also ! " exclaimed her partner in misery. " And in a short while my liebe mutter will see it come to Coblenz ! " The Englishwoman groaned. " It is my blame," continued the other, in an agony of self-reproach ; "it was my blame to come so wide — not one can tell where. Nobody shall seek at Lahneck — dey will think we are dropped into de Rhine. Yes — we must die both ! We must die of famisbment — and de cornfields, and de vines is all round one ! " And thus hour passed after hour, still watching promises that budded and blossomed and withered — and still flowered again and again without fruition — till the shades of evening began to fall, and the prospect became in every sense darker and darker. Barge after barge had floated down the river, but the steersman had been intent on keeping his craft in the middle of the current in the most difl&cult part of his navigation — the miller had passed along the road at the base of the mountain, but his thoughts were fixed on the home within his view — the female peasant drove her eows from the pasture — the truant children returned to the village, and the fisher- man drifting down the stream, again landed, and after hang- ing his nets up to dry between the trees on the opposite meadows re-entered his hut. But none saw the signal, none 120 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. heard the cry, or if they did it was supposed to be the shrill squeak of the bat. There was even company at the inn, for the windows of Duquet's pavilion began to sparkle, but the enjoyments of the party had stopped short of the romantic and the picturesque — they were quaffing Rhein wein, and eating thick sour cream, sweetened with sugar, and flavoured with cinnamon. " It is hard, mine friend," sobbed the German, " not one thinks but for themselves." " It is unjust," might have retorted the wife and mother, " for I think of my husband and children, and they think of me." Why else did her sobs so disturb the tranquil air, or where- fore did she paint her beloved Edward and her two fair- haired boys with their faces so distorted by grief? The present and the future — for time is nothing in such visions — were almost simultaneously before her, and the happy home of one moment was transfigured at the next instant into the house of mourning. The contrast was agDnizing but unspeakable — one of those stupendous woes which stupify the soul, as when the body is not pierced with a single wound, but mortally crushed. She was not merely stricken but stunned. " Mein Gott ! " exclaimed the German girl, after a vain experiment on the passiveness of her companion, "why do you not speak someting — what shall we do 1 " . "Nothing," answered a shuddering whisper, "except — die!" A long pause ensued, during which the German girl more than once approached and looked down the pitch black orifice which had opened to the fallen stairs. Perhaps it looked less gloomy than by daylight in the full blaze of the sun, — perhaps she had read and adopted a melancholy, THE TOWER 01 LAHNECK. 121 morbid tone of feeling too common tt) .German works, when they treat of a voluntary death, or perhaps the Diabolical Prompter was himself at hand with the desperate suggestion, fatal alike to body and to soul, — but the wretched creature ,3rew nearer and nearer to the dangerous verge. Her purpose, however, was checked. Although the air was perfectly still, she heard a sudden rustle amongst the ivy on that side of the Tower, which, even while it made her start, had whispered a new hope in ner ear. Was it possible that her signals had been observed — that her cries had been heard? And again the sound was audible, followed by a loud harsh cry, and a large Owl, like a bird of ill omen, as it is, fluttered slowly over the heads of the devoted pair, and again it shrieked and flapped round them, as if to involve vhem in a magical circle, and then with a third and shriller screech sailed away Hke an Evil Spirit, in the direction of the Black Forest. Nor was that boding fowl without its sinister influence on human destiny. The disappointment it caused to the victim was mortal. It was the drop that overbrimmed her cup. " No," she muttered, " dere is no more hopes. For myself I will not starve up here — I know my best friend, and will cast my troubles on the bosom of my mother earth." Absorbed in her own grief tho Englishwoman did not at first comprehend the import of these words ; but all at once their meaning dawned on her with a dreadful significance. It was, however, too late. Her eye caught a glimpse of the skirt of a garment, her ear detected a momentary flutter— and she was alone on that terrible Tower ! And did she too perish ? Alas ! ask the peasants and the fishermen, who daily worked for their bread in that valley or 122 EPIGRAM. on its river ; ask the fenymen, who hourly passed to and fro, and the bargeman, who made the stream his thoroughfare, and they will tell you, one and all, that they heard nothing and saw nothing, for labour looks downward and forward, and round about, but not upward. Nay, ask the angler himself, who withdrew his fly from the circling eddies of the rapids to look at the last beams of sunshine glowing on the lofty Ruin — and he answers that he never saw living creature on its summit, except once, when the Crow and the Raven were hovering about the building, and a screaming Eagle, although it had no nest there, was perched on the Tower of Lahneck. Note. — This story — (which some hardy critic affirmed was "an old Legend of the Khine, to be found in any Guide-book,") — was suggested by the recital of two ladies,* who attempted to ascend to the top of the Tower of Lahneck, but were deterred by the shaking of the stone stairs. They both consider, to this day, that they narrowly escaped a fate akin to the catastrophe of poor Amy Robsart ; and have visible shudderings when they hear, or read, of old Rhenish castles and oubliettes. * My mother and a Miss B., mentioned in the " Memorials.'* EPIGRAM ON THE ABT-UNIONS. That Picture-Raffles will conduce to nourish Design, or cause good colouring to flourish, Admits of logic-chopping and wise sawing, But surely Lotteries encourage Drawing I TO MY DAUGHTER. 123 TO MY DAUGHTER. ON HEB BIRTH-DAY. Dear Fanny! nine long years ago, While yet the morning sun was low, And rosy with the Eastern glow The landscape smiled — "Whilst lowed the newly-waken'd herds — Sweet as the early song of birds, I heard those first, delightful words, "Thou hast a Child!" Along with that uprising dew Tears ghsten'd in my eyes, though few, To hail a dawning quite as new To me, as Time : It was not sorrow — not annoy — But like a happy maid, though coy. With grief-like welcome even Joy Forestalls its prime. So mayst thou live, dear ! many years, In all the bliss that life endears. Not without smiles, nor yet from tears Too strictly kept : When first thy infant littleness I folded in my fond caress, The greatest proof of happiness Was this-r-I wept. V2i A SEA-TOTALLER. HOWQUA Is of three different sorts ; although they are not generally particularised by the tea-dealers or brokers : viz., SoMEHow-QUA, which includes Hyson, Souchong, Bohea, &c., as well as the tea advertised by Captain Pidding : Anyhow-qua — composed of sloe, ash, willow, second-hand tea-leaves, or any other vegetable rubbish, and NoHow-QUA, which falls to the lot of those who cannot get any tea at all. i'UJs CHIAKSE JUiiii,t!.jL*. A SEA-TOTALLER. " I'll tell you what it is," said the President of the Social Glassites, at the same time mixing a fresh tumbler of grog — rather stiffer than the last — for the subject of Temperance and Teetotalism had turned up, and he could not discuss it with dry lips — " I'll tell you what it is : Temperance is all very well, A SEA-TOTALLER. 125 provided it's indulged in with moderation, and without injury to your health or business ; but when it sets a man spouting, and swaggering, and flag-carrying and tea-gardening, and dressing himself up like a play-actor, why he might as well have his mind unsobered with anything else.*' SAILING ON TEMPEEANCE PlilN CIl'LES. *• That's very true," said the Vice-president, — a gentleman with a remarkably red nose. "I have seen many Teetotal Processions," continued the President, " and I don't hesitate to say that every man and woman amongst them was more or less intoxicated — " *' Eh, what ? " asked a member, hastily removing his cigar. " Yes, intoxicated, I say, with pride and vanity — what with the bands of music, and the banners, and the ribbons, and maybe one of their top-sawyers, with his white wand, swaggering along at their head, and looking quite convinced that because he hasn't made a Beast of himself he must be a Beauty. Instead of which, to my mind, there can't be a more pitiful sight than a 126 A SBA-TOTALLBR. great hulking fellow all covered with medals and orders, like a Lord Nelson, for only taking care of his own precious health, and trying to live long in the land ; and particularly if he's got a short neck and a full habit. Why, the Eoyal Humane Society might just as well make a procession of all the people who don't drink water to excess, instead of those objects that do, and with ribbons and medals round their necks, for being their own life-preservers 1 '* " That's very true," said the Vice. ** I've seen a Master Grand of a Teetotaller with as many ornaments about him as a foreign prince ! " " Why, I once stopped my own grog," continued the Presi- dent, for twelve months together, of my own accord, because I was a little wheezy ; and yet never stuck even a snip of ribbon at my button-hole. But that's modest merit, — whereas a regular Temperance fellow would have put on a broad blue sash, as if he was a Knight of the Bath, and had drunk the bath all up in- stead of swimming in it." " That's very true," repeated the Vice. " Temperance is, no doubt, a virtue," said the President ; '* but it is not the only one ; though, to judge by some of their Tracts and Speeches, you would think that be- cause a Totaller drinks Adam's ale he is as innocent as our first Parents in Paradise, which, begging their pardons, is altogether jm error, and no mis- take. Sin and strong BOUGH BIDING. dflnk 816 iiot boHi re- lations ; though they often come together. The first murderer A SEA-TOTALLER. 127 in the world was a water-drinker, and when he killed his poor brother was as sober as a judge." " If that aren't true," exclaimed the red-nosed Vice, " I'll be pounded ! " " It was interaperance, however," said the President ; *' be- cause why ? It was indulging in ardent passions and fermented feelings, agin which, in my humble opinion, we ought to take Long and Short Pledges, as much as agin spirituous liquors. Not to mention the strong things that come out of people's mouths, and are quite as deleterious as any that go into them — for example, profane swearing, and lying, and slandering, and foul language, and which, not to name names, are dealt in by parties who would not even look at Pine Old Pineapple Eum, or Cream of the Valley." " That's correct, anyhow," said the Vice ; and he replenished his tumbler. " To be sure. Temperance has done wonders in Ireland," con- tinued the President, " and to my mind, little short of a miracle — namely, repealing the Old Union of Whisky-and- Water, — and which would have seemed a much tougher job than O'Connell's. However, Father Mathew has accomplished it, and instead of a Parliament in College Green, we are likely to see a far stranger sight, and that's a whole County of Cork with- out a bottle to it." "Humph !" ejaculated the Vice, and took a liberal draught of his mixture. "But they'll take to party spirit in loo." "Like enough," said the President; "for when once we get accustomed to strong stimuluses, we find it hard to go without 'em ; and they do say, that many of those parties who have left off liquor, have taken to opium. But the greatest danger with new converts and proselytes, is of their rushing into another extreme — and that reminds me of a story to the point." " Now then," said the member with the cigar. 128 A SEA-TOTALLER. **It was last September," said the President, " when 1 owned The Rose in June, and a sweet pretty craft she was. I had bought a lot of lines and a trawling net along with her ; and besides cruising fori pleasure, we used now and then toi cast about for a bit of fresh fish for; my missus, or by way of present to a friend. Well, one day, just be- low Gravesend, we had fished all the morning, but without any luck at all, except one poor little skate that lay on the deck making faces at us like a dying Christian, first pouting out its lips, and then draw- ing them in again with a long suck of its breath, for all the world like a fellow creature with a stitch in the side, or a spasm in his chest. The next haul we got nothing but lots of mud, a bit of sea- weed, a lump of coal, a rotten bung, and an old shoe. How- ever, the third time the net felt heavy enough for a porpus, and sure enough on hauling it up to the top of the water, we saw some very large fish a-flopping about in it, quite as big as a grampus, om} cothing like the species. Well, we pulled and hauled. Jack and I — (you remember Jack) — till we got the creature aboard over the bulwarks, and there it rolled on the deck, such a Sea Monster as never was seen afore nor since. It was full six feet long, with a round head like a man's, b ut bald, — though it had a beard and whiskers of sandy-coloured hair. We could not see the face, by reason of the creature al- ways hiding it with its paws, which were like a man's hands, only with a sort of web between the fingers. All the upper part A SEA.TOTALLER. 129 of the body was of a flesh or salmon coloiu* down to the middle, where the skin became first bluer, and then greener and greener, as well as more rough and scaly, till the body forked off into two distinct fishes' tails. ** * I'll tell you what, master,' says Jack Rogers, after taking a good look at the monster, and poking it about a bit with a handspike, * I'm blest if it isn't a Cock Mermaid I " * No doubt of it,' said the Vice. *' ' To tell the truth,' said the President, * I had the same thought in my head, but was afraid to name it, because such animals have been reckoned fabulous. However, there it was on the deck, as large as life, and a certain fortune to the owner, as an article for exhibition ; and I won't deny that I began in my own mind a rough guess at the sum total of all the inhabit- ants of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, at a shilling a-head. Jack, too, seemed in a brown study, maybe settling what share, in right and justice, he ought to have of the profits, or perhaps wondering, and puzzled to make head or tail of the question, whether the creature was properly a beast or a fish. As for myself, I felt a little flustered, as you may suppose, not only by the strangeness of the phenomenon, but at the prospect of such a prodigious fortune. In point of fact I was all in a tremor, like a steam- vessel with high-pressure engines, and ac- cordingly sent Jack down below for my brandy-bottle out of the locker, just to steady my nerves. * Here's to us both,' says I, nodding and winking at Jack, ' and to the Cock Mermaid into the bargain; for unless I'm mistaken, it'll prove a gold fish in the end.' I was rather premature : for the noise of pulling out the cork made the creature look round, which was the first time we had caught a fair look at its face. When lo and behold ! Jack no sooner clapped his eyes on the features, than he sings out again: " ' I'm blest,' says he— for I didn't allow swearing — * I'm blest if it isn't Bob Buuce ! ' 180 A SEA-TOTALLER. ** Well, the Merman gave a nod, as much as to say, * You're right, I*m him ; ' and then scrambling up into a sitting posture, LA BELLK TUB. with his back agin the companion, made a sign to me for the bottle. So I handed him the flask, which he took a sup of through the net ; but the liquor went against his fishified nature, and pulling a very wry face, he spirted it all out again, and gave me back the bottle. To my mind that settled the matter about his being a rational creature. It was moral impossible, though he might have an outside resemblance, like the apes and monkeys, to the human species. But I was premature again ; for, after rolling about a bit, he took me all aback with an odd sort of a voice coming out of his mouth, which was as round as the hole of a flute. " * Here,' says he, * lend us a hand to get out of the net.* " * It's Bob Bunce, sure enough 1 ' cries Jack. • That's his voice, I'll take my davit, howsomever he's got transmogrified.' A SEA.TOTALLJEa, ISl *.MD HOW,' SAYS HK, ' IF TOU'bB A COCK MKRMAID, AS SIASTBg THIITKI, TOV MAY HOLD XOCB XONftUB.' " 132 A SEA.TOTALLER. "And with that he stooped down and helped the creature, whatever it was, out of the net, and then popped him up on hia two tails against the mast. ** ' And now,' says he, 'if you're a Cock Mermaid, as master thinks, you may hold your tongue; but if so be you're Bob Bunce, as I suspect' (and if Jack always used the solemn tone he did at that minute he'd make a firstrate popular preacher,) * why then don't renounce your godfathers and god- mothers in your baptism, and your Christian religion, but say 80 at once like a man.' " ' I ham Bob Bunce, then,' said the creature, with a very strong emphasis, * or rayther I were' and along with the last word two great tears as big as swanshot sprang out of his pale PUBLIC 8PIEIT. blue eyes, and rolled down his flabby cheeks. * Yes, I were Bob Bunce, and known by sight to every man, woman, and child in Deptford.' A SEA-TOTALLER. 133 " * That's true anyhow,' said Jack ; ' 'cause why ? — you were «o often a reeling drunk about the streets.' " * There's no denying it,' said Bob, ' and plenty of contrary evidence if I did. But it warn't the strong liquors that ruined rae, but quite the reverse ; for you see, Sir,' addressing me, * one day after a drunken fit a she-teetotaller got hold of me while I was sick and sorry, and prevailed on me to join a Temperance Club, and take the long pledge, which I did.' " * And now,' says she, ' you're nabb'd, and after that every drop of liquor you take will flare up agin you hereafter like blazes, and make a snap-dragon on you in the tother world.' "*Well, being low and narvous, that scarified me at once into water-drinking, and I was fool enough to think, that the more water I drunk the more sober I should be ; whereby at last I reached the pint of taking above two or three gallons a- day. Por all that I got no stronger or better, as the speeches and tracks had promised, but rather weaker and weaker ; and instead of a fair complexion, began turning blueish and greenish, besides my body being covered, as they say, with goose-skin, and my legs of a scaly character. As for walking, I staggered worse than ever, through gettin' knockneed and splay-footed, which was the beginnin' of their transmogrification. The long and the short is. Sir, though I didn't know it, that along o' so much water, I'd been drinkin' myself amphibbus.' *' ' Well, that sounds like philosophy,' says Jack : ' but then, Bob, how come ye into the river ? ' *' * Ah ! ' says Bob, shaking his head, * that's the sinful part o' the story. But between mortification, and the fear of being showed up for a mermaid, I resolved to put an end to myself, and so crawled down arter dark to Cole's wharf and flung my- self into the river. But instead of drownding as I expected, the water that came into my mouth seemed to go out agin at my ears, and I found I could swim about and rise to the top y 134 A SEA-TOTALLER. or dive to the bottom as nat'ral as a fish. That gave me time to repent and reflect, and the consequence is, I've lived a wet life for above a week, and am almost reconciled to the same — only I don't take quite kindly yet to the raw dabs and flounders, and so was making my way down to the oyster-beds in the Med- way, when your net come and ketch'd me up.' " ' But you wouldn't spend your days in the ocean, would you, Bob ? ' asked Jack, in a sort of coaxing tone that was meant to be very agreeable. * As to hoysters, you may have 'em on dry land, real natives, and ready opened for you, and what's more, pepper'd and vinegar'd, which you can't. in the Medway. And in respect to walking, why, me and master would engage to purvide you with a carriage.' " ' A wan, you mean,' said the other, with a piercing look at Jack, and then another at me, that made me wince. * A wan — and Bartlemy Eair— but I'U die first ! ' " And rising upright on his double tail, before we could lay hands on him, he threw a somerset over the bulwark, and dis- appeared. A. DISOHABGB PHOM THE BENCH. " And was that the last of him ? " said the Vice. *' It was, gentlemen," replied the President. " For Bunce, A SEA-TOTALLER. 135 or Bounce, or Tee-totaller, or Sea-totaller, we never set eyes on him again." " Well, that's a warning anyhow," said the Vice, again help- ing himself from the bottle. " I've heard political people talk of swamping the Constitution, but never knew before that it was done with pump water." " Nor I neither," said the member with the cigar. " Why, you see," said the President, " Temperance is a very praiseworthy object to a proper extent; but a thing may be carried too far, as Sinbad said to the Old Man of the Sea. No doubt water-drinking is very wholesome while it's indulged in with moderation, but when you come to take it to excess, why you may equally make a beast of yourself, like poor Bob Bunce, and be unable to Iceep your legs." ON A CERTAIN LOCALITY. Of public changes, good or ill, I seldom lead the mooters. But really Constitution Hill Should change its name with Shooter's ! 136 THE FORGE. A SKETCH ON THE HOAD. " All have their exits and their entrances.*' It is a treat to see Prudery get into an omnibus. Of course she rejects the hand that is held out to her by male Civility. It might give her a squeeze. Neither does she take the first vacant place ; but looks out for a seat, if possible, between an innocent little girl and an old woman. In the meantime the omnibus moves on. Prudery totters — makes a snatch at Civility's nose — or his neck — or anywhere — ^and missing her hold rebounds to the other side of the vehicle, and plumps down in a strange gentleman's lap. True modesty would have escaped all these indecorums. THE FORGE. A EOMANCE OF THE IRON AGE. "Who's here, beside foul weather?" — Kino Lear. *' Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me, Should have stood that night against my fire." — COBDELIA. PART I. Like a dead man gone to his shroud, The sun has sunk in a coppery cloud, And the wind is rising squally and loud With many a stormy token, — Playing a wild funereal air, Through the branches bleak, bereaved, and bare, To the dead leaves dancing here and there — In short, if the truth were spoken, It's an ugly night for anywhere, But an awful one for the Brocken 1 THE FORGE. 137 For oh ! to stop On that mountain top, After the dews of evening drop, Is always a dreary frolic — Then what must it be when nature groans, And the very mountain murmurs and moaaa As if it writhed with the cholic — With other strange supernatural tones, From wood, and water, and echoing stones, Not to forget unburied bones — In a region so diabolic 1 A place where he whom we call old Scratch, By help of his Witches — a precious batch — Gives midnight concerts and sermons, In a Pulpit and Orchestra built to match, A plot right worthy of him to hatch. And well adapted, he knows, to catch The musical, mystical Germans ! However it's quite As wild a night As ever was known on that sinister height Since the Demon-Dance was morriced — The earth is dark, and the sky is scowling. And the blast through the pines is howling and growling As if a thousand wolves were prowling About in the old Black Forest ! Madly, sadly, the Tempest raves Through the narrow gullies and hollow caves. And bursts on the rocks in windy waves, 138 THE FORGE. Like the billows that roar On a gusty shore Mourning over the mariners' graves — Nay, more like a frantic lamentation From a howling set Of demons met To wake a dead relation. Badly, madly, the vapours fly Over the dark distracted sky. At a pace that no pen can paint ! Black and vague like the shadows of dreams. Scudding over the moon that seems, Shorn of half her usual beams, As pale as if she would. faint ! The lightning flashes. The thunder crashes, The trees encounter with horrible clashes. While rolling up from marish and bog. Bank and rich. As from Stygian ditch. Rises a foul sulphureous fog, Hinting that Satan himself is agog, — But leaving at once this heroical pitch. The night is a very bad night in whicb You wouldn't turn out a dog. Yet ONE there is abroad in the storm, And whenever by chance The moon gets a glance. She spies the Traveller's lonely form, Walking, leaping, striding along, As none can do but the super-strong ; THE FORGE. 139 And flapping his arms to keep him warm, For the breeze from the North is a regular starver, And to tell the truth, More keen, in sooth. And cutting than any German carver 1 However, no time it is to lag, And on he scrambles from crag to crag. Like one determined never to flag — Now weathers a block Of jutting rock, With hardly room for a toe to wag ; But holding on by a timber snag. That looks like the arm of a friendly hag ; Then stooping under a drooping bough. Or leaping over some horrid chasm, Enough to give any heart a spasm ! And sinking down a precipice now, Keeping his feet the Deuce knows how, In spots whence all creatures would keep aloof,^ Except the Goat, with his cloven hoof, Who clings to the shallowest ledge as if He grew like the weed on the face of the cliflf I So down, still down, the Traveller goes, Safe as the Chamois amid his snows, Though fiercer than ever the hurricane blows, And round him eddy, with whirl and whizz, Tornadoes of hail, and sleet, and rain. Enough to bewilder a weaker brain. Or blanch any other visage than his, Which spite of lightning, thunder, and hail. The blinding sleet and the freezing gale. liO THE FORGE. And the horrid abyss, If his foot should miss, Instead of tending at all to pale, Like cheeks that feel the chill of affrights- Remains — the very reverse of white ! His heart is granite — ^his iron nerve Feels no convulsive twitches ; And as to his foot, it does not swervo, Tho' the Screech-Owls are flitting about him that serve For parrots to Brocken Witches ! Nay, full in his very path he spies The gleam of the Were Wolf's horrid eyes ; But if his members quiver — It is not for that — no, it is not for that — Nor rat, Nor cat, As black as your hat, Nor the snake that hiss'd, nor the toad thf*t spat, Nor glimmering candles of dead men*8 fat, Nor even the flap of the Vampire Bat, No anserine skin would rise thereat, It*s the cold that makes Him shiver I So down, still down, through gully and glen, Never trodden by foot of men. Past the Eagle's nest, and the She- Wolf's den. Never caring a jot how steep Or how narrow the track he has to keep, Or how wide and deep An abyss to leap, THE FORGE. 141 Or what may fly, or walk, or creep, Down he hurries through darkness and storm, Flapping his arms to keep him warm — Till threading many a pass abhorrent, At last he reaches the mountain gorge, And takes a path along by a torrent — The very identical path, by St. George ! Down which young Fridolin went to the Forge, With a message meant for his own death-warrant ! Young Fridolin ; young Fridolin ! So free from sauce, and sloth, and sin, The best of pages Whatever their ages, Since first that singular fashion came in — Not he like those modern and idle young gluttons With little jackets, so smart and spruce. Of Lincoln green, sky-blue, or puce — A little gold lace you may introduce- Very showy, but as for use. Not worth so many buttons ! Young Fridolin ; young Fridolin I Of his duty so true a fulfiller — But here we need no farther go For whoever desires the Tale to know, May read it aH in Schiller. Faster now the Traveller speeds, Whither his guiding beacon leads, For by yonder glare In the murky air. 142 THE FORGE. He knows that the Eisen Hutte is there ! With its sooty Cyclops, savage and grim, Hosts, a guest had better forbear, Whose thoughts are set upon dainty fare — But stiff with cold in every limb. The Furnace Fire is the bait for Him I Faster and faster still he goes. Whilst redder and redder the welkin glows, And the lowest clouds that scud in the sky Get crimson fringes in flitting by. Till lo ! amid the lurid light, The darkest object intensely dark, Just where the bright is intensely bright, The Forge, the Forge itself is in sight. Like the pitch-black hull of a burning bark. With volleying smoke, and many a spai'k, Vomiting fire, red, yellow, and white ! Restless, quivering tongues of flame ! Heavenward striving still to go. While others, reversed in the stream below. Seem seeking a place we will not name, * But well that Traveller knows the same, Who stops and stands, So rubbing his hands. And snuffing the rare Perfumes in the air. For old familiar odours are there, And then direct by the shortest cut, Like Alpine Marmot, whom neither rut> Rivers, rocks, nor thickets rebut. Makes his way to the blazing Hut I THE FORGE, US PART 11. Idly watching the Furnace-flames, The men of the stithy Are in their smithy, Brutal monsters, with bulky frames, Beings Humanity scarcely claims, But hybrids rather of demon race, Unbless'd by the holy rite of grace, Who never had gone by Christian names^ Mark, or Matthew, Peter, or James — Naked, foul, unshorn, unkempt, From touch of natural shame exempt, Things of which Delirium has dreamt — • But wherefore dwell on these verbal sketches, When traced with frightful truth and vigour. Costume, attitude, face, and figure, Eetsch has drawn the very wretches ! However, there they lounge about. The grim, gigantic fellows. Hardly hearing the storm without. That makes so very dreadful a rout. For the constant roar From the furnace door, And the blast of the monstrous bellowa I Oh, what a scene That Forge had been For Salvacor Rosa's study ! With wall, and beam, and post, and pin, 144 THE FORGE. And those ruffianly creatures, like Shapes of Sin, Hair, and eyes, and rusty skin. Illumed by a light so ruddy The Hut, and whatever there is therein. Looks either red-hot or bloody ! And, oh ! to hear the frequent burst Of strange, extravagant laughter. Harsh and hoarse. And resounding perforce From echoing roof and rafter ! Though curses, the worst That ever were curst, And threats that Cain invented the first. Come growling the instant after ! But again the livelier peal is rung, For the Smith, hight Salamander, In the jargon of some Titanic tongue, Elsewhere never said or sung. With the voice of a Stentor in joke ha^s flung Some cumbrous sort Of sledge-hammer retoit At Red Beard, the crew's commander. Some frightful jest — who knows how wild^ Or obscene, from a monster so defiled. And a horrible mouth, of such extent, From flapping ear to ear it went, And show'd such tusks whenever it smilec?^** The very mouth to devour a child ! But fair or foul the jest gives birth To another bellow of demon mirth. That far outroars the weather, As if all the Hyajnas that prowl the earth Had clubb'd their laughs together I And lo ! in the middle of all the din, Not seeming to care a single pin, For a prospect so volcanic, A Stranger steps abruptly in, . Of an aspect rather Satanic : And he looks with a grin, at those CVcIops grim. Who stare and grin again at him With wondrous little panic. Then up to the Furnace the Stranger goes, Eager to thaw his ears and nose, And warm his iVozen lingers and toes — While each succeeding minute. Hotter and hotter the Smithy grows. And seems to declare, By a fiercer glare, ^ On wall, roof, floor, and everywnero. It knows the Devil is in it I StiU not a word Is utter' d or heard, But the beetle-brow'd Foreman nods and winks. Much as a shaggy old Lion blinks. And makes a shift To impart his drift To a smoky brother, who joining the links, Hints to a third the thing he thinks ; And whatever it be, They all agree 146 THE FORGE. In smiling with faces full of glee, As if about to enjoy High Jinks. What sort of tricks they mean to play By way of diversion, who can say, Of such ferocious and barbarous folk, Who chuckled, indeed, and never spoke Of burning Robert the Jager to coke, Except as a capital practical joke ! Who never thought of Mercy, or heard her. Or any gentle emotion felt ; But hard as the iron they had to melt. Sported with Danger and romp'd with Murder. Meanwhile the Stranger— The Brocken Ranger, Besides another and hotter post. That renders him not averse to a roast,— Creeping into the Furnace almost. Has made himself as warm as a toast — When, unsuspicious of any danger. And least of all of any such maggot, As treating his body like a faggot. All at once he is seized and shoven In pastime cruel. Like so much fuel, Headlong into the blazing oven ! In he goes ! with a frightful shout Mock*d by the rugged ruffianly band. As round the Furnace mouth they stand. Bar. and shovel, and ladle in hand. To hinder their Butt irom crawling out, THE FORGE. tl7 Who making one fierce attempt, but vain Keceives such a blow From Ked-Beard's crow As crashes the skull and gashes the brain, And blind, and dizzy, and stunn'd with pain. With merely an interjectional " oh ! " Back he rolls in the flames aarain. •* Ha ! Ha ! Ho ! Ho ! " That second fall Seems the very best joke of all, To judge by the roar Twice as loud as before, That fills the Hut, from the roof to the floor. And flies a league or two out of the door, Up the mountain and over the moor — But scarcely the jolly echoes they wake Have well begun To take up the fun, Ere the shaggy Felons have cause to quake, And begin to feel that the deed they have done, Instead of being a pleasant one, Was a very great error — and no mistake. For why 1 — in lieu Of its former hue. So natural, warm, and florid, The Furnace bums of a brimstone blue. And instead of the couleur de rose it threw, With a cooler reflection, — justly &\\e^ Exhibits each ot the Pagan crew, Livid, ghastly, and horrid ! 148 THE FORGE. But vainlv they ciose their guilty eyes Against prophetic fears ; Or with hard and homy palms devisa To dam their enormous ears — There are sounds in the air, Not here or there, Irresistible voices everywhere, No bulwarks can ever rebut. And to match the screams, Tremendous gleams. Of Horrors that like the Phantoms of dreams They see with their eyelids shut ! For awful coveys of terrible things. With forked tongues and venomous stings, On hagweed, broomsticks, and leathern wings, Are hovering round the Hut ! Shapes, that within the focus bright Of the Forge, are like shadows and blot* ; But farther off, in the shades of night, Clothed with their own phosphoric lights Are seen in the darkest spots. Sounds ! that fill the air with noises, Strange and indescribable voices. From Hags, in a diabolical clatter — Cats that spit curses, and apes that chattor Scraps of cabalistical matter — Owls that screech, and dogs that yeil — Skeleton hounds that will never be fatter- All the domestic tribes of Hell, Shrieking for flesh to tear and tatter, THE FORGE. 149 Bones to shatter, ' And limbs to scatter, And who it is that must furnish the latter Those blue-looking Men know well ! Those blue-looking men that huddle together. For all their sturdy limbs and thews, Their unshorn locks, like Nazarene Jews, And buffalo beards, and hides of leather, Huddled all in a heap together, Like timid lamb, and ewe, and wether. And as females say. In a similar way, Fit for knocking down with a feather ! In and out, in and out, The gathering Goblins hover about, Ev'ry minute augmenting the rout ; For Uke a spell The unearthly smell That fumes from the Furnace, chimney and moutli, Draws them in — an infernal Legion — From East, and West, and North, and South, Like carrion birds from ev'ry region. Till not a yard square Of the sickening air But has a Demon or two for its share, Breathing fury, woe, and despair. Never, never was such a sight ! It beats the very Walpurgis Night, Displayed in the story of Doctor Faust us. For the scene to describe Of the awful tribe, If we were two G others, would quite exhaust ua I JO 150 THE FORGE. Suffice it, amid that dreary swarra. There musters each foul repulsive form That ever a fancy overwarm Begot in its worst delirium ; Besides some others of monstrous size. Never before revealed to eyes, Of the genus Megatherium ! Meanwhile the aemons, filthy and foul, Gorgon, Chimera, Harpy, and Ghoul, Are not contented to jibber and howl As a dirge for their late commauder ; But one of the bevy — witch or wizard, Disguised as a monstrous flying lizard. Springs on the grisly Salamander, Who stoutly fights, and struggles, and kicks, And tries the best of his wrestling tricks, No paltry strife. But for life, dear life, But the ruthless talons refuse to unfix. Till far beyond a surgical case. With starting eyes, and black in the face, Down he tumbles as dead as bricks ! A pretty sight for his mates to view ! Those shaggy murderers looking so blue, And for him above all, Red-bearded and tall. With whom, at that veiy particular nick, There is such an unlucky crow to pick, As the one of iron that did the trick In a recent bloody affair — THE FORGE. 151 No wonder feeling a little sick, With pulses beating uncommonly quick, And breath he never found so thiuk, He longs for the open air ! Three paces, or four, And he gains the door ; But ere he accompUshes one. The sound of a blow comes, heavy and dull. And clasping his fingers round his skull — However the deed was done. That gave him that florid Ked gash on the forehead — With a roll of the eyeballs perfectly horrid. There's a tremulous quiver, The last death-shiver, And Red-Beard's course is run ! Halloo! Halloo! They have done for two ! But a heavy ish job remains to do ! For yonder, sledge and shovel in hand. Like elder Sons of Giant Despair, A couple of Cycbps make a stand, And fiercely hammering here and tnere. Keep at bay the Powers of Air — But desperation is all in vain ! — They faint — they choke. For the sulphurous smoke Is poisoning heart, and lung, and brain, They reel, they sink, they gasp, they smother, One for a moment survives his brother, Then rolls a corpse across the other I 152 THE FORGE. Hulloo! HuUoo! And Hullabaloo ! There is only one more thing to do — And seized by beak, and talon, and claw, Bony hand, and hairy paw. Yea, crooked horn, and tusky jaw. The four huge Bodies are haul'd and shoven Each after each in the roaring oven I That Eisen Hutte is standing still, Go to the Hartz whenever you will, And there it is beside a hill, And a rapid stream that turns many a mill ; The self-same Forge, — you'll know it at sight — Casting upward, day and night, Flames of red, and yellow, and white I Ay, half a mile from the mountain gorge. There it is, the famous Forge, With its Furnace, — the same that blazed of yore,- Hugely fed with fuel and ore ; But ever since that tremendous Revel, Whatever Iron is melted therein, — As Travellers know who have been to Berlin — Ts all as black as the Devil t 153 THE DEFAULTFR. **A.V OWRE TRUE Txi-LE." CHAPTER L " Give him heedful note ; For I mine eyes will rivet to his face ; And after, we will both our judgments join . In censure of his seeming." — Hamlet. ** "What is the matter with Mr. Pryme ? " The speaker was a tall, dark man, with grizzled hair, black eyes, a long nose, a wide mouth, and the commercial feature of a pen behind his right ear. He had several times asked himself the same question, but without any satisfactory solution, and now addressed it to a little, sandy-haired man, who was standing with his back to the office fire. Both were clerks in a government office, as well as the party whose health or deportment was involved in the inquiry. " What is the matter with Mr. Pryme ? " " Heaven knows," said the sandy Mr. Phipps, at the same time liftmg up his eyebrows towards the organs of wonder, and shrugging his shoulders. " You have observed how nervous and fidgety he is ? " To be sure. Look at the fireplace ; he has done nothing all the morning but put on coals and rake them out again." " Yes, I have been watching him and kept count," inter- posed Mr. Trent, a junior official ; " he has poked the fire nineteen times, besides looking five times out of the window, and twice taking down his hat and hanging it up again." " I got him to change me a sovereign," said the dark Mr. Trimble, " and he first gave me nineteen, and then twenty- 154 THE DEFAULTEK. one shillings for it. But look here at his entries," and he pointed to an open ledger on the desk, " he has dipped pro- miscuously into the black ink and the red ! " The three clerks toon a look a-piece at the book, and then a still longer look at each other. None of them spoke : but each made a face, one pursing up his lips as if to blow an imaginary flageolet, another frowning, as with a distracting headache, and the third drawing down the comers of his mouth, as if he had just taken, or was about to take, physic. ** What can it be ? " said Mr. Phipps. " Let's ask him," suggested Mr. Trent. "Better not," said Grimble, "you know how hot and touchy he is. I once ventured to cut a joke on him, and he has never thoroughly forgiven it to this day." *' What was it about 1 " inquired the junior. " Why he has been married above a dozen years without having any children, and it was the usual thing with us, when he came of a morning, to ask after the little Prymes, — but the joke caused so many rows and quarrels, that we have given it up." " Where is he 1 " asked Mr. Phipps, with a glance round the office. ** In the Secretary's private room. But hush ! here he comes." The three clerks hastily retreated to their several desks, and began writing with great apparent diligence ; yet vigi- lantly watching every movement of the nervous and fidgetji Mr. Pryme, who entered the room with an uneven step, looking rather flushed and excited, and vigorously rubbing his bald head with his silk handkerchief. Perhaps he noticed that he was observed, for he looked uneasily and buspiciously from one clerk to the other; but each face preserved a demure gravity, and the little, stout, bald, florid THE DEFAULTER. 155 gentleman repaired to his own place. The " Morning Post," damp and still unfolded, was laying on his desk ; he took it up, dried it at the fire, and began to read — ^but the next minute he laid down the paper, and seizing the poker made several plunges at the coals, as often against the bars as between them, till the metal rang again. Then he resumed the " Post " — but quickly relinquished it — quite unable to fix his attention on the type — an incompetence perfectly astounding to the other clerks, who considered reading the newspaper as a regular and important part of the official duties. "By Jove," whispered Mr. Phipps to Mr. Grimble, whom he had approached under the pretence of delivering a docu- ment, " he cannot Post the news any more than his ledger." Mr. Grimble acquiesced with a grave nod and a grimace ; and Mr. Phipps returning to his desk, a silence ensued, so profound that the scratching of the pens at work on the paper was distinctly audible. The little bald cashier himself had began to write, and for some minutes was occupied so quietly that curiosity gave way to business, and the three clerks were absorbed in their calculations, when a sudden noise caused them to look up. Mr. Pryme had jumped from his high stool, and was in the act of taking down his hat from its peg. He held it for a while in his hand, as if in deep deliberation, then suddenly clapped it on his head, but as hastily took it off again — thrust the " Morning Post " into the crown, and restored the beaver to its place on the wall The next moment he encountered the eye of Phipps — a suspicion that he was watched seemed to come across him, and his uneasiness increased. He immediately returned to his desk, and began to turn over the leaves of an account- book — but with unnatural haste, and it was evident that although his eyes were fixed on the volume, his thoughts 156 THE DEFAULTER. were elsewhere, for by degrees he went off into a reverie, only rousing now and then to take huge pinches of snuff. At last, suddenly waking up, he pulled out his watch — pored at it — held it up to his ear — replaced it in his fob, and with a glance at his hat, began drawing on his gloves. Perhaps he would have gone off — if Mr. Grimble had not crossed over from his desk, and placed an open book before him, with a request for his signature. The little, bald, florid man, with- out removing his glove, attempted to write his name, but his hand trembled so that he could hardly guide the pen. How- ever, he tried to caiTy off the matter as a joke — ^but his laugh was forced, and his voice had the quavering huskiness of internal agitation. " Ha ! ha ! — rather shaky— too much wine last night — eh, Mr. Grimble r' The latter made no reply, but as he walked off with the book under his arm, and his back towards Mr. Pryme, he bestowed a deliberate wink on each of his associates, and significantly imitated with his own hand the aspen-like motion he had just observed. The others responded with a look of intelligence, and resumed their labours : but the tall, dark man fell into a fit of profound abstraction, during which he unconsciously scribbled on his blotting-paper, in at least a score of places, the word embezzlement. CHAPTER IL " And do you really mean to say, Mr. Author, that so respectable a bald man had actually appropriated the public money 'i " Heaven forbid, madam. My health is far too infirm, and THE DEFAULTER. 1£7 158 THE DEFAULTER. my modesty much too delicate to allow me to undertake, off-hand, the work of twelve men, who sometimes are not strong enough, the whole team, to draw a correct inference. As yet, Mr. Pryme only labours under suspicion, and a very hard labour it is to be sentenced to before conviction. But permit me to ask, do you really associate baldness with respectability 1 *' Of course, sir. All bald men are respectable." It is indeed a very general impression — so much so, that were I a criminal, and anxious to propitiate a Judge and Jury at my trial, I would have my head shaved beforehand as clean as a monk's. And yet it is a strange preposses- sion, that we should connect guilt with a fell of hair, and innocence with a bare sconce ! Why, madam, why should we conceive a bald man to be less delinquent than another ? " I suppose, sir, because he has less for a catchpole to lay hold of?" Thank you, ma'am ! The best reason I have tifiard for a prejudice in all my life ! CHAPTER III. The little, bald, florid man, in the meantime, continued his nervous and fidgety evolutions — worrying the fire, trying on his hat and gloves, snufl&ng vehemently, coughing huskily, and winking perpetually — now scurrying thi'ough folios — then drumming what is called the Devil's tattoo on his desk, and moreover, under pretence of mending his pens, had slashed half-a-dozen of them to pieces — when he received a fresh summons to the Secretary's room. THE DEFAULTER. 159 The moment the door closed behind him, the two clerks, Phipps and Trent, darted across to Mr. Grimble, who silently- exhibited to them the shaky autograph of the agitated cashier. They then adjourned to the fire, where a pause of profound cogitation ensued : the Junior intensely surveying his bright boots — Mr. Phipps industriously nibbling the top of his pen — while Mr. Grimble kept assiduously breaking the bituminous bubbles which exuded from the burning coals with the point of the poker. " It is very extraordinary ! " at last muttered Mr. Phipps. '* Very," chimed in the Junior Clerk. Mr. Grimble silently turned his back to the fire, and fixed his gaze on the ceiling, with his mouth firmly compressed, as if meaning to signify, " that whatever he might think, he would say nothing " — in case of anything happening to Mr. Pryme, he was the next in point of seniority for the vacant place, and delicacy forbade his being the first to proclaim his suspicions. " You don't think he is going off, do you 1 " inquired Mr. Phipps. Mr. Grimble turned his gaze intently on the querist as though he would look him through — ^hemm'd — but said nothing. " I mean off his head." " Oh — I thought you meant off to America." It was now Mr. Phipps's turn to look intently at Mr. Grimble, whose every feature he scrutinized with the studious interest of a Lavater. * 'Why you surely don't mean to say " ••Ido." * What that he has >** '*Yes." "Js It possible!" 160 THE DEFAULTER. Mr. Grimble gave three distinct aiid deliberate nods, in reply to which, Mr. Phipps whistled a long phe-e-e-e-e-ew ! All this time the Junior had been eagerly listening to the mysterious conference, anxiously looking from one speaker to the other, till the hidden meaning suddenly revealed itself to his mind, and with the usual indiscretion of youth he immediately gave it utterance. " Why then, Grimble, old Pryme will be transported, and you will walk into his shoes." Mr. Grimble frowned severely, and laid one forefinger on his lips, while with the other he pointed to the door. But Mr. Pryme was still distant in the Secretary's private room. " Well, I should never have thought it ! " exclaimed Mr. Phipps. " He was so regular in his habits, and I should say very moderate in his expenses. He was never given to dress (the young clerk laughed at the idea), and certainly never talked like a gay man with the other sex (the junior laughed again). I don't think he gambled, or had any connection with the turf? To be sure he may have dabbled a little in the Alley — or perhaps in the Discounting line." To each of these interrogative speculations Mr. Grimble responded with a negative shake of the head, or a doubtful shrug of the shoulders, till the catalogue was exhausted, and then, with his eyes cast upward, uttered an emphatic " God knows ! " " But have you any proof of it 1 " asked Mr. Phipps. " Xone whatever — not a particle. Only what I may call a strong — a very strong presentiment." And as if to illustrate its strength, Mr. Grimble struck a blow with the poker that smashed a large Staffordshire coal into shivers. " Then there may be nothing wrong after all ! " suggested THE DEFAULTER. 161 the good-natured Mr. Phipps. " And really Mr. Piyme has always seemed so respectable, so regular, and so correct in business " " So did Fauntleroy, and the rest of them ; " muttered Mr. Grimble, "or they would never have been trusted. However, it's a comfort to think that he has no children, and that the capital punishment for such offences has been abolished." " I can hardly believe it I " ejaculated Mr. Phipps. "My dear fellow,'* said the young clerk, "there is no mistake about it. I was watching him when the messenger came to fetch him to the Secretary, and he started and shook as if he had expected a policeman." Mr. Phipps said no more, but retreated to his place, and with his elbows on his desk, and his head between his hands, began sorrowfully to ruminate on the ruin and misery impending over the unfortunate cashier. He could well appreciate the nervous alarm and anxiety of the wretched man, liable at any moment to detection, with the consequent disgrace, and a punishment scarcely preferable to death itself His memory reminded him that Mr. Pryme had done him various services, while his imagination pictured his benefactor in the most distressing situations — in the station-house — at Bow-street — in Newgate — at the bar of the Old Bailey — in a hulk — in a convict-ship, with the common herd of the ruttianly and the depraved — and finally toiling in life-long labour in a distant land. And as he dwelt on these dreadful and dreary scenes, the kind-hearted Phipps himself became quite unhinged : his own nerves began to quiver, whilst his muscles sympathising with the mental excitement, prompted him to such restless activity, that he was soon almost aa tidgety and perturbed as the object of his commiseration. Oh ! that the guilty man, forewarned of danger by some 162 THE DEFAULTER. providential inspiration, might have left the office never to return ! But the hope was futile : the door opened — the doomed Mr. Pryme hastily entered — went to his own desk, unbuttoned his waistcoat, and clutching his bewildered bald head with one fevered hand, began with the other to turn over the leaves of a journal, without perceiving that the book was upside down. "Was there ever," thought Phipps, "such an infatuation I He has evidently cause for alarm, and yet he lingers about the fatal spot." How he yearned to give him a hint that his secret --ras known — to say to him, " Go ! — Fly ! ere it be too J ate ! Seek some other country where you may live in freedom and repent." But, alas ! the eyes of Grimble and Trent were upon him, and above all the stem figure of inexorable Duty rose up before him, and melting the wax of Silence at the flaming sword of Justice, imposed a seal upon his lips. CHAPTER lY. " Gracious Goodness ! " exclaims Female Sensibility, " and will the dear fresh-coloured bald little gentleman be actually transported to Botany Bay ! " My dear Miss — a little patience. A criminal before such a consummation has to go through more processes than a new pin. First, as Mrs. Glasse says of her hare, he has to be caught, then examined, committed, and true-billed — arraigned, convicted, and sentenced. Next, he must, per- haps, be cropped, washed, and clothed — hulked and shipped, and finally, if he does not die of sea-sickness, or shipwreck. THE DEFAULTER. 103 or get eaten by the natives, he may toil out his natural term in Australia, as a stone-breaker, a cattle-keeper, or a domestic servant ! " Dear me, how dreadful ! And for a man, perhaps, like Mr. Pryme, of genteel habits and refined notions, accustomed to all the luxuries of life, and every delicacy of the season. I should really like to set on foot a little private subscription, for providing him with the proper comforts in prison and a becoming outfit for his voyage.'* My dear young lady, I can appreciate your motives and do honour to your feelings. But before you go round with your book among relations, acquaintance, and strangers, soliciting pounds, shillings, and pence, from people of broad, middling, and narrow incomes, just do me the favour to look into yonder garret, exposed to us by the magic of the Devil on Two Sticks, and consider that respectable young woman, engaged at past midnight, by the light of a solitary rush- light, in making shirts at three-halfpence a piece, and shifts for nothing. Look at her hollow eyes, her withered cheeks, and emaciated frame, for it is a part of the infernal bargain that she is to lose her own health and find her own needles and thread. Reckon, if you can, the thousands of weary stitches it will require to sew, not gussets, and seams, but body and soul together : and perhaps, after all her hard sewing, having to sue a shabby employer for the amount of her pitiful earnings. Estimate, if you may, the terrible wear and tear of head and heart, of liver and lungs. Appraise, on oath, the value of youth wasted, spirits outworn, prospects blasted, natural affections withered in the bud, and all bliss- ful hopes annihilated, except those beyond the grave " What ! by that horrid, red-faced, bald-pated, undersized little monster V* No Miss — but by a breach of trust on the part of a banker 164 THE DEFAULTER. of genteel habits and refined notions ; accustomed to all the luxuries of life, and every delicacy of the season. ** Oh, the abominable villain ! And did he ruin himself as well as the poor lady ] " Totally. " And was transported 1 '* Quite. "What, to Botany?" No, Miss. To the loveliest part of Sussex, where he is condemned to live in a commodious Cottage Residence, with pleasure-gi'ound and kitchen-garden annexed — capital shoot- ing and fishing, and within reach of two packs of hounds 1 " Shameful ! scandalous ! — why it's no punishment at all" No, Miss. And then to think of the hundreds and thou- sands of emigrants — English, Scotch, and Irish — who for no crime but poverty are compelled to leave their native country — ^the homes and hearths of their childhood — the graves of their kindred — the land of their fathers, and to settle — if settling it may be called — in the houseless woods and wilder- nesses of a foreign clime. " Oh, shocking ! shocking ! But if I was the government the wicked fraudulent bankers and trust-breakers should be sent abroad too. Why shouldn't they be punished with passage-money and grants of land as well as the poor innocent emigrants, and be obliged to settle in foreign parts 1 " Ah ! why, indeed. Miss— excej)t . « Except what, sir ? " Why, that Embezzlers and Swindlers, by all accounts, are such very bad Settlers. THE DEFAULTER. igg CHAPTER V. But Mr. Pryme ? — That little, bald, florid, fidgety personage was still sitting on his high stool at his desk, snuffing, coughing, winking, and pretending to examine a topsy-turvy account-book — sometimes, by way of variation, hashing up a new pen, or drumming a fresh march with his fingers — Mr. Grimble was making some private calculations, which had reference to his future income-tax, on a slip of office paper — Mr. Trent was dreaming over an imaginary trial, in which he was a witness, at the Old Bailey — And Mr. Phipps was fretting over the predestined capture of the infatuated Cashier — when all at once there was a noise that startled the clerkly trio from their seats. The nervous Mr. Pryme, by one of his involuntary motions had upset his leaden inkstand — in trying to save the ink- stand he knocked down his ruler — in catching at the ruler he had let fall the great journal — and in scrambling after the journal he had overturned his high stool. The clatter was prodigious, and acting on a nature already overwrought sufficed to discompose the last atom of its equanimity. For a moment the bewildered author of the work stood, and trembled, as if shot — then snatching his hat, and clap- ping it " skow-wow any-how " on his head, rushed desperately out of the office. " Thank God ! " ejaculated Mr. Phipps, drawing a long breath, like a swimmer after a dive. " I say, Grimble," exclaimed the Junior Clerk — " it's a true billl" II 1G6 THE DEFAULTER. But Mr. Grimble was already outside the door, and run- uing down the stone-stairs into the hall seized on the first office-messenger that offered. " Here — Warren ! — quick ! — Run. after Mr. Pryme — don't let hira out of your sight — but watch where he goes to — and let me linow." CHAPTER VI. Now according to the practice of the regular drama, which professes to represent the greater stage of the world, when- ever a robber, murderer, or traitor has escaped, it is a rule for the theatrical policemen, constables, runners, guards, alguazils, sbirri, or gendarmes, to assemble and agree to act in concert — that is to say, by singing in chorus that the villain has bolted, and musically exhorting each other to "follow follow^ fol-de-rol-de-rol-0 ! " without a moment's delay. An arrangement perhaps conducive to dramatic convenience and stage effect, but certainly quite inconsistent with the usages of real life or the dictates of common or uncommon sense. Messrs. Grimble, Phipps, and Trent, however, were not theatrical, so instead of joining in a trio or a catch, they first held a consultation, and then proceeded in a body to the Secretary, to whom they described the singular be- haviour of Mr. Pryme. " Very singular, indeed," said the Secretary. " I observed it myself, and inquired if he was in good health. No — yes — no. And Mrs. Pryme 1 Yes — no — ^yes. In short he did not seem to know what he was saying." " Or doing," put in Mr. Trent. " He threw a shovel of coals into the uon safe.'* TilE DEFAQLTliiR. 107 168 THE DEFAITLTEK. "With other acts," added Mr. Grimble, "the reverse of official." " Tell him at once," whispered Mr. Trent. " In short, sir," said Mr. Grimble, with a most sepulchral tone, and the face of an undertaker, "I am sorry, deeply sorry and concerned to say, that Mr. Pryme has suddenly departed." " Indeed ! But he was just the sort of man to do it." The three clerks stared at each other, for they had all thought exactly the reverse of the little, bald, florid, ex- cashier. " Short-necked, sanguine, and of a full habit, you know," continued the Secretary. " Poor fellow ! " "I am Sony, deeply sony and concerned to say," re- peated Mr. Grimble, " that I mean he has absconded." " The devil he has ! " exclaimed the Secretary, at once jumping to his feet, and instinctively buttoning up his pockets — "but no — it's impossible ! " and he looked towards Trent and Phipps for confirmation. " It's a true bill, sir," said the first, " he has bolted sure enough." The other only shook his head. " It's incredible ! " said the Secretary. " Why, he was as steady as a quaker, and as correct as clock-work ! Mr. Grimble, have you inspected his books ? " "I have, sir." "Well, sir?" " At present, sir, all appears correct. But as the accounts are kept in this office it is easier to embezzle than to detect any defalcation." " Humph ! I do not think we are worse in that respect than other public offices ! Then, if I understand you, there is no distinct evidence of fraud ? " THE DEFAULTER. . 169 " None whatever, sir," replied Mr. Phipps. " Except his absconding," added Mr. Grimble. "Well, gentlemen, we will wait till ten o'clock to-morrow morning, and then if Mr. Pryme does not make his appear- ance we shall know how to act." The three clerks made three bows and retired, severally pleased, displeased, and indifferent at the result of their audience, " "We may wait for him," grumbled Mr. Grimble, ** till ten o'clock on doomsday." At this moment the door re-opened, and the Secretary put out his head. " Gentlemen, I need not recommend you to confine this matter, for the present, to your own bosoms ! " But the caution was in vain. Warren, the messenger, had given a hint of the affair to a porter, who had told it to another, and another, and another, till the secret was as well buzzed and blown as if it had been confided to a swarm of blue-bottles. In fact, the flight of Mr. Pryme was known throughout the several offices, where, according to English custom, the event became a subject for betting, and a considerable sum was laid out at 6 to 4, and afterwards at 7 to 2, against the reappearance of the cashier. CHAPTER VII. "Well, Warren r' « Well, Mr. Grimble, sir ! " The three clerks on returning to their office, had found the messenger at the door, and took him with them into the room. 170 THE DEFAULTER. " Well, I followed up Mr. Pryme, sir, and the first thing he did were to hail a cab." " And where did he drive to 1 " " To nowheres at all — coz why, afore the cab could pull round off the stand, away he goes — That's Mr. Prymc ~ walking at the rate of five miles an hour, more or less, so as not easy to be kep up with, straight home to his own house number 9, where instid of double knocking at the door, he ring'd to be let in at the hairy belL" " Very odd ! " remarked Mr. Grimble. " Well, he staid in the house a goodish while — as long as it might take him, Hke, to collect his porterble property and vallybles — when all at once out he comes, like a man with his head turned, and his hat stuck on hind part afore, for you know he'd wore it up at the back like a curricle one.'^ " A clerical one — go on." ** Why then, away he cuts down the street, as hard as he can spht without busting, and me arter him, but being stiffish with the rheumatiz, whereby I soon found I was getting nowheres at all in the race, and ii? consekence pulled up." " And which way did he run ? " " Why then, he seemed to me to be arraaking for the bridge." " Ah, to get on board a steamer," said Mr. Grimble. " Or into the river," suggested Mr. Trent. Mr Phipps groaned and wrung bis hands. "You're right, you are, Mr. Trent, sir," said the Messenger "with a determined nod and wink at the junior clerk. "There was a gemman throwed himself over last Friday, and they did say it was becos he had made away with ten thousand Long Annuitants." THE DEFAULTER. 171 ** The poor, wretched, misguided creature ! " "Yes he did, Mr. Phipps, sir — ^right over the senter harch And what's wus, not leaving a rap behind him except his widder and five small little children, and the youngest ou em's a suckin' babby." " Thank God ! " exclaimed Mr. Phipps, " that Mr. Prymp is not a family man." CHAPTER Vin Poor Mr. Phipps ! As soon as the office was closed he walked home to his lodgings in Westminster, but at a slower pace than usual, and with a heavy heart, for his mind was full of sorrow and misgiving at the too probable fate of the unfortunate Defaulter. The figure of Mr. Pryme followed him wherever he went : it seemed to glance over his shoulder in the looking-glass ; and when he went to wash his hands, the pale drowned face of the cashier shone up through the water, instead of the pattern at the bottom of the basin. For the first time since his clerkship he could not enjoy that favourite meal, his tea. The black bitterness in his thoughts overpowered the flavour of the green leaf — it turned the milk, and neutralised the sugar on his palate. He took but one bite out of his crumpet, and then resigned it to the cat. Supper was out of the question. His mental agitation, acting on the nerves of the stomach, had brought on a sick headache, which indisposed him to any kind of food. In the meanwhile, for the first strange time he became intensely sensible that he was a bachelor, and uncom- fortably conscious of his loneliness in the world. The 172 THE DEFAULTER. company of a second person, another face, only to look at, would have been an infinite relief to him — by diverting his attention from the one dreadful thought and the one horrible image that, do what he would, kept rising up before him — sometimes like a shadow on the wall, sometimes like a miniature figure amid the intricate veins of the marble mantelpiece — and anon in the chiaroscuro of the fire. To get rid of these haunting illusions, he caught up a book, which happened to be the second volume of " Lamb's Letters," and stumbled on the following ominous passage : " Who that standeth, hnoweth hut he may yet fall ? Your handSy as yet, I am most willing to believe, have never deviated into other's property. You think it impossible that you could ever commit so heinous an offence ; but so thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many besides him, who at last have expiated as he hath done'* The words read Hke a fatal prophecy ! He dropt the book in horror, and falling on his knees, with tearful eyes and uplifted hands, besought Providence, if it saw fit, to afflict him with the utmost miseries of sickness and poverty, but to save him — even by stroke of sudden death to save him — from ever becoming a Defaulter ! This devotional act restored him in some degree to tranquillity ; but with night and sleep all his horrors returned. The face of Mr. Pryme, no longer florid, but pale as a plaster-cast, was continually confronting him, now staring at him through transparent waters, and now between massive iron bars. Then the dismal portrait would abruptly change to a full-length, which was as suddenly surrounded by a cluster of children, boys and girls of difi'erent ages, including one or two infants — a family he understood, by the intuition of dreams, to be illegitimate, and that they were solemnly consigned by the Suicide to his care and main- THE DEFAULTER. 175 tenance. Anon the white figure vanished, and a black one appeared in its place, a female, with the very outline, as if cut in paper, of the widowed Mrs. Pryme, whom by some mysterious but imperative obligation he felt that he must espouse. The next moment this phantom was swept away by a mighty rush of black waters, like those in Martin'g grand picture of the Deluge, and on or beneath the dark flood again floated the pale effigy of the Suicide entire and apparently struggling for dear life, and sometimes shattered he knew not how, and drifting about in passive fragments. Then came a fresh rush of black waters, gradually shaping itself into an immense whirlpool, with the white corpse-like figure, but magnified to a colossal size, rapidly whirling in the centre of the vortex, whilst obscure forms, black and white, of children, females, savages, and alas ! not a few gigantic Demon shapes, revolved more slowly around it. In short, the poor fellow never passed so wretched a night since he was bom ! CHAPTER IX. " And did Mr. Pryme really drown himself ? " My dear Felicia, if Female Curiosity had always access, aa you have, to an author's sanctorum, — if she could stand or sit, as you can, at his elbow whilst he is composing his romances of real or unreal life, — if she might ask, as you do, at the beginning or in the middle of the plot, what is to be its denouement — " Well, sir, what then ? " Why, then. Messieurs Colbum, Saunders and Otley, Bentley, Churton, and Newby — not forgetting A. K. Newman — might retire for good to their country boxes at Ponders 174 THE DEFAULTER. End, T.eatherhead, and Balham Hill, for there would be no more novels in three volumes. Nay, the authors themselves, serious and comic, both or neither, might retreat for ever into the Literary Almshouses, if there are any such places — for there would be no more articles of sixteen pages — and " to be continued — " in the magazines. All would be over with us, as with the Bourbons, could Female Curiosity thus foresee, as Talleyrand said, " Le commencement de la fin ! " " Well, but — if your story, as you say, is * an owre true tale,' then Mr. Pryme must have been a real man — an actual living human being — and it is positive cruelty to keep one in suspense about his fate ! " Dearest ! — the tale is undoubtedly true, and there was such a personage as Mr. Pryme — " Was ! Why, then, he did embezzle the money, and he did throw himself off Westminster Bridge? But had he really an illegitimate family % And did Mr. Phipps actually marry the widow according to his dream % " Patience ! — and you shall hear. CHAPTER X. The morrow came, and the Hour — ^but not the Man. Messrs. Grimble, Phipps, and Trent were assembled round the office-hre — poor Phipps looking as white as a sheet, for ten o'clock had struck, and there was no Mr. Pryme. At five minutes past ten the Secretary came in from his own room with his golden repeater in his hand — he looked anxiously round the office, and then in turn at -each of the three clerks. Mr. Phipps sighed, Mr. Trent shook his head, and Mr. Grimble shrugged up his shoulders. THE DEFAULTER. 175 « Not here yet r* " Nor won't be," muttered Mr. Grimble. " What odds will you lay about it ? " whispered the giddy Mr. Trent. "The office-clock is rather fast," stammered out Mr. Phipps. " No — it is exact by my time," said the Secretary, and he held out his watch for inspection. " He was always punctual to a minute," observed Mr. Grimble. "Always. I fear, gentlemen, we must apply for a war " The Secretary paused, for he heard the sound of a foot at the door, which hastily opened, and in walked Mr. Pryme ! ! ! An apparition could scarcely have caused a greater trepidation. The Secretary hurriedly thrust his repeater into his breeches-pocket. Mr. Grimble retreated to his own desk — Mr. Phipps stood stock-still, with his eyes and mouth wide open — while Mr. Trent, though he was a loser on the event, burst into a loud laugh. "I am afraid, gentlemen," said Mr Pryme, looking very foolish and stammering, " I am afraid that my — my — my ridiculous behaviour yesterday has caused you some — some — uneasiness— on my account." No answer. " The truth is — I was excessively anxious and nervous — and agitated — very agitated indeed ! " " Very," from Mr. Trent. The little florid man coloured up till his round, shiny, bald head was as scarlet as a love-apple. " The truth is — after so many disappointments — I did not- like to mention the thing — the affair — till it was quite 176 EPIGRAM. certain — till it was all over — for fear — for fear of being quizzed. The truth is — the truth is " " Take time, Mr. Pr3ane," said the Secretary. " Why, then, sir — the truth is — after fifteen years — I'm a Father — a happy Father, sir — a fine chopping boy, gentle- men — and Mrs. P. is as charming — that's to say, as well — as can be expected I" EPIGRAM ON MRS. PARKES'S PAMPHLET. Such strictures as these Could a learned Chinese Orlv read on some fine afternoon, He would cry with pale lips, •• We shall have an Eclipse, For a Dragon has seized on the Moon ! AN EXTRAORDINARY OPERATION. 177 AN EXTRAORDINARY OPERATION. We'll find a way to remove all that." — ^M.D. On the 26th of December, 1842, according to the official re- cord, a tipsy sailor, by name Peter Galpin, in tacking along the Mile End Road, slipped his foot on a piece of orange-peel, and fell with great violence on the pavement. He was immedi- ately picked up by the passengers, and being unable to walk or stand, was carried on a stretcher, by two policemen, to the London Hospital, where, on examination, it appeared that he had broken one of the small bones of his right leg. BEST CUBB FOK A. COLD. The fracture was immediately reduced; and as the patient was not habitually a diunkard, but had only been casually 178 AN EXTRAOEDINARY OPERATION. overtaken, the case went on very favourably, and promised a speedy cure. In the meanwhile the poor fellow, accustomed to an active life, would have found the time pass very tediously in bed — especially as he could not read — but for the daily bustle and business in the ward,— the departures of the cured or the in- curable, by discharge or death — and the arrivals of fresh sufferers — the visits of the surgeons and medical students, and the opera- tions of the hospital dressers and nurses, in the most trivial of which he took a deep interest. Averse to doctors and doctoring, seamen in general are as ignorant as sea-horses of the usages and practices of the sick-room, so that whatever was done of the kind, even to the application of a poultice, was novel, and con- sequently attractive to our tar. Every proceeding, therefore, was carefully watched and logged in his memory — rare materials for future yarns, when he should be able to rejoin his ship, the Grampus, of Liverpool. Strange, indeed, were the things he had seen done in that hospital, and more extraordinary still were the things which he thought that he had seen performed — amounting in his opinion to surgical miracles ! eoIKQ AT FIT« KNOTS AN HO0B. At last, one day arousing from a nap, and sitting up as usual to take an obseiTation, he espied in the next bed a fat man with AN KXTRAOEDINARY OPERATION. 179 "my KYESl THBBS'S BKSM A UOSfJiB.A.HOH I " 180 AN EXTRAORDINAEY OPERATION. a particularly big red nose, large staring black eyes, and an un- commonly wide mouth — in fact, very like somebody lie had seen dancing during the carnival in the streets of an Italian port. This corpulent bottle-nosed man was propped up in bed, with his back bared, whilst a dresser was applying an ointment to a very large, very red, and very raw and sore-looMng place between his shoulders. *' My eyes ! " exclaimed the sailor, letting himself drop back- ward on his pillow, quite overcome with wonder — " There's been a hopperation ! " ** What do you mean ? " asked the dresser. "What!" ejaculated the astounded seaman, with his eyes cast upwards, and almost protruding from his head — "Well, what?" " Why^ he's Punch, isn't he ? and they've cut his hump off III** *• jack's alive I " THE EARTH-QUAKERS. 181 PLY NOT TEtI'* THE EARTH-QUAKEES. •* Now's the time and now's the liour ! To be worried, toss'd and shaken, Down — down — down, deny down- Let us take to the road ! Amanda, let us quit the town — Together let us range the fields — Over the hills and far away, Life let us cherish." — Old Ballads. The Earth-quakers are by no means a new Sect. They have appeared at various times in England, and particularly in 1750 when they were so numerous that, according to Horace Walpole, "within three days, seven hundred and thirty coaches were counted passing Hyde-park-corner, with whole parties removing into the country ! " The same pleasant writer has preserved several anecdotes of the persuasion, and especially records that the female members, to guard against even a shock to their con- stitutions, made " earthquake gowns " of a warm stuff, to sit up in at night, in the open air ! Nor was the alarm altogether un- founded, for the eaith, he says, actually shook twice at regular in- 182 THE EARTH-QUAKERS. tervals, so that fearing the terrestrial ague fit would become pcrioilical, the noble wit proposed to treat it by a course of bark. However, there were some slight vibrations of the soil, and sup- posing them only to have thrown down a platter from the shelf to the floor, the Earth-quakers of 1750 have an infinite advantage over those of 1842, when nothing has fallen to the ground but a fiddle-de-Dee prediction. Still, if the metropolis has not exhibited any extraordinary physical convulsion, its inhabitants have presented an astound- ing Moral Phenomenon. Messrs. Howell and James best know whether they have vended or been asked for peculiarly warm fabrics — the court milliner alone can tell if she has made up any new fashioned robes de nuit a la bivouac, or coiffures adapted to a nocturnal /e^e champetre. The coaches, public and private, which have passed Hyde-park-corner have not perhaps been counted, but it is notorious that the railway carriages have been crammed with passengers, and the Gravesend steamers were almost swamped by the influx of rabid Earth-quakers, all rushing, sauve qui pent! from the most ridiculous bugbear ever licked into shape by the vulgar tongue. Nor yet was the *' Movement Party " composed exclusively of the lower classes ; but comprised liundreds of respectable Londoners, who never halted till they had gone beyond the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction, a flight unwor- thy even of Cockneyism, which implies at least a devoted attachment to London, and. an unsbaken confidence in the sta- bility of St. Paul's. The Irish, indeed, the poor blundering, bull-making Irish, had some excuse for their panic. The prophecy came from a prophet of their own religion, and appealed to some of their strongest prejudices. They had perhaps even felt some precursory agita- tion not perceptible to us English — whilst the rebuilding of the ruined city promised a famous job for the Hibernian bricklayers and hodmen. Nay, after all, they only exhibited a truly national THE EAilTH.QUAKERS 183 aptitude to become April fools in March. But for British back- bone Protestants, who have shouted " No Popery," and burnt Guy Pauxes, to adopt a Eoman Catholic legend — for free and independent householders wlio would not move on for a live policeman, to move off, bag and baggage, at the dictum of a very dead monk — who can doubt, after such a spectacle, that a Nin- com Tax would be very productive ! As a subject for a comic picture, there could be no richer scene for a modern Hogarth than the return of a party of Earth- quakers to the metropolis — that very metropolis which was to have been knocked down, as Eobins would say, in one lot — that devoted City which Credulity had lately painted as lying pros- trate on its Corporation ! In the meantime good luck enables me to illustrate the great earthquake of 1842 by a few letters obtained, no matter how, or at what expense. It is to be regretted that type can give no imitation of the handwritings ; suffice it that one of the notes has actually been booked by a well-known collector, as a genuine autograph of St. Vitus. No. I. — To Peter Crisp, Esq. Ivy Cottage, Sevenoaks, Dear Brother, You are of course aware of the awful visitation with which we are threatened. As to P. and myself, business and duties will forbid our leaving London, but Eobert and James will be home for the usual fortnight at Easter, and we are naturally anxious to have the dear boys out of the way. Perhaps you will make room for th3m at the cottage ? I am, dear Brother, Yours affectionately, Margaret Paddy. 184 THE EARTH.QUAKERS. (The Answer.) Dear Sister, As regards the awful visitation, the last time the dear boys were at the Cottage they literally turned it topsy-turvy. As such, would rather say — keep Eobert and James in town, and send me down the Earthquake. Your loving brother, Peter Crisp. JfATUfiE'S SCHOOL. No. II. — To Messrs. H. Staley and Co. Camomile-street, City. Gentlemen, As a retired tradesman of London to rural life, but un- remittingly devoted to the metropolis and its public buildings, am deeply solicitous to learn, on good mercantile authority, if the alarming statements as to a ruinous depression in the Cus- tom-house, St. Paul's and other fabrics, stands on the undenia- ble basis of fact. An early answer will oblige. Your very obedient servant, John Stokes. Postscriptum. — My barber tells me the Monument has been done at Lloyd's. THE EARTH- QUAKERS. 185 (The Answer.) Sir, In reply to your favour of the 14th inst., I beg to subjoin for your guidance the following quotations from a sup- plement to this day's " Price Current.'* "March 16. — In Earthquakes — nothing stirring. Strong Caracca shocks partially enquired for, but no arrivals. Lisbons ditto. A small lot of slight Chichesters in bond have been brought forward, but obtained no offers. Houses continue firm, and the holders are not inclined to part with them. In Columns and Obelisks no alteration. Cathedrals as before. Steeples keep up, and articles generally not so fiat as anticipated by the specu- lators for a fall." — I am, Sir, for Staley and Co., your most obedient servant, Charles Stuckey. No III. — To DecTOR Dodge, F.A.S., London. Dear Doctor, As you are an Antiquarian, and as such well ac- quainted of course with Ancient MSS. and Monkish Chronicles, perhaps you will be so obliging as to give me your opinion of the Earthquake predicted by Dr. Dee and the Monk of Dree, and whether it is mentioned in Doomsday Book, or Icon Basilisk, or any of the old astrological works. — Yours, dear Doctor, Anastasia Shrewsbury. (The Answer.) Dear Madam, I have no recollection of such a Prediction in any of the books you mention ; but I will make a point of looking into the old chronicles. In the meantime it strikes me, that if any one should have foretold an Earthquake it was Ingulphus. — I am, dear Madam, your very humble Servant, T. Dodge. 186 THE EARTH-QUAKERS. No. IV. — To Mr. Benjamin IIockin. Barbicfji, Dear Ben, About this here hearthquack. According to advice I rit to Addaras who have bean to forin Parts, and partickly Sow Amerikey, witch is a shockin country, and as to wat is dun by the Natives in the like case, and he say they all run out of their Howses, and fall down on their nees and beat their brests like mad, and cross theirselves and call out to the Virgin, and all the popish Saints. Witch in course with us Christians is out of the question, so there we are agin at a non plush — and our minds perfecly misrable for want of making up. One minit it's go and the next minit stay, till betwixt town and country, I all most wish I was nowheres at all. But how is minds to be made up wen if you ax opinions, theres six of one and half a duzzen of THE EAKTH-QUAKERS. 187 the tocher — for I make a pint of xtracting my customers senti- ments pro and con, and its as ni a ti as can be. One books the thing to cum off as shure as the Darby or Hoax, while another suspends it til the Day of Jugment. And then he's upset by a new commur in with the news that half St. Giles is cast down, and the inhabbitants all Irish howling, quite dredful, and belab- bering their own buzzums and crossing themselves all over as if it saved the Good Friday buns from being swallered up. So there we are agin. All dubbious. As for Pawley he wont have it at anny price but says its clear agin Geolology and the Wolcanic stratuses ; witch may sarve well enuff to chaff about at Mekan- ical Innstitushuns but he wont gammon me that theres anny sich BOCKS ABBA.D. remmedy for a Hearth Quack as a basun of chork — no nor a basun of gruel nayther. Well wat next. "VVhy Podmore swears 188 THE EARTH-QUAKERS. wen he past the Duke of York he see his hiness anoddin at the Athenium Club as if he meant to drop in pervided he didn't pitch into the Unitid Sends. So there we are agin. For my own share I own to sum misgivins and croakins, and says you, not without caws wen six fammillis in our street has gone oi! alreddy, and three more packin up in case. Besides witch, Ead- ley, the Builder have nocked oif wurk at is new Howsis for fear of their gettin floored, and missis Sims have declined her barril of table beer till arter the shakin. When things cum to sich as- pects they look serus. But supose in the end as Gubbins says its all a errer of that Dr. Dee — wat a set of Dee'd spooneys we shall look. So there we are agin. Then theres Books. It ap- pear on reading the great Lisbon catstrophy were attendid by an uncommon rush of the See on the dry Land and they do say from Brighton as how the Breakers have reached as far as Wig- ney's Bank. That's in faver agin of the world losing its bal- lance. Howsomever I have twice had the shutters up, and wonce got as fur as the hos in the Shay cart for a move off, but was stopt by the Maid and the Prentis both axin a hole hoUiday for the sixteenth, and in sich a stile as convinced if I didnt grant they wood take french leaves. And then who is to mind the house and Shop not to name two bills as cum doo on the verry day and made payable on the premmises. Whereby if I dont go to smash in boddy I must in bisness. So there we are agin. In the interium theres my Wife who keeps wibratin between hopes and fears like the pendulum of a Dutch Clock and nQ more able to cum to a conclusion. But she inclines most to faver the dark side of the Picter and compares our state of Purgatory, to Dam somebody with a sword hanging over his head by a single hair. As a nateral consekens she cant eat her wittals and hears rumblins and has sich tremlins she don't know the hearth's agitatings from her own. Being squeemish besides, as is reckoned by her a very bad sign, becos why theres THE EARTH-QUAKEKS. 189 a hearthquack in Hobbinson Criiso who describe the motion to have made his Stomich as sick as anny one as is tost at See. Well in course her flutters aggrivates mine till between ourselves I'm reddy to bolt out of house and home like a Rabbit and go and squat in the open Fields. And wats to end all this suspense. Maybe a false alarm — and maybe hall to hatums indoors or else runnin out into a gapin naberhood and swallerd up in a crack. Whereby its my privit opinion we shall end by removing in time like the Rats from a fallin house even if we have to make shift with a bed in the garden, but witch is prefferrable to an ever- lastin sleep in the great shake down that nater is preparing. Thats to say if the profesy keeps its word — for if it dont we are better in our own beds than fleaing elsewhere. And praps ketch our deths besides. Witch reminds me our Medical Doctor wont hear of heaithquackery and says theres no simtoms of erup- shun. So there we are agin. But St. Paul's and all Saint Giles's is per contra. And to be sure as Pat Hourigan says of the Irish, ant we sevin fifths of us hod carriers and bricklairs> and do you think as we'd leave the same, if we.didnt expect more brick and building ma- terials than we can carry on our beds and shold- ers. Witch sartinly wood strongly argy to the pint, if so be their being Eoman Cathliks didnt religusly bind one whatever they be- leave, to beleave quite the revers. And talk- ing of religion, if one BLOWING UP FOB BAIK. 190 THE EARTH.QUAKERS. listened to it like a Christian, instid of dispondin it wood praps say trust in I'rovidence and shore up the preraisis. And witch may be the piusest and cheapest plan arter all. But bisness interrupts—^ — Its the Gibbenses maid for an Am. I've pumpt out on her that the fammily is goin to Windser for Change of air. And Widder Stradlin is goin to Richmond for change of Scene. Yes as much as I am goin to the Lands End for change of a shilling. And now I think on it there were a suspishus mark this morning on the Public House paper, namely Edgingtons advertisement about Tents. So arter all the open Air course of conduct — but annother cum in — jJiTtfNXH THE EARTH-QUAKERS. 191 Poor Mrs. Hobson, in the same perplext state as myself. To be sure as she say a slite shock as wouldnt chip a brass or iron man would shatter a chaney woman all to smash. But wats the use of her cummin to me to be advised wen I carnt advize my- self? Howsomever a word or two from your Ben wood go fur to convict me — Only beggin you to considder that Self Preseva- shun is the fust law of Nater, and the more binding as its a law a man is allowed to take into his own hands. As the crisus ap- proach, a speedy answer will releave the mind of Your loving Brother, James Hockin. P.S. — Since riting the abuv the Eeverend Mister Grumpier, as my wife sits under, have dropt in and confirmed the wust. He say its a Judgment on the Citty and by way of Cobberrobbera- tion has named several parties in our naberhood as is to be in- gulped. That settles us, and in course will excuse cuttin short. No. Y.—To Mrs. * * * * No. 9, Street. Madam, It may seem stooping to take up a dropped correspon- dence, but considering that an Earthquake ought to bury all animosities, and enjoying the prospect of an eternal separation. Christian charity induces to say I am agreeable on my part for the breach between us to be repaired by a shaking of hands. I am, Madam, Yours, &c., Belinda Huefin. (The Answer.) Mapam, I trust I have as much Christian charity as my neigh- bours — praps more — and hope 1 have too much triie religion to 192 THE EARTH-QUAKERS. believe in judicious astronomy. And if I did, have never heard that earthquakes was remarkable for repairing breaches. When every thing else shakes, I will shake hands, but not before. I am, Madam, Yours, &c., Matilda Perks. No. VI. — lor Kebecca Slack. 2, Fisher's Plaice, Knightsbridge. Dear Becky, If so be when you cum to Number 9, on Sunday and Me not there don't be terrifide. Its not suicide and the Surpin- tine but the Erthquake. John is the same as ever but Ive all- most giv meself Wamin without the Munths notis. Last nite there cum a ring at the Bel, a regular chevy and Noboddy there. Cook sed a runaway Lark but I no better. And John says Medicle Studints but I say shox. Howsumaver if the bel ring agen of its own Hed I'm off quake or no quake to my muther at Shrewsberry Srops. One may trust to drunken yung gentil- men too long and misstake a rumbel at the Anti Pods for skrewin off the nocker. No, no. So as I sed afore, another ring will be a hint to fly, tho one thing is ockard, namely the crisus fixt for the 16 and my quarter not up till the 20. But wats wagis ? Their no object wen yure an Objec yurseLf for the Ospittle. To be shure Missus may complain of a Non Plush but wat of that. Self Preservin is the law of Nater and is wat distinguishes reson- ing Beings from Damsuns and BuUises. Mister Butler is of my own friteful way of thinkin and quite retchid about the shakin up of his port wine for he all ways calls it hisn, and dredful low, his Hart being in his celler. But Cook choose to set her Face agin the finomunon. Don't tell me says she of the earth quakin— its crust isnt made so lite and THE EARTH-QUAKERS. 193 sliivvery. So weve cum to Wurds on the subjec and even been warm but its impossible to talk with sang fraw of wat freeses ones Blud. But wat can on& expec as Mister Butlei s oookI tou mat dish mastie's diwwbb." says but Convulshuns of Nater wen we go boring into the Erths bowils witch as all the world nose is chock full of Cumbustibuls as ketching as Congrevs and Lucefirs. We mite have tuck warnin by the Erentch he says witch driv irun pipes and toobs down and drew them up agin all twisted by the stratums into Cork skrews with the Ends red hot or meltid off. So much for prymg into the innfurnel reguns. As you may supose I am meloncolly enuf at sich a prospict. But if a Erth Quake isnt to cast one down wat is? I never go to my Filler but I pray to sleep without rockin or having tne roof 194 THE EARTH.QUAKERS. come down atop of me like a sparrer in a brick Trap. And then sich horribel Dreams ! Ony last nite I dremt the hole supper- structer was on my chest and stomack but luckily it were ony the Nite Mare and cold Pork. And in the day time its nothin but takin in visitters cards with Poor Prender Congy which you know means Prentch leave and not a bit two erly if correct that Saint Pauls have sunk down to its Doom. To be shure I over heerd Master say that even Saint Paith don't beleave in it. But she is no rule for Me. Why shudn't we be over- welmd as Mister Butler says as well as the Herculeans and Pompey ? I'm shure we deserve it for our sins and piccadillies. Well time will show. But its our duty all the same to look arter our savings. John thinks Mr. Green have the best chance by assenting on the day in his Voxall baloon but gud gratious as Mister Butler says supose the world was to annihilate itself wile he was up in the Air. One had better trust to the most aggitated Terry Pirmer. Wat sort of soil is most propperest for the purpus has been debatted amung us a good deal. One thinks mountin tops is safest and anuther considders we ort all to be in a Mash. Lord nose. The Baker says his Ma&ter has inshured his-self agin the erth quake and got the Globe to kiver him. Theres Missus bel so adew in haste. A SPOONEY. Mary Sawkins, Poscrip. — Wile I was up in the drawin room master talkt very mistenis about St. Pauls. Its all a report says he from one of the Miner Cannons. THE EARTH-QUAKERS. 195 No. VII.— To Sir W. Elimsy, Bart., & Co. Lombard Street, City, Gentlemen, I beg respectfully to inform you that placing implicit confidence in the calamity which will come due on the 16th instant, I have felt it my duty to remove myself and the cash balance to a place of security. It is my full intention, however, to return to my post after the Earthquake ; and, I trust, instead of condemning, you will thank me for preserving your property, when I come back and restore it. I am. Gentlemen, Your very faithful and obedient. Servant and cashier, Samuel Boulter. No. VIII. — To Mr. Benjamin Hockin. (Vide No. IV.) Dear Benjamin, In my last I broke short through sitting off — and now have to inform of our safe Return and the Premises all sound. The wus luck to have let Meself be Shay carted off on a April Fool's arrand, as bad as piggins milk. Por wat remanes in futer but to become a laffing stock to om* nabers and being ninny- hammered at like nails. As for the parler at the Crown that's shut agin me for ever, for them quizzical fellers as frequents could rost a Ox whole in the way of banterin. So were I'm to spend my evenins except with my wife Lord nose. Theres misery in prospect at once. Has for servin in the shop t couldnt feel more sheapish and sham-faced if I had bean found out in short wait and adultering. Its no odds my customers houlding their Tungs about it — the more they don't say the more I know wat they mean, and witch 196 THE EARTH-QUAKERS. as silent contempt is wus than even a littel blaggard cumming as he did just now, and axing for a small hapenny shock. Not that I mind Sarce so much as make beleave pitty. Its the wim- min with their confoundid simperthisin as agrivates sich as hop- ing no cold was cotchd from the nite dues and lamenting our trouble and expense for nothink. With all respect to the sex if it pleas God to let one see them now and then with their jaws tide up for the Tung Ake as well as the Tooth Ake it wood be no harm. There's that Missis Mummery wood comfort a man into a brain Fever. And indeed well ni soothd me into a fury wat with condoling on our bamboozilment and her sham abram concern for our unlucky step. She cu-m for pickels and its lucky for both there was no Pison handy. But I ort to take an assidu- ous draft meself for swallering such stuff. As praps I shall if I don't fly to hard drink- ing insted. Becos why, I . know I've sunk me- self in public opinnion and indeed feel as if all Lonnon was takin a sight at me. Many ""'s am. up with mkI" a man have took his razer and cut his stick for less. Has for my wife her fust move on cumming Home was up stares and into Bed where she remained quite inconsoluble, being more hurt in her Mind she say then if she had had a leg broke by the Herth quake. And witch I realy think could not more have upset her. Howsumever there she lays almost off her Hed THE EARTH-QUAKERS. 197 and from wat I know of her cute feelings and temper is likely to never be happy agin nor to let anny one else. There's a luck out — and no children of our own to vent on. In course its more nor I dares to tell her of the nonimous Letter like a Walentine with a picter of a Cock and Bui, and that's only a four-runner. Well, its our hone falts, if thats anny comfort which it ant, but all the hevier, like sum loves and tee cakes, for bein home made. The sum totle on it is Ime upset for Life. I harn't got Brass enuf to remane in Bisness nor yet made Tin enuf to retire out on it. Otherwis Ide take a Wilier in Stanter and keap dux. My ony comfit is I arnt a citty Maggy strut and obleegd to sit in Gild all, arter bein throwd into sich a botomless panikin. How his Washup Mister Bowlbee can sit in Publick I don't know for he was one of the veny fust to cut away. Ketch me says he astayin in Crippelgit. 1 know it's my ward but it won't ward off a shock. TOSSIK-Q— " WOMAW 1 ' So much for Hearth Quacks. The end will be I shall turn to a Universal Septic and then I supose watever I don't beleave will come to pass. Indeed I am almost of the same mind 13 198 THE EARTH-QUAKERS. alreddy witli Dadley the Baker. Dont trust nothing, says he, till it happen. And not even then if it don't suit to give credit. Dear Ben, pray rite if you can say anny thing consoling under an ounce — for witch a Stamp inclosed. Your luving Bruther, James Hockin. P.S. — The Reverind Mister Grumpier have just bean and ex- plained to Me the odds betwixt Old and New stiles, whereby the real Day for the Hearth Quack is still to cum, namely Monday the 28 th Instant. So there we are agin I SONNET. The world is with me, and its many cares. Its woes — its wants — the anxious hopes and fears That wait on all terrestrial affairs — The shades of former and of future years — Foreboding fancies, and prophetic tears, Quelling a spirit" that was once elate : — Heavens ! what a wilderness the earth appears, Where Youth, and Mirth, and Health are out of dace But no — a laugh of innocence and joy Resounds, like music of the fairy race, And gladly turning from the world's annoy I gaze upon a little radiant face, And bless, internally, the merry boy Who " makes a son-shine in a shady-piaceu** THE GRIMSBY GHOST 199 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. CHAPTER I. In the town of Grimsbv- •' But stop," says the Courteous and Prudent Reader, " are there any such things as Ghosts ? " " Any Ghostesses ! '* cries Superstition, who settled long since in the country, near a church-yard, on a rising ground, ** any Ghost- esses ! Ay, man — lots on 'em ! bushels on 'em ! sights on 'em ! Why, there's one as walks in our parish, reg'lar as the clock strikes twelve — and always the same round — over church-stile, round the comer, through the gap, into Short's Spinney, and so along into our close, where he takes a drink at the pump, — for ye see he died in liquor, — and then arter he's squenched hisself wanishes in- to waper. Then there's the ghost of old Beales, as goes o' nights and sows tares in his neighbour's wheats — I've often seed un in seed time. They do say that Black Ben, the Poacher, have riz, and what's more, walked slap through all the Squire's steel- traps, without springing on 'em. And then there's Bet Hawkey as murdered her own in- fant — only the poor babby hadn't lamed to walk, and so can't appear agin her." But not to refer only to the ignorant and illiterate vulgar. 200 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. there are units, tens, hundreds, thousands of well-bred and edu- cated persons, Divines, Lawyers, military, and especially naval officers, Artists, Authors, Players, Schoolmasters, and Governesses, and fine ladies, who secretly believe that the dead are on visit- ing terms with the living — nay, the great Doctor Johnson him- PALKY S PHILOSOPHY. self affirmed solemnly that he had a call from his late mother, who had been buried many years. Ask at the right time, and in the right place, and in the right manner — only aftect a belief, though you have it not, so that the party may feel assured of sympathy and insured against ridicule — and nine-tenths of man- kind will confess a faith in Apparitions. It is in truth an article in the creed of our natural religion — a corollary of the recogni- tion of the immortality of the soul. The presence of spirits — visible or invisible^ — is an innate idea, as exemplified by the in- stinctive night-terrors of infancy, and recently so touchingly illustrated by the evidence of the poor little colliery-girl, who declared that " she sang, whiles, at her subterranean task, but never when she was alone in the dark." THE GKIMSBY GHOST. 201 TALLY-ONI. It is from this cause that the Poems and Ballads on spectral subjects have derived their popu- larity ; for instance, Margaret's Ghost — Mary's Dream — and the Ghost of Admiral Hosier — not to forget the Drama, with that awful Phantom in " Hamlet," whose word, in favour of the Supernatural, we all feel to be worth " a tho - sand pound." " And then the Spectre in * Don Giovanni ? ' " No. That Marble Walker, with his audible tramp, tramp, tramp on the staircase, is too substantial for my theory. It was a Ghost invented expressly for the Materialists ; but is as inad- missible amongst genuine Spirits as that wooden one described by old W., the shipowner, — namely, the figure-head of the Britannia, which appeared to him, he declared, on the very night that she found a watery grave oif Cape Cod. " Well— after that— go on." CHAPTER II. In the town of Grimsby, at the corner of Swivel-street, there is a little chandler's-shop, which was kept for many years by a widow of the name of MuUins. She was a careful, thrifty body, a perfect woman of business, with a sharp gray eye to the main chance, a quick ear for the ring of good or bad metal, and a close hand at the counter. Indeed, she was apt to give such scrimp weight and measure, that her customers invariably man- oeuvred to be served by her daughter, who was supposed to be more liberal at the scale, by a full ounce in the pound. The mau and maid servants, it is true, who bought on commission, did not care much about the matter ; but the poor hungry father, 202 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. the poor frugal mother, the little ragged girl, and the little dirty boy, all retained their pence in their hands, till they could thrust them, with their humble requests for ounces or half-ounces of tea, brown sugar, or single Glo'ster, towards " Miss Mullins,'* who was supposed to better their dealings, — if dealings they might be called, where no deal of anything was purchased. She was a tall, bony female, of about thirty years of age, but ap- parently forty, with a very homely set of features, and the staid, sedate carriage of a spinster who feels herself to be set in for a single life. There was indeed " no love nonsense " about her , and as to romance, she had never so much as looked into a novel, or read a line of poetry in her life — her thoughts, her feelings, her actions, were all like her occupation, of the most plain, prosaic character — the retailing of'soap, starch, sandpaper, red-herrings, and Planders brick. Except Sundays, when she went twice to chapel, her days were divided between the little back-parlour and the front-shop — between a patchwork counterpane which she had been stitching at for ten long years, and that other counter work to which she was sum- moned, every few mi- nutes, by the importu- nities of a little bell that rang every custo- mer in, like the new year, and then rang him out again, like the old one. It was her province, moreover, to set down all un- ready money orders on a slate, but the widow took charge of CAMBBIBGE BUTTEB. THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 203 the books, or rather the book, in which every item of account was entered, with a rigid punctuality that would have done honour to a regular counting-house cleik. Under such management the little chandler's shop was a thriving concern, and with the frugal, not to say parsimonious habits of mother and daughter, enabled the former to lay by annually her one or two hundred pounds, so that Miss MuUins was in a fair way of becoming a fortune, when towards the autumn of 1838 the widow was suddenly taken ill at her book, in the very act of making out a little bill, which, alas ! she never lived to sum up. The disorder progressed so rapidly that on the second day she was given over by the doctor, and on the third by the apothecary, having lost all power of swallowing his medicines. The distress of her daughter, thus threatened with the sudden rending of her only tie in the world, may be conceived; while, to add to her affliction, her dying parent, though perfectly sensible, was unable, from a paralysis of the organs of speech, to articulate a single word. She tried never- theless to speak, with a singular perseverance, but all her struggles for utterance were in vain. Her eyes rolled fright- fully, the muscles about the mouth worked convulsively, and lier tongue actually writhed till she foamed at the lips, but without producing more than such an unintelligible sound as is sometimes heard from the deaf and dumb. It was evident from the frequency and vehemence of these efforts that she had some- thing of the utmost importance to communicate, and which her weeping daughter implored her to make known by means of signs. " Had she anything weighing heavy on her mind ? ** The sick woman nodded her head. ** Did she want anyone to be sent for ? " The head was shaken. ** Was it about making her will ? ** 204 • THE GRIMSBY GHOST. Another mute negative. ♦ " Did she wish to have further medical advice ** A gesture of great impatience. ** Would she try to write down her meaning? " The head nodded, and the writing-materials were immedi- ately procured. The dying woman was propped up in bed, a lead-pencil was placed in her right hand, and a quire of foolscap was set before her. With extreme difficulty she contrived to scribble the single word MARY; but before she could form another letter, the hand suddenly dropped, scratching a long mark, like what the Germans call a Devotion Stroke, from the top to the bottom of the paper, — her face assumed an intense expression of despair — there was a single deep groan — then a heavy sigh — and the Widow MuUins was a corpse I CHAPTER III. " Gracious ! how shocking ! " cries Morbid Curiosity. " And to die too, without telling her secret ! What could the poor creature have on her mind to lay so heavy ! I'd give the world to know what it was ! A shocking murder, per- haps, and the remains of her poor husband buried Lord knows where — so that nobody can enjoy the horrid discovery — and the digging of him up ! " No, Madam — nor the boiling and parboiling of his viscera to detect traces of poison. " To be sure not. It's a sin and shame, it is, for people to go out of the world with such mysteries confined to their own bosom. But perhaps it was only a hoard of money that she had saved up in private ? " Very possible. Madam. In fact, Mrs. Humphreys, the car- penter's wife, who was present at the death, was so firmly of that persuasion, that before the body was cold, although not the THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 205 searcher, she had exercise(f a right of search, in every pot, pan, box, basket, drawer, cupboard, chimney — in short, every hole and corner in the premises. " Ay, and I'll be bound discovered a heap of golden guineas in an old teapot." No, Madam — not a dump. At least not in the teapot — but in a hole near the sink — she found — " What, Sir ?— pray what ? " Two black-beetles, Ma'am, and a money-spinner. CHAPTER IV. Well, the corpse of the deceased Widow received the usual rites. It was washed — laid out — and according to old pro- vincial custom, strewed with rosemary and other sweet herbs. A plate full of salt was placed on the chest — one lighted candle was placed near the head and another at the feet, whilst the Mrs. Humphrey s> before mentioned, undertook to sit up through the night and " watch the body." A half-dozen of female neigh- bours also volunteered their services, and sat in the little back- parlour by way of company for the bereaved daughter, who, by the mere force of habit, had caught up and begun mechanically to stitch at the patchwork-counterpane, with one corner of which she occasionally and absently wiped her eyes — the action strangely contrasting with such a huge and harlequin handker- chief. In the discourse of the gossips she took no part or in- terest : in reality she did not hear the conversation, her ear still seeming painfully on the stretch to catch those last dying words which her poor mother had been unable to utter. In her mind's eye she was still watching those dreadful contortions which disfigured the features of her dying parent during her convulsive efforts to speak — she still saw those desperate at- tempts to write, and then that leaden fall of the cold hand, and the long scratch of the random pencil that broke off for ever and ever the mysterious revelation. A more romantic or am- 206 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. bitious nature would perhaps have fancied that the undivulj^ed secret referred to her own birth ; a more avaricious spirit might have dreamed that the disclosure related to hidden treasure ; and a more suspicious character might have even supposed that death had suppressed some confession of undiscovered guilt. But the plain matter-of-fact mind of Mary Mullins was in- capable of such speculations. Instead of dreaming, therefore, IN AT THE DBA.TH. of an airy coronet, or ideal bundles of banu-notes, or pots full of gold and silver coin, or a disinterred skeleton, she only stitched on, and then wept, and then stitched on again at the motley coverlet, wondering amongst her other vague wonders why no little dirty boys, or ragged little girls, came as usual for penny candles and rushlights. The truth being that the gossips had considerately muffled up the shop-bell, for vulgar curiosity THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 207 had caused a considerable inilux of extra custom, so that thanks to another precaution in suppressing noises, the little chandler's shop presented the strange anomaly of a roaring trade carried on in a whisper. Owing to this circumstance it was nearly midnight before the shop- shutters were closed, the street-door was. locked, the eas turned off, and the sympathising females prepared to sit down to a light, sorrowful supper of tripe and onions. In the mean time the candles in the little back parlour had burned down to the socket, into which one glimmering wick at last suddenly plunged, and was instantly drowned in a warm bath of liquid grease. This trivial incident suf- ficed to arouse Miss Mullins from her tearful stupor; she quietly put down the patchwork, and without speaking, passed into the shop, which was now pitch-dark, and with her hand began to grope for a bunch of long sixes, which she knew hung from a particular shelf. Indeed, she could blind- *• SHB WALKS IN BKAOTY, LIKE THB NIGHT." foldcd havc laid hcr haud on any given article in the place ; but her fingers had no sooner closed on the cold clammy tallow, than with a loud shrill scream that might have awakened the dead — if the dead were evei' so awakened — she sank down on the sandy floor in a strong fii ! •' La ! how ridiculous ! What from only feeling a tallow- candle ? " No, Ma'am ; but from only seeing her mother, in her habit 208 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. as she lived, standinp^ at her old favourite post in the shop ; that IS to say, at the little desk, between the great black coffee-mill and the barrel of red-herrings. CHAPTER V. " What ! a Ghost — a regular Apparition ? '* Yes, Sir, a disembodied spirit, but clothed in some ethereal substance, not tangible, but of such a texture as to be visible to the ocular sense. " Bah ! ocular nonsense ! All moonshine ! Ghosts be hanged! — no such things in nature — too late in the day for them, by a EE-ACTIOir. whole century — quite exploded — went out with the old witches. No, no, Sir, the ghosts have had their day, and were all laid long ago, before the wood pavement. What should they come for ? The potters and the colliers may rise for higher wages, and the Chartists may rise for reform, and Joseph Sturge may rise for his health, and the sun may rise, and the bread may nse, and the sea may rise, and the rising generation may rise, and all to some good or bad pui-pose ; but that the dead and THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 209 buried should rise, only to make one's hair rise, is more than J can credit." They may have some messages or errands to the living. " Yes, and can't deliver them for want of breath ; or can't execute them for the want of physical force. Just consider yourself a ghost " Excuse me. "Pshaw! I only meant for the sake of argument. I say, suppose yourself a ghost. Well, if you come up out of your grave to serve a friend, how are you to help him ? and if it's an enemy, what's the use of appearing to him if vou can't pitch into him." Why, at least it is sJiowing your Spirit. " Humph ! that's true. Well, proceed.'* CHAPTER VI,. There is nothing more startling to the human nerves than a female scream. Not a make-believe squall, at a spider or a mouse, but a real, shrill, sharp, ear-piercing shriek, as if from the very pitchpipe of mortal fear. Nothing approaches it in thrill- ing effect, except the railway whistle ; which, indeed, seems only to come from the throat of a giantess, instead of that of an or- dinary woman. The sudden outcry from the little shop had therefore an ap- palling effect on the company in the little back parlour, who for the moment were struck as dizzy and stupefied by that flash of sound, as if it had been one of lightning. Their first impulse was to set up a chorus of screams, as nearly as possible in the same key ; the next, to rush in a body to the shop, where they found the poor orphan, as they called her, insensible on the floor. The fit was a severe one ; but, luckily the gossips were ex. pcrienced in all kinds of swoons, hysterics, and faintings, and 210 THE GEIJVISBY GHOST. used pach restorative process so vigorously, burning, choking, pmcfiLing, slapping, and excoriating, that in a very few minutes the patient was restored to consciousness, and a world of pain. It was a long time, however, before she became collected enough to pive an account of the Apparition — that she had seen her Mother, or at least her Ghost, standing beside her old desk ; that the figure had turned towards her, and had made the same dreadful faces as before, as if endeavouring to speak to her — a BBBB WITH A BODY. communication which took such effect on the hearers that, with one exception, they immediately put on their bonnets and de- parted ; leaving old Mrs. Dadley, who was stone deaf, and had only imperfectly heard the story, to sleep with Miss MuUins in what was doomed thenceforward to be a Haunted House. The nigbt, nevertheless, passed over in quiet; but toAvards morning the ghostly Mother appeared again to the daughter in a dream, and THE GEIMSBY GHOSl^. 211 with the same contortions of her mouth attempted to speak her mind, but with the same ill-success. The secret, whatever it was, seemed irrevocably committed to Silence and Eternity. In the mean time, ere breakfast, the walking of Widow Mullins had travelled from one end of Grimsby to the other ; and for the rest of the day the little chandler's shop at the corner of Swivel-street was surrounded by a mob of men, women, and children, who came to gaze at the Haunted House — not without some dim anticipations of perhaps seeing the Ghost at one of the windows. Eew females in the position of Mary Mullins would have remained under its roof ; but to all invitations from well-meaning people she turned a deaf ear ; she had been born and bred on the premises — the little back-parlour was her home — and from long service at the counter, she had become-^to alter a single letter in a line of Dibdin's — All one as a piece of the shop. As to the Apparition, if it ever appeared again, she said, " the Ghost was the Ghost of her own Parent, and would not harm a hair of her head. Perhaps, after the funeral, the Spirit would rest in peace : but at any rate, her mind was made up, not to leave the house — no, not till she was carried out of it like her poor dear mother." CHAPTER VII. And pray, Mr. Author, what is your own private opinion ? Do you really believe in Ghosts, or that there was any truth in the story of this Grimsby Apparition ? " Heaven knows, Madam ! In ordinary cases I should have ascribed such a tale to a love of the marvellous ; but as I before stated, Miss Mullins was not prone to romance, and had never read a work ot fiction in her whole life. Again, the vision might have been imputed to some peculiar nervous derangement of the system, like the famous spectral illusions that haunted the 212 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. Berlin Bookseller — but then the young woman was of a hardy constitution, and in perfect health. Finally, the Phantom might have been set down as a mere freak of fancy, the off-spring of an excited imagination, whereas she had no more imagination than a cow. Her mind was essentially commonplace, and never travelled beyond the routine duties and occurrences of her everyday life. Her very dreams, which she sometimes related, were remarked as being particularly prosaic and insipid ; the wildest of them having only painted a swann of over- grown cockroaches, in the shop-drawer, that was labelled *' Powder Blue." Add to all this, that her character for veracity stood high in her native town ; and on the whole evidence the verdict must be in favour of the supernatural appearance. *' Well — I will never believe in Ghosts ! " No, Madam. Not in this cheerful drawing-room, whilst the bright sunshine brings out in such vivid colours the gorgeous pattern of the Brussels carpet — no, nor whilst such a fresh wes- terly air blows in at the open window, and sets the Columbines a-(lancing in that China vase. But suppose, as King John says, that "The midnight bell Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth, Sound one unto the drowsy race of night: If this same were a churchyard, where we stand — " the grass damp — the wind at east — the night pitch-dark — a strangely ill odour, and doubtful whistlings and whisperings watted on the fitful gust. **Well, Sir?— " Why, then. Madam, instead of disbelieving in Ghosts, you would be ready, between sheer fright and the chill of the night air — " To do what, Sir ?— " To swallow the first spirits that oifered. THE GllIMSBY GHOST. 213 CHAPTER VIII. The second night, at the same hour, the same melodrama of ** domestic interest '* was repeated, except that this time the maternal Phantom confronted her daughter on the landing-place MUST COMB OUT ITEXT SPBIWG. ' at the top of the stairs. Another fainting fit was the conse- quence ; but before her senses deserted her, the poor creature had time to observe the identical writhings and twitchings of the distorted mouth, the convulsive struggles to speak which had so appalled her, whilst her departed parent was still in the flesh. Luckily, the gossips, backed by two or three she-sceptics, had ventured to return to the Haunted House, where they were startled as before by a shrill feminine scream, and again found Miss Mullins on the ground in a state of insensibility. The fit, U 214 THE GRIMSBY GIJOST. however, was as treatable as the former one, and the usual strong measures having been promptly resorted to, she again became alive to external impressions, — and in particular that a pmt of aquafortis, or something like it, was going down her throat the wrong way — that her little-finger had been in a hand-vice — her temples had been scrubbed with sand and cayenne pepper, or some other such stimulants, and the tip of her nose had been scorched with a salamander or a burning feather. A conscious- ness, in short, that she was still in this lower sphere, instead of the realms of bliss. The story she told on her recovery was little more than a se- cond edition of the narrative of the preceding night. The Ghost had appeared to her, made all sorts of horrible wry mouths, and after several vain attempts at utterance, all ending in a convulsive gasp, had suddenly clasped its shadowy hands round its throat, and then clapped and pressed them on its pal- pitating bosom, as if actually choking or bursting with the sup- pressed communication. Of the nature of the secret she did not offer the slightest con- jecture ; for the simple reason that she had for- med none. In all her days she had never at- tempted successfully to guess at the commonest riddle, and to solve such an enigma as her mother had left behind her was therefore quite out of the question. The gossips were less diffident; their Wonder was not of the Pitssive, but of the Active i=« ^^^^ o» »J^™- THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 215 kiud, wkich goes under the alias of Curiosity. Accordingly, they speculated amongst themselves without stint or scruple on the matter that the Spirit yearned so anxiously to reveal ; for instance, that it related to money, to murder, to an illegiti- mate child, to adulterated articles, to a forged will, to a favour- ite spot for burial ; nay, that it concerned matters of public in- terest, and the highest affairs of the state, one old crone ex- pressing her decided conviction that the Ghost had to divulge a plot against the life of the Queen. To this excitement as to the Spectre and its mystery, the con- duct of the Next of Kin afforded a striking contrast : instead of joining in the conjectural patchwork of the gossips, she silently took up the old variegated coverlet, and stitched, and sighed, and stitched on, till the breaking up of the party left her at liberty to go to bed. " And did she dream again of the Ghost ? " She did, Miss : but with this difference ; that the puckered mouth distinctly pronounced the word Mary, and then screwed and twisted out a few more sounds or syllables, but in a gibber- ish as unintelligible as the chatter of a monkey, or an Irvingite sentence of the Unknown Tongue. CHAPTER IX. The third night came — the third midnight — and with it the Apparition. It made the same frightful grimaces, and, strange to relate, contrived to pronounce in a hollow whisper the very word which it had uttered in Mary's last Dream. But the jum- ble of inarticulate sounds was wanting — the jaws gaped, and the tongue visibly struggled, but there was a dead, yes, literally a dead silence. 216 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. On this occasion, however, the daughter did not faint away ; she had privately taken care to be at the hour of twelve in the midst of her female friends, and her Mother appeared to her in the doorway between the little back parlour and the shop. The Shadow was only revealed to herself. One of the gossips, in- deed, declared afterwards that she. had seen Widow Mullins, "as like as a likeness cut out in white paper, but so transpai'ent that she could look right through her body at the chaney Jemmy Jessamy on the mantelpiece." But her story, though accepted as a true bill by nine-tenths of the inhabitants of Grimsby, was not honoured by any one who was present that night in the little back-parlour. The two staring green eyes of Miss Mullins had plainly been turned, not on the fireplace, but towards the door, and her two bony fore- fingers had wildly pointed in the same direction. Nevertheless, the more positive the contradiction, the more obstinately the story-teller persevered in her statement, still adding to its cir- cumstantialities, till in process of time she affirmed that she had not only seen the Ghost, but that she knew its secret ; namely, that the undertaker and his man had plotted between them to embezzle the body, and to send it up in a crate, marked " Chaney — this side upwards," to Mr. Guy in the Borough. . CHAPTER X. On the fourth night the Ghost appeared at the usual time, with its usual demeanour, — but at the shop instead of the par- lour-door, close to the bundle of new mops. On the fifth, behind the counter, near the till. On the sixth night, again behind the counter, but at the other end of it beside the great scales. THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 217 On the seventli night, which closed the day of the funeral, in the little back-parlour. It had been hoped and predicted, that after the interment, the Spirit would cease to walk — whereas at midnight it reappeared, as aforesaid, in the room behind the shop, between the table and the window. On the eighth night, it became visible again at the old desk, be- tween the great black coffee-mill and the herring-barrel. In the opinion of Miss Mullins, the Spectre had likewise crossed her path sundry times in the course of the day — at least she had noticed a sort of film or haze that interposed itself before sundry objects — for instance, the great stone-bottle of vinegar in the shop, and the framed print of " the Witch of Endor calling up Samuel," in the back room. On all these occasions the Phantom had ex- hibited the same urgent impulse to speak, with the same spas- modic action of the features, and if possible, a still more intense expression of anxiety and anguish. The despairing gestures and motions of the visionary arms and hands were more and more vehement. It was a tragic pantomime, to have driven any other spectator raving mad ! ■V.Y NA.T1TB GatT. Even the dull phlegmatic nature of Miss Mullins at last began to be stirred and excited by the reiteration of so awful a 218 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. spectacle : and her curiosity, slowly but surely, became in- terested in the un- divulged secret which could thus keep a dis- embodied spirit from its appointed resting- place, the weighty necessity which could alone recall a departed soul to earth, after it had once experienced the deep calm and quiet of the grave. The sober sorrow of the mourner was changed into a feverish 'bidb my time." fretting — she could no longer eat, drink, or sleep, or sit still, — the patchwork quiJt was thrust away in a corner, and as to the shop, the little dirty boy, and the little ragged girl were obliged to repeat their retail orders thrice over to the bewildered creature behind the counter, who even then was apt to go to the wrong box, can, or canister, — to serA'^e them out train-oil instead of treacle, and soft-soap in lieu of Dorset butter. What wonder a rumour went throughout Grimsby that she was crazy ? But instead of going out of her mind, she had rather come into it, and for the first strange time was exercising her untrained faculties on one of the most perplexing mysteries that had ever puzzled a human brain. No marvel, then, that she gave change twice over for the same sixpence, and sent little Sniggers home with a bar of soap instead of a stick of brim- stone. In fact, between her own absence of mind and the pre- THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 219 sence of mind of her customers, she sohl so many good bargains, that the purchasers began to wish that a Deaf aod Dumb Ghost would haunt every shop in the town ! CHAPTER XI. According to the confession of our first and last practi- tioners, the testimony of medical works, and the fatal results of most cases .of Trismus, there is no surgical operation on the human subject so difficult as the picking of a Locked Jaw. No skeleton key has yet been invented by our body-smiths that will open a mouth thus spasmodically closed. The organ is in what the Americans call an everlasting fix — ^the poor man is booked — and you may at once proceed to put up the rest of his shutters. This difficulty, however, only occurs in respect to the physical frame. For a spiritual lock-jaw there is a specific mode of treat- ment, which, according to tradition, has generally proved suc- cessful in overcoming the peculiar Trismus to which all Ap- paritions are subject, and which has thus enabled them to break that melancholy silence, which must otherwise have prevailed in their intercourse with the living. The modus operandi is ex- tremely simple, and based on an old-fashioned rule, to which, for some obscure reason, ghosts as well as good little boys seem bound to adhere, i.e., not to speak till they are spoken to. It is only necessary, therefore, if you wish to draw out a dumb Spirit, to utter the first word. Strange to say, this easy and ancient prescription never oc- curred to either Miss Mullins or her gossips till the ninth day, when Mrs. Humphreys, happening to stumble on the old rule in her son's spelling-book, at the same time hit on the true cau.«e of the silence of the " Mysterious Mother." It was im- mediately determined that the same night, or at least the very 220 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. first time the Spirit reappeared, it should be spoken to ; the very terms of the filial addi'ess, like those of a Royal Speech, being agreed on beforehand, at the same council. Whether the A SflB RUFFIAN. orator, the appointed hour and the expected auditor considered, would remember so long a sentence, admitted of some doubt ; however it was learned by rote, and having fortified herself with a glass of cordial, and her backers having fortified themselves with two, the trembling Mary awaited the awful interview, con- ning over to herself the concerted formula, which to assist her memory had been committed to paper. " Muther, if so be you ar my muther, and as such being spoke to, speak I cunjer you, or now and ever after old your Tung." CHAPTER XII. One — Two — Three — Four — Five— Six — Seven — ^Eight — Nine— Ten— Eleven— TWELVE ! The Hour was come and the Ghost. True to the last stroke of the clock, it appeared like a figure projected from a magic THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 221 'tun UOUB WAS COMB i.SD XHB aHCSI. 222 THE GRIMSBY GHOST, lantern, on the curtain at the foot of the bed — for, through certain private reasons of her own. Miss Mullins had resolved not only to be alone, but to receive her visitor — as the French ladies do — in her chamhre d. coucJier. Perhaps she did not care that any ear but her own should receive a disclosure which might involve matters of the most delicate nature ; a secret ihat might per- chance affect the reputation of her late parent, or her own social position. However, it was in solitude and from her pillow, that with starting eyeballs, and outstretched arms, she gazed for the ninth time on the silent Phantom, which had assumed a listening expression, and an ex- pectant attitude, as if it had been invisibly present at the recent debate, and had over- heard the composition of the projected speech. But that speech was never to be spoken. In vain poor Mary tried to give it utterance ; it seemed to stick, like an apothecary's powder, in her throat — to her fauces, her palate, her tongue, and her teeth, so that she could not get it out of her mouth. The Ghost made a sign of impatience. Poor Mary gasped. The Spirit frowned and apparently stamped with its foot. Poor Mary made another violent effort to speak, but only gave a sort of tremulous croak. The features of the Phantom again began to work — the muscles about the mouth quivered and twitched. UOTHES OF FE1.KL. THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 223 Poor Mary's did the same. The whole face of the Apparition was drawn and puckered "by a spasmodic paroxysm, and poor Mary felt that she was imitat- ing the contortions, and even that hideous grin, the risus sar- dojiicus, which had inspired her with such horror. At last with infinite difficulty, she contrived by a desperate effort to utter a short ejaculation — but brief as it was it sufficed to break the spell. The Ghost, as if it had only awaited the blessed sound of one single syllable from the human voice, to release its own vocal organs from their mysterious thraldom, instantly spoke. But the words are worthy of a separate chapter. CHAPTER XIII. *' Mary ! it arnH booked — hut there's tuppence f 01 sandpaper at number nine ! " AN OLD 0KB, BUT 600D, WITH BOTH HANDS IN THE RING. 224 NO. Note. — " It is much to the Discredit of Ghosts," — Says Johannes Lan- ternus, in his '' Treatise of Apparitions," — " that they doe so commonly re- visit the Earth on such trivial Errands as would hardly justify a journey from London to York, much less from one World to another. Grave and weighty ought to be the Matter that can awaken a Spirit from the deep Slumbers of the Tomb : solemn and potent must be the Spell, to induce the liberated Soul, divorced with such mortal Agony from its human Clothing, to put on merely such flimsy Atoms, as may render it visible to the Eye of Flesh. For neither willingly nor wantonly doth the Spirit of a Man forsake its subterrane Dwelling, as may be seen in the awful Question by the Ghost of Samuel to the Witch of Endor — 'Wherefore hast thou disquieted Me and called me up ? ' And yet, forsooth, a walking Phantom shall break the Bonds of Death, and perchance the Bonds of Hell to boot, to go on a Mes-age, which concerns but an Individual, and not a great one either, or at most a Family, nor yet one of note, for example, to disclose the lurking Place of a lost Will, or of a Pot of Money in Dame Perkins her back Yard, — Whereas such a Supernatural Intelligencer hath seldom been vouchsafed to reveal a State Plot — to prevent a Royal Murther, or avert the Ship- wrack of an whole Empire. Wherefore I conclude that many or most Ghost Stories have had their rise in the Self-Conceit of vain ignorant People, or the Arrogance of great Families, who take Pride in the Belief that their mimdane Affairs are of so important a Pitch, as to perturb de- parted Souls, even amidst the Pains of Purgatory, or the Pleasures of Paradise." NO! No sun — no moon ! No mom — no noon — No dawn — no dusk — no proper time of day — NO. 225 No sky — no earthly view — No distance looking blue — No road — no street — no " t'other side the way " — No end to any Kow — No indications where the Crescents go- No top to any steeple — No recognitions of familiar people — No courtesies for showing 'em — No knowing 'em ! — No travelling at all — no locomotion, No inkling of the way — no notion — " No go " — by land or ocean — No mail — no post — No news from any foreign coast — No Park — no Eing— no afternoon gentility — No company — no nobility — No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No comfortable feel in any member — No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits, no flow'rs, no leaves, no birds, November ! BCNNUfG FOB IB.£ 0A.K8. 226 A BLACK JOB. A PIir-AFOEB. EPIGRAM ON A LATE CATTLE-SHOW IN SMITHFIELD. Old Farmer Bull is taken sick. Yet not with any sudden trick Of fever, or his old dyspepsy ; But having seen the foreign stock, It gave his system such a shock He's had a fit of Cattle-epsy I A BLACK JOB. ** No doubt the pleasure is as great, Of being cheated as to cheat." — HuDlBRAS. The history of human-kind to trace, Since Eve — the first of dupes — our doom umiddled, A certain portion of the human race Has certainly a taste for being diddled. Witness the famous Mississippi dreams ! A rage that time seems only to redouble— A BLACK JOB. 227 The Banks, Joint-Stocks, and all the flimsy schemes, For rolling in Pactolian streams, That cost our modern rogues so little trouble. No matter what, — ^to pasture cows on stubble, To twist sea-sand into a solid rope. To make French bricks and fancy bread of rubble, Or light with gas the whole celestial cope — Only propose to blow a bubble. And Lord ! what hundreds will subscribe for soap I Soap ! — it reminds me of a little tale, Tho' not a pig's, the hawbuck's glory. When rustic games and merriment prevail- But here's my story : Once on a time — no matter when — A knot of very charitable men ■ Set up a Philanthropical Society, Professing on a certain plan, To benefit the race of man, And in particular that dark variety. Which some suppose inferior — as in vermin, .The sable is to ermme, As smut to flour, as coal to alabaster, As crows to swans, as soot to driven snow, As blacking, or as ink to " milk below," Or yet a better simile, to show, As ragman's dolls to images in plaster ! However, as is usual in our city. They had a sort of managing Committee, A board of grave responsible Directors— A Secretary, good at pen and ink — A Treasurer, of course, to keep the chinfe. 228 A BLACK JOB. And quite an army of Collectors ! Not merely male, but female duns, Young, old, and middle-aged — of all degrees— With many of those persevering ones, Who mite by mite would beg a cheese ! And what might be their aim 1 To rescue Afric's sable sons from fetters—^ To save their bodies from the burning shame Of branding with hot letters — Their shoulders from the cowhide's bloody strokes, Their necks from iron yokes ? To end or mitigate the ills of slavery. The Planter's avarice, the Driver's knavery ? To school the heathen Negroes and enlighten 'em. To polish up and brighten 'em. And make them worthy of eternal bliss ? Why, no— the simple end and aim was this — Keadiug a well-known proverb much amiss — ■ To wash and whiten 'em ! They look'd so ugly in their sable hides : So dark, so dingy, like a grubby lot Of sooty sweeps, or colliers, and besides, However the poor elves Might wash themselves. Nobody knew if they were clean or not — On Nature's fairness they were quite a blot ! Not to forget more serious complaints That even while they join'd in pious hymn So black they were and grim, In face and limb. They look'd like Devils, tho' they sang like Saints I A BLACK JOB. 229 The thing was undeniable ! They wanted washing ! not that slight ablution To which the skin of the White Man is liable, Merely removing transient pollution — But good, hard, honest, energetic rubbing 4nd scrubbing, Sousing each sooty frame from heels to head With stiff, strong, saponaceous lather. And pails of water — hottish rather, But not so boiling as to turn 'em red ! So spoke the philanthropic man Who laid, and hatch'd, and nursed the plan — And oh ! to view its glorious consummation I The brooms and mops. The tubs and slops. The baths and brushes in full operation I To see each Crow, or Jim, or John, Go in a raven and come out a swan ! While fair as Cavendishes, Vanes, and Russel Black Venus rises from the soapy surge, And all the little Niggerlings emerge As lily-white as mussels. Sweet was the vision — ^but alas ! However in prospectus bright and sunny, To bring such visionary scenes to pass One thing was requisite, and that was — money »- Money, that pays the laundress and her bills. For socks and collars, shirts and frills, Cravats and kerchiefs — money, without which The negroes must remain as dark as pitch ; lb 230 A BLACK JOB. A thing to make all Christians sad and shivery, To think of millions of immortal souls Dwelling in bodies black as coals, And living — so to speak — in Satan's livery ! Money — the root of evil, — dross, and stuff ! But oh ! how happy ought the rich to feel, Whose means enable them to give enough To blanch an African from head to heel ! How blessed — yea, thrice blessed — to subscribe Enough to scour a tribe ! While he whose fortune was at best a brittle one, Although he gave but pence, how sweet to know He helped to bleach a Hottentot's great toe, Or little one ! Moved by this logic (or appall' d) To persons of a certain turn so proper, The money came when call'd, In silver, gold, and copper, Pre&ents from " Friends to blacks," or foes to whiteWi, " Trifles," and " offerings," and " widow's mites, Plump legacies, and yearly benefactions, With other gifts And charitable lifts. Printed in lists and quarterly ti^ansactions. As thus — Elisha Brettel, An iron kettle. The Dowager Lady Scanuel, A piece of flannel. Rebecca Pope, A bar of soap. A BLACK JOB. 231 The Misses Howela, Half-a-dozen towels. The Master Rush s, Two scrubbing-brush e?. Mr. T. Groom, A stable broom, "And Mrs. Grubb, A tub. Great were the sums collected ! And great results in consequence expected. But somehow, in the teeth of all endeavour. According to reports At yearly courts. The blacks, confound them ! were as black as ever! Yes ! spite of all the water sous'd aloft. Soap, plain and mottled, hard and soft, Soda and pearlash, huckaback and sand. Brooms, brushes, palm of hand, And scourers in the office strong and clever, In spite of all the tubbing, rubbing, scrubbing, The routing and the grubbing. The blacks, confound them ! were as black as ever ! In fact in his perennial speech, The Chairman own'd the niggers did not bleaon. As he had hoped. From being washed and soaped, A circumstance he named with grief and pity j But still he had the happiness to say, For self and the Committee, By persevering in the present way 232 A BLACK JOB. And scrubbing at the Blacks from day to day, Although he could not promise perfect white, From certain symptoms that had come to light, He hoped in time to get them gray ! LuU'd by this vague assurance, The friends and patrons of the sable tribe Continued to subscribe, And waited, waited on with much endurance — Many a frugal sister, thrifty daughter — Many a stinted widow, pinching mother — With income by the tax made somewhat shorter. Still paid implicitly her crown per quarter, Only to hear as ev'ry year came round, That Mr. Treasurer had spent her pound ; And as she loved her sable brother, That Mr. Treasurer must have another ! But, spite of pounds or guineas, Instead of giving any hint Of turning to a neutral tint. The plaguy negroes and their piccaninnies Were still the colour of the bird that caws — Only some very aged souls Showing a little gray upon their polls. Like daws ! However, nothing dashed By such repeated failures, or abashed, The Court still met ; — the Chairman and Directors. The Secretary, good at pen and ink, The worthy Treasurer, who kept the chink, And all the cash Collectors ; ' A BLACK JOB. 233 With hundreds of that class, so kindly credulous. Without whose help, no charlatan alive, Or Bubble Company could hope to thrive, Or busy Chevalier, however sedulous — Those good and easy innocents in fact, Who willingly receiving chaflf for com, As pointed out by Butler's tact. Still find a secret pleasure in the act Of being pluck'd and shorn ! However, in long hundreds there they were, Thronging the hot, and close, and dusty courts To hear once more addresses from the Chair, And regular Report. Alas ! concluding in the usual strain, That what with everlasting wear and teai*. The scrubbing-brushes hadn't got a hair — The brooms — mere stumps — would never serve again— The soap was gone, the flannels all in shreds. The towels worn to threads. The tubs and pails too shatter'd to be mended — And what was added with a deal of pain. But as accounts correctly would explain, Tho' thirty thousand pounds had been expended — The Blackamooi*s had still been wash*d in vain ! " In fact, the negroes were as black as ink. Yet, still as the Committee dared to think. And hoped the proposition was not rash, A rather free expenditure of cash — ^" But ere the prospect could be made more sunny — Up jump'd a little, lemon-coloured man. 234 EPIGEAM. And with an eager stammer, thus began, In angry earnest, though it sounded funny : " What ! More subscriptions ! No — no — no, — not I ! You have had time — time — ^time enough to try ! They won't come white ! then why— why— why — why— why, More money 1 " *' Why ! " said the Chairman, with an accent bland, And gentle waving of his dexter hand, *' Why must we have more dross, and dirt, and dust, More filthy lucre, in a word, more gold — The why, sir, very easily is told, Because Humanity declares we must ! We've scrubb'd the negroes till we've nearly killed 'em, And finding that we cannot wash them white. But still their nigritude offends the sight, }Fe mean to gild 'em I " EPIGRAM ON LIEUTENANT EYRE's NARRATIVE OF THE DISASTERS AT CABUL. A SORRY tale, of soiTy plans, Which this conclusion grants, That AfFghan clans had all the Khans And we had all the cant's. 235 MRS. GARDINER. A HOKTICULTUKAL ROMANCE. CHAPTER I. •• What sweet thoughts she thinks Of violets and pinks." — L. Hunt. ** Each flow'r of tender stalk whose head, tho' gay, Carnation, purple, azure, or speck'd with gold, Hung drooping unsustain'd, them she upstays." — MiLTOH. *'How does my lady's garden grow ?" — Old Ballad. ** Her knots disorder' d, and her wholesome herbs Swarming with caterpillars," — Richard II. I LOVE a Garden ! *' And so do I, and I, and I," exclaim in chorus all the he and she Fellows of the Horticultural Society. " And I," whispers the philosophical Ghost of Lord Bacon. " And I," sings the poetical Spirit of Andrew Marvel. " Et moi aitssi" chimes in the Shade of Delille. " And I," says the Spectre of Sir William Temple, echoed by Pope, and Darwin, and a host of the English Poets, the sonorous voice of Milton resounding above them all. " And I," murmurs the Apparition of Boccaccio. " And I, and I," sob two Invisibles, remembering Eden. " And I," shouts Mr. George Robins, thinking of Co vent Garden. " And I," says Mr. Simpson — formerly of Vauxhall. " And I," sing ten thousand female voices, all in unison, as if drilled by HuUah, — ^but really, thinking in concert of the Gardens of Gul. [What a string I have touched !] 236 MRS. GARDINER. " We all love a Garden ! " shout millions of human voices, male, female, and juvenile, bass, tenor, and treble. From the East, the West, the North, and the South, the universal burden swells on the wind, as if declaring in a roll of thunder that we all love a Garden. But no — one solitary voice — that of Hamlet's Ghostly Father, exclaims in a sepulchral tone, " I don't ! '* No matter — we are all but unanimous ; and so. Gentle Readers, I will at once introduce to you my Heroine — a woman after your own hearts — for she is a Gardiner by name and a Gardener by natm*e. CHAPTER II. At Number Nine, Paradise Place, so called probably because every house stands in the middle of a little garden, lives Mrs. Gardiner. I will not describe her, for looking through the green rails in front of her premises, or over the dwarf wall at the back, you may see her any day, in an old poke bonnet, expanded into a gipsey-hat, and a pair of man's gloves, tea-green at top, but mouldy-brown in the fingers, raking, digging, hoeing, rolling, trowelling, pruning, nailing, watering, or otherwise employed in her horticultural and floricultural pursuits. Perhaps, as a neighbour, or acquaint- ance, you have already seen her, or conversed with her, over the wooden or brick-fence, and have learned in answer to your kind inquiries about her health, that she was * pretty well, only sadly in want of rain,' or * quite charming, but almost eaten up by vermin.' For Mrs. Gardiner speaks the true " Language of Flowers," not using their buds and blos- soms as symbols of her own nassions and sentiments, according MES. GAEDTNEB. 237 238 MRS. GARDINER. to the Greek fashion, but lending words to the wants and affections of her plants. Thus, when she says that she is " dreadful dry, and longs for a good soaking," it refers not to a defect of moisture in her own clay, but to the parched condition of the soil in her parterres : or if she wishes for a regular smoking, it is not from any unfeminine partiality to tobacco, but in behalf of her blighted geraniums. In like manner she sometimes confesses herself a little backward, without allusion to any particular branch, or twig, of her education, or admits herself to be rather forward, quite irrelevantly to her behaviour with the other sex. Without this key her expressions would often be unintelligible to the hearer, and sometimes indecorous, as when she told her neighbour, the bachelor at Number Eight, a propos of a plum-tree, that "she was growing quite wild, and should come some day over his wall." Others again, unaware of her peculiar phraseology, would give her credit, or discredit, for an undue share of female vanity, as well as the most extra- ordinary notions of personal beauty. " Well," she said one day, " what do you think of Mrs. Mapleson 1 " meaning that lady's hydrangea. " Her head's the biggest — but I look the bluest." In a similar style she delivered herself as to certain other subjects of the rivalry that is universal amongst the suburban votaries of Flora : converting common blowing and growing substantives into horticultural verbs, as thus : " Miss Sharp crocussed before me,-^but I snow-dropped sooner than any one in the Row." But this identification of herself with the objects of her love was not confined to her plants. It extended to every thing that was connected with her hobby — her gardening implements, her garden-rails, and her garden-wall. For example, she complained once that she could not rake, she MRS. GARDINER. 239 had lost so many of her teeth — she told the carpenter the boys climbed over her so, that he should stick her all over tenter-hooks— and sent word to her landlord, a builder, the snails bred so between her bricks, that he must positively come and new point her. " Phoo ! phoo ! " exclaims an incredulous, Gentle Reader — " she is all a phantom ! " Quits the reverse, sir. She is as real and as substantial as Mrs. Baines. Ask Mr. Cherry, the newsman, or his boy, John Loder, either of whom will tell you — on oath if you require it — that he serves her every Saturday with the Gardeners Chronicle. CHAPTER III. My first acquaintance with Mrs. Gardiner was formed when she was "in populous city pent," and resided in a street in the very heart of the city. In fact in Bucklersbury. But even there her future bent developed itself as far as her limited ways and means permitted. On the leads over the back warehouse, she had what she delighted to call a shrubbery : viz. — A Persian Lilac in a tea-cbest, A Guelder Rose in a -washing-tub, A Laurustinus in a butter-tub, A Monthly Rose in a Portugal grape-jar, and about a score of geraniums, fuchsias, and similar plants in pots. But besides shrubs and flowers, she cultivated a few vegetables — that is to say, she grew her own salads of " mustard and crest " in a brown pan j and in sundry crockery vessels that would hold earth, but not water, she reared some half dozen of Scai-let Runners, which in the proper season 240 MES. GARDINER. you might see climbing up a series of string ladders, against the back of the house, as if to elope with the Mignonnetto from its box in the second-floor window. Then indoors, on her mantelshelf, she had hyacinths and other bulbs in glasses — and from a hook in the ceiling, in lieu of a chandelier, there was suspended a wicker-basket, containing a white biscuitware garden-pot, with one of those pendant plants, which, as she described their habits and sustenance, are " fond of hanging themselves, and hving on hare." But these experiments rather tantalized than satisfied her passion. Warehouse-leads, she confessed, made but indifferent gardens or shrubberies, whilst the London smoke was fatal to the complexion of her mop-rose and the fragrance of her southern- wood, or in her own words, " I blow dingy — and my old man smells sutty." Once, indeed, she pictiu*ed to me her heau ideal of " a little Paradise," the main features of which I forget, except that with reference to a cottage omee, she was to have "a jessamy in front, and a creeper up her back." As to the garden, it was to have walks and a lawn of course, with plenty of rich loam, that she might lay herself out in squares, and ovals and diamonds — butter-tubs and tea-chests were very well for town, but she longed for elbow-room, and earth to dig, to rake, to hoe, and trowel up, — in short, she declared, if she was her own missis, she would not sleep another night before she had a bed of her own — not with any reference to her connubial partner, but she longed, she did, for a bit of ground, she did not care how small. A wish that her husband at last gratified by taking a bit of ground, he did not care how small, in Bunhill Fields. The widow, selling ofi" the town house, immediately retired to a villa in the country, and I had lost sight of her for Bome months, when one May morning taking a valk in the MRS. GARDINER. 241 suburbs, whilst passing in front of Number Nine, Paradise Placej I overheard a rather harsh voice exclaiming, as if in expostulation with a refractory donkey — " Come up ! Why don't you come up 1 " It was Mrs. Gardiner, reproaching the tardiness of her seeds. I immediately accosted her, but as she did not recognise me, determined to preserve my incognito, till I had drawn her out a little to exhibit her hobby. *' Rather a late spring, ma'am ! " " Worry, sir, — werry much so indeed. Lord knows when I shall be out of the earth, I almost think I'm rotted in the ground." " The flowers are backward indeed, ma'am. I have hardly seen any except some wall-flowers further down the row." "Ah, at Number Two — Miss Sharp's. She's poor and single — but I'm double and bloody." • " You seem to have some fine stocks." " Well, and so I have, though I say it myself. I'm the real Brompton — ^with a stronger blow than any one in the place, and as to sweetness, nobody can come nigh me. Would you like to walk in, sir, and smell me ] " Accepting the polite invitation, I stepped in through the little wicket, and in another moment was rapturously sniffing at her stocks, and the flower with the sanguinary name. From the walls I turned off* to a rosebush, remarking that there was a very fine show of buds. " Yes, but I want sun to make me bust. You should have seen me last June, sir, when I was in my full bloom. None of yo\ir wishy washy pale sorts (this was a fling at the white roses at the next door) — none of your Provincials, or pale pinks. There's no maiden blushes about me. I'm the regular old red cabbage ! " 242 MRS. GARDINER. And she was right, for after all that hearty, glowing, fragrant rose is the best of the species — the queen of flowers, with a ruddy embonpoint, reminding one of the goddesses of Rubens. Well, next to the rosebush there was a clump of Polyanthus, from which, by a natural transition, we come to discourse of Auriculas. This was delicate ground, for it appeared there was a rivalry between Number Nine and Number Four, as to that mealiness, which in the eye of a fancier is the chief beauty of the flower. However, having assured her, in answer to her appeal, that she was " quite as powdery as Mr. Miller," we went on very smoothly through Jonquils, and Narcissuses, and Ranunculus, and were about to enter on " Anymoriies," when Mrs. Gardiner suddenly stopped short, and with a loud " whist ! " pitched her trowel at the head of an old horse, which had thrust itself over the wooden fence. " Drat the animals ! I might as well try flowering in the Zoological, with the beasts all let loose ! It's very hard, sir, but I can't grow nothing tall near them front rails. There was last year, — only just fancy me, sir — with the most beautiful Crown Imperial you ever saw — when up comes a stupid hass and crops off my head." I condoled with her of course on so cruel a decapitation, and recovered her trowel for her, in return for which civility she plucked and presented to me a bunch of Heartsease, apologizing that "she was not Bazaar (pro Bizarre), but a very good sort." " It's along of living so near the road," she added, recurring to the late invasion. " Yesterday I was buUocked, and to-morrow I suppose I shall be pigged. Then there's the blaggard men and boys, picking and stealing as they go by. I really expect that some day or other they'll walk in and strip me ! " MRS. GARDINER. 243 I sympathised again ; but before the condoleraent was well finished there was another " whist ! " and another cast of the missile. " That's a dog ! They're always rampaging at my front, and there goes the cat to my back, and she'll claw all my bark oflf in scrambling out of reach ! Howsomever that's a fine lupin, ain't it 1 " I assured her that it deserved to be exhibited to the Horticultural Society. " What, to the flower show ? No thankee. Miss Sharp didj and made sure of a Bankside Medal, and what do you think they gave her 1 Only a cerkittifit ! " ** Shameful ! " I ejaculated, " why it was giving her nothing at all," and once more I restored the trowel, which, however, had hardly settled in its owner's hand, than with a third " whist ! " ofi" it flew again like a rocket, with a descriptive announcement of the enemy. ■< Them horrid poultry ! Will you believe it, sir, that 'ere cock flew over, and gobbled up my Hen-and-Chickens ! " * SIKIKKS. all to himself, and he was be- 318 MR. CHUBB. ginning heart and soul to enjoy the sport, — when, from up the stream, he heard a startling plunge, enough to frighten all the fish up to London or down to Ware ! The flop of the great green and white float was a whisper to it — but before he could frame a guess at the cause, a ball of something as big as his own head, plumped into his swim, with a splash that sent up the water into his very face ! The next moment a sweet low voice called to him by his name. It was the Widow ! He knew it without turning his head. By a sort of mental claii-voyance he saw her distinctly look- ing at him, with her soft liquid hazel eyes, over the privet hedge. He immediately fixed his gaze more resolutely on his float, and determined to be stone deaf. But the manoeuvre was of no avail. Another ball flew bomb-]ike through the air, and narrowly missing his rod, dashed — saluting him with a fresh sprinkle — into the river ! " Bless my soul," thought Mr. Chubb, carefully laying his rod across the arms of his elbow-chair, " when shall I get any fishing ! " " A fine morning, Mr. Chubb." "Very, Ma'am — very, indeed — quite remarkable," stammered Mr. Chubb, bowing as he spoke, plucking off his hat, and taking two or tlu-ee unsteady steps towards the fence. " My gardener has made me some ground bait, Mr. Chubb, and I told him to throw the surplus towards your part of the river." ** You're very good, Ma'am — I'm vastly obliged I'm sure," said the little Bachelor, quite overwhelmed by the kindness, and wiping his face with his silk handkerchief, as if it had just re- ceived the favour of another sprinkle. " Charming w^eather, Ma'am ! " " Oh, delightful ! It's quite a pleasure to be out of doors. By-the-bye, Mr. Chubb, I'm thinking of strolling — do you ever stroll. Sir?" MR. CHUBB. 319 *' Ever what ? " asked tlie astounded Mr. Chubb, his blood suddenly boiling up to Fever Heat. ** For jack and pike, Sir — I've just been reading about it in the * Complete Angler.' " " 0, she means trolling,'' thought Mr. Chubb, his blood as rapidly cooling down to temperate. " Why, no. Ma'am — no. I'he truth is, — asking your pardon — there are no jack or pike, I believe, in this water." " Indeed ! That's a pity. And yet, after all, I don't think I could put the poor frog on the hook — and then sew up his mouth, — I'm sure I couldn't ! " " Of course not. Ma'am — of course not," said the little Bachelor, with unusual warmth of manner, — "you have too much sensibility." " Do you think, then. Sir, that angling is cruel ? " *' Why, really, Ma'am " — but the poor man had entangled himself in a dilemma — and could get no farther. *' Some persons say it is," continued the Lady, — " and really to think of the agonies of the poor worm on the hook — but for my part I always fish with paste." " Yes — I know it," thought Mr. Chubb, — " with a little hard dumpling." " And then it is so much cleaner," said the lady. "Certainly, Ma'am, certainly," replied Mr. Chubb, wdth a particular reference to a certain very white hand with long taper fingers. " Nothing like paste. Ma'am — or a fly ; if it was not a liberty. Ma'am, I should think you would prefer an artificial fly." " An artificial one ! — 0, of all tilings in the world ! " ex- claimed the Lady with great animation. " That cannot feel ! — But then " — and she shook her beautiful head despondingly — *' they are so hard to make. I have read the rules for artificial flies in the book, — and what with badger's hair and cock's 320 MR. CHUBB. cackles (she meant hackles), and whipping your shanks (she meant the hook's), and then drubbing your fur (she meant dub- bing with fur), 0, I never could do it ! " Mr. Chubb was silent. He had artificial flies in his pocket- book, and yearned to offer one — but, deterred by certain recollections, he shrank from the task of affixing it to her line. And yet to oblige a lady — and such a fine woman too — and besides, the light fall of a fly on the water would be so much better than the flopping of that abominable great THKEE'S ONE AT MB ! NOW FOE A BITK I green and white float ! — Yes, he would make the ©e'er of it, and he did. It was graciously accepted, the rod was handed over the hedge, and the little Bachelor, — at a safe distance, — took off, with secret satisfaction, the silk line, its great green and white float, its swaushot, the No. 1 hook and its little hard dumpling. MR. CHUBB. 321 He then substituted a fine fly-line, with a small black ant-fly, and when all was ready, presented the apparatus to the lovely Widow, who was profuse in her acknowledgments. " There never was such a beautiful fly," she said, " but the difficulty was how to throw it. She was only a Tryo (she meant a Tyro), and as such must throw herself on his neighbourly kindness, for a little in- struction." This information, as well as he could by precept and example, with a hedge between, the little Bachelor contrived to give ; and then dismissed his fair pupil to whip for bleak ; whilst with an internal " Thank Heaven ! " he resumed his own apparatus, and began to angle for perch, roach, dace, gudgeons, — or anything else. But his gratitude was premature — his float had barely com- pleted two turns, when he heard himself hailed again from the privet hedge. " Mr. Chubb ! Mr. Chubb ! " " At your service, Ma'am." " Mr. Chubb, you will think me shockingly awkward, but I*ve switched off the fly, — your beautiful fly, — somewhere among the evergreens." Slowly the Angler pulled up his line — at the sacrifice of what seemed a very promising nibble — and carefully deposited his rod again across the arms of the elbow chair. " Bless my soul and body ! " muttered Mr. Chubb, as he selected another fly from his pocket-book, — ** when shall I ever get any fishing ! " CHAPTER VII. ** Poor Mr. Chubb!" How little he dreamt — in all his twelve years dreaming, of ever retiring from trade into such a pretty business as that in 822 MR. CHUBB. which he found himself involved I How little he thought, whilst studying the instructive dialogues of Venator and Viator with Piscator, that he should ever have a pupil in petticoats hanging on his own lips for lessons in the gentle art ! Nor was it seldom that she required his counsel or assistance. Scarcely had his own line settled in the water, when he was summoned by ?n irresistible voice to the evergreen fence, and requested to perform some trivial office for a fair Neophyte, with the prettiest white hand, the softest hazel eyes, and the silkiest auburn hair he had ever seen. Sometimes it was to put a bait on her hook — some- times to take off a fish — now to rectify her float — and now to screw or unscrew her rod. Not a day passed but the little Bachelor found himself tete-a-tete with the lovely Widow, across the privet hedge. Little he thought, the while, that she was fishing for him, and tliat he was pouching the bait ! But so it was : — for exactly six weeks from the day when Mr. Chubb caught his first Bleak — Wrs. Hooker beheld at her feet her first Chubb ! A I.S6A.L TEKDBB. "What she did with him needs not to be told. Of course she did not give him away, like Venator's chub, to some poor body ; NOTES ON SHAKESPEARE. 323 or baste him, as Piscator recommends, with vinegar or verjuice. The probability is that she blushed, smiled, and gave him her hand ; for if you walk, Gentle Reader, to Enfield, and enquire concerning a certain row of snug little villas, with pleasure-grounds bounded by the New River, you will learn that two of the houses, and two of the gardens, and two of the proprietors have been " thrown into one."» " And did they fish together. Sir, after their marriage ? '* Never ! Mr. Chubb, indeed, often angled from morning till night, but Mrs. C. never wetted a line Irom one year's end to another. ^grjpT[ iii^p ^Ki tip H j^SI^S iflSL SINCB THBir I'M DOOM D. NOTES ON SHAKESPEARE. It is singular that none of the commentators on " The Merry Wives of Windsor," have hitherto attributed to Sir John Fal- slq/fa. tampering with the Black Art of Magic. There are at 824 NOTES ON SHAKESPEARE. least as plausible grounds for such a supposition, as for some of the most elaborate of their conjectures, for not only does the Fat Knight undertake to personate that Witch the Wise Woman of Brentford, but he expressly hints to us that he himself was a W^izard, and popularly known as " Jack with his Familiars.''^ A proof of the antiquity of the practice of letting lodgings, or offices for merchants and lawyers, has been equally overlooked by the Annotators. It occurs, indeed, more than once, and in words that might serve for a bill in a modern window — namely, " Chambers let oj." NOTE ON "king JOHN." Prince Arthur. — Must you with hot irons burn out both my eyes? Eubtrt — Young boy, I must. In the barbarous cruelty proposed to be practised on Prince Arthur there appears to be some coincidence with a theory brought forward of late years, in reference to the Hanoverian Heir Apparent ; namely, that by the ancient laws of Germany the sovereignty could not be exercised by a person deprived of the sense of sight. Although *' death " was indicated by the royal uncle in his conference with Hubert, it would seem as if John, shrinking from the guilt of actual murder, had subse- quently contented himself with ordering that the young " ser- pent on his path " should be rendered incapable of reigning by the loss of his eyes. It was a particular act, intended for an especial purpose, expressly commanded by warrant, and Hubert was " sworn to do it." Supposing, therefore, that the intention was simply to blind the victim, to disable him from the throne, not to inflict un- necessary torture, or endanger life, it is humbly suggested to future painters and stage-managers, that the inhuman deed would not have been performed with great clumsy instruments like plumbers' irons, but more probably with heated metal NEWS FROM CHINA. 325 skewers or bodkins, as the eyes of singing birds bave been destroyed by fanciers — though for a different reason — with red- hot knitting needles •rja. ''my etesI xhekjb's a mouse I' NEWS FROM CHINA. Of the genuineness of the following letters there can be no doubt: the parties are all known to us, and if necessary, we could swear to the handwriting. But the internal evidence will satisfy any competent judge who knows anything, by books or travel, of the Celestial Empire. No corrections have been attempted, whether in style or in the orthography (for example, Morfius for Morpheus, and Komus for llemus, in No. II.) ; and the only 2L 326 NEWS FEOM CHINA. suppressions are of real names, and a few domestic particulara tDO private for the public. — Ed. THK MUSIC OF THB SPHKKK8. Ko T — To Mr, Abel Dottin, Grocer, Manchester, Dear Brother, In spite of differings and I must say harshness on some points, you will be delighted to hear I have at last got a letter from dear Gus. How it came I do not quite know, but a most gratifying one to maternal feelings, and I should hope to others, however some people's prognostifi cations are proved to be in tlie wrong. But I'm not going to triumph over any one, tho' if I NEWS FROM CHINA. 327 did, motherly joy might be my excuse, for her pride will rise up when a beloved son turns out such as to justify my fondest hopes, and do honour to her system of bringing up. That re- pays for all. Nobody knows the sacrifices I have gone through lor his sake, indeed, such as nothing would reconcile to, except the reflection, it was all for his dear welfare, whatever others might think to the contrary. I have pinched myself in many ways both inside and out, and even more than prudence or health dictated, or even keeping up appearances; but a mother, like a pelican of the wilderness, will go shabby genteel or any- thing for a beloved child. Tor of course his outfitting came very heavy, and I had to part with the Japan bufi'et and all my beautiful old cliiney to make him fit for the Celestial Empire. Not to name all his little desideratums, which at such a time I could not grudge or refuse anything he set his heart on to an only departing son for a foreign land. As is more than some people perhaps will sympathise with, but uncles an't mothers. Indeed, his goold watch and other nicknacks ran rather over than under your kind thirty pound. Then what with bullock trunks and regimentals and other items, besides chains and trinkets to barter with the natives, came to a pretty penny, so as obliged me to sell out of my long annuities, and has sadly , scrimped a narrow income. However I am now repaid for all my efforts and privations, and only my dne and proper reward for my own sagacity and foresight in putting my dear Gus in a line of life adapted to his uncommon cleverness. Some people I know thought otherwise, but in common justice ought to acknowledge I always predicted my son would be a shining character. Those were my very words, and they have literally come as true as if I had been a fortune telling gipsy. So much for cultivating genius, and which you'll excuse my saying, the mother it springs from must naturally know more about than even the best of uncles. Indeed, you know yourself, to be can- 828 NEWS FROM CHINA. A CEXTKK-BIT. did, I always said he was a genius out of the common way, and was the first to put it into his head. And now I have reason to be thankful that I never thwarted him, as some people wished, but always let him have his own way in everything, and the conse- quence is, instead of his being a plodding tradesman, or a low mechanick, my Augustus has dis- tinguished himself as a shining character, and for what we know may be at this very moment a Colonel, a General, or a Plenipen- itentiary. Every bodies nevies do not get up to that ! As for himself, poor fellow, whatever other people may have said or done agin him, it is plain he harbours no malice or anymosity or he wouldn't joke so good humoured about your pigtail. But he always was of a forgiving disposition, bless him, and a generous nature besides, and no doubt when he comes back will bring heaps of foreign presents for all his friends and relatives. For my own part I seem to see the house turned into a perfect British Museum, what with great porcelain jars, and little tiny shoes, and bows and arrows, and the frightfullest staring idols. And the Chinese make the most beautiful carved ivory fans. So I need not grudge the Japan buffet and the old chiney, — and in- stead of going shabby genteel, who knows but I may some day go to routs and parties, in a rich filial silk, and be fetched home with a splendid illuminated lantern ? But those are pictures some people won't or can't enter into, so I say no more. But it stands to reason one's sister must surely reflect more credit on him properly consulting nppcarances according to her rank NEWS FROM CHINA. 829 in life, and handsomely dressed and set oft* as if she had jusi walked out of the Book of Beauty, than if she had just come out of Mrs. Bundle's Domestic Cookery — which is too often the case. I enclose dear Gussy's letter, of which I hope you will take religious care of, and not file it into holes like a common trum- pery business letter, as some in trade are too apt. Some sen- tences read oddish, but you must not be set agin it by his style, which to be sure ought not to be exactly like other people's who have no shining parts. At any rate, it shows uncommon clever- ness and a good heart. I don't mind owning I enjoyed a good cry over those infantile Chinese fondlings, and then that savage monkey ! But some people are of more untender natures, not having had any family of their own. How would you like your Gus, if you had one, to be shot and peppered at by a set of long pigtailed savages, contrary to all laws human and divine, as if he was no better than a preserved pheasant or a poached hare ? I do hope the wretches will be well civilised for it with a broad- side ! But what can one expect from such wicked heathens ? I only hope he won't be tempted ashore among them, but he's very venturesome, for if they once catch my dear Gus, near any of their nasty Joss houses, they will idolize him as sure as fate ! A full sheet compels to conclude with my love — with which your nevy if he was here would unite — but alas there's oceans between. Lord preserve him from that and all other perils by sea and land, not forgetting the barbarous inhabitants of China and Tartarus ! With which I remain, dear Brother, Your aflPectionate sister, Jemima Budge. Wisbech, 13 October. •830 NEWS FEOM niflNA. No. II. Pear Mother, Since my last from the Cape,* I suppose you have been in a regular slow fever of maternal solicitude to hear of my arrival among the Mandarines — inquiring at every Tea Ware- house and Crockery shop whether they have heard anythinof from Canton, and expecting twelve general posts a day, and. twenty particular ones with a letter from " my son in China." Well, here it is at last, warranted oriental, and if it don't go thro' the parish like the Asiatic Cholera I know nothing about letters from sons in foreign parts. Of course Mrs. Dewdny will have the first reading of it and Mrs. Spooner the last, as she always has of her own novelties in her Circulating Library. I think I see her with her hands flapping up and down, and hear her clucking with her tongue and saying, " Well — dear me — I never ! To think of Mister Gustavus being where all the tea comes from By the by, Mrs. B., you don't want any real Howqua ? — and the ladies can't walk for their little shoes — Captain Bidding's you know — well, I'll order Lord Jocelyn — in catty packages, you see, Ma'am — for the Library — and so Mister Gustavus really is at Kang Tong — did you ever read letters from the Dead to the Living ? — well I never ! — dear me ! " However, here I am — knocking about in the Chinese waters, not black or green though, as Mrs. Spooner would suppose, but decidedly yellow. Just fancy an ocean of pea-soup, such as you used to make at home and then talk of throwing it over the house, — quite as thick and of the same colour, with lots of weeds floating about in it like the mint, but whole instead of ♦ This letter never reached its destination. NEWS FBOM CHINA. 331 crumbled — in short, so like the real thing that I was spoon enough to taste it; and really it might pass for work-house pea-soup, only salted with rather a heavy hand. BHOTINO OFV. Well, after soup, fish — and Avhat do you think of square miles of it, as we neared the land, — whole shoals, big and little, from sprats up to porpuses, with strange sorts never seen be- fore, all floating on the surface belly upwards, just like old Parkington's carp when somebody had hocussed them with Cockulus Indicus. However, this time it was that old buflPer Commissioner Lin who had poisoned all the finny and scaly tribes by throwing such lots of opium into the Eiver at Canton. Even the gulls were afi'ected by it, from feeding on the small fry, and sat rock- ing on the waves dead asleep. So the drug really must be as diliterious as the Quakers said it is — even if we had not come across a more striking proof of it, — namely a man-of-war's launch with a middy and twelve hands in her, all as fast as lops, and as hard to be waked up as Dr. Watts's sluggard. 332 NEWS FROM CHINA. Luckily there was oceans of cold pig at hand, and didn't we give it them, as Dibdin says, with the gravy, which at last brought them to their senses, when it appeared that hearing so much talk about opium, and finding a package of it adrift, they had chawed a little out of curiosity, which being an overdose had sent them all into the land of Nod. On comparing notes they had been drifted about three whole days and nights in the ^J), FUOT SOLDIEBS. arms of Morfius. We got some capital yarns out of them, telling tneir dreams, turn and turn about, and the middy's was, that he had been down in Bedfordshire a week of wet Sundays, and dozing all the time as fast as a church in the family pew. Poor fellows ! it was lucky we picked them up, before falling NEWS FROM CHINA. 333 into the power of the pigtails instead of the ninetails — for they had two dozen a piece on rejoining their ship, but one of them, an old deep file, took another dose of the opium beforehand, and so was flogged in his sleep, they say, without feeling it, which if true, beats somambulism by long chalks. Well, the next morning the watch reported that the ship was suri'ounded with floating spars and timber, some being black and charred, from which we concluded either that some ship had been accidentally burnt and blown up, or else that hostili- ties had begun with the Chinese, and which proved to be the fact. One of our gun-brigs had had a brush the day before with a fleet of mandarin boats, and of course beat them into fits in no time ; but with consequences rather inconvenient to the winners. You know we have in the river Thames a floating Chapel and a floating Infirmary, but what do you think of a floating Found- ling Hospital ? However it's fact : and here's the way of it, up and down. The Chinese towns are very populous, so much that there isn't room for half the inhabitants on dry land, and accordingly hun- dreds and thousands of families live, where you wouldn't, namely, on the water in regular swimming houses, with no ground-floors. This arrangement of course prevents the rising generation from playing as ours does about the streets, so they play about the deck instead, which being wet and slippery it often happens that some of them, especially what you call the little toddles, plump overboard, and would be drowned but for a great empty calibash that their mothers tie to their backs, and which acting like a cork jacket keeps the (Jear little ducklings afloat, tOl their industrious parents are at leisure to haul them out with a long boat-hook. An operation they never hurry themselves about, knowing the darlings are perfectly safe ; as well as doing their own washing, while the young uns from the same sense ot se- curity are far from particular about their footing, but drop in 834 NEWS FROM CHINA. and float about as if they were paid for doing it, like the aquatic actors at Sadler's Wells. Well, you see when the mandarin boats bore down on the gun-brig she began to fire away like blazes, right and left, and one or two of the random balls falling among the floating houses, the proprietors considered it as a notice to quit, and away they went helter skelter — sove quipeu, which is the Trench for " devil take the hindmost," some up the river and some into the canals, — \ X » .^^ia-w whole Water Lanes --^"~?i liiirfw^^^r^"~-JL J ^^^ River Terraces 'r' \' \ .jB9,m^J^ i \.i ^ moving off in double quick, with such screaming and howling, they say, as never was heard. In such a skurry the juveniles got knocked overboard like fun, some of the unpleasant or snubbed children large families m perhaps getting a kick on purpose ; however in they went, plump after plump, like frogs frightened into a pond, — the brig all the while kicking up a regular smother, and chattering away like thunder as long as she could get an answer, and rather longer. At last she stopped firing, and the smoke clearing off, lo and behold there was not a mandarin boat in sight — the swimming town had gone into the country, and all round the ship the sea was alive with little Chineses brought down by the ebb tide, all floating about with their life-pre- BLIND TO HIS OWN INTEKEST. NEWS FROM CHINA. 335 eenrers, and screaming like sea-gulls for their absent fathers and mothers. As common humanity required, they were all picked up and taken aboard the brig, one hundred and sixty-four in all, from a year upwards, and after a little warm grog apiece, which some took naturally and others quite the reven-se, the captain sent them all off in the gig and the cutter, with a white ensign to each boat. Not that the Chinese would mind firing on a flag of truce, which they did so unmercifully that the officers in INPAWTBY AT MESS. charge out of humanity gave orders to pull round, and brought all the little innocents aboard again, as well as some six or seven more which they had picked up in their passage. Well, 336 NEWS FROM CHINA. when Captain saw them all come back on his hanas, he looked at them, they say like an ogre, for he thought the bar- barians had contrived it on purpose, to prevent his fighting his ship, and he swore, so soon as the flood made, he would heave the brats overboard every cherub, and let them tide back again. But when the time come, being a family man himself, his heart always misgave, — so the children remained aboard, — and there was Her Majesty's g\m-brig the turned into a regular Foundling Hospital. By good luck our commander took me with him on a visit to the brig, and sure enough she was literally swarming with little flat-faced Chinese, some put to bed three and four in a hammock, and the rest sprawling about the decks, each looked after by a strapping he-nursemaid six foot high, — the carpenter's nurseling excepted, which being called off to a job he had tied by the leg to a ring bolt. And oh, thinks I, if my dear motherly mother could but see the boatswain ; — a great red-faced monster, almost as hairy as the beast that suckled Romulus and Eomus, a sitting on a carronade, with a brown foundling on each knee, one getting up a squall and the other sick, from being tried with a soft quid of tobacco, because it couldn't manage hard biscuit ! And then the noise ! — for at least half of the children were screech- ing like parakeets, I don't think for want of toys, for one had a marlinspike, and another the tarbrush, and another an old swab, but by degrees the whole kit of innocents on deck had set up their pipes as if King Herod had got among them, — and nobody knew why. Some thought it was at the black cook, and others said the Newfoundland dog — however the secret came out at last. "Forward there!" sings out the first leftenant, "what is that noise ? " " Why then, if you please. Sir," says the coxon, " it's all along of the ship's monkey. He's got so infamal jealous of our NEWS FROM CHINA. 337 nussin and fondlin the Chinee babbies, that he crept round on the sly and give 'em all a bite apiece ! " What became of the interesting Foundlings afterwards, I don't know to a certainty, our ship being ordered off the same day to proceed up the river ; but somebody said, that the cap- tain exchanged the whole boiling for the Newfoundland dog, which had somehow been inveigled on shore by the Chinese. As yet our ship had never lired a g-un except by way of salute. In going up the river, a few shots had been aimed at us which our commander wouldn't condescend to answer. Our fellows have indeed the greatest contempt for the Chinese batteries, which they call their piany forts. At last we got liberty to return their compliments, and I determined to have a shy at the pigtails, so I had a gun run out forward, took aim at a Joss-house, and fired it off with my own hand, — bang ! whiz ! and away flew the ball howling through the air. Where it went or what mischief it did I have no notion ; but after watching a minute the captain sings out, "Who laid that gun?" " I did. Sir," was my reply. " Mr. Budge," says he, "you will be a shining character." " I hope. Sir, I shall." None of us have yet been allowed to land, but we hope soon to have a spree on shore. Some of the fellows in the gun-brig have been into the country and had a famous lark. Such cock- shying at the China jars ! Such chevying after the natives for their tails ! and finishing off with a row in a Joss-house, which they set fire to, after dragging out the Idol, a regular old Guy, and running him up. Jack Ketch fashion, to the bough of a tree. If that does not convert the pagans I don't know what will ! Some day I suppose it will be our turn to have a set-to with the war junks, or an army battle ashore, in which case unless he gets knocked into the Tiger's Mouth, or is chopped in two 338 NEWS FROM CHINA. by a two-handed sword, or has a wriggle like an eel on ar U8r?v sort of three-pronged spear, there is a chance of Mr. Gustavus covering himself with glory, as well as coming in for part of the swag. One of the middies of the gun-brig told me that he had for his own share fourteen tails, three pair of chop-sticks, a •beautiful ivory fan, carved as delicate as Brussels lace, two rattan shields, a fighting quail, three odd women's shoes, a state parasol, and a superb lantern I No bad lot, and says you, wouldn't the lantern look well in our passage at home, I should say Hall, and lighted up with gas. In the mean time our Jacks and jollies are full of the best spirit, and only want a chance to slaughter the Chinamen like pigs. And sarve 'em right, they say, for calling Her Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria a Barbarian Eye — besides which, they have a notion of their own, that the war is intended to force the Chinese to smoke and chew 'backy instead of opium, and there- fore a very just and legitimate business, and even of a friendly character. Be that as it may the natives do not seem to relish the sport. It's a very good game, as the hoop said to the stick, only I get all the licks. But it is time to belay. Tell uncle Abel, with my duty to him, he may cut off his queue as soon as he likes, for I'll send him one six times as thick, and twelve times as long, if I kill a mandarin on purpose. Likewise a Swan-pan, being quite in his line. Cousin Eouzel may depend on a Tung-lo to charm bis bees with ; and Susan shall have a pair of ladies' shoes almost too small for this world. As for yourself, you would not object I dare say to a Pow-ka — some of the swell mandarins by the way are first chop dandies, with splendid satin pelisses and silk petticoats that would make up easily into gowns — a Chin-tow of course, and maybe you would like a Kang. You have only to say which you would prefer, and it shall come by the first ship and no mistake. I should like to see you in a Kew ! NEWS FROM CHINA. 339 With love and duty to yourself, and remembrances to all fnends and relatives, I am, Dear Mother, Your affectionate Son, Augustus Budge. P.S. — Since the above a native-boat has come alongside, and I've done a little barter. One of my rings for a fishing cor- morant, and the amethyst for a regular game cricket. TO BB COKTINUED. No. III. — To Mrs. Budge, TFisbech. Dear Sister, This is to acnoUige your faver of the 13th currant in- cludin one from my Nevy. And am sorry to observe he have put no Date to it which is neglectin what I call one of the three correspondin Ws, — namely When Where and What. As for you and me diferin its what we always did and always shall do like the 2 sides of an Account. Becos why whatever }ou place to Credit on one Side I set down Per Contra. For exarapel what you call propper spirit I call impudence and what you considder generosity I consider extravigance. That's how 840 NEWS FROM CHINA. we don't ballance. Time will show whose Itums was the cor* rectest, yours or Some Peoples, a Firm I know as well as if their Names & Addresses was in the Directry & not many doors ott' from my own. But its early days to say Im no Profit afore knowing more of the returns And for all that apears as yet you may have a bad Speck in your Sun. As such I am sorry to hear of your Sellin out Stock & nar- rowin your Incum, partickly as it was under 150 afore, k so no savin as to the Tax. Also your pinchin Yourself in your vittles & in course narrowin your Figger in that way too, which is GPY OF WAEWICK. more then I would for any dear Gus in the world. Put as you say I can't feel like a Muther, and am glad I cant. 1 am neither so soft in the Hed nor so tender brested, like the Pellican you rite of & which I take it must be some sort of forin Goose, to go Shylockin a pound of flesh from ray own buzum to satisfy extravigant bills. And that such is the case is proved by your own Entries as to uniforms and trinkits and so forth, whereby NEWS. FHOM CHINA. 341 my thirty Pound have gone it appears for Dux and Drakes in- stead of buying his Sextons and Squadrons and other nortical Instruments. What bisness has a yung fellow jist startin in life with little desideratums ? There was no such things in my time — no nor bullocks trunks nayther, ony elefants. So in course thats a sham entry. Praps insted of a goold snuff box to match his repeter. Or praps for a dandifide sute of Close, to wear turn about with his uniform, for the last time I had the pleasure, my Nevy reminded me a good deal of a Monky. Which reminds me if you want his picter in his absence, there's the very moral of him, in old Snitch's the tailer's winder, drawn and cullerd at full lenth, as a sample of the last ally mode. I mean the one a switching a little refined lickerish boot, as no man with a grate Toe could get his foot into. He's the very immage ! Now in my yunger days a respectabel yuth was con- tent with a decent coat and hat, and provided he could go into church with a clean shirt, well blackt Boots, and a pair of unholy gloves. But them was plain Johns, not dear Gusses. As to his goold Watch its like his impudence when his Uncle have gone thro life with a Pinch back — and whats more never had a Watch at all till five ' and twenty. The Cock was my Crow- nometer. Four in summer and six in winter from years end to years end. But I supose erly risin was none of my Nevy's babbits, and till 12 or 1 he would have been letting himself down by getting up. The later the genteeler, — and I have nerd of one fashonable reiigius lady in Lonnon who always got up singing the Evening Hym. However thats your way of bringin up, namely to give a sun his own way in every thing, which being a very take it esy stile of edicating to mind hardly justifies a Parent in bragging of it so much as she do in your letter. It would have been better praps to have thwarted a little more, for all his lively parts. My flebit Horse in the Spring cart is much such a Genus, with a remarkable tallent for 342 JSIEWS FROM CHINA. Kickin, and not unclever at backin, and an uncommon quickness at running away. But I don't pve him hisHed for all that, He would soon be distributing orders at rong doors if I did. But says you dear Gus isn't meut for a plodding tradesman. RISING AFTEE THE LAIiK. He's to be a sinning caracter, as to which it seam to me, from the letter, my Nevy's cannon bullet went nowheres watever, and the Captin only intended to say he'd be such a shining caracter as a mackrel, when its good for nuthing. As to his Corrispon dance, not having your advantige of a hordin^r Skool edication, I am no judge of stiles, how genuses oit to rite or not, but it do seem to me, from my own pickings ap about the streets that he have much the same flashes of JSLWfc; FKOM CHINA. 343 Paney as the litfcel dirty ragged genuses that inquire arter strange gentlemens muthers, and if so be they have parted with their mangles. Still to give the Devil his do, as the saying is, there is parts of his letter not so much amiss. The Yellow See reads almost like filosofy — and the Opuim bisness sounds correct, and so does the Chiney Orfins, tho I cant weep over them being as you say a Batcheler, and therefor all the children I havent got are to be chuckt in my teeth. The same of your own pictur of yourself which not being a Feraal I cant fancy myself into, any more than you can fancy yourself into my inwizible green and drab shorts. All I can say is I hope I may live to see it. Lantern and all, and dear Gus a ridin arter you on an Elefant, like a nabob, or a Mandarin, which reminds of his libberty taken with my tie. As to cuttin it off praps I may, to leave as a Ugaxnj. In the mean while he may keep his Shan Pan to fry his own fish in. If he had been reely solicitus to please, a pair of them noddin figures, such as stands in some grocer's shop winders, would have been a more likely and nateral present. 1 think now I have answered every pint in your faver : and have only one thing to add namely trade is dredful flat, and money uncommon scarse and tight everywhere, which I mention in case that you or my Nevy may not look to me for the needful in any dilemmy as is far from unprobable. I have no more thirty pounds to give away : and as to lendin on lone, of course it will be expected without sekurity from a Nateral Unkle, where- as the Unnateral ones always gets something or other if its only a flat irun for their advances. With which I reman e Dear Sister, Your loving Brutlier, AiJEL Dorr i if. Manchester, October the 26th, 1842. 344 NEWS FROM CHINA. No. IV.— Tc? Mr, Abel Bottin, Grocer, MancJieaier', Deae Brother, A violent cold having flown to my chest, I am too ill to enjoy retorting and retaliating, and which must plead my apology for not recriminating at more length. As such you must excuse my not resenting sereatim every point in your last letter, and making you thorouglily ashamed of yourself and your unnatural sentiments, I allude particularly to your taking re- fuge as an Uncle in the Character of a Pawnbroker, and declin- ing loans to your nearest ties, except on the usual sharking terms of those moral monsters. But trade hardens every thing. It teaches to adulterate our genuine feelings with sordid ingre- dients, and to weigh the just claims of consanguity in scales that are anything but correct. Gracious heavens ! where is a sister or a nevy to look up to for assistance if needful, but to a rich connexion without chick or child, rolling in wealth, and where I venture to say, every shilling he advances will be to his everlasting credit! 0, brother, consider your nevy's propinquity ! Your sister's own son — and if ever a youth exhibited a decided propensity to get devated, its him. I do hope, therefore, you will reflect before you shirk one so likely to redound upon you, as dear Gus. Already by his native genius, improved by talent, he has arrived at a pitch of splendour to which few sons rise in the East ; and of course the greater his eminence and prosperity the more he will reflect on his relations. To be sure, if a nevy was going down in the world instead of up, some people might feel justified in backing him with a cold shoulder ; but where he promises wealth, affluence, and opulence, rank, title, and dignity, to cut one's own flesh and blood must be perfect infatuation ! And suppose a little pecunery assistance was necessary to his exalt- NEWS FEOM CHINA. 345 ation, ought the laudible heights of his ambition to be chilled and snowed upon by a cold calculating passimony, and let him be arrested on the high-road to fame and fortune, for want of a trifle, as I may say to pay the gates? What's a paltry 50Z. for such ^s^f^'mmfi!jm^Mm:^m^ms^^^^^^ a figure in China! And that dear Gus has turned out a phenom- ena, is plain from his Dwn account. So great \ rise in life of course demands a correspond- ing study of appear- ances, — but as trans- pires, poor fellmv, from his letter, he has lost all his linnen and clothes. Such a mis- fortune must and shall be remedied, whatso- ever shifts I may have to make, or if I strip myself to my last dividend. For I pre- sume even i/ou would not wish your nevy to be a General with- out a shirt, or a Colonel without inexpressibles, and especially when he has attracted, as I may say, the Eyes of Europe. A nevy who may some day have to be sculptured, colossially, and ;t up on a prancing charging horse, over a triumphant arch. But some people may treat such a picture as chimerical, though quite as wonderful metamorphoses have come down to us. Look at Boneyparte, who at first was only an engineer offi- cer, like Mr. Braidwood, and yet came to be Emperor of the French. Or look at Washington, who from a common American soldier rose to be king of the whole republic! For my own part I will say for my son, it has been my constant aim to THE FIKST OF MARCH, 346 NEWS FROM CHINA. instil genius into him, morning, noon, and night, and to culti- vate a genteel turn for either the army, or the navy, or the church. The last, I own, would have been most congenial to my maternal wishes, for besides the safety of a pulpit, a soldier or a sailor when peace comes is a moral nonentity, but there is no peace in the church. However dear Gus would never hear of a shovel hat and a silk apron, and especially at the present time, when, as I understand, the clergy is to go back to their ancient, antiquated costume, and put on their old-fashioned ru- brics. As to the law he never could abide a chancellor's wig and gown, and indeed always showed a perfect antipathy to anything legal. So far, then, the Chinese war was a blessing, and all has turned out for the best ; for dear Gus has attained to martial glory, quite unusual at his age, and if a parent may predict, will some day be made a peer of, like Wellington, and hand himself down to posterity with his family arms. In the mean time I have packed up for him a dozen ready- made shirts, together with such money as I could scrape up, namely four sovereigns, a sum, alas ! which will fall far short of his Pekin expectations, and certainly not enough to let him see any great capital. In fact he names fifty pounds as the very smallest minimum for supporting the honour of his country at the Chinese court, and which most people will consider as very moderate terms. I do hope therefore, when such a trifle is in the case, and so much at stake, you will kindly contrive to make it up, or if cash is inconvenient, by an accommodation bill or a creditable letter to some banking-house abroad. As to security, my own U.O.I, would, I trust, be sufficient between relatives, or if you preferr'd, dear Gus would no doubt be agreeable to your taking out the amount in tea or Chinese fans, or nid-nodding man- darins, or any other articles you might fancy. In which case you can be no loser, but will enjoy the satisfaction of putting forward a shining branch that will greatly add to our family lustre. NEWS FEOM CHINA. 347 How he escaped from such awful Waterloo work as he de scribes is a perfect miracle. The mere perusal almost turned my whole mass of blood, and made me feel as if poked and stabbed in every fibre, and squibbed and rocketed besides. Indeed war seems from his picture, to be a combination of storm, total eclipse, the great earthquake that should have been, and the filth of November. It follows that dear Gus must have been specially preserved from such a concatenation for some brilliant destiny, which it would be a sin in us to frustrate by any scrimp mea- sures. 1 do beg and hope, therefore, to hear from you with the needful, by return of post, in which case I remain, dear Brother, Your aftectionate sister, Jemima Budge. Wisbech, 1 7th November, 18421. FIBIKG &HBLLS. No. V. Deas Mother, As I expected in my last, I have at length set foot in the Chinese empire, and am at this moment vmting from Chew- shew, a regular Celestial Village, though not to be found perhaps on the Celestial globe. However it is a pleasant place enough, and woidd be pleasanter if our quartermaster had not quartered 348 NEWS FEOM CHINA. me with a wholesale breeder of black beetles, for a great Soy manu- factory in the neighbourhood — a hint which I suppose will set your face and stomach for the future against that soy-disant sauce. However, here is the process from the Chinese receipt. Pirst fatten your beetles on as much pounded rice as t-hey will eat. Then mash the insects to a paste, which must be slowly Doiled in a strong decoction of Spanish liquorice. Strain the liquor carefully, and bottle it, well corked, for English use. A SQUALI. AT LOKG BEACH. Since my last we have had several brushes with the natives, whose first attempt was to make a bonfire of us in the river, having agreed to a truce for the purpose. In fact a regular gunpowder plot; but such traitors are sure to split amongst themselves, and one of them gave our commander the office the day before. At first the report was treated as a bam. However, after dark, as soon as the tide turned, down came the fire-raft with the ebb, and if the pigtails had been content with a business-like flare-ut) of combustibles and destructibles, might NEWS FROM CHINA. 349 have played old gooseberry with our ship. But the Chinese are famous for their pirotechnics, in which they take the shine out of Madame Hengler herself, so their vanity could not resist a little show off in the fancy line, to accompany their infernal machine. Accordingly, instead of the raft drifting quietly down on us, with a length of slow match proportioned to the distance, we were warned of it two miles off by a shower of outlandish squibs and crackers and serpents, cutting away in all directions, and then lormins: themselves into Chinese characters, one of them stand- BOCKKT TIME AT VADXHALl.— A PEOMIKEITr FEATURB. ing, as the pilot told us, for a certain very hot place. Of course we soon sliifted oar birth, and let the fire-raft drive clear of us, which soon after blew up in the shape of a great fiery dragon, with a blazing tail twisting to a point like a red-hot corkscrew, and spitting a volley of blue zig-zaggy lightning darting out of its mouth. It was a splendid sight, beating the grand Vaux- hall finales, or the Surrey Zoological, all to sticks — and except in one little accident a very satisfactory performance. 350 [NEWS FEOM CHINA. In the hurry of shifting the ship, the Chinese wash-boats that were fastened astern of her were all cut adrift, and getting en- tangled with the fire-raft, our damp linen was terribly over-aired. Being the first wash after the voyage from England, my whole stock, unfortunately, was in the tub — shirts, trowsers, stockings, in short, everything — so that what I am to do for a change I know not, unless I can turn my blanket into a flannel waistcoat and my sheets into a pair of ducks. A queer sort of toggery to exhibit in to the Brother of the Sun and Moon, and the Im- perial family at Pekin. To be sure 1 have since obtained a few laurels, and if they were real ones might go to court as a Jack in the Green — but no, the thing is beyond a joke, and I do hope that on the receipt of this my dear mother will immediately for- ward a dozen shirts (fine ones mind) to her dear Gus. For trowsers, the climate being warm, I can perhaps make shift a la Highlander, but the shirts are indispensable, and may be sent to the care of John Shearing, Esquire, Star Coffee-house, Drury- lane, who is coming o-ut with the first reinforcements and sup- plies. Having mentioned my laurels, you will naturally wish to know where they were picked. After the fire-raft business our commanders resolved in a council of war, to waste no more time in chaffing, but to commence uncivil operations, and do the offensive. So we were all disembarked, soldiers, sailors, and marines, and after a skirmish or two, brought the enemy to a regular stand-up fight at a place called Kow-Tan. They were in great force, and opened a smart fire on us from their match- locks and field artillery, which are small swivels fastened on camels' backs, but are frequently so overloaded, that the recoil tears off the poor animal's hump. On our sides we had lots of howitzers that kept shelling out their bombs and grapnells like fun. Our right was composed of the marines, and our centre of the I NEWS FEOM CHINA. 36i regulars, but we had no left at all on account of a swamp. The sailors were the reserve, only, as usual, they would not reserve themselves, but ran off helter skelter to a Chinese castle, which they took by boarding. In the meantime Captain Pidding got possession of a tea-grove towards Howqua, while Twining's company captured a magazine containing about 20,000 pounds of fine gunpowder, and immediately opened a discharge of canisters, that made regular Mincing-lanes through the main body of the TeatoUers. My own post was with a cloud of skirmishers that was pushed forward to enfilade our artilleiy, while it made a reconnoisance — but I do not pretend to describe all the manoeuvres of our army, like the moves at a game of chess. Some eye-witnesses, I know, profess to have seen every- thing in an action, right and left, back and front, and in the middle, as clear as the figures of a quadrille, but which is very different to my notion and experience of a battle. To my mind it is more like a turn-up in London, where you are too much engaged with your own customers to attend to what goes on over the way, or at the other end of the street, — not to forget the dust and smother, for the guns and cannons, as yet, are not obliged by Act of Parliament to consume their own smoke. To give a clear idea of it, just fancy yourself in a London fog, so thick that you can only see your two next files. Well, by and by, the right-hand one, after cutting an extraordinary caper, suddenly drops and rolls out of sight into the fog, and when you look rather anxiously for your left-hand man, you see Tom Brown instead of Jack Kobinson. The next minute you throw a summerset yourself over a log or a dead corporal, you cannot see which, and then plunge with your head into the big drum, or perhaps on a dismounted cannon, with a crash that makes you see all the gas-lights in London in one focus. Of course, you're in- sensible for a bit, till you're refreshed with a kick or a stab, and then you revive again, but as cool and collected as a gentleman 352 NEWS FROM CHINA. waking suddenly at midnight, to a storm of thunder and light- nins:, a smother of smoke, a strong smell of fire, and a burglar or two at his bedside. All you see distinctly is some sort of bright picked-pointed instrument within an inch of your eye, which of course you parry off by natural instinct, and then going to work at random, cut and thrust right and left with your sword, or pike, or bayonet, into the darkness visible, which goes into something soft, and comes back red and dripping. That's to say, if you have good luck ; if not, you get a slash or a poke yourself, from some person or persons unknown, in your throat, or your chest, or your stomach, or wherever you like. How- ever, for this once you win first blood — so on you go groping, stumbling, poking, parrying, and coughing, when you've time for it, and winking if you can't help it, the flashes increasing like blazes, the smother getting thicker and thicker, and the noise louder and louder, — so that you don't know you've been cheer- ing except by getting hoarse and short of wind. No matter, on you push, or are pushed, into the cloud, till at last you dimly see a sort of Ombre Shinois dodging before you, that suddenly turns to a real Tartar, painted and dressed up to look like a Bengal Tiger, and flourishing a great double-edged sword in each of his fore paws. Of course it's kill or be killed, so at it you go, like Carter and his wild beasts, only in right down earnest, two or three more Tigers joining in, clash slash, and the sparks flying as thick as in a smith's forge, or at a Terrific Combat at the Surrey or the Wells. Such a shindy is too hot to last, and, accordingly, if you're alive at the end of two jiffies, the chance is that you find yourself making quite a melodramatic Tableau — namely, your bloody sword in one hand, a Chinese pigtail in the other, and four or five weltering Tartars lying round your feet ! What followed I hardly know, my head seeming to spin like Harlequin's ; but I am told that I performed prodigies of pluck, NEWS PROM CHINA. 353 and wMch, if you do not read of in the dispatches must be laid to the envy and jealousy of our Top Sawyers and the Com- mander-in-chief. The pigtails, to do the handsome, behaved witK great coolness, many of them fanning themselves with their great fans in the heat of the action. But, as usual, European tactics prevailed over want of discipline; and the barbarians having both their wings broken were obliged to fly. The slaughter was prodigious — our mortars playing like bricks, and the flying artillery dropping their tumbrils with beautiful precision into the thick of the mob. The sword and bayonet, as we may suppose, were not idle, but indulged in lots of " sticks and strikes," as Miss Martineau says, at the ex- pense of the Chinese, and turned a great many of their flanks. The swag is immense : including the enemy's military chest, and the key of their position, which is of solid gold, and first-rate workmanship, and is to be sent home to England for presenta- tion to the Queen. The loss on the Eng- lish side was trifling; only one man belong- ing to our ship being killed, — a London Bill- sticker who had volun- teered with the Ex- pedition, to get a sight, as he said, of the great Chinese Wall. Well, after the battle was over we turned, as the song says, from Lions into Lambs, sparing all such as made signs for quarter, only marking them, by cutting off their tails, as being under British protection. A A BILL-STICKKB. 354 NEWS FEOM CHINA. good many of the natives were also chevied after, and humanely hunted back to their homes, though some of our fellov^s, it must be owned, preferred breaking into the villas and Joss-houses in search of the silver, and got plenty of tin, besides Poo-Choos, Joo-ees, and the like. Mister Augustus for his share, only getting a fiddling little Ye-Yin, alias a Kit. The truth is I was "what fob you hako dk pickaninny?" too much interested in going after a poor little stray Chinese. From the marks, it was evidently very young, and un- accompanied, and the mere idea of a lost child in such a vast empire as China, would have engaged the commonest humanity in the task ; the country, besides being full of swamps and canals, and hundreds of uncovered wells, into which, in its headlong terror, it might plunge. My heart turned sick at the very thought, and made me the more eager to overtake the youngster, NEWS FROM CHINA. 355 while fancy painted the delightful scene of restoring it uninjured to its distracted parents. But fear had lent wings to the little feet which I tracked, with Indian-like perseverance, by the prints in the mud and sand, — on, and on, and on, but alas ! without a glimpse of the fugitive. Scared by the thunder of our artillery, it had probably flown for miles, and I had almost given up all hope, when the trail, as Cooper calls it, led me to the edge of a paddy-ground (or rice-field), where I caught sight of something crouching down amongst the herbage. You may guess with what eagerness I dashed in and made a grab at her blue-satin, when, suddenly jumping up to bolt, the poor child turned out to be her own mother, or at least a full-sized China-woman, but with the little tiny feet of an English two-yeai'-old. Still, being a female in distress, I tried to comfort and encourage her — no easy job for a foreign Barbarian, as black as a sweep with gun- powder, as ragged as a beggar with slashing and fencing, and jabbering all his compliments and consolations in an unknown tongue. So as chaffing was of no use, I was compelled to active measures — but the more I tried to save her the more the little catty package clawed me with what I can only compare to human tenpenny nails. However, I made shift to carry her off to the nearest house, which proved to be either her own or a friend's ; for she flung herself into the arms of a fat elderly Chinaman, who met us at the door. The old fellow, whether husband or father, was very civil, and seemed to twig my motives much better than the lady : for after a little telegraphing, he politely set before me a regular Chinese feast, namely a saucer full of candied garden-worms, a cold boiled bird's nest, and a basin of addled eggs, making signs besides, that if I would wait for one being killed, I should have a dish of dead dog. All being in- tended on his part to do the handsome and the grateful in return for my services — but which, as virtue is its own reward, I de- clined 356 NEWS FROM CHINA. Our victory at Kovv-Tan, it is thought, will end the war, so that before you are much older, you may look, my dear mother, to see * Your affectionate son, Augustus Budge. P.S. — I re-open my letter to say that a Treaty of Peace has been signed at Nankin. It remains to be seen whether the English nation will be satisfied with the terms, but they were COME, EAT SOME PADDY. the best we could get — namely, the Chinese are all to turn Christians, and to pay off our National Debt. Of course there will be Illuminations in London, and at Pekin there is to be a grand Feast of Lanterns, to which the Emperor has invited our Commander-in-chief, with such officers as he may name ; and I am proud and happy to say I am set down rather high in the list. So to say nothing of promotion at home, which may be booked, I am sure of something handsome from the Brother of the Sun and Moon, who, like those celestial relatives, is famous for tipping with gold and silver. But a little of the ready, say fifty pounds at the very lowest, will be absolutely needful in the NEWS FROM CHINA. 857 meantime, if I am to keep up my rank at the Chinese Court. In such a case I know you will grudge nothing, and perhaps Uncle Abel will come down, in whole or in part. But pray do re- member that the money mmt be had, and may be forwarded through the same channel as the shirts. No. VI. — To Mrs. Budge, Wisbech. Dear Sister, Your last of the 17 Instant came duly to hand And am sorry to note you are too poorly for illfeeling, which in course I can excuse. In such a case being loath to agrivate, shall confine myself to Matters of fact which being unanserable will save you the troubble of a Eeply. — Otherwise I should have considdered my deuty to set you to rites and partickly on the subjex of Trade and Tradesmen and their adulteratin and use of short waits. As to which a honest man, altho he is a grocer, may be a fare dealer and Tiave as nice senses of honners in his trade, as a Lord or a Duke who has no bisness whatever in the world. Thats my feeling, and on my own private Account beg to say so fur from aproving of fraudulent Practices if so be I thought my Skales was cheatin I would kick the beam. Con- cerning which I may remark that some people who considder themselves Gentry such as Bankers toppin Merchants and the like contrive to have false Ballances without any Skales at all. So much for your flings at trade tho I do not care a fig, nor even a whole Drum of them for sich reflections. Praps if my Nevy had been put early in life to the same Bisness he mite by this time have been roUin in Welth as well as his Uncle, which however I ant. The times is too up hill and money too scarse for any sich opperation. But at any rate he mite have reallized a little Mint instead of his Sprigs of Lawril of which I advise to inquire the vally at Common Garden. But that comes of 358 NEWS FROM CHINA. your genteel notions of a polite bringin up and which nothin would satisfy more humbler than a Lord Chancellor, or a Bishop, or a Field Marshal. In my yunger days the sons of limmitted Widders with narrer incums had no sich capital choices, or my own Muther would certanely have preferred me in a silk apon to a dowlus, and a clericle shovel hat to a shockin bad un with the brim turned up all round. Not to name a military hat on full cock and very full fledged with fethers. Also a fine scarlet or blew uniform with goold lace down my unexpressibles, in loo of a pair of cordray Shorts meant for longs, as well as shabby, with a scrimp Jacket that praps objected to meet them on that account. As for linnin, its enuff to say my muther hardly thort it worth markin, and never numbered it all. As regards which its my opinion if you ever see dear Gus again you are more likely to see a shirt without a General than a General without a shurt. But its the prevailing fashion nowadays for every Boddy to aspire above their stashuns, or at any rate to pass off their humbleness under some high flown name. For exampel John Burril of our place, who I overheard the other day call- ing himself the Architect of his own fortune, and he's only a little Bilder. But as I said above I am not going pint by pint through your faver, but to convey certain perticlurs as follows. When I received yours of said date I was jist on the eve of startin off by the railway on urgent business to the metropulis. So I had only time to put your letter in my pockit-book, which will ex- plane my ansering it from this place, namely the Gorge and Vulture, High Holborn — N.B. and prepaid beforehand. Being seven year since my last visit to London and my first regular holliday, it appeared not altogether incumpatible to treat myself for once to the piay, which was Theatre Royal Drury Lane, at three shillings ahead to the pit, the front row next the Musick. The peace was King John, another exampel you will say of a NEWS FROM CHINA. 359 hard barted Uncle and a neglected Nevy, and as such, a thea- tricle slap in somebody's face. Eut beggin pardon it seems to me that the account between such re- lashunships have never been cor- rectly stated nor the claims of the junior party fairly made out. A Father is a father with his own consent and concurrants and therefore only re- sponsibel as I may say for his own Acceptance — but an Uncle is made such willy nilly whether he's agreeable or not, as is partickly hard on a single Batcheler who not wanting children at all, is obligated to have them at second hand in the shapes of Nevies and Neeces. As such I could not help sym- perthisin with King John, with a plaguy Nevy of a Prince Arthur, and an unreasonable Muther, always harping like some- body else on her son, her son, her son, and to be sure when she did kick up a dust it was a hot one, like ground pepper and ginger ! However the second act being over, I stud up and looked round, as usual, to have a survey of the House and the company when lo and behold whom should I see about three rows off in the pit, whom but dear Gus himself! — your preshus Son and my identical Nevy, — who ought by rites at that very moment to have been at Canton in Chiney ! What I said or did in my surprise I don't know, but the hole House, Boxes Pit and Gallerv, bust out in a loud roar of horse lauffing which OUT OP SIGHT, OCX OF MIND. 860 NEWS FEOM CHINA. to my humble capacity was anything .but a propper display of feelin at such juvenile depravity. However I scrambled over the Benshes without ceremunny and had well nigh apprehendid him when a genteel blaggard thumpt down my bran new bever right over my bridge of my Nose and afore I could get it up agin, both scoundrils includin dear Gus had made off. Still I mite praps have ketchd him except for a new Police but more like an old Pool, who insistid on detainin me to know my par- ticklers of my Loss. Why then says I it's 30 pound, a new hat and a nevy, but as he had seen none of them took he de- clined to interfere. I mite have added to my minuses the best part of the Play, which of course I could not set out but re- turned to the Gorge and Vulter to engage a sleepless bed for the night. But not being bed time I set down to anser your faver, on referring to which put me in mind to inquire of his NEWS FROM CHINA. 361 frend sum Keprobate oi course ai ine Coifee-sliop in Drury Lane and the same being handy instead of the letter I posted off myself and asked if Mr. Shearing was known at the House. Which he was. So I was showed into the Coffee-room, into a privit box and sure enuf there he w^ere — not his frend but him- self, having only used the other name for an Alibi. However there he were, with a siggar in his mouth and a glass of Negus afore him which I indignently drunk up myself and then demandid an account of his misconduct, Errers not Excepted. Which he give. So the long and the short is he made a full Confession whereby it apears insted of goin abroad he was never out of London at least not further then Hide Park Corner to a Chinese Exhibition and where he pickt up his con- founded Long Tungs and Slang Wangs and Swan Pans and every attum he knows of them infurnal Celestials. FOK CHINA DIEECT. As mite be expected his Cash including my £30 was all squandered mostly I suppose for bottles of wine and smoke,- — and such little desideratums. His goold watch went a month ago — and the bullocks trunks as I predicted grew out of his own Head. So much for a shinin caracter and a Genus above the common. As such you will soon have dear Gus on your own hands agin, at Wisbech, where if Uncles may advise as well as contribit he will be placed with some steddy tradesman 3«2 i^EW HARMONY, to lem a bisness. Unless praps you prefer him to have an Appintment in the next Expedition to Bottany Bay. With which I remain, dear Sister, Your loving Brother, Abel Dottin. London. November the 28th, 1842. P.S. I did hope to save the new Shurts out of the fire. But to use his own words they are Spouted and he have lost the Ticket. HDLLJlH-BALOO. NEW HARMONY. " I'll have five hundred voices of that sound." — Coriolanus. A FEW days since, while passing along the Strand, near Exeter Hall, my ear was suddenly startled by a burst ot sound NEW HARMONY. 863 from the interior of that building : — a noise which, according to a bystander, proceeded from the " calling out of the Vocal Militia." This explanation rather exciting than allaying my curiosity, induced me to make further inquiries into the matter ; when it appeared that the Educational Committee had built a plan, on a German foundation, for the instruction of the middle and lower orders in Music, and that a Mr. Hullah was then en- gaged in drilling one of the classes in singing. As an advocate for the innocent amusement of the lower classes, and the people in general, the news gave me no small pleasure : and even the distant chorus gratified my ear, more than a critical organ ought to have been pleased, by the imper- fect blending of a number of unpractised voi-ces of very various qualities, and as yet not quite so tuneable as the hounds of Theseus in giving tongue. Indeed, one or two voices seemed also to be " out of their time " in the very beginning of their apprenticeship. But to a patriotic mind, there was a moral sweetness in the music that fully atoned for any vocal irregu- larities, and would have reconciled me even to an orchestra of Dutch Nightingales. To explain this feeling, it must be re- membered that no Administration but one which intended to be popular and paternal, would ever think of thus encouraging the exercise of the Vox Populi : and especially of teaching the million to lift up their voices in concert, for want of which, and through discordances amongst themselves, their political choruses have hitherto been so ineffective. It was evident, therefore, that our Rulers seriously intended, not merely to imbue the people with musical knowledge, but also to give them good cause to sing, — and of course, hoped to lend their own ministerial ears to songs and ballads very different from the satirical chansons that are chanted on the other side of the English Channel. In short, we were all to be as merry and as tuneful as Larks, and to enjoy a Political and a Musical Millennium ! 364 PARTY SPIRIT. This idea so transported me, that like a grateful canaiy I incontinently burst into a full-throated song, and with such thrills and flourishes as recurred to me, commenced a Bravura, which in a few minutes might have attracted an audience more numerous than select, if my performance had not been checked in its very preludium by an occurrence peculiarly characteristic of a London street. It was, in fact, the abrupt putting to me of a question, which some pert cockney of the Poultry first addressed to the unfledged. 'DOJiS i'OUK MOTUJEU KNOW YOD'EB OCT?' PARTY SPIEIT. «* Why did you not dine," said a Lord to a Wit, " With the Whigs, you political sinner P " ** Why really I meant, but had doubts bow the ^it Of my stomach would bear a Pox Dinner." ETCHING MORALISED. 305 ETCHING MORALISED. TO A NOBLE LADIK. ♦ *' To point a moral.*' — Johnson. Fairest Lady and Noble, for once on a time, Condescend to accept, in the humblest of rhyme, And a style more of Gay than of Milton, A few opportune verses design' d to impart Some didactical hints in a Needlework Art, Not described by the Countess of Wilton. An Art not unknown to the delicate hand Of the fairest and first in this insular land. But in Patronage Royal delighting ; And which now your own feminine fantasy win Tho' it scarce seems a lady-like work, that begins In a scratching and ends in a biting ! Yet oh ! that the dames of the Scandalous School Would but use the same acid, and sharp- pointed tool, That are plied in the said operations — Oh ! would that our Candours on copper would sketch I For the first of all things in beginning to etch Are — good grounds for our representations. Those protective and dehcate coatings of wax. Which are meant to resist the corrosive attacks That would ruin the copper completely ; Thin cerements which whoso remembers the Bee 56 ETCHING MORALISED. So applauded by Watts, the divine LL.D., Will be careful to spread very neatly. For why ? like some intricate deed of the law, Should the ground in the process be left with a flaw, Aqua-fortis is far from a joker ; And attacking the part that no coating protects, Will turn out as distressing to all your effects As a landlord who puts in a broker. Then carefully spread the conservative stuff, Until all the bright metal is cover'd enough, To repel a destructive so active ; For in Etching, as well as in Morals, pray note That a little raw spot, or a hole in a coat, Yom* ascetics find vastly attractive. Thus the ground being laid, very even and flat, And then smoked with a taper, till black as a hat. Still from future disasters to screen it. Just allow me, by way of precaution, to state, You must hinder the footman from changing your plate. Nor yet suffer the butler to clean it. Nay, the housemaid, perchance, in her passion to scrub, May suppose the dull metal in want of a rub. Like the Shield which Swift's readers remember — • Not to mention the chance of some other mishaps, Such as having your copper made up into caps To be worn on the First of September. But aloof from all damage by Betty or John, You secure the veil'd surface, and trace thereupon ETCHmG MORALISED. 367 The. design you conceive the most proper : Yet gently, and not with a needle too keen, Lest it pierce to the wax through the paper betweeo. And of course play Old Scratch with the copper. So in worldly affairs, the sharp-practising man Is not always the one who succeeds in his plan, Witness Shylock's judicial exposure ; Who, as keen as his knife, yet with agony found, That while urging his point he was losing his ground-^ And incurring a fatal disclosure. But, perhaps, without tracing at all, you may choose To indulge in some little extempore views, Like the older artistical people ; For example, a Corydon playing his pipe, In a Low Country marsh, with a Cow after Cujrp, And a Goat skipping over a steeple. A wild Deer at a rivulet taking a sup, With a couple of PiUars put in to fill up, Like the columns of certain diumals ; Or a very brisk sea, in a very stiff gale. And a very Dutch boat, with a very big sail— Or a bevy of Retzsch's Infernals. Architectural study — or rich Arabesque — ■ Allegorical dream — or a view picturesque, Near to Naples, or Venice, or Florence ; Or " as harmless as lambs and as gentle as dov86» A sweet family cluster of plump little Loves, Like the Children by Reynolds or Lawrence, 368 ETCHING MORALISED. But whatever the subject, your exquisite taste Will ensure a design very charming and ohasi/e, Like yourself, full of nature and beauty — Yet besides the good 'joints you already reveal, You will need a few others — of well-temper d steel. And especially form'd for the duty. For suppose that the tool be imperfectly set. Over many weak lengtlis in your line you will fret, Like a pupil of Walton and Cotton, Who remains by the brink of the water, agape, While the jack, trout, or barbel effects its escape Thro' the gut or silk line being rotten. Therefore, let the steel point be set truly and round. That the finest of strokes may be even and sound. Flowing glibly where fancy would lead 'em. But alas ! for the needle that fetters the hand, And forbids even sketches of Liberty's land To be drawn with the requisite freedom ! Oh ! the botches I've seen by a tool of the sort, Rather hitching than etching, and making, in short. Such stiff, crabbed, and angular scratches, That the figures seem'd statues or mummies from tombu, While the trees were as rigid as bundles of brooms, And the herbage like bunches of matches ! The stiff clouds as if carefully iron'd and starch' d, While a cast-iron bridge, meant for wooden, o'er-arch'd Something more like a road than a river. Prythee, who in such characteristics could see ETCHING MOKALISED. 369 Any trace of the beautiful land of the free — The Free- Mason — Free-Trader — Free-Liver! But prepared by a hand that is skilful and nice, The fine point glides along like a skate on the ice^ At the will of the Gentle Designer, Who impelling the needle just presses so much. That each line of her labour the copper may touch. As if done by a penny-a-liner. And behold ! how the fast-growing images gleam ! Like the sparkles of gold in a sunshiny stream, Till perplex'd by the glittering issue, You repine for a light of a tenderer kind — And in choosing a substance for making a blind, Do not sneeze at the paper call'd tissue. For, subdued by the sheet so transparent and white, Your design will appear in a soberer light, And reveal its defects on inspection. Just as Glory achieved, or political scheme, And some more of our dazzling performances seem, Not so bright on a cooler reflection. So the juvenile Poet with ecstasy views His first verses, and dreams that the songs of his Muse Are as brilliant as Moore's and as tender- Till some critical sheet scans the faulty design. And alas ! takes the shine out of every line That had form'd such a vision of splendour ; Certain objects, however, may come in your sketch, Which, design' d by a hand unaccustom'd to etch, 370 ETCHING MORALISED. With a luckless result may be branded ; Wherefore add this particular rule to your code, Let all vehicles take the wrong side of the road, And man, woman, and child, be left-handed. Yet regard not the awkward appearance with doubt. But remember how often mere blessings fall out. That at first seem'd no better than curses ; So, till things take a turn, live in hope, and depend That whatever is wrong will come right in the end, And console you for all your reverses. But of errors why speak, when for beauty and truth Your free, spirited Etching is worthy, in sooth, Of that Club (may all honour betide it !) Which, tho' dealing in copper, by genius and taste, Has accomplish'd a service of plate not disgraced By the work of a Goldsmith beside it ! * So your sketch superficially drawn on the plate. It becomes you to fix in a permanent state. Which involves a precise operation, With a keen biting fluid, which eating its way—^ As in other professions is common they say — Has attained an artistical station. And it*s, oh 1 that some splenetic folks I could name If they must deal in acids would use but the same. In such innocent graphical labours ! In the place of the virulent spirit wherewith — • "The Deserted Village." Illustrated by the Etching CIoIk ETCHING MORALISED. 371 Like the polecat, the weasel, and things of that kith — They keep biting the backs of their neighbours 1 But beforehand, with wax or the shoemaker's pitch. You must build a neat dyke round the margin, in which You may pour the dilute aquafortis. For if raw like a dram, it will shock you to trace Your design with a horrible froth on its face, Like a wretch in articulo mortis. Like a wretch in the pangs that too many endure From the use of strong waters^ without any pure, A vile practice, most sad and improper ! For, from painful examples, this warning is found, That the raw burning spirit will take up the ground. In the churchyard, as well as on copper ! But the Acid has duly been lower' d, and bites Only just where the visible metal invites, Like a nature inclined to meet troubles ; And behold ! as each slender and glittering line Effervesces, you trace the completed design In an elegant bead-work of bubbles ! And yet constantly secretly eating its way, The shrewd acid is making the substance its prey. Like some sorrow beyond inquisition. Which is gnawing the heart and the brain all the while That the face is illumed by its cheerfuUest smile, And the wit is in bright ebullition. But still stealthily feeding, the treacherous stuff Has corroded and deepen'd some portions enough— 372 ETCHING MORALISED. The pure sky, and the water so placid — And these tenderer tints to defend from attack, With some turpentine varnish and sooty lamp-black You must stop out the ferreting acid. But before with the varnishing brush you proceed. Let the plate with cold water be thoroughly freed From the other less innocent liquor — After which, on whatever you want to protect. Put a coat that will act to that very effect, Like the black one which hangs on the Vicar. Then — the varnish well dried — urge the biting again. But how long at its meal the eau forte may remain, Time and practice alone can determine : But of course not so long that the Mountain, and Mill, The rude Bridge, and the Figures, whatever you will, Are as black as the spots on your ermine. If is true, none the less, that a dark-looking scrap, With a sort of Blackheath, and Black Forest, mayhap, Is consider d as rather Rembrandty ; And that very black cattle and very black sheep, A black dog, and a shepherd as black as a sweep, Are the pets of some great Dilettante. So with certain designers, one needs not to name, All this life is a dark scene of sorrow and bhame, From our birth to our final adjourning — Yea, this excellent earth and its glories, alack ! What with ravens, palls, cottons, and devils, as black As a Warehouse for Family Mourning ! ETCHING MORALISED. 373 But befbre your own picture arrives at that pitch, While the lights are still light, and the shadows, though rich, More transparent than ebony shutters, Never minding what Black- Arted critics may say, Stop the biting, and pour the green fluid away, As you please, into bottles or gutters. Then removing the ground and the wax at a heat, Cleanse the surface with oil, spermaceti or sweet. For your hand a performance scarce proper — So some careful professional person secure — For the Laundress will not be a safe amateur — To assist you in cleaning the copper. And, in truth, 'tis rather an unpleasantish job. To be done on a hot German stove, or a hob — Though as sure of an instant forgetting, When — as after the dark clearing-oiF of a storm— The fair Landscape shines out in a lustre as warm As the glow of the sun in its setting ! Thus your Etching complete, it remains but to hint, That with certain assistance from paper and print. Which the proper Mechanic will settle. You may charm all your Friends — without any sad tale Of such perils and ills as neset Lady Sale — With a fine India Proof of your Metal, 24 374 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. Uy^^ " ABBOAD nr THB MEADOWS TO 8BE XHB YOUNG LAMBS." THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. A SKETCH ON THE ROAD. ' It is the Soul that sees ; the outward eyes Present the object ; but the Mind descries. And thence delight, disgust, and cool indifference rise.*' — Crabbk. "A CHARMING morning, Sir," remarked my only fellow- passenger in the Comet, as soon as I had settled myself in the opposite corner of the coach. As a matter cf course and courtesy I assented ; though I had certainly seen better days. It did not rain ; but the weather was gloomy, and the air felt raw, as it well might with a pale dim sun overhead, that seemed to have lost all power of roasting. THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. 375 " Quite an Italian Sky," added the stranger, looking up at a sort of French gray coverlet that would have given a Neapolitan fancy the ague. However, I acquiesced again, but was obliged to protest against the letting down of both windows in order to admit what was called the " fresh invigorating breeze from the Surrey HiUs." To atone for this objection, however, I agreed that the coach was the best, easiest, safest, and fastest in England, and the road the most picturesque out of London. Complaisance apart, we were passing between two vegetable screens, of a colour con- verted by dust to a really " invisible green," and so high, that they excluded any prospect as effectually as if they had been Venetian blinds. The stranger, nevertheless, watched the monotonous fence with evident satisfaction. "No such hedges. Sir, out of England." " I believe not. Sir!" " No, Sir, quite a national feature. They are peculiar to the enclosures of our highly cultivated island. You may travel from Calais to Constantinople without the eye reposing on a similar spectacle." " So I have understood. Sir." " Fact, Sir : they are unique. And yonder is another rural picture unparalleled, I may say, in continental Europe — a meadow of rich pasture, enamelled with the indigenous daisy and a multiplicity of buttercups ! '* The oddity of the phraseology made me look curiously at the speaker. A pastoral poet, thought I — but no — he was too plump and florid to belong to that famishing fraternity, and in his dress, as well as in his person, had eveiy appearance of a man well to do in the world. He was more probably a gentle- man farmer, an admirer of fine grazing-land, and perhaps de- lighted in a well-dressed paddock and genteel haystack of his 57« THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. own. But I did him injustice, or rather to his taste — which was far less exclusive — for the next scene to which he invited my attention was of a totally diflFerent character — a vast, bleak, scurfy -looking common, too barren to afford even a picking to any living creatures, except a few crows. The view, however, elicited a note of admiration from my companion : ** What an extensive prospect ! Genuine, uncultivated nature —and studded with rooks ! " The stranger had now furnished me with a clue to his char- acter; which he afterwards more amusingly unravelled. He was an Optimist ; — one of those blessed beings (for they are blessed) who think that whatever is is beautiful as well as right ; practical Bhilosophers, who make the best of everything ; im- THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. 377 aginative painters, who draw each object en heau^ and deal plenti- fully in couleur de rose. And they are right. To be good — in spite of all the old story-books, and all their old morals, — is not to be happy. Still less does it result from Rank, Power, Learning, or Eiches ; from the single state or a double one, or even from good health or a clean conscience. The source of felicity, as the poet truly declares, is in the Mind — for like my fellow-traveller, the man who has a mind to be happy will be so, on the plainest commons that nature can set before him — with or without the rooks. The reader of Crabbe will remember how graphically he has described, in his " Lover's Journey," the different aspects of the same landscape to the same individual, under different moods— on his outward road, an Optimist, like my fellow- traveller, but on his return a malcontent like myself. A. CLBAB STAGE, AND NO FAVOUB, In the meantime, the coach stopped — and opposite to what many a person, if seated in one of its right-hand corners, would have considered a very bad look out, — a muddy square space, bounded on three sides by plain brick stabling and wooden bams, with a dwarf wall, and a gate, for a foreground to the 378 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. picture. In fact, a straw-yard, but untenanted by any live stock, as if an Owenite plan amongst the brute creation, for living in a social parallelogram, had been abandoned. There seemed no peg here on which to hang any eulogium ; but the eye of the Optimist detected one in a moment : " What a desirable Pond for Ducks ! '* He then shifted his position to the opposite window, and with equal celerity discovered " a capital Pump ! with oceans of ex- cellent Spring Water, and a commodious handle within reach of the smallest Child ! " I wondered to myself how he would have described the foreign Fountains, where the sparkling fluid gushes from groups of THE HAPPIPJST MAN IN ENGLAND. 379 Sculpture into marble basins, and, without the trouble of pump- ing at all, ministers to the thirst and cleanliness of half a city. And yet I had seen some of our Travellers pass such a superb Water-work with scarcely a glance, and certainly without a syllable of notice ! It is such Headless Tourists, by the way, COBiri OBLIGATI. who throng to the German Baths and consider themselves Bubbled, because, without any mind's eye at all, they do not see all the pleasant things which were so graphically described by the Old Man of the Brunnens. For my own part, I could not help thinking that I must have lost some pleasure in my own progress through life by being difficult to please. For example, even during the present journey, whilst I had been 380 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. inwardly grumbling at the weather, and yawning at Ihe road^ my fellow-traveller had been revelling in Italian skies, salub- rious breezes, verdant enclosures, pastoral pictures, sympathis- ing with wet habits and dry, and enjoying desirable duck-ponds, and parochial Pumps ! What a contrast, methought, between the cheerful contented spirit of my present companion, and the dissatisfied temper and tone of Sir W. W., with whom I once had the uncomfortable honour of travelling tete-d-tHe from Leipzig to Berlin. The road, it is true, was none of the most interesting, but even the tame and flat scenery of the Lincolnshire Fens may be rendered still more wearisome by sulkily throwing yourself back in your carriage and talking of Switzerland ! But Sir W. W. was far too nice to be wise — too fastidious to be happy — too critical to be contented. Whereas my present coach-fellow was not afraid to admire a commonplace inn — I forget its exact locality — but he described it as "* superior to any oriental Caravansery — and with a Sign that, in the Infancy of the Art, might have passed for a Ckefd'CEuwer Happy man ! How he must have enjoyed the Exhibitions of the Eoyal Academy, whereas to judge by our periodical critiques on such Works of Modern Art, there are scarcely a score out of a thousand annual Pictures that ought to give pleasure to a Connoisseur. Nay, even the Louvre has failed to satisfy some of its visitants, on the same principle that a matchless collection of Titians has been condemned for the want of a good Teniers. But my fellow-traveller was none of that breed : he had no- thing in common with a certain Lady, who, with half London, or at least its Londoners, had inspected Wanstead House, prior to its demolition, and on being asked for her opinion of that princely mansion, replied that it was " short of cupboards." lu fact, he had soon an opportunity of pronouncing on a Coiintry Seat — far, very, very far inferior to the House just THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. 381 mentioned, and declared it to be one which "Adam himself would have chosen for a Family residence, if Domestic Architec- ture had flourished in the primeval Ages." Happy Man, again! for with what joy, and comfort, and cheerfulness, for his co-tenants, would he have inhabited the enviable dwelling ; and yet, to my private know- ledge, the Proprietor was one of the most miserable of his species, simply be- cause he chose to go through life like a pug- dog — with his nose turned up at everything in the world. And, truly, flesh is grass, and beauty is dust, and gold is dross, nay, life itself but a vapour ; but instead of dwelling on such dis- 'THB I.ABT MAir.' paragements, it is far wiser and happier, like the florid gentle- man in one comer of the Comet, to remember that one is not a Sworn Appraiser, nor bound by oath like an Ale-Conner to think small beer of small beer. Prom these reflections I was suddenly roused by the Optimist, who earnestly begged me to look out of the Window at a pro- spect which though pleasing, was far from a fine one, for either variety or extent. " There, Sir, — ^there's a Panorama ! A perfect circle of en- chantment ! realising the Arabia Pelix of Pairy Land in the County of Kent ! " "Very pretty, indeed.'* " It's a gem, Sir, even in our Land of Oaks •*— and mav S82 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. challenge a comparison with the most luxuriant Specimens of what the Great Gilpin calls Forest Scenery I " " 1 think it may." " By-the-bye, did you ever see Scrublands, Sir, in Sussex ? " "Never, Sir.'* " Then, Sir, you have yet to enjoy a romantic scene of the Sylvan Character, not to be paralleled within the limits of Geo- graphy ! To describe it would require one to soar into the regions of Poetry, but I do not hesitate to say, that if the celebrated Robinson Crusoe were placed within sight of it, he would exclaim in a transport ' Juan Pernandez ! * '* " I do not doubt it. Sir." " Perhaps, Sir, you have been in Derbyshire ? " "No, Sir." " Then, Sir, you have another splendid treat in futuro — Braggins — a delicious amalgamation of Art and Natui'e, — a perfect Eden, Sir, — and the very spot, if there be one on the Terrestrial Globe, for the famous Milton to have realised his own ' Paradise Regained ! ' " In this glowing style, waxing warmer and warmer with his own descriptions, the florid gentleman painted for me a series of highly-coloured sketches of the places he had visited; each a retreat that would wonderfully have broken the fall of our first Parents, and so thickly scattered throughout the counties, that by a moderate computation our Fortunate Island contained at least a thousand "Perfect Paradises," copyhold or freehold. A pleasant contrast to the gloomy pictures which are drawn by certain desponding and agriculturally- depressed Spirits who carmot find a single Elysian Field, pasture or arable, in the same country ! In the meantime, such is the force of sympathy, the Optimist had gradually inspired me with something of his own spirit, and I began to look out for and detect unrivalled forest scenery, and THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. 383 perfect panoramas, and little Edens, and might in time have picked out a romantic pump, or a picturesque post,— but, alas ! in the very middle of my course of Beau Idealism, the coach stopped, the door opened, and with a hurried good-morning, the florid gentleman stepped out of the stage and into a gig which had been waiting for him at the end of a cross-road, and in an- other minute was driving down the lane between two of those hedges that are only to be seen in England. " Well, go where thou wilt," thought I, as he disappeared behind the fence, " thou art cer- tainly the Happiest Man in England ! '* Yes — he w^as gone; and a light and a glory had departed with him. The air again felt raw, the sky seemed duller, the sun more dim and pale, and the road more heavy. The scenery appeared to become tamer and tamer, the inns more undesirable, and their signs were mere daubs. At the first opportunity I obtained a glass of sherry, but its taste was vapid ; everything in short appeared " flat, stale, and unprofitable." Like a Bull in the Alley, whose flattering rumours hoist up the public funds, the high sanguine tone of the Optimist had raised my spirits considerably above par ; but now his operations had ceased, and A BUMPEB AT PAETING. 384 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. by the usual reaction my mind sank again even below its natural level. My short-lived enthusiasm was gone, and instead of the cheerful fertile country through which I had been journeying, I seemed to be travelling that memorable long stage between Dan and Beersheba where " all was baiTen." BUYEB AND CELLAB. — LIGHT WINE. Some months afterwards I was tempted to go into Essex to inspect a small Freehold Property which was advertised for sale in that county. It was described, in large and small print, as " a delightful Swiss Villa, the prettiest thing in Europe, and enjoy- ing a boundless prospect over a country proverbial for J^'ertility, and resembling that Traditional Land of Promise described metaphorically in Holy Writ as overflowing with Milk and Honey." Making all due allowance, however, for such professional THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. 385 flourishes, this very Desirable Investment deviated in its features even more than usual from its portrait in the prospectus. The Villa turned out to be little better than an ornamented Barn, and the Promised Land was some of the worst land in England, and overflowed occasionally by the neighbouring river. An Optimist could hardly have discovered a single merit on the estate ; but he did ; for whilst I was gazing in blank disappoint- ment at the uncultivated nature before me, not even studded with rooks, I heard his familiar voice at my elbow — "Eather a small property, Sir — ^but amply secured by ten solid miles of Terra Firma from the encroachments of the Ger- man Ocean." r PEBB LA CJIAISB. " And if the sea could," I retorted, " it seems to me very doubtful, whether it would care to enter on the premises." " Perhaps not as a matter of marine taste," said the Optimist. *• Perhaps not, Sir. And yet, in my pensive moments, I have fancied that a place like this with a sombre interest about it, would be a desirable sort of Wilderness, and more in unison 386 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. with an II Penseroso cast of feelings than the laughing beauties of a Villa in the Regent's Park, the Cynosure of Pashion and Gaiety, enlivened by an infinity of equipages. But excuse me, Sir, I perceive that I am wanted elsewhere," and the florid gentleman went off at a trot towards a little man in black, who was beckoning to him from the door of the Swiss Villa. " Yes," was my reflection as he turned away from me, "if he can find in such a swamp as this a Pancy Wilderness, a sort of Shenstonian Solitude for a sentimental fit to evaporate in, he must certainly be the Happiest Man in England.'* As to his pensive moments, the mere idea of them sufficed to set my risible muscles in a quiver. But as if to prove how he would have comported himself in the Slough of Despond, dur- ing a subsequent ramble of exploration round the estate, he actually plumped up to his middle in a bog ; — an accident which only drew from him the remark that the place afi'orded " a capital opportunity for a spirited proprietor to establish a Splendid Mud Bath, like the ones so much in vogue at the German Spas ! " SPRING. 387 " If that gentleman takes a fancy to the place," I remarked to the person who was showing me round the property, " he will be a determined bidder." "Him bid!" exclaimed the man, with an accent of the utmost astonishment— " Him bid!— why he's the Auctioneer that's to sell us ! I thought you would have remarked that in his speech, for he imitates in his talk the advertisements of the famous Mr. Robins. He's called the Old Gentleman." " Old ! why he appears to be in the prime of life." " Yes, Sir,— but it's the other Old Gentleman—" "What! the Devil?" " Yes, Sir,— because you see, he's always a-hmUng down qf somebody^ s little Paradise.''* SPRING. A NEW VERSION. " Ham. The air bites shrewdly — it is very cold. Eor. It is a nipping and an eager air." — Harrdet. " Come, genUe Spring ! ethereal mildness come !" Oh ! Thomson, void of rhyme as well as reason, How couldst thou thus poor human nature hum 1 There's no such season. The Spring ! I shrink and shudder at her name I For why, I find her breath a bitter blighter 1 And suffer from her blows as if they camo From Spring the Fighter. 388 SPRING. Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing, And be her tuneful laureates and upholders, Who do not feel as if they Had a Spring Pour'd down their shoulders ! Let others eulogise her floral shows, From me they cannot win a single stanza, I know her blooms are in full blow — and so's The Influenza. Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale, Her honey-blossoms that you hear the bees at, Her pansies, daffodils, and primrose pale, Are things I sneeze at ! Fair is the vernal quarter of the year ! And fair its early buddings and its blowings — But just suppose Consumption's seeds appear With other sowings ! For me, I find, when eastern winds are high, A frigid, not a genial inspiration ; Nor can, like Iron-Chested Chubb, defy An inflammation. Smitten by breezes from the land of plague, To me all vernal luxuries are fables. Oh ! Where's the Spring in a rheumatic leg, Stiff as a table's] I limp in agony, — I wheeze and cough ; And quake with Ague, that Great Agitator ; Nor dream, before July, of leaving off My respirator. THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 389 Wliat Wonder if in May itself I lack A peg for laudatory verse to hang on ? — Spring mild and gentle ! — ^yes, as Spring-heeled Jack To those he sprang on. In short, whatever panegyrics lie In fulsome odes too many to be cited. The tenderness of Spring is all my eye. And that is blighted ! THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. AN EXTEAVAGANZA, CHAPTER 1. **TlME," says Rosalind, in that delicious sylvan comedy called "As You Like It," — "Time travels in divers paces with divers persons." And thence she prettily and wittily proceeds to enumerate the parties with whom he gallops, trots, ambles, or comes to a stand-still. And nothing can be truer than her theory. Old Chronos has indeed infinite rates of performance — from railway to snail-way. As the butcher's boy said of his hoi-se, " He can go all sorts of paces — as fast as you like, or as slow as you don't." 25 390 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE, "But hark! what says a clear bell-like voice from the Horse-Guards ? — that " time is time, and one o'clock is one o'clock all the town over." True, old Kegulator ! The remark is as correct as striking, time is time, and the horological divisions are or should be synchronous from Knightsbridge to Whitechapel. But the old Mower is, like ourselves, a compound being — body and spirit. Hence he hath, as the Watchmakers say, " a duplex movement : " namely. Mechanical and Metaphysical ; — the first, governed absolutely by the march of the sun, and the swing of a pendulum ; the second, determined by moral contingencies : the one capricious as the ad libitum, the other exact as the tempo ohhligato of the musician. Thus the manifold bells of London — sounding, like the ancient chorus, a solemn accompaniment to the grand drama of Human Life — thus hundreds of iron tongues simultaneously proclaim the current hour to the vast metropolis, yet with what different speed has time travelled from chime to chime with its millions of inhabitants — with the Bride, and the Widow, the Marchioness in the ball-room, and the Milliner in her garret, the Lounger at his club, and the Criminal in the condemned cell ! Of these "divers paces with divers persons," there is a memorable illustration in "Old Mortality," where Morton and the stem Covenanters, with opposite feelings, watch on the same dial-plate the progress of the hand towards the fatal black point, at which the hour and a life were together to expire. The Novelist has painted the victim "awaiting till the sword destined to slay him crept out of the scabbard gradually, and as it were by straw-breadths. The walls " seemed to drop with blood, and the light tick of tlie clock thrilled en his ear with such loud painful distinctness, as if THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 391 each sound were the prick of a bodkin iniiicted on the naked nerve of the organ." Here then was one of those persons whom Time gallops withal, whereas to the bloodthirsty Fanatics he crept on so leisurely, that Impatience could not refrain from giving the laggard a thrust forward on his course. In our Courts of Law, Civil and Criminal, the divers paces of Time are continually exemplified, and have been verified on oath by scores of respectable witnesses. For example : there was once a ^ murder committed at Tottenham ; and on the trial of the assassin, it became a point of judicial importance to determine the exact interval between two distant pistol-shots. " Five minutes ! " deposed Miss White, who had passed the evening in question tete-ti-tHe with her aflQanced sweet- heart. "Fifteen," swore Mrs. Black, who had spent the same hours in vainly expecting a husband addicted to the ale- house. "Bless my soul and body!" exclaimed the Judge, naturally astonished at such a wide discrepancy ; " the clocks in that part of the country must be sadly in want of regulation I But his lordship himself was in error. The material wheels, springs, pendulums, and weights, worked truly enough ; it was the moral machinery that was accountable for the variation. The rectification, however, was at hand. The suburban village of Tottenham swarms, as is well known, with resident Members of the Society of Friends — a sect remarkable for punctuality, and the preciseness and uniformity of their habits — whose lives flow as equably as the sand of the hour-glass — whose pulses beat with the regularity of the pendulum. Accordingly, five Quakers who 392 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. had heard the shots, were examined as witnesses ; and, on their several affirmations, gave the interval between the two reports with little more variation than so many Admiralty Chronometers. As thus : Min. Sec Obadiah .... 9 69 ' Jacob 9 58 Ephraim .... 9 f9 Joseph 9 59 Samuel .... 9 68 Being actually the juste milieu, or a drab average, between the extreme statements of Black and White. CHAPTER n. But to my personal experiences. Like my fellow-mortals in fair Rosalindts catalogue, I hare found Time to resemble both the Hare and the Tortoise, sometimes as fleet as the quadruped, at others as slow as the reptile in his race. Many bright and brief days recur to my memory when he flew past with the speed of a flying Childers, many dark and long ones, when he stepped as heavily and deliberately as the black horse before a hearse. All his divers paces are familiar to me — ^he has galloped, trotted, ambled, walked with me, and on one memorable occasion, seemed almost to stand stock-still. Never, oh, never can I forget the day-long seconds which made up those monthlike minutes, which composed that interminable Hour — the longest in my whole life ! '* And pray, sir, how and when was that ? " For the when, madam, to be particular, it was from half- past nine to half-past ten o'clock, a.m., on the First of May, new style, Anno Domini, 1822. For the how, you shall hear. THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 393 At the date just mentioned my residence was in the Adelphi, and having a strong partiality for the study of Natural History from living specimens, it suited both my convenience and my taste to drop in frequently at the menagerie at Exeter 'Change. These visits were generally paid at an early hour, before town or country cousins called to see the lions, and indeed it frequently happened that I found myself quite alone with the wild beasts. An annual guinea entitled me to go as often as agreeable, which happened so frequently, that the animals soon knew me by sight, whilst with some of them, for instance the elephant,* I obtained quite a friendly footing. Even Nero looked kindly on me, and the rest of the creatures did not eye me with the glances half shy and half savage which they threw at less familiar visitors. But there was one notable exception. The royal Bengal tiger could not or would not recognise me, but persisted in growling and scowling at me as a stranger, whom of course he longed to take in. Nevertheless there was a fascination in his terrible beauty, and even in his enmity, that often held me in front of his cage, enjoying the very impotence of his malice, and recalling various tragical tales of himian victims mangled or devoured by such striped monsters as the one before me ; and, as if the cunning brute penetrated my thoughts, he would rehearse as it were all the man-eating manoeuvres of the species : now creeping stealthily round his den, as if skulking through his native jungles, then crouching for the fatal spring, and anon bounding against the bars of his cage, with a short, angry roar, expressive of the most * This same elephant once nearly killed an Irishman, for an msult oflfered to his trunk. The act was rash in the extreme ; "but it was impossible," the Hibernian said, "to resist a nose you could pull with both hands." 394 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. fiendish malignity. By-the-bye, madam, did you ever hear of the doctrine of Instinctive Antipathies 1 "Yes, sir; and Mr. Lamb or Mr. Hazlitt quotes an instance of two strangers, who on meeting each other in the street immediately began to fight." Well, madam, there seemed to be some such original antipathy between me and the tiger. At any rate he took peculiar pleasure in my presence in ostentatiously parading his means of offence. Sometimes stretching out one huge muscular leg between the bars, he unsheathed and exhibited his tremendous claws, after which, with a devilish ogre-like grm, be displayed his formidable teeth, and then by a deliberate yawn indulged me with a look into that horrible red gulf, down which he would fain have bolted me m gobbets. The yawning jaws were invariably closed with a ferocious snap, and the brutal performance was wound up with a howl so unutterably hollow and awful, so cannibal ish, tnat even at its hundredth repetition it still curdled my very blood, and thrilled every nerve in my body. " Lord ! what a dreadful creature ! " Very, ma'am. And yet that Carnivorous Monster, capable of appalling the heart of the bravest man, ffiiled once to strike terror into one of the weakest of the species — a delicate little girl, of about six years old, and rather small for her age. She had been gazing at the Tiger very earnestly for some minutes, and what do you think she said ] " Pray what, sir ? " "Oh, Mr. Cross, if ever that beautiful great pussy has young ones, do save me a kitten ! '* THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 395 CHAPTER III. Apropos of Time and his divers paces, he notoriously goes very slowly — as Sterne vouches — with a solitary captive, and of all solitary captives methinks he must go slowest with a caged wild beast. The human prisoner gifted with a mind, can beguile the weary hours with dreams of the past or future — if of an intellectual turn, and educated, he can amuse himself with philosophical speculations, or mathe- matical calculations. He may even indulge in poetical composition. But a beast, a stupid, ignorant beast, has no such mental resources. If he struck a lyre it would be to immortal smash. Neither would it be of any avail to supply him with materials for those various handicrafts by the exercise of which the Philadelphian Solitaries, described by Dickens, contrived to lose and neglect the creeping foot of time in their confinement. A lion, if furnished with the whole stock of a marine-store shop, would never " manufac- ture a sort of Dutch clock from disregarded odds and ends," with a vinegar-bottle for the pendulum : neither would a tiger appear "in a white paper hat of his own making," though expressly provided with stationery for the purpose, from her Majesty's own office. It follows that wild animals in confinement must experience great weariness — in fact, they obviously do suffer from ennui in no common degree. " How, sir 1 A vulgar, ill-bred wild beast, afflicted with the peculiar complaint of a woman of ton — of a lady of quality 1 " Precisely, madam. There is a case on record of a laoness with all the symptoms of the complaint, and of her adoption of that fashionable antidote, a lapdog. 396 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. A lapdog ! What, a dear little King Charles's spaniel ? * " No, but a little terrier, which the Lioness in a natural state of health would have devoured on his first introduction, whereas being troubled with the vapours, she could not dispense with a plaything that happened to amuse her. " A Lioness with the vapours, and a lapdog — ridiculous ! '* Madam, I am in earnest, severely serious. But just do me the honour to step with me, in fancy, to the Zoological Gardens. There — look at that Lioness. How indolently she stretches herself — how listlessly she rolls her head and half closes her languid eyes ! Then what distressing yawns, as if for a change she would turn herself inside out ! " Rather like ennui, I confess." No doubt of it. Now look at yonder moping Lion, too apathetic even to glance at us. Look at his head between his knees, and his tail — that formidable tail, furnished at the end, as naturalists tell us, with a kind of prickle, so that he can spur as well as lash himself into a hasty fit — lying as idle and still as a torpid snake. Did you ever see an attitude more expressive of lassitude ? and yet he hath but taken a few turns round his den, and given one roar since sunrise. All he cares is to blink, and gape, and doze, through the long hours till supper-time. Yonder again is a female Puma, with head drooping and closed eyes, uttering at intervals an inward groan, as palpable a sufferer from world-weariness as ^lariana at the Moated Grange. The panthers, leopards, ounces, jaguai-s, and the smaller cats, from constitutional irritability, are somewhat more active, or rather restless; but it is only another mode of expressing the same thing. One and all are labouring under tedium vitce so intensely that it is a wonder they have never discovered self-murder ! In fact Chuny, the elephant who was shot for attempting to break out of his prison, is said, after receiving THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 397 many musket-balls, to have knelt down at the command of his keeper, and to have presented his head with suicidal docility to the marksmen. "Their lives, poor things, must indeed be very mono- tonous ! " Miserably so, madam, and their hours like ages! No amusement, no employment to shorten them ! One can fancy Time himself looking in at the Beasts through the iron lattices, and tauntingly whispering, " Ah, ah ! with all your murderous paws, and claws, and jaws, you cannot kill ME!" " One may, indeed ; but now, if you please, sir, we will go. My own spirits begin to flag, and a sort of lassitude comes over me : I presume from example and the influence of the place." Beyond question, madam. There was a case in point. My friend H., the well-known artist, once had occasion to take the portrait of a Lion in the Tower Menagerie ; but he went so frequently, and required such long sittings, that, knowing the usual facility of his pencil, I became curious to learn the cause. " Why, the truth is," said H., " if I could only have kept my spirits up and my eyes open, the thing would have been done in a tithe of the time ; but what with the dejection and drowsiness of the beasts, and their continual gaping, I was so infected with their dulness that after the first ten minutes I invariably began to blink and yawn too, and soon fell THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. CHAPTER IV. "Huzza!* My dear sir — " Huzza ! huzza ! * My dear sirs — " Huzza ! huzza ! huzza ! '* Gentlemen — Ladies — Boys — Girls — ^good people do allow me to ask the reason of such vociferous cheering 1 " The Baron for ever ! " Eh? " The Doctor for ever ! " Whom ? " The thing with a hard name for ever ! " What Baron — what Doctor ? — what thing witn a hard name 'i " What thing 1 Why, Som-nam-bam-boozle-fusili?m, to be sure. The animal sent the painter to sleep, didn't he 1" Yes. " And ain't that animal Magnetism 1 " Yes, yes — certainly, yes — as clear a case of Mesmerism as ever I met with 1 CHAPTEH V. On the morning of the first of May, 1822, between nine and ten o'clock, I entered the menagerie of Exeter 'Change, and walked directly as usual into the great room appro- priated to the larger animals. There was no person visible, keeper or visitor, about the place — like Alexander Selkirk, t THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 399 • • I was Lord of the Fowl and the Brute." I had the lions all to myself. As I stepped through the doors my eyes mechanically turned towards the den of my old enemy, the royal Bengal tiger, fully expecting to receive from him the customary salutes of a spiteful grin and growl. But the husky voice was silent, the grim face was nowhere to be seen. The cage was empty ! My feeling on the discovery was a mixed one of relief and disappointment. — Methought I breathed more freely from the removal of that vague apprehension which had always clung to me, like a presentiment of injury sooner or later from the savage beast. A few minutes, nevertheless, spent in walking about the room, convinced me that his departure had left a void never properly to be filled up» Another royal tiger, larger even, and as ferocious, might take his place — but it was unlikely that the new tenant would ever select me for that marked and personal animosity which had almost led me at times to believe that we inherited some ancient feud from our respective progenitors. An enemy as well as a friend of old standing, though not lamented, must be missed. It must be a loss, if not to affection, to memory a;nd association, to be deprived of even the ill-will, the frown or sneer of an old familiar face, and the brute was, at any rate, " a good hater." There was something piquant, if not flattering, in being selected for his exclusive malignity. But he was gone, and the menagerie had henceforward lost, for me, a portion of its interest. But stop — there is a Gentle Reader in an ungentle hurry to expostulate. *' What ! — sorry for a nasty, vicious wild beast, as owed you a grudge for nothing at all, and only wanted an oppor- tunity to spit his spite 1 " Exactly so, madam. The case is far from uncommon. Nay, I once knew a foreign gentleman in a very similar 400 THE LONGEST HOUR lUi MY LIFE. predicament. From his German reading, helped by an appropriate style of feeding, the stomach of his imagination had become so stuffed and overloaded with Zamiels, Brocken Witches, Hobgoblins, Vampires, Were Wolves, Incubi, and other devilries, that for years he never passed a night with- out what we call bad dreams. Well, I had not seen him for some months, when at last he called upon me, looking so wobegone and out of spirits, as to make me inquire rather anxiously about his health. He shook his head dejectedly, sighed deeply, laid his hand on his chest, as if about to com- plain of it, and in a broken voice and broken English, informed me of his case. " 0, my goot fellow, I am miserable quite. Dere is some- ting all wrong in me — someting very bad — I have not had de Night-Mare for tree weeks." "Well, after that, sir, I can swallow the tiger. So pray go on.'* After the first surprise was over, my curiosity became excited, and I began to speculate on the causes of the creature's absence. Was he dead ? Had he been destroyed for his ferocity, or parted with to make room for a milder specimen of the species 1 Had he gone to perform in the legitimate drama — or taken French leave? I was looking round for somebody to answer these queries, when all at once I descried an object that made me feel Hke a man suddenly blasted with a thunderbolt. " Mercy on us ! You don't mean to say that it was the Tiger?" I do. Huddled up in a dark comer of the room he had been overlooked by me on my entrance, and cunningly sup- pressing his usual snarl of recognition, the treacherous beast had proceeded to intercept my retreat. At my first glimpse of him he was skulking along, close to the wall, in the THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 401 direction of the door. Had I possessed the full power of motion he must have arrived there first — but terror riveted me to the spot. There I stood, all my faculties frozen up, dizzy, motionless, and dumb. Could I have cried out, my last breath of life would certainly have escaped from me in one long, shrill scream. But it was pent up in my bosom, where my heart, after one mighty bound upwards, was fluttering like a scared bird. There was a feeling of deadly choking at my throat, of mortal sickness at my stomach. My tongue in an instant had become stiff and parched — my jaw locked — my eyes fixed in their sockets, and, from the rush of blood, seemed looking through a reddish mist, whilst within my head a whizzing noise struck up that rendered me utterly incapable of thought or comprehension. Such, as far as I can recollect, was my condition, which, from the symptoms, I should say, was very similar to a combined attack of apoplexy and paralysis. This state, however, did not last. At first, every limb and joint had suddenly stiffened, rigid as cast iron : my very flesh, with the. blood in its veins, had congealed into marble : but after a few seconds, the muscles as abruptly relaxed, the joints gave way, the blood thawed and seemed escaping from the vessels, the substance of my body seemed losmg its solidity, and with an inexpressible sense of its imbecility, I felt as if my whole frame would fall in a shapeless mass on the floor. " Gracious goodness — how dreadful ! " The Tiger in the interim, having gained the door, had crouched down — cat-like — his back curved inwards, his face between his fore-paws, and with his glaring eyeballs steadily fixed on mine, was creeping on his belly by half-inches towards me, his tail meanwhile working from side to side behind him, and as it were scalling him on. 402 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. In another moment this movement ceased, the tail straightened itself out, except the tip, which turned up, and became nervously agitated, a warning as certain as the like signal from an enraged rattlesnake. There was no time to be lost. A providential inspiration, a direct whisper, as it were, from heaven, reminded me of the empty cage, and suggested, with lightning rapidity, that the same massive bars which had formerly kept the Man Eater within, might now keep him out. In another instant I was within the den, had pulled to the door, and shot the heavy bolt. The Tiger foiled by the suddenness of this unexpected manoeuvre, immediately rose from his couchant position, and after violently lashing each flank with his tail, gave vent to his dissatisfaction in a prolonged inward grumble, that sounded like distant thunder. But he did not long deliberate on his course : to my infinite horror, I saw him approach the den, where rearing on his hind legs, in the attitude the heralds call rampant, he gave a tremendous roar, which made my blood curdle, and then resting his fore-paws on the front of the cage, with his huge, hideous face pressed against the bars, he stared at me a long, long stare, with two red fiery eyes, that alternately gloomed and sparkled like burning coals. " And didn't the Tiger, sir, poke his great claws, sir, into the cage, sir, and pick you out, sir, bit by bit, sir, between the bars?" Patience, my dear little fellow, patience. Since the Creation, perhaps, a Man and a Wild Beast, literally changing places, were never before placed in such an anoma- lous position : and in these days of dullness, and a dearth of dramatic novelties, having been furnished with so very original and striking a situation, the Reader ought to be allowed a little time to enjoy it. THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 403 CHAPTER VI. Ha ! ha ! ha ! " Zounds ! — pshaw ! — ^phoo ! — ^pish ! " ejaculates a Cour- teous Reader, "it's all a hoax, the author is laughing at us." Not at all. The cachinnatory syllables were intended to signify the peal of dreary laughter with which the hyena hailed my incarceration. It was perhaps only a coincidence — and yet the beast might comprehend and enjoy the sudden turning of the tables, the Man become a prisoner, and the Brute his gaoler. It might tickle his savage fancy to behold a creature of the species before which the animals of his own kind instinc- tively quailed and skulked off — it might gratify a splenetic hatred, born of fear, to see a member of that aristocratic order reduced by a Revolution, beyond the French one, into a doomed captive in such a Bastile ! " Excuse me, sir, but do you really believe that a brute beast ever reasons so curiously 1 " It is difficult to say, madam, for they never utter, much less publish, their speculations. That some do reason and even moralize " Moralize I what, a brute beast — for instance, a great bear — a moralist like Dr. Johnson 1 " Yes, madam ; — or Hervey, of the Meditations. The hyena is notoriously a frequenter of graves — a prowler amongst the Tombs. He is, also, the only beast that laughs — at least above his breath. And putting these two circumstances together, who knows but that the Ghoul acquired his Sar- donic grin, and his cynical ha ! ha ! ha ! from a too intimate acquaintance with the dusty, mouldy, rubbishing, unsavoury 404 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. relics of the pride, power, pomps and vanities of the so-called Lord of the Creation ? " Who indeed, sir 1 What man can see into the heart of a brute beast ? " Why, if any one, ma'am, it's the man who puts his head into the lion's mouth. CHAPTER VII. It was now my turn to know and understand how Time "travels in divers paces with divers persons." To feel how the precious stuff that life is made of might be drawn out, like fine gold, into inconceivable lengths. To learn the extreme duration of minims and seconds, and possible "last moments " of existence — the practicability of living ages, as in dreams, between one vital pulsation and another ! Oh those interminable and invaluable intervals between breath and breath ! How shall I describe — by what gigantic scale can I give a notion of the enormous expansion of the ordinary fractions of time, when marked on a Dial of the World's circumference by the Shadow of Death ? Methinks while that horrible face, and those red, fiery eyes were gazing at me. Pyramids might have been built — Babylons founded — Empires established — Royal Dynasties have risen, ruled, and fallen — ^yea, even that other Planets might have fulfilled their appointed cycles from Creation to Destruction, during those nominal minutes which by their immense span seemed actually to be preparing me for Eternity I THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 405 CHAPTEE VIII. In the meantime the Tiger kept his old position in front of the cage, without making any attempt to get at me. He could have no fear of my getting out to eat him, and as to his devouring me, having recently breakfasted on shin of beef he seemed in no hurry for a second meal, knowing perfectly well, that whenever he might feel inclined to lunch he had me ready for it, as it were, in his safe. Thus the beast continued with intolerable perseverance to stare in upon me, who, crouched up at the further comer of the den, had only to await his pleasure or displeasure. Once or twice, indeed, I tried to call out for help, but the sound died in my throat, and when at length I succeeded, the Tiger, whether to drown my voice, or from sympathy, set up such a roar at the same time, and this he did so repeatedly, that convinced of the futility of the experiment, I abandoned myself in silence to my fate. Its crisis waa approaching. If he had no hunger for food the savage had an appetite for revenge, and soon showed himself disposed, catlike, to sport with his victim, and torment him a little by exciting his terror. I have said cat-like, but there seemed something more sttpematurally ingenious in the cruelty of his proceedings. He certainly made faces at me, twisting his grim features with the most frightful contortions — especially his mouth, drawing back his lips so as to show his teeth — then smacking them, or licking them with his tongue— of the roughness of which he occasionally gave me a hint by rasping it against the iron bars. But the climax of his malice was to come. Strange as it may seem, he absolutely winked at me, act a mere feline blink at excess of light, but a significant know- 406 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE ing wink, and then inflating his cheeks, puffed into my face a long, hot breath, smelling, most ominously, of raw flesh t " The horrid wretch ! why he seemed to know what he was about like a Christian 1 " Yes, madam — or, at any rate, like an inhuman humai^ being. But, before long, he evidently grew tired of such mere pastime. His tail — that index of mischief — ^resumed its activity, swinging and flourishing in the air, with a thump every now and then on his flank, as if he were beating time with it to some Tiger's March in his own head. At last it dropped, and at the same instant thrusting one paw between the bars he tried by an experimental semicircular sweep, whether any part of me was within his reach. He took nothing, however, by his motion, but his talons so nearly brushed my knees, that a change of posture became impera- tive. The den was too low to allow of my standing up, so that the only way was to He down on my side, with my back against that of the cage — of course making myself as much like a has-relief as possible. Fortunately, my coat was closely buttoned up to the throat, for the hitch of a claw in a lappel would have been fatal : as it was, the paw of the brute, in some of his sweeps, came within two inches of my person. Foiled in this fishing for me, he then st^ck the bars, seriatim, but they were too massive, and too well imbedded in their sockets, to break, or bend, or give way. Nevertheless, I felt far from safe. There was such a diabolical sagacity in the Beast's proceedings, that it would hardly have been wonderful if he had deliberately undone the bolt and fastenings of his late front-door and walked in to me. ** Oh, how dreadful if he had ! And what a position for you, sir ! Such a shocking picture — a human fellow- creature THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 407 in a cage -with a great savage tiger a-tearing at him through the bars — I declare it reminds me of the Cat at our Canary!" CHAPTER IX. I WOULD not marry the Young Lady who made that last comparison for Ten Thousand Pounds ! CHAPTER X. Confound the Keepers ! Not one of them, Upper or Under, even looked into the room. For any help to me, they might as well have been Keeping sheep, or turnpikes, or little farms, or the King's peace — or keeping the Keep at Windsor, or editing the Keep- sake ! — or helping the London Sweeps and Jack-in-the-Green to keep May Day ! Oh ! what a pang, sharp as tiger's tooth could inflict, shot through my heart as I remembered that date with all its cheerful and fragrant associations — sights, and scents, and sounds so cruelly different to the object before my eyes, the odour in my nostrils, the noise in my ears ! How I wished myself under the hawthorns, or even on them: — ^how I yearned to be on a village green, with or without a Maypole ; but why do I speak of such sweet locahties ? May-day as it was, and sweep as I was not, I would willingly have been up the foulest flue in London, cleansing it gratis. Fates that had formerly seemed black and hard, 408 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. now looked white and mild in comparison with my own. The gloomiest things, the darkest misfortunes, even unto negro-slavery, shone out, like the holiday sooterkins, tvith washed faces. My own case was getting desperate. The Tiger enraged by his failures, was furious, and kept up an incessant fretful grumble — sometimes deepening into a growl, or rising almost into a shriek — ^while again and again he tried the bars, or swept for me with his claws. Lunch-time it was plain had come, and an appetite along with it, as appeared by his efforts to get at me, as well sis his frequently opening and shutting his jaws, and licking his lips, — in fact, making a sort of Barmecidal feast on me beforehand. The effect of this mock-mastication on my nerves was inexpressibly terrible — as the awful rehearsal of a real tragedy. Besides, from a correspondence of imagination, I seemed actually to feel in my flesh and bones every bite he simulated, and the consequent agonies. Oh, horrible — horrible — homble ! " Horrible, indeed ! I wonder you did not faint ! " Madam, I dared not. All my vigilance was too necessary to preserve me from these dangerous snatches, so often made suddenly as if to catch me off my guard. It was far more likely that the brain, overstrained by such intense excite- ment, would give way and drive me by some frantic impulse —a maniac — into those foamy jaws. Still bolt, and bar, and reason retained their places. But alas ! if even the mind remained firm, the physical energies might fail. So long as I could maintain my position, as still and as stiff as a corpse, my life was comparatively safe : but the necessary effort was almost beyond the power of human nature, and certainly could not be long protracted — the johits and Binews must relax, and then THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 409 Merciful Heaven ! the crisis just alluded to was fast approaching, for the overtasked muscles were gradually give, give, giving — when suddenly there was a peculiar cry from some animal in the inner room. The Tiger answered it with a yell, and, as if reminded of some hated object — at least as obnoxious to him as myself — instantly dropped from the cage, and made one step towards the spot. But he stopped short — tiu-ning his face again to the cage, to which he would probably have returned but for a repetition of the same cry. The Tiger answered it as before with a yell of defiance, and bounded ofif through the door into the next chamber, whence growls, roars, and shrieks of brutal rage soon announced that some desperate combat had commenced. The uproar alarming the Keepers, they rushed in, when springing from the cage with equal alacrity, I rushed out ; and while the men were securing the Tiger, secured myself by running home to my house in the Adelphi, at a rate never attained before or since. Nor did Time, who " travels in divers paces with divers persons," ever go at so extraordinary a rate— /or slotoness — as he had done with me. On consulting my watch, the age which I had passed in the Tiger's den must have been some sixty minutes ! And so ended. Courteous Reader, the Longest Hour in my Life ! [I have found among my father's coUeetion of autographs the fol- lowing passage, with reference to the preceding story, in a letter from Mr. W. J. Broderip, the weU-known Police Magistrate, and A!uthor of " Zoological Recreations."] " The longest Hour of your Life " gave me a night-mare. The whole day had been employed in listening to a horrid murder ; and at night I took up your paper to amuse me. 410 AN TJNDEETAKER. and drive the bloody business out of my head. The effect of the combination out-Fuselied all that Fuseli ever conceived after a supper of the rawest of pork. — though I supped on sugar and water. Maltese murderers with raised knives ready to strike ; blood running slowly and lava-like down walls. Tigers attracted by the smell of the blood, and attacking editors and justices shut up in rush cages — in one everlasting smash, notwithstanding a gasping attempt to read the Riot Act ! Ah, it is all very well to laugh noWy but it was awful!" ALL BOUND MT HAT." AN UNDEETAKER Is an lUwiller to the Human Eace. He is by Profession an Enemy to his Species, and can no more look kindly at his AN UNDEETAKER. 411 Fellows than the Sheriff's Officer; for why, his Profit hegins with an Arrest for the Debt of Nature. As the Bailiff looks on a failing Man so doth he, and with the same Hope, namely, tc take the Body. Hence hath he little Sympathy with his Kind, small Pity fo. the Poor, and least of all for the Widow and the Orphan, whoir he regards, Planter like, but as so many Blacks on his Estate If he have any Community of Peeling, it is with the Sexton 1. UHQVXm. BOVIA. who has likewiBe a Per Centage on the Bills of Mortality, and never sees a Pictiire of Health but he longs to ingrave it. Both have the same ^ick Ear for a Churchyard Cough, and both the 412 AN UNDERTAKER. same Relish for the same Music, to wit, the Toll of Saint Sepulchre. Moreover both go constantly in black — howbeit *ti8 no Mourning Suit but a Livery — for he grieves no more for the Defunct than the Bird of the same Plumage, that is the Under- taker to a dead Horse. As a Neighbour he is to be shunned. To live opposite to him is to fall under the Evil Eye. Like the Witch that forespeaks other Cattle, he would rot you as soon as look at you, if it could be done at a Glance ; but that Magic being out of Date, he contents himself with choosing the very Spot on the House Front that shall serve for a Hatchment. Thenceforward he watches your going out and your coming in : your rising up and your lying down, and all yoiu* Domestic Imports of Drink and Victual, so that the veriest She Gossip in the Parish is not more IS THAT BOGBKS'S 1A8T, OB TOUB OWIT / familiar with your Modes and Means of Living, nor knows so certainly whether the Visitor, that calls d.aily in his Chariot, is AN UNDERTAKER. 413 a mere Friend or a Physician. Also he knows your Age to a Year, and your Height to an Inch, for he hath measured you with his Eye for a Coffin, and your Ponderosity to a Pound, for he hath an Interest in the Dead Weight, and hath so far in- quired into your Fortune as to guess with what Equipage you shall travel on your last Journey. For, in professional Curiosity, he is truly a Fall Pry. Wherefore to dwell near him is as melancholy as to live in view of a Churchyard ; to be within Sound of his Hammering is to hear the Knocking at Death's Door. To be friends with an Undertaker is as impossible as to be the Crony of a Crocodile. He is by Trade a Hypocrite, and deals of Necessity in Mental Eeservations and Equivoques. Thus he drinks to your good Health, but hopes, secretly, it will not endui-e. He is glad to find you so hearty — as to be Apo- plectic ; and rejoices to see you so stout — with a short Neck. He bids you beware of your old Gout — and recommends a Quack Doctor. He laments the malignant Fever so prevalent — and wishes you may get it. He compliments your Complexion — when it is Blue or Yellow ; admires your upright Carriage, — and hopes it will break down. Wishes you good Day, but means everlasting Night ; and commends his Eespects to your Father and Mother — but hopes you do not honour them. In short, his good Wishes are treacherous ; his Inquiries are sus- picious ; and his Civilities are dangerous ; as when he proifereth the Use of his Coach — or to see you Home. For the rest, he is still at odds with Humanity ; at constant Issue with its Naturalists, and its Philanthropists, its Sages, its Counsellors, and its Legislators. For example, he praises the Weather — with the Wind at East ; and rejoices in a wet Spring and Fall, for Death and he reap with one Sickle, and have a good or bad Harvest in common. He objects not to bones in Bread (being as it were his own diet), nor to ill Drugs in Beei, 414 AN UNDEETAKER. nor to Sugar of Lead or arsenical Finings in Wine, nor to ardent Spirits, nor to Interment in Churches. Neither doth he discountenance the Sitting on Infants ; nor the swallowing of Plum Stones ; nor of cold Ices at Hot balls — nor the drinking of Embrocations, nay he hath been known to contend that the wrong Dose was the right one. He approves, contra the Phy- sicians, of a damp Bed and wet Feet, — of a hot Head and cold Extremities, and lends his own Countenance to the Natural Small Pox, rather than en- courage Vaccination — which he calls flying in the Pace of Providence. Add to these, a free Trade in Poisons, whereby the Oxalic Crystals may currently become Proxy for the Epsom ones; and the corrosive Sublimate as common as Salt in Ponidge. To the same End he woidd give unto every Cockney a Privilege to shoot, within ten miles round London, without a Taxed License, and would never concur in a Pine or Deodand for Past Driving, except the Vehicle were a Hearse. Thus, whatever the popular Cry, he runs counter : a Heretic in Opinion, and a Hypocrite in Practice, as when he pretends to be sorrowful at a Funeral ; or, what is worse, affects to pity the ill-paid Poor, and yet helpeth to screw them down. To conclude, he is a Personage of ill presage to the House of Life: a Raven Qn the Chimney Pot — a Deathwatch in the Wainscot, — a Winding Sheet in the Candle. To meet with him is ominous. His Looks are sinister ; his Dress is lugubrious ; 8HEEB FBEIBirSIOB'. AN UNDEETAKEB. 415 his Speech is prophetic ; and his Touch is mortal. Nevertheless he hath one Merit, and in this our World, and in these our Times, it is a main one ; namely, that whatever he Undertakes he Performs, 416 A FIRST ATTEMPT IN EHYME. A PIEST ATTEMPT IN EHYME. The attempt and not the deed." — Lady Macbeth. A FEW days since it happened to me to look into a Lady's Album — one of those pretty nuisances which are sent to one like the Tax-gatherer's Scheoales, with a blank or two for the victim FBOU THE ZOOLOeiCAI. GABSENS. to fill up. The Book was of the usual kind ; superbly bound of course, and filled with paper of various tints and shades, to suit the taste of the contributors : — baiting, one might fancy, with a bluish tinge for Lady Chatterton, with a light green for Mrs. Hall, or Miss Mitford, and with a French White for Miss Costello — for Moore with a flesh colour, with gray for the Bare? A FIRST ATTEMPT IN EHYME. 417 of Memory, and with rose colour for the Poet of Hope — with stone colour for Allan Cunningham, with straw colour for the' Corn Law Ehymer, with drab and slate for Bernard Barton and the Howitts, and with a sulphur tint for Satan Montgomery. The copper colour being perhaps, aimed at the artists in general, who are partial to the warmth of its tone. As yet, however, but few of our " celebrated pens " and pen- cils had enriched or ornamented the volume. The literary offerings were short and few ; and the pictorial ones were still more rare. Thus between the Mendicant begging for Scraps in the Frontispiece, and a water-colour branch of Fuchsia, there were no less than eighteen blank leaves : twenty-two more from the flower to the Group of Shells — if they were shells — for they looked more like petrifactions of a cracknel, a French roll, and a twist — and fifteen barren pages from the Conchology to the great Parrot — which, by the bye, seemed purposely to have been put into tlie same livery as the lady's footman, namely, a peagreen coat, with crimson smalls. There was only one more drawing ; a view of some Dutch place, done in Sepia, and which some wag had named in pencil as " a Piece of Brown Holland." The prose and verse were of the ordinary character : Extracts from Byron, Wordsworth, and Mrs. Hemans ; a Parody of an Irish Melody, an Unpublished Ballad, attributed to Sir Walter Scott, and sundry original effusions, including a Sonnet of six- teen lines, to an Infant. There were also two specimens of what is called Religious Poetry — the one working up a Sprig of Thyme into an " eternity ! " and the other setting out as jauntily as a Song, but ending in a '* him." In glancing over these effusions, it was my good fortune to be attracted to some verses by a certain singulaniy in their con- struction, the nature of which it required a second perusal to determine. Indeed, the peculiarity was so unootrusive, that it had escaped the notice of the owner of the Album, who had even 418 A FIRST ATTEMPT IN RHYME. designated the lines in question as " nothing particular." They were, she said, as the title implied, the first attempt in rhyme, by a female friend; and who, to judge from her manner and ex- pressions, with respect to her maiden essay, had certainly not been aware of anything extraordinary in her performance. On the contrary, she had apologised for the homely and common- place character of the lines, and had promised, if she ever im- proved in her poetry, to contribute another and a better sample. A. pledge which Death, alas ! had forbidden her to redeem. As a Literary Curiosity, the Proprietress of the original Poem has kindly allowed me to copy and present it to the Public. In- stead of a mere commonplace composition, the careful Eeader will perceive that whilst aiming at, and so singularly missing, what Garrick called " the jingle of verse," the Authoress has actually invented a New Species of Poetry — an intermediate link, as it were, between Blank Verse and Ehyme, and as such likely to be equally acceptable to the admirers of Thomson and the lovers of Shenstone. COPY. If I were used to writing verse, And had a Muse not so perverse, But prompt at Fancy's call to spri:ig And Carol like a bird in Spring ; Or like a Bee, in summer time. That hums about a bed of thyme, And gathers honey and delights From ev'ry blossom where it 'lights ; If I, alas ! had such a Muse, To touch the Eeader or amuse, And breathe the true poetic vein, This page should not be fill'd in vain I A FIRST ATTEMPT IN RHYME. 419 But ah ! the power was never mine To dig for gems in Fancy's mine s Or wander over land and main To seek the Fairies' old domain — To watch Apollo while he climbs His throne in oriental climes ; Or mafk the " gradual dusky veil " Prawn over Tempe's tuneful vale. In classic lays remembered long — Such flights to balder wings belong ; To Bards who on that glorious height. Of sun and song, Parnassus hight. Partake the fire divine that burns, ^ In Milton, Pope, and Scottish Bums, ( Who sang his native braes and bums, \ For me a novice strange and new. Who ne'er such inspiration knew. But weave a verse with travail sore, Ordain'd to creep and not to soar, A. few pool lineb alone I write. Fulfilling thus a friendly rite, Not meant to meet the Critic's eye, For oh ! to hope from such as I, For any thing that's fit to read. Were trusting to a broken reed | lstqfJ^ril,lS4>0. EuU.Gu 420 HOESE AND FOOT. HORSE AND FOOT. HORSE AND FOOT. " Fain would I climbe But that I fear to fall. -Sir Walter Raleigh. It requires some degree of moral courage to make such a confession, for a horse-laugli will assuredly take place at my ex- pense, but I never could sit on anything with four legs, except a chair, a table or a sofa. Possibly my birthplace was adverse, not being raised in Yorkshire, with its three Ridings — perhaps iny education was in fault, for of course I was put to my feet like other children, but I do not remember being ever properly taken off them in the riding-school. It is not unlikely tliat my HOESE AND FOOT. 421 passion lor sailing Las been inimical to the accomplisliment ; there is a roll about a vessel so different from the pitch of a horse, that a person accustomed to a fore and aft sea- saw, or side lurch, is utterly disconcerted by a regular up-and-down motion — at any rate, seamen are notorious for riding at anchor better than at anything else. Finally, the Turk's principle. Predestina- tion, may be accountable for my inaptitude. One man is evi- dently born under what Milton calls a " mounted sign," whilst another comes into the world under the influence of Aries, pre- doomed to perform on no saddle but one of mutton. Thus we see one gentleman who can hardly keep his seat upon a pony, or a donkey ; when another shall tum^and wind a fiery Pegasus, oi back a Bucephalus; to say nothing of those professional equestrians, who tumble on a horse instead of off. It has always seemed to me, therefore, that our Astleys and Ducrows, whether they realised fortunes or not, deserved to do so, besides obtain- ing more honorary rewards. It would not, perhaps, have been out of character, if they had been made Knights of, or Cavaliers; especially considering that many Mayors, Aldermen, and Sheriffs have been so dubbed, whose pretensions never stood on more than two legs, and sometimes scarcely on one. The truth is, I have always regarded horsemen with something of the veneration with which the savages beheld, for the first time, the Spanish chivalry — namely, as superior beings. With all respect then to our gallant Infantry, I have always looked on our Cavalry as a grade above them — indeed, the feat of Widdring- ton, who " fought upon his stumps," and so far, on his own legs, has always appeared to me comparatively easy, whereas foi a charge of cavalry. Charge, Chester, charge, Off, Stanley, off, has always seemed to me the most natural reading. The chase of course excite? my admiration and wonder, and 27 422 HORSE AND FOOT. like Lord Chesterfield 1 unfeignedly marvel —but for a different reason — that any gentleman ever goes to it a second time. A chapter of Nirarod's invariably gives me a crick in the neck. I can well believe that "it is the pace that kills," but why rational beings with that conviction should ride to be killed exceeds my comprehension. For my own part could such a pace ever come into fashion, it would be suicidal in me to attempt to hunt at a trot, or even in a walk. Ride and tie, perhaps, ii', as I suppose, it means one's being tied on — but no, my evil genius would evade even that securitv. THH 1CAST«B OF THI HOBSE. Above all, but for certain visits to Epsom and Ascot I should have set down horse-racing as a pleasant fiction. That Buckle without being buckled on, should have reached the age lie at- tained to — or that Day should have had so long a day — are to my mind " remarkable instances of longevity " far more wonder- ful than any recorded in the newspapers. How a jockey can be- stride, and what is more, start with one of those thorough-bred steeds, is to me a standing, or rather running, or rather flying HORSE AKD FOOT. 423 miracle. Were I a Eobinson or a Eogers, 1 should certainly think of the plate as a coffin-plate, and that the stakes were such as those that were formerly driven through self-murderers' bodies. It would appear, then, that a rider like a poet, must be born and not made — that there are two races of men as differently fated as the silver- spooned and the wooden-ladled — some coming into the world, so to speak, at Ryde^ others, like myself, at Footscra]/, and thus by necessity, equestrians or pedestrians. In fact, to con-oborate this theory, there is the Championship, which being hereditary, is at least one instance of a gentleman being ordained to horseback from his birth. As to me, instead of re- trograding through Westminster Hall on Cato, I must have backed out of the office. It is probable, however, that beside the causes already enumerated, something of my inaptitude may be due to my profession. It has been remarked elsewhere, as to riding, that ** sedentary persons seldom have a good seat," and literary men generally appear to have been on a par, as to Horsemanship, with the sailors. The Author of " Paul Pry," in an extremely amusing paper,* has recorded his own quadrupedal mischances. Coleridge, for a similar or a still greater incapacity, was dis- charged from a dragoon regiment. Lamb avowedly never went *' horse-pickaback " in his life. Byron, for all his ambition to be thought a bold cavalier, and in spite of his own hints on the subject, appears to have been but an indifferent performer — and Sir Walter Scott, as we read in his life, tumbled from his gallo- way, and Sir Humphrey Davy jumped over him. Even Shak- speare, as far as we have any account of his knowledge of horses, iiever got beyond hdding them. Lord Chesterfield has described Doctor Johnson's appearance in the saddle ; but the catalogue would be too tedious. Suffice it, if riding be the "poetry of motion," authors excel rather in its prose. ♦ A Cockney's Rural Sports. 424 HORSE AND FOOT. To affirm, however, that I never ventured on the quadruped in question would be beside the truth, having a dim notion of once getting astride a Shetland pony in my boyhood, but how or where it carried me, or how I sat, if I did sit on it for any FAST AND LOOSE. djstance, is in blank, having been picked up insensible within twenty yards of the door. I have a distinct recollection how- ever of mounting a full-grown mahogany-coloured animal of the same genus, after coming to man's estate, which I may be par- doned for relating, as it was my only performance of the kind. It was during my first unfortunate courtship, when I had the brief happiness of three weeks' visit at the residence of the lady's father in the county of Suffolk. I had made considerable progress, I flattered myself, in the affections of his " eldest da^ighter,'* when, alas ! a letter arrived from London, which summoned mc oa urgent business to the metropolis. There was HCESE AND FOOT. 425 no neat postchaise to be procured in the neiglibourhood, nor in- deed any other vehicle on account of the election ; and my host kindly pressed upon me the use of one of his saddle-horses to carry me to the next market-town, where I should meet the mail. The urgency of the case induced me to accede to the proposal, and with feelings that all lovers will duly estimate, I took leave of my adored Honoria. tarnation! — hb's left his shadow bkhind him I She evidently felt the parting — we might not meet again for Bn age, or even two or three ages, alias weeks, and to be candid, I fully participated in her feelings of anxiety, and something more, considering the perilous nature of the expedition. But the Horse came, and the last adieus — no, not the last, for the animal having merely taken me an airing, across a country of his own choosing, at last brought me back of his own head, for 42v HORSE AND FOOT. 1 was unable to direct it, safe to the house, or rather to the dooi of his own stable. At the time, despite some over-severe raillery, I rather enjoyed the untoward event ; but on mature reflection, I have since found reason to believe that the change which afterwards took place in the young lady's sentiments to- wards me was greatly attributable to my equestrian failure. The popular novel of " Bob Roy " made its appearance soon after- wards, and along with a certainly over-fervent admiration of its heroine, Di Vernon, a notable horse-woman, it is not improbable that Honoria imbibed something of an opposite feeling toward her humble servant who was only a Foot-Man. Since then, I have contrived to get married, to a lady of a more pedestrian taste ; an escape from celibacy that might have been more difficult had my bachelorship endured ti]l a reign when the example of the Sovereign has made riding so fashionable an ex- ercise with the fair sex. Indeed, I have invariably found that every female but one whom I might have liked or loved, was a capital horsewoman. How other timid or inapt gentlemen arft HOESE AND FOOT. 427 to procure matrimonial partners, is a problem that remains to be solved. They must seek companions, as W. says, in the humbler walks of life. Poor W. ! He was deeply, devotedly attached to a young lady of family and fortune, to whom he was not altogether indifferent, but lie could not ride out with her on horseback, and the captain could, which determined her choice. The rejected lover has had a twist in his brain and a warp in his temper ever since ; but his bitterness, instead of falling on the sex as usual, has settled on the whole equine race. He hates them all, from the steed of sixteen hands high down to the Shetland pony, and insists, against Mr. Thomas, and his Brutally-Humane Society, that horses are never ill-used. There is a *' bit of raw " in his own bosom that has made him regard their galled withers with indifference : a sore at his heart which has made him callous to their sufferings. They deserve all they get. The Dog is man's best friend, he says, and the Horse his worst. Since writing the above, word has been brought to me that poor Y(.. is no more. He deceased suddenly, and the report says, of apoplexy ; but I know better. His death was caused, indeed, by a full habit — but it was a blue one. A man's a. UX^f SOB, a' that." 428 PIKOTJETTES. PIROUETTES. " Don't tell me," said my uncle, " of your Operatives (he meant Opera-dancers) who spin about like teetotums or peg-tops. I am for none of your whirligigs. It is a mere tour de force^ to show how many revolutions they can make on one leg ; and nine times in ten the performer, especially a male one, shows by his face, at the conclusion, what a physical exertion it has been. The best dancers are sparing of such manceuvres ; for they know that any appearance of effort is fatal to Grace. When I say the best dancers, I mean such Artistes as Taglioni, and others of the same school; who, by the way, always seemed to me to deserve the same encomium that King Solomon bestowed on the lilies — ikeif TOIL «o^, neither do they spin.'* M ' ^ f^imM;\^.^''-:.\ AGKICULTU-BAI. DI8TBESS. THE SEASON. 429 THE SEASON. Summer's gone and over ! Fogs are falling down ; And with russet tinges Autumn's doing brown. Boughs are daily rifled By the gusty thieves, And the Book of Nature Getteth short of leaves. Round the tops of houses, Swallows, as they flit. Give, like yearly tenants. Notices to quit. Skies, of fickle temper. Weep by turns, and laugh — Night and Day together Taking half-and-half. So September endeth — Cold, and most perverse^ But the month that follows, Sure will pinch us worse ! 430 ME. WITHERING' S CONSUMPTION, AND ITS CURE. BILL8 OF MOETALITY. ME. WITHERING'S CONSUMPTION, AND ITS CURE. A DOMESTIC EXTRAVAGANZA. " Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid ; Fly away, fly away, breath ; I am slain by a fair cruel maid, My shroud of white, all stuck with yew. Oh, prepare it ! " — Twelfth Night. CHAPTER I. " And \^1io was Mr. Withering ? '* Mr. Witnering, Gentle Eeader, was a drysalter of Dowgate- bill. Not that he dealt in salt, dry or wet — or, as you might dream, in dry salt stockfish, ling, and Findon haddies, like the ME. WITHEEING'S CONSUMPTION, AND ITS CURE. 431 salesmen in Thames-street. The commodities in which he trafficked, wholesale, were chiefly drugs, and dyewoods, a busi- ness whereby he had managed to accumulate a moderate for- tune. His character was unblemished, — ^his habits regular and domestic, but although advanced in years beyond the middle age, he was still a bachelor. "And consumptive? Why then according to Dr. Imray'a book, he had hair of a light colour, large blue eyes, long eye- lashes, white and regular teeth, long fingers with the nails con' tracted or curved, a slender figure, and a fair and blooming countenance." • m^. 0.oem."— The Standard, Nine illustrations, folio, cloth, price 2l8. THE STORY OF ELAINE. Illustrated in Facsimile from Drawings by Gustave Dor6. The text ftdapteij from Sir Thomas Mallory. ■ m < E. Moxotty Son, &* Co., Dorset Buildings^ Salisbury Square. Illttsftateb ®ift Hoo^Ss Cloth gilt, gilt edges, price 21s. THOMAS HOOD. ILLUSTRATED BY GUSTAVE DORE. Witt Nine Engravings on Steel, from original Drawings by Gustaf* Dor^, and many Woodcut Illustrations, Foolscap 4to, cloth gilt, gilt edges, price 21s, HOOD'S fflSS KILMMSEGG AND HER PEEOIOUS LEG, Illustrated by 60 Etchings from Drawings by Thomas Seccomba. Cloth gilt, gilt edges, price 21s, THOMAS HOOD. ILLUSTRATED BY BIRKET FOSTER. 22 Drawings by Birket Foster, engraved on Steel by William Miller, of Edinburgh. Cloth gilt, gilt edges, lage 4to, price 21s, THOMAS HOOD. AGAIN ILLUSTRATED BY BIRKET FOSTER. 22 Drawings by Birket Foster, engraved on Steel by William Miller, of Edinburgh. Folio, cloth gilt, gilt edges, price 21s. KEATS' POETIO EOMANOE, ENDYMIOU, ILLUSTRATED BY E. J. POYNTER, A.RA. ^is. Magnificent Engravings on Steel byF. Joubert, from Paintings by E. J. Poynter. E. MoxoUf Sotif &» Co.i Dorset Buildings^ Salisbury Squart, ghllftt's math. Bhortly will be published, an entirely New Edition, in two vols., crown Sra, cloth, 21s. SHELLEY'S WORKS. The two-volume edition of Shelley, edited by Mr. "W. M. Eosgetti, with memoir and notes, and published by Messrs. Moxon & Co. In 1870, has been out of print fox some while now ; and the curious fate of being unprocurable, even in the Bri- tish Museum, has befallen this book, as the Eeading-room copy was stolen, l^ is now proposed to re-issue the work at an early date ; Mr. Eossetti going carei fully and de novo through the task of editorship, and introducing numerous modi- fications, additions, &c., into the memoir and notes, and indeed into the text itself, dependent sometimes upon more recent information (brought forward by himself among others), sometimes upon change of views, or the strictures of other critics. On the whole, the text will be somewhat more strictly conservative than in the previous instance. Moreover, the type itself will be larger than in the edition of 1Q70. -Academy. In one voL, elegant cloth, medium 8vo, toned paper, portrait and vignette, 12il SHELLEY'S POEMS, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS PROM ABROAD. Edited by Mrs. Shelley. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 53. SHELLEY'S POETICAL WORKS- New Edition. Fcap. 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d, ALOS AND ESTIN. The Drama of Beauty and the Beast. CJrown 8vo, half Eoxburghe, lOs. 6d. COMPARATIVE ESTIMATE OP MODERN EN^ ^^^^^^ _^^.^ 9S8538 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY